And In This Corner...

Posted on Tue Jan 29, 2019 @ 2:05am by Civilian Jason Haines & Lieutenant Annora Tessaro

2,130 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Deck 33 - Gym
Timeline: MD 04 - 0530

[ON]

Jason wasn't what he would call a gym rat, but he did like to keep in shape. It was something that both his mom and dad had semi-drilled into him. After downing a quick cup of coffee, Jason left his quarters and managed to find the gym after only getting lost twice.

As he had a tight schedule today, Jason went to the easiest work out area, the punching/kicking dummies. He looked at the practice dummy and then said, "I've been on a runabout for the last three weeks, go easy on me ok?

Given the option, she preferred to get in her workout in the morning before her shift started. Annora wasn't opposed to socializing, but enjoyed there being less people present compared to the afternoons and evenings. She'd just completed an easy jog around the track when she noticed a new face at the practice dummies.

"Three weeks on a runabout, you have my sympathies. Care to spar with a real life person rather than a dummy?"

Jason looked a touch embarrassed when Annora spoke up. He turned and faced her, a sheepish grin on his face. He recovered rather quickly and stuck out his hand.

"Jason Haines", he said to her extending his hand.

Shaking the man's hand, she introduced herself while also sizing him up. The newcomer was a good six inches taller than her. Despite his self declared distrust in his skills, he appeared in good physical shape.

"Annora Tessaro. Nice to meet you."

"I would love a real person to spar with", Jason replied. "The dummy makes fun of me way too much when I screw up."

Chuckling, Annora donned a set of protective gear.

"In that case I'll try not to make fun of you. What do you want to start with?"

Jason geared up and then said, "Why don't we just go at it. No blows to the head or groin for that matter."

"Sounds like a good plan to me. While this is simply a sparing match, don't hold back either. I'll let you start."

The security chief took up a defensive posture and waited for the first strike.

Jason gave Annora a bow and then cautiously approached working out of a cat stance. He then threw a couple of probing punches towards her chest.

The blows were easily deflected due to the cautious nature of the opening routine.

"Now that you've warmed up a bit, feel free to let loose a bit more."

Jason laughed a little bit and replied, "Well, tell me when the arm you just blocked with starts to go numb from my warm up. The Andorians have some interesting fighting styles after all."

With that, Jason came at her with a number of quick kicks that were punctuated with a snap-kick that was of the Dragon Style of earth kung-fu.

"That they do."

She was curious if he had actually trained with the Andorians or was just talking about their techniques that were incorporated into standard Starfleet training.

Annora side-stepped the first kick, but was unable to repeat the action a second time around. Instead she focused on cushioning the blows as they came. The final snap kick sent her back several feet on the pad.

Going on the offense, she struck out with a series of punches before switching tactics. Leading with her left leg she moved in with a kick, landing just outside his right leg. With her body now turned away from her opponent, the security chief brought her right elbow up towards Jason's head.

Jason swiveled the direction of her elbow's arc and brought up his arm, but it was slow. Although her elbow didn't make full contact, the force of the blow was enough to cause him to stagger. He decided to go with the momentum going into a roll and coming back up to his feet, turning to face Annora.

"Nice move", he said to her.

Annora had turned around to face any retaliatory strikes from Jason.

"Thank you. It can be useful in certain instances, especially if the kick doesn't connect you can still try to land a strike. If you don't mind me asking, what brings you out to DS5?"

Jason made a series of punches. It was hard for Annora to tell if they were feigns or real punches, but the last one was real for sure as Jason positioned a tiger-claw strike right against her neck a touch under the jaw-line, but didn't follow through with a real hit. She knew that if they hadn't been sparring it probably would have hurt.

"Intelligence has concerns with all the apparent players in the area that this powder-keg will explode", Jason answered. "The planet and its portals and the dilithium situation makes this area a volatile place. I don't know why they think I am the man for the job, but they do, so I am going to take care of business. So, what about you?"

The fact of the matter was that Jason knew a little bit about her because as part of training in temporal investigations, he had been assigned to study both the Bozeman and Sundsvall incidences as well as the crews.

He was a bit brash, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially when on the frontier, it was best not to be too cautious.

"Ah, it's not surprising the Brass decided we needed another Spook aboard DS5. Especially given the events of the past month. Bombings and rogue Starfleet vessels tend to attract attention from the higher ups. As for me, I'm the one who has to try and keep the peace amongst all this. Lieutenant Annora Tessaro, Chief of Security."

"I think you and I will be working quite closely", Jason said. "I have a bit of latitude from my superiors when it comes to finding out information. However, I probably won't be able to act on it, so I will be giving much of it to you so you can indeed keep the peace. And do rest assured, I will be trying my best to keep all activities above board."


"That's reassuring. While I understand the need for more covert operations aboard the station, the more information we can gather above board the better. Any specific targets you were told to keep an eye on?"

She was curious who Starfleet Intelligence felt was important enough to reassign an agent for.

"Not specifically, but then I got here and the CO laid a number of things both on and off the planet on me", Jason said. "and the whole anti-alien movement has me concerned given the other things going on. In fact, I need to get more staff, but I don't want them wearing black uniforms. Sort of gives things away. I want to bring some in under the guise of engineers and operations, but the boss said I should check with you on this as it sort of makes your job a bit more difficult knowing which engineer is really supposed to be near certain sensitive areas."

More Intel staff could be useful, but as he pointed out they had to be covert about it. It would help take some of the pressure off her security staff. Pushing aside some stray hair that plastered themselves to her forehead, Annora responded.

"While I can't speak much for off station happenings, everything's interconnected at some level. As for your undercover agents, if you give me a list of their names that should be sufficient. The most sensitive areas will require additional clearances, but a standard clearance should suffice for most other areas. On a station this large, it's the best option. There's too many personnel to personally recognize each one, unlike my last posting which had just over one hundred crew. In regards to happenings on the station, tread lightly with the Raddon Corporation. While they're often a person of interest, so to speak, they're quite influential."

Jason nodded and said, "I've heard that about them. Still, I'm not going to be able to do my job without rattling their cage some. I've been tossing a few ideas around in my head so as not to get the lion roaring too much."

With that he lashed out with a round-house kick and quipped, "Come on, you can fight and talk at the same time right?"

She hadn't expected him to start up again with the sparring. As he wound up for the kick, Annora did her best to sidestep him but still caught the edge of his foot.

"Of course. Sergeant Winckworth would be disappointed in me if I couldn't. It's all part of situational awareness and multitasking."

Moving back into a fighting stance, she responded with a series of quick left jabs before switching it up with a more powerful right hook.

Jason blocked the jabs, but he wasn't expecting such a hard right hook. It clipped him some and forced him to one knee. He didn't let that phase him and he swung out with a leg sweep.

"How long have you been here?" he asked as his leg arced out.

"Just over a year. I just recently took over the role of Chief of Security after Commander Ryan's elevation to XO."

She'd planned a similar move, but was once again forced into a defensive posture. Looking to quickly gain the upper hand, Annora went with a simple but effective move.

By raising her own leg, she was able to avoid being taken down by his kick. As soon as he regained his footing, she moved in. Her left hand moved to the back of his neck and applied downward pressure. She then positioned her right foot just past his left foot before grabbing the back of his knee. At the same time she pulled on her knee, Annora leaned forward to apply downward pressure.

"DS5 was my first posting after Starfleet Academy. Due to prior service, I was able to skip over Ensign. the position of Chief of Security came with a rank promotion as well."

Jason was not in a good spot to defend, so the Annora got him down quickly and easily. He had never experienced the move before.

"Nice move", he managed to gasp and a moment after that his body went totally limp and his face fell forward into the mat.

"Thanks. It's a fairly basic move, but sometimes that's the best."

She reached down to offer a helping hand up.

Jason groaned and lifted his head up slowly, shaking it a bit. He took Annora's hand, got slowly to his feet. He then quickly grabbed her tunic and then rolled into a judo throw.

Letting herself go with the throw, Annora took her turn laying on the mat.

"Touche, that was a good throw. Guess I deserve that one."

"I'm not sure if you deserve that one", Jason replied. "I'm just surprised that you fell for the routine."

He chuckled a bit.

"So, I wanted to pass something by you", Jason said staying at ready just in case she attacked. "Does your team do calisthenics and hand to hand training as a group? If you do, can my team join in? I want them to be as up to snuff as possible."

Picking herself up off the mat, she gave consideration to his request.

"We can certainly set something up. Each shift sets their own polices regarding that sort of training and exercise. As long as members pass the biannual fitness test with at least an 85%, I try not to micromanage. Given the recent wave of attacks, I'm in the finishing stages of putting together Strategic Response Teams. They will have more strenuous training than the standard security teams. When that's finalized, we can work out some joint training sessions. The third option is to send a few instructors down to the Intel section for training."

"I would really be grateful if they could work with your SRT's", Jason said. "Given all that is going on in this area of space, I am going to have to send them off the base more and I would like them to have training better than standard."

"I'm sure both sides will benefit from training together. When you bring in someone different it allows for a wider variety of input. Once everything's in place I'll let you know and we can work on scheduling."

Glancing at the clock in the room's corner, Annora noted the time.

"I should probably get going soon. Nice meeting you Lt."

"You as well Lt.", Jason replied. "And I have my own busy day to get to. Thanks for the work out."

[OFF]

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Lieutenant Annora Tessaro
Chief of Security
DS5

Lieutenant (j.g.) Jason Haines
Chief Intelligence Officer
DS5

 

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