The BLTS Archive - A Far, Far Better Thing
by Sabine (iamfrequent@gmail.com)

---

An amendment to my original story of Kira Nerys' history
("The Music Makers"), changing the scene of her mother's
death to...this.

This is set in the Federation year 2346 (Card's withdrew
in 2368), on Bajor.

---

It was a cool room; it was a good day. It was the height of
summer, but the air circulators in the basement offices
hissed full-blast, and Meru found herself, for the first
time in weeks, underdressed for the climate. And she was
loving it. It was a hateful place; it was a hateful time. It
was war and oppression and the stink of rotting, sweaty
bodies that was always there, lingering, painting rings
around the edges of the sterile basement office. It was
blood, and starvation, and the hottest summer in years,
decades. It was a time of drought, the lakes sucking inward
from the bone-dry rocks of shore. It was a time forsaken by
the prophets, a time of mortal's hands bloodied from weapons
or slave labor, a time of many, many more deaths than
births. But it was a cool room, and it was a good day. She
found a smile where she could.

She was filing, which beat mine work a thousand times over,
and she had to bite her tongue on more than one occasion to
keep from whistling while she worked. It was enough for her
not to be on her knees, whip-lashed, sweating, her lips and
eyeballs cracking from dehydration; she felt no compulsion
to let her overseers know that she was almost, *almost*
enjoying herself. She punched in the next access code on her
list, began separating files into subdirectories.

"Who's got 299-blue through 400?" the Bajoran man at the
console beside her, Yzak, addressed Meru and the other four
workers.

"I just inputed the last batch of them now," Meru replied.
"I'm in the tertiary database in the blue filemanager. Do
you need me to find something?"

"I've got a file which cross references something in blue,
and Gul Namerov wants a hyperlink. Can you upload the
directory name to my console so I can do a search for it?"
Even Yzak's voice sounded chipper today; last time Meru had
worked beside him they'd been digging waste-disposal
ditches and he'd barely uttered two words except to ask her
to pass the water canteen. Yes, it was a good day.

"On their way," she said, inputting his server name and
transferring the file codes to his console.

There was only one supervisor on duty, a
Glin-something-or-other, and he was sitting crosslegged at
the desk, reading, not particularly interested in the parley
among the slaves. Chatting while they worked was another
luxury not to come again in the near future, and the
Bajorans were taking advantage of it.

"Van Teprim finally gave birth," announced a stocky woman at
one of the wall consoles.

"Amazing," laughed Meru. "I was beginning to think that baby
would never come out. It's been, what, eight months?"

"It's a boy," the woman, Maiaya, said with a grin. "An
adorable little gift from the Prophets. She's calling him
Nerys."

"Really?" Meru chuckled. "That's my daughter's name! I know
it's a boy's name, but 'tomorrow' just seemed like the
perfect choice for a name for the new generation."

"That's what Teprim said," Maiaya nodded, chewing her lip as
she sorted files. "I think it's pretty. How old is your
daughter?"

"She'll be three in half a moon," Meru said. "She's not
talking yet. My husband and I are beginning to wonder if we
should be concerned."

Maiaya cast a glance in the direction of the supervisor and
shook her head, a small enough movement as to be nearly
imperceptible. "No," she said abruptly. "I wouldn't worry."
Meru was sure this wasn't what Maiaya had intended to say,
and the room felt just a bit colder as she returned her
focus to the filing in front of her.

Something beeped. And beeped again.

The six Bajorans looked up in unison, trying to locate the
source of the noise, and the supervisor, upon reading
something on his console, stood. Meru shuddered despite
herself.

"Aily Maiaya, Kira Meru, Masa Tzo," he announced without
preamble. The three women in question stood still, waiting
for further instructions.

"Report to launching area five in Singha proper," he
continued. "Your assignments have been changed."

//Okay,// thought Meru, preparing herself mentally for the
heat of the outdoors. //We're on plasma-unit repair. I've
had worse jobs.//

Following the guard who had been standing outside the door,
the women started up the spiralling staircase of the sentry
office.

---

That was the last time anyone saw Kira Meru alive. When she
didn't come home from work that night, Taban, along with
Aily Prem and Masa Jiaka, sent out a buzz across the Singha
camp to begin a search for their missing wives. A week
passed, then two, with the men no more enlightened then
they'd been that first summer night. Nerys and Miko didn't
quite understand, but Onep, along with Masa's daughter
Laren, understood that their mothers were dead by Cardassian
hands, despite Taban and Jiaka's attempts to construct
plausible stories to explain the disappearances.

Autumn came but the heat wave never broke. One evening Onep
and Laren were working in the orchards when their overseer
informed them that Gul Namerov himself wished to speak with
them. Before he uttered the words, they knew.

"I regret to inform you," he began in a low, thundering
Dakhur dialect, heavily accented with the Kardasi hiss,
"that I have received word from our shipbuilding facilities
in orbit that Kira Meru and Masa Tzo have died. It seems
that the Bajoran workers were unable to ration their food
supply adequately, and I'm afraid your mothers starved to
death before any of the overseers were able to procure more
supplies. Please relay my apologies to your families."

Onep nodded somberly, but Laren spat at the ground. Onep
touched her shoulder.

"I understand," Namerov continued. "You blame us. I assure
you, the officers assigned to the shipbuilding facilities
are committed to caring for their workers. Any problems the
Bajorans may have had come from your own people's inability
to cooperate. Again, however, I offer my sincere apologies
for your loss."

"Thank you," Onep managed, and, grabbing Laren's hand, he
raced through the orchards to the barracks.

---

She hadn't seen daylight in what seemed like weeks. The tent
was barely large enough for the three women, and they were
forbidden to leave its walls unless summoned, so Meru found
herself with a lot of time to contemplate her hatred. They
took turns. One night, Meru would be summoned to the
prefect's quarters, Maiaya the next, then Tzo. And for
each it was the same. The woman would report to the main
building, escorted by the on-duty glin. Once inside, she
would be asked to remove her clothing, and she would be
washed thoroughly, head to toe, her hands clamped in place
behind her while the Cardassian who was sponging her ogled
her starved and bony form with something akin to disgust.
Sufficiently cleansed and scented with vile Cardassian
perfumes (which took days to dissipate, at which point it
was time to be scrubbed again), she was led, naked and
dripping, up the wide stone stairs to the prefect's
quarters. He was always otherwise engaged -- reading, on a
comcall, downloading files -- and he'd wave a hand at the
woman, telling her to sit down on the bed, he'd be right
with her. Between the scent of the perfume and the
balmy-to-humid climate Cardassians seemed to prefer, she'd
sit, nearly suffocating, goosebumps rising on her exposed
flesh. Waiting. And then the prefect would finally complete
his task -- she was always surprised, and furious, to
realize that she'd actually been *impatient,* waiting -- and
start towards her with a grin playing at his mouth. "Well,"
he'd say without fail, "what shall we do tonight?" And it
was always the same.

Afterward, bruised, sore and bitten, her hips so strained
that it hurt to walk, she was led downstairs, her
insect-ridden garment returned to her, and she was tossed
back into the tent with the other women, to await her turn
again.

They didn't even know what province they were in.

After the first week, the women didn't talk much; they'd run
out of things to say. Maiaya had no children, and Tzo and
Meru had stopped speaking of theirs; it hurt too much. Once
in a while they'd bring up the resistance, speculate on what
the brave Bajoran soldiers were up to that would finally
liberate this world, but the words were hollow and they knew
it. Meru wanted to believe it, but she knew, had known since
she named her daughter 'Nerys' that it was tomorrow's
generation who would liberate their world, not Meru's own.
It was too late for her, but the new generation, the
children who were being taken in by the new resistance cells
that were forming had a chance at living in peace, and
having their world back. But not until then. Not for years.

They never spoke of their spouses -- Tzo and Meru's
husbands, Maiaya's wife, left back in Singha -- somehow,
that brought it all into focus, made the separation too
final, and the horrible violations the prefect was
performing on them nightly, too real. Meru prayed to Taban,
sometimes, begging him to take care of the children, and to
forgive her for abandoning them, but when she was lying in
bed under the prefect's heavy, armored frame, she would talk
to herself, talk herself to distraction to avoid letting her
mind touch on Taban, alone in the bed they used to share. It
wasn't the same. It wasn't the same. What Meru did in the
prefect's quarters was no different from any other job she'd
held under the mercy of Cardassian overseers; it was a job.
And she did it. And she never, never let herself think about
what this man was doing to her, how he was mining her like
blasted stone from the inside. Never. And the women never
spoke of it.

Sometimes Maiaya would sing -- battle hymns, generally --
and Tzo and Meru, both with tin ears, would listen solemnly,
unsmiling, as if the lyrics in the ancient tongue were some
code that, if they could only crack it, would spell their
freedom. In an effort to keep them "shapely" (the glin's
words), they were fed quite well, but the food was
Cardassian, pasty and bland, and the women could barely
stomach it. Tzo would eat, and Meru and Maiaya would offer
her their leftovers, in the hopes that the prefect would
take a liking to her "shapely" form and perhaps give her
better treatment. But she would come home from her
encounters as bruised as the other two, and tell the same
story they'd each been telling, every night.

It must have been early winter when the on-duty glin came to
collect Meru for the second night in a row. "He asked for
you again," the glin explained. Casting a terrified glance
at her compatriots, Kira Meru exited out into the
foreign-familiar Bajoran night.

After the scrubdown, Meru started for the stairs, knowing
the drill by rote, wanting desperately for it to be over
with. "Not yet," the glin said, clapping a hand on her
shoulder and stopping her in her tracks. He steered her back
into the atrium where she'd been bathed, and slid open the
door to a shiny alloy cabinet. From it, he drew a plaited,
wooly bundle, which he pressed against Meru's damp breast.
"Put it on," he said. "Legate's orders."

She shook it out, and saw that it was a robe, cableknit from
some luxurious wool and belted at the waist with a wide
ribbon. She slid her arms into the sleeves, thankful for the
protection from the dank air and scrutinous eyes. Warm and
shivering, she blinked up at the glin, awaiting instruction.
"Go on up," he said. "You know the way."

//Alone?// she didn't say, but instead turned on her heel
and started for the stairs.

When she opened the door to the prefect's quarters, he was
waiting for her. *He* was waiting for *her*. He was seated
on the bed, crosslegged, with a tray of fruit and a bottle
of spring wine -- spring wine! -- beside him. And he smiled
when she walked in. At first she thought she was dead, and
was dismayed at the cruel joke the prophets were playing,
but the ache in her groin and the teethmarks across her arms
and neck reminded her that she was very much alive. Her
world was growing more bizarre by the moment, but she was
very much alive.

"Hello, my dear," the legate cooed. "Please, sit down."

Unable to formulate a good reason not to, she complied.
"Yes, sir."

"Please," he said. "Call me Dukat."

"Yes, Legate Dukat," she said, furrowing her brow.

"Dukat," he said with a grin. "Just Dukat."

She merely nodded, petrified. //I should slap him,// she
thought, //spit in his face, holler to the Prophets for
vengeance against all he's done to us.// Hating herself for
her cowardice, willing herself to feel some instinct other
than self-preservation, she sat stock still and waited to
see how this would play out.

"Have some wine," he said, pouring a glass and holding it
out to her.

//Yes. Have some wine. Dull the pain.// Nodding again, she
took the glass from him, downed the strong alcohol in one
gulp.

"Tell me about yourself," he said, refilling her glass.
"Tell me about your family."

"They're slaves!" she said before she could catch herself,
but Dukat merely shook his head and smiled knowingly.

"Personally," he said, "I despise the actions that Gul
Namerov has taken in the Singha facility. Shall I have him
replaced?"

"He beats people at random; every month he declares what he
calls a 'holiday,' where five innocent people get executed
in public. If those are grounds for dismissal in this
tyrannical culture of yours, I'd say replace him," she said,
her tongue loosened by the wine and Dukat's apparent
sympathy.

"That's terrible," he said. "That is no way to train workers
who are under your command. He should be nurturing you,
helping you learn, and grow. I have no taste for violence,"
Dukat clicked his tongue.

"But you have no problem with fucking us twice a week!" Meru
spat before she could stop herself; Dukat's syrupy words cut
her to the bone. Regretting the outburst immediately, she
searched Dukat's face for signs of response.

At first it looked like he would strike her, but then his
face fell, and he looked at the floor. "I regret that," he
said. "I'm sorry."

"What's going to happen to them?" she asked. "Maiaya and
Tzo. I imagine I'm to stay here with you." She hadn't made
that leap until the words were out of her mouth, but as soon
as she uttered them she knew they were true. She was to be
Dukat's consort; he had chosen her. She supposed she should
be flattered, but hate and bile rose in her throat.

"They will be returned to Singha as soon as I can arrange
for transport. And, yes, you're correct. I'd like for you to
live here in headquarters with me; it must have been
*anguish* living in that wretched tent all these weeks."

"So why did you order us to live out there?" she asked.

"I had to!" Dukat lost control for a moment, tossing his
head, his onyx hair swinging wildly around his face. "Don't
you understand? I'm the Prefect of this annex! I am in
charge of the entire Bajoran project! I had to set a strong
example! Half my men are older than I am; I had to prove to
them that I was to be respected as a leader!" He slammed his
fists into his thighs and refused to meet Meru's gaze. "But
I was wrong. I know that now. A good leader is respected for
his powerful mind, not his 'tyrannical' actions, as you so
aptly put it. I am an intelligent man. A great man. I am the
youngest member of the Cardassian military ever to be risen
to the rank of Legate, and I am a credit to my title!
Centuries from now, when this world takes its stand as a
strong and powerful part of the great Cardassian Empire,
people will remember the name Dukat as the man who began it
all. And do you know why?" Dukat looked to Meru, not really
expecting an answer. There was a long pause, and Meru tried
to take in what Dukat was saying. But his next words shocked
her. "Because...I love Bajor."

"What?" she asked, leaning over to try and catch a glimpse
of his face as he stared at the floor.

"I do," he said, attempting a laugh which stumbled over the
lump in his throat. "At first, it was just a job. Central
Command sends me out here and says: 'annex!' But this is a
beautiful world; your people are so good, and simple, and
kind...under our tutelage, you could learn to become great,
as we have. That's all I want, all I've ever wanted. For our
two peoples to coexist peaceably."

And, for a moment, Meru understood. //They want to be more
like *us*. They can be enlightened by our peace, our
spirituality and wisdom, just as they believe we can be
enlightened by their power and strength.// For a moment, it
all made sense; the occupation, the resistance, the
Cardassian brutality and slaughter. While she couldn't
forgive Dukat for what his people were doing to her world,
she understood that it was the Prophets' will, to teach the
misguided Cardassian race a little of what the Bajorans
already understood about peace, and faith, and love. And she
was to be their emissary. For a moment, it all made sense,
hanging above the bed, above the two of them, shimmering in
its crystalline perfection. It was the truth; the awful,
horrible, genocidal truth. And a moment was all it took.

Meru reached out and touched Dukat's shoulder, gently. "I
understand," she said.

Dukat looked up, his face wrought with pain. "You do?" he
whispered. "You forgive me?"

"No," she said. "I don't forgive you. But the Prophets will
save your soul. I can help you."

Dukat reached out, slowly, and traced a finger across Meru's
face, the touch so unlike the violent attacks of the
previous weeks that Meru shuddered. "Thank you," he said.

He pulled her head toward his, gently. "Maiaya taught me
this," he whispered, touching the corner of her mouth with
his exploring finger. "She was drunk; I think she threw *me*
down that night. She used to struggle, and fight; the other
one -- Tzo? -- used to scream, to let out these uncanny
high-pitched wails. Only you were resigned, were at peace. I
could see the faith in you, and the confidence that
everything would someday come right. I respect you for that.
But Maiaya did teach me one thing about Bajoran custom, and
I thank her for that..." So saying, he tipped his head and
closed his eyes and pressed his lips to Meru's, letting
their tongues taste one another, their moist mouths move
together.

Meru sighed, the tenderness of the kiss more moving than
she'd expected. She weakened, and allowed herself to fall
into Dukat's embrace. //Prophets, grant me the courage to
help this lonely, misunderstood man....// she thought. And
somewhere, on that winter night, the Prophets heard.

---

The End