Faith

[Cptn Corizon 0]

Taenix ran her hands along the monolithic device that inhabited a small, out of the way cargo bay in the floating station that served as the central nexus of the Dominion. Never in her twelve lifetimes could she call a single object that caused her such deep, divisive emotions. The device, which she understood the Alpha Quadrant aliens called ‘the Holy Grail,’ was supposed to bring salvation for her people and the entire Dominion. Instead it brought the chance of chaos. Instead of bringing her closer to the gods, it stood to tear her and the rest of the Vorta further from the intoxicating wisdom of the Founders.

 

Her thoughts and her beliefs were beyond conflicted. Every genetically engrained value found itself fighting against a torrent of emotions, like capsized sailors fighting against the cruel, cold ocean. For twelve life-times she had served the Founders, her creators with every fiber of her being. She, above all others of her gene-set, had been chosen to be savior of the Dominion when the Scorpiads returned. Now she was being asked to take the device to the Hundred so that the last of the Founders could be included in the Glorious Isolation.

 

Glorious Isolation. The very phrase left an acrid taste in her mouth. She had still been in isolation when Odo, one of the Hundred himself, had taken over the Great Link after the Alpha Quadrant War. When she’d been awaken, even the Vorta did not know how deep of an isolation Odo had taken the Link into, in order to ‘heal them.’ But why would the God need to be healed?

 

She exhaled and turned from the device and peered into the darkness of the cargo bay. True she knew more than most Vorta about their own origins, and true she knew that Founders were just as mortal as any other creature, but that didn’t stop her from thinking of them as her gods. Perhaps it was that faith, she considered, that had always set their own beliefs apart from lesser races. Other races had faith in Gods that were immortal, gods that clearly did not exist, but the Vorta’s gods were mortal, they existed.

 

Before her long slumber in stasis, Taenix had been as she was today – one of the leading Vorta of her generation. She had always worked closely with the Founders to rule their empire. When she’d awaken she’d expected to be greeted by the female Founder. Instead, she’d seen the face of Weyoun. Weyoun told her much, told her of the Isolation that Odo had ordered for the Link. It bothered her, but she trusted, she believed in the wisdom of the Founders. With that belief in her heart, she pressed on and did that which she had been entrusted by the Founders to do – beat the Scorpiad Empire. It had not been the cleanest of victories, but she had delivered a victory; however, in the heat of the battle, when the Dominion was nearly ready to fall she had defied the will of the Founders and sent a small force to seek the Founders in isolation. When that force arrived they did not find the Founders, instead they found the planet abandoned. Alone, confused, and for the first time in twelve lives, questioning the Gods she forged an alliance with the Alpha Quadrant forces. She would risk everything and divert their forces to assist in retaking the wormhole from the Scorpiads, and in exchange the Alpha Quadrant forces would help find the Founders.

 

She turned and looked back at the monolithic machine that glowed in deep purple hues. The device had long been rumored to exist. It was said to have been used by the Founders to contact each other during the Diaspora after the Scorpiads destroyed their first homeworld so many years ago. Then it was used by the first of the Vorta to stay in contact. It was thought, however, to have been lost to darkness of the universe, but the Excalibur and her crew found it. When the news came, she’d been filled with a sense of relief, a sense that everything would work out.

 

The truth though was far different. Odo wanted the Vorta to take the device to the Founders so that he could commune with Elai and the other Hundred and convince them to join the others. If they did this, the Hundred would know, as she knew, that the Vorta Council no longer had the wisdom of the Founders and the Dominion was now being run by the servants, not the masters. If word of this came out, the effects would be disastrous. Whole worlds that had long been protected, controlled, ordered by the Dominion now rattled their chains and yearned for freedom. If they saw any weakness in the Vorta, they would rebel, and she knew there would be weakness, her heart told her.

 

The Vorta had been blessed with living gods, but now those gods were abandoning them. For the first time in the collective memories of her people, they would be questioning their gods. Like the Jem’Hadar, they had been genetically engineered to be dependent, not on the white, but on the wisdom of the gods.

 

She paused and pressed a hand to the device, feeling the cold, metallic casing and the pulsing vibrations of the internal power source. She could destroy it, and no one but Lexin, Weyoun and Keevan would be the wiser, but then she would betraying her gods, and even though they had betrayed her, she could not bring herself to that, not yet anyway. On the other hand, Odo hadn’t specified how quickly she was to deliver the device to the Hundred and Elai.