Mnemosyne

The crew of Helios are back in the Alpha Quadrant and after a few days of repair works at Deep Space 47 have a solemn duty to fulfil.

Astris – the heavenly body (pt. 1)

USS Helios, orbiting Trill
10.2401

Circe is crying again, to be honest, she might not have stopped since we arrived back in the Badlands a few days ago. You would think by now that she would have cried her body dry but her big blue eyes continue to pour forth enough water that it would flood the deserts. She’s young, and loves quickly and wholly, her entire soul is given on the slightest whim; such boundless tears are the symptom of youthful misery. I long to see her smile once again but I fear it may never be as bright and gleaming, eternally smudged by such a grief as this. 

Merope is the opposite, all fury and anger at Helena’s passing. An untamed Vulcan temper combined with the pain of a young woman who has lost her mentor. Word has it Bib had to walk her out of The Sundeck last night after she launched a chair across the lounge in her overwhelming grief. It’s only a rumour for now and Bib is determined it remains that way, so all eyes swear they were closed last night. All agree a grieving sister deserves that at least, when the pain is so raw, so complete. 

And I am simply, sad, I suppose. To lose Helena is a dagger, to lose the Tyll symbiote doubly so. The young woman had so much promise and untapped opportunity if she had only sat still long enough to realise it. She was always leaping from this project to the next, bourne not out of impatience but of desperation, worried that she might miss something wonderful and exciting.  In the end, that relentless energy almost brought her back to us. Only Helena could have survived an interstellar transit in a broken Valkyrie, only Helena could have managed to break free of her captives and save the day, only Helena could have been lost venturing into the unknown of Underspace. I miss her. I miss her so much, but I have a responsibility to my sisters, to take them in hand and lead them in our mourning song. 


The Badlands – Before the Underspace event

“I’m sure you’re cheating.” Helena leered across the chess table at Astris, her hand hovering above an ornately carved jade knight, its green mane anxious to leap forward. 

“Are you saying that because you’re losing?”

“I’m not losing”.

“Four.” Astris smiled smugly, playing with a sacrificial pawn from earlier in the game, rolling its smooth tip around her palm, massaging her ageing muscles. “Check in four.”

Helena threw her hands in the air. “Absolutely not! There is no way you’re ready to check.” she cried, eliciting sideways smiles from a group of nearby officers, quietly enjoying their evening meal. The pair’s ongoing weekly chess game on the Sundeck had become a fixture for the crew since their redeployment to the Cardassian border, a small chalkboard had even appeared behind the lounges bar to track their wins, it swung heavily to Astris’ side. “How are you so good at this?”

“Time Helena. Lots and lots of time.” Astris chuckled, returning the pawn to her row of jade pieces, neatly stacked as prisoners along the side of the white stone board. “There’s not a lot to do on those old freighters whilst they chug along at warp 5.”

“Bullshit you were going warp 5.” Helen tilted her head as she pouted her lips slightly. “It wasn’t the days of Archer and co.”

“Mama’s old hunker rattled if you went above warp 5.2 and just because Starfleet was zipping around burning up the universe didn’t mean that the civilians were.” Astis looked over her imaginary glasses, summoning her most wizened face. “Warp 5 was good enough for an ore hauler out of Bolarus.” She smiled as her thoughts drifted, “Gave plenty of time for me and daddy to play at pirates and watch the stars…”

“And become a chess grandmaster?” Helena finally committed to her choice, leaping the jade knight over the crenelations of an obsidian-carved rook. 

Astris quickly surveyed the board before lifting a half-hidden bishop and gliding it across the board towards Helena’ fortified king. “I wouldn’t say grandmaster.” She lifted her hand from the piece and looked up to the trill woman opposite with a smile. “Check in three.”

“This isn’t the right game for me.”

“Then why do keep asking for a rematch?”

“I don’t like being bad at it.” Helena rubbed her temples in frustration. 

Astris smiled again, the young woman was her favourite of the Heliades’ surrogate sisters, she reminded Astris of her mother, always looking for the next opportunity and endlessly frustrated whenever her father attempted to convince her to try putting down roots again. She lived to fly, she would sit and twitch whenever they were aboard a station or planet, staying still wasn’t in her nature. Astris had caught Helena doing it more than once too. “Maybe it’s just the way I learned.” Helena lifted one eyebrow in interest as she continued to take in the board. “A chess board takes on a different feel in zero gravity. Everything does.”

“Zero-g?” Helena’s attention lifted from the marble board back to the older woman, reclining in her chair, a light woven shawl wrapped loosely across her shoulders. “Are you telling me that you’re good at chess because everything floated away?”

“Not entirely, but in zero gravity every movement takes planning and consideration or you’ll end up far off course.” Astris leant forward, “Everything has a momentum.” She touched the top of a small obsidian pawn, “I move a pawn, which causes you to move your knight, which causes me to move my bishop and so on. In zero gravity it’s much the same, my touch causes the crate to move, which pushes the vat which presses the button which opens the door just as I’m floating towards it. Each step requires planning. The key is making the right move that will influence the desired result.”

Helena furrowed her brow, her eyes darting back and forth between Astris and the board, then to the rumbling orange clouds that made up the Badlands beyond the lounge’s gigantic windows. After a few moments, she leapt to her feet and began striding towards the corner of the lounge where the room naturally narrowed to a corridor. 

“Where are you going?” Astris called after her, still collecting herself after the young woman’s sudden burst of energy.

“I need to go speak to David, i’ve had a thought about the test mission.” Helena called back. 

“And it’s not because you’re losing?”

Helena stopped in her tracks and turned back to the older woman, happily reclined in her plush wingback chair. “Were you even close to checkmate or were you just trying to make me stumble? A little push to get your desired result?” Astris smiled sweetly, a gentle shrug bouncing off her shoulders. “Cheater.” Helena hissed with a teasing smile before turning on her heel and making for the exit again. “Don’t touch that board, I’m coming back to win! Love you!” Astris allowed a laugh to tumble from her lips as she pulled the scarf around her shoulders, basking in the warm glow of the badlands beyond the window. 


It’s been two weeks now and the chess set hasn’t moved, no one can bring themselves to end the game that Helena was so determined she was coming back for. Astris passes by sometimes, and hovers over it, half considering tidying it away. It seems unfair to allow it to continue taking up space both physically and mentally. But as she pulls back her shawl and reaches out her wrinkled hand, it always comes to a shuddering stop. Sometimes she chokes back a tear, sometimes she isn’t able to. She leaves the jade and obsidian armies to sit perpetually on the table, awaiting generals who will never return, the crew’s small memorial to a woman who has gone ahead to chart the path. 

One day she finds a young ensign sitting at the table, considering the pieces as she toys with her long blonde plait. Everyone in the lounge holds their breath, but Astris simply sits and with a hand motions to the pieces, “Check in three.” 

Circe – the witch (pt. 2)

USS Helios, orbiting Trill
10.2401

I wish, by the great bird, that I could stop crying. It’s annoying more than anything, no one likes to be around someone who is crying let alone be them. They feel weird like they’re under some obligation to feel bad for you and give you that gentle rub on the shoulder. Or worse, an awkward, desperately uncomfortable hug. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I don’t feel sad but it’s like who asked you to get involved? I don’t need them to make me feel better. I need Helena back. I need to have her here, guiding the way, running the team, and making me feel safe. Making me feel wanted. 

It’s the practicalities that are the most frustrating. I’ve run out of my favourite mascara, this stuff I got on Starbase Bravo a few months back. It was just the right consistency to make it through a whole shift and an evening on the Sundeck; I’ve gone through 3 tubes having to reapply it with all the unplanned crying. I knew it was going to finish at some point but I didn’t imagine it would be this soon. I didn’t think it would outlast Helena. 

It was worse last week. The day we arrived at Trill and they loaded the empty coffin onto the shuttle for transport I thought I was going to shrivel up into a tiny blue raisen, that every drop of liquid in my body would be squeezed out via my eyeballs. I would turn into a little wrinkled thing, sitting in a puddle of watered-down mascara in the middle of the flight deck. I wasn’t entirely wrong. 

It’s getting easier, mostly. Astris pops in to check on me from the other side of the workshop but she’s got bigger things to deal with, she has to handle Merope. I’m just crying, she’s ready to punch a hole in the hull and let us all get sucked out into the void. I’ll stop crying eventually but every time I think the rivers have run dry, I think of Helena’s laugh, or the dimples at the edge of her smile, or the safety of a hug she gave me the night before she set off.

I wish that I could stop crying but I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think I want to. 


“I mean this with love Circe.” Helena paused, taking in the figure of the small blue Bolian woman across the workbench, her lithe right arm shoulder deep, disappearing inside the impulse manifold of a Valkyrie fighter. “You might be the messiest person I’ve ever met?” she presented the table in front of her, a disorderly surface covered with tools and parts and padds scrolling with complicated, scrawled notes. 

“That’s not very nice.” Circe took a sharp intake of breath in the mock offence as she squeezed her eyes closed, hoping to improve the accuracy of her already dexterous fingers as they worked blindly in the small craft’s hull. 

“I said it with love.”

“That’s like wrapping a baseball bat in bubble wrap. It’s still a baseball bat mate, it’s still gonna break your arm.” Circe twisted awkwardly trying to get a better angle. “Speaking of which I think I might need some assistance in putting my shoulder back in when I finally get to this thing.” 

“What are you even doing back there?” Helena went to lean on the table but as she began to apply her weight a precariously balanced stack of half-drunk Raktajino cups tottered threateningly. Deciding not to tempt fate she returned to her standing position. “Merope’s Valkyrie was only scheduled for a thermal sensor replacement?”

“Turns out, it wasn’t the ODN block or the sensor that needed changing, it was working perfectly. As perfectly as it can when it’s getting false information.” Circe twisted again, her body rolling like a snake as she tried to discover the most opportune angle. Abruptly she stopped her serpentine writhing as she found a useful position. Finding herself facing the older Trill woman at the counter, her arm lifted ram rod straight above her bald head before arching almost 90 degrees behind her and disappearing into the Valkyrie. She bit her lip as she fumbled delicately out of sight. “It was…” A wide smile spread across her face as a crack rang out from the innards of the fighter craft. “…this.” She slowly removed her hand from the darkness of the manifold, revealing a palm-sized yellow-white crystal, veins of dark obsidian-looking material reaching out in spiderwebs from the corner of the crystal formation.  

“That’s beautiful.” Helena’s eyes were wide in wonder, the crystal catching the distant overhead work lights of the high shuttle bay, gentle rays of light dancing in the air as the crystal captured and redirected the lights into pale golden beams. At the edge of hearing Helena caught the gentle glissando of an imagined harp, mesmerised by its beauty. 

Circe put the crystal down with a thud on the workbench, the raktajino pile rattling threateningly once again before dusting her hands performatively. 

“That little bugger has been absorbing a fair whack of the heat generated by the manifold. It’s been throwing the sensors off and causing the overheat.” She tapped the top of the crystal with her nail causing it to emit a pleasantly pitched chime across the vast flight deck. Helena’s spine shuddered in response.  “It’s crazy how some hot sand can down a Valkyrie.” She gave the small craft’s wing a comforting rub. “Wouldn’t think it’d be so sensitive.”

“Where did it come from?” Helena was now squatting at the side of the workbench, her disk-like eyes telescoping through the flaxen crystal, the stacks of cups and pads reflected within its facets, creating a fast and fantastical cityscape contained in the translucent geometry.  

Circe’s attention was already back on the Valkyrie’s impulse array, the small vacuum in her hand emitting a barely audible whine as she collected the sand remnants that had caused so many issues. “It’s from that sand planet in the DMZ, the one where Mitchell’s uncle wasn’t dead?” 

“I don’t remember Merope flying into any giant rocks.” the Trill woman’s attention was fixed upon the gem, Circe’s lithe frame now twisting within its sharp angles like some giant monster of old cinema. 

“At least not this time,” Circe whispered mischievously, drawing Helena’s attention from the gem, offering her a cheeky grin. The young woman was the perpetual humour of the Heliades sisterhood, Helena adored her smile, a wide Cheshire cat smile of white teeth shining out from the dark indigo of her skin. “There was that time on Titan,” Circe continued as she tilted her head and pulled an awkward grimace. “Took me weeks to beat that dent out of the old girl.” She tapped the fighter craft’s wing as if clapping an old friend on the shoulder.

“You could have done it in minutes,” Helena chided. “All you had to do was pull out the sonic hammer…” She reached for the tool on the table only to find its slot in the small toolkit empty. “Though I suppose you would have needed to find it first.”

Circe lept across the short distance to the workbench and began lifting and shifting piles from their delicately balanced equilibrium in search of the tool. A stack of cups slid across to make way for an isolinear docking block, which in turn gave room for the dozen padds that suddenly sprung to life with unsigned mission reports. Circe began mumbling under her breath as the searching became more frantic, “Come out little hammer, come out.” A rectangular space was suddenly filled with a precarious stack of engine parts before she lifted the small toolkit on top of the pile. 

“Circe, it’s fine. I was only joking…”

“No!” she exclaimed, her voice bouncing off the nearby fighter and causing the crystal to ping again. “It is here, I’m sure it is. Just… Under…” She lifted a hastily bundled jacket from the desk revealing the long silver shape of the sonic hammer. Circe squealed in victory, throwing the jacket to the floor like dirty laundry as she grabbed the errant tool, before breaking into an air-punching victory dance as she waved it in front of Helena’s face. “See, not lost. Right where I needed it to be.” Another beaming grin spread across her face as her victory dance came to a finale. 

Helena couldn’t help but return a portion of the infectious glee. “Don’t ever change Circe.”

“I won’t as long as you don’t,” Circe promised, offering a long blue pinkie to the older woman; sister and mother, comrade and commander. 

Helena hooked her pinkie and began dipping it gently in a promissory shake. “I don’t plan on changing anything.”


The shuttle lifted from the flight deck with a barely perceptible hum as a whistle rang out and everyone present stood to attention, tears beginning to flow freely down dozens of cheeks, now untamed by discrete handkerchiefs that had disappeared behind dress uniform-clad backs. The two long banks of crewmen watched silently as the gleaming, silver shape of the shuttle began to ease away. The dull red impulse engines of the type-11 shuttle craft pulsing sadly as the tapered beak began slowly floating down the long flight deck towards the invisible forcefield at the forward portal. 

At the far end, flanking the open bay doors, the rising hum of two dart-like Valkyries filled the vast space as they lifted from their docks. The wet faces of Merope and Astris barely visible through the canopy, their copious tears masked by the slender form-fitting helmets. The room hung in silence for a moment, the hum of engine noise, barely shackled and desperate to leap out into the endless excitement of space suffusing every bone and heart and tear in the room. 

On the workbench, hidden by piles of half-finished Raktajino and a growing number of incomplete mission reports, the yellow crystal chimed a piercing wail, its own grieving keening that cut across the din. 

Then three sets of engines flared to life and tore away, a gust of wind rolling through the long flight deck, as the last light of Helena Tyll took to the skies. 

Merope – With Face Turned (pt. 3)

USS Helios, orbiting Trill
10.2401

The charge nurse is getting nosy. I saw her through the window talking to Doctor Ashra when she went to get a dermal regenerator, throwing glances across the sickbay to my biobed. Her fine whip-like tail waived back and forth as she hissed through her tiny needle-like canines. I could almost hear her, deep rolling purrs informing the Deltan medical officer that I was back with another series of bruises. Reminding her that only a few days ago it was a fractured elbow and, before that, a dislocated shoulder. She thinks she knows best, that she can see an unhealthy grief in me. I can see it in the way she’s looking at me, her pupils floating in a sea of amber pity, looking out from her dark fur in misdirected sympathy. ‘Sssuch a ssshame, ssso angry’ I can hear her hiss. She feels sorry for the wrong person. They all do.

Everyone is obsessed with the loss of the symbiote, they’re all out there wringing their hands and trading maudlin sighs about the loss of a stupid little slug, barely 3 lives in the making. The commission even released a separate obituary on the newscasts, announcing the loss of the Tyll symbiote, a ‘grievous loss to the Trill people’. I punched the bulkhead when i saw it, that was the first of the injuries and the first of many bulkheads. They barely mentioned Helena other than to say she was the host at the time. They didn’t mention her service jacket or her achievements; they didn’t mention her laugh or her wicked sense of humour; they didn’t mention her perfume or the warmth of her hugs. They didn’t even call her Commander, she’d worked a lifetime for that, she deserved to be recognised as much as the thing in her belly.

Don’t get me wrong, losing the symbiote is a shame but that thing wasn’t the woman I had come to admire, to love. It wasn’t the woman who showed me the wonders of the universe, who had skated clouds and danced through asteroids with me, who had laughed as we buzzed villages and bulkheads, flexing our wings with expert grace. It wasn’t the woman who had saved me on Titan, who had reached into the wreck of my Valkyrie and lifted me out, held me close against the wind chill till the SAR birds found us. It was just a pale shadow to the goddess who had led me into battle, whose mast would forever hold my colours.

Helena was my sister, the symbiote was just along for the ride.

And it feels like nobody cares that she’s gone.


“Are you shitting me?”

“I’m not sure what that means.” Helena smiled as she lifted her finger from the switch that had instructed the aerodrome’s metal shutters to roll away.

“It’s something my aunt used to say.” Merope clarified as she stepped forward reverently taking in the elegant shape of the antique plane sitting on the tarmac, its dark grey skin shining in the noon sun that reached through the cloudless blue sky.

“I presume it means something good?” Helena’s smile grew even wider as she watched the young woman creep forward, her eyes the size of dish plates.

Merope’s hand hovered over the plane tentatively, fearful to touch it less he hand passed straight through. “Where did you even find it? It must be almost 500 years old.” She let her hand alight upon the surface of the fuselage, feeling the warm metal beneath her long fingers. Her stomach jumped in excitement at the feel of the artefact.

“I’ve got lots of friends across all four quadrants.” Helena took a few steps to join her at the side of the plane, leaning gently on the round body. “A trader friend mentioned they had seen one on Crinnick prime during a visit, a project that someone had never finished. She was in a pretty bad state when I found her. Sat in the corner of an old house in the hills, don’t think she’s left the ground for several hundred years.” She rubbed the thin metal hull reassuringly. “Had her moved back here to Earth a few years ago, been working on her every time I get leave.”

Merope slowly moved along the plane, allowing her fingers to bounce over rivets and screws, each perfectly formed before they stumbled on a large jagged line in the metal. It was long repaired by forgotten hands and masked slightly beneath the paint job but clearly visible by the change in patina. “What’s this?”

“An old scar, no doubt from some adventure or another. It felt wrong to get rid of it.” Helena tapped the narrowing fuselage where she leant, taking in the elegant form of the antique. “Like us all she’s got her fair share of tales to tell.”

Merope turned back, her attention suddenly drawn back to the woman who stood only a few metres away, falling into her reverent contemplation in the presence of this elder of flight. Helena’s gaze reached through the craft, her attention fixed on some distant sky; a million lightyears away, lost in a memory of her own, or of someone else’s.

“It’s stunning boss. Some really nice work.”

“Getting it to fly hasn’t been easy at all.”

“No. Way.” Merope’s stomach jumped again in excitement. “It flies?”

“In theory. Everything is working, structural integrity is sound and I managed to get the engine working last time I was here.” Helena’s attention returned to the young woman, who seemed to vibrate in excitement at the implied offer.

“Combustion?” Merope nodded to the large propeller and engine array at the front of the plane.

Helena nodded, “I needed to replicate a lot of parts and synthesising the fuel involved a couple more favours.” Silence fell on the pair, the distant swaying of the open fields that surrounded the small private aerodrome the only sound for miles. Helena waited, seeing Merope buzz with visible anticipation. “I thought you might like to test drive her.”

Merope turned back slack-jawed to see a proffered padded leather helmet, two large goggles seated on its brow, the small chin strap fluttering in the gentle wind at the mouth of the aerodrome.

“But you did all the work, you should get to be the first,” Merope whispered.

Helena threw her head back in a laugh before pushing the helmet into the young woman’s hands. “I remember when you first applied to join Heliades, I asked you to tell me your favourite flying moment?”

“I remember.”

“You said, flying over the cornfields of your grandparent’s farm in Kansas. The feeling that there wasn’t an edge, that the sky went on forever.”

“I did.”

Helena lifted her arm and pointed confidently towards the south, her finger indicating beyond a small hillock in the distance. “Well Kansas is about four hours that way, a sharp right turn and we can be over those fields in time for the sunset.”

Merope’s eyes began filling with unbidden tears as she accepted the leather helmet, lifting it to her head and sliding it down over her short pointed ears. “I didn’t think you would remember that.”

“I will always…” Helena smiled, reaching up to wipe away an errant tear that had rolled down Merope’s dark cheek, “…always remember.”

The two women shared a quiet giggle and a sniffly hug, their love lingering in the gently wafting breeze, carrying their contented sighs on gentle gusts across the tarmac, as neither pulled away.


The dark green of the forest landscape beneath the trio of craft gave way suddenly to endless open fields of swaying grains and corn, as the flight wing cruised at supersonic speeds over the open plains of Helena’s childhood home. Endless golden fields of delicate stalks reached onwards towards the horizon as the mountainous terrain fell away and in all directions there was flat open space and blue skies. Endless, open, free.

The tapered arrowhead of the shuttlecraft that was the focus of their cortege at the lead began to decelerate, slowing to a more respectfully sedate speed as a complex of brick buildings came into sight in the distance; a small group of figures waiting in it’s large brick clad square, their teary eyes raised towards transport. In the twin Valkyries, weeping pilots pulled on their controls, fighting every instinct as they are forced to leave their commander behind. As the pair bank away, their last duty to their sister finally complete, Merope set her eyes on the horizon and dreams of boundless blue skies.

Helena – The Shining Light (pt. 4)

Helena's Valkyrie, the Underspace Labyrinth
10.2401

I can see Helios slipping away ahead of me, its disk-like grey form creeping down the underspace corridor, scrabbling desperately back towards Federation space, back to safety. They are ahead of me and getting further away. They’re moving beyond my reach, they’re leaving me behind. Around us the red walls of this surreal half-place bubble and boil with captured matter and tint my cockpit with bloody shadows, cackling demons that rear and chatter with arrogant eyes and vicious teeth. I can hear the Labyrinth laughing at me, mocking me, teasing me for being so close to sanctuary.

You’ll never leave. You’re here forever. Or whatever you have left.

Helios might as well be a million lightyears from me now, it’s a cruel fate to float in the waves as everyone you love sails slowly away. Do they see me? Do they know that they’re abandoning me to the cackling shadows and bitter thoughts? It matters not, they are sailing away all the same. My only consolation is that my sisters are safe, my loves are safe, my family is safe.

A tiny yellow light flares on my console and the shadows leap back, startled by its accompanying shriek. Structural integrity failure. The Valkyrie groans as if to prove a point, and the demons beyond the cockpit cackle once again, deep rumbling laughs of duratanium hull plates buckling against the forces of nature.

How small will gravity make you Helena Tyll?

How will it feel to breathe the airless underspace?

How will it be to burn in the icy void?

My stomach turns and my veins are filled with ice water as the small warning continues to flash and the demons continue to laugh, drowning me in the deep groaning of the hull. I can hear the quiet weeping of the symbiote, a life so shortened, a life I had been trusted to protect. Before I know it the crying is coming from my own mouth, the tears rolling down my cheeks pooling at the base of my helmet, vast lakes growing salty tears dammed by the hermitic seals that hold my breath.

Then it stops. Everything stops and there is silence.

Helios is gone. I am alone.


“This is bloody crazy!” Circe screamed, her blue fingers turning white as she clutched the headrest of the leather seat in front of her. “Where are we going?”

Astris clutched the delicate scarf that was wrapped around her head, its blue and red pattern whipping behind her in the passenger seat as the car raced forward through the barren brown plains. “Away from them!” She shouted, motioning with her free hand to the pursuing vehicles, their red and blue strobing lights barely visible through their miniature dust storms.

“I got that, but to where?” Circe allowed one hand to slip free from its vice like grip to pull her loose t-shirt up over her mouth in a desperate attempt to protect her lungs. “There’s nothing for miles except dust.”

“I’m sure the boss has a plan.” Merope chided from the other side of the open bench seating of the Ford Thunderbird as it bucked sharply, bouncing over a large rock. “Right boss?” Merope’s voice wavered, as did her confidence if only momentarily.

In the driver’s seat Helena clutched the wide steering wheel with one hand whilst the other reached up to hold the tan Stetson atop her head, a gigantic grin cutting across her face. “The plan is…” The four women lurched forward as the car slowed suddenly to a dead stop, Helena’s foot pressing the brake pedal deep into the car’s chassis. “That.” Helena motioned ahead, beyond the dust-covered window, to the slowly clearing vista. All eyes followed her long arms; across the green hood of the car, and across the dry dust bowl until the dark ground fell away abruptly into the open air of the valley crevasse.

“They jump? In this?” Circe waved her arms around to indicate the archaic vehicle. “I must’ve missed that class where they invented anti-gravity in the 20th century.”

“They’re getting closer Helena.” Astris’ attention was firmly fixed on their rear where the pursuing police vehicles were continuing to approach, the dust clouds falling away into the cloudless sky. “We might be out of options.”

“Never” Helena muttered under her breath.

“Boss, you know I trust you, but there is no way that we can make that jump.” Merope’s eyes continued to widen as she estimated the distance with imaginary versions of herself standing atop the other’s shoulders. 1 Merope, 2 Meropes, 3 Meropes, 4…

“This might be the end of the road.” Astris offered mournfully, preferring not to take a jump into certain death.

“I think that was back there…” Merope began to joke before her voice suddenly disappeared into the screech of rotary blades slicing through the dirty miasma of brown air. A black-skinned helicopter rose suddenly from the deathly void, its propellors reaching out like metallic talons towards the four women.

“COMPUTER, FREEZE PROGRAM!” Circe screamed, finding the final straw drawn by the black-hulled monster.

Instantly the valley fell into silence as the vicious helico-predator stopped in mid-air, suspended like a frozen mobile above the classic lines of the Ford badged crib. In the distance the pursuing vehicles halted before Circe took a breath, their strobing lights caught mid-shift like a string of festive lights across the horizon. Throughout the valley, the dust and dirt, churned up into a soup, hung motionless in the air as each tiny grain was caught in the twisting maelstrom.

“Spoilsport.” Helena muttered, her whisper now loud enough to echo across the small silent holodeck.

“I’m not sure what this is achieving Helena.”

“It’s group bonding. It’s an adventure.”

“Oh, what an adventure! Over the edge of the cliff.” Circe snorted derisively. “You’re a crazy woman.”

“Careful Circe.” Astris chided, “Watch the tone.”

Helena reached across an arm toward the older woman to quiet her. Astris had quickly become the mother of the small group and was somewhat of a stickler for respect, manners are free might as well be stitched across her heart.

“You have thoughts Circe?” Helena spun in her seat, resting her chin on the headrest as her dirt-covered Stetson bobbed slightly now it wasn’t battered by the whipping wind.

“Well…” the young Bolian blew out her cheeks, disarmed by the older Trill woman’s openness. “…Not jumping headlong into the canyon is up there.” She fell back into the leather seats and crossed her arms in frustration. “I’m still considering other options.”

“Merope?” Helena turned her attention to the half-Vulcan woman on the other side of the rear seats. “Thoughts?” The young woman shook her head slightly, her eyes still focused on the vast canyon ahead of them, 50 meropes, 51 meropes…

“We could have turned back, attempted to outrun the police. Maybe tried to lose them in the dust clouds by running along the edge of the canyon.” Astris offered, shaking her long hair from the costume scarf she wore, the long curls of her mane falling down to her shoulders. “The chance of success would be low but not impossible.”

“Essentially impossible, especially when they have air superiority too.” Helena pointed upwards to the ominous presence of the helicopter that hung surreally feet away, frozen like a fly in amber.

Astrid shrugged as she tamed her wild hair into her familiar twin bunches. “I’d argue it’s a better chance than jumping.”

“Imagine these were Jem’Hadar. Or heaven forbid the Borg,” Helena mused. “Capture is tantamount to death. Or worse.” The three women fell silent and as still as the frozen holodeck around them, three more frozen grains amongst the multitude.

“Jumping is certain death as well Helena. You know that.” Astris’s voice was barely a whisper.

“True,” she acknowledged taking the tan bucket from her head and adjusting the beading that lay around its circumference. “But it would be on our terms.”

“Your terms,” Circe hissed through gritted teeth.

“Again, true. But you could have jumped out at any time.” Helena nodded to the line of cars frozen on the horizon, twisting in the frozen shimmer of rising heat. “Taken your chances with them.”

Circe turned her head towards the photonic persuers. For a moment they glistened with dark verdant energy, a blossom of mechanical devices snaking across their skin, a whisper of a thousand churning voices waiting to drown any who came too near. A chill ran up her spine, to be voiceless amongst the collective was the darkest of her nightmares.

“Perhaps jumping is the only option,” Merope announced, her counting of the valley suspended momentarily.

“This is a bit of a dark lesson Helena,” Astris tilted her head as she let out a sigh. “Your very own Kobayashi Maru?”

“Maybe,” Helena smiled wryly. “Think of it more like a statement of belief.”

“Death before dishonour?” Circe furrowed her hairless brow disapprovingly. “That’s surprisingly Klingon of you.”

Helena chuckled as she focused her vision downward to her lap as she finished tightening the leather loop of her hat. “No, that choosing is always better than indecision.” The three passengers viewed her curiously, suddenly communally aware there were vast layers to their commander they may never fully understand.

“What did the women in the story choose?” Astris was already putting the scarf loosely around her head, recalling that she heard the end of this tale during one long deep space voyage.

“The jump. The choice.” Helena whispered her vision still downturned.

The sound of squeaking leather interrupted their quiet contemplation as Circe began rooting amongst the seat cushions.

“What are you doing now?” Merope spat.

“Well, if we’re jumping off a cliff then I’d like a seatbelt.” Circe pulled the strap from between the seats and clicked it into the receiver, laying its length across her lap. “Not that it is much use but it’s sort of reassuring.”

A pair of clicks echoed across the quiet holodeck as the two other women quickly slotted their seatbelts into position.

“Let’s make a choice boss-lady.” Merope offered the commander a smile as she tightened the lap belt and brushed her short hair out of her eyes.

“Canyon before capture!” Astrid cheered, raising an arm defiantly as the other held her headscarf in place in preparation for the buffeting wind to resume.

Helena lifted her hat back atop her head, pressing it forcefully into place as she turned back toward the waiting void and placed her hands on the steering wheel before taking a deep breath.

“Computer, resume program.”


In a darkened room, within a quiet country manor, surrounded by silent fields of mourning grain, a woman runs her fingers over an empty wooden casket. Mapping each dark carved triangular notch that charted the life of Helena Tyll, her slender fingers wandering across her journey. Her joining, her transfer to Starfleet, her forming of the Helaides sisterhood, and her sacrifice for the Helios family.

Satisfied with the accuracy of the impressive saga she turns on her heel and takes several clicking steps to the tall dark wood doors and steps out, closing them on silent hinges, a final whisper escaping her lips.

“Let us hope we do not all come regret this choice Helena.”