Team Bajor - part 10

Posted on Tue Oct 28th, 2025 @ 4:04pm by Remal Kajun & Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali

2,798 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: For Bajor!
Location: Underground Ashalla

The cavern plunged into complete darkness with the distinct clanging of the doors being locked behind them. Rhenora froze and let her senses adjust to the absence of sight, pushing down the panic instinct that threatened to rise. After a few moments she tuned into her hearing, detecting nothing moving other than her team. The air was still, as though the room had been sealed, and yet someone very obviously knew they were here. Options were down to the small focus light on her hand weapon, or the infrared option on her tricorder. Both would be noticeable to their captures but would also provide them an opportunity to escape. And then there was diplomacy, although sculking around underground with black market maps was never a good starting point.

She drew her weapon and activated the light, casting a quick surveillance sweep of the large cavern.

"We're alone in here" she confirmed.

"Indeed, at least for the time being. " Savar replied, "Yet it appears our arrival was expected or random chance was not in our favor. In any event I suggest we make the most of the time we have."

A soft click echoed from somewhere overhead, followed by the faint hum of an old speaker system sputtering to life. The voice that filled the chamber was smooth and deliberate, too calm to belong to anyone honest.

"Ah... you’ve followed the rain into the city’s veins. Clever, or perhaps just desperate. It’s always difficult to tell with the righteous." The words rippled through the dark, carrying a strange echo that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"Do you know where you stand? These tunnels once fed life into Ashalla... water, power, air itself. Now they feed truth into my hands. You followed the storm thinking to end it, but you misunderstand what you’ve walked into."

There was a soft exhale, not quite laughter, just a whisper of amusement. "Rain is mercy, and mercy breeds rebellion. You came seeking justice, but justice has drowned more Bajorans than any drought ever could."

A brief hiss of static filled the air before the voice returned, colder now. "So tell me, strangers from the sewers... what Gods do you serve that sends you crawling through the filth to find me?"

"We seek only to find the one responsible for the drought. There are no Gods at play here, not rebellions, only some Bajorans who want to know why" Rhenora kept her tone even and unwavering in the disembodied darkness. She knew now where this voice came from, and that was the unnerving part.

The voice in the dark gave a low, deliberate chuckle, neither amused nor mocking, but weighted, like stone rolling over stone. "Ah… so the leader speaks. A steady voice in the dark, convincing herself that faith and rebellion are just words, that hunger and rain are not accidents of nature."

A pause, long enough for the echo to die. "Tell me, then, who follows the one who denies the Gods?" His tone shifted, sharp with knowing disdain. "The soldier who breathes like she’s counting heartbeats, weighing the angles of death in her mind?"

Zio didn’t rise to the bait. Her breathing slowed instead of quickened, as though the voice’s words were merely wind through the leaves. “You talk too much for someone hiding in the dark,” she said evenly. “If you know so much, then you already know what comes next.”

A faint click broke the silence, the sound of a safety disengaged, precise and patient. “You’ll find I don’t miss often.”

There was a slow drag of breath through speakers. “Steady,” he murmured, the word almost affectionate. “A soldier’s poise even in the dark. You’ve learned to make stillness your armor.” The hum of machinery deepened, as if the room itself listened. “But behind that calm,” he continued, “there’s a hand that twitches toward a weapon. The instinct to act before thought, to strike before reason.”

A subtle pause, as though he were smiling in the black. “Every army has one.” He let the silence settle, cold, assessing, before his voice shifted, tracing another shape in the dark. “And beside you… the man who waits. Breath uneven, steadying himself. Not fear, hesitation. The kind that belongs to a healer who’s seen too much of what war leaves behind.”

Remal’s jaw tightened, but his voice, when it came, was level, quiet enough to make the silence listen. “You see only what the dark lets you see,” he said. “A soldier’s hand, a healer’s breath… convenient shadows to fit your story.”

He adjusted his stance, one hand instinctively near Rhenora’s shoulder, not to protect, but to anchor. “I’ve seen men like you before,” he added, tone soft but edged with weary truth. “On both sides of the line. You mistake observation for understanding. You speak of faith as if you invented it, and of war as if it ever served anyone but death.” He let the echo take the last word and fade into the dark.

The voice came again, low and amused, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once. “Ahh… a healer who speaks like a priest,” Dane mused, the sound of his laughter rolling through the chamber, not loud, but full of dark delight. “You wrap your doubt in philosophy, old man, and call it wisdom. How Bajoran of you.”

The chuckle tapered off into a hiss of static across the old speakers, a faint hum filling the silence that followed. “Then there are the quiet ones,” he continued, tone shifting, measured now, curious, like a scientist before a specimen. “The two who do not speak, whose hearts beat in rhythm with logic instead of blood. Tell me… does the dark unsettle you, Vulcans? Or do you comfort yourselves with equations while the world above drowns in rain?”

The air seemed to hum with the weight of the question, neither mockery nor challenge, but something colder, probing for cracks in certainty.

Savar resisted the urge to reach out and touch Aurora. He knew she stood beside and always would no matter what the situation or the circumstance. He opened his mouth and spoke deliberately, precisely. "Our blood pulses with a fire for justice. If you truly understand, you would understand that but you only mimic what you have been told. The dark does not unsettle us. It is a familiar blanket for in every darkness of injustice, it gives way to the light of justice. This is no different. You think of yourself as a ruler, a king, but in reality you are a common crook just on a bigger scale."

For a long moment, there was nothing but the faint hum of the speakers and the drip of unseen water. Then Vekar’s voice returned, softer now, coiled and cold. “Justice,” he echoed, tasting the word as though it were foreign to him. “A comforting fiction for those who still believe the universe keeps balance.”

Another pause, deliberate — letting the silence settle like dust. “You mistake me for a thief, Vulcan. But I steal nothing that isn’t already abandoned. The rain, the crops, the order you cling to — all surrendered long before I arrived. You call me a crook because I took what no one else had the strength to hold.”

The tone darkened, the faintest hint of something feral beneath the calm. “You speak of light as if it waits to rescue you. Yet here you stand, in my darkness, beneath the bones of your own civilization, praying that the power above your heads does not fail you. Tell me — when the light comes, will you even recognize it anymore? And does your female companion have her own voice, or is that the best you have to offer?”

"You hold that which only a decimated and starving population can provide. No Bajoran who is not starving would ever follow anyone or anything not aligned with the good of Bajor." Rhenora challenged. "You dominate only because they are weak and desperate. The rains will cure that, in time. For now though, that brings them enough hope to get by."

"You bandy words like a used hovercraft salesman. They roll off your tongue with practiced ease, but there is no truth to or in them. You say you are no crook, but I submit you are as you have taken the people's right of free will of self-determination and warped and bent to fit your goals." Savar replied with Vulcan coolness.

A low, deliberate breath came through the speaker, like a man weighing the worth of those who dared answer him. When he spoke again, the calm was still there, but thinner now, like cracked glass struggling to hold its shape.

“You interrupt before I’ve finished my introductions…” Vekar’s voice sharpened, the patience evaporating. “You prattle about justice and mercy, but your manners betray you. You would let the old one in the back go unacknowledged, the one who stinks of rusted circuits and nostalgia. Tell me, does your faith not extend to the relics that built your cities?”

He exhaled, the sound heavy, resentful. “You speak of freedom as though it ever fed a child. You dress your faith in pretty words—hope, will, self-determination, and forget those are luxuries of the fed, not the starving. The moment your people tasted rain again, they began to dream, and in dreaming, they forgot how to survive.”

The voice dropped, steel beneath the silk. “You call me tyrant because I demanded discipline. You call me thief because I took what mercy refused to manage. Yet it was your mercy that dug the graves I now walk over.”

A pause, then the faint mechanical click of a door unlatching.

“Still, you came all this way through the filth beneath my city. That earns… an audience.”

At the far end of the cavern, a heavy door slid open, bright light spilling into the chamber and cutting through the dark. He could have left them there, could have killed them all if he wished, but instead, he welcomed them in.

A figure stepped into the light, her silhouette unmistakable even before the details took form. Bonnie. But not their Bonnie. The clothes were wrong, leather and metal, sharp lines of a soldier’s cut. Daggers hung at her hips, and her sneer was pure invitation. “Welcome to the light,” she said, voice dripping with contempt. “He’s waiting.”

Savar saw the figure and was momentarily surprised to see Bonnie but a nanosecond later realized it was not the Bonnie they knew, It was the mirror version of her.

Rhenora kept her emotions firmly in check, realizing that they were dealing with the mirror universe counterparts. It all made sense now, the power plays, the deceptions. The mirror world was dark and twisted. The invert of their own reality. She moved forward, on alert but willing to hear what they had to say.

MU Bonnie leaned against the doorway like she owned the air itself, one thumb hooked lazily near the hilt of her dagger. Her voice came smooth but edged, every syllable dipped in mockery. Her eyes flicked over them—Rhenora’s set jaw, Savar’s unreadable calm, Remal’s wary stance, and Zio’s measured defiance. She smiled without warmth.

“Now, before we go exchanging more of those beautiful speeches of yours…” She tilted her head, feigning sympathy. “Let’s have everyone kindly remove their weapons. We wouldn’t want one of you noble types getting jumpy and shooting our host, now would we?”

She gestured toward a metal crate beside the door with her chin, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Go on. All the good guests do.”

Savar stood where he was as he looked at the mirror Bonnie, silent for several moments before he spoke, "And you? Are you also going to remove your weapons? We would not wish you to become agitated and start shooting All good hosts and hostesses do." He turned Bonnie's statement back on her.

She smiled and crooked her head, her hands pulling out a single dagger. She toyed with it for a minute as she stared at Savar, sizing him up, like one trying to determine where a vital organ might be hidden. "You'll disarm, or, you will be disarmed. Your choice really. The boss doesn't need all of you." She giggled, "Besides, house rules, this is his house and he sets the rules."

She pointed her knife at the metal crate again, "Now choose."

Zio gruffed, but slowly, deliberately placed her weapons in the crate before stepping back out of the way. Mentally she was preparing herself to attack, to overwhelm their one adversary despite knowing if felt like a trap. There was no way there would be only one armed assailant.

Remal waited for Rhenora's choice before stepping up and disarming.

Savar waited a beat, then another ,staring at Bonnie in their own private chess match. Then slowly, methodically walked over and dropped his phaser in the crate before moving back to rejoin the others.

Rhenora looked at the mirror Bonnie and removed her weapon, playing it in the crate as a showman of trust. If the shit went sideways they would fight with their bare fists, until then, words would be their weapon of choice.

"We have done as you asked, may we proceed?" She asked, cordially and without the usual attitude. That would come, in time. There was the possibility that these people had no idea who she was. And she planned to keep it that way.

Savar stood silently as the game continued to play out. He saw Rhenora speak to Bonnie her tone cordial, polite. Now it was time to see how the next step unfolded.

Only Yitka lingered. He stood a little apart from the others, half his ear catching the light, his fingers twitching near the inside of his coat where his antique disruptor rested. He tilted his head toward the crate but didn’t move.

Bonnie’s eyes narrowed, amusement coiling into something colder. “Ah-ah…” she purred, stepping forward with that predatory grace that came from living too long on the wrong side of mercy. “Not so fast, old man.” Her hand hovered near her dagger, though she didn’t need to draw it, the word alone cut deep enough. “You think I don’t see the way your fingers twitch? Like you’re still young enough to pull something quick before anyone notices.”

Yitka grinned faintly, the kind of grin that had gotten him thrown out of better places than this. “Force of habit,” he said, not moving. “And old habits, you know, they’re stubborn as Nausicaans.”

Bonnie’s smile didn’t twitch. “So are corpses,” she replied softly. “Now be a good relic and drop it in the box before I make you part of the décor.” The silence that followed was knife-edge thin, waiting to see if Yitka would fold… or test how sharp her temper really was.

Yitka held her stare for a long moment, the air between them tightening like wire. The rest of the team shifted uneasily, but he didn’t move, not yet.

Finally, with a slow exhale that might’ve been a curse in another language, he reached into his coat and drew the old disruptor. The metal caught the chamber’s light like something from another lifetime. “Careful now,” he muttered, voice rough as gravel. “This one’s seen more revolutions than your mirror ever will.”

Bonnie’s eyebrow arched, unimpressed but faintly amused as he turned the weapon over once in his hand, almost tenderly, before dropping it into the crate with a clang that echoed off the walls.

“There,” he said, dusting his hands. “No need to get jumpy, girl. I’d hate to see you chip one of those pretty knives trying to keep up with an old man.” The sneer that curled across her lips was all teeth and contempt, but she didn’t answer, which, in its own way, was a small victory for him.

The silence after Yitka’s remark stretched thin as wire, until Bonnie shattered it with a single, sharp clap. The sound cracked through the chamber like a whip, echoing off the stone walls and startling even the steadiest among them.

“Enough posturing,” she said, her voice dripping with mock civility. “Our host doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

She turned smartly, boots striking against the polished floor as the great doors behind her began to part. The mechanisms groaned — ancient, deliberate — revealing a long, vaulted chamber beyond.

They followed her through.

TBC

 

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