“In a Mirror, Darkly, Part II” is episode nineteen of season four of Star Trek: Enterprise.
In the previous episode, “In a Mirror, Darkly”, Enterprise was destroyed. On the bridge of the USS Defiant, from the TOS episode “The Tholian Web”, not DS9, they are trying to get free of the dock. Shields and thrusters are operational, so they manage to break the clamps, but there are no weapons and the Tholians are making a web.
Trip and T’Pol are working at getting tactical back online and a tractor beam is drawing them back into the dock. Weapons are brought up and the tractor is destroyed, as well as some of the Tholian ships; the rest flee. The station fires at the Defiant, which shoots back. Reed reports escape pods from Enterprise.
Defiant doesn’t have wrap; Trip reports engineering is stripped, but most of the bits are still on the hangar deck. He’s going to need 2-3 days to put it all back together as he’s not even sure what some systems do. Archer gives him 12 hours. T’Pol suggests that the alien workers may know how to help.
Archer wants to rendezvous with the assault fleet. T’Pol says they aren’t ready. The ship needs a crew of over 400 and they have 47. It’s logical to take the Defiant to Earth to study and reverse engineer it. Archer says there’s no time. He dismisses everyone but T’Pol and Travis, then takes Travis’s gun and says he should shoot her for betraying him. T’Pol says his orders were obviously fabricated and as a Starfleet officer it was her duty to help Forrest take back control of the ship. He’s now dead and his orders are no longer valid. Archer claims he never had a problem with Vulcans until they became part of the rebellion. If he had another officer who could do her job, she’d be out the airlock, but he needs her.
Hoshi finds Archer in the Defiant‘s captain’s quarters, wearing a uniform he found. He says the Empire doesn’t exist in the other universe, only something called the United Federation of Planets. As for them, he brings up Hoshi’s record. He’s less amused when she brings up Captain Archer’s, who he considers a weak man who sold Earth out to subhuman species. Great men are conquerors. Hoshi says Starfleet will give him a command now. Archer says he already has one.
Kelby has called Trip because some parts have just disappeared. Trip tells him to fix it and leaves. Kelby hears something, goes looking and finds a regulator. Then is attacked.
On the bridge, Phlox says Kelby was attacked by a reptile, one about 2m tall. Reed suggests a pet; Phlox finds this unlikely, unless someone owned a Velociraptor. Trip arrives; the regulators are gone, and they need them for warp. T’Pol says whoever took them knew what they were doing. Archer wants one of the slaves. Said slave is reluctantly convinced to explain that it was the slavemaster, Slar, a Gorn. He gives a possible location.
Reed is talking about finding the Gorn. Archer sees his own despised counterpart from the Prime Universe, telling him that the Prime Archer would go after the Gorn himself. The Gorn contacts the bridge; he wants a shuttlecraft and, once he is away from the ship, will tell them where the regulators are. T’Pol thinks it’s a reasonable offer. Archer does not.
Archer together with Reed and some MACOs go looking. Reed’s team follows a biosign, which is traced to a communicator. Reed tells his men to turn it off. When the Gorn receives the signal, he activates a bomb. Archer and another MACO find a badly injured Reed and two dead MACOs. Archer is goi9ng to try another method. He and the MACO get ambushed by the Gorn, the MACO probably gets killed but Archer gets T’Pol to increase the grav plating where the Gorn is, trapping it and then killing it.
Archer is getting increasingly out of control – he may have gone mad from the agony tube – and is seeing his alternate. Mirror Archer may despise Prime Archer, but Prime Archer was more successful, albeit not a success Mirror Archer appreciates. Mirror Archer thinks he can conquer the Empire with his new ship.
Reputedly, there were planned to be more Mirror Universe episodes, but the series was cancelled.