Montoyas Lament

Posted on Mon Jul 19th, 2021 @ 5:26am by Lara Barclay de Tolly

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Barclay de Tolly Quarters
Timeline: Six weeks ago
542 words - 1.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Six Weeks Ago

In her quarters, Lara Barclay de Tolly was studying particle fountains. Looking at the Tyran Particle Fountain, she felt the fountain created a great risk to study it as many had failed but those who succeeded barely touched the potential.

Lara heard the quarters console going beep. Walking over to it she was surprised it was from the USS Hernandez, the very same ship from her reality commanded by Captain Catherine Montoya. On the screen was Catherine’s husband Commander Antonio Montoya.

“Miss Lara,” Antonio said coughing a bit as he was hiding his incurable illness. “Two young men would like to speak to you.”

The first on the screen was Alejandro who was twelve now as well as twin brother Antonio Jr. “Lara, how are you?”

“Oh just doing my homework on particle fountains,” Lara gave a tired smile. “Is your father okay?”

“Not really,” Alejandro says, “He has a stage four cancer. The Hernandez was part of a mission where the Away team was lost for three months. There was a member of the enemy who was using temporal intelligence. Mother was able to nip it in the bud like she said with the help of USS Izar showed up. By the time he was rescued from the Devron Omega Syndicate, father’s cancer progressed. Doctors are prolonging the inevitable.”

Lara could tell the father of the twins had already left the room. “I will keep him and all of you in my prayers. How are you all doing since coming into this reality.”

“Besides this,” Antonio responds, “When we go to Starbase 23, we see people we know but they do not know us from Adam. My friend George ran into this reality version of himself. Starfleet has our ship going after Temporal Cases. Lara, there are people who are recruiting Starfleet. Be careful.”

“I did feel something recently changed,” Lara says. “Father reported it to Commander Runyon.”

Alejandro giving a gaze at Lara, “You have grown some recently.”

“So did you two,” she smiled back. “You will be teenagers next year and I will be in four years. You two behave when you become teen-agers.”

“Of course senorita,” Alejandro says flirting, “I am saving myself for you.”

“Hey,” Antonio saying poking his brother. “So am I.”

Lara giggled. “Boys. Boys.”

Captain Catherine Montoya walked in saying, “Hello Miss Lara. Sons, I have been temporarily relieved of command. We are going home to Madrid for a few months.”

The boys understood why. They hugged their mother tightly.

Alejandro turned to Lara saying with a single tear coming down his face slowly. “Love you Lara. We must go. Good luck with the particle fountains.”

“Good luck as well,” Lara said sadly. She cut off the transmission as felt empathy for the Montoya family.

Present Day.

Lara was studying now the fine art of ballet. She was wearing a ballet outfit right down to the ballet shoes. A message came in from San Francisco. It was just a video one from the twins. They told Lara that their father had passed away last week. They just wanted Lara to know.

Lara put on music from Verdi’s opera Carmen. She danced to the sad music to honor Commander Montoya.