Old Faces, New Places

[argentembers]

It had been days since Dukat had one of his troubling dreams, dreams of a place he couldn't recall--alarming in its own right for a Cardassian--where he knew he was trapped. He awoke from them feeling frustrated and out of sorts, to the point he saw a doctor for a sleep aid that he subsequently refused to use. He believed he was back to himself now, and there was still much to be done. The minefield left behind by the fleeing Federation personnel was proving to be extremely troublesome. Damar's insistence that it could be disabled at first was heartening. As time passed, he found it nothing but annoying, as he did any time he was promised results with no follow through.

He left the bridge of the Rotarran with a headache throbbing just behind his right eye ridge, instructing his second that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed unless they found themselves under attack. In the solitude and darkness of his quarters, he found some small relief but no rest. Perhaps the sleep aid wasn't such a bad idea after all? As he lay prone on the hard bed, he tossed the idea back and forth with no resolution, taking himself down toward what he sought without being fully aware of it.

How long he slept he couldn't say, nor could he precisely pin what awakened him. A sound? A feeling? Yes, there was something definitely off in the sound of the engines. He was intimately familiar with the ins and outs of his ship as any good commanding officer ought to be. He activated his wrist comm. "Damar, report," he said. He received no response. "Damar!" he barked. Still nothing.

Disconcerted, he snatched up his disruptor and stalked out into the corridor to access one of the ship wide comm systems. Nowhere that he hailed provided answer, not the engine room, the bridge, the infirmary, nor any of his senior officers' quarters. As he strode the corridors, it seemed as though he occupied a ghost ship. None of his personnel were where they were supposed to be, nor anywhere else that he could find. He raced to the bridge to find long range sensors giving nonsense readings and the view screen inoperable. After some adjustment of the controls, he managed a static-y picture of an unfamiliar starscape. Navigation was no better with all logs currently inaccessible.

Cursing under his breath, he attempted to get a reading of life signs aboard the vessel. There were two, his own and that of an unknown species. It was located in one of the cargo bays on deck six. Transferring tracking abilities to his wrist comm, he set out to find the intruder. If it was responsible for the disappearance of his crew, he intended to find out how and why.

Comments

[hisoldgirl]

Cold. She realised she was cold. Not why or how, but simply that she was. The sensation was alien and familiar all at once, like a far-off memory or the knowledge gleaned from skimming the pages of a book. She shouldn't be cold; ships didn't feel temperature. They didn't feel anything, and yet... There was a haze about her processors, slowing down her memory and blocking off neuropathways. Her engines sounded distant and off; there was something wrong with her interior space. No, not just her interior... her exterior, as well. And her sensors were offline. She recorded no data and saw nothing outside, but there was still sound and touch and smell--

Smell. She couldn't smell. Ships didn't smell and yet she was. Cold steel and ozone; dry, almost stale air. She took a breath she didn't realise she was holding, exhaling loudly, and snapped her eyes open. Breath. Eyes. Shaking, the TARDIS pressed at her face and the thick dark locks around her head, the fuzziness around her thoughts lifting even as she did so. Long-forgotten memories raced to the fore, thoughts she'd attributed to ghosts in the machine. An island. Flesh. Vague recollections of entrapment and a loss of self. They rushed forward and she clawed at her cheeks, suddenly terrified.

She was a ship. She was a ship. This couldn't be happening again. That had all just been a processing error, hadn't it? But no. The hands at her face said otherwise; the naked body, legs tucked beneath her -- they didn't lie. Something had happened, something far beyond her understanding at the moment, and she was powerless to stop it.

"Doctor?" she called, voice hoarse and thick as she pushed herself up on wobbly legs. She fell almost immediately and grit her teeth, dragging herself toward the wall to use it as leverage. It looked like a cargo bay on a transport ship of some sort, but the stillness was eerie. Where was the crew? Where was her pilot? "Doctor?"

[argentembers]

Dukat saw that the unknown entity was moving about within the cargo bay. Fortunately, it didn't seem inclined to go far. Of course, he had no idea if that was truly fortunate or not. If it was responsible for the disappearance of his crew and the near disabling of his ship, the fact that it wasn't going much of anywhere didn't mean much. He set his disruptor to stun rather than kill simply because he wanted the chance to ask questions if he could manage it.

Once he reached the door, he hit the manual override to open it rather than risk a malfunction and have the other prematurely alerted to his presence. He slipped in quickly, weapon raised. At first he didn't see her, but when he did it was as though a veil had been torn away from his memory. The island, trapped all of those months, the center, the chess games, kotra...the ship, but what was she doing here? Was it truly she or something using his memories?

"Identify yourself," he called sharply, weapon trained dead center and a steely light in pale eyes.

[hisoldgirl]

Still trying to process the sudden shift in being, the TARDIS almost didn't hear Dukat's command. Even if she had, she was still so overwhelmed with being flesh that she'd have ignored it. It took all she had to remember how to move, to feel, to breathe; more than once she found herself gasping for her oversight.

But eventually, just as with everything else, the familiarity of the voice began winnowing its way to the forefront of her thoughts. Memories sharpened, each moment replaying with a clarity she didn't realise she'd been lacking and the ship drew a faint, shuddering breath. Dukat. Her Cardassian. But this was most certainly not Atia's island, nor was it any ship she'd ever seen before. She was flesh and the Legate was here, but where was here?

And would he even believe her when she answered him?

"TARDIS," she rasped, standing as straight as she could, one hand still pressed to the wall for balance. "You know me, Legate Dukat."

[argentembers]

His eyes narrowed a fraction, finger taking up the faint slack of the contact point of the disruptor. Yes, he did know her, against all logic and reason. For several tense moments he remained unmoving, as taut as a coiled spring. Everything he thought he knew warred with memory. In the end, memory won out. It was something a Cardassian would trust well beyond what he had simply learned. Only in very particular cases did it play one false, and he knew himself to be in perfect health. Abruptly, he holstered the sidearm.

"I do," he admitted, his tone of voice wary. "How did you come to be here?" He couldn't understand why she would appear in flesh form, not when she had found it so hated. She had promised him she would seek him out. He recalled that now, too. He would never have expected it to be this way. "Why are you in that form?"

[hisoldgirl]

What a question that was. "I do not know," she admitted, the wildness in her eyes at severe odds with the measured, almost stilted way she spoke. She had not spoken in a long time and memory only served one so well when it came to being what one was not. Her breathing remained ragged and she didn't move from the wall, unfazed by Dukat's actions. Him holding the firearm made no difference, not when she was so close to damaging herself. Her cheeks burned beneath the welts left from her nails. "I do not know. I was flying and then there was darkness. That is all I can recall."

[argentembers]

It took all of his self control not to reach up and check his throat for a collar. He could see well enough that she wasn't wearing one. At least there was that. It didn't explain anything, but he felt certain this wasn't Atia's doing. He took a deep breath and let it out in a puff. "You are aboard my ship, the Rotarran. My crew is currently missing, systems only nominally operational. Let us find you something to wear, and we can move from there."

The welts on her cheeks made him hesitant to encroach on her or touch her. Instead, he held out his hand, putting that decision in her corner. Having her stable would make her much more useful in helping to discern what was wrong with the equipment. Perhaps if they could get all the sensors functional they could at least figure out where they were. He would take any clarification at this point as a good start.

[hisoldgirl]

The faster her memories resurfaced, the easier it was for her to regain motor function. Taking one last shuddering breath, the ship pushed away from the wall, still uncertain on her feet, and reached for Dukat's hand. She didn't question the offer nor her own actions; for better or worse, she trusted the Cardassian and being here did not change that. Besides, he offered her stability she sorely needed, both mentally and physically.

"Your ship?" she repeated, finally taking a moment to look around and process where she was. It was indeed a cargo bay, the surreal silence explained by his loss of crew. The TARDIS closed her eyes to better listen to the ship itself, brow drawn in concern. "There is something wrong with her. She labors." Whatever had dragged the TARDIS here was obviously affecting his Rotarran, though the how and why of it remained a mystery. What could have removed an entire crew without him noticing? What could have placed her back into flesh? "Do you recall what happened before my arrival and your crew's disappearance?"

[argentembers]

He closed his fingers around hers, a firm hold, his hand as always cool and dry, a little raspy. He'd never admit it; however, he found the touch steadying as well. He had never done well completely alone in his life. It was more than a little disconcerting to have awakened to a ghost ship. Having someone familiar present made him feel more as though it were a problem to be solved than a situation over which he had no control.

"Yes, Galor class." He knew that would mean very little to her just yet. If he could get the systems online, he could pull up more information for her. "I noticed that also. It's what awakened me. The sound was off."

Keeping hold of her, he started walking her slowly out of the bay. "We were on a routine sweep of a mine field left behind by the Federation blocking the opening of the wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant. There was no way past it into the wormhole itself. If there were, it wouldn't be a problem. Nothing was out of the ordinary. I had a headache, also not out of the ordinary of late, and retired to my quarters. I awoke to the ship sounding off, the crew missing, and sensors behaving erratically, if they were working at all."

[hisoldgirl]

"Wormhole?" She recalled him mentioning it to her before, though the details remained fuzzy. Not that it mattered; it was more information than before. "And you are certain you did not enter the wormhole? Or that a mine did not detonate? That close to a destabilized section of space, an explosion could easily have thrust the ship outside of time." A Gallifreyan brain, for all it was better than a human's, was still sluggish compared to her processing speeds and so her thoughts moved slowly. "Were there any strange readings before you retired?"

While they spoke, she slowly began to regain some sense of balance, though she never thought to release his hand. Cool against cool, the feel of his skin against hers was calming. That and she did not know the layout of his ship; it was best to stay with him and let him lead, though that didn't keep her from looking around and filing away what she saw as they made their way through corridors. A functional ship, if spartan. The TARDIS would have enjoyed the walk more if the sound of the ship didn't disturb her.

[argentembers]

"I can only be certain of what happened before I fell asleep. I'm forced to conclude at the moment that whatever caused this happened after I was in bed. I'm relatively certain it wasn't a mine explosion. They were set in such proximity that if one went off, it would start a chain reaction strong enough to collapse the entrance to the wormhole itself. This ship's hull integrity would never have survived such a cataclysmic explosion at our proximity," he said.

The lighting was low level and toward the reddish end of the spectrum, the corridors shaped in a way that broke the outline into thirds, something inherently pleasing to the Cardassian psyche. Dukat took her on a lift to the level of his quarters first, stopping in to find her something to wear. There were few personal touches. He wasn't living on the Rotarran but on Terok Nor.

"I'm afraid everything I have is going to swallow you whole," he said, glancing at her. He checked to see if the in room replicator was online, not surprised to find it non-functional. Grunting under his breath, he retreated to the far side of the room to pull a set of microfiber underclothing from a drawer, along with a thick pair of socks. "I can at least cut the pants and sleeves down to size, and we can belt it with the extra cloth. This should keep you from getting too cold. It's very insulating."

[hisoldgirl]

For all the sense his explanation made, she wasn't quite willing to completely discard the possibility. Wormholes were by their nature chaotic; it wasn't beyond one to warp space in strange ways. But for now she simply nodded, filing away the information for later use.

While he checked around for garments, the TARDIS wandered around his quarters, more curious at the design and technology than any personal touches. She could remember his flat from the island and how sparse it had been. She thought nothing of the austerity, lingering near the replicator when he moved away. Such a curious device.

"It has been so long since I was this way," she said, crouching down to see if she could remove any panelling to get to the replicator's innards. "I forget how atmosphere affects flesh. I do not forget how much I rather disliked having to wear garments." The ship smiled a little, slowly growing accustomed to this body, speech and movement. "Is the ship on auxiliary at the moment, or is the lighting usually this low?"

[argentembers]

"I believe you'll find the microfiber minimally offensive. It's so lightweight, you'll hardly know it's there, particularly if we can get that online and replicate you something in your size." He brought her the clothing and offered it down, crouching to show her how to remove the access panel. He set it aside, because he also wanted to see if anything could be done about it from where they were.

"This is the normal light level. Our sun is a red dwarf. We're more adapted to this than the brightness of a yellow star as there seemed to be on Atia." He bent in closer to check all of the connections. By all indications power was flowing normally. Whatever was wrong was likely at an external level with the main computer, not within the hardware of the replicator itself.

The sound of the ship abruptly changed to something less labored, a deeper, humming purr. He felt the deck plate beneath his feet stop its troublesome, overworked vibrations. "Computer, status report," he said. There was no reply. He attempted to raise it manually from his wrist comm with no better luck. His small frown was a puzzled one.

Standing quickly, he moved to don his armor, something that took very little time. "Let's go to the bridge. I want to know what just happened."

[hisoldgirl]

He approached with the clothing but she only briefly glanced at him, more interested in the internal workings of the replicator than donning garments. She'd seen his microfibre before and for all she trusted him, she was still apprehensive about getting dressed.

"I can imagine how different it must have been," she noted, pleased at this new bit of information about the Cardassian. Seeing him in his element was refreshing, as well. He had always been so frustrated with their captivity on the island, but here he seemed a natural fit, and not only because he fit the surroundings in ways he never had a Grecian civilization.

The change in the engine was intriguing and the TARDIS stood, holding the shirt in her hand as she stared at the ceiling. "Something is pleasing to her," she noted, lingering in the room a moment longer before following Dukat as he moved purposely from the replicator. "Would it not be wiser to go to the engines? What do you intend on discovering on the bridge?" She would follow him no matter where he went, but she did truly want to see the ship's engine room.

[argentembers]

"It was far too bright." He had rarely spoken of it while there, intent on not revealing weaknesses to potential enemies. He had decided at that time she wasn't his enemy. Here in his own element, he didn't believe it would be a damaging revelation. They both had shared frustrations in that environment.

"If I can't ascertain what I wish to know from the bridge, we'll go to engineering next," he said. "I was able to get the viewscreen somewhat functional. I'm still showing only the two of us as life signs aboard this vessel. It's possible another ship has located us and has logged into the system remotely." If that were the case, he wasn't terribly worried. It would have to be either a Cardassian or Dominion ship, and that would mean they weren't stranded.

[hisoldgirl]

He most likely would have hated some of her favourite places, then, considering the TARDIS loved idling beside suns to soak up the heat. Granted, her interior was climate-controlled, but he'd never be able to look outside on the scanners until she felt like moving.

"At least we are spared that place now," she offered, giving one last glance at his room before following him toward the bridge as he wanted. If he had gotten the viewscreen working, perhaps she could offer some assistance from the bridge, as well. "How might it log in remotely if you are denied access, I wonder? Do you suppose there is a dampener on board making it impossible for you to connect with the computer?"

[argentembers]

"Indeed. I would much prefer to be aboard my ship than stranded there. No collars, either." At least they would be spared that indignity.

"I didn't have time to go through all of the emergency access codes before discovering you were aboard the vessel. At the time I had no idea who or what it was. I believed it was important to confront and interrogate the intruder in case that was the person responsible for this situation. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting anyone I knew." The fact that he remembered her now was something to ponder later given all they had been told while on the island. It seemed there was much to puzzle out.

[hisoldgirl]

She couldn't quite stop the hand moving to the throat, though the ship did a passing good job at waving off the action as something entirely unrelated. She brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, then ran her fingers along the corridor walls, unwilling to make eye contact at the moment. "I much prefer your ship, as well, though circumstances could be more agreeable."

That Dukat had considered her a threat was marginally amusing and the ship chuckled. She couldn't honestly blame him his actions. "Nor did I expect to find myself stranded on a ship with a man from my waking dreams," she noted, though there was affection there. She had come to care for him in their time in captivity. Memory only reminded her of such. "But what if it is not an outside source that changed the ship's actions? Do you suppose there is an internal issue?"

[argentembers]

He saw the gesture just beyond the peripheral of his eye ridge, not in enough direct line of sight for him to make the connection between it and his comment about the collars. "They could be, more so for you than for me." He regretted that he still didn't have the opportunity to see her in her true form or explore any of her capabilities they had discussed. He would have found it endlessly fascinating.

"Odd and not precisely unwelcome," he admitted. She was one of the few on the island he genuinely enjoyed, even if he had been using her. There was almost no one in his life with the possible exception of his parents he had not used in some way.

"If there is no external source, then yes. It would have to be something internal, and it may be difficult to discover. I'm going to check for obvious problems first. It could take some time. As long as life support is functional, we'll be fine. We do have some stores aboard. Without functional replicators, we still won't starve. I'm not sure you'll care for the fare much, mostly military rations."

[hisoldgirl]

She wanted very much to show him the stars as she saw them; to show off her superiority to his ship. She was vain when she wasn't preoccupied with being squishy and she knew she could astound even him with her complexity. But that was not to be and instead she had to look up to see his face, bare feet slapping the cold steel of the floor as she followed him to the bridge. At least she could learn more about him and his technology. It was a boon, if a small one.

"We will make the best of it," she replied off-handedly. She was still getting used to this again, her thoughts somewhat sluggish, but she was functional enough to be of use to him, particularly in regards to deciphering what was wrong with his ship. "I can help speed up the process so long as I can see the schematics for the ship's computer and you give me a primer on its codes. Two mechanics will always trump one, even if I am less familiar with the machine than you are."

As for food, she shrugged, non-committed. "Perhaps rations will not be an issue if we can solve what has happened. I could just as soon be returned to where I was than require sustenance."

[argentembers]

"We shall at that," he said with the trace of a smile. They had done so under far worse conditions and managed well enough, he thought. "If I can get us into the system, I can show you what needs to be done." As for returning her to her true form, he was privately more skeptical. No technology of which he was aware could have done such a thing to her, and he had no idea of how to change her back.

He took them on a lift to the bridge and strode over to the command center. First he tried his access code once more, finding himself still locked out. However, after he added the most recent emergency access code, he found himself in the main system. "Ah!" The exclamation contained satisfaction.

Now he waited for her to come to his side so that she could see what he was doing. He pulled up the prompt for a self-diagnostic only to find it already in progress. Satisfaction gave way to a more puzzled expression. "I'm accessing external sensors now," he said. "Someone has already begun a diagnostic. This isn't on an automated sequence, so there is no way it should have been able to start itself."

It took some tweaking of the default instrumentation settings to get a clearer idea of what was going on outside the ship, gray fingers flying over the console. There were no other ships within scanning range. He modulated to adjust for what he knew of Klingon and Dominion style cloaking and still detected nothing. "Now this is..." He glanced at her with a shake of his head. "This is bizarre. Nothing. Nothing out there to the limitations of the sensors' ranges. No one in here but us according to the readings." Running a hand down his mouth, he gave it some thought.

[hisoldgirl]

Not unlike Dukat, the TARDIS was also skeptical of her changes for returning to herself, at least as things were now. It was much too coincidental that she appear here in flesh when the Cardassian's ship was malfunctioning; to have them save his vessel and return her to her true self would be adding to it, and the universe was not that ordered. The two were connected, but she wasn't holding her breath for them to solve each other.

Much like the rest of the ship so far, the bridge was designed to be efficient and austere. The TARDIS took a moment to inspect a console before joining Dukat at the command center, watching him with unwavering focus. His fingers moved deftly over the controls as one long-accustomed to using them, making it much easier for her to file away the necessary commands.

"So someone has started the diagnostic systems, but it is someone we cannot detect," she echoed, brow drawn in confusion. "Neither on the ship nor in the nearby vicinity. Is it possible to know who initiated the sequence, or is that data not logged?"

[argentembers]

"I can see what code was used. That won't necessarily tell me the identity of the specific individual, but it may narrow down the candidates," he said. He brought up a log of all previous commands and queries entered at bridge level in the past twenty-six hours. Many of them he recognized as his own issued before going to sleep. He didn't think it had been more than one Bajoran day since he had fallen asleep, but with everything off and odd, he wasn't willing simply to assume.

It was in the past six hours that things grew odd. His frown deepened, and he made a small, dissatisfied sound. "This...I'd say it's utter nonsense, except I have a hard time reconciling how someone would manage it in the time you and I were in the cargo bay without showing life signs or setting off proximity alerts. According to the log, someone from this vessel's command level started this diagnostic shortly after we heard a change in the engines. That would narrow it down to three people, myself, my second Damar, or Weyoun, a...Dominion representative." He didn't bother to veil the contempt in his voice when mentioning the Vorta. He loathed the greasy little vole with a passion few species in the quadrant could match.

[hisoldgirl]

"And yet they are not here," she noted needlessly, turning to the control panel herself. There had to be a way to trace the input, she just wasn't sure how without fully understanding what was happening to the ship. "You have said yourself we are the only two showing aboard the vessel; unless your two suspects have a method of cloaking themselves from lifeform scans or are somehow affecting the ship remotely, I see no possible way they could have initiated the sequence."

Which wasn't entirely true, but she wasn't willing to voice the only other theory she harboured at the moment.

Instead, she began searching for input signals throughout the ship over the last six hours. Anything and everything, from major commands to the replicators. Perhaps Dukat would notice something that she could not.

[argentembers]

"They don't," he said in a way that held implication that he knew someone who might. Lips pursed, he gave a futile cursory glance around the bridge. If a Founder was there, he could sit right on top of it, and he'd never know it. When they took the form of something, they took it down to the molecular level, confounding all manner of scanners and diagnostics. But why would a Founder overtake the Rotarran? It didn't make sense.

He was reluctant to give voice to his suspicions, yet nothing was to be gained from withholding from her, not in this matter. "We are allied with a race of shapeshifters. It is possible that you and I are not as alone as we are led to believe. The trouble with that is that I can think of no reason they would do such a thing. Why remove all of my crew, leave me behind, and muck about with the ship controls?" He shook his head. He may not have understood many things about the Founders, but he did understand they were not that brand of deceitful.

He nodded approval of the task she seemed to have set for herself and began combing over all of the external sensor readings from that time frame. Perhaps there was an anomaly of some sort, or perhaps he would even see evidence of an encounter. Since the ship currently wasn't laboring and at least some systems were responsive, he didn't think a trip to the engine room would be productive, not right away.

[hisoldgirl]

The implication read clear as day, and his explanation only created more questions than it answered. He said he couldn't understand why one would deceive them in that way, but the TARDIS was less likely to give an unknown species a pass, no matter how much she might trust Dukat's judgement. Not when she was stuck in a body again with no explanation on a ghost ship much the same.

Finding nothing of interest in her scan, the ship turned her attention to looking up information on the ship's crew, still struggling to work out what was happening and still unwilling as yet to suggest her own theories.

"I am brought here in a body I once passed off as a glitch in my databanks, only to find you and no one else aboard a ship guarding a wormhole," she said aloud, figuring perhaps he could help her work it out. "You inform me of the state of the ship and we move to your quarters, where you give me garments and I inspect the replicator. We leave when the ship's engines change and we make our way to the bridge, only to find a diagnostic in progress and no one to be seen." Even saying it aloud it made no sense and she frowned, pulling up a schematic of the ship to study. "Why are you so certain these shapeshifters would not do so?"