Chapter Text
“This is the transporter technology we’re using,” Hawthorne’s alternate says, handing Hawthorne a small device. Hawthorne turns it over. “And here’s what let the Intendant kidnap your captain through the cell forcefield.” He hands over a second device. “You might find those useful. I make extras of everything the Admiral asks me to.”
“Why?” He suspects he already knows. To stop the murderous fascist.
He wasn’t the only one of… well, himself, who was waiting for a chance to get in the way of the fascists' plans.
His alternate smiles again. It doesn’t get any better with repetition. “Because I’m not the only one who’s tired of all of this.”
They’re in a small lab off Engineering. Hawthorne’s alternate came in, shouted at everyone in Engineering for a while, and then stormed into the lab, dragging Hawthorne himself with him. But as soon as the doors closed, his demeanor changed completely. He’s almost cheerful, showing Hawthorne his inventions like a first year at the Academy.
Hawthorne thinks he’s an idiot for this instant trust, but frankly, he’s not cut out for subterfuge, either. “All right, what does that mean?”
His alternate turns around, another thing in his hands. “There’s a secret group,” he says. “They want to restore the Empire to what it was, what it should be—you know, go back to Spock’s reforms. And after the Admiral…did what she did…they contacted me.”
A secret group. Hawthorne’s stomach drops, and then falls a few more steps.
His alternate is working with this universe’s version of Starfleet Secret Police.
“They already know about this,” his alternate is saying. “They want her to succeed as little as you do, trust me, and they’re willing to help out.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Because you’re me !” says his alternate. “Look, I know you and your captain don’t get along, and you don’t trust her—you shouldn’t—but you don’t understand. It’s been me , just me, all this time, ever since she burned the Bedivere , with no one to talk to and no one to trust,” and there he can hear the echoes of things he’s thought more than once, tugging at his gut.
“And now you’re here, and you’ve got to hate her, too. Even though you weren’t there with me, you’ve got to hate her, because she wants to do the same thing to Interpreter , to your crew. And if her alternate’s anything like her, she’s not going to stand in her way. She’s not going to stop her. It’s you between them and the rest of your people. I’m not going to let that happen, and I’m not going to let her do this to another crew, and if you betray me and I end up like Commander Beauford on the wall—well,” he stands up straight and looks pure bantam defiance at Hawthorne, “I’ve been a dead man walking for long enough, it’ll probably come as a relief.”
Now that, Hawthorne can also relate to. “All right. So, what’s the plan? Her plan, and then your plan.”
“She’s not shared a lot of it,” says his alternate. “I think she wanted to squeeze the access codes out of you and your captain, but she’s pretty confident about getting into your ship’s systems even if that doesn’t succeed. She wasn’t clear about why, but it can’t be a device—she hasn’t asked me to make anything that would. I think it might be Tanek.”
“Yeah, I was hoping the alternate nature of the universe meant that asshole wouldn’t be here.”
“The Romulans made the mistake of sending over a liaison,” says his alternate. “She decided to keep him. And the second she got her claws into him, he decided to stay.” He makes a face. “She’s good with people.”
“The Captain’s much the same,” says Hawthorne, thinking it’s an understatement. “Only she and Tanek hate each other’s guts.”
“That’s got to be an improvement,” says his alternate.
“Yeah. It probably is,” says Hawthorne. The ship’s two resident fascists, working together. Yeah, that’s a nightmare. “So what is she trying to do with my ship?”
“Well, she’s interfered with its engines,” says his alternate.
“She fucked with my engines? ” snarls Hawthorne, all decorum forgotten; his alternate gestures frantically for him to calm down. “She fucked with my engines!”
“It’s a subspace signal that desynchronized the cores. They’ll need a full reboot cycle before they’re ready again.”
At least that’s underway. “She fucked with my engines - she fucked with ‘Pret, ” he mutters. “That is it. This stops here. What the hell kind of ship are we on, anyway?” Whatever it is, it’s certainly not Federation. He thinks he’s seen some Cardassian and Klingon elements, a little Vulcan, and something that almost looked Borg.
Mirrorverse Borg. What a horrible idea.
“The Ascendant was one of the old Empire’s ships,” says his alternate. “The Emperor had it upgraded for Admiral Chester specially.”
“Hm,” says Hawthorne. “Give me an access terminal.”
“What are you planning to do?” his alternate asks.
“You’ll see.’
“Hawthorne—stop,” says his alternate, getting between him and the terminal. “This isn’t a game,” he says earnestly. “Look, I don’t know what your Chester did to you to make you get those prosthetics, but the one here? She’s a lot worse. And if they start working together—and I’m sure they’re going to start working together—they’ll catch you. And you’re going to have a lot worse than some cybernetics then.”
“My Chester didn’t do this,” says Hawthorne, grudging. “This was before I met her.” Not that he doesn’t think she wasn’t involved with the same fuckers who did do it, but that’s neither here nor there. Also, he’s not telling his alternate. His alternate might just have spilled his guts to Hawthorne, but Hawthorne would prefer to not actually spill his guts. He is not going to talk about Starfleet’s Secret Police, or how he suspects the captain is one of them. He’s not risking it.
He’s been quiet this long, and if his alternate has the relief of telling him, well, good for him. Hawthorne has more than his own neck to look out for; he’s got Marbog, and the entire crew of the Interpreter, and he’s not pulling stupid shit with that.
His alternate blanches. “What happened, then?”
“There was a war. I don’t want to talk about it.” That should be enough, right? “Look, in my universe, I don’t trust her. But she’s not taken over like this. I only met her two months ago.”
As far as he knows. The thought sends a chill down his cybernetics and his spine. For all he knows, she was one of the officers supervising all this being put into him. That cold blank calculating look she gets sometimes, he can see it in his mind, watching a new experiment take form. She’s said she wanted him, specifically, as her Chief Engineer. Maybe she was always intended to be his handler. Sure, her record indicates she was light years away when this happened, but if nothing else, he’s learned that official records can be malleable things.
“Lucky you,” says his counterpart, and clearly means it.
Hawthorne pushes past him and starts accessing the terminal. He’s tempted to use Gull—his drone is still docked with the back of his head—but decides against it. If everything goes further to hell, he’ll need them. “How can we shut down the interference without her noticing?”
“It won’t be hard,” his alternate says. “You saw her take your Captain away. She’s plenty distracted right now.”
Well, that’s something Hawthorne is much, much happier not contemplating. “Yeah, I’m not in the mood to take chances. How do we keep her from noticing?”
“We can do this,” says his counterpart, and sneaks an arm under his to adjust a few settings. “It will take time, but it’ll look like a minor destabilization in power levels from our side, which will automatically abort the function of the interference generators.”
“Good,” says Hawthorne. He hesitates. He does not, as a rule, like sabotaging technology. But he’s had it up to here with this universe of fascists, and as little as he likes the Captain, she probably deserves better than getting ditched here with her (debatably) worst self. He takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “We’re going to need some distractions.”
Tanek’s counterpart stares at him in a way that Tanek knows is calculated to be unsettling. He’s made himself comfortable, sitting on the bunk of the detention cell, looking as if he’s a lord of old entertaining requests from his vassals.
Tanek knows that expression from having worn it too many times himself. It is, as is so much about him, a lie.
“You wished to speak with me,” says Tanek.
“You’re worried about her,” says his counterpart.
“Worried about whom?”
“Diane,” says his counterpart, as if it’s obvious. The name throws Tanek for a moment; it takes him a breath to remember that’s the Captain’s given name, and then he gives his counterpart a look of flat disbelief.
“We knew you’d come looking for her,” says his counterpart. “My Admiral sent me to ensure you didn’t. What I don’t understand is why you don’t seem interested in doing so. Are you really such a coward here?”
Tanek tilts his head. “And why would I be so concerned about the Captain’s wellbeing?”
Now it’s his alternate’s turn to give him a look of disbelief.
Tanek just keeps watching him, in a way deliberately calculated to be unsettling. “As I have said, the woman is more than capable of looking after her own interests.”
“Her competence isn’t in question here,” says his counterpart. He says it slowly, as if explaining it to someone he thinks is very stupid. “It’s natural to feel concern for someone you care about.”
“I do not —” Tanek cuts himself off, seeing the instant attention it draws from J’etris and the security officers. “There is no such connection between us. She is the commanding officer of this ship, and I can do nothing about it. That is all.”
“Do you really believe that?” His counterpart’s voice is insinuating. “Perhaps you’re simply envious.”
Tanek stares at him. “You are confused that the Captain and I do not share an intimate relationship,” he says, favoring the other man with the flat cold look that’s served him well in many interrogations. “I would suggest that it is none of your concern, and encourage you to say something of use before I run out of patience.”
His counterpart’s expression doesn’t change, but Tanek gets the impression of amusement, as if his alternate think he’s stumbled upon something funny. “What would be of use, then? I won’t tell you how to rescue her.”
“As if I would need to,” he says. “Very well. How did you fall into this Admiral’s orbit? I rather doubt that any counterpart of the Captain’s might be so enchanting.” He adds a sneer to the end; it has the desired effect. He can see the angry flush rise to his alternate’s cheeks. “Perhaps a little more morally bankrupt, but that isn’t saying much.” He leans in with a small smile. “Starfleet officers are so rarely the moral paragons they like to pretend to be.”
His alternate’s face works a moment, then slides into vindictiveness. “You can give your absolute loyalty and your life to the Romulan Empire,” he says softly, “but it will never give you anything in return. You know that too, don’t you.”
Cold creeps into Tanek’s bones, and for a moment the memory of the stink of unwashed bodies fills his nose. Exhaustion and black bleak despair—the ever-present companions in a Dominion internment camp.
He flattens it away behind his best mask of impassivity. The Empire’s care of its citizens is just as conditional as it is capricious. This is not news to him. It does not affect his own loyalty. He isn’t such a sad weak thing to demand approval or care where there is none to be had.
His alternate is smiling, very faintly. It’s mocking and pitying and it galls Tanek in a way he didn’t think he could be goaded again. “Yes, you know that,” he says. “So consider this, for all your contempt. Mock my loyalty all you like, but at least I have something to show for it. My loyalty is to someone who returns it. Someone with more than the bare modicum of intelligence and political connection that has buoyed so many of my former superiors through the ranks of our society. Someone who would bother to come looking for me, rather than leaving me to be rescued by the Klingons .”
Tanek has far too much discipline to allow his hands to pull into fists or for his face to change, but inwardly he rages. “I see,” he says. “You have accessed our personnel files. Am I to find this bit of basic subterfuge impressive?”
“No,” says his alternate. “Not at all.” He settles back smugly. “Does that answer your question?”
“I suppose it does,” Tanek says. “And I’m sure it’s a very great comfort to you. It does sound better than admitting you betrayed your people in order to gratify yourself.”
That wipes the smugness off his counterpart’s face. It seems he’s never learned the discipline that is second-nature to Tanek. Tanek gives him a cold smile. “I remain unimpressed,” he says. “Perhaps you could tell me of the Captain’s current condition, and why your Admiral has decided to take her.”
His alternate lets out a long sigh. “The Admiral wants this ship,” he explains, as if it’s perfectly reasonable, and Tanek very stupid. “The Intendant was sent to bring her the Captain, and I, to bring her the far more important Chief Engineer.”
“Of course,” says Tanek. He has seen the interrogation logs leading to the Captain’s kidnapping. They were more amusing than concerning; the Captain has no idea of how to properly conduct an interrogation. Neither does any other Starfleet officer. He slips one of the devices he took off his alternate out of his sleeve. “Perhaps you could tell me what this is?”
Commander J’etris’s request be damned, he has had enough of talking about the Captain. Sooner or later, his alternate will learn about the debacle back on the station, and Tanek would very much like to be off of the ship before that happens. Sentimental, self-centered fool the man might be, but he has the same trick Tanek has cultivated of using an observation like a knife between the ribs, and Tanek has no desire to hear what smug things he might say about that.
Given a choice between the two, he would much rather go to rescue the Captain. The sooner he can put an end to this farce, the better.
His counterpart, evidently feeling he has won, is just forthcoming enough. Tanek gets the strong sense that the man expects him to defect to the Admiral’s side immediately once he meets her.
The idea is laughable, but it gets him what he wants. Afterward, with his counterpart safely ensconsed in a cell, he sits down with J’etris and Fult. “Send me over there,” he says.
Fult laughs. J’etris just looks at him.
“They’ll be expecting him back,” he says. “And I have the requisite training for an operation of this sort.”
“Nice idea,” J’etris says. “How?”
Tanek slips what he thinks is the program for the transporter out of a pocket and shows it to her. “Our guest provided me with this. Allow me to use it. Alone of this ship’s complement, I have the necessary skills and experience to undertake a mission of this sort.”
J’etris stares at it, then at him. “Mr. Tanek,” she says, slowly, “these are generally things I’d encourage you to report immediately.”
“Not sure what you expected,” Fult mutters. “Tanek, every time you leave a holding cell, I’m turning you upside down and shaking you until everything falls out of your pockets.”
Tanek shrugs. “I had to have confirmation from our guest.”
“Still,” says J’etris. “I could have had Salera looking at this during the interrogation. You know, to keep you from getting pasted against a wall when you beamed in.”
“My counterpart was not ‘pasted against a wall’ when he first arrived. I believe it should have no ill effects on me.”
“You’re not an engineer.”
“Yes. Our engineer is currently being held prisoner with the Captain. Will you allow your habitual Starfleet timidity to lead the way on this decision, Commander, or will you allow the one experienced member of your crew to do something about it?”
J’etris just looks at him, and he is, for a moment, glad that she is so atypical for her species. He has neither the inclination nor the patience to deal with the response that such an insult would usually provoke from a Klingon. The way Fult is looking at him promises nothing good, either, and if Tanek is entirely honest with himself, he does not like his chances against the Tellarite, either. He’s seen the Tal Shiar file on her, too.
“Diplomacy has never been your strong suit, has it, Subcommander,” J’etris says at last, in a tone he knows she’s picked up from the Captain. “Very well. But get those looked at before you go; if you do end up dead over there, I want to make sure we can use that technology.”
“Brutally practical as always, Commander,” he says dryly, and rises. Fult rises as well. “I’ll help you prepare, Subcommander,” she says, with a false cheer that promises nothing at all good.
Once they’re well out of earshot, she says, “I won’t question the Commander’s decision, but I will add this.” She pauses and smiles up at him. Or just bares her tusks. It’s difficult to tell which, with her, and she’s certainly not making it easy for him. “I have no doubts of your skills, Subcommander,” she says. “I have every doubt of your motives. And I’ve seen how many stupid little games you like to play with this ship and its officers. Maybe it’s just keeping your hand in as an untrustworthy bastard. But might I suggest that you refrain from any such little games while you’re over there?”
There is not a hint of a threat in her voice, or in her actual words, but Tanek, looking down at her and her very unfriendly smile, for once in his career, decides against further provocation. He jerks his head in a nod, and reflects that he will be very glad to get off this ship, no matter the reason.