SEASON 3: EPISODE 04

TO DELIGHT IN THE INHUMAN WORD: Epilogue

  “Divert three destroyers to point five, first.”

  “Yes, Suba’toran Jasis.”

  Jasis looked through her virtual display device at the scene before her.  She caught seeing a brace of torpedoes from her destroyer smash into a D’virin class incursion cruiser, obliterating it.  She looked down to her command console for a more substantial view of the battlefield then her mere eyes could give her.

  She saw three of the destroyers from her eleven strong wing of Jem’Hadar destroyers move off to their new position.  Jasis took in the entire battlefield.  The Jem’Hadar, with some minor help from the Cardassians were arrayed in a wide formation engaging forces of the Romulan Star Navy. 

  The Romulan had attacked the Cardassian starbase in the Cuellar system.  Located near Cuellar IV the large and powerful Ralkar class starbase was an important holding close to the enemy held Chin’toka system.  The Ralkar were larger and more powerful than the older Nor class stations and reminded Jasis of some sort of large ocean invertebrate with its six tentacles folded under its large bulbous body.  It was a formidable target and the Romulans had sent an Avara of one hundred and seven warships to destroy the target.  No doubt they hoped with the Cuellar starbase destroyed the Dominion would find it harder to maintain their effective blockade of the Chin’toka system, allowing the Federation Alliance to extend its lines past the system, a feat they had yet to accomplish.

  The Dominion was not unprepared for such a strike.  The Jem’Hadar Nineteenth Division was one of the units given the task of hold the Alliance in the system; they were also responsible for the defence of several other systems.  However, Cuellar was not one of them; it was meant to be the responsibility of the Seventeenth Order.  Following the Alliance’s gains in the Kalandra sector the bulk of the Seventeenth was sent to strengthen the Dominion’s position in the sector.  As a result the Cuellar system suddenly became a tempting target and just as the Dominion military planners had hoped the Romulans had taken the challenge and sent a fleet to destroy the base.  The Romulans were surprised when a Dominion strike fleet of one hundred and twenty-one ships had dropped out of warp to support the eighteen Cardassian vessels defending the station.

  Jasis was a recent addition to the division.  Suba’toran was a bit of a promotion from her predecessor, though it was a deserving one.  Her sixth and seventh incarnations had commanded wings and her seventh clone had even commanded a strike fleet for a brief time.  It was some time since she had commanded a wing but she still knew what she was doing.

  “First, advance our wing to point 9-3,” Jasis ordered.

  The first acknowledged her orders and dispersed them to the other ships in her wing.  She watched the sensors, paying attention to three ships in particular.  Two D’gerok assault gunships had gone to the aid of a D’deridex that had been faring poorly against a Jem’Hadar battle cruiser.  The gunships had done their task well, distracting the battle cruiser and given the heavy warbird the opportunity to disengage.  However, now they were swinging directly into the path of her eight destroyers.

  Jasis looked up at the approaching ships.  The mammoth D’deridex dominated her view.  To the starboard of the massive vessel came the gunships.  They were an unusual design for a Romulan vessel, with their imbedded nacelles they almost looked Cardassian if not for their green hulls.  Not much larger than her destroyers the gunships were better armed but were not as fast or manoeuvrable.  She knew she did not need to give orders at this point.  The Jem’Hadar knew what they needed to do.

  She saw that they were splitting to the left of the warbird.  A quick glance saw that they had split into two groups of four.  Her group opened fire on the warbird, peppering its weakened shields with polaron beams and torpedoes.  To her right she saw the other Jem’Hadar ships and the gunships exchange fire.  The warbird fired back at them and she saw large lances of green disruptor blasts flash past her view.  She could recall her early battles when she would be easily distracted by such sights but her long life and experiences had disciplined her mind so that the chaos of battle did not faze her.

  Her destroyer group’s fire pierced the warbird’s shields and torn into the ship’s starboard nacelle, shredding it apart in a furious display of light.  The group looped around the warbird, still firing as they went.  The warbird’s disruptors fired back but none hit Jasis’s vessel.  The looped around the tail of the ship, their combined fire punching through the shields again and setting the aft of the vessel awash in flames as holes in the hull allowed the ship’s atmosphere to bleed out into space.

  They quickly reduced the ship’s other nacelle to rubble and they continued their wide loop.  She spotted the other group of destroyers just in time to see one of the Romulan assault gunships explode brilliantly.  Her group closed on their final target, the warbird’s command hull.  She watched as they fired on it, she watched as their beams of destruction tore through the hull and as the torpedoes gouged out large sections.  They continued until they blew a hole clean through so she could see space on the other side of the ship.  It was a short engagement but her wing turned the mighty warbird into a large floating hulk.

  “Well done, first,” she congratulated.  “You may select the next target.”  That was what she was here for.  She was not here to inspire or lead, it was to direct the ferocity of the Jem’Hadar.

  The Romulans lost nearly half of their fleet before they decided to retreat from the engagement.   Massing around the powerful Vereleus dreadnought that was the command ship of the attack force they struck at the Dominion fleet that had enveloped them.  Jasis felt a begrudging respect for the Vereleus as it spearheaded the attack, obliterating two Jem’Hadar battle cruisers and several destroyers as the Romulans successfully punched a hole in the Dominion’s formation.  The surviving Romulan ships slipped through, several more falling as they tried to escape, but the vast majority of the vessels escaped, including the Vereleus.  Several wings from the strike fleet were dispatched to harass the Romulans until they retreated to the Alliance’s more secure lines in the Chin’toka system.  Jasis’s wing remained in the Cuellar system.

  “Suba’toran, you have an encrypted communication coming in,” reported her second.

  Jasis took off her virtual display device and handed to the first, who would most likely give it to the second to wear in her absence.

  “I will take it in my quarters.”

  Jasis’s quarters were just off the bridge of the vessel.  It was the closest spot suitable for private communications.  The Jem’Hadar were loyal...for the most part.  Still it did not hurt to keep certain facts from their purview.

  Jasis entered her quarters and sat at the desk and answered the hail.  She was only somewhat surprised when she found it was her on the other end.

  “Your hair is...interesting,” Jasis commented.  Her predecessor had changed her hair colour, making it very blonde.  The way Jasis 13 wore it; it almost made her look like a different person, like she was not a Jasis at all.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Jasis 13 replied.  Jasis noted that was not what she had said to her clone.  “How goes the battle at Cuellar?”

  Jasis was surprised by that question.  “How do you know about that?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I think have my sources.”

  Jasis did not doubt that.  They were probably her sources as well.  That was beside the point; she doubted that Jasis 13 would have contacted her for an update on the battle.  “It has ended.  We are victorious.”  She saw that Jasis 13 was about to reply so she quickly interrupted her.  “I know that is not why you have risked contacting me.  What is it you want?”

  She saw anger flash across 13’s face.  “We have failed, Masters still lives!”

  That answered it.  Jasis 13 must have made a move to kill Captain Masters and it had failed.  She was not surprised.  Her predecessor was defective; the Founders’ grace did not shine on her predecessor nor her mission.  “You have failed.  I told you before that this was the only time I would help you.”

  “But we are the same.  I am you.  You are me.”

  Jasis shook her head.  “No, I am Jasis and you are a mistake in the guise of Jasis.”

  Anger radiated out of Jasis 13 like light out of a star.  “You cannot turn your back on me!”

  “Yes I can,” she replied.  “You are on your own from now on.  I will not divert resources that should be used to pacify this quadrant so that you can hunt down an insignificant Starfleet officer.”

  “He is not insignificant to us,” hissed Jasis 13.

  Jasis sighed.  She knew what Jasis 13’s reaction would be to this.  “To me he is.”

  “He killed us!” Jasis 13 yelled, leaning closer.  “He butchered us!  He has to pay for what he’s done!”

  “That means nothing because we can be reborn to continue our work in the name of the glorious Founders.  The permanence of death is not something that comes to those who serve the Founders loyally.  Something you seem to have forgotten.”

  “If you don’t help me what should I do?” said Jasis 13.  She sounded pathetic and a edge of fear in her voice.

  “You should use your termination implant and end it.”  Something you should have done in the first place, she thought.  “You are an error and it is what the Founders will.  You can be satisfied in knowing that I and any subsequent clones will continue in the mission to bring order to this quadrant.  A mission that will most likely mean the death of Captain Masters anyway, the Dominion will be victorious and Masters will die fighting.  That will be the end of him but Jasis will continue forever in the glorious service of the Founders.”

  “That is not good enough,” said Jasis 13 thumping her fist to a table.  “He must be made to pay by our hands!  That is the only way to avenge our predecessor.  And if you will not help me then I will complete our mission on my own.”

  The channel was closed on Jasis 13’s end.  Jasis considered finally putting in a report about the errant clone.  Such a report at this time would not be favourable for her.  She would be punished, maybe not with death but with an assignment to a meaningless facility or command.  A place where she and probably her next few replacement clones would waste their talents, all because of the actions of one selfish individual.

  No, she would not put in a report.  Without the assistance of the Dominion there was little her clone could do.  If any of her Jem’Hadar survived they would soon be without the white and Jasis 13 would be forced to deal with them.  The only problem was that since Jasis 13 had failed at an attempt at Captain Masters’ life there would be a Starfleet report and likely other evidence that would point to her.  Luckily her service in the Battle of Cuellar would give her a watertight alibi.  They would not be able to pin the actions to her specifically.

  Jasis had prepared for this.  Once she agreed to help her predecessor she knew that success or failure, there was a good chance a report on her clone’s actions would return to the Dominion.  She had made sure not to implicate herself in her predecessor’s actions.  All the relevant evidence would point to her predecessor and not to her.  This transmission would be deleted from the ship’s logs, as all the other transmission between them.  Only the evidence that would remain would support her position and damn Jasis 13.

  Her clone’s continued existence might become known; once it did Jasis 13 would be hunted by not only the forces of the Federation Alliance but the Dominion as well.  Her time would run out and she would be killed.  On that day Jasis knew she would not shed a tear.

  There should only be one Jasis and at this time it is me, she thought as her finger hovered over the command to erase the last communication from the communications log.  Her finger delicately but determinedly dropped down and erased the evidence.  It is simple the way things are meant to be.