Right up until the moment the Klingons had thrown her out into the mud, Efet had remained defiant, proud even, despite her loneliness and the creeping realization of just how far from Cardassian territory they had taken her. It wasn't until she was on her hands and knees in the muck, her hair falling about her face in disorderly tangles, that she truly began to fear her fate.
The Klingons were awful, but she had expected nothing less after they'd seized her and her fellow engineering crew on the little outpost where they'd been assigned to maintain valuable mining equipment. And to think, she'd so looked forward to this assignment - a chance for Efet, a treasured only daughter, to step out of her family's overprotective bubble and do some valuable work on a frontier outpost. She had been too naive, she had never seriously considered that the war would end up on her doorstep.
The outpost was critically undermanned, the entire reason Efet, a fresh graduate, had been assigned there. The two guards, Sian and Makbar, had died in the initial assault. Her direct superior, Chief Engineer Beltas, had been led away in restraints and Efet had never seen her again. She could only presume the worst.
As for Efet, despite her protests that she was a civilian engineer, the Klingons ignored her demands to be repatriated to Cardassia Prime. Efet could only presume they were holding her for ransom. They had thrown her into a narrow, stinking little cell, and fed her a noxious soup for a few days on their journey to this planetoid somewhere - Efet presumed - deep into Klingon territory. She was miserable - no one to talk to, missing her home and parents, and feeling concerned at the unknown fate of Beltas. She had barely known the woman before the Klingon attack, but hoped she was unharmed, or that at least she had died with dignity. When they arrived at their destination, Efet was snatched from her cell and unceremoniously dumped in the mud and muck of this strange planetoid.
Raising herself to her knees with as much dignity as she could muster, Efet squinted her eyes under the glare of the fierce sun. Ahead of her she could see only dense greenery, swampy and seemingly endless. Making an effort to stand, she turned and addressed what she presumed was the head Klingon.
"Where have you taken me?" she tried in Standard.
Laughing at her, the Klingon sneered and said, "This is a prisoner of war camp, and you are a prisoner here!" He and his friends roared with laughter, mocking her predicament.
Efet felt weaker than ever after her unwelcome confinement on the Klingon ship, and panic was rapidly threatening to overtake her. However, she tried her hardest to maintain control. "Prisoner! And what have you charged me with? I am a civilian engineer and in no way part of the mil-"
"Silence!" bellowed the Klingon. "No one makes it out of the ngech, not even slimy little lizards." The word ngech, a Klingon word he seemed to use to mean something like 'valley' or 'hole', was bizarre to Efet. This verdant landscape was a prisoner of war camp? But where were the barracks? The guards? Indeed, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey seemed to have landed on the only flat, barren, maintained scrap of land in this vast wilderness. As her eyes adjusted to the bright light, Efet looked up, seeing that this wilderness was, in fact, some kind of valley, ringed on three sides by incredibly high, sheer, rock walls that rose so high, she had to tilt her head almost completely back to glimpse the tops of them. Far into the distance, on the fourth side of the valley, she could see what appeared to be plums of water vapor rising into the atmosphere.
The Klingons ignored her, which made Efet furious. She knew she was no threat to them - thus why they turned their backs on her - but they also ignored her pleas. She stumbled from the muck and made her way to a tree, which she found had no normal trunk, but instead thick stalks, perhaps thirty of them, each one twice as thick as her body. The stalks sprang from the muddy ground then wound round one another, rising up to form what, from a distance, appeared to be a tree trunk, topped by foliage. Efet clambered up onto the stalks, finding a perch out of the sticky muck. Without any supplies of any sort, and with only the clothes on her back, she sat down and watched as the Klingons spoke on their communicators. After some time, another trio of Klingons emerged from the thick brush - they wore different uniforms, green-and-grey in color and boots that seemed to be designed for this terrain. These Klingons, Efet presumed, were her guards. They must have a base somewhere, she thought, somewhere in this swampy green valley. She looked at their cruel faces and cringed.
The Klingon guards did look over at her, seemingly directed to do so by one of the warriors that had brought her here. They gave her a cursory glance, said something uncomplimentary about her species, character, and parentage, and ignored her as well. She watched as they unloaded what appeared to be boxes of supplies. Efet figured these must be her rations, and crept down from her perch and cautiously approached them.
"I am Efet Erem," she introduced herself as best she could. "I have been brought here as a prisoner on this Bird-of-Prey. I am a civilian engineer. When can I expect repatriation to Cardassia Prime?"
The trio of Klingon guards was no more welcoming that her other captors had been. "You are here, probably unto your death," one guard informed her. "There is no way out of the valley, and I suggest you do not try it. If we have some cause to find you, we will find you."
Efet began to shake from fear a little. "And my rations? Supplies? Barracks?"
These Klingons laughed at her as well. There were to be no rations, supplies, or barracks, they informed her. The valley would shelter and also kill her. It also seemed to do their duty of keeping her contained, Efet gathered. Not that there was anyway off this rock without a spaceship - and Efet did not know how to pilot a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, even if by some miracle she commandeered one. The guards were armed, which was to be expected with Klingons, and although they did not say it, Efet gathered there were far more dangerous prisoners loose in this valley than her.
"Honorable Klingons," muttered Efet, turning chastising eyes on them. "So honorable to let a civilian woman starve to death in this jungle. I could not lift a hand to one of you and you know it."
"Exposure will kill you long before starvation will," one of the Klingons quipped. Efet bowed her head and fought not to cry. She could not believe it was going to end like this - abandoned to a slow death in a jungle prison in Klingon space. They could have at least killed her quickly and painlessly.
One of the younger Klingon guards seemed to take pity on her. After the others entered the Bird-of-Prey, he hung behind for a few minutes, took a small sack from their supplies, and tossed it at Efet. Gratefully, she fell upon it, no longer caring if she seemed desperate or not. All she could hope was that her people ransomed her from these loathsome Klingons as quickly as possible, and she had to stay alive to be rescued. She tried to thank him, but the young Klingon shrugged her off with a low growl. She caught on - he did not wish to seem partial to her to his comrades.
Taking her new sack, Efet retreated to the trees, climbing about until she found a spot she could sit on. The tree bark was quite marvelous, she found - soft enough to be scratched by her nails, and it released a delicious scent when scratched. She propped herself up with her back to the tree and looked in her bag. There were food bars, only enough for the nine days of a Cardassian week. There was a length of twine, a single fire starter kit, and a small blanket. The sack itself was loosely woven, and Efet figured she could put it to use in some way.
She did not venture too far into the forest. She had little way of telling direction, as the dense foliage blocked her views of the sheer rock walls or the distant, lone opening to the valley. Efet did not want to go too far from that landing strip and lose all sense of where she was. There was no knife in her sack, so she cast about until she found some rocks nearby, digging through them to find something as flat and flinty as possible. She then took another rock and went to work, chipping and reshaping her chosen blade. It was slow work, but she had nothing else to do. She was fortunate for her Cardassian photographic memory - she had seen such techniques demonstrated once in a survivalist course. At last Efet had a working knife. She tore a strip from her sadly ruined clothing, and wrapped it around the handle, to make it easier to hold.
The young branches of these twisting trees were only as thick as her arm and still green and supple. She cut an armload of them with her knife. She found a spot in one of the trees where she felt she could construct a little shelter. Using all her strength, Efet wedged herself in the opening where the roots had began to grow together, put her feet on another root, and pushed until she had made an entrance she could climb through. She then laid the branches criss-cross to construct a sort of floor for herself (a nest would be more appropriate). After she was sure it would hold her weight, she brought in her sack and laid out her blanket. It was rather comfortable, and the roots twisting around her made her feel like she was sleeping inside a birdcage. She ate one of her food bars and placed the others in the sack, tying it up in her little birdcage to keep it out of the reach of animals.
She needed water. The jungle was so swampy Efet knew there must be a river somewhere nearby. There was no way to know if the water was corrupted or polluted - but she would die for certain without water, so she had to take the risk. To be sure she could find her way back, she took her knife and cut marks in the tree roots as she went, just at her eye-height. The mark was the Cardassian glyph for 'E', the initials of her first and last names, and distinctive enough that she'd never confuse the mark for natural wear-and-tear or animal scratches.
Efet found the river shortly. It was tremendously powerful, seemingly cutting deeply into the landcape, and very fast-running; far too dangerous to try to swim. She had never been a strong swimmer, anyway. She had to follow the bank a ways until she found some pools that had formed in rock outcroppings. She had no cup; she knelt to drink from the water, choosing the coolest, clearest pool. Little aquatic animals splashed about in some of the pools; she wondered if she could use her sack as a net to catch them. Her clothes were filthy, and Efet struggled with the decision to bathe in the pools. She needed to cleanse herself and wash the pitiful clothes on her back; but that meant going naked, and she hated to feel naked and exposed. Well, she thought to herself, if the Klingons had wanted to rape me, they had many opportunities already, so I suppose I'm safe from them. Something niggled in the back of her mind, a fear that there could be other prisoners out there - some hostile to a lone Cardassian woman. Shivering, she decided she had to risk it. She selected the deepest pool, stripping off her clothes as quickly as possible and wading in, keeping her knife in hand. Bending her knees, Efet enjoyed the sensation of the water washing away the sweat and muck and filth. If this place had a sunning rock, she could almost have called herself content.
Her sensitive hearing caught the sound of something moving in the jungle. Whirling with fear, Efet splashed out of the water, clutching her knife. But a small, furry, six-legged creature skittered past her, and Efet felt foolish. Look at me, Efet huffed, as she returned to the pool. Jumping at every creak and crack. I was never a fighter anyway, what can I do if someone does attack me? She idly considered that she could at least fling herself into the rushing river and drown, rather than let some brute have his way with her. Shuddering at the thought, Efet finished her bathing and then set about trying to clean her clothes. Her trousers were of a dense material, and they would take hours to dry, especially here were no bright light penetrated. Her blouse and jacket were lighter, and after she washed them and laid them over a branch to dry, Efet formed a plan. The jacket went to her knees and zipped up; she'd put that on as soon as it was dry and bring her other clothes back to her birdcage. She brushed out her hair as best she could with her fingers, then tied it back with her same hairband.
Reeds grew alongside the pools, and Efet went at one with her knife, cutting herself a sort of walking stick. She sharpened one end, intending that in a fight she could at least wield it like a spear. Oh, how she wished she'd paid more attention to her cousin Daykor's fighting lessons! He had been an excellent fighter. If Daykor were here, no harm would come to her. Efet sniffed, suddenly feeling very sorry for herself. She felt small and far from home, and utterly alone. Her parents must be panicking, she knew. Efet was their only child, loved and coddled since birth. She felt sorry for them, and wished that she had some way to let them know she was still alive - even if she was in this wretched place. She dressed herself in her jacket, pausing now and then to wipe at her face, then gathered her damp clothes and prepared to head back. Her markings would do her little good once darkness fell, although Efet, like all Cardassians, had better night vision than most humanoid species.
Again, she heard a sound of something moving through the jungle - the rustling of leaves, the creak of vines and branches, the sound of a body, a body much bigger than hers, crashing through the undergrowth. Efet almost screamed. Her knife was in her jacket pocket and her spear in her hand. A wild animal was bad enough, but whatever made that sound was bigger than the little scampering furry things that lived by the river. She froze, listening, but the sound faded away. Whatever - or whoever - it was, it was moving away from her. Hurriedly, Efet retraced her steps up the riverbank, then followed her marks back to her little birdcage in the trees.
She draped her wet clothes on the outside of the roots, finding notches and bumps and buds where they could be hung. Every few minutes, Efet went still and listened for those sounds again. She was picking up only the distant roar of the river and the underfoot titters and scrambling feet of little native animals. She even heard the flapping of wings. It was growing dark. The canopy was too dense for her to see the stars; she considered using her fire kit but didn't want to give away her location. Instead, Efet climbed inside her birdcage and wrapped up in her small blanket. She wrapped the length of twine around the entrance to her cage of roots, creating a makeshift door. Her spear was within arm's reach, right outside her little home, and she placed her knife beneath the sack, which she decided to use as a pillow.
As night fell, Efet wondered where in the universe she was. She had never desired an extraordinary life - she wanted to serve her state and her family, do good work, perhaps marry and have children and live safely and in peace. Nothing in her plans involved being in a Klingon prisoner of war camp that was really a vast and dangerous valley.
What will become of me? she wondered.