Disclaimer: I did not create and do not own Star Trek Deep Space Nine. May contain spoilers. Any resemblance to real people or events is probably coincidental. The author is not responsible for lost or stolen time. Read at your own risk.

Chapter 3

Commander Ifam cringed when the Tal Shiar operative entered his bridge. It was bad enough that the arrogant, aloof Major Hathar had commandeered his ship, but that he wouldn't even deign to allow the commander access to his own ship's navigational logs was just insulting. He watched with narrowed eyes as Hathar leaned over the shoulders of the busy crew, keeping himself updated on the warbird's condition. He didn't once so much as spare Ifam a glance.

The door hissed open again, and Sub-commander Peneth entered the bridge. She was almost panicking, which Ifam never would have expected from his second-in-command, who had endured seemingly-suicidal battles with Jem'Hadar, Cardassian, and Breen forces without so much as flinching.

"Commander Ifam," she whispered. "I just got some terrible news." She glanced nervously at the Tal Shiar operative. "According to the military command, six Tal Shiar agents were found dead, including General Killith. Five of them were executed. One, the presumed executioner...dead from unknown causes. Major Hathar was among them when they died. His presence here was not sanctioned by or even known to the Tal Shiar!"

With a sharp intake of breath, Ifam drew his phaser and turned to face the liar, but Hathar had already drawn his own phaser, and was pointing it squarely at the commander."

"She is correct," Hathar said. "Unfortunately, you won't live long enough to understand what's really happening here."

As Hathar's phaser fired, Peneth leaped toward him, taking the full force of the attack and knocking him to the ground. Wasting none of this dearly-bought time, Ifam shot Hathar the moment the Tal Shiar pushed the corpse off himself. His body convulsed, then fell limp. The crew watched in horror as a pinkish-white liquid flowed out of the fallen Romulan's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, forming a puddle on the floor. Then the puddle began flowing in a disquietingly purposeful movement. Ifam fired at it, but his phaser had no effect. The liquid congealed into a doughy solid, which expanded and rose up into a pillar. Tendrils shot out, hitting every living Romulan in the face. They clawed and screamed as the alien substance absorbed into their skin. Then, one by one, they grew calm.

Commander Ifam disintegrated the two bodies with high-powered shots from his phaser. He faced his crew. "Now that that unfortunate delay has been taken care of, let's complete our mission."

"I can't believe you've never tried them! They're delicious!"

Nog walked into his uncle's bar to find Quark in a discussion with a tall black-skinned woman. After a moment, he remembered seeing a hologram of a Tzenkethi in his exobiology class at the academy. He noticed that whatever they were talking about disgusted Quark, and Morn was staring at the woman in mute horror.

"No humanoid would ever order that. Okay, a Klingon maybe, but they might even consider it…undignified," Quark said.

The woman shrugged her bare, bony shoulders. "I'm telling you, you missed out on a very lucrative opportunity."

Nog chose that moment to jump in. "Uncle…how are things going."

"Can you believe this woman?" Quark asked Nog as though he'd been there the whole time. "She thinks tribbles are good to eat."

"On my home planet they're raised in giant silos, and any other meat is only eaten by poor people. They taste like…well, like tribble. They're tender, juicy, nutritious, and go especially well with eishkosa sauce."

"How do you keep them from escaping and wreaking havoc on your planet's ecosystem?" Nog asked curiously.

"They're restrained with forcefields, and if they do escape into the farm buildings, there's a certain sound wave frequency that kills them. All tribble farms are set up with emitters set to that frequency. The silos, of course, are soundproof. Some did escape, years ago, shortly after the first tribbles were bought from a human peddler named Cyrano Jones—the only human the Tzenkethi government doesn't officially despise—but the feral tribbles were quickly hunted to extinction."

"Interesting," Nog said politely.

Quark suddenly realized introductions were in order. "Nog, this is Nshevalth Bez, the wife of Laren's replacement."

"Pleasure to meet you." Nog extended his hand, which Nshevalth shook.

"Thank you. I would love to stay and chat more, but I reallymust be going." She stood up, and for the first time Nog realized how truly tall she was. She easily could have been twice his height. He watched her x-shaped feet as she walked to the door.

Quark looked down at the holonovel chip she'd lent him. He wasn't looking forward to playing it—he knew too many "holonovelists" to take most of them seriously, and besides, she didn't act like the kind of person who would write his kind of holosuite programs. But on the other hand, he didn't want to know what she would do to him if he didn't at least give it a chance.

Raiic Viyan ran to the meeting place. Danor Talu should have been there; where was she?

"Did you find her?" Drwida Wiladra asked urgently.

"Yuv is dead," Raiic Viyan gasped. "I'm sorry."

Drwida Wiladra closed his eyes, not even trying to conceal his grief. "And you destroyed her body?"

"Yes. There's not enough of her to examine. They'll never learn she wasn't as Earthiln as they are." He looked around. "Danor must still be in there. I have to go back."

"If she was captured," Drwida Wiladra said seriously, "she probably already activated the catalyst and incinerated herself."

Raiic Viyan shook his head violently. "First, we don't know she's been captured. Second, she never follows orders unless she absolutely has to. I'm going to risk it."

Drwida Wiladra nodded, but Raiic Viyan had already rushed back in the direction from which he came.

When Bashir came back on duty in the morning, Odo was still standing beside Kira, holding her hand and staring at her face, as though he thought if he let down his guard for even an instant, she would slip away.

"How long until you have to regenerate?" Bashir asked.

"Four hours," Odo replied.

Bashir checked Kira's bio-readings. They hadn't changed much. "I wish I could do more," he said to Odo.

"So do I." He sighed. "If the Prophets do have a reason for me being here, I wish they would let me in on it."

"Maybe the simple fact of you being here for her is enough. Some people believe that having a loved one nearby can be therapeutic, even when the patient's unconscious."

"Or that's just what the loved ones tell themselves to feel less helpless," Odo retorted. But then he asked, with touch of restrained hope, "Do you believe that, Doctor?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly, "But every conventional therapy I've tried hasn't worked, hopefully something else will."

"An unconventional therapy…" Odo mumbled to himself.

"Of course," Bashir continued, "in medicine, as in war and…most other things in life, come to think of it, small changes can have large consequences."

Commander Vaughn walked in the room. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Odo's ship is trying to hail him…or, rather, Kalaran."

"Can you patch it through to here?" Odo asked as he reluctantly pulled away from Kira and morphed into the form of the female Vorta.

"No problem," Vaughn replied.

A moment later, a Jem'hadar face appeared on a screen.

"Second Rinak'vaka," Odo said in a pleasant, lilting voice. "What is the situation?"

"The Founder has been trying to contact Odo, but we told him Odo wanted to wait until he could have Kalaran's counsel before he heard what he has to say."

Odo nodded in a very Vorta-like way. "Tell Odo I will return to the ship shortly. End transmission." He fought a look of desolation and despair away from Kalaran's borrowed face before turning back to the other occupants of the room. "All of my ship's subspace communications are monitored," he explained. "We use them to send misinformation, so we don't want to interfere with the channel and give away that we know we're being monitored." He approached Kira. Still in Kalaran's form, he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. The ethereal blue Vorta eyes lingered on her face as he walked away. "I'll send someone from the Dominion who might be able to help," he said, addressing both Vaughn and Bashir. "Provided you don't mind?"

"Not at all," Vaughn assured him. "And in the meantime, we'll do all we can."

"I trust you will. And I'll be back as soon as I can." He hailed his ship and disappeared in the swirl of a Dominion transporter beam.

Acting Chief of Security Bez scrolled through a security report, looking positively disgruntled. He glanced up as Deputy Arkra entered the security office.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Arkra asked uncertainly.

"Why haven't you made a report to Starfleet about the increase of ships in the Badlands?" Bez demanded to know.

"I didn't think it was necessary. They haven't committed any crimes, and I don't see that they pose much of a threat. They're mostly unemployed freighters, mercenaries that don't have much work after the war, that sort of thing. Security Chief Ro agrees with me."

"And it didn't occur to either of you that there might be a new Marquis threat?"

Arkra hardened. "My job is the security of this station. The Badlands are outside my jurisdiction."

"The security of this station depends on the security of the space around it," Bez informed him. "You should at least have made a report to Starfleet."

"Ro didn't think that was necessary."

"Well Ro had a conflict of interests, didn't she?" Bez regarded Arkra critically, not just taking in his exterior signs, but also considered his emotions and his louder thoughts. "You resent that you weren't put in charge of security when Ro was injured, don't you?" It was clearly an accusation, not an inquiry. "You also question her fitness to do her job, mostly because of her seeming attachment to the station's most conspicuous criminal element. I sense you were very loyal to the security chief who preceded her, and you know that some of your criticism stems from your preclusion that Ro couldn't possibly measure up to him."

"You know why everyone hates telepaths?" Arkra asked before turning and stalking out of the office.

"I was sorry to hear about what happened to Captain Kira," Admiral Ross commiserated from the screen in front of Commander Vaughn.

"We're not giving up on her yet."

"I expect no less. That woman is as tough as anyone I've ever met. Have you located the Jem'hadar who attacked her?"

"Not yet," Vaughn admitted. "Our scans of Deep Space Nine indicate he's not here anymore, but we stopped traffic out of the station as soon as the incident occurred, and it didn't resume until we searched the station for him. Internal sensors showed an airlock malfunction minutes after the attack, so we're considering the possibility he could have been suicidal."

"Still, stay vigilant," Ross recommended.

"Always," Vaughn assured him. "Remember who you're talking to."

The admiral looked down at his table top. He opened his mouth, but didn't speak for a full second, and when he did, he prefaced it with a slow, hissing intake of breath. Vaughn braced himself for bad news. "There's another security matter I'd like to discuss with you," Ross began. "There have been reports of mysterious deaths and disappearances coming from the Klingon and Romulan territories. Some of the dead had…rather severe and unexplainable brain damage. The pattern looks like it's consistent with a contagious disease, but many of the deaths are clearly homicides."

"A pathogen that affects behavioral patterns. Nothing unheard of."

"But there's no trace of viral, bacterial, or any other infectious agents in the bodies."

Vaughn leaned forward in his chair. "That is unusual."

"Because we don't know what it is, we don't know what to look for. This isn't considered a classified matter, so feel free to discuss it with that brilliant young doctor you have on your station, or anyone else you think may provide insight."

"Thank you, sir. Is there anything else?"

"Not yet. I'll keep you updated. End transmission."

Vaughn continued staring at the screen even after the Admiral's image disappeared. Why did he have the feeling that those fatalities were more than a simple infection?