Disclaimer: Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.
Author's notes: This version of the Mirror Universe is brutal. We have tried to avoid graphic descriptions, but there is material that some may find unpleasant, including non-con, self-harm and medical procedures. If any of these offend you, or may act as triggers, please do not read it.
The story picks up immediately after the events of "A World for Dreams," and will be extremely hard to understand unless that story has been read.
This story has been a long time in coming, mostly because I'm not a particularly disciplined or industrious writer, yet I have a compulsion to 'tinker' incessantly. I can only imagine the frustration of my co-author, LoyaulteMeLie, as I'd bring the whole narrative to a dead stop just to fiddle to death for days on end a particular scene that was already perfectly fine. The fact that this work is finally out in the world is entirely to her credit - if she hadn't taken the initiative, I'd still be dithering about whether someone shouted, yelled, or hollered in this or that scene. I tend to go down rabbit holes and lose my way, and it was she who kept the story moving forward, mostly simply by proceeding with the next stage while I was fooling around with something that didn't need fooling with. Working with LoyaulteMeLie has been a pleasure and a challenge to up my game to match the quality of her writing. As with our previous collaborative effort, I am thrilled with how much better she makes my writing. It's astonishing to me how often she has taken something I have written (especially dialog) and turned it into what I wanted it to be. I only hope I have occasionally been able to do the same for her, too. I am sure I speak for her as well when I say, I hope you enjoy reading our story as much as we enjoyed writing it.
Dreamers of the Day
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
-T.E. Lawrence a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia
Chapter One
Breathing Space
Commodore Charles Tucker III
I turn away from the viewport and make up my mind to allow myself six hours of peace after the explosion. After the past year, I think I've earned a little breathing space, especially since I'll be up to my ass in alligators by tomorrow, and I'll need to be sharp to avoid getting bit.
I make sure I'll get six hours of rest by disabling every damned alert I have. Every single thing in my quarters that beeps, chimes, buzzes, bleeps, chirps, whistles, or warbles is off – except for one. I left orders that I was only to be disturbed if the Empress called or we had another disaster that required my attention. Since I've even disconnected my comm. panel and door buzzer, if somebody gets the big idea that something just can't wait, whoever they might send to disturb me will be guaran-damn-teed to exhaust all other options before coming to my quarters and banging on my door.
When T'Pol comes creeping out of the bathroom with all the caution of a doe moving from the safety of the tree line into an open meadow, I present her with the clothing Eloise had delivered just before I issued my do-not-disturb order. It's a prototype of the new women's uniform I'm planning to propose to the Empress.
About a month ago, I'd noticed that my female engineers lost more time to injuries and worked less efficiently than the males, even after accounting for differences in physical strength and years of experience. Being a man and knowing what we are like, there's no way I was prepared to believe we are just more capable. So, I asked Anna Hess, Liz Cutler, Julie Massaro, and Jenn Kelley to look into it for me. Two weeks later, they came to me with enough data to convince me it was all down to the uniform. Attractive as it is, all that bare midriff the women's uniform leaves exposed demands extra caution when dealing with hot, cold, sharp, and electrified components or any kind of caustic or poisonous chemical, and when someone gets careless or something just goes wrong, they get hurt.
Anna, knowing my next step would be to tell them to solve the problem, had even made some sketches of a proposed new uniform. I'd given them permission to work with the quartermaster to create prototypes for new standard, dress, and desert uniforms, but I had no idea they'd gotten this far.
"I know it's a little late in the evenin' to just be gettin' dressed," I tell T'Pol, handing over the prototype, "but I'd like to see you try this on…. Please?"
I don't know what freaks her out more: the fact that I am allowing her clothing, that I give her a choice in the matter, or that I ask her so nicely. It's just a standard uniform, knit cotton skivvies, a light woolen undershirt, and a sturdy blue coverall, minus the colored piping that indicates the wearer's division within the Fleet; but when she runs her fingers over the material like it's fine Triaxian silk, I think my heart breaks a little to realize how much she covets something so simple, which I've taken for granted ever since I joined Starfleet. Then my guts twist a little to realize that I'm the one who's deprived her for so long – she may be my slave, but there's no law that says I have to keep her naked.
"They're yours," I tell her softly, swallowing hard against the sick feeling. "Why don't you go ahead and try them on?"
When she turns those big, brown doe eyes up to me in surprise, I have to smile at her a little bit. Over most of the past year, in my very few minutes of leisure time, I've been working my way through this series of books from the Defiant's library about a kid named Harry Potter. It's absolute fantasy bullshit about wizards, witches, and magical creatures, but with what's been going on around here, I kind of needed the escape.
With her great big eyes – brown instead of green – and pointed ears, T'Pol reminds me a little of a character called Dobby. He was something called a 'house elf', born a slave to a family named Malfoy, which was headed by a horrible, evil wizard named Lucius. Then one day, Harry stuffed a book that belonged to Lucius inside a filthy sock, hoping, I guess, that old Lucius would mistake the sock for a sack. The ploy worked. Lucius threw the nasty old sock, Dobby caught it, and according to the rules of the story, getting clothes from his master made him a free elf.
Suddenly, I don't feel like smiling anymore. If she's Dobby, that makes me Lucius, and he's probably the second most evil sonofabitch in the series. He's manipulative and conniving, stuck up and deceitful, with no concern for anybody but his son, Draco, whom he expects to follow in his footsteps.
There are times, every now and then, when reality walks up and smacks you in the face. It's not often a nice sensation.
When T'Pol still hesitates, I tell her, "I'd really like to know how they fit."
She just keeps standing there, head bowed, chewing on her bottom lip, and I feel a flare of impatience at her stubbornness. After all this time, I'd have expected her to jump at the chance to cover herself. Just a moment earlier, she was obviously pleased with the gift. So, why is she refusing?
Still, that glimpse of self-revelation gives me pause. Instead of bawling her out, I deliberately control my temper and try to work out what the problem is, using the only reference I have. Dobby was delighted with a single, disgusting sock because it meant he was free, but most house elves enjoyed their lives of service. Most of them had better masters than that bastard Malfoy (or me), but even miserable old Kreacher, who was half crazy and hated just about everyone at one time or another, would have been devastated by the gift of his freedom. He wouldn't have known what to do.
Then it hits me. That is exactly T'Pol's problem, not with freedom (granting her that would be an act of treason, both because the Empress has declared all aliens slaves, and because the Empress gifted this particular alien slave to me) but with the clothes themselves. Am I expecting some kind of show, like a reverse striptease, or am I all business, wanting her to serve as a dressmaker's dummy? I'm sure the truth of the situation would never enter her head, and that realization brings back the sick feeling in my guts.
"They're yours," I tell her again, emphasizing the possessive as I push the pile of fabric into her hands. "Go try 'em on."
I gently nudge her through the bathroom door, and when she leaves it slightly ajar because I have trained her never to shut me out, I close it quietly behind her.
While T'Pol is dressing, I turn on some music to mask the conversation we are about to have. Then, I pull up the personnel files on everyone who was involved with The Project in what used to be my Sickbay. I am familiar with some of them, and quickly eliminate a handful of names that can't or shouldn't be used as my scapegoat for the explosion. The remaining names I download to T'Pol's PADD. I'm going to give her the list and ask her to come up with a plausible story to explain what happened in a way that discourages further investigation. Most of the people whose names I have pulled out have families who will need their survivors' benefits, a couple whose duties simply would never have put them in a position to create such an explosion, and Liz, naturally. Most of those files can be revisited if we can't find a suitable candidate from the ones who are left, but I want T'Pol to start with the group I selected because they're past suffering and have no one the Empire can punish in their place. With her Vulcan logic, I'm hoping she can come up with an explanation that no one will question.
It's a shameful thing, what I'm asking her to do, laying the blame for all those deaths on some innocent victim, but then, I remind myself that no one stays innocent and survives in the Imperial Services for long. They're not responsible for the explosion that destroyed sickbay, but they've all done something horrible. Even Liz admitted to knowingly letting Martin Roberts go to his death because she liked the feeling of two men quarreling over her, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one (though in fairness, once Major Malevolence had the guy in his sights he was already a dead man walking – all that had to be arranged was the exact date and time he hit the floor). I suppose she can be excused in light of the fact that she was mentally pretty fucked up from being Reed's favorite chew-toy at the time, but I can't help wondering how many others have suffered things just as bad. If she wasn't an alien, I suppose T'Pol could even be excused for snapping me to pieces like a dry stick and shooting the various parts out so many different airlocks if she ever took the notion someday. I reckon if we made an exception for everyone who'd suffered some horrible trauma or abuse in the Imperial Service, nobody would ever be held responsible for anything.
And I'm not so sure how that would be much different than what we have now.
So, if slandering one orderly who doesn't have anyone to care about his or her good name is all it takes to stop an investigation that could derail my barely formed plans, then T'Pol and I will both have to live with the shame of the fraud. I have enough on my conscience already that I'm sure I won't notice the extra weight, and she's under orders from me, so she can comfort herself with the argument that she had no choice.
She comes out of the bathroom with a shadow of fear in her face and an apology on her lips.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to close the door. I…"
"I did it," I tell her quickly. "It's all right."
At her startled look, I sigh and roll my eyes in resignation. This has been coming for a long time now; I've known it, and I'm pretty sure she's known it, too, but has been too afraid to hope. I just haven't wanted to say anything because the moment I say it aloud, it becomes a commitment – one I'm not sure I want hanging over my head.
"Things are…" I stop short, not sure what to say. "…Changin'," is the word I finally go for. "I'm sure you felt the explosion." She nods, and I continue, my voice serious – heck, it doesn't get much more serious than this. "General Gomez an' Alpha are dead. So is Phlox, along with a bunch of other people who were workin' in Sickbay at the time. I set the charge an' General Reed detonated it. The Triad is no more, an' things are gonna start happenin' pretty damned fast. I plan to do what I can to control them.
"Officially, life might not change much for you. I don't know yet how set the Empress is on her slavery policy or how dependent the Empire is on alien slave labor, an' I'm not about do anything to hurt my people. Also, there are a lot of more urgent concerns that will need to be dealt with to keep the Empire from tearin' itself apart before we tackle the issue of how we're treatin' aliens livin' in it.
"But in these quarters, at least when we're alone…"
I come up short again. I don't want to say what's in my mind … in my heart. If I'm totally honest, I've liked having her available to me the last few years. Hell, what man wouldn't? But recently, it's even felt sometimes like it was maybe something a little more than just me using her for my own pleasure. When she started getting jealous of Liz, I kind of wondered if it was more than just self-preservation on her part, maybe even hoped that she might actually feel … something, too.
I don't want to risk having her refuse me, but…
I heave a sigh. "Just in here, when it's just the two of us … you belong to yourself."
She looks puzzled, and, bastard that I am, a part of me wants her to be confused. I want her not to understand. If she doesn't understand that she is allowed to say 'no,' she won't, and doesn't that just make me a damned hypocrite!
Oh, hell! I know myself well enough to realize I won't rest until I say it plain.
"There will be things I expect you to do for me, things I will need your help with, things I won't allow you to refuse; but the physical stuff, the intimacy … That's your choice, startin' now."
She gives a sharp gasp, and a powerful tremor moves through her; her face contorts for a moment and I swear her eyes are glassy with tears. For a Vulcan, it's the equivalent of collapsing on the floor in a sobbing heap. Then she takes another deep breath, swallows hard, and regains her composure.
"I understand," she tells me. "Thank you. What do you need from me now?"
Oddly enough, I discover that that's exactly what I needed to hear from her. I wonder how she knew it when I didn't, and why, after everything I've done to her, she decided to give it to me.
Noticing the way the jumpsuit hangs on her, I can guess that Julie Massaro was the fitting model for the prototypes. That girl has got a figure that just won't quit, but she's several inches taller and much broader in the shoulders than T'Pol; so while the uniform fits in the bust and the hips, the sleeves and legs are too long, and the crotch hangs a bit low. As I roll up the cuffs of her sleeves and then lift her to sit on the desk so I can get at the legs of the suit, I quietly tell her how I rigged Sickbay to explode and what I have planned for the future. Then I hand her the PADD with the personnel files on it. I'll contact the quartermaster about adjusting the torso length of the uniform later.
"The last thing I need is a Bureau of Imperial Investigation Team out here lookin' for the cause of the explosion," I continue. "These are the files of the people who have no family who died when it happened. I'd like you to come up with a plausible explanation for how one of them could have been responsible. I'd prefer it to be an accident, human error. If you can't manage that, make one of them a saboteur. It cannot be a fault with the station itself. Since I'm in charge of this place, that would have way too many people lookin' at me way too closely for me to get anything done. Understand?"
She nods. "This would be easier if I had access to the blueprints of Sickbay and an equipment list, along with any duty rosters, work schedules, or specific assignments."
"Right," I agree, holding my hand out for the PADD. "I should have thought of that."
"I am sure you have a great deal on your mind," she says as I call up the necessary information and download it for her. "It's not surprising you might forget one or two small details."
I know already that it won't be long before I remove the password protection on the device, giving her access to a lot more of the mainframe's data than the fraction of a fraction of a percent she has now. After all, I am asking her to become my partner in crime.
Cancel that: she now is my partner in crime, right up till the moment she finds some way to report me to the authorities for multiple murders and High Treason against the Empire.
"That should be everything you need," I say, handing the PADD back. "I…uh…I think I need a shower."
She nods solemnly, and as I head into the bathroom, I see her out of the corner of my eye sitting cross-legged in the easy chair, studying the PADD. I might be a fool, but for some reason, I think she really is onboard with me already.
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