Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 07:05:19 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: Gabrielle Lawson inheildi@earthlink.net Title: Faith, Part III: Peace Author: Gabrielle Lawson (inheildi@earthlink.net) Series: DS9 Part: NEW 3/17 Rating: [PG-13] Codes: Chapter Twelve Bashir felt his knees grow weak but he locked them so he wouldn't fall. This was not how things were supposed to go. Section 31 was supposed to take him, give him some mission that he would refuse and then decide he wasn't worth all the trouble. Sloan had insinuated they would have killed him before. If he could push them far enough, they'd do it now. They *had* taken him. But they hadn't offered him a mission, and they hadn't given him any chance to refuse. Then Riker ordered the surrender. Bashir knew, logically, there was no choice, but he still found himself shaking his head. The walls were spinning again. Several of the crew had gasped at the order. Bormann was visibly shaken. "Sir?" "Do it," Riker ordered. Then he turned to Bashir and held out the uniform. "I really think you should put this on." Bashir looked at the familiar material in Riker's hand. Part of him still wanted it. But the part of him that was tired of the fight and the pain won out. "I'm not in Starfleet anymore." Riker shook his head in obvious exasperation. "As a Starfleet officer, you'll be a prisoner of war. If they see you as a civilian, they might just shoot you for sport." Neither option offered any comfort or advantage. A familiar tightness gripped his chest. He had wanted to die, to disappear and leave this life and all the trouble with it, But as he looked out the forward viewscreen at the beetle-shaped vessel that held position there, he knew he didn't want them to end his life. Not them. "What makes you think they abide by any such rules?" he found himself asking Riker. "They're preparing to board," Simmons called, his voice a little shaky. "Should I lower shields?" "We don't have time for this," Riker huffed. He looked back over his shoulder to Simmons. "Stall them." Then he pulled his phaser and pointed it at Bashir's chest. "If you don't put it on now, I'll stun you and we'll put it on you. Either way, you're getting into this uniform. You can't just give up." Bashir's faced flushed in anger. He wasn't afraid of the phaser, but he knew Riker would do what he said. "Why not?" he asked, keeping his voice low so that maybe only Riker would hear. He snatched the uniform and began to change, not because he wanted to, but because he didn't have a choice. "Because we need you," Riker answered. "Our mission is to find Pfenner. Section 31 knew that. That's why they led us here, because the Dominion has Pfenner. You discovered their experiments, the K-Layer." Bashir shook his head. He was tired of being treated like a science project when it was convenient. He was still human, if not as naturally so as the day he was born. "*We* did!" he countered. "Garak, Dax, O'Brien and I. Why aren't they here?" But he knew the answer. "Because they aren't genetically-enhanced." The phaser had lowered when he'd started to change. "I wouldn't have brought you at all," Riker admitted. "But that's probably why Section 31 put you here. We've got to stop the Dominion, Doctor. We need to stop Pfenner, if he's helping them. Out of those of us that are here, you're the right one for the job." Bashir zipped the jacket and faced Riker straight on. "You should have brought Data. He's smarter than I am." Riker tilted his head toward the ship behind him. "They'd take him apart." "They'll take me apart!" he threw back. Riker's brows furrowed and Bashir grew impatient. Riker just didn't understand. He'd never been their prisoner before. But he'd seen, hadn't he? The bodies on Carello Neru should have been some kind of clue. "Don't you understand? I escaped!" He pointed to the phaser. "I'd be better off if you'd set that to something higher than stun." His anger began give way to the underlying fear as he remembered his time in Camp 371. No one had escaped from there--until he and the others had--but the imagination could suffice to tell him reprisals would not be pleasant. He eyed the phaser in Riker's hand and his mind instantly began running scenarios. He would grab the phaser, raise its settings and do what he should have done back on the station, what he hadn't been strong enough to do. "Sir?" Simmons interrupted. "I don't think I can stall them any longer. We've got five seconds until they fire." "Lower shields," Riker ordered. He laid his hand on Bashir's shoulder. "Then you can escape again. We'll find a way. Or maybe they mean to get you out again. Just don't give up." Bashir didn't have time to ponder that, or even to move. His whole body began to tingle. "I thought they were boarding us," Garulos commented just before the runabout faded from view. It still shocked her a bit sometimes. The influx of memories that we not her own--and yet they were. She was with Benjamin discussing the Romulans. *"Okay, let's say I'm the Romulan Proconsol," Jadzia said. "From where I'm sitting, the Dominion isn't a threat to me. I have a pact of nonagression with them. They're my allies." "You're not going to put your faith in some piece of paper are you?" Benjamin replied, playing along. "Not at all," Jadzia returned. "I've been watching them very closely since the beginning of the war. And so far, they've kept their part of the bargain." Benjamin's tone got stronger. He was passionate about this from the start. "They're violating your territory almost every day. What kind of ally is that?" Jadzia felt herself flush, but she stayed calm, calculating . . . Romulan. "So they're crossing through my backyard to give the Federation a bloody nose. I can't say that makes me very sad." "You can't be naive enough to think the Dominion will stop with the Federation?" he said, then he pointed down at her. "When they're finished with us, they'll be coming after you." "That's speculation," she replied, still calm. "The Founders," Benjamin went on, "see it as their sacred duty to bring order to the galaxy. Their order." He waved his hands to fit his words. "Do you think they'll sit idly by and let you keep your chaotic empire next to their perfect order? No. If you watch us go under, what you're really doing is writing your own death warrant." "You're asking me to start a war based on theories." "They're not theories," Benjamin countered. "They're facts!" But the burden of proof was on him. "Prove it," she said.* And he did. Part of her realized that Jadzia Dax had suspected something all along, something she suppressed inside herself. She hadn't thought about how ironic it was that just weeks after her role-playing with the captain, the Romulan Senator was killed, the Dominion plot was found, and the Romulans joined the war. Ezri remembered the party after the announcement. Actually, she remembered two. One aboard the station and one on the *Destiny*. She was happy for the turning point in the war, the hope it gave her and everyone around her to know they had another ally, one who wasn't already taking a beating. Jadzia Dax hadn't wanted to think of the irony. She didn't want to know. And Ezri Dax understood why. Her captain, her friend through three hosts, a man she admired and looked up to as the most stubborn, stalwart man of principle she'd ever met--besides Julian--had crossed the line. He had participated in the forging of evidence to make the Romulans think the Dominion was going to attack, and in doing so, he had become an accessory to the murder of a Romulan senator, his entourage, and the forger. Ezri knew who had accomplished those murders. Benjamin had practically admitted it that very first day. He knew 'someone who specialized in gaining access to places he wasn't welcome.' With Garak's help, Benjamin achieved his purpose. The Romulans took the bait and joined the war. She wasn't sure if she was angry or disappointed or shocked. Or guilty. Wasn't it Jadzia that had said it was good sometimes to be the bad guy? Still, he must have known she wouldn't have approved. Otherwise he would have told her before this. "What did this have to do with Julian?" O'Brien asked. His voice was steady, but forced, and he couldn't seem to lift his eyes from the table. "You mean besides the fact that they told him?" Benjamin asked and then he took a deep breath. "To get a genuine Cardassian data rod, we had to barter something. Something that only Julian could release. He didn't know why. He protested it, warned me of the dangers." "Bio-memetic gel!" Ezri said, finally seeing the pieces fall together. Section 31 had tried to frame Julian on the *Enterprise* for illegally releasing eighty-five liters of bio-memetic gel. Sisko had cleared him, but he never did tell them the details. "It was the gel." "Bio-memetic--" O'Brien stammered. "He nearly died keeping that Lethian from the stuff! And you ordered him to just release it to some unsavory person with a data rod?" Sisko nodded. "Yes. I was bent on my objective, Chief. I needed to get the Romulans into the war, and I needed the rod to do that. I needed the gel to get the rod. I didn't think about Julian, and I tried not to think what would happen to the gel after it left the station. I was focussed on the objective. Nothing else mattered." Kira hadn't said anything yet, Dax realized, and as she looked at her now she decided the Colonel was ill. While Benjamin had been friends with a Dax for most of his adult life, he was an icon to Kira. The Emissary. She knew him better than most other Bajorans and was able to take him as a man and a commander as well, but she never forgot that he was the Emissary. Then again, she'd also lived to see Vedek Winn become the Kai. She would get through this. They all had to, because Benjamin was right. If any of this got to the Romulans, the alliance would end. Or another war would start. More guilt. If Sisko had a piece of what drove Julian into the shuttle, she had a piece, too. This was what he couldn't tell. He had begged her, pleaded with her, not to take the one thing he still had--the Infirmary--away from him. And she had, because she needed him to talk. But he knew he couldn't talk, because he couldn't endanger the rest of the quadrant with what he knew. He couldn't make her an accessory, as Benjamin had put it. They were all accessories now because they knew and they were going to cover it up. So she was guilty for Benjamin, for her part in his fall, for Julian, for pushing him over the edge, and for herself, for covering up a war crime against an ally. "So what now?" she asked, hoping that someone would pull a miracle out of their pocket and give her an answer that could ease her conscience. But the door had opened just as she spoke, and new faces appeared. "We do our duty, Lieutenant," Admiral Ross answered. "I'm sorry to learn that Doctor Bashir has left, but we have larger concerns than just one man." Martok and Parnal, the Romulan representative, stepped in behind him. Ezri was glad, now, for the three-hundred-year-old slug in her gut. Dax helped her to drain the guilt from her face, leaving only her concern for Julian. And when she looked around the table, she noted the others had done the same, without the benefit of a symbiont. "He didn't just leave, Admiral," Kira corrected. She held her head up now, and her eyes filled with fire. O'Brien gave her an approving look. She was the only one with the luxury to speak up to Ross that way without being insubordinate. "He was abducted." Ross sighed, then straightened his shoulders. "From this station?" Kira hesitated, but it was clear Ross already knew the answer. "No," Kira finally admitted. "Any reason to think his disappearance will have a detrimental effect on the war effort?" Ross looked to Sisko for that answer, but Dax did not like what he was implying. "No!" Kira replied before the captain could speak, "not unless you mean that we will no longer have the benefit of his intelligence and insight." "We wouldn't have discovered the Dominion's plot without him," Sisko added. Ross nodded and sat down at the other end of the table. "I realize you want to drop everything and look for him." Martok and Parnal took their seats as well, but all attention was on Ross now. "And if the fate of the entire Alpha Quadrant wasn't at stake, I'd be glad to let you. But just because we solved the puzzle doesn't mean we've won the prize. We may know what they are working on, but we still have to stop them from succeeding at it. Julian Bashir may matter little if the Dominon perfects K-Layer Subspace Concealment." Dax hated that Ross was right. She had been a commander once, too. Sometimes the success of a mission meant leaving someone behind. "Two days ago," Ross went on, "Starfleet Intelligence had a possible sighting of Doctor Wilhelm Pfenner in the Faeros system. The runabout *Dnieper* was sent from the *Enterprise* to investigate while the *Enterprise* was ordered to join the offensive at D'Nexi. Approximately six and a half hours ago, *Enterprise* lost all contact with her runabout." Ross touched the console in front of him, and an image appeared on the viewscreen behind him. "Pfenner may still be out there, and the disappearance of the *Dnieper* is troublesome. These are the long range sensor readings from Faeros VII's remote sensor base." Dax forced her attention to the screen, which showed a single small blip just inside the furthest range of the sensors. It moved slowly forward then turned sharply before disappearing. Ross continued, "As you can see, the *Dnieper* abruptly changed course then vanished altogether. Our runabouts are not equipped with cloaking devices. There were no other ships in the vicinity and there is no debris large enough to register on sensors." The readings played again, and Dax watched closely, looking for any sign that the runabout had been destroyed. There was no flash, no erratic behavior, no decrease in speed. The blip was just no longer there. "Pfenner may or may not be there," the admiral said, "but something is. Something happened to that runabout. And, since we know it was sent to investigate Pfenner, we have reason to suspect the Dominion may already have perfected K-Layer Subspace Concealment. We still need to find Pfenner and learn what happened out there. If they are able to hide in the K-Layer, the *Defiant*'s cloak may be the only way to conceal ourselves from them." If the Dominion did have the K-Layer, the whole quadrant was in danger. They had just sacrificed their innocence for the sake of the Federation. Now they would have to sacrifice their friend. "We'll be ready to go within the hour," the Benjamin said. They had been beamed aboard the Jem'Hadar vessel one at a time. They weapons were confiscated by the twelve Jem'Hadar that surrounded them. Riker's first thought had been for his crew, but he could only see two others: Bashir and Formenos. He hoped the other three were on the other ship. He'd waited for one of the Jem'Hadar to speak, but they simply stood and glared. Hours passed and Riker realized this was the first time he'd ever gotten a really close look at the Dominion soldiers. The Founders had obviously designed them to intimidate, and Riker decided that they had succeeded. The shortest one was still taller than he was, and he was taller than either Bashir or Formenos. Their skin was mottled with scales that seemed more like pebbles, and rows of bone protruded from their skulls. But Riker found the eyes the most disturbing. Each carried a look of fierce hunger in its eyes, like a soulless predator, driven to kill but held back by some greater force. Formenos shifted her footing again, only slightly, but as it was the only movement in this room, it stood out. Riker wanted to shift, too. His feet and knees ached from standing too long in one spot. He tried to keep his mind focussed somewhere else to keep from tensing up. Suddenly, the two Jem'Hadar in front of Riker stepped back. A woman in a beige shift brushed forward. Her hair was short and of a nondescript color, but Riker recognized her immediately for what she was. Her face was smooth but unfinished, without proper contours. One of the Jem'Hadar spoke, confirming Riker's guess. "Founder." *So this is a changeling,* Riker thought. Despite the face, the woman before him seemed solid enough. Her flesh looked like flesh, her eyes, though placed in those awkward sockets, looked like eyes. She had a haggard look about her. "Which one is he?" she barked to someone behind her. A Vorta, also a woman, pushed foward and Riker expected to be pointed out now. He had been spending the last three hours preparing himself for this. Name, rank, and serial number. A time-honored tradition among prisoners of war. "The dark one, there in the back," the Vorta said and Riker found himself pulled out of the way by one of the Jem'Hadar that was still standing near him. Bashir, who hadn't so much as twitched in all this time, closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again. He didn't meet the gaze of the shapeshifter or the Vorta. Riker tried to decide their reasoning for singling the doctor out. Section 31 had set up the runabout's capture. Had they also told the Dominion whom to expect? Or was it, as Bashir had implied, that they remembered him as one of the escapees? "See that it doesn't happen again," the Founder said before turning and walking away. "Yes, Founder," the Vorta replied. She handed a PADD to the soldier nearest her and then removed a slender device from a pocket in her dress. "Hold him," she ordered, and Bashir's eyes closed again. He was grabbed on either side by a Jem'Hadar and pushed to his knees. A third pushed his head forward, exposing the back of his neck. The Vorta moved toward him and pressed one end of the device to the base of his skull. Riker heard a small "thump" followed quickly by a sharp intake of breath by the doctor. The Vorta removed the device and stepped back. The Jem'Hadar handed her PADD back and she checked it, nodding as if satisfied. "Release him." Then she, too, turned and walked away. The circle closed again and Bashir slowly stood again. Riker took a step to help him but was held back by a strong, heavy grip on his shoulder. Bashir glanced up once, and Riker saw defeat in his eyes. Then the doctor dropped his gaze to the floor and stood unmoving again. Riker wondered what the Vorta had done to him, but he didn't have a lot of time to consider it. He felt a tingle at the top of his head and the bottom of his feet which travelled quickly inward, meeting at his stomach. His molecules dissipated and then reformed again, leaving him more dizzy than with Federation transporters. Riker was suprised to find they were in a well-lit room with no Jem'Hadar. The walls were white, which seemed out of place in a Dominion facility, though Riker supposed this could have been a structure that the Dominion seized rather than built. There was one door on the left wall and no windows, but Riker thought it was too big to be a cell for just three prisoners. Riker turned to ask Bashir how he was but he was interrupted by the whine of another transport. Bormann, Simmons, and Garulos appeared beside them, again without any accompanying Jem'Hadar guards. "Is everyone alright?" Riker asked as soon as they had solidified. They each nodded, except Bashir who was fingering the back of his neck. "What did they do?" Formenos asked him. Bashir shook his head. "I don't know. Some kind of implant. Probably to keep track of me, judging by what that changeling said." "Because you escaped before?" This time it was Simmons. "How'd you do that?" "I don't think they'd allow the same circumstances a second time," Bashir replied, "so I don't think it matters." Garulos nodded at that. "You saw a changeling? We didn't see anyone but our guards. About a dozen of them. No Vorta, no questions, no anything." "Same here," Riker told him, "except that the good doctor here drew some attention." Riker put his hand on Bashir's shoulder. "I'm sorry about this. I know you didn't volunteer for this." Bashir just nodded slightly. He was staring at the wall. Riker looked to see what had caught his attention. Hooks. There were three odd hooks on the wall, a little less than two meters off the ground. They were the only adornment on any of the walls. "Should we try the door, sir?" Bormann asked. Bashir had felt his stomach lurch when the transport deposited them in the room. The gravity was heavier here, wherever they were. He could feel it in his legs and arms, and the thing they put in the back of his head. He reached up to touch it and it reminded him of Sloan's monitoring device the first time they had met. It hummed slightly, which caused the hairs there to tingle. The air smelled different, too, though he couldn't determine why. There was a draft in the room, but he could see no openings or windows. Nothing but the one door. They were on a planet though, of that he was certain. The mostly bare white walls brought back unwanted memories, and, in a moment of panic, he couldn't help looking up to see if there were shower heads on the ceiling. There weren't and he breathed a little easier. Only a little. They had just been captured. There had to be something beyond this room, something unpleasant. The transporter signal so near to them sent a shock through the implant and for a second he couldn't see Riker or Formenos. But when his sight returned the other three from the runabout had joined them. Riker asked about the implant and Bashir answered, but his attention moved away from the conversation, even though he answered the lieutenant's question. He felt Riker's hand on his shoulder and he nodded at whatever the commander said. But he was looking intently at the hooks on one of the walls. They were more in the shape of an upturned L than a true J-like hook, and the points were barbed. He thought he could detect a hint of red on the black metal, and in thinking that, he began to see a shadow of it on the wall behind each of the three hooks, as if something had been painted over. "Should we try the door, sir?" Before Riker could answer the door burst open. Bright light spread into the doorway from outside, obscurring the identities of those entering, but Bashir could tell they were Jem'Hadar from the height and build of the distorted silhouettes he could see. But there was someone with them, someone shorter. A Vorta perhaps. Not a Vorta. The smaller person was thrown into the room and the door closed again. As soon as the glaring light was gone, Bashir could see it was a woman with thin arms and legs in a sack-like striped dress. He had a momentary flash of another woman in a striped dress delivering a tray of food to a table between two Gestapo agents. But her pointed ears didn't fit that memory. She looked up and he recognized her immediately. "V'dara!" he cried out as he pushed past the runabout crew to her. Her hand was trembling and her grip was weak when he pulled her from the floor. "You know her?" Riker asked, but Bashir ignored him. He hadn't seen V'dara since their escape from Internment Camp 371 and he very much regretted finding her here and so unwell. He kept her hand in his. She stood before him and took in a sharp breath in surprise. In the month he'd known her in the camp, she'd always been stoic, almost Vulcan in her expressions. But now her eyebrows dipped in sadness and concern. She touched his face with her other hand. "The others?" she asked, with urgency and hope. "They are free," he told her, knowing just who she meant: Garak, Worf and Martok. "And giving the Dominion hell." That brought a little of her spirit back to her eyes. She smirked and dropped her hand. "Good." But her other hand remained in his. "You must remain strong," she told him, squeezing her grip. "This isn't like 371. My years there are a fond memory compared to this place. You must not let them break you!" A hum began at the wall opposite the hooks and the seemingly solid wall there began to rise, flooding the floor with a glaring yellow light. The top of the wall slid under the ceiling, slowly revealing hundreds of legs, some in tall boots but most, further back, in stripes. Bashir released V'dara's hand and watched as a tall, thin Vorta ducked under the last edge of the wall, which continued its ascent until the whole of complex was visible beyond the glare. Rows upon rows of prisoners stood shoulder to shoulder, the men in striped trousers and the women in sack-like dresses like V'dara wore. The material glinted a bit, reflecting the sunlight, but the similarity was not lost on Bashir. For the merest of seconds, Bashir saw Nazi SS guards positioned around the myriad prisoners. He blinked and they were Jem'Hadar again. "Ah, another wayward one returns to us," crooned the Vorta, and Bashir recognized the voice. As his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, he saw the Vorta more clearly, standing with his hands behind his back. "Deyos?" he whispered to V'dara and she nodded. "Such a sweet reunion!" Deyos continued, smiling. "So nice of you to join us again, Doctor. I trust we won't have a repeat?" He raised his eyebrows and touched the back of his own neck softly, indicating the implant in Bashir. Again, Bashir looked to V'dara. She nodded. "It's only a transponder," V'dara whispered quickly, touching the base of her skull to show that she had one, too. "Nothing more." A familiar fear pushed itself to the forefront of Bashir's mind. Was V'dara a changeling? Would she say that to take him off his guard, hoping he'd talk--about what, he wasn't sure--so that the implant could transmit all he and the others said? "However," Deyos went on, dropping the smarmy tone, "only one is needed to make an example." He motioned a hand forward and two Jem'Hadar entered the room. Each grabbed V'dara by an arm, and they pulled her toward the back wall and the waiting hooks. Bashir felt as if he'd been hit in the stomach. The hooks. V'dara cried out, "Be strong!" as she was lifted off the floor and pressed onto one of the hooks. She screamed as the barb pierced her back and blood squirted onto the wall behind her. The Jem'Hadar released her and she fell a few inches, pulled onto the hook by the power of gravity. She kicked against the wall, instinctively trying to raise herself and lessen the pain. Blood ran down the wall in rivulets and pooled on the floor beneath her. He was frozen. He couldn't move or breathe. His chest hurt and he wanted to scream, but his mouth wouldn't open. His eyes wouldn't close; his head wouldn't turn away. V'dara died slowly, crying, and biting her lip in an effort not to scream. At the last moment, she held out her hand to him, but Bashir couldn't go to her. Her hand fell and she went limp. "There will be no escape!" Deyos's voice caused him to flinch but he still couldn't turn away. The Vorta had yelled, so that the entire assemblage of prisoners could hear. "There are no such things as heroes! Here, only work and dedication to the Founders can set you free." His last words were quieter. "Process them." -- --Gabrielle I'd much rather be writing! http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/trek/ The Edge of the Frontier http://www.stormpages.com/gabrielle/doyle/ This Side of the Nether Blog: http://www.gabriellewrites.blogspot.com -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. From ???@??? Sun Feb 01 00:59:16 2004 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n10.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.65]) by tanager (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aNaAF5JN3NZFmQ1 for ; Sat, 31 Jan 2004 21:56:17 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13074-1075614975-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.