It was a bittersweet moment for Shedda. She’d loved working with Alex and the memories and friends she’d made on the Manhattan. There was one in particular she was really going to miss. She didn’t want to leave, but orders were orders and she had to go. She’d keep in touch, but she knew unless she came back to the Delta, she’d never see Harv again.

It was a short trip through the wormhole to Event Horizon’s counterpart near in the badlands. Then it was a day’s travel to DS9. That was an interesting place. It felt more like a smugglers den than a Federation Starbase. It had been fun and fascinating and appealed to the anthropologist in her. And more so, it was the first place she had been where people didn’t do a double take at her because she was Orion. She had only been there a day before she caught her flight to Black Rock. Now, a week later, she was at the station and had been summoned to the airlock. She had no idea why.

Shedda moved down the corridor toward the airlock. She could hear a deep soft rumble, like logs shifting in a fire. She knew that voice. The Orion word for father was ‘tahedri’, but it denoted a respect as the patriarch of a family. A loyalty and duty and servitude that her father refused to have her use. He loved her for herself and not what price she could bring him. So he’d always had her use the human term, which expressed love and affection. “Papa!” she jogged the rest of the way to the airlock. The two security officers were grinning and amused by her eagerness. They already knew who he was. It had all been arranged behind Shedda’s back for him to arrive.

When the adoption for Maava having fallen through, her father hadn’t come to visit her in the Delta. And it had been so long since she’d seen him. She just needed one of his massive hugs.

Her father wasn’t the tallest Orion, but he was broad and stout, and still after all these years, he was ripped. His age showed the wrinkles of his face and the spots on his bald head. His skin gleamed and healthy, lush green from all his time in the sun. “I didn’t know you were visi…”

Shedda’s voice trailed off as her eyes slipped past him to the person with him. The tiny person with him. Her legs stopped their headlong rush to her father and she blinked. “Wha…”

“Etha!” The little girl squealed and looked up at Shedda’s father, a question written all over her features. Melul’s rumbling chuckle shook the little girl’s small body. “Yes, Maava, that’s your mama.” Shedda rushed forward, her arms outstretched, reaching for the child, and pulling her into her arms, and tucking her in close. She pressed her nose into the baby’s hair and breathed her in. Her heart hammered wildly and settled at the same time. She was here, she was safe. She raised her eyes to her father, “How? I thought…the judge?”

Melul wrapped his thick arms around them both and kissed the top of his daughter’s head. “It’s a bit of a story. Maybe you would give us permission to come on board, Commander, and I can tell you.”

Cmdr. Mal’athar, XO