Uneven Parallels

Posted on Thu Nov 26th, 2015 @ 8:54am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: USS Bonne Chance, Deck 7, Gymnasium
Timeline: 2265
Tags: gymnastics,1stlove

0430 meant the start of a new day onboard the Bonne Chance, and Charybdis was ready with a yawn and a full-body stretch. She patted her body pillow fondly as she uncurled herself from around it, then shuffled to the bathroom to start the day.

Curled up in her comfy padded and covered computer station chair, she sipped her morning liter of water as she typed out her proposal for submission, reset the maintenance schedules for the sensors to one that made more sense, settled a minor dispute over duties between two of her department heads with a compromise and laid out a list of experiments that she wanted to pursue in the immediate future. This in turn inspired her to begin a contest amongst the science department for 'experiment of the week', the winner of which would receive extra lab time combined with reduced duty time the following week to better pursue their research.

Scientists. Had to know how to motivate them properly. And in truth, she expected many of the ideas generated by the contest would be good ones, and would likely see follow-through, so in truth the only losers would be those who chose not to participate, which would tell her something in and of itself. Time would tell if this would be successful... failing that she would offer pinup photos of herself as prizes, she mused. It would motivate a few of them, certainly...

She sent her design for a basic attachable screen magnifier to the Engineering department to see if they could fabricate it for her to test. Perhaps the simplest solution to a problem that had plagued Starfleet for years, she was determined not to ruin her eyesight on the tiny monitors they insisted on installing in starships 'for safety's sake'.

She pulled on the tightest black tank top that she owned- she would definitely need the restriction for today's activity- and her Science blue briefs. Her exercise shoes would just be worn to the mat and no further, but she took the time to wrap her wrists for support, then headed for the gymnasium on Deck 7.

She only caused one pedestrian accident on the way as she bound her long dark brown hair into a high ponytail. I must be slipping...

Once in the gymnasium she chose the uneven parallel bars for this morning, because she was in the mood for high contact gymnastics, and fewer exercises where quite as demanding or as solid contact as the bars. She would have preferred another kind of solid contact sport, but for right now she was going to work on burning off some of that excessive energy.

It was either that of find an excuse to do 'reduced temperature experiments' in the galley's cold storage lockers, and she wasn't overly fond of that idea. She daydreamed about a nice cold swim, which would really be quite refreshing right now, but that wasn't about to happen unless they put in somewhere for shore leave... and that definitely was not happening anytime soon. She did some warmup stretches, ignoring the other early birds in the gym while the bars slid out of the wall to set themselves for her, and the mat inflated beneath them.

Tying the tight tank top off underneath her breasts wasn't precisely regulation, but it would bind her breasts a bit more securely and keep them from trying to abuse her while she worked out. Then she chalked up her hands to reduce friction... after all, the average gymnast that used this equipment was usually only two thirds her weight. Then she levered herself up on the low bar, raised her legs to either side in a split maneuver, returned them down, then flexed her abdomen to push her center mass away from the bar. Once she was slightly in motion, she jackknifed her legs at the hips to bring them sharply forward, and her momentum was set. She was in motion.

She let her mind wander as her body worked... this was a very physically demanding exercise, and one for which she was ideally suited, though to look at her at rest no one would suspect such a thing. Catch, rebound, swing, release, midair corkscrew reverse, catch, giant swing, handstand, one hand balance into a reversal, rebound, release for a low bar wraparound, over the shoulder catch on the high bar, wide split to swing through again...

As she worked the routine she let her mind wander, and she considered her life aboard the Bonne Chance and the possibilities. Last night things had seemed complicated and worrisome, but this morning, flipping herself between the bars and through the air with seemingly no effort at all, she was actually quite calm about it all. The situation would develop as it developed. She had a departmental meeting today with her Science department that she was looking forward to, she would chase down Celes after duty to see just what type of unarmed combat the woman preferred so that they could toss one another around a bit, and she would do her duty shift on the Bridge with the Captain...

And that was when she missed her mark, and didn't catch the beam in the middle of a complex twisting flip above the high bar.

Her fingers clawed at empty air as she realized what had happened, and she instinctively went limp to minimize the damage. She hit the mat with a rather pronounced 'thwap', and had the wind knocked out of her by landing flat on her back. As she struggled to convince her lungs to go back to work again, a few shipmates gathered around to help her up and insure that she was all right. She nodded and smiled as she coaxed her system to recover from the shock, and tried to express that she didn't need medical assistance, just a little air. Once her diaphragm unlocked again she gasped out her thanks and appreciation for the concern.

That had been supremely embarrassing, and her cheeks were flushed practically olive. She never lost her grip, no matter what she was thinking of or what problem she was trying to sort out... if anything it was always her landings that gave her trouble because her dimensions tended to unbalance her. But one simple distracting thought, and there she was, flailing through the air and slapping the mat hard enough to have broken something. She had been lucky this time.

She leapt back up again and returned to the exercise, but her heart wasn't in it... and her mind certainly was not. And therein lay the problem... her mind and her body and her spirit each had a few ideas of their own, and while they were all in parallel, they were all not being given the same priorities inside her... thus, uneven. Apparently her subconscious had chosen this exercise for her, not her body after all. She performed a Korbut flip followed by a Comaneci salto, then ended with a Hecht dismount... with which she had to take an extra step, thus losing points in a competition-style judging, but her dismounts were never perfect.

She checked the chronometer... 0632. She had just spent over an hour on the bars... no wonder she had slipped. Nonstop activity like that wasn't very good for her either, and she'd likely pay for that later. She was most definitely distracted, and now she would have to run just to make it through the shower and into her uniform to be on the Bridge on time for duty. She grabbed a towel, jammed her shoes back on and triple-timed it to the access ladders to get to her quarters quicker.

Distracted. She was most definitely distracted, off-kilter and just a little too uneven to be quite right today.

Damned Human, she thought to herself as she entered her quarters, stripping and dropping her clothes along the way as she headed for the sonic shower. I wonder if he's having this much trouble...?

 

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