SD242012.25 | PLOT LOG] Capt. Neyes (ret.), Aela | "Silent Night" Pt 2

Posted on Sun Feb 19th, 2023 @ 3:23am by Admiral Rochelle Ivanova & Captain Landon Neyes

971 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Genesis
Timeline: BACKLOG

December 25th
0100 PST
Camelback Springs, Arizona, USA - Earth



A wish for more time seemed like an odd ask for someone like Landon. A lifetime was an almost classically out of date notion for him, as the laws of what constituted death weren’t as cut and dry as they were for everyone else. As they were for Rochelle. He’d spend more of this lifetime than he’d wanted on thinking back, how he’d do things differently. It was all in response to her. She was supposed to be invincible, indomitable, unstoppable. Larger than life and more determined to live than anyone else he’d ever known in the ages he’d witnessed. She’d been a bright spot in Landon’s existence, much like the return of his brother, and the birth of his son. Finally back out of Starfleet, rekindling their love with one another, and made whole by his family, Landon was ready to begin it all, new, with his wife. See their child grow, love, and achieve.

Snatched away. It wouldn’t be with her. He’d do it alone. Like always, a torture he realized was his to suffer. There was nothing left. Javaan would sink into himself on hearing of his mother’s death. She was everything to him, and Landon knew there was not recovering from the loss of a mother. He brushed off a frozen tear as he sped toward the crash side. His cheeks and face raked with cold and flushed red.

The finality of it was what seared through his mind, left him raw and helpless. She felt a mere call away. All he’d need
to do would be to mark it as ‘important’, and she’d have called immediately, worried for Javaan. He’d hear the comm link in the apartment light up with her personal tone, and the serendipitous squeal from their son, excited for his mommy, would make everyone laugh. There was a lingering sensation she was still with them, on her way to pick up their son for another jaunt through the galaxy. His mind wasn’t ready to let her go. It was a cancerous sadness creeping through him, poisoning his resolve to go on and meet the day.

“The sun won’t be up for another few hours. I have time.” He said into the comm link on his visor, reaching up to the side.

“Landon please, reconsi-”... with a touch he cut the comm channel. It was secure, Aela would have made sure of it. Rarely did she call anyone, even him, on an open signal.

The frigid air whipped across what little of his face was uncovered, as the hover-bike propelled him at absurd speeds into the Mazatzal mountains. Their dark peaks only visible through his night vision and only the faintest light cast from the coruscation of Phoenix’s metropolis behind him. They weren’t particularly massive mountains, as much of this region in North America was relatively flat, but it was a bristlingly cold winter and the world was quiet with the anticipation of morning. It being Christmas Eve after all, there was little to no hardship in making his way into Arizona quickly, and the bike trip was less than hazardous. Even as he slowed, and stepped off the quieting vehicle after sliding into a dark ravine, his breathing held steady. A faintest of fog escaping from his stoic and stony features.

“Xzhu il’liras.” engage stealth, he said simply, lacking almost any emotion.

A flickering purple field flashed over himself, then the hover bike, shielding them from the perimeter sensor sweeps the recovery teams would likely be doing around the crash site. A tap to his arm created a virtual mesh of the area before him, highlighting crew and recovery craft. No guards, just officers. He’d broken into more heavily defended locations before, through this time he was markedly unarmed. Even his signature daggers were left at home, not that he’d need them to dispatch a target.

For now though, there was only investigating to be done. Aela had mentioned the Liberty would have a black box containing all the relevant information on the shuttle up until the crash. She’d warned him against moving in to recover it, but there was nothing else in the world he wanted more... Answers. So he’d copy it. Before anyone else. Something dark and deep was screaming for them inside him, clawing its way out, tearing through the barriers and walls he erected to keep himself composed and sane.

Reaching into the containers on the seat of the bike, he pulled out the equipment Aela had reservedly given him to complete this particular operation quickly. A tricorder with a distinctly Trill operative mod attached to it, some medication to help keep him lucid and clear-headed, a few magnetic pulse devices to disable equipment, rope, grappler, pitons, and… he paused.

A small wooden figurine sat at the bottom of the bag.

An odd shaped humanoid made of wood, with protrusions coming from its head. He reached in with a gloved hand to retrieve it, and noticed a tag attached: “Landon, a little Kokopelli. Because every bit helps.” His throat tightened and the smallest noise escaped him. It must have been a Christmas present Rochelle had bought, stuffed into the bike and quickly been too busy to remember she’d bought it. He pushed it back down, along with the swell of emotion it brought.

She was dead, and Landon’s threshold for pain had long since been reached. Now he stomped through the icy snow on his way into the crash site, to find who was responsible, clad in black and armed with nothing but his pain.

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To Be Continued...
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Captain Landon Neyes
Retired
Starfleet

 

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