Dreandust to Ashes Part II of II

Posted on Fri Dec 5th, 2025 @ 9:47pm by Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren

1,464 words; about a 7 minute read

// Fleet Command Offices //

The walk back to Fleet Command felt longer than it should have. The station was in full activity cycle now, officers moving with clipped efficiency and civilians filling the corridors with the early hum of routine. The place felt alive in a way that grated against the tight line of duty pulling at her chest.

She could almost feel the rumors spreading already, blooming in the shadows like mold in a sealed compartment.
The ante office where Yeoman Quen usually worked was empty, the tidy desk looking oddly abandoned at this hour.
She stepped into her own office and let the door seal behind her. The familiar hum of the station pressed in on her, an ever-present background she usually ignored. This morning it felt intrusive.

Yeoman Quen stepped in behind her a moment later, looking uncertain, as if she was not sure whether she should interrupt. Sidra noticed the fresh cup of coffee placed neatly at the corner of her desk and gave a small nod of acknowledgment.

“Thank you, Ensign. I need the office.”

“Understood, Admiral. Please let me know if you require anything.” Lyra withdrew to the outer office, quiet and efficient.
Sidra crossed to her desk and lowered herself into the chair, fatigue settling across her shoulders. She keyed her terminal awake. The Starfleet Command emblem appeared, spinning once before settling into the secure login prompt.

“Computer, begin encrypted report. Priority One. Recipient: Starfleet Judge Advocate General’s Office, with copies to Starfleet Personnel and Fleet Command, Alpha Quadrant Theatre.”

“Encryption level?”

“MacLaren-level black.” Her throat tightened around the words. “Authorization MacLaren-zero-two-one-gamma-epsilon.”

“Confirmed,” the computer replied. “Recording.”

Sidra stared at the blinking cursor. Every word she spoke next would carve itself into record, into Indi’s career, into whatever future waited for one of her oldest friends.

She asked you to help her.

Sidra exhaled slowly.

“Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren, commanding officer, Epsilon Fleet and Starbase 369,” she began. “This is a formal incident report regarding Rear Admiral Indi Hawk, Fleet Security.”

She forced her voice steady, though she had to grip the arm of her chair to keep her hands from shaking. She laid everything out with clinical precision: the declining behavior, the erratic hours, the confrontation over the Tarvik briefing, the dissociation, the admission of needing help. The Dreamdust cartridges. The altered replicator. The emergency containment she had ordered.

She did not embellish or soften any detail. She did not say how much she wished the words hurt less.
“Rear Admiral Hawk stated verbally that she no longer knows who she is. Given that statement, the observed behavior, and the discovery of a controlled substance facilitated by unauthorized modification of station equipment, it is my recommendation that she be relieved of duty pending full medical and psychological evaluation. I further recommend that the Judge Advocate General initiate a full inquiry into the replicator tampering and associated violations of Starfleet regulations.”

The words lingered in the air like a death sentence.

“End report.”

“Report saved and encrypted,” the computer replied. “Transmit?”

Sidra closed her eyes. Indi’s face flickered in her memory, not as she was now but as she had been twenty years earlier, laughing, bright, unbroken.

“Transmit,” she whispered.

A soft tone confirmed the send. There was no pulling it back now.

Duty done.

The ache behind her ribs flared.

// MacLaren’s Quarters //

By the time she stepped into her quarters, the station had settled into its late-day rhythm. The soft lighting inside felt muted and still, the kind of quiet that pressed inward rather than offering relief. Stephen’s absence struck her immediately. He was weeks into his diplomatic assignment in the Tarvik system, and the space he usually filled seemed impossibly wide in his absence.

Will’s bedroom door stood open, the room empty. His baseball gear was missing from its usual place, a reminder that he would be at practice for a few more hours yet.

Rowan, the brown ticked tabby who had only recently begun tolerating their home, lay curled atop the back of the couch. One ear flicked as Sidra entered, an indifferent acknowledgment before the cat settled again.

Sidra’s boots felt like lead. She kicked them off near the entryway and shrugged out of her uniform jacket, draping it over the back of a chair. Her hands were trembling again. For a moment she wished Stephen were here, steady and sure, the one person who always knew how to stop her hands from shaking.

I don’t know who I am. Please help me.

The words looped again, louder without the need to hide her reaction.

She crossed the room and lowered herself onto the couch, every muscle sagging. Rowan gave a single annoyed trill and shifted to the armrest, keeping Sidra within her peripheral watch.

Sidra leaned forward, elbows braced on her knees, hands steepled against her lips. The quiet of the quarters settled heavily around her. Without Stephen’s quiet commentary or Will’s thudding footsteps, the silence seemed to echo.

There had been a time on Raven when those same words could have come from her own lips, when she had been the one fractured and untethered. Indi had been a lifeline then, a steady presence in chaos.

Now Indi was the one adrift, and Sidra had lit a beacon that might burn her career to cinders.

“You asked me to help you,” Sidra whispered into the empty room. “This is what it looks like. I am so sorry.”

The apology cracked something open. Her throat tightened, sudden and fierce. Heat pricked at her eyes. She blinked hard, once, twice, furious with herself. Admirals were not supposed to cry over duty. They made decisions and lived with them. They put the fleet first. They carried the weight without complaint.

But the image would not leave her: Indi on that bed, small and lost, her voice frayed around the words, I don’t know who I am.

Sidra’s vision blurred.

For a moment she tried to breathe through it, to push the emotions back into their old familiar box and be the unshakable center everyone expected. She had won that fight countless times before.

Tonight, she did not.

The first tear slipped warm down her cheek, surprising her with its heat. She brushed it away on instinct, only for another to follow, and another, until the effort of containment simply failed. Her shoulders curled inward as a quiet, ragged sound escaped her, half sob and half exhausted exhale.

Years of carefully controlled grief and anger and fear spilled out in silence. No dramatic collapse, only harsh uneven breaths and steady tears carving lines down her face, falling into her hands. She could not remember the last time she had cried like this. Perhaps she never had.

Rowan hopped down from the armrest and pressed her forehead gently against Sidra’s arm, purring in a slow, rhythmic vibration. The earnest gesture nearly drew a wet, broken laugh from her.

Sidra lifted a hand and rested it on Rowan’s back. The cat’s fur was warm and soft beneath her fingers, grounding her in a way she had not realized she needed. For all the chaos and pain, she was still here. She still had Will. She still had a fleet to lead. She still had a friend to pull back from the brink, however long and brutal the climb might be.

Eventually the storm eased. Her tears slowed, then stopped. Her breathing steadied, though her eyes throbbed and her throat felt scraped raw. She leaned back into the couch and stared up at the ceiling, feeling emptied out and strangely weightless.

“Tomorrow,” she murmured, more to herself than to the room. “Tomorrow we start putting you back together, Indi. One piece at a time.”

She did not know what version of Indi Hawk would emerge on the other side of detox, inquiry, and whatever justice Starfleet required. She did not know what it would cost them, or their friendship, or even the fleet.

But she knew who she was.

She was Sidra MacLaren.
And she did not abandon her own.

Rowan shifted closer, her warm weight settling against Sidra’s side. Sidra let her eyes close, just for a moment, listening to the quiet hum of the station around her and the faint, persistent flicker of resolve burning beneath the exhaustion.

She did not know if she would sleep. Morning would come quickly. But she would rise with it.

And she would go back to Indi’s door.
Because that was the job.
Because that was the promise.
Because once, long ago, Indi had done the same for her.

Vice Admiral Sidra MacLaren
Fleet Commander

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