A/N: I know the Cardassians wouldn't really capture humans and other aliens and all that, but just for the sake of this story, let's just say they would.
Consoles exploded, throwing bright sparks of white energy into the air. There was a loud bang, and a metal support beam fell, crashing down upon several people.
Around the entire bridge were columns of shimmering light that sparkled and glittered then faded away into solid forms.
The forms were those of ruthless Cardassian soldiers, willing to fight for their lives, even if it wasn't necessary.
"Fire and you die!" One of the soldiers yelled, lifting his gun in one fluid motion and aiming, but not firing.
One of the Cardassians ordered everyone down on the deck, and walked by all the crew members on the bridge, smacking one on the head with his gun on the way.
The crew member fell, and the captain of the invaded ship began crawling over to see if he was alright.
"Halt."
"If you want us for one of your mining colonies I assume you want us in a good condition," the captain spat.
"No," one of the soldiers raised his gun, took aim, and fired. It struck the injured man and burned a hole in his chest. The captain watched, knowing this was going to truly be the end of the U. S. S. Mustang like her ancestors.
Each Mustang has a spirit, a spirit that roams the plains and mountains, not the confined space of a holding pen. Being captured takes that spirit away. If you take away a Mustang's spirit, it's no longer a Mustang.
If you take away a ship's crew, it no longer has any spirit. It has no meaning, it can't live up to its name.
If you take the spirit away from a ship, it can't fulfill its mission: to explore space, to fight the enemy, to carry an ambassador halfway across the quadrant. If you take the Mustangs off the plains they can't fulfill their mission: to help us hunt or fight, to become what we have come to be.
You can't take a ship, kill its crew, disassemble it, reuse it, because that's like capturing Mustangs, taking their spirit away, taking their freedom away, sending them to slaughter and then eating them.
You aren't worthy of trust if you would do that. Which means almost all of us are untrustworthy, except for the few Cardassians that were forced to fight, who don't have enough strength to rebel. But if there is enough pressure in the dam, it will break; it's just a matter of time as it weakens.
"What are you going to do, kill us?" The captain of the ship asked, sitting in a pile of debris, looking each of the soldiers in the eye, trying to find not a weak one, but a rebellious one who didn't want to fight. "It doesn't matter. The ship is set on self-destruct." The captain watched one of the soldiers, evaluating his reaction.
The Cardassian was shorter than the rest, and the ridges on his face were less prominent. He didn't have the hard glint in his eye that the others did, instead he had a soft spark of fear showing. It traveled to his other features, causing his lips to become pale and his fingers twitchy. He didn't want to die. He would save the Mustangs.
Still watching him, the captain said,
"You can't take the Mustangs to the slaughterhouse; it's across the border." The Cardassian in charge raised his gun and fired. The captain of the U.S.S Mustang fell back, knocked out or dead by the shot.
There were people who protested, they told the government to do something, but what could the government do? The holding pens were full and no one was adopting. But still wild horse advocates protested to deaf ears, hoping someone would hear, someone would see. A newspaper article, a website on the internet. It might help, but they needed a city full of people. A town full of people. A school full of people. Anything to prevent the Mustangs from disappearing without a trace, slipping away without anyone noticing.
The crew watched as their captain was shot down like a statue. Proud and important. No one said a word, words wouldn't make a difference in this war. Only actions would. And now, the crew had their hands tied behind their backs. Firing a gun at this point wouldn't make a difference. All they could do was wait to be rounded up into different pens, where life would take a turn for the worst.
"Get everyone in the mess hall. Take no resistance," the Cardassian leader informed the soldiers.
From there the battered U.S.S. Mustang was towed over the Cardassian border and the crew was sent to a prison camp on one of the planets. Then crew was separated into large prison cells according to species. The ship was empty, and then it was sent to a shipyard to be disassembled and reused in some of the Cardassian ships.
It smelled bad, like rotting flesh and blood. There was the sound of people moaning in pain and the sound of weeping, the sound of a lifetime of pain coming out in short gasps. There was the sight of hundreds of bodies huddled together in fear and panic. One man was dead on the floor, with large red gashes on his face and chest. Dried blood covered his entire face, and there wasn't even a speck of pale white skin to be seen. A women no older than the age of 25 was kneeling over his body, her face in her hands.
Horses screamed, charging along the fence of the holding pens. Some rammed up against the fence, trying to escape. The Mustangs wanted out. Their spirits were already broken, but it was only a matter of time until they shattered to dust. Men yelled as they waved their arms around, frightening the creatures that had never seen a human before. The horses panicked and fled to the other side of the corral, throwing themselves at the fence, the bars that could injure spirit more than any wound could.
On the other side of the fences- the never-ending fences- were the stallions, fighting and kicking each other, against their own will. Being gathered into the same pen as one another was bad. Shrill neighs were sent into the sky, asking for help when no one would listen.
Sounds echoed off the walls and there was no light to be seen. There were cages everywhere, and the cages had humans, Orions, and countless other alien species. A common trait among them was the loss of freedom they had. All of the aliens in the cages had tattered clothes and gashes all over their bodies. Some of the trapped souls were wailing and shaking the bars on the cage. They were rewarded with the smack of a whip on their hands. Then they would retreat to the center of the cage, moaning and knowing it was hopeless, but still wanting to cry for help.
In one of the cages was the captain. She was in the larger size cage that could hold up to five people. She sat in the middle, cross legged, with her head down, her brown hair falling over her face. She was lucky enough to have been put in a cage with one of her crew members, who was leaning over her.
"We could try to get out when the guard opens the door…"
"Give it a rest. Our ship is at the Cardassian shipyard and our crew is scattered throughout this entire building. We can't free all of them, and we can't free just one."
The Mustangs were taken, forced into a dark, shady trailer. It creaked and groaned under their hooves, and moaned as the truck hauled it along. The screams never stopped, not even when they reached another holding facility. From there they were unloaded and fed, put into clean pens, and left alone. At least for a while. People came to look and admire the Mustangs' beauty and strength, and some people brought trailers and took one or two away. One day a man with a large trailer came and took almost a hundred horses. The horses were taken to a large pasture, and not much was heard after that. They weren't heard about as the trailer rolled across the border and the horses were unloaded at a slaughterhouse.
"Come on, get out!" The moment had come. Life was going to fall apart, never to be reconstructed. Every crew member was a piece of shattered glass, and within each crew member was a splintered, broken heart, split into a million pieces. The pieces would be impossible to put back together again, if all the pieces could be found. Some pieces were destroyed even further, broken, and abused so many times that they turned into grains of sand, thrown into the ocean to be lost forever. Even with the frame, the structure that brought them together, that made them work with each other to fit just right. Now the Mustang was dead, as well as the spirit inside.
The plains were bare, and the West was no longer the West.