Need for Speed
Posted on Sat Oct 3rd, 2026 @ 9:49pm by Chief Helmsman Kalahaeia t'Leiya & Dr. Izriel "Jaxx" Lonn
Mission:
Veils
5040 words - 10.1 OF Standard Post Measure
It was remarkable how quickly the silence became alien.
By now, Izriel was no stranger to the disruption caused by a child's arrival. His own son's birth may have been three years previous but some memories were blessedly persistent, particularly where the orientation of a new psionic imprint was concerned. He had been arguably better prepared then, at least having had an opportunity to anticipate the cataclysmic obliteration of his daily schedule, but then he'd been less endowed with a support network inclined to try and steal the baby away at the first opportunity back then. Swings and roundabouts. Izriel knew this was different; it wasn't his child, for a start, but he still felt that there was something intrinsically unfair about a newborn having a better social life than he did.
It was good for Jeassaho though, and Reuben by default. Between the three of them, it was hard to know who needed the most healing.
Being left with a night devoid of responsibilities was unusual for his current situation, however, and now that he'd crossed off every last chore he could claim to have been putting off, Izriel found himself sprawled out on his sofa trying to convince himself that the movie Leiddem had recommended actually made sense. The Betazoid wasn't the type to succumb to boredom with any kind of flamboyance but there was some validity to any prediction that he was about this close to turning the television off and just going to work. Sickbay wouldn't be more interesting but at least it would be productive.
Kali, a variety of people had observed or remarked over the years, was possibly what happened when too much energy was stuffed into too small a package to contain it, and so relentlessly and continually spilled outwards; a nature being proven at the moment by the fact that one foot was tapping the deck like a rabbit that had downed a cup of coffee the moment she stopped moving otherwise, before she had even triggered the chime to Jaxx's quarters, and her fingers, once having done so, started twisting absently between one another.
As far as telepaths went, especially for a Betazoid, Izriel was quite a reserved man. Aside from the people who had been familiar to him prior to his arrival, he didn't really 'keep tabs' on the crew with any kind of intent that would have lead to improved awareness of who might be prone to showing up on his doorstep unannounced. Quite recently, it had become quite a normal occurance, though he didn't suffer any delusion that he was at all responsible for the increase in interest. With that in mind, as he squinted at the door, Izriel realised the interruption that seemed so perfectly timed to alleviate his boredom was probably going to result in disappointment once the visitor realised there was no baby present.
He hit the pause button and tried not to wince as he pushed up off the couch. An earlier workout had chastised him for leaving it so long since the previous. He called out as he crossed the space to beat the opening door.
"Come in."
"Hey." Kali stepped into the room as the doors opened; her eyes making the usual brisk reflexive circuit of a room she was entering; but finding, as she expected in this case, nothing alarming. "I'm, uhh, not risking waking up your...guest...am I?" All of her sisters had had the tendency during their infancy to wake at the slightest noise at times; and 'deal with screaming infant' wasn't that high on her list of desired activities for the day.
It wasn't unreasonable to say it took a lot to surprise Jaxx. At the very least, he wasn't a man who wore his emotions quite as visibly as some of his fellow Betazoids and so the hitch upwards of his eyebrows might have counted as an emotional abberation had it lasted long enough to make an impression. It wasn't strictly true that he'd been actively avoiding the Romulan because that would have suggested having any good reason to seek her out in the first place. That didn't thwart the immediate discomfort of Kali's company; not for the reasons some might have been wary of her turning up unannounced but because he hadn't arrived at a strong conclusion regarding versions of the future that seemed a little far-fetched and highly unlikely to come to pass. The knowledge, if shared, would only serve to create unnecessary discomfort and yet Izriel hadn't been able to shake the suspicion that Kali wasn't the kind of woman who appreciated secrets being kept about her; even ones that were practically make-believe.
"She's not here," he replied, having taken a moment amidst his bewilderment to figure out who she meant. "Jeassaho has her for the night so I don't think you'll wake her unless you intend to create a ruckus."
"I mean. Been there, done that; plenty of times. How do you think I got banned from a decent number of bars and casinos in this sector?" Kali grinned. "But I wasn't planning on creating one at the moment, no. More on seeing if you'd be interested in hitting up a local hoverbike racing course while we're here." The grin, if anything, grew wider; a not-uncommon expression on a pilot contemplating anything fast and maneuverable.
As was often the case with silences that involved Izriel, the next few seconds were loaded with an abundance of rapid-fire analysis. His first instinct was to treat the invitation as wildly unusual, a bias provoked by the imaginary connection of an unlikely future that, to the best of his knowledge, Kali knew nothing about. It was only once he let go of any suspicion that she'd somehow figured out the impossible that Jaxx recalled a conversation during a group social event at the bar where his penchant for pushing the limits had been called out as being in direct opposition to his calm and composed facade. It had mostly involved Jeassho calling him out for being an adrenaline junkie, and everyone else trying their best not to look like they didn't believe her. Jaxx had expected everyone to forget about it; evidently, he'd underestimated at least one of them.
"Last I heard, the place was awash with atmospheric fog and fire-dancing. They actually have a decent hoverbike circuit?"
"The fog is a feature; not a bug. Makes the course more challenging." It was the confident (and possibly slightly bragging) reply of someone who'd been trained thoroughly on handling various flight craft by either instruments or sight in either space or a variety of planetary atmospheres. "Though, I'd still recommend against fire dancing while on the bike...not that I can't be entirely sure Burnie wouldn't try it..."
The next words died on Izriel's lips before he could get them out, mouth poised in the act of reconsideration before closing again. Refusal seemed required but for a partially-illogical reason that focused too much on the prevention of a situation that was by no means likely to eventuate. There was the far simpler guilt of not telling Kali about events that had involved another version of her but that in itself seemed like a choice between benevolent ignorance and burdening her with knowledge that didn't actually mean anything. Little girls who looked exactly like their mother except for a pair of startling hazel eyes did not suddenly emerge out of the ether just because he made a fool of himself on a hoverbike. He had been meaning to pay the planet a visit at some point...
"Let me grab a jacket."
Kali gave a small human-style nod, and in another move one was relatively unlikely to see from most people with the same ear points, leaned ever-so-slightly against one bulkhead to wait, a move that when combined with the deceptively thin-looking heated leather jacket and biker's gloves she was clad in, gave more of an impression of 'wayward adolescent' than 'professional pilot and former intelligence analyst'.
As it turned out, the kind of outfit required for a night watching movies on the couch wasn't anywhere near adequate for that same night spent chasing the fog around on an alien planet's best version of a single-person high-speed vehicle. In the time it took Jaxx to locate suitable pants, boots and his wayward leather jacket, he'd had ample excuse to chastise himself for agreeing. Forget the ongoing moral dliemma of keeping secrets about imaginary events; he'd just agreed to spending the next few hours showing the best pilot in the region just how elegantly he could fall off things.
His smile, once he emerged once more, was a little wry around the edges. "Right, let's go see how much of the local landscape we can tear up."
For all that she outwardly appeared reckless (and, in some ways, age-appropriately was), a closer look at Kali's behavior and actions sometimes gave hints that this trait was a bit more balanced in certain areas than it looked - case in point, the rather thorough inspection she was finishing giving the hoverbike she'd been rented by the track staff; the sort of over-attention to detail drilled into most pilots about pre-flight inspections....even if in this case the vehicle in question wasn't likely to get more than a couple meters off the ground.
"If this doesn't scream 'haunted house crossed with racetrack' I dunno what does..." Kali shifted the position of a few of the controls to account for her rather unimpressive height. "...Notice most of the other folks in line weren't local; so I suspect we've stumbled into a giant tourist trap." She gestured at the bike the rather bored-seeming local operating the rental booth had issued Jaxx. "Yours good?"
"The tourist part is understandable, let's just hope they've not leaned too heavily into the trap aspect."
Jaxx, on the balance of things, wasn't sure he was very confident. Not just in the bike he was crouched beside, though there were certainly a few signs of previous misuse that made him wonder about the previous riders' fates, but in his own ability to navigate this kind of terrain. More than anything, the lighting was impressively deceptive for something he assumed was naturally-occurring. Riding through the fog and gloom was undoubtedly atmospheric but the inherent dampness in the air wasn't going to be any better for the bike's inner-mechanisms than it was for promoting circulation in his fingers.
"I think it'll hold together," he eventually declared, rising to dust off his hands on the back of his pants. "The chassis has seen better days but don't we all feel that way some days." Though his typically placid expression barely faltered, there was a hint of mischief in the Betazoid's eyes to suggest he had very much tempted fate on purpose.
"Speak for yourself." Kali laughed. "I'm not even fifty yet; most other vulcanoids would consider me to still firmly be in the 'young adult' category." She hopped up onto the bike she'd been issued. "The perfect age to be both old enough to be allowed to do dumb stuff; and young enough that people aren't that surprised when you do."
"This wouldn't be considered 'dumb stuff' though, right?" Despite himself, Izriel gave in to the urge to push back before he had a chance to consider the wisdom of teasing a Romulan for a second time. "This is a highly responsible attempt to interact with the locals, a feat of diplomatic goodwill, right?" Swinging a leg up onto the bike, the Betazoid bounced several times to get a feel for the best position and cringed slightly at the faint yet persistent squeal of well-worn suspension. "We're practically ambassadors."
"Well; I won't deny that 'giving the locals your money' is generally a way of improving their opinion of you. Exactly how much of our money we have to end up giving them depends on whether or not the bikes are still usable at the end of this." Kali grinned, and revved the engine on hers, making it vibrate and quiver slightly where it had previously just hovered motionless. "Ready?"
Much to his quiet surprise, Izriel realised he was. Not just for pushing the limits of a high-speed deathwish through unchartered terrain but for doing something frivolous at all, in the company of an unfamiliar and therefore slightly unpredictable ally no less. For all his reasons for accepting Reuben's request for 'temporary surgical support' had related to a much-needed escape from the complexities of his private life, the Betazoid hadn't done a very good job of actually dealing with the emotional residue of holding another's secrets for so long. The slight backfire of his craft's engine as he throttled it on should have filled Izriel with some trepidation but, instead, he made an uncharacteristic choice to revel in the thrill of impending adrenaline and found volume enough to call over the roar of an engaged gearbox, "Ask me when we get there!"
It was audacious to think a craven starting advantage would do him much good for very long but at least, as his bike lunged forward, Izriel could take some comfort from the fact he hadn't thrown himself into the mud at the first hint of acceleration. It was all muscle-memory, surely. Suffering from several years of entropy at this point.
Kali's grin grew, if anything, wider for a moment at the unexpected challenge; only a split-second behind in her start. The omnipresent fog made the terrain harder to see, including the first of the ramps built into the course, ground abruptly starting to slope up shortly after the first turn, and the launch off of it left one with - thanks again to the fog - only minimal idea of exactly where and how far down the landing was. The shocks on the bike had definitely seen better days, because once it hit the ground, crouched low onto it, she was glad she was hanging on as tightly as she was of the reverberations from the impact might have thrown her off. Inasmuch as she could see through the mist, though, Jaxx, still slightly ahead, must've managed to stay on his as well as she didn't see any shapes on the ground large enough to be another bike or rider - they appeared to have mutually left most of the rest of the riders in the dust for the moment, probably because- she had to suspect they would have all claimed if asked - none of them were quite as insane.
It took only a few minutes for Jaxx to realise that leading the pack wasn't all it was cracked up to be. There was a life lesson in that probably, one he suspected he was already very well aware of or could at least be accused of making ample use of when it came to the direction his life tended to take. It wasn't unfair to say that he usually favoured the quieter recesses of the background, leaving the limelight for those who actually thrived in it. Perhaps the universe was having just a little too much fun at his expense and this was all a giant metaphor crafted for self-reflection. Right now, it was a case of 'philosophy be damned'; he could barely see where he was going.
Someone who had dedicated their life to putting people back together probably should have found that more alarming than current adrenaline-levels actually permitted. It wasn't that he wasn't somewhat concerned that he was about to create an Izriel-sized smear against the uncompromising trunk of a tree he couldn't see in time to avoid. Jaxx very much feared that, at best, he was going to end up nose-first in one of the many mud puddles and at the pace they'd settled into, it was a bit much to hope the only injury would be to his pride. It was just that, for once, the very palpable risk felt liberating in a way he couldn't spare the brain power to figure out and, rather than focus on the danger, his only reaction when Kali finally pulled up alongside was to shout at the top of his lungs in abundant approval, "This is such a terrible idea!"
"Definitely!" Kali shouted back, and toggled the antigrav field balance on the bike in such a way to briefly force it into the antigrav version of a 'wheelie', front lifting up vs the back for a few moments before slamming back down. What the move potentially cost her in speed in made up for the in one of the other qualities her profession was sometimes known for; showing off.
It was enough to make Jaxx laugh, which under the circumstances seemed a little ill-advised and yet caught him unawares enough to be difficult to avoid. It came from such an honest rush of sincere pleasure that it very nearly became the cause of his first spectacular defeat, swerving to avoid a clump of bushes a little later than over-correction could account for. Instinct, at least, gave him the good sense to ease off the pace and though the necessary course correction left him quite literally eating Kali's dust, the Betazoid grinned at the fresh challenge and reengaged acceleration to take pursuit.
Kali, her jacket and pants now relatively dusted with a fine coating of the local dirt, rolled her eyes as she palmed a credit chip to the local inspecting the bikes after the race, who had spent the last five minutes or so chattering at her about the damage and stress she'd put on the one she'd had. If they didn't want it to test it limits, they shouldn't be running them on a racetrack. The roar of another bike coming across the finish line through the mist, however, put a grin on her face.
"I think we left them all in the dust." Kali grinned at Jaxx and waved a hand to the spot to bring his bike in next to where the rather judgemental alien tech was finishing getting hers ready to go back to the storage area, or more probably, the maintenance shed. "With any luck, they won't have quite as many things to say about the condition of yours as they did about mine...." She rolled her eyes again irreverantly.
For the bulk of the remaining journey towards the finish line, Jaxx hadn't really been left with a lot of time for introspection. At some point, a combination of survival instinct and adrenaline-fused compulsion to push his own limits had made such a contradictory mess of his concentration span that the Betazoid had taken the unusual route and just stopped over-thinking for ten minutes. There had still been time, however, for a very brief reflection of wonderment that Kali had managed to get so far ahead and stay there, without incident, even though the last part of the course was definitely more hazardous than the start. He was also very grateful for the fact, since it had left him without an audience for the massive mud puddle he'd disturbed, the bulk of which was now splattered over his bike's chassis and his own face. It did nothing to curb his grin, nor dampen the first real display of exhilaration the surgeon had mustered since leaving Betazed.
"I don't know," he quipped as he disembarked. "They might have something to say about the amount of gunk lodged in the repulsor intakes."
"If they don't want mud in things, well, they shouldn't have so much mud." Kali laughed, as the alien tech came over to inspect Jaxx's bike. Though it's probably an inevitable consequence of the mist." The alien frowned looking Jaxx's bike over, but finally gave the local equivalent of a sigh and handed the pair of bikes off to a colleague as a few more riders finally came up to the finish line of the course and he became focused on them. "Come on, let's go find somewhere for a drink."
"This has gotta be the weirdest bar patio I've ever been on." Kali laughed, knocking back an appreciable sip of her cocktail, which was as swirled around with mist as the rest of the table, chairs, and patio around them. "Honestly I might have to be careful how much time I spend on this planet if this mist gets much thicker; moisture in the lungs isn't really great for us. How's the beer?"
"I think the word they use is piquant," Izriel replied, his gaze angled downwards into the amber depths of his glass. It certainly looked like beer, even if he had a sneaking suspicion it was closer to mead and that it had been used as a sacrificial votive for whatever spice gods this current festival was trying to appease. "I don't know how I feel about it, though I can at least say I've never had anything quite like it."
"Cocktail is kinda...interesting...too, yeah." Kali nodded. "Menu says it's Saurian brandy-based but whatever else is in it definitely alters the flavor profile. Still, it's probably for the best the place has a patio; I'm not sure they would have let either of us into a nicer place at the moment." Kali glanced at the dust covering her, and the drying mud splattered over Jaxx, and laughed. "Figured you could use a break from the baby. I used to watch my sisters when they were infants; and it was pretty intense. Though I'm not sure how that changes when the baby is a telepath or not."
The comment, and the gesture it was rooted in, provoked a faintly bittersweet smile. As far as Jaxx's normal disposition went, it was far closer to normal than the exhilarated whooping he'd succumbed to earlier but was no less honest in its attempt to convey his appreciation. Caliea's situation was a complicated one entirely on its own merit, which didn't account for what the people trying to help her brought to it. Jeassaho's grief, Leiddem's inexperience, the combined medical team's complete lack of reference for a species that appeared on no register or manifest anywhere. Parenting practise was his only fall-back and even that was awkward when it served to highlight not only the distance from his own son but the niggling recollection of two children he'd never actually get to meet.
"Right now, the challenge comes more from trying to guess what grounding she needs to develop in a healthy way. If experience has taught me anything, our greater concern will be what to do with her when she starts developing the capacity for an opinion." The Betazoid huffed softly. "Hopefully we will have got her home by then."
"I can speak from experience with my sisters that when little Romulans start getting old enough to have opinions, at least, breakable objects in the household tend to suffer for awhile until they get old enough to start beginning to get even a basic handle on the temper that goes with the ears." Kali laughed, then pursed her lips more thoughtfully. "Of course, if we don't know much about her species, we also unfortunately don't know how difficult they are or aren't in the toddler phase..."
"I think the Federation courts will probably step in before we reach that stage." As it was, the time was ticking on getting official channels involved in the little girl's situation and Izriel was struggling to deny that having access to greater resources wasn't a better option to floundering in the dark. He wanted to give Leiddem's investigation a chance, however, at least this way there was no trying to convince a bunch of bureaucrats that further separation issues would likely cause their young ward even greater long-term harm. Rather than dwell on the inevitable, the Betazoid took a moment to consider the other side of the conversation and regarded his companion with calm interest. "There's always plenty of opportunity for babysitting if you're feeling nostalgic though."
"I'm not sure that would exactly be best for her." Kali shrugged her shoulders and eyebrows. "I've been close with telepaths before - one of my best friends in my Starfleet pilot days was a Betazoid - and while she was fine with the inside of my head, she was also a fellow fighter pilot, so, well, she was a certain degree of intense herself, too. I wouldn't want to scare the kid with whatever she might be able to read off me emotionally."
It was a moment of pragmatic self-reflection that caught Izriel by surprise. As much as he had actively avoided any kind of indepth analysis of his experience with the time fractures, he had emerged from the turbulence with at least vague impressions of certain members of the crew that tended to influence his interactions now. In Kali's case, that had undeniably resulted in a cautious amount of active avoidance but that had nothing to do with her being any kind of problematic company, not of the nature she was suggesting now. If anything, there was a niggling curiosity regarding an apparent compatibility that just didn't feel appropriate to speculate on, and so he didn't. Or at least he hadn't. Now, the fleeting impulse to chastise her for being so hard on herself felt presumptuous if only because of the confidence rooted at the centre of his certainty.
"She already modulates quite well. And I think you have better control than you're giving yourself credit for."
"I know at least three admirals who would disagree, there. Though I maintain they totally deserved it. Though you might be the first person to ever suggest I have decent control - to a lot of humans, I've been told, I seem, well...extreme. Intense and erratic. That kinda goes with the pointed ears, honestly; but most of us hide it better than I do. Which is why to a lot of Romulans I just look immature." She took a long sip of the bizarre cocktail. "I think things will turn out better for the generation after me though, probably; now that there's enough of us around that everyone will have to think about how to make it work, raising kids who need to learn that control in places like Earth that aren't set up to teach it."
Izriel sat in his own introspection for a moment, a consideration over a sip of beer he was still unsure he actually enjoyed. "Perhaps it's more that the credit should reflect an unwillingness to curb authenticity to appease the masses," he eventually posited, a faint smile painting the proposition in a partially playful light. "My people are quite big on freedom of expression," he pointed out. "Though they are equally as enomored with emotional regulation so perhaps that's not quite a fair claim. You seem to do all right." The Betazoid offered a more definite smile as he arrived at a less philosophical compromise. "I'm sure those admirals had it coming."
“Oh, they definitely did, yeah. So did most of the idiots I’ve ever clocked in bar fights since then.” Kali laughed. “So, what are your other plans for while we’re here? Or are you planning to go back up to the ship?”
The question earned a squint of consideration, alongside a pause that didn't do much to hide how unprepared Izriel was to answer it. "You know, you mentioned hoverbikes and I didn't give a lot of thought to what else might be on offer." If anything, his reasons for accepting the invitation were complicated enough that Jaxx couldn't say for certain he even understood them completely. Craning around to look behind him, he added, "I guess it would be rude not to look around."
"There's a variety of markets that have some cool stuff, and local shops - some of the markets are total tourist traps; but that's kinda to be expected. I had decent luck a couple days ago at one of the dress shops, though; got some nice stuff custom tailored. Beyond the shops and markets and occasional one-off stuff like the race course, there's mostly various events linked to the festival itself. Anything in particular you'd be looking for?"
It took a second but eventually a wince of preemptive apology saw Izriel voice what he had been quietly contemplating for the last little while. "Well," he started, his hesitation more the product of mischief than genuine reluctance, "there is someone back on the ship who is about to outgrow just about everything we've replicated for her so far." Though he maintained decent control over his smirk, as always it was the Betazoid's eyes that gave him away. "What do you say? Will your reputation survive helping a guy buy baby clothes?"
"Sure. If anything in some circles it would intensify it - " Kali grinned again. " - for some species, one's reputation as a credible threat tends to go up once one does things like buy baby clothes - nothing is more dangerous in some to risk crossing than someone with a child to defend."
Despite his best efforts, Jaxx was reminded of the disorientation of displacement merging with the blurred hostility of a coiled viper herding his own child behind her and, for the first time since the whole time fracture debacle, the Betazoid felt a real twinge of regret. He'd seen so much, experienced so many variations, the only way to move on from it all had been to process most of it as he would any other dream. Still...
...he knew exactly what Kali meant. He'd nearly been force-fed his own teeth as proof of it.
He smiled, faintly rueful but also, it had to be said, with a due amount of deserved admiration. "Then let's go dare a few locals to mess with us." As he rose, Izriel considered the grumblings of a certain hoverbike broker and added, to be fair, "Again."
