"Oh, shit."
Even in this Mirror Universe, Spock had his trademark eyebrow, and right now it was reaching new heights.
"You are not Captain James T. Kirk."
Jim had nothing to say. He was stuck here once before, but he had pretended to be his Mirror counterpart. This time, his immediate and instinctive reaction exposed him right away.
"Well, Spock….I am Captain James T. Kirk…I'm just…"
Spock backed Kirk up against the transporter wall. Jim looked up, frightened, into his friends' eyes.
After a moment of tense silence, Spock turned on his heel and left the transporter room. Kirk exhaled.
The two Engineers working the transporter looked at the Captain warily.
"As you were." He cleared his throat and followed in Spock's footsteps.
Jim kept his mouth shut for the remainder of the day. He sat in his chair and just observed his friends in this alternate reality. How they differed from the people he knew! Uhura, blatantly using her sexuality to toy with fellow officers; targeting most of all, the new, scarred womanizer that was Mr. Sulu. Chekov, void of that youthful naïveté Kirk was so jealous of in his reality. Bones he hadn't even seen, but the ear-splitting, agonizing screams coming from Sick Bay was enough to convince him that he, in fact, did not wish to meet the Mirror version of his best friend.
He wondered about Scotty—surely someone on the ship had to be some level of pleasant. Scotty was who he really needed. Jim couldn't possibly handle the transporter on his own.
"Mr. Spock, you have the comm."
Finding Scotty in the Engineering room was never a difficult task. Just follow that Scottish brogue and you're good as gold, Jim mused as he stepped out of the lift. This time it lead him to an open Jeffries tube. Scotty didn't notice him standing beneath him. Well, he certainly looks normal.
"Mr. Scott!"
"Oi, gimme a minute, willya? Can't ya see I'm trying to—" he turned around and, seeing the Captain, stopped short. "Ah, beggin yer pardon, Cap'n, I didn't recognize yer voice! Are ye ill? "
Jim laughed. No scars, no evil tint to his accent or eyes…this was the Scotty he hoped to see. "No, Scotty, not exactly. Can I talk to you in private?"
"Of course! Look out below!"
Jim stepped back and there was a loud thump as Scotty hit the floor. "I find it a lot quicker if I simply jump down, ya know? Although I almost took out Ensign Jensen once; poor bugger was passin' below and didn't hear me yell 'Clear'!" His laugh was hearty as he opened the door to his office and stood aside to let the Captain enter first.
"Scotty, you're not going to believe me, but I'm from an alternate reality."
Scotty's eyebrow mirrored Spock's and he crossed his arms. "A Mirror Universe?"
"Yes! That's why you think I sound different. The Mirror me is much crueler, a dictator almost, correct? I'm not like that. We don't assassinate to move up in rank! I'm trapped in an upside-down world. You've got to help me. If you beam me back to my Enterprise, the Mirror me will be beamed back here. Nothing of consequence will happen. It'll be as if I was never here. No one needs to know."
"Does Mr. Spock know?"
"I don't think so. This happened once before, Scotty. Don't you remember? You were beamed to my Enterprise, your Mirror Enterprise. With McCoy, myself, and Uhura."
Scotty's eyes lit up with the memory. "Aye! And Mr. Spock locked us all in the brig. I thought he had just shaved and was playing a joke on us. That was a Mirror Universe? Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating!"
"So you'll help me get back?"
"Well, of course I will. Goodness knows what the Captain Kirk I know is doing to the other Enterprise! Just keep a low profile. I'll let ya know if there's anyone plannin' to assassinate ya!"
Jim laughed with Scott, although his laugh was a bit more nervous. "Thanks, Scotty."
"Scott to Captain Kirk, please."
Jim punched a button on his chair. "Yes?"
"Can ye come down to Engineering, sir? I've something I wanna talk to ye about, privately."
"And you heard him say this? Word-for-word?"
"Well, not word-fer-word, exactly, but he made his intentions clear!"
"It's a good thing you were fixing that air duct outside his quarters, Scotty. Thanks a million."
"No problem, Cap'n. It's what I do."
The lift opened and Kirk strode onto the bridge. It was as if the past few minutes hadn't happened. Except…
"Uhura-where's Spock?"
She was sitting back in her chair, observing her nails. Her earpiece lay on the console in front of her. "He was called to Sick Bay by Doctor McCoy. Sulu has the comm."
"Doctor McCoy called him down? But he's perfectly healthy! Vulcans don't get sick." The puzzle pieces suddenly clicked together in his brain and he turned and ran back into the lift.
The ride down took forever in Jim's mind. Finally the doors opened and Jim took off, practically taking an Engineer with his arms full of scrap metal with him.
The doors to Med Bay were locked. He banged on them. "Bones!"-Jesus, I hope the clearance codes are the same in this alternate universe- "Captain James T. Kirk, Authorization Code 576-VP3, open door!"
The doors slid open just as McCoy, with his back to Jim, snapped the Vulcan First Officer's wrists. Spock screamed in pain, and, now unable to nerve pinch McCoy, twisted himself off the bio-bed and tilted his head back as if preparing to head-butt the doctor instead. McCoy's long fingers (still bloody from the last operation he performed) wrapped themselves around Spock's head and twisted fast. The loud pop of neck bones snapping almost made Jim sick to his stomach right there. The taller man fell to the ground with a thud, his head wobbling around, looking detached from the rest of his body, even though the skin remained intact.
Jim was frozen in place as McCoy slowly turned. His face was spattered with blood, as were his hands. His kind eyes and soft features were now hard and cold. A long, jagged scar reminiscent of Melville's' infamous Captain ran down the entire left side of his face. An eye patch covered the hole that once contained a sky blue eye, the object of many women's pleasure. Kirk audibly gasped at his best friends' new visage. Those dexterous hands shot out and grabbed a hypo from the cabinet beside the bio-bed.
"He's dead, Jim." McCoy sneered, taunting his friend. He reached out and pressed a button on the wall, which made the door slide shut with a click.
Suddenly the doctor lunged and grabbed Jim's right shoulder, stabbing the hypo in the other. The Captain fell to the ground, overcome with pain. His throat started to close, his vision started to blur. McCoy just stood there and laughed.
And McCoy spoke, the last thing Captain James T. Kirk ever heard….
"You're dead, Jim."