Bashir awoke, shivering, to the dark and damp. Even with his genetically enhanced eyesight, he could barely see in front of him. "Glad to see you're finally awake, the boss was getting bored." a nasally voice drawled lazily, "you've been out for 5 hours, jus' ta let you know!" the voice giggled childishly. Bashir swallowed painfully and tried to sit up but a heavy boot shoved him back down to the floor. "ah, ah, ahhhh," said the voice, as if telling off a naughty child, "You better stay down if you want the boss to like you." Then the doctor felt hot, laboured breath by his ear, he froze as it whispered "by the time the boss meets you, you gonna want the boss to like you, he he!"
The doctor breathed out slightly, still waiting for his eyesight to return to normal in the dark and he realised that he had no idea where he was or how he'd got there. He swallowed again "Where am I?" he asked the voice with as much confidence as he could muster. "You is in the middle o' nowhere if you ask me, but jus' you wait, you'll be goin' on a nice long trip to Cardassia in a bit," again, the voice leaned in and Bashir recoiled the stench "and you gonna wish you'd stayed right here with me, he he!"
There was a loud screeching as a heavy door was dragged open. Bright light spilled in which made Bashir wince and close his eyes. Then, mercifully, the noise stopped and an authoritative tone spoke up. I can see that our caretaker has introduced himself as usual." It was then that Bashir decided to ease his eyes open. The first sight to his eyes was a grizzled face of the voice that he had heard earlier. The man was wide-eyed and had manic expression on his face. He wore an old jumpsuit which looked about thirty years old. He then shuffled back to allow, Julian was shocked to see, a tall Vorta to take his place. "Welcome to the Dominion Doctor." Julian felt a sinking feeling before the 'Caretaker' gave him a vicious kick to the head.
Whilst he was dazed, he felt hands on his wrists and arms but recovered enough to be forced to stand up. "I'm afraid, Doctor, that you're going to be taking a long ride, so you may want to cancel all your appointments."
Fifteen hours earlier...
"Say, Julian, did you get the message about Tandor? We're leavin' in ten minutes, I thought you were comin'?" Miles O'Brien poked his head into his friend's infirmary where Bashir was just removing a pair of red surgical gloves from some early morning operation. "Ah, yes Chief, I hear you requested for me to come along. Did you think you were going to get lonely?" the younger man teased, mocking a frown as he grabbed his pre-packed medical bag.
"Oh no, we just figured that we needed someone to up the 'irritating-ness' and seeing as how you are the master of that, I volunteered you for the job." the engineer smirked as they both turned and walked out of the infirmary to docking ring where the Defiant was waiting. "Oh, touche Miles, touche!" They both chuckled and carried on with their endless banter until a figure behind them coughed lightly. "Are you two boys quite done yet, us grown ups have work to do." The pair turned around to see Jadzia standing behind them wearing a stern but humoured expression. Julian smiled sheepishly, and then patted O'Brien on the back, "See you later then - meet you in the mess hall." He then waved back to Dax and O'Brien as they went to the bridge and paced down the corridor towards his adopted infirmary.
Sisko had been granted the gift of splitting headaches ever since the crew of the Defiant had retaken Deep Space Nine. Despite their victory, deepening mysteries within Starfleet had kept him on his toes. Ever since Bashir's escapade into the world of spies had revealed Section 31, there had been no word from them on that matter. In fact, the good doctor himself had said very little on the matter rather uncharacteristically. Although Bashir knew Sisko's opinion on Section 31, which was that Bashir should be their double agent, he did worry about what would happen if there was a 'next time'. By now, Sisko's head felt like it was being crushed so he paused his train of thought focused on his upcoming mission. He was to take the Defiant to the Tandor system and search for signs of Cardassian and Dommion activity. There had been an increasing number of cargo vessels being reported missing from Tandor; cargo that the federation desperately needed. The Defiant was preped and her crew was aboard, everything was ready but Sisko couldn't dislodge his feeling of forboding.