Lieutenant JG Amelia Semara - I Know Your Face, Part 1
Max
((Conference Room, Deck 1, USS Khitomer))
Sleep had been restless and filled with murky dreams, stalked by the presence that had boarded the Khitomer. The more time Amelia spent with it there a short distance off, the clearer it became. It reminded her of the way the beat notes started to come into focus when she was tuning her fiddle.
The waking world, however, was proving to be the more bizarre one. She woke early, and took her time with her yoga, tuning back in with her own mixed feelings - the sensations in her own muscles as they unravelled and the soft power of her exhale - before contending with the riot of emotion running through the ship and the stack of memos and briefings that had come through during the night. Skimming through, she hoped to find that Ezra had responded to her request to meet privately. She needed to talk about the gel-pack problem, nothing about it made sense to her and…
A photo of a blonde-haired Betazoid woman had arrested her completely.
oO I know your face. Oo
It all clicked. The hair. The slight build. The Golden Leaf of Semizad in her hair. Even before she read the woman’s name, she knew. Memory of the dream weeks past came roaring back.
oO My daughter. Aleatoranna Semara. Oo
The name made her laugh. It was ridiculous. But it also made sense. The DNA results added by Ohnari and Harford were a match. Of course they were. A family relationship explained why the woman was there in the back of her mind ever since coming aboard. As a teen, Amelia could sense her mom and dad from almost anywhere in the Valley. Even if it was a relationship that only existed from one side, a lifetime of telepathic connection was a powerful thing.
Part of Amelia wanted to reach out to the woman the moment she knew. Through all the turbulence, she could sense the love of mother and daughter. But another part of her knew to wait. It would have been trivial, but also a violation of the orders against contact. Best to wait until they were face-to-face.
Still, waiting for the captain and crew and the conference to start had never been harder. She was preposterously early. There wasn’t much to do but stare at the stars and wonder what to say while she fidgeted.
oO Tori… Oo
Amelia rolled the name over her tongue again in her mind’s eye. What kind of mother had she been? What kind of mother was she going to be? It was hard to imagine any daughter of hers going to these lengths. Hard not to be proud of the brilliance of it, all the same.
In the back of her mind, she knew Tori was thinking about her, too. How could she not?
She was still standing when a knobbly, long-fingered hand moving in her field of view woke her from what seemed like another dream. It took a couple blinks to realize Ras was calling her over. He was right - it was probably time to sit. She took the open spot next to him.
Semara: :: Quietly. :: Mornin’, Lieutenant.
El’Heem: First and foremost, are you okay?
She’d caught Connor and Talia talking earlier that morning about their own predicament. It struck her then that Ras was the first person to actually talk to her about the situation.
Semara: I have a daughter. She’s only four years younger than me, but she also ain’t born yet. :: A chuckle as she shook her head. :: I only found out about an hour ago. I don’t know how I’m feelin’ just yet.
El’Heem: A unique…situation to say the least. Outside of work…I’m here if you need me. ::pausing:: secondly, I am cautious of them, but I haven’t seen evidence to the contrary of their claims. The data you sent me matches hypothetical temporal travel like they claim and in the same time parameters. Depending on what they tell us, there will be much more to confirm.
She just nodded.
Semara: The Golden Leaf of Semizad. My hairpin. She’s wearin’ it. :: Beat :: The sapphire set in it is s’posed to be almost impossible to forge. Normally I wouldn’t let anyone else handle it for more than a moment, but we should compare mine and hers. She’ll expect us to. :: Beat :: But Ras…
She looked up from the table, her dark eyes looking deeply at him, wishing for a moment he was telepathic. Her voice dropped to a hush. She didn’t want someone suspecting her feelings of betraying the crew.
Semara: I can feel her. I feel the bond we have. Had. Will have. It’s powerful. ‘Nough that I dreamt of her weeks ago in sickbay. That says more than a scan to me.
El’Heem: Trust but verify. ::pausing:: Lieutenant Matthews ::looking past Amelia at Charles:: is less hospitable. ::looking around the room, eyes landing on Talia:: There’s a spectrum of opinion here. I’m curious what you think, Lieutenant?
Amelia’s eyes wandered over to Charles, unsure how the “spectrum of opinion” would play out. Yet a Betazoid Lady knew the difference between feeling and fact, and that action was what mattered. She wasn’t quite so self-involved to sense the charge of the question, or the tinge of maybe-doubt laced in it.
Semara: :: A little smile. :: I think I need to meet her.
El’Heem: I’m apprehensive to put the cart before the horse in either direction.
A purring, pensive hum passed her lips, comforted that at least one other person was keeping an eye out for her. A Betazoid Lady also knew when she needed a second opinion.
A lull passed as the officers finished filing in, and Hobart did his best to start without the guests of honor.
Hobart: How long until we reach Deep Space 33, Lieutenant Korras?
Deep Space 33. Where no doubt some higher ups would get involved. It was entirely possible she’d never see Tori after reaching the station. They’d have to find a way to make the most of what time they had.
Korras: Response
Hobart: No lingering effects on the ship?
Besides anachronistic hitchhikers? The ship seemed fine last she heard, now the gel-pack problems were squared away. The crew was another question.
Connor: Aside from the collective existential crisis? Nothing on sensors. The SDA’s prepared, Ensign Banks and I are going to operate it, if it becomes necessary.
Michaels: Between the efforts of Science :: Nodding toward both El’Heem and Semara :: and Engineering, the ship is ready.
Amelia nodded back at the engineer. Yesterday felt like a year ago. They’d have to patch up the back-and-forth sometime.
Banks: The anti-cascade measures installed by the Science department are up and running, and fully integrated with existing systems. The Operations department recommendation is that pending a review after this mission we should consider making them a permanent installation.
Hobart: Any insight as to where the runabout came from, yet?
A question for the science team, naturally.
El’Heem: Well ::Pausing:: Yeah. Yeah…forty years into ::Lifting his hands palms up and dropping them onto the table:: the future.
Michaels: Perhaps not necessarily our future.
An astute observation. A nagging instinct told Amelia whether or not it was going to be “their” future was about to be decided in this very room.
Richard: To jump off what Michaels is saying. We theorize that time travel involves both predestined timelines and the creation of multiple alternate futures. Logs from Deep Space 9 surrounding the prophets points to future events that are fixed and unavoidable. The distinction between if our visitors are from our future or another. Is if these travelers alters their own past, creating a paradox, or a new, parallel timeline to our own that they would be going back to.
It was probably her turn to say something, but what was there to add? Hobart didn’t seem to put much credit in feeling, and she had a superabundance of it at the moment. Fact remained thin on the ground, beyond what Richard had just presented.
There was one thing to add. Her lips parted hesitantly.
Semara: We got a coupl’a clues from their shuttle, whatever the semantics are. It’s got heavy damage from Lattice weapons, and underwent several refits since we saw it last. There’s evidence it’s been hit with Sencha a lotta times. We still oughta search it proper.
She had almost forgotten with all the news - a different search completed overnight. The message trace had come back inconclusive, but inconclusive in a very interesting way. Something else to discuss in private the first chance she got. She still wanted to search the shuttle.
Hobart: And, how's everybody feeling?
Ayemet: : looking at Michaels: They are from the future. They’re here to disrupt the timeline. That presence I felt in the bridge. It wasn’t Commander Dewitt :unable to make eye contact with him: It was his child, Oh and I’m feeling great, never better. Why else would they be here?
Amelia’s eyes rested a long time on Ayemet. The woman was empathically bleeding questions and hurt. None of them understood what was happening here, but there were obvious implications for the counselor…
Then again who travelled back in time if things were amazing and perfect?
Ohnari / Harford: Response
Hobart: Any… threats?
Something hot washed off of Richard. Amelia’s gaze flicked over to him, wondering where he fell on the spectrum of opinion, and if the curious turn of his flighty mind at the question signified something more.
Charles / Zerva: Response
The doors parted.
Shayen. Future Lacy. Ohnari-Dewitt (Goddesses he looked like them). Then Tori.
Nothing could have prepared her for it. The woman was a Semara, through and through. The facial features. The poise. The way she wore her hair - it reminded her of her own university days when she slept late and had to do something quick to make it pretty. Of course, there was the Golden Leaf of Semizad.
But most of all, the eyes. Amelia’s bit of residual coloration in her eyes was a genetic oddity among Betazoids. Instead of green, Tori’s off-black eyes had a reddish-hazel undertone that looked like rich Nantahala clay after a heavy rainstorm.
Hobart: Oh, thank goodness. All present and accounted for, sir.