[Author’s Warning: This story will deal with some pretty intense issues from Mecell’s past, including the brutalisation and death of his mother—though there aren’t any graphic/explicit details. It’s been a pretty tough story to write because of it, so might be hard for some to read]
* * * * *
Captain’s log, stardate: 51981.6.
Final preparations are being made to the brig, whilst the extra crewmen pulled from their regular duties to bolster Security being given their orders from Lieutenant D’Kehra. We will rendezvous with the Reliant in thirty minutes, at which point we will receive six Cardassian prisoners of war, who we’ve been tasked to deliver to Starbase 272 for Starfleet Intelligence.
There is a great sense of unease among the crew—and myself, if I’m honest. Over the last nine months we’ve had a few Cardassians onboard, survivors from battlefields we’ve run SAR-ops at, but this is different. Fortunately, we’ve been granted permission to exceed the warp speed restriction and Lieutenant Lanali assures me she can maintain factor eight-point-two for as long as we need, that means we’ll reach the station in seven days.
This is going to be a very hard week.
End log.
* * * * *
This would be one of the rare times the antiquated design of the Orion was actually of benefit, as the brig didn’t use forcefields like modern cells. The doorway was secured with charged bars, which stunned whoever touched them. It was a feature Lieutenant j.g. D’Kehra had always been a little dubious of, until now that was. Even if the power to the cells failed, the bars were made of a tritanium composite, which would take a phaser an hour to cut through, so whoever went in wasn’t getting out until Security let them. The rest of the bulkheads, as well as the ceiling and deck panels, were all reinforced and could withstand a photon grenade—apparently a feature that was added from 2290 onwards, after an explosion had taken out the rear wall of a cell onboard another starship.
She would also have three guards standing watch in the cell block, whilst one would be stationed in the armoury, and another would be monitoring from the main office. Everything that happened in those six cells would be watched and recorded from the moment the prisoners arrived to when they left. An extra precaution they were taking was for them to be beamed into the security complex and taken straight to their cells, after which then entire section would be blanketed by three transporter suppressors.
Seeing as how these six were classed as ‘high-value assets’, she wasn’t going to give the Dominion any chance of freeing them when they were in her custody.
“Reihyn to D’Kehra,” came the Captain’s steady tone through the intercom. When she’d last spoken to him it’d been in his bed that morning, where they’d gone over all the arrangements that’d been made as the sweat cooled on their naked bodies.
She smiled to herself as she responded. “Go ahead, sir.”
“We’re ready to transport. Are you go?”
Taking one quick look at her team, she raised her rifle and the others followed suit. “We are go here.”
A moment later the space in the middle of the seven armed security guards was filled with the blue shimmer of a transporter beam. Six shafts coalesced from blurs of energy into solid matter, in the form of six adult Cardassians, four male and two female, all but one in military uniforms. The one civilian of the group was the oldest, a man by the name of Lorat Danal who was apparently a political figure (though puppet was probably a better description) under the new regime. She knew each of their names, as well as the details behind their capture.
She gave a nod to her team. Each of them trained their rifles on a single member of the group and led them into the cell block, one at a time. All of the Cardassians scowled at them, though none resisted. If their roles were reversed, everyone knew how the grey-scaled bastards treated their prisoners. D’Kehra gripped the handles of her rifle tighter, wondering how many Starfleet POW’s had died since being captured.
Once the last prisoner had entered the cell block, the doors closed behind him. She kept her grip tight for a moment longer before finally letting up and turning to Crewman Hitserik. “Activate the jammers.”
The Rigellian-Chelon nodded his leathery head and tapped the command into the console he sat at. There was a faint hum, but no other indication that anything had changed.
“All three fields active and stable. We have one hundred percent coverage, Lieutenant.” He looked at another monitor. “Prisoners are in and cells secured.”
“Captain,” she called into the still-open comlink, “prisoners are onboard and secure. We are ready to proceed.”
“Acknowledged. Reihyn out.”
She tapped her combadge. “Watch two remain, all others resume posts.”
The cell block door opened again and three of her guards stepped back into the main office. The Cardassians knew nothing of what ships they were being transported aboard, so she didn’t want to let them know that herself and the seven guards they’d seen so far made up just over half of the department. For all they knew, they could be on an Excelsior-Class ship with dozens of guards watching over them.
As the Orion leapt to warp the deck under her feet rumbled softly.
* * * * *
Everyone was on edge, that much was obvious, though for most of the crew (the young and inexperienced) that stemmed from fear. They would’ve all heard the stories about the Cardassian Wars, as well as their treatment of prisoners, the Occupation of Bajor and other planets, but had little firsthand experience of the enemy they were facing off against. For Diego Ramirez however, his stemmed from barely contained rage.
He had been born and raised on Ronara Prime, a world along the Cardassian border that had been on the frontlines of two major conflicts between the Federation and the Union, as well as all the sabre-rattling that had followed. Then came the treaty of 2370, which saw his homeworld removed from the protection of the Federation and forced to fend for itself within the newly created Demilitarised Zone. Ramirez had been a Chief Petty Officer at the time, with sixteen years of loyal service to his name, but that decision on the part of the Federation made him question the wisdom to it. Then the DMZ turned into a warzone, with the colonists attacking one another with whatever resources they could get their hands on. He’d started to ask the question no one wanted to hear: when was Starfleet going to intervene?
No one in Starfleet seemed willing to make a decision, even after the Cardassian Military was caught supplying weapons to their colonists—the DMZ wasn’t worth another war over. Then, in July of 2371, Ronara was attacked. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He’d been the Cargo Chief onboard the Tian An Men at the time, which gave him considerable access across the ship, including the armoury; so he’d tagged cases of phaser rifles and photon grenades, as well as crates of ration packs, medical supplies and spare parts, appropriated a shuttle, beamed everything onboard and ran like hell into the Zone.
Thus began his life as a traitor. To this day, he didn’t regret his decision.
The following two years had been gruelling, living in old couriers and freighters, haphazardly reconfigured into combat ships, taking on a vastly superior enemy often with nothing but their own guile and stubbornness to rely upon. The men and women he’d lived with and fought beside became closer to him than family.
They were all dead now. He didn’t even know about those he’d left behind on Ronara.
The Spoon-Headed cowards had made a deal with the devil and now the entire quadrant was suffering for it. Ramirez couldn’t help but wonder if things had gone differently had Starfleet acted sooner. They would never know now.
When he’d first come aboard, Reihyn had ordered him to keep his opinions to himself, which he did, though that didn’t stop all those who knew he’d been Maquis from asking him—which was everyone onboard. He kept his replies short and as detached as he could. Some still tried to rile him up, but most had given up asking him.
Fortunately, with the ship so understaffed, it was easy to find a quiet place to work out some frustration, which was just what he’d planned to do as he headed though an empty section of deck ten, until a sound made him stop. He paused and listened in the dark—since no one was meant to be there it made no sense to keep the lights on. Just as he was about to write it off as one of the ships many creaks and groans, he heard it again. A faint metallic pop, the sound a panel made when being removed from the bulkhead. In the stillness of the empty corridors he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
He tried to recall what was actually in the section, mostly science labs, all of which had been gutted and could be used as bunkrooms, an ESP junction, an auxiliary environmental station, a secondary water tank. Of course, it could well have been someone else doing the same thing he was, needing a private place to vent, or possibly some routine maintenance. But something just didn’t feel right.
Looking up and down the long curved corridor, he listened again and heard the noise again. It definitely sounded marginally louder coming from port, so he headed towards it. His time in the Maquis had taught him a great deal about stealth, which he applied now, keeping his footfalls light but covering ground swiftly. He was fifteen meters down the passage when he saw the beam of a flashlight, bouncing and shuffling around, quickly followed by a grunt of exertion and the thunk of a heavy bulkhead panel being set down.
Whoever it was, they were working with the environmental controls. He knew of no scheduled maintenance that needed to be carried out on the system.
Moving steadily, he neared the shadowy figure. They were humanoid, which ruled out Navix and K3 Brown, with a slight build, but other than that he couldn’t get anything more. They were so focused on whatever they were doing that they were oblivious to him, so he closed to within five meters. He set his fists on his hips.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, his booming voice echoing throughout the empty section.
The figure spun and stood, pointing the brilliant light straight at his face, quickly followed by a muffled, “Frak!”
Before he could say anything else, the flashlight swung towards his head. He brought his hand up and caught them by the wrist, twisting it so they dropped the light and yelped, before pushing their arm behind their back and slamming them into the bulkhead.
“Computer, lights.”
The corridor went from pitch black to brightly lit and he had to blink rapidly to help his eyes adjust. When they did, he looked at the face pressed against the smooth gunmetal grey wall. Of all those on the crew, the last person he’d expected to see was Corpsman Tabitha York.
“What the hell are you going here, Petty Officer?”
“Let go,” she growled, trying to wriggle free, but he kept his grip tight, making her yelp as she struggled.
“Answer me.”
“I was taking care of those frakking Cardies!”
He glanced down at the open panel, suddenly realising what she meant. “You were going to vent the atmosphere, suffocate them.”
“Yes.”
“What if you’d sucked the oxygen out of the entire security complex? We would’ve lost at least four crewmen.”
“Headquarters would call that ‘acceptable loses’,” she said with a humourless laugh. “Help me, Chief. We can rid this galaxy of six more of those bastards! They don’t deserve to live, not after they’ve killed so many who did!” He noticed her eyes well up with angry tears.
He paused a moment before finally asking. “Who was it?”
Feeling her body shudder as she sobbed, he relaxed his grip. “My twin brother, Ethan. He was on the Harriman.”
The Harriman had been lost with all hands just ten days ago, taken out by a squadron of Cardassian cruisers as they’d gone to the aid of a stricken hospital ship. With so many names of the dead, wounded and missing coming in each week, he’d long since given up trying to keep track of them all.
“I’m sorry, York. As much as you may think killing those Cardies in the brig will help you, I can tell you this, it won’t. It’ll just make you into one of them, a murderer.”
“They deserve to suffer.”
“I know they do,” he told her. They all do, a voice in the back of his mind affirmed.
* * * * *
Corpsman York lay sedated on a biobed, whilst Captain Reihyn, Doctor Baxx, Chief Ramirez and Counsellor Myza stood in the CMO’s office. The Chief leant against the wall, arms folded, Baxx sat behind his desk, looking deflated, whilst the Captain looked at the young woman though the transparent aluminium window. Myza sat in one of the chairs opposite the Bolian surgeon, feeling as miserable as the rest of them looked.
“I can’t believe I missed that,” she repeated. “I set the computer to search all the names that are posted, looking for any that may have connections to the crew. I don’t know what happened, how could I have missed her twin brother?”
“Damn computers,” Baxx muttered, pushing his desktop terminal to the side.
The Rigellian turned back towards the room. “No one’s blaming you, Counsellor. I read every single name on that list; I should’ve seen it too.”
“York’s never been a social butterfly,” Baxx began, “but even I noticed a change in her this last week, more sullen. I thought all the work was just starting to get to her. I never had a chance to ask if there was anything wrong.”
“There’s enough blame to go around,” admitted Reihyn. “The question is, what can we do to keep this from happening again?”
“Put an end to this damn war.”
She gave Baxx a small smile. He was at a point in his life where he didn’t care what he said or to whom, even a starship captain. A quick look at Reihyn showed that he shared the sentiment.
“All department heads will have to remain vigilant, report any changes in behaviour to you, Counsellor. Hopefully, we’ll prevent this from happening again.”
“What about York?” Ramirez spoke up. “What’ll happen to her?”
They looked at each other for a moment, before all eyes rested on the Captain. “Given the circumstances, I’m not going to write her up for this, but she can’t stay onboard. When we get to Starbase 272, I’ll see if she can be rotated off the crew. Counsellor, I’d appreciate an assessment from yourself so she can get the long-term help she needs.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll also double check the listings; make sure that there aren’t any others onboard who may have lost family recently.”
* * * * *
Mecell Koen bolted up in bed, the sheets soaked with sweat as he wept, terrified at the nightmares that haunted his waking mind making him feel as though he was surrounded and in immediate danger.
“Lights!” he rasped.
As the darkness vanished, he looked around at the remaining shadows and found nothing lurking in them, except his boots under the table on the opposite side of the room. Still his breathing was sharp and shallow, the terror of his dream staying with him. He climbed out of his bed and peeled off his sleepwear, which was ringing with perspiration.
Even alone in his room, he felt uneasy, looking all around him, just to make sure the shadowy figures that plagued his nights weren’t going to come for him. He stepped into the small private head, stopping in front of the basin and filled it with cold water. He splashed it over his face and shivered as it ran down his neck and dripped onto his chest. He looked up at his reflection in the mirror, seeing his ashen complexion and the fear in his own eyes—something that was never far away whenever he took the time to look at himself. He straightened up, so as to see his bare chest reflected hack at him. Raising his hand and traced the scar he bore, a lasting physical reminder of the day he lost his mother, all he had known of his family. It started on his left collar bone, near his shoulder, came down a diagonal path to just below his right nipple. At the time he hadn’t felt the deep slash, so numbed by being forced to watch the brutalisation and death of his mother, he’d never felt his own pain. It would’ve killed him, had it not been for the nun who had found him. She had bound his wounds and nursed him back to health, though he was so weakened by the worse moment of his young life, that he couldn’t even remember her name or even her face, just her kind turquoise eyes.
He blinked back the tears of memory that threatened to flow down his cheeks, grabbing a towel he patted his face and body dry, then headed back into his cabin. He knew that he wouldn’t get any more sleep this night, so he grabbed some loose clothing and headed to the mess hall, needing something to help steady himself, also wanting to see familiar, friendly faces.
The Orion was by no means a small ship, but the lack of crew onboard gave her an even greater sense of size. He kept up a brisk pace until he reached the mess, entering to find ten others dotted around the tables. With replicators being one of the systems that were unsalvageable, the crew still relied of ration packs for food, though had managed to get a drinks dispenser working. He forewent anything solid, not trusting his tight stomach to keep it down, instead ordered a camomile tea—one of his few friends at the Academy had introduced it to him as a way of helping him relax.
With hot mug in hand, he sat down at an empty table, not seeking any company but not wanting to be alone. He held it with both hands and stared into the amber liquid, inhaling the fragrant steam and closing his eyes as he took the first sip. It was a little ritual he undertook, focusing on the familiarity and simplicity of the tea, whilst letting the world around him slip away.
“—he freaks me out,” a faint voice from another table pierced his veil of calm.
“Which one? They all look the same to me.”
“The one with the plasma burn on the side his face. His creepy, amber eyes—”
Mecell’s eyes shot open and he spun towards the table behind him, knocking over his mug, heart hammering in his chest as any tranquillity he may have found evaporated like the steam from his tea.
“What?” he gasped, looking at the two human security crewmen.
“Sir?” asked Anders, a petite, freckled redhead.
“O…one of the Cardassians…he has amber eyes and…and…”
“A plasma burn on the right side of his face,” Patel confirmed.
Unsteadily, he got to his feet, his body feeling heavy and cold to its very core. He left his table and spilt drink, stumbling towards the exit. Behind him the two guards called after him, sharing a worried look with each other, before Anders tapped her combadge.
Mecell staggered into the corridor, barely remembering where he was and having no clue just where he was going. It’s not possible…it can’t be him. Please, dear Prophets, don’t let it be him, was all he could think, over and over until it became a mantra. Even though he had only been ten at the time, the faces of the men who’d taken his mother from him would stay with him until the day he died. The four-man squad had found them sheltering from the elements in an abandoned farm house, and as rain lashed the remains of the roof and wind whistled through the broken windows, they had spent hours violating her. As bad as the others were, relishing her screams and grinning as they punched her for struggling, their leader was even worse. He’d held Mecell still and forced him to watch, slicing open his chest when he’d tried to look away, then after the others had had enough, he took his turn, taking her life by the time he’d finished. His face had been marred with a plasma burn on the right side; but it was his eyes, his vicious amber eyes that haunted Mecell’s nightmares.
He fell against the bulkhead and slumped to the deck, muttering, “It can’t be him.”
He was still there when D’Kehra found him several minutes later. His eyes staring deep into his past, he didn’t see her crouch beside him, didn’t feel the warm hand on his face, didn’t hear her soft voice say his name.
“It can’t be him. It can’t be him. It can’t be him…”
* * * * *
* * * * *
Captain’s log, stardate: 51981.6.
Final preparations are being made to the brig, whilst the extra crewmen pulled from their regular duties to bolster Security being given their orders from Lieutenant D’Kehra. We will rendezvous with the Reliant in thirty minutes, at which point we will receive six Cardassian prisoners of war, who we’ve been tasked to deliver to Starbase 272 for Starfleet Intelligence.
There is a great sense of unease among the crew—and myself, if I’m honest. Over the last nine months we’ve had a few Cardassians onboard, survivors from battlefields we’ve run SAR-ops at, but this is different. Fortunately, we’ve been granted permission to exceed the warp speed restriction and Lieutenant Lanali assures me she can maintain factor eight-point-two for as long as we need, that means we’ll reach the station in seven days.
This is going to be a very hard week.
End log.
* * * * *
This would be one of the rare times the antiquated design of the Orion was actually of benefit, as the brig didn’t use forcefields like modern cells. The doorway was secured with charged bars, which stunned whoever touched them. It was a feature Lieutenant j.g. D’Kehra had always been a little dubious of, until now that was. Even if the power to the cells failed, the bars were made of a tritanium composite, which would take a phaser an hour to cut through, so whoever went in wasn’t getting out until Security let them. The rest of the bulkheads, as well as the ceiling and deck panels, were all reinforced and could withstand a photon grenade—apparently a feature that was added from 2290 onwards, after an explosion had taken out the rear wall of a cell onboard another starship.
She would also have three guards standing watch in the cell block, whilst one would be stationed in the armoury, and another would be monitoring from the main office. Everything that happened in those six cells would be watched and recorded from the moment the prisoners arrived to when they left. An extra precaution they were taking was for them to be beamed into the security complex and taken straight to their cells, after which then entire section would be blanketed by three transporter suppressors.
Seeing as how these six were classed as ‘high-value assets’, she wasn’t going to give the Dominion any chance of freeing them when they were in her custody.
“Reihyn to D’Kehra,” came the Captain’s steady tone through the intercom. When she’d last spoken to him it’d been in his bed that morning, where they’d gone over all the arrangements that’d been made as the sweat cooled on their naked bodies.
She smiled to herself as she responded. “Go ahead, sir.”
“We’re ready to transport. Are you go?”
Taking one quick look at her team, she raised her rifle and the others followed suit. “We are go here.”
A moment later the space in the middle of the seven armed security guards was filled with the blue shimmer of a transporter beam. Six shafts coalesced from blurs of energy into solid matter, in the form of six adult Cardassians, four male and two female, all but one in military uniforms. The one civilian of the group was the oldest, a man by the name of Lorat Danal who was apparently a political figure (though puppet was probably a better description) under the new regime. She knew each of their names, as well as the details behind their capture.
She gave a nod to her team. Each of them trained their rifles on a single member of the group and led them into the cell block, one at a time. All of the Cardassians scowled at them, though none resisted. If their roles were reversed, everyone knew how the grey-scaled bastards treated their prisoners. D’Kehra gripped the handles of her rifle tighter, wondering how many Starfleet POW’s had died since being captured.
Once the last prisoner had entered the cell block, the doors closed behind him. She kept her grip tight for a moment longer before finally letting up and turning to Crewman Hitserik. “Activate the jammers.”
The Rigellian-Chelon nodded his leathery head and tapped the command into the console he sat at. There was a faint hum, but no other indication that anything had changed.
“All three fields active and stable. We have one hundred percent coverage, Lieutenant.” He looked at another monitor. “Prisoners are in and cells secured.”
“Captain,” she called into the still-open comlink, “prisoners are onboard and secure. We are ready to proceed.”
“Acknowledged. Reihyn out.”
She tapped her combadge. “Watch two remain, all others resume posts.”
The cell block door opened again and three of her guards stepped back into the main office. The Cardassians knew nothing of what ships they were being transported aboard, so she didn’t want to let them know that herself and the seven guards they’d seen so far made up just over half of the department. For all they knew, they could be on an Excelsior-Class ship with dozens of guards watching over them.
As the Orion leapt to warp the deck under her feet rumbled softly.
* * * * *
Everyone was on edge, that much was obvious, though for most of the crew (the young and inexperienced) that stemmed from fear. They would’ve all heard the stories about the Cardassian Wars, as well as their treatment of prisoners, the Occupation of Bajor and other planets, but had little firsthand experience of the enemy they were facing off against. For Diego Ramirez however, his stemmed from barely contained rage.
He had been born and raised on Ronara Prime, a world along the Cardassian border that had been on the frontlines of two major conflicts between the Federation and the Union, as well as all the sabre-rattling that had followed. Then came the treaty of 2370, which saw his homeworld removed from the protection of the Federation and forced to fend for itself within the newly created Demilitarised Zone. Ramirez had been a Chief Petty Officer at the time, with sixteen years of loyal service to his name, but that decision on the part of the Federation made him question the wisdom to it. Then the DMZ turned into a warzone, with the colonists attacking one another with whatever resources they could get their hands on. He’d started to ask the question no one wanted to hear: when was Starfleet going to intervene?
No one in Starfleet seemed willing to make a decision, even after the Cardassian Military was caught supplying weapons to their colonists—the DMZ wasn’t worth another war over. Then, in July of 2371, Ronara was attacked. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He’d been the Cargo Chief onboard the Tian An Men at the time, which gave him considerable access across the ship, including the armoury; so he’d tagged cases of phaser rifles and photon grenades, as well as crates of ration packs, medical supplies and spare parts, appropriated a shuttle, beamed everything onboard and ran like hell into the Zone.
Thus began his life as a traitor. To this day, he didn’t regret his decision.
The following two years had been gruelling, living in old couriers and freighters, haphazardly reconfigured into combat ships, taking on a vastly superior enemy often with nothing but their own guile and stubbornness to rely upon. The men and women he’d lived with and fought beside became closer to him than family.
They were all dead now. He didn’t even know about those he’d left behind on Ronara.
The Spoon-Headed cowards had made a deal with the devil and now the entire quadrant was suffering for it. Ramirez couldn’t help but wonder if things had gone differently had Starfleet acted sooner. They would never know now.
When he’d first come aboard, Reihyn had ordered him to keep his opinions to himself, which he did, though that didn’t stop all those who knew he’d been Maquis from asking him—which was everyone onboard. He kept his replies short and as detached as he could. Some still tried to rile him up, but most had given up asking him.
Fortunately, with the ship so understaffed, it was easy to find a quiet place to work out some frustration, which was just what he’d planned to do as he headed though an empty section of deck ten, until a sound made him stop. He paused and listened in the dark—since no one was meant to be there it made no sense to keep the lights on. Just as he was about to write it off as one of the ships many creaks and groans, he heard it again. A faint metallic pop, the sound a panel made when being removed from the bulkhead. In the stillness of the empty corridors he couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
He tried to recall what was actually in the section, mostly science labs, all of which had been gutted and could be used as bunkrooms, an ESP junction, an auxiliary environmental station, a secondary water tank. Of course, it could well have been someone else doing the same thing he was, needing a private place to vent, or possibly some routine maintenance. But something just didn’t feel right.
Looking up and down the long curved corridor, he listened again and heard the noise again. It definitely sounded marginally louder coming from port, so he headed towards it. His time in the Maquis had taught him a great deal about stealth, which he applied now, keeping his footfalls light but covering ground swiftly. He was fifteen meters down the passage when he saw the beam of a flashlight, bouncing and shuffling around, quickly followed by a grunt of exertion and the thunk of a heavy bulkhead panel being set down.
Whoever it was, they were working with the environmental controls. He knew of no scheduled maintenance that needed to be carried out on the system.
Moving steadily, he neared the shadowy figure. They were humanoid, which ruled out Navix and K3 Brown, with a slight build, but other than that he couldn’t get anything more. They were so focused on whatever they were doing that they were oblivious to him, so he closed to within five meters. He set his fists on his hips.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, his booming voice echoing throughout the empty section.
The figure spun and stood, pointing the brilliant light straight at his face, quickly followed by a muffled, “Frak!”
Before he could say anything else, the flashlight swung towards his head. He brought his hand up and caught them by the wrist, twisting it so they dropped the light and yelped, before pushing their arm behind their back and slamming them into the bulkhead.
“Computer, lights.”
The corridor went from pitch black to brightly lit and he had to blink rapidly to help his eyes adjust. When they did, he looked at the face pressed against the smooth gunmetal grey wall. Of all those on the crew, the last person he’d expected to see was Corpsman Tabitha York.
“What the hell are you going here, Petty Officer?”
“Let go,” she growled, trying to wriggle free, but he kept his grip tight, making her yelp as she struggled.
“Answer me.”
“I was taking care of those frakking Cardies!”
He glanced down at the open panel, suddenly realising what she meant. “You were going to vent the atmosphere, suffocate them.”
“Yes.”
“What if you’d sucked the oxygen out of the entire security complex? We would’ve lost at least four crewmen.”
“Headquarters would call that ‘acceptable loses’,” she said with a humourless laugh. “Help me, Chief. We can rid this galaxy of six more of those bastards! They don’t deserve to live, not after they’ve killed so many who did!” He noticed her eyes well up with angry tears.
He paused a moment before finally asking. “Who was it?”
Feeling her body shudder as she sobbed, he relaxed his grip. “My twin brother, Ethan. He was on the Harriman.”
The Harriman had been lost with all hands just ten days ago, taken out by a squadron of Cardassian cruisers as they’d gone to the aid of a stricken hospital ship. With so many names of the dead, wounded and missing coming in each week, he’d long since given up trying to keep track of them all.
“I’m sorry, York. As much as you may think killing those Cardies in the brig will help you, I can tell you this, it won’t. It’ll just make you into one of them, a murderer.”
“They deserve to suffer.”
“I know they do,” he told her. They all do, a voice in the back of his mind affirmed.
* * * * *
Corpsman York lay sedated on a biobed, whilst Captain Reihyn, Doctor Baxx, Chief Ramirez and Counsellor Myza stood in the CMO’s office. The Chief leant against the wall, arms folded, Baxx sat behind his desk, looking deflated, whilst the Captain looked at the young woman though the transparent aluminium window. Myza sat in one of the chairs opposite the Bolian surgeon, feeling as miserable as the rest of them looked.
“I can’t believe I missed that,” she repeated. “I set the computer to search all the names that are posted, looking for any that may have connections to the crew. I don’t know what happened, how could I have missed her twin brother?”
“Damn computers,” Baxx muttered, pushing his desktop terminal to the side.
The Rigellian turned back towards the room. “No one’s blaming you, Counsellor. I read every single name on that list; I should’ve seen it too.”
“York’s never been a social butterfly,” Baxx began, “but even I noticed a change in her this last week, more sullen. I thought all the work was just starting to get to her. I never had a chance to ask if there was anything wrong.”
“There’s enough blame to go around,” admitted Reihyn. “The question is, what can we do to keep this from happening again?”
“Put an end to this damn war.”
She gave Baxx a small smile. He was at a point in his life where he didn’t care what he said or to whom, even a starship captain. A quick look at Reihyn showed that he shared the sentiment.
“All department heads will have to remain vigilant, report any changes in behaviour to you, Counsellor. Hopefully, we’ll prevent this from happening again.”
“What about York?” Ramirez spoke up. “What’ll happen to her?”
They looked at each other for a moment, before all eyes rested on the Captain. “Given the circumstances, I’m not going to write her up for this, but she can’t stay onboard. When we get to Starbase 272, I’ll see if she can be rotated off the crew. Counsellor, I’d appreciate an assessment from yourself so she can get the long-term help she needs.”
“Of course, sir. I’ll also double check the listings; make sure that there aren’t any others onboard who may have lost family recently.”
* * * * *
Mecell Koen bolted up in bed, the sheets soaked with sweat as he wept, terrified at the nightmares that haunted his waking mind making him feel as though he was surrounded and in immediate danger.
“Lights!” he rasped.
As the darkness vanished, he looked around at the remaining shadows and found nothing lurking in them, except his boots under the table on the opposite side of the room. Still his breathing was sharp and shallow, the terror of his dream staying with him. He climbed out of his bed and peeled off his sleepwear, which was ringing with perspiration.
Even alone in his room, he felt uneasy, looking all around him, just to make sure the shadowy figures that plagued his nights weren’t going to come for him. He stepped into the small private head, stopping in front of the basin and filled it with cold water. He splashed it over his face and shivered as it ran down his neck and dripped onto his chest. He looked up at his reflection in the mirror, seeing his ashen complexion and the fear in his own eyes—something that was never far away whenever he took the time to look at himself. He straightened up, so as to see his bare chest reflected hack at him. Raising his hand and traced the scar he bore, a lasting physical reminder of the day he lost his mother, all he had known of his family. It started on his left collar bone, near his shoulder, came down a diagonal path to just below his right nipple. At the time he hadn’t felt the deep slash, so numbed by being forced to watch the brutalisation and death of his mother, he’d never felt his own pain. It would’ve killed him, had it not been for the nun who had found him. She had bound his wounds and nursed him back to health, though he was so weakened by the worse moment of his young life, that he couldn’t even remember her name or even her face, just her kind turquoise eyes.
He blinked back the tears of memory that threatened to flow down his cheeks, grabbing a towel he patted his face and body dry, then headed back into his cabin. He knew that he wouldn’t get any more sleep this night, so he grabbed some loose clothing and headed to the mess hall, needing something to help steady himself, also wanting to see familiar, friendly faces.
The Orion was by no means a small ship, but the lack of crew onboard gave her an even greater sense of size. He kept up a brisk pace until he reached the mess, entering to find ten others dotted around the tables. With replicators being one of the systems that were unsalvageable, the crew still relied of ration packs for food, though had managed to get a drinks dispenser working. He forewent anything solid, not trusting his tight stomach to keep it down, instead ordered a camomile tea—one of his few friends at the Academy had introduced it to him as a way of helping him relax.
With hot mug in hand, he sat down at an empty table, not seeking any company but not wanting to be alone. He held it with both hands and stared into the amber liquid, inhaling the fragrant steam and closing his eyes as he took the first sip. It was a little ritual he undertook, focusing on the familiarity and simplicity of the tea, whilst letting the world around him slip away.
“—he freaks me out,” a faint voice from another table pierced his veil of calm.
“Which one? They all look the same to me.”
“The one with the plasma burn on the side his face. His creepy, amber eyes—”
Mecell’s eyes shot open and he spun towards the table behind him, knocking over his mug, heart hammering in his chest as any tranquillity he may have found evaporated like the steam from his tea.
“What?” he gasped, looking at the two human security crewmen.
“Sir?” asked Anders, a petite, freckled redhead.
“O…one of the Cardassians…he has amber eyes and…and…”
“A plasma burn on the right side of his face,” Patel confirmed.
Unsteadily, he got to his feet, his body feeling heavy and cold to its very core. He left his table and spilt drink, stumbling towards the exit. Behind him the two guards called after him, sharing a worried look with each other, before Anders tapped her combadge.
Mecell staggered into the corridor, barely remembering where he was and having no clue just where he was going. It’s not possible…it can’t be him. Please, dear Prophets, don’t let it be him, was all he could think, over and over until it became a mantra. Even though he had only been ten at the time, the faces of the men who’d taken his mother from him would stay with him until the day he died. The four-man squad had found them sheltering from the elements in an abandoned farm house, and as rain lashed the remains of the roof and wind whistled through the broken windows, they had spent hours violating her. As bad as the others were, relishing her screams and grinning as they punched her for struggling, their leader was even worse. He’d held Mecell still and forced him to watch, slicing open his chest when he’d tried to look away, then after the others had had enough, he took his turn, taking her life by the time he’d finished. His face had been marred with a plasma burn on the right side; but it was his eyes, his vicious amber eyes that haunted Mecell’s nightmares.
He fell against the bulkhead and slumped to the deck, muttering, “It can’t be him.”
He was still there when D’Kehra found him several minutes later. His eyes staring deep into his past, he didn’t see her crouch beside him, didn’t feel the warm hand on his face, didn’t hear her soft voice say his name.
“It can’t be him. It can’t be him. It can’t be him…”
* * * * *
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