Author's Note: This is a Greensleeves AU story. If you haven't read Greensleeves yet, I suggest you do, or this won't make much sense. In terms of the DS9 TV series, this story is set toward the end of season 3.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and I am not making any money off of this. All original characters, settings, and events are my property and cannot be used without my permission.

1

It would have been easy to believe we were the only two people in the universe, traveling through the darkness between solar systems in our tiny Starfleet shuttle, silent and unheeded. The only sounds in the small ship were those of the computer running through its regular routines and performing analyses we had set for it. I could hear my own breathing, measured and deep, but the small sounds of the shuttle masked the sound of Julian's breathing from my ears.

I glanced over at him and a small smile tugged at my lips. He was gazing at the console in front of him, tapping his fingers soundlessly against it, but even though his eyes moved over the information being displayed for him, I could tell that his thoughts were elsewhere. It was like that sometimes with Julian. Most people assumed he did not have to think deeply, because he could think so quickly, but I had known him for a long time, and I knew that there were times when he pondered something thoroughly and slowly. I watched him for a moment longer, and it was a measure of how far his thoughts were that he didn't notice my attention.

Then I leaned toward him slightly and whispered:

"Orinoco to Doctor Bashir."

The effect was instantaneous; he returned from where he had been in the blink of an eye - literally. He glanced over at me, curiously, and I smiled. He grinned back at me. It was one of the things I loved best about him: whenever he smiled at me, his face and eyes lit up. There was no holding back, no distractions, just the joy of the moment.

"You were a million kilometers away," I commented.

"Rather more than that," he said wryly. "Seventy thousand light years, actually."

"Back on the station?"

He shook his head and I raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to explain. I could tell that something had been on his mind lately, since we had left two days ago, but I could also tell he wanted some time to mull it over. I had teased him briefly that he was feeling guilt for the minor injury that Ensign Klixa had sustained in a training program in one of Quark's holosuites. Of course, Julian hadn't had anything to do with that, nor had he any way of knowing that Benjamin would agree to my suggestion to bring him with me on this short cartographic survey. My one other science officer, Lieutenant Jemmsi, was on leave on Bajor, and so I had suggested the change to Benjamin, not truly believing he'd accept. When he had, I'd seized the opportunity and so had Julian. We didn't often have the chance to go on away missions with only each other. And Klixa was safe in the care of the station's newest Starfleet addition, a half-human, half-Vulcan doctor named Simon Tarses.

"A little further than that," Julian replied. "I think I need to get in touch with the doctors on Aedigeon Prime who did my enhancements."

I was immediately alarmed and Julian responded to my expression, holding up his hands to assuage me.

"To see how my genes would be passed onto a child!" he reassured me. "Nothing's wrong with me. I just need to know if whatever was wrong with me when I was born will be passed on, or if it's been completely eradicated."

I let out a slow, deep breath, taking my time before responding. We hadn't yet decided if we'd have children, mostly because there were things we had to deal with, like this. I suspected we'd eventually decide to have children, but Julian seemed less certain, although perhaps with good reason. I knew he worried about how his relationship with his parents, deteriorated now to the point of being destroyed, would affect his relationship with a child. I knew it was a real concern, but I also thought his awareness of his parents' mistakes with him would let him be a better parent. He'd pay more attention to what he was doing.

"That's a good idea," I said. "And if you need to go there when we get back, I'll go with you."

He smiled at me and leaned over, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek.

"I know," he replied.

"But you're sure you're all right?" I asked.

"I'm fine, Zia," he assured me. "You know I've been monitoring myself ever since I found out I had the enhancements, and I've got Simon working on it too, now. He agrees with me; I am absolutely fine."

I nodded, feeling relieved. It was always a worry for me, in the back of my mind, but I also knew that Julian had been lucky, in his way. His parents had actually paid for experts to do his enhancements, and they had been done properly.

I was also glad that he'd enlisted Simon's help in keeping track of his health. I was grateful that Starfleet had finally assigned another doctor to Terok Nor, after two years of having Benjamin on their case about it. The processing center had its own medical staff, of course, and they certainly helped out when Julian needed it, but it was getting harder for him to balance his workload well. Since the discovery of the wormhole and the moving of the station to be at its mouth, Terok Nor had seen an influx in Starfleet and civilian personnel. I smiled slightly to myself as I remembered that momentous day - I'd been on the other side of the galaxy and had arrived back in time to see a small fleet of Bajoran and Cardassian ships towing an immense space station, which was propelling itself as best it could with its modest thrusters. Since then, we had been further from Bajor, but closer to the first stable wormhole known in the galaxy.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," I said and Julian grinned, leaning over to kiss me, this time on the lips. I kissed him back, then pulled away slightly. "All right, Doctor, we do have work to do out here."

He kissed me again, quickly, then settled back into his seat. We had long ago decided that, when working, we were officers, and in our off-duty hours, we were Jadzia and Julian.

"That's odd," he said suddenly and I glanced over.

"What is it?"

"I'm picking up some sort of energy reading, but the computer can't seem to localize it. Hang on."

I called up the information on his display and he was right. There was some sort of intermittent energy source out there. I scanned the system we were approaching, but I couldn't find a likely source. This system had four gas giants, one rocky inner planet and a number of moons, but none of them were suitable for immediate habitation, and if anyone had claim to this system, they certainly hadn't started any terraforming projects or set up any bases. Like as not, it was unclaimed, as were many of the other systems we'd mapped over the past two days. In the nearly three years since the discovery of the wormhole, the Federation had made first contact with several races, but we had not encountered another large political organization such as ourselves or the Klingon Empire. At first, I'd thought this odd, but perhaps it wasn't. After all, the Federation was only a few hundred years old, and the Bajoran-Cardassian alliance, which had merged with the UFP almost a hundred years ago, was not much older. The Klingon Empire predated either of the other two major organizations, but still, not by that long, considering the age of the universe, or even the age of most habitable systems.

"Computer, run an analysis on the energy source and compare it to known readings from cloaked Klingon vessels," Julian said, snapping my attention back to the present. I suddenly felt, again, how small we were, but in a much different way. If there were Klingons out here, they could come across us unprepared, and we would have no chance at defending ourselves. Of course, Klingon ships didn't tend to prey on Federation vessels anymore - the merger between the Alliance and the Federation had effectively silenced the threat from the Empire, because of the sheer size of the Federation. But that wouldn't stop a renegade Klingon vessel in another quadrant. And then, who would know?

"There is no match between the energy source and any known Klingon vessels," the computer replied.

"Then what is it?" Julian asked.

"Insufficient data. Please restate question," the computer said, and my husband muttered "Yeah, yeah" under his breath.

"I'm picking up some sort of satellite," I said. "It looks like -"

I was cut off when a garbled voice filled out tiny cabin. It took the computer a few moments to process the unfamiliar language, so Julian and I sat in confused silence until the universal translator began deciphering the words.

"Attention unidentified vesses. You have just crossed into Trisepat space. You have been scanned, and your vessel configuration does not match any known ships in our database. Please hold -"

The recording was interrupted suddenly when the shock of a phaser blast shudder through our ship.

"Shields!" I yelled, but it was too late; a high pitched whine made me spin around to see three aliens being deposited in the cabin behind our seats. Julian had grabbed a phaser before they had fully materialized, and had aimed and fired, but the female who was his target seemed to have been expecting it and ducked. The alien in the middle, a male, fired back at Julian, and caught him square in the chest. I let out a cry, more in anger than fear, and started toward the shooter, but three weapons aimed right at me stopped me up.

The recording came back on, startling me.

"Please hold your position until we can rendezvous with you -"

The woman at whom Julian had shot fired at the console, silencing the message in a shower of sparks. I felt a sudden impact on my chest and my nerves exploded with pain before everything went dark.

"Zia. Jadzia." A whispered voice, and the sensation of cool fingertips against my forehead. I groaned, and the world fluttered as I managed to open my eyes. The first thing I saw was Julian's concerned gaze, then the relief when I focused on him. I let my eyes dart past him, but it took a moment for them to adjust to the dim lighting.

"How do you feel?" he whispered.

"I'm all right, I think," I replied in the same low tone. He nodded, but still looked concerned.

"I need to check the symbiont. Let me know if you feel any pain."

As he did so, I propped myself on my arms and was finally able to get a view of where we were, but it brought only a sinking feeling of dismay. Someone had put us into a tiny cell, perhaps four meters square, and there did not seem to be any doors. The walls were a dark, cool metal, and the source of the dim light was the join between the ceiling and walls. Aside from the recessed lights, the room was featureless.

"Any idea where we are?" I asked quietly. Julian shook his head, still concentrating on the task. It didn't sit well with me that he was as uncertain as I was. I was relieved beyond words to find him alive and with me. I would never forget the moment I saw him shot, as hard as I might try. But I knew he would have regained consciousness before me – not only because he'd woken me up, but because of his enhancements. It did not bode well that he had no other information.

"I think you're all right," he said, sitting back on his heels and I nodded. I felt no disorientation, no loss of memory, and certainly none of the pain I would associate with an injury to Dax.

"They'll start looking for us this evening," I told him, and he nodded, although he still looked grim. As an away team, we were required to check in every twenty-six hours, and thanks to the communications array we'd set up with the help of the Cardassian Science Ministry, we could communicate with Terok Nor through the wormhole. But tonight we wouldn't, and Benjamin would have ships searching for us an hour after we failed to check in.

And then there was this mysterious Trisepat. They had scanned our ship and knew our location, so perhaps they would be able to find us.

Provided they weren't the ones who had done the capturing.

A section of the wall slid open suddenly, and a brighter light flooded in, startling both of us. Two people stepped in, both aliens neither of us had ever seen, but obviously from different races. One of them was somewhat shorter than me, with skin so pale it looked as if it were covered with talcum powder, and ears that resembled nothing so much as spiraling sea shells. He had dark, wavy hair that came down to his shoulders, and eyes the most intense shade of violet I'd ever seen. He was smiling slightly, as if enjoying a private joke.

The other was obviously reptilian, but I could not tell if it was male or female. It was shorter than the pale man, with tiny, dark red scales, and narrowed, piercing green eyes. Both of them held weapons aimed at us, and their manner suggested we'd get no warnings.

"We're here," the pale man said in a disconcertingly pleasant voice.

"Where?" Julian demanded. He was still sitting in front of me, and had shifted slightly as if to protect me. I knew it would make no difference, but I also knew he felt he had to try. The only thing I disliked about being joined is how physically vulnerable I could be.

"Your new home," the pale man said, in the same pleasant voice. "I do have to warn you, though, I doubt you will enjoy it much."

He stepped toward Julian, pulling something out of a pocket, and my husband moved quickly, far faster than most humans could, snagging the man's wrist and twisting and squeezing until he dropped the hypospray. A moment later, a phaser blast hit Julian in the chest and I saw him go down a second time. I stood frozen, knowing that I'd get the same treatment if I moved. The pale man scooped up the hypospray and stepped toward me. I knew I had no choice; it was either this, or risk death by taking a phaser blast in the stomach. I tilted my head to the left and the man injected me quickly. I did not even have time to feel the medication take hold before I was unconscious.