PHD #239: Spotting
PHD #239: Spotting
Summary: Constin spots for Khloe on the heavy bags, and the two connect on Canceron and marine matters.
Date: 23 Oct 2041 AE
Related Logs: None
Players:
Constin Khloe 
Athletics Area - Deck 12 - Battlestar Cerberus
A large pair of mats dominates the center of this room, their centers taped-out for a small area to practice boxing or other martial arts. Around the outside are treadmills, bikes, weights, and an impressive variety of gym equipment to help tone and shape the bodies of the crew. To one side of the room is the locker room while at the rear is a hatch that leads back to the oversized swimming pool. Off to the side is a rack that holds boxing gloves, pugil sticks, and the associated pads for the sticks.
Post-Holocaust Day: #239

Two hours after the start of Third shift, and the off duty Constin appears to have just finished up a session on the heavy bags. The sergeant has replaced a pair of boxing gloves in his deuffel and is in the process of unwinding lengths of cottom fabric from around his hands and wrists. Sweat saturates the big man's frame and clothing, dripping onto the floor beneath him.

Another day, another ten miles of stationary bike to ride. At least, that's one of Captain Khloe "Poppy" Vakos' standard exercise routines; it's either that, or her kicking the ever-living crap out of a sand bag. She makes a bee-line past the heavy bags and past Constin, mild frown on her face, her usual dark stormcloud following behind her.

Constin catches sight of the focused Captain as she passes, grunting a simple, "Sir," in greeting between breaths. Taking a long drink from a water bottle before splashing a measure of the liquid over his head, the marine buries his face in a towel rubbing his eyes through the material.

Khloe slows to a stop, and looks behind her at the source of the greeting. "Oh. Marine," she responds in her own clipped greeting, nodding. "Sorry, I didn't see you there." She turns to resume her course to the stationary bikes, but then glances over her shoulder again at the heavy bags. "Frak it," she mutters, then sets her gear down. "I didn't feel like pedaling to nowhere, anyway." She produces some hand bindings and a little bit of tape, and starts wrapping her hands. "Been here long? Odd hour to be punching."

"Yeah, folks overlook me all the time," Constin drawls back dryly. "Never did quite get how folks could spin thier feet for so damned long," the marine opines before catching sight of Khloe's hand bindings. "Huh. You know most folks on this boat ain;t got the good sense to bring their own handwraps? Hell, some will burn through a frakking roll of tape every time out" A disdainful snort accompanies the words, unwinding his own lengthy hand and wrist supports with the next words. "Bout an hour. Came off duty at oh eight hundred. First Shift will frak with your gym time, that's for damned sure, sir."

Khloe doesn't doff any gloves on top of the hand wrappings; instead, she unzips her sweats top, revealing fatigue tank tops and such underneath. She tucks her tags underneath. "Would you mind spotting for me? I won't keep you if you've got something else to do." She begins stretching out long limbs, twisting and bending her back.

"Don't mind none," Constin returns simply. "How long you want the timer set for, sir?" he clarifies in the next breath. "It's set for three minutes, with one minute downtime, for now." Rolling up his own handwraps and dropping them inside his own duffel bag, the sergeant adds a moment later, "You know, most pilots can't hit the bag hard enough to need a spotter?" Cracking a brief brin with the needle.

"I'm not much of a boxer," Khloe confesses. "I don't go for power shots. I go for rhythm, coordination, that sort of thing." And, finally, she steps out of her sneakers, and produces yet more cotton to wrap around her ankles. "Three and one sounds fine." She crouches down to wrap her ankles, and then peers up at Constin with a lopsided, closed-mouth grin. "I don't think we've met. Captain Khloe Vakos, Knights Es-El."

"Sergeant Eleftherios Constin, Cee-em-Cee," the marine names himself in return, letting his tight grin linger throughout the introduction before fading into a more comfortable stern expression. "Know who y'are, Captain. Promotions have that effect on a reputation. Just give the nod when you;re ready and I'll start the timer."

Khloe arches a thin eyebrow. "Oh, really? Well, hopefully, my promotion has carried forward my reputation as a stone-cold bitch. I can't have folk thinking more brass makes me mellow." She bounces on her bare, taped feet, letting the cloth stretch a bit before giving it a go. "All right, Eleftherios Constin. Let's go."

"Course not, sir," Constin deadpans in return. "Being air Wing makes you mellow," he adds, cracking another short-lived grin with the words. Starting the timer running with a loud piercing beep, he takes position on the far side of the bag with a couple hurried steps.

Khloe's routine appears to be something unorthodox. She's got a fair amount of coordination to her one-two-three punches, followed by knees or shins to the bag. It's a quick, weathering assault; the bag would be jittering around if Constin weren't holding it in place. Finally, the chime comes for the one minute break, and the Captain has already worked up a good sweat. Her last punch comes with a yell, as if the timer somehow offended her; retreating briefly to her bag, she tugs out a towel.

"Solid round," is Constin's only judgement on the three minute onslaught. Throughout the Captain's flurries, the big man had watched the pilot with a clinical eye, taking note of little things like head movement and weight shifts, but saying little. "Ain't seen many folks mix in knees so much. What kinda practice you had, sir?" An eye to the clock, lest his chatter deprive Khloe of valuable workout time.

"Took some classes when I was still on Canceron, after I got clean," the Captain explains. She tosses her towel down onto her bag after a quick patting of her face, neck, shoulders. Constin has probably noticed the scarring on the inside of her left arm. "The instructor said I was a natural. Then, the Academy, and I picked up again when I had time during flight school. It's a Canceron style. Still think I'm soft Air Wing?" And then the buzzer sounds again, and she's after the bag once more.

"Shit, sir- we must'a come from different poles. I'm from Canceron, and I didn't recognize it," the Sergeant returns, with a wry twist to his lip, before cutting off words at the buzzer. "Guard up- S'go," he encourages curtly.

Whap whap bap whap, she settles into a four-tap rhythm, knee or shin is the third strike this time. Khloe says between strike patterns, "It's… the… old… equatorial… style… my… technique… is probably… flawed… as… the vacationers… control… the equator…!"

Constin snorts once at the talk of 'vacationers'. "Spent ten years in polar tylium mines," he drawls. "Only fighting I ever saw done was proper boxing- Come on now, put the face of one of them rich frakkers on the bag and HIT it," he encourages.

With another three yells, Khloe punches the bag once, twice, and then rips across an imaginary face with iron claws. She's about to start her routine again, but the chime sounds; she's getting considerably more winded now. "Much… much more exhilirating than a bike that goes nowhere," she pants, going for her towel again. As she pats down, she peers at Constin with a critical eye. "I come from one of the subsidized housing developments, north pole. Second generation crimmy folk." Crimmy, northern slang for criminal indentured workers. "Lots of poverty, crime." She points at her arm. "Drugs."

"Damned right," Constin mutters to the deprecation of stationary bikes. "You from out Hades way?" Constin drawls back at the description of her hometown. "My folks were out of Mangala. Worked out of the Canceron Corp mines in the far south for the last ten before enlisting. Never got into that shit," he drawls, giving an eye to the woman's indicated left arm. "Drank enough to kill a fish," he adds with a tight, dry smirk. "Ain't many from the old World on this boat."

"Then I am fortunate to meet you, Sergeant," Khloe says, uncharacteristically sentimental for her. Dropping her towel on her bag again, she returns to the mat just in time for the chime to sound again. She has an uncanny sense of timing; it must be a Viper jock thing. As she settles into the third permutation of her routine, she focuses more on kicks now: knee, shin, kick kick, midsection shots followed by what would inevitably be a headshot. Probably could kick the head off a Bullethead.

Constin adjusts his bracing more to the sides as Khloe unloads kicks into the bag. Well practiced at such things, he's always out of the way in time for the woman to throw kicks to either side of the bag, unimpeded. A quick look aside to the timer, precedes the curt words, "Last thirty seconds. Push it."

The Canceron expends the last bit of her current store of energy, her kicks followed by yells of exertion. This is why Khloe doesn't work the bags very often; a few other officers in the area, or passing by on the deck, peer in every so often. She's, well, vocal, in her workout and beatdown of her imaginary opponent. And then, as her routine begins to slow down because of fatigue, the chime sounds. She lands on her ass, and then pants out a chuckle and a toothy smile. "My gods… it's… much easier to get that level of… of workout, when someone's holding the frakking bag still." Reaching over for her towel, she stays right where she landed.

"Yeah- you don't get that half second of rest every time, waiting for it to swing back to ya," Constin drawls with a short snicker as he commiserates. Stepping toward the timer and hitting the switch to off, he picks up a water bottle voicing for attention, "Sir," before tossing it to the downed pilot.

Khloe catches the bottle and takes half a mouthful. "No kidding," she says. "Phew. Usually, it's, attack, duck and weave, attack, duck and weave. Unrelenting assault is… tiring. Although I can see the appeal of the Marine lifestyle," she says with a smirk. Her teeth are hiding again, a momentary weakness.

"Damned right," Constin repeats with a sniff at the 'appeal of the marine lifestyle'. "Add in jumping out of a Raptor from twenty miles above the World, and it's enough to make a fella wonder how Air Wing keeps getting the recruits," he baits with a barely visible curl to his lip. "Come in more regular and there's a good chance of catching some sparring with somebody your own size, sir. Bag work's good, but nothing matches a live partner."

"My own size? What's that supposed to mean, Sergeant?" Khloe inquires, eyebrow going up. She pulls herself up off the floor, draping her towel over her shoulders. "And for the record, I've done some my share of free-fall survival training, part of being an airman. And, well, I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie," she admits, voice dropping a little low. "Ever gone BASE jumping?"
GAME: Save complete.

"It's supposed to mean that tangling with sombody half a foot and a hundred pounds bigger than you don't do either of us any good," Constin returns dryly to the arched eyebrow. "Sir," he adds a moment later. A shake of his head to the notion of BASE jumping. "Nah. First jump I ever did was the combat drop onto Leonis. No shit- was falling for five frakking minutes, onto occupied territory. You want to talk adrenaline, Captain, that is IT."

Snorting lightly, the Captain shakes her head. "Give me someone my height, my weight, and it won't be a fair fight." Khloe's interest seems piqued. "Sub-orbital drop? Really? What was it like, other than frightening as Hell?"

Constin just eyes the pilot at her last and nods. A silent moment later he draws a breath through flared nostrils and voices. "We jumped just before sundown in the landing zone. There was cloud cover coming together, but it didn't rain til the next day. While we was falling, swear you could see the world passing from light to dark right below us." A deep breath that raises his shoulders and chest. "The bird jumped away right after we hopped out- THAT was a helluva thing," he adds ruefully. "Twenty some miles of falling, with a fight waiting on the ground. Shit sir, there ain't words. It's just the kinda thing that you just KNOW is gonna give you a good shiver for the rest of your damn days," he recounts with an open smile.

Khloe nods slowly. "Next time you Marines do a training op like that in the future, sign me up. Sounds exhilirating. What was… the circumstances behind the drop?" She takes another swing from the water bottle, then passes it back.

Constin accepts the bottle back and takes a swallow while Khloe asks her questions. "First stage of the rescue op on Leonis," he elaborates. "Cylons had real tight Anti Aircraft cover set up- we couldn't put people down without getting detected any other way." A deep drawn breath. "Me and five others jumped out above sensor range, hit the ground on Airbase anadyomene, and prepped a couple squads of abandoned Vipers for launch overnight. Dug in and fought off the counterattack the next day, while pilots dropped down to take off and join the fight to cover the extraction of the fleet folks that were trapped on the World."

"Gods," Khloe breathes, after listening to Constin with rapt attention. "I should've been born a Marine. You are one tough motherfrakker, Mister Constin, let me tell you. Must be that miner blood," she says with a closed-mouth grin.

"Course it is," Constin drawls to the word of tough miner blood. "Proudest day of my damn life," he adds, drawing a breath before noting with a look back to the pilot, "There is Jump training scheduled, Captain, but there is a Lords-be-damned waiting list as long as my arm to get in on it. Don't worry, though- Vandenberg and me get our way, there'll be more. Hay-los are the only way we've got of putting people down on occupied ground without a full fleet action, and for now, command is real keen on getting more folks trained up, so cross your fingers, sir."

"Lieutenant Vandenberg? I know her," Khloe comments, taking up the end of her towel to wipe at her face again. "And she knows me, apparently. She's also a Northener." The Viper pilot looks like she's considering. "I'll make mention of it the next time I see her. I wouldn't mind some cross-training. Keeps the mind active and engaged and the body fatigued."

"Didn't know she was a Canceron girl," he mutters idly. "Huh. Being a Tunnel Rat, I guess that makes sense." a shrug, and that's as much as he has to say on that particular subject. "Mention it. The El-Tee's not gonna get in on this first crop of jump training, either, and I know she's itching to get round two scheduled."

Khloe dips her chin in a nod. "I will. Maybe we can't get some coordination going between the Marines and the Air Wing on this. I'm glad I bumped into you, Sergeant. I'm… going to spend the rest of my hour on the bikes. Thanks for the diversion. And the spotting."

Constin nods once, and reaches down to drop the water bottle into his bag and grasp the duffel's grip straps. "Until another day, Captain." The words of parting offered, the big marine starts toward the door and a waiting shower.

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