Dear readers,
My apologies for my previous attempts at this story. I think I am now on the right track. I chose to put out a new thread so that you wouldn't have to wade through the previous stuff. This revised version is similar in some respects, but I've added some scenes and changed some names. I hope it makes for a tighter, better story.
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DARK TERRITORY:
HERO OF THE FEDERATION
Jalana City Memorial Hospital
Bajor
November 2376
She stood quietly over the bed, watching the slow rise and fall of the patient’s chest. She was heartened that the woman no longer required a ventilator to breathe. Though the medics couldn’t tell her how long it would take for the woman to wake from her coma.
Even now she could see gray hairs growing like vines along the woman’s roots. And it had only been about six months. Shaking her head, she traced a finger down the woman’s dry cheek. The unconscious woman seemed so shrunken, so emptied of life, not the bold personage she had watched and studied for weeks, learning to imitate her perfectly.
The current disguise she wore now even bore a resemblance. Despite the fairer hair, the resemblance was unmistakable. She saw it in the widened eyes of the medical staff, heard it in the whispers of several nurses, “I thought the colonel didn’t have any family.”
The colonel didn’t. The woman shook her head. No, that’s not true, she realized. The woman did have family. Her own father had claimed her, and in a way that made them sisters. Growing up on Cardassia, programmed by the Obsidian Order, she never though there could ever come a day when she would consider a Bajoran nothing more than a terrorist or slave.
She laughed coldly, “Guess I was wrong,” she remarked, stroking the colonel’s still face again. “I’m sorry Kira.”
The woman’s breath caught as she felt the wind shift as the door opened. Her hand went for the disruptor under her robes. “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” The voice behind her was breezy, conversational. She kept her hand on the grip of her weapon. “You’re so predictable.”
“Is that what you think?”
“You’re here aren’t you?” The man’s voice was smug, insufferable, but she couldn’t deny that he was right, and that annoyed her the most.
“What do you want?”
“It’s time,” he said. The woman’s hand eased off her weapon and she gulped. She glanced down at Colonel Kira Nerys once more, for the last time.
“Okay,” Illiana Ghemor turned around slowly, to gaze into the shining eyes of Elim Garak. “Let’s go.”
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Crimson Shadow base
Cardassian Space
December 2376
The slight man held up the skeletal man’s arm up in triumph. “The election is won,” a dispirited Gul Ermst Martell said, smothering his anger. At this time, perhaps more than any other since the war had ended, he needed to think before he acted. Far more than just his life hung in the balance.
“On our backs!” Spat Gul Heftig, her neck plates bunching as she pounded the table with both heavy fists. “That vole Urlak recruited me! How could he do this! I had no intention to take up arms against the occupiers. I had merely joined the Crimson Order to receive my just due for my family, and it was he that flamed on about how the allied powers were exploiting our people and driving us to extinction!”
“It was true,” Gul Gavran replied hotly, “even if Urlak betrayed us, as has Dien just now!” He jabbed a finger at the screen. Martell had muted the sound but all three could see the jubilation among the crowd and they could feel the triumph radiating from Urlak’s pores.
The man was running for the premiership of the Cardassian Republic, and he had just scored a major political coup by negotiating a deal with Gul Vaidar Dien, their leader, for the Crimson Shadow to lay down its arms in exchange for amnesty.
Dien had made this decision without consulting them, and they suspected many others. Now they were left with a choice, pick up the remnants of their splintered army or fold. Martell wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Unlike many, his family had not been slaughtered by the Dominion in a spiteful gesture at the close of the war. They lived on a colony world far from the war. He didn’t fight for revenge or to avenge, instead he had taken up arms to secure his family’s future. Martell didn’t believe that a Cardassian government run by outsiders was in the long-term best interest of his family, or his people, and the Crimson Shadow had become the best tool to meld his thoughts and actions.
But perhaps Urlak and Dien had shown him another way. He had thought at first that Urlak’s working within the government was a clever ploy to take over from the inside. He had never scoffed at the old man like some of his brethren, he had never considered him a sellout, but as time drug on, he had become concerned that Urlak had been seduced and corrupted by a system had had pledged to raze to the ground.
The final straw had come when he had openly declared the Shadow outlaws and completely divorced them from the Crimson Order. In fact, he had done away with his veterans group, and merged them into a new political party, the Unity Faction. It was similar to how the True Way had become consumed by the system and ultimately irrelevant, a flapping, useless rightwing appendage to a dying polity.
The betrayal had felt deep, it had been personal, but nothing could’ve prepared Martell for Urlak working with the occupiers to actively hunt down, apprehend, or murder his former comrades. As the campaign heated up, the noose had grown tighter. Dien, feeling the pressure, as the putative leader of the Shadow, had buckled.
Martell pondered if he should do the same, though he knew not to voice such apostasy around true believers like Gavran or Heftig. He knew they would vaporize him on the spot. “We can’t let this stand,” Heftig declared.
“I say we make an example of Dien…and his family,” Gavran darkly suggested. “Blood in, blood out, that’s the only way you enter or leave the Crimson Shadow.”
Martell shook his head, glaring at the fervid Gavran. He had never cared much for the unkempt, undisciplined man. “We will not stain our movement by murdering innocents.”
Gavran laughed, “What do you think we have been doing all this time? We’re terrorists remember?”
“No, we are soldiers, fighting for the freedom of our people. The unfortunates who have died at the hands of my men have been collateral damage, they were never targeted,” Martell paused, putting the full force his judgment on Gavran, “Can the same be said of yours?”
Gavran was unfazed. To prove it, he propped his dusty boots on the table before replying, “It’s war,” he said with a shrug. Martell wanted to throttle the smug man.
Sensing that, Heftig jumped up, “Please let’s remember who the real enemy is. We might have different methods, but the end goal is the same, a Cardassia free of alien influence.” Both men uncomfortably nodded to that.
“So, what do we do now?” Gavran asked. Both Gavran and Heftig turned to Martell. Among the trio, he had pulled off the most successful engagements with their enemies.
“We first have to find out from the other commanders who still wish to continue,” Martell proposed.
“I would also suggest eliminating those who decide to leave the fight,” Gavran suggested. Martell paused, considering the idea.
“Only them, not their families,” he warned. Gavran shrugged again.
“I’ll make sure he retains honor,” Heftig promised. “But we must show that there is price to be paid for surrender.”
“I agree,” Martell said.
“But after that, what should we do?” Gavran asked, the first crack of doubt appearing in his facade of bravado.
Martell paused again, not sure what to say. Outside of the few hardcore partisans, he suspected that a lot of the foot soldiers were tired of fighting, they wanted to go home, and rebuild their shattered families and lives. After all, what had they accomplished thus far?
And others would see the amnesty for what Martell hated to admit it was, a way out, a way forward, a plausible alternative, to endless bloodshed. Perhaps there could be a political solution to removing the occupiers. He knew that change was in the wind with the Federation, that a new president, one far less enchanted with foreign entanglements, was about to assume office. Maybe this president would be amenable to removing Starfleet, but the same could not be said for the Klingons, their most hated foe.
And he would rather have the Federation remain to counterbalance the Klingons and keep the foreheads on a leash. The silence grew heavy, portentous, but Martell was determined to let it play out until an appropriate response emerged. He had always been a patient man.
“Did I catch you all at a bad time?” A voice snaked into his thoughts, startling him. Martell yanked his disruptor out of its holster. Both Heftig and Gavran were already aiming at the door.
Martell blinked in surprise. Before them stood a man more wanted by authorities than any of them. “How did you get in here?” Heftig demanded. The man winked at her before waltzing into the room.
“Are you seriously going to ask me that?” Elim Garak replied.
“What do you want?” Gavran asked, suspiciously. Garak had been blamed, chiefly by Urlak, as the mastermind behind the assassination of Premier Lang at Terok Nor. Since Urlak had made the claim it was in doubt, though it hadn’t stopped the wily Cardassian ex-spy from being hailed as a hero by many of Martell’s men.
“It appears you are experiencing a crisis of confidence,” Garak said, glancing at the ongoing celebration on the vidscreen. “Perhaps I can ameliorate your unease.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Heftig beat Martell to the punch.
Garak grinned, before leaning forward, his eyebrows knitting together. His tone was conspiratorial. “I never thought you’d ask.”
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My apologies for my previous attempts at this story. I think I am now on the right track. I chose to put out a new thread so that you wouldn't have to wade through the previous stuff. This revised version is similar in some respects, but I've added some scenes and changed some names. I hope it makes for a tighter, better story.
**********************************************************
DARK TERRITORY:
HERO OF THE FEDERATION
Jalana City Memorial Hospital
Bajor
November 2376
She stood quietly over the bed, watching the slow rise and fall of the patient’s chest. She was heartened that the woman no longer required a ventilator to breathe. Though the medics couldn’t tell her how long it would take for the woman to wake from her coma.
Even now she could see gray hairs growing like vines along the woman’s roots. And it had only been about six months. Shaking her head, she traced a finger down the woman’s dry cheek. The unconscious woman seemed so shrunken, so emptied of life, not the bold personage she had watched and studied for weeks, learning to imitate her perfectly.
The current disguise she wore now even bore a resemblance. Despite the fairer hair, the resemblance was unmistakable. She saw it in the widened eyes of the medical staff, heard it in the whispers of several nurses, “I thought the colonel didn’t have any family.”
The colonel didn’t. The woman shook her head. No, that’s not true, she realized. The woman did have family. Her own father had claimed her, and in a way that made them sisters. Growing up on Cardassia, programmed by the Obsidian Order, she never though there could ever come a day when she would consider a Bajoran nothing more than a terrorist or slave.
She laughed coldly, “Guess I was wrong,” she remarked, stroking the colonel’s still face again. “I’m sorry Kira.”
The woman’s breath caught as she felt the wind shift as the door opened. Her hand went for the disruptor under her robes. “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” The voice behind her was breezy, conversational. She kept her hand on the grip of her weapon. “You’re so predictable.”
“Is that what you think?”
“You’re here aren’t you?” The man’s voice was smug, insufferable, but she couldn’t deny that he was right, and that annoyed her the most.
“What do you want?”
“It’s time,” he said. The woman’s hand eased off her weapon and she gulped. She glanced down at Colonel Kira Nerys once more, for the last time.
“Okay,” Illiana Ghemor turned around slowly, to gaze into the shining eyes of Elim Garak. “Let’s go.”
*****************************************************************
Crimson Shadow base
Cardassian Space
December 2376
The slight man held up the skeletal man’s arm up in triumph. “The election is won,” a dispirited Gul Ermst Martell said, smothering his anger. At this time, perhaps more than any other since the war had ended, he needed to think before he acted. Far more than just his life hung in the balance.
“On our backs!” Spat Gul Heftig, her neck plates bunching as she pounded the table with both heavy fists. “That vole Urlak recruited me! How could he do this! I had no intention to take up arms against the occupiers. I had merely joined the Crimson Order to receive my just due for my family, and it was he that flamed on about how the allied powers were exploiting our people and driving us to extinction!”
“It was true,” Gul Gavran replied hotly, “even if Urlak betrayed us, as has Dien just now!” He jabbed a finger at the screen. Martell had muted the sound but all three could see the jubilation among the crowd and they could feel the triumph radiating from Urlak’s pores.
The man was running for the premiership of the Cardassian Republic, and he had just scored a major political coup by negotiating a deal with Gul Vaidar Dien, their leader, for the Crimson Shadow to lay down its arms in exchange for amnesty.
Dien had made this decision without consulting them, and they suspected many others. Now they were left with a choice, pick up the remnants of their splintered army or fold. Martell wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. Unlike many, his family had not been slaughtered by the Dominion in a spiteful gesture at the close of the war. They lived on a colony world far from the war. He didn’t fight for revenge or to avenge, instead he had taken up arms to secure his family’s future. Martell didn’t believe that a Cardassian government run by outsiders was in the long-term best interest of his family, or his people, and the Crimson Shadow had become the best tool to meld his thoughts and actions.
But perhaps Urlak and Dien had shown him another way. He had thought at first that Urlak’s working within the government was a clever ploy to take over from the inside. He had never scoffed at the old man like some of his brethren, he had never considered him a sellout, but as time drug on, he had become concerned that Urlak had been seduced and corrupted by a system had had pledged to raze to the ground.
The final straw had come when he had openly declared the Shadow outlaws and completely divorced them from the Crimson Order. In fact, he had done away with his veterans group, and merged them into a new political party, the Unity Faction. It was similar to how the True Way had become consumed by the system and ultimately irrelevant, a flapping, useless rightwing appendage to a dying polity.
The betrayal had felt deep, it had been personal, but nothing could’ve prepared Martell for Urlak working with the occupiers to actively hunt down, apprehend, or murder his former comrades. As the campaign heated up, the noose had grown tighter. Dien, feeling the pressure, as the putative leader of the Shadow, had buckled.
Martell pondered if he should do the same, though he knew not to voice such apostasy around true believers like Gavran or Heftig. He knew they would vaporize him on the spot. “We can’t let this stand,” Heftig declared.
“I say we make an example of Dien…and his family,” Gavran darkly suggested. “Blood in, blood out, that’s the only way you enter or leave the Crimson Shadow.”
Martell shook his head, glaring at the fervid Gavran. He had never cared much for the unkempt, undisciplined man. “We will not stain our movement by murdering innocents.”
Gavran laughed, “What do you think we have been doing all this time? We’re terrorists remember?”
“No, we are soldiers, fighting for the freedom of our people. The unfortunates who have died at the hands of my men have been collateral damage, they were never targeted,” Martell paused, putting the full force his judgment on Gavran, “Can the same be said of yours?”
Gavran was unfazed. To prove it, he propped his dusty boots on the table before replying, “It’s war,” he said with a shrug. Martell wanted to throttle the smug man.
Sensing that, Heftig jumped up, “Please let’s remember who the real enemy is. We might have different methods, but the end goal is the same, a Cardassia free of alien influence.” Both men uncomfortably nodded to that.
“So, what do we do now?” Gavran asked. Both Gavran and Heftig turned to Martell. Among the trio, he had pulled off the most successful engagements with their enemies.
“We first have to find out from the other commanders who still wish to continue,” Martell proposed.
“I would also suggest eliminating those who decide to leave the fight,” Gavran suggested. Martell paused, considering the idea.
“Only them, not their families,” he warned. Gavran shrugged again.
“I’ll make sure he retains honor,” Heftig promised. “But we must show that there is price to be paid for surrender.”
“I agree,” Martell said.
“But after that, what should we do?” Gavran asked, the first crack of doubt appearing in his facade of bravado.
Martell paused again, not sure what to say. Outside of the few hardcore partisans, he suspected that a lot of the foot soldiers were tired of fighting, they wanted to go home, and rebuild their shattered families and lives. After all, what had they accomplished thus far?
And others would see the amnesty for what Martell hated to admit it was, a way out, a way forward, a plausible alternative, to endless bloodshed. Perhaps there could be a political solution to removing the occupiers. He knew that change was in the wind with the Federation, that a new president, one far less enchanted with foreign entanglements, was about to assume office. Maybe this president would be amenable to removing Starfleet, but the same could not be said for the Klingons, their most hated foe.
And he would rather have the Federation remain to counterbalance the Klingons and keep the foreheads on a leash. The silence grew heavy, portentous, but Martell was determined to let it play out until an appropriate response emerged. He had always been a patient man.
“Did I catch you all at a bad time?” A voice snaked into his thoughts, startling him. Martell yanked his disruptor out of its holster. Both Heftig and Gavran were already aiming at the door.
Martell blinked in surprise. Before them stood a man more wanted by authorities than any of them. “How did you get in here?” Heftig demanded. The man winked at her before waltzing into the room.
“Are you seriously going to ask me that?” Elim Garak replied.
“What do you want?” Gavran asked, suspiciously. Garak had been blamed, chiefly by Urlak, as the mastermind behind the assassination of Premier Lang at Terok Nor. Since Urlak had made the claim it was in doubt, though it hadn’t stopped the wily Cardassian ex-spy from being hailed as a hero by many of Martell’s men.
“It appears you are experiencing a crisis of confidence,” Garak said, glancing at the ongoing celebration on the vidscreen. “Perhaps I can ameliorate your unease.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Heftig beat Martell to the punch.
Garak grinned, before leaning forward, his eyebrows knitting together. His tone was conspiratorial. “I never thought you’d ask.”
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