He was in his ready room when he got the message.

A tired man sitting behind a damaged desk, in fading light with a tired expression. The Calistoga was limping back to Starbase 339 under its own power, with its hull intact. Small miracles.

Three casualties. Three death notices. It was a grave job that Ishreth Dal did not relish, but it could have been so much worse. He was organizing the contact information for the families when the communique came in from Research Station 114, just outside Bolarus. His heart raced. He knew precisely one Bolian well enough to have a priority call.

Anaia.

~*~

She was at one time a colleague.  A friend. She became more than a friend.

She was Tyva Dal’s mother.

Tyva had never met her mother.

For twelve years now Tyva had been asking about her mother. Wanting to call her mother, speak with her mother – meet her mother. Anaia would not take calls from Ishreth, but she would write. Not as often as Ishreth and Tyva wrote her – but she did sometimes write.

She was an engineer helping build terraforming stations on the big research station off her homeworld. An engineer who once was an adventurous sort, signing up for a hazard team and maintaining the specialized equipment for difficult search and rescue missions. She was escaping an overbearing, controlling, mother and a father who enabled her mother to nitpick every aspect of Anaia’s life without consequence. Joining a hazard team that took her lightyears away from her family was her act of rebellion.

Anaia and Ishreth bonded over tyrannical parents and controlling families. He was drawn to her youthful energy and rebellious spirit. She was drawn to his soft-spoken compassion and sweet words. When they were isolated away from the crew requiring an outside rescue, the tension between them blossomed into a passionate romance. After the mission it faded to a playful friendship.

Until Tyva. Ishreth would freely admit he persuaded Anaia to not terminate the pregnancy, even though it was Anaia’s desire. Some called him a monster for this, others might consider him a hero. The truth was he was simply a man who cared deeply about family. He promised to take care of their child. He promised to take care of Anaia. He promised to support them both.

He had hoped that once Tyva was born Anaia would fall in love with her.  But after Tyva was born Anaia grew more anxious, more depressed, and impossible to read.  Ishreth knew, and he was told over and over again that he should have never assumed on Anaia’s behalf. He agonized whether his choices were noble or cruel. Still, he kept his promises and made every preparation to support and protect both Tyva and Anaia. And yet it was impossible to prepare enough to change someone’s emotions. He was blind to the rejection until it came.

Mere months after Tyva was born, Anaia told him in no uncertain tones that this wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want to settle down, she didn’t want a child, and she didn’t think it would work between them. Ishreth didn’t argue. His family would never accept Anaia as a member of the family, her mother would never accept Ishreth as a part of the family. Ishreth was already determined to cut ties with his family… Anaia was not in the same place. He only learned that on the day she left him.

~*~

The Vaadwaur are coming and we’re locking the research station down. Mother wanted me to come down to Bolarus and be with her.  I want to stay up here because we control the planetary shielding. I thought my mother would be proud of me for helping protect my planet, but I guess I always make the wrong decisions. I’m just never good enough.

Mother’s been sick lately, so I have to care for her. I’m down on Bolarus every other week helping fix things in the house and taking care of anything that wasn’t done from last week. She’s been crabby, which is probably the pain. Hopefully the doctors can do something after the Vaadwaur threat passes.  

I’m not going to be able to meet up any time soon. I want everything to be perfect, and that takes some time.  I’m sure you’re busy anyways. I wish Starfleet would have stopped the Vaadwaur sooner, but I suppose you can’t fix that, can you?

Let Tyva know I’ll try for time off during the Sonfrag festival. StarBase 13 is nice that time of year. I’ll bring her a birthday gift. I’ll get Verdno to help me craft a holoprogram. She’ll like it.

I gotta go, my shift starts soon.

~*~

Every time she wrote she promised that she would come visit face to face. Never a video call, only face to face. Ishreth just wanted her to see the beautiful girl she had grown into. At first the plans were concrete. Places, dates, travel plans. Ishreth would request leave. Something always came up on Anaia’s end. Ishreth would always rock Tyva gently to sleep as she cried, her dream of meeting her mother crushed time and time again.

After the fourth cancelled meetup, they stopped setting dates and places.  Anaia would still promise, but the promises became vague. No details. Just a repeated ‘I’ll come soon.’

Of course, soon was never here, and Ishreth started making a specific plan to go to Bolarus to make Tyva’s greatest wish come true. Taking command of the Calistoga would offer him some benefits, including some leave time that he could request and manage. His plan had been to command the ship through several successful missions and then allow the crew an extended leave while he took Tyva to Bolarus for her thirteenth birthday.

He figured the failure point for this plan would be him – if his missions weren’t successful, if he was a bad commanding officer, then his plan would be delayed or changed. He had never considered Anaia to be the potential failure point.

~*~

The face on the viewscreen was an ashy blue chalk color. She slurred her words and her focus was hazy. Hyproxaline, he was guessing, which was a powerful pain reliever, generally given to patients who did not have a good chance for survival. The scene behind her was dark, the research station damaged, medical triage put into haphazard camps.

“Ishreth.” Her voice had urgency. “You’re the only line I can reach. I need you to check on Bolarus. I need you to check on my mother…”

She could barely breathe; the words came out thready and breathy.

“I will. Anaia, what about you?” concern filtered through his calm tones.

“I’m dying, Ishreth. Nobody gives a shit about me.” She spat with bitterness under the breathy struggle for words. “I was never good enough before and I was certainly not good enough to avoid an exploding shield generator.”

Ishreth’s jaw hung open for a time. Despite being younger than him, Anaia looked drawn, tired and thin even before her injuries. “I care about you, Anaia. Can I help you? I’m medically trained; I can help…”

“You can’t Ishreth. Just promise me you’ll check on my mother.”

He craned his antennae forward, straining her hear her voice as it guttered in breathy lapses.

“I will. Is there anything you want me to tell her. Or to tell Tyva?” He pleaded, a small waver splitting through the control he had in his tone.

She looked up at him and for a moment her eyes locked with his. Big blue eyes pierced through with terror and pain. “No!” The exclamation drained the color from her face leaving her like a ghost in the dim backlight. “Just… tell my mother… she was… right… after… all…”

“Anaia!” He yelled, a strange, strangled sound as the woman on the commline slumped. “Anaia, are you there?”

Nothing.

“Are you alright?”

Nothing.

“Anaia…”

Nothing.

The connection cut.

No closure. He stared at the viewscreen, watching as the image went black, the afterimage glowed and then even that faded. No closure.

He sat there, frozen, trying to let what happened sink into his brain.

That didn’t just happen.

It wasn’t real.

Maybe she would pull through. Even though he knew how triage worked and directly saw the lack of medical resources available on the damaged station, his mind started to rationalize every way in which Anaia survived. He paced and researched and did everything he could do for two hours until casualty confirmations came in from Bolarus.

Enlisted Engineer Anaia Grisnhklo, killed in the line of duty, cause of death – severe blunt force trauma from equipment malfunction during a direct Vaadwaur assault.

It did happen.

It was real.

In the dark he pinched the bridge of his nose and felt grief well up in his throat, warm and tight. Why, he wondered. He had so little contact with Anaia over the last twelve years, but what little contact was there had been just enough to give him hope.

Hope that one day she might decide to return, to meet Tyva, to reconnect with her daughter. Hope that they might be a family. That Tyva would get to meet her mother, bond with her mother.

He still had the memory of Anaia in his mind from fourteen year ago. The cheerful engineer, the optimist. The woman with the beautiful singing voice who cheered him up when he was feeling sad. When she was young and strong and bright eyed.

The bitter sting of tears clouded his eyes. He grieved the loss of who she was. He grieved the lost hope that she would return.

Anger rose like wildfire. Bright and hot, surging with energy.

First at the Vaadwaur. Tyrants and so-called conquerors, they cut vicious paths of pure cruelty throughout the galaxy, accomplishing nothing but rending families, destroying lives and snuffing out hope. He clenched his fist, hissing at the stars beyond his viewscreen, seeing his face-to-face altercation with the Vaadwaur play out in shades of red and black in his mind.

And then his anger shifted. The more he seethed about the Vaadwaur the more he found that it slipped away and redirected itself until the only thing his mind focused on was Anaia.

Twelve years!  She had twelve years to come and witness the bright, beautiful, amazing girl Tyva had become. He thought of all the families he had met who lost their children or who could not have children, who would do anything for a daughter like Tyva. And then there was Anaia who left, who abandoned the most beautiful, brightest thing in the universe to him. How could she?

How could she?!

He slammed his fist into the desk so hard that the pain radiated up through his arm and into the tight muscles of his neck and chin.

It hurt.

Good.

He did it again.

This time the pain was so raw it prompted a flash of white across his vision and he clenched his teeth, willing himself to stop before he smashed this desk into tiny pieces with his bare hands. Explaining the hand injury to Doctor T’Lena would be hard enough. Explaining the destroyed desk to Commander Ibanez was something he wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy.

How could she?

How could he? How could he be so damn stupid to hold that hope for twelve years and never realize that she wasn’t coming back.  And yet hope he did. Hope that always existed just outside his reach, even though every bit of real factual data told him the opposite.

Hope. Stupid idiot hope. Stupid idiot Ishreth Dal.

Twelve years and it never got any better. It had only gotten worse. Twelve years and every time Anaia contacted, she lied or withheld information, always leading him to believe that maybe – maybe next year, maybe sometime soon, maybe after the next mission or the next job or the next ship launched that she would come and visit. Meet Tyva. Reconnect.

And yet she never contacted him when Tyva was around – not since Tyva was three. Not once that Tyva could remember her mother’s face. She always said she was getting better. Seeking counseling. Breaking away from her mother. Change was right around the corner.

Change that never came.

And now it was too late.

No apology.

No message left for Tyva.

No ‘I love you.’ Or “I wish I could have met you.” Or “I’m proud of you.”

Maybe Anaia was proud. Maybe she did read the messages Ishreth sent her. Maybe she did see the pictures and read the accomplishments and actually cared, actually regretted leaving, Actually wanted to come.

But she never communicated that. That never came back to Ishreth – and more importantly, it never came back to Tyva.

So, did it ever exist?

Did he create a pleasant fiction where he told Tyva all the things she wanted to hear – or the things he wanted her to hear? Or did he stick to the truth. The empty void of missing communication.

And how could he tell Tyva that in her mother’s mind she always came in second. Second place after Tyva’s grandmother. Second place after the job. Second place after the comfort of being lightyears away. Second place after the fear.

Maybe it was Ishreth who came in second and Tyva suffered for it. That didn’t change how much it hurt them both. The Vaadwaur were merely the catalyst.

He sank back in his chair and cradled his head in his hands. Every single part of his body felt heavy, even his eyes, his breath – even his thoughts. Like every part of him was coated in a thick, sticky glue and it was hard to move. He let his forehead sink into his fingers as his mind fixated on one question he didn’t have an answer to.

What was he going to tell Tyva?