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Captain's Log, USS Bedford NCC-92570
Captain Grunt recording.
We are now en route to the Bajoran Wormhole, escorting Ambassador Everan and his three Jem'Hadar bodyguards back to Dominion space following talks with the Federation. For a Vorta, I find Everan to be unusually accepting of those who don't share his religious beliefs - most of them seem positively shocked that we don't worship the Founders the moment we meet one. I suppose that's how he got to be an ambassador, though.
We're also carrying a team of five Federation diplomats, who intend to continue the talks in Dominion territory. Roclak's been complaining for days about the Bedford being used as a passenger liner. I don't mind that so much - it just seems foolish to me to give up an edge in negotiations. But the diplomats say this is the best way to carry forward, and they're the ones in the Diplomatic Corps, not me, so perhaps they actually are right.
It might just be my misgivings about the crew's performance, too. Nothing I can really point at, but things just don't seem right since we took all these passengers aboard. Oddly, the Vorta is the only one I'm going to miss when we reach our destination. The Ambassador and I will be dining in one of my favorite holodeck programs this evening. I hope he doesn't mind my snail steak - Rock won't even eat in the same room as me any more.
"One of my great regrets," the Vorta ambassador said, "is that I never found time to visit Ferenginar. The weather seems quite nice - it reminds me of my home district in springtime. Is it true that you constantly maintain it?"
Outside the holographic representation of a window, a gentle rain fell, blanketing the half-seen swampland with fog. Grunt smiled. "We purchased the weather-control devices from Risa almost two hundred years ago. We've made a few improvements since, of course. The histories say that when the Risan engineers were told the settings we wanted, they thought we were all insane. Any Ferengi appreciates a good rain, though."
"As well you should, Captain. Rain is one of the great blessings of the FoundaaaAAAAAUUUUUGGGHHH!" The Vorta collapsed, clutching his head, screaming.
Grunt leapt to the ambassador's side, slapping his combadge. "Grunt to sickbay! Medical emergency, Holodeck 2! The Ambassador's down!"
"tr'Dalen. We're busy right now, captain. All three Jem'Hadar seem to be undergoing systemic shock. You'll have to bring the Ambassador here yourself. No, I said stabilize him, you ham-fisted dha'rudh! I swear by all the Elements, if that one dies..." tr'Dalen trailed off into something emphatic-sounding in Romulan, just before the transmission cut off.
Grunt tapped his combadge again. "Grunt to transporter room. Two to beam directly to sickbay, stat!"
"Acknowleged." A familiar azure swirl formed around Grunt and Everan, and the holographic restaurant was replaced by an unusually hectic Sickbay.
tr'Dalen looked around at the sound. "Good, you're here. Get him up on that biobed. Ferst, set up support program 7 and engage the psionic dampeners." The Betazoid nurse hastened to comply, as Grunt hefted the Vorta's semiconscious body up onto a bed.
"Psionic dampeners?" Grunt asked, puzzled.
"Yes," the Romulan replied. "I've seen something like this before, back during one of the Reman rebellions. It's an assassination technique usable only by a telepath or empath of sufficient strength - overwhelming the target's neural system with sensation or emotion. Given what I know about Jem'Hadar endocrine systems, someone's trying to hate these things to death."
"'Hate' them to death? Who'd want to do that? And how?"
The Vorta stirred. "Voices..." he whispered. "...scream... remember... Betazed..."
"Mycroft!" Grunt called out.
The AI coalesced next to him. "Yes, sir?"
"Was Ambassador Everan or any of his previous clones ever assigned to Betazed? Maybe during the Dominion occupation?"
"One moment, sir, checking... No, this was Everan's first trip out of the Gamma Quadrant. Apparently, his predecessors tended to be rather conciliatory, which is fine for an ambassador, but not for front-line troops."
"Well, that's an odd thing for him to say--"
"There's more, sir," Mycroft interrupted. "I've just turned up a reference to an apparent insurgent group calling itself 'Remember Betazed'. Their hypernet site says that they are devoted to, quote, 'keeping the memory of the Occupation alive, and punishing those who subjugated our world.' It seems to be a fairly minor group, but aside from that hypernet site, I can find no further information, which seems a bit suspicious to me - if the group is active, as this site seems to claim, there should be at least an occasional mention of them in newsfeeds from Betazed, but there's nothing. And there was a group fighting the Dominion occupation of Betazed during the Dominion War using a similar technique..."
"Begging the Captain's pardon--" a hesitant voice spoke up.
Grunt looked around. "Yes, Lieutenant?" he said to the Betazoid nurse next to Everan's bed.
"I, ah, I can tell you why there's no news about -- about that group, sir. I -- I'm not, ah, proud of this, sir, but I have an uncle who was an Arby - a member of Remember Betazed. There are, like, maybe twenty or thirty members in the entire world, and most of them are people who tried to make it into the freedom fighters during the Occupation and couldn't - they didn't have the empathic strength. If these Jem'Hadar had been assassinated by one of them, sir, it would have had to have been with a weapon, not -- not that." The lieutenant paled as he spoke.
Grunt nodded. "Thanks, son. That helps. So, the attack came from a powerful telepath, but not - what did you call them? Not an 'Arby'. LLunih, how many telepathic crew members do we have?"
"Four, but none this strong. If we had a telepath able to do this on board, he'd be your new comms officer." The Romulan shook his head. "Maybe one of the diplomats - there are two Betazoids in that group..."
"Hmm. Maybe. Then again, maybe something else." Grunt looked into space for a moment. "I think I know a way to either find our assassin, or eliminate the diplomats as suspects. LLunih, if we could speak privately for a moment..."
*******************
Outside the conference room, Grunt stopped and turned to Lt. Zoex. "Now remember, if I haven't given you the all-clear in two minutes after this door closes, contact Shelana and tell her we have a Priority Omega-Seven in this room."
"Of course, sir, but - what's a Priority Omega-Seven?"
"I'll tell you later. Ferengi brains are harder for telepaths to read than most, but just in case this one manages the trick, it's better if it can't tell from you."
Grunt stood erect, straightened his tunic, and marched through the door of the conference room, facing five annoyed diplomats.
Their putative leader, a Trill named Jenan Greft, stood as Grunt entered the room. Pointedly, the others remained seated. "Captain Grunt," Greft said, with faint emphasis on the title, "we really must protest this heavy-handed treatment!"
Grunt bowed. "I apologize on behalf of Starfleet Operations," he said, "but it would seem that there was a rather unpleasant disease on the station just before we left. It appears to be harmless to most life forms, but it has proved fatal for at least one of our Jem'Hadar guests. I'm sure you don't wish to provoke any untoward incidents on arrival in Dominion space - fortunately, our Dr. tr'Dalen has formulated an inoculation that will clear any infections from your systems. I have come to administer the shots personally, by way of atoning for this grievous insult." He placed a carefully calculated degree of fawning into his inflections and stance.
The Trill softened. "Oh, very well, Captain. Gentlebeings, if we could please line up here, we can get this over with and return to our duties."
The diplomats shuffled into a rough line, while Grunt wondered quietly what "duties" could possibly be occupying them aboard the Bedford. Greft, at the head of the line, rolled up his sleeve; Grunt removed the hypospray from his pocket and injected the Trill with LLunih's inoculant.
Four more times the hypospray hissed, and Grunt announced, "Thank you, gentlemen. Now, there will just be a short pause while we wait to make sure there are no side effects, and we can all return to what we were doing. Drinks?"
One of the Betazoid representatives in the group began to choke, one arm spasming. "What - what was in that shot?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a vicious growl at the end.
"Oh, nothing much," Grunt replied cheerfully. "Just some vitamins, a temporary psionic suppressant - the effects should wear off in about an hour - and something LLunih whipped up to counteract that stuff the Undine use to hold their shapes. What's it called again?"
The "Betazoid" collapsed, writhing. Abruptly, in his place there rose a tall tripedal form, slate-gray skin covering a form that spoke of horror to any who knew of Species 8472 - the Undine. "You were clever, for an animal," the thing growled. "Your mind is not as open to me as these others - but it will be!" The thing's eyes blazed, and Grunt found himself pinned against the wall, his boots almost half a meter off the floor. The Undine came closer, settling one hand on Grunt's head. "The weak shall--!" It suddenly stopped speaking, as its head flew from its bifurcated neck.
"Perish?" came a familar voice from behind the Undine. "You certainly shall." Commander Shelana began wiping the Undine's ichor from the blade of her prized bat'leth, her eyes as cold as the fields of Andor. "Say hello to my mates in Hell."
Grunt slid to the floor, wiping the alien's blood from his face. "Thanks, Shel," he said weakly. "Just in time, as usual."
"Good thing you sent the kid to get me," she replied, antennae twitching. "With all due respect, Captain sir, mind telling me why you were so freezing stupid as to come in here alone if you thought there might be an Undine?"
"Well," Grunt explained, climbing to his feet, "I figured that if the telepaths we know have a hard time reading a Ferengi four-lobed brain, the ones who aren't even used to our universe should have an even harder time. And I didn't want this - thing - figuring out what was going on before we had a chance to expose it. Zoex and I were the only two who even had a chance of getting this close, and I wasn't about to send a kid like that into this alone. Besides, I had to have someone to alert you when it was too busy with me to pay attention to its surroundings, right?" He put on his best charming smile.
She appeared unmoved. "And what made you think 'Undine' in the first place? I though Mycroft's working theory was a Betazoid terrorist."
"According to the Betazoid nurse in sickbay, this 'terrorist' group doesn't actually have anyone as a member who's capable of carrying out their attacks. They're about as significant as Terra Prime on Earth, or the Andorian movement to restore the Regency. So the attacker couldn't have been one of them. That led me to the Fourteenth Rule of Acquisition - in any deal, find out who profits most. Had we assumed the attacker was Betazoid, as we were obviously supposed to, that would have led to mass suspicion of Betazoids throughout the Federation, splitting away one of the core members of that Federation and weakening the organization as a whole. And who profits most from that? The Undine, of course."
"That makes sense - I suppose. Very well, sir, but as your security chief I must protest your throwing yourself into danger with no backup."
"But I had backup, my dear," Grunt said, smiling broadly. "I had you."
She grimaced at him.
Grunt turned back to Greft. "Consul, I would like to apologize again for interrupting your evening, and for my security chief decapitating one of your team members." He bowed.
Greft blinked. "I – ah– that’s quite all right, Captain. Couldn't be helped, obviously. And thank you for rooting out that traitor in our midst. Who knows what kind of disadvantageous agreements we might have reached under that being's influence? Rest assured, when we return to Deep Space Nine to file our formal report with the Diplomatic Corps, your gallant actions, and those of the Commander, will be prominently mentioned."
Grunt bowed again, hiding his amusement. "It was nothing, Consul. Standard Starfleet procedure, nothing more."