Star Trek: Strike Team Valkyrie

Soun Tendo was startled from his reading by the door chime. He blinked a few times needlessly, as though that would help dislodge his imagination from the fantasy novel he’d been reading enough to make sense of the incongruous noise. Realizing that someone must be at the front door, he put the PADD down on the coffee table, noted with a start that the tea he poured himself had been sitting long enough to have grown cold, and then hustled from the enclosed patio overlooking one of the uncountable beautiful bays Risa was known for.

He made it to the front foyer before the chime sounded again, “Coming!” he announced. I do miss Kasumi, he thought, She’s a lovely, wonderful woman, and certainly deserves to study on Earth like she wanted, to…but goodness, I’m getting too old for such a big house! Finally reaching the door, he checked the small viewscreen to see a woman in a Starfleet uniform holding the arm of… oh, dear, he didn’t…?

He tapped the button to open the door, stepping back enough to allow it space to swing open. The swinging door, instead of a pocket door, was an older affectation, one that most people didn’t bother with, but he enjoyed it as a harmless reminder of the world Risa had once been amidst all the hubbub and advancement the last century or two had brought. “Oh, dear. Ranma…”

“Hey, Mr. Tendo…” grumbled the 16-year-old. Presently presenting male, Ranma had his backpack on and was wearing his usual clothing, that being an ensemble that looked like it jumped straight out of a period holonovel set in the pre-Federation era on Risa’s southern continent. Soun knew the boy found the clothes comfortable in either form, but he did have a tendency to stick out like a sore thumb. At least when he was ‘going full girl’ (as the child liked to say), he preferred more modern clothing.

“Ah, so you do know this delinquent,” interjected the woman. Soun took a better look at her, noting specifically the ‘special services’ comm badge on the left breast of her uniform top and an unusual box, appearing to have some medical diagnostic readouts on the small display strapped to her right bicep. The box required a specialized cut to the uniform, indicating that there was likely some form of interface to the skin that the uniform fabric would have introduced difficulties with. Not a medication dispenser, then. Curious… Doing his best to ignore his curiosity, he did note that the woman was…’statuesque’ was a bit of a misnomer, as she was certainly tall for a Risan, if his 20 years in the Fleet did him any favors, it was in being able to spot the small, sometimes cosmetic differences between the humanoid species of the galaxy. Human, most likely, he concluded. The uniform did absolutely nothing to minimize her figure, and it was an incredibly gorgeous figure at that. His wife (ancestor’s preserve her spirit) had always been a fine specimen, but she had been more the purely athletic type. This woman’s figure was as though someone had custom built a fit, busty, round-hipped Platonic ideal of a woman and then shattered the mold once she’d been cast. Long, lustrous hair framed an almost doll-like face, and though Soun could see she wasn’t wearing any cosmetics, her face defied nearly all human, Betazoid, and even Risan beauty standards. Her eyes had an almost smokey, bedroom quality that captured his gaze, a delicate looking nose, plump lips that were practically a rosebud on an ivory dish…

…lips that were turned up in a smirk. At him.

He cleared his throat, as though that might minimize the embarrassment of openly ogling a member of Starfleet. “Oh, uh, yes. Of course, I know Ranma. What sort of trouble did he get into this time?”

One perfect eyebrow lifted, “Gets into trouble regularly, then?”

Soun smiled conspiratorially, “Constantly. Please come in, I can at least get you some tea while you’re explaining what happened.”

The woman not un-gently pushed Ranma into the home as Soun backed up, not quite frog marching the boy into the foyer. The woman glanced down and saw the spots by the door for footwear, and once the door closed with a ‘clack,’ finally released Ranma so she could pull off her boots one at a time, bending and twisting in very interesting ways…

Clearing his throat again, he said, “Ranma, take a seat in the living room, I’ll be back with the tea.”

Before Soun could fully turn, Ranma spoke up, “Can you bring me some cold water, Uncle Tendo?”

Soun’s features softened in understanding, “That bad?” He noticed the woman watching this interaction with interest.

Ranma’s only response was a downcast nod.

Several minutes later, Soun returned with a tray carrying an old-style teapot that some ancestor of his had bought off a merchant from Earth, two teacups, and a glass of water. He set the tray on the coffee table in front of the couch, which was now occupied by Ranma and the visiting woman.

“Now,” said Soun as he sat in the chair opposite the woman and began preparing the tea service, “What seems to be the trouble?”

The woman crossed her legs as she leaned back, “I’m Lt. Commander Hinako Ninomiya, I work in the recruitment office in the Northwest Province branch.”

“The Northwest…?! Ranma! You shouldn’t be on another continent on your own!”

Ranma flinched a little, but waved his hand dismissively, “Pops showed me some tricks to get the transporters to let me go pretty much anywhere I wanna go. I was fine.”

The older man frowned, “Yes, and you do remember that kind of thing was one of the reasons I was able to convince your mother to revoke his parenting rights, don’t you?”

Ranma just shrugged, his eyes fixating on the glass of water.

Soun softened, “You…you are allowed to use that anytime you want in this house, you know that, right?”

Ranma nodded and muttered, “In a minute.”

Soun nodded and turned his attention back to Lt. Comm. Ninomiya, “I apologize, you were saying?”

“Well, Ranma here did a surprisingly good job of falsifying quite a few records and spoofing the scanners when he applied to enter the Fleet. Had it not been for the in-depth medical scan, he might have pulled it off. The poor clerk nearly had a heart attack when the entire complex suddenly went to an automatic red alert when the system flagged his genetics as…well…”

Soun sighed, “…augmented. Yes…”

“Ah, so you’re aware.”

“Of course,” replied the Tendo patriarch, “It’s a bit of a tragic story, I’m afraid. Ranma’s father considers himself to be…” Soun waffled a bit, trying to find a way to soft-peddle a description of his one-time friend.

“Pops is a thief and a liar,” snapped Ranma sulkily.

“Mister Saotome…!” began Hinako.

“No, no, the boy…isn’t wrong, just being…’teenager blunt,’ if you will.” Soun steepled his fingers, “Genma…used to be my best friend. He considered himself a traditionalist, and honestly for a bit so did I. We had dreams of restoring some of the lost traditions of Risa…but then we met some lovely women, we both got married, and I had three daughters and that…taught me some perspective. I looked at the traditions we were seeking to revive and realized that my daughters wouldn’t necessarily want to grow up in that world, so I lost my drive for it.”

“Genma had a son, though,” he nodded at Ranma, “And that seemed to have the opposite effect that my daughters had on me. When Ranma was old enough to talk, Genma started dragging the boy out on what Genma called ‘archaeological expeditions,’ but…”

“…grave robbing,” muttered Ranma.

Soun winced, “Not…necessarily, but there were a few old graveyards that had some reported vandalism that occurred in the areas Genma was visiting. Never could prove it, though.” He sighed, “Genma heard about an old site, purportedly held some lost technology that would, naturally, have computers with old libraries of data…whatever it was he thought he was going to find…” Soun shook his head.

Ranma apparently had had enough of the conversation and abruptly reached out to snatch up the glass of water and up-ended it over his head.

Hinako’s surprise at the act of self-soddening was swiftly buried at the shock of seeing Ranma suddenly lose nearly a foot of height, exhibit a complete and near instant change of hair color, as well as a general feminizing of features. The girl that had once been a boy stood up and shook a little water off and sulked out of the room.

“The console is charged, I think Akane loaded some new games on it,” said Soun as Ranma passed him.

Ranma waved a hand in acknowledgement over her shoulder, “Thanks Uncle Soun.” In moments, she disappeared into the depths of the house.

Soun poured Hinako more tea while she recovered. She finally managed to sputter, “But…his…her…their genetic scan came up pure Risan!”

Soun nodded, “Genma had stumbled onto an old genetics lab that predated the founding of the Federation. Whatever the lab’s goals were is lost to time, but one of the viruses that had been in statis was designed to reactivate dormant gene structures, but the geneticists who designed it hadn’t yet gotten to the point of properly identifying which genes to reactivate.”

Soun warmed up his own tea and took a sip. “The ocean contains many mysteries we still haven’t plumbed, both here on Risa and on your Earth.” She blinked owlishly at this apparent non-sequitur, but he continued unabated, “There’s a type of fish that lives in the reefs of the southern-most ocean of our Western hemisphere, it has a neat little survival trick; during mating season, if there are too many males or too many females, some of them simply swim to different temperature water and their gender biology inverts. ‘Surplus’ males become females and vice versa. Poor Ranma’s genetic code got scrambled in that accident and now if he’s splashed in cold enough water, he turns into a girl. Hot water returns him to his birth form.”

With an actual explanation under her belt, Hinako’s crisis of sanity began to resolve itself. “I see, so in the strictest of senses, Ranma’s genetics are… ‘augmented,’ but only because of an accident. Are there any other effects?”

Soun stroked his mustache, “We’re not entirely sure. The accident only happened last year, and we haven’t seen any additional symptoms or abilities, but then, he hasn’t even finished puberty yet.”

Hinako nodded, “And what happened with Genma?”

Some irritation snuck into his voice as he continued the story, “Yes, well, you can imagine my surprise when Genma dragged poor Ranma directly here after being exposed to gene altering viruses.” He took a sip of tea to calm himself, “I think…I think that was my first ‘red flag’ to how bad Saotome had gotten. He was an irresponsible parent, a vagabond treasure hunter, and I would find out later a womanizer who’d abandoned his wife.”

The lt. commander was clearly invested by this point, quietly sipping her tea and hanging on his words, “What did he do?”

“During the time I was dealing with my wife’s funeral, he had taken his son in the middle of the night from their home. He left a note promising he’d bring Ranma back after the journey as a ‘man among men.’” Her shocked gasp was met with his understanding nod. “I found out from Ranma that the poor child was taken so early he wasn’t even aware he had a mother. My eldest, Kasumi, helped to track Nodoka…that’s Ranma’s mother, down. She and I met at a restaurant so I could…question her, to see if she was involved in the way Ranma had been brought up.”

“She was not. She was, in fact, appalled by her husband’s behavior. The divorce was finalized last month, and we’ve been trying to help Ranma manage, but it’s been…a challenge. A divorce with an abusive parent is rough on children to begin with but add Ranma’s condition to the mix?” he shook his head.

“Ranma didn’t mention a mother, just that she didn’t want to go back with his…their father.”

Soun shook his head and gazed into his tea, “Poor Nodoka. She’s trying her best, but she and Genma found each other through the same ‘traditionalist’ circles. She’s holding Ranma to 200 year old masculine expectations while also teaching him how to be a proper lady.”

Hinako cringed, “Yikes…I might have some resources for them, if they’re open to the help.”

Soun’s eyebrows shot up, “There’s…resources for Ranma’s condition? From Starfleet?”

She blushed slightly, “Oh, no, not Starfleet.” She glanced down at herself as though remembering that she was wearing the uniform. “I only somewhat recently joined, it’d been a life-long dream, but Chrischild’s Syndrome…” she gestured to the armband.

“Oh…Oh!” Soun sat forward, “You’re that patient? We heard about that a few years ago! The first cure of its kind due to the rareness of the disease.”

She was now blushing full face, “Well, yes. But before they found the treatment I worked in education; high school to be specific. I was a teacher, and then when I couldn’t keep up with that I became a counselor. In cases like…well, I shouldn’t say, ‘like Ranma’s.’ I don’t think there are any other cases like theirs. But where a child is dealing with gender dysphoria, the counselor provides resources to the child for treatments and support, and the parents are provided resources for support and education. It sounds like that’s what’s needed in this case, I’m guessing Ranma hasn’t been directed to a therapist…?”

“Not that Nodoka has told me, though I think you’re right, she’ll probably appreciate whatever assistance you can offer. Speaking of, I think I should contact her, she and Ranma were supposed to be visiting a cousin of his, I’m not even sure if she’ll be aware he tried to slip away…again.”

Akane’s classes had run late, again, but at least she was able to take them with two of her best friends. She wished Ranma had joined the classes, but his mother had been insistent that they spend the summer session visiting family that he’d missed the chance for while he was haring around the wilderness of Risa with his father. Not like he needs the class, but I wish we had more time together.

The pair of them were like…well, fire and water, and which was which was as fickle as either element could be. But they were consistently drawn together, somehow finding common ground despite what seemed like the universe doing its best to drive them apart.

She held her breath as the transporter tech started the beaming process. She knew she didn’t have to, but she always felt a little like she should, like somehow she was actually in the vacuum of space during transport instead of just being in the matter stream.

Letting out the held breath as she materialized in front of the house, she was reaching for the biometrics pad to unlock the door when she heard a woman’s laughter from inside the house! She controlled the urge to charge in to protect her family, there were no alarms and it was a happy laugh, so there was probably nothing to worry about.

Thumbing the pad to confirm her ID, it unlocked and the door swung open. She kicked off her shoes, noting the Starfleet standard issue boots mixed in with the other shoes, and she also noticed Ranma’s pair. I didn’t think Nodoka was in Starfleet…?

Akane stepped deeper into the house and saw in the living room daddy was in his favorite chair, but he was paying almost no attention to who had just come in. His eyes flicked over to her momentarily and he gave her a smile and a nod, but then…turned back to his visitor.

Who was NOT Nodoka.

Who had an armband on that had some sort of device connected to it and a Starfleet uniform that, in Akane’s opinion, left nothing to the imagination for what the woman had underneath the clothing.

Tamping the spike of anger over a woman who was NOT her mother being that intimate with her father she took a closer look at the room and realized that daddy’s favorite tea set was out and the teapot was clearly empty, and what looked like takeout from the Andorian seafood place nearby was spread out between them. They both had a recyclable paper take-out container in one hand and an eating utensil in the other. Her father was using a regular Risan spork (to use the Earth name for the utensil, though the Earth version didn’t have the semi-sharp edge the Risan version did) and the woman was using what Akane recognized as Earth-style chopsticks. They were trading stories, it looked like, and daddy had just finished one and now the lady was talking about working as a high school teacher of all things.

Flumoxed and without any idea how to respond, she decided to seek out Ranma. He only had the one pair of shoes in his guy form, so it was unlikely that he wasn’t here if the shoes were.

It took her a bit, but she found her on the enclosed patio with the game console they shared. The part-time girl was playing something that required an emulator, but beyond the pseudo-holographic rendered images, Akane couldn’t make out what the game was. “Hey, Ranma.”

“’sup, Tomb…Akane.”

Akane smiled a bit, knowing he couldn’t see it with her focus on the game. Seems like she’s finally learning about calling people names they don’t like. I thought I’d be ‘Tomboy’ to her until the heat death of the universe. “So…who’s the lady talking with daddy?”

Ranma paused the game and rolled her eyes dramatically, “Some chi…er, lady from Starfleet Recruiting. She’s been here since she dragged me over this morning.”

Akane’s eyes bugged out as she glanced at the wall clock, “…she’s from Starfleet? Doesn’t she have other duties?”

“It was kinda the end of her duty shift when she brought me here.”

Akana pondered this a moment, “…she brought you here…which means…”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Akane sighed and settled into the seat next to her on the couch. “…do you want a hug?”

Ranma glared morosely at the game console before setting it down on the lounge table, then nodded silently.

Akane hugged the smaller girl close. For her part, Ranma just leaned against Akane, practically snuggling up under her friend’s chin. Akane refrained from giggling, that usually set the ‘man among men’ off and they’d get into a fight, and when she was needing a hug she tended to get…screechy about it. Akane had talked to the school counselor about it, and it had taken several sessions, but the counselor had finally gotten her to understand that Ranma’s escalation was in response to her own emotions, not anything Akane said. It took a month or two after that for the pair of them to get to the point where they could talk their problems out instead of going straight to an argument. It took quite a few more sessions with the counselor for her to admit to herself that she liked the aquatransexual shapeshifting augment, and not like she liked her friends or her sisters.

“Weren’t you supposed to be with your mom this week?” asked Akane, her eyes fixed on the waves lapping the beaches distantly visible through the panel windows surrounding the patio.

“Mmm…” Ranma mumbled, “Yer dad called mom earlier, mom said it was late enough there I might as well stay the night here, ‘s’worried ‘bout transporter credits ‘r somethin.’”

Ranma must be getting tired… “Heh, I guess she forgets that the transporters don’t have credits anymore. The Federation finished upgrading the network last year.”

The redhead shrugged as she nestled a bit more into Akane’s lap. “’sokay, pr’fer sleepin’ here more’n sleepin’ at some stranger’s house jus’ cuz their related t’mom.”

Akane let Ranma shift about for a few heartbeats more before she took pity on her friend and swept her fully into Akane’s lap. Ranma let out a token bleet of protest before settling back down and curling up tightly, the taller girl’s arms holding her close. Within a couple of minutes, Ranma had started dozing, the warm hissing sound of light snoring coming from her.

Akane adjusted Ranma’s position just a little, correcting her posture so she wasn’t snoring, and settled back, letting the distant ocean waves still visible in the setting sunlight lull her into a meditative state. The sound of her father’s laughter occasionally breaking the trance.

After a while, she heard the door open and could hear her sister, always more level headed and responsive when the unexpected happened, start to ‘grill’ their visitor. She knew she’d get all the info she needed about the strange woman from Nabiki, probably in the morning, so she did her best to tune it out.

She glanced down at the mop of red hair and sighed contentedly. “Ranma,” she murmured, “I think…I think I’m falling in love with you.”

She kissed the top of Ranma’s head and leaned her head back against the sofa, and let the sound of her father and sister’s voices lull her to sleep.