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
9
"Is there a place where we might speak alone," Mother Jania asked her when the meeting finally began to break up after what seemed countless hours of conferring, and talks between the two leaders of the surviving Coalitions respectively named North, and South.
"Of course. Is there anything you need," Helen asked as Dr. Marcan glanced their way.
"A moment of your time. I wish to speak in private, young filly, because this involves matters the males need not know about just now. A matter of….penance."
"Of course," Helen immediately nodded, and gestured to the door. "We can go to my quarters. No one will disturb us there."
"Honey," Dr. Marcan asked when she turned to apprize the captain of their need to speak alone.
"It's all right, Marcan," she smiled at him. "A private matter. I don't think we'll be long."
"Take your time," Ben told her. "At least you two got these men to speak civilly for a change. That gives me a lot of hope this mission can still be spared."
"I'm certain Captain Rollins will be happy to hear that. So long as Williams isn't allowed back on the planet."
"I think we can guarantee that one," Andrea drawled, walking in just now.
"You're back," Helen blinked.
"Do you know how long it's been, Slater," she growled. "We must have fed half the damn planet down there. We are definitely going to need to stop by a starbase for resupply."
"Don't mind her," Helen smiled as Jania stared at them oddly. "Andrea lives to complain. It's part of her nature."
"The devil it is, and where are you going now," the woman complained when Helen led Jania to the door again.
"Just a private chat," Helen smiled. "Why don't you stay here, and reassure the captain you haven't done anything stupid while below."
"Now, wait one….."
"Your companion is….unusual," Mother Jania said quietly.
"Andrea? She's Morean. They're all like that. You learn to like them. They really are very nice people."
"And….the wolvers?"
"Wolvyrn. Believe it, or not, they are very peace-loving people. Nothing is more important to them than protecting their own. When they joined the Federation, they extended that protection to us. They are not, appearances aside, violent at all. Unless, of course," she smiled, "You are attacking them first."
Jania nodded as Helen stopped, and put her hand on the door that didn't open at their approach.
"Come in. We can have privacy here."
"This is your quarters," she asked.
"Well, my sleeping quarters. I usually spend most of my time either in the library, keeping up with new cultures, or discoveries, or on planets, adding to that library," she smiled.
"It must be a grand library, then," the mare remarked, walking around Helen's quarters. "Still, this is a surprisingly austere chamber for so enterprising a filly."
"I confess that I live for my work. Andrea complains I don't know how to relax," she laughed lightly.
"So, when you came to our world?"
"You were but the latest world I was helping our diplomats understand, so we might approach you with respect, and mutual safety."
The priestess paused in her looking around, and stared hard at her.
"What, young filly, is your true name? I have heard many call you different things in our short time. Tell me your true name."
"Oh, well, it's Helen. Helen Slater. Marcan likes to call me Honey," she smiled. "He claims it is easier on the ears, and the tongue."
"He is right. Do you know, though, Helen Slater of the stars, that Slater is very close to a word in our old tongue which means deliverer?"
"Oh. I didn't get to any of the old histories, or grammars. Only the most recent."
"Much has been lost in the madness of war," the priestess told her mournfully. "Lives, and knowledge. It seemed, after the last war, even our very hope was slain. At least, it has been so in the South."
"Then, I hope we can restore it," Helen smiled at her. "You mentioned my penance?"
"Yes. Your name decided me, young filly. Your patience, and your kindness to that poor colt, starving and dirty, that you treated like a high lord. Seeing your world here, I have now decided your penance."
"I have given you my word to accept your decision. Just tell me what you would have of me," Helen told her firmly.
Jania surprised her, she smiled, and stepped forward, embracing her.
"I, young filly? Not I, but E'osta. Prove your devotion, and your spirit. Come back to E'osta. Spend one year in the temple as my acolyte, and let me teach you as a true, and proper priestess while you oversee the return of our world's prosperity."
"Mother Jania…."
"Honey, I am only a simple priestess, but I am not blind. You do not truly live here, filly," she said, releasing her. "You do not live at all unless you are among strangers, learning, and seeking. Seeking, I think, a home of your own. I see no holo-images here. No likenesses of family. Am I right? Are you alone?"
"I…..was orphaned young," she admitted.
"On E'osta, you will be welcomed, and a part of a greater family. I have already seen enough to know your people will have to leave others behind to aid us. To manage the wonders you have said will aid our world. I ask you, young filly, to join us. To be our deliverer."
"Mother Jania….."
"The choice, of course, is yours," she added.
"No. No, I….. I gave my word. I'm certain my captain will understand, too. Especially after that….ignorant male almost caused a greater tragedy here. Still, I don't see myself as a deliverer," she told her. "I'm just…..a filly," she said helplessly.
"Just now, especially to a single colt, you are the very Maker's messenger, come down to spare him death."
Helen smiled at that.
"I would ask you, though. Of all those present in that moment, why chose that single colt?"
"A test," Helen asked. "All right. I'll be honest, I could have picked anyone. But who would be more appreciative of a simple meal? A proud, fully gown stud, surly and discontent from the start, or a young foal, who wasn't even sure if he would see the next day?"
"Is that all to it?"
"And, when it comes down to it," Helen added, "Even the meanest of us would sacrifice to ensure our children lived to carry on our names. Or memories. It's something that almost every species has in common. The desire to save their young."
"I think you are wiser than you realize, Honey. When we return, come with me, Sister Honey. Come to the Maker's temple, and learn our world for yourself while you show us all a better way. That, as I have said my star-born sister, shall be your penance."
Helen found her wiping tears from her eyes just then as she considered what the priestess asked of her.
"I shall speak to Captain Sawyer once he's finished with the men."
"Ah, men. So many problems would go away if they just listened to us," she sighed.
Helen burst into laughter now.
"Pray you never meet a Klingon," she told her.
Jania cocked her head, and echoed, "Klingahns?"
Helen began to explain.
To say the mare was stunned was a genuine understatement. Especially after she called up a file image on the computer in her room.
ST
"Absolutely not," Ben spat as he stared at his xenon-anthropologist. The best he had ever seen, though he wouldn't say so. Not in front of her.
"Captain, if I might be so bold," one of the diplomats who had beamed over to join them as the truce talks proceeded between the two leaders. "Dr. Slater would be of immense value on the ground. She knows more of these people than even we do as yet, and is obviously favored by both sides now. Frankly, her PR value alone would go a long way to helping us settle our negotiations after Williams faltered so badly."
Ben sighed, and glanced at the waiting party ready to be beamed down to their respective cities.
"I suppose you feel you need to go?"
"Sir, I gave my word to accept her penance in return for her aide. It would make us look pretty hypocritical if I backed out after things seemed to be going our way again. Besides, we both know there is a lot of work to do yet."
Ben stared ominously at her, and then looked to the older mare that was so composed as to seem immobile.
"Fine. Keep your communicator with you, though, and stay in touch with the Carlisle. Or the other teams. Don't get lost again, Slater," he sighed.
She smiled at that.
"No, sir," she grinned.
"I'm going to hate to lose you. I'm sure Starfleet will see the value of you staying behind, too. Especially when we deliver that idiot to them," he added as Harold Williams was led past just then, still fuming loudly over his own import, and how everyone was going to suffer once he got in touch with his own people.
Since the Carlisle was remaining behind to carry out the diplomatic mission, Captain Rollins had talked him into delivering Williams to Starfleet on his way to his next assignment.
Considering the trouble he had already caused, neither captain wanted to leave him behind, and risk him starting something else.
"Just make sure my reports are collated properly. And don't forget the new log files I typed up for….."
"We know our jobs, Dr. Slater," another tech sighed, staring at her as he walked over to hand her an equipment bag. "Spare recording disks, and an extra tricorder. Try not to lose them before you can upload them for transmission."
Helen sputtered, but just shook her head.
"Goodbye, Captain Sawyer. It's been an honor, and a pleasure serving with you, sir," she finally said as she turned to join the others on the transporter pad.
"We certainly won't forget you, Helen," Ben drawled cryptically.
"It's Honey," she grinned, and nodded to the crew chief. "Energize."
ST
For the next five days, Honey barely seemed to rest as she coördinated with the local teams now spreading water purifying stations through the city, and the rest of the south, while also working to set up detoxifying agents that would start the work promised with the alliance with Starfleet.
The border between North and South was also slowly coming down, in that more and more arms, and troops were being pulled away, even as more and more aid now came south to help those that needed it most until the Southern Coalition could once more feed its own.
Her work with Mother Jania was added to those technical duties, and she was surprised at just how practical much of it was. The Mother worked with widows and orphans, and even helped settle legal disputes, and rationing concerns while food and water were still an issue.
Then she even showed her a long-buried library where very old scrolls in semi-familiar language filled huge shelves. Someone, she realized, had built this virtual vault a very long time ago to save these scrolls. It suggested that something here was very important in the eyes of the Exanters' ancestors. Important enough to pull resources from an ongoing war to build this protective chamber.
She was soon dividing her time between her new duties, and the library, and even Mother Jania finally chided her, and suggested she remember to sleep.
Well into the second week, and already the people seemed to be far less grim, and showing more hope than she had first seen even after returning from the Sojourner with a far more hopeful General Colsaan.
He had personally tried the pair Ben had beamed back to him, and learned they were there to take out the threat of the sky-people any way possible. With their testimony, their own underground leaders of a small group of zealots, determined to make the entire planet burn for reasons of their own, were found, and captured.
Much of the violence in the city died almost stillborn after that as people began to work together with new goals in sight.
By the third weeks, Mother Jania had her accompany her to a newly rebuilt orphanage for the region, and she was stunned to find that Dr. Marcan was there, too, working with the relief teams. He smiled her way, but kept to his own duties, but made it clear he had seen her with his wide, genuine smile.
"You do know, Sister Honey," Jania told her, "That acolytes are allowed a mate even while working with the temple."
Honey sputtered, and fretted over that, but then latched onto the obvious.
"He has a job. And a place. And it's not in the South," she told him. "When his work is over, he will be returning….."
"Did you know, Marcan is my own son," she said quietly.
Honey stared at her now.
"When he was only three seasons of age, and my own mate dead in the war, I risked all to smuggle him over the border, and into a relief center where I was forced to leave him. I was obviously a Southern mare. My very accent would have betrayed me. He, however, had a chance to live, and I was determined to give it to him."
"Oh," was all Honey could say.
"Obviously, he kept in touch. He sent what aid he could, when he could after he grew older. When he returned, with you, I did not need the Maker's wisdom to know you were trustworthy, young filly. And when I heard your name, I knew you were the one I have been waiting for all my life."
"The one….?"
"To take my place," Jania smiled at her, and turned her back toward Marcan. "Now, go and greet your mate. He tells me he has returned home, and will stay here to see new doctors trained, and all our people treated well."
Honey felt a knot in her chest, and stared back at her.
"You…. But he….."
"If you do not realize he desires you above all, you have not been paying attention, Sister Honey. Or may I soon call you, daughter," the older mare smiled.
Honey turned, and impulsively hugged her.
"Nothing would make me happier," she said happily, and went to join Marcan, and a group of children he was vaccinating who cheered her arrival, since many of them already knew the star-born filly who had come from beyond to save their world.
"Doctor," she greeted him. "How are you patients doing?"
"Quite well. Perhaps you might entertain them with a story, or two, while they wait their turn," he smiled at her.
Honey smiled back, and went to lift one of the smaller foals, a young filly no more than two. "Hello, sweetie. Would you like a story?"
"Tell us about the sky-ships," a colt shouted.
"Tell us about the other worlds you saw," another cried.
"Can we have more food," the young filly she held asked quietly.
"As much as you like, little one," she smiled at the soulful gaze. "You have my word."
The little filly's smile warmed her as much as Marcan's.
"I feel like I've come home," she told him.
"You have, Honey," he told her warmly. "You have."
End…..
