Star Trek®: Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows

by Marco Palmieri

  “I’ll think about it,” Kirk said, somewhat mollified, wondering how easy it would be to kill van Gelder once they’d gotten rid of Adams.

  It was easier than he could have imagined.

  Just as van Gelder had predicted, Adams droned on throughout dinner about “rehabilitation” and “mainstreaming these unfortunates back into society.” Marlena sat silently, looking decorative, listening for any nuances Kirk might miss so that they could compare notes later.

  “There’s no such thing as ‘sluggishly progressive schizophrenia,’ Dr. James,” Adams was saying. “It’s a phony designation for political prisoners, nothing more. Their families are too powerful for them to be killed outright, so they’re kept here, drugged and tortured, for the rest of their very short lives. They’d be better off dead!”

  Adams looked as if he were about to cry. Van Gelder was right. Kirk listened for as long as he could stand it. Van Gelder excused himself just before dessert, and Kirk wondered what he was up to.

  “You can’t expect your colleagues to concur with this,” he suggested to Adams, if only to shut him up.

  “Oh, but they will eventually, Dr. James. I intend to educate some of the brighter inmates to act as models of what rehabilitation can do. We have some very powerful people interned here…”

  Yes, I know, Kirk thought. He’d done his homework, knew how many contrarian voices had been stilled in the last purges. Most disappeared without a trace; some “lucky” few ended up here.

  “…I intend to turn this planet into a showplace,” Adams was saying, a look of messianic fervor on his face. “It will become a model for all future—”

  “Forgive me,” Kirk said. Enough was enough. If he had to listen to that voice much longer, he was going to explode and blow his cover. “But as soon as the Bureau of Mental Hygiene finds out what you’re up to, you may find yourself an inmate here instead of the director.”

  “Ah, you think I’ll allow myself to be led like a lamb to the slaughter?” Adams shook a cautionary finger at him, then finished his wine. “I’m prepared for resistance. Tomorrow, after morning rounds, I will show you my secret weapon.”

  But there were no morning rounds. Sometime in the middle of the night, no doubt with van Gelder’s help, the inmates staged a revolt. Kirk was awakened by shouts and the thunder of running feet, dozens of them, in the corridor outside. Moments later, van Gelder was pounding on the door.

  “Adams is dead. Let’s go!”

  “Wait here,” Kirk started to say to Marlena, but she had already slipped into a practical jumpsuit before he’d adjusted the setting on his phaser.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” she said, raking her fingers through her hair, managing to look beautiful even shaken out of a sound sleep. “Whatever you two are plotting, I want in!”

  Kirk grinned, watching her slip her favorite knife into one thigh-high boot. “Glad you’re on our side!”

  They found van Gelder rifling through the desk in Adams’s office.

  “Coder,” he explained, holding up a small device in one hand, a silencer-fitted phaser in the other. “Unlocks the safe.”

  They hurried down the labyrinthine corridors away from where the noises were coming from—inmates freeing other inmates, killing the guards who had tortured them, Kirk assumed. Van Gelder led the way, apparently so intent on getting to the pilfered goods that he didn’t realize how vulnerable a target the back of his neck made.

  For a moment, Kirk was tempted to take him out just for the hell of it, but, for one thing, he couldn’t find the safe on his own. For another, Adams had said something about a secret weapon. Something powerful enough to defend his mad schemes against a military come to reclaim his little planet? Kirk wasn’t leaving until he learned whether there was a grain of truth to Adams’s raving.

  The “safe” was, in fact, a good-sized storeroom filled with unimaginable riches. Kirk’s eyes roved over an entire weapons wall—antique knives and swords, Imperial devices, and alien objects whose purpose he would love to learn. Van Gelder had no time for such niceties. He was too busy stuffing loose gemstones and ancient coins into his pockets, loading whatever he could lay his hands on onto a small antigrav sled he must have had stashed away for years in anticipation of this moment. Marlena joined in the fun, grabbing at rings and necklaces, trying them on, giddy as a child.

  Kirk glanced out into the corridor. The inmates hadn’t come this way yet, but he could hear them shouting, and what sounded like doors being broken down, echoing from several directions. He tried to remember where the minuscule transporter room was from here—on this level, up or down, left or right?

  “Simon,” he said tightly. “We really should go.”

  Still madly scavenging, van Gelder wasn’t listening. “Come on, Kirk, grab your share! I don’t want you claiming I didn’t give you what you’ve earned!”

  Something in the clutter caught Kirk’s eye then. When they’d come in, it had been hidden behind an ornate armoire that van Gelder had knocked over in his enthusiasm. At first glance, it was some sort of visual monitor, though it didn’t look at all like the others almost everywhere in the complex. Kirk retrieved a once-beautiful silk robe, trampled under van Gelder’s feet, and wiped a layer of dust off it. “What’s this?”

  “Some sort of monitoring device,” van Gelder said over his shoulder, distracted. “Belonged to a scientist from a colony world, some odd species I’d never seen before. Worked on weapons technology until he balked. They trashed his laboratory, remanded him here for some of Adams’s special interrogation techniques.” Van Gelder paused for breath, scanning the room to see if there was anything else of value he could fit on the antigrav.

  “He died in transit,” he said after a final inventory. “Never did say what that thing was for, but it was what he was trying to conceal when Starfleet moved in. Adams was convinced it was important, but as far as I know, he never made heads or tails of it. Time to go!”

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Kirk said, transfixed by the alien device. It was nothing but a screen and some primitive knobs and lights and buttons, but something about it whispered Power! Could this be Adams’s “secret weapon”?

  More than a dozen necklaces around her delicate neck, her fingers glittering with rings, Marlena staggered over to him giddily. “What does it do?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Kirk murmured, absently fiddling with things until he managed to activate the screen. The visual showed the corridor outside, where van Gelder was making sure the coast was clear. Kirk followed his movements onscreen. Van Gelder came back for the antigrav, loping out into the corridor without looking back.

  “Come on!” Marlena said, tugging on Kirk’s arm. When he didn’t seem to hear her, she started for the door.

  “Wait!” He stayed her. On a hunch, he touched the button shaped like an inverted teardrop, set apart from the others as if to emphasize its importance.

  Halfway down the corridor, Simon van Gelder vanished, faster than any transporter beam could have taken him.

  With a jolt, Kirk realized exactly what he had discovered. It took Marlena a moment longer. Staring at the empty corridor, one hand over her mouth, she giggled. “Oops!”

  Kirk recovered himself. “Oh, well. Simon did say he wanted to disappear.”

  The device was self-contained, merely hung on the wall like a picture frame, unconnected to any power source. Amazed at their good fortune, Kirk dumped van Gelder’s loot out of the antigrav with a rueful look and set the alien device down in it almost reverently. After a few wrong turns, he and Marlena finally reached the transporter room, only to find it blocked by a crowd of inmates.

  “Dr. Adams was a good man!” one of them, a disheveled gray-haired woman with the marks of shackles visible on her wrists and ankles, shrilled at him. “You killed him!”

  “We had nothing to do with that!” Kirk said impatiently, but the crowd showed no signs of moving. Below her line of sight, he focused the alien device on the ringleader an
d pressed the button. Like van Gelder, the woman disappeared.

  “What you do once we leave is your business!” Kirk shouted at the now confused and agitated inmates, “but my woman and I are walking out of here unharmed. Do you understand me?”

  They did. Some of them ran. The others silently stood aside and let them pass.

  When he and Marlena returned to Earth, Kirk found a message from Spock waiting for him.

  “Mr. Kirk, Enterprise will be leaving Spacedock in ninety-four-point-three hours. I would appreciate a final chess game before we do so.”

  They were abandoning him.

  You are no longer of use to us, Christopher. We shall have to let you go.

  The voices were in his head, as always, but more and more lately, he found himself answering them aloud. “I’ve told you everything I know! I’ve protected you! My report said there was nothing of use on your world; I made the recommendation for General Order Seven.” He could hear his voice rising, couldn’t stop himself. “What more do you want from me?”

  Nothing. That is precisely the point, Christopher. You are not close enough to the centers of power to know what is being planned at the highest levels. We should never have let you live.

  “And I should have recommended the Empire send a fleet to destroy you!” Pike shouted with the last shred of anger he possessed.

  He was answered with silence, and for a moment, he thought that might be all there was to it. In truth, he wanted to be rid of them more than anything in the universe, but he had been in their thrall for so long he wasn’t sure he could trust his own mind to obey him. As for his body…without the illusion they had given him, he was convinced he would crumble into dust.

  “How soon?” he asked the voices, hoping they would kill him outright, because with what he knew, they certainly would not let him live.

  He could still feel their presence, but there was no answer. He dared a glance in the mirror, waiting for the transformation to take place. There was a touch of gray at his temples that hadn’t been there before, but the illusion still held. Perhaps if he kept his promise not to betray them, they would let him go gradually. He wondered if it was worth it, but he could no longer think it through. Christopher Pike did the one consistent thing he still remembered how to do: poured himself a shot of Saurian brandy and headed for the bridge.

  “How did you find out?” Kirk asked, trying not to wince as Spock captured his king’s bishop.

  “Dr. Boyce was most cooperative. A single touch of the agonizer persuaded him to tell me that the man we see is not the man Christopher Pike has become. And there is something more.” The Vulcan seemed to hesitate. “Captain Pike’s aberrant behavior has become too blatant for his superiors to ignore. It is rumored he is to be…eliminated.”

  Kirk couldn’t sleep that night. It all seemed too easy. Why was Spock feeding him all this information, stepping out of the way to give him the means to get at Pike? It had to be a trap. Unless the Vulcan meant what he said about not wanting command, a mindset Kirk simply could not understand. And if Starfleet wanted Pike out of the way, would Spock be the only one they’d approach? Why didn’t they just bring him up on charges and execute him themselves? They were, as Spock would say, playing most illogically.

  Kirk broke out in a sweat, slipping out of bed so he wouldn’t disturb Marlena, who slept the sleep of a child—or someone with no conscience at all—and began to pace. Maybe Pike was actually the aggressor here instead of the victim. Maybe Pike was working with Spock to eliminate anyone aspiring to his job. Maybe…

  You’ve got the Tantalus device! Kirk reminded himself, slowing his breathing, calming down. Spock probably expected him to rush headlong into some confrontation with Pike in which either or both of them might be killed. Then Number One would get command and Spock would be promoted to first officer, which was all he claimed he wanted.

  But the Tantalus device would make all the difference.

  Starfleet Command had scheduled a gala send-off for Enterprise on the eve of her next five-year mission. Knowing what he knew, Kirk wondered if they could be more blatant. The ship would be crawling with brass and visiting dignitaries, all eggs in one basket. An assassin in or out of uniform could lose himself in the crowd, and an assassin who knew the layout of a starship could easily find his way to the captain’s quarters, if he could get past the extra security.

  A handful of junior officers had been invited as well, Kirk among them. It was just too convenient. He wondered if Command hadn’t sent several people to remove Pike, and if they happened to kill one another off at the same time…

  He would simply have to get there first.

  “Let me come with you!” Marlena pleaded, tossing one outfit after another out of the closet onto the bed, trying to decide what to wear.

  “No…” Kirk started to say, but she didn’t let him finish.

  “I understand, my darling. You don’t want me implicated in case anything goes wrong.” She touched his face tenderly. “I appreciate that, I do. But with you in charge, how can it possibly go wrong? You’ll at least take me to the gala with you? The invitation did say ‘Lieutenant Commander Kirk and Guest.’”

  “Actually,” Kirk said, taking both of her small hands in his. “I had something else in mind.”

  How one man managed to overcome four of Pike’s personal guards, more heavily armed than usual and stationed at intervals outside his quarters for extra security with so many civilians onboard, would be a tale told down the years and exaggerated with each telling. Kirk’s characteristic guile and skill were augmented by his knowing that, back in their rooms, Marlena was monitoring with the Tantalus device.

  “Keep an eye on me,” he ordered her, his face more serious than she had ever seen it. “But don’t intervene unless I get in trouble.”

  “You’re giving me an awful lot of responsibility,” she said, reluctant to touch the device this time, even though they’d practiced it together. “How do you know I won’t kill you?”

  Even as she said it, Kirk had to remind himself, for all the trappings and sophistication, just how young and vulnerable she really was.

  “Because I think you like to watch, but you don’t really want to kill personally,” he said. “Besides, if anything happens to me…”

  She nodded. She knew. Without him as her protector, she would have to start anew, perhaps with someone less appealing, more willing to cast her aside. She had seen what happened to other officers’ women when the officers grew tired of them.

  So it was with relief that she watched as Kirk took down each of the guards all by himself.

  It was too easy, Kirk thought, again wondering if he was, in fact, the intended victim. Maybe it was someone’s revenge for the death of Captain Garrovick or a host of other actions from his past come home to roost. The hair on the back of his neck prickled ominously as he pressed the buzzer outside Pike’s door.

  “Come,” said a voice that sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of a well.

  Despite his reclusiveness, Kirk had expected to find Pike at least going through the motions of dressing for the festivities, which were already starting on the main rec deck. The absolute darkness he encountered once the door closed startled him, and he prepared for an ambush that didn’t come.

  “It’s all right,” the voice said, as the lights came up slowly. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  Kirk wasn’t sure what he would find in that darkened room, but the sight of the real Christopher Pike took him aback. He recovered himself.

  “How did you know it would be me?”

  “I didn’t,” Pike said wearily. “I just knew it would be tonight. You haven’t brought a phaser. A knife, then?”

  Kirk shook his head. “I promise it will be quick. There’s a little something I need you to do for me first…”

  Pike gave Kirk what he wanted. As he did so, his shoulders began to heave. He was weeping openly.

  “I can’t sustain the illusion. Don’t let any
one see me like this!”

  “Don’t worry,” Kirk said with a compassion he didn’t know he possessed. Why would anyone care what he looked like after death? Apparently, the only thing Pike still had left was his vanity. “No one will see you at all.”

  Pike sat with his hands in his lap, a man defeated, awaiting his execution. His passivity almost made Kirk hesitate. He’d wanted to savor this death, but Pike was throwing himself on his sword. There was no satisfaction in this. Only the thought of what it would earn him at the end convinced Kirk that he had to go through with it.

  He poured Pike a drink from the bottle of Saurian brandy on the desk at his elbow, then poured one for himself.

  “I’ll take good care of her,” he promised. Pike showed no curiosity as Kirk turned to leave. “It won’t be long now.”

  Pike merely nodded, resigned, and Kirk had the courtesy to dim the lights again on his way out. The Tantalus device could find its target even in the dark.

  Kirk deliberately walked through the main rec deck on his way to the transporter room. He wanted to make certain he was seen. Then he hurried back to the rooms he shared with Marlena. She stood behind him at the Tantalus device as, with the touch of a button, Christopher Pike ceased to exist.

  That night, Kirk slept as soundly as he’d slept the night after Captain Garrovick died, and at first, he thought the old woman’s voice was part of a dream. But it was still there in the morning as he straightened the tunic of his dress uniform in the mirror, and it had a quality half thought, half speech, but nothing at all of dream.

  James…It is James?

  “Who wants to know?” he said aloud, forcing himself not to spin around to see what he couldn’t see in the mirror.

  We note you with interest. Christopher was weak, unsuitable. You, on the other hand…