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Part Three
The regular sensor sweeps set up to monitor the surface of Hadriepsis D didn't take long to pay off. When a dimensional breach occurred, the Sally Ride crew were ready and beamed quickly to the area. With assistance from Starfleet personnel stationed locally, they began a search for the epicenter of the spatial distortion they had detected.
The search seemed fruitless at first, leading them to an area where clearly nothing was amiss, but Captain Orenn noted a computer error related to the orbital research facility. First officer Seven investigated, and discovered that the station was broadcasting skewed navigational information.
Lieutenant Benton contacted the Sally Ride, which created its own orbital maps. With these, the away team quickly located the real source of the dimensional breach.
When they arrived, they were shocked to find Night, somehow free from his captivity, in a room full of corpses and one nearly catatonic alien survivor. He immediately launched into a rant filled with threats and gloating about the inevitable victory of some "empire."
He overplayed his hand, though, when he physically attacked Orenn. To do so, he had to turn his back to Lieutenant Benton, who had spent the entire standoff slowly moving laterally to set up a flank attack. The Lieutenant saw his opportunity and felled the rogue officer with a stun beam to the back.
Some quick transporter work saw Night returned to the brig and the unidentified alien relocated to sickbay. At this point, Lt. Commander Zoril felt that it was time to reveal her origin in the mirror universe's equivalent of MACO to the rest of the bridge crew. She and Orenn briefed their colleagues on the situation, finally putting most of the ship's officers on the same page.
Once that conference had concluded, Orenn, Seven, and Zoril went to interrogate Night. It became quite clear -- if it hadn't already -- that he was an agent of the Terran Empire. He alluded to a Starfleet admiral who helped him escape the brig previously, but his attempts to seduce his way out of Orenn's custody weren't exactly an unalloyed success.
More information was gained in sickbay by Benton and Lieutenant Cor. The alien, a girl named T'Soni, belonged to a species with innate dimensional sensitivity. She had been forcibly augmented by agents from the mirror universe to create natural bridges between the two realities, allowing communication and even small-scale transport, but only by exacting an extreme physical and mental toll from her.
In particular, it became clear that these agents, and the ones responsible for the Hadriepsis raid, were not loyal to the Terran Empire, but another faction entirely. Night had killed them because that was his mission: to stymie their efforts on behalf of the Terrans.
This new faction is the mirror equivalent of MACO. They are locked in conflict with the Terrans over how to deal with the Borg threat in their universe. The Empire, recognizing a superior military force, is convinced that only evacuation to newly invaded territory in this universe is a viable option. MACO is an unsanctioned resistance, not unlike this universe's Maquis, who refuse to flee and are desperately seeking any advantage over the Borg.
This leaves the Sally Ride in a difficult position. If they allow mirror MACO to succeed, they will compromise the security of the Federation on behalf of an organization that has proven willing to abuse and enslave people in this universe. If they defeat this alternate MACO, they will remove the last reasonable alternative for people in the mirror universe, and their only hope will be the Terran Empire's invasion of the Federation.