Chapter 11

"You're sure that they took them?" Sisko asked incredulously.

"Positively. When we awoke, they were both missing." Bashir answered.

"Well gentlemen, it seems we have a kidnap on our hands. The question is will Jahzara and Garak be used as leverage?"

"Captain, we have an incoming Dominion Cruiser. It's hailed the station." Major Kira's voice said over the com system.

Sisko sighed and motioned for the others to follow him out of his office. "Put them on,"

Weyoun's face appeared on the screen. "Hello, commander."

"Weyoun, what the hell do you want?" Sisko asked rudely, not caring how he acted to Vorta.

"Commander, I'm disappointed in you. Starfleet commanders don't speak to Vorta like that. Especially when the one their talking to is returning a prisoner." Weyoun said, shifting the view screen over to Jahzara, who was lying unconscious in her cell.

Sisko's face became stern. "What do you want for her?"

"Want? I want nothing. Just clear the promenade in ten minutes and I will personally deliver her into your hands. Along with that thing you call an exile of Cardassia." Weyoun ordered. The view screen blacked out.

"Sisko to Constable Odo. I need you to clear the Promenade now and get a team of your men ready."

"Consider it cleared." Came the Constable's voice.

"Doctor, I want you ready for anything. We don't know what they've done to her." Sisko commanded.

"Aye sir." Bashir said. He turned on his heels and hurried to the turbo lift. Sisko tapped his badge.

"Sisko to all senior officers. Report to me on the Promenade immediately." The commander said as he took a turbo lift down.

Commander Sisko waited on the Promenade with the Constable's men all around him and Doctor Bashir with an emergency med kit. Suddenly a group beamed down and Garak was shoved forward in front of Sisko.

Weyoun looked around, studying the Promenade.

"I'm disappointed in you, Commander. I come to you on peaceful terms and yet you still have your troops armed and ready to murder us." Weyoun said. He shifted the body in his arms slightly.

Sisko noticed the shift and saw that the body in Weyoun's arms was Jahzara's.

"You said you'd give her to us. Set her on the ground and leave." Sisko commanded. Weyoun put on a look of mock mortification.

"And allow her to become dirty?! I think not!" he exclaimed. "I shall allow only one being to take her from me and that will be the Founder you have on this station."

Sisko tensed and rolled his eyes, annoyed at the Founder. Before he could say anything, Odo was already taking the body from Weyoun and the Vorta was gone.

Odo carried Jahzara quickly into the Infirmary with her uncle closely behind him and laid her on a medical bed. For some strange reason unknown to him, Odo stayed in the Infirmary.

"Will she be all right?" Odo asked, surprising even himself.

Bashir didn't answer at first; he merely brought out a medical tri-corder and scanned his niece thoroughly before letting out a sigh of relief.

"It appears she's only been sedated." Bashir breathed. He got a hypospray and injected Jahzara. After a few moments, she stirred and opened her eyes.

"Where am I?" she asked softly.

"Don't you recognize it?" Bashir asked. "You're in the infirmary."

"Deep Space Nine?"

"That's right." Bashir answered.

All of a sudden, Jahzara leapt to her feet and ran out of the infirmary. She spotted one of the men in Odo's security team and knocked him to the ground, grabbing his gun. She ran into a turbo lift when she saw Odo following her and went to a different floor.

Odo followed her into the floor and wondered which way she'd gone. When Bashir came running down the hall towards the Constable, Odo put his hand up to stop the Doctor.

"She's here." Odo said softly. "You go down there; I'll go the other way."

Bashir nodded and turned away from Odo to walk down the hall. Not five minutes after he'd been walking through the corridors, he felt a gun at his back and he froze.

"Jahzara," Bashir started. "No one is going to harm you. Just stop what you're doing and we can help you."

"No one on this filthy station can help me," Jahzara spat cruelly. "Weyoun helped me. The Dominion helped me and now I see that there is no good or evil. There is only the Dominion."

Bashir frowned. He turned around to meet his niece's cruel gaze and saw that Odo was silently creeping up behind her.

"What did they do to you?" Bashir asked, trying to keep Jahzara distracted.

"They helped me see the truth." Jahzara replied. "And The One is no more than a pawn for the Bajoran prophets. My real purpose is to destroy the Federation and everyone else who defies the Dominion."

Suddenly Odo leapt upon Jahzara, causing her to drop her gun. The Constable wrestled her to the ground before pinching a nerve and rendering Jahzara unconscious.

Jahzara fell backwards into the Constable's open arms and her uncle immediately brought her back to the infirmary. Once Commander Sisko joined them there, he was briefed on what had happened.

"You're saying she didn't know where she was and she sided with the Dominion?" Sisko asked, bewildered.

"It sounds strange, I know, Commander," the Constable started. "But she acted like one of the Dominion themselves."

"What could have possibly have sparked this hatred in her?" Doctor Bashir asked to no one in particular. "They had to brainwash her. There'd be no other way to change her mind."

Sisko shook his head. "You've already checked for signs of any serums that might trigger that effect. It must be something else…"

The commander trailed off in thought as did the Constable and the Doctor. Suddenly, Odo had an idea.

"Perhaps you're looking in the wrong place, Doctor." The Constable suggested. "Perhaps what you're looking for is not on the inside by on the outside."

Bashir scowled as he considered Odo's words while watching him closely. The Constable was prodding Jahzara's shoulders and when he moved to her neck, he stopped. Odo tightened his grip on something unseen and it appeared.

Sisko frowned. "Where have I seen one of those before?"

Bashir exchanged a dark glance with Sisko. "They're used for brain control, but only the Romulan intelligence has been able to create them."

"How would the Dominion get their hands on it though?" Sisko pondered.

"Last week, there was a report of an illegal base on one of Bajor's moons. It was destroyed somehow and everything inside was taken." Odo informed.

"That must be how the Dominion got hold of it." Sisko said. "There's no other explanation."

"But how to we remove it?" Odo asked, studying the device on Jahzara's neck.

"We?" Bashir asked skeptically. "I'll be the only one to touch it from now on. But at the moment, I haven't the faintest idea of how to remove it."

"Well keep working at it, Doctor. She's a candidate for information that the Prophets gave to me and I don't want her in any danger." Sisko commanded.

"Yes sir." Bashir answered.

"Constable, continue with your regular duties. If you are needed, you will be called." Sisko continued.

"Aye commander."

Why couldn't she wake her human shell? She had a mission to complete—why couldn't she open her eyes?! She tried to force the human's eye lids open but they wouldn't budge. Rolling her own eyes, she called upon her power, the power of The One, and forced the human's eyes to open.

She was lying down, staring at the ceiling of the human's uncle's infirmary. She sat up stiffly and looked around, studying the infirmary.

As she slid off the medical table to leave, a man recognized as Doctor Bashir waltzed in casually. But the moment he saw her standing and awake, he ran for a sedative.

She ignored his movements and quickly walked out the door of the infirmary. The Doctor's footsteps came running after her, most likely with the sedative. She turned around and glared at the Doctor, her eyes glowing red.

He was flung backwards into a deputy security officer. She turned her back to the Doctor and continued. She had a mission to complete—a station to destroy.

She studied the Promenade for a moment and hissed when she saw the Bajoran temple. That would be the first thing to go.