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writesandramblings · 6 years

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The Captain’s Secret - p.86

“I’ll Dream a Nation of You”

A/N: We remain in episode 13, "What's Past Is Prologue."

Considering the circumstances of the Mirror Universe and all the available pieces, I think this plan is one actually worthy of Lorca. As a bonus it ties together some details in the show's rendition of events. The redacted Defiant files being on the Shenzhou (why are they on that ship and so heavily redacted to boot), the fact Burnham and Tyler aren't immediately murdered by Sarek and Voq's guards on Harlak... It also reconciles the interactions between Lorca and his interspecies crew (not to mention various actions he took throughout the series which he had no real cause to) with everything he suddenly starts spouting to his followers.

I'm also attempting to answer why Lorca suddenly went from zero to warp speed with what I feel is an entirely plausible explanation of his behavior that fits the facts established in the show. In a weird way, Lorca showed me the answer, because I lived the circumstance described myself while writing this story. It turns out, Lorca really does give everyone what they need. Even this humble writer.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 85 - I Could Never Be Your Woman 87 - Captain Lorca >>

Luckily, there was a perfectly serviceable alternative to Petrellovitz already on Lorca's itinerary: this universe's Paul Stamets. Lorca wondered if that was part of the reason Petrellovitz had vanished. She and Stamets hated each other. Petrellovitz thought Stamets was a narrow-minded cretin and Stamets hated that she had stolen his life's work and co-opted it for her own endeavors. In this, they were entirely equal their Discovery counterparts. Mischkelovitz had attempted to steal Stamets' mushrooms there, too, after an entertaining little rant about the limits of his knowledge.

Lorca and Landry burst into Stamets' private laboratory aboard the Charon with rifles at the ready, as tactically in sync as they had always been, but found the place seemingly empty.

"Stamets is gone," concluded Landry. "Coward probably left at the first sign of trouble."

As Lorca scanned the room, he did not think that to be the case.

He had made one crucial misjudgment about Discovery's Paul Stamets. That Stamets had something he valued more than mushrooms: Hugh Culber. If not for that, Stamets might have been convinced to travel with Lorca to the ends of that universe, neurological changes and all. Instead he had issued Lorca an ultimatum, "only one more jump," and sealed all their fates.

In this universe, Culber and Stamets had never met. That meant Stamets was entirely the predictable quality Lorca had expected the other Stamets to be.

"All his research is still here," observed Lorca. "I've known more than one Stamets and they both have one thing in common: they love their work too much..."

Lorca's eyes scanned the room, certain something felt off, and then he spotted it. A holographic flicker.

"To leave any of it... Behind!"

He reached through the hologram and found Stamets' neck easily, pulling him out and shoving him up against the bulkhead. "Hello, Paul."

"Gabriel," whined Stamets, in that annoyingly high-pitched tone he had when nervous. "I really hoped you were dead."

"Well you can't always get what you want," said Lorca.

Landry sidled up beside Lorca. "Hi, doc," she said suggestively. She hated eggheads as much as her counterpart in the other universe.

With Landry covering Stamets, Lorca was free to stride across the room as he spoke. "Ironically, I have to thank you for helping me finish what I started. After you sold me out and ruined our coup attempt, I was down on Priors World recruiting allies when the emperor caught up with the Buran. As I beamed back to join the fight, her torpedoes hit. And luckily, so did an ion storm, which caused a transporter malfunction, and... know where I ended up?"

"Frankly, I'm still stuck on the 'not dead' part," said Stamets, shrugging almost comically.

"A parallel universe."

Stamets eyes flicked back and forth as he put it together. "The ion storm must have swapped your transporter signatures." (Stamets still could not see the full extent of what Petrellovitz had done. That was probably for the best.)

"To me, it was physics acting as the hand of destiny. My destiny." He arrived at a spot directly in front of Stamets once more. "The bioweapon you were developing for the emperor. Show it to me."

"Happily, sir," said Stamets.

Months ago, Burnham had stood in front of Lorca on Discovery and accused him of manufacturing biological weapons with the forest of Prototaxites stellaviatori in the cultivation bay. Lorca had never been interested in that line of research at all, but someone else had: Emperor Georgiou.

Georgiou loved biological weapons. The incompatible DNA that had rendered Kerrigan a balloon of gruesome ichor was but one of her many biological toys. The only thing she liked better than bioweapons were blades wielded in her own two hands. Her philosophy, so far as Lorca could tell, was that she liked things which were tactile. If the contact could not be made by a weapon she held, then it ought to be the result of a teeming horde of microscopic things crawling over someone's skin.

It seemed only fitting to wipe out Georgiou's forces with one of her own preferred weapons.

Stamets studied the Charon schematics. Petrellovitz's intervention had given him access to a good deal of the ship. "Looks like we can deploy here, here, and... here. Clear this whole area out." He waved his hands across a large swathe of the ship's midsection.

Lorca nodded. "Get to it."

Stamets was entirely gleeful at the opportunity to finally put his research to work. His spores, seemingly harmless, bypassed the environmental filters and within minutes, two whole battalions headed towards them were rendered a twitching mass of corpses on the ground as the spores ate away at them. Stamets giggled at the sight of it.

Lorca did not linger to watch the display. He had somewhere else he needed to be.

In the throne room, Emperor Georgiou stood on her dais with arms crossed. The loss of Captain Maddox and the recent deaths of her council left chief operational officer Commander Owosekun in charge of the Charon. (On Discovery, Owosekun was a lieutenant junior grade, several steps removed from command of the ship. Georgiou's habit of killing senior members of her staff tended to allow for rapid advancement. That it also provided Georgiou with the frequent companionship of young, ambitious women was probably no accident.)

Standing to the side, Burnham watched the deployment of the biological spore weapon and felt her every instinct about Lorca back on day one confirmed.

Owosekun deftly summarized unfolding events using what computer access she had. "Sensors have detected mass casualties on decks one through seventeen."

"He's come back from the grave to stage a revolution and that's the best he's got?" sneered Georgiou. "If he keeps doing that, he'll reveal his location. Then he's mine."

Burnham approached Georgiou. "Emperor, I've seen firsthand how he operates. He can get inside your head, manipulate you."

"You think I don't know that?" said Georgiou, insulted. This Michael Burnham seemed to have little to no understanding or respect for Georgiou's years of experience.

"He is baiting you, he wants you to come to him," explained Burnham. "Let me contact my ship again. They have no idea they're flying into a battle zone."

It was the third time she had requested this courtesy and Georgiou was entirely tired of it.

"Please, Philippa," begged Burnham.

Georgiou turned towards Burnham with a look of disgust. "I'm not Philippa to you. But you are right about one thing. He preyed on my sentiment, my weakness for your face. It will not happen again. Take her to the brig."

Imperial guards moved to either side of Burnham, grabbing her arms.

"Your choices have determined your fate," decreed Georgiou.

The guards walked Burnham towards the door. They did not make it far. Burnham kicked out the knees of one, sending him to the floor, and grabbed the rifle of the other, so when the guard fired, it hit another guard nearby. She wrenched the rifle away and slammed the butt of it into the guard's face. The guard on the floor rose and Burnham disabled him with the electrical rod in his own hand, then swung the rifle she was holding so it struck a third guard across the jaw and sent him careening away.

The guards across the room fired at her and Burnham fired back, red bolts of energy throwing sparks. Outnumbered, outgunned, her only chance was to escape somewhere they could not easily follow. Launching into a run, she vaporized a hole into a vent along the floor she had spotted earlier and slid across the polished surface of the Charon's decks into the hole, vanishing into its darkness.

"They'll find her, emperor," promised Owosekun.

Given the maze of access passageways that ran through the walls and floors of the Charon and the systems disabled by Petrellovitz, they did not.

Landry and her men remained behind with Stamets while Lorca ran his little errand. He found Larsson waiting alone. "Where is she," Lorca asked on approach.

Larsson pointed at a vent along the floor.

"Einar," came Lalana's voice from within as she pushed the vent panel outwards, "you were supposed to say I remained as instructed and did not leave with you." She was colored black like the shadows but rippled to a dusky gold to match the corridor as she emerged.

"And I said this is no time for jokes!" shouted Larsson, exasperated. "Now what the hell is going on, captain."

"The emperor has Burnham captive and we're assisting in the revival of a coup against the emperor to get her back," announced Lorca, having had more than sufficient time to cook up a story.

Larsson looked for a moment like a caveman getting his first glimpse of fire. "What?"

"I'm not repeating myself," said Lorca, leading them down the corridor towards their destination. Lalana loped alongside him.

Larsson shook his head but followed. "Only you would go to another universe and decide to upend a political system."

Lorca shrugged, waving his rifle irreverently. "It's a corrupt system!" he declared, as if that excused this massive, massive overstepping of the spirit of General Order 1, because surely whatever non-interference protocols were to be followed for pre-warp societies also applied to societies that existed outside the known universe and in whose natural development Starfleet ought not to meddle. (They were far, far beyond this, of course. They had been ever since the Defiant crossed over into this world. Its presence had altered history.)

"In the ten years I have known you, this is the most ridiculously convoluted plan you have ever had. Makes me think it might actually work."

Lorca smiled at that.

They arrived at a communication station. Lorca hit the door controls and fired upon the technician inside. She slumped over her console. "Guard the hall," he ordered Larsson.

"Aye, sir," grumbled Larsson, thoroughly annoyed to think he had left a perfectly good retirement of fishing to spend the past several months guarding doors, which was even worse than the brig and armory duties he had been assigned during his first tour of service.

Lorca kicked the technician's corpse out of her chair and began to key in commands. Lalana watched him disable several security protocols and key in a subspace band. "What precisely are we doing here?"

"It isn't enough to cut the head off the snake," said Lorca. "We have to flay her alive."

Now that he knew the full extent of the pieces on the gameboard, the time had come to gather them in one place.

More than that, as he revived this element of the plan they had built together, it felt like she was with him again.

They sat in the privacy of Michael's quarters with the lights comfortably dim around them. Lorca could scarcely believe his ears. Some part of him hoped he had misheard because if he had heard correctly, it was doom for them both. His voice was a gently lilting admonishment, but more amused than anything else. "Michael. That's treason."

"My loyalty," she said, her eyes fixed on his with a dark fire so bright it really was threatening to destroy them both, "is to the empire."

There was really something impossible about her, he decided, staring at her across the coffee table. "The emperor is the empire."

Her head tilted to the side, a smile on her lips. "The emperor is entirely too shortsighted."

Lorca closed his eyes a moment and shook his head. With anyone else, this action could have been a deadly folly, but Michael was the one person he could close his eyes on and not worry what he would find when he opened them because when he opened them, he saw the same ready smile, the same cocky confidence, and the same wildness he had always known—and not a trace of malice towards him in any of it. Well, maybe the slightest trace of malice, but only enough as to make things interesting between them where it counted.

He was only questioning her because he had to be sure. Not of her loyalty—he was sure of that—but of her thoughtfulness. This was not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly. He needed her to prove to him that she had considered it as thoroughly as he had. She had fifteen years of catchup to do in that regard.

"Here," said Michael, and tipped more scotch into his cup. She pushed it towards him across the surface of the table, clinking her own glass against his commandingly.

"There's no amount of alcohol's gonna make this sound a good idea," he warned her, but took the drink anyway.

"Be honest," she said. "I know you see it just like I do. The empire is stagnant. The emperor hasn't done anything important in half a decade. Twenty more years of this and the empire will be shot to shit."

Being almost twice as old as her, he had a much better concept of what twenty years meant, not to mention an idea of how short a time period five years was. Twenty was almost how old he had been when she was born. Twenty and five was a birthday she had enjoyed very recently. That she was unwilling to wait twenty years when he had spent nearly that many setting this all up was chock full of the abominable irony of her youth. Did she realize how ridiculous her time frames might sound from his perspective? Of course not, because when he was her age, twenty years had seemed like the number of years between then and the end of life as he knew it. Back then, he had known that people over forty were old as surely as he knew anything. Only having lived through those twenty years did he gain the perspective to know twenty was an entirely doable number for someone her age and probably an overestimate of the emperor's longevity on her part.

He also knew what she was talking about because he had played no small part in putting these very ideas in her head. He loved the way she phrased it. There was a lot of him in her sentiments, but the words were her own. He smiled despite the danger. "Let's say I agree with you—"

"Because you do."

He chuckled faintly. She was right, of course, there was no hiding it. "Then what would you have us do about it? And be realistic, I've taught you that much." Among many other things.

As she outlined her idea—based on a theory he was not sure he accepted—he had to admit it was at the very least ambitious. Startlingly so.

"They would never expect it," she grinned, "from the Butcher of the Binary Stars."

"The question is if you can sell them on this little theory of yours. Or sell them on anything. Let's not forget you are the Butcher of the Binary Stars." The title was so recently earned he could not imagine it would go down well at all with her intended allies of convenience.

Her eyes were like the depths of space, tiny reflections from the lights in the room twinkling as stars upon their glassy surface. "I don't have to sell them on anything. That's your job."

"Oh, I have a job in this little future of yours!" he went, a little too loudly because half that bottle of scotch was already in his bloodstream.

Michael came shooting across the table at him, her hands pressing down on his kneecaps as she leaned her face in so close to his he could smell the scotch on her breath. Every bit of this amazing him. To think this was the same child that had been hiding beneath the table at the banquet eighteen years ago. She never hid now. She was utterly brazen in everything she did. "The Graysons," she said.

That made perfect sense. The Graysons were wealthy and powerful and it was no secret the daughter of the family, Amanda, had certain proclivities where aliens were concerned. Her half-Vulcan son Spock was proof of that. That Spock still lived was a favor Lorca still held in his back pocket, ready for the right moment to cash it in.

But was this that moment? "What is your obsession with that half-breed," Lorca sneered, intending it in jest, but his face showed more jealousy than he wanted to admit. (Her obsession with Spock had begun as jealousy for his attention. Now he was the jealous one.)

"That half-breed," said Michael, sliding her hands up his thighs, "has more potential in his pointy ears than half the fleet combined. I will not have him take what is rightfully mine." Whatever barrier Spock's Vulcan blood offered could be offset by the wealth and power of his relations under the right circumstances. "All you have to do is bring my proposal to the Graysons and ensure that it reaches the right pointy ears."

That shifted Lorca into a smug smile. The Graysons were a perfect idea. His perfect idea. He had steered her towards it with such care she thought it her own. His existing relationship with the family gave him the clout to make introductions and sell this proposal both because of and despite Michael's own reputation.

He could also recognize a threat to himself when he heard one. "Phrased like that, makes me worry you might replace me with your pointy-eared rival when it turns out your little theory's no good."

"Oh, it's beyond good," she said. The Defiant was legendary in the empire. That ship, fallen through time from another universe, had given Hoshi Sato the power to conquer the empire a century ago. It would, under the right circumstances, give Lorca and Michael that power, too. "Just imagine it. A world bursting with potential." (The place her hand went with this particular word choice was entirely distracting.) "This is how we use it. And once we've separated the wheat from the chaff, this world will be ours for the taking."

He could hear some of his own words in that, and he had certainly planted the seeds of this whole undertaking, but he had to admit the particulars of Michael's approach were entirely novel and unexpected. She surprised him so often. Always somehow in a good way.

He was doomed, he decided, and glad for it. He traced a hand up the side of her body and down her arm to her wrist, fingers stroking gentle circles. She made the impossible seem possible. That was important because the task ahead of them was as impossible as they came.

"You could always just wait twenty years," he whispered to her. He said it not because he believed it but because he wanted to hear her say what followed.

"Why spend twenty years waiting when we can spend twenty ruling," she countered. That was the word he loved the most. We. She was the only person who ever said it and made him believe it. "And when you're short on time, the answer is to look for space."

She was, in a very real sense, trying to do just that. When you have no time, look to space, and when you have no space, look to time. It was an odd little conflation of some scientific explanation which Michael had taken as her personal mantra.

"It's gonna take a miracle," he said after a long, thoughtful, self-satisfied moment. It was as much an offer as a counterpoint. She accepted that offer and sealed it with her lips.

Luckily, miracles were his specialty. She was living proof of that. A child under a table turned into something worthy of her name, a name that mirrored his own. They were the pair of them archangels, though what they did next was anything but heavenly.

Lalana watched Lorca with patient curiosity. There was something written on his face right now, something bitter and regretful, but equally something that was hopeful and beautiful. A memory. She marveled at how such a simple palette could convey so many things at once and with such constant intensity that even she, a nonhuman, could see the colors. There was no one else who equaled him in this regard. Some humans expressed with the same intensity, some with the same breadth of range, but none of them, so far as she could tell, with both these things always, the way he did. He was the one human whose emotions were never a mystery to her.

The beep of a response took Lorca out of his momentary daze. "Finally," he hissed at the console, and accepted the transmission.

"Gabriel Lorca," said a calm, flat, almost toneless voice.

Lorca smiled in confident satisfaction. "Sarek."

That was the extent of the pleasantries between them.

"You are lucky this subspace band was still being monitored. It was slated for decommission." It was among the subspace bands the rebels had turned over to Burnham to supply the emperor as proof of her success. "It may not be safe."

"It doesn't have to be," said Lorca. "I'm sending you the coordinates of the Charon."

Sarek stared at Lorca. There was something frustrating about the stare of a fully cold-blooded Vulcan. Intensely dispassionate. "We are in no position to launch an assault. Our base on Harlak was recently destroyed, or did you not realize that when you sent us Michael Burnham?"

"I don't need you to attack the Charon," said Lorca, "because by the time you get here, the ship will be mine. I just need you to help me clean up the mess."

The same impassive stare. "You have been gone for too long, Gabriel. Many things have changed in your absence."

Lorca leaned forward on the console, fixing Sarek with a look of intensity that would have melted anyone else. He was simultaneously cold and furious as he said through gritted teeth, "Don't you dare. I didn't endure that goddamn mind rape for you to back out now that I've given you proof." His fingers gripped the console's edge so tightly his arms shook slightly.

"A bold plan," said Sarek, "if it is indeed true."

"Oh, it's true," assured Lorca. "You can take my word for it."

Lorca, Sarek, and Voq were standing in a single pressurized chamber aboard an abandoned asteroid mining facility. Of the two parties, Lorca was by far the more exposed. He was here without any backup, his ship out of transporter and weapons range, while their cruiser hovered above with the capacity to blow the meeting place to kingdom come and kidnap or send him with it. It was entirely intentional: Lorca potentially had the might of a whole empire behind him, so he was negotiating from a position of power, while Voq and Sarek represented a scattered mass of disenfranchised species. For Lorca to come alone and unarmed was merely balancing those factors out and proving the sincerity of his intent.

Voq sniffed disdainfully. "Take the word of a human?" he said. His voice had a honking quality to it.

"Or don't. You have the files Michael sent. That's proof enough."

"They were heavily redacted," said Sarek.

The files they referred to were the Defiant reports. Michael had secreted copies away aboard her ship, the Shenzhou, and transmitted them to the rebels alongside the promise of her plan. Minus any incriminating details, of course. Minus any useful details. The files were only intended to demonstrate the existence of Michael's conceit and get the rebels to the table.

"If we gave you everything, you wouldn't need us," countered Lorca easily.

Sarek was unmoved. "And yet, it remains possible that this is all a subterfuge on your part."

Lorca crossed his arms and glared at Sarek. "After everything I've done for your son?" There was a reason the half-breed progeny of Amanda Grayson and Sarek still drew breath and Lorca was part of it. As far as he was concerned, Sarek owed him a lot for that particular favor, even if it had been done more for the Graysons' sake than the Vulcan's.

To any of a dozen other races, such a personal gesture would have meant something, but Vulcans were not known for their sentimentality. "Be that as it may, we must confirm your intentions personally." Sarek raised his hands and stepped towards Lorca.

Lorca uncrossed his arms and stepped back, one hand going to where his phaser would have been. Of course, he had no phaser with him, and going for the knife in his boot was too obvious and would destroy the entire pretense of this meeting.

"If you consent willingly, this will be much easier," said Sarek. "But if you will not, there are ways around this."

Voq drew a Klingon blade from his hip, an ancient relic scavenged from the ruins of Qo'noS that still looked deathly sharp despite its dusty origins.

"Do not fight us, Gabriel," warned Sarek. "If you truly desire this union of our interests, then this is our price."

Lorca's back pressed against the wall of the chamber as Sarek's hands pressed against his head. His hands closed around Sarek's wrists because he could not totally escape the instinct to flee or to take hold of a weapon during a moment of perceived weakness and neither option was available, so all he could do was find something, anything to hold on to.

"My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts."

Sarek slipped into Lorca's mind. It felt like a million tiny little needles were pressing into his brain and splaying the memories out as a scientist spreads out a specimen for dissection. Lorca could feel himself being turned inside-out and was half-aware of a yell in his throat, but then all awareness was gone and he felt only Sarek everywhere—inside and outside, upon him and within him. He could not tell where he began and ended because there was no him, only Sarek. He was drowning in a Vulcan consciousness. He could see and feel his memories unspooling like ribbons in the darkness. He reached for them and they eluded him, slipped away into Sarek's waiting embrace.

Sarek released him and Lorca slid down along the wall, yell replaced by a wordless gasp. He knew instinctively that Sarek had seen it all: every truth, every lie, every secret, including the ones Lorca kept from himself. He felt stripped of everything. He was nothing in the aftermath of it.

"He is sincere," said Sarek, "and the Defiant is no lie, but he also does not believe the deal he has offered is possible."

"The usual human treachery," Voq concluded, looking angry enough to spit.

Sarek considered that. "Not quite. He does not believe it possible, but the one who sent the information, Michael Burnham, does believe it, and they have a scientist who is working on making it possible."

Lorca closed his eyes and took deep breaths to steady himself. He was better than this. He was stronger than it. He slowly rose to his feet, finding himself physically steady even if his mind remained unbalanced.

"What they believe is of no consequence," said Voq. "If they cannot provide what they offer, it is as good as a lie."

"I'll prove it," Lorca gasped at them. "If I can prove it, then we have a deal?"

"You will prove something which you believe to be impossible?" queried Sarek.

Lorca inhaled deeply and was entirely resolute as he said, "I've done more with less."

Sarek looked to Voq. "Then I believe this deal is in our best interests. If you prove the barrier between the worlds may be safely pierced and allow us this... 'world bursting with potential,' then we will help you supplant the emperor."

Voq extended his arm to Lorca. Lorca swallowed and clasped Voq's forearm. A warrior's pact. For better or worse, their destinies were now tied.

A world bursting with potential. The words had been Michael's, but they had come to Sarek through Lorca, stripped out of his consciousness by a mind meld so thorough it had, for a moment, made the two of them seem one. That Sarek still held those words was both damning and propitious.

Lorca hated that memory more than almost anything. What was supposed to be a mere confirmation of his and Michael's intentions had instead become a brutal exposure of everything he was. It was not acceptable to Lorca that this event should have been for nothing. Not now that he had given Sarek the very proof requested in the form of the other universe's Michael Burnham and in his own return here.

"I held up my end of the bargain," said Lorca through clenched teeth, "now you hold up yours."

"In your long absence, I find myself doubtful as to the enduring sincerity of your intentions. Now that you have this power, what is to stop you from claiming both universes for your own?"

Lorca was taken momentarily aback by the accusation. The thought had crossed his mind. At this point, a lot of thoughts had, many of them in conflict with one another, and his end game had changed a few times over the past year, but circumstances had forced him back on track and he was resolved to his original course of action. With a few adjustments. Even if he had ended up with a slightly different set of goals, the fact remained none of it conflicted with Michael’s offer to Sarek and the rebels.

"If you submit to another mind meld—"

"Absolutely not," said Lorca, hating Sarek for even suggesting it. "You've seen what I did over there, Sarek. I saved the other you. That has to count for something."

"I suspect because it felt like saving yourself."

Lorca's mouth twitched. This was true. Something the Vulcan had done during that mind meld made Lorca unable to stomach the idea of Sarek in distress because some part of him still felt like Sarek. The kinship was unwanted, but it was there. An intentionally implanted extra failsafe against the dissolution of their intended union. Some part of Lorca wondered if it was somehow part of Sarek's katra, but the larger part of him said no. Simple subliminal manipulation on Sarek's part. There might be some way to escape it, but seeking help would mean admitting the link's existence, and if word of it got out, Lorca would be finished on far too many fronts.

Besides, when he had learned Sarek raised Michael Burnham in the other universe, it had seemed like proof of something else. That Lorca and Sarek, the men who raised Michael Burnham, would be reflected across the two universes by such a bond suggested the two universes were united by a thread of shared destiny.

"Or maybe I'm just not the xenophobe you think," said Lorca, moving aside. "Lalana, get up here."

She hopped onto the seat into view of the transmission. Anyone else and the transmission would have been automatically framing her in the whole time, but since the computer did not register her as a life form, she had to rely on being in front of Lorca for Sarek to see her.

"What is that?" went Sarek, cold Vulcan façade letting slip some small bit of surprise mingled with the faintest affront or disgust at the two giant eyes.

"I am a lului. My name is Lalana."

Lorca looked entirely pleased with himself for putting this together. "She's my ally. That's proof I'm not lying. I have no problem working with aliens."

"You are from the other universe?" asked Sarek, because certainly he had never seen her like here.

"Yes, that is correct."

Sarek already knew from his mind meld with Burnham that the other universe had the potential to offer safe haven to anyone who wished it and had seen some glimmer of Lorca's involvement with Discovery's interspecies crew, but nowhere in Burnham's mind had he seen this creature. "What are you to Captain Lorca? In what way do you prove his intent?"

"I am his friend. As for his intent, what is it you wish of him?"

"He has promised to provide safe passage for non-humans to your universe."

Lalana tilted her head up at Lorca. "You said we were going to stop the war with the Klingons by bringing reinforcements from the Empire."

Sarek's glare looked entirely unamused. Lorca realized immediately where the problem lay. The first night here, when Lalana had approached him in his quarters, he had outlined a perfectly plausible plan involving killing Georgiou, taking over the Empire, and using Terran ships to fight the Klingons. While the Terran Empire and Starfleet were fundamentally incompatible, the prospect of a mutual alien enemy could have rallied the bloodthirsty Terrans to answer the call to war. They were as glory-hungry as the Klingons in Lalana's universe.

Nowhere in that plan had Lorca mentioned Sarek, Voq, and the rebels. To be honest, he was a little surprised they were still in play. He had expected to find them largely quashed by Georgiou at this point. That they endured was a testament to their value and made them worth adding back into his plan as participants rather than face them as a later adversary.

Lorca grimaced in disappointment at Lalana. Mentioning this in front of Sarek felt like a public betrayal. (In actuality, he was learning something the other Lorca had learned long ago: Lalana had no sense of propriety and did not distinguish between conversations in an official and informal context. She spoke whatever came into her mind.) "When we arrived here, I didn't know Sarek and Voq were still alive. Terrans or rebels, a gun is a gun."

Lalana's tail flicked. "Sometimes I think you are making this up as you go along."

That was entirely a betrayal. "Circumstance changed and I'm adjusting, restoring part of the original plan. That's not the same as making it up."

"It is almost. And what if the Klingons here wish to join the Klingons over there?"

Was she trying to screw this up for him? "Then we don't send the Klingons until after the war's won. If we have to send a few Terrans to clear a few battles, we do that. The important thing is we get Georgiou out of the way right now. Trust me, Sarek, I've thought of everything."

Lalana continued her dissension. "No one can think of everything, not even me, and I have trillions more brain cells than you do, Gabriel."

Lorca pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. She was talking about her undifferentiated tissues, which he knew from the lului medical report tended to be memory-focused, not cognitive. While the cells could provide cognitive function, they were sluggish compared to the specialized cortex cells that comprised the lului "brain" and infrequently used in such a capacity. He pulled his hand away and practically exploded at her. "This isn't the time for discussion! We have a chance right now to rid ourselves of Georgiou once and for all. The emperor's on her knees, and when she's gone, we all get what we want. But we need to do this now. Before someone else comes in to fill the power vacuum I'm about to create."

"Hm, that is a fair point," went Lalana, entirely unperturbed by Lorca's frustration. She turned back to the screen. "Sarek, will you please bring your ships to assist in this endeavor, for the benefit of your universe and mine?"

Sarek got the distinct impression there was something in this argument between Lorca and Lalana that was wholly domestic, which was more telling than anything Lorca could have actually said. He still needed more. In a measured tone, he said, "And who would you have replace the emperor? You?"

"I can't think of a better candidate," said Lorca as if he were congratulating Sarek for suggesting he take on this role rather than confirming an obvious bit of hubris.

"What of Michael Burnham?"

Lorca dismissed this suggestion outright. "It can't be Burnham. She doesn't know this universe. Her idealism will lead us nowhere. The minute they realize who and what she is, she's done for."

"And yet, it is in her idealism that I find hope for this plan, not yours."

Lorca glowered, thinking they were at an impasse.

Then Sarek said, "I was able to convince Voq of the sincerity of Burnham's intentions, even with the destruction of Harlak. I equally understand the validity of your concerns. I have seen into this Michael Burnham." That was a misleadingly innocuous description of a mind meld as far as Lorca was concerned. "She is not from this world and she cannot lead your people effectively. A new emperor is not worth the trouble if she is dead within a year. I suggest an alternative. I will back you, Voq will back you, if she stands by your side."

Lorca took a deep breath. That was, in fact, the best thing he could have hoped for. "Agreed." In a way, this Burnham was even better, because she would be sincere in a way his Michael could never have been. Lorca would have Sarek eating out of the palm of his hand.

"Then we will proceed to your coordinates."

Lorca leaned his hands against the back of the chair, feeling a great weight lift from his shoulders.

Lalana put her hands on the edge of the console and leaned forward. "Gabriel and I thank you, Sarek."

"I have only one question remaining. What of the Michael Burnham from our world?" asked Sarek.

A long pause. "Dead," said Lorca.

"Then you have my condolences," said Sarek, because he knew exactly how much Michael Burnham meant to Lorca. He knew it better than anyone.

The channel closed. Lorca exhaled, then erupted, "What the hell was that? You torpedoed me!"

"Vulcans are more easily convinced when they watch a successful defense of a position. I forced you to defend."

He blinked. That hardly seemed to excuse it. "Maybe next time a little warning?"

"You might have said we were contacting a Vulcan. As it was, you did not mention any part of this to me."

"I've been a little busy," he pointed out. He meant to tell her, but between Discovery and here, he had not had much chance to. Moving between the torture chamber and the aft hangar bay, they had been too busy ducking security, and in the brief minute before the transmission started, he had forgotten.

"It turned out well in the end," said Lalana. "Sarek is coming. I think he was reassured that you had me as an ally, and I think it is a very good plan." Now, not only was he uniting forces against a shared enemy, he was offering a chance for something better to the teeming masses of the oppressed.

That it would simultaneously remove what Terrans saw as an alien scourge on their claim of galactic supremacy was an additional windfall from Lorca's perspective. They would keep some quantity of aliens, because the Empire still had uses for many, but the rebels at least would be gone, and any species that fulfilled no Imperial purpose along with them. Best of all, they would go willingly.

"Thank you." Holding her up as a reassurance for Sarek was not the main reason he had summoned Lalana to the Charon, but it had been an entirely intentional move on his part and worked beautifully despite them both.

"Though, I should have cleaned your face before we contacted Sarek. You look quite a mess." There was still blood caked down the side of his cheek from the wounds he had given himself smashing his head against the wall of the ready room on Discovery. They had not healed much in the ensuing days of torture. Her tail drifted up towards him to clean them now.

Lorca grabbed her tail, stopping her. "Don't. People might notice."

Lalana's tail twisted slightly in his grasp. "What do you mean? They will notice there is less blood on your face?"

"Exactly, and if they figure out how..."

"They will think you cleaned your face."

"Yes, but how!" he exclaimed, voice rising. "I can't have them figuring out you're here. They'll shoot you. You understand?"

She did understand, but what she understood was not the point he thought he was trying to make. She would have blinked in confusion if only she could. Instead she stared at him and realized exactly how bad this situation was.

She had seen it, back in the torture chamber, with Maddox and Allan both. The same manic delight that had consumed him during null time, the sort of delight that overwhelmed people when they were forced to operate for far too long on far too little: a combination of sleep deprivation and adrenaline that induced a state of mind where suddenly everything in the universe seemed to make perfect sense. That point where you see all the patterns and feel you are suspended in something approaching total clarity.

A dangerous clarity, because often the patterns you saw in this state were not the sort of stable connections that made sense in the light of a more well-rested day.

She asked him the same question she had asked almost two hours ago.

"Gabriel, when was the last time you slept?"

They had been on the Charon for about half a day now, and before that, on the Shenzhou for over three. During that time, while Burnham had endured fitful but uninterrupted sleep in the relative comfort of the captain's quarters, Lorca had slept at most a handful of hours between being tortured in the agonizer booth. Four days on perhaps that many hours of sleep.

"I'm fine."

"I think you need to sleep."

Now she was being annoying. "Lalana, there's no time. We need to finish what we started. We're so close now."

"I also have a question about the conclusion of this."

There were a thousand other things he had to worry about right now, an entire coup he needed to attend to, but still he asked, "What?"

"Is it your intent that you remain here while nonhumans are sent to my universe?"

"That is the gist of it, yeah." He sounded enduringly proud about it.

"Including me?"

Lorca froze.

The main reason he had called Lalana to the Charon was that he knew he needed backup in order to reach Georgiou and kill her. Lalana's unique properties meant she could infiltrate any corner of the vessel and help him at a moment's notice. She had done exactly that.

Problem was, when he called her with those two little words, "lab rats," he had not known there existed an entire hangar of people loyal to him in need of rescue. He knew some of his people were aboard—Petrellovitz, for example, had been listed as such in the recovered data core—but an entire hangar full of them? It was too good to be true.

Once he knew they were on the Charon, freeing them became his top priority.

There was a reason his people were loyal to him after two hundred days of torture, a reason they loved him and said he loved them in return.

He did.

Not in the way he loved Michael, there was no one he loved like Michael, but in a way that made them feel valued. While Georgiou constantly culled from the top, Lorca kept people around. (Even in the other universe. It was why he let Tyler remain on Discovery.) Maybe he was not always kind, maybe he could be a tyrant, but he was a tyrant who kept them safe. So long as they were loyal to him, he was loyal to them. His people did not fear him the way Georgiou's people feared her. In this universe, that was as close to love as most people ever got.

He knew firsthand what it was like to exist as part of Georgiou's high command, to never be certain from one day to the next whether this was the day you would die or not, sometimes for no crime beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong moment. For years he stood by her side and watched her pick people off one by one and in sudden clusters. The dance it took to avoid falling victim to Georgiou's wrath was exhausting. The longer he lasted, the more exhausting it became. That his number would eventually come up seemed inevitable. Each new death brought him one step closer to his own.

Once Michael entered the picture, there were two of them to worry about. He did not think Georgiou would ever hurt Michael given her feelings for Michael's mother, but so many people had made the mistake of thinking Georgiou would not hurt them and paid the ultimate price, Michael's mother among them. Lorca had even made that mistake once himself. His price had not been fatal, but it had given him a dark and festering wound for which Michael had proven to be the only salve. If not Michael herself, then the role she offered him, which had allowed him to lose himself and become someone else completely.

In the wake of Michael’s death, his only thought had been to destroy the woman who had driven them both down this awful path together. It remained a central aim, but little by little, other desires had found him again. The desire to travel the stars, the desire to win a war, the desire to be a captain, the desire to save his people. The desire to live on as a testament to his Michael Burnham.

His people needed him and he needed them.

His people would not understand Lalana. They were Terrans through and through. They hated nonhumans. Not only would they not understand Lalana, her very presence undermined his credibility with them.

It was bad enough he had been secretly enlisting the rebels against Georgiou. He could sell this fact to his followers in the context of his long-term goals so long as he always seemed to keep the rebels at a distance in an antiseptic alliance of convenience.

There was nothing antiseptic about Lalana.

"Yes," he said. "Especially you."

"That is not acceptable."

"Well I'm sorry you feel that way," he drawled at her, "but fact is, you've done what I needed you to, so take Larsson and head on back to Discovery."

"But we have not yet killed the emperor."

"Lalana. This is the end of the road for you and me. It's time to say goodbye."

Part 87

#Star Trek #Discovery #Mirror Gabriel Lorca #Mirror Lorca #Gabriel Lorca #Captain Gabriel Lorca #Mirror Sarek #Mirror Michael Burnham #Mirror Stamets #Mirror Ellen Landry #What's Past Is Prologue

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writesandramblings · 6 years

Text

The Captain’s Secret - p.85

“I Could Never Be Your Woman”

A/N: Takes place during episode 13, "What's Past Is Prologue."

Also, small update on the read more issue, seems it’s some relation to tumblr disagreeing with some new encoding update Google did? I’m posting using Edge, maybe this will help somehow.

Full Chapter List Part 1 - Objects in Motion << 84 - Blue Moon 86 - I’ll Dream a Nation of You >>

Standing in the back of the hangar, the blueish lights casting them both in an icy pall, Lorca stared at Petrellovitz with an expression that was part grimace, part regret. Too long had he imagined this moment and in none of his imaginings had it looked like this. Now that he was standing in the moment, he wondered why he had bothered to imagine it at all.

The way Petrellovitz stared back at him felt like death. Dead eyes, dead expression, dead skin, and the death in her went far deeper than that. There was a feeling of festering rot that seemed to emanate from some pit where her heart should have been. She was not as dead as their Michael Burnham, but her trademark unearthliness came close.

"I found Michael," said Lorca, his head nodding slightly and mostly automatically. He took a small breath. "She's dead." It was barely more than a whisper. For a moment, his face registered grief and he was relieved they were in the far back of the hangar and he was standing with his back to the rest of the world.

"Ah," said Petrellovitz. She ceased scratching at her arm and pulled the sleeve of her jumpsuit down to cover the bloodied mess of wounds there, then began digging at the blood under her fingernails with her teeth.

Lorca searched her for some indication she had registered this information in any meaningful sense and found none. The lack of response left him feeling momentarily at a loss.

Seeing his vague confusion, Petrellovitz shrugged faintly. "Did you want me to cry?"

Lorca had not expected that, but he had expected something, damn it. "I was thinking I might kill you. You killed her." It should have been angry, and there was an intensity in his words, but of desperation more than rage. The words were also, taken at face value, untrue, yet they held a truth within them. Had Michael Burnham never met Emellia Petrellovitz, things would not have ended up as they had.

"And yet, here we are." She was taunting him.

"Only one thing's keeping you alive right now."

"You need me for something."

Lorca shook his head. "That's not it."

"Michael wouldn't want you to?"

"She liked you," admitted Lorca, "but no." It was satisfying seeing some measure of confusion spread to Petrellovitz. Her ignorance gave him power over her and a renewed sense of confidence.

"She loved me," Petrellovitz replied. "I gave her things you never could."

The sigh that hissed through Lorca's teeth was on some level amused. That was what he had been to Michael relative Georgiou. Petrellovitz thought she could adapt the sentiment for herself. She was wrong. "You were a useful toy. Playtime's over now. That universe you sent us to, Petra? I found us in it. Different versions of us. Which means I've got another you waiting in the wings. You are entirely expendable."

Petrellovitz only stared, enduringly dead-eyed. "Another me? There is no other me. It doesn't matter how many universes there are. There's only one me." It was the defining difference between her and Mischkelovitz: while Mischkelovitz yearned to be part of a group or partnership, Petrellovitz tolerated only singularity. She had gone so far as to kill every other person involved in the QORYA project to ensure it.

"That other you is the only reason you're still standing here. You have a lot in common. Thanks to her, I finally understand what it is made you. I know your secret, Petra. So believe me when I say I don't need you, but if you play nice, I might have a project for you."

Lorca reached into his pocket and pulled out Allan's tooth.

"They've got time travelers in that universe, and this? Is some sort of failsafe for when they get caught. If you're good, I might just give it to you."

He could see she wanted it. The glimmer in her dead eyes was the closest she came to looking alive. Her greed for new advancements and technology was unmatched and she would do anything to obtain such research initiatives for herself.

"So, I have your attention?"

Her insolence vanished in an instant. "Yes, captain."

"Good." He slipped the tooth back into his pocket and smiled. Incentivization worked wonders with her, just as it did Mischkelovitz. The incentives required were orders of magnitude different for each of them; Petrellovitz would no doubt be infuriated to learn the other her could be convinced to work on something for the price of a cookie.

Her eyes followed the tooth as it disappeared into his pocket, entirely fixated on it. Her mind, however, was working several angles at once. "How did you get back?"

"Ship outfitted with a spore displacement drive."

"Ship class?"

"Crossfield."

She looked down, thinking through the implications. "Adapted to accommodate a spore dispersal system, creating a mycelial field large enough to encompass an entire ship. It's what I would have done if they hadn't captured me."

"I know," said Lorca, feeling a sort of pride. "Where do you think I got the idea?"

Petrellovitz looked genuinely annoyed at that. The idea that her intended advancements had been taken from her galled her, even though they were not her advancements in the first place. They were applications of technology she had stolen from Stamets.

"Where is it now?"

"All in good time, Petra. We have more pressing matters. I need you to disable the emperor's control of the Charon's systems."

"Copy," said Petrellovitz, immediately striding past him to the nearest computer console. In the other universe, she was a biomedical engineer with a working knowledge of theoretical physics, her specializations designed to complement the rest of the QORYA project's subjects and support Milosz.

In this universe, there were no other QORYA subjects. She was them all. She was Milosz's theoretical engineering, she was Groves' computer systems knowledge, and also Danica Stewart's robotics and several other specialties possessed by children whose fates in this world had been equally grim. In fact, about the only thing she wasn't was a medical doctor or biomedical specialist, because either thing would have entailed on some level caring about the welfare of others.

The breadth of her skills and knowledge were frightening, but that was not the reason Lorca suppressed a nervous shudder as he watched her go to work. Looking at her, at the scars on her face and neck and hands, he was reminded of the scars on the rest of her.

He could have gone his whole life without knowing those scars were there.

2250.

She came to him in his ready room and said, "I hate women who use sex as an excuse to stab people in the back. Anyone who cannot earn their position through skill and competency does not deserve that position. However, as a result of this ethos, I have not myself done it, and as you have a reputation in this regard, I am proposing it to you if you are amenable."

He agreed, once the shock of the circumstance wore off, because if she were going to kill him, she would have done so already and in one of a dozen ways that highlighted her scientific prowess.

His requirement was that it be one and done, no expectation of anything further or implication that this meant anything more than what it was. She entirely agreed to this. "I'd prefer it that way," were her exact words.

"Any special requests?" he asked, because whatever she lacked in experience she more than made up for in candor and he half-hoped she'd stumbled across some shamelessly inventive or niche practice that had formed the impetus of this request. He did not expect the response she gave.

"Make it hurt so much I never want to do it again." At his shocked silence to that, she clarified, "It's the best way to ensure my ongoing purity of focus."

He hesitated, not liking the turn this was taking, and she attacked this perceived weakness by taunting him: "The great Captain Lorca can't muster the courage."

"You're insane," he told her.

"Surely you've figured that out by now," she replied and stared at him with her crazily mismatched, unblinking eyes.

He took a fortune cookie from the bowl and held it up. "This'll hurt."

She smiled at that. "I should hope it does."

It did, but not the way either of them intended. That evening, at the agreed-upon time, she arrived and promptly began to undress without fanfare or any interest in the drink he offered.

She had so many scars. They covered almost every inch of her. As Lorca looked at them he wondered where they had all come from, who they had come from. Were they accidents? Were they intentional? Perhaps some were her own work. It was hard to get that many scars without adding some yourself. He tried to focus on the scars to the exclusion of all else and give her what she wanted.

It was too much. Not for Petrellovitz, for Lorca. He withdrew from her and went to the wall, leaning against it with one hand and breathing heavily, his back turned towards her so she could not see his face.

"What is wrong with you," said Petrellovitz, trying to incite his wrath. "Any other man would be glad for the chance to disavow a woman of the instinct to stab him in a shared bed."

Lorca did not answer. He bent his arm and pressed his forehead against it, eyes squeezing shut and fingers tightening into a fist. He was not enjoying this at all. It reminded him too much of being somewhere else, of being with someone else, and the rising terror and panic of that person made his heart flutter with palpitations at memories he had long thought buried.

"Maybe it would help if I had a weapon so you perceived me as a threat."

"Petra, shut up!" He tried but could not rouse anything from within himself that would merit returning to the bed.

"Well, this is disappointing," said Petrellovitz after a few minutes, sitting up and resting her hands on her knees. "I should have asked Michael."

Lorca whirled on her. "Don't you dare." He would not have Petrellovitz spoil this for Michael, even if he knew on some level that Michael would have a much easier time providing Petra with what she was asking for and would probably do so without hesitation or heart palpitations or any of the unsettling things Lorca was currently experiencing.

Petrellovitz smiled and perked up, glad for the anger, mistaking it for common jealousy. "That's right, you want to keep Michael all for yourself, don't you? I bet she's better with a broomstick than you are with—"

Lorca lunged for the bed and backhanded Petrellovitz across the cheek with the full force of his arm. She toppled over onto the mattress, blood spitting out the corner of her mouth as her lower lip sliced across her teeth. He grabbed her by the shoulder, pulled his hand back in a fist, and held it ready to strike.

The second strike did not come. He released her. "Get out," he said coldly. She reached for her clothes. He wanted her gone sooner than that, so he snatched her clothes up with one hand, grabbed her arm with the other, and dragged her to the door, throwing both her and the garments into the hall. She stood in the hallway, naked and attracting stares from his guards. She seemed utterly unbothered by this state of affairs. She licked the blood on her lips, picked up her clothes, and walked away without putting them on.

The door slid shut. Lorca sank to the ground beside it. He covered his face with his hands and shook. He did want Michael all to himself, but not for the reasons Petrellovitz thought. He wanted Michael because the way Michael looked at him made him feel like anything was possible, like the person he pretended to be was real.

No, it was more than that. She made him feel like he wasn't pretending at all.

After a moment, the shaking subsided. He dropped his hands from his face and stood and went to the window.

Michael was out there somewhere. There was an ocean of stars between them, but the stars were not between them. The stars were something they shared. As he looked out at the myriad points of light, it felt like she was standing next to him.

Larsson was still at the door, as ordered. Lorca took him aside. "We might have use for that... pineapple." He hated saying the word. "Where is it?"

"Depends," said Larsson. "Where's Lalana?"

"Nearby and safe," promised Lorca. "Hidden, and we're gonna keep it that way. Understand?"

"Yah. I left the pineapple in O'Malley's workshop. Don't know it's still there, that's where they got me, but that's where I last had it." It was not a part of Lorca's intended plan, so its loss was not a critical blow, but it would have been a handy addition. "O'Malley's dead, by the way."

"Is he now," said a voice behind Lorca. Petrellovitz, inserting herself into the conversation. Larsson gawked at the sight of her.

Petrellovitz was equally appraising of Larsson because she knew for a fact Einar Larsson died aboard the Buran, which could only mean she was looking at a Larsson from another universe.

"I'm sorry for your loss," offered Larsson.

"What loss? This is excellent news. All those times he had me on his table, promising he'd break me, and now he never will." She smiled with delight. "I win!"

Larsson looked at Petrellovitz like she was crazy, which she was, and was disturbed by the fact in this universe O'Malley was his sister's tormentor, not her protector.

"Just hold tight," Lorca instructed, sending Larsson to wait over by the door again and turning his attention to Petrellovitz. "Report?"

She outlined for a moment the computer status. She had disabled universal systems access, restricting both sides to more limited control, which significantly balanced the playing field between the sides and prevented one side from, say, venting the atmosphere on the other.

The next two steps would entail leveling that playing field further. First, Petrellovitz had a few more things to say.

"She was my favorite person, you know. My best friend. My only friend. Did you cry for her?" It was utterly bizarre hearing any part of Colonel O'Malley's words coming out of Petrellovitz's mouth. The two were universes apart and somehow shared an intrinsic commonality. Petrellovitz searched Lorca's eyes for an answer to her question, but rather than complete the survey, she declared what she wanted the answer to be. "Good. At least one of us can."

It was almost verbatim what she had said following their unfortunate encounter, minus the references to Michael. Back then, his response had been a jeering negation of her suggestion because, as awful as he had felt in that moment, he had not cried.

This time, his response was to smile in quiet confidence. He had cried and did not care if she knew it. Besides, he had found his own use for those words while unmaking the incident with Petrellovitz and remaking it with the other version of her. Now when he looked at Petrellovitz, he saw Mischkelovitz with tears in her eyes. Enough to fill an ocean.

"Keep on that computer," he told her, then summoned Landry and Larsson to go over their tactical objectives. "When I give the signal, Larsson, you take the package here."

"There's at least one battalion between here and there." Larsson traced his finger across the intended route.

"We'll take care of it," Lorca assured him.

Larsson frowned, knowing that could only mean a few things, and said, "Too bad Allan's not here. He'd call this 'living history.' Probably get a real kick out of it."

"Hm," was all Lorca said, smiling unreservedly at the fact Allan was never going to get a kick out of anything again. "You have your orders, let's move out. Petra—"

Lorca turned to the console where Petrellovitz was supposed to be and found it deserted. He scanned the crowd. "Where's Petra?"

Landry joined Lorca in this endeavor. "Has anyone seen Lieutenant Commander Petrellovitz!" she shouted.

Shrugs, confusion. No one had. Petrellovitz was gone.

Part 86

#Star Trek Discovery #Star Trek #fanfic #fanfiction #fan novel #What's Past Is Prologue #Mirror Gabriel Lorca #Mirror Universe #Mirror Ellen Landry #Captain Lorca

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