The Plot Thickens

Posted on Wed Mar 25th, 2015 @ 8:37am by Lieutenant Commander Ethan Chaparral MD & Lieutenant Dylan Santiago

Mission: Temporal Kickback
Timeline: 14 years ago

Sorry everyone, my "husband" pointed out I had posted these out of order. This should have been posted before The plot thickens.


Previously:
"I don't know," Ted replied, as he surveyed the room and found a black and gold PAaD that he knew wasn't Kyle's. He opened it and played the one message. As he did so his face drained of color, "Oh my god, Delia, what are we going to do?"

Delia snatched the PADD from her husband and watched it with horror as she saw her son reciting the words he'd been told to say, naked and terrified. "We have to help him." she whimpered, all thoughts of her son's homosexuality going out of the window as she found herself wanting nothing but having him home and safe once more.

"Of course we have to pay," Ted said, but we have to contact the Chaparrals too, they deserve to know."

And Now the continuation

Ethan wasn't sure how long he'd been asleep, but he'd had a nightmare to end all nightmares. It had started out to be one of those dreams where the sheets would be messed up in the morning, but quickly dissolved into something very different.

Then he felt the body entwined with his and opened his eyes. Realizing that it had not been a nightmare at all, but cold, stark, reality. "Kyle," he whispered, "are you okay?"

"Not really." Kyle replied, having been awake the whole time that Ethan had slept, "How about you?" he asked softly.

"Well being with you, next to you, does help. But I am still..." he turned over and looked into the other boy's eyes and saw the fear there. A fear even deeper than his own and knew he had to be the strong one. "I'm still scared, a little," he continued, "but like I told you, its going to be okay. My mom isn't your typical stay at home, or even corporate grind kind of woman. She's a spy, and a pretty ruthless and resourceful one she's not going to let anything happen to me, or us. You just gotta trust me."

"Yeah but they don't even know where we are...hell I don't know where we are." Kyle replied, "What if they don't get to us in time?"

"That's not going to happen. Remember, I have that transponder. As long as your folks, call mine, hell even if they don't, if I go missing they'll activate. I love you and I'm not letting anything happen to you."

"I know you won't but I can't help having a bad feeling about this...like something really, really bad is going to happen." Kyle sighed, holding onto Ethan as if his life depended on it.

Ethan could understand where Kyle was coming from. He was convinced that his parents, especially his mom, would come through, she always had before, but still, they had to survive until she got there. And what, on the off chance that she didn't, or that she did get there too late.

Sure she had put him and his siblings through simulations and drills, so he'd be prepared. But those weren't the same thing. He knew they'd been pretend. This wasn't. He'd never been more scared in his life. He could put on a show for kyle, but really that was just to keep both of them from giving into total panic.

He clung to Kyle as tightly as the other boy held onto him.

********************************************************************
"I'm calling the Chaparral's" Ted said, "They have a right to know, besides maybe they were after their brat and Kyle just got caught up in things and they decided to take advantage of the situation."

"Whatever it is, they deserve to know." Delia nodded, knowing that she'd want to know straight away.

Ted nodded his head curtly and looked up the Chaparral's contact info on his PAaD.

^=^Mrs. Chaparral, this is, this is Ted Cross, it's an emergency. Are you there?^=^

=^= Chaparral here...what's the emergency?=^= Ullani asked as she exited the shower, towel drying her hair.

^=^Kyle, Kyle and your son have been kidnapped, they're holding them, well holding Kyle for ransom. We have to do something, we have to give them what they want.^=^

Ullani stiffened as she heard Ted's words, =^= Don't do a thing. I'll be right there and then we'll formulate a plan.=^= Rushing for her bedroom, she began to throw on some clothes, quickly filling in her husband on what was happening as she dressed.

"Ethan and his boyfriend have been taken?" he asked his voice calm, his heart racing, "Do you want me to come with you?"

"If you want to." Ullani replied, "Depending on what's going on, I might need to call in some of the boys to help out." she added referring to the unit that she usually worked with on undercover missions.

"I'd go crazy sitting around here, and I'm not going into the office. I'm coming with you."

"Then let's go. Something tells me that we don't have time to waste." Ullani replied grimly as she finished dressing and tied her still wet hair up into a ponytail.

Jamie nodded, "I'll make arrangements for someone to come get the other kids, they can move into our panic room. They'll be safe there until we get back."

"Okay...meet you out front." Ullani replied as she began to open a locked box containing her weapons and equipment.

Jamie made some quick calls, including the hospital to let them know he wouldn't be coming in, so they could reschedule surgeries and he met his wife out front. He didn't carry weapons, no any more, but he planned on asking Ulani for one if it looked like things might go south, or more south than they already were.

"Follow my lead sweetheart." Ulani said softly to her husband as they got into their vehicle, "No heroics okay?" she warned him. Her husband was courageous and she knew he'd do anything for their son. She also knew that he wasn't trained the way that she was and she loved him too much to lose him to a stupid mistake.

"Of course," Jamie said, "who was the target, Ethan or Kyle?"

"Kyle." Ulani replied as she took off like a bat out of hell such that they were both pressed back against their seats, "My guess is that Ethan was just there at the wrong time and got caught up in it all."

"Well, I know they both must be scared, but I'm sure that Ethan will remember all the training you gave him, and the other kids, he didn't seem too bored with it. And he has the transponder too. We'll get through this." He laid a comforting hand on his wife's arm, though truth be told she was the stronger one in a situation like this.

"I hope that you're right." Ulani sighed as they skidded to a halt outside the Cross's opulent home.

Ted was waiting at the door and opened it with a curt nod. "We need to discuss your son's behavior and his corrupting Kyle,"he began, "but not now. We called you, because we thought you should know. I discussed this with my wife Delia and we are going to pay the ransom and not involve the authorities. We want our son, flaws and all back."

Suppressing the urge to punch Ted for what he had just said, Ulani replied "Paying the ransom is a mistake...the only way you'll get them both back alive is if we extract them."

"Extract them? First your son turns mine into a fag and fucks his ass, and now you want to get him killed by playing the hero? What happens if something goes wrong."

"Suit yourself but if you look at the statistics, few hostage situations end happily if the ransom is paid. Most victims die anyway." Ulani replied, "But far be it from me to tell you what to do. You do what you want, I however, am going to save my son." she glared at Ted before pointing upstairs and asking "They were abducted from the bedroom?"

Ted took a deep breath, antagonizing the woman who could possibly save his son, no matter how much of a deviant, her own son might have been, was probably not a good idea. Mustering what humility he could, "So what would you suggest we do then?"

"We look at the crime scene, we look at the ransom demand and then we go find them." Ulani replied as if it were simple.

"They were in Kyle's room, his suite actually. We've given him the pool house. He loves swimming so much, it just seemed natural. "Ted started then stopped himself as he realized that he was jabbering nervously. "Let's go."

He led the Chaparrals out of the main house to what was in essence Kyle's apartment. It had a bedroom, living area and a kitchen equipped with both a replicator and a small stove. The bedroom area was in disarray. One pillow was on the bed, another off. The sheets were twisted while the blanket was half on the bed and half off. The mirror on the dresser was cracked and the nightstand had been turned upside down. Ethan's PAaD was flipped on its side and beside the pillow on the floor.

Ulani moved to pick up Ethan's PADD, hoping beyond hope that he'd left some kind of message for them to decipher. "Jamie, see if you can access the transponder." she said to her husband as she handed him her own PADD.

Unfortunately, Ethan had not been able to leave any kind of message before he and Kyle had been taken away, however, he had been able to turn on the recording function and the whole event, including his getting shot was recorded.

Jamie tried accessing the transponder, but couldn't find a signal. He shook his head and cursed, "Nothing," he said, "I don't understand. It should be there, but it's not. I don't have anything."

"Damn." Ulani looked at her husband with a grim expression as she listened to the recording in horror. As she heard the thud which clearly signified her son collapsing to the floor, she said "That blast must have shorted out the transponder."

"So, what do you suggest we do now?" Ted asked, his tone bitter, "where is your grand Starfleet plan now? You implant your Ethan with some kind of device so in case the Imperialist tactics of the Federation come back and bite you in the ass, you'll be able to get him back, but then your faggot son goes and gets himself shot and eliminates the one chance we have of finding him and Kyle. Great, just great."

Jamie, not being as disciplined as wife exploded with anger. He crossed the distance between them and punched the man in the chin, knocking him to the floor. "Don't ever talk about my son like that again and focus on what we should be focused on, getting them back."

Stepping over Ted as if he wasn't even there, Ulani said "We're gonna need a full team on this if we're going to work out where they were taken."

"I heard a noise...I....Ted!" Delia came running into the room and rushed to her husband's side, looking up at the other two accusingly as she said "What did you just do?"

"Your husband was more interested in pointing fingers and calling people names to focus on getting our sons back. He called my son a faggot, which I resent since this is the 24th century and I am one too, or used to be. Anyway I'm sorry, but I just couldn't deal with him any more."

Unable to think of a suitable retort, Delia busied herself with helping her husband onto his feet.

Ulani had taken the time to contact her people and looked up at Jamie, "I've got a couple of the team on the way, they'll help me analyse the recording and design a search pattern to look for our boys."

"Good, I know your people are very good at what they do. We'll gt them back. Safe and sound, I know it."

A joint post by

Lt. Dylan Santiago
Intel Chief

Lt. Dylan Chaparral
ACNO