Wounds Not Mended
Disclaimer: I do not own DS9 or any of its character, although I sometimes wish I did! Please take note, this is a fan fiction. This will not be published or violate copy write law in any form.
Prologue: The Occupation
Year 2328
Bajor
The dawn was so dark an orange it almost looked red in the early morning atmosphere rising over the Dahkur province. It showered the green landscape with light, purifying the hills and seemingly bathing everything from the province's rolling hills to the trees that lined them in a soft veil of gold. All appeared picturesque and pristine like a vision from the heavens, a land of unharmed natural beauty. But all was not as it seemed. The rain forests that covered the steeps and the untamed grass lands were hampered by an ungraceful and foreign evil which had set in on this land from a neighboring system. The nefarious offenders were the shady legions of Cardassia Prime.
Dark warriors, who had longed to prove the superiority of their race over that of others and had finally captured their chance in the shadowed halls of military domination. The government, on the other hand, claimed greed as the price for its lust for occupation. Cardassia, an ancient nation, was void of many natural resources which Bajor had in great wealth. Seeking to have this wealth for themselves, the expansionists of the government rallied for the invasion of the peaceful planet of Bajor. For this reason alone they had taken control of this land without great struggle in the dread year of 2328.
It had had been a dark day on the face of Bajor when the victorious conquers had instituted their right hand at the capital of Dahkur to prevail over the people. The Occupational Government, a puppet of the High Command set up to show the atrocities and tribunals they carried out as justifiable to the few other nations who knew what had happened to the Bajoran populous. The caste system, which had been in practice successfully for over one hundred years, was denounced and nullified. Tradesman and artisans were thrown from their guilds, whole families were put out of work. The people were confounded. What were they to do if they were banned from practicing the trades their families had passed down for the last few generations? What else could they do?
A second decree was issued in 2330 by the High command's black hand, this one more potent than the last. It declared that the people were to leave their homes as resettle in predestinated camps on the edges of the cities. In short, it ordered every free Bajoran to leave all that they owned behind and start a new. The mass emigration from the cities began. Whole families had packed all of the belongings they were allowed to take and were herded into a large group which would leave the cities on foot and travel, 'escorted' by a Cardassian appointed official and his troops to their camps. It had been a sore day when the Kira family had bee forced to leave their ancestral home in the city of Dahkur led by the family elder, Kira Tuan and his children. The control factor of the camps was population size and the Cardassians dealt with overcrowding using an ancient ritual, decimation.
Every third member of a family was taken away and loaded into trucks by guards. Chaos is the only way to describe the event. The families were herded into a large arena surrounded by palisade walls. Then Cardassian officers and their dogmatic aides, who followed at their sides loyally with a clip board that housed the names of the members of every family, had marched forcefully through the shivering, huddled mass carrying sticks in one hand.
The authoritarians stood before one family at a time, read aloud the names of its members and then picked their victims at random. Once singled out, those chosen were wrestled from their relatives by armed guards and taken to trucks where they were restrained and loaded into their backs. The Cardassian officers often in these situations argued that more than the third of every family should be taken for fear the one was not enough and that over crowding would ensue if they were not through in this. So many times two were taken and in some instances more than four were arrested.
In the year 2335, this happened to the Kira's on their way to the newly erectedSingha camp. They had taken from the Kira family Kira Tuan and his eldest son, Kira Hien, leaving behind his only other son, Kira Taban and his young wife Kira Meru to lead the family. Once the trucks were loaded they were taken to remote locations, no one but the Cardassian overseers really knew where. In any event, whole families were torn apart in what the High Command called the 'first step' in the cleansing of Bajor.
Next the remaining people were again herded up to walk on foot the remainder of the way to the camps. This sorry trek was later named the Trail of Desolation by the Bajorans who survived it because the trip was so long and grueling that often a family would loose a fifth of its remaining members to the horrors of the journey. Once a free and prosperous race, the Bajorans were rounded up as though they were chattel to be bartered and sold at their captors' whims. All that had been of this great and most ancient of all civilizations in the Alpha quadrant was disbanded in the onset of a few short years.
Nevertheless, the Bajoran people clung proudly to their heritage and most important of all to their faith. The people in the camps were inspired by it, so much so that their Cardassian officers began to fear what could happen if everyone were to rally up behind it against them. In the year 2340 a the Occupational Government again reared its ugly head in answer to the fears of their high ranking officials. It decreed that the teachings of the Prophets were not to be preached publicly to the populous and that punishment would arise for those who disobeyed those orders. But the people did not loose face. Vedeks continued to preach from within the camps, instilling in them fire that could not be snuffed out by any act of oppression or desolation: hope. The steady years of oppression, torture, and hard labor did not dampen such expectancy of freedom
Kira Taban, despite his harsh experiences and frequent brushes with death, was a peaceful man full of hope and good will, though he and his family inhabited a place of dark walls and even darker threats. His light heart would carry the burden of caring for his family and worrying for their well being, but his was also a stout heart and he rose to the challenge with a smile on his face. His smile would lighten the hardest of all tasks and mend the most stubborn of internal wounds for his children and his family. That was how he and his wife would have it. A better life for their children, it was all they could hope for in this deep and troubled land.
Author's Note: This will not be a lighthearted tale as the occupation was a dark time so shall this story cover some of the more violent aspects of life on Bajor at the time, though I don't want you to get discouraged from reading because it will have a happy ending. But for all of you who have a tough time with violence, you've been warned. I liked the character of Major Kira's father in the one episode where it talked about him and I was excited that I would get the chance to elaborate on that. I hope you enjoyed the Prologue. Tell me what you thought! Questions? Criticisms? Likes? Dislikes? Feed them all to me in a detailed review. Thanks!