Coming Home

Posted on Wed Dec 10th, 2025 @ 5:39pm by Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer & Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren

1,514 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Dreamdust
Location: Star One/Fleet Command

The advantage of Vo'Sh'un ships – even small ones like Star One – was they were able to make shortcuts which would've made Voyager's crew rage with jealousy. Though the Empire was further away, the journey back would take Sha'mer days, not years.

As soon as she was close enough to Federation space to open a stable and secure channel to Fleet Command, she contacted the Starbase. Starfleet's emblem looked strangely out of place on this projector.

Of course, coming from an outside source, it took the Starbase computer a few moments to get it through its electronic brain that the frequencies and codes were correct. Sha'mer impatiently drummed her fingers on the console. Of course those few seconds wouldn't matter, logically.

Logic had nothing to do with this.

At last the channel opened.

Her yeoman had alerted her to an incoming live transmission, and Sidra exhaled just once as she asked her to put it through.

She rose from her desk, turning to face the large screen on the bulkhead rather than remain chained to the device before her. Sha’mer’s image resolved against a Vo’Sh’un backdrop, the geometry unmistakably not Starfleet even at a glance.
“You’re aboard one of your ships,” Sidra noted, eyes narrowing slightly as she took in the details. “So you’re already en route. I take it you’re returning from the Empire.”

"I came as soon as I could."

It had meant pulling strings. Go'shut had not been happy. "I need you here. You know that. You can make a real difference here – you're making a real difference."

"Sheryn…" Sha'mer had used her Federation name, a deliberate reminder that they both had a past there. "She's my wife."

Her half-sister sighed. "Come back as soon as you can. If you can."

All Sha'mer had been able to say was: "I'll try." But she couldn't deny feeling a vast relief once she left the Empire's borders – despite whatever was waiting for her.

For a heartbeat, something eased in Sidra’s expression, a wall, one of several, shifting just enough to let in a breath of relief.
It didn’t last.

The weight of everything waiting behind her settled back into place, sharpening her posture. She clasped her hands behind her back.

“I’m glad you made contact,” MacLaren continued, quieter but steady. “There’s… quite a bit you’ll need to be brought up on.”

Sha'mer raised a questioning eyebrow but didn't interrupt. The less interruptions, the sooner Sidra would come to the point. She hoped.

A flicker of dread crossed her features; gone as quickly as it came, buried under command instinct and the necessity of moving forward.

“First, Indi is stable.”

The word didn’t feel right, but it was the best she could offer before the details began.

Part of Sha'mer – a carefully hidden part – wanted to lash out and scream to stop with the pauses, just continue, give it to her straight. But she knew the need for those breaks, the need to choose the right words, not just for the listener but for the speaker, too. Something bad. Yes. How bad?

So she played her part and tilted her head questioningly. "But?"

Sidra didn’t flinch. If anything, the impatience in her voice slipped through before she could stop it.
“This isn’t the Indi I know.” Her green eyes narrowed. “Hasn’t been since she arrived.”

Sidra had been familiar with the struggles Indi carried, all the fractures and shadows she had weathered over the years. “So I gave her space, waiting for her. That was a mistake.”

She began to pace, unable to stay still any longer.

“She’s been on Dreamdust,” Sidra said, each word heavier than the last. “I think the whole time she’s been here. And she isn’t coming off it easily, medical can’t get a handle on it.” She paused, jaw tight. “She’s… lost in there.”

Something shifted in Sha'mers expression, became harder. Dreamdust. It made her feel like cursing and throwing up at once.

A million questions surged in her mind, but she banned all of them save one. "How long?"

That question could mean many things, and did, all of them. How long had Indi been gone? How long since she returned? How long had she been using?

How long had she been lost?

Sidra absorbed the question without flinching. She’d expected it.

“I don’t know how long she was using before she arrived here,” she said quietly. “It’s been a few months since she joined me in Epsilon.”

She hesitated, not out of uncertainty, but from the weight of old history brushing against the present. Twenty years ago, she and Indi had been the sort of officers who could get into trouble together without ever planning to. Their bond had never fit neatly into Starfleet categories. Sidra doubted Cintia—or Stephen—had ever fully understood it.

She didn’t blame them.

MacLaren wasn’t sure what was happening between Indi and Cintia now, but it was clear they hadn’t been in contact for some time. She wasn’t going to pry, just… file that away for later reflection.

Then came the part she hated voicing at all.

“What concerns me most is that she doesn’t seem to know who she is.”

Hearing those words physically hurt, like an actual impact. Sha'mer had been hurt enough times to know. That lost? That far gone?

She was the first to admit she didn't know much about drugs. Her own physiology, though she looked perfectly human, was too different for most to have the intended effect on her – the same reason why painkillers were such a hit and miss and the Federation's verses of regenerative medical equipment didn't work on her at all. Dreamdust, as far as she knew, was a good way to escape reality for awhile, right until the moment that it only started to induce nightmares. It wouldn't have the effect of making one lose themselves, not until, or unless… Or was she confusing things now?

No matter.

More worrisome was that Sha'mer hadn't known any of this, at all. True, the long distance between them had made the link which existed pretty much dormant – 'pretty much' being the operative word. She knew she would've felt it had Indi died. And this… This was a kind of a slow death, wasn't it? A fragmentation of the core personality, if she understood Sidra correctly, lost and sinking… She should have felt it.

But as far as she could determine, the link between the two of them was the same as it had ever been.

"Do you know what happened to her before she joined you?" Sha'mer asked at last.

The question landed harder than Sha’mer likely intended.

Sidra’s jaw tightened, just enough to betray it. She dropped her gaze for a heartbeat before lifting it again, meeting the admiral’s eyes squarely.

“No,” she said, and the word held more frustration than she wanted it to. “I haven’t been able to have an open or honest conversation with her at all.”

She exhaled through her nose, steady but pained.

“I should have reached out sooner,” Sidra admitted, the confession quiet but unmistakably genuine. “I gave her too much space. I thought she needed time to… settle, to ground herself. But she wasn’t grounding. She was disappearing.”
Her hands, still clasped behind her back, tightened until her knuckles whitened.

“Right now, I’m worried about Indi, about her safety, her mind, what she’s trapped in.” There was a flicker of something like guilt, sharp and intrusive. “But I’m also the one who has to report what she’s done. What she hasn’t said. The tampering she did. What she’s using.”

Sidra swallowed, the smallest motion.

“I didn’t see it soon enough,” she said quietly. “And that’s on me.”

"We can debate that later." If it came to that, Sha'mer was sure there would be plenty of blame to go around. "First, let's see what we can do to get her back." What I can do to get her back. Sha'mer shivered slightly, for no reason she could put in words.

Again, she forced herself to remain calm, at least as calm as she could manage, given the circumstances. "I'm sure you did the best you could, based on what you knew. I'm sure you're doing the best you can now. I'll arrive in a few days, at most." The nature of the drive made travel time somewhat impredictable. This was the closest she could get to an ETA. "If you can… If she can still hear it, and understand… please tell her I'm on my way."

“Travel safe,” Sidra nodded, there was a slight lifting of what felt like relief. “I will tell her, and if she doesn’t hear it, I will keep telling her.”


Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
Fleet Commander
Epsilon Fleet

Rear Admiral Cintia Sha'mer
Returning from ELOA

 

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