Team - For Bajor - 5
Posted on Tue Nov 25th, 2025 @ 6:19pm by Commander Jenna Ramthorne & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell & Remal Kajun & Patin & Captain Rhenora Kaylen & Commander Savar cha'Salik hei-Surak Talek-sen-deen & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant Commander Aurora Vali & Lieutenant JG Micheal Stevens & Ensign Kitiuas Thenis ie-Jia'anKahr & Commander Jennifer Baldric
3,677 words; about a 18 minute read
Mission:
For Bajor!
Location: Bajor - North Pole
Kit knew moving was preferable over freezing she got up and began stalking towards the sound of battle. Moving as silent as a Morakos, and with all the grace of a dancer Kit advanced toward the firefight. As she advanced she noticed a peculiar thing, steps appearing in the snow covered land, but no visible individual making them. ~ Nice trick, must have learned it from the Jem'Hadar. Problem is it doesn't work to well in snow. ~ thought Kit as she began stalking the invisible stalker.
Mirror Bonnie slipped through the chaos like a rumor, nothing but the crunch of her boots giving her away. The cloak wrapped her in silence and shimmer, a perfect veil in a landscape already blurred by swirling ice.
The Nausicaan sprawled broken in the snow. Coy lay still, smoke curling faintly from her armor. And Vekar, coward, opportunist, survivor, had wasted no time diving through the portal with his precious crates. Typical. Infuriating. Predictable.
Survival outweighed sentiment, and vengeance could always be rescheduled. Bonnie angled toward the portal with purposeful speed, every instinct aligning behind the single, ice-edged thought: live now, kill later. She sprinted for the shimmering threshold, footprints stamping her escape across the frozen field. She was acutely aware someone was stalking her as she approached the portal's edge.
The portal flickered like a dying heartbeat, its edges shivering as the universe tried to seal the wound shut. Minutes, maybe less, and the way home would vanish into frozen air.
Bonnie held still beneath her cloak, a predator pausing mid-stride. The snow muffled everything except the soft rhythm of pursuit behind her. She didn’t need to look; she could feel the intent in each measured step. She let the silence stretch just long enough to become uncomfortable, then spoke, not loud, not soft, but with the cool confidence of someone who knew she still had the upper hand.
"Persistent little shadow, aren’t you?" she murmured. "Could’ve let me slip away. Could’ve walked back to your warm shuttle, told your conscience you’d done enough." A slow exhale fogged the air, unseen. "But no. You want to see me. To know me."
Her voice sharpened, but almost fondly, like someone admiring a well-made blade. "I get it. Respect it, even. But understand this, if you push this moment, if I make it through alive, I’ll return and I won’t stop with you."
A deliberate pause, her smirk practically audible. "But that’s already part of your calculus, isn’t it… Kitiuas Thenis ie-Jia'anKahr." She let Kit’s full name hang in the frosted air, intimate and dangerous. "How’s that babe of yours?"
Kit had been following the Mirror Bonnie, fully aware of how dangerous she was. When the Mirror Bonnie stopped so did she. The Mirror Bonnie spoke and Kit listened. ~Gisjacheh, the little Shechjuk is good.~ thought Kit.
Kit let out a low chuckle "Tell me what do you know about Orion's? I am beginning to suspect very little. In this universe Orion's are extremely unforgiving in matters of revenge. Trust me when I say you do not want to make an enemy of me or my Caju. If you have any questions of what would happen to you, look to your hired Nausicaan, his clan paid a dear price for his actions. You have three options; Fight me, get shot by my phaser, and wonder if it is set to heavy stun or kill or surrender, which given your history I doubt you will. Your little cloak has a couple of flaws. Oh and I do happen to have the drop on you, and know something you and the others don't about you portal... I set the return coordinates to Sagittarius A. Like I said Orion's have a sense of revenge, and my cluros is colder than where we are."
Mirror Bonnie spoke again, clipped and elegant as a blade. “The Nausicaan was a simpleton. And where I come from, the Orions became our subjects two hundred and fifty years ago.” It was vintage Mirror Universe, contempt masquerading as fact. A flicker rolled over the air. Snowflakes bent oddly around an outline: the hint of a shoulder, the faint curve of a jaw. Her cloak, strained by damage and the storm, hesitated in its shimmer.
“You assume this ends today,” she murmured. The cloak collapsed fully for half a heartbeat. Kit saw her then, just long enough to catch the assassin’s thin, knowing smirk. A quick tap at her wrist controls triggered an override. A red pulse arced along the edge of the dying portal. Whatever coordinates Kit had set, Bonnie fought to reroute them at the threshold.
She flipped backwards into the unravelling rift. A ripple. A snap. Gone. Only her voice lingered, thinning with the distortion as the portal sealed itself: “Try to catch me on the other side.”
As MU Michael Stevens walked through the Portal between universes, He wore a brown jacket with brown pants with a sword strapped to his back and a gun holster strapped to his right thigh. He had been told that there was another version of him here. He wondered what he was like, and they would get along, but he didn't count on it.
Kit laughed as she watched the Mirror Bonnie jumped thought he portal, she counted to ten and spun firing her phaser as a figure rematerialized behind her. "Nice try, figured you would attempt that, so I programmed a trip wire to send you back, I am not the Mirror Kit you and I know Bonnie's mind. As for the Orions in your universe, are you so sure they are 'subjects' to you or are they playing the long con?" The phaser struck the Mirror Bonnie in the lower abdomen.
A column of golden-ocher light swept up around Kit, dissolving the tundra’s frozen breath into a haze of glittering particles. The world blinked. Snow, wind, and cold vanished, replaced in an instant by the cramped metallic hush of Vekar’s transport shuttle.
With the quiet now being there now, it was the grip of anticipation. Who actually came out on top. The storm actually subsided for a moment as the silhouette of a man started to walk out of the haze. There was actually a sword and shield that came into more focus first. One, if they were paying attention, would have probably figured that was the wrong Dean.
-Flashback-
The sword still in his shoulder, Dean was giving it all he could and take. It came down at this point who wanted it more. Both of the Deans were just going blow to blow with out weapons. A scream cried out as the Stark planted a kick to the sword implanted in Dean's shoulder, shoving it completely through his body and now protruding out of his back.
It would be pointless for Dean to try and snap the hilt off, so he simply left the katana where it was. Taking another blow to the gut, and then the face, followed up by a strict and heavy uppercut by Stark. Dean landed on his back in the white fluffy pillow covered ground. Farther exaggerating the wound, though, that was the detrimental one, aside from the rest of the contact wounds.
His head turned to the left and there sat, like a beacon of light in the darkness, Masamue. Just as a heavy boot was coming down for his head, Dean rolled to said left and grabbed the sword. Coming up quickly t stand and in the blink of an eye, the blade shined as it was tilted just enough for an inside to outside swing.
Stark blinked a few times and stopped in his tracks. Reaching up to cover his throat, which was now gushing blood. Unable to speak now, staggering backwards.
Dean wiped the blade off on his sleeve and then put forth a foot, right into Starks chest, he heard bones shatter. Giving a split second for that to sink in before he leaned down. Reaching into his pocket and moving Starks hands. Wrapping a healing band around his throat. Standing back up, "There can be only one? There can be many, your life is what you choose to do with it. Live, die here. It isn't my decision, it's in your and God's hands now."
He turned around and started to walk off after picking up the shield. Pausing to look behind him, "Choose wisely."
Even once in view, it was hard to tell if that was Dean or Stark. The closer he got however, it was much easier to figure out who it was. Dean started to stumble a little bit however, he'd been beaten, bruised, battered, impailed. And now there was still the rest of the MU assholes to deal with. Taking a few long hard breaths, "I can do this all day, who's next."
Bonnie steadied herself with one palm against the bitter-cold hull, breath puffing white in the air. Waiting wasn’t helping anyone. Kit wasn’t in sight. Baldric wasn’t answering. Hiding under the transport was just a slow way to die.
She slipped out from beneath the hull in a low, quick dart, boots crunching softly in the snow. The cold clawed up her legs, but she ignored it, eyes fixed on the transport’s side hatch. If she couldn’t find her people, then she’d make herself useful the way she always did, by taking control of whatever machine fate had put in front of her.
The hatch was half-ajar from its landing. She slid inside, sealing it behind her as quiet as the battered mechanism allowed. The interior was dim, light lingering like ghosts. Consoles flickered in uncertain pulses.
“Alright,” she murmured, hands already sweeping over controls, fingers finding the logic beneath the mess. “Let’s see what we can make of you.” If she couldn’t find safety out there, she’d carve some out in here, one subsystem at a time.
Rather than asking what she was doing, Baldric opted for the more pragmatic approach. "What do you need?" She asked as she slipped inside the hatch a moment after Bonnie. She still carried her rifle to protect the brilliant computer tech if necessary.
Bonnie shot a glance over her shoulder, hair half-in her eyes, fingers flying across a console that clearly hadn’t been designed by anyone who respected ergonomics, safety, or linear thought.
“Right, uh, what do I need?” She snorted softly, equal parts adrenaline and nerves. “Stable power to the primary bus, a security override that doesn’t scream Vekar wrote this while angry, and about six spare seconds where nobody shoots at us.”
She ducked under the panel, sparks flickering as she rerouted a bundle. “If you can keep the welcome committee outside from perforating us, I can coax the transporter into something that won’t turn our molecules into abstract art.” She slapped another control, the lights hiccupping. “Also… if this thing starts smoking, that’s normal. Probably.”
"That I can do." Baldric replied simply, setting up a defensive position inside the shuttle that gave her the most advantage tactically. Her weapon was arm and her eyes keen, they had to see this through to the end, and she needed her people alive at the end.
Minutes bled away in a blur of crossed wires, muttered curses, and Bonnie elbow-deep in a console that clearly hated her on principle. Then, sweet blessed lights, the shuttle snapped to life with a rising hum. She slid out from beneath the panel, hair wild, grease streaked across her cheek, and let out a triumphant Gaelic bark that would’ve made her Nana proud. Fingers flew over the now-cooperative controls.
“Okay, okay, sensors are up. I’ve got several life-signs and one symbiont fading fast…” Her breath hitched, focus sharpening. “Transporters are green enough to pretend they’re reliable. Think we risk it?”
"Risk it, otherwise people die out there in the cold" Baldric admitted clearing space for the group to potentially transport in. She had no idea what to do with the symbiote, but whether it was prime or Mirror it didn't deserve to die just because its host died. A crazy idea blossomed in her mind, tactically sound but yet wrong for all the right reasons. The Captain would never agree.
"Wait a minute, the symbioses' dying without a host, can you beam it into another host?" Baldric suggested, standing next to Bonnie at the controls.
"Another host, like another Trill? I... I mean it might be possible if I fine tune the controls a bit. I've never seen the transfer done that way." Bonnie stammered, confused as to where Baldric was going with her line of thinking.
"No like I mean there's no Trill here, but a human can host them temporarily..." she reached for the controls and initiated the single transport, bent over and puked a moment later, then slumped against the side of the shuttle for a few moments. She felt confused, foreign in her own skin, bloated and nauseous beyond belief, yet slowly and surely, a connection began to form.
"Oh boy, Captain's gonna hate me" she managed between laboured breaths.
Bonnie froze at the sight of Baldric, alive, yes, but glass-eyed with a stranger’s weight behind her pupils. The realization hit her like a plasma bolt. She sucked in a sharp gasp, one hand flying to her mouth, the other hovering uselessly between reaching for Baldric and not daring to touch her.
“Commander, you… you absolute maniac,” she whispered, voice thin with awe and terror braided together. But the console chirped, an ugly, insistent tone that snapped her back to the now. She swallowed hard, wiped her shaking hands on her uniform, and spun back to the transporter controls. “Okay. Okay. No time. We’re doing this.”
Her fingers danced, clumsy for half a heartbeat, then precise. “Locking on to the rest of them, our people, whoever’s still breathing down there.” She stabbed the energize control. “Come on. Come on. Let’s get everyone aboard before the universe throws another curveball.”
The snow stung Remal's cheeks as he stood there, hand held out to assist Rhenora up. His brow furrowed, not in anger, just that thoughtful knot he carried whenever something didn’t add up. He brushed the frost from his sleeve, then flicked a glance toward the place where Mirror Coy had fallen.
He shifted his weight in the snow and exhaled a slow, frosted breath. “You’ve got instincts that border on prophetic when the stakes are high.” His tone stayed warm, grounded, not mystical, just a man who trusted his wife more than he trusted the weather. “So was that one of those moments… or did we walk out of this because the universe decided not to load her last round.”
He lifted the shuttle door again, or rather what was left of it, settling it against his shoulder, and gave her a sideways, gently curious look. “No judgment. Just trying to understand the shape of the day.”
There was a wry smile as she acknowledged his words, meeting his eyes with clarity and love. "I spoke with Patin, when we were injured in the shuttle, she's watching out for us" she wrapped him in a hug, snuggling into his warm embrace "lets just say I think she's challenging the Prophet's non-interference policy"
Remal held her a little tighter, letting the words settle into the space between them like embers that refused to go out. His breath eased, and something almost relieved flickered across his face. “Good, glad to hear she’s doing what she always did,” he murmured, the quiet carrying its own weight. “Turning the rules sideways so that we’re still standing.”
He rested his forehead against hers, the storm forgotten for a moment. “I’m grateful she’s there… whatever the Prophets think of it.” He pulled away slightly. "Now, I think we'd better regroup and get out of this cold before there is nothing left but a Remal-sicle."
Savar along with Aurora's help had made Zio comfortable as best they could. He got up and went to the entrance in time to see Rhenora and Remal headed toward him. "I take it you were successful?"
"Dane is gone, back through the portal, the Nausicaan and the Mirror Coy are dead" Rhenora confirmed what she knew. Line of sight was limited due to the snow and their shuttle was trashed. The shuttle was large, with enough space for a dozen people, or plenty of cargo. She headed up front and used the scanners to locate Bonnie and Baldric in another shuttle was significant damage, but most systems were somewhat operational.
“What about all of us?” Aurora wasn't one for mincing her words. “This shuttle isn’t going anywhere, not unless we can fix all the damage, which would more or less be a miracle.”
"Perhaps we can cobble the parts and systems of both shuttles into one operational shuttle. if that is even possible." Savar proposed.
Bonnie dragged in a steadying breath and planted her palm flat against the console, fingers splayed like she was grounding herself through the circuitry. The targeting scanners flickered, shuddered, then finally locked. “That’s it… got you,” she murmured.
Her thumb hovered for a single heartbeat over the energize control, just long enough for her to whisper a quick plea to whatever cosmic forces were still listening, then she slammed it home. The transporter core roared to life. Columns of amber light spiraled up from the pads in the rear compartment, seven distinct silhouettes of energy taking shape. The whole shuttle vibrated as if straining to hold the world together around them.
Then solid. Bodies. Breaths. All of them aboard. Bonnie exhaled shakily and slumped back against the console, whispering, “Welcome to Vekar Airlines, please keep all limbs and existential crises inside the cabin. Oh and watch the vomit, that would be Commander Baldric's dignity.”
"Dignity?" Rhenora looked part confused and part amused as she knelt down next to the downed mission specialist, who had thankfully been given an emesis bag in the meantime. She still looked very green.
"Commander?" Rhenora asked cautiously, looking around for a medkit but not finding one. She raised a hand to the woman's forehead and found it to be hot. Looking at Bonnie who was piloting the shuttle, Savar slipping next to her in the co-pilots seat, Rhenora held a question in her eyes.
"Holy shit, what a ride" Baldric drawled, her intonation not her own.
"Commander Baldric?" Rhenora repeated again.
"She transported the Mirror Coy symbiont directly into her own body." Bonnie said as she coaxed life into the thruster array, the shuttle answering with a low mechanical groan, metal protesting the frozen air as it pushed against gravity. Her console chimed a sharp alert, three life-signs still on the surface.
She glanced over at Commander Savar, eyes wide but steady, fingers hovering over the controls. “Sir, portal is closed, but... showing three life signatures planetside,” she reported, voice taut with urgency. “Awaiting your call.”
"Of course.. you did," Dean shook his head before dropping to one knee. "We can deal with that in a minute. Someone want to get a medical kit for when I pull this sword out of my body?" What in the hell were you thinking Jennifer? Seriously? One issue at a time. Setting Stark's sword and shield aside on the deck.
Savar heard Bonnie and he hesitated briefly before answering, "can you tell who they are?"
Bonnie half ignored Dean's comments as she tried to get more details on those left behind, "These scanners aren't Federation but from what I can tell there is a dimensional shift in the bio-harmonics of all three. They are from the Mirror universe." She finished by providing a summarized version. Remaining below were Mirror variants of Dean, alive but badly injured, Michael Stevens and herself. Though she couldn't tell that.
Remal dug through the rear compartment of the transport, muttering as he shoved aside loose gear until his fingers closed around the edge of a medkit. “Don’t yank that out yet, Mr. House, bleeding’s a jealous thing, it loves an open invitation.” He hauled the kit free with a triumphant, “Eureka,” only for the lid to snap open and reveal a pitiful scattering of supplies that looked more like the leftovers of someone’s bad day than actual medical gear.
Zio leaned in, already shrugging out of her jacket with a grimace. “Just pull the damn thing. Use this to plug the leak until we’re somewhere that isn’t trying to freeze us solid.” She tossed the jacket toward Remal and slumped back, arms wrapped tight against the cold. “Can we please get moving? I’m calling it, this day’s officially over.”
"Beam them through the portal, then blow it up" Rhenora grimaced as she moved from Baldric to Dean then did a rough visual scan of the rest of the team for obvious injuries. She moved to the side to allow Remal better access to their most urgent patient.
An alarm blared on the sensors as another shuttle rapidly descended, arcing out of the sky as though fashionably late and proud of it. Those left on the ground disappeared in the sparkle of a transporter beam.
"You'll pay for this." The words came through the shuttles comm system in Rhenora's voice before a barrage of phaser fire followed.
The MU shuttle ascended rapidly having attacked their prey and beat a hasty tactical retreat. Their exit to their own universe closed, they were now forced to retreat and re-evaluate their next move.
Back on the Prime shuttle Rhenora's blood ran cold, there was a mirror of herself, now along with the three others, trapped in this universe.
TBC
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