So?dragon wrote:So if a few grams of these can do that much imagine a few kilos of it.
Although I would rather see some mechs take the city."Anatomy of a War" - Alt-Trekverse Fic
Moderator: LadyTevar
Classic. Just classic.Steve wrote:The caterpillar tread pressed down on his head first, crushing his skull like a fruit and splattering brain matter and blood about. It continued down his body, turning his spine into powder as it crushed his body, causing more blood and flesh splatter from the weight of 80 tons pressing down on Tovel's body.
I've often thought it would be sweet to see a Draka get crushed under good old American steel (preferably feet-first, so he has time to scream as he's ground into a smear in the dirt) but I'll take this less satisfying moment.
Washington D.C., Earth, Alliance of Democratic Nations
Universe Designate HE-1
11:30 GST
The smell of fresh breakfast pastries and coffee filled the conference room within the White House, not far from Mamatmas' office. The early 6:30AM EST meeting had been arranged ahead of time, giving Mamatmas and other cabinent members attending the meeting a chance to learn the status of the invasion of Bajor.
So far progress had been good. All the units had landed safely and secured preliminary objectives. Support was landing next with additional supplies to establish depots. And behind that would come humanitarian aid for the Bajorans.
Along with reports about the fighting in the invasion were growing reports of Cardassian atrocities on Bajor. The taking of several enemy bases had resulted in the discovery of the brothels where Bajoran "comfort girls" were forced to service Cardassian soldiers. Then there was the terrible slaughter across the planet from the brutal Cardassian response to the general uprising that started thirty-six or so hours before the invasion. What survivors had been found in some of the cleared out areas had told news reporters of Cardassian troops killing any Bajoran in sight, whether they posed a threat or not. Entire towns and cities had been subjected to vicious attack. The casualty toll was in the millions, expected to be in the tens of millions if not more.
"The political ramifications are clear, Mister President." Rathbone was speaking now. "The more Cardassian crimes we uncover, the harder it will be to make peace without dragging their entire government before a war crimes tribunal. And I do not see the Legate or his cronies voluntarily surrendering."
"I understand that all too well, Minister. And that leaves us in a precarious position." Mamatmas sipped at a cup of coffee. A half-completed bagel was on the dish in front of him. "The last thing we need is to become responsible for defending the entire Cardassian Union if we were forced to overrun them. And it's just not feasible to remove their government and occupy only a portion of their territory. The entire region is too unstable and the territory grabs that such a move would trigger could easily lead to a massive, full-scale interstellar war. We're not going to fight this war just to have a dozen start because of it."
"Agreed, Mister President."
"Are there any dissident forces in their military that can be utilized? Anyone who can remove Kelataza, take control, and agree to our terms?"
Eyes turned to Director Bronson. "There are some dissidents, Mister President, but most of them are in forced-labor camps. The ones who aren't are, with no exceptions we can find, living abroad and constantly monitored by Cardassian intelligence. The most substantial belong to what could be feasibly called a Cardassian Socialist Party and are currently residing in the Federation."
This prompted a question from the Minister of the Treasury, a thin man of middle age named Miles Larsky. "Is it that much better to bring to power a group that could easily bring Cardassia into the Federation?"
"Not that easily, if you ask me," Umachov replied in the usual gruff Russian-accented tone. "The Cardassian populace is very nationalistic, even without the State control on their lives. And would you prefer the dissolution of the Cardassian Empire and the resulting power vacuum?"
"Of course not." Mamatmas drew in a sigh. "Do you think Kelataza will sue for peace now that his last major fleet has been smashed? What does he have left, anyway? Do we know?"
"Pre-war intelligence estimates set the Cardassian fleet at between seven and a half thousand and nine thousand combat ships, not counting what they have in mothballs, which we believe is probably another five to eight hundred older ships. Enemy losses have reached approximately two thousand, one hundred and forty-nine vessels, not counting the loss of about one point one billion tons of interstellar shipping capacity, including a one hundred megaton transport torpedoed in the first day of the war." There was a slight grin on Admiral Hollingwood's face. "In fact, we think some of their ships were underarmed at the second Darane engagement due to a lack of torpedoes in their regional bases' ammunition lockers. I think the credit goes to our stealth ships for the great job they're doing."
"Of course, the Cardassians also lost a good deal of their local weapon manufacturing capability thanks to our strategic bombing offensive," Marshal Longwell added immediately. She and Hollingwood exchanged what seemed to be slight glares.
Mamatmas sighed. The rivalry between the Aerospace Force and the Stellar Navy was strong; the Navy felt the Aerospace Force should stick to subluminal craft and defense of systems and planetary atmosphere, while the Aerospace Force insisted on maintaining it's interstellar combat assets like it's bombers. The disaster at Kurvak and the Navy's victory afterward would undoubtedly add fuel to that fire. Before he could say anything, Rathbone spoke up. "Anyway, the Cardassians have borders with at least four other states of decent military strength, not to mention their frontier facing the Klingons."
"Don't forget active insurrections in four sectors that require the presence of combat ships," Bronson added to Rathbone's list. "And a number of other regions that require a presence to prevent revolt."
"So how many ships do you think the Cardassians could send against us?"
Bronson looked down at his notes before speaking, though he took the time to sip some coffee. "Well, for now they've got over a thousand ships that are either in their shipyards for repair or are waiting for an open slot. We're not sure of the exact amount of ships under construction, but intelligence suggests something on the order of four to six hundred combat starships, keeping in mind that the Cardassians were re-orientating their shipbuilding industry to produce non-combat transports and vessels to revitalize their economy. Combined with what they need to defend other borders minimally and to suppress or prevent revolts, I'd say that with their mothballed ships re-activated and crewed they might muster a fleet of about fifteen hundred combat warships by next month. Though a lot of them will be older and I should point out that their manpower losses have been severe. The First, Second, and Third Fleets were the core of Cardassian offensive strength and they had the most capable officers. Now Third Fleet has been wiped out and the First and Second Fleets are down to less than a quarter of their operational. I'd say that right now the Cardassians are sorely lacking for good experienced naval personnel, given all the ones that are dead or sitting in the camps on Krellor."
Mamatmas sighed. "Still, fifteen hundred ships is a good number, considering what we've got there. Admiral Hollingwood, I know the Navy's being stretched a bit thin now..." - he noticed the older Englishman grunt - "...but I'd like to know the status of potential reinforcements."
"Mister President, we have deployed over fifteen hundred combat warships alone to Universe ST-3, of which about five hundred have been lost to enemy action or severely damaged to the point that they will be laid up for repairs for months. When this war began, we had five thousand nine hundred and sixty-six combat warships under Stellar Navy command, with another eight thousand or so dispersed among the national navies or their mothball yards. And most of our ships are needed to protect the borders of our member nations. So I'm afraid we're beginning to scrape the bottom of the saucepan. I'll remind you, Mister President, that it's the Stellar Navy keeping 3rd Fleet in line with what's left of the Shah's Navy that's stopping Captain-General Ortiz and his Eurofascist bastards from jumping their interstellar border with Iran FHI-8. And now we have the damned Kaiser in AGC-1 rattling his saber with the Thai now that they've voted to join the Alliance next year. I may have to redeploy 7th Fleet to keep the Germans from deciding the border in Barrister Sector on their terms. And I don't think I need to mention the CON-5 situation. The Lisean offensive against Vigil has been repulsed and the damned Puritans have got the advantage. And they're not that happy we're not restricting the sale of industrial equipment and chemicals and the like to Lisea."
And there was another sigh. Mamatmas felt an ache growing in his head and a slighter one in his chest. Sometimes he envied the leaders of smaller governments that conveniently had all of their borders in one universe. "I respect the astropolitical situation, Admiral. I deal with it everyday. But can you give us anything?"
Hollingwood bit his lip. "There's always 10th Fleet. The mobilization of our AR-12 members and the Gersallians re-affirming the Treaty of New Pittsburgh means we don't have to worry much about our borders there. But 10th Fleet's understrength, I'll remind you, and has a lot of older ships operating with it."
"But it's still something," Rathbone said. "Between what we have on hand now, 10th Fleet, and the carriers, we should have enough to overcome a new Cardassian force."
There were nods throughout the room. "I trust the military has a plan on what to do next?"
"Yes, Mister President," Field Marshal Pollack assured him. "We're going back to the original War Plan Obsidian's Phase 2 Offensive for this, slightly modified to account for what we've already taken. We've begun the necessary staff work to allow us to launch Operation: Rolling Thunder no later than the fifth of January. We're aiming for the 29th of December for initial strikes."
"Pretty fast tempo for attacks."
"Well, Sir, with all due respect, our names aren't 'Dale'."
Mamatmas grunted, partially amused but irritated since the butt of the joke was a personal friend. A number of military chiefs and politicians had been irritated with the way the Clan War had been run. President Verdes had given full authority for planning over to the officer serving as SAC-Hillsdale (Supreme Alliance Commander of Hillsdale Sector), Admiral Robert Dale, who was now a Fleet Admiral and serving his final months as Military Governor of the Kerensky Territories. Dale's plan for the war had not been as fast as the brass had wanted, though it impressed the Hell out of the Rasalhaguans and Federated Commonwealth (who were admittedly used to the comparitive snail's pace of K-F Drive travel without the benefit of superior charging mechanisms and anti-matter reactors) - the Clans had been conquered in seven months of methodical fighting by Allied forces that leapt from one planet to the next, annihilating all of the Clan forces that confronted them. Against the Clans or even Cardassia, planning this fast might not hurt, but I don't think you'll be able to be so cocky and impatient if we fight someone who's tougher, like New Plymouth Colony or the Eurofascists in FHI-8. "Anything else on the agenda?"
General of the Army Taggert replied, "We're still waiting for the planners on Corwich to give us the final data on their offensive. The FedCom people have named it Operation: Percival - the Davions have a thing for Arthurian Knights I'm told - and they hope to launch it by the 22nd. Admiral Lewis is on site now and thinks they should launch in five days to keep the Cardassians from trying to reinforce that border area. She doesn't think the Cardies can miss the FedCom arrivals. Says their 'walking tin-cans get too much attention'." There were a few laughs in the room. "We've agreed to make Field Marshal Bisla the Operational CO for the attack. We don't want them to think we're trying to hog the attention, after all."
And having a Commonwealth commander is necessary to keep Ryan Steiner and the Commonwealth isolationists from crucifying Prince Davion, Mamatmas added to that mentally. Over the past year he'd found that the reports from the Ambassadors in the Inner Sphere tended to be among the most..... interesting. The Inner Sphere's native technology was mostly inferior, but their knives for Byzantine politics were just as sharp as - if not sharper than - anyone else's. With the potential exception of the Centauri. Mustn't think of so many headaches at once, Nicolas. You're going to kill yourself from stress before your first term is over. I've been a politician for too damned long. "Of course," he said aloud. "Please continue...."
Universe Designate HE-1
11:30 GST
The smell of fresh breakfast pastries and coffee filled the conference room within the White House, not far from Mamatmas' office. The early 6:30AM EST meeting had been arranged ahead of time, giving Mamatmas and other cabinent members attending the meeting a chance to learn the status of the invasion of Bajor.
So far progress had been good. All the units had landed safely and secured preliminary objectives. Support was landing next with additional supplies to establish depots. And behind that would come humanitarian aid for the Bajorans.
Along with reports about the fighting in the invasion were growing reports of Cardassian atrocities on Bajor. The taking of several enemy bases had resulted in the discovery of the brothels where Bajoran "comfort girls" were forced to service Cardassian soldiers. Then there was the terrible slaughter across the planet from the brutal Cardassian response to the general uprising that started thirty-six or so hours before the invasion. What survivors had been found in some of the cleared out areas had told news reporters of Cardassian troops killing any Bajoran in sight, whether they posed a threat or not. Entire towns and cities had been subjected to vicious attack. The casualty toll was in the millions, expected to be in the tens of millions if not more.
"The political ramifications are clear, Mister President." Rathbone was speaking now. "The more Cardassian crimes we uncover, the harder it will be to make peace without dragging their entire government before a war crimes tribunal. And I do not see the Legate or his cronies voluntarily surrendering."
"I understand that all too well, Minister. And that leaves us in a precarious position." Mamatmas sipped at a cup of coffee. A half-completed bagel was on the dish in front of him. "The last thing we need is to become responsible for defending the entire Cardassian Union if we were forced to overrun them. And it's just not feasible to remove their government and occupy only a portion of their territory. The entire region is too unstable and the territory grabs that such a move would trigger could easily lead to a massive, full-scale interstellar war. We're not going to fight this war just to have a dozen start because of it."
"Agreed, Mister President."
"Are there any dissident forces in their military that can be utilized? Anyone who can remove Kelataza, take control, and agree to our terms?"
Eyes turned to Director Bronson. "There are some dissidents, Mister President, but most of them are in forced-labor camps. The ones who aren't are, with no exceptions we can find, living abroad and constantly monitored by Cardassian intelligence. The most substantial belong to what could be feasibly called a Cardassian Socialist Party and are currently residing in the Federation."
This prompted a question from the Minister of the Treasury, a thin man of middle age named Miles Larsky. "Is it that much better to bring to power a group that could easily bring Cardassia into the Federation?"
"Not that easily, if you ask me," Umachov replied in the usual gruff Russian-accented tone. "The Cardassian populace is very nationalistic, even without the State control on their lives. And would you prefer the dissolution of the Cardassian Empire and the resulting power vacuum?"
"Of course not." Mamatmas drew in a sigh. "Do you think Kelataza will sue for peace now that his last major fleet has been smashed? What does he have left, anyway? Do we know?"
"Pre-war intelligence estimates set the Cardassian fleet at between seven and a half thousand and nine thousand combat ships, not counting what they have in mothballs, which we believe is probably another five to eight hundred older ships. Enemy losses have reached approximately two thousand, one hundred and forty-nine vessels, not counting the loss of about one point one billion tons of interstellar shipping capacity, including a one hundred megaton transport torpedoed in the first day of the war." There was a slight grin on Admiral Hollingwood's face. "In fact, we think some of their ships were underarmed at the second Darane engagement due to a lack of torpedoes in their regional bases' ammunition lockers. I think the credit goes to our stealth ships for the great job they're doing."
"Of course, the Cardassians also lost a good deal of their local weapon manufacturing capability thanks to our strategic bombing offensive," Marshal Longwell added immediately. She and Hollingwood exchanged what seemed to be slight glares.
Mamatmas sighed. The rivalry between the Aerospace Force and the Stellar Navy was strong; the Navy felt the Aerospace Force should stick to subluminal craft and defense of systems and planetary atmosphere, while the Aerospace Force insisted on maintaining it's interstellar combat assets like it's bombers. The disaster at Kurvak and the Navy's victory afterward would undoubtedly add fuel to that fire. Before he could say anything, Rathbone spoke up. "Anyway, the Cardassians have borders with at least four other states of decent military strength, not to mention their frontier facing the Klingons."
"Don't forget active insurrections in four sectors that require the presence of combat ships," Bronson added to Rathbone's list. "And a number of other regions that require a presence to prevent revolt."
"So how many ships do you think the Cardassians could send against us?"
Bronson looked down at his notes before speaking, though he took the time to sip some coffee. "Well, for now they've got over a thousand ships that are either in their shipyards for repair or are waiting for an open slot. We're not sure of the exact amount of ships under construction, but intelligence suggests something on the order of four to six hundred combat starships, keeping in mind that the Cardassians were re-orientating their shipbuilding industry to produce non-combat transports and vessels to revitalize their economy. Combined with what they need to defend other borders minimally and to suppress or prevent revolts, I'd say that with their mothballed ships re-activated and crewed they might muster a fleet of about fifteen hundred combat warships by next month. Though a lot of them will be older and I should point out that their manpower losses have been severe. The First, Second, and Third Fleets were the core of Cardassian offensive strength and they had the most capable officers. Now Third Fleet has been wiped out and the First and Second Fleets are down to less than a quarter of their operational. I'd say that right now the Cardassians are sorely lacking for good experienced naval personnel, given all the ones that are dead or sitting in the camps on Krellor."
Mamatmas sighed. "Still, fifteen hundred ships is a good number, considering what we've got there. Admiral Hollingwood, I know the Navy's being stretched a bit thin now..." - he noticed the older Englishman grunt - "...but I'd like to know the status of potential reinforcements."
"Mister President, we have deployed over fifteen hundred combat warships alone to Universe ST-3, of which about five hundred have been lost to enemy action or severely damaged to the point that they will be laid up for repairs for months. When this war began, we had five thousand nine hundred and sixty-six combat warships under Stellar Navy command, with another eight thousand or so dispersed among the national navies or their mothball yards. And most of our ships are needed to protect the borders of our member nations. So I'm afraid we're beginning to scrape the bottom of the saucepan. I'll remind you, Mister President, that it's the Stellar Navy keeping 3rd Fleet in line with what's left of the Shah's Navy that's stopping Captain-General Ortiz and his Eurofascist bastards from jumping their interstellar border with Iran FHI-8. And now we have the damned Kaiser in AGC-1 rattling his saber with the Thai now that they've voted to join the Alliance next year. I may have to redeploy 7th Fleet to keep the Germans from deciding the border in Barrister Sector on their terms. And I don't think I need to mention the CON-5 situation. The Lisean offensive against Vigil has been repulsed and the damned Puritans have got the advantage. And they're not that happy we're not restricting the sale of industrial equipment and chemicals and the like to Lisea."
And there was another sigh. Mamatmas felt an ache growing in his head and a slighter one in his chest. Sometimes he envied the leaders of smaller governments that conveniently had all of their borders in one universe. "I respect the astropolitical situation, Admiral. I deal with it everyday. But can you give us anything?"
Hollingwood bit his lip. "There's always 10th Fleet. The mobilization of our AR-12 members and the Gersallians re-affirming the Treaty of New Pittsburgh means we don't have to worry much about our borders there. But 10th Fleet's understrength, I'll remind you, and has a lot of older ships operating with it."
"But it's still something," Rathbone said. "Between what we have on hand now, 10th Fleet, and the carriers, we should have enough to overcome a new Cardassian force."
There were nods throughout the room. "I trust the military has a plan on what to do next?"
"Yes, Mister President," Field Marshal Pollack assured him. "We're going back to the original War Plan Obsidian's Phase 2 Offensive for this, slightly modified to account for what we've already taken. We've begun the necessary staff work to allow us to launch Operation: Rolling Thunder no later than the fifth of January. We're aiming for the 29th of December for initial strikes."
"Pretty fast tempo for attacks."
"Well, Sir, with all due respect, our names aren't 'Dale'."
Mamatmas grunted, partially amused but irritated since the butt of the joke was a personal friend. A number of military chiefs and politicians had been irritated with the way the Clan War had been run. President Verdes had given full authority for planning over to the officer serving as SAC-Hillsdale (Supreme Alliance Commander of Hillsdale Sector), Admiral Robert Dale, who was now a Fleet Admiral and serving his final months as Military Governor of the Kerensky Territories. Dale's plan for the war had not been as fast as the brass had wanted, though it impressed the Hell out of the Rasalhaguans and Federated Commonwealth (who were admittedly used to the comparitive snail's pace of K-F Drive travel without the benefit of superior charging mechanisms and anti-matter reactors) - the Clans had been conquered in seven months of methodical fighting by Allied forces that leapt from one planet to the next, annihilating all of the Clan forces that confronted them. Against the Clans or even Cardassia, planning this fast might not hurt, but I don't think you'll be able to be so cocky and impatient if we fight someone who's tougher, like New Plymouth Colony or the Eurofascists in FHI-8. "Anything else on the agenda?"
General of the Army Taggert replied, "We're still waiting for the planners on Corwich to give us the final data on their offensive. The FedCom people have named it Operation: Percival - the Davions have a thing for Arthurian Knights I'm told - and they hope to launch it by the 22nd. Admiral Lewis is on site now and thinks they should launch in five days to keep the Cardassians from trying to reinforce that border area. She doesn't think the Cardies can miss the FedCom arrivals. Says their 'walking tin-cans get too much attention'." There were a few laughs in the room. "We've agreed to make Field Marshal Bisla the Operational CO for the attack. We don't want them to think we're trying to hog the attention, after all."
And having a Commonwealth commander is necessary to keep Ryan Steiner and the Commonwealth isolationists from crucifying Prince Davion, Mamatmas added to that mentally. Over the past year he'd found that the reports from the Ambassadors in the Inner Sphere tended to be among the most..... interesting. The Inner Sphere's native technology was mostly inferior, but their knives for Byzantine politics were just as sharp as - if not sharper than - anyone else's. With the potential exception of the Centauri. Mustn't think of so many headaches at once, Nicolas. You're going to kill yourself from stress before your first term is over. I've been a politician for too damned long. "Of course," he said aloud. "Please continue...."
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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Perhaps time to deal with Cardassia's other enemies before the Cardies implodes. Should be a good scene when the Cardie ambassador and the Feds are informed that the price of peace have gone up.
I thought Roman candles meant they were imported. - Kelly Bundy
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Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
Command Center, Cardassia Prime, Cardassian Union
12:50 GST
Yatar and Kelataza stood alone in the conference room after the departure of the others. The Operations Commission was certainly Not Happy with what had happened, and neither were the members of the Political Advisory Board. The two attendees from the Detepa Council, the "legal" governing body of the Cardassian Union, even broached the idea of cutting their losses and suing for peace, and a number of Guls were in agreement.
"Is there any point in continuing the war?" Kelataza asked. "The Alliance's troops are on Bajor now and we cannot prevent them from taking every Bajoran world in the sector."
"Are you prepared to deal with the likely rebellions suing for peace would cause?"
"Is it better to let the Alliance secure Bajor completely and renew their attacks on Cardassia itself?" Kelataza shook his head. "We have the forces to suppress any revolts that prop up. But we cannot risk more damage to our fleet. I think it is time to give Bajor up."
Yatar nodded. "And who will get the blame for this war, Legate? This could cost you your position."
Kelataza glared at him. "I will not be the Legate who destroyed the Cardassian Empire!"
"The military will still demand someone's head off the Advisory Board."
"You mean Torcet."
He was answered by Yatar shrugging. "Better Torcet than us."
"What do you think we should do, then?"
"I can call Justice Minister Orveliza and have the formal charges ready by tomorrow. I think the charge of gross incompetence in time of war should be sufficient. Perhaps cowardice for his withdrawal in the first Darane engagement as well."
Kelataza bit into his lip. There were still many officers and soldiers who liked Relim Torcet. Pinning the disaster on him, the one voice of the Political Advisory Board that opposed the attack on Gytep in the first place and the only leader to accurately deduce the plans of the Alliance.
On the other hand, he had no real choice. Yatar had undoubtedly done his own maneuvering on the Board and the Operations Commission and would ensure that if Kelataza didn't give up Torcet, he would be the chosen scapegoat. When it came down to it, Kelataza valued his own hide more than he admired Torcet.
"Do so," he said. As Yatar went to walk out, Kelataza added, "One more thing, Gul Hergata."
Yatar turned back. "Yes, Legate?"
Kelataza picked up a PADD and handed it to Yatar. Yatar looked at it, read the text, and looked back up. "Have that transmitted to Gul Madred immediately. If the Alliance begins advancing into Cardassia, it would not do well to have those facilities discovered with their occupants." Kelataza looked down at another PADD to continue other work. "If they were found alive, they could do great harm to Cardassia's standing in the quadrant. Dead they are no threat."
"The orders will be sent immediately, Gul." Yatar turned and left.
Yatar was in his office working on the various orders he was to send. Orveliza was going to have the charges against Torcet ready by the next day. This got rid of Yatar's main rival for the Legate's place. As for Kelataza.... Yatar grinned to himself. It would be a simple matter to blame him if the military reacted harshly to Torcet's conviction and execution. Keve was not interested in a political position - he was irritated enough having to control the Operations Commission and it's bureaucratic members - which would leave Yatar as the front-runner to become Legate.
The door opened and his son-in-law Celrim entered. "You wanted to see me sir?"
"Yes. I want you to go over these tonight at home." He handed Celrim a PADD loaded with various orders to be sent out by the next day. "They have to be sent out tomorrow."
"Of course. Anything else?"
"Yes." Yatar looked him in the eye. "Two days from now, an executive order will be signed by the Legate to place all Bajorans in Cardassian space into confinement. With the Alliance taking their homeworld and surrounding systems, the Bajorans simply can't be trusted any more. This includes your.... housekeeper." Yatar noticed the look in Celrim's eye. He'd never approved of Celrim keeping the Bajoran girl Gedys as a mistress, but so long as Celrim was subtle he wasn't going to do anything about it. After all, he knew his own daughter too, and she wasn't exactly faithful to Celrim either and was something of a shrew.
Celrim nodded and left.
When Celrim returned home he went right to work on finalizing Yatar's paperwork. Gedys was busy cleaning the apartment and did not approach him until he was done with his work. He looked over her fine body and ordered her out of her nightgown. Not wanting to get her pregnant, he bent her over a nearby desk. With his hands gripping her thighs tightly he took her in the rear, ignoring her sobs and moans. After he was finished he ordered her to the shower to clean herself up and went off to go to bed.
While cleaning herself off, Gedys found herself dreading what had happened. Celrim didn't like anal sex. Why would he choose that tonight?
The only plausible reason she could think of was that Celrim didn't want to risk that she would get pregnant.
Gedys got out of the shower and slipped into her nightgown. Checking to make sure Celrim was fast asleep, she went to his office and looked at what he had been working on. She knew Celrim's passcode - he had blurted it out one night while horribly drunk - and typed it in to get to the sensitive material. Most of what he'd worked on had been bureaucratic orders. They told her what she had already suspected - Bajor was being liberated by Alliance forces. He had chosen to have her in her rear because he didn't want her to get pregnant, probably because the government was going to round up Bajorans across Cardassian space to be placed into camps.
Understanding this now, Gedys continued to read. She cycled through them all until she found a particular entry; an order sent to Gul Madred, head of the Department of Military Interrogation and Alien Operations.
She read it and her eyes widened.
It was late at Tralam Peker, but that just meant more activity. H'daen tr'Gurrwhi was in a side booth, sitting with two of his crew, both of them fellow Rihannsu. They were enjoying the performance of two Orion women on the stage, a performance that was already skirting the border between erotic dancing and actual sex. The crowd was slightly thicker than usual, filled with men from a mulitude of races and all roaring with approval.
H'daen looked up and saw an unexpected sight. Wearing a heavy woolen cloak and hood over herself, Gedys slipped into the club and stood in the corner. She made eye contact with H'daen, and he could see she had something to give. He slipped out of his booth and walked over, carrying himself as if he were going to proposition her for the benefit of the crowd. As he walked up and got into whispering earshot, he spoke in Base Cardassian. "What are you doing here? I thought Celrim never let you out at night."
"It doesn't matter anymore. The Alliance has landed on Bajor now and you know how the government will respond toward Bajorans here and elsewhere in the heart of Cardassia. I'll be sent to a camp. We may all be slaughtered before the war ends." Gedys put a hand on his cheek and gave H'daen a kiss. Her tongue touched his and he felt a small chip slip off of it and under his own tongue. "I've shamed my people by being a whore to Celrim. Please, get that to people who can send it on to the Alliance. Maybe then some good can come of my time here."
H'daen nodded. He clasped hands with her. "Honor and mnhei'sahe."
She nodded in response and walked away. H'daen returned to his seat. He put his smile back on and used the cover of getting a drink to remove the chip from his mouth. He palmed it, slipped it into a pocket and continued to watch the show despite the dread in his stomach for poor Gedys' fate.
When Gedys returned to her room she was surprised to find Celrim waiting for her, clad in his sleeping clothes. She froze with fear at seeing the angry glare in his eyes and the expression on his face. "Where have you been?" he asked in cold measured tones.
"I was out for a walk. I needed the air."
To that he roared, "I told you never to leave the apartment without permission!" Without warning he brought his fist back and punched her across the cheek and nose. Gedys cried out from the pain of her broken nose. Blood trickled down her face as she slumped to the ground. Celrim kicked her in the ribs before she could stand up, making her sprawl out on her stomach. "You stupif bitch!"
"Please Celrim... I'm sorry..."
"Sorry?! Dumb whore!" He kicked her again, this time in the side of her head. Gedys' vision filled with color as she twisted on the ground. He kicked her a third time now in the hip. As she tried to regain her breath Celrim grabbed her by the arm, wrenching it painfully as he pulled her to her feet and slapped her across the face, splitting her lip. "You farking Bajoran slut! You're going to get us both in trouble!"
"Celrim..."
"Shut up!" He punched her again, making her spin back to the floor on all floors. The punch knocked two of her teeth out. She spat them out into small puddles of blood caused by the split in her lip and her broken nose. "I should've left you to my men back on Bajor!"
"Please...."
"I said shut up!" Once more there was a kick to her stomach, then another to the head. Gedys began to lose consciousness. Her head was swimming and some blood was now in her hair, from where his hard shoes were splitting open her head.
Before she could pass out, there was a ring at the door. Celrim shouted, "What is it?!"
"This is the Capital Security Force. Please open up, Gul Famcet."
"I'm not ready," he replied. He didn't want them to enter and see him with Gedys.
"Sir, we're here for your housekeeper Jorma Gedys. If you don't open up we'll have to override your lock and take you into custody for obstruction."
Celrim shot a glare at Gedys, who was nearly motionless on the floor. "Farking bitch! What did you do?!" He looked to the door. "Open."
The door slid open and two armed Cardassian security agents came in. They looked to Gedys on the floor and to Celrim. One asked, "Gul, what's going on?"
"The bitch was out against my orders," was the slurred, angry reply. It was clear to the agents that Celrim hadn't quite slept off his nightcap bottle of kanar.
"Sir,.she was seen in the company of a wanted smuggler and suspected Romulan agent. We have to take her into custody for interrogation."
Celrim's jaw grew taunt. That damned H'daen. Had his weakness for kheia betrayed him? "Fine, take her. Keep her. Have all the fun you want with her, because I'm done with the little whore."
The two agents nodded. They picked Gedys off the floor and put her into wrist restraints. One tapped a communication device. "Transport us back to base. Have a medical team standing by, the subject has been injured." They disappeared into swirling columns of light.
Celrim immediately went to his comm system to leave a message for his father-in-law. If Gedys had been working for a Romulan.... Celrim could very well be ruined and find himself up on charges. He would need Yatar to protect him.
As for Gedys. Well, the thought of what the Security Force would do to her made him grin a little. Anything he did to her would seem merciful compared to what they did.
12:50 GST
Yatar and Kelataza stood alone in the conference room after the departure of the others. The Operations Commission was certainly Not Happy with what had happened, and neither were the members of the Political Advisory Board. The two attendees from the Detepa Council, the "legal" governing body of the Cardassian Union, even broached the idea of cutting their losses and suing for peace, and a number of Guls were in agreement.
"Is there any point in continuing the war?" Kelataza asked. "The Alliance's troops are on Bajor now and we cannot prevent them from taking every Bajoran world in the sector."
"Are you prepared to deal with the likely rebellions suing for peace would cause?"
"Is it better to let the Alliance secure Bajor completely and renew their attacks on Cardassia itself?" Kelataza shook his head. "We have the forces to suppress any revolts that prop up. But we cannot risk more damage to our fleet. I think it is time to give Bajor up."
Yatar nodded. "And who will get the blame for this war, Legate? This could cost you your position."
Kelataza glared at him. "I will not be the Legate who destroyed the Cardassian Empire!"
"The military will still demand someone's head off the Advisory Board."
"You mean Torcet."
He was answered by Yatar shrugging. "Better Torcet than us."
"What do you think we should do, then?"
"I can call Justice Minister Orveliza and have the formal charges ready by tomorrow. I think the charge of gross incompetence in time of war should be sufficient. Perhaps cowardice for his withdrawal in the first Darane engagement as well."
Kelataza bit into his lip. There were still many officers and soldiers who liked Relim Torcet. Pinning the disaster on him, the one voice of the Political Advisory Board that opposed the attack on Gytep in the first place and the only leader to accurately deduce the plans of the Alliance.
On the other hand, he had no real choice. Yatar had undoubtedly done his own maneuvering on the Board and the Operations Commission and would ensure that if Kelataza didn't give up Torcet, he would be the chosen scapegoat. When it came down to it, Kelataza valued his own hide more than he admired Torcet.
"Do so," he said. As Yatar went to walk out, Kelataza added, "One more thing, Gul Hergata."
Yatar turned back. "Yes, Legate?"
Kelataza picked up a PADD and handed it to Yatar. Yatar looked at it, read the text, and looked back up. "Have that transmitted to Gul Madred immediately. If the Alliance begins advancing into Cardassia, it would not do well to have those facilities discovered with their occupants." Kelataza looked down at another PADD to continue other work. "If they were found alive, they could do great harm to Cardassia's standing in the quadrant. Dead they are no threat."
"The orders will be sent immediately, Gul." Yatar turned and left.
Yatar was in his office working on the various orders he was to send. Orveliza was going to have the charges against Torcet ready by the next day. This got rid of Yatar's main rival for the Legate's place. As for Kelataza.... Yatar grinned to himself. It would be a simple matter to blame him if the military reacted harshly to Torcet's conviction and execution. Keve was not interested in a political position - he was irritated enough having to control the Operations Commission and it's bureaucratic members - which would leave Yatar as the front-runner to become Legate.
The door opened and his son-in-law Celrim entered. "You wanted to see me sir?"
"Yes. I want you to go over these tonight at home." He handed Celrim a PADD loaded with various orders to be sent out by the next day. "They have to be sent out tomorrow."
"Of course. Anything else?"
"Yes." Yatar looked him in the eye. "Two days from now, an executive order will be signed by the Legate to place all Bajorans in Cardassian space into confinement. With the Alliance taking their homeworld and surrounding systems, the Bajorans simply can't be trusted any more. This includes your.... housekeeper." Yatar noticed the look in Celrim's eye. He'd never approved of Celrim keeping the Bajoran girl Gedys as a mistress, but so long as Celrim was subtle he wasn't going to do anything about it. After all, he knew his own daughter too, and she wasn't exactly faithful to Celrim either and was something of a shrew.
Celrim nodded and left.
When Celrim returned home he went right to work on finalizing Yatar's paperwork. Gedys was busy cleaning the apartment and did not approach him until he was done with his work. He looked over her fine body and ordered her out of her nightgown. Not wanting to get her pregnant, he bent her over a nearby desk. With his hands gripping her thighs tightly he took her in the rear, ignoring her sobs and moans. After he was finished he ordered her to the shower to clean herself up and went off to go to bed.
While cleaning herself off, Gedys found herself dreading what had happened. Celrim didn't like anal sex. Why would he choose that tonight?
The only plausible reason she could think of was that Celrim didn't want to risk that she would get pregnant.
Gedys got out of the shower and slipped into her nightgown. Checking to make sure Celrim was fast asleep, she went to his office and looked at what he had been working on. She knew Celrim's passcode - he had blurted it out one night while horribly drunk - and typed it in to get to the sensitive material. Most of what he'd worked on had been bureaucratic orders. They told her what she had already suspected - Bajor was being liberated by Alliance forces. He had chosen to have her in her rear because he didn't want her to get pregnant, probably because the government was going to round up Bajorans across Cardassian space to be placed into camps.
Understanding this now, Gedys continued to read. She cycled through them all until she found a particular entry; an order sent to Gul Madred, head of the Department of Military Interrogation and Alien Operations.
She read it and her eyes widened.
It was late at Tralam Peker, but that just meant more activity. H'daen tr'Gurrwhi was in a side booth, sitting with two of his crew, both of them fellow Rihannsu. They were enjoying the performance of two Orion women on the stage, a performance that was already skirting the border between erotic dancing and actual sex. The crowd was slightly thicker than usual, filled with men from a mulitude of races and all roaring with approval.
H'daen looked up and saw an unexpected sight. Wearing a heavy woolen cloak and hood over herself, Gedys slipped into the club and stood in the corner. She made eye contact with H'daen, and he could see she had something to give. He slipped out of his booth and walked over, carrying himself as if he were going to proposition her for the benefit of the crowd. As he walked up and got into whispering earshot, he spoke in Base Cardassian. "What are you doing here? I thought Celrim never let you out at night."
"It doesn't matter anymore. The Alliance has landed on Bajor now and you know how the government will respond toward Bajorans here and elsewhere in the heart of Cardassia. I'll be sent to a camp. We may all be slaughtered before the war ends." Gedys put a hand on his cheek and gave H'daen a kiss. Her tongue touched his and he felt a small chip slip off of it and under his own tongue. "I've shamed my people by being a whore to Celrim. Please, get that to people who can send it on to the Alliance. Maybe then some good can come of my time here."
H'daen nodded. He clasped hands with her. "Honor and mnhei'sahe."
She nodded in response and walked away. H'daen returned to his seat. He put his smile back on and used the cover of getting a drink to remove the chip from his mouth. He palmed it, slipped it into a pocket and continued to watch the show despite the dread in his stomach for poor Gedys' fate.
When Gedys returned to her room she was surprised to find Celrim waiting for her, clad in his sleeping clothes. She froze with fear at seeing the angry glare in his eyes and the expression on his face. "Where have you been?" he asked in cold measured tones.
"I was out for a walk. I needed the air."
To that he roared, "I told you never to leave the apartment without permission!" Without warning he brought his fist back and punched her across the cheek and nose. Gedys cried out from the pain of her broken nose. Blood trickled down her face as she slumped to the ground. Celrim kicked her in the ribs before she could stand up, making her sprawl out on her stomach. "You stupif bitch!"
"Please Celrim... I'm sorry..."
"Sorry?! Dumb whore!" He kicked her again, this time in the side of her head. Gedys' vision filled with color as she twisted on the ground. He kicked her a third time now in the hip. As she tried to regain her breath Celrim grabbed her by the arm, wrenching it painfully as he pulled her to her feet and slapped her across the face, splitting her lip. "You farking Bajoran slut! You're going to get us both in trouble!"
"Celrim..."
"Shut up!" He punched her again, making her spin back to the floor on all floors. The punch knocked two of her teeth out. She spat them out into small puddles of blood caused by the split in her lip and her broken nose. "I should've left you to my men back on Bajor!"
"Please...."
"I said shut up!" Once more there was a kick to her stomach, then another to the head. Gedys began to lose consciousness. Her head was swimming and some blood was now in her hair, from where his hard shoes were splitting open her head.
Before she could pass out, there was a ring at the door. Celrim shouted, "What is it?!"
"This is the Capital Security Force. Please open up, Gul Famcet."
"I'm not ready," he replied. He didn't want them to enter and see him with Gedys.
"Sir, we're here for your housekeeper Jorma Gedys. If you don't open up we'll have to override your lock and take you into custody for obstruction."
Celrim shot a glare at Gedys, who was nearly motionless on the floor. "Farking bitch! What did you do?!" He looked to the door. "Open."
The door slid open and two armed Cardassian security agents came in. They looked to Gedys on the floor and to Celrim. One asked, "Gul, what's going on?"
"The bitch was out against my orders," was the slurred, angry reply. It was clear to the agents that Celrim hadn't quite slept off his nightcap bottle of kanar.
"Sir,.she was seen in the company of a wanted smuggler and suspected Romulan agent. We have to take her into custody for interrogation."
Celrim's jaw grew taunt. That damned H'daen. Had his weakness for kheia betrayed him? "Fine, take her. Keep her. Have all the fun you want with her, because I'm done with the little whore."
The two agents nodded. They picked Gedys off the floor and put her into wrist restraints. One tapped a communication device. "Transport us back to base. Have a medical team standing by, the subject has been injured." They disappeared into swirling columns of light.
Celrim immediately went to his comm system to leave a message for his father-in-law. If Gedys had been working for a Romulan.... Celrim could very well be ruined and find himself up on charges. He would need Yatar to protect him.
As for Gedys. Well, the thought of what the Security Force would do to her made him grin a little. Anything he did to her would seem merciful compared to what they did.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
At the Capital's spaceport, a particular Cardassian trading vessel named the Lorvel Kort was spending it's final moments before initiating launch procedures. Outside of it, standing in front of the mechanical lift to the entryway for the ship, was the entire Torcet family. Relim held Kerma in his arms closely. All of their years together had come to this. She looked up at him with tear-stroked eyes, a woman who had already lost her son and was now to lose her husband. "Why don't you come with us, Relim?"
"I cannot. If I go, they will hunt us down." Relim wiped a tear from her eye. "I am sorry."
"Damn them all. Damn them all!"
He held Kerma close and allowed her to cry onto his shoulder for a few moments. Standing nearby on the lift was Opel Morcet, the captain of the Lorvel Kort - a man who like many had served under Relim and had survived war because of Relim. Opel had volunteered to do this as a repayment for all those old debts of survival that Relim himself didn't consider debts but the fulfillment of his duty. He looked toward them, and Relim could see in his eyes that time was short. He pulled Kerma back and planted a kiss on her lips, not the passionate type shared by two young lovers as they had been so long ago, but a simple act of love by a couple past their prime and weathered by age and tribulation.
Wiping a final tear from Kerma's eye while refusing to let himself shed the tears he wanted to show, Relim moved on to his daughter-in-law Vertal. In her arms, his infant granddauughter Yera was barely awake. She gave little Yera over to Relim, who lifted her up and kissed her on the forehead, causing her to reply with a happy cooing sound. He handed her back and kissed Vertal on the cheek. "I could never have asked for a finer mate for my son," he said to her softly. "I'm happy to have called you a daughter."
"Thank you, Father Relim," she said, sobbing softly.
Relim moved on to Jorim and Laria. He knelt and embraced grandson and granddaughter, using an arm for each while their own small arms wrapped around his neck. They were both in tears. "Grandpa, why do we have to go away?" Laria asked.
"It's to protect you, Laria." To protect you from the people who will ruin me and Cardassia in the name of their stubborn pride. "I wish I could protect you in a way that let you stay here, but I cannot." He sighed. "I love you, Laria. And you, Jorim." He put a hand on his younger grandson's head. "You two must keep up your mental exercises. They will come in use for you one day."
"Yes Grandpa," he answered meekly, sobbing and sniffling as he continued to speak. "I'm sorry I'm crying. I know... know I'm not supposed to. But... but... I... I can't help it."
"Sometimes it's okay to cry," Relim said in a reassuring tone. "Crying can be good for the soul." That, of course, was a deliberate misquoting of one of the thrice-damned Obsidian Order's favorite lines.
Both children stepped away. This left Relim with his eldest grandson, nine year old Tarak. He was still very young, still just a child, but he hid his sadness better than his younger siblings. Tarak stood at military attention, eyes forward and arms at his side as he'd been taught in school. Relim's control nearly slipped - the controlled expression, the stiff lip, it all reminded him of Harak when he had been nine and had come to see Relim off as he headed to war once more. It was true that the famed Cardassian reserve had fooled so many, making them seem cold and unemotional to outsiders. In truth, they were as emotional as any other race, and their devotion to family was such that the breaking of a family was a cause of tremendous heartache and inner pain. Relim's stomach turned a little and he could feel his heart sink, hurting with every beat. He gave Tarak a hug, which Tarak returned in a way that seemed mechanical to the casual viewer but was not truly so if one could just see past the farce that physical appearance could often be. When the hug ended grandfather and grandson looked each other eye to eye. Relim could see the emotional turmoil in Tarak, his eyes a window to a tortured soul. First his father had died, and now he was being seperated from his grandfather; both had been the idols he worshipped, the standards to which he aspired. "Tarak, I am very proud of you, and I know that your father is - would be - too."
"I thank you, Grandfather," Tarak replied as if he were a Trooper responding to a Gul during inspection.
"Remember, Tarak, Family always come first. Take care of your little brother and sisters."
"I will."
Relim nodded. There was nothing more to say to Tarak. And his heart quivered with the fear that if he looked into those solid brown eyes another moment he would lose all composure. Thoughts of Harak were like daggers in his weary soul now. With pure will he forced the thoughts from his mind and moved on to his last goodbye. Samia was standing in a cotton dress and skirt. For over three decades, she had been a part of the Torcet family. The middle-aged Bajoran woman didn't have the strong mental training of the others. She openly wept as she hugged Relim, who returned the embrace. "You have a family here," he said, "and a family waiting for you on New Liberty. You are doubly blessed." He pulled her tear-stroked face up and looked into her crystal blue eyes. His own voice choked up a little as he remembered Samia thirty years ago, a fifteen year old girl - newly orphaned by agents of the Bajoran Resistance - living on the street of the Alien Quarter, miserable and hungry but too proud to work as a prostitute or dancer. She had been beautiful then, and there was a strong dignity in her eyes that survived to her graceful age today. "Samia, I have never admitted this to anyone but Kerma, but I will say it now. You are the daughter I never had, and I love you very much."
"Gul...." She looked into his eyes and corrected herself. For the first time, she called him something other than his rank. "Father.... I would gladly stay with you. I don't want you to be alone."
"I can't condemn you to that, Samia." Relim closed his eyes. He knew full well what would be done to Samia now that he was going to be formally charged. Middle-age and innocent were no defense from an interrogator. "And I won't be alone, not for very long. All I ask is that you look over the little ones. They need all the love they can get now."
"Yes, of course. I will."
Relim nodded. He gave Samia a kiss on the forehead and stepped away. The entire Torcet family stepped onto the lift. He nodded at Opel, who turned the lift on. As they rose to enter the ship, the family waved goodbye, all but Tarak still in tears. And as they drew distant enough, Relim finally allowed tears to move down from his eyes as he waved goodbye. His last sight of his loved ones was that of their entrance into the Lorvel Kort. The door closed, the lift retracted into the ship's hull, and Relim silently walked away.
The next day, a squad of security troops from the Ministry of Justice arrived at the Torcet residence. After knocking and getting no reply, they forced the door open with computer override. They entered the residence, still furnished but mostly empty of key mementos. "Looks like they fled," one said into the comm unit.
"Search the entire home."
The squad moved through the home quickly. They soon entered the home office of Relim Torcet, where they found him slumped over his desk with a half-finished bottle of kanar beside his personal computer. "Gul Torcet, you are under arrest for gross incompetence in time of war and gross cowardice. Please..." The first soldier moved forward at seeing no reaction. He gently touched Relim and looked to a tricorder. "He's dead." A second and third soldier entered the room and the first soldier pulled Relim's head up. His right temple was blackened by a point-blank phaser discharge. Moving the head revealed his hands, the right one still partially gripping his military-issue sidearm. "Command, Gul Torcet is dead."
"Cordon off the Torcet home. Call in forensic investigators," was the reply.
The soldier nodded and made the arrangements. He looked to Relim's computer, which was on standby mode. When he re-activated the screen, it showed what he had been viewing last. A large picture of his entire family (Samia included), not quite a year old, including both Relim and his late son. It had been the last thing he'd seen when he pulled the trigger.
"I cannot. If I go, they will hunt us down." Relim wiped a tear from her eye. "I am sorry."
"Damn them all. Damn them all!"
He held Kerma close and allowed her to cry onto his shoulder for a few moments. Standing nearby on the lift was Opel Morcet, the captain of the Lorvel Kort - a man who like many had served under Relim and had survived war because of Relim. Opel had volunteered to do this as a repayment for all those old debts of survival that Relim himself didn't consider debts but the fulfillment of his duty. He looked toward them, and Relim could see in his eyes that time was short. He pulled Kerma back and planted a kiss on her lips, not the passionate type shared by two young lovers as they had been so long ago, but a simple act of love by a couple past their prime and weathered by age and tribulation.
Wiping a final tear from Kerma's eye while refusing to let himself shed the tears he wanted to show, Relim moved on to his daughter-in-law Vertal. In her arms, his infant granddauughter Yera was barely awake. She gave little Yera over to Relim, who lifted her up and kissed her on the forehead, causing her to reply with a happy cooing sound. He handed her back and kissed Vertal on the cheek. "I could never have asked for a finer mate for my son," he said to her softly. "I'm happy to have called you a daughter."
"Thank you, Father Relim," she said, sobbing softly.
Relim moved on to Jorim and Laria. He knelt and embraced grandson and granddaughter, using an arm for each while their own small arms wrapped around his neck. They were both in tears. "Grandpa, why do we have to go away?" Laria asked.
"It's to protect you, Laria." To protect you from the people who will ruin me and Cardassia in the name of their stubborn pride. "I wish I could protect you in a way that let you stay here, but I cannot." He sighed. "I love you, Laria. And you, Jorim." He put a hand on his younger grandson's head. "You two must keep up your mental exercises. They will come in use for you one day."
"Yes Grandpa," he answered meekly, sobbing and sniffling as he continued to speak. "I'm sorry I'm crying. I know... know I'm not supposed to. But... but... I... I can't help it."
"Sometimes it's okay to cry," Relim said in a reassuring tone. "Crying can be good for the soul." That, of course, was a deliberate misquoting of one of the thrice-damned Obsidian Order's favorite lines.
Both children stepped away. This left Relim with his eldest grandson, nine year old Tarak. He was still very young, still just a child, but he hid his sadness better than his younger siblings. Tarak stood at military attention, eyes forward and arms at his side as he'd been taught in school. Relim's control nearly slipped - the controlled expression, the stiff lip, it all reminded him of Harak when he had been nine and had come to see Relim off as he headed to war once more. It was true that the famed Cardassian reserve had fooled so many, making them seem cold and unemotional to outsiders. In truth, they were as emotional as any other race, and their devotion to family was such that the breaking of a family was a cause of tremendous heartache and inner pain. Relim's stomach turned a little and he could feel his heart sink, hurting with every beat. He gave Tarak a hug, which Tarak returned in a way that seemed mechanical to the casual viewer but was not truly so if one could just see past the farce that physical appearance could often be. When the hug ended grandfather and grandson looked each other eye to eye. Relim could see the emotional turmoil in Tarak, his eyes a window to a tortured soul. First his father had died, and now he was being seperated from his grandfather; both had been the idols he worshipped, the standards to which he aspired. "Tarak, I am very proud of you, and I know that your father is - would be - too."
"I thank you, Grandfather," Tarak replied as if he were a Trooper responding to a Gul during inspection.
"Remember, Tarak, Family always come first. Take care of your little brother and sisters."
"I will."
Relim nodded. There was nothing more to say to Tarak. And his heart quivered with the fear that if he looked into those solid brown eyes another moment he would lose all composure. Thoughts of Harak were like daggers in his weary soul now. With pure will he forced the thoughts from his mind and moved on to his last goodbye. Samia was standing in a cotton dress and skirt. For over three decades, she had been a part of the Torcet family. The middle-aged Bajoran woman didn't have the strong mental training of the others. She openly wept as she hugged Relim, who returned the embrace. "You have a family here," he said, "and a family waiting for you on New Liberty. You are doubly blessed." He pulled her tear-stroked face up and looked into her crystal blue eyes. His own voice choked up a little as he remembered Samia thirty years ago, a fifteen year old girl - newly orphaned by agents of the Bajoran Resistance - living on the street of the Alien Quarter, miserable and hungry but too proud to work as a prostitute or dancer. She had been beautiful then, and there was a strong dignity in her eyes that survived to her graceful age today. "Samia, I have never admitted this to anyone but Kerma, but I will say it now. You are the daughter I never had, and I love you very much."
"Gul...." She looked into his eyes and corrected herself. For the first time, she called him something other than his rank. "Father.... I would gladly stay with you. I don't want you to be alone."
"I can't condemn you to that, Samia." Relim closed his eyes. He knew full well what would be done to Samia now that he was going to be formally charged. Middle-age and innocent were no defense from an interrogator. "And I won't be alone, not for very long. All I ask is that you look over the little ones. They need all the love they can get now."
"Yes, of course. I will."
Relim nodded. He gave Samia a kiss on the forehead and stepped away. The entire Torcet family stepped onto the lift. He nodded at Opel, who turned the lift on. As they rose to enter the ship, the family waved goodbye, all but Tarak still in tears. And as they drew distant enough, Relim finally allowed tears to move down from his eyes as he waved goodbye. His last sight of his loved ones was that of their entrance into the Lorvel Kort. The door closed, the lift retracted into the ship's hull, and Relim silently walked away.
The next day, a squad of security troops from the Ministry of Justice arrived at the Torcet residence. After knocking and getting no reply, they forced the door open with computer override. They entered the residence, still furnished but mostly empty of key mementos. "Looks like they fled," one said into the comm unit.
"Search the entire home."
The squad moved through the home quickly. They soon entered the home office of Relim Torcet, where they found him slumped over his desk with a half-finished bottle of kanar beside his personal computer. "Gul Torcet, you are under arrest for gross incompetence in time of war and gross cowardice. Please..." The first soldier moved forward at seeing no reaction. He gently touched Relim and looked to a tricorder. "He's dead." A second and third soldier entered the room and the first soldier pulled Relim's head up. His right temple was blackened by a point-blank phaser discharge. Moving the head revealed his hands, the right one still partially gripping his military-issue sidearm. "Command, Gul Torcet is dead."
"Cordon off the Torcet home. Call in forensic investigators," was the reply.
The soldier nodded and made the arrangements. He looked to Relim's computer, which was on standby mode. When he re-activated the screen, it showed what he had been viewing last. A large picture of his entire family (Samia included), not quite a year old, including both Relim and his late son. It had been the last thing he'd seen when he pulled the trigger.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
-
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This is the first of many posts that will see the fate of poor Gedys, and explore perhaps the most vicious aspect of the Cardassian system. Because of the particular content, I'm throwing in filler space for the benefit of the reader.
Begin filler space
In the heart of the Capital City of Cardassia Prime was the Capital Security Forces HQ, the facility that supported the police forces for the city. Within the HQ was the Security Forces Interrogation Rooms, where they brought petty criminals to be interrogated or "encouraged" to confess to crimes. They lacked the funding and training that the military's interrogators had and they certainly couldn't hold a candle to the Obsidian Order.
Jorma Gedys - Prisoner 3935-897-349 (plus an assorted stream of Cardassian alphabetical characters) - was strapped into the restraint chair in one of the rooms. Aside from quickly ensuring the healing of her critical wounds - the head wound was the worst - they had left her with those inflicted by Celrim when he beat her. And now they were adding their own.
Gedys was naked in the chair and her body was coated with sweat. The Cardassians liked heat and set their air-conditioning systems to uncomfortable levels for Bajorans and most other sentient races, and adding to that was the bright light over her head. Lacking the sophisticated equipment and drugs of the military and Obsidian Order, Security Forces like the CSF had to rely on brute force methods of applying pain. Both of her eyes were swollen nearly shut from black eyes and, shortly after that initial beating, they had blindfolded her and resumed a beating that had cracked most of her ribs, all the while demanding to know what she'd told H'daen. She resisted of course, since if they found out they would most assuredly do their dirty work far quicker and she wasn't about to let that happen. If she could help it, of course, as the temptation to stop the hurting was there.
After the punching had left blood trickling down her nose and mouth with her chest bruised horribly, they took another approach. One by one Gedys felt horrible pain shoot up from her toes after they'd been smashed by a hammer. At every toe they would demand an answer and she would refuse, then another toe would be broken, then another.... the pain was almost too terrible to contemplate, but it was there. Then after her toes came her fingers, broken on by one. Still she refused, and for the first time in a long time she whispered prayers to Prophets she scarcely believed in anymore to grant her strength. Gedys' screams would have been blood-curdling to a less-hardy soul as they echoed in that dark room, her hands and feet being broken next by even larger hammers.
Gedys sucked in breath, muttering prayers of strength before she heard an ominous whirring sound. An even louder scream erupted from her lungs - causing further agony from her ribs - as the power drill tore through flesh, cartilage, and normal bone. "Plea...se... I knoow.... nothing..." she wheezed in reply to their demands. The pain from her shattered right knee was simply a powerful new addition to the immense agony her body was already suffering. Tears ran down bruised cheeks and mingled with the blood around her mouth. She screamed again when the drill was plunged into her left knee.
After the drilling and screaming were done, Gedys was sucking in breath. She'd never considered it possible to feel much pain. Prophets, please help me. Please forgive me for what I've done and give me your strength. Whatever happened, Gedys knew she couldn't give in. Thousands of innocent lives depended on her remaining silent on what she gave to H'daen.
Pained groans from shattered kneecaps and so many broken bones became yelps when alligator clips were placed on her nipples, causing them to begin swelling while the pain shot through Gedys. Prods were placed into the sensitive places below her waist. After refusing another demand for information, electricity coursed into her body through all of these sensitive places. Her entire body began aching as well. Gedys was wracked with sobs as she pleaded for them to stop, trying to convince them she hadn't told H'daen anything. That she was sexually attracted to him and had wanted to run away with him, that he had said no.
More electricity told her they didn't believe her. The gruff voices continued issuing threats, the "good cop, bad cop" routine as one tried to convince her to end her suffering while the other promised to cause her more pain. Between their words would come more electric shocks. Gedys was beginning to slip. No, must hold on. Must hold. Please help me. Her mental pleadings and prayers continued as the pain did, every second of it chipping away at will that she was barely recovering.
She couldn't tell how long it'd been since they'd brought her to the room. The blindfold was removed and medical equipment used to reduce the swelling around her eyes. She could see again and faced both Cardassian men torturing her. One was thinner than the other, though not by much, and both were on the stocky side of Cardassian physical build. One's eyes were a little wider than the other's, though. Wide Eyes' voice soon confirmed him as the Good Cop, while Thin Man was the gruff-voiced sadist pledging to torture her until she broke.
Wide Eyes lowered his eyes and put his hands on her broken hands. "Come on, dear girl, you've suffered enough. If you tell us what we need to know, this will end. You'll be given medical attention."
"I loved H'daen," Gedys rasped. "I wanted him... to take me away. To take me to see ch'Rihan." It was not a convincing lie, but nothing she said could sound convincing from the weakness in her lungs. Her mind was cloudy from the sheer pain her brain had to process the existance of.
"Let the stupid Bajoran bitch continue to lie," Thin Man chuckled, looking for more tools. "The best thing is, when we're done with her, the medics can heal her up.... and we can do this again tomorrow!"
"Young lady, listen. These smugglers, you can't trust them." Wide Eyes leaned closed. "You're a lovely girl, I'd hate to see you suffer for some lying bastard of a Romulan. We'll take mercy on you if you cooperate."
"I don't know anything!" Gedys cried, weeping from the pain (and that was convincing at least). "Please don't hurt me anymore! Please!" Must not tell them! Too many lives depend on me!
Thin Man returned. His left hand seized a handful of hair and wrenched Gedys' head in one direction. He thrust a red-hot metal rod toward her face. "See this, little bitch? Guess where this is going?" He smiled wickedly and tapped the tip below her navel, at the edge of the fuzz of pubic hair between her legs. "And I've got one for you rear too. In fact, we'll give you two more chances before you get it where it really hurts. What did you tell the farking Romulan?!"
"Nothing!"
Gedys steeled herself, but the white-hot pain of the rod being thrust into her posterior - uncovered due to the design of the chair she was in - was more than she could've planned. Her scream echoed in the room. The rod remained in place for about eight seconds before Thin Man removed it. She sucked in breath.
"Young woman, don't do this to yourself. Cooperate and you'll be spared. Please!"
"Last chance, bitch." Thin Man grabbed her by the hair again and brought the rod, still red hot, back to her face. "Talk!"
Prophets help me!
She didn't reply. The Thin Man followed through on his threat. After a horrible scream and several horrible seconds of agony, Gedys simply passed out.
Shortly after Gedys fell unconscious, before the interrogators could revive her, their immediate commander entered with military officers. "What's going on?" Wide Eyes asked.
"This prisoner may have had access to sensitive military materials." The officer looked at her body, the bloody holes in her knees and the obvious wounds from the day's torture, and scowled. "We can't risk you bottom-feeders killing her with your nasty toys. She's been turned over to the military by direct order of the Legate."
"You're welcome to her," Thin Man replied. "I've got better things to do than try to pry information out of a Bajoran masochist."
The officers nodded. They walked over to Gedys' unconscious form and unlatched her from the seat. "Glin Korvel to Command, we have the subject. Please beam us directly to the infirmary. The Security Forces got a little carried away." Within seconds all three disappeared within columns of light.
"Bah, I've got better things to do. A street punk over in Block C who was stealing credit chits in the industrial park." Thin Man chucked a finger to that side of the building. "Let's go get a confession from him and call it a day."
End filler space
Begin filler space
In the heart of the Capital City of Cardassia Prime was the Capital Security Forces HQ, the facility that supported the police forces for the city. Within the HQ was the Security Forces Interrogation Rooms, where they brought petty criminals to be interrogated or "encouraged" to confess to crimes. They lacked the funding and training that the military's interrogators had and they certainly couldn't hold a candle to the Obsidian Order.
Jorma Gedys - Prisoner 3935-897-349 (plus an assorted stream of Cardassian alphabetical characters) - was strapped into the restraint chair in one of the rooms. Aside from quickly ensuring the healing of her critical wounds - the head wound was the worst - they had left her with those inflicted by Celrim when he beat her. And now they were adding their own.
Gedys was naked in the chair and her body was coated with sweat. The Cardassians liked heat and set their air-conditioning systems to uncomfortable levels for Bajorans and most other sentient races, and adding to that was the bright light over her head. Lacking the sophisticated equipment and drugs of the military and Obsidian Order, Security Forces like the CSF had to rely on brute force methods of applying pain. Both of her eyes were swollen nearly shut from black eyes and, shortly after that initial beating, they had blindfolded her and resumed a beating that had cracked most of her ribs, all the while demanding to know what she'd told H'daen. She resisted of course, since if they found out they would most assuredly do their dirty work far quicker and she wasn't about to let that happen. If she could help it, of course, as the temptation to stop the hurting was there.
After the punching had left blood trickling down her nose and mouth with her chest bruised horribly, they took another approach. One by one Gedys felt horrible pain shoot up from her toes after they'd been smashed by a hammer. At every toe they would demand an answer and she would refuse, then another toe would be broken, then another.... the pain was almost too terrible to contemplate, but it was there. Then after her toes came her fingers, broken on by one. Still she refused, and for the first time in a long time she whispered prayers to Prophets she scarcely believed in anymore to grant her strength. Gedys' screams would have been blood-curdling to a less-hardy soul as they echoed in that dark room, her hands and feet being broken next by even larger hammers.
Gedys sucked in breath, muttering prayers of strength before she heard an ominous whirring sound. An even louder scream erupted from her lungs - causing further agony from her ribs - as the power drill tore through flesh, cartilage, and normal bone. "Plea...se... I knoow.... nothing..." she wheezed in reply to their demands. The pain from her shattered right knee was simply a powerful new addition to the immense agony her body was already suffering. Tears ran down bruised cheeks and mingled with the blood around her mouth. She screamed again when the drill was plunged into her left knee.
After the drilling and screaming were done, Gedys was sucking in breath. She'd never considered it possible to feel much pain. Prophets, please help me. Please forgive me for what I've done and give me your strength. Whatever happened, Gedys knew she couldn't give in. Thousands of innocent lives depended on her remaining silent on what she gave to H'daen.
Pained groans from shattered kneecaps and so many broken bones became yelps when alligator clips were placed on her nipples, causing them to begin swelling while the pain shot through Gedys. Prods were placed into the sensitive places below her waist. After refusing another demand for information, electricity coursed into her body through all of these sensitive places. Her entire body began aching as well. Gedys was wracked with sobs as she pleaded for them to stop, trying to convince them she hadn't told H'daen anything. That she was sexually attracted to him and had wanted to run away with him, that he had said no.
More electricity told her they didn't believe her. The gruff voices continued issuing threats, the "good cop, bad cop" routine as one tried to convince her to end her suffering while the other promised to cause her more pain. Between their words would come more electric shocks. Gedys was beginning to slip. No, must hold on. Must hold. Please help me. Her mental pleadings and prayers continued as the pain did, every second of it chipping away at will that she was barely recovering.
She couldn't tell how long it'd been since they'd brought her to the room. The blindfold was removed and medical equipment used to reduce the swelling around her eyes. She could see again and faced both Cardassian men torturing her. One was thinner than the other, though not by much, and both were on the stocky side of Cardassian physical build. One's eyes were a little wider than the other's, though. Wide Eyes' voice soon confirmed him as the Good Cop, while Thin Man was the gruff-voiced sadist pledging to torture her until she broke.
Wide Eyes lowered his eyes and put his hands on her broken hands. "Come on, dear girl, you've suffered enough. If you tell us what we need to know, this will end. You'll be given medical attention."
"I loved H'daen," Gedys rasped. "I wanted him... to take me away. To take me to see ch'Rihan." It was not a convincing lie, but nothing she said could sound convincing from the weakness in her lungs. Her mind was cloudy from the sheer pain her brain had to process the existance of.
"Let the stupid Bajoran bitch continue to lie," Thin Man chuckled, looking for more tools. "The best thing is, when we're done with her, the medics can heal her up.... and we can do this again tomorrow!"
"Young lady, listen. These smugglers, you can't trust them." Wide Eyes leaned closed. "You're a lovely girl, I'd hate to see you suffer for some lying bastard of a Romulan. We'll take mercy on you if you cooperate."
"I don't know anything!" Gedys cried, weeping from the pain (and that was convincing at least). "Please don't hurt me anymore! Please!" Must not tell them! Too many lives depend on me!
Thin Man returned. His left hand seized a handful of hair and wrenched Gedys' head in one direction. He thrust a red-hot metal rod toward her face. "See this, little bitch? Guess where this is going?" He smiled wickedly and tapped the tip below her navel, at the edge of the fuzz of pubic hair between her legs. "And I've got one for you rear too. In fact, we'll give you two more chances before you get it where it really hurts. What did you tell the farking Romulan?!"
"Nothing!"
Gedys steeled herself, but the white-hot pain of the rod being thrust into her posterior - uncovered due to the design of the chair she was in - was more than she could've planned. Her scream echoed in the room. The rod remained in place for about eight seconds before Thin Man removed it. She sucked in breath.
"Young woman, don't do this to yourself. Cooperate and you'll be spared. Please!"
"Last chance, bitch." Thin Man grabbed her by the hair again and brought the rod, still red hot, back to her face. "Talk!"
Prophets help me!
She didn't reply. The Thin Man followed through on his threat. After a horrible scream and several horrible seconds of agony, Gedys simply passed out.
Shortly after Gedys fell unconscious, before the interrogators could revive her, their immediate commander entered with military officers. "What's going on?" Wide Eyes asked.
"This prisoner may have had access to sensitive military materials." The officer looked at her body, the bloody holes in her knees and the obvious wounds from the day's torture, and scowled. "We can't risk you bottom-feeders killing her with your nasty toys. She's been turned over to the military by direct order of the Legate."
"You're welcome to her," Thin Man replied. "I've got better things to do than try to pry information out of a Bajoran masochist."
The officers nodded. They walked over to Gedys' unconscious form and unlatched her from the seat. "Glin Korvel to Command, we have the subject. Please beam us directly to the infirmary. The Security Forces got a little carried away." Within seconds all three disappeared within columns of light.
"Bah, I've got better things to do. A street punk over in Block C who was stealing credit chits in the industrial park." Thin Man chucked a finger to that side of the building. "Let's go get a confession from him and call it a day."
End filler space
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Ah, the kind and gentle justice system of a totalitarian tyrrany. No wonder the Feds are so fond of the Cardassians. For some reason savagery attracts morons stupid enough to judge the book by it's covers. There is a long list of murderous tyrants embraced enthusiasticly by people who should have known better but seemed hypnotized by the power of totalitarian terror.
To bad about Torcet, at first I had hoped he would lead a coup rather than taking the easy way out but perhaps he was to isolated and monitored for that to work. With the goverment busy covering it's tracks before the imminent surrender it will be an intresting race to see if the Alliance forces beat the Cardie death squads to the camps.
The security forces were rather primitive, torture is not an effective interrogation method for more than minor crimes where you know or can quickly verify the answers. I expect the Obsidians will be more inventive and refined in their methods, breaking the will of someone with a cause, who is trying to protect others, is hard and quite likely to break the body before the mind.
To bad about Torcet, at first I had hoped he would lead a coup rather than taking the easy way out but perhaps he was to isolated and monitored for that to work. With the goverment busy covering it's tracks before the imminent surrender it will be an intresting race to see if the Alliance forces beat the Cardie death squads to the camps.
The security forces were rather primitive, torture is not an effective interrogation method for more than minor crimes where you know or can quickly verify the answers. I expect the Obsidians will be more inventive and refined in their methods, breaking the will of someone with a cause, who is trying to protect others, is hard and quite likely to break the body before the mind.
I thought Roman candles meant they were imported. - Kelly Bundy
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
Security forces usually deal with just that kind of thing, and as noted, lack the funds for more sophisticated equipment and training in the "arts", so to speak. So instead of KGB-level interrogative ability, you've got Third World Brute Force type stuff, which is fine against criminals but not as workable against determined individuals, since there's no psychological aspect to undermine their will.CJvR wrote: The security forces were rather primitive, torture is not an effective interrogation method for more than minor crimes where you know or can quickly verify the answers. I expect the Obsidians will be more inventive and refined in their methods, breaking the will of someone with a cause, who is trying to protect others, is hard and quite likely to break the body before the mind.
I've already shown the next rung in the ladder in the story - Glin Horvem's team at Dervak, the ones who were working on poor Christine Bennington. That's far more sophisticated, since those methods don't harm the body physically as much. Next up comes the mind games and drugs of Madred's level and then finally, the Obsidian Order, which prides itself on getting confessions without harming the subject (once in DS9, Enabrin Tain boasted about Garak getting a confession by staring at a doctor for four hours straight, never laying a hand on him).
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Keep up the good work.
Excellent story.
Excellent story.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Oderint dum metuant
Oderint dum metuant
Turoa Mountains, Bajor
13:06 GST
A beautiful dawn was shining down upon the nearby mountainside. Bajoran farmers fanned out over their fields and went to work on their crops, paying little attention to the columns of Cardassian soldiers walking up the paths to one of the openings to the vast mines that crisscrossed the mountains. The Turoa mines had once produced ores and even gold for the people of the Kevima Valley, but the mines had run out of their wealth centuries before the Cardassians could get their hands on them.
Now the Cardassians - or, specifically, Gul Luvar - had another use in mind for them. Luvar's men were moving every pound of food and equipment they could carry. Every combat trooper, every medic, and a few of the support technicians and mechanics were marching along solemnly, following their leader to what they hoped was their salvation.
Accompanying them were several hundred Bajorans acting as porters. With no good roads everything had to be carried or towed in animal-drawn wagons, after all, and the Bajoran farmers and ranchers of the valley had no real ill will toward the Cardassians under Luvar. Luvar had given them all of the latinum he had in his Order's coffers plus rights to what was left of his replicator stores so they could make food, clothing, or tools as they needed. Even now, as they marched, he had no feer of Bajoran attack on his column. The farmers were content to watch and work, and a few even waved to their countrymen in his column.
Luvar's plan was simple; stay in the caves and hold out until relieved. In those confined spaces, away from the open plains or the cities, the firepower and range advantages of the Alliance military would be reduced and they would have to dig his 10,000 troops out in vicious close combat.
Walking beisde him, Damar was looking skyward. "I've heard that many of our units that move in the open have come under air attack," he said.
"That might be true. And we should thank them, because they're keeping the enemy off of us." Luvar's expression turned into a scowl. He was certain a number of his "peers" were being boneheaded and trying to engage the enemy directly, killing thousands of their own men needlessly.
"Once we're in the caves, what shall we do? We didn't keep enough money for buying more food."
"I don't intend to come out to buy more food. That's why we're staying on strict rations. We'll steal what we can from enemy corpses, of course, but other than that, we'll have to rely on our iron guts."
"Yes sir." Damar nodded. "Of course, sir."
Luvar grinned. He liked young Damar. He was competent (Which could be high praise, sadly enough), loyal, and innovative. Some of the logistical planning might not have worked without him. He would make sure to put a report in for Damar to be decorated for his efficiency skills.
Sadly, Luvar suspected none of them would live to receive such decorations.
13:06 GST
A beautiful dawn was shining down upon the nearby mountainside. Bajoran farmers fanned out over their fields and went to work on their crops, paying little attention to the columns of Cardassian soldiers walking up the paths to one of the openings to the vast mines that crisscrossed the mountains. The Turoa mines had once produced ores and even gold for the people of the Kevima Valley, but the mines had run out of their wealth centuries before the Cardassians could get their hands on them.
Now the Cardassians - or, specifically, Gul Luvar - had another use in mind for them. Luvar's men were moving every pound of food and equipment they could carry. Every combat trooper, every medic, and a few of the support technicians and mechanics were marching along solemnly, following their leader to what they hoped was their salvation.
Accompanying them were several hundred Bajorans acting as porters. With no good roads everything had to be carried or towed in animal-drawn wagons, after all, and the Bajoran farmers and ranchers of the valley had no real ill will toward the Cardassians under Luvar. Luvar had given them all of the latinum he had in his Order's coffers plus rights to what was left of his replicator stores so they could make food, clothing, or tools as they needed. Even now, as they marched, he had no feer of Bajoran attack on his column. The farmers were content to watch and work, and a few even waved to their countrymen in his column.
Luvar's plan was simple; stay in the caves and hold out until relieved. In those confined spaces, away from the open plains or the cities, the firepower and range advantages of the Alliance military would be reduced and they would have to dig his 10,000 troops out in vicious close combat.
Walking beisde him, Damar was looking skyward. "I've heard that many of our units that move in the open have come under air attack," he said.
"That might be true. And we should thank them, because they're keeping the enemy off of us." Luvar's expression turned into a scowl. He was certain a number of his "peers" were being boneheaded and trying to engage the enemy directly, killing thousands of their own men needlessly.
"Once we're in the caves, what shall we do? We didn't keep enough money for buying more food."
"I don't intend to come out to buy more food. That's why we're staying on strict rations. We'll steal what we can from enemy corpses, of course, but other than that, we'll have to rely on our iron guts."
"Yes sir." Damar nodded. "Of course, sir."
Luvar grinned. He liked young Damar. He was competent (Which could be high praise, sadly enough), loyal, and innovative. Some of the logistical planning might not have worked without him. He would make sure to put a report in for Damar to be decorated for his efficiency skills.
Sadly, Luvar suspected none of them would live to receive such decorations.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
-
darthdavid
- Pathetic Attention Whore
- Posts: 5470
- Joined: 2003-02-17 12:04pm
- Location: Bat Country!
Various reasons...darthdavid wrote:Why don't the cardies just surrender?
The scum fight out of fear of their former victims.
The decent fight out of a sence of duty.
It is rather rare for an army to disintegrate without orders to surrender or the collapse of the state itself. The Cardie military on Bajor will fight for as long as they are able because the commanders will not wan't to face justice and the Cardie state is not quite willing to throw in the towel just yet.
I thought Roman candles meant they were imported. - Kelly Bundy
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
-
Edward Yee
- Sith Devotee
- Posts: 3395
- Joined: 2005-07-31 06:48am
I don't know when the next chapter will be, as I'm caught up with a couple other things now.Edward Yee wrote:Whence the next chapter ...
P.S. Until that ambush by Kentworth, I thought the Gul had proper anti-fighter tactics; Steve, was this the intent?
As for the engagement with Third Fleet, basically, yes. A tight Cardassian formation can better concentrate fire in such a way as to force away fighters in their main firing arcs and to use energy weapons to shoot down enemy missiles. Of course, said formation is less capable against an actual battle line, as it presents a smaller target and is less flexible.
The Battle of the Prodigal was, quite simply, bad luck for the Cardies. A combination of circumstances combined to give Kentworth an unfair advantage, and he used it to utterly annihilate the enemy.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Paris, Earth, United Federation of Planets
15:34 GST
Ambassador Kercet entered Tobis' office with an unemotional expression on his face. Half a day had passed since the annihilation of Third Fleet according to his recent reports. The Central Command was still debating various issues on continuing the war, but in the meantime he was to again seek the Federation's help in the war.
The meeting was with Tobis and Admiral Matthews, as usual. Kercet laid out the latest offer from Central Command; the concessions Cardassia would give if the Federation were to intervene in the war were rather generous, undoing virtually all of Cardassia's gains from the previous war and ceding critical claims. Kercet personally felt it a waste of time since the same pacifism that had undermined the Federation's war against Cardassia would now undermine any consideration of aiding it with force.
Tobis, however, was still diplomatic enough - and shrewd enough - to not rule out a Federation involvement in the war. "I've spoken with many members of the Federation Council who are growing increasingly concerned with the Alliance's aggression against Cardassia. I feel that sometime soon, we may be able to pass a resolution authorizing Starfleet to intervene."
Kercet replied with a simple nod. "We hope that the Federation will see that the defeat of the Alliance is in it's best interests as well as our's."
There was another nod. Tobis looked to Matthews for a moment before handing something to Kercet. "In the meantime, Ambassador, here is a list of the sensor equipment that the Federation Council has agreed to secretly lend Cardassia for the duration of the war. This equipment will allow the creation of a tachyon detection net and gravimetric sensor grid that gives you two ways to detect cloaked vessels. Advisors are currently being gathered by Starfleet and they will naturally require Cardassian approval. We hope to have the first parts of the system up in, say, two and a half weeks?"
"Of course, Mister President. On behalf of Cardassia, I thank you. Millions of Cardassian lives will be saved by these systems."
"Yes. We don't want to see the Alliance using it's weapons of mass destruction any more than you do." Tobis put his hands together. "Our people say the situation on Bajor is bad. Your troops are being subjected to intense bombardments from Alliance air and artillery assets. Whole Bajoran cities are being shattered by the Alliance in their efforts to wipe out your garrisons."
"Yes, it is a tragedy. I can only think of the poor Bajorans who are losing their homes to the very people who claim to be the protectors of the Bajoran race." Kercet shook his head. "A very sad thing."
"The Federation intends to vigorously protest the bombardments. And I'll talk to the Federation Council again about sanctions and barring Alliance trade from moving through Federation space. We suspect that once their trade is cut off, their own merchants will start clamoring for peace."
"Hopefully so, Mister President. Then this killing can finally end."
The three men in the room nodded at that.
15:34 GST
Ambassador Kercet entered Tobis' office with an unemotional expression on his face. Half a day had passed since the annihilation of Third Fleet according to his recent reports. The Central Command was still debating various issues on continuing the war, but in the meantime he was to again seek the Federation's help in the war.
The meeting was with Tobis and Admiral Matthews, as usual. Kercet laid out the latest offer from Central Command; the concessions Cardassia would give if the Federation were to intervene in the war were rather generous, undoing virtually all of Cardassia's gains from the previous war and ceding critical claims. Kercet personally felt it a waste of time since the same pacifism that had undermined the Federation's war against Cardassia would now undermine any consideration of aiding it with force.
Tobis, however, was still diplomatic enough - and shrewd enough - to not rule out a Federation involvement in the war. "I've spoken with many members of the Federation Council who are growing increasingly concerned with the Alliance's aggression against Cardassia. I feel that sometime soon, we may be able to pass a resolution authorizing Starfleet to intervene."
Kercet replied with a simple nod. "We hope that the Federation will see that the defeat of the Alliance is in it's best interests as well as our's."
There was another nod. Tobis looked to Matthews for a moment before handing something to Kercet. "In the meantime, Ambassador, here is a list of the sensor equipment that the Federation Council has agreed to secretly lend Cardassia for the duration of the war. This equipment will allow the creation of a tachyon detection net and gravimetric sensor grid that gives you two ways to detect cloaked vessels. Advisors are currently being gathered by Starfleet and they will naturally require Cardassian approval. We hope to have the first parts of the system up in, say, two and a half weeks?"
"Of course, Mister President. On behalf of Cardassia, I thank you. Millions of Cardassian lives will be saved by these systems."
"Yes. We don't want to see the Alliance using it's weapons of mass destruction any more than you do." Tobis put his hands together. "Our people say the situation on Bajor is bad. Your troops are being subjected to intense bombardments from Alliance air and artillery assets. Whole Bajoran cities are being shattered by the Alliance in their efforts to wipe out your garrisons."
"Yes, it is a tragedy. I can only think of the poor Bajorans who are losing their homes to the very people who claim to be the protectors of the Bajoran race." Kercet shook his head. "A very sad thing."
"The Federation intends to vigorously protest the bombardments. And I'll talk to the Federation Council again about sanctions and barring Alliance trade from moving through Federation space. We suspect that once their trade is cut off, their own merchants will start clamoring for peace."
"Hopefully so, Mister President. Then this killing can finally end."
The three men in the room nodded at that.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
-
Zed Snardbody
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2449
- Joined: 2002-07-11 11:41pm
Gallitep, Bajor
16:40 GST
The notorious and recently-reactivated Cardassian labor camp had been partially ruined in the firefight that resulted when the Marine 24th Recon Battalion assaulted it directly. Bodies lay everywhere, Bajoran and Cardassian with the occasional Marine, but the majority of the camp's occupants had been saved from extermination.
Captain Jessica Chamberlain's side was burning with the pain from a glancing shot from a Cardassian rifle, but she was still able to walk and command, and had thus ordered the corpsmen and medical personnel to leave her alone and concentrate on others. The brown-haired Marine stomped toward one wing of the main Cardassian structures, the last one unchecked. The Bajoran laborers had pointed it out as the Cardassian punishment wing and all had showed a great amount of terror toward it.
Gallitep had been reactivated earlier in the year after the Cardassians made the decision to stay on Bajor. Once "liberated" by the Shakaar Resistance, it's reputation was so notorious that it was the perfect sword to hold over Bajorans' heads. "Cooperation or Gallitep" became a well-known ultimatum. The camp's commander, Gul Pure'el, had played that to the hilt, treating his prisoners harshly and with a methodical viciousness. Being brought to "the Room" was his ultimate threat. The walls had been purposely rebuilt to allow some sound to pass through, meaning that the nearby Bajoran prisoner barracks could hear screams from within. Few ever returned alive and those who did were often near-catatonic or racked by nightmares, certainly Pure'el's intent considering the terror it caused.
The wing was abandoned currently, it's personnel thrown into the defense of the camp, so nobody stopped them from making their way through the halls. The cells were eerily empty, as were the side rooms they saw, the offices and washrooms and such. But there was one main chamber to be checked, and with a stoic expression on her face, Chamberlain walked up to the cold metal doors. A plaque in Cardassian and Bajoran lettering was on them, but Chamberlain had removed her helmet for the time being and didn't have access to the auto-translation program.
There was a stench in the air. The room had various tables and chairs, each with metal or belted restraints, and very ominous instruments or control panels on the walls or around them. Chamberlain's eyes became fixated on the sole occupant of the room. A Bajoran boy, about twenty at most, was sitting on the floor of a sealed alcove cell in the corners of the room. In another cell in the distance, an older Bajoran man was laying against the wall. The Marines split up and investigated both and the numerous marks and bruises on them. "This one's gone," one of the Marines said from the side of the elder Bajoran.
Chamberlain leaned down in front of the boy. He was staring straight ahead, his blue eyes seeming empty of any life. He was obviously living of course, his burned and thin chest moving slowly. "Boy's catatonic. Get a corpsman, ASAP!"
Not an hour later, Chamberlain was in the battlefield hospital they'd set up in and around the camp infirmary, her body above the waist stripped down to the protective olive brown sports bra she wore as a combat undergarment. The flesh on her right side, from the rib cage down almost to her hip, was red with some blackness from the burns she'd taken from the glancing blow of the Cardassian rifle. She hissed in irritation as a female corpsman - a strong-jawed Kenyan woman - began to smear a medical healing cream on it to preclude bandaging.
Nearby, the boy they'd found in the Cardassian torture room was laying down, staring silently into space. Nobody had gotten any kind of reaction out of him, and a medical exam had found many wounds and various other problems with him, making it clear that he'd been tortured to a fairly strong degree.
"Captain!" One of her NCOs, Colour Sergeant Hillary Tupa, entered. She saluted respectively and relaxed when Chamberlain ordered her to be at ease. "Sir, there's something you need to see."
Minutes later, Chamberlain emerged from the tent with her uniform jacket put back on, her side properly bandaged. Tupa led her to a waiting jeep, which drove her a quarter of a mile out of the camp to a grassy field between the rocky hills around Gallitep. There were a few Marines present, and a Cardassian-built earthmover was alone on the field. Chamberlain felt her stomach twist as she came to realize what was probably here.
This was confirmed a few minutes later as she was let up to a trench, dug out with MET equipment. It wasn't a trench, Chamberlain could tell - it was a mass grave, filled with decaying bodies, their soft-looking flesh telling her they were non-Cardassian corpses. "Scanners show bodies everywhere, Sir," Tupa said. "Maybe thousands of bodies, probably dating back to the camp's first run."
Chamberlain had killed men and women in battle. She had seen friends blown up, bodies torn apart by explosions or sliced down by energy weapons or projectile rifles. But the sight of dozens of haphazardly-placed corpses, the stench rising from the mass grave, overcame all of that. She leaned over partially and vomited on the ground, spilling out her last ration meal and fluid into an orange-like mass on the ground.
Opelar Detention Camp, Imilis 2
16:55 GST
Major Regina Keller felt her stomach rumble in irritation as her subordinates led her to the newly discovered mass grave in the middle of the Opelar camp. Imilis 2 was one of the traditional Bajoran extrastellar colonies and had been ruthlessly exploited by Cardassia, robbed of much of it's mineral wealth in the vain attempt to slake the thirst of the Cardassian war machine. Liberated by Alliance forces, it was too little too late for many of the planet's most beautiful land, strip-mined without restraint. And now, clearly, it was too late for many of the eight thousand prisoners of Opelar.
"Damn these bastards," the English brunette muttered under her breath, her voice thick with the strong accent of a New Liverpooler. Her white skin, naturally slightly tanned from a Pakistani great-grandfather, was more richly tanned thanks to her home in the sunny subtropics of New Liverpool, contrasting well with her brown hair. "Cardassian fuckers."
"Major!" A soldier clambered out of the grave, a thick Yoruban accent in his voice. "Major, you need to see this!"
Keller walked down the length of the grave to meet the Nigerian soldier. He pointed down to the grave. "Major, Bajorans don't have blue skin, do they?"
The dirty-clothed body he was indicating was barely female in appearance due to mal-nutrition, only two very small bulges on the chest making the gender clear. The head had a small mane of white hair, and as Keller looked closely, she could see two small objects on the corpse's head. "Antennae. Those are Andorians." Keller recalled her briefing on races in this galaxy. "A race from the Federation."
"Sir, we've examined some of these bodies. They're not all Bajoran." The Nigerian Corporal's ebony face looked back up at her, filled with quite a bit of illness at the scene of death around them. "We've found eight Humans, three Trill, nine Vulcanoids, and an Orion, not to mention a half dozen Cardassian-Bajoran hybrids and four Human-Cardassian hybrids."
Keller nodded. "Get tissue samples and dental scans for identification purposes."
Next, Keller was brought to a small group of camp prisoners who had survived, mostly from the Cardassians' haste to escape Imilis 2 before the Alliance could blockade it. Most were again Bajoran, but Keller could see at least one male with the familiar spots of a Trill, and a pig-faced humanoid - a Tellarite, if she remembered right. Finally a tan-skinned figure, emaciated as most of the others, emerged from the gaggle, a sharp-eared Vulcanoid. She stood very reserved as she spoke, holding her right hand up with her middle and index finger held apart from the ring finger and pinky, with an open-palmed gesture that would have been a rough "stop" gesture if not for her fingers being split. "I am Doctor T'Rila of Vulcan. Live long and prosper."
The voice was calm and measured, but Keller could see in the Vulcan's dark eyes that her unemotional control was not complete. She had seen horrors, the same horrors that made every other camp prisoner here hallow-faced and ill-looking, with their blank eyes and forlorn expressions to go with thin bodies overworked and covered in bruises or plasma whip scorches. Her voice even had a slight scratchiness to it.
"Major Regina Keller, 635th Infantry Battalion," Keller answered.
"Some of us are in need of medical attention, Major, and I lack the anatomical knowledge or materials to tend to them."
"Our battlefield hospital will treat you." Keller nodded to a subordinate. "Lieutenant, go get some corpsmen, and trucks to take these people to the division hospital."
"Yes Sir."
16:40 GST
The notorious and recently-reactivated Cardassian labor camp had been partially ruined in the firefight that resulted when the Marine 24th Recon Battalion assaulted it directly. Bodies lay everywhere, Bajoran and Cardassian with the occasional Marine, but the majority of the camp's occupants had been saved from extermination.
Captain Jessica Chamberlain's side was burning with the pain from a glancing shot from a Cardassian rifle, but she was still able to walk and command, and had thus ordered the corpsmen and medical personnel to leave her alone and concentrate on others. The brown-haired Marine stomped toward one wing of the main Cardassian structures, the last one unchecked. The Bajoran laborers had pointed it out as the Cardassian punishment wing and all had showed a great amount of terror toward it.
Gallitep had been reactivated earlier in the year after the Cardassians made the decision to stay on Bajor. Once "liberated" by the Shakaar Resistance, it's reputation was so notorious that it was the perfect sword to hold over Bajorans' heads. "Cooperation or Gallitep" became a well-known ultimatum. The camp's commander, Gul Pure'el, had played that to the hilt, treating his prisoners harshly and with a methodical viciousness. Being brought to "the Room" was his ultimate threat. The walls had been purposely rebuilt to allow some sound to pass through, meaning that the nearby Bajoran prisoner barracks could hear screams from within. Few ever returned alive and those who did were often near-catatonic or racked by nightmares, certainly Pure'el's intent considering the terror it caused.
The wing was abandoned currently, it's personnel thrown into the defense of the camp, so nobody stopped them from making their way through the halls. The cells were eerily empty, as were the side rooms they saw, the offices and washrooms and such. But there was one main chamber to be checked, and with a stoic expression on her face, Chamberlain walked up to the cold metal doors. A plaque in Cardassian and Bajoran lettering was on them, but Chamberlain had removed her helmet for the time being and didn't have access to the auto-translation program.
There was a stench in the air. The room had various tables and chairs, each with metal or belted restraints, and very ominous instruments or control panels on the walls or around them. Chamberlain's eyes became fixated on the sole occupant of the room. A Bajoran boy, about twenty at most, was sitting on the floor of a sealed alcove cell in the corners of the room. In another cell in the distance, an older Bajoran man was laying against the wall. The Marines split up and investigated both and the numerous marks and bruises on them. "This one's gone," one of the Marines said from the side of the elder Bajoran.
Chamberlain leaned down in front of the boy. He was staring straight ahead, his blue eyes seeming empty of any life. He was obviously living of course, his burned and thin chest moving slowly. "Boy's catatonic. Get a corpsman, ASAP!"
Not an hour later, Chamberlain was in the battlefield hospital they'd set up in and around the camp infirmary, her body above the waist stripped down to the protective olive brown sports bra she wore as a combat undergarment. The flesh on her right side, from the rib cage down almost to her hip, was red with some blackness from the burns she'd taken from the glancing blow of the Cardassian rifle. She hissed in irritation as a female corpsman - a strong-jawed Kenyan woman - began to smear a medical healing cream on it to preclude bandaging.
Nearby, the boy they'd found in the Cardassian torture room was laying down, staring silently into space. Nobody had gotten any kind of reaction out of him, and a medical exam had found many wounds and various other problems with him, making it clear that he'd been tortured to a fairly strong degree.
"Captain!" One of her NCOs, Colour Sergeant Hillary Tupa, entered. She saluted respectively and relaxed when Chamberlain ordered her to be at ease. "Sir, there's something you need to see."
Minutes later, Chamberlain emerged from the tent with her uniform jacket put back on, her side properly bandaged. Tupa led her to a waiting jeep, which drove her a quarter of a mile out of the camp to a grassy field between the rocky hills around Gallitep. There were a few Marines present, and a Cardassian-built earthmover was alone on the field. Chamberlain felt her stomach twist as she came to realize what was probably here.
This was confirmed a few minutes later as she was let up to a trench, dug out with MET equipment. It wasn't a trench, Chamberlain could tell - it was a mass grave, filled with decaying bodies, their soft-looking flesh telling her they were non-Cardassian corpses. "Scanners show bodies everywhere, Sir," Tupa said. "Maybe thousands of bodies, probably dating back to the camp's first run."
Chamberlain had killed men and women in battle. She had seen friends blown up, bodies torn apart by explosions or sliced down by energy weapons or projectile rifles. But the sight of dozens of haphazardly-placed corpses, the stench rising from the mass grave, overcame all of that. She leaned over partially and vomited on the ground, spilling out her last ration meal and fluid into an orange-like mass on the ground.
Opelar Detention Camp, Imilis 2
16:55 GST
Major Regina Keller felt her stomach rumble in irritation as her subordinates led her to the newly discovered mass grave in the middle of the Opelar camp. Imilis 2 was one of the traditional Bajoran extrastellar colonies and had been ruthlessly exploited by Cardassia, robbed of much of it's mineral wealth in the vain attempt to slake the thirst of the Cardassian war machine. Liberated by Alliance forces, it was too little too late for many of the planet's most beautiful land, strip-mined without restraint. And now, clearly, it was too late for many of the eight thousand prisoners of Opelar.
"Damn these bastards," the English brunette muttered under her breath, her voice thick with the strong accent of a New Liverpooler. Her white skin, naturally slightly tanned from a Pakistani great-grandfather, was more richly tanned thanks to her home in the sunny subtropics of New Liverpool, contrasting well with her brown hair. "Cardassian fuckers."
"Major!" A soldier clambered out of the grave, a thick Yoruban accent in his voice. "Major, you need to see this!"
Keller walked down the length of the grave to meet the Nigerian soldier. He pointed down to the grave. "Major, Bajorans don't have blue skin, do they?"
The dirty-clothed body he was indicating was barely female in appearance due to mal-nutrition, only two very small bulges on the chest making the gender clear. The head had a small mane of white hair, and as Keller looked closely, she could see two small objects on the corpse's head. "Antennae. Those are Andorians." Keller recalled her briefing on races in this galaxy. "A race from the Federation."
"Sir, we've examined some of these bodies. They're not all Bajoran." The Nigerian Corporal's ebony face looked back up at her, filled with quite a bit of illness at the scene of death around them. "We've found eight Humans, three Trill, nine Vulcanoids, and an Orion, not to mention a half dozen Cardassian-Bajoran hybrids and four Human-Cardassian hybrids."
Keller nodded. "Get tissue samples and dental scans for identification purposes."
Next, Keller was brought to a small group of camp prisoners who had survived, mostly from the Cardassians' haste to escape Imilis 2 before the Alliance could blockade it. Most were again Bajoran, but Keller could see at least one male with the familiar spots of a Trill, and a pig-faced humanoid - a Tellarite, if she remembered right. Finally a tan-skinned figure, emaciated as most of the others, emerged from the gaggle, a sharp-eared Vulcanoid. She stood very reserved as she spoke, holding her right hand up with her middle and index finger held apart from the ring finger and pinky, with an open-palmed gesture that would have been a rough "stop" gesture if not for her fingers being split. "I am Doctor T'Rila of Vulcan. Live long and prosper."
The voice was calm and measured, but Keller could see in the Vulcan's dark eyes that her unemotional control was not complete. She had seen horrors, the same horrors that made every other camp prisoner here hallow-faced and ill-looking, with their blank eyes and forlorn expressions to go with thin bodies overworked and covered in bruises or plasma whip scorches. Her voice even had a slight scratchiness to it.
"Major Regina Keller, 635th Infantry Battalion," Keller answered.
"Some of us are in need of medical attention, Major, and I lack the anatomical knowledge or materials to tend to them."
"Our battlefield hospital will treat you." Keller nodded to a subordinate. "Lieutenant, go get some corpsmen, and trucks to take these people to the division hospital."
"Yes Sir."
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
-
Zed Snardbody
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2449
- Joined: 2002-07-11 11:41pm
East Landing, New Liberty
17:48 GST
The city of East Landing was one of the many spreading communities on New Liberty, wiith it's own spaceport and a growing industrial and commercial sector. Given it's near sub-tropical climate, closeness to some of the best beaches on the planet, and beautiful scenery, the appeal was clear, and Sophia Razmara had been pleased that Asako had agreed to base here.
The Denmark Vesey was fully repaired now and had a berth at the East Landing Spaceport. Asako had already made the necessary trip to New Norwich to exchange the hard GPL for cash and was now on a "cake run" contract, moving goods from East Landing to planets in the Colonial Zone under contract from a distribution company. The range of travel was so short that the entire crew wasn't even needed for the runs, so those who could found more permanent lodgings on the planet anid took local jobs.
Far from her "offer" of returning to nude dancing, Sophia had taken a better job, tending a bar along a stretch of area in the middle of town, almost equidistant from the commercial/residential, industrial, and main residential areas that the town was roughly split up in. It was a lower scale bar, not a formal club, and a lot of jeans and t-shirts were to be seen among it's patrons. Not a well paying job by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to rent an apartment and tuck a little away, so it was better than some of the other work that had been available. She'd convinced the manager since she had a lot of experience with the "new" and "alien" drinks the extrauniversals were developing tastes for, which was the main reason she'd been hired. As for the other reason, Sophia wore form-fitting blouses every other night and didn't mind making herself look attractive and available, which helped keep customers. And the third, unspoken reason was that, as a half-Vulcan, Sophia was physically stronger than any Human who walked into the bar and had proven that three times since she started - that coming on top of the sheer "exoticness" of being a half-alien, again helping to appeal to customers.
It was early in the day, before the hours when most people were off work, so there wasn't much activity in the bar. Sophia was wiping down a section of bar, keeping an eye on a pool game being played by a couple of the customer and on the TV playing a World Cup match from Universe AR-12. For the day she was wearing a gray-and-white checkered skirt that went down to her knees and a sleeveless shirt with the logo of the planet's football/soccer team, with the shirt being just tight enough that Sophia's breasts stretched the logo a little. The shirt was chosen for more than that obvious reason; the entire planet was still in an uproar about the team, which had just won a berth in the 2154 AST Trans-Universal Cup Tournament after defeating Italy SE-1 the week before last, and it seemed smart to go along with the public sentiment as it only now began to wane.
Sophia looked toward the end of the bar and the door beyond it for a moment, which is when she saw it open. Light poured through the gap, showing a bright and sunny day outside. She recognized Larrisa when she came in, her gait and face giving her away even though she'd had her hair re-done and made into curls. The Edo woman was dressed lightly, smart considering the heat outside, though perhaps a little too lightly (even if unsurprising, given nearly three decades of being accustomed to the light and revealing clothing styles of her people). Her shorts weren't too high, thankfully, but her short-sleeved black top looked more like a sleeved halter top, revealing her belly and hugging her breasts closely. White lettering read prominently and in all capital letters on the shirt's front: "Being sexy is hard work!", with the letters of "sexy" larger than the others and purposely placed to be over the wearer's breasts. She walked up to the bar and slid onto a stool, leaning an elbow on the hard wood surface. Sophia walked over to her. "Cute. Where'd you get it?"
"Rachel got it for me," Larrisa said with a slight smile. "A first anniversary present."
"Oh, that's right." An innocent grin camed to Sophia's face. "It was a year ago that we introduced you to that club on Opelei."
"Right. My first night with Rachel." Larrisa put a small pocket purse on the bar top. "So, have any Rigelian sakas?"
"No, unfortunately." Sophia looked for a moment to the bar's shelves, filled with bottles of various spirits and liquors. "A lot of the stuff you'd find in the Triangle hasn't made it's way here yet. Got some Orion firewater though. But that's a bit strong if you drove here yourself."
"Nah, I'm using the public buses today. Kinda weird, though. The Alliance is as developed as the Federation, but there are no public transporter nets."
"People here have a bit of a taboo against transporters. They'll use them for cargo transfer, but don't like them for personal transport." Sophia reached down and pulled out a bottle of Orion liquor. She was barely fluent in what was known as Basic Orion, a language from one of the more prominent Northern nations of the Orion homeworld interspersed with various terms common on the Southern Continent relating to their institutions, but could accurately read the lettering on the bottle. Made from a decent distillery company in the Northern Nation of Rohuluar, and the bottle made sure to mention that 100% of the labor was done by "freemen" - unlike the cheaper goods produced in the East, South, and the most subjected areas of the North, the liquor distillery's owners did not use slaves in the production of their product. This was vital because it was well-known that slave-produced goods were widely boycotted inside the Alliance and in other places, which meant distributors and companies from Orion that were interested in foreign trade were careful to ensure their products had no links to slave labor. Sophia twisted the cap off and poured Larrisa a shot. "And you just got back from Krellor I see. The ship was still gone when I left for work this morning."
"Oh yeah. We've been on planet for about, oh, five hours ago." Larrisa took her first shot and blanched a bit. "Ehhh, firewater is so strong."
"So, where's Rachel?"
"Asleep in the apartment."
Sophia nodded - the entire crew of Vesey had rented a number of apartments in a complex near the Spaceport. The pairings matched berthings on Vesey as well. "Late shift?"
"A bit, but mostly because we held off our first anniversary celebration for when we got back." Larrisa smiled widely and finished the shot. "I wore her out again. I hope she stays asleep for a while, though, because I can't remember if I untied her before I left."
Sophia's eyebrow went up. "I don't want to know, do I?"
That drew a giggle and a grin. "Considering we Edo have no concept of bondage sex and you introduced it to me last year at that Opelei club by tying me up for Rachel, you have no room to complain, Sophia."
"Yeah, but I like to be tied up for men to have their way with. Rumors and legends about Asako and me aside, I'm not interested in girl-on-girl stuff and I will never be. Want another?"
"Sure, but only one more. Asako hasn't paid us yet." Larrisa handed Sophia a $5 ADN note and she put it away, reaching for the firewater bottle to pour another shot. "Anyway, if you're not interested in sex between women, why did you take so much interest in tying me up for Rachel's enjoyment?"
"As I recall..." Sophia handed Larrisa the shotglass and leaned against the bar. "You dared me to find a way of having sex that surpassed anything the Edo had. I'm a sexual submissive, Larrisa, so what else was I going to come up with?" She watched Larrisa take the drink. "Besides, Rachel didn't know a thing about good bondage positions. I had to do it."
"Ahhh..." Larrisa nodded. "Well, it explains some things. So..." There was a mischievous glint in those blue eyes. "Find any good clubs?"
"No, the only bondage clubs I've heard of here do far too much for my taste. I don't look good in black leather and I'm not the ''whips and chains' type. I'll just take the chains. And only if I can break out of them if it suits me. So, are we done talking about our sex kinks? If someone overhears us I might be..."
"FIred?"
"Propositioned is more like it," Sophia replied. "So, talk about something else?"
"Like?"
Sophia shrugged. "I don't know, sports, news...."
Larrisa thought hard for a moment. "Um, how 'bout those Cowboys?"
"Cowboys? Larrisa, I said something not involving..."
"No, it's a program I saw when we were offloading at Krellor. A sport, two teams wearing padding and on a grass field. 'Football', they called it, and not like the football here. One of the teams was called the Cowboys, and during the commercials there were ones with the tagline 'How 'bout those Cowboys?'."
"Ohhh.... Larrisa, you need to work on your conversationism."
"On Edo, we talk about three things in balance; God, sex, and community."
"What about pleasure?"
"Pleasure falls under all three. We don't do... 'small talk' as you call it. We don't have sports, politics, or anything else." Larrisa frowned. "And we certainly don't have 'wars'."
Sophia frowned. She looked up at the TV in the corner wall, behind Larrisa. "Speaking of wars..."
She turned it up to hear what we being said, causing most of the customers in the bar to hear it too. The channel was set to CNN and the image on the screen was of a reporter amongst Alliance troops, a dark-skinned woman named "Cindy Winters". ".....receiving reports from other liberated labor camps worse than here on Koreil. The planet's lived up to the meaning of it's Bajoran name; 'Divine Fortune'. It was by pure luck that the majority of the prisoners at the Okaral Labor Camp were spared what appears to be a Cardassian policy of mass execution for all camp prisoners. When troops entered the camp, they found it had been hastily evacuated. A massive trench dug in the camp center, intended to be a mass grave, had only a dozen bodies in it. A few thousand prisoners survived only because it appears that the early arrival of Alliance naval forces to Koreil panicked the Cardassian defenders of the planet and led to their evacuatiion before the world could be blockaded. When Alliance troops arrived they found over three thousand prisoners, many mal-nourished and showing signs of abuse. An entire division hospital of the Alliance Army has been neded to begin to process each of the former camp occupants. But what's more shocking for us has been the discovery that not all of the occupants are Bajoran." Winters motioned off-screen and a woman with light skin tanned by the sun stepped up, wearing a dirty blue prisoner uniform. She still had a bruise on her cheek and a distant, tortured look in her light brown eyes. Her brown hair was disheveled and messy, parting just enough to reveal bruising on her shoulder blades and neck. "This woman has identified herself as Ensign Marilyn Cobb, a Starfleet Academy graduate who was captured by Cardassian forces seven years ago during the war between the Federation and Cardassia. She is among fourteen Human prisoners so far identified here at Okaral. There have been about seventy non-Bajorans identified who are Federation national, as well as two Klingons and an Orion. The number is expected to rise, as several prisoners have said that an entire prisoner barracks was assigned for non-Bajorans exclusively. Barracks that can hold four to five hundred in tight conditions. Do we have a shot archived? Please...." The image changed from the reporter and Ensign Cobb to a dimly lit room. It was essentially a long hall with bunks piled up five high, only about five to six feet long and a few feet across. Dozens of Bajoran faces were looking to the camera, their living conditions and the looks on their faces reminding Sophia of old history pictures from the Nazi Concentration Camps of Earth's Second World War. The reporter's voiceover continued. "These are the conditions that the Okaral detainees lived in, some for years. Two to three people per bunk and crammed together, with forcefields in place to prevent workers from leaving their bunks once the Cardassians ended the official day. Every barracks is filled with the stench from having dozens of bodies crammed together in a small space, sweat, urine, and feces mixing into a noxious odor that is nearly suffocating."
Larrisa put her hand on her mouth. Sophia had seen such a thing before, though not quite from that angle - the slave holds on Orion transports used by the Syndicate and their planetary allies to move thousands of enslaved people between planets. She'd thankfully never been a slave before, and had those memories from aiding non-Orion pirates in seizing just such a transport during one of Asako's missions on behalf of her pirate allies in the Triangle. Her stomach twisted in disgust.
The picture, meanwhile, turned back to Winters and Cobb. "Ensign Cobb, you've been a prisoner here for seven years, correct?"
The woman nodded. When she spoke, her voice seemed weak and shaky. "Yes. I was taken prisoner when the Cardassians overran Sigma Paraxis."
"That war ended years ago and according to both sides, all POWs were repatriated. Why weren't you?"
"I.... I don't know? My crewmates and I were the only survivors from a starship, the Coolidge. I don't know why we weren't returned. The Cardassians never told us."
"How many of your crew are still alive?"
"About ten. We used to be more, but a few were killed." Her voice nearly broke at that point, recovering only barely.
"Ensign, do you have any family back home that could be contacted, who could be watching?" That was a possible lie, if a necessary one, since the Federation routinely refused to give extrauniversal news orgnanizations bandwidfth on Federation comm networks - only the border regions near the Colonial Zone were able to pick up the wide-broadcast Alliance communication traffic and thus the news channels.
"My mother and father - Linda and Greg - own a specialty restaurant in San Francisco. And my brother Timothy joined Starfleet before I did. If you're out there, Mom, Dad, Tim, I love you and I've... I've missed you so much...." Cobb broke down crying beside the reporter, who gave her a sympathetic arm around the shoulder. "They've done... so much.... so much to us... said we were 'forgotten'... but I knew.... I knew I'd see.... my family again," she said through sobs.
"This is Cindy Winters reporting live from the Okaral, Koreil, Bajoran Zone. Back to you in the studio."
The picture changed back to the CNN Studios. A man with dark skin and contrasting gray hair was sitting at his desk, papers in hand and wearing a flashy suit. The anchorman continued on; "Sources in the Alliance Government say it is too early to begin counting the number of dead and liberated, though the death toll is expected to reach as high as a million, not counting Bajor itself and civilian deaths from the uprising that preceded the Alliance invasion. We have only confirmed the existance of various Cardassian prison camps and are still working to confirm the presence of either survivors or mass graves. As always, CNN will report new information as it is releas..."
The picture flipped off. Sophia put the controls down and sighed. "That's so cruel... Like the Orions..." Larrisa's face was stuck in a frown, and Sophia knew that she had to be reliving everything the Orions had done to her from the moment she'd been beamed aboard one of their ships to the moment she'd been freed by Asako and crew. "I thought home was so bad.... but we never did these things to each other..... never...." She looked back to Sophia. "Something stronger, please."
Sophia nodded. "I'll put it on my tab," she said with sympathy, thinking of what she'd gone through in life that was horrible, if never as horrible as what others suffered.
17:48 GST
The city of East Landing was one of the many spreading communities on New Liberty, wiith it's own spaceport and a growing industrial and commercial sector. Given it's near sub-tropical climate, closeness to some of the best beaches on the planet, and beautiful scenery, the appeal was clear, and Sophia Razmara had been pleased that Asako had agreed to base here.
The Denmark Vesey was fully repaired now and had a berth at the East Landing Spaceport. Asako had already made the necessary trip to New Norwich to exchange the hard GPL for cash and was now on a "cake run" contract, moving goods from East Landing to planets in the Colonial Zone under contract from a distribution company. The range of travel was so short that the entire crew wasn't even needed for the runs, so those who could found more permanent lodgings on the planet anid took local jobs.
Far from her "offer" of returning to nude dancing, Sophia had taken a better job, tending a bar along a stretch of area in the middle of town, almost equidistant from the commercial/residential, industrial, and main residential areas that the town was roughly split up in. It was a lower scale bar, not a formal club, and a lot of jeans and t-shirts were to be seen among it's patrons. Not a well paying job by any stretch of the imagination, but enough to rent an apartment and tuck a little away, so it was better than some of the other work that had been available. She'd convinced the manager since she had a lot of experience with the "new" and "alien" drinks the extrauniversals were developing tastes for, which was the main reason she'd been hired. As for the other reason, Sophia wore form-fitting blouses every other night and didn't mind making herself look attractive and available, which helped keep customers. And the third, unspoken reason was that, as a half-Vulcan, Sophia was physically stronger than any Human who walked into the bar and had proven that three times since she started - that coming on top of the sheer "exoticness" of being a half-alien, again helping to appeal to customers.
It was early in the day, before the hours when most people were off work, so there wasn't much activity in the bar. Sophia was wiping down a section of bar, keeping an eye on a pool game being played by a couple of the customer and on the TV playing a World Cup match from Universe AR-12. For the day she was wearing a gray-and-white checkered skirt that went down to her knees and a sleeveless shirt with the logo of the planet's football/soccer team, with the shirt being just tight enough that Sophia's breasts stretched the logo a little. The shirt was chosen for more than that obvious reason; the entire planet was still in an uproar about the team, which had just won a berth in the 2154 AST Trans-Universal Cup Tournament after defeating Italy SE-1 the week before last, and it seemed smart to go along with the public sentiment as it only now began to wane.
Sophia looked toward the end of the bar and the door beyond it for a moment, which is when she saw it open. Light poured through the gap, showing a bright and sunny day outside. She recognized Larrisa when she came in, her gait and face giving her away even though she'd had her hair re-done and made into curls. The Edo woman was dressed lightly, smart considering the heat outside, though perhaps a little too lightly (even if unsurprising, given nearly three decades of being accustomed to the light and revealing clothing styles of her people). Her shorts weren't too high, thankfully, but her short-sleeved black top looked more like a sleeved halter top, revealing her belly and hugging her breasts closely. White lettering read prominently and in all capital letters on the shirt's front: "Being sexy is hard work!", with the letters of "sexy" larger than the others and purposely placed to be over the wearer's breasts. She walked up to the bar and slid onto a stool, leaning an elbow on the hard wood surface. Sophia walked over to her. "Cute. Where'd you get it?"
"Rachel got it for me," Larrisa said with a slight smile. "A first anniversary present."
"Oh, that's right." An innocent grin camed to Sophia's face. "It was a year ago that we introduced you to that club on Opelei."
"Right. My first night with Rachel." Larrisa put a small pocket purse on the bar top. "So, have any Rigelian sakas?"
"No, unfortunately." Sophia looked for a moment to the bar's shelves, filled with bottles of various spirits and liquors. "A lot of the stuff you'd find in the Triangle hasn't made it's way here yet. Got some Orion firewater though. But that's a bit strong if you drove here yourself."
"Nah, I'm using the public buses today. Kinda weird, though. The Alliance is as developed as the Federation, but there are no public transporter nets."
"People here have a bit of a taboo against transporters. They'll use them for cargo transfer, but don't like them for personal transport." Sophia reached down and pulled out a bottle of Orion liquor. She was barely fluent in what was known as Basic Orion, a language from one of the more prominent Northern nations of the Orion homeworld interspersed with various terms common on the Southern Continent relating to their institutions, but could accurately read the lettering on the bottle. Made from a decent distillery company in the Northern Nation of Rohuluar, and the bottle made sure to mention that 100% of the labor was done by "freemen" - unlike the cheaper goods produced in the East, South, and the most subjected areas of the North, the liquor distillery's owners did not use slaves in the production of their product. This was vital because it was well-known that slave-produced goods were widely boycotted inside the Alliance and in other places, which meant distributors and companies from Orion that were interested in foreign trade were careful to ensure their products had no links to slave labor. Sophia twisted the cap off and poured Larrisa a shot. "And you just got back from Krellor I see. The ship was still gone when I left for work this morning."
"Oh yeah. We've been on planet for about, oh, five hours ago." Larrisa took her first shot and blanched a bit. "Ehhh, firewater is so strong."
"So, where's Rachel?"
"Asleep in the apartment."
Sophia nodded - the entire crew of Vesey had rented a number of apartments in a complex near the Spaceport. The pairings matched berthings on Vesey as well. "Late shift?"
"A bit, but mostly because we held off our first anniversary celebration for when we got back." Larrisa smiled widely and finished the shot. "I wore her out again. I hope she stays asleep for a while, though, because I can't remember if I untied her before I left."
Sophia's eyebrow went up. "I don't want to know, do I?"
That drew a giggle and a grin. "Considering we Edo have no concept of bondage sex and you introduced it to me last year at that Opelei club by tying me up for Rachel, you have no room to complain, Sophia."
"Yeah, but I like to be tied up for men to have their way with. Rumors and legends about Asako and me aside, I'm not interested in girl-on-girl stuff and I will never be. Want another?"
"Sure, but only one more. Asako hasn't paid us yet." Larrisa handed Sophia a $5 ADN note and she put it away, reaching for the firewater bottle to pour another shot. "Anyway, if you're not interested in sex between women, why did you take so much interest in tying me up for Rachel's enjoyment?"
"As I recall..." Sophia handed Larrisa the shotglass and leaned against the bar. "You dared me to find a way of having sex that surpassed anything the Edo had. I'm a sexual submissive, Larrisa, so what else was I going to come up with?" She watched Larrisa take the drink. "Besides, Rachel didn't know a thing about good bondage positions. I had to do it."
"Ahhh..." Larrisa nodded. "Well, it explains some things. So..." There was a mischievous glint in those blue eyes. "Find any good clubs?"
"No, the only bondage clubs I've heard of here do far too much for my taste. I don't look good in black leather and I'm not the ''whips and chains' type. I'll just take the chains. And only if I can break out of them if it suits me. So, are we done talking about our sex kinks? If someone overhears us I might be..."
"FIred?"
"Propositioned is more like it," Sophia replied. "So, talk about something else?"
"Like?"
Sophia shrugged. "I don't know, sports, news...."
Larrisa thought hard for a moment. "Um, how 'bout those Cowboys?"
"Cowboys? Larrisa, I said something not involving..."
"No, it's a program I saw when we were offloading at Krellor. A sport, two teams wearing padding and on a grass field. 'Football', they called it, and not like the football here. One of the teams was called the Cowboys, and during the commercials there were ones with the tagline 'How 'bout those Cowboys?'."
"Ohhh.... Larrisa, you need to work on your conversationism."
"On Edo, we talk about three things in balance; God, sex, and community."
"What about pleasure?"
"Pleasure falls under all three. We don't do... 'small talk' as you call it. We don't have sports, politics, or anything else." Larrisa frowned. "And we certainly don't have 'wars'."
Sophia frowned. She looked up at the TV in the corner wall, behind Larrisa. "Speaking of wars..."
She turned it up to hear what we being said, causing most of the customers in the bar to hear it too. The channel was set to CNN and the image on the screen was of a reporter amongst Alliance troops, a dark-skinned woman named "Cindy Winters". ".....receiving reports from other liberated labor camps worse than here on Koreil. The planet's lived up to the meaning of it's Bajoran name; 'Divine Fortune'. It was by pure luck that the majority of the prisoners at the Okaral Labor Camp were spared what appears to be a Cardassian policy of mass execution for all camp prisoners. When troops entered the camp, they found it had been hastily evacuated. A massive trench dug in the camp center, intended to be a mass grave, had only a dozen bodies in it. A few thousand prisoners survived only because it appears that the early arrival of Alliance naval forces to Koreil panicked the Cardassian defenders of the planet and led to their evacuatiion before the world could be blockaded. When Alliance troops arrived they found over three thousand prisoners, many mal-nourished and showing signs of abuse. An entire division hospital of the Alliance Army has been neded to begin to process each of the former camp occupants. But what's more shocking for us has been the discovery that not all of the occupants are Bajoran." Winters motioned off-screen and a woman with light skin tanned by the sun stepped up, wearing a dirty blue prisoner uniform. She still had a bruise on her cheek and a distant, tortured look in her light brown eyes. Her brown hair was disheveled and messy, parting just enough to reveal bruising on her shoulder blades and neck. "This woman has identified herself as Ensign Marilyn Cobb, a Starfleet Academy graduate who was captured by Cardassian forces seven years ago during the war between the Federation and Cardassia. She is among fourteen Human prisoners so far identified here at Okaral. There have been about seventy non-Bajorans identified who are Federation national, as well as two Klingons and an Orion. The number is expected to rise, as several prisoners have said that an entire prisoner barracks was assigned for non-Bajorans exclusively. Barracks that can hold four to five hundred in tight conditions. Do we have a shot archived? Please...." The image changed from the reporter and Ensign Cobb to a dimly lit room. It was essentially a long hall with bunks piled up five high, only about five to six feet long and a few feet across. Dozens of Bajoran faces were looking to the camera, their living conditions and the looks on their faces reminding Sophia of old history pictures from the Nazi Concentration Camps of Earth's Second World War. The reporter's voiceover continued. "These are the conditions that the Okaral detainees lived in, some for years. Two to three people per bunk and crammed together, with forcefields in place to prevent workers from leaving their bunks once the Cardassians ended the official day. Every barracks is filled with the stench from having dozens of bodies crammed together in a small space, sweat, urine, and feces mixing into a noxious odor that is nearly suffocating."
Larrisa put her hand on her mouth. Sophia had seen such a thing before, though not quite from that angle - the slave holds on Orion transports used by the Syndicate and their planetary allies to move thousands of enslaved people between planets. She'd thankfully never been a slave before, and had those memories from aiding non-Orion pirates in seizing just such a transport during one of Asako's missions on behalf of her pirate allies in the Triangle. Her stomach twisted in disgust.
The picture, meanwhile, turned back to Winters and Cobb. "Ensign Cobb, you've been a prisoner here for seven years, correct?"
The woman nodded. When she spoke, her voice seemed weak and shaky. "Yes. I was taken prisoner when the Cardassians overran Sigma Paraxis."
"That war ended years ago and according to both sides, all POWs were repatriated. Why weren't you?"
"I.... I don't know? My crewmates and I were the only survivors from a starship, the Coolidge. I don't know why we weren't returned. The Cardassians never told us."
"How many of your crew are still alive?"
"About ten. We used to be more, but a few were killed." Her voice nearly broke at that point, recovering only barely.
"Ensign, do you have any family back home that could be contacted, who could be watching?" That was a possible lie, if a necessary one, since the Federation routinely refused to give extrauniversal news orgnanizations bandwidfth on Federation comm networks - only the border regions near the Colonial Zone were able to pick up the wide-broadcast Alliance communication traffic and thus the news channels.
"My mother and father - Linda and Greg - own a specialty restaurant in San Francisco. And my brother Timothy joined Starfleet before I did. If you're out there, Mom, Dad, Tim, I love you and I've... I've missed you so much...." Cobb broke down crying beside the reporter, who gave her a sympathetic arm around the shoulder. "They've done... so much.... so much to us... said we were 'forgotten'... but I knew.... I knew I'd see.... my family again," she said through sobs.
"This is Cindy Winters reporting live from the Okaral, Koreil, Bajoran Zone. Back to you in the studio."
The picture changed back to the CNN Studios. A man with dark skin and contrasting gray hair was sitting at his desk, papers in hand and wearing a flashy suit. The anchorman continued on; "Sources in the Alliance Government say it is too early to begin counting the number of dead and liberated, though the death toll is expected to reach as high as a million, not counting Bajor itself and civilian deaths from the uprising that preceded the Alliance invasion. We have only confirmed the existance of various Cardassian prison camps and are still working to confirm the presence of either survivors or mass graves. As always, CNN will report new information as it is releas..."
The picture flipped off. Sophia put the controls down and sighed. "That's so cruel... Like the Orions..." Larrisa's face was stuck in a frown, and Sophia knew that she had to be reliving everything the Orions had done to her from the moment she'd been beamed aboard one of their ships to the moment she'd been freed by Asako and crew. "I thought home was so bad.... but we never did these things to each other..... never...." She looked back to Sophia. "Something stronger, please."
Sophia nodded. "I'll put it on my tab," she said with sympathy, thinking of what she'd gone through in life that was horrible, if never as horrible as what others suffered.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
-
Zed Snardbody
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2449
- Joined: 2002-07-11 11:41pm