Editing Maraht's Story (section)

== Maraht at the Hades Launch Party meeting a Special Friend ==

Mission: Port of Call

Day 12

Stardate 2407.02.28
 
(USS Hades - Largest Holodeck – Asst CSO Ensign Maraht - 1903)
 
Ranae just joined Maraht again when there was an unmistakable rumbling sound. Ranae gave her friend a poke as another Horta moved across the floor towards them. 
 
Maraht turned in surprise; and was stunned. He could barely move and didn’t even twitch a single phalange. 
 
An absolutely beautiful Horta was coming toward him. She too was adorned with sparkling jewels that flashed in the light as he was, but with the addition of a string of pearls that accentuated her thicker lovely extra fine fringe. She was reddish with flecks of black and white granite. Maraht thought she was the most lovely Horta he had ever seen.
 
As the female Horta reached them, Ranae introduced her to Maraht.
 
"Maraht, meet Oona, she's a gift from me to you. You can come to any holodeck whenever you get homesick, and ask for the RumblesOne program and you'll find yourself back on, or rather in, Janus VI, and Oona will be there for company if you want her."  
 
Ranae smiled at Maraht and gave Maraht an affectionate slap. Maraht hardly felt it and was only peripherally aware of the rest of the beings in the room. He was so surprised and with all the excitement over the bomb hunt, Physioc getting hurt and wedding rituals that he had forgotten how homesick he had been before getting to know the crewmembers.
 
He struggled to get some words out through his astonishment. “Ranae, will she be able to be stay for the whole launch party? Can she come to my quarters or must she stay on the holodeck? I can take pictures of her to send home to Venerable Mother, can’t I?” Maraht knew he was beginning to babble idiotically, but he didn’t care. 
 
(Reply Ammon Ranae)
 
Maraht, noticing that Oona had no vox, hesitantly approached Oona. Extending his main phalange, he gently touched her reddish carapace. She uncoiled her main phalange and touched him back. Using their own native language of electrical impulses that flashed back and forth between them, Maraht could literally see her matrix grow more complex as he told her all about his life. She told him what little she knew about being a Horta. Maraht began to fill her in on many of the finer points about his home and what Hortas do and how they speak. Her matrix changed, growing more fully realized and more beautiful every nanosecond.  
 
As their main phalangi gently caressed and twined in a gentle dance between them, he told her all the details that had been passed down to him of how the Federation had found Janus, the great and wise Spock, the Venerable Mother with no way to speak to the miners and forced to defend herself and her eggs, and of the Chamber of the Ages containing the Vault of Tomorrow. He told her all about his wish to explore the universe, of joining Starfleet, and of the need to protect the Federation planets and their home of Janus from the depredations of Doenitz. He told her of the stories of the first Horta who began the Way of Truth and her great compassion and love. He told her many of the stories that had been recorded and carved onto the tunnels and caves of his home planet.
 
After all this he paused. “Welcome to being a Horta, Oona. I wish you long life and many hatchings. Let us find you something to eat.”
 
(Reply Any)

(Posted by Sheila)