Vulcan Family Values

Posted on Mon Oct 12th, 2026 @ 9:51am by Captain Rovak & Doc & T’Shan & Captain Sotek & Doctor Toh

1,601 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Shifting Shapes [4-5]
Location: Deep Space 13
Timeline: Morning - A week after 'One of Many'

Nine beings were materialised by the station’s largest transporter. Seven Vulcans, a Bajoran, and one half-Bajoran half-Vulcan. All dressed like civilians, though three were Starfleet.

T’Shan resisted the urge to smile as she saw them arrive.

From left to right appeared; Rovak’s mother T’Maru without a hair out of place, his older brother Solvok with his characteristic short-cut hair and beard, his elder sister T’Lu, with her shock of bleached-blonde hair in a messy but still distinctly Vulcan style. Then his more conventional younger sister Sitaak and her twin 8-year old boys, standing still and unexpressive.

Finally was the trio of the long-haired and five o’clock shadowed Shurlok, Rovak’s eldest and only other child, his wife Abé, a blonde Bajoran who usually dressed like a dilitihium miner on a swamp planet (but today had adopted a fairly conventional style), and their four-year old daughter, Myf, a nose-ridged and pointed-eared Vulcan/Bajoran hybrid with curly sandy-blonde hair who smiled widely and giggled as the transporter brought them all back together.

“Welcome. Thank you all for coming.”

“We are here to serve.” His mother said on behalf of all of them.

“Your service honours us.” Rovak responded.

“Grampa!” The little blonde girl called out and ran across to the tall Vulcan, before noticing for the first time his daughter T’Shan. “Aunty T’Shan!” The girl called and suddenly changed direction, veering to hug her aunt instead.

“Mother, I trust you are well.” Rovak told the graceful older woman. Where humans might hug, she extended her middle and index finger not far away from her sternum. Rovak returned their gesture, and the fingertips touched for a moment. She continued on her way.

As they moved towards the exit Rovak exchanged greetings with his family, and began their walk to the nearby turbolift.

“You must tell me how it is we can go from being on Mars to being in the distant Beta Quadrant in an instant, brother.” Solvok said once the trip to the base hospital had begun.

“It is a classified development, brother, but a safe one, as you can see.” Rovak countered.

“Even Transwarp beaming, were it reliable, can’t go this far.” Shurlok observed.

“There will be time to not discuss this matter when we are not in the presence of civilians, gentlemen.” Rovak cautioned both men, each of whom seemed to be Engineers in the same model of Rovak’s forefather T’Jor, unwilling to take ‘it’s a secret’ for an answer, and willing to dig through whatever red tape emerged to make sure they got answers.

T’Shan and her little cousins talked about life on Vulcan. Myf approached her grandfather, who lifted her up to shoulder height. She hugged him around the neck. He smiled reflexively in the way he’d practiced, but still didn’t quite get the eyes right.

“Have you and aunty T’Shan been asploring here grampa?”

“We have indeed.” Rovak told his granddaughter, with a light smile.

“What did you asplore?”

“We found bugs. Big bugs.” Rovak said with a subtly theatrical tone of menace.

“Bugs are fun.” The girl said exuberantly.

“Many are, yes. But not these ones. These are scary bugs. Bugs that will eat you up if they can.”

“I don’t want to play with those bugs.” Myf said defiantly.

“No Myfanwy-kam, I would not want you playing with them either.” He agreed with another slightly unnatural smile.

Soon they reached the hospital, where Doc was waiting with Dr Toh. Rovak passed his granddaughter to her father as they arrived.

“Hello folks, thank you all for coming. It may yet make a world of difference. Mrs T’Maru, I’m going to ask you to go first. As his wife you’re the one who’s known him the longest. We’d like you to go in first and speak with him, then bring the others in if and as you feel it will help.”

“I do not know what I should be saying to him.” T’Maru responded. They could all see Captain Sotek, in his plain observation suite. There was a large screen on the rear wall changing between a number of soothing backdrops.

“I understand it’s strange, ma’am, but he’s your husband. I’m sure there’s something you’ve got to say to him.”

T’Maru considered it silently. “Very well.”

She entered first, and found her husband sitting on the end of the biobed with his eyes closed.

“Husband.” She said sternly.

He opened his eyes and looked to her.

“Wife.”

“You have not contacted me.”

“I have not.”

“Why?”

“It would serve no purpose. You have evidently been alerted to my survival.”

“You are sworn to me Sotek. Promised and given.”

“That name no longer has any meaning for me. I am Locutus.”

“You are Sotek of Vulcan. Captain of the USS Ganymede. You are my husband. My husband would never dishonour himself or me in this way.”

“If your conclusion is illogical you should consider alternative assertions.”

“You still speak like a Vulcan, even if you pretend not to be one.”

“I am Borg. I was made Borg. I have been Borg for the last quarter of a century. There was purpose in that life that you cannot imagine. Supreme logic. Supreme cohesion. Supreme harmony.”

“And yet the Borg are gone.”

“So it is claimed.”

“There is still purpose for you here, Sotek.”

“Of what purpose do you speak?”

“In time you could re-earn your commission. And there is the purpose of your life as you left it. Do you remember what you told me when you were en route to Wolf 359?”

“I told you I would return to you once the Borg had been convinced of their error.”

“Are you a liar?”

“The Borg were not in error. Through sheer chaos and chance, your Federation destroyed the greatest undertaking ever known. The Collective offered peace to all. Belonging to all. Purpose to all.”

“Were you so lacking in purpose, Sotek? Do you even remember these people? What they once meant to you?” T’Maru hit the switch and the door opened. “These are your children. Your grandchildren. You even now have a great-grandchild.” They shuffled in with due haste.

“And all of this continued without me. It is not purpose.”

“So too would whatever remains of the Borg continue without you, Sotek.”

“I am Locutus of Borg.”

T’Maru faltered, and looked to her children.

“I am Shurlok.” Rovak’s son said, stepping forward, carrying his daughter, who had a slightly concerned look as she beheld her ex-Borg great grandfather. “It is an honour to meet you forefather. This is your great granddaughter, Myfanwy.”

“Species 3259 and Species 6002. Degenerative hybrid physiology. Adequate as a drone, after maturation.”

Shurlok's look shifted to one of concern, he looked to his daughter who seemed not to have understood what was said.

“Father, this is T’Shanthosa. My second child.” Rovak said, stepping forward.

“Hello, forefather.” T’Shan said.

He reviewed her for a moment. “Curious. A hybrid of Species 3259 and 3811. Such a thing should not be possible. She would make an effective drone after maturation.” T’Shan recoiled slightly at the comment, unable to conceal the disappointment on her face, and in her antennae.

“Do you have nothing else to say to us? Has nothing of the man you were survived?” T'Maru asked.

“What came before is irrelevant. I am Borg.” Sotek said.

“Rovak, I do not think this is working.” His mother said to him quietly. Rovak stepped forward.

“Father, your family will be here for the next two days. It is our hope that you will leave this place and attend with us socially. But we will give you time to consider it.” Rovak said, as the door opened once again.

“Socialisation is irrelevant.” Sotek said coldly, as the party began to file out of the room. It was only the faintest thing, but Rovak had only seen such sadness struggled against in his mother’s face once before, when she contacted him to tell him about what they believed to be his father’s death at Wolf 359.

Once the door was shut behind them, they could see through the glass that Sotek had closed his eyes once more.

“I’m sorry that didn’t go better, folks.” Doc said. “I’ll say a prayer to Hera for you, but let’s try again in a little while and see how it goes.”

“There are other tests I wish to perform, variables to be adjusted that may result in more beneficial outcomes. I am confident we will have better news for you soon, or at least tests that should prove more effective.” Doctor Toh added.

“Thank you, Doctors.” Rovak said, before turning back to his family. “Please come with me, quarters have been arranged for all of you in yellow district. You will have a couple of hours to settle in, then we have a lunch booked at The Spot. It is agreeable to have us all here together, even if the circumstance is ambivalent.”

“Where are Retesk and Isk?” Sitaak asked her brother as they left the medical centre.

“Isk is on a dig in the Gamma Quadrant, he sends his regrets."

"A pity." Sitaak noted.

"Retesk says he will not indulge our father’s dishonouring of the family.” Rovak explained.

“That is consistent.” Sitaak said with an edge of disapproval. Whatever small part of the siblings was capable of gladness, their elder brother's absence would usually contribute to it.

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