CH2
"This is Lieutenant Ro Lauren of Deep Space Nine Speaking Is Admiral Nechayav available?" Ro Lauren asked through the Starfleet priority channel. That had gotten her to speaking directly with one on Nechayav's staff. She wasn't turning this information over to just anyone.
"She's busy right now. What is it?"
"I have current information on the Orion syndicate that I think she may find of value. My commanding officer, Colonel Kira told me to her inform Admiral Nechayav."
"The admiral is in a meeting right now. I'll inform her of your call as soon as possible and she'll get back to you. Is that acceptable?" "It's the most I expected." The screen went blank and Nechayav's com officer singed off. She leaned back in her chair, maybe this won't be so bad, she thought; seeing Edon again had made her realized that had been what she came back for. It was because she had to know what pieces of herself and her past she had left here that still existed. Because she had finally found the courage to look and see how much she had truly lost. Up to this point that she realized how terrified she had been of this place. She had been too afraid to feel any emotions about it at all. Now it was all coming back like a numb body part the feeling was suddenly returning to. She took a deep breath and picked up the pad to write her security report and she only written a few sentences when her com badge chirped.
"Vedek Capril to security." "Ro here." "Lieutenant, I found something extremely disturbing that needs you attention immediately." Although Ro Lauren generally despised vedeks, this vedek's voice sounded frightened not confrontational.
"What is it?"
"The body of Sergeant Shul Torem. He's dead." One of her people, she realized.
"Beam him directly to the infirmary." She listened to the vedek call for emergency medical transport. Then asked in a calmer voice "Where are you now?"
"Right out side the temple." "Computer, locate the closet security personnel to the area." The computer as she told it, and she contacted the people "Secure the area, it is a priority one crime scene." She switched channels she was on with the vedek again. "A few of my people will be arriving immediately to secure the area, and I'm on my way. Tell them what you saw." Shul Torem was one of the few who accepted her despite the fact she didn't practice the same religion as most Bajorans. He was open minded, he hadn't rejected Kira after she was attainted either. She was just starting to get to like him and now this; and she had a strange felling that he had been killed for his open mindedness. Ro felt a sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach, that a man had been attacked because of her beliefs. If the person was willing to kill someone who was willing befriend her, would it be so unlikely that same person was trying to kill her? Or was Kira's life in danger as well? After she was attainted she may be a prime target for any religious zealot. A voice Ro hadn't heard for over twenty years popped into her head. 'As an agnostic Bajoran you have enough people willing to kill you, do you really need your self on the list?' The women had taken the gun she had pointed at her head out of her hand, and the young girl she was fell crying in the woman's arms. Although she didn't even know the woman's name she was had touched Lauren deeply. First of all she was right about her having enough enemies without including herself, and if even a stranger valued her life enough to save her from herself, it was not something to be thrown away. Stop it, as far as you know, this was over some gambling squabble.
"Ro out." She said and left her office quickly heading for the scene. "Ro to the infirmary."
"Yes Ro." Doctor Bashir's crisp voice came over the com system.
"Is the Colonel awake?"
"No, why?"
"I think there is a bit of a situation developing."
"Involving Shul Torem?"
"Yes."
"Do you need me to get her up?"
"Not yet. I want to see how serious this is first. If anyone else is in danger I'll get her, otherwise it can wait." "That's reasonable. Bashir out." Ro assembled a security team to meet her at the seance of two Starfleet officers and a few of the least bias people she'd met in the Bajoran militia security force. Whether or not her gut was right about this any situation in front of the temple could be explosive, and she wanted her most rational people with her.
* * *
"Doctor, was that Ro?"
"Yes Colonel, I thought you were asleep."
"I was, your com badge woke me up."
"Oh, Sorry."
"Don't be. What's going on?"
"She said there was a situation developing. I think it has something to with the emergency medical transport of Shul Torem."
"His condition?"
"His heart stopped beating do to lack of oxygen, but he is not brain dead yet, I think I can revive him."
Kira jumped up. "I hope he recovers. I'm good to go right."
"No, in fact I highly recommend you stay put. You still haven't recovered enough that it would be wise for you to push yourself at all. If you try to exert yourself physically in this condition you will probably end up here again half conscious. But I know you well enough to know there is not much I can do to stop you, and the few things I can think of you would probably court marital me for."
"Kira to Lieutenant Ro. Report?"
* * *
"Did anyone see what happened?" Ro asked. Two civilians nodded, and went over to interview them.
Meanwhile Vedek Capril noticed Kira looked like she'd been to hell and back, and still in civilian clothing, "Kira are you well?" she asked, although the answer seemed evident already.
"I was injured while evacuating Europa Nova."
"I want you to know, I disagree with what the vedek assembly did to you..." Kira closed her eyes and a whole another world appeared to her...
There where three Bajoran children playing in a field with two Cardassian child and one half Bajoran and half Cardassian child. They where arguing of who got to play the parts in an ancient Bajoran fairy tale, one where the Emissary finds the Celestial temple in fact. "Can I be the Emissary?" One asked. "You where it last time. Let Dejora have a turn. You can be the temple." "How do you be a temple?" "You find a place to hide with the Prophets and then the Emissary and his assistant find you." "OK. Who wants to be Prophets?" Kira remembered the place, it was Deakor, her home province. She had even played a similar game when she was very young. "This isn't right." She said to herself. She fought almost twenty years of her life to get the Cardassians away from this place. They weren't soppiest to be here again. "No, this is more right then you ever imagined. Look, here come their parents." It was Shakaar's voice, but she knew he wasn't there. This must be a vision she realized. I'm speaking the Prophets. A Bajoran woman and a Cardassian man walked up holding hands, another Bajoran woman was with them, obviously a friend of the couple. The three where talking and laughing, when the reached children the woman called her child's name, and the kid came up to her. "We have to go honey." "Come on mom, we just started having fun." "Ten minutes?" The Cardassian man said sounding more like a child then an adult. "I really have got to get going. You Cardassians are far to soft." The woman said. Kira gasped, Cardassian - Soft, to words rarely in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. "We can take him," the other woman offered. "Honey do want to go to Dejora's house?" The woman asked the child. "Can I?" He said sounding excited by the idea, his mother nodded, and he jumped happily back to the other children. "That would be great." She told her friend. "Can you do dinner to?" "Of course." "I'll pick him up at seven-thirty." "That sounds good." The other woman answered and first woman left. Kira was shocked by what she had just seen. No sane Bajoran she knew would leave her child with a Cardassian by choice even for a second. This was clearly a different Bajor. "Now let us see the capital city." Prophet using Istina's form said and the world around her changed, she was still on Bajor, but no long in the hills of Deakor, in stead she stood at the feet of great building. She looked up and inscribed in stone on the top of the building were the words 'House of Law and Contemplation'. She turned to look the other side of the road, and saw a great Bajoran temple, so magnificent and brilliantly beautiful it nearly made Kira nearly fall to tears. A half Cardassian girl and a Bajoran boy walked down the road together. Talking, laughing, without feeling odd or out of place. "What is this place?" Kira asked. "Can't you see? It is the capital city of The First Republic of Bajor." Said another Prophet using Jadzia Dax's form . "When?" Kira asked astonished. "Five hundred years ago." Jadzia again. "How?" She asked a question she knew no mortal could answer, but she was not speaking to a mortal. The Prophets knew all. "Bajor and Cardassia need each other, compared to Bajor, Cardassia is a barren planet although their people tend to be scientifically minded. They needed the resources of Bajor, and agreed with the Bajoran government to share all the scientific developments of Cardassia in return for the right to share Bajor's resources." Istina told her. "What kept them from exploiting us?" "The Bajoran government had laws my dear. Any Cardassian found breaking them would be arrested and dealt with by the Bajoran authorities "The Bajorans tended to be more of a sensual people; the Cardassians respected and adored them for this. They adored Bajoran music, Bajoran art, and some even Bajoran religion. At one time the Cardassians even elected a Bajoran woman to lead the government of Cardassia. Read this it will help explain." Shakaar "What is it?" "The Treaty of Bajor and Cardassia. Signed seven hundred years before your time." "I thought that Bajor made first contact with Cardassia eight hundred years ago." "It took a hundred years for them the build enough trust to sign such a treaty. Read it." She read the first few lines aloud, and within what seemed to be only a few minuets she thought she had read the document in it's entirety. It said both governments were responsible for protecting the rights of both peoples. It said all Cardassian and Bajoran citizens would be allowed to move freely between the two worlds without interference by either government. To move permanently you need a permit singed by each government; once you had such a permit no law or institution could discriminate against you because of you planet of origin. If a crime was committed on one world the authorities of that world authorities had to right to track the suspects and/or perpetrator anywhere in Cardassian / Bajoran space without interference from the other authorities. But anyone involved in an interplanetary case could request the intervention of the other government then and only then did they have the right to intervene to insure justice. "Whatever happened? Why did we go to war?" She asked her Gods. "The vedek assembly grew to powerful, they overthrow the secular Bajoran government, and decided to cleanse all things of 'heresy'. No longer were you allowed to present evidence at trials, all the faithful were broken up into casts, and the rest were killed. Cardassia said Bajor had broken the fair trial's provision, and they ordered all Cardassians off Bajor for their own safety. Tensions rose between the two worlds until it finally broke out into open conflict and war. Bajor wanted to cleanse Cardassia of heresy and the Cardassians felt the treaty obligated them to protect the rights of those on Bajor. Both worlds lost a great deal in that war. Bajor killed millions of it's own people and all the Cardassians living on Bajor at the time. Although Cardassia managed to defend it's self a great number of Cardassians were killed in the war, their economy was completely destroyed, and without Bajor they had no decent way to recover it. A new government took over on Cardassia. Central Command and the Obsidian order were established, and they destroyed all most al the evidence of Cardassians previous alliance with Bajor, saying Cardassians were the only type of being worth respecting. Bajor had destroyed all most all evidence of its alliance with Cardassia in its quest to destroy heresy. And you know the story from there." Kira was shocked; she had always believed Bajor had been a completely innocent victim of the Cardassians brutality, not partially responsible for it. "Cardassia builds and empire, and annex's Bajor." She said. "But your fate's are intertwined; what you do to each other, you do to your selves." Istina's voice again. "Why couldn't I just have been born on earth?" She muttered to herself. Then Ben Sisko, the emissary appeared to her. "Do you think earth never went through this, Nerys? We learned these lessons in blood and pain just as you have. For example my people, the ones with dark skin where once enslaved and treated at lest as badly as the Bajorans during the occupation, if not worse, and for much longer then fifty years. That's not the only incident of its kind on my world. At one point not that much later a mad man took over a country, and said that anyone from any other place was not worth keeping alive. They went to war with the world massacred and tortured millions of civilians. The war was ended when another country discovered the thermonuclear bomb. For many years this is has in many ways the definition of the word genocide. Half a century later a group of religious fundamentalists hijacked a few civilian aircraft and flew them into to civilian targets killing over three thousand people." "Themselves included?" "Yes, they thought they'd go straight to heaven." "Why?" "The reasons are complex, and insufficient, mostly religion. Ask Commander Vaughan to help you brush up on pre-contact earth history; it may be of some use to you. The reason earth is as you know it is so peaceful is because we already went through what you are going through now. The only difference is we did it alone, by fighting other humans, and we did it many years ago as you are doing it with Cardassia, now." "Yes, Emissary." She answered. The profit using Istaina's voice spoke to her again "Tell your people that once they understand this, they will be more than children in our eyes. For some lessons there is no other way; though it was hurt us to see our children in pain, we could not interfere for that would have hurt you more." "Nerys, please give Kasidy my regards, and tell her I love her now and always." Ben said. "I know this seems a bit out of place, Kasidy once told me to ask you but what is it exactly that you had against Vic's?" She didn't know why she was so compelled to ask, but her sudden curiosity got the best of her. "What would you say about a descendent of yours in a holographic recreation of a Cardassian night club on Bajor during the occupation?" "With all honesty I don't know, as long as they weren't fucking a holographic reaction of my mother." "They took out most references to the occupation. There are no Bajorans in the recreation." Kira shook her head, in a way that would be worse. "I am the descendent, and Vic's is that place, don't tell the others, I don't want them to feel guilty." "This can never end, for they will always have our blood on their hands. The pain of what happened during the occupation will be with us forever." Kira said. He nodded confirming what she had just told him.
Then she opened her eyes; she was still standing right outside the temple, with Vedek Capril talking to her "...respect them and must accept their judgment, whether or not I agree." "What?" Kira asked, then she answered her own question. "You were talking about the vedek assembly." "Are you all right?" The vedek asked, I know "Tell me, is there any chance someone left the orb open?" "Yes, I'm fine. You know that no one would be so careless with something of such value." She paused and looked into Kira's eyes to find the reason for such a question, "Nerys, did you have a vision?" She asked Kira nodded. The vedek couldn't believe it, yet after she looked into Kira's eyes she couldn't deny it either; she had been touched. The vedek assembly was wrong. They didn't control the Prophets, they severed Them, and it was not Their will for Kira Nerys to be attained. "The vedek assembly couldn't be more wrong about you." "That is how this begun." Kira said, her voice was soft and it sounded almost as if she was talking about a dream. "What begin?" Ro asked curious. "Bajor started the war." "With the dominion?" Ro said sounding skeptical. "No, with Cardassia." "What?" Vedek Capril and Ro Lauren gasped at the same time. "Kira are you insane?" The vedek asked sounding seriously concerned about the Colonel's mental health. "Bajor broke the treaty first." "You saw what that 'Treaty' did to Bajor. If you can call it that, it was more like our unconditional surrender. You were in the resistance, you understand that better than anyone." "That's not what I'm talking about." Kira snapped, sounding more like her self, "I told you I'm not insane." Then Kira's voice returned to the softer dreamy tone she kept talking. "Long before that Bajor had a treaty with Cardassia, and for hundreds of years we were at peace. We broke it first. Two hundred years ago the vedek assembly overthrew the secular government of Bajor, and decided to cleanse it of heresy. They killed millions of Bajorans, and at lest as many Cardassians, and destroyed the evidence, as it was evidence of heresy. They established the cast system and killed all those who didn't conform." Ro Lauren looked aghast; Kira realized that on such a world she would have been one of the first killed. "Bajor had a treaty with Cardassia at the time. It said any Bajoran or Cardassian citizen on either world was entitled to certain rights, such as a fair trial, and had the right to worship as they pleased. It said that both governments were responsible for defending those rights of both peoples. Bajor broke the treaty first. The vedek assembly killed Cardassians and Bajorans for no reason other than that they didn't believe the Bajoran religion. This is what sparked the first war with Cardassia, a war we both lost badly. After this was when a new aggressive Cardassian government took over, they destroy all evidence of their previous alliance with us; we had done the same in our quest to destroyed heresy. That was the same Cardassian government that later annexed our planet. We all know what happened after that. Except what neither of us knew was that our fates have been intertwined, so that what we do to each other we do to ourselves." "A part me always thought that what's happing to Cardassia now is poetic justice for what they did to Bajor." Ro stated, expecting the Colonel to lecture her on how that was the wrong attitude. Kira didn't, in fact she nodded and Ro got the sense that at lest a part of her agreed. "Consider this, if Cardassia and a strong Bajor had been firmly allied, would it have happened at all?" Kira asked. "If it hadn't been for the occupation..." "The Prophets saw to it that Cardassia paid for what they did to Bajor." Vedek Capril stated. "No, this didn't happen so they could pay, it happened so we all could learn." Kira said. "The Prophets intended us to help them. Then and only then will this truly be over. Bajor started this, and Bajor shall end it. We should also come to see that one should never let religion replace our own sense of right and wrong. The Prophets love us, but they don't think of us as pets. They consider us children; they want us to think for ourselves, to learn from our mistakes. They want us to grow up, and to do this we must question our perception of ourselves and Them." "Are you accusing Vedek Yeivar of heresy?" Vedek Capril said. Ro Lauren started laughing out loud. In Ro's mind he was simply crazy, and if Bajor wanted him as Kai, then they all need their heads checked out. He used the word's heresy and heretic so often that about the only person on Bajor he hadn't accused of being a heretic was himself and his fellow fanatics. In fact he had gone so far as to attain Kira for distributing an ancient book to all the people of Bajor that spoke of the Prophets as Teachers not Gods. Ro Lauren heard something moving, before she could do anything about it a man jumped up and grabbed Kira. Kira jumped on his toes and shoved his arms off her. He tried to grab her again, she pushed him and if she had not been ill he would have fallen to the floor. Kira stared coughing he slapped her, she stumbled and fell. Having the space to act, Ro Lauren pulled her phaser from somewhere in her clothing and fired directly at the man's chest. He fell instantly leaving both him and Kira on the floor. "Vedek Capril, get me the nearest first aid kit." Ro ordered. Ro walked over to Kira and helped her into a sitting position. "Are you alright?" She asked. Kira nodded yes coughing, and Ro called Dr. Basher. "Kira try to calm down and take deep breaths." Ro said to her. "Where the heck did you get that?" Kira asked, referring to the phaser. "In the Maquis and when I was on my own if I didn't have a weapon I was in trouble. I guess I came to depend on it a little to much, so when I came here I wasn't quite ready to give it up." "Just tell me it was on stun." "Obviously. I didn't think I'd get that good of a shot, and I didn't want to take the chance of hitting you with it on anything higher. I am chief of security, if want to arm myself isn't that my choice?" Kira rolled her eyes, but she did have a point. She wasn't a civilian and Kira wasn't her babysitter. "Consider yourself under orders to keep it on stun unless I tell you otherwise for a specific situation." Ro nodded. "Lieutenant, the first aid kit." Vedek Capril said handing it to her. "Thanks." She said to the Vedek. "Doctor? You still there?" She said, remembering that she hadn't closed the channel. "Yes. Give her ten Cc's Tricenilean, and fifteen Cc's Bioxilin." Ro did as the doctor told her. She noticed immediately that Kira was breathing easier, and informed the doctor of this, who told her to bring Kira to see him and cut the channel. "Ro, you may not have the most charming personality but you're a damn good officer. Thanks for saving my butt and I am very impressed with all your work so far." "Thank you. That means a lot to me." It was the most meaningful compliment Ro had received in a long while. Colonel Kira wasn't lax with her praise, so she knew that what she said she meant. At first Ro had thought that she was a closed minded and judgmental jerk, but she had slowly come to realize that she was the one being overly judgmental, or at lest overly sensitive. In fact she had come to trust and deeply respect Colonel Kira. "Shaker told me something we need to talk about in private." "First lets get you to the infirmary." She said helping Kira up. "The man who attacked me is ether completely insane, or didn't grow up on Bajor." "What makes you say that?" "He had no idea what he was doing. If he had grown up on Bajor during the occupation he wouldn't have been so stupid; if I hadn't been injured already, I would have had him on the floor in minutes." "What happened exactly?" "He put his hand on my chest even thought it made it much easier for me to deal with him." "I can think of only one group that's so ignorant, the Orion syndicate." Kira turned and stared at her. "You promised me I wouldn't get dragged into that." "I don't know how they found..." Ro's com badge interrupted her. "Ops to Ro Lauren." "Yes." "You have a call on subspace from Admiral Nechayav." "Route it to my office, and tell her the Colonel was injured and I'm escorting her to the infirmary, so I might be a few minutes." "Understood. What happened to Kira?" Dax asked. Kira answered, "It's long story." "Alright. Dax out."
There where three Bajoran children playing in a field with two Cardassian child and one half Bajoran and half Cardassian child. They where arguing of who got to play the parts in an ancient Bajoran fairy tale, one where the Emissary finds the Celestial temple in fact. "Can I be the Emissary?" One asked. "You where it last time. Let Dejora have a turn. You can be the temple." "How do you be a temple?" "You find a place to hide with the Prophets and then the Emissary and his assistant find you." "OK. Who wants to be Prophets?" Kira remembered the place, it was Deakor, her home province. She had even played a similar game when she was very young. "This isn't right." She said to herself. She fought almost twenty years of her life to get the Cardassians away from this place. They weren't soppiest to be here again. "No, this is more right then you ever imagined. Look, here come their parents." It was Shakaar's voice, but she knew he wasn't there. This must be a vision she realized. I'm speaking the Prophets. A Bajoran woman and a Cardassian man walked up holding hands, another Bajoran woman was with them, obviously a friend of the couple. The three where talking and laughing, when the reached children the woman called her child's name, and the kid came up to her. "We have to go honey." "Come on mom, we just started having fun." "Ten minutes?" The Cardassian man said sounding more like a child then an adult. "I really have got to get going. You Cardassians are far to soft." The woman said. Kira gasped, Cardassian - Soft, to words rarely in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. "We can take him," the other woman offered. "Honey do want to go to Dejora's house?" The woman asked the child. "Can I?" He said sounding excited by the idea, his mother nodded, and he jumped happily back to the other children. "That would be great." She told her friend. "Can you do dinner to?" "Of course." "I'll pick him up at seven-thirty." "That sounds good." The other woman answered and first woman left. Kira was shocked by what she had just seen. No sane Bajoran she knew would leave her child with a Cardassian by choice even for a second. This was clearly a different Bajor. "Now let us see the capital city." Prophet using Istina's form said and the world around her changed, she was still on Bajor, but no long in the hills of Deakor, in stead she stood at the feet of great building. She looked up and inscribed in stone on the top of the building were the words 'House of Law and Contemplation'. She turned to look the other side of the road, and saw a great Bajoran temple, so magnificent and brilliantly beautiful it nearly made Kira nearly fall to tears. A half Cardassian girl and a Bajoran boy walked down the road together. Talking, laughing, without feeling odd or out of place. "What is this place?" Kira asked. "Can't you see? It is the capital city of The First Republic of Bajor." Said another Prophet using Jadzia Dax's form . "When?" Kira asked astonished. "Five hundred years ago." Jadzia again. "How?" She asked a question she knew no mortal could answer, but she was not speaking to a mortal. The Prophets knew all. "Bajor and Cardassia need each other, compared to Bajor, Cardassia is a barren planet although their people tend to be scientifically minded. They needed the resources of Bajor, and agreed with the Bajoran government to share all the scientific developments of Cardassia in return for the right to share Bajor's resources." Istina told her. "What kept them from exploiting us?" "The Bajoran government had laws my dear. Any Cardassian found breaking them would be arrested and dealt with by the Bajoran authorities "The Bajorans tended to be more of a sensual people; the Cardassians respected and adored them for this. They adored Bajoran music, Bajoran art, and some even Bajoran religion. At one time the Cardassians even elected a Bajoran woman to lead the government of Cardassia. Read this it will help explain." Shakaar "What is it?" "The Treaty of Bajor and Cardassia. Signed seven hundred years before your time." "I thought that Bajor made first contact with Cardassia eight hundred years ago." "It took a hundred years for them the build enough trust to sign such a treaty. Read it." She read the first few lines aloud, and within what seemed to be only a few minuets she thought she had read the document in it's entirety. It said both governments were responsible for protecting the rights of both peoples. It said all Cardassian and Bajoran citizens would be allowed to move freely between the two worlds without interference by either government. To move permanently you need a permit singed by each government; once you had such a permit no law or institution could discriminate against you because of you planet of origin. If a crime was committed on one world the authorities of that world authorities had to right to track the suspects and/or perpetrator anywhere in Cardassian / Bajoran space without interference from the other authorities. But anyone involved in an interplanetary case could request the intervention of the other government then and only then did they have the right to intervene to insure justice. "Whatever happened? Why did we go to war?" She asked her Gods. "The vedek assembly grew to powerful, they overthrow the secular Bajoran government, and decided to cleanse all things of 'heresy'. No longer were you allowed to present evidence at trials, all the faithful were broken up into casts, and the rest were killed. Cardassia said Bajor had broken the fair trial's provision, and they ordered all Cardassians off Bajor for their own safety. Tensions rose between the two worlds until it finally broke out into open conflict and war. Bajor wanted to cleanse Cardassia of heresy and the Cardassians felt the treaty obligated them to protect the rights of those on Bajor. Both worlds lost a great deal in that war. Bajor killed millions of it's own people and all the Cardassians living on Bajor at the time. Although Cardassia managed to defend it's self a great number of Cardassians were killed in the war, their economy was completely destroyed, and without Bajor they had no decent way to recover it. A new government took over on Cardassia. Central Command and the Obsidian order were established, and they destroyed all most al the evidence of Cardassians previous alliance with Bajor, saying Cardassians were the only type of being worth respecting. Bajor had destroyed all most all evidence of its alliance with Cardassia in its quest to destroy heresy. And you know the story from there." Kira was shocked; she had always believed Bajor had been a completely innocent victim of the Cardassians brutality, not partially responsible for it. "Cardassia builds and empire, and annex's Bajor." She said. "But your fate's are intertwined; what you do to each other, you do to your selves." Istina's voice again. "Why couldn't I just have been born on earth?" She muttered to herself. Then Ben Sisko, the emissary appeared to her. "Do you think earth never went through this, Nerys? We learned these lessons in blood and pain just as you have. For example my people, the ones with dark skin where once enslaved and treated at lest as badly as the Bajorans during the occupation, if not worse, and for much longer then fifty years. That's not the only incident of its kind on my world. At one point not that much later a mad man took over a country, and said that anyone from any other place was not worth keeping alive. They went to war with the world massacred and tortured millions of civilians. The war was ended when another country discovered the thermonuclear bomb. For many years this is has in many ways the definition of the word genocide. Half a century later a group of religious fundamentalists hijacked a few civilian aircraft and flew them into to civilian targets killing over three thousand people." "Themselves included?" "Yes, they thought they'd go straight to heaven." "Why?" "The reasons are complex, and insufficient, mostly religion. Ask Commander Vaughan to help you brush up on pre-contact earth history; it may be of some use to you. The reason earth is as you know it is so peaceful is because we already went through what you are going through now. The only difference is we did it alone, by fighting other humans, and we did it many years ago as you are doing it with Cardassia, now." "Yes, Emissary." She answered. The profit using Istaina's voice spoke to her again "Tell your people that once they understand this, they will be more than children in our eyes. For some lessons there is no other way; though it was hurt us to see our children in pain, we could not interfere for that would have hurt you more." "Nerys, please give Kasidy my regards, and tell her I love her now and always." Ben said. "I know this seems a bit out of place, Kasidy once told me to ask you but what is it exactly that you had against Vic's?" She didn't know why she was so compelled to ask, but her sudden curiosity got the best of her. "What would you say about a descendent of yours in a holographic recreation of a Cardassian night club on Bajor during the occupation?" "With all honesty I don't know, as long as they weren't fucking a holographic reaction of my mother." "They took out most references to the occupation. There are no Bajorans in the recreation." Kira shook her head, in a way that would be worse. "I am the descendent, and Vic's is that place, don't tell the others, I don't want them to feel guilty." "This can never end, for they will always have our blood on their hands. The pain of what happened during the occupation will be with us forever." Kira said. He nodded confirming what she had just told him.
Then she opened her eyes; she was still standing right outside the temple, with Vedek Capril talking to her "...respect them and must accept their judgment, whether or not I agree." "What?" Kira asked, then she answered her own question. "You were talking about the vedek assembly." "Are you all right?" The vedek asked, I know "Tell me, is there any chance someone left the orb open?" "Yes, I'm fine. You know that no one would be so careless with something of such value." She paused and looked into Kira's eyes to find the reason for such a question, "Nerys, did you have a vision?" She asked Kira nodded. The vedek couldn't believe it, yet after she looked into Kira's eyes she couldn't deny it either; she had been touched. The vedek assembly was wrong. They didn't control the Prophets, they severed Them, and it was not Their will for Kira Nerys to be attained. "The vedek assembly couldn't be more wrong about you." "That is how this begun." Kira said, her voice was soft and it sounded almost as if she was talking about a dream. "What begin?" Ro asked curious. "Bajor started the war." "With the dominion?" Ro said sounding skeptical. "No, with Cardassia." "What?" Vedek Capril and Ro Lauren gasped at the same time. "Kira are you insane?" The vedek asked sounding seriously concerned about the Colonel's mental health. "Bajor broke the treaty first." "You saw what that 'Treaty' did to Bajor. If you can call it that, it was more like our unconditional surrender. You were in the resistance, you understand that better than anyone." "That's not what I'm talking about." Kira snapped, sounding more like her self, "I told you I'm not insane." Then Kira's voice returned to the softer dreamy tone she kept talking. "Long before that Bajor had a treaty with Cardassia, and for hundreds of years we were at peace. We broke it first. Two hundred years ago the vedek assembly overthrew the secular government of Bajor, and decided to cleanse it of heresy. They killed millions of Bajorans, and at lest as many Cardassians, and destroyed the evidence, as it was evidence of heresy. They established the cast system and killed all those who didn't conform." Ro Lauren looked aghast; Kira realized that on such a world she would have been one of the first killed. "Bajor had a treaty with Cardassia at the time. It said any Bajoran or Cardassian citizen on either world was entitled to certain rights, such as a fair trial, and had the right to worship as they pleased. It said that both governments were responsible for defending those rights of both peoples. Bajor broke the treaty first. The vedek assembly killed Cardassians and Bajorans for no reason other than that they didn't believe the Bajoran religion. This is what sparked the first war with Cardassia, a war we both lost badly. After this was when a new aggressive Cardassian government took over, they destroy all evidence of their previous alliance with us; we had done the same in our quest to destroyed heresy. That was the same Cardassian government that later annexed our planet. We all know what happened after that. Except what neither of us knew was that our fates have been intertwined, so that what we do to each other we do to ourselves." "A part me always thought that what's happing to Cardassia now is poetic justice for what they did to Bajor." Ro stated, expecting the Colonel to lecture her on how that was the wrong attitude. Kira didn't, in fact she nodded and Ro got the sense that at lest a part of her agreed. "Consider this, if Cardassia and a strong Bajor had been firmly allied, would it have happened at all?" Kira asked. "If it hadn't been for the occupation..." "The Prophets saw to it that Cardassia paid for what they did to Bajor." Vedek Capril stated. "No, this didn't happen so they could pay, it happened so we all could learn." Kira said. "The Prophets intended us to help them. Then and only then will this truly be over. Bajor started this, and Bajor shall end it. We should also come to see that one should never let religion replace our own sense of right and wrong. The Prophets love us, but they don't think of us as pets. They consider us children; they want us to think for ourselves, to learn from our mistakes. They want us to grow up, and to do this we must question our perception of ourselves and Them." "Are you accusing Vedek Yeivar of heresy?" Vedek Capril said. Ro Lauren started laughing out loud. In Ro's mind he was simply crazy, and if Bajor wanted him as Kai, then they all need their heads checked out. He used the word's heresy and heretic so often that about the only person on Bajor he hadn't accused of being a heretic was himself and his fellow fanatics. In fact he had gone so far as to attain Kira for distributing an ancient book to all the people of Bajor that spoke of the Prophets as Teachers not Gods. Ro Lauren heard something moving, before she could do anything about it a man jumped up and grabbed Kira. Kira jumped on his toes and shoved his arms off her. He tried to grab her again, she pushed him and if she had not been ill he would have fallen to the floor. Kira stared coughing he slapped her, she stumbled and fell. Having the space to act, Ro Lauren pulled her phaser from somewhere in her clothing and fired directly at the man's chest. He fell instantly leaving both him and Kira on the floor. "Vedek Capril, get me the nearest first aid kit." Ro ordered. Ro walked over to Kira and helped her into a sitting position. "Are you alright?" She asked. Kira nodded yes coughing, and Ro called Dr. Basher. "Kira try to calm down and take deep breaths." Ro said to her. "Where the heck did you get that?" Kira asked, referring to the phaser. "In the Maquis and when I was on my own if I didn't have a weapon I was in trouble. I guess I came to depend on it a little to much, so when I came here I wasn't quite ready to give it up." "Just tell me it was on stun." "Obviously. I didn't think I'd get that good of a shot, and I didn't want to take the chance of hitting you with it on anything higher. I am chief of security, if want to arm myself isn't that my choice?" Kira rolled her eyes, but she did have a point. She wasn't a civilian and Kira wasn't her babysitter. "Consider yourself under orders to keep it on stun unless I tell you otherwise for a specific situation." Ro nodded. "Lieutenant, the first aid kit." Vedek Capril said handing it to her. "Thanks." She said to the Vedek. "Doctor? You still there?" She said, remembering that she hadn't closed the channel. "Yes. Give her ten Cc's Tricenilean, and fifteen Cc's Bioxilin." Ro did as the doctor told her. She noticed immediately that Kira was breathing easier, and informed the doctor of this, who told her to bring Kira to see him and cut the channel. "Ro, you may not have the most charming personality but you're a damn good officer. Thanks for saving my butt and I am very impressed with all your work so far." "Thank you. That means a lot to me." It was the most meaningful compliment Ro had received in a long while. Colonel Kira wasn't lax with her praise, so she knew that what she said she meant. At first Ro had thought that she was a closed minded and judgmental jerk, but she had slowly come to realize that she was the one being overly judgmental, or at lest overly sensitive. In fact she had come to trust and deeply respect Colonel Kira. "Shaker told me something we need to talk about in private." "First lets get you to the infirmary." She said helping Kira up. "The man who attacked me is ether completely insane, or didn't grow up on Bajor." "What makes you say that?" "He had no idea what he was doing. If he had grown up on Bajor during the occupation he wouldn't have been so stupid; if I hadn't been injured already, I would have had him on the floor in minutes." "What happened exactly?" "He put his hand on my chest even thought it made it much easier for me to deal with him." "I can think of only one group that's so ignorant, the Orion syndicate." Kira turned and stared at her. "You promised me I wouldn't get dragged into that." "I don't know how they found..." Ro's com badge interrupted her. "Ops to Ro Lauren." "Yes." "You have a call on subspace from Admiral Nechayav." "Route it to my office, and tell her the Colonel was injured and I'm escorting her to the infirmary, so I might be a few minutes." "Understood. What happened to Kira?" Dax asked. Kira answered, "It's long story." "Alright. Dax out."