Mirror Mirror
Posted on Sat May 23rd, 2026 @ 10:10am by Commander Jennifer Baldric & Commander Dean House & Lieutenant JG T'Lar & Lieutenant Commander Bonnie "Bon-Bon" Durnell
1,793 words; about a 9 minute read
Mission:
Pirates!
Location: ISS Sunfire
“In another life we might have been heroes. In this one, we learned how much easier power is without mercy.”
I.S.S. Sunfire
Hours passed beneath cloak.
The ship carved silently through the fractured edge of known space, her hull wrapped in distortion as the first violent currents of the Badlands began to stain the viewscreen ahead in bruised reds and electrical golds. Plasma storms flickered across the distance like slow-moving wounds in space itself, illuminating the darkness in uneven pulses before vanishing again into shadow.
The I.S.S. Sunfire moved toward it without hesitation. No running lights marked her passage. Beneath cloak, she existed as little more than a ghost carrying stolen flesh and dangerous promises toward Marshal Kaylen’s rendezvous point deep within the storms.
I.S.S. Sunfire - Agony Brig
Jennifer Baldric woke some time later, the betrayal hitting her anew as she did so.
Dean was sitting across from the booths. Legs up on the console, the crunching sound of a Granny Smith apple being bitten into. The cosmetic changes that were made gone again.
"Come to survey your handiwork? Congrats, you won. How does it feel?" Jennifer didn't bother moving.
"It has it's benefits also." Dean motioned an index finger up in the air, over his shoulder in Bonnie. "Which she keeps forgetting that I'm not a pet."
Bonnie arrived long before she announced herself. The brig cameras catching only fragments of her at first. A shadow slipping past the corridor light. The soft squeak of boot leather against polished deck plating. The faint rustle of someone entirely too comfortable wandering through a room built for suffering.
She entered the Agony room, chewing slowly on a slice of citrus fruit, her eyes drifted first toward Dean... then toward Baldric. “Oh good,” she murmured around the sweetness. “You’re both awake. I was worried I’d missed the depressing part.”
"Why wouldn't I be?" Dean took another bite from the apple.
Baldric just stared at the ceiling, refusing to look at either of tbem.
Bonnie wandered behind Dean’s chair without invitation, fingertips trailing lazily across the backrest before sliding down onto his shoulder and across the center of his chest with proprietary ease. Not affection, possession. Her eyes never left Baldric while she touched him. The corner of her mouth curled as she felt the tension in the room sharpen.
“Mmm.” Another citrus slice disappeared between her teeth. “Prime Bonnie wrote about you, or rather, the other you.” She spoke to Dean while being deliberately cruel. “Not in great detail, unfortunately. She gets distractingly poetic when she’s flustered.” Bonnie leaned down slightly near Dean’s ear as though sharing a private joke with him while still speaking to Baldric. “But I remember the juicy bits.”
Her nails dragged lightly once against his chest before she straightened again. “The way she described his hands was memorable.” A slow grin spread across her face. “So was the part where she forgot she was angry with him halfway through. She's flighty like that.”
Bonnie watched Baldric carefully now, hunting the reaction instead of the truth. “Oh...” she added after another bite of citrus, voice soft with delighted realization. “You didn’t know?” The silence that followed felt almost alive. And Bonnie smiled like she had just found a loaded weapon lying unattended on the table.
Dean wasn't bothered about what Bonnie was doing. She could pretend all she wanted. He wasn't anyone's pet or toy. Lest they forget the Augment Wars and who won. Grinning a little bit, "You don't say." Pushing into Bonnie's nails a little bit. "They definitely don't like opening up over there, do they. I've had straight-up told her I banged the hell out of Bonnie."
Jennifer bristled, her body stiffening as she tried to contain the emotional anguish destroying her from within. She knew Bonnie and Dean were close, but these were not them, so how did they know? It still stung even with the question.
Bonnie snorted softly through her nose, amused by the visible reaction Baldric tried and failed to bury. She rolled another citrus slice across her tongue before answering Dean, one shoulder lifting lazily in a shrug. “When their shields dropped, I downloaded everything I could from my Mirror’s personal files.” Her grin sharpened. “Triple-encrypted diary. Cute effort, honestly. But I have my ways.”
She drifted around the chair slowly now, circling like a shark too entertained to bite yet. “Turns out she writes about three things.” Bonnie ticked them off casually against her fingers. “Computer code. Structural schematics.” Another slice vanished between her teeth. “And personal relationships.” She made a face of theatrical disappointment. “Boooooring. Useful, but boring.”
Her eyes slid back toward Baldric with deliberate cruelty. “Do you know that girl keeps statistics on herself?” Bonnie laughed softly, genuinely delighted by it. “She actually counts how many times she makes mistakes during the day.” She tilted her head, almost affectionate in the mockery. “Little logs. Tiny apologies to herself. Oopsie count: four.”
Bonnie clicked her tongue sympathetically. “Zero coordination. None. Honestly, it’s a miracle she survives walking through doors.” Her grin widened into something feral. “Bit sad really.”
I.S.S. Sunfire - Bridge
On the bridge, the atmosphere had shifted from battle tension into something colder. More focused. The violence behind them had resolved into consequence now, every officer aboard aware that whatever waited at the end of this journey carried greater danger than the Federation ship they had already bloodied.
At the center of it all stood Remal. Still. Steady. Watching the Badlands grow larger.
T'Lar strode confidently onto the bridge and headed directly to Remal. Stopping short she came to attention and saluted before giving her report.
"Sir. The Taskmaster has completed her assignment as ordered and discovered the source of the Prime Dean House's entanglement with Batel. Our ruse worked perfectly, and although we do not know still how House is able to do what he does, we do know why he is able to do it. According to the prisoner, her Dean House was infused with Batel's augmented DNA; everything that made her the Beholder."
T'Lar paused for a moment to consider that fact.
"In theory, their Dean House, for all intents and purposes, must represent a new Beholder with all of the powers Batel possessed. That would answer the question of how he was able to do what he did."
Silence lingered for a moment afterward. Then Remal’s jaw shifted once. “So,” he said flatly, eyes remaining on the storm ahead, “as I said...” A faint exhale passed through his nose. “Some Jedi mind-control voodoo bullshit.”
A few nearby crew exchanged the briefest glances before looking away again. Remal finally turned toward her, studying T’Lar in silence for a long enough moment to become uncomfortable.
“The Taskmaster,” he repeated evenly. “Has completed her assignment.” The faintest narrowing entered his eyes. “You have developed an interesting habit of referring to yourself in the third person.” The words carried no open mockery. That made them more dangerous. “I advise you not to become too enamored with your own title.”
T'Lar held her tongue. Not for the first time she wished she could openly defy Remal. For that matter she'd like to kill the smug sonofabitch, but she imagined that she wasn't alone in that, and like the rest of the crew, knew that silence was survival.
Then the moment passed. Remal stepped slowly around her, hands clasped behind his back once more as he spoke. “You had better hope the sample you extracted proves viable.” That landed harder. “If Marshal Kaylen discovers we've delivered an deficient prize...” He took a measured pause, precise. “Then we will be forced to return.”
Only then did Remal look back toward her fully. “And next time,” he said quietly, “we will not be stealing a corpse.” The implication settled cold and sharp in the air between them.
Prime Dean House. Alive.
"I never guaranteed that the samples would yield anything useful, only that they would possibly provide a means by which replication of the Batel Beholder might be achieved. I am not a geneticist. We have medical staff on board for a reason. They are far more suited to explain the ins and outs of what we are trying to achieve." T'Lar protested
Remal’s expression never changed. “If your conclusions are wrong,” he continued evenly, “then you will personally explain to the Marshal why your failure forced us to hunt the Federation’s new Beholder directly.”
MU Sarah pivoted from her chair with a bemused expression on her face. "If anyone knows about genetics, it's me. And if Batel underwent ANY further transformation or experiences after her DNA was implanted into their House, it's of no use to us. It won't be the same. Besides, we harvested it from a dead body - it wasn't even active." She shrugged. "But you never know, we could get lucky."
"You are overlooking the obvious, both of you. We have our own Dean House, and we have the ability to replicate the genetic material, do we not? Why not test it out on him?" T'Lar countered.
Remal’s eyes shifted from Sarah toward T’Lar without warmth, though the faintest trace of amusement touched the corner of his expression now. “We’ll allow the Marshal to decide,” he said evenly. “That way the Ferengi gets paid.”
At the rear of the bridge, the small figure who had been doing his absolute best to remain invisible nearly startled out of his own skin. The Ferengi straightened so quickly from his cramped seat that he almost lost balance against the deck plating. “Ah! Yes! Right. Of course. Excellent decision, Captain.” His grin spread instantly, sharp and oily with relief. “Very equitable arrangement. Very professional.” He adjusted the front of his jacket nervously, eyes flicking between Remal and T’Lar with naked survival instinct.
“For a moment there,” he admitted with a weak laugh, “I was beginning to worry my contribution to this operation had been... overlooked.” Nobody answered him. The silence that followed stretched long enough for the Ferengi’s smile to tighten awkwardly at the edges.
Remal turned away first, dismissing the exchange entirely as his attention returned to the viewscreen.
Behind him, the Ferengi slowly sat back down, muttering under his breath while clutching one trembling hand protectively over the latinum accounting rod tucked inside his coat. “Never work with Terrans,” he whispered to himself. “Never work with Terrans twice.”
On the comm panel, a summons from the Marshall lay waiting.
TBC
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