Kelly and Quinn's Wild Ride

Posted on 06 Sep 2026 @ 1:38am by Lieutenant JG Kelly Khan & Lieutenant JG Quinn Mackie

3,090 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Acceleration
Location: New Risa
Timeline: February 4, 2391 || 1000 hours

Quinn stood on the shoreline, resting an oar on his shoulder. It was hard to believe how much things had changed. The last time he and Kelly had been on this river was three years ago. The shoreleave at the time was meant to be rejuvenating, but it had quickly turned into a race against the clock to save the lives of the Black Hawk crew and the colonists and visitors on the planet. A Consortium-sanctioned virus had landed near the resort colony, and had made quick work of infecting anyone it came into contact with.

The operations officer could only shudder at the memory, and once he again put it aside he was able to think fondly of the time and Kelly had shared. It was their visit to New Risa that had sparked their relationship, and gave them the space to begin exploring it. Today, he was unable to think of himself as anywhere else, so it was only fitting that they give one of their highlights a revisit.

"Ready to give kayaking a fresh run?" he called out.

"What can possibly go wrong?" Kelly asked as she stood beside of him wearing a pair of tight shorts and a t-shirt that read "Wet T-Shirt" on it in splashes of color. She remembered the last time they were there and the hell that they went through, but she tried to focus on the fun and the building of their relationship. "It's not like a vectorboard."

Quinn chuckled. "Nothing's like vectorboarding. But I do hear there's a waterfall at the end of this river. Kinda like a mini-Niagara Falls."

"Oh goodie! We're going to get flushed like a fresher on loop!" she joked, but hoped that wasn't the case. "Do we have anti-grav boots in case we go overboard?"

He blinked. "Um, you know... I didn't think of boots." He did, instead hand her a thin knapsack that could hang around her back or waist. "To be fair, I don't think they'd fit in this. Emergency transponder and transporter signal, along with some first aid and emergency rations."

Kelly accepted the pack and put it on her back. "Thanks, Tiger. I hope we won't have to use them." She flashed him a smile. "If we do, I'll do my best to put you back on the lower decks."

"You're not wearing HG today," Quinn smiled, damn near poking her with the oar he held. "Besides, we're off duty. What can go wrong?"

"Hey!" she squeaked when the oar nearly got her. "I'll take that as an attempt on my life, HG or no HG. You just had to say it, didn't you?"

His chuckle yielded to laughter. "It's the Gamma Quadrant. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and whatever we can outrun makes us faster. But, can you pilot a kayak as good as you can fly?"

"We should be able to juggle planets in that case, and make Warp Ten look slow," Kelly said. "And I've never done this in my life or yours."

"Instead, we're stuck with uneasy waters and a waterfall." Still smiling, Quinn extended the oar he was holding out to her. "Last chance. We can double up, or we can paddle in separate kayaks."

"Let's double up," she said and accepted the paddle. "I really don't want to be flushed without you."

"Then we'll get flushed together," Quinn confirmed. With that, he guided her over to the kayak. "Make sure to secure yourself in there, but not too tight for now. We'll hunker down when we get close to the falls."

Kelly went over to it and set the paddle against the side of it, then carefully got in the small hole. She wiggled around a bit until she had her legs out in front of her and found her center of balance. She reached to grab the padd and set it across the kayak. "Okay. This was the last of the easy part."

"So you're ready for a challenge then?" Quinn chuckled as he climbed into the waterborne craft.

She grinned and wiggled from side to side a bit, but she was light enough to not rock the kayak and gave a mutter before she brightened. With a grin, she splashed her paddle into the water behind him and brought it up. "Into the breach!"

Quinn braced as the water splashed in his direction. He knew there was no way of staying dry during any of this, but one wasn't supposed to get wet until they started the journey. He laughed playfully, adding, "I deserved that."

Kelly laughed and dipped her paddle in again but didn't splash him this time. "You'll get me soon enough. This is going to be amazing!"

He settled himself into the kayak and shifted his weight slightly and quickly in each direction. With the bouyancy confirmed, Quinn stuck his paddle into the water and pushed down enough until he found the riverbed. One soft push was enough to get them moving. "Here we go," he announced.

"To think I let you talk me into this," she said as she did the same on the opposite side of the kayak. "Not a single antigrav boot to be found..."

"The Black Hawk has plenty of those," Quinn chided. "Boots. Danger. Aliens trying to kill us or control us. Sometimes it's good just to touch real grass and ground ones self."

"I'd touch grass if we weren't in the water, Tiger," Kelly laughed. "I know what you mean, though. Oh, look!" She pointed at an alien butterfly of sorts with red, blue and green circles radiating on its wings.

Quinn's eyes darted around until he spotted what Kelly had seen. The butterfly seemed to be twice the size of a human butterfly, but at least twice as grand. "That's pretty cool! Do you think if it bites you, you'll gain its powers?" He then chuckled, thinking of a winged Kelly who could fly anywhere she wished.

"I know I've always said that I was born to fly, but I don't know about that," she mused as she watched it., "I might end up trying to migrate back to the Alpha Quadrant."

"Careful with that," Quinn said as he switched his oar to the other side of the boat to turn them away from a small set of rocks. "I hear the Captain has a tendency to conscript people. I wouldn't put it past him that he did the same for us recently."

"I'm on the Command track, Tiger," Kelly said with an impish grin. "He can't hold that seat forever."

Quinn knew that grin all too well. “Are you kidding? This is Geisler we’re talking about. There’s only two ways he’s leaving that chair. Death or retirement.”

"I'm younger than he is and put myself in less danger," she quipped back.

He could only smile at that. It was time to move on lest this voyage on the river be consumed by rehashing the past or evolve into a Geisler bitch fest. "You're right," he agreed. "Next time we should do vectorboarding again. I hear there's a couple of planets around here with some deep canyons."

"You like going out the back of shuttles and doing death defying plunges to the earth and want to go through canyons that cut through it?" Kelly asked with a laugh. "My crazy was worn off on you, Tiger."

“We balance each other out well,” Quinn remarked, seeing that she had adopted an iota of his calmness. The truth was, he had grown quite a bit with Kelly. Her bold approach to life had inspired him, broken his shell and mold. And he never wanted to go back. 

"We do and I wouldn't change a thing," she said agreeably. She had respected his boundaries, but had also kept hers on full throttle and accepted what he was willing to take and didn't push for the rest.

"Except jumping out of a shuttle and doing some vectorboarding right now," he teased.

"Or doing this," Kelly laughed and started to rock back and forth on the kayak, but kept her paddle in the water opposite her rocking motion so she wouldn't completely tip them over.

Just ahead was a bend in the river, and what was beyond it was a bit obscured. What was immistakable however was the unnatural whine that came beyond it, and the ripples that were generated by the exhaust of a a suborbital skipper. “So much for the surprise,” Quinn muttered. 

As they turned the bend, the source was clear. The skipper’s rear hatch was open, ready to receive the kayak. “I probably should have mentioned,” Quinn stated. “This is no ordinary kayak. Apparently there’s a thing around here like parasailing, but with a retrofitted water vessel. They take you high, drop you, and you glide down to the river, right before the waterfall.”

Kelly's hazel eyes still lit up when she heard and then saw it. "Really?" She squeaked in a very pleased tone that also packed in a lot of excitement. "We get to fly a kayak?!"

“No,” Quinn said with a smile. “You get to fly it. I get to hold on for dear life.” He was, in fact, joking. They would definitely fly it together as any action he took while gliding could have a positive or negative affect on their descent. And he most certainly would not want anything negative to happen.”

The skipper was configured in a way to allow the kayak to slide right in, keeping its underbelly exposed to the water and its occupants retained inside the vessel. As soon as the kayak was secure, Quinn could feel the skipper ascending quickly, especially as his bottom and legs were pulled further to the bottom of the kayak.

"This is too cool!" she exclaimed as she laughed. "I can't wait to do a barrel roll! Well, if we can. HOw did you find out about these, Tiger?"

“You’d think I would have read about them or heard about it in passing,” he replied. “I was actually on a cargo run to the nearby branch of the resort when I saw one of these in action. If it wasn’t for a warning buoy, I actually would have crashed into a kayak with a couple of Deltans in it.”

"Then you would have ended up addicted to them and I'd have to make a deal with the Syndicate to get the rare thorn that can break the addictive pheromones they have," she lamented. "Or, I could learn to live without you. Or maybe shave my head and trick you into thinking I had what you needed."

"I thought it was the Orions that one got addicted to, especially with their irresistible pheromones," Quinn supposed.

"Oh. You're right. The Deltans are all about sex," Kelly said after a moment of thought. "Something about having to take a vow of celibacy if they enter Starfleet because of it."

Quinn's hands grabbed the side of the kayak as he felt the skipper shudder in the thinning atmosphere. As his mind wondered whether or not this was a good idea, he suggested, "I wonder what it would be like if a Deltan and Orion went at it. Would they become addicted to each other and never leave the room again?"

She laughed. "I don't know about that, but I wouldn't want to be caught between them."

There were worse ways to go, Quinn thought as two technicians approached the kayak to make sure it was ready for its atmospheric drop.

One of them, a Wadi, leaned down to the humans and said, “We’ll follow you most of the way down, but we’ll keep our distance. Follow the river as much as possible. By the time you land, you’ll be near the waterfall, and it’ll take you to the end. Ready?”

"Ready!" Kelly said as she checked the safety gear. "One question, though. How do we control it in the air?"

"These," the Wadi said, pointing to a couple of handles. He also placed a pair of goggles over her head. "This HUD will give you windspeed, pitch and yaw. When you bank, the wings will tilt to direct your descent. Be gentle though. Too much force could cause you to capsize."

"Thank you,." she said as she adjusted the goggles and checked out the display and handles.

Quinn adjusted the strap on the goggles he’d been given. His position did not have the luxury of handles, so he instead stowed the paddles into a groove designed to hold them in place during the descent. 

The Wadi moved over to a control pad after securing his harness to a hook on the side of the skipper. “Ready?” He asked the humans, also holding up his right thumb in case it was too loud for them to hear. 

"Ready!" Kelly exclaimed as she reached for the handles.

Quinn had barely given his thumbs up when the Wadi yanked the lever. The kayak was released, bearing a set of glider wings, and all of a sudden, the water-borne craft was floating all by itself thousands of feet in the air. 

"Woah!" Kelly exclaimed at the feeling of free fall when the kayak was released, her brunette hair flying up in the wind. She grabbed the handles and held on, unintentionally causing it to veer to port.

“HOLY SHIT!!!” Quinn shouted, gripping the sides of the kayak for his dear life.  

"Star...board....turn...star...board!" Kelly gritted through her teeth as she fought to stabilize the kayak.

The kayak, by the grace given by the great bird of the galaxy, began to slowly shift back to the right. Soon enough, the airborne water vessel had straightened out.

"Now I'm free....free falling!" Kelly sang as she began to study the readouts on her goggles and make adjustments with the handles.

Quinn chuckled softly. Of course Kelly would find a reason to sing. Unable to do much, he looked over the side of the kayak to see how high they currently were. “Looks like we’re just off to the river’s edge!” He shouted to her over the rushing wind. 

"This is wild!" she exclaimed as she banked towards the center of it. "I'm flying a boat!" She laughed, wild and free and rode the thrill that coursed through her veins.

“Wild is a word!” Quinn said, gripping the side of the kayak. “Who would’ve thought a kayak could fly?”

"Not me," Kelly said with a laugh as she neared the middle of the river and saw the falls ahead. She plunged the nose down in a forty-five degree dive and accelerated, aiming to skim the surface of the water.

His grip tightened as Kelly made her adjustments. It was a strange thing, Quinn thought. They were so high that the ground seemed to not grow as quickly as one would expect while free falling. Then again, did the ant wonder if the giant was ever anything except enormous?

"Do we go over...or do we pull up?" Kelly yelled loud enough to be heard by him as she kept the kayak in the middle of the river, the spray shooting on either side of them like rooster tails.

"Either way we're going down!" Quinn shouted foward. "Pull up!" he then shouted, almost automatic.

"An itsy bitsy fruit bat flew up the water spout..." Kelly sang and made things up as she pulled up on the controls and let out a giggle as the kayak seemed to run out of water as they came to the very edge of the waterfalls, then continued up into the air again.

Their touchdown in the water had been nothing more than a simple graze as the waterfall brought the river to a sudden end and drop. Quinn had wondered which would have felt worse, dropping from the skipper, or dropping from the waterfall. He no longer had to wonder, as the answer was easily the skipper. At least by now he knew what to expect.

"Thank you, Tiger!" Kelly exclaimed as she rode the thrill and the air currents in the kayak, reading the display as her hands worked the controls. "Wanna try?"

"Nope!" Quinn honestly and quickly said. A small part of him actually did want to try, however, his hands were more or less cemented to the edges of the kayak. "You've got this!"

She laughed and jerked it to port, then starboard and went into another dive. "I'm flying a boat!"

Quinn looked ahead and realized she wouldn't be flying it for too much longer. "Watch out below!"

Kelly looked up and pulled back on the controls with a groan. "I guess all rides come to an end, huh, Tiger?"

He chuckled softly. It certainly wasn't the entire or proper saying, but the sentiment was felt nonetheless. "I'm actually a little sad it's over."

"Me, too," she said as she guided it back down for a landing. "Thank you for this, Tiger!"

Quinn had never been so glad to be on the water. He loosened his grip, and did not consider how long it would take for his white knuckles to return to their original color. "You're welcome, Kel. I'm very glad you liked it."

Kelly touched the kayak down on the water, sending a heavy spray up on either side of them and it bobbed wildly for a moment. "Paddles! Grab the paddles!" she called.

"Here!" Quinn said, quickly pulling one out and passing it to her.

"Why are you giving it to me?" she shouted as she grabbed it and desperately dug into the water. "Stabilize your side, too!"

Quinn did as he was told, not that he needed to be instructed. Just as much as air and space was Kelly's domain, handling a kayak was something he did best. Quinn inserted his paddle into the water and began to regain control.

"I'm sorry, Tiger," Kelly said after a moment of getting the kayak steady. "I panicked a bit there. I didn't mean to yell at you."

“It’s all good,” Quinn said. Looking ahead, he saw the dock that marked the end of the journey.

As she paddled to the side of the dock, she smiled and raised her paddle in victory. "This was amazing!"

“It certainly was,” Quinn said with a lighthearted chuckle. It was most certainly an experience he never would forget. 

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