The Badlands
The ‘Mirror Universe’2375
Bobbi decided she was mad. It was the only rational explanation for her current situation. She’d been aboard Deep Space 7 when she’d been unexpectedly confronted by the counterpart of an old Academy classmate from the so-called Mirror Universe, as well as her own doppelganger.
They’d explained to her how, after the fall of that universe’s Terran Empire, humans had been enslaved by a Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. They’d further elaborated on the current situation, with many humans fighting in a rebel force, along with members of other oppressed races.
Tom had explained that they needed her skills as a sniper to help. An important meeting of Klingon generals was coming up and the only way they could see to assassinate them was by sniper. Only Bobbi had the expertise to pull it off.
So, here she was, in the Mirror Universe at a rebel base deep in the Badlands planning an op to kill a dozen Klingons. Insane. She had to be.
The base was one of several scattered through the Badlands. Although the main base was at Terok Nor, these were important for the continuance of the battle should the station fall. It was certainly bustling, Bobbi thought as she walked through it with Tom Koszyk and the woman she was coming to think of as ‘Roberta’.
As one pair of passers-by approached, Bobbi’s hand flashed to her Starfleet phaser pistol.
“Kreel?” she asked.
“Relax,” Tom said, stepping in front of her. “They’re allies. The Klingons conquered them and the Kinshaya years ago. Along with the Tezwans and a few other races on their fringes.”
The two humanoids carried on by, Bobbi watching closely.
“Never trust a Kreel,” Bobbi said. She looked around more carefully. Most of those present were human or from other ‘Federation’ races. There were also a few Orions and a couple of Nausicaans.
“There doesn’t seem to be many Andorians around. I would’ve thought there’d be more,” she commented.
“Andor was badly hit by the Alliance when the Empire fell,” Tom replied. “Not many left, these days.”
“What about the Breen? You allied with them?” Bobbi asked.
“No. The Alliance doesn’t have anything to do with them and neither do we.”
“What about the Talarians? The Gorn? The Romulans?”
“The Talarians were conquered by the Alliance. Virtually wiped out. The Gorn are around, but not much threat. The Romulans keep to themselves. I know they’re allied with the Thallonians and the Danteri. I don’t know much else,” Tom replied.
“The Tholians?”
“Keep to themselves.”
Bobbi nodded. A Caitian and a Triexian walked by, conversing intently.
“So, what brought you into the resistance?” Bobbi asked.
“It’s a long story,” Tom replied.
“I’m sure I’ve got the time.”
Tom mulled it over. “Fine…”
2331
Alliance-Occupied B’raken VII
Ellen Koszyk strained once more. Her groan was audible throughout the shack that constituted her home. She took a series of shallow, quick breaths and strained once more, finally pushing her new child out into the world.
Her husband Greg held her hand as the healer caught the baby and quickly severed the umbilical with a knife heated over a cooking fire.
“Congratulations,” the healer said. “It’s a boy.”
Both parents grinned broadly. “Thomas…” whispered Greg.
The healer stood and left the parents with their new son. She knew she was needed elsewhere in the shantytowns that dominated the area around the Alliance base.
2336
The Cardassian squad strode through the camp looking for trouble. To the five year-old Tom Koszyk, the grey-skinned aliens with their rifles were a scary sight as they shoved aside anyone who got in their way, occasionally rifle-clubbing some of the Terrans. They paused at one of the medical tents to search the healers.
Tom watched from behind his mother’s leg as they shoved a woman into a sick man and continued on their way.
Greg ignored the soldiers as he approached, tired and dirty from his shift working at the Alliance spaceport.
“You!” the Cardassian Glinn shouted. “Stop there!”
Greg stopped and raised his hands. “What’s the problem, Glinn?” he asked.
“Shut up!” the Glinn answered, smashing a punch into Greg’s chin. “You speak when I tell you!”
Greg staggered, rubbing his jaw.
The Glinn glowered at him, “Where are you going, Terran?”
“Home, Glinn.”
“Where have you been?”
“On my work detail at the space-port as Gul Danar can tell you. I work for him.”
The Glinn punched Greg in the mouth. “Shut up. I don’t need your life-story!”
Greg collapsed into the mud, blood oozing from a cut lip. He wiped the blood from his chin and started to stand up. The Glinn kicked him in the chest, dumping him back in the mud. “You get up when I say, Terran!”
Tom watched it all, not fully understanding what was going on. Greg glanced across to his wife and son. He didn’t try to rise, staying passive.
The Glinn laughed as Greg sat in the mud, his ragged trousers getting wetter and more uncomfortable from the mud.
“Filthy Terran scum. We should’ve exterminated your benighted race like your people slaughtered the Betazoids, the Cairn and the Ullians.” The Glinn laughed. “Don’t you agree, Terran?”
Greg said nothing, staring up at the Cardassian soldier.
“I said, don’t you agree, Terran?” the Glinn snarled.
“Yes, Glinn,” Greg replied quietly.
The Glinn levelled his rifle at the helpless slave. “So, no need to get up then.”
The soldier fired. Greg’s body collapsed into the mud as Tom clutched his mother’s leg.
“Let that be a lesson to all of you,” the Glinn shouted to the watching crowd. “You’re scum and you live only at our sufferance.”
The squad swaggered off. Ellen Koszyk pulled Tom from her leg, handing him off to his sister, then ran to her husband, tears streaming down her face.
2338
Seven years old, Tom Koszyk slept on a rough wooden pallet in the shack his family called home. Woken by a scream, he threw off his ragged blanket and padded across the dirt floor to the doorway leading into the main room. He frowned at what he saw, not completely understanding. Two Cardassian soldiers stood in the room, one blocking the front doorway. His mother was lying naked on the floor, while a third Cardassian, also naked was straddling her and doing something strange. His mother looked sickened, but the Cardassian was grinning. Tom didn’t know what to do, so he simply slipped back to his bed and tried to think. From the main room, he finally heard the Cardassian grunt and then speak.
“Leave the Terran slut there. I’ve had my fun. Let’s go.”
Tom crept back to the doorway, watching as the soldier pulled on his armour and the three left together.
Three months later, Tom came back to the hovel to find his mother sobbing to herself. She’d asked him to leave an hour ago when a healer had arrived.
“What’s wrong, Mum?” Tom asked.
“Nothing, sweetie,” she replied, trying to hide her tears and her red eyes. “Go to your room, okay?”
Tom nodded. His sister Lucinda was out working somewhere. He found an old reading computer in his room that she’d scavenged for him and sat on his bed.
A few minutes later, he heard his mother scream and dashed into the main room. She was lying on the floor, blood pooling between her legs, a knife in her hands.
Tom didn’t hesitate, he ran from the shack, heading for the nearest healer’s shack.
Tom dashed in the door and shouted, “Quick, my mum’s hurt, she’s bleeding bad!”
The healer grabbed her bag and followed Tom home.
As they entered, the healer told Tom, “Fetch some clean water. Then go and get Kingsley, the healer. You know him?”
Tom nodded before dashing to the water barrel outside to get a bowl. Tom carefully set the water down by the healer and then hurried to the door, as he went out, he heard the healer’s quiet words to his mother.
“You tried to terminate it, didn’t you?”
Tom tried to work out what that could mean as he ran for Kingsley’s shack several metres across the shantytown.
2340
Two years after the death of his mother, Tom still lived with his sister in the shack they’d once shared with their parents. Most of their time was spent trying to find food to eat. Lucinda worked in a bar on the Alliance base in the evenings, while Tom would usually hide in the kitchens from the Cardassian staff, but close to Lucinda.
One evening, Tom was hiding among the Kanar casks when he heard a commotion coming from the bar. Sneaking past a couple of arguing staff, Tom entered the main room of the bar.
A group of Klingon warriors were singing and shouting near the small stage where one of the Cardassian women would sometimes sing.
Tom knew the Klingons were from a battlecruiser which had docked at the space-dock that morning. Most of the time the Cardassians oversaw B’raken VII, but occasionally, Klingon vessels would pass through.
“More Bloodwine!” one of the warriors bellowed loudly.
“More Warnog, too!” shouted a second.
Tom peered around a corner of the bar at the aliens. As he watched two of the other indentured servers dragging a barrel of Bloodwine across to the Klingons, Tom wrinkled his nose in disgust at the Klingons' smell.
One of the warriors shoved another aside, eager to get to the barrel.
Lucinda appeared, carrying a tray full of mugs of Warnog, as the other warrior shoved the first one back.
An argument broke out in guttural Klingonese. The over-eager drinker, who Tom realised was drunk, pulled out a dagger and waved it, rather shakily, at the other.
The second Klingon batted aside the blade and punched the drunk in the face, sending him flying back.
The drunk slammed into the wall, rebounded, an angry snarl on his lips and launched himself at his assailant.
The other Klingon, easily deflected the charge. The drunk crashed into a table of Cardassians. Their drinks went flying. They stood, anger on their faces, as Lucinda tried to get out of the way.
The drunk Klingon punched one of the Cardassians, before being shoved back.
The drunk’s knife hit Lucinda in her chest. Blood stained the white shirt she wore as the Klingon, heedless of her plight, shoved her away and threw himself at the Cardassians with a wordless roar.
Lucinda’s legs collapsed beneath her as she gasped for breath.
Tom darted out from behind the bar, rushing to his sister’s side as the bar exploded into a mass of flying bodies, weapons and furniture.
Tom clasped Lucinda to him as she struggled to speak. Blood flecked her lips.
“Try…to…stay…out of…trouble, Tom…” Lucinda said weakly. “Please…”
Tom nodded, as his tears dripped onto her face.
2345
For five years, Tom had heeded his sister’s dying words, staying out of trouble. Most of the time, he worked with a couple of other Terrans in a large ramshackle shed cooking meals for the workers at the Alliance base.
One evening, he was wandering through the shantytown when he saw a large gang of Terrans approaching. As they got closer, Tom was able to see several members of other species mixed in the group. None looked particularly friendly. Many were scarred, some were bearded or had long hair. All carried weapons, in defiance of local Alliance law.
Leading the group was a scarred, bald male. He held his left fist up as they got within a few feet of Tom. The group halted.
“’Oo the Shek are you, pal?” the apparent leader asked, with an accent Tom didn’t recognise.
“Tom Koszyk,” he answered. “Who’re you?”
There were several rough laughs among the group.
“Name’s Hunter. Guess why, skinny boy.”
Tom eyed him warily, “Because you hunt?”
“Right. Guess ‘oo me prey is,” Hunter demanded.
Tom shrugged. “The local wildlife?”
More laughter. “Oh, you’re funny, you are skinny boy. Local wildlife. Yes. The local spoon heads and the local ridgies.”
Tom had heard Cardassians called spoon heads plenty of times, but he’d never heard Klingons called ‘ridgies’ before.
“So, skinny boy, what do you do?” Hunter asked.
“I’m a cook.”
“You work for the Alliance?”
“No, I work in the canteen where the Terrans eat, with other Terrans. I won’t work for the Alliance.”
“Why not?” asked a young girl next to Hunter’s elbow.
“Because they killed my parents and my sister.”
Hunter grinned.
“Come with us, skinny boy.”
The group took Tom out of the shantytown and into the overgrown ruins of B’raken VII’s old Imperial colony.
Hunter gestured around them. “The legacy of the Empire, hereabouts,” he said with mock formality. “’Bout sixty years ago, this place was a big trade post and Imperial power-base. ‘Til the Empire fell and the Alliance moved in. Now, it’s our ‘ome.”
As Tom was led down weed-choked streets, he noticed several of the ruined buildings had cleared doorways.
“So, what do you do out here?” Tom asked.
“Plan raids on the Alliance base to steal grub and gear. Live out from under the Alliance’s thumb as much as we can,” Hunter replied. “And plot to kick ‘em off the bloody planet.”
“Why’d you bring me here?”
Hunter grinned. “Cos you hate the Alliance. No one’ll miss you. Live here, with us, in freedom.”
Tom thought it over. “Yeah…okay…”
2346
Over the course of a year, Tom had come to like living with the other free Terrans and their friends in the ruins of the old Imperial colony. He could come and go as he pleased around the city. The only rules there were were simple: stay out of sight when Alliance ships were arriving or leaving, don’t let the Alliance find out anyone lived there, even if it cost your life, and finally, don’t be an idiot. The third rule was generally used to cover a lot, such as not stealing, raping, murdering and other crimes. The free Terrans may have lived in the Empire’s ruins, but they didn’t subscribe to their tenets, including advancement-by-murder.
Tom had had to have someone explain to him what rape was. Then, they’d had to explain sex and babies to him. He now knew what had happened to his mother, and hated Cardassians all the more.
Most of the time, Tom passed the day wandering around the city, chatting to friends he’d made and waiting for the next supplies-stealing raid on the Alliance. Hunter had taught him to shoot a disrupter, how to fight hand-to-hand both unarmed and using weapons, and he’d become a formidable fighter in only a year.
He also spent a lot of time hanging around with Lara, the girl who’d been at Hunter’s elbow that night. Lara, he’d assumed, was Hunter’s girlfriend. He’d been proved wrong when he saw Hunter with a male Andorian later that night. Lara was his aide-de-camp.
They’d become friends quite quickly and it had soon moved beyond friendship.
It was a year since they’d got together as a couple. Tom managed to make a meal for Lara using the best food he could beg, borrow or buy from the others in the city.
As they sat in the apartment they shared, eating the meal, Tom wondered how his life might’ve turned out if he hadn’t met Hunter and Lara.
Lara suddenly looked up at Tom, “You ever think about the future?”
Tom blinked, coming out of his reverie. “What?”
“The future. You ever think about it?”
“No. Not really. I do wonder about the past sometimes. Like, what life would’ve been like if my parents hadn’t died or I never met you.”
“I wonder whether we’ll ever be able to overthrow the Alliance,” Lara said. “If Terrans can ever be free again without living in overgrown ruins.”
Tom snorted. “Maybe if someone could steal or build a few starships. As things are now, I think we’re stuck. Maybe we could orchestrate an uprising here, on B’raken VII, but the Alliance would just come and bombard the planet. We’d need some way to defend the planet and to get the rebellion elsewhere.”
Lara shrugged as she continued eating. “Hunter keeps saying he wants to try hijacking a Cardassian warship one day.”
“I know he’s your best friend, and I like him, but sometimes Hunter’s an idiot.”
“True.” Lara finished her meal. “So, you wanna have sex now, or what?”
Tom laughed. “You’re so direct.”
“Why waste time prevaricating?” Lara asked as she stood up and headed for the bedroom. Tom quickly followed.
2370
Over the next twenty-four years, the free Terrans and their associates lived in the ruins of B’raken VII’s Imperial colony with great success. Instead of just stealing food and supplies, they began cultivating crops in the ruins, enabling them to make food of their own. Most of the gang were teenagers, or in their early twenties, and as they got older, they began to pair up and have children of their own.
Tom and Lara lived together as husband and wife, without actually being married. Nor did they have children. Hunter died during a raid on the Alliance base five years after Tom joined the group. Since Tom had become the best fighter in the group, he became de facto leader.
One morning, Tom was standing in the ruins of a skyscraper near the edge of the colony watching through a pair of Cardassian binoculars as a Klingon shuttle headed into orbit.
Suddenly, a pair of torpedoes flashed down out of the sky and blew the shuttle apart.
More torpedoes hit the base’s shield generator, antennae farm and the main defensive weapons emplacements. Tom watched, his mouth hanging open, as a group of six ships of various types dropped out of the high clouds and strafed the Alliance base with pin-point disrupter fire.
Recovering his senses, Tom hurried down from the skyscraper’s upper levels to the basement where he entered the tunnel network his group had dug to enable covert movement around the city.
Tom charged out of the tunnels into a garden, dashed up some steps and emerged in the lobby of an office block which was now used as the group’s school.
Lara and a Caitian male were teaching some of the children. Both turned, looking alarmed as Tom rushed in.
“Get the kids into the tunnels,” Tom ordered breathlessly. “There’s some kind of attack going on over at the base.”
Lara and the Caitian nodded and began shepherding their charges out of the makeshift classroom.
Tom ran out of the schoolroom and darted into the ruins of a large shop. Inside, several of the adults were trading food and other supplies.
“Grab your weapons,” Tom shouted. “Voss, Gonzalez, Madsen, come with me! Everyone else, ready stations!”
Tom led the three people he’d named back to the skyscraper he’d left.
Three Bajoran assault ships were hovering over the base. Three Cardassian freighters were standing on the landing pads, several armed Terrans standing nearby.
As the group watched, more Terrans and others were being led from the shantytown to the ships.
Tom watched as the large group was led on to one of the freighters. “Come on,” Tom said.
The four Terrans left the skyscraper and headed for the Alliance base.
Halfway there, Lara joined them.
“What’re you doing here?” Tom hissed.
“I wanna know what’s going on.”
Tom cursed.
As they neared the base, Cardassian troops came pouring out of a small bunker and opened fire at the freighters.
The armed Terrans returned fire.
Tom opened fire, followed by his group. The Cardassians were caught in a crossfire.
After the last Cardassian had fallen, three Terrans came over toward the group.
Leading them was a dark-haired guy in a leather jacket.
“Nice shooting,” he shouted. “Who’re you?”
“Tom Koszyk. I lead a group of free Terrans, living in the ruins.”
“Sorry your woman got shot,” the other replied. “You need a medic?”
Tom looked around and saw Lara lying in the grass. As he hastily bent, Leather Jacket shouted to the other armed Terrans.
It was soon clear Lara was dead. Shot by a Cardassian.
Tom grabbed Leather Jacket.
“Who are you? Why’re you here? We’ve been living in peace for years without the Cardies finding us.”
“My name’s Scott Freeman. I’m with the Terran Resistance. We’re freeing slaves on several colonies. Interested?”
Tom nodded. “There’s nothing to keep me here any more, and I hate the Alliance.”
