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NOT SO EASY THIS TIME

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In over half of the universes in which Enabran Tain ever existed, he did not die in the Jem’Hadar prison, but instead survived to escape with Garak, Bashir, Martok, and Worf. In gratitude to Garak, his rescuer, Tain reinstated him as his right-hand man in the Obsidian Order. In nearly half of those universes, the two assigned themselves to DS9 later when the combined aggression of Dukat’s fleet and the Jem’Hadar fleet retook it and re-renamed it Terok Nor.

Gul Dukat and his right-hand man, Legate Damar, were discussing their displeasure at, and distrust of, Weyoun’s appointment of Odo as an equal member of their ruling body. They had this discussion immediately after the departure of Weyoun from the room, and in front of the still-present, visibly-resentful Odo, and were still discussing it as Garak entered.

“Why bother to mistrust me, now?” Odo demanded of Dukat. “You were perfectly willing to trust me when you assigned me to that murder investigation during the Occupation.”

“Investigating the murder of a Bajoran is hardly the same as ruling along beside us, Odo, as you well know. Further, you did not have your close relationship with Kira at that time, to corrupt you.”

Damar chimed in, in support, “We’ve certainly observed you and Kira in whispered conversation in Quark’s and elsewhere. We even wonder if the two of you might be planning some sort of underground movement against our authority.”

Odo scoffed. “Now what could the two of us possibly accomplish?”

“I wonder,” Dukat spoke speculatively. He studied the shapeshifter with calculating, narrowed eyes.

Shrewdly, challengingly, Odo said, “Perhaps you’re just envious, Dukat, that I have the sort of intimacy with Kira that you desire.”

The gul seethed coldly. After a beat, he suggested ominously, “It’s a pity that there’s no way to torture a shapeshifter, so that we could properly interrogate you.”

Unwillingly, but automatically, Odo’s gaze shifted to the eyes of Garak, who was already fixing him with an unsympathetic stare. The constable’s eyes wordlessly pleaded with Garak for silence, but the erstwhile “tailor” announced promptly, “There is.”

The “changeling” endured, with downcast eyes, while the agent revealed to a vengefully-delighted Dukat and an intrigued Damar the details of when he had done just that, years earlier, at Tain’s behest. Odo’s gaze rose once more, quietly imploringly, as Garak called Tain, summoning him to bring the cruel, shapeshift-suppressing machine.

Fearful of betraying his friends, as well as of the pain, at the instant of Tain’s arrival, Odo puddled into his liquid state before the Cardassians could switch it on and thereby prevent him from doing so. Without a confining bucket, the constable spread into an impressive minor flood, but at least he was now in a shapeless “shape” in which he could comfortably remain indefinitely, invulnerable to their sadistic persuasions.

 

Now summoned in turn to the conference room, Kira Nerys was appalled to see her liquefied lover spilled liberally on the floor.

“What have you done to him?!” she demanded, undeterred by the ominous presence of the two Obsidian Order leaders, as well as the two rulers of the Cardassian military.

“Nothing,” Dukat told her smoothly, effectively concealing his annoyance at their failure with the first intended victim. “It is you that you should be worried about.”

“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, and folded her arms in front of her. “I don’t have time for this.”

Damar chuckled confidently. “If it’s time that concerns you, then go ahead and tell us, without delay, all about your little underground group, that you and Odo are leading.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Is it?” Garak queried. “We’ve observed your whispered conferences. Now I think that you know that we can get the answers out of you, so why don’t you just save yourself a lot of agony and tell us.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“If you’re counting on your boyfriend to save you,” Dukat couldn’t quite suppress his resentment at their intimacy, as he said, “don’t. He’s helpless. Tain’s machine there is maintaining him in his liquid state.”

“You dirty…!” Kira glared at Tain and Garak. “So, that’s the machine that…!” She bit back any further accusation, determined not to let them make her lose her temper, and unwilling to reveal that a traumatized Odo had turned to her for comfort after his ordeal.

But from their smug expressions, they’d already guessed.

Coolly, Tain ordered her, “Either tell us about your little resistance, or disrobe.”

“What?!”

“Surely you’re aware that that’s how our torture sessions typically begin.”

“If you think that I’m going to stand here and strip…!”

“Then we’ll strip you.” Dukat clearly relished the prospect. Damar’s unsavory grin showed that he obviously concurred.

“That’s not necessary….” Kira had raised a defensive hand.

“It certainly is for the type of torture that we plan to employ,” Garak informed her pragmatically.

“What?” Cursing herself inwardly, Kira felt herself pale slightly.

Damar was unbearably smug. “Kira, don’t you think that we’re fully aware of how best to break you? You’re terrified, horrified, and completely repelled by the thought of having a Cardassian rape you, let alone having several of us do so.”

She tried to prevent herself from swallowing hard, but it was automatic; it was either that or choke. Seeing her do so widened all of their grins. She stammered, “You’re…all…going to…???”

“Not quite all,” Tain informed her blandly. “At my age, I prefer simply to watch. But I doubt very much if you’ll appreciate that, either. And yes, Garak, Dukat, and Damar will deal brutally and thoroughly with you. I doubt whether you’ll welcome Odo’s attentions again any time soon, afterward.”

The room spun. Struggling for control, she urged faintly, “Dukat, no. You’ve wanted me willingly, for yourself. You don’t want….”

“But you’ve turned me down, consistently. Perhaps forcibly is the only way that I’ll ever have you. Besides, this is business. And important business, at that.”

“But by all means, Kira, resist us,” Damar encouraged lecherously. “I’d much rather strip you forcibly than watch you strip yourself cooperatively.”

Struggling to suppress her trembling, no longer meeting their eyes, Kira confessed, “Yes, Odo and I have discussed resistance plans.” Inwardly, she berated herself for yielding, and insisted obstinately, silently, It’s not fear; it’s the indignity of it! I’m not afraid; I’m disgusted! I can’t let those slimy beasts see me or touch me!

“There now, was that so difficult?” Tain patronized her smoothly, infuriatingly. He was the only Cardassian who didn’t appear somewhat disappointed at her surrender. “Now let’s discuss who’s involved in this with you.”

“No one else.”

“Come come, now, must we threaten you anew at each question?”

Kira regarded Tain uncertainly, but then Dukat put in helpfully, “Rom, for instance?”

She was already shaking her head. “All Rom did was plan the minefield before you-all even got here. He hasn’t done anything since.” Yet, she added mentally.

“All right, then, what about Jake Sisko?” Garak prompted.

“Are you kidding? All right, I’ll admit that he’s as eagerly, naïvely interested as a puppy-dog, but Odo and I have firmly refused to let him get involved, for his own good. He knows nothing, and he’s done nothing.”

“Leeta, then?” suggested Damar.

“Again, supportive, but uninvolved.”

Tain eyed her skeptically. “If you continue to unrealistically insist upon the total innocence of everyone else, we’ll have to resort to more persuasive methods after all.”

She extended appealing hands to him. “I’m telling the truth.”

“Convince us, or we’ll verify your claims, in ways that you definitely won’t enjoy, until we are convinced.”

Desperately trying to think of how to satisfy Tain and yet remain inviolate, Kira hesitated.

Into the gap, Damar challenged, “What about Ziyal?”

But at that, both Dukat and Garak turned startled glares onto the younger Cardassian.

“How dare you accuse my daughter?” demanded Dukat.

“Do not try to drag her into this,” commanded Garak.

Damar looked nonplussed.

Tain frowned in perplexity at this unwanted, unexpected discord.

After a pause, Kira said softly, “She’s not involved in any way.”

Dukat and Garak launched righteous expressions at Damar and Tain, at that, uncharacteristically and illogically accepting Kira’s assurances at face value.

Having lost their rhythm and unity, the Cardassians dismissed Kira, but with a warning that she should expect more thorough interrogation at a later time, and that they would be watching her.

 

Ziyal was plainly shocked at the joint visit of Dukat and Garak. Up until now, her father had railed against her relationship with her grandfather’s torturer.

Both men urged her in unison that she must do absolutely nothing to arouse Damar’s and Tain’s suspicions, and that doing so would be exceedingly dangerous for her.

Though noticeably rattled by news of Damar’s accusation, Ziyal nevertheless managed to smile. “Anything on which you two present a united front, I’d better take seriously. But don’t worry; I’m really not involved.” She happily accepted a hug from each, and a concerned Dukat tolerated even that without any rebuke to Garak. Ziyal could see that her father was just pleased to have an ally in protecting his daughter: any ally at all.

On the other hand, Ziyal might not have hugged them quite so enthusiastically if she’d known that, prior to their visit to her, they’d paid an ominously threatening visit to Kira, in which they’d jointly told her in no uncertain terms what she’d be facing from the two of them if she even so much as tried to involve Ziyal in her and Odo’s intrigues, in even the smallest way.

 

“We’re just going to have to let it go, Odo,” Kira told him somberly. “This resistance movement is simply going to have to die in its infancy. They’re watching us too closely. We can’t do it alone, and if we try to involve any of the others, we’ll be condemning them to death.”

“I know,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But I also know how miserable you felt at just sitting and waiting for the Federation to get us out of this.”

“Well, I’ll just have to endure my misery. It’s better than dooming Rom or Leeta or Jake or Ziyal, particularly to the kind of demise that they’d be facing. And I don’t want you ever again to be tortured like you were aboard Tain’s ship, either.”

He nodded soberly, unable to disagree with that sentiment. “And I don’t want you gang-raped by Cardassians,” he added emphatically.

“No,” she agreed softly. “I like to consider myself tough, but that concept is beyond even my endurance.”

“Well,” he concluded helplessly, “maybe the Federation will manage to come through for us.”

“We’ll just have to hope.”

 

“We can’t just quit!” protested Rom a few hours later, as the group sat together at a table in Quark’s. “I’m here as a spy for the Federation, and the Federation is counting on us to do its inside work!”

“Now, Rom,” Leeta argued, seeing the crestfallen expression of her fellow female Bajoran. “We can’t expect Nerys to risk rape by the Cardassian leaders; that’s asking way too much; it’s just too horrific.”

Jake nodded. “And it sounds like Odo’s been through too much already, also. But the rest of us should do something, and just leave you two out of it.”

“Now wait a minute, Jake,” Kira objected. “I’m responsible for you in your father’s absence. Plus, I don’t think that you fully realize just what the Cardassians are capable of. Further, I know that you’ve been out to prove yourself ever since what you considered to be your disgrace on that mission with Dr. Bashir, and I think that it’s making you reckless.”

Jake’s cheeks burned. “I was a coward during that Klingon attack.”

Kira came back at him, “Well, Cardassians are a lot more frightening, because they’re so much more diabolically devious and sadistic, unlike the straightforward Klingons, and their attacks and retaliations are so much more personal and intimate; I don’t believe that you know what you’d be facing.”

Odo suddenly hushed them all in a terse tone.

Kira looked up at the new arrival. “Well, Damar. What inspires you to cast a dark cloud on our evening?”

“Busily plotting your little conspiracies against us?” he countered, with a smirk. “Just bringing the day that much closer when we’ll have our way with you, Kira.”

“I thought that you hated me, Damar,” she reminded him acidly.

“That doesn’t mean that I’ll hate your body,” he taunted. “Bajoran bodies have their uses.”

A well-meaning, suddenly-eavesdropping Quark said, “Remember, Damar, you told me that you don’t know what Dukat sees in her.”

He leered lewdly. “Well, perhaps Dukat will show me.”

Leeta visibly suppressed a shudder. “That man is absolutely vile!”

“On the other hand.” Damar raised his voice as he told Leeta, “I can certainly see what Rom sees in you! Everyone can!”

“Hey!” protested Rom.

Leeta began to rise in fury, but Kira grabbed her hand restrainingly. “Don’t let him goad you!” she warned. “That’s what he wants!”

“Quite a volatile little group that you have conspiring here, Kira,” Damar insisted.

She regarded him sourly. “Quite the opposite: we’re informing the others that we’re quitting, and that there will be no resistance group. Well, you had to expect us to tell them, didn’t you? Did you think that the others would just guess that it was over?”

“Personally, I don’t believe that you’ll ever quit. Resistance is just too much in your blood.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” she told him bluntly. “Also, I won’t risk the others. Odo and I have told them to drop it.”

He eyed each of the others significantly. “They don’t look convinced.”

“Well, they are. You’ve just made them angry; they’ll get over it.”

Gloating at having successfully provoked them, and now fickly bored, Damar wandered away from their table.

“All right then, it’s understood: we’ll leave you two out of it,” Jake said to Kira and Odo.

“Jake, I want you left out of it,” Kira insisted emphatically.

“Sorry, Major.” He started to rise.

“You don’t know what the Cardassians will do to you!”

“Then, I guess that I’ll find out.” He left.

“Rom, stop him!”

The Ferengi shrugged helplessly. “I can’t; I need his help; I can’t do it alone.” He also departed.

 

It was only a few days later when Jake stood in the conference room, facing Dukat, Damar, Garak, and Tain. Their expressions inspired him to blurt, “I confess! I’m the one who dropped Damar’s padd outside of the Jem’Hadar quarters. Rom swiped it from Damar in the bar, but I planted it. We figured that it looked a lot more natural for me to be lurking in the Jem’Hadar area than for him to do so, since I’m always down there pestering Weyoun to send my stories to the Federation News Service.” He waited for them to comment upon his confession, and then to hopefully dismiss him. He waited in vain.

When the suspense became too nerve-wracking, Jake added, “So, see? You’ve no need to make me talk; I’ve already told you everything that I know.” He waited again. And waited.

Desperation beginning to tinge his tone, he insisted, “There isn’t anything else! But if you think that there is, just go ahead and ask me questions; if I know the answers, they’re all yours!”

After a few beats, Tain said, ominously quietly, “There is much that you fail to understand about our interrogations.”

Garak took up the thought, “For instance, there are two reasons why we might torture someone: first, to force disclosures that the victim is unwilling to provide, but second, to punish the victim for offenses that he has committed.” His dark emphasis throughout the last phrase made Jake shudder hard, as it was obviously intended to do. His reptilian eyes bored into the youngster.

Beginning to panic, Jake whispered, “Please, Mr. Garak, it wouldn’t change anything!”

“That’s not the point.”

Even more softly, trying to give the impression of intimate confidentiality with him, and of shutting out the others, Jake moved closer and murmured to Garak, “Please! You know what I went through with the Klingons! With Dr. Bashir. And you tried to help me afterward, remember?”

Garak’s eyes gleamed, unearthly and cold.

Jake gulped audibly, and turned to the prefect. “Gul Dukat, please! You promised my dad that you would never hurt me, remember?”

Dukat replied coolly, “That was when you were still a child. And behaved innocently as one. Now, you have declared yourself a man, remained behind enemy lines during a war, and committed acts of sabotage against the rulers of this station.”

Throughout nearly all of Dukat’s reply, Jake shook his head slowly back and forth, backed away from all four of the Cardassians, and gave in to the tears that insisted on coursing down his cheeks.

In a last-ditch effort, Jake turned frantically to Damar. “Please, Legate Damar!! You’re younger, like me! Haven’t you ever done anything impulsive and foolish, like I just did??? Help me; I’m begging you!!!” He extended pleading hands.

Damar nodded shortly. “And I paid the price, just as you will.”

Matter-of-factly, Tain instructed, “Sit down in the chair.”

 

Lurking just outside of the conference room, a broken-hearted Rom heard Jake’s harsh, hoarse-throated yell of anguish and agony evolve into a high-octave shriek.