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Chandra surveys the scene before her. She breathes in the slightly cool spring air of the San Francisco morning.
She wonders, for about the fiftieth time, what the hell her competitive nature has gotten her into. She looks at her three companions. Two of whom had wisely elected not to engage in this particular athletic competition.
If golf could be called an athletic competition, she thinks with a rugby player’s disdain. She eyes her competitor. She has to admit that from a purely Deltan viewpoint, gazing at her competitor’s shorts, golf shirt, and ballcap, with the long red hair drawn through the hole in back into a ponytail, that she may have trouble concentrating on the game.
She looks over at her non-playing companion, standing there holding the rented golf bag. Kaylin Stone-Hunter had wisely decided to just act as her caddy, just as Siobhan Lincolnton had decided to act as Decker Sinclair’s. “You know, I think that you’re going to be okay, Cap,” Kaylin says. “That skinny-ass little body surely can’t send the ball all that far. Plus, you’re an athlete, too, with a lotta strength on you.”
Chandra grunts. She notices that Shiv is smirking at her, hearing the conversation. “You’re also old, Skipper,” she inserts.
Chandra, after sending a look of death towards her officer, or at least of career impairment, turns her attention back to Decker, who is looking out over the pristine fairway of the first hole, her driver already out and stretched above her head as she loosens up. She walks over to the tees, looking at them. Chandra feels her eyebrows rise as she chooses the tees furthest back.
The ones that had insultingly used to be referred to as the ‘men’s tees.’
She wonders if she could cheat and send a wave of active Threads towards Decker as she swings.
“Don’t even think about it,” Shiv and Kaylin murmur in harmony.
Decker addresses the ball that she has placed on the tee. Chandra sees the muscles in her arms and shoulders flex as she raises her club. In a motion that is almost dancer-like in its smoothness, she brings the club down. There is a clean ‘smack’ as the club head connects with the ball, and the tee flies over her left shoulder. Decker completes the smooth motion, bringing her club down from her shoulder, and the foot that had ended up on the point of her toes down flat.
Just like the updated edition of Golf For Dummies that Chandra had read shows.
Chandra can barely even see the ball arcing down the par-4 fairway. Until it lands and bounces in the fairway, exactly in line with the flag. Not far from said flag.
It is when she is staring down at the five gouges in the grass of the tee, while the ball stares insultingly back at her, still on the tee, that she wonders if her executive functions have taken leave of her, as well as all sense of coordination.
These thoughts are revisited when she sees that the ball has finally traveled about fifteen meters down the fairway on the sixth swing.
She turns towards Kaylin. Her loyal caddy stands there with the enemy’s caddy. A pair of golf tees sticking downward out of her mouth, resembling the fangs of a vampire.
“You know you’re going to have to replace those divots,” Shiv says helpfully, as Chandra starts to stalk from the tee towards her ball.
She looks at Decker, who is expressionless. “You got something to say, Ensign? Or should I say, ‘Yeoman’?”
A very slight smile of triumph comes over Decker’s face. “You know I like a good IPA, right?” The smile grows. “You could just go ahead and take an ‘8’ on this hole.” She wisely doesn’t mention the other part of the reward, though a hooded look in her eyes and the tip of her pink tongue showing through her teeth implies thoughts of it.
“Marvelous,” Chandra says. “Not only are you insufferable, but you like a beer that tastes like pinecones dipped in cough syrup.”
“Well, Captain,” Decker replies, “you could always take up the ancient earth sport of pickleball.”