Title: Thaya
Author: Wildcat
Series: TOS
Rating: T
Codes: Saavik/m
Summary: Saavik investigates a shuttlecraft crash and finds one very young survivor.
Disclaimer: Paramount owns Saavik. I have just borrowed her for a while and will not profit from any of this.
This story is set in my Spock/Uhura Trekiverse. It takes place between Sparrows and Utoto on the timeline, but the events of Listening for the Waves are actually more pertinent to this story.
As always, many thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Jungle Kitty.
This story was awarded 1st place for "Best Original Series Het Pairing" in the 2001 ASC Awards.
Feedback is desired.
Thaya, chapter 1
The shuttle had clearly crashed a long time ago.
Unable to suppress a disappointed sigh, Saavik turned off her tricorder. The unusual atmosphere made precise readings useless, but the data gathered by her eyes was all she really needed. They had come to this system expecting to study the variety of rich, abundant life on this previously unexplored planet. What they had not expected to find was an unidentifiable metallic mass. It was obvious that their haste to beam down had been in vain, however.
"Captain, over here," she said.
"I see, Commander." Captain Moore pulled a vine away from the shuttle to reveal symbols painted on the side. "Hmmm. Andorian. My fluency in Andorian is mostly limited to menus, but doesn't it read 'En Tharis Esed'? Means 'The Brave Man' or something like that."
"'The Bold One.'" Saavik activated her wristlight and leaned into the open hatchway. "Humanoid remains, Captain. Apparently the occupants did not survive the crash."
He nodded sadly, then motioned toward the landing party. "Dr. Creighton, Saavik, with me. The rest of you wait out here while we investigate."
Saavik climbed over a small shrub just outside the hatch, then adjusted her footing to compensate for the drunken angle of the shuttle's floor. She heard Captain Moore try to cover a cough at the scent inside the shuttle as he followed her, but she did not allow herself to react. It was not as bad as it could have been, at any rate. Clearly, the majority of decomposition had already taken place.
Dr. Creighton began scanning a figure on a small bunk as Saavik moved toward the second corpse, still seated at the helm.
"Andorian female, approximately thirty Standard years of age," the doctor said. "Died from internal injuries consistent with..."
His words faded into the background as Saavik frowned and looked closer at the dead pilot. "Captain?"
"Yes, Saavik." He joined her quickly, alerted by the tone of her voice, and both of his eyebrows rose when he saw what she was looking at. "Well."
So fresh they might have been picked only moments before, a mass of colorful flowers rested on the pilot's skeletal lap. Saavik met the captain's eyes, then they both started toward the hatch.
"Doctor," said Moore. "Come with us. It would appear that we have at least one survivor."
...
Standing in a small clearing beside the shuttle, Saavik watched the little girl while Dr. Creighton finished his examination of her parents' bodies inside. She was filthy, her white hair matted and her delicate blue features almost obscured by dirt, and she stood huddled with both twiglike arms around a stuffed toy. She was very calm. She had been unnaturally calm when they found her hiding in the bushes, too. At the moment, Captain Moore and the other two members of the landing party were searching for additional survivors, but Saavik knew that they would not find anyone. She recognized that look, the look of a child who had been alone for much too long.
Trying again to engage the child in conversation, she asked, "Does your toy have a name?"
The child's eyes widened, but her only other reaction was to tighten her arms around the stuffed animal.
"I cannot determine what sort of creature it is supposed to represent." Saavik edged closer. "Perhaps you would allow me to examine it."
The girl leaned a fraction of a centimeter away, as if afraid Saavik might snatch the toy. Saavik checked her universal translator to verify that it was operating correctly, and decided to adopt a different approach.
"I would estimate that you are six years of age. Is that correct?"
The little girl continued to gaze at the ground in front of her feet.
"Is there anyone else here with you?"
The girl's eyes, still downcast, slid almost imperceptibly toward the shuttle.
Saavik crossed her arms, at a loss for what to do next with this unresponsive child. She, Saavik, had also been alone when Spock found her, but she had hardly been unresponsive. As a matter of fact, the memory of just how responsive she had been still brought a knot to her stomach. Intent on displaying kindness, he had been unprepared for hostility from one so young. It would have been easy for her to harm him. As a matter of fact, she had never understood precisely why she did not attempt to do so. Was it his gentle manner? His intelligent expression? His nonthreatening attitude? Whatever it was, it had been apparent even to one so untamed as herself. She wished that he were here to guide her now.
Crunching footsteps from the woods told her that the landing party had completed their search. She faced the little girl, intending to ask again if there were any other survivors, but the girl suddenly squeezed her eyes shut and grew rigid.
Saavik motioned at Captain Moore. "You are frightening her."
The captain stopped in his tracks, holding the other two men behind him. "It's all right, honey. We won't hurt you."
"Signs of anyone else?" Saavik murmured.
"No," replied Captain Moore.
The little girl's eyes flickered open, and she finally looked up at Saavik. Saavik crouched next to her, careful not to touch her.
"Is this true?" she asked gently. "We must know if there is anyone else here with you so we do not leave them behind."
The little girl still did not speak, but a slight trembling in her lower lip told Saavik all she needed to know. Not moving from the girl's side, she said, "There is no one else, Captain. She is alone."
"If so, she's been on her own for months. I find it hard to accept that she survived all by herself."
Saavik did not look away from the child. "It can be done."
"All right," he said. "I'll help Dr. Creighton finish his investigation, and we'll beam up."
The little girl continued to hold Saavik's gaze as Captain Moore climbed into the shuttle.
...
Much later that evening, Saavik leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. She had been staring at the screen for too long, reading everything she could find on Andorians and running search after fruitless search—from sickbay when they learned the mother's identity, from the bridge when she finally located the registry of the shuttle, from her own computer since she went off duty three hours earlier—but she was no closer to learning anything about the child. She knew that Andorians entered into marriage contracts in groups of four, but this child appeared to have only two parents. Perhaps it was just as the deceased woman had said in her final message: there was truly no one in the universe to whom the news of the crash would matter.
The woman's features had been haunted as she recorded that final message, weakly confessing her last, desperate hope that someone would care for her child:
"My name is Sherin S'Petha," she had said. Saavik had replayed the message so many times she had committed it to memory. "We crashed here... four weeks ago, perhaps... time has lost all meaning for me... and my husband was killed instantly. I am badly injured, and I have lost hope for my own survival. If you have found this message, you must take care of my daughter, Thaya. She was uninjured in the crash, and I taught her how to find food and drink as best I could. I pray that she will survive until someone finds her, and I pray that the one who finds her will love her and care for her. Please, please, do this for her. She has no one in the universe now but me, and I will soon be gone. Please, I beg you, take good care of my child."
The woman's plea had been recorded on a padd Dr. Creighton found next to her body. Saavik did not know why she had listened to it so many times, for obviously there was no hidden meaning, but she found the woman's words strangely compelling.
So where did this leave the child? According to the ship's legal counsel, it was likely that she would eventually have to be turned over to the Andorian authorities, but for now she was a ward of the Federation and must be treated as such. She was too young to understand any of this, however. When Saavik last saw her, she was curled up on a diagnostic bed in sickbay with her small fingers still clutching the toy, her peace the merciful result of a strong dose of sedatives. Soon, the captain would be tasked with trying to explain the reality of her situation in words a young child could comprehend.
It was not an enviable task.
Saavik shut down her computer, intending to stop for the night. Instead of retiring to her bedroom, however, she left her quarters and started toward sickbay.
The mother's name was Sherin S'Petha. This meant that the child's name was Sherin Thaya, unless her father's clan belonged to one of the Hridian or Ferthen hives, in which case the child would have the father's clan name. And Saavik could not determine the father's given name, much less his clan name. Andorian lineage was always difficult to trace, with the various complicated layers of society, the lack of a strong central government, and the natural tendency of Andorians toward secrecy, but this was even more puzzling than expected. Saavik had found the mother's name in the patchy central records, but that was where the trail had stopped. No hive, no clan, no marriage, no child. Even the shuttle registry showed the mother's name and no more.
She heard the child's cries as soon as the turbolift opened near sickbay, and she hurried in to find a group of people clustered around the child's bed.
Pitching her voice to be heard over the din, she asked, "How is she?"
A stray lock of hair fell into Dr. Creighton's eyes as he glanced over his shoulder. "She's just peachy. Why do you ask?"
Saavik prepared a retort to the doctor's sarcasm as she moved closer to the bed, but before she could voice it, the child's wailing diminished to a whimper, then to a spasmodic gasping.
"Perhaps she was merely unsettled by your lack of calm," she said. "You do understand that you are radiating tension, do you not?"
"Believe me, Saavik, she became frantic long before I did." He shook his head. "It's the darnedest thing. She's been inconsolable for a good twenty minutes. I guess she just ran out of steam. At least this is a step in the right direction. It's healthier than the almost catatonic state she exhibited when we found her."
Saavik nodded. The child still appeared quite pitiful, with damp tracks running down her cheeks from each brimming eye, but she was quiet now. It was clear that she was exhausted.
"That's better." Dr. Creighton reached out to pat the child's arm, but she shrank away from his hand. He pulled the covers over her instead. "Why don't you get some sleep now, Thaya? We'll all leave you alone."
Saavik fell in step with the doctor as he walked away. "I have not been successful in locating—"
Behind them, the whimpering noise resumed.
"She does not want you to leave, Doctor," said Saavik.
Dr. Creighton turned back to his small patient and pulled over a chair. "Then I'll just stay for a while."
"In that case, I will return to my quarters. I merely wished to inform you that I have had no success with my research into her past."
Saavik started to move away, but the volume of the whimpering increased in direct relation to her proximity to the door. Then, when the door slid open before her, the whimpering turned into cries again.
She paused in the doorway and looked back at the doctor.
Dr. Creighton grinned ruefully. "I don't think it's me she wants, Saavik."
Saavik sighed and took Dr. Creighton's place beside the bed.
...
Three nights later, Saavik studied the small cot the quartermaster had delivered to her quarters. It was very much in the way, situated where she would have to detour around it whenever she passed from the outer door to her desk, but there was nothing to be done for that now. She certainly did not have enough room in her sleeping alcove for another bed, and she did not intend to spend another night in sickbay.
Perhaps it would not be so bad. Indeed, the child already seemed to be settling down for the night.
Saavik addressed the small figure huddled on the edge of the bed, her ever-present toy in her arms. "It is time to sleep. Do you require anything else?"
The child remained silent, as Saavik had known she would.
"Dr. Creighton told me to leave a dim light on. I will instruct the computer to turn off everything but this." She pointed at a miniature light on a high table near the child's bed. "I will be in the next room if you should need me."
She waited while the child made herself comfortable in bed, then lowered the lights and left the room, pleased to be back in her own quarters. She would have preferred to know that she could return to duty tomorrow, too, but that prospect was not likely. As Dr. Creighton had phrased it, the child had turned everything upside down.
No one had known what to do with her. She had not belonged in sickbay for more than the one night, but she could not be put in quarters by herself, either. They had tried to move her in with a woman who had raised several daughters, but the child had become so agitated she had made herself ill. Indeed, to Saavik's great bewilderment, the only time the child was not agitated was when Saavik was near.
Therefore, in the end, the only logical decision had been to move her here. Saavik had agreed, but she suspected that she would have had little choice in the matter even if she had not agreed. The captain, too, had become worn down by the child's behavior, and he had made it clear that his request was not, in truth, a request. Then again, it had not exactly been an order. Perhaps it was more appropriate to say that he had begged Saavik to take the child.
As Saavik bent toward the sink to wash her face, she decided that this might not be so bad. She did not have a great deal of experience in dealing with children, but she had been a child once, herself. How difficult could a single small girl be? The ship's legal counsel had been in communication with experts in Federation custody laws, and if no family was located, the child would be handed over to the Federation Office of Civilian Affairs, on Earth, pending resolution of her status. Captain Moore had indicated that this could happen as early as next week. Saavik would simply do her duty, bide her time, and soon the child would be on her way.
She turned out the bathroom light, changed into her night clothes, and climbed into bed.
...
Saavik bolted upright at the sound of a loud wail. Checking the chrono, she saw that it was 0113 hours. She rubbed her face as she climbed out of bed and stumbled into the next room.
"What is wrong?"
The girl's eyes were very big in the low light as she continued to gasp and sob. The covers had been thrown off the bed, and the girl looked tiny, trembling with her knees drawn close to her chest.
Saavik ran both hands through her hair. "I cannot help you if you do not tell me what is wrong."
The girl buried her face against her knees.
Moving closer, Saavik dug through the covers and found the stuffed toy. "Here. Perhaps this is what you want."
One small hand snaked over to clutch the toy, but the child did not stop crying.
Saavik put her hands on her hips. Unable to keep the frustration from her voice, she asked, "What else do you require? Are you hungry? Thirsty? Cold? Hot?"
The child increased her volume, and Saavik saw that her own impatience was not helping the situation. She took a deep breath and sat on the side of the bed. The child immediately quieted, and after a few moments she opened one eye and looked at Saavik.
Saavik raised both eyebrows. Too tired to cope with this any longer, she stretched out beside the child. There was not a great deal of room, but because the child was so small she was able to situate herself so they did not touch. She listened to the girl's breathing until it grew steady, and finally closed her own eyes.
End chapter 1