Posted by Lieutenant Commander Ethan Nash (Chief Engineer) in Academy Flashback - A stroll for two

Posted by Lieutenant Emily Fox (Counselor) in Academy Flashback - A stroll for two

Posted by Lieutenant Commander Ethan Nash (Chief Engineer) in Academy Flashback - A stroll for two
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻
“So the trajectory of any object follows a predictable path,” the professor drew a wide arch on the console PaDD before him at the podium, instantly appeared on the large wall PaDD behind him. The man’s voice droned on and on reminding Kelly of the environmental control unit. It was low and on some level comforting yet just loud enough you could not drown it out and fall asleep. Astro 781 Planetary Atmospheres was required but a mind-numbing course for most in the command track.

For Kelly Shultz, the lesson was completely losing her interest. Leaning to her right, she whispered to Dante, “Hey, what are we doing this weekend? Should we hit up the Lost Albatros again? I am pretty sure they won’t remember us from last time?”

“How drunk were you Kelz?” Dante paused and looked at her. “You think they won’t remember us after you made me ride that bull and you made Ric sabotage it to move at double speed? After we entered the apple bobbing contest and you lobbed a flash grenade into the Klingon’s bucket and I told him it was a matter of honor for him to continue?” He shrugged. “Yeah you’re right, they probably won’t remember us.”

Kelly snickered and put a hand upon her mouth to try and stifle it. “Win at all costs baby and you had great form. I am positive if we hadn’t done those four shots before you got on you would have lasted more than four seconds. In your defense however it was going extremely fast.”

Dante snorted a laugh out, it was clear he tried to cover it as a sneeze or something. “Try 44 seconds, you only saw the last 4 because you were playing the apple bob game with your tonsils and Ric after he sabotaged the bull.”

“All jobs done correctly deserve a prize. You,” Kelly raised an eyebrow, “should know that.” Slapping her palm to her forehead, she wore an expression of pure surprise. “Oh no, that is right. You are gonna be the captain in your ivory tower and I am going to be the boots on the ground as the XO. Don’t worry I will keep the masses below you in line with this,” Kelly quickly wrote something and sent it to both Nash and Dante’s PaDDs. A perfect replica of Dante’s signature appeared across the trajectory map that had been downloaded. It said simply “I authorize that. Dante Knight”. There also was another X in the game of impromptu tic tac toe.

“When an object moves in the predicted path several things may occur.” The monotone voice continued adding X’s and circles to the arc.

Dante stopped and looked at the screen, then leaned over to Kelly and drew an X on her PaDD among the X’s and O’s she had already drawn. “Three in a row, I win.”
A small frustrated growl escaped her lips as Dante’s trajectory line clearly indicated he won.

Leaning to her left, Kelly whispered to Nash, “Yes you impact sed object. Hey, you up to going out with us on Saturday?”

“Do you sing like Cupids song-bird?” Nash deadpanned, and kept his head down and he studied the lines that the instructor was making. Then he frowned. Damn Dante, now all he could see was noughts and crosses.

“No but I whistle like a Nightengale,” she winked back.

“Now when the intended object is dis....lodged,” the professor stopped talking as the doors to the room opened creating a small disruption all eyes turned to the cadet walking in wearing medical blue. As if she belonged there, the student moved up to the podium and began speaking to the professor.

The interruption did make Nash look up and glance at the person that walked in, then look down again. Then, almost immediately, he looked up quickly.

“Hey Nash, is that,” Kelly snapped her fingers in rapid succession as she swatted to the side hitting Dante. For whatever reason, the young red-head’s name was escaping her but she looked way too familiar.

“Huh?” Dante said absently. His eyes were on the redhead but the lights in his head weren’t on as he watched her walk. “Oh! um. Foxy.... Fox. That’s right? Right? Eeeeeeeemily Fox?” He drew out her name as if testing the sound of it.

“Yes Emily Fox,” Kelly nodded hearing the name. Turning her attention off of Dante and Emily now talking to the professor who seemed to be gesturing in the random direction the trio was sitting in. “What is your spring fling doing up there?”

Cadet Kelly Shutlz

“Oh my spring fling was a Sandworm whose name translates in English to Gertrude,” Nash said and at the same time, slid the PaDD into his satchel. “You should meet her, she’s a little cranky before meal time but after that really enjoys her belly rubs.”

“That,” Nash said still watching Emily. “Is the woman who stole something from me and hasn’t given it back yet,” he looked at Kelly and smiled.

“Your chastity,” she chewed on the edge of her stylus and waggled her eyebrows. “You know it is okay if you cried after and she held you close and promised you that you would be together forever. I mean some women like men with emotional pouring. Not anyone I know but some girls do.”

“Plow you.” Nash fired back. “Shut up, not my virginity. I can see the snark in your eyes. You think I’m a total prude just because I won’t do the fountain frenzy with you two, I know.”

“No that is because you are saving yourself for marriage and it’s okay,” she put a hand on his shoulder in an empathetic manner.

“Why? Cause you think it’s gonna be you that gets it?” Nash sat back in his chair and looked at Emily, then smirked. “That ship has sailed.”

“Baby you can’t handle this blonde bombshell.” After saying it she puffed out her cheeks in an explosion sound and drew her hands out for a visual.

“She’s here because I made her a promise.” That was true, the night in the hot tub on the desert cliff had gone on far longer than their soak in the tub. There had been dinner and dancing as well, in between Ethan making sure she believed his answer to the promise she asked him to make. “And she is here to collect.” That thought made him smile, in part because this was the first time he had seen her since she had come back from Arakis, and partly because she hadn’t left his mind since he had returned to the Academy.

Cadet Ethan Nash

“So you owe her money,” Kelly looked at the woman on the stage talking to the professor. The pair were pointing and gesturing towards Kelly, Dante, and Ethan as much as Kelly was pointing back at her. While it could be debatable that Nash was punching about his weight class with Emily, it wasn’t like it was an out of reach punch.

“A tenner, yeah,” Nash avoided looking at Kelly at all costs. “The Fleet bar doesn’t accept Arakis tribal currency, and I left my credit chip in my other pants.”

“Look it is not like there is anything wrong with your love grub,” Kelly stretched her legs out. “It is more your love grub is so…perky.” As if Emily could hear the conversation, between Kelly and Nash the droning voice that had once been lecturing was not replaced by a bubbly one.

At that, both Dante and Nash paused what they were doing and both turned to look at Kelly. “So, you got a problem with perky there, miss perky pants?” Dante asked slowly. “Did you suddenly decide you can’t out perky Nash’s perky little redheaded hottie?” Looking at Nash, Dante shook his head. “I bet she’s jealous she can’t pash the Nash.”

“Pash the Nash? What are you ten?” Ethan shook his head at Dante. “You’re right though, when did the queen of Perkyville decide perky was a bad thing? You forget your cheerleader card today or did they throw you off the team?”

“Dude bust all cheerleaders all you want. We have to have a lot of tumbling experience. Tumbling means gymnastics which means flexibility. We all know the top female professions you all love for the obvious reasons. Nurse, teacher, secretary, and private trainer,” she held up her fingers ticking them off. “While I am not a cheerleader persay I am rather limber and the perky just helps the public image blend into the private. Now I use it for a tactical advantage but your love grub,” Kelly made a swirling motion at Emily. “Tenner that she not only was a cheerleader but captain of the squad.”

“Ehhhhhhhhh, wrong!” Nash made the long, drawn out sound of the wrong answer button on a gameshow in Kelly’s direction. “Emily’s isn’t no Cheerleading Captain,” He sat back and crossed his arms, looking at her smugly.

“She’s the volunteer Academy Director for the entire Cheerleader program.” Dante said out the side of his mouth as he looked at where to put his next cross. “I mean don’t you recognize her from her profile picture on the faculty list? Such a defined bone structure and those eyes, everyone comments on her.”

“Shut up, Hornsby bootlicker,” Nash muttered.

“Oh don’t be so grumpy,” Kelly nudged Nash’s shoulder with hers. “I mean Dante recognized she had eyes.” A soft chuckle escaped her lips at her own joke.

“Cadet Nash,” the instructor said letting his voice boom out in the auditorium. “Your presence is requested. Please don’t rush. I am just up here for my health. Please come up here but don’t take your time. We are not doing anything.” The instructor’s voice was tight and strained. Everyone could cut the sarcasm with a knife in each word.

“Ethan…Ethan could I have a word please,” Emily said from the podium waving him down from his seat high in the auditorium?

Giving Emily a half-wave in acknowledgment, Nash began to slide his things into his satchel and clear the space in front of him so he could move.

Kelly reached over and placed an nought in one of the quadrants taking the PaDD back from Dante. She just half glanced at the screen far more interested in the wondering what the small chat was between Emily and the professor. He looked less than pleased while Cadet Fox was acting as if this was a social engagement.

Reaching over to her, Dante took the PaDD back from Kelly and looked at what she was doing. Shaking his head, he made a mark on it then made to hand it back to Kelly, but she wasn’t paying attention.

“I thought you said she was in counseling,” Kelly watched as Emily moved to the side of the room waiting for Ethan to come down the steps.

“She is, why?” Nash asked, suddenly pausing to look at Kelly while he was half out of his seat.

Feeling Dante nudge her in the side, Kelly placed another nought on the screen briefly looking at it again before turning her attention back to Ethan.

“Cause she is acting like she is the TA. You had better scoot. You are disrupting the class and I am dying to find out what happens when the objects intersects with the trajectory.”

“Oh I have no doubt you are just dying for that,” Nash’s voice sounded unimpressed. “What happens is you lose three in a row.”

“What,” Kelly rolled her eyes looking over at Dante who had spent the last thirty seconds poking her in the arm like they were kids in a playground.

“You suck at Astro Planetary Atmospheres’,” Dante said, this time just dropping the PaDD in her lap. “No wonder you pay me to do your homework.”

“Ah crap…seriously. How do you keep doing that? Best three out of five and this time I am Crosses.”

Emily Fox

Leaving the two behind Nash made his way past the line of students and then down the steps. The entire time he tried to keep his face straight, but all he really wanted to do was break into a wide and goofy smile. He could feel the eyes of the entire room on him even as the voice of the professor started up again as people wondered why the redhead from Counseling was calling the do-no-wrong Cadet down in the middle of a lesson.

“What are you doing in here, Em?” Ethan asked as he stopped beside her, his back facing Kelly and Dante.

“I came to see you. Just needed to make sure I haven’t slipped your mind today,” she winked with a goofy smile. Maybe it was because it was dark in the auditorium or maybe Ethan was starting to see what Emily saw, but the young cadet was becoming less and less formal in public places. It was never that he seemed to care if they were saw together. She just hadn’t gotten him to the phase of running across campus to meet her for that five-minute make-out session before the next class. It would happen even if Ethan could not see it, Emily Fox knew it was just on the horizon.

“Oh my god she didn’t turn the mic off,” Kelly barked out a laugh.

“Oh no,” Dante said, his head snapping up. “We have to warn the brother, this is about to get messy.” Dropping the pen in his hand, he made to raise his arm to start waving at Nash.

Putting her stylus on Dante’s hand she said in a low tone, “if you raise that hand I will stab you. This is classic. Look at him,” she sighed. “I mean he is also cuddly. How can you want to end cuddly Nash? You are really a monster,” Kelly said offhand to Dante.

“And you want to hear what the hot new couple talks about in private and have Nash look like an idiot?” Dante stared at her. “Whose the monster now Skeletor? I mean sure the guy is a hyperspanner-up-his-butt goody two shoes but he’s not a tool.”

“Of course, he isn’t,” Kelly made a small disgusted sound in her throat looking at Dante. “He just needs to loosen up some and she is exactly what he needs. Honestly Dante we are saving him from some stress-related medical condition or a proctology exam. A proctologist is a person that pulls things lodge up someone’s,” Kelly immediately stopped talking and for good measure put a hand over Dante’s mouth hearing Ethan start to reply.

“You had to break into a class mid-session just to see me? I know you’re hot for me, but isn’t this a little public?” His face broke into a smirk as he winked at her.

“We made out in a soup kitchen for two weeks straight during the dinner rush. This,” she waved a hand, “is not really public but if you want to raise my temp just smile that smile at me.” Part of her did not want him to smile at her. While she acted as if she was always in control around him, the truth was Ethan made her knees weak.

“Okay I am putting a stop to this,” Dante said as snickers ran through the crowd and people covered their mouths, or ears. Moving to stand, he doubled over suddenly trying to catch a breath as Kelly karate chopped him in the stomach.

“However I do need to say hell yes, I am hot for you. It has been three hours and nine minutes since I last saw you at breakfast. I needed a little shot of Naughty Nash to get me through the day,” she looked up at him as if she and he were all alone and not surrounded by one hundred other cadets.

“For the love of god woman have a heart!” Dante said as Kelly’s fingers tightened on his neck and her other hand covered his mouth, while he tried to shift his body weight as she tried to sit on him to keep him down. In the end, Dante simply bit down on Kelly’s fingers.

“Oww owww owww, no biting,” Kelly tapped Dante’s forehead with her fingers trying to get him to let go. By now everyone within visual distance of Kelly and Dante were wishing more of the female cadets chose the skirt option Kelly always wore.

“Naughty Nash huh?” Ethan said and bit his lip. “I like that, how about we get out of here so you can pash the Nash?”

Pausing in his struggles with one hand fisting Kelly’s hair, Dante looked at Kelly. His eyes were simply pleading.

“Okay maybe we should stop this,” Kelly pretended to grimace. “He may be in the top percent of the class but I think our boy needs a little Cyrano de Bergerac. You think his flirting is so bad because he is Minataran and doesn’t have to?” she asked Dante sitting back down in her seat smoothing out the fabric of her skirt and pulling it down.

“Definitely, he just has to sign on the dotted line and he’s got a piece. Why practice?” Sitting up quickly, he half knocked Kelly off of him and back into her seat. “You think Emily knows the guy is Mintaran?”

Of all the secrets Dante Knight could have said to Kelly, this was about the worst secret to share. Glaring at him with daggers in her eyes, Kelly looked around at the people around them. “Okay listen up people,” she said in an uncharacteristic but don’t mess with me authoritative tone. “If I hear any of you inform Cadet Fox about Cadet Nash’s cultural heritage I will make it my personal mission in life to have you placed in the darkest, deepest, hell hole the Federation has a placement. Not only that,” she kept swiveling and turning as she spoke making sure everyone knew how serious she was. “I will make it my priority in my career to keep you there. Is that understood?”

Various murmurs of yes and yeah were given by those at the same rank as Kelly and Dante. The few younger aged cadets snapped out with a yes ma’am not sure what they should say but knowing Kelly Shultz was looking for a reply. Turning around she pulled down her uniform shirt and settled back in the chair.

“Tell me this isn’t an official call, I was thinking about booking a session with you, maybe a double?”

Ethan Nash

“I think you need an eight-hour session on my couch but we can pencil that in for this Saturday. Why I am here is because I need some help. I need some clinical hours filled. Since most of the people here really aren’t crazy just overachieving people that don’t fit in with their age groups I had to come up with something else.”

“Okay so Foxy is definitely not talking about us,” Kelly whispered but leaned in even thought the sound was still quite clearly being amplified in the room.

“I have a weekend pass for San Diego where I need to do some community service for me and five more people. I was hoping you might take one and bring a few of your friends? I think it would be fun and I would get to meet the people you hang out with?”

Emily Fox

Nash was just about to open his mouth to reply, when a shout came from the rows of seats back in the direction he had been sitting. “Nash! You’re live!” Dante called out, waving one hand above his head. All eyes of all people in the seats were on the pair. Most, grinning, a few, horrified. A couple were crying. Others, if as he looked closer, seemed to be discussing something similar to what Emily and Ethan had been talking about among themselves.

Looking at him, Ethan frowned in confusion for a moment before realizing what he meant. “Oh. Crap.” He looked back at Emily and then down at the Academy badge she wore. “You, uh, still broadcasting there, Em?”

“Oh,” she said reaching up to turn it off before stopping to let her hand hover over it. “I mean,” she moved to the amplification system on the podium the professor was using and spoke into it making her voice echo louder, “Is there a reason you don’t want the general population to know we are an item?” It was purely to make Nash blush. Emily had no doubt anyone didn’t know she was head over heels for the man. If the large signs and banners she brought with her to the track and field events were not a clue, then those people were not smart enough to be in Starfleet.

“Cadet Fox you are stretching my patience. Cadet Nash I would like to see you at my office hours no later than tomorrow. You are expecting to hold command are you not?” The question was purely rhetorical so the professor continued. “Then I suggest you learn how to control your crew?” The interruption of his class had been a favor to another professor to support Cadet Fox’s thesis on stress between officers. Since there was no way they could test this in battle, the high drive and need to succeed could be simulated in an event like this. Cadet Fox claimed it was only going to take two minutes but this was now stretching past the five-minute mark.

Reaching out, Ethan tapped the comm-badge and the entire room heard the light jungle as the comm system shut off. “Okay, out. Now!” Nash said and took hold of Emily’s arm, pulling her along with him as he turned for the door and the two made to leave the room.

“Ethan he is not going to do anything and even if he did who hasn’t gotten a demer,” she started to reason with him before feeling her back press against the cold, walls of the building.

Once outside, Nash turned and pushed Emily up against the wall of the building, then kissed her. It wasn’t hard or full of hungry passion, just a kiss that showed an affection and a need in that moment to find some way to blow off a little steam.

She sighed deeply and melted into the kiss. It was not the first time, but the first time so openly public. The large glass window afforded everyone a view of his body facing the wall. The height difference and body mass however completely obstructed her except of a pair of hands reaching around his back. It ended far more quickly than Emily could have wanted.

Pulling back from her, he started to laugh. “Alright, Counselor. That’s one way to mark your territory. Did you do that on purpose?”

Ethan Nash

“Yes, but for a purpose different than what you think,” she traced his brow with her fingertip. “I need your help and the help of a couple of your friends. I have an assignment I need to complete. It involves us going to San Diego for the weekend. Unfortunately I can’t get us accommodations but it is an all-day liberty pass for Saturday and Sunday. Know anyone that might be interested. I need them to be about sevens. They can absolutely be higher but seven is a good jump-off point. If you need me to help determine who is or isn’t a seven just let me know,” she let out a half laugh.

Cadet Emily Fox Counselor