The Prodigal Daughter Part II
Posted on Wed Aug 19th, 2026 @ 5:36pm by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke & Maren Malbrooke
2,747 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
The Mysteries of Maren
Location: Captain's Ready Room - Deck 1 - USS Pioneer
Timeline: MD005 1100 hrs
She looked back at Tyler, studying him again despite herself. “If he turns out to be evil alternate Dad, I’ll shout.” Then, after the smallest pause, she added, “Or throw something.” Neil raised an eyebrow and grinned at Maren. "We are marines. Not bouncers. Usually. If I thought you were a threat Miss, this would be a much different sort of meeting since my job is to hand him," he gestured with his thumb toward the Commodore, "A ship and a crew for him to get things done with. The sergeant major keeps the rest of us in line." Glancing again at Tyler he added, "He's a good man, so cut him a bit of a break while he adjusts."
Then he turned to the others and said, "Ladies and gents. We can start the tour with Marine country and see what kind of bug juice the kids have going today."
"Bug juice? Mon Dieu. Have you not any Chateau Le Jour Écarlate?" Thorrin said as he followed everyone out. He was not sure how this would go. The only thing he did know was that Maren Malbrooke was about to learn how different things truly were.
Tyler laughed as the others left. His laughter was directed at both Maren's comment and Captain Thorrin. "You know, I have never met Captain Thorrin. You spent some time with him aboard his ship. Is he always that..." Tyler looked for the right work. "That, much of a fop?" He sat with his ever present cup of coffee. As he sat he noticed his father's hat on the rack next to him. It was a reminder of the relationships between a child and father. A reminder that he may have needed right now.
Maren dropped into the chair opposite him, still watching the door the others had disappeared through. “Fop?” The brief crease between her eyebrows gave away that she had no idea what the word meant, but Tyler’s tone supplied enough context that she wasn’t about to admit it. “If you mean ridiculously dramatic, owns too much wine and talks like he wandered out of some ancient Earth play, then yeah. That’s pretty much him.”
She shifted back into the chair, one leg folding beneath her, and glanced towards the closed doors again. There was a reluctant twitch at the corner of her mouth despite herself. “You get used to him. Sort of. Although he did give me four-hundred-and-something-year-old wine once, so apparently ‘responsible adult supervision’ is a fairly flexible concept on the Herodotus.”
Her attention drifted back to Tyler and, for a moment, the resemblance caught her again. Same voice underneath the differences. Same face arranged by a life that hadn’t spent years being hunted. It was easier to look at the coffee in his hand.
“So, yeah,” she said, settling a little deeper into the chair. “Fop sounds about right.”
"Adult supervision? What are you 18? 20 years old? I mean you should be responsible enough to take care of yourself. Cards on the table. If you stay here, I don't plan on being your adult supervision. This ship would be a home away from home for you. A place where you can feel safe, and get the medication you would need until you can get home." Tyler did not say anything else, like I hope you decide to stay here or some such. He looked at her and could see so much of himself in her. Particularly when she allowed herself the smile. Her smile was just as broad as his, even when she tried to cover it up.
Maren’s head came up at once. “Seventeen, thank you.” There was enough offence in it to suggest Tyler had aged her by several decades rather than a couple of years. She folded her arms again, settling back into the chair with a look that dared him to argue. “And I can take care of myself. Probably better than half the people on this ship, actually.”
That might have been bravado, but not entirely. She had kept herself alive through things most of the officers outside that room had only ever read about in reports. The fact that she currently needed Starfleet medicine to stop reality from chewing on her cells did not, in Maren’s opinion, invalidate the larger point.
Her eyes narrowed slightly at the familiar mention of medication. “There it is again. Everyone gets about thirty seconds into talking about my future and suddenly we’re back to medicating Maren.” She made a small circling gesture with one hand, then leaned forward a little. “Fine. Pills, hypos, timeline glue, whatever keeps me from spontaneously becoming a physics problem.”
The irritation faded just enough for something more practical to take over.
“So if this is supposed to be a home away from home...” Her eyebrows lifted. “Do I get my own quarters?”
A faint, hopeful spark appeared despite her best efforts to hide it.
“And are they better than the ones on the Herodotus?”
Tyler had not seen the Merian Class starships except for the schematics. He knew that the quarters aboard the Pioneer were larger. "Yes you get your own quarters. They will be on Deck two where our guest quarters are. They are fairly spacious, as the Pioneer was designed for long range scientific missions. However, they come at a price. You will not be just a passenger on this ship. I have read the report from Captain Thorrin. He says that you are not only intelligent, but extremely talented. So, you will be a member of this crew, treated with the equality of anyone else on the crew."
Maren’s expression changed almost immediately. The promise of decent quarters had clearly landed well enough, but then Tyler added the price and she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Right. There it is.”
She leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on the edge of the table now. “So what does ‘member of the crew’ actually mean? Because if this is where you tell me I have to scrub plasma conduits, count cargo containers or spend six hours alphabetizing PADDs because apparently character-building is still a thing in this universe, I’d like to know before I agree to anything.”
Her eyes stayed on him, trying to work out where the catch was. In Maren’s experience, food, shelter and safety usually came attached to one.
“Do I get shoved into Engineering because I know which end of a warp core not to lick? Run messages around the ship? Clean something horrible?” A faint crease appeared between her brows as another possibility occurred to her. “Please don’t say galley duty. I’ve survived Jem’Hadar patrols. I’m not going out because someone trusted me with industrial kitchen equipment.”
The humour eased a little, leaving the actual question underneath.
“What do you want me to do?”
Tyler laughed, well guffawed was more like it. In truth he had not laughed that hard in some time. Her father definitely had the same sense of humor he did, and it seemed that she inherited it. Still chuckling he started to speak. "Members of this crew choose their life, and what they want to do. I would suggest perhaps you spend some time in each department, learning what we do here, adding your own skills, and seeing exactly what you enjoy doing. Then you can choose where you want to work. Your work will not be galley duty, or counting cargo, although tasks like that are integral to the running of this ship. You will be exploring, building, repairing. The Pioneer is more than a ship it is our home and it takes everyone pitching in to keep it moving. To just see what's out there and keep flying. Most of all I want you to be yourself."
He regarded her for a moment. Tyler learned about Maren as they went, but he already learned that she was a strong, fierce woman. From Thorrin's report her universe forced her to be so, he truly felt that if she could find a home here. She would stay and something deep within him wanted her to stay. "I know that this ship can never be your home, but perhaps it can be your home away from home."
Maren had been ready with another smart answer. She could feel it sitting there, somewhere behind her teeth, but Tyler kept talking and eventually it became harder to justify using it.
The idea of being allowed to choose caught her more than she expected. Not assigned somewhere. Not watched until somebody decided what she was capable of. Just try things and see.
“That actually makes sense,” she admitted, with the faint reluctance of someone who would have preferred his idea to be stupid.
She shifted in the chair, then ran one hand back through her hair, pushing it away from her face while she gathered her thoughts. It was an unconscious little habit, done without any awareness that Tyler had made almost the same gesture before she arrived.
“I’m good with systems. Ops stuff, engineering. I can pull apart most small craft and usually get them back together without having loads of bits left over.” The corner of her mouth moved. “Usually.”
There was more beneath that than she bothered spelling out. She had learned how to keep failing equipment alive because failure had consequences where she came from. How to coax power from damaged grids, bypass ruined relays, make old hardware do things it had never been designed to do. That sort of education did not come with certificates.
“I can fly. I’m decent with tactical systems too, although apparently pointing weapons at Starfleet ships is frowned upon here.” Her eyes flicked towards him, the sarcasm returning just enough to make the admission easier. “And computers tend to cooperate eventually. Even when they’ve been specifically told not to.”
That one came with a little too much innocence.
Maren settled back again, considering the rest of what he had said. “Trying the departments sounds alright. I’m not promising I’m going to suddenly discover a lifelong passion for xenobotany or whatever, but... yeah. I can do that.”
His last words took a little longer.
Her fingers brushed the cuff of her mother’s coat, thumb running once over the worn leather. “It’s not home,” she said quietly. There was no challenge in it this time, only fact. “But I suppose it doesn’t have to be.”
She looked around the ready room, then back at Tyler.
“Home away from home I can probably live with.”
A trace of her usual expression returned.
“Provided the quarters are actually as good as you’re claiming. Because if I get there and it’s basically a cupboard with a bed in it, I’m filing a complaint.”
Tyler smirked. "I will expect the complaint on my desk by morning." He sat back somewhat relieved that she took the idea of staying, and learning where she could fit in. He wanted to tell her about Kat, see how she would feel about meeting her, but then again he thought that it was probably too soon for all of that. "Before we get you to your quarters. Is there anything you would like to tell me about your father, your mother, your universe. I am not going to question you, but if there is anything you need or want to talk about I am here." The tone in how he spoke was slightly fatherly. He tread lightly as he was not her father, but he could not help but be paternal.
Maren’s mouth twitched at the mention of morning. “Morning’s generous. I can probably have three complaints drafted before dinner.”
The humour lingered for a moment, but Tyler’s next question changed the shape of her expression. Not dramatically. She simply became a little more careful.
Her hand went to her hair again, fingers pushing it back from her face while she considered how much she actually wanted to give him.
“You want the short version?” she asked. “The one where nobody suddenly decides this is a counselling session?”
There was enough warning in the question to make the boundary clear, but she did answer.
“My dad’s... you.” She grimaced faintly at how ridiculous that sounded. “Except not you. He was Starfleet before everything went wrong. Ops, engineering, systems. He taught me most of what I know because where I’m from, knowing how to fix something usually means you get to keep using it.”
She looked down at the table for a second, thumb rubbing along the edge of her coat sleeve.
“He’s stubborn. Annoying. Thinks he’s funny when he isn’t.” A small smile escaped before she could stop it. “He always knows when I’m lying, which is deeply unreasonable.”
The smile disappeared again when she moved on.
“My mum’s Tarelle. Betazoid. She was taken when I was little.” Maren’s voice stayed steady, but quieter. “Dad always said she was still alive. That we’d find her when things got better.”
She let that sit where it landed and didn’t dress it up for him.
“As for my universe...” Maren leaned back slightly, folding her arms again. “The Dominion won. Starfleet lost. Cardassia isn’t exactly somewhere you book a holiday. Telepaths get watched, registered, taken if somebody decides they’re useful enough.” Her eyes returned to Tyler. “So if I’m weird about doctors, security, people making decisions for me, or anyone saying they’re doing something for my own good, there’s usually a reason.”
That was already more than she had meant to say.
She shifted in the chair and added, a little more lightly, “You don’t get the long version yet.”
A pause, then the corner of her mouth lifted.
“Maybe after I’ve inspected these supposedly spacious quarters.”
"That's fair. You know it seems that there is not much difference between your father and I. I came up through Operations, and always had the interest in how and why things worked." Tyler could tell how her father would know when she lied. Her body language spoke volumes for her, and at the moment he knew that she was as honest as can be. "If you're interested I can I can tell you more about life here. But first lets get you to your spacious quarters." He took the dregs of his coffee and stood up. "Come on."
Maren watched him finish the coffee and stand, her eyes following the movement before she pushed herself out of the chair as well.
“Yeah,” she said, quieter than before. “I can see that.”
Her hand went through her hair again as she fell into step, the gesture unconscious and familiar. The resemblance between them had stopped feeling quite so strange now that she had heard him talk about Ops, systems, and wanting to know how things worked. Those were things she knew. Things her father had spent years drilling into her because broken equipment could mean the difference between getting away and not getting away at all.
She glanced towards Tyler as they headed for the door. “I think he probably would’ve ended up a lot like you if everything hadn’t gone completely to hell.”
There was no joke attached to it this time. Just the thought, offered carefully.
“Maybe a bit less...” Her eyes flicked over the uniform, the ready room, the rank pips. “Commodore-y.”
That brought back the smallest hint of a smile.
“But yeah,” she added as she moved with him towards the door. “You can tell me about here.”
"Right then. Less Commodore-y it is. First, I will take you to your quarters. Then a meal at After Eleven. Chloe is going to love you." Tyler said with a smile as he made his way to the door. He had thought that at least they found some common ground.
A Joint Post By
Commodore Tyler Malbrooke
Commanding Officer, USS Pioneer
Maren Malbrooke
Civilian, USS Pioneer
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