Chapter 1
Space near the Cardassian/Dominion border
Early July 2375
"Hey, Kovar," Hans Papen whispered to the Vulcan in his Dutch accent.
"Yes," Kovar answered coolly, looking out the main screen of the Runabout Ulysses.
"Have you noticed anything strange about this 'diplomatic' mission?" Hans answered emphasizing the word 'diplomatic' with a disbelieving tone.
"As strange as any diplomatic mission at war time close to enemy territory," Kovar once again answered neutrally, this time looking down at his navigation controls.
Hans grinned in anticipation of what he had to tell. "You and I've been part of the crew of the Defiant that went behind enemy lines in the Dominion ship, the admiral has been head of the project to research it, the engineer was chief engineer on that project. Kovar, I've been doing some 'research': of the twenty-five people on board this runabout, the doctor, the Andorian over there," Hans pointed to back and right with his thumb, "and the Ambassador are the only three people I can't readily link to the Dominion ship. The others all had some contact with it."
Kovar just looked at him and lifted his right eyebrow. Hans grinned. "Just think of it: we're going to a planet that has expressed desires to join the Dominion, since they're the ones who seem to be winning the war, they said. We're going there in order to convince them to stay with the Federation, and we're going there in a small Runabout, with a Federation ambassador and an Admiral without an escort, skimming the Dominion/Cardassian border. How much more lure do you want for them to get us?"
"Ensign Papen, please refrain from speculations," Admiral Ventura said as he positioned himself in the middle of the cockpit.
"Well, am I right?" Hans asked, an eager and mischievous twinkle in his eye.
"No, you are not correct. I'm sure they would have told me about such an undertaking and they have not. And even if there would be such an undertaking, and if even I didn't know about it, wouldn't you think it is a distinct possibility that its success depends upon us not knowing anything? If that would be the case, you're busy sabotaging it," the admiral answered.
"I get it," Hans said, turning back to the helm console.
"Admiral?" Scully asked, walking into the cockpit.
"Yes, Ambassador?" the admiral answered.
"How long before we're at Bodus?" she asked, letting annoyance creep into her voice.
"Another four hours, Ambassador," Ventura answered.
"Four hours!?" Dana asked, faking outrage. Ventura nodded and she muttered out loud as she turned around to go back to the rear portion of the craft, "For the life of me, I can't think of any reason why they crammed twenty-five people in such a small craft on a twelve-hour flight. I'll be ecstatic when I finally get out of this fish can."
"Well . . . one thing's for sure; if this is a secret mission, she doesn't know about it," Hans told the other three people in the cockpit.
"Ensign!?" the Admiral said sternly.
"Yeah, yeah," Hans answered him and once again turned back to his console.
Scully had heard him on her way out and a grin crept up her face, a grin she rapidly suppressed and her annoyed mask once again returned to her face. She went to the common room and placed herself on a chair.
*****
About a quarter of an hour later it happened.
"Red Alert, everybody to battle stations, Dominion Warship on intercept course, intercept in two minutes!" the Admiral's voice came over the intercom as red warning lights started flashing and everybody scurried off.
Scully, however, stayed put. She couldn't do anything to help - didn't want to, either - and she needed to do something herself. She slowed her breathing, put herself in a meditative trance and focused on her energy output, the energy that every cell in her body put out, and with it the energy field that surrounded her body. She tuned it down, less and less: this was one time where the protection was not wanted.
She brought herself out the trance and noticed that the Runabout was lurching. She concluded that the ship must've been lurching while she was in the trance, but the trance had blocked the impressions. Another lurch and then nothing.
"They've got us in a tractor beam," she heard a voice from somewhere and then felt the familiar tingle of a transporter beam.
*****
Once her vision returned, she noticed she was standing in an open transporter room, hallways leading east, west and south, the walls were black. The other twenty-four persons from the runabout were there as well and there were eleven Jem'Hadar, one behind the transporter and ten holding weapons trained at them.
*Perfect, and as simulated,* Scully thought grinning slightly as she wiggled herself to the front of the group. *Psychological intimidation: lead them at gunpoint to the holding cells, not beam them directly there.*
"Resist in any way and you die; cooperate and you live," the leader of Jem'Hadar said gruffly, as he positioned himself in front of the group. "Understood?"
A few of them nodded, others just looked at him defiantly.
Dana did neither. Once she was in front of the group and in front of the Jem'Hadar leader, she did a fast snap kick to his nose, which, with a satisfying crush, slammed into his brain. He crumbled to the floor - dead. Dana ran toward one of the open corridors. A second Jem'Hadar, standing close to that door, came into action. He made a downward motion - trying to hit her with the rifle - which made Dana's job easier. She hooked her right arm under his right, turning her back to him at the same time and threw him over her shoulder, using his own momentum against him. She didn't let him go and he landed on his butt right in front of him. With a quick movement, she snapped his neck.
The second Jem'Hadar, standing near the corridor, snapped out of his surprise and moving toward her. She sensed him and turned backwards in a quick kick to his stomach, making sure to hit the particular weak spot she had found the week before, while examining Jem'Hadar autopsies. Her right foot returned from under his still bent over body and her left propelled her in the air, jumping over the soldier's back. While landing on her right foot beside him, She let her left heel crash on the lower part of his back close to his right side. The vital organ beneath it collapsed under the pressure and the Jem'Hadar collapsed to the floor, dying painfully as blood welled up from his mouth.
Now the way to the corridor was free and she ran in it, fast.
*Come on,* she thought to herself, *fast, but not too fast. The hits should come about . . .* She never finished the thought, as double shots from the remaining Jem'Hadar soldiers hit in her back: all within half a second. The first six barely did anything; the next four weakened her protective field severely; the eleventh and twelfth broke through it completely; the last two burned her insides and fried every synapse in her brain instantly. She was dead, before she even hit the ground.
The Jem'Hadar turned back to the Starfleet personnel, who were shocked either from Scully's swift, violent and highly effective attack, or by the equally swift, violent and highly effective attack of Jem'Hadar and her subsequent death. A few of them, who had been at the front lines and had seen enough death, only looked more grim and defiant.
The new leader of the Jem'Hadar said, "Now you know we are serious. Move." As the Starfleet personnel started moving in the desired direction, he signaled to the transporter operator to get rid of the mess.
*****
Dana's eyes flew open in pitch darkness. For a hundredth of a second she felt panic rise because she didn't know where she was. Remembrance came almost as instantaneously and she forced herself not to give in to the urge to gasp loudly for breath. Instead she slowly drew in the air through her nose. She prodded the container on all sides: rectangle. Then she gently pushed against what was, to her, the back wall with her feet: it wouldn't give.
*So far so good,* she thought. *Unless they locked it, my head comes out first.*
She pushed and the door gave gently. She opened it just enough to see the morgue of the ship. She grinned as she peered though the crack. Genetically engineered species made just for war; effective, but their single mindedness made predictable. They performed autopsies on a vanquished foe and found out their weaknesses and strengths so they could vanquish more. No infirmary and no healing apparatuses on the ship, but a morgue, yes. And of course, as expected, they had brought her here. She saw a Jem'Hadar soldier and a Vorta going about their business.
She slipped the slab closed again, concentrated on the sounds they made and the energy fields their bodies gave off through their cells. Then she knocked on the inside of her metal coffin.
"What was that?" she heard in her head. The translator in her communicator did its job, projecting the translation, as it always did, directly onto the neural pathways of the hearing center in her brain.
*What twentieth century 'Manchurian Candidate' technology isn't good for,* she thought to herself wryly. She made the sound again.
"It came from on of the slabs," she heard again, then footsteps coming closer.
*Wait . . . wait for it,* she thought to herself, *just a little further . . . now.* She suddenly made her slab move rapidly outward. From the look of the stunned faces of the two of them, she knew they would never be able to react in time. She pounced of the slab, curling her legs around the neck of the Jem'Hadar and her arms around the neck of the other Humanoid at her head. With a quick motion, the scientist's neck broke and he crumpled to the floor. The momentum brought down the Jem'Hadar as well, aligning him perfectly for her to snap his neck with her legs, which she promptly did.
They crashed to the floor and she stopped moving. She laid there for twenty seconds, listening intently: no rushing footsteps, no alarms. Nobody had noticed anything, but they could if she didn't hurry. So she got up and first put the scientist - as fast as possible without making sound - on her slab and closed it. Then she opened another one and with some difficulty, due to his size and the lack of a place to get good leverage, got the Jem'Hadar soldier on it and closed it. She checked the time on her now antique watch, twenty-one minutes, then picked up the Jem'Hadar's rifle and briefly spent time to look through the room. She was glad she did, for she swiftly found her sword. She picked it up and admired its smooth blade for an instant while thinking, *They must simply have dragged me along by the arms, and not found it until they arrived here. Good, now I don't have to rummage through this entire ship to look for it later.*
She put her katana back in her coat in its familiar place. Then she quickly walked to the other side of the small room and searched. *Maintenance shaft access should be . . . here!* she thought and quickly opened the hatch and crept inside swiftly, but silently, and closed the hatch behind her. She crept through the maze of maintenance shafts, called jefferies tubes in Federation starships. Left, right, straight and not making a sound. She had studied the layout intensely before the mission, and had plotted the fastest route. She came to the elevator shaft. There were only two decks on a Dominion warship and she climbed upward to deck one and the bridge. As every Jem'Hadar was already back at its station, chances were they wouldn't ride it, and even if they did, there was enough room between the elevator and the shaft to allow people to climb there and effect repairs, should it become necessary.
Once on deck one, she shifted from the maintenance shafts to the ventilation tubes and went straight to the bridge. She found the air intake/outlet easily: it was closed and it was pointing downwards. With a mighty push, the grate gave away and she slithered down right behind it, hooking her feet behind the edge. Now she was hanging upside down looking toward the forward part of the ship, the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta on the bridge all looked stunned. She started firing, as she twisted her body slowly in an arc, from left to right, firing rapidly and taking out the Jem'Hadar behind the consoles on by one. Eventually she couldn't turn further. By now the Jem'Hadar left had overcome their surprise, grabbed a rifle and started firing at her: most of them were behind her, which were really just three of them taking cover behind a cylindrical console.
A door opened directly behind her and three guards came through it, instantly defining her as the threat, and started shooting at her. Dana noticed the shots landing in front of her or beside her. She released her feet from the edge and twisted herself in a salto, getting herself in the right direction. She fired at the new entries and they died quickly, before she even landed, since they were still close together and partially in the door frame. She landed and started walking towards the middle and left side of the bridge. A Jem'Hadar came up behind a console, fired rapidly at her, and ducked back behind it. He hit her, but she barely even felt the impact, her Quickening once again brought back to full while she was 'dead'. A second Jem'Hadar shot from behind another console, but his shot went wide. She didn't even look at him; she kept her rifle trained exactly above the console from which the first came and when he came back up again, she fired a quick volley, dispatching him to kingdom come. Then she turned to where the third soldier was and shot him as well. She started pushing buttons on one of the consoles with her left hand, while pointing the rifle at the place of the second with her right. She concentrated and felt his equivalent of adrenaline level rise, the electrical signals shooting from his brain to his legs, the change in his electrical field as his muscles tightened in order to move up . . . and she pulled the trigger again, not even bothering to look at him. She released the trigger as she heard his grunt of pain and him drop to the floor.
A new sound could be heard and another few Jem'Hadar came up into the bridge, this time through the left doors. She looked in their direction and started firing. Sounds of Jem'Hadar could also be heard from the right door. Her left hand kept tapping a few seconds more and she then took it off the console as the bridge doors started to close and lock. Two Jem'Hadar had managed to get through the right door alive, two others had not been so lucky, they were lying dead on the floor. The ones alive fired at her as the door closed behind them, cutting off the tips of the fingers of the Jem'Hadar soldier that was trying to keep it open. At the same time a loud scream could be heard from the right side and behind her. Dana ducked and grabbed a second rifle from the dead Jem'Hadar at her feet, came back up and fired them both relaxed and exactly at the two Jem'Hadar soldiers; they went down easily.
She felt a few shots hit her in the back; she barely felt them, just a few quick, but sharp, pulses of pain. She turned around relaxed and counted: three more Jem'Hadar, one with no left hand. A quick glance at the door, covered with some flesh and streams of blood, confirmed that he'd lost it trying to get through it. She walked forward decisively, the rifles pointed at one of them. As soon as he popped out from behind a console, she fired and killed him. Then she turned to the second Jem'Hadar. She got hit three times as the third one, with only one hand, shot at her.
"Don't you get it yet? Your weapons have no effect on me," Dana said. She shot the second soldier as he popped up and shot two pulses of energy past her. His head splattered apart all over the console and the black wall behind him. Then she turned to the third, who opted not to hide, but simply to stand, aim and shoot. She looked at him, letting him take a few shots: all hit, but none took her out.
"You should set it to continuous fire," Dana said, grinning evilly at him and pointing both rifles directly at him. "Oh wait," she added sarcastically, "it doesn't have continuous fire." And she pulled the triggers.
The grin quickly faded from her face and she walked over to a different console. She placed the rifles on the edge of it. She grabbed a head set and put it on, looking for an instant through the screen that projected an image directly in her retina using lasers of stars streaking by. She heard the pounding on the doors caused by phaser fire and decided to speed up. She quickly tapped a few buttons and brought the ship quickly out of warp and to a stop, not wanting it to go too far. Then she started working on something else, hoping that the sequence of instructions she had learned right before the mission was correct. The symbols on the screen seemed to conform they were, but she didn't have the time to find the correct sequence on her own, if the one she learned turned out to be wrong. The Jem'Hadar could break through the door any minute now.
"There," she said and tapped the final button. The Vorta, the Jem'Hadar, and all the blood and guts disappeared off the bridge in a transporter beam, as did any Vorta and Jem'Hadar, dead or alive, elsewhere in the ship. She looked through the screen on her headset and saw them all flailing in deep space. She walked to the weapons console, targeted, and fired. In the screen a bright, white beam cut through space and vaporized the bodies of the former Dominion crew. The whisks of gaseous molecules that were once their bodies quickly dispersed in the emptiness of space and no visible trace was left of them.
She went back to another console, tapped a few buttons and the doors were unlocked. Then she laid in a course for the nearby badlands and engaged at Warp 7.