Being Family, Finally.
By James Carmody.
Disclaimer(s): Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon, and his alone... as for Star Trek (and Star Trek Nemesis by extension- as well as the Rihannsu Series- which is a partial source for this) that is the property of Gene Roddenberry, and his as far as I can tell. Gene Roddenberry died some years ago; who inherited the copyright: I do not know. I will not accept a single cent for this- not one red cent! I formally and completely forfeit any claim to monetary gain in this fan fiction story. This is just for fun- my own and others'.
Challenge: Which story is really correct: Faith's or that of Dimitrius about what happened to the Xanathrans (Faith's people)- and why do you think so; please answer me by PM, or review and then let me reply: on sites that don't have PM, let's use comments. I really want to hear back from you.
Credits: I want to thank Ariel Dawn for that fanfic author's story "Falling for the Umpteenth Time" on said person's site; as that inspired me to produce this series- don't worry, it's different enough to avoid plagiarism- I won't ever commit that crime/sin/whatever bad deed it is... it disgusts me far too much! I also want to thank a fanfic author who goes by the penname of Acathla, for that person's lovely story "Sisters", which really opened my mind to the idea of Faith and Kennedy as siblings- again, this is different enough by far to avoid being plagiarism. I also accredit the tale "Faith's Hope" with the same idea, and want to issue public thanks to all the authors of the stories in BtVS who made both of those girls Catholic. I also want to thank the people who made Star Trek Nemesis, and all the Star Trek stories that depict the Romulan Empire, or as they call themselves: The Rihannsu Imperium. I also want to thank the person who wrote "The Amahrryn Incident" (a Star Trek/Buffy crossover- set in Classical Era Star Trek: Jim Kirk's time-period).
Pairing(s): Faith/Kennedy sisters and friends- playmates. OMC/OFC, (main pairings now mentioned, now on to minor pairings): Faith/OMC, Kennedy/OFC.
Setting: Earth, Ireland (Republic Of), UFP United Federation of Planets... set in Star Trek Next Generation Era, roughly the twenty-forth century; prior to one of the USS Titan's voyage to Romulus, maybe twenty-four years- the heart of the Romulan Star Empire. (That event Faith refers to as "going into the belly of the beast", or "Meeting the Dragon" (referring to an encounter with the absolute villain, not some minion: the Biblical "Dragon" refers to the Devil- the Secretary General of Gehenna)- she's got serious issues about her Romulan cousins) Some years after Star Trek Nemesis.
Characters: Faith Lehane (Faith La'hon) (T'Faith La'hon), Jacqueline Kennedy, OMC, OFC, OFC, OFC, OMC, (Referenced: Oliver Cromwell, Captain James T. Kirk, Captain John Luc Picard, Star Trek Starfleet Members, Various members of the Romulan Star Empire) (Cromwell will be nicknamed "The Demon Cromwell" thanks to his antics like the massacre at Drogheda).
Story Notes: Please tell me what you think: the rest of them are in this preface (This section of the story) to the tale. It's up to the reader to try to discern who's telling you the truth about what happened; in this and in the companion tale: "A Trip To Romulus". These are both parts of the same series: "Star Trek Dreamscapes". Which involve the Scooby Gang in Star Trek- "Star Trek Dreamscapes" (the series) is set in the year here on this world that Star Trek Nemesis came out- and it starts just after they watch ST Nemesis. Mostly Faith's POV.
Summary: Further Summary Inside: Mind Author's Notes (all of them) Companion Story to my "A Trip To Romulus", please read, review/comment, and enjoy.
Chapter 1.): "You're my sister now, and I love you."
Chapter 1 Beginning; Author's Notes: Story starts when Faith and Kennedy are teenagers: Faith's seventeen and Kennedy's fifteen- from there it goes to their background: camp-outs, playtime between the girls, doing eachother's: hair, nails, sitting up talking when they should be sleeping in a camp-out cabin, that sort of thing; and includes stories about their background- related to their studies in topics like World History.
This also deals with religious social teaching: especially proper relationships and human sexuality as a plot device. Another plot device I am using is the genre of "Facing the Tyrant" and items like butchery being used- as well as a deeply paranoid invasion filled to the brim with absolute hatred and cruelty. Other plot devices used include: Gulags (slave-labor camps utilized by totalitarian governments) and (for the general storyline)- including geopolitics and the like.
Please tell me what you think about this story- only the storyline, please.
Oh, and this: [text] means prayer, mostly, or temptation- depending on the direction it is going in.
This is undoubtably a platonic love-story- and it is in one of my most successful genres: family-fiction.
Jacqueline usually goes by her last name: Kennedy.
"Fai, may I climb into bed with you? I'm scared." the fifteen year old girl asked her big step-sister, or half-sister, she'd guess, and using Faith's nickname of Fai. The thunderstorm was creeping the younger teen girl out, and she needed her big sis's stronger arms around her to feel safe in the cabin the family was camping out in.
Faith chuckled a bit before responding "Sure, K, just make sure you don't read it as anything sexual- cause big sis isn't into that with girls... I don't do that, especially when it's incest." she said, replying with her kid sister's nickname she had improvised- using her first initial to be her identity was classic Faith Lehane- a mispronouncing of her original name of "Faith La-Hon". She wasn't human, but Xanathran, a subspecies of Vulcanoid- the same root stock as the Romulans were.
Faith had serious issues with the Romulans, in their invasion of her homeworld: they'd butchered most of her people; as well as utterly slaughtering the natives they were in continual war with- until the Rihannsu approached and changed the entire geopolitical arrangement between them by instilling themselves as the new 'masters' of that world- then rounded up the inhabitants to ship them to the Gulag Remus.
Remus was known as a "Hell-World", a frozen inferno and an extremely problematic place to have to live: until recently: the main slave-race in the Romulan Empire were the Remans, but in a brief and brutal civil war: most of the laborers were roasted alive in the suppression of the rebellion- most Romulan security personnel were butchered by Reman shock-troops in stunningly brutal maneuvers. In response to this dire need for further laborers to replace the depleted personnel, the Rihannsu had attacked the Xanathran homeworld. Political perspectives made this particular invasion unacceptably brutal- even more-so than what the Romulans had done to suppress the Reman Rebellion. The Romulans didn't use heavy weapons- as the Xanathrans were operating at a stone-age level of technology they didn't have any fixed settlements to conquer. The result of this is that the Romulans couldn't conquer them in the traditional methods, but rather had to hunt them down in the open field... this meant that the invasion was marked by exceptional brutality.
Both sides in this Civil War were fighting a genocide campaign- and it was only by sheer luck that the Romulans won- at the critical hour, they planted a R'Tan-class Strike Cruiser in orbit of Remus, shut down the orbital defenses, and then bombarded the settlements that were supporting the rebels- the effect was stunning: the Reman operations petered out to nothing in mere days!
Dimitrius: the Commander of this operation, had already become Emperor of the Romulan State, but the bombardment he had to do to save his people from a genocide had broken his heart- while he was lauded a hero, he went on the parade with a crying heart at what he had been forced to do. This same Dimitrius, however, had butchered the Xanathras and the "Native Demons" on their homeworld without a single blink of the eye about this move... then shipped many millions of those "Demons", often called the HSTs off to Remus to die as slave-laborers, in the methane and nitrogen snow- and never once shed a single tear about this matter.
Kennedy got up, walked over in the room the girls were sharing, and got into Faith's bed with her... for the most part- especially while the storm was continuing, the girls spent the time hugging and talking. Faith pulled the sheets up to her sister's shoulders and pulled the kid into a hug against her chest, to show her that she was loved. This is exactly what Kennedy needed: to know she was loved.
Of course, the only way Faith or Kennedy knew of what was happening to Faith's native people was by subspace radio messages, and intelligence messages that became public: this was dangerous: as a refugee, Faith might be assassinated by the members of the Tal Shiar, the fearsome Romulan Secret Police and Intelligence Service- for knowing things that could damage Romulan interests in the Federation at a later date. Almost everybody knew that the Romulans were deeply paranoid- and those with paranoia can be easily driven to do the most unacceptable things to helpless innocents: especially if it is politically based paranoia and the one who's paranoid is a head of state.
Either of those or by means of refugees... Faith swore to herself and to her God: Christ Jesus, that she would put every effort into joining Starfleet on the hope of eventually liberating her people from the yoke of Romulan Occupation.
Faith had been about ten when she had escaped with her father to Earth from their homeworld of Xanthras, in one of the 'hunts' the Romulans used as a weapon of war- the two of them had run in a direction the Rihannsu had not anticipated, had stolen a warp-capable shuttle, and slipping the blockade, made it to Federation space and Earth. Not so late afterward, they'd settled in Ireland, they'd converted to Catholicism, and he'd married a widow who had a daughter only about two years Faith's junior.
These 'hunts' the Romulans (or, as they called themselves: "Rihannsu") took part in, always followed the same pattern; and were always unimaginably brutal: common tactics were to use tanks to shadow the fleeing refugees, firing on them all the while... and sometimes literally running over the wounded and those who fell behind. They also used air-strikes to great effect to eliminate the fleeing refugees to instill a sense of terror in them. In addition: a most common tactic was to use Artillery to bombard an area to cut it off from retreat by the refugees, in the end the exhausted refugees were rounded up for labor in prison-farms.
As the girls fell asleep, Kennedy felt Faith's strong arms encircling her and felt safe, then she realized the sensation of Faith's breasts pressing against her back- and kind of freaked out: Faith's her sister- while into girls, she didn't want to act in this way with her sister!
Faith herself was lost in the memories she had since childhood- memories of a brutal past and running for her life: since the age of about nine-and-a-half, she had lost her girlhood to that tyrant who had invaded her homeworld- and she was, quite frankly, itching for some payback against him for what had been done to her friends and family.
As she drifted off to sleep, Faith's brain considered how to relate this story to her sister as a 'campfire story' about a real monster- especially provided if this thunderstorm didn't break by the next morning.
Faith was sleeping comfortably when she was awakened to a bout of screaming by her kid sis! Kenny had clearly been panicked by something. Faith concretely got the message from Kennedy shouting "Get Mom!" Faith was confused; she'd never seen Jacqueline freak out so. Climbing desperately over her kid sister, Fai ran for the door in her pjs, to try to get help.
Upon reaching her parents bedroom door, she began rapping on it as hard and with as much rapidity as she could manage, yelling all the while "Kennedy's hurt, she needs help! MOM!"
Their Mom, Abigail, was pulling on her bathrobe as she hurried out the bedroom door to the room her daughters shared. She had had great difficulty accepting Faith as her child for some reason she couldn't comprehend, but if this worked out; it'd be far easier to accept her as her little girl as well.
When she reached the room, Abigail knew immediately what was going on with her daughter. Faith, being far closer to a Vulcan than a human didn't quite understand what was going on, and Kennedy was needing time with their mom- she was crying in fear that something was really wrong with her body.
Kennedy kind of bit down on the yoke of her mommy's left shoulder as she cried in terror about what was going on with her body- the 'biting' was gentle, but the teenage girl was completely terrified of being messed up biologically.
Kennedy then looked at Faith "Could you not stay there, this is kind of private." she suggested.
Faith could tell that her kid step-sis was very upset, and needed time between her and her mom, so she calmly told them "Okay, I'll go, and you find me when this is done so I can find out. I'll be praying for you, Kenny." she said, using one of her kid sis's nicknames.
The talk between mother and daughter went on for roughly another half-hour after Faith left the room, then Abigail came out of the room, and sat down next to Faith. "I don't understand. What's going on with Kenny, Mom?" Faith responded, concerned.
Her step-mother sighed, rested her head on her hands, and paused... trying to discern how to explain this to her Vulcanoid daughter. She then looked up at her child, now dressed in a black top and dark blue jeans that fit tightly, with a leather belt around her waist with a silver clasp like those in the Old West of the United States- before its collapse. "I think that's a matter for her to tell you about, when she's ready." Faith didn't really understand, but she suspected that this was because human teen girls are very private creatures- especially about their thoughts.
Some few minutes later, her little sis came into of the room., having recently wiped her eyes at the sink. "So, Sis, how'd Mom calm you down?" Faith asked Kenny.
"I believe the closest comparison you'd be familiar with is to what she said is Pon Farr." Jackie explained. Now Faith understood: mating cycles- or the human rendition thereof! Kennedy knew that Faith was very curious about biology, and the other sciences and arts. She just hadn't had time in her childhood on Xanathras- but Faith had promised to tell her stories of her childhood there, and more about it today,,, especially if it continued to rain-storm. Kenny was just as curious about Fai's past on Xanathras as Fai was about her sister's home-planet's biology.
"So you're growing up, becoming a woman." Faith asked Jackie, to see if she understood. Pon Farr only happens once every seven years of any Vulcan's adult lifespan, and it requires mating- humans, descended from different stock, will necessarily have a massively different biology.
"Yes, or so she said" Kennedy said, sitting down across from her older sister "Half-sister" she reminded herself "But I don't have to mate when it hits, and she said it hits our women a lot more frequently than seven years,,, on the plus side: I won't die if I can't mate within that time-period." she said, taking a piece of fruit from a bowl and taking a bite. The fruit was a uglifruit, and the soft juicy flesh of the plant caused some of the fluids to wind up on her face. Faith grinned at the bronze-skinned sister she had, with the pale flesh of a fruit that had prickly skin in her mouth and hands- she just loved her as a best friend. For the first time since the fall of her homeworld, Faith was genuinely happy.
"Why'd you change your name?" Jackie asked her sister, changing the subject out of the blue.
"I dropped the T and the apostrophe that was attached to the front of my birth-name of "T'Faith" to blend in better, and avoid the odds of being tracked down by the agents of the Tal Shiar, whom our father figured would be trying to murder me, when I arrived here on Earth; besides: Xanathrans are not known well by humans, but Romulans are, as are Vulcans by now; and my name "T'Faith" sounds far too Romulan for my own safety here. Humans have made leaps and bounds getting rid of prejudice and bias, but it is still there, especially towards Romulans, or those who seem too "Romulan" for their human neighbors." Faith said, dispassionately to her sister, trying to convey her motives and 'just the facts', but Kennedy was upset that her sister was under threat of murder by a foreign government.
"To be fair, you did steal a shuttlecraft, and know some things about their operations that they probably don't want getting out into the outside world, but justifying murder? NO!" the Latina- looking younger woman shouted the last word of her statement in anger over the idea that her sister would be a victim of political murder.
Faith held her head down, as the two of them continued eating breakfast, she looked sad, and said "They were going to murder my entire village, it was (bleeping) sport to them! They were herding us to a specific area to be able to hit us with something nasty. I had seen these methods in my earlier days as a "hunter"." Faith said, seeming like she was about to cry- she was so upset.
Jackie reached out and grabbed her elder sister's right arm to try to comfort her, and told her "It's okay now, you're safe." trying to cheer Faith up.
"That's just it, it isn't. I have no idea if any of my friends or neighbors survived the massacre Dad and I escaped, with a handful of our villagers when we overpowered the guards and swiped the shuttle- the only reason I'm here talking to you right now is because he saw how the movements of their 'hunter divisions' were moving with their tanks, they had done this before, always ending it with a slaughter. Of course I didn't know what they were at the time, neither did Dad, he just grabbed me and we bolted right for the parameter of the trap we were being herded into- and we managed to escape by surprising the Reman infantry on the parameter of the trap; I think the rest of my village were murdered or kidnapped and sent to Remus to live out their days in the Gulags of the Star Empire." Faith said, with tears in her beautiful brown eyes. It was now clear as to what had Faith so upset.
"Um, what's a "hunter"? Kennedy asked her big sister.
"You know those novels you like to read, not the detective ones, but the ones about Vampire Slayers?" Faith asked, and when Kennedy nodded, Faith continued, saying "Well, a hunter is sort of the same thing, but our term, or what the Xanathran word translates as- it is better translated as "Slayer" than "Hunter", but I didn't want a connotation of "murderess" attached to me when I arrived here on this planet. I was an apprentice hunter when I ran for my life, that training being interrupted by the Romulan Invasion of my homeworld- they were worse than demons!..." Faith went off, losing her train of thought for a moment.
Kennedy then interrupted with "Why do you think he did all that nasty stuff to your people?!" she asked, angry that anybody would threaten her sister's life!
"In the beginning, Demetrius gave us agricultural technology, and equipment as well as assistance. I think it was the rituals of the 'hunter' that set him off. From news reports early on in the Romulan takeover of my homeworld; Demetrius always came across as the religious sort- they must have looked 'occultish' to him. He turned on us with a truly terrifying ferocity and might: imprisoned our people in settlements he had had established on our own homeworld... deliberately staving our people till cannibalism broke out in the settlements to sustain some of our people! He went wild: using strategic artillery upon civilian targets to cause casualties while his army massacred our people- these were, of course, after his forced treaty with our people that lead to his takeover being completed." Kennedy was now bordering on berserk in her heart to hear about these atrocities committed against her sister's people! Faith continued, blind to her sister's upset mentality, and with her borderline psychopathic personality now asserting itself, but not wanting at all to hurt her kid sister "Half-sister" she reminded herself with a internal smile, with the statement "When a hunter comes of age, the hunter engages in a ritual to bind an HST to their service as a combination of: pet, bodyguard, and science-project. This is far more for self-defense than anything else, but I strongly suspect that this was the single most important part of our society that set him into a psychotically murderous mindset towards us." she told her.
After their conversation, the girls agreed to go back to their room in the combination lean-to and bedroom where they were camping out for now, to wait out the storm. Faith had an idea of how to bond with her kid sister in a way she had heard about in human literature she was reading for school, but she had to convince Jackie to go along with it: something akin to "blood-brothers" but between girls. This would be an expression of love in the extreme, but only the platonic and friendship kind, and supposedly create a bond between the young women that would last forever; iff the ritual was performed correctly, that is. Meanwhile she'd tell her some more things about her culture, and her kid sis would hopefully reciprocate with anecdotes of her own culture. Fai really enjoyed that: cross-cultural exchange within the same family!
End Chapter 1 Author's Notes: Tell me what you think, please.
"Hunter": Xanathran term for "Vampire Slayer", yes, Faith was called to this lifestyle before her fight with Dimitrius occurred that lead to the slaughter of her people.
Dimitrius is somewhat based on the author of this story himself- this tale is an allegory to my own encounter with this overall series of Joss Whedon's work, and depicts some of the propensities I am prone to. He deliberately starved many of the Xanathrans in an attempt to break that ethnic group- yes, this tale depicts some internal matters within the author. I understand villains like him in this depiction somewhat better than most people would.
Dimitrius retaliated to local resistance and the culture of the planet by bombarding it from orbit and simple massacre, but was unable to break them by brutality- not due to lesser strength of weapons or firepower: the Rihannsu could easily exterminate the inhabitants of Xanathra from orbit if they so chose, but he wanted another labor source to replace a large number of Remans that he had to slaughter to suppress a Rebellion- that brought tears to his heart, but the killing of Faith's people was something that did not bring any regrets to him- due to his ideas of religion.
That is NOT a condemnation of religion, but rather a cry for a proper understanding of the topic- in all cases- that I am raising with this little story. The next chapter will likely be titled "Blood-Sisters" and depict them really, and I mean really bonding together with a ritual that Faith read about in history about the Old West in the United States History.
Both Kennedy and Faith are High-Status girls, but Faith lost most of hers when her world fell to the Rihannsu.
The general gist of the story should be 'sibling love', but also features school. THERE WILL BE NO STORY OF MINE THAT EVER WILL DEPICT ANY ADVOCATION OF PRACTICING GAYS (HOMOSEXUALS) ENTERING THE ARMED FORCES- THAT IS A PROFOUNDLY STUPID IDEA (putting them in the armed forces), but Kennedy's affections for Faith won't let her just sit by and tolerate anyone hurting her sister- or threatening her life. That's why she'd like to serve in the Federation's Military: Starfleet- to avenge her sister, and hopefully liberate her sister's planet from Romulan Occupation/enslavement.