The crater-strewn surface of the asteroid raced ahead and below them. Kirk read from the sensors that they were at ten meters' altitude.
At this velocity, that altitude was insane.
"Bring us up," he instructed her.
But she refused his order. "This is where the Voyager's warp trail was taking us," she said. "If we move too far away from the asteroid's surface and they're out there, we're target practice."
The runabout swayed as Janeway forced it into a tight curve around a sudden uprising from the asteroid.
"This is where that labor camp has to be," she said. "You were right."
Kirk ached to get back on the runabout's controls. But both his hands were numb. Useless. For an instant, all he saw before him was the crude, biomechanical hand that T'Val wore. Is that what his fate would be? What if he were never able again to truly feel the satin smoothness of Teilani's skin, to. . . He refused to dwell on what might wait for him. To reach that future, he would first have to survive this nightmarish present.
"Drop back on your speed," he told Janeway. "If there's a labor camp on this asteroid, they'll have defenses. Go to forward scanning."
The runabout crested a curve on the asteroid and the computer alerted them again.
"Warning: Impact with atmospheric forcefield in fifteen seconds."
Kirk blinked as the life-sign display in the sensor screen went off the scale. "What the hell is down there?"
The life-sign mass index showed a conglomerate of more than two thousand individuals, so closely packed together that individual resolution was impossible at this speed and range.
Suddenly, Kirk felt elation. His hypothesis had been born out. They had found it—the labor camp where the Alliance kept their Terran prisoners to disassemble starships. The camp where Janeway had been destined to work.
Provided, Kirk knew, those life signs were for humans and Vulcans, and not Klingons and Cardassians. He didn't want to think what might happen if instead of a prison camp they had discovered a bivouac area for Alliance warriors.
With his one uninjured thumb, Kirk reached forward and readjusted the sensor selectivity. "We have to find out who those people are."
"Warning: Impact with atmospheric forcefield in ten seconds."
The life-sign sensors recalibrated themselves.
An alert window flashed red.
"What's that?" Janeway asked.
"Dying," Kirk said as he read the sensor return. "We've got four humanoids . . . at the edge of the forcefield. . . ."
"Too late," Janeway said. "I've got to change course."
"No! Hold position!" Kirk looked into the aft compartment. "Scotty! I need you on the emergency transporter!"
"I've only got two hands and this warp core isn't going to stay together much longer!"
"Spock—four humanoids! Just outside the forcefield. We have to get them aboard!"
"I'm picking up the Voyager!" Janeway announced. "She's going to have us in range in less than two minutes if I stop for a beam-up!"
"I don't care!" Kirk said. "We'll beam them up and be gone before—"
Another alarm screamed. How could such a small craft have so many alarms?
"What the hell is that one?" Kirk demanded.
"That's the mass detector you set!" Janeway told him. "The Sovereign's coming around from the other side of the asteroid!" She took her eyes off the controls just long enough to look challengingly at Kirk. "They've got us in a pincer!"
But Kirk would not be deflected. He needed to be sure about that camp and it was certain he wasn't going to be taking up a standard orbit to scan it at his leisure.
"Beam them up, Spock!"
Spock stood at a wall panel, pushed his fingers up a familiar control surface. "Energizing."
"We have sensor lock!" Janeway shouted. "The Sovereign is closing."
Kirk looked back to see two huddled forms resolve from the transporter effect. For a moment, he felt relief. They were in Starfleet uniforms, human, still moving. They were gasping for breath but alive.
And then he was startled as he recognized them.
"Commander Riker? Dr. Crusher?"
But whatever surprise Kirk felt, it was only a fraction of the shock he saw in the eyes of Picard's crew.
Riker spoke first, not even bothering to acknowledge Kirk. And Kirk knew why when he heard what Riker said.
"Geordi and Deanna are down there! And Data!"
"Kirk!" Janeway cried out. "Both ships are coming in range."
But Kirk wasn't going anywhere. "Spock! The next two! Save Data for last! He doesn't need air."
Two more columns of golden energy formed between the runabout's emergency transporter panels. Riker stepped forward to catch Deanna as she materialized and fell, semiconscious. Geordi La Forge was curled on the floor, clutching at his throat, but a quick hypospray of tri-ox from McCoy eased his symptoms at once.
"They're locking phasers . . ." Janeway warned. "The Voyager and the Sovereign. . . ."
A final column of transporter energy formed.
Data took shape, saw Kirk, and in a most un-android fashion, his mouth dropped open in utter surprise.
"Captain Kirk . . . ?" Janeway said, almost pleading.
Kirk looked to Riker. "Commander—is there any place to hide around here?"
Riker didn't have to think about his answer. "Full impulse—straight through the atmospheric screen, keep an altitude of one kilometer."
Kirk knew Riker well enough not to question his unusual instructions. "Do it!" he said to Janeway.
The runabout's impulse engines began to hum as the craft spun about to face the energy screen.
"What's in there?" Kirk asked.
"I'm not sure exactly what it is," Riker confessed. "But the Alliance isn't going to want to shoot at it, that I guarantee you."
"This is going to get bumpy," Janeway called out. Then, with a rumble and flash of light, the St. Lawrence punched through a forcefield never intended to hold back anything but atmosphere, and was suddenly reverberating with the scream of air rushing past her.
Kirk stared ahead, along with everyone else in the crowded runabout.
"Och, that's the Enterprise," Scott said.
"But look what's with it," Riker added. "Can you get a full sensor scan of it?"
Kirk leaned forward and pressed his thumb against the targeting control to focus the main sensors on the strange construction hanging in midair a half-kilometer from the Enterprise. At first glance, it seemed to be an open-lattice spacedock. But the equipment panels sent back sensor returns that indicated the panels had functions other than providing light, antigrav manipulation, and communication relays.
And then the St. Lawrence whipped past the two enormous structures, starship and unknown device, heading for the other side of the cylindrical forcescreen.
"Any sign of weapons lock?" Kirk asked.
"Nothing," Janeway said. "We're clean. But the Voyager and the Sovereign, they're circling the forcefield, coming to meet us on the other side."
"Go to warp," Kirk said.
Janeway stared back at him. "I know we're not in a gravity well. But we are in an atmosphere. And we don't have shields."
"Trust me," Kirk said. "The runabout's hull is tough enough to take the friction for all the time we'll be cutting through air. But if you wait till we come out of that forcefield, those two starships won't give you the chance to press the warp control."
Janeway turned back even farther, until she saw Scott.
The engineer shrugged. "Ye better not quote me on it, lass. But I'd do what the captain says. It's not as if we'll be around to complain if it doesn't work."
Janeway turned back to her controls. "What factor?"
"The faster we go, the less time we'll spend in the atmosphere," Kirk said.
Janeway cracked her neck, programmed maximum warp. "Engage," she said.
For a split second, everyone but Data grabbed their ears as a deafening shriek blasted through the c
abin, but as quickly as that, the noise vanished.
Instead, the runabout rocked gently with the usual buffeting of the plasma storms.
All aboard the St. Lawrence sighed with profound relief.
"Are we in any additional danger?" Data asked. Those were the first words he had spoken since beaming aboard.
Janeway checked her controls. "In all this interference, we're out of their sensor range," she said. "The only way the Voyager or the Sovereign will find us is by luck."
"Good," Data said. "Then I believe I speak for everyone when I say: Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"
Kirk grinned at the android. Offered him his hand, then thought better of it. At least until McCoy had had a chance to work on it.
But that didn't stop him from speaking. "Mr. Data, I believe it has fallen upon us to save the universe."
The android took on a bemused expression. "Captain Kirk, coming from you, I would expect no less."
But Geordi La Forge wasn't one to go along with the sudden bout of raised spirits that was shared by everyone else. He looked around the runabout's cabin, fore and aft— panels hanging free, ODN cables dangling, smoke and fire damage visible in almost every square meter. "I just wish we had a bigger ship," he said.
"Don't worry, Commander," Kirk told him. "I have an idea."
"I was afraid you were going to say that," McCoy complained.
But Kirk ignored him.
He and his team had just had their first, full-scale encounter with the Alliance, and had survived.
But the next time, Kirk knew, he had to do more than survive. He had to win.
TWENTY-FIVE
Picard drew back his fist to drive it into his counterpart's face hard enough to reach the floor beneath him.
He was going to tear this murderer apart.
But Teilani stopped him.
"Jean-Luc, look!"
Picard forced himself to look back to the virtual viewscreen in the overseers' chamber. He tried unsuccessfully to prepare himself for the horror he knew he would see there.
Riker, La Forge, Beverly, and Deanna, in the vacuum of space, dead of suffocation at Data's feet.
But instead he saw a miracle.
Riker and Beverly were no longer there.
Deanna and La Forge were in the process of disappearing.
Not within disrupter fire, but within the welcome familiar glow of a transporter.
And not just any transporter effect—a Starfleet transporter.
"There's another ship . . ." Picard murmured in wonder.
He grabbed the regent, savoring the startled expression his duplicate wore. "There's another Starfleet vessel out there and it just saved my people!"
"Impossible," the regent said.
Picard laughed exultantly, drew out one of his counterpart's two disrupters, flipped it through the air so Teilani could catch it with both, tied-together hands. Then Picard aimed the second disrupter at his duplicate.
"To your feet," he said. "Slowly."
"This signifies nothing, you understand," the mirror Picard told him. "Whatever's happening, it's too late."
"Not while the Enterprise is still in this universe," Picard said.
Teilani came to stand beside him. She held out her wrists so Picard could untie them, while at the same time she kept her disruptor trained on the regent.
"That ship won't be here for long," the regent said. "And you know it. I mean, look at yourself, Jean-Luc. Listen to your reaction. You didn't know that other ship was out there. It's all some fluke. Some cosmic accident. Whoever flew by and rescued your people, they don't know what to expect here."
"They will when Riker's finished briefing them." Picard gave a final tug and Teilani's hands came free. She rubbed her wrists.
"Do you have him?" she asked before turning her weapon away from the regent.
Picard centered his disruptor unwaveringly on his duplicate's head. "I just hope he tries to get away."
Then Teilani returned to the oddly furnished section of the chamber—as if this facility were nothing more than an afterthought, a playroom to keep a psychotic human amused.
That probably isn't that far from the truth, Picard thought.
Thrown across one long couch was a length of fabric marked with a monochromatic Klingon design. Teilani pulled the fabric loose, began to fold it into a more demure covering than the silks she wore.
"Keep your eyes on me," Picard said to his counterpart whose gaze had followed Teilani. To underscore his command, he fired a disruptor blast into the floor beside the man.
The mirror Picard locked his eyes on the disrupter's emitter and didn't look away again. Teilani changed in privacy, wiped the garish makeup from her face, and took the Klingon stones from her hair.
But the mirror Picard did not await his fate in silence. "You know, Jean-Luc, each second you keep me here is another hour I'll keep you alive in the agony booth."
"Then I'll be sure to kill you before I go."
Recovered from his initial surprise, the regent once again looked amused. "Go where? Don't you realize you're trapped here? In this chamber. Pay attention, Jean-Luc. Some passing Federation science vessel full of useless Vulcans just transported away five prisoners in full view of their guards. Remember the Cardassians who were out there? They've reported in by now. The overseers already know what's happened. They know that whoever pretended to be me didn't know the authentication codes. If this building isn't surrounded now, it will be within ten seconds."
Also fully recovered from Picard's earlier attack, the regent now got easily to his feet and held out his hand. "Give me the disrupters, Jean-Luc. In return, I'll put in a good word, use my influence. Kirk's woman will die cleanly, and you . . . well, I'll make it as fast as I can. A few hours at most."
That's when Teilani shot him.
The disruptor blast hit the regent square in the chest, flashed red, then drove him halfway across the chamber, where he finally came to a stop in a crumpled heap, like a discarded toy.
Teilani squinted at the side of the disruptor, frowned, then held it up to Picard. "Was this set for stun?"
Picard read the tiny Klingon inscriptions beside the power display. "It appears so."
"Too bad," Teilani said coolly.
She shoved the disruptor into the makeshift belt she had fashioned from a strip of cloth, draped elegantly across her hips. Though the new apparel she had created from the cloth on the furniture was less revealing than what she had worn before, Picard was beginning to understand why no one had heard anything from Kirk once he had returned to Chal. If Picard were in Kirk's position, he would want to do nothing except keep this woman close, protect her, ensure her—
"Is there a problem?" Teilani asked.
The question served to pull Picard back from his disconcerting reverie.
For a moment, Picard was troubled by what had happened. Usually he was easily able to put issues of male and female attraction aside. Those matters did not belong in Starfleet. At least, not during missions. But in Teilani's alluring presence, he found himself forced to focus on everything but Teilani.
"I'm afraid he's right," Picard said.
"We're surrounded?"
"And they have a deadly effective defense against prison breaks."
Teilani waited for him to explain.
"The atmosphere for the camp is held in place by a forcefield that extends between the asteroids. If the overseers shut off that field, everyone outside dies."
But Teilani reacted to his explanation with suspicion, not horror.
"They marched me across the camp when I arrived," she said. "It was before the Enterprise was brought here, but I saw the other workers. I saw the guards. And the guards weren't wearing environmental suits."
Right away, Picard understood the importance of her observation. "If the overseers shut off the forcefield, they have to get word to their guards."
"And that gives us time." Teilani crossed over to the unconscious
regent, prodded him, ungently, with her foot. He moaned, but didn't stir. "Was he right about you having an escape plan?"
And at that seemingly innocent question, Picard froze. His counterpart had said Teilani had no counterpart of her own in the mirror universe. But how could he be sure that was true? That she was who she said she was?
Teilani seemed to understand his dilemma. "Before you turn paranoid, I asked about the horse you gave James, didn't I?"
"Idaho Dream?" Picard asked.
"Iowa," Teilani corrected.
Picard moved closer to her, disrupter held loosely, but ready. "You could have tortured the real Teilani to obtain that information."
Teilani looked at him with almost pitying compassion.
"The Alliance has your ship, Jean-Luc. What more do they need from you?"
"I don't know."
"Do you know why I would have shot your counterpart instead of you?"
"I don't know that, either."
Teilani crouched down by the regent's still form and pulled his d'k tahg knife from its scabbard. "Well, I do." She pressed the hilt release and the outrider blades snicked into position, guaranteeing that any deep-enough wound the knife made could not be closed before the victim bled to death. "The regent was wrong." She gripped the regent's body by the shoulder, and with a surprising display of strength, threw him over on his stomach. "Your people weren't saved by some random Starfleet vessel flying by. No cosmic fluke." She took firm hold of the regent's Klingon-style queue and pulled on it as if she were about to slice his scalp from his skull. "That ship came here for a reason."
"And that would be?" Picard asked, having no idea what she was planning.
"To find me."
She brought the knife down and with a sudden flick, cut off the regent's white queue. Had the mirror Picard been a real Klingon, what Teilani had just done would be a mortal insult, forgivable only by death.
For a moment, Teilani looked at the limp braid as if it were something more intimate she had sliced from the regent's body, then dropped it to the floor.
Picard suddenly realized what she was saying.
"Kirk."
"You know him," Teilani said as she began slicing again at the regent's fringe of white hair, taking it off close to his scalp, but not scraping it away completely. "He went looking for me the moment they told him they had me—as if he'd agree to anything a blackmailer told him. And if anyone was going to find his way through all these plasma storms . . ."
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