"Things Earth People Do"
by Admiral2
2037 words
Kira Nerys stepped gingerly up to the edge of the cliff, being careful not to let her feet slip once she reached the tiny downgrade before the end. She stopped a few inches from the drop-off, planted her feet, and bent slightly to look down.
What she saw made her decide that her friend was certifiable, and she determined to have Captain Sisko make her report for psychiatric evaluation later. For now she just turned around and headed in the opposite direction of the cliff. As she passed Jadzia Dax, she shot the Trill a raised-eyebrow look and said with as much conviction as she could project:
“I don’t think so!”
Jadzia stepped in her path before she could get too far. “You promised you’d do this with me!”
Kira pointed back to the cliff. “That’s gotta be a thousand meter drop!”
Jadzia shrugged. “Well, actually it’s a thousand and twenty-six point three meters. I based it on a bluff near my home so…”
Kira raised a hand to stop her. “I don’t care if it’s a sacred shrine to the Trill people! You are not getting me to jump off of it a thousand meters up in nothing but that!” She shot a finger toward the pile of durasteel rods, cords and fabric laying nearby.
“I already explained,” Jadzia said, “the higher we start the farther we’ll go, and we’re taking all the necessary precautions!”
“Give me a runabout! Give me a raider!” She shrugged. “Give me a work bee! Anything’s better than trying to fly strapped to a glorified kite!”
“We have all the safety equipment we need,” Jadzia countered, “and if the unthinkable happens the mortality failsafes are set to full!”
Kira was incredulous. “You trust the failsafes in one of Quark’s holosuites?? How do you know someone hasn’t paid him to kill us?”
“Well...I don’t, but there are easier ways to assisinate us than letting us plan our own fatal accident. Too many variables.”
Kira shook her head in exasperation. “Right. Computer…!
“Waitwaitwait! Look, Nerys, it’s going to be great! Besides...it can’t be that dangerous! People on Earth do it all the time.”
“People on Earth?” Kira said with a chuckle. “So...Earth people jump off of cliffs in kites all the time?”
Jadzia shrugged again. “Well, sometimes they use parachutes…”
Kira grinned at Jadzia. “Right. Of course. Earth people jump off of cliffs all the time. Just one question: You’re not from Earth, are you?”
Jadzia rolled her eyes and huffed, “Of course I’m not from Earth.”
“There! You see? I knew that about you! I also know that I’m not from Earth! I also know that there’s a whole bunch of people on this station who are from Earth-” Her grin faded “-and none of them are on this cliff with us!”
Jadzia sighed. “Well, Benjamin has that diplomatic conference on Bajor, and Julian is doing his ‘frontier medicine’ thing on Maldor Three...and Chief O’Brien doesn’t want to use up his ‘suite credit…”
“Uh-huh,” Kira said. “Computer, Identify Exit!"
“Computer, Conceal Exit!” Jadzia shot back. The holosuite doors appeared and disappeared in a split second.
Jadzia took a calming breath, then said, “Look, how careless do you think I am? Of course it’s a risk, but it’s a calculated one. Literally! I replicated the parts for this device to such precise specifications that it will withstand micrometeorite impacts when we assemble it. I have precisely mapped out the route we’re going to take and exactly how far we’ll have descended at each turn. I know the exact density of the air at each altitude, the tensile strength of the fabric and what our velocity will be when we come in for a landing. I have taken every possible variable into account, and even if by some miracle I missed something and we go belly up, all we have to do is say ‘Computer, End Program.”
A second later, everything in the surrounding area disappeared, leaving Kira, Jadzia and the parts sitting in an inactive holosuite grid.
Kira supressed a chuckle. Jadzia face-palmed and said, “Computer, Resume Program.”
The cliff and surroundings returned a second later. Kira looked around for a second then turned back to Jadzia. “So...that simple, huh?”
“That simple, and in the meantime it will be so much fun! Come on, I haven’t done this in a couple of lifetimes and I want to share it with someone! You promised!”
Kira thought about it for a moment, then she held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. Let’s do it!”
Jadzia’s spirits lifted immediately. “Great! You won’t regret it!”
“But…!” Kira said with an upraised finger. “If you kill the both of us with this stunt I swear I’ll come back and haunt your next host!”
Jadzia giggled. “Consider me warned. Let’s get started.”
It took the women about a half-hour to assemble and inspect the tandem hang-glider they’d be using. After that they put on flight coveralls over the athletic gear they were wearing, along with safety equipment like knee and elbow pads, goggles, helmets with built-in radios so they could talk to each other normally, and small emergency parachutes. Thus equipped, they strapped themselves to the glider, with Jadzia front and center at the control bar and Kira behind and to the left of her.
“Ready?” Jadzia said.
“Nope! Not in the slightest!” Kira said.
“I’ll take that as ‘yes.’”
“Is your universal translator not working?”
Jadzia pretended not to hear. “We’ll push off on three. One, Two, Three!”
The two women broke into a run toward the edge of the cliff. Both were screaming, Jadzia with excitement, Kira in terror. The glider easily caught the wind, so their feet left the ground before they reached the cliff. The craft dipped a little as they got their legs into the harnesses, but Jadzia was firmly in control and had it leveled out in an instant.
“Well,” Jadzia asked, “what do you think?”
“About what?” Kira said.
“About the view!” Jadzia said.
“Oh, yeah, it’s...wonderful…”
Jadzia huffed. “Your eyes are closed, aren’t they?”
“Well…”
“Nerys!”
“Okay, okay!” Kira opened her eyes about halfway. Then she blinked and opened them wide.
Spread out below the glider was a broad, verdant plain. It was lush and green and dotted with trees and hedges all over. Off in the distance were the buildings of a small settlement and the canopy of a thick forest, while the horizon marked the shore of a deep blue lake. The glider flew slowly and Jadzia kept it flying straight so Kira could get a good long view.
“Oh…” was all she could say.
Jadzia heard the surprise in Kira’s voice and grinned. “That town off to the left,” she said, indicating the settlement, “is where I grew up. It’s one of the smaller towns on the planet so the neighborhoods are very tight-knit. I knew most of the kids who lived there when I was young and I was fortunate to have the ‘popular’ parents in the ward. My father would take me and my closest friends on field trips all the time. It was good that Riata Lake and the Drogue Forest were short hopper rides away. We went camping and fishing constantly, along with nature hikes, rowing, all sorts of outdoor activities.”
“Really?” Kira said, wondering what it would be like to live off the land and sleep outside for fun instead of for bare survival.
“I always wondered what it would be like to look down on the area from the cliff we were on,” Jadzia said. “I finally hiked up there once in my teens and took in the view. They were all my favorite places and I could see them all at once. It was breathtaking.” She began a slow turn to the right, and continued. “I made it a point soon after I was joined to go back to the cliff so I could let Dax see for himself what he’d find in my memories.”
“And his first thought was for you to fly over it without a ship?” Kira said.
“That was actually Marchan,” Jadzia said. “She was one of the first Trill to visit Earth when we joined the Federation, and she was what Humans might call an ‘extreme athlete.’ She was the one who discovered hang gliding.”
“Did she survive the experience?”
“She died of old age, smart alec.” She heard Kira chuckle and continued. “Ever since I’ve had access to her memories I’ve always wanted to try it, but I’ve only been able to do it in simulations like this. I haven’t had the chance to try it for real.”
“Does it matter if the program’s good enough? And are we getting lower?”
“We’ve been getting lower since we left the cliff, and no program will be good enough to compensate for the feeling of real wind hitting you in the face as you sail through the sky without being surrounded by alloys...at least according to Marchan.”
As they talked Jadzia had been heading the glider closer to the forest. Kira definitely noticed this, but this time didn’t say anything. She simply watched and cringed as Jadzia angled the glider toward the forest canopy, gently increasing their rate of descent. It was hard for Kira to keep her mouth shut as the treetops kept getting closer...and closer...and just as her field of vision was filled with a sea of green leaves, Kira decided to break her silence.
Jadzia beat her to it. “Hang on, and get ready for this!”
“Get ready for what?” Kira asked.
“I want to see how good the program is!” Jadzia leveled the glider when there were a few meters of clearance over the treetops and began a gentle left turn, banking the glider slowly until the left wingtip grazed the canopy.
Kira yelped as dozens of birds erupted from the canopy all around them. They shot into the air cawing in alarm and flapping their wings hard to get airborne and as far away from the intruder as possible.
“What was that?” Kira said when the birds were gone.
Jadzia leveled the glider again as she answered. “Those were Cartesian Patrol Birds.”
“Of course they were,” Kira said, “how silly of me.”
“They’re native to my world,” Jadzia said. “Drogue Forest is one of their habitats. They make their nests high in the tops of those trees.”
“And you felt the need to scare them away?”
“To show you how they deal with threats. Patrol Birds are very social animals and members of a flock will cooperate when there’s danger around. We call them ‘Patrol Birds’ because they deal with flying threats the way sentients use patrol craft. Look past the wingtips.”
Kira looked left, then right. About a foot beyond each wing a blue bird with a long twin tail and a sharp crest was flying alongside the glider. Every few seconds the birds would angle their heads slightly toward the device.
“It’s like they’re escorting us out of the area,” Kira said.
“Exactly like. They keep an eye on the threat and try to get it to go away while the rest of the flock evacuates and seeks refuge elsewhere. These two will stay with us until we’re flying too low to threaten the flock’s nests...which won’t be long now.”
Jadzia kept flying straight and level, letting momentum bleed off and watching the corresponding drop in altitude. Finally the Patrol Birds broke off and headed back to the forest. With them gone, Jadzia executed one final turn left and angled the glider toward the grassy field she’d chosen for a landing spot.
“We’ll be landing in a minute or two…” Jadzia said.
“Thank the Prophets!” Kira said, relief plain in her voice.
“Come on! You didn’t enjoy yourself just a little?”
“Well...okay, yes it was interesting to fly around like that…”
“Interesting enough to do this again next week?”
Kira thought about it. “One condition.”
“Name it.”
“Next time you get one of those Earth people in here and I get to watch you fly them around until the Patrol Birds attack.”
Jadzia laughed until the glider touched down.
by Admiral2
2037 words
Kira Nerys stepped gingerly up to the edge of the cliff, being careful not to let her feet slip once she reached the tiny downgrade before the end. She stopped a few inches from the drop-off, planted her feet, and bent slightly to look down.
What she saw made her decide that her friend was certifiable, and she determined to have Captain Sisko make her report for psychiatric evaluation later. For now she just turned around and headed in the opposite direction of the cliff. As she passed Jadzia Dax, she shot the Trill a raised-eyebrow look and said with as much conviction as she could project:
“I don’t think so!”
Jadzia stepped in her path before she could get too far. “You promised you’d do this with me!”
Kira pointed back to the cliff. “That’s gotta be a thousand meter drop!”
Jadzia shrugged. “Well, actually it’s a thousand and twenty-six point three meters. I based it on a bluff near my home so…”
Kira raised a hand to stop her. “I don’t care if it’s a sacred shrine to the Trill people! You are not getting me to jump off of it a thousand meters up in nothing but that!” She shot a finger toward the pile of durasteel rods, cords and fabric laying nearby.
“I already explained,” Jadzia said, “the higher we start the farther we’ll go, and we’re taking all the necessary precautions!”
“Give me a runabout! Give me a raider!” She shrugged. “Give me a work bee! Anything’s better than trying to fly strapped to a glorified kite!”
“We have all the safety equipment we need,” Jadzia countered, “and if the unthinkable happens the mortality failsafes are set to full!”
Kira was incredulous. “You trust the failsafes in one of Quark’s holosuites?? How do you know someone hasn’t paid him to kill us?”
“Well...I don’t, but there are easier ways to assisinate us than letting us plan our own fatal accident. Too many variables.”
Kira shook her head in exasperation. “Right. Computer…!
“Waitwaitwait! Look, Nerys, it’s going to be great! Besides...it can’t be that dangerous! People on Earth do it all the time.”
“People on Earth?” Kira said with a chuckle. “So...Earth people jump off of cliffs in kites all the time?”
Jadzia shrugged again. “Well, sometimes they use parachutes…”
Kira grinned at Jadzia. “Right. Of course. Earth people jump off of cliffs all the time. Just one question: You’re not from Earth, are you?”
Jadzia rolled her eyes and huffed, “Of course I’m not from Earth.”
“There! You see? I knew that about you! I also know that I’m not from Earth! I also know that there’s a whole bunch of people on this station who are from Earth-” Her grin faded “-and none of them are on this cliff with us!”
Jadzia sighed. “Well, Benjamin has that diplomatic conference on Bajor, and Julian is doing his ‘frontier medicine’ thing on Maldor Three...and Chief O’Brien doesn’t want to use up his ‘suite credit…”
“Uh-huh,” Kira said. “Computer, Identify Exit!"
“Computer, Conceal Exit!” Jadzia shot back. The holosuite doors appeared and disappeared in a split second.
Jadzia took a calming breath, then said, “Look, how careless do you think I am? Of course it’s a risk, but it’s a calculated one. Literally! I replicated the parts for this device to such precise specifications that it will withstand micrometeorite impacts when we assemble it. I have precisely mapped out the route we’re going to take and exactly how far we’ll have descended at each turn. I know the exact density of the air at each altitude, the tensile strength of the fabric and what our velocity will be when we come in for a landing. I have taken every possible variable into account, and even if by some miracle I missed something and we go belly up, all we have to do is say ‘Computer, End Program.”
A second later, everything in the surrounding area disappeared, leaving Kira, Jadzia and the parts sitting in an inactive holosuite grid.
Kira supressed a chuckle. Jadzia face-palmed and said, “Computer, Resume Program.”
The cliff and surroundings returned a second later. Kira looked around for a second then turned back to Jadzia. “So...that simple, huh?”
“That simple, and in the meantime it will be so much fun! Come on, I haven’t done this in a couple of lifetimes and I want to share it with someone! You promised!”
Kira thought about it for a moment, then she held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. Let’s do it!”
Jadzia’s spirits lifted immediately. “Great! You won’t regret it!”
“But…!” Kira said with an upraised finger. “If you kill the both of us with this stunt I swear I’ll come back and haunt your next host!”
Jadzia giggled. “Consider me warned. Let’s get started.”
It took the women about a half-hour to assemble and inspect the tandem hang-glider they’d be using. After that they put on flight coveralls over the athletic gear they were wearing, along with safety equipment like knee and elbow pads, goggles, helmets with built-in radios so they could talk to each other normally, and small emergency parachutes. Thus equipped, they strapped themselves to the glider, with Jadzia front and center at the control bar and Kira behind and to the left of her.
“Ready?” Jadzia said.
“Nope! Not in the slightest!” Kira said.
“I’ll take that as ‘yes.’”
“Is your universal translator not working?”
Jadzia pretended not to hear. “We’ll push off on three. One, Two, Three!”
The two women broke into a run toward the edge of the cliff. Both were screaming, Jadzia with excitement, Kira in terror. The glider easily caught the wind, so their feet left the ground before they reached the cliff. The craft dipped a little as they got their legs into the harnesses, but Jadzia was firmly in control and had it leveled out in an instant.
“Well,” Jadzia asked, “what do you think?”
“About what?” Kira said.
“About the view!” Jadzia said.
“Oh, yeah, it’s...wonderful…”
Jadzia huffed. “Your eyes are closed, aren’t they?”
“Well…”
“Nerys!”
“Okay, okay!” Kira opened her eyes about halfway. Then she blinked and opened them wide.
Spread out below the glider was a broad, verdant plain. It was lush and green and dotted with trees and hedges all over. Off in the distance were the buildings of a small settlement and the canopy of a thick forest, while the horizon marked the shore of a deep blue lake. The glider flew slowly and Jadzia kept it flying straight so Kira could get a good long view.
“Oh…” was all she could say.
Jadzia heard the surprise in Kira’s voice and grinned. “That town off to the left,” she said, indicating the settlement, “is where I grew up. It’s one of the smaller towns on the planet so the neighborhoods are very tight-knit. I knew most of the kids who lived there when I was young and I was fortunate to have the ‘popular’ parents in the ward. My father would take me and my closest friends on field trips all the time. It was good that Riata Lake and the Drogue Forest were short hopper rides away. We went camping and fishing constantly, along with nature hikes, rowing, all sorts of outdoor activities.”
“Really?” Kira said, wondering what it would be like to live off the land and sleep outside for fun instead of for bare survival.
“I always wondered what it would be like to look down on the area from the cliff we were on,” Jadzia said. “I finally hiked up there once in my teens and took in the view. They were all my favorite places and I could see them all at once. It was breathtaking.” She began a slow turn to the right, and continued. “I made it a point soon after I was joined to go back to the cliff so I could let Dax see for himself what he’d find in my memories.”
“And his first thought was for you to fly over it without a ship?” Kira said.
“That was actually Marchan,” Jadzia said. “She was one of the first Trill to visit Earth when we joined the Federation, and she was what Humans might call an ‘extreme athlete.’ She was the one who discovered hang gliding.”
“Did she survive the experience?”
“She died of old age, smart alec.” She heard Kira chuckle and continued. “Ever since I’ve had access to her memories I’ve always wanted to try it, but I’ve only been able to do it in simulations like this. I haven’t had the chance to try it for real.”
“Does it matter if the program’s good enough? And are we getting lower?”
“We’ve been getting lower since we left the cliff, and no program will be good enough to compensate for the feeling of real wind hitting you in the face as you sail through the sky without being surrounded by alloys...at least according to Marchan.”
As they talked Jadzia had been heading the glider closer to the forest. Kira definitely noticed this, but this time didn’t say anything. She simply watched and cringed as Jadzia angled the glider toward the forest canopy, gently increasing their rate of descent. It was hard for Kira to keep her mouth shut as the treetops kept getting closer...and closer...and just as her field of vision was filled with a sea of green leaves, Kira decided to break her silence.
Jadzia beat her to it. “Hang on, and get ready for this!”
“Get ready for what?” Kira asked.
“I want to see how good the program is!” Jadzia leveled the glider when there were a few meters of clearance over the treetops and began a gentle left turn, banking the glider slowly until the left wingtip grazed the canopy.
Kira yelped as dozens of birds erupted from the canopy all around them. They shot into the air cawing in alarm and flapping their wings hard to get airborne and as far away from the intruder as possible.
“What was that?” Kira said when the birds were gone.
Jadzia leveled the glider again as she answered. “Those were Cartesian Patrol Birds.”
“Of course they were,” Kira said, “how silly of me.”
“They’re native to my world,” Jadzia said. “Drogue Forest is one of their habitats. They make their nests high in the tops of those trees.”
“And you felt the need to scare them away?”
“To show you how they deal with threats. Patrol Birds are very social animals and members of a flock will cooperate when there’s danger around. We call them ‘Patrol Birds’ because they deal with flying threats the way sentients use patrol craft. Look past the wingtips.”
Kira looked left, then right. About a foot beyond each wing a blue bird with a long twin tail and a sharp crest was flying alongside the glider. Every few seconds the birds would angle their heads slightly toward the device.
“It’s like they’re escorting us out of the area,” Kira said.
“Exactly like. They keep an eye on the threat and try to get it to go away while the rest of the flock evacuates and seeks refuge elsewhere. These two will stay with us until we’re flying too low to threaten the flock’s nests...which won’t be long now.”
Jadzia kept flying straight and level, letting momentum bleed off and watching the corresponding drop in altitude. Finally the Patrol Birds broke off and headed back to the forest. With them gone, Jadzia executed one final turn left and angled the glider toward the grassy field she’d chosen for a landing spot.
“We’ll be landing in a minute or two…” Jadzia said.
“Thank the Prophets!” Kira said, relief plain in her voice.
“Come on! You didn’t enjoy yourself just a little?”
“Well...okay, yes it was interesting to fly around like that…”
“Interesting enough to do this again next week?”
Kira thought about it. “One condition.”
“Name it.”
“Next time you get one of those Earth people in here and I get to watch you fly them around until the Patrol Birds attack.”
Jadzia laughed until the glider touched down.
