Summary:We have met the enemy; and they are ourselves. The present day crew comes face to face with evil counterparts of themselves from an parallel universe. Notes: Written for 100 situations challenge, Table 3 prompt #50 sport The story picks up almost immediately where the previous story, "Looking for Perfection," left off.
"The Mirror Liars" by Karen
"I don't like this," Tyr rumbled sitting at the helm of the ship.
The newcomers had come peaceably enough to their assigned quarters, with the additional security protocols in place. Just because they looked, acted, sounded, and even smelled just like the present crew of the Andromeda, did not mean that all sense was forgotten.
For the most part their alleged counterparts were doing as they were told and not causing any trouble, but to Tyr's way of thinking that relatively speaking it was only the calm before the storm.
Difficult as it was to accept the idea that each member of the crew could possibly have a exact double from some alternate universe was not what concerned him by this point, it was the idea that it meant that their own safety would now be compromised. Tyr was nothing if not a pragmatic survivor, whatever Captain Hunt and other members of the crew might believe.
Turning to the ship's acting engineer, he asked. "Let me understand one thing, the odds of this happening I would imagine are quite astronomical, am I correct in that assumption?"
"Yeah, you would be correct. Tyr, good buddy, just what are you driving at?" asked Harper asked with that impish and impudent grin firmly back in place once the initial shock of the visitors' arrival had worn off.
Harper glanced around and then adopted a more serious expression as well.
"You know, I know that Dylan wants to get the ship as far away from that spatial anomaly as possible, because the odds of the ship going boom are far greater than the idea that we would have parallel universe counterparts, but.." Harper paused for a moment rubbing his face with one hand, the other stuffed deep into one of the numerous pockets of those atrocious orange pants.
Then Harper added: "I for one would be just as happy to go back, find that portal and shove them through bodily."
Tyr eyed the young human engineer appraisingly for a few brief seconds. "Intrestingly enough, I was wondering about that. Is it possible?"
"Tyr, I may be an engineering genius, and I like to speculate on theoretical quantum physics as much as the next guy," Harper shrugged. "I hate to admit this, but I just don't know. Maybe we should ask Trance. Just between you and me, she might be the key to this whole thing."
"Why do you say that?" asked Beka in some surprise.
"Because, among all of our lovely duplicates, the only one missing from the bunch, is a certain purple-skinned girl."
"I'm with Tyr," Beka added, "I don't like having them on board the ship. It's creepy and it can't be any good. What did Harper, that multiple versions of ourselves can't exist simultaneously right?"
"That's right." Harper nodded encouragingly, "But as stated it was a working theory, one that's never been proven."
Harper paused in his rambling explanation noting with some alarm and mixed amusement the impatient expression on the faces of his listeners so he decided to skip through the more complicated details and get straight to the point; he sighed, "So far, nothing has blown up. So we're good right there."
"Blow up?" Tyr asked.
"Not that it will," Harper hastily assured everyone, "Just that it could, and that's a very large 'could', would, might, but that does not mean that it will. Damn it, the language is imprecise when dealing with stuff like multiverses and theoretical probabilities."
Interlude
The room was spacious by most space-faring standards, warm, dry, comfortable, and had all the available amenities that they could ask for. Still, with all of them packed in together, it did feel a little bit on the crowded side.
Mirror-double Dylan removed the sheer foam strip from his above his upper lip and on his chin to reveal a narrow and scruffy-looking goatee. "I can't believe I actually agreed to wear that thing," he muttered with some distaste as it fluttered to the floor.
"You were the one who insisted that coming in to this, we try and come as close as possible to matching the physical and personalities traits of our counterparts on this side of the spatial anomaly," Beka's double replied, with even going to the trouble of adding the customary 'Captain'
"Yes, but I am beginning to reconsider this."
The Wayist Magog piped up: "Perhaps we should have taken the opportunity to draw our counterparts to our side of things," he paused as a fit of coughing overtook him, then recovered once more, he added. "Now would not that make for an entertaining ride."
"If you didn't want to come along you could have said so before we left," the bearded version of Dylan Hunt irritably grumbled.
"I suppose there'ss no help for it," Tyr's double added from where he had taken a comfortable if deceptively relaxed stance against the far wall of the spacious room. "What is done is done and I for one, feel that now that we are committed on this course, we must do whatever it takes to ascertain our victory."
"Sometimes," mirror Harper said with a wicked grin, "'I'd say that he was channeling his doppelganger, then again with him it has never been that clear-cut to determine where exactly a Nitetzchean's loyalties lie."
"In the same place where they have always been, Mr. Harper, squarely with himself."
The alternate version of Captain Dylan hunt sighed deeply, and mentally calculated the odds of how much it would take to brain the lot of them with a blunt instrument,; then decided against, but not only where there no handy tools close to hand, it also made the workability that much more difficult.
"So, let met get this straight," Bek's double asked, "Will we be able to control the ship once we eliminate our, shall we say,"she uttered a short barking laugh, 'other selves'?"
"Mr. Harper,■ Dylan's double prompted the engineer.
"I've got the data chip, and it should not be too hard to convince the Andromeda's AI that we're the crew that she recognizes as being legit."
"Well, then, we wait and when I give the order, you've got a green light."
Mirror-Beka smiled. "I've always wanted to be at the helm of this universe'ss Andromeda Ascendant. She smiled again and it was not an entirely unpleasant one. Then she reached up to brush a strand of blond hair away from her blue eyes. ⌠So much nicer, cleaner and easier to handle than our version. At least, it's not all pock marked and beaten up, and looking like it deserves to be towed away to a junk heap."
"It might be a good idea to keep that from our hosts, Captain Valentine," mirror-Tyr said, not entirely without being cynical.
"You all know what to do?" the mirror version of Captain Dylan Hunt asked, more from the sake of going through the motions than worry that the plan he and his crew had formulated months ago when their universe's version of Trance Gemini had discovered one of many gateways between their own and this one, could be traversed, safely.
48 hours later
Dylan stood at the computer bank alongside the ship's AI counterpart, Rommie, Dylan had his arms folded over his chest, contemplating the images scrolling across the screen.
"Do you think I am being pessimistic to think that our counterparts are up to no good and might try something, oh, I don't know, dangerous, at any time?"
"You would be a fool not to," Tyr commented from the far end of the hallway his deep voice rumbling down and echoing off the walls. He came closer and gave Rommie a brief nod.
"I no longer find this situation remotely amusing. Tyr paused and then added. "I suggest, Captain, that we eliminate our doubles before they remove us from the picture entirely."
"You think that's what they are doing here. That they plan to take over the ship?"
"I have given the matter some thought, and I believe that is what they intend."
"Until I have further prove that their intention are less than honorable," Dylan stiffly replied, " I would like to keep my options open. However, Tyr, I will keep your suggestion under advisement."
"As you say, Captain," Tyr nodded and walked back in the direction that he had come from.
"Rommie," Dylan asked turning to face her. "Beka is right about one thing, and tha it is becoming very creepy having our other selves around, if nothing else it is just damn inconvenient and confusing."
"Yes Sir," Rommie replied in an even tone, "If I might make a suggestion, ask Trance."
"Trance? Why?"
"Because as Harper noted, she was the only that did not have a double appear aboard the ship, that might be significant omission," Rommie said. "If nothing else, she might shed some light on the present situation."
Dylan found Trance in the infirmary a puzzled frown marring the otherwise smooth skin of her forehead, and seeing her seemingly absorbed in her thoughts waited half in and half out of the doorway, before he came all the way in and crossed the room to where Trance stood. "Oh, hi."
"Hi, yourself," he replied. "Any ideas, suggestions, brilliant schemes as how we go about dealing with our other selves?" he asked.
Trance looked up, her pale lilac skin tone darkening a shade, but it might have been either his imagination or a trick of the lights. Dylan began to worry, Trance was many things, some of them even her closets and longest friends might not have been aware of, but there was something about this situation that had disturbed her normally bubbly and optimistic nature. "Dylan, I don't like this. We need to get them back where they came from, otherwise the consequences good be dire."
"Sufficiently vague and ominous a prediction as I've ever heard." Dylan somberly replied, reaching out to hold Trance steady when he realized that the tense set of her shoulders was actually trembling.
"I didn't mean it, oh, I, you understand, don't you?" Trance asked in an undertone.
"Yeah, don't worry." Dylan reassured her.
"We will need to check the computer's star charts and find another spatial anomaly from which the mirror doubles originated, and get them to go back to where they came from."
"Easy enough," Dylan nodded his head. "And if they don want to go back peaceably, what then?"
"We have a fight our hands," replied Trance stepping out of Dylan's embrace.
"Somehow, that does not surprise me." Dylan tilted his head to one side, thinking over what it would feel like to have to fight his own mirror double, albeit one that had originated from a parallel universe, then he said: "The only thing that concerns me is if it does come to a fire fight, is trying to distinguish the real crew from the mirror universe crew."
"Typical," Trance smiled, her considerable poise and calm back in place. "Knowing Beka and Tyr, you will most likely sort it out after the fight is over."
"Most likely," Dylan nodded. "Are you gonna be okay, Trance?"
"I will now. Go, go, you've got lots to do."
Rommie's avatar and the screen image both registered and reported a sudden anomalous surge in the energies, sustained and powerful while it lasted, enough to make the present whereabouts of the mirror universe crew unhelpfully imprecise.
Recovered, Rommie immediately informed Captain Hunt, who ordered a full alert status, checked on the whereabouts of his own crew. Harper was in the Machine Shop, Tyr and Rev Bem in their quarters, and Trance in her garden, while he and Beka were on the bridge.
"Tyr, get up to the bridge. While you're doing thatfind Mr. Harper and have him a run a scan on the ship's systems. It might be just a distraction, to keep us busy while they make they're next move," Dylan said, over the ship's communication system.■
"They're idiots, if they think to try anything," Beka casually commented from over her shoulder, he attention on keeping the ship on a steady course.
"I know, I know." Dylan nodded. "Still we can't rule anything out."
"One Tyr Anasazi, not to mention our other duplicates, is more than enough for me," Beka dryly commented, "I should think, gives me a headache. I'll be glad when this is all behind us."
"I would tend to agree with you, Beka."
At that precise moment, their mirror doubles burst through the door, with Trance trussed and draped limply over the broad shoulders of mirror double, Dylan Hunt.
"Now the party's really begin to heat up," he casually remarked. "Seems I've taken away your good luck charm."
"Damn it," Beka snarled under her breath. "Leave her alone! She has nothing to do with this, and even if she wer nott my best friend, only a coward hides behind a living child. You are so dead if you've harmed her!"
"Hold, Beka," Dylan replied, "That's most likely the reaction they were hoping to provoke you into, by this pulling this infantile stunt." Dylan glared at his own duplicate. "I had wondered just how closely the two universes paralleled, now I know."
"Whatever are you babbling about?" the mirror double Tyr growled. "Let us deal with our counterparts as planned."
"In good time," mirror double Rev Bem whispered. "I should think we were agreed on that particular phase of the plan."
"Enough talk," Tyr stated and whipped his laser gun from its sheath and begun firing at will.
Out of the corner of her eye Beka noticed her own double creeping up on her/ When Beka saw her opening shespun around in the pilot's seat and when the other woman was close enough, curled up her legs and kicked out at the double's mid section with one black booted foot.
The double grunted from the impact and reached up to pull from her chair.
In the back of her mind, Beka wondered, 'What kind oft perverse cosmic fate not only brings our doubles here, but also makes them so blantally, well, for lack of a better word, laughably dense? If they are really us, well, us from another universe, why don't we know everything about how we act, think, and more importantly at the moment, fight?'
Beka shoved the thought into a back corner of her mind and concentrated on taking out her double as quickly and efficiently as possible.
This denseness might in fact be an act to wrest control of the helm, and if that was the case Beka would make she that damn well never happened.
Dylan sighed, and removing his own gun from its holster retuned fire, pivoting first one way and then the other as the positions of his targets kept changing. The Andromeda Ascendant's bridge was large by the standards of most space0-faring species in the galaxy, and relatively uncluttered in terms of the various stations,; not a lot of places to take up a defensive action, or for that matter counter-offensive. In the midst
The inter-ship communication chimed and Harper's voice came on. "Dylan, we're golden," the young human's voice was chipper and laced with barely in-held excitement. "I've locked on to the coordinates for another solid spatial anomaly."
"How far away are we?" Dylan asked.
"If we continue on our same speed and course," Harper replied from the engineering deck. "I'd say, we're within at least three or four slipstream jumps from here."
"Acknowledged, Mr. Harper," Dylan said. Turning to Beka, "Can you do it?"
"Can ducks swim?"
"I'll take that as a yes," Dylan replied. "This has been a very long day and it does not appear likely that it will let up any time soon."
"You can't make us go back there!" mirror-Beka screeched. "You don't know what's it like."
"No, I do not," Beka remarked, "and for the record, nor do I want to know, sister."
"Even if it means our own survival," mirror-Tyr stated.
"You would have to bring that up," growled mirror-Rev Bem. "Seriously, is that all you ever think about? He threw up his hands in mingled disgust, but the performance was not entirely convincing,. "Nitzecheans, you just can't take them along to any party. They spoil the fun."
"Shut up, or we'll muzzle you," mirror-Tyr growled back.
"Look, just give it up." Dylan sighed realizing that they were stalling because the charge on their weapons, had run diown.'And where did they get those, I wonder?"
"Surrender now, and we might be able to work toward some kind of mutually satisfying compromise."
"Hell," the mirror-double Dylan Hunt replied throwing his side arm to the ground at his feet and raising his arms in surrender. ⌠It was a long-shot from the get.-go. He stole a significant glance at his mirror-crew. "Don't look at me that way."
Conclusion
True to her own prediction the mirror universe crew had not gone down without a fight, nor had they been at all willing to being sent back to their own universe, but in the end, they had gone.
At the moment, her friends were occupied in cleaning up the mess, from the wreckage that had been the landing bay. Trance had volunteered to clean up in some of the lower decks including the one that held her garden.
Trance Gemini crouched down in the soil of her garden carefully putting the last touches on her plants that she taken from a seedling to its present flourishing greenery and wondered as to the outcome. She found her mind wandering from the concentration necessary to provide the proper mix of nutrients and water for her plants, but at the moment she had bigger things to worry about.
One of those worries happened to be the mirror-universe crew, in the confusion of the fighting, it had been difficult to determined if they had managed to get everyone sorted out. If that was not bad enough, Trance discovered that she was more bothered than she might have otherwise been at the absence of her own presence among the interlopers from the other neighboring alternate universe.
She was having enough trouble getting the crew comfortable and accepting of her new golden adult version, to have to worry that in some alternate universe, she did not exist at all, or if she had, she might conceivably be dead.
Trance cocked her head to one side the dark loamy soil momentarily forgotten trickling through her slim fingers. She realized that given the plans and the actions of the doppelgangers, and the plans they had had for her own crew, it was probably best that she never discovered what her own mirror universe version had been like.
Chapter 3: Standing on the Edge of Forever prompt #58 graveyard
