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11: The Mirror Crack'd Part 1

Posted on Wed Aug 12th, 2020 @ 12:39pm by Commander Rita Paris
Edited on on Wed Aug 12th, 2020 @ 4:26pm

Mission: The Bulikaya Particle
Location: USS Hera
Timeline: 2397
Tags: Rita Bulikaya

Again, the now-familiar flare of the ultraviolet faded, and once again, Rita Paris found herself facing herself.

Albeit only for a brief second, before she was forcibly driven to the deck, where an armored boot was promptly placed against her helmet, and she heard the distinctive ‘k-chak!’ of the TR-116C2 loading a heavy duty specialty round package.

“Red alert, intruder alert! You’ve got five seconds to tell me just what you think you’re doing here, or I’ll splatter your brains on the deck and we’ll interrogate your corpse,” her own voice snarled at her.

“Commander! What’s the meaning of this?” Enalia’s voice rang out, even as Rita decided to stay pinned to the deck and try talking her way out of this.

“I come in peace! I’m a dimensional explorer! My name’s Rita Paris!” she broadcast through the external speakers of her EVA armor. Given the reception she’d received here so far, she was actually glad she’d been wearing it, or the deckplates would be giving her quite a bruise right now. There were a few seconds of silence that followed her declaration, then the two Security officers on the bridge hauled her to her feet to face yet another version of herself.

The hair was the same, she noticed. But the eyes were hard and guarded, the mouth downturned in a scowl that seemed somehow permanent. While the helmet was retracted, it seemed she’d been on duty on the bridge in her EVA armor, which Rita couldn’t help but notice was not gold, but the same pearlescent black as the hull of the Hera- the stealth mode. The rifle in her hands looked natural there, and she wielded it almost casually as she shoved the barrel underneath Rita’s chin.

“Okay blondie. You talk a good game, but you’re not me. When’s my birthday?”

“February 13th. Daddy always said I was unlucky in love because I missed Valentine’s Day. Keep trying.”

“First pet?”

“Are you talking about Dust Bunny that Albert made me half as a joke, or the fact that I was never allowed to have a pet growing up because I ‘wasn’t responsible enough’. Look, by my reckoning I’ve got about eight hours here. So we can spend all of it playing Paris Trivia Night, or you can take my word for it and we can talk like civilized people.” As she spoke, Rita looked around the bridge. A crewman she didn’t know was at the helm, French was there, with Sexton arriving from the turbolift with a squad of armored security officers.

Captain Telvan had already left the bridge. Apparently this incident wasn’t sufficient to warrant her interest, and Rita’s final suspicion that Something Was Really Wrong Here kicked in.

“I’m taking off my armor, okay? I’m complying,” Rita explained, knowing French lacked judgment and Sexton lacked control. A few of the faces of the security officers struck her as familiar- then she remembered Castillo De Muerto, and the squad Sexton had led to their deaths. Shutting down her armor’s power systems, she shunted it into the dimensional space inside the bracers of Hera she wore.

Which in turn caused another 7 weapons to be pointed at her as she held up her hands.

“This is de-escalation on the Hera? Very impressive,” Rita snarked, peeved at her treatment before the realization dawned on her that if she left the bridge with Sexton and his goons, all of whom she had transferred off the Hera at the first opportunity, she was likely a dead woman. Fighting her way out didn’t seem particularly feasible, so she plotted a new course. “Look, let’s try another tack. Is this Starfleet?”

There were a few nods of acquiescence, as the black-clad commander narrowed her eyes.

“Because if this is a Starfleet vessel, then I am member of Starfleet, who is requesting aid and assistance,” Rita pulled out her command voice for this one. After all, this would either buy her some breathing room on this dark timeline, or it would get her murdered.

Time for a great performance, Rita.

“I am far from my vessel, trapped in an alternate reality and currently I have eight weapons pointed at me, and, assuming those rounds were to pass by and/or through me, pointed at both the helm and the engineering station. Given the amount of firepower currently aimed in my direction, I’d estimate at least three rounds would go through the primary and secondary hulls- I know how fond of autoburst you are, Jenkins. That’s per weapon, because I’d bet anything that as soon as one of you opens fire, reflexively, so will the rest of you. Ah, except whatsisname there,” Rita pointed to one of the men whose names she did not know. “The goober next to him hasn’t properly shouldered his weapon, and that first shot is probably going to take Whatsisname’s head off.”

The security team all looked over, and sure enough, Rita was quite correct. They all turned to look at the local Commander Paris, who rolled her eyes and turned back to her doppleganger. “Fine. We’ll render you aid and assistance, then.”

“Thank you. I would very much appreciate that.” Looking around the bridge, Rita asked casually, “Where’s Sonak?”

That was when the rather angry black-clad commander slugged Rita in the jaw, and the lights went out.

----------------------------

When Rita Paris came to, the humming of the forcefield was no surprise, nor was the soft lighting of a brig cell. Sitting in front of the cell with a grin on his face was Lieutenant Alex Sexton, who was currently sharpening a rather wicked-looking combat knife. Dragging the blade in long, slow strokes, it was clear that he was still the same psychotic testosterone junkie that she’d had transferred and brought disciplinary actions against.

Now he was eyeballing her as she rose, with a gleam in his eye that she suspected meant somebody gave him the okay for a torture/interrogation session. Idly Rita bumped her wrist against her breast as she picked her arms up to rub her eyes, and she realized her Hera bracers were missing. Which meant that she had no ace in the hole, and would have to be exceptionally clever in order to survive this particular leap.

“Well, looks like our intruder is awake,” Sexton smirked, dragging the blade across the stone for effect. Sharpening the knife was just another indicator to Rita of his overcompensation, but she let it play. “Captain said we get to decide what happens to you before we get to Starbase 227, and that’s still three days away. We could have LOTS of fun in that time. So whaddya say, girlie? You think you wanna tell us who you really are, and why you really here, or do I get to... play?”

As he sharpened the knife, Rita formed a plan. After all, this was no warp scientist she was dealing with here.

“Ohhh, Alexander, you really aren’t capable of putting two thoughts together that don’t involve sadism, do you?” Rita replied, sitting upright and taking a long, slow overhead stretch. “French’s connections kept all your little escapades hidden while she covers you on the paperwork, but you’re still trying to work through it, aren’t you? That urge to kill you have so much trouble resisting. I really thought the modern society would have spotted you sooner, but you just kept working to get to position where you could indulge yourself, then you settled right in.”

“Looks like French is willing to look the other way, the Captain is too busy to care and my local equivalent clearly gives you leash when it suits her. So what do you say, doggie? Gonna be a good boy and rough up the new gal for your mistress? Who’s a good doggie? Who’s a good dog?” Under ordinary circumstances she wouldn’t taunt the psychopath. But she needed to get out of this cell, and she knew she was being observed. They wanted to see how she’d play it, here in this dark timeline. And if she didn’t want to spend the rest of her time in this dimension with Sexton as company, she needed to end this, and quickly.

The face of the security officer became a snarling mask of rage. “I ain’t NOBODY’S dog!!” Sexton shouted as he lowered the forcefield and came at Rita. While she was no fighter, Rita was no amateur, either. Months on Kathoom had honed her hand to hand skills, and she had seen Sexton fight before. Dox had once pointed out his tell- he always feinted with the left, before attacking with the right.

Apparently it had worked for him once, so he’d never changed his pattern.

As he rushed her, however, Paris didn’t need intensive combat training, or tricks, or even weapons. He grabbed at her with his left, grabbing at her shoulder as he trailed the knife, apparently planning to bury it in her stomach. Which he might have accomplished had he not been charging and overbalanced. After all, basic Starfleet Academy Judo was taught for a reason- to turn force against itself. Spinning, pivoting, checking her hip into it, Rita added a bit of her own muscle to the throw, and let Sexton’s face collide with the bulkhead behind her with a rather pronounced ‘klung’.

Stepping out of the cell, Rita reactivated the cell door, then tapped her commbadge. “Paris to sickbay, medical emergency in the brig, cell 5.”

By the time the security team arrived with a medical response team, she was perched on the chair Sexton had abandoned waiting for them. The Security forces were understandably upset at the injury of one of their own, and were beginning to discuss just how they would take their creative and entirely unreasonable revenge for their leader’s right hand man, who had clearly been tricked, maybe seduced. The ideas were moving beyond cutting off body parts and toward creative insertion of weaponry into orifices when her black-clad counterpart arrived, and instantly all such ‘locker room talk’ was silenced. Rita suspected her counterpart let it happen, but not within earshot. The picture of just what was happening here was coming together for her, but she was still in considerable danger, and she had to play this cool if she wanted to survive.

“Seems your boy needs more training. Maybe some anger management courses. Looks like the lot of them do,” Paris offered to her local counterpart. “So do you plan to turn me over to the rape gang that you call security officers, shove me back in a cell to see if ignoring me works, or were you thinking of maybe keelhauling me? Enalia’s a pirate, so she might go for it.”

Stepping into Rita’s personal space, the black armored commando who wore her face glared at Rita, trying to stare her down. Which was an interesting experience for her, given that the visitor who shared her eyes was in no way, shape, or form about to back down from herself. Eye to eye, nose to nose, they stared one another down.

“If you are so far gone that you’d murder an alternate reality version of yourself because she showed up and asked you about your husband, then you really need to reevaluate who you are, Rita Paris,” the gold-clad commander in the anachronistic minidress whispered, low enough for her double to hear, but not loudly enough for the Security forces to hear.

The anger that sparked in those eyes was fierce, and for a moment, Rita feared she had gone too far. But then a cloud passed over her face, and she pulled out a pair of manacles, cuffing her counterpart. “She’s with me.”

“Nuh uh, Commander,” said a singsong voice. “She’s an intruder, we don’t know where she came from or what she’s doing here, and Starfleet regs say she stays in the brig, period,” French intoned, leaning on the corner as she watched Sexton returned to consciousness. “She wants to fight with Security, she’s gotta take her lumps.”

Stepping into the personal space of the willowy redheaded lieutenant, the black armored anachronism argued. “I outrank you and hold a higher position. I’ll handle the interrogation, and if you don’t like it, go cry to your ‘uncle’. But I want her to survive the night, and too many ‘sensor failures’ have resulted in ‘suicides’ down here, French. You and your pack of lunatics won’t get anything out of her- you had your chance, and you blew it. Now it’s my turn.”

“The Captain can’t protect you forever, Paris. I’ll get my turn...” French crooned smugly, as Paris stepped back into her space, pinched a rather significant handful of French’s left tit in her armored hand, then squeezed and twisted.

“Threaten me again... ever... even remotely,” she said, twisting a bit harder as French gritted her teeth, trying not to cry out in pain in front of her men. “They will not find your body, French. I give you my word. I’ve experienced a lot of nasty ways to die, and if you ever say a single solitary word that I think even hints of a threat from you or your goon squad? You won’t see it coming, and you won’t even know you’re dead until it’s already done. And for the record?”

For this Paris leaned in close to whisper in her ear. But whatever she said, made the redheaded security chief blanch that much whiter. When she released the chief, the Security personnel had crowded in a bit, and Paris began shoving them out of her way.

“Gangway! Make a hole! Fuck off, you deck apes!” Paris shoved a few of the armored figures out of her way, and the rest parted to let her pass, her manacled and minidress-clad counterpart being dragged in her wake.

“This was fun, we should do it again sometime,” the gold-clad Rita called out to the Security force. Something told her she wasn’t done with them just yet, and taunting them would keep them unbalanced. It dawned on her how quickly she’d adapted to this dark timeline. But now that she’d seen enough, she suspected she knew what was going on.

All she had to figure out was how to fix it.

Looked like her office was still on Deck 2, forward. Apparently even here Enalia had still given her the big office with a view, but as they approached, the commando commander barked at the overhead. “Computer, unseal hatch 17F, authorization Paris, Rita. CDR, ampersand ampersand E-A-R-T-H 2233.”

=^= Acknowledged =^=

The door slid open to reveal that this Rita had rather different ideas of decor. Weapons racks lined the walls, from large scale pulse rifles to small arms, swords, pikes, cestes, spears and buzzknucks. The walls were a dark greenish-grey, with the racks custom built to hold each weapon. A spare suit of armor stood in an alcove, which apparently had much greater strength augmentation systems and armor plating, as it was taller, and much wider.

It was somewhat inescapable, as Rita couldn’t help but notice that the heavy duty EVA was also the stealth black Hera hull plating, as were nearly all of the weapons in the room.

“Love what you’ve done with the place...” Rita quipped as she took it all in, before she was shoved into a rather uncomfortable plastic chair with no seat cushions.

“Alright smartass, cut the crap,” armored Rita growled as she dropped herself heavily into a high-backed reinforced chair that Rita had a sneaky suspicion was bulletproof and phaser resistant. “How did you get here?”

“Bulikaya particle- it’s some old weird tech that Dox inherited from an old Starfleet admiral I think-” Rita got that far before her counterpart interrupted her.

“Dox? What, the fat little shuttle pilot? Are you kidding me?” the dark-clad commander barked. “What admiral would have anything to do with that sad sack? She cuts herself, for fucksake. There’s a betting pool on the flight deck to see if she offs herself, or if she takes a shuttle with her.”

Shaking her head slowly, Rita Paris snapped the final piece of the puzzle into place. “You... monster. Sweet Hera, you’ve lost your damned mind, but more importantly, you’ve lost your compassion. You’re letting her cut herself and not getting her help? You’re taking bets on suicide?”

“Look, sunshine, where you come from it may be different. But this universe, this future? I used to say the universe is not unkind... well, it is EXACTLY that. Unkind,” the dark-armored avenger growled. “Give it a chance and it’ll kill you, maim you, chew you up and spit you out. You can condemn me all you want, but you don’t know. You aren’t from here. Fucksake I had the XO try to kill me on an away mission. It might as well be the goddamn mirror universe.”

At that, she reached into a drawer, pulled out a bottle of scotch, unscrewed the cap and took a swig directly from the bottle. A rather long one, with a few swallows, Rita noted, before she lowered it and offered it across the desk.

“Aren’t you on duty?” Rita asked as she held up a hand to decline, and her local equivalent snorted.

“Duty. Yeah, there’s another dirty word here,” Rita responded, taking another swig off the bottle before setting it under her desk, where it clanked against a few empties hidden by the desk. Apparently this version had not just gone back to drinking, but full on alcoholism. Which did explain a bit, but not everything.

“What happened on Meroset 347, Rita?” the visitor asked the local, whose face at first blanched of color, then she began to snarl again.

“Admiral had her plan, and I had this stupid idea that maybe we could negotiate. We sent the counselor down because she insisted, and that went as you’d expect. Then it was me, the goat and the new kid, the damn babyface Command sent us as a CMO. We were fighting our way across town when I got driven through a wall by a Minotaur. I was stunned, had the wind knocked outta me, and the goddamn satyr, the XO of the boat, steps up and tells me just how happy he is this opportunity presented itself, and he levels his assault rifle at me. I can’t breathe, I’m barely conscious, and he would have killed me right there- Starfleet pride my ass.” Reaching down below her desk, Paris picked up the bottle again and unscrewed the cap, considering.

“If that harpy hadn’t carried him off, he would have murdered me. My own exec. Then he would have blamed it on the locals, and no one would have cared and they’d have pinned a medal on him so long as he took out Hera. I’d already clashed with him and figured out the Captain wasn’t on my side, so in this case, I made a choice. He wasn’t going to stop trying to off me, and I wasn’t going to live watching my back for when he decided it was time to try again.” Taking a drink from the bottle, the local Paris let that settle in.

“So you murdered him?” Rita clarified, wanting to know the truth.

“Nope. I let Meroset 347 murder him. I just didn’t stop it,” the combative commander admitted as she took another drink.

“Hey- could you at least slow down? I’m gonna be here for a while, and I’d really rather not deal with you being both drunk, belligerent and bitter all at the same time?” Rita asked, which got her a nasty look from her counterpart, who took one more drink then hid the bottle once more.

“Fine, whatever. Anyway, he died there, the kid died in the explosion, and I put a bullet through Hera’s brains, and whoopie, I’m a hero. I get promoted, we go on to more exciting wartime adventures and I try to lose track of how many people I’ve lost on missions.” Paris eyed her rather Pollyanna opposite number across the desk. “This is a cold, hard universe, lady. If you were in my shoes you’d see that.”

“Is it? Is it really, or did you just lose your faith in it, Rita?” the gold-clad commander asked gently. The relationship she had built with Hera was one of the factors of her belief in the redemption of the universe, after all. Hera had changed so much from who she had been on that brutal world, and in her redemption, Rita’s faith in the universe had been somewhat justified....as had her faith in Hera herself. But here, the goddess had never gotten the chance to rehabilitate, because like she herself had done to Hera’s general, in this reality, Rita had simply followed orders and murdered Hera like a common assassin.

Suddenly Rita wanted that drink.

“All because they never came for you. Sonak and Stuart never came for you, so you just ‘dealt with it’. You put your head down and stopped caring, and you got angry and bitter and drunk and you spent your time nursing your wound from your ‘most tragic backstory-”

It was at that point that the combative commander sprang to her feet, a phase pistol on her hip clearing in a smooth motion, to come to bear pointed between the eyes of the woman in the minidress, who stared down the barrel of the pistol with contempt.

“Don’t like what I’m saying, so you react with violence. IS this the mirror universe? Advancement through murder, psychotics running Security... I’m not entirely convinced it isn’t, at this point,” Rita said cooly and calmly. When she spoke next, her voice was soft, and her eyes compassionate. “So if you’re going to shoot me, at least look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong. Tell me nothing I said was true. Tell me, truthfully, that you aren’t lost in the woods, and you’re just reacting moment to moment. Who can blame you? It’s been two years now, without him. Anyone you might have tried to care for was killed. You have no one here. You are so lonely and so scared. No wonder you’re so wounded.”

The pistol wavered as the angry astronaut struggled with herself, then the arm dropped, and the pistol lowered... as did the woman’s eyes. “No, damn you... you’re right.”

Dropping heavily into the chair once more, the blonde battalion combed her hair out of her eyes. “I waited... I was sure, y’know? It’s Sonak. But... they never came. I got lost good and proper this time, and... they can’t find me. Seems nobody can stick around, either.”

“Nobody answered your message in a bottle?” the golden girl asked, as her dark counterpart’s head turned slowly, looking bewildered.

“What the hell is a message in a bottle...?”

TBC

 

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