Nightlife of the Gods

by G.Dunbar

Salvation a la mode. Lies, love, blood, mud, and mutants...2nd book in a series

1. Default Chapter Title

NIGHTLIFE OF THE GODS: Salvation à la mode. Lies, love, blood, mud and mutants. Book Two of a series.

In a tale not to be taken lightly with its early exploration of culture vs domestic violence, and morality, the tumultuous early days of the Bajoran Prophecy continue with Bashir and Dax clashing over Worf, Curzon, and Klingons, to crash-land in each other's arms and emerge lovers.

Elsewise, willing to bear witness to the harsh and horrifying realities of Anar's remote Bajoran colony of Maquis survivors, Kira remains deaf and blind to the Prophets and Ziyal, leaving a disgruntled and bored Q longingly looking forward to the future happening anytime soon.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Embracing Gene Roddenberry's creation Star Trek together with the characters and setting of Paramount's Star Trek: DS9 and the occasional character/lifeform/species from The Original Series and Star Trek The Next Generation, The Time of Hagalaz is an umbrella title for a series of twelve alternative Star Trek: DS9 novels. Not meaning the stories takes place in an alternative universe, though the reader is certainly welcome to view the series in this manner, but rather simply instead upholding the idea of a recording of future history. From there exploring the infinite realm of possibilities and variables there are in the universe, of which there are always at least two distinctly different and opposite realities guaranteed e.g. one where you do, and the other where you don't?

Nightlife of the Gods: Salvation à la mode is the second novel. Its story, prophecy, and characters: Anar (aka Shakaar Adon, the elder), Nadya, Elise, Sian, Gul Anon and Sentinel Pfrann Dukat, Doctor Janice Lange, Chief Engineer Tan, Doctors Tracy and Rebecca Sorge, Michelle Faraday, Doctors Alexis Ortiz, Hamilton, and Dupo-Frey, Noya, Viola, Shakaar "Hawk", and assorted supernumeraries, are the author's contribution to the existing Star Trek Universe.

As far as Stardate/placement/time The Time of Hagalaz, begins roughly set in 2375 and the aftermath of Ziyal's death at the hands of Damar. A point where Dukat is not free to wreak further havoc, but instead detained by the Federation, undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment in an effort to bring him to trial for war crimes. The Dominion has retreated to watch, Damar assuming precarious control of the Cardassian Government in conjunction with its Civilian Council.

G. Dunbar gad@yahoo.com

THE TIME OF HAGALAZ

"Are you familiar with the Terran tale of Adam and Eve?" The omnipotent entity Q coiled his way around the ponderous trunk of the blossoming tree to inquire of the Bajoran-Cardassian child Ziyal as she sat in her Prophets' garden paradise enjoying her newfound elation since being blasted into her mother's welcoming arms by the lethal pointing of Damar's phaser some eight Federation months ago.

"Oh," Ziyal said in the same fixed innocence that had hindered her throughout her abbreviated life of twenty-two Bajoran years and remained preserved in eternity and death. "Well, no."

"Good!" Q scurried over to join her, presenting her with a luscious Kaferian apple to enjoy as a tasty treat while he wove the inspiring tale of love eternal, life immortal. The history and development of suburbs and proper dress on the Terran world called Earth. Explained its plot, its premise, and, of course, its climatic ending where Eve married Adam and had three, children, not only a mere one. The five of them living happily ever after, together with their world for however many hundred thousand years or so.

"Really?" Ziyal breathed, enthralled.

"Really!" Q crossed his heart and swore. "A parallel, you understand, to the situation now facing us all. The future of the galaxy must be protected, the lineage of His Slime Dukat, preserved. Not too easy to do when its principal donor lies languishing in some Federation jail for the criminally insane, oblivious to much more than his fate."

"Oh," Ziyal frowned. His Slime Dukat was her father, a vile, putrid, lizard-lipped Cardassian of a man. A cruel being. An evil soul. Cold, unyielding, and unfeeling for the 50 million Bajoran souls the Cardassian Occupation created and he contributed to, dancing on their graves with his shoulders back, and head held high. An ego entrenched and impenetrable as his thick gray leathery hide dipped in the shrouded black uniform of the once-upon-a-time all-mighty Central Command might now just about as defunct as he.

"Oh, well, I don't know about that," Ziyal continued to frown, truly believing much of her father's ignorance of his impending fate of spending the rest of eternity as a has-been dictator, and forgotten no-man, was all by choice. He was insane, she admitted, she supposed, but in a sad way, not only a bad way. Collapsed under the shock her death, not just the loss of his political career, his union of Cardassia with the Gamma Quadrant's powerful Dominion not turning out exactly the way he planned.

Q eyed her. How charmingly ignorant she was, far too delightfully gullible to resist. "And, of course, once succeeding in channeling your father's energies along a far more productive path, we can then get down to this nuisance business of the Cardassian outpost Silas 4, and the impending intra-galactical war," he tossed in offhandedly, though confident she could see as well as he that while a threat of doom might be redundant, it wasn't dull.

"Oh," Ziyal said, hardly thinking of Silas 4, that was true. Not that it wasn't a significant point in her Prophets' prophecy, it was, possibly the most significant. But so were many other issues important, each in their own time and way. "But that's not for two years yet."

"One," Q assured. "One. A wink of an eye to you and I, I realize; an eternity, however, to some."

Ziyal shook her ponderous Cardassian head heavily woven with plaits and waves. "I also don't know about that," she proclaimed for reasons other than what he said didn't seem to make much sense. "My father isn't even considering being cooperative, and first he has to be returned to his status as Chief Military Advisor -- "

"Eat!" Q stuffed the apple in her mouth. "And, of course, listen; listen." His arm draped across the back of their bench with an encouraging pat of her shoulder, pressing a data padd into her hand. "Notes. Take notes."

"All right, I'll take notes," she shrugged.

"Excellent!" he approved. "Now, where were we?"

"Understanding the parallel of Adam and Eve?"

"Better known as?" he urged. "As?" he said.

"Doctor Bashir and Commander Dax?" Ziyal hazarded with the density of the novice she was.

Q gawked at her. "Oh, for mercy's sake!" he snatched the padd away to fill in the blank.

"Oh!" Ziyal burst into a smile when the secret of who and what he spoke of was revealed.

"Yes…" Q drawled. "I knew that would get your attention. Along with every solid, gaseous, liquid lifeform from here to the rim of the Andromeda Galaxy…But!" he said as brightly as the brimming golden crown surrounding his head. "They'll just all have to learn how to deal with it. Him. Them," he breathed seductively, provocatively. "Now where were we?"

NIGHTLIFE OF THE GODS

CHAPTER ONE

Time: 2375 Eight months post Federation-Cardassian-Dominion War

Place: Bajoran outpost station Deep Space Nine

Stardate: Unknown

"No, it's all right!" Anar's pleasant and teasing Bajoran voice reassured a startled Major Kira Nerys when she emerged from her unexpected transport from the station's amphitheater to find herself aboard the bridge of young Gul Anon Dukat's Galor-class battle cruiser the Tir. "You have it confused who is in escort of whom. It's you, most assuredly, in escort of I. I knew Sisko would never agree to my leaving otherwise."

"I know it's all right!" Kira pulled her arm free of his amused grasp with a shove. Her attractive face flamed an angry dark red, the color of her short, cropped hair. Bajoran herself, once Resistance, now teamed with the Federation to salvage her ravaged planet, the terrorist calling himself Anar was not a "brother of her world" she would ever embrace or uphold. His past and soul tainted by his Maquis affiliation, infected by his brazen and conflicting unity with the sons of the butchering bastard Dukat, of which Anon was the eldest at only twenty-four.

"You have five minutes; five minutes!" she informed Anar, the Cardassian Tan, and anyone else who might be interested there aboard the bridge. Her political and personal enemy Legate Damar not one of them, Anar noticed. Though likely, the reigning Cardassian Emperor's absence from his court was due more to being temporarily indisposed rather than dead, killed by the hulking Tan in anticipation of Anar's arrival to guarantee the Town Elder his anonymity as Bajor's First Minister Shakaar Adon's unfavorable uncle. An anonymity dwindling quickly, because for all the dissimilarities between Anar and his famous nephew they bore each other's face, identical twins separated by beliefs and twenty years age difference.

"Damar is in his quarters." Anon's giant Chief Engineer Tan moved forward from his console with a chuckle and a wave of his arm, reading the look in Anar's eyes and the question on his mind. "A strong suggestion to remain."

"A suggestion one can always hope Damar disobeys," Anar countered with a smile.

"One can," Tan agreed. He looked down on the petite Major Kira Nerys, liaison to the Federation and their commander Captain Benjamin Sisko inhabiting her station rather than Dukat. Tan smiled. "What, Nerys? The Defiant. We know, the Defiant. Anar sits in escort by the Defiant home when Anon says he sits in escort by the Defiant home. You disagree?" his chuckle returned to increase. "Complain to Dukat when he returns from the UFP. Until then Anon is the commander, not you."

Kira pushed his arm out of her way, even though it wasn't in her way and stalked off with a bark for Anar to follow her. If Kira's defiance of the giant amused Anar, the continuing implication of her familiarity with the crew, and now the structural layout of Dukat's battle cruiser quieted him.

Anar was suddenly in the role of Sisko staring at the Bajoran Major Kira suddenly in the role of him confusing the observers. The Federation unable to grasp how a relationship could possibility exist between this uncle of Bajor's First Minister and the sons of Cardassia's infamous Dukat without the mandatory collusion, betrayal, even though Kira's demeanor and actions hardly proposed friendship as the definition of her relationship with Dukat. To the contrary, arrogance ruled her when her anger did not. It had to be a deep, abiding hatred for the former Cardassian Prefect of Bajor that caused Kira's behavior to disturb Anar so. Never having met Dukat personally, the guiding rule to him was anyone who had would shun the monster and everything about him, not know names of men six years after Terok Nor had been surrendered to Bajor. If Kira's commission forced her into a continued association with the former Dictator, her insecurities undercut her status. Determined to hold her own, she did not hold her own. Her rage and hatred controlling her better senses, pitting her needlessly against the matchless power she, herself, bequeathed on Dukat.

That's how Anar saw it, anyway. Dukat's face laughing behind the amusement of his crew at Kira's straight stiff back and head held high.

"That's all right, go; follow," Tan was waving Anar on. "Anon is in his quarters as well; Janice, too. Kira knows where it is. Do what she says." He laughed so hard he coughed. "Before you get in any more trouble."

"I'll remember that," Anar agreed quietly.

"Yes," Tan believed he would. "Or she'll tell you."

Whether or not she intended to, whether or not she wanted to. Anar kept step beside Kira allowing her to lead the way to the commander's quarters. The hand that caught the door of the lift before it closed was Pfrann's, Dukat's seventeen-year-old son. The Sentinel's youthful features mirroring his father's as Shakaar Adon's mirrored his uncle Anar. Sian, Anar's adult son, was with Pfrann. Janice's two overstuffed duffels of data logs divided between them, a third small canvas sack Pfrann carried apparently held her limited collection of personal items.

"Hello, Nerys," Pfrann teased Kira with an impish grin suggesting he was also expecting to see her.

"Just…" Kira didn't finish just what, taking the small canvas bag from him to rifle through it. "Are you sure this is everything?"

"Yes, we're sure," he said. "We had to go to security to claim it; ask him."

Him was Sian, currently advising his father of the same chain of nonsense. "The Changeling had them call the tailor Garak to verify the inventory."

"And her data logs?" Anar was less interested in dresses and shoes than Janice's actual property being returned to her.

"Please," Pfrann groaned with a dramatic roll of his glittering yellow eyes, reciting in chorus with Sian, "'Potentially restricted information' -- that was it, right? 'Potentially restricted information.' If it's potentially restricted now, it was potentially restricted when Janice brought it with her -- excuse me, we're taking it; and we did. We did," he winked with a second sly, almost sultry grin for Kira as the lift halted and they disembarked. "Save you the trouble, right? That's what I told them. Give them to me, or give them to Nerys. Which way you want it?" He strode off down the short corridor.

"That's what he did," Sian said amused to Anar.

"Yes." As precociously, Anar was sure. He caught up with Pfrann in front of Anon's quarters, his head tipped confidentially close to Pfrann's ear. "Is there a particular reason why you are teasing her?"

"Nerys?" Pfrann activated the intercom with a request for admittance. "Not really, no -- why?" his grin flashed suddenly again. "You think I should stop?"

"I would say yes…" Anar gave a nod to the visibly startled Counselor Rebecca Sorge answering the door. Upon her eighty year old soul never expecting to find the face of Shakaar Adon standing there; his father or brother, uncle or cousin.

Pfrann shrugged, identifying himself to the gray haired Human. "Pfrann. Anon's brother."

"Yes," Rebecca replied. "We've met."

"That's true we have," Pfrann stepped in with an encouraging hand pressing against Anar's shoulder. "When you were my hostage -- it's all right. This is Anar, Janice's father; she will want to see him."

"Of course," Rebecca stepped back, not quite sure what to do, if she should or could do anything. "Tracy…Doctor Sorge is with Janice at the moment…"

"Yes," Anar excused himself past her. "If it's Janice's modesty, or my face, don't concern yourself with either."

"Well, no, it's neither, actually…" Rebecca attempted to say, finishing with Kira. "More the sheer number of us?"

"Kira," Kira said sullenly to the woman. "Major Kira Nerys."

"Yes," Rebecca agreed. Kira someone else she had met naturally; several times as a matter of fact over the past week. The last time just a few hours ago at Chief Engineer O'Brien's trial, the same with the tall Bajoran male behind Kira. Sian, Rebecca believed his name was, as he had been the one who had actually held her hostage for a brief, few minutes during the trial, not the teenage Cardassian Sentinel Pfrann.

"Why not?" Rebecca just shrugged to Sian at that point, granting him entrance as well as Kira stepped in to step past her. The commander's quarters were reasonably sized, after all, starkly Cardassian with everything in its place, however little everything constituted. If the battle cruiser was now destined to suffer some ill fate due to its concinnity being disturbed, it wasn't the fault of the furniture or furnishings.

"Oh, my," Rebecca sighed. It was perhaps a slight exaggeration to say the world as she knew it was crumbling around her, never to be the same again, with the introduction of the family Shakaar into the already heavily burdened drama of the Human Doctor Janice Lange and her Cardassian husband Gul Anon Dukat. But while it might not make things worse, it couldn't make them any better; could it? One would never know, as they could never tell by looking at Tracy, her husband, always so much better with these sorts of surprises than she was, the approaching face of Shakaar Adon no exception.

Doctor Tracy Sorge's so-credited miraculous ability to disregard the obvious probably had something to do with while the Bajoran might look like First Minister Shakaar Adon of Bajor, he was as clearly not Shakaar Adon, simply a member of the family. Twenty years older with a startling and youthening shock of stark white hair and a distinctly sharper edge to his potent aura, carrying the mark and charisma of an avenging angel, not a Redeemer. Whose face and figure the Bajoran carried as well was worth exactly what one wished to assign to it.

The value Sorge assigned was a deadpan glance up from his medical tricorder and a grunt. But then he was a cynic at heart, having seen it all in eighty-three years, and if he hadn't, good chances were he was in the process of seeing it all now with the appearance of who had to be the elusive Mister Anar; again, self-explanatory as to why.

Sorge chose elusive to describe the wayward black sheep rather than invisible for the same reason Sisko chose elitist. There was no way the Bajoran could ever hope to be invisible; interesting that he chose not to wear his ear cuff as if that would somehow make a difference in anyone's ability to identify him.

"Anar…" Lange was glad to see the imposing figure with his blood splattered yellow jumpsuit bearing down on them as he was glad to see her in bed or not in bed; she was in bed. Dressed and sitting up, comfortably resting back against the powerful, massive arms of her husband protectively supporting her, her neuro transmitter blinking its steady green light. Anon Dukat appeared glad and relieved as well to have some of the emotional pressure lifted off his wife by the simple application of Anar's hug.

Rebecca was Rebecca. Her reaction predictable to a pair of reputedly super-strength Bajoran arms capable of killing five Klingons with little effort in the process of encircling Lange. "Careful of her neck!"

"Yes, well, he knows about her neck," Sorge grunted in reassurance for his wife as he stepped aside from the reunion to compare his medical screening of Janice with the Cardassian translation of Bashir's; interesting looking language. Didn't understand a word it said, nor could he begin to be able to pronounce it; but he would. In the meantime he let the system work its magic translating and assimilating his input while he relied on what had been identified by Anon as Anar's original carefully crafted Bajoran script from which he then apparently drew the final Cardassian draft. As apparently there was no immediate end in sight to this fellow Anar's many talents.

"Yes, well, I know he knows about her neck," Rebecca said.

"Remember it, too," Sorge assured. "Same as her husband, same as the rest of it. I'm surprised O'Brien lived to see his trial -- "

"Hearing," Rebecca interjected.

"Thank you," Sorge said. "And O'Brien wouldn't have lived if either of them were that convinced of his guilt; which obviously neither of them were. Had Sisko known about Janice's relationship with Anon, or for that matter with this Anar -- "

"Shakaar," Rebecca interrupted. "Shakaar Adon. Tracy, look at that man and tell me you don't see Shakaar Adon."

"Looks like him, doesn't he?" Sorge agreed. "Probably related, you're right."

"Oh for goodness sake," Rebecca ran her hand across her soft, short curls. "Of course he's related. It's more than just his face. Anyone can have someone else's face -- " she stopped at Pfrann Dukat.

Probably a good idea that she stopped for no reason other than Cardassians liked the unsettling effect they caused in people whether or not they were going to do anything about it, and Sorge wasn't inclined to provide them with anything they might like; Lange was a different story. So in that way he guessed he was providing them with something. Though he remained to be convinced Janice choosing Cardassia Prime and its son of Gul Dukat as a place and a mate with whom to spend her life qualified as good judgment anymore than choosing this Anar as some sort of replacement for a father. He was beginning to understand why Lange may have been satisfied to take her doctorates in anthropology and forensic sciences from Starfleet Medical Academy and leave, and why Starfleet may have let her go; not avant-guard enough for her. Starfleet wasn't necessarily overly fond of the avant-guard. They liked the Sorges, the Siskos; most of the time. Until the time the Sorges and Siskos got it into their heads to be as independent as the next one, and probably then some.

Doctor Tracy Sorge thought about the station's powerful and commanding Captain Benjamin Sisko during O'Brien's hearing. The only thing that had kept the Captain from throttling the Klingon Legal Advocate Ch'Pok and sending Magistrate T'Lara to her room was his training and even then it was touch and go a few times. Interesting put alongside Sisko's obvious high code of moral ethics and social conduct. Rules he didn't necessarily mind bending when it came to himself, whether he realized it or not, and whether or not he would agree. Chances were however, Sisko's staff did not have the same authority to bend the rules unless otherwise instructed to do so.

The two who might prove a little difficult to the Captain in that area were probably the two other personalities who impressed themselves on Sorge the most. Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien, who placed no stock in appearances whatsoever, and Sisko's dapper Chief Medical Officer Julian Bashir, who was clearly obsessed with appearances. Of the remaining three, the independent Major Kira Nerys seemed a bit intolerant, the Klingon Worf silent, his Trill wife Commander Jadzia Dax generally introspective. Also interesting because for the moment Major Kira was all three as she stood off to the side, her eyes downcast. It was a typical Bajoran pose when confronted by something of which they did not approve; clearly the whole business.

"Who'd I forget?" Sorge asked Rebecca. "I've forgotten someone."

"What?" Rebecca said, attempting to distract herself away from staring at Anar; a typical habit of Humans. The more they didn't want to look, the more they looked.

Sorge nodded. "Constable Odo."

"What about Constable Odo?"

"Interesting lifeform."

"Aren't we all?" she agreed, finally just turning her back on Anar and his celebrity and concentrating on the console.

"Nervous?" Sorge chuckled.

"About going to Cardassia? Don't be absurd. It has nothing to do with Cardassia."

"More to do with our Mister Anar."

Rebecca sighed. "Well, what exactly would you like me to do? What are you going to do?"

"Forget about it."

"Forget about it," she repeated. "Yes, of course. That probably is the idea, isn't it? Compulsory, as a matter of fact." She could see the reflection of the Bajoran Sian behind her in the console. His own face, his father's edge, it was easier to see the differences separating him from First Minister Shakaar. From the officious authority of the Cardassian troop he called brothers and friends? She decided it was probably best to just change the subject altogether. "What was that you were saying about Captain Sisko?"

Sorge grunted. "Only had he known of Janice's relationship with Anon and Anar, he would have known immediately O'Brien was innocent."

"I believe he always knew that."

"No, he believed it. He would have known it. That Anar didn't kill five Klingons who did nothing to him and allow the man who assaulted his daughter, surrogate or otherwise, live to walk into that amphitheater, anymore than her husband did."

"You say they did nothing to us," Sian spoke up immediately in his father's defense.

"I did," Sorge agreed brusquely. "Say it again, if you like."

"No, that isn't necessary," Rebecca quickly patted his arm, encouraging his attention elsewhere. "How is Janice?"

"Fine," Sorge said. "She's had a mild stroke, but it's clearing. She'll probably have a few more of them until she stabilizes -- "

"You need Bashir?" Kira interrupted, suddenly alert and apparently of the same persuasion as the Cardassians who considered Bashir to be some sort of package to be picked up when needed and set down wherever.

"I taught Bashir," Sorge snorted. Which wasn't exactly true, for which Bashir should probably be grateful. Sorge didn't like students who knew more than their teachers, if only because they couldn't possibly. "Strokes we can handle. What Janice can't handle is the stress of a side trip to return her family to the outer colonies. I don't care if it's twenty light-years or only one; out of the question. So's Cardassia Prime technically, but we'll manage. Presuming since you're here, someone's already thought of that? Someone being Captain Sisko?"

"Yes," Kira's voice and gaze was steady matching Sian's. The two of them an odd mixture of everything they admired and everything they condemned in each other. "Your father is aware of Captain Sisko's orders."

"That the Defiant stands to escort the Maquis home, not the Tir," Sian inserted. "Sisko gets his way, for the colony is twenty light-years from Terok Nor. Bajoran or Cardassian, we will never jeopardize Janice simply to say goodbye."

"Deep Space Nine," Kira coldly corrected the occupying forces of the station to be Federation, no longer Cardassian.

"In neither event Bajoran," Sian agreed.

Kira flushed. "Which would you prefer?"

"Freedom?" he proposed something she apparently had forgotten about. "I'll tell Janice -- "

Kira's hand caught him before he completed a step; Sian looked her up and down. His head above the height of his father's, hers, barely touching his shoulders. "I'll tell her." Kira said.

Sian stepped back with a granting wave of his hand.

"Smart man," Sorge returned to the console and Janice's medical journals with a grunt. "If she's not shy about putting Martok in his place, she certainly isn't going to be shy about putting him."

"Yes, well, that man might be First Minister Shakaar's long-lost brother, or cousin, or whoever they are," Rebecca said.

"Maquis," Sorge offered. "Said it, and I don't think he was joking. Simply a new and different strain."

Neither did Rebecca think Sian was joking and she was hardly impressed; not by Sian or his radical politics. "That woman is Shakaar Resistance since the time she could walk. There with him at the liberation of Gallitep."

"How do you know all of this?"

"I try and keep up," Rebecca fluffed her curls. "Now that I'm retired, there's no excuse. Somewhat nice actually to have the time to know what's going on outside of one's own cubicle."

Sorge nodded. "Time to find you a new hobby."

There was no amusement slyly cloaked in the hard ruby eyes of Dukat's eldest son Anon regarding the striding approach of Kira Nerys. She was the enemy his father claimed her to be; he hadn't changed that opinion of Kira and he never would. Stiffening with annoyed disapproval at her appearance in his quarters for no reason except to harass him and upset Janice; he knew that. Why else would she be there? Even when she didn't approach at first, but lingered in the background with the Humans he was ready for her, waiting for her. Poised, contained, only for the sake of Janice quick to sense the immediate deadly change in his caring, sensitive mood.

"Anon…" the soft touch of her hand promoted tolerance.

"She's not upsetting you," his heavy hand patted and smoothed her wiry mane of long brown hair in reassurance, his words as much for her as they were for Anar watching him. "It's not happening. I don't care what she says, don't listen to her."

Kira wasn't saying anything then, now she was. Strutting forward to crouch down bedside, her eyes downcast, ignoring Anon's unpleasant greeting telling her to get out and talking to Janice also ignoring him with a soft smile for the woman she had briefly called friend.

"Tolerance…" the hand gently touching Anon's arm in reminder was Anar's.

"I don't like her," Anon retorted.

Something Anar could see. Despise was probably accurate as it was evident, quite unlike the apparent acceptance of his troop. Or perhaps Anon was simply more honest; he usually was. A trait that still made Anar smile with a shake of his head almost a year after he'd met young Gul Anon Dukat and his younger brother Pfrann. If Anar and his surviving troop of Maquis were a new and different strain of Bajoran loyalists with their inexplicable union with the sons of Dukat, Anon and his Sentinels were a new and different stock of Cardassians, returning the binding hand of friendship and mutual respect. There was hope for the future yet. The Prophets chose wisely and well in their Guardians, Anar continuing to hope they were considering choosing Kira Nerys as well.

Her disapproval of him Anar was confident he could change. Anon's disdain for her relieved him. But then his inexplicable unity with Anon could be explained, if anyone cared to open their eyes and minds. Anar remained unyielding in his conviction Kira's association with Dukat could not be explained except by definition of shame, or possibly Ziyal.

He could forgive Kira her shame, as he could forgive the others before and after her, which Anon clearly could not.

Kira's unity with Ziyal Anar could understand up through the child's death two months before Gowron's Klingons sent her brother's critically damaged transport crash landing on Anar's small isolated world, now ten months ago. Beyond that? The half-Bajoran progeny of the former Cardassian Emperor Dukat was buried one year. Her father caged like the beast he was in a Federation isolation cell that same short year, the UFP's assortment of authorities diligent in their task to hold Dukat responsible for his crimes, if he could be held accountable. The assemblies were equally divided in their arguments disputing Dukat's mental state and therefore competency to stand trial. A technicality lengthening the process for the sole purpose of determining and invoking the appropriate political loophole that would give the Federation the power to intern Dukat on Elba II for eternity; regardless, it was time for Kira Nerys to get on with her life.

Janice smiled in gentle, sympathetic understanding for Kira's downcast eyes. "Can't you even try to look at me?" she wondered.

Kira hesitated, but then she looked up with a slight nod. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I can look at you…It isn't you…" she stared past Lange's emerald green eyes into the broad face of Anon with its heavy, prominent plating. Beyond the scowl she could see a faint resemblance to Ziyal she hadn't noticed until now. She shook her head, trying to remain focused on what was important; her duty, her task. "It's not important. Captain Sisko wanted me to convey…"

"Yes," Janice said, "Anon told me we're going to be escorted to the border."

"And home," Kira nodded. "The Defiant will escort Anar and his troop -- "

"Sian is my troop," Anar replied.

Kira ignored him, finishing Sisko's message. "Home from there."

Janice paused. "Home?"

"It's deep space, child," Anar reminded her gently. "Four days; a week more home to Cardassia Prime. You haven't the strength."

"Oh, but Nadya is expecting me…" she started to cry.

That was Anar's breaking point. The tension, fury, he attempted to keep under wraps for the child's sake threatened close to the surface. Consoling her, cradling her in his arms, there was pronounced sarcasm underscoring the question he posed irritably to Kira. "Can't we stay with her until the border? If I swear by all you hold sacred in the name Shakaar my son and I will surrender ourselves peaceably -- "

"Surrender?" Janice interjected horrified.

"A figure of speech, child," Anar reassured. "Captain Sisko has his concerns we make our home in the halls of Central Command rather than the fields of Dyaan IX."

"Dyaan IX?" Janice repeated, realizing he was talking about the colony, though not quite sure what he was saying.

Anar shrugged. "What do you think?"

Think? About naming the colony after some long-lost prized star-fighter? Janice turned to Kira. "You don't understand. Nadya's only just lost…"

"She doesn't need to understand," Anar stopped Janice at that crucial point deliberately. "She needs to trust…believe," his smile taunted Kira looking at him. "Find her faith."

Why did Kira have the feeling she was going to come away preferring to have spent the next two weeks with Dukat? Maybe it was just something in the way Anar held his head; maybe it was him. The intensity in his blue eyes. Like he thought he could see into her, deep down into her soul. She opened her mouth to say something and would have except she didn't know what she wanted to say. Settling for, "I'll tell Captain Sisko." She exited with her strut intact.

"That was easy," Anar mentioned to Anon sympathetically petting Janice's hair.

"Who was Dyaan? Nadya's mother?"

"His fighter," Janice sighed.

"What?" Anon said.

"His fighter," Janice sighed, not quite sure if she wanted to cry anymore or just groan. "He named his fighter after some woman he once knew…And now he's naming the colony? Oh, for heaven's sake, Anar," her fingers entwined tightly with his.

"Yes, I know, hopeless," he agreed.

"I wouldn't say hopeless. But, yes, I think if you asked Dyaan she would have preferred to have been married rather than immortalized on some star chart."

"Dyaan?" Anar thought back to one of his early mentors; her raven black Romulan hair. "No. The keys to the Alpha Quadrant, perhaps."

"Oh," Anon said. "Well, that makes sense, yes…not the keys to the Alpha Quadrant," he groaned to Janice looking at him with a pained expression, his brother snickering in the background. "The name. A name comes from somewhere. It means something…to you," he smiled at her. "Even if it doesn't mean anything to anyone else. What about a letter? What if we send Nadya a letter? You, I, Pfrann? Telling her about us, Cardassia Prime, and how we will come to visit as soon as we can…"

CHAPTER TWO

Janice could barely master translating and transcribing a complete sentence. The connective thought processes simply not there as overtired as she was. The task quickly became an ordeal, exhausting her further until finally in frustration she passed the duty onto Anon terrified and cajoling, claiming her wanting or needing to sleep evidence as to how much better she was, how much more relaxed she felt. The swelling of her brain started shortly after necessitating a call to the Defiant and Bashir. Not for his expertise, his equipment. Sorge already knew what he was looking for; a blood clot. A small coagulation of extravasated blood. If he couldn't find it, he couldn't dissolve it. Bashir found it. Since he found it, Sorge let him take care of it.

An hour of hell, Janice was better in moments, life flowing back into her paralyzed right limbs, her speech once again coherent. Color flowing back into the corpse-like pigmentation of her husband's face, and the rest of her assortment of relatives; Rebecca right there with them, Sorge noticed. Comfortable in her adopted role as grandmother/matriarch beside Anar's father/patriarch. Having apparently forgiven Anar whatever his past transgressions, or at least she had the appearance of having forgiven him; she was talking to him. Rebecca didn't talk to people she didn't like. Anon Dukat she liked from the beginning, defensively and defiantly so even though she was initially annoyed with him for thinking with his heart rather than his political affiliation.

She was also relaxing with the company of Sian, come down off his high horse for the first time, as well as distinctly comfortable with the younger one, Pfrann. Serious when he needed to be serious. Generally quiet otherwise except for that random interjecting short laugh of his always accompanied by a knowing sweep of his bright yellow eyes. There were no flies on Pfrann Dukat despite his tender age. He knew it and he occasionally brought it to others' attention. Right now he stood at his brother's side in support, not competition. Interesting group. Sorge suddenly realized not only why he had appreciated Doctor Janice Lange but also truly liked her after the first few minutes they met just under a week ago. She was Rebecca all over again. Ardent, earnest, involved.

So was this one; Bashir. Lacking the same acceptable standards of social exchange and/or skills as Rebecca or Lange, he simply had his own version of social clumsiness with his soft-spoken detailed monologue that no one had the patience to listen to at the moment. Six years out of residency, straight into a position that had to be enviable to some as Chief Medical Officer for Deep Space Nine Bashir hadn't figured this out yet.

Anymore than he had apparently figured out the last thing any anxiously waiting relative wanted to hear were phrases like "just one of those routine complications one sees so often; nothing to be concerned about, really". Wrong. There was everything to be concerned about as far as they were concerned. Lange was their daughter, their wife, their sister, and on down the line. What amounted to routine to Bashir, constituted a crisis to them. In seeking to reassure, Bashir committed the unforgivable of invalidating their concern, and as long as he didn't mind having his head chewed off by every incensed third relative or so, Sorge supposed it was the way to go.

He got lucky this time. No one interrupted Bashir's insensitive display of sensitivity to chew his head off. What they did was walk away from him having heard what they wanted to hear; Bashir's opening line: "Yes, she's fine. Quite fine". Said compassionately, earnestly, quietly. Had he the brains man gave him that Nature did not he would have left it there. Allowing them the opportunity to ask their questions, if only ask permission to see Lange. He did not. With little more than a breath he moved straight into his complex, caring dissertation realizing himself by his third or fourth sentence he was losing his audience's attention moments before he lost them altogether. Pushing roughly past him en masse back into the commander's quarters, whether it was advisable or not, to see Lange's state for themselves, in a way they could comprehend it, leaving Bashir to turn his speech on Sorge and promptly proceed to unintentionally insult him as politely.

"Quite," Bashir said as far as no one stopping to thank him for his life-saving actions. There was a nervousness in the movement of his hand Sorge didn't notice at first but did shortly. A distant, faraway look in his hazel brown eyes. "Are you sure you're going to be able to handle this?"

What Bashir meant Sorge had a suspicion the young doctor knew. He waited to find out.

"Quite," Bashir said again somewhat resigned. Hearing the potential criticism in his question of one of the greatest minds in the field of science and medicine and so he wasn't entirely deaf to himself. "I don't mean are you capable of handling Janice's condition and convalescence, I mean do you feel you have the ability?"

"It would be easier if I had the appropriate equipment," Sorge snorted, never laboring under the misconception that he, personally, had any talent for social intercourse whatsoever, which he didn't. "If that's what you actually mean."

It was what Bashir meant and his counterpoint was interesting. Possibly not what Sorge expected, certainly cause for pause. "Don't worry about the equipment."

That's when Sorge noticed the nervousness after he finished looking at Bashir, down to the doctor's medical bag and behind himself at the door to the commander's quarters. "What about your inventory?" he grunted, certain Bashir was looking at something like ten to twenty years if he happened to get caught freely dispensing Federation equipment to the Cardassian Union, which was basically what it amounted to.

"Don't worry about the inventory," Bashir appeared to be looking for a way out of the close confines of the ominous and oppressive corridor; collect his bearings anyway.

"There's hope for you yet," Sorge admitted. Not that he really doubted there was the makings of a person, never mind a doctor, under that highly polished façade, simply his own training and background that had him frowning down on genetically enhanced peoples of any race or species. They were cheaters, thieves, if they were nothing else. Stealing the spots and limelight that otherwise should have been held in reserve for those who worked, earned the right to stand there.

In any event they couldn't possibly be stable. Not emotionally, mentally, or physically, in his expert opinion. That was a damned and given impossibility. With three centuries of documentation to back up that claim. Nevertheless, Sorge grunted again, that time tolerantly and in explanation for the silent Bashir. "That was meant as a compliment."

"Yes," Bashir replied, distantly as before, his nervousness defined, the faraway look in his eyes entrenched as he continued to look around. "Thank you. Something actually I would like to believe myself."

On the other hand, if, with that sentence, Bashir meant to convey a sense of humility and/or modesty, he failed miserably, which was fine with Sorge. Dedicated and caring were Sorge's limits. Meek and unassuming Doctor Julian Bashir definitely was not; frightened almost for some reason he appeared to be, still looking up and down and around the long, narrow corridor that looked like any corridor to Sorge other than it was Cardassian.

He said as much. "It's just a ship. Like any other ship."

"Simply staffed by Cardassians," Bashir agreed in return.

He said staffed by, he may as well have said stocked with like they were some sort of inanimate commodity. Sorge was back to snorting. "Difference in uniform, that's all."

"Hardly," Bashir said. "I wear a uniform." He wasn't quite sure what the Cardassians wore. Or for that matter what the fascination was with their sense of architecture. The ability to make everything and everyone look the same? Which they couldn't possibly do, but they certainly did try. Rows of gray statues with straight collar length black hair. Unbroken walls of the same non-color. Absolutely no definition separating where a wall might end and a doorway might be; no landmarks of any sort. A wall unit here, there was an identical wall unit a set distance away and so on down the line. It was immediately disorientating. Damn concinnity, or whatever they professed to call it. It was intentional psychological warfare. The Human eye and brain confused to find itself in what it interpreted to be some sort of labyrinth. Uncertain as to the way out, and equally uncertain as to what had been the way in.

"I believe I came in that way," Bashir pointed following staying around long enough to unburden himself with all of the above and load it onto Sorge who refused to shoulder it because it was nonsense.

"Yes, I'm confident the lift is that way," Bashir decided.

"Yes," so was Sorge confident. The same as he was confident once locating the lift with the assistance of the Cardassian Sentry waiting to escort him, Bashir would eventually find himself back at the nondescript transporter pad colored the same non-color as everything else around it. Not some decompression chamber, or wherever it was he feared they might be planning to take him. But then as he said, brilliant, young, handsome Doctor Julian Bashir might be; stable, he couldn't possibly be.

"Quite," Bashir said and departed. Had he the ability to read minds he may have lingered to say something else because no, he wasn't stable. Or at least he didn't feel quite stable at the moment. Nothing to do with his genetic enhancement, everything he believed having to do with the overwhelming oppressiveness of the Cardassian entity in general, the corridor in specific.

Bashir literately felt like he was walking in a dream; a nightmare. Janice Lange waiting for him at the end of the long, narrow dimly lit corridor, grotesquely sprawled on a sterile-looking bed in the center of her sterile quarters rather than the sterile confines of the station's Infirmary. A glaring portrayal of man's inhumanity to man, whether the man was Human, or in the specific case of Janice Lange's vicious assailant, believed Bajoran; this hour anyway. The hour before the Chief had been the Federation's prime suspect. Now however it was no less than the younger of the two previously unknown wayward uncles to Bajor's First Minister Shakaar Adon, a twenty-seven year old male known simply by the nonsensical name Hawk. Shakaar Hawk. As opposed to his older brother the Hawk; aka Anar aka Shakaar Adon, the elder. Perhaps it wasn't Bashir who was unstable after all, but the entire galaxy slowly going crazy having finally gone crazy. Bashir had a feeling it was both.

Dax was waiting for him at the transporter pad aboard the Defiant, Kira with her. Apprehension marring Kira's face, concern scratched over Jadzia's that she attempted to cloak with her usual smile.

"No, she's fine, she's fine," Bashir answered the anticipated question regardless of which of them asked. "More of an episode of fright, actually. Nothing more."

He was talking quietly, averting his eyes. Avoiding Dax's as he stood there with his head tipped down, his hand patting her upper arm in reassurance. She knew immediately he was lying about something. But then she knew him. Better in ways than he knew himself; did she?

Bashir lifted his head to stare deeply into Dax's velvet eyes. Did she know, for example, how at that precise moment he wanted more than anything to hug her; did she know why? Did she know he wanted to step off the transporter pad into her arms and kiss her, maddeningly passionately, afterwards saying something utterly absurd like "Thanks. I needed that." He was losing his mind, quite possibly having lost it completely just recently. Out loud he said something that made almost as little sense. "Shouldn't one, or the both of you be on the bridge at all times? I thought that was the rule."

He exited, leaving Dax to look at Kira and Kira to look back at Dax. "I'll take the bridge," Kira volunteered.

That sounded reasonable and fair. "I'll take Julian," Dax agreed.

That also sounded reasonable and fair. Kira just wasn't sure what Dax could do with Bashir once she found him to fix whatever it was about him that was broken. After six years he seemed somewhat hopeless to her.

Not meaning to say she didn't like Bashir, she did. After she liked Sisko and Odo, both of whom she ardently admired, and long before Garak and Quark, whom she utterly loathed. Dax was probably her closest female friend aboard the station. Worf, Kira seldom thought about. Similar to the Chief, who she was working hard on forgiving for putting himself in the position to have even been considered a suspect in Janice Lange's brutal assault.

That was something they were all working diligently on, including the Chief. Unfortunately they had their usual little time to focus on what was past and over before they had to quickly move onto the next pressing issue. One defined for the moment as escorting the reigning Cardassian Emperor Damar safely from Deep Space Nine to his border, leaving the Tir and her impatiently waiting squadron of battle cruisers to see the Emperor home from there. From there the task of the Defiant was to then escort the Maquis leader Anar and his son Sian ten light-years home. Sisko simply in good conscience unable to see himself leaving the safety of the uncle of Shakaar Adon in the hands of the son of Gul Dukat, regardless of the mutually proclaimed abiding friendship between the two men; it made no sense to him. Not when he was first confronted by that contrasting reality and not an hour later when his senior staff assembled for duty aboard the Defiant; Lange's ability to withstand a week's travel in deep space was an afterthought, if it was a thought at all.

Major Kira brought Lange and her ordeal sharply back into focus when she emerged from the lift to greet Sisko waiting aboard the bridge of the Tir; deliberately, defiantly. If there was discomfort surrounding the presence of the Federation so close to their control center, their heart, it wasn't Sisko's, but the Cardassian officer's at the helm. The giant Tan at Ops.

"Major," Sisko had greeted Kira in return. Without having to say a word she had to know he was wondering why she was alone, about the whereabouts of Mister Anar and his son Sian. Sisko had anticipated their defiance of his orders long before Anar attempted to tantalize them one last time with his sudden departure from the station's amphitheater, Kira in tow.

That magician's act of enacting transport despite the heavily shielded arena was precisely why Sisko was there aboard the Tir. For as much as Mister Anar might continue to think he had a say in where he was going, he truly was going nowhere except where Sisko told him he was going. That was home, in escort by the Defiant, not the Tir. What Sisko did not anticipate was Kira's answer, a moment later however he did. She was still Bajoran. Anar still the uncle of Shakaar Adon. Lange still the equivalency of an adopted daughter despite her status as an adult by Federation standards. Understandably emotionally traumatized by the realization she was not going to have the opportunity to say goodbye to her family and friends waiting for her at home. Months, if not years before she would see them again, if she would ever see them again.

But then she really wasn't the daughter of Shakaar Adon, the elder. Sister to his son Sian. Sisko listened as patiently as he could to Kira's muddled explanation behind what she considered to be a reasonable request to allow Anar and Sian to remain aboard the Tir until the point of transfer at the border of Federation, Bajoran, and Cardassian space. It was a gamble, she knew it. He knew it. As much as a gamble as suggesting there may actually be some scientific and/or medical value to a palm-sized jar of heavy purple cream; the third task of the Defiant upon returning Anar to his remote colony. A scientific expedition. An extremely brief one, an extremely limited one. Sisko found himself thinking about the bridge where he was standing for some reason not the touted miraculous properties of Doctor Lange's unpleasant looking purple goop. Something was conspicuously missing, someone; Damar.

"That's fine, Major," he interrupted Kira's offer to remain aboard the Tir to insure Anar's compliance rather than risk the distinct possibility of the elder's attempted flight to proposed political sanctuary and Cardassia Prime. "However, no, that won't be necessary."

Kira looked at him. If he hadn't anticipated her request, she hadn't anticipated him to interrupt her; not in agreement. They walked off the bridge together, through the airlock to the Promenade.

"Damar's in his quarters," Kira figured out what was praying on Sisko's mind.

"I find that interesting, Major," Sisko replied. "So should you."

Kira shrugged. "He's still Dukat."

Anon Dukat she meant, and yes, he was. To where Damar was still Mister Damar to young Gul Dukat. Sisko wondered briefly what the outcome of the Federation-Bajoran-Conference might have been if there had been no Mister Anar. No Neutral Janice Lange acting representative for the Bajoran Government; they'd never know. What he did know even beyond Anon Dukat's surprising choice of the Human Doctor Lange for a mate, was Mister Anar was Shakaar Adon, the elder. Someone, Sisko had a feeling, Damar knew absolutely nothing about, never mind anyone else.

"Here's to hoping Legate Damar is the one who makes it home, Major," Sisko was hardly joking when he left Kira at the turbolift that would bring her to the docking ring and the Defiant. "Regardless of Damar's ineffectiveness Anon Dukat has to appreciate the assassination of the Cardassian Emperor on the heels of his father's internment would only catapult the Union into further turmoil."

"Here's to hoping he doesn't," Kira boarded the turbolift.

Two hours later Sorge was hailing for Bashir to transport. Kira steeled herself for the worst, resisting the urge to transport with him, deciding to give Bashir an hour before she issued a demand hail to the Tir for a status report on Lange. He was back aboard the Defiant inside of thirty minutes, Lange once again fine, leaving Kira feeling uncomfortably free to resume her duty aboard the bridge. Dax equally free to resume hers; him. Kira wasn't entirely certain why Dax hovered along with her at the transport pad unless she was apprehensive Kira would transport regardless.

Dax wasn't. Who she didn't trust was Bashir not to vanish at warp speed once boarding the Tir. Not because of any kidnapping, but because he had emphatically embraced the Cardassian invitation to accompany Lange to Cardassia Prime as her attending physician.

An invitation Benjamin had as emphatically declined on behalf of his Chief Medical Officer. Sorge solved the heated conflict between Benjamin and Julian by volunteering his and Rebecca's services in place of Bashir. Sisko accepted, so did Dukat. Though Dax suspected Dukat really didn't care about the name of the Human doctor attending his wife, only that he was Human and therefore expertly qualified to treat his Human wife.

Who did care was Benjamin. Who also cared was Bashir. Dax didn't care what Julian had said not an hour later in his office aboard the station about her exaggerating his interest in accompanying Lange, which by then he maintained he had none. He was lying, and she could always tell when he was lying. Something she had reminded him of when he entered the Defiant's transporter chamber to find both her and Kira in attendance.

"You have thirty minutes," Dax smiled sweetly, discreetly to Bashir passing her in a rush for the transporter pad. Her beautiful features as soft as her smile, her pale, sweeping line of Trill markings defining her hairline and throat flushed slightly suggesting she was serious.

"What?" Bashir said, hearing Kira saying something about him having an hour.

"Thirty minutes," Dax assured before she transported to secure him, and transport to secure him she would if she had to chase him to Cardassia Prime to do so.

"Oh," Bashir said. Had he not been in a hurry and concerned about Sorge's call he would have dallied long enough to counter with something far more clever. But he was in a hurry, as well as concerned, and he was back within thirty minutes preoccupied, Dax was tempted to say, nervous. His hand absently patting her arm in reassurance almost out of reflex.

He was gone a moment later, Kira exiting a moment after him to return to the bridge. Dax missed catching up with Bashir at the turbolift, from there she simply couldn't find him. Not in the Defiant's Infirmary or the makeshift science lab aboard the shuttlecraft currently occupying one of the ship's bays. If he was in his cabin he didn't answer her buzz. If he was in the crew quarters aboard the shuttle for some reason? Dax looked down the corridor, back in what would be the direction she had just come. She activated her com badge. "Commander Dax to Doctor Bashir."

Julian still didn't answer her. She activated her com badge again requesting to know his whereabouts, the computer politely requesting her to state the nature of the emergency.

"No emergency," Dax signed off with a glance over the cabin door before she moved on to relieve Kira at navigation, certain Julian would show up on the bridge himself at some point. In the meantime, "Playing hard to get," she answered Kira's look with a smile when she entered the bridge.

"Huh?" Kira said.

"Julian," Dax said. "Actually, I've an idea he's trying to get a jumpstart on having the expedition declared a medical study."

Kira scoffed, relinquishing her seat. "Benjamin's only trying to make a point to Shakaar. He no more thinks anything is going to come out of this, anymore than Shakaar did six months ago."

She was at least half right. Shakaar obviously hadn't attached any significance to Lange's botanical based compound; to Lange he as obviously had. Somewhere in there, between Janice Lange's petition to the Bajoran government to extend her anthropological grant to include a botanist, Lange went from being an archeologist to becoming Shakaar's representative in the upcoming conference with the Federation and Cardassia.

Something which could be construed as provocative, Dax supposed. Though she found she was in agreement with Benjamin, not really thinking there was any personal interest in Lange on the part of Shakaar, Kira's immediate suspicion upon meeting the attractive Human doctor with her eye-catching untamed mass of hair. What Dax did believe, together with Sisko, was Shakaar Adon was not above dangling extending Lange's grant as repayment for her agreeing to represent him at the conference.

Anar's intimation the reason behind Shakaar's uncharacteristic actions would be found to be little more than an act of pure spite directed against him, drawn from some longstanding feud between uncle and nephew over their radical political differences only fueled Benjamin's fury. Damn what was supposed to be the point behind the conference: the installation of a Cardassian consulate on Bajor Prime to assist its Bajoran-Cardassian population. A cause to which Shakaar had been clearly apathetic since the beginning, agreeing to Bajor's participation only to appease the Federation; Sisko was outraged.

Ordering the Defiant to spend a week investigating Lange's reputed botanical based ointment was almost a form of punishment for Shakaar's inconceivable selfish attitude. One that Benjamin steadfastly upheld to be an underlying contributing cause to the past week from hell that began with the sacrifice of almost two hundred civilian lives at the hands of Hawk's Threat Force. If they came away from Anar's world with nothing, while it might take a few weeks for Sisko's anger with Shakaar to soften, Dax did doubt if Benjamin would pursue punishing Shakaar in any other way. Such as hauling Bajor's First Minister before the Federation's Supreme Assembly and demanding he be held solely accountable; Benjamin's underlining threat when he aborted Shakaar's attempt at justification, severing the transmission with the ferocious promise "I'll be in touch."

If they came away with something? While Dax still doubted Benjamin would drag Shakaar up on charges she didn't doubt Shakaar would find himself signing an agreement for an extensive scientific survey of the distant world; Bajoran blessed and Federation controlled.

"Which just might be fun," Dax sat down with a shrug.

Yeah, right, fun. O'Brien scoffed to himself at his station at Ops. One look around and anyone could see how much fun they were having already. Worf sullen and silent over the prospect of Jadzia spending an unchaperoned week in the company of Bashir; Kira apparently not counting.

Kira this close to biting her nails over having to leave Lange to her own fate. Crossing her fingers over momentarily leaving some Bajoran outlaw the Chief still only knew by the name of Anar, not yet having had the privilege of meeting "the bastard from the platform in Quark's" face to face. The bastard's bastard son Sian, O'Brien had met. The bastard's son Sian the bastard could keep together with his ideology. Kira, O'Brien ignored. He had to. The same as she had to ignore him. Something to do with the last three days and her being as determined as the Federation to hang him for Lange's assault, only to be abruptly knocked into reality along with the rest of them of how not only was O'Brien not guilty, but vulnerable and innocent Doctor Janice Lange was engaged to marry, of all people, the not-so-vulnerable or innocent Gul Anon Dukat. O'Brien had a headache. He had a headache when he woke up three days ago from his induced drunken stupor to find himself under arrest for attempted murder and physical violative assault, Klingon legal Advocate Ch'Pok only too eager to defend him, and he had a headache now. He would probably continue to have a headache for the next six weeks until he calmed down, never mind "things calming down" or anyone else.

Worf, O'Brien was half-tempted to tell welcome to the club. But then somewhere in the back of the Chief's mind he seemed to recall Julian saying something about Keiko being on her way from Earth with the two kids. Half-expecting to find her husband in jail, and instead destined to find him off on a jaunt ten light-years from home like nothing ever happened. Like they were just one big happy family. When not an hour ago half of them were recoiling from him like he had the Rigelian plague.

"Something wrong?" Sisko had asked O'Brien upon calling his Chief Engineer out from his sulk to report for immediate duty aboard the Defiant for some hush-hush trip to the Bajoran outer colonies.

"Yes, there's something wrong," O'Brien assured. "Shouldn't there be?"

Sisko thought about that; the Chief's reasonable request to retreat from the glare of the spotlight to lick his wounds; by far the majority of them self-inflicted. "On your own time, perhaps," he smiled. "Right now, you're working for me."

"Yeah, right. On my own time," O'Brien said as the Captain walked away to resume command of the largest, most strategic Federation stronghold in the Alpha quadrant: Deep Space Nine, and he obediently moved on to replace the state-of-the-art runabout currently docked in the Defiant's main docking bay with the oldest, most stripped down version of a cargo shuttle he could find with warp capabilities. He could find one. Affectionately dubbed the U.S.S. Ark. That ought to make Julian really happy. Worf happy as well as an earlier modification had converted an available supply cupboard across from the small, cramped two-man crew quarters into a smaller, cramped quarters for two more. The only other option would have been to throw down a portable bunk, sleep on the floor, or sleep in rotation. Something any normal crew wouldn't be concerned about, let alone even bothering to mention; notice the Chief said normal. This was no normal crew.

CHAPTER THREE

"Oh, come on now," Bashir groaned upon entering the shuttlebay littered with enough equipment to start a small clinic. "The Ark? You can't be serious, the Ark."

"Hey," O'Brien took time out from working on the toilet to flick his head toward the rear of the midsection. "I don't want to hear it. You've got a commissary. How many runabouts do you know have a commissary?"

"I don't know many runabouts," Bashir followed the Chief's so indicated line of vision back toward the replicator. "Not personally, that's true."

However, the fact that the replicator had an adjoining short counter attached to it, and a small detached square island sitting in front of it along with two uncomfortable looking stools, to him, did not a commissary make.

"And an Infirmary," O'Brien's burly chest squeezed its way past Bashir, borrowing his virotherapeutic unit to plunk it down on the counter.

"Science lab," Dax countered with a smile Bashir failed to muster.

"Whatever," O'Brien waved. "You'll make do."

"The devil I will," Bashir rallied in his misery to retort as Kira showed up to complete their trio.

"Are we on line?" she questioned.

"The waste management system or warp engines?" Bashir activated his com badge in search of Captain Sisko against Dax's better advice that he not bother. "Doctor Bashir to Captain Sisko…"

Kira looked at him, from him to the toilet, from the toilet to the Chief. "The engines," she assured.

"We're getting there," O'Brien promised.

"You'll make do, Doctor," Sisko answered Bashir's question before asked, settling that.

"Quite, I guess I will," Bashir grimaced, excusing his way past Dax to check out their accommodations, or he should say his accommodations. Though it was highly doubtful if Starfleet took the gender of its two men crews into consideration whether they were of the same sex, the opposite sex, similar, or neither. Here, of course, they did take such things into consideration when and if possible; it was possible. Recommended even, if Bashir read Worf's deadpan expression correctly. Something Dax should be annoyed about actually, in Bashir's opinion, rather than him being concerned, which he wasn't concerned, not in the least.

"Yes, all right, I'll take this side," Bashir volunteered to make do with the larger of the two cabins.

"Oh, now, wait a minute," Kira was right there pulling rank as the shuttlecraft's First Officer.

"Captain!" she snapped in retort to his facetious comment.

"Captain," Bashir accepted. "And those are the Captain's quarters. It says so right there; read the sign."

"I see it!" Kira assured, somewhat difficult not to sprayed as it was in black paint across the cabin door.

"Someone in Engineering have a birthday party?" Dax asked O'Brien.

"Christmas, I think," he shrugged.

"And having your usual rowdy good time whichever -- yes, I realize it's the larger," Bashir argued back at Kira arguing with him. "If an extra square meter constitutes larger. That's the whole point."

"There's only one of you," she insisted.

"And two of you," Bashir agreed, meaning her and Dax. "In the meantime where do you suggest I put the equipment? Sleep with it? Which, yes, obviously, I am going to be sleeping with it. In the same damn room with it, rather than the same damn bunk, which is basically what it amounts to, or would amount to -- "

"In the cargo hold!" Kira directed.

"The cargo hold?" Bashir gaped. "I can't even stand upright in the cargo hold. What do you expect me to do? Spend a week crawling around on all fours?"

"You can stand upright," Kira nodded.

He was silent. She looked up at him, a flash of Bajoran fire glittering in her brown eyes. "You can stand upright," she repeated.

"Well, maybe you can," Bashir grinned. "But I know for a fact neither I nor Dax can even if both of us take our boots off and one of us takes our hair down."

"Never," Dax shook her tidy, bouffant twist of sable brown hair that assisted in inching her up an inch or so taller than Bashir's not quite six or so feet even in her flat-heeled boots.

"Well?" Bashir petitioned Kira.

"I'm thinking," she eyed Dax suspiciously while she thought. "You still read with the light on?"

"Well…" Dax had to tentatively admit it was somewhat awkward to read with the light off.

"Fine," Kira said. "I'll take this one. You two can fight over which one gets the lower bunk."

She walked off leaving Bashir unable to believe his good or bad luck depending on the viewpoint. O'Brien to resume working on the toilet; it seeming the safest thing to do under the circumstances. And Dax to break the resulting silence with a smiling sigh and an offer of compromise, even though chances were it was not the compromise Worf had in mind. "We'll take turns."

"Sounds fair," Bashir grinned.

A huff punctured Worf's stoic mask. "That does not resolve the issue of the equipment."

"Worf has a point," Dax declared after carefully looking Worf over to determine his point.

"Yes, all right," Bashir gave the door of the cabin a couple of whacks to get it to open, stuck his head in and looked around. "What do you think?"

"Maybe," Dax agreed.

"Or maybe not," Bashir said.

"There's also the bridge," Dax reminded should the commissary prove insufficient.

"Where two of us get to sit and one of us gets to stand."

"Three of you," Dax smiled, lest they forget for the shuttle's initial run anyway they would be carrying two additional passengers: Anar and his son. "And you like to stand."

"Age has its privileges as well, I see," Bashir nodded, not to suggest at three hundred and fifty plus years, seven or ten lifetimes or so, she was old, because she wasn't old. She was no older than he was. The symbiont Dax she hosted was the ancient mariner among them.

"Yes, all right. It's reliable I guess is what matters really," Bashir moved on to leave it at that because in thinking of age, thinking of joined Trills and their symbionts, especially one named Dax, made him think of other things he really did not want to think about. "It is reliable, isn't it?" he verified with the Chief.

"Oh, yeah," O'Brien dismissed. "Someone had it out just yesterday, day before."

"I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news considering the engines are offline," Bashir walked forward to check out the feasibility of borrowing an area of the bridge; that's where he was. Not when Dax came looking for him after he returned from the Tir, but later, yes, much later. When she first came looking for him he was in his cabin aboard the Defiant, stretched out on his bunk, his hands clasped behind his head, thinking about things he did not want to think about and had been thinking about almost constantly the past three days. Hearing her call for him through the door, and subsequently over his com badge, ignoring her and allowing the computer to take care of detouring her completely from locating him, except in the case of an emergency.

There was no emergency apparently, for Dax left. Bashir could actually feel her presence fade away from the cabin door as she turned to walk off down the corridor. That was then, of course; future. Two hours or so from what was still now where the presence Bashir could feel behind him was the hefty, impatient one of the Chief's not Dax's as he stared over the forward console and side display panels.

"Look, what's the big deal about using the cargo hold until you get to where you're going and then you can set everything up just the way you want it?" O'Brien insisted, not that he had a clue where Bashir, or even he was going. He was just told to report for duty aboard the Defiant, and report for duty he did. Figuring they'd tell him when he got there, which so far none of them had bothered to. But then, hey. He was only the Chief Engineer. Why should anyone go out of their way for him? He was an enlisted man, they were the elite, and right now he was talking to, or trying to talk to the elitist of the elite.

"Hello!" O'Brien prompted Bashir otherwise known as his best friend apparently bored with talking to him already. Well, O'Brien had news for him. Doctor Julian Bashir was no more tired of, or bored by, Chief Miles Edward O'Brien than O'Brien was sick and tired of him.

"I heard you," Bashir answered. "The problem is in four days it's entirely possible I can break down Janice's chemical compound saving us all a hassle and a great deal of time…none of which is possible if I don't have a lab."

"Use the damn lab in the Infirmary!"

To the contrary, Bashir didn't want to go anywhere near the Infirmary if only because he knew he'd go no where near the lab, certainly not to spend the next four days conducting innumerable analyses on some cream. He stared at the wall displays. "It's probably also a good idea -- "

"They work," O'Brien interjected. "The system works."

"Yes, well, it's not a question of something working, it's a question of reliability -- similar to the warp engines," he eyed O'Brien, the reasons behind the Chief's blustering, boisterous attitude not escaping him. "You know, at some point you're just going to have to put it behind you; the hearing, everything, and move on."

"Uh, huh," O'Brien said. Interesting the way he said it, put it. Like it was a year ago rather than an hour.

"I realize you're angry," Bashir said. "Still angry, I should say. Though I must admit I don't really understand why you're angry at me, or for that matter with any of us."

"Uh, huh. Well, who…" O'Brien wondered, or started to.

"When the truth of the matter is," Bashir said, "you should get down on your knees and thank us -- or at least thank us," he agreed as O'Brien looked at him short of socking him.

"Beginning with who?" O'Brien finished that time to wait. "You?"

"Well, certainly beginning with Captain Sisko," Bashir activated the display. It was reasonable. A little slower in responding than he was accustomed to, but then the shuttle had to be what? Twenty or thirty years old? A dinosaur when she had once been an archetype with her warp drive engines.

"And ending with? Who?" O'Brien was continuing to bluster. "Odo? The bastard prosecuted me."

"He was ordered to prosecute you," Bashir replied. "We all have our orders…and, no, we don't always like our orders, but follow our orders we do…something you apparently forgot, which is why you found yourself in the scrape you found yourself in."

The Chief was just looking at him again. Bashir smiled. Not to be callous, simply just to smile. "My orders, for example," he offered, "are to spend the next two weeks conducting every practical environmental study you care to think of in hopes of following in the footsteps of Janice and recreate her cream.

"Of course," he nodded, "it really is much more involved than simply attempting to reconstruct something already in existence. It's figuring out how it even came to be in existence. The environment, for example, it was created in. The physical confines and parameters of her experiment; the controls she had set in place to prevent contamination. The microorganisms she could keep out, and the ones that even I couldn't begin to.

"Actually," he said, "the very idea that the ointment is colored some ghastly purple color suggests to me Janice was rather limited in her ability to isolate one experiment from the other and in desperation to keep her studies organized resorted to some sort of primitive color coding. It certainly is the only reason I can think of for the horrid pigment.

"But, then again," he admitted, "that may just be my own bigotry, if you will. My own aversion. Chances are I can't think of too many things I would like to see dressed in purple, certainly not anything I might care to smear all over my body.

"And, yes," he said, "I suppose it would be simpler if I could just ask Janice for her formula; if she knows her formula, how she created her ointment, other than by accident. The fact that Anar's here asking us to pursue her studies for her suggests she doesn't know. As, I dare suggest, knowing Janice, as little as I do know her, I highly doubt if she was religious in documenting her progress; I'm certain she wasn't. She just doesn't seem the type.

"In the meantime," he said, winding down to finish, "I have left some samples for Keiko to have a look at, out of simple curiosity if nothing else. She is a botanist. And one thing I am certain of Janice's ointment, or cream, or paste, really, does have a botanical base."

"Huh?" O'Brien just said after all of that.

"Quite all right," Bashir's hand clapped his shoulder, "you don't have to understand. What you have to do is bring us and Shakaar safely back to Dyaan IX and return to secure us after Kira decides what should be the appropriate rendezvous…Both of these naturally after we deposit Damar, or Dukat, or whoever it is we truly are concerned about, safely at the Cardassian border…Those are your orders. I'm sure Captain Sisko must have told you. It really wouldn't make any sense for him to leave it to me to tell you. I'm not a bridge officer, after all. Hardly a bridge officer…At least not that kind of bridge officer," he grinned at Dax. "Though I do like to decorate them occasionally."

"It wouldn't be the same without you," she swore.

"As it is I," Worf added to that with an accompanying huff of disgust, "as First Officer of the Defiant who should be apprising Chief O'Brien of his duty assignment and also the presence of Shakaar Adon and his son."

"Oh," Bashir said. "Well, yes, I had an idea you were standing here for a reason… not aboard the Defiant, of course," he hurried to clarify, scurrying to worm his way past Dax with a sheepish "Whoops, I'm in trouble now."

"No, you're not in trouble," Dax followed him out of the shuttle into the bay quite literally crowded with their equipment.

"Well, I certainly didn't mean to usurp Worf's position," Bashir insisted. "As First Officer of the Defiant where else would he be except on the Defiant? I just simply meant it had crossed my mind wondering why he was aboard the Ark -- which, yes," he acknowledged, "is aboard the Defiant, isn't it? Or at least currently docked in its main shuttlebay -- "

"Julian," Dax stopped him.

"No, really," he insisted. "How the hell did I know no one had troubled to tell the Chief, not only about our mission, but about Shakaar Adon?"

She looked at him, he nodded a moment later. "Heck. How the heck did I know? Sorry, but I'm just a little nervous about all of this -- aren't you nervous?" he wondered.

"Nervous?" she said.

He nodded again with a rub of his hand across the back of his neck. The motion suggesting he was mildly nervous about something though he denied it. "Well, perhaps not nervous, you're right -- what do you want to do with all of this? I suspect the cargo hold is going to have to be it for now."

"Yes," Dax suspected that also.
"Probably the best idea considering not only do we have two additional passengers, but who our passengers are,"

Bashir leaned heavily on the release to open the hatchway. Which was all right he supposed though it might be a little difficult for them to gain quick access during flight should quick access be necessary.

"I believe there's an interior entrance as well." Dax had faith in the quality of Starfleet's design engineers.

"Probably that door aft of our commissary," Bashir stepped into the cargo hold with a grin around the expansive compartment, the top of his head no where near close to brushing the ceiling. "This isn't half bad actually. To think I spent all that time complaining for naught."

"You like complaining," Dax passed in the variety of hardware necessary to recreate his scanners, bioregenerative and stasis fields, many of which he could barely lift with two hands compared to her consistent ability to lift them with one; up over her head if she so felt like it. Swing them around one or twice just to prove a point.

But then she could also swing a bat'telh with the ease, controlled grace and strength of any Klingon; better than some. Her husband Worf occasionally, though admittedly infrequently, among the ranks of the defeated rather than the champion in their host of holographic reenactments they loved to reenact together, at each other's side like the upstanding, outstanding Klingon couple that they were.

Actually about the only thing Dax had yet to try was traveling the gauntlet. Seeing how many steps she could take with those painstiks ramming into her every few seconds or so. That was probably scheduled for next week.

Bashir was sorry about that; not really. Because next week, all next week, and most of the following, Dax would be with him doing all sorts of mundane and dreary scientific things. Proving herself a Klingon would just have to wait, along with her inevitable trip to the Infirmary to have herself patched back together. Continuously failing in her appreciation that to be a Klingon, a real Klingon, she was supposed to let that dislocated arm heal in the precise grotesque position it was. Surely by this time her ongoing display of weakness had to be troubling Mister Worf, gnawing at him, like it troubled and gnawed at Bashir, simply in a different way.

"Rather difficult to believe I once killed a Jem'Hadar sentry with my own two hands," Bashir took a needed break and deep breath. "Must have been one of my more arrogant periods -- either that or I was simply desperate," he grinned at Dax looking at him curiously. "Does seem that way sometimes, doesn't it? I mean about my liking to complain for the sake of complaining?"

"I think I missed something somewhere," she admitted.

"No, not really," Bashir shook his head. "Actually, all I was going to say -- "

"You can have the top bunk," she nodded.

"What?" Bashir said. "Oh, yes, thank you. That's rather generous of you. Particularly since I was just about to say -- " he paused.

Dax laughed. She smiled first and then laughed.

"Very clever," Bashir said and probably would have thrown something at her except he didn't have anything around handy to throw; nothing soft and harmless except for possibly himself. "Some psychology friend of yours teach you that?"

"It works," she shrugged.

"Guided response," Bashir agreed, "I guess it does. Better on some than on others."

"Better on those who really aren't listening," she hinted.

"No, I was listening. Simply more to my back. Which out of sheer respect for I just may have to take you up on your offer -- of the lower bunk," he grinned. "Since after this I'm not quite sure I'll have the strength to make it to the upper."

"It's four days," Dax nodded. "I'm sure your back will be fine by then."

So it was. What was he thinking? What was Worf thinking for that matter? What was she? He knew what he was thinking, had been thinking since long before their arrangement to meet in the lab in ten minutes had stretched past thirty and Dax still hadn't shown to offer her opinion as to what equipment she felt they should take. A particular data padd burned like plasma in the inside breast pocket of Bashir's field uniform. He wasn't even quite sure why he took it, more terrified by the prospect of wanting to find out.

"Come in," Dax had called out in answer to the buzzing at her door as she changed out of her standard jumpsuit into the more practical field suit. Pulling her T-shirt on and clipping her hair back in its neat, professional style, she walked out of her bedroom to Bashir entertaining himself with wandering his way through her psychiatric anthropological study she had been working on.

"That was trusting of you, considering," he reminded her Sisko had not yet declared them officially rid of the Threat Force that had terrorized the station, and hence he could have been anyone.

"I knew it was you." Dax disengaged the program with her own clever reminder of what he had called her morbid compilation of barbaric shaming acts in an effort to find a cultural fingerprint behind Lange's vicious attack. "My diary."

"I never said I wouldn't review the assessment for you," Bashir's smile turned on the T-shirt that on her looked simply smashing, though perhaps a little cool considering they didn't know the climate of Anar's world. If it had a climate, or for that matter seasons. "Is that it?"

Dax glanced down on her short-sleeved shirt with its mock turtleneck collar. "The duffel," Bashir offered.

Dax glanced over her shoulder for her small duffel waiting on the floor. "I think we also had a discussion about that," she nodded.

"Hardly Bajor Prime," Bashir agreed. "Simply the outer colonies, rather than Cardassia."

"There's easier ways for you to get a tan," Dax returned to her bedroom for her jacket.

"Easier ways, and far better places…" Bashir eyed the console. "Though I seem to recall on our last holiday to Risa Worf sabotaged the weather grid in a jealous snit and the resort was beset by zealots threatening eternal damnation to the scoundrels and knaves… If there's a sane being left in the galaxy for their own safety they've developed acute agoraphobia by this point…"

"You had a great time on Risa," Dax returned to her living area to find him checking his hair in his reflection in the console.

"Of course I did," Bashir straightened up with his grin. "I always have a great time no matter where I go, or what I do…but then what do I care about some past association of Curzon's…or for that matter eternal damnation?" he retrieved her duffel for her. "Seriously, is this really all you're bringing? For two weeks? Close enough."

"I really do like to travel light."

"That would be the word," Bashir exited with her. "If not explain why you left me to take care of carting all our equipment aboard the Defiant."

"Ha, ha," she said.

"Well, perhaps not cart exactly," he admitted. "No, we have subordinates to do that for us -- for the moment, anyway."

"I wouldn't know. I was too busy," Dax entered the turbolift; Worf approaching from the opposite direction halted in front of their quarters with a sigh. She didn't even see him. Bashir did, and he had all he could do to resist this incredible urge he had to wave hello and subsequently goodbye. The door to the lift closed, taking care of the urge for him and he settled back into his comfortable smile for Dax.

"Doing?" he asked. "Not to say your hair doesn't look its usual lovely, the same as mine, but I still managed to keep our date."

"What date was this?" Dax verified, having been married to Worf for the past several months, and certainly extensively involved with the Enterprise transplant for the year or so prior, if not completely unable to recall when she had ever dated Bashir, as in never.

"The lab?" Bashir jostled her short-term memory. "Five minutes late I said all right. Ten, I said this is becoming absurd. Fifteen, I just took care of everything myself assuming you were either dead or in the shower. Either way once finished with ordering our equipment aboard, I couldn't see any reason to bother about a medical override and so I just rang. Presuming if you were in and not dead you would eventually answer the door."

"I was in the lab," Dax nodded.

"How odd," Bashir thought about that. "So was I. Strange we didn't bump into each other."

"The science lab," Dax nodded.

He smiled. "Well, that explains it. I was in the medical. Perhaps we should have clarified where to meet, though I'm not sure why. This is a medical expedition."

"Science," she shook her head.

"Medical," he assured.

"Science," she shook her head.

"Boring in any event," Bashir prophesized. "I don't suppose we could convince Kira to sabotage the weather grid -- if they have a weather grid. At the very least inspire Anar to reveal himself to be a political and/or religious zealot not only his dastardly younger brother, steal the runabout and make off to Risa to work on our tans?"

"I'm sure he is a zealot," Dax pivoted off the turbolift smack into Worf.

"Is that a yes?" Bashir wondered.

She was too busy smiling up into her husband's family crest to bother answering him. "There you are."

"Yes," Worf said.

Dax shrugged, tucking her arm through his and planting a kiss on his cheek. "Five minutes I said all right. Ten, I knew you were aboard the Defiant and just let Julian carry the bags."

"But only because I was conveniently there," Bashir maintained his stride abreast of Dax.

"Yes," Worf said.

"As I insist unless we are going to Risa you probably should have packed more than a change of hair clips." Bashir and his grin stepped aside in a polite gesture for Dax to precede him through the hatch to board the Defiant, accidentally cutting off Worf with all due apologies. "Oh, sorry, I didn't see you."

"I knew there was something I forgot," Dax agreed.

"Your hair clips?" Bashir smiled up at Worf stepping back with a huff over having his toes stepped on.

"My bathing suit," Dax said.

"Oh," Bashir paused but regrouped quickly. "Forgot mine as well. Quite all right. I'm sure we'll make do -- " He stopped short at the sight of the Ark, from there proceeding on to complain.

That was then, of course, as this was now. And right now in the moments before they embarked on their way to escorting the Tir to the border Dax was shaking her head at him, rousing him from his momentary daydream as they sat in the cargo hold of the Ark.

CHAPTER FOUR

"Hello?" Dax said.

"Yes, of course," Bashir answered. "Sorry, but I was just thinking…about all this equipment," he agreed with a discouraged look around. "Somewhat of a duplication of effort."

Dax wasn't concerned. "This way you get to play doctor to your heart's content."

"Yes," Bashir said. "And you get to do what? Play mad scientist? To borrow a frequent criticism of yours this is supposed to be a team effort, not a competition."

"We're a team," she promised with a pat on his shoulder but only because she wanted to get back to work stuffing in their equipment, from there to the bridge and of course, Mister Worf.

"Yes," Bashir said tightly. They were a team all right. A unit. A matched pair. Inconvenienced by the untimely addition of Mister Worf; her data log burned like plasma

again in the breast pocket of his jacket. "Darling, listen to me…" he carelessly, unconsciously blurted out to abruptly stop. She was looking at him, he frowned. "Did I just say darling?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Bashir said. "Well, yes, it is a rather archaic term of endearment, that's true. Fairly harmless and meaningless by now; I wouldn't be concerned -- are you concerned?" he checked. "Angry, more accurately?"

"No," she decided with a smile and a shake of her head. "Curious as to why you would even bother."

"Bother about what? You?"

She looked at him; he understood. "Yes, of course, Mister Worf; for the benefit of Mister Worf, no less. You're right. Why would I bother? Particularly when he's not about to even know I'm trying to offend him?"

"I think that's my point," she nodded.

"Quite, and chances are mine is, is that what you think I'm doing?"

That's what she knew he was doing. Bored by this time in their lives with his childish pranks designed to get a rise out of Worf, equally determined not to rise, and therefore it was probably reasonable to suggest chances were Dax was equally tired of and bored by Worf's predictable reaction: an exhausted sigh. Why shouldn't she be tired? Neither of them were really taking her into consideration at all in their ongoing battle of wit versus will.

"Yes, well," Bashir said now that she had managed to shame him without having to remove or mutilate some vital organ of his, "actually, I was going say…well, perhaps not anything of true consequence, really," he admitted. "But yes, I was going to say something."

"What?" Dax asked.

"Oh," Bashir said, somewhat surprised she wanted to hear. "Well, nothing really. Other than if I seem…well, I wouldn't say put out exactly by even having to be bothered with any of this, it's probably because I have an idea of my own I've been toying with; idea's a good description. Hypothesis is probably better even though I haven't had much time to work on developing it -- which I would like to do," he said, hearing himself hesitate, feeling himself swallow, hard, wondering if she noticed. "Have the time; find the time; spend it. The other thing I would really like is for you to take a look over my theory, I guess you could call it; express an opinion. I do value your opinion even if I do sometimes challenge it."

"I can do that," Dax agreed.

He had this outrageously insane desire to kiss her, right there in the cargo hold, damn whoever was or wasn't about to take offense. "Oh," he said. "All right. It's not in any comprehensible format at the moment, as I said. But, yes, perhaps I can find some time to work on it between now and the time we arrive at wherever it is we're going…"

Two hours from then he was aboard the Tir, thirty minutes away from being on his way back.

Forty-five minutes from that point he was lying on his bunk, his hands tucked under his head listening to Dax give up on trying to find him for now. An hour later he was sitting down at his desk in his office aboard the Defiant's Infirmary with a rub of his face. Dax's data padd containing her anthropological study resting on the console for little reason other than inspiration; it was still another minute or two before he finally engaged the console. "Medical analysis."

"Subject?" the computer requested.

Bashir took a breath. "Jadzia Dax. Preliminary analysis. Compare and contrast the number of injuries sustained and requiring medical intervention regardless of method of treatment, cause, or severity; percentage of increase or decrease to the prior year and so forth in descending order."

"Computing…" the system complied. "Preliminary analysis suggests a thirteen percent decrease in injuries sustained to date in comparison to the prior four quarters."

"There's something to be said for war and separation after all, isn't there?" Bashir agreed.

"Records show a 112 percent increase in injuries sustained Federation year 2374," the computer reported; Bashir stared at the console.

"On screen," he directed.

"On screen," the display lit up.

"Continue," Bashir reminded impatiently, watching the lengthy listing begin to scroll.

"Comparison Federation year 2373 shows a forty-three percent increase to the prior four quarters."

"How much of that increase is represented subsequent to Commander Worf's arrival?"

"By average…94.4 percent."

"Damn," Bashir closed his eyes briefly. "And the number of years I can expect to find myself interned convicted of first or second degree manslaughter? Whichever is applicable to crimes of the heart."

"There is no provision in Federation law for emotional distress as a mitigating factor to murder for the Terran species," the computer enlightened him. "Mandatory internment for conviction of manslaughter in the first degree is no less than twenty-five Federation years to life."

"But if I were a Klingon?" Bashir snapped.

"The Federation has no jurisdiction over the Klingon Empire or any affiliated colony."

"Not even the one in Starfleet uniform?" he insisted.

"Reevaluating your parameters…" the computer agreed. "Federation guidelines would require mandatory explanation for such action and subsequent formal reprimand. Court-martial is probable; expulsion possible; mandatory in the instance of the defined victim being a superior officer. Additional legal requirements may be imposed. Criminal insanity is a relative term. Federation parameters cannot be made to incorporate those of the Klingon species. Accurate diagnosis is not possible at this time; appropriate medical intervention has not been defined; anthropological and social studies are ongoing.

"Current statistics show a 1.3 in 3 chance of dying by violent act or cause before age sixty compared to the galactical average of 1.1 in 1,000 overall, suggesting social/cultural environment and structure to be keynote. Self-mutilation and torture is standard from early adolescence. Abuse of alcohol is prevalent among both sexes. Ritual cannibalism is reported to exist. All practices are known to be cause or contributing factors to a number of mental or physiological disorders, congenital or degenerative, in eighty-seven percent of known Humanoid species studied; fifty-seven percent of known alien lifeforms. Developed tolerance is keynote on a superficial level only. Substantial evidence supports shortened life expectancy. Mutations are rare, though documented. Common risks are birth defects, chronic depression and progressive deterioration and disruption at the cellular level of the brain; frequently in the areas of associative and/or motor function. Acute synoptic failure is not unknown and can be widespread. Do you wish to proceed?"

"With my medical analysis of Jadzia," Bashir had heard enough otherwise, stubbornly refusing to let Worf off the hook simply because he had been raised by Humans since early childhood.

"Compiling…" the computer said. "Jadzia Dax is a Host entity identifier for the gastropod lifeform Dax. Species: Trill. Genus: Amoeboid; intelligent; advanced. Classification: Alien Gastropoda Symbiont. Gender classification: Androgen. Host Species: Trill. Classification: Transalien. Gender classification: Transandrogen.

"Preliminary analysis reveals the Host to be a healthy transandrogen of eight Federation years with multiple integrated synoptic patterns and memory engrams common to joined Trills. Anatomical Structure External: female, humanoid. Internal: female, integrated humanoid-gastropod. Approximate chronological age is thirty-two Federation years. Height is +.2 average. Weight is -.1 by comparison. Strength is +3 average. Insufficient data exists to determine if the Host is functioning within acceptable parameters but is doubtful with optimum performance unable to be considered. Further analysis is recommended to determine if cause is psychiatric or physiological.

"Probable: Chronic Emotional Distress Disorder, unrelieved. Traumatic Stress Syndrome, unrelieved. Dietary. Recommended course of action: Behavior modification, anger management, counseling, nutritional review.

"Possible: Acute Clinical Depression. Memory Repression. Bipolar Disorder. Early Rejection Syndrome. Recurrent Rejection Syndrome. Recommended course of action: Complete medical examination in conjunction with qualified Symbiosis Commission physicians. Insufficient data exists for appropriate diagnosis by Starfleet Medical Personnel. Margin for error is unacceptable.

"Rare: Multiple Personality Disorder. Schizophrenia. Neuro Integration Failure. Neuro Integration Rejection. Alien Possession. Recommended course of action: Complete medical examination in conjunction with qualified Symbiosis Commission physicians. Insufficient data exists for appropriate diagnosis by Starfleet Medical Personnel. Margin for error is unacceptable.

"Summary: Extensive analysis is required for appropriate determination. Current evidence supports the Host to be suicidal with a 1 in 3 chance of death by violent cause or act overall. Immediate crisis intervention is recommended. Do you wish to proceed?"

"Yes," Bashir was a far cry away from being relieved with hearing his suspicions recited back to him. The sticking point, how immediate crisis intervention needed to be versus how immediate it could be when he was relying on a structured detailing of supported facts to persuade Jadzia into even agreeing to listen to him. She'd never listen to him otherwise, it was doubtful if she'd listen to him even then, necessitating a change in the course of action. One possibility he wasn't particularly fond of pursuing was ordering her relieved of all duties and personal freedom until a complete medical examination could be performed.

Another option he was adamantly opposed to pursuing was involving the prestigious Symbiosis Commission. He didn't trust the Institute. Rightfully suspecting the faculty to be comprised of little more than fanatical zealots, obsessed with the symbiont lifeform. The Hosts little more than a commodity, generally expendable as the truth be known how better than fifty percent of the humanoid Trill population was capable of being joined rather than the elite few.

It was one of the galaxy's dark, little secrets that had almost cost Jadzia her life. Necessitating Captain Sisko's threats of exposure before securing the Commission's cooperation in straightening out the mess they had created in their bungled attempt to suppress Dax's retained knowledge of a prior unsuitable host Joran Belar. A musical impresario turned maniacal murderer. It remained very much a question in Bashir's mind who was exactly responsible for that chain of events as well.

On the other hand if Bashir found Jadzia with a kut'luch in her hand pointed at her chest, he would have to forego taking the time to detail anything and immediate crisis intervention would truly be immediate. Even though at +3 the average strength of a Trill placed her about +5 his strength, or roughly equal to the strength of a Klingon the powerful, commanding size of Mister Worf heads over most and at least a head above everyone; those holographic reenactments certainly paid off in developing Jadzia's muscle density.

Bashir would believe that when he saw it and he certainly did not care to see it at all, recalling without effort Worf's ability to go round after round with Jem'Hadar after Jem'Hadar on a remote Dominion controlled asteroid, almost two years ago now. There was no way Jadzia could ever hope to hold her own against Worf outside the holosuites in stark reality.

In contrast, what Bashir might like to see was Worf attempting to go one on one with the Cardassian giant Tan; Bashir didn't think so. Towering in excess of eight feet in the air, truly heads above everyone else, with the attitude and strength of a Cardassian to match any Klingon's including Mister Worf's. Bashir was half-tempted to see what he could do about striking up a friendship with the sons of Gul Dukat; he'd settle for Jadzia getting a Klingon divorce; if Klingons divorced; he was sure they divorced. Quark, the station's Ferengi entertainment King and entrepreneur was divorced from the petite Klingon bombshell Grilka, one of the few truly beautiful Klingon women Bashir had ever seen.

Quark was also the star-crossed lover of Natima, one of the few truly beautiful Cardassian women Bashir had ever seen. Quark got around for an ugly little humanoid with a pronounced bald four-lobed head, oversized earlobes and caustic personality.

His bumbling brother Rom got around as well. Married for the past year to the sultry Bajoran siren Leeta, Quark's principal Dabo hostess and former love interest of Bashir's. If Bashir had the time he'd sit around wondering what he was doing wrong; he didn't have the time. Leeta was a former love interest, Jadzia he was in love with. He knew this. He had decided this several hours ago now, simply a matter of how to tell her commingled with telling her everything else.

Ten hours after the computer first recited his primary suspicion among its lengthy list of possible, probable, and rare explanations as the root behind Jadzia's suspected illness Bashir knew he was right, simply a matter of proving it to Jadzia's satisfaction. A phenomenon equivalent to alien possession. The invasive intruder: Curzon. Dax's former host prior to Jadzia for eighty years. Ambitious, powerful, carousing, Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire known by most as the Old Man. Jadzia's one-time personal nemesis, instrumental in having her expelled from the Symbiosis Commission, and then in an unprecedented and uncharacteristic act of repentant remorse, instrumental in overseeing her readmission. Insuring Jadzia's place in Commission history as the only initiate ever to be granted readmission once expelled; Bashir knew why, and it had nothing to do with unrequited love. Well over the century mark at the time of his death in 2367, eight years dead Curzon was still refusing to lie down. After eight years, Jadzia utterly and completely under his influence and control, her identity submerged and submissive to his; damn the Commission's earlier attempt to squash Belar, Curzon managing do what they had failed to do, and that was squash Jadzia.

Bashir stood up in an effort to clear his head of what had to be close to raging paranoia; he couldn't clear it. Curzon was proven not to let go easily when his transferred memories refused to let go of Odo and life. Curzon wanted to live. He did not want to spend eternity as collective cellular slime: Dax.

Jadzia's emotional Achilles heel proven to be her inability to disassociate herself from the lives of Dax's previous hosts. Not their learning, their teachings, their wisdom, their lives. Jadzia was Torias in love all over again the moment she saw his former wife Nilani, willing to face mandatory exile from Trill society for the victimless crime of daring to go back rather than forward. But then the entire point of the Trill-symbiont joining was to go forward, never back. That included Curzon and his Klingons whether the Ambassador liked it or not.

The Ambassador obviously did not like it. He married Jadzia to Worf, a Klingon, probably only to prove a point; his point. For as much as the Symbiosis Commission might frown on reassociation, Curzon was by far their most celebrated Host, a former commissioner. Dax was one of the oldest continuously joined symbionts around. Their union signified everything the Commission stood for; prestige. It wasn't likely they would frown too loudly down on Jadzia following in the footsteps of Curzon rather than him obediently following along behind hers despite her premiere distinctions in a host of sciences. What was so intriguing about science put alongside blood ale, heart of targ, blood oaths and bat'telhs? If there was a root to Bashir 's potential for raging paranoia it was blind jealousy and everything that went along with it; rage, hatred, magnifying what were legitimate concerns.

Bashir was in the cargo hold of the Ark bringing a semblance of order to the heap of equipment in preparation of beginning some initial focused screening of Janice's purple cream while the Infirmary's computer labored away at dissecting Jadzia's extensive medical record. Separating cause from reason and reason without cause for her numerable injuries sustained over the last two years. Bashir could have set up his screenings of Janice's cream in the Infirmary as well; he needed a break from the Infirmary. Dax was in her and Worf's cabin having an argument with Worf that Bashir knew absolutely nothing about, even though he was the principal topic of discussion.

Julian failed to put in an appearance aboard the Defiant's bridge. That concerned Dax. Primarily because she knew he was concerned about something since returning from the Tir. Lange's revised prognosis?

Lange living on Cardassia?

Lange living with Dukat on Cardassia?

Dax ran through every conceivable possibility she could think of. It all came back to Lange. Simply what about Janice Lange? Julian occasionally had difficulty letting go where he didn't want to let go and had to. Dax imagined he was concerned about leaving Lange's care to Tracy Sorge.

She imagined he was still greatly disturbed by the prognosis of fifteen percent irreparable brain damage Lange suffered as a result of her assault that would relegate her to spending the remainder of her life borderline normal rather than maintain her classification of advanced superior intelligent Human: congenital. Not genetically engineered, re-mastered, or enhanced, which Julian was. Illegally so, but still everything Bashir wanted to be, he was, including a great admirer of everything superior and all things beautiful. Lange was both, had been. A striking compilation of beauty, brilliance, mystery, astounding naïveté and befuddlement under a crowning mass of Klingon-like hair.

"Running away to Cardassia?" Dax mused, picturing Bashir packing his bag and waiting his chance to run away to Cardassia. Perhaps not as Lange's lover, but certainly as her doctor with full intentions of combining his skills with Sorge's background in genetics to regenerate Lange's destroyed brain cells and bring her back to who she had been.

The picture didn't fit. Dax really couldn't see Bashir risking life, limb, or career to re-master Lange's brain regardless of how disturbed he was, particularly when he didn't approve of genetic enhancement, only when it came to himself. Recognizing and appreciating the staggering risks of creating monsters, madness, and mayhem, and hence why it was illegal, and had been for three centuries.

"Huh?" Kira looked over from her station at the helm to say.

"Sorry," Dax smiled. "Talking to myself."

"It's getting late," Kira nodded, thinking about duty rotations, the severely limited engineering staff sure to face an extensive debriefing upon their return, and even then Sisko was sure to keep his fingers crossed.

She was thinking about the absolute minimum flight crew needed compared to the skeleton crew currently manning the Defiant. The one that just happened to include in its entirety her, Dax, O'Brien and Worf, in an effort to preserve and protect Shakaar from the galaxy finding out about his outlaw side of the family until it absolutely had to find out; which it would. Probably much sooner than all would have preferred. It just had a way of working out that way. Once a door was opened it was open regardless of how long it had been shut.

"You'll have to figure something out on the way home, that's true," Dax agreed. Meaning Worf and O'Brien would since she and Kira would be taking the Ark packed with equipment, Julian, and two Shakaars for a week's long stay on the unheard of planet, planetoid, or asteroid Dyaan IX of Bajor's outer colonies.

"We will." Kira meant we, the same as Dax truly meant we, since they really were we. A team, a unit, a crew.

"I wonder where Julian is," Dax admitted with a look around.

"Oh, please," Kira groaned. About as inclined to leave Bashir in charge of the helm, navigation, Ops, or the Prophets forbid, the bridge, as she was inclined to beg Rom to let her be the one to finish working on the Ark's toilet. From there figure out why they couldn't get the engines back on line when someone just took the shuttle out yesterday for its monthly saunter around the upper pylons to ensure it remained in perfect working order despite its looks to the contrary, just in case they needed it, which they never needed it until now. Now that they did, its engines were offline. It was just another one of those things that always seemed to just work out that way.

Dax sighed. Not a heavy sigh, just a sigh, nothing to do with anything really. Not the Ark or Bashir. "Actually, Julian is a reasonably good navigator and pilot," she said.

"He's not focused," Kira vetoed splitting the duty assignments five ways rather than four.

"As in a dip," O'Brien added. Back in the thick of things, he might as well be back in the spirit of things, and it was good to have him back.

"Well…" Dax smiled. Julian was a dip that was true. Or he could be. A study in contrasts himself. A confirmed ne'er-do-well, remarkably brilliant and astoundingly naïve.

"You…you…" Kira was pointing to her and Worf. "Four hours."

Worf huffed his usual huff. Kira looked her usual look at him. "I am the First Officer of the Defiant," he reminded.

"So?" Kira said.

Worf huffed again. "After two years I cannot say I am comfortable with the informality of this crew as compared to the Enterprise."

"Crew," Kira looked at Dax grimacing already.

"Well…" Dax said, knowing it was probably more being called the crew that got under Kira's skin rather than they were operating without a crew to speak of and therefore there really was very little reason for Worf to be so concerned about protocol? She eyed Worf not wanting to correct him in public for being stodgy.

"You got that right," Kira turned back to Worf without Dax having to say a word.

"It moved," O'Brien hinted to Worf sitting stiffly in the Commander's chair opposing Kira's intolerant expression. "The Enterprise moved. Your lives -- listen to me your. Our lives depended upon everyone's 'formality'. The station doesn't move."

"Only once," Dax nodded in support, referencing the station's sole flight log from its orbit above Bajor to the opening of the Bajoran worm hole. A distance the Chief could spit across.

"Yeah, huh?" O'Brien grinned. "And kick in those thrusters to move it again and we'll see just how quick everyone snaps, and I mean snaps to attention. We're talking about moving something the size of the capital city of Bajor."

"Which is why Benjamin doesn't move it too often," Dax smiled at Worf in an effort to cajole him into surrendering since Kira wasn't.

Neither was Worf. "The Defiant moves," he informed Kira.

"Oh, God," O'Brien buried himself in transferring control of navigation to his Ops console.

"Our cargo is extremely sensitive," Worf reminded Kira needlessly. "The threat of Klingon interest is real -- "

"There's only four of us!" she cut to the quick with a snap.

"Aboard the bridge, yes, this is true," Worf agreed finally.

"Well?" Kira nodded. "Well?"

Worf sighed. "It is also wise that the crew be equal to our alert status. Your suggestion of a four hour relief is reasonable."

"Thank you!"

Worf turned to the Chief. "No…no…" O'Brien tried to stop him before he said it.

He said it. "You have the bridge. Protocol mandates as Bajoran liaison to the Federation Major Kira cannot assume First Officer of the Defiant if a senior Federation bridge officer is available -- "

"I'm not an officer!"

"A relative term," Worf assured. "Commander Dax and I shall return at 0600 at which time you and Major Kira will be relieved for four hours. We will reevaluate our status eight hours after you and Major Kira resume duty."

"I really wouldn't take it personally," Dax mentioned thoughtfully to Kira as she passed to follow Worf.

"I don't take it personally," Kira said, muttering something about Worf not taking it personally when he found out Anar and Sian would be joining them on the bridge at just about the time she and the Chief returned.

"I didn't hear that," Dax agreed.

"You heard me," Kira assured.

Dax nodded. "If we confine them to their cabin for the duration of the trip home, who's available to make sure they remain in their cabin? You're right. I think we've been down that road once before; with Lange and Dukat…

"Imagine that," she joined Worf at the turbolift with a smile, "he really is like his father, after all."

Worf huffed. His fifth or sixth huff, Dax would soon lose count. "His father was interned for two years in a Federation prison. If I see the comparison, I do not see the compliment, or the humor."

CHAPTER FIVE

The terse reply surprised Dax having to think for a moment to know who Worf was talking about. Bashir's father was just recently paroled after spending time on a Federation prison colony. A small Human with big dreams, the internment of Richard Bashir had been an agreement with the Federation. The charge? The illegal procurement of genetic enhancement for his mentally challenged son when Julian was only six years old.

A secret for twenty-five years. A crime whose statute of limitations for prosecution had technically run out except for the fact Julian was a Starfleet officer. Julian could have/should have lost his career; he didn't. That powers that be were in an amicable mood that day, much thanks to Benjamin, willing to strike a bargain with the small-time confidence man. Bashir got to keep his pips, his father mandated to serve a

two year sentence on a minimally secured prison farm for the violation and an assortment of other minor infractions.

Anon Dukat's father was the Gul Dukat of the Alpha Quadrant. A dangerous man if Dukat was nothing else. Currently interned in an ultra-maximum security Federation prison facility where he had been for the last year awaiting trial and eventual transference to the notorious Elba II where he would spend his life, if the galaxy ended up having their say, with the rest of the criminally insane. The charge? War crimes. A career spanning more than twenty-five years, with the advent of the Federation-Dominion war that he initiated, the blood of new millions dripping off his hands.

Either, or, neither was what Dax was talking about. She was talking about the aspect of Dukat that had him fancying himself the ultimate lover beside his avocation as the quadrant's chief executioner. In any event difficult to keep track of whenever he had soiled the station with his presence, impossible to tie down. A characteristic his son Anon exhibited if he exhibited no other. The question remained who Worf was talking about? Father and son Bashir, or father and son Dukat? Offhand, Dax couldn't think of anyone else. Benjamin's father was a chef, for example. Perhaps a little cantankerous, hardly a criminally minded man, small or large.

"Julian?" she ventured, several seconds into the turbolift's misleadingly pleasant ride. Worf looked at her; she smiled again. "I was talking about Anon Dukat."

It got worse from there. Worf made it worse, not her, and not "Julian."

Dax said Bashir's name in challenge that time, cocky, angrily. Her face in Worf's, almost touching his as they stood in the close confines of their cabin aboard the Defiant. Worf huffed. "He insults you," was his defense.

Insults her. No, Julian did not insult her. He teased her, yes. Tormented her occasionally. Flirted with her. All of it harmless, all of it Julian. Hardly serious, or malicious. Something Worf chose not to believe, as he apparently chose to forget regardless of what Julian did, did not do, plotted to, she, Dax, had married Worf, not Julian.

Dax was tempted to tell Worf that; she decided to ignore him. With three hours and thirty-five minutes remaining to her four hour recess, the lower bunk and sleep seemed much more appealing than continuing some absurd argument over the truth behind Bashir's actions and intent. Ordering lights out, she wrenched herself out of her field jacket, stripped off her T-shirt down to her cropped athletic top that she hated to wear and had to wear out in the field solely due to her anatomy, kicked off her boots and flung herself down on the bunk. A moment later she was yanking her clips out of her hair and flinging them across the cabin in an effort to get comfortable on an uncomfortable mattress in a cabin that was too small and oppressively hot; it wasn't likely and shortly not meant to be.

Worf was silent, not for long. He sighed in martyred resignation. "It is obvious you have feelings for him."

Dax's eyes opened; she sat up. Klingons were not Cardassians and could not see in the dark. Klingons didn't have to. Worf could be sightless and he would still know, if not be able to describe the look on her face. The heat emanating from her never mind the ship's thermostatic controls. Worf was immediately explanatory once again, attempting to clarify, "I meant in friendship, as a friend."

Dax didn't care what he meant. She was up and pulling on her boots, seizing her jacket, duffel, and heading for parts unknown, or at least a different cabin. "See you in two weeks," was her farewell commingled with an unspoken warning not to pursue, or to follow, or even attempt to.

The door to the cabin closed leaving Worf to stand there not liking what he saw, what he felt, and even less what he knew. He sat down on the cot, picking up her forgotten T-shirt. A growl sounded deep in his throat as he suddenly ripped the shirt in half, his fist slamming into his com badge. "Location of Doctor Bashir."

"Please state the nature of the emergency." the computer replied.

"The location of Commander Dax," Worf assured.

Currently in the corridor, soon to be in the turbolift aiming for the farthest regions of the Defiant Dax could get for some emotional peace and quiet. There was nowhere far enough for Worf not to be able to reach her by communicator. "Commander Worf to Commander Dax…" Worf's impatient voice sounded over her badge just as she stepped off the lift into the welcoming solitude of an alternative crew deck.

"Oh!" Dax pulled her com badge off to heave it down the corridor, listening to Worf's impatient call for her again as the door to the lift closed and she headed for the Defiant's shuttlebay and the Ark.

It was cool in the shuttlebay. Cold in Kira's Captain's quarters aboard the shuttlecraft. Too cold not to wear her field jacket, too hot to keep it on. Kira's duffel rested on the lower cot in anticipation, the upper cot was just that, upper. Dax shoved the duffel off the lower cot to make room for herself, pulled her jacket up over her shoulders and settled into falling asleep; she couldn't fall asleep. Restless, perspiring under the insulated jacket within ten minutes, she had three hours left and counting to her break. She got up to see what she could do about coercing the shuttle's thermostat into working.

Julian was on the bridge of the Ark, his back to her and the midsection as he stood over the forward console. She hadn't noticed him there fifteen minutes ago when she first boarded in an angry rush.

She hadn't noticed because he wasn't there. He was still in the Ark's cargo hold at the time, having no more an idea Dax was aboard kicking his duffel rather than Kira's around the cabin than Dax had any idea he was aboard. They both found out quickly enough however. She, a moment before he. He, a moment later when he turned around in answer to the sound of a door opening, a mug of coffee in his hand.

Bashir broke out into an immediate grin at the sight of her and the glistening, bulging muscles of her biceps and chest wet with sweat, emphasized by her sweeping trail of spots and long, sable brown hair unwound and hanging down in heavy chunks of blunted layers; she looked devastating. "I must say that is by far the sexiest I have ever seen you look." was what immediately came to Bashir's mind and out of his mouth. "I'm serious. By far the sexiest thing I have ever seen you wear."

"The thermostatic controls aren't working," Dax explained her odd mixture of trousers, boots, and underwear, simply not why she was there half dressed in her clothes and half not. Nor why she was perspiring for that matter; it was cold in there, not hot.

"Oh, yes, I know," Bashir agreed as she stepped forward to have a seat at the console. "Rom's working on them -- a break from working on the engines," he disclosed. "Which are still offline. A requested break, actually, requested by me. For while we might need the engines, when it comes to the temperature, we always have our jackets…" He couldn't help keep his gaze from traveling back over her incredible form. "To keep warm. The equipment's a bit more sensitive than that."

"And what are you doing?" Dax asked when he lapsed into a brief silence.

"Me?" he said with a casual look around; too casual. "Nothing really. Certainly not trying my hand at repairing the engines -- the navigation system is another story." He decided to sit down in the second of the two-crew seats. "It's working. Extremely well, as a matter of fact. I tested it out of curiosity -- over where we might be going," his grin flashed. "I took a chance at downloading Kira's flight plan for the Defiant to see if she even knew yet; she does."

"Worf's flight plan," Dax corrected, suspecting that was much of the reason behind Worf's melancholy mood, the fact that he felt he was being overlooked. His authority and status being questioned when it wasn't being ignored; it was. It usually was. Not intentionally. It was just the way it was, seemed to be.

"Worf's flight plan," Bashir shrugged. "The flight plan's there and if our Mister Anar saw to truthfully divulging the location of his colony, rather than change his mind two days from now…then I'm right…" he was back to staring at her arms, trying to only stare at her arms.

"Right?" Dax said.

He smiled. "If you'll need something warmer to wear than your T-shirt, you'll definitely need something warmer than an athletic brassiere. The planet's Class M -- reasonably so; charted even, believe it or not. However, the calculated position to the system's suns at the moment suggests much of the western continent is about to enter its winter solstice, and it's the western continent where we're going; there's only a choice of two."

"Worf and I had an argument," Dax admitted, calmer now that she was relaxing, and no longer perspiring.

"Oh," Bashir said, nothing else.

"It comes with the territory," she assured before he did say something too cute and therefore obnoxious.

"Marriage, you mean, arguments," he agreed. "Wouldn't know. Though there's no reason not to believe you or anyone else who's ever been married."

Which there wasn't, even though he was thinking more about what an interesting culture the Klingon culture was producing cuts, scrapes, bruises, and broken bones with hugs and kisses and not so much as a scratch during an argument; apparently it hadn't gotten that far. "Something you want to talk about?"

"No." She was more interested in his mug. "Coffee?"

"Just coffee," he nodded. "Nothing as exotic as Klingon raktajino, I'm afraid."

"I'll take it," Dax rose for their commissary/replicator also apparently working.

"Breakfast already?" Bashir followed.

"May as well," she sat down at the small island with a shrug, briskly stirring her coffee and noticing for the first time the dark circles under his eyes. "You look awful."

"Thank you," he joined her at the table. "I maintain you look as lovely as I said."

"You said sexy," Dax assured with a nod forward toward the cabin. "I forgot it."

"It..?" Bashir said.

"My shirt," she said, not that she didn't have another one with her, she did. She just didn't feel like getting up to get it. She wasn't quite sure why she didn't feel like it, she just knew she didn't. Perhaps she was testing him. Perhaps she was spiting Worf. She knew she wasn't testing herself. She was, however, possibly also spiting herself for it was cold; she was cold.

"Ah," Bashir said. "In the heat of the moment -- pardon the pun," he added for she didn't look hot, she looked cold. He rose to offer her his jacket with reference to being prepared with his long-sleeved version of her short-sleeved T-shirt when she protested. "No, it's all right…it'll be our secret."

"That we wear the same size jacket?" she quipped to him draping his over her shoulders.

He doubted if they did. Even if she could get it on it was questionable as to whether or not she could fasten it; at least comfortably. "That you're not all thumbs when it comes to your hair." He helped her pull the random tails of hair out from under the collar. "To think I thought you only kept it up all these years because you didn't know what else to do with it."

He really did have a provocative way of speaking even when he wasn't trying to be intentionally obvious about it. "It grows that way," Dax assured.

Bashir laughed. "The devil it does. No more than mine doesn't grow requiring a trip to the salon every three weeks or so."

"What happened with Lange?" Dax preferred to talk about something else.

The smile on his face changed, less broad, more secretive perhaps, not quite as sincere. He focused on his coffee briefly before taking a drink. "Nothing happened. A small hematoma, that's all."

"Then why aren't you in bed?" Her head waggled in scolding for the dark rings of exhaustion.

"Why aren't you?" he countered. "Since apparently Kira and the Chief have the bridge."

"I was," she admitted.

"I had an idea I might be interrupting something," he agreed. "Not entirely certain what exactly. Simply something athletic came to mind…" He was looking back at her looking at him. "Not anything specifically athletic," he attempted not to laugh into his coffee. "Running, jumping…springball…yes, all right, perhaps that didn't come out exactly right."

"I'm positive it didn't," Dax nodded.

"Well, what would you have said?" he protested. "Or thought for that matter if you turned around to find me -- perhaps not half naked, but certainly partially clothed, drenched in sweat?"

"Lost?" Dax mused.

"Sleepwalking," Bashir agreed. "Either's a fair enough excuse. Have to try and remember them."

"Lange," she encouraged his more serious side. "Julian, I know you. You were fine when you transported to the Tir. You were not fine when you returned."

Seemed fine when he left is what she actually meant; Bashir did not correct her.

"You've not even come near the bridge," she added in supporting evidence how something was wrong.

He had also managed thus far not to pull her into his arms and kiss her, so what did either of them really mean? Bashir continued paying more attention to his coffee.

"Julian…" her cold hand touched his wrist.

He smiled. "I gave Sorge the equipment. Nothing anyone will really miss. Interesting though the way every conceivable alarm is set to sound, identifying whatever we might be attempting to transport aboard, rather than what we should be and aren't -- my field bag," he clarified for her. "It was empty. About as empty as empty can get."

"No, I understood what you meant," Dax straightened up.

"Oh," he said, "Well, yes, I suppose the real question is -- are you going to turn me in? Rough guess says you'll miss me when they come to take me away."

"No, of course I'm not going to turn you in…Julian," she said somewhat exasperated, "don't be absurd. What you did was hardly -- "

"What I did was definitely a crime," he stood up for a refill of his coffee. "Interesting the only Federation technology we don't mind sharing with anyone is a blast from one of our phaser rifles or banks. Quite all right. I'm also sure we're allowed a percentage of loss for our expedition; we'll just blame it on the Maquis."

"Now that's wrong," Dax was shaking her head as he sat back down.

Bashir shrugged. So it was wrong. He wasn't perfect and she was close to making him nuts sitting there with his jacket dangling off her shoulders. He decided to help her on with it. Curious, he admitted to know if it would fit; it fit. Even a little loose with more than enough give to fasten it; she didn't fasten it. He fell deeper in love with her at that moment, feeling his hand graze the back of her neck as he tugged her hair out from the collar once again. "Is that Worf's problem?" he asked. "Not the loss of one of my neuro med kits, leaving you, Kira, I daresay even I, to fend for ourselves on a colony of known Maquis? We know it's not the potential threat of Klingons, or he'd never admit it to be. Also interesting to note the one who's usually blameless is the one who endeavors to absorb the blame."

"I'm not absorbing anything," Dax pushed his hand away.

"I said usually," Bashir teased.

She knew what he said and perhaps it was Worf's problem as he called it, or perhaps it wasn't. It wasn't. It should be, but it wasn't. "I came here to get some sleep," she stood up to pull his jacket off and fling it at him. "Somewhere quiet. I had no idea you were even here."

"That makes two of us," Bashir agreed as she strode for Kira's assigned cabin; he should say his cabin. The one he had decided to appropriate from Kira under the guise of generosity and leaving the larger of the two closets for the two female crew members while he made do with the smaller.

"What?" Dax groaned to him strolling up behind her. "Julian, I really don't want to talk about it."

"No, that's fine," he accepted. "I just want my duffels."

"Your duffels?" she stared at the duffel she had upended and slammed into the corner. "I thought it was Kira's duffel."

Explained why one of them was upended and stuffed in a corner to where the second one she had apparently been satisfied to just kick off the end of the cot. "No, they're mine," he collected them both.

"I moved them to make room." It wasn't too difficult to know what he was thinking.

"I realize that," Bashir agreed.

"And I realize -- " Dax started to snap. She paused to look at Kira stationed in the cabin doorway, an attempted look of tolerance on her face.

"I thought we settled this," Kira said.

"Well, yes, actually, however…" Bashir went on to explain in great detail his thoughts of generosity. The actual size of this cabin compared to the actual size of the second. The fact that he was one, and unimportantly male, and they were two and equally unimportantly both female regardless of the fact one of them was, internally anyway, an integrated humanoid-gastropod; he was in love with a worm. Wholly and completely in love with a worm approximately eight inches in height, ten inches in circumference, of advanced years with two little sparkling eyes, vascularized within the abdomen of a Trill host named Jadzia, above her pelvis and below her pleural cavity; she only looked like a woman. An inch above his height, five times his strength, married to a Klingon and drop-dead gorgeous all at the same time.

Bashir shrank back against the cabin wall with his head hung. Not so much in horrified realization as it was to get out of the way of his duffels flying past and out into the corridor followed quickly by Dax's. He was in love. However much his senses might be horrified they were also reeling. Love wasn't logical, it defied logic as a matter of fact; love was chemistry. Getting struck in the head with fifty pounds of luggage was a different story, particularly when it was doubtful it would be of any help at all in knocking some sense into him.

"There," Kira announced with a dusting off of her hands, having settled once again whatever was the difficulty over the quarter arrangements, i.e., who was going to sleep where three days from now.

"I'd say it was settled," Dax agreed with a nod to Bashir.

"Quite," he said. "Nothing really too breakable either; yours?"

"No, not really," Dax picked up her duffel to fire it across the short expanse of hall into its new home.

"Oh, yes, thank you," Bashir said when she offered to do the same with his. "Anywhere is fine."

They both landed rather neatly on the upper bunk. Dax patted his shoulder. "That way the light won't shine in your eyes."

"Down into them you mean," Bashir agreed. "In the meantime all I have to do is roll over and stare down into it."

"There's a way around that," Dax promised.

"Don't roll over."

"Exactly," Dax said while Kira bellowed for Rom and a check on the status of the engines.

"Um…" Rom's four-lobed Ferengi head appeared through the interior hatch of the cargo hold. "Working on them, yup. Thermostat controls, too."

"Thermostat?" Kira sneered.

"The equipment?" Bashir reminded to where a Trill's hands were always cold, their shoulders weren't meant to be, as did the sensitivity of their equipment figure into the equation. "I suppose, yes, it we were housed in a cave we could always drain our phasers on a variety of rocks to keep ourselves and the equipment reasonably warm. In the meantime we're not in a cave, we're aboard a shuttle where it's supposed to be warm; comfortable at least."

"I really don't know where he comes up with these things," Dax admitted to Kira.

Neither did Kira. Somewhat apprehensive about inquiring into it further. Dax's attire or lack thereof was different. "Explains the brassiere."

"Oh," Bashir said. "Well, yes, I can explain the brassiere, or rather Dax can."

"Worf and I had an argument," Dax nodded.

"Um, yup," Rom could understand that. "Leeta's done that. Just, you know, walked out. Not thinking about anything. Just, you know, walking out."

"Sounds about right," Dax said.

"Does it?" Bashir inquired of Kira. She looked at him; he grinned. "Quite. I'm with you. Far more inclined to tell them, whoever, to get out. Be damned if I'm going to be ordered from my own quarters, or for that matter, voluntarily leave."

"What if they're not your quarters?" Dax cleverly put in.

"That's not the point," Bashir countered. "The point is they are your quarters, or were your quarters; I'm assuming you were in your quarters, as much as they are Worf's."

"No, that's not the point," Kira assured.

"Oh?" Bashir said. "What's the point?"

She ignored him to eye what appeared to be two mugs of coffee sitting on the island in their commissary. "Replicator working?"

"Yup," Rom said. "Waste disposal…transporter…"

"Transporter?" Kira interrupted in threat.

"Yup," Rom swore. "Just tested it. Couple of times. Test article into the shuttlebay, back to the cargo hold; not a problem."

"We'll take care of that," Kira headed forward to bang open the appropriate panel and pluck out of a few necessary isolinear chips that were therefore unnecessary to their goal of being transporter-less.

"Um…" Rom said. "Yup, okay. I'll get back to the engines -- you want those online, right?"

"Of course, I want them online," Kira said.

"Just checking," he disappeared.

Kira returned to eyeing Dax who smiled. "What's the point?"

"I need you alert," Kira reminded. "You," she assured Bashir, "I'll settle for alive."

"Do I really look that bad?" Bashir wondered as Kira veered aft to find out for herself a working replicator did not mean raktajino.

"Worse," Dax said.

"Oh. Well, probably has something to do with twenty-four hours and no sleep."

"Probably…But little," she proposed wisely, "to do with neuro med kits."

"What do you mean?" he maintained. "My mood -- if you're talking about my mood, or what you think is my mood, has everything to do with my med kit. I committed a crime, for God's sake. In the name of humanity, but yes, I still committed one. Bit thought provoking if it isn't anything else."

"Little…" Dax borrowed back his jacket to slip it on since he wasn't doing too much with it other than standing there holding it, "to do with neuro med kits."