Two Tickets to Paradise, Part I

Posted on 09 Apr 2016 @ 5:55pm by Ensign Kelly Khan & Ensign Quinn Mackie

4,144 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: Outbreak
Location: New Risa
Timeline: MD 4

Kelly came out the cadet barracks wearing a pair of black shorts which showed off her legs and a white t-shirt which read "My Other Ship Is Classified" in black print. She carried her vectorboard in a case which was custom made to turn into a tent with an inflatable mattress in one hand and a bag in her other hand which contained her clothes and various sundries.

She smiled when she thought of getting to spend some alone time with Quinn, but hoped he wouldn't be as oblivious as he had been towards her innuendos when they were in the cargo hold. The young woman's lips curled in a smile as she thought of the ways that she could get his attention once they were alone and a delighted lap bubbled past them at some of the ideas which popped into her mind.

Once she arrived at the flight deck where she had agreed to meet him, she stowed her stuff in the shuttle which was scheduled to take off next and waited by the side of it for him to show up.

Quinn stepped onto the flight deck finally freed from his uniform. A plain gray t-shirt covered his top and he chose to wait on his swimwear until after the flight, so he instead wore a pair of khaki cargo shorts. On his back, Quinn sported his trusted camping pack. Aside from the swimwear it already contained, he had a couple extra shirts, sunblock, Starfleet rations and a few other light-weight supplies perfect for his--or their, rather--activities once on shore.

It did not take him long to spot the shuttle, or Kelly for that matter. Quinn smiled as he approached and read her t-shirt. "I suppose if it's classified, there's no use in me asking?" he asked with a smile.

"Well...for you, I guess I could let the secret out," Kelly said. She set the luggage and vectorboard case down, then took the hem on the shirt and pulled it up where words once more appeared on the inside of the shirt to say "It's Still Classified" while revealing her flat, toned stomach and naval.

Quinn couldn't help but smile in response. "That's one very good secret," he told her. "And it looks like I'm right on time." He looked around the flight deck, wondering if anyone was about to join them. "Is it just the two of us then?"

Kelly lowered her shirt and smiled as she picked up her things again. "It looks like it. I saw Elisha and Ensign Hernandez get on another shuttle, but I wanted to wait for you. I hope that this is going to be as exciting as it sounds," she said. "I, for one, want to get away from civilization for a while. I promise not to bite right away, too."

"C'mon now," Quinn protested. "This adventure comes with a one-hundred percent satisfaction guarantee. Though, if you're not satisfied, there's not much I can refund you." He paused, finally realizing her last words. "In that case, the bite might be aptly deserved."

"Noted and witnessed," Kelly said. "And I'm sure that there's plenty of things you could exchange in the form of a refund." She gave him a smile. "Are you ready to board?"

Of course she meant boarding the shuttle, but part of him wondered if she meant the vectorboard or something else entirely. "All of the above," he replied, his thoughts bleeding into his vocal chords. Hopefully she didn't catch that.

Kelly gave a delightful laugh at how he sounded. "I like the way you cover your bases, Quinn," she said as she headed into the shuttle and secured her stuff. "I'm looking forward to seeing how well you cover everything else on the trip."

Quinn followed her inside, taking off his backpack and stowing it in a nearby compartment. "It's nothing I haven't done before," he stated.

"Is that so?" she asked as she took a seat. "How many ways have you done it?"

He paused to think for a moment. "White water rafting in Colorado was one of the most exciting. Though my favorite was a seven-day trip across the midwest with nothing but a canoe, a solar blanket and some MREs." Quinn smiled, reviewing the memory in his mind.

Kelly laughed. Oh, you are going to be a challenge, she thought to herself. "I bet you learn some new ways on this trip," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.

"I'm always up for something new," Quinn replied as the ramp behind them began to come up. "And it looks like I can no longer back out."

She smiled. "To ever moving forward," she said as she put her bag and vectorboard tent carrying case to the side. "The whole goal is exploration of new words and civilizations, experiencing new things, meeting new ideas head on and embracing them. We can never back out, Quinn."

Indeed. As the shuttle engines began to whine, Quinn asked, "So, vectorboarding. How high are we jumping from?"

"You really want to have your first experience with the Mile High Club, huh?" Kelly asked as she openly appraised him. "Most people like to start from the ground and work their way up." She gave a mischievous grin. "I like that, Quinn. We can make the jump from anywhere inside the atmosphere."

"Whoever said engineers weren't thrill-seekers didn't know us very well." He smiled wider seeing her grin. "But, you are the teacher. Wherever you're comfortable with someone else on your board is good enough for me."

"It's all good," she said as she got up to begin to unzip the case and pulled the vectorboard out. "I'm glad I modded it out to handle extra weight. Otherwise, I would suggest it to anyone. Do you have the coords to where you want to camp?"

Instead of verbally replying, Quinn used the nearby instrument panel to call up the coordinates. From the overhead view, it appeared as if the river almost snaked through the forest. "Simple climate in the northern hemisphere. Free of natural predators. Should have some good wildlife and good fish."

Kelly began to repack the case that the vectorboard was in and looked back at him. "Do you want a long glide or a fast ride in?" she asked him.

"I'm using two days' leave," Quinn answered. "I'm certainly in no rush."

"I meant do you want a long distance trip to the campsite or a wild ride down to it once we get in the area," she clarified. "My vectorboard can cover sixty-four kilometers in fifteen minutes if I give it all it has."

"Ah." Quinn took a moment to mentally chastise himself for forgetting the vectorboard had a power cell. He tapped a couple more buttons on the screen, highlighting an area close to the river. "Here's where I've reserved the kayaks. We'll need to head there. As far as making camp... well, we'll see if there's a place we like as we journey."

Kelly pulled a PADD out and entered the coordinates into it and pulled up a map of the area. "That helps. I'll need to tap into local air traffic frequencies so we don't get blasted out of the sky, too. I can get us in there with no problem. Did you plan on hiking in to the spot once we get it sorted? You may not want to ride with me again once you've had a taste of high velocity." She grinned, letting him know she was kidding.

"Yeah, I don't want to be blown to bits." Quinn watched her fingers as they danced on the panel. The sight was nearly hypnotizing. Blinking suddenly, Quinn recalled her question. "Transporters take a lot of fun out of traveling. I'm up for a good hike. I just hope you're up for a bunch of rowing."

"I spent ten hours cleaning shuttles and runabouts inside and out just to have a shot at piloting the Black Hawk," Kelly said as she finished and saved her work, then accessed New Risa Flight Control for the weather patterns and air traffic. "I can handle a little rowing."

Quinn merely smiled, looking over at her shoulder to observe the weather patterns. "Looks like clear skies for the next couple of days. Perfect weather."

She smiled to herself as he looked over her shoulder. "I'm glad that the crosswinds aren't over thirty kilometers an hour," she said. "That makes for a rough ride and we won't be aerodynamically streamlined with the extra gear we're taking, but I can pull it off."

He thought about grabbing a couple of transporter armbands just in case something happened. Quinn then quickly dismissed the idea, thinking it would offer a hint of non-confidence in the pilot's ability. "Sounds like fun." Looking at the vectorboard, he asked, "So, how exactly are we both going to ride this thing?"

"I'll be in front and you'll have to put your arms around me," Kelly said. "We need to put the packs together in the smallest way possible, but we could have the shuttle pilot beam them down to the sight as an option. What do you think?"

Quinn didn't even have to consider it. He set her bag and his in the middle of the open floor before walking up to the open seat in the cockpit. After a few keystrokes, both bags were surrounded by a transporter beam and disappeared.

"Thank you," she said as she powered the vectorboard on and ran a quick diagnostic, then nodded. "We'll have to leave out the back of the shuttle because there will be too much wind coming from the sides. Optimal speed at our launch should be less than three hundred kilometers per hour, but I would prefer under one hundred so we don't have to go out like a photon torpedo fired while at warp."

"And I forgot my antimatter..." Quinn said jokingly, though he wondered what an exploding version of himself might look like. "Will we stay at 100 kilometers an hour or is that just a starting speed?"

"That's the speed the shuttle should be when we launch," Kelly said as she positioned the vectorboard at the rear of the shuttle. "I can reach a hundred kilometers per hour in five seconds, but there may be a little turbulence with the wind coming from the shuttle. Whatever you do, don't let go at that time. I'll pull us up and out of it, then we can set whatever speed you feel comfortable with. Do you have any other questions?"

"Turbulence. Don't let go. Got it." Quinn inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly. "Sounds simple enough."

"I promise not to do anything fancy until you get the hang of it. Just lean the way I do and not the other way and we don't do any barrel rolls. That would be bad since you don't have magnetic boots. I should have gotten you a pair," Kelly said. "Are we ready?" She stepped onto the vectorboard and locked her boots down.

Quinn remained still for a moment, his eyes quickly evaluating the sight before him while his mind calculated what he knew of the vectorboard's power supply and the stress load he was about to add to the vectorboard while it was airborne. It wasn't that he wanted to argue with Kelly, it was just his way of making sure he was completely comfortable when he stepped on the board.

And step on board he did. It didn't take a Vulcan to think that he would have to stand very close to Kelly for the duration of their ride. But it was went he got close to her that logic escaped his mind. Very awkwardly, he raised his arms and tried to figure out how best to embrace her. He didn't want to hold her too tightly in fear that it might make her uncomfortable. Then again, if he didn't hold her tight enough, this would probably make for a poor funeral.

Kelly took his hands and placed them firmly against her abdomen. "I won't break, Quinn," she said and gave her hips a shake as she looked over her shoulder with an evil grin. "I've taken lots of martial arts classes. Computer, open rear shuttle hatch." When the door behind to rise, she waited until it was fully open, then launched from the back of it into the buffer zone created by the shuttle, then accelerated skyward at a forty-five degree angle.

Were he not distracted by Kelly adjusting his grip, Quinn likely would not have found himself underprepared for their sudden departure from the shuttle. "WOOHOO!" he shouted as the wind rushed past his face. He had thought this was just going to be exhilarating. The wide smile on his face confirmed it was all of that and more.

"Khan Selection Fourteen Track Seven," Kelly ordered as she pulled out of the wake of the shuttle and leveled off. At her side, the PADD she always carried with her began to play Thunderstruck and she gave a laugh. "Now this is the only way to go!" She called above the music and began to weave the vectorboard to the beats of the song.

Quinn bobbed his head to the beat of the AC/DC classic. "Great song!" he shouted back. As they approached a large cumulus cloud, the cadet wondered if he could reach out and touch it. "I looked round," he mumbled in sync with the music. "And I knew there was no turning back. This is awesome!"

"My mind raced," Kelly picked up. "And I thought what could I do..." she saw the cloud and giggled because she knew how wet clouds were and headed through it until she came out the other side on top of it and remember just in time not to shake the moisture from her hair. There, she leveled the vectorboard out and gave Quinn a chance to catch his breath as the warm sunlight reflected off the cloud and came down on them from above.

He didn't care that his shirt was now wet and sticking to him. Zipping through the cloud and feeling what was in those clouds up close and personal was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. And now, with the warm sun's reflection basking over them made this feel surreal. He also thought that the kayak trip was going to be anticlimatic compared to this. Maybe they should have went first to the river banks. "Sound of the drums," he still sang, "beatin' in my heart. The thunder of guns tore me apart."

"You've been...Thunderstruck!" Kelly sang out, liking the back and forth of the song with him and the closeness of his body. The warmth of the sun and the view from horizon to horizon was amazing as she sent the vectorboard ahead and looked over her shoulder at him. "So what do you think?" She asked over the music.

"I believe a man can fly!" he practically shouted back, even though his mouth was already dangerously close enough to her ear. "Well... man, woman, whoever. I don't think I ever want to leave this!"

"I absolutely love the freedom of it," she called back as she brought the speed of the board down to under a hundred kilometers an hour. "There's no feeling like it in the galaxy. It's so liberating to be without boundaries."

"It certainly is!" he agreed, noticing they were slowing down. He hoped it didn't mean this ride was coming to an end.

Kelly pulled the PADD from her hip and checked it for their location versus where they wanted to be, then clipped it back on. "We're about forty kilometers off course, so hang on tight. We're about to see what this puppy can do with my mods."

"Okay then," Quinn said with the AC/DC tune still filling his ears. He drew himself closer to Camila and tightened his grip. Perhaps he was about to see what it was like to fly faster than 100 kilometers per hour.

She smiled when she felt him tighten his grip around her and gave the vectorboard more thrust and five seconds later, they were traveling at two hundred and forty kilometers per hour. She spotted another large cloud and blasted through it with warning and began to dive towards the ground little more than a two kilometers below them. Just when it seemed that she had decided to kill them both by crashing into the tree tops, she pulled up and went to the right in a tight curve before she leveled out again without decreasing their speed.

Quinn let loose an excited shout as they plummeted to the ground, and he was a split-second away from pulling back on Kelly's abdomen in hopes she would act as something akin to a fighter's control stick and level them out. Fortunately, she'd beat him to it. "Maybe they should have called you Daredevil or something," he quipped.

"Oh, I'm not done yet," Kelly said, grateful that he didn't freak out. She increased the speed to three hundred kilometers an hour and blasted over the treetops before she began to gain elevation in a wide continuous turn which spiraled further out with each pass as if she were trying to form a funnel cloud.

Quinn glanced towards the interior of the spiral. With as fast as they were spinning, he could no longer discern any details as to where they were or where they were going. All that he knew was that he enjoyed every second of this!

Kelly pulled out of the spiral and began to accelerate until they were doing three hundred and twenty-one kilometers per hour and the wind was blasting past them. She leaned forward against the push of the wind and tapped his hand with one of hers, then quickly pointed at a lake they were approaching which was fed by a river and exited into one at the opposite end of it. "How's that for a campsite?" she called out over the roar of the wind.

He squinted as his mind checked the area for what he needed. Seeing what looked like a trout leap from the water, Quinn smiled. "Looks pretty good. Shouldn't take long to get there on the water." And once more, he was reminded how slow that would be compared to this vectorboard ride. At least it would be just as adventurous.

She nodded and angled the vectorboard down until they were a dozen feet from the surface of the lake and slowed the speed. "Is that a clearing over there?" she asked and pointed to the left where a small meadow boarded the lake and was surrounded by trees.

Quinn spotted a couple of tents popping up on the meadow. "Not for long," he cautioned Kelly. Fortunately, the tents were almost on the shoreline, leaving plenty of room for the vectorboard to angle behind them and land.

"Well, crap," Kelly muttered as she angled the vectorboard around and headed for the other side of the lake. "I was hoping for a little privacy."

"How about over there?" Quinn asked, pointing off to the left and wondering what they'd need privacy for. They were after all, putting some distance between them and their gear that he'd beamed down. Maybe she'd pushed the vectorboard too far beyond its limits and needed some repair before finishing their run. "That clearing isn't as big, but it looks untouched."

She looked to where he pointed and nodded. "That looks good to me," she said. "It doesn't have to be big as long as I can squeeze the vectorboard in." With that, she angled for the smaller clearing and headed over while slowing until she cleared the water and came to a hover just a foot off the ground. "If you give me the beam down coordinates, I can go get our gear, then take you to get the kayaks."

As Quinn was unfamiliar with the local terrain, and much less with where they actually were, he released one hand and gestured towards the PADD strapped to her. "May I?"

"Sure," Kelly said as she settled the vectorboard down gently before she unclipped the PADD and released the magnetic clamps on her boots. She turned and handed it to him with a smile. "I have all the local frequencies and coordinates in it already. I got them from the ship before I left. So what did you think of the ride?"

"Awesome!" he exclaimed, referring more so to the ride, but still happy the PADD was preloaded. He looked up at her with a smile that could compete with the Cheshire cat. "I knew it would be incredible, but I didn't realize what it was like to fly with nothing but a board under your feet! It's like I was Superman, and you... Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel or whatever superheroine that flies!"

"I found out that Elisha's brother is Joel Cherno," she said. "He's the whole reason I learned to vectorboard in the first place. It's such an amazing experience and I could never give it up. Wonder Woman, huh?" She smiled. "I think I could live with that title. Do I get a lasso of truth?"

"Lasso of...?" Quinn's voice trailed off, realizing how little he knew of 20th Century Earth comics. "Something tells me you'd be more dangerous with it."

"Would I need that to get the truth out of you, Quinn?" Kelly asked as she looked up at him and stepped closer.

"I-I-I... uh..." Quinn stammered, realizing how close Kelly was now standing to him. He'd been too caught up in the ride down from the shuttle to care about how close they'd been to each other then. But now, with his front side facing her front side... "T-The truth?"

"Mmhmm," she said as he began to stutter. "You know, that little thing where you give an honest answer if someone asks you a question."

"W-What's the question?" Quinn asked, continuing to stammer.

Kelly gave a low laugh as she kept her eyes on his. "Do you have anyone special in your life?" She decided she was making him nervous enough and kept the heat low initially.

A quick image of hiding in a closet with Elisha flashed into his mind. Quinn didn't know why it happened, but he'd never developed feelings for her. At least, not the feelings he was developing, was feeling for Kelly in this particular moment. He chuckled nervously and stammered as his blue eyes locked with her hazel ones, "N-No."

"Do you want someone special?" she asked him as she took another step closer.

A nervous smile appeared on Quinn's face. He opened his mouth, but not even a stammering syllable emerged. "Are, uh... are you volunteering?"

"Volunteering?" Kelly asked as she arched an eyebrow as she brought up a hand to place on his chest and curved her fingers to drag her fingernails over it. "I usually don't ask my prey if I can have them for lunch. I was thinking of something more mutually satisfying."

Prey? Quinn interpreted that as he had been targeted by her. All through life, he'd thought that by being so smart he'd kept himself from being attractive to the opposite sex. Just her touch on his chest was enough to prove him wrong. Maybe he wasn't so smart after all. Confidence began to bleed into his smile. And, in a bold move, he kissed her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck when he kissed her and and raised herself up to wrap her legs around his waist. After a minute, she broke the kiss and smiled. "Why, you do have drive, Quinn," she said with a sexy smile. "I think I like that, Tiger."

"And I think I like you, Conga," Quinn replied with a smile, not at all minding how she wrapped herself around him. Oh! he thought. Privacy...

"I like you, too, Tiger," Kelly said and leaned in to nip his neck beside of his ear. She sucked at the spot before she pulled back and smiled. "Now you've been properly marked as mine."

Quinn blushed, having enjoyed the sensation. "Don't tigers have stripes?" Quinn asked, his tone softening as he was becoming more comfortable with this.

"By the time I'm through with you," she breathed in his ear. "People will hear your roar a mile away."

Quinn's smile broadened as he carried her further away from the shore for a bit of privacy.

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