Posted by Lieutenant Commander Paris Carisi (Chief of Security) in Taking a Break

Posted by Commander Mason Black (Executive Officer) in Taking a Break

Snip

Mason followed her in, pausing to adjust his Phaser as he did. Reaching back out he picked up the panel and replaced it from the inside, now any trace of their having been here was gone. Flicking on his helmet light he stifled a yawn, Paris had no idea how hard it had been to get back out of bed after their little interlude but the thought of explaining why three ruffians were tied and stashed in their sonic shower without any evidence of wrongdoing, other then their attack on the Starfleet Officers, brought a little more determination to his crawl as he followed Paris’ rear end down the tunnel. Looking after her, he marvelled at how different it looked in the flesh rather than a heavy hazmat suit and grinned.

“So how far do we have to go before we get into the bug poop you found?” he asked through the comm on their suits and noted the chute was angling down further, eventually they passed a point where he recognised extraction fans for vents and guessed they had passed ground level, and were now underground. He frowned, it should by rights have ended in a system for the air conditioning but seemed to be continuing on. “I haven’t seen any bugs yet.”

Cmdr Black, XO

“Why do you sound so disappointed by that,” Paris asked wrinkling her nose a bit. It might be the topic that made her or the fact Mason seemed hell bent of doubting her that this place needed a good Orkin team. To his defense there wasn’t even a butterfly in the gardens.

“Likely because, I am crawling through a duct in a hazmat suit shortly after performing a series of sprint events worthy of the Galactic Book of Records, would rather be curled up in my bed with the woman I love but instead have three men tied up and gagged in my shower, and I have an itchy nose.” The sound of his voice came back to her through their helmet comms. “And I was promised bugs, woman, bugs. Not the Klingon Herpes type but, something dodgy.”

“Mason I promise you baby. Something is,” she stopped crawling immediately and without warning in front of Mason. While not unexpected for her abrupt stop, Paris realized Mason must have been looking down as they ventured through the tunnels and not up.

Mason looked up when Paris’ feet stopped moving, but not in time to prevent the sight of her firm rear end, even in the bulky hazmat suit, from filling his visor like a crashing shuttle pod hitting a moon.

The resulting force of the collision sent Paris head first into the hatchway door that was now blocking their path. A low thud echoed through the tunnel followed by Paris letting out a small whimpering laugh. “I think I just lost five points off my IQ.”

“Honey if that was all it took to lose IQ, the bed post in your quarters would have been the cause of us having a Security Chief that needs her fingers to count to one.” He patted her rear end and tried to look past her. “What we got Betsy?”

“You know I am going to make you kiss it and make it better later,” she teased. “For now however we got a problem. The tunnel is sealed off.” Reaching out she saw her fingers disappearing through a holographic shimmer that cloaked the tunnel that had immediately ended.

“Do you have to try and touch everything?” Mason teased her back. “You are allowed to just look, you know.”

“There is some sort of holographic projection that seems to be,” she held her breath for a second as she let her fingers feel the hard surface behind the shimmering field. “There is a....water tight door,” she said a bit in disbelief. “You know like those round circle things from ancient sea faring times. Don’t ask me why or if I am even right but that’s what if feels like.” After a long pause Paris wedged her body to the side and looked back at mason.

“Like one of those submarine doors we had on that old Submarine Holo-program? 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or something? Why would they need that?”

“Lift up,” she said dropping from her crawling position to one on her left side. Her feet were shoved back and under Mason so she could lay down. It was tight but he would give her leverage to try and open the hatch. Several grunts later Paris realized she was going to need some help.

“Mason,” she said looking back and down the tunnel at the XO. “Can you shimmy up here beside me and we can try to two man this? The angle we are at is going to make it harder to get leverage.”

Lt commander. Paris Carisi

He twisted onto his side and squeezed up beside her. The tight confine of the tunnel and the suits meant that it was a very tight fit and the two of them were tightly packed together. “Maybe we should have lubed up before we went in?” He joked and adjusted his position so his arms were free to check the door.

“Use your legs on the wall opposite me, I’ll do the same on your wall,” he suggested, “we can twist our bodies like this to turn the handle, it should give us enough leverage.” He stretched out his legs, knees really, so that he was wedged against both the wall to his back and the wall behind Paris, with her legs intertwined with his but the opposite way round. When they were ready, he looked down at them, then up and grinned. “Well this is familiar.” He said, and gave her a slow wink.

“You know, if we open this we can’t move, right. If we open this to the Lost World and a dinosaur walks past, we are lunch, right?” He readied his hands on the handle and tensed. “So, I love you. Okay. Ready? Three.. TwoOneNow,” he said the last part quickly and heaved.

The handle stuck, and then shifted around the way the two were twisting it and with a clang, the door seemed to fall inwards slightly, and then rolled off to one side. “Are we lunch yet?” Mason asked, putting his arm around Paris’ shoulders and looking out into what lay beyond.

Cmdr Black, XO