"Well, a little information would be nice," Dorrin replied sarcastically. "Unless you want me spending more time sitting next to you on the bridge, you might want to throw an update or two down here."
Doctor Rass could hear the commander take a deep breath before responding. "You're right," Stephen admitted slowly. "We've got two Jem'Hadar loose on the ship and two dead crewmen. I presume you heard the order to lock down your door."
Doctor Rass blinked several times, then looked at the large, slotted, wooden doors to his sickbay... unlocked. Being on Bajor during the Dominion War had prevented him from seeing an actual Jem'Hadar. The images he had seen made him thankful the Cardassians had been occupying Deep Space Nine again. Remembering the studies he had read of the Jem'Hadar anatomy were morbidly intriguing. Their anatomy was frighteningly simple, complete with redundant organs, oversized skeletal structure, and dense-fibered muscle tissue... a marvel of genetic engineering. "Oh, my," he said quietly. "I heard the order, but assumed it didn't apply to me, since I really need to be available in the event of an emergency."
Stephen's voice became grave. "Doctor, lock your door. If your services are required, we'll either site-to-site you to them, or them to you. One of them is injured. He may be heading your way."
Dorrin looked back ominously at the still-closed doors. "How could he possibly know where sickbay is? It's not like he can ask the computer."
"We have reason to believe he has a tricorder. If he knows how to use it, it would lead him straight to you. Lock the door, Doctor. I'll be in touch. Kirk out."
Rass looked nervously at the door and gulped. He was a doctor, not a soldier, for crying out loud. He cursed himself for not just listening to the order. His feet felt as though there were large weights attached as he inched closer to the door, then froze in his tracks as the doors slid opened and closed with no one there.
Dorrin stood shaking. "He's in here," he thought, "and he's cloaked... another marvel of genetic engineering." He stood there for what seemed an eternity, waiting for the Jem'Hadar to make a move... wondering if he had just imagined everything and should lock the door. As if on queue, a single drop of gray liquid suddenly appeared in mid air and fell to the floor, landing with a quiet splat. "By the prophets, he IS in here," he thought. A myriad of throughts ran through his head. There was a phaser in one of the cabinets in the treatment room, but he'd never get to it. There was plenty of anesthazine in the recovery room, which was closer, but he'd need to load that up into a hypospray. Perhaps he could just flood the entire room with anesthazine, but then he'd have to figure a way to run that cursed EMH program.
Perhaps just talking would calm the creature down. Dorrin cleared his throat and did his best to stand up straight and look calm. "I know you're in here," he said aloud, "and I know you're injured." He took a deep breath. "I can help you."
"Why would you help me?" A gruff, low, disembodied voice asked. Judging from where the voice originated, Dorrin guessed the creature was slightly taller than a human.
"I'm a doctor. It's what I do." Rass replied, offering his hands up in a manner of surrender.
"On my home, we have no doctors." The voice commented dejectedly.
"Well, you're a long way from home, aren't you?" Perhaps there was a way Dorrin could gain this soldier's trust. A living ally was certainly more valuable than a dead enemy, after all.
"I am dead." The gravelly voice said grimly. "I go into battle to reclaim my life. Victory is life."
"Then... why have you come to sickbay?" Dorrin was hoping the Jem'Hadar was questioning his values... possibly looking for a way to heal himself.
"I am looking for something I could use as a poison to disperse through the air. Most doors are locked, but the ventilation system is still operational."
Dorrin's hopes deflated. "I see." He said finally. "Then what do you want with me?"
"You're going to help me." With that, and an accompanying crash, the controls to the door were smashed.
Well, that certainly wasn't the answer Dorrin wanted to hear. He considered his options. None of them seemed too pleasant. Then, he remembered a hypospray of asinolyathin he had sitting on his lab table in the recovery room. He was going to administer a small dosage to Ensign Nereya for her muscle spasms, but there was a full vial in the spray. With that much muscle relaxant in the Jem'Hadar, Dorrin might have a fighting chance. It was the only option he could think of. If the soldier was still still by the front door, that might be the head start the doctor needed to get to the next room. That was his move, he decided. Nodding, he said, "I see... well, in that case..." he broke into a run to the next room.
With a loud "Oof!" Dorrin found himself face down, tackled on the floor with an impressive weight on his back. As he struggled to turn over, he saw the form of the tall Jem'Hadar soldier appear before him as it dropped its cloaking shroud. His face was gray, long and thin with several bony spikes along the edge of his face. Its eyes were blood red. Now, Dorrin could see the extent of the soldier's injury. His right arm had been completely, but roughly cut at the shoulder. Dorrin could make out one other feature that terrified him. In the Jem'Hadar's left hand was a long, serrated, bloody knife. The soldier raised himself off the doctor and drew the blade upwards, intending to bring it down on the doctor, a look of rage in his eyes.
Instinctively, Dorrin raised his arms and grappled with the tall soldier's arm as it swung down. The doctor allowed himself a moment to be impressed with the Jem'Hadar's strength. Despite the fact Dorrin was holding the soldier's arm with both of his and the obvious blood loss that had taken place from the wound, the blade was still slowly descending towards Dorrin's face. The Jem'Hadar spread his legs father apart to gain a better balance. Dorrin took the opportunity to move one of his own legs between the Jem'Hadar's. Kicking upwards, he struck between the soldiers legs as hard as he could. The Jem'Hadar merely laughed and drove the blade closer.
"Damn!" Dorrin cried out. Jem'Hadar were androgynous and had no genitalia. He was growing more desperate as the blade drew ever closer to his head. "Engage EMH!" He yelled.
A tall, thin human with angular facial features appeared behind the Jem'Hadar with short, brown, curly hair. "Thank you for invoking the Emergency Medical..." Startled, the Jem'Hadar spun around to see the new presence behind him. Quickly discerning it was another human, he quickly jumped off the doctor and lunged at the human. The startled holographic doctor instinctively braced himself for the impact that never occured. The Jem'Hadar flew through the hologram and into the wall near the archway to the nurse's office as the hologram phased himself from his tactile mode.
Seizing the opportunity, the doctor lunged himself for the hypospray on the small table. The table fell over as the doctor savagely grabbed for all the tools he could find. The hypospray, and several other objects, clattered to the floor. Dorrin dropped to his knees and picked up the device.
"Good heavens!" The hologram proclaimed. "What's going on here?"
A frustrated Dorrin pointed to the recovering Jem'Hadar. "Restrain him!" He cried.
Still confused, the EMH phased back into tactile mode and reached for the one-armed soldier's shoulders as he turned around. Finally having something to grasp, the Jem'Hadar backhanded the EMH, sending him careening into the connecting wall. The Jem'Hadar took two more steps towards the doctor when the EMH grabbed him again. The EMH locked his arms around the Jem'Hadar, pinning his one arm down. "I should inform you, as a hologram I don't feel pain." The Jem'Hadar roared in anger and frustration.
That was the opportunity Dorrin wanted. Still on his knees, he used his feet to launch himself at the momentarily incapacitated enemy. His body painfully contacted the Jem'Hadar at his thighs. The force of the impact knocked the soldier off balance, sending him backwards back to the wall. Hitting his head against the wall, he slumped towards the floor. Doctor Rass thrust the hypospray at the Jem'Hadar's left leg and injected the full vial as the EMH scrambled out from underneath the fallen warrior.
Within moments, the Jem'Hadar was moving again. He lashed out wildly with his knife, slicing across Dorrin's stomach and into the EMH, who simply phased himself out again. The pain of the knife wound dropped the doctor to the floor and made it difficult for him to breathe. He looked down at the large tear in his labcoat coated in red. Barely discernable in the background was the sound of pounding on the main door in the next room.
The Jem'Hadar took the opportunity to make another attack at the doctor. As he got to his knees, his left leg gave out causing him to fall back to the floor. He used his one good arm to roll with the fall.
"I'll get a regenerator for your wound," the EMH commented.
"Idiot!" Dorrin cried out breathlessly. "Get HIM!" He pointed to the falled Jem'Hadar, who was working his way back up.
The EMH shrugged his shoulders and jumped on top of the recovering soldier with a loud "Hiya!" The extra weight threw the enemy off balance once again. He found himself back one the floor, prone. With a loud roar, the Jem'Hadar grabbed the EMH by the neck and threw him into a bed, knocking it over. As he tried to stand up on his right leg, an explosion shook the room, causing the Gem'Hadar to stagger once again.
The Jem'Hadar turned around as voices could be heard in the next room. "Move it! Go! Go! Go! Surround the door!" The voices shouted. It was then that the Jem'Hadar realized he was missing his knife.
As he searched the floor frantically for it, the EMH cleared his throat. The Jem'Hadar looked over to the overturned bed to see the EMH leaning on it from the other side, holding the knife. "Are you looking for this?" he asked in a sing-song voice. The Jem'Hadar let out an incensed growl and charged at the EMH.
Two bolts of energy flew from the entryway into the Jem'Hadar's back creating two large burn marks. The tall, gray warrior fell over the overturned bed with a thud. Three Marines walked into the recovery room. One tapped his comm badge. "Captain... one down."