.o0o.

Captain James T Kirk of the starship Enterprise sighed a breath of relief as Spock announced that Vaal was dead. A force like that could have easily destroyed the Enterprise or any ship in orbit it chose. That they'd managed to free the villagers from their oppressive ruler without losing his ship was going down as a win in his book.

"Mr. Scott, status report." Kirk spoke into his communicator to one of the few people he would entrust his ship to.

"Tractor beam gone. Potency returning to antimatter pods." Scotty reported instantly from the bridge of the ship. "I'll have all engineering sections working on the circuits immediately. Transporter will be ready in an hour." God that man was a miracle worker.

Kirk broke into a wide grin. "Scotty, you're re-hired." He announced unnecessarily. Doubtless, no one had taken him seriously the first time around when he'd supposedly fired the engineer. Scotty certainly hadn't as he'd continued working tirelessly. "Once that's fixed, form an analytical detail and beam them down." He slapped his communicator shut a turned to the villagers. He gave an explanation to Akuta and his people that boiled down to them being on their own but that they'd like it. They celebrated with the villagers, though it was debatable if they knew what was being celebrated and then returned to the ship.

After a minute of instructions toward Chekov, he caught up with McCoy and Spock out in the hallway. They were, unsurprisingly, caught up in an argument.

"I don't agree with you, Mr. Spock."

"That is not unusual, Doctor."

Kirk was prepared to let this argument pass him by, but Bones dragged him into it with a, "Jim, I want you to hear this."

"Captain, I'm not at all certain we did the correct thing on Gamma Trianguli Six."

"We put those people back on a normal course of social evolution. I see nothing wrong with that." Bones cut in before Spock could make his explanation.

"Well, it's an example of what could happen when a machine becomes too efficient, does too much of the work for you."

Spock merely raised an eyebrow. "Captain, you are aware of the Biblical story of Genesis."

"Yes, of course."

"In a manner of speaking, we have given the people of Vaal the knowledge of good and evil and they, too, have been driven out of paradise." It was a strange connection for Spock to draw, but there he was making it.

Kirk turned to McCoy, feeling playful. "Doctor, do I understand him correctly? I'm being cast in the role of Satan?"

"Not at all." Spock stately blandly enough that one might easily assume he was making just that correlation.

Grinning wider now, Kirk began to circle the Vulcan, McCoy following his lead. "Is there anyone on board who even remotely looks like Satan?"

Spock straightened even further. "I am not aware of anyone who fits that description, Captain."

"No, Mr. Spock, I didn't think you would be."

Just as they finished their banter, Scotty came around the corner and hurried them down the hall. "Captain, there wasn't a good time to tell you before, but we got some guests aboard while you were away."

"How? The transporter wasn't working." And where would they have come from, anyway? There weren't any other ships in orbit... right?

"It must have been working from their side."

"Their side?" Kirk echoed as he followed Scotty down the corridors to the brig, Bones and Spock close on his heels. "Oh no." He moaned as he caught sight of their prisoners. "Not this again."

An exact duplicate of himself and Dr. McCoy were sitting in the brig. "Their Spock is in Sickbay." Scotty chimed in helpfully.

"What the hell is going on?" The Kirk in the brig demanded.

"You don't remember being here?" The other Kirk inquired.

"Of course I do. This is my ship. The only question is who you are."

"The multiverse theory speculates that there are an infinite number of universes that encompass not only what does exist but every reality that could exist." Spock supplied. "Our assumption was that the crew of the ISS Enterprise were opposite versions of ourselves may have been flawed."

"So, let me get this straight." The Kirk in the brig interrupted. "You're saying that there are millions of versions of ourselves out there where the only difference might be what I ate for breakfast?"

"Correct."

"And that you are from one of these alternate realities."

"More accurately, that you are from an alternate reality from our own." Spock corrected. "Our teleporter was inoperative at the time you arrived, thus you must be the alternate party."

The McCoy in the brig was muttering something about teleporters being unsafe while the other McCoy grunted, "How do we know they're not from the same reality as last time?"

"Their behavior bears little resemblance to the barbarism of the last crew." Spock explained.

"Yeah, but they'd know better this time." McCoy persisted. "It could be a trap."

"Spock, you could try a mind meld." Kirk suggested.

The Kirk in the brig nodded. "I'd be amenable to that."

"Jim," The prisoner McCoy warned in a low tone that carried across the room anyway, "Maybe if they have a reason not to trust us, perhaps we should have a reason not to trust them. We are, after all, in the brig. And Spock has the ability to destroy your mind if he's not as good-natured as our own."

"Are you getting any bad vibes?" The captive Kirk asked in a volume that the others were straining to hear.

"What am I, a seismograph?" Still, the other prisoner examined each of them in turn, then shrugged noncommittally.

Kirk couldn't figure out what it was he was trying to do and cast a glance at his own McCoy who looked just as bewildered by the act as he'd been. "We recently encountered alternate versions of ourselves who had a nasty habit of killing people. We're just playing it safe."

"If we are from an alternate reality," The other Kirk began, seeming doubtful of his words even as he said them, "Then we have little interest in anything other than returning to our own. We certainly don't mean you any harm."

"Very well. Spock, work with Scotty to replicate the transporter process to send these people back where they came from."

"Captain, it may not be possible given that we are not currently experiencing an ion storm here."

Kirk rubbed his temple. He did not want to get stuck with potentially dangerous duplicates of themselves. That was not an option. "Do what you can to prepare. If our realities are running similar routes, we may experience another ion storm presently. In any case, I want to be able to send these people home at the first opportunity."

Spock nodded and left, so Kirk turned his attention on the newcomers. They could have valuable information, perhaps even information on events that hadn't yet occurred in their timeline. But first, he needed to know what kind of people they were and that would be easier to accomplish if he could separate them without suspicion. He spied the stains on the blue uniform shirt. "Let's get you a fresh uniform, shall we?" He offered the McCoy in the brig.

He looked down, as if noticing that he still had Spock's blood on his shirt and nodded.

Ten minutes later found Kirk facing the new McCoy in the borrowed shirt and looking even more indistinguishable from the McCoy sitting to his right. They were sitting around the conference table in the debriefing room. Kirk flipped on the recording device.

"Name?"

"Leonard McCoy."

"Rank?"

"Commander."

"Well, that's something different." Kirk caught his McCoy muttering.

He cleared his throat and continued. "Position?"

"Chief Medical Officer on the Enterprise."

Kirk frowned. It couldn't hurt to check, could it? "What's the full name of the Enterprise?"

"USS Enterprise 1701." The stranger McCoy responded, looking thoroughly puzzled by their sighs of relief. "Something I said?"

Kirk just smiled tightly and kept on with the interview. "Who do you work for?"

"Well, the Enterprise is commissioned by the United Federation of Planets."

"And what happened to the Halkans?"

"Who are the Halkans?"

The innocently asked question settled any lingering doubts in Kirk's mind that these people might be from the same universe as their mirror counterparts had been. Spock's theory that there were any number of alternate realities looked even more plausible. But where did their universes diverge? "What happened with Nancy Crater?"

McCoy frowned at his question being ignored, but continued to answer. "She turned into a salt-demon. I had to shoot her."

"What about Charlie Evans?"

"The pint-sized megalomaniac?"

"And Miri?"

"A 300 year old child."

"It seems our realities are running in very similar lines." Kirk conceded. Despite this proclamation, they still spent the next few hours discussing the outcomes of every major mission they'd been on. While they'd never experienced the Mirror Universe, it seemed as though they'd had every other mission and resolved each of them in the same manner. After some time, he decided that they would probably be safe with just a guard on their alternate selves.

"What about Bloringdia?" McCoy finally asked.

Kirk tried to remember the name. "We were passed over for that assignment." He announced as he pulled up the file. "Captain Harris got it. Lost his CMO there, too, and he's been falling far behind in his assignments since then."

McCoy straightened at this. "Well, my guess is that's where our realities split because in my reality, the Enterprise had that job. And I'd bet that Harris' CMO is still alive on that planet, just had his memories swiped. It's what they tried to do to me."

"Really?" Kirk's brows flew up. "What happened?"

McCoy was suddenly fidgeting in his seat. "Can I see Spock first? My Spock?" He started to stand before any confirmation was given, and nearly collapsed on the floor. Kirk shot out of his seat, the other doctor close behind, and steadied the man.

"Sickbay might not be a bad idea."

Kirk nodded at his McCoy's words. There was something else going on here and he was going to find out what it was.

.o0o.