“Double, Double” by Michael Jan Friedman
Finished “Double, Double” by Michael Jan Friedman.
Following the events of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”, Kirk decides not to sully the memory of the late Dr. Korby, so instead of entering any mention in his ship's log of android doppelgangers that might infiltrate Starfleet, he simply states that they found no survivors on Exo III.
Unbeknownst to him, Dr. Korby had sent out another android duplicate of Dr. Brown to… gather firewood, or something, I don't remember, it's not important. Brown gets back to find that he's alone. Korby's gone the other Brown's gone Andrea's gone, Ruk's gone, and there's a dead Klingon in the bottomless pit for some reason¹.²
But the Android Duplication Machine™ has been used recently, and the template is still in the buffer. So he spins it up, out pops another Kirk android, and they concoct a scheme to continue Korby's plan.
They send out a distress call, and the U.S.S. Hood responds.
Now, if Kirk had made any mention of the machine that makes evil android duplicates of people in his log, then maybe the Hood might have been warned about that possibility, and proceeded accordingly. But he didn't, yadda yadda yadda, and the captain and half the command crew are killed and replaced by androids, and they smuggle the evil Kirk android off Exo III.
Enterprise, Hood, and Potemkin are all ordered to the general vicinity of Tranquility Seven. Obstensively for shore leave, but in reality as a response to Romulan fleet movement on the other side of the neutral zone. They're told to chill just in case they're needed. Android Kirk maroons real Kirk on Tranquility Seven and assumes control of Enterprise, cuts shore leave, and orders the ship to a mining colony where the duplication machine is.
Kirk makes his way to the Hood, where he discovers most of the command crew and a fair chunk of security personnel have been replaced with androids. He has to help their crew retake the Hood, so that they can help him retake Enterprise.
It's a fun little story. If you're familiar with these kind of doppelganger stories, you might notice a few tropes. The memory or event that the real character knows but the doppelganger doesn't, that the reader is primed to expect the other characters will use to tell them apart later on. Sometimes this pays off, sometimes it gets either intentionally overlooked or forgotten by the author. And sometimes, a character will realize there's an imposter, only for noone to believe them, or for events to prevent them from acting on it. This has most of these.
The passage of time is handled a bit sloppy. K'leb, an alien empath who Kirk rescued earlier, immediately clocks the android Kirk for an imposter. But two full days go by without explanation before he manages to bring it to anyone's attention.
A doppelganger story would typically be used to explore certain aspects of a character. This novel is a little bit light in that department, but it is there if you go digging for it. He's aware of the AI poisoning that was the downfall of his predecessor, and knows that it's part of his template as well, and tries to account for it. But his arrogance causes him to crack under pressure.
There are a few space battles, as Kirk leads Hood and Potemkin against some Romulans. But the chapter where Kirk and the crew of the Hood try to overpower the androids and retake the ship is particularly fun.
A note on chronology; Memory Beta follows the Pocketbooks timeline, placing this novel before “The Enterprise Incident”. I guess this is based on the stardate. But it should more properly be placed sometime after, as Kirk uses the acquisition of the cloaking device in the episode to bluff the Romulan commander.
¹ – The novel “Errand of Vengeance: The Edge of the Sword”, establishes that the security officer Matthews, who accompanies Kirk and Chapel to Exo III in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”, was a Klingon agent. He was about to kill Kirk and Chapel when Ruk threw him off the ledge.
²- I can do footnotes now! Isn't this cool?