The Skinny-Dipper and the Archer

Posted on Tue Apr 26th, 2011 @ 12:06am by Lieutenant Cedric Shepherd

1,380 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: Shoreleave
Location: The Planet
Timeline: Middle of Shoreleave

ON

"Okay, wait. You and your sisters went skinny-dipping? Together?" asked Crewman Luong, sitting up slightly in his deck chair, his eyebrows arched in surprise over his sunglasses.

"Yep," Gregory shrugged. "We just decided to jump off the roof into our pool as a big finish to living in this particular neighborhood."

"Nice," Ensign Sternbach grinned, then added, just to be sure, "wait, how old were you?"

"I was," Gregory bit the corner of her lip as she thought a moment, "probably 16, which would make Honor and Remy 18, and Dulcimer 14."

Sternbach nodded, considering the mental picture.

"You have a sister named Dulcimer?" asked Ensign Acklin.

"Yep. Honor and Remembrance are twins, and then me, and then Dulcimer," Gregory rattled off the list.

"18-year-old skinny-dipping twins," Sternbach murmured, more or less to himself.

"And this skinny-dipping thing, was totally normal?" Luong was still digesting the concept.

Gregory laughed. "Not really. I mean, we grew up in San Francisco so we weren't exactly shy, but this was out there even for us."

"It can be liberating, though, nudity," remarked Ensign Rajeev, sipping her mai tai. There was a pregnant moment of silence as everyone turned to look at Rajeev, all eyes curious.

"And skinny-dipping's huge fun," added PO Erne, breaking the tension. She was the only one not looking at Rajeev, because she was laying face down on her chaise, the back of her bikini top undone to prevent a tan line.

"Oh we were loving it," agreed Gregory, the moment gone. "Except for Dulcimer, who was a little timid about it--she only jumped off the roof once, and then just swam the rest of the time. And this is how crazy my little sister is: we've been swimming and jumping off the roof for an hour, all of us totally naked. So Dulcimer's sitting in the corner of the pool and Remy comes up and says something to her, I don't even know what. And Dulcimer's not listening, so Remy taps her hand. And Dulcimer snatches her hand away and shouts 'don't touch my naked hand with your naked hand!' all panicked like she'd been molested."

"Nice," Acklin laughed.

"Like somehow she was in denial?" chuckled Sternbach.

"Exactly," Gregory grinned. "I mean, if you're gonna be naked, be naked. Don't pretend you're not when you are."

"I got my clothes blown off one time," Acklin offered, clearly prepared to tell a story of his own.

"Blown off?" Luong asked.

"Oh yeah. It was amazing," replied Acklin.

"Was a woman involved?" asked Sternbach.

"Maybe a Bajoran woman," Erne quipped. "We'll bust you up good."

"Nah," smiled Acklin. "Not like that. When I was like 10 my dad got me this really sweet hot compound bow. And--"

"And you shot your clothes off?" interrupted Rajeev.

"Will you let me tell my story?" asked Acklin, feigning frustration. Rajeev silently saluted him with her cocktail glass and he continued. "So of course the first month I went around our land sticking arrows in anything that could get stuck by an arrow."

"Why am I not surprised?" murmured Gregory. Acklin ignored her.

"So when that got boring it didn't take long for me to advance to taking strips of cut up T-shirt doused in machine fuel and tying them around the ends of my arrows, and I was sending flaming arrows all over the place."

Erne snorted a laugh, and Acklin continued, "So this one afternoon, I was shooting flaming arrows into this big old rotten oak stump in our backyard. I look over under the parking canopy and see my dad's picked up a shiny new can of plasmatic accelerant for his tractor. The light bulb went off in my head."

"Uh oh," Sternbach quipped.

Acklin was too into the story to notice. "I grabbed the can and set it on the stump, and got ready to make another flaming arrow. But then I thought, 'nah, PA's flammable, but it's not like this is going to be epic or anything'. So I went back into the house and got a half-kilo can of pyrodex"

"Can of what?" asked Gregory.

"Did you say pyrodex?" asked Rajeev.

"Yeah," Acklin shrugged.

"Pyrodex is a broad name for shotshell accelerants," Rajeev told Gregory. "It was a type of Black Powder, used in old slugthrowers before they went caseless. Hell, before they even went cased. Why did your dad have pyrodex in the house?"

"Dad liked having stuff on hand for whatever," remarked Acklin, as though the answer was obvious. "Dad was always of the mind that it was good to know how to use old stuff, in case the new stuff ever quit working."

Rajeev simply sighed and shook her head in mock solemnity.

"So anyway," Acklin carried on, "At this point, I set the can of PA on the stump and open up the can of 'dex. My intentions were to sprinkle a little bit around the PA can but it all sorta dumped out on the stump there. For some reason I got it in my head that a half-kilo of pyrodex and 3 liters of PA should make a loud pop, kinda like a firecracker, you know?"

"Yeah," Sternbach scoffed.

"So I decided it wasn't enough, and went back in the house for the other can." Acklin saw the knowing smiles forming all around him and nodded, "Yes, I got a second can of 'dex and dumped it, too. Now we're cookin', I'm thinkin'."

"I stepped back about five meters and lit my arrow, and drew that sucker up perfect to my cheek. Just as I released I heard a clunk, and you know how when a bunch of things happen fast it feels really slow? Well, in slow motion I turn and see my dad getting out of his truck. He just got home."

"So help me, it took 10 minutes for that arrow to go from my bow to the can, my dad taking like two steps towards me in slow motion with this look in his eyes like he can't figure out what the hell I'm even doing. I turned back towards the stump just in time to see the arrow nail the PA can right at the bottom. Right through the main pile of pyrodex and into the can."

"Oh dear lord," Luong murmured through his laughter.

"When the shock wave hit it knocked me off my feet," Acklin confirmed. "I don't know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me back or just reflex jerk back from like 2 million fricking decibels of sound. It was nuts. The daylight turned purple, so much debris got thrown into the air. Totally insane. We had this sweetleaf tree in the yard, and that sumbitch jumped up by the roots and ran away, I swear."

"I can imagine," Erne was giggling uncontrollably.

"So there I was, on the ground blown completely out of my shoes with my shirt shredded off, and my dad is on the other side of the carport where he went for cover--his hat's blown off and is like 10 meters behind him in the driveway. All the windows on the north side of the house are blown out and there is a slow rolling mushroom cloud about half a kilometer over our backyard. We had a utility trike parked on the other side of the yard and the fenders were all melted and drooped down and touching the tires."

"I wish I knew what I said to my dad at that moment," Acklin was laughing with everyone now. "I don't even know--I know I said something. I couldn't hear. I couldn't hear inside my own head. I don't think he heard me either, but I don't remember much from that point on. I recall at one point my mom had to give me CPR and Dad was screaming 'Bring him back to life so I can kill him again!' Thanks Mom. But besides that, it's all kinda hazy."

"I'll tell you one thing, though. I never had to mow around that stump again."

The laughter was loud and long.

OFF

Cast:

Ensign Felix Acklin, Security
Ensign Jyoti Rajeev, Security
Ensign Grigori Sternbach, Security
PO 3rd Class Erne Sisqua, Security
Crewman Rhiannon Gregory, Security
Crewman Tam Luong, Security

 

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