Author's Note: Say what you will about Lorca, but he's the first character to earn the honour of my mind attaching a David Bowie song to him. Go check out Telling Lies, if you please.
While we're at it, outside the fic, prime and mirror Lorca don't register as two different characters for me, which makes sense because the only meaningful difference is between Lorca and space!Trump.
Part 3: Swear to Me in Times of War and Stress
The bulkheads opened with scarcely a sound. The limited sensor data indicated that the corridors behind them would be empty; an assesment whichs turned out to be wrong. The corridors were empty of terrans, but while Lorca and Basora had been busy putting their plan together and set it into motion, their enemies had not been idle. The terran captain had not only made good on his word to execute a crew-member for every five minutes that passed, he had made sure those still alive knew about it, too.
Outside the bulkheads, the bodies were displayed in neat rows with their throats slid, one after another after another in the minutes Lorca had wasted in sickbay, figuring out what was going on in the first place
As the small teams of crew-members moved out from behind the opened bulkheads, expecting a fight, the momentum was lost almost immediately by the horror of it.
Lorca himself and his team didn't encounter any of it. But the comments began trickling through the communicator, slowly at first because they weren't supposed to be talking too much to give the terrans no vector of attack on their slapdash encryption. Neither Lorca nor Basora had ordered absolute radio silence, though, so as the horrors mounted the further they progressed, the status reports began including more and more gruesome details.
Lorca clenched his teeth into silence, crawling through the Jeffries tube again. If he concentrated, he could single out most of the voices. The determined and the desperate. He listened for the ones who said nothing, too, making it impossible to judge whether they were holding it together better or worse than those who put their anxiety into words.
Although Lorca hadn't put too much emphasis on it, the sortie from the bulkheads was in large parts just a distraction. No matter how much damage they did to their enemies' numbers, the fight would only end when someone went and cut off the head, which was what he intended to do. So while most of his forces left through the corridors and advanced into the parts of the ship that had become enemy territory, Lorca took his team back into the Jeffries tube.
Lorca knew his assault was dead in the water anyway. Even if he had the people, the savagery of what they were seeing was too much. Some, he knew, would find their anger and use it, like Narang was doing, but it turned out it wasn't quite so easy for civilised people to match these barbarians.
A woman's voice, a lieutenant in security, said, "It's a fucking slaughter, everyone's seeing this. Where's the captain? Do you think he even knows?"
Lorca slowed down just enough to flip open the communicator.
"Lieutenant Tasren," he said, putting the name to the voice, recalling her face. "This is an open channel. Everyone cut the chatter right now, use the comms for tactical only."
Silence.
"Confirm," Lorca demanded sharply and a slow roll of 'aye sir' echoed through the crackling encryption.
At his orders, environmental controls had dimmed the lights in all part of the ship just slightly. It was always possible to use a local override, but for now, the Jeffries tube and the corridor on deck 3 beyond was sheathed in a comforting gloom.
Basora's voice coming through without preamble.
"There's bodies lining the corridors everywhere. They've been going through the whole fucking crew and setting them up like trophies!"
Lorca clenched his teeth and didn't answer.
"I don't know how many prisoners they've still got left."
"Changes nothing," Lorca ground out. "We take the ship back, now more than ever. Don't fall for that transparent intimidation tactic."
"With all due respect, sir, I don't think that's the right term for what's going on."
Lorca stopped at the tone, surprised despite himself at the wave of anger it washed up in his throat. Unseen by his security detail, his eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. A moment later, he realised they had reached the access hatch they had been aiming for and the odd privacy of this confinement was ending.
"Mister Basora," Lorca warned quietly. He felt the attention of the two lieutenants behind him, Narang waiting for his cues, the listening ears of his crew. He wondered when the terrans would break the encryption and he vaguely hoped they already had. The fear and devastation of his crew was battering his mind, the helplessness hollowing him out even as he kept moving. It would be so much easier if the terrans had been there, outside the bulkheads, giving them something to fight right from the start.
"It is what it is," Lorca said, voice as hard as he could make it. "Doesn't matter if you gotta throw up in a corner. We're at war. Anyone who thought it was going to be pretty is learning a valuable lesson right now. Keep moving. Give them back every horror you see. Because that's what I'll be doing."
Lorca reviewed his planning, still unhappy with all the details he had nothing but educated guesses for. The terran ship was, for all Lorca knew, an exact copy of his own, some minor difference or other would be there, but he wasn't going to rely on it. These terrans were on home turf just as much as Lorca and his crew.
He'd briefly considered the transporter, but didn't like his chances of arriving in one piece and the added liability that the transporter's energy usage would be detectable from the bridge and gave them a warning Lorca very much wanted to deny them.
"Computer 104B, increase illumination at my location. Three hundred percent above standard. When we open the hatch, set illumination in the corridor to the same, no increments."
"Confirmed," the computer said.
Light flooded the tube. It hurt and blinded them for a second, but their eyes adjusted in ways he knew the terrans' would not. He was still wistfully thinking of the flash-bang grenades Basora had abandoned when he'd left the armoury. They couldn't have known then just how invaluable these would have become down the line.
Lorca shifted to the side and allowed Renaud and Mah to get into position with Narang just behind them.
He was going to take point again. It was part of the reason he had selected these two out of his limited options. Seasoned fighters both, but also soldiers who wouldn't try to second-guess him, like Basora would or Landry who somehow still felt she needed to prove herself to him. None of the people in that corridor with him would protect him against his orders and that was exactly what he needed them to do.
He made eye contact with his three companions, nodded, then unlocked the hatch.
There were no enemies in the corridor, but there shouldn't have been any. No essential system was located this close to the hull, just crew and guest quarters, some recreation rooms with a view of the stars outside. Doors stood open and the glimpses inside revealed signs of firefights and struggles as the terrans had dragged the crew from their beds and corralled them somewhere, letting them wait for their execution. The brightness flooding into the quarters from the corridor made their emptiness no less disturbing.
No one to save left, and no one to kill, either.
They searched an observation deck, a comparatively small room, furnished as a lounge for the crew to relax, mirrored dark blue glass behind a bar counter to reflect the stars through the windows spanning the height of the room. While his security detail secured the room, quietly calling out as they found no one hiding in any corners, Lorca was drawn to the window.
Lowering his phaser from its ready position, just to get close enough, he looked up and saw the Buran, hang in space. So close, they could have used boarding skids to get across in mere minutes. It wasn't as similar to his ship as he had expected, though still entirely recognisable. Some modifications had been done to the warp nacelles, an interlocking circular structure like a halo around them, capable of spinning by the looks of it. He was looking at their experimental drive, he knew, but with no information to be gleaned from it. The ship showed no signs of damage on its outer hull.
Briefly, he entertained himself with the idle fantasy of boarding this other Buran. If he really could get his people across without tipping off the terrans, did he stand a chance to take her? The terran captain seemed to have brought most or even all of his senior staff with him and Landry might not have lied after all. Perhaps there was just a skeleton crew left behind, few enough to overwhelm.
He felt Renaud and Mah taking up positions in the room, keeping it and the door in sight. Only Narang stepped to his side, though not quite close enough to interrupt his revery.
"I couldn't believe it," she said quietly, more to herself than him.
"I'm believing it now," he said, allowing himself a little wistfulness despite himself.
The other teams had followed his order, the chatter had cut out and now they only talked when they needed to rely information, allowing him to map out their positions on the ship in his mind.
"Basora? Have you secured engineering?" Lorca asked, still drinking in the sight of this strange, yet familiar ship out there.
"All sealed, sir," Basora answered. "Couldn't get inside."
He paused, grunted, breathing a little harder. Lorca guessed he was climbing down an access ladder and feeling the strain of it in his muscles. Basora shouldn't be here, Landry should. His Landry, not that strange woman in sickbay wearing her face.
"If I may, sir?" the computer tech's voice came on the open channel.
"Go ahead," Lorca said and pulled his gaze away from the Buran outside the window as if it didn't matter. He made a sharp gesture with his head to get his team to move back out into the corridor.
"Engineering was sealed initially from the inside at the orders of Chief Engineer Bell. Attempts were made to open it using your, uh, that is, Captain Lorca's voice print, which was revoked as we know. Well, after that, a second lock was put into place by the bridge."
"What are you saying?"
"Engineering locked itself in to prevent being overrun, but then the terrans sealed it so they couldn't get out. The crew's locked inside until we figure out an override."
Lorca thought of the implication in light of the terrans needing access to engineering to get home and added it to what he knew. They hadn't been able to contact anyone in engineering since the attack began.
"Ignore engineering," Lorca ordered. "If no one gets out and no one gets in, we'll deal with it later. Keep pushing for the bridge, be prepared for resistance and keep an eye on your six."
A chorus of confirmation sounded through the communicator, this time without needing him to prompt for it.
"Is it bad that I kinda want to shoot them?" asked Renaud as they cautiously made their way along the corridor, phasers ready, but the ship was still eerily silent.
Lorca, in front of the three of them where they couldn't see his face, allowed a smile to cross his face in agreement.
"You itching for it, soldier?" he asked with only a quick glance over his shoulder at the lieutenants. "Because I can get them here any time you like."
"Not sure if that's a promise or a threat, sir," Renaud said honestly.
"Both," Mah said with somewhat less enthusiasm.
"How would you do it?" Renaud asked.
"Simple. Tell them where I am," Lorca said.
"I think maybe it's not a bad idea," Renaud insisted. "We can prepare, let them come to us."
"Let them overwhelm us, you mean," Mah said.
"Or kill them all," Narang said from the rear, though so quietly the lieutenants didn't acknowledge the remark.
"Or die trying," Lorca finished. "There's no area on this deck that'd work, the idea's off the table."
Like Renaud, Lorca was itching for a fight, feeling the tension of it increase down his shoulders and back with every cautious step he had to take along the corridor. If he were to set this trap, he'd pull all his people back as far as possible, turn them into ghosts who could strike at any time and from any direction except they would not. The bodies lining the main corridors for Lorca's teams to see was just one side of a larger scheme to demoralise the crew. They had seen all that horror and they were ready to deal in some violence themselves, but the longer it was being denied to them, the more grief would replace the rage, resolve falling apart. The human mind might even start playing tricks on itself. Some of the aliens had different cognitive functions, but the majority of the crew was human, so targeting their weaknesses was the smart move.
If Lorca was setting this trap, he'd make sure the fight didn't happen until his enemies had already defeated themselves inside their own heads.
Renaud's badly-cooked idea of drawing them in sounded ever better when they reached the access hatch they had been going for, leading up another deck. They would come out close to one of the major sensor arrays and Lorca thought it might be worth seeing if he could get a reading directly from the source, some idea of the capabilities of this other Buran. Perhaps even an idea of what this experimental drive might be, so he could give the scientists something to think about…
"Captain! We have engaged!"
The shout came over the open channel out of nowhere and Lorca felt the ripple of shock go through his small group of companions. The lieutenants each took a careful step closer to the wall, making sure no one was sneaking up on them. Narang and Lorca kept to the centre of the corridor. The captain because he preferred the freedom of movement and the sick thrill of daring them to attack him. Narang possibly due to her lack of training, or because she was taking her pointers from him. If it was the latter, he rather liked her for it. He spared her a quick, harsh grin.
"It's working!" a new voice shouted, another team leader. The sounds of phaser fire came through the channel, Lorca tried to gauge how many were already involved in the fights and where they were located in the ship.
Before Lorca could, Basora shouted, "Keep the pressure on!"
"What he said," Lorca chuckled at the first good news he had heard all night. He motioned his team to move on.
Despite the dimmed lighting, the headache barely abated, though it became easier to ignore as time passed, giving Ellen Landry some of her mental capacity back. Though, as her thoughts swirled uselessly in her confinement, she almost wished the pain were bad enough to distract her.
She had told herself she was prepared for this other Lorca to challenge her instincts. She had known about him and she had resolved he didn't matter, he would beg and plead and die just like all the other weaklings in this universe. Which had worked perfectly fine in theory and fallen apart completely at the reality of having those piercing eyes looking right into her soul. He didn't even need to tear down her defences, he simply didn't even acknowledge they existed, leaving her fantasies entirely unchecked. What would it be like, to be this man's enemy and what he could and would do to her. And then, when she'd already broken for him without even a contest, he touched her and the same shock of fear and arousal had shot through her. The gentleness more vicious for how he dismissed her with it, detroying the very concept she had of herself and what she meant to him. If he thought someone wasn't dangerous, Gabriel Lorca would just eat them alive and make them thank him for the privilege. She didn't even need to be reminded of Ava and her fate to be painfully aware of these facts.
Even if this other hadn't known any of it, he'd dealt the same blow and with the same surgical precision, leaving her reeling.
Coming for her not so much later, so beautifully rough this time, had been a relief. At least this way his touch had texture, his focus on her and her alone.
Landry stopped the line of thinking, realising she was still confusing the two men in her head, one and the same whenever she remembered the wrong one.
Carefully, she uncurled her legs from under her, flexed the blood back into them and examined her small prison. The containment field circled the examination bed, keeping the monitors above outside of it. The bed itself was moulded from one piece, nothing for her to tear up and use as a weapon. The mattress was fused to the bed, following the lines of her body for comfort, but giving her nothing to hook into. Still, this was hardly a brig, even if she found nothing locked up inside her that might help.
Her guard had left. She guessed the Starfleet captain would try his luck at a counter-attack and needed what numbers he could muster for it.
She brushed her fingers along the outer edge of the bed, tapped out an impatient rhythm on the frame.
"Come on, come on," she muttered to herself as if Stamets could hear it. Or, if he did, as if he cared enough to do anything about her predicament without a direct order and a threat by the captain. Stamets hated her. Landry was fairly sure he was just jealous, but perhaps he wasn't even that deep.
Perhaps he had been listening after all, perhaps her captain had remembered the value of her, because without warning, the room plunged into darkness, the containment field fizzled out and Landry rolled from the bed to her feet in one fluid motion.
She sprinted across the room to a cabinet filled with medical instruments and tore it open, not caring to hide the loud clattering as the tools fell to the smooth floor. She found what she was looking for, a handheld laser-scalpel and switched it on, turned to the door just as the lights came back, though only in the same soft glow of before.
A moment later, the door slid open the large nurse from earlier edged into the room. He was armed, but didn't move like a soldier. She didn't give him a chance, just leapt at him from the side, aiming to stab the laser-scalpel through the side of his neck. She had underestimated his reflexes, though, and he managed to avoid the first strike narrowly. The scalpel sliced a long cut along the back of his neck and into his shoulder, but while it made him grunt in pain, it wasn't enough damage to take him out of the fight.
He tried to bring the phaser around, but fired too soon and the blast only hit the floor by her feet. She kicked his arm away and the phaser dropped from his hand. He lunged for her, used his size and weight to try and pin her to the wall by the door, but she ducked down, evaded his grip and stabbed upward with the scalpel into his armpit. He made a high-pitched whining sound, more surprised than pained at the tiny puncture in his vital organs. She dragged the scalpel back, tossed it to her other hand and stabbed into his heart, than ripped upward until the laser cut open his throat vertically.
The spray of blood went down over her shoulder as she stepped aside. He was still reaching for her, though he was too slow this time. She gave his legs a kick and he fell forward. There was enough blood to form a puddle for him even before he landed.
Landry wiped a little blood from the side of her face with the back of her hand, went to retrieve the phaser then turned back to face the door just in time to see it open again.
They were in the port-side sensor array control room when the power went out. Lorca, under the tentative direction of Ensign Narang, had got access to the local readouts and just seen his first glimpse of what the other Buran was hiding. For the most part, it was a pile of fried systems and a leaky warp core. She had enough juice in her to aim at his unshielded ship and black-out everything for just a second. She also had regained her transporter capabilities.
"Here they come," Lorca announced into the darkness, not without a measure of glee as he drew his phaser.
Four transporter beams shimmered into existence and Lorca stepped as close to it as he possibly could, feeling the slightly tingle against the outermost layer of his skin. The terran solidified, froze in captivated shock for just a millisecond right in front of Lorca. The captain tilted his head to side.
"Welcome to the Federation," he said with a sneer and pulled the trigger he was holding at waist height. Set to kill, but not vaporise, the phaser cut a hole right through the terran's torso, but cauterised the damage instantly to make it a clean kill.
More beams cut brightly downward, spilling heavily armed terrans into every open space of the room, giving the captain no time to admire his handy-work. Lorca's nostril flared in annoyance.
Unlike him, the three other members of his little team had used the brief advance warning to find cover along the sides of the elongated room, positioned behind equipment and using their phasers to pick off anyone who materialised and making sure no one could sneak up on anyone else. It also gave Lorca a little more freedom to vent his anger.
He was already well inside the vanguard terrans' defences, he simply punched his elbow into the terran on his right, got hold of the woman's rifle as she staggered.
Another phaser beam found its target before the terran could open fire at Lorca. The captain caught sight of Narang, crouched low in the deepest shadow close to the open door. A little further, Mah leaned out of cover and took aim at something behind Lorca's shoulder.
The captain ducked out of the way and Mah fired.
The terran breastplates offered some resistance to phaser fire, but considerably less than Lorca had been willing to hope for. He supposed they would deflect a stun blast, or a shot from a much greater distance than available almost everywhere on a spaceship.
"They are in the corridor!" Renaud announced, positioned with the clearest view of the door.
Whoever was orchestrating the attack must have figured out that Lorca and his team weren't going to be so easily overwhelmed and switched to a slightly less wasteful approach of keeping them pinned inside the control room, waiting for them to make a mistake.
Lorca briefly tangled with the last terran still inside the room while Narang nodded at Mah, then keeping low dashed across the room to a console and began tapping rapidly with the lieutenant gave covering fire. The door closed and locked the terrans out.
The terran slung an arm around Lorca's chest, steely fingers on his wrist to keep the phaser from him, trying to put the choke-hold in place. Lorca ignored the phaser, he didn't need it, picked the terran's elbow for leverage and pushed up. He was taller than the terran, so slipping away under his grip wasn't feasible. Instead, Lorca just needed a little room, braced himself and dipped his head back sharply. The terran's grip went lax for just a moment.
"I can't keep the door closed for long!" Narang shouted, interrupting her work on the console to keep shooting glances at the door.
Lorca nodded, surveying the room.
"Renaud with me," he order, tipped his head towards the door, rushing over to press her back to the wall on one side of the door while Lorca took the other.
"Mah, firing position, cover us; Narang forget the damn door, you keep your head down and cover Mah, got it?"
He trusted Renaud and Mah to follow his orders even with verbal confirmation, but Narang's inexperience made a bad combination with her eagerness to get her hands on the enemy. Lorca felt the urge to encourage this tendency in her, but it was his responsibility to put her where she would be most useful. Potential like hers needed to be fostered with a delicate hand.
The door opened in a hesitant stutter, probably due to several conflicting orders being given to it by the network. Searing beams from the terrans' weapons cut through the opening as soon as it was wide enough, covering fire to allow them to push inside by their sheer numbers.
They made short work of the first rush, Renaud and Lorca tearing into them while Mah sucked up their initial attention and Narang had some space to pick off any stragglers before they could sneak up on any of the others.
The terrans had stopped transporting more troops in, but judging by the sudden noise from the open comm channel, it was because they had sprung the same trap on all sections of the ship at the same time. Lorca figured the terrans had done their level best to get behind the security teams, a fairly easy feat if their commander knew in which direction they were headed, which in turn was blatantly obvious to Lorca and therefore would be to the other captain as well.
Lorca could make an educated guess how the terran captain had set it all up, the individual moves clear in hindsight. He'd used the first moment of confusion to transport what troops he could to the Buran, taking what parts of the ship he could and driving the crew to hole up somewhere as they were trying to figure out what was going on and get a handle on how to organise resistance. The terrans had then slaughtered what crew-members they could get their hands on and put them up outside the bulkheads in a creative attempt at demoralisation. Then, the terran captain had pulled his soldiers back, maybe as far as beaming them back to his own ship, knowing he could erode his enemies' willpower by not giving them a fight while they were craving one.
The open door was a natural chokepoint, but ultimately the terrans were too many and started playing it smart, realising brute force was only getting them butchered.
A shot seared Renaud's arm, making the lieutenant cry out in pain, creating a gap in their defences. A terran soldier hacked his knife into Renaud's wounded arm like a hook, pulled her back and into the doorway. She managed to hold on to her phaser, but for a moment it was hanging uselessly in a limp hand. She twisted around in the last second, freeing her arm and turning around. Finding herself staring down the barrel of a rifle, all she could do was drop gracelessly back and hope to roll away before the terran adjusted his aim.
A phaser blast from Mah took him out, but before Renaud had scrambled back to her feet, her side of the door was breached.
Making a little growling sound at the back of his throat, Lorca straightened out of cover, extended his phaser arm, bided his time for a split second. He put the phaser into the nape of the first terran's neck as he crossed the threshold, fired down inside the breastplate. It took the soldier a moment to crumble, enough for Lorca to use her as temporary cover to step out. She was carrying a carbine type of weapon and Lorca picked it out of her hand as she fell by his feet, lifted it up and fired at the next terran at close range.
The whiff of burnt flesh made him scrunch his nose in disgust.
"Move out!" he shouted to his team. He hefted the terran carbine and his phaser and stepped out into the corridor, weapons covering both directions, firing to make the terrans retreat for just a second, a moment in which he could survey the situation device a strategy.
The rhythm of the fight in the corridor was changing and Lorca recognised the sound of phasers a moment before he caught the first glimpse of a Starfleet uniform further down the corridor. Another team coming to meet up and join the fray.
Mah followed him into the corridor, caught his nod and turned right as he went left. Renaud was slower to follow, looking battered in the quick once-over Lorca spared her as she crouched down by the wall, giving him covering fire, but reluctant to get into close-quarter fighting.
Lorca tossed her the terran carbine, flashed her an encouraging grin, then turned back around.
The fight was messy. Terran soldiers and the Buran's security teams mixing with each other as the narrow corridor funnelled them together, forced to constantly expose their backs to the enemy. There was little reliable cover, just the wall and the occasional doorway. The dim light cut through by phaser fire and the searing beams of the terran weapons, beginning to blur the details. Even Lorca lost count of the numbers, his own as well as the terrans, though he was not willing to trust his gut instinct which called them 'too many' in a dryly amused assessment of where this was going to go.
He had no time to dwell on it, no matter how pessimistic he might feel. His phaser needed a new charge, but he had no time to waste on it, because a terran had just pounced on him, clearly intent on knocking the weapon from it. Lorca let it go and used the advantage it bought him and gripped the barrel of the terran rifle to force it just far enough aside the beam missed him. He swung his other hand around and landed a blow at the side of the terran's face, brought his fist up and smacked it into the terran's nose. The terran's head snapped back, but before he could muster any defences, Lorca had kneed him in the groin, ripped the rifle from his grip and put the muzzle to his neck as he doubled over. The rifle blast severed the neck and dropped the head by Lorca's feet.
"Ain't you a sight for sore eyes, captain!" a gruff voice shouted. Lorca looked up to see two women in the uniforms of Starfleet security dispatch the terrans next to them and allowing passage for Commander Basora to join up with the captain.
At close to seventy, Basora's age had bent him just far enough to be of the same height as Lorca, made scrawny by his eroding muscle-mass. For all that, Basora wore a wide, toothy grin on his lined face and a fierce glint in his eyes. He looked down at the beheaded terran, whistled in appreciation before he looked back at his captain.
"Always," Lorca said, humour worn thin but genuine. "How many have you got with you?"
"Pulled them together as soon as the assault happened, but it's difficult to get critical mass out here. We're being bogged down in plenty of smaller fights, pretty much like this. Things are moving too fast, team leaders get sloppy making reports, could really use sensors and an ops officer for this."
Lorca took a breath, gaze drifting away from Basora to take in the corridor in both directions. Basora's forces were moving in now, clearing the space and he saw the terrans begin to withdraw. The other way, Mah and Renaud had dispatched of their own enemies and moving to join the captain and Basora.
Narang lagged behind, gaze skittering back into the corridor, where the debris of the fight just past was piled up, dead and dying, terrans and crew-members both.
Lorca flipped the communicator open.
"Lorca to sickbay, do we have juice for emergency transports? We've got injured up here."
The long silence following the call was the first clue that something was off. Lorca tipped his head in a sharp gesture and Basora translated it into a series of orders for the — Lorca counted them off — twenty-one people — in the corridor. Shaking off the momentary break in the fighting, the crew-members got their phasers ready, found what cover they could against the walls and the narrow bands keeping the segments of the corridor stable.
"I thought your vulcan would be harder to beat," Landry's voice drawled from the communicator. "They are tough little fuckers where I'm from, but I guess everyone around here is just… meek. It's almost boring."
Lorca frowned. He wasn't going to just take her word for it, but he had a feeling he wouldn't really have to. It didn't matter that they both knew he'd gotten to her, because it was too late now to take it home.
He snapped the communicator closed, but didn't even get to take a breath for his next order when the first shots tore down those soldiers furthest from them. A rush of terrans advanced on them from both directions, ordered here no doubt the moment Landry had control of sickbay and could unlock the encryption to determine the location of everyone carrying one of the communicators.
In truth, there was no point in giving orders even if he'd had the time to do so. He had no overarching strategy to develop and no hands-on tactics to use against the overwhelming numbers of heavily armed terrans coming at them.
The enemies themselves were a blur of gleaming breastplates and black leather, deadly shadows moving in the twilight-dark corridor. Lorca was vaguely aware there was still some reticence in them when they attacked him, as if they didn't quite dare to get too close. The beams from their weapons only ever grazed him, not enough even to really make him feel it. He found his hand gripping the hilt of a terran dagger, the fifth or so weapon he'd got his fingers on since the skirmish started, taking and using and discarding whatever was within reach at any given moment. A savage part of him regretted that he couldn't keep count of them, just saw their faceless shapes drop away as they died and his attention already flitted to the next target.
He managed to shout an order, trying to get his dwindling forces back into the sensor control room, where they had better cover, but they all were threatening to become overwhelmed, same as him. He bumped with his back into Basora, his old security chief having figured out the only chance they had and trying to move into position.
"Captain," Basora said, breathing hard but still with that grin lingering in his voice. "Is this your idea of a proper send-off?"
"It's certainly a dirty little fantasy, chief."
For a few minutes, they worked in tandem, dispatching what enemies they could and trusting each other to deal with anyone who slipped their attention and edging ever closer to the open door of the control room.
Further back along the corridor, Lorca caught sight of Renaud, still upright after taking her beating earlier. She held a terran carbine in one hand, the barrel of a phaser in the other, the latter out of charge and used as a bludgeoning tool. For a second, it looked like she was winning, but from somewhere Lorca hadn't the time to look, a rifle beam cut into her back, then a second punched into her side from somewhere closer to Lorca. He didn't watch her fall, but he spotted the woman who'd fired the second shot just within his reach. He gave Basora a quick warning, but then lunged for the terran. Coming at her from the side he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, swung her around and threw her face into the wall.
He was sorry he didn't have time to finish her off. Someone else was trying the same manoeuvre on him, steely fingers digging into his neck, but he was heavier than the terran and harder to move. He brought his elbow up, scraped it against the wall, ducked back and wound free of the grip, jumped back up and jabbed his fist into the terran's nose several times in quick succesion until he stumbled back, disoriented.
By the time he twisted back around, Basora was down. He'd made it to the control room, though just barely. His right arm hung limp and charred by his side and he'd slipped down in the doorway. He was still conscious, using his left hand to fire a phaser and allow several officers, one of them Mah, to take position in the doorway over and beside him offering covering fire for the retreat of the others.
It was almost enough. The push back to the control room was just picking up traction, the crew-members pinned down further away noticed it and with Mah's covering fire, edged their way towards it, though taking losses as they went. By the time they reached the door, it was only a handful of them left. Terran rifle and carbine fire punched into the officers positioned in the doorway. The first few times, others were close enough to take their place, but eventually, the only cover they had was behind the bodies of their fallen crew mates.
Someone stepped into Lorca's knee, brought him down and he suffered a blow to the back of the head that made his vision white-out for a split second. He threw himself to the side blindly and his shoulder hit the wall. For some reason, his attacker collapsed against him. Lorca wrapped his arms around him, found where the terran knife was still sheathed and pulled it out, then kicked the deadweight body off.
Further down, he saw Basora's phaser arm go limp and his head loll back. Somehow, he still managed to give Lorca that grin. Lorca hurried over to him and dropped to one knee by his side.
"Chief," he said.
Basora shook his head weakly. "Don't be a sap now," he said. "You don't need to be holding my hand. I'm just dying. Nothing I can't finish on my own."
Lorca curled one corner of his mouth upward.
"Proud to serve with you," Lorca said.
Lorca fixed his security chief, gave a quick nod, waited for Basora to return the gesture before he levered himself back to his feet and turned back to the fray around them, but by then it was already over.
He saw the terrans cut down or shoot the last of his remaining crew-members, then turn to advance on him. They had ceased firing, clearly intent on capturing him, now that they thought they stood a chance. Lorca swung himself over the dead piled in the doorway and into the control room, picked the phaser from Basora's hand and found a spot in a dark corner to use as cover.
Their last stand had put a dent in the terran's numbers, enough so that Lorca could pick them off as they tried to force themselves into the room, counting them off this time. One, two, three. Then they turned wise and stopped coming. He didn't know if they had resolved to wait him out or if he'd killed them all. How ironic it would be, getting so close to succeeding only to fall short. But he had seen more of them in the corridor. He returned to the edge of the doorway, peeking out, found a target and shot, drew back without checking if he'd hit anyone.
Patience had never been his strong suit, waiting for his enemies to come to him didn't agree with him and he certainly didn't like being hunkered down like this surrounded by his killed crew, some of them watching him from empty, open eyes as if blaming him for not fighting hard enough. But it was patience that won this round, wore down the terrans' numbers until the silence outside in the corridor was impenetrable.
Lorca just waited for a heartbeat longer, unable and unwilling to keep still, then left the control room, climbing over bodies as he did so. His gaze passed over the slaughter, the remnants of friends and enemies. He checked Basora's phaser, then tossed it away as he started picking his way along the corridor, scanning the floor for a communicator.
What he found, instead, was Ensign Narang, crumbled like a broken doll against the wall. Rattled breathing and bloodshot eyes slow to focus on him. She had a terran knife stuck in her side, sitting in the pool of blood she had already lost, turning her uniform black in large patches.
He said her name and she flickered her attention to him, took a moment to recognise him, then smiled weakly. Her face was pale and serene, covered in the glow of a thin sheen of sweat.
Carefully, Lorca settled by her side, barely daring to touch her so as not to jostle that vicious blade.
"Did you know I was a cadet until two weeks ago?" she asked, faraway expression slipping on her face as she drifted into her memories.
"I know," he said. "Of course I know."
He had co-signed the field promotion of several cadets stationed on the Buran after the Battle of the Binaries. He had also refused several of them and transferred them back to San Francisco. He had wanted to keep only the ones who were ready for what was to come.
"My brother was so worried for me," she continued. "He's older than me, a first officer on a freighter." She snorted a little laugh. "Always thought he needed to protect me. He said 'Ava, your captain better take care of you or there'll be hell to pay'. I… thought it was funny. I can take care of myself. That's what I told him."
She laughed a little, then winced when new pain shot through her.
"That went well," she said plaintively.
She slipped further down against the wall, her head lolled to the side until it rested against his arm. "I thought, what's there to be scared of?" she continued quietly. "I was so sure."
Her body shuddered and she leaned closer to him.
"I'm scared now," she confessed in a whisper. She snuggled into him, seemed to have a clear moment and realise what she was doing. Her body trembled as she tried to shift away, failing to blush because she'd already lost too much blood to do so.
"Hush, soldier," he told her, slung his arm around her shoulder to stop her and she stilled.
"I'm cold," she added and sunk into his arms more, hissing at the pain. She brought her hand down to the knife, but didn't seem to dare to touch it. Lorca caught her hand and tucked it back up.
"Why aren't you telling me it's going to be all right?" she asked.
"Because it's not."
Gently he slipped his arm around her shoulder, no pressure at all, just a little weight and warmth for her. She felt small, breakable, but she relaxed with every breath against him. The blood flowed harder.
"But it'll be over soon," he added, the only promise he could make without lying. He brushed a strand of damp hair from her face with his free hand.
Her expression relaxed and her breathing calmed, trusting the soothing tone of his voice, almost as if she was just falling asleep. She leaned into him, weightless in his arms, a dying bird he couldn't save, just like all the others.
End of Part 3: Swear to Me in Times of War and Stress
Also note: Startrekdotcom lists Ava as a cadet on the ISS Buran, so it's entirely possible she's on the USS Buran as well. Her surname isn't explicitly stated, which made it fair game as far as I'm concerned.