STAR TREK

The Human Adventure #2:

"What Can Be Done"

Relative Date: Between Friday's Child and Who Mourns for Adonais? (2267). This placement is only for people like me who need to know exactly where any story happens on the timeline; neither of those episodes have any particular relevance to this story.

"No, no, you've got your hands completely wrong," Lee Komura said, moving in to show Ricky how to properly set himself for combat.

"Can't say I'm surprised," Ricky said dismally. "It certainly won't be the first time."

"You're not a natural athlete," Lee responded, somehow managing to say it without it quite sounding like an insult. "Why'd you ever get into the Security division?"

"The janitorial service wouldn't have me," Ricky said sarcastically as he tried to assume the stance Lee had attempted to show him. His sparring partner was Lorin Chiske, an engineering officer from Rigel. Lee had chosen Chiske specifically due to his Rigellian physique; he was intent on proving that Ricky could take on an opponent of any degree of strength with the Komura method. Since they were only sparring, Chiske had generously agreed to wear protective gloves over his clawed hands, but nothing was protecting Ricky from the beak. As soon as Ricky was set, Chiske made his move, coming in low and grabbing Ricky around the waist. In a normal fight, Lee's training would call for Ricky to knee Chiske in the face, but that would be full-contact sparring, and Ricky didn't feel like going to Sickbay just then, even if Dr. Bick could heal any such minor injuries fairly immediately. So instead, Ricky dropped backwards and tried to leverage Chiske to fall behind his head. It mostly worked, but Chiske recovered, and ended up landing with his side in Ricky's face.

Ricky rolled away as gracefully as he could, and scrambled up, but Chiske was up just as quickly. Chiske didn't come at him as quickly this time, so Ricky made his move. He rushed forward, and Chiske's arms thrust out, trying to grab him. Ricky angled to the right, grabbing Chiske's left arm, and pulling him forward. Holding onto his left arm, Ricky twisted it around Chiske's back, and then managed to get a hold of his other arm as well. In this position, the finishing move would've been for Ricky to bring his leg up and fold Chiske's knees out from under him, but just as Ricky was doing so, Chiske leaned back with his entire body weight.

A more athletic man would've probably been able to avoid it, but Ricky was too slow. Chiske fell back onto him, and Ricky slammed into the exercise mat, wondering if that was what a concussion felt like.

"Hey!" Lee said, jumping in to help Chiske to his feet so that he wouldn't be on top of Ricky anymore, "you okay, Man?" He asked, as Ricky blinked in momentary confusion.

"Yeah," Ricky said weakly. "Fine."

"That was the right move," Lee said, as he helped Ricky get to his feet, "But when you do it, you've got to do the whole thing all at once, so that your opponent can't do...exactly what he just did."
"I'm sure I'll remember that now," Ricky said, as Chiske grabbed a towel and waved goodbye.

"Hey, thanks for sparring!" Lee said, as Chiske headed out. "Two weeks, we'll do full contact!"

"What?!" Ricky blurted, aghast. "Do I look like I'm prepared for that?"

"Don't worry about it," Lee replied casually. "Full contact doesn't necessarily mean full strength. He'll go easy on you." Lee took a ready stance. "Come on, let's do some forms."

"So where'd you learn this stuff?" Ricky asked as he tried to imitate Lee's movements. He had asked the question before, but wasn't satisfied with the answer.

"My family," Lee said, as he had said the last time.

This time Ricky didn't accept that. "How'd it come into your family?" Ricky asked, struggling to keep up with Lee's practiced movement. "It's not something they just invented, is it?"

"It's been passed down for many generations," Lee answered, his voice a little more serious than usual. "Like, way back in the day. We've never really dug that deep into our specific family history, but I'll bet you that somewhere in the old days, there was a shogun or famous samurai in my family. This martial discipline came from that time, and people in my family are very serious about making sure that it's not forgotten." Lee stopped, and began toweling off the very small amount of sweat that he had developed in the short exercise. "I don't know; the whole 'United Earth' thing is good, for sure, but I think a lot of cultural diversity was lost. Maybe it wasn't just the UE; time does it, too, I guess." Ricky nodded, a bit surprised at how his usually shallow roommate was expressing himself. "This is just one of the ways we try to remember our heritage. Plus, as far as martial arts go, this kinda takes the best of everything, and improves on it, at least in my opinion. Once you learn the Komura style, that's all you need to know." Lee tossed the towel away. "Hey, my shift's gonna start soon."

"I guess I'll be getting some dinner," Ricky said.

"You made some good progress," Lee said, "See you around."

"See you later," Ricky said, as the two young men left the gym and headed in separate directions. Ricky went into the mess hall, and was happy to see Shelly Shepherd just sitting down to eat. After ordering, Ricky grabbed his tray and went to her table.

"Hey," he said, "You mind if I sit here?"

"No, go ahead," pulling some of her stuff away from what would be his side of the table.

He sat down with a sigh of relief, not realizing how tired and sore he was until now.

"How are you?" Shelly asked politely.

"Tired," Ricky replied, pausing for a moment before he started eating. "My roommate's been trying to teach me his family's semi-secret martial art. He's a good teacher; I guess I am learning some things, but it's pretty brutal on the joints."

Shelly laughed. "Sounds like fun."

"How about you?" Ricky asked. "You adjusting okay to life on a space ship?"

Shelly nodded. "It's boring, but that's alright. I don't think I could do it forever, though."

"What do you want to do?" Ricky asked. "I mean, you know, long-term."
"I want to be a diplomat. Go to alien worlds and try to find ways to improve our relationships with them."

"If you don't mind my asking," Ricky said slowly, "Why didn't you just join the diplomatic corps?"
"It's not as easy to get in as you might think," Shelly responded, "They didn't have any openings when I applied, but a lot of communications officers work their way up to the diplomatic corp. So, here I am...at a science station."

"Ah, you'll get there," Ricky told her, and then his voice lowered slightly as he remembered a more exciting topic of conversation. "So, what about that red alert last week?"

"Yeah," Shelly said, smirking. "I think the Captain just called the red alert to see how everyone handled it. From what I heard, it was just a speeding ticket."

Ricky nodded in acknowledgement. Speeding tickets had been taken out of the Earth justice system many years ago, but it was still enough a part of the cultural memory that Ricky understood what she was saying. "You think we'll ever fire our phaser?" He asked, laughing.

"Probably," Shelly said, chuckling a little. "We'll probably get into a fight because I can't tell the difference between an enemy vessel and space debris."

"Ah, that's not true," Ricky said seriously. "There are a lot of these Dover-class ships patrolling the inner areas of Federation space, and they've all got officers doubling up on science and communications. I'm sure they're used to people who aren't experts. Besides, as long as you don't have to do planetary surveys and things like that, it's practically just reading a monitor."

"Yeah," Shelly responded, "But I still prefer listening to a monitor. So, have you ever done science?"

"Yeah, I studied it for a while at the Academy, along with everything else. It just didn't really suit me, though."

Shelly looked at Ricky; he was average height, with a build that was very slim for a guy. "And security does?" She asked, half-joking.

"Touché."