I beamed down to Camus II with a security team of five redshirts loyal to me, materializing in a large, recently-unearthed subterranean chamber. Janice Lester and her toady Arthur Coleman were waiting for us, as arranged. My redshirts fanned out, checking for any nasty surprises in the rooms beyond while Janice shook her head, a look of amused contempt on her beautiful face.

"Do we have to go through this routine every time we meet?" she asked. "I would have thought you knew me well enough to trust me by now, Jim."

"I didn't rise to be captain of the ISS Enterprise by trusting people," I said, "and you are a grave robber, so..."

"I really hate that term."

"What else would you call someone who sneaks onto worlds with long dead civilisations ahead of official Empire teams, digs up what she can before they get there, then sells it on the black market?"

"I prefer 'freelance archaeologist'."

"Are you still calling yourself 'Doctor'?"

"Why not?" she said, shrugging, "Academic titles impress some people and help with sales."

"All clear, Captain," said the leader of the redshirts when their security sweep was complete, "though there are several dead bodies a few chambers away."

"My diggers," explained Janice. "When they'd completed the excavations that got us down to this complex they demanded extra. I'm a businesswoman with her profit margin to consider, so they didn't really leave me any choice. Could your boys dispose of them for me?"

"See to it, Williams."

"Very good, sir," replied the redshirt leader. "OK men, let's get this done."

I approved of Janice's ruthlessness in pursuit of profit. It made her predictable, and predictable was good. When my men had left the chamber I turned my attention back to her.

"Something else to add to my file on you," I said, "and if that file ever found its way to Starfleet you'd be sent to prison for a long, long time - if they didn't decide to execute you, that is."

"That's always been an option for you, Jim."

She sounded amused by the threat, self-satisfied. Irritated, I reached out and grabbed her by the throat.

"I could snap your neck like a twig if I wanted to."

"You could," she replied, not even slightly perturbed, "but both that and turning me in would bring an end to what's been a highly lucrative relationship for both of us."

I removed my hand and grinned wolfishly at her. Unlike most women, she refused to be intimidated by me.

"And don't get any ideas about having someone watch us from the Enterprise with your Tantalus device," she said, holding up her right arm to draw my attention to an unremarkable looking wristband she was wearing. "When I sold it to you I held this back for myself. It blocks the device."

"Very cautious of you," I said, "but unnecessary. No one is watching."

This was a lie. I had instructed my concubine to keep an eye on me. I liked her to have my back, but I didn't really believe I was in any danger from Janice. She was right that we had enjoyed a mutually profitable relationship for many years now and neither of us was going to risk destroying that. I looked around me, taking in the boxes, loose baggage and equipment strewn around the floor and the small camp bed sitting in an alcove.

"Have you arranged for Uhura to beam down ten minutes after you as I asked?"

"Of course," I replied, "and she trusts me enough that she'll be coming alone. So where's this new discovery of yours I've crossed a dozen light years to see?"

"Over here," said Arthur Coleman, indicating what I had taken to be some sort of decorative feature since it seemed to grow from the floor of the chamber.

"It speaks!" I said, sneeringly. I'd never liked Coleman. His obsessive, obsequious devotion to Janice was creepy and unmanly, particularly since her attitude towards him was usually one of barely-concealed distain. I crossed over to the machine to take a closer look.

"So this is it," I said, turning to face Janice, "and you need Uhura down here in order to show me what it does?"

"Actually, no, we don't," she said pointing a small handheld device at me. She pressed the button on top of this and I instantly froze, unable to move a muscle.

"Ah Jim," she laughed, coming over and standing on the machine next to me, "Jim, Jim, Jim. You're making this too easy. I expected better of you. At the very least, a man should be able to hold on to his manhood."

'Manhood'? What was she talking about?

Grinning triumphantly, she pressed a switch on a console next to the machine and I immediately felt an awful tugging sensation all through my body, as if something was being ripped from it. There was a brief moment when I seemed to be looking through two pairs of eyes, then I was looking through only one pair.

But they weren't my eyes.

Someone swaggered into view from my left. When I realized who it was I was overcome with shock and horror, because the person I was looking at was me, James T. Kirk, captain of the ISS Enterprise.

"You let your guard down, Jim, and I seized my opportunity." The voice was mine, but it was Janice Lester behind those eyes. "That's how things are done on board your starship, how they're done throughout the Terran Empire, and how they were done in 2063 when Zephram Cochrane conducted our first ever warp flight and drew the attention of a passing Vulcan ship. You remember the story of what happened next, I'm sure. When the naively trusting Vulcans landed expecting a peaceful first contact, Cochrane killed their leader with a concealed weapon then he and his townspeople seized the Vulcan ship. When opportunity presented itself he took it. From that bold act, from that captured technology, the Terran Empire was born."

Janice pressed a button on the console and, freed from the paralysis that had held me in place, I toppled forward into her now powerful arms. I was so drained I was barely able to move, but I still noticed Arthur Coleman standing in the doorway, clearly watching for my returning security team. I could hear phasers set to on maximum power being fired some distance away. Maximum power meant complete disintegration. All that would be left of the bodies were free-floating atoms.

"After Empress Sato was deposed during the early days of the Empire, women were removed from positions of power, made subordinate to men," said Janice, effortlessly picking me up with her stolen strength and carrying me over to the camp bed. "And quite right, too. The slyness and scheming of women has its place, but it was primarily male strength and aggression that allowed the Empire to grow as it has."

"The redshirts are coming back!" warned Coleman, seconds before they returned.

"All bodies have been disposed of, Captain," said Williams.

"Very good," replied Janice. "You and your men return to the ship. I'll beam up shortly."

"Captain?"

"It's alright, Mr Williams, I'll be in no danger here by myself. That will be all."

"Aye, Captain," replied Williams, frowning at the sight of me lying on the camp bed, feebly trying to summon him to me. Ignoring me, he pulled his communicator out.

"Five to beam up, Mr Scott," he said, and seconds later they were gone.

"We still have a few minutes before Lt Uhura joins us," said Janice, "so where was I...? Ah yes. So you see my problem? I was ambitious, but I was a woman. I was perfectly comfortable being a woman, not gender dysphoric in any clinical sense, but only men could command starships. Since I was a child I've known it was my destiny to captain one, but to do so I had to become a man. I wasn't sure how best to accomplish all this so I consulted the seers of Aragon IV."

"Who?" I managed to ask, the effort of doing so exhausting me.

"Mystics who can allegedly see all the paths a person's life might take and who can set them on the right one to achieve the future they want. Most people on other worlds take them no more seriously than we do fairground fortune-tellers on Earth, but I'd heard enough intriguing reports to believe they might actually have the abilities they claimed. I managed to get to Aragon IV and the High Seer himself saw me, the most powerful of all their seers. It was he who set me on the path that led me to Camus II, he who told me the route to what I sought was xenoarchaeology. He pointed me towards my destiny ...to our destiny; because if it was my destiny to become Jim Kirk, clearly it was just as much your destiny to end up as Janice Lester. So we're both now who we're supposed to be, and Camus II is where our new lives begin. When I asked the High Seer why someone as important as him chose to guide me, he said 'Because the path you seek is one that will also free us from the Empire's yoke'."

We were interrupted by the sound that accompanies someone beaming in, and I watched helplessly as Uhura materialised in the chamber, unable to warn her or to aid her in any way. Dark-skinned, stunningly beautiful, and a prodigiously gifted communications officer, Uhura was also loyal to Captain Kirk. Seeing Janice she went to her immediately, believing her to be me.

"Reporting as ordered, Captain."

"Good, good. Before we get started I need you to stand over there," said Janice, indicating the machine.

"Sir?"

"I'll explain shortly, Lieutenant, in the meantime please do as I ask."

Puzzled, but seeing nothing to be concerned about, she did as Janice requested. As soon as she was in position, Janice pulled out the handheld device she had used before and activated it, freezing Uhura in place.

"No!" said Arthur Coleman, finally realising what this must mean. "I won't do it!"

"Yes you will, Arthur," said Janice, aiming my phaser at him. "You'll do as you're told, just like you always do."

"I don't want to be Uhura!"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that I want you to be her."

"But there's no way I can pull it off. You paid that disgraced ex-Empire Commodore, Matt Decker, to train you in how to run a starship, but I don't know how to be a communications officer."

"You won't need to, Arthur. Now get in the machine."

With obvious reluctance, he did as she ordered. Janice walked over to the machine's controls and activated them. I'm not sure what I expected, but all I saw was Arthur Coleman's body suddenly freeze as the machine began to pulse, building to a deafening hum. In a few seconds it was over. The noise and the lights subsided, then Uhura shook herself and stepped down off the machine.

Only it wasn't Uhura, not anymore.

"I...I can't believe you did this to me," she said, running her fingers over the unfamiliar contours of her face, a look of betrayal in her large, brown eyes.

"When nature made you male it made a mistake," said Janice, "because you were never much of a man, but now I've fixed that. This body is a better fit for the real you."

"Change me back! I demand you change me back!"

"That wouldn't fit in with my plans at all," said Janice, "and you need to learn your place. A woman does not make demands of a man. A woman complies with his demands."

So saying, Janice raised my phaser and fired it at the form of Arthur Coleman, still standing frozen on the machine. That form glowed brightly for a moment then faded away, disintegrated.

The original Uhura was dead; the new one was frantic.

"No!" she screamed. "You've destroyed my body!"

"My report will show that Dr Coleman took Lt Uhura hostage in an attempt to prevent me from arresting Miss Lester for crimes against the Empire, crimes which I have built up a dossier about. In the ensuing struggle I heroically rescued Lt Uhura but was forced to kill Dr Coleman. As I did so he got off a final shot from his phaser, injuring Miss Lester. We three will now beam up to the Enterprise and after receiving medical attention Miss Lester will be placed in the brig where she will be confined until such time as she can be taken before an Empire court to answer for her crimes."

"Why?" I managed to gasp.

"Because of who you are. If I thought you'd accept you're a woman now and always will be, that you were willing to move on and seek happiness in your new life, I'd be prepared to let you do so. But we both know that's not going to happen. No, you'll devote all your considerable talents to finding a way of getting this body back, and I can't have that. Far safer to deliver you up to the Empire's tender mercies. I'm sorry, Janice, truly I am, but that's the way it has to be."

"And me? What am I supposed to do on the Enterprise?" asked the new Uhura in a small voice.

"You'll soon find out. Now, there's one last thing I need to do before we beam up to the Enterprise."

Rummaging in one of the cases strewn around the chamber, she pulled out a container about the same length as my forearm. There was a hiss of escaping gas as she opened it, gas which formed a thin white mist on contact with the warmer air of the chamber. Using a pair of tongs, Janice lifted something out of the container and carried it over to me. It appeared to be a strip of some sort of extremely thin, translucent material and it was wriggling slightly, as if it was alive.

"I know what you're thinking," said Janice, "and no, it's not alive. At least, not in the conventional sense. This is a bio-collar. It's made using biological circuitry that mimics life to some degree, in that it's capable of limited movement and has a rudimentary intelligence. I've programmed it to prevent you from being able to divulge that you, me, and Uhura here have ever been anyone other than who we appear to be. Now all I need to do is install it."

'Install'? What could she mean by...oh no!

Using the tongs, she carefully laid the strip across my throat. It was cold, and squirmed a little as if trying to make itself more comfortable, and then I couldn't feel it anymore. Janice held up a mirror so I could see my throat. There was nothing there, nothing at all. The skin appeared fresh and entirely unblemished.

"Amazing, isn't it?" she said. "It gets absorbed into the body so quickly no one would ever know it was there. But it is. Oh, and before I forget..."

She stripped the wristband that hid its wearer from the Tantalus Field off my wrist, placed it on her own, then lifted me from the camp bed.

"Right, Uhura, tell the Enterprise three to beam up."

'Uhura' hesitated, indecision clouding those striking features. Strange that I already thought of her as female, accepting her gender as being that of her body when I hadn't with Janice. Deciding she had no choice but to do as Janice had ordered, she took out her communicator.

"Enterprise, this is Uhura. On my position, three to beam up."

And that was when I finally lost consciousness.