Updated Introductory Notes 25/March/2018: I've noticed a lot of questions coming up on the nature of this story and how it qualifies (or not qualifies) as an AU. Because I'm someone who likes to adher very strictly to canon, this story is obviously an AU, but I'm getting the impression it doesn't actually come across as one to a lot of people. I have underestimated the confusion I would cause and I do not wish to mislead anyone reading this story and cause any more disappointment, I prefer to leave that to the professionals.
Therefore, what this story changes:
Mirror Lorca comes to the prime universe for a reason and with a plan.
The ISS Buran has a spore drive.
The ISS Buran has a weapon based on spore technology.
The mirror universe's destruction of the mycelial network ties in with the rest of the plot
Prime Lorca is a badass (he might well be one in canon, but I do not trust those writers one bit.)
There are minor changes to characters and plot necessitated by the above alterations.
What this story NOT changes:
The destruction of the USS Buran and the death of the entire crew.
Mirror and prime Lorca switching places.
Mirror Lorca's overall mindset.
Warnings: Violence and gore, some suggestive themes, Reader Discretion Advised
Author's Note: I'm pretty sure I'm on record several times on how much I hate AUs and people who don't respect canon, but it turns out Lorca's stupid arc is the straw that broke the camel's back. This diverges massively more from canon than I intended, mainly because canon isn't finished fucking up.
I'm also on record saying things like 'I quit this fandom' and 'I can't fix this'. Yet here we are. Go big or go home, I guess.
The title is a compound (remix?) of two chess terms:
Blind(fold) play = a chess game where one or both players can't see the board
Bare king = the king is the only piece left to the player
BLINDFOLD KING
by glenarvon
Part 1: The Terran Hello
Night shift had crested through the Buran like a slow-coming tide, washing the off-duty crew into their quarters, away from their stations and even out of the recreation areas. It was just a short moment, a stillness between heartbeats, because a spaceship wasn't ever truly quiet. It was an hour or two, somewhen between late at night and early in the morning, the sense of alertness dulled to a distant, anxious throbbing.
The Buran's captain had used the chance to sink some time into the gym, using the relative privacy of this dead hour. It was preferable to wasting more time in the enforced quiet of his quarters and the equally enforced passivity of sleep. He had no plans to run afoul of his CMO, though, so he was going to go to bed and spent the required six hours there, but only after he put through a call to Starfleet.
He was dressed half for the gym and half for bed, barefoot, in shirtsleeves. He knew Starfleet would let it slide and there was an ever so small part of him who enjoyed seeing how far he could push, even in such trivial things.
It took only half a second longer than normal for the hologram to appear in his quarters, with no indication that the commodore had been roused from — at the very least — a comfy nap while he waited for his shift to end. Arbitrary as time might be in space, the commodore was stationed planetside, with a much more solid day-night cycle and he was in the middle of his own dead hour.
"Captain Lorca," the commodore greeted him, his expression wavering between worry and annoyance before he got it under control when the view he had of the captain confirmed it wasn't an emergency.
Detailed to patrol a thinly inhabited area of Federation space, the Buran hadn't seen much more than a few Klingon scouts now and then, easily scared off by the ship's superior firepower. There had been a handful of skirmishes, barely enough to scratch the proverbial paint.
There was little here the Klingons would bother to want, a few sparsely populated colonies, a terra-forming project that wasn't getting off the ground and several civilian and mostly automated asteroid mining operations.
The Buran was severely under-utilised, but Lorca had resolved to wait it out. Starfleet would reassess their assets soon enough, when the war continued to go badly. He could use the time to bring his crew around, until they were a true battleship, inside and out, reflexes honed to a killing edge. Lorca made it a point to keep his crew briefed on the exact state of the war, the tally of losses, the number of battles fought and won and lost. Strictly speaking, he wasn't supposed to be as detailed as that, Starfleet's psychologists had determined the rank and file served better with less knowledge. Lorca disagreed. They were adult people, they were Starfleet, they could take the truth.
"How's the transfer coming along?" the captain asked, striding to his desk and settling with his back against it, calmly studying the commodore.
The commodore very pointedly did not sigh or roll his eyes, maintaining a serious expression, though the glimmer of impatience was hiding just underneath.
"There are some… concerns," the commodore said.
The captain arched a questioning eyebrow at his holographic superior.
"Concerns? Commander Basora isn't getting any younger," Lorca said, himself not bothering to hide his impatience with the situation. "Why do I not get a new security chief?"
The commodore bristled just a little at the tone, gathered himself and said. "You've been forwarded the files of several suitable candidates. May I suggest you take your pick among them?"
Lorca frowned. "Commander Landry is an exemplary officer, you want her on the Buran."
"I'm aware of Commander Basora's upcoming retirement, but Commander Landry may not be a good pick for your ship."
Lorca shook his head. "Why are you even making me fight for this?" he asked, brows drawing together in vague — and entirely feigned — bafflement.
"There are concerns her presence could destabilise the crew as a whole," the commodore said. "Surely crew cohesion is of utmost concern at the moment."
"Yes, but she'll whip them into shape in no time and they'll thank her later," he pursed his lips as he shook his head. "We don't have a lot of people who would go toe-to-toe with a Klingon, but Landry would." He flashed a brief smile. "Hell, on a good day she puts me on the mat in under ten minutes. So, how's the transfer coming along?"
The commodore took a breath and the unkind lights that composed his image did nothing for the miserable expression he tried hard to hide.
"I will consider Commander Landry's posting," the commodore said, hesitated than added, "You are right, you need a security chief. But if there are problems that arise…"
"I can handle my crew and I can handle Landry."
"That's…" the commodore started, finally seemed to run out of patience, tired of hinting at something while the captain on the other end of the conversation played dumb, clearly for his own private amusement.
Sharply, the commodore said, "Your handling of Landry is the rea—."
The comm channel shut down without warning, but before Lorca could even draw breath to bark an order at the computer, a vibration started crawling through the soles of his bare feet and upward into his legs and his body, wrapping around his throat like a touch. It took a long moment for him to identify the feeling it caused as dread. He didn't know what this was. He'd grown up on a star-base, he'd spent almost his entire life on a spaceship, but this he'd never experienced.
The Buran shuddered on a molecular level, briefly ripped apart at the baseline of its tangible existence. Then it went dark. The perfect pitch-black of deep space with only the faintest glow of distant stars falling through the windows, not bright enough to illuminate anything at all. The temperature dropped and he felt himself become weightless as the artificial gravity shut down along with everything else.
He reacted on the same instinct he had started drilling into all members of his crew. If he lost touch with the ground entirely he'd be left floating helplessly in the middle of the cabin, doomed to wait out whatever had just happened. He caught hold of the desk behind him, swung himself around it and dropped his fingers on the console controls in the vain hope they would respond. But he could already tell that the ship was entirely dead. No power at all, no life-support, no weapons, no engines. At least the independent emergency containment fields of the warp drive were still fully functioning, if they weren't, it would already be over.
Whatever this was, the Klingons weren't supposed to have technology capable of disabling a starship like this. He pushed off from the console and launched himself to the door of his quarters, found the panel by its side in the dark and disengaged the locking mechanism. He latched onto the door and began to pull hard, enjoying the resistance and using it to release a little bit of tension from his muscles.
The door gave way and slipped open, revealing an even darker corridor beyond. He had time to see the shape of a crew-member close by.
Gravity and light kicked back in, smacked him to the ground and forced him to roll somewhat awkwardly back to his feet, the bright glare stabbing through his eyes and into his brain.
The Buran came back on yellow alert, though the siren had barely washed through before it was already canceled.
He made eye-contact with the crew-member he'd seen, a pretty, young ensign on her hands and knees next to an open toolkit, its contents scattered around the floor.
"Attention," came the First Officer's voice over the intercom. "We've encountered an anomaly which briefly disabled all systems, but we have regained control of the situation. Please return to your stations and continue as normal. A full briefing will be available to you in the morning."
First Officer Pentawer's voice was thin and papery, no hint of his usual and ever-present deltan amusement. Whatever this was, it was very very wrong and it was far from over.
The young ensign had pulled to her feet and stood to attention, watching him. "Sir," she said, eyes wide and questioning, but not daring to outright ask him what had just happened. Which was just as well, because he would've had to lie to her.
He gave her a quick once-over, determining she had not hurt herself, then nodded curtly and silently, pulling back into his quarters.
"Captain to the bridge," he said as he rounded the desk and sat down. "What's going on?"
"Captain you are… needed… on the bridge," Pentawer said, if anything more strained than before. "Immediately."
"Number One," Lorca said, stepping away from the console to find his boots. "Report. Now."
There was silence, crackling faintly through the open channel. Pentawer took a deep, audible breath. When he spoke again, his tone was exactly the same. It was probably the only reason why he got as far as he did when he said: "We've been boarded by at least a dozen hostile humans…"
He fell silent as a short, sharp cry cut through the connection. "They have just slashed the throat of Lt. van der Merwe. They threatened to kill the entire bridge crew if I told you the truth, as I have just done."
Lorca had gone perfectly still. It was entirely the wrong thing to do, of course, he should jump into his boots and jacket, take the phaser he kept in his desk. All his drills, but here he was, unable to move.
"Captain Lorca," a low voice drawled and a deep frown settled on his face before he even realised why it would. It certainly wasn't Pentawer who'd spoken, no one of the crew. It was a voice far more familiar than that.
Lorca recognised the tone immediately, the sneering smug arrogance of it. There was nothing to be done against it, both silence and screaming rage would just fan it on.
The too-familiar voice continued, "I know what you're thinking. Think again. We've taken your bridge crew hostage, two are already dead. It will be only a few minutes before we control all of your ship. I suggest you get up here and surrender in person."
There was something here he couldn't quite grasp yet, just sensed its shape in the dark, waiting for him to be mapped completely.
"Would you?" he asked, matching the other's tone on the first try. "In my place?"
The man on the other end laughed. "Do you believe in destiny?"
"I believe in making my own."
"What about your… precious… crew?"
Past the lump in his throat, Lorca forced the same sneer into his voice, "Just a hint, if you want something, you've got to offer something. You should've offered me my precious crew's lives."
The other man just laughed. "I'm a patient man, I can wait for you to come around. Your crew… not so much. Every five minutes, one of them dies, until you're here and on your knees."
The connection was cut without preamble, plunging the quarters into a deafening silence, but Lorca knew better than to indulge in it.
"Captain to Basora, where are you?"
"Barricaded in the armoury, sir," came Basora's gruff voice almost immediately. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm damned if I let a bunch of pirates get the better of me this late in the game."
These weren't pirates, as much Lorca knew with certainty. Pirates weren't capable of this, they lacked the technology and the guts to take on a Starfleet ship. Besides, the man on the bridge… Lorca pushed the thought firmly aside, he'd deal with him once he got there.
"What's our status?"
Basora snorted derisively. "We're in the process of being overtaken, sir. I've got reports coming in from all decks about intruders. I don't have an exact count, internal scanners never came back right."
Lorca nodded to himself, finished with the boots and jacket, pausing for just a moment to gather his thoughts and let the scenario run through his head. Not pirates, to be sure, but human enemies nonetheless, wielding a weapon they had never encountered before, under the command of someone who spoke with his own voice. He didn't waste time on telling himself it didn't make sense, because that didn't matter. It was happening. Given the limited information, it was impossible to guess the intruders' goals or even just their next step, other than the most obvious. They wanted something and they weren't shy about executing every member of his crew one by one to get it. Still, if there was something he had and the other needed, that could be a sorely needed edge.
"Basora," Lorca said. "How secure is the armoury?"
"Good enough," Basora said. "Got five officers with me and it's a defensible position."
"How many hostiles?"
"Sir, I have no bloody idea," Basora growled. "They're like rats, everywhere. Four dozen at least, heavily armed and not afraid to use it."
"Got any good news?"
"That depends on your definition," Basora snorted. "Internal and external sensors are completely out of whack, same goes for communications. I can't reach engineering but sickbay is up and running. I dispatched security there to keep it under control. Looks like the software failsafe got triggered, so the sensitive systems compartmentalised themselves."
Which meant the ship's internal defenses couldn't easily be turned against her own crew. It was good news, after a fashion. This way, whoever was trying to take over the ship would have to fight for every shred of it, one painful step at the time and buying Lorca and Basora time to organise.
Pentawer must have triggered the failsafe, realising what was going on in that first, confusing second of the invasion. He'd pay a price, just as he would for warning Lorca, but everything worthwhile had one.
"I want organised resistance, guerrilla tactics, hit them hard and get out of dodge," Lorca said, stepping to his door, just outside the radius of its sensors. "Set phasers to…" he stopped, examined the order he was about to give. "… stun, but if in doubt, kill. You're in charge, get them off my ship I don't care in what shape. Keep communications to a minimum, let's not help them out."
"Understood," Basora said, giving no indication the sinister implications of the order surprised him at all. Good man. "Sir, what are you going to do?"
Lorca tilted his head, almost bemused by the question. "I'm needed on the bridge," he said and stepped forward. The door hissed open for him, as if on cue, the lights in the corridor flickered out only to come back dimmed.
The time since the interruption of his conversation with Starfleet Command until Lorca left his quarters could be counted in minutes, but what had been a brightly-lit, well-kept starship corridor had been recast as a battlefield. Just as he left, two humans came into view along the bent of the corridor, dressed in warlike, gleaming breastplates and black leather. They hoisted rifles, the make of which Lorca had no time to identify before the first, searing shot punched in violent brightness into the floor by his feet.
One of the men snarled at the other, too guttural and low for Lorca to understand and the other snapped back. Some argument Lorca had no intention of giving them a chance to finish. He wasn't sure if their body armour would deflect a phaser blast, but their heads were unprotected. Even on stun, at this range a phaser to the head would be unpleasant, to say the least. They crumpled in two, leather-clad heaps.
Listening for a moment for any other attackers, Lorca strode over and put the tip of his boot to the shoulder of the unconscious man on top, gave him a shove to make him roll on his back. The chest-plate seemed to be metal of some kind, probably with deflective coating, if it was meant to do anything but look good.
"Oh god, shit," a female voice said from behind.
He glanced over his shoulder and spotted the ensign he'd seen earlier, coming around the bent from the other side. She held a length of metal in her hand, one of the tools from the box she'd carried. It was smeared with fresh blood and she looked wild. His eyebrow twitched upward.
"Fuck… I mean… I'm sorry, sir, I…" she stopped babbling, forced a deep breath into her lungs and visibly braced herself. "What is going on, sir?"
She exhaled, gaze flitting away from him and at the two downed intruders.
"We're being boarded," Lorca said and turned away from her to bent over the unconscious men and pick up one of their rifles.
"But that's not Klingons."
"No," he hefted the enemy gun, tried it for weight and balance. It was shorter than a standard issue phaser rifle, more like a carbine with a foreward grip for faster handling. There was no obvious way to change its power-setting, but also no biometric lock that would deny him its usage. Sloppy that. Lowering the rifle for a moment, he pulled out his phaser again, looked at the ensign and said, "Catch." as he tossed her the phaser, observing her reaction time. By the looks of it, she'd already used that tool to disable an attacker in a way that made them unable to pursue her, so at least some of his drills were paying off.
She managed to catch the phaser, although awkwardly clutching it to her chest with both hands, tangling the tool with her limbs before she re-arranged herself, ditched the tool and got the phaser ready.
"Keep it on stun for now," he told her, though it was hardly the question she herself was asking.
It was a long way from deck 5 to the bridge. The turbolift was out of the questions, too easy to be trapped in one and probably non-functional anyway. The intruders might have taken the bridge, but they were hardly in control. Lorca had every intention of cashing in on the advantage while it lasted.
The intruders certainly hadn't got control of the transporter, Lorca thought as he found his way to the nearest access ladder, otherwise whoever was taking such a personal interest in Lorca's presence on the bridge — voluntarily or otherwise — would've already beamed him there.
The short moments it took until they reached the next deck and into the comparative safety of the Jeffries tube, Lorca reviewed what he knew about the enemy. A hull breach was unlikely, ship systems would've picked it up on the first touch and given them at least a warning long before anyone reached the bridge or spread through the ship. They must've been beamed aboard, so they had to have a ship of their own within transporter range. The Klingons certainly had that with their cloaks, but the explanation snagged on the irritating fact that these intruders were not Klingons. And they were not pirates, either, no matter how likely Basora found that explanation. Some rogue fraction of humans within the Federation? Or even within Starfleet? One a starship captain had never been informed of? Unlikely, that.
The rough noises of fights ahead dragged his attention back into the present sharply. He listened for a moment, then swung himself up onto the deck, crouching down as he oriented himself and honed in on where the fighting was coming from.
Deck 4 had no crew quarters, but it had the upper access door to the engineering section and by the sound of it, a group of intruders was currently trying to force their way in. Not the smartest thing to do, this close to delicate machinery, deuterium tanks and plasma chambers. Closed bulkheads sealed off access to the rest of the deck, though one of them stood wide open, just next to the doors to engineering.
Lorca motioned for the ensign to be quiet and stay behind him as he edged forward, back pressed against the wall of the corridor. By then, the fight was over. The intruders had overwhelmed and killed two security guards, dumped them unceremoniously while they took positions around the shuttered door. They wore the same uniforms the two outside the Captain's Quarters had, dark fabric, leather-like, and gleaming breastplates, each armed with a rifle, knives strapped to their thighs and in their boots. As he watched, a slim woman stepped forward and went to work on the console by the door. The lock chirped in denial as it refused her access.
The ensign behind Lorca fidgeted, though she stilled immediately when he gave her a sharp look. He understood her agitation. Due to the bent of the corridor, she couldn't see what was going on and had no way to judge the severity of the situation for herself. She needed to remember that he was perfectly capable of doing that for her. Her nerves would just give them away before he was ready.
Up ahead, the woman called the bridge, "It's not working," she complained.
"How about I'll just give you the captain and you complain directly?" a new, male voice asked, sounding no less petulant than the woman had. "It's his masterplan, except his voice print isn't working."
The woman snorted derisively. "Can't you override it?"
"So nope," the man declared in a mocking singsong. "And before you get any ideas, you're right next to the plasma chambers. Don't blow that door, please."
Still hidden, Lorca arched his brows in silent agreement. Emergency containment systems should be still functioning, but he'd rather not find out if that was true, faced with an unknown technology in the hands of an unknown attacker as they were.
"What do you want me to do now?"
"Hmm, I don't know. Maaaaybe apply some patience," the man on the other end said. "If you use your phaser rifle, hack its settings to low and then take your time, you should be able to cut through the door without blowing us all up."
"How long's that gonna take?"
"Couple hours, nothing we don't have, because otherwise we won't be going home at all. I suggest you get to it."
The woman gave the wall by the panel a frustrated punch, then turned away, giving Lorca the first good look at her face. He was already holding himself perfectly still, but his racing mind stopped mid-track, too. He recognised her.
Ellen Landry?
He'd been pushing speculation on the nature of their attackers to the back of his mind, everything that wouldn't serve him in the here and now. But this was now. And Landry wasn't here. He'd spoken to her just this morning, when she complained about her transfer to the Buran being stone-walled. So this was not Landry, at least not the one he knew. Just like the too-familiar voice of the man on the bridge. One of these could be just a coincidence, but a double of Ellen Landry, too?
Obvious answer was clones. Most security systems were coded to DNA and biometrics, voice commands and retina scans. The clone of a Starfleet captain would have access to a plethora of sensitive information, invaluable especially in the middle of a war. It was the theory he had, latently, subscribed to so far. It made sense to take out the original if you wanted your replacement's cover to last, though this type of full-scale attack seemed counter-intuitive. It'd be far easier to catch him off guard during shore-leave, or even on a Starbase, anywhere but his own ship. He wasn't sure what they needed Landry for, either. Though, just because a plan was bad didn't mean it wouldn't ever be put into action.
He edged back carefully, jostling the ensign.
"Captain?" she whispered, picking up on his darkening mood.
He motioned her further back, then said, "It's five hostiles, four males, one female, all armed with rifles, armoured like the ones we've already seen. We've got time to stun two before the others are on us, and that's guessing they don't just open fire." He hesitated, thinking it through. "They don't want to kill me quite as badly as they should, so I'll take point and you stick behind me. The woman is in charge, wait for my signal and go for her first, I got some questions I need answered."
He was about to turn away, when the ensign sucked in a quick breath and opened her mouth, not saying anything for a moment.
"Uh," she finally managed. "What signal, sir?"
He shrugged and hefted the rifle. "I'll surrender, then you'll open fire and I'll knock out whoever's still up after that."
He gave her no time to second-guess his order or question her capabilities. There was no guarantee he'd read their reaction correctly. The imposter on the bridge clearly wanted him alive, but these people seemed entirely too trigger-happy to find that particularly reassuring.
Lorca squared his shoulder and strode into the corridor, observing the humans ahead of him notice his presence, though by then they were already looking down the barrel of the phaser rifle he'd taken from one of their own.
"What the fuck are you doing on my ship?" Lorca demanded.
The humans' reaction time was far superior to anything Lorca had managed to drill into his non-combatant crew so far, he had to give them that. No hesitation, no delay as they had to go through the second of surprise at him there, at the momentary confusion at his — most likely — familiar face and voice. Instantly, he had their rifles trained on him, fingers already pressing on the triggers. No one had fired yet, so he counted that as a win and pushed any remnant of doubt he might harbour further to the back of his mind, where it wouldn't threaten his act.
"Sweet mercy," the double of Landry exclaimed at the recognition, several completely contradictory emotions invading her expression before she regained her composure and pretended never to have slipped. Lorca used the moment of stillness to sidle forward a little more, getting ever so slightly closer.
"I asked a question," Lorca barked in his most authoritative captain's voice. Even the ensign, inconspicuously not-hiding behind him, phaser raised as he had ordered, twitched a little. It left a considerably smaller dent in the humans, though he suspected they weren't entirely sure what script to follow, either.
"Well," Landry said. "Taking you over, obviously."
She took a step forward, between two of the soldiers, making them relax just a little behind their weapons. Lorca was vaguely glad to see that whatever imposter of Landry he was talking to, she had a the same iron grip on her subordinates.
"Drop that weapon," she added with affected gentleness.
"Answers first," Lorca replied. "Who are you?"
She chortled, an entirely too harsh sound given the circumstances. "Or we could just shoot you."
They both knew she'd already have given that order if she really wanted to, but with only a thin line of assumptions to base his strategy on, Lorca decided to stop pushing for now. Making something of a show of his reluctance, he carefully relaxed his shoulders to stand straight, eased the grip on his gun and slowly raised his hands.
Behind him, he sensed rather than saw the ensign shift and tried to picture her as she started out mimicking his gesture, trying to calculate when it would be time to move, though he never took his gaze off Landry and the others, memorising their precise positions, gauging their abilities for the next few, crucial moments.
The phaser beam crossed through his peripheral vision and Lorca jumped, knowing he couldn't bring the rifle around fast enough to fire and cross the distance. Instead, he simply used the rifle to extend his reach, brushed it past the rifle tip of one of the humans and thwarting the shot that cut green and heated right past him, eating into the corridor lining. Lorca stepped into the man's knee and shoved him out of the way.
Landry had crumpled with the first stun blast and the man next to her, further from Lorca, had done the same, leaving just one with enough time to mount a defence. Though, instead of using the rifle like Lorca had feared, the man realised the rifle was no good at such a close range — unless he wanted to sear himself by accident — he went for the vicious, barbed knife strapped in a sheath by his thigh. And he was good at it, too, fast and without even the sliver of hesitation. The knife cut through Lorca's sleeve and sliced into his arm before he punched him in the jaw. Behind him, the man he'd only shoved off balance had pounced back only for Lorca to drive the butt of the rifle into his stomach. A moment later, a phaser blast from the ensign took him out of the fight for good.
The man with the knife swung back around but this time, Lorca caught the man's wrist, rendering the knife useless for the second it took to wrench him around and into the next stun blast from the Ensign's phaser.
Lorca dropped the man and irritatedly shook out his bleeding hand as he stepped back from the downed enemies. As he did so, he caught sight of further down the corridor.
"Oh my god," the ensign said, coming up by his side, eyes going wide at the sight, betraying a glimmer of shocked tears.
Engineering had been far better defended than it had originally appeared from what they had heard of the fight. Basora would've been trying to mobilise around all sensitive areas and must have got his people here just in time to seal the door and defend it. The corridor was littered with humans, their bodies in various stages of destruction. Some with just burn-marks or stab wounds on their uniforms, others with half their bodies melted to a pulp while several more had been reduced to charred piles.
The ensign slapped her free hand over her mouth, rooted to the spot and unable to decide to turn away and vomit or keep looking at the scene until her sheer horror made it disappear.
"Ensign Narang," Lorca snapped, using her name for the first time. At least it made her look at him, breaking the mental spiral the sight in the corridor had put her on, though the look of terror didn't leave her face. She was engineering, not security, too young to have ever been in a place where she was forced to deal with abhorrent things happening in front of her helpless eyes. He glanced over her as the lights flickered out again and came back dimmed. He considered saying something uplifting.
"Chin up, soldier," he said and smiled like a shark. "It gets worse from here and I'll need you."
Despite her blanched face, some determination crept into her expression and she nodded grimly.
"Yessir."
Lorca and the ensign withdrew into a nearby storage room, piled the surviving intruders up in a corner with Narang ready to stun them the moment one of them stirred. Lorca tried to recall what prolonged or repeated exposure to a low-level phaser blast would do to the body and mind, but found he couldn't really bring himself to care.
He'd used a med-kit to patch his arm, though it still ached a little when he moved it the wrong away. Meanwhile, he'd secured Landry's body in straps normally meant to hold crates. It looked like a tangled web, but the best he had on hand without taking a detour he had neither the time nor the patience for.
He gave Landry an injection to wake her up, then stepped back from her, crossed his arms over his chest and watched her struggle to consciousness. She gave two bleary-eyed blinks, squinted at the glare of the lights and lowered her face so her eyes were in the dubious shadow of her hair.
"I asked a question," Lorca said once more.
She glared at him, pulled experimentally on her bonds, then stilled when she realised she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Slowly, she uncurled her legs from under her and settled her shoulders against the wall.
"I don't even get it myself," she said with mirthless laughter.
"Give it your best," he said, carefully measured menace in his tone.
She chuckled and shook her head. "You can't scare me," she said. "You're all so soft here."
Lorca watched her in silence, considering. He thought he spotted the cracks in her bravado, but there was no telling just how well he could read her just because there was a Ellen Landry he was intimately familiar with. For all he knew, they had nothing in common other than their faces, though so far she had done and said nothing he couldn't picture Landry do and say in the same situation.
"Tell me about him," Lorca said. He took a half-step forward, watching her for a reaction, then crouched down to bring their faces level. "You're here for him. He asked you to and here you are, isn't that true?"
He leaned in a little. "He has my face. You think he's me."
He made a small gesture with one hand, indicating the Buran and the battlefield she'd been turned into. "Has he even told you what this is about?"
He paused, the thought of the Buran and his crew, being slaughtered or already dead made his nostrils flare in disgust. Curiously, he saw something like recognition flicker in her eyes, quickly hidden, but not fast enough.
"You said we're all soft," Lorca continued. "Do you think I am?"
She snorted, let her head roll back a little, closed her eyes completely before she opened them into narrow slits.
"You're a pale shadow," she said dismissively. Her expression turned cruel. "Don't think for a second you can save your people. Untie me and submit. That's all you can do."
He could tell she truly expected him to fold. She really did think them all too soft for this fight. The threat to his crew was supposed to work. It was never meant as just a step in a negotiation, neither was it ever a bluff. One crew-member every five minutes. How long since he'd left his quarters? Twenty minutes? Half an hour?
For just a second he contemplated his surrender. He'd do it, too, in a heartbeat. But only if he believed it would make a lick of a difference.
He should check the time. He decided not to. There was no point in giving in to what, in this very moment, amounted to nothing more than a distraction.
Without warning, he reached out for Landry, but even before he touched her, her reaction was immediate. She flinched back, legs scrambling uselessly as the straps held her in place. They both realised at the same time what she had just done and so, instead of putting his hand to her throat like he'd intended, he placed his fingertips on her cheek. He felt the tense trembling of her clenched jaw as he slipped his hand down in a tender caress.
Taking his hand back, he leaned just a little closer to her.
"Let's try again," he said, this close to her, a whisper would do. "You will tell me what I want to know."
End of Part 1: The Terran Hello
Author's Note: I propose that 'sweet mercy' is an incredibly dirty expletive where this Landry comes from.
Revised on 18/April/2018
