God's Hand

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This story was written over several periods, so I apologize in advance for any jarring shifts in voice and tone. It was also 70% finished by the time I found out certain details about DS9’s Final Chapter. Any and all contradictions with those events can be attributed to the author’s unwillingness to scrap this story. I liked it too much to abandon because of continuity.

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I

I mustn't run away...I mustn't run away...I mustn't run away... I mustn't run away!
--Ikari Shinji, Neon Genesis Evangelion.

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Lined up on Ezri's coffee table were a pot of coffee, a cup of raktajino, a cup of red leaf tea and an oversized mug full of boiling spice tea. Ezri was sitting on her couch, staring absently at the collection of beverages, late night drinks favored by Dax's previous hosts.

"I don't like any of them," she said suddenly. "The only reason I ever drank coffee at the Academy was because I needed a stimulant to keep me awake for cram sessions. Raktajino tastes disgusting, red leaf tea gives me indigestion, and spice tea is just...gross."

(If you don't like them, then why did you request them from the replicator?) Curzon inquired.

Ezri shook her head and sighed. "I didn't order these. Torias asked for the coffee, you and Jadzia wanted the raktajino...Tobin used to drink red leaf tea when he was on Vulcan and needed to concentrate, and Lela..." Ezri let out a sharp laugh, "...used to drink so much spice tea they found it in her blood stream carrying oxygen to her cells."

(I resent that remark,) Lela said.

"Look, it's late, I'm tired, and I want to go to bed. If you're thirsty, try to wait 'til morning."

Affirmatives and confirmations echoed within her skull before Jadzia and Audrid got into an argument whether or not a symbiont memory engram actually felt thirst.

Ezri stood, and began to work kinks from her back before she caught herself and stopped. It was a leftover habit of Curzon's; he had had frequent back problems, especially in his later years.

She turned off the lights in the living room and entered her bathroom by way of her bedroom, already anticipating a long soak in a tub full of hot water...and stopped in her tracks. "I don't want a bath!"

(But you need one, dear,) Lela said in her mother-hen voice. (You spent three hours in Quark's, and you smell like it. For our sakes...if not for us, then for your colleagues, who will have to put up with your...odor tomorrow.)

She exhaled noisily. "Fine!"

Ezri entered the bathroom, clomping noisily on the floor. She shook off her boots and stripped of her uniform and underwear, dumping it all into a heap on the floor. Sitting on the edge of the tub, she punched in her preferences and sat back to watch the tub fill up.

Spurred on by a Torias-driven impulse, she picked up a bottle of scented oil and poured a dollop of it into the near-boiling water. She closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh. It had been ages since she went out of her way to enjoy herself like this...If her memory served correctly, the last time was, oh, a week before the joining.

She stiffened; and the voices went silent.

For a long moment, the only sounds in the room were her breathing, and the gentle hiss of the water filling the bathtub.

(See, Ezri,) Lela said, her voice strained with false enthusiasm, (I know you would enjoy this.)

(The oil was a brilliant idea,) Jadzia continued, grasping at invisible straws for a subject, any subject, other than Ezri's joining to turn the conversation towards.

"It wasn't mine," Ezri replied numbly. "It's an old habit of Torias'. Thank him instead."

"Great," she muttered, as she slipped into the now-full tub.

(It is, actually,) Audrid said. (It's a good sign. It means that your personality and the symbiont's are, well, merging.)

"I don't want to merge with the symbiont."

(Well, it's a good sign for the symbiont, then,) Torias shot back. (You're a part of Dax, and it's time you learnt to...)

(Torias!) Audrid bellowed and Ezri tensed slightly at the force of the yell. (Ezri does not have to 'learn' anything, nor does she have anything to be...grateful for. She is already part of Dax, and has been since the day she joined. The only reason I am content with her behavior is because it means we are becoming part of her.)

Audrid sighed. (I know that, Joran. I was head of the Symbiosis commission. I earned my first doctorate on the blended personalities. The reason Ezri hasn't integrated us into her personality is because she didn't want to be joined. Her integration will be much more gradual, and to make things as smooth as possible, the last thing you should do is draw attention to it. It makes Ezri much more self-conscious, and she will probably spend the next week taking careful note of all her personal quirks.)

"Don't I have a say in this?" Ezri asked. "It is my life we're talking about here."

"One. Yes, it does bother me when you all call attention to my quirks, but it doesn't make me spend the next week taking careful note of all of them.

"Two. Could we please add this to the list of taboo topics and let me take my bath?"

A half-hearted affirmative echoed from the chorus' voices. Ezri groaned and slid down into the water, momentarily submerging her head below the surface, wetting her hair, and acclimatizing herself to the heat.

She straightened, letting her head emerge above the surface. Bliss.

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Just beyond the station' sensor perimeter, a small Cardassian freighter with Dominion registration lay in wait, cloaked to prevent ships passing by from detecting it.

It waited, it's sensors active, for DS9 to drop its shields.

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Ezri stretched out her legs and her toes poked above the water. "Computer, play...uhm...t'Rehu's Ascension."

She could feel Audrid smile.

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A small yatch circled the station, transmitting a general request for a docking permit. Ops tight-beamed an affirmative, and DS9 dropped her shields.

The Cardassian freighter's transporters went into action, and beamed their payload into the Habitat ring.

Into the living room of a junior officer's quarters, to be precise.

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"Yes, Tobin?"

"Umm...I've heard the name before...I think I had to write a paper on him in a Classical Lit course at the Academy. He's a Cardassian poet, right?"

"I'll bite, Tobin. Why are you asking me?"

"That's cool...But isn't t'Rehu's Ascension a Vulcan piece?"

(Ezri!) Curzon scolded. (Did they teach you nothing at the Academy? T'Rehu was the first - and only - ruling queen of Romulus.)

"You know what? I'll ask the Romulans who she is. Tomorrow," and she stood up, directing the computer to empty the tub as she stepped out onto the floor.

She scooped up her uniform and boots and walked to her bedroom, stifling a yawn. There, she collapsed on her bed, dropping her clothes on the floor by the wall.

Ezri rubbed at her eyes and yawned again, smiling up at the ceiling. A good day. A great day, really. No new patients, no complications with her current patients - she had even managed to get Garak to agree to see her once a month, which, in itself, was a great victory - and she had gotten two of her more...extreme patients transferred to a Federation psychiatric hospital. More importantly, no arguments with Dax. The voices had agreed with her, or kept silent, and for that, she was truly grateful.

She looked down at her belly, and began to massage the scar that ran the length of her abdomen, where the surgeons had opened her up and slid in a sessile worm that had changed her life.

A worm that was being uncharacteristically silent...

"Dax?" she started, a slight, mocking tone to her voice.

(Shhh!) The symbiont - all it's voices combined into one - replied.

Ezri shot bolt upright, her heart hammering in her chest.

(We...we think there's someone in your living room,) it continued. (Say nothing!)

She nodded once, and listened, straining her ears to pick up any and every sound in her quarters.

Who do you think it is? She thought

The floor creaked in the living room, and Ezri's pulse quickened.

"Worf?" she called out, her voice quavering. It was a silly hope, really. He was speaking to her now, something that pleased all of them, since Jadzia's love for the Klingon was so strong that it transcended the boundaries of the host personalities, but he wouldn't come into her quarters without permission.

"Who...who's there?"

The creaking approached the bedroom, and a figure walked in as the door slid open. It was still dark, and all she could see was his silhouette, framed by the light that streamed in her windows.

"Lights!" She called out.

She recognized the intruder. He was Cardassian, nearing middle age, and someone whose face had become familiar to nearly all citizens of the Alpha Quadrant over the past year.

Legate Damar of the Cardassian Empire was standing in her bedroom. He sucked in a deep breath and seemed to be looking at anything but her.

(He's a Cardassian,) Curzon sighed.

She pulled up a sheet, and knotted it at the shoulder, like a toga. Damar's gaze flashed up and down her body, appraising it. The intensity he focused upon her reminded Ezri - or was it Emony? - of the evaluation committee when she was an initiate.

The memory was there, nevertheless, and that combined with the utter strangeness of the situation made her feel light-headed. She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. Bright spots appeared against her eyelids.

She blinked once, to clear her vision, and focused on Damar. He was watching her, a concerned look on his face.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"I...yeah...yeah, I'm fine. Just a little startled, that's all. Not every one appears in my quarters unannounced. How did you get in?" she asked suddenly.

"Transporter."

She shrugged. "It's not every day that someone beams into my quarters unannounced, then. But then, most people don't beam into my quarters, period. I'm more used to them using the door...I talk too much, don't I? Benjamin's been dropping broad hints, but he's never really said it out loud...Sorry, sorry."

He waved it off. "It's nothing."

(Ezri. He's a Cardassian. He comes from a species enamored with the sound of their own voices,) Curzon added

She sat up straighter, and leaned forward, sticking out her hand. "I'm Ezri. Ezri Dax."

He stared at her for a long moment before reluctantly taking her hand in his own and shaking it limply. "I know. I'm Damar."

"I know that too," she replied with a smile.

(You shouldn't have done that,) Joran interjected with a sing-songy tone.

"What are you doing here?" she continued, ignoring Joran's obscene comments.

"I..." he took a deep breath, and looked down. "I need your help. I probably have no right to ask you this, considering what happened last time you met a Cardassian," he continued, the words tumbling out of his mouth, "but you were the only one I could think of. You were, after all, the last person to see him..."

She lifted her hand. "Excuse me? But who are we talking about?"

He let out a bitter laugh. "Dukat. I want you to help me find Dukat."

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Damar drummed his fingers on the edge of the flight console as he watched Cardassia recede through the viewscreen.

Not more than two hours ago, Weyoun, in an attempt to enforce his authority and ensure public obedience towards the Dominion’s iron-fisted rule, had ordered the public execution of a group of two dozen adolescents who had organized a non-violent sit-in at one of the newly erected government facilities. Damar had spent nearly an hour threatening, pleading, and finally begging the Vorta to spare their lives. Weyoun had agreed, on one condition.

Damar had to bring Dukat back to Cardassia to be judged in a ‘fair’ Dominion trial.

"He will suffer punishment for his betrayal," Weyoun had hissed. "He will be used as a deterrent for all who might attempt to turn on the Dominion." And on those last words, the Vorta had glared at Damar, almost as a warning.

Damar laughed bitterly. As if I had the time to plot a rebellion, what with trying to wage a war with the Federation, keep my political opponents from ousting me, and making sure the Dominion isn’t trying to kill me. Brilliant, Weyoun. You’ve figured out my secret plan.

Cardassia had shrunk to a small, tight dot on his viewscreen, and he tapped a sensitive area on his console that sent the old freight hauler to warp, and then another which shifted the view to what lay before him. The black of space was freckled by tiny multihued spots of light that, due to the distortions of the subspace field, were stretched into rainbow filaments that streaked out of view.

His destination was a little over five light-years from Cardassia, and at his current speed, it would take him a little less that a day to get there.

Weyoun enforced his authority, Damar thought grimly. It’s obvious now which one of us truly rules. And he will never let me forget it.

This…farce was a true test of his loyalties, for Weyoun knew – and Damar knew that the Vorta knew – that if Damar was willing and able to turn on his former commander and but for a few months, his once-friend, then there was nothing, nothing he wouldn’t do in the name of Cardassia and their victory over the entire Alpha Quadrant.

A victory that, in Damar’s war-weary eyes, already seemed to be receding further and further into the future, and further and further from the Dominion’s grasping fingers.

They would lose, and they would die.

Oh, not the Dominion, for the Dominion, as Damar was beginning to realize, would never die, nor did they suffer defeat, only setbacks. As the Gamma Quadrant proved, they always got what they wanted.

No, in the end, the loser would be Cardassia and her people. Innocent and guilty alike will be slaughtered by the Federation forces, demoralized by defeat and hungry for vengeance upon his people.

But if we are to die, let us go down with what little honor we have left, instead of scurrying in the dark like the Federation.

Realization struck and he laughed at the irony. I am scurrying about in the dark, just like them! Oh, Dax, if anyone would appreciate the…humor behind this, it would be you.

Did she hate him, he wondered. Dukat did kill her last host, and Damar believed that she knew he was responsible for Dukat’s insanity. And, thus, her death.

But Dukat was surely not the only subject of Dax’s wrath. As Damar had continued the war after Dukat was captured, Ezri might even believe he was responsible for Dukat’s attack on the station.

And that couldn’t be any further from the truth…

All Damar had to do was close his eyes, and the surreal scene repeated itself: He and Weyoun engaged in some tedious war-related argument when a guard had burst through the door, and began to babble nervously. And then Dukat, carrying some sort of travel sack.

The broken idol…

The flash of light…

The chill that ran up Damar’s spine to nestle permanently in his mind…

And then, days later, the report came in that the Trill was dead and Dukat was missing. Damar had mourned for them both, because eon that day, he had lost two of an increasingly shrinking number of people he had loved. And who had loved him back.

He had sat there, on the bridge of the Ghriah, his mind reliving those days and others that haunted him still, his resolve firm, until his ship came into range of DS9.

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Ezri sank into her bed, horror and fear mingling in her gut. Dukat…who murdered her, who murdered Jadzia and put her in this predicament. She swallowed once and licked her lips, but the sickly sweet taste mounting in her gullet was still there.

"Du…Du-Dukat?" she asked, feebly, her voice weak with fear.

"Dukat," Damar affirmed. "Former prefect of Bajor, former Supreme Commander of the Cardassian Empire, and the man who killed you. The one and only."

"Whu…Why?"

He took a deep breath. "Because, out of all the possibilities, you are the least likely to turn on me and betray me to Dukat. You are the least likely to let him escape. You, out of all the people I could have chosen, are the least…insane choice. I knew Jadzia. She was an honorable woman and I trusted her. I hope that, out of all the qualities that were passed on to you when you received Dax, her sense of honor was one of them." He shook his head. "Asking anyone, from my…‘colleagues’ on Cardassia to even Kira or Weyoun, would have meant suicide."

Ezri moaned and buried her face in her hands. "First Joined. First Joined, First Joined. Help me." She looked up at Damar. "You can’t be serious. You cannot be." Softly, inside her mind, Jadzia began to whisper ‘yes, yes’. She pulled her knees up to her chest and pressed them in as tightly as possible. "This is a joke," she muttered, "a great joke, and I bet Julian is behind it. He’s into morbid stuff these days."

Damar sat down on the bed beside her. "It’s no joke, I’m afraid. I’m very serious."

She turned, and looked up at him. "I…I know. Jadzia says you don’t have much of a sense of humor."

His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Jadzia…is right. I don’t."

She let out a weak laugh and he stroked her shoulder in comfort. After a long moment, she looked up. "Al…alright; I’ll help."

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She smiled at him as she adjusted her uniform, and wipe at her eyes. "So," she began, "what are we using as transportation?"

"I have a ship just outside sensor range."

He tapped at the com unit on his wrist. "Damar to Ghriah. Two to transport."

She felt the familiar sensation of a transporter beam envelop her, and then materialized on Damar’s ship, which, at first glance, appeared to be a rather old Cardassian freighter.

"The bridge is this way. Follow me"

They walked down a few corridors before emerging in a standard Cardassian bridge; a raised captain’s seat surrounded by consoles, and at the head of the bridge was an eye-shaped viewscreen. She knew the layout, as Curzon had spent some time on a ship like this one during his youth.

"Memories," she muttered under her breath.

Damar, bent over the helm, shot her a slightly startled look. She shook her head, and he turned back to what he had been doing.

"Where are we going?" she asked suddenly.

His expression hardened, and he became all business. "I think I know where Dukat has gone to," he said. "Have you ever heard of Empok Nor?"

She nodded as one of Jadzia’s memories unfolded. "Yes…It was abandoned a few years ago, when the system it was in became tactically useless. And it’s been empty ever since."

"Not so empty recently, I’m afraid," he said. "Ever since Dukat…killed…you, there’s been an increase – a serious one – of the amount of energy that it puts out. And they have begun sending and receiving tight-beam signals to and from Bajor."

"The Dominion has known about this and done nothing?!"

"There’s a war going on, Dax, and as you said, the Trevas system has become tactically useless. We don’t have the resources to waste on something like this."

"She sucked in her breath. "The Trevas system, then. Onwards to Empok Nor."

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Ezri sat on the floor of the bridge, scrolling absently through a document on a padd, a memory from the symbiont tickling the back of her mind.

"Damar?" she said suddenly, "what, exactly, did Empok Nor do before it was abandoned?"

"Eh…Oh, it was a research station."

"Politicalese for spy-eye?"

"During the war, yes, but not before. Its initial purpose was to analyze the composition of the nebula."

"Nebula?" The almost-memory was stronger now, something so obvious she might miss it.

"Why yes. The Trevas system isn’t really a ‘system’ after all, but the remnants of an ancient nebula coalescing into star system. Its discovery shed a great deal of light on to the formation of planets and the like."

(Spoken like a true science officer,) Jadzia said proudly

He was a science officer?

(Yup. He transferred into command a year or two before he met Dukat.)

He doesn’t look it…

(He is handsome, isn’t he?)

Ye – I mean, Jadzia!

Jadzia giggled.

And the memory was suddenly unfurled.

"Damar, I have an idea. Have you ever heard of Alolen Saadara and her research into stellar formation?"

He nodded once, his confusion written plainly across his face.

"D’you remember how she got her data?"

His eyes widened in understanding.

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