"It's the Ocean!" Part 6: Body Surfing (Backpost)

Posted on Thu Oct 9th, 2025 @ 12:49am by Crewman Erika Yang & Lieutenant Mark Valleroy & Lieutenant Rebecca McMillen & Lieutenant JG Raven Windancer & Lieutenant JG Rala & Corey Valleroy & Connor Valleroy

Mission: Lower Decks
Location: Unnamed Class O Planet

[clothing-optional bay]

Some time later...

Rala stretched and got to her feet. A nap in the sun had been nice, particularly sans clothes, but now she wanted waves, and she wanted to move.

“I’m gonna head over to the other beach for a bit,” she said, opening the small bag she’d brought and withdrawing a pale pink, nearly white swimsuit with gold trim. “Anyone care to join me?”

Katie purred and stretched in the sun like a cat. "I'm too comfortable. Maybe later?" she yawned, blowing Rala a kiss, then turning back onto her stomach and closing her eyes.

Rala’s swimsuit was one-piece, but mostly only covered her front. A set of straps barely a centimeter wide, racerback-style, went over her head and around her first pair of arms; and another set of similar straps went over her hips and tail, joining underneath.

Getting no other responses, Rala gathered up the rest of her things, placed her empty beer bottle in the cooler for easy collection later, dipped her fingers in the half-melted ice and flicked a few drops of icy water at the others still lounging nearby, and headed for the other beach.

"Hey! Careful!!" Rebecca complained, mostly in good humor.


[Clothing-required ocean beach]

“Ahoy!” Rala called as she approached the more active beachgoers. “Thought I’d come see what’s happening over here.”

Raven was just waking up when a booming voice rippled across the beach. Raven's jaw dropped at the HUGE...dragon, dinosaur...Raven wasn't quite sure what.

A young human woman in a one-piece swimsuit and carrying a small bodyboard under the arm was walking toward the water. She waved to the newcomer. “Hello! It’s Rala, right? Erika, I work for Doctor Kellerman. You coming out for a swim?”

“That’s me,” Rala said, waving back. “And yeah, swimming, body-surfing, beach games, something; I needed more activity than is happening over there,” she jerked a thumb back toward the clothing-optional beach.

Erika laughed. "Yeah that sounds right. I'm going bodysurfing, if you wanna come along."

"Hello. I don't believe we've met. Name's Raven Windancer, Chief Flight Control Officer." Raven introduced as she walked up to the purple, four-armed individual.

Rala offered a hand to Raven, “Technically we have met; we’ve been on bridge duty together a few times, but we’ve never really talked.”

"Oh, whoops...hehe, looks like I need to be more observant." Raven blushed as she shook hands.

Mark noticed the two new arrivals to their little slice of paradise. Moving over, he nodded at them. "Ladies, welcome," he said, "Hopefully we may have some things more active over here that may be to your liking." He glanced back at his two nephews, playing some sort of tag game.

Rala gave Mark a polite nod in greeting. “As much as I was enjoying the lack of clothes—in more ways than one—the surf is calling my name.” She looked past Mark to the children, a gentle smile playing across her face before she looked around. “Is there a spare bodyboard somewhere?”

“Yeah, right over there!” Erika said, pointing to the bin where she found hers. “Quite a few sizes too, so there should be one you can use.”

Raven watched the boys for a moment, then made up her mind.

"Ya know, I'm gonna go join those two then hit the waves. Hey guys, whatcha playing?" Raven called as she walked over.

"Hey, Lt. Windancer!" Corey said with a grin as he and Connor paused their game. "We're playing Baronian tag. Are you familiar with it?"

"No, but I'd sure like to learn!" Raven grinned, eager to learn something new...and challenging.

Rala followed Erika’s point and spotted the bin. “Ah, thanks,” she said and stepped over to it, snagging a board that looked about right. She turned back to Erika, holding the board under the arms on one side and gesturing toward the surf with the other. “Shall we?”

"Let's go!" Erika ran into the water and dived belly first in, her board under her stomach, and started swimming out to sea. The waves bounced her up and down as she got further out. She couldn't look back just yet though, so couldn't see how far behind Rala might be.

If she had, she’d have seen that Rala was right on her heels. Overtaking the other woman would have been trivial, but there wouldn't have been much point in doing so.

Before long, the two of them reached what seemed to be a decent spot to wait for waves. “So,” Rala said, coming to a stop and sitting up on her board, “Erika, was it?”

"That's right," Erika said as she floated, bobbing gently with the small waves during a lull. "I work in sickbay, managing appointments and keeping patient files. All the background stuff that means Doctor Kellerman can do her job properly. And you're in Ops right? One of my friends does cargo bay work for you."

“Assistant Chief Ops Officer, yeah,” Rala replied. “Although T’Pinga’s got me directly filling in for her more than I'd have expected before I got here, including bridge duty, starting with that shit with the pirates a bit ago--not that she could have foreseen how that would turn out.”

“Yeah that was a rough encounter!” Erika agreed. “It was all hands on deck in sickbay. If you could walk, you could put pressure on a wound. I learned way more than I ever wanted to about trauma response that day. Ooh, here come some waves!”

Rala looked out to sea, and sure enough, what looked to be a decent set of swells was approaching. She turned side-on to them and watched, ready to catch one.

The first wave in the set lost size and power as it approached, as did the second. The third looked to be absorbing the strength of its brethren, and Rala took off, glancing at Erika to see if she was following.

And she was! Erika caught the wave just right. She kicked hard to keep pace with it, steering as best as she could with her arms, but laughed as she rode the wave closer to shore. It was invigorating to feel the ocean’s raw energy in this way.

Rala had no trouble matching the wave’s speed, and let her second pair of hands trail in the water as she held on to her board with the first pair. She heard Erika laughing and glanced over, a broad smile coming to her own face. She made it halfway to shore, weaving slightly left and right, before a small slip caused her board to dig into the water at an angle and be torn away, leaving her to be tumbled under by the wave.

“Shit,” Erika said as she saw Rala tumble. She maneuvered to catch her new friend’s board and let herself come out of the wave.

Rala briefly lost her bearings, until she felt her tail brush the seafloor. She lashed out with her other limbs, digging into the sand with both feet and both left arms, halting her tumble. She’d made it close enough to shore that she could stand easily, and did so—just in time to get smacked in the face by another wave just as it was breaking. She staggered, sputtering and cursing, but managed to keep her feet.

“You alright?” Erika said as she came alongside. “You wiped out good!”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Rala said, making sure she wasn’t going to get walloped in the face by another wave. “Just out of practice. Where’s my board?”

“Sorry, what’s that?” Erika grimaced as she gestured to her ear. “Couldn’t make any of that out.”

“I said I’m fi—” she started to repeat herself, then stopped. Her brow furrowed as she looked at Erika and said, “Translator check, testing, testing? Can you understand me?” When Erika continued looking utterly baffled, Rala’s eyes went wide as she touched a hand to the simple black neckband she wore. Seconds later, her expression shifted to frustration as she ran a hand down her snout, letting out a sound that something Erika wouldn’t know the exact meaning of but was clearly a curse of some sort. Rala looked squarely at Erika, gesturing first at herself, then toward land, before turning and wading toward shore.

Concerned, Erika waded toward shore with Rala. If this couldn’t be fixed easily. she wanted to be on hand to call for help.

Rala didn’t quite stomp her way out of the water and up the beach to where she’d left her things, but she was clearly irritated. Picking up the small bag her swimsuit had been in, she reached in and withdrew her combadge, tapped it, and spoke a few words in Draakri as she removed the neckband that concealed the personal translator she preferred to use.

“You alright there?” Erika asked. She hoped Rala’s commbadge would be able to stand in for the translator. “I can help if you need it.” If it wasn’t working, she hoped at least that Rala understood Standard, even if she couldn’t speak it.

Rala looked up at Erika, frowning, as she clipped the combadge onto her swimsuit. “Yeah, just annoyed. Mostly at myself,” she said, her speech once again intelligible. She held up the neckband. “My personal translator. I started working on the first version less than a month after our First Contact...and somehow, even with my world being eighty percent covered in the stuff, I never thought to harden it against saltwater.” She shoved the neckband into her bag. “Standard translation works fine as a backup, thankfully—these days, at least—but in this regard, I prefer being self-reliant.”

"Starfleet translators are pretty solid, I'm told," Erika observed. "But there's something to be said about being fit for purpose. Yours is fit for you, this one problem aside, and the Starfleet ones are one-style-fits-most. At least it's waterproof though." She held the board back toward Rala. "Want to keep going?"

“May as well,” Rala said, accepting her board back. “Hopefully I can actually stay on this time,” she continued, grinning, before taking off at a jog toward the surf, followed closely by Erika.



To be concluded…