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spacedogfromspaceThe Imposter at K2 Station
K/S Spring Fever 2025
The Enterprise arrives at Station K2, but their plans take a turn when they discover that there is only one life sign detected on the entire station.
Fandom(s): Star Trek AOS, Among Us
Character(s): AOS Ensemble Cast
Tags: Spirk, Among Us, Imposters
Rating: Teen+
Content Warnings: Blood
Word Count: 5292
Type: Oneshot, Standalone
Collection: K/S Spring Fever 2025
Written for K/S Spring Fever 2025 for LupoLight
"Captain, we're approaching Station K2,"
Hikaru Sulu said from the helm. "ETA, ten minutes."
"Thank you, Mr Sulu," Jim Kirk replied from the conn. "Uhura, open a frequency with the station, let them know we're coming in, and ask them what they want our parking orbit to be."
"On it," said Nyota Uhura. She swivelled in her chair away from Jim and got to work on her console. "Enterprise to K2..."
Spock was at the science station, as he usually was. He was looking through the viewfinder at some data they gathered from a nebula on their journey to K2, but stopped now that they were arriving at the station.
On a whim, he decided to run some scans of the station, since it was in range. He had no reason to do it, other than idle curiosity. But something about the readings was off. It took Spock a moment to determine what it was. When he figured it out, he had the Enterprise do another scan of K2. Then, he adjusted the data parameters. What he was seeing didn't change, meaning it wasn't just a glitch in the data.
Spock turned to announce his findings, but Nyota beat him with her own.
"Captain," she said, concern in her voice. "I'm not getting any response from the station."
"Did you try public frequency?" Jim asked.
"I tried them all," Nyota said. "They aren't just ignoring us either— there's nothing coming from the station at all."
"I believe the station may have been abandoned," Spock said. "I am detecting only one life sign on the entire station."
"Maybe they had to evacuate," Pavel Chekov said, turning in his seat at navigation. "There haven't been any sign of Klingons in the area, have there?"
Spock turned back to his data, only taking a moment to come up with an answer. "There are no remnants of a Klingon warp signature in the area," he said.
"So, they weren't attacked," Jim said. "Probably."
"Could have been an environmental emergency," Nyota thought out loud. "But if that was the case, why is there one person still on the station, alive?"
"It is possible the single life sign is in stasis," Spock said. "And whatever happened hasn't affected that system."
"There's only one way to find out," Jim said. "Sulu, take us in. Chekov, find us a good parking orbit. Uhura, call Starfleet and tell them what's going on at K2."
There was a chorus of "aye sir"s and everyone got to work.
When they got nearer to the station, Spock had the ship's sensors do another scan.
"The station still has atmosphere," he said. "But I cannot determine if it is breathable."
"Well, that one life form is still alive, isn't it?" Jim asked.
"Indeed," Spock said. "However, that only proves that the area they are in is breathable. Or perhaps they are in an environment suit with an oxygen supply."
"Good point," Jim said.
"Starfleet wants us to go in and check it out," Nyota reported. "We're the nearest ship, obviously. We are instructed to find the survivor, bring them to safety, and find out what happened and where everyone else has gone."
"Roger that," Jim said. "I'll lead an away team. Mr Spock, you have the conn."
Five people beamed onto Station K2 in full environmental suits with auxiliary oxygen supplies. Jim was leading the team, carefully chosen. Bones, for his medical expertise; Scotty, for his ability to fix just about anything; Morris and Shetley— two security officers —in case they were needed.
Bones did a scan with his tricorder. "The air is breathable," he concluded. "And no sign of any toxic gasses or airborne viruses."
The five of them took off their helmets.
"Good," Jim said. "I hate wearing these things."
"Aye, they're a might claustrophobic feeling," Scotty agreed. "Where to, Captain?"
"Spock's scans showed the life sign's location to be in ops," Jim said. "So we'll head there first. Get the low down from the survivor, if we can."
"Still getting life signs," Bones said. "Let's hope they last long enough for us to get to them."
They walked as a group through Station K2, following the signs to ops. At first, the station seemed deserted. But they saw the first bodies when they passed the cafeteria.
"Good lord," Bones said.
"What happened to all these people?" Scotty asked.
"Should we be putting our helmets back on?" Morris said, her voice high and nervous.
Bones walked into the cafeteria and knelt near the closest body, rolling it over to reveal a large, fatal wound in the chest. He did a quick scan with a tricorder.
"What do you make of it, Bones?" Jim asked.
"No sign of any illness," Bones said. "Clearly they were attacked. Something sharp like a large knife, or a spear, I reckon. Not self inflicted." He got up and moved to the next body, then the next.
Morris put her helmet back on. "What if it's space madness? What if it's in the air?"
"Easy, Morris," Jim said. "We don't know what happened yet. Bones seems pretty confident that we're safe. From anything contagious, at least."
"Best I can tell," Bones said, "is that someone— or something —killed them all."
Shetley had been walking among the corpses, looking but not touching. "I don't think they killed each other," he said. "There's no weapons here."
"So not space madness," Scotty said, patting Morris on the shoulder reassuringly. Morris sighed with relief.
"Well, that means our survivor is one of two things," Jim said. "They're either a survivor, or a murderer."
"Do you really think one person could kill this many people on their own?" Bones asked.
"I don't know," Jim admitted. He hoped not. "But we should head up to ops and find out."
They left their helmets behind, seeing as they wouldn't be needing them, and proceeded together towards ops, phasers drawn. When they reached the doors to ops— behind which their life form was waiting —Shetley and Morris took up positions to either side of the door while the rest stayed back out of the way. Together, on the count of three, the two security officers opened the door and swung into the doorway, phaser rifles raised. They stepped into the room, sweeping it, each taking a side of the room.
After a moment, they lowered their rifles. "Clear," Morris called back to the other three.
Everyone stepped into ops, looking around. There was no one in sight.
Bones was looking at his tricorder, frowning. "The only life signs I'm picking up are ours," he said. "Nobody else is left alive on the station."
Jim's shoulders slumped. "Then whoever it was is dead, now. We were too late."
Scotty glanced around the room. "If they died, then shouldn't there be a body in here?"
"Good point," Jim said. "They probably left ops while we were on our way up, and died somewhere else."
"They couldn't have gotten far," Bones said.
"True," Jim said. "Let's split up," he decided. "We'll find the body and see if it can tell us anything about what happened here."
Ops was at the centre of the station and had four corridors branching away from it leading to the outer rings. Jim, Bones, Shetley, and Morris each took a corridor, making sure to check all the rooms along the way, while Scotty remained in ops to check the computers for any evidence of what had conspired on the station.
Scotty sat down at a terminal and started with looking over the station's diagnostics. Everything was in order, and had been for the past week. With that out of the way, he moved on to looking through the station's logs. Since this wasn't an engineering problem, he wasn't entirely sure what to be looking for. Strange people boarding the station? But how would he know if they were strange just from their names? He frowned as he flipped through the logs. He might need Spock's deductive reasoning skills for this.
Before Scotty could decide if he should hand this task over to someone else, he heard a scream. The station was eerily silent, even with the hum and beeps of ops, so the sudden loud sound made him jump out of his skin. He froze for a second, then grabbed his phaser from his belt and ran in the direction of the sound.
The corridor was long but curved, so he couldn't see too far ahead. By the time he saw the bodies, he was almost right on top of them. He stumbled to a stop before he stepped into the vast puddles of blood, and opened his mouth to curse. Nothing came out. Instead he stumbled back, face whitening in shock.
There on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood, were the bodies of Shetley and Morris. Shetley was laying on his back with blood soaking through the front of his uniform. His eyes bulged unnaturally and stared lifelessly at the ceiling. Morris was prone, but her face was turned to the side. Her dead, unblinking eyes seemed to be staring right at Scotty.
Scotty tore his eyes away from the corpses and turned at the sound of running footsteps coming up behind him. He drew a phaser and took aim.
Bones came around the bend and jumped nearly out of his skin when he practically walked into Scotty's phaser.
"Good god, man, point that somewhere else!" Bones snapped. Then he saw what lay beyond Scotty, and pushed past him.
"They're already gone," Scotty said. He knew a corpse when he saw one. But Bones checked anyways.
"Jesus," Bones muttered as he knelt by the bodies. He knew just from looking at them that there was nothing to be done.
More running footsteps came from up ahead, and Jim rounded the bend. He slowed and slumped in defeat at the sight of the dead security officers. "Bones?" He asked.
Bones just shook his head.
Jim sighed and put a hand to his face. "This is my fault, I shouldn't have suggested that we split up."
"Maybe if this tricorder gave correct readings you wouldn't have assumed it was safe," Bones said, slapping the side of his tricorder. "Useless piece of technology."
"I think we're going to need back up," Jim said. "Whatever killed all those people down there is still around, and still keen on killing. It's up to us to track it down."
Hikaru, Pavel, Nyota, and a small army of security officers joined Jim, Bones, and Scotty on the station. Morris and Shetley's bodies were beamed back up to the Enterprise to be placed into stasis where they would remain until they could be returned to their families.
The newcomers were armed as well as armoured. Since all the bodies on the station— including those of their two deceased security officers —died of stabbing wounds to the chest, Quartermaster Rand outfitted them with electronic shields that clipped to their belts, and would prevent anything from coming with in a few centimetres of their bodies when switched on. She also had three extras be beamed down for those already on the station.
Jim, Scotty, and Bones clipped their shields to their belts as they greeted the newcomers, and briefed them on the situation.
"I want us to split into pairs," Jim said. "By using the buddy system, I would hope that we could avoid more casualties." He gestured to the senior crew. "Each of you, grab a security officer to be your buddy."
They paired up, then divided the station into sections, allocating a team to each one.
"Keep your communicators on and handy," Jim said. "And remember to use your shields whenever possible. I know it can be inconvenient to have them on, but we're just going to have to deal with that."
The shields were handy, offering full body protection. When switched on, nothing could come closer than a few centimetres. However, that also meant that they couldn't get more than a few centimetres closer to anything not already on their person when the shields were switched on. Which made picking up anything or using any consoles or interfaces a pain in the ass.
With the briefing over, the teams went their separate ways, on the hunt for whatever— or whoever —was responsible for all of these deaths.
Team Nyota went to investigate the section of the station that housed the living quarters for the residents and guests of the station. Her security officer buddy, Lissel, kept his phaser raised, constantly sweeping the area ahead. Nyota kept her own, more compact phaser in her hand, held close to her thigh. Both were on high alert. Both had their shields on.
"We're going to have to check all the rooms," Nyota said once they cleared the corridor they were in.
"We'll need an override code to get into them," Lissel said, turning off his shield and examining the door controls to the first room on the left. "There's no way to break into them manually without specialized equipment."
"Should have brought a lazer cutter," Nyota said, half joking. She took out her communicator and flipped it open. "Uhura to Spock," she said. "Would you be able to get override codes for the doors on K2?"
"I believe I can," Spock said from back on the Enterprise. "I will request them through Starfleet channels. Stand by."
"Thanks," Nyota said. She looked back to Lissel. "I guess we just have to wait."
A door opened behind them. Someone had entered the corridor from the direction that they had came. Both Nyota and Lissel spun on their heels, weapons raised. But they lowered them quickly when they saw who it was.
"Jim!" Nyota exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Where's your partner?"
Jim doubled over, bracing his hands against his knees. He was breathing hard, sweating. When he caught his breath, he stood back up. "Dead," he said. "Lorenz had to turn his shield off for a moment. We were across the room from each other. I looked away for one second..." He shook his head and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "Damn it," he said. "Stupid mistakes."
"Well, you can join us," Nyota said. "Can't have you going off on your own."
"I know," Jim said. "That's why I came looking for someone. How's it going here?"
"Waiting for Spock to get us an override code so we can go through these rooms," Nyota said. "Haven't seen anything yet."
"I can try and override the doors," Jim said. "Might take a minute, but it's something to do while we wait for Spock." He turned off his shield and pulled a panel from the wall, exposing a tangle of wires that linked the control panel to the door, as well as many other wires of indeterminate origin or destination.
"You can do that?" Lissel asked.
"Nope," Jim said. "But I have to figure it out eventually, right? There's only so many wires."
Nyota and Lissel stood by and watched Jim fumble with the cluster of wires behind the wall. If Scotty were here, he would have the locks disabled in moments. The rest of them had no idea how it was done, but as Spock hadn't gotten back to them yet, there was nothing else to do but let Jim try.
"Wait, I think this is it," Jim announced suddenly from a few minutes of silence. He pulled at a wire. The lights went out.
"It's pitch dark in here," Nyota said. "Does anyone have a flashlight?"
"Didn't think to bring one," Jim said.
There was a thump, and a strange, wet gasping noise.
"Lissel?" Nyota asked. "Lissel, are you okay?"
There was no response.
"Hang on, our communicators produce a little bit of light," Jim said. His face, eerily lit in a blueish light, appeared when he flipped his communicator open. It disappeared again when he turned the interface towards the floor, illuminating it just enough to see Lissel lying supine, eyes open and unblinking. A dark pool emerged from under him.
"Oh my god," Nyota said, a hint of hysteria entering her voice. "He turned his shield off to examine the door panel, neither of us noticed that he forgot to turn it back on."
"Shit," Jim said. He quickly re-engaged his own shield. "Shit, shit, shit! That thing is in here with us!"
"We need to get out of here," Nyota said. "You probably only knocked out the lights for this one corridor."
"Right, that's a good idea," Jim said. Something in his voice sounded strange, and Nyota aimed the dim light at him, studying him curiously. She realized something was horribly wrong just in time to see his jaw unhinge as if he were a snake, and a terrible, bloodied spike came shooting out of his maw towards her.
Nyota shrieked and raised her arms to defend herself, for what little that would do. Luckily, her shield was on, and the spike was halted before it could pierce her and condemn her to the same fate as Lissel and many, many others. But the shield wasn't impervious. Jim— or the monster that wore his face —kept the pressure on, pushing the spike into the shields, until the shields started to give, millimetre by millimetre. At this rate, it would take about an hour to stab Nyota through. But it didn't need to stab her. It just had to break her skin...
And it did. The tiniest of pinpricks, and then the spike retracted. Nyota quickly shone the light at where Jim had been standing. He was gone. When her heart rate calmed a little, she noticed a burning sensation in her arm, radiating from where she was punctured by the creature's spike. The burning was spreading quickly.
Thinking quickly, Nyota spoke into her communicator. "Uhura here, there's an imposter—" She grew woozy and passed out before she could let out any other pertinent information.
Bones was carefully moving through the infirmary with his assigned security officer when his communicator crackled to life.
"Uhura here, there's an imposter—" The voice trailed off, and there was the sound of a body thumping to the floor.
"Uhura?" Bones answered into his communicator. "Are you alright?"
There was no response.
"Alright, me and Karvis are going to go investigate," Bones said into the communicator, addressing everyone else, who he was sure were listening intently.
"What's this about an imposter?" Hikaru asked. "She doesn't mean..."
There was a long silence over the air, as everybody came to the same conclusion.
Spock, who was also listening in on the same frequency, said it out loud. "She means that whatever killed all of those people is imitating one of you. I cannot let anyone back onto the Enterprise until the imposter is caught."
There was another long silence.
"Okay," Jim said over the comms. "Bones and Karvis, go check on Uhura. Everyone else, let's meet at ops. Emergency meeting."
There was a chorus of 'aye sirs,' and the comms went quiet. Bones turned to Karvis. "Come on, let's hurry."
The two of them kept their phasers drawn as they ran down the corridor to the section of the station that housed the living quarters.
When they got to the living quarters, the door opened for them, and they saw that the corridor beyond was dark. But in the light of the open door, they could see two bodies laying on the floor.
"Karvis, get us a light," Bones ordered.
Karvis quickly obeyed, taking a flashlight off their belt and shining it down the corridor.
As expected— and as they feared —the bodies belonged to Nyota and Lissel. A pool of blood extended from Lissel. His eyes were open and glassy, he had a massive wound in his chest, and he wasn't breathing. He was obviously dead and beyond saving.
Nyota, on the other hand, was laying above a pool of blood, suspended a few centimetres from the floor by her active shield. No blood dripped from her body into the pool, suggesting that all the blood belonged to Lissel. Nyota's eyes were closed, she seemed uninjured, and she was breathing.
"Good god," Bones said, and knelt beside Nyota. He reached to the shield device on her belt, aiming to turn it off. The shield resisted him, but with enough persistent force he was slowly able to get close enough to the switch to deactivate the shield. Nyota fell three centimetres into Lissel's blood. Bones ignored the mess and got to work with a medical tricorder.
"Is she okay?" Karvis asked.
"She's alive, but she's been poisoned," Bones said. "She won't regain consciousness until we develop and administer and antidote, and if we wait too long on that, she'll die. It's slowly working on taking down her vital systems."
"How long does she have?"
"If the poison continues to work at the rate it's going, then a few hours. Five, if we're lucky." Bones stood up. "Help me carry her. We'll bring her to ops."
The mood in ops was frantic. There were nine of them— not including the unconcious Nyota —down from the twelve that they started with.
"Alright, everyone calm down," Jim said. "Panicking isn't going to get us anywhere."
"We know that, Keptin," Pavel said. "But..." He looked around at the group. "It's hard not to panic when the murderer is in the room with us!"
"I know, Pav," Jim said soothingly. "Just remember that the murderer— this imposter —can't hurt anyone when we're all together like this. Not without making itself known."
"I suppose that is true," Pavel said, still nervous, but appeased for the moment.
Suddenly, a beam of particles appeared in the room with them, and Spock materialized in ops.
"Spock!" Scotty shouted in despair. "What are you doing? You won't be able to go back to the ship now!"
"He could leave," Hikaru said. "Everybody is in the room together, and he just showed up. We know he isn't the imposter. He can leave right now."
Bones shook his head. "No, he can't leave. We don't know how this thing operates. It could be some invisible force possessing us, jumping from head to head without our knowledge. The creature could have him right now, and if we send him back, he'll be in charge of the Enterprise and have access to the rest of the known galaxy!"
Scotty put his face in his hands. "What have you done?"
Spock was unperturbed. "I am aware of the consequences of my actions, and you should know that I carefully weighed the risks before coming here. As we all know, there is an imposter among us. I believe that my deductive skills may be invaluable."
"Who needs deduction?" Bones said, excited as he came up with an idea. "Spock, if you mind melded with the imposter, you'd know that they weren't who they seemed to be, right?"
Spock thought for a moment. "That may be true," Spock said. "I cannot say for certain that it would work, since we don't know how the creature operates. However, I believe it would be worth trying."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Bones asked.
"I cannot perform a mind meld without the other person's consent," Spock said, making it sound like getting consent was going to be an issue.
Bones raised his hand. "I want this over with it, so if I have to consent to having you poke around in my brain so be it." He turned to everyone else. "What say you all?"
Everyone else raised their hands in quick succession. Spock kept careful watch, looking for someone to hesitate. Nobody did. Interesting.
"Wait," Hikaru said. "To do a mind meld, you'll have to turn off your shield."
"Indeed, Mr Sulu," Spock said.
"But that'll put you at the mercy of the monster."
"They wouldn't," Pavel said. "It's like Keptin Kirk said. It wouldn't hurt anyone while we're all here watching, or it would reveal itself."
"But it might attack Spock if Spock was about to unmask it anyways," Hikaru said.
"That is correct," Spock said. "I am putting myself at significant risk, however, I believe it is a necessary risk for the good of everyone alive on this station. Besides," he said, gesturing to Nyota's unconscious body. "We have limited time to determine who the imposter is."
There were glances between crew members. None of them wanted to put Spock at risk, but they knew they had no other option.
"Alright, Spock," Jim said. "You're right. Go ahead with the mind melds."
Bones raised a hand. "I'll volunteer to go first. Better to get this out of the way as fast as possible, anyway." He turned off his shield and walked up to Spock, who raised a hand to Bones' face, placing fingers on the meld points.
"Are you ready?" Spock asked.
"Just don't trash the place while you're in there."
A long moment passed. You could hear a pin drop in the room. All eyes were on Spock and Bones. Then, Spock opened his eyes and dropped his hand.
"I do not believe that Doctor McCoy is the imposter," Spock declared.
Peoples' shoulders slumped with relief, but it was short lived, as they all remembered that the imposter was still among them.
"Who is next?" Spock asked as Bones re-engaged his shield.
A security officer stepped forward. The same process was repeated, and Spock deemed him innocent as well. Hikaru went next, then Scotty, another security officer, and then Pavel. All were deemed to not be the imposter. All that were left to be screened were two security officers, and Jim.
"Captain?" Spock asked.
"Yeah," Jim said. "I'll go."
He shut off his shield and stepped up to Spock, who put his fingers to Jim's meld points. Spock hesitated for a moment before closing his eyes and initiating the meld. Something felt off to him about Jim. He should have offered himself to be screened far earlier. He should have been taking more command of the situation than he had been. With his free hand, Spock moved to activate his shield at the same time that he pulled his hand away from Jim, but he wasn't fast enough.
Jim— or the creature that wore his face —opened its maw impossibly wide, venomous fang shooting out towards Spock and stabbing him through the chest just before Spock could activate his shield. Just as quickly, it retracted its fang and turned on the group. Whether it knew it had no chance or not, it was determined to go out fighting.
Multiple phasers all rose at the same time and fired. The creature collapsed, stunned. In it's unconscious state, it reverted to a long, thin, grey creature with no eyes and a massive mouth.
"We need to contain it before it wakes up," Hikaru said.
"We can beam it directly into the lab's containment unit," Scotty said. He pulled his communicator from his belt and barked orders to the transporter chief. Before long, the unconscious creature was gone, safely secured on the Enterprise.
Nobody noticed, though. All attention was on Spock.
"Dammit, Spock," Bones said from Spock's side. He commed the Enterprise. "Enterprise, two to beam directly to sickbay."
Bones and Spock disappeared.
Everyone else looked around at each other, unsure what to do. Then, Scotty stepped forward with a sigh.
"I guess that puts me in charge," he said warily. "You two," he said, pointing to two of the security officers. "Take Lieutenant Uhura and beam back to the Enterprise. Make sure she gets to sickbay. The rest of us will stay here and search the station. We have to find the Captain." Dead or alive, he refrained from saying.
Pavel took out a tricorder, and fiddled with it for a moment sombrely. Then, his face lit up. "I'm getting six life signs on the station!"
"And there's only five of us here," Scotty said.
"So Captain Kirk is alive," Hikaru said, relieved. He leaned over Pavel's shoulder to look at the tricorder. "See if you can pinpoint where on the station he is."
"Right away, sir."
They found Jim unconscious and stuffed into a Jeffrey's tube not far from ops. Having found him, everyone returned to the Enterprise. Jim was brought to sickbay where it was determined that like Nyota, he had merely been poisoned. Nurse Chapel and some of the scientists made quick work of developing an anti-toxin, and administered it to both Nyota and Jim, who recovered quickly after that.
When Jim woke up, Scotty was there, pacing anxiously beside his bed.
"Scotty?"
Scotty relaxed a bit. "Good, you're awake."
"What happened?" Jim asked, then narrowed his eyes. "Where's Spock? And Bones?"
Scotty sighed. "Let me debrief you," he said tiredly.
After Scotty told Jim what had happened, Jim demanded to know what Spock's status was. "Is he alright? He's not dead, is he?"
Scotty grimaced at the worry in the Captain's eyes, and shook his head. "He was alive when Doctor McCoy brought him in for surgery," he said. "But beyond that, I don't know."
Jim got up, despite Scotty's urging to take it easy, and marched over to the closed operating room doors. He stood for a moment, then sat in a chair nearby. He would wait, and hope that Spock had survived.
Bones came out of the room not too long after, but to Jim it had felt like hours. Jim leapt from his chair.
"Bones!" He said, desperately. "How's Spock?"
Bones sighed tiredly. "Spock's fine, Jim. Luckily that thing stabbed him where the human heart would have been. It actually missed all his vital organs. I just had to patch up the giant hole in his chest."
Jim slumped with relief. "Thank god," he said. "Can I see him?"
"Go ahead," Bones said. "He's even awake. I'll be back after I've had a drink. Or two."
Jim rushed by into the room, where Spock was laying in a bio-bed with an IV in his arm. He blinked groggily, then brightened up considerably when he saw Jim.
"Jim," he rasped, trying to sit up. "You're alive."
Jim laughed. "That's my line," he said, and pushed Spock back down on the bed. "Don't sit up, Bones will kill both of us if he has to stitch you back up again."
Spock looked up at Jim as if worried that if he looked away, Jim would vanish. "I thought you were dead," Spock said. "When I realized that you had been replaced by the imposter, I thought that surely you were dead."
"Didn't you see what happened to me when you looked into its mind?" Jim asked.
Spock shook his head. "I didn't meld with it," he said.
Jim frowned. "Then it got you before you could initiate it?"
"It 'got me' when it realized that I knew it wasn't really you."
"But if you didn't meld with it, how did you know it wasn't me?" Jim asked.
"I just knew it wasn't you," Spock said. "I wish I knew it before I stood before the beast. But I knew."
Jim smiled. "I guess you know me too well," he said. "It's a comforting thought to know that if I ever get replaced again, you'd notice. I'd only hope that I'd be so perceptive to notice if the same happened to you."
"I think you underestimate your perceptive abilities," Spock said.
Jim laughed. "I think you overestimated them. Maybe we should come up with a secret password in case this happens again."
"I certainly hope this never happens again," Spock said.
"Well, we can't count it out," Jim said. "On the Enterprise, anything can happen."
"Indeed."