SPECTRE [042-4.7]

By: William Shatner

Synopsis:

A new "Star Trek" adventure featuring Captain James T. Kirk. Retired
and happily married, Kirk believes his adventuring days are over.
However, as he returns to Earth for the first time since his apparent
"death" upon the "Enterprise-B", events elsewhere in the galaxy set in
motion a mystery that may provide his greatest challenge yet.

Over 100 years ago, when he was a young man on his first Five Year
mission as captain, James T. Kirk found himself in a universe that was
a mirror of our own--where he and his crew were the evil envoys of the
Terran Empire, imposing their cruel will on the helpless people of the
galaxy. On Kirk's advice, the Spock of that universe brought that
Empire down. Now, 100 years later, the Terran Empire is gone and
humans live as slaves of the Klingons, Cardassians, and Bajorans. A
galaxy of enslaved...

by William Shatner with Garfield Reeves-Stevens & Judith Reeves-Stevens
Also by William ShatNER TekWar TekLords TekLab Tek Vengeance Tek
Secret Tek Power Tek Money Tek Kill Man o' War Believe (with Michael
Tobias)

Star Trek Memories Star Trek Movie Memories The Ashes of Eden (with
Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens)

The Return (with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens)

Avenger (with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens)

WILLIAM SHATNER

SPECTRE

with Judith Reeves-Stevens & Garfield Reeves-Stevens POCKET BOOKS

New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore 	POCKET BOOKS, a
division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New
York, NY 10020 Copyright 1998 by Paramount Pictures.  All Rights
Reserved.

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster
Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket
Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN:
0-671-00878-1 First Pocket Books hardcover printing May 1998

10987654321 POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon &
Schuster Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A.

Star Trek has been good to me: Fame, Fortune, Fantasy. But most of all,
Friendship.

My Friend, Leonard, my best man, the best man. And the essential
Southern gentleman, my Friend, DeForrest And his devoted, loving, and
lovely wife, Carolyn.

I dedicate this book to them and my delight in their friendship.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gar and Judy Reeves-Stevens are incredible.  Their work speaks for
itself.  Their mastery of the legends of Star Trek is incomparable.

To John Ordover, Margaret Clark, and Gina Centrello for their
expertise.

SPECTRE

PROLOGUE

"He's still alive," the Vulcan said.

Though Kate heard the Vulcan's words, she didn't understand their
significance.  She leaned forward across the small table in the bar on
Deep Space Nine.  Some huge alien with a drooping face like a shriveled
prune had just won a triple Dabo.  He was making so much noise by the
gaming table that normal conversation was impossible.

A nervous Ferengi scampered out from behind the bar, pushing his way
through the noisy crowd, arms waving. "mom!  mom!  Put her down!"

The alien, mom presumably, was performing some type of victory dance
with a Dabo girl.  As he spun her around in his embrace, her feet no
longer touched the floor and she was precariously close to losing what
little there was of her outfit.

With all eyes and other sensing organs in the bar on the dancing mom,
the Vulcan took advantage of the distraction to slip a small padd
across the table to her human companion.

Kate palmed the flat device, cupped her hand around its miniature
display, and activated it.  She gasped as she recognized the face that
appeared.  The hatred that sprang to life within her was like a
physical blow.

"James Tiberius Kirk," the Vulcan whispered.  She kept one hand mirror
real one--up by her face, half-covering her mouth.  She was young, no
more than twenty, Kate knew, but her eyes were older.  Where she and
the Vulcan came from, everyone's eyes were older. "When was this image
recorded?" "A year ago," the Vulcan said.  "During the virogen crisis,
Kirk was arrested by port authorities at Vulcan.  This is from a
magistrate's hearing." Instantly, Kate did the math.  Kirk's birth
date, in the Earth year 2233, would be forever burned into her memory. 
"T'all, that's impossible.  This man is no more than sixty at most. 
But Kirk...  today, he'd be ...  a hundred and forty-two years old." A
second Ferengi, in a Bajoran uniform, now joined the nervous one, and
both took the place of the Dabo girl in mom's arms.  The lumbering
alien was spinning the two Ferengi around as he hopped lightly from one
foot to the other while bleating out a tuneless series of notes that
sounded more like the mating call of a Yridian yak than the song of a
sentient being. The Vulcan, T'Val, sipped her water, using the moment
to glance around the bar.  "Eighty-two years ago, Kirk was presumed
lost during the maiden voyage of a new starship from Earth.  But in
actuality, he was caught in a nonlinear temporal continuum." Kate
frowned.  "I don't understand what that is," she said, staring once
again at the monster on the padd display. T'Val allowed a momentary
flicker of shared confusion to play across her features, so subtle that
none but another Vulcan, or Kate, would notice.  Everyone else would be
distracted by the flat red blister of a disruptor scar etched across
the olive skin of her forehead.  "Do not be troubled.  No one does. 
But four years ago, Kirk was discovered within that continuum by..." 
T'Val's eyes scanned the nearby tables. Kate and she were in a corner,
almost beneath the stairway that led to the second level and the
notorious holosuites, but

SPECTRE

the Vulcan's attitude clearly stated that it paid to take no chances. 
T'Val dropped her voice to an even softer whisper. "...  Starfleet
Captain Jean-Luc Picard." Kate's eyes widened.  How could such a thing
be possible? Even here? T'Val continued.  "After that, Kirk was once
again thought to have perished almost immediately on the backwater
planet where Picard retrieved him.  But a year later, to everyone's
surprise, he returned.  A Romulan faction had used Borg technology
to..."  The Vulcan searched for the correct terminology. "Bring him
back to life?"  Kate said. But T'Val shook her head.  "Logic dictates
that because he lives today, he did not die then.  It is more accurate
to think of Kirk experiencing a momentary interruption in normal
biological processes." Kate had heard none of this before.  "And then
what?" T'Val steepled her fingers, the fingertips of her natural right
hand almost but not quite aligned with the crude bionic structure that
served as her left hand.  "And then, most of what followed is not part
of the official record.  It must be considered that, perhaps, Starfleet
would prefer to keep the knowledge of Kirk's return a secret. 
Unofficially, it is known that two years ago, in a classified
operation, Starfleet prevented a Borg-Romulan alliance from invading
the Federation.  They did so by undertaking an unprecedented preemptive
assault on what they believed might have been the Borg homeworld.  Last
year, the Borg response to that assault was the launch of a desperate,
single-ship attack on Earth in which, unconfirmed reports suggest, the
Borg created a chronometric passage to Earth's past, and attempted to
change that planet's history." Her mind swimming with all she was
learning, Kate sat back in her chair and watched as mom was led from
the bar by a security officer, also in a Bajoran uniform, who bore a
strangely planed face, as if he were a sculpture half-completed. She
was surprised to see the nervous Ferengi pat mom on the

2 	3 back.  The gesture seemed one of support, yet Kate saw its true
intent as it diverted attention from the Ferengi's other hand slipping
into the hulking allen's belt and reappearing with a bar of latinum.
Kate was not the only one to have noticed the maneuver. The
smooth-faced security officer stopped, faced the Ferengi, and held out
his hand with an expression of tired disgust. The Ferengi feigned
innocence for a few moments as he muttered something about "damages." 
Then, looking equally disgusted with the security officer and the
universe in general, he shrugged and surrendered the latinum. He
doesn't know how good he's got it here, Kate thought. She looked around
the bar.  None of these people do. "And Kirk survived all of that?" 
Kate asked. "He was not involved in defending Earth from the Borg. But
last year, again under strict conditions of secrecy, he played a key
role in resolving the virogen crisis." "And now...  ?" "And now, as
best our sources can ascertain, he has withdrawn from all contact with
the universe at large.  Not even the war with the Dominion has drawn
him out.  In effect, he has retired.  To a world named Chal." Kate was
intrigued.  "A Klingon word?" The Vulcan nodded.  "'Heaven."  The one
place where no one would expect to find Kirk.  The colony on Chal was
established more than a century ago by the Klingons and Romulans.  A
military installation to house a doomsday weapon, in case the empires
lost what they expected to be an all-out war with the Federation." Kate
rubbed at a bead of moisture on the table.  It was still a novelty to
sit in a public place and not be afraid of being arbitrarily arrested. 
It was as refreshing as the new civilian clothes she wore, and the room
she had rented in the habitat ring, a room she didn't have to share and
where she could stand in the sonic shower all day if she wanted.  The
slight inconvenience of cutting her hair to bristle-short length and

SPECTRE

dyeing it flame red, as part of a disguise, was an inconsequential
price to pay.  She was certain that out of uniform, no one would
recognize her, especially where they did not expect to find her.  "If
Kirk's retired, what makes our sources think that he has access to the
material we need?" "Starfleet honors its heroes." Kate almost gagged at
the term.  "Hero?  Kirk?"

"Remember where you are," T'Val cautioned her.  "Following its standard
policy to support personnel that have been temporally trans located
Starfleet stands ready to offer any aid and assistance to the famous
Captain Kirk, at any time. Last year, he was even offered a position on
the science vessel Tobias.  He refused, but the Fleet would welcome a
chance to reclaim one of its own, especially one with so much... 
experience." Kate nodded, a sour smile on her face.  All around her and
T'Val, the bar was returning to normal.  Or, at least, as normal as any
bar run by a Ferengi could be.  "If Kirk is such a hero, if he's held
in such high regard, why don't we just ask him for what we need?" The
Vulcan raised a skeptical eyebrow.  "Given all you know," she said,
"would you trust him?" "Hell, no.  How could IT' "Precisely.  Thus, we
must place Kirk in a situation in which he will have no choice but to
accept the sincerity of our request, and the inevitability of his
compnanc Kate studied the image on the padd.  Automatic waves of
revulsion swept through her.  "He was never the sort to respond to
threats." "Threats, no," the Vulcan agreed.  "But logic, yes." "T'Val,
whatever else he is, Kirk is no Vulcan.  What if logic doesn't work?"
The Vulcan's face became an impassive slate.  "Logic always works.  And
since total secrecy--for ourselves and our activities-must be
maintained, if James T.  Kirk does not acquiesce to our requests, then
we must do what logic demands." Kate didn't need to have it explained
to her.  "We kill him." "Precisely," the Vulcan said.  "James Kirk has
retired.  For whatever reason, he has decided he has nothing else to
contribute to this universe.  But he can still serve us.  And, if he
will not, then he has no reason to live."

"I could have told you that."  Kate stared down at the image of Kirk on
the padd.  "In a way, I hope he doesn't cooperate.  I think I would
enjoy killing him."

For the briefest of instants, T'Val's face was transformed by a
remarkable expression of emotion--unfiltered hate and anger.  "I
understand," she said, and that emotion was in her voice as well as her
eyes.  Then, just as quickly, she regained her composure.

Kate held her finger above the padd's delete control, hesitated for
just a moment of sweet anticipation, then pressed it. James T.  Kirk
was wiped from the device's memory as if he had been no more than a
dream.  Or a nightmare.

Erasing the detested image brought fierce pleasure.  No question about
it.  For all he had done to her and her people, she would relish
killing Kirk.  She turned to her companion.

"Maybe after he's helped us," she said to T'Val, "you and I can kill
him anyway."

The Vulcan's gaze was fixed on the blank padd display, and even Kate
could read the un-Vulcanlike desire for revenge simmering beneath the
surface.  "Yes, we could," T'Val said. "One way or another, James
Tiberius Kirk must die."

ONE

His shadow stretched before him in the blazing light of Chal's twin
suns, but James T.  Kirk stood alone.

For a year he had known that this day would come.  This final moment
when all he had worked for on this world would end in victory, or in
final, ignominious defeat.

All or nothing.

It was the way Kirk liked it.

The hot suns of Chal burned at his back.  But he did not let their
assault deter him from what he must Now!

With a sharp intake of breath, Kirk wrapped his arms around the
wrinkled gray covering of his enemy--the beast that had relentlessly
mocked him all through the year. His muscles strained.  Sweat poured
from him. His vision blurred with the effort. All or nothing. And
then--Movement!

He was doing it!  He dug in his feet, struggled as he had never
struggled in his life until---with a startling crack a band of fire
shot through his lower back like a phaser burst and he collapsed to
the soil of Chal, gasping in agony.

James T.  Kirk's back had gone out.

Again.

And the malevolent tree stump, that last gnarled mound of deadwood that
was the final obstacle in the field he had cleared, the field where his
new house would be built and his garden planted, remained in place. 
Mocking him still. Kirk tried to sit up.

His back made him reconsider the idea.

He lay there for an endless time, finger tapping the soil.  The pain
did not bother him so much as the forced inactivity. Where's Dr.  McCoy
when you need him?  he thought.

Then a shadow fell over him.  A very short shadow.  The sound of its
owner's approach so silent he had been taken by surprise.

"What'sa matter, mister?  You having a nap?"

Kirk raised his hand to shield his eyes as he stared up at...

The child's name escaped him.

"Who are you?"  Kirk asked.

The young boy, no more than six, put one finger up his nose as if
performing exploratory brain surgery on himself. "Memlon."

Kirk remembered him now.  Memlon lived two farms along the road to
City.  Like most of the people of Chal, his features combined a
suggestion of Klingon head ridges with a slight Romulan point to his
ears.  Like those of most children everywhere, the knees of his white
trousers were smudged with grass, his cheeks with dirt.

"Do your parents know where you are?"  Kirk asked, hoping to send him
on his way.

"Uh-huh."  Memlon nodded slowly as he withdrew his finger from his nose
to hold up his right hand to show Kirk his subspace locator bracelet, a
civilian spin-off from Starfleet's communicators.

"Then isn't there something else you should be doing?"

SPECTRE

Memlon wiped his finger on the white tunic he wore.  The tunic showed
evidence of previous similar maneuvers.  The child shook his head. 
"What are you doing?"

Kirk sighed as he realized that his back still wasn't going to let him
sit up.  So he rolled onto his side and pushed himself into a sitting
position...  slowly.  "I am trying...  to remove that tree stump... 
from what will be my new dining room."

Memlon studied the twisted stump with the practiced eye of a
six-year-old who had all the answers.  "Don't you got a phaser?"

"No.  I don't...  got a phaser."

"My mom has a phaser."  Memlon drew a bead on the stump with his
finger, then did a remarkably realistic imitation of a phaser's
transonic squeal, followed by a less-than-realistic "Pow!"  The child
looked back at Kirk with an expression of pity.  "You want me to ask my
mom if you can borrow it?"

"No.  I am going to take that stump out by myself.  With my own
hands."

The child stared at Kirk as if the adult had suddenly begun speaking in
an ancient Vulcan dialect.  "Why?"

"Memlon," Kirk said.  "Look around this field.  Do you remember what it
was like last year?"

Memlon held up his hand, fingers spread.  "I'm six," he announced.  As
an afterthought, he held up one finger from his other hand as well.

Kirk took that to mean that Memlon had no memory of what this field
used to look like.  But Kirk did.

Three years ago, it had been like any other part of Chal's legendarily
beautiful tropical islands: a slice of paradise, an Eden.  Two years
ago, the planet's plant life had been deliberately exposed to a
virogenma hideous disease organism which had reduced Chal's islands to
an apocalyptic landscape of brown stubble and withered yellow
vegetation.  Not a flower had bloomed on the planet in more than a
year.

But then, in that same year, Kirk had returned to this world

8 eight decades after his "death" during the maiden voyage of the
Enterprise-B.  With Spock and McCoy, and with Captain Jean-Luc Picard
and his new generation of Starfleet's finest, Kirk had discovered the
conspiracy that had inflicted that hideous act of environmental
terrorism on the worlds of the Federation.  With the interplanetary
civilizations of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants on the brink of
environmental collapse, he and his allies had helped the Federation
defeat the Vulcan Symmetrist movement.  McCoy came up with an
antivirogen, and the ecosystems of a hundred worlds were now being
restored through their own natural healing processes.

Kirk had not saved the Federation, but he had bought it extra time to
consider the fate that awaited it.  In the next thirty years, he knew,
and now others did too, that a new strategy of expansion and
exploration must be embraced to allow humanity, and all the people of
the galaxy, to live as part of the galactic ecology, not as its
exploiters and spoilers. Otherwise, the next time environmental crisis
struck, there would be no last-minute redemption.

But that was a challenge for Picard and his contemporaries. Kirk had
fought his own war, too many times.  So he had once again returned to
Chal, and to his love, Teilani.

The spaceman had hung up his rockets.  He was on this world to stay. 
To find a simpler life.

He had found it in this small patch of forest.

It was no more than a clearing in the midst of newly reborn vegetation,
alive with birds and insects, ringed by vibrant green leaves, wreathed
with flowers of uncountable colors. But it was Kirk's new home, new
world, new universe.

A year ago, Teilani at his side, her hand in his, their hearts
entwined, Kirk had stood in this clearing and, in an electrifying
moment of self-realization, understood that he was Chal. Born of
conflict.

Subjected to incredible trials that had brought both to the edge of
extinction.

And now, against all odds and expectations, reborn.

SPECTRE

Kirk had never been one to waste the moments of his life, though he had
too often been driven by his heart and by the moment, not by his
intellect and reflection.

Here in this field, where his mind's eye in that instant had seen a
simple wooden home, ringed by a veranda, powered by a simple windmill,
and had seen the crops in the plots of soil to be carefully tended,
Kirk resolved that his life would change.

Teilani had looked at him then, into his eyes, and so great was their
love, so close their connection, that Kirk had not had to explain a
word of what had arisen in his mind.

"You're right," Teilani had said with perfect understanding.  "We'll
build here.  A house.  A home."

And so in this field, Kirk had toiled.

Each tree he had cut down had been carefully stripped and planed to be
used for that dwelling, so that nature's bounty wasn't squandered. 
Each tree had been replaced by a new seedling, precisely planted to
provide shade for that dwelling and to maintain the balance of this
world, so that nature was respected.

With a team of ordo vers--the horned, horselike beasts of burden of
Chal--pulling a hand-forged plow, Kirk had leveled the hillocks and
filled in the depressions.  He had carried the rocks that now
strengthened the bank of the stream that flowed at the edge of the
clearing.  His skin had darkened beneath the suns of Chal, and since he
no longer ate the precisely fortified and artificially enhanced foods
of Starfleet, his hair had become threaded with silver.  But each week,
the rocks had become easier to lift, the ax easier to swing.  New
purpose had given him new strength and vitality.

The first time he had come to Chal, more than eighty years ago, he had
believed his life to be at its end.  The Enterprise-B was about to be
launched.  His career was over.  The universe had seemed to have no
more need for James T.  Kirk.  Had his life truly ended when history
had first recorded it on that maiden flight of the new Enterprise, it
would have been

	SPECTRE

fitting.  What additional contributions could be expected of him?  How
much more could the universe demand? But as Spock was fond of reminding
him, there were always possibilities.  And Kirk felt certain that not
even the Guardian of Forever could have predicted all the further
adventures that had remained for him.  Kirk himself still could not
fully comprehend the gifts that life had bestowed upon him, and how his
career had continued past any expectation or dream he had held at its
beginning. But, at last, even those adventures had come to an end, and
it was to Chal he had come home. Thus, where once he had roamed the
galaxy, now he seldom strayed farther than the small cabin he shared
with Teilani, and this field where he toiled.  At this time in his
life, after all he had accomplished, there was challenge here enough.
And the focus of that challenge was that one last miserable stump. "Are
you okay, mister?" Kirk blinked at the little boy.  "What?" "Were you
asleep?" "I was thinking." The child nodded sagely.  "That's what my
dad says when he lies on the hammock on the porch.  He snores a lot
when he thinks.  Do you snore?" Kirk was glad Teilani wasn't here to
answer that question. "No," he said. "We're you thinkin' about the
stump?" "I was." "How come you don't blow it up?" This time, Kirk
thought about the problem at hand: how to explain to a child the
reasoning of an adult.  "Memlon, someday, when you're grown, you're
going to pass by this field.  And there will be a house built right
where we're standing--" "You're not standing, mister."

Kirk ignored him.  "row, here we are right now.  And you'll see the
crops, and the trees, and you'll be able to say to your children, Jim
Kirk made that field the way it is.  He planted every tree, took out
every rock and stump, hammered every nail into every board of that
house.  That's Jim Kirk's field." Kirk smiled as he contemplated that
image.  He wanted to build something with his own two hands.  Create
something that was uniquely his. But Memlon frowned.  "Who's Jim Kirk?"
Kirk sighed.  He remembered speaking with computers that were as
exasperating as this child.  "I am." The boy peered at him
suspiciously.  "Are you...  Cap'n Kirk?" Here we go, Kirk thought. 
Even after so many years, that old rank still followed him.  Haunted
him.  The two great truths of the universe were that the future could
never be foreseen, the past never escaped. "Yes, I am," Kirk said.
Memlon didn't seem convinced.  He leaned forward as if he might be able
to see right through Kirk.  "You don't look crazy." Kirk tried to stand
but his back screamed at him, making him grimace again.  He coughed to
cover the sudden expression of discomfort as he remained planted on the
ground. "Who...  says I'm crazy?" Memlon shrugged.  "Everybody." "Why?"
The shrug became more exaggerated.  "I dunno."

"Memlon .  .  .  " The sound of that new voice was like a wave of cool
water to Kirk.  He turned quickly, as if he were a teenager again,
awaiting his first love at a secret rendezvous.  "Teilani!" And Teilani
rode into the clearing, a vision, a dream come to life, her white wrap
billowing from her as she sat bareback on Iowa Dream.  The horse was a
spectacular animal, a genetic re-creation of one of Earth's antique
breeds, known as

	12 a quarter horse.  He had been a gift from Picard--a peace
offering, Kirk suspected, considering the tension that had still
remained between them after their last encounter.

Iowa Dream--the name chosen by Picard as well, in memory of an ancient
champion and their own first meeting--stepped precisely from the trail
to the center of the clearing, as magnificent as any other
manifestation of nature on this planet.

Kirk didn't even bother to try to stand--he knew he couldn't make
it--and he could see the look of amusement on Teilani's lovely face as
she realized why he remained seated on the ground.

Memlon, on the other hand, shot off toward Teilani like a photon
torpedo.  "ghojmoHwl7 ghojmoHwl?"  he shouted.  It was the Klingon word
for "teacher," and Kirk realized that the child must be part of
Teilani's weekly reading group.

Teilani expertly dismounted, her simple white leggings and tunic
floating across her lithe body like wisps of clouds.  Kirk had never
seen anyone more beautiful, and in this setting, on this world, at this
instant, his heart ached with his love for her.

Teilani walked over to Kirk, holding Memlon's hand, her bare feet
sinking into the rich soil of Chal.  She glanced at the stump.  "The
beast still mocks you?"  she asked gravely. "It started to move," Kirk
said.

Teilani gave him a knowing smile.  "But your back moved more?"

Kirk's face admitted the truth.

Teilani untangled her hand from Memlon's, then held out both to Kirk. 
"Keep it straight," she said with the voice of experience.  "Use your
legs."

Keeping his back rigid, Kirk pulled himself up with Teilani as his
brace.  Then his lips were only centimeters from hers, and it was as if
time had stopped in that moment, each detail of her appearance only
serving to entrance him once again.

SPECTRE

In human terms, Teilani might appear to be fifty, though like that of a
Vulcan's, her unique genetic heritage thoroughly concealed the fact
that she had lived for more than a century. Her hair, tied back for
riding, was even more silvered than Kirk's, though to his eyes, it was
as if she were wreathed in stars.

From the subtle ridges of her brow, past an eye and across one cheek,
the angry slash of a virogen scar still flared.  The same genetic
engineering that had enhanced her health and longevity had also served
to make her flesh resistant to protoplaser treatment.  McCoy had
proposed an experimental grafting procedure that might reduce the
raised evidence of the scar tissue, making it possible to disguise the
disfigurement with makeup.  But Teilani had told him, No.

Whether it was the Klingon in her that made her choose to wear the
blemish to her beauty with honor, or that she had come to understand
that outward appearance meant nothing when measured against those
qualities that dwelt within a warrior's heart, Kirk didn't know.  And
he didn't care.  For when he looked at Teilani, he no longer saw the
scar, nor the silvered hair, nor the lines that age brought even to
those of Chal.

He saw only the woman he loved.  And no sight could be more
beautiful.

Kirk leaned forward to brush his lips against hers.

And instantly tensed as his back went into a spasm of pain.

Teilani was not sympathetic.  "Five minutes at the clinic could take
care of that for the next five years."

"I'll keep doing my exercises," Kirk told her.  "No more protoplasers,
no more force field readjustments."

Teilani tapped his forehead.  "No more sense."

He took her hand.  Kissed her finger.  Was sorry Memlon was here.  This
clearing held many special memories for Kirk and his love.

	14 The child tugged on Teilani's tunic. "Yes?"  Teilani said with the
forbearance of a born teacher.  "ghojmoHwlthat's Cap'n Kirk!" Teilani
clapped her hands in surprise.  "He is?" Memlon nodded.  "You be
careful," he warned his teacher. Teilani smiled at Kirk's look of
consternation.  "And why is that?"  she asked with great seriousness.
"I'm crazy," Kirk explained. He recognized the tremble that came to
Teilani's lips when she tried not to laugh, and realized she had heard
that conclusion before.  "Who says?"  she asked. "Everyone," Kirk told
her before Memlon could. "I see.  Well, if everyone says it, it must be
true." Memlon tugged on Teilani's tunic again. "He doesn't got a
phaser, neither." "I know." Memlon's eyes widened in surprise.  "You
do?" "And he doesn't got a replicator," Teilani said.  "No tri-corder.
No communicator.  No computer." Memlon's mouth hung open.  "Not even a
padd?" Teilani shook her head.  "Not even a padd." Memlon gazed at Kirk
as if trying to make sense of a creature from another dimension.  "How
come?" "Because we depend too much on machines," Kirk told the boy. 
"We've given up too much of our independence, too much of our
connection to the worlds around us.  We've cut ourselves off from the
experiences that make us human, from the knowledge that we are part of
nature." Memlon blinked, not a gram of comprehension in him. "Do you
understand a single word I've said?" "Nope." Teilani knelt down to hold
the child's hands.  "Memlon, it's getting close to supper time.  I
think you should be going home." Mere Ion nodded.  "All right,
ghojrnoHwl'."  He drew his

16

SPECTRE

hands away, hesitated, then threw his arms around Teilani's neck and
hugged her. Teilani hugged him back, gave him a kiss on his ridges, and
stood up laughing as Memlon ran off toward the path. Then she slipped
her arm around Kirk--very carefully. "Do they really think I'm crazy?" 
Kirk asked. "Who?"  Teilani replied innocently. Kirk frowned. 
"Everyone." "They don't understand you." "But you do?" Teilani lightly
traced her fingers down the opening of Kirk's tunic.  "I love you,
James.  But I'll never understand you." Kirk took her errant hand
before it could distract him further.  "Why do they feel that way?"
Teilani seemed surprised he could even ask that question. "Because of
the way you deny your past." "I don't deny it." "But you do.  Across
the Federation, children learn your name in school.  Starfleet cadets
study your logs from the first year of the Academy to their graduate
studies.  They've written books about you, created data tapes, there's
even that opera on Qo'Nos--" Kirk held up his hands, cutting off the
recitation.  "Those aren't me.  They're reflections, interpretations. 
They've... taken on a life of their own." "I know that.  But they're
also an indication of the effect you've had on the lives of millions,
billions of beings.  You can't deny that.  And it's wrong of you to
try." "I don't...  deny what I've done." Teilani became serious, and
Kirk recognized he was not looking into the eyes of his lover, but of
Chal's greatest diplomat, the woman who had successfully brought this
troubled world into the Federation. "You do deny it, James.  Every day"
Kirk said nothing.

"You've fought gods.  You've changed the course of history. You've
walked more worlds than most people will ever even see in tapes.  And
after all that, you've spent the last year of your life doing battle
with...  with a tree stump.  A tree stump you could deal with in a
second with a phaser, or in a minute with the same team of ordo vers
you used to level the field." Kirk held out his hands to her.  "I want
this to be our home. A home that I build for us." Teilani sighed as if
this discussion were one they had had every day.  In a way, it was. 
"James, you are my home.  Where you are, my heart follows." "And my
heart is here, on Chal." But Teilani, eyes full of love, shook her
head.  "I know that's what you tell yourself.  But that's not what you
believe.  Not really." Kirk was silent, not wanting to argue.  It was
what he believed.  It had to be. He felt Teilani's hand caress his
cheek. "I don't know which is more stubborn," she said.  "You or that
stump." Kirk took her hand, looked at her again, afraid of what he must
ask.  "Are you telling me it's time to go?" Of all the possible
responses to that terrible question, Teilani chose to smile, with all
the warmth of her planet's suns. "Listen to you, James.  It's always
all or nothing.  But life isn't like that.  You have to find a
balance." Kirk didn't understand.  "That's what I've found here." "You
mean, that's what you've sought.  But you don't belong in this field
any longer." Kirk gazed around, seeing all his dreams in perfect
completion. "This is my home." "Your home will always be a place to
return to, James." Kirk didn't know if the sharp sorrow that now
invaded him

SPECTRE

was because of the thought of leaving Chal, and Teilani, or because,
somehow, he knew she was right. "There's nothing more for me to do out
there, Teilani.  They don't need me anymore.  You do.  Here." Teilani
pursed her lips in disbelief "Must I also teach you to be selfish? 
Don't leave Chal or me because you feel you have to do something for
someone.  Leave for yourself." "But where would I go?"  he asked. She
spread her arms as if any part of the universe was his for the taking. 
"You get a hundred invitations every month. Choose one.  Any one." Kirk
narrowed his eyes at Teilani.  "You are trying to get rid of me."  But
then Kirk glimpsed in her the same sorrow he felt. "James, I know you. 
If you don't go now, if you don't admit what's in your heart, then the
restlessness and frustration will build in you, it will fester in you,
until one day you will wake up and it will be all or nothing again. 
Then you'll turn your back on Chal, and on me, and leave us to search
for something you still don't understand." Kirk squeezed Teilani's hand
as if to make his flesh fuse with hers.  "Never." "Balance, James.  In
your heart, there will always be room for Chal and me and..."  She
looked up, as if she could see the stars behind the brilliant blue sky
of her world.  "...  all the rest.  Go now, and you might learn that. 
Go later, and you never will." "I don't want to leave you." "I don't
want you here until you understand that being here is right." Kirk
stared at the stump.  It was gnarled and twisted, its spreading roots
inseparable from the soil, powerfully linked with Chal. It was also
dead. Is that why he had expended so much time on his battle

	18 with the stump?  Had his mind made it the symbol of his own battle
to remain on Chal, accepting his new role as a man of quiet
contemplation?

"Will you come with me?"  he asked.

"Do you understand a single word I've said?"

Kirk smiled at her, tried a different, more playful tact.  "Are you
certain you can get along without me?"

Teilani gave a tug to the drawstring of his tunic, pulling it open,
letting the breeze flutter over his chest, to be followed by her
hand.

"I have a plan," she said.

"Do you?"  Kirk asked as her other hand found her own drawstring, and
opened that as well.

"You might be leaving Chal," she whispered as she drew near, "but you
will always be here with me."

Kirk felt his breathing falter as she kissed his neck and her nails
glided under his tunic, across his back.  Then he glanced around,
suddenly aware they were in the middle of the field.

Iowa Dream unconcernedly munched on some tufts of string grass,
ignoring what his human companions were up to.

But still, there might be other watchers.

"What about Memlon?"  Kirk asked.

"He'll be halfway home," Teilani breathed into his ear as she tugged at
the rest of his clothes.  Then she straightened up, looked Kirk in his
eyes.  "What do you think of him?"

Kirk was surprised by the question.  It wasn't what he was thinking
about now.  "He needs someone to explain things to him."

"You'd be good at that," Teilani said.

Kirk had no idea what she meant.  And for the moment, he had no
interest in pursuing the matter.

He cradled her head in his hands, kissed her head ridges, the points of
her ears, inhaled the fragrant scent of her sun-warmed hair.

"I like this plan of yours," he said.

"I thought you'd approve."

SPECTRE

"But maybe, with my back, this isn't the right time."

She smiled at him, eyes half open, breath shallow, lips parted.  "Leave
that to me."  Then she smiled at him wickedly. "As someone once said,
resistance is futile."

Kirk laughed.  Beneath the suns of Chal, their shadows joined to become
one.  And he found peace in those timeless moments, a shield against
the activity he must undertake in the next few days.

Because he knew Teilani was right.  He needed to venture out into the
universe again.  Even though his secret fear was that there were no
more challenges out there for him to face.

What need could the universe possibly have for a hero whose time had
passed?

	20

TWO

Like a caged predator, Jean-Luc Picard paced the bridge of the
Enterprise, ignoring the sporadic vibrations that shook it. Ten years
ago, he might have accepted an assignment like this. But today, he
could only see it as a waste.  Of his ship, of his crew, and of his
time.

And right now, to Picard, there was no commodity more precious.

As Picard strode along the raised deck encircling the bridge, another
shudder passed through the Enterprise.  The subspace pressure waves
that pummeled the ship were not dangerous, merely annoying.  Picard
could ignore them, though he worried that they might be putting his
crew on edge despite the monotony of their current duty.  As the ship's
artificial gravity field and inertial dampers compensated for the
buffeting, Picard paused behind the sole member of his crew who did not
appear to take umbrage at having the captain read over his shoulder. 
But this time even Data turned back to him from his science station.

"Captain, your observation of my sensor readings will not cause them to
proceed more rapidly." Picard nodded.  When even an android reacted to
his

22 SPECTRE

impatience, he knew he had gone too far.  "You're right, Data. A
watched pot never boils."

Data observed the captain carefully.  "Sir, at Commander Riker's
suggestion, I once undertook a detailed analysis of that assumption. 
My research showed that at normal atmospheric pressure of seven hundred
and sixty torr and in the presence of a heat source capable of
delivering a temperature of one hundred Celsius degrees to an arbitrary
mass of water, a watched pot always boils.  At the macroscopic scale,
the quantum-observer effect is trivial."  Data paused, as if
remembering something else from his detailed analysis.  "Of course, if
there is a defect in the observer's timing mechanism, from personal
experience I can relate that subjective observations do appear to
outweigh the empirical and--"

Picard knew when he had been told off.  "Carry on, Mr. Data."

Data turned back to his sensor controls.

As Picard stepped away from Data's station, he caught Riker grinning at
him.  His executive officer was working at a secondary science station
on the other side of the bridge. Picard walked toward him, tapping a
clenched fist against the side of his leg.

"Don't tell me you're enjoying this duty," he said.

Riker's smile broadened.  "I wasn't aware I had a choice, sir."

Picard didn't understand what was wrong with everyone. "Will, this is
the flagship of the Fleet.  The most sophisticated piece of machinery
ever built by humanity.  She's designed for

..  for exploration, blazing new ground, taking action." "I think
you're describing her captain."

But Picard was not to be swayed.  He looked at the virtual main screen,
where the Goldin Discontinuity was displayed in all its writhing,
multicolored glory.  Flashes of antiproton energy, appearing to be
little more than lightning strikes despite their solar-system-size
scale, flickered among the billowing plasma storms.

"This region of space is no different from a dozen others," Picard
said.  "Two science vessels could cover it more efficiently than even
this ship.  And they're built for it.  This duty is what their crews
train for." Riker stood up and stretched, still watching the stream of
data that played across his station's displays.  "Sir, if this were
just a science mission, you'd be right.  But what if we find what we
don't want to find?" Picard had had this argument before. 
Specifically, with Fleet Admiral Alynna Nechayev at Starbase 310.  With
remarkable stubbornness, even for her, the admiral had insisted that
the Enterprise be assigned to the Goldin Discontinuity. Picard had
fought against that decision.  And he had lost.  He had no desire to
suffer the same fate at the hands of his Number One.  But he couldn't
help himself. "There're no Cardassians out there, Will." "With the way
the plasma storms disrupt our sensors, there could be an entire fleet
riding our wake and we'd never know it." "We're too deep within
Federation territory.  The Cardassians could never make the crossing
undetected." Riker didn't offer any more protestations, but Picard
already knew how the rest of the argument would play out. Since the
main hostilities of the war with the Dominion had appeared to be in
momentary abeyance, some factions within the Cardassian ruling elite
had become obsessed with finding a new wormhole passage to the Gamma
Quadrant.  During the war, Cardassia even had attempted to build an
artificial wormhole, deep in Cardassian space. Even if that attempt had
been successful--and Picard and his crew had ensured that it was
not--it would still have offered only a sporadic, partial connection to
the Gamma Quadrant.  All evidence supported the conclusion that only
stable wormholes were useful for sustained transport, yet no theory had
yet been accepted as to why the Bajoran wormhole should exist at all.

SPECTRE

Certainly, the fact that intelligent beings dwelt within it--aliens or
prophets depending on one's philosophical leanings-was considered a key
factor in the wormhole's capabilities. But Starfleet scientists,
charged with keeping current with Cardassian investigations, if not
surpassing them, had recently begun to analyze the nature of space-time
around the Bajoran system.  As a result, several intriguing theories
concerning the Badlands--a region of space near the Cardassian border,
filled with plasma storms--had been developed. It might be possible,
both Starfleet and Cardassian scientists had concluded, that the
presence of a Badlands-type section of space was an indication that the
local continuum could maintain a stable wormhole.  Thus, throughout the
Alpha and Beta Quadrants, Starfleet was returning to previously mapped
regions of plasma storms to see if more detailed study could reveal a
connection between them and wormholes. On the frontier, several
Starfleet vessels had already had run-ins with Cardassian ships,
leaving no doubt that the Cardassians were pursuing the same line of
research.  A new technological race had begun. The Institute for
Starfleet Strategic Initiatives had declared that the ability to create
stable wormholes between any two points in space would be a development
that could render the Cochrane drive--and, therefore, every warp vessel
in Star-fleet--obsolete. Thus the Enterprise had been assigned to re
map the Goldin Discontinuity, a task a dozen other vessels might have
handled. But only the Enterprise, Admiral Nechayev had argued in her
most persuasive manner, could handle what might transpire if a
Cardassian task force were discovered deep within Federation space.
This is the same Starfleet that didn't want me to take part in the
defense of Earth when the Borg attacked, Picard had

	24 thought bitterly at the time.  But he had accepted his orders.

As Riker had said, it was not as if he had had a choice. "Engineering
to Captain Picard."

Geordi La Forge's voice over the bridge speakers was a welcome
distraction to Picard.  He turned away from Riker. "Picard here."

"Captain, the plasma storms are really eating into our shields.  We
could use another layover in normal space to recalibrate."

Picard looked ahead to Lieutenant Karo, the new Bolian conn officer. 
"Mr.  Karo, what is current shield strength?" "Eighty-four percent,"
the Bolian answered crisply.

"We do not appear to be in any immediate danger," Picard replied to La
Forge.

"Not right now," the engineer answered.  "But the way these storms
work, we could experience a sudden drop to ten percent in less than a
minute, with no warning."

Picard hesitated.  As much as he wanted to warp out of the Goldin
Discontinuity, he knew that each minute spent leaving and reentering
the region of plasma storms delayed the ultimate conclusion of the
mission.

Yet how could he put the Enterprise at risk for purely personal
reasons?

"Very well," Picard said without enthusiasm.  "Mr.  Karo, plot a course
to the closest clear region of space from our position at the end of
this sector sweep."  Picard read the figures on Riker's secondary
science display.  "That will allow us to leave the area in...  fifteen
minutes, Mr.  La Forge.  Will that be suitable?"

"Yes, sir.  La Forge out."

Picard turned back to Riker.  "I've just added a day to this
interminable mission."

Riker's smile faded.  "Sir, we've undertaken research like this a
hundred times before.  It's standard duty."

That was the point Picard had been trying to make to SPECTRE

anyone who would listen.  "Exactly, Number One.  But this is not a
standard ship."

Riker appeared to misunderstand.  "What I mean to say is, have you
considered taking a few days off?.  Head out on a holodeck adventure. 
Dixon Hill, a cross-country ride, anything. I can mind the store,
sir."

Picard didn't understand Riker's equanimity.  "After all we've done,
how can you stand this...  inactivity?"

Riker stepped closer, lowered his voice.  "Jean-Luc, it goes with the
job.  We can't fight the Borg every day."

Then what's the point?  Picard wanted to say.  If he wasn't out here
accomplishing something worthwhile, something that demanded the best
and the most of him and his crew, then what was the reason for being
out here at all?

Riker seemed to sense the sudden resentment-filled frustration that had
risen in his commanding officer.  "Captain... you've been living in
your ready room for weeks.  You need to get off the bridge."

Picard's first impulse was to demand to know why Riker thought he could
criticize his commanding officer.  But he realized that knee-jerk
reaction was born of something other than Riker's justifiable
concern.

"You're right, Will," Picard forced himself to say, though he couldn't
believe it.  "I do need a change in routine.  A few hours and--"

"A few days, sir.  If anything happens, you're only as far as the
turbolift."

Because Picard did not want to accept Riker's suggestion, he did accept
it.  A captain was only as good as his crew, and if he couldn't trust
their judgment, then what were they doing on his ship?

"A day," Picard said in compromise.

"A day," Riker agreed.  He put his hand on the back of his duty chair,
about to sit in it again once the captain had left.

But Picard hesitated.  He looked around the bridge, tugged on his
uniform jacket.

	26 Riker gestured to the closer turbolift, urging his captain on. "If
we find Cardassians, you'll be the first to know."

Picard accepted that he couldn't put it off any longer.  The bridge
shook gently.  It reminded him of being on the deck of an actual,
seagoing vessel.  Perhaps a holodeck cruise to the old South Pacific
would be in order.  "You have the bridge, Commander.  I'll be in my
quarters if you--"

Then Data's voice, calm yet urgent, cut off all other conversation on
the bridge.

"Commander Riker--I have detected an anti tachyon surge, bearing zero
two eight, mark ten."

The deck pitched in response to a powerful pressure wave. Riker moved
past Picard as if the captain had already left the bridge, and took up
position in the center chair.  "Distance?" he called out.

"There is so much subspace distortion, I cannot be certain," Data said.
 "But no farther than five hundred thousand kilometers."

Picard steadied himself against a railing as the bridge bucked up
again, fighting for equilibrium.

Riker leaned forward, gripping the arms of the command chair.  "Mr. 
Karo, adjust course to head for the source of the anti tachyon surge,
full impulse."  He looked up to the bridge's curved ceiling.  "Bridge
to Engineering.  Geordi, we're going to need stable shields for the
next few minutes.  If you see them weakening, go to auxiliary power."

La Forge responded that he was standing by.

Picard remained at the back of the bridge, watching in silent amazement
as his executive officer polled the bridge crew, quickly giving them
their tasks.  He knew as well as Riker that an anti tachyon surge could
be an indication of a weakening in space-time, perhaps marking the
initial appearance of a quantum fluctuation.  And a large enough
quantum fluctuation could give rise to a wormhole.  It was exactly the
phenomenon the Enterprise had been sent out here to find.  To

28 SPECTRE

be superfluous on his own bridge, especially at a time like this, was
more than he was willing to accept, even if he had already given Riker
the conn.

He kept one hand on the railing as he stepped down to the main level. 
"I'll take over, Commander."

Picard was surprised by the flash in Riker's eyes, as if he had
forgotten that his captain was present, or as if he resented giving up
command.  But without hesitation, Riker left the chair and took his
position on the left.

Picard settled into the center chair, trying to ignore the sudden
sensation that the Enterprise herself was trying to throw him from it
by her shudderings.

"Readings, Mr.  Data?"

"New surges, Captain.  Whatever is happening, is increasing in
strength.  We could be witnessing a wormhole opening."

The shaking of the bridge was constant now.  The background hum of the
dampers and the structural-integrity field generators rose in a deep
whine that hummed from the deck and the bulkheads.

Riker leaned closer.  "Shall I ready the probes, sir?" Picard nodded,
eyes fixed on the screen.  The closer they moved to the origin point of
the anti tachyon surges, the more scrambled the visual image ahead
became.  It was like looking through a flurry of visual static smeared
by doubled images and ghostlike overlays.

La Forge suddenly broke in over the speakers.  "Captain--shields are
dropping.  Twenty percent in the past ten seconds."

"We're so close," Picard murmured to himself.  "How much longer do we
have, Mr.  La Forge?"

"If this keeps up, no more than two minutes, sir.  And when I switch to
auxiliary power, we'll be down to thirty seconds."

Picard glanced at Riker, wondering if the commander could appreciate
the irony of the situation.  Something had finally happened, and the
Enterprise would not be able to stay in the area to witness it.

"Mr.  Karo," Picard called out.  "Lay in an immediate course out of
the Discontinuity.  Prepare to engage on my mark."

"Aye, sir," the Bolian answered.

Then the main screen flared with an explosion of deep violet light and
the Enterprise angled wildly, as if she had hit a brick wall in
space.

Picard didn't bother waiting for La Forge's report.  "Mr. Karo, en--"

And then, the bridge was still.

On the screen, static and plasma clouds still writhed.  But the
Enterprise was as smooth and level as if she were warping through empty
space.

"Data?"  Picard asked.  In the shorthand he used with his crew, no more
detailed question was needed.

"The surges have stopped, sir.  And...  according to my readings...  a
wormhole might have opened."

Picard was on his feet.  He moved quickly to Data's station. "What do
you mean, 'might'?"

Data was clearly puzzled by the information on his screens. "Sensor
distortion is so strong, many of these readings are suspect.  But I am
confident that some form of extra dimensional rift did momentarily
manifest."

"Any sign of it now?"  Picard asked.  A mystery was almost as good as
action.  At least, it gave him and his crew something to do, instead of
just being passive recorders of sensor readings.

"No sign of..."  Data stopped.  Readjusted several sensitivity
selectors.

"What is it?"  Picard asked.

"It is...  a...  ship, sir."  Data looked up at the captain, his
emotion chip allowing his surprise to be clearly evident in his
expression.  "And I am receiving a standard Starfleet friend-or-foe
automated transmission."

Picard turned to the main screen.  "There are no other Starfleet
vessels assigned to this area," he said.

SPECTRE

Also on his feet, Riker peered up at the screen.  Amid the wash of
static and interference, an elongated sensor shadow was coming into
view.

"Can you read the ID code?"  Picard asked.

"No, sir," Data answered.  "There is too much interference... too
much..."

The image on the screen was growing, though it still wasn't detailed
enough for Picard to identify.  For a few moments, it was almost as if
he was seeing the detached saucer hull of another Sovereign-class
starship, identical to the Enterprise.

Data spoke again.  "Captain...  I am picking up the transmission now...
 NCC...  seven...  four six...  five six?"

Picard stepped back as if the deck had pitched.  The hair on the back
of his neck bristled.  He had wanted something to happen, but this... 
?

"My God," Riker said as the ship on the screen at last came into
view.

Picard understood the emotion Riker displayed, because he felt it,
too.

The ship on the screen appeared in full detail now.  The name across
her battered hull clear and unmistakable.

Applause started on the bridge, soon followed by cheers. Picard
couldn't blame his crew.

This was truly a moment for celebration.

Five years after being lost with all hands in the Delta Quadrant, the
Starship Voyager had at last come home.

	30

THREE

"Captain Kirk, for a man of your astoundingly advanced age, you're
lookin' in fine fettle indeed."

Kirk shot his eyes sideways past his glass of iced mint tea, blinked as
if what he saw couldn't be real, then opened his mouth in surprise. 
"Scotty?!"

The familiar face of Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott burst into a wide
grin as he saw Kirk's expression.  "You were expecting your great-aunt
Mabel?"

For a person whose survival had often depended on his ability to talk
his way out of an unexpected situation, Kirk was uncharacteristically
speechless.  He thought he had become fully acclimated to this new era
in which he lived.  He had grown used to the new wrinkles that creased
Spock's taciturn features.  He had come to accept McCoy's pure white
hair.  And he had learned to accept the inevitable loss of a lifetime
of friends and family.

But to see Scotty before him, virtually unchanged from the last hour
they had been together on the bridge of the Enterprise-B...  For a
moment, Kirk felt dizzy.

It's the gravity, Kirk told himself.  After all, this was his first
trip back to Earth since he had beamed up to the new Enterprise, with
Chekov and Scott, eighty-three years ago.

32 SPECTRE

Earth's gravity was slightly stronger than Chal's, so he was still
getting used to it.  That must be the reason for his sudden feeling of
light-headedness.  What else could it be?

"Cat got your tongue?"  Scott asked, clearly enjoying Kirk's momentary
silence.

Then Kirk found his way past his surprise.  It no longer mattered that
he was on Earth, in the city of Montreal, surrounded by more than a
thousand other temporal trans-locatees who had gathered for this
conference.  All that mattered was he had found a friend he feared had
been lost with so many others.

"Scotty, you...  look wonderful."

Scott frowned in good-humored disbelief.  "Aye, and might I add you
don't look a day over one hundred and twenty yerself."

For a few moments, Kirk and Scott stared at each other, each with a
glass in hand, both oblivious now to the gala party that swirled around
them on the immense antigrav platform that floated through the night. 
But neither said anything more, as if there were so much to be said
that the words had been caught in a monumental systems failure.

Captain Morgan Bateson disrupted the awkward silence.  "I would think
you two would have more to say to each other," he said.  "How long were
you shipmates?"

Kirk looked back at the officer to whom he had just been speaking,
grateful for his assistance.  "Scotty was with me on...  on my first
five-year mission."  Kirk shook his head in wonder.  How many years,
how many light-years had they both traversed to come together in this
present moment--a moment neither one would have believed if they had
been told about it at their careers' beginning?

"Aye," Scott said pointedly.  "The first five-year mission, and every
mission thereafter."  He stepped forward to offer his hand to Bateson. 
"Sometimes I suspect the captain has a wee bit o' trouble remembering
that."

The tall, bearded captain shook Scott's hand, and as the

two men spoke Kirk was surprised to realize that they knew each other,
and had even worked together.  Bateson was also a Starfleet officer
from Kirk's and Scott's era.  But where Scotty had deliberately placed
himself in a risky transporter loop in order to survive the
seventy-five years it had taken to be rescued from his crashed ship,
Bateson and his entire crew and starship, the Bozeman, had been trapped
for ninety years in a temporal causality loop by accident.  Whatever
the differences in their journeys, though, both Scott and Bateson wore
Starfleet's latest duty uniform, with gray on their shoulders and black
for the rest. Kirk, who wore the simple clothes of a Vulcan traveler,
frowned as the greetings ended.  "Scotty, that's not true. Where would
I be without you?" The engineer sipped his drink, something green, and
gave Kirk a questioning look.  "You'd be right here, sir.  It's been
how long now?  More than three years since ye came outta that Nexus
whozzit."  Scott smiled, but there was a recriminatory undercurrent to
it.  "And look at you 	You never write.

You never call."

Kirk understood Scott's exasperation, but there was another side to his
complaint, as well.  "Scotty, I was...  busy."

"Aye. I've heard that before."

Kirk saw Bateson's look of amusement, and he suddenly realized that as
annoyed as Scott appeared to be, the engineer was pushing the moment
for their audience.  Kirk and Scott had been through too many
adventures together, too many good times -- and bad--for the bond
between them to be completely severed by the differing demands of their
separate careers. At least, Kirk hoped that was the case.

He held up his glass, used it to indicate the holographic banner that
floated above the leSte-Hlne and the meticulously reconstructed
pavilions of Expo '67 they floated past-- BIENVENU VOYAGEURS A TRAVERS
LE TEMPS / WELCOME TIME

TRAVELERS.

34

SPECTRE

"Let's leave the past behind us, Mr.  Scott.  We're all of us on a
journey to the future." "Some of us faster than others," Bateson added
with a smile. "We should go forward together," Kirk continued.  "Not
stumble over what's happened in the past."  He held out his glass to
Scott, hoping the engineer would join him in a toast. Scott leaned
forward and made a show of sniffing Kirk's tea.  "That's quite poetic. 
Have ye been into the Romulan Ale again?" Kirk frowned at Scott.  He
was being serious, audience or no.  "Mr.  Scott...  ?" Scott smiled,
clinked his glass to Kirk's.  "To the future, then.  Goodness knows
we've made our living from it long enough." "How about to friendship?" 
Kirk asked. Scott winked at him.  "That'll be a question for you to
answer, sir." Kirk sighed.  Scott wasn't letting him off easy.  "After
eighty years, Mr.  Scott, I think you can forgo the 'sir."" A devilish
twinkle came to the Scotsman's eyes with that. "Right you are... 
Jimmy!"  Then Scott downed the rest of his drink in a single swallow,
beaming as Captain Bateson laughed. Kirk did not join in the fun his
two companions appeared to be sharing.  He wondered what Teilani was
doing that moment.  This was the longest he had been apart from her for
more than a year. "I'm sorry," Bateson said, stifling his laughter. 
"But you two...  you must have served a long time together." Kirk
nodded. "Aye," Scott said. "It's different for me," Bateson continued. 
"Mostly because Mr.  Scott here helped me to accept this new age.  And
my whole crew came through the loop with me, so I don't feel as
isolated in this time.  Almost all of us are here tonight."

	SPECTRE

Kirk followed Bateson's gaze to the milling crowd behind him.

"Did you ever think there'd be so many people pulled from their own
eras?"  Kirk asked.

"'Tis a growing concern," Scott said.  "Cryoships from the twenty-first
century.  Colony sleeper ships from the twenty-second. Temporal rifts. 
Warp malfunctions."  He looked meaningfully at Kirk.  "I've heard
rumors that Starfleet located another sleeper ship from the Eugenics
Wars.  Another batch of Khan's supermen, they say.  Being 'reeducated'
on Alpha Centauri II."

Kirk made no comment, sipped his tea.  Those were the problems of this
century.  They weren't his.  Instead, he wondered if Teilani was
sleeping.  He pictured the way the moonlight always caught her hair in
the bed they shared. Once, she had wakened to find him transfixed by
that sight, unable to sleep.  But she had a way of dealing with that.

But Bateson seemed to have a direct connection to Kirk's thoughts. 
"It's a common experience, for those of us who've jumped ahead by more
than our natural lifetimes, to consider that the challenges of the
present day are no longer our concern."

Kirk eyed Bateson attentively.  Those words had been far too formal. 
"Captain, you sound suspiciously like a man who wants to make a
point."

Bateson smiled, caught in the act.  "Then I'll make it.  I have been
asked by Fleet Admiral Alynna Nechayev herself, to personally invite
you to return to Starfleet."

Kirk wasn't surprised, but Scott nearly spit out a mouthful of ale.

"re cannae be serious, lad."

"But I am, Mr.  Scott.  And so is Starfleet.  To use the vernacular of
the era in which this World's Fair was first built, Command wants James
T.  Kirk back in the saddle."

Scott looked puzzled.  Kirk knew why.

"Actually," Kirk said, "this World's Fair is from the twentieth
century.  The 'back in the saddle' is from the nineteenth."

Bateson shrugged.  "What's a century among friends?  The point is, we
can all learn a great deal from the past."  He looked out past the
railings of the antigrav platform to where a large geodesic sphere
passed by them, glittering in the onslaught of dozens of searchlights. 
Kirk found it odd that a structure whose design was so old could look
so familiar--Buckminster Fuller's ancient principles of geodesics were
still used to build colony domes throughout the Federation.

"Consider this reconstruction," Bateson said.  "The Montreal Historical
Society has reproduced in exacting detail a moment in time.  Nineteen
sixty-seven.  Before the first moon landing.  One hundred and twenty
separate governments taking part in a celebration of the full range of
humanity's achievements of the day.  Can you imagine?  One planet but
one hundred and twenty governing bureaucracies?  No wonder it was an
era of confusion."

Kirk chewed his lip in contemplation.  Each moment of this return to
Earth had brought new insight into his desire to remain on Chal.  Why
were so many people so intent on looking to the past?  Teilani had been
right to make him take this trip--it truly served to make him long for
home.  "If it was an era of confusion," he said, "then why return to
it?" The best days were those to come, Kirk knew.  Always.

But Bateson disagreed.  "As the great Vulcan philosopher Surak once
said, 'Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat
it.""

"Surak and a dozen others at least," Kirk replied.  He scanned the
crowd, looking for a server.  He'd like another iced tea, though the
way Bateson was going on, he'd settle for his first whiskey in almost a
century.

"Neural gel packs," Scott said out of nowhere.

Bateson blinked at him.  "I beg your pardon."

	36 Kirk saw a tray-bearing woman in a...  tuxedo.  He didn't know
from where he had pulled that obscure term, but he knew it was the
correct one for the antique black-and-white costume she wore.  Yet,
though servers in the second half of the twentieth century might very
well have worn tuxedos as a uniform, Kirk had his doubts about this
server's short, flame red hair.  That seemed to be a fashion from
another era.  She was already heading in his direction and he raised
his hand to attract her attention.  She nodded.  Her smile was quite
charming.  It made him think of Teilani again.

"Neural gel packs," Scott said again.  "Have ye ever heard of them?"

Kirk realized the question had been directed at him.  He had no idea
what the engineer meant.

"I'm afraid I haven't."

Scott shrugged elaborately.  "Och, well, there ye go then."

Now Bateson joined Kirk in waiting for Scott to make whatever point he
seemed to be groping toward.

"There I go where?"  Kirk asked.

"Well, in your day, it was duotronics.  All the computers, most of the
equipment, everything had duotronic circuitry at its core."

"Duotronics !  know," Kirk said.

"My point precisely," Scott said.  "But what about isolinear chips? 
What about--" He cleared his throat as if making a grand announcement. 
"--neural gel packs.  They're the new heart of the computers these
days.  And you, my friend, don't know a thing about them."

Kirk shrugged.  "You're right.  I don't.  At least, I don't think I
do."

"Which proves my point.  Ye have no intention of returning to
Starfleet.  Otherwise, ye'd never let things like that slip past
you."

Kirk nodded, seeing no need to argue, and no point at all to it.  He
hadn't read a technical paper in more than a year, and

38 SPECTRE

he was glad of it.  The time was right for moving on in his life.
Starfleet had shown it could get along without him.  His days of action
and adventure were finally at an end, and he didn't miss them.

Kirk raised his glass in a toast.  "For once, Scotty, we're in perfect
agreement."

But with that, Scott suddenly looked concerned.  "Hmm. Then p'raps I
should reconsider my position."

"Captain Kirk," the server said as she approached him, holding out her
tray of drinks.

Kirk smiled at her, finding her husky voice pleasing, wondering how she
knew his name.  There were more than a thousand attendees at this
conference, most of them right here on the antigrav platform that
slowly turned to take in the enormous ski-jump-type structure of a
glass-covered pavilion. Kirk didn't recognize the hammer-and-sickle
design on the pavilion's red flag.  Another inconsequential detail lost
in the mists of history.

Kirk checked the server's tray, sorry to see there were no teas or
Vulcan waters.  He shook his head to refuse her offer of a new drink. 
Then he glanced at Bateson, wondering if he would like to make a
selection.

But Bateson's face was creased in concentration as he stared at the
woman.  "Excuse me, but has anyone ever told you you bear a remarkable
resemblance to--"

The phaser beam hit Bateson square in the chest before he could
finish.

Kirk stared in confusion as the Starfleet captain stumbled back with a
moan.  Part of him understood that the beam could only have come from a
miniaturized weapon that the server held under her tray.  But this was
Earth, the safest planet in the Federation.  This was the future, an
era of peace that Kirk had helped to bring into being.  Despite the
evidence of his eyes, Kirk's only thought was This isn't happening.

Then the server tossed her tray aside to reveal the small

"cricket" phaser she held between thumb and forefinger, and she pushed
it up under Kirk's jaw, close enough that even the mildest stun setting
could be fatal. Somehow by accident or excellent placement, the
pressure of the phaser seemed to be cutting off the flow of blood to
Kirk's neck.  He was aware only of the slow fall of his glass of tea as
it slipped from his hand, then shattered on the patio floor. He had
some dim perception of the people nearby calling out in alarm, but as
his vision narrowed he was aware only of the server pulling close to
him and wrapping a well-toned arm around him as she tapped a hidden
communicator under her jacket. Jane Way here," the server said
abruptly.  "Two to beam up." Then Kirk saw Scott and Bateson and the
crowd of partygoers dissolve in the sparkle of a transporter beam. This
isn't happening, Kirk told himself uselessly.  There was no more room
for adventure in his life, and all he could think of was Teilani, and
how much he wanted to go home. But, as always, the universe had other
plans for James T. Kirk.

40

FOUR

On the Enterprise's main viewer, the Starship Voyager slowly rotated,
her inertial dampers apparently offline.  The sudden elation that had
swept Picard and his bridge crew vanished just as quickly, even before
Data began reporting the results of his sensor scans. "She is showing a
great deal of battle damage, sir.  Along with severe structural
deformations consistent with passage through an unstable wormhole." "A
wormhole," Picard repeated as he stared at the blackened streaks of
weapons' damage to the Voyager's hull.  The sight reawakened in him the
terrible memories of seeing the battered saucer section of his own
Enterprise-D on Veridian III, how he had felt as he had been forced to
accept that his ship would never again move among the stars.  He did
not envy the Voyager's commander now, nor had he when he had read the
electrifying announcement that the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram
had made contact with Starfleet through a mysterious alien
communications array, only two months ago. The remarkable story the EMH
had told, of the Voyager's sudden transit to the Delta Quadrant, the
way her captain had combined her crew with the Maquis rebels she had
hunted, and how they had since persevered to cross more

WILLIAM SHATN pounds

than ten thousand light-years on their journey home, had become an
inspiration to all of Starfleet.  And now, to have crossed the
remaining sixty thousand light-years in only months, Picard knew he was
looking at a ship full of heroes. "Mr.  Data, what is the state of the
crew?"

"Sensors show total crew complement of...  thirty-two." Data glanced
away from his station.  "According to the status report filed by
Voyager's EMH, as of two months ago, her crew complement was one
hundred and twenty."

Picard became aware of Riker moving forward to stand beside him.

"How are her shields?"  Picard asked.

"Twenty-eight percent and fluctuating," Data answered. "Her warp
engines are offline.  She is running on emergency power.  Life-support
is functioning only on three of fifteen decks.  And I am detecting
evidence of inefficient repairs made with alien technology."

"They must have done whatever they had to to survive," Riker said
softly, clearly as moved as Picard by the sight of the crippled ship.

Then a tremor made the bridge tilt, and Picard turned to Riker.  "I
think the first order of business is to remove her from these plasma
storms."

"I agree," Riker said.  "Mr.  Karo, attach tractor beams to the
Voyager.  And treat her gently."

"Aye, sir," the Bolian acknowledged.

On the screen, three violet beams of focused gravitons reached out to
the stricken starship.

"Any sign of them responding to our hails?"  Picard addressed his query
to Commander Zefram Sloane, the Enterprise's security officer, who
replied from his elevated station at the side of the bridge.

"I am certain they can hear us, Captain.  There is a full crew and
activity on the bridge, but there seems to be a problem with their
subspace transmitters.  I have informed them that we have received
their standard ID transmission, so with luck

42 SPECTRE

they should be able to patch their communications through that
system."

But Picard didn't believe in relying on luck.  "Give them that
suggestion, Mr.  Sloane, and provide them with the appropriate
circuitry diagrams.  With almost eighty percent of their crew gone,
they might not have a communications officer or engineer left."

Sloane immediately began to transmit the necessary information. He was
a slightly built human who traced his ancestry back to one of the first
families to settle the Alpha Centauri II system, and from there to
Africa.  Sloanes had been at the forefront of interstellar exploration
from the days of Cochrane, and Picard was pleased that he was in the
unique position to know why that should be so.  More than three hundred
years ago, he had had the singular pleasure of meeting Commander
Sloane's great-great-great-to-the-ninth grandmother. "Tractor beams
engaged," Karo announced.

"Take us out of here," Picard ordered.  "Warp factor one." Instantly,
the deep hum of the Enterprise's engines pulsed through the bridge and,
while the Voyager held her place in the viewer, the billowing,
multicolored plasma storms of the Goldin Discontinuity fell away at the
speed of light.

Picard returned to the center chair, guiltily relieved that this
painfully dull assignment had become something vastly more important,
though he was also saddened by the cost the Voyager apparently had paid
for her journey here.  He was mentally composing the historic message
he would dispatch to Starfleet Command to advise them of his discovery,
when Sloane reported that they were finally receiving a response from
the Voyager.

Even as Picard gave the order to put the transmission onscreen, the
haggard face of a Starfleet officer appeared there.  He wore an older
Starfleet uniform, with a red yoke and lavender shirt.  Picard could
see that the young man's collar was frayed and his uniform tunic was
streaked with dirt.

"You're Starfleet!"  the officer said in wonder.

Picard felt a wave of compassion as he realized what this officer and
his crew must have gone through.  The Voyager had once been the pride
of Starfleet.  Unlike the Defiant class of ships, or even this new
Enterprise, Voyager was a vessel whose primary mission had been a
return to the Federation's greatest ideals of pure exploration.  The
commander who had disappeared with her, Captain Kathryn Janeway, had
come up through Starfleet's science ranks, not through the more
traditional command route.  Yet, in the appearance of Voyager's current
commander, Picard saw the end of the optimism with which the ship had
been launched.  Voyager was a dying vessel without even a replicator to
provide fresh uniforms.  The EMH had told a great deal of their
travails, but in the time he had had, he had not been able to describe
everything.

"I am Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise.  And it is with heartfelt
congratulations that my crew and I welcome you home.  To whom do I have
the honor of speaking?"

The young man's smile was instantaneous, but visibly tinged with
exhaustion.  "Commander Paris, sir.  Tom Paris."

Mentally reproving himself, Picard nodded.  He should have recognized
the family resemblance at once.  "Of course, Commander.  I know your
father, Owen.  May I ask...  is Captain Janeway among you?"

Paris shook his head.  "She...  she didn't make it, sir.  Most of the
crew..."

Picard interrupted, trying to ease the young man's burden. "We count
thirty-two survivors, Commander.  We can go into details later."

"Thank you, sir."  Paris looked to the side, listening to a question
asked out of range of his bridge audio pickups.  He turned back to
Picard.  "Could you tell us where we are, sir? We're guessing we're
somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant, but stellar cartography is completely
offline."

"You are back in the Alpha Quadrant.  You emerged from a wormhole in
the Goldin Discontinuity, a few hundred light-years from the Vulcan
Colonial Protectorates."

SPECTRE

"The middle of the Federation," Paris said, obviously gratified.

"More or less," Picard confirmed.  "May I ask how you managed to cross
the remaining sixty thousand light-years since your EMH made contact
with Starfleet?"

Paris sank back in his command chair, as if now was the first time in
the past five years that he had been able to relax. "It's a long story,
Captain.  It might be a good idea to stabilize Voyager first, get
medical attention for the crew.  A hot meal and a shower would
certainly be appreciated."

"It would be our pleasure," Picard said.  "Your ship is safely in our
tractor beams.  We're ready to beam your entire crew aboard if you'd
like."

"That would be...  wonderful."  Paris stood up.  "We're ready to go,
eager to go, any time.  There are...  a great many bad memories
here."

"I understand," Picard said.  "Have your people stand by for immediate
transport."

"Paris, out."  The viewer flickered back to show the Voyager, now in a
stable orientation.  The Goldin Discontinuity was taking on the
appearance of a folded sheet of interstellar gas. The flight of the
Enterprise was smooth, with no untoward vibrations.

"Mr.  Data," Picard said, "arrange with transporter control to bring
the commander's entire crew over.  I'll want them all to have
individual guest quarters, and unlimited replicator access with the
captain's compliments.  Inform Commander La Forge that I would like him
to ascertain the status of the ship from her crew, and...  apprise
Counselor Troi and Dr. Crusher of our new arrivals.  I imagine medical
care and some counseling sessions might be in order."

Data began preparations at once.

"In addition to being a momentous rescue mission, sir," Riker said to
Picard, "this could also validate the theories that had Starfleet
investigating regions of plasma storms in the first place."

	44

	SPECTRE

Picard wasn't quite sure what Riker meant.

"What if Voyager fell into a wormhole which reached from the Delta
Quadrant to the Goldin Discontinuity?  Depending on where they started
from, this might rank as a discovery as valuable as the Bajoran
wormhole."

An interesting hypothesis," Picard agreed.  "Mr.  Data, is there any
way to determine the extent of Voyager's travels within a wormhole? 
How far?  How long?"

Data took an unusually long time to respond.  "Not really, sir.  The
deeper the meta-analysis of the ship's structural deformities goes, the
more it seems I'm picking up interference in its structural-integrity
field alone, and not actual physical damage at all."

Picard found that curious.  He got up to read Data's science screens
himself.  "Are you suggesting the ship has been damaged only by faulty
control settings?"

"That's one possibility," Data said, though he didn't sound
convinced.

Picard read the details of the Voyager's condition over the android's
shoulder.  If not for the visual appearance of Voyager, he would almost
think he was looking at simulated battle damage from a Starfleet
war-game scenario.  "Is there any other indication that the damage is
simulated, not physical?" "No, sir.  Unless..."

Picard had no patience for equivocation.  Any ship of the complexity of
the Enterprise ran by consensus, but that was impossible if any of her
crew held back information, or even an opinion.  "Mr.  Data...  ?"

Data sounded reluctant, but he continued.  "Sir, I did take the liberty
of analyzing their life-support systems.  And even though sensors
confirm only thirty-two humans on board, the levels of carbon dioxide,
food, and heat waste handled by life-support indicate a larger crew
complement."

Riker had joined Picard and Data.  "How much larger?" "If I had to
guess, sir..." "Consider it an order," Picard said.

"Two hundred.  In addition to the thirty-two individuals that the
sensors confirm being on board."

Riker rubbed at his beard in thought.  "Is there any indication that
life-support is one of the systems repaired with alien technology?"

"There are a great number of engineering anomalies in almost every
system in the ship," Data said.  "But not all of them are clearly
alien.  Some appear to be repairs made with...  I would have to
characterize it as less advanced human technology."

Picard thought there was an easy answer for that.  "Is there any
indication that Voyager has traveled in time?  Perhaps to an earlier
era where they had to adapt primitive materials?"

"An interesting proposal," Data responded.  As the android realigned
the sensors to determine an answer to Picard's question, La Forge
announced that Commander Paris and the first of the Voyager crew had
been beamed aboard.

"Escort them to the bridge before giving them quarters," Picard said. 
To Riker he added, "No doubt the commander will be able to answer a
great many of our questions."

Riker looked concerned.  "Sir...  I wonder if we should consider mutiny
as a cause of Voyager's apparent condition?"

Picard remembered that that had been one of the theories advanced to
account for the ship's loss, but that the EMH had firmly ruled it out. 
True, Tom Paris had been a member of the Maquis, and Voyager had been
on a mission to capture a Maquis cell when she had vanished, but the
EMH had claimed that all earlier animosity between the two opposing
crews had vanished.  Indeed, Picard--and most of Starfleet Command--had
been startled to learn that Janeway had even invited a Borg to join her
crew.  The very idea raised the hair on the back of Picard's neck.

"Paris is wearing a Starfleet uniform," Picard noted.  "But I shall
keep in mind the possibility of trouble involving the crew."  He looked
back at the sensor displays.  "Any progress, Mr.  Data?"

46

"The effects of wormhole travel must be more complex than current
theory suggests," the android said.  "According to my preliminary
temporal scans, more than ninety-three percent of the components on
Voyager are less than eighteen months old."

"But, Voyager was at least a year old when she vanished," Riker said. 
"The hull plates alone would have been fabricated a year before
that."

"As I said," Data repeated, "these readings are not in accordance to
theory.  It might be possible that the ship was subjected to an intense
chroniton burst, though I doubt any member of her crew could have
survived such an assault."

Riker looked meaningfully at Picard.  "Captain, given the
circumstances, I think it might be a wise precaution to keep our guests
under observation."

Picard nodded.  "I agree."  He looked around for Commander Sloane, but
Riker had more to say.

"And I don't think we should allow any of the Voyager crew on the
bridge, or near any critical control facility."

"That seems rather harsh," Picard said, "but according to the EMH's
description of life on board the ship, I suspect the crew will be more
interested in any case in our food and recreation facilities. 
Commander Sloane, prepare a security detail--very discreet--to..." 
Picard stopped speaking as the starboard turbolift doors puffed open
and Geordi La Forge appeared, accompanied by Tom Paris and five
bedraggled Starfleet officers in old uniforms.  Paris smiled broadly as
he gazed around the expansive bridge.

"Your ship, Captain Picard, she's a wonder."

Picard leaned closer to Riker.  "Will, see to the security detail," he
said in a low voice.  Then he approached Paris and the others from the
Voyager.

"Welcome aboard, Commander.  I hope you will treat the Enterprise as
your new home."

Paris did something with his arm, as if flicking an object from his
tunic's sleeve.  "Don't worry, Captain, we intend to."

48 SPECTRE

And then Picard saw in the young man's hand what could only be a
weapon.

Riker moved forward at once to put himself between Paris and Picard. 
But Picard held up his hand.  "It's all right, Will. Evidently,
Commander Paris hasn't done his homework."  He regarded the officer
sternly.  "The Enterprise computer will not allow a weapon to be fired
on board this ship without command override.  Mr.  Sloane, prepare to
fire on Commander Paris, heavy stun."

Paris crouched and spun, firing at Sloane before the security officer
could rise from his chair.  Picard heard a rush of air, but saw no
energy beam leave the weapon.

Yet Sloane gasped and crashed back against his station as if he'd been
blasted by disruptor fire.

The bridge crew were frozen in place, awaiting their orders, as all the
others from the Voyager suddenly held similar weapons.  One jammed her
weapon against La Forge's temple.

"We have done our homework, Captain."  Paris angled his weapon so
Picard could better judge it.  Constructed of a dark gray material, the
device was no larger than a hand phaser, with no status lights
apparent.  "Mechanical springs that fire composite darts.  Each tip
coated with a Klingon nerve toxin.  No high technology for your
computer to suppress."  He aimed once more at Sloane's unconscious
form.  "And two darts are fatal." Data stood up.  "Fortunately, I am
not an organic being." Paris swung his weapon around to Picard, as did
four others of his crew.  "But your captain is.  If you think you can
take us all out before we manage to hit him twice, feel free to try."
Data hesitated.

But Picard knew there was no need.  Thirty-two humans were no match for
the android.  And the Enterprise always came first.  "Computer," Picard
said.  "Emergency lockout! Picard Alpha One!  Mr.  Data--they are not
to have this ship!"

That was all Data needed to hear, but as the android sprang forward
with superhuman speed, Picard felt the first sting of a dart in his
left shoulder.

As he fell back, stumbling against Mr.  Karo, Picard saw Riker go down
as well, clutching at a dart in his side.  And even as Data smashed his
fists into the third of Paris's crew, Picard saw La Forge drop with
three darts in him, and felt another hit himself just below his
sternum.

Picard collapsed to the deck, slumped against Mr.  Karo's chair.  The
Bolian was already stretched out before him.

It was difficult to breathe, but Picard knew the risk had been worth
it.  Paris and all five of his accomplices were down, and Data was
unharmed.  Even as the bridge began to spin around him, Picard knew the
Enterprise had been saved.  In the end, that was all that mattered.

And then the port turbolift doors opened and Picard knew he was
wrong.

Six more attackers stormed the bridge.  Three Klingons. Three
Cardassians.  And whatever weapon they now fired at Data hurled the
android into the engineering station in an explosion of transtator
sparks.

Picard gazed up, unable to speak, unable to even focus his eyes as he
saw the blurred image of a Cardassian female loom over him.

"Your Starfleet used the same weapons-override system for this ship
that they used for Voyager," she said, in a voice that was drawn out
and distorted.  "An extremely shortsighted design flaw, wouldn't you
agree?"

Using every bit of self-control he still possessed, Picard managed to
gasp out, "Get off...  my ship ...."

"There's just one problem, Picard.  The Enterprise...  she isn't yours
anymore."  The Cardassian bared her teeth at Picard as her image slowly
dissolved into a featureless void of black.  "She's mine."

Then the emptiness of space reached out for Picard, to separate him
forever from his ship...  and his life.

FIVE

Kirk tumbled downward through a tunnel of shimmering light, constantly
aware of Janeway's firm, muscled body pressing closely against him. 
What at first had felt like a simple transport--a process that should
have taken a few seconds at most--became drawn out and disorienting.

He tried to count the number of times he thought he felt solid ground
materializing under his feet, only to be lost again.  But each
materialization seemed to bring a different gravity field whose effect
served only to keep his balance unstable and his concentration
distracted.

Finally, just as a section of solid flooring appeared beneath him and
he tensed, waiting for it to dissolve again, Janeway suddenly shoved
him forward.

Kirk reflexively spread out his arms, to absorb the impact of his
fall.

But the impact didn't come.

He was falling forward toward the floor.  But very slowly. Before his
fall ended, he had time to look around to see that he was in a small,
metal-walled room, lit by sputtering light tubes, littered with
garbage, reeking of sweat and something rotting, and then he hit the
slick, wet floor.  Gently.

Effortlessly, Kirk straightened up, and that was enough to

50

bring him back to his feet.  He dried his hands on the edge of his
Vulcan surplice as he slowly turned around, being careful to keep his
feet in contact with the floor at all times.

He had felt this weakened gravitational field before, and he knew
exactly where he was.  His kidnapper had displayed an impressive
technological feat, even for the twenty-fourth century.

Kirk faced Janeway, who remained on the portable transporter pad,
raised a few feet above floor level.  Her head was barely clear of the
low, metal-ribbed ceiling plates.

She kept her small phaser trained on Kirk and pulled off her tuxedo
jacket as if it were a constricting disguise.  "I know all about you,
Kirk.  One wrong move, and you're a dead man."

But Kirk merely folded his hands behind his back, a reflection of the
sudden sense of control he felt.  His kidnapper had just revealed to
him that he was not a random target. That meant someone wanted
something from him.  And that meant what had begun as a kidnapping now
could play out as a negotiation.

"If you had wanted me dead, why go to all the trouble of a
multiple-relay transport to get me to the moon?"  Kirk asked, claiming
the initial move in their exchange.  After almost thirty years in the
center chair of a starship, he was ready to pit his negotiating skills
against any corners.

Janeway pulled at the waist of her black trousers and the loose garment
broke apart, obviously intended to be quickly shed.  Beneath her
server's costume, she wore a sleek, black, one-piece combat suit.  Kirk
didn't recognize the design, but judging from the raised circuitry
patterns that were woven through the garment, he presumed it would have
phaser armor, as well as weaponry and communications capabilities built
in.

"You think you're so clever," Janeway growled as she kicked off the
shiny black shoes she had worn over her boots. They thudded into a dark
corner of the room.

SPECTRE

"No, but I believe you are.  It shows a great deal of cleverness to
devise a way to transport me from the Earth to the moon without being
concerned that the authorities will track the multiple beam paths you
must have used."

Janeway glared at him and Kirk understood that interference by Earth
authorities was of definite concern to her.  His response to that
knowledge was to feel even more in control of the situation.  So much
so that there was not even any need for him to think of an escape
strategy.  Janeway's nervousness, despite her having accomplished a
successful abduction, told Kirk that she was not the person in charge
of whatever action was under way.

And if Janeway was just the middleman, following explicit orders, it
meant she was essentially powerless.

Janeway stepped down from the transporter platform and gestured to a
thick, armored pressure door.  It was partially open, leading to a dark
corridor beyond.  From its construction, and the condition of its
flaking paint, Kirk guessed they were in the abandoned service area of
one of the first lunar colonies, dating back almost to Cochrane's time.
He recalled that the moon had been terra formed in this new age, with
its own free atmosphere and open bodies of water.  Thus, the fact that
he was in an area of the moon's natural low gravity suggested that he
was either deep underground, below the range of the main gravity
generators, or in an undeveloped region.  In other words, this was a
perfect location for a secret base in Earth's solar system.

"Through that door," Janeway ordered.

Kirk decided to see exactly how much latitude her orders gave her.  He
made no attempt to move.  He only shook his head and said, "No."  Then,
inwardly, he smiled as he saw Janeway's expression of surprise.  Kirk
almost felt sorry for her.  Someone should tell her how much
information she gives away just by not being aware of her own
reactions.

"You go out that door or I swear I'll stun you and drag you through
it."

52

SPECTRE

Kirk shrugged.  "You could, but your commander ordered you not to." 
Otherwise, Kirk knew, Janeway would have stunned him at his first sign
of obstruction.

Janeway looked startled, ready to blurt out a question, probably asking
how Kirk could know what her commander had ordered her to do.  But she
didn't, showing she was capable of some self-control.

"My orders were not to hurt you..."  She carefully aimed her phaser at
Kirk.  "...  unless necessary."

Kirk had found one limit.  He changed tactics to see if he could find
another.  "It won't be.  I am willing to cooperate. But I want some
assurances, first."

Janeway again gestured toward the doorway.  "You're in no position to
want anything."

"You haven't done this before, have you?"

Janeway stared at him, bewildered by his defiance.  Kirk was clearly
not behaving like a typical victim.  For his own part, Kirk was finding
it almost too easy to keep her off-balance.

"If you mean kidnapping, no," she said.  "I usually just kill
people."

Kirk read the truth in her eyes.  She was a soldier of sorts, but
experienced on the battlefield, not in covert operations. That told him
a great deal about her superiors.  And that knowledge gave him the
strategy he needed to take control of the situation.

"Point that phaser away," Kirk said.  He used what he had always
thought of as his commander's voice--the tone he used on Academy cadets
when it was important that they follow orders first and understand them
later.

It had the appropriate effect.  Janeway automatically deflected her aim
by a few inches.  He had her attention.

"I know all about you, too," Kirk continued, pressing his advantage. 
"You and your people are in trouble."  Why else would someone
inexperienced in covert operations be given such an important task? 
"And you think I can help you."

Which is why she had been ordered not to harm him.  "But you don't have
much time."  The authorities on Earth would eventually be able to trace
the multiple transporter beams that had brought him here, and Janeway
and her people knew it. "And this base of yours is not secure."  Which
is why she had made no attempt to use her communicator since they
arrived. A stray subspace transmission could help the authorities
locate this place even faster.  "So let's drop the theatrics, and the
weapon.  Since you apparently think you can convince me to help you
without resorting to force, why waste time with a bluff you're not
willing to carry out?"

Janeway's cheeks flushed red and she swung her arm out, directly at
Kirk, thumb squeezing the phaser she held.

But Kirk didn't take his eyes from hers.  Even as he stepped up to her,
folded his hand around hers, and took the phaser away.

Whatever else this Janeway was, she was a good soldier. Her orders were
clearly to deliver Kirk alive and unharmed. And she had followed them. 
Somewhere within her was a central core that understood and believed in
duty and commitment.

He looked at the tiny weapon he had taken from her, pressed what he
hoped was its safety lock, then slipped it inside a small pouch on his
belt.

"That's better."  He held out his hand.  It was time to start again. 
"I'm Jim Kirk."

But his kidnapper was furious.  She ignored his outstretched hand.  He
could tell she had no intention of acknowledging any sort of bond
between them.  She was, however, realistic enough to accept the
situation.  "Kathryn Janeway," she said icily.

The name seemed familiar to Kirk, but he couldn't place it. She seemed
to notice his attempt to recall her identity, didn't like it.  "And I'm
not who you think I am," she snapped.

"I...  have no idea who I think you are."

54

"I'll bet," Janeway muttered.  She stomped over to the pressure door,
threw her shoulder against it to make it creak open, then gestured to
the corridor outside.  "Well?" Kirk stared into the darkness.  He could
hear water dripping. Runoff from some ancient lunar ice mine, he
decided.  A relic of the pre-replicator past.  Teilani enjoyed reading
romance novels set in the early era of colonization, and Kirk thought
she'd enjoy being able to visit this place.  Though he doubted it would
live up to her romantic ideals.  "After you," he said. Janeway exhaled
angrily, but before she could step through the doorway, a deep voice
spoke from the darkness.  "You may remain where you are." And at the
sound of that voice, for the first time this evening, Kirk was
surprised. A tall, thin figure, wrapped in a simple dark cloak, stepped
through the open doorway.  His shoulders were stooped, his left leg
stiff, but his distinctive silhouette was unmistakable. "Spock?!"  Kirk
said. The familiar figure limped from the shadow of the door- way, into
the flickering light of the small room. "Yes," he said.  "And no." For
an instant, Kirk felt his world turn upside down.  He had seen Spock
only a year ago, at Mount Seleya on Vulcan. His friend was 145,
middle-aged for a Vulcan, and though he had slowed down from his days
on the Enterprise, he had been fit and hearty then and should be the
same now. But this Spock before him...  he seemed another century older
at least, as if in the past year some terrible illness had claimed him.
And then one key difference between this Spock and the Spock of Kirk's
memory swam into view. Spock's beard. An elegant goatee, pure white to
match the color of his traditional Vulcan bangs. Kirk remembered the
last time he had seen Spock with a beard.

56

SPECTRE

Spock, and yet, not Spock. As if he were a reflection cast in a dark,
distorted mirror. This other Spock, this mirror Spock, raised an
eyebrow at Kirk.  "I see you recognize me," he said. "How...  could I
forget?" "Indeed."  There was a tremor to this Spock, this spectre from
the past.  His head shook.  One hand, his left, trembled. "One hundred
and eight years ago, you challenged me, Captain Kirk." The memory
blazed in Kirk's consciousness.  How he and McCoy, Scott and Uhura, had
beamed up through an ion storm during that first five-year mission on
the Enterprise, and somehow had traded places with their counterparts
in a parallel universe.  A version of Starfleet had existed there, as
had the Enterprise herself, staffed by duplicates of Kirk's own crew.
Yet that other dimension, that mirror universe, was different--savage,
brutal, a place where Starfleet officers advanced through the ranks by
assassination.  A place where Starfleet did not serve a benevolent
Federation, but a repressive Empire that thought nothing of wiping out
an entire race in retribution for a simple ineffectual act of defiance.
In the few hours Kirk had spent in that parallel existence, he had
understood the truth of it. The Empire would not endure.  Within 240
years at most, an inevitable galactic revolt would overthrow it. "The
illogic of waste, Mr.  Spock," Kirk had told this other Spock then. 
"The waste of lives, potential, resources, time.  I submit to you that
your Empire is illogical because it cannot endure.  I submit that you
are illogical to be a willing part of it." Kirk still remembered the
impassive face of the other Spock, as he had bluntly stated to Kirk,
"One man cannot summon the future." "But one man can change the
present," Kirk had insisted. He had challenged the mirror Spock to take
command of the

mirror Enterprise, to find a way to change the Empire from within. 
"What will it be?"  Kirk had demanded of him.  "The past or the future?
 Tyranny or freedom?  It's up to you."

That other Spock's expression had been unreadable, his thoughts
unknowable, and Kirk had never known if his challenge had been accepted
or rejected.

Now, here in this abandoned storeroom on the moon, in Kirk's own
universe, that other Spock studied him in the inconstant light, as if
he, too, shared the same precise memories of their first brief meeting.
"You told me then," the mirror Spock said, "'In every revolution,
there is one man with a vision.""

Kirk remembered that final exchange clearly.  It was one of the handful
of his missions from that earlier era which had remained alive within
him.  So much of those early days had been routine, easily forgotten
unless prompted by a review of his old captain's logs.  But his
experience in the mirror universe, that had been intriguing and unique,
a highlight of his career.  "And you told me," Kirk replied, "that you
would consider what I had said."

The two men faced each other as they had more than a century ago. 
"I've always wondered what you decided," Kirk said.

The other Spock looked away, as if lost in memory.  He licked his dry
lips.  "I did more than consider your words, Captain.  I...  acted upon
them."

"And...  ?"  Kirk asked, though he was suddenly aware of the only
logical outcome of that action, given this Spock's condition and
presence in this universe.

"And because I did what you had suggested," the mirror Spock said, "the
Empire did fall ....  "His face darkened, and the shaking of his head
and hand became more pronounced. "And it was replaced by one even more
abhorrent."

The mirror Spock limped closer, until he was mere inches from Kirk,
allowing Kirk no escape or evasion.  "In my universe today, the worlds
of what you call the Federation are

58 SPECTRE

little more than prison camps.  Crushed beneath the iron fist of the
Alliance--a union of the Klingon and Cardassian people.  Your Earth is
a dying, devastated world, stripped of resources.  My Vulcan is a slave
compound, her libraries burned, her treasuries of art and science
ransacked and mutilated."

This Spock's eyes were deeply shadowed, as if haunted by millennia of
despair.  His lips were dry and cracked, the thin, almost transparent
skin above his sunken cheeks mottled by pale green spiderwebs of broken
capillaries.  "Tens of billions of humans and Vulcans live in abject
slavery, Captain Kirk. Entire worlds have been moved from their orbits
to fall into their suns as sport, extinguishing whole races and
civilizations. 'Freedom' is a word which exists only as a forgotten
whisper from the long-dead past.  Hope is nonexistent."

The mirror Spock held a trembling finger before Kirk.  It shook with
age, with disease, and with outrage.  "And these abominations and
massacres and acts of depravity in my world--all this evil--exist
because of you!"

Kirk stepped back, unable to deny his role in the horror this Spock had
endured.

More than ever, he longed to return home.  To Chal.  To Teilani and the
promise of their new life together.

More than ever, he knew that was no longer possible, and might never be
again.

After a lifetime of looking to the possibilities of his future, Kirk
now understood that the consequences of his past, at last and
inevitably, had finally caught up with him.

SIX

"Good thing you have an artificial heart."

Picard's eyes fluttered open and he was struck first by pain, and then
by the sight of one of the more colorful aliens he had seen in his
years in space.

The being had a high forehead and tall, concave temples, tinged by
yellow and dappled with spots, topped by a crest of auburn hair that
was in turn matched by muttonchops whiskers.  He also had a deep cleft
in his nose and a constant twitch under one eye.

"Hello," the alien said.  "I could tell you were awake from the
diagnostic readings."

Picard tried to swallow but his throat was dry.  His head felt thick
and every pulse of his heart sent a shock of pain through his skull. 
He whispered, "Hello," but that was all he could manage.

"I'll bet you're thirsty," the alien said.  He scurried out of Picard's
sight.

Picard tried to move, despite the deep ache in all of his muscles, but
soon realized he was tied down by restraints on...  he looked around,
forcing his blurred vision to come into focus.

"Sickbay..."  he croaked.

60 SPECTRE

"That's right," the alien said cheerfully as he returned to Picard's
medical bed.  He carefully cradled a glass of water.

"Not...  the Enterprise, "Picard said as he raised his head to the
glass.  This sickbay was smaller.  The diagnostic wall to his side was
gold, not blue.  He was on a Federation starship, but he didn't know
which one.

"Right again," the alien said as he slipped his hand helpfully behind
Picard's neck.  "You're on Voyager."

Then Picard coughed as he tasted what he thought had been water.  It
was incredibly sweet, such a shocking flavor that he felt his
eustachian tubes close and his jaw cramp.

"No, no," the alien said, keeping the glass to Picard's lips.
"Torstolian elixir.  Just the thing to help overcome the effects of
that Klingon toxin.  I make it myself," he added proudly.

Picard forced himself to swallow rapidly, trying to keep his tongue
from making contact with the hideous clear liquid. "Are you...  the
doctor?"  he asked.

The alien seemed bemused by the question.  He held up the glass to be
sure Picard had finished its contents.  "Oh, no.  I'm just the cook." 
He smiled at Picard, though not even that expression could erase the
air of sadness about him.  "I'm Neelix." "Neelix," Picard said.

"I'm a Talaxian," Neelix explained.  "I don't suppose you've met
someone of my species before."

Picard shook his head, and was surprised that the movement was not as
painful as he had feared.  Perhaps there was something to that
jarringly sweet elixir after all.

Then, as if his mind was clearing with the cessation of pain, so many
questions came to Picard that he had trouble sorting them out.  He
seemed to recall Talaxians being mentioned in the report by the
Voyager's EMH.  But his first priority was clear.  "Where is the
Enterprise?"

Neelix glanced to the side, as if expecting someone to interrupt.  "As
far as I know--which isn't a great deal--that ship is still beside
us."

"How is her crew?"  Picard didn't like the fact that there

was no one else being treated in this sickbay, even though Tom Paris
and his accomplices had fired toxic darts at everyone on the
Enterprise's bridge. Neelix looked away, and Picard judged him to be
incapable of delivering bad news. "Casualties?"  Picard asked, fearing
the answer. "A...  few.  I think.  But...  no one tells me anything."
"Commander Riker?" Neelix smiled apologetically as he shook his head. 
"I'm sorry, Captain.  I don't know him." It dawned on Picard that
Neelix was not behaving as either a captor or a guard.  Which left only
one other conclusion. "You're a prisoner here, too, aren't you,
Neelix?" The alien nodded with a quick jerky motion.  The twitch under
his eye was continuous.  He reminded Picard of a mistreated animal who
expected only the worst at the hands of his owners. "Perhaps I can help
you escape," Picard offered as he applied pressure to his restraints. 
"If you help me." But at once, Picard saw that whatever spirit this
alien might have had, it had long been beaten from him. "Please don't
ask me that, Captain.  You...  you don't know what these people are
like.  What they can do." "What people, Neelix?  Commander Paris?"
Neelix leaned forward, dropping his voice to a whisper. "He's a
prisoner, too.  All the Terrans on board are." Picard slumped back,
trying to process this new information. "The entire crew of the
Voyager, taken prisoner by Klingons and Cardassians...  ?"  It made no
sense.  The Klingons were allied with the Federation.  And just over a
year ago, they had engaged the Cardassian Union in a devastating war. 
How could they possibly be allies?  Unless...  Terrans? "The Alliance,"
Picard whispered, in shock.  "Is that who the Klingons and Cardassians
are?  The Alliance?" Neelix nodded as if he wasn't quite sure how to
judge Picard's urgency.  "That's right.  Voyager is an Alliance
vessel."

62

SPECTRE

"No, she's not," Picard said.  "Voyager is a Starfleet vessel that
disappeared from the Alpha Quadrant five years ago. Somehow, in trying
to find a fast way home, she must have been drawn into what we call the
mirror universe."  It all made sense to Picard now.  When he had been a
cadet, he had read about Captain Kirk's first encounter with that
savage parallel dimension.  And then, like almost every other officer
in Starfleet, he had been startled when Dr.  Bashir of Deep Space Nine
and a Bajoran national had revisited that dimension just five years
ago.  Their classified logs of conditions in the mirror universe were
tremendously disturbing.  Starfleet had engaged the Seldon Institute of
Psychohistory to determine exactly how the two universes might have
diverged.  If there was any chance that the fate which had befallen the
Terran Empire, no matter how richly deserved, could also happen to the
Federation, Starfleet wanted to be prepared. But then Neelix destroyed
Picard's careful chain of logic. "Excuse me, Captain, but I don't think
that's possible. According to what I've heard, Voyager is less than a
year old.  I mean, I was captured on her maiden flight and...  that was
only a few months ago." "Where, exactly, were you captured?" Neelix
seemed to struggle with a painful memory.  "You'd call it the Delta
Quadrant." Picard struggled to fit all the pieces together.  "Which is
where Voyager was lost, tens of thousands of light-years distant."
"Seventy thousand where I'm from," Neelix agreed.  "I was a trader, you
see.  Poking through some old Kazon-Ogla ships--I don't suppose you
know about the Kazon-Ogla?" "The Kazon?  Yes.  There was something
about them in the Voyager report." "Well, there I was, and out of
nowhere, literally, Voyager made contact with me.  The Gul said she was
lost." "The Gul?" "Gul Rutal.  She's Voyager's commander.  She said
they

"One of our Terran rebels downloaded your Starfleet's plans for an
entire starship, Captain.  And not just a star-ship--a warship.  The
Defiant.  That's what they're using against us now.  The weaponry of
your universe.  In ours." Mouth bloodied, Picard stared at the
Cardassian, waiting for more explanation. "You weren't aware of that?" 
Rutal said, suspicious of Picard's puzzled reaction.  "That your
peace-loving Federation has become a provider of weapons to our Terran
Resistance?" Picard shook his head.  "The Defiant's plans were stolen
from us.  To deliberately provide such technology would go against
everything we believe in.  You have my sympathy." The Gul raised her
fist again, but relented.  Instead, she laughed, harshly.  "Sympathy. 
From a Terran.  How droll.  But even the peace-loving Cardassian people
can learn from human perfidy.  Your interference left us no choice.  As
the Terran rebels had done, we--a group of Cardassian patriots-also
penetrated your universe.  Earth Station McKinley, to be precise."
Suddenly Picard understood the true origins of the ship he was in. 
Neelix was right.  "That's where Voyager was built. And where you stole
her plans." Gul Rutal raised her hands to indicate the ship around her.
"Not an exact duplicate of the craft in your universe, but... close
enough to lure in an even bigger catch, wouldn't you say?" Proudly,
Picard stated the simple truth.  "You can't have the Enterprise." "Come
now, Captain.  Fair is fair.  Even to a Terran male. Your universe
provided the rebels of my universe with a starship to use against the
Alliance.  It is only fitting that now you provide us a starship to
take back to our universe, for the Alliance to use against the rebels."
"The Enterprise is my ship.  And I've locked out all her controls. 
Without my command codes, she's useless to you." The Cardassian drew a
single finger along Picard's temple.

66

SPECTRE

"Believe me, Captain.  Your command codes will be mine before a day has
passed." Picard clenched his fists.  "I have been tortured by
Cardassians before." Gul Rutal's smile was unconcerned.  "Correction. 
You have been tortured by your universe's weak and ineffectual version
of Cardassians.  Not real Cardassians, who have had almost a century to
refine the art of extracting information from Terrans.  When it comes
to torture, you don't know the meaning of the word." Picard did not
avert his eyes from Gul Rutal's.  He knew exactly what was in store for
him.  He had suffered terribly at the hands of another Cardassian
Gul--Madred--and knew better than most beings what his true breaking
point might be.  But Starfleet was comprehensive in its tactics, and
one of the command codes Picard possessed was specially developed to be
given up under duress.  The challenge would be to resist long enough
that his captor would accept the false code as a legitimate one, and
not suspect it had been extracted too easily. Once that false code had
been entered into the Enterprise's computer, Picard's ship would know
she had been taken over by a hostile force. The computer would then set
the ship on a course to the nearest starbase, transmit distress calls,
and lock out all helm controls by explosively severing key ODN
circuits. Picard knew he might never reach home again.  But his ship
would.  That was still all that mattered. "Do your worst," Picard said
defiantly, already preparing himself for the ordeal to come. But Gul
Rutal stepped back, raising her hands as if to distance herself from
Picard's suggestion.  "Oh, no, Captain. You misunderstand.  A
Cardassian would not stoop to... soiling her hands with the blood of a
soulless Terran.  In any event, I find it far more fitting that
Cardassian expertise in these matters should be expressed by a hallmark
of your own Terran technology--with some useful variations, of
course."

Picard didn't understand. The Cardassian glanced up at the ceiling. 
"Computer. Activate the EMH." A third figure suddenly formed to
Picard's side, and he recognized the familiar features of Dr.  Lewis
Zimmerman, the Starfleet physician who had used his own form as the
template for the first of a series of artificially intelligent,
holographic doctors designed to assist Starfleet medical crews during
emergencies. The holographic doctor wore an old-style Starfleet
uniform, so Picard guessed its program had been stolen along with the
plans for this duplicate Voyager. In its typical brusque manner, the
holographic doctor glanced at Gul Rutal, then down at Picard. "Please
state the nature of the interrogation requirements," the doctor said. 
With a bland expression, he held up a small device that looked as if a
red triangle with rounded corners had been affixed to a dull silver box
with two tiny wings at the top edge. Gul Rutal gazed down at Picard. 
"As I said, Captain, this ship isn't an exact duplicate of your
Voyager...  but I'm sure you'll find our version has a unique nature
all its own.  To say nothing of its own supply of Terran-designed
agonizers."  She nodded at the doctor.  "Carry on." "Thank you," the
doctor said dismissively. Then the agonizer descended. The last thing
Picard saw was Neelix, as the trembling Talaxian covered his ears. The
last thing he knew was pain.

68

SEVEN

Millennia ago, a vast comet had struck the moon, setting off the
titanic upheaval that had led to the creation of the Sea of Serenity,
one of the oldest of the dark lunar maria.  Had there been any life on
Earth to witness that stupendous impact, it would have seen fountains
of incandescent liquid rock erupt into space, as if a quarter of the
moon had been transformed into fire, blazing so brightly it outshone
even the sun. In the course of hours, as the immense crater formed by
the comet fell in on itself, the scarred surface of the moon had healed
in an outpouring of smooth lava.  In the next few months, billions of
tonnes of lunar ejecta would blaze through Earth's still-forming
atmosphere.  And in the next few centuries, a ring of debris would
encircle the moon, slowly dissipating under the rhythmic tug of Earth's
gravity. But in that instant of impact, when the ancient body of the
comet had come to rest at last, its heart--one hundred million tonnes
of interstellar ice older than the sun itself--had been forever
captured by lunar rock. That ice absorbed the heat of the comet's fiery
death and was transformed into superheated steam in only minutes.  But
as the long centuries passed and the moon slowly radiated

that heat away, the steam became water, and in time the ice re-formed.
Protected from the vacuum of space by the chambers of rock which had
solidified around it, the ice remained undisturbed until humanity's
first wave of expansion from the planet of its birth.  The lunar
pioneers had found the ice and mined it--first to support their
fragile, pressurized habitats, then to manufacture the antimatter used
to fuel the new warp ships that would carry their species even farther
from home. Eventually, inevitably, easier methods of creating
antimatter were discovered.  More efficient means of obtaining water on
the moon were engineered. So the ice mines of Serenity closed, becoming
as archaic and unnecessary as the abandoned oil fields of Earth, the
need for their contents long ago supplanted by less disruptive forms of
energy.  Now the Serenity mines were simply remnants of a bygone age,
old, and cold, and useless.  And James T.  Kirk walked through them as
if they were the fitting home for his heart and for his soul. The
history that the other Spock related to him was that chilling. At the
branching of two rough-walled tunnels, in the dim blue light cast by
flickering fusion globes that had burned for more than two hundred
years, Kirk found he could go no farther.  Not right now. Janeway and
the other Spock respected his request--though Janeway remained nervous,
and kept checking a small tricorder. Kirk reached out to a wall of rock
to brace himself, to catch his breath, to try to comprehend the events
he had set in motion so long ago. The rock was textured with the melted
cylindrical gouges created by a primitive drilling laser.  The
undulating surface was cold and made his fingers ache.  But Kirk would
not take his hand away, as if the pain could serve as penance for what
he had done.

70

SPECTRE

"You were supposed to be...  invincible," Kirk said to the mirror
Spock.  His words escaped from him in clouds of vapor.  His voice
echoed in the lunar mines.  "You were supposed to use the Tantalus
Field." That device had been an alien invention which had belonged to
Kirk's counterpart on the other Enterprise.  Hidden behind a wall panel
in the mirror in Kirk's quarters was a display screen that could focus
on any section of the starship. And any person or object at the center
of that focus could be made to disappear, with only the touch of a
finger on a button. After the Tantalus Field had been used, there was
no trace of an energy discharge that could be detected by
investigators, no molecular residue from a corpse to linger in the air
for a tricorder to sense.  All that was left was a total absence of
whatever had existed only an instant before. The other Kirk had used
the Tantalus Field to consolidate his power and maintain his command of
the Enterprise.  That Kirk's enemies had simply vanished.  Kirk had
told the mirror Spock to use the device for the same purpose. "Did
you?"  Kirk asked. "I did." Kirk closed his eyes.  Even in the weak
gravity of the moon, he felt weighed down by the years.  "Then what
happened, Spock?" "As you suggested, I found a way to spare the
Halkans." Kirk felt a momentary respite from his burden, thankful for
that one small victory, at least. The Halkans were a peaceful,
ethically advanced race who, in Kirk's universe, had declined to allow
the Federation to mine their dilithium.  Despite the Federation's
assurances, the Halkans feared their valuable crystals would one day be
used to support acts of destruction. Kirk had never been able to
convince the Halkans to change their position, and so their dilithium
had remained their own, yet the Federation and the Halkan people
enjoyed a friendly and beneficial association to this day.

	SPECTRE

In the mirror universe, though, Starfleet Command had ordered the other
Kirk to destroy the Halkan civilization as an example to any other race
that might possibly consider refusing the Empire. When Kirk had
replaced his mirror-universe counterpart for those few hours, he had
delayed implementing that deadly order, even though his defiance put
him at risk of being killed by the mirror Sulu.  Then, as Kirk had
prepared to return to his own universe, he had told the other Spock to
find some way to spare the Halkans from their fate. "How did you manage
it?"  Kirk asked. "I did not," the other Spock said.  He explained that
Kirk's counterpart had convinced Starfleet that the reports of the
Halkans' dilithium reserves were a fabrication.  A secret treaty
supposedly existed between the Halkans and the Klingon Confederacy, so
that if the Empire moved against that one planet, it would give the
Klingons the excuse they needed to declare war.  In the end, Kirk's
counterpart received additional honors from the Empire for eluding such
a devious trap. But after all this time, the details of the Halkans'
survival weren't important to Kirk.  Another part of that story was. 
"I had always assumed...  always thought it would be inevitable... that
your first act would be to kill...  my counterpart." The flicker of a
sad smile played over the other Spock, as if, like the Spock of this
universe, he had found peace with his human heritage and occasionally
allowed himself the freedom to express his emotions.  "You forget the
nature of my universe at that time.  Had I killed my Captain Kirk upon
his return to the Enterprise, my estimated lifetime would have been
measured in days, if not hours.  He was an extremely powerful and
influential officer.  The vendetta that would have ensued from his
assassination would have been bloody and swift.  I would not have
survived it." Kirk took his hand away from the wall of icy rock.  He

72

flexed his frozen fingers, discovering in them a vestige of warmth. 
"Then...  how did you take over your Enterprise?" The other Spock
seemed surprised by the question.  "I did not do that, either." "But I
assumed..." "Mere assumption does not make it so," the mirror Spock
said.  "As I told you at the time, I did not seek command.  My captain
did.  Logic dictated that he be assisted in his endeavors, while I
remain out of harm's way." Kirk blew on his hand, rubbed it back to
life.  "You became the power behind the throne." "Quite literally. 
Within five years, my Captain Kirk was commander in chief, Starfleet."
Janeway suddenly erupted at the mirror Spock, as if after a long
struggle she had finally escaped from a gag.  "Intendant Spock, how can
you go on like this?  As if this were some type of...  of polite
history lecture?"  She wheeled to face Kirk, face suffused with anger,
voice quavering.  "Five years after becoming commander in chief,
you--Captain Kirk--assassinated Androvar Drake and became emperor! 
Tiberius the First.  The bloodiest, vilest, most depraved dictator in
human history!" Kirk stared accusingly at the mirror Spock.  "How could
you let that happen?" But now there was anger even in that Spock, or
perhaps frustration.  "It had to happen.  I needed power I could not
obtain for myself.  So I propelled my Kirk to the emperor's throne. 
And when he had taken it, that was when I moved against him." Kirk
didn't believe it.  "If you couldn't stand up to him when he was a
starship captain, how could you take him on when he had become a
Caesar?" The mirror Spock stared fixedly at Kirk, dark eyes glittering
with serious intent.  "Because, Captain, I had spent ten years planning
for that day, from the moment he returned to my

universe and I proposed our partnership based on what I had learned
from you and your crew.  For ten years, I orchestrated every alliance
Tiberius made, brokered every treaty, managed every campaign.  And when
all the power I needed to reform the Empire was concentrated in
Tiberius's hands, I took it."

Kirk studied the mirror Spock, wondering if that somber face was the
last one his counterpart had seen before finally being assassinated, as
he must have been.  He wondered what it had taken for two universes to
diverge so that here, he and Spock had become the closest of friends,
and there, the deadliest of enemies.  "And what happened to
Tiberius?"

Janeway answered, filled with disgust.  "Intendant Spock engineered the
coup to be bloodless.  It was.  Tiberius escaped."

"And in the meantime," Kirk said, "you became emperor?"

"No.  Again you make assumptions.  That title was abolished at once. 
The first of many reforms.  I remained subcommander, an appointed
position, and then instituted the reforms that were necessary to allow
each world within the Empire to select a representative to sit on a
governing council."  The other Spock rubbed his eyes with thumb and
forefinger, as if he were feeling as tired as Kirk.  "When you came to
my universe, I mind-melded with Dr.  McCoy.  From him, I learned a
great deal of your universe.  And of the political organization of your
Federation.  It became my model."

Janeway slipped her small tricorder from an equipment pouch on her
combat suit and checked its readout once again. "Intendant Spock, we
must continue.  The others will be waiting."

"Youth," the mirror Spock said.  "So impatient."

Janeway aimed her tricorder down the tunnel, checking in the direction
they had come.  "For good reason, sir.  Our

74 SPECTRE

transporter beams might as well have been beacons in this system."

That comment puzzled Kirk.  If the transporter beams that had brought
him to the moon were that easily traced, then it should only have taken
a few seconds for Earth authorities to track him.  Why the delay?

The other Spock indicated the sloping tunnel on the left. "Our
destination is this way."

Kirk kept to the mirror Spock's side, both of them moving slowly to
keep from bouncing too high in the low-ceilinged tunnel.  Janeway
remained a few paces behind.  "How far did you get with your reforms?" 
Kirk asked.

"Quite far," the other Spock replied.  "Within ten months of
overthrowing Tiberius, the Imperial Senate met for the first time. 
Half the members had been selected through graft and corruption. 
Bribery was rampant.  But, by the end of the session, because of the
reforms I proposed, I was elected to a five-year term as commander in
chief, and received unanimous support for ending the imperial tithe,
and for unilaterally withdrawing occupation forces from more than fifty
worlds."

"All in ten months," Kirk said, impressed.  It appeared that the Spock
of the mirror universe was as formidable as his own.

But the mirror Spock did not let Kirk hold that opinion for more than a
few seconds.  "Ten months which spelled the end of any chance the
galaxy had of ever achieving the peace and security it has in your
universe."

"Beam-ins!"  Janeway suddenly announced.

"How many?"  the other Spock asked.

Janeway read the tricorder.  "Two so far...  there's three... four..." 
She looked at the mirror Spock, her bristle-length hair almost black in
the dim glow of the fusion globes, her eyes alive with the bright
status lights of the tricorder.  "We have less than five minutes before
they track us."

The other Spock drew himself up.  "It will be time enough."

Janeway held out her hand to Kirk.  "In case it's not, I want my phaser
back."

"I can handle this for you," Kirk said.  "No charges, no complaints. 
The authorities will listen to me.  Chances are, that's a Starfleet
security team."

Janeway and the mirror Spock looked at each other, then at Kirk.

"Starfleet will have no idea where we've taken you," the other Spock
said.

"We used transporters from our universe," Janeway added. "They're
completely different from the type you use.  Your sensors can't easily
detect them."

"Then who's after us?"  Kirk asked.

"The enemy," Janeway answered.

"The Alliance," Spock added.  "The one element I did not include in my
calculations."

"Small steps," Janeway said urgently.  "Push forward, not up."  She
grabbed the mirror Spock's arm, and despite the Vulcan aversion to
being touched, he did not protest.

Janeway and the other Spock began a series of slow shuffling steps
along the tunnel floor that served to accelerate them as if they were
running flat-out on Earth.

Kirk didn't see that he had a choice.  He moved off after them, pleased
that his Starfleet training for low-gravity environments came back to
him so quickly.

He caught up to Janeway and the mirror Spock at another branch in the
network of old mining tunnels.  Whatever the motives of the visitors
from the mirror universe, Kirk decided, this was the oddest kidnapping
he had ever encountered, let alone personally experienced.  He wondered
what Teilani would make of it when he told her.  And he had no doubt
that sometime soon he would tell her.  Any other possibility was
unthinkable.

Kirk fell into step with his abductors.  "Who or what is the
Alliance?"

76 SPECTRE

"The Cardassians," the mirror Spock said.

"And the Klingons," Janeway added.

"Working together?"  Kirk asked.  Bizarre, he thought. "More than
that," the mirror Spock explained.  "They are a true political union,
as consolidated as your own Federation."

Kirk struggled to keep his breathing controlled.  He had no idea how
long he'd be expected to keep up this pace.  Janeway was handling it
well.  But the other Spock, so much weaker than the one he knew, was
already fighting to catch his breath.

"I can't imagine what it would take to get the Klingons to ally their
empire with another," Kirk said.  He knew the Klingons.  They had been
his enemies for decades.  They were not known for cooperation.

"But clearly you did imagine it," the mirror Spock said between gulps
of air.  "Because it was you who brought them together."

Janeway and the mirror Spock suddenly twisted to the right and Kirk
skidded as he tried to match their trajectory--and missed.  Instead, he
hit another rocky wall.  A vein of glistening ice ran through it.

He stumbled, regained his footing, then quickly retraced the three
meters by which he had bypassed the turn.

The opening in the tunnel wall took him into a large grotto. One entire
wall, ten meters high, fifty long, was solid ice.  The chill in the
large cavern was intense.

For a moment, Kirk paused at the opening, naturally averse to entering
any new territory without checking for hidden dangers.  But all he saw
was a portable, field transporter platform, surrounded by newer,
brighter fusion lights mounted on slender tripods.  The mirror Spock
and Janeway had already reached the platform, Intendant Spock clutching
at his chest and leaning against Janeway for support.

A third figure was there as well.  Another Vulcan, Kirk saw. A young
woman with a disruptor scar on her forehead and a crude biomechanical
hand.

Kirk ran to join them.  He was unprepared for the look of disgust on
the young Vulcan's face when she saw him. "Jim Kirk," he said.

The Vulcan looked ready to strike him.  "I know who you are."

Kirk ignored her.  He turned to Janeway, pointed to the transporter
platform.  "Is that how we get out?"

"It's how we escape," Janeway said.  "I--"

Then the electronic whine of a disruptor beam cut her off just as the
female Vulcan flew screaming through the air, her body surrounded by a
nimbus of crackling disruptor fire. Escape was no longer possible.
James T.  Kirk was at war again.

78 EIGHT

Picard awoke to the smell of something burning.  Or maybe it was the
smell that had brought him from sleep.

He stirred against the comforter, peered out into the darkness of his
room, but saw no sign of daylight through the draped window.  It was
still late.  Still night.  A comforting thought.

He yawned, stretched, sat up in the large soft bed, and sniffed the air
again.  He could smell apples, a hint of vanilla. Marie's cooking, he
thought.  His sister-in-law was so like his brother, so like his
father.  No replicators for them.  Much better to spend hours in the
kitchen, feeding wood to the impossibly old, cast-iron stove, chopping
each ingredient by hand, ingredients grown here in the vineyard's
gardens, or on one of the small farms nearby.  Not that I mind, Picard
thought.  Marie's tarte tatin was exquisite, as good as his mother's. 
He remembered waking up in this same house to hear his mother at work
in the kitchen, late at night, early in the morning.  The house filled
with the savory aroma of her culinary magic.

Picard smiled.  At peace.  This was his home.  Where he had grown up,
and to where he would return in time.  To his home and family and all
good things...

"Uncle!" Picard was instantly alert.  That had been Rene, his nephew,
calling out.  But from where?  Across the hall?  Downstairs? Somewhere
out in the yard? Picard threw back the comforter and slipped from the
warmth of the bed.  The smooth wood of the oak floor was icy cold, the
air autumn brisk. "Papa!" Rene again--urgent.  Frightened. "Rend!" And
that was Robert, Picard's brother, shouting out in alarm. They need me,
Picard thought. But that was all right.  It was as it should be.  He
was a starship captain.  No matter what difficulty or danger his family
faced, Picard would be there to protect them. He started toward the
door, realized he was naked, looked around for his clothes, his
uniform, but in the dark bedroom he could see nothing clearly, as if a
fog had seeped in through the window. "Jean-Luc!  Hurry!" Robert needed
him.  There was no time for delay.  Picard ran across the room to the
bedroom door.  He put his hand on the brass knob, started to turn it-
-and lost his breath to pain as the flesh of his hand was scared by the
burning metal. "Uncle, please!" Rene was near panic.  Picard wouldn't
let the pain stop him. He kept his hand in contact with the scorching
knob, turned it, pulled open the door-- --and faced a wall of fire that
stretched into distances beyond all reason. The heat engulfed Picard
and he raised an arm before his eyes, almost overcome by the gale of
rushing smoke and the deafening roar of the flames.

80

SPECTRE

Every instinct told him to step back inside the bedroom and close the
door, to retreat to safety and sleep. But Rene was somewhere inside
those flames.  An eleven- year-old child who wanted to be like his
uncle Jean-Luc. Picard could hear the boy. Hear the boy calling for
him. Hear the boy screaming with agony for his uncle to save him.
Picard moved his arm and stared into the full fury of the all-devouring
fire. There!  Before him!  No more than a meter away! Rene reached out
to him...  Robert beside him... flames eating at them...  calling for
him...  always calling for him... The starship captain. Picard slapped
at his chest.  "Picard to Enterprise!"  he cried. But he wore no comm
badge.  There was no response.  Even she had abandoned him. As he had
abandoned his family. What Picard saw then he had no words to express. 
The way fire consumed a human body. Until only a small blackened hand
remained, still reaching out for him. For Picard, this moment had moved
beyond the physical. This moment had moved beyond any being's ability
to endure. In this dream, in this nightmare, there was only one thing
left for Picard to do-- He refused to surrender.  He threw himself into
the flames, felt them boil away his flesh as still he struggled to
reach through time itself to save his family, until-- It ended as it
always did, and he awoke. Except, this time, he was not in his cabin on
the Enterprise.  He was on the Voyager.  Still in sickbay.

Neelix was there, a cool cloth in one hand, dabbing at Picard's
forehead as Picard caught his breath. "It's all right," Neelix said
softly.  "You're all right.  You're safe.  You're safe." Picard grabbed
Neelix's hand.  He remembered the holographic doctor.  The agonizer
descending, and then... "Neelix...  what happened?" "It's over," the
Talaxian said.  "That's all you need to know. It's over and
everything's all right now." Neelix left the cloth on Picard's
forehead.  He slid a hand beneath Picard's neck, raised his head. 
"This time, it's just water."  He held a glass for Picard to drink
from. But even the water was like fire to Picard.  His throat ached, as
if he had inhaled acrid smoke.  Every muscle in his body resisted the
slightest movement.  He slumped back to the bed, too overcome to even
sip water. "What...  what did I tell them?" Neelix waved his hands
reassuringly.  "Anyone would have talked.  They have ways of getting
inside what you're thinking. It's the agonizer.  You can't blame
yourself." But Picard had no use for sympathy.  "What did I tell them?"
"Well, codes...  some numbers and letters...  I don't know what they
were.  But the Gul hasn't come back, so I guess the codes did what she
needed them to do." Picard stared up at the ceiling.  So much for
Starfleet conditioning.  If he had given Rutal the decoy code, the
Enterprise would already have set her own course for the nearest
starbase.  Since the Cardassian had not returned to kill him, he could
only assume she had succeeded in extracting the real codes from him.
Only a handful of hours ago, he had told Will Riker that the Enterprise
was the most sophisticated piece of machinery ever built by humanity,
and a simple, human intolerance to pain had resulted in him giving up
his ship to the enemy.

SPECTRE

"Neelix," Picard said in a tone that indicated he would allow no
argument.  "You must free me from these restraints." "I...  can't."
Picard had run out of patience.  "Neelix, you don't have a choice!"
Neelix backed away.  "But...  where would you go?" "To my ship. 
Release me, now!" Neelix wrung his hands.  The twitch under his eye
grew so strong he was winking.  "But...  the Enterprise...  Captain...
Gul Rutal brought her crew aboard and ...  she took it.  The Enterprise
is gone." Picard felt a stab of pain pierce his chest.  She had
abandoned him, just as in that terrible nightmare.  "When?" "An hour
ago, maybe two.  I was sitting here with you so I don't know." "Where
are they taking her?" "I...  don't know that, either." All Picard's
pent-up fury escaped him.  "Do you know what that ship is capable of?"
Neelix covered his face with his hands, began sobbing. "Please... 
don't shout at me...  please..." This is useless, Picard thought in
angry despair.  Neelix was a broken person.  Who knew how many times he
had been subjected to what Picard had just experienced? Picard took
pity on him.  Changed his tone.  "It's all right, Neelix.  I know what
you're up against." Neelix bobbed his head, appreciating Picard's
understanding. He took a few deep breaths, calming himself.  "I'd offer
you something to eat, but...  it's too soon.  You have to take it easy
for a day." Picard forced himself to remain nonconfrontational. "Thank
you." A small anxious smile appeared on the Talaxians face, as if he
was relieved that Picard had decided to stop asking the impossible of
him.

	82 Picard looked around the sickbay.  There had to be some way of
getting free.  Some way of contacting his crew.  Suddenly, it came to
him that since this duplicate ship was built according to Starfleet's
designs... "Computer," Picard said, "locate Commander William Riker."
The familiar female voice replied, "Commander Riker is being held in
detention cell four." Despite Neelix's look of horror, Picard
continued.  "Open a channel to him, please." "Commander Riker is being
held incommunicado.  No channels are available." Picard could accept
that.  At least he had learned that Riker was alive and on Voyager. 
That meant that his odds of escape had just doubled, at least.
"Computer, how many crew members from the Enterprise are currently on
board Voyager?" "Five hundred and eighty-three." Picard was surprised. 
That was more than half.  And Voyager was a much smaller ship. "Where
are they on Voyager?" "Three hundred and twelve are in
emergency-holding force fields in the shuttlebay, deck ten.  Two
hundred and fifteen are confined to cargo bays two through twelve. 
Thirty-four are confined in the brig.  Eight are under guard in
engineering.  Seven are in cryostasis awaiting burial.  Two are on the
bridge.  And the remaining five individuals are under guard in the
following locations: turbolift two, hydroponics, transporter control,
corridor five on deck eight, and sickbay." Picard took a steadying
breath and asked for the names of the seven dead crew members.  The
computer recited them. He knew them all.  But only the Bolian, Mr. 
Karo, was from his bridge crew. Picard began quizzing the computer on
the whereabouts of his other key command staff.  Data and Troi also
were being detained on Voyager, like Riker, unreachable through com-

SPECTRE

munications channels.  Crusher and La Forge, though, had been kept on
the Enterprise with the remainder of the crew. But there the computer's
stream of information ended. Each inquiry Picard made about the
Enterprise's destination or mission, no matter how obliquely he phrased
his request, was rebuffed with a curt request for his
security-clearance code.  Picard's own Starfleet codes were not
accepted. The only additional data Picard was able to obtain was the
number of the Voyager's current Alliance crew: thirty Klingons,
forty-two Cardassians, three Bajorans, and twenty-four Thetas.  The
Thetas, Neelix explained, were Terran and Vulcan slaves who had earned
trustee status.  Their number included the mirror-universe counterpart
of Tom Paris, who had posed as the Voyager's commander. As Picard
paused to collect his thoughts, Neelix commented, "I never knew the
ship's computer could do all that." Picard was intrigued.  "Have you
never heard Gul Rutal address the computer?" Neelix shook his head. 
"She gives it simple commands -- activate this, initiate that--but to
get information, she always uses a keypad or console." Picard found
that to be incredibly useful information.  It was entirely possible
that because the Alliance had built this duplicate from schematics they
had had no role in creating, they might not be aware of all the
subsystems and capabilities that were available to them.  Clearly, they
understood how the intra ship communications system worked, because
they had locked out the ability for prisoners to talk with each other.
But what other systems mightn't they understand?  Or perhaps not even
know about? There was one quick way to find out. "Computer," Picard
said.  "Activate the Emergency Medical Hologram." Neelix stared at
Picard in horror.  "Are you mad?" The holographic doctor resolved
beside the diagnostic bed like a genie rising from a bottle.

	84 "Please state the nature of your interrogation requirements," the
doctor said brightly.

Here goes, Picard thought.  "Your interrogation subroutine is not
required at this time.  I need access to your main medical routine."

The hologram nodded once.  "Certainly."  Then he gazed off at nothing
in particular for a moment, as if resetting something internal.  "In
that case, please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Picard smiled.  He had made the program cycle away from whatever
overlay the Alliance had added to make it an implement of torture.  A
plan took form, but it all depended on whether or not the Alliance had
made other alterations in the EMH program.

"Do you know who I am?"  Picard asked.

The doctor appeared annoyed by the question.  "According to the ship's
registry of senior Starfleet officers, you're Captain Jean-Luc Picard. 
Are you suffering from memory loss?" "Who are you?"

The hologram narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  "I am the Emergency
Medical Hologram.  Are you experiencing difficulties with your
eyesight?"

"Where are we?"

With an expression of unalloyed exasperation, the doctor picked up a
medical tricorder and began to play it over Picard.  "We're on the
Starship Voyager.  Odd...  I'm not detecting any cranial injuries."

"You won't," Picard said, still wondering if his plan would work.  But
since the EMH appeared to be functioning according to Starfleet design
specs, he saw no reason why the plan shouldn't.  "I'm absolutely
fine."

"I'll be the judge of that," the doctor said.  He frowned at the
tricorder readings.  "You're suffering from dehydration, adrenaline
intoxication...  Your stress readings are off the chart ....  "The EMH
peered at Picard in troubled concern. "What have you been doing?"

SPECTRE

Picard was intrigued.  By stripping away the EMH's interrogation
overlay, he apparently had erased the EMH's memory of having tortured
him.  Clearly the Alliance did not grasp Starfleet's methods of systems
integration.  "Can you give me anything?"  Picard asked.

	"Certainly.  Sound medical advice.  What you need is rest."

Keeping his voice under control, Picard gently asked, "Then, can I
return to my quarters?"

"I see no reason why not."  The EMH snapped his tricorder shut. 
"Perhaps next time you decide to waste my programming time, you could
arrange to be in actual need of medical attention?"

	"Ah, Doctor, just one thing ...."

The EMH sighed.  "It's always one more thing with you people, isn't
it?"

Picard moved his hands against his wrist restraints.  "I need these
taken off."

The doctor looked at the restraints.  "May I ask why you're wearing
them?"

Picard nodded his head at Neelix.  "He did it.  He claims it's...  a
new form of treatment for...  stiff muscles."

The EMH glared at Neelix.  "I see.  And are you a physician?"

	"No, sir," Neelix said nervously.

	"Chiropractor?  Physiotherapist?  Somatician?"

	"Oh, no, not at all."

	"A Healer of the Vulcan School?  Aural aligner?  Midwife?"

	Neelix's chin hung down on his chest.  "No, sir 	"

	"Dentist?"

Neelix silently shook his head, and Picard was grateful that the alien
was going along with his ruse.

The EMH pressed the disconnect controls on the diagnostic bed's
restraints.  "Then I'd prefer you stay out of my sickbay with your... 
questionable theories."

Picard sat up, trying to keep his relief disguised.  The last thing he
needed was for the EMH to try and correlate the

	86 ship's registry of senior Starfleet officers with his medical
records and stumble upon a reference to Picard, Jean-Luc, under
"prisoners."

The EMH looked expectantly at Picard.  "One more thing, perhaps?"

"No, that's fine.  You've been very helpful."

The doctor frowned.  "I live to serve.  If it's not too much trouble...
 ?"

"Computer," Picard said as he at last stood up.  "Deactivate the
EMH."

"You're so kind," the doctor muttered, then rippled and faded from
view.

Neelix stared at Picard in awe.  "Very impressive, Captain." "Let's
hope Voyager has a few more surprises the Alliance doesn't know about."
He straightened his tunic, paused a moment to see if the dizziness he
felt would worsen.  But it didn't.  He felt light-headed, but it wasn't
debilitating.  He motioned for Neelix to come closer.

"What is it?"  the alien asked.

"If I could get you off this ship, away from the Alliance, would you
help me?"

Neelix rubbed at his twitching eye.  "You don't even have to ask,
Captain.  You escaped while I was supposed to be guarding you.  Gul
Rutal...  she'll kill me anyway."

Picard put his hand on the Talaxians shoulder.  "I promise you, she
won't."

Neelix stood a little taller.  "I'll do...  whatever you say.
Captain."

"Good man," Picard said.  "Computer, who is the current captain of the
Voyager?"

"Captain Kathryn Janeway has not yet reported for duty. No other
officer has been assigned in her place."

Picard smiled.  All of the Voyager's programming had been built into
this version.  He was halfway home.  "Computer, this is Picard,
Jean-Luc.  Activate Emergency Fleet Access Program Alpha Alpha One
Alpha."

88 SPECTRE

"Emergency Fleet Access Program initiated.  You have one hour to comply
with Starfleet regulations."

"All further communications with me are to be encrypted."

"Acknowledged."

Picard saw Neelix's questioning look.

"In times of war or other emergency," Picard explained, "ships can
sometimes lose their command crews, and command crews can lose their
ships.  So Starfleet has established procedures by which crews can
quickly shift command authority from ship to ship.  Gul Rutal has made
it much simpler by having never established her command posting with
the computer according to Starfleet protocol.  She just didn't know
about it."

Neelix's eyes widened.  "So you've taken control of Voyager? As quickly
as that?"

"No," Picard said.  "It's not that easy.  Even without the computer
acknowledging a previous commander for Voyager, I'll still need
confirmation authority from Starfleet Command. Since the computer has
given me an hour, that means there should be a starbase within
thirty-minute, subspace-radio contact of our present position.  But in
the meantime, for the next hour at least, the computer will recognize
me as Voyager's acting captain and allow me to take certain limited
actions in preparation of assuming full control."

"What sort of actions?"  Neelix looked excited, and Picard decided it
must be a Talaxian trait that their emotions were so clearly displayed,
almost like Vulcans in reverse.  He found it a refreshing
characteristic.

Picard held up a finger, asking for Neelix's indulgence. "Computer, how
many guards are posted within visual range of detention cell four?"

"No guards are currently posted within visual range of that cell."

Picard found that unusual.  But then, only Neelix had been posted to
guard him.  Unless...

"Computer, is detention cell four under surveillance by security?"

"Affirmative."

Picard felt his stomach tighten.  "Computer, is sickbay under
surveillance by security?"

"Affirmative."

Picard's thoughts raced.  Clearly, sickbay couldn't be under active
surveillance, otherwise armed guards would have burst in within minutes
of his having activated the EMH.  But when the Cardassians and Klingons
discovered he was missing and replayed the surveillance logs, they'd
hear every word of explanation he had said to Neelix.

"Computer, delete all surveillance logs of sickbay, from the time code
in which I was brought in."

"Unable to comply.  Surveillance logs can only be deleted by order of
Gul Rutal."

"Merde," Picard said.  There had to be a way around that restriction. 
"Computer, as acting commander of the Voyager, I request that all
surveillance logs of sickbay since my arrival here be encrypted, coded
to my voiceprint alone.  Can you comply?"

"Affirmative."

Picard felt he was riding a gravity whip at an amusement center. 
"Encrypt those logs.  Also, encrypt all logs of detention cell four,
from this time on."

"Logs encrypted."

"What are you doing?"  Neelix asked.

"Being certain no one will be able to trace our movements," Picard
explained.  He took hold of Neelix's arm. "Computer, initiate
site-to-site transport: Picard and Neelix to detention cell four,
placing us outside the containment field."

"What's site-to-site transport?"  Neelix asked.

Picard felt relieved that before he could answer, sickbay began to
dissolve into the sparkling glow of the transporter effect.

SPECTRE

A few moments later, the glow faded to be replaced by the bulkheads of
Voyager's brig.

Neelix seemed to lose his balance as he clutched at his chest.  "In the
name of the Great Forest..."  he whispered.

But Picard ignored him.  He looked to his right, where he saw the glow
of a force field emitter.  "Will!"  he shouted as he saw Riker,
standing up, as close as possible to the field, a handful of other
Enterprise crew behind him.

And then Picard realized that Riker was not standing to welcome him,
but to warn him.

"Captain!  Behind you!"

Picard spun around, a confused Neelix still at his side, to face two
Klingon warriors just entering from the corridor. One had already drawn
his disruptor.

Picard had only time enough to think what a fool he had been to fall
into this trap.

And then the Klingon fired.

	90

SPECTRE

NINE

Kirk grabbed the mirror Spock and leapt over the transporter pad to
crouch behind it.  Despite the weak gravity, the infirm Vulcan moaned
as they landed.  Kirk kept his head down, reached into his belt pouch
for the small cricket phaser he had taken from Janeway.

Then Janeway was beside him, also crouching.  She glanced at the tiny
weapon.  "That won't do any good.  They're armored."

Before he could answer, a sparkling column of light formed to Kirk's
other side.  He glanced up in time to see a Cardassian materialize, a
weapon already pointing straight down at Kirk.

No conscious thought was involved in what happened next. It didn't
matter that Kirk had been little more than a gentleman farmer for the
past year.  He lunged up, arms crossed above his head to bring both
forearms to bear against the Cardassian's throat.

He felt the heat of a disruptor blast as it fired past him, but it
didn't strike.

In the lunar gravity, Kirk flew two meters in the air with the
surprised Cardassian, and landed on top of him. Then there was an
explosion behind Kirk, a flare of golden

92 energy, and a blast of debris--the transporter pad, he knew.
Whatever escape route Janeway had arranged was now cut off.

But that wasn't the crisis at hand.  Kirk took care of that by driving
his fist into the Cardassian's face, then swept aside the alien's hand,
which still clutched the disruptor.

With his other hand, Kirk fired the small phaser at the Cardassian. 
The slender beam of phased energy flared against the large black
breastplate of the Cardassian's uniform, but had no other effect.  Kirk
knew that not even a beam to his attacker's exposed head and neck would
be effective as long as the anti phaser circuitry in the armor served
to deflect the energy.

Then the Cardassian swung up his free hand and grabbed Kirk by the
throat.  Began to squeeze.

"Die, Terran!"  the Cardassian snarled.

Kirk gasped for air but his throat was blocked.  If he struck the
Cardassian with his left hand, then the Cardassian would be free to use
his disruptor.  In his right hand, he held only the useless phaser.  He
was ready to toss it away so he could strike again at his attacker.

But then, Kirk knew, phasers were often good for more than just firing
at the enemy.

As his vision clouded with growing darkness and he knew he had only
seconds of consciousness remaining, Kirk fired the small phaser into
the rocky ground beside the Cardassian.

Where the beam hit, a cloud of molten rock droplets sprayed out, some
hitting the Cardassian's exposed flesh.

The alien screamed in pain, but it only served to strengthen his death
grip around Kirk's throat.

Kirk heard his heart pounding, saw his field of vision collapsing to a
narrow point of light.

There was only one last thing to try--and he didn't even know if it was
still possible in this new age.

Kirk fumbled with the cricket phaser, pressed what he

still hoped was the safety interlock, then ran his thumb along its
side to set it for full energy discharge.

Through the thunderous roar of his heartbeat, Kirk heard the telltale
whine of an overload begin.

With the last of his strength, the last of his consciousness, Kirk
jammed the small phaser down the gaping front of the Cardassian's
chestplate.

Instantly, he felt the pressure on his neck disappear as the Cardassian
bucked him off.

Kirk flailed through the air, rolled onto the freezing ground, saw the
Cardassian tearing at his chestplate as the whine built and built
and-The Cardassian's armor bulged as if it had been suddenly over
pressurized just as a flare of golden energy shot up through the neck
opening.

The tiny phaser had exploded, and the Cardassian's armor had contained
almost all of the phased energy of that burst, directing it inward.

As Kirk rubbed at his throat, he saw there was little of his attacker
left, except for that smoking armor.

For an instant, he felt the familiar adrenal rush of knowing he had
achieved victory--a response that was purely emotional.  And then,
unexpectedly, he was filled with regret. Another intelligent being had
just died at his hands. Then Kirk felt another hand grip his shoulder
and haul him to his feet, spinning him around so suddenly that a
far-too-frequent shock of pain snapped through his lower back.

As Kirk faced the second Cardassian to grab him, he could make no
effort to defend himself.  The pain from his back was making it
impossible to breathe, impossible to move.

The Cardassian raised a disruptor to Kirk's face, then hesitated.

The gray-skinned alien peered closely at Kirk, eyes opening wide.

"Tiberius...  ?"  he whispered.

Then Kirk's attacker's eyes rolled up in his head as he SPECTRE

dropped his disruptor and slumped to the ground, the mirror Spock's
hand firmly gripping his shoulder.

Kirk winced in a spasm of pain, knowing that only the weak lunar
gravity was allowing him to remain standing with what had happened to
his back.

"Good work," Kirk gasped.  He knew he should be looking around for
other attackers, but he was a prisoner in his own body, completely
immobilized.

The mirror Spock released the unconscious Cardassian at his feet, then
flexed his hand as if he had strained it.  He raised an eyebrow at
Kirk.  "Are you injured?"

"No," Kirk said, then flinched as he tried to nonchalantly shake his
head.  He could hear Teilani berating him for not taking better care of
himself, for not trusting in modern medicine.

"Ah," the mirror Spock said, "your back."

"That's only two Cardassians," Kirk said, barely able to make his voice
rise above a whisper.  "Aren't there two more?"

Janeway stepped up beside Kirk, wiping the blood from a Klingon
mek'leth.  "Not anymore," she said.  Then she expertly flipped the
short sword around and slapped it against a sheath on her leg, so that
the sheath closed over it like a thick liquid.

"How's your Vulcan friend?"  Kirk asked.

"Her name is T'Val," Janeway said.  "She'll recover." "Good."

Janeway's eyes bore into Kirk's.  "No thanks to you."  She looked at
the mirror Spock.  "The platform is beyond repair. We're going to have
to use the secondary--and quickly. Before someone realizes these four
haven't reported in."

"We will need T'Val's medkit first," the mirror Spock said. "Captain
Kirk is quite incapable of moving."

Janeway regarded Kirk as if he were a malingerer. "My back," Kirk said,
embarrassed by his weakness. "Just a minute," Janeway sighed.  Kirk
heard her walk over

	94

SPECTRE

to the ruined transporter pad, but couldn't turn his head to watch her.
So he and the mirror Spock stared at each other. Kirk could sense they
shared the same sense of mystery and confusion.  He kept reminding
himself that this was not his old friend, and hoped that the mirror
Spock kept reminding himself that Kirk was not his old enemy.

"I've dropped into the middle of a war, haven't IT' Kirk asked.

"A war of your causing, correct," the mirror Spock replied.

"Then 'dropped' isn't the word for it.  You came looking for me."

"Correct again.  I must say, I am impressed at your facility with
logic."

Kirk raised an eyebrow at the Vulcan in what he hoped was a
recognizable imitation.  "Taught by an expert."

"Indeed."  Then Kirk saw comprehension in the mirror Spock's eyes. 
"Ah, I see.  In this universe, our friendship continued.  What else
does your logic tell you?"

"You want something from me, but I don't know what.  And the Alliance
knows you came looking for me, but doesn't want you to succeed."

"Almost flawless," the mirror Spock conceded.  "The Vulcan resistance
needs access to Starfleet databanks, which only you can provide for us.
But the Alliance does not know that we have specifically sought you
out for this.  As a matter of course, they attempt to stop all our
activities, wherever they uncover them."

Kirk heard Janeway returning with slow lunar steps.  "But the
Cardassians came after us so quickly here."

"They detected our transporters in use."

Kirk didn't like the implication hidden in that statement. "You mean,
agents of the Alliance are already stationed in this solar system, in
this universe, looking for signs of your activities?"

Before the mirror Spock could answer, Kirk shuddered as Janeway grabbed
his shoulder from behind.

"Where?"  she asked.

"...  lower...  back..."  It was all Kirk could say.

Then he felt a spot of heat deep within his back, just at his waist. 
Slowly it diffused along his entire spine.  He took a deep breath, like
breathing for the first time.

His back felt tender, almost as if a small object were being pressed a
bit too tightly against his skin, but it no longer pained him.

Without meaning to, Kirk allowed a small moan of pleasure to escape. 
His back hadn't felt that good in a year, even under Teilani's
ministrations.

And again, a moment after that purely visceral response to the change
in his back, he felt that same regret he'd experienced while looking at
the remains of the Cardassian he killed.

He turned to Janeway, took the flashing medical instrument from her
hand.  "What is it?"

"Standard tissue regenerator.  Did it work?"

Kirk pressed the small control that turned the device off. He dropped
it and it fell so slowly Janeway had ample time to pluck it from the
air.  "I promised myself I'd never use one of those things again."

"Fine," Janeway snapped.  "When we're out of here, I'll remember to hit
your back with the butt of a phaser rifle.  Will that be better?"

If he hadn't seen her wipe the blood off her mek'leth himself, Kirk
would never have believed this woman had the discipline to be a
warrior.  There was promise in her, if nothing else.  But her temper
would be a formidable barrier to her growth.

Kirk decided to show her how self-control was maintained.

"I'm sorry," he told her.  "Thank you.  My back feels much better and I
appreciate what you've done."

Janeway said something under her breath that almost sounded
Klingon--Kirk could only make out what seemed to be a reference to his
mother.  Then she added, "As soon as

96

T'Val's on her feet, we'll have to leave."  She returned to the ruined
transporter platform without waiting for a reply.

The mirror Spock spoke softly.  "She doesn't know what to make of you,
Captain.  She knows only the Kirk of her universe.  And she is one of
the few Terrans to actually have a counterpart in this universe.  That
is always a difficult adjustment to make."

"I thought we all had counterparts," Kirk said.

"Since the time you crossed over, the universes have diverged even
more.  Our studies have shown that among those of our generation, yours
and mine, more than eighty percent of the Terran and Vulcan populations
were identical. But today, because history has progressed so
differently in the two universes, many people born here, where the
Terran and Vulcan populations are larger, were not born in my universe.
Therefore, there is correspondingly less duplication."

Kirk read between the lines.  "Why just Terran and Vulcan populations? 
Isn't the whole universe affected?"

The way the mirror Spock hesitated, Kirk could tell he was holding
something back.  "As far as I could ascertain from the comparisons I
was able to make based on the information I absorbed from melding with
your Dr.  McCoy, our two universes were once virtually identical. 
Certainly, the alien cultures you encountered prior to your crossover
were identical to their counterparts in my universe."

"But human--Terran, that is--and Vulcan history, that's where the
difference lies?  Only among those two people?"

"It is not a subject I have had time to explore in recent years," the
mirror Spock said.  "Suffice to say, when those of us who are little
more than slaves or hunted fugitives in our own reality find out that
we have a double who enjoys a life of privilege in this one, it can
have an adverse emotional effect."

Kirk followed the mirror Spock's gaze to see Janeway using the medkit
instruments on T'Val.  The injured Vulcan female was sitting up, pale,
but speaking.  "What does her counterpart do?"

98 SPECTRE

"To be precise, 'did."  In your universe, Kathryn Janeway became a
starship captain."

Kirk was taken by surprise.  He had seen the potential in Janeway, but
to think she was that capable was a revelation. And then it hit him. 
Why her name had sounded familiar. "There was that starship I read
about, the one that disappeared, that they just received some message
from...  Voyager?"

"Correct.  Transported to your Delta Quadrant by an unknown alien
technology."

"Then your Janeway has come out ahead."  Kirk saw the mirror Spock's
confusion.  "She still has her life in the region she was born, not
exiled to an unknown quadrant where she'll probably never see home
again."

"It is hardly a life many would desire.  To Janeway, she only knows
that except for an accident of birth, she might have grown up without
want, explored her love of science, of music.  If the question had been
put to her, as illogical as it might sound, she would have chosen a
life such as that, even knowing it would end with exile, or even be cut
short by early death, instead of what she endures today."

Kirk found that difficult to accept.  Everything he had experienced in
his own life had taught him that the one true, inarguable purpose of
life was to live.  Any other purpose was a matter for philosophers. 
Any other choice was escape, no different from choosing to cloud one's
mind with chemicals or holographic fantasies or circuitry implants. 
With the exception of the decisions soldiers might make to risk their
lives in pursuit of victory, Kirk could only imagine one possibility in
which a person might willingly embrace death, and it left him saddened
for Kathryn Janeway.

"You told me there was no hope left in your universe," Kirk said.  "Can
that be possible?"

"An insightful question," the mirror Spock said.  "I trust the answer
will provide even greater insight for you."  He drew his cloak closer
around his narrow shoulders.  "In my universe, Captain Kirk, the only
hope left is what you now choose to bring to us." Kirk had already
guessed it would come to that.  For whatever reason, this Spock was
turning around their last conversation of more than a century ago. 
Then, Kirk had told the mirror Spock that one person with a vision
could make a difference.  Now, it was Kirk's turn.  At least, according
to this Spock. "I take it you mean that the hope I could offer you is
that information you want from the Starfleet databanks." "And again,
correct." "What kind of information?" "In the past century, your
technology has advanced considerably faster than it has in my universe.
We need weaponry. Ships.  Faster and more powerful than anything the
Alliance has.  A cell of Terran rebels operating near Bajor has
achieved great success with just such a strategy." But Kirk wasn't
interested in details.  If technical specifications were all these
people needed, he didn't understand why they had gone to such lengths
to obtain them.  More specifically, he didn't understand why they had
come after him.  "Given everything you've told me, I don't see how
Starfleet could refuse you." "Try the Prime Directive," T'Val said
behind him. Kirk was startled.  He was so engrossed in his conversation
with this other Spock that he had lost track of Janeway and her Vulcan
accomplice. "Starfleet has already placed our universe off limits,"
T'Val said bitterly.  "They have washed their hands of us." Hearing
that explanation, Kirk smiled.  He couldn't help it.  "That's why you
came to me?  Because you needed someone who could break the Prime
Directive for you?" Janeway's voice was tight, the first tremors from a
volcano about to explode.  "This is not at all humorous." "No," Kirk
said, trying to put some of his own self-control to work.  "I know it's
not.  But the irony of it.  That's the one

100

SPECTRE

thing I kept doing that made Starfleet want to wash their hands of me. 
Breaking that damned Directive.  That that is the reason you've come
looking for me...  I mean, aren't there any other officers in
Starfleet?  How about Jean-Luc Picard? He knows the difference between
right and wrong without being hobbled by Starfleet technicalities.  You
might not know it to look at him, but he'd cut through the regulations
as fast as I would if he thought the end result was fair." From their
reactions to what he had said, Kirk saw some unspoken message pass
between the three rebels from the mirror universe.  But all the mirror
Spock would say was "Jean-Luc Picard would not be suitable." Kirk
thought that was an odd reaction, and he suddenly wondered if there
might be a Picard counterpart in the mirror universe. Then Janeway
checked her tricorder and announced that it was time to leave. Kirk
walked with them to the cavern's entrance, and followed them into the
mine tunnels again. As they proceeded in silence, moving again with the
slow loping stride of lunar gravity, Kirk tried to decide why Picard
wasn't right for what the rebels wanted, while he was.  Then he
remembered what this Spock had been saying to him earlier as they had
hurried through the tunnels to the cavern. "You're looking for justice,
aren't you--all of you?"  Kirk asked.  "You've come to me to change the
playing field because I, or my counterpart, at least, was the one who
brought the Klingons and the Cardassians into their Alliance." "No
psycho historian, on Earth or on Vulcan, could ever have predicted that
impossible pairing," the mirror Spock answered.  "It is in the
Cardassian nature to seek allies.  But it is not a common Klingon
trait, except under exceptional circumstances.  Yet somehow, Tiberius
was able to go to the leaders of both groups, and convince them to
follow him to reclaim the Terran Empire."

"The war," Kirk said, understanding.  "The war of my causing."

They paused at another intersection as Janeway took readings.

"It was the most brutal war in the history of the known galaxy," the
mirror Spock said, hugging his arms to his chest. This part of the mine
was getting colder.  Kirk could see that the mirror Spock had begun to
shiver.  It was such an unusual sight, a Vulcan who had lost control of
his autonomic functions, that Kirk had to force himself not to stare. 
"It did not matter that under my rule the Terran Empire had withdrawn
from the occupied worlds and was engaged in reparations.  The legacy of
hate the Empire had sewn was reaped a thousand fold  World after world
joined the Alliance. Its only purpose, to erase Earth and Vulcan from
the universe."

Again Kirk struggled to understand why everything in the mirror
universe seemed to keep focusing on those two planets. Spock's world. 
Kirk's world.  Why those two?

Janeway waved them down the tunnel to the left.  It descended steeply
and the fusion globes were farther apart, making each step
treacherous.

T'Val took a hand torch from her combat suit and used her biomechanical
hand to keep the beam focused on the tunnel floor before the mirror
Spock.

As they continued down, Kirk began to learn why this Spock had aged so
much more drastically than his own--his life had been much more
difficult.  "I faced Tiberius in battle a dozen times," the mirror
Spock said, now openly breathing hard.  "We held each other at bay as
often as one or the other of us could declare victory.  After so many
years of working together, we had no secrets from one another.  But
then, the final battle came.  Wolf 359.  Seven point eight light-years
from Earth.  Strategically, the last major staging area before reaching
Earth herself."

102 SPECTRE

The mirror Spock halted momentarily, his gaze unfocused, as if reliving
that battle in his troubled mind.

Janeway took his arm to urge him forward again.  "The battle lasted
three days," she told Kirk.  "The combined Klingon/Cardassian Armada
faced what remained of the Imperial Starfleet. Three hundred and ninety
ships of the Terran Empire were lost.  More than one hundred and ten
thousand lives.  Then the lines broke and there was nothing...  nothing
to stop the Armada from reaching Earth."

"The surface of the Earth was carved by particle beams," the mirror
Spock said, "for no other reason than sheer hatred. For four days, a
convoy of Klingon battle cruisers did nothing but fire their disruptors
into the Great Lakes of North America, boiling them almost dry, forever
changing the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere.  The Cardassian
fleet did the same to the Southern Hemisphere by burning the rain
forests of South America and Asia.  Then they poisoned the oceans so
the biosphere of Earth could no longer produce enough oxygen to be
self-sustaining."

Kirk's mouth was dry.  This went beyond any act of war he could
imagine.  It was insanity, but at a level almost unbelievable. "What
was Tiberius thinking...  ?"  he asked.

"I doubt Tiberius had anything to do with what happened to Earth," the
mirror Spock said, almost wheezing.  "By the time the Battle of Wolf
359 had ended, Tiberius was gone." The Vulcan continued to stumble
forward--only, it seemed, by means of Janeway's assistance.

"What happened to him?"

"What didn't?"  T'Val answered beside Kirk.  Her artificial hand kept
the hand torch trained on the ground ahead of Spock with the precision
of a machine.  "Some say his flagship was destroyed on the second day
of battle.  Some say as soon as the Imperial fleet was routed, the
Klingons captured him and tortured him to death.  Or threw him from an
atmospheric cruiser twenty miles above the surface of the Earth."

"Some say the Cardassians captured him and sealed him in a hollow
asteroid," Janeway said.  Her voice bounced oddly off the icy rock
walls of the dark corridor that surrounded them.  "The only prisoner
floating in absolute darkness, in a void a kilometer across."  To Kirk,
it sounded as if Janeway felt that would have been too easy a
punishment for his counterpart.  "Or else they dissected him over the
course of a Cardassian year, keeping him alive and aware the whole
time, until he was only a mesh of tissue and nerves and blood vessels
to be offered to a pack of voles." Kirk shivered at the level of
revulsion his counterpart had inspired. "Whatever his fate," the mirror
Spock said, "after the fall of Earth, Tiberius was never seen again. 
Nor was he ever expected to be seen.  It was quite clear that the
Alliance, once formed, had no more use for him, and if he had survived
the Alliance war to defeat the Empire, then he would have been
assassinated as soon as his usefulness had ended." Despite the
atrocities Tiberius had committed, Kirk couldn't help feeling a pang of
sorrow for his counterpart. Throughout his own life, Kirk had always
fought to be the person in control.  Yet Tiberius had been manipulated,
first by Spock, then by the Alliance.  In the end, he had lost
everything to betrayal.  Dangerous thoughts, Kirk suddenly told
himself. How could he have sympathy for a monster like Tiberius? "What
happened to Vulcan?"  Kirk asked. The mirror Spock answered that
question, for once all emotion driven from his tone, as if he were the
Vulcan he had been a century ago.  "My world did the logical thing.  We
surrendered.  I negotiated the terms myself." Kirk could guess what the
result had been.  This Spock had already described what his world was
like today.  "And the Alliance betrayed you." "Vulcan was scourged,"
T'Val said.  "Its biosphere was left intact, but nothing else was."
"But you escaped," Kirk said.

104

SPECTRE

The mirror Spock merely nodded, as if he finally had no more breath to
speak.  Janeway's steady pace did not slacken. "And ever since then,"
T'Val volunteered for the other Vulcan, "Spock has been a fugitive. 
Intendant of the Vulcan resistance." They reached a level section of
the tunnel.  T'Val's torch beam found a narrow crevice in the tunnel
wall.  Janeway directed them through it. A winding, cramped passageway
led to a small chamber, littered with the remains of antique
spacesuits.  Kirk looked around and guessed that this had been a
staging area for the ice miners.  Another transporter platform was
installed here, though it was smaller than the first he had seen. "Is
that powerful enough to take us to the surface?"  Kirk asked.  These
portable models were generally used for short-distance transports in
dangerous environments.  He wasn't certain how deep they were, but he
felt that the moon's surface must be several kilometers above them. 
And beaming through solid rock was much more energy-intensive than
passing through vacuum. But Janeway discounted Kirk's concerns.  "It
doesn't have to take us to the surface."  She stepped up on the
platform, then helped the mirror Spock up as well. "-Then, where will
it take us?"  Kirk asked.  He took his position, too, and noticed that
T'Val moved to stay out of contact with him.  "To another cavern?"
"No," the mirror Spock said.  "To another universe." Kirk opened his
mouth to object. But he was too late. The ice-mine chamber dissolved
around him as, for the first time in a century and the second time in
his life, James T. Kirk passed through the looking glass.

TEN

Neelix threw himself forward and took the first shot, doubling over
soundlessly in the Voyager's brig.

Picard wouldn't let the Talaxians sacrifice be in vain.

He leapt up, slamming into the Klingon who had hit Neelix, spinning him
around to smash into the second Klingon.

The second Klingon stumbled backward, raised his own disruptor, and
fired from the hip.

Just as the misdirected beam hit the first Klingon, Picard released his
hold and dropped him to the deck.  Then, in the heartbeat before the
second Klingon could fire again, Picard struck--a blow to the arm
dropping the Klingon's weapon, a blow to the mouth breaking the
Klingon's front teeth.

A fountain of pink blood sprayed into the air as the wounded warrior
shook his massive head.  Picard backed away as the Klingon fixed on his
foe, snarling like a ravenous beast.  Hair wild, blood from his torn
mouth streaming down to his dull metal armor, the warrior pulled his
d'k tahg from his belt in a single fluid movement, flicked open the
weapon's side blades with an ominous click, and lunged for Picard.

No other human could have survived such an all-out attack.

106 SPECTRE

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 force field of
detention cell four.

Because not only did the force field 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 force field
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 force fields, 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 force
field  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

108 SPECTRE

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

11o SPECTRE

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 resource-conservation 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 alternative
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.

112 SPECTRE

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," Pi-card 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 Starfleet'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

114

SPECTRE

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 Clark'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

116 SPECTRE

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."

"That will change," Picard told her.  Her puzzled reaction told him
that it would be best if she learned what it meant to be a free person
by experience, not by explanation.  He resolved to treat her as he
would a member of his crew.  "Do you know where this Voyager is going
now?"

"Back to the portal.  With the Enterprise."

Picard glanced at the bulkhead.  "The Enterprise is...  out there? 
Right now?"

"The last I heard," Clark said.

Picard was troubled by how quickly Clark had given up her information
but was quickly able to confirm what she said by checking local sensor
readings on the brig's computer.  The Enterprise was only two
kilometers away, still at relative rest with the Voyager, still near
the Goldin Discontinuity.

Riker shared Picard's concern.  "Didn't you say Neelix told you the
Enterprise was gone?"

"He also said that he wasn't told everything."

Riker looked across the brig to see Clark still being held by four crew
members.  "She said the same."

"Do you think one of them is lying?"  Picard asked. Certainly, he had
not completely accepted anything Neelix had told him, except for what
he had been able to confirm through the ship's computer.

"I think both of them are," Riker said.  Then he tapped the computer
display.  "But it doesn't matter what Clark or Neelix say as long as we
know the Enterprise is in range of the Voyager's transporters.  Once
we're back onboard, we can check out everyone's story."

Picard felt a burden leave him.  Will was right.  It wasn't

necessary that he and his crew stage a takeover of this ship. Since
they had access to the Voyager's transporters, Picard could lead a team
back to the Enterprise.

It took him only minutes to devise a plan with Riker.  Two teams of six
and one team of two--Picard and Riker--would be needed.  The first team
would beam directly to the Enterprise's engineering section and attempt
to shut down the warp core.  The second team would beam to the bridge
and attempt to overpower the Alliance crew they found there.

But, Picard told them, he was not expecting either team to be
successful.  In fact, he emphasized, they were to surrender almost at
once.  Their chief duty was simply to distract attention from what
Picard and Riker would be doing in the Enterprise's auxiliary
bridge--reestablishing Picard's command authority over the ship.

Provided the computer network was still operational--and a ship as
complex as the Enterprise could barely function without it--the
procedure, he assured them, should take less than a minute.  Then he
would flood the ship with anesthezine gas, and set a maximum warp
course to the nearest starbase. The Voyager, without a Starfleet
engineering crew who knew how to coax the last millicochrane from her
warp engines, would not be able to keep up.

Commander Sloane was to lead the bridge-assault team, and Picard told
him to keep the Klingon disruptor he was using to guard the brig door. 
If the Alliance crew had not reset the weapon-suppression system, there
was a chance he might be able to use it.

But the engineering assault team would not be armed--a stray disruptor
beam near the warp core could be disastrous. Riker took that other
disruptor.

Picard had the crew members who were not needed return to their
detention cells, and then he adjusted the force field screens to their
lowest setting before switching them back on. Should any other Alliance
guards enter to check the prisoners in the brig, they would see the
force fields in operation.  But in

118 SPECTRE

the event of an emergency, the crew could easily slip through the
fields with little more discomfort than a mild electric shock.

Less than five minutes after Picard had confirmed that the Enterprise
was within range, he stood in the center of the brig with Riker and the
twelve other crew members who would help him retake his ship.  "Are you
ready?"  he asked Riker. "How about you?"

"I feel...  fine," Picard said.  Then he paused.  Odd, he really did
feel better.  Not at all as he had felt after his experience with Gul
Madred.  Or with the Borg.  The heat of battle, he decided.  That must
be what was masking the aftereffects of his torture at the hands of the
EMH with the agonizer.

"Are you sure?"  Riker asked, as if he sensed Picard's uncertainty.

"I want my ship back, Will."  It was that simple.  Everything else
could wait until that had been accomplished.  "Computer, is transporter
room one staffed at this time?" "Negative," the computer replied.

"Is transporter room one operational?"

"Affirmative."

"Initiate site-to-site transport.  Picard and twelve others from the
brig to transporter room one.  Transport in groups of four, four, and
five."

The computer did not bother to reply.  Instead, Picard saw the brig
dissolve into golden energy, then re-form as a transporter room very
much like the ones on the Enterprise.

As the computer had said, the room was empty.  Riker immediately ran to
the corridor doors and sealed them.

Within another minute, all thirteen crew members were in the
transporter room.  And there was still no sign that anyone on this
Voyager's bridge was monitoring transporter usage.  If the Enterprise's
new crew was equally deficient, Picard knew, retaking the ship was not
going to present any difficulty.

At the transporter console, Picard locked in the coordinates

for the three beam-ins, then set the controls on automatic cycling.

The engineering team beamed to the Enterprise first.  Their presence
would set off intruder-alert alarms and, Picard was confident, would
cause a commotion on the bridge.  Twenty seconds later, the bridge team
beamed over to take advantage of that confusion and add to it.

Then it was just Picard and Riker.

They stood together on the transporter pad.  Riker held his disruptor
ready to fire.  "This is why they warn you to be careful what you wish
for," he told his captain.

"When I was complaining about our duty, Will, this wasn't what I had in
mind to replace it."

Riker smiled at him.  "Are you sure?"

Then the transporter effect played around them, and Picard had no
opportunity to reply.  But in the timeless moment of transport, he
wondered if Riker was right.

Picard was in a life-or-death situation, fighting for his crew and his
ship.

He couldn't deny the bracing sense of purpose this mission gave him.

To take action, to do something worthwhile, wasn't this why he had
joined Starfleet in the first place?  To be someone who could make a
difference?

And then the auxiliary bridge of the Enterprise formed around him,
every console in the compact control center coming online and powering
up as the sensors detected his presence.

Riker spun around to cover the turbolift doors with the disruptor as
Picard turned to the helm controls.  Instantly, intuitively, he checked
the status of his ship.

For a moment, he was puzzled to see that his lockout order, delivered
in those final seconds when Tom Paris had arrived on his bridge, had
yet to be overridden.

Then Picard felt a thrill of hope as he realized his situation

120 SPECTRE

might be better than he had anticipated.  Either Neelix had lied or,
more probably, had been misinformed about what Rutal had done with the
Enterprise.  Perhaps, Picard thought hopefully, he had not given up any
access codes during his interrogation.  Or, if he had, Rutal was still
trying to determine if the codes she had obtained were real or decoys.
Whatever the reason, it was going to be much simpler to retake control
of the Enterprise than he first had thought. "What's our status?" 
Riker asked him.

Picard called up the security displays.  The plan was working
perfectly.  "Fighting in engineering and on the bridge," he reported. 
"The Alliance doesn't have any idea what's going on."  Picard intended
to keep it that way.

"Computer, this is Jean-Luc Picard.  Confirm voiceprint identity."

"Voiceprint confirmed."

"Command authority Picard alpha null four four nine. Rescind
operational lockout and restore full command capability."

"Command capability restored," the computer confirmed. Picard jumped up
and turned to face Riker.  "We did it!" Riker hurried to the
environmental station.  "I'll seal us off from main life-support."  But
before he could reach the raised deck ringing the auxiliary bridge, a
dull thump vibrated through the bulkheads.

Riker halted, looking back at Picard in concern.

"Computer," Picard said at once.  "Identify source of the tremor just
experienced in the auxiliary bridge." The computer didn't reply.
"Computer--this is Picard.  Respond." Nothing.

Picard turned back to the helm, punched in an access code for an
automated damage report.

But the console displays did not change, as if the control surfaces had
not detected his input.

"What is it?"  Riker asked.

"We've been locked out," Picard said.  But how could that be
possible?

Then the auxiliary bridge's main viewer flickered into life, filling
the small control room with baleful light. Picard looked up at the
screen. It was Gul Rutal.

She was sitting on his bridge.  In his chair. Commanding his ship.

The Cardassian smirked at him.  "Allow me to offer my thanks, Captain
Picard.  Without your assistance, I was told it might have taken us
more than a month to establish manual control over the Enterprise."

"Computer," Picard said.  "Emergency lockout!  Picard Alpha One!"

Gul Rutal shrugged elaborately.  "That tremor you felt?  We severed the
ODN line connecting the auxiliary bridge to the ship's computer
network.  Your ship can't hear you."

Picard heard a faint hiss.  He looked over at the air vents and saw a
gentle cascade of white vapor begin.  Anesthezine.

His own plan was being used against him.

"Will!  The turbolift door!"

Riker fired his disruptor at the turbolift door, but no beam was
generated.  Clearly, the weapon-suppression system was operational
again.  Every system that made it difficult for attackers to gain
control of the ship would now be used to prevent Picard from
reestablishing his own.

"You have to admit, Captain, that this is much more humane than
torture."

Then Picard realized what he had missed.  And he knew he should have
realized it sooner.  "You never interrogated me at all."

Rutal smiled, inclining her head as if to accept his acknowledgment of
her cleverness.  "Our sources suggested that you would be conditioned
to give us false codes.  If we input the wrong ones, significant damage
to the ship might have

122 SPECTRE

resulted...  and no one wished that.  Least of all, you, I would
think."

Picard felt himself begin to get dizzy.

"I'd sit down if I were you," Rutal said.  "If you fall when that gas
takes effect, you might be damaged as well."

Picard stumbled back to the center chair.  Sat in it.  Realized that he
had seen all the clues--the Klingon darts that weren't fatal after all,
no aftereffects from the torture, the ease with which he had been able
to elude security on the duplicate Voyager.

"You led me through a maze..."  Picard said faintly.

"On the contrary.  We built the maze, and you ran through it.  Eagerly.
 Of your own free will.  Like a well-trained vole."

Picard felt the auxiliary bridge begin to spin around him. He saw Riker
slump to the deck, eyes rolled up, unconscious.

Rutal was right.  He had fallen for this trap without resistance.
Believing he was on an important mission had kept him from stopping to
consider all the inconsistencies, and from asking all the questions he
should have.

But now there was no question.  He had just delivered the Enterprise to
his enemies.

"I must compliment you," he said stiffly.

"Before you think me too resourceful," Rutal said from the screen, "I
must confess that I did have the assistance of an expert."

Picard blinked at the viewer, not understanding what Rutal meant.

"The only one who could build the maze that you would follow," the Gul
said.  "The only one who would know every tempting detail that would
mislead and divert you."

Another figure stepped onto the screen.  A Klingon?  Picard thought,
having trouble keeping his eyes focused.  At least, whoever it was wore
Klingon armor and his fringe of white hair was long, tied back in a
warrior's queue.

But something was wrong.  Picard strained to identify the figure on the
screen.

The forehead and scalp of the figure was smooth.  No Klingon ridges.

The figure was human.

As human as he was.

As familiar a face as if he were looking into a...

"Jean-Luc Picard," Gul Rutal said as Picard's vision faded to oblivion,
"meet...  Jean-Luc Picard."

ELEVEN

At first he thought the transporter hadn't worked.  The chamber Kirk
materialized in had the same dimensions as the one he had just been in.
But as the glow of the transporter effect faded, the differences
became apparent.

Now the walls and debris were covered by thick layers of frost.  Even
the transporter platform was coated with ice--the few clear spots on it
showing where heat leaked from its power units.

Then the major difference struck Kirk with the force of a body blow.

The cold.

So intense it was painful.

He shivered as he exhaled, mixing the air of one universe with that of
another.  His exhalation became a cloud of frozen vapor, swirling in
the eddies caused by the way his arrival had disturbed the still air.

For a moment, he was uncertain what to do.  The mirror Spock remained
in place, pulling his cloak tightly around his thin shoulders.  But
Janeway and T'Val kicked off from the platform in a long and graceful
lunar jump to land near a rime-encrusted crate.

Janeway tapped a code into the lock plate and the crate

	124 hissed open.  Kirk watched as they pulled out environmental
suits.  Their design was different from any he had seen.  The outer
covering was mottled with irregular splotches of grays and black.  It
was a few seconds before Kirk recognized the pattern as camouflage.
These were suits made for lunar combat.  He was in a different
universe. Kirk saw the mirror Spock begin to shiver violently.  He
moved to help guide the Vulcan from the platform, toward the women and
the crate. "Why the temperature difference?"  Kirk asked.  He could
feel his cheeks beginning to burn, recognized the sensation as the
stage before frostbite. T'Val assisted her intendant in putting on his
suit.  "Our moon isn't terra formed  There's no artificially maintained
atmosphere to hold heat close to the surface." As T'Val finished
suiting up the mirror Spock, and as Janeway slipped into her own
protective gear, Kirk studied the chamber, noting that the piles of
debris were different here, as well.  In the other chamber, in his own
universe, it had consisted of discarded sections of environmental
suits, left by ice miners, Kirk had guessed.  But here, entire suits
were scattered about. Kirk looked more closely at one.  Part of its
chest piece was missing.  In the ragged opening, Kirk could see torn
and mummified flesh and ice-covered ribs. These weren't discarded
suits.  They were bodies. "Who were they?"  Kirk asked as Janeway
handed him his own camouflaged suit. "Who knows?"  She looked, without
interest, at the carcasses that surrounded them.  "They've been here
almost a century.  They could be from the Alliance invasion.  They
could be victims of the Imperial Guard.  It doesn't matter to them.  It
doesn't matter to me." Kirk understood the flatness in Janeway's tone. 
As he had suspected, she was a battlefield soldier.  For too many
years.

126

SPECTRE

The emotional distancing Vulcans strove all their lives to achieve,
this human woman had attained by experiencing the horrors of war for
too long and too closely. Perhaps he had been responsible for Earth's
downfall in this universe.  But somehow, before he had crossed over,
something else had happened here to make the Janeway of this universe a
battle-hardened, emotionally scarred guerrilla warrior, while in his
universe, her counterpart had become a starship captain--by all
accounts a successful and resourceful one.  What, he wondered again,
besides his intrusion, had caused Earth and Vulcan to unite in a brutal
Empire and not a peaceful Federation?  And was it even possible that he
could ever find the answer? Kirk paused in the process of sealing his
suit, suddenly struck by a new thought.  What if Teilani existed in
this universe?  If so, what had she become?  Whom had she found? What
if, somehow, his actions so long ago had made her life unbearable, or
worse, doomed her here? The moment of reflection ended quickly in Kirk.
He and his abductors were still the targets of a chase.  He sealed his
suit components, snapped on his helmet, and glanced down at the control
displays built in at chin level.  Immediately, the suit's systems
powered up.  Kirk felt a soft rush of air move over his face and
welcome heat began to build around him as he realized there must be a
sensor system in his helmet that tracked where he was looking, so he
could activate controls with a glance. Janeway tapped Kirk's helmet
with her fingers.  She pointed to the left and he looked across the
controls to see an icon for communications.  Testing his conclusions,
Kirk stared at the small symbol.  At once, his helmet speakers clicked
on. "Can you hear me now?"  Janeway asked. Kirk said he could, saw that
she could hear him, too.  Then he asked, "Why did you bring me here?"
"The Alliance doesn't know about our transporter network on the moon in
our universe," Janeway said.

"At least, not yet," T'Val amended.  She was using the tricorder built
into the sleeve of her suit to check Intendant Spock's status.  He had
stopped shivering as the suit's heating system shielded him from the
cold, but he looked pale, almost gray behind his suit's clear visor. 
Exhaustion, Kirk knew, from long experience with someone almost just
like him.

T'Val steadied her superior by holding his arm.  "We're almost there,
Intendant.  A few more minutes."

Janeway scanned the chamber with her larger tricorder, then told
everyone to return to the platform.

"These are like underground tunnels, then," Kirk said as he moved as
directed.  "You disappear from my universe, go to a different location
in your own, then reappear back in mine."

"Exactly."  Janeway checked to make certain everyone was in place, then
tapped commands into her tricorder.  "But each time we use this
network, we risk the Alliance discovering what we're doing."

The chamber around them began to dissolve again, and since Kirk knew
they all could have survived the time they had spent here without
suits, he also knew what their next destination must be-the magnificent
desolation of the lunar surface itself.

A gently rolling gray plain of scattered rock and smooth dust took form
around Kirk.

For an instant, he allowed a smile of pleasure to play across his face.
He had walked on thousands of alien worlds in his career, but he found
it ironic that he had never actually set foot on the uncovered lunar
surface--the one alien world closest to his home.

He had visited the moon many times, of course.  As a child, he had gone
on school-organized day trips to Tranquility Park to see the first
landing site, carefully preserved in vacuum fifty meters away from the
tourist viewing dome.  He had enjoyed the occasional weekend of shore
leave in the infamous low-gravity hotels of the Lunar Appenines.  But
somehow, he had never quite found the time to rent a suit and venture
out

128 SPECTRE

beyond the airlocks, to experience the moon as the first explorers and
colonists had.

For all the years he had lived, for all the light-years he had
traveled, even close to home there had always been still more to do, to
see, to experience.  He could almost hear Teilani add, And for you,
James, there always will be.

How is it she knows me better than I know myself?  Kirk asked
himself.

But Janeway didn't leave him any time to consider the answer.

"This way," she commanded, pointing toward a deep shadow at the edge of
a small rift fracture, about a hundred meters away.  It formed a
protected wall of sorts, one that snaked off toward the deceptively
near lunar horizon.  "Follow the trail."

Kirk looked ahead and saw the path where the dust had been disturbed by
the passage of others.  But whether they had come this way a few
minutes ago, or in centuries past, there was no way to be certain.

Kirk fell into a slow, bouncing gait with Janeway and the rest.  In the
long seconds before each landing and push-off, he checked the angle of
the shadows, glanced up to catch a flare of sunlight, and realized that
the Earth should be visible.  As he traveled closer to the fracture
zone, he angled his head in his helmet to find the planet of his birth.
 At least, this universe's version of it.

And seeing it, he tripped.

Tumbling forward in the dust, sending up a slow-motion billow, arms
spread wide, skidding to a soft landing, overwhelmed.

Janeway and T'Val were at his side at once.  Kirk felt them pull him
quickly to his feet.  T'Val was already scanning him, checking his
suit's integrity.

"Are you all right?"  Janeway asked.

Kirk couldn't answer.

For the same reason he had tripped.

He twisted out of the women's grip to look again at Earth. And what he
saw made his throat tighten. Earth was dying.

On the sunlit half, it was as if a colony of virulent mold had spread
across a sample dish in some abandoned lab.  The seas, once blue, once
laced with delicate swirls and arcs of brilliant white clouds, were now
vast tracts of brown and black and purple.

The land, once wreathed in green, wrapped by soft bands of desert brown
and the dramatic gray-black of mountains, capped north and south by
gleaming fields of pristine ice, was now a single smear of gray, broken
only by obscuring blots and whorls of ink-black cloud.

And on the nightside, it was as if civilization had been wiped from the
planet.  All Kirk could see was a handful of glowing red
dots--volcanoes or fires burning out of control, he couldn't be
sure--and, over what used to be the Midwest region of North America,
the flickering dance of lightning from a major storm.

He looked where Montreal should have been--he himself had just been
there moments ago, it seemed.  But where the sparkling spiderwebs of
light from a city and cultural center of eight million souls should
have appeared, there was nothing.

"What...  happened?"  Kirk asked, knowing no answer could be
satisfactory.

"We already told you," Janeway said coldly.

"You happened," T'Val added, as if she enjoyed his distress.

Kirk stared at his desecrated world.  He had heard the mirror Spock's
description of this Earth, but the words had only been an abstraction. 
To actually see it was...  to think that he was in some way
responsible...

"We have to hurry," Janeway said.

Kirk felt the women grab his arms again, pull him ahead. He stumbled
forward, but his instinctive training soon

130 SPECTRE

pulled his faltering steps into smooth rhythm with his abductors', even
while his mind struggled with its shock.

Just before he passed into the shadow of the rift, he looked to his
side and saw the mirror Spock staring at him from his own visor.

The counterpart of his closest friend said nothing, but in his eyes
were the accusations that raced through Kirk's own mind.

Murderer.  Maniac.  Monster.

"Spock, I didn't know," Kirk said as he passed into the shadow.

The mirror Spock's voice crackled through the darkness. "Now you do."

Kirk remembered little of the long traverse along the fracture zone. 
In less than a minute, his eyes had adjusted to the shadow and the
reflected sunlight was enough to see the way.

All he heard was the steady breathing of his companions. The mirror
Spock's was weak.  T'Val's was like a metronome. And Janeway's deep and
rhythmic like an athlete's.

Kirk did his best to keep up, aided most of all by the physical labor
he had undertaken in the past year.  But he realized that if Janeway
and T'Val had not reduced their pace in deference to the mirror Spock,
they eventually would have had to reduce the pace for him.

Just about the time Kirk was thinking he would have to request a rest
break, the party came to a stop.  Again T'Val scanned the area; then
Janeway pushed at a rock near the base of the fracture wall, and a
moment later, a narrow hatch silently swung up from the base to reveal
an opening about the size of a Jefferies tube.  The outside surface of
the hatch was studded with small rocks and sections of dust which
didn't move--permanently affixed camouflage.  The inside surface was
ribbed metal, the same vintage as the ice-mine

chamber Kirk had been beamed into after his abduction from Earth.

Kirk could feel vibrations through his boots, and guessed that the
upper section of the hatch was an airlock, and what he felt was the
machinery that pumped air in and out.

Janeway had T'Val enter first.  When Kirk's turn came, he found himself
standing in the narrow tube just below the hatch, which, Janeway
confirmed for him, was an old miners' escape route.  Silent vibrations
traveled through his suit and blended with a growing rumble of audible
sound.  As the vibrations and noise stopped, a display inside his
helmet revealed that the exterior atmospheric pressure was 250 torr,
about one-third Earth normal, which he recognized as the common,
low-pressure standard for spacecraft and habitat structures in the
early days of space travel, when the threat of explosive decompression
was an ever-present possibility.

A few moments later, a muffled hiss accompanied the opening of a second
hatch in the lower half of the tube and Kirk used the handrails to
swing through it, feet first.

The new chamber he dropped into was again metal-walled, with each
surface coated once more in frost.  A small fusion globe, weakly
flickering, was the only source of light.

Kirk saw T'Val already wriggling out of her suit, and he stepped away
from the interior hatch as it began its cycle again.  As he heard the
air pumps begin their labor, he unsealed his helmet.

The cold in this chamber was even more biting than the last, and Kirk
knew they would have to beam out quickly, especially given the mirror
Spock's condition.

In less than five minutes, all four of them were in the chamber, their
environmental suits safely stowed in a sealed crate for whoever would
next come this way.  Kirk and the others waited on a transporter
platform.  Janeway and T'Val now wore loose tunics and leggings over
their combat suits, and T'Val carefully adjusted her intendant's cloak
so that it covered the mirror Spock's head like a shawl.

132 SPECTRE

"I'm almost afraid to ask where we're going next," Kirk said.  He was
shivering as violently as the mirror Spock had in the last chamber. 
His ears felt numb.  His hands ached.

"Last stop," Janeway told him, trembling less than he did, as if she
were somehow used to experiencing these extreme conditions.

"Really?"  Kirk asked.

"Let me put it this way," Janeway said.  "Where we go after our next
beam-in will be up to you."

As Kirk puzzled over any hidden meaning, or threat, in what Janeway had
told him, the surrounding ice-mine chamber dematerialized, then
re-formed into---a riot of color and sound, movement and confusion, so
explosive Kirk found it almost overpowering.

"Welcome to Lunar Station New Berlin," a pleasant voice announced. 
"Please step from the platform as a courtesy for the next passenger."

Kirk's leg muscles tensed as an artificial field of Earth-normal
gravity tugged on him, and as he stepped from the glowing circular disk
beneath him, he looked around to see that he was in the downtown square
of one of the oldest and largest cities on the moon.  Janeway had
returned them to his universe.

Quaintly retro shops and restaurants, built in the hopelessly naive
technological style of the late twenty-first century, ringed the square
before him with its open fountains and eucalyptus trees aromatic in the
warm lunar air.

Kirk heard music playing, laughter, the excited cries of happy children
playing.  Relieved, he moved forward, following the flashing lights in
the floor that guided him to the nearest passenger exit.

Then he quickly ran down the few stairs to an open pedestrian walkway,
and looked up past the sloping roof of the transporter station.

Exactly where he had seen the Earth less than an hour ago, he saw it
again, though now against a background of the

terra formed moon's summer blue sky, and not the black of space.

But this time, on the nightside, Montreal shone like a jewel, filled
with light and with life.  North and South America were clearly
delineated by their cities and the transportation corridors that wove
them together.  And on Earth's dayside, the seas were blue, the clouds
a filigree of lace, the vast nature parks of Western Europe and Africa
vibrantly green and alive.

Kirk felt as if he had returned from the underworld.  Each color was
purer than before.  Each sound clearer.  Each breath more precious.

"Now you know why it is so difficult for us," Spock said beside him.

Kirk spun around, but it wasn't his Spock who addressed him.  It was
the other.  Kirk's strange encounter was clearly not over.

"Your Earth, your universe, is a paradise beyond our understanding,"
the mirror Spock continued.  Janeway and T'Val moved up to flank the
mirror Spock.  In their loose civilian clothing, they did not stand out
among the crowd.

"Are we safe from the Alliance here?"  Kirk asked, unable to shake the
feeling that the Alliance's presence here meant that he was somehow a
threat to his own universe now.

"They can detect our transporters when we beam from place to place, but
not when we cross over," Janeway said. "We're safe.  Until you turn us
in."

"Do you actually think I'd do that?"  Kirk asked.

"The other Kirk would," Janeway answered.

Kirk looked back up at the blue sky of the moon, at his Earth.  Maybe
not a paradise to him.  But he knew better than ever why the people of
the mirror universe would think so.

He closed his eyes for an instant, and saw their Earth again, decaying,
decimated.  Because of him.

He looked back at his three would-be kidnappers, and suddenly he
wondered if they had wanted to kidnap him at all.

134 SPECTRE

"You never intended to hold me captive," Kirk said.  "You just wanted
me to return to your universe and see your Earth. See what I'd done."

The two Vulcans gave nothing away by their expressions. Even Janeway
might as well have been Vulcan by the way she so thoroughly hid
whatever she might be thinking and feeling.

But Kirk had worked with Vulcans, at least, one in particular, long
enough that he felt confident about reading their moods and intent.  He
saw before him three beleaguered soldiers, fighting a losing war,
looking to him to provide new hope and the chance for victory they
could no longer provide themselves.

He looked at them and knew that he could walk away now, and they would
not follow.  It was not in them to harm an innocent civilian.  The
choice to help them was truly up to him.

Kirk couldn't help the grin that could only confuse his serious-faced
audience.  His days of adventure might be over, but he'd just thought
of a way he could still make a difference--put right the past, change
the future.  By making a gift of his guidance and whatever wisdom he
had achieved to these soldiers in such desperate straits.

"I know exactly what to do," Kirk said decisively, "to give you the
power to resist, and to defeat the Alliance."

The mirror Spock, as literal as the one Kirk knew, asked the obvious
question.  "And are you prepared to share that knowledge with us?"

"I am."  Kirk offered his hand, knowing the Vulcans would not accept
it, but that Janeway would.

But it was T'Val who surprised him by stepping close to him and
reaching around to his back and sliding her hand inside the waist of
his trousers.

Kirk looked at her, startled by the sudden intimate gesture, until he
realized she was detaching something from his waistband.

T'Val stepped back, holding up a thin wafer, no more than

three centimeters in diameter, no thicker than a few pieces of paper
stacked together.  A small red light glowed on one side of it.  "You
may deactivate it, Intendant."

The mirror Spock removed a small padd from his cloak, entered a code
sequence.

The light on the wafer changed from red to green. "Contact explosive,"
T'Val said.  She put the disk beneath her tunic.  "I installed it when
I used the tissue regenerator on your back."

"If you had refused us," Janeway added, "Intendant Spock would have
triggered it, and the shaped explosion would have cut you in half."

"But that is in the past," the mirror Spock said.  "For now, we are at
your disposal."

Kirk looked at the three soldiers before him and was shaken by how
completely he had misread them.

They're aliens, Kirk thought, trying to hide his own reaction to the
knowledge of how close to death he had been.  Not just to my world, but
to my universe.

In that telling moment, Kirk realized that he was now involved in
something that no longer made sense to handle on his own.

And, fortunately, even in the twenty-fourth century, he knew exactly to
whom he could turn for help.

136 TWELVE

"Fascinating," Spock said.

"Indeed," the mirror Spock replied.

As the two Vulcans in the opulent hotel suite studied each other with
intense curiosity, Kirk looked from one to the other, assessing their
intriguing differences as much as their eerie similarities.

The Spock he had met at the beginning of his career, whom he had last
seen a year ago on Vulcan, stood with shoulders straight and square
beneath his jeweled ambassadorial robe. Kirk recalled having seen
Spock's father, Sarek, wearing almost exactly the same formal dress.

But the mirror Spock showed the stress and privations of a lifetime as
a fugitive.  He was stooped a few centimeters shorter, his shoulders
rounded, his hair streaked with more white.  And his voice was just a
touch weaker, less assured, as if he had more cause to doubt his
logic.

Through the window, beyond the open balcony, the lights of Montreal
spread out like a galaxy of stars.  The faint hum of antigrav cars and
transports was carried on the soft evening breeze.  Like every other
city on this planet, this Earth, it was a city at peace.  In the past,
Kirk had grown impatient with the perfection of this world: its
boringly scheduled weather; its

annoyingly free-of-conflict world government; its all-pervasive lack
of excitement and challenge.  But whether it was a sign of all his
years of struggle, or a result of the single year he had just spent in
a simple cabin on Chal, Kirk was surprised by how much he had enjoyed
the week he had spent in this city, waiting for Spock to arrive. 
Perhaps perfection was not as bad as he had once thought.  At least, in
moderation.

Both Spock and his mirror counterpart continued staring at each other,
as if caught up in a mind-meld at a distance, if such a thing were
possible.  Certainly, a physical mind-meld was not in their plans.  It
had been one of the first things Kirk had suggested to them, a way to
have all their questions answered before they even knew the questions
existed.  But both Spocks, for a reason they would not state, refused
to consider it.  Now, in the meantime, their silence fueled the mood of
quiet expectation in the suite.  Janeway and T'Val were on either side
of their intendant.  Montgomery Scott stood next to Kirk, not
attempting to hide his surprise at seeing both Spocks, but not inclined
to break the mood of their dramatic meeting.

Finally, though, Kirk had had enough.  "I think this calls for a
drink," he announced.  Without waiting for anyone's reaction, he walked
over to the antique wet bar at the side of the suite's sitting room. 
There was a collection of fine crystal bottles on top of the bar, their
fiery reflections doubled by the mirrors behind them.  And beneath the
bar counter, hidden behind a panel of carved oak, was a replicator
alcove, though Kirk hadn't bothered to access it since Captain Bateson
had arranged the suite, courtesy of Starfleet.

Since Earth's twenty-fourth-century economy no longer operated with
money--something that Kirk still didn't comprehend, no matter how many
times Scott explained it to him--Kirk wasn't quite certain how,
exactly, Starfleet was responsible for providing the suite when
theoretically it was available to anyone on the planet.  At least in
Kirk's day, SPECTRE

during the unsettling time when physical money was being phased out on
Earth, a different system of exchange had replaced it.  Even then,
solid, easily transportable credits remained in circulation on the
frontier, just as in this era a bewildering variety of currency was
still in constant use beyond the Federation's borders.  But however
Bateson had managed it, Kirk was grateful for his kindness.  After his
lunar escapade, the large antigrav mattress in his bedroom had been a
blessing for his back.

Kirk peeled back the top of a container of iced tea for himself, smiled
at his guests.  "What can I get you?"

"We've wasted too much time already," Janeway said firmly, her face
registering displeasure with the tempting softness of Kirk's world. 
"We need computer access now."

Kirk poured the iced tea into a crystal tumbler.  "Kate, Ambassador
Spock has just this minute stepped through the door.  It has taken him
a week to come here from..."  Kirk hesitated.  Bateson had reminded
Kirk that Spock's ongoing mission to Romulus was still unofficial and
still off-the-record. "...  from his last posting," Kirk continued. 
"Some refreshment while we talk is not going to delay anything."  He
held up his tumbler.  "Iced tea?"

"I also believe we should commence right away," Spock said.

Kirk sighed.  So much for easing into the critical planning that had to
be done.

Kirk remained at the bar as Spock sat down in an upholstered chair--an
antique from the twenty-second century, the automated porter had
explained--and placed a small padd on the low table before him.

Intendant Spock took a seat at the opposite end of the table.  Janeway
and T'Val sat down beside one another on a couch to Spock's left. 
Scott dragged a hard-back chair from a dining table and sat to Spock's
left.

Janeway pulled out a padd, switched it on, and held it out

138

to Spock.  "We've prepared a list of the files we want, and a series
of technical topics for which we need further information before
determining what other files we'll add." But Spock made no effort to
take the padd.  "I have not come here to reveal the secrets of
Starfleet technology," he said calmly. Kirk saw the angry look that
flashed between Janeway and T'Val. Instantly he stepped forward. 
"Spock--I don't think you received my report about what these people--"
Spock cut Kirk short.  "I received the complete file.  I know what
these people want.  I have no intention of giving it to them." Janeway
shifted in her seat as if she were about to pull a phaser from a leg
holster. "Kate," Kirk said quickly.  "Why don't you give us a moment to
straighten out the...  uh...  miscommunication?" He stepped up to Spock
and Scott.  "Ambassador, Scotty, will you join me on the balcony?"
"Certainly," Spock said as he rose to his feet.  "But I assure you, I
am aware of no miscommunication." Kirk refrained from arguing in front
of Janeway and T'Val. He ushered his two friends through the sliding
glass doors, then turned back to the mirror Spock.  "This'll just take
a minute." As Janeway and T'Val glared at him, Kirk slid the doors
shut. Spock and Scott stood at the stone balcony railing.  Above, only
the brightest stars could be seen against the glow of Montreal's
lights.  Below, those lights traced the streets that made up the
regular grids of the city's newer sections, and the meandering,
narrower roads that remained of the old town. Montreal had escaped
major damage during the Third World War, and much of what lay below was
original, not reconstructed.

140

SPECTRE

"Spock," Kirk said, "I don't think you realize how serious my guests
are." "On the contrary," Spock replied.  "I do not believe you realize
what a critical question their presence raises, especially in regard to
the Prime Directive." Kirk sighed again.  If there were two words he
didn't want to hear again as long as he lived, they were "Prime
Directive." With "time travel" coming in a close second. "Spock, the
Prime Directive has no bearing on this.  Number one, they aren't from
our universe.  Number two..." Kirk took a deep breath.  This wasn't
going to be easy. "...  I've already interfered in their natural
development.  I have to set it straight." Spock regarded Kirk with a
skeptical expression Kirk knew well.  "Jim, can you honestly believe
that a handful of words you exchanged with my counterpart can have led
to such far-reaching consequences in the mirror universe?" "It's not a
question of belief.  Scotty got me Starfleet's classified reports on
the mirror universe.  The ones coming out of Deep Space Nine. 
Everything Janeway, and T'Val, and your counterpart have said is backed
up in those reports." Kirk looked at Scott.  "Scotty, you've read them.
You've talked with Janeway.  Tell him." Scott nodded.  "I have t' say
Jim's right, Ambassador.  The Deep Space Nine logs do confirm that
'Kirk' is one of the most famous, not t'mention 'infamous,' names in
the history of the mirror universe." "Why would it not be?"  Spock
asked.  "Their Kirk was the despot whose reign led to the worst
excesses of the Terran Empire." "Spock, 'Kirk' refers to me.  I'm the
starship captain who 'crossed over more than a century ago."  Their
Kirk is known as Tiberius." "At this point, there is no way to be
certain if that interpretation is correct."

Kirk struggled to understand why Spock was being so stubborn.  "We can
be certain.  Go back in there and ask... yourself."

Spock folded his hands behind his back and looked out at the city
lights beyond.  "Jim, by your own analysis, the Janeway, T'Val, and
Spock of the mirror universe are losing a desperate battle.  Were you
or I in such a situation, would we not say or do anything in an attempt
to reclaim victory?"

Kirk knew better than to argue with a Vulcan.  Outmaneuvering them was
a far better strategy.  "All right, Spock. What's going on?"

The picture of Vulcan innocence, Spock turned to Kirk.  "I merely came
in response to an urgent communique from Starfleet Command, asking me
to meet you here on Earth. While I was in transit from Romulus, your
preliminary report arrived by subspace.  Had I read it before I had
left Romulus, I would not have left Romulus.  But as I was almost here,
I decided to continue my trip.  That is the extent of what is 'going
on.""

Ha!  Evasion, Kirk thought.  He had long ago learned that the longer
one of Spock's answers was, the more likely it was he was hiding the
truth.

"I don't understand, Spock.  Why don't you want to give your
counterpart the technical secrets that could help free billions of
humans and Vulcans from lives of slavery and despair?"

"They are not humans and Vulcans," Spock said.  "I will concede that
they are analogous to both species, but--" "Spock!"

Spock widened his eyes at Kirk's outburst.

"They're Vulcans and humans.  No equivocation is possible. What is
wrong with you?"  Kirk looked at Scott.  "Scotty?  Do you know what
he's up to?"

Scott stared at Spock.  "Ye dinna seem to be yourself, sir. That's for
certain."

142 SPECTRE

Spock looked mildly insulted.  "In what way, Captain Scott?"

"You're like Jim, here.  Ye never let the Prime Directive stand in your
way before if you thought justice was not being served.  I mean, it's a
fine principle and all, but life is never as black or white as the
lawmakers think it's going to be. There're always exceptions to every
rule, and you and Jim used to be able to recognize those exceptions
with the best of them."

As unused to hearing praise from Scott as he was, Kirk was nevertheless
appreciative of the engineer's support.  Though it was still odd to
hear Scott call him by his first name.  "Scotty, are you agreeing with
me...  again?"

Scott seemed as unused to the idea as was Kirk, but he didn't argue the
point.  "Appears so.  I must be mellowing in my old age."

Kirk leaned on the balcony railing beside Spock.  "I still say there's
something you're not telling me."

Again, Spock looked away from Kirk, his gaze following the lazy flight
of a distant orbital shuttle as it took off from Earth Station
Dorval.

Now Kirk was intrigued by Spock's silence.  Despite the popular belief
to the contrary, Vulcans could lie whenever they chose to, and Spock
had certainly proved no exception to that rule over the years.  He
would not do so to profit himself, but in the past he'd had no
compunction about misleading enemies or serving a greater good.  Most
important, though, Kirk knew, Spock would never lie to him.  So his
friend's silence now distinctly implied that there was an unspoken
truth that might answer Kirk's suspicions.  Yet, for whatever reason,
Spock was restrained from talking about it.

But why?  Kirk asked himself.  What could Spock have learned about the
mirror universe in the time it took him to reach the hotel from the
transport station?

Then Kirk realized the obvious.  Whatever Spock knew, whatever he was
hiding, he had known it before setting out for Earth.

Spock looked at Kirk.  "Is there something more you wished to say?"

But Kirk remained silent as he completed his reasoning. Spock said he
had received Starfleet's urgent request to meet Kirk on Earth.  While
in transit he had read Kirk's report.  But he was so far along in his
journey that rather than turn back, he had continued to Earth.  Kirk
had it. "Spock, it's not logical." Spock raised an eyebrow.

"As soon as I came back from the moon, I asked Bateson to locate you on
Romulus.  Less than a day later, I gave him my encrypted report to be
transmitted to you.  If you read it in transit, you'd only be a day
away from Romulus.  Why not turn back?"

Spock started to say something, then stopped.

Kirk held up a finger, making his point.  "You were about to say there
was a delay in your receiving the report, weren't you?"

Now Spock remained silent.

"But that would be a lie, wouldn't it?"  Kirk asked. Silence.

"The truth," Kirk said, "is that you were already on your way to Earth
when I asked Bateson to find you.  And the reason you were coming to
Earth has something to do with the mirror universe."

Spock looked away again.  "Jim, I truly regret these present
circumstances.  But all I am at liberty to say to you is...  go back to
Chal."

"Chal?"

Spock touched Kirk's shoulder, and Kirk knew the level of concern Spock
must feel for him to express himself in such human terms.  "Go home. 
You are no longer part of Starfleet. I know you no longer want to be
involved in...  in Starfleet

144 SPECTRE

activities.  You should not think about returning to the mirror
universe and trying to right ancient wrongs."

Kirk felt the satisfaction of knowing he had been correct. He also
understood the reason why Spock was worried about him, even though
there was no need for it.  "Spock, believe me.  There's nothing more I
want to do than get on the next liner back to Chal.  I plan to..."  He
smiled as he realized he was about to say aloud what he had been
thinking for months. "I'm going to ask Teilani to marry me.  I intend
to spend the rest of my life tending my garden.  Chal is world enough
for me, now.

"And the last thing I want to do is go back to the mirror universe. 
But I feel responsible for what happened there.  I have to do something
to help.  Besides, what harm is there in telling these people what they
want to know?  I won't be fighting their battles for them.  Those days
are over for me. But if I can give them the tools they need to do their
own fighting, I owe them that much.  And that's why I asked you to come
here and help."

Spock looked up at the handful of stars above.  "I cannot help you. 
And I am sorry."

Kirk felt anger well up in him, but he knew it was just a visceral
response to frustration.  If he thought Spock was open to logic, he'd
spend the rest of the week debating the situation if he had to, until
Spock was forced to agree.  But there was some other factor at work
here, and it was unlikely Spock would reveal enough to let Kirk know
what the rules of the game were.  And in that type of situation, Kirk
knew, the best strategy was to write his own rules.

"Then I am sorry if I have interfered with something more important
you're involved in," Kirk said, almost formally. "And I appreciate your
taking the time to come to see me. But, for now, it seems there's
nothing more to be said."

Spock turned away from the railing as if Kirk had spoken a spell which
had broken through some enchantment.  "Star WILLIAM SHATN pounds

fleet Command would like to offer you transportation home by starship. 
The Sovereign is departing Spacedock tomorrow morning at--"

"I have no intention of going home, Spock.  I made a promise to those
people.  I'm going to keep it."

Kirk could see Spock respond to the challenge in his voice. "You no
longer have the security clearance to obtain the information they
request.  And Captain Scott would be facing grave consequences if he
attempted to use his position to do so for you."

Scott fairly blustered at Spock's threat.  "Now, see here, Spock."

"It's all right, Scotty," Kirk interrupted.  "What I'm going to do
won't involve you.  I have other friends in this century. And I'm sure
Captain Picard has more than enough authority, and more than enough
compassion, to try to help billions of innocent beings regain their
freedom."

Kirk nodded to Scott.  "Good night, Scotty.  Thanks for coming."  He
looked at Spock.  "Ambassador."  He started toward the sliding doors.

But Spock didn't let him take more than three steps.  "Jim, wait."

Kirk stopped, but did not turn back.  There was nothing like forcing
the other player to make his move first. "You won't be able to find
Captain Picard." Kirk slowly turned back to Spock.  "I'm waiting."

Spock looked troubled.  "I am under...  strict Starfleet orders..."

Kirk understood the dilemma.  Starfleet duty versus a lifetime of
friendship and trust.  But Kirk knew a way around that.  "Spock...  if
we follow the logic of the situation, strictly speaking, I'm a civilian
and you're part of the Vulcan diplomatic corps.  I can understand how
Starfleet might strongly insist on certain types of behavior and
nondisclosure, but neither you nor I are truly subject to orders
anymore.  Are we?"

146 SPECTRE

The night wind was picking up, and it blew at Spock's robe, as if even
nature--or the dull bureaucrats at the Department of Weather--were
attempting to steer him on a new course. Kirk could almost see Spock
thinking, calculating all possible actions and results, as if they were
facing each other across a three-dimensional chessboard.  "What you are
proposing," Spock finally said, "is, I believe, what is commonly called
a slippery slope."

Scott snorted with laughter.  "Och.  As if you two haven't careened
down a few of those in your day.  C'mon, Spock, ye know what ye have to
do."

"Tell me what I need to know, Spock," Kirk urged.  "Then, if I can help
you, I will.  If I can't, I'll go back to Chal and... build myself a
rocking chair."

The offer to take himself out of the game seemed to be the condition
that finally convinced Spock to bend the rules.  Kirk and Scott drew
closer to Spock as he prepared to tell them what he had been holding
back.

"Eight days ago, Starbase 310 received an automated EFA alert,
requesting authorization for a change in command.  The starship was
identified as the U.S.S.  Voyager.  The new commander, as Captain
Jean-Luc Picard."

Scott's eyes flashed with genuine excitement.  "The Voyager's back.9"

But Spock shook his head.  "No, Mr.  Scott.  The real Voyager, it
seems, remains in the Delta Quadrant.  Starfleet Intelligence believes
the EFA alert came from a duplicate Voyager."

But that made no sense to Kirk.  "Spock, the Voyager is one of the
latest Starfleet designs.  There hasn't been a Starfleet in the mirror
universe for almost a century.  How could it be duplicated when the two
histories have diverged so completely?"

"In short, stolen plans.  According to the Deep Space Nine logs, the
Terran resistance successfully stole and used the plans for the
Defiant.  Since that time, Starfleet Intelligence

has become aware of an increase in the number of attempts to access
the classified specification files for a variety of Starfleet vessels,
including several at Earth Station McKinley, where Voyager was
constructed.  Break-in attempts at McKinley ended almost two years ago,
which might logically imply that the last attempt was undetected, and
successful.  Starfleet Intelligence believes the Terran resistance is
responsible for those attempts, and has succeeded in creating a
mirror-universe Voyager."

"That cannae be right," Scotty protested.  "If those lasses and your
counterpart already have that kind of access to Fleet computers, then
why go to all the trouble of coming after Jim to have him do the
same?"

"You have answered your own question, Captain Scott.  To cover up the
fact that they already have been successful."

"But, Spock, if Jim ha dna decided to help them, they were going to
kill him."

Spock was undeterred.  "Or so they say."

"Gentlemen, this is...  fascinating," Kirk said, "but there's a more
important matter at hand.  What happened to Jean-Luc?"

"That is unknown.  Starfleet dispatched a high-speed fighter wing to
the Voyager's coordinates, which were within a light-year of the
Enterprise's last reported position.  Both the Voyager and the
Enterprise were gone.  However, residual warp trails indicated they had
both been in formation at that location only hours earlier.  The
quantum signature of the warp particles left in the Voyager's wake
confirms that it is from another quantum reality."

"Could the warp trails nae be traced?"  Scott asked.

"No, Captain Scott.  Either both ships employed a warp-particle
containment field to mask their trails, or..."

Kirk didn't wait for Spock to finish.  "Or both ships are now in the
mirror universe."

"You see my dilemma, Jim.  The three people who abducted

148 SPECTRE

you could very well be involved in the hijacking of Starfleet's most
powerful and--in the wrong hands--deadliest starship."

Kirk stared down at the tiles of the balcony.  As if he were about to
face combat, his mind became focused and totally aware at the same
time.  He sensed the cool temperature of the night air, the growing
gusts of wind, the distinct sounds of traffic moving above the roads
below and through the sky above.  But there was no rage in his heart,
no sudden adrenaline call to action.

Only disappointment.  Sharp and overwhelming.

Because he had just realized why Spock had not been forthcoming.

"Spock, I want to ask, Why didn't you tell me all that at the
beginning?  But I know the answer."

Hidden by years of Vulcan training, that same disappointment could
still be seen in Spock's eyes.  Not a reflection of Kirk's, but Spock's
own.

"You think I might be involved," Kirk said, each word a knife to stab
the cooling air between the two friends.  "Involved with the
Resistance, the hijacking...  all of it.  The truth you were trying so
hard to keep to yourself, is...  you don't trust me."

Spock chose his words carefully, as if this moment of revelation was as
difficult for him as for Kirk.  "Starfleet feels...  it is not prudent
to accept your involvement with the resistance members at face value. 
Whether you are truly driven to correct an imagined wrong you might
have done a century ago, or whether any guilt you might feel over such
an action might leave you open to manipulation without realizing you
were being used, Starfleet feels that, at best, you are...  compromised
in this matter."

Now Kirk felt true anger begin to crawl up from some deep inner cave
within him.  And this time, it would not be denied. "Spare me the
speeches, Ambassador.  The plain and simple

truth of it is you don't trust me.  Starfleet doesn't trust me. After
all I've done for them, for the Federation, for you...  to be treated
like this is...  is unacceptable." "Jim, I remind you that you are no
longer part of Starfleet. Since your return to this time and this
region of space, you have shown little interest in the Federation."
Kirk threw his hands in the air.  "What about the virogen? The
Federation was facing collapse.  And I was there to stop that from
happening." Spock was unperturbed.  "The virogen threatened Chal. Your
efforts to save the Federation are seen, in some quarters, as a mere
offshoot of your efforts to save your new home." Kirk was more than
insulted.  He was outraged.  But Spock kept speaking. "And, in this
past year, when the Federation faced its greatest threat from the war
with the Dominion, when virtually every retired member of Starfleet
voluntarily returned to active duty, you remained on Chal." Kirk was so
appalled by these accusations, he was almost incapable of speech.  "Is
this what the Federation has become in this century?  Sparta?  If I'm
not a soldier, I'm not a citizen?" Kirk couldn't believe it, but Scott
looked as if he was being swayed by Spock's argument.  "The war with
the 'Dominion, that was--that's--still serious business." "The Dominion
was able to threaten us because of one passageway," Kirk insisted. 
"The Bajoran wormhole.  Close the wormhole, the Dominion is no more
dangerous than Cardassia.  The Federation has fought worse enemies,
stronger enemies, and won.  The Federation doesn't need me to survive. 
Especially when Starfleet's got people like Ben Sisko." Scott seemed
surprised by the familiar tone Kirk had used. "Do ye know Captain
Sisko?"  he asked. "We've met," Kirk said.  "A long time ago."  But he
didn't elaborate.  It was enough that when he had first seen an image

150

SPECTRE

of Captain Sisko in an update on the Dominion War he had finally
realized the answer to the puzzling mystery of the disappearing
lieutenant who had caused a brief flurry of excitement on his
Enterprise a century ago.  Kirk looked forward to someday comparing
notes on time travel with the ubiquitous Captain Sisko. "They're not
going to respond well to being refused," Kirk said to Spock, making it
clear he referred to Janeway and her companions.  "We could be in
danger."  Kirk looked over his shoulder at the sliding glass doors. 
They were covered by sheer curtains that glowed with the light of the
suite.  Kirk was a bit surprised that Janeway hadn't come marching
through those doors by now, demanding to know what the delay was.  In
his brief experience of her, she was always in a hurry. "We never have
been," Spock said.  He removed a Starfleet comm badge from his robes. 
"The moment we stepped onto this balcony, Janeway, T'Val, and my
counterpart were beamed to detention cells on Spacedock." Kirk felt the
bitter shock of betrayal.  "Why didn't you beam me up, too?" Spock
fixed Kirk with an unblinking gaze.  "Starfleet wanted to.  I convinced
them otherwise.  You are free to go. Provided you go to Chal." "You'll
forgive me if I don't sound properly grateful," Kirk said angrily.  If
it had been anyone else but Spock, Kirk would never consider leaving
this balcony without satisfaction of some kind.  But he, at least,
believed friendship and loyalty must stand for something. He spun
around before Spock could say anything more.  He ignored Scott's plea
to return.  He strode to the doors, slid them open, and stepped through
the suddenly billowing white curtains. The chairs were empty.  Spock
had meant what he'd said. Starfleet had struck.

	SPECTRE

And then he realized that one person still remained in the suite.  A
slightly built man at the bar, in Starfleet's latest uniform, his back
to the balcony as he appeared to be mixing a drink.

"Did you change your mind?"  Kirk asked in challenge. "Are you going to
beam me to detention, too?"

The thin man turned slowly, and Kirk felt a shock of surprise as he
suddenly recognized him.

"Bones?"

At 148 years old, hand trembling slightly, Dr.  Leonard McCoy held up
what could only be a mint julep.  "Hi there, Jim.  I was beginning to
wonder if Spock was going to be keeping you out there all night."

"Bones!"

McCoy ignored Kirk's reaction and carefully placed the mint julep on
the bar beside a second one.  "When your vocabulary recovers from
whatever Spock has done to it, maybe we could have a talk."

Kirk crossed the suite and held back from hugging McCoy, only because
he looked so frail that Kirk was afraid he might injure him.  "I...  I
can't believe..."

"That I'm still alive?"  McCoy completed helpfully. "Nooo," Kirk said,
though he had to admit to himself that that was part of it.  A healthy
Vulcan could live more than two hundred years.  Kirk and Scott had
reached the twenty-fourth century by the intervention of science and
inexplicable temporal effects.  But McCoy had arrived in the future as
most humans do--one long, hard day at a time.  Even given the medical
breakthroughs of the age, McCoy was among a handful of humans breaking
the records of human longevity. And Kirk believed few people deserved
it more.

"I can't believe you look so good."  Kirk stepped back to take in the
sight of his old friend.  McCoy was dapper in the new uniform--it was
the best word to use; his white hair almost glowed against the dark
gray and black.  "The last time I saw you, you had the..."  Kirk
gestured at McCoy's legs.

152

"Exoskeleton," McCoy said.  "Implants now.  Artificial muscles grafted
over my own.  My fifth set of hips--they tell me these ones are going
to last.  And a new pair of cloned lungs.  I'm not a doctor anymore,
I'm a medical experiment."

Kirk was overcome.  But he was also suspicious.  "So, are you in on
this, too?"

"On what?"  McCoy asked.

Kirk looked toward the balcony as Spock and Scott reentered the room,
and reacted to McCoy's presence with as much surprise as Kirk had
displayed.

"All right," Kirk said after the highly charged greetings were
exchanged, "now I am confused.  Bones, you knew... the ambassador and
Scotty were here, but they didn't know you were going to join them."

"'The ambassador'?"  McCoy repeated.  "Do I detect a chill in the
environmental system?"

"Somebody better tell me what's going on," Kirk said.

McCoy sighed, steadied himself against the bar, then handed Kirk one of
the mint juleps.  "Drink this," he said.

Kirk took the drink, sniffed it.  Real bourbon.  "1...  gave it up."

McCoy gave him an inquiring look.  "Any particular reason?"

Kirk shrugged.  He gave up alcohol at the same time he removed tissue
regenerators, computers, replicators, and communicators from his life. 
"Simpler," he said.  "And healthier."

"Well, I'm your doctor," McCoy told him.  "And I say, drink it."

Kirk had to admit it did smell good, and the mint was fresh.  After a
year on Chal, he knew the difference between plants just picked and
those a day or more older.  One was a sensory experience, the other was
just food.

He sipped the drink.  Sweet and cool, the flavor and delicate chill
released a flood of memories from the first Enterprise, the long nights
in his cabin, talking through to ship's dawn

with Bones and Spock, as if no other life would ever be possible.

"What are you, a cadet?"  McCoy said.  He downed half his own drink,
then blinked in surprise as if he hadn't intended to swallow so much.

Kirk decided his long fast was over.  He took a long swallow too,
amazed at the forgotten but pleasurable sensation of the liquid burning
down his throat and into his stomach.

Then he exhaled slowly and placed the glass on the bar.  The sugar and
alcohol were hitting him that quickly.

"You all right?"  McCoy asked.

"You're my doctor," Kirk told him.  "What are you doing here?"

McCoy put his glass down beside Kirk's.  "Bad news, I'm afraid, Jim. 
From Chal."

The effects of alcohol and sugar left Kirk at once. "Teilani..."

McCoy nodded.  "Someone...  took her."

Kirk felt his heart start beating again.  McCoy said "took,"

only "took," nothing worse.

"Who?  Took her where?"

"No one knows.  There was a message left, telling you that if you
helped the intendant, Teilani would be...  well..." McCoy hesitated,
but Kirk left McCoy no room for doubt' that he wanted to hear it all. 
"If you helped the intendant, they'd kill Teilani."

Kirk could tell that wasn't all of it, either.  "What else, Bones? 
What else?"

McCoy looked all of his near century and a half in age.  "If you want
Teilani back, they will trade."

"The intendant?"

McCoy nodded.  "And his lieutenants."

"Janeway and T'Val."

"They weren't named, but...  Starfleet Intelligence agrees that's who
the message refers to."

154 SPECTRE

Kirk turned accusingly to Spock.  "Did you know any of this?"

"No.  Nothing."

"Scotty?"

"Nae, laddie.  I've no truck with none but Engineering at Command."

"Starfleet wants to talk with you, Jim."

"I don't care what Starfleet wants, Bones.  Two hours ago, Starfleet
was ready to beam me into detention."

"When haven't they wanted to do that?"  McCoy asked with a wry grimace.
 He took another sip from his drink.

"This isn't the time, Bones."

"At my age, it doesn't make sense to put anything off." "And I'm not
going to.  Two hours ago, Spock, I was ready to turn the intendant and
his lieutenants over to you and Starfleet, wish everyone good luck, and
go back to Chal.  Two minutes ago, after what you told me, I was still
going back to Chal.  But not now."

"I think that's what Starfleet wants to talk to you about," McCoy said
again.

"Bones, you're dealing with Starfleet Intelligence.  Spock's dealing
with Starfleet Intelligence.  But whoever you're talking to there
aren't talking to each other.  I'm not getting caught up in that.  I've
had it with Starfleet's bureaucracy and channels. Someone has Teilani. 
I'm going to get her back.  It's as simple as that."

Scott looked from McCoy to Spock and back again, then stepped forward. 
"Well, you'll nae be going' alone."

"Hell," McCoy said, "I haven't done anything exciting in...  I can't
count that high.  I'm in."  He put his drink down on the bar.

Kirk looked at his friend, said kindly, "Bones, no.  At your age--"

"At my age I've got so many damn artificial body parts that if someone
cut off my head the only difference'd be that my bedside manner would
show a remarkable improvement.

Besides, at your age, how many friends do you have left stupid enough
to go off on one of your harebrained adventures?"

Kirk forced a smile.  "Thank you for that vote of confidence."

"May I inject a note of reason into these ill-considered proceedings?" 
Spock asked.

But Kirk had no more time to waste.  And he certainly had no time for
those who would try to waste it for him.  "No, Mr. Spock, you may not. 
I've had it with reason.  This time, I'm just going to get the job
done."

Kirk started for the door, aware that McCoy and Scott were following
close behind.

Hand on the doorknob, Kirk looked back at Spock.  "What about it?  Are
you coming with me?"

"I believe the question is: Are you coming with me?" "And why would I
do that?"  Kirk asked.

Spock pulled out his comm badge.  "Because you have a firm grasp of
logic, for a human.  And I, whatever your feelings toward me are right
now, have a ship."

Kirk hesitated, tempted.  Getting a ship had become his first priority,
though how one went about doing that, in an economy that used no form
of currency or system of economic exchange, remained a mystery.

"What kind of ship?"  Kirk asked.

"You may inspect it yourself," Spock answered.  He squeezed the comm
badge so it gave out its familiar chirp.

"Spock to Sovereign," he said.  "Four to beam up."

156 THIRTEEN

There were conditions for saving Teilani, of course.  With Starfleet,
Kirk knew, there were always conditions.  And the worst of them was the
uniform.

He stood in front of the holographic mirror projected from the bulkhead
in his quarters on the Sovereign, adjusting the jacket for the tenth
time, at last understanding why Picard kept tugging on his.  Kirk had
worn one of these new ones before.  It had been part of his disguise
when the Vulcans had arrested him during the virogen crisis.  But last
year, it had simply been a costume.

Today, it was an actual uniform, a sign of his reenlistment in an
organization he once had been glad to leave.  Where Starfleet had been
eager for James T.  Kirk, civilian, to return to his backwater
retirement home on Chal, it now was even more willing to put its
resources at the disposal of James T. Kirk, Starfleet officer.

On the bridge of the Sovereign, Fleet Admiral Alynna Nechayev had, with
an insincere smile, given Kirk exactly thirty seconds to make his
decision.  The admiral had left him no choice, and she had known it.

Kirk fingered the four pips on the right side of his collar.  At least
there he had managed to draw the line.  He'd rejoin, he

had told her, but not as an admiral.  That would only guarantee him
another instructor's post at the Academy.  So he had held out for
captain, the only rank that had ever suited him.  The rank that had
once given him a starship, and might again. Nechayev had agreed as if
that had been her plan all along, told Captain Kirk to report to the
observation lounge in one hour, and then had spun around in her chair
to grill two technicians on the half-percent deviation in warp
efficiency she had noticed at factor seven point six. Spock, who knew
his way around the impressive ship, the first of her class, had wasted
no time escorting Kirk, Scott, and McCoy from the bridge.  Kirk
interpreted Spock's prompt action as confirmation of his own suspicions
that Nechayev was one of those officers of whom it was unwise to remain
in her sights any longer than necessary. Now, in his quarters, Kirk
heard a chime that to him could only mean someone was at his
door--though he was still not entirely familiar with all the technology
of this latest of Starfleet's vessels. "Computer, mirror off," he said,
and the virtual reflective surface before him vanished.  Its absence
revealed a pale wall decorated by an art screen.  The screen, which
could display any one of hundreds of thousands of different images
stored in the ship's computer, had been set to show a fancifully
colored painting of an old Constitution-class starship, which might
even have been of the first Enterprise.  Kirk had checked the artist's
signature and was pleased to see the work was a Jefferies.  It was good
to know that one of Starfleet's greatest shipwrights had not been
forgotten in this age. Kirk walked over to the door--his quarters were
that large -- stood before it, and said, "Come." The door slid open. 
Spock and McCoy waited outside, and for a moment it was as if all three
had suddenly been thrown back a century. Kirk took in the sight of
Spock in one of the new uniforms,

158

SPECTRE

and read the insignia at his collar.  "Admiral Spock?  Were the robes
getting drafty?" "As I mentioned, the war with the Dominion has brought
many of Starfleet's retired officers back to the service." McCoy
stepped through the doorway, surefooted, no sign of age or hesitation,
his implants and artificial muscles working perfectly.  "Have you seen
yourself in that new getup?"  he asked. Kirk shook his head, admitting
to nothing.  "It's just a uniform.  They'll have another one in a few
more years.  They always do." "The Hawthorne effect," Spock said,
stepping through the doorway after McCoy.  "A twentieth-century insight
in Earth sociology.  Inconsequential, though regular modifications in
the workplace lead to employees feeling that their management is
concerned about their well-being.  Consequently, they exhibit greater
job satisfaction, and thus function with greater productivity." Kirk
stared at Spock.  "Spock, if no one in Starfleet is getting paid
anymore, how can we be employees?" "Admittedly, the economics of the
twenty-fourth century do appear complex on the surface, but a system
devoid of any instrument of exchange is inherently logical and
deceptively simple." "If it's so simple, explain it to me in
twenty-five words or less," Kirk said. Spock's face remained blank for
several seconds, then he admitted, "I cannot." "That makes me feel much
better."  Then Kirk noticed his missing shipmate.  "Where's Scotty?"
"Mr.  Scott is on duty and will join us in the lounge," Spock said. "On
duty?  On this ship?" "The Sovereign is Captain Scott's current
assignment.  He adapted a great many of her engineering breakthroughs
for

use in his designs for the Enterprise-E, and is now working on further
refinements for the new Constellation." Kirk took a moment to absorb
that revelation.  "Scotty... designed the new Enterprise?" "Portions,"
Spock said. "They don't design themselves, you know, not even these
days," McCoy added. Kirk decided not to be surprised.  He had always
known Scott's talents were considerable, though he probably didn't tell
him that as often as he should.  "Impressive, as always." Kirk tugged
down on his jacket, then started forward.  "Shall we join the admiral?"
But he stopped as he saw McCoy grinning at him.  "Yes, Doctor?" "I saw
that tug.  You've been standing in front of a holographic mirror
admiring yourself in that uniform, haven't you?" "A what kind of
mirror?" "You can't fool me, Jim.  You're glad to be back in the
Fleet." First Teilani.  Now McCoy.  Why does everyone insist on
believing they know what I'm feeling better than I do?  Kirk thought.
"I was blackmailed, Bones.  All I care about is getting Teilani back. 
And then I'm going to burn this uniform on Chal." "That is not the
arrangement you agreed to with the admiral," Spock pointed out.  "You
have rejoined Starfleet for the duration of the war, plus one year."
"Don't you start," Kirk said.  "I'm going to the bridge." Kirk walked
out of his quarters and...  and...  he refused to look back. "The
nearest turbolift is to the right," Spock said from behind him. Kirk
turned to the right, into the corridor leading to the turbolift alcove.
But by the time the lift arrived, Spock and McCoy were at his side
again.

160

SPECTRE

McCoy patted Kirk's shoulder as the lift doors slipped open.  "Don't
worry, Jim.  We'll get her back." "I know we will," Kirk said.  "With
or without Starfleet." The doors closed.  The bridge, and Fleet Admiral
Nechayev, awaited.

"Not another word, Captain Kirk." Kirk opened his mouth to protest,
read Nechayev's mood, then decided instead on silence, folding his
hands on the glowing surface of the conference table in the Sovereign's
observation lounge.  This was not the time to question Star-fleet's
strategy for dealing with Teilani's kidnappers. He was aware of
Nechayev watching him, waiting for him to dare to interrupt her opening
statement again. But Kirk looked off to the side of the room where a
large glass case contained an elaborate terrarium in which a dozen or
so small lizards, most from Earth, remained motionless beneath warming
lights. "That's better," the admiral said.  "Anyone else have something
to add?" Kirk didn't risk looking at Spock, McCoy, Scott, or Nechayev's
executive officer, Commander Tan Kral, a serene-looking Trill whose
spots merged on his bald head, creating the impression of a covering of
extremely short and splotchy hair.  Commander Kral had had nothing to
say beyond greeting Kirk and the others when they had entered.  Kirk
doubted he would speak now. "Good," the admiral said.  She brushed her
pale blond hair from her forehead as if she had just completed a
physically demanding task.  "As I was saying, this is how the mission
will proceed. "We are en route to the mirror Voyager's last known
position near the Goldin Discontinuity, and will arrive in three days. 
We will then track the Enterprise and the mirror Voyager to locate the
mechanism, artificial or natural, which serves as the link between our
universe and--" The admiral

snapped her head toward Kirk with no attempt to hide her anger.  "What
is it, Captain Kirk?!" Kirk forced himself not to respond to the
admiral's painfully obvious dislike of him.  True, he had tensed as she
had spoken, shifted in his chair, all minor and unavoidable responses
to the...  the stupidity of her plan.  Apparently, though, just his
presence in this room was enough to annoy her. "I believe we're
forgetting there is a woman's life at risk," Kirk said, struggling to
remain calm for Teilani's sake. "There are potentially billions of
lives at risk, Captain." "But Teilani is the key!"  Kirk could no
longer stand the confinement of remaining seated at the table, as if he
were a willing member of her crew.  He jumped to his feet.  "Why waste
time searching for ships that have hidden their warp trails and might
already be in the other universe?  Whoever took Teilani wants to
conduct a trade.  Intendant Spock, Janeway, T'Val, they're on this
ship.  Let's make that trade." Nechayev rocked back in her chair.  "The
famous Captain Kirk, hero of his century, wants to give up so quickly? 
Give in to blackmail like a...  a Ferengi?" Kirk looked out the
observation windows to see the stars slipping away at high warp.  He
tried to draw strength from them.  "Admiral, of course we will not give
in to blackmail. But we can use the trade to set a trap.  Whoever has
Teilani is from the mirror universe.  If you want to know how they got
their Voyager into this universe, how they plan on taking the
Enterprise back, they'll have those answers.  Do it my way and
Teilani's safe, and you have a prisoner or two who can tell you what
you need to know, instead of wasting a year scanning space for
something you might never find." Nechayev looked at Kirk with contempt.
"The best minds in Starfleet Intelligence have spent decades
developing the proper response to the demands of kidnappers and
terrorists.

162

SPECTRE

If we find the crossover mechanism and either destroy it or take
control of it while the kidnappers are in our universe, they will be
cut off from escape, and more willing to deal." Kirk pounded his fist
on the table.  "They'll be cut off and desperate and more willing to
kill their hostage!" Nechayev jumped to her feet, as well, and leaned
over the table to face Kirk eye to eye.  "No!  Once the mechanism is
shut down, Teilani is the only thing that gives the kidnappers a way to
get back home.  They won't harm her!" "She is not a thing!  And you are
putting her in harm's way!" "You are out of line, Captain!" "You are!" 
Kirk shouted.  "You made me an offer so I would help you.  I accepted. 
But now you're not listening to anything I say." ' Nechayev'ss pal
complexion was becoming flushed.  "These are not the old days of the
final frontier, Captain.  Starfleet no longer straps on its laser
pistols and warps off to blow up strange new life-forms first and ask
questions later." "We didn't do it that way in my time, if that's what
you're implying." "Excuse me?"  the admiral said in mock confusion.  "I
know that's how you did things.  I've read the history books." "I lived
that history.  I made some of it." "And that's what makes you think
you're better than the top people at Starfleet Intelligence?" "Listen
to what you're saying, Admiral.  You're provoking a confrontation. 
Always trying to make everything into a good or bad situation.  Am I
better than Starfleet's experts?  That's not a question that should be
asked.  Who are those experts? What's their experience?  It's all
twenty-fourth century, isn't it?  So that's what they're good for.  If
a band of present-day Orion pirates had kidnapped Teilani, or a
renegade Klingon crew, then Starfleet's experts would know exactly what
to do and I'd stand back and let them do it.

"But we're dealing with people your Starfleet knows nothing about. 
They're ruthless.  Unswayed by logic.  Driven by generations of
frustration, hatred, and the need, the desire, for revenge.  And
forgive me for saying so, but in this perfect Federation you've
inherited, I don't think the Starfleet of this day understands that
kind of passion.  And the proof of it is that useless plan you just
laid out."

Kirk and the admiral remained standing, watching each other like wary
knife fighters about to do battle, each waiting for the other to make
the first move.

"Admiral Spock," Nechayev said, "before I have Kirk escorted from my
bridge, explain to him that Starfleet's plan is logical."

"The plan is quite logical," Spock said.  "But, the beings who captured
Teilani are not.  Thus, I must agree with Captain Kirk that the plan
stands little chance of success."

The admiral broke her gaze from Kirk and looked at Spock as if she'd
been betrayed.  "How can you say that?" "Because it is true."

Nechayev narrowed her eyes in thought.  Then she smiled. The effect was
not pleasant.  "I see.  You're in this together.  Of course, Kirk and
Spock.  And let's not forget Dr.  McCoy.  All three of you.  Caught up
in some...  pitifully transparent attempt to recapture the glory of
your youth."

The insults Kirk could ignore, because they weren't true. He couldn't
be responsible for what people who didn't know him thought of him.  But
given Nechayev's sudden resistance to his presence, why had she offered
him a berth on the Sovereign in the first place?

He looked at McCoy.  The elderly doctor rubbed the fingers of one hand
together, a nervous gesture exposing the tension he felt.

Spock, of course, remained placid, though Kirk had no doubt that he was
feeling the same outrage at being so wrongfully judged.

164 SPECTRE

But then Spock surprised everyone by also getting to his feet.  "Fleet
Admiral Nechayev, by refusing to consider Captain Kirk's advice, I
believe you are sidestepping the orders you were given by Command at
the outset of this mission."

Nechayev looked momentarily confused, then laughed scornfully.  "What? 
You're going to have McCoy declare me unfit for duty so Kirk can take
command?"  She shot a glance at Kirk.  "As I said, I've read all the
history books.  I know how you think."  Then she looked at her Number
One.  "Commander Kral, how do you respond to Admiral Spock's charge? 
Am I disobeying my orders?"

The Trill shook his head slowly.  "No, ma'am.  You are required only to
ask for Kirk's assistance in those matters you feel are appropriate."

"And since it's clear you find me completely inappropriate," Kirk said,
"why am I here?"

McCoy answered the question, and Kirk could hear the bitterness he
felt.  "It's obvious, Jim.  Starfleet was so eager to stop you from
being involved in any of this, they asked you on board to keep you out
of the way and under their control."

Kirk stared at Nechayev in dawning comprehension.  "You have no
intention of helping me save Teilani."

Nechayev shook her head at him.  "No matter what you think of us in
this century, we're not monsters.  We will do all we can to save
Teilani, after the security of the Federation has been assured."

Kirk felt sick.  Starfleet had lied to him.  And he had no recourse. 
He was trapped--on one of the most advanced starships in the Fleet, the
prototype from which Jean-Luc's own new Enterprise had been developed. 
And it was hurtling at maximum speed to a region of space hundreds of
light-years from Chal, and from any chance of rescuing the woman he
loved more than life itself.

He could see that the admiral sensed his sudden feeling of defeat.

She sat down, gestured for him to do the same. But Kirk couldn't see
the point.  "It seems we're finished here." Nechayev shrugged.  "As you
wish." Kirk started for the door.  Spock pulled out McCoy's chair,
helped him stand. "Captain," the admiral said before Kirk could leave. 
"Star-fleet did invite you on this mission for a reason other than the
one you imagine." Kirk looked over his shoulder.  Somehow, he doubted
that. "You seem to have developed some sort of relationship with the
three intruders from the mirror universe," Nechayev continued. "Because
they trusted me, Admiral.  But that was before you ambushed them in my
suite.  I doubt any relationship exists by now." "If it did," Nechayev
said, not letting him go yet, "Starfleet would be most appreciative if
during the next few days, you could speak with them, to help develop
our understanding of their universe.  Their ancient history, the events
of the last century, the struggles they face today.  It would be most
helpful." "If I refuse?"  Kirk asked.  "Do you have a plank on this
ship I could walk?" Nechayev did not respond to his sarcasm.  "The
choice is yours, Captain Kirk.  Remember that.  The choice Starfleet
offers has always been yours." "I make my own choices," Kirk said. 
Then he walked out, not waiting to be dismissed. He knew what he had to
do, now. And to save Teilani, he had only three days in which to do
it.

166

FOURTEEN

"I could kill you," Janeway said. Kirk kept his back to her, gazing out
at the magnificent vista of Yosemite National Park as it could only be
seen at sunset from the summit of El Capitan.  "You could try," he
said, "but--" Janeway's hands struck Kirk's shoulders with the force of
a charging targ, knocking him into a fatal one-kilometer fall which
lasted just long enough for him to feel an overwhelming sensation of
deja vu, and then-- "Warning," said the computer voice, "physical risk
parameters exceeded.  Safety overrides engaged." Kirk felt solid ground
beneath his feet.  When he looked down, there was still nothing to see
below his feet except air.  But he could walk on it. He turned around
to look at Janeway, still standing at the edge of the summit, hands on
her hips, distinctly disappointed that he was not plunging to his
death. "As I was saying," Kirk continued.  "You could try, but the
holodeck won't let you." Kirk walked through the air to return to the
simulated granite--a perfect illusion created by shifting holographic
projections and transporter-based replicated rock and stone.

	SPECTRE

"That's what I thought," Janeway said. "But you had to be sure." "I had
to be sure."  Her quick smile surprised Kirk.  It seemed genuine. 
"You'd have done the same." Kirk didn't answer.  Better to keep her
guessing.  But she was right.  He was beginning to see the starship
captain at her core. Janeway broke the sudden moment of silence between
them by looking around, breathing deeply, eyes shut.  "Even with my
eyes closed, the illusion is perfect.  The wind, the heat rising from
the rock, the smell of the pine trees..."  Her eyes fluttered open and
she looked away, as if stricken with a sudden wave of unbearable
sorrow. "What is it?"  Kirk asked.  He was genuinely concerned.  In the
past three days, he had come to see Janeway as more than an enemy to be
manipulated as he worked to achieve his own goals.  There were layers
of intrigue within this woman, concealed beneath a deceptively brittle
shell of indifference, as if at her core she carried a burden so great,
she was afraid to reveal it even to herself. Janeway ran her hand
across her short auburn hair.  She had removed the harsh red dye since
being beamed to the Sovereign.  An attractive change, Kirk felt.  "I
was just thinking... trying to think of the technology that goes into
something like this.  The thousands, the millions of hours of design,
testing, programming ....  Do you know what that says about a culture
if it can afford to expend all those resources on entertainment? "They
use it for training simulations, as well," Kirk said. But Janeway
ignored him, continuing with her point.  "It means all the other
problems are solved.  No hunger.  No disease.  No war ....  " "That's
one way to look at it.  But it could also mean that this culture is
trying to distract itself from the challenges it still faces.  Time
spent in entertainment can be a respite from ongoing struggles, not
just a reward for having completed them."

168

Janeway held the palm of her hand up, turning to face the holographic
sun as the simulated star reached the horizon, swollen, red, coloring
slender trails of clouds salmon pink against the deep indigo of
darkening sky.  Then she angled her hand as if judging the falloff in
heat.  Kirk had noticed that Janeway never stopped measuring and
testing her environment. She definitely had the soul of a scientist in
her. "Do you always look at everything from both points of view?"  she
asked. "Occupational hazard," Kirk said.  "I'm a starship cap- tain --
was a starship captain.  Diplomacy is the best policy. Do you always
ask important questions while you're pretending to be involved in
something else?" Janeway lowered her hand and gave Kirk her full
attention. In the flattering glow of sunset, she had lost her pallor.
She now seemed rested, renewed.  "Occupational hazard. I'm a soldier. 
And I'm in enemy hands.  Deception is the best policy." Janeway was now
clad in the civilian clothes the replicators had provided for her. 
They were similar in cut to Starfleet's shirt, jacket, and slacks, but
made from a softly textured, dark green fabric that clung to her with a
subtlety missing from the more utilitarian uniform.  She no longer
reminded Kirk of the grim-faced soldier in a combat suit who had
kidnapped him more than a week ago. Kirk looked back over the
magnificent expanse of the pine-filled valley floor.  The distant trees
were different in number and size from what he remembered.  The
three-dimensional images that had been used to make this amazing
reconstruction must have been recorded recently, and the vegetation no
longer corresponded to his century-old memories.  "Starfleet is not the
enemy," he said. With Kirk, Janeway watched the shadows move across the
valley floor.  "You've told me that before," she said.  In a scattering
of small clearings, the flickering dance of pinpoint campfires could be
seen, as if here in Yosemite the stars had

found a home on Earth.  "But I don't believe you," she continued. 
"Because I think you think Starfleet is your enemy as much as it's
mine." I'm surrounded by mind readers, Kirk thought. "Kate," he said
firmly, "I don't make any apologies that I've disagreed with Command
from time to time...  all right, a lot of the...  most of the time,
especially recently.  But in its own, plodding, earnest way, I believe
Starfleet is simply trying to discover the truth behind your presence
here, and the disappearance of the Enterprise." Janeway looked directly
into Kirk's eyes, as if to convince him that each word she spoke was
the truth.  "I told you why we were here.  I told you we know nothing
about the Enterprise or the mirror Voyager." "Admiral Nechayev is
reluctant to accept that both incursions from your universe happened at
the same time by coincidence." The sun was more than halfway gone, and
the fading sky and deepening shadows brought a new intensity to
Janeway's features.  "What do you think?" Kirk let her see the truth
that was in him, as well.  "I don't care.  Only one thing matters to me
-- Teilani's safety." Janeway studied him carefully.  "Is that so?" Not
for the first time Kirk wished that he could read minds. Then Janeway
reached out, took his face in her hands, and forcefully kissed him, her
body pressed close against his.  One of her hands moved to the back of
his neck so the pressure of their joining became unrelenting. For an
instant, Kirk's body responded, and he pulled her even closer.  There
was a quixotic fire in this woman of the kind that always drew him, a
fire fueled by willfulness, by independence, by a shared inability to
accept defeat, that would always make him consider her an equal. But as
quickly as that wellspring of passion rose within him to meet her
advance, his heart rebelled. He pushed Janeway away, breathless in the
sudden, un bid-

170

SPECTRE

den rush of physical desire, stared at her face in the fading crimson
light of the sun and knew that his was as flushed as hers. "No," he
said. She drew the fingers of one hand across his face, across his
lips.  Her touch was insistent, not gentle.  "Now I don't believe you."
At another time in his life, Kirk knew, his heart and his mind wouldn't
enter into this equation.  Beneath these stars he and this woman would
exhaust their passion without regret, for their past or for their
future, exulting in an eternal present of sheer experience. At another
time in his life. But not this time. He caught her hand and cut himself
off from her touch. "Believe me," he said. Nothing would happen between
them.  He wouldn't allow it. "You really do love her," Janeway said.
"Love" seemed such a small word for what he felt, but even a book full
of words could not express what he had found with Teilani, and what
still remained for the two of them to discover, together.  "I really
do," Kirk said. Janeway stepped back.  The limits of her environment
had been tested again, and now she processed her observations. "Help me
get her back," Kirk said. Janeway didn't play any games.  "Help me get
the intendant and T'Val back to where we belong, with the information
we need."  There was a directness to her style of negotiation that Kirk
admired. Kirk held out his hand to accept her challenge and seal the
bargain. But then Janeway hesitated.  "What about Starfleet?" The
blunt, archaic term Kirk chose to describe what he thought Starfleet
could do to itself made Janeway laugh.

"Such language to be coming from a starship captain," she chided him. 
"What happened to diplomacy?"

"Diplomacy is born of patience," Kirk said.  "At this point in my life,
I'm all out."

Overhead, the simulated stars of a simulated world shone in
breathtaking spectacle.

Beneath them, Kirk and Janeway were exactly where they belonged.

They shook hands.

Not as man and woman, but as soldiers, allies.

And now that their own alliance had been forged, the war for each of
their worlds' survival could begin.

172 FIFTEEN

I'll be home soon, he had told her.

Teilani repeated those words, softly, a whisper, as she rubbed her
thumbnail back and forth against the leather strap that bound her
hands, crossed at the wrists.

I'll be home soon.

James had told her that.  She closed her eyes, closing off the
ominously stained and tattered fabric-padded walls of her
four-meter-wide, spherical cell, and saw James once again. Smiling at
her from the communications screen on Chal.

His trip to Earth had gone well, he had told her.  Spock was coming to
see him.  He was going to help an old friend, and then-Home soon.

At the time, days ago, weeks ago, she couldn't be sure with all that
had happened since, Teilani had rejoiced at that message from her
James.  There was a lightness to him, a familiar sparkle to his smile,
a new energy and purpose to his mood.

And she could see that he had made his decision. He would return to
Chal. And to her.

As she slowly floated in zero gravity, legs curled, arms

folded close, in the center of her cell, Teilani once again wished
that she had been at City's central comm station to receive that
message, to talk with James herself.  But what she saw and what he said
in the recording more than made up for any disappointment she might
have felt.

Because when James had left Chal, Teilani truly had not known if he
would return.  All she had known was that he would follow his heart,
and that there was nothing she, nor anyone else, could do to influence
that journey.

The stars James Kirk steered by were his own.  And she treasured each
moment that their paths remained the same.

Then Teilani heard the distant creaking of a pressure door and quickly
opened her eyes, ending her escape into memory.

Whenever she had heard that door in the past few days, since her
abductors had taken her to this place, it meant one of them would be
coming soon.

But it was too early for her daily meal.  Which meant something had
changed.  Something new was going to happen.

Teilani uncurled her legs and swung her hands up over her head, still
rubbing her thumbnail furiously against the strap. Her change in
configuration stopped the slow spin she had fallen into as her angular
momentum was conserved.

In another few seconds, she saw that her hands would brush against the
curved wall of the cell, and she would be able to cling to it by
grabbing on to the ribbons of torn fabric that swayed like fronds of
seaweed.

She had no idea what this cell had been intended for originally, but
judging from the rips in the padded wall and the dark splotches of
dried liquid that stained it, the previous occupant had not enjoyed his
incarceration here any more than she did.

She heard a thrumming noise in the air--the sound of some mechanism or
device she still hadn't identified--and, as they had all the times
before, the six round light panels arranged equidistantly around the
cell dimmed.  However the sound and the dimming lights were related,
their presence SPECTRE

meant that the hatch to her cell would open in only a few more
seconds.

Teilani's thumb burned from the friction of her constant rubbing. 
Another day, she estimated, and she would wear through the leather
strap completely.  One more day, and she would finally be able to fight
back.  But not now.  Escape would have to wait.

Then there was a rush of air and the circular hatch of the cell popped
open and swung away.  In the sudden breeze, all the tendrils of
shredded fabric in the cell waved toward the dark hatchway as if
pointing the way out.

Teilani ceased her rubbing.  She risked a quick assessment of the
strap.  The crease she had worn through the leather was noticeable,
deep.  Perhaps even less than a day's effort would be required to slice
all the way through.

Then, one of her captors appeared in the hatch.  Looking around,
cautiously.

And Teilani was surprised.

It wasn't one of those who had abducted her on Chal, taking her so
simply and efficiently from her bed with a single transporter beam that
had given her nothing to fight against.

Those responsible had been Cardassians.  They had not spoken to her at
first, only stared at her in the small cell she had been beamed to in
what she had guessed was a commercial freighter in orbit of Chal.

It was only after the third time she had thrown herself at the security
screen that sealed the cell, and had almost succeeded in grabbing the
throat of the spindly Cardassian who seemed to be the one in charge,
that her abductors had finally broken their silence.

When she had awakened from the neural shock of the force field the thin
Cardassian had informed her that the screen was now set to lethal
intensity.  If she tried to push her way through it again, she would
not wake up.

But other than that, her abductors had refused to answer any of her
questions or respond to her threats.

	174 A few days after that, she was again transported as she slept,
reappearing inside this cell, wherever it was.  Even with the presence
of zero gravity, she couldn't be certain if she were actually in space
-- antigravs might be used specifically to mislead her, or to make any
escape attempt more difficult. About all Teilani could be sure of was
that she was no longer on Chal.  There, her absence would have been
noticed within hours, and given Chal's limited island landmass and
population of under one million, local Federation authorities could
have conducted a search of the entire planet within an hour. That
Cardassians were involved in kidnapping her was not surprising.  The
war with the Dominion still continued, and not for a second did she
doubt that what had happened was in some way connected to James. But
the sight of the stranger in the hatchway caused her to reconsider
every other reasonable conclusion she had drawn. This captor was not
Cardassian.  She was human.  A young woman with a strong square face
and short blond hair.  She caught sight of Teilani at the side of the
cell and called out, "Stay there." Teilani chose to do so anyway,
watching carefully as the young woman pushed herself through the hatch
and floated across to her.  The stranger wore a dull gray jumpsuit with
a stylized image of Earth on the left shoulder.  It was not a uniform
Teilani recognized. Expertly, the young human landed on the curved wall
beside Teilani.  Teilani saw that the woman wore snug foot coverings
that let her toes move freely, as if they were fingers in a glove,
allowing her to grasp the fabric of the wall and hold herself in place
while still leaving her hands free. "Where am I?"  Teilani asked. There
was an air of flattened resignation to the young human.  Teilani
recognized it.  It reminded her of the people of Chal during the
virogen crisis, before James had returned, and there had been no hope.
"I can't tell you," the human said.  She had an equipment

SPECTRE

pouch clipped to the belt of her uniform.  From it, she now withdrew
what seemed to be a medical tricorder, though it was twice as large as
the ones Starfleet used. "Can't, or won't?"  Teilani tried again. The
young human said nothing.  She seemed to be having trouble getting the
tricorder to switch on. "What's your name?"  Teilani tried. "Tasha,"
the human said.  She hit the flat of her hand against the side of the
tricorder and its status lights at last flickered on. "What's that
for?" Tasha disconnected the remote scanner from the tricorder and held
it at the appropriate distance to ensure a deep three-dimensional scan
from two point sources.  "To make sure you're all right." Teilani found
that unusual.  Her Cardassian captors on the freighter had been
prepared to have her kill herself against the security screen.  Unless,
Teilani thought, they lied to me. "Is that important?"  Teilani asked. 
"That I'm all right?" Tasha ignored her. Teilani sighed.  "All right. 
Can you tell me about this... room?" Tasha frowned as if the tricorder
still wasn't functioning properly.  "What about it?" "What's it for?"
"Medusan feeding chamber." "Oh." Medusans were non corporeal life-forms
so hideous in appearance that most humanoids were driven mad just by
glimpsing them.  Teilani had heard stories of what Medusan ships were
like, and she realized that if she was on such a craft now, no escape
would be possible.  One look at the ship's crew would be enough torn
She was beginning to think like James -- she saw the flaw in the
argument. "Where's your visor?"  she asked Tasha.

	176

	SPECTRE

For those humanoids who had to interact with Medusans, a protective
visor had been developed.  If Tasha didn't have one, it could mean that
there were no Medusans on board. But Tasha didn't bother answering that
question either.  All she said was, "You can't escape." "How do you
know?" For the first time since she had entered the feeding chamber,
the young human looked Teilani directly in the eye. "Because I've
tried." Teilani studied Tasha's jumpsuit again.  "Is that a prison
uniform?" "It might as well be."  Tasha frowned at the tricorder. "Is
there something wrong with that?" Tasha made an adjustment, turned the
tricorder around and held it so Teilani could see it.  "Did you know
about that?" It took only a moment for Teilani to see what Tasha meant.
The look of surprise on her face must have been obvious. "I guess you
didn't," Tasha said.  She slipped the remote scanner back into place,
then snapped the tricorder closed. "That might make a difference when
you get to the labor camp and--" Using her joined hands as a club,
Teilani swung her fists against the tricorder to drive it into Tasha's
forehead.  The zero-gravity reaction slammed Tasha against the wall,
made Teilani bounce away from it, and launched the tricorder into a
spinning straight-line trajectory across the spherical cell. Even as
Teilani spun in midair, she drew her knees up to force her feet between
her wrists, then pushed with all her strength. The leather strap
keeping her hands together dug into her wrists.  But she kept pushing,
as if her feet were a wedge and her wrists were a single piece of stone
with a crack running through it. Finally, just as the pain threatened
to become more than

even she could withstand, she heard the weakened strap rip along the
line she had gouged through it, and her legs snapped out as her hands
burst free. Teilani didn't care what waited for her outside the
hatch--Cardassians, Medusans, or even the Dominion's own Jem'Hadar. 
Escape was no longer something that was just for herself, or for James.
There was something more to fight for now. Teilani slammed into the
padded wall, clutched at it to absorb the momentum of her flight,
sighted on the hatchway across the chamber, then pushed off like a
swimmer plunging through frictionless water. A meter from the hatch,
Tasha rose in front of her, blood bubbling from the gash on her
forehead, hands driving for Teilani's throat. The two women spiraled
around so that Teilani hit the wall to the side of the open hatch, her
legs swinging through the opening while her head and shoulders remained
inside, Tasha still firmly attached. "There's no place to run!"  Tasha
shouted. Teilani slapped her hands together against Tasha's ears. The
blow made Tasha release her grip.  Braced against the chamber wall,
Teilani pushed out and Tasha spun away, sputtering. Teilani flexed her
legs against the edge of the hatchway and curled forward to pull
herself through it and into the corridor beyond. At once she was
stricken by vertigo.  This was a Medusan ship, and the topography of
its twisting corridor followed an understanding of three-dimensional
space that made no sense to a humanoid brain. Keeping her eyes tightly
closed, Teilani braced herself on a handhold attached to the corridor
surface beside the hatch. She told herself that if she just.  kept her
eyes shut, propelled herself by her sense of touch alone, she would be
all right.

	178 "I'll be home soon," she whispered as she opened her eyes for
just an instant, chose a direction, and pushed herself along, holding
her hands out in front of her, 'I'll be home soon." Somewhere on a ship
like this, she knew, there would have to be a shuttlebay.  Or an escape
pod.  Or even an emergency transmitter.  All she would have to do is
find one or the other, and somehow James would come for her.  Come for
them both. Suddenly her hands hit bare metal.  She had reached a turn
in the corridor. She steadied herself, turned her head, and prepared to
gaze again on the unsettling alien architecture of the Medusan ship.
But just as she opened her eyes, a voice called out to her. Not
Tasha's.  But a Cardassian's.  "Chal/" Startled, Teilani turned her
head reflexively to look up--down--across--through the corridor she had
just traversed, feeling her head spin and her stomach rebel as she
fought the disorientation to make sense of directions that seemed to
advance and recede at the same time, like an optical illusion. But in
the midst of the visual confusion, two figures were clear. A
Cardassian. And Tasha. The Cardassian, wearing thick goggles that
presumably enabled him to function within the Medusan ship's geometry,
held a disruptor to Tasha. "This is why there's no escape," the
Cardassian said. Then he pushed Tasha into the corridor ahead of him. 
For a moment, Teilani saw the young woman's eyes, saw the despair in
them. And then the corridor flickered and buzzed with the disruptor's
discharge and Tasha was consumed by fire and became...  nothing.

180

SPECTRE

"There are fifteen more Thetas on this vessel," the Cardassian hissed. 
"All human or Vulcan.  Each minute you remain out of your holding cell,
we will kill another of them." If Teilani had thought there was the
slightest chance she could overpower the Cardassian, or reach a
shuttle, she would have risked everything to do so--everything except
the lives of innocent people. Steeling herself, she pushed herself back
along the corridor to the hatch.  She passed through a cloud of
scorched air--the scent of Tasha's death. At the hatchway, she paused.
The Cardassian had backed down the corridor, remaining out of reach.
"Why kill them and not me?"  she demanded. "The Thetas belong to me,"
the Cardassian said.  "You belong to the Regent." Teilani was ready to
launch herself at him.  "No one owns me!" The Cardassian leveled his
disruptor at her, and though she knew it would be set only to stun, she
suddenly feared risking even that level of neural shock.  Not after
what Tasha had shown her on the tricorder. Without another word,
Teilani swung through the hatch and returned to the spherical chamber.
"How disappointing of you," the Cardassian sneered as he began to swing
the hatch closed.  "The Regent prefers his playthings to show more
spirit." "Tell the Regent he's a dead man," Teilani said. The
Cardassian leered.  "Much better." Then he shut the hatch and, with a
rush of air, it sealed itself. Teilani floated in the chamber, without
even a leather strap to focus her concentration on. "I'll be home
soon," she whispered to herself. Against all reason, she wondered if
James might hear her.

SIXTEEN

Kirk and Janeway made their way through the thick trunks of the pine
trees, guided by the heady scent of the nearby campfire, protected from
bumping into serious harm by the light of a full moon Kirk estimated to
be about twenty percent brighter than it really should be.  The
holodeck was still taking care of them, managing to add a slightly
annoying layer of twenty-fourth-century moderation even to the wild
grandeur of Yosemite.

Then they stepped into a clearing, pine needles and small twigs
crackling under their boots, to join the others as they had planned:
Spock, McCoy, and Scott all sitting uncomfortably on fallen logs; T'Val
standing by the hover chair which placed the mirror Spock as close as
possible to the rock-ringed fire.

Scott immediately got to his feet.  "Where have ye been, Captain?  I'm
on duty in twenty minutes."

McCoy tossed a small piece of kindling into the banked fire.  "Do you
have to ask?"  he muttered to the engineer. Kirk was insulted.  "Bones,
it's not like that at all."

McCoy shrugged.  "Just promise you won't make us sing again."

SPECTRE

"I like singing around a campfire," Kirk said.  "It's part of the whole
experience But T'Val, as angry as a Vulcan could appear to be in
public, stepped forward to confront him.  "As impressive as this
holographic technology is, recreation is inappropriate at this time."

Janeway intervened, to calm her fellow rebel.  "It's all right, T'Val. 
Kirk and I were...  establishing some ground rules."

McCoy snorted.  "Oh, is that what they're calling it these days."

Kirk frowned at McCoy.  "Bones, behave yourself." "Have you been
behaving yourself?"

"Yes," Kirk said with measured indignation.

"Well, that's a first."

Kirk let McCoy's comment pass.  In most cases, he had learned it did no
good to struggle to correct false impressions of his personal life,
even when they were held by his closest friends.  Such protestations
only served to draw the attention of others and help give new impetus
to the same false impressions he would prefer go unnoticed.  Instead,
he simply concentrated on the fire and its welcome warmth.  He began to
remember the fires he had shared with Teilani in their clearing on
Chal.  Making love beneath the stars.  Waking to the sound

"Dr.  McCoy has informed me that I am dying of Bendii syndrome," the
mirror Spock suddenly announced.

The intendant's revelation had the no doubt intended effect of focusing
everyone's attention on the immediacy of the moment.

But Kirk didn't understand the diagnosis.  He had learned a great deal
about Bendii during the virogen crisis.  "Intendant Spock, from what I
know of Bendii, you're far too young to exhibit signs of the disease,
let alone to be dying of it."

"That's in our universe, Jim."  McCoy held out his hand as if it were
his regal right to be helped to his feet.  Scott did the honors.  "A
healthy Vulcan today would have to be over two

	182 WILLIAM SHATN pounds

hundred years old before the disease would manifest.  But the
intendant, he's had a different life from most Vulcans we know. 
Incredible stress.  War wounds.  Poor nutrition.  All of those can
speed up the appearance of the disease.  And in his case, they have."

"Are you sure?"  Kirk asked, knowing how foolish that question was the
instant he said it.

As McCoy rolled his eyes to the holographic heavens, Spock rose to his
feet.  "I remind you, Captain, that my father also contracted Bendii,
so a family history of the syndrome is established."

"Is it the same in your universe?"  Kirk asked the mirror Spock.

The intendant's hands played with the edge of the plaid blanket that
was folded over his legs, adding to the fire's warmth.  He stared into
the flames as if seeing another world.

"I have learned from my counterpart that in this reality, Sarek,
husband to Amanda, son of Skon, grandson of Solkar, was a respected
ambassador for your Federation.  In my reality, my father, whose
genealogy is the same, was Arbiter of the Vulcan Mineral Syndicate,
perhaps one of the most powerful business lords on my world.  I do not
know if he would have developed Bendii, because he died at the age of
one hundred and two."  The mirror Spock's face betrayed a fleeting
moment of sorrow as the flames sought out the deep shadows of his
features.  Loss of emotional control was one of Bendii's symptoms.  "He
was assassinated by Orion spies disguised as Andorians, during the
military action to annex Coridan."

Kirk understood the loss the mirror Spock felt.  In this universe, he
felt Sarek had been as much a father to him as to Spock.  "Here, Sarek
brought Coridan into the Federation by the use of exquisite
diplomacy."

"In my universe, Coridan is a lifeless world."  The mirror Spock looked
across the fire to Kirk, and it was as if he stared out from the fires
of hell.  "Punishment for those citizens of

184 SPECTRE

Coridan who conspired with the Orions.  An unasked-for gesture of good
faith from my Captain Kirk, to show how he valued my alliance with him.
It was many years before I could control his precipitous inclination
to act on instinct, rather than careful thought."

"He destroyed a world..."  Kirk said.

"It was not the first," the mirror Spock said.  "Nor the last." "What I
don't understand, Intendant Spock," Scott interrupted, "is how so many
things could be the same in the two universes--your father, your
grandfather, even Amanda, a fine lass.  And yet, everything is still
so...  so different.  If ye see what I'm saying."

Spock had obviously given the question much thought and answered for
his counterpart.  "There is ample evidence, Mr. Scott, to suggest that
there are an infinite number of universes existing in parallel with one
another.  Presumably, all these universes share a common moment of
origin as a single reality.  But then, for each event which follows,
for which there might be multiple outcomes, those universes branch off
from one another.  Each possible outcome thus produces its own
divergent reality.  Those universes which diverged billions of years
ago might no longer resemble each other in any way.  While those that
diverged only minutes ago, might be so similar that the only difference
we might notice is that Dr.  McCoy chose to remain seated rather than
stand as he just did."

"But, Spock," Kirk said, "if there are an infinite number of universes
constantly branching off from one another, what is it that links us
with the mirror universe so that people in both can keep slipping back
and forth between just these two, and no others?"

"Clearly," the mirror Spock said, suddenly emerging from his own
contemplation of the campfire flames, "our two universes are linked in
a manner different from most other quantum realities."

"Indeed," Spock added as he walked over to stand by his

mirror double.  "My counterpart and I have discussed in great depth
the history of both our realities, and until relatively modern times,
those histories are virtually identical."

"Virtually," Kirk said, "but not absolutely?"  He was trying to hold
his own in this discussion, but keeping up with two Spocks was taking
its toll on him.  He looked at McCoy and Scott, who both just
shrugged.

"What differences exist," the mirror Spock explained, "seem to arise
from the different interpretation that has been placed on historical
events and personalities by contemporary researchers.  In my reality,
Vulcans admire the early Romulans for the way in which they
courageously resisted the overwhelming might of those who followed
Surak's teachings of logic, until they heroically set off to carve
their own destiny on other worlds."

"While in our universe," Spock continued smoothly, "contemporary
Vulcans tend to look back on the early Romulans as lost and misguided
people, tragically blinded by emotion, who chose to run from Surak's
truth."

"Thus, any apparent historical differences between our universes may
only appear--" the mirror Spock began.

"--as differences of interpretation, and not differences of fact,"
Spock concluded.

"My Lord," McCoy grumbled, finally voicing Kirk's own unexpressed
thought, "and I thought it was bad when there was just one of you."

But now Kirk ignored him.  It was just possible that two Spocks were
what it took to make sense of the intersection of two universes.

"But all that's in the past," Kirk said, walking around the fire to
join the Vulcans.  "What about now, the present?"

"Today, our two universes are quite different," the mirror Spock said,
"primarily because of the radically different actions undertaken by
your Federation and our Empire and Alliance."

"However, since these differences were not as profound at

186 SPECTRE

the time of the first crossover," Spock added, "that suggests that by
continuing to trace the divergent world lines back through time, we
might reach a point somewhere in the recent past, perhaps no more than
two or three centuries, when both universes were, in fact, absolutely
identical."

The mirror Spock nodded thoughtfully.  "A point when one singular,
pivotal event took place that had at least two probable outcomes.  One
of which led to the development of a benign and democratic Federation. 
The other to a militaristic and repressive Empire."

"And something about that event involved..."  Kirk searched for the
word or concept he needed.  "...  a disturbance... in the nature of
quantum reality, which led to the two universes diverging, yet somehow
remaining linked." The two Spocks looked at each other.

"Quite logical.  He is most unlike my Captain Kirk," the mirror Spock
said.

"I can understand why you would think so," Spock replied. Kirk had the
feeling he had just been insulted, but this was not the time to explore
the possibility.  "As fascinating as I'm sure this philosophical debate
could become, we do have more pressing matters to consider."

"Thank you," T'Val said sarcastically.

Janeway held up her hand to ask her friend to refrain from
interrupting.  "Captain Kirk has suggested we work together." "To what
end?"  Spock asked.

Janeway picked up a twig to stoke the fire.  Revitalized, the flames
threw her moving shadow up against the tall, surrounding pine trees, as
if a dark giant were trapped among them, struggling to break free.

"We want to go home," she said.  "Back to our universe with the
technical files we need to fight the Alliance.  Kirk wants to rescue
Teilani.  If we help him, he'll help us."

Kirk watched Spock carefully.  This was where his plan could break down
before it had even begun.  Spock met his eyes.  It was clear to Kirk
that the Vulcan ambassador disapproved , but he said nothing.  Whatever
misgivings Spock might have, his old friend was giving him the benefit
of the doubt.  For now. But T'Val had no reservations about voicing her
disapproval. "He betrayed us once.  How can you know he will not do so
again?" "I didn't betray you," Kirk said heatedly.  "Starfleet beamed
you from that hotel suite, took action without telling me.  This time,
we'll take action without telling them." "Now, wait here just a
minute," McCoy said.  "I am not prepared to act against Starfleet. 
Well, not without a good reason." "Bones, I'm not suggesting we act
against Starfleet.  Command wants to recover the Enterprise.  Kate, and
T'Val, and the intendant can help us do just that." McCoy folded his
arms.  "Then let Command make that decision to help them." "Command
thinks they might be involved in the Enterprise's disappearance.  But
they're not." McCoy was unconvinced.  "Who died and made you a
Betazoid?" "A what?"  Kirk asked. Scott exhaled in noisy frustration at
the two of them. "Captain Kirk, perhaps it would help if you tell us
how you can prove they're not involved with the hijacking." "I can't do
that, Scotty," Kirk said.  "But Spock can." Kirk looked to his friend.
"You are suggesting a mind-meld again," Spock said, apparently still
not in favor of the idea. "We have discussed it, Captain," the mirror
Spock added. "But we have concluded our initial concerns are
well-founded. Our minds are so similar, even to a molecular level, that
there is the danger we would become locked in a recursive neural
iteration.  Irreparably confused memories, or even the loss of our
separate identities, might result when the meld is broken."

188

SPECTRE

Kirk shrugged.  "T'Val, then.  Vulcan mind to Vulcan mind. No secrets."
But Spock shook his head.  "I do not know T'Val, nor am I aware of the
training she has undertaken in mental discipline. It could be possible
that she is far more adept than I, in which case I would emerge from
the meld saying that they are innocent of any attempt on the
Enterprise.  Which would be exactly what I would say if they were
innocent.  Since you would not be able to ascertain if I were under her
control or not, you would still have no proof of what you have
concluded." "Then do it to me," Janeway volunteered.  "I'm only human. 
No Vulcan mind tricks." "You are not the leader," Spock said. "Are you
sure?  Rebel cells are compartmentalized to protect against Alliance
infiltration.  I could be the leader of the entire Vulcan resistance
movement, but I'd still move around like a foot soldier to protect my
identity and disguise my importance."  She planted her feet firmly in
front of Spock and tilted her head up to him.  "There's only one way to
be sure." Kirk could see Spock considering all his options, finally
using logic to arrive at the same conclusion Janeway had presented to
him by instinct. "Very well," Spock said.  "Are you ready?" "Try me."
Spock raised his hands to Janeway's face, the tips of his long fingers
searching out then finding her katra points.  "My mind to your mind,"
he intoned.  "Our thoughts are one ....  " Kirk motioned to the others
to move away, to leave Spock and Janeway undisturbed.  T'Val helped
guide the mirror pock's quietly humming hover chair to join.  Kirk and
the others well to the side of the clearing, where the light from the
campfire was little more than a pale wash of soft amber. As Kirk looked
back to where Spock and Janeway were locked in a communion more
intimate than anything physical

could be, Scott stepped up to him, speaking in a loud, stage whisper. 
"Captain, I'll not be the one to interfere with whatever plans you're
making, but you seem to be missing the point of what really has
Starfleet concerned about all these mirror-universe goings-on."

Kirk turned to the engineer and spoke normally.  "There's no time like
the present, Mr.  Scott."

"Well, the first time the four of us crossed over, it was a transporter
accident."

"I remember it well."

"And now, with all those incursions on Deep Space Nine, they're coming
through on specially rigged transporters."

"That's right.  That's how I shifted to the mirror universe and back
again on the moon.  What's your point?"

"Don't ye see?  It's all transporters, sir.  And ye cannae transport a
starship."

Kirk resisted the impulse to smile, because he was worried that Scott
might misinterpret his reaction.  But though Kirk understood the
seriousness of the engineer's concern, what struck him first was how
his friends had each reacted to the current situation in their own
unique manner.  Spock had immediately been drawn to the larger, almost
metaphysical mystery of the mirror universe's origin.  McCoy had
focused on the health of the visitors from that reality.  And Scott, by
his nature, was drawn to the physical mechanics of moving from one
universe to another.

Somehow, Kirk knew, if he could find a way to harness all those
different approaches and viewpoints, to unite them into a single,
concentrated strategy, everyone's questions would be answered, and he
would hold Teilani in his arms once again.

However, Scott had missed one telling detail.  "There is another
method, Mr.  Scott.  When the first two people from Deep Space Nine
crossed over--"

But, by the way Scott jumped right in, Kirk realized that the engineer
hadn't missed anything at all.  "Aye, they brought a whole runabout
with them.  But that was because of some

SPECTRE

thing they did within the Bajoran wormhole--the only stable one known
to exist, as I'm sure ye know.  In fact, to tell ye the truth, Captain,
I have my doubts as to whether or not it really is a wormhole, what
with aliens living within it and all those...  mystical doings
surrounding it."  Like any true engineer, Scott said the word
"mystical" as if it left a sour taste in his mouth.  "So the fact of
the matter is, since that mirror Voyager didn't pop out of the Bajoran
wormhole, there's a chance that it's not from the mirror universe at
all. That this is all...  some kind of hoax."

Kirk thought that the question Scott was raising had already been
answered.  "But what about the warp particles Starfleet detected? 
Their quantum signatures prove they're from another quantum reality."

"Aye, but strictly speaking, all that tells us is that the warp
particles come from the mirror universe, not the Voyager herself." 
Scott dropped his voice even lower.  "One of this lot could easily have
brought through a couple of kilos of antimatter from their universe and
used it to create a false trail of warp particles.  'Twould be a simple
matter."

"Have you raised this possibility with the admiral?"  Kirk asked.

Scott frowned.  "Aye.  But she's convinced that once we reach the
Goldin Discontinuity, we should be looking for some kind of wormhole
phenomenon to explain how the ships might pass between the
universes."

"And I take it you disagree with her assessment."

Scott looked as if anyone with a mind larger than three neurons would
have to disagree with the admiral.  "Captain, we're smack dab in the
middle of Federation space, so any kind of wormhole phenomenon that
could possibly exist here would have been noted years and years ago."

"What about a stable wormhole?  Couldn't the people from the mirror
universe have built something like that here?"

Scott's eyes widened as if Kirk should feel embarrassed for asking such
a ludicrous question.  "Captain Kirk, if these

	190 people know how to build stable wormholes, then they dinnae need
the Enterprise nor any other paltry technology we might have.  If
Starfleet had such a thing, believe me when I tell ye that we could end
the war with the Dominion in a week with...  with just the original
Enterprise.  That's the tactical advantage a wormhole will give ye."

"So what you're saying is that there is no possible way for the Voyager
to have come to this universe from the other, and no way the Enterprise
can be taken back."

"No way that I know of or can imagine." "And the admiral's not
listening to you." "She's being a...  typical officer."

Since Kirk had no doubt that Scott included him among the company of
typical officers, he let the matter rest there. "Have you explained any
of this to Spock's counterpart?"

Scott looked alarmed.  "If it's a hoax, he might be in on it."

"In which case, Mr.  Scott, you won't be telling him anything he
doesn't already know."

Kirk ushered Scott across the floor of pine needles to the mirror Spock
in his hover chair  "Intendant, T'Val, I'd like you to listen to
Captain Scott's...  thoughts concerning the mirror Voyager.  Scotty?"

With clear misgivings, Scott told the mirror Spock, T'Val, and McCoy
why he thought the mirror Voyager's presence and the Enterprise's
absence might be part of a hoax.

When he had finished, the mirror Spock was the first to speak.  "We
have faced the same technological difficulty on our side, Captain
Scott.  That is why we seek computer data which we can take with us to
our universe.  Taking anything larger than could be ale materialized by
a personnel transporter is...  beyond our ability."

"Is it beyond the Alliance's ability?"  Kirk asked.

"I do not have that information.  I believe Captain Scott is correct
when he states that if the Alliance could construct a stable,
artificial wormhole, they would have no need of your

192 SPECTRE

technology.  However, I find it interesting that no one has commented
on what is clearly an anomalous situation in your own universe."

"And that would be...  ?"  Kirk prompted.

"The chain of command in your Starfleet is extremely informal.  The
sharing of ideas and strategies between the ranks seems...  almost
mandatory."

"Welcome to the twenty-fourth century," Kirk said. "Therefore," the
mirror Spock continued, "I am at a loss to understand why it is that
Admiral Nechayev will not at least admit the possibility that Captain
Scott has raised legitimate concerns."

"I'm not," Scott said.  "She's a strong-willed lass--of-ricer--used to
getting her own way.  And she's a fleet admiral, so she must be doing
something right."

But Kirk wasn't so quick to dismiss the mirror Spock's assessment.  He
was too like Spock for Kirk to take anything he said lightly.

But before he could ask the intendant for more details of his insight,
Kirk heard footsteps behind him.

He turned to see Spock and Janeway approaching. Janeway moved slowly,
as if recovering from some overwhelming physical exertion.  And Kirk
knew Spock well enough to detect the same, almost stunned hesitancy
hidden beneath his placid exterior.

Spock wasted no time.  "Your conclusions were correct, Captain. 
Kathryn Janeway is not connected to the arrival of the mirror Voyager
nor to the disappearance of the Enterprise. There is no room for
deception within her."

Janeway caught Kirk looking at her, then glanced down as if she had
been caught in an embarrassing position.  Kirk wondered what secrets
she had revealed in response to Spock's probing.

McCoy had no fear of being blunt.  "What about the other two, Spock? 
Any chance they've been lying to her?"

"I detected no pattern of falsehood.  Janeway has melded with my
counterpart in the past."  Then Spock looked over to T'Val, as if
seeing her for the first time. Kirk watched T'Val draw herself up in
defiance, as if for a moment she had abandoned a lifetime of Vulcan
training and conditioning. "And," Spock continued, "through that link,
I am also aware that my counterpart has melded with T'Val...  his
daughter with the counterpart of Saavik." Now everyone looked at T'Val,
and suddenly Kirk understood the hundred small gestures of caring and
protection T'Val had offered the mirror Spock.  Not just as someone
respecting her superior officer, but as a daughter caring for her sick
father. And Kirk also understood the unsettled emotions he had sensed
in his friend. The path not taken. Genetically, T'Val could be Spock's
daughter as well. Certainly, Spock and Saavik in this universe had been
close enough that a second T'Val had not been an unlikelihood. And
through Spock's meld with Janeway, Kirk was certain his friend knew
very well what his mirror daughter had become in that other reality.
And more, he would know, or be cursed with wondering, what she might
have become in this reality. Kirk went to Spock, and had no need to ask
how he was. The bond between them was strong enough for Spock to
understand his concern.  And for Kirk to know that Spock was touched by
it. They would talk about this moment, Kirk knew.  But only when the
mission had been completed. All that passed between them in a look, a
moment of connection. But, Kirk saw, there was something else there
that troubled his friend.

194

SPECTRE

Something unconnected to whatever sorrows he held with- in his heart as
he contemplated a child he never had. "What else, Spock?"  Kirk asked.
Spock looked at Janeway as if asking permission to proceed. Kirk saw
the slight nod she gave him. "Kathryn was once held in an Alliance
prison camp." Something dark moved behind Spock's eyes at that, and
Kirk did not want to think what degradations Janeway might have
endured, degradations that were now part of Spock's memories as well. 
"A special camp for...  those humans who had counterparts in this
universe." Kirk looked questioningly at Janeway. "I didn't know who the
Janeway of this universe was," she explained.  "All I knew was that.. 
somewhere, there was another me." Kirk turned his attention back to
Spock.  "What was the purpose of the camp?." "Kathryn was never told,
but from the conditions she remembers, it appears obvious. 
Infiltration." "Good Lord," McCoy said.  "Duplicates so exact they'd
pass voice analysis, brain scans, even DNA testing." "Precisely," Spock
agreed. "About a year and a half ago, they came for me," Janeway said. 
"They told me I wasn't needed anymore." "The timing corresponds to the
final conclusion of the board of inquiry investigation into Voyager's
disappearance in our universe," Spock said.  "At that time, the ship
was officially declared lost with all hands.  With her counterpart,
Captain Janeway, presumed dead, the mirror Janeway was slated to be
reassigned to a labor camp." "I got away during the transfer," Janeway
said.  "I had to..." But she stopped there, as if the memory of how she
had managed to escape her guards was too disturbing to recount. But to
Kirk, there was even more to Spock's revelations than explaining
Janeway's past.  "Spock, if the Alliance knew

exactly when Starfleet ruled on Voyager's loss, if they knew who among
their Terran slaves had counterparts here..." Spock nodded.  "It does
suggest that they maintain close watch on developments in our universe,
most likely through a sophisticated network of counterparts who have
taken the places of their duplicates." Scott muttered in shocked
disbelief.  McCoy nervously rubbed his thumb over his folded fingers.
And Kirk saw the unexpected solution to what had been a frustrating
mystery. "I have a theory," Kirk said. Spock knew him too well.  "And I
concur." Kirk turned to the mystified faces of McCoy and Scott, and the
three rebels from the mirror universe. "The Sovereign may already be
under enemy control," he said. And if it was true, then Kirk knew his
war might already have been lost before it had even begun.

196

SEVENTEEN

Kirk watched as McCoy moved efficiently around the sovereign's spacious
sickbay.  But the veteran physician's ease in these surroundings came
as no surprise.  Kirk knew McCoy had made his career that of being a
perpetual thorn in the sides of Starfleet's medical planners.  He
doubted there was a single component of current starship health-care
facilities that had not been influenced in some way by McCoy's vast
experience and unwavering dedication to his patients. Unlike many
others in Starfleet, McCoy had never been driven by the desire for
bigger postings, or notoriety, or even fame.  In fact, he was one of
the few survivors of Starfleet's heroic age of exploration never to
have written his memoirs. All McCoy cared about was the chance to serve
to the best of his abilities.  Beyond that, he was content to live his
life simply, devoting himself to those people he loved. Kirk admired
him for that, more than he had ever said. And it was with that same
admiration that Kirk now watched as McCoy brought all his skill and
experience to bear on the terrible disease that ravaged Spock's
counterpart. "I thought there was no cure for Bendii," Admiral Nechayev
said.

Kirk had invited her here to speak with Intendant Spock before McCoy
began his treatment.  Kirk had told Nechayev there was a chance the
intendant would be unconscious for days, but that he was willing to
answer any questions she might have about the mirror universe, to put
her at her ease. For now, the intendant lay on the main diagnostic and
treatment bed, his eyes closed in meditation.  A small, neuro-cortical
monitor was affixed to his forehead, silently pulsing with a
constellation of colored lights.  McCoy, wearing a long, rumpled lab
coat over his vest, worked at a medical replicator station, preparing
the first stage of his assault. "True," Kirk said, "but it's been
centuries since the last case of it in a Vulcan so young.  Dr.  McCoy
is convinced that means he can induce a remission by treating some of
the intendant's other infirmities." Nechayev seemed unconcerned.  "So
what am I here for?  A deathbed confession in case it doesn't work?"
Kirk held his temper with difficulty.  He reminded himself there were
other things at stake here.  Most important, Tei-lani's life.  The
admiral had yet to share with Kirk any of Starfleet's progress in
responding to her abductors' demands. All she had permitted herself to
say was that Starfleet had communicated over a long-range subspace
channel, specified by the abductors, that Kirk was in no position to
aid the intendant because he was being held in custody by Starfleet
Intelligence.  According to Nechayev, no reply had been forthcoming. 
Teilani's fate was unknown.  And it took all of Kirk's self-control not
to explode in rage at the admiral's frustrating obstinacy.  But Kirk
knew Nechayev would be within her rights to return him to Earth, an
action that would add immeasurably to the obstacles he already faced in
saving the woman he loved. "I don't believe he has anything to confess
to," Kirk said, hiding his anguish as expertly as any Vulcan.  "I spoke
to him about Starfleet's desire to know more about the history of the
mirror universe, and he volunteered to speak with you.  I

198

SPECTRE

think he hopes that if Starfleet learns the truth about conditions in
his universe, they will offer aid." "He can hope all he wants." "I
wouldn't discourage him at the outset.  You know how Vulcans are when
they decide to..  keep a secret." Nechayev nodded distractedly, as if
she had fifty other things she'd rather be doing.  She looked over at
McCoy.  "Is it all right with him?" "Dr.  McCoy says a few minutes'
delay won't affect the treatment." Nechayev rolled her neck as if it
were stiff, or as if she were bored.  "We'll be arriving at the search
coordinates within the hour, so let's get this over with."  She strode
over to the mirror Spock's bedside.  "Are you awake?" The intendant's
eyes fluttered open.  "Greetings, Admiral." "Kirk says you have
something to tell me." "The captain informed me that you had many
questions about my reality.  I offered to answer them to the best of
my

"Why?" The mirror Spock shifted in his bed to look at the admiral more
directly "Your Starfleet has, in effect, abducted me, and my
companions.  You are preventing us from completing our mission here."
"You mean, stealing Starfleet secrets." "Nothing so drastic.  We only
wish to copy computer files to obtain information that will have no
effect on your universe. Nothing would be taken from you.  Nothing here
would change." "But your universe would change." "That is my
intention." Nechayev seemed to be losing patience.  "Did you ever have
a Prime Directive in your Starfleet?" "Of course.  Starfleet General
Order Number One.  Authorizing all personnel and spacecraft to use
whatever means necessary to persuade the inhabitants of a planet, no
matter

what their level of development, to join the Empire."  Before Nechayev
could respond, the mirror Spock added, "I understand it is somewhat
different in this universe." Kirk could detect the deliberate, though
extremely understated wry ness of what the mirror Spock had said.
Evidently, so could the admiral.  She wasn't impressed. "Never mind. 
Let's start at the beginning.  What is the composition of the Terran
resistance?" The mirror Spock raised both eyebrows and shook his head,
and if not for the beard, Kirk could believe he was looking at his own
Spock.  "I do not know." "I thought you were its leader." "Not of the
Terran resistance.  I serve as...  a figurehead for the Vulcan
resistance.  The two groups, for our own protection, do not meet,
except circumspectly, cell to cell." "Yet you know about the Terran
resistance members who built a duplicate of the Defiant in your
universe." The mirror Spock nodded as if he were enjoying a fascinating
conversation about any other subject.  "Certainly.  Their success has
revitalized all the resistance groups actively engaged against the
Alliance.  It is what inspired us to come to this universe ourselves to
obtain similar information." Nechayev waved her hand as if discounting
everything the intendant had said.  "Yet you still claim you're not in
contact with them." "I, personally?  No.  Neither have I knowledge of
anyone in my cell having direct contact with them.  Which is as it
should be, as I am sure you will agree." Nechayev chewed her lip in
thought.  She glanced at Kirk but he shrugged, said nothing. "All
right," she finally continued.  "Tell me about the Vulcan resistance."
"It formed at the time of the Vulcan Capitulation, when it became clear
the Alliance would not live up to its promise

But Nechayev wouldn't let him finish.  "I'm not interested

200

in ancient history."  She looked sharply at Kirk again, as if suddenly
remembering his presence.  "Starfleet wants to know about current
conditions first.  We can work backward from there." The mirror Spock
settled back on the small pillow on his bed and gazed up at the medical
sensor array suspended above him.  "Very well.  Today, the Vulcan
resistance comprises sixty-four cells of which I am aware, each with
eight operatives." As if she had just thought of the question, Nechayev
asked, "How do you communicate?" "Each member of a single cell has
knowledge of only one other cell.  Messages are passed blindly in that
manner." "No, no.  That's not what I meant.  I presume you engage in
acts of...  sabotage?  Terrorism?" The mirror Spock kept his eyes
carefully focused on the sensor array.  "We prefer to think of our
activities as military actions intended to regain our independence."
"Your kind always do," Nechayev said.  "Look, I'm trying to get an
understanding of your level of technology." The mirror Spock shifted
his gaze to look at her.  "Why?" The admiral didn't look away.  "To
understand what might happen to the status quo in your universe if
certain...  components of Starfleet technology were...  to be released
to you." "You would do that?" Nechayev started to reach out to place
her hand on the mirror Spock's shoulder, then reconsidered and simply
laid her hand, palm flat, on the side of his bed.  "It's not up to me.
But there is a small group within Starfleet who believe--" She glanced
at Kirk.  "--as does the captain, that the natural development of your
civilization has been so hopelessly compromised by contact with us that
further intervention is not prohibited under the Prime Directive." She
lifted her hand, raising a cautionary finger.  "I am not one of those
people.  But it is my duty as a Starfleet officer to

provide a complete, unbiased report to the committee members who will
eventually rule on this matter.  What you say to me will be relayed to
them.  So whatever happens is up to you." Kirk was surprised by the
admiral's sudden candor.  He was even more surprised as the mirror
Spock began to detail the organization and technological capabilities
of the Vulcan resistance.  Spock's counterpart named the top seven
leaders whom he had met personally.  He explained how their training
camp on Mars was disguised by a cloaking device salvaged from a damaged
Romulan vessel.  And he detailed the encryption techniques Vulcan
operatives used as they communicated over randomly shifting subspace
radio frequencies, so that anyone inadvertently hearing a few seconds
of conversation would assume that only static had been picked up. By
the time the mirror Spock was finishing his dissertation, McCoy had
returned to his patient's bedside with a tray of hypo sprays  He
carried a flashing medical tricorder and kept using it to check
readings on the intendant, first from one side, then from the other. 
Unlike Kirk, the doctor could allow his impatience to show. When he had
finished speaking, the mirror Spock licked his dry lips.  He seemed
older than McCoy.  "Is that helpful, Admiral?" Nechayev's remote mood
had lessened, Kirk saw, as if by lowering his defenses the mirror Spock
had made it possible for her to lower her own.  "It's what the
committee will need to know.  And I know they will be impressed by the
thoroughness of your report." "You will remember it in enough detail?" 
the mirror Spock asked. Nechayev looked up.  "Computer, replay the
intendant's previous statement, beginning with his description of the
Mars training camp."

202

With no appreciable delay, the intendant's voice spoke from the
communications speakers in sickbay. "End playback," the admiral said. 
"The committee members will hear everything you told me, word for
word." McCoy snapped shut his tricorder.  "Why don't we end it there?"
Nechayev didn't seem to have any objection.  "If Starfleet has further
questions...  ?" "The intendant might be able to answer them tomorrow,"
McCoy said.  "And definitely will be able to answer them within three
days." Nechayev patted the side of the mirror Spock's bed.  "Then I
wish you good luck with your treatment." "It is not logical, but thank
you." The admiral motioned to Kirk to accompany her to the doors.  He
fell into step beside her. "I don't know if you think anything was
accomplished," Nechayev said, "but I think that was a very valuable
session. So...  thank you, Captain."  The doors slid open before her
and she paused at the threshold.  "I wasn't sure if we'd be able to
have a working relationship." Kirk didn't know what was behind her
abrupt change of attitude, but he played along.  "Just trying to do my
part." "Good.  Carry on." The admiral left. As soon as the sickbay
doors slipped shut, the mirror Spock pushed himself up to sit on the
side of the bed and peeled the neuro cortical monitor from his
forehead.  McCoy was about to speak, but Kirk held up his hand in
warning. "Computer," Kirk said, "disengage record mode." "Record mode
disengaged," the computer confirmed. "Now, Doctor," Kirk said. McCoy
flipped open his tricorder with a practiced flick of his wrist.  "Her
quantum signature matches the intendant's. She's not the real
admiral."

Kirk helped the mirror Spock to his feet.  "Tell me you didn't reveal
actual information about the Vulcan resistance."

The mirror Spock raised an eyebrow.  "Why would the Vulcan resistance
maintain a training camp on Mars?"

"My thought, exactly," Kirk said, hoping he was convincing. He hadn't
thought about that, at all.

McCoy held up a hypospray with an ampule filled with dark blue liquid. 
"One shot of this and she'll sleep for a week. I say we get her on the
bridge."

"What about the others?"  Kirk asked.

McCoy didn't know what he meant.

"There're more than a thousand crew members on this ship," Kirk said. 
"Some of them are bound to be counterparts and we don't have time to
scan them all."

"We're just supposed to leave her in command?" "She's Starfleet's
problem.  Not mine."

But McCoy didn't agree.  "Jim, maybe you better take another look in
the holographic mirror and see whose uniform you're wearing."

Without thought, Kirk felt his hands become fists, as if a fight were
only seconds away.  "I'd wear a Cardassian uniform if I thought it
would help me get Teilani back."

McCoy was growing more agitated with each moment. "For God's sake, Jim,
the admiral's been standing in the way of everything you've tried to do
to find out what's happened to Teilani.  Don't you think Starfleet will
take that into consideration when you've exposed her as a
mirror-universe spy?"

Kirk threw up his hands, as upset as the doctor.  "Eventually. After
fifteen boards of inquiry, twenty-two reports, and six months' worth of
investigations into what I had for breakfast.  There's no time, Bones. 
I am not going through channels on this one.  I'm sick of it."

McCoy gave up.  He looked at the mirror Spock.  "So, is this

204 SPECTRE

what your Kirk was like?  A stubborn, pigheaded megalomaniac with a
piece of inert matter for a brain?"

The mirror Spock seemed unperturbed by the argument that raged before
him.  "My Kirk would have assassinated the admiral the instant she was
revealed as a spy.  And then he would have killed you, slowly and
painfully, for insulting him."

McCoy rolled his eyes.  "So, what's the captain's pleasure? Assuming
you're not going to assassinate her."

Kirk had already given that careful thought.  "The Sovereign's carrying
runabouts.  They're for Starbase 250, but they're fully operational."

"Piracy, hijacking...  sounds like you're off to a fine start," McCoy
said.  "These are special runabouts, I take it. Ones that can outrun
the Sovereign?"

"All we have to do is make it to the Goldin Discontinuity.

Even the Sovereign can't find us in there."

McCoy stared hard at Kirk.  "'We'?"

Kirk was surprised.  "Bones, back on Earth you were all set to help me,
even when Spock was following Starfleet orders not to."

"That was before I found out one of Starfleet's most important fleet
admirals was a spy, and in command of one of its most powerful ships. 
That's a dangerous situation and I have to do something about it, even
if you don't."

Kirk looked to the mirror Spock.  "For what it's worth, this is usually
when our Spock suggests some completely different approach to the
problem."

"Any ideas?"  McCoy asked hopefully.

"It is not wise to leave the Nechayev from my universe in command of
this ship.  However, to wrest command from her will undoubtedly entail
identifying all the other counterpart spies who have infiltrated the
crew.  And, I estimate that within four point two six hours, Nechayev
will have learned from other Alliance operatives that the information I
gave her

	SPECTRE

concerning the Vulcan resistance was false.  At which point, our lives
are forfeit.  Including yours, Doctor.

"Thus, logic dictates we do as Captain Kirk suggests--get off this ship
in the most expedient manner possible."

"Well, you're no improvement, that's for sure," McCoy said.  To Kirk,
he added, "And how does stealing a runabout and disappearing into the
Discontinuity help Teilani?"

"We can go to Chal, Bones.  I can get that message from whoever
kidnapped her.  I can respond to it myself, track them down, set a
trap...  anything is better than being a prisoner on this ship and
doing nothing."

"You really think you can get away with it?"

Kirk put aside all pretense.  "Honestly?  I don't know.  But I do know
that I have to try.  Now, are you going with me?"

McCoy looked at the mirror Spock again.  "If he gets away with this,
how long am I going to last on this ship when Nechayev figures out what
happened?"

The intendant considered the question for several moments. Then,
"Assuming she follows standard Alliance protocol, you would be in her
custody in approximately twenty-two minutes.  Your time of death then
would be determined by your resistance to torture, and I do not have
enough data to calculate that time period with any confidence."

McCoy sighed and started taking off his lab coat.  "Have you ever heard
of a press-gang?"  he asked Kirk.

"We'll make it," Kirk said.  "Everything's arranged."

"Now you tell me."  McCoy pulled on his jacket, then opened a storage
locker to take out a medkit.

"I had to know if you were staying or going.  Intendant?" "I am
ready."

Kirk, McCoy, and the mirror Spock started for the sickbay doors.  But
McCoy balked before reaching them.  "Is it such a good idea to just
walk through the corridors?  Shouldn't we be crawling through the
Jefferies tubes?"

"Scotty said the engineering controls would report unauthorized access
to the tubes," Kirk explained.

2O6

"Scotty's in on this?"

"Everyone is," Kirk said.  And the fact that he had such a strong team
gave him the confidence he needed to face what he knew was going to be
a risky operation.  He wasn't familiar with all the capabilities of
this new starship, and he suspected that attempting to evade her in a
runabout would be the equivalent of taking on the old Enterprise with a
shuttlecraft. Alone, he wouldn't think of attempting it.  But with his
friends, he knew he would at least have a chance.

"We're going to make it," Kirk said as he approached the doors and they
began to slide open.  "This is going to work."

And then he stepped into the corridor to face five phaser rifles held
by an equal number of serious-faced security officers.

Admiral Nechayev stepped forward and took McCoy's medkit.  "Your use of
the tricorder was very clumsy, Doctor. Especially with the intendant's
neuro cortical monitor already in place."

Kirk said nothing, at last understanding the reason why the admiral had
left sickbay in such a nonconfrontational manner.

She had misled him.  Perfectly.

And he had let her.

"Don't look so surprised, Kirk," she said.  "Where I come from, so many
studies were written about Tiberius, analyzing him, deconstructing him,
trying to understand why he became what he became...  I almost feel as
if I know you.  And I certainly can predict every move you make."

She waved her hand at her security team, and Kirk knew without question
that they were all counterparts, just like the admiral.

"Take the intendant and McCoy to the brig."  The admiral walked closer
to Kirk, and her features were transformed into a mask of unrestrained,
primal hatred.  "But Captain Kirk I will personally escort to the agony
booth."

SPECTRE

EIGHTEEN

In that instant, total awareness came to Kirk.

The flow of air in the corridor, empty of all personnel except for his
companions, the security team, and the admiral.

He could smell the slight antiseptic tang that had spilled through the
doors from sickbay.

He could see the flutter of Nechayev's pulse in the hollow of her neck,
the stubble on the chin of the lead rifleman, the texture of the
traction carpet beneath his feet.

In that instant, he closed his eyes, and saw the clearing in Chal that
would become his home.

Would become his home.

That knowledge became his dream.  His mantra.  His goal. Kirk felt the
heat of Chal's twin suns on his back.  He inhaled slowly, finding his
center, filling his senses with the memory of Chal's burgeoning
vegetation, its promise of life.

And at the core of everything he experienced, at the core of everything
he had become, there was Teilani.

Nothing in this universe, or the other, would ever keep him from her.

There was no chance of failure.

No possibility for error.

208 And as surely as he drew that single, centering, focusing breath,
he knew that was a truth beyond all others.

He opened his eyes again, looked directly into the cold stare of Alynna
Nechayev, a human collaborator from some other reality, and knew she
could no more stand before him than she could withstand the fury of a
supernova.

It was apparent that she mistook his silence for surrender. "Fear looks
good on you, Tiberius."

Kirk still didn't respond.  His mind raced with all the possibilities
before him.

The agony booth did not concern him.

What was pain compared to the loss of Teilani's life and love?

But this starship was the unknown factor in the equation of his
escape.

It would have security force fields at every intersection. Anesthezine
gas.  More than a thousand crew members who would follow their
commander's orders to stop Kirk without question.

Once captured, he conceded it might be possible that escape would no
longer be an option. Thus his strategy chose itself. He must not be
captured.

Therefore, he would not be captured.

All this, in less than a second.

The action that followed was even more quickly determined.

He drove his open hand into Nechayev's jaw, hearing the satisfying
splinter of her teeth as she was knocked back into the corridor
bulkhead.

And before he had even finished following through on that sudden blow,
he spun to kick away the closest phaser rifle.

It was not a kick of his youth.  It did not have the height or the
power of what he had once commanded.

But its aim was perfect.

He heard the crack of the rifleman's thumb breaking and

2O9

his cry of pain, even as the muzzle of his phaser rifle snapped
through the air to hit the face of the next rifleman in line.

By then, in just that split second, the mirror Spock had joined Kirk's
attack.  Again, he was not as fast as the Spock of old, not even as
fast as the Spock of today, but his hand found the shoulder of the
middle rifleman and dropped him with a nerve pitch perfected over twice
a human lifetime.

By then, however, the element of surprise was gone.

Kirk and the mirror Spock faced two riflemen.  Even as a cadet, Kirk
could never have reached them before they could fire.

Which meant, they could not be allowed to fire.

Slowly, one rifleman raised his hand to his comm badge. Kirk beat him
to it.

"Computer--security alert!  Suppress weapons fire in corridor B, deck
eight.  Authorization: Kirk!" The riflemen fired. Too late.

Their weapons had been suppressed.

Kirk and the mirror Spock were on them in moments.

But these were young men, and they were ready for the assault.

The first blow from his attacker, Kirk deflected.  But the second came
too quickly after the first, and struck him in the solar plexus.

Kirk felt his breath explode from him, even as the shock of the impact
traveled through to his back.

He stumbled to one side, in danger of losing his footing. But in the
face of victory, the young man made a mistake born of enthusiasm and
inexperience.  He threw a kick at Kirk's face when it wasn't needed.

Kirk only had to move his head a few centimeters to avoid the blow,
then grabbed the young man's boot, simultaneously steadying himself,
then rotating the captured foot until a resounding crack exploded in
the corridor.

210 SPECTRE

The hapless security officer screamed and Kirk released his foot.

Enraged, the young man instinctively, foolishly, inadvertently, shifted
his weight to his fractured ankle as he swung his leg down.

He was on the corridor deck a second later, writhing in torment.

The mirror Spock's attacker, though, had made no mistakes. He held the
intendant in a head lock and was pressing his body forward to cut off
the elder Vulcan's blood flow to his brain.

At the same time, he was backing away with his captive.

Kirk picked up a useless phaser rifle, caught up with the last officer,
and started to swing the rifle butt toward his head.

The officer went into a crouch, pushing the mirror Spock into the path
of the rifle.

But Kirk had never intended to follow through and so stopping his swing
was simple.

Instead, as he had planned, Kirk had forced the officer to loosen his
choke-hold and the mirror Spock exploited the moment by driving a
precisely placed elbow into the man's groin.

The security officer instantly lost all strength, and the mirror Spock
spun around to pinch his shoulder, ending his distress and his
consciousness at the same time.

Kirk turned to check on the status of the first combatants. McCoy was
already dispensing the blue liquid from his hypospray.

"Help me get them into sickbay," McCoy said.

"I didn't hit them that hard."

"You want to leave them here for someone else to find?" Kirk and the
mirror Spock began dragging their defeated attackers, and their
weapons, into sickbay, placing the unconscious security officers and
the admiral on treatment beds at McCoy's instructions.

Then McCoy said, "Computer: Activate the EMH."

A holographic doctor rippled into view in the center of the sickbay. 
Kirk was surprised to see it was not the familiar, acerbic-looking
version he had encountered before, but a thinner, younger model, with a
shock of blond hair.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency." "These people are
spies," McCoy said quickly, "who intend to take over the Sovereign and
deliver her into enemy hands."

"My goodness," the hologram said.  Kirk thought it was an unusual
reaction for a computer construct.  Perhaps its programming was still
being adjusted.

McCoy gave the doctor his instructions.  "Treat them as necessary for
minor injuries, but keep them unconscious until new personnel arrive
from Starfleet Command.  Under no circumstances are you to allow them
to be revived on the instructions of anyone currently onboard this
vessel.  That is a direct order."

But the hologram seemed taken aback at the sight of one of his
patients.  "That's not a spy, that's Admiral Nechayev!" "Check her
quantum signature," McCoy said. "I'm a doctor, not a quantum mechanic."
"She's not from this universe," McCoy insisted.

The EMH looked pained.  "How can someone not be from this universe?  By
definition, that's all there is.  I'm so confused."

Kirk wasn't willing to accept any more delays.  "Bones, what's wrong
with this thing?"

At that, the hologram actually appeared insulted.  "I'll have you know
I am not a thing.  I am an Emergency Medical Hologram, Mark Two."

"You're a doctor and a Starfleet officer," McCoy growled. "Get to work
and follow orders."

The hologram drew himself up in a huff.  "Very well, but I don't have
to be happy about it."

212 SPECTRE

"You're a program," Kirk said.  "You're not supposed to be happy about
anything.  C'mon, Bones, Intendant, let's move it."  Kirk picked up one
of the phaser rifles, checked its charge readout.  Full.  It could be
useful in other areas of the ship where the suppression system had not
been activated. "Now, I'm feeling depressed," the hologram said.

But by then, Kirk, McCoy, and the mirror Spock were already stepping
through the sickbay doors.

"And alone," the hologram called after them.

As they walked quickly along the corridor, the mirror Spock seemed
troubled by what they had just seen.

"Was that program functioning properly?"

"None of them do," McCoy said.  "But Starfleet insists on field-testing
them anyway.  I think they do it to make doctors feel needed."

They came to a turbolift alcove.

The mirror Spock seemed unsure about continuing.  "Such a confined
space.  Is this wise?"

"We're on borrowed time as it is," Kirk said.  He forced his thumbnail
into a narrow gap at the side of the rifle he carried, then flicked
open the cover of the weapon's internal control panel.  As he waited
for the lift to arrive, he quickly input his security code, to allow
him to reset the rifle's computer ID.  If another security team tried
to suppress this weapon in a different location on the ship by
specifying its original ID, Kirk knew he might gain a few extra seconds
of phaser firepower before anyone realized he had changed the code.
"The turbolift will at least be faster."

"Good idea," McCoy said as the lift doors puffed open. "After all, it's
not as if we want to stop and take some time to think about what we're
doing."

Kirk smiled as he waved his phaser rifle toward the empty lift car. 
"You go first, Bones.  Just in case it's a trap."

Grumbling, McCoy entered the lift with the mirror Spock. Kirk checked
up and down the corridor one last time, then followed them.  "Main
shuttlebay," he said.

	SPECTRE

The turbolift slipped sideways as it began its run through the upper
hull section of the ship. "Is that where we're going to meet Scott?" 
McCoy asked. Kirk nodded.  "And Janeway and T'Val.  And Spock." McCoy
frowned.  "You've been busy." "I do my best."

Only ten meters of corridor separated the nearest turbolift alcove from
the large doors leading to the main shuttlebay. Kick stepped out into
that stretch first, the mirror Spock hanging back with McCoy and the
phaser rifle. There was no one in the corridor. And that was
immediately suspicious. Kirk knew the shuttle bays were among the
busiest areas of a starship.  There were always engineers, shuttle
pilots, cargo handlers, and maintenance specialists coming and going. 
The fact that none appeared to be doing so now suggested that the
corridor had been purposely cleared, just as the corridor outside
sickbay had been.  He wasn't willing to accept that for some reason,
all shuttlebay activity had been suddenly consigned to the aft bay on
deck fourteen. Kirk walked cautiously along the long curve of the
bulkhead, past the large cargo doors.  The corridor here was
high-ceilinged, intended to accommodate oversized crates and machinery
being transferred from the bay to storage areas elsewhere on the ship. 
Sound traveled well here, but Kirk heard nothing except the muffled
rumble of the ship's environmental systems. He jogged past the alcove
in the opposite direction. Still no sign of anyone. At the very least,
he, McCoy, and the mirror Spock would be able to reach the shuttlebay
doors before anyone else could come after them. He waved the others
forward. "Run!"  he said. Even McCoy moved quickly, aided by his
implants.

214

They were five meters from the shuttlebay doors when Kirk thought they
were going to make it. That was when the first force field went up.
Kirk and the mirror Spock managed to stop in time, but McCoy slammed
into it, possibly because his artificial leg muscles were slower to
respond to stimuli than his natural ones. Kirk picked his friend up,
Wheeling in time to see a second force field shimmer into view just
before the lift alcove. They were trapped in a five-meter section of
corridor, only a few steps from freedom. Without waiting to see who was
responsible for this trap, Kirk took the phaser rifle from the mirror
Spock and flipped it to its sixteenth and most destructive setting.  He
aimed it at the ceiling, just in front of the force field origination
point, and fired.  As he had planned, the new code he had entered into
the rifle allowed it to operate despite any suppression field that
might currently be active here. Instantly, smoke billowed and sparks
exploded from the ceiling panels.  Kirk swept the high-power beam to
create a line of fire, probing for any field emitter that might not be
properly shielded. As the panels sputtered and the line of fire began
to crackle, the computer announced a fire warning and containment force
fields suddenly materialized around the flames. Kirk sliced the beam
down the right-hand bulkhead, hit an ODN cable behind a panel that
geysered with sparks, and kept going. But just as he reached the floor,
the phaser beam winked out. The ship's weapon-suppression system had
finally reached the part of its programming that prompted it to
activate a full-suppression field, instead of searching for weapons by
ID numbers. McCoy coughed as smoke swirled around them.  "At least we
get to die of smoke inhalation before we can be tortured."

"Bones, were you always this negative?" "Not when you weren't around."
The mirror Spock studied the bulkheads.  "Do the force-fields extend
behind the walls as well?" "They'd be useless if they didn't," Kirk
said.  He hefted the rifle in his hand, getting ready to swing it as a
club if given the opportunity.  "Why don't they show themselves?" A
harsh voice answered from his comm badge.  "Because we're trying to
wake the admiral.  So she can take charge of you personally."  It was
not a human voice. Then McCoy pointed past the shuttlebay doors.  From
that direction along the corridor, three figures were approaching.
"Good Lord," the doctor said. Kirk felt a knot of anger grow in his
stomach. There were Cardassians on board the Sovereign. He was certain
they were not Cardassians from his universe. That certainty was
confirmed when the largest Cardassian stepped up to the force field and
smiled coldly at the mirror Spock.  His lustrous black hair was almost
blue in the corridor lights, his skin the dull gray of a long-dead
human corpse. "Greetings, Intendant.  I always told you we would meet
again." "I never doubted you," the mirror Spock replied.  "And as I
always told you, that meeting would occur on the day you would die."
The Cardassian was amused.  "Brave words from a dying, senile old man."
"Say that to my face." "Oh, I intend to.  Just before I apply the
agonizer myself." The Cardassian withdrew a small, cylindrical
communicator, one that would bypass the Sovereign's own internal comm
system, Kirk knew.  He pushed his thumb against it and an amber light
glowed on its tip.  "This is Arkat.  I have found the prisoners on deck
seven, outside the main shuttlebay.  Scan the bay for the others."

216

SPECTRE

Kirk knew the Cardassians had three options.  Kill them here, either by
keeping the force fields in place until the oxygen was exhausted, or by
flooding the contained area with a fatal gas.  Beam them to detention. 
Or march them there physically. The first option held no promise of
escape, but given the apparent personal animosity between the intendant
and Arkat, Kirk didn't think it was likely.  And either of the two
other options would result in the force fields being dropped. Either to
permit a transporter beam to lock on to them, or to allow them to be
led away at phaser point Kirk readied himself for one option or the
other.  He would not make it easy for the Cardassians and, he was sure,
neither would the mirror Spock. Another voice, also Cardassian, replied
over the communicator. "Scan complete.  No life signs detected in main
shuttle bay." "Where are your accomplices?"  Arkat asked. "What
accomplices?"  Kirk answered. Arkat smiled broadly.  "So like
Tiberius." "You'd be surprised." "My people were spared the enjoyment
of seeing that monster destroyed before their eyes.  I think you might
provide a worthy substitute." Kirk was ready for him.  "As my friend
said, Say that to my face." But Arkat shook his head.  "For now, you
belong to the admiral.  Though perhaps I could ask to have whatever's
left when she's finished with you.  Not that I think there'll be much
to go around."  He raised the communicator again. "What is the status
of the admiral?" "The EMH will not allow us into sickbay.  He claims he
must wait for authorization from Starfleet Command." That did not seem
to be an insurmountable problem for Arkat.  "Delete his program from
the computer." "At once."

Kirk refused to feel sorry for a program, though by having so many odd
quirks, it had seemed to him to be one of the more human artificial
beings he had encountered.

"How long do you think you can keep the corridors cleared?"  Kirk
asked.  The Cardassians must be remaining hidden on board this ship. 
Any crew member who saw one would take action first and question any
order to release them.

"We're in no rush," Arkat said.  "As long as Commander Kral orders all
crew confined to quarters and their duty stations while the
environmental system is searched for the source of a potentially
dangerous tetralubisol vapor leak, we have the ship to ourselves."

"The Trill is one of you?"

Arkat shrugged elaborately, enjoying the game.  "You tell me."

The Cardassian's communicator clicked back into life. "Glinn Arkat. 
The EMH has linked his program to the life-support subsystems keeping
the admiral and five security officers in medical stasis.  If I delete
the program, the admiral will die."

Kirk recognized the look of sudden anger that came to Arkat's eyes. 
And Kirk knew that anger was the enemy of reason.  He had no idea how a
mere computer program could be so creative, but he decided to increase
the stakes.

"Don't look so surprised, Arkat.  You're dealing with superior
technology.  The Cardassia of your universe is a third-rate power.  It
doesn't even compare to the real Cardassians in this universe.  And
none of you compare to the Federation."

Arkat clenched his fist around his communicator as the two Cardassians
with him drew their disruptors.  "You will die, Tiberius."

"It's Kirk, you primitive, low-tech savage.  James Kirk. Even your
Tiberius was a failure.  He couldn't stand up to you.  But, in this
universe, even though the Cardassian Union is a hundred years more
advanced than you, the only way it

218 SPECTRE

could threaten the Federation was with the help of the Dominion.  And
now that the Dominion is cut off from this region of space, Cardassians
are being defeated like the rock-throwing barbarians they are."

Arkat lunged forward.  "Drop the shields!"  But his soldiers stopped
him, pulled him back.

"No, Glinn," one of them said, and Kirk could sense that one's
reluctance to criticize his superior officer.  "They are to remain
within the force field at all time.  Gul Rutal's orders."

Kirk made a note of that new information.  Gul Rutal must be the
Cardassian in charge.

"I don't care about orders," Glinn Arkat snarled.  He shrugged off the
soldiers' grip on his arm, drew his disruptor, and fired.

The ship's weapon-suppression field had obviously been adjusted to
ignore Cardassian weapons.  The disruptor beam hit the security screen
full force, sending out ripples of dissipative energy across a vertical
plane.  If Kirk had not already tested the force field with his phaser
rifle, he would have tried to dodge, just in case the field was weak.

But it was so much better to fight his instincts and stand his ground
calmly, mocking the Cardassian's impotent attempt to harm him.

"Is that how backward your scientists are?"  Kirk sneered. "They can't
even design a simple poly phasic disruptor to penetrate a pitifully
weak security screen?"  Kirk had no idea what a poly phasic disruptor
was, but it sounded good, and he looked at McCoy and laughed. 
Loudly.

The doctor didn't seem convinced by Kirk's tactics, but joined in
halfheartedly.

Arkat's face was twisted with rage.

That's it, Kirk thought.  Now do something foolish.

He tightened his grip on his phaser rifle, preparing for the shields to
drop.

But Arkat surprised him.

"Transporter control, this is Glinn Arkat.  Lock on to James

T.  Kirk, one meter in front of me.  He's the human with the phaser
rifle."

A human voice answered.  A counterpart, Kirk knew.

"Preliminary lock established.  I will have to drop the shields to
engage a full lock and transport."

Arkat did not take his hate-filled gaze from Kirk.  "Do so on my
command."

"Destination?"  the transporter technician asked. "Space," Arkat said
slowly.  "And keep the beam focused.  I want him alive when he
materializes.  So he knows what's happening."

Instantly, McCoy grabbed Kirk's arm.  "If you send him, you send me."

A moment later, the mirror Spock did the same.  "And me." But before
Arkat could respond, Kirk pushed McCoy and the intendant away.  "Keep
fighting," he told them, mind racing for another option, another chance
to rescue victory from the absolute certainty of defeat.

"Drop shields," Arkat said in triumph, "and energize."

The second the force field sparkled away, Kirk lunged forward.

But before his hands could reach Arkat's throat, the Cardassian and the
corridor began to break apart in shimmers of golden energy.

Kirk knew it was not the first time he had miscalculated the intentions
of an enemy.

But he was sorry that this appeared to be the last time he would ever
do so.

As the glow of the transporter effect washed away the protective cocoon
of the Sovereign, Kirk braced himself for the bite of vacuum, the cold
of space.

And for the final darkness of death.

220 NINETEEN

As the transporter effect faded, Kirk was surprised by the brightness
of the stars in this area of space.  Must be the Goldin Discontinuity,
he thought.  If it was to be his last sight before dying, at least he
had heard it was supposed to be spectacular.

And then the bite of vacuum became the impact of a duranium deck as he
fell head-first against it, transported in mid-lunge.

For a moment, Kirk lay flat on his face, arms outstretched, wondering
why he wasn't gasping soundlessly for air.  And why he could feel
gravity.

Then he rolled over and looked up at Scott and Spock. "You've been
takin' your own sweet time," Scott said. Spock held out his hand and
helped Kirk to his feet. They were in the Sovereign's shuttlebay.  It
was a deep and wide facility at the aft of the primary hull, but
low-ceilinged and compact compared with the overall volume of the ship.
Most of the maintenance work, Kirk knew, took place on the next deck
down, served by elevator platforms set into the shuttlebay deck.  But
among the stacked cargo crates and palletized equipment on this level,
Kirk saw three of Star-fleet's newest sleek shuttlecraft--including one
with the

WILLIAM SHATN pounds

name Galileo written boldly on its side--and the two runabouts destined
for Starbase 250.

Kirk dusted off his trousers.  Not that the starships of the
twenty-fourth century allowed dust to accumulate on any surface. 
"How'd you manage that little trick?"

"Why, Captain, how many times have ye told me yourself: I'm a miracle
worker."

Kirk wouldn't let it go at that.

Scott gave him the answer.  "All right.  A transporter override. I am
the chief engineer on this ship, after all.  And I've still got a few
tricks up my sleeve."

"Janeway and T'Val?"  Kirk asked.

"In the runabout," Spock said.  He looked down at the tricorder he
held.  "Dr.  McCoy and my counterpart are still confined within the
security fields in the corridor outside."

"When will the Cardassians know they didn't beam me off the ship?" 
Kirk asked.

Suddenly, the broad shuttlebay filled with flashing red lights and a
blaring alarm--intruder alert.

"Right about now," Scott said.  He glanced over at Spock's tricorder. 
"How're they doing with those force fields?" "They are...  down," Spock
said.

Scott hit his comm badge.  "Scott to Janeway, energize!"

A few moments later, Kirk heard Janeway's reply.  "We have them,
Captain Scott.  Standing by."

Spock started for the runabouts with Scott.  Close behind them, Kirk
raced for the closer of the two large craft, the one whose running
lights and glowing impulse conduits were already operational.

"No, Captain," Scott called to him.  "Not the Coprates, the St. 
Lawrence."

Kirk changed course for the second runabout as he heard the electric
hum of a security field crackle into place.  Still running, he looked
over his shoulder to see the shuttlebay doors leading to the corridor
begin to glow with disruptor fire.

222 SPECTRE

At least, if the doors failed, the force field would buy them extra
time.

As soon as they reached the second runabout, Kirk turned to Scott. 
"Why'd they think there was no one in here?"

Scott shook his head in disbelief.  "Captain, how many times do I have
to tell ye?  I'm the chief engineer.  Give me some credit for knowing
how this ship works."

Kirk leaped up the small set of fold-out steps that led into the St. 
Lawrence.  A quick glance around showed Janeway and T'Val already in
the starboard passenger seats, both wearing Starfleet uniforms.  The
newly rescued McCoy and the intendant were strapping themselves into
the passenger seats that ran along the port side bulkhead.  Kirk
realized that McCoy and the intendant must have been beamed to safety
by the runabout's own emergency-escape transporter.

Behind him, Scott punched the door control and the steps folded up as
the pressure door sealed.

Kirk slipped into the pilot's seat and heard Spock take his position in
the jumpseat behind him.  A moment later, Scott was in the copilot's
chair.

Kirk ran his eyes over the runabout's flight controls, comparing all
settings to the ones he had memorized during his recent practice runs
on the holodeck.  "How long is the security field over the corridor
doors going to hold?"

Scott gave him a sidelong glance.  "How long will it take you to get
this crate into space?"

"Is the second runabout programmed?"

Scott looked exasperated.  "Captain, I don't know what retirement's
done to ye, but ye have to stop asking me the obvious."

"My apologies, Mr.  Scott.  Please...  proceed."

"Aye, don't mind if I do."

Scott's fingers played over the control surfaces as if he had never
trained on any other system.  Kirk felt a slight vibration as the
Coprates, a runabout named for one of the first of the

new Martian rivers to flow across a terra formed landscape, lifted on
her antigrav propulsors and rotated into position for takeoff.

Kirk activated the St.  Lawrence's launching preparation system and his
runabout lifted and rotated, as well.

Then Kirk heard an insistent chime.  "Warning," the computer voice
announced.  "The shuttlebay door is closing.  All craft must return to
their landing areas."

"Don't bet on it, darling'," Scott muttered.

Kirk looked through the forward viewports.  Past the reflections of the
runabout's control consoles, the low, wide door of the Sovereign's main
shuttlebay was beginning to close against the backdrop of stars and
space.  This wasn't part of his plan.

"Uh, Mr.  Scott, not to belabor the obvious...  but are we going to be
able to squeeze both runabouts under that door before it closes?"

Scott didn't take his eyes off his controls.  "I took the liberty of
making a few refinements to your plan.  From an engineering viewpoint,
getting through a shuttlebay atmospheric force field is difficult.  But
getting through a shuttlebay door, as my grandmother would say, that's
a piece o' haggis."

Kirk had had haggis.  The experience forced him to ask, "Is that a good
thing?"

"Ye just watch," Scott said.

The thump and pressure lock of the now-closed bay door trembled through
the shuttlebay and into the runabout.  They were now sealed into the
bay with no possible way out, except, of course, by transporter.  But
as long as the runabout's shields were up, that wasn't an option to
worry about.

Kirk saw an alert light flash on the communications board. That would
be Arkat, he knew.  Best to ignore him.  Kirk doubted that many things
could be worse for the Cardassian's ego than to be treated as
inconsequential.  And the angrier Arkat became, the easier he would be
to deal with.

224

"All right, Mr.  Scott, surprise me," Kirk said.

"Hold on to your thrusters," Scott said with a gleeful tone. "Stand by
to fire quantum torpedoes."

Kirk looked over at the engineer.  "Runabouts have quantum
torpedoes?"

"They do now, laddie."

Scott punched a finger onto his control board and instantly the St. 
Lawrence echoed with the twang of a torpedo's induction launch.

Before the sound had faded, the shuttlebay door vanished in a wall of
escaping zero-point energy, released not from the torpedo, but from the
underlying quantum structure of space-time itself.

"Launching Coprates!"  Scott said, and punched a fist down on the
control board.

To Kirk's explosion-dazzled eyes, one instant the Coprates was to his
starboard, the next instant she was a blur of motion, disappearing into
the writhing fireball that still occupied the space where the bay door
once stood.

"Atmospheric force field coming online," Spock announced.

"Not for long, it isn't," Scott said.  "Fire two!"

Again the St.  Lawrence thrummed with the launch of a quantum torpedo
and an instant later the stars filled the viewports as the runabout
emerged in open space.

"I thought I was the pilot," Kirk said.

"Nothin' human could have reacted fast enough to find the hole in a
quantum explosion," Scott said, "but she's all yours now."

Kirk began piloting as he had practiced.

On his forward sensor screen, he saw the rapid course of the Coprates
as she sped away from the Sovereign, came about, and went to warp
speed.  As soon as he was certain the decoy runabout was clear, Kirk
shut down his own runabout's warp core and impulse drive, then
activated full maneuvering

thrusters.  Even as the Coprates sped away at warp four, with luck
Kirk would be only able to manage a few meters per second in the St. 
Lawrence. But if his plan was going to work, that was all the velocity
he would need. Flying strictly by eye, Kirk brought the St.  Lawrence
around so the runabout's prow matched the orientation of the Sovereign.
Next, he slipped the small craft backward and down along the
Sovereign's dorsal spine, no more than two meters above her gleaming
duranium-composite hull, until he had reached a point approximately two
deck levels below the main shuttlebay's exterior flight deck--a blind
spot that, Spock had precisely calculated, put the runabout safely out
of visual observation range of any of the starship's viewports. Then
Kirk programmed the autopilot to hold this exact, relative position,
and trusted in Starfleet technology to do the rest. He didn't have to
wait long. With a gentle lag of the inertial dampers, he felt the St.
Lawrence bank to port, matching each movement of the starship only two
meters below. A second later, Kirk's runabout lurched slightly as the
Sovereign went to warp and began to accelerate within the
faster-than-light realm. No runabout could match the Sovereign's speed,
of course, but the St.  Lawrence was safely contained with the
starship's warp bubble, as if she were still parked in the shuttlebay.
Wherever the Sovereign went, the St.  Lawrence would go, and at
whatever speed as well. If Kirk had attempted this maneuver with any
craft other than one which had come from the starship, the carefully
calibrated engineering systems of the Sovereign would have at once
detected the extra mass of Kirk's ship.  But the beauty of this plan
was that since the St.  Lawrence was already included in the
Sovereign's cargo manifest, the fact that her mass was

226

SPECTRE

also being carried into warp by the ship wouldn't register as an
anomaly. Kirk looked back at his passengers.  "So far, so good.  Mr.
Scott, what's the estimated time until the Sovereign comes within
weapons range of the Coprates?" "A little over two minutes, sir,
depending on rate of acceleration." Kirk waited patiently.  The time
frame was close to what he had anticipated. When he had begun to
develop his plan for getting off the Sovereign, he had known from the
start that there was no possible way he could outrace the starship to
the Goldin Discontinuity.  Thus, he had concluded that the only way to
reach that sensor-disabling region of space was by inducing the
starship to take him there herself.  Thus far, the plan was working
perfectly. "When will they be able to tell there's no one on board the
Coprates?"  Kirk asked. "Hard to say," Scott admitted.  "I've rigged
seven tricorders to transmit life signs consistent to all of us, one
each.  The autopilot is set for evasive maneuvers, and she'll even
launch two quantum torpedoes of her own--which should be a fair
surprise for whoever's in the center chair of this scow.  But once they
lock tractor beams on to her, the jig'll be up.  And then, no doubt,
someone will start wondering what happened to the St.  Lawrence." Kirk
checked the time readout on his controls.  Another minute to reach the
Coprates.  Perhaps another two minutes' delay bought by the torpedoes. 
Then another minute to lock tractor beams and discover the ruse.  And
after all that, four minutes from now, the St.  Lawrence would still be
three minutes away from the protective cover of the Goldin
Discontinuity. If it took the Sovereign two minutes to catch her, that
was a minute too long.

"We're not going to make it," Kirk said aloud.  But by the very act of
stating that dilemma aloud, his mind went to work on the solution. Kirk
pictured the small craft he was in, perched on the back of the mighty,
700-meter-long starship like a remora on a shark.  Even at this
point-blank range, the runabout's phasers weren't powerful enough to
disrupt the ship's warp engines. The single quantum torpedo still
remaining on the runabout, however Scotty had managed it, would
definitely penetrate the hull of the Sovereign and slow her down, but
any rupture of the outer hull would also cost the lives of innocent
crew. Was Kirk willing to pay that price, even for Teilani? Afraid of
what his answer would be, Kirk refused to consider that question. At
least, not yet. There had to be another way to buy that minute.  A way
that did not involve weapons and death and-- "Scotty -- what would
happen if I took the runabout to warp while we were still inside the
Sovereign's warp bubble?" Scott frowned.  "Before or after we both were
torn t' pieces by the stress of the collapsing field?" Kirk sat back in
the pilot's chair, stretching his back, that question answered.  He
checked the time readout.  They would be coming up on the Coprates any
second. But Spock leaned forward.  "I believe the captain has hit upon
a worthwhile strategy." "Blowin' both ships out of space?"  Scott
asked. "No.  Disabling the Sovereign's warp drive by inducing a
harmonic overload." Scott's scowl indicated he was unimpressed.  The
runabout began to sway back and forth, duplicating the maneuvers of the
Sovereign as she matched the Coprates's automated evasive course
changes.  Three minutes, Kirk thought, and then I'll have to
choose--Teilani's life or those of a dozen... or a hundred Starfleet
crew I've never met, never known.

228

SPECTRE

	"Admiral Spock," Scott said, "the Sovereign is a robust

	ship.  Any harmonic overload this wee runabout could induce

	wouldna interfere with her warp capabilities for more than a

	minute."

	"Which is precisely the length of time we need," Spock

	said.  Gratified, Kirk knew Spock's observation meant that his

	friend had worked out the math of the chase and had arrived

	at the same conclusion.

	The runabout rocked forward along with the starship.  A

	quantum torpedo must have hit her shields.  That bought a

	few more seconds' delay.

	"What about it, Scotty?"

	Captmn, the 	Now the chief engineer looked worried."

	' 	timing would have to be so exact, it'd be almost impossible."

	"I can live with 'almost.""

	"And it won't get ye as much time as ye need.  I mean, for

	this t' work, you're going to have to do it before the Sovereign

	drops from warp.  And that'll happen as soon as they lock

	their tractors on to the Coprates."

	Kirk put his hands on the control surfaces.  "Then let's not

	waste any more time.  Tell me what to do, Scotty."

	The engineer shook his head in dismay, but punched in a

	set of coordinates.  "On my mark, rise to this exact point

	midway between the Sovereign's nacelles, then go to warp, 	bearing two
seven zero, mark zero."

	"Straight up," Kirk confirmed.

	The runabout lurched and Kirk looked out to the side, past

	the starship's white expanse, to see the movement of the stars

	begin to diminish, indicating the Sovereign's drop in velocity.

	Then another shudder shook the craft as the second and last

	of the Coprates's automatic quantum torpedoes detonated.

	For a fleeting moment, Kirk saw the vast curve of the

	Sovereign's shields light up as she absorbed the impact.

	"We're almost out of warp, Captain," Scott said.  "Get 	ready, on my
mark 	"

But Kirk knew that even after he broke away from the ship, they would
still need more time.  Another few seconds at the very least. "Scotty,
wait!"  Kirk spoke his thoughts aloud, rapidly. "Can we leave a quantum
torpedo here, holding position the way we've been doing?" "The
torpedoes have maneuvering thrusters, but why on Earth would ye want to
do that?" "To set it off on a delayed fuse, after we take off." "Ye'd
be killing a lot of innocent crew." "No!  I don't need it to penetrate
the hull, just...  explode. Can we have it hold position far enough
away it won't cause damage?" "Aye.  But again, what's the point?" To
Kirk, it was the perfect solution.  "No matter how fast we go, the
Sovereign is faster.  But what if just as she's closing on us, she
takes a quantum torpedo hit from the aft?  From a torpedo that didn't
even show a trace on her sensors?" Scott looked over at him, nodding
agreement.  "Aye, whoever s in command would have no choice but to
think he'd been attacked by a cloaked vessel, coming to our rescue."
"And you can bet he'll think twice about any action he takes next."
Scotty sighed.  "That's worth a few seconds, at least.  Releasing
torpedo." There was a clunk as the magnetic clamps unfastened their
deadly cargo beneath the runabout's deck.  Then Scott entered the
command codes that would set it for delayed detonation and shouted,
"Mark!" Kirk activated the sequence he had programmed and the Sovereign
appeared to drop away from the runabout.  Her saucer hull, no longer a
true circle as in the early days of starship design, seemed to grow
longer as Kirk's viewing angle changed.  Then the glowing red emitters
of the Bussard collectors on the forward ends of the ship's enormous
nacelles

230

SPECTRE

moved into view at either side.  Just by themselves, the Sovereign's
nacelles were longer than Kirk's own Enterprise, the whole ship, more
than twice the length. But Kirk ignored the view and watched his board,
counting off each meter until the runabout was just in the exact middle
of the overlap coordinates of the twin warp fields, each generated by
one of the nacelles. At the proper coordinates, Kirk touched the
activate control, and the stars streaked downward as the Sovereign
disappeared below. "Clear!"  Scott shouted and Kirk immediately put the
St. Lawrence into a corkscrew maneuver that brought her into a
straight-line course for the Goldin Discontinuity. As the stars
spiraled in the main viewports, and the multicolored mass of writhing
plasma grew before them, Scott brought up on the console viewscreen an
aft sensor image. The Sovereign was tumbling like a toy boat on a
windswept sea, overbalanced by the sudden disruption and collapse of
her warp drive, tipping over her center of gravity as her inertial
dampers fought to restore dynamic equilibrium. But those systems were
not fast enough and Kirk saw the immense ship's prow bear down on the
decoy runabout. The Coprates blossomed into a blue fireball of plasma
as the Sovereign's shields smashed against her, crushing the smaller
craft's hull and triggering a warp-core breach in her miniaturized
generator. "Did they know we weren't on board?"  Kirk asked no one in
particular.  He didn't expect an answer.  How could anyone know?  But
if the commander of the Sovereign thought Kirk and his companions were
dead, it might give the St.  Lawrence an even longer head start. "Och,
she's going to warp," Scott said in disgust.  "Comin' straight for us."
Kirk read the forward scanners: two minutes and thirty

seconds to the Goldin Discontinuity.  Once inside, the only way they
could be detected would be by visual observation. The runabout was too
small to even provide a shadowy sensor return. But to wrap themselves
in that impenetrable cloak of safety, they had to reach the plasma
storms before the Sovereign reached them. "In range in forty seconds,"
Scott said. One minute, fifty seconds, Kirk thought.  That was the
difference between success and failure.  In all this vast immensity of
space and time, Teilani's existence had come to one minute fifty
seconds. "Evasive maneuvers?"  Spock asked. But Kirk knew they would be
useless.  Any deviation from the course he had plotted would simply
delay their arrival within the protective interference of the
discontinuity. "Let me know when their tractors power up," Kirk said.
He'd try evading the starship then, but not an instant before.
Suddenly, the runabout rocked violently. Phasers!  Scott shouted. 
"Direct hit.  Shields at seventy percent!" Almost simultaneously, Kirk
increased the matter-antimatter mix to five percent higher than the
runabout's maximum rated power. "Warning," the computer said. 
"Magnetic containment field failure in sixty seconds." "Captain," Scott
said.  "Ye cannae be serious." But Kirk had never been more serious in
his life.  "I will not be captured." The runabout shook again.  Sparks
flew from an overhead ODN bus. "Shields at fifty-two percent.  She
cannae take much more o' this!" "When's that torpedo set to go off, Mr.
 Scott?" "I didn't think they'd be catching up to us so quickly."

"When?"

232

SPECTRE

Scott checked his controls.  "Three...  two...  they're powering up
their phasers and...  now." On the console viewscreen, Kirk saw the
Sovereign's shields appear in a scintillating ovoid of blue fire.  The
quantum torpedo he had left behind had just detonated over her
engineering hull. "Ye did it!"  Scotty shouted as the Sovereign
suddenly banked and swung about to face in the opposite direction.
Strands of blue fire streaked away from her, heading back in the
direction she had come. "Ten quantum torpedoes away," Scott said. 
"They think they were hit from behind!" "Fifty seconds," Kirk whispered
as he willed the timer to move faster. The console viewer shimmered
with blue light as the quantum torpedoes, now hundreds of thousands of
kilometers distant, exploded in a deadly spread. Deadly, that is, if
there had been any ship there to be caught by their destructive force.
"She's coming about again," Scott said. "Forty seconds to the
discontinuity," Kirk announced. "Fifty seconds to contact," Scott read
out.  "They're too far behind.  We're going to make it." But the
computer had another opinion.  "Warning, ten seconds to magnetic
containment field failure.  Nine... eight..." Kirk held his fist above
the console. "...  six...  five...  four..." --and hit the intermix
control to bring it back within nominal range. No longer overpowered,
the runabout dropped in speed by five percent. Scotty pushed back in
his chair as if giving up.  "They're going to have us in range the
moment we reach the plasma storms."  He looked at Kirk.  "It's no good,
sir, they've got us." "Never," Kirk said.  "Hold on."

He could feel Scott and McCoy staring at him, neither willing to break
his concentration by asking what he was thinking--but neither able to
conceive of a way out.

But Kirk knew what to do.

This had been a race to reach the discontinuity. Despite every effort,
he was going to lose.

Which meant that once again, it was time to change the rules.

234 TWENTY

The St.  Lawrence was so close to safety that the flashing colors of
the Goldin Discontinuity filled the viewports. Already the subspace
compression waves emanating from the twisted region of space made the
runabout quake.  But they were still not close enough.

"Ten seconds to contact," Scott said.  "Maybe if they miss, we'll have
a chance."

"They're not going to miss," Kirk said, filled with white-hot
conviction.  "They're not even going to have a chance to fire."

He ignored the puzzled look from Scott, braced himself against the
console.

"They've locked phasers," the engineer said.  "Five seconds till they
fire...  shields at forty-eight percent...  WHO OF

Scott's cry came just as Kirk drove his hands onto the console and shut
down the warp drive.  In less than half a second the St.  Lawrence hung
at relative rest in normal space, so abruptly that the dampers had
strained to keep everyone from flying forward from their seats.

But without the relatively sluggish dampers, Kirk knew, everyone in the
runabout would now be a one-molecule-thick layer of protein on the
forward viewport, and the runabout

would have torn itself into a billion spinning shards of debris. Even
so, power couplings overloaded, the gravity generators whined under the
strain, and all the lights and control consoles flickered, cut out, and
only slowly regained their brightness.

But, even before the runabout's systems could fully recover, the
Sovereign streaked past as a radiant, color-smeared star bow traveling
at speeds human senses could not react to except through sophisticated
computer systems as it disappeared deep into the boundary of the Goldin
Discontinuity. Even if her commander took all of two seconds to react
to Kirk's sudden maneuver, at warp six, those two seconds would carry
the Sovereign almost a quarter-billion kilometers away.

Kirk swiftly reestablished the runabout's warp drive, and by the time
he had accelerated to warp factor one, the St. Lawrence, at last, was
safe, protected like an ancient merchant-marine freighter crossing the
Atlantic, by an impenetrable shroud of thick fog.

Within that obscuring blanket of plasma storms, the St. Lawrence would
be able to detect the Sovereign's approaching mass long before the
starship could detect the minuscule runabout.  To all intents and
purposes, Kirk and his team had vanished.

Seconds from defeat, they were safe.

Kirk could not deny the rush of excitement that still reverberated in
him.  As if he had enjoyed the chase.  As if he had relished the
victory over death.

As if he had not spent a year on Chal, focusing all his efforts and all
his life on one simple field, searching for peace. Searching for his
place within the universe.

But Kirk thrust those personal thoughts aside.  He spun around in his
pilot's chair, ignoring the openmouthed stare Scott directed his way. 
"Is everyone all right."?"

Janeway had removed a small medical-waste container

236 SPECTRE

from the compartment under her seat and was in the process of recycling
her last meal.

T'Val had her arm around the mirror Spock, her father, who appeared
ashen in color.  McCoy was busy checking his patient's vital signs. 
Even her Vulcan discipline did little to hide T'Val's outrage.  "You
are insane!"  she said hoarsely. McCoy touched his temple in a small
salute of agreement.

"And you are alive," Kirk said.  "How about you, Spock.?" "I am..."  He
looked up at the ceiling as if searching there for the proper word. 
"Impressed," he said at last.  "Though, like T'Val, I am also concerned
about your intellectual well-being. To face down a Sovereign-class
vessel in a runabout requires extraordinarily large--"

"Motivation," Kirk said.  There was no need to get personal. He spun
his chair back to Scott, aware that he was suddenly ravenous, as he had
never been on Chal.  Facing death did that to him.  Awakened all his
senses, his appreciation of life.  "All right, Mr.  Scott.  Lay in a
course for Chal." "I...  might have another suggestion, Captain."

But Kirk wasn't interested.  "We're going after whoever has Teilani. 
Lay in that course."

But Scott kept his hands off the controls.  "If ye'd listen to me for a
moment, I might have something interesting to tell ye."

Kirk leaned back in his chair, impatient, but trying not to let ego
rule him in the the way it had affected the Cardassian's judgment. 
"All right, I'm listening."  He looked at the time readout.  "For one
minute."

"The Sovereign was under orders to search for the warp trail of the
Enterprise and the mirror Voyager."

"Warp trails that had been cloaked somehow," Kirk said. "Which makes me
think it was an order from a counterpart spy in Starfleet to engage the
Sovereign in a useless assignment, and deny her to the rest of the
Fleet."

"Then again, p'raps not.  Ye see, to prepare for that search, all the
sensors on all the ship's shuttles and even the runabouts were
recalibrated to look for the quantum signature of the Voyager's warp
particles.  And look--" Scott tapped on a sensor display screen. 
"--here they are."

Kirk read the display.  "That's hardly surprising, Mr.  Scott. The
Enterprise was on patrol in the discontinuity when it found the mirror
Voyager.  It follows that the Voyager's warp trail would be detected in
here as well."

"No, no, look," Scott insisted.  He adjusted some controls and the
image on the sensor screen expanded until, Kirk saw, the graphic
representation of the warp particles' trail split in two.

"Two trails?"  Kirk asked.  "Is there another mirror-universe ship in
here?"

Scott gave him a measuring look.  "Captain, a warp particle is a wee
beastie, and under normal conditions, it decays fairly quickly.  So in
another day or two, they'll nae be here to see. And under the
conditions within this region, we really shouldna be picking them up at
all."

"But we are."

"Aye, because their quantum signature is different, they don't decay as
rapidly in our space-time, so they stick out like a sore antenna on an
Andorian.  We'd never find a trail of the Enterprise's warp particles
in here.  The quantum signature from those would be smeared all to
Edinburgh and back.  But the particles from the Voyager...  well, sir,
that ship might just as well be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs."

Kirk braced himself for the inevitable, looked back at Spock.

But Spock reassured him.  "I am familiar with the legend of Hansel and
Gretel, Captain.  However, I do confess I also do not understand the
significance of a double trail."

"Och, will ye two look at the orientation of the particles' spin,"
Scott said.  "It's obvious.  One trail was created as the mirror
Voyager came out of the plasma storms.  And the other trail--"

238 Kirk saw it in a flash.  "Was left behind when the Voyager
returned!"

Scott nodded.  "Ye did it yourself when ye settled the runabout down on
the Sovereign's spine.  Hiding in plain sight."

Kirk immediately understood the implications of Scott's discovery. 
"Spock, if the Voyager exited the Goldin Discontinuity at any other
point along its boundary, could it be detected?"

"Without question.  We are deep within Federation space. The mirror
Voyager would show up on any number of deep-space tracking networks,
especially now that a concerted search is in progress."

"So," Kirk said, "at least ten days after the Enterprise found her, we
can be certain she hasn't come out.  And while half of Starfleet is
scouring the rest of space, trying to find out where the Voyager went,
probably taking the Enterprise with it, we're the only ones who know
she came back here."

Scott raised a cautionary finger.  "Aye, but if anyone on the Sovereign
runs a sensor sweep in here and picks up the double trail, they're
going to know it, too, as quickly as we did."

"The Sovereign's under enemy control," Kirk said.  "I have no doubt
Admiral Nechayev and Glinn Arkat already know exactly what happened to
Voyager."

Then Kirk checked the main sensor display.  Nothing but static.  He
noted that Scott had set the mass detector to maximum sensitivity.  The
Sovereign would trigger it the moment she closed within fifty thousand
kilometers--more than enough of a safety zone to allow escape.

He turned back to the two Spocks and McCoy, to T'Val and Janeway.  The
idea he was considering was unlikely, but served to coalesce all that
happened into one underlying, connected whole.  Five minutes ago, he
would never have considered the possibility of delaying his departure
to Chal. But if the idea he had just had turned out to be possible...
"Let's say I'm Jean-Luc Picard," Kirk began.

"That is not as unlikely a supposition to make as you may think,"
Spock observed.  "Indeed, you share many similarities, including..."
"I'm trying to form a hypothesis, Spock." Spock stopped talking. 
"Please, continue." "I'm Jean-Luc Picard.  I'm on patrol in the Goldin
Discontinuity and..."  Kirk stopped as he noticed the stares of Janeway
and T'Val.  "What is it?" "Is it true Jean-Luc Picard is a starship
captain in this universe?"  Janeway asked. "He's the captain of the
Enterprise," Kirk said.  "And a friend." Janeway and T'Val exchanged a
look of shocked amazement. Kirk could guess why. "I take it there's a
Picard in your universe, as well." "You would not consider him a
friend," the mirror Spock said.  "Please, continue with your
hypothesis." Kirk tabled his curiosity about the mirror Picard.  Once
again, Janeway and T'Val reacted to the name with almost the same
reaction as they had shown to the name Tiberius. "Suddenly," Kirk went
on, "I find the Voyager.  A missing starship.  Back home at last. 
Probably, I make contact with someone on board who's known to be a
Voyager crew member.  They're in trouble.  Need help at once.  I waive
security procedures, beam them all over at once.  These are colleagues
in trouble.  Heroes for having survived all they've been through." 
Pausing, Kirk considered the emotion of that moment, the thrill of
discovery, the relief of knowing that no matter the odds, sometimes
space could give up her dead.  "I would have done the same thing," he
said truthfully. "But, of course," Spock said, "it was not the real
Voyager.  The crew members, at least those who made contact, were
counterparts ....  " "And," Kirk continued, "I would have beamed a
boarding party of Klingons and Cardassians onto my ship." "Captain, I
can't believe that a ship as sophisticated as the

240

SPECTRE

new Enterprise could be taken over by anything as simple as a boarding
party.  The new computer lockout systems are designed to take weeks to
work around." "Maybe the boarding party was led by your counterpart,
Scotty." The engineer nodded thoughtfully, as if he agreed that the
best security systems of Starfleet would, in the end, offer no
challenge to him, or anyone like him.  "Ah, I see your point." Kirk hid
his smile, went on with his scenario.  "So, Picard's neutralized.  Now,
let's look at it from the other side.  I'm the leader of an Alliance
commando team--and I have two starships.  What do I want with them?"
"The same thing we do," Janeway said.  "Take them back home.  To win
the war.  Or, to defeat the resistance." "But you just want the
building plans," Kirk said.  "You can take those home with a
transporter and build your own ships, the way the Terran resistance
built a duplicate of the Defiant.  But for me to take the ships back,
and save all that time and effort, I need a wormhole." Spock looked
perplexed.  "Why?" Kirk remembered that Spock had been otherwise
engaged when he and Scott had discussed the various methods of crossing
between the universes.  "Only two ways to cross over, Spock.  Small
masses can be transported with specially modified equipment.  Large
objects, like this runabout, require a wormhole." Spock looked
troubled.  "I suspect there is a flaw in that logic." "Let me know when
you find it," Kirk said.  He turned his attention back to the others. 
"So, the questions remains.  If everything I've said is true, or close
to the truth, why here? Why did the mirror Voyager appear in the Goldin
Discontinuity? And why did she return here?" T'Val stated the obvious,
logical conclusion.  "Because the wormhole is here." "Och, no, lassie. 
I've been having this argument with

Starfleet for years, now.  Ye cannae have a stable wormhole in such an
unstable region of space.  Nearby, perhaps, the way the Bajoran
wormhole is near to the Badlands.  But not in the Badlands
themselves."

"Then what brings them here?"  Kirk asked.  If he was going to have any
chance at all of defeating the Alliance agents in this universe, he had
to understand their strategy.

The mirror Spock seemed to make a difficult decision. "Captain Kirk, in
sickbay, when I appeared to answer Admiral Nechayev's questions about
the Vulcan resistance, everything I said was a deliberate misstatement.
 Except for my role as figurehead."

"No," T'Val said emphatically.  "You are our leader." The mirror Spock
did not acknowledge his daughter.  "But what I am going to tell you now
is true, and potentially dangerous to our ongoing efforts to overthrow
the Alliance. Should we be captured..."

"Understood," Kirk said.  Whatever secret he was about to learn would
die with him.

"The Terran resistance cell operating near Bajor has its base in the
Badlands."

"In our universe," Spock said, "the rebels known as the Maquis did the
same.  The masking effects of the plasma storms make the region
impenetrable to sensors, thus an eminently logical place to hide."

"So," Kirk said, "we can assume that the Alliance faction we're facing
has chosen this region for their secret base for the same
reason--assuming the Goldin Discontinuity exists in your universe."

The mirror Spock nodded.  "It does, by the same name, as well."

Kirk turned to look out the forward viewports.  The view reminded him
of low-orbital passes over Jupiter--colorful swirls and whorls beyond
any identifiable scale, churning in constant motion, lit from within by
unceasing discharges of energy.

242 Yet, for all its violent beauty, this place was a sanctuary. A
place for the Alliance to transfer ships. To hide.

To plot their strategy against their enemies at home.

And if it was all those things, then what if it was one other? "Kate?" 
Kirk said, without taking his eyes off the shifting grandeur before
him.  "When you were in the Alliance prison camp, where was it?"

"Alpha Centauri IV," Janeway said.  "New Montana.  It used to be a big
Earth colony.  The Alliance left most of it intact.  They were always
digging through the facilities.  I never knew what they were looking
for, though."

Kirk frowned.  He had been hoping to hear of a prison camp where the
sky was on fire with twisting sheets of incandescent plasma.

"But the labor camp..."  Janeway said softly, as if she had suddenly
realized what Kirk was after.  "Where they were going to send me after
your Kathryn Janeway was declared lost..."

Kirk looked back at her, waiting for the words that could determine
what he would do next.  That could determine if they would live or
die.

"They gave me a discharge suit," she said.  "Made me put it on."  She
closed her eyes briefly as she relived the moment.

"You're sure that's what they called it?"  Kirk asked. Discharge suits
had been around for centuries, and he could think of no reason why the
mirror universe wouldn't share the technology.  Early in the history of
warp flight, it was discovered that spacecraft moving through clouds of
interstellar dust could pick up powerful electrostatic charges
impossible to dissipate in ordinary vacuum.  On stations without
force-field technology to bleed off those charges, maintenance workers
had to wear insulating suits that would protect them from powerful
electrical discharges should they touch conductive parts of the
craft.

Janeway nodded.  "They told me I had to wear it for the labor camp. 
Otherwise, I could die."

For Kirk, the final piece of the puzzle slipped into place. "You were
coming here," he said.

"I can't be sure," Janeway told him.  "I escaped at the transfer
station at Lake Riker."

"Where's that?"  Kirk asked.

"Outside New Montana.  Where the spaceport is."

Kirk knew the main spaceport on Alpha Centauri IV.  "In our universe,
it's called Lake Sloane."

Kirk saw Spock react with interest, but let it pass.

He was convinced he had uncovered the one fact that made sense of all
the other questions.

Why the Voyager had appeared here.

Why the Enterprise had disappeared here.

And why Admiral Nechayev's Sovereign had been assigned to conduct the
search for the Enterprise in every region of space except for here.

"There's a labor camp in the discontinuity," he told the others. 
"Probably two--one in each universe."

"For what purpose?"  Spock asked.

Kirk turned back to his console and called up the main sensor
configuration controls.  "We're going to find transporters,
Spock--hundreds of pads, maybe thousands.  And the prisoners, they take
apart the starships and they transfer them through, piece by piece."

Kirk was prepared for Scott's hoot of disbelief.  "Captain, that'd take
years, even if ye could cut up hull metal in such small pieces and have
a hope of rejoining them all later."

"You said it yourself, Scotty.  If there can't be a stable wormhole in
here, transporters are the only way to go.  And since the mirror
Voyager made it into our universe, we know whatever system they're
using works."

Scotty looked dismayed.  "Aye, ye've got me there."

Kirk finished setting all sensors to maximum sensitivity for

244 quantum-signature detection.  "Follow that trail, Scotty. Wherever
the mirror Voyager went, that's where we're going."

McCoy was completely lost.  "But Jim, what about Chal? What about
Teilani?"

Kirk stared into the writhing madness of the tortured plasma.  Whatever
forces of nature were at work there remained beyond his understanding,
and that of the best minds of Starfleet.

But he was ready to risk them to do what his heart demanded.

"If I'm right, Bones, Teilani is a lot closer than we think." "What
happens if you're wrong?"

As the St.  Lawrence plunged deeper into the storm, Kirk didn't
answer.

Because if he was wrong, then Teilani would die.

And nothing would ever matter again.

TWENTY-ONE

Picard awoke in a cloud of pain.

Every muscle, every nerve, every memory protested the agony that
engulfed him.

But he forced himself up from the cot.

This was the day.

The day he would live.  Or he would die.

He would not turn away from his duty, his responsibility. Beverly
Crusher was beside him, kneeling in the narrow walkway, cradling his
head, speaking softly to him as she held a weak brew of something that
passed for nutrient soup in this dark and humid hellhole.

"Drink this, Jean-Luc," she said.  Then she looked around furtively.

Picard followed her gaze, even as the putrid fluid scalded his tongue
and his throat.

There were at least one hundred other cots in the dismal, filth-strewn
barracks.  Half were filled with fitfully sleeping gamma-shift workers.
Most were human.  A handful were alien.  And some were from the
Enterprise.

The miserable occupants of the other half of the cots, other workers,
the delta shift, were sitting up groggily, all, without exception,
shifting uncomfortably in the constricting pressure

246 SPECTRE

of the discharge suits they wore, the suits they could not remove
without facing death.

Picard, like everyone else, despised his.

It was sickly green-black in color, rubbery in texture, thick and
impervious to sweat, except through a number of small fabric-covered
slits cut into the sides of the chest piece, back, and upper leg
segments.  The hateful garment stretched from his neck down over his
entire body, leaving only his head and face and hands uncovered. 
Picard had already learned that a mere half-hour of heavy labor in the
suit was enough to make its inner surface slip and chafe against his
skin as the fabric lining became sodden with sweat.  The insufferable
heat dizzied him.

He had seen more than one fully-suited wretch succumb to that heat by
passing out in the middle of the shift.

Some were so far gone that even the excruciating assault of the
overseers' agonizers would not be enough to shock them back to
consciousness.

Picard, like the others, had heard, among the rumors that swept through
this camp, that the overseers allowed each new prisoner three bouts of
fainting in the first month--what they considered to be a period of
acclimatization.  This rumor, however, appeared to be fact.  After a
month, or after the fourth collapse, offending workers disappeared.

Rumor also had it they were recycled into the nutrient broth which was
all there was to eat or drink.

But to refuse the salty broth was to guarantee collapse, and Picard had
let his captured crew know that it was his order that they all drink
it, whenever it was offered.  And he did so now, without protest.

They all needed to be strong for the escape attempt. And that attempt
was to be today.

"How are the others?"  Picard whispered, as he took the nutrient cup
from Beverly and dutifully swallowed the disgusting brew.

	SPECTRE

"Will has the alpha shift ready to move at shift break. Geordi has
briefed the beta shift."

Beverly pulled out her medical tricorder--one of the few implements the
captured crew of the Enterprise had been allowed to keep.  She scanned
Picard with it.

Picard looked at the flickering lights on the tricorder. "You're
certain that's functioning properly?"

The tricorder was their only hope in launching an operation to reclaim
their ship.  The Enterprise's own computer identification systems had
been fooled by up to five counterparts. Picard had seen his own
counterpart face-to-face.  He guessed that dozens, if not hundreds, of
other Enterprise crew had counterparts from the mirror universe, as
well.  All it would take was one of them infiltrating a shift team, and
Picard's careful plan would be exposed.

But thus far, Beverly Crusher had been able to guarantee the real
identity of all senior staff involved in the impending attempt.

Over the past week, ever since the Enterprise had been brought here,
she had scanned each crew member, ostensibly to check health--an
activity the overseers did not object to, as it also served their
purpose.  Then, with a sharp silver of composite she had snapped from
the tricorder's shell, Beverly had surreptitiously given each crew
member she had scanned and confirmed as being from this universe a
small, triangular wound.

Those whose last names fell within the last half of the standard
alphabet had a small tear on their left hands.  Those whose names fell
within the first half of the alphabet were similarly marked on the
right hand.  Names beginning with vowels brought the wound to the palm,
close to the fleshy base of the thumb.  Initial consonants meant the
wound was made near the knuckle of the little finger.

At the beginning of the identification procedure, if the overseers, for
whatever reason, had asked to check the hands of the Enterprise crew
members, there would be no one

248 distinctive mark that might give the scheme away.  By now, only
days later, those identifying wounds were hidden among the other
abrasions and tears that had come from seven days of intense physical
labor.

So far, eight crew members had disappeared after collapsing for the
fourth and final time.  And Beverly had identified six counterparts who
had been switched for their duplicates. For Picard, that meant
twenty-one crew had been lost so far, and he felt each death or
disappearance as a personal attack.

Beset by pain, mouth sour with the ghastly broth, Picard faced this day
knowing that Gul Rutal would pay for what she had done to his crew. 
And the Cardassian's accomplices would share her fate.

A jarring blast of noise rent the air, making Picard jerk in response. 
It was time for the next shift.  His shift.

The last shift, he thought as he stood up, willing himself to dismiss
the stiffness of his legs.

He noted and set aside the concern Beverly wore.  "Are you sure you're
up to this, Jean-Luc?  You haven't missed a shift yet.  I could have
you relieved."

Picard took her hand, thinking of all the other times he had done so,
when other matters had been on both their minds.

"They have my ship, Beverly.  I am going to get it back." That, Picard
knew, was the end of it.

He turned to face the narrow passageway between the cots, waiting for
the next blast of sound that would signal it was time to march.

Beverly stood aside.

The scream of the shift-commencement signal echoed in the confined
barracks.  Picard's ear canals throbbed and popped as the pressure seal
on the barracks airlock was unsealed.  He heard the metallic rumble as
the large disks of metal that were the inner and outer doors of the
Cardassian-style airlock rolled to the side, opening the barracks to
what lay outside.  He could smell the hot, sulfurous blast of outside

air as it rolled in, potent enough to eclipse the ever-present stench
of stale sweat and human waste.

"Any word of Deanna or Data?"  Picard asked quickly. He saw Beverly
shake her head.

Picard could understand why the overseers had removed Deanna from the
main population of prisoners.  With her Betazoid ability to detect
falsehood in most beings, she could easily have identified those
counterparts who had infiltrated Picard's crew.  But he had no idea why
Data had been taken, unless it was to examine the technology that had
given birth to him.

The barracks filled with lines of workers, the prisoners marching
rhythmically in file along the paths between the cots, between the
waste buckets left at each corner, continuing on to the outside and the
new day's labor.

Picard squinted as he stepped outside.  But not because the sun was
bright.

There was no sun in the sky.

The sky itself was on fire, glaringly incandescent with the plasma
storms of the Goldin Discontinuity.

To the left, Picard perceived that a new ion formation had filled the
horizon--an enormous blue billow of swirling light, embedded with
hidden points of light, like spotlights seen through heavy rainfall.

Ahead, and to the right, past the low structures of the other barracks,
warring clouds of red and blue still collided like monstrous storm
fronts  The other barracks, if that was the function that all the other
buildings shared, were all the same in appearance--low, circular
structures of rough-finished, rust-colored metal, arranged in a large
circle with a single, double-height building at the center.  That
structure was the overseers' command station, bristling with sensor
dishes and antenna masts, and linked with all the other buildings by a
network of raised plast eel walkways and platforms intended to keep the
prisoners and guards from ever having to risk making contact with the
asteroid's metal surface.  Even with

250 SPECTRE

the discharge suits, the likelihood of plasma induction was
appreciable.

Picard had no doubt that the vista he saw was millions of kilometers
distant on all sides.  And under any other conditions, he would find
the vividly colored, almost blinding sight wondrous, exactly the reason
he had first ventured into space to see, record, and understand.

But he had no use for wonder here.

Not when the view directly overhead was so abysmal, so soul-crushing,
so inescapable.

There was no doubt in Picard that the site of the prison camp he and
his crew had been brought to was an asteroid that had never known life.
The slick surface was of nickel-iron. Hard and unyielding.  Uneven
except where plast eel walkways had been laid between the barracks and
the work staging areas.

From the distinctive curve of the horizon, La Forge had calculated the
asteroid's diameter as no more than fifteen kilometers.  Somewhere
beneath them in the mines, he'd reasoned, an artificial-gravity
generator must be keeping all the workers in place, and maintaining
their atmosphere.

La Forge had also pointed out that a certain percentage of asteroids
did not exist as single bodies.  And this asteroid was obviously among
them.

Because, no more than two kilometers straight overhead, a second
asteroid of equal size hung in chilling counterbalance. Its natural
gravity would not affect the body on which the prison camp existed,
though the feeling of inescapable pressure from its presence was so
powerful that its effect was enervating on the spirits of those who
toiled below.

To look up to what should have been open sky--where, evolution and
experience had ingrained in the mind of every member of Picard's crew,
unbounded freedom would be found--there was only a flying mountain of
rock, impossibly poised, as if mere seconds from completing its deadly
descent.

Day after day it had weighed upon the prisoners from the Enterprise,
until even Picard acknowledged it was one of the most depressing sights
he had ever encountered. He had not been alone in his response. Riker,
too, had said he felt he was no more than a bug beneath a boot, the
remainder of his life inconsequential, measured in seconds. Beverly had
refused to look up, believing it was a psychological ploy on the part
of their captors--a ploy with which she would not cooperate. And La
Forge, whose ocular implants had replaced his VISOR, and who now could
see even farther into realms beyond the sensitivities of ordinary human
vision, had detected and reported on the rivers of shifting energy that
stretched between the bleak landscape of the prison asteroid, and the
overbearing mass that hung above their heads. He had identified the
energy wavelengths as a force field--something of such power that it
kept the asteroids linked in tandem, as well as maintaining a column of
breathable atmosphere from one asteroid to the next.  Why an atmosphere
was necessary for the second asteroid was still a question to be
answered.  A large grid of sensor dishes and thick cables could be seen
on its surface, directly overhead, but no prisoners were ever sent
there for maintenance or construction work.  Riker had assumed it was
either a power-generating facility, or the artificial-gravity facility
that kept the two asteroids connected. La Forge had told Picard that he
viewed the invisible field as a glass column linking the two chunks of
lifeless metal and stone. And, more significant to Picard, La Forge had
recognized at once the safeguards that had been built in. Should any
prisoner, or group of prisoners, ever decide to attack their overseers
by disabling the power generators that kept them imprisoned, the end
result would be an explosive loss of atmosphere, coupled with the slow
but inevitable

252

SPECTRE

drawing together of the two asteroids, until everything between them --
prison camp included--was crushed. The force field La Forge saw was not
keeping the two rocks together; it was keeping them apart. The ultimate
deterrent to escape. After two days of carefully considered study and
analysis, Picard chose to ignore the threat of the second asteroid.
Instead, he focused all his efforts on the even more unusual body which
hung halfway between the two asteroids. A kilometer above the
prison-camp asteroid, sparkling with the actinic flicker of fusion
torches used in its construction, was a device as large as any space
dock though of a completely different, even alien configuration.  It
seemed to be composed of rectangular panels of dull copper metal, ten
meters by fifteen meters on a side, La Forge had confirmed. Each panel
was suspended within a weblike framework of fine cables and metal rods,
making the device seem almost transparent, as if it had been built as a
child's construction toy. But the structure, no matter what the style
of its construction, was clearly a device. Because beside it, in
station keeping alignment, hung the Enterprise. Which meant the
device's purpose was not difficult to divine. When Picard had first
seen it, the fragile-appearing framework of metal panels and delicate
cables was easily large enough to contain the Voyager.  And he knew at
once it was the means by which the duplicate Voyager had crossed to
this universe. Since Picard's arrival, evidence of construction on the
crossover device was undeniable.  By holding his fingers up at arm's
length, and sighting through one eye, he had been able to see that
where once the structure had been as long as three fingers were wide,
it was now as long as five.  In a day or two, its length would have
almost doubled beyond its original

	SPECTRE

dimensions, and the Enterprise was almost twice as long as the
Voyager.

Picard had no doubt that when the crossover device was doubled, when it
was long enough to contain his ship, then his ship would be stolen from
this universe, and used in the other.

That was why today was the day.

He would not, could not, allow that to happen.

Not to his ship.

"Delta shift!  Form work details!"

The guttural command issued forth from a delta-shift overseer.  Krawl. 
A Klingon, young, with a flat look of total disinterest behind his
eyes.

Picard had seen Krawl slap an agonizer against the neck of a woman who
had dared to stop to catch her breath, with as much emotion as he might
expend to brush an insect from his shoulder.

Picard kept his head down as he shuffled to the platform with the other
twenty-three workers who made up his detail. If today was like every
other, he would be sent down into the mines to physically transfer ore
from an antigrav conveyor to a hopper bin.

From what he had been able to piece together from Riker and the others
during shift changes--the only time the scattered crew of the
Enterprise could find a few moments to talk--the hopper was routed to a
fusion kiln.  Like the mines, the hopper was also underground, where,
under conditions of nightmarish heat, the nickel-iron ore was
transmuted by a crude replication technology and extruded into the
panels and support trusses used in the crossover device overhead. There
were other assembly facilities elsewhere, Picard knew, perhaps even on
the other asteroid, where circuitry and power couplings were assembled.
But thus far, no one from the Enterprise had been assigned to those
crucial jobs.

From this asteroid, a gravity-tether elevator lifted the

254 construction materials to the crossover device.  And it was on the
tether platforms that Picard and his gold team would reach the
Enterprise, while the red and blue teams, respectively, neutralized the
guards and took over the power-generation facilities.

If not for the prospect of failure, Picard would have looked forward to
the challenge before him.

His team would be launching cables from the crossover device to the
hull of the Enterprise--essentially, affixing grappling lines as if
they were a seventeenth-century boarding party.

Provided his team could cross the lines quickly enough and reach the
Enterprise's outer hull, the entry codes for the airlocks were all
mechanically set, specifically to guard against a computer failure
making it possible to lock crew in environmental suits outside the
ship.

Five minutes, Picard told himself as he stood with the others of his
detail.  Five minutes and the ship would be his again, or she would be
cycling toward an unstoppable warp-core breach.

One way or another, the Enterprise would be his.

Or it would be no one's.

"Prisoner Delta 06-13-40, step away from the platform. Now!"

Only when a nearby fellow prisoner pushed Picard forward did he
realize, startled, that the serial-number designation was his own.

The delta-shift overseer stood before Picard, his own discharge suit
covered by nonconductive armor.  Krawl whacked an agonizer probe
against one massive thigh as if the probe were a riding crop.

Picard remained motionless, head down, seething with anger, yet
unwilling to provoke any escalation of response from the Klingon.

"Hard of hearing, Delta 06-13-407"

WILLIAM SHATN pounds

Picard did not raise his head, aware that eye contact between prisoner
and overseer was considered provocation. "No, Overseer."

Then Picard gasped as the agonizer probe bit into his neck, making his
vision explode with red bursts of light.  He dropped to his knees,
fiercely suppressing his impulse to shove the probe down Krawl's
throat.

"Look at me when I speak to you," the overseer said.  "Is your hearing
damaged?"

Picard raised his head.  His neck throbbed with pain, but he managed to
look into the overseer's large dark eyes.  "No, Overseer," he rasped.

And then he barely had time to close his eyes in a reflexive act of
self-preservation as Krawl's probe slashed across his face, knocking
him off the plast eel platform to the hard metal of the asteroid's
surface.

"How dare you look me in the eye," the overseer roared. Picard pictured
his hands closing around Krawl's neck.  He pictured his thumbs ensuring
that the Klingon would never see anything again.

But for the sake of his crew, for his ship, Picard did nothing.

Someone else did.

Who it was, Picard wasn't certain.  An ensign from below-decks, he
knew.  Someone in astrometrics.  A young man with a full life before
him.

But who didn't know how to follow orders.

"No!"  the ensign shouted as he launched himself from the platform in
defense of his captain.

"Ensign, stop!"  Picard commanded.

But the young ensign collided with the overseer, forcing the Klingon
back with a flurry of useless punches directed against his armored
stomach.

Picard saw what was to happen and was powerless to stop it--there was
just no time.

256 SPECTRE

As if wielding a bat'leth, Krawl swiftly flipped his agonizer probe
into the air above the ensign, then drove it down with unerring
accuracy into the unprotected back of his neck. The ensign's scream was
immediate.

His arms and legs shook uncontrollably and he collapsed face-first on
the plast eel platform.

Picard was on his feet at once, and lunged for the ensign. The plan
meant nothing, now.  The safety of his crew, everything.

"Leave him alone!"  Picard ordered the Klingon.  He used his own body
to shield the half-conscious ensign.  "He's young.  He didn't know what
he was--"

Krawl's boot caught Picard in the face, sent him sprawling.

But only death could keep a starship captain from his mission.

Picard rolled to his feet, crouched to attack Krawl even as the Klingon
grabbed the back of the ensign's discharge suit and effortlessly hauled
the young man to his feet.

"Don't harm him," Picard warned.

Krawl looked amused.  '7 won't do anything," he said.  Then he jerked
his powerful forearm so rapidly that the series of suit connectors
running along the ensign's back split open like a chain stitch
unraveling.

Picard blanched in horror, knowing what the overseer was planning.  He
started forward again.

But the Klingon raised his agonizer probe toward Picard, and the
inducer tips on it sparked with blue energy. "Don't be a hero, Terran. 
It's set to kill."

The ensign was on his feet, dazed, barely able to stand as Krawl held
Picard at bay with his agonizer and ripped off the rest of the
discharge suit.

"Don't do this," Picard said.  "He'll learn his lesson."  The words
caught in his throat even as he said them.  "He'll be a good worker."

Krawl snarled at Picard as the last of the ensign's discharge suit fell
away, leaving him in Starfleet-issue shorts and

undershirt.  "Trust me, Terran, he'll make an even better example."
Then the Klingon kicked the ensign savagely, sending him flying from
the walkway to the asteroid's surface. The asteroid's conductive
surface. Picard had had enough.  He threw himself forward. But four
hands grabbed him from behind and he twisted to see that two other
overseers--one Klingon, one Cardassian--had him in their grip. "No..." 
Picard protested. But in his heart he knew he was too late. The ensign,
alone on the asteroid's surface, pushed himself up to his feet, looked
at his arms, realized his suit was gone. He staggered from side to
side, looked up at all the other prisoners, all the other overseers
watching him. His hair began to bristle as the charges built up in him.
Charges that the suit would no longer bleed harmlessly away. His gaze
found Picard. His hand reached out. "Captain...  I'm sorry ....  I'm--"
And then, as if he were a lightning rod, the first and last tendril of
antiproton energy blazed from the plasma-filled sky and hit the youth,
and engulfed him. The image of the impact etched itself forever into
Picard's memory, but he did not turn away. The ensign's hair was on
fire.  Flares of light burst forth from his eyes and mouth, and
crackles of energy shot out from his rigid, outstretched fingers. The
overseers held Picard so he would have no choice but to see what was
happening, but Picard did not struggle.  A starship captain always
faced the consequences of his actions. Finally, the ensign was gone. 
Replaced by a crumpled, blackened body, bearing no resemblance to the
life that had once been there.  The promise. The overseers pushed
Picard to his knees.  He felt blood

258

SPECTRE

trickle from the bridge of his nose, dripping onto the walk-way's
smooth surface, but he did not move.  Even when the side of Krawl's
boots shoved against his cheek, close enough that Picard knew he could
twist the monster onto his back and break his neck with one deadly
blow. But what of the rest of his crew? "This was your fault, Terran. 
Remember that." Picard felt the agonizer probe tap his shoulder.  But
it wasn't turned on. And for all the rage that burned within him,
Picard knew Krawl was right. Among his crew, each death was his fault.
They trusted him.  They put their lives in his hands. Willingly. And as
Picard got slowly to his feet, he made a silent promise to the ensign
that that trust had not been misplaced. Each death might be his fault. 
But he would see to it that those who were responsible would pay the
full price. Personally. He raised his head to look at Krawl's obscenely
grinning mouth, but no higher, not yet. The overseer would die. Picard
was as certain of that as he was that he would once again take the
center chair of the Enterprise. "Better," Krawl said.  "You have a
special assignment today." Picard did not react.  For his plan to work,
he had to be with his gold team at the end of the shift.  It was
absolutely necessary to take control of the antigrav platform that took
them down into the mines.  Only that platform could take his team up to
the crossover device and the Enterprise. But though he gave no outward
sign of his concern, Krawl seemed to sense something.  Like a hunter
scenting the instinct for escape in his prey. "Have I interfered with
something?"  the Klingon asked with mock concern.

"Just don't send me down into the mine," Picard said in a low voice. 
"I...  I can't stand that anymore." Krawl had obviously never heard of
the ancient Terran folktale of Brer Rabbit.  His momentary suspicion
was deflected, as Picard had hoped, and he shoved Picard forward,
force-marching him across the walkway to an off-limits barracks. The
ominous symbol of the Alliance--the Cardassian raptor whose wings
embraced the Klingon triskelion--was emblazoned on the wall of the
facility, though in all other respects, the structure was identical in
size and shape to every other building but the double-height command
center. In the past week, three Enterprise crew had been taken here.
None had returned. Picard hoped that at least one member of his gold
team would learn of this, so they would not wait for him at the end of
the shift.  The escape had to be attempted today; otherwise, the
Enterprise would be lost. Krawl pushed Picard toward an airlock
platform to one side of the barracks. All the life-support facilities
on the asteroid's surface were pressurized, Picard had noted.  That
made sense to him. In the case of insurrection, the force field could
be dropped long enough to kill the prisoners by suffocation, while the
overseers remained safe within their sealed barracks. Picard had
allowed for that capability in his plan. Now Krawl pushed Picard's head
down so he could see nothing, and Picard heard the delta-shift overseer
enter a security code into the airlock panel. The thick circular
Cardassian door rolled open. Krawl kicked Picard to make him move
forward, then left him in the transfer chamber. "Good-bye, Terran," the
Klingon said with a scornful laugh.  "Each ensign I kill today, I
dedicate to you."

260

SPECTRE

Picard wheeled around but only in time to see the door roll shut, and
Krawl grinning at him through the small viewport. Then there was a rush
of air as the pressure equalized, and the interior door rolled open.
Picard knew the drill, knew the tests the overseers set up for
prisoners. He stood his ground. Then a familiar voice said, "Very good,
Jean-Luc.  You have learned your lessons." The voice was familiar
because it was Picard's own. "Please, enter.  My home is your home, in
more ways than you can imagine." So Picard walked forward, stepping
from the airlock into a large area that reminded him in design of the
patterned wall panels of Deep Space Nine.  It was utilitarian in
finish, yet in one corner, a section was furnished almost like a
private apartment. In the midst of that unlikely setting stood Picard's
counterpart, resplendent in the battle armor of a Klingon regent.  Yet
this man's existence and appearance were no longer a surprise to
Picard.  By now, he had grown used to seeing this unsettling duplicate
of himself. But Picard was not prepared for the woman who stood beside
the regent.  A woman he knew. She was draped in the sheerest of
Argelian silks, no more substantial than a veil.  Her long hair was
drawn back in the Klingon style, intricately braided with glittering
Klingon bloodstones--the gift of a warrior.  But even the heavy makeup
she wore, as if there had been some attempt to have her resemble an
Orion slave girl, could not disguise the distinctive pattern of her
subtle head ridges, nor the points of her ears, nor the distinctive
scar that marred her singular beauty. The regent saw the flicker of
recognition in Picard's eyes. "You know this prisoner?"

Picard shook his head.  Too many lives were at stake in the planned
escape to allow him the satisfaction of facing down his doppelginger. 
Any action Picard took here today would have to be swift, and deadly. 
"I was mistaken.  She looked familiar, but...  I was wrong."

The mirror Picard looked upon his captive in feigned shock.  "A
mistake?  Jean-Luc Picard--captain of the Enter-prise--admits a
mistake?"  He held a hand to his heart.  "And here I thought I knew you
so well.  You must admit, I played you like a Centauri salmon, getting
you to voluntarily reestablish the command codes for your ship.  Or,
should I say, my ship."

Picard glared at his counterpart, but still refused to escalate their
confrontation.  He had come to realize that no matter what he felt
about his duplicate, it was more than matched by the overwhelming
contempt his counterpart felt for him.

The regent looked back at the woman in silk.  "For myself, I'm not
often wrong.  And when I am...  I hate to be reminded of it.  Are you
like that, too, Jean-Luc?"

Picard said nothing.

His counterpart accepted that silence as agreement.  "I think you are
like me.  I think you're embarrassed by mistakes. So, the best way to
forget those mistakes, mon chef ami, is to erase them, nest-ce pas?"

Picard stared straight ahead, giving his counterpart nothing to react
to.

"You forget, Jean-Luc," the regent said, as if deeply amused by
Picard's lack of response, "!  might as well be reading your mind."

Then, with a loud and startling slap, the mirror Picard drew his
disruptor, thumbed it to full power so its capacitor hum filled the
air, and aimed it directly at the woman.

"And since you don't know this unfortunate, since her continued
existence can have no meaning to you other than to SPECTRE

remind you of your failings, I'm sure you won't mind if I erase her
from existence.  Will you?"

The woman looked up, no fear in her eyes.

Only courage.

But then, Picard knew, that was the only reaction to expect from the
remarkable woman so loved by James T.  Kirk.

263

TWENTY-TWO

The tossing of the runabout reminded Kirk of old sailing vessels. 
There was a rhythm to the motion, a pattern to anticipate, accept, and
direct.

Flying in these conditions required that he keep his hands on the
controls at all time, but he found the activity almost enjoyable.

Doing something--anything was preferable to waiting. Especially because
all that had happened since he had decided on this course of action was
the passage of time. "You like piloting, don't you?"  Janeway asked.

She was in the copilot's chair now, spelling Scott.  Runabouts were
designed for longer journeys than shuttlecraft, and there were bunks in
the back, and a small galley.  Scott, T'Val, and McCoy were presumably
sound asleep, secure in their privacy screens and antigrav bunks.

But Spock and his counterpart seemed to have little use for rest.  They
remained in the passenger area, engaged in earnest conversation.  Kirk
had smelled tea an hour ago, and for their sake, he hoped it contained
a stimulant.  The conversation had been going on for close to thirty
hours.

Then again, if, like Intendant Spock, he knew he was facing SPECTRE

an irreversible slide into an incurable disease, he supposed he
wouldn't have much use for sleep, either.

"Piloting's a lost art," Kirk said.  He kept his eyes moving from the
sensor screens to the incredible panorama of the plasma storms they
flew through.  The mirror Voyager's warp-particle trail set the
runabout's course, directly into unknown, and unknowable, territory.

It wasn't the first time Kirk had made such a journey.  From time to
time, when he let his concentration drift, he found himself admitting
that sometimes it was the best kind of journey of all.

"You seem to be doing well enough at it," Janeway told him.  "Piloting,
I mean."

"I've spent my time at the helm."  Kirk braced himself as a small
shudder made the craft tremble.  He compensated before the dampers
could, rolling the runabout gently, riding the compression wave out.

"Was that part of your training?"  Janeway asked.  "To be a starship
captain?"

"Part of it.  Theoretically, we were trained to be able to do
everything that needed to be done on board a starship."  He smiled,
remembered how full of confidence and bravado he had been at the
beginning of his career, certain he could handle a Constitution-class
vessel on his own.  Who needed a crew?  "None of it well, though. 
Thinking back, the whole point was to learn integration.  To know what
everyone else's duties were, so we could see how they worked together."
"And did you?"

"Not at first."  Kirk watched his hands move across the controls as if
they belonged to someone else.  Like so many aspects of his training,
his piloting skills had returned without conscious thought.  A year on
Chal and all his best intentions had not been enough to drive the
starship captain from the man.  He didn't want to think what that might
mean.

It was a conversation he would have with Teilani when they reunited.

264

And they would reunite. He refused to consider any other eventuality.
"I was thirty-one when I earned my first ship."  Even as Kirk said the
words, he didn't know how such a thing could ever have been possible. 
Had he ever really been that young? That naive?  That full of wide-eyed
innocence?  "And back then, I thought I could do everything." He
remembered meeting Chris Pike on the day Pike had been promoted to
Fleet captain, and Kirk had been given the Enterprise.  Kirk had known
the ship would be available.  After two five-year missions, Pike wanted
a change and Kirk wanted that ship.  For years he had played the
political games behind the scenes at Command.  Gone to the right
parties, volunteered for the right committees, directed all his duty
assignments to that one, inescapable destiny he knew was his. But the
day that long-sought goal had finally been achieved, Kirk had felt
anything but prepared.  When he had first taken the center chair, with
the Enterprise in space dock with the mysterious Vulcan who would come
to be his friend looking menacing at his science station, and the
unflappable and soon-to-retire Dr.  Piper at his side, Kirk had felt
more like an understudy called to the stage without knowing his lines
than the captain of a starship. But somehow, he and his ship and his
crew had survived that first shakedown cruise.  When the orders had
come through for a five-year mission--again, something he had worked
toward since graduating the Academy--he had once again felt the faint
misgivings of doubt infect him. But the mission had been completed--the
Enterprise returning more or less intact; his crew lessened by death,
strengthened by experience, united by triumph and sorrow. Kirk had
always taken it as one of the supreme ironies of life that only when he
had completed his mission and left the Enterprise to become a deskbound
admiral had he finally understood what it meant to be a starship
captain. "You can't do it all yourself," Kirk now said, merging their

266

SPECTRE

course with the currents of plasma as if the runabout were an extension
of his body.  "All through the Academy, they burn it into your
brain--it's all up to you.  Everyone's depending on you.  The captain's
got to be the one in front, taking the first 'le" shot, firing the
first torpedo, being responsible." "But that's not it?"  Janeway asked.
"Being responsible, yes.  That's the most important part. But
everything else, it's just Starfleet laying down the party line."  He
glanced at Janeway beside him, and despite the fact that she was an
adult, that she had lived and trained and fought as a soldier in a war
few people in the Federation would ever have the strength and
determination to face, he saw in her eyes that familiar cadet gleam.
For a moment he thought of that child in the field of Chal. He
surprised himself by remembering the child's name. Memlon. Eyes wide,
curiosity still unbound. He remembered Teilani asking him what he
thought of the child. Kirk had said the boy needed someone to explain
things to him. You'd be good at that, Teilani had said. Kirk wondered
if that was true.  He wondered if he could live up to the quest for
knowledge that burned in Janeway. Because he saw that same hunger for
knowledge in her. She wanted to know. So she could become something
more. And there was no question in Kirk's mind what that goal was. "At
the Academy, I struggled with almost all my science classes," Kirk
said.  "Then they put me on a ship with Spock, and all those science
classes amounted to was that for the first few months I had the
vocabulary to ask a few questions now and then.  If he hadn't been a
Vulcan, he probably would have laughed at me for most of them. "In
engineering classes, they taught me how to build a

starship, if I had to, with my own two hands.  And then they gave me
Scotty.  He could build the same starship in his sleep, with one hand,
in a third the time, with fifty percent fewer pieces, and it would run
more efficiently, too."

"So what you're saying is, it all comes down to your crew." Kirk looked
out at the rolling clouds of the storm and thought of his crew.  His
first crew.  His best crew.  He saw their faces, heard their names as
if a roll call were under way on the hangar deck and a dangerous
mission still lay ahead.  A mission that only the Enterprise could take
on.

Spock and McCoy and Scotty were still with him, here in this craft. 
But Sulu and Chekov and Uhura, wherever the worlds and time had taken
them since their missions together, they would always be with him, too,
always a part of whatever success the universe had conspired to give
him.

It all came down to one simple truth.  One simple statement. "You can't
be a captain of an empty starship," Kirk said.  In life, he knew, there
were other truths more important. But in his work, in his career, that
was the one above all others.

Then he realized he had been concentrating too much on himself--a
tendency of which Teilani had laughingly reminded him, more than once. 
From his solitary audience's expression, Kirk could see that his
insights regarding his Starfleet career were not exactly what she had
had in mind as a subject of conversation.

"Do you know the Janeway of this universe?"  she asked. Kirk knew it
wasn't the change of subject the question might seem to be.  He saw
where the question was heading and he left it in Janeway's hands.

"No," he said.  "She was after my time.  But from everything I've heard
about her, I know she's one of the best."

After a moment's silence, Janeway asked, "Is she like me?"

Kirk hoped this Janeway wouldn't hold it against him, but even here,
even now, he felt there was no time to waste.

So he gave her the answer he knew she was working toward.

SPECTRE

"Kate, there's no doubt in my mind you could be a starship captain. 
Whatever it is a person needs for that job, in your heart, your mind,
your spirit, it's in you, too.  Don't forget that."

Janeway rode in silence for many minutes after that.  Like Kirk, she
watched the ever-changing vista of the plasma fields.

The region they were in now was dominated by waves of deep amber and
red.

Kirk remembered the sunset on the holodeck, in the recreation of
Yosemite, when Janeway had tested her environment by kissing him.

He wondered if she was thinking of the same, sharing the memory.

"I hated you, you know," she said out of nowhere.

But again, Kirk looked beneath the words to find their meaning.

"You hated Tiberius."

She threw his own words back at him.  "If I'm in any way like your
Janeway, then you're the same as Tiberius."

Kirk was silent.  She'd voiced something he had not fully grappled with
himself.  Nor was he ready to yet.

"When T'Val gave me this assignment, I wanted to kill you. Even if you
cooperated with us."

Kirk saw a sudden billow of plasma compression heading directly for the
runabout, and brought the craft up to skim over top of it.  "Since
you're telling me all this, I have to assume you've changed your
mind."

"If we live through what you're planning, ask me again."

Kirk couldn't look away from the controls, so he couldn't be sure if
Janeway was trying to make a joke.

He decided it was time he changed the subject. "What's Jean-Luc Picard
like in your universe?"

Even without seeing her, he could sense the way she tightened at the
mention of that name.

"What makes you think he has a counterpart?"

269

"The way you and T'Val recognized his name.  Hold on!" The runabout
seemed to rise up, hang motionless, then drop precipitously.  It was
all an illusion in the directionless void of space, Kirk knew, brought
on by the complex inter-play of the artificial gravity and inertial
dampers.  But it felt as if they were in a small craft in heavy seas,
nonetheless. "Picard's like you," Janeway said, taking Kirk by
surprise. "If there were still a Terran Empire, he'd be running it the
way you did."

"Tiberius was your emperor," Kirk said firmly.  "Not me." He felt
Janeway's eyes on him.  "You were born in Iowa, weren't you?" Kirk
confirmed it. "When you were thirteen, you were living in the colony on
Tarsus IV." "It was supposed to be a summer trip," Kirk said, suddenly
uncomfortable with her questioning, wondering what any of this had to
do with anything.  "But there was trouble in the Neutral Zone.  I ended
up being caught there when the food shipments stopped." "So you formed
a gang.  Took over the warehouses.  Killed Governor Kodos." "Not in my
reality," Kirk said.  "Kodos killed half the colonists to try to make
the food last until relief could arrive." "That's what you told the
authorities in my reality, too," Janeway said.  "Kodos did it.  But it
was really you and your gang." Kirk felt his discomfort begin to turn
to anger, and he knew there was no reason for it.  "You know the
histories of our two universes are ' 	" 	"So this?"

	different, he told her.

	why are you doing

"Because you're not being truthful," Janeway persisted. "You feed me
this great philosophy about trusting in your crew, being part of a
team, deferring to the better skills of others, and you say that's what
it takes to be a starship captain.

27o

SPECTRE

"But I've seen you in action, Kirk.  You're not just the person you
describe.  You're Tiberius, too.  Whatever's in you that was in your
counterpart, that drove him to be the most corrupt--and the most
powerful--emperor of human history, is in you, too.  It's only because
your historical context was different that you became a starship
captain, not a tyrant. "At your core, you and Tiberius are the same. 
And you don't have the honesty to admit it." Shaking off the unwelcome
implications of Janeway's argument, Kirk took his eyes off his console
and glared at her. "I'm getting tired of people telling me what I
really think and who I really am.  Don't you think I know myself?."
"No.  I don't think you have a clue about who you really are. I think
you're closer to Tiberius than you want to believe. And by denying
that, you're denying yourself, and any chance you might be someone
different." Kirk felt his pulse begin to race, knew his face was
flushing. How dare this woman, this refugee from a war zone with no
personal skills that were remotely apparent, attack him in this way?
"You don't know what you're saying," Kirk told her, jaw clenched,
holding his temper in check only by a force of will. "I studied you in
school, you know," Janeway told him, as if her buried anger were the
equal of his own.  "And you can't hide behind platitudes of being part
of...  of one big happy Fleet." If not for Teilani, Kirk would have
left his controls to finish this unsettling confrontation with Janeway.
And as if sensing the tension that had developed on the flight deck,
Spock was suddenly behind Kirk, one hand on the back of his pilot's
chair, looking ahead through the viewports. "My counterpart and I could
not help but notice the rather intense conversation you appear to be
having," Spock said calmly. "It isn't a conversation," Kirk told him. 
"It's a series of groundless accusations."

"It's a series of truthful observations," Janeway insisted. "In any
event," Spock said, and Kirk sensed the Vulcan's desire to change the
subject if only to maintain proper piloting efficiency, "in our
conversations, my counterpart and I appear to have identified the
period of history in which our two universes may have diverged.  It is
a fascinating prospect." Kirk instantly abandoned his growing
resentment of Jane-way's probing, and, just as quickly, she appeared to
set her argument aside. "Well, what is it, Spock?  Where does the
branching point lie.9" "As best as we can determine," Spock said,
"approximately three hundred years ago, when--" And then alarms blared
and the runabout shuddered as the first torpedo hit, and the Starship
Voyager rose up in the forward viewports, phasers already firing.

272

TWENTY-THREE

"Don't kill her," Picard said. In the bleak interior of the overseers'
barracks, his mirror counterpart kept his disruptor pointed at the
woman in silk. But he looked back with interest at Picard.  "Is that a
general plea for mercy, symptomatic of the invertebrate worms you
Terrans have become in this reality?  Or do I detect a soupcon of
recognition in your tone?" Picard steeled himself.  He was prepared to
play his counterpart's game, no matter how demeaning, if he could save
this woman's life. "Her name is Teilani," he said. His counterpart
twirled his disruptor around his finger, then dropped it, grip facing
backward, into a low-slung holster.  Picard noticed a second disruptor
in a matching holster on his counterpart's other leg. "So," the regent
said, "I was right again."  He stared critically at Teilani as if the
silks she wore were nonexistent, making no attempt to disguise the fact
that he regarded her as little more than property.  "You do know her."
"We've met," Picard clarified. His counterpart shook his head.  "Such
concern with the preciseness of words.  Are you all lawyers in your
universe?"

Picard decided it was time to address another subject. "Why am I
here?"

"Why do you think you're here?"

"So you can gloat."

The regent shrugged.  "I can do that anyway.  Try again." Picard looked
around the open space of the barracks. Though, to be accurate, it
wasn't really a barracks.  There were no cots, no facilities for food
or waste.  Just a bare metal floor and metal walls stamped with
Cardassian-designed structural supports.  And the one corner furnished
with a couch, table, chairs, and cabinets, all of Klingon manufacture.
Tall candlesticks of burnished metal stood on the table, caked with
melted wax.

"I said, try again," his counterpart repeated.

"You want to question me again."

The regent folded his gloved hands behind his back and walked slowly
toward Teilani.  "Jean-Luc, I'm so disappointed in you.  I have your
ship.  It does whatever I ask it to.  Did you know the quality of our
voices is that exact?  The degree of correspondence so identical that
not even the Enterprise computer can tell the difference.  I find that
fascinating, don't you?"

He bent forward, a finger extended as if to trace Teilani's scar.  Her
hands came up in what Picard recognized as a Klingon defense posture. 
It was only then that he saw that her wrists were bound with ODN
cable.

The regent leaned away from Teilani as if he had come too close to a
flame.  Teilani looked beyond him, silent, as if refusing to
acknowledge his right to confine her.

"Women don't behave this way in my reality...  for long," he said
lightly, wandering back to Picard as if he had nothing more important
to do than engage in idle conversation. "We're much more effective in
breaking their spirits.  That's why I had to tie her up.  Did you know
she's tried to kill me seven times since she was brought here.  Seven
times.  Your

274 SPECTRE

friend, Tiberius, is fortunate to have such a spirited captain's woman.
 And that scar.  The stories it tells..."

"Tiberius?"  Picard asked.

The regent leaned close, pronouncing the name with sarcastic care. 
"Kirk.  James T.  I believe he's a friend of yours."

Picard couldn't waste such a perfect opportunity.  He swung his right
hand toward the regent's temple, thumb folded so his knuckle would
crush the side of the regent's skull.

But the regent's hand was there to grab Picard's in mid-swing.

"Don't you understand?"  the regent said.  "There is nothing you can
plan, nothing you can even imagine, that I cannot anticipate."

The regent pushed Picard's hand away.  "You're a disappointingly pale
reflection at best, Jean-Luc.  I've skimmed through your tediously pure
service record, struggling to keep myself from dozing off at the
sterility of it all, and..  frankly, I'm quite let down that you're my
counterpart."

"I am appalled that you are mine."

But the regent went on as if he hadn't heard Picard.  "Now, Teilani. 
She has no counterpart in the real universe.  I suppose she did at one
point.  But when the Romulans were in retreat, and tried to activate
the Children of Heaven on Chal as part of a most ineffectual last
stand...  well, what could the Alliance do but wipe out her planet? 
The planetary sea boiled for weeks, I'm told.  It took a month for
everyone to perish from the heat."  He looked at her again, this time
making no effort to disguise his desire for her.  "A shame to have lost
another one such as her.  A few years in a Theta camp, and she would
have been much more...  compliant.  As this one shall discover, with my
help."  He smiled at Teilani.

Teilani spit in the regent's eye.

Unconcerned, Picard's counterpart removed a folded cloth

from the cuff of his glove and wiped his face clean, as if he were
dabbing at sweat and Teilani no longer existed. "Is there some reason
for my being here?"  Picard asked, hoping to distract the regent's
attention. The regent studied Picard, and Picard wasn't sure if it was
a prelude to his being beaten, or if there was indeed something
important on his counterpart's mind, which he had yet to reveal. "What
was it like for you to have a brother?"  the regent asked. Though
nonplussed by the question, Picard saw no need to evade it.  Every
moment's delay was a moment closer to his crew's attempt to retake the
Enterprise. "Fulfilling," Picard said, thinking of Robert.  "Sometimes
exasperating.  But...  it serves to bind a family.  A united front
against the progression of time." "And what would your brother have
thought of me, the real Picard?" "I wouldn't know," Picard said coldly.
"Robert is dead." Clearly, the regent was prepared for that
revelation.  "You assassinated him?" "He died in a fire," Picard said.
"Which you set, of course?" Picard's jaw tightened.  He still saw no
point to these questions.  "It was an accident." The regent nodded
sagely.  "Clever.  That's what I said when I killed my Robert.  An
accident.  It was simpler that way.  And his daughter?  Your niece. 
What happened to her.9" Picard's hands became fists as he fought to
remain un reactive in the face of this sadism.  "Robert had a son. 
Renee He died in the same fire." The regent rubbed thoughtfully at the
back of his head, making his long queue of hair sway back and forth. 
He appeared puzzled.  "A son...  a son...  that's different.  Your
Robert, he married Louise?" "His wife's name is...  was Marie."

276

SPECTRE

The regent gestured with empty hands.  "Well, then, there you go.  The
universes continue to diverge.  I can't be certain, but I would guess
that whoever this...  this Marie is, or was, in your universe, she
doesn't exist in mine.  So your brother's history is different here. 
Different children, different fates. Another few generations, and I
doubt there will be any counterparts left.  At least, among Terrans. 
Do you agree that's a likely progression?" "Why am I--" Picard never
got a chance to finish the question, because the back of his
counterpart's gloved hand smashed across his face. "I did not give you
permission to question me, Jean-Luc. Now answer my question.  In three
generations, will there or will there not be any counterparts left
among the Terran race?" As the pain faded from Picard's face, and he
saw the spittle spray from his counterpart's lips, he realized in one
chilling moment that he was no longer dealing with a sadistic soldier.
He was facing someone who was truly insane--one whose next move even he
might not be able to predict.  No matter how much he and this creature
outwardly resembled one another. Carefully, Picard chose his words. 
"If the conditions you've described exist throughout your universe, I
would say you were correct." "Good!  Good!  You don't know how long
I've been trying to make this point to the Alliance.  If we want to
invade this alternate reality, enslave its population, employ its
technology, then we must act now!"  The regent abruptly stepped closer
to Picard to stroke his cheek with compassion.  "Did I injure you?  I
could call a doctor." "I'm fine."  Picard kept his tone unemotional,
but within he recoiled from his counterpart's touch.  Invade.  Enslave.
Whoever these people were, they weren't the self-absorbed Alliance
described in the Deep Space Nine logs.  These vandals wanted nothing
more to do with their universe--and everything to do with his.

"That's the spirit," the regent said.  He began to wander away again
and as he turned his back, Picard risked meeting Teilani's gaze.

And in her dark eyes he saw the same terrible knowledge. Their lives
were in the hands of a madman.

"So...  to continue, you killed your brother to gain control of the
family shipping line," the regent said.

"With your permission, Regent," Picard said politely, "in my reality,
the Picard family business is a vineyard."

"Really?  How very interesting.  In France, I take it?" "That's
right."

"Well, if there were still a France on Earth, no doubt that would have
been my family business as well."  He scratched at his chin, then
stared at his right-hand glove as if seeing it for the first time. 
"Here, look at this.  I know you'll appreciate it."

Picard watched in confusion as his counterpart peeled off his heavy
Klingon glove, then held up the back of his right hand for Picard to
examine.

There were three red scars there, as if something sharp had tried to
rake the skin from the back of his counterpart's hand. "It looks as if
it was painful," Picard said noncommittally. "Oh, it was, it was.  She
did the same to my face."  He leaned forward to point to his lower left
eyelid.  "Nearly tore this off. I had a Vulcan healer restore it,
though.  Odd, those Vulcans. We destroyed their world and their
culture, but if one of them is a doctor, they'll cure anyone."

Picard's counterpart shook his head at the absurdity of the universe,
both of them.  Then continued.

"But I had him leave the scars on the back of my hand.  A souvenir of
sorts."  He looked directly at Picard.  "From Beverly Crusher."

Picard stiffened.  He had just seen Beverly a few minutes ago.  She had
seemed fine.  But could it be possible that278 SPECTRE

The regent waved his hand dismissively.  "Not your Beverly Crusher. 
The real one.  Honestly, Jean-Luc, you flatter yourself."

The regent moved back to Teilani, walked around her, hands behind his
back.  "My Beverly, ahh, there was a woman.  Trained as an apprentice
to a Vulcan healer.  There were always suspicions about her, though. 
Was she working for the Terran resistance?  Was she working for the
Vulcan resistance?  The smart Terrans always face that kind of
innuendo.

"But I took a fancy to her.  Saw there was something there. Unawakened
passion.  Fires only my love could provoke and quench.  Like you and
your Beverly, don't you think?"

Picard refused to give this monster any power over him.  "I have no
such relationship with Dr.  Crusher."

The regent smiled archly.  "That's what you say now.  But if I brought
her here, draped her in Argelian silks, held a disruptor to her head...
 I wonder what you'd say then, hmm?"

The regent moved as if to touch Teilani's scar again, but quickly
withdrew his hand as she shifted stance to strike him. He smiled as if
he enjoyed the game.

"Getting back to my Beverly.  The moment I saw her in the camp, I had
no doubt.  She was going to be mine."

Picard felt momentarily sickened.  Hadn't there been a time in his past
when he had thought exactly that of Beverly?  That they would be
together no matter what?

"So, I did what any young swam in love would do.  I set out to win her.
And, at first, it went well.  I challenged Jack Crusher to a duel. 
Fought him to the death, and won, of course.  All his possessions,
including Beverly, then became mine.  But...  you know Beverly,
single-minded to a fault, her pretty head full of her own ideas.  She
actually took some exceptions to the Alliance's property laws as they
applied to Terrans."

The regent made a fist of his right hand, studied his own

scars there.  "I don't want to bore you, but I had to dispense with
her, as well.  On our wedding night, no less.  At least, when it was
over.  I regretted it.  I had been so certain I could win her over in
time.  But...  you of all people will understand this, Jean-Luc, my
honor was at stake, and I am a regent of the Klingon Dependencies. 
There're not a lot of Terrans who have risen to that station.  I'm
under a great deal of pressure." Picard had had enough of this
monster's rantings.  He wanted no more knowledge of the hideously
distorted reflection the mirror universe had become. In his mind, he
paced off the distance between himself and his counterpart.  Three
quick steps, a running leap, and then all he would have to do was un
holster one disruptor before his counterpart could draw the other. But
without even looking at him, his counterpart said, "You'll never make
it, Jean-Luc.  And all that will happen is you'll get to watch me
punish Teilani for your transgression. Very slowly and very
thoroughly." "Punish me!"  Teilani said proudly.  "You haven't even
been able to put a hand on me since I came here.  You're a coward,
Regent.  A pathetic Terran puppet whose masters only let him dress up
in the uniform of a real warrior." Picard saw the dark red blotches
that rose to stain his counterpart's face as he drew a disruptor.
"Teilani," Picard cautioned. But the regent faced Picard instead of the
woman.  "Oh, don't worry, Jean-Luc.  She still has her uses, alive. 
The Alliance has something quite special planned for the consort of
Tiberius." Then he swung his disruptor around to aim at Picard. "You,
on the other hand, have no purpose to serve other than to amuse me. 
But you don't amuse me, anymore.  You repel me." "How can I," Picard
asked, knowing his life was in the balance, "when I am you?"

280

SPECTRE

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't 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 prob

282 SPECTRE

ably 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 co-conspirators." 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 game-playing. 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,

284

SPECTRE

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
distracted 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 surreal ness of the moment, until the communicator
clicked again. "Regent Picard," a Cardassian voice said, "I remind you
that the prisoners were brought to the force field 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 force field 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.

286 SPECTRE

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

288 SPECTRE

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 going' 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 hews 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?"

290

SPECTRE

"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--just 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 scared 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.t We're clear.t We're clear.t" 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.

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 SPECTRE

	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 force field 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 force field 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 force field 	"

"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!"

	292 "I've only got two hands and this warp core isn't going to stay
together much longer!"

"Spock--four humanoids!  Just outside the force field  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!"

294 SPECTRE

"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 force field
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.

	SPECTRE

"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 space dock  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 force screen

"Any sign of weapons lock?"  Kirk asked.

"Nothing," Janeway said.  "We're clean.  But the Voyager and the
Sovereign, they're circling the force field 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 force field 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 cabin, 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.

	296

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 disruptor 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.

298 SPECTRE

Picard laughed exultantly, drew out one of his counterpart's two
disruptors, flipped it through the air so Teilani could catch it with
both, tied-together hands.  Then Picard aimed the second disruptor 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 disruptor'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 disruptors,
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

300 SPECTRE

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 force field 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 force field 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 IT'

"Idaho Dream?"  Picard asked.

"Iowa," Teilani corrected.

Picard moved closer to her, disruptor 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.

3O2 SPECTRE

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..."

Picard nodded.  He had no doubt.  "It would be Jim Kirk." "So he's out
there right now, hiding in all the plasma-storm interference, talking
to the people he rescued, trying to figure out a way to get down here
and save the rest of you.  And you--at least according to your
counterpart--have figured out a way to get back on board your ship."

She flipped the regent over again, and used the knife to attack the
wavy white hair at his temples.  Except for its length, Picard saw that
his duplicate's hair grew in the same scalp pattern his own hair did. 
A legacy from his father, he knew.  Their fathers.  A pattern encoded
in his genes in both universes.

Picard decided he had nothing left to lose.  If this remarkable consort
of Kirk's had been a mirror-universe counterpart, then she was
right--she could have killed him at any time.

Thus, he accepted her as the Teilani he had known in his universe.  And
tried not to think how much he wanted to protect her--almost a
compulsion.  It was a reaction to the tension of the moment, he
decided.  Of the whole situation.

"My counterpart was right," Picard admitted.  "My people are ready to
retake the ship at the end of this shift."

"Is there something special about that timing?  He seemed to think
so."

"Whatever device they're building up there, I'm convinced

3O3

WILLIAM SHATN pounds

it's what they're going to use to transfer the Enterprise to the mirror
universe.  When we were brought here, the crossover device was long
enough to accommodate the Voyager.  By the end of the next shift, it
will be long enough for the Enterprise."

Teilani held the regent's head up to admire her tonsorial efforts. 
With his duplicate's fringe of white hair now close-cropped to the
sides and the back of his head, Picard saw that the degree of
resemblance between himself and his counterpart was even more
pronounced.

"You'll have to get your people to move faster than you planned,"
Teilani said.  "Before the guards can drop the atmosphere."

She was right, Picard knew.  And fortunately, from the beginning of his
planning, he had already devised a contingency signal in case something
like this happened and everyone had to move ahead of schedule.

"I need to reach the overseers' command post," Picard said.  Once
there, he could send the coded signal that would let his people know
that time was of the essence.

"And once James sees your escape attempt in progress, he'll come in to
help everyone get away."

Picard knew she was right about that, too.  Between the two of them,
Kirk in space and Picard on the ground, both working together, the
Alliance didn't have a chance.

"So," Picard said, "it seems the only thing left to do is figure a way
past the guards undoubtedly surrounding this building, so I can reach
the command post."  He looked around the chamber, checking for any sign
of secret passages or weapons storage lockers.

Teilani let go of the regent and his head dropped back to thud against
the floor.  "I've already got a way," she said, moving closer to
Picard.

"Let's hear it."

"Good," Teilani said.  "First thing you have to do--take off your
discharge suit."

304 SPECTRE

Picard stared at her, certain he had misheard.

But Teilani folded her arms impatiently.  "You know, James told me you
could be like this, but believe me, this isn't the time to get all
proper.  I want that suit and all your clothes off, now, Jean-Luc.  And
I don't like to be kept waiting."

Picard reached for the suit seals at his neck.  He had no idea what was
going to happen next, but he did as he was told.

3O5

TWENTY-SIX

There were eleven passengers on the crowded runabout, and Kirk was
fully aware that ten of them--nine plus an android-were staring at him
in utter incomprehension. So he went back to the beginning and said it
again. "I need a starship.  It's the only way we can make this work."
"Captain," Scotty finally said.  "Jim, there's only one word for it. 
Ye're daft." "It does appear to be a more descriptive term for your
strategy than 'illogical,'" Spock said. The mirror Spock regarded his
counterpart with equanimity .  "Though 'illogical' certainly obtains in
this instance." "Indeed," Spock agreed. McCoy was next to hold forth. 
"And your hands, Jim.  So you get on board, and then what?  It's going
to take months to get your fingers working again." "Weeks, at least,"
Dr.  Crusher amended. "And what if the programming isn't in place?"  La
Forge said, adding his voice to those against.  "You'll be standing
there with your...  your gel packs in your hands while the Cardassians
blow disruptor holes in you." But Kirk wasn't swayed.  He looked from
one to the other of

3O6

SPECTRE

those who stood before him.  His gaze stopped on Deanna Troi.  Her
lustrous dark eyes held his, as if trying to communicate some secret
fact known only to the two of them. "You have something to say,
Deanna?"  Kirk prompted. Deanna addressed herself to the others.  "Only
that I feel immense confidence in the captain.  No matter what our
objections, he is certain he can make his plan work." "Taking a
starship with only a broken-down runabout.  It's suicide," McCoy said. 
"Plain and simple." Kirk waited to see if anyone else had something to
add.  No one did.  He spoke again. "Computer, given the passenger load
of this craft, and the damage she has sustained in recent action, how
long will her life-support system continue to function?" "Total
life-support failure will occur in seventeen hours, fifteen minutes."
"The nearest starbase is weeks away at the top speed we can manage,"
Kirk said.  "And I guarantee any distress call we put out once we're
clear of the plasma storms will bring the Sovereign -- before any other
vessel gets a chance to hear it. So the way I see it, it's suicide if
we don't do anything." Exasperated, Scott ran a hand through his hair,
succeeding only in making it stand on end.  His good-natured face was
streaked with soot and he looked exhausted from all his efforts to make
the St.  Lawrence last even this long.  "Captain, even if everything ye
hope for is true, it's the gettin' aboard that's...  that's impossible.
I mean, the maneuvers you're talking about, even Sulu coul dna have
handled them in his heyday.  No human could." Kirk had no argument with
that.  "I agree, Mr.  Scott.  No human could possibly do what I'm
suggesting.  But in case you haven't noticed, Starfleet is not
restricted to humans."  He held out his hand to Commander Data. Scott
looked pained.  He stared at the android.  "When ye start the run to
warp factor one, we'll be traveling almost at light speed, ye
understand."

Data appeared to be caught off guard.  "My positronic net is capable
of operating within a relativistically accelerated frame of reference
for short periods of time.  And I have no doubt as to my ability to
perform the maneuvers the captain has described.  My concern, however,
is that this runabout has experienced considerable damage, and may not
operate according to manufacturer's specifications." Scott reacted as
if Data had slapped a glove across his face. "Just ignore the dents and
the smoke damage, lad, and I guarantee ye she'll outperform her specs
any day of the week, and twice on shore leave." Data shrugged,
resigned.  "Then, since I have no desire to watch the rest of you
succumb to life-support failure, I suggest we do as Captain Kirk has
suggested." McCoy moaned in dismay.  The others still looked
unconvinced. So Kirk tried again, knowing that he would soon have to
take his strategy out of the realm of suggestion and into the context
of a direct order.  On this runabout, only Spock outranked him, but
Kirk hoped his friend would comprehend that a chance for survival -- no
matter how slim--was preferable to certain death in just over seventeen
hours.  He was betting that Spock would support him, logic be damned.
"You heard what Commander Riker said," Kirk told the group.  "The
guards in the prison camp can shut off the force fields and the
atmosphere will dissipate in less than a minute.  So it's not just our
lives we're dealing with, here.  It's Captain Picard's.  It's all your
shipmates'.  It's the lives of all the other prisoners in the camp."
Kirk paused then, letting that brutal reality sink in, even as he
thought of the one life that meant more to him than all the others.
Somewhere within himself, he knew he didn't care about the odds or the
chances or the noble admonition to save as many lives as possible.

308

SPECTRE

Once, long ago in his youth, he might have embraced that selfless
aspect of his plan. But not now.  Not today. Because, at this point in
his life, after all the incomprehensible horrors he had seen, all the
injustices he had watched go unpunished, he had no more stomach for
righting the ills of the galaxy. He had tired of that game, and all he
wanted now to do was to go home. With Teilani. That was the sum total
of what had brought him out to this region of space. The sum total of
why he had dared suggest such a reckless plan. All he wanted was
Teilani. All he was prepared to do was for Teilani. If others were
saved as a result of those efforts, then he would be the first to be
pleased. But one irreplaceable life had become infinitely precious to
him.  And he could no longer deny it. Not here.  Not now.  Not anymore.
He had to save Teilani and nothing, no one, could stand in his way. Not
even the ten on this dying spacecraft who stared at him in disbelief. 
Not even his dearest and his oldest friends. "And the guards," Kirk
said, playing his part to perfection, "don't forget the guards saw you
people from the Enterprise being rescued by our transporter."  He
looked to the mirror Spock.  "Intendant, how long do you think it will
be before the Alliance guards take measures to prevent a further rescue
attempt?" The mirror Spock considered his shaking hands.  The battle
endured in the St.  Lawrence had affected him more than he had
revealed, and now the strain of that desperate attempt at self-control
was exacting its price from him.  "If they have not

done so already, then they will take action within the hour. The logic
of their rule is overreaction--to make any potential enemy realize that
either they must wipe out the Alliance to the last soldier, or be
prepared to pay a price beyond all reasonable expectation.

"A world destroyed in retaliation for a ship attacked.  A prison camp
wiped out in retaliation for five prisoners escaping."  The mirror
Spock looked up at Kirk.  "It is a strategy they learned from
you--forgive me--from your counterpart, Tiberius."  The Vulcan sighed
and Kirk saw Spock regarding his counterpart with grave concern. 
"Because of what has happened, the people in that camp are already
dead.  That is the logic of the Alliance.

But Kirk disagreed.  "I refuse to accept that.  From everything
Commander Riker and the others have said, the only purpose that camp
has is to allow the Enterprise to cross into the mirror universe.  The
prisoners won't be killed until that happens."

"You're arguing over nothing," Riker said.  "The crossover's going to
happen today.  Captain Picard was convinced of it."

Kirk swept one hand to the side as if to push aside any and all
objections to what he had to convince them of.  Once again the sight of
his hands shocked even him, wrapped as they were in glittering
antiseptic bandages that made them look like twisted clubs.  "I know
this is how you do things in your Starfleet," he continued without a
pause, "but we're not debating the best way to study a supernova.  I
want to do this. We can do this.  We have to do this."

He looked each of them in the eye.

"And we have to do it now."

Surprisingly, it was Riker who became the one to turn the tide.  He
looked at Kirk, then nodded and turned to address his fellow crew
members.  "Today might not be a good day to die, people, but I for one
can't think of another way to save our crew, and our captain.  And I
know that time is running out."

310 SPECTRE

Kirk acted before anyone else had a chance for second thoughts.  He
stood up, Janeway following suit beside him, as if knowing exactly what
would be required of her.

"Strap yourself in," Kirk advised them all, the debate at an end. 
"Like Kate said, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

In the first stage of Kirk's plan, everything hinged on the runabout's
sensors.

La Forge programmed two levels of sensitivity into their mass-detector
subroutines.

One for the mirror Voyager.  One for the Sovereign.

One starship would mean Kirk had a chance at winning. The other would
mean a quick and relatively painful death for them all as the St. 
Lawrence was blown out of space.

La Forge told Kirk he had worked under conditions of greater pressure,
but didn't elaborate.

After the programming was completed, there would only be the waiting. 
Kirk was certain their limbo wouldn't last long, not since they were
heading back to the twin asteroids at full impulse--a trip that would
take less than twenty minutes.

Except for the hum of her generators, and the wheezing of her
malfunctioning air recyclers, the St.  Lawrence ran silent.

Data was in the copilot's chair.  None of the flight controls in front
of the pilot's chair were operational.  But Riker sat there anyway. 
Kirk knew why.  Picard's senior officer had the need to be at the
cutting edge of action.  And Kirk understood that compulsion.  Shared
it.

Kirk and Janeway were the only members of the runabout's crew not to be
strapped in someplace.  They stood together on the flush-mounted
platform of the emergency transporter. Janeway had linked her arm
through Kirk's.

Scott was positioned just ahead of them, a strap he had jury-rigged
from an away pack looped tightly around one hand.  The strap was wedged
between two wall panels, so that

no matter what happened, even if the gravity failed, Scott would still
be within reach of the transporter controls. Spock and T'Val had taken
the jump seats behind Data and Riker, for no reason other than as
Vulcans, they wouldn't admit to preferring not to sit up front, where
they might see their fate unfolding seconds before the end.  The mirror
Spock was flanked by McCoy and Beverly Crusher in the starboard
passenger seats, unable to see much of anything.  Both doctors were
ready to sedate the frail intendant, or otherwise care for him if the
ride became too rough. La Forge, with Deanna Troi, who had been
enlisted as the engineering assistant to both La Forge and Scott, had,
like Scott, made handhold straps to anchor themselves to the runabout's
deck near the engineering access panels. If they had to, the engineers
and the counselor had told Kirk they would keep the warp core together
with their bare hands. So the ten flew on, each at their own station,
each with their own thoughts.  After ten minutes of silence,
interrupted only by the creaking caused by the slow rise and fall of
the plasma displacement swells, a sensor alarm finally chimed.  But as
quickly as everyone automatically tensed in expectation, Riker
announced it was coolant temperature warning. La Forge reached over to
a small access panel, opened it, and made an adjustment.  The alarm
stopped. More silence. Then a second alarm sounded. "That's a mass
alert," Riker said. "Which one?"  McCoy asked. The delay as Riker
checked his readings was unbearable. But the answer was worth waiting
for. "It's the Voyager." Kirk and Janeway exchanged a look of relief,
and of nervous expectation.  Kirk had guessed from the attack formation
the two starships had taken up when they had tried to

312

snare the St.  Lawrence in a pincer that the Voyager would cover the
asteroids to the relative starboard. His guess had been right. Now, if
this was going to work, they would have their answer in only minutes.
Or they would never know anything again. Data began a running
commentary.  Now that contact had been made, everything was dependent
on proper timing.  "! am setting course toward the Voyager, one-quarter
impulse." The low speed had been part of Kirk's plan.  It would give
the commander of the Voyager ample time to change course and bear down
on the small runabout, prow first. Kirk was counting on that. When the
Voyager opened fire, he needed its torpedoes to approach in a clean,
direct, straight-ahead trajectory. "The Voyager is changing course to
meet us.  Holding at one-quarter impulse," Data said. Riker leaned over
to operate the sensor controls at the top of Data's board.  "Voyager's
phasers are online, but are not powering up," he said.  "Quantum
torpedo tubes are loaded." Another good sign, Kirk thought.  "How are
those shields, Commander?" "Forward shields at ninety-eight percent,"
Riker said as he read the console. Ninety-eight percent was an
impressive figure, and Kirk knew by the time the Voyager might possibly
fly by the runabout, and notice that she had no side or aft
shields--all power being forced to the forward screens--it would be too
late for her to do anything about it. "We're receiving a transmission,"
Data announced. "Refuse it," Kirk said quickly.  "Let's get them
worried. Commander Riker, if you please..." Riker cleared his throat,
then opened a channel to the mirror Voyager and, in his most guttural
Klingon, snarled, "Today is a good day to die!"

		"That got their attention," Data said.  "Their shields are up

	to full power, phasers coming online, and--"

		The first phaser blast made the runabout yaw, but Data

	expertly corrected for unwanted movement.

	"Shields holding at eighty-one percent.  Accelerating to

	half-impulse," he said, each measured response according to

	the script Kirk had set out.

	Now, Kirk hoped, whoever was commanding the Voyager

	would believe the St.  Lawrence was on a suicide mission, 	intending
only to collide head-on with the starship.

	In a sense, that was right.

	But not completely.

	"Phasers firing again," Data warned.

	This time, at closer range, the effect was more violent.

	But still Data held the runabout to her course and her

	proper orientation.

	"Shields at seventy-two percent.  They must be wondering

	what we've done to this ship," Data said.  Though in truth, to

	maintain high shield figures, Scott and La Forge had stolen

	power from almost every other system in the runabout, 	including
life-support.

	"What's the status of their torpedo tubes?"  Kirk asked.

	That was the key.  The only way this plan would work.

	"Still powered up, but no sign of launching." 	"Go to three-quarters '
	,, 		impulse, Kirk said.

	The whine of the runabout's engine began to rise in volume.

	"They're bringing their warp engines online," Data said.

	"That means they're getting ready to run," Kirk told him, and the rest
of the unknown commander's strategy was suddenly clear.  "They're
taking their phasers offline, aren't they?"

	"Phasers are offline," Data confirmed.

	Kirk pressed Janeway's arm closer to his side.  There were only
seconds remaining.  "Watch those torpedo tubes, Mr.

314

SPECTRE

Data.  They're getting ready to fire and warp to a safe distance."
There was a rising tone of excitement in Data's voice. "Torpedo tubes
are powering up!" "Stand by for warp!"  Kirk said.  "Scotty--energize!"
And then, just before the transporter effect drowned out all other
sound, Kirk heard Data call out, "Torpedoes launching!" and Kirk knew
the next three seconds would bring victory or oblivion. Whatever
happened, though, it would occur too fast for him to be aware of it. 
Which was why only Data could pilot this craft now.  Because only the
android had the speed and precision to do what had to be done in those
few moments of transport, in the culmination of Kirk's daring plan. The
first step of that plan required that the Voyager be enticed into
launching quantum torpedoes. And that was because whenever a torpedo
was launched, a momentary hole had to open up in a starship's forward
shields; otherwise the torpedo would hit the force field and explode
only a few hundred meters from the ship that fired it. But, since
torpedoes had warp capability, that opening would exist only for
hundredths of a second. Yet it was through that opening that Data now
aimed the runabout, because to an android, those few hundredths of a
second were like an eternity. Thus, even as Kirk and Janeway dissolved
into the transporter beam, Data pushed the runabout to warp, aiming
directly along the firing line of the Voyager's torpedoes to the
opening in the shields. It was a given that such a course would bring
the runabout into a collision course with the torpedo whose path it
traced. But torpedoes were set not to arm themselves until they were a
safe distance from their ships. The forward screens of the runabout hit
the selected torpedo.  Well within that safety zone.  Instead of
exploding,

	SPECTRE

as Kirk had anticipated the torpedo simply bounced off to one side. And
then, just as Kirk and Janeway had vanished from the transport
platform, Data found the gap in the shields, and the St.  Lawrence was
traveling within the Voyager's protective energy screen. The final
stage of Kirk's and Janeway's transport was preprogrammed and almost
instantaneous. As Data piloted the runabout up the slope of the
Voyager's primary hull, now shedding speed as quickly as possible, Kirk
and Janeway were beamed directly to the starship's bridge. And even as
Kirk and Janeway were thrown forward, stumbling across the bridge's
carpet, their trajectory halted only by the bridge's metallic
guardrails, Data had already found the weak points in the starship's
aft shields where the exhaust products of the warp and impulse drives
were allowed to escape. Operating at a speed that would cause human
observers to simply see his hands as a blur, Data fired full phasers at
those attenuated sections, knowing full well that shields were designed
to give way in response to pressure from within. Otherwise, a small
explosive device could be set off within a starship's shields, with the
full force of its blast reflected back toward the ship by an
impenetrable shell of energy. But all these technical details-- faced,
dealt with, and exploited in less than a second--existed only in Kirk's
mind. Because, by the time Kirk had fully materialized on the bridge of
the starship, Data was long gone with the St. Lawrence, having found
both his entry and his exit from the Voyager' s shields. On the bridge
of the duplicate Voyager, broad and sweeping, metallic in finish, and
accented by dark gray covering on the chairs and protective pads, Kirk
whirled around to see a bridge crew of Cardassians leap to their feet,
startled beyond belief at the sight of two humans who had apparently
done the impossible and beamed through shields.

316

Kirk's bandaged hands throbbed with pain, because he had used them to
stop his forward momentum from the transport. He doubted he would be
able to get in more than one or two good punches before the Cardassians
overpowered him. But with luck, if Janeway remembered what she was
supposed to do next, fighting Cardassians would not be among the things
Kirk would have to deal with. He looked past the gathering Cardassians
to see Janeway standing in the center of the bridge as if she belonged
there. A large Cardassian female rose from the command chair to face
Janeway.  Kirk assumed that she was the Voyager's commander.  And it
was apparent she didn't recognize Jane-way or understand what she might
be able to do. "Are you this eager to die, Terran?"  the Cardassian
commander said. Kirk put up no struggle as other Cardassian crew
members grabbed him and held him painfully in place against the
bridge's guardrails. It's all up to you, Kate, Kirk thought. Janeway
didn't disappoint him. Before the Cardassian commander could reach her,
Jane-way lifted her head and said, "Computer: Captain Kathryn Janeway
reporting for command duty as ordered.  Emergency condition red. 
Transport control to the brig: Clear bridge of unauthorized
Cardassians.  Disperse anesthezine gas in all other Cardassian-occupied
areas." Before the startled Cardassian commander could shout out her
countermanding order, the unflappable voice of the ship's computer
said, "Janeway, Kathryn, voiceprint confirmed." Then one by one, in
rapid succession, each Cardassian on the bridge vanished in a column of
light. Less than fifteen seconds had passed since Kirk had said
"energize."  And in that brief moment, James T.  Kirk had gone from
passenger on a doomed runabout to commander of a starship.

Then he caught the look of wonder growing on Janeway's face.

He understood why it was there.

And suddenly knew he couldn't deny her.

Standing alone in the middle of the bridge, Janeway turned to Kirk.

"What...  what do I do now?"

Kirk made his decision.  Unlike most other starships, the Intrepid
class, to which Voyager belonged, had no center chair.  Instead, it had
two chairs set back from the helm consoles, one for the commander, and
one for the first officer.

"The chair on the right," Kirk said.  "That's the one you want."

Janeway approached it, slowly, ran her hand along its arm. Through her,
Kirk relived his own moment of so long ago--on his first tour on the
Enterprise.  And even in the midst of all that was happening, he felt
honored to offer a similar moment to the next in line.

"Take it," he said.  "You belong there."

And so, fulfilling a dream so powerful it had crossed from one universe
to the next, once again, a Kathryn Janeway took command of a Starship
Voyager.

Kirk saw the expression of awe on the young woman's face as she
contemplated the possibilities before her.  Kirk knew as she did not
that what she had just done was only the beginning.

Kathryn Janeway had been given a starship.  Now, like all starship
captains throughout time and both universes, Kirk knew she would have
to earn it.

And he'd just bet Teilani's life that she would.

318 TWENTY-SEVEN

Picard thought of Worf, pictured Worf, became Worf.

Then, like Worf, but wearing the regent's armor over a lightweight
discharge suit, he swaggered through the airlock of his personal
quarters in the midst of the labor camp, and from its entry platform,
called out for the nearest guards.

At the same time, Picard hoped his ridiculous disguise would work. 
Except for Teilani's insistence, he would never even have thought that
such an impersonation would be possible, let alone have attempted it. 
Looking the same was one thing.  But there were so many subtleties of
identity, so many facts that his duplicate would know by second nature,
but that he would not.  Picard feared he would be exposed in the first,
inconsequential conversation he was forced to engage in.  And even if
he didn't have to speak, he felt the makeup Teilani had spread over the
cut on his nose marked him as an impostor at twenty paces.  She claimed
it would not be noticeable in the shifting, plasma-storm light of the
camp. He could only hope that would be true.

Surprising him with the speed of their response, two Klingons ran to
him along the plast eel walkway leading to his building.  Their heavy
boots pounded like thunder.  One of the Klingons was Krawl, killer of
ensigns.

"I'm half Klingon," Teilani reminded him, "so I know what the guards
here are like.  And I'm half Romulan, so I know what they think of me. 
Either give me both disruptors for protection, or take me with you as
your prisoner."

Picard had a strange feeling of apprehension as he drew one of his
backward-facing disruptors in her presence and held it on her.  But the
charade of making her his prisoner was the better of the two options. 
Left on her own, she was right--there was no way to be certain what
fate might befall her. "Then walk before me," he said.  "And remember,
keep your hands together so they appear tied."

Teilani nodded and started through the airlock.  Picard stepped through
after her, disruptor high, trying to be like every Klingon he had ever
met--with the possible exception of Worf's son, Alexander.  That boy
was far too gentle-mannered for a Klingon.

As they marched along the plast eel walkways that ran anywhere from two
to five meters above the asteroid's surface, Picard searched for any
sign that the guards were being called back to put on pressure suits,
in preparation of releasing the atmosphere.

"There doesn't seem to be anything different going on," he murmured to
Teilani.  "It's as if no one is aware of the escape."

"Or else, they've already dealt with it."

Picard winced at the thought.  He refused to accept the possibility
that any or all of his senior staff were lost to him, beyond help. 
"No," he said, as much for himself as for Teilani.  "They got away.  I
know it."

Teilani kept her head down like a well-trained prisoner, watching the
walkway, speaking softly so that only Picard could hear her.  "Then
perhaps the Cardassians who were with them were the regent's personal
guard, and they haven't reported back to the overseers."

"Then why haven't they reported back to me."?"

Teilani didn't have an answer for that.  She just kept walking.

SPECTRE

As they reached a long stretch of walkway without intersections, Picard
took a moment to look up at the sky.

And, as always, seeing his ship filled him with an inexpressible
longing.

It wasn't so much the fact that the magnificent vessel poised above him
was the Enterprise.  On her own, that name belonged to the ages, and he
was just one of a chain of her masters, from April, Pike, and Kirk, to
Harriman and Garrett, and who knew how many others there would be to
take his place in the years and the adventures to come.

But more than just that name and that history, it had been the very
idea of a starship that had compelled him to go into space.  To take up
the mission of Starfleet.

For a moment, as he gazed up at his ship, he recalled pacing her
bridge, no more than two weeks ago, anxious for some other mission,
some other challenge.

Something worthy of a starship.

And what was happening here was not worthy of anything or anyone.  This
travesty had to end.  Here and now.

"Eyes front, Jean-Luc."

The whispered warning had come from Teilani, who had caught him
continuing to stare up at the Enterprise so close to the bizarre
construction Picard's crew had labeled the crossover device.  Picard
looked ahead, beyond Teilani, and saw that they were coming to a plast
eel platform that served as an intersection among the walkways--the
final one before they would reach the main control building where the
shift alarm controls were located.  All Picard had to do was get to
that building and activate the alarm, not with one long blast, but
three short ones.

That was the signal that would begin the escape attempt before the
shift was over.  That was the moment his people were waiting for.

Provided nothing went wrong.

But as he saw the delta-shift overseer and one of the Klingon guards
standing on that final platform, supporting

	322 Picard's counterpart, Picard had the sudden feeling that
something had already gone terribly wrong. He shoved Teilani ahead to
quicken their pace as if he really were her keeper, then made no effort
to hide his displeasure with both Klingons.  "How dare you stop without
orders!" But Krawl was looking at Picard with equal displeasure-- and
given that Krawl was an overseer and Picard a regent, that look was
almost an act of insubordination. "Picard woke up," Krawl said. "And
what were your orders if that happened?"  Picard demanded.  . Krawl did
not respond with any sense of deference.  "I take orders from the
regent." Picard looked at his counterpart.  The regent was disoriented,
barely able to stand without the help of both Klingons. A long thread
of spittle hung from his mouth.  Picard felt relieved that nothing of
import would be coming from his duplicate for hours to come.  He
gathered his energy and seized the initiative.  He only hoped he was
not too late. "Were my orders to put that Terran back to sleep too
complex for your feeble minds?"  Picard shrieked. Krawl grabbed the
true regent by the front of his discharge suit.  The man's head lolled
to one side.  "I had an altercation with Captain Picard at the
beginning of the delta shift," Krawl said.  "A violent altercation."
"That's all these Terran scum understand," Picard said. Krawl shook the
regent.  "But it has become apparent that this one isn't Terran."
Picard made no move to draw his twin disruptors, but he drew strength
from knowing both were there.  "Explain yourself, or get back to your
duties." "I used my agonizer probe on Picard," Krawl said.  "I hit him
across the face.  Slashed him across the face.  But his Wound has
already healed!

324

If that's the best you have, Picard thought with sudden, deep hope, you
don't have anything. "The electrostatic field in these asteroids,"
Picard bluffed. "It affects the healing process, especially in
Terrans." But Krawl pushed forward until he was almost nose to nose
with Picard.  "If that's the case, Regent, then why is that cut on your
nose not yet healed?  Could the makeup you've used to disguise it be
slowing the healing process?" Picard knew there was no time to check
the area, to see who else might be watching this confrontation on the
platform. He knew that the instant he turned his attention from Krawl
and the guard was the instant the overseer would attack. Which meant he
had only one option. Picard brought his gloved fist up into the
overseer's nose, doing no useful damage, but causing considerable pain.
Krawl's head snapped back, and after only a split second's hesitation
as he grabbed his nose, the Klingon overseer whipped his agonizer probe
from his belt and spun it around so its crackling induction tips faced
Picard. Beside Krawl, the Klingon guard did the same. But both of them
had taken too long. Because as they faced Picard with their agonizer
probes, Picard faced them with both disruptors drawn. "Drop them,"
Picard said. Krawl answered by slashing his probe toward Teilani. She
ducked back, flipping over the platform railing like a gymnast so the
probe swept by her without connecting. "Wrong move," Picard said. "Then
shoot me, and attract the attention of all the guards."  Krawl feinted
with the probe and Picard stepped back, knowing that if he fired the
disruptor even once, he would have to be prepared to fire it until it
was exhausted. And then, as if fireworks were suddenly going off,
flashes of red and blue light played over the platform.

Teilani was quickly pulling herself up from the asteroid's metal
ground.  She wasn't wearing a discharge suit, so she had only seconds
to reach the insulated safety of the plast eel platform before she
would begin to draw tendrils of charged plasma. "Jean-Luc," she said
breathlessly, gazing straight up. "Look up!" But Picard kept his eyes
locked on Krawl's. "The Enterprise," Teilani insisted.  "It's moving!"
Only by force of will did Picard refrain from looking up. Only by
intense concentration did he not look at Teilani as she finished
climbing back to the platform. But Krawl looked up, and Picard felt
sick as he saw the overseer's face contort into a hideous grin of black
and broken teeth.  "You lose, Terran.  She's ours." It was too much for
Picard. He had to look up. And the Enterprise was alive above him. Her
nacelles, dark only moments ago, were now glowing red and blue with the
power of antimatter annihilation.  With the power that was needed to
fly among the stars themselves. But she was flying alone now, without
him, sliding forward toward the gaping monstrosity that was the
crossover device, leaving her captain behind, forever. "No..."  Picard
said.  She couldn't go yet.  He had made his plans.  He was going to
get her back. "Jean-Luc!"  Teilani shouted in warning. Picard dropped
his gaze just in time to see Krawl lunge for him, agonizer probe
leading the way, one hand curled into a savage claw to tear at his eyes
so he would never see anything again. Picard had no choice, no time for
thought. And he fired both disruptors from the hip. Two incandescent
shafts of twisted golden energy writhed forward, catching the Klingon
overseer in mid-leap, splashing, flashing across his body like a
ravenous liquid, engulfing

326

SPECTRE

him even as that light burrowed deep within, to bring hellfire to his
eyes, his mouth, a dozen random places on his body, so that light
streamed from him, dissolving him, changing him, if just for an
instant, into a luminous being. Krawl was gone before he could fall to
the ground. The only sound of his destruction was the thud of his
agonizer probe hitting, then rolling along the platform until it
dropped off the side and clattered onto the asteroid's metallic
surface. The disruptors were warm in Picard's hands, and he realized
with a fierce sense of satisfaction that he did not regret what he had
done.  He only wished it had lasted longer. The delta-shift overseer
had deserved to die more slowly. More painfully.  Picard owed that to
his young ensign.  And to all others whom Krawl had tortured before
that. And then he heard the sound of one man applauding. Hollow,
mocking. "You liked that, didn't you?" It was his counterpart. 
Recovered.  Still dazed, but now fully upright on the platform, with
the Klingon guard beside him. "You proved my point," the regent said. 
"We are exactly the same, deep inside." Picard trembled with an emotion
he could not name.  But it left him feeling naked and exposed. His
counterpart pushed the Klingon guard forward.  "Go ahead.  Do it again.
Feel the power, Jean-Luc.  The control." Picard longed to throw the
disruptors away.  But he couldn't.  He needed them.  Not to kill.  But
torn He looked up to see his ship sliding forward, into the maw of the
device. That's why he needed the weapons.  To stop that from happening.
To stop the loss of everything he cared for. Everything he had left.
Beside him, Teilani urged him to act.  "Just shoot them, Jean-Luc. 
Both of them.  We have to go." But the mirror Picard mocked him. 
"That's a good excuse,

Jean-Luc.  Shoot them.  Shoot me.  Kill me the way you killed your
brother and his nephew." Picard held the disruptors to his ears to shut
out the awful things his counterpart was saying.  "I didn't kill them! 
I wasn't there!  I couldn't know!" His counterpart started forward. 
"Liar," he taunted Picard. "You can't fool me.  I can read your mind,
Jean-Luc." Picard shoved one disruptor under his arm, fumbled with the
setting of the other. And for that moment he was defenseless. "Take
him!"  his counterpart shouted at the Klingon guard. The guard leapt
forward. Picard swung out the disruptor. Teilani's elbow found the
Klingon's temple and crushed it with a single blow. The guard hit the
platform without even a whimper or the sigh of death. Picard held the
disruptor on his counterpart. His duplicate self looked up.  To the
ship.  The ship. "You're losing her, Jean-Luc.  You'd better run."
Picard could not fire, not certain what setting he had made in all the
confusion. He could not look up because he couldn't bear to lose his
ship. So he reached out for Teilani's hand and, pulling her along with
him, began to run toward the command center. His boots struck the
walkway like claps of thunder.  His breath came in lung-searing gasps.
But all he could hear was his counterpart's scornful laughter as its
echo pursued him. And far away, the cries of Robert and Rene and
everyone else he had lost and abandoned in his life. Jean-Luc Picard
raced to save the Enterprise. But he ran to redeem his life.

328

TWENTY-EIGHT

"Is there something I can help you with?"  Deanna Troi asked. Thirty
minutes after he and Janeway had surprised and rounded up the mirror
Voyager's twenty-two-member skeleton crew of Cardassians, courtesy of
automated transporter control, Janeway was in the command chair.  Spock
was seated beside her, as acting first officer.  T'Val was across the
bridge, alone at the conn.  And the others from the St. Lawrence were
scattered throughout the ship--Scott and La Forge in engineering; McCoy
and Beverly Crusher in sickbay with the mirror Spock, and the few
Cardassians who had not responded well to the anesthezine; and Riker
and Data on security detail, monitoring the dazed prisoners now waking
up in the brig. Those prisoners who were conscious were still not too
sure what had happened to them.  Riker reported to the bridge that he
was taking delight in giving the captive Cardassians a two-word answer:
Captain Kirk. Kirk had taken up position at the security tactical
station on the starship's bridge.  If he had been in a mood to consider
such things, he would have had to admit he liked this new design, with
duty stations set up so they faced the forward viewscreen.  Though the
rest of his team was actually running

the ship, Kirk found that even looking up at that main screen was
giving him the feeling that he, too, could be involved in their
mission.

Even though he wasn't.

Even though he no longer cared that he wasn't.

Kirk held up his bandaged hands to Deanna, nodded to the sensor
display.  "I can't figure out the voice command for getting the main
sensors to recalibrate the resolution settings for plasma-storm
interference.  If you could...  just run your finger along that green
band..."

Deanna reached past him, recalibrated the sensor resolution as he
instructed.  "Like this?"

At least a thousand data points suddenly sprayed across Kirk's graph. 
He began to study them intently.

Deanna smiled at him.  "From the relief I'm picking up from you, I
guess so."

"Thank you," Kirk said without looking at her.  He knew the smile he
gave her was perfunctory, but the sensor board was all that was
important now.  That's where the truly relevant information would be
displayed.  Where he would find the data that would restore him to
life.

Because, right now, he was only a shell.  Empty of everything vital.

Despite the slowness of the data updates on his sensor board, Kirk had
no interest in the bridge's main screen.  All it now showed was a
visual image, distorted by plasma interference. When Kirk had squinted
at it through half-closed eyes, he had almost been able to believe he
could see an extremely crude rendition of the twin asteroids, so close
together it was as if there were no separation between them at all.

The mirror Voyager was less than 100,000 kilometers away from those
asteroids, yet the resolution of the main-screen image made it seem as
if the asteroids were millions of kilometers more distant.

At least the same interference that degraded the visual sensors was
keeping the Voyager safe from the Sovereign.  That

330 SPECTRE

renegade ship, which might or might not be under the command of the
revived mirror-universe counterpart of Fleet Admiral Nechayev, still
patrolled the region around the asteroids.  But because of the
Sovereign's size, nearly twice that of Voyager, the smaller starship
would easily detect the Sovereign before the larger ship could detect
her.

Still, none of this had any real meaning for Kirk.  Since beaming
aboard and ensuring that the bridge was secure, he had delegated the
remaining actions of the boarding party to Janeway and Spock.  Then he
turned his full attention to adjusting the nonvisual life-sign
subroutines in the main sensor array.  In just a half hour, he had been
able to improve the resolution of that data band to pick out
individuals among the asteroid's prisoners and guards--not by visual
image, but by life-sign signature.

This was the reason he had come this far.  The only reason. But he had
not found what he had been so desperate to find.

"You musn't feel so frustrated about your hands," Deanna said to him.

Startled by her pronouncement, Kirk looked down at them now.  They were
little more than thickly bandaged claws, his flame-ravaged fingers only
abstractions within their wrappings, newly numbed by whatever McCoy had
injected into them.  "Why shouldn't I be upset?"  he asked without
urgency, not referring to his hands at all.

"Because they'll get better."

Kirk knew that, of course.  McCoy had enough artificial body parts in
him to set up a used-organ store.  These weren't the days of Chris
Pike.  He had no doubt that he could have his hands repaired, or even
grow a new pair, if that's what it took. Eventually.  His physical self
was not beyond restoration.

But whatever it was that dwelled within the flesh, be that flesh old or
new, real or artificial, that was a mystery that not even the science
of the twenty-fourth century had begun to address. What good was a hand
without another to hold?

What good was a heart, without love to quicken its beat?

Without such things, Kirk cared for nothing anymore. He felt his
world, his will to continue, collapsing, and he couldn't even lean
forward and rest his head on his hands. How could he finish clearing
his lot on Chal with hands like these?  How could he dare take on the
challenge of removing that last, remaining, insufferably stubborn
stump? And what could any of that mean without Teilani? The
overwhelming emotion of loss that dear, sweet, wide-eyed Deanna Troi
was responding to in him had nothing to do with any deficiency in his
physical self. But everything to do with the loss of his soul. "Irony?"
Deanna asked.  "It's coming off you in waves." Kirk held up his hands,
as if in losing them, he had lost the ability to hold on to life, to
hold on to the woman he loved. "All I ever wanted was to be able to
touch life, build something, create something with these." Deanna was
unconvinced.  "That's not all you ever wanted. Not really."  She
scanned Kirk's sensor board with all its individual life-form traces,
filtered by age, sex, and species. Watching her, Kirk realized that the
technological display, at least, could make obvious what his emotional
state could not, so he was not surprised at her next question. "Who are
you looking for?" Kirk hesitated, wondering if he could ever explain to
anyone else what Teilani had become to him.  How could that simple
question be answered in mere words? Quietly waiting for his answer, it
seemed to Kirk that Deanna had no interest in going elsewhere on the
bridge or in the ship until he responded, as if she had somehow chosen
the well-being of James T.  Kirk as her own personal mission. Kirk
studied her face, noting the dark alien heritage of her empathetic
eyes, as distinctive as Spock's ears.  "You're the ship's counselor,
aren't you." "On the Enterprise at least." "We didn't have one of those
on my Enterprise."

SPECTRE

Deanna smiled at him, she was always smiling, and somewhere in the back
of his mind, in whatever subroutines of his own that were still
running, Kirk recognized it as a comforting smile.  "Of course you had
a counselor," she said.  "Except on your Enterprise, he was probably
called the ship's doctor. And he most likely concentrated on keeping
the command staff stable." Kirk frowned.  He wondered if the counselor
had ever loved as he had loved Teilani.  He wondered if she had ever
lost that love, lost all meaning to her life, been caught in a despair
so dark and deep that not even the fiery birth of a sun could
illuminate its depths. But she was looking at him now as if she did
know, as if every terrible thought that had tormented him in this past
half hour were laid bare before her.  He felt exposed, dissected, like
a sample on display in some ancient naturalist's study. Kirk was
suddenly grateful that he hadn't had a counselor as advanced as this
one on his ship. But Deanna didn't appear to care what he thought. 
Only what he felt.  "Who are you looking for?"  she asked again.  Her
smile was gone. Kirk hesitated only a moment, then used his elbow to
activate Teilani's personnel screen--one he had created himself.  Let's
see if this charming, persistent expert can sense real loss, he thought
bitterly.  He believed she wouldn't have a chance. Kirk stared down at
the picture of Teilani that accompanied the sensor board's personnel
display.  The image had been recorded only a few months ago, in Chal's
blissful summer.  She had been outside their cabin, currying Iowa
Dream, emphatically warning Kirk that he absolutely, positively, must
not take her picture while her hair was a mess and she was all sweaty.
But Kirk had taken it anyway. Teilani had retaliated by attacking him
with a bucket of water, and he had laughed so hard she had pinned him
easily,

333 demanding the sensor camera, insisting that she would erase that
image. But the day had been warm, the weather clear.  And very quickly
they had surrendered to the magic of being in each other's arms. Much
later, when they had stirred themselves from the blanket they had
spread upon the ground, and made their way to the clear and rushing
stream to swim, Teilani had forgotten all about the sensor camera and
the picture. But neither one of them had forgotten that day. Neither
one ever forgot those timeless gifts tat came to them so easily. That
image had become Kirk's favorite picture of her.  A perfect moment in a
perfect day. The counselor surprised him.  "Oh my," Deanna said softly,
her cheeks red.  Kirk had no doubt what Deanna was reacting to.  He
would never forget those moments, those eternities, in Teilani's
embrace.  Never.  "Teilani, of course. We met during the virogen
crisis.  And you believed she would be in the camp." Of course that
what I believed, Kirk thought in sudden despair.  Why else would I come
here, have risked what I have risked?  "It was the only place that made
any sense," he told her.  Then he found himself, under the counselor's
compassionate gaze, outlining all the reasoning, all the details he had
learned from the mirror-universe rebels, that had led him to conclude
that the prison camp would be the one and only place where Teilani
would be taken. Deanna continued to watch him intently all through his
explanations, and the comprehension in her eyes was so absolute that
Kirk was forced to wonder if she had learned how to actually read
minds. "You're certain she's not in the camp?"  Deanna asked. Kirk
tapped another control with his elbow, read out the figures that were
displayed.  "Three thousand, two hundred, and fifty-two individuals are
in that camp.  Two thousand and

334

SPECTRE

twenty-two are human.  Fifteen are Bolian.  A handful of humanoids are
so close to human it doesn't matter.  And the rest, the guards, are
Klingons, Cardassians, and thirty-five Bajorans." "And you couldn't
have missed her among all of those?" "I programmed the computer
myself," Kirk said, making no attempt to hide his desolation.  He
wanted there to be some way it would be caught up by Deanna's empathic
ability and taken from him forever, so he would never feel anything
again. "Teilani's parents were Klingon and Romulan.  A distinctive mix.
But the computer can't find anyone who matches her criteria."  He took
a deep breath, felt the tremor that passed through him.  A tremor he
did not want to acknowledge. A tremor Deanna Troi understood.  Felt. 
Shared with him. "Captain Kirk..."  she said in a low voice, as if
somewhere a child were sleeping.  "Why do you think she's dead?" Deanna
might as well have torn out his heart for asking that question.
"Because she was kidnapped," he said, and if there was any emotion left
in him, it was nothing he felt.  "Because she was taken by people who
told me not to interfere in the politics of the mirror universe."  He
closed his eyes as if that act might banish existence itself. 
"Politics I helped create."  But existence continued and he opened his
eyes and looked at Deanna.  "And I did interfere.  By going with the
Sovereign.  By fighting Nechayev.  By stealing the St.  Lawrence and
taking this ship."  Kirk's hands would have become fists, but his hands
were useless.  He was useless.  "Because I thought I could beat them
the way I've always beaten everyone who's ever stood in my way." Kirk
drove his elbow down on the console and that perfect image of Teilani,
taken on that perfect day on that perfect world, vanished from the
screen. From his life. From his future. "Not every possibility has been
'explored," Deanna said.

"By the time we're finished here, it won't matter.  Wherever they have
her, she is dead." Deanna stood by his side for several more minutes,
studying the individual sensor returns from the prisoners and the
guards in the camp hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.  But she
said nothing more, and Kirk could guess why. There was nothing she
could say that could bring Kirk back from the hell he had created.
Nothing, and she knew it. "I'm...  so sorry," she said, placing a hand
lightly on his shoulder.  And then she moved away, to the forward
station beside T'Val at the conn. Kirk spent the next moments counting
Klingons and Cardassians. Wondering what it would be like to kill each
one of them.  Personally. Then Scott and La Forge reported in over the
comm channels from the lower sensor platform behind the main array. "Go
ahead, Mr.  Scott," Kirk heard Janeway acknowledge. In less than an
hour in that chair, his erstwhile kidnapper had fallen into the ease of
command. "Geordi and I have taken the liberty of narrowing the
bandwidth of what the sensor dish can pick up," Scott explained.  "I
mean, there's precious little that gets through the plasma storms as it
is." Kirk looked up from his sensor screen.  Trust Scotty.  That
sounded like a worthwhile modification.  He was glad that some people
still had purpose in their lives. "Understood, Mr.  Scott," Janeway
said.  "You're giving us the capability to see in greater detail but
over a smaller range of wavelengths." "Right ye are," Scott said.  "So,
since we seem to be getting all the right readings down where we are
now, we thought we'd throw the big picture up on the main screen."
"It's not as if we'd be missing anything," Janeway said. "What we've
got up here now is like looking through mud."

336

SPECTRE

"Well, lass, let's just see if we can do somethin' about that ....  "
The main screen flickered--nothing new about that in the Goldin
Discontinuity.  Then a new image appeared and remained. Kirk glanced up
at it, only because it was new.  A distraction. The image was
monochromatic--a wash of blue gray. But it was clear.  And compared
with what they'd been receiving, it was crisp. It was also chilling.
Quite clearly, this new image showed the Enterprise, floating between
the asteroids, undoubtedly held in place by some complex arrangement of
tractor beams and antigravs. And just as clearly, the image showed that
the Enterprise was moving, very slowly, into the device that not even
the close sensor scan from the St.  Lawrence had been able to identify.
Kirk saw Spock stand up and walk closer to the screen. "They are about
to achieve their goal," he stated matter-of-factly. "If, indeed, that
device can be used to transfer ships between the universes, at the rate
the Enterprise is moving into it, in less than an hour she will be
gone." Janeway stood up and joined Spock.  Still seated at the security
tactical station, out of the real arena of action, Kirk shifted
restlessly, remembering when he would have been the one standing with
Spock like that, gazing into the mysteries of the universe, determining
how to control them. "The Enterprise," Janeway said in reverence, in
fear.  "No resistance group in my universe can stand up to her." T'Val
was also riveted by the image on the screen, and by all it meant to her
universe and her struggle.  "They've won, Kate.  And there's nothing we
can do." Kirk stood up.  He could no longer hold back while the future
unfolded.  The wrong way.  Without his involvement. "Of course there's
something you can do."  Kirk's voice was decisive.

SPECTRE

WILLIAM SHATNER

Janeway, Spock, and T'Val turned to him.

"Destroy them," he said, his voice firm, steady, filled with
experience.  "Crush their camp, their device, and if you have to, the
Enterprise herself.  But how dare you stand there and give up!"

Only Spock stepped away from the others to face him. "Captain, I have
studied the sensor scan we made of their camp during our flyby in the
runabout.  Any attack on the generators that power that device,
whatever its purpose, will collapse the atmospheric force field

"So?"  Kirk asked.

"The prisoners will die."

Kirk moved down the steps, onto the main level with the others, leaving
behind the sensor board and its empty displays of damning data.

"Not all of them.  Riker and the others, they said the barracks were
pressurized."

"The majority of the prisoners are civilians, Jim," Spock said.  "To
lose one civilian's life is unacceptable."

"What is it to lose a billion civilian lives?"  Kirk asked.  His gaze
measured the Vulcan who had been his friend for longer than he could
remember, and the woman who had been given the greatest opportunity
fate could bestow and yet did not know how to use it.  "Because that's
what they'll do with the Enterprise and you know it.  The Alliance
won't be using her to seek out new life, new civilizations.  They'll
use her to hunt down the resistance and end it.  They'll take her into
the Badlands and destroy the mirror Defiant.  They'll track down the
headquarters of the Vulcan resistance and obliterate it.

"They'll use that ship for every purpose Starfleet turns a blind eye
toward.  To change the orbits of worlds.  To stop the fusion of suns. 
To wipe even the slightest memory of Terrans and Vulcans from the
history of the galaxy."

Kirk gestured angrily with his useless hands, not caring if their
trailing bandages made him seem as if he were some decaying corpse from
an earlier time best forgotten.

338 He measured the two before him, and saw himself in the middle,
between them--James T.  Kirk, finally defeated by the loss of the one
thing that could never be explained, never be replaced.

After a century and a half of fighting his war with the universe, Kirk
had no doubt that the universe had won.

Yet there was something in him still that refused to allow those around
him to be defeated as well.  Not while he could still make a
difference.  If not for himself and Teilani, then at least for
others.

"I know how offensive it sounds," Kirk said to Spock.  "I know how
wrong you think it is to put the blood of innocent people on your
hands.  But you don't know the Alliance."  He felt his body shudder
involuntarily with the intensity of the words he spoke.  "You don't
know what it means to hate."

Now he spoke not to his friends, his allies, but to the stars that had
always waited for him, to claim the dust of his life, his dreams, his
bones, and hold them all in their uncaring, disinterested embrace.

"But after all this time," Kirk said, "I do."

TWENTY-NINE

Picard hit the pressure door hard, with his shoulder.  Forced the door
open, jumped inside, then raced through the air-lock's transfer chamber
to leap into the wedge-shaped room beyond--a cluttered storage area
with rows of spacesuits hung along two of its walls. Three Cardassians
seated at flashing consoles to one side of the doorway spun round to
face him, their hands already reaching for the disruptors at their
sides. But Picard drew both his own weapons and fired first, energy
beams lancing through the air, dissolving the enemy even as their
flailing limbs reached out for life. Picard granted them none. Then
Teilani was at his side. "What is this building?"  he asked her, eyes
never resting as he scanned the storage area and its haphazard stacks
of equipment, each panel of its monitoring equipment ablaze with
flashing displays and status lights. "It's camp headquarters," Teilani
said.  The area they were in, she explained, the area they had just
taken, was one of seven wedges sliced out of the outer rim of the
circular building.  "And behind one of those doors is the main control
room."

340

SPECTRE

Picard fixed his gaze on the storage area's third wall and the three
small pressure doors set into it.  At least three-quarters of the
building's volume was hidden behind them.  And he knew there was
another full level above.  The enemy could be anywhere. He started
forward through the disorderly rows of equipment, a disruptor in each
hand, looking for anyone who might be hiding behind a crate.  The
Cardassians he'd killed near the doorway had been busy at small
workstations, a tray of food scattered to one side, a stack of
isolinear chips sprayed across the floor to another. But he had no
sense of what they had been doing here.  No idea if their work had
involved what was happening to his ship, only a kilometer overhead.
Picard made his choice.  "Right door," he said.  The floor in front of
it seemed to be the most distressed, as if it had seen the highest
traffic.  Perhaps the controls he needed would be behind it. He was
just about to fire at that right-hand door when he heard running feet
behind him, approaching the open airlock. Not the soft pad of a
prisoner's discharge suit, but the heavy clang of metal-shod boots.
"Get down!"  he shouted to Teilani, then ran out of the storage area,
back to the transfer chamber, where he dropped to one knee to brace a
disruptor across his forearm as he drew a bead and-- Three Klingons
flew up into the air, blown off the plast eel walkway outside the
airlock as Picard's withering fusillade of disruptor fire struck them.
Picard saw other guards on the run across the walkways, all heading
toward their camp's headquarters. He stood up in the open airlock to
give himself a better angle and fired both disruptors again, slicing
the walkway directly in front of him in half, cutting through it so the
far side collapsed onto the asteroid's metal ground.

He stepped back into the airlock entrance and fired straight down
again to blast the plast eel platform.

Now the command building was isolated from all the others.  Alone in
the center of the camp.

He glanced up, saw the Enterprise being pulled into the crossover
device like an insect being devoured by a carnivorous plant.

Then he backed up, retracing his steps to Teilani, methodically closing
each mammoth rolling door behind him, and fusing their controls so
whoever came after him into the building would have to carve through
its metal walls, or wait until he had used the emergency levers to open
the doors from the inside.

When he entered the storage area, he reached behind his head and ripped
off the hateful braid of his counterpart's white hair.

Teilani looked at him questioningly.

But Picard knew there was no time to discuss the situation. The rest of
his disguise--his Klingon armor--was lightweight, and would provide
some protection against disruptor fire.  And the regent's discharge
suit he wore beneath it was sleeker and lighter than the first one he
had been forced to wear as a prisoner.  He might be facing impossible
odds, but he was well equipped.  And it was time to use that
equipment.

Picard focused his attention on the third door on the storage area's
back wall.  He needed to start the escape attempt, if only to add to
the guards' confusion.

He raised his disruptors.

"After what's gone on out here, they'll be ready for us," Teilani said.
 Her voice was even, without fear.

Picard looked at her, and remembered who she really was. Not a frail
prisoner to be rescued.  But a warrior to be reckoned with.

He flipped a disruptor around, caught it by its barrel, then tossed it
to Teilani.

She plucked it easily from the air, spun it again, and SPECTRE

expertly rolled her thumb over its power gauge, setting it to FULL.

"They won't be expecting both of us," Picard said.

Then he sprinted toward a crate, leapt over it, and took up a firing
position to the left of the target door.

On the other side of the door, Teilani rolled over another crate to the
floor and crouched behind it with both hands on her own weapon, ready
to create a deadly crossfire.

Impressed again by her attitude, Picard targeted the door controls.

Got ready to fire.

And then, very slowly, creaking only slightly, the target door sighed
open, and Picard's aim wavered as he heard a voice from the room speak
to him.

"Come in, Captain.  I've been expecting you.  And you're late."

Picard recognized that voice and lowered his disruptor.

He abandoned his cover and stood slightly to one side of the open
doorway, preparing himself to meet Gul Rutal.

One last time.

They were all on the bridge now.  All yelling at each other in a way
that would be unthinkable for starship crews, even in Kirk's time.

"And what if we meet up with the Sovereign?"  Scott demanded.

"She'll be just as disadvantaged as we are," Kirk said. "And at least
we'll have taken the first shots."

"Our captain is down there," Data argued.  "This attack could kill him
along with the rest."

"Look," Kirk said to the android, "I'm five seconds from getting into a
shuttlecraft and doing this myself.  Picard's already dead.  All those
prisoners on that asteroid, the moment the Enterprise has crossed over,
they've served their purpose.  Accept it.  They're already dead.  But
at least my way, 	342 some of them might make it through the attack. 
And the Alliance won't have the Enterprise."  Kirk looked at Janeway.
"We've got the coordinates of their generators from that flyby we did. 
We'll shoot at the backups first.  Get their attention. Let them start
whatever evacuation procedures they have so as many prisoners as
possible can get back to their barracks in safety."

McCoy pounded his fist on the railing he stood beside. "Dammit, Jim. 
Listen to yourself.  'Some' of the prisoners? Do you know how many
people could die down there if we attack?"

Kirk glared at McCoy.  "Do you know how many will die if we don't
attack?"

"You can't know that."

"Yes, I can."  He turned to Janeway.  "You've fought the Alliance.  You
know what they're like.  And whether you want it or not, this is your
ship.  Start the attack, Kate.  Start the attack or your resistance
movement is finished and your universe is lost!"

Kirk looked her in the eyes and knew this was her moment. Everything
she would become in her new life would flow from this next second.

The bridge was silent.

No one dared speak.

Until the commander of the Voyager had made her decision.

And she made it.

"Battle stations," she said.  "They're not getting the Enterprise."

Janeway turned to her chair as T'Val ran for the conn. Beverly Crusher
reached out to take Janeway's shoulder, forced her to turn and look at
her.  "You're going to kill all those people ...."

Janeway pushed Crusher's hand away.  "I didn't start this war."

344 SPECTRE

Everyone on the bridge looked at Kirk.

Everyone knew whose war it was.

Picard kept his disruptor pointing down though he could hear scuffling
in the control room beyond.  He was careful not to betray Teilani's
presence as he heard her take up a new position behind him.

"I won't let you take my ship," he said.

"We've had this conversation," Rutal said from somewhere deep within
the control room.

Picard chanced a glance through the open door.  Saw a circular control
area ringed by display screens.

On them, he could see guards and prisoners caught up in a mad melee. 
This was the room he had been looking for. Somewhere inside, on one of
its consoles, would be the control he needed to signal for the escape
to begin.

"Why don't you come in?  So we can talk about something new?"  Rutal
said.

"Long enough to let your guards cut through the doors outside?"  Picard
asked.

"I don't need my guards to deal with you." "Then why don't you come out
here?" "Captain Picard, really.  You have a disruptor." "And you
don't?"

A shadow moved by the consoles in the room.  Picard resisted the
impulse to fire at it.

"Mine isn't as big as yours," the Cardassian Gul said.  Her voice now
seemed to be coming from farther away, another location.

Picard didn't know why the enemy was moving, what her plan was. 
Perhaps there was another exit from the control room.  But he had to do
something to take the initiative.

"You have five seconds to leave the control room," Picard said.  "Then
I am going to throw in a particle grenade."  He had seen some of the
camp guards carrying the small but

deadly devices, designed to kill organic beings with a minimum of
explosive damage.  He trusted the Gul might believe he had managed to
obtain one.

But her reply suggested she had another strategy in mind. "You have
five seconds to drop your weapon, or I will kill you."

The five seconds passed.

"It seems both our bluffs have been called," Picard said.  He needed to
hear Rutal speak again, so he would know where to fire when he ran into
the room.

"But one of us wasn't bluffing," the Gul answered.

To the left, Picard thought.

He began to picture himself rolling in through the door, coming up on
his feet, firing to the left at whatever moved. He got ready to spring
forward. "Jean-Luc!"  Teilani cried.  "Get down!"

Picard dropped to the floor as a blaze of disruptor energy tore through
the air above him and struck a figure who had appeared in the center
door of the storage area's back wall.

Of course, he thought angrily as he ducked and ran toward the center
door.  He had been blinded by the obvious trap--three doors usually
meant three rooms.

But here, all three opened onto one room--the control room.

Picard didn't know who it was that Teilani had just shot, but he pushed
his way through the first door on the left, into the control room, and
swept his weapon back and forth, ready to shoot Rutal if she was still
present.

And she was.  Alone.  Her arrogance assuming she could dispatch a mere
Terran like Picard by herself.  Starship captain or not.

The armor in the Gul's chest piece still glowed from Teilani's beam. 
But her armor had held and now Rutal raised SPECTRE

her disruptor at Picard.  "A pity you won't live to see me in command
of your ship," she said.

Picard fired.

A golden halo of energy flared around her.

But didn't stop her.

Picard's disruptor cut out, recycling.

"My turn," Rutal said with a terrible smile.  She raised her weapon.

Picard lurched to the side as he heard the air crackle beside him.

"You're merely delaying the inevitable," Rutal said.

Picard knelt behind a small console, hearing her footsteps clump
nearer.

The console creaked as Rutal fired directly into it.  Picard leapt up
and fired back.

Again the Gul was enveloped by energy.  Again her armor protected
her.

But then the glow around Rutal suddenly increased as a second beam hit
her from behind.

Teilani.

Rutal's eyes widened in surprise and she whirled around to see Teilani
in the middle doorway, firing point-blank.

Quickly, Picard seized his chance to set his disruptor to full
discharge.

As Rutal raised her weapon against Teilani, Picard moved forward.

No matter how effective Rutal's armor was against disruption, it would
not be able to dissipate the heat generated from two full-power
beams.

The Gul dropped to her knees, mouth open, gasping for air. But Picard
and Teilani kept up their joint barrage. Rutal's armor failed.

For a brief, shining moment, the Gul was replaced by a glowing
sculpture of herself, a final echo of the energy that consumed her.

Then she was gone.

	346 Picard didn't even waste time staring at the empty space she had
occupied.  He moved swiftly to the closest console, sounded out the
Cardassian script on it, selected WORK O'ETIOdS from the menu it
described. He punched in the commands that would accelerate the shift
change. Even in the control room, insulated within the camp's command
building, Picard heard the three loud bellows of the shift alert. It
was one of the signals his crew had been instructed to respond to. He
watched the console displays as sudden images of insurrection appeared.
Two prisoners suddenly turned on a guard.  Another guard was jumped
before he could draw his weapon. More prisoners scattered across the
asteroid's surface, heading for the gravity tether that led to the
Enterprise.  "It's working," Teilani said beside him. "Best crew in the
Fleet," Picard said with proud satisfaction. Then the control-room
floor shook with the sound of a distant explosion. Picard beamed.  He
and Data had assumed it would take at least twenty minutes for the
prisoners to be able to sabotage the camp's main generators powering
the tractor beams that held the Enterprise in place.  "They're well
ahead of schedule." The backup generators would be more than enough to
contain the atmosphere. And then another explosion, closer, more
powerful, shook not only the floor, but the whole control room. "That
wasn't part of the plan," Picard said to himself. "Look," Teilani said.
"On that screen ....  " Picard saw where she was pointing, saw the
display there. And seeing it, realized that his and Teilani's actions,
his team's brave efforts, all had been for naught.

348

SPECTRE

In helpless rage, Picard could only watch as his careful plan was
destroyed, as the mirror Voyager descended, phaser banks afire. Ruining
everything.

Kirk withdrew to the back of the bridge.  He had set this in motion but
he was no longer part of it.  The people of this era had to learn for
themselves.  They had to experience for themselves the true price of
existence. The Voyager echoed with the constant discharge of her
phasers. Once they were through the atmospheric force field no other
energy screens protected the ground installations.  The backup
generators were all easy targets. The main sensor screen was not
distorted at this close range, as the small starship slipped over the
camp, targeting all energy systems.  Kirk saw the camp's prisoners
scattering as explosions erupted around them.  He saw the camp guards
attempting to fire up at the ship or down on their escaping charges. 
He saw people begin to die. "Jim!" Kirk looked over at McCoy, now
seated at the operations station. "Look at this!" But Kirk shook his
head.  He knew what was happening, who was dying.  Starfleet officers. 
Mirror-universe counterparts. Klingons.  Guards who would argue they
were simply doing their jobs.  Some who deserved to die.  Some who
didn't. It didn't matter.  He didn't want to know.  Their deaths were
all part of the price that had to be paid to prevent an even worse
horror. Death for life.  The real currency of the twenty-fourth
century.  A basic fact of human history that never seemed to change. 
Despite any and all individual efforts to make that change. "Get over
here, man!"  McCoy insisted.  "It's Teilani!"

Kirk braced himself against the safety railing as T'Val's maneuvers
made the starship groan.  Then, in a heartbeat, he crossed the bridge,
looked down at McCoy's screen.

"That's...  that's impossible.  I scanned for her.  I scanned everyone
down there."

"You're not a doctor, you idiot," McCoy said as his hands moved quickly
over the controls.  "You're not a programmer or a sensor specialist. 
But you tried to do everything yourself anyway, just as you always
have...  and you did it wrong!"

"Bones, I made the computer compare every individual-everyone--with
Teilani's life-sign signature.  There...  was no...  match."

"Not with her old signature," McCoy agreed.  "But you were too strict
with your parameters.  You didn't allow any room for change.  That's
why the computer didn't find anything."

Kirk felt his legs weaken.  "What change, Bones?  How is she
different.9"

McCoy placed a finger on a life-sign profile labeled with Teilani's
name.  The readings on it were confused, as if a second signal were
mixed with the first andre

"She's pregnant, Jim," McCoy said quietly.

Shocked to his depths, Kirk stared past McCoy to the main screen, where
a fireball roiled up from a blazing generator station.  Where Teilani
now was.  With their unborn child. Because of him.

There was no time for thought.  No time for anguish.  No time for
anything but action.

He turned his back on the bridge as if turning his back on his past
life.

I have a plan, he heard Teilani whisper in his ear as they stood
together in the clearing.  You might be leaving Chal, but you will
always be here with me.

Only now did Kirk understand what she had meant. Only now did Kirk
understand that hell had many levels.

35o SPECTRE

He headed for the transporter room, pursued by the screams of the dying
that echoed in his mind.

The price of existence had just been raised.

Picard and Teilani froze as a new alarm blared in the control room. 
Red lights spun and flashed.

	Picard read the warning that flashed on every screen.

	Atmosphere failure.

	"Can you find out what's happened?"  Teilani asked.

Picard put his weapon aside.  He called up the unfamiliar Cardassian
screens, read the reports.

"My people were to hit the main generators, to force the camp to go to
backups, and give us time to retreat to the barracks and get up to the
Enterprise."  He called up a second screen.  "But the Voyager.t.  ·She
attacked the backup generators first.  The whole camp's lost its power
supply.  The force field down and--"

He was cut off by a rising whistle of wind.

"We're losing atmosphere," Teilani said, understanding their situation
at once.

The command building had just lost pressure integrity. If they stayed
here, they would suffocate.

"We're also losing whatever was keeping the Enterprise in place above
us."

Picard and Teilani looked at each other, knowing they had only minutes
to act.  Only seconds.

Then the control room lost all power and the screens went dark.

The whistle of the escaping air had become the shriek of a

	storm.

	,, "I have to get you to a barracks for shelter, Picard said. Teilani
disagreed.  "You have to get to the Enterprise." Together, they ran for
the airlock.

Kirk materialized in fire.

He had set the transporter to beam him through a standard

	SPECTRE

shield cycle as the Voyager had fired her phasers.  But to achieve the
precision of timing necessary to punch through that momentary gap in
the shields, he had surrendered any chance of accuracy in selecting his
beam-down position. And he appeared in the midst of a fireball. But as
quickly as he became solid, the fireball passed before it could consume
him. He looked around, coughing, getting his bearings. And this time,
when he heard screaming, it was not just in his mind. Fires blazed
everywhere. Hundreds of people fled across the metallic surface of the
asteroid. From portions of elevated walkways, guards fired down at
those who tried to escape them. The Voyager roared by overhead. 
Tendrils of plasma stretched out from the surrounding storms of the
discontinuity, erupting around her shields as if she, too, were on
fire. And everywhere, in every direction, a terrible wind blew. Kirk
held his bandaged hands close against his chest, struggling to breathe,
struggling to understand. This is necessary, he told himself.  This
attack is all that will save the billions of the mirror universe. That
was the cold hard logic of survival. But now that he was in the middle
of the storm -- now that the woman he loved beyond all else, now that
the child they had created as the promise of a future he had not
understood was what he truly wanted -- now that both of these pieces of
his heart faced that same hard logic, everything was different.
Everything. Kirk called out for Teilani.  Called out for that lost
future, swallowed by this mad and deadly present he had brought into
being. He looked around wildly, ash and debris whipping around him in
the howling wind.  He had to be within a few hundred meters of Teilani.
He knew he had locked on to her life sign-- her life signs--as his
target. There!  To his left! Two people stumbled toward a circular
building. One a Klingon male, though a rather slightly built one. The
other a female. Teilani. The child.

"Jean-Luc!  Hold me!" Picard turned to Teilani, shocked as he saw her
long hair begin to rise from her scalp. She wasn't wearing a discharge
suit. A deadly charge was already building within her. They were a
hundred meters from the barracks that was their destination, and
without breaking pace, Picard swept her up into his arms to break her
contact with the metal asteroid.  He ducked reflexively as the Voyager
roared past overhead.  His stride did not falter as Teilani's hair
began to fall back around her shoulders as the charge diminished in the
rapidly thinning air. "I'm all right, Jean-Luc," Teilani said.  "It's
passed.  Put me down." Unwilling, but aware she was right, Picard let
her slide to the ground, but then he took her hand before she could
protest.  With Teilani beside him, Picard charged onward, faster now
that he was freed of her extra weight.  Both gasping desperately for
oxygen that was rapidly disappearing into space. Picard risked a fast
look upward at his ship. The Enterprise was now half within the
crossover device and both were spinning in a slow downward spiral, both
bodies larger than they had appeared before as they fell ever closer to
the prison-camp asteroid.

	352 And beyond them, the second asteroid was also getting larger,
moving closer.

Even if he got Teilani to a barracks, Picard knew it would shield her
for an hour at most. And then----impact.

The asteroids would meet.  The Enterprise would be crushed.  And
everyone in this cursed camp would die. Horribly.

But he had to get Teilani to shelter.  He couldn't stop trying.

Until he felt the hand strike his shoulder to make him release his hold
on her.

Picard looked down.

It wasn't a hand.  It was a filthy bundle of blood-crusted rags and as
it spun him around, he raised his arm to block the blow he knew was
coming even as he raised his disruptor to Kirk blinked in surprise as
he realized why the male Klingon with Teilani was not Klingon in size.
"Jean-Luc?" "Jim?"

Then Teilani pulled at them both.  "We can't stop!" "She's right,"
Picard said, and he again began to run. "She usually is," Kirk said, as
he kept pace beside them. But Kirk's eyes were on Teilani, almost
unable to believe that she lived, that he had found her, that she was
here, so close beside him.

"I love you," he shouted at her as wind roared around them and the
Voyager screamed and generators exploded and disruptors fired and
guards and prisoners shrieked in bloody battle.

And even as they rushed onward, on their hopeless mission, Teilani
turned her glorious face to him.

In it was answer enough for them both.

As if new life had suddenly burst within him as well, Kirk pushed
ahead, leading the way.

354 THIRTY

Kirk, Picard, and Teilani gasped for breath as the circular airlock
door of the barracks building rolled open.  They squeezed through as
soon as the space was wide enough, and Picard ran for the controls to
start the next step of the airlock sequence.

As the door began rolling shut, Kirk heard the sounds of the explosions
and the rumble of the Voyager diminishing.  Here, too, the air was
almost gone.

But then he felt the solid vibration of the door sealing and heard the
rush of new air being pumped in.

He squeezed his arm around Teilani's as he drew in great lungfuls of
air, of life.

Kirk found Picard staring at him.  "You know, Jim, the worst part about
us meeting again like this, is that I can't say I'm surprised."

"Did I ever thank you for the horse?"  Kirk asked.

Picard held up his hand.  The pressurization sequence had ended.  The
inner door was about to open.

Kirk knew what Picard's concern was.

They had seen dozens of people running into this barracks before them. 
But neither Kirk nor Picard had any way of knowing how many of them had
been prisoners or guards.

When the airlock's inner door opened, they could be facing friends or
enemies. Picard held his disruptor ready. Kirk stood in front of
Teilani to shield her. She gave him a look of annoyance and moved
forward to shield him. The door began rolling open and beyond--there
was no one. Picard edged forward, disruptor pointed straight up.  He
stepped into the barracks. Then he waved Kirk and Teilani in. The
one-room building was empty, except for long lines of cots and a
terrible smell. "They've been transported," Kirk said.  It was the only
answer. "Yes," Picard agreed.  "But by whom?" Then Kirk heard the
phased harmonic of a transporter beam begin.  "We're about to find
out," he said.

"Mr.  Scott!"  Picard said as he jumped down from the transporter
platform.  "A pleasure to meet you again."  Picard looked around the
transporter chamber, recognized it.  "I take it we're back on the
duplicate Voyager?" "Aye," Scott said.  Then he looked startled and
pushed past Picard to help Kirk help Teilani down from the platform.
Picard suddenly did the same. But Teilani pulled back from the three
men, shaking their arms free from hers.  "I am quite capable of getting
off a transporter platform by myself," she said. Picard was intrigued
by the look of real concern on Kirk. "But...  you're pregnant." "You
are?"  Picard said. Scott made another effort to take her arm.  "Then
ye really should be sitting down, lass." But Teilani held her hands up
and retreated.  "It's pheromones, gentlemen.  A little bit of genetic
baggage from my

SPECTRE

Romulan half.  They had such a violent early history that pregnant
females began producing pheromones that inspire males of any age to
protect them at any cost.  An advantage in the past, perhaps.  But
certainly not now." Pheromones, Picard said with huge relief.  "Then
that explains.  ."  He stopped as he saw that Kirk was looking at him
intently. "Explains what?"  Kirk asked. "Absolutely nothing," Picard
said, clearing his throat. There was no need to discuss how compelling
Teilani had appeared to him.  Not if he wanted his friendship with Kirk
to continue.  He looked at Scott.  "How many did you manage to
transport to safety?" Scott frowned.  "Maybe half.  There're a lot
still in the pressurized buildings.  More than we can handle on this
ship." "The asteroids are moving together," Kirk said.  "We've got an
hour to get those people out of there." "Tell me how, and I'll do it,"
Scott said.  "But not even the Enterprise could stop the asteroids from
colliding, not when they're this close."  ' 's condition?"  Picard
asked.  There "What is the Enterprise 	was so much else he wanted to
know, but that was the

	question to be answered before all others.

		Scott sighed.  "It's almost totally within that thing they've

	built.  Mr.  Spock is picking up power readings from it and he

	thinks it's getting ready to...  to do whatever it's supposed to

	do."

		"Scotty, we can't let them have that ship," Kirk said.

			Captain Kirk, I don't 	But Scott shook his head in defeat."

	' think we have a choice in the matter." Kirk burst onto the bridge of
the Voyager to see the Enterprise in the center of the screen. The
inner panels of the crossover device were glowing, casting eerie green
light on the great ship.

	356 "Do we have any idea what that is?"  Kirk asked.

He heard Picard and Scott close behind him.  Teilani came to his side,
reached down for his hand, still enshrouded in its bulky bandages.  She
looked at him for the explanation there had been no time to give while
they'd been on the run.  He shook his head at her, letting her know
this still wasn't the time.

"It is a transporter," Spock said.  He was at the security tactical
station, looking somber.

"Och, you're mad," Scott said.  "No one can build a transporter that
big."

"More to the point, Mr.  Scott, it makes no sense for anyone to build a
transporter that big.  Why transport a starship which is itself a
method of transportation?  Unless the point of the exercise is not to
move a ship from one place to another..."

"But from one universe to another," Kirk said.  As threatening as that
device was, the solution for dealing with it was elegantly simple to
him.  "Blow it up, Spock."

Janeway came up to Kirk, and he could see her face already showed the
stress of command.  "No use.  We've already run the numbers.  The
device is drawing power from the Enterprise now, and is completely
shielded by her.  This ship doesn't have the firepower to make a dent
in it.  We can't even ram it and be sure we'd take it out."

"We can't just stand here and watch them steal it," Kirk countered.

"But we have run out of options," Spock said.

Kirk looked at Picard.  "If we can get you on board, could you trigger
the self-destruct?"

Picard looked to Spock.  "How much time do we have?" "Ten minutes at
most."

Picard looked back to Kirk.  "How do I get on board?"

Kirk's mind raced.  "First, we focus all our firepower on one key spot
on the shields.  If we can concentrate enough energy SPECTRE

on an area of overlap, we can make the shield reset itself and--"

"Captain Kirk," Scott said gently.  "That particular design flaw was
corrected thirty years ago.  It can't be done any longer."

"Oh," Kirk said.  He rocked back on his heels, forced once more to
remember he was a man out of time.

"What if we go with it?"  Janeway suddenly asked.  "After the
Enterprise goes through, could we go through as well?"

"We have no idea how the device operates," Spock said. "And at the rate
the asteroids are closing, we will have no time to learn."

They stood in silence on the bridge as the green light bathing the
Enterprise intensified.

Then Kirk realized what was wrong.  "Where's the Sovereign?"

T'Val looked back at him from the helm.  "We have her station keeping
at one hundred thousand kilometers.  She's not approaching."

Kirk's grin was triumphant.  "Because that ship is powerful enough to
get through the Enterprise's shields and stop that thing."

Scott almost jumped up and down in his excitement.  "Of course.  That's
it.  All we need to do is t' get her here."

The engineer's enthusiasm was contagious.  Kirk went to his friend,
eager to know the next step.  "And then what, Scotty?"

Scott beamed.  "Well, sir, I was her chief engineer.  And I've got a
few more tricks that Admiral Nechayev won't know anything about."

Spock stepped forward.  "Whatever you plan to do, gentlemen, I remind
you that time is of the essence."

"When is it not?"  Kirk said.  He looked at Janeway.  "Start your
attack run on the Enterprise."

Janeway widened her eyes.  "Kirk, this ship is no match for the
Sovereign.  If your plan doesn't work, we're finished."

359

"In this universe--and I doubt that this has changed--that's what we
call an all-or-nothing scenario," Kirk told her. Teilani had been right
all along.  Challenge would always be a part of his life.  Wherever he
was in the universe. His challenge was not clearing fields and pulling
stumps. But making a difference when no one else could. And if he
didn't make a difference this time, he knew he would have no chance to
ever try again.

THIRTY-ONE

The Voyager rushed past the Enterprise at one-quarter impulse, throwing
all her firepower on the one section above the aft hull that Scott had
identified as a potential weak point in her force field pattern -- one
that Starfleet had recently identified and was quickly redesigning. On
the Voyager's main screen, the phaser fire smeared into a sphere of
scintillation around the Enterprise, marking the perimeter of her
shields, and clearly having no effect. Except for the one Kirk had
planned. "The Sovereign is powering up her engines," T'Val announced.
"They know about the weak spot." Kirk glanced at Scott.  The engineer
was at the communications post.  "You're sure you can get this to work,
Scotty?" "D'ye really think this is the time to be asking me that?"
Janeway had T'Val bring the Voyager around for another pass.  Spock
calculated that the Enterprise would be completely within the crossover
device--the immense transport-erinwithin three minutes.  Picard was at
weapons control.  La Forge and Data were in engineering, in case a
hasty retreat was required.  And McCoy, Beverly Crusher, and Deanna, as
well as the two Spocks, remained on the bridge.  Waiting.

	360 Picard fired the phasers at will, concentrating everything the
small ship had on Scotty's coordinates.

"The Sovereign is accelerating.  Phasers coming online," T'Val said.

"Full power to shields," Janeway ordered.  "Let's keep the Enterprise
between us."

The bridge pitched as T'Val brought the ship into a tight turn around
the crossover device, just escaping the first blast of phasers from the
Sovereign.

"Clean miss," Picard said.

"They're following," T'Val reported.

"Here we go," Kirk said.  "Open a channel."

Spock sent the hailing frequency from an auxiliary control panel and
the Sovereign's response was immediate.

The Voyager's main screen suddenly showed the mirror counterpart who
had replaced Fleet Admiral Alynna Nechayev. She sat in the command
chair of the Sovereign, fully recovered from her last encounter with
Kirk.  Beside her, the Cardassian, Glinn Arkat, stood with folded arms
and murderous rage in his eyes.

"Aren't you dead yet?"  Nechayev said.

Kirk knew all he had to do for the moment was to keep the admiral
distracted.  He could see Scott working frantically at communications. 
Thirty seconds, the engineer had promised. Kirk took that to mean it
would take him all of fifteen.  It had taken many years, but he had
finally figured out why Scotty always managed to complete his work
ahead of schedule--he always doubled his time estimate.

"I'd like to propose a deal," Kirk said.

Nechayev exchanged a look of astonishment with Arkat. "Your ship can't
stand up to mine.  It can't even outrun mine. Why don't I just blow you
out of space now and save us both a lot of time?"

"You want our advanced technology," Kirk said.

"I've already got your advanced technology.  Two ships' worth."

SPECTRE

Kirk settled back in the executive officer's chair and looked
skeptical.  "The Sovereign class is obsolete," he said.  "None of those
ships can withstand Starfleet's newest weapon."

Kirk leaned forward, resisting the impulse to look at Scotty. 
"Corbomite," he said.  Then he resisted the impulse to look back at
McCoy as McCoy groaned.

Arkat leaned down and whispered something in Nechayev's ear.

"Corbomite?"  Nechayev mused.  "Let me see...  would this be something
required for the construction of poly phasic disruptors?"

"Never heard of them," Kirk said. "Target the Voyager," Nechayev said.
"They're locked on us," T'Val announced. Kirk looked quickly to the
side.  "Scotty..  ?"

Scott shook his head in frustration.  "This isn't like the old days. 
Ships today..  they're..  too damn complicated."

Kirk had one last option.  "Admiral, surrender now and I will be able
to put in a good word for you during your trial."

The admiral's eyes actually bulged as she burst into disbelieving
laughter.  Even Arkat smiled beside her.  "You want me to surrender?"

"Otherwise," Kirk said with a straight face, "you might get hurt."

The admiral laughed so hard she appeared to be having difficulty
breathing.

"Kirk, I will actually miss you..."  she finally gasped.  And then she
said, "Fire."

Kirk felt Teilani's hand squeeze his shoulder.

"Got 'er!"  Scott said.

The Voyager hung in space, no phaser fire directed at her at all.

Kirk watched the look of disbelief grow on Admiral Nechayev's face as
she realized that the Voyager continued to exist in defiance of her
orders.

	362 "Now we do this..."  Scott said happily.

On the screen, the admiral's disbelief turned to panic as the
Sovereign's computer announced that a warp-core breach was in
progress.

Picard looked back in Scott's direction.  "Mr.  Scott, are you able to
do this to any Sovereign-class vessel?"

"Only the ones I've rigged for remote-control," Scott said modestly. 
"Now we change her orientation."

"Forward view," Janeway said.

The commotion on Nechayev's bridge was replaced by an exterior image of
the admiral's ship as all the port-side maneuvering thrusters fired in
a balanced burst, spinning the ship on her axis.  A second series of
firings stopped her so her ventral surface was parallel to the second
asteroid.

"And now..."  Scott said.  "We let the safety systems take over
and..."

On the screen, there was a small puff of white smoke as explosive bolts
blew off a hull plate on the ship's belly.  Then, in a streak of
flashing blue light, the Sovereign's long, slender warp core
self-ejected.

"Mr.  Scott," Kirk said, "that is a work of sheer beauty." "Aye," Scott
said as the glowing cylinder of the warp core tumbled toward the second
asteroid.  "That's one way to look at it."  He jabbed another control
at his station and the Sovereign suddenly pulled away at
half-impulse.

"She'll be halfway to Vulcan before they get past my lockouts," Scott
said in satisfaction.

But Kirk's sense of victory was short-lived.  "The Enterprise is now
completely within the crossover device," Spock announced. "I am
detecting a power-up sequence consistent with transporter-beam
generation."

"Time to warp-core impact?"  Janeway asked.

"Fifteen seconds," Scott said.

"Unfortunately," Spock said, "transport will begin in ten seconds."

Kirk turned to Janeway.  "We just need to delay the process.

SPECTRE

Fire phasers.  See if we can get the transport sequence to interrupt
itself."

	Janeway stood up.  "Let's do it," she said to T'Val.

The Voyager's bridge thrummed with the discharge of the ship's
phasers.

	"Transport in five seconds," Spock said.

	"Impact in ten," Scott added.

The glowing shell of energy that protected the Enterprise and the
crossover device flickered and flashed with the power the Voyager
poured into it.

"I am detecting a transport anomaly," Spock reported. "The device is
attempting to compensate.  Transport in three ...."

	"Impact in eight...  seven...

	"...  two...  one...  Transport sequence has initiated

	and--"

	There was a flash of green light, almost blinding.

	Kirk threw his arm in front of his eyes, seething with the

	knowledge that he had lost.

	But when he removed his arm, the Enterprise was still

	there.

	"Transport has failed," Spock said.

	Everyone but Kirk cheered.  He waited to be sure.

	Then there was a flash of blue light from another section of

	the screen.

	"The warp core has just exploded on the second asteroid's

	surface," Scott said.  "Shock wave in three seconds."

	Janeway wasted no time.  "Get us out of here, T'VaI."

	For a second, the plasma storms of the Goldin Discontinuity smeared
across the screen; then the angle of the forward

	sensors changed so Kirk could see the two asteroids--with

	one beginning to spin because of the enormous blue explosion

	that had obscured one side of it.

	"The asteroid is being diverted," Spock announced.  "Extrapolating new
trajectory 	"Spock turned to Kirk.  They 	might as well have been on
the bridge of the old Enterprise.

	364 The first Enterprise.  "Captain, the second asteroid will clear
the first by two hundred meters.  The next chance for impact will be in
seventeen days.  More than enough time to complete the evacuation of
the camp survivors."

Kirk allowed himself the luxury of a deep breath.  It had all come
together--the crew, the technology, the will to win. He felt the touch
of Teilani's hand on his shoulder.

But then Kirk saw Picard staring up at the screen, and knew there was
still one last mission to complete.

"We have to go back," he said to Janeway, "and see what shape the
Enterprise is in."

Janeway nodded.  "Let's do it," she said.

366 THIRTY-TWO

The Enterprise hung dead in space, surrounded by the floating ruin of
the crossover device, like an ancient sunken vessel shrouded in kelp
and debris.

The mighty ship's running lights were out.  Her nacelles were dark. 
But she was intact, and her batteries were keeping life-support at
minimal levels.

Kirk and Picard stood together before the Voyager's main screen.  Spock
and Teilani were with them.

"Jean-Luc, I'm sorry," Kirk said.  And he meant it.  Among a handful of
beings, he truly knew the force that bound a captain to his ship.  He
knew what must be in his friend's heart as Picard gazed upon the
battered hulk before them.

"Don't be," Picard said.  He flashed a smile at Kirk.  A small one, but
one that said he could see light shining through this dark hour.  "I
still have her.  We saved her."

Kirk went to give Picard his hand, but both men stared awkwardly at the
bandages that protected Kirk's damaged flesh.  Picard put his own hands
on Kirk's shoulders instead. "You saved her," he said.  "And I thank
you."

Then La Forge spoke up from an aft sensor station. "Captain?"

Both Kirk and Picard turned as one and said, "Yes?"

La Forge smiled.  "Captain Picard.  Scotty and I have completed our
structural analysis.  She's not showing any sign of transporter
misalignment." "That's a relief," Picard said.  Kirk understood why. 
The subspace shock wave generated by the Sovereign's warp-core
explosion had shut down the transporter effect intended to beam the
Enterprise to the mirror universe.  If the shock wave had hit too late,
while transport was already in progress, the huge ship might not have
been properly reassembled when she had rematerialized.  But all was
well.  Another victory to add to all the others. But Spock, apparently,
did not think so.  "Curious," he said.  "I was certain I detected a
full transporter-field effect before the warp-core detonation." Kirk
smiled at his old friend.  "We've never seen a transporter this big
before, Spock.  There're bound to be engineering differences we know
nothing about." "Perhaps," Spock said, but he didn't sound convinced.
Picard looked down at his Klingon armor, as if suddenly realizing he
still had it on.  "I suppose I should clean up.  The relief vessels
will be here in two hours and...  I imagine there's a great deal of
work to be done over there." Picard walked back to the turbolift, that
small smile still on his face. Kirk watched him go, pleased his friend
still had his starship, but glad that he, himself, had other missions
to attend to now. Then Teilani hugged him.  "And I want to get you down
to Dr.  McCoy to get those dressings changed." Kirk looked at his
bandages.  Still the least of his concerns. "I'll be fine," he said.
"You'd better be," Teilani told him.  "I'm not going to change all the
diapers by myself." Kirk grinned at the thought of that one new mission
in particular.  He couldn't wait for it to begin.  Then he saw Spock
look back at T'Val, and knew his friend was also

SPECTRE

distracted by thoughts of children and parents.  Of paths not taken. 
It pained him to think that Spock might be in distress. Kirk changed
the subject. "Spock, just when the Voyager came in on the attack, you
said you and your counterpart had worked out what made the two
universes diverge." Spock returned his attention to the here-and-now. 
"Not the event," he clarified.  "The time period.  Approximately three
hundred years ago.  About the time of First Contact between humans and
Vulcans.  Kate Janeway gave us a clue when she referred to Lake Sloane
on Alpha Centauri IV being called Lake Riker in her universe." "One
name made the difference?"  Kirk asked. "No, but it is one of the
earliest signs of divergence my counterpart and I could identify.  The
fact that the lake was named by Zefram Cochrane, following his move
from Earth to the colony he founded on that world, made us focus on the
time of First Contact." "There was First Contact in both universes,
though?"  Kirk asked. "Yes.  And to the best of our abilities to recall
history, that event in both universes was the same.  Cochrane's first
warp flight attracted the attention of a Vulcan ship and the next day,
contact was made."  Spock's long face took on a thoughtful expression.
"But...  ?"  Kirk prompted. "It is the events after First Contact that
somehow seem to be at odds in the two universes.  There is nothing
conclusive. No key document or incident we can point to.  But in one
universe, our universe, humans and Vulcans shared an optimistic dream
of combining their resources to seek out new life.  In the mirror
universe, the same cooperation followed, the same early expeditions
took place, but there was a decidedly military aspect to their nature. 
Almost as if, somehow, those responsible for First Contact believed
some

	368 grave threat was waiting for them among the stars.  As if they
had secret knowledge of the future and the conflicts to come." "What
kind of conflicts?"  Kirk asked.

Spock folded his hands behind his back.  "Again, the differences could
merely be an artifact of how history is recorded.  None of this might
be true.  But...  in the mirror universe...  when the Borg were first
detected, far earlier than they were in our history...  it was almost
as if the Terran Empire had been expecting to find them.  The Borg did
not remain a threat there."

"How could that be?"  Teilani asked.

"I do not know," Spock said.  "And even if it is true, the explanation
of that truth might always elude us."

Kirk looked back at the screen and the Enterprise.  There were enough
mysteries in this universe for him to struggle with.  He would leave
the mirror universe to others.  Janeway and T'Val would return to their
war with all the technical information that Kirk could provide them. 
The mirror Spock would be treated for Bendii here, and given sanctuary
until T'Val judged it was safe for him to return.  And then, Kirk would
return to his own life.

"What are you thinking, James?"

Kirk smiled at the woman with whom he had created life. "Will you marry
me?"  he asked.

Teilani looked at him with eyes that saw into his soul.  He could have
no secrets from her and he was glad of it.

"What are you going to do about that stump on Chal?"

"Phaser it out of existence," Kirk promised.  "I'll borrow one from
Memlon's mother."

Teilani laughed.  The sweetest sound Kirk had heard in weeks.

"And then what?"  she asked.  "After you've planted the clearing and
built us a house?"  She looked to the screen, past the ship and the
storms, to where the stars waited.  "What about...  out there?"

SPECTRE

Kirk looked out as well, not through space, but through time.

He could have no secrets from her.  He could tell her no lies. "I don't
know," he said.  "Maybe I'll farm.  Maybe we can breed that horse
Jean-Luc sent me.  And maybe, I'll buy a starship and we can find out
how many other Chals are out there.  You, me, and our son."

"Or our daughter."

"All our children," Kirk said with a smile, and he pulled her closer to
him, so she could rest her head on his shoulder. "I don't know what
I'll do, Teilani, or where I'll go.  But what I do know, without
question, without doubt, is that whatever waits for me, I'm going to
face it with you."

Teilani smiled at him, and in the love she shared with him, Kirk knew
he had found what she had sent him out to discover.

His place in the universe.

It was not a world.  Not a time.  Not any physical place at all.

Instead, it was every place and every time.  As long as he was at her
side.

"I love you," she whispered, next to his cheek. "I love you," he
whispered back. A perfect moment.

And then an alarm blared on the bridge. Instantly Kirk and Teilani
broke apart. "What is it?"  Kirk demanded. "Weapons lock!"  T'Val
said.

Janeway was on her feet, reading the tactical boards.  "It's the
Enterprise!  All systems...  they're coming back online." "What?"  Kirk
said.  "How can that be possible?" "We're being hailed," T'Val called
out. "Onscreen," Janeway said.

All eyes went to the main screen as the image of the drifting
Enterprise winked out, to be replaced by a transmission from that
ship's bridge.

It was fully staffed.  All consoles lit and active.

	370 But none of that mattered. Because of the man who sat in her
center chair. If there were gasps on the bridge of the Voyager, Kirk
didn't hear them. If Teilani grabbed his arm in fear, he did not feel
her grip. His heart thundered in his ears. His breath caught in his
throat. Every thought in his mind was banished, replaced by a primal
dread that lived deep in the darkness of his mind. Because when he
looked at the man in the center chair----the face he saw was his own.
And that face laughed at him. "James T.  Kirk," the man in the center
chair said.  "I've heard so much about you.  I owe you...  so much
more." "They are powering phasers," T'Val said. Kirk struggled through
his shock to find his voice.  "Who... are you?"  Though he already knew
the answer. The man in the center chair leaned forward, and the smile
that split his face was the grin of the devil. "You can call me... 
Tiberius." Kirk leaned against the helm console for support.  "Why are
you here?" His mirror counterpart answered as if it were the most
obvious question ever asked.  "You stole a universe from me, James. 
And now I'm here to do the same to you." "Never," Kirk said. "The
choice is yours.  Lower your shields and surrender.  Or you will die. 
You have ten seconds to comply." Then the Emperor Tiberius sat back in
the center chair of the Enterprise. The waiting began.

James T.  Kirk will return in

Star Trek: Dark Victory

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