Advisor Dakul was walking down a corridor when the announcement came over the ship intercom about Ensign Joka. Suddenly Ensign Joka came around the corner and ran straight into his large bulk.

"Out of my way Cardassian misfit." Joka ordered loudly, pulling out a personnel phaser.

More out of instinct than reacting to the fact that someone had just pulled a phaser on him, Dakul reacted to the movement and knocked the phaser from the right hand of his attacker. For the second time that day, Joka reacted in pain. Dakul picked up the discarded phaser and pointed it at the Vulcan.

"Dakul to Commander Rashad. I have Ensign Joka in corridor seventeen, deck six." He stated.

[Security is on the way.] Rashad replied. [And thank you.]

Moments later, four security officers arrived.

"I’d suggest we take him to sickbay." Dakul remarked, passing the phaser to one of the security officers. "I think I may have broken his arm when I knocked the phaser from his hand."

An hour later, Commander Rashad arrived in sickbay.

Ensign Joka was laid out in one of the medical bays, secured by a forcefield. She also noticed that he was unconscious. Then she noticed the EMH in the office, talking to Advisor Dakul and walked across.

"Commander Rashad." The EMH acknowledged.

"Doctor." She replied. "How’s the patient ?" She asked.

"For the moment quiet, I’ve sedated him as he was acting very irrational." The EMH replied. "His left wrist was broken as well as his right forearm, which I have repaired. What interests me though is why these injuries occurred in the first place. There are also signs that he broke his left ankle, which has been repaired, but not by me."

"Why ?" Rashad enquired.

"Our guest seems to be suffering some kind of ‘wasting’ disease, but I can’t tell you how it happened or what is causing it. I can tell you that it’s still going on, by my estimates he’s losing about three hundred grams of body tissue per day. Within a month, they’ll be noting left." The EMH replied. "It’s as if areas of his body are just vanishing, the main area affected is his torso, but he’s losing bone mass from his arms and legs."

"And you definitely don’t know the cause ?" Rashad enquired.

"I’ve never encountered anything like it. "The EMH replied. "One final thing I can tell you, that is not Ensign Joka."

"What ?. Are you sure ?" Rashad asked.

"His DNA doesn’t match with that on file. He’s actually Romulan and a through examination of his face has revealed that he underwent surgery some time ago." The EMH stated. "If I was to make an estimate, I’d say at least six to seven months ago."

"That’s just before he came aboard the Leviathan-A." Rashad replied. "If memory serves correct, Ensign Joka came aboard at DS9 just before we set-off to battle the Bariens."

"He was carrying these." Advisor Dakul announced, showing the Commander the three items on the doctor’s desk.

The first was a small phaser, the one that Joka had pulled on Dakul, the second a small knife and the final was the data core from a padd. Dakul inserted the core into a data padd and passed it to the Commander.

"The knife appears to have some kind of poison on the cutting edge." The EMH announced. "It’s lucky that he didn’t pull the knife on you Dakul, the poison is extremely potent, one scratch and you’d be in the mortuary."

Rashad switched the small device on and started to scan through the information.

"This is everything we have on the quantum slipstream drive. Specifications, performance logs, all the personal logs of Shaka and Tyra." She announced.

"It appears we’ve had a Romulan spy in our midst." The EMH stated.

"I’ll have his quarters searched, maybe there’s more." Rashad replied. "Doctor is there any way we could identify our guest ?"

"The surgery is too complex, there’s no way we can reverse it to find his true identity." The EMH replied.

"I may have another way." Advisor Dakul announced.

"What ?" Rashad replied.

"It maybe possible to access the Romulan database aboard the frigate that’s docked close-by." He replied. "I should be able to access his true identity from his DNA."

The frigate had been docked at the repair facility for the past three days having suffered damage to it’s impulse engines. Now those repairs were complete and the vessel was awaiting the USS Titan to escort it across Federation space. The vessel had been paying a visit to a joint Federation\Romulan research facility in the Gamma quadrant and had been returning to DS9 to await escort when a rogue Dominion force had attacked it.

"Give it a go, but be careful." Rashad ordered. "If he’s a spy, then he’s probably a member of the Tal’Shiar."

"From what I’ve seen of Federation technology in this universe it’s almost identical to that of the Terran empire, hopefully the Romulan systems follow the same line. My experiences will help and I know quite a few tricks. Your double taught me well Commander." Dakul replied, heading out of sickbay.

Commander Rashad sighed in relief. Although she would never admit it, she was beginning to see that this mirror Dakul was turning out to be an asset.