Team - For Bajor - 6

Posted on Wed Dec 3rd, 2025 @ 7:06pm 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

3,097 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: For Bajor!
Location: Transport Ship Heading for...

They still had to deal with the fallout, Commander Baldric, the symbiont, Dean bleeding, but Bonnie was at the helm and curiously confident. “Alright, sweetheart,” she murmured to the controls, “don’t embarrass me in front o’ the Commanders.” She nudged the throttle forward.

The shuttle lurched violently backward, scraping a complaint through the landing struts. Bonnie blinked. “Okay, wow. Yep. That was reverse. Cool. Great. Love that for us.” She spotted Savar’s eyebrow rising, silent, judicial.

Savar looked at Bonnie from the co-pilot's seat as the shuttle was proving to reluctant to cooperate if the groans, shakes and tremors were to be believed. He even thought he heard the shuttle wheeze in protest of being asked to move. The shuttle it seemed was not impressed with Bonnie's piloting prowe and preferred to take on the role of doormat.

She punched a different cluster of buttons. The shuttle wheezed, lights flickering like it was reconsidering consciousness. Bonnie smacked the side panel lightly. “Don’t start with me. I’ve jump-started food processors with better attitudes.” She tried again.

The shuttle inched forward precisely one meter, then stopped as if it had decided that was enough ambition for the day. Bonnie threw her hands up. “Progress! Microscopic, but I’ll take it.”

Savar’s eyebrow appeared to have achieved an even more alarming altitude.

Savar's look became even more judicial, more questioning as Bonnie and the shuttle failed to establish a working relationship proven by the shuttle moving one meter. throwing a hissy fit and stopping. "Truly Monumental Progress. He intoned quietly in perfect sarcasm.

Bonnie drew a steadying breath and grabbed a lever with all the care of a woman disarming a bomb, muttering, “Alright then… let’s pretend I do know how to drive stick.” She eased the thrusters. The shuttle shuddered… groaned… stuttered… Then launched forward with a dramatic whoosh that rattled every loose panel.

Bonnie whooped triumphantly. “There we go! Told you I had it!”

Savar's expression never changed. A muscle didn't tweak or jump. he just continued to look at Bonnie as the shuttle much like a misbehaving child under the threat of severe punishment finally bolted forward. "An impressive display. It defies words." His voice level and Vulcan cool.

Bonnie threw him a sideways grin as she steadied their unexpected forward momentum. “Everything I touch comes with theatrics, Commander. Now, where are we heading?”

The shuttle, as if cowed by her sheer audacity, finally chose cooperation over rebellion. The stars opened ahead of them, and Bonnie guided the craft forward, no less chaotic, but somehow, impossibly, in control. Beyond the glass, the world opened up, ready for whatever Bonnie accidentally-on-purpose did next.

"Truly awe inspiring Bonnie. The stuff of legends." Savar replied deadpan. "Zio and Commander House need medical attention. Try for the Sunfire. Perhaps your skill and this shuttle will hold on that long."

Aurora couldn't help but smile at Savar’s comments, it seemed the side of him she always saw was starting to come out for all to see. “Fingers crossed.”

Savar nodded at Aurora's comment. "Indeed Aurora. I would even suggest lighting candles.... but that might set the shuttle on fire seeing the state it is in."

The transport shuddered as it clawed its way out of the thinning atmosphere, its hull still radiating the heat of re-entry. Bonnie kept one hand braced on the console, mostly to steady herself, partly to convince the poor abused craft to keep moving upward. The clouds parted into a slow-spreading bloom of gold, revealing the black beyond.

And there she was. The USS Sunfire, hanging in orbit like a guardian lantern, every running light sharp against the dark. Her deflector dish glowed with the teal pulse of a ship temporarily drafted into the role of Master Weather Warden, her shields tuned, her emitters humming with atmospheric modulation algorithms. Thin auroral trails curled off her ventral arrays, tracing the invisible work she was doing over Bajor below.

" I take it the Sunfire is still playing weather satellite? Or perhaps we should consider letting the planet's natural eco-system reassert itself without further tinkering" Rhenora mused as she aided Remal treating Dean and Zio. She kept a wary eye on Baldric, who was still looking decidedly green but with a wicked look in her expression if such things were indeed possible.

Even Bonnie had to stop and stare for a heartbeat. “That’s... new,” she murmured under her breath, eyes wide, as though the Sunfire had reinvented the very idea of starships just to show off. The moment didn’t last.

A crisp, authoritative voice cut through the comms, steady as steel wrapped in protocol.

“Unidentified transport,” Commander Jenna Ramthorne said from the bridge, her tone carrying that calm command presence that suggested she already had three contingencies plotted for whatever answer came next. “You are entering controlled operational space. Declare your vessel, crew, and intentions immediately.”

"Captain to Sunfire, prepare to receive 3 patients, beam them directly to sickbay as soon as we are within range. Then beam the rest of us off this tin can... it may fall apart at any given moment"

Savar reached a hand out and placed it on the console. "Just hold together a few more moments until we are in transporter range." He intone quietly.

Jenna didn’t answer right away. She let the silence stretch a beat longer than protocol required, long enough for her bridge crew to glance her way, long enough for doubt to cast its shadow across the comm like a raised eyebrow. When she finally spoke, her voice carried the cool, measured edge of someone who had just endured far too many Mirror Universe surprises to take anything at face value.

“Transport shuttle, your claim is noted,” she said, each word clean as a scalpel. “Given recent... multiversal complications, confirmation of identity will be required upon arrival.”

Her posture shifted just slightly in the command chair, Jenna’s version of rolling up her sleeves. “That said, we’re not in the habit of letting patients die while we sort out paperwork. Sunfire will prepare to receive your three medical emergencies. The moment you’re in transporter range, they’re going straight to Sickbay.”

A subtle motion of her hand cued the tactical officer. Security teams were already mobilizing, phasers set to the polite-but-firm end of the spectrum.

“As for the rest of you... ” Her tone didn’t soften, but it warmed by a fraction, enough to show she wasn’t heartless, just prepared. “... we’ll beam you aboard once our teams are in position. Hold course, maintain current trajectory, and do not test the structural integrity of your ‘tin can’ on my watch.”

A pause, then a final shard of dry professionalism “Sunfire out.”

"I don't blame her actually. She's following protocol without letting us die. Last thing we need is more mirror versions of us on board" Rhenora admitted as she shifted position and winced as Baldric threw up again.

Bonnie’s fingers danced across the cracked console, coaxing one last coherent report out of a ship that sounded ready to rattle itself into dust. “Aaaannnd… we’re in transporter range,” she announced, relief and adrenaline braided together in her voice. “Sunfire has a lock on the medical trio. Sending tags now, before this rust bucket remembers it hates us.”

The deck shuddered, metal flexing with a tired groan that felt almost personal.

Baldric caught Zio’s arm as the transporter beam swept across them. Dean offered Bonnie a fleeting, steady look, half gratitude, half promise, before shimmering away in the golden rise of the Sunfire’s transporter signature. In the blink of an eye, the three materialized in Sickbay, triage teams already rushing in around them.

The moment their patterns cleared the buffer, Bonnie triggered the next sequence. “Transporter room, stand by for group two,” she said, tapping in the last command with the heel of her palm. “And make it quick, lads, the hull’s starting to sound like a tin can full of angry marbles.”

Her console spat sparks. Pressure alarms flared. The gravity plating hiccuped. She didn’t wait. Bonnie slammed the final control node. The remaining crew dissolved into the familiar amber light, reassembling safely on the Sunfire’s transporter pad, wide-eyed, disoriented, alive.

Back aboard the shuttle, no one remained to witness its last moments.

The small craft drifted, listing, frame trembling as micro-fractures spidered through the hull. Then, in the silent gulf above Bajor, the transport shuddered once more and came apart, quietly, almost gracefully, into a drifting constellation of debris that glinted once in the starlight before fading into the dark.

Bonnie’s final transport signature flickered out just before the ship did. At least she didn't have to land the doomed craft.

Savar materialized in the Sunfire's transporter room, Aurora at his side, Rhenora and Remal together and Bonnie their miracle worker all together all safe. The current situation if not ended at least at a place where they could feel good about their efforts. Which of course raised the next question, what was next for them and of course Bajor and it's people. He wasn't sure but he knew beyond any doubt that they would face it together as a crew and would be triumphant.

The small monitor embedded in the wall of the transporter room behind the operator bore witness to the shuttle's demise and the Captain was acutely reminded of just how close they had all come to dying - again. Before she could speak a tactical team swept forward, weapons raised and a no nonsense look on their faces.

"I take it 'Trust me, it's us' isnt going to fly" Rhenora shrugged, and waited to get hauled away until their identity could be proven.

"it would seem that your word is not readily accepted at this moment Captain." Savar remarked as he kept an eye on the tactical team that was surrounding them.

Kit looked about and smiled, “See, this is why I love the crew of the Sunfire, all warm and fuzzy, just like one big Caj.” Then as if she just remembered not everyone spoke Kolari, “A Caj is a great family or clan.” She smiled at everyone.

"Apparently not" Rhenora shrugged as the tactical team marched them all in the direction of sickbay.

Kit then remarked "At least it is warmer than that Gods forsaken glacier."

Meanwhile down in sickbay Dr Wilson was working to stop Dean from bleeding out, as well as trying to stop Baldric's body from rejecting the Mirror Coy symbiote. Both tricky on their own but together, the medical staff were going to have a run for their money.

"Prep House for surgery" she ordered, before hitting Baldric with a powerful sedative that would hopefully by them time.

---

Time slipped forward like a reluctant gear grinding into the next notch, everyone was pulled along their own thread of consequence.

Remal felt the familiar ache of adrenaline settling into his bones, that slow burn that comes after you realize survival was a coin toss and you happened to call the right side. He lingered near the forcefield that had politely, if somewhat smugly, imprisoned him and the others. Watching the tactical team posture and bristle reminded him how fragile recognition could be. Everyone looked like themselves, and yet trust still had to be rebuilt molecule by molecule. In the quiet between the hums of security protocols, he found his mind returning to Dean’s blood on the snow and Mirror Coy’s still form. Survival was a thin blanket in a cold universe, and it rarely covered what you wished it would.

Bonnie busied herself in the only way she knew how, by studying the nearest console with the hungry focus of someone who’d rather wrestle circuitry than feelings. The shuttle’s last scream as it died in the atmosphere replayed behind her eyes like a cruel theater reel. She kept checking for updates from sickbay, even though she knew the computer would notify her instantly. Anything to keep the silence at bay. A pair of security officers shadowed her steps, but she barely noticed them. She was too busy imagining all the ways the shuttle should’ve held together, and all the ways she would redesign it the moment someone trusted her with tools again.

Zio stood apart in the corridor outside sickbay, her stance steady but her jaw tight. The smell of sterilized air always reminded her of triage tents during the Occupation, too bright, too clean, too full of fear masked as procedure. She tracked every movement inside the glass, waiting for the slightest sign from Dr. Wilson or her staff. Baldric wasn’t hers to worry over, not formally, not by rank or bond... yet she worried anyway. It was a resistance habit she had never shaken: if you don’t look after your people, you lose them. Her fingers brushed the cuff of her pant leg unconsciously, the ghost memory of a limb she no longer had, grounding herself against the rising tide of helplessness.

Savar stood with Aurora, silent, watching, observing as time slowly passed like molasses on a cold day. Waiting for the logical conclusion to be reached that they were indeed who they said they were.

Then, with the grace of a curtain whip-cracking open on a stage, Jenna swept into the room holding a PADD high like a verdict. Her pony-tail bounced with purpose; her expression was a mixture of triumph and "can-we-please-stop-accusing-my-friends-of-being-imposters-now."

“We ran a full dimensional scan,” she announced, planting herself between the tactical team and everyone else. “Temporal drift signatures, cross-realm residue, all of it. They’re real. Every last one of them. You can stand down before someone pulls a muscle pretending otherwise.”

The tension broke, not all at once but in slow, cautious fractures. The universe had finally agreed that everyone was who they said they were, at least for the moment, and that was enough to push onward into whatever awaited next.

Savar stood with Aurora as Jenna made her announcement that the team was who they claimed to be. "Thank you for verifying we are indeed who we claim to be. I am relieved that all doubt has been removed about our identities."

Kit snorted when she heard the announcement "Well I am relieved to know that what I already knew was correct, I'm me. Now may I make a subspace call to my family. I wish to ensure my daughter isn't causing chaos for them, plus I need to express some milk." She then began to step forward, muttering in Orion when she stopped and suddenly turned to the captain, "With your permission of course Ma'am." said with a deep and abiding respect.

"Granted, granted, which reminds me we need to check in with Rosita and Patina" her heart clenched with the familiar guilt of balancing duty and family.

Jenna eased back a step, giving the returning team room as they filed into the corridor. One by one, she acknowledged them with a quiet nod, reading the exhaustion etched into their faces while she waited for her moment to deliver her report to the Captain, her friend. Remal lingered at the rear, clearly waiting to escort the Captain to their quarters, just as Savar hovered protectively near Aurora. Bonnie didn’t linger at all; she broke from the group the instant her boots hit the deck, sprinting toward the med bay without a word.

Before Savar could slip past, Jenna stepped into his path, her posture making it clear the moment concerned him as well.

“Captain. Commander.” Her voice held the crisp cadence of a report, though fatigue tugged beneath it. “Colonel Kira has confirmed the new satellite will be ready by tomorrow morning. Also, aside from a vague note about suspected Mirror Universe saboteurs, there’s no record placing you here. Officially, you’re all still ‘on vacation,’ which means off duty.”

She hesitated for a beat, the edges of a wry smile threatening. “I also checked in with your sitter. Patina has been… exemplary, in her own Patina way.”

The smile faded as she shifted to the final matter. “Arrangements are underway to divert a Trill transport ship for Commander Baldric. They warned us to expect some negative personality instability over the next seventy-two hours, but they’re moving as fast as they can. I’ve dispatched an escort wing to ensure they arrive without incident.”

"A most efficient and comprehensive report Commander Ramthorne. Thank you." Savar replied in his Vulcan cool way before addressing Rhenora. "As you are on vacation and could not possibly be involved in the recent events, am i correct in guessing the same goes for the rest of us? In addition, do you wish to keep Commander Baldric in Sickbay under guard especially in light of hearing negative personality traits coming to the front."

A wry smile tugged at the corner of Rhenora's lips at the mention of their daughter and her rebellious nature.

"Thank you Commander" She replied before wrapping the pilot in a hug. "As for Baldric, she was too busy puking to be much of a threat to anyone, although that may subside. I will leave Dr Wilson to judge if a guard is required."

" A logical decision Captain as Dr. Wilson will be the officer most closely involved with Commander Baldric at least for the immediate future as the good commander recovers." Savar answered and gave a short, crisp nod of his head.

Jenna accepted the Captain’s hug with the practiced grace of someone who knew how to fold affection into protocol without dropping either. When Rhenora stepped back, Jenna’s expression settled into something steadier.

“Understood. And for what it’s worth, Captain... if Baldric’s biggest danger right now is projectile aim, Security may actually be grateful for the warning.” The faintest spark of mischief crossed her eyes, gone just as quickly as it appeared.

“Dr. Wilson will have my full support. I’ll check in before morning rounds and file an updated status prior to the satellite launch.” She straightened her uniform, the day’s weight briefly visible before she tucked it away again. “Until then... get some rest. The next shift will come for us whether we’re ready or not.”

With a final nod to Savar and the Captain, Jenna stepped aside, letting the night fold closed so the coming morning could rise on schedule.

TBC

 

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