Present pasts
Neither said a word, but both R'Kerti and Jhinis were worried. The Gorn and the Aenar Herald had reason.
For her part? Mary was bored. She had know, intellectually that most 'officer' work was done in offices, but geez!
The communication with Fluidic Space was taking far more time to set up than anyone had thought it would. Then again, the Undine pretty much defined the word 'paranoid' and after all of what had happened with the Borg and then the Iconians? Who could really blame them? Also, the things they had done around the galaxy had not engendered trust with any of the spacefaring races. They had messed with the Federation, the Romulans, the Klingons, the Dominion, everyone. That completely ignored the mess that they had created with the Gorn. Hence why R'Kerti was still upset. She was perfectly polite to Mary. but her disapproval was clear.
"And... The Denali's warp core is online again." Mary said as she scrutinized Denali blueprints on a hand held computer. "They are rebuilding everything to Starfleet spec."
"No one will believe that, Mary." Jhinis hadn't left the spot by the wall she had assumed when she had entered this waiting area, but her main focus was elsewhere. With her senses enhanced by her joining with Mary as well as Mary's helpful addition of her Herald armor, the Aenar was still figuring things out. Better here than in combat! "Since you are not hiding who and what you are any more, no one will trust that the ship isn't some kind of Iconian trick. You have to admit, such sneakiness is…' She paused and corrected herself grimly. "Was their stock in trade."
"Is." Mary replied, just as grimly. "They don't want to fight, but they would be stupid to neglect their defenses. Power in and of itself is meaningless without a purpose and theirs right now is repairing what they can." They could have had this conversation silently, mind to mind. R'Kerti wasn't included in that, however so they included the upset Gorn in the conversation by the simple expedient of having it aloud. Not that she had said much. Mary looked at R'Kerti and shook her head slowly. "You don't have to be here, R'Kerti. I cannot know exactly how you feel, since we are not connected, but I remember your stories at the Academy. I remember how angry you were. I cannot understand completely, since I am not Gorn. That said? I do know that you are angry and you have a right to it. They manipulated your people into a war with the Klingons, got a lot of people killed on both sides and nearly got your whole species wiped out."
"I am not leaving you to face them alone." The Gorn might have been a statue and her tone was just as soft as granite.
"I am not looking forward to it." Mary admitted, drawing a look from both of the others. "The Undine are xenophobic and paranoid to the point that they make the Tholians look relatively tame at times." Her Herald nodded, but the Gorn might have been a statue still. "R'Kerti, whether they accept it or not, Mlian is hurting right now. He probably meant her to be his spy among them just as he meant for me to be his spy among Starfleet and then the Iconians more recently."
"They lie. It is what they do." R'Kerti snapped.
"So did I." Mary said softly and the Gorn stilled. "I didn't mean to. But I did. I told falsehoods. I said what I thought was the truth, but it wasn't."
"It wasn't the whole truth, Mary." Jhinis reassured her. The Aenar was relaxed for the most part, but angry Gorn made people nervous at the best of times. "You didn't have all of the information. No one does, but you did the best you could with what you had."
"You are hardly ambivalent, Herald Jhinis." Mary's tone was calm, but worry lay underneath. "R'Kerti, keep right on doing what you are. Keep right on jerking me up short if I go too far. I am not perfect and if I start thinking I am, we are in a world of hurt. Want a job? I will need a First Officer."
"I am still Starfleet, Mary." R'Kerti unbent just a little. She was clearly flattered by the offer. "At least for the moment."
"No one will take options from you in my presence." Mary said with a nod. "Just getting it out there before anyone else starts recruiting."
"You are nuts, girl." R'Kerti relaxed a little more and then everyone stiffened as one wall of the room came alive.
Mary rose to her feet as the wall all but oozed sickly looking green energy and a resounding voice spoke.
"The weak shall perish."
Mary stepped towards the wall, the Gorn and her Herald forming up behind her. The young looking being in Alliance uniform stopped about three steps from it, took a deep breath and spoke.
"That is the way of things." Mary said firmly and it was clear that the speaker was focused on her. "Life is not fair or just. Life does not care about emotions. Thinking being or no, life survives or it does not." She closed her mouth and waited.
"You serve the demons." Yeah, the Iconians had been known as 'demons of air and darkness'. The moniker had been well earned. That said? The truth was far longer and messier. Yes, they had conquered their neighbors in space. No, they hadn't been evil about it back then. The facts had been lost along with more than 90% of the Iconian race.
"I do." Mary did not bother dissembling. It would be wasted. These beings had powerful telepaths in their ranks and the truth served much better.
"What do you want?" The other did not sound happy, but it was still talking. The scrutiny swept over Jhinis and then focused on R'Kerti, but Mary spoke before it could.
"You lost one of yours some time ago. One who was impersonating an Orion slave girl." Mary kept her tone calm, clinical almost. "I don't know why she was there and I don't care. Your business is your business unless it interferes with mine."
"Many are lost in your dry wastelands." Was that sorrow that peeked through the tone for a moment? If so, it vanished. "The weak perish."
"She was not weak. She did not perish." Mary was suddenly assaulted by a probe of incredible mental power, but she held it off through force of will. It was hardly the first time she had been attacked by psionics. "She was taken by a monster. The same one who hurt me. He did the same things to her that her did to- urk!"
"Mary!" R'Kerti and Jhinis started forward as purplish power swept around Mary, grabbing her and holding her off the ground. Then Mary's power pulsed and she landed on her feet as a sound of pain came from the wall.
"That was rude." Mary stood up straight and brushed herself off. "You are incredibly powerful, but so am I. So is my Mother. I asked for an audience. L'Miren did not wish to do that, but I decided you deserved to know that Mlian lives."
Everything stopped as a form stepped out of the wall. In shape, it was a female human. She wore an old Starfleet uniform, one form at least thirty years previous and had red hair. Both Mary and R'Kerti stilled as they recognized the face. Kathryn Janeway! The one time captain of the USS Voyager! This wasn't her. It was someone, no, some-thing, wearing her seeming.
"From all accounts, Admiral Janeway gets annoyed when people impersonate her." Mary warned. "Here and now, there are few witnesses, but if you push this, it will not go well."
"This being was known to us and she was fair." The thing that looked like a human but wasn't one said slowly as R'Kerti hissed at it. "We did not understand. We were attacked. We fought back. She helped those who attacked us and we responded as we do."
"And when she realized she had made a mistake, that the Borg had started the war between your peoples, she left." R'Kerti bit the words out as if in physical pain. Jhinis moved to stand closer to the irate Gorn. "She could have blasted many more of your people. Part of me wishes she had!"
"Part of us wishes the Klingons had destroyed your kind." The fake human replied.
"Stop it." Mary's words were quiet, but she was suddenly glowing. Not a good sign! Both the Gorn and the fake human looked at her and then back at each other. "I said…" Mary snapped as she moved to stand between them. "...'stop it'! You talk to me. Leave my friend out of this."
"You serve the demons." The fake Janeway replied with a sniff. "We have nothing to discuss."
"No?" Mary inquired. Her glow was not fading, but it was not intensifying either. A good thing? "Mlian will survive. She will thrive if I have anything to say about it. Anyone, anyone at all, who threatens her again, will answer to me."
"If that one cannot protect herself, then she is weak." The fake human retorted, still eyeing R'Kerti who glared right back.
"She is hurt." Mary snarled that and stepped right up to the not-so-human human. She did not raise her hands even as the other braced for an attack. She was still glowing. "I was hurt the exact same way! Am I weak?" She demanded of the Undine.
"No." The Undine admitted. "She is not you."
"I know far more than I ever wanted to about being weak. About being lost and hurting." Mary all but spat that. "I choose this. I choose to see her made whole again. If you aid? I will appreciate it. If you hinder? Get ready for pain."
"You are strange." The Undine said after a moment.
"You have NO idea!" The Aenar and the Gorn chorused, drawing a look from both of the mismatched human looking being.
"Why?" The Janeway lookalike asked, to all appearances baffled. "Why do this? We are enemies!"
"Are we?" Mary asked, her glow fading. "The Iconians manipulated your people into attacking Dry Space. This is fact. We will never know how many died as a result of their manipulations. Your kind, people from my dimension, so many others. And for what?" She stepped back, but placed herself beside R'Kerti who was still bristling. Hard to blame the Gorn. "Their vengeance was taken. They did what they set out to do. The Iconian's War is over."
"They still exist." The Undine snapped. "How can you say it is over?"
"The ones who destroyed their world so long ago are gone, almost completely vanished from history." Mary replied, calming further. "The Iconians had another vendetta and it too was completed when the Romulan homeworld was destroyed through their actions." At that, the Undine went still and Mary nodded. "Few knew that their vengeance was directed at someone from our time. Someone who went back to just before Iconia was destroyed and did something horrible. It was the only way to stop the war, to stop the Iconians as powerful as they were, but that person's actions caused the war."
"Travel in time?" The Undine actually sounded a bit shell shocked now. "What insanity was this?"
"Every other option failed." Mary was just sad now. "There was no room for negotiation, no way to beat them militarily. There was no way to win except to do the unthinkable. To meddle with time."
"The Borg meddle with time." The Undine did not bother to hide the hate in its voice.
"They keep trying, yes." Mary agreed. "There are those who stand against them. The Borg are enemies to all who are not Borg. The Iconians are not enemies to everyone anymore. T'ket is lost in her vengeance, but she is not the whole of the Iconian people. The ones who are not lost to madness cannot repair what they broke. They cannot bring back the lives that were lost. Their technology is incredible, but there are limits. No matter what some may have said, they are not deities and they know it."
"I do not believe you. You are not Iconian." The Undine said, stepping back towards the portal, only to pause as a sphere of blackness appeared on the far side of the room. The Undine bolted for the portal as L'Miren hovered out of the blackness, but a wave of her hand and a shimmering veil of dark matter blocked the portal! It didn't look like it would tickle if the Undine tried to jump through it.
"Mother!" Mary protested as the monstrous form hovered to her side, R'Kerti shying away from the Iconian's dark power. "You said you would let me handle this!"
"We knew it had to be a trick!" The human seeming morphed into a tripodal horror and psionic energy flew, but went nowhere near any of the others in the room! "Another lie!" The Undine paused as L'Miren spoke.
"This is not a trick." L'Miren said firmly. Her voice was dark and terrible, but held amusement? "My daughter is many things. A liar is generally not one of them."
"I had this under control, Mother." Mary was all but stamping her foot! Both the Aenar and Gorn were frozen in fear and awe as two horrifically powerful monsters faced one another. "We have talked about this."
"There are limits." L'Miren warned. Was she speaking to the Undine or Mary? "My daughter is an idealist. She remembers us at our best. She did not see the true depths we sank to. She did not see what M'Tara did. Simply hearing about it is bad enough. You remember." That was to the Undine who seemed a statue now.
"M'Tara? What? She didn't…" Mary inhaled in horror. "No. Oh no." Was she about to cry?
"I am sorry, daughter." L'Miren was still a dark thing hovering at Mary's side, but sorrow rang. "M'Tara captured an Undine and attempted to warp the poor soul to her service. The Undine chose self immolation rather than servitude."
"I see." Mary slumped a little and then nodded. "Let them go, Mother." The Iconian, the Aenar and the Gorn all started to protest, but Mary held up a hand and their protests fell silent. "If M'Tara did that, then there is no way the Undine will trust me since I am affiliated with you. All we can do is limit the damage." She turned to the Undine who was eyeing her and bowed her head. "You cannot trust me, but I am sorry. I will ward the one I know as Mlian, see her healed of her injuries as best she can be."
"If she goes back, they will destroy her." L'Miren warned.
"Then it would be her choice, not the golden scum Lorinos'!" Mary snapped and paused as the Undine jerked. "You know him too?" It was not really a question.
"You suffered his touch." For the first time, the Undine seemed to be looking at Mary fully.
"He made me what I am." Mary's growl held hate but not directed at anyone in the room. "The same as he tried to make Mlian and failed because she is not weak!" The last was snide. "I know what it takes to survive what he put her through. I was hurt the exact same way. I can and will help her and anyone who gets in my way will get hurt." Cold, hard, dangerous. Jhinis nodded. No one else seemed to want to move.
"We learned." Was L'Miren laughing? The Iconian vanished in a puff of dark energy to leave all of the others staring at one another. But her voice came again. "I hope it doesn't cost your people as much as it cost us to learn that lesson." Then even her voice was gone.
The dark matter blocking the portal was gone, but the Undine didn't move. It was eyeing Mary who eyed it right back.
"You are free to leave." Mary gave herself a shake and paused as the Undine morphed into a different form. This one was a Reman. Young, female from the stance and clearly not sure about herself. Mary shook her head. "You can go. Please. My friend here…" She nodded to the Gorn who was still glaring at the now Reman. "...is incredibly stressed by your presence. I will care for Mlian until she can make a reasoned choice. She may or may not choose to go back to you."
"We can sense her mind." The Undine in Reman form said slowly. "We were distracted and now we are not. No, she is not weak. She is hurting, but…" It paused and stared at Mary, the Reman's eyes going huge. "She loves you."
"That is irrelevant!" Mary snapped. "I wanted to tell you that I am going to care for her until she is capable of taking care of herself. I gave her aid. Soothed her hurts. I gave her calm and hope. Such has caused infatuations in the past. Her infatuation may fade, it may not. That is the future. For now? I have deal with the present. Go." That was a command.
"We will be in touch." The Undine stepped through the portal without backward glance and the green thing vanished.
Only after it vanished did the Gorn relax at all and then the lizard female spun to Mary with a glower.
"Just when I think you cannot get any weirder, Mary." R'Kerti's tone was long suffering.
"What can I say? It's a gift." Mary shrugged as she started for the door. "Now I get to talk to people about crew for the Denali. Fun, fun."
"You could just crew it with Heralds and Constructs." The Gorn replied, still seething after meeting one of her race's most implacable enemies. But, odd.
"And take it where?" Mary asked reasonably. "If anyone scans Iconian forces beside T'ket's outside this system, all hell will break loose. I am trying to fix things, R'Kerti. Not break them further."
"I am with you." Jhinis said with a shrug. "They will have a problem with me." She waved at her Herald armor when Mary glanced at her. "You know it as well as I do. And anyone who just shows up to volunteer is likely a plant of some kind. Spies or assassins."
"Who is the senior survivor of the K'valk's Honor beside… Um… Ssaak'll." Mary asked the air and a hologram shimmered into place beside her head. She stared at it and nodded. "Second Officer Adet'a is gravely injured. I need to talk to her." Power flared. Was she going to-
"Mary…" Jhinis and R'Kerti both groaned in unison as a dark sphere of an Iconian transporter started forming around them.
"Trust me."
"NO!"