“You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.” – John Mason

What lies beyond the Mirror’s edge?

That fractal infinity, ever focused upon itself as it stands companion to our own cold judgement.

It is a place where we see ourselves perfectly, forced to confront our imperfections and flawed aspirations. Part refuge, part place of judgement – it is a realm of the subjective – a place where we are compelled to come face to face with the inescapable finality of self.

But the mirror itself holds no such illusions. In and of itself, it both mute canvas and glimmering sounding board. The focus is ourselves. The self-imparts meaning into the mirror and see’s only what is there – more often a truth we seek to avoid.

The mirror represents the eternal question – ‘what is truth’?

Is anyone truly good? Can anyone be wholly evil?

The mirror gives no answer.

That definitive burden is left to ourselves.

“Helm, Report!” Sam ordered as she tried, in vain, to stem the flow of blood from her nose.

She had committed the USS Valley Forge to the inscrutable embrace of the singularity, seeming heedless to what perils may lie beyond it’s collapsing event horizon – stark echo’s and contrasts to a similar decision that had seen a younger Samantha Hyland plunge the USS Savannah into The Labyrinth, under similar circumstances of urgency with the same imperative foremost in her mind.

To save the lives of her people.

Ellis Pennington similarly wiped a thin rivulet of blood from his top lip and (if the pervading migraine that bullied Sam’s brain was inflicting itself upon everybody aboard – which the unstemmed flush of nose – bleeds seemed to indicate that it had) tried to overcome the physical effects that had attended their headlong thrust into the unknown.

“Helm’s’ not responding Captain.” The young Risian pilot managed. “We’re clear of the singularity, but impulse drives are offline. Attempting to stabilize our attitude with maneuvering thrusters, ma’am.”

Sam wiped the back of her hand across her face, leaving a garish vermillion smear and tasted the coppery tang of her own blood.

Hull – 3185 (euphemistically dubbed “USS Artemis”) had torn a savage wrent in the very fabric of Subspace with it’s wildly unpredictable “Stutter – warp” effect and plunged itself into the roiling energies, taking with it Sam’s Away Team (including her CSO and Chief Engineer). The need to pursue and secure her people existed within herself on an instinctual level and she made the decision to gamble with the needs of the many – weighed against the needs of the few.

Captain Sam Hyland frowned at the cloying blood collecting on the back of her hand and keyed the Comm channel open.

“Engineering, Report!”

The uncertain voice of Assistant Chief Engineer Marcus Colby replied from the evidence chaos of Main Engineering.

“Warp Core is offline, Ma’am.” Marcus’s voice had the inflection of a man under duress, balancing a conflicting juggle of bad priorities. “Whatever the hell that was – it trigged the failsafe’s and the core scrammed – itself and went into shutdown. Impulse power is also offline – there was a massive exponential spike in the EPS system – I’ve got teams tasked on getting the secondaries up and running. Life support is stable and main navigational deflector is mostly unaffected.”

Sam clenched her fist (the slowly coagulating blood cracking wetly across her tensed knuckles) and fought to keep her voice even.

“Understood, Engineering.”

Sam looked around the bridge of the stricken Excelsior II. Everywhere the displays around the control space translated a similar state of disarray, as her people sought to estimate the damage to the ship’s systems that had been affected by their transit through the singularity.

“Can you give me an ETA on repairs and an estimate of when the ship can be restored to an operable status?”

As Sam spoke, her gaze met that of her Executive Officer. Daniel Talland’s brown gaze held an accusing glare, but he pushed this aside as he moved around the bridge – busying himself with the crew and attempting to bring some sense of order to the chaos.

“I think we can impulse back up within the next half hour Ma’am.” Came Lieutenant Colby’s tentative reply. “Warp core’ ll take a little longer and there are re-start protocols that will have to be initiated. Until we know the extent of the damage to the EPS – we’ll have to rotate prioritization to several systems to support. All up – two, maybe three hours as a conservative estimate, Captain.”

Sam swore inwardly. Two to three hours with her ship crippled in an unknown volume of space was clearly an undesirable state of affairs.

“Understood, Engineering.” Sam replied tersely. “Forget conservative, give me radical. Bridge out.”

Ignoring her XO’s clearly evident ire (that was a conversation for closed doors later) Sam turned to her the Science section of the bridge and addressed the Assistance Chief Science Officer (who’s direct report was similarly absconded aboard the fleeing ‘USS Artemis.’) and demanded.

“Lieutenant Dolan, any ideas as to where the hell we are?”

The ACSO peered intently at her instruments, which appeared to be more confounding that even her persisting headache.

“Well, Captain,” Dolan began uncertainly, “Whilst were only operating with partial sensor pallets, Astrometrics seen largely unaffected.” She murmured as she struggled to equate what the screen was telling her.

Dolan swiveled in her seat and addressed the CONN.

“Captain, it appears that (Subjectively) we haven’t travelled very far from our original position at all!”

Confusion wracked Samantha Hyland’s fine, Nordic features.

The USS Valley Forge had plainly made transit through the singularity and (based upon her previous experiences of the Multicursal corridors of Underspace) she had logically expected the vessel to have been instantaneously transported some vast interstellar distance – possible to another quadrant of space entirely.

“Explain.” She said flatly.

Dolan swallowed and nodded back to her instruments.

“If the instruments are to be believed Captain, our apogee, perigee, M- Values and Linear referencing all seem to indicate that we are within 40,000 AU of where we first entered the singularity – we are still roughly within the same operating volume of the former DMZ, ma’am.”

Commander Talland went to join Ellis at the Helm station and, after conferring with the pilot, Daniel nodded his head and reported.

“Navigational telemetry bears out that data, Captain.”

Sam sat back heavily in the “Big – Chair”, it was hard to fathom – what kind of singularity expends such a colossal burden of energy, only to move a body as large as a starship just a few paltry millions of kilometers? It just made no sense.

“Wait one.” Dolan’s voice cut across her reverie, a note of professional interest tingeing her tone.

“What is it?” Sam wanted to know.

The ASCO’s voice was a study of perplexion.

“The Astrometric data’s showing an anomaly Captain.” Dolan’s voice persisted, as the scientist shook her head in consternation.

Sam elected to say nothing and let Dolan work.

“The starfield – the tolerance values for spatial reference and alignment all check out – we’re definitely in roughly the same position within the former Demilitarized Zone…..”

Lieutenant Dolan turned her chair once more, her face a tableau of confusion.

“It’s the stars themselves, Captain, their Spectral Values of their apparent Brightness and Luminosity are all wrong!” Dolan reported with dismay. “Stars are democratic in how they produce radiation; they emit the same amount of energy in every direction in space. Consequently, only a minuscule fraction of the energy given off by a star actually reaches an observer – it’s one of the universal constants that underpins stellar navigation.”

Samantha had an awful sinking feeling in her gut and she again caught Commander Talland’s eye – both evidently remembering their earlier conversation, where they had conjectured where Hull – 3185 had been hiding all of these long years – undetected.

Dolan persisted with her hypothesis.

“Normally we would expect a typical background luminosity in any given star system for a First – Magnitude star to equate to a photometry constant of roughly five magnitudes to a brightness ratio of 100:1. What we are seeing here is considerably less – the stars here seem to be the same ones we expect to see, but they just aren’t bright enough!!!.”

Silence filled the bridge and Commander Talland came to stand at the Captain’s side as all aboard the command space looked from Dolan to the CO – the need for clarification plainly writ large on every worried face.

Looking directly at Daniel, Sam spoke to Dolan.

“Lieutenant – speaking candidly, how might you quantify that disparity in the data?”

Silence.

Then, “Well, Captain – assuming the disparity is not due to a fault in the sensors or the imaging array – then the next logical supposition is that we are not in the expected volume of space/time that we typically inhabit.” Dolan sounded a little sick as she reached this inescapable conclusion.

There, it was said.

Sam closed her eyes and nodded – as if defeated by the truth.

When she opened them again, she nodded to the XO – conceding defeat and acknowledging that Daniel had obviously been correct in his wild theories about multiversal planes of existence.

“Very good, Science. Prepare and launch a salvo of probes. Let’s be doubly sure it’s not a fault in the instrumentation and, working on your hypothesis, then gather as much data as you can to help us work out exactly where we really are.”

“Aye, Aye Captain – programming Probes for deployment.”

Samantha was about to apologize to Daniel, even though the concept of a parallel plane of existence as outrageously improbable as well as statistically near – impossible; but the evidence was beginning to appear irrefutable.

Instead, Sam was interrupted by an urgent report from Lieutenant Danae Doucet, at the Tactical station.

“Captain! Contact! We have a vessel dropping out of warp – 200,000 AU on our Starboard Ventral Beam!”

Daniel broke and returned to one of the standing Holo-displayed at the Bridge rail, pulling up a clone of the TAC – data.

“Can you identify?” Sam insisted urgently.

Again, an indeterminably long pause before Doucet nodded perfunctorily.

“Oui, Captain” The Quebecois officer nodded. “Telemetry matches that of an Inquiry – Class Exploratory Cruiser. She has altered course and will intercept in the next two minutes.”

Sam felt herself relax, the tension of the last few hours beginning to give way to relief.

“Can you confirm?” Sam persisted.

“Affirmative – it’s the Albion Ma’am! “Danae smiled, sharing Sam’s relief.

A wide smile grew in Sam’s tense features. Her former ship. A familiar and welcome outline as the main viewscreen showed the shovel – headed cruiser converging on their position. A miracle that Starfleet had dispatched responders to seek them out and extend a helping hand to relieve them of their plight.

“OPS.” Sam turned and signaled to a smiling Yevgeny. “Send a message to the USS Albion. Please relay my warmest greetings to Captain Carrington and let him know that, boy – are we ever glad to see them!”

“Aye, Aye Ma’am!” The young OPS officer smiled and turned to send the message.

The XO looked up from his Holo-display and smiled warmly.

“Well, that could have been a lot more….” Daniel began, when he was cut off by a desperate report from Tactical.

“The Albion is locking on to us Captain!” Lieutenant Doucet reported with disbelief. “She’s launching Quantum Torpedo’s!”

Sam’s eyes widened in shock and horror.

“TAC! RAISE SHEILDS! HELM! EVASIVE ACTION!”

But Sam already knew it was too late.

Too late to bring the shields up, with the attendant damage to the EPS grind that their transit through the singularity had inflicted upon them. Impossible to turn the ship on docking thrusters alone.

In a rapid burst, the deadly blue glowing necklace of destruction arced from the Inquiry – class Cruiser, across the comparatively short distance that separated the craft and slammed into the vulnerable superstructure of the USS Valley Forge.

“BRACE FOR IMPACT!”

Samantha was bodily hurled from the command – chair and impacted into the back of the Helmsman’s chair – light exploding in her head as the deck seemed to rise to meet the ceiling.

All around her was chaos. The emergency klaxon blaring, uncomfortably loud and strident in its urgency. The acrid smell of burning circuitry and choking smoke as cladding melted. Urgent cries of the suddenly wounded and the dying. Everywhere was a sudden mass of confusion and damage.

Sam felt strong hands under her armpits, pulling her upwards.

“Direct hits on Decks 9, 14, 16 and 21!” Came Danae’s voice, tense with urgency.

“Raise containment fields at bulkheads 29 to 32 afterward!’ Came Daniel’s voice above her, as the XO helped Sam back into her seat and pressed something against her temple. “Damage control teams and medical to evacuate survivors to triage points.”

On the main viewscreen, which was cracked and prone to bursts of static as the imaging array strove to maintain the picture, the wedge – shaped hull of the Inquiry – class starship, swept up over the dorsal plane of the USS Valley Forge – racking the hull with intermittent lances of phaser – fire that continued to shake the stricken Starfleet Heavy – Cruiser.

“Shields at 7 percent and failing Captain!”

“Multiple casualties reported Ma’am – Medical can’t reach some of the victims!”

“Fires reported in the Main Shuttlebay!”

“We’re losing containment on Deck 13!”

Blood ran down Samantha’s face, stemmed only slightly by the cloth that Daniel had rammed over the deep cut over her forehead. Confusion was everywhere as her vessel came under sustained attack.

She could make no sense of it.

Then, Yevgeny’s desperate voice.

“Captain! We are being hailed by the Commander of the Albion!”

Pushing aside her pain and replacing it with strident anger, Sam snapped.

“Onscreen!” As the viewer resolved into the face of her antagonist, Samantha bellowed.

“GODAAMN IT ROBERT! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU……”

And then she stopped dead.

On their viewscreen, seated indolently in the Captain’s Chair of a darkened bridge, wearing a severe black uniform, fringed with gold – trim and framed by a large banner with the icon of the Planet Earth, bisected by a plunging dagger – was the CO of the attacking ship.

“Hello Sam!” Her nemesis smiled nastily as she juggled a denuded human skull in her gloved hand, like some awful bauble, “I’m afraid ol’ Robert hasn’t been talkative for quite some while, as you can see?” She made a mocking pout of her lips.

Samantha was utterly speechless, as all eyes on the bridge of the USS Valley Forge went to the screen and then to her.

The figure of the screen sat forward, throwing the skull casually over her shoulder and addressed them all in a hard tone.

“My name is Captain Samantha Hyland of the Imperial Starfleet vessel, ISS Albion. In the name of the Terran Empire, you will surrender your vessel and deliver into my custody the criminal, Dr Gallian Makon, or you will be destroyed. This will be your only warning.”

The ‘Samantha Hyland’ on the screen sat back in her command chair and raised a challenging eyebrow as she added poignantly.

“And I think we both know that I am a woman of my word – don’t we Samantha?”