Lieutenant Aevryn Sareth was the Rooks’ new intelligence officer, and Rosewood wasn’t sure if he liked or trusted her yet. He tended to feel that way about Romulan defectors, even ones Starfleet had vetted and taken in.

But now the Rooks sat in the Rookery while she stood before the briefing display, hours after they had secured the alternate Blackbird. Hours she’d had to crack and pore over their database, and now the display shone with the mission parameters they’d been given. The alternate universe’s Federation seal looked almost right.

A few stars were missing.

‘The short version,’ said Sareth, ‘is that everything Command told us checks out. We are in an alternate quantum reality, our counterparts are in the brig on their Blackbird, and the Beta Quadrant here is everything the briefing files suggested and somewhat worse.’ She pulled up a strategic overlay – Klingon space, or what had been Klingon space, now carved into occupation zones and administered territories and pacification corridors. ‘The Federation in this universe has been at war with the Klingon Empire, on and off, since first contact. Sixty years ago, they broke them. What’s left is a network of resistance cells, independent warlords, and population centres under varying degrees of Federation control.’

‘On and off,’ said Rosewood. ‘What does “on and off” mean across two hundred and fifty years?’

‘It means the Federation has always had an enemy,’ said Sareth. ‘And when the Klingons were quiet, there were others. The Romulans. The Orions.’ A beat. ‘Anyone the founding species decided was a security threat.’

‘Right,’ said Q’ira. ‘About that, ‘cos I saw a bit about the alternate-me -’

‘We’ll get to that.’ Sareth moved on. ‘The Federation itself – core worlds, the inner systems – look much like ours. Comfortable. Prosperous. The surveillance architecture is more extensive, but it’s not visible if you’re not looking for it, and most people aren’t.’

Rosewood wondered how much an officer he’d bet the ship had once been Tal Shiar looked for such surveillance architecture. The fact he thought Sareth sounded quietly, professionally impressed spoke volumes.

Sareth pressed on. ‘The further you get from the core, the more the picture changes. Frontier systems are administered rather than governed. Non-founding species are…’ She paused, choosing a word. ‘Tiered. As is the way with authoritarian empires.’ There was a dryness that spoke of experience. ‘Rights and freedoms scale with how much the Federation trusts you, which scales with how long you’ve been considered safe.’

‘So it’s our Federation,’ said Nallera, ‘if our Federation had, you know, no principles or beliefs or whatever.’

‘It believes what it says,’ said Sareth. ‘Liberty. Security. The common good. It just has a very particular definition of who those things are for.’

‘And us?’ said Q’ira. ‘Like, I get we’re kind of like us but what’s our actual job here?’

‘Special operations. High-value target interdiction.’ Sareth’s tone was precise. ‘We find dissidents. Extract them for interrogation or neutralise them in the field, depending on threat assessment.’

‘Right,’ said Q’ira. ‘Just as well I look great in a jackboot.’

‘When did the Klingon war start?’ said Aryn. He was frowning at the overlay, at what had been the Empire. ‘Specifically, I mean. What went wrong?’

‘First contact,’ said Sareth. ‘A Klingon made planetfall in Oklahoma, was shot by a farmer, and the response was… less diplomatic than in our universe. It compounded. The Romulan War and founding of the Federation followed, but then the Klingons were immediately at the door. They never left the war-footing. Two hundred and fifty years of that produces this.’ She pointed at the display.

‘All because this Archer was less of a diplomat,’ Aryn mused.

‘All because the Enterprise NX-01 was commanded by Captain A.G. Robinson,’ Sareth corrected. ‘Who, in this universe, succeeded in the initial test flight of the NX-Alpha, paving his way to command of the first Warp Five vessel in human history. Details are unclear on how his choices were different, but that is the first evidence of divergence I can find.’

‘Wow,’ said Rosewood, standing to approach the display. ‘Robinson actually died in ‘53 in an accident in the prime. Now we’ve got a super-successful test pilot in command of the first NX-class, tearing up first contact by socking Klingons in the jaw and then fighting through Xindi and Romulans -’

‘This is interesting and relevant,’ butted in Cassidy. ‘Except it’s not. Carry on, Sareth.’

She inclined her head. ‘Our counterparts were three days into an active operation when we acquired their ship. We have their mission files, their contacts, their cover.’ She looked around the room. ‘Which we’re going to use. As of now, we are them. We respond to their communications, we follow their leads, we go where they were going. Anyone who contacts us gets the answers they’d expect.’

‘And while they’re doing that,’ said Cassidy, ‘we find our dimensionally Displaced target.’

‘Correct. Their operation gives us freedom of movement in this sector. We stay deniable on their actual mission – we keep the cover warm, don’t push it anywhere we don’t need to go.’ She pulled up a new file. ‘Toral, son of Duras.’

The face that came up was older than the briefing files had suggested, and harder, like he’d spent decades fighting a war he’d been born into. ‘Here, he’s Warlord Toral. Eight months of operating in this sector. In that time, he’s hit four garrison supply lines, coordinated strikes on two Federation administrative posts, and broken three resistance cells out of detention facilities.’

‘Except,’ said Aryn, ‘that’s who’s woken up in our universe, taking the place of Chancellor Toral, the leader of the Klingon Empire. And our Chancellor Toral has woken up in this universe at the head of a resistance movement.’

‘Without further evidence – like that he’s gone on the run, or changed their methods of fighting, or otherwise reacted unpredictably – we have to follow the leads which exist for Warlord Toral,’ Sareth said with a shrug. ‘There are three possible locations: a resistance staging post in the Ajilon system. A sympathiser network in a border settlement called Kovoth. And a civilian resettlement facility near the Mempa sector.’ She pulled up coordinates. ‘You’ll work outward from Ajilon.’

‘Resettlement facility,’ echoed Nallera. ‘That’s where they take Klingon civilians and dump them somewhere else to be managed more easily, right?’

‘You’re catching onto the nature of this reality,’ Sareth said dryly. ‘Speaking of which, there’s one aspect of this cover I haven’t addressed.’ She looked at Q’ira.

‘Right,’ Q’ira said, eyes narrowing. ‘Feel like I’m not gonna love this.’

‘I expect not.’ Sareth brought up the personnel file for this universe’s Q’ira – same image, different header, a different classification entirely beneath the name. ‘In this universe, the Orion Syndicate was classified as a hostile force at Federation founding and suppressed over the following century. Orions are not permitted in the core worlds. In the frontier, they’re… a workforce.’

‘Slaves?’ Q’ira’s eyebrows raised.

Sareth shrugged. ‘I could draw distinctions on forms of slavery as well as indentured servitude, but, yes.’

Aryn winced. ‘We don’t have to -’

‘Of course we do,’ grunted Cassidy. ‘In public. We’re here to rescue the goddamn chancellor of the Klingon Empire from a fascist reality where he’s public enemy number one, and we gotta be undercover to do that. We absolutely have to be mean to Q’ira in public sometimes.’

‘No, Boss, c’mon.’ Q’ira’s voice was a low drawl, though Rosewood could by now see the deliberate affectation, the mask to stop the situation from getting at her. ‘Let him feel guilty. So you’re all nicer to me in private.’

‘You’ll be taking our Blackbird on this mission,’ Sareth pressed on. ‘It’s easy to disguise it as this reality’s ship, and you’re all more comfortable with its design.’ She looked at Lieutenant Jakorr at this, who had taken on Ranicus’s responsibility as the ship’s XO and de facto commanding officer when Cassidy wasn’t aboard. ‘Try to not let anyone who knows you come aboard and look too closely around.’

Jakorr gave a stiff nod, arms folded across his chest. ‘We’ll limit interaction with other Starfleet forces to comms and off-ship discussions as much as possible.’

‘And I’m guessing,’ offered Falaris, ‘that I shouldn’t show my face without hiding these?’ She waved a finger over her nose-ridges.

Sareth nodded. ‘Correct.’

‘You say we’ll be taking the Blackbird,’ Nallera noted.

‘I’ll remain at this point – proximate to our way home – aboard the alternate Blackbird,’ said Sareth. ‘Apparently I’m some sort of high-level Romulan dissident in this reality, so best I don’t risk showing my face. I’ll keep a small force to keep the alternate Blackbird and crew contained, and monitor Federation and Starfleet security comms so I can update you if needed. As well as studying the databanks.’

‘Right.’ Cassidy clapped his hands together. ‘Our official mission is clamping down on some dissident networks, and that’s the excuse we give while we sniff around for Toral. We’ll have a full game of make-believe ready by the time we get to Ajilon. We sweep there, Kovoth, then the civilian resettlement camp.’

Aryn was studying the display. His brow furrowed. ‘I’m going to need prosthetics,’ he surmised.

Q’ira looked at him. ‘Oh! Are you joining me in the fun categorisation of being unpersoned?’

‘Yes,’ he said carefully, ‘but not because I’m Ardanan.’ As he spoke, Sareth reached to bring up his file, including the headshot of his face in this reality. With all of its extensive cybernetic hardware, not all of which looked like Borg technology to Rosewood.

‘Oh wow,’ said Nallera. ‘You look badass here.’

‘Unpersoned,’ said Q’ira, ‘but badass.’

‘Look at it this way,’ said Rosewood. ‘Most of your face will be hidden, so you don’t have to worry about lying well.’

‘Yeah.’ Q’ira elbowed him. ‘You can be all mean to me and I’ll just see the robo-man in my nightmares, not you.’

Aryn looked quietly appalled, and Cassidy cleared his throat.

‘Questions, or are we taking this comedy show on the road?’

‘I got a lot of questions,’ said Q’ira, ‘like “what the hell is wrong with humanity,” ‘cos I saw a bunch of the other briefing docs about alternate universes.’

Sareth frowned. ‘You were not supposed to -’

‘And I’m just saying,’ Q’ira pressed on as she stood. ‘You fall into evil racist fascism in a hell of a lot of timelines. You should probably do something about that.’

Rosewood frowned. ‘We do do something about that. It’s called “being the Federation.”’

‘Sure,’ said Q’ira. ‘That’s why Aryn has to strap things to his face and I have to be a slave and Sareth can’t come with us, and I bet Nallera’s gonna have to shut up a lot more. But you two?’ Her fingers waggled between him and Cassidy. ‘You just get to show up and be yourselves. Reassuring, right?’

Then she walked out before Rosewood could summon a response, which was just as well, really, because he didn’t have a good one.