Eriecho - Star Trek Kelvin Timeline fanfiction

Double Helix

Eriecho and Saddik sat together in the transport. It was chilly and smelled vaguely of – what was that? It was something resembling cabbages.

The transport was crowded with people of various species. Tall Imvari sat near azure-colored Andorians, as Tellarites chatted and, in one corner, a game not unlike blackjack was being played by a passel of Tandarans.

There was a little Xyrillian boy sitting with his mother, across from them. He kept staring and staring at Saddik and Eriecho, and their human escort, MACO Private Theo Carter.

Saddik had thought there was no need for an escort, but Colonel Shaw had insisted. There were so few Vulcans left, and his and Eriecho's relationships to the other survivors was relatively genetically remote. There was a value there, try as they might to deny it. And so Shaw had told them that, while they were free to go wherever they pleased, he would fret until their return to the Martian sanctuary unless they were escorted by someone who was armed. The worry was not wholly without logic, and so Saddik had, albeit reluctantly, agreed. When Nero had destroyed Vulcan, he had, in some ways, taken trust with him. And the Vulcans – even ex-convicts like Saddik and Eriecho – were protected and watched over and the relationship they had with other species was, now, uncomfortably uneven.

The little boy kept staring, so finally Eriecho began to stare back. "Oh, I am sorry," the boy's mother finally said, as she tried to turn her son's attention somewhere else.

"What are they, Mummy?" the little boy asked.

"That is impolite, Vir'ajen. We do not ask about someone's species as if they were a specimen in a zoological park."

"But I have never seen such people before, Mummy!"

"I'm a human, little boy," said Carter, "I'm from Earth. Do you know where Earth is?"

"Far, far away?" Vir'ajen asked.

"That's right," said Carter, shifting his weight in his seat. He was armed, but the kid didn't need to see that.

"What are they?" inquired the boy, pointing.

"Vir'ajen!"

"It is ... all right," Saddik said, "I imagine we are rather rare and unfamiliar indeed. We are called Vulcans."

"Are you the same as human?" asked Vir'ajen, an inquiry that made Carter smile a little.

"No, we are not," Eriecho said, speaking for the first time, "We are from a planet called Vulcan." The line of inquiry was making her a bit uncomfortable. She and Saddik had lived at the Vulcan sanctuary on Mars for almost two months, at the good graces of humans like Carter and Shaw. Then again, any surviving Vulcans had homes and protection only because humans and Andorians and Tellarites and the like had given them a place after the destruction of their home world.

Vulcan. She had never been there, for she had been born during transport to the Enolian prison at Canamar. She had only been free for a few months. Until her release, the only other Vulcan she had ever known had been Saddik.

And now, anyone born since 2258 – whether it was the child of a human like Carter, or a Xyrillian like little Vir'ajen, or even a Vulcan born of a human surrogate mother – none of them could ever go to Vulcan, either. Even though she had never known the place, and even though she knew that emotions, allegedly, were supposed to be suppressed and ignored and rooted out like weeds, she was still bereft and damaged by the loss.

"Where is Vulcan?" asked Vir'ajen.

The mother blanched. "My apologies," she said, "he is a curious little boy, and he does not know."