"To the Death" was one of our favorite episodes, and the first time we meet Weyoun. The Jem'Hadar rebels attack the station and steal equipment to complete the Gateway, Captain Sisko joins the Dominion in stopping this, and Mia gets to meet Weyoun 4. :) This chapter is also named after another piece by Adrian von Ziegler.
Chapter One
Foreboding
This costume had been used for two years and was showing signs of worn. Mia had never had issues with it until now. But what could you expect after repeated use? Today was her day off, and she just found this. Might as well ask Garak to fix this.
"Oh, dear Mia, the skirt is the problem," he explained. "I can repair the panels for you and hand it over before the day is over." He set the long garment down on the table and picked up the brassiere itself. "However, this won't be of any problems," he assured her with a small smile of hope.
Mia smiled back at him. "What would anyone do without you, my friend?"
He looked at her in surprise before he laughed. "Mia, of all the people of this station - besides Julian - I find you the sweetest angel amongst. You sail on all forms of troubled waters to keep the peace. How do you even tolerate squabbles of any kind?"
She shook her head. "I can never stand squabbles of any kind," she answered, using his words, making them both laugh - and then their attentions were drawn overhead when her father, now captain, announced to the senior staff.
"Report to bridge."
"I should go with them," she told Garak, who nodded and watched as she left his shop.
"You better have a look at this," Benjamin told everyone as soon as they were aboard the bridge. Jadzia Dax took her place to his right side. Red lights were flashing, but that wasn't what everyone was looking at. The viewscreen was showing all of the station in space, clearly unharmed, but what was most disturbing was the sight of the pylon of the station: the upper part had been destroyed.
"My God, Daddy," she gasped, coming up to his left. "What happened?"
He shook his head. "Exactly what I'd love to know," he answered, putting his arm around her shoulder. "Major, set damage control to work and fix whatever needs to be, but make sure nothing is further impaired than it already is. And Mia, get back into the main station where it's safer." She hated being treated like the damsel in distress, so she waited until everyone was out of sight to do what she knew she had to. She just hated being of no use anywhere.
The damage control was taken care of and run by Kira as ordered, but Mia had it in her to not listen to her father's orders and go with the major, because she knew her boss would be there. Kira wasn't pleased but allowed her to stay nevertheless, and keep close to her, which she happily complied. Workers and personnel were working to clear the smoke in the air, Kira barking orders to those that passed by. Mia whipped her whole body around to see him coming through steam, shouting, "Has anyone seen my brother, Rom?"
Kira stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "He's fine," she assured him. "He's working with the damage control team today. Level five."
Quark heaved a heavy sigh then and put his hand on his abdomen. "What a relief." He then looked down at Mia. "When I find him, I promise I will kill him," he promised her, making her laugh a little. "For SCARING me like this." She shook her head along with Kira and watched as he headed back in the direction he came in.
"Major!" Odo had come up to her, holding a PADD. "Here are the preliminary lists of stolen equipment."
"Report, Major." Uh oh, her father. "Amelia!" he scolded when he saw her. "I thought I told you to get back into the main part..."
"I'm sorry, Captain, but I had to be here where it was necessary," she answered calmly. "But can you lecture me later?" He shook his head at her before looking back up at Kira, who now had the PADD from Odo.
"It was a...Jem'Hadar strike team," she explained to him. "They beamed aboard from a civilian transport and disabled all communications and weapons, and set off an explosive in upper pylon 3. All of it before anyone in the station could respond." Mia felt her blood chill as she thought of these Jem'Hadar, servants of the Dominion, who attacked her father's station and stole from the armory and laboratory. Twenty-three now, she knew something big was on the verge of happening. Living on the station for two years taught her to never take anything out of planet Earth lightly.
She looked over to where Dr. Bashir was helping with the wounded and dying. Behind her, she could still hear Kira explaining to her father how the science lab was raided and handing the list of stolen items to him. Sisko read them off: microfusion initiators, photonic amplifiers, and power stabilizers. The Jem'Hadar had been gone back into the wormhole long before anyone knew they were hit.
"Casualties?" Julian asked from where he was now, over a dead woman who suffered trachea trauma.
"So far, eighteen confirmed dead," Odo responded grimly, "thirty-one missing, and over a hundred wounded."
"They left about forty-five minutes ago at most," Kira added.
"Then we can still catch them, since their ion trail hasn't vanished," Dax agreed.
"I intend to do more than catch them. Sisko to Defiant, prepare for takeoff. Doctor, stay and assist the casualties. Major, the station is yours. Contact Starfleet and have them send more ships out here just in case this is a diversion. And Mia..." She looked up at him with her chin slightly raised. "...obey my orders this time and remain with the major."
"No," she said boldly and quietly. "I'm going with you. You're going to need someone to help keep the peace with words and appearance." She motioned to herself with her long dark hair flying wild over one shoulder, her light blue halter crop top baring her arms and abdomen, and the skirt reaching the floor with a daring slit in the front to bare her right leg. No one would harm her physically, not even with phaser blasts, but her father shook his head. This wasn't dabo, after all.
"Amelia Sisko, this is an order, and I ORDER you to remain behind with Major Kira where you will be protected." She opened her mouth to respond before Nerys spoke for her.
"Captain, I respect your order as much as she does, but I think she will be safe. What can go wrong if she's protected by armed men?" she asked with a little smile. Her persuasion worked better than Mia's, for Benjamin sighed in resignation; there was no time to waste in arguing after all.
"Very well, but stay close at all times. Constable," he told Odo, "you're with us. And do the honors of keeping my daughter by your side. As long as no harm comes to you on the trip." Mia looked to Kira and smiled softly, receiving one from the major, before joining Odo's side in time for her father to beam all four of them to the Defiant and enter the Bajoran wormhole to locate the escaping Jem'Hadar.
~o~
"What do you see, Dax?" Sisko asked some time later.
"Nothing," the lieutenant Trill answered. "Their ion trail is getting fainter. The Jem'Hadar must be emitting a magneton pulse to cover their tracks." Odo felt himself stiffen when he heard her mention the polarized magnetic energy which was produced during a damage to the main energy reactor. These Jem'Hadar must be very sophisticated if they were trying to clean their trail to nothing left.
"Frankly," he said to the captain, "I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened sooner. Fleeing the wormhole makes Deep Space 9 a tempting target." He looked up and saw Mia shift from foot to foot, a habit of hers when she was nervous. He wondered why she even wanted to come here to begin with; he adored her, but to babysit a stubborn girl like her? He was Chief of Security, but that didn't make him a babysitter for Captain Sisko's daughter.
Sisko sighed and sat down. "Sometimes I wish we could have the Defiant standing guard twenty-six hours a day, so we can prevent something like this from happening again."
Mia had been beside Odo all the time, and now she was behind her father. "Don't worry, Daddy, we'll find them," she assured him, the tender soul she was - and equally fierce-tempered, just like Nerys. Men would kill to have a woman like that, but sometimes females like Nerys and Mia were too stubborn to give in to a man's advances that easily. "Right, everyone?" she asked, looking around at the rest. She received nods of agreement, but while Odo sided with her, he silently doubted they would reach the fleeing Jem'Hadar ship in time...
And then Dax, bless her, piped up just as an alarm - not the emergency - rang. "I've got something!"
"Red alert, onscreen," Benjamin Sisko ordered, standing right away. The red lights flashed on at his demand. Showing on the screen was an easily recognizable Jem'Hadar attack ship, but that didn't mean it was undamaged, either. There was no way this could be the one they were searching, Odo mused, despite Worf's words.
"Major Kira said that the Jem'Hadar that attacked the station used a transport ship," he said. But Chief O'Brien disagreed upon further technical analysis.
"That ship is in pretty bad shape," he spoke, "looks like someone has been using it for target practice. There's no way this can be ours that we're looking for."
According to the Trill, whoever was still aboard was sending out a distress signal, calling for help. Odo had a very strange, negative feeling about the survivors of that ship - surviving Jem'Hadar, no other. Who else could there be besides them? "It could be a trap," he said cautiously.
Sisko agreed with him, even if he didn't voice it aloud. "How many crew members aboard?"
Dax checked with a press of a few buttons. "I'm reading seven life signs."
O'Brien looked startled, perhaps concerned even more. "They won't be breathing for long; the reactor is about to go critical and take the survivors with it."
~o~
Any other moment, he and his remaining Jem'Hadar would be dead in the destruction of their ship. He should be grateful that they were "rescued", but once they were in the presence of the "enemy", Weyoun was unsure about being in the presence of everyone else surrounding the man himself, Captain Benjamin Sisko, but diplomacy meant grace. And as Field Supervisor of the Dominion, he was no good dead before his job was completed. The female Changeling's orders were clear: seek out the renegade Jem'Hadar and punish them for their treachery. But his ship had been attacked by the civilian transport before they could accomplish in capturing the rebels, left to float about in space until it self-detonated.
Thankfully, the distress signal had been responded.
He stood with the lead Omet'iklan, Virak'kara, Toman'torax and three more in front of the Federation crew, aboard the USS Defiant. His guards were looking for their weapons for defense, before the man in charge informed them, "If you're looking for your weapons, they were removed in transport."
Omet'iklan regarded him coolly. "Even without weapons, we're more than a match for you." Jem'Hadar were rather savage beings, without the ketracel-white in their system that they survived off without real food and drink, almost like ration for survival of the fittest.
"I wouldn't be too certain of that." That new voice - that was a Klingon. Omet'iklan's men were getting a bit restless now; Weyoun decided now to announce his presence among them. The Jem'Hadar parted to let him step forward.
"Control your men," he ordered the lead guard, tightening his grip on the case of white, before turning his attention to the Federation crew. "These people saved our lives." His temper was on the rise when the man dared to question him.
"And for that, we should take advantage -"
"You. Do. Nothing," Weyoun ordered firmly, tongue tied, and held up one finger. "Without my approval. My apologies, Captain," he said to the dark-skinned man he remembered reading in a report from the Founder. "I'm afraid the Jem'Hadar are sadly deficient to social graces."
The captain glared first at him and then at his men. He wasn't eager for social politeness; how could he when it was obvious the renegades attacked his station and stole what they needed to finish what the Dominion scientists found on Vandros IV? "Two hours ago, my station was attacked by Jem'Hadar." The very same ones who set fire to his own ship and left him stranded in deep space.
"I know," Weyoun answered solemnly. "They attacked us, too."
"And why would your own people attack you?" Weyoun was surprised to see that the speaker was a male Changeling. He had to be the chief of security of Deep Space 9, by the looks of him. He tried to think of the name of this being, before it struck him: Odo. He opened his mouth before Omet'iklan interrupted.
"Sir, tell them nothing. This is NOT their concern."
This was their concern because their station had been attacked by the same traitors to the Dominion, so they deserved to know. "Your next line of white will be in two hours," he told Omet'iklan sharply, trying to keep from exploding at being questioned, "and if you want it in time, you will be quiet and do as you are told." He turned his attention to Sisko. "Captain..." He stepped away from his Jem'Hadar soldiers and lowered his voice even though everyone could still hear him. "...you and I should talk...in private."
~o~
Her breath had been knocked out of her lungs when both her eyes - one brown, the other blue - saw that pale, crystalline face and the vivid violet-colored eyes which glittered with both radiance and malice. His head was of lush dark curls and elongated ears you could barely see the inner slits which enabled him to hear. And his voice was smooth and alluring as a Japanese zen garden. He might be appealing in appearance, but he was also a faithful servant to the malevolent Dominion and therefore that made him a frightening figure. The Jem'Hadar served the enemy Dominion, and that made him so, too. Mia blinked; where did those thoughts of this mysterious being come from? She didn't know him, already saw him as a threat, but she was also thinking about how handsome he was!
"I agree, because I want to settle this mess about these Jem'Hadar and my station," her father answered, "but I'm afraid you didn't formally introduce yourself."
The alien-man let loose a laugh; the sound was a beating exotic drum to her ears - from African to all Asian countries, Japanese, Irish and on - so soothing and magical, yet so exciting and dangerous. "Of course. Where are my manners? I am Weyoun, Dominion Field Supervisor. And I am a Vorta, if you are wondering. My people are a species you probably don't see everyday." She'd read a little bit about the Vorta; they were indeed rare creatures, sensual in appearance and very crafty, and the words "rarest and most beautiful" were truer words never spoken. There had been one particular Vorta of this species - a female - whom her father, Jake, Quark and Nog had picked up from another planet when they were under attack by some Jem'Hadar, before it was revealed that her appearance deceived her true loyalties. So she wasn't going to let herself get any deeper with this man because this was business and business only. She stood ground beside her father and took his hand into hers.
"Dad, take my advice and be careful," she whispered, but the Vorta had such good ears he could even hear her from afar. He laughed again and extended his hand so it touched her shoulder. She jumped under his cool, sizzling touch. Warmth was left as a side effect. She looked up once again into Weyoun's liquid blue gaze, calculating meeting with new timidity.
"My dear, do not fear for your father. As you can see, I'm not physically imposing, unlike my men." His head half-turned to his escorts. "Omet'iklan, I'd advise to not harm this...delicate flower, in any way, while I speak to her father. Understood?" He looked down at her and smiled again. "Rest assured, Miss Sisko." Mia felt disappointed when his gaze returned to Benjamin. "Captain, lead the way."
Thank God the guards went with them on last minute notice, despite their master's threat. Mia felt a warm, clay-smooth hand rest on her shoulder. Odo was looking down at her. "Your father is a brave man," he said softly. "Remember, rest assured." He was just as suspicious as she and O'Brien, Worf, Dax and everyone else around them, but for Mia herself, she wasn't sure if she could stay that suspicious about the Vorta, whom she had yet to learn more of.
~o~
The mess hall of all places, which was currently unoccupied, was the best place to speak to the captain of Deep Space 9. Weyoun actually didn't care as long as it was just the two of them getting to business. Looking before the powerful man in front of him, he had to say he felt esteemed to be in the presence of the one of the most intimidating men he'd encountered in his career. "If you have something to say to me, make it quick," Sisko ordered, his patience wearing thin. Weyoun's own was doing the same, and he wasn't aboard the "rescue ship" for nothing. Nevertheless, he smiled cordially and inclined his head forward.
"Captain Benjamin Sisko, I feel honored. Your psychographic profile requires reading for Vorta Field Supervisors. I probably know things about you that you don't know yourself." His record was brilliant, flawless in courage but casualties in some manner, but warfare and disputes were all about disaster. He wanted to make a good first impression as it was required.
"If you're trying to impress me," Sisko stated coldly, "you can forget it."
Weyoun regarded him with a calculating, piercing look also bordering on sneaky, which anyone else would call. He was a master at playing cards, always having a trick or two up his sleeve, and this was the card he would play now, hoping it would tempt the indominable Benjamin Sisko. "What would you say," he said as he circled him, "if I offered to make you absolute ruler of the Federation? No President, no stifling Chief of Staff...just you."
He paused in front of him with the last word, his mouth curved upward slightly, already knowing what Sisko's answer would be long before he answered. He wanted nothing more than to have a mutual alliance with the Federation, but Benjamin Sisko was not a man who gave into temptation so easily, it seemed. "I'd say that your...psychographic profile of me isn't as good as you think," the captain said.
Weyoun laughed at his proud self, resisting what all men desired: hunger for power. He liked Sisko already more than he did before. He held up both his hands in a mild gesture of "take it easy". "Just...doing my job. Trying to build a bridge between the Dominion and the potential ally. After all, wouldn't it be much simpler if the Dominion and the Federation could reach some...mutual beneficial understanding without resorting to the unpleasantness of military conflict?"
He'd always hated conflicts of any kind, despite opposing sides being one of the most natural in the world - one of the most natural of this universe for that matter - and war conflict was beyond his own control. Unless the Federation went too far and started something drastic and would force the Dominion to act, and vice versa. "I would love nothing better than to find the Jem'Hadar who attacked my station," Sisko told Weyoun, approaching the conference table and laying his phaser rifle down before him. "If you want to build a bridge, why don't you start there? The Jem'Hadar, after all, do belong to you and your superiors."
Perfect. It seemed they were at the start of a possible mutual understanding, after all. "I can lead you to them," Weyoun offered, "but...there is something I need in exchange." He couldn't have the rebellious Jem'Hadar excluded without the help of the captain's armed forces, which was not on the Dominion's side at the present.
"And what's that?"
"I want you to help me eliminate them. The Jem'Hadar that attacked your station are renegades. They've turned their back on their oath of allegiance to the Dominion, and it's MY job to see to it that they're punished." He lifted his chin up with dignity and arrogance, determined to carry out his responsibility because it could not be overlooked so easily.
Sisko was utterly baffled even though he tried not to show it. "Why do you need my help? The Dominion is fully equipped that you could send a fleet of Jem'Hadar warships after them!"
"I'm afraid we don't have the time." Especially with the matter of the completion of one of the galaxy's oldest, most cultivated transport devices long since the race of its origin went extinct. He seated himself down at the table, still looking up at Sisko. "Captain, are you familiar with the Iconians?" he asked.
"They controlled a vast interstellar empire about...two hundred thousand years ago," Benjamin answered, matter-of-factly.
Weyoun was unimpressed. "What's more important is how the Iconians controlled that empire."
"The Gateways, of course."
"Exactly. Sophisticated transporters that would allow them to move instantaneously from one planet to another, from one solar system to another without the use of starships."
"What does any of this have to do with me?"
"Dominion scientists recently discovered a Gateway on one of our outlying worlds. We sent a team of scientists to restore it, but their Jem'Hadar guards rebelled and are now trying to complete the Gateway themselves." And once they did, there would be no means of ordering them to surrender and answer for their crimes, which would mark the end of himself, his gods, and the Dominion itself.
Sisko allowed the information to sink in and nodded, tying these rebel guards to the ones who ravaged his station and stole the equipment which turned out what would be used to make the Gateway and themselves indestructible. "These...renegade Jem'Hadar stole some equipment from my station. EPS power stabilizers, microfusion initiators, and photonic amplifiers."
Weyoun pursed his lips and nodded. "I would say it's very possible they are going to use that equipment to help them complete the Gateway." His face softened, the puppy dog eyes near enough to make another person succumb to his pleas easily...and they would find themselves in the Venus flytrap before they had time to blink. "You understand the nature of our dilemma." He knew Captain Sisko hated the Dominion, but he did not understand just yet that the end of the Dominion also meant the end of the Federation, both sides of the same coin.
Sisko sympathized, but not for the Dominion. He nodded slowly, a faraway look in his eye. "If the Jem'Hadar were to make the Gateway operational...they'll become virtually invincible." Weyoun nodded, too.
"Our experts predict that our renegades would gather support from other Jem'Hadar units, launch a general inspection, and effect a complete takeover of the Dominion in less than a year."
The captain regarded him for a few long moments before picking his weapon back up and turned away from him. "None of which is my problem," he said defiantly. How dare he think so simplistically of the Dominion as if it was no more than a worn slipper or a burnt out generator, something of no more power and of little use now! Weyoun begged to differ.
The Vorta agent jumped up from his seat as soon as the captain turned his back to him. "That's VERY short-sighted of you, Captain!" he said angrily. "Think about it: if the Jem'Hadar seize control of the Dominion, there will be no stopping them. Even shutting down the Wormhole won't protect the Alpha Quadrant. With the Gateway, they could put a million Jem'Hadar warriors on any Federation planet instantaneously." He knew how much Sisko did not want to see every inch of his hard work and restoring to order falling to ruin because he let another side be destroyed by a newer, more powerful force that was once chained like an animal, and that meant the longer the animal was locked up, the more vengeful it became. Weyoun lowered his voice precariously.
"Would you care to see our projection of Federation casualties?"
Sisko seemed to take his words in. He turned around to face him then, mouth curling as though trying not to laugh. "Couldn't the Founders just order them to surrender? From what I know, the Jem'Hadar are genetically engineered to OBEY them."
"The Founders' ability to control the Jem'Hadar has been somewhat..." He turned away from him as he spoke, working for the right word without making himself and his gods seem like fools who made a grievous error. Controlling the Jem'Hadar was as delicate as cloning, but cloning his people was another matter aside that fact. "...overstated," he said finally, turning back around to look at the captain. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to addict them to the white. They can never survive without it; if they didn't, they'd be more animal than rational-thinking beings."
"Or maybe the Dominion isn't as...stable as you'd like us to believe."
Weyoun's pale amethyst eyes hardened as his body. "The Dominion," he said ominously, still softly, "has endured for two thousand years and will continue to endure long after the Federation has crumbled into dust." He'd leaned his face near enough to let his breath wash over. "But, we'll leave that to history. Right now, we have a more pressing concern. The Gateway...must...be...destroyed. Agreed?"
He knew good and well that the other man should agree, because the last thing Sisko needed was the cost of billions to trillions of lives, as well as those of himself and his own crew. And after a long time of pause to consideration, the captain said the one word which he had hoped for.
"Agreed."
I'm happy with how this chapter came out, nothing else to say other than that. As for the development of Weyoun and Mia's eventual relationship, the plan is for them to simply encounter each other until Weyoun's next incarnation - the fifth - and that's when things get serious between them. :)