"Mayday, mayday! We are under attack by Romulan pirates. This is Jennifer Sh'reyan of the Starfleet science vessel Faraday. I say again, we are under attack by Romu—"
A control panel blows out in the Bridge's engineering station to punctuate her point.
"Shields down to thirty percent, sir," reports Morrison at ops.
"Helm, evasive action starboard and ventral, pattern omicron," Jennifer orders.
"Aye, sir!"
Jennifer tells the ensign at tactical, "What phasers we've got left will be pointing their way in... forty seconds, mark. Fire when ready."
"Aye, sir."
The Faraday is built for scanning star-forming nebulae, not fighting off slaver pirates. They were only still out here because Command inertia meant that winding down Starfleet's exploratory missions and building up its defense posture had taken years and left residuals, scraps of projects that were easier to run to conclusion than to cancel halfway through. And this sector was supposed to be in the clear, dammit.
"Phasers in three, two, one, firing."
It's a game volley of rapid bursts, and their beams hit the Romulan shields, but the old scout ship has been refitted for fighting nasty, and it fires disruptors right back.
The Faraday tumbles. "Shields are down!" report tactical and ops simultaneously.
"Earth vessel. Surrender and prepare to be boarded."
"Like fuck we will," Jennifer says. She brings the heel of her hand down upon the signal all decks icon. "All hands, arm yourselves. Prepare for intruders."
"Sir," yelps tactical, "boarding party beaming into Main Engineering—sir! Explosion on the Romulan vessel! When their shields came down—attack from unknown source!"
"Bridge to Engineering," Jennifer says. "Report."
"Earth captain. We now control your—urrkgh."
And a voice that Jennifer never expected to hear again comes on the line. "Whooo! I missed Jefferies tubes!"
"...Mariner?"
"Bit busy—don't want to fire energy weapons in here—bat'leth for the win!"
"Sir," says tactical, "ship decloaking port-side aft. Klingon? They're hailing us."
"On screen." They had fired while cloaked? thinks Jennifer.
The viewscreen shows a Klingon bridge with a human sitting in the captain's chair. "This is Brad Boimler of the Fenris bird-of-prey Unity. We have disabled the Romulan ship and beamed over a security force to support your crew."
"Boimler?"
"We'll do the 'I didn't change, Starfleet did' speech later. Right now—"
"Sir," reports T'Lyn from the console at Boimler's side. "Scans show two Romulan life signs leaving Engineering, moving forward, now climbing one deck up."
"Mariner," Boimler begins.
"Yeah, we missed a spot."
"Suggestion," T'Lyn says. "Site-to-site beaming to put team two in their path."
"Make it so."
Mariner chips in, "Coining a phrase, Boims?"
"Sir," tactical announces, "sensors confirm the Romulan bridge is open to space."
"Status of intruders?"
Another new voice. "Stand by."
"Tendi?"
Jennifer hears what sounds a lot like multiple blades being unsheathed. Then rapid footsteps, and—"Intruders immobilized."
Jennifer can't think of what else to say beyond "Thanks, Tendi."
"I had help," Tendi replies, chipper as ever.
"Still got the moves," affirms D'Jane Lienne, born of Orion.
"Situation secure," Tendi says.
Boimler replies, "Acknowledged. Mariner, Alaric, report."
"Situation secure," says Alaric, who came of age on the fury road.
"Acknowledged. T'Lyn, status of Romulan vessel?"
"Drifting. Life support failed. No life signs. Suggestion: time to go through their things."
Mariner interjects, "Today is a good day to pry!"
"Agreed," Boimler says. "We good on the lifeboat plan?"
T'Lyn taps her console. "Based on the locations of the nearest Starfleet vessels, it is practicable."
"Roger that. Commander Sh'reyan," he says to Jennifer, "we will be leaving the two surviving Romulans in a lifeboat from their ship for Starfleet to pick up. Their ship, we're taking with us." He jabs a button on his armrest. "Rutherford, stand by to tractor Romulan derelict."
"Okily-dokily!"
"It's a brave new galaxy," Jennifer says.
Boimler finally cracks a smile and drops out of his captain voice. "Yes. Even so... Cerritos strong."
"Please state the nature of the medical emergency."
"Doctor, it's my heart," jokes Barnes Yvon.
T'Ria is scanning her with an old but serviceable medical tricorder. "Routine checkup. She is joking about the affliction known as love."
"One of the worst of the lot," grouses the Emergency Medical Hologram.
"I confess myself no expert on Trill physiology," T'Ria says, "and while these readings appear normal, obtaining a second opinion is logical. If you prefer, I can deactivate you and wait for D'Vana Tendi to return."
"Tricorder, please," says the EMH. "Presenting with any unusual symptoms?"
T'Ria offers, "Willingness to reject Trill society?"
"I joined three months ago," says Barnes. "Now I am in love with two people. Two other joined Trill," she amends. "Each of whom was a partner to one of my previous hosts."
"I see," says the EMH. "Starfleet psychological research suggests that I prescribe lessons in time management." The EMH closes the tricorder. "No abnormalities detected."
"My gratitude," T'Ria says. "Computer, save and log scans and evaluations in patient record." To Barnes, she says, "At least you are fortunate in the fact that Trill society has no concept of a mother-in-law."
* * *
The village of Ojo Caliente on the world of Fenris is built on the edge of an impact crater fed by a hot spring to form a lake that steams gently in the morning chill.
T'Ria, once a xeno-mathematician for the Vulcan Science Academy, watches the predawn sky. Each night, the ionized flux stream that joins Fenris to the gas giant it orbits produces aurorae high in the atmosphere. Each morning, they fade in the dawn, except on the long nights when the giant planet eclipses the sun, Fenris lies in shadow, and the children most want to hear ghost stories.
Today, the sky progresses from violet through gold to azure. The aurorae fade in the sunlight, and the bands of the gas giant's atmosphere turn whiter as the daytime blue mixes with their oranges and reds.
The bird-of-prey named Unity is on final approach now. It passes in front of a storm the size of Vulcan, or of Earth. Its wings are held low as it crosses the mountain range on the horizon and the impact-crater lake. They sweep upward as the Unity approaches the landing field, a flat expanse of rock just outside of town.
Welcome home, ashayam, T'Ria thinks.
See you very soon, my love, D'Jane thinks back.
T'Ria turns to the child sitting on the roof beside her. He is bleary from just having awoken, but he's never missed a bird-of-prey landing yet. "Shall we?" she asks. She stands and offers her hand. "We mustn't keep your mother waiting."
He places his within hers. It'll be larger than hers one day soon, she thinks.
He scratches a pointed ear with a bright green finger as he stands. "I concur, Mother."
"You mean it can really fire while cloaked?" It's a human girl who asks first, just barely beating out the Trill boy and the J'naii youth. All of their parents are away on mission, and they are staying at the home of their schoolteacher. Because that schoolteacher has designated them as being on their best behavior, they're joining the adults for dinner on the roof.
"Sure can," Rutherford says, chipper and a bit justifiably proud. "We can drop into attack mode and use both disruptors and torpedoes with the cloak still on. Of course, we lose cloak efficiency, and our plasma emissions become more detectable, so it's best for short strafing runs, and I wouldn't trust it up against a capital ship."
"Coo-ool," says the J'naii. They take the plate of spaghetti and plomeek quiche that Rutherford offers.
"What do we say?" Rutherford asks.
"Thanks for the grub!"
The Trill boy elbows them. "No, you dunsel. That's what you say before you eat gagh."
"Thank you," says Beckett Lienne, solemnly.
"You're very welcome!" Rutherford smiles back.
T'Ria and D'Jane watch Beckett from the adjacent table of their home's rooftop patio. Your mind is unquiet, ashayam, D'Jane thinks through their bond.
Regrettable, T'Ria telepaths back, and most un-Vulcan of me.
Think the word, and I'll stop going on missions.
T'Ria presses her wife's extended fingers. The logic of the Fenris colony is that we must each perform to the best of our abilities. I accept the value of your skills. We have planned for the eventuality that I must raise Beckett alone. I regret the time you do not spend together, and the time you can no longer devote to your art.
D'Jane takes a sip of her root-beer slushie. At least now my doing art includes teaching our son to paint.
To the best of their knowledge, Beckett is only the seventh example of Vulcan and Orion DNA being made compatible. Orions have no genetic determinant for gender; whether a given infant turns out male or female is a developmental pattern that locks in stochastically several days after birth. In this respect, Beckett's Orion ancestry won out.
"No trouble with your sensor mesh?" T'Ria asks aloud.
"Functioning within normal parameters so well it's boring."
The Fenris Rangers' ex-Starfleet contingent includes one of the galaxy's experts on micro-scale biosensors and neurochemical feedback control, though she'll point out that it wasn't by choice that she had learned. The sensors in the mesh that D'Jane wears next to her skin detect the earliest signs of pheromone activity and trigger targeted doses of endocrine modulators much more efficient than the broad-spectrum suppressants they had relied upon before. A modified old-school Starfleet environment belt can generate a field that traps her pheromone molecules should any still be released. And she carries plenty of Tendi's anti-pheromone compound just in case.
D'Jane signals through their bond, Fenris is a strangely good place to raise him.
Some of Alaric's people had felt restless on Bajor. Some of the Bajorans who lived alongside them felt the call of adventure. Alaric himself had tired of revisiting his birth planet and designated his lieutenant Lavinia to take charge of their operation to smuggle dissidents offworld. Not all the escapees from Rome found Bajor and DS9 to their liking. The ones who left brought their connections through Ezri Dax with the Trill who wanted to reject the rejoining taboo.
And then came the burning of Mars, and Starfleet no longer felt like the place to uphold Starfleet ideals.
"Oh, it is good to be back!" declares Mariner as she ascends the adobe stairs. "No offense, Alaric, but after that many meals of hasperat and toum, I could go feral on a pizza."
"Namesake!" calls out Beckett Lienne. He sets down his knife and fork and runs into Mariner's arms.
"Oof, kid," Mariner says, grinning and lifting him up. "You been good?"
"Always," he tells her.
T'Lyn ascends the stairs to join her wife. "I suspect that will not endure," she observes.
Tendi and Boimler and Alaric are following close behind T'Lyn. "Peace and long life, Uncle Boims," says Beckett. "I picked vengeance peppers from the garden just for you."
"Pull up the chairs, everybody," D'Jane says.
When everyone is settled, D'Jane slides the first pizza into the oven, and T'Ria begins pouring drinks.
"I offer a toast," she says. "To us."