The Guardians

Posted on Wed Aug 12th, 2026 @ 9:20pm by Captain Marie Batel & Patin

3,276 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Pirates!
Location: Celestial Temple

Captain Marie Batel held a glass of wine in her hand, peering at the scene unfolding before them. The Sunfire was getting their proverbial ass handed to them on a platter by something she didn't quite understand. There seemed to be another Sunfire - with a different Captain - who didn't quite feel right. And the Dreadnought, with another Rhenora - who very much didn't feel right.

"I don't get it...." She murmured, trying to make sense of it all.

Patin watched the battle unfold in silence for a few moments, the usual smirk absent from her face. The two Sunfires circled one another like reflections that had decided only one deserved to exist. Weapons fire stitched brilliant scars across the reds and golds of the swirling Badlands while, beyond them, the immense silhouette of the dreadnought held its own place in the storm. Four other ships dotted the landscape, each with their own battle-scarred agenda.

She recognized the pattern before she recognized the ships. “We've seen this before,” she said quietly. “When we were in the asteroid field.” Her finger traced the impossible overlap between the vessels. She glanced toward the darker Sunfire and then to the massive dreadnought bearing another Rhenora. “Mirror Universe, I think. Different dimension. Same people... mostly. Just... choices that went another way.”

Patin scratched absently at her jaw. “Trust me.” A crooked smile finally returned. “You only have to meet Mirror You once before you wish you hadn't.”

The Temple responded to her attention. The battle slowed until every phaser beam hung suspended like threads of molten gold. The stars around them folded inward, creating countless vantage points from which they could watch without disturbing the flow below.

Patin looked sideways at Marie. “So...” She shoved her hands into her pockets with studied casualness. “Wanna go have a look?”

The clouds seemed to flex a little, a silent reminder to look but not touch - akin to an instruction given to a child.

" We're just LOOKING." Marie did her best petulant child whinge as they held hands like schoolgirls and skipped off towards the Badlands.

The hulls of the Federation ships looked worse for wear, pockmarked with weapons fire, blackened with dispersed energy. Those inside were fighting for their lives against an enemy that seemed tactically superior.

Patin drifted alongside Marie as though gravity itself had forgotten which direction mattered. The Badlands stretched forever around them, crimson plasma clouds boiling between jagged rivers of ionized gas that swallowed sensor echoes and twisted light into impossible shapes. The Temple dissolved beneath her boots, replaced by cold duranium.

The battered hull of the USS Sunfire stretched beneath her feet, blackened by weapons fire and scored with fresh plasma burns. Time itself had slowed to the edge of stillness. A phaser beam hung a few meters overhead, frozen halfway between predator and prey, its golden light humming in silent echoes through the Badlands.

The USS Sunfire sat low beneath the looming shadow of a dark dreadnought, fighting from the worst possible position, its battered Akira-class hull weaving beneath a predator several times its mass. Every maneuver looked measured, every volley calculated to survive one more exchange rather than win the war outright. Every scar along her hull told the story of a captain who refused to yield.

Marie followed beside her, equally untouched by the battle. They walked like ghosts through a universe that had paused long enough to let them take a closer look.

"Talk about taking on the big guns." Marie let out a low whistle at the damage the ship had inflicted.

Patin crouched near a blast mark and brushed soot from the plating with her fingertips. "She's been through hell." She looked up. Far beyond them, almost at the edge of effective weapons range, another Akira watched with patient malice. She pointed. "There."

The ISS Sunfire watched the battle like a wolf encircling wounded prey. She committed only enough fire to shape the battlefield, letting everyone else exhaust themselves before choosing precisely when and where to strike. Between them stretched the Federation line.

"The Defiant." She pointed toward the compact warship suspended between two emerald disruptor bolts. "Captain Kira. It figures she'd volunteer for such a bold assignment."

"I don't recall much about Kira, only her kindness and determination." Marie mused. "She and Rhenora were friends from way back. I assumed they fought together in the past. Are all Bajorans so stubborn when going against crazy odds?" It was a rhetorical question she already knew the answer to.

“Pretty much.” Patin shrugged, entirely unapologetic. “It's kind of our thing. You give a Bajoran an impossible situation, tell her there's no way she's going to win, and she'll spend the next six hours proving you wrong.”

A little farther away drifted the battered Bristol, hull cracked open in several places yet stubbornly holding formation. Beyond her floated a scarred Steamrunner-class cruiser, engines frozen in the middle of an emergency turn while a smaller frigate fought desperately to keep station.

Then Patin frowned. "There are too many..." She stepped off the Sunfire's hull and simply walked across empty space toward another Defiant. Except...

She walked straight through it. The image rippled. The illusion dissolved, revealing a probe scarcely larger than a cargo container. Patin barked a laugh. "Ghost ships." Each tiny probe projected the sensor signature of a Federation vessel, creating phantom allies throughout the Badlands.

She grinned. "I respect whoever thought of this. Reminds me of the Duggar Valley situation." She noticed Marie's questioning look. "Long story short, we set up decoys on the ridge, overlooking a Cardy armoured column, to make it look like we were a hundredfold instead of 10. It worked... sort of."

She continued walking through the frozen battlefield until she reached the opposing Akira. The hull markings read: ISS SUNFIRE Patin climbed effortlessly onto the dorsal hull before wandering toward and straight on through the bridge windows.

Mirror Remal sat perfectly still in the captain's chair. Same rigid posture. Same thoughtful eyes. Same calm confidence. Everything familiar. Yet, everything wrong. Patin folded her arms. "Meatbag still stands like he's about to give relationship advice." She leaned closer, "Just... the kind that ends with somebody getting spaced."

Her attention shifted. Mirror Bonnie sat at a station to his left. She barely moved. No nervous fidgeting. No anxious smile. No uncertainty. Only quiet precision. A twisted smile upon her face like someone had told a bad joke.

Patin's eyebrows climbed. "...That's horrifying." She watched the woman for another moment. "Our Bonnie always looked like she'd apologize to you for her just existing." Her expression flattened. "This Bonnie looks like she'd apologize for murdering you... then politely ask you to bleed somewhere easier to clean."

"Mirror... like everything is reversed. Good people are now bad people, kind people are now heartless...kinda makes sense in a terrible kinda way," Marie mused as she looked at the bridge of the ship before falling on the centre chair. The kindest person, here a heartless Captain.

Patin could only shake her head in disappointment. She knew it would take a lot to make the Remal she knew, choose violence over kind-heartedness.

Leaving the ISS Sunfire behind, Patin crossed the gulf separating it from the massive dreadnought. The vessel dwarfed everything around it. She and Marie walked across its armored hull until they reached the bridge.

Marshal Rhenora Kaylen stood at its center. Patin stopped. "...Nozzie?" The woman wore Rhenora's face. She held herself with the same confidence. The same intelligence burned behind her eyes. Only, every ounce of compassion the woman held, had been forged into ruthless certainty.

Patin let out a long whistle. "...that's deeply unsettling." She tilted her head, studying the Marshal with almost professional admiration. "You know..." A reluctant smile crept across her face. "She somehow manages to be even more attractive when she could order an execution before breakfast."

Her grin returned. "I'm also incredibly relieved my Nozzie's preferred method of world domination involves coffee... instead of a dreadnought."

"I hear you on that one. This is way too dark. And galactic domination? That's a high and mighty goal even if she is tactically brilliant." Marie rubbed her chin. "But they got here somehow...and now they're ensuring the good guys don't find it and destroy it. Before, during, or after the galactic domination. And why do all dominating women wear black leather?"

Patin's grin lingered for another heartbeat before it slowly faltered. She scratched absently at the back of her neck, then she looked sideways at Marie. "What d'you reckon mine's like?" Her brow furrowed as she genuinely tried to picture it.

"Do you think Mirror Me became some badass pirate queen?" She gestured vaguely toward the battle. "Or would I still be blowing things up, just with significantly worse people?" A crooked grin returned. "Knowing my luck, she's probably the only sane person over there... and everyone else thinks, she's the weird one."

"Begs the question, doesn't it? What if you have chosen the other option in every decision, what would you be like? The mind does boggle." There was a hint of humour running through the heavy subject matter.

"I saw something...like a hole in space. You reckon that's how they got here? This ship's fat arse is protecting it...if you watch her maneuvers, she never strays from a lightyear in any direction." Marie noted, pointing to the ripple in space that was the portal.

Patin followed Marie's gesture toward the distortion in space. The space between realities rippled like heat above a desert, bending the Badlands around a narrow tear that seemed to have no physical edge. The dreadnought hung almost perfectly between them and the opening, its immense hull blocking most of the view.

Patin's eyes narrowed, and she floated toward it. The closer she came, the stranger the distortion became. Light bent around the edges, stretching into long violet threads before disappearing into the darkness beyond.

Patin stopped directly in front of it. "That's definitely a hole." She glanced at Marie. "Scientific terminology, of course." Then, before the thought could become a responsible decision, Patin leaned forward and stuck her head through it. Only her head. Her shoulders remained firmly on their side of reality. For several seconds she said nothing.

The Badlands on the other side were familiar enough to be immediately recognizable, yet completely alien. The violent golds and sickly yellows of their own dimension had become deep purples and cold blues. Lightning crawled through enormous clouds of ionized gas, illuminating jagged formations of rock and plasma like some enormous celestial bruise.

Patin's eyes widened. She pulled her head back just far enough to look at Marie. "That's definitely the Mirror Universe." Then she pushed on through to the other side, completely this time.

" Wait! What if...." Marie started, forgetting that Patin was entirely non-corporeal, much like herself. Although she was curious about the possibility if they got stuck on the wrong side of this fissure - what happened then?

Far in the distance, another battle raged. This one was larger. Much larger. Ships filled the strange horizon, Terran vessels cutting through formations of Alliance ships while disruptor fire crossed between them in brilliant green and violet streaks. The Alliance fleet had clearly been caught by surprise. Ships broke formation, some already venting atmosphere, others attempting desperate evasive maneuvers as the Terran forces drove straight through their lines.

Patin stared. Then she recognized the markings. Her expression changed. "That's Marshal Nozzie's fleet." She remained half inside the portal, watching as the dreadnoughts and escorts of the Mirror Alliance struggled to reorganize. "Her cavalry got caught with their pants down." Another Alliance vessel exploded in the distance. Patin winced, "That's gonna ruin somebody's day."

"She doesn't know yet though, right? Cos that's only gonna piss her off more" Marie snorted as she stepped through the opening between universes and followed Patin's eyeline. "Ohhh lordy, that is quite the mess"

"So..." She pointed at the tear. "Good news? We found the door." Her expression tightened as she glanced back toward the battle.

" And she's got battle ships on both sides....Wait hang on... what's the bad news?" Marie's head snapped sideways in a glance that could only mean one thing.

"Bad news?" Another Terran vessel tore through the Alliance formation. "Apparently, this is about to get a whole lot more messier."

The fleet itself was of moderate size, ragtag vessels, similar in size and bearing to their Prime counterparts. The Alliance were guarding this side of the Portal from the Terrans who seemed to be wanting to close it. So there were allies to be found on this side. But how to recruit them?

Patin watched the Alliance vessels maneuver around the portal, none of them paying the slightest attention to the two women standing practically inside the thing. She frowned. "They don't seem focused on the hole." She glanced back toward the battle, then toward Marie. "How do we get their attention besides a large neon sign with an arrow, saying looky over here?"

Marie looked confused, as though Patin seemed to expect an answer.

She folded her arms, looking at Marie expectantly. "You're the smart one?"

"A law degree and a Captaincy doesn't prepare you for this....whatever this is," Marie snorted as she mulled through the options. What could they adjust, ever so slightly, to draw the attention of the ships but not the Prophets?

"Hey - idea....adjust the rotation of that lightning bolt by .3 degrees and down ever so slightly, it should pass through the hole....I wonder if that would get their attention...." She mused, taking in all the surrounding things in this nebula.

Patin followed Marie's gaze toward the lightning bolt. Then she looked back at Marie. Then back at the lightning. "You're asking me to move lightning." She paused. "Okay..." She stepped closer to the edge of the portal, cracked her knuckles, and then raised one hand.

The Badlands seemed to notice. The clouds slowed around her, their enormous currents dragging themselves into stillness. The frozen battlefield dimmed until the only thing left in motion was the electrical discharge twisting through the plasma storm. It crawled across the clouds in branching veins of energy, searching for somewhere to go.

Patin extended her fingers. The lightning bent. Not much, A fraction of a degree. Then another fraction. The bolt seemed to resist her at first, branching violently through the cloud before slowly curving toward the portal.

A pressure gathered against her skin, prickling across her arms and crawling up the back of her neck. The fine hairs along her body stood upright as the electrical charge grew closer, filling the space with a sharp metallic tinge. The sensation vibrated through her bones, an unmistakable surge of enormous energy moving through her. The pressure intensified, and for one breath, she could feel the storm. Every charged particle seemed to hum against her skin.

Patin's eyes widened. "Oh, that's so weird." She pushed slightly harder. The lightning crossed the threshold. For one impossible instant, the bolt existed in both realities. Gold became violet. The colors intertwined across the tear in space, illuminating both sides of the portal with a brilliant flash.

The Alliance ships reacted almost immediately. One vessel broke formation. Another swung toward the anomaly. Then another.

Patin slowly lowered her hand. She stared at the ships now turning toward them. "Looky over here."

The stars above them shimmered. The answer influences the answer.

Patin glanced upward. "Oh, shut up."

The portal pulsed. Across the battlefield, the Alliance fleet began turning toward the disturbance.

"Righto, now we're getting somewhere. If those Alliance ships close the portal, then our guys only have to deal with what's in front of them" Marie felt a little tug of satisfaction. Something so minor could be so profound.

She looked over at Patin, who's hair still stood on end as though still charged. "You look like you stuck your finger in a power socket" the human giggled, referencing the Earth power grids of long ago.

Patin rubbed both hands over her arms, trying unsuccessfully to smooth down the hairs that still stood on end. "That was an experience. I feel... charged." She looked toward the fading traces of lightning. "For one brief moment, I could feel... everything." Her expression softened as she searched for the right words. "I wasn't just moving the storm. I was part of it. I could feel every charge, every current. I could see from one end of the Badlands to the other."

She looked down at her hands and flexed her fingers. "That's going to take some getting used to." Patin glanced toward the portal and gave herself a final shake, sending a few stubborn hairs back into place. "Come on. Let's get back before we miss anything exciting." She took a step toward the opening. Then stopped.

Something moved through her. It began as a faint pressure at the base of her spine, so subtle she almost ignored it. Then it crawled upward, cold and deliberate, settling between her shoulder blades before spreading through her chest. Patin's expression changed. The humor disappeared.

She peered into and through the portal. Something was wrong. She couldn't see it yet, but she simply knew. Her stomach tightened into a sudden, nauseating knot.

The Guardian. The protector. The feeling came without words, instinct older than thought. Whatever waited on the other side was moving toward a moment that mattered, and something inside Patin was pulling her toward it. She stepped closer to the portal. "Something's happening."

"Define 'Something'" Marie retorted before she saw the expression on Patin's face. 'Something' without the usual smirk, grin, scowl, or wink - meant something bad or significant. Marie who was known for her quick wit, shut her trap and followed Patin, understanding that the Bajoran was more used to whatever the hell they were experiencing than she was.

"What's happening?" She asked cautiously, looking around to see if she could pinpoint something with her own eyes.

Patin took Marie by the hand and yanked her back through the portal into the Prime Universe. Time had progressed mere minutes since they had left. It might as well have been hours. She stopped dead.

The battlefield had changed. The ISS Sunfire burned in the distance, sections of her hull glowing red beneath licking tongues of fire. The massive dreadnought listed heavily, one entire wing sheared away and trailing a cloud of debris that slowly scattered into the Badlands.

Then Patin saw the USS Sunfire. She didn't breathe. The Akira-class vessel tumbled slowly through space, helplessly rolling against the currents of plasma and debris. The rear third of the ship was simply... gone. What remained of the hull was blackened, torn open, and exposed to space. Fragments of nacelle, armor plating, equipment, and things Patin refused to identify drifted endlessly around her.

Her hand tightened around Marie's. "No." The word barely escaped her. Patin took one step forward. Then another.

Her eyes tracked the tumbling wreckage, searching for something she couldn't possibly see. A familiar shape. A familiar shuttle. A familiar person standing where they had been standing only minutes before. Nothing.

The Guardian instinct surged through her again, no longer a distant warning but a physical force pressing against her chest. This time it was something closer to self-preservation. Patin swallowed hard as they approached the bridge. "Oh no." Her voice cracked. "Are we too late...?"

TBC

 

RSS Feed