No other human could have survived such an all-out attack.
But Jean-Luc Picard's greatest chief of security had been Klingon. And Picard had not wasted the opportunity to learn unarmed combat from one of the galaxy's most renowned masters of the art.
Thus Picard was not foolish enough to evade the charge— an action that would have made him instantly vulnerable. Instead, he swept his arm out to deflect the hand holding the three-bladed knife, locked his own hand around the Klingon's forearm, and pulled his attacker forward faster than the Klingon had planned.
Adeptly as a matador, Picard sidestepped as the Klingon lurched past him, arms outstretched, off balance, bellowing, his body propelled straight for the target Picard had selected.
The forcefield of detention cell four.
Because not only did the forcefield act to keep prisoners in, it acted to keep all else out.
As the Klingon hit the wall of energy, his nervous system short-circuited, and his cry of outrage was cut off, instantly. Amplified and rechanneled back into him, the inertial force of his impact threw him back in the opposite direction as if he had connected with a wall of hard rubber.
Sliding along the deck on his back, the Klingon warrior skidded to a stop at Picard's feet, unconscious.
But Picard had no time to savor his victory. If anyone on this ship's bridge was monitoring transporter use, he knew he had only moments before new guards arrived. He moved swiftly to the forcefield controls on the bulkhead beside cell four and input a standard override command. The field winked out.
At once, Riker and eight other members of the Enterprise crew charged out of the cell. Riker immediately directed some to the other detention cells to shut off those forcefields, as well, releasing all remaining crew members who had been held captive.
"Collect the Klingons' weapons," Picard instructed his crew, "then block the doors. And find anything that might be a communicator so we can listen in on their transmissions."
Next Picard went back to Neelix and turned the small alien over, relieved and surprised to see that he was still breathing. Guessing that Talaxians must have natural immunity to Klingon disruptors, Picard waved over one of Dr. Crusher's nurses who was among the freed prisoners. Using a first-aid medkit he had taken from the brig's storage locker, the nurse began to treat Neelix.
Then a deep, guttural moaning turned Picard's attention to the Klingon who had been shot by his partner. He, too, was still alive.
This time, Picard called to Riker for help and together they tied and gagged the two Klingons and dragged them into a cell. "Why would Klingons have their disruptors set on stun?" Riker asked. As unlikely as it seemed, it was the only explanation for both shooting victims remaining alive.
"These aren't the same type of Klingons we're familiar with," Picard said.
Riker looked at his captain expectantly.
"This isn't the Voyager, Will. It's a duplicate, built in the quantum reality Starfleet calls the mirror universe."
Riker's mouth opened in surprise. "The one Kirk crossed into?"
Picard checked the gags on the two unconscious Klingons. "And the one Dr. Bashir and that Bajoran officer encountered just a few years ago."
"What are they doing here? And why build a Voyager?" Riker asked.
"Bait," Picard said, stepping out of the cell to reactivate the forcefield. He saw that the crew members who had been held in the brig had gathered together, awaiting orders. Commander Sloane and Lieutenant Stran, a young Vulcan scientist from Geology, stood to either side of the brig's main entrance doors, each with a Klingon disruptor in hand. Picard was pleased with his crew's initiative. Out of habit, born of too many dangerous away missions before he was a captain, he began a head count.
"But if they have the capability to build a Voyager, why not build their own Enterprise, too?" Riker asked.
Picard didn't answer. Frowning, he scanned the group assembled in the brig again. The computer had said that thirty-four members of the Enterprise crew were being held here. Picard counted all thirty-four standing before him.
And Riker made thirty-five.
"Captain?" Riker prompted.
"Is Deanna here?" Picard asked.
"I don't know where she is, sir."
Picard sensed the concern in his first officer. "I do know she is on this ship, Will, and she is all right, along with five hundred and seventy-five others from the crew. I obtained a report from the computer." Picard moved closer to Riker, angling so that the other crew members wouldn't be able to see or hear what he said next. "Someone in this room is an impostor. A mirror-universe counterpart. Someone who will look identical to a crew member we all know."
Picard watched Riker's reaction carefully, knowing full well that he might be the counterpart.
"That's why you wanted Deanna," Riker said. "She'd be able to sense the evasion in the impostor."
"In her absence, I'm open to suggestions," Picard said.
"You're sure there's only one impostor?"
"Unless someone else joined you in the past five minutes," Picard said.
"Only the Klingons, which makes it simple," Riker said. "We just have to find out which of the people in here arrived on his or her own."
That had been Picard's first strategy as well. But it didn't hold up. "Do you remember how you got here?" Picard asked.
He could see that Riker immediately grasped the dilemma. All those who were unconscious when they were brought on board this Voyager would be unable to recall exactly when or how any other crew member might have been added to the brig's detention cells.
But then Riker seemed to have a flash of inspiration. "This happened to Worf. When he went through that quantum fissure. What was it, five years ago?"
Picard saw the parallels, though not the exact application to what they faced now. "But Worf experienced an entire spectrum of alternate histories. Something on the order of two hundred and eighty-five thousand of them, I believe."
"Exactly," Riker said. "But each one of them had a unique quantum signature. That was how Worf managed to return to this reality."
Now Picard understood Riker's solution. "Of course. Everyone from the mirror universe will have a quantum signature unique to that reality, which we will be able to identify as different from our own."
"All we need is a tricorder."
Picard looked around the brig for a storage locker or—
"Over there," Picard said.
He and Riker immediately went to the replicator in the brig's far bulkhead. The main selection screen was set for food, and Picard was relieved to see that all the general settings were for standard Starfleet rations. The Klingons and Cardassians either had not bothered to reprogram the replicator system, or were unaware of how it functioned.
Picard entered his Emergency Fleet Access Code, then called up an equipment list, scrolling through it to see which models of tricorders were available.
"Was that a Fleet Access Code?" Riker asked.
"I believe the Alliance is unaware of many of the features of this ship," Picard said. "Gul Rutal never established herself as the commander, so the computer is prepared to accept me if Starfleet approves." He saw that the replicator banks contained the specs for a Type Ten tricorder and he ordered one.
Riker grinned. "I'd like to see the expression on the face of the communications officer who gets a message from Voyager asking for confirmation of your orders."
"With luck, Starfleet will know we're out here within the next hour," Picard said. On the replicator screen, a resourceconservation alert reminded him that eighty-five tricorders were already available in ship's stores, but Picard entered an override command.
With a flash of golden energy, the small tricorder appeared in the replicator receiving bay a few moments later. Picard handed it to Riker.
Riker flipped it open, switched it on, then paused. "Jean-Luc, does this strike you as being a bit too easy?"
Picard had wondered that himself, but had come up with an alter
native explanation. "Counting their human slaves, there are ninety-nine Alliance crew on board to handle almost six hundred of us. The key Alliance command staff are on the Enterprise, and since no one has responded to my site-to-site transport, I can only conclude that the Alliance can't handle this ship."
"Let's hope you're right," Riker said. "Can you get that to produce phasers?"
Picard tried, but the screen display stated that his Fleet Access Code would not allow him to replicate weaponry until confirmation of his orders had been received. "Not yet," Picard said. "But let's see how I do with comm badges." He set the replicator to produce enough comm badges to replace the ones that had been removed from his crew's uniforms. They began to materialize in sets of six.
"Is the tricorder calibrated for quantum signatures?" Picard asked.
Riker pressed a final control, then nodded.
"Use it while you hand out the comm badges."
Riker took a handful of comm badges to the crew members waiting in the center of the brig. Picard glanced at the doors, saw they were still guarded by Sloane and Stran, then went to the security station. There was a small desk there, with brig controls, a computer screen, and a communications console.
Picard remained standing, in case he had to move quickly, and logged on to the computer system. After entering his access code again, he asked the computer to list all the security systems currently in operation.
The screen displayed a short list of visual-sensor monitors, including the ones in sickbay and this brig. All were running on automatic. None were under live observation.
Picard didn't understand it. It was as if this ship were being run by cadets.
Riker came back to Picard, leaned over to read the screen. "Ensign Margaret Clark," he whispered.
Picard didn't look up. He knew the ensign, fair skin, dark hair, almost human, one of her grandparents a Vulcan, he recalled. She had been assigned to the Enterprise only three months ago. For a moment, he wondered how the Alliance had obtained their information about the ship's crew, how they knew that they could use Ensign Clark's counterpart to infiltrate the prisoners. That implied a certain level of sophistication that was missing from the way they ran this ship.
"How do you want me to handle it?" Riker asked.
Picard fixed Riker with a steady gaze. "How did you handle it when the Pegasus was lost?"
Riker blinked in momentary confusion. Then he frowned. "You want to know if I'm the counterpart."
"How did the warp-core breach happen, Will?" Picard waited, ready to drive his fist into William Riker's jaw if he had to. The Pegasus had been one of Riker's first assignments after graduating from the Academy. Seventeen years ago, the records stated, the experimental ship had exploded after the crew mutinied against Captain Erik Pressman. Pressman and Ensign Riker were among the nine survivors of the disaster. And only those nine knew what the records didn't show— what had really happened to their ship.
"There was no warp-core breach. The Pegasus was trapped in an asteroid. Pressman was conducting a test of a cloaking device, in violation of the Treaty of Algeron, and the crew mutinied."
"That much is in Pressman's court-martial records," Picard said. "Tell me something that was withheld. The rank of the Romulan spy we captured when we found the Pegasus."
"We didn't capture any spies, Romulan or otherwise."
Picard smiled, mostly in relief. "Is there anything you'd like to ask me?"
"No," Riker said. "You were the first person I scanned with the tricorder."
Picard appreciated Riker's caution. "Clark's counterpart is a slave in her reality. We might be able to get her to work with us just as Neelix is."
"Neelix?"
Picard pointed over to where Neelix was still being treated by the nurse. The Talaxian remained unconscious. "But get a tranquilizer from the medkit. Just in case."
Riker went over to the nurse. After Picard had seen his executive officer receive a hypospray, he called out for his crew's attention. "We are in a critical situation," he told them. "But by no means a desperate one. The Cardassians and the Klingons who have captured us, and the Enterprise, are not from our universe. They are counterparts from what Starfleet has called the mirror universe."
Picard waited as murmured comments were passed back and forth. He used the moment to move closer to the knot of people standing next to Ensign Clark. Riker was approaching her from behind.
"Right now, almost half the crew of the Enterprise is being held on this ship, which is a duplicate of the Voyager, not the Voyager herself. The good news is that we outnumber our captors by almost six to one. The better news is that our captors are not fully aware of all the capabilities of this ship—capabilities which we can use to our advantage."
Now Riker was within arm's reach of Clark. Like the other, real members of the crew, she listened carefully to every word Picard said.
"However, we do face a unique challenge in dealing with these mirror counterparts. If you have kept up with Starfieet's situation reports, you will recall that many of us will have a counterpart in the mirror universe. A duplicate. Someone so perfectly identical that we will be at high risk of infiltration." Picard paused again while his crew exchanged suspicious glances with their neighbors. Except for Ensign Clark. She kept her eyes on Picard.
"However," Picard continued, "once again, we do have an advantage. In the mirror universe, humans are slaves. We can offer those humans who are on this ship, and on the Enterprise, their freedom. Consider this: We are deep within Federation territory; Starfleet is being apprised of our situation right now . . ." Picard paused as he saw clark's eyes give away her surprise at what he had said. ". . . so there is no possible way that the Alliance of Klingons and Cardassians can succeed in their attempt to hijack our ship. Thus, I offer freedom, support, and a new life to any human from the mirror universe who wishes to help us."
Picard looked over his crew, then stopped on Clark. "Ensign Clark," Picard said kindly, "isn't that preferable to serving the Alliance?"
The ensign stiffened, as if she didn't understand why Picard was directing his comments to her.
Picard held out his hand to her. "Will you join us, Ensign?"
Clark frowned. "You think that I'm one of them?"
"We don't think. We know."
The ensign looked around nervously, obviously alarmed by the way everyone else in the brig was staring at her. Then she saw Riker standing behind her. She turned to run—but where she thought she might go, Picard had no idea.
Before she had completed a single step, Riker had grabbed her arm. Four other crew immobilized her.
"No!" she exclaimed.
Riker held up the hypospray, ready to tranquilize her. But Picard shook his head.
"You have no reason to fear us," Picard said. He didn't understand the captured counterpart's panic. Until she spoke.
"They'll kill my family!"
Now he had perfect understanding. And, perhaps, he could find a way to help. "Where are they?"
The woman's shoulders shook as her fear became manifest. "With the ... with the hostages. . . ."
"What hostages?"
"The c-counterparts," Clark said, losing control of her words. "People like me, with a duplicate in your universe. They use us."
"For what?"
Clark stared at him as if she couldn't believe the question. "For this. To infiltrate you. To be spies for the Alliance."
Now Picard was growing alarmed. "How many of you are there?"
More confusion on dark's features. "Where? On the Enterprise? In Starfleet?"
Picard saw his alarm mirrored in Riker. Could it be true that Starfleet itself had been compromised by mirror counterparts? "Let's start with the Enterprise," he said.
Clark shook her head. "I don't know. They never tell us everything. So we can't be sure."
"Can you guess?"
Clark looked pained. "Five maybe. They came aboard at Starbase Three-Ten, just before you left for the Discontinuity."
Picard felt as if the deck were giving way beneath him. This attack on the Enterprise wasn't an isolated event. From what this frightened woman was saying, it seemed the Alliance had undertaken a long-term effort to infiltrate Starfleet. He was no longer dealing with an act of piracy.
The Enterprise had fallen victim to an act of war.
"Where is the real Margaret Clark?"
The woman looked at him in defiance. "I am the real Margaret Clark."
Picard forced himself not to argue with her. Of course she would think that this universe was but a reflection of her own. "Very well. Your counterpart. The Margaret Clark of this universe. When did you replace her?"
"A few hours ago. When they captured your ship."
"And what will happen to her now?"
Ensign Clark shrugged. "They'll hold her with the hostages. At least, that's what they do with the others. I don't know one way or the other."
"Where are the hostages? Have they been taken back to your universe?"
But Clark shook her head. "Not yet. Not till . . . not till the portal is completed."
For a moment, Picard felt overwhelmed by the woman's revelations. But they were so terrifyingly logical. "A portal. Between our universes."
Clark nodded, calmer now. She seemed to be adjusting to her changed situation.
"And that's where they're taking the Enterprise."
"That's right."
Riker let go of Clark's arm, but kept the hypospray ready. "Where is the portal?" he asked.
"I don't know that, either. I came through it in the Voyager. There was an asteroid field. But there's no star nearby."
Riker looked at Picard. "We'll be able to check through Stellar Cartography." He turned back to Clark. "What was your transit time from the portal to the Goldin Discontinuity?"
Clark exhaled deeply. "A few days. I don't know." She looked at Picard, her anxiety now replaced by resignation. "We're slaves, Captain Picard. And that's how we're treated. We do what we're told, and we don't ask questions."
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