Rain Over Ashalla
Posted on Sun Oct 12th, 2025 @ 1:34am by Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell
767 words; about a 4 minute read
Mission:
For Bajor!
Location: Bajor
The capital of Ashalla wept. Rain poured down in steady, silver sheets, washing soot from rooftops and whispering against the city’s ancient stonework. It was the first true storm in months — a sound Vekar Dane had not planned to hear again so soon.
Deep beneath the city, in a bunker of pale stone and black steel, Vekar Dane sat before a wall of holo-screens of Deep Space Nine rotated slowly — taunting him. The feeds displayed Deep Space Nine’s status reports, weather telemetry, and rows of financial projections now rendered meaningless by the downpour. He watched the blue lines of rain drift across the map of Bajor like veins filling with blood.
The door hissed. Three shadows entered. The Nausicaan first, hunched and burned, followed by the tall, blood-streaked form of Mirror Rosa Coy, and at last Assassin Bonnie, walking with an almost bored precision — her twin’s nervousness distilled into something surgical, sharp and merciless.
Vekar didn’t turn. “It’s raining,” he said softly. His voice was silk wrapped around acid. “In Ashalla. On the very steps of the Temple”
No one answered. The sound of water against glass echoed like applause for failure.
His voice was low, venom softened by intellect. “For months, the sky has refused to weep. My people begged for it, prayed to their gods, and I offered them something better — order. Now, it rains because they touched what was mine.” He turned, his sharp Bajoran features illuminated by a data display showing orbital patterns of the repaired satellites. “My satellites.”
He rose, clasping his hands behind his back, moving toward them in deliberate, measured steps. “Do you know how many liters of water fall in an hour like this? Approximately three million, per square kilometer. Three million gallons of independence, gifted back to a people who were finally beginning to understand humility.”
Coy shifted, her eyes steady but cold. “The satellites were repaired. Likely by Starfleet. The damage we inflicted didn’t hold.”
“Didn’t hold.” He tasted the words like poison. “You make it sound like a loose screw, Commander. Do you understand the insult? My drought was deliberate. My rule built upon necessity. Water brings hope. Hope brings resistance.”
The Nausicaan snorted, then winced. Coy’s jaw tightened. “They survived,” she said. “Commander House, Commander Baldric, the Orion — Kit. We left them breathing when they should’ve burned.”
Dane’s gaze flickered to her. A ghost of a smile. “Yes. Nearly.” Vekar turned, voice dropping to a whisper. “Do you know why Bajor starved, before the Cardassians came?"
No one answered. Only the rain filled the silence.
"Because it trusted the sky. It trusted rain.” His eyes flicked toward the display — the blue sweep of weather spreading across the planet. “Faith is a fragile currency, and I was close to cornering the market.”
He exhaled, sharp and slow. “And now, because a few do-good engineers couldn’t leave a broken system alone, we are... delayed.”
Assassin Bonnie finally spoke. Her tone was Bonnie’s voice, hollowed and refilled with ice. “You should admire them, Dane. My counterpart’s clever. She salvaged some of the data, adapted to the virus faster than we modeled.”
He smiled faintly. “Oh, I do admire her. The real Bonnie Durnell believes she’s fighting chaos. But she’s just maintaining it for me. That’s what engineers do — they repair, not rebuild. They make my future inevitable.”
Vekar walked to the window slit — a narrow view of the city’s drenched skyline. “They’ll come for me now. The ones who fixed the satellites — they’ll trace the signal, the credits, the echoes. And they’ll think they’re chasing justice.” He smiled thinly. “But they’re chasing an idea. And ideas are immortal.”
Assassin Bonnie folded her arms. “You underestimate them.” Rain thundered overhead, heavy and relentless.
“I never underestimate,” he replied softly. “I price accordingly.” His gaze drifted back to the displays. “We will shift operations. Expand into orbit again, perhaps Terok Nor’s shadow holds one more opportunity. But next time, I want the job finished. No survivors. No rain.”
He looked between them — the bruised Nausicaan, the smoldering Coy, and his calm, lethal Bonnie. “Remind them what the cost of survival truly is.”
As the trio turned to leave, he looked up toward the ceiling — through it, toward the storm.
“Let it rain,” he murmured. “They think it’s mercy. But it’s only the beginning of the flood.”
Outside, thunder rolled over the capital — applause for his failure, or an omen of what would come next.
TBC
RSS Feed