Best left buried

Posted on Wed Oct 26th, 2022 @ 3:34am by Lieutenant JG Miraj Derani & Lieutenant Commander Rin
Edited on on Sun Nov 13th, 2022 @ 3:53am

Mission: Season 5: Time Warp
Location: USS Elysium
Timeline: after the wedding
1558 words - 3.1 OF Standard Post Measure

Miraj cornered Rin in the gym a few days after the wedding. With several weeks still left of shore leave and most of the crew off doing heir own thing, there was probably less than a hundred people left on the ship. As a result all the gymns were deserted, so when the young pilot sidled up to her trying to look nonchalent, the only conclusion that could be drawn was that she wanted something.

"Hey Rin!" Miraj waved enthusiastically, "Hows it going? Did you enjoy the wedding? No plans to go off exploring?"

Rin set down the weights she had been lifting and sat up on the bench. "Not quite sure what to do with all the time they've given us, honestly. Visited family. Taking a few days before I decide what else to do with myself. What about you?"

"Not a lot. My Dad's in bumfuck nowhere salvaging an Andorian wreck thats been missing since before humans had warp. Mal's off in Romulan space with his crew and he never tells me what he's up to. I'm just lucky I even know where he is. Roughly. Romulan space isn't exactly small. I'm all on my own." She couldn't quite keep the wistfulness out of her voice.

"Are you looking to do something?" Rin asked.

"Kind of." The young woman admitted. "I was hoping you'd be able to help with a personal project that I've kind of hit a wall on..."

"What sort of project?"

"I'm looking for information, on a ship that's not been see in a while. The Iro Mache. It means Serpent's Tooth, in one of the boslic languages. So far I've only been able to get a handful of newscasts and some very old reports that didn't tell me much." Miraj huffed out a sigh. "I'm sure there's more, but I'm only an Ensign. No one takes my access requests seriously."

"Why are you interested in this ship?" Rin asked. "What sort of info should I be looking for?"

Miraj twisted a finger around the end of a pig tail. "I was born there. Its my mother's ship. But there hasn't been a sighting in ten years now."

"Ohh..." Rin got up from the bench. "Yes, of course I'll help. Not sure if it will take hours or days, but I'll let you know when I have something. If that's alright?"

"Oh yes, more than alright." Miraj threw her arms around the XB in an overexcited hug. "Oh, sorry," she let go almost as soon as she'd grabbed the other woman, remembering that others might not appreciate it.

-----

Three days later, Rin has asked Miraj to visit her office.

"So..." Rin began, sipping her coffee. "I can see why your questions have gone unanswered. I can answer some, but not all. It is a significantly redacted file, but I'll set that aside for the moment. What IS there is fairly monstrous, so I have to ask: are you sure you want answers? What closure are you hoping this information will bring you?"

"Didn't you want to know if your parents were alive or dead when you woke up? She's my mother. And when we went to the other universe, and I got to meet her there, and I want to meet her here. Or at least know if she's really dead and that will never happen."

"I have no memory of my parents, so it was not high on my list of priorities. And our eventual meeting pained all three of us," Rin replied with a hint of steel in her voice as she sat back in her chair. "The Iro Maché in this universe is a pirate vessel with a long record of brutality. Ships crew which did not surrender were slaughtered, and not neatly. I'll spare you the details. Crews which did surrender were tortured and raped. This behavior continued under the captainship of Lianej Derani."

The younger woman pressed her hand to her mouth for a moment, then took a wobbly breath, looking a bit green around the gills. "But... but where is she? Has anyone even found a wreck?"

"They have not. Last records I can access date to 2385 when they're heading into the Typhon Expanse, with the interesting note that any future sightings be referred to Temporal Investigations. So she could literally be anywhere. Or nowhere. And now, having shared that, I expect you will speak to me or Temporal Regulations should you happen to come across any sign of her or the Iro Maché, as per Starfleet regulations. Don't risk your career - or mine - over this search."

Rin took another sip of her coffee. "This does you no good, Miraj. I understand you want closure, but this isn't going to give you what you want. The deeper you dive into this, the worse it's going to get. These files are brutal."

Miraj pulled at her hair, twisting it sharply around her finger. She had been prepared for something bad, she was aware that piracy could be violent, but from Rin's tone, it was worse than she thought. She grabbed desperately for something positive to save from this. "Temporal Investigations?"

"They won't give me more than that. Caught up in some sort of time travel phenomena. Maybe that's why we haven't heard of the ship for so long a time."

Miraj pulled at her lip with her teeth, "She's probably still alive then? Is there anything why she'd be going to the Typhon Expanse. What about before then?

"I wouldn't say 'probably.' No way of knowing how long she's been wherever she is, or what she's been doing. Hers is a dangerous life no matter where or when she is. As for why the Typhon Expanse, I have no idea. That's where my clearance ends."

Miraj sat still for a moment, trying to martial her thoughts. She'd hoped that RIn would give her some answers, and now she only had more questions. "Do... do you know anyone in Temporal Investigations?"

"Been a dead end so far. They are a tight-lipped bunch. If I do get an answer, I likely won't be able to tell you. Above your clearance."

Miraj thought about that. "Who does have clearance?" She didn't want to let this go. TI wasn't something she'd have expected in a thousand years, but it was still more than she'd had half an hour ago.

"Miraj, it's a question of *your* clearance," Rin tried to clarify. "Just because someone has access doesn't mean they can pass it on to you. That's a potentially career-ending move."

She sat back in her seat with a sigh. "You brought up what happened when I came out of the collective. What happens is it gives people false hope for something that has less chance of happening than winning the lottery. 'Then my loved ones might still be alive.' "Are they OK inside the Collective?' 'My loved one might be an xB somewhere.' 'Maybe I'll see them again.' And my counsel is always this: Accept they are dead, because the person you know is dead, regardless whether or not they live on as a drone. Escaping as an xB is a one in a trillion chance."

"I understand how much the loss hurts," Rin continued. "But false hope is worse, and people do stupid and painful things when they embrace it. My mother keeps hoping one day I'll be my old self, and she has to relive the hurt every time she sees that I am not. If your mother is alive, and you find out where, what would you do? Seek her out on a one-woman mission, throw your arms around her, talk her out of her murderous and torturing ways, convince Starfleet to look the other way, and live happily ever after? That's not a reasonable expectation. Please, don't destroy yourself over this."

The younger woman tried not to squirm. She knew. She knew that finding her mother was an unbelievably remote chance. She'd grown up with a very close look at how big space was, how it was almost impossible to find something once you lost contact. But the curiosity about where she'd come from wasn't going to go away, and meeting her mother's Mirror Universe counterpart had only made it burn brighter. "I just want to know why she didn't want me." Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Would you like my guess?" Rin asked.

Miraj gave her a small, forlorn, little nod.

"A pirate ship is no place for a baby. She can't very well keep up the appearance of bloodthirsty cutthroat with an adorable toddler running between her legs. She cared enough to give birth to you, and then she sent you away to somewhere less dangerous than her ship. Which, to be clear, does not necessarily mean she has significant attachment to you. All it suggests is she didn't want to murder her her own child."

Something twisted inside her, and Miraj wanted nothing more than to escape to a cockpit to avoid the roiling sense of loss that was going to drown her. She stood, trying not to look like she was leaping to escape. "Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome. I'm sorry the answers were not what you were hoping for."