Incommunicado – Working (Things) Out
by Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
ON:
As comfortable as the bed was, certainly in comparison to the Zakdorn monstrosities he'd become used to, and as much as he needed the sleep, Meryn found it impossible to sleep beyond 0530 that night. He tossed and he turned, but he had no luck. He was awake, pure and simple. He had a busy day ahead of him, and should probably have spent his extra time reading more of the personnel records for his department's personnel, or reading technical schematics of the Wallace-class, but instead Relma wanted to start the day with an endorphins boost. So, slipping out of his quarters quietly so as not to disturb Jolan, he made his way up one deck to the Starfleet Gymnasium - the first one he'd had access to in over three years.
Deep Space Five was not only a forward base of operations for Starfleet and their marine counter parts but also a city in space accommodating many civilians and their families with everything they may need, including; parks, markets, businesses etc. and of course gyms. But being Starfleet personnel meant that Rick got accessed to the Starfleet gym. A pretty bog standard thing, but it meant he didn't have to mix with civilians....he wasn't elitist or anything he just hated all the questions. So Rick was enjoying the quite before the days storm, whilst on the Gravity Mill.
Despite the early hour Meryn was amazed by just how empty the gymnasium was. As he entered he could only see one other person in the place, on the far side on the running machine. He never understood those things, but he guessed on a starship there was no other choice. He made his way over to one of the rowing machines on the far side - only three machines over from the other man, to whom he nodded as he sat down. The man was medium height, lean, but well-toned, and with jet-black hair. Relma found him hard to size-up. He seemed the better part of a decade younger than him, but had one of those faces where Relma wouldn't be surprised to find out he was very young or even the same age as him. Having been around Starfleet and other military personnel for so long the Bajoran prided himself that he could guess someone's job and rank at a glance, but this man was a mystery to him.
"Morning" said Rick with a polite smile and nod of his head as he joined the man on the rowing machine beside him. He picked up the two handles and made himself comfortable on his seat. The handles were not connected to anything as Dunham pulled on them with his momentum, instead gravity sink sensors on the handles made them harder to pull on when you raised the difficulty. Rick wandered why they just could not have used wires.
"Morning." answered Meryn as he began to find his rhythm to warm himself up. "Is it always this quiet? Or is this just the golden hour?"
"A lot of the real fitness buffs started using the gym in the Marine barracks when they got re-fitted with some state of the art equipment a couple of weeks ago...." he looked around thoughtfully at the empty gym "now it seems that the only people who use it are the ones that live on this level"
Relma smiled. "Perfect." he replied as he increased his pace slightly "I'm just glad to have one again: been on a Zakdorn-run station for 3 years. Keeping in shape is not exactly one of their past-times."
"Zakdorn!" said Rick in both exclamation matched with a sympathetic look. "Who did you piss off to get that posting?"
Relma grunted as he moved up another gear again. It shamed him that a 'light' duty assignment had been suggested by the counsellor on Starbase 47 after the events on the Bismarck. "Pencil-pushers. Always the pencil-pushers." he replied curtly. He still hadn't fully warmed up, but pushed into a higher gear once again at the reminder of his weakness. "Got a lot of leave out of the deal though, so wasn't all bad. Nice to finally be back on the front-line though."
Rick had stopped to watch the moment for a second before starting again on his own rowing. He looked like he was going to say something but had instead changed his minds. After a couple of moments silence he did however say "Well as front lines go this ones quite interesting."
"So the bartender was telling me last night." Replied Relma "Seems you can't cough around here without some diplomat taking notice, let alone Commander Villiers' JAG office. And I'll wager there's plenty of spooks to go with that." Had Relma known he was speaking to another Senior Officer he would have held his tongue, but the anonymity of the situation and the cameraderie of the gym spurred him on.
"Well I would take what ever Yolanthe Ibalin says with a pinch of salt if I were you mate. I am normally an open minded kind of guy, but I am not sure I could trust the words of someone that close to a Cardassian......if you know what I mean." he gave the man a suggestive look. "Not that I'm saying all Cardassians a like that." said Rick back peddling a little. "Just that Cardassian" He stopped. and picked his towel up off the floor to tab his brow. "But yeah, deep space five certainly has its share of alley way machiavellian plots, larger than life characters, occasional space battles and weird scientific anomalies to keep any starfleet officer busy."
Meryn dropped the handle in surprise at the former statement both due to its content and that he finally knew the woman's name. "No wonder she drinks Kanar." He muttered "Which Cardassian is that?" He asked more clearly as he stood from the machine and began stretching a couple of feet away.
"Cardassian Consulate Ambassador, Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal" said Rick using the mans full title.
The name was unfamiliar to Meryn, but it had been years since he'd had to pay any attention to Cardassian affairs. "Thanks." He replied, storing the name away for further study as soon as communications were restored. "So how long have you been out here?"
Rick paused as he thought about the question. It was not the first time he had been asked, but each time he had he had to think about it. Life on deep space five for Rick was a whirl wind and so much had happened in so little time. "Oh just over a year I think."
"How've you found it?" Asked Relma as he moved from leg stretched to arm stretches.
"A roller coaster" said Rick it was the only word (and a grossly inappropriate one) he could find to describe the enormity of everything that had happened to him in the past year. "What about you" giving the man an appraising look, he did not recognise him "new?"
"Aye." Grunted the Bajoran as he came out of a particularly uncomfortable stretch. "Arrived yesterday." He added as he stood for a moment to recover "Chief Relma, new Chief Ops. Nice to meet you." He offered his hand to the man as the human began to rise.
"Rick. Rick Dunham. Pleasure to meet you" said Rick with a warm friendly smile and taking the man's hand to shake.
The name rang a bell with Meryn. He was sure there had been at least one Dunham on the senior staff roster he'd looked at the previous day, but he couldn't place it. He made his way over to one of the stack machines and, setting it to an easy rate to begin with, started a rep. "Busy day ahead then? Or did you just get off shift?" He asked as he started to find his rhythm.
"Every day is a busy day on deep space five" said Rick to himself as he headed over to the bars. They were basically rods that simulated increase in mass and weight when you increased the difficulty. "But yeah very busy day ahead I imagine, we need to get these communications fixed. Hopefully the data that was retrieved yesterday from the anomaly will help with that, I imagine that the tech and science guys have been working on it all night."
"Wouldn't be surprised." replied Relma "I just hope the data was worth it. The Pollux was lucky to get back in one piece from what I can tell. I've got a hell of a job trying to sort her out."
"Well in retrospect it was not one of my better ideas.....but that anomaly I swear it was like it was alive or something." said Rick more to himself reflecting on yesterdays events rather than to the man sharing the gym with him. He slapped himself mentally to get himself out of it. "Well the great thing a bout the Wallace class is that push come to shove we can always build another here in our own space dock."
Meryn paused a moment "Wait, you were on her when it happened?" he blurted out "I'm sorry, that looked ruddy rough. Glad to see you're ok. That could have been much worse."
Rick shrugged "Yeah it could of." Rick just hope to the powers that be that the techy guys and what not managed to clear out this communication issue. It had gone on to long and made them to vulnerable, lives were at risk from a spacial anomaly and that did not sit right with Rick.
"Mind you," the Bajoran added. "I disagree with the notion about building a new one. Yes, you can, but Starfleet's far too keen on that sometimes. It might be tough to repair her, but it's a much more effective use of resources to repair. Qualor II was full of ships which could easily have been returned to service. In the Resistance we fought off the entire Cardassian Empire with equipment that Starfleet would have, and the Cardassians had, junked."
"Yeah but you did not have a Federations worth of resources and industrial replicators that can fabricate most starship parts out of thin air." What was it about Bajorans that meant that they had to win every discussion, argument or debate with....'in the resistance'. He wondered if they would ever get over it.
Meryn nodded as he began another rep cycle "Very true." he replied "But that's no excuse for waste. Take the War with the Klingons, and then the Dominion War for example. 72 ships were retired to Qualor II alone after the war with the Klingons, when they could have been returned to service in time for the Dominion War - another 72 ships in the Tyra system, or defending DS9, or to punch a hole in Operation Return and this how many losses could have been averted - and think how much better defended Earth would have been with another 72 ships active. As it was many of those ships weren't ready until after Ricktor Prime and the Second battle of Chin'toka." He didn't know if the man had seen service in the war, but he had and when he'd seen the reports from Qualor II upon his arrival there he was appalled by how badly Starfleet had dropped the ball.
Rick shrugged "I didn't fight in no war"
Meryn rolled his eyes, glad that his head was facing away from the other man. "Well," replied Relma in almost a growl "I did."
"Yeah...were did you serve?" asked Rick his interest peaked. He headed over to a water fountain to get himself some much needed fluid.
"Where I was sent - on the front." replied the Bajoran stoically - not wanting to mention his service on Terok Nor in the first year of the war. He wasn't a braggart and tended not to talk about such things without good reason. He completed his reps cycle and stood up to return to the rowing machine.
Not getting the hint Rick pressed on "The front 'line' covered many sectors of three dimensional space, can you be more specific?" He asked with a friendly kind smile. Rick went back over to the rowing machines to pick his towel up. Then headed over to the cycle machine
Relma growled, though masked it with the start of his hard push on the rowing machine and replied "I was on DS9 in the Militia when it fell, stayed on Terok Nor until Operation Return, DS9 again until the Derna crisis when I served on Colonel Kira's flagship, I then moved to Starfleet on exchange. I served on the Hood along the Cardassian border until Ricktor Prime, after which I was transferred to the Tian An Men on which I served until the end of the war even though she was disabled in the Battle of Cardassia." With each word his voice seemed more rasping - partly due to the exertion of the rowing, and partly because he didn't like talking about it.
"And for all that...all that service all that blood and sweat they post you Zakdorn!" Said Rick in genuine surprise. "That does not seem fair to me mate. But it will be good to have you, we could do with another combat veteran around here, especially a three war veteran like yourself." Said Rick honestly and respectfully. "Welcome aboard"
"Thanks." replied Relma. The younger man had redeemed himself with the latter comment "But I was Militia back then - had to earn my Starfleet crust since '77 on my own back. And I went where I was sent - and that's brought me here now, so it's not all bad." He spoke in between breaths as he continued his rowing at pace.
"So what made you decide to take the full time job to starfleet?" said Rick his voice slightly strained as the cycle simulated the difficulty of climbing a steep hill.
"Few things." Replied the Bajoran as he began pushing harder "first, I joined the Militia to protect Bajor, but, as the War proved, the Militia can't do that: only Starfleet can. Secondly... I could see the writing on the wall that Bajor was going to join the Federation: I wanted to get my food in the door before the entire Milita merged with Starfleet. Thirdly, my sister went political: she's deputy minister of state: I didn't want her interfering with my career and putting me on 'safe' assignments only. What about you? Why'd you join up?"
"Mostly because of my parents I guess." Rick paused on his bike which bleeped at him to let him know he had stopped. "My parents were....are career officers. I was born on starship and grew up in the fleet, I spent most of my younger days running around the halls of a galaxy class starship." He dabbed his face with a towel before continuing "When it came to deciding what to do with my life Starfleet felt like a natural choice. It was not until I had finished the academy that I actually discovered my love for flying"
Relma had never understood Starfleet's ideal of having civilians and families aboard their larger starships. He also didn't understand the common human compulsion to follow in the footsteps of their parents. The sentiment expressed by the other man here, and in his earlier statement about the war spoke volumes about his priorities. The importance of defending society as a whole, and especially the weak, never appeared to enter into it. The man was obviously an officer, though, so h ha to accept that he had almost certainly earned his stripes - but still, his reasons appeared impure and puerile to the Bajoran. "I see." he answered tersely as he reached a blisteringly speedy 50 strokes per minute.
"You do not approve?" asked Rick curiously, spurred on by the mans curt answer, but he was still maintaining his cheery friendly demeanor as he switched off his bike and turned in the saddle to look at the larger man. Ricks feet dangled a little above the floor.
Meryn waited for 30 seconds until his sprint was over until he even attempted answering - and even then grabbed his breath. "Not at all," he began, still somewhat breathless "when you've lived a life like that as a child I can more than understand the attraction and sentiment involved." he honestly didn't know what more the man had expected him to say while doing strenuous exercise. For that matter: what else was he supposed to say even in the best of circumstances. "Starfleet is a way of life: must help to breathe it in from a young age." He was vapourising now and didn't particularly believe what he was saying, but his exercise was over and he had to be getting on.
Rick frowned at the man a moment, perhaps the ma had some opinions about officers and 2nd generation fleeters, that he was not sharing. Rick could only speculate that maybe it was the gorilla rebel fighter in him that questioned or disproved of that sort of thing. However this was just assumption and a lot of speculation. Rick nodded at mans words approvingly but got back onto his bike without saying a word with a little thoughtful frown on his face.
Seeing the frown, Relma, even though he was still breathing very heavily, added "Sir, I feel like you misunderstood me. I meant nothing by it: I couldn't exactly say much more going at that pace."
"Relax its fine" said Rick smiling but moving forward in his saddle so he could pick up momentum on his cycle.
Meryn nodded to the other man as he stood. "Well, a pleasure to meet you." He said, smiling as he began moving towards the door. "I better be getting ready to meet my staff."
OFF:
CAG Squadron Leader
Lieutenant Commander Richard Dunham
&
Chief Warrant Officer First Class Relma Meryn
Chief Operations Officer
by Commander Richard Dunham
Post Details
| Title | Working (Things) Out | |
| Mission | Incommunicado | |
| Author(s) | Commander Richard Dunham | |
| Posted | Wed Jun 13, 2012 @ 8:19am | |
| Location | Starfleet Gymnasium, Deck 33 | |
| Timeline | SD58 0600 |
As comfortable as the bed was, certainly in comparison to the Zakdorn monstrosities he'd become used to, and as much as he needed the sleep, Meryn found it impossible to sleep beyond 0530 that night. He tossed and he turned, but he had no luck. He was awake, pure and simple. He had a busy day ahead of him, and should probably have spent his extra time reading more of the personnel records for his department's personnel, or reading technical schematics of the Wallace-class, but instead Relma wanted to start the day with an endorphins boost. So, slipping out of his quarters quietly so as not to disturb Jolan, he made his way up one deck to the Starfleet Gymnasium - the first one he'd had access to in over three years.
Deep Space Five was not only a forward base of operations for Starfleet and their marine counter parts but also a city in space accommodating many civilians and their families with everything they may need, including; parks, markets, businesses etc. and of course gyms. But being Starfleet personnel meant that Rick got accessed to the Starfleet gym. A pretty bog standard thing, but it meant he didn't have to mix with civilians....he wasn't elitist or anything he just hated all the questions. So Rick was enjoying the quite before the days storm, whilst on the Gravity Mill.
Despite the early hour Meryn was amazed by just how empty the gymnasium was. As he entered he could only see one other person in the place, on the far side on the running machine. He never understood those things, but he guessed on a starship there was no other choice. He made his way over to one of the rowing machines on the far side - only three machines over from the other man, to whom he nodded as he sat down. The man was medium height, lean, but well-toned, and with jet-black hair. Relma found him hard to size-up. He seemed the better part of a decade younger than him, but had one of those faces where Relma wouldn't be surprised to find out he was very young or even the same age as him. Having been around Starfleet and other military personnel for so long the Bajoran prided himself that he could guess someone's job and rank at a glance, but this man was a mystery to him.
"Morning" said Rick with a polite smile and nod of his head as he joined the man on the rowing machine beside him. He picked up the two handles and made himself comfortable on his seat. The handles were not connected to anything as Dunham pulled on them with his momentum, instead gravity sink sensors on the handles made them harder to pull on when you raised the difficulty. Rick wandered why they just could not have used wires.
"Morning." answered Meryn as he began to find his rhythm to warm himself up. "Is it always this quiet? Or is this just the golden hour?"
"A lot of the real fitness buffs started using the gym in the Marine barracks when they got re-fitted with some state of the art equipment a couple of weeks ago...." he looked around thoughtfully at the empty gym "now it seems that the only people who use it are the ones that live on this level"
Relma smiled. "Perfect." he replied as he increased his pace slightly "I'm just glad to have one again: been on a Zakdorn-run station for 3 years. Keeping in shape is not exactly one of their past-times."
"Zakdorn!" said Rick in both exclamation matched with a sympathetic look. "Who did you piss off to get that posting?"
Relma grunted as he moved up another gear again. It shamed him that a 'light' duty assignment had been suggested by the counsellor on Starbase 47 after the events on the Bismarck. "Pencil-pushers. Always the pencil-pushers." he replied curtly. He still hadn't fully warmed up, but pushed into a higher gear once again at the reminder of his weakness. "Got a lot of leave out of the deal though, so wasn't all bad. Nice to finally be back on the front-line though."
Rick had stopped to watch the moment for a second before starting again on his own rowing. He looked like he was going to say something but had instead changed his minds. After a couple of moments silence he did however say "Well as front lines go this ones quite interesting."
"So the bartender was telling me last night." Replied Relma "Seems you can't cough around here without some diplomat taking notice, let alone Commander Villiers' JAG office. And I'll wager there's plenty of spooks to go with that." Had Relma known he was speaking to another Senior Officer he would have held his tongue, but the anonymity of the situation and the cameraderie of the gym spurred him on.
"Well I would take what ever Yolanthe Ibalin says with a pinch of salt if I were you mate. I am normally an open minded kind of guy, but I am not sure I could trust the words of someone that close to a Cardassian......if you know what I mean." he gave the man a suggestive look. "Not that I'm saying all Cardassians a like that." said Rick back peddling a little. "Just that Cardassian" He stopped. and picked his towel up off the floor to tab his brow. "But yeah, deep space five certainly has its share of alley way machiavellian plots, larger than life characters, occasional space battles and weird scientific anomalies to keep any starfleet officer busy."
Meryn dropped the handle in surprise at the former statement both due to its content and that he finally knew the woman's name. "No wonder she drinks Kanar." He muttered "Which Cardassian is that?" He asked more clearly as he stood from the machine and began stretching a couple of feet away.
"Cardassian Consulate Ambassador, Vi'kar Gul Tharek Getal" said Rick using the mans full title.
The name was unfamiliar to Meryn, but it had been years since he'd had to pay any attention to Cardassian affairs. "Thanks." He replied, storing the name away for further study as soon as communications were restored. "So how long have you been out here?"
Rick paused as he thought about the question. It was not the first time he had been asked, but each time he had he had to think about it. Life on deep space five for Rick was a whirl wind and so much had happened in so little time. "Oh just over a year I think."
"How've you found it?" Asked Relma as he moved from leg stretched to arm stretches.
"A roller coaster" said Rick it was the only word (and a grossly inappropriate one) he could find to describe the enormity of everything that had happened to him in the past year. "What about you" giving the man an appraising look, he did not recognise him "new?"
"Aye." Grunted the Bajoran as he came out of a particularly uncomfortable stretch. "Arrived yesterday." He added as he stood for a moment to recover "Chief Relma, new Chief Ops. Nice to meet you." He offered his hand to the man as the human began to rise.
"Rick. Rick Dunham. Pleasure to meet you" said Rick with a warm friendly smile and taking the man's hand to shake.
The name rang a bell with Meryn. He was sure there had been at least one Dunham on the senior staff roster he'd looked at the previous day, but he couldn't place it. He made his way over to one of the stack machines and, setting it to an easy rate to begin with, started a rep. "Busy day ahead then? Or did you just get off shift?" He asked as he started to find his rhythm.
"Every day is a busy day on deep space five" said Rick to himself as he headed over to the bars. They were basically rods that simulated increase in mass and weight when you increased the difficulty. "But yeah very busy day ahead I imagine, we need to get these communications fixed. Hopefully the data that was retrieved yesterday from the anomaly will help with that, I imagine that the tech and science guys have been working on it all night."
"Wouldn't be surprised." replied Relma "I just hope the data was worth it. The Pollux was lucky to get back in one piece from what I can tell. I've got a hell of a job trying to sort her out."
"Well in retrospect it was not one of my better ideas.....but that anomaly I swear it was like it was alive or something." said Rick more to himself reflecting on yesterdays events rather than to the man sharing the gym with him. He slapped himself mentally to get himself out of it. "Well the great thing a bout the Wallace class is that push come to shove we can always build another here in our own space dock."
Meryn paused a moment "Wait, you were on her when it happened?" he blurted out "I'm sorry, that looked ruddy rough. Glad to see you're ok. That could have been much worse."
Rick shrugged "Yeah it could of." Rick just hope to the powers that be that the techy guys and what not managed to clear out this communication issue. It had gone on to long and made them to vulnerable, lives were at risk from a spacial anomaly and that did not sit right with Rick.
"Mind you," the Bajoran added. "I disagree with the notion about building a new one. Yes, you can, but Starfleet's far too keen on that sometimes. It might be tough to repair her, but it's a much more effective use of resources to repair. Qualor II was full of ships which could easily have been returned to service. In the Resistance we fought off the entire Cardassian Empire with equipment that Starfleet would have, and the Cardassians had, junked."
"Yeah but you did not have a Federations worth of resources and industrial replicators that can fabricate most starship parts out of thin air." What was it about Bajorans that meant that they had to win every discussion, argument or debate with....'in the resistance'. He wondered if they would ever get over it.
Meryn nodded as he began another rep cycle "Very true." he replied "But that's no excuse for waste. Take the War with the Klingons, and then the Dominion War for example. 72 ships were retired to Qualor II alone after the war with the Klingons, when they could have been returned to service in time for the Dominion War - another 72 ships in the Tyra system, or defending DS9, or to punch a hole in Operation Return and this how many losses could have been averted - and think how much better defended Earth would have been with another 72 ships active. As it was many of those ships weren't ready until after Ricktor Prime and the Second battle of Chin'toka." He didn't know if the man had seen service in the war, but he had and when he'd seen the reports from Qualor II upon his arrival there he was appalled by how badly Starfleet had dropped the ball.
Rick shrugged "I didn't fight in no war"
Meryn rolled his eyes, glad that his head was facing away from the other man. "Well," replied Relma in almost a growl "I did."
"Yeah...were did you serve?" asked Rick his interest peaked. He headed over to a water fountain to get himself some much needed fluid.
"Where I was sent - on the front." replied the Bajoran stoically - not wanting to mention his service on Terok Nor in the first year of the war. He wasn't a braggart and tended not to talk about such things without good reason. He completed his reps cycle and stood up to return to the rowing machine.
Not getting the hint Rick pressed on "The front 'line' covered many sectors of three dimensional space, can you be more specific?" He asked with a friendly kind smile. Rick went back over to the rowing machines to pick his towel up. Then headed over to the cycle machine
Relma growled, though masked it with the start of his hard push on the rowing machine and replied "I was on DS9 in the Militia when it fell, stayed on Terok Nor until Operation Return, DS9 again until the Derna crisis when I served on Colonel Kira's flagship, I then moved to Starfleet on exchange. I served on the Hood along the Cardassian border until Ricktor Prime, after which I was transferred to the Tian An Men on which I served until the end of the war even though she was disabled in the Battle of Cardassia." With each word his voice seemed more rasping - partly due to the exertion of the rowing, and partly because he didn't like talking about it.
"And for all that...all that service all that blood and sweat they post you Zakdorn!" Said Rick in genuine surprise. "That does not seem fair to me mate. But it will be good to have you, we could do with another combat veteran around here, especially a three war veteran like yourself." Said Rick honestly and respectfully. "Welcome aboard"
"Thanks." replied Relma. The younger man had redeemed himself with the latter comment "But I was Militia back then - had to earn my Starfleet crust since '77 on my own back. And I went where I was sent - and that's brought me here now, so it's not all bad." He spoke in between breaths as he continued his rowing at pace.
"So what made you decide to take the full time job to starfleet?" said Rick his voice slightly strained as the cycle simulated the difficulty of climbing a steep hill.
"Few things." Replied the Bajoran as he began pushing harder "first, I joined the Militia to protect Bajor, but, as the War proved, the Militia can't do that: only Starfleet can. Secondly... I could see the writing on the wall that Bajor was going to join the Federation: I wanted to get my food in the door before the entire Milita merged with Starfleet. Thirdly, my sister went political: she's deputy minister of state: I didn't want her interfering with my career and putting me on 'safe' assignments only. What about you? Why'd you join up?"
"Mostly because of my parents I guess." Rick paused on his bike which bleeped at him to let him know he had stopped. "My parents were....are career officers. I was born on starship and grew up in the fleet, I spent most of my younger days running around the halls of a galaxy class starship." He dabbed his face with a towel before continuing "When it came to deciding what to do with my life Starfleet felt like a natural choice. It was not until I had finished the academy that I actually discovered my love for flying"
Relma had never understood Starfleet's ideal of having civilians and families aboard their larger starships. He also didn't understand the common human compulsion to follow in the footsteps of their parents. The sentiment expressed by the other man here, and in his earlier statement about the war spoke volumes about his priorities. The importance of defending society as a whole, and especially the weak, never appeared to enter into it. The man was obviously an officer, though, so h ha to accept that he had almost certainly earned his stripes - but still, his reasons appeared impure and puerile to the Bajoran. "I see." he answered tersely as he reached a blisteringly speedy 50 strokes per minute.
"You do not approve?" asked Rick curiously, spurred on by the mans curt answer, but he was still maintaining his cheery friendly demeanor as he switched off his bike and turned in the saddle to look at the larger man. Ricks feet dangled a little above the floor.
Meryn waited for 30 seconds until his sprint was over until he even attempted answering - and even then grabbed his breath. "Not at all," he began, still somewhat breathless "when you've lived a life like that as a child I can more than understand the attraction and sentiment involved." he honestly didn't know what more the man had expected him to say while doing strenuous exercise. For that matter: what else was he supposed to say even in the best of circumstances. "Starfleet is a way of life: must help to breathe it in from a young age." He was vapourising now and didn't particularly believe what he was saying, but his exercise was over and he had to be getting on.
Rick frowned at the man a moment, perhaps the ma had some opinions about officers and 2nd generation fleeters, that he was not sharing. Rick could only speculate that maybe it was the gorilla rebel fighter in him that questioned or disproved of that sort of thing. However this was just assumption and a lot of speculation. Rick nodded at mans words approvingly but got back onto his bike without saying a word with a little thoughtful frown on his face.
Seeing the frown, Relma, even though he was still breathing very heavily, added "Sir, I feel like you misunderstood me. I meant nothing by it: I couldn't exactly say much more going at that pace."
"Relax its fine" said Rick smiling but moving forward in his saddle so he could pick up momentum on his cycle.
Meryn nodded to the other man as he stood. "Well, a pleasure to meet you." He said, smiling as he began moving towards the door. "I better be getting ready to meet my staff."
OFF:
CAG Squadron Leader
Lieutenant Commander Richard Dunham
&
Chief Warrant Officer First Class Relma Meryn
Chief Operations Officer