Spectre

by William Shatner

  "How can I," Picard asked, knowing his life was in the balance, "when I am you?"

  The regent paused. "You are actually comparing yourself to me?"

  "Whatever we are, somewhere inside each of us is the kernel of the other."

  Picard was relieved to see that he seemed to have captured his counterpart's interest.

  "You mean to say, you are willing to admit that somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of your heart, you could be a killer? Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Starfleet, a merciless Klingon warrior regent?"

  "If conditions were right," Picard said. And to his dismay, he believed that to be true. "And, by the same regard, somewhere in you is the capacity to be a peaceful scientist, an explorer. A diplomat."

  The regent remained motionless, as if somehow those words had struck a chord in him.

  "You mean to say, if conditions were right, I might also have become a starship captain, as you did?"

  Picard tried to reel his counterpart in, to build a connection. "That's right. I believe that is so."

  The regent hung his head in deep thought. "Just. . . one small matter, though."

  Picard could feel the rapport growing stronger. He knew he could win this man to his side.

  But then his counterpart looked up, his eyes a dark window into fathomless chaos. "Thanks to you, I already am a starship captain." Then he laughed, and Picard felt a chill even through the stifling heat of his heavy discharge suit.

  "Ah, Jean-Luc," the regent said when he had wiped the last tear of mirth from his eyes with his free hand. "You're so transparent to me. Allow me to give you another example of how ineffectual you are. Screen on."

  At the far end of the chamber, a virtual viewscreen flickered into life. Picard recognized the technology. It had first been used in Deep Space Nine, and now was a standard feature of the newest starships, including the Enterprise.

  "You recognize what you're seeing?" the regent asked.

  The most recognizable parts of the image were the color-streaked ripples of the plasma storms surrounding the twin asteroids. At the bottom of the screen, Picard could also see an expanse of bare asteroid. But he couldn't tell what scale the image was on. He might be looking at a few square meters, or an expanse kilometers wide.

  "It's the edge of the asteroid," Picard said.

  The regent clapped his hands. "Very good, Jean-Luc. I knew you'd be paying attention." He beamed at his prisoner. "That is why you're here, you know. I mean, in this facility, at this time."

  Picard didn't understand.

  The regent was only too happy to explain.

  "You see, when we took over the Enterprise that first time, we knew we wouldn't get to you fast enough to maintain command and control of the vessel. So we set up a game. And we know how I—you—love games. Dixon Hill, for you, isn't it? Holodeck mysteries. Such a demeaning waste of time for someone of our—your—abilities.

  "So we led you through a scenario as clever as anything Monsieur 'Dix' might have encountered, and you gave us the Enterprise on a dilithium platter."

  Picard couldn't help himself. "You won't keep it."

  The regent was gleeful. "Careful. You're almost giving away your secret plans. And you do have secret plans, don't you? For escape, I mean. Escape and the recapture of the Enterprise."

  Picard looked away.

  "Look at that," the regent said with real joy. "You can'i even meet my eyes. That's because I knew what you would be thinking. One or two days to get the measure of the camp. Another day for your Beverly to work out some way of identifying which members of your crew were from your reality, and which were counterparts, and then a plan.

  "It's breathtaking, I'm sure. Dynamic. Exciting. And probably a very good one. In fact, if it were up to me—and in a way, you know, it is up to me—today would be the day I would put that plan into action."

  The regent stood close to Picard, stared at him intently even though Picard continued to look away. "You can't lie to me, Jean-Luc. Even if you say nothing. Because I know you the way. . ." He held out his scarred hand. ". . . the way Beverly knew the back of my hand."

  The regent put his glove back on, hiding his wounds. "Your plans were for today, and you can't deny it. And regardless, the plans won't work, because we've captured your coconspirators." He held his hand to his mouth as if whispering an aside. "I'd really watch the screen if I were you. It's your last chance to say good-bye. . . ."

  Picard looked at the screen and recoiled.

  It was as if he were twenty meters away from the events unfolding on the asteroid's surface.

  Riker, La Forge, Beverly, Deanna, even Data wrapped in glowing induction coils to sap his android strength—each member of his senior staff stood in a line on the asteroid's surface. A few meters behind them, a firing squad of Cardassians in formation, disruptor rifles held at ease.

  "Do I have your attention?" the regent asked.

  Picard knew there was no more time for posturing or gameplaying. If he was going to be able to outmaneuver his counterpart, he would have to do it quickly, without pretense.

  "Let them go. They had nothing to do with it."

  "Correction," his counterpart said. "They will have nothing to do with it."

  "You accomplish nothing by killing them!"

  "An interesting idea, but, on the contrary, they could serve as a lesson for the rest of your crew. I mean, I don't know exactly how many of them we ended up with here, but it's more than a thousand. So we execute a few dozen here and there—your senior staff, a few others just at random to keep everyone guessing—and experience tells us that eventually we'll end up with three or four hundred loyal workers who won't dream of risking their lives to escape.

  "That's what I'd do, Jean-Luc. Tell yourself that what you're about to witness isn't really punishment. It's the beginning of a long process of conditioning for those who survive."

  Picard heard the click of a communicator, and the regent slipped a small, cylindrical object from his belt. An amber light glowed atop it as he spoke into it.

  "Picard here, go ahead."

  The voice that answered was Cardassian, broken up by subspace static—the effect of this region of space.

  "The prisoners have been assembled at the edge of the atmospheric screen," the voice reported. "We await your orders."

  The regent stared at Picard. "Fear me," he said, "and you might live."

  Picard leapt at him.

  The regent drew his disruptor as swiftly as if he had anticipated Picard's move by seconds.

  But before the regent could fire, his aim was deflected by an expertly thrown candlestick.

  Teilani.

  She had been ready for Picard to make his move.

  Picard slammed into his counterpart's chest, head driving into the man's stomach, forcing him backward.

  They rolled across the floor and Picard heard the welcome clatter of the regent's communicator cylinder hitting the floor and bouncing away.

  Picard locked his hands around his counterpart's neck.

  "You're not a killer," the regent said.

  Picard squeezed.

  ". . . never . . . do it . . ." his counterpart croaked.

  But Picard wouldn't relinquish his grip. Even more, he raised the regent's head and smashed it against the floor, again and again until the regent's eyes rolled up and showed only their bloodshot whites.

  Then Picard felt a hand on his shoulder.

  He twisted around, ready to continue the fight.

  But saw only Teilani.

  For an instant, her exotic beauty was unnerving. She did not belong in this place of death.

  The regent moaned and Picard felt his counterpart's body slump beneath him. He looked up at Teilani, trying not to be di ;racted by the thin silks that passed as her clothing.

  "Teilani, why did they bring you here?"

  "I don't know," she said as she looked around the chamber. "I think I'm an insurance policy. They wanted to keep James from becoming involved."


  "Jim? He's here?" Picard got to his feet.

  "If I know him, he will be." Then Teilani's eyes made contact with something across the floor.

  Teilani moved swiftly to retrieve the regent's communicator. The amber light was flashing. Its tiny speaker kept clicking in the equivalent of a comm badge's chirp.

  Teilani returned with the small device, then handed it to Picard. "If the Enterprise thinks that maniac is you, why not see if those Cardassians think you're him?"

  Picard checked the communicator, found the activate switch, tapped it on. He looked at Teilani as he spoke into the communicator. "Picard here. The prisoners are not to be killed. I need them for further interrogation. Return them to me." As he waited for a reply, his eyes asked Teilani for her reaction to his effort.

  "You sounded like him to me," she whispered. "Good to see you again, by the way. Did James ever thank you for that horse?"

  Picard was struck by the surrealness of the moment, until the communicator clicked again.

  "Regent Picard," a Cardassian voice said, "I remind you that the prisoners were brought to the forcefield perimeter not to be killed, only tortured. Thus, according to your instructions, I must assume you have fallen victim to a Terran escape attempt. Unless you provide the authentication code in seven seconds, the prisoners will be killed."

  Picard tapped the communicator again, responded as if he shared his counterpart's fury. "Those orders were rescinded, you fool. Return the prisoners for further interrogation or you will be killed."

  "You gave me those orders yourself," the Cardassian replied. "Five seconds."

  Picard thrust the communicator into Teilani's hands, leaned down and grabbed his counterpart by the neck and snapped his head up.

  "Wake up," Picard growled as he slapped the regent, hard. "I need the authentication codes."

  But as the regent's eyes flickered open and Picard saw the dawning of awareness in him, all he did was look to the side. To the screen.

  "Time is up," the Cardassian announced.

  On the screen, one of the Cardassians to the side of those with the rifles made an adjustment to a control padd.

  Picard straightened up as he saw a wall of sparkling blue energy form before his senior staff.

  It was the atmospheric forcefield, he knew. The equivalent of the low-power energy screen that covered the open door of a shuttlebay, to keep atmosphere in while allowing shuttles to come and go freely.

  Picard saw his people react to the screen's sudden appearance before them.

  And then he saw them draw back as the screen moved toward them, skimming over the smooth metal ground until, with a series of sparks and flashes, it had passed over them.

  "No . . ." Picard said as he saw his senior staff, save for Data, reach for their throats, grimacing as the sudden vacuum of space sucked their last breaths from their bodies.

  Riker staggered. La Forge dropped to the ground.

  "Save them!" Picard shouted at his counterpart who lay grinning up at him.

  The regent's voice was weak but triumphant. "They're already dead, Jean-Luc. And this time, you are the one who killed them."

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Kirk pushed the St. Lawrence to maximum warp, and the Voyager slipped to the side faster than the human eye could follow.

  But the starship's phasers tore at the runabout's shields and a warp-powered torpedo burst aft, sending the small craft spinning into a violent plasma field that picked her up and tossed her aside like flotsam on a storm-driven sea.

  Kirk fought the controls as he brought the St. Lawrence into trim. Nothing mattered except stabilizing the craft— without a steady orientation, none of her weapons could find their targets.

  Kirk corrected himself.

  There were no more weapons.

  The St. Lawrence was out of torpedoes. Only phasers remained.

  And what good were a runabout's phasers against the state of Starfleet's art?

  As the chase began, everything in the runabout's cabin seemed to happen at once, but Kirk focused only on the flight controls.

  "She's in pursuit!" Janeway said. Kirk could hear the urgency in her, but was pleased that he could detect no sense of panic.

  "Shields at twenty-three percent," the computer stated. "Warp-core imbalance in progress."

  Then a loud rush of compressed gas exploded in Kirk's ear. An automatic fire-control system came online to extinguish a sudden eruption of flames. Thankfully, the intervention cut off the shrill blare of the fire alarm, though smoke still swirled through the small cabin, as if the plasma storms had penetrated the viewports.

  "What the blue blazes is goin' on?" Scott shouted from the aft.

  It seemed the sleeping passengers had finally awakened.

  "Warp-core imbalance!" Kirk answered. "We've got to keep the generator online and stable! Do it, Scotty!"

  Kirk heard the crash of the engine compartment panel being thrown to the side behind him and knew Starfleet's best engineer was on the job.

  "Who the hell's after us this time?" McCoy asked, stumbling forward from the far aft where the bunks were.

  "Voyager," Kirk and Janeway said at the same time.

  "Isn't she on our side?"

  "The mirror Voyager, Bones," Kirk explained.

  Then the runabout swung port as another eruption of phased energy blasted at her shields. The Voyager was closing and her aim had been perfect.

  Kirk saw the power display graph on the console instantly drop to zero, even as the computer reported, "Shields have failed."

  "We can't take another hit," Janeway said through clenched teeth.

  "Then we better not let them hit us," Kirk told her.

  "They're powering up . . ." Janeway warned.

  With a slap of his hand, Kirk took the acceleration safeguards offline and threw the runabout into a ninety-degree turn as a streak of phaser fire blazed past her, a clean miss.

  The structural-integrity alarms roared like a foghorn. Kirk knew he was forcing the runabout to perform well past her design limitations and, as he had expected it might, the computer took exception to his maneuver. "Warning! Hull buckling in starboard storage chamber."

  Kirk tracked the Voyager on his sensor screen. The big ship didn't have the maneuvering capabilities the runabout had and needed more space to complete a turn. It was the only thing that was giving him an edge.

  "Spock! Seal off that storage chamber! Scotty, I need maximum warp!"

  "And I need a vacation!" Scott yelled back.

  Janeway kept Kirk apprised of the Voyager's status. " Phasers powering up again . . . two torpedoes launched!"

  Kirk didn't stop to think. The torpedoes couldn't hit. The phasers couldn't hit. He had to offer them another target.

  He flipped open the safety cover in the center of the console and punched the first antimatter-pod jettison control.

  Behind him, Scott cried out in surprise as the warp core suddenly lost half its fuel and the imbalance went critical without warning.

  The runabout lurched forward as one of her antimatter pods sped back into her wake.

  Then the craft shuddered and creaked as Janeway shouted: "Impact!"

  Kirk checked the screen. Both torpedoes had locked on to the nearest target—the antimatter pod—and both had detonated, creating an energy screen that shielded the runabout from the phaser fire.

  Janeway stared at Kirk in awe. "Where did you learn that trick?"

  "It wasn't a trick until it worked. Scotty? How's that warp balance?"

  "That all depends," Scott yelled back over the incessant alarms. "D'ye intend t' leave me any antimatter to keep us in warp?"

  "We've got one pod left, Scotty. Use it or lose it."

  A hum of power thrummed through the craft.

  "Warp is back online!" Scott called out.

  But was it enough?

  Janeway started another countdown. "Voyager is powering up!"

  So Kirk forced the runabout to maximum warp without a run-up—ju
st as the Voyager's phasers hit.

  He rocked back in his seat as his controls overloaded and sparked, then caught fire with a power surge.

  But through the heat and the flames he kept his hands pressed against the acceleration controls, holding his breath against the billowing smoke, crying out to distract himself from the startling pain that seared his hands, his forearms, crackling up his arms like lightning.

  "Distance!" he shouted, fearing his request was little more than a guttural snarl.

  "Forty thousand . . ." Janeway read out. "Fifty thousand kilometers! We're clear! We're clear!"

  But Kirk was unable to disengage his hands from the controls, as if they had been fused there.

  He felt others grab him, by his shoulders and his arms, pulling him back. He was yanked off his chair, into T'Val's firm grasp.

  Both Spocks were beside her, looking down at Kirk in disbelief for what he had done.

  The St. Lawrence had survived. Against impossible odds.

  But at what cost?

  McCoy already had his tricorder out.

  Shuddering, Kirk held up his hands.

  Saw the white of bone. Fine threads of red blood. Charred flesh. His ruined hands and forearms had the texture of a deeply fissured dry lake bed. One thumb was unmarked. He stared at its unchanged familiarity.

  Mercifully, McCoy sprayed his wounds with something cool and his pain diminished, at least on the surface.

  "Oh, shit," Janeway said.

  Kirk looked forward in time to see the monstrous mass of an almost spherical asteroid rise up from within the plasma clouds.

  "Warning! Collision alert. Collision alert. Contact in eight seconds . . . seven . . . six . . ."

  And then Kirk was thrown from T'Val's grip as the runabout dropped wrenchingly to impulse and pulled up savagely, knocking both Spocks back into the passenger compartment.

  Scott's voice rose in complaint about the unexpected company but Kirk pulled himself up to look past Janeway, lifting his weight by pressing his elbows against the empty pilot's chair.

  Janeway had transferred flight control to her own, undamaged console and was handling the runabout like a born pilot.