McCoy raised his eyebrows, sceptically looking at the imposter cuffed to the biobed. The prisoner, Jack Harkniss, had both an impressive bruise encompassing the larger half of his cheek, and a large phaser burn on his calf. Jack wasn't unconscious, but staring blankly at the ceiling, his lips pursed so hard that they began turning white.

"How was the injury inflicted?" Bones asked slowly, grabbing a medical tricorder from a nearby table and switching it on.

"I tripped and fell," Jack snapped sarcastically, trying and failing to wave one of his cuffed hands towards his leg. "What do you think, genius? I was shot!"

McCoy inhaled sharply and counted to ten. "By whom, what was the phaser's setting, and from what distance?"

"I don't know! Forehead shot me."

"You mean a Klingon?" McCoy asked slowly, as if he were talking to a toddler.

"Sure. Why not."

"I find that unlikely."

"And why is that?" Jack sighed, returning his blank gaze once again to the ceiling. McCoy brought the medical tricorder near the burn and nodded affirmingly.

"You can only get this kind of burn from a Starfleet phaser set to a low setting that was fired very close to the target," McCoy grunted, not taking his eyes off his medical tricorder.

"If you already know then why did you ask—you know what? I don't care! Nope!" Jack grumbled, and shifted his legs. Harkniss winced, cursed, and let his legs go still again as Doctor McCoy stood awkwardly above him with a bemused expression.

"So I'll ask again. How was the injury inflicted?"

Jack groaned, squinting his eyes shut.

"Ishotmyself," he mumbled.

"Pardon?"

"I shot myself, okay?" Jack roared, his hands pulling at the handcuffs as he tried to sit up. "It was the stupid gun's fault for looking so weird. And forehead jumped out of nowhere, okay? I didn't have time to think!"

McCoy snorted, closing the medical tricorder. "Yeah, I'm getting the feeling that thinking is not your team's forte."

"Hey!"

"Well, you're lucky the phaser was on such a low setting. Any higher and it might have killed you," McCoy mused, looking back at the charts reading the captive's vitals. "Though in my opinion, that would have been natural selection."

"HEY!"

"This is an easy fix. You'll be all better just in time for your trial and interrogation." McCoy snickered inside as he watched Jack Harkniss' eyes grow wide and then revert to normal.

"Wow, gee, thanks," Jack muttered, rolling his eyes. Doctor McCoy smirked and disappeared into the other room and opened up a cabinet.

He paused, staring at the contents.

"Now where is my darn dermal regenerator?!"

Spock stared at the three prisoners cuffed to the large table. Nurse Tyler looked rather unsettled, as did Ensign Smith, who was grumbling about how the décor in the brig was 'awful' and 'had no fashion sense at all'. Ensign Harkniss looked as if he wished to be anywhere else.

"Let the interrogation of John Smith, Rose Tyler, and Jack Harkness begin... if those are your real names," Jim added, giving them a suspicious look. He pressed his hands on the table and leaned forward. "Do you know what the charges against you are?"

The three were silent.

"Well," Smith began, drawing out the word and looking at his companions, who did nothing but stare in random directions. Smith closed his mouth.

"It's a simple yes or no question," McCoy said sternly.

"Not re-"

"Posing as members of Starfleet and allegedly associating with a forehead," Jack said bluntly, cutting Smith off. His expression stayed blank and emotionless.

Jim blinked. "A forehead?"

"Captain," Spock interjected, "I believe he is referring to a Klingon, as a Klingon's ridged forehead is a most defining characteristic of-"

"Yeah, Thesaurus, we get the metaphor!" McCoy snapped, leaning back in his chair and giving a dramatic sigh.

"I was merely trying to be thorough and offer some explanation."

"Be thorough somewhere else. We're not stupid."

Spock raised his eyebrows and nodded. "I believe that statement is still up for debate."

McCoys eyes widened and then narrowed in sharp anger. "Why you no good, green blooded-"

"We were brainwashed!" Rose blurted.

A silence fell over the table as everyone in the room slowly turned to look at Rose.

"What?" McCoy asked.

"Yeah, what?" Jack hissed, and there was a soft scratching sound as he dug his fingernails into the chair he was sitting in.

'"We were brainwashed!" Rose repeated loudly, more confident this time. "An evil bad guy put little robots in our brains that made us do stuff, and they forced us to pretend to be people on your space ship!"

"Yeah! Mind control!" Smith said, grinning and nodding along.

"Uh huh! Little tiny robots! Like this big." There was a moment of metallic scraping as Rose attempted to raise her hands to presumably show how big the robots were. "Very tiny," she said instead, nodding convincingly.

"Very tiny. In our brains."

"Oh, God," Jack breathed, his eyes dulling over. "You've got to be kidding me."

"I gave bird-nest-hair over here a full brain scan during her psychological examination," McCoy said skeptically, gesturing at Rose. "I think I would have picked up on tiny robots."

"Please, excuse them," Jack said desperately, glaring daggers at his companions. "They're stressed. They're not thinking clearly, and-"

"Yeah! We're crazed!" Smith yelled, and opened his eyes wide and pulled against the restraints hard, almost tipping his chair and causing the guards at the door to raise their phasers.

"Completely insane!" Rose insisted, and made a very strange face: her eyes stretched as wide as humanly possible, a smile that scrunched up her entire face, and her left eye began to twitch occasionally. Her bun on top her head bobbed up and down methodically.

"That is not what I said…" Jack whispered, staring blankly at the table. The others ignored him as they continued to fabricate fantastical stories, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy simply let them speak, with expressions that were both awed and completely confused.

"I hear voices!"

"I do too!" Smith cried and smiled lopsidedly. "And I see things!"

Kirk tried to hold up a hand to stop their endless claims, but Rose barreled right over him, her voice high and panicked.

"You can't hold a crazy person accountable, can you?" Rose said, her voice rising several octaves. "I'm so crazy!"

"You think you're crazy? I'm crazy!" Smith yelled, and this time he pulled on his restraints so hard that his chair tipped over, where he laughed maniacally from the floor. "I'm so crazy!"

"I'm even more crazy!" Rose yelled, and she twisted her head back and forth rapidly so her ugly bun on top her head fell out. She turned and bit a large amount of her hair with her teeth and began to grunt like an ape.

"Why me?" Jack whispered, sinking deeper into his chair.

"It is physically impossible to be more crazy than me! I don't even-"

"Again!" McCoy snapped, rubbing his eyes. "Psychological examination. You're not insane. I would have known."

"I believe what my colleagues are trying to say is that this is a huge misunderstanding," Jack pleaded. "We were tricked, you see. Someone told us that-"

"That you were ZOMBIES!" Rose interrupted, leaning forward and spitting her hair out of her mouth.

"No..." Jack whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. He bit down on his lip so hard that a line of blood appeared.

"And if you found out who we were, you would have eaten our brains!" Rose said. "Literally! That's what they told us!"

"I can confirm that!" Smith said affirmingly, his voice muffled from the floor. "You can count me as a witness. That's exactly what happened."

"And who told you this?" Jim asked skeptically. McCoy's face behind him was very red and his fists were clenched at his sides. Spock simply stood there, his hands behind his back and a calculating expression on his face.

"Klingons!" Smith and Rose exclaimed simultaneously.

You fools, Jack mouthed, his face dead and hopeless and his gaze blank on the table.

"So you are working with the Klingons!" Kirk said, narrowing his eyes. He leaned over the table and looked into Rose's eyes and then at Smith's on the ground.

"Uh… n-no no, we are not…" Smith claimed, pursing his lips. Jim stood back up, made an ah expression and exchanged disbelieving looks with his senior officers. His expression than deepened into a dark frown.

"You just said you were," Kirk reminded him.

"I didn't say that. When did I say that?"

"Just now!"

"Rose, did I say that?" Smith asked.

"No. I didn't hear anything." She shook her head.

"See! Told you!"

"Is he serious?" McCoy asked incredulously, his face a cartoonish bright red and his hands clenched so hard that they made half moon circles into the surface of his palms.

"We all heard you claim that the Klingons provided you with false information and influenced your actions aboard this ship," Spock said, yet again with an eyebrow raised. "Denying this is futile."

"Aha!" Smith cheered, but since his face was smashed up against the ground, it sounded more like a grunt. "So now you're hearing things! Who's crazy now?"

Jack's eye twitched.

"Maybe you're the guilty ones. Maybe you should get a psychological examination!" accused Rose, a triumphant smile pricking the sides of her mouth.

"Boom! You're found guilty! I win! Checkmate! Game, set, match!" Smith shouted muffledly, beaming unabashingly at the Starfleet officers. "King me."

"Home run," Rose added.

"Touch down," whispered Smith from the ground.

The room went silent. Jack was so still that he appeared to be a wax statue.

"What in tarnation…" said McCoy, shaking his head and unclenching his hands.

"I'd like to plead guilty of all charges and request the death sentence. Please. Right now," Jack moaned, sagging his shoulders and hanging his head.

"We can't-"

"And I plead the fifth," interrupted Rose, her face stubborn and pleased.

"You. Are. British!" Jack burst out, his face beet red.

"The fifth?" Jim asked, rubbing his hand over his face and looking to his first officer for an explanation.

"When an accused is pleading the fifth in a court of law, they are referring to the fifth amendment of the United States constitution. This allowed the accused to stay silent when asked a question," explained Spock. "This, of course, is only applicable in American courtroom scenarios."

"Yes, thank you, Mr. Spock," Jim said, running his hands through his hair and sighing deeply again. His patience was evidently running thin, and the three infiltrators seemed even more incompetent than he had originally believed.

"I'm sorry, again," Jack grunted through gritted teeth. "I think there's been another misunderstanding. Perhaps my colleagues would like for me to do the speaking from now on? You see, my associate here obviously wasn't referring to the fifth amendment of the United States, she was-"

"Of course I'm not referring to the fifth amendment!" blurted Rose. "I'm, um, referring to the fifth… clause… in the treaty of the… the Daleks, in agreement with the rules of the…. Cybermen, signed by the Slitheen family and agreed upon by the… Time… Lords…"

There was a thud as Jack's head hit the table.

"Just take us to jail, please," he moaned.