The Oldest Profession

by evenstar8705

19 year old Kira Nerys is a Resistance fighter during the Occupation of Bajor. Shakaar assigns her the one kind of mission that she swore she would never accept. I was deeply inspired by the bravery of the show writers when they covered the subject of comfort women in DS9. This story delves into that subject as well. Don't worry. Kira will escape unharmed.

Kira was trying and failing to cheer up one of her only friends. She had managed to find kava nuts in the forest near the cave that their cell used as their secret headquarters. It was Sisica's favorite treat. What Bajoran didn't love kava? She approached the slightly older girl in her sleeping bag silently. She was only just waking and couldn't sleep comfortably wearing her cumbersome mask. Kira knew she didn't want anyone to see her disfigured face, destroyed by acid that she had inflicted upon herself in order to avoid being taken as a comfort woman for the Cardassians.

"You are still beautiful to me," Kira wanted to say. "You will always be beautiful! The scars and lack of nose, the burns and the missing ears can be restored. Just as soon as we find a surgeon that we can trust and won't require a fortune to repair you. If you could only hold out hope and have faith in the Prophets…"

This all sounded comforting and like the exact right thing to say, but she knew it would have no positive effect upon Sisica. It might make her angry instead. It was best to ignore it, to bury it, to never speak of what had transpired. Their chance of finding such a generous surgeon was slim to none. Sisica had been the most desirable woman in the Resistance but now the Bajoran boys looked at her with no more than pity. Kira felt guilt so powerful she wasn't sure she could live with herself. She still wondered why those Cardassians had let her go unharmed.

"Sisica," she called after waiting patiently for her to adjust her mask. "Look what I found for you!"

"Thanks, but no thanks."

Sisica's voice was strangled and whispery. The acid had damaged her vocal cords too. She had been a gossiping chatterbox, a shameless flirt, and a glib prankster. She was from a caste of performers. She had been everything that Kira wasn't. She was now reduced to a former shell of her old self. The Cardassians had taken almost everything away from her but her life and they hadn't even touched her.

"Sisica, you need to eat something," Kira tried to coax her. "You have been losing weight rapidly. You were too thin already."

Her green eyes were dim but at least they were the one part of her face that was visible and whole, "I eat when I'm hungry. I'm just not hungry."

"But you are never hungry."

Sisica was done with conversation. She walked away and left Kira standing alone with the kava nuts she had worked so hard to gather still in the palm of her hand. Stubbornly, she wrapped them neatly inside Sisica's bedding in case her friend changed her mind. She had to get hungry eventually.

Lupaza called to her, "Kira, Shakaar asked for you directly."

"Coming!"

She headed straight for the leader of their Resistance with giddy anticipation. She needed a mission badly right now to take her mind off of everything else. She hoped for a bombing or an assassination assignment. She had a craving to kill the enemy. She was in for a nasty surprise. She made Shakaar repeat his orders.

He was a stutterer in the early days. With each victory the Resistance gained due to his leadership, he gradually gained confidence and charisma. By the end of the Occupation, he had lost his stutter completely, but for some reason, with Kira Nerys, Shakaar Edon often slipped back into old habit and his stuttering got bad again.

"You want me to pose as a Bajoran prostitute and act as a distraction?" Kira breathed lightning and fire. "Do you realize what you are asking me to do?"

"P-please, N-Nerys-"

"No! I don't want to hear it, Edon! I won't do it! I promised myself and swore to my father's grave that I would never stoop to such a thing!"

The entire cave echoed with Kira's angry voice and Shakaar's responses which were soft and placating at first and escalated into a din of noise to try to drown her out or he would never get a word in. Some of their comrades suppressed laughter. Kira was the only one in the cell that dared to talk back to Shakaar or to use his first name, though she usually only slipped into that informality when she was at the limit of her temper. She had jumped from a zero to one hundred on that scale so fast. It was fast even for Kira who was known as the biggest hot-head in the Resistance.

If not for that attitude, Kira no doubt would be leading a cell of her own. Only Shakaar could rein her in when he was lucky. She had a deep respect for her leader, and Shakaar treated her like the little sister he never had. Kira was the youngest person ever recruited to the cell and had been it longer than almost all of them. Lupaza and Furel were the only two that had joined earlier and that was only by a couple months. Kira was a twelve year old child then and nineteen now. She had risked her life for Shakaar and he had saved her countless times. They supposed their relationship made sense. Siblings could fight the way they did and still remain on such good terms, not lovers.

"Nerys, I don't like it any more than you do. I wouldn't ask it of you if I could avoid it. You know that, don't you?"

"Make another girl do it!"

"The other girls are too green for this mission. Lupaza is still recovering from the wounds she and Furel got from their last one and even though I would normally choose Sisica for this particular mission, she is c-c-c-"

"Compromised?" Kira's voice lowered to barely more than a whisper, but the edge in it was sharper and more dangerous. "You do remember what almost became of her and me only a few weeks ago? Do you know what those soldiers would have done to us? Would you have cared?"

"I would have gone after them and rescued you!" Shakaar said passionately. "I would have stopped at nothing!"

She believed him. He had once been in love with Sisica like every other man in their cell. Their relationship had ended before her mutilation. She wondered if he would have stuck by her if they had still been together. Sisica never did explain why she had broken away from their leader. Maybe it was because Shakaar had become jealous of all the competition for her affections. Shakaar had come to Kira's aid several times in the past. She remembered that clearly and took a deep breath. She wouldn't have wanted Sisica forced on this sort of mission either. She wouldn't wish it on any woman.

"I am only posing as a prostitute, correct? I won't have to touch or be touched by a Cardassian?"

"I only need you to distract a single soldier long enough for me to find the new security codes the Cardassians released. I'll snatch any other intelligence we need form his quarters if I can. It should only take a few minutes of sweeping the area and if the spoon head goes too far or harms you in any way, I'll kill him. I promise I won't let anything happen to you, N-Nerys. That's why I'm going on this mission myself. I'm not risking one of my best lightly."

It made her expression glow with pride when he said that. She desperately craved his praise and respect as a fellow soldier.

Despite her misgivings, she said, "I accept, but if I do this, we're considered even, got it?"

"Agreed."

"And if something goes wrong, I'll never forgive you."

"N-neither would I."

Sisica and Lupaza helped to transform Kira from a gruff, plain rebel soldier into a slightly more appealing woman. They bathed her in the hot springs near the cave, cooing that she was far more beautiful than she imagined. Kira kept her small clothes on even in submerged water, refusing to believe what she thought were empty words and false flattery. She already regretted accepting this damnable mission.

"What was I thinking?" she said over and over. "How could I have let Shakaar talk me into this?"

"He will protect you," those were the last four words Sisica said to her the rest of the evening.

"If that lunk-head fails," Lupaza promised, "Furel and I will save you."

Those words washed over her warmer than the spring water heated by volcanic chasms deep in Bajor's core. Lupaza stroked her short red hair with a touch of sadness.

"It's a pity that you cut your lovely hair. You didn't cut it very evenly either."

"I'm sorry that I only had a knife and no mirror at the time!" Kira snapped. "I tried to pass myself off as a boy."

"Did that work?"

"No. Can we please stop talking about this?"

Kira nodded subtly at Sisica and Lupaza got the hint, saying, "Sisica, can you help me give her hair extensions?"

Sisica nodded and they managed to give Kira back her long red hair, even if it was artificial. Sisica was so talented that when it was pulled back into a braid, no Cardassian would be able to tell the difference. The extensions were made of real hair and she dyed it to match Kira's roots. It was only hair, not skin off her shoulder or face. It could be cut, pulled out, burnt, and it would grow back. Sisica would probably never look the same even after professional reconstructive surgery. Guilt nipped at Kira again as she gazed into the sad eyes of her masked face.

The women had no makeup kits lying around, but they made do with what nature could provide. They mixed berries, nuts, and roots with a mortar and pestle, creating their own recipe in order to give Kira's skin the touch up they deemed necessary. Lupaza smeared the juice from red berries on her lips.

"You do look good with red lipstick, Nerys," she said. "It really brightens up your face! If we can find it for you, you really should wear it every day!"

"I don't like makeup!" she groaned.

"Someday you need to learn to be more than just a soldier. Learn to be a woman! It can be fun!"

"I don't know what is so fun about artificiality!"

"You're such a grouchy girl!"

They cleaned her nails and then dressed her. She wasn't supposed to be posing as a pampered comfort woman and they had a limited wardrobe so they had to settle with a plain skirt and a plain blouse with mesh-like material covering the top layer for some semblance of style. Kira was very uncomfortable in a skirt. She was convinced it was too short even though it was a longer cut and felt naked. Her legs were chilled by the slightest breeze. She shivered and tried to stretch the skirt's length.

"This will make it far too easy for a Cardassian!" she said, her chest constricting with horror at the thought.

""That's supposed to be the idea of a skirt. Easy access."

"And they thought skirts were more modest?" Kira snickered.

"You remember how to break a Cardassian's neck if he reaches down there. Their neck scales and ridges are actually a huge vulnerability and not the strength you might imagine."

"I know that already!"

"Of course you do! You have a higher kill count than anyone else in the cell, even Shakaar! Speaking of Shakaar, let's show you off to him!"

"No!"

They ignored her and led her back to the cave as though she were a prize animal. They dragged her forward, showing her off to all of their comrades. It was a shock to most of them. She had never worn anything feminine in her life and was often criticized for neglecting her hair and clothes. The best she could do with her own hair was to tie it in a plain ponytail. She preferred to wear pants and worn boots. Because it was often so cold, she wore many layers and hid her figure whenever possible. She was dolled up and blushing crimson. The girls squealed and the boys gaped and guffawed.

She was too humiliated to make eye-contact with Shakaar at first. She expected him to sneer and laugh.

"N-N-Nerys?" he sputtered. "I-Is that you?"

"It is!" Lupaza boasted as Kira opened one eye and then the other slowly. "Isn't she gorgeous, Shakaar? She'll have no trouble distracting a Cardassian for you. If only we had some prettier clothes. That's my only complaint."

"I'm n-not complaining!"

Kira frowned because Lupaza had mentioned Cardassians and then looked at Shakaar shyly. She thought she saw a light in his eyes that she had never seen there before. He gazed at other girls that way, never her. The look was gone as soon as she noticed it and she convinced herself firmly for many years that it had never been there at all.

Kira's whole body was nearly locked with fear as she took her place among the Bajoran prostitutes waiting for potential clients to arrive. Her memory was flashing before her eyes like a forced film reel. There was the suppressed memory of her mother being taken away by Cardassians and never returning, the sharp memory of her neighbor's daughter dragged from her father and brothers when she came of age before Kira, and then there was the Cardassians that had almost snatched her and Sisica to become comfort women only just recently. She also remembered hearing female Bajoran soldiers swapping the stories of their personal experiences as former comfort women. That had been within the first few days of being recruited into Shakaar's cell.

"My Gul wasn't too bad," one of the women began. "He could even make it pleasant when it came time for the 'comfort'. I still killed him when my brothers finally came to my rescue. What did the bastard expect? He raped me in front of my husband and shot him dead when he came to collect me! Did he really expect me to be happy and grateful after something like that?"

"My Cardassian wasn't military," said a second woman. "I was told that he was a lucrative medical professional. He was obsessed with Bajoran skin. They gave me to him as a comfort woman but he was too old for that sort of activity. No, his motives and desires were for more sadistic. Every morning he would strap me to a medical table and flay or burn every inch of my skin as I screamed. He would record this brutality from every angle, analyze the data, and then he would run some sort of thermal regenerator over my body to heal his grisly work. Then he would rub soothing oils and lotions over me in the evening. He repeated this process every day for over a year. I felt like a butterfly being pinned down and having my wings torn off again and again and again."

"Did he give you pain medication for this procedure at least?"

"Only at night so that I could heal properly and get some sleep. There was nothing in the mornings when I needed it most. He relished the screams. Not even his Cardassian housekeeper and servants could stand the sound or their master. The rumor was that he was actually a member of the Obsidian Order and a retired information extractor to be exact."

"So they gave you to an actual torturer?"

"Yes they did! He finally got what was coming to him, though. He didn't realize that I was starting to become immune to the normal dose of sedatives he gave me at night. I cut that old man into such tiny pieces that they will never find enough of him to bury. I kept a single scale for myself."

"Good for you!"

The women in the group let out wry laughs. Kira crept closer, unnoticed.

"My Gul was a typical Cardassian," a third woman spoke. "He kept to a rigid schedule revolving around his military orders so he was boring and predictable. He would wake early, use me, eat his breakfast and go to work, return for his lunch and use me again, go back to work, return when that was finally done, drag a bottle of kanar and me into his bed and fall asleep when it was over. He never spoke to me because he couldn't speak any Bajoran. He kept me in a beautiful room and gave me my own servant. I bribed that man so that I could escape. I was lucky."

"You're awful quiet, girl. What was your life like as a comfort woman?"

They rounded on a girl that looked no older than sixteen. She was hugging herself and was the only one that didn't join in on the dark humor expressed by the others. She didn't even want to talk, but the women showed her their scars or trophies and promised her nothing could possibly offend them anymore.

"I have a hybrid son," she said at last.

"Oh no!"

The other women murmured with reactions of anger, sympathy, disgust, and sorrow. Every spectrum of emotion and feeling was touched by the subject of hybrids. No wonder the girl was reluctant to confess that.

"Where is he?" the women asked. "Did you or the Cardassian keep him?"

"My Cardassian was one of the more junior officers," the girl explained. "He was actually incredibly happy when he found out that I was carrying his child. I tried to hide it. I heard some girls are forced to abort such pregnancies and are then sterilized. Some mothers are murdered along with the child if they refuse. My Cardassian had been told that he was sterile and could never have children so he never thought it would be an issue."

"He must be one of those Cardassians with an eerily similar physiology to our own. Those damned aliens and their aggressive reproductive systems!"

"In Cardassian culture, they think you must be defective if you are sterile. Reproduction and family is so important to their society. He wanted to take us back home to Cardassia when he was reassigned, but he knew that I would never be accepted by his family. His son could be accepted if he underwent cosmetic surgery. It would make him indistinguishable from an ordinary Cardassian. No one need ever know he was half Bajoran. We discussed it many times and agreed it was best for the baby. I realized that meant I had to give him up. Once home with a living son as proof that he wasn't sterile, his father would become a real man in the eyes of his peers and leaders. His family would be proud of him again. He would be eligible to marry a Cardassian wife and get promotions. They are all happy now."

"At your expense!" an older woman snarled. "You said you actually agreed to this one-sided arrangement? What were you thinking? I wouldn't let anyone take my baby without a fight!"

"No one wants the stigma of a hybrid baby anyway!"

"I would have aborted the monster long before the father found out!"

This sparked an angry and heated debate that began to spill over to some of the male soldiers. Of course, they had even less kind words for the young mother. Kira felt sorry for her and the girl wept tears that were ignored. The shouting worsened until Shakaar stepped in to restore order. He saw that Kira had witnessed the whole conversation and raged with an almost paternal instinct.

"You women should keep your voices down and be more careful about where you discuss such topics!" he didn't stutter at all. "There are children within range! I'm not downplaying what you suffered or shaming you. I just want to preserve the innocence of others wherever I can!"

"No one can remain innocent for long! We are occupied!"

Shakaar offered an outstretched arm to Kira hiding behind some supply crates. The women had not seen her there and hung their heads when they did. They wouldn't have swapped stories if they had known. Kira was pale, but she put on a brave face and took Shakaar's hand. She was twelve and he was still a teenager himself, but he was their leader and she looked up to him. He tried to distract her with target practice outside.

"You are amazingly accurate for never firing a w-weapon before," he told her.

"My brother Reon and I made slingshots and bows to hunt small game," she replied. "I was a far better hunter than him. Thank you for teaching me about real weapons, Shakaar."

"Call me Edon," he smiled at her.

She had nightmares thanks to those stories, made all the more vivid because she knew they were not simply inventions of a sick and overactive imagination but because they had really happened to real women. It could happen to her someday. It would have certainly happened if she hadn't joined the Resistance. Now she was supposed to be enticing one of these same monsters from her nightmares into her bed!

Kira wasn't even sure how she was supposed to entice a Cardassian or any man for that matter. She felt awkward and longed to be anywhere else. She tried to copy the poses and behavior of the women around her. They seemed to know what they were doing. She had mixed feelings for Bajoran prostitutes. Unlike comfort women, they were not here wholly against their will. She wasn't sure how many were simply trying to keep their families fed and how many were Collaborators. She didn't trust any of them and wondered how they could do this sort of thing every night. How many men had they been with? How much did they receive for the tiny slivers of their pagh that they left behind in each passionless embrace? No wonder some of the girls looked like the living dead.

There were some Bajoran men that approached the prostitutes hopefully, but only the most desperate women accepted them as clients. They had no money and very little in the way of food. All they could offer was a warm blanket, brackish water rations, and the company of a proper Bajoran man. These women needed more than they could offer. Kira was almost as afraid of them as she was of the Cardassians. So many wives and daughters of Bajor had been separated from the opposite sex that some Bajorans began to behave like animals around their own women. They hated the prostitutes almost as much as they hated their slave masters. Kira had heard reports of beatings and rapes by fellow Bajorans and started to wonder if all males of all species were the same.

An old Bajoran man walked up and put his hand on Kira's cheek. She recoiled, but he didn't seem to be interested in propositioning her. She relaxed and his initial expression of joy became sorrow.

"I'm sorry, child. I thought for a moment that you were my grand-daughter Terra."

"Terra?" she repeated. "Orja Terra?"

"Yes!" the man's spirits lifted. "Do you know her?"

"She's alive and well," Kira whispered happily. "She's safe in the Resistance!"

"Oh," his face fell again. "If she's in the Resistance, then she's not safe! Please tell her to come home!"

"I can send her a message."

The old man fled when a Cardassian stepped forward. He seemed to be interested in Kira. She forced herself to smile shyly even though her heart leaped into her throat. She had hoped that they would all pass her by and Shakaar would have to find another girl after all. He looked very young for a Cardassian soldier and possessed pleasing features for an alien. He seemed to be as shy as she was.

"What is your name?" his Bajoran was excellent.

"Luma," she gave her alias.

"Luma. That's pretty. Is that your first or last name? I get confused by the surnames usually coming first."

"It's my first name. I'd rather not give my surname, you understand, I'm sure. I know Cardassians prefer first names."

"You can call me Alled. First name Alled, last name Galex."

"Alled," Kira tried to pronounce it and succeeded on the first try.

"Yes!"

He beamed at her, and his smile made him a little less threatening, but Kira was far from at ease. She also wondered what she had done to attract him. She hadn't been in a provocative pose and there were flashier women around her. She had simply been talking to an old man and behaving naturally.

"Will you be offering your services?" she had no idea why Alled sounded so nervous. "What prices are you asking?"

She rattled off some numbers, careful not to seem suspicious by giving a price that was too cheap or too steep. He didn't try to haggle down the price or ask for anything too sordid like some of his fellows. She found that slightly odd but not unwelcome.

After the terms were decided, Alled paid her half of what she asked for. She knew she was supposed to receive the other half in the morning. He motioned for her to follow him. She got envious looks from the Bajoran prostitutes and looks of disgust from the Bajoran men. She ignored both because they were rooted in the same desire to have something they couldn't. She was more bothered by Alled. She felt as though she had eaten a meal of heavy stones and they were rubbing into the pit of her stomach and weighing down her footsteps.

Deep in the shadows, his face covered entirely by rags and his feet covered in cloth rather than shoes to muffle his footfall, Shakaar followed the pair as closely as he dared and went unaccounted by the patrols.

It was a short walk to Alled's designated place but he handed Kira a strip of jerky and a Cardassian ration bar from his belt as they traveled. She was pleasantly surprised by the gift. Food had not been named as part of the terms. She wolfed the rations down with a speed and enthusiasm that amused the Cardassian. He handed her a water canteen next.

"Spring wine would be a bit more romantic," he said good-naturedly. "But I'm afraid I can't afford such a luxury."

"Water is more than fine."

She took a gulp and he made a point to drink after she did and licked his gray lips slowly as he gazed at her. She felt her stomach churn. She would hate to vomit up the food she had just consumed, but she might not be able to help herself depending on what transpired in the next few crucial minutes. She looked around wildly for Shakaar when Alled tore his eyes from her.

"This is the place," the Cardassian announced when they reached the apartments for the lower ranked soldiers. He entered the codes to be let in; they got into the elevator that required even more codes to operate, and finally arrived into his humble quarters. He removed his distinctive black Cardassian armor and heavy military boots as Kira willed herself to cross the threshold, trying not to have a panic attack. The Cardassian had not touched her yet, but he was drinking in the sight of her now more boldly than before.

"Why don't you have a comfort woman?" she asked because the silence was killing her nerves.

"Comfort women are a privilege of the elite," he explained. "I am not even a Gul. Besides, I know what those women really are. They're slaves. I have no illusions about that. It took long contemplation before I decided to hire a prostitute. I hoped that such women might be at least somewhat willing to, uh, sleep with me. I don't want to force you."

She was puzzled by that. Cardassians took everything they had by force. They taught their people that Bajorans were weak, superstitious, violent radicals that didn't even know the potential of their own planet. They were brutes to women. Why should this soldier behave or think anything different?

He must have seen the doubt in her brown eyes, "I will not harm you, Luma. All I ask is that you honor the agreement and don't harm me! I was warned that Bajoran prostitutes are often ruthless terrorists in disguise. You looked like a normal girl to me and you were very pretty. Was I wrong?"

She wanted to tell him she was a ruthless freedom fighter, not a terrorist. Oh, the Cardassians liked to use that word to describe her and her comrades. It made them appear to be in the wrong. If the Cardassians rounded up Bajorans and forced them from their homes it was merely to establish order and give them more 'efficient' living and working arrangements. If children starved in the displacement camps, it was due to the laziness of their parents. If a man was worked to death, he was a casualty.

She gazed at Alled's neck ridges and sized him up. He was probably flattered, thinking she was admiring him not about how best to snap his neck. He looked at her with intrigue.

"What are you, Luma?"

"I'm a virgin."

She cursed herself for blurting out such a stupid thing. She didn't know why she had confessed that to this Cardassian! It was the truth, though. She was nineteen and had never been so much as kissed. She heard those stories of survivors of comfort women and was terrified of even consensual sex with a loving Bajoran man. She wasn't sure if she believed in such a thing as sexual love. Her face burned with humiliation and Alled's startled look made her angry.

"Now you are the one that doesn't believe me! You think I've wrapped my legs around dozens of men, maybe even hundreds of men, don't you! I'm a Bajoran female, we're always in heat!" she started to go on a bitter tangent.

"No, I believe you, Luma! It's just a nice surprise. It puts a little bit of pressure on me, but I think it will make this more exciting for both of us. Unless you are not ready? Perhaps you wanted to save yourself-"

"Save myself for what? For whom? There is no one!"

It was true. She was the last of the Kira name on all of Bajor.

"I meant no offense. I am so-"

"I don't want your pity!" she snapped.

He nodded that he understood.

"How many women have you been with?" she was curious.

"I was courting a Cardassian woman but then I was assigned here. I had no choice and she had no interest in starting her life over on a planet that wasn't our home. My commanding officer promised that he would make arrangements. Everyone knows about the terrible shortage of Cardassian women here. It's the unfortunate reason why we have to persuade Bajoran women to be our companions. Some of us like Bajoran girls or even prefer them. I obviously can see the appeal. But she was the only one and I have not been with a woman for about two years now."

No, she viciously told herself. Don't feel sorry for him! She mimicked him by nodding her head. Then she wondered what the hell was taking Shakaar so long.

"I have another ration for you!"

Alled unwrapped kava crackers that he pulled out of the end table near his bed. The crackers were the closest things to biscuits or cookies Cardassian soldiers could hastily make and issue. Kira knew what he was doing, she was no fool. He was trying to entice her closer to his bed and to begin the service he was paying for. He wanted more than pleasant conversation and he was getting impatient. She was supposed to be distracting him, whatever that meant. If he touched her, she knew exactly which ridge to fracture. But she should be able to snatch a biscuit with no problem.

She reached out her hand and he yanked the treat a little way further. She inched forward and he yanked again.

"Go ahead, bite the end!" he urged.

She lunged with her jaws and succeeded in biting off the end with her next step. The cracker was surprisingly sweet and sugary for standard rations. He placed the other end of the treat between his lips. He expected her to keep going. Was this an earnest attempt on his part to initiate seductive foreplay? It was almost fun! Some of her nervousness had turned to flighty tension. They both anticipated what the other would do.

She snatched the end of the cracker facing her between her fingers and yanked. Alled's piece broke cleanly off between his teeth, aided by the force of her gesture. She popped the larger piece into her mouth and chomped it down in one bite, letting out a hiss of breath, a flash of her eyes, and giving him a little smirk of petty triumph.

She didn't realize at the time that Cardassian courtship encouraged such playful rivalry and that she had unintentionally done something incredibly sexy in Alled's mind. He flushed gray and grabbed her and yanked her down onto his bed beneath him. She was surprised by the sudden display of color in his scales and startled by his quick movements. He pinned her arms down and her legs turned to useless jelly. She couldn't snap his neck quite the way she had planned. She was about to yelp and Alled placed his hungry mouth on hers and she gasped inside of his.

My first kiss and it's being wasted on a Cardassian! She wailed inside of her head. No, no, no! How could you let this happen, Nerys? What the hell is going on? Do something! Make it stop right this instant! The Cardassian is not going to stop!

Despite what that voice was screaming at her, her body was receiving such a flood of complex and contradicting signals that Kira couldn't react to what was happening. She could only watch and feel. It was almost as though she was having an out of body experience. Alled's lips didn't feel rough, his hand groping her body was smooth and without scales. She felt terror, confusion, heat, and sensations surging through her like she had never experienced before in her life. She wanted to throw the alien body off her own, but a dark and primal part wanted him to continue.

"Edon!" she managed to cry out when Alled came up for air, but he didn't know that Bajoran word. Maybe it was the name of one of her Prophets. He massaged her shoulders and nuzzled her neck. His mouth had an aftertaste of kava. He flung his shirt over his head and her hand moved to his chest all on its own. She had always wondered what scales on a man would feel like.

A childhood memory came to her for a split second. She found a harmless little garden snake crawling through the grass near their family camp while they still lived there. Those times weren't happy, but they were happier than most of her years growing up. They had a steady supply of rations and housing. She brought the snake to her father and he nearly leaped out of his skin.

"Nerys, what in the name of the Prophets are you doing with that viper?"

"It's just a garden snake, daddy!"

She was fond of snakes and spiders because she was a strange girl and there was nothing else much cuddlier around.

"Can I keep him as a pet? Do snakes have a pagh?" she asked.

"It's just an animal, Nerys! There is no such thing as a harmless snake! Let it go!"

"But I like him, daddy!"

"No, Nerys! Be good or I swear I will sell you to the Cardassians!"

She cried when her father said that. She knew his threat wasn't real, she was upset that she couldn't keep the cute little snake. She was lucky that he hadn't cooked him in a pot. She loved to pet the snake's scales.

Cardassians always seemed like evil humanoid snakes ready to strike her for any excuse, but Alled's teeth felt gentle as they scraped the skin of her throat and they were not fanged and venomous. He pulled the mesh layer off her shoulders and pulled up her blouse and tossed it aside eagerly as she lay paralyzed and mesmerized. He crushed her against his chest and they both moaned and ached with desire for a moment, her bare breasts touched the skin of his own chest. They were trembling.

"It's true what they say about Bajoran women!" he sighed in her ear. "Such soft and smooth skin! Oh, I've never felt anything like it! Thank you for this, Luma! You're so beautiful! It's been so long!"

Her tongue was tied so that she couldn't respond. She wouldn't admit that she had a similar reaction. His scales weren't abrasive and irritating like she imagined they should be. Her skin wasn't breaking out into hives or rashes. His scales actually felt good! He was also hairless, young, athletic, and exotic. What else could this strange body make her feel? How different was a Cardassian man from a Bajoran? Would Alled serve her better than one of her comrades?

She'd never know. The shock of being pulled into his embrace began to wear thin and shame, fear, and revulsion was beginning to creep over. He was the enemy! He was an alien conqueror that was godless and believed Bajorans were inferior animals! His people were butchers and thieves! He was a Cardassian and she was a Bajoran. Her body had responded positively at first, but she could feel herself clamping up and tightening.

Was it really because he was supposed to be her enemy? Was it xenophobia that dictated her emotional and physical responses, or was it simply because she was a terrified virgin and the thought of sex was equated to the so called 'little death'? Why would they call it that if it was supposed to be wet, sensual pleasure? She'd rather be on a battlefield than a bed at this very moment. She understood combat and death. Her brain couldn't process this.

When Alled's hands went up her skirts, she gasped, "No! Please!"

Her voice was lower than the ghost of a whisper, but Alled had been listening very carefully for such words. He froze in place and his scales returned to their normal coloring. He pressed his cheek against hers and felt the tears streaming from her eyes that she couldn't control. He let out a sigh and stroked her bare back.

"I heard you," he soothed. "You are not ready. I thought as much. I won't make you do this."

"You won't?"

"No, but, will you allow me to hold you? I'll let you keep the money. I just want to cuddle you for the duration of the time. Is that acceptable?"

She nodded as she wiped away tears, "May I put my clothes back on?"

"Of course!"

He assisted her, making sure her makeup didn't smear more than it already had. He wrapped a protective arm around her and used the other to pull a blanket over them. She slowly began to relax and found herself drawing circles over his chest scales as she listened to his heart beat. She felt her own gratitude and relief flowing through her fingers and wondered if Alled could feel it.

Cardassians may be mostly evil, but Alled had been a gentleman. He nuzzled her neck and she didn't even mind.

The two of them reeled when the door whooshed open and Shakaar appeared. His face was heavily covered except for his blue eyes and a single tendril of his blonde hair. His voice was thick with hatred.

"Let her go, spoon head!" he growled.

"What the-"

"Now!"

Shakaar pointed his weapon at Alled and Kira launched from the bed.

"Don't hurt him!" she cried and when Shakaar looked puzzled, she hit him in the face. "Where the hell have you been? If he was a typical Cardassian, he would have raped me by now! I was counting on you!"

"What did you do to her, spoon head!" Shakaar roared at Alled.

"Nothing, no thanks to you!" Kira rasped and slapped his weapon away from the Cardassian's direction. "I hope those codes were worth it!"

"There was a change in their patrols! I had to wait out a guard!" Shakaar said quickly.

"Luma? Are you a terrorist?"

Shakaar looked murderous, but again, Kira stopped him from murdering Alled. She shoved him out through the door.

"Wait for a minute!"

"Are you crazy?"

"I said wait for me, damn you!"

Shakaar grudgingly obeyed and Kira turned to the clueless Cardassian, "My name is not Luma. Let me give you a dose of reality. Share it with your friends: We don't want you here! Take your money and give it to another girl but don't touch her! The comfort women don't want you and the prostitutes don't want you. Go home to your Cardassian girl. If you continue to be this naive, one of my comrade sisters will kill you. If you're lonely, see a counselor or call home to your own planet! Use a holoprogram! Don't expect intimacy from your victims!"

"I hear you. I'm sorry. I never asked to be here."

Kira blinked at him, handed him his money, and impulsively kissed him on the lips, begging him, "Please wait before you sound the alarm?"

"I won't stop you. Don't hate me too much."

Then she bounded after Shakaar.

"I'm sorry, Nerys. D-Did that Cardassian-"

"I already told you that he didn't hurt me!"

"N-Never again. I p-promise you that!"

"We're even now, you hear me?"

"Yes."

When they finally arrived back at the caves, Lupaza and Sisica rushed to greet Kira. Lupaza wanted to hear details. Sisica was silent and dabbed at Kira's face with a wash cloth to clean the makeup away. Shakaar retreated to his own corner of the caves to drink his spicy urgot drink that he had invented. The others thought that was strange. He had brought back the codes and more. He usually returned from such missions boasting and cheerful. He looked miserable instead.

Kira decided she wanted to be alone as well. She brushed off Lupaza and entered the inner cave they had set up as a shrine to the Prophets. She began to pray.

"I can't believe I hate Shakaar right now more than Alled," she said to herself. "And now it's even harder to look at Sisica. If Shakaar hadn't burst in the way he did and when he did, what else might have happened between that Cardassian and I?"

No longer were the Cardassian soldiers going to be nameless and faceless to her. She had killed her first Cardassian at thirteen. She didn't hesitate. She was fearless and filled with nothing but contempt and hatred for the alien invaders. Now there might be hesitation, and any hesitation might get her or one of her comrades killed. She would look at the targets and wonder which of them were truly vipers and which were harmless garden snakes. She would remember how Alled's scales felt upon her skin. Did Cardassians have a pagh?

Her unflagging faith in Shakaar was shaken. Her mind and body were still reeling. It seemed as though her world had been turned upside down. No one would understand. If only there was someone out there she could talk to that wasn't personally touched by all this hate, pain, and misery. If only she had a friend that could give her advice and simply offer comfort and quiet understanding. She needed someone to reassure her that she wasn't crazy.

"Nerys," she jumped at Shakaar's voice. "I-I can't sleep. I feel so horrible."

"You should!" she hissed. "Now go away!"

"I couldn't protect Sisica. She has to wear a damned mask over her face. I barely saved you. I made you accept that mission. I shouldn't have done it. I-I get so wrapped up in the fighting and killing. You are one of the only ones left. I-I thought of losing you today and I-I can't stand it. People die around me, Nerys. I am cursed."

His last words hung in the air. He had lost everyone in one fell swoop. His family farm was scorched by the Cardassians and his family was executed. They were slaughtered in their own fields by a firing squad because they refused to obey the order to abandon their ancestral lands. They would have only starved slowly in the wild. Shakaar Edon was the only survivor because he was still a child and crawled in the grass taller than he was. He slipped into the wilderness and became a feral outlaw, learning the land as no one ever had and using it to his advantage. He started up the Resistance at only age sixteen.

Kira understood that. She felt cursed too. She motioned for him to sit beside her. They prayed together for those they had lost, for Bajor, and for each other.

"We'll survive this, Edon," Kira squeezed his hand. "We will."

"Keep your head down and we might," he said and then added, "You really are quite beautiful, Kira Nerys."