II.

Pressing her back flat against the cold stone she stared at the useless weapon in her hand for a moment before throwing it to the ground. So many curse words came to her mind she couldn't even pick one. In the end she didn't have to..

The fire died down and there were no more screams from outside either. The silence was sudden and out of place. As if nothing had ever happened.

She knew her attackers were aware of her situation. They weren't foolish enough to think she had died without a sound. Their weapons didn't promise that much mercy, automatically set on the highest level of destruction. She took a deep breath. Ending it quickly would probably be for the best; she knew what was waiting for her if they got her alive. The only problem was she really didn't want to die.

She's safe, she thought as she lifted herself up from the ground and straightened up, closing her eyes as she halfway expected, halfway hoped to be hit by a last round of phaser fire. At least, she's safe.

"Turn around," she was ordered and not sure whether she was disappointed or relieved she did as she was told.

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Bashir had just finished his morning routine in the infirmary and put his feet up to enjoy the first ragdajino of the day when he noticed Sisko making his entrance. Putting the cup aside he got up immediately.

"Doctor," Sisko exclaimed as soon as he caught sight of his first medical officer.

"Captain."

"How's your patient?"

"Which one?" Bashir tried to joke but concluded from the look Sisko darted him that it wasn't the right time. Motioning for the Captain to follow him, he walked over to the bio bed then where his currently only patient was resting.

"She's stabilizing but I'd like to keep her sedated for another day or two. There was severe nerve damage to the brain as well as internal and external burn wounds, probably caused by radiation. She also had numerous contusions and fractures, phaser burns, some of which seemed old, some rather fresh, and finally a lot of lacerations, cuts and bruises."

Sisko raised a brow. "And you were able to repair all of these injuries?"

"Yes," Julian stated, holding back a self-satisfied grin although he couldn't find anything wrong with being a little proud at his achievement. He had done everything humanly possible and fixed everything there was to fix within the course of only a couple of hours. Everything else needed time and patience.

"I'm impressed, doctor," Sisko said to his surprise and Julian allowed that smug expression to enter his expression after all. "Any idea on who she is or where she's from?"

"She's humanoid, her physiological profile is very close to ours but doesn't match, and neither does that of any other species we've ever encountered."

"I'm going to ask the Constable to make some investigations," Sisko muttered, a pensive expression on his face. He knew if anyone could find out who their guest was, it was Odo. "Please provide him with any information he might ask for."

"Of course."

"When do you think she'll be stable enough to be awake?"

"Like I said, I'd like to give it another day or two. Besides everything else she was also severely malnourished and is still very weak. The longer her body gets to rest and recover the better."

"Alright then, doctor," Sisko turned to leave, knowing the stranger was in good hands with Bashir. "Let me know if anything changes."

"Captain," the young doctor held him back. "Do we know anything about what happened on that ship?"

"We will do our best to bring some light into the matter but since the ship was destroyed we might never know. Why?"

Bashir seemed to hesitate for a moment.

"I can't imagine any accident that would explain all of these injuries."

That certainly got Sisko's full attention.

"Then what's your theory, doctor?" he inquired.

"Those internal and external radiation burns I mentioned – they were nowhere else on her body except for her head, specifically the area around her frontal lobes. So unless she literally put her head into a radiation chamber I would say someone intentionally exposed parts of her brain to radiation."

"You mean as a form of torture," Sisko concluded and Bashir nodded.

"I'm not sure there actually is any such technique but I could imagine a procedure where some sort of radiation-inducing device could be used to manipulate the frontal lobes in order to disrupt a person's self control or will to resist and withhold information."

Sisko frowned. Until now he had been concerned with an unidentified ship that had exploded in front of his station and a surviving crew member he had no idea how to identify. Now he wondered if that survivor had actually been a crew member or even just a voluntary passenger at all. Things kept getting more complicated instead of clearer.

"I'll check Starfleet's medical database to see if there are any reports about such procedures."

"Thank you, doctor," he mumbled, turning to leave once again. "Let me know what you find out." He had a feeling though that it wouldn't be enough to have the doctor make some medical enquiries.

¤¤¤

On the promenade deck, Lt. Commander Dax was about to take a sip of the strange smelling brew Quark had asked her to taste, only the Ferengi hadn't used those words. A new discovery from the Gamma quadrant. I reserved the first one especially for you. On the house. Kira watched sceptically.

"Sisko to Dax."

Dax put the drink down to hit her com badge. "Go ahead."

"I need to see you in my office, old man."

"On my way, Benjamin." The trill shrugged. "Sorry, Quark. Another time."

The Ferengi seemed disappointed, but only for a second.

"How about you, Major?" he turned to Kira but backed off immediately at the way she glared at him. "Like she said," he muttered. "Another time."

"I guess Sisko just saved us," Kira remarked when the two women stepped out onto the promenade. But Jadzia just frowned at her.

"Oh, come on," Kira exclaimed in disbelief, "don't tell me you were actually going to drink that?"

"Why wouldn't I?" the trill replied in equal disbelief.

"Because it smelled horrible."

"It smelled exotic. You should really be a bit more open-minded, Kira," Dax stated and got into the turbo lift.

Kira's jaw dropped onto her chest and for a moment she just stared at her friend but then shrugged and followed. After all, she knew Jadzia had a weird taste when it came to a lot of things. Her choices regarding who she socialized with were only one example.

"Ops," Kira ordered and the turbo lift moved upwards. "By the way," she decided to change the subject, "did you find the time yet to read some of Jola's poems?"

"Uh…no," Dax shook her head. "I was going to last night but with everything that happened, I was just so tired." That was a lie but she couldn't tell Kira the truth. At least not before she had given Joral another try. "I heard Shakaar is coming to the station next week?" she decided it was time for a change of subject.

"Yes," Kira smiled just as they arrived at Ops. "He's going to be present at the inauguration of the new Vedeks. The assembly thought Deep Space Nine with its proximity to the Celestial Temple would be the perfect place for the ceremony."

"I've never seen a Vedek inauguration."

"Oh, I can get you in there if you want to."

"Really? Would that be okay?"

"Sure," Kira shrugged. "You can come as my guest. Shakaar going to be busy anyway and as long as you don't plan on interrupting the ceremony there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to watch."

"I'd love that," Dax explained as she turned to walk up the few steps leading to Sisko's office. "Thank you, Nerys."

"You're welcome," the Major shrugged and turned to her console.

"Come in," Benjamin's voice came from the rear of the room as soon as the doors had opened and Jadzia saw him sitting on the comfortable sofa that was meant for more relaxed or private conversations.

"I've just been invited to watch a Vedek inauguration," she reported. "Curzon would be so jealous."

Sisko smiled. "Are you gloating?"

"A little bit," the trill grinned. "But that is probably not what you wanted to see me about."

"No," Sisko sighed, his expression turning serious. "I just came from the infirmary where Doctor Bashir gave me an update on his patient. He thinks she has been tortured."

Dax sat down across from him. "I think that was his assumed from the start but he probably wanted to be sure before mentioning it to you."

Sisko nodded. "So we have a ship of unknown type and specification coming through the worm hole and exploding seconds after we managed to rescue the only survivor," he summarized. "Is there anything you can tell me from when you were scanning that ship?"

"You mean besides from what I already told you? Not much," Dax shrugged. "I wish I had had more time and saved all the data."

"You said its warp drive, engines, weapons, shields were better."

"Higher developed," the trill corrected but he chose to ignore it.

"Compared to what, old man? Starfleet standards, the Federation's, Romulan, Cardassian?"

Dax hesitated for a moment but then she seemed to understand what he was getting at.

"You're trying to figure out where it came from." She nodded. "I guess I was primarily talking about this station but thinking about it now I would have to say higher developed than anything we've seen in this quadrant. Add to that the fact that the ship came through the worm hole and that the dead crew member Bashir saw didn't belong to any species known to us either and you have a well-founded argument that the ship's origin was indeed the Gamma quadrant."

Sighing in frustration Sisko rubbed his temples. He'd been over it in his head a hundred times and he wished it was that simple.

"Then why were you so sure you would be able to fix those transporters?" he asked and Dax played along although she knew he had already figured out the answer. Otherwise they wouldn't have this conversation.

"Because even though the computer system was different than ours it was still following the same logic. Like even when you speak different languages you're still using words and sentences to make meaning. All I had to do was try to find a pattern in order to be able to translate it into something I could understand."

"Well, for both your's and the doctor's sake I'm glad you found that pattern," Sisko grumbled but left it at that. Now was not the time to give Dax a speech about risk assessment. "So, if I'm not mistaken, this ship could have been built by someone in the Alpha quadrant just as well."

"It's possible," she conceded.

"But you don't think it's very likely."

"I just can't imagine whose ship it would be. If Starfleet had developed a new prototype I'm pretty confident we would have been informed before they flew it through the worm hole right in front of our noses."

"One sure would hope so."

"And if it's not them," Jadzia shrugged, "the only empires I can see making such rapid advancements are the Romulans or the Cardassians. But even besides the fact that I didn't see any Romulans or Cardassians on that ship, if either one of them managed to keep this a secret from our intelligence until now then why would they risk revealing it all now?"

"Maybe it wasn't planned. Or maybe it was but without the part where the ship was destroyed."

Dax took a moment to study her old friend's face and the expression of worry and concern on it. "What does Starfleet want you to do, Benjamin?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" The Trill raised a brow.

"No," Sisko replied, getting up and tugging at his uniform. "Apparently they don't put a lot of trust in your word, old man. Or mine. Unless there's hard evidence they don't want any resources deployed on investigating where that ship came from." Which makes it hard to get any hard evidence, he continued in his head.

"I assume you shared your concerns with them?" Dax inquired carefully.

"Yes, I did," he assured, trying to maintain his composure. "But they ignored them."

"And that's what you're upset about."

"I am not upset," he objected in a voice that would have intimidated others. But not Dax.

"You're upset," she insisted and he caved. Partly.

"I'm…irritated."

"Because they don't want you to investigate the ship or because they ignored you?"

He glared at her but once again she didn't seem the least impressed so he cast his eyes round the room instead. "They didn't ignore me. They just ignored the concerns I voiced."

He waited but there was no comment or remark from his friend. He would have bet the part of Dax that was still Curzon was dying right now because Jadzia was holding her tongue.

"So what are you going to do about it?" she asked after a while and he glanced at her before moving to stand in front of one of the windows.

"It's not over yet," he muttered, looking out into the stars. "We still got one shot at getting some answers to our questions."

¤¤¤

In the infirmary, Doctor Bashir's patient lay on her bio bed. After having taken care of all of her major injuries, Julian had now started treating the minor ones as well and was just moving the regenerator over the skin on her temple. In a little while he would actually be able to tell what she had looked like before any of this had been done to her.

The alarm snapped him out of his thoughts and his eyes automatically flickered to the nearest console. Her neurological stress levels were way too high again. They had worried him repeatedly over the last 20 hours and although he had managed to control them with the cortical stimulator he had known there was a limit to how much he could manipulate her brain without doing more damage than good. Checking the scan results now he realized he had reached that limit. Only one thing left to do. He put the regenerator away and went to get a hypospray instead. It was time to wake her up.

"It's alright," he said as soon as she had opened her eyes and although her body tensed and she flinched and looked around with a fearful expression this time as well her reaction was calmer than the first time she had come to. He took it as an encouragement.

"You're aboard a space station," he tried again, and her eyes rested on him for a few moments, flickered back to the rest of the room as if to make sure there was nothing threatening there, then returned to him once again.

"Something happened to the ship you were on," he explained pedagogically. "There was a lot of damage and you were injured pretty badly so we had to bring you here to treat you. I'm a doctor."

Darting a brief glance at the closest console he could tell his efforts weren't in vain. Her vitals and stress levels were starting to normalize. He turned back to meet her gaze again.

"You're going to have to stay here for a while and get further treatment, but everything looks really good," he continued but she just kept looking at him as if she was trying to figure out what he was talking about. "You're going to be fine," he emphasized. Still, there was no change to her expression, no reaction he could work with. "Can you tell me what happened on the ship, then?" But instead of answering she turned her head away once again and seemed to survey her surroundings. "I could treat you much better if I knew what happened to you," he tried to reason and at least she looked at him again, remaining silent otherwise.

"I'm Doctor Bashir," he tried a different approach. "Julian. What's your name?"

"I don't know," she croaked. And slowly the real nature of the problem dawned on him.

"Do you remember anything that happened before you woke up here?" he asked and knew the answer when she cast her eyes down. No. His patient had amnesia.