Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Keiko's only on the station a few days at a time,” Miles explained. “I’m the one living in those quarters, and if I want to set up a little workshop in the bedroom…”

“You set up a workshop in the bedroom?” Julie said, eyes wide.

That made Miles feel a little defensive. “I don't use it when she's visiting.”

“I see.”

“She says that I'm trying to ‘live like a bachelor again’, that I'm expressing a ‘subconscious desire’ to push her out of our quarters.”

“I see,” said Julie again.

Miles side-eyed her. “Well?” he demanded.

“Well what?” Julie said, studiously pretending to be checking the runabout’s navigational readout.

“Julie, I want to know what you think about this. You know, as a woman.”

“Well,” Julie said. “As a woman, I think… er, you didn’t have a workshop in your bedroom when you were a bachelor, did you?”

“Julie!”

“I don’t think you’re doing anything bad,” she said, visibly backpedaling. “If anything, I'd say that by choosing to spend your free time in the bedroom - a place you intimately associate with Keiko - you're actually expressing a desire to be closer to her during her absence! It's quite touching, really.”

“Exactly,” Miles said, “exactly. Thank you.” He paused. “You don’t really think that, do you?” he said.

“I do get where Keiko is coming from,” Julie admitted.

Miles groaned. “Oh, come on,” he said, “I’ve been to your quarters, Julie. I know Garak is always leaving her sewing stuff scattered all over the place—“

“Actually, it’s very well-organized,” Julie said, “and she doesn’t bring it into the bedroom.”

“Bedroom, front room - what’s the difference? It’s still bringing your work home, shouldn’t it all be the bloody same? Isn’t that what the problem is?”

“Er, actually, Chief, it’s more like— hang on, what’s that?” Julie said, looking at the nav console again.

It sure felt like a clumsy attempt to change the subject, but Miles checked the computer just in case, just in time for it to beep to alert them of what Julie had just noticed. “Huh,” he said. “That’s a subspace magneton pulse... bearing 090-mark-115. The Bopak system.”

“What's a magneton pulse?” Julie asked.

“It's a burst of polarized magnetic energy... it's usually produced by a damaged warp core.”

“So there could be a ship in trouble?” Julie said, frowning.

Miles nodded. “Possibly. Let’s have a look.”

If there was one good thing to be said about Julie, it was that despite the fact that she technically outranked Miles, she had no problem with him functionally taking charge of a mission. He was older than her and had more Starfleet experience than her, after all - and besides, granted, Miles had noticed during his career that medical officers had a tendency of deferring to others in other departments whenever the situation at hand wasn’t directly medical in nature. The same could not be said of all officers in the sciences generally, but medical types specifically seemed to understand when they were out of their area of expertise and didn’t necessarily know what was going on.

To be unkind, Julie deferring to Miles didn’t seem to actually be an example of that, considering how often she confidently ran her mouth about fields that had nothing to do with medicine. It seemed to be more that Julie wasn’t entirely comfortable with command in a non-medical situation and was glad to let Miles take the responsibility off of her hands, even though she had every right to order him around. Still, he couldn’t fault her for knowing her limits.

Of course, Miles taking the lead instead of Julie didn’t actually do much to appreciably change their situation. As soon as they got close to the third planet in the system - the origin of the magneton pulse - they were hit by a plasma field that immediately and rapidly drained the runabout’s power. Jammed the comm system too, for good measure, so their attempted distress signal probably didn’t actually make it out. Miles only barely put the runabout down safely in a clearing in the middle of some dense jungle. It was doubtful they’d get it back in the air again anytime soon, at least not as long as that plasma field was still in place, but for now it was at least intact and both Miles and Julie were basically unharmed.

It could be worse, Miles had thought, which in retrospect had probably jinxed them — as prepared as he and Julie had tried to be, there wasn’t much they were able to do when half a dozen Jem’Hadar soldiers had popped out of the bush and the biggest one had declared that they were now their prisoners.

Their combadges and phasers were removed from them, and three of the Jem’Hadar kept their disruptors trained on Miles and Julie while two of the others casually invaded the runabout; the remaining one - Miles guessed he was the First - scrutinized them for a moment, then said, “Are there other Starfleet ships with you?”

Miles didn’t say anything. To her credit, Julie didn’t either; she didn’t even look scared, though she probably was.

The First pulled out his disruptor and pressed it against Miles’ forehead, the metal of the tip of its muzzle cold and biting against his skin. “Tell me,” he ordered flatly.

“There are no other ships with us,” Julie said. Her tone was even but she was speaking very quickly — Miles hoped that the First wouldn’t realize that meant she was nervous. “But if we don't return, Starfleet will begin looking for us.”

The First looked at her and didn’t lower his weapon from Miles. “When?” he asked.

“Soon,” said Julie. Miles wasn’t exactly a fan of the vague answer but he understood she was trying to avoid saying anything that sounded too far out to matter - or soon enough to be proven wrong before they could escape.

The First didn’t immediately reply, nor lower his weapon. Miles was definitely starting to sweat now. “You’re lying,” the First said at length.

Miles had just enough time to mentally curse his fate before the First pulled the trigger, but he was saved just in the nick of time by the two Jem’Hadar who had gone in to search the runabout stomping back out. “No other crew,” one of them reported. “It's a standard Danube-class runabout. Some modifications have been made to the phaser array and shield generators.”

Finally, the First lowered his weapon. Miles couldn’t bring himself to sigh in relief, though. There were still three other Jem’Hadar holding them at disruptor-point. “Why were you in this star system?” the First asked - seemingly addressing Julie, though it was in all likelihood simply because she’d been the one willing to answer so far.

Indeed, she kept doing it, even though Miles really wished by this point that she would shut up. Didn’t she know there was no way she could talk their way out of this? “We picked up a magneton pulse,” Julie said, still speaking very fast, “we thought there might be a ship in trouble, so we altered our course to-“

The First turned abruptly, and Julie cut herself off. “Return to the ship,” he ordered one of the Jem’Hadar. “Put a damping field around our warp engine.”

The Jem’Hadar he had addressed nodded and marched off without any further ado. The First turned back to them, and studied Miles for a moment. “Human. Gold uniform indicates specialty in security or engineering. Rank: chief petty officer. You are what Starfleet refers to as a ‘noncom’,” he said.

“That’s right,” Miles said gruffly.

“You must have a great deal of experience.”

That was an odd comment to make. “I’ve been around,” he said cautiously.

“That makes you a priority target,” the First said. “We will kill you first.”

With that Miles was seized. He wasn’t killed immediately, though - the others were probably waiting for the First’s command. Miles swallowed hard, determined not to go out in some overdramatic embarrassing way that would only serve to make him look like a coward. Julie twitched, clearly torn between trying to get to Miles and trying not to get killed herself.

The First turned to her, scrutinizing her instead. “Human,” he assessed. “Female. Rank of lieutenant, with a specialty in the sciences.”

“Doctor, actually,” Julie said.

For some reason this appeared to surprise the First. He even stepped away, and seemed lost in thought - which was very strange for a Jem’Hadar, as far as Miles was concerned. Meanwhile, one of the others - maybe the Second - stepped forward and grabbed Julie by the shoulder. She glanced at him anxiously.

“Science and medical officers are low priority targets,” the Second said. “I submit we execute this one and use the other in a tactical exercise.”

“No,” said the First. “Bring them both back to camp.” And then he just left, walking back into the jungle, apparently not even questioning that his orders would be followed.

The Second had obviously not been expecting those orders. For a moment Miles thought that he might kill him and Julie anyway — but then the Second shoved Julie forward and looked back at the Jem’Hadar still holding Miles by the arms. “Move,” he barked.

What had started out as a rather frightening situation had soon become too intriguing for Julie to really feel afraid anymore. First there was the Jem’Hadar’s apparent concern that they would be found - and who, in all the galaxy, could the Jem’Hadar possibly be running from? The only beings that Julie supposed they might be scared of were the Founders, and it didn’t seem too likely that it would even occur to them that they could run — and, secondly, there was the interest that the First had expressed when he’d discovered that she was a doctor. What did that mean? Was someone here sick or injured? Was it normal for the Jem’Hadar to take care of their sick and injured, and could they even get sick in the first place for that matter? The Jem’Hadar seemed nervous, jumpy almost.

Miles had bluntly told Julie that whatever their problem was, it would be a bad idea to help them. “Anything that weakens them increases our chances of getting out of here,” he’d said, and then before Julie could express how uncomfortable that line of thinking made her, Goran’Agar (that was the First’s name) came and fetched her out of their cell, leaving Miles behind.

He brought her to some kind of makeshift lab - which surprised her, considering they hadn’t had any reason before now to think that the Jem’Hadar had any capacity for scientific thinking, let alone an inclination for it or the technical know-how to construct or use the relevant equipment. But perhaps they were a more rounded species than previously assumed…

“You will work here,” Goran’Agar said, with the same tone of voice as when he’d given the other Jem’Hadar orders earlier.

Julie looked around warily. Upon closer inspection, the lab - though crude - appeared very functional, to the point where she had to assume that the equipment had been brought here from wherever the Jem’Hadar had been before coming to Bopak-3. Only the tables looked to have been built from local materials. There was nothing that looked suitable for a medical exam, though. “Where are the patients?” she said, turning back to Goran’Agar. He had seemed to specifically want a doctor, after all.

Goran’Agar just stared at her blankly. He hadn’t come across as all that hard to read earlier, so maybe he just thought this was too ridiculous a question to bother reacting to it. “There are no patients,” he said bluntly. “You are here to carry out scientific research for us. If you refuse, I will have to kill you. Do you understand?”

Well, that sort of goes without saying, doesn’t it? thought Julie. Certainly there was no question that Goran’Agar could kill her right here, where she stood, in the very next second with hardly a thought. “Yes, I understand,” she said, holding herself very straight. “But you need to understand that I am a Starfleet officer. I won't do any work for you that could potentially be used against the Federation... or any other race, for that matter. So if that's what you want — you'll have to kill me.”

The only reaction that Julie had maybe expected when saying that would have been for Goran’Agar to in fact kill her. But he didn’t. He just got a funny sort of look - if he hadn’t been a Jem’Hadar, Julie would have thought it was a ghost of a smile - and said, “Fortunately for you, weapons research is not what I need. In order for you to understand what I want... I must tell you something the Dominion has considered a closely guarded secret…” He paused, even seemed to steel himself and take an uncertain breath. “There is a drug that all Jem'Hadar must have in order to live,” he pushed forward. “We call it ketracel-white.”

Julie nodded. “An isogenic enzyme.”

This seemed to legitimately shock him. “You know about it?”

“I know that the Jem'Hadar have been genetically engineered by the Dominion to be addicted to what you call ketracel-white. And that by controlling the supply of the drug, the Founders maintain control over you.”

“The Vorta are the ones who control the drug,” Goran’Agar corrected her, his voice bitter. “They're the ones we came here to escape.”

“Escape?” Julie said before the meaning of Goran’Agar’s words had fully reached her. “Oh! You’re trying to leave the Dominion?”

“Yes,” Goran’Agar said quietly, looking away - as if ashamed.

Of course Julie was surprised by this revelation - Goran’Agar even raised a good point, accusing her of never even thinking that any Jem’Hadar might want something more than the life of a slave. It was true, it had never occurred to her before. Julie supposed she had just assumed, on some level, that the genetic engineering that the Founders used to create the Jem’Hadar had had such a profound effect on their psyche that it was literally impossible for them to consider desertion. In retrospect, there had been no reason to believe this. She could blame her genetic engineering-related baggage, of course, but everyone around her had seemed to assume the same thing as well.

Trying to escape the Vorta was sympathetic, even noble. And when Julie had tentatively inquired about whether she was supposed to be finding a new way to synthesize ketracel-white - a way that the Jem’Hadar would be in complete control over - Goran’Agar had rejected that possibility; he wanted the Jem’Hadar to be free from their addiction entirely.

Ethically, Julie felt as though the situation had now simply fallen right into her lap. She wouldn’t be helping the Dominion, she wouldn’t be helping a people incapable of choosing peace and reason, she wouldn’t even be manufacturing addictive substances. Nor was she giving false hope by agreeing to this — she’d hesitated at first, noting that it may not even be possible, but Goran’Agar had shown her that he was free of the drug. He had survived quitting it completely three years ago, and didn’t even have a supply tube now. He looked just as healthy as the other Jem’Hadar - healthier, in fact, by a noticeable margin.

A point only emphasized when Goran’Agar showed her the other Jem’Hadar struggling through withdrawals. Muscle tremors, apparent balance issues - though perhaps it was less vertigo and more being on the verge of syncope - and visible pain, which had to be extremely acute for a specially-bred warrior race to show.

“As a Federation doctor,” Goran’Agar said to her, “I know you are trained to feel compassion and sympathy for those in pain. These men are suffering now, but it is nothing compared to what will happen if they are not freed from the drug before our supply runs out.”

Julie didn’t want to watch this anymore, but she couldn’t look away. “I can’t promise anything,” she warned him.

“Will you try?”

“I'll need O'Brien's help… but, yes. Yes, I'll try.” The answer came very easily. “Now give those men what they need.”

Goran’Agar directed his Second to do so. The relief that the ketracel-white gave the Jem’Hadar was immediate and obvious. They still looked rather the worse for wear, but at least now none looked as though he might keel over at any moment.

“I've told them we have enough white to last twenty-seven days,” Goran’Agar told her very quietly. “But that's a lie. There is only enough for five days. You have that long, Doctor. After that... they'll die. But not before they kill me for betraying them... and you for not saving them.”

Julie watched the Jem’Hadar and swallowed uncomfortably. But hey, she thought, no pressure or anything.

…

Truthfully, Julie didn’t really need Miles. The equipment that the Jem’Hadar had built or brought was in good condition, sufficient for their purposes, and the energy system that they had rigged was more than serviceable. But she preferred having him around. For one thing, it meant she didn’t have to worry about him; if he was in the makeshift lab with her, then that meant she knew where he was and she knew he wasn’t being used in a ‘tactical exercise’. Furthermore, having him around made her feel safer. He could watch her back while she worked.

He was, of course, obviously unhappy that Julie had agreed to help, and was completely resistant to any arguments she made about why this was a good idea. Julie had shelved the debate for now and Miles seemed willing to just let her do her thing, on the basis that they would both be killed if she didn’t and they didn’t have any realistic alternatives or escape plans right now. Miles quickly suggested that he put together “a higher-resolution scanner” in a tone of voice that obviously said it would actually be makeshift weapon. Julie agreed to it, though she did so uneasily.

They were in a dangerous situation, she knew. While she didn’t believe Goran’Agar had any ill intentions, the same could not necessarily be said of the other Jem’Hadar. Especially if she didn’t figure this out before their five days were up. Miles’ weapon could very well end up being used for pure self-defense as opposed to an escape attempt. It was good to be prepared.

But Julie just didn’t like the idea of intentionally turning a weapon on beings who had, so far, not hurt them, and whose leader had promised them safety for as long as his men could still control themselves.

In the meantime, Julie tried to focus on finding a cure. While Goran’Agar obviously believed that he’d been able to get off the white due to environmental factors - and Julie had of course collected all the environmental samples she could think of - Julie felt that a better initial hypothesis was that Goran’Agar himself had some sort of genetic or physical mutation that enabled him to function without the isogenic enzyme in question, or at least without the exogenous production of it. Goran’Agar was completely cooperative with taking samples from him, and answered any questions Julie asked - of course, even if whatever had happened had been due to environmental causes, Julie would still need to know the precise details of what had happened the first time Goran’Agar had been on Bopak-3…

“Suppose this does work?” Julie asked him idly. She was running tissue samples through an analyzer, hoping to compare Goran’Agar’s DNA with the others’. (They hadn’t exactly been thrilled to give samples, but Goran’Agar had ordered them.) Miles was lurking near the back wall of the ‘lab’, working on his “high-resolution scanner”.

Goran’Agar looked at Julie for a long moment, perhaps trying to decide whether or not this latest question would actually be helpful for Julie’s research. “What do you mean?” he said at length.

“Well,” Julie said, looking up at him, “what will you do next? Will you stay here?”

“No. It will not be safe to stay in one place. The Vorta do not care that they have lost us - we are disposable. They do not know why we left. They are not actively searching for us. But if we had the secret of breaking free from the white, then they would become very interested in tracking us down and destroying us.”

Julie nodded slightly. “Right, but I mean more long-term than that.”

“Long-term?” He seemed genuinely confused. Julie was surprised he apparently hadn’t thought about this.

“Do you plan to just live out the rest of your lives away from the Dominion?” she said. “Do you plan to become farmers, traders, hunters, mercenaries? What will you do?”

Goran’Agar looked rather uncertain. “There will be other Jem’Hadar who will want the cure as well.”

“So you plan to distribute it? I think that’s a good idea. You won’t have any other way of perpetuating your culture - whatever form it ends up taking.” Julie paused. “I think I like the sound of becoming traders the best…”

“Our culture,” Goran’Agar repeated pensively. “I have not thought of this. I could not see us becoming traders — even without the Vorta, we are still soldiers.”

“Alright,” Julie said, “but you have to have more going on than just that. Klingons are a warrior race as well, but their culture is also very rich in the arts. They’re famous for their poetry and opera.”

Goran’Agar stared at her blankly. “What is the purpose of poetry and opera?”

“I suppose it evolved as a way to perpetuate their cultural values when direct family lines have a tendency of being violently killed off,” said Julie with a shrug. “Plenty of Klingons die without having children. If their family traditions stayed in the family, then they would end up being lost - but instead, through art, Klingons communicate their family traditions to a larger community, and ideas are perpetuated long after the descendants of whoever first thought them up have perished.”

“I see,” Goran’Agar said, though he didn’t really look like he did. “Jem’Hadar do not have families,” he said.

“Well, no, that’s sort of the issue,” Julie said. “You’d have to recruit new Jem’Hadar from the population that the Dominion keeps, er, growing. So what I’m saying is that if you had some sort of memetic superstructure to adopt the new Jem’Hadar into, you could perpetuate a distinct culture without directly reproducing. You know, since you’re not capable of it.”

Goran’Agar looked at her dubiously. “This seems as though it would be much easier if we could… reproduce.”

“It would be, wouldn’t it?” Julie mused. “But it’d require extensive genetic re-engineering to introduce that back into your species. Actually, according to scans the majority of what we might call your reproductive system is, ah, ‘functional’, but your gonads are completely undeveloped. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to develop them and render Jem’Hadar capable of creating sperm. The problem is the lack of females.”

“There has never been a female Jem’Hadar,” Goran’Agar said.

“I’m not so sure about that. I’m quite certain that the Founders didn’t build you from scratch - they must have modified some now-extinct species to become what you are today. And that original species must have had females, because you are male.”

“…I do not see how that makes sense.”

“When it comes to species that don’t reproduce by budding or a similar process but which also only have one sex, if they’re not hermaphroditic - which you show no signs of - then they’re necessarily all female, technically speaking,” Julie explained, “because the process of parthenogenesis - the method by which these species reproduce - requires a large gamete. Small gametes simply cannot carry the amount of genetic information required to create offspring by itself. Males can’t make large gametes; producing a large gamete is literally the definition of a female, and small gametes are the diagnostic trait of males. Obviously, of course, your species doesn’t produce gametes of any kind and therefore can’t technically be considered to have any biological sex at all, but this is an artificial constraint. If you were allowed to produce gametes, then your body structure is significantly more consistent with the production of small gametes, which are less resource-intensive to create.” She gestured at his broad shoulders, heavily plated skin, and powerful muscles. “Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, and maybe that ‘reproductive organ’ of yours is descended from an ovipositor — but we’ve found that even in the Gamma Quadrant, humanoid species tend to follow the same pattern. Males are bigger and stronger, females are smaller and more given to conserving resources. Er, that is, retaining fat. Anyway, you see how Chief O’Brien is practically double my size even though we’re nearly the same height? That’s because my body puts more energy into reproductive functions than it does into growing muscles. And that’s the sort of pattern you see in parthenogenetic species. A female has a metabolism that can support reproducing on her own - a male doesn’t. Which seems to be the case with the Jem’Hadar.”

Goran’Agar only barely seemed to be following her lecture. “So you presume that female Jem’Hadar once existed,” he said, “because we… look male.”

“Just at a guess, yes. You look like one half of a sexually dimorphic species. I do believe it’s likely enough that we could work off of that assumption very easily and successfully. Don’t you consider yourself male, anyway?” Julie said.

“Yes. But Vorta are both male and female. We are more similar to their males.” He paused. “Although their males and females are nearly the same size.”

“Like I said, there are exceptions,” Julie said. “The Gorn, for example - their women are actually bigger than their men. But from an evolutionary standpoint, that just comes down to their strategy being for females to orient themselves more towards resource acquisition than resource conservation… being bigger gave the females of their ancestral species a distinct advantage when it came to hunting, so much so that the trade-off for spending energy to grow larger was more than made up for and they could therefore invest in the higher reproductive cost of eggs…”

She was pretty sure she had completely lost him by now. Miles kept glancing up at them, looking increasingly exasperated.

“Would it really be possible,” Goran’Agar said, shaking his head a little as if somewhat dazed somehow, “to restore us to how we were before the Founders recreated us?”

“It wouldn’t be too hard to restore your, er, masculinity,” Julie said. “All that would have to be done is to identify which gene sequence deactivated your testicles, and reactivate them.”

“But what about creating females?”

“That’s the hard part,” Julie said. “While the genetic information required to create males can typically be found in a female, the reverse doesn’t necessarily hold true. Even if that were the case here, in all likelihood the Founders removed that sort of primitive genetic code anyway. It may be virtually impossible to reverse-engineer a female Jem’Hadar.”

Goran’Agar looked at her appraisingly. “Then, if we desire to reproduce,” he said at length, “perhaps females of other species could be used.”

At this, Miles stepped between them; Julie hadn’t even realized he was storming over to them until he got there. “Oh, no you don’t, not with Federation women,” he said, pointing an angry finger at Goran’Agar, “not on my watch.”

For a long moment Julie had a very real fear that Goran’Agar was going to, at a minimum, crack Miles across the jaw. But, rather unexpectedly, Goran’Agar sort of- not backed down, exactly, but let the moment pass without reacting. He and Miles both just stared at each other warily.

Julie, not really sure how the conversation had gotten to this point, decided it would be wisest to just keep her mouth shut.

Chapter Text

For being the youngest-ever Carrington Award nominee, Miles had to admit that Julie was kind of a goddamn idiot. He’d known this for a while now, of course, but sometimes it really jumped out at him. Times like these, to be specific. It wasn’t that he expected her to thank him on her hands and knees for intervening when Goran’Agar had been leering at her, but what he hadn’t been expecting was for her to - as soon as they were sent back into their holding cell for the night and allowed some modicum of privacy - round on him and demand, “What was that all about??”

“What?” Miles said, genuinely taken aback. “What do you mean, what was that all about?”

“He could have killed you!”

Miles scoffed. “And here you’ve been insisting he’s practically harmless.”

“That doesn’t mean you should be picking fights with him,” Julie snapped. “Especially over nothing!”

“It wasn’t over nothing, Julie.”

“All we were doing was talking!”

“He was talking about using females of other species to reproduce!”

“We were talking about reproduction, of course he would be curious!” Julie folded her arms and glared at him. “You’re reading too much into this, Chief. He didn’t mean anything by it!”

Miles goggled at her. “Are you dense?“ he asked, “of course he meant something by-—“

“Go to sleep,” their Jem’Hadar guard barked from the mouth of the cave.

The two of them, rather reluctantly and certainly grouchily, hunkered down in their respective sleeping bags.

“It was hypothetical anyway,” Julie said at length, in a more measured tone. “All Jem’Hadar that exist right now are completely sterile, and it’s not certain that gene therapy would even work on any that are currently alive. If there ever is a Jem’Hadar that could father a child, it would likely be one that had his DNA changed before he was born.”

“So what?” Miles said, “do you really think Goran’Agar understands that?”

“Well,” Julie replied, peeved, “I could have explained better if you hadn’t-“

“You’d already explained too much,” Miles said, propping himself up on one elbow to glower at her. “You shouldn’t be encouraging him.”

“I’m not encouraging him! I told you, you’re reading too much into this!”

“You were right when you said the Jem’Hadar are males. And trust me, Julie, when it comes to males—“

“Miles, they’re produced in a Dominion lab!” Julie exclaimed, “there’s no reason why any Jem’Hadar should experience sexual desire in the first place! It’s just not necessary for their species!”

“You said that scans showed their bits still work fine,” Miles argued.

At this, Julie looked a little caught out. “It’s probably vestigial,” she said, clearly disgruntled. “There’d be no need for the Founders to remove the whole thing - just the gonads, to render them infertile.”

“The Jem’Hadar don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep, but you think the Founders would let them keep a vestigial willy?”

“Well— I don’t know. They can eat. They do have a functioning digestive system. They eat food here.”

Miles wrinkled his nose. ‘Food’ was a very generous descriptor. It was about what he might have expected from a species that didn’t normally eat, and apparently had digestive systems that could process anything. “That’s not vestigial,” he said. “That one that does the cooking for them said that they normally have to eat for the extra calories whenever they ration the ketracel-white. It’s part of the design.”

Julie was silent for a moment. “I can’t think of any other vestigial systems that they have,” she admitted, “but I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

“What I’m saying is that if the Founders let them keep their bits, then it’s because they expect them to use it.”

“Okay,” Julie said dubiously. “So Jem’Hadar can have sex. So what?”

“Julie, why would the enforces of the Dominion’s fascist rule be expected to have sex?”

“I don’t know. Where are you going with this?”

She had to be doing it on purpose at this point, Miles thought. Damn stubborn… “Julie, the Jem’Hadar aren’t just killers. They’re rapists.”

“You don’t know that,” Julie said, bristling. “Maybe they just do it amongst themselves for social reasons. Or maybe the Vorta pick out harems, for all we know!”

“How can you be so naïve?” he groaned, “you saw the way Goran’Agar was looking at you!”

“You’re just projecting your biases onto him, Miles!”

“He’s a bloody Jem’Hadar!“

“Stop talking!” the guard ordered them. “It is time for you to sleep!”

They settled into a brittle silence. It was hard to believe that Julie genuinely didn’t see the danger in this - but, then again, this was the same woman for whom practically the first thing on her to-do list at her new posting was hooking up with a Cardassian. Not that Miles had anything in particular against Garak, not at this point, but it did speak to how Julie just apparently never had so much as a passing thought about whether or not anyone would ever want to victimize her. As long as they weren’t actively pointing a disruptor at her, Julie seemed to believe that no one in the galaxy ever truly meant her any harm, and at worst could simply be reasoned with.

Well, except for Dukat. She seemed pretty hostile towards him even without a disruptor.

Of course Miles hoped that they would in fact make it back to Deep Space 9 alive, but at this rate he really wasn’t looking forward to the debriefing.

Goran’Agar had told his men to bring Meso’Clan back to their ship, and forced Arak’Taral to return Miles to the holding cell without any further harm. Then he told Julie to get back to work - she returned to the bench in silence, while Goran’Agar went over and picked up the remnants of the improvised device that had taken out Meso’Clan’s knee. He had a pensive air about him, somehow.

Julie, after a few moments, awkwardly cleared her throat. Goran’Agar didn’t react. Julie’s heart was still pounding. “Thank you for not killing him,” she said quietly.

Goran’Agar didn’t look up at her. “Which one?” he said.

“Either. But— I’m surprised, to be honest. It’s not what I expected. You’re not what I expected.”

Goran’Agar stood, nodding seemingly to himself. “If I had allowed my Second to kill the other human,” he said, “then I assume you would have become unwilling or unable to continue this research. We are short on time.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Julie said. “I am doing my best, but you’re right, it would have been… difficult for me to continue, if anything, er, happened to Chief O’Brien.”

Goran’Agar looked at her, his eyes uncomfortably intense. “To be clear,” he said, “I am not happy about your mate’s actions.”

“I’m certain that that device was meant only for self-def-— my mate?”

“Is he not your mate?” Goran’Agar said, cocking his head quizzically.

Julie felt her cheeks flush. “That- it’s not—“ she stammered, “no. We’re just friends.”

“You thanked me for not having him killed.”

“Of course I did! I’m happy he’s alive! But we don’t have to be mates for me to not want him to die!”

Goran’Agar considered this, but still looked rather confused. “He defended you from me yesterday.”

Julie huffed, incredulous. “Because, as I said, we are friends. And I’m his commanding officer, too. Besides, he already has a mate. A wife, I mean. Back on the station.”

Goran’Agar nodded with understanding. “Many species will take more than one mate at a time,” he said.

“Not Miles O’Brien,” Julie replied firmly. “And anyway - he really didn’t need to do that regardless, defend me, I mean. He was just overreacting! I know you didn’t mean anything by—”

“I did,” Goran’Agar said bluntly.

“What?”

“I did mean what he thought I meant.”

“Huh?” Julie stared at him. She was almost starting to feel a little light-headed, and realized rather belatedly that after what had just happened, she and Goran’Agar were now completely alone in the ‘lab’. She took a step back from him, but immediately bumped into the table behind her. “Er, that, but, you mean, er—“

“You have expressed that the Chief is not your mate,” Goran’Agar said.

“I, no, he’s not, but that doesn’t mean— I, I do have a mate. Back on the, er, station.”

“Just like the Chief’s mate?” Goran’Agar said dubiously. He clearly thought that this was just an excuse - and he wasn’t really buying it.

Julie swallowed hard. Her whole face was burning in embarrassment and she felt like a small prey animal that had been cornered by a predator - despite the fact that Goran’Agar hadn’t so much as stepped towards her. But if he did decide to — could Julie really move fast enough to escape before he got to her? She really wasn’t sure. She could be very fast, if she didn’t hold herself back, but where the Jem’Hadar’s physical abilities peaked was presently unknown. “It- it wouldn’t really work anyway,” she tried, “you— you’re still sterile, that isn’t something we could fix in the short term, if at all, and I, ah, I mean I’m- helping you with your addiction is one thing, but, er, if you’re interested in, ah, reproduction, then you should really— you should really not just spring that on someone-!”

“I did not say I desired to breed with you,” Goran’Agar said, then paused. “Though I would not be opposed to it if it became possible.”

Julie reached behind herself and felt around the desk she was backed up against nervously. Of course it must have been obvious to Goran’Agar that she was groping for any kind of makeshift weapon, but he acted as though he barely even noticed. “I…” she said, “I don’t understand. What do you— want from me?”

“You interest me,” Goran’Agar said, bluntly honest. “You are helping us, and it does not seem to be only because we threatened you, or because you were trained to feel compassion. You seem to be genuinely invested in our freedom and wellbeing.”

“That’s… just the sort of person I am,” Julie mumbled. There was nothing within reach. “I don’t…”

“You are attractive. You appear quite breakable,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, “and yet despite that, you are bearing conditions on this planet far better than the other human. I believe it would be interesting to test your limits. I desire to spend time with you.”

“W-We don’t have to have sex to do that,” Julie said quickly.

“I would prefer if we did.” Goran’Agar paused again. “You are obviously reluctant. I had assumed that it was because you did not wish to have more than one mate, but if the Chief is not your mate, then…”

“I told you, I- I have someone back home.” She knew it was a bad idea to take her eyes off of Goran’Agar, and yet she was so overwhelmed that she did it anyway, staring at her boots instead. “You will let us go home, won’t you? If I find a way— before time runs out?”

“Am I objectionable to you?” Goran’Agar said instead of answering.

“I’m sorry,” Julie mumbled, “I… find you interesting too, but… not like this. I don’t… want this.” Not that she had very good odds of stopping him if he decided to go for it anyway. Miles had been right about Goran’Agar’s attraction to her — what if he was right about the other thing, too…?

Goran’Agar just stood there for a long moment, then he walked towards her. It wasn’t at what Julie might call an aggressive pace, but she still tensed all over, squeezing her eyes shut. She felt Goran’Agar’s cold hand on the side of her face, and she gasped.

“You’re very warm,” he noted. “You are shaking.”

“I’m scared,” Julie admitted. She cracked her eyes open, but couldn’t bring herself to look up into Goran’Agar’s face; instead she looked at his neck, where the other Jem’Hadar had feeding tubes and he just had a small scar.

“It is sensible to be scared,” Goran’Agar said thoughtfully. “I could kill you easily. But I do not want to.”

Julie exhaled, her breath uneven. “You don’t want to hurt me, either, do you…?”

“No. I do not.”

There was a part of Julie, a part of her that she frankly thought of as her narcissistic side, that couldn’t help but feel flattered over Goran’Agar’s words. Flattered and honestly victorious. Here he was, one of the deadliest humanoids in the galaxy, specially sculpted from his DNA up to be the perfect warrior — and he was not only bluntly expressing sexual interest in Julie but also admitting he had no desire to hurt her. Could the same be said of any other being that attracted the attention of a Jem’Hadar in that way? Especially if the whole reason why they could experience desire in the first place was because the Founders wished to use it as a weapon? It was almost intoxicating to imagine that Goran’Agar was going against his nature just for her, and the ways in which she could… extend influence over him, if she just gave him what he wanted.

My god, I need to see a psychologist, Julie thought, finally looking Goran’Agar in the eyes. His hand was still on her face, she was still blushing - not really because of the awkwardness of the situation now, either, nor because of fear or humiliation, but simply because they were in such close proximity. Even up close, she still wouldn’t call Goran’Agar handsome, but she hadn’t been lying when she’d said she found him interesting.

She wouldn’t know what to do with a Jem’Hadar in her pocket, anyway.

“I’m sorry,” Julie whispered, turning her head away and breaking contact. “Maybe if things were different, but…”

Goran’Agar was silent, then after a moment he took a step back, lowering his arm to his side. “It is not important,” he said, though he did sound disappointed. “You should focus on finding the cure. We should not waste any more time.”

“Yes… yes, of course. I’ll… get back to work.”

“I will call another guard for you,” Goran’Agar said, heading towards the exit of the ‘lab’.

Julie just nodded. In all honesty, she would have preferred Goran’Agar over any of his men - especially since it was now occurring to her that maybe the others might resent the way she had captured Goran’Agar’s favor — but as for Goran’Agar himself, she understood if he needed some time alone right now. Rejection was not an easy thing to process.

And besides, resentment or not, he would never let one of his men do anything to her. At least not as long as the cure still hung in the balance.

Miles knew he was going to get brought up charges for this, knew he deserved it, and knew he wouldn’t have done anything different. Destroying Julie’s research had been the right thing to do - because if he hadn’t done that, then the stubborn idiot would have stayed on Bopak-3 to get torn apart by the Jem’Hadar that she somehow thought she’d tamed. Of course it all very nearly became a moot point (though, Miles supposed, it was arguably best if the Jem’Hadar didn’t have the remnants of the research even without Julie, considering the possibility that without the Dominion’s leash on them they might just rampage through the galaxy) but, rather unexpectedly, Goran’Agar had taken them back to their runabout, shot his Second, and told them to take their ship and go. (Actually, he had been addressing Julie.)

Julie looked even more shocked than Miles felt, even though she’d been the one who had been convinced that Goran’Agar had grown some morals. “Goran’Agar,” she said, nearly whispered. “If you stay here, they'll kill you.”

“Unless I kill them first,” Goran’Agar said. He doesn’t sound very happy about it. “It would be better for them to die quickly in battle than slowly... as the drug runs out.”

“You don't have to do this,” Julie said anxiously. “Even if we can't save the others, you don't need to sacrifice yourself!”

Goran’Agar suddenly turned to Miles. “You’re a soldier?” he said.

Miles frowned. “I have been,” he said.

“Then you explain.”

And Miles did know exactly what he meant. Maybe that was the worst part of all this — the fact that, ultimately, he could understand Goran’Agar, at least a little. It didn’t negate anything else he thought about him, though. Just made it harder to deny the dark things that lived within him as well. At length, he nodded.

Goran’Agar looked at him with approval and maybe a little bit of gratitude, then turned back to Julie. “If I do succeed,” he said, then paused slightly, and lifted his free hand towards Julie, touching her arm in a shockingly gentle gesture. “If I do survive. I will come find you.”

Miles pressed his lips together, willing himself to stay silent. Goran’Agar coming to the Alpha Quadrant, especially in pursuit of Julie, was the last thing he wanted, but the likelihood of that happening…

Julie made a kind of choked sigh as Goran’Agar pulled away again, and she caught his hand and squeezed it for a moment. “I’ll be waiting,” she mumbled.

You’re such a damned fool, Julie.

Goran’Agar looked at her for an uncomfortably long moment, he face unreadable, and then he let go and reactivated his shroud, disappearing with a shimmer of light.

Miles had to grab Julie’s other arm to pull her onto the runabout with him. Otherwise, she might have just stood there forever, looking very lost and confused.

He did feel sorry for her. Of course he did. But more than that, more than anything, he was also fucking furious with her. She was thoughtless, short-sighted, hubristic and most of all unbearably naïve. What was the use of Starfleet Academy if it graduated officers who could be manipulated by a species only barely a step above feral animals? He didn’t say anything to her the whole way out of the system, and she didn’t say anything either, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat and looking appropriately forlorn.

“Maybe I could restart my research once we’re back on DS9,” she said very quietly, once they were well on their way towards the wormhole.

Miles huffed. “It’d be pretty difficult without anything to work on.”

Julie shot him the kind of absolutely venomous glare that until now he’d only seen her use on the likes of Dukat. “And whose fault is that?“ she said, her voice high and tight. “Besides, if Goran’Agar comes—“

“He won’t,” Miles interrupted her. “He’s dead.”

She went icily silent. “You don’t know that,” she finally said.

“Yeah, I do. However good he is, he’s not good enough to beat half a dozen of his own men. And even if he does survive, you really think he’d be able to just live with being responsible for their deaths?”

“He didn’t have to do that,” Julie said, frustrated. “He could have come with us. He could have defected to the Federation and-“

“No, he couldn’t have. You don’t get it, Julie, and honestly I hope you never do,” said Miles.

“Is this what that ‘You were a soldier’ thing is about?!”

“Yeah, it is. And if you’d seen the things I’ve seen, Julie, I think it’d just break you.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Julie snapped.

“And you do?” Miles said, frowning severely at her. “You know what? I’m glad Goran’Agar’s dead.”

“Miles!”

She had slammed her hands against the runabout console hard enough that the screen flickered, and she was glowering at him with tears visible in her eyes, though unshed. Miles decided to back down and not say anything further - though he didn’t apologize. He didn’t think he was wrong. Too harsh, yes, and he really did feel bad now. But not wrong. God only knew what Goran’Agar would have done to her if she’d been left completely alone with him - let alone what the other Jem'Hadar might do if they got to her, probably thinking of her as some kind of manipulative succubus who had ensnared their leader, and likely from almost the moment they'd crash-landed, too. This whole thing was going to be difficult to explain if she did bring him up on charges, but if he managed it, he felt quite certain that Sisko would ultimately take his side. He couldn’t imagine that she would care much for Julie’s insane orders either, given the situation.

Neither of them said anything more the whole rest of the way back to Deep Space 9. Miles found himself wondering if Julie would ever forgive him. Probably she would. She was the forgiving type, and once she’d spent enough time decompressing from his mission she probably would realize that Miles had only been trying to protect her. Even if she preferred to never talk about any of this again, that would be okay - Miles definitely wasn’t going to push the subject — she would forgive him, Miles was sure. The more he thought about it, the more sure he was.

And he was already forgiving her too. She couldn’t help being naïve. The only fix for that was the hard knocks of life, and she’d just taken a particularly nasty lump. Miles wasn’t going to act like this was some kind of moral deficiency on her part.

Though he did think that it would probably be fair to tell Garak anything that Sisko didn’t classify.