Title : Reqium of Resonance
Author : Tariq ( formerly Aeris Jade Orion )
Part: 1/?
Rating : PG-13
Pairing : Odo/Kira
Timeline : Chimera
Summary : On his way back to DS9, Odo recieves a message which will change the path of the war.
Authors note: It's unbeta'd. At the moment I have no beta reader for this genre. So drop me a line if you're interested.
Second, due to health issues, and taking care of my disabled mom, I haven't been able to write much. But over the last several years I've managed to slowly write on a number of stories.
What I've decided to do is go ahead and
publish what I've managed to put together.
The stories are unfinished, and sometimes,
the last chapter I worked on is unfinished.
Plus, there maybe multiple chapters, each one a
different version. Just warning everyone.
So I apologize in advance.
Disclaimer : Not mine. All characters belong to Paramount.
00000
Prologue
00000
" Incoming Subspace Communication. "
Odo glanced at the screen to his left. No one, except Nerys, was aware he was gone. He hadn't been off the station long enough for the Captain to notice.
So who was calling him?
His hand danced over the controls. He started to frown at the readings. The computer didn't recognize the subspace channel, or the frequency being used.
Odo's frown deepened. The readout was familiar, very familiar.
He activated the channel.
" Odo. "
The shapeshifter stared in disbelief at the woman on screen. She had a very dark skin tone. Yellow slit eyes, like a bird of prey. Long black hair, and lips.
" Liana. " He replied softly. " I thought you were dead. "
" Please, it'll take more than a bomb to kill me. "
He grunted at her words. She was more slippery than a Ferengi, and twice as corrupt. She made the Grand Nagus look like prophets by comparision.
" What do you want? " He demanded. He wasn't in any mood to deal with her. Then again, he never was.
" Now, now, is that anyway to treat your best friend in the galaxy? " She smirked.
He reached over to cut the communication.
" Wait! " She quickly sobered.
" Make it fast! " He warned.
" We need to talk! "
" We are, but if you don't get to the point, we won't be! "
" I meant face to face. " She leaned forward intently. " It's about the war. "
" Why can't you tell me over subspace? "
" It's too dangerous. I can't risk anyone finding out I have this information. "
Odo narrowly studied the woman. She might be a smuggler, a thief, a computer hacker, and a dozen other things, but she wouldn't betray him.
During the Occupation, Damar had gotten his hands on her. A Chameloid was worth a fortune, especially as a sex slave.
It had taken a month, but he'd managed to arrange her escape from Terok Nor. It was a debt she had insisted she could never repay. Because of that, she had become a close friend, and his most valued informant.
" How bad is it? " He asked.
" Bad! Very bad. " She stressed.
" Fine. Our normal spot? "
" No. I'll be at the backup spot. " She hesitated for an instant. " I suggest you ditch the runabout and combadge. "
He jerked in surprise. She had never suggested such a thing. Ever. To do so now...
It must be worse than he originally thought.
" Liana?! "
" You won't be going back. " She explained. " Liana Out. "
He silently stared at the dead screen. In all his life he'd rarely felt nervous. An emotion he usually reserved for matters concerning Nerys.
Right then, though, he felt his nerves and a healthly dose of fear. Experience with Liana told him his life was about to get flipped upside down, and not in a good way.
' Forgive me, Nerys. '
00000
" This had better be good, Liana! "
The other shifter merely smirked at him. Her impossibly long, black nails tapping at a Terran PADD.
" The Captain probably thinks I deserted. Prophet's knows what Nerys must be thinking. " He grumbled.
" Oh, it is. " Liana handed the PADD to him. " I'm sure you know the Founders are dying. "
" So does most of the Alpha Quadrant. " He absently scanned the text.
" Did you know the diease is actually an instability in their DNA structure? " She asked slyly.
" Meaning what? "
" Don't you find it strange? Two races of shapeshifters, one gentically engineered, the other specializing in gentic science? " She continued.
" Are you saying the Founder's created the Chameloids? "
" The data I've found indicate we were both engineered. The Changeling's were the first attempt, but something went wrong, a flaw appeared in their DNA. " She explained. " But for some reason they completely scraped their research, and started over. "
" Resulting in the Chameloids. "
" Exactly. " She grinned dangerously.
" If the diease is a flaw in our DNA, why is it only appearing now? Why haven't I been affected? " He demanded.
" The more Changeling's shift, the greater the instability becomes. " She shrugged. " Of course, the link merges their DNA, along with their instability. "
" Thereby speeding it up even more. " He grumbled.
" Odo, with all the time you've linked with them, your DNA should be rapidly deteriorating. " Liana frowned in concern. " You'll start showing symptoms soon. "
" Why all the secrecy? " Odo grew uncomfortable with the subject. " Surely you could have told me all this over the Comm. "
" Tell me something. If they were created on Drura Sextus, how did they end up in the Gamma Quadrant? Why the war? Why risk a hundred of their kind? Where did they get their technology? What about the Vorta? Or the Jem'Hadar? "
He was confused. It didn't make any sense. None of it did. There just too many questions, and almost no answers. Worse, the few answers he did have, left him with more questions.
" I don't know either. " She admitted. " But I do know the location of several abandoned labs on Drura Sextus. Hopefully we'll find a cure and maybe some answers. "
" I should contact the Captain. "
" No! If the Dominion finds out what we're up to, we'll be hunted by every ship in the Quadrant! "
" What aren't you telling me?! " He growled.
" There's a rumor, about Changeling's in the Federation, and on Bajor. If they're true, the level of infiltration is astronomical. " Liana's face closed off. " If it's true, I don't know if they could ever recover from the damage done. "
Odo closed his eyes in mental anguish.
His people were dying, and desperate. They would want to do as much damage as possible. Take as many solids with them as they could.
The scenario wasn't pleasant.
" We have to get answers. Fast. " Liana said. " It's the only chance we have of salvaging the war. "
He grunted in agreement. They had to find answers, and figure out the identities of any infiltrators.
They couldn't risk contacting anyone else. Not until they knew for certain it was safe. Otherwise, any chance of saving the Alpha Quadrant would be compromised.
" Very well. Where do we start? " He asked.
" At the beginning. "
11111
Chapter One
11111
The lab was a broken skeleton of it's former self. A frozen, steel wasteland on the brink of collapse. The twisted dank atmosphere caused by a rushed exit.
The debris of the floor crackled under his booted feet. The dark brown fur providing a warmth desperately needed in the snow filled planet.
Odo pushed the hood of his knee length coat back. Wary of the creaking in the folding walls, weighed down under hundreds of years of ice.
Liana wiggled by. Swaying forward, heel to toe. The exaggerated movements aimed at the half-Vulcan, half-Romulan examining the enourmous computer system.
Her husband, rather pointedly, ignored her. No doubt thanks to his Vulcan heritage. Even when she began to run her fingers along the short man's shoulders, he remained focused.
Odo dropped the portable generator on the floor beside the computer. He pryed the rusted panel open, and inserted the generator's connector.
A soft hum filled the misty air. The dim glow of the computer giving them a ghastly light to see by.
" The files are fragmented. " Volox said. " Someone tried to purge the memory banks. "
" Can they be recovered? " Odo inquired.
" It will be difficult, but it can be done. " Volox opened his tool bag. " Under the circumstances, it will be more practical to uninstall the target memory banks, and use our ships system to perform the necessary tasks. In the meantime, you should explore the rest of the lab. "
" Agreed. " Odo took a tricorder from Volox. " I'll meet you back on the ship in an hour. "
He glanced at Lianna. She batted her eyes at him in return. Drapping her body across the computer. A clear indication she intended on staying, and trying to distract her poor husband.
Odo snorted at her antics. She never changed. In fact, he still wasn't completely sure how she'd ended up married to the unfortunate half-Vulcan.
Volox was a scientist. A doctor of gentic science. Volox had searched out Liana in order to get permission to study her.
Liana had quickly agreed. If she could examine Volox in turn. Two months later, they were married.
He started down a hallway to the far left. Squeezing between a large ceiling beam, and a two foot thick layer of pure ice.
His wrist light barely made an impact on the inky darkness. There were doors, far and wide, left open to destroyed rooms.
The self-destruct had done it's job well. Elimenating the various rooms, and equipment. The main computer had survived by pure chance. The rest of the lab hadn't been as lucky.
Odo walked for ten minutes. Pausing at each door, finding nothing left, and moving on. It was discouraging for someone in need of fast answers.
He persisted. Following the hall further and further down into the earth. The cold grew more frigid as he went, and he finally pulled his hood back up, unable to bear it.
The sufficating walls narrowed. The ceiling broken and draping down, forcing him to hunch over.
In frustration, he tranformed into a Drura polar cat. Three feet long, slinky, and extremely flexible. The white furred animal allowed him to quickly continue on.
There were no more rooms. Instead he found the incline spiraling downward, like the stairs in Quarks. The tight path making him wonder about the race who built it.
Odo finally stepped onto the lowest floor of the complex. A very open space, cramped with the melted metal of labatory tables, computers, and various other equipement.
He reverted back to his humaniod form. Automatically lifting his wrist light to scan his surroundings. Sweeping the thin beam from left to right, he noticed several piles of black ash.
Dead Founders, or failed experiments.
The shifter carefully toed through the wreckage. Shuffling along the room, stopping with intense curiousity, and then going to the next detail to catch his eye.
A small, frozen body lay in a fractured tube. White fur, except for a light shade of purple around it's wrinkled ears. The long appendages ran from it's jaw to the top of it's head. Glowing light blue eyes. Neon almost. Ape like in form.
He shivered at the glassy expression of the Vorta like creature. It was too much of a coincedence. Everything about it reminded him of the annoying slaves.
Of course a Weyoun had once told him the myth of the Vorta's creation. How they'd once been a small ape-like creature.
Odo very carefully attached a tracking device to the tube, so they could beam it to the ship later.
No other bodies were left. In fact he didn't see anything else of interest. Too much damage had been done. Age having made it worse.
Odo sighed at what he percieved as a failure. This was the first lab, and all they'd found was an animal carcass, plus fragments of unknown data.
He tapped the comm attacked to his belt.
" One to beam up. "
Maybe they'd have more luck next time.
Just maybe.
11111
" Look at this strand of DNA. " Volox pointed at the computer screen. The finger traced along the multi-colored laddered model. " It's identical to the Vorta. In point of fact, there is a 98% match. "
" I don't understand. " Odo huffed in frustration. " Who engineered the Vorta? Everyone claims it was the Founders, but if it's true, why would there be evidence of Vorta in a Drura lab? "
" It wouldn't. " Liana said were she was peering intently at the DNA. " Whoever was behind the labs, had the Founder's banished from the planet as a failed experiment. "
" You think the Vorta were created in the same period of time. " Odo realized.
" Yes. What I don't get, is how the Vorta ended up with the Founder's. The scientists wouldn't have given up a successful creation. " Liana pulled back from the screen.
" Another scraped project? " Volox asked.
" Why? " Odo demanded. " I haven't seen any indication of a major flaw. It's mostly minor stuff. Poor eyesight, limited tastebuds, but nothing on the level of the Founders. "
" It is rather curious. " Volox agreed.
" What about the data? " Liana changed the subject. " Where you able to recover anything of interest? "
" Some. It appears the instability of the Founder's DNA was due to an influx of plasma radiation during the inital stages. It caused several strands in their matrix to warp. " Volox explained.
" What were they doing with radiation? " Liana gaped.
" A conduit overloaded. " The doctor shrugged.
" Great. My people are dying because of a stupid accident. " Odo grumbled.
" Can you correct the damage? " Liana demanded.
" The original DNA sequence was among the date. Once I have compared the differences in the DNA, examined the damage, and..."
" Volox. " Liana cut off with a roll of her eyes. " Yes or no? "
" Yes. " Volox didn't pout. " It will be quite painful for Odo, but yes. "
" What about my people? "
" Once symptoms of the instability appear, any attempt to alter their DNA would be futile. At best, they would die instantly. At worst, it would prolong their deaths and increase their suffering. " Volox rather bluntly said.
Odo rocked back in shock. When he learned of the sickness in the Great Link, he'd begun the process of dealing with the Founder's extinction. The grief he'd been dealing with had been replaced with hope with Liana's information.
Now...
" There's something else. You mentioned a conversation with the Changeling, Laas. About being unable to have children. " Volox rapidly brought up a different strand of DNA. " These are the markers associated with reproduction. This particular sequence is locked, preventing such biological acts. "
" We can't reproduce? "
" Correct, the sequence is there, just... cut off. While I'm fixing the unstable DNA I can also unlock it. " Volox cocked an eyebrow in question at him. " Assuming you want me to. "
Odo nodded absently. " I wonder if it's naturally occuring. "
" Most likely not. The race behind the engineering wouldn't want to risk such a flawed creation multiplying. "
It was a little disturbing. To know he'd been created and dismissed on a whim. To have his choice to reproduce stolen from him.
" Was there any other information? " Liana inquired.
" Nothing legible. "
Which meant it was time to move on to the next lab.
He snorted quietly. The information they had was valuble, but it was coming far to slowly for his taste.
" We'll check out the second lab sight tommorrow. " Liana decided. " I just hope it goes better. "
Somehow he didn't see his luck improving much. Not with the way things were going.
11111
Odo cursed fluently in a combination of Bajoran, Cardassian, Human, and Klingon. The senior staff, plus Garak, had given him a very thorough education.
He kicked out at a half melted plate with a vicious satisfaction. The ice on it broke apart as it went flying across the room.
Four damned labs with nothing to show for it. Nothing except a badly bruised ego.
He let out another string of curses. This time in Vulcan. It trailed off in a half grunt, half grumble.
Odo paused a moment. The floor where the plate had been was missing. A gaping hole was in it's place.
The shifter kneeled down by it and flashed his light inside. A single discarded datarod lay buried among the dirty and snow.
He picked it up with an air of smuggness. Finally, he had found something. Even if it proved to be nothing, it was proof there was more than crumbled metal and frigid cold left.
Slipping it into the bag slung over his shoulder, he stood back up, continuing on into the depressing lab.
So far every lab had ashy remains of dead Changeling's. There had been no more pre-Vorta specimens. But he had run across the skeletons of a small, dragon like species. Just enough marrow remained in them for Volox to extract DNA.
It was a very close match to the Jem'Hadar. Another mystery they were left with.
What flaw had been in the race? Why did they leave with the Founder's and Vorta? What about the powder used to keep the race in control?
It felt like for every step they took forward, they took ten more back. It was all questions and no answers. It frustrated him above all else.
Who was the engineers? Was it the Tholian's? A strange silicon based life form. It was a race needing extremely high tempatures to survive.
Why would a race in need of hot weather setup labs on an polar planet? A place so extremely cold it was mostly glaciers.
It was more likely the Shedai were behind it. According to the Tholians, the Shedai gentically engineered them from a subspecies.
History also made it clear the Shedai had a sort of master/slave relationship with the Tholians. If it was true, then the situation with the Vorta and Jem'Hadar would make sense.
Why stop at creating one race of slaves, when you could create two or three? Maybe even engineer a race of perfect spies?
If there was only proof. Anything. An old chart, a medical log, just something.
The problem was if it was the Shedai then his peoples age was far greater than he was told. The Shedai were a very, very ancient race dating back to one hundred thousand B.C.
More telling, they were a race with a superiority complex equal to the Founder's. They had believed they should rule all, and those who wouldn't serve them, should be wiped out.
Because of those belief's, Star Fleet had commited mass genocide. Leaving a single member of the race left alive. Someone, who like Odo, knew his race was in the wrong.
History seemed to be repeating itself. A cruel irony.
Odo stepped into the area behind the collapsed wall. It was bare. Mostly ice. A few inches of fresh snow.
He brushed his foot over the snow. Left to right, right to left. He took a step forward. Again he brushed his foot. His toe caught.
The shifter bent down, gently wiping the snow away.
" Well, well, well, what do we have here? "
11111
" I'm seeing it, but I'm not believing it. " Liana kneeled before table. Amber eyes were wide and heavily dilated.
Odo sat on a stool close by. He couldn't tear his eyes off it for the life of him. It was rather... unexpected.
" It is... logical. " Volox stood with crossed arms. A stanch figure waiting for the scan to finish.
A vole sized body lay on the table. It resembled the natural form of a Chameloid. Loosely.
The fur was short instead of long. The dark brown fur was the exact amber color of Odo's liquid state. The skin wasn't flesh colored, but rather a lighter shade of amber.
The face though, was what caught his attention. It wasn't quite the caveman appearance of the Chameloid. It was more unfinished, with smooth features.
" Both the Changelings and Chameloids are shapeshifters. Both engineered by the same race, on the same planet. " Volox lectured absently. His dark eyes observing every detail of the infant.
The doctor finally tore himself away, and began to scroll through the computer. The part Vulcan murmured softly.
" Look at this. A sixty percent match to the Chameloid, and the Founder's. It's the very base of the DNA in both race's. " Volox's eyebrow began to twitch. " Where did the other forty percent come from? It had to be from different sources in order to create a silicon based lifeform. Then again the Tholian's are silicon based. Maybe they used the same DNA source. "
" We've lost him. " Liana hefted herself back up. " When he's like this you can't get anything out of him. "
" There are the Excalibian's also. They're more mineral, almost rock like, though. The Horta is also mineral, feeding off rocks. I doubt they'd use the Crystalline Entity. It would be improbable. " Volox rapidly drew up DNA after DNA.
" I just remembered, I need to adjust the shield harmonics. " Liana backed out of the room rapidly.
" Microbrain's... No... Maybe Kollotuul. It's the DNA used to make the Tholian's... "
Odo quickly headed for the door. He hated science. He hated labs. Mostly, he hated doctors in love with the sound of their own voice.
Bashier and Mora made sure of that.
" Hmph! Doctors! "
-
To Be Continued