Blackmail (Part One of Two)

Rashad awoke into darkness; the last thing she remembered was calling for Doctor Kahfre, then nothing. Well actually she did feel something, the gnawing pain in her whole body, the pain that when she had first woken up that morning had caused her to lash out. That pain was still there, but now she had it under control, the Vulcan techniques that she had learnt so many years ago.

“Hurts doesn't it ?” A voice from out of the darkness stated.

Rashad attempted to turn towards the voice, but found that she was unable to move.

“Who are you ?” She asked, at least she could still speak.

“I'm sure you remember.” The voice said, as the figure it belonged to came closer.

“You.” Rashad announced as she became accustomed to the darkness. The voice belonged to the scientist Rashad had encountered only a few days earlier on the other side of the galaxy. The one who had injected her with the drug which was now ripping her body apart, chromosome by chromosome.

“You can't move.” The voice announced. “I injected you with a paralysing agent, it will wear off in an hour or so, but for now I thought we could have a little chat.”

“Where am I ?” Rashad demanded. “Why have you kidnapped me ?”

“All in good time little one.” The voice said. “But first let's get back to my original question. The pain you are feeling, it does hurt doesn't it ?”

“Yes.” Rashad replied, forcing the words out as if admitting that she was feeling pain was a weakness. “What have you done to me ?”

“You are merely reverting to your true self. The drug I injected into you was designed to ‘purify' certain individuals whose DNA had become contaminated by aliens. It was or should I will be developed to work on humans, we had no idea what it would do to one such as you.” The voice explained. “Personally, I was expecting the Bajorian aspects of your genetic profile to come forward, but from what I can see it would appear that your Romulan side is dominant. All this is most interesting.”

“Why ?” Rashad asked.

“Your little assault on the Omega base cost us a lot of time and effort, I wanted to at least pay you back.” The voice answered. “For years we've been working on reproducing the drug and its effects. At first we were able to use it to ‘fuse' various strands of DNA from various alien species, create a new breed of warrior. Your Doctor Kahfre is one of the last experiments, before Section 31 destroyed our research labs. After that we went into hiding, working separately and only coming together when one of us made a breakthrough. That was over twenty years ago and we were on the brink of success, when you attacked our base. But enough of all this, I have another question for you.”

“What ?” Rashad asked.

“Would you like the pain to go away ?” The voice asked.

Rashad was silent, the pain was so great, but she didn't want to show to her capture that she was weakening.

“I can stop the pain and the drug from continuing and all I ask in return is a small favour.” The voice stated. “All I need you to do is bring Doctor Kahfre to a designated set of co-ordinates I will give you.”

“Never.” Rashad shouted, venting her pain out through her voice.

Suddenly Rashad felt something touching her neck and moments later the pain she had been feeling faded.

“I have injected you with an agent which will reverse the effects on your DNA and stop the drug from continuing.” The voice stated. “However, you are in no way cured and after a month, the drug will be re-activated and once that has happened, there will be no way back. There will be no second chances, your Romulan DNA will take over and T'Kul Rashad as you know her will be gone.”

“And what happens if I do what you ask of me ?” Rashad enquired.

“If you bring Doctor Kafhre, alive to the co-ordinates I will give you, before the agent wears off, I will give you a second dose of the agent which will eradicate the original drug from your system.” The voice announced. “You will be your old self, now sleep.”

The next thing Rashad knew, she was in a bright room and there were voices all around. She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, the ceiling of Sickbay. Then a face came in front of her and Doctor Kahfre smiled.

“Hello Commander, how are you feeling ?” Rahel enquired. “You had us all worried.”

“What happened ?” Rashad asked.

“We don't know.” Rahel admitted. “I went to your quarters, but you weren't there.” Rahel explained. “So we started a search party for you, looking through the ship from top to bottom, stem to stern. Eventually we found you in one of the holodecks and then brought you back here.”

“How long was I missing ?” Rashad asked.

“About four hours.” Rahel replied. “Do you know what happened to you ?”

“I'm sorry Doctor, but I don't ?” Rashad lied.

In her mind, Commander T'Kul wondered whether she had dreamed the last few hours, questioning whether the voice and the darkened room had been some kind of hallucination.

*The voice said that he'd give me the co-ordinates to bring the Doctor to.* Rashad thought. *But as I don't have the co-ordinates, I must have dreamt the whole thing.*

“There are a couple of odd things.” Rahel stated. “Remember I took some scans of your DNA when you first got back from the Omega base, well I discovered some blood, your blood this morning. The results showed that it had been altered in some way, there were far too many Romulan chromosomes and too few Bajorian ones. What's more puzzling is the fact that now your DNA matches those samples that I took first, its as if whatever affected you has been reversed.”

“You said there were a couple of odd things.” Rashad said, attempting to sit up on the bio-bed.

“Yes.” Rahel replied. “There are some strange markings on your right fore-arm. I've run them through the linguistic database, but there's no match.”

Rashad looked at the markings on her forearm. She recognised them as ancient Bajorian symbols, symbols which in turn translated into a coded message, a message that Rashad knew deep down were the co-ordinates that she was to take Doctor Kahfre to within the month.