It was late on the planet Bajor. The night air carried the warm scents of flowers; at this hour, if one were to look out of a window, they would see the beautiful sights of one of Bajor's oldest cities, filled with treasures with every building designed like an artist's masterpiece sculpture.
It was an illusion.
During the daylight, construction teams slowly worked to restore the damage to the buildings, relying on ancient architectural drawings and plans, using ancient prized stone masonry techniques to repair the damage inflicted on them by the occupation.
But then again many of the drawings had been lost, either through theft or they'd been sold to purchase weapons to fight back.
Bajor had spent half a century under the cruel whip of the Cardassians. The Cardassians had brutally tortured, raped, murdered and pillaged the Bajoran people and their world. For half a century, Bajorans had been forced to tear into their world, ripping out valuable mineral ores and sending them up for processing in that House of Horror known as Terok Nor, which had been used to ferry the ores torn out of the planet and the other moons and planets in this part of the galaxy for shipping to the Cardassian Union to expand their empire.
But things had changed.
The Cardassians had been forced to leave Bajor and this part of space; with the Federation pushing forwards and the Cardassians being pushed back, put under pressure by internal and external forces, forced to contend with the increasingly daring Bajoran Resistance activities. They had left only a year ago, leaving the Bajorans to fend for themselves.
So many lives had been lost, with many families irretrievably snuffed out so cruelly, children being orphaned, the planet showing its scars of the cruel rape it had undertaken, and so many bastard half-Cardassian half-breeds left behind. The repair work in rebuilding the planet was underway; a shattered wall could be rebuilt, but it would take a long time before they cleansed the waters of the rivers and the beautiful oceans of pollution, and that went for the air, too.
Jaro Essa frowned as he read the reports. They detailed more aliens arriving on Bajor and spending money while treating the ruined cities of his beloved world like tourist destinations. Essa (his first name in ordinary terms used by races like the Trill, and the humans) didn't like aliens any more than some of the Kohn-Ma and other terrorist groups. Fear and hatred for aliens were at an all-time high, the memory of the occupation was never far off.
Many of the aliens were explorers, diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs and traders. Many were even travellers and wanderers. They were here to pass through the wormhole in the Denorias Belt which would lead to the Gamma Quadrant.
As the Provisional Government's First Minister, Jarro was expected to support and applaud the influx of new funds which went into purchasing new supplies.
But behind the scenes Jarro hated it. He found it galling beyond belief and tolerance that he had to simper and bow around aliens when all he wished to do was to force them away from Bajor, but the Provisional Government believed the alien's resources were beneficial. Alright, granted, Jarro understood the argument and he had to admit the supplies they were receiving from the Federation were going a long way towards healing their world, but it galled his pride as a Bajoran they had to rely on anyone. The Bajoran people were ancient. They had taken art, architecture, and culture into this part of the galaxy centuries before most of the Federations' members had even entered the interstellar stage. They should have been bowing down towards Bajor, not the other way around.
In Jarro's mind, it should have been a Bajoran who had discovered the wormhole within the Denorias Belt and made contact with the Prophets of the Celestial Temple. It should not have been a non-believer like Commander Sisko. Oh, while Jarro was an admirer of Sisko, who had met various crises admirably for a year, he was no Bajoran and he didn't understand the magnitude of what he'd found.
The wormhole had caused a lot of grief and delight for many Bajorans; for the religious groups, the discovery was like a dream come true since they now had contact with their gods, the Prophets.
But for the more pragmatic members of their society, the wormhole was seen as a bad omen.
Shortly after the wormhole's discovery, Kohn-Ma freedom fighter (Jarro had always admired the Kohn-Ma although he frowned on them killing Bajorans who were unconfirmed collaborators, although he had wished they had gone into bioweapon research even if the cost was potentially too high; you could not celebrate a high victory if the enemy recovered enough, and lashed out), Tahna Los had panicked and tried to destroy the wormhole.
Desperate idiot.
While he sympathised with the Kohn-Ma's desires to keep both the Cardassians and the Federations out of Bajor and many light years from Bajoran space, Essa knew the wormhole represented the future for Bajor. With the wormhole, they could form a new empire in the Gamma Quadrant, unrestricted by the Cardassians and by the Federation.
Thinking of the Federation made Essa sigh. He had nothing against them despite them being alien and non-Bajoran, and in truth, many felt nothing but gratitude for them, but ever since that ignorant woman Keiko O'Brien had begun educating Bajoran children and said the wormhole was nothing more than an anomaly, infuriating Vedek Winn, it had created a massive swoop of rage, and now many in the Alliance for Global Unity had nothing but contempt for the Federation, and being the politician he was, Essa had been quick and made sure the Alliance, or the Circle, would kick the Federation away from Bajor. So many new members had joined the organisation Essa had been creating to protect Bajor from aliens, and all of them were now prepared to fight for their true liberation.
Not long now.
Not long now.