Asked And Answered Part II
Posted on Tue Mar 24th, 2026 @ 3:11pm by Commodore Tyler Malbrooke & Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren & Maren Malbrooke
2,729 words; about a 14 minute read
Mission:
The Mysteries of Maren
Location: Captain's Ready Room - Deck 1 - USS Herodotus
Timeline: MD002 1130 hrs
There was a moment of silence as the computer did its work. In due time the soft spoken female voice of the computer could be heard. "The Tarelle Von of universe 616 served in Starfleet as a Counselor. Lieutenant Junior Grade Tarelle Von was born on the planet Betazed in the year 2357. She was raised on her homeworld and became an accomplished telepath and empath. Tarelle specialized in using her empathic skills to assist in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Something she used to assist in the aftermath of the Dominion occupation of Betazed. This led to her entrance into Starfleet Academy in 2376. She graduated Starfleet Academy in May of 2379. The rank of Ensign was granted upon graduation. She graduated Starfleet Medical in May of 2383 with a degree in Psychology. The rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade was granted upon graduation from Starfleet Medical. Her first assignment was Junior Counselor to the staff at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards. Lieutenant Junior Grade Tarelle Von was found among the dead in 2385 in the aftermath of the Synth Uprising at the Fleet Yards. She was granted the Starfleet Medal of Honor posthumously for her bravery and actions during the uprising." The computer recited the brief record and then went silent as if it waited further questioning. Thorrin was not sure how Maren would take the news of her mother's death and he felt an amount of sadness for her and everything that she went through. However, he did not show it physically and used his skills to hide it from the empathic Maren.
Maren didn’t move while the computer spoke.
At first she listened the way she had been listening to everything since she stepped onto the ship—alert, skeptical, waiting for the part where it stopped making sense. The name landed first. Tarelle Von. Her fingers tightened slightly around the PADD in her lap as the record continued, her eyes drifting away from the screen and toward the desk.
Betazed. Counselor. Starfleet. Psychology.
It sounded… right.
Not the life she knew her mother had lived—because the truth was she barely knew anything about that life—but the shape of it felt familiar somehow. Like hearing a story about someone you’ve spent years imagining and realizing you weren’t completely wrong.
For a brief moment something softer crossed her expression.
Then the computer finished the record.
Found among the dead in 2385…
The rest of the room seemed to go very quiet.
Maren didn’t speak immediately. Her gaze dropped to the PADD again even though she wasn’t really reading it anymore. She knew this wasn’t her mother. Not the one who had disappeared from her life when she was small, not the one her father insisted was still out there somewhere.
But the name was the same.
The person was close enough.
“…huh,” she said eventually, the word barely more than a breath.
Her thumb moved absentmindedly across the edge of the PADD as if she were trying to steady herself.
“So in this universe,” she muttered quietly, “she actually made it into Starfleet.”
There was something almost proud in the way she said it, even if the feeling only lasted a second.
Her eyes lifted again, the faint shine there quickly buried under the stubborn composure she’d been wearing all day.
“Figures she’d go out helping people,” she added, a little more firmly now. “That sounds like her.”
The PADD lowered fully into her lap.
“She’s not my mom,” Maren said after a moment, more to remind herself than anyone else in the room. “Not really.”
But the way she said it made it clear it still hurt.
"She was...and she was not," Marisa said gently. "But she sounds like she was a wonderful person, and that fits the type of woman who would be your mother."
Thorrin could sense in a way that some of this was settling in to the young woman. However, there was something of note that he needed to point out. "It is important for you to know, especially if you intend to stay here. The Tyler Malbrooke that lives in this universe, the Tarelle Von who died a hero in this universe, they are not fake. Different, yes, unknown, yes, but not fake. I can make limited information available to you if you wish. For example, if you wish to get to know the Tarelle Von of this universe better, I can make some of her logs available to you." Thorrin wanted her to remain in this universe. Hell, he wanted her to remain on his ship. There was so much he could do with the information stored in her head, her help would be invaluable. However, he knew that he could not make that decision for her. So, he would try to make the decision of remaining more palatable.
Maren’s fingers rested lightly against the edge of the PADD, her thumb moving over it without really thinking as she listened to them both. Marisa’s words landed first, gentler than she expected, and for once Maren didn’t have anything sharp ready to throw back. She just sat with it, quiet, the thought of this other Tarelle Von settling somewhere deep and sore inside her.
When Thorrin spoke again, one part of what he said caught immediately.
If you intend to stay here.
Her eyes lifted to him more sharply then, the softness in her expression tightening with thought. She’d heard it. Not when we send you back. Not before you go home. Stay.
And as she looked at him properly, really looked, her telepathy caught on something she wasn’t supposed to have. His mind was mostly closed to her, as it had been since the shuttle bay, disciplined and carefully shielded, but for the briefest instant something slipped through the seams. Not words at first. Feeling. Warmth. Protectiveness. A kind of tired affection that felt nothing like the calm command presence he wore so deliberately.
Then came the image.
A girl. Darker hair. Earth-light around her somehow, softer than starship light. Young, but not a child. Loved in the uncomplicated, immediate way only family seemed to hit. And with it, quick as a spark before the wall went back up again, a name.
Hope.
The contact was gone almost as soon as it happened, but it stopped Maren cold. It wasn’t much, barely a glimpse, but it was enough to tell her that whatever else Thorrin was, some part of the way he was looking at her had not come from duty alone. For one strange second she had the uncomfortable sense that he had seen someone else in her, someone he knew, someone he cared about.
She looked down at the PADD again, then back up, her voice quieter when she finally spoke. “I’d want to read them,” she said, and this time there was no sarcasm in it at all. “Her logs. If you meant that.”
Her hands settled around the PADD more securely, almost protectively. “And… if staying here for a while is actually an option,” she added after a moment, the words slower now, more honest than guarded, “then I think I need to know what I’d be staying for before I decide anything.”
Her gaze dropped briefly, the next part harder to say. “I’m not ready to just walk away from my dad,” she admitted quietly. “Not if he’s still back there. Not if there’s even a chance I can get back to him.”
She lifted her eyes again, studying Thorrin with tired skepticism that had lost its bite but not its shape. “And honestly… you keep saying things like staying or going back like it’s simple. Like you can just open a door and send me where I came from.” Her fingers tightened faintly around the PADD. “Going between universes can’t be that easy otherwise everyone would do it.”
"It is and is not," Marisa replied. "There are no guarantees that either you or your father would live if you were sent back. Nor can we change the situation you were in." She paused for Maren to mull that over. "It is complicated. You do not have to decide right this moment." She paused again. "But believe that we want to help you."
As Thorrin sipped his wine next something took hold in the back of his mind. A fleeting touch for want of something better. It was Maren, but moreover it was the image of his daughter. The one that he named for everything he wanted, Hope. All at once it came flooding to him, the reason that he wanted to talk to Maren, everything. She reminded him of the daughter he rarely spoke to, the one he decided to let time take its course without his meddling. In that instance there was a connection, one that Thorrin allowed. Outwardly, he let nothing on, he sipped, and set his glass down before continuing on.
"Maren, this ship can take you home right now if it is something that you want. You are too right, everyone would do it, that is if they knew that this ship even existed. Which does bring us to the next salient point of this conversation. If you stay here you have two options. The first is to remain on this vessel as part of the crew with no contact to the rest of this universe. The second would be that you would be allowed to leave and seek your way in this universe. However, you would not be able to speak of us or this vessel. In fact, if need be we can delete your memories of this vessel. This is something that I do not want to do." Thorrin leaned forward and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "As to the logs. As of this moment anything that is not classified is clear for your viewing." He paused long enough to tap a few commands into the console on his desk. "I can give you a day to mull it over and let us know your decision. For the time being Commander Sandoval here can escort you to quarters where you can get cleaned up have a warm meal and some privacy. You are no prisoner here, so feel free to move about the ship."
Maren listened without interrupting, her fingers still resting around the PADD in her lap as the two of them laid out what staying actually meant. The more Thorrin spoke, the more the shape of it became clear. Stay on this ship, cut off from the rest of the universe. Leave the ship, but keep silent about it. Go back, if she wanted, to a life that had almost killed her already and would probably try again the second she landed in it.
She was quiet for a long moment after he finished, her gaze drifting toward the stars beyond the ready room viewport. Outwardly, she looked like she was still weighing it, still caught between choices she wasn’t ready to make. In truth, part of her had already started moving ahead of the conversation. A universe where Starfleet still existed, where ships weren’t scavenged ghosts and databases weren’t patched together from whatever the Dominion hadn’t burned, was not something she could afford to dismiss. If there was a way to learn here, to take something back with her one day that might actually matter, then that was worth more than whatever comfort there might be in running blindly home.
When she finally looked back at Thorrin, her expression had settled into something calmer, if no less serious. “A day’s fine,” she said, her voice quieter now, the fight mostly burned off into thought. “I’ll think about it.”
Her hand tightened faintly around the PADD before she let it relax again. “And I’d like the quarters,” she added after a moment, glancing briefly toward Marisa. “And the logs. I want to read those.”
Then, before she could think too hard about it, she reached for the wine.
The glass was cool in her hand. She lifted it, hesitated for the smallest beat as if reconsidering whether this was a terrible idea, and then tipped the rest back in one go. The flavour hit fast and far stronger than she’d expected, warm and dry and much too adult for the amount she’d just swallowed at once. She managed not to cough, which felt like a victory, but she could feel the heat rising almost immediately into her cheeks. Annoying.
She set the empty glass back down with as much composure as she could fake and leaned back in the chair like none of that had happened.
“Okay,” she said, a faint flush still high on her face no matter how much she tried to ignore it. “That is definitely fancier than anything I’ve ever stolen a sip of before.”
Her eyes flicked toward Thorrin, then to the bottle, and a tiny bit of her usual attitude returned, lighter now, more teenage than sharp. “You really do make everything feel kind of dramatic, don’t you?”
Thorrin smiled as she drank the wine. He rather enjoyed that she took it, a sign that she had become somewhat comfortable in her situation. "I do have a flair for the dramatic. It is the genteel southerner in me. So forgive my eccentricities. Commander, if Maren here is ready to rest. Please escort her to quarters. Have her access to the ship's computer graded so she may see Lieutenant Von's personal logs. While we are at it, allow her access to the Captain's logs of the USS Pioneer, and any non-classified logs from Commodore Malbrooke. Perhaps she could learn a bit about this version of her father. Do show her how to use the replicator as well."
"I will be happy to." Marisa stood and smiled at Maren. "Come this way." First, she'd show the girl around her quarters and show her how to use the replicator. If she was like most girls, she'd want a shower and clean clothes. then she'd give her access to the files she needed as well.
Maren watched the exchange between them, the empty wine glass still sitting in front of her and the warmth of it lingering faintly in her cheeks. The edge had gone out of the room now, or at least dulled enough that she no longer felt like she had to keep every part of herself braced for impact.
When Marisa stood and offered to show her the way, Maren rose more slowly than she would have liked, keeping the PADD close in one hand. She gave Thorrin a brief look on her way up, something quieter than gratitude but close enough to count, then glanced away before it had the chance to turn into anything too sincere.
“Yeah,” she said, smoothing a hand absently over the front of her jacket. “Okay.”
The movement settled naturally over the battered leather coat she still wore, old and worn in all the places that mattered, the seams softened by years of use. It sat on her like armour, and in a way it was. More than that, it was one of the few things she had brought through with her, and she held onto it with the kind of attachment that didn’t need to be explained out loud.
She fell into step beside Marisa without further argument, tired enough now to accept the offer of quarters, food, and privacy for what it was. The questions had not gone away. Neither had the ache of them. But for the first time since waking in the shuttle, she had something more than fear to sit with.
And for now, that was enough.
A Joint Post By
Captain Thorrin
Commanding Officer, USS Herodotus
Maren Malbrooke
Civilian, USS Pioneer
Commander Marisa Sandoval
Executive Officer, USS Herodotus
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