Star Trek: Sigils and Unions--The Thirteenth Order

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction' started by Nerys Ghemor, Aug 18, 2008.

  1. CeJay

    CeJay Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Starfleet and Cardassians seems to work relatievely well in the beginning stages of this operation. Folani, I'm getting the impression, is still very much a wild card and might cause problems later on.

    It's going to be baptism by fire for this unlikely alliance. I'm looking forward to find out how well they do when the chips are down.

    Great stuff.
     
  2. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Keep your eye on Speros, as well. I don't think he's any happier than Folani with this. That little spat could've been a lot worse if Daro hadn't cut it off.

    Not only is he coming into this with an attitude...but that little side conversation didn't help. I think the other Cardassians realized that species with stronger hearing wouldn't necessarily realize what they were doing, but from Speros' perspective, Folani tried to deliberately cut him and the other Cardassians out of the pattern, right to their faces.

    Thanks! :) I'm very glad you feel the characters stand apart from each other in personality. That's something I've definitely been trying to give a lot of attention to.
     
  3. DavidFalkayn

    DavidFalkayn Commodore Commodore

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    Very, very well done. And yes, you do a very good job in juggling the large cast of characters you have--these are individuals--not cardboard cutouts.
     
  4. TimmyWl

    TimmyWl Commodore Commodore

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    I do admire the nod to Captain Picard in the beginning of the story. It provided some sign of where the story comes from and namely the character of Macet. The bit at the end does portray the operation as advanced somewhat in their approach. It's really nice to see these Cardassians level-headed and complex; yet they are willing to achieve their goals of freedom with an unorthodox approach. I hope that they achieve it.

    I'm curious about the other inside person they planted - namely the false Vorta. Is she still alive or not?
     
  5. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Thanks! The people are the most fun for me--I love getting inside their heads, finding out what makes them tick, and watching what happens when you put them all in a room together.

    Example: I wasn't initially looking for the Speros-Berat animosity, but then when I threw them together, it just...kinda felt right to have the two not get along, and not just on Speros' end. Speros being a jackass isn't surprising. But if you ever read Betrayal, you'll see an impulsiveness to the way Lois Tilton wrote Berat. While in the novel that trait was pushed by circumstances to a huge extreme, I figured that had to speak to something in his nature under normal conditions. So I can just envision those two having been in an argument (probably more than one) before the one Macet prevented them from having--probably because Berat couldn't keep from calling Speros on it when he got obnoxious.

    Glad the stuff I wrote about Picard felt right to you. I expected that to tick off some people, but while I think Picard's had some good traits, Macet does kinda let me vent at the flaws some. ;)

    The descriptions of Cardassian battle plans that I've seen have always indicated a great degree of planning and a lot of cunning: "a plan within a plan within a plan leading to a trap." They're a disciplined people, too--not unemotional like Vulcans, but they can get a serious, singleminded dedication. As if it weren't difficult enough already to write, this has really given me a lot to live up to--I not only have to write a battle plan, but give it those Cardassian fingerprints! (And the way I envision Berat and the workings of his mind makes it even tougher.)

    I believe she is. I won't be able to revisit that for a few chapters, but yes.
     
  6. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    All right, guys...getting closer to things going crazy.

    So now you'll learn something (maybe a few of you) always wanted to know about Cardassians.

    And for the other thing, I leave you with one word...RETRO. Let's get ready to GRUMBLE! (Trust me, you'll get it when you read that part. I will be interested, though, to find out how far you had to get into that section to figure out exactly what Rebek's been talking about. Or if you even figured it out in the previous section... ;) )

    ---------

    2375—The Dominion War—Eleven days after the attack on Rondac III

    Cardassian Rasgălor of Lessek

    The largest of the foothills were at their back now; following another day of joint training, the Thirteenth Order had set out with their supplies on their backs just like Macet remembered from his earliest days as a new ragoç under the boot of the Vigilance Corps. The gul of the Trager would have preferred more time to integrate the Starfleet troops into their unit, but time was quickly running out—the Romac, which had been under repair at the orbital shipyard, was set to undock at midday and spend the next four hours running through a postoperative checklist for spaceworthiness. This would only provide the other three Gălor-class vessels an excuse to stay in the area for so much longer. This left a four-hour window for the Thirteenth Order to strike.

    It had been a two-day march to their current position, a network of kelbonite-fistrium caves just northeast of the planetside shipyard’s shield perimeter. So far the Starfleet soldiers, while they betrayed their doubts more openly than most Cardassian soldiers would ever dare—as though we here have a right to comment, Macet wryly thought—had performed as well as could be expected for beings who had been away from the battlefield for anywhere from six days to six months ago. A fair part of their enthusiasm came from the prospect of leaving behind the compound they had known for all but the last few days as their prison. They hungered to strike at the Dominion, certainly…but more and more he observed them looking to Makis Spirodopoulos for more than just encouragement and discipline as they had in their internment days—they looked to him for a goal, a direction. And so far, they seemed receptive to that direction. As long as Spirodopoulos stayed true…the Thirteenth Order had hope.

    Macet balefully eyed the device dangling from the crook of Rebek’s elbow. He tried and failed to suppress a groan. “You really meant it.”

    The petite gul knelt next to Macet on the dusty grey Lessekda soil flashed a toothy smile and nodded. Good, Macet thought even as he questioned her sanity in bringing that thing into the field. If she can smile, then maybe she has made the right choice in joining us after all. Maybe this is what she needs.

    “I desperately hoped I had the wrong image in my head when you said ‘hunter array,’ but I can see my fears were justified. Please tell me you don’t intend to foist that misbegotten brainchild of the Science Ministry upon us all. It never even performed as advertised, not to mention the other reason we all hated it.”

    Rebek laughed—not much of a laugh, but recognizable nonetheless. “I’ve been tinkering with it on and off for the past couple of years, with some advice from Berat, and I think I’ve solved all of the biggest problems. Granted, I still haven’t been able to make it interface with more complex systems like the ship’s computer—”

    “Which is what the wretched piece of skrăgh was supposed to do in the first place,” Macet cut in.

    “And that is still my primary objective—if I can ever get the proper code and hardware into place. Maybe someday after all this, I’ll see if Iymender will look at it…considering the kind of code he’s been writing lately, I have a feeling he’d have some ideas. Anyway, I’ve gotten the hunter array to talk to a number of stand-alone devices: my wristcomm, scanner…and the targeting scope of my rifle. I can fire a shot straight behind my back and see exactly where it’s heading, and depending on my settings, still see everything going on in front of me…a claim the Dominion and even the Federation—no offense,” she added with a quick glance at Spirodopoulos, “certainly can’t make of their targeting sensors.”

    “At least theirs look a little less…stupid,” Macet mumbled under his breath, unable to find a better word to describe the awkward ugliness of the hunter array. “You try boarding an ali—er…Federation starship wearing one of those. You should’ve seen the looks on their faces.” Central Command policy at that time had stated that the hunter array was to be worn during all boarding procedures, ostensibly as a means of detecting any threats aboard foreign vessels, but also—had the thing actually worked correctly—to maintain a connection with their ship’s computer and even remotely operate it if necessary.

    Macet had satisfied the letter of the regulation by ordering his glinns to wear the hunter array for the initial transport, but let them ditch the hardly-functional devices in their quarters as soon as they had the chance. Central Command—not to mention the Obsidian Order—would surely have been displeased to say the least at the idea of leaving such ‘cutting-edge’ technology unguarded, but, Macet had rationalized, it wasn’t like the hunter array actually did anything right that he would need to worry about. As expected, the connection with the Trager’s computer had been tenuous at best…utterly scrambled after transport.

    A few months after that, the Science Ministry tacitly admitted its mistake and cut funding for any further development, and Central Command rescinded its ridiculous regulation. A couple months too late, of course. Macet summed up the entire thing with one sentence: “It was embarrassing.”

    “Well, I’m not about to pass up something that works. Somebody should get a picture of this so I can send it next time that she-hound on the Yazar tries to tell me I’m too obsessed with my looks.”

    Macet deadpanned, “You mean Gul Ocett?”

    “I mean exactly what I said,” Rebek replied, her flutelike voice lethally sweet.

    The rivalry between the two was the stuff of legend, and went all the way back to their basic training. Tayben Berat had been present for one exchange he later described to Macet: Gul Ocett had publicly derided Rebek’s ‘vanity’ and then claimed she could stuff the ‘pocket-sized gul’ into a vompăt ball. Rebek had retorted that someone ought to check Ocett’s hormone levels, and defended her creative interpretation of Cardassian Guard hairstyle regulations on grounds that, I may be a military girl, but at least I remember that I am a girl!

    Ocett’s body had tensed like she was about to make good on her threat. Tayben tried to intercede—even though he was less than a month out of physical therapy at the time—and Ocett had simply fixed him with an aristocratic stare and said, Just you try it. Rebek had met Ocett’s gaze with equal coolness and declared, Thank you for that lovely insight. Then she’d turned her back and left the room, head held high. Berat had followed not far behind, but equally dignified in tactical retreat.

    Macet, of course, had been none too impressed by Ocett after that report. He succinctly commented, “No comment.”

    Rebek rolled her eyes, then slid the hunter array over her head, where she had unpinned her braids to accommodate the ungainly device. The crosspiece sat right on her cheekbones, the vertical band covering the krilătbre-yezul, the ‘hunter-eye’ from which the array derived its name—the inverted-teardrop-shaped prominence on every Cardassian therapsid’s forehead from which other peoples derived some of their favorite racial slurs.

    For non-sentient creatures, the krilătbre-yezul made a fine sensor of bioelectric fields. This gave the vole in particular an impressive ability to detect pursuers, not to mention a nasty affinity for high-voltage conduits. Their ability to thrive in the midst of electrical hotspots where no cardasdanoid could follow without shutting down entire systems—most often vital systems with the greatest power flow—was what made the little vermin so blasted difficult to exterminate once they got into an artificial structure…especially ships and stations. The Cardassians’ ancestors had possessed other functioning nodes, but now those were so in appearance only, so in people this sixth sense was much attenuated: one generally had to draw within a meter to sense another’s bioelectric field. But with training, it was possible to use the input of the krilătbre-yezul to sense forcefields, holographic projections, and other forms of energy manipulation.

    The hunter array, in addition to its vaunted heads-up display capabilities, intensified input to the vestigial sense much as an amplification device might for someone hard of hearing, granting a properly-trained Cardassian that much heightened awareness of his or her environment. While most soldiers, Macet included, had found that feature frustratingly difficult to interpret to the point of detracting from their situational awareness, he wasn’t surprised that Rebek, with her sniper background, had cracked the code.

    Rebek reached up to her right cheekbone and twisted a small knob on the hunter array. Macet caught brief, iridescent flickers radiating between the crosspieces like light off a soap bubble: orange, yellow, green, cyan in turn before the field settled into invisibility. Once attuned to its wearer, the hunter array provided a heads-up display comprised of light so close to the eyes and of such low intensity that after initialization it was almost impossible for anyone else to detect. Next Rebek switched on the scanner that hung on her belt, followed by an adjustment to her wristcomm.

    Finally, she hefted her sniper-issue disruptor rifle and tweaked a few buttons and knobs on various panels, the last one right on the business end. The sturdy rifle whined to life. Crouched down, rifle aimed ahead, Rebek nodded. “Ready.” Her eyes were raptor-intense, all trace of levity evaporated. All the vengeance of Septimus III bottled up into one tiny vessel, Macet thought, at once impressed and wary. We’ll need that fire—as long as we can keep it contained.

    Glinn Daro laid a hand on Spirodopoulos’ arm and the terhăn nodded. It was time for them to move to the center of the formation. Gul Speros waited there already, tasked to lead the main assault after the first teams were through. “Wilkes!” Spirodopoulos called as he turned back. “You’re up!”

    Though the young, orange-haired woman working her way forward had quickly been outranked by newer arrivals, the orange-haired Ivy Wilkes had gained a sort of mascot status for being the first to lead the Starfleet contingent. Now she volunteered as the trigger for Iymender’s viruses. And if his sabotage failed, she would be the first to fall.

    So now I send not only my own people, but the children of another state to dangle their fatelines before the grasp of death. My one inheritance from my mother’s line, the one she gave me despite herself, he thought, acknowledging the DNA that under most circumstances they wished more than anything to expunge. We are meddlers, all of us—helpless to behold the universe as it is without a vision of what it could be, overlaid on the world as clear as the hunter array’s images are for Zejil. And we cannot help but see the lines from purpose to means to end like the tendrils of a vine and to feel the sense that they are there for the grasping if we would but reach.

    Macet, for his part, remained near the front, but the point position belonged to Wilkes and Rebek.

    The gul of the Romac pointed ahead. “Follow me—the sensor perimeter isn’t far.”
     
  7. TimmyWl

    TimmyWl Commodore Commodore

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    Good stuff!

    I do like the story going into action.
     
  8. Gibraltar

    Gibraltar Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The layers of subtle communication going on between the players in this strategy session are fantastic. We have a group of very distinct individuals, all playing along with Macet's creation, and all for their own reasons. Needless to say, without the Dominion threat, this group would be at each other's throats in an instant. This tenuous alliance desperately needs a victory if there's any hope of it's continuing.

    I wish them well, for no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Bring on the 'battle friction' and the 'fog of war!' How this disparate group copes with adversity will be highly enjoyable to watch!
     
  9. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Thanks! :)

    Thanks! And yes...it's absolutely critical and all of them know it.

    The tragic part is that without these events, they probably would be firing on each other as part of the Dominion War--and while some of them would be doing so out of hate, some wouldn't. Gul Berat, for instance...it's kind of sad to think that he'd probably end up having to destroy people that you now see him getting along well with, out of self-defense, and that those people would try to do the same thing to him.

    I certainly hope I'll be able to pull off the battle. I think the space combat sections are coming together OK--the ground combat, however...man, that's a struggle to write. I hope you'll forgive me if I have to slow down yet again on posting in order to pull it off.
     
  10. DavidFalkayn

    DavidFalkayn Commodore Commodore

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    You've done an excellent job in making these aliens understandable while at the same time being...alien. I'm looking forward to the fight--you're right, those sequences can be hard to get right and are often a struggle to get through, but it's worth it in the end.
     
  11. CeJay

    CeJay Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, one of the most fascinating aspects of this story remains the fact that we see everything from a uniquely Cardassian perspective. Which of course is a lot of fun. Even though I'm still not sure how these guys compare to the seemingly much more mean-spirited Cardassians we used to see in DS9. I guess at the end of the day you got moderates and fundamentals everywhere.

    I liked the idea of the failed Cardassian weapons system. Looks like nobody is spared from bad administrative decisions.

    Good suff and a lot more to look forward to.
     
  12. SLWalker

    SLWalker The OG Scotty Fangirl Premium Member

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    The interaction between Macet and Rebek was aces, as well as the backstory there and the explanation of the hunter's eye. Good work!
     
  13. RobertScorpio

    RobertScorpio Pariah

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    Ummm..again..I agree. I like what you are doing here with these two. As I told you in our PMs, you have this stuff down. Two thumbs up..

    Rob
     
  14. TheLoneRedshirt

    TheLoneRedshirt Commodore Commodore

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    Great character work here. You continue to peel back the layers of these Cardassians - making them more real. It will be interesting to see how the alliance holds up in the heat of battle.
     
  15. Mistral

    Mistral Vice Admiral Admiral

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    All that was said before me and -brilliant explanation of the "spoon" in the Cardassian head-and the elaboration of the voles. Bravo!
     
  16. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Thank you to everybody who's read and commented! :)

    I did want to take on this one specifically...

    Exactly...that's one of the things I want people to carry away from this--that in the end, unless you're dealing with the Borg, there's only so much conformity you're going to get even in the strictest societies. That's true under regimes like Iran, China, and so on (I do not use North Korea as an example since we know Cardassia is more open to outside contact than that--making that example too extreme).

    I don't deny the existence of those mean-spirited Cardassians at all, and though you do have a real conglomeration of those who aren't that way...I've tried to make some allusions to the dissonance between them and others.

    That's part of why my guls don't always get along well with others. Lemme put it this way...there are MANY reasons, on many levels, why Gul Ocett doesn't play nicely with Rebek or Berat. There's also the late Gul Vuraal--I won't spoil exactly what he did yet, but let's just say Glinn Daro's former CO was NOT a nice guy. (Oh...and if you read Betrayal [DS9 novel #6], you'll get to see what Berat's former CO was like. EEEEK! Let's just say Berat has some very personal reasons not to run HIS ship that way!)

    As for Gul Speros...I shall be interested to see what you make of his character as you start getting to know him more.

    Yep...bureaucracies breed such things. I think it's got to be a universal constant. I have also noticed that repressive bureaucracies take even longer to rectify those mistakes than the democratic ones--so the idea of it taking MONTHS for them to de-fund and discontinue the hunter array program made sense to me. ;)
     
  17. Nerys Ghemor

    Nerys Ghemor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Next section of this chapter...I'm splitting the battle into smaller sections to post because it's got a LOT of moving parts and it's proving difficult to write. I hope you'll bear with me; it's better than nothing, I guess. ;)

    -------

    2375—The Dominion War—Two minutes to ground battle
    Cardassian Rasgălor of Lessek

    The air was alive here.

    Its resonance spread along her skin, yet she knew its point of origin as her ears might pinpoint the hum of a tuning fork. The impression certainly belonged to a person—that much was obvious, but there was something feverish about it, a strange quickness to its oscillations: a heart that beat faster to drive a metabolism that produced, shed, and replenished more heat than seemed natural.

    Its source, Ensign Wilkes, stood at arm’s length from Rebek. It was all the Cardassian woman could do to keep from stealing a glance at Wilkes’ holster to make sure that disruptor pistol was still where it belonged.

    The sixth Cardassian sense in its unaided form was a general proximity alarm at best, but with the help of the hunter array, she received the refined, directional input her pre-Hebitian hunter-fisher ancestors must have had. Accordingly, the hunter array’s amplification tickled at some of the most primitive instincts: take heed, predators roam here. And by it Rebek sensed the base’s shield perimeter a quarter of a terhăn kilometer ahead as ripples might spread from a bobbing buoy in a lake.

    The base sat recessed in a low valley where the flat ground had allowed it to be built quickly and with minimal resources. Defense against this sort of straight-on ground assault had been the last thing on its creators’ minds, however, or they surely would have opted for the high ground. Lessek lay well within Union territory, for starters—and secondly, in the age of shields, transporters, and precision space strikes, the usual procedure for an attack on such a small facility would have been to attack from air or space: hammer away the facility’s shields, beam troops directly in, and seize the facility from the inside. Ground troops had their role, of course—but in places where transporters could operate, typically as support rather than the main thrust of an assault.

    Three terhăn meters ahead, the hunter array traced a green line on the ground before her eyes: the sensor perimeter. She turned to the Starfleet ensign. “This is it. Are you ready?”

    Wilkes nodded apprehensively. Though she tried to hide it, the ridgelessness of her eyes literally shed light on how they widened with the anticipation and fear.

    “Then go—we haven’t much time.”

    The young Starfleet officer glanced sideways at Rebek, a second hesitation born in her eyes. She drew breath to speak, and when the words emerged—in accented but passable Cardăsda, Rebek understood why. “Gorhoç edek, Gul.” It was the formal reply of subordinate to gul: I obey.

    Wilkes knelt into a defensive-ready crouch much like a Cardassian fighter beginning the Stratagems—knees bent, one foot slightly forward, hands out, fingers splayed as if to ward off an oncoming attacker.

    Then she sprinted forward, kicking up a cloud of grey dust behind her.



    2375—The Dominion War—Two minutes to ground battle

    Cardassian Union Warship Sherouk

    A dull burn crawled up Gul Berat’s spine, into his shoulders, and down through his wrists. This was to be expected; such was the price he paid for intensity of emotion, both past and present. Though his lower mind lobbied for a painkiller and his body protested that he ought to at least step into his office and work through the stretching series his physical therapists had assigned four years ago, he refused. He had promised his crew when he accepted the ship sigil from Gul Zarvat that through him they would receive the full support of the Cardassian Union. True, he had been able-bodied then, but that changed neither his oath nor his will to execute it. And right now, he was needed here on the bridge, in the command seat.

    The turbolift clicked into place behind him, and Glinn Yejain stepped onto the bridge. Berat did not rise to accept his first officer’s report. A transfer from another crew might have interpreted this gesture the usual way—the assertion of superiority—but from Berat it was simply the one concession he made to his nerves to preserve stamina for later. Yejain and the others knew this pre-battle stillness quite well, and accepted it because they knew what it would give way to. “All sections report ready,” Yejain announced as soon as he stood at the foot of the command seat platform with a quick, shallow bow.

    “Good work, Yejain,” Berat replied with a smile, inclining his head to represent the reciprocating bow. None of the four ships in the Thirteenth Order formation had openly declared battle alert lest the Dominion detect their systems girding for war. Still, on each ship the first officer—or acting first officer, in most cases—had personally toured the decks of their Gă’ălour from nose to backfin to muster the crew to full readiness. “Be ready to bring weapons and shields online the instant we hear from the surface.”

    Berat felt a knot in his stomach. That spot in the center of his back sent a particularly insistent jolt throughout his body. His right shoulder twitched despite a now-instinctive meditative exercise intended to seize the errant energy discharge and divert it where its effects would show less. Yejain’s sharp eyes clearly saw, but he gave no sign; he was well used to this by now. “I obey, Gul.”

    Berat counted himself grateful: considering the circumstances, this was actually shaping up to be a relatively good day. And an excellent thing indeed, considering I’m the only gul spaceside—not to mention of the glinns, only Va’Kust is younger than I am. The glinns commanding the other ships—Va’Kust, Topak, and Hatel of the Ghiletz, all awaited his signal. And in the case of catastrophe, command of anything that might remain of the Thirteenth Order would fall to him.

    He closed his eyes.

    Pieces of the Prenkar rained down like meteorites on the surface of Septimus III and volley after volley of quantum torpedoes on the planet’s surface blew a choking cloud of radioactive dust into the atmosphere to join the rising ashes from innumerable brush fires, compounding astronomically every time they struck a weapons cache or a base reactor.

    Many good men—so many of them answering the call to service for the second time in their lives, when they should have been looking forward to their summit years or resting from prior injuries—had already perished in the Klingon ground assault. And the rest…the Klingons were determined now to obliterate them all rather than leave the now-defenseless survivors to contemplate the depths of their failure as Cardassians might have done. Any who lived through the final orbital assault—unlikely as that seemed—would succumb to radiation poisoning in short order: there would be no evacuation. The planet itself descended into a frigid hell far worse than nuclear winter, worthless for millennia to come.

    The Prenkar—gone. The Eleventh Order—gone. The life of Septimus III itself—gone.

    The Romac survived because he, Gul Tayben Berat, had chosen them. The Prenkar had been too far gone, already breaking apart. And the only way to save the Romac had been to abandon the Prenkar and the Eleventh Order to their fates. Cardassia needed the Romac. It needed Gul Rebek.

    But Cardassia had needed Gul Igrun and Legate Met’Orn, and their people as well.

    Berat released a shuddering breath.

    That can’t happen again. It just
    can’t, he fervently willed.

    The chronometer chimed and the bridge crew fell silent. There was no other signal; there would not be until—unless—the ground team succeeded.

    “The battle on the ground should be joined,” Berat announced. “Now we wait.”
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2008
  18. SLWalker

    SLWalker The OG Scotty Fangirl Premium Member

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    Oooh, excellent tension building! Yes, I think that I can wait for the next parts, as I'm sure they'll be worth it.
     
  19. Mistral

    Mistral Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Excellent! Can't wait!
     
  20. mirandafave

    mirandafave Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Have finished getting caught up with this story and I have one problem. Now that I am caught up I now have to impatiently await more.

    Terrific tale. The battle plan has been laid out but battle plans count for very little after the opening salvo. The success of the battle will probably exercise the 'unnatural alliance' greatly. But by the smae stroke both sides may get an awful lot from the partnership.

    Have to applaud the 'Hunter's Eye' explanation and indeed the way you used it to explain those god awful head dresses worn in The Wounded and lack thereof afterwards.

    Just wondering though if anyone will break under the stress - whether Cardassian or a Federation member. I think it is a likelihood though maybe one later down the line. All involved are under extreme stresss and even duress in having to co-operate with their until recent enemies and for some like Faloni almost natural enemies. All of which adds to the tension and drama crafted here.

    Excellent.