Fic Post: In Silence
Title: In Silence
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Series: Tears of the Prophets
Timeframe: Pre-Series
Rating: M (for violence)
Pairing: Kira/OFC (brief mention)
A/N: I am ever more fascinated to really dive into what it was like to rebuild Bajor. Una McCormack’s novels really are willing to go there, to talk about the lack of infrastructure and what it means to be a society that is rebuilding, but … I want more. So, here you go.
Disclaimer: I don’t make anything off of this. So what if my dream since the age of 12 was to write tie-in novels. ;) Just putting it out there.
Summary: Soldiers crawled out of every corner like carien roaches, setting fire to everything that would burn.
Bajor, 2369
For the first time in Kira’s entire life - well, save that week or so on Betazed - it was silent. But this was a silence that refused the prospect of peace. Nothing moved. No one believed it. They’d all watched the battered video screens and the face of Gul Dukat sneering at them as he informed the population that the Cardassians were done with Bajor and they were leaving and Bajor should be grateful for all Cardassia did for them. The screens clicked off, shimmering in the heat, and for a long minute, nothing moved.
A passage from Rakon’s 6th Prophecy rang through her mind. Hold yourself in silence, for it tells more than the loudest message. The disruptors fire within.
“Wait for it,” Shakaar said next to her. He stood, stock still, tense, one hand on the disruptor pistol on his hip, staring past the screens at the mountains that surrounded the valley. The entire cell gathered behind them. Everyone held their breath.
Three clicks later, the silence shattered. The ground rumbled beneath them. Smoke rose from the mountains. The air filled with the whine of disruptor fire. Two cell members were hit before they could all scatter. No one needed to explain. The Cardies were leaving, but they weren’t going to leave anything behind. They’d slaughter everyone if they could.
“Run!” Shakaar shouted over the din, grabbing Kira’s wrist as they ducked into the nearest alley and raced as fast as they could to one of the safe houses. Drones buzzed, dropping gas while hitting the area with wide spread beams. The earth didn’t stop shaking. Buildings collapsed and flames leapt from roof to roof. They had to keep running. Heat pushed at her heels and Kira darted out ahead of Shakaar, ignoring the burn on her leg. She’d treat it later.
Down one crumbling alley and over two streets, they ran, rifles at the ready. Around them, Cardassians dragged innocents into the streets and fired, leaving them to rot, no longer bothering with torture. They wanted them all dead.
“Up here!” Kira cried, abandoning the idea of the basement of the safehouse. Instead, she came to a stop under the ladder of a balcony and pulled it down, climbing the rusted rings as fast as she could, her rifle bumping against her hip. The balconies on this building were all connected by ladders and at each platform, they stopped and screamed to those huddling inside - “Hide! Get out! Hide! They’re coming!”
She stopped, stone cold at one window, watching two hulking soldiers pin a child down, laughing. Her parents were in a lifeless heap by the door. Kira kicked in the window, ignoring the slice of the glass against her leg, and fired. The soldiers collapsed and Kira pushed her way into the dirty apartment. “Go there,” she pointed to the closet. “Go there and don’t make a sound, okay? We will come find you again.” She kissed the little girl’s brown hair. “I’m so sorry about your parents. I’m so sorry.”
The girl, too stunned to do anything but obey, fled to the closet. Kira raced back to the ladder. They had to get to the roof. They had to take down the Cardassians who were determined to wipe them out.
Shakaar was waiting, hand out, and pulled her up with him. At his feet were two Cardassians. They both ignored the disruptor burn on his arm. “I’ll take north,” he said. She nodded and ran to the south side of the roof. The scene below was one from her nightmares. The Cardassians had clearly been in place before the announcement came. Soldiers crawled out of every corner like carien roaches, setting fire to everything that would burn. Above the flames, the stench of burning flesh hit her nostrils and Kira gagged and choked. Setting her rifle to a wide beam, she rose up over the minimal protection of the wall, and started firing. If they were taking Bajor down, she’d be damned if she didn’t take them down with her.
Beyond the city, smoke billowed up from the mountains, moving into the fields. Flames from the city raced with the wind. Everything was on fire. As they coughed into the ash, Bajor burned.
***
The silence held only fear. The Cardassians were gone, leaving a burning planet and so many dead that communities were holding mass pyres. A sickness was racing through the population, killing so quickly that once the fever showed, you were all but dead.
Kira sat with her surviving resistance cell mates in their familiar cave, still unsure of what to do. Waiting to figure out what was next. It wasn’t like any of them had homes or farms to go back to. She didn’t. Her family home had been burned years ago, and she wasn’t about to step foot where her father’s ghost still waited for her mother. Nothing made sense. Did their people out in the quadrant know? Would the refugees scattered out there among the stars want to come home? Was there a home to come to? Was her daughter safe?
Would the Prophets forgive her?
Even the Death Chant was now kept to a quiet meditation. Kira kept her eyes on the battered padd she’d carried with her for years, the one that had only enough memory for the teachings that were, suddenly, no longer illegal. But the familiar words felt so distant now.
What happened next?
For the first time in her life, Kira had no idea what to do. Every morning for as long as she remembered, she’d had a purpose. Now what? Slowly, she tugged her fingers through her sheared hair. On the second day of the purge, some Cardie bastard had grabbed her, shoved her face down. His buddies had pinned her, but they’d never managed to have their fun. Drea’s aim had brought them all down, but not before one of them had held a blade to her neck, wrapped her braid around his hand, and sliced. The locks were a trophy for Cardassian men, one she’d always managed to avoid giving up. Her hair felt wrong now.
Maybe now short hair would become a fashion among Bajoran women. A symbol perhaps of survival. If they survived this. How many more would die?
“The Federation is coming,” Shakaar said, his voice pitched just enough to capture the attention of the cell. They all looked to him, scooting closer. All these years later and he still wasn’t great at talking in front of crowds.
“Oh,” Furel snorted, “now they come?”
“The Provisional Government asked for help,” he said, his voice just as laced with sarcasm.
“Provisional.” Lupaza snorted. “It’s like they know they won’t last forever either.”
Kira just stared at the unbandaged cuts on her hand. The Federation. Now they came. Now. When her government begged and pleaded fifty years ago, they’d told Bajor it was an internal political matter. Now they came. Now they came to help, to clean them up, to pat them on the head and send them away. Her people had been flying the stars when humans had barely crawled from their own muck and now …
Betazed was part of the Federation. They’d helped. But where were Starfleet’s ships and people and politicians when Cardassians were murdering children and raping women? Where were they when groups of men were lined up and shot as examples? Where were they when the Cardassians burned the planet to a crisp on their way back to their own system? Where the hell were they? Wasn’t this also an internal political matter, after all?
Anger surged through her and Kira rose, storming back to the cots in the back of the cave. There, covered by blankets, four members of the cell shivered against the fever that was spreading through the province. Bad water, bad air, whatever it was, the Cardassians were determined to kill them all. She knelt next to Drea and linked their fingers.
“Hey,” she whispered, stroking her lover’s hair back off her face. “Did you hear?”
“Shakaar made an announcement,” Drea choked. “I’m surprised you could hear.”
They shared a small smile before the tremors took Drea again. Kira waited. It wouldn’t be long. “The Provisional Government asked the Federation to come help rebuild.”
Drea snorted. “Now they come. Now.” Spasms of coughs wracked her frail body. “Now.”
“Maybe they’ll get here in time to save you. We can go off somewhere.” Kira traced the faint scar on the side of Drea’s face.
“Just … do me a favor …”
“Anything.”
Drea coughed and drops of blood touched her lips. “Go to the monastery. You belong there.” Her eyes closed.
Kira didn’t bother arguing. It wasn’t worth the little time they had left. Drea didn’t understand. The Prophets would never accept her. She had to find a new path.
***
As always, she felt him come up behind her before he spoke. Kira turned her head to see him, her mentor, her friend. She could see the weight on his shoulders and leaned against him, seeking warmth and offering friendship. He wrapped an arm around her. Behind them, the last of the funeral fire burned, sending Drea and Kilit and Jelin and Torin and Mobit’s ashes to the sky. It was a disgrace, to destroy the children of the prophets this way, but as had happened so often over the past fifty years, tradition had been thrown right out the window. Lupaza and Truin were hanging bells in the trees, one for each of them lost to this illness the Cardassians left behind.
“Where are you going?” She asked. “What’s next?”
“I’m staying right here, Nerys,” he murmured. “Dakurrh needs us.”
She stared at the valley, the blackened trees and the smoky sky. The moons could barely be seen through the haze. “I don’t know where I belong. I might just go sign up for the military. I can point a rifle. I can … a lot of the militia, they’re doing the rebuilding projects. It would keep me out of trouble.” She held her breath for a long moment before speaking. "Promise me we won't lose touch, Edon. I promise to write."
Shakaar chuckled, but there was a sadness to it. A resignation. Their dream had come true but now, none of them knew what happened next. None of them had ever planned for this next step. “Every day." His voice was a whisper. "We’ll miss you.”
***
There was no silence in the military - even when no one was speaking.
The uniform felt strange, and she still wasn’t sure if her rank - whatever that even meant - was as a result of her experience holding a rifle or some kind of lottery. Major. What the hell was even a Major? Well, according to her superior officer - a nervous, twitching man from southern Dalienth - it was someone who signed work orders while lower ranking officers built houses from the scraps they could pull together.
The Federation sure was taking its sweet time getting here.
Colonel Trath didn’t like it much that she tended to shuck her uniform and dive in with those under her command. He wanted her accessible to answer calls. She wanted to put houses around people. “Why in the Valley of the Wraiths does the Federation give two cares about the work we’re doing right now?” She shouted one night across the desk when she, yet again, hadn’t sent her paperwork up the right chain of command. “Why do they care?”
“So they know where to start,” he challenged right back.
“They can start by rolling up their sleeves. We’ve got houses to build and kids to feed and medical supplies to get to people. If they’re more concerned about the right flow chart, we can handle this ourselves.” She didn’t bother telling him that the Federation forms had all been sent in Federation Standard and switching the forms into Bajoran and then back again made them all but unreadable. The translation programs needed to be updated. Not so strangely, when she translated them into Cardassian and back again, it was a much smoother process.
Either way, she couldn’t read Federation Standard and she knew these Federation officers wouldn’t know a single word of Bajoran.
His silence was her dismissal. She stormed out, back to the tiny room she now called home, part of a barracks of tiny rooms with cots for beds and trunks for one spare uniform and boots. No one in her unit ever had a clean uniform and she just didn’t care. The dirt meant they were working. She noted instead the people who came early, who worked late, who understood that getting food into the hands of the kids was so much more important than anything else. Like her, everyone she commanded was shell shocked. It didn’t take much for their eyes to drift, back to a moment when everything froze, when someone died, when a building fell. She had officers who until just a few weeks ago were mining ore or serving as comfort women. They walked carefully, always looking behind them. Always ready to run. Never speaking too loudly. Preferring silence.
So, she showed up early and stayed late and counted the nails and wood planks herself. It gave her something to do. Sleep only brought memories she would rather forget.
How long since she'd written to Lupaza or Beck? How many days since she talked to Shakaar?
***
“You’re transferring me?” She winced, even at her own shrill voice. “Why?”
Trath shrugged. “Because you’re so good at getting your hands dirty.”
To the station. To Terok Nor. To the tomb that should be bombed out of the sky. Instead, the Federation wanted to use it as their base of operations. It made sense. Why not run things from where the conquerors could see all. At least - and she gave a slight nod of concession - the industrial replicators were on the way. Two more days and they wouldn’t have to try and repair homes with what little they had left. She didn’t want Starfleet on her planet, but she also understood that without the help from them, rebuilding would take twice as long. Why couldn’t they just leave the equipment, though? Let the Bajorans decide what they needed?
The last time she’d been on Terok Nor, she’d murdered a collaborator.
How could she live up there?
But her orders were set and at least she had a new commanding officer so she could go over Talath’s head. Bajor didn’t need the Federation here, watching from a distance. They needed boots on the ground and if that meant dropping off the equipment and walking away, that should be what happened. But no, the damn Provisional Government wanted Starfleet’s help. And now, she was being sent to babysit - or be babysat.
Angry, Kira fled to her quarters, changed, and made her way into the street. Slowly, the city around her was finding life. Rubble had been cleared, brought to the edge of town to be sorted through and repurposed if able. Amid the blank plots where buildings had burned, and those structures that still clung to a foundation, a few kitchens had their back doors open, and the smell of roasting polouk and corha rose into the air. She stopped and took a breath, allowing the moment to come to her.
It wasn’t silent.
A vendor stood at a slapped together wagon, offering coffee to those who came by. Most had no money, no way to pay, but he gave it to them anyway. Across the street, a restaurant served small plates of hesperat to customers sitting outside the still boarded building.
Another breath, and the anger and frustration found their way to the back of her mind. She’d let it boil up again when she boarded the shuttle for the station in the morning. But for now, she started to walk down the dimly lit street, passing vendors selling fried cora and salted rejin. The smell of herbs rose in the air, mixing with woodsmoke, dancing with laughter.
Laughter. Not just stunned silence. Her people were laughing again.
To her right, the orphanage had windows open, letting in the late summer air. Kira paused, watching as a group of underfed girls were gently hugged by a ranjen in orange robes. To her left, a tiny building had lamps burning in the windows and a hand painted sign above the door read “Library.” Outside, a child sat with his nose in a tattered book.
Still she walked.
Down the main street. Past the battered complex that had once been and was going to be the official Capitol Complex when the building was safe. Past the dried wells that had once been flowing fountains. It was dirty, it was dingy, but it was theirs. Theirs to rebuild. To make whole once again.
Prophets help them if they failed.
She walked, coming finally to the edge of the city and the open gates of the monastery. For fifty years, the gates had been shut, protecting those within from the dangers without. How many refugees had she ferried here, slipping them through back pathways to waiting vedeks and prylars. Just two weeks ago she’d carried the little girl from the apartment here, handing her over to the ranjens who would take her to the orphanage. How many times had the gates been forced open by disruptor blasts and devoted clerics marched to their deaths for daring to speak of the Prophets? She stared at the lamps, lit by candles rather than use power at night. The gates were open, ready to accept those who were ready, were willing, were needing. She closed her eyes, Drea’s voice coming to her, telling her that she didn’t belong in a uniform, but with the scholars. But, see, she argued back, she’d made a choice when she picked up her rifle. Her work now was for forgiveness, not to teach.
So she took a breath and turned back the way she came. She had a new posting in the morning. She should probably let Shakaar know.
Author: vegawriters
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Series: Tears of the Prophets
Timeframe: Pre-Series
Rating: M (for violence)
Pairing: Kira/OFC (brief mention)
A/N: I am ever more fascinated to really dive into what it was like to rebuild Bajor. Una McCormack’s novels really are willing to go there, to talk about the lack of infrastructure and what it means to be a society that is rebuilding, but … I want more. So, here you go.
Disclaimer: I don’t make anything off of this. So what if my dream since the age of 12 was to write tie-in novels. ;) Just putting it out there.
Summary: Soldiers crawled out of every corner like carien roaches, setting fire to everything that would burn.
Bajor, 2369
For the first time in Kira’s entire life - well, save that week or so on Betazed - it was silent. But this was a silence that refused the prospect of peace. Nothing moved. No one believed it. They’d all watched the battered video screens and the face of Gul Dukat sneering at them as he informed the population that the Cardassians were done with Bajor and they were leaving and Bajor should be grateful for all Cardassia did for them. The screens clicked off, shimmering in the heat, and for a long minute, nothing moved.
A passage from Rakon’s 6th Prophecy rang through her mind. Hold yourself in silence, for it tells more than the loudest message. The disruptors fire within.
“Wait for it,” Shakaar said next to her. He stood, stock still, tense, one hand on the disruptor pistol on his hip, staring past the screens at the mountains that surrounded the valley. The entire cell gathered behind them. Everyone held their breath.
Three clicks later, the silence shattered. The ground rumbled beneath them. Smoke rose from the mountains. The air filled with the whine of disruptor fire. Two cell members were hit before they could all scatter. No one needed to explain. The Cardies were leaving, but they weren’t going to leave anything behind. They’d slaughter everyone if they could.
“Run!” Shakaar shouted over the din, grabbing Kira’s wrist as they ducked into the nearest alley and raced as fast as they could to one of the safe houses. Drones buzzed, dropping gas while hitting the area with wide spread beams. The earth didn’t stop shaking. Buildings collapsed and flames leapt from roof to roof. They had to keep running. Heat pushed at her heels and Kira darted out ahead of Shakaar, ignoring the burn on her leg. She’d treat it later.
Down one crumbling alley and over two streets, they ran, rifles at the ready. Around them, Cardassians dragged innocents into the streets and fired, leaving them to rot, no longer bothering with torture. They wanted them all dead.
“Up here!” Kira cried, abandoning the idea of the basement of the safehouse. Instead, she came to a stop under the ladder of a balcony and pulled it down, climbing the rusted rings as fast as she could, her rifle bumping against her hip. The balconies on this building were all connected by ladders and at each platform, they stopped and screamed to those huddling inside - “Hide! Get out! Hide! They’re coming!”
She stopped, stone cold at one window, watching two hulking soldiers pin a child down, laughing. Her parents were in a lifeless heap by the door. Kira kicked in the window, ignoring the slice of the glass against her leg, and fired. The soldiers collapsed and Kira pushed her way into the dirty apartment. “Go there,” she pointed to the closet. “Go there and don’t make a sound, okay? We will come find you again.” She kissed the little girl’s brown hair. “I’m so sorry about your parents. I’m so sorry.”
The girl, too stunned to do anything but obey, fled to the closet. Kira raced back to the ladder. They had to get to the roof. They had to take down the Cardassians who were determined to wipe them out.
Shakaar was waiting, hand out, and pulled her up with him. At his feet were two Cardassians. They both ignored the disruptor burn on his arm. “I’ll take north,” he said. She nodded and ran to the south side of the roof. The scene below was one from her nightmares. The Cardassians had clearly been in place before the announcement came. Soldiers crawled out of every corner like carien roaches, setting fire to everything that would burn. Above the flames, the stench of burning flesh hit her nostrils and Kira gagged and choked. Setting her rifle to a wide beam, she rose up over the minimal protection of the wall, and started firing. If they were taking Bajor down, she’d be damned if she didn’t take them down with her.
Beyond the city, smoke billowed up from the mountains, moving into the fields. Flames from the city raced with the wind. Everything was on fire. As they coughed into the ash, Bajor burned.
***
The silence held only fear. The Cardassians were gone, leaving a burning planet and so many dead that communities were holding mass pyres. A sickness was racing through the population, killing so quickly that once the fever showed, you were all but dead.
Kira sat with her surviving resistance cell mates in their familiar cave, still unsure of what to do. Waiting to figure out what was next. It wasn’t like any of them had homes or farms to go back to. She didn’t. Her family home had been burned years ago, and she wasn’t about to step foot where her father’s ghost still waited for her mother. Nothing made sense. Did their people out in the quadrant know? Would the refugees scattered out there among the stars want to come home? Was there a home to come to? Was her daughter safe?
Would the Prophets forgive her?
Even the Death Chant was now kept to a quiet meditation. Kira kept her eyes on the battered padd she’d carried with her for years, the one that had only enough memory for the teachings that were, suddenly, no longer illegal. But the familiar words felt so distant now.
What happened next?
For the first time in her life, Kira had no idea what to do. Every morning for as long as she remembered, she’d had a purpose. Now what? Slowly, she tugged her fingers through her sheared hair. On the second day of the purge, some Cardie bastard had grabbed her, shoved her face down. His buddies had pinned her, but they’d never managed to have their fun. Drea’s aim had brought them all down, but not before one of them had held a blade to her neck, wrapped her braid around his hand, and sliced. The locks were a trophy for Cardassian men, one she’d always managed to avoid giving up. Her hair felt wrong now.
Maybe now short hair would become a fashion among Bajoran women. A symbol perhaps of survival. If they survived this. How many more would die?
“The Federation is coming,” Shakaar said, his voice pitched just enough to capture the attention of the cell. They all looked to him, scooting closer. All these years later and he still wasn’t great at talking in front of crowds.
“Oh,” Furel snorted, “now they come?”
“The Provisional Government asked for help,” he said, his voice just as laced with sarcasm.
“Provisional.” Lupaza snorted. “It’s like they know they won’t last forever either.”
Kira just stared at the unbandaged cuts on her hand. The Federation. Now they came. Now. When her government begged and pleaded fifty years ago, they’d told Bajor it was an internal political matter. Now they came. Now they came to help, to clean them up, to pat them on the head and send them away. Her people had been flying the stars when humans had barely crawled from their own muck and now …
Betazed was part of the Federation. They’d helped. But where were Starfleet’s ships and people and politicians when Cardassians were murdering children and raping women? Where were they when groups of men were lined up and shot as examples? Where were they when the Cardassians burned the planet to a crisp on their way back to their own system? Where the hell were they? Wasn’t this also an internal political matter, after all?
Anger surged through her and Kira rose, storming back to the cots in the back of the cave. There, covered by blankets, four members of the cell shivered against the fever that was spreading through the province. Bad water, bad air, whatever it was, the Cardassians were determined to kill them all. She knelt next to Drea and linked their fingers.
“Hey,” she whispered, stroking her lover’s hair back off her face. “Did you hear?”
“Shakaar made an announcement,” Drea choked. “I’m surprised you could hear.”
They shared a small smile before the tremors took Drea again. Kira waited. It wouldn’t be long. “The Provisional Government asked the Federation to come help rebuild.”
Drea snorted. “Now they come. Now.” Spasms of coughs wracked her frail body. “Now.”
“Maybe they’ll get here in time to save you. We can go off somewhere.” Kira traced the faint scar on the side of Drea’s face.
“Just … do me a favor …”
“Anything.”
Drea coughed and drops of blood touched her lips. “Go to the monastery. You belong there.” Her eyes closed.
Kira didn’t bother arguing. It wasn’t worth the little time they had left. Drea didn’t understand. The Prophets would never accept her. She had to find a new path.
***
As always, she felt him come up behind her before he spoke. Kira turned her head to see him, her mentor, her friend. She could see the weight on his shoulders and leaned against him, seeking warmth and offering friendship. He wrapped an arm around her. Behind them, the last of the funeral fire burned, sending Drea and Kilit and Jelin and Torin and Mobit’s ashes to the sky. It was a disgrace, to destroy the children of the prophets this way, but as had happened so often over the past fifty years, tradition had been thrown right out the window. Lupaza and Truin were hanging bells in the trees, one for each of them lost to this illness the Cardassians left behind.
“Where are you going?” She asked. “What’s next?”
“I’m staying right here, Nerys,” he murmured. “Dakurrh needs us.”
She stared at the valley, the blackened trees and the smoky sky. The moons could barely be seen through the haze. “I don’t know where I belong. I might just go sign up for the military. I can point a rifle. I can … a lot of the militia, they’re doing the rebuilding projects. It would keep me out of trouble.” She held her breath for a long moment before speaking. "Promise me we won't lose touch, Edon. I promise to write."
Shakaar chuckled, but there was a sadness to it. A resignation. Their dream had come true but now, none of them knew what happened next. None of them had ever planned for this next step. “Every day." His voice was a whisper. "We’ll miss you.”
***
There was no silence in the military - even when no one was speaking.
The uniform felt strange, and she still wasn’t sure if her rank - whatever that even meant - was as a result of her experience holding a rifle or some kind of lottery. Major. What the hell was even a Major? Well, according to her superior officer - a nervous, twitching man from southern Dalienth - it was someone who signed work orders while lower ranking officers built houses from the scraps they could pull together.
The Federation sure was taking its sweet time getting here.
Colonel Trath didn’t like it much that she tended to shuck her uniform and dive in with those under her command. He wanted her accessible to answer calls. She wanted to put houses around people. “Why in the Valley of the Wraiths does the Federation give two cares about the work we’re doing right now?” She shouted one night across the desk when she, yet again, hadn’t sent her paperwork up the right chain of command. “Why do they care?”
“So they know where to start,” he challenged right back.
“They can start by rolling up their sleeves. We’ve got houses to build and kids to feed and medical supplies to get to people. If they’re more concerned about the right flow chart, we can handle this ourselves.” She didn’t bother telling him that the Federation forms had all been sent in Federation Standard and switching the forms into Bajoran and then back again made them all but unreadable. The translation programs needed to be updated. Not so strangely, when she translated them into Cardassian and back again, it was a much smoother process.
Either way, she couldn’t read Federation Standard and she knew these Federation officers wouldn’t know a single word of Bajoran.
His silence was her dismissal. She stormed out, back to the tiny room she now called home, part of a barracks of tiny rooms with cots for beds and trunks for one spare uniform and boots. No one in her unit ever had a clean uniform and she just didn’t care. The dirt meant they were working. She noted instead the people who came early, who worked late, who understood that getting food into the hands of the kids was so much more important than anything else. Like her, everyone she commanded was shell shocked. It didn’t take much for their eyes to drift, back to a moment when everything froze, when someone died, when a building fell. She had officers who until just a few weeks ago were mining ore or serving as comfort women. They walked carefully, always looking behind them. Always ready to run. Never speaking too loudly. Preferring silence.
So, she showed up early and stayed late and counted the nails and wood planks herself. It gave her something to do. Sleep only brought memories she would rather forget.
How long since she'd written to Lupaza or Beck? How many days since she talked to Shakaar?
***
“You’re transferring me?” She winced, even at her own shrill voice. “Why?”
Trath shrugged. “Because you’re so good at getting your hands dirty.”
To the station. To Terok Nor. To the tomb that should be bombed out of the sky. Instead, the Federation wanted to use it as their base of operations. It made sense. Why not run things from where the conquerors could see all. At least - and she gave a slight nod of concession - the industrial replicators were on the way. Two more days and they wouldn’t have to try and repair homes with what little they had left. She didn’t want Starfleet on her planet, but she also understood that without the help from them, rebuilding would take twice as long. Why couldn’t they just leave the equipment, though? Let the Bajorans decide what they needed?
The last time she’d been on Terok Nor, she’d murdered a collaborator.
How could she live up there?
But her orders were set and at least she had a new commanding officer so she could go over Talath’s head. Bajor didn’t need the Federation here, watching from a distance. They needed boots on the ground and if that meant dropping off the equipment and walking away, that should be what happened. But no, the damn Provisional Government wanted Starfleet’s help. And now, she was being sent to babysit - or be babysat.
Angry, Kira fled to her quarters, changed, and made her way into the street. Slowly, the city around her was finding life. Rubble had been cleared, brought to the edge of town to be sorted through and repurposed if able. Amid the blank plots where buildings had burned, and those structures that still clung to a foundation, a few kitchens had their back doors open, and the smell of roasting polouk and corha rose into the air. She stopped and took a breath, allowing the moment to come to her.
It wasn’t silent.
A vendor stood at a slapped together wagon, offering coffee to those who came by. Most had no money, no way to pay, but he gave it to them anyway. Across the street, a restaurant served small plates of hesperat to customers sitting outside the still boarded building.
Another breath, and the anger and frustration found their way to the back of her mind. She’d let it boil up again when she boarded the shuttle for the station in the morning. But for now, she started to walk down the dimly lit street, passing vendors selling fried cora and salted rejin. The smell of herbs rose in the air, mixing with woodsmoke, dancing with laughter.
Laughter. Not just stunned silence. Her people were laughing again.
To her right, the orphanage had windows open, letting in the late summer air. Kira paused, watching as a group of underfed girls were gently hugged by a ranjen in orange robes. To her left, a tiny building had lamps burning in the windows and a hand painted sign above the door read “Library.” Outside, a child sat with his nose in a tattered book.
Still she walked.
Down the main street. Past the battered complex that had once been and was going to be the official Capitol Complex when the building was safe. Past the dried wells that had once been flowing fountains. It was dirty, it was dingy, but it was theirs. Theirs to rebuild. To make whole once again.
Prophets help them if they failed.
She walked, coming finally to the edge of the city and the open gates of the monastery. For fifty years, the gates had been shut, protecting those within from the dangers without. How many refugees had she ferried here, slipping them through back pathways to waiting vedeks and prylars. Just two weeks ago she’d carried the little girl from the apartment here, handing her over to the ranjens who would take her to the orphanage. How many times had the gates been forced open by disruptor blasts and devoted clerics marched to their deaths for daring to speak of the Prophets? She stared at the lamps, lit by candles rather than use power at night. The gates were open, ready to accept those who were ready, were willing, were needing. She closed her eyes, Drea’s voice coming to her, telling her that she didn’t belong in a uniform, but with the scholars. But, see, she argued back, she’d made a choice when she picked up her rifle. Her work now was for forgiveness, not to teach.
So she took a breath and turned back the way she came. She had a new posting in the morning. She should probably let Shakaar know.