To The Journey

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This is an AU story.

Chapter Fifteen: Paradise Victorious

"Ben!" She rushed forward to hug her old friend. "Are you the reason I'm here?"

"Yep. You know Admiral Leyton?"

"Only by reputation."

"I used to be his XO. He's now assigned me as Acting Chief of Starfleet Security. And I may know how to lead, but I was an engineer. You, on the other hand, are possibly the best tactical officer I've ever known."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

"Okay, then I'll say it straight out. I need you."

"That will get you somewhere. Okay. You've got me. What do we need to do?"

"This isn't the place. What do you say we discuss this over dinner?"

"You have a place in mind?"

"Sure do. How do you feel about Creole?"

"I've never had it."

"Boy, have you been missing out!"

xxxxxxxxx

"What is this place? I've never seen anything like it."

"That's not a problem, is it?"

"On the contrary, I like it. It's just one-of-a-kind."

"I guess it is. I'm so used to it I barely notice."

"Used to it? You've spent a lot of time here, I take it."

"I take it you weren't looking at the name over the door?"

"No, I suppose not. Why?"

"Ben!" An older man in an apron came up to them. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Tasha Yar, an old friend and my second-in-command on the project I was telling you about. Tasha, this is my dad, the owner of this establishment."

She shook his hand warmly, laughing as she realized what he'd meant about the name. "A pleasure, Mr. Sisko."

"The pleasure's all mine. Come on, there's a table with your names on it."

"What do you recommend? I've never had Creole before."

"Never had Creole before? What backwards little town did you come from?"

He'd clearly meant it as a friendly poke, but it was all too serious to her. "You hit it right on the head with that one. A backwards little planet, actually, and I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, you've come to the right place for your first taste of the stuff. Now, we've got a lovely trout today I've been saving for a special customer."

"Oh, I couldn't," she began.

He cut her off. "You most certainly could, and I hope you will!"

"All right, then I will."

He hurried off to the kitchen, and Tasha leaned towards Ben. "So what's the trouble?"

"What isn't is a better question. You heard about the bombing?"

"Of course I did. Everyone did." It was one of the worst tragedies to happen on Earth in a long time. A conference between the Federation and the Romulans had been bombed. Twenty-seven people were dead.

"We saw the recording and spotted evidence of a Changeling. But no changeling remains were found in the debris."

"So you think it escaped."

"Escaped and is loose on Earth somewhere. And if there's one, there may be more. Odo's already helping try to devise methods to detect Changelings."

"Okay. In the meantime, we need to secure key facilities."

"Agreed. What do you suggest?"

"We need to figure out which organizations and facilities are particularly key. From there, we need to find one or two people from each we know we can absolutely trust, preferably people we already know, give them every screening we can to make sure they're who they say they are, and then once we're convinced we tell them to keep their eyes open and let us know if anything major happens."

"I like it. What kind of key facilities are we talking about?"

"Well, Starfleet Security springs to mind, but being in charge of it we can watch it ourselves. Engineering Corps is a big one."

"Sabotage, you mean."

"Exactly."

"I don't know anyone inside, though."

"It's okay, I do. Close enough to the top to keep an eye on things, but inconspicuous enough not to draw a lot of attention."

"And you trust this person?"

"With my life."

"That's good enough for me. What else?"

xxxxxxxxx

"You wanted to see me, Captain?"

"I did. Sit down, Ensign."

"Sir, if I have done something I -"

"No, you haven't done anything. I need your help. You are Ensign Asil, Starfleet Engineering Corps?"

"Yes, sir."

"And I'm sure that you being here means you've passed the security screenings?"

"They were - particularly thorough."

"I apologize, but I had to be absolutely sure that you're who you say you are before I ask you to do what I'm about to ask you to do."

"And what is that, sir?"

"I need you to watch Engineering Corps for me."

"You mean spy?"

"In a sense, but only in case something goes wrong. Engineering Corps is a prime target for Changeling infiltration. You don't have to watch your colleagues, but if anything happens that shouldn't, a malfunction you can't explain or something, even if it's minor, I want to know about it."

"Understood, sir."

"You have your orders, Ensign. Dismissed."

xxxxxxxxx

"How did the meetings go?"

It had been a unanimous decision between them for her not to be present and let him conduct the 'interviews' alone, since most of the people in question were Tasha's friends or people from her past.

"For the most part, fine. But you really should have warned me that one of the people you sent to me was half-Bajoran."

"What's the difference?"

"What do you mean 'what's the difference'? The Bajoran people see me as a religious icon. And that includes that particular Bajoran person."

"Well, I'm sorry, but Mari's the best I could come up with in Fleet deployment. She's an old friend from the Academy, I trust her."

"I understand that. All I ask is that next time you bring in someone whose religion thinks I'm the Messiah, you give me a heads-up beforehand!"

She burst out laughing despite herself. "That I can do!"

xxxxxxxxx

"Want to tell me what's bothering you?"

"It's something that happened with my father."

"I heard he had a heart attack. Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine, and that's not it."

"Then what is it?"

"He refused to give blood for a screening. I got upset, and I couldn't understand - he cut himself with a knife, and all I could do was stare at the blood, expecting it to turn orange. Odo says it's a wise assumption, but that's not the point. I actually believed my own father was a changeling."

"That's what they're trying to do," she said suddenly, eyes widening.

"What?"

"No time. I need to talk to Command immediately. And I think you'd better come with me."

xxxxxxxxx

"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Admiral."

"I trust you wouldn't have bothered me unless it was important."

"Promise you'll take this seriously. It may sound a little far-fetched."

"Fire away. I'm listening."

"I think I may have figured out the Dominion's strategy on Earth. I told you it would be far-fetched."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense. What have you come up with?"

"Captain Sisko put me on to it." She nodded at her friend behind her. "There was an incident earlier today which briefly resulted in him thinking his father was a changeling. I'm not sure how to put this - did you ever watch any of Tom's old television broadcasts?"

"Did I watch them? Who do you think got him into them?" He knew her well enough to know this was going somewhere sooner or later.

"I'd never thought about it," she admitted. "Anyway, there was an episode of a show - can't remember the name exactly, something about midnight land but that doesn't sound right."

"The Twilight Zone."

"That's the one! Anyway, there's an episode where all the machines of the time suddenly stop working. There's no natural explanation, so the townspeople start blaming each other. Each of them thinks one of the others is responsible, and the entire neighborhood builds into one big riot. And then you see two people in a capsule discussing how easy it is to destroy Earth, that all they have to do is start messing with their devices and the people's own panic and paranoia will do the rest.

"I hardly think that this is a comprable situation." Paris frowned. "We know the changelings are dangerous."

"No, I see what she's saying," Ben put in. "Right now, Earth is strong. If they attack us straight on, they might lose. But plant a bomb in a conference and kill two dozen people while the whole Earth watches, and people start to panic. They suspect the people around them, and before you know it everyone's turning on each other. Even if we don't start killing each other, the trust that we've built this world on - built the entire Federation on, really - will be gone. And then, once we're weak from fighting each other -"

"They come in and roll right over us," Paris finished.

"Which means that our best defense is to be calm and think rationally. And above all, to trust each other."

"Agreed. I'll start spreading the word."

"Thank you, Admiral."

"Thank you, Tasha. You may have just saved us all."

They hadn't even made it to the turbolift when the entire building went dark. A few moments later they heard the sound of a door being manually forced open.

"Aliens messing with our power, you think?" Paris asked.

xxxxxxxxx

"Ensign, could you take a look at this?"

"What is it, Captain?"

"The virus that was used to disable the power network." They'd only just gotten the power back online after a four-day planet-wide blackout. Now that they'd fixed the what, they could turn their attention to how.

She took the PADD from the man. "What is it you want me to look at?"

"Does the code look familiar to you?"

The Vulcan Ensign studied it. "It does."

"That's what I thought. Can you identify it? That Vulcan memory of yours is better than this old mind."

Normally a reference like that might have been irritating, but she knew that the old Captain meant nothing by it; he was just like that.

"A moment - yes, that's it. It is a slightly modified version of the virus we created to inhibit the Borg's ability to adapt."

"What? How did the Dominion get a hold of that? Only five people in the entire Federation even know about it!"

"I do not know. But I know someone who should know about this as soon as possible."

xxxxxxxxx

"Asil! What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to Captain Sisko immediately."

"You can't. He's gotten caught up in some mess at Headquarters."

"I have information he will want to hear."

Tasha sighed. "All right, let's cut the formality. What's going on?"

"Captain Sisko wanted me to come directly to him if anything out of the ordinary or suspicious happened at Engineering Corps. Something did. So I did."

"Captain Sisko's in trouble. I need you to tell me. This could be important."

"I'm not certain -

"Come on. Who do you think told Captain Sisko to go to you? You can tell me.

"This is the virus that was used to disable the restart sequencers in the power grid." She pushed one PADD to Tasha. "And this is an experimental virus intended to inhibit the Borg's ability to adapt in the event that we encounter them again. Except for a few small modifications, they are identical."

"I don't suppose that could be a coincidence?"

"Unlikely. It took us nearly two months to come up with the correct code sequence. But I cannot see how a Changeling could have penetrated Engineering Corps. Our security is among the tightest anywhere in the Federation."

"Who knows about this?"

"The four of us who worked on it, of course. And we just showed it to Admiral Leyton last week as something we could modify to use as a defense against Dominion ships."

"Leyton? Leyton knows about this?"

"Yes, why?"

"Asil, listen to me very carefully. We've learned that Federation forces were the ones who sabotaged the power array, and we think Leyton may have been behind it. If you showed him that virus -"

"He could have modified it."

"Exactly. Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To the President, to present this evidence. Until we get past security, pretend you don't know anything. You're just my assistant."

"Why?"

"Leyton faked a bad blood test to get Captain Sisko arrested. If he thinks we have evidence to stop whatever his plan is, he could try the same stunt. We have to get this to the President."

"Understood."

xxxxxxxxx

"Ah, Commander. What can I do for you?"

"President Jaresh-Inyo, Ensign Asil, Starfleet Engineering Corps. We've discovered something you need to see."

"What is it?"

"The virus that was used to sabotage the power array was of Federation origin."

"Are you certain, Commander?"

"I was a member of the team that created the virus," Asil spoke up. "It took several months to manufacture."

"You think Changelings have infiltrated Engineering Corps?"

"Unlikely. Our security is among the tightest of any Starfleet facility."

"Mr. President, Captain Sisko uncovered evidence that the power shutdown was engineered by the Federation."

"Why?"

"As an excuse to declare martial law. But as soon as he discovered this, the cadets who did the sabotage were removed from Earth and Captain Sisko's blood test came back negative. Leyton is trying to stage a coup. I was pretty sure before and I'm positive now."

"Mr. President." Odo's gruff voice came from the doorway.

"Odo."

"Mr. President, I need to speak with you immediately."

"What now?"

"I've just spoken to Deep Space Nine. You know what we told you about the wormhole?"

"That it was opening and closing apparently at random, you mean?" That had been one of the most worrying things that had happened. It was likely to mean cloaked ships.

"It was a ruse. Major Kira and Commander Worf found a subspace modulator attached to the relay satellite on the far side of the wormhole. This has all been an elaborate setup so that Leyton could stage a coup."

"These two were just trying to tell me something similar."

"The virus that knocked out the power relay system? Only five people knew about it. Leyton was one of them." She knew Odo would appreciate brevity over specificity, especially under the circumstances.

"Listen. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that whatever Leyton is planning, he's going to try it today. Captain Sisko's gone to confront him, but you'd better be on guard."

"Sisko to Odo."

"Odo here. Good news, I hope?"

"Leyton's resigned. It's over."

There's a tiny follow-up to this planned for the next chapter, basically explaining what was going on on the other end while they were in the President's office. So before anyone asks any questions, it'll all be explained.

This chapter is based on the DS9 two-parter Homefront/Paradise Lost.

Please review.