Chapter 9

Harry moved to the front of the shuttle to get a report from whoever was in charge. To his great surprise, he saw Captain Janeway's counterpart hovering over a balding man's shoulder as they read a sensor display.

With a smile on his face, Harry was just about to greet her when she turned to look at him sharply. "You." Her eyes burned with fury. "We got you instead. He'd better not be dead – or I'll hold you personally responsible."

It took Harry a moment to realize what she was saying. "No, I'm not Harry – I mean, I am, but I'm not the Harry you think, Captain."

The slip of using her rank caused her turn around to look at him again, this time with curiosity. "Captain?" she repeated, trying the word out. Then she turned to the man, and they started laughing. "I didn't know I'd gotten a promotion, General."

"General Barclay," he said with a grin, "I like the sound of that."

"So if you're not Harry Kim," the captain's counterpart said, "you mind telling me who you are, Commander? And where Admiral Chakotay is?"

Harry sighed. They clearly held him responsible for their friend's – Death? Maybe the weapon was set on stun. Maybe he's still alive down there. He had to push aside that thought in order to determine how to answer. He wondered if he should tell the truth. Wasn't there some kind of danger of polluting their timeline or altering the balance of their universe if he admitted who he really was?

Then again, they weren't very fond of Harry One. Maybe they'd like H2 better.

Harry felt the familiar tug of an ethical dilemma, each side pulling him in the opposite direction, just as his older cousins used to fight over him when they chose teams for volleyball. "Harry's on my team," Harper would say, yanking on the left, to which Lee would argue, "No, we want him!" as he grasped Harry's right arm. Harry, only seven or so, would stand between them, slightly worried they were going to tear his arms off. It was the same thing now. Something told him to play the role of his counterpart until he could escape, in order to prevent influencing their world. But he felt something else pulling at him, arguing that he should tell them the truth. They might know how he got to their universe, and if not, at least they'd understand why he couldn't get involved in their conflict with the Alliance.

Or maybe, he thought, I should get involved. After all, he was on the rebel craft heading back to one of their hideouts. If the Cardassians or Klingons found him, they'd assume he was part of the group anyway. He might as well participate.

And they deserved his help. They were humans, just like him, only unlike him they hadn't grown up in peace and comfort. They lived in a universe in which they were slaves. Didn't he have a moral obligation to help them? Did Starfleet's commitment to noninterference extend as far as turning a blind eye to injustice?

He was certain the Prime Directive was never intended for that.

"Well, Major?" Kathryn prompted, her hands on her hips just like the Captain Janeway he knew and loved.

"It's not Major. I'm Ensign Harry Kim of the Federation starship Voyager," he explained patiently, ready to answer the questions that would inevitably follow.

As they materialized on the surface of Aldebaran, B'Elanna squinted into the harsh sunlight. She heard the guards calling the prisoners to line up for her inspection and felt her heart beginning to race with anticipation.

But as she and Damar stepped into the camp and heard the force field reactivate behind them, she scanned the line of prisoners and was dismayed that she didn't see the familiar solid body topped with raven hair. Once again, Harry wasn't where they had hoped to find him.

She looked to Damar for an answer.

He knew immediately what she was asking him, but he just shrugged.

Their intelligence had again failed them. B'Elanna wondered if they'd find the rebel leaders the Obsidian Order swore were there, or if the mission would compare in success to their previous trip to Terok Nor.

"You promised me he was here," she muttered through clenched teeth so the others wouldn't hear. "What kind of intelligence network do you have?"

"One that's keeping you alive." Damar flashed his sick smile at her.

B'Elanna turned her back to the others so she could speak more candidly. "This is the second place we've been to, Damar."

"The border patrollers are supposed to bring detainees to Terok Nor. Obviously, they didn't take your friend there. Sometimes they sell them here. This was the next logical place to look for him. But don't worry. There are plenty of rebels here for us to recruit. This is where they send the worst of them."

One of the prison guards stepped forward, hesitant to interrupt but clearly desiring to offer information. "Our apologies for the lackluster crop, Sub-regent," he said, "but the rebels raided the camp yesterday. Twenty prisoners managed to escape in the few minutes the force field was down."

B'Elanna was only half-listening as one of the prisoners caught her eye. "Tom? Tom Paris?"

"I think she's talking to you, Nick," Chakotay said, noticing the careful way the blond man avoided looking over at the woman who was calling out.

The arrangement Damar had made with the guards was to buy ten prisoners. And this time, B'Elanna resolved, she was not going to be talked out of her choices. With Tom ignoring her, she started at the other end of the line. "You," she said to an old man with weathered skin and a crown of frizzed gray hair.

"Please, Sub-regent, she is my wife."

"Do not speak to the Sub-regent!" the Andorian shouted, jabbing the old man in the ribs with his phaser rifle.

"Hey, hey, hey, take it easy." She steered the old man gently out of line by the elbow and nodded for the wife to follow. "They'll be more productive workers without you threatening them every five minutes," she castigated the Andorian. As she moved down the line, she claimed six others, reserving her last two choices for Tom and Chakotay.

"I'm not going with you," Chakotay said defiantly. Somehow B'Elanna didn't expect anything less from him.

"Sub-regent," the Andorian warned, "he's a known leader in the Terran Rebellion. He's not worth your money."

"All the better for our purposes," Damar insisted. "Once we get him on our side, the rest of the Terrans will fall in line."

"That will never happen," Chakotay nearly spat.

"Yes, it will," Damar reiterated.

B'Elanna took a step forward, pretending to inspect him. He looked so strange without his tattoo. "Trust me," she hissed in his ear. Then louder, "And him." She pointed now to Tom and turned away too abruptly to see the terrified look on his face.

"All right, Mister Computer Genius," Kathryn said, leading him to the back of the shuttle. Harry had quickly learned that she had the authority and strength of Captain Janeway, but her attitude was stuck on Janeway-without-coffee. He missed the captain's sense of humor, her optimism, the reassuring way she'd touch him on the shoulder during a shift on the bridge. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't like this Kathryn. She pulled back a ratty curtain to reveal a workspace with contraband computer equipment. "Since you say you're so talented, you're going to help us. Reg and Zimm think they have an idea for creating an army of holographic soldiers to help us turn the tide against the Alliance."

"Ah, you're just in time," Zimm announced, striding over to them.

He looked and sounded like the Doctor, but what little hair he had was unkempt. And instead of a reassuring Starfleet medical uniform, he was wearing a plum and emerald combination that was too tight in the midsection and too long in the sleeves. He kept pushing the cuffs over his wrists, and they kept sliding down again.

"We're ready to bring them online," he explained. He lifted his arm up ceremoniously, then frowned and paused to push up his sleeve, raised his arm again, and with flourish brought his index finger down to the console and hit the activation button. The room suddenly filled with holograms, every single one of them a replica of Zimm.

Kathryn covered her mouth with her hand to hide her surprise.

"Zimm," Reg said, examining the nearest photonic man, "why you'd program them all to look like you?"

"What was I supposed to program him to look like?"

"Zimm, if all the holographic soldiers look alike," Kathryn reminded him, "the Alliance will know immediately they're not real."

"And if they know they're not real," Reg continued, "then they'll start targeting the real fighters."

"Maybe not." The three turned to look at Harry. "When I was in the camp, none of the guards seemed to notice that there were two of me."

"You think all Terrans look the same to the Cardassians?" Reg asked.

"That may be," Kathryn said, "but how hard could it be to give them new appearances?"

"Kathryn," Zimm groaned, "I'd have to reprogram each one. It'll take hours."

"You could create an algorithm that tells the computer to randomly select from a pool of options," Harry began. He stopped himself. Noninterference, Harry. Way to go.

Reg latched onto the idea. "Yes – we give four or five options for hair color, height, skin tone that the computer can choose from, and write that subroutine into the program for all the soldiers."

"Good," Kathryn declared authoritatively. There was something in her eyes that told Harry she had no idea what she was approving. "Reg, get on it. Harry, you help."

"I'm sorry," he said a little timidly. "I can't."

"You don't know how?"

"No, I – it's a rule."

Kathryn gave him a long look, something equivalent to what B'Elanna once called Captain Janeway's "glare of doom" – a name she thought was funny because it sounded like something from Tom's movie collection.

Where the hell is B'Elanna?

"Reg, can you do it?"

"I think so, Kathryn." He smoothed his hair over his bald spot. "It's going to be hard."

"It'd be a whole lot easier if the visiting professor here pitched in."

It was hard to miss the ice in Kathryn's voice. Harry ran a hand through his thick hair and moved to stand face to face with her. "I'm sorry I can't get involved. We have really strict rules about that where I come from." She gave him a contemptuous glare. "I can understand how it must seem to you. It's not that I don't care or that I don't want you to succeed."

"How wonderful of you."

"Look, Kathryn where I come from, you – well, the other you – she's the one who would insist I follow the rule. It's called the Prime Directive, and it means we don't interfere in the development of other societies, except under certain circumstances."

Kathryn blindsided him with a punch straight across the jaw. Then she spit on the floor. "That's what I think of your Prime Directive." As Harry rubbed his jaw – fortunately, it didn't feel broken or dislocated, though he knew there'd be a huge bruise – Kathryn picked up a phaser and pointed it at him. "Now, are you going to help us with the holograms or not?"

"Kathryn!" Reg yelled in surprise.

"Put the phaser down!" Zimm added.

"Stay out of this," she warned them both, her eyes trained on Harry. "Well, what's it going to be?"

"No," Harry said forcefully. "You'll have to kill me if that's how you feel about it. I cannot and will not help you."

"Space him." Kathryn pocketed the phaser and walked away from them.