I do not claim any characters from the Trek Universe, and am only using any named herein to tell a story meant for entertainment purposes only.

Star Trek: Lost Mare

1

"This is the last one," the physician asked wearily as the patient was rolled into the operating theatre by an intern who had to be equally as worn out after helping with the recent disaster to strike their city-state.

"Yes, Dr. Marcan," the head nurse replied as she pulled back the stained sheet draped over the battered body of the last patient.

"Oh. Oh, my," the student nurse at her side gasped as C'yla pulled the sheet back.

"What's wrong," the physician asked with a yawn. It had been a long night, and even he was ready to call it a day. Past ready. But he had taken an oath, and unlike some of his more mercenary brothers, he took that oath seriously.

"Look at this," C'yla told the physician as she pulled the bloodied mass of blonde hair from the patient's face. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"Blessed Maker," the attending nurse gasped as she stared down at the pale, flat visage of the creature before them. "Is it….some kind of mutate?"

"What it is, is an injured being that needs our help," the taller, very masculine physician grunted as he glared at the nurse who had backed away. "C'yla, start the IV, saline, and four CC's of prylis."

"Yes, doctor," the head nurse nodded as she went to work.

"Interesting. This is obviously a female, but she looks like no mare I've ever seen," the physician commented as he cut away the ragged garment that covered the pale, slender body.

"She…. She doesn't even have proper hooves," the student nurse gasped as she recovered enough to pull the patient's strange footwear off while the other duty nurse tended to her ruined clothing. "Her feet are dreadfully mutated. I'm not even sure how she walks on those….those things. She must be one of the gene defectives we've heard about from the wastelands."

"More and more interesting," the doctor murmured as the head nurse efficiently set up the IV, and filled the medicines required.

"Not even a vestigial tail," he murmured as he rolled the smaller body over enough to help pull away the last of the filthy rags soaked in the patient's own blood. "Nurse C'yla, I am starting to think this is not a simple mutation."

"What do you mean," the older nurse asked in alarm as the doctor carefully cleaned, and wrapped the wounds on the creature's forehead.

"I think….it could be an entirely new evolutionary break," he told her as his tail flicked in betrayal of his own astonishment.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes rounded as she gave a soft nicker of alarm. "But….how would such a thing be possible?"

"Who can say? With all the pollutants, and biological weapons that the wars have been unleashed on our world over the recent years, I'm surprised we haven't seen even worse than the usual mutations that have been discovered to date."

"Poor filly," the student nurse murmured, having regained enough composure herself to continue her task of cleaning the strange patient. "Even her body hair is so sparse as to be nonexistent. She doesn't even have a decent coat."

"I suspect she must be from one of the rural herds, or there would have been some exploitive media all over her before now. Fortunately, we can forestall any such shame for her, or her family," the doctor declared as he began the necessary treatments after ensuring his patient was going to survive.

"Do you think even gen-gineering can repair mutations this extensive, doctor," the young nurse asked, her own soft, brown eyes now lit with sympathy.

"We can hope. It depends upon the damage to the basic genome. She is whole, so that is promising. She has all her limbs, and aside from the flatness of her face, and her deformed hooves, she looks remarkably human."

"She has almost no nose at all," C'yla grimaced. "I cannot imagine how she must have coped growing up."

"She looks young. Likely she has been kept isolated somewhere, as I surmised," Dr. Marcan decided as they continued tending the wounds as the therapeutic herbs began their work.

C'yla looked down at the strange female with a frown. "

Then how did she end up in the public records building? Had that brave firefighter not spotted her, she would have burned to death for certain," she pointed out.

"Perhaps she came looking for a cure. You know that some of the rural herds still live in relatively primitive conditions," the physician remarked as they finally pulled a fresh sheet over the still body after their work was done.

"She is responding well, doctor. The wounds are already knitting," C'yla noted as several of the more severe gashes and burns began to show signs of rapid healing as the special serums, and regenerative herbs available to them began to work on her. "She should be fine, now."

"Keep her sedated," the doctor decided after scratching the underside of his muzzle. "Once she is fully recovered, I think we'll begin her gen-gineering before the media can find out about her, and turn the poor filly into another freak show. By the time the she wakes up, she'll have an entirely new life waiting for her."

"But, doctor," C'yla asked uneasily at that claim. "Who will pay for it? If she's from the rural herds, she's likely not even of any worker caste."

"Someone takes care of her. And that means someone will pay the bills."

"How can you be sure," his senior nurse asked.

"Logic, C'yla," Dr. Marcan snorted as he shook his head, freeing part of his thick mane from the collar of his surgical tunic. "Look at how unblemished her flesh is beyond her wounds, and how smooth. An abused, overworked filly in her condition wouldn't look half so well. Nor has she been starved. Someone must be taking care of her. Someone with enough credits to pay for the treatment. Even if they don't, or won't, I'd help the poor thing myself on principle. We are healers, after all," the gray-colored male of humble birth himself told her curtly.

"Of course, doctor," C'yla nodded, her own reddish mane's forelock falling forward to give her a girlish look despite her age.

"Keep an eye on her all the same. Let me know immediately if there are any changes in her condition. And, C'yla? No media," he stated sternly.

"I understand, Dr. Marcan," she nodded to the kind-hearted healer. "I'll see to security myself."

The overtaxed physician nodded, and went to find a place to sleep off his own exhaustion.

ST

"Any trace of her," Captain Ben Sawyer asked his communications officer as he entered the bridge from the side hatch.

"Nothing, sir," the lean, blue humanoid with three eyes replied he turned to face the burly human with blonde hair cut close to his bullish skull. "I've been monitoring all frequencies, and the planetary network in her region as well just in case, but I've heard nothing."

"This isn't good," Benjamin Sawyer told his bridge crew needlessly as he took his command chair. "She should have been in and out of there in two hours, max."

"She could have been delayed. This is a first contact situation, and she knows she can't afford to risk exposing herself to the natives."

"Noted, if redundant, Lt. Myers," Sawyer told his security chief who glared at him with her dark green eyes.

"I can scan for her life signs, sir," Ensign Buvoki told him as the six limbed wolf-like creature turned from the science station. "But with their current level of technological development, there is still the possibility they could detect our scans, and trace our presence."

"Let's hold off on that option, then," Ben told him. "She's only an hour overdue. We'll give her a few more to account for innocent delays. If after that we've had no word, we'll have to do something. I cannot…. Will not leave one of our people behind."

"Should I prepare a landing party," the Amazonian woman with long, dark hair asked as she wore her usual scowl while looking over the consoles that gave her the data from the mission.

"Stand down, Lieutenant. Recall, we're not here for trouble," the captain snapped at the woman too ready to leap into a fight at the best of times.

"But, sir….!"

"I said, stand down. Spiros," he told the cerulean-skinned communications officer. "Continue monitoring all frequencies. We will consider our options if she continues to fail to check in. Until I decide otherwise, we do nothing," he said, eyeing Lt. Dorothy Meyers. "Nothing," he added with emphasis.

The muscular woman scowled.

ST

"She's handling the gen-gineering well, doctor," C'yla beamed at the handsome male physician who returned to study his patient after his rest. "Aside from some minor discomfort during the initial genetic repairs, she has done well. A few hours more, and she will look no different from any other filly born on the planet."

"I see," he murmured as he studied the sleeping patient. "Her muzzle is still going to be shorter than usual, but that will hardly make a difference compared to what she was," he nodded with a smile. "She already looks much improved. How are her vitals?" he smiled as he looked over the young filly laying on the bed while she healed in an induced medical coma.

"Doing well. BP and heart rate are nominal, and even the few peculiar organ arrangements we detected have shifted to allow for more viable restructuring of her internals. It looks as if you've saved another life, doctor," the matronly nurse smiled proudly at him.

"That is why I'm here," he told her, noting the honey-gold body hair of the poor filly's new coat that contrasted well with the silvery blonde hair of her mane and growing tail. She was going to be a pretty one when she finished stabilizing. A real beauty.

The female moaned softly now, turning her head as she began to stir almost the moment he started to turn away. He eyed the anesthetic narcotic flow, and noted the bag was almost empty. "You'd better sedate her again," Dr. Marcan decided as he glanced at his nurse. "She's still at a critical stage. We don't want her doing herself any harm before her body has fully stabilized."

"Of course, doctor," C'yla agreed with him, moving to inject the necessary herbs into the IV.

"It is moments like this that remind me why I became a healer," he told C'yla.

"Not the fame, or fortune," the senior nurse teased him knowingly.

He merely chuckled as the young filly settled down, her mind and body sedated once more as the genetic damage of her unique mutation continued to be negated by the special drugs, and potent herbs he knew how to use with remarkable effectiveness. Which was why he had made it so high in the healer's caste despite his humble beginnings.

ST

The filly's startling blue eyes flickered open even as Marcan pulled off the last of her bandages. She frowned at him, tried to lift one hand, and frowned again when she realized she was strapped to her bed. Only she didn't remember being in a bed. She remembered…..

"Don't worry," the gray shape hovering over her spoke, dropping his gray muzzle to within an inch of her strangely sensitive ears that had moved to the top of her now properly equine head, since the rest of her body had transformed to resemble a true human. One evolved from the equine race that had begun its march to supremacy on their world so many millions of years ago.

She gave a soft raspy whinny of fear, and Marcan drew back, understanding. While it didn't seem to show, he had few doubts that she had still likely suffered much over the years, and expected to be faced with more abuse upon awakening. He smiled down at her as he patted her gowned shoulder gently.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," he assured her in a kind voice he always used with patients. "You're safe. You're at the public med-center."

"Med….Center," she rasped, looking all the more alarmed. "I….I c-can't be here," she protested, fighting the restraints all the more.

"Relax. Relax," he ordered in a firmer tone. "If you keep struggling, I'll have to sedate you again."

"Oh, God," she moaned, a soft nickering sound rising in her throat as she turned her head from side to side, uncertain just then why her field of vision seemed so oddly skewed from what she was used to as normal. She didn't even feel right. That was the only way to explain it. Her body felt odd. Wrong, somehow.

Then the residual lethargy began to fade, and her mind began to clear completely as she stared up at the creature that was standing over her bed. In that instant, her mind once more focused as her memory quickly supplied all that had befallen her before she had blacked out.

"The….fire," she rasped, staring up at the xeno as she recalled the earthquake, and the damaged building she had been covertly investigating for Intel on the planet's culture on her captain's orders. Just before a broken gas line had apparently exploded, and trapped her behind a wall of flame.

"We have a very brave young firefighter to thank for getting you out. Your injuries were not too bad, but I was surprised at the degree of genetic damage you exhibited. Don't worry, though, we managed to repair the worst of it."

"G-Genetic…..d-damage," the honey-blonde filly stammered as her mind began to reinterpret the sensations reaching her still slightly fogged mind.

"I know it isn't perfect, but it's not as bad as you were," the doctor told her as he held out a mirror after freeing her hands after she had calmed down. "I have never seen such a radical deformity, but most of the worst bio-toxins are viral, so it is possible you, or your mother, more likely, were exposed to a particularly nasty strain that evolved out of the spent bio-weapons still extant in the atmosphere."

She smiled weakly as she understood his explanation thanks to the universal translator subdermically placed in her aural canal since she was often on away missions. Still, he couldn't help but gape now as she regarded her image in the mirror. Thankfully, whatever else had been done, the device had not been found, and it still functioned.

Nor, ironically, had the physician taken her to be an offworlder. An alien in vulgar parlance. He thought her as just one one of the increasingly evident mutations brought about by the planet's last wars that left spent bio-weapons still poisoning parts of their still recovering world. That gave her an excellent cover now, better than her borrowed cloak she had taken from some unwitting female's clothesline. Only it left her in an even more precarious state. How did she get back to the ship, let alone contact them, since she had no idea where her equipment bag was by now. She almost hoped it had been destroyed in the fire, and quake, as she knew well the cost of the advanced tech falling into the native's hands. She could kiss her career goodbye for certain, if she had one left after this screw-up.

After all, how was she going to explain getting herself turned into one of these equine xenos?

She had no idea their organic sciences were so advanced. She knew her own people's organic science was nowhere near as advanced. Their medical science in general couldn't do what had been done to her. That said, she knew she didn't have too much hope of reversing her present appearance without local aid. And wouldn't that go over well? Asking a native physician to reverse his process, because she wasn't a mutation, but an offworlder. Yeah, that would go over well. With the locals, and her own superiors in Star Fleet.

"Don't worry," the grayish horse-man told her when she groaned as she lowered the mirror. "I've already decided to absorb the cost of your gen-gineering myself if we cannot find your guardians."

"Gen-gineering," she murmured to herself, not liking the implications of that word even through the translator.

"Since we've been unable to locate your familial herd, or even a master," he added with a querying arch of a thick brow over one soft brown eye. "I had you declared a public ward, and placed in my care for now."

"H-How long have I been here," she asked him, ignoring the veiled reference to her caste, and position. She knew by now that the planet of E'osta, as the Exanters called their world, and themselves, was remarkably advanced, but that they still used a slightly skewed version of democracy that allowed feudal slaveholders to still exist. The caste system seemed to dominate even the few precious freedoms allowed the higher caste citizens. Even the wealthy healing caste was subject to possession by city-states that dominated the still primarily rural planet.

"Nearly a week," he told her as she now mentally calculated the local time, and realized that meant she had been at least three standard days overdue for her check in. Captain Sawyer was bound to be going crazy about now, wondering what had happened to her. Wondering if the mission, and their presence, had been exposed.

"I….I can't seem to remember," she chose to bluff.

"Well, that's natural. You've been sedated all this time while the serums, and regeneration fluids did their work."

"Oh," she murmured. "But….I don't remember much else….either," she told him, knowing she didn't even dare hint at the truth. "I just remember….looking for….something," she ad-libbed.

"I see," he murmured, turning to a small closet near her bed. "Maybe this will help remind you of something. Like a name," he smiled as he opened the closet and pulled out a small, scorched leather pouch she recognized at once.

"Is that…mine," she asked him as he held it out to her, keeping up the impulsive claim to amnesia she had begun even as her fingers itched to reach for the bag, and the precious devices within.

"Likely. It was found near you, and while the strap was badly damaged, you were the only other person in that part of the records hall."

She took the pouch with careful hands, praying her equipment might still be intact. She had already noted the touch-lock was in place, and hadn't been tampered with. To a culture that prized human stock, as much as any other possession, both belongings, and privacy were oddly still considered sacrosanct by the Exanter. That was likely why they had not bothered to try opening her pouch.

"I'll leave you to explore," Dr. Marcan told her with a slight smile as she stared at the pouch, wanting to open it, and not daring to do so in his presence. She could just see his reaction if she pulled out one of her recording modules, or even her prized communicator. Which was really all she wanted just then. Whatever was waiting for her now, she wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. Otherwise, she knew all too well from what she had already learned of this world that she was in danger of becoming this physician's pet, if not his actual slave. Ward was barely just a step above either, and it was clear even to her still sluggish mind that the good doctor was attracted to her.

Too much so!

"Call if you need anything," the gray-colored equine smiled as he walked out, his white, lab coat billowing behind him as his tail twitched.

She paid him no mind as she only then pressed her thumb to the coded lock.

To Be Continued….