The only way Ezri knew she hadn't been blinded was the hazy light that poked through what must be a cloth bag that now adorned her head. She went to move her hands and found them bound to her sides. Her heart was beating faster now, she went to move her legs only to find them bound as well. She was laid flat on her back on what she imagined was something akin to a biobed, or possibly crew bed.
Collecting her thoughts and calming herself with a breathing exercise.
"What is this?!" she demanding, putting on her most confident and forceful voice. She was no stranger to dangerous situations, she and every other Starfleet Officer had seen more than their fair share over the last three years, but this was different. She didn't like sensory deprivation, nor confined spaces. It was taking all of her self control to stop from crying out for mercy.
"Ah," came a male voice, it was one she recognized but couldn't place immediately.
"You're awake," the voice continued, "I was hoping you wouldn't until after the procedure."
All of a sudden she placed the voice. "Gregory?" she said timidly, remembering how he'd shown no shame in questioning her about her symbiote, about the circumstances that led her to being in possession of it. The way he'd acted then was so strange, Ezri cursed herself for not realizing something was amiss sooner. That press pass seemed to blind side everyone.
Then really taking in what he had said; "Procedure?"
Gregory, still only a disembodied voice to Ezri. "It will soon be over."
Ezri felt a hypo graze her neck and discharge. "Wait, wha..." and she was under.
Vaughn rubbed the sleep from his eyes and silenced his alarm. The quarters were as Spartan as everyone else's, despite the longer duration of this particular mission and his semi permanent role as the Defiant's Commanding Officer, as part of his duties as Colonel Kira's DS9 XO he'd not wanted to lavish her quarters with many personal touches. A simply holo showing himself, his late wife and his daughter Prynn sat beside the bed and that was it.
He let out a quiet groan as he swung his 109-year-old legs out from underneath him and dangled them off the side of the bed. He'd managed to grab four hours after sending the communiqué back to DS9, leaving the remainder of Gamma Shift in the capable hands of Lieutenant Bowers. He'd thought that perhaps he wouldn't find sleep, and pictured himself lying there worrying about more decloaked Jem'Hadar vessels stalking the Defiant waiting to strike. Who knew what fiendish plot this augment would unleash upon first his vessel and then the Federation if in allegiance with the diabolical Dominion. His body, however, had other ideas, and he had been embraced by sleep's cosy embrace the second his head hit the pillow.
Vaughn crossed his room and grabbed a fresh uniform from the wardrobe. It was as he fastened the outer grey layer of this that he noticed a notification on his wall terminal. He crossed to it and tapped the play button.
Colonel Kira appeared, she was looking equally tired.
"Commander, I've sent a coded communication to Odo on the Dominion homeworld. He hasn't ever responded to my messages before but I had to try... this development is..." she seemed to be struggling for the words. "If it true that the Dominion has welcomed someone from Earth's dark past into their midst then well... this could mean a renewing of hostilities."
She sighed, "I've contacted Starfleet Command to request they withdraw the Defiant from its mission of peace and exploration in the wake of this development. They have not only declined the request but told me not to mention this in any official logs." She shook her head, long a sceptic of Bajor's membership in the Federation she had slowly come around to the idea... but things like this; cover ups, the nefarious Section 31 and their dealings with Bashir and O'Brien over the years. The Federation seemed to be in breach of its own high ideals at almost every turn.
"I reminded the Admiral I wasn't a member of Starfleet therefore I would be ignoring that order."
She smiled, and so did Vaughn. The pair had worked together long but he already had a deep admiration for Kira's stubborn self righteousness.
Her face turned stern again however, a wrinkle of worry creeping across her brow.
"I also asked who organised and authorised the journalists to come aboard Defiant."
Vaughn's attention peaked even more so with this topic.
"The Admiral can find no record of any order ever being given."
She was quiet a moment, as if giving herself and Vaughn some time for that to sink in. Kira shifted her weight in her chair and carried on; "Commander," her voice earnest, "I checked DS9's communications logs. The order to pick them up was never relayed by this station. That order must have been fabricated from inside the Gamma Quadrant. You need to question the remaining journalist immediately. He may not be who he claims to be."
Vaughn couldn't have told you later whether that was the end of the transmission or not, but it was the last thing he had time to listen to without action.
"Computer," he said after clearly this throat. "Location of Gregory Charles?"
"Gregory Charles is not aboard the Defiant," the Computer replied.
Vaughn's blood ran cold. "Computer, how did he leave?"
"Gregory Charles left aboard a runabout with Commander Dax."
Vaughn all of a sudden was in motion, "Vaughn to bridge, we have a situation."
Odo had never wanted to be aboard a Jem'Hadar battlecruiser again. He shared the all standing bridge with a seemingly miscellaneous number of Jem'Hadar, the female Changeling and much to Odo's annoyance; Weyoun.
Odo and the female Changeling stood to one side, letting Weyoun, First Torjata'clan and the rest of the bridge crew get on with their tasks. Travelling under cloak and at warp 9.6 the battle cruiser was en-route to rendezvous with the changeling responsible for the incident with the Defiant.
"Why are you risking the peace with the Federation?" Odo was asking, the role of the interrogator fitting like a glove.
"Peace is as irrelevant as war," the female Changeling said, her rhetoric hadn't changed. Her status as the Founder's Zealot was still as predominant as ever. It made Odo question whether his presence on their world had really made any impact at all.
"Do I need to remind you that we LOST the war with the Federation."
She gave a single dry laugh at this, "Lost? Cardassia Prime may be in ruins, we may have no influence 70,000 lightyears away but across this Quadrant our rule is still unquestioned and unchallenged. We are far from defeated."
Odo shook his head, it was a sadness in his heart to hear his people still talk this way. He decided to change tack, "And to what purpose will a four hundred year old Human serve?"
Odo had been briefed by Kira on the origins of the Dominion's newest ally.
"She is more than a mere Human Odo..." she said pacing out a small circle around Odo as she spoke.
"She represents genetic perfection."
Odo didn't seem to realize the significance of this statement. This must have shown in whatever expression his feature face would contorted into as the female changeling took this as a cue to elaborate.
"You see Humanity's history isn't as rosy as they'd have you believe. Centuries ago they realised how weak, feeble and inferior their species was and set about, with the help of science, to improve themselves. They unlocked their potential, much like we did with the Vorta."
She had now completed a full circle of her pacing circle and stood before Odo again, she hadn't finished her exposition; "The results were... hit and miss. But this one... this one is as perfect a Human as you will ever find."
"Hit and Miss?" Odo said, his internal sensors on full power. "Kira said they'd found her alive inside a lifepod. A lifepod that couldn't possibly have crossed interstellar space without its mother ship. You... found its mothership didn't you, and disposed of the rest of the crew for what? Not perfection enough?" his voice was reaching an angry feverpitch as the pieces of the puzzles fell into place revealing a horrid gory picture indeed.
The female Changeling sighed. Odo's frustrations as his inability to change the Link's attitude were dwarfed by the Link's frustration at their inability to change his.
"We found their ship stuck in a gravitational eddy in what the Cardassian's called the Badlands towards the end of the war. The Vorta that boarded reported their findings to me. I was intrigued by initially by the feudality of such technology. But when Cardassian scientists examined the crew they found they had been genetically enhanced. Experiments followed... and..."
All of a sudden she seemed uncomfortable with the gory details. "This one was their leader. Her genes perfect. The rest of the crew were immaterial. But unfortunately by this time Starfleet had all but encircled Cardassia Prime. She was bungled into an escape pod and jettisoned at warp velocity towards the wormhole in the hopes our experiments, our research could continue at a later date with a view to potentially creating a weapon to win the war."
The story seemed incredible to Odo, but was probably only one of many such desperate, clandestine missions going on in the darkest days of the war.
Ignoring what could be regarded as a war crime, knowing the term would be lost of the zealot and having no court or justice system to convict or enforce punishment, he continued to try and understand.
"But I still don't understand what purpose she would serve?"
"Centuries ago these augmented Humans ruled their world. Armed with our technologies, what's to say they couldn't again?"
"You want her to overthrow the Federation government?" Odo had heard some farfetched ideas in the past but this one was competing with the Gold.
"Or at the very least supplement our genetic modification research," she conceded acknowledging perhaps the importance of her survival and bringing into the fold had dismissed significantly since the cease in hostilities.
The pieces still didn't quite all make sense, but for now he had no time to ask as
