Five-Minute "The Search II"
by Marc Richard

Female Shapeshifter: You were just an infant when you left this place. Now that you are back home, you can experience the Great Link again.
Odo: The Great Link?
Female Shapeshifter: A field of ooze created by all living shapeshifters; it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the Changelings together. Give me your hand and let me show you.
(SHHHLLLURRRKKK....)
Kira: Eww. I've heard of exchanging body fluids, but this is a bit too much.

Commander's Log: Doctor Bashir and I have been adrift in a shuttlecraft for six days. The forward window has failed and we have no idea what's outside the ship, but noises coming through the hull suggest we've been drawn into the cargo hold of a large vessel.
(THUD! THUMP! SQUEAK!)
Bashir: Sir, someone's trying to open the rear hatch!
Sisko: Probably Imperial troops. Draw your phaser and prepare to fire!
(CREAK!)
Dax: Hi folks! Glad we were able to find you. Are you ready to go home?
Sisko: More than ready. This shuttlecraft wouldn't have lasted much longer, but it got us through. I almost feel sorry to leave her.
O'Brien: We'll take her back with us, sir. We came to look for you in a Federation Star Destroyer, so we've got plenty of room aboard.

Female Shapeshifter: You may use this arboretum to practice shape-shifting. By becoming these objects, you will learn to understand their nature.
Odo: I never get any helpful insights when I change into something. Most inanimate objects lead very dull lives.
Female Shapeshifter: Then you must be doing something wrong. What was the last object whose shape you assumed?
Odo: A burned-out lightbulb. It wasn't an enlightening experience.

Admiral Nechayev: Welcome back and congratulations. Your successful mission has made possible the current treaty negotiations on DS9.
Sisko: A delegation of Founders is already here?
Nechayev: Yes, they're meeting at this very moment with representatives of several Federation races -- the Corellians, the Huttese, the Gungans....
Sisko: Have any ambassadors arrived from Earth yet?
Nechayev: From where? Oh, right -- Earth. Um, they won't get here till Tuesday.

Borath: We Vorta are the Founders. Our policy is to spare the humbled and to crush the proud, so I've come to negotiate a co-prosperity alliance between the Federation and the Dominion.
Sisko: Should I have any reason to suspect that under its terms the Dominion would get the prosperity and the Federation would get the co?
Borath: Really, Commander... you should learn to be more trusting.
Sisko: That's the same answer I got from Dax when I asked her to explain why a Wookie was piloting a Federation Stardestroyer.

T'Rul: I protest the exclusion of the Romulan Empire from the negotiations! Every other great power in the Alpha Quadrant is participating! I shall inform my government immediately!
Bashir: I'm starting to get a bad feeling about these treaty discussions.
Garak: Let me go talk with her and try to smooth things out. I have a talent for persuading Romulans to play along.

Odo: How are your covert transmission attempts going?
Kira: Not well. There's a subterranean power source blocking the signal. How are your shape-shifting exercises going?
Odo: Not well. I have no problem changing into a flower or a rock, but it doesn't give me a clue about what it's like to be a rock.
Kira: A great man once said, "Don't try to be a great rock, just be a rock, and let history make its own judgments."
Odo: Someone really said that?
Kira: Well, not exactly.

Sisko: The Romulans will be upset by their exclusion from the treaty talks. It could mean war.
Nechayev: That's not a problem. Against our new combined alliance, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Sisko: Is the Federation Council sure about this?
Nechayev: Yes, but just to be on the safe side we've asked the Kaminoans to double the current output of clone troopers they're producing for us.

Female Shapeshifter: You were one of a hundred infants sent out to learn about the galaxy for us.
Odo: Why don't you explore space yourselves?
Female Shapeshifter: Our people once tried to seek out new life and new civilizations. Everywhere we went, the monoform solids feared and persecuted us. So we adopted the philosophy of doing unto others....
Odo: ...as you would have them do unto you?
Female Shapeshifter: Not exactly.

Female Shapeshifter: Merge with me and I will show you a level of intimacy you will never know with Major Kira.
Odo: She and I are just friends, not lovers.
Female Shapeshifter: I am pleased to learn that to you she is nothing but a platonic solid.

Nechayev: Good news, Commander -- the treaty's been signed.
Borath: Under its terms, the Dominion will now take control of the wormhole, the station, Bajor, all Federation colonies, all of Starfleet....
Sisko: And just what happens to Earth, if I may ask?
Borath: Earth? Let me check... I think it's mentioned somewhere here in Appendix D.

Sisko: The Federation Council has sold us out. It's up to us to stop the Dominion from invading the Alpha Quadrant. Does anyone have any proposals?
Bashir: Well, we could ask the Prophets to make the Dominion fleet vanish when it travels through the wormhole.
Dax: Or we could lay a field of self-replicating mines around its entrance.
Sisko: Let me rephrase my question -- does anyone have any realistic proposals?
Garak: I suggest using a salvo of photon torpedoes to collapse the entrance to the wormhole.
Jem'Hadar Soldier: Silence, you Cardassian traitor, or I'll remove your ra!
Garak: My ra? Whatever are you talking about?
(ZAP!)
Garak: GAK!

Kira: The power source seems to be behind this mysterious door. Can you open it?
Odo: I think so. (knocks) Open up in there, it's me.
(CREAK!)
Kira: Incredible. They fell for it.
Odo: Of course. "Me" is always someone everybody knows.

Kira: Look! It's the entire crew of the Defiant!
Odo: Why are they strapped to those tables with electrodes on their heads?
Borath: We're probing their minds to find out how they'd react to an invasion of the Alpha Quadrant by a ruthless collective mentality that uses force to impose its own vision of order on the galaxy.
Kira: The Borg?
Female Shapeshifter: Not exactly.
Kira and Odo: Gasp!

Odo: I'm leaving this planet and I'm taking my friends with me.
Female Shapeshifter: They cannot leave. Here we take the rule of "Founders keepers" very seriously.
Odo: Then let me point out that I found these people long before you did.
Female Shapeshifter: A persuasive argument. Guards, release the prisoners!

Female Shapeshifter: Goodbye, Odo. It's too bad you don't share our vision of order for the Alpha Quadrant. We could have made the trains run on time there.
Odo: You're the rulers of a vast interstellar empire. I can't believe you'd want to get involved in something so mundane as overseeing the details of railroad timetables.
Female Shapeshifter: How little you understand us. We are what the solids mockingly call control freaks. That's what we do.
(The Defiant leaves orbit at Ludicrous Speed)

THE END

Previous fiver: The Search I
Next fiver: Equilibrium

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