Chapter One
Apocalypse 2370
Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager -- No Spoilers that I know about.
Characters: Chakotay, in this installment. In future installments, many others.
PG-13, Angst
Begun: May 2007, Work In Progress
If I have my canon "facts" mixed up, please let me know (w/o yelling at me, please.) Thanks!
Synopsis: Chakotay returns to Dorvan V After the Treaty of 2370
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Lieutenant Commander Chakotay stumbled amid the charred debris that was once his home. Acrid smoke and fumes whipped around his head, lashing his face with cruel finger-painted strokes of filth. Scorching fumes poured into his mouth and nose. Painful coughs erupted from his aching lungs. The force tore at his throat. Beads of sweat glistened on his brown skin, and mingled with tears that he did not know were streaming from his reddened eyes.
He wandered through the wreckage like a lost child. His ankle caught between shattered chunks of adobe and he fell. Painfully, he pulled himself up, ignoring the sprain and continued his walk through the cremated remains of Eden.
In stunned silence, he watched as fires erupted from the wreckage. Each tuft of flame gushed up like geysers from the tattered terrain in trails of bloody ribbons. Plumes of black smoke rose like twisters against the chaotic landscape, melding into the cloud-darkened sky. The impact of each of burdened step resonated through his boots and into his body. As his steps collided with the ground, the jolt of each footfall blasted through his marrow.
Such was the barrage of destruction that the Cardassians visited upon the peace loving people of his home planet.
Only weeks ago, though wracked with threats of interplanetary war, Dorvan V was still a garden planet. The Cardassians chose surgical strikes against his people, compelling them to submit.
Tribes, Clans, and families were wrenched apart as the inhabitants were forced to relocate by the Federation and Cardassians. Chakotay had heard that many of his people were conscripted to slavery on the Cardassian slave planets. Children, women and elder alike; it did not matter to their captors. They were all put to work. Hazardous mining. Dangerous work with radiation and anti-matter. They were all sitting on powder kegs in a fireworks factory.
His people believed in living in perfect harmony with nature. Their spirituality taught them to co-exist in peace with all things. Of course, squabbles between tribes and clans would arise—they were human—but their dedication to the Universe, their love of life and respect for nature was at once the glory of their existence and their undoing. They always found peaceful ways to mend their differences.
The people of Dorvan V were an advanced, space-faring culture that migrated from Earth for the chance to control their own destiny. Still they often chose a simple life over all the luxuries and complexities that technology had to offer. They preferred to till the earth and reap its harvest. They preferred fresh, cultivated food to replicated fare. They chose to raise cattle and use horses for transport. They preferred to make their own clothing, tan leather, spin wool. They wove rugs that they placed on earthen floors in hand-made adobe dwelling. Many of them were vegans, eschewing all animal products that involved killing any living creature. Above all, they were spiritual people who combined many of the Native beliefs from Earth. Worship and celebration were a part of every aspect of their lives.
Such was the heart and spirit of these people, his people. The people whose ways he had chose to go against. Waves of guilt and regret passed through his body followed by resolve. He gathered a fistful of the blackened earth, clutched it to his chest, and silently swore to himself. As if from far away, he heard his own whispered prayers, disembodied and disjointed. An ancient chant arose from his lips. He had neither prayed nor chanted for years.
He knew he had come home.
tbc….