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FIC: the meteors these days are the size of corpses (Star Trek: DSC | Lorca/Cornwell | adult | 1/19)
Title: the meteors these days are the size of corpses
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Wordcount: 47,380
Rating: adult
Characters: Gabriel Lorca, Katrina Cornwell, L'Rell, misc ensemble
Pairing(s): Gabriel Lorca/Katrina Cornwell
Warning(s): I used "chooses not to warn" on AO3, because I feel like it's always more complicated than straight up rape/non-con where the mirrorverse is involved. Suffice to say, there are allusions to outright assault, and questions arise as to whether consent can be meaningful in some circumstances. Also a lot of people die, on page and off, and there's torture and slavery and problematic elements all over the place. Your fave is problematic: the mirror universe. But you probably knew that, right?
Notes: Originally posted to AO3 in 2018, so before season 2 of Discovery had dropped.
I meant it when I said slow burn, sorry. I think the shipping starts in earnest around maybe chapter 6? (I swear, I started this thinking it'd be an easy 5,000 words. 10,000 at most.) Vaguely compliant with Drastic Measures, but there's no need to have read it.
The Terran medical division uniforms being red instead of white is from an interview with Gersha Phillips, which honestly just put a mental image in my head that left me needing to write this; interrogators being part of medical is my own conceit, but whatever, it makes sense. Sort of. Just work with me here and remember this was a few years before "Terra Firma".
Title is from "There's a War Going on for your Mind" by the Flobots, because for some reason this fandom lends itself to long, pretentious titles. Beta'd by NonElvis, who it turns out was writing more or less the same plot but with different characters. We're friends because we're into the same things, right?
Summary: Trapped in the mirror universe, Gabriel Lorca makes a deal with the devil: if he works for Inquisitor Cornwell, she will find him a way home. The question is, what will he become in the meantime?
Chapter One
He didn't know where he was, or why he was being held. Or how long he had been a prisoner.
For the longest time, he couldn't remember how he came to be here, either. The memories returned out of order, and he slowly assembled them into a narrative that felt right. It wasn't as if he had much else to do.
One. Beaming back to the Buran from Priors World. Cutting it fine with an ion storm developing in the system, but Ava Maddox was the best transporter chief in the fleet, and while it was a bumpy ride, he'd landed sure enough in the Buran's transporter room.
That was the second memory: coming face to face with Ava, and finding her different. Hard. Out of uniform. And armed.
The ship rocked, and he wasn't sure if he'd managed to say, "Is that torpedo fire?" before she raised her weapon and shot him.
Three. Regaining consciousness. Head pounding. Stomach churning. He was somewhere else, maybe a shuttle, but the memory was little more than a brief impression of noise and sensation.
Four. Less a single memory, more like a series of moments. A long conversation with Kat Cornwell. No, more one-sided than that. He rambled, she listened. His recollection had a fuzzy haze, as if he'd been drunk, but she was sober, and frowning. Displeased with his answers.
And then he woke up here, this cell where the lights were always dimmed and the guards were little more than shapes in the shadows. Several times he was hooded and interrogated, and any resistance was met with a dispassionate beating. The rest of the time, he was ignored. Judging by the screams which often echoed through the facility, he was unusually lucky in that respect.
It was easy to lose track of time. He tried carving a tally into the wall of his cell, but that earned him another beating when it was discovered, and after that, they took to moving him around at random. Usually to identical cells; once, to a room which looked and smelled more like a hospital ward.
The weird thing was that, as far as he could tell, all the guards were human. Impossible to be sure, without seeing them, but the inflections, the body language, even the smell. It was all familiar.
It couldn't be a Starfleet facility. That memory of Kat, cold and disapproving, that was just something his mind had come up with to fill a gap. One day, he promised himself, he'd buy her a drink and tell her about it.
Not Starfleet. But human? If he had to guess, he'd say he was on a planet, not a starship or space station. The galaxy was dotted with breakaway colonies populated by humans who rejected Federation oversight of their affairs. Isolationist, often bigoted, pains in the ass for sure, but not usually hostile. At least, not to individual, human Starfleet officers.
Priors World was one such, and yeah, he'd been captured right after he spent a few days reminding the planetary government that they couldn't block non-human immigration and enjoy the privilege of Starfleet's protection from raiders. But those guys were just assholes; they needed to make a show of standing up to the Federation in order to appeal to their electors, but they ultimately depended on the status quo.
Extremists could exist anywhere, of course, but there weren't many on Priors World, and none of the reports he'd seen suggested they had the resources to capture and hold a Starfleet captain for a day, let alone … however much time had passed.
Enough time that he had a full beard and his hair was falling into his eyes. At that point, his captors trimmed both, roughly, and used a keratin inhibitor to stop it from growing back. Between that and the weight he'd lost, thanks to the not-quite-adequate food, he must have been damn near unrecognisable.
Maybe that was the point.
His crew wouldn't have let him rot here. Commander Shev would have led a rescue herself, if only for the pleasure of being the first to give him shit about being captured.
If they were alive, they would have come.
They hadn't come.
Therefore...
Another day, another tasteless ration bar. Push-ups until he was shaking, which barely took any time at all. Then he heaved himself back onto his thin cot to pass a few hours staring at the ceiling and planning improbable escapes, when the force field was deactivated and the guards entered his cell.
Four of them. All armed. They cuffed his wrists and ankles before he even had a chance to think about grabbing a weapon, but this time they didn't bother putting a hood over his head.
That was ... either very bad, or really good.
The facility's corridors had no distinguishing features save for the screams of his fellow prisoners and the smell of antiseptic. They marched him into an elevator, which ascended and opened onto a wider corridor, still blank, but less utilitarian.
Through an automatic double door, and into a large office. The enormous window was shuttered, and the overhead light was no brighter than that of his cell, but lamps in each corner added a soft glow to an otherwise unremarkable office. The room held a wide desk, at which sat a human male in his early forties, his attention focused on whoever sat in the chair opposite.
The man dismissed the guards with a nod and said, "Inquisitor. Captain Lorca, as requested."
A familiar voice said, "As ordered."
The chair rotated, and there was Kat Cornwell, rising to her feet, studying Gabriel with a frown on her face.
"Admiral," he breathed, though she wasn't in uniform. Or, rather, she was wearing some kind of variant: dark red, with a gold breastplate and matching gauntlets and shoulder guards, with a phaser at her thigh and a knife at one hip, a hypospray at the other. It looked like a costume, but she seemed deadly serious. "Kat--"
"Quiet," she snapped, and to the man behind the desk, she said, "Dr Adams, I gave very clear orders. I wanted Lorca unharmed."
Okay. Some kind of undercover operation. Human supremacists, maybe some kind of tinpot dictatorship. That would explain the gaudy parody of a Starfleet uniform. Unusual to send a flag officer to rescue a captain; he'd owe Kat more than a drink when they got out. In the meantime, he kept his mouth shut.
The man -- Dr Adams -- raised his eyebrows.
"Are you unhappy with his condition, Inquisitor?"
Kat circled Gabriel. Assessing him. Her eyes were flat and hard.
"Malnourished," she said, "out of condition -- God only knows what kind of psychological damage you've inflicted."
Adams was beginning to sweat.
"Inquisitor," he said, "this facility--"
"Answers to me."
Kat nodded at someone behind Gabriel, and two hands closed over his shoulders. Large, grey, clawed. Klingon…? he wondered, but Kat was moving, and a primitive instinct was telling him that she was the predator he needed to watch.
She pinned Adams behind his desk, throwing him back into his chair. A hypospray appeared in her hand, and Adams cried, "No!" as she injected him.
His face went blank, his pupils pinpricks.
"Kat," Gabriel said. "What's--"
"Shut up," she said, "or I'll sedate you, too."
He obeyed.
Kat -- Cornwell -- the inquisitor -- flicked a switch on the comm unit.
"Have Dr Van Gelder sent to me," she said.
A middle-aged man -- human, of course -- arrived just moments later.
"Inquisitor," he said, offering a pseudo-Roman salute.
Who are these people, he wondered.
"I've demoted Dr Adams," said the inquisitor. "Congratulations, Dr Van Gelder, the Tantalus Prison Hospital is yours."
Dr Van Gelder bowed.
"And Dr Adams?" he asked.
Drool was running down Adams' chin. He didn't seem to notice or care.
"Can assist you with your research."
"Thank you, Inquisitor. He'll make an interesting subject."
He summoned two guards -- or orderlies -- who hauled the catatonic Adams away. No one looked at Gabriel. Or the Klingon.
When they were gone, the door closed behind them, Gabriel said, "Katrina. Admiral. How long--"
"L'Rell, transfer him to secure quarters on the Acheron. Get him fed and cleaned up. I'll join you as soon as I've dealt with the handover of power here."
"Inquisitor." The Klingon had a low voice, and her grip on his shoulders tightened. "You. Come."
There was no USS Acheron that he could recall, but the ship felt Starfleet. And old, despite the modern fixtures. The Klingon -- L'Rell -- had him beamed directly to guest quarters. As soon as the transporter released them, she let go of him and stepped back.
"Do you wish to eat or bathe first?" she asked.
He'd had a ration bar only a couple of hours ago, but it was months since he'd showered, and he was suddenly aware of his own grime. The bathroom was considerably larger than those on the Buran, complete with a tub. He settled for a shower, hot enough to make him dizzy.
L'Rell apparently intended to wash him herself, and seemed surprised when he declined, though she withdrew without argument.
He let her cut his hair, though, which she did with a practised assurance. That done, and his beard trimmed -- he did that himself -- Gabriel looked in the mirror and examined his reflection. Thinner than he remembered, with grey hair at his temples and in his beard, deep lines around his eyes and mouth. But alive. Whole. More or less.
L'Rell gave him clean clothes, black T-shirt and pants and soft shoes, no rank or insignia, and led him out to the living area.
"Eat," she said, and put a bowl in front of him.
It was plain food: rice, vegetables, some sort of mild fish, but the flavours and textures almost overwhelmed him. He tried to eat slowly, but found himself hunched over the bowl, pausing only to drink the water L'Rell provided.
The bowl was half empty, and he was beginning to feel capable of proper thought again, when Kat returned.
Or not-Kat. Difficult to reconcile the familiar face with the unfamiliar expression -- contempt? Malice? If this was some kind of deep cover mission, she was a better actress than he'd ever realised.
She joined him at the table. Cautious, he straightened up, pushed the bowl away. Not-Kat shook her head.
"You need to eat," she said.
He reclaimed his food, but kept half an eye on her as he ate and she spoke.
Leaning forward, elbows on the table, hands interlaced before her, she said, "Are you familiar with the theory of parallel universes?"
He swallowed and said, "Vaguely. It's science fiction. There's no proof."
She smiled. It didn't meet her eyes. "Wrong. We have proof that at least two exist. Yours, and mine. Mirror images, if you like."
He studied her. Unfamiliar insignia, worn on the wrong side. Unfamiliar medals. That red uniform. Gauntlets, for Christ's sake.
A small, fine scar ran from her upper lip to her nose. Almost invisible, unless you were close. But he'd been close to Kat many times, and this mark was new to him. But not fresh.
"Go on," he said.
"You tried to beam to your ship in the middle of an ion storm, and crossed over to our side instead. I assume your counterpart landed on your ship. No great loss, except that, unfortunately for you, our Lorca was a traitor. And now he's the most wanted man in the Terran Empire."
He couldn't help it. He laughed.
"'Terran Empire'," he said.
"You're a long way from home, Captain Lorca."
"Okay. Fine." He scraped his bowl clean and pushed it away. "So what did he do? Your Lorca?"
"He led a coup against the emperor."
"Huh."
"The emperor destroyed the Buran with all hands. Except you." Cornwell tilted her head. "Two of Captain Lorca's followers got cold feet. They betrayed him at the last minute. Had him brought to me. Except, of course, they didn't."
"You interrogated me," he said. "I remember."
"Do you? Interesting." She reached for a PADD and made a note.
"What happened to my crew?"
"Dead or imprisoned."
He swallowed.
"The two who brought you to me were rewarded with execution by transporter." At his blank look, she added, "They were beamed into space."
"You call that a reward?"
"A quick death, and no torture. They were traitors, even if they changed their minds at the last minute."
Poor Ava. Or -- he remembered the fierce look in her eyes as she shot him, hatred and fury and pain -- a stranger with his officer's face. Dead nonetheless.
"Why'd they bring me to you?" he asked. "Why not the ... emperor?" he asked. It was the damnedest story, but it held together. And maybe he was just grateful to hear someone else's voice, after all the time alone. "Who are you in this 'Empire'?"
"Chief Imperial Inquisitor. Master of spies. Lorca was the emperor's right hand. I'm her left."
"Mm." He leaned back, assessing her. "Katrina Cornwell. Kat."
"Kate."
"Kate, then. Psychiatrist?"
"Of course."
"Admiral?"
She laughed, revealing a slight overbite, so familiar it hurt. "I wouldn't lower myself," she said.
"Right." He drummed his fingertips on the table. "I take it you weren't part of the coup?"
"My first loyalty is to the Empire. I might have supported Lorca, if I thought his regime would be an improvement."
"I'll try not to take that personally."
"You shouldn't. If you were our Lorca, I'd have interrogated him until he was a drooling vegetable, then turned him over to the emperor for a slow death." She held out a hand to L'Rell, who placed an empty glass in it. "You got lucky."
He let her refill his glass and watched as she poured her own. His stomach ached, and he wasn't sure if it was the food, or the lingering sense that he was locked in a room with a predator.
Two predators. He nodded at L'Rell and said, "And your buddy here?"
"My personal bodyguard."
The Klingon shifted. "Your slave, Inquisitor."
He flinched. The water spilled.
Voice measured, the inquisitor said, "We do not subscribe to the Federation principles of equality, democracy, mediocrity. We are Terrans. We take what's ours without apology."
Gabriel swallowed. She looked like Kat, sounded like her, smiled like her, but she was a dangerous stranger. And for all that he was clean and fed now, she was also the captor who had held him in that facility for--
"How long have I been here?" he asked.
"Almost eight months. It's the 14th of January, 2256."
"Jesus Christ." And he wasn't free yet. Just a different kind of prisoner. "Why? Why keep me alive?"
"Gabriel," she said, "you're a valuable resource in any universe. Why would I waste that?"
He had no answer. His mouth was dry, but his stomach was churning, and he didn't want to drink.
"The emperor wouldn't care who you are, or where you're from. Your head on a pike -- metaphorically speaking, we're not barbarians -- is just the sort of propaganda victory she needs. I have other priorities."
"Such as?"
"Your counterpart still has loyalists. An agent with your face is an opportunity I can't pass up."
Now he really did feel sick.
"You want me to work for your regime."
"Is your schedule full right now?" She leaned forward. "The question you should ask is, what's in it for you?"
"Okay. What's in it for me?"
"I have considerable resources at my disposal. Work for me, and I'll find you a way home."
He stared at his hands. He could guess where this was going. Starfleet protocol in this situation would be to do whatever it took to survive and get home, and bring all the intelligence he could gather on this universe with him.
And yet. These people practised torture. Slavery. God knew what else.
"And if I don't?" he asked.
The inquisitor opened her hands, as if releasing him. "Interrogation and a slow death on the imperial flagship."
He exhaled slowly, considering.
"Then I guess I'm yours," he said.
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery
Wordcount: 47,380
Rating: adult
Characters: Gabriel Lorca, Katrina Cornwell, L'Rell, misc ensemble
Pairing(s): Gabriel Lorca/Katrina Cornwell
Warning(s): I used "chooses not to warn" on AO3, because I feel like it's always more complicated than straight up rape/non-con where the mirrorverse is involved. Suffice to say, there are allusions to outright assault, and questions arise as to whether consent can be meaningful in some circumstances. Also a lot of people die, on page and off, and there's torture and slavery and problematic elements all over the place. Your fave is problematic: the mirror universe. But you probably knew that, right?
Notes: Originally posted to AO3 in 2018, so before season 2 of Discovery had dropped.
I meant it when I said slow burn, sorry. I think the shipping starts in earnest around maybe chapter 6? (I swear, I started this thinking it'd be an easy 5,000 words. 10,000 at most.) Vaguely compliant with Drastic Measures, but there's no need to have read it.
The Terran medical division uniforms being red instead of white is from an interview with Gersha Phillips, which honestly just put a mental image in my head that left me needing to write this; interrogators being part of medical is my own conceit, but whatever, it makes sense. Sort of. Just work with me here and remember this was a few years before "Terra Firma".
Title is from "There's a War Going on for your Mind" by the Flobots, because for some reason this fandom lends itself to long, pretentious titles. Beta'd by NonElvis, who it turns out was writing more or less the same plot but with different characters. We're friends because we're into the same things, right?
Summary: Trapped in the mirror universe, Gabriel Lorca makes a deal with the devil: if he works for Inquisitor Cornwell, she will find him a way home. The question is, what will he become in the meantime?
Chapter One
He didn't know where he was, or why he was being held. Or how long he had been a prisoner.
For the longest time, he couldn't remember how he came to be here, either. The memories returned out of order, and he slowly assembled them into a narrative that felt right. It wasn't as if he had much else to do.
One. Beaming back to the Buran from Priors World. Cutting it fine with an ion storm developing in the system, but Ava Maddox was the best transporter chief in the fleet, and while it was a bumpy ride, he'd landed sure enough in the Buran's transporter room.
That was the second memory: coming face to face with Ava, and finding her different. Hard. Out of uniform. And armed.
The ship rocked, and he wasn't sure if he'd managed to say, "Is that torpedo fire?" before she raised her weapon and shot him.
Three. Regaining consciousness. Head pounding. Stomach churning. He was somewhere else, maybe a shuttle, but the memory was little more than a brief impression of noise and sensation.
Four. Less a single memory, more like a series of moments. A long conversation with Kat Cornwell. No, more one-sided than that. He rambled, she listened. His recollection had a fuzzy haze, as if he'd been drunk, but she was sober, and frowning. Displeased with his answers.
And then he woke up here, this cell where the lights were always dimmed and the guards were little more than shapes in the shadows. Several times he was hooded and interrogated, and any resistance was met with a dispassionate beating. The rest of the time, he was ignored. Judging by the screams which often echoed through the facility, he was unusually lucky in that respect.
It was easy to lose track of time. He tried carving a tally into the wall of his cell, but that earned him another beating when it was discovered, and after that, they took to moving him around at random. Usually to identical cells; once, to a room which looked and smelled more like a hospital ward.
The weird thing was that, as far as he could tell, all the guards were human. Impossible to be sure, without seeing them, but the inflections, the body language, even the smell. It was all familiar.
It couldn't be a Starfleet facility. That memory of Kat, cold and disapproving, that was just something his mind had come up with to fill a gap. One day, he promised himself, he'd buy her a drink and tell her about it.
Not Starfleet. But human? If he had to guess, he'd say he was on a planet, not a starship or space station. The galaxy was dotted with breakaway colonies populated by humans who rejected Federation oversight of their affairs. Isolationist, often bigoted, pains in the ass for sure, but not usually hostile. At least, not to individual, human Starfleet officers.
Priors World was one such, and yeah, he'd been captured right after he spent a few days reminding the planetary government that they couldn't block non-human immigration and enjoy the privilege of Starfleet's protection from raiders. But those guys were just assholes; they needed to make a show of standing up to the Federation in order to appeal to their electors, but they ultimately depended on the status quo.
Extremists could exist anywhere, of course, but there weren't many on Priors World, and none of the reports he'd seen suggested they had the resources to capture and hold a Starfleet captain for a day, let alone … however much time had passed.
Enough time that he had a full beard and his hair was falling into his eyes. At that point, his captors trimmed both, roughly, and used a keratin inhibitor to stop it from growing back. Between that and the weight he'd lost, thanks to the not-quite-adequate food, he must have been damn near unrecognisable.
Maybe that was the point.
His crew wouldn't have let him rot here. Commander Shev would have led a rescue herself, if only for the pleasure of being the first to give him shit about being captured.
If they were alive, they would have come.
They hadn't come.
Therefore...
Another day, another tasteless ration bar. Push-ups until he was shaking, which barely took any time at all. Then he heaved himself back onto his thin cot to pass a few hours staring at the ceiling and planning improbable escapes, when the force field was deactivated and the guards entered his cell.
Four of them. All armed. They cuffed his wrists and ankles before he even had a chance to think about grabbing a weapon, but this time they didn't bother putting a hood over his head.
That was ... either very bad, or really good.
The facility's corridors had no distinguishing features save for the screams of his fellow prisoners and the smell of antiseptic. They marched him into an elevator, which ascended and opened onto a wider corridor, still blank, but less utilitarian.
Through an automatic double door, and into a large office. The enormous window was shuttered, and the overhead light was no brighter than that of his cell, but lamps in each corner added a soft glow to an otherwise unremarkable office. The room held a wide desk, at which sat a human male in his early forties, his attention focused on whoever sat in the chair opposite.
The man dismissed the guards with a nod and said, "Inquisitor. Captain Lorca, as requested."
A familiar voice said, "As ordered."
The chair rotated, and there was Kat Cornwell, rising to her feet, studying Gabriel with a frown on her face.
"Admiral," he breathed, though she wasn't in uniform. Or, rather, she was wearing some kind of variant: dark red, with a gold breastplate and matching gauntlets and shoulder guards, with a phaser at her thigh and a knife at one hip, a hypospray at the other. It looked like a costume, but she seemed deadly serious. "Kat--"
"Quiet," she snapped, and to the man behind the desk, she said, "Dr Adams, I gave very clear orders. I wanted Lorca unharmed."
Okay. Some kind of undercover operation. Human supremacists, maybe some kind of tinpot dictatorship. That would explain the gaudy parody of a Starfleet uniform. Unusual to send a flag officer to rescue a captain; he'd owe Kat more than a drink when they got out. In the meantime, he kept his mouth shut.
The man -- Dr Adams -- raised his eyebrows.
"Are you unhappy with his condition, Inquisitor?"
Kat circled Gabriel. Assessing him. Her eyes were flat and hard.
"Malnourished," she said, "out of condition -- God only knows what kind of psychological damage you've inflicted."
Adams was beginning to sweat.
"Inquisitor," he said, "this facility--"
"Answers to me."
Kat nodded at someone behind Gabriel, and two hands closed over his shoulders. Large, grey, clawed. Klingon…? he wondered, but Kat was moving, and a primitive instinct was telling him that she was the predator he needed to watch.
She pinned Adams behind his desk, throwing him back into his chair. A hypospray appeared in her hand, and Adams cried, "No!" as she injected him.
His face went blank, his pupils pinpricks.
"Kat," Gabriel said. "What's--"
"Shut up," she said, "or I'll sedate you, too."
He obeyed.
Kat -- Cornwell -- the inquisitor -- flicked a switch on the comm unit.
"Have Dr Van Gelder sent to me," she said.
A middle-aged man -- human, of course -- arrived just moments later.
"Inquisitor," he said, offering a pseudo-Roman salute.
Who are these people, he wondered.
"I've demoted Dr Adams," said the inquisitor. "Congratulations, Dr Van Gelder, the Tantalus Prison Hospital is yours."
Dr Van Gelder bowed.
"And Dr Adams?" he asked.
Drool was running down Adams' chin. He didn't seem to notice or care.
"Can assist you with your research."
"Thank you, Inquisitor. He'll make an interesting subject."
He summoned two guards -- or orderlies -- who hauled the catatonic Adams away. No one looked at Gabriel. Or the Klingon.
When they were gone, the door closed behind them, Gabriel said, "Katrina. Admiral. How long--"
"L'Rell, transfer him to secure quarters on the Acheron. Get him fed and cleaned up. I'll join you as soon as I've dealt with the handover of power here."
"Inquisitor." The Klingon had a low voice, and her grip on his shoulders tightened. "You. Come."
There was no USS Acheron that he could recall, but the ship felt Starfleet. And old, despite the modern fixtures. The Klingon -- L'Rell -- had him beamed directly to guest quarters. As soon as the transporter released them, she let go of him and stepped back.
"Do you wish to eat or bathe first?" she asked.
He'd had a ration bar only a couple of hours ago, but it was months since he'd showered, and he was suddenly aware of his own grime. The bathroom was considerably larger than those on the Buran, complete with a tub. He settled for a shower, hot enough to make him dizzy.
L'Rell apparently intended to wash him herself, and seemed surprised when he declined, though she withdrew without argument.
He let her cut his hair, though, which she did with a practised assurance. That done, and his beard trimmed -- he did that himself -- Gabriel looked in the mirror and examined his reflection. Thinner than he remembered, with grey hair at his temples and in his beard, deep lines around his eyes and mouth. But alive. Whole. More or less.
L'Rell gave him clean clothes, black T-shirt and pants and soft shoes, no rank or insignia, and led him out to the living area.
"Eat," she said, and put a bowl in front of him.
It was plain food: rice, vegetables, some sort of mild fish, but the flavours and textures almost overwhelmed him. He tried to eat slowly, but found himself hunched over the bowl, pausing only to drink the water L'Rell provided.
The bowl was half empty, and he was beginning to feel capable of proper thought again, when Kat returned.
Or not-Kat. Difficult to reconcile the familiar face with the unfamiliar expression -- contempt? Malice? If this was some kind of deep cover mission, she was a better actress than he'd ever realised.
She joined him at the table. Cautious, he straightened up, pushed the bowl away. Not-Kat shook her head.
"You need to eat," she said.
He reclaimed his food, but kept half an eye on her as he ate and she spoke.
Leaning forward, elbows on the table, hands interlaced before her, she said, "Are you familiar with the theory of parallel universes?"
He swallowed and said, "Vaguely. It's science fiction. There's no proof."
She smiled. It didn't meet her eyes. "Wrong. We have proof that at least two exist. Yours, and mine. Mirror images, if you like."
He studied her. Unfamiliar insignia, worn on the wrong side. Unfamiliar medals. That red uniform. Gauntlets, for Christ's sake.
A small, fine scar ran from her upper lip to her nose. Almost invisible, unless you were close. But he'd been close to Kat many times, and this mark was new to him. But not fresh.
"Go on," he said.
"You tried to beam to your ship in the middle of an ion storm, and crossed over to our side instead. I assume your counterpart landed on your ship. No great loss, except that, unfortunately for you, our Lorca was a traitor. And now he's the most wanted man in the Terran Empire."
He couldn't help it. He laughed.
"'Terran Empire'," he said.
"You're a long way from home, Captain Lorca."
"Okay. Fine." He scraped his bowl clean and pushed it away. "So what did he do? Your Lorca?"
"He led a coup against the emperor."
"Huh."
"The emperor destroyed the Buran with all hands. Except you." Cornwell tilted her head. "Two of Captain Lorca's followers got cold feet. They betrayed him at the last minute. Had him brought to me. Except, of course, they didn't."
"You interrogated me," he said. "I remember."
"Do you? Interesting." She reached for a PADD and made a note.
"What happened to my crew?"
"Dead or imprisoned."
He swallowed.
"The two who brought you to me were rewarded with execution by transporter." At his blank look, she added, "They were beamed into space."
"You call that a reward?"
"A quick death, and no torture. They were traitors, even if they changed their minds at the last minute."
Poor Ava. Or -- he remembered the fierce look in her eyes as she shot him, hatred and fury and pain -- a stranger with his officer's face. Dead nonetheless.
"Why'd they bring me to you?" he asked. "Why not the ... emperor?" he asked. It was the damnedest story, but it held together. And maybe he was just grateful to hear someone else's voice, after all the time alone. "Who are you in this 'Empire'?"
"Chief Imperial Inquisitor. Master of spies. Lorca was the emperor's right hand. I'm her left."
"Mm." He leaned back, assessing her. "Katrina Cornwell. Kat."
"Kate."
"Kate, then. Psychiatrist?"
"Of course."
"Admiral?"
She laughed, revealing a slight overbite, so familiar it hurt. "I wouldn't lower myself," she said.
"Right." He drummed his fingertips on the table. "I take it you weren't part of the coup?"
"My first loyalty is to the Empire. I might have supported Lorca, if I thought his regime would be an improvement."
"I'll try not to take that personally."
"You shouldn't. If you were our Lorca, I'd have interrogated him until he was a drooling vegetable, then turned him over to the emperor for a slow death." She held out a hand to L'Rell, who placed an empty glass in it. "You got lucky."
He let her refill his glass and watched as she poured her own. His stomach ached, and he wasn't sure if it was the food, or the lingering sense that he was locked in a room with a predator.
Two predators. He nodded at L'Rell and said, "And your buddy here?"
"My personal bodyguard."
The Klingon shifted. "Your slave, Inquisitor."
He flinched. The water spilled.
Voice measured, the inquisitor said, "We do not subscribe to the Federation principles of equality, democracy, mediocrity. We are Terrans. We take what's ours without apology."
Gabriel swallowed. She looked like Kat, sounded like her, smiled like her, but she was a dangerous stranger. And for all that he was clean and fed now, she was also the captor who had held him in that facility for--
"How long have I been here?" he asked.
"Almost eight months. It's the 14th of January, 2256."
"Jesus Christ." And he wasn't free yet. Just a different kind of prisoner. "Why? Why keep me alive?"
"Gabriel," she said, "you're a valuable resource in any universe. Why would I waste that?"
He had no answer. His mouth was dry, but his stomach was churning, and he didn't want to drink.
"The emperor wouldn't care who you are, or where you're from. Your head on a pike -- metaphorically speaking, we're not barbarians -- is just the sort of propaganda victory she needs. I have other priorities."
"Such as?"
"Your counterpart still has loyalists. An agent with your face is an opportunity I can't pass up."
Now he really did feel sick.
"You want me to work for your regime."
"Is your schedule full right now?" She leaned forward. "The question you should ask is, what's in it for you?"
"Okay. What's in it for me?"
"I have considerable resources at my disposal. Work for me, and I'll find you a way home."
He stared at his hands. He could guess where this was going. Starfleet protocol in this situation would be to do whatever it took to survive and get home, and bring all the intelligence he could gather on this universe with him.
And yet. These people practised torture. Slavery. God knew what else.
"And if I don't?" he asked.
The inquisitor opened her hands, as if releasing him. "Interrogation and a slow death on the imperial flagship."
He exhaled slowly, considering.
"Then I guess I'm yours," he said.