"Calling Long Distance"

Commander Buford was sat in his ready room having sent a message to Admiral Devore about the rogue Jem'Hadar and what the Founder had told him. He'd also sent the away teams reports, but he knew that it would take a few hours for the data packet to pass through the system, even over sub-space. The relay at the terminus of the Bajorian wormhole had been upgraded six months ago to allow real-time communications, but the channels were limited. All he could do was wait for the Admiral to make his reply.

Although he hadn't taken as gospel what the Founder had said, there were obvious elements of what he had said that rang true. Whatever their motives, these rogue Jem'Hadar had taken two Federation scientists and if the Dominion was willing to help in their recovery, then that was a good thing.

Of course there would be those aboard the Taurus who would find it hard working along side the Dominion, especially if they remained onboard. Logan McQueen appeared to be one of those who would be against them remaining onboard. AJ brought up his Starfleet records and began to glance through it, realising now the reason for Logan's displeasure of having Jem'Hadar onboard.

The console on the Commander's desk beeped twice and the image on the screen changed from the Lieutenant profile to the Starfleet Command insignia. AJ pressed the receive button and the image changed once more to that of Admiral Devore in his office back on Earth.

[Greetings Commander.] The Admiral stated. [I've just ready your report on the Dominion forces that attacked the base on Juno III and what you have been told by the Dominion. It makes for interesting reading and there are several items that we have passed onto Starfleet Intelligence for further study. I'm going to try and dispatch a science vessel to Juno III to re-establish the base and I'd like you to remain at Juno III until their arrival incase the rogue vessel returns. There are two Nebula class vessels already in the Gamma quadrant and the most likely will be the USS Sullivan. They're only a couple of days away from your position.]

"Admiral, I'd like to start the search for the missing scientists as soon as possible, the longer the Taurus is kept at Juno III, the more difficult it will be find them again." AJ requested. "Plus I doubt a Nebula class vessel will be any match for the rogue vessel, we'd have to remain even longer to maintain the security of the system."

[Commander, the Juno III project is very important to the Federation, we need to re-establish the base quickly. I'll look into sending some additional support as soon as I can, but Juno III must be defended.] Devore replied firmly. [As soon as it arrives, you can begin the search.]

"And the Dominion ?" AJ enquired.

[Working on a vessel with a former enemy is going to be hard, especially the Dominion.] Admiral Devore said. [But the Jem'Hadar are some of the best soldiers in the galaxy, I have first hand experience of working with one of the Jem'Hadar that joined Starfleet when I was Captain of the Leviathan. However, I would not trust them completely, there must be more to this rogue force than they are telling us. I can't believe that one Vorta and a handful of Jem'Hadar are orchestrating all this, they must have more resources and information, including agents within the Alpha quadrant. From your away team's report, they appeared to have targeted Doctor Mitchell and his assistant and the only logical explanation as to how they knew that the two scientists were on Juno III would be through espionage.]

"I agree there's something they're not telling us." AJ remarked. "Maybe the Jem'Hadar we have in sickbay will be able to shed some light on what is going on. The Doctor says that we should be able to interrogate him in a couple of days. He was pretty 'beat-up' even before Private Jax got to him, we think he was left for dead when the Jem'Hadar demolished the base. The only reason we think he survived was because he hid in one of the containment pens."

[Have you informed the Dominion that you have one of the rogue Jem'Hadar onboard ?] The Admiral asked.

"No." AJ replied. "And until we know all the fact, I think we should keep it that way. If we inform the Dominion that we have one of them, they will no doubt want to talk to him themselves and if we refuse, then they have a massive warship right on our tail."

[I agree for now.] The Admiral stated. [Once you are satisfied that you have all the information you can obtain, share what you want with the Dominion. Devore out.]

The image on the screen changed back to the Starfleet Command insignia and AJ shutdown the console, then tapped his comm badge.

"All senior crew report to the briefing room in one hour." He announced.