Previously in the life of Amaranai Franklin Part 1

Posted on 26 Oct 2016 @ 9:44pm by Lieutenant Amaranai Franklin
Edited on 13 Apr 2017 @ 7:38pm

748 words; about a 4 minute read

Winter, 2388
London, England, Earth

Amaranai stepped into the Starfleet Office in Islington and walked to the main desk. She recognized the lieutenant at the desk and he simply shook his head.

"Miss Franklin," he said. "It's been a long time since we've seen you around here. What was it this time?"

"Smuggling alcohol."

"Guess you've been busy," he said, pointing to the pips on her uniform. "You were an Ensign last time you had to pick Charlotte up."

"Yeah," she said. "I guess she's lucky I happened to be on Earth right now or she'd end up in here for a lot longer."

The sergeant looked at his computer screen and then back to Amaranai.

"We did call Lily," he paused. "We stopped calling your parents after we realized they didn't care," he continued. "Lily told us to leave Charlotte here to learn a lesson." He paused to look at his screen. "That was a week ago."

Amaranai sighed. She was tired of her siblings getting into trouble just because they could and then not caring about each other when they got themselves arrested. If Amaranai hadn't been paying attention, she had a feeling Charlotte would have stayed in holding for some time. It made Amaranai feel worse since her youngest sister was starting to get into similar trouble that she had when Amaranai was Charlotte's age.

"I know," she said. "Lily contacted me to come get Charlotte if I wanted her out." Amaranai chuckled. "Told me that she was too busy to come get her."

The lieutenant pressed a few buttons on his screen and then looked at Amaranai.

"She'll be out in a few minutes," he said. After a moment, he smiled. "It's too bad you have to deal with all the family trouble," he said with a caring smile.

She didn't say anything and moved away from the desk. As Amaranai sat and waited for Charlotte, she considered her life to that point. She had gotten into a lot of trouble when she was younger and the fact that her parents never cared enough to be parents allowed her to keep getting into trouble without her parents punishing her. She had been caught by the MPs and all sorts of security personnel over the years and it wasn't even until she joined Starfleet that she slowly started to turn her life around.

But Charlotte was thirteen. And living in that house with only Amaranai's siblings as role models was not the best thing any longer. She was going to have to do something. But she wasn't going to be able to bring her onto a starship. Not yet. It was then that she had an idea. An idea that a friend of hers could help her with. She contacted the shuttle that had delivered her to London and requested a different destination and told the pilot to be ready in the next few minutes.

Standing up, she asked the lieutenant to use a public communication center and he pointed it out to her. Amaranai quickly typed a message to her friend in San Francisco and told her that she would be there later in the evening. She finished and sent the message and went back to the waiting area.

When the door opened and Charlotte exited, followed by a Marine, Amaranai walked toward her. She looked down at the girl and shook her head but did not say anything. Instead, she nodded to the Marine and turned around to leave, leaving Charlotte standing there. It took a minute but Charlotte began to run after her older sister and caught up with her.

"That's it?" she said as she moved into the path of her sister. "You're not going to say anything? No yelling? No mocking? Nothing?"

There were a lot of things running through Amaranai's head but none of them included yelling or mocking. Amaranai stepped around her sister and continued to walk across the street. Again, Charlotte stood still, dumbfounded, wondering what was going on.

Amaranai stepped onto a waiting shuttle and sat down. Charlotte caught up and jumped onto the shuttle as it began to lift off. The shuttle turned West and increased speed. That was when Charlotte realized they weren't going home.

"Where are we going?" she asked her sister.

"Somewhere better," was the answer given and the only words uttered by Amaranai the rest of the flight.

She had a plan. She just hoped Charlotte would be willing to follow it.

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