1220 Hours, July 26, 2553 (Military Calendar) /

Planet Chi Rho, Ectanus 45 System

"You've got to be kidding me."

The words echoed around the large, neon-lit room. Swung across the polished wood floors, weaved their way around the vending machines and shoe racks and sticky tables, and circled right back to the man who spoke them originally. When no one answered him, he tried again.

"Gunny, tell me this is a bad joke."

The Gunnery Sergeant in question waved a dismissive hand. "Romeo, how long are you planning to carry around that bad attitude?" he asked.

Romeo didn't have an answer. Aside from his expressions of both disbelief and displeasure, he found himself entirely at a loss for words.

"What are you talking about? This place is great!" Mickey exclaimed, wandering around the disco-themed venue with his hands extended out. "They've got arcade games, nachos, even one of those punching games. What else could you even want?"

"I don't know, maybe something worth doing?" Romeo answered sourly.

Buck stepped forward and slapped something down loudly on the table in front of him. "You want fun?" he asked, "Then strap these babies on."

Romeo stared at the items distastefully. "You're joking."

"No," Buck responded, a smug grin plastered on his face, "I'm ordering. Everybody suit up! It's time for some team building exercises."

The other members of the squad all obliged. Even Dutch was soon strapped into a pair of the monstrosities. Romeo couldn't believe it. Still, he finally did as he was told. He cinched himself into the hard plastic footwear and wobbled his way out onto the polished floor. "If I get a concussion out of this, I'm taking you all to court," he warned, then finally tested out the roller skates attached to his feet.

He wasn't as bad as he expected to be, in all honesty. He fell down two or three times, but overall he'd managed to keep his feet overall. The Rookie seemed to spend more time on his face than on his feet, the poor kid. Mickey did a fine job of making a fool of himself.

The real surprise, though, was Dutch. The big man had seemingly mastered the Slalom, the Fishtail, and the Heel Wheelie - and the only reason Romeo knew any of that was because Gretchen was sitting on the side explaining it to him. She was still getting used to her prosthetic leg, so she hadn't strapped herself into a pair of the death shoes yet. She seemed content to sit back and watch her husband 'wow' the squad with his incredible and unexpected skills.

The worst, however, was yet to come. Romeo had just gotten himself accustomed to the humiliation of a full squad of special operations soldiers traipsing about like idiots in wheeled shoes when he heard Buck's voice come over the building's PA system. "This one goes out to all the lovers," he said in an unnaturally deep voice. "So grab the person closest to you, because this is officially a couple's skate."

Then some ridiculous love ballad about a man who would do anything for love except a very vague "that" began to play over the speakers, accompanied by a whole slew of slow–moving disco lights that painted the entire building in a rainbow of stupid. Dutch rolled over to Gretchen and picked her up bridal-style, taking her for some long, slow laps around the rink. Buck came down from the DJ booth and grabbed onto Dare's hand, grinning brightly as she led him in a circle after the others.

Rookie, Mickey, and Romeo made an awkward semicircle around the exit, watching their squad go by. None of them exactly had someone they could partner up with, and Romeo was more than happy to take any excuse he could to stop skating.

It was all going great until Buck circled around and, harnessing some sort of 'disappointed dad' voice, said,"I don't see you skating. Grab hands and get in line." When the trio stared at him in disbelief, he grinned at them. "That's an order, gentlemen. Not a request."

Romeo groaned. He was preparing to fire off a smart comment when suddenly Rookie had one of his hands and Mickey had the other and they were dragging him onto the floor to skate alongside them.

Dutch laughed so loud he nearly dropped his wife, and Dare was taken so aback by the sight of them that she ran straight into a wall. Romeo glared daggers at them, but the effect was softened by the fact that the Rookie seemed to be having the time of his life, grinning like a kid that just tasted his first ice cream.

Finally, Romeo gave in. No point in fighting an already lost battle, he supposed.

The squad had the run of the place for the whole day - Buck had a powerful woman in the Office of Naval Intelligence who chose to do him favors once in a while, and he used that influence to get his squad a skating rink reserved for just them for an afternoon. It was a complete absurdity.

At least, that was the story Romeo was going to stick to. Nobody really needed to know that he might have enjoyed himself . . . a tiny bit.

Unluckily for him, Dare had already bugged the whole place with cameras. The next morning the sniper woke up to find pictures of himself smiling as he rolled through one of Dutch's majestic displays of rollerskate mastery plastered all over the barracks.