Chapter 1
The darkness crept into her as her eyes parted. An odd sensation, a feeling that she was not all together real, washed over her. Stiff and otherworldly, she reached beside her to feel Worf's presence and felt an emptiness of space. She pulled her hand back and down to the bed edge. There she felt metal instead of sheet and cushion. She sat up, too quickly she realized, and her head spun. The dizziness pulled her back to the mattress. She tried again, much more slowly, and tried gain her bearings.
"Lights!" she called, but nothing happened.
Where am I? She swung her legs around and hung them off of the platform. From this position she could see lights flickering off of a display, illuminating her surroundings as her eyes adjusted. She could see other platforms, and more equipment. It was a medical lab of some kind, that much she could tell. But, where was Julian? This was no lab she had ever been in before. Or was it? Something about it looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't place it. Like a dream the idea faded out before she could grasp hold of it.
"Hello," she called out into the darkness. Suddenly from a room beyond hers, a light turned on and she could seem someone coming down a hall she hadn't realized was there. "Hello? Could you tell me where I am please?" She tried to sound more confident than she felt. Had she been captured? If so, where were the guards, and why wasn't she shackled?
The overhead lights buzzed to life, leaving her to face a medical-staff person of some kind. A trill. Trill. Of course, she was in a Trillian lab. A strange sort of fear crept up her back , pouring into her, cooling her until she felt numb. Looking down, she noticed the exam robe for the first time. She was in a Trillian lab, on an exam table. This wasn't good.
"Where am I? What's happened?" A voice, not her own, emitted from her mouth. Startled, her hand went to her throat. "Answer me, please!"
The lab technician smiled calmly at her. "You are fine Maliah. The procedure went well. All is well. How do you feel?" He plucked a diagnostic tool from his belt and furrowed his eyes at her as he took some measurements.
She stared openly at him. A terrible mistake must have been made. Maliah? The name didn't even sound familiar to her. She opened her mouth to explain, and again she noticed her voice didn't sound right. It was high, and, well, just wrong.
"I'm on Trill aren't I?"
"Of course you are. Don't worry about how you feel right now, it is normal to feel disoriented and out of place for the first few days. This is perfectly normal."
Normal? Normal for who?
"I'm sorry, but some kind of mistake has been made. My name is not Maliah. Please, tell me what you've done." Her hands shook as she felt stomach, but then sensed the Dax symbiont within her. At least that hadn't changed.
"What do you mean? Your name is Maliah Dax. You are newly joined. Yesterday evening to be exact. Do you remember nothing of the last few days?" He began to examine her even more closely, scrutinizing every movement.
She became more agitated and upset with every word. Fear and disbelief ran over her in great waves, crashing into her mind with exploding force. Coldness overtook her.
"Newly joined? I have been joined for 10 years. What have you done? What have you done?" She jumped off the table, looking desperately for her reflection in any surface she could, but it was foggy and disjointed. "Where's Worf? What's happened?" She ran frantically from the technician as he attempted to give her a hypo-spray to calm her down.
"Who is Worf, Maliah? Who is it you want?" He was speaking slowly, trying not to alarm her.
"My husband. He would be here if this were some kind of emergency. Where is he?"
"Maliah, you are not married. You came here with your Mentor yesterday. You will be all right."
All right? She had to get out of there. She ran, dodging him left then right. Suddenly, several more technicians arrived and began circling her, speaking in overly calm tones, each carrying a hypo-spray. She panicked, her fighting stance kicking in, she began to lunge at them. Anything to stay clear of the hypo-spray.
"Worf!" She was crying and screaming and yelling at them all at once. Who was she? "I am Jadzia Dax." She cried. "I am Jadzia Dax! What did you do?"
Without warning a technician leaned over her and began to push the hypo-spray up to her shoulder. She reached back and flipped him up over her head. With the Klingon battle cry ripping out of her throat, she grabbed the spray and began shooting it into any tech that dared to get close to her. She disabled seven of them before they took her down, kicking and screaming, to the floor. A sharp pain in her neck from the shot told her she had lost the fight. Her body slowed and her eyes closed. Darkness.
Worf watched the scene play again from his chair in the Captain's ready room, his eyes full of disbelief and confusion. His muscles tensed when the woman called out his name, crying out for his help. He closed his eyes tightly and exhaled. When he opened them he realized that all eyes of the senior officers were focused on him. The pain he was feeling echoing in their eyes as well.
"I received this transmission from the Trill home world yesterday. This recording is over three weeks old. " Sisko cleared his throat. "They have done many tests. Most of which prove to be conclusive. This woman is Jadzia Dax. Her mind is complete in what Jadzia knew and experienced. They cannot find any trace of the woman they knew as Maliah."
"How can that be, Captain?" Kira was incredulous.
"You are asking the wrong person Major." He redirected the question to Dr. Bashier.
"Well, as far as they can tell, Maliah's brain wave patterns have been reset somehow. The only way this could have happened, except by medical means, is that Maliah allowed it to happen. That is the conclusion of the Trill Ministry as well. They took Maliah to the symbiont pool and had the Dax symbiont merge with the others. The report was favorable. That is, " he stopped, looking around seeing the confused expressions on his companions faces, "Maliah is not being used against her will by the previous host, Jadzia, nor is she going against their peoples mores and taboos and trying to live out the previous hosts life. There is no coercion on either of their parts. As far as they can tell Maliah has allowed herself to be, well, re-written. The symbionts see no need to have Dax re-joined again. They are pleased."
"You will forgive me doctor if I seem ignorant, but how could this have occurred in the first place?" Odo's scratchy voice challenged.
"Well, from the data they sent to us, their guess is that the energy from the alien that killed Jadzia somehow transformed the Dax symbiont. The readings are not normal by their scale. Jadzia's personality seems to have been embedded into it. And although it's unusual and rare, this sort of thing has happened twice before. The first occasion the symbiont chose to continue living the life it had had once its current host had passed on. It actually forced the previous hosts memory onto the current host against their will. That is taboo, and it was killed by the other symbionts upon removal. The other was when the host decided to pick up where the last host left off, and they removed the symbiont to protect it. That host was put into a mental facility. This seems to be neither case. Who ever Maliah was, she is no more. Neither they nor myself cannot say if she will someday reappear, but for now, she has been effectively written-over and Jadzia's intellect and personality are alive and well in Maliah's body."
Bashier looked around the room at the crew. What he saw in their eyes was mirrored in his mind. This couldn't be, but it was. "They are sending her to us for evaluation. It is the opinion of the Trill Ministry that to keep her from returning to her old life could cause a great deal of psychological harm. If we rule in her favor, she will be allowed to return to duty, and life goes on as normal."
"Normal?" Worf's voice boomed in the meeting room. He rose from his seat and left before Julian could make a reply.