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Exiting his chambers, Lovok went to the office he kept in his home. This lunacy had gone on long enough. He needed to speak with Narviat immediately.

Just as he was about to open a channel to the praetor, one of his stewards entered. “Excuse me, Colonel,” the elderly woman said, “but Colonel Koval is here to see you.”

Lovok blinked. “Really? Very well, then. Send him in.” Lovok would wait until Koval was here and then talk with the praetor. Perhaps together, they could get to the bottom of this.

The steward departed, and moments later, she brought Koval in. The colonel looked particularly smug, which Lovok thought inappropriate.

“I’m glad you’re here, Koval, we need to-”

Koval held up a hand, and Lovok stopped talking. Turning to the steward, Koval said, “I must speak with your master in private.”

Bowing her head deferentially, the steward left the office.

“My apologies for speaking thus to your servant, but this is a matter that must remain between the two of us.”

Waving his hand dismissively, Lovok said, “I don’t care about that. What I do care about are the faults in our intelligence delivery.”

“Oh, there are no faults,” Koval said with remarkable calm. “You see, the lines of intelligence have been sabotaged by an outside force that wishes to ensure that this war is prolonged and devastating.”

Lovok frowned. Koval was talking nonsense. “What are you talking about? What is this outside force?”

Rarely did Koval smile. He did so now in such a manner that Lovok felt his breakfast welling up in his throat. “Me.”

“What? Koval, you’re talking nonsense.” He moved over to the comm console where he intended to call Narviat. “We must-”

Suddenly, Koval’s arm-changed. It shimmered and undulated and re-formed itself into something that looked very much like a long steel rod.

The end of that rod slammed into the comm console, shattering it into dozens of pieces of glass and ceramic and circuitry that sparked and burned.

As Lovok looked on in horror, the rod shimmered again, this time turning into a metal cable that whipped about in the air.

“What are you?” Lovok whispered.

“I am not Colonel Koval, certainly. He’s in a Dominion prison, where we may interrogate him at will to ensure that my deception is accurate.”

Lovok found himself unable to move. He’d sat at a computer his entire career. His rise through the ranks of the Tal Shiar had come through his phenomenal ability to sift through pieces of information and uncover truths that tried to remain hidden under falsehood.

But he had no combat training, no ability to defend himself in a fight.

And even if he had, he was simply petrified at the sight of this undulating, liquefied thing that wore Koval’s face.

Though it did not wear it for long, bending and twisting into an amber ooze that snaked about through the air. Lovok could no longer see a mouth, but Koval’s voice continued to sound in the room: “It has been such a trial, remaining in one form. I don’t know how you solids do it. Still, my mission has been a success. Narviat sent me here, Lovok, because you have failed him by providing faulty intelligence. He asked me to dispose of you. Koval would simply shoot you with a disruptor pistol under those circumstances, but I so rarely am able to free myself like this-I believe I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

The metal cable that had once been Koval’s arm wrapped around Lovok’s neck. It was only then that he was able to open his mouth to scream, but the cable bit into his throat, slicing away at his vocal cords, and his cries of agony were only guttural moans.

Somehow, the foul creature continued to speak with Koval’s voice. “With you dead, your precious praetor has put me in charge of intelligence for the war. It will be far easier to further the Dominion’s agenda from that position, rather than having to sabotage your work after the fact.”

The last thing Lovok did as the bizarre alien thing choked the life out of him was wonder just what in the name of the Elements “the Dominion” was.

13

U.S.S. Enterprise-E En Route to Earth United