A/N: Well, this took a bloody long time...however, it's here! The update you've all forgotten was coming! Anyhoo, I hope you all enjoy it. I know I'm enjoying what will come next!
Thanks, as ever, to my good friend and epic writer of stuff, Kretolus. Read his stuff already!
She was awoken with a backhanded blow across her face, and Lydana swore as her vision swam back into focus.
"Time to wake up, precious," her twin purred. "There us one more thing I need, and you need to be awake for it."
As Lydana's drug-clouded mind started to clear, she realised that her counterpart now wore her Intel longcoat and Starfleet-issue skirt, while she herself was now wearing the ragged uniform her double had worn.
The implications were...unsettling.
"If you're planning what I think you are," Lydana stated firmly, "it won't work. There's a few years of memories you don't have, and anyone who knows me would catch you out almost instantly."
"Oh no, you're right!" her double exclaimed mockingly. "How could I forget?! My plan is ruined!"
She backhanded Lydana again, cackling with malevolent amusement.
"You forget, my dear opposite, that I am still you. I have thought this through just as meticulously as you would, and I am prepared. Slave!"
Out of the shadows came another figure that Lydana recognised, the grace and poise of the woman she knew scoured away by fear she never should have felt.
"T'Vrell…" she breathed, and for just an instant there was a spark of joy in the Vulcan's eyes.
It was swiftly crushed by Mirror Lydana threatening her with extra beatings.
"Don't be fooled, this is not the woman you know," the invader purred. "She is wholly subservient to me, and she will get what I need from your mind."
"You are insane."
Lydana's twin seemed to contemplate this for a moment.
"Hm. You're probably right, but that is irrelevant. Slave, do your work, and you, my sweet sister...I would advise not resisting."
Lydana attempted to twist away as the Mirror version of T'Vrell stepped up to her, placing her hands on Lydana's face in the standard placement for a mind-meld.
"Please, don't," Lydana whispered, and she saw the unspoken apology in the Vulcan's eyes, before a blinding, piercing pain tore through her mind.
After what felt like an eternity, the pain receded, and Lydana slumped against the device that held her. She could only watch as the enslaved T'Vrell performed another mind-meld on her counterpart, no doubt passing on the memories she'd stolen.
At the end of the process, the Mirror Lydana staggered, clearly suffering as much as Lydana herself had done. The Mirror Bajoran looked up at Lydana, grinning with exhausted malice.
"See?" she asked, "I told you...I had a plan. Now, as soon as I leave, the power to all the systems here will no doubt cut off, releasing you...but it's not like you can go anywhere. Although...we can't have you trying to shout a warning when I contact your ship, so…"
The Mirror Lydana applied a Vulcan nerve pinch, allowing Lydana to slump against her restraints once again.
"Well, this has been a surprisingly successful venture," the Mirror Lydana stated, and the slave-T'Vrell nodded.
"Yes, my mistress."
Mirror Lydana rolled her eyes.
"One, I wasn't talking to you, and two-"
She drew her phaser and shot the slave in the chest, killing her instantly, and stepped aside to let the body collapse to the floor.
"I can't have any loose ends."
She tapped the commbadge and ordered the Shadow to beam her out, and she disappeared in a haze, leaving behind a corpse and the inert form of the true Lydana.
Lydana awoke more gently than last time, but to almost complete darkness. The lights on the equipment her double had brought, meagre though they were, were now dark and powerless, leaving the moss the only source of light in the cavern where she was captive.
She pushed herself up from the floor, looking back at the device that had held her previously, its restraints locked open, and she realised that her twin had spoken truthfully.
Everything in the cavern was now powered down and useless.
Lydana got to her feet and began inspecting the device that had held her, its portable power module, and any of the myriad handheld tools used to keep them functioning. It was a long shot, but maybe she could rig some sort of subspace signal…
Determined to get out of her captivity, Lydana set to work, hoping that she could make something work.
Lydana was busy swearing at the innards of a now-defunct teleporter device, which her double had used to pull her off the Shadow, when it happened.
A distinct, brief whoosh echoed through the cavern, and Lydana paused in her work with a weary sigh.
"I was wondering when you would get around to tormenting me, Q," she said without turning to face the sound, and resumed her work.
"Tormenting? Me?" asked a voice coloured with feigned hurt. "My dear Admiral, you positively wound me!"
"I'm sure," Lydana answered sardonically. "What are you here for, then? To suddenly open this cavern to space? Send me into the past as part of some twisted test? Perhaps you intend to send me into the Occupation of Bajor, just for 'fun'?"
Lydana shook her head, carrying on with her work again. She had seen the reports from Picard and Janeway about the entity known as Q. The powers of a god, the understanding of a child, and a galaxy-sized superiority complex, Q was an entity to be feared. His motives were entirely unknown, and he was as likely to help a captain as he was to turn them into a Tarkalian sand beetle.
"Admiral, Admiral!" Q crooned, reappearing beside Lydana with a snap of his fingers. "Why ever would you think such cruel things about little, harmless old moi?"
"How about thirty or forty years of records from Starfleet officers?" Lydana countered, meeting the entity's mischievous eyes.
"They exaggerate, you know," Q teased, "but as it happens, I came here to help you."
"That I find difficult to believe."
Q merely smiled, and snapped his fingers again.
In an instant, the two of them were in a different cavern, or so it seemed to Lydana - it could well have been an extension of the previous one, for all she knew. She got to her feet, and gasped at what she saw before her.
A sleek, winged starship, roughly the size of a Starfleet Runabout, sat in the cavern, facing towards an opening that showed nothing but clear space - the only thing between her and explosive decompression was a forcefield, evident by a tell-tale hum.
She walked towards the craft, mouth agape as she reached a hand out to its gently curving hull. She was almost shocked to find her hand met cool metal.
"It's real," she breathed to Q. "It's…Prophets...a Denorios-class Interceptor! I've only read about these…"
"And don't say I never give you anything," Q told her, an ever-present smirk playing at his lips.
"Okay, I'll bite," Lydana said at last, turning towards the man in a uniform he'd never owned. "What's the catch?"
"Catch?" Q asked, with mock pain. "Again, you hurt my feelings, Admiral! I only want to help you get out of here!"
"Why?" Lydana's tone was ice-cold this time, no longer in the mood for games.
Q's expression become equally as serious, something which very rarely happened.
"Because I don't like it when other creatures want to play in my universe," he sneered. "I want to help you take back your ship, because the person who stole it from you does not belong here. Quite frankly, I'm amazed she made it here at all, without being torn to pieces. Sometimes the resilience of you inferior beings amazes me. Briefly."
Lydana nodded slowly, still unconvinced.
"And the reason you haven't taken me straight to my ship is…?"
"Why, because that would be too easy, of course!" Q exclaimed, his usual humour back with a vengeance. "I want to see you overcome your trials in order to do what must be done, so to that end, you might want to get to work on making your new toy flyable."
"It doesn't fly?!" Lydana snapped. She knew it had been too good to be true.
"I'm sure someone of your 'skill' will get it done in no time," Q told her condescendingly. "However, I'm not willing to risk my universe, so don't fret - you'll have help."
Lydana narrowed her eyes at the man, expecting anything from a psychotic Klingon to a Jem'Hadar warrior.
Q simply smirked and snapped his fingers again, disappearing in a flash and leaving Lydana bemused as to what had just happened.
She looked around, and saw no-one else around, and with a resigned sigh walked over to the Interceptor, to begin finding out why it wouldn't fly.
She was about to open the cockpit hatch when she heard mumbling from the other side of the ship, and looked under the nose of the small vessel.
Sure enough, there was another pair of legs standing the other side, attached to a person who - if the nervous muttering was anything to go by - was not particularly experienced.
Lydana slowly walked around the ship's prow, and leaned against it as she laid eyes on her new ally.
The woman was tall, slender and visibly awkward, moving with the sharp movements of someone who is on the edges of panic. A spill of jet black hair poured freely down her back, ending just below her shoulderblades, and what Lydana could see of her features was of a woman with a small, oval face with well-defined cheekbones, and a narrow chin.
"Who are you?" Lydana asked flatly, and the woman - or girl, she thought - spun around in shock with a yelp.
There was a moment's pause as they saw each other properly for the first time, and the newcomer's eyes went wide.
"Oh, fuck."