Storytime with April - Part One

Posted on Fri Feb 28th, 2025 @ 6:34pm by Franklin Yamaguchi & Grand Admiral April Yamaguchi

Mission: Mission 112: The Heart of a Truth Long Lost
Location: Various Locations - Canmore, Earth.
Timeline: 1900Hrs - February 3rd, 2394

If it was one thing that Grand Admiral April Yamaguchi greatly preferred, it was her entire family spending a little quality time together so they could bond over a shared interest. Sharing dinner with her children was an excellent way to share their mutual issues and concerns, as well as ideas over how to face them, and deal with them.

This was something that Rachael and Benjamin Yamaguchi had done with April and her siblings. It was something that April was eager to share with her children. She knew both Heather and Jake did this with their own children and it was also the same with Talon and Coral. April also knew that Paige would do this with her child as well, once Kadian was old enough.

April looked around the dining room table as a smile graced her lips. She lifted her drink to her lips as she took a mouthfull, which she then swallowed. "Mom, why don't you tell us about your greatest victory?" Kimora asked.

April regarded her daughter. "Victory," she responded. "Not all victories come in the usual ways. By victory, you must mean that I was victorious in some battle, standing over the broken bodies of my slain enemies. With a rifle in one hand and a flag in the other?" April asked of her daughter who nodded in response. "Not all victories are won in war... Also, wars do not make one great honey," she commented. "By what metric do you define: victory?" she inquired.

Kimora paused a moment. "Well. Umm... I'm not sure." she admitted.

Thats when a second voice interrupted. "Tell us about your greatest defeat." Raymond inquired of the woman he now called his mother. "I imagine that would be a more intresting tale to tell," he added.

Franklin smiled as he regarded the group all protesting what Raymond had inquired. Haiyan indicated Raymond. "Mom, thats not fair!" the part Klingon children protested.

"Life is rarely fair, sweetie," April commented with a gentle smile on her lips. "He asked a fair question. So I will tell you today's story about my greatest defeat. I assume a fight that I was present for and one in which I directly participated,?" she asked of Raymond. He answered with a nod of his head. "Rather than one I watched from the sidelines or commanded the side responsible for losing?"

"Yes. One you directly participated in, Mom." Raymond clarified.

April shifted her position in her chair as she nodded back in response. "Very well. Tonight's tale will be of my greatest defeat and how I changed because of it." she inhaled softly as her eyes slowly went unfocused. Franklin knew this tale very well. What's more, was that he had heard this tale from his spouse several times before.

April lifted her drink as she drank a mouthful. She knew this was going to be an intresting tale to tell. Considering what she had lived through and seen. But she also had to consider if she wanted to make this story kid-friendly. "Now you may hear terms you won't recognize or understand right away, especally you two." April indicated her two youngest with her hand. "Considering you are both very young. While you both are growing fast in terms of both physical attributes and mental abilities. You both are still very young. So I will ask you to please not ask any questions. I will answer them at the end of the tale. Because guys, this story is not and won't ever be friendly to children." She inhaled a deep breath. "You will hear things that will frighten you. Thats to be expected." Yamaguchi explained for the benifits of her various children who were all sitting around the table. With the exception of her three eldest. Two of whom she had given birth to herself and the third had been adopted when she was a younger woman.

April was no fool. She was about to unleash a horror story on her own children. But she resolved to see this through to the end. "The tale begins when I was a little older than Kris and Paige are now." she slowly smiled. "Put me and Paige next to each other, one would be hard-pressed to tell us apart, but I digress." Yamaguchi paused. "I was on my first assignment, right out of the academy. The U.S.S. Yellowstone." Yamaguchi slowly smiled despite the bad memories she was about to resurrect. "Oh. She was not a new Starship. She was about sixty years old, she was an old girl but she was a thoroughbred, not a racehorse." Yamaguchi paused a moment. "The Yellowstone wasn't the best, and she wasn't the biggest or the meanest." she regarded her spouse with her dark eyes. "She wasn't even the fastest or the best equipped. But what she lacked, she more than made up for in history. The Yellowstone was a ship that was steeped in history."