<USS Avalon> Log-Friendly Competition

Friendly Competition

-Dodge Thomas

 

 

Hover-ball, a sport of most dangerous proportions, one played by only the most 
experienced men and women in Starfleet.

And suicidal idiots like Dodge Thomas.

A small, red ball whizzed past Dodge's face with blinding speed, nearly 
knocking him off his hover-board.

"Aren't you gonna grab that, Dodger?" Ryan Keegan shouted above the screaming 
of the fans below, before he too was nearly knocked off his hover-board.

Dodge laughed weakly then swallowed hard, having stared down at the ground 
nearly two-hundred feet below. Dangerous heights combined with high speeds, 
shifting gravity wells, and more than a bit of excessive competition made 
Hover-ball one of the most popular sports in the Federation. Even with the 
holodeck safeties on, Dodge still felt the exhilaration of near death lurking 
behind every heartbeat. Safeties had been known to fail.

Five minutes and several scrapes and bruises later, Dodge found himself lying 
on the floor of the holodeck, almost seventy feet above the holo-ground. His 
hover-board, now in two pieces, had already landed. Dodge sat up and folded his 
arms. Ryan was still mounted, and was about twenty feet above him and 
descending. As he dropped, Dodge got lower to the ground. It was boundaries 
like the one he was currently sitting on that made holodecks so unreal. Put one 
person in a holo-suite and they could run at the wall until hell froze over and 
they would never reach it. But stick two people in, set them off in different 
directions, and ten seconds later you have a pair of bloody noses.

He stood and brushed himself off before touching down on the holo-ground.

"Very nice! Very nice!" Ryan golf-clapped as he touched down also. "A lesser 
man would have left this match as a red stain on the grass."

"Ha ha ha." Dodge said sarcastically. "You may have won this time, but can you 
win a battle of wits?"

"Bring it on!" Ryan taunted loudly.

Dodge rolled up his sleeves, paused for a second to think, then shouted "Firma 
Ascendio!" 

Ryan's eyes widened considerably as the ground beneath his feet rose rapidly, 
crumbling and throwing him forward. He landed on the grassy turf , rolled over, 
and shouted "Aqua Semipro!"

A wall of water swirled out of the ground to form a barrier between Dodge and 
Ryan. "Oh no you don't! Aqua Thermos!"

The water hissed to steam and then dissipated. 

"Splendora Crescendo!"

The sun began to grow inexplicably brighter, blinding both Dodge and Ryan.

"Nox Sol Permandante!"

The sun became dim, then went out.

There was a moment of silence.

"Damn." Ryan said in the darkness. "I forgot the one to make it light again."

Dodge sighed. "Lumens."

The room became dim. "Still failing when it comes to permandante commands, eh? 
I'd have figured that you'd figure them out. 

Years earlier, when Dodge and Ryan had attended the academy together, they had 
written a program that responded to certain voice commands. Sadly, they had 
also implemented a subroutine that not only made the voice commands random, but 
also made the computer unable to tell what they were.

Neither of them even knew if the modification had worked until one day, while 
they were on the holodeck with a couple of ladies, one of them said something 
and the dress that one of the ladies was wearing burst into green flames and 
disintegrated. After that, Dodge, Ryan, and a few others spent every waking 
moment that they weren?t spending in class in the holodeck trying to figure out 
the different commands.

Luckily, most of the commands were Latin based, so figuring out the basics 
wasn't too hard. It was the more advanced ones that were difficult. That 
combined with controlling the commands and learning how to direct them made 
their academy years a blast and forged a friendship that would probably never 
end.

"I'm just surprised you managed to smuggle the program out of the academy." 
Ryan said matter of factly.

"It's a simple subroutine, nothing big. Just a modifier and a voice recognition 
program. It's the commands that are difficult to remember." Dodge winked. "As 
is quite obvious by your performance. You always did have a fondness for water 
commands."

"Shove it." Ryan muttered. "Wanna go again?"

"Naw. I still want to blow up engineering." 

The two of them laughed heartily and got to work using their completely useless 
skill to destroy engineering on the holodeck.



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