What Do You Want?
Posted on Sun Aug 30th, 2026 @ 8:33pm by Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
3,345 words; about a 17 minute read
Mission:
The Heir of a Buried World
Location: Starbase 369, VIP Medical Suite / Fleet Command
Timeline: MD02, Morning
More than Sidra had expected, the medical suite had been altered by the morning.
The station’s daytime cycle had brought the lighting up gradually, brightening the dim walls and drawing more definition from the broad viewport beyond the consultation area. Most of the equipment used during Seren’s arrival had disappeared back into recessed compartments, leaving the suite looking almost sparse. The biobed kept monitoring him without fanfare, its status strip showing a quiet progression of biosigns whenever Sidra glanced toward it. Medical technology had become very good at making itself invisible when nothing was wrong.
Seren looked better.
Some color had returned to his bronze skin, and the exhaustion around his amber eyes had softened after a night of actual rest. The bruising along his temple had faded beneath regeneration treatment, while the stiffness with which he shifted against the raised biobed suggested the deeper injuries were taking longer to mend. A half-finished replicated breakfast sat on the small surface beside him, along with the Padd he had apparently been reading before she arrived.
Whatever Halvik and his staff had done overnight had helped.
It had not made Seren patient.
Before he looked at her, he watched the archive.
Sidra had expected that.
The case was once again in her hands, wrapped up exactly as it had been when she left the examination suite the previous evening; instead of asking him, she carried it openly and placed it on the table next to the biobed in the same position it had been in during their first discussion.
Seren’s attention followed it down.
“You examined it.”
“I did.”
He looked up at her.
Sidra moved the chair to the side of the bed and turned it a bit as she sat down so that the entrance was still at the edge of her peripheral vision. Nowadays, old habits needed very little consideration.
“The examination was carried out in a passive manner, without making any invasive access, without trying to bypass its authentication system, and without copying anything from it.”
A portion of the stress which had been building up on Seren’s shoulders loosened.
“You found something.”
It wasn't actually a question.
“Yes.”
Sidra put her Padd across one of her knees. While she had thought of a number of ways of presenting the result on the walk from Fleet Command, the simplest approach was still the best.
“The archive is consistent with the age and origin you described. More importantly, part of its authentication architecture was added considerably later than its original construction.”
Seren’s expression barely changed, though his attention sharpened.
“How much later?”
“Decades.”
He looked toward the archive.
Sidra gave him time to absorb that before continuing.
“The later system incorporates Federation evidentiary standards that did not exist when the Custodial line was officially declared extinct.”
For several seconds the medical suite settled around them. A soft tone sounded from the biobed as one of Seren’s readings edged briefly outside whatever limits Halvik had established for him, then the status strip resumed its unobtrusive progression. Further beyond the suite, the muted activity of Medical continued without intruding on the privacy of the room.
Seren remained focused on the case.
“My father said it had been maintained.”
Sidra watched him carefully. “Did he ever tell you by whom?”
“No.”
“Did you assume your family maintained it?”
“Yes.”
There was no defensiveness in the answer. If anything, the discovery seemed to have given him a new question of his own.
“My father never described how,” he added after a moment. “Only that each generation was responsible for preserving what had been given to them.”
“Preserving and modifying are different things.”
Seren nodded quietly.
Sidra had spent part of the morning thinking about precisely that distinction. Preservation suggested continuity. The authentication layer suggested preparation. Someone had anticipated that the archive might eventually return to Federation hands and had deliberately adapted it to survive the scrutiny that would follow.
She could build theories around that for days.
She had no intention of doing so before the evidence earned them.
“What we found does not establish your identity,” she said. “It does establish that the archive continued to be maintained after Federation records say there should have been no one left to maintain it. That is enough for me to carry on.”
Seren looked at her for a moment.
“You believe me.”
Sidra let the question settle before answering.
“I believe the official record is incomplete.”
A faint line appeared in between his brows.
“That is a very careful answer.”
“It is the answer I can support.”
Seren considered that, then inclined his head.
Sidra suspected Alren Val Tareth would have approved.
The thought brought her back to why she had come.
She shifted the padd aside rather than opening the notes waiting on it. Yesterday had been built around Alren’s instructions, Alren’s precautions, and the decisions he had made to keep his son alive. Seren had answered questions about his father with remarkable discipline, but somewhere during the night another problem had become impossible for Sidra to ignore.
Almost every significant choice in the story so far belonged to a dead man.
“Yesterday you told me why your father sent you here,” she said. “You told me what he believed the archive could prove, why your family stayed hidden, and what he expected you to do if that changed.”
Seren waited.
“You followed those instructions for twenty-three days. You crossed into Federation space, found Commander Neris, and eventually reached Starbase 369.”
“Yes.”
Sidra leaned back slightly.
“What do you want?”
The question reached him differently than the others had.
Seren’s eyes stayed on hers, though the answer did not come immediately. His fingers shifted against the edge of the padd lying across his lap, then fell still again.
“I told you. I want the archive examined.”
“That is what your father wanted.”
Seren’s expression tightened slightly.
Sidra continued before he could answer. “I am asking about you.”
The status strip along the biobed continued its quiet progression while he considered the distinction.
For the first time since she had met him, Seren seemed less concerned with giving the correct amount of information than with deciding what the answer actually was.
Sidra gave him the space to do it.
Beyond the viewport, a workbee moved slowly across the interior of the spacedock, maneuvering toward the hull of a docked starship with the unhurried precision of something following a familiar route. The soundproofing kept the medical suite isolated from all of it. Inside, morning light gleamed along the angular ridges of Seren’s cheekbones as he looked down toward his hands.
“My father spent his life preparing for the possibility that this would happen,” he said eventually.
Sidra said nothing.
“He believed there would come a point when remaining hidden would be more dangerous than being known. I think he decided that point had arrived before I did.”
“And now?”
Seren drew a slow breath.
“Now I think he was right.”
Sidra examined him. “That still tells me what your father believed.”
A trace of frustration crossed his face. It was brief and far healthier than the careful composure she had seen the day before.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth would be useful.”
That earned her a look.
Sidra waited.
Seren looked toward the archive again, though this time there was less deference in the movement. The case had become something different overnight. Yesterday it had been the object his father ordered him to protect. This morning Starfleet had begun producing facts from it that Alren had never explained.
“I want to know why my family had to disappear.”
The answer came quietly.
Sidra was motionless.
“I want to know why my father spent his entire life afraid that someone would find us. I want to know who found us twenty-three days ago, and why he thought dying was better than letting them reach that archive.”
His speech remained controlled, though the emotion beneath it had become easier to hear.
“And if the Federation was wrong about what happened to us, I want that corrected.”
There it was.
His answer.
Sidra let several seconds pass before asking, “Even if the correction makes your identity public?”
Seren’s jaw stiffened.
“Yes.”
“Even if it exposes your family’s survival?”
A longer pause followed.
“Yes.”
Sidra watched the effort behind that one.
“Even if people attach meaning to your name that you do not want?”
His eyes pinched slightly. “They already have.”
Fair.
Sidra’s mouth tightened at one corner.
“You understand what formal review could become. Governments will have interests. Historians will have opinions. Lawyers will discover an almost supernatural ability to multiply.”
That produced the faintest trace of amusement from him.
Sidra continued, “People will use labels like claimant, heir, Custodian, perhaps even ruler, before anyone has established what any of those words mean in the present.”
“I do not want a government.”
The speed of the answer grabbed her attention.
“Good,” Sidra said. “Because I am not offering you one.”
Seren’s mouth moved slightly.
She let that small moment breathe before continuing.
“What I can offer is process. If the evidence supports your identity and the conditions of Appendix Twelve are met, the Federation is obligated to review the historical determination.”
“And if the evidence does not?”
“Then we follow that too.”
He nodded.
The answer appeared to settle something in him.
Sidra went for her padd.
“Then I need your consent for the next step.”
His attention returned fully to her.
“The archive contains biological continuity records. Medical can compare those records against an independent sample from you, provided the archive allows that comparison without endangering its safeguards.”
Seren glanced toward the case.
“My father said it would.”
“Your father said quite a lot of things.”
“Yes.”
This time there was unmistakable wry humor in his reply.
Sidra almost smiled.
“We will verify the process before doing anything,” she said. “You will know what is being collected, what it is being compared against, and who has access to the result. Nothing leaves the restricted investigation without my authorization.”
“The Protectorate?”
“Does not currently know you are here.”
Seren’s eyes sharpened.
“Still?”
“For the moment.”
Sidra chose the next words carefully.
“That is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.”
He did not ask why.
He understood.
“They have asked again.”
“Yes.”
Seren looked down at the blanket over his legs.
“What will you tell them?”
“That depends in part on what we set up today.”
He met her eyes.
“And after that?”
Sidra held his gaze.
“After that, hiding you may no longer be something either of us gets to choose.”
The truth of it settled visibly across him. He did not recoil from it, though his fingers clenched once against the edge of the padd. Along the biobed, one of the biosign indicators rose several points before gradually settling again.
“I understand.”
Sidra believed that he understood the words.
Whether either of them understood the consequences remained another matter entirely.
She stood.
“I’ll have Medical and the examination team coordinate the authentication once Doctor Halvik clears you for it.”
Seren looked toward the archive.
“Will I be there?”
“Yes.”
The answer relieved him more than he tried to hide.
“This part is yours,” Sidra said. “You should see it.”
Seren nodded once.
Sidra lifted the archive from the table and settled it against her arm.
“Admiral.”
She paused.
“Yesterday you said you did not know me.”
“I still don’t.”
His expression changed, faintly exasperated.
Sidra allowed herself the smallest smile.
“But I know more than I did yesterday.”
That appeared to satisfy him.
She left Medical with the archive in her arms and a much clearer understanding of the problem than she had brought into it.
Seren Val Tareth wanted the truth examined.
Now she needed to prove he had standing to demand it.
// Fleet Command //
Quen was waiting outside Sidra’s office.
That alone proved enough to make Sidra slow her stride.
Her yeoman had developed an excellent sense for what could wait until Sidra reached her desk and what needed to intercept her before she got there. The padd held against Quen’s chest and the particularly neutral expression on her face suggested the latter.
“What?”
“Admiral Shran is waiting for you.”
Sidra stopped.
“How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
That was worse.
Shran did not wait seven minutes unless he wanted the recipient to know he had been waiting seven minutes.
Sidra handed the archive to the Security officer stationed outside the restricted workroom adjacent to her office, waited for the custody acknowledgement, then looked back at Quen.
“The Protectorate?”
“I believe so.”
Of course they had gone over her head.
Sidra entered her office, crossed behind the desk and activated the secure channel.
Admiral Thyren Shran appeared almost immediately.
The Andorian CINC sat behind a broad desk somewhere several sectors away, the cool light around him considerably harsher than the morning illumination in Sidra’s office. His antennae angled slightly forward as the connection stabilized. Sidra had known him long enough to recognize the posture.
He was already irritated.
“Sidra.”
“Admiral.”
“I have spent the last twenty minutes listening to a Tareth Regional Protectorate representative explain that one of my fleet commanders has declined repeated requests concerning one of their citizens.”
Sidra rested one hand against the corner of her desk.
“I’m aware.”
“I assumed you would be. Save me the history and tell me why.”
There was very little point trying to soften Shran when he was in this mood. It only prolonged the experience.
“I have an individual under Starfleet protection whose safety may be compromised by premature disclosure of his location. He arrived with material evidence that could materially alter the context of the Protectorate’s request. That evidence is undergoing authentication.”
Shran’s antennae shifted.
“Could.”
“Yes.”
“You have refused a government confirmation based on evidence you have not authenticated.”
“I have refused to identify the location of an injured protected individual while I determine whether the people asking for him present a risk.”
“Do they?”
“I don’t know.”
The quietness on the channel lasted just long enough to become uncomfortable for anyone who did not know Thyren Shran.
Sidra knew him.
“That is very little to hang a diplomatic problem on,” he said.
“It is enough to avoid creating a security problem I cannot undo.”
His jaw tensed slightly.
“Do you have a reason to believe the Protectorate was involved in whatever happened to this individual?”
“No.”
“Do you have evidence they intend him harm?”
“No.”
“Then right now you are treating a possibility as justification for withholding information from a government that has made a legitimate inquiry.”
Something in Sidra went very still.
The accusation caught the temper before experience could completely smother it.
“I have a man in Medical whose father is dead, whose transport was attacked, and who was pursued into Federation space. I am not making his location easier to trace simply because a Protectorate representative wants an answer quickly.”
Shran’s antennae angled forward.
“Nobody asked you to hand him over, Sidra.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Are you?”
The question landed harder than she expected.
Her fingers clenched against the edge of the desk.
Shran continued before she could answer. “I asked whether you have evidence connecting the Protectorate to the threat against him. You don’t. Confirmation that an individual arrived at a Starfleet facility is not the same thing as surrendering him to whoever happens to ask.”
Sidra felt heat gather at the back of her neck.
“With respect, Admiral, once I confirm he is here, I cannot take that information back.”
“And with respect, Admiral MacLaren, you do not get to turn uncertainty into evidence because you dislike the risk.”
Her jaw set.
For a second the answer was already there, sharp and ready.
Sidra swallowed it.
The quiet stretched between them while she forced her hold on the desk to loosen.
He was her superior officer.
More importantly, on that narrow point, he was right.
She had answered the question she wanted him to be asking rather than the one he had actually put to her.
“Nothing yet connects the Protectorate directly to the attack,” she said at last, each word more controlled than the ones before it.
Shran’s posture eased by a fraction.
“That is the answer I needed.”
“I still believe confirming his presence before we understand the threat is an unnecessary risk.”
“I know you do.”
Sidra looked at him.
There was considerably less heat in his voice now.
That irritated her almost as much as the argument had.
Shran knew it.
One antenna shifted outward.
“Now tell me what you actually have.”
Sidra drew a slow breath before answering.
“A historical artifact connected to the individual’s identity. Preliminary examination confirms it was maintained long after Federation records indicate its custodial line ceased to exist. We are conducting independent biological authentication today.”
Shran went very still.
The irritation remained, though it had acquired focus.
“What custodial line?”
Sidra held his gaze through the display.
“I am not prepared to transmit that over an ordinary command channel until the authentication is complete.”
One antenna angled outward.
“Sidra.”
“You asked what I had. That is what I can support right now.”
Shran stared at her for several seconds.
“You understand what position you are putting me in.”
“Yes.”
“I am being asked to defend a fleet commander’s refusal to answer a diplomatic inquiry while that fleet commander refuses to tell me the central fact behind her decision.”
Sidra’s mouth tightened.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
Her temper stirred again, but this time she caught it before it reached her voice.
“I do. I also understand that if the preliminary result is what I think it may be, telling you the name now gives you information I cannot control before I have evidence to support it.”
Shran leaned back.
The irritation in his face did not disappear. It changed shape.
For the first time since the call began, Sidra was nearly able to hear Max Flammia’s voice from the last time she had anticipated this particular gravity well asserting itself.
Good luck, Admiral.
Eventually Shran exhaled.
“I am going to regret this.”
“Possibly.”
His eyes narrowed.
Sidra caught herself before the next answer arrived and deliberately flattened her look.
Shran noticed that too.
“I will hold the Protectorate at Command until your preliminary authentication is complete,” he said. “After that, I need something I can defend. If you have a legitimate basis to continue withholding information, give it to me. If you don’t, we answer them.”
“Understood.”
“And Sidra?”
“Yes?”
“If this turns out to be someone running from a domestic warrant with an antique box, I am personally assigning you to explain it to the Diplomatic Corps.”
Some of the remaining tension finally escaped her shoulders.
Sidra’s mouth twitched before she could quite stop it.
“I’ll prepare a presentation.”
One of Shran’s antennae moved.
The channel closed.
Sidra remained behind her desk for several seconds, looking at the empty display.
The argument replayed itself once in her head, including the part where Shran had caught her answering past his question. She disliked being corrected under the best of circumstances. She disliked it considerably more when the correction was deserved.
Her hand left the edge of the desk.
Then she tapped her comm panel.
“Quen.”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“Coordinate with Medical and the restricted examination team. I want the authentication procedure ready as soon as Doctor Halvik clears Seren.”
A brief pause.
“Today?”
Sidra looked toward the secure room where the archive waited.
“Today.”
Yesterday, Seren had asked her to protect the truth long enough for someone to examine it.
This morning, he had chosen what he wanted done with it.
Now Sidra needed evidence strong enough to make Starfleet Command stand beside him.
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