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
3
Dr. Marcan, there you are," a young nurse sighed in exasperation as he walked in the front door of the medical center a few minutes after materializing in an alley behind the structure. It had taken him that long to shake off the residual shock, and the uneasiness of another transport.
Too, he had to accept the heaviness in his chest at having to say goodbye to the pretty, golden mare he had left on that wondrous vessel that sailed between the stars.
He offered to keep her safe. To take personal charge of her care. Neither she, nor her captain, would accept his word. It was not that they didn't trust him, the captain assured him, but they had their own ways to follow. Honey's time on his world was finished now, and she had other work to tend. A part of him understood, but a part of him railed at losing the beauteous creature he had literally made of her. And he had, for he knew now that Honey wasn't truly Exanter. Yet, now a part of her had become so. And he was drawn to that part of her more than he had ever been drawn to any of the mares he had ever met before in his life.
Only now she was gone.
"Doctor?"
"Sorry, nurse," he sighed, looking away from the twilight sky covering the city. "I stepped out for some fresh air, and got lost in thought. Is there a problem," he asked in afterthought.
"No, nothing like that. Well," she demurred, looking uneasy.
"What is it, Nurse T'lia," he asked, reading her badge.
"The young filly you had in ICU, sir. She's vanished."
"Vanished," he frowned, knowing he could not risk exposing his knowledge. Not just because it might make trouble. He knew well enough what happened to 'crackpots' who saw aliens, and supernatural creatures. He would be stripped of his title and vocation, and sent into the wilderness. Likely branded a lunatic, too. All their scientists knew, just knew, that space flight was impossible, and therefore no other hypothetical race could manage it either. Which made talk of aliens utter madness.
Just as everyone knew there was no such thing as spirits, or other such entities that some claimed to see from time to time.
Now, Marcan had to wonder. What else was out there if such as Honey, and her eclectic peoples were real? Just how much more was there to the universe than they had been led to believe? He would like to know. Maybe one day, he would.
"Has a search been ordered," he asked, seeming to take charge as he went through the usual motions. "Surely she couldn't have recovered enough to get that far?"
"I called Nurse C'yla at home, but all she said was the filly went off sedation this morning. It is possible she could have managed to get up and leave. Isn't it," the young nurse asked hopefully.
"It is," he nodded with a long sigh. "I'm just surprised that no one saw her go."
"She didn't even sign out," the nurse said anxiously. "We have no way of knowing who to bill."
"Well, it happened on my shift," he finally told her as they entered the clinic together. "I suppose I'll have to take charge of her expenses until she can be found, and her keeper charged."
The nurse relaxed. He understood. Being burdened with such a debt at her caste level would have threatened her with debt slavery, or even a lifetime assignment in the slave caste. It was not something a young worker would enjoy. Not if they were imagining hopes of working their way up the castes, not down.
"I'll take care of things," he told her, smiling at her. "Just have the account clerk place all her expenses on my file."
"Thank you, doctor. Thank you," the young brunette mare smiled, her gratitude genuine.
Marcan barely noted her bright smile, or the covert offering she made of herself. His thoughts were still not far from another shapely young female. Out in space, in fact, and likely moving farther away even as he mused on her. He sighed again, and turned his attention back to his work. After all, he was still a physician, with a job to do.
ST
"Dr. Marcan," a tall, reddish looking man with a dark suit, and a grim façade called to him as he emerged from the operating theatre that evening.
"Yes, sir. How may I help you," he asked, hoping this grim roan was not one of the family members of the poor colt who had just lost his right leg. Even their bio-science couldn't restore lost limbs. There was nothing left to regenerate, so it couldn't be healed. The damage from the accident had been too great. Even his skills couldn't compensate for a crushed bone.
"You can come with me," the man ordered as he held out an official badge with a government ID attached. "Now."
"What is this about," he asked. "Have I done something wrong," he questioned as his nurses came out of the theatre behind him, pushing the table with the still unconscious colt covered by the white sheets that had replaced the bloody surgical blankets.
"Doctor?"
"Take the boy to his room, C'yla. Keep him sedated until his sutures heal so he won't tear them open. I'll see his parents before I go," he said, speaking more to the agent than to her.
"What's going on, sir," the older woman asked, eying the man beside him who was glaring impatiently.
"I don't know myself as yet. Just call in Jelaz, and have him take over ER until I get back."
"That may not be for a while, sir," the man in black told him bluntly.
The nurses gaped, but Marcan waved them on. "I will see to the boy's parents first. They trusted me with their son, and I have to tell them what to expect."
"So, what happened to him," the man grunted, his insincerity evident.
"He lost a leg when a public bus lost its power, and crashed into a brick retaining wall. The wall collapsed on one side of the bus. Unfortunately, it was the side he was sitting on."
"Bad luck," the man muttered, showing no sympathy as he snorted his impatience. "Let's just get on with it, shall we?"
"You're obviously not a parent," Marcan told him.
"I don't have time for a family. Duty to the Prime keeps me busy enough."
The Prime? This man served the northern coalition's elected leader? What could he want with him?
"Well, it shouldn't take us too long. I just have to see the Sev'r's, and tell them their son will live, but he will never walk again."
"Plenty of adequate prosthetic's available these days. He can still work with one leg."
"He was a ball player. A good one, too. He ran lead for the local team."
"Not any more," the agent snorted coolly as he followed Marcan to the waiting room.
"I suggest you wait outside," he told the man curtly as he stopped in the door of the room, and saw the family of the colt all look toward him.
"Big brood. They'll manage," the agent grunted.
No wonder the Coalition was in such bad shape, if they had such cold-hearted men working for them.
"I doubt that matters to them, sir. He is their eldest, and their only son," he said, glancing over at the three younger females huddled close to their parents.
The man grunted, but moved toward the exit. Marcan went to the family, his smile fixed carefully in place as he began to explain the situation to the close-knit family. The mother began to weep almost at once. The father just stared at him, as if the words were not reaching him. Or he was still trying to accept them. He could almost understand how they felt. Almost. While he had no family of his own, he had felt his heart torn out just ten months past when Honey had flown back to the stars that had birthed her. He had not felt the same since.
"We will, of course, continue to do all we can for him," he promised the grieving family as he finished his summary of their son's condition.
The mother simply wept louder as he turned to walk away. At such times, he felt all but useless. But he had no time to brood. Four hours later he was landing in the capital city, and being escorted to the Prime himself. Almost five minutes after they entered the huge mansion of the Prime, he was escorted to a huge office where the most powerful man in the entire northern coalition sat behind a desk. It was telling that no one entered with him. He was simply shoved inside with the Prime, and left there.
The tall, shaggy brown male looked harried, and ready to bolt. His pale eyes, graying coat showed age, and stress, and for the first time, Marcan began to realize that even the Prime was, after all, just a man. And he was showing the signs of the burdens he carried.
"Sir, I am Dr. Marcan of Isoius. I am told you sent for me."
"Thank the Maker," the old male sighed as he pushed himself up from the chair. "Dr. Marcan, your people, your very planet, need your help," he said, crossing the room to stand beside him, his graying tail twitching anxiously.
"Of course, sir. But….I am just a lowly member of the healer's caste. How may I aid you?"
"Tell me, doctor, have you ever seen one of these," he asked, and held out a small metal teardrop in his hand that had been clenched in a fist until then.
"Where…? Where did you get this," he asked quietly.
"It was sent to me. By…a people that I did not know….could exist."
Marcan stared as the Prime shook his head violently.
"You might not believe me, doctor. Yet, they mentioned your name."
Marcan's ears twitched, and stood straight up. "Do they say they are from the stars?"
The Prime's eyes narrowed.
"So, you are aware of this….group?"
"I…. I first encountered them nearly a year past," he admitted. "I thought them gone from our world."
"Then…you believe their claims are true?"
"Sir, I was taken to their ship. I saw….beings, and wonders that are beyond imagining. At first, I thought myself gone mad. Then I realized, they were just different beings, with a different science. Theirs seemed to be based on hardware, and mechanical devices rather than organic tech as most of our sciences favor. But in all this time, I've no doubt that they were real, or sincere."
"They claim this will help me to better understand them. It was hard to be certain. Their translator was hard to understand."
"It does help us understand different tongues. I was given one myself when I visited their ship. I heard dozens of different beings speak, and understood each one of them as if they spoke native X'terian."
"I see," the older man murmured as he stared at the tiny device. "Then….it doesn't….control your mind, as my advisors suggested might be possible."
"No, sir. It merely lets you hear and speak to those beings without difficulty."
The older male looked a little more relaxed then, but still he seemed uncertain.
"There is one thing I do not understand, doctor."
"What is that," he asked with a faint smile. "I am here to aid you, sir," he added when the Prime hesitated.
"Why you? Why would these people even mention you? Why would they have selected you to take to their ship at all?"
"In truth, sir, it was all an accident. They never meant to reveal themselves to me. One of their explorers, a scientist, came to study us."
"A spy," he asked, alarm sounding in his tone once more.
"No, sir. A young filly whose only interest was in our culture, and…." He smiled now. "Our beer. She seemed to be quite taken with our local cazca."
The Prime snorted. "You're jesting with me now."
"Not at all. At any rate, she was studying our language, and history records when a regional quake leveled the area records hall. Perhaps you recall that disaster earlier this year?"
"Yes. Yes, I remember when the fires made most of western Isoius a disaster area. But, what are you saying about her? Did she cause it?"
"No, great Prime. She nearly died in it. She was brought to me gravely injured, and I mistook her diversity for a possible mutation. I used my gen-gineering skills to repair her apparent genetic defects, thinking she was one of us, and damaged by the bio-toxins that still plague certain southerly rural regions from time to time."
"I understand. And how did that land you on their ship?"
"When she finally recovered, she used a device that allowed her communicate with her people. They….transported her back to her ship with a most miraculous device. It lets them move from place to place instantly," he told the leader of their nation.
"That would explain those people's odd coming and going. They….entered from a previously empty room, and disappeared into the same room when they left. Yet no one saw them come, or go later."
"They can move themselves across great distances with their machines, sir. I experienced it myself. So I can assure you, it is quite real," Dr. Marcan informed him.
"I see," the Prime frowned doubtfully, but gestured for him to continue as he walked back to his desk now, still staring at the small device in his hand. "Go on."
"When she called her ship, they transported the filly back, and I, not knowing what was happening at the time, went to her just as they reclaimed her. I ended up rushing to her side, only to find myself in their ship in the very blink of an eye. It was that quick."
"And they did not tamper with your mind? Threaten you? Do….anything?"
"They simply explained they were explorers. That they were part of a great alliance that spanned the galaxy. At least, the parts they knew of so far. They travel not in conquest, but to learn and sate their curiosity, and when invited, to help other beings learn and grow as they have. They even invite others to become a part of their great alliance."
"And….if we decide not to join their alliance," the Prime asked somberly. "Did they mention that?"
"Yes, sir, but only because I asked them. Their captain said that if we declined their offer of alliance, they would simply leave us alone. And, sir, I believe them. They are good people. Their hearts are good. Their ways are strange, but they are….like us, simply people. People making their own way through the Maker's universe."
The Prime sat back in his chair.
"My advisors tell me it must be a Southern Coalition trick. They tell me this is likely some ploy to gain control of us, and use some manner of mind control to subjugate what they could not claim by force."
"I understand your concerns, sir. I can only offer you my own meager experience, and tell you what I know. Which I have."
"It is more than I've heard before now. Tell me one more thing, doctor. Why have you not told anyone of this before now?"
Marcan actually smiled now.
"Of course, my lord. Tell the world that strange visitors from other worlds came to us, and they watch us, determining if we might be fit to join their great alliance? Tell people that I visited an alien….an offworld ship, with all manner of strange beings aboard? I'd be in the southern pastures myself by now, I think, had I uttered a single word," he told the Prime honestly.
"I see. Yes, I forgotten how conservative some elements among the mainstream governors can be at times."
"I will say one more thing, sir. Something I think might be worth considering," Marcan went on.
"And what is that?"
"The young filly, the scientist that came to us?"
"Yes, doctor," he asked, leaning back in his chair.
"Sir, she came to us, and I changed her very form. I made her….strange to her own people. I gave her our shape, our form. And as you know, there is no known reversal of such gen-gineering. Why should there be," he shrugged. "Which is what I told her when she asked of it."
"And?"
"And she did not curse me. Did not weep, or threaten me with dread fates. She simply asked, and accepted my reply. And went back to her questions of our world. Were these bad people, great Prime, I think the filly would have had me suffer greatly for what happened to her. I saw only goodness in her, and her kind. Were I you, I would sit down, and listen to them. Who knows what things they might be able to offer us? Who knows what we might learn from them."
The old male sighed as he opened his palm again.
"I shall consider your words, doctor. Please, leave me now. I ask you stay as my guest until this matter is settled, though. My aide will show you to a room."
"I would be most honored, sir," he bowed to the man before turning to go.
"And, doctor?"
"Yes, sir," he asked, turning to study the man who seemed no less anxious now, but more in control.
"Say nothing of what we have spoken of here. Not to anyone."
"I understand, sir. As I said, who would believe me?"
The Prime did not answer as he left the office, and was taken by a younger aide off down a long hall to another room. A room that showed signs of being more prison than guest room. At least to his way of thinking. For no sooner had he entered the suite than the door was locked. The windows, he quickly learned, were barred, and locked shut. There was no radio, no tele-viewer. Not even the usual holo-viewer for entertainment. He was effectively cut off.
What was going on here?
ST
"So, what do you think," the Prime asked his senior advisors as soon as the doctor had left.
"There is one way to test the truth of this tale," one of the older men decided after a moment's thought. "Have these so-called offworlders produce a ship."
"Or….this filly that so impressed the doctor," another stated. "Although I'm more certain that he has been infected with whatever mind control agent they thought to use on you, my lord," the lead advisor snorted his disdain.
"Infect an agent a year past, and leave him? To what end, sir?"
The advisor adjusted his robe, and shook his head. "What better way to make us think them sincere, than to have the good doctor in place, ready to argue their case."
"I wonder," another murmured as he eyed the aging advisor whose coat had long since turned a pale grayish-white. "What, El'mas, happens if these creatures are the genuine article? What happens if they are just what they claim to be?"
"Even worse," the old man spat, his ears flattened in disgust. "Think of it. Creatures that would appear godlike to our less intelligent brethren. They could easily take over, making slaves of all of us. And who would gainsay them? Travelers from the stars? No, I doubt it. It's unlikely. Beyond unlikely. They are spies for the Southern Coalition. And we must not fall prey to this vile plot."
"I have to consider this carefully. And consider a practical solution. Thank you, gentlemen," the man behind the desk nodded. "I need to be alone for a moment. To think. That is all."
The five advisors bowed low, then walked from the room, this time leaving through the main exit, rather than going into the side room where they had listened to everything the doctor had said.
He opened his drawer, and looked down at the small metal device he had also been given. With a trembling hand, he put the smaller device to his ear as he had been instructed, waiting for a moment to see if he felt any different. He swallowed hard, but nothing seemed different. Nothing at all. He lifted the square device, and pressed a small, green button on the base. It chirped immediately, and a voice spoke out of the device.
"USS Carlisle. How may I assist you?"
"Is your…..your…..captain there?"
"Of course, sir. One moment."
"Captain Rollins here. Is that you, Prime?"
"Ah, yes. I….I have some….questions which require answers. And I am told one of your people has had direct contact with our race already."
"Yes, sir. As our report mentioned, Dr. Helen Slater was in charge of the initial exploration of your world."
"I wish to meet this young female myself, captain. Tell your….diplomats….I will speak again only to her. And only if I can see one of your ships for myself."
"I will relay your message at once, sir. I will send the response as soon as I have it, but I foresee no problems with your requests."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, sir. Captain Rollins….out."
"Yes. Uhm. Out."
He noticed the device had gone dark again. Before, he had barely been able to understand a word of the guttural babbling that he had heard from the diplomats who addressed him, trying to use X'terian as if they were ill-taught foals. Their command of the language was horrid. Their insistence on his taking the device he was given was suspicious. He was told they transported in private to prevent unnecessary alarm. Next time, he would have them do so before his council of advisors, in full view of everyone. There would be no doubts then. Not for anyone.
Meanwhile, he would see if they could produce this young scientist that Dr. Marcan has spoken of so highly. And so fondly. As distracted as he was, the Prime had heard the genuine affection in the doctor's voice when he had spoken of her. He wanted to meet this creature. To see if she was all the man had intimated. He most definitely wanted to see one of these fantastic ships. How could he make any arrangements for his people if he didn't even know who, or what he was truly dealing with? By the Maker, a mere lower caste healer had been into space, by his claims, and yet he, leader of all the northern herds, had not even seen so much as a shadow of their ships. Not one of their astronomers had seen anything at all to indicate they were out there.
The diplomats had claimed they remained under camouflage so as to not alarm the people until a public announcement was made. Well, he would see. He would soon see for himself.
To Be Continued…..
