Chapter Text
Innerol III was quiet at last. The insurrection was over.
Black smoke billowed on the horizon, fires burning through the cities for miles. Innerol III had never been a beautiful planet-- it was an industrial planet that specialized in mining of resource minerals and refining. The remnants of ancient jungles, signs when natural life had survived here were sparse, at best--scattered far and wide to grow almost defiantly amidst the industrial skeleton of this choking world.
Perhaps there was something in the air that made the people of Innerol rebellious. There had been numerous rebellions throughout this system over the years since they had been annexed into the Dominion. Every time, the Jem'Hadar come in to stomp out the fires and calm the unrest...but defiance remained, as always. The dissidents got executed and new voices rose to the top in their absence. Uneasy peace would reign for a few years until someone inevitably tried to turn back against the Dominion and the Jem'Hadar would return, heralded by the percussion of orbital bombardment. This latest incident began not long after word of the Dominion's loss in the Alpha Quadrant reached the ears of the rebel faction leaders of this planet. They saw weakness in the loss of the Dominion and they seized the moment, taking control over strategic mines and refinery complexes. Truly, it was a spirited effort...but the unavoidable fact was that the Founders' Dominion remained one of the most powerful military arms in the galaxy and smashed the planet to smoldering tinder, snuffing out the fledgling rebellion before it had even truly begun.
The Eighth Defense Group had been assigned to retake and hold a mining quarry that was responsible for supplying trace minerals for dilithium manufacturing. The group had been tasked to remain in place until the order to withdraw was given--and the active hostilities had ended over two weeks ago. The Jem'Hadar lived by protocol and protocol dictated that they stayed until told otherwise. So they remained, guarding this pit against a planet of ghosts.
Seventh Rotan'talag steadily retraced the same path he'd worn into soil of the quarry rim for the past five hours. There was little else to do, but he didn't mind the mindlessness of this work. He was Jem'Hadar. He was birthed for the fight, made of muscle and plated bone. Strength crafted to kill, but created to protect. He was honed with that purpose in mind and he'd harbored no fantasies of being a philosopher. So he paced his watch post and waited for sunset to come, when he could at last trade places with another of his company and he would get the chance to savor stillness.
Rotan'talag heard a commotion down at the quarry bottom, and saw a Vorta he'd never seen before standing outside the guard shack. This was a good sign-- new Vorta typically meant new orders. New orders meant an end to the pacing and a return to his usual duties at the helm of their cruiser. There was some commotion amongst the other sentries in his guard--Jem'hadar did not gossip in the traditional sense but contrary to popular opinion, they did talk to each other about topics of interest, and word began to spread quickly that this Vorta was there to find one specific Jem'Hadar.
Rotan, not caring about the rumors, set the idea out of his mind and continued digging his rut in the dirt, one circuit at a time. Time passed. The sun dropped a little in the sky.
"Hello. You must be Rotan'talag!"
Rotan spun to face the Vorta that had snuck up behind him. He surveyed him with a critical eye. He was slender and short, broader at the shoulder than he was at the waist and hips. He was clothed in the brown patterned jacket typical of Vorta diplomats, his black hair brushed back neatly. He had keen lilac eyes and fair skin. Rotan was certain he had never met this particular Vorta before--but the fact that he still seemed familiar despite that indicated that this man must be one of rank.
"...I am Seventh Rotan'talag of the Eighth Defense Group. Who are you and what business do you have with me, Vorta?"
"I am Weyoun. I come in service of the Founders. I have been given a directive to locate Jem'Hadar known to be free of the need of white. Rumor led me here to Ourentia, to you. I have a matter of importance I must discuss with you."
Rotan'talag was stunned by this, but one wouldn't know it from looking at his stoic face. "I am on patrol detail. Any business you have with me must wait until I am relieved--"
Weyoun shook his head with a smile.
"You have already been relieved," he said, gesturing with a nod of his head down to the field house at the bottom of the quarry. "I personally arranged that with your field supervisor twenty minutes ago. Please, a moment of your time?"
Rotan paused for a moment to lock gazes with the patrol guard around him before he holstered his disruptor rifle and followed the small Vorta to the lift elevator to head back to the guard shack.
Weyoun easily settled into the seat across from him, sipping on a cup of bitter tea. "Please, have a seat!"
Rotan'talag slipped into the seat cautiously, unused to such things. The comfort of Jem'Hadar was not typically considered--in fact, many Jems prided themselves on withstanding physicsl extremes. The offer of a chair suggested that Weyoun intended to speak to him at length, which was not something he looked forward to. He'd known Weyoun all of five minutes and he already got the impression that he could carry on for years.
"Right, I should get down to business. Like I said before, I've been tasked with locating representatives from your species that can live independently of Ketracel White. I have reason to believe that you are one of those people."
"What makes you so certain of that?"
"Genetic testing records from the hatchery facility. Archived reports from your supervisors. Testimonials from your overseers. Analysis of White distribution records, that sort of thing. Little details, but difficult to refute. Of course," Weyoun smiled, "The most obvious clue was the lack of tubing. Everything else is just window dressing."
Rotan stared quietly at the Vorta for a beat. "I won't deny it. But I am not the only one."
"No, you aren't. I've identified three other individuals just like you. Finding you wasn't my only directive, though. I was instructed to bring you back to the Great Link. So that the Founder could speak to you personally."
"I see. What about my current posting?"
Weyoun drained the rest of the cup. "Already taken care of, I assure you. You've been relieved here and reassigned to Core. We leave for transport in ten minutes."
"How efficient. You had to have already done that."
"Naturally."
Rotan could already feel the headache pulsing below his bony crown. He would be accompanying this Vorta all the way back to the Great Link, at least a three day transit. That was too much time to spend with any Vorta.
Rotan'talag gave the Vorta a curt nod and left to go tend to his small locker. He didn't keep much in the way of belongings-- Jem'Hadar weren't particularly materialistic or sentimental as other races were. But he had a good whetstone in his locker he'd carved and shaped himself and he would like the chance to keep it.
With a silent nod, he bid farewell to his former First and vanished with Weyoun in a shimmer of light.
Rotan'talag was surprised to find that they did not board a standard attack cruiser, but instead materialized on a full-sized warship. Weyoun wasted no time trying to take him on a tour of the ship, his explanations running on into lighthearted babble that Rotan'talag easily tuned out. Everything was standard regulation, no surprises. That was the nice thing about the Dominion--everything had precedent. Everything had protocol.
"My quarters are on the central deck in the starboard vestibule. Should you have any questions during my off hours, You are welcome to come see me there," Weyoun tittered, his smile just a little too perfect to be genuine. Rotan simply shook his head and headed back toward the turbolift.
"I won't," he said simply, as the door closed before him.
____________________________________________________________________
Not for the first time, Odo had wondered if this was worth all the trouble. He missed the routine of his old life. The familiar cast of characters he interplayed with on a daily basis. He would never admit it in a thousand years, but he missed the predictable unpredictability of Quark, too.
Most of all, he missed reviewing reports with Nerys every morning, charting the course of station life for the day...missing the curve of her lips, her white smile. Her bold, fiery hair...
Most of all, he wished that he could invoke her firebrand personality so he could shock the others into getting a damn thing done!
That was the most frustrating thing about the Link, in truth. A thousand intermingled, connected minds was a wonderful thing in theory-- but the reality was that the vast majority of the Link was apathetic to nearly everything. Most of the Founders had no particular inclinations about how The Dominion functioned, how it worked, what it did. Oh, they remained plenty judgmental. That wasn't the issue. It was that he couldn't seem to get many of the others to care.
Leaving the administration of their system to the Vorta had clearly taken a toll upon the Link. With no hands in the minutiae of their empire, many of them had lost touch with what the most basic needs of their subjects actually were. One would think that they would at least be cognizant of the fact that most organizations required food and water to survive. Odo was more than a little dismayed to find that some Founders had completely lost touch with that.
Laas (who had recently returned to the Link) was one of the other prominent voices in the changeling deep. He may have befriended Odo in his brief stay on Deep Space Nine, and he continued to consider them friends...but it was no secret that Laas had very little regard for solids and that was readily reflected in his suggestions. It was nice to have a friend like him, but there were times that Odo found the dogmatic attitudes tiring.
It was ironic that the species capable of changing into anything they want to be held some of the most rigid, inflexible attitudes of any species he had ever met. It was one of the things that convinced him that the Link needed to interact with Solids more often. That they would benefit from interacting and coming to understand the people under their rule...but such goals are much, much easier said than done, particularly when you are intending to fix a system that has been essentially frozen in place for at least two thousand years.
Odo sighed as he flipped through the activity scroll on his datapadd, his attention drawn to a message that Weyoun sent him. The message was very succinct (unusual for Weyoun, but they had recently had a conversation about brevity and it appeared that he had taken it to heart), saying only that he had located the last Jem'Hadar from their list and that they were on their way back to the Link.
Laas came into the room, undulating along the floor in the form of a Tarkalean Ribbon Asp. He came up to Odo, and pooled out into a golden puddle before he assumed his humanoid form.
"Reports. Always looking over reports. Curious that this is the way I always find you."
Odo continued to examine the manufacturing reports of the shipyards on Overne. "I find it gratifying to know what's going on in my back yard."
"So you're not denying that you do this for your own pleasure then?"
Odo set his padd down, effecting only the mildest sense of irritation as he turned toward Laas. This was an age-old battle, a source of constant bickering that had become tiresome. "No. I'll admit to that. But surely someone should be looking over the information the Vorta send us?"
Laas looked over the padds with distinct disinterest. "Is that not what the Vorta are for? What is the purpose of having servants if you insist on doing the job yourself?"
Odo shook his head. It would be fruitless to argue about the subject. He'd done so a thousand times, to no effect. "What is it, Laas?"
"The Link requests that you come down from the surface. Indurane has news to share with all of us."