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
By LJ58
7
"Energize," Dr. Helen Slater nodded at the crew chief as she, Dr. Marcan, and Andrea Myer stood on the pad with four of the woman's security team. Two of them the requested wolvyrn nicknamed Abe and Will who hardly needed phasers, but were dressed in Starfleet uniforms, with full equipment all the same.
Not that their names were Abe, or Will, but no one could manage a wolvyrn name without a lot growling and snarling that even universal translators didn't always get right.
With them, two large equipment cases materialized with them when they reappeared on the planet below a few seconds later as she looked around the slightly less regal city of Ruulian that had obviously suffered compared to the more developed Northern Coalition that had managed to keep the major fighting away from their own lands.
The people around them gaped as the group appeared, belatedly recognizing two of their own, or so it seemed in Helen's case, and then they realized two very large alien predators were standing in the middle of a very crowded market square she had chosen to appear where people were obviously still waiting on food.
"People of E'osta," Dr. Marcan shouted. "I am Marcan of Isious. I bring you great tidings from the Maker of us all, who has sent star beings to us to aid our planet. Not the North. Not the South. But all of E'osta. For have we not all long prayed just for this deliverance? Will you hear the Great Maker's words from this filly, who is born of the stars, and comes to aid us all?"
"What can a young filly bring us," a grizzled, and obviously scarred male grumbled, looking ready to start trouble.
"For one, good sir," Helen stepped forward fearlessly after pointedly gesturing to Abe and Will to stand by, making the crowd aware that she seemed to control them. "I bring relief from the poisons that mutate your foals, and sicken your people. Just as I also bring food for all."
"In two small boxes," another spoke, this one a middle-aged mare clutching a painfully thin child to her side.
"Will you be patient? In but ten minutes, I can show you the truth of Dr. Marcan's words. He is one of your own, and has called to us, and we who follow the Maker through the stars have heard, and answered him, and all of you. Lt. Myers, if you will open the synthesizer?"
The woman looked ready to grumble, but the crowd stayed a respectful distance from them as Andrea and the two human security men were as alien to the Exanters as the wolvyrn.
She knew they had a limited time before the authorities showed, and she needed the crowd here securely on her side before they arrived.
Andrea, knowing that as well as she did, quickly opened the box, powered up the portable generator, and unfolded a device that seemed to expand to thrice its size before the astonished crowd. Many of the young gasped, and made noises of astonishment, and then Helen daringly stepped forward to the mare and her starving child, and smiled down at the thin colt.
"Young sir," he addressed the colt formally, with respect. "Tell me your favorite meal. I give you word, you shall have it, and all you want, here and now."
"R-Really," the hungry colt asked her after glancing at his mother.
"You have but to name it," he nodded, hearing people not far off complain as obvious authority figures began to press into, and through the crowd.
"Isouan oats," he asked, almost prayerfully.
Helen, who had programmed the food synthesizer in advance with E'ostan foods and delicacies, only smiled, and turned to the device behind her.
The colt gasped along with the crowd as the steaming bowl of fresh food was held out to the colt after seeming to appear from out of nowhere.
"I assume you wished honeyed oats, with fresh butter," she asked, handing him the bowl.
The mother stared at the food, desperate, yet suspicious, and she could guess why.
She lifted the spoon, and took a large bite herself, and smiled.
"Clean, untainted food, my friends," she declared, and held out the bowl again. "And I have more. Much more. For all the free people of E'osta. I ask only that you hear me out," she called even as four armed males in body armor appeared, and surrounded her.
"Doctor," Andrea growled as the wolvyrn tensed.
"Hold," she shouted. "Good sirs, we are here to aid your people. Not to cause trouble."
"It's good," the colt cried out just then, all but inhaling the warm oats. "Really good! More. Please, lady! More!"
"You have but to ask," she smiled, and dared the authorities obviously aiming weapons at her without answering as she ordered another bowl, and handed it to the colt.
The growing crowd surged around her, now, and Andrea looked more uneasy than ever as Helen signaled her to be patient.
"You control these…..beasts, filly," one of the authorities demanded when Abe snarled, but didn't move when Helen gestured pointedly for him to wait.
"I no more control my brothers, than I control you, good sir," she told the obvious warrior. "But the Great Maker brought our peoples together on our journey through the stars, and we have learned to be friends. To work together. Now, the Great Maker has brought us here, to you. To aid you, and help your people. I ask again, will you hear me out?"
"Yes," someone shouted, and the chant rose, almost deafening, and the crowd surged around them, and the warriors now looked uneasy as the crowd were obviously ready to rally for the strangers.
"I know you have seen our ships in your skies," Helen called out. "I know your leaders, not understanding our presence, tried to attack us. Your weapons did not harm us. But we are not here to fight, just as I have said. We are here to help. I have shown you how easily I can bring you food. Now, I offer you clean water. Andrea," she nodded at the security chief who bristled at substituting for the usual techs who would have come along were she not so sure this weren't a suicide mission.
"I know much of the toxins are in your water," Helen went on. "This machine," she pointed as Andrea opened the second smaller box, "Can clean any water you pour into it. If you place one like it, which I freely offer, into a river, or lake, it will clean that entire body of water. Just as we have ways of cleaning your air, and even your farmland. We can remake the Southern lands into a paradise such as your ancestors once knew, and enjoyed."
"And what is your price for these wonders," a stately mare in an ornate robe appeared just then.
She recognized the badge of office from one of the temples of the Maker, and smiled to the priestess who obviously had some authority if the crowd parted for her, while ignoring the authority of warriors.
"My people ask but for one thing, Mother," she addressed the priestess reverently, which obviously pleased the people around them. "Peace. Only that. We ask for no riches. No slaves. No followers. Only peace. It is all our people ever ask. I give you the words of one of your own in proof. Dr. Marcan," she now turned to him.
"I am a humble physician from the borderlands myself, honored Mother. I have long despaired over our world's state," he told her. "Then Honey," he called her, "Came from the stars, and she has shown me wonders beyond wonders, and given me hope for our race for the first time in many years. Even the Prime has listened, and now seeks to sway his own foolish advisors to heed her. I give you word, before the Great Maker, and my Southern kindred, that all she tells you is true, and sure," he declared.
Helen smiled, but said nothing just then.
Such a declaration put Marcan's very life on the line with hers if the people didn't believe them.
"That is for our leaders to decide," the lead warrior growled, but still looked hesitant to get too close to Abe, or Will. Not that he looked all that certain about the hairless female as the Amazonian woman glared at him as if she were about to leap on him bare-handed.
"I think not," the priestess said after a moment. "I think the Maker himself shall judge this prophetess, and her words. Bring water from the well," she ordered.
Some of the people gasped.
Helen could guess why.
Most ground water would be thoroughly contaminated this close to the borderlands, and it was likely lethal to anyone that risked drinking it.
She drew a deep breath, and merely waited as a young male raced off, and soon returned holding a large chipped jar filled with dirty, brown water that he held as if fearing it might yet slay him just for holding it.
"Helen," Andrea hissed.
"I believe, Andrea, that this is a test. Is it not, Mother?"
"Indeed, filly. Be you of the stars, or a clever ploy, let us see the truth of your words. Drink this water if you can truly purify it. For all here know that to drink the local water is death. Always death."
Helen took the large jar, and smiled at the young male who stared at her owlishly.
"Bless you for aiding me, young sir," she told him, feeling it couldn't hurt to pad the résumé, as it were.
The barely adult colt looked astonished as she took the jar, set it atop her machine, and pulled out a small box from her side.
"This will tell me the truth of this water for all to hear."
She ran the tricorder over the top of the jar, and almost gasped herself.
"It is easy to see why this water is death to your people, Mother," she said, putting the tricorder away. "My machine tells me it is filled with radioactive fallout, and a lethal biological virus likely from your leaders earlier folly. Now, see my people's gift work for you."
She poured the water into the open top, and thumbed a lever, then activated the scrubbing filters. The machine made a soft humming only slightly louder than the food synthesizer, and then she pulled out a flask she showed everyone was empty before setting it under the small spigot on the side of the machine.
She tapped the spigot, and the water began to flow.
"A glass," the priestess called out. "For all to see."
Someone quickly produced a small, but clear glass, and Helen smiled as she poured the flask's purified contents into the glass.
She held up the glass, proving the water was now as clear as crystal as all those close enough to see again gasped at her. Then, she lifted the glass, and put it to her lips.
"To peace, Mother. For all of us," she said before she took a long drink. Then handed the glass that was still half full to the stately priestess. "Will you share this bounty, Mother, to prove my words for yourself?"
The slightly older mare took the glass, and held it up.
"In all my years, never have I see water this pure, or this clean no matter how often it was boiled, or filtered," she admitted.
Then drank every drop.
The mare almost let the glass fall as she stared at Helen in naked shock.
"It is….. It is….."
"Mother," someone gasped, fearful of a trick.
"It is real," the priestess declared, and the people around them cheered madly.
The warriors looked uneasy, but even they knew the folly of trying to manage a crowd filled with believers.
Helen took the glass again, refilled it from the machine that still had a reservoir from the larger jar, and lifted it high for all to see.
"Food and water for all. And peace," she cried.
"Peace," the crowd took up the chant now. "Peace! Peace! Peace!"
Sgt. Recl'mm had seen many things in his short career in the city guard. He had never seen the things this young filly had done right before his own eyes. He did know one thing, though. If the leaders tried to decry her as they had the strangers they had round in the Great Maker's temple, the people would execute the lot of them.
This young filly, she realized, was not going to be so easy to decry.
For unlike most prophets, and saviors of the past, she had done more that speak sly words, or offer empty promises. She brought food and water, and promised more.
He couldn't help but smile.
"Sergeant," one of his men asked. "What do we do?"
He grinned at the young recruit.
"We follow," he declared. "We were told to investigate, and we have. Now, we follow. I don't know about you, Darok, but I want to see more."
Not one of his three men argued.
~C~
"What is this madness," a stout, surly stud in common garments demanded as the priestess herself led Helen, and her group into the city capital, some of her own acolytes carrying the wondrous machines.
"This filly comes from the Great Maker, and has brought us deliverance, Lord Sa'aru," the priestess told him before all the people who still followed, and would not be held back.
Not that the current leader's guards would commit the folly of trying.
"I have seen these colors before," the big stud spat, eyeing their Starfleet uniforms. "On those that came as heretics, and liars, and offered sly threats, and more empty words. Now, after we tried to destroy these false star-gods, you bring me more pretenders," the leader thundered as he eyed the small group. "Guards, take them all. They will die with the others at dusk!"
"That would be the height of folly," Andrea stepped forward now at Helen's nod.
"Lord Sa'aru," the priestess told him. "I have seen this star-born filly purify water, and conjure fresh food myself. I have tasted the water, and heard the delighted cries of a child who has not known a full belly in years."
"Cheap tricks. If this filly is anything, she is a simple magician, and I will not risk our people….."
"Dr. Slater?"
"Yes," she asked the big wolvyrn as he moved up behind her, startling the people into silence as he moved.
"Found them," Abe growled.
"Go," Helen told the big wolvyrn, who moved so fast, and so gracefully, that no one could stop him as he literally leapt over fourteen feet to land far past the stunned leader, and loped down a hall where the prisoners were being kept.
"What do you think you're doing," Sa'aru demanded. "Is this more Northern treachery."
"No, Lord Sa'aru. Your Mother speaks truth here. I bring food, water, and peace with me. I do admit, some of my own people came for their own gain. In their ignorance, they defied our ways, and yours, and defiled your temple. For that," she bowed low not to him, but to the Mother. "I offer you my most sincere apologies, and accept your penance, whatever it shall be. But my friend shall take those foolish men to my own people, and you have my word, they shall be punished. And punished well."
"Lord Sa'aru," two frantic guards came running out of the hall just then. "The prisoners! They all vanished when that great beast smashed in the door, and stood among them. They just vanished!"
"Well, that's one problem taken care of," Andrea smirked.
"What of the squad watching them," the surly stud demanded.
"The beast pointed, and they all fell as dead," one of the guards wailed.
The crowd gasped at that claim, and Helen laughed.
Loudly.
"Do you hire untried foals for your personal hall, great lord? My friend but put them to sleep. Your brave men shall wake soon enough. Unharmed, and uninjured. We do not kill."
The crowd gasped anew, and the priestess smiled at her.
"Hear her words yourself, Lord Sa'aru. Before us all, test her wonders. Then tell me that I, a follower of the Great Maker since my childhood, am duped by a pretender."
Sa'aru was obviously smart enough to guess the mood of the crowd filling his hall just then, and turned back to Helen.
"If you speak true, then feed me now. Offer me…. Offer me stuffed wheat like that from the greedy Prime's own tables. With honeyed tubers, and the purist water available. Taken from the ditch outside."
She looked back at the nearest warrior, and nodded.
"Good sir, would you bring me water?"
The warrior shocked Sa'aru. He bowed to the nameless filly, and turned to walk back outside.
Even as the strange women opened up one of the boxes they carried, and the woman spoke soft words to it as if teasing a lover. Just before dishes began to appear as if by magic.
"By the Maker," he gasped as Helen held out one dish after another to him, and even he couldn't deny the food was real. And very tempting.
He pulled one of the steaming tubers from the honeyed sauce, and put it in his mouth.
He almost wept at the taste of the fresh food.
Then the warrior returned holding a bowl filled with muddy, brown water.
"While I admit this food is…..incredible, no one can purify such filth," he swore, seeing the dark soup that was more sewage than water, which prompted Sa'aru's protest.
"A glass," she said, and poured the bowl's contents into the machine as before.
The Southern leader barked an order, and someone ran.
By the time someone returned with a tall, thin glass, the machine had stopped humming, and Helen gave him a confident smile as she put the glass under the small spigot, and pressed. To his genuine shock, pure, clear water flowed out to fill the glass.
"As I have told your people, Lord Sa'aru, I bring food, water, and peace. Only that, and no more."
"Such magics," he rasped, staring at the clear water she held up.
"No magics. Science. Let there be no doubts," she said, and she once more took a long drink. "Will you drink to peace, Lord Sa'aru," she asked, holding out the glass to him as she had to the priestess.
The stunned stud gaped, and slowly reached out to take the glass. He slowly lifted the glass to his own lips, and drank. Again stunned at the pure, clean taste when he had seen that muddy filth poured into the filly's strange device.
He lowered the empty glass, staring at it. Then back at her.
"You are truly a star-being. A spirit of the Maker!"
"I am but a sister from the stars, come to aid all E'osta. As I said, my lord. I bring you peace. If you will hear me."
"Peace," the crowd began to chant again.
Sa'aru dropped to his knees, and stared at her.
"I am yours to command," he swore, and the people filling the hall cheered madly.
Only Andrea looked grim just then as Dr. Marcan smiled with relief, and Helen only smiled at everyone.
To Be Continued….
