JDL - Capt Rochelle Ivanova, LtCmdr Tristan Neyes - "Planes with Paper Wheels"

Posted on Tue Aug 19th, 2014 @ 4:40am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Commander Tristan Neyes PhD.
Edited on on Tue Aug 19th, 2014 @ 4:41am

4,247 words; about a 21 minute read

Mission: In the Dark

=/\=

Being in a new place always felt... big. Tristan's ice-blue eyes scrolled the scale of the main promenade on the Klingon shipyards. Tilting his head upward, bag strapped over his shoulder and a case in his hand, he took in the massive red banners cascaded downward from the unbelievable support bulkheads. Sharp jutting angles skewered the walls, between each of those were still more impressive windows which seemed to reach toward the stars themselves. The spectacular glow of a star looming beyond them. For what he understood of a Klingon base, this was a rare attribute. Of course the obvious weak view-ports could be some oddly brazen invitation for their enemies. "Come at us." Fearing nothing, naturally, the Klingons would welcome the battle.

Had he not seen similar sights a hundred times or so before this, he would have been unable to look away. Still, the image was as amazing as it was mesmerizing. This would have been Tristan's first venture into Klingon space, carried by a small Starfleet ship directly from Trill. In slipstream, the trip took only twelve hours.

Eyeing a group of Klingons, and hearing them banter loudly brought a surprising smile to his face. A few days ago this place would have put him on the edge of panic, now... he felt somewhat at home. Not because of anything Klingon, or because of the rowdy atmosphere they chose to fill their halls. No, he felt like someone who was capable of being welcomed anywhere. The Klingon's drinks spilled together as their gluttonous laughter felt like an adventurous calling, he wanted to find out.

Suddenly he was curious.

Going from the main area toward the Vindicator had been difficult enough. Many Klingons were upward of 200cm in height. Dodging them took an agility his was also all too capable of. Of course, he was never challenged in a crowd, why should now be any different? From there he moved toward the central nexus of the Starfleet ship. Having never been on a Human vessel before, Tristan was surprised to feel the same familiarity as the Klingon yards. Silently he corrected himself, no... he shouldn't feel anywhere but at home on the Vindicator. It was reminding himself that he was a newcomer to this ship that would be his real challenge.

"Computer. Locate the Cap-..." His voice halted mid-sentence, a pang of worry beginning to creep into the back of his mind. "Who is the duty officer on board?" He asked instead.

The computer chirped in compliance, "Captain Rochelle Andreevna Ivanova is the current commanding officer of the USS Vindicator. Current location, Captain's ready room."

A thoughtful curse escaped him. This was what the Commission warned him about. Meeting the crew and the command staff felt like dread attending the unknown. How would they react? He would need to remain calm and reassuring; confident in his place as the counselor. The reality they would be discussing the imminent situation within short order had of course occurred to him. Little would be standing between himself and the emotional status of the Vindicator crew, thankfully.

A flash took hold of his mind, rapacious and intrusive. Like a bubble it wormed through the canals of his thoughts and forced its way into the open. The corridor was suddenly familiar. A purpose sprung out of nowhere. An image of Landon moving through the halls of the ship, reading, and thinking became his own image. Needing to speak to Rochelle was urgent, something about a lunch-date. Ensign Ferrigan was going to be off-duty for a couple days, needed a replacement. She had a report for him… ... no. No. He was Tristan. Tristan Irelle. Nevertheless, the weight of a Captain's burden felt real to him in that moment. Pulling out of the memory was an effort he knew he would master, but for now he felt unsettled.

The lines between him and Landon kept crossing.

Hopefully it would prove to be a blessing, and lesser the curse. "To the ready room." He said aloud, entering the nearest turbolift.

With her stocking feet set up on the desk, Rochelle was in her own little unassuming world. She'd chosen her XO, exacted revenge, and chased away a match maker all in the same fell swoop. Killing multiple birds with one stone, or so the silly Earth saying went. In that moment she had found temporary peace as she scrolled through a PADD out lining what damage had been fixed and what still remained needing to be patched — something about Jeffries Tubes and a weakened patch of Hull that had been compromised by ice and atmospheric pressure.

When the chime to the ready room door went off, she merely looked up — envisioning Pond or Almar coming through the door. "Come." She called, setting the PADD down and swinging her legs back down under the desk where they truly belonged.

Neyes' hands were warm with anticipation. Knowing this had to be done was the worst part of it all. For a moment he wanted to spare them both this moment, and just head back to the airlock. Getting on the next transport back to Trill would be the safest, more merciful thing to do. He didn't know how she would handle his being on board, however. Starfleet told Tristan that Ivanova had not been informed. There hadn't been time, and communications were delicate after the start of the civil war. A final chirp of the door controls signaled her order to enter, and he steadied himself, taking normal breaths. He would get through this. They would.

The form of the man who entered was not one she had expected. The similar footsteps came first, then the eyes. Even his voice cut through the room, "Hello, Captain. May I come in?"

The Captain's heart took a flying leap into her throat as each familiar sound invaded her perception and her senses, each foot fall, the rolling satin of his voice — the beauty of his nearly turquoise eyes.... Landon. Elegant as ever, she froze as the mirage came to be and the bitter snow-filled wind of the recent past howled in the recesses of her mind. "Yes." The word came away more as a rasp as she nodded, quickly grabbing hold of herself as she broke away and studied the rest of the Trill that darkened her door. He was shorter, younger and far less stately than the man she'd, for a split second, thought he was.

Still the confusion lit the fathoms of her vibrant eyes as she watched him and motioned him towards the seat in front of her desk. "What can I do for you?"

To see her stabbed at the depths of his core. Feelings he didn't know he had, about this woman he remembered only because Landon did... Explanations ran from his thoughts. Needing to voice them without using words would have been ideal. It was clear she wouldn't recognize him outright, he expected that much. The tone of her reaction told him she was less sure about him than a comfortable conversation would allow, and some care would be needed. He covered a few steps into the room and carefully set down his belongings.

"I'm your new counselor ma'am. Reporting for duty. Lieutenant Commander Tristan-", the words jammed in his throat, barely willing to be forced out. For a split second he thought of whether to say it or not, again... knowing he needed to. Knowing what it meant.

"Neyes." The name was whisper soft, and said more than he meant for it to.

"Neyes." Rochelle repeated, her lips parting as she stared at the Trill with eyes that quickly changed from the finest Prussian to the sharpest winter's day. She could feel herself begin to shake, the shiver sending the blood from her finger tips as she found herself unable to tear gaze from her face, searching the lines and contours for a hint of something more, something other than — She was going to be sick.

Landon Neyes was dead.

They'd killed him, stolen his life for the sake of the slug he'd been chosen to feed experience after experience to and then? Poof. Deposited into the body of the counselor that now sat in front of her. Instantly she felt nothing but hate towards the bitch of a Trill that had taken him from the Vindicator, but she was the Captain. She couldn't crumble in front of her crew, let alone a greenhorn counselor holding captive the valiant spirit of the man she honored and cherished. "I see." At long last she was able to say, her tongue worrying the fullness of her lower lip as she finally averted her eyes and held her hand out for the PADD containing his orders. A hand she did everything in her power to keep steady.

Tristan only took in her reaction, and kept his own face a blank slate. A shake rattled her, and the pain in her eyes lit them up brighter than any sun ever could. She was hurting, emotional injury wracked her person as they both stood across from one another. Everything he'd been trained to see was there. A dark sadness erupted from deep inside him. The feelings of Neyes were still very new to him, breathing it all in was taking more of his energy than he'd anticipated.

Tristan hadn't been prepared for how much that was affecting him. "Captain." This would spiral out of hand if he didn't get a handle on it, "Yes." He held out a PaDD for her to take. "Before I forget, I won't pretend to know exactly what this means to you, but Landon..."

He wished he could forget.

Another sharp stab threatened his composure. "My- no uh... His injuries were too great. He did wake up briefly, but only for an hour or so. He wrote this for you." The urge to call her by her given name was greater than he was comfortable with. He felt like it would soothe her, that somehow his voice was going to calm her or tend to her wounds... but he knew better.

For a quick instant, her fingers closed and her chilled hand retreated away from the PADD as if it were going to burn her, convinced that it would render her completely and utterly useless if she touched it. Rochelle blinked and shook her head ever so slightly, gathering up the gumption necessary to continue, to endure, to be the Captain of the Vindicator even if it meant taking a self written 'Dear John' from the hands of her fallen lover's new host. She took it, removing it from his hand and setting on the desk beside her -- keeping an eye on him as she did so. "Thank you for bringing it to me." She offered him, ever the polite little song bird as she sat there feeling herself fall back to ashes as each and every second ticked past with him in her sight and Neyes nipping savagely at his heels.

If she closed her eyes, she could feel him. Hear him. Taste him.

She kept them open.

Tristan could feel her stare piercing right through into his.

"After what's happened recently, the ship is in need of a good counselor, Commander." She began, trying her damnedest to keep to the professional highroad. She deserved a metal for this one, she thought, or an Oscar. "You couldn't have come at a better time." What a lie. While the ship needed him ever so badly, Rochelle had only just started the process of picking up the pieces. Now she wished she'd called in sick, allowed Almar to hold her hostage just a little while longer, followed his demands that she take time off to recover instead of throwing herself back headlong into work. She'd felt the need to preserve Landon's legacy. Little did she know his new beginning would come to call and rip that rug right back out from under her. Inside, she was dying.

Tristan wouldn't push it. Even the reach to take the PaDD was a struggle for them both. He didn't want to give it to her any more than she wanted to read it. She was strong, he knew this already. Her personnel file was littered with a character he could understand.

"I agree." Another lie. For every cool trick he had in the book, it was taking them all to keep this up. Accepting what he knew to be a farce, Tristan allowed Ivanova her respite from the situation. "Having a counselor on board is certainly long over-due." Their conversation fell rigid and false. Neither of them wanted to broach the elephant in the room. "I'm very excited to see what my brother's ship, I mean- mine, no. I'm sorry. You're ship. I'm excited to be a part of it, I mean."

Damn. Tristan practically bent the rail of the chair he'd placed a hand on. He bit the inside of his left cheek.

Brother? A heavy sigh blew past the little redhead's coral colored lips, her head shook again -- this time less in defiance and more in straight disagreement. It seemed that life was bent on dealing her one cruel hand after another, placing Landon's own flesh and blood straight in her proverbial damage path. Tristan's little faux pas, however, had given her an in, a chance to grab hold of something and pull herself from the dark pit of despair that threatened to swallow her. And she, like a bird with a broken wind, beat furiously towards whatever chance for salvation that would avail itself to her. "Make no mistake, Commander," She refused to use his name, refused to allow the taste of Neyes to grace her tongue. Not yet. Not now. "The Vindicator continues on in the name of your brother's legacy. She's part of him. His spirit." Her lower lip quivered ever so slightly, giving her away for barely an evanescent second in time. "I'm just the lucky one who gets to narrate the story."

Tristan was indignant toward himself at this point. He brushed a hand through his hair for some reason, a tick? He wasn't sure. If it was out of some kind of want, it was the want to alleviate the pressure between himself and the Captain. With her, lingering memory residuals fluttering around and his own confused inner monologue, the cracks in his armor were beginning to show. Counselor to a crew his past-self used to command aside, standing in front of Rochelle in this moment was an excruciating test of his mettle. Landon and her represented something uncertain about his place on the Vindicator; a dangerous monster that crept in the shadows of his brother's life.

Every new interaction was an exciting minefield of feelings, and thoughts belonging to the dead people in his head.

Maybe it was better to just keep their distance at this point. He could put off a psyche report on the Captain almost indefinitely. "Landon and I haven't spoken for quite some time." He held tight the brief moment they were together on Trill the day prior.

"If he was anything like before he was joined, then I have no doubt he'd be pleased enough knowing the crew is in good hands."

It was like watching a ghost, a shimmering apparition that never truly wanted to form but only dabble in half-truths. Rochelle watched him, observing the long the long length of his fingers course through the dark shock of hair at his head — it seemed to foreign when placed against the soft shade of his skin and the tell tale Trill spots that dappled along his hair line and down the length of his neck. She knew that motion — intimately — having seen Landon practice it both in times of happiness and in stress. She'd often watched him when they spoke, his eyes half closed as he toyed with a lock behind his ear and she'd seen him use it to soothe himself in meetings where tension ran high and his temper ran hot.

Today, however, she cursed the fates for bringing her the man in front of her. There would be no secret thrill in watching his mannerisms or comfort found in the familiarity he bred between them — there would be only the shields the woman sent up to protect and guard her already critically damaged psyche. Death would have been the easy choice, it should have been, but death had been robbed and this was his greatest revenge. He sentenced Rochelle to live so close and yet so far from what she loved — and she refused to give him the sick satisfaction of watching her fall to pieces. "I like to believe so." Her voice rang, curt, clipped, cool. It would be easier to cast the gossamer veil of distaste than it would be to accept him. He was here. There was nothing she could do during times of war, no chance in Hell of having him transferred — and then part of her softened ever so slightly. He was still Landon, in some part. To transfer him from the ship would be a cruel fate after having so much torn from him.

Her fingers unfurled to brush the fated PADD, skimming over it's smooth surface as she considered it for a short moment and cursed the dent in her armor and the soft spot that would forever be Landon Neyes. "Commander..." She started, though instantly regretted it and the act of showing just how human she really was, her teeth pinched her lower lip as she considered her next words, drew a brave breath and continued, "What... What happened to Landon? What happens to people after the transfer of the symbiont?" Or was she suicidal? The curiosity came from a place needing closure, a way to say her final goodbyes even though the legacy still lived on. A confusing cluster fuck of a situation and she'd allowed herself to be immersed in it.

The caring voice returned, and Tristan was well equipped to understand her question. "I have a home on Trill. We grew up on Cesparia, but that's just work now. I know Landon didn't like to go there after our parents-... so I'm told." A memory of the entire event, Landon laying on the white bio-bed, a surgical tunic draped over him with a hole at the abdomen. An icy chill slithered through Tristan's blood, coming to a head at his spine. He had watched Neyes slowly being removed, the heat of the lamps above them and breathing of the doctors. They kept Tristan awake to insure he would accept the symbiont, and it was terrifying. Tristan clamped down on the thought, pushing it aside though it taunted him at the back of his mind.

Taking care not to miss a beat, he continued, "Landon wasn't awake. At the end, I mean. He slipped back into the coma a few hours before surgery." Tristan maintained his composure, and his professional demeanor never slipped. Remembering the death of someone else, like it was your own, only added to the striking emotion of losing his big brother. His hand wrung the edge of the chair as he spoke, the only real indicator of his inner turmoil. "Afterward he was honored by his friends," he smiled, "A lot of people know us. Then he was laid to rest on a plot at our estate in Yokala on Trill. Have you ever been?"

Rochelle swallowed hard as she listened and watched him, her eyes flitting south to observe his white knuckled grip and then back up to capture his face. He was so young, compared to Landon,but she still saw so much of his brother sitting there staring her in the face. It was uncanny and it was unfair. She fought the urge to recoil from him as he spoke, glad for the distance and the barrier of the desk between them while her mind processed his words with imagery that cut away at her reserves. She'd been denied her plea to try and save him, denied her goodbye and denied the chance to watch him be laid to rest. The last strike, of course, had been in lieu of resurrecting the Vindicator. "No," She replied, "I've never been to Trill. I may have to remedy that someday." and she would. Someday she'd make it to his graveside, someday when she was stronger and wiser than she was now.

The ship seemed to shiver around her, closing in protectively to guard her secrets and her thoughts.

He looked at her, "I can say with absolute certainty he never once thought of anything but you and this ship."

The Captain froze at his words, feeling her heart flip flop at the sound and meaning of them. "Did he?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Not really being able to pin down the tempest of surging emotions surrounding Neyes and this woman was like standing on a stone at the center of a raging river. Any attempt he made to escape only made it worse, and threatened to sweep him away. Avoiding looking her in the eye was not a luxury he could afford as the ship's counselor. He would need to be able to communicate with her openly, and freely. If the flooding waters kept rising, he was going to need a way to build a bridge.

"I'll take you there myself, if you'd like." The words laid the groundwork for his policy: she was a priority to him. If there was anything he could do to bring back the woman he knew before he actually met her, then she was welcome to see him. Until then he would remain an open door.

With a gentle smile he picked up his bag. "I'd like to answer any questions you have, Captain. And please... ask them if you think of any more. I'm afraid I need to pick up my son, though. He's due to beam over in a few minutes."

Thankfully he'd timed it that way. An escape measure he unfortunately knew he'd need to utilize.

"A generous offer," She mused out loud, sliding deeper into her seat and as far away from him physically as she possibly could be, at least as far as the mask of professionalism the ready room allowed. "One I will take into consideration." The chain pulled tight, reminding her that she was still the Captain of the great ship, reminding her that she couldn't simply ignore him or the message he brought her or the service he would provide to her and for the ship. They needed him. Someday she'd come to realize that she needed him, but today would not be that day and tomorrow wasn't looking favorable either. The softness once more became elusive, some mythical creature highly prized and avidly sought after.

He moved, rising to his feet, and she stiffened. Rochelle's jaw tipped up to level with his gaze with no small degree of mistrust oozing from every fiber of her being. She was so small and still so fragile from her ordeal, and Tristan represented a whole new level of potential hurt. Defiant as ever, a fire burned behind the crystal of her eyes as she observed him and nodded, pleased that he'd be leaving her line of sight. She'd welcome the reprieve and chance to breathe. "If I can think of any, you'll be the first to know." Rochelle found her voice as her shoe-less feet found purchase against the floor. She stood behind the desk, falling back on the politeness that Andrea had done so well to beat into her, "Welcome aboard, Commander. I hope you and your son settle in well. If you need anything, Commander Waterhouse or myself will be happy to assist you."

"I am pleased to hear that, Captain. I'll see you at duty call." He paused, thoughtfully considering his next words.

"And... My son is very much looking forward to meeting you, Captain. If you have time, he wants to hear what it's like to be commander of a starship. He doesn't believe I know anything about it," he laughed, "I hope you'll stop by and say hello."

"At duty call." She nodded, eager for him to leave and nearly blew a sigh when he didn't beat it out of there in haste.

and then it became apparent why. A child. The son. She sighed, but softly. Another weakness. "I can do better. Feel free to bring him to the bridge for a tour." She offered a small smile, quiet, demure. Damn her.

Tristan smiled warmly, the rift between them hopefully on the mend. "He will be very excited. Thank you, Captain. If you'll excuse me." He turned and left, carrying his bags with him. She didn't see him breathe in relief at leaving the room, blowing air through his lips.

The moment her doors hissed closed, Rochelle allowed herself to fall back into the depths of her seat, immediately pinching the bridge of her nose as a new flood tension washed over her. It was going to be a long, hard, bumpy road not easily traversed and better left avoided completely, but she knew that avoidance wasn't an option. May the Gods help them.

---

Captain Rochelle Ivanova
Commanding Officer
USS VINDICATOR

Lt Commander Tristan Neyes
Counselor
USS VINDICATOR

 

RSS Feed