Point of Origin
Posted on Sat Oct 3rd, 2026 @ 7:08pm by Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren & Maren Malbrooke
2,197 words; about a 11 minute read
Mission:
Episode 18 - The Edge of Darkness
Location: Science Department, USS Pioneer
Timeline: MD003, 1030 hrs
The question had started bothering Maren somewhere between finishing her pancakes and leaving After 11.
Not a question, exactly. More the beginning of one.
She knew what had happened to her in the broadest possible sense. One moment she had been running from the Dominion, her father pushing the shuttle into a micro-warp burst because the alternative involved being caught, and the next she had been somewhere she had no business being. Different universe. Different Federation. Different version of almost everything she knew.
The Herodotus had spent considerably more time examining the problem than Maren had enjoyed being examined.
Which meant there was data.
And when Thorrin had transferred her to the Pioneer, some of that data must have come with her.
The thought followed Maren through the corridors until curiosity finally won.
Science was not somewhere she had spent much time yet. Operations made immediate sense to her, Engineering even more so; both dealt in systems that either worked or needed persuading. Science had always been something she used when necessary, usually without the luxury of dedicated laboratories, departmental specialists or enough time to wonder why the universe behaved the way it did.
Now, apparently, she had all three.
Maren stepped into the department and slowed just inside, taking in the unfamiliar arrangement of workstations, displays and personnel moving through whatever occupied the morning watch. For once she had arrived without a dismantled piece of equipment tucked under one arm, although the PADD in her hand probably ruined any suggestion that she had wandered in by accident.
She had considered looking through the records herself.
Briefly.
Very briefly.
The problem was that she did not yet know what she was looking for, and blindly digging through Science files would probably earn her another conversation about access permissions. She had already contributed enough to Starfleet computer security for one twenty-four-hour period.
Better to ask first.
Maren approached the nearest available member of the department, pushing a loose strand of hair behind one ear as she stopped within conversational distance.
“Hi. Is Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren around?”
She shifted the PADD against her hip, attempting casual and probably landing somewhere closer to determined.
“I was hoping I could talk to her.”
The ensign looked up from his computer and gave Maren a quick once-over, then smiled. "Yeah. She's over there." He pointed to a cluster of scientists looking at a series of numbers and symbols scrolling across a large monitor. "She's the one in blue."
Maren followed the direction of his finger towards the gathered scientists, then slowly looked around the rest of the department.
Blue.
Blue.
More blue.
Her gaze returned to the ensign with an expression of profound appreciation. “The one in blue. Brilliant. I don’t know how I’d have managed without you.”
There was enough amusement in her voice to take the sting out of it, though she let the look linger for another second before turning towards the group he had indicated. To his credit, pointing had at least narrowed the search considerably, and rank insignia turned out to be rather more useful than uniform colour in a room populated almost entirely by scientists.
Maren adjusted the PADD against her hip as she crossed the department. The question that had brought her here was still taking shape in her head, refusing to become something neat enough to rehearse in advance. She knew she wanted to understand what the Pioneer had been given about her arrival, how much of the Herodotus investigation had followed her aboard and, perhaps more importantly, how much had not.
That didn't mean she intended to unload all of it on a stranger before they had exchanged two sentences.
She stopped just outside the cluster rather than barging directly into whatever they were discussing, waiting for a natural opening before looking towards the lieutenant commander among them.
“Commander Maren?”
Her mouth pulled into a faint smile at the surname, an observation occurring to her a fraction too late to keep entirely off her face.
“I’m Maren too, which probably isn’t going to get confusing at all.”
She shifted the PADD into both hands. “Have you got a few minutes? There’s something I was hoping you could help me with.”
Alyssa looked up and smiled. "Well, if we both go by first names, I'm Alyssa. That will make it easier. Give me a minute."
She turned back to the others. "Okay. Start with that and let me know what you find."
When the others nodded, She turned back to the new arrival. "Would you prefer to talk in my office?" Maren reminded her of a freshman wanting to ask about the latest project. Since Alyssa wanted her to feel comfortable, that meant her office might be the best place to talk.
Maren hesitated for only a second before nodding. “Yeah. Probably.”
Private still felt strange sometimes.
Where she came from, privacy had usually meant finding somewhere nobody was listening, not having an office with a door that politely closed behind you. There had always been people nearby, someone moving through the next room, somebody keeping watch, somebody needing the same space five minutes later. Even aboard the Herodotus, where she had technically been given more room than she knew what to do with, Maren had never quite stopped expecting someone to appear.
Still, there was something easy in Alyssa’s manner that helped. Maren could feel the quiet concern beneath it, not pity and not that careful adult thing people sometimes did when they thought she might break if they used the wrong words. Just an effort to make this easier for her.
She followed Alyssa into the office and waited until the doors had closed before taking one of the available seats, PADD resting between both hands. For a few seconds she looked down at it, thumb rubbing absently along one edge while she tried to work out where to start without making the whole thing sound bigger than she wanted it to.
“So...” Maren looked up again. “I know the Herodotus sent over stuff about me. Medical things, scans, whatever they found when I turned up.” Her mouth tightened slightly at the memory of just how much poking and scanning that had involved. “And they tried to get me back. It didn’t work, obviously.”
She shifted in the chair, drawing one leg slightly beneath the other. “I just keep thinking... this can’t be the first time somebody’s ended up in the wrong universe. Starfleet’s been around forever. You’ve seen weird stuff.” A faint, almost embarrassed smile touched her mouth. “Like, properly weird stuff.”
Maren glanced down at the PADD again before continuing, quieter now. “I don’t really know what I’m looking for yet. I guess I wanted to know if Science has anything on it. Other crossings. People who got back. Anything that might mean there’s another way home that nobody’s tried with me yet.”
She looked back at Alyssa.
“I thought asking you was probably a better start than randomly digging through files until somebody got annoyed with me again.”
Alyssa couldn't help smiling at that. Clearly the girl had annoyed people. In some ways, she couldn't blame her. "Yes. asking questions is always preferable. Especially when dealing with science."
"I haven't seen your files yet, but I know the basic story," Alyssa began. "I'm not a temporal scientist, so I can't give you all the whys and why nots. But I do know that time is unpredictable. You aren't the first person to cross timelines, and you're not the first to get stuck, although that is rare. I have no doubt the crew tried to get you back. The question is, will that always be the case or will something change? I think that may be the question you need to ask. Or keep asking. Because it is possible that something happened in your universe that's preventing you from returning and until that changes, you're stuck here. But that is only a theory. So, with that on the table, what do you think I can help with?"
Maren sat with Alyssa’s answer for a moment, turning the PADD slowly between her hands while she thought. Then something seemed to click.
“The shuttle.” She looked up, interest sharpening. “When I came through, there should’ve been data on it, right? Flight logs, warp telemetry, sensor readings... whatever survived.”
She shifted forward a little in the chair, warming to the idea as she worked through it aloud. “It wasn’t like we were just flying normally and suddenly ended up here. Dad pushed the shuttle into a micro-warp burst, I fired a torpedo, half the systems started blowing up and then...” Maren made a small gesture with one hand. “Here.”
Her brow furrowed as she glanced back down at the PADD. “Could you work backwards from that somehow? Not actually try it again. I’m not volunteering to explode twice.” A faint smile flickered across her face before the seriousness crept back in. “But maybe simulate it? See what the shuttle was doing right before the crossing and whether there was anything weird enough to point at what caused it.”
She looked back to Alyssa, less certain now that the thought was out in the open.
“I mean, it might be nothing. But it’s better than just guessing, isn’t it?”
Alyssa slowly nodded. "It might. Didn't the scientists on the Herodotus examine the data from your shuttle? They should have found something, if it was there." Alyssa shrugged. "That's not to say we can't have a look as well. It's not likely to get you back, but it might give you answers."
Maren pulled a face and sank back slightly into the chair. “They looked. A lot.” She glanced down at the PADD in her hands, then back to Alyssa. “They just weren’t exactly amazing at telling me what they found.”
There was no real anger in it, more the lingering frustration of somebody who had spent too much time being discussed by people who knew more than she did. “Their science chief was weird. Actually...” Her mouth twitched. “Most of that crew were weird. Nice, mostly. Just weird. And every time I asked something, I usually got either half an answer or somebody telling me they were still figuring it out.”
She shifted forward again, interest returning now that Alyssa had actually agreed to look. “So yeah, maybe they already checked everything and there’s nothing there. I don’t know.” Maren gave a small shrug. “But if the shuttle data came over with the rest of my stuff, I’d rather look at it again than just assume somebody else already found everything worth finding.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the PADD before she added, a little more quietly, “Especially if it’s the only real bit of evidence I’ve got from the actual crossing.”
"I agree. If I were in your shoes, I'd want answers," Alyssa said quietly. "I can't promise I'll find anything, but I can promise to tell you what I can. Or explain it the best I can."
That earned a small smile from Maren, quieter than most of the ones she had worn since coming into the office.
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
It was probably the second part she appreciated most. Not the promise to find something, because Alyssa had been sensible enough not to make one, but the promise to actually explain what she could. Maren had spent enough time being surrounded by people who knew more than she did and decided that automatically meant they should choose how much of it she was allowed to hear.
She unlocked the PADD and slid it across the desk towards Alyssa. “Everything I’ve got from the shuttle should be linked in there. Or everything they gave me, anyway. If there’s something missing, I can try and get it.” Her mouth twitched faintly. “Preferably by asking first this time.”
Maren rose from the chair and pulled her coat back into place, feeling oddly lighter than she had when she walked into Science. Nothing had actually changed yet. She still had no route home, no answer waiting conveniently inside a sensor log, and no reason to think Alyssa would uncover something the Herodotus had missed.
But somebody was looking.
For now, that was enough.
“Thanks, Alyssa.” She gave her one last, genuine smile before turning towards the office door. “Let me know if you find anything weird.”
A beat passed as Maren glanced back over her shoulder.
“Actually, weird would probably be good.”
"You're welcome." Alyssa smiled. "In your case, I agree that weird would be good. Give me a few days. Hopefully I'll have something." She paused for a moment. "And Maren, thanks for asking."
Maren Malbrooke
Civilian, USS Pioneer
Lieutenant Commander Alyssa Maren
Chief Science Officer/Second Officer, USS Pioneer
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