Chapter Fifteen
The Best Defense
When Kelly, in her proper uniform and having synthesized soap and water to clear the blood from her bruised face, pending Claire's ministrations later, rejoins the others she hands McGee and Mercer their jackets. She silently reminds Ed by her holding of the sleeve to recreate a fresh one with the inset communicator, as she sees Alara also must. He nods the end of their covert conversation.
"What's next?" she asks, grateful still that their captors, no matter how much they resemble them, are not as efficient as they would be. If any of the three invaders had remembered to destroy the communications circuits in the priest's jacket sleeve….
"War Council," Mercer tells her in deadly tones.
"I was just telling the Captain and Alara," LaMarr says, "that whoever they are, they're planning on hitting Luna 4 – "
"Literally," Alara bites.
"At 0853."
x
Mercer is not surprised by that, it's a formidable scheme and he wishes he had more time to stop it. "We can't move against them until we're sure we can take them out at the same time, which is probably the start of Alpha shift."
"Right," LaMarr says, sounding like he's looking forward to coming to grips with the three imposters. He wants a chance to educate the phony Mercer after what he'd done to Kelly. "They've been cutting a swath through the ship all day while distracting the crew with war games, and they've probably been sabotaging our systems so we can't change course. They've almost certainly been planting a ton of booby-traps."
"Your first concern: Go over everywhere they've been. You and your people quietly and subtly check everything you can think of and make sure we haven't been booby trapped."
"If they're so sure," Schaap says, "that they've taken over and are going to crash the ship, would they plant booby traps in case we don't?"
"I would," Mercer assures him.
"We won't need much of a change, would we?" Crystal asks. "Less than a hundredth, or even a thousandth, of a degree?"
Mercer gives her an appraising look. "Any time you want to transfer over to Navigation –"
"No Way!" is Crystal and John's unintended duet.
x
"It's true that this far out," Ed says, "an alteration of a thousandth of a degree will be more than enough to miss Luna, or at the very least Lunar Base 4."
"Which Louisa and Gordon will correct as soon as they see it," Crystal assumes.
"Your job. Get to them before they come on duty, tell them that whatever they see, to let it happen and stay mum."
"What if Ensign Sportelli makes the course change?" Schaap asks but four heads shake and LaMarr puts it into words.
"That phony Mercer would blow her brain out."
x
"Are you sure they'll use booby traps?" Crystal says, more to feel she's contributing.
"Count on it," LaMarr declares. "They're almost certain to have sabotaged the systems. Change course, slow down, blow ourselves to kingdom come."
"Your people check everything, and you have too little time to pull it through."
"I'll need all three shifts and," he glances to McGee, "you pray no one notices us."
"I will," she promises.
"No risks by anyone," Mercer declares. "Change course or slow us down, either way we need time for the Union to mobilize the fleet in answer to our message." He hadn't checked if the 'Salute' had gone out because he doesn't believe the man would fail.
x
"So we'll hit them on the bridge in," he checks the chronometer posted at the control panel, "one hour. Meantime," he glances at Schaap, "you quietly relay what's happened to everyone you see. Don't use the intercom or communicator, just take a long walk."
"I understand, sir."
"We'll stay here."
"Here?" Kelly has finally heard a part of the plan that she detests.
"They saw before that we were helpless to fight them. I don't believe they'll be back to check on us before they've spent some establishment time on the bridge."
"And if one or more of them do?"
The smile Mercer favors her with is absolutely feral. "Game Over."
xxx
The starship's bridge, though dimly lit on Night Watch, is in no way the appropriate venue for a devious plot or an epic battle. It is, in fact, utterly unremarkable as one by one the Alpha Shift officers exchange places with their Gamma shift counterparts. Isaac has never felt a need for a break and therefore has spent Gamma shift at his station following a most interesting evening with the Finn family.
Gordon Malloy and Louisa Sportelli enter together, giving many signs of coming off a long and engaging conversation, and they are followed a minute later by Kitan, who relieves Ens. Mace of his duty - he has no idea that it's forever - minutely if unobtrusively scans the bridge and the exchanging officers.
Bortus arrives, taking his place beside the Security Chief and last are Mercer and Grayson.
Lt. Jan Margolin rises from the center Starboard seat to face her C.O. "Transferring Command to you, sir. We are now 52 minutes out from Earth."
"Accepted, Lieutenant. Any problems?"
"Nope. So quiet up here I never even heard the mouse."
Isaac turns slightly right, unnecessary as he has no face but he has adopted some of the mannerisms of the humans he was sent to study. "There are presently no rodents aboard Orville. The last such were a pair of Mus musculus domesticus brought aboard by Life Sciences in an effort to study the effects of Quantum Drive upon –."
"Yes, sir." Margolin knows that, uninterrupted, the Kaylon might well launch into a dissertation on the white mice, the theories involved, the tests and results of same, likely expounding upon the subject through the various stages of research.
"All right, Lieutenant, I have the bridge. Get some rest." As she steps away, he concludes that "You never know what can happen out here."
"Yes, sir." As she heads for the door, Margolin hears the Captain's order to 'Begin Day Watch'.
The light intensity doubles and then: "Charge all weapons and prepare to fire at my command" halts her in mid-stride at the doorway.
x
Gordon Malloy, even though briefed by the Chaplain on the staggering recent events, turns so quickly he risks whiplash. "Captain, is that really necessary?"
"You heard my order, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir." He turns to his board, having no intention of implementing said order when pandemonium erupts behind him.
x
Alara Kitan, Ed Mercer and Kelly Grayson nearly barrel Jan Margolin off her feet as they charge onto the bridge.
She clutches the door frame, is grabbed from her right by the Chaplain and tugged out into the corridor as she sees Alara, at near breakneck speed, dash around the Command chairs and slam her fists en passant into the heads of the two blue and black uniformed officers to complete her charge in an attack of astonishing violence against the seated Security Chief.
"Gordon!" Mercer yells as he nears the man in his chair. He'd gotten confirmation from LaMarr that the traps had been found and disabled one second before ordering the charge. "Change Course! Any Course!"
"You got it, Captain!" the pilot snaps, putting the ship into a tight turn.
"Isaac, assist Alara!" Ed concludes, the command tight on the previous one. The Kaylon, with sensors rather than eyes, is in no doubt as to which of the women battering each other is his shipmate.
Mercer had planned to take on his duplicate but had reckoned without Kelly's fury and the violence she unleashes upon her rapist, leaving him to contest with a severely addled Grayson reeling from Alara's attack.
There might, somewhere, have been a shorter space battle but no one believes there has been one more violent or decisive. From initial charge to final outcome a mere thirteen seconds have elapsed before the three invaders are rendered impotent upon the deck.
In one case that description may hold a dramatic and drastic application.
Or as Jan Margolin acknowledges the ringleader's observation, "You never know what can happen out here."
xxx
In short order following the retaking of the Orville and the capture of the invaders, each share a cell in the ship's brig.
They have been relieved of uniforms and everything that could conceivably be of use, no matter how disguised. A broad application of the Captain's orders reduced the trio to their underwear, though Kelly had objected to even that generosity in the fake Mercer's case.
The outer door slides open to admit three officers, mirror images of the man and women seated in the main cell. Mercer looks up at his twin, but unlike the new arrival the hate on his face is virtually palpable.
"So, you've come to gloat. Our roles are reversed, you have us, but your 'victory' will change nothing."
Ed will not rise to the challenge. "I thought you'd like to know that we are holding station outside the orbit of Pluto. We found all your sabotage and everything has been corrected. Your next stop is a Supermax Prison while the Union breaks you."
"You fool," Mercer says, standing to confront his captor, "you've won nothing. Oh, a slight delay, but you still lose."
"You know, I often wondered what it would be like to meet myself, but all I see in you is hate; so much in fact that I don't even want to interrogate you. I don't care about your plan, there are people who can get answers out of you no matter how long it takes."
"You know, I almost hate to disappoint you."
And he brings his first two fingers to the artery under his right ear, shoves hard, a moment later his knees buckle and he falls to the deck.
"Drop the field!" is a near yell to the Security Officer as Kitan raises her hand to below her right ear and as quickly the life fades from her eyes.
The field drops, Alara reaches her doppelganger too late and the Xelayan lays limp in her original's grasp.
Four determined officers converge upon Kelly's imposter, determined to do all they can to immobilize her.
"Relax," she says with more calm than anyone would have credited her for. "No way am I committing suicide."
Alara touches the communicator embedded in her left sleeve. Claire Finn will make that exit impossible.
xxx
"Chaplain's Log, December 24, 2420. Merry Christmas Eve. That's it. I have no more words," Crystal McGee says into seemingly empty air. She sits in her quarters, at the table before the last of the large slanted windows that this time display still stars. Sol is before the ship, so distant it could be a wan point of light that would offer no heat out here near Pluto's orbit. The stars form a three dimensional tableau of lights billions or trillions or more miles away, but there seems nothing placid about them at all.
She's learned the computer will hold the pause indefinitely until she indicates she's done with recording either by leaving or any other sign.
This is good, for: "I simply cannot put these past few hours into anything that would make sense, even if I am the only one who'll hear it.
"Merry Christmas, though merry is probably far from likely.
"They say one of the purposes of a Log is to help you think, by forcing you to put your thoughts into words, but I don't know what to think. I know what I should think to put these days into some kind of order, something that makes sense.
"But I don't know what to think.
"The Orville was invaded, infiltrated, I don't know what word they'll settle on, by people that look like Captain Mercer, Commander Grayson and Security Chief Kitan and now two of them are dead and the ship is on Yellow Alert. Everyone is to continue inspecting their assigned areas for any further threats. For me that's pretty easy, my quarters and office are the only places assigned to me and no one has been to either except Alara - the real Alara I'm sure - since I boarded.
"The Captain, the real Captain, made that announcement that two of the invaders are dead and we're holding station until someone comes out here, some twenty minutes ago, ending with a reassurance that everything is under control.
"I guess I have to believe him.
"The Chaplain in me would go to someone and offer Last Rites, the woman hasn't a blessed idea what to do."
xx
In Sick Bay the three officers so recently violated do have an idea how to proceed and it centers on the dark woman who steps out through the sliding door of the sterile field-saturated Operation Suite. The suite contains a bio analyzer among other specialized equipment and Mercer wants to know what answers the woman and her team have pulled from it.
Claire Finn pulls off the blue surgical gown and pushes it into the synthesizer slot in the right wall and the garment vanishes in a column of light, reduced to its basic molecules. Would that the question, and the mystery, would dissolve as quickly.
The three have given her the seconds to speak first, but Mercer considers time to be up. "Well, doctor?"
She doesn't rush an answer, but time is indeed expired.
"I removed this from adjacent to her right carotid artery," she says, holding up a device so small it could get lost in her fingers. "I'm not sure what it is yet, that waits on analysis, but from the video you showed me it's fast and lethal."
"Can she talk?"
"She's awake, but whether she will say anything is another issue."
This is no surprise, as she hadn't said a word since her forced removal from the brig.
"I intend to get some answers."
"Then I have a doozy for you. Before I began the operation, I took a genetic sample from each of them. I wanted to find out who they are."
"Did you get any answers?" Somehow three people had infiltrated the ship who carried their roles so perfectly they were able to fool every person they came into contact with.
"Yes, nurse Carter did. I identified them as Edward Mercer and Kelly Grayson of Earth and Alara Kitan of Xelaya."
"What, you mean they're clones?"
"No. I don't know how this can be, but they are definitely not clones. There are too many variances that I can't explain, and too many expected variances are missing."
"Then what are they?"
x
At that moment Isaac enters. "Captain, you will require this information."
"What?" He doesn't care about interruption, timing or anything of the kind. If the Kaylon has information, he wants it.
"An analysis of the bodies of the man and woman in stasis reveals that, genetically, they are identical to yourself and Lieutenant Kitan except for their quantum signatures. There are distinct differences in" and here commences a long run of terms Mercer has never heard before, nor can he follow the Kaylon's explanation.
"What is that in English?"
If Isaac had a face, other than Gordon's one-time contribution, Mercer might have been interested in its expression, but the tone of his voice is as pedantic as usual.
"All matter in our universe exists with a universal quantum signature, a vibrational frequency and length common to all matter. It is one of the fundamental constants of existence. Our prisoners do not exhibit the quantum signature of our universe."
"And that means?"
"They are not native to our cosmos."