Chapter Text
Not long after Nerys had left for lunch, Jadzia began to crave steamed azna. “Well, it’s as good a time as any,” she said to no one, before heading to the turbolift and making her way down to the promenade. She peeked into the Klingon restaurant and the Vulcan restaurant but continued on to Quark’s. Inside, she looked around at the usual hustle-and-bustle that Quark’s was known for: complete with dabo girls wearing skimpy clothing and encouraging people to gamble as much as possible, an obscene amount of alcohol for the time of day, and loud conversations making it impossible to hear anything in particular.
“Have you seen Kira? She should be down here by now. She left a few minutes before I did, and now I can’t find her anywhere.” Jadzia sat at the bar in front of Quark.
Quark poured a drink and passed it to the person sitting next to Jadzia. “Why? I haven’t seen her since this morning. If something happened, I wouldn’t know anything about it.”
“I am not blaming you; I was just trying to see if she came in here.” Jadzia laughed. “It’s probably nothing, maybe she just wanted to eat in her quarters today.”
“Can I get you anything?” Quark asked as he poured a seemingly complicated drink and passed it to another customer.
“No, thanks, I’m not hungry.” Jadzia replied as she stood up to leave. She decided to head back to ops, but as she was walking down the promenade, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. “Computer, locate Major Kira Nerys.” Jadzia said, just to be sure.
“Major Kira is not on the station.” The robotic voice responded. Jadzia froze in place.
“Dax to Sisko, something is wrong. Major Kira is not on the station.”
“She’s what?” Sisko thundered into the communicator. If she didn’t know Sisko well, she would have assumed he was angry, but she had known him for two lifetimes now and understood how he worked very well. He was worried, possibly scared. It wasn’t like Kira to disappear without warning. She didn’t always follow the rules, but when she broke a rule, everyone could see it coming. There was nothing going on, no reason for her to disappear, no friend to save or enemy to kill. Something was wrong. Dax found herself back in ops, talking to the majority of the members of the senior staff.
“No ships have left the station in the last hour,” Odo said first, before anyone even had gotten the chance to ask. “If she really is off the station, she must have been transported off.”
“I can check to see if there is any transporter resonance,” O’Brien added. “Do we know where she was last seen?”
“Last we saw of her was when she went on the turbolift.” Jadzia answered. “From what I can tell, she never made it to the promenade.” She nodded to O’Brien, who then took that as a sign that he was no longer allowed to continue in the conversation, and he must go start actually doing something. He whipped out a tricorder and stood in the turbolift, brow furrowed as it beeped away.
“Jadzia, I want you to see what ships have come within transporter range. Once we figure out where she is, I want to have you and the chief on the rescue mission. Take the Defiant.” Sisko instructed. “Odo, see if you can find anything else out. You all have your orders.”
“Yes sir.” Everyone said in unison, and they all separated to do their tasks. Odo stood and nodded while O’Brien spewed technobabble at him. Jadzia didn’t listen in for too long, but it seemed like O’Brien was having a difficult time finding any useful information. He then went on and on about the different things he could try to find out what had happened. Even in Odo’s rather emotionless face, Jadzia could tell that he was getting bored hearing all of the babble and just wanted to use the turbolift to get back to the security office. She would say something, but it was much funnier to let Odo deal with it on his own.
Jadzia focused back on following her order to find out what ships had come into transporter range recently. If it was a standard transporter, it would be easy to find if a ship had come into range. 40,000 km would be a great distance to walk, but in the vast expanse of space, it isn’t far at all. Problem is, she wasn’t seeing a whole lot. “Hey Chief, are we thinking that a regular transporter was used? I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary over here.”
“That is what I am worried about, Lieutenant. It is possible a transporter with a larger range was used, maybe a homing transporter or a subspace transporter. I am picking up trance hints of something, but I can’t quite tell what it is.” The Chief squinted at his tricorder and scratched his chin.
“Are you saying she could be lightyears away? How are we ever going to...” Jadzia was cut off by the beeping of an incoming communication. Her heart leaped out of her chest. “Just a second, Chief. On Screen.”
“Jadzia!” Nerys whisper-yelled through the transmission. The sight made Jadzia’s stomach churn. Kira was bruised and her voice was quick, anxious, nervous. She was a little too close to the camera, most likely to make sure it would be able to pick up her whisper. She seemed to be in a dark, concrete room, only illuminated by a few candles. “I don’t know where I am— but whoever took me left a subspace communicator in the room. It’s a little strange, but you should be able to track the signal.” The communication started to break up. “I…tr…ca…h...” was the last thing Jadzia heard before the communication cut out. Thankfully, she was able to get the coordinates.
Jadzia and O’Brien stared at the screen for a minute after the transmission ended, as if hoping Kira would pop back up and add more information. The air seemed to be thick, and the only noticeable sound was their breathing. “Well, are you ready to go, Chief?” Jadzia asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes sir, we should get going right away.” He hit his communicator. “O’Brien to Sisko, we got a transmission from Kira, and we have our location. We will depart as soon as possible.” He gave Dax a quick nod, and they both got in the turbolift. “It seems like it will take a day for us to get to Kira at max cruising speed.” Miles informed Jadzia. They both knew that, but they were worried about their friend, and he figured it was best to say something, rather than just thinking about it.
“I hope she can make it that long.” Jadzia responded somberly.