O'Brien gasped from a heady mix of fear and elation, briefly disoriented by the after-effect of the unanticipated transport. Sensing himself solidify far more gradually than was usual for a beam-down, he bent low, and forced a series of deep, steadying breaths. A sudden wave of dizziness passed briefly through his head, and he overbalanced, staggering against the nearest solid surface.
At least that's something, he thought, grunting softly. Good to find there's something solid round this place. It took him several more gasps of the local air before he was steady and confident enough to risk letting go.
Wherever he'd found himself, the atmosphere was thin. There was not as much oxygen as he was normally accustomed to, but neither did it carry any sign of toxicity. Difficult, O'Brien noted. But manageable. He would still have to take care. He stepped away, finally allowing himself a moment to re-establish his bearings.
It was another cave, broader than those he'd encountered at the Whirlpool, and easily twice as high as the double-storey Promenade of Deep Space Nine. An eerie, swamp-green glow was creeping shallowly over every wall. By this illumination, Miles supposed that it must have been entirely formed from smooth, hard limestone. So, if that were true, then there had to have been water somewhere nearby.
He was glad for this thought. The transport from the runabout had certainly left him thirsty, every bit as much as he was tired.
Pausing to rest a hand against the nearest sloping wall, Miles O'Brien tilted his head and peered all the way to the top of the cave. He sighed with quiet disappointment. Stone blades hung in tendrils from a high, curved ceiling. But he could not find any sign of liquid water, which might otherwise have indicated a shallow pool on the rock face somewhere just beyond his sight.
Something was there. In the distant shadows, a chorus of screams sounded long and shrill, loud enough to hurt his ears. O'Brien flinched away from the multitude of cries, but there was no unexpected attack. No swarm of tiny, sharp-toothed creatures surging downwards from the blackened spaces. It's just some sort of mating cry, he hastened to reassure himself, but continued to startle at even the faintest echoes. Calling to each other. Nothing to do with you.
But with this feeble attempt to believe his own thoughts, he could not imagine that any creature would find those shrieks attractive.
A quietly surreptitious smile passed fleetingly across Eiyon's face as he glanced around the now unguarded corridor. After so much time, so much patience, the moment for action had finally arrived.
It had been so disappointingly easy to ambush the cocoa-skinned Security officer in the midst of his apparent vigil, even easier to overpower that same officer with a loaded hypospray pressed against his throat, until he collapsed to the floor at the entrance to the brig.
Federation Security assumed that its men were alert and watchful. And this one could not have been an exception. Alert, perhaps, but not enough. A lapse in concentration had quickly become an opportunity as, keeping to the lieutenant's blind spot, Eiyon had crept soundlessly closer. The man had dropped with minimum effort on his attacker's part, as susceptible to the artificial gravity as a bulging, weighted sack.
The only thing Eiyon regretted was that the attack itself had not proven to be more of a challenge. Catching the man so that he made no noise, and dragging the moderately hefty, rotund body away from any potential lines of sight was marginally difficult by comparison - but still not quite as satisfying as he'd imagined it would be. No others had emerged from hidden corners. None came to disturb him in the execution of his duty to the Founders, causing him to wonder if there were likely to be any real obstacles to this mission at all.
Had any of Starfleet even seen him leave the confinement of his quarters? There had been no evidence before now that he had been noticed. Which was precisely why the Vorta had permitted himself that chance to smile.
Before long, the muscles of his face had shifted again, returning to its previous mask of false cordiality. Saying nothing, he turned away from where he'd hidden the now unconscious guard and took three deliberate steps towards the nearest holding cell. The tall, young-faced human watched him from within, staring through narrowed eyes, noting every slight movement of his visitor's approach. The light from above highlighted his features to exaggerate the unyielding caution in his eyes.
Eiyon transformed his own expression into something far more subtle. A practised, hypnotic stare issued forth from behind the ice-blue of his eyes, intended particularly to ease the suspicions of wary aliens. His thin, pastry-white face maintained its cool neutrality.
A good first impression was most important in his line of work, after all. And at that moment, it was essential to ingratiate himself to the human shut inside that narrow cell. This one was a doctor, Eiyon had discovered. A healer of the sick. He would not react well if he should see what had happened to the gold-suited Security officer. And even if they did manage to avoid the place where the Vorta had been obliged to hide the injured man, gaining the prisoner's trust would still be the most difficult part of the mission.
Almost every Alpha Quadrant species had been given too much time already to develop unfair prejudices against the Dominion. First impressions again. If their initial contact had been his to control, he would have played a far more subtle game, tried to establish good relations from the very beginning. Friends were so much easier to defeat than enemies.
But the Founders had clearly made their choices, and these were not for him to question. At that moment, his own task was to work especially hard on this man.
"Good morning," he began. The human responded mutely with a wary, sidelong frown, and backed away to the farthest corner of the holding cell, recoiling until he had gained as much distance as he could between himself and his diminutive visitor.
But Eiyon was scarcely inexperienced in the delicate art of interspecies relations. More than one of his clones had spent a lifetime perfecting his skills in service to the Founders. He had made his mistakes, come to learn from them, and occasionally even died from them. Indeed, suspicion was an obstacle he had long since come to expect. It would have been foolish to allow this one's attitude to discourage him.
Contact with nervous aliens always ended in one of two ways. Either those he encountered accepted the Dominion's superior claim, or they were summarily destroyed. These Alpha Quadrant aliens were little different, this human no less insignificant than any other. Eiyon was not worried.
"I will not harm you." As if to confirm the truth of his promise, the Vorta stepped forward. He chose not to notice the prisoner's involuntary flinch. Reaching for a panel directly beside the door, he entered the complicated sequence that he'd taken care to memorise when the Founders first sent him on this unusual mission. The forcefield separating them flickered once, and vanished in a burst of speckled orange.
"You see?" Eiyon's smile was unmistakeable. His voice grew still more deliberately smooth as he stepped aside, just far enough to allow the reluctant lieutenant an easy passage through. "I want the same thing you do. Nothing more than a chance to reach your goal."
Dax scowled quietly before opening her eyes, and yawned, wondering exactly when and how she had found the chance to doze off. The same frown lingered, longer than she wished it to. There was an ache across her shoulders, stabbing like a blunted knife, even stronger along the back of her legs where her tendons had stiffened with the passing of the night. A reminder - she had not chosen the best position in which to have fallen asleep.
But if she had missed the beginning of her shift, she was certain that somebody would have contacted her by now and demanded a response. Besides, she added, groaning as she rubbed away the tension in her neck, who could possibly have overslept in such an uncomfortable position? It was unlikely that she had been there for more than two or three hours, and doubtful that she had even slept for twenty minutes of that time.
Muscles creaking irritably, Jadzia pushed herself first to her knees, and finally stumbled onto her feet. A brief tide of pins and needles passed her by, numbing her legs until they had accustomed themselves to the sudden rush of blood. She noticed that the lights were back on full. Early morning, she thought, and hoped that Julian had managed to find some rest as well - however brief it might have been. Even better if she should approach the holding cell and find him still asleep.
She skirted, still quietly hopeful, around the corner dividing her position from Bashir's. She would be back on duty before too long, but not without first checking on her friend. But then, she stopped with a sharp and sudden gasp, and the absolute certainty that her heart had skipped a beat.
Dropping swiftly to the floor, she reached forward and pressed two fingers to the neck of the Security lieutenant she'd discovered lying at her feet. Drugged, she guessed. But not in any danger. Still, she released a curse through her teeth as she finally leapt upright and raced towards the cell.
Hot alarm rising unstoppably to her face, head filling with a string of the most fearsome Klingon phrases that Curzon had picked up in all his years of contact, she slapped her combadge. "Dax to Security."
Julian was gone.