The Alexandria away team was eventually overrun by the Breen forces. Following their surrender, the Breen simply brought the five to the hill top, erected the forcefield around them, and continued to work on something as if nothing had happened.
"I wonder what they want with us?" Plumley whispered to the others as she watched the Breen peck away at the controls on their mini-computer. Slowly, she locked eyes with the others.
While the Fulks, Merriell and Sparhawk seemed as baffled as she, the wide eyes of Dustin Zofchak sparked more than a little concern.
"I'm not sure," he whispered, "but the Breen might be attempting to fabricate some Ketracel White." The chief engineer said.
Sparhawk suddenly knew why Zofchak's eyes were so wide. Ketracel White was most often associated with one of the most lethal killing forces ever encountered by the Federation: the Jem'Hadar.
"Are you certain?" He asked.
"Before the Breen…'borrowed' my tricorder, I detected trace amounts of yridium bicantizine in the soil, as well as several other compounds necessary to create White," he explained quietly. "My best guess is that's what the Breen have been hiding and the reason they're here."
"Why would the Breen want Ketracel White?" Merriell inquired, perhaps louder than Sparhawk would have preferred given the circumstances. Sparhawk watched as the words he most feared rolled off from Zofchak's tongue,
"To create a Jem'Hadar."
"But the Dominion cloning facilities were all destroyed after the war," Fulks countered.
"Did you personally oversee the destruction of every facility? Who knows how many secret installations were left in tact," Zofchak whispered. "Besides, what's stopping the Breen from creating new facilities? They had access to all of the Dominion's computer databases for several months. I'm sure there's a recipe for Jem'Hadar leftover somewhere."
"Given the extremely minimal data we have on the Breen, I'd say that there's a fair chance of that," Sparhawk concurred.
Suddenly, one of the Breen turned his attention away from his work and consulted rather loudly with his companions. With his, and the other's comm badges in the clutches of the Breen, Sparhawk had no idea what the Breens' strident conversing meant. In this case, actions speak louder than words.
And the Breen certainly started to take action. Several moments later, two Breen marched over to the forcefield and lowered it. Sparhawk watched quietly as the Breen slowly protruded into their makeshift cell and reached for Dustin Zofchak.
Quickly, Merriell lashed out against the offending Breen in an attempt to prevent Zofchak's abduction, but he quickly found himself on the ground, and Zofchak being dragged away. Before he could get up, the remaining Breen pointed his weapon at the other three and, without hesitation, fired.
Seeing that resistance was hopeless, Merriell closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. A few moments later, it came.
Zofchak wasn't sure if their refrigeration units were responsible or not, but the Breen were most definitely a lot stronger than they appeared. In fact, the grip the Breen had around his chest was so tight, that Zofchak found it difficult to breathe.
"What do you want?" he rasped, despite the pain.
The Breen violently dropped Zofchak down in the lone chair beside the computer and screeched a few short, clipped tones. But before he could even get into a marginally comfortable position, another Breen had already started to probe Zofchak with some sort of medical device. He poked and prodded for several minutes before finally burrowing the device deep in Dustin's spine. Zofchak felt it penetrate several vertebrae before he stopped feeling anything at all. He willed himself to move, but nothing happened. He couldn't even move his neck.
As his panicked state grew, Zofchak watched in horror as the Breen began probing him again. It was much shorter in duration this time, and not painful, presumably because of the probe imbedded into Zofchak's spine. Nevertheless, it was thoroughly unpleasant. As the Breen 'medic' finished, he slowly brought his head down to Zofchak's and stared at him for several moments. Unable to look away, Zofchak simply stared back at the green lights scrolling across the Breen's helmet where the eyes should be. For a brief moment, he thought he could see something beyond the green lights… an eye, maybe two…or three, four or five for that matter. But an instant later, the Breen looked away. He tapped a button on his uniform, and moments later, both he and Zofchak beamed away.
As Zofchak opened his eyes, he realized that he had not been beamed back to the Alexandria. In fact, it was far worse. He was now on the Breen ship. It was a dark, ominous interior, accented by a mysterious green aura that seemed to emanate from the walls. The transporter chamber they were in was extremely small, consisting of nothing but the transporter pad and the control station, only a few meters apart. And as his Breen companion shoved him toward the doors, Zofchak noticed a few other things, the restoration of his motor functions, among other things. But the most intriguing bit was the fact that the Breen ship was not the frigid icebox one would expect of the Breen. In fact, it was rather comfortable, yet the Breen still wore refrigeration suits. For a moment, Dustin considered the notion that it was to accommodate him, but then he quickly realized the Breen weren't that nice. There was another reason. Rather violently, the Breen shoved Zofchak into the tight, dark corridor and steered him through several maze-like corridors adjoining the transporter room.
After what seemed like hours of navigation, they finally arrived in a rather large, open chamber with several coffin-like alcoves adorning all three walls. The Breen steered Zofchak toward the small group of Breen standing near one of the corner-alcoves. The Breen conversed amongst themselves for several minutes. Still without his communicator, Dustin understood none of their strident babble, but from the tone of their annoying voices, they weren't talking about sports. As the conversation came to a head, all of the Breen suddenly stopped chattering and turned their helmeted heads in Dustin's general direction. Zofchak's heart stopped as it jumped into his throat. His breathing stopped. His eyes seemed to be closing in on him. And before he knew it, the Breen had shoved him into one of the empty alcoves and closed him behind a forcefield of some sort. The Breen did nothing but watch from outside the alcove as Zofchak felt a bright light beating down upon him, and a faint tingling sensation throughout his body. Just when he expected some sort of crude medical instrument to start slicing through his body, it ended. All of it. The light turned off, the forcefield lowered, and the Breen dragged Zofchak out of the alcove and shoved him aside.
Curiously, the Breen were also deactivating the neighboring alcove. Thought the Breen were standing in his way, Zofchak was able to make out the distinct outline of something behind the forcefield in the alcove. As the energy barrier flicked out of existence, Zofchak watched in horror as the Breen extended their gloved hands to the emerging figure from the alcove. And what Dustin Zofchak saw almost literally scared him to death. A scaly hand. A scaly, reptilian face. A bony crest. A lock of haphazard black hair. A malevolent smile. A Jem'Hadar.
Dustin watched quietly from the shadows as the Breen swarmed around their new creation. They ran a plethora of medical scans on the Jem'Hadar before inserting a small container of Ketracel White into the soldier's uniform. The Jem'Hadar smiled malevolently as the substance started feeding into his body.
"Victory is life," he grunted.
The very sound of sound of his voice sent chills down Zofchak's spine. Aside from the fear, Dustin could feel anger build up inside of him. As a Starfleet officer he has been able to think rationally through his emotions and right now his anger would get him killed. The Breen chattered a series of disgruntled blips and bleeps at the Jem'Hadar after a few supplemental moments of revelry. The Jem'Hadar suddenly cast his eerie glare in Dustin's direction.
"The human?" he sneered.
The Breen continued their dialogue with the Jem'Hadar, this time a more prolonged conversation. Their creation said little during the entire exchange, little more than a few grunts or acknowledgments. But Zofchak understood none of it, as the Breen had yet to reissue him his communicator, or a Universal Translator. Until they did, he would be completely apart from any Breen conversations. Again, their chattering stopped, and the Jem'Hadar took several steps toward Dustin. The Breen slowly stepped aside, giving him a clear path to Zofchak . As the Jem'Hadar approached, Dustin took a few hesitant steps back. He knew he had little chance of avoiding the evil incarnate, but still, he tried to avoid conflict. Until he felt himself back into a wall. Upon seeing this, the Jem'Hadar smiled, and clenched his fists.
Sparhawk slowly awoke from his stun nap to find that the Breen were gone. His shipmates were still with him and the forcefield was still active but he saw no sign of the refrigerated aliens. Pushing that concern aside he looked over to the others. They were awake and sitting quietly in the middle of the erected field. Sparhawk sat up and scooted over to them.
"Where did our arctic friends scurry off to?" Sparhawk asked.
"They entered the structure some time ago," Plumley said. "They've been bringing equipment out as if they're salvaging what they can. They have not brought any of the bodies out though."
"I don't think they have the same regard for comrades that we do," Merriell said. "I would like to know what they did with Dustin."
"You're not the only one," Sparhawk said.
Hilary Kazarick had ended up down in main engineering to aquire the work of Dustin Zofchak's second in command, Hilary Kazarick.
"Lieutenant Commander Kazarick," he said upon spotting her working quietly at one of the auxiliary stations in the back of engineering.
Kazarick briefly glanced up from her work to see who was calling. Upon seeing the captain, she jumped to her feet, feeling really nervous at her sudden appearance. "What can I do for you, Captain?"
"At ease. No need to get worked up just because I showed up unannounced. Made any progress on the dampening field?"
Kazarick sighed. "No," she admitted. "We're too far away to make any difference in its intensity. But, given that extreme intensity, I don't think it would make any difference even if we were right on top of it."
The two of them looked at the layout of the field on the surface. Allensworth studied it carefully. Kazarick pointed out something on the screen. A tiny blip that had just surfaced. "It's near the last known position of the Breen," he noted.
Allensworth took a closer look. "It appears to be a cessation in their field," he said, not bothering to hide the suspicion in her voice. It seemed just a little bit too convenient.
"The technology the Breen brought to the surface may have something to do with it," Kazarick said. Allensworth was inclined to agree. Unless it was a sensor glitch, he had no other explanation for this sudden stroke of good fortune.
"We can use this to our advantage," he said. The idea in his head was a little radical but the clock was ticking. He knew the Breen could kill their hostages at any moment so he didn't have many options. He had to act. He straightend his posture and patted Kazarick on the shoulder. "Good work." He marched off, leaving Kazarick with a confused look.
"Thanks, but I didn't really do anything," she said quietly to herself.