Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek.

Save for 'imzadi', any Betazoid words are made up for the story.

Published 25-5-2024

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Chapter Ten

Returning Home

Lily loved being in space. She really did. According to Betazoid beliefs, her being born among the stars meant that she was born with stardust in her veins, destined to live among them for eternity, and when she died her body's ashes would be scattered in space so her spirit could be reborn as a true star. Her aunts had called her 'linle ker', meaning 'little star' in Betazoid, a common nickname for Betazoid starborns.

She had little personal attachment to Earth or Betazed, which she had only visited a handful of times. She felt obligations towards them, as her ancestors' planets, but she had always known that her destiny was in space, even before joining Starfleet. The only thing that had kept her from joining a merchant ship or becoming a shuttle pilot was Sam needing her to hunt him down whenever he relapsed and some legal problems with the Kirk farm that she'd had to sort out. Space had always been the goal, though, even when she had cursed Starfleet for abandoning Tarsus to rot (literally. The whole planet had decayed until it was unliveable from the fungus that had escaped a lab due to some idiot intern who hadn't properly decontaminated himself).

She also loved being Captain. She'd wondered several times over the last three years if she had made the right choice in taking up Pike's dare, especially after the mess with the cloud creature while she was doing a tour aboard the Farragut last summer, but, despite the horrific circumstances it came about, she felt fulfilled for the first time in her life when she was acting as Captain. She found all aspects of the job rewarding and interesting (even the paperwork was a way to unwind, as she'd always loved reading and seeing the creative solutions to problems that her crew came up with made her beam with pride). Her kurit (her spirit in FSE) felt content for the first time at least since she'd heard the words "the revolution is successful...", if not ever, though her mind was troubled by Vulcan's destruction and the memories of the last genocide she had witnessed. It was clear that the stars were where she belonged.

That being said, Lily was still grateful to arrive back at Earth at the end of the three-week mark since what the non-Vulcans were calling "the Nero Disaster" and the Vulcans were coming to call either "Lo'uk Pak" (the Great Loss) or "Va'Pak" (the Immeasurable Loss).

They had transferred half of the injured and two hundred-fifty-six of the Vulcan refugees over to the Shenzhou, but the Enterprise was still crowded with traumatized refugees and traumatized Starfleet cadets who'd been tossed unceremoniously into the deep end of the dark side of space travel and who were struggling with their own grief for their lost peers. It didn't help that certain areas were sealed off due to being too damaged by the Narada's attacks for anyone to be there safely without a spacesuit.

Lily had done the math. Fully 87 percent of the graduating class were dead. It would have been more if they had taken much longer to beam the survivors trapped between bulkheads onto the Enterprise. Most of them were still dealing with oxygen deprivation and would probably need a lot of therapy to deal with the trauma of their ships being destroyed and their near-death experiences.

Lily had gone to visit all of the wounded regularly, to try to comfort them with her empathy, but it was suffocating being there, feeling all that horror and grief and terror. It was like being on Tarsus after the Massacre, hiding in the old mine system with her kids all over again. She hadn't struggled with such bad nightmares (excepting the time around the anniversaries of the Massacre) since she was seventeen.

It sounded terrible and selfish, but arriving back on Earth would free her from the horrific tornado of negativity. At least, she wouldn't be surrounded by it 24/7 anymore. She'd also be able to contact her kids and reassure herself that they were alright.

She thanked the Four Deities she barely believed in anymore every day that Kevin was only in his first year as a cadet. Only the graduating class had been summoned to Vulcan. If she'd lost another of her children...No, she couldn't even think of it. It was a suffering too terrible to name, let alone imagine.

Her group had been made up of fifteen kids at first (discounting her and Sam, who'd been pretty much catatonic from empathic shock -he'd always been more vulnerable to it than most Betazoid hybrids, given the traumatic break of his link with their parents. Winanna had hung on long enough to shield Lily, who would undoubtedly have died from such a shock as a newborn, but not Sam, who was too far to be shielded, having been staying with their Granddad Tiberius at the time) all under the age of thirteen. The eldest after Lily was Tom, who'd been twelve and wounded in the Massacre. The doctors on the Endeavour had told Lily that her insistence on injecting him with antibiotics every day for five weeks (after which they had run out and she'd been unable to get anymore) had been the only thing to save him. But not everyone in their group had been as 'lucky' (if surviving a genocide and being left with paranoia, PTSD and all kinds of other mental problems could be called lucky). Of the seventeen of them, only ten had survived, counting Lily, Sam and Tom, as well as Kevin.

Her eight-year-old cousin, Amanin, hadn't been one of them, though his little sister Winnie had. She now lived in a care centre on Betazed, due to the severe psychic scarring she had from the shock of feeling four thousand fifty-three people be slaughtered.

Lily visited or commed her as often as she could, but Winnie was confused and frail, often unable to recognize her. The eighteen-year-old girl was often stuck in a dream world, where their family lived in harmony on Tarsus, whole and undamaged.

Being on this ship with the Vulcan survivors felt like visiting Winnie, and it was driving Lily quietly insane. She'd probably have lost it completely by now if not for Chris and Lelianna. Lelianna had gone through pretty much exactly the same thing (though they'd never discussed details, simply confirming they'd both been present), except Sam hadn't been present on Tarsus (she'd been visiting her aunts to learn what living on-planet was like, while Sam had remained with their parents), so she understood how Lily felt, and was dealing with the same problem. Chris, meanwhile, knew more than anyone else outside of the Survivors what had happened, and he was good at letting her get her emotions out without going into details of what everything reminded her of.

"Captain, we've received clearance from the port to dock," Uhura announced. Her resentment had only grown since defeating Nero. Lily didn't really know what the woman's problem was, but she was getting exasperated with her. The only reason she hadn't reprimanded her was because, despite the acting lieutenant broadcasting her dislike of Lily (as far as Lily could tell, Uhura was either incapable of creating mental shields or she just wanted to make Lily uncomfortable), and despite the lapses in protocol during the Nero Disaster and some snide remarks, she hadn't allowed it to affect her work.

That being said, when they asked Lily how her crew had acted, she would be as honest as any Betazoid about Uhura's attitude. (Life -especially during the famine when she'd had to comfort her kids- had taught Lily a tact most Betazoids did not have, but she'd been raised to be honest and blunt, like the rest of her people, and she was perfectly capable of it).

"Understood, Lieutenant," Lily replied briskly, turning to Sulu and Chekov at the controls. "Bring us in, Mister Sulu," she ordered.

"Yes ma'am," he affirmed, skilfully guiding the battered ship into the docking bay. There was a small jolt as the clamps latched on, securing the ship in place, and Lily felt a weight leave her shoulders.

It was done. They were back on Earth, and could start working on recovering from the last few weeks.

Lily's first act once she returned to her dorm would be to call her kids and check up on them. She knew, logically, that they were alright. But emotions didn't pay much attention to logic, and her trauma would only be soothed by knowing they were safe and unharmed.

"Attention all crewmembers and passengers, you have all been informed of the disembarkation plan," Lily stated after pressing the button to activate the ship-wide intercom. "The wounded will be beamed down first, in the order arranged by Dr McCoy. At the same time, the refugees will disembark via shuttle. You have all been informed of the number of your assigned shuttle. Please make your way to the shuttle bay now, and please ensure all the children are with their assigned caregivers.

Save for the pilots who will obviously disembark with their shuttle groups, the crew will all be beamed down in groups of twenty once all the wounded and passengers have disembarked. Again, you have been informed of your assigned groups. I will be announcing each group's turn when your go arrives. Until then, remain at your stations, or, if assigned to it, help the wounded and refugees to disembark. Those in the final group, please ensure that there are no stragglers remaining aboard before beaming down, especially children.

To the crew of this amazing ship, I have been proud to serve as Acting Captain of this ship for the past three weeks. You have performed amazingly under the worst possible conditions, and you should all be proud of yourselves. To the refugees of T'Khasi, tushah nash-veh k'odular heh sochya eh dif."

She flicked off the intercom and turned to her reports, catching up with the few remaining ones that she had left over from the previous day while she waited. The command crew would be in the final group, and she had no desire to lose herself in her own thoughts (dark and full of painful memories as they had been lately) or wallow in Uhura's bitter emotions as she no doubt would without a distraction.

It took the better part of three hours for everybody to disembark, and Lily, despite already missing the freedom of space, was grateful when she finally set foot on Earth. She was considering asking Bones if he wanted to go out to lunch with her (she'd have invited Spock too, but she knew from yesterday's chess match that he'd be taking his family to his apartment to get them settled in before they went to the Embassy to discuss the Vulcans' next steps) when her eyes landed on the large group gathered around the exit of the docks.

"Daddy!" A young Human girl with dimpled cheeks and bright blue eyes squealed loudly, ducking out of her mother's grip and running to Bones, who swung her in the air as he loudly cried out her name.

"Joanna!" Bones hugged his daughter tightly as reporters took photos and filmed the sweet scene, while other family members called out their loved ones' names and ran to them, among them a young man who greeted Sulu with a loving kiss and what looked like a dozen girls crowded around Chekov, speaking loudly and rapidly in Russian.

Lily had posted a manifest listing the survivors on the Enterprise at the end of the third day to let anxious family and friends know if their loved ones had survived the battle, and the Admiralty (or someone else in Starfleet) must have informed the public of the Enterprise's return date.

Lily ignored them all, focusing on the small group of teenagers and early-twenties-year-olds, three Andorians, three Humans, and a Caitian, who all ran to her (not that she was much better, having speed-walked over as soon as she spotted them).

"How in the Four's names are you here?" She demanded. "Only Kevin and Diana are even meant to be on Earth!"

"We all booked the first seats we could get to Earth when we heard the news," Tom explained, the uncovered side of his face twitching into the closest he ever got to a smile. "We want to do whatever we can to help, obviously, and we wanted to see you in person."

Lily nodded in understanding. All of her kids had gone into (or were studying) fields that were chosen to help prevent another Tarsus IV 'incident' and volunteered with various organizations designed to help at-risk colonies, same as her. Four Deities, she was proud of them.

"Lils!" Bones called, coming over with Jojo clutching tightly to his hair, Bones having settled her in her favourite position on top of his shoulder. He glanced at her kids briefly. Bones knew she was close to them, considered them family, but he didn't know the details.

If Lily had it her way, he never would. She loved Bones but Tarsus...somethings were too painful to speak aloud, and some hurts couldn't be fixed, which was exactly what he would try to do if she ever revealed where she had grown up to him.

"Bones, you remember my kids, don't you?" Lily half-asked, half-stated as she gestured at her group.

"Yeah, though this is my first-time meeting any of them in person," Bones replied. "Nice to see you guys again."

Lily's kids gave the obligatory responses, though Tom and Talas were tense and stiff. They were the worst of Lily's kids when it came to social stuff. It didn't help that they were the most obviously scarred of the Ten as well, with Talas missing an antenna and Tom wearing a half-mask over the left side of his face.

"Listen, Lils, I'm taking Jo out for a dinner-style lunch," Bones explained. "Joss says I can have her for the week. I assume you want to go out with your friends instead of joining us?"

"Please join us, Auntie Lily, please?" Jojo piped up hopefully.

Lily smiled at the child gently. "I'm sorry, Jo-bear, I can't today," she apologized. "Why don't you two go out and have a fun dinner, and I'll see you tomorrow for lunch instead?"

"Fiiine," Joanna pouted. Lily smiled and blew the young girl a kiss before saying goodbye to her best friend. Bones waved goodbye to them all then sauntered off, listening to his little girl talk away like the tiny chatterbox she was.

Lily, meanwhile, had noticed the press turning to her and her kids, and she quickly made an executive decision that they were getting out of there.

She hadn't spoken to any of her kids in weeks, and she was eager to hear what they had been up to since their last vid-call.