Stardate 2238.154

Remus, Romulan Star System, Sector Z-6, Beta Quadrant

—

Ravi followed the Romulans with curious eyes darting towards everything it could look at. They were the minority of Remus, but they controlled everything. The Remans had been enslaved to mine dilithium crystals many decades ago. They were only permitted baths once a week, but long ago were the times that they still tried to scrub the gleaming pink dust out of their broken nails and the lines on their pale sunken faces. Food was a luxury and clear air was a rarity for them, but for Ravi, this was not the case. Her skin was smooth and clear, a healthy flush washed over her freckled cheeks and nose in the heat of the mines. Pink dilithium dust glimmered across her skin, but the undersides of her nails weren't caked with it. Her clothes were clean, her stomach was full, and although she lived alongside great pain and suffering, Ravi felt none of it.

The young girl took a left behind a few Romulan guards and they helped up a short and uneven flight of stairs. The air became less irritating, less toxic, and Ravi's lungs expanded with the cleaner air that her Romulan counterparts breathed. She followed the dim lights that lined the rocky walls of the mining colony, listening to the droplets of water echo in the caves as they fell into faintly pink puddles. Soon, the familiar sounds of Romulan officers practising their combat reached the girl's sensitive ears and she stood by them for hours, watching them fight. Even at the tender age of five, Ravi was able to understand their movements, and for the things she didn't understand, her father helped with.

Ravi had the great privilege of being the daughter of Beldan, a Sub-Commander in the Romulan military and the overseeing supervisor of this section of the mines. With his rank and position, he had earned the respect of his fellows. As such, Ravi benefitted from the same respect and protection. Despite being born through the rape of one of the slaves in the mines, unlike all other half-Romulan children, Ravi never experienced forced labour and harsh conditions. Using his rank and respect, Beldan had given his daughter the right to live as a Romulan, and he taught her everything he could at her age.

He let her observe his men while training, eyes gleaming with curiosity as they moved swiftly through different positions of several forms of martial arts. Eventually, she began to imitate them, although clumsily, tripping over her own feet as she attempted the complex moveset the older Romulans were executing. As she fell, Beldan swiftly caught her and swung her over his shoulders, then handed her a pale green confection that she ate immediately. Ravi giggled as her father sighed, annoyed—but slightly amused—at his daughter's behaviour. He insisted that she would be able to practise with the men when she was older, which pleased Ravi, and she let him carry her over to the small meditation chamber that they'd carved into one of the rockfaces inside the mines. Lanterns were scattered across the ground, casting the room and the paths of the Zhal Makh in a warm glow.

"Father, may I follow the path with you?" Ravi said in her native Romulan.
"You may practice your meditation up here if you wish, Kitem," Beldan said, readjusting his daughter on his shoulders. "But that is all the learning you will get today. It is late and you need your rest to grow into a big, strong Romulan soldier."

Ravi sat quietly atop her father's shoulders as he slowly made his way across the paths of the Zhal Makh. She matched his slow breathing and closed her eyes, searching for the calm that would allow her to unlock her mind's most intimate space. Of course, by the time Beldan had finished walking the path, Ravi was nowhere near attaining said calm, and he whisked her away from the mines and into the living quarters provided for the Romulan officers. He snugly tucked her into bed and moments later, Ravi was asleep, lulled by the soft sound of a hummed melody.

Tidally locked to the system's sun, the harsh direct sunlight made it impossible for any kind of life to sustain itself on one half of the planet. Thus, the mining colonies were constantly plunged in gloomy darkness illuminated only by dim lanterns and the pink glow of the dilithium crystals. When Ravi woke up the next morning, she was met with the distant noises of the drilling rigs. Out the window, she could see the illuminated side of Romulus floating distantly in the sky, and Ravi watched the clouds swirl as she and her father ate their breakfast.

As they left for their morning meditation, several loud thumping noises caught Ravi's attention. She fell back a few paces and glanced around. Several Romulan officers were patrolling the area, looking suspiciously around at anything that moved funny. Others cleaned weapons, trying in vain to get all the dilithium dust out of the buttons and triggers. In the distance, Ravi could hear the sounds of combat practise, but closer than that was the thumping that initially caught her attention. A few Romulan officers were carrying large wrapped bundles that Ravi knew were people. They were immobile, their limbs were hanging limp at their sides, with ruby red blood slowly soaking into the cloths that covered them. As Ravi approached them, she found that their ears and faces were similar to her own.

"Come," Beldan said, gently pulling his daughter away.
"They look like us, Father," Ravi said, confused. "Do we not paint our faces and mourn for them like we do the soldiers?"
"No, my dear. They might look like us, but we are nothing alike."
"They are like Mother, then?" Beldan nodded. "Why do we not mourn for them?"
"Vulcans do not like us. We do not mourn for those who have no respect for us," Beldan explained. "Now, come. You can watch the crystals cascade into the tumblers."

Ravi remained by the mine craters for hours, watching the crystals tumble down, like a waterfall of shimmering pink, into the tumblers below. Sometimes she'd stand and practise the movements the Romulan soldiers practised during their training, stumbling around but grinning when she'd managed to land steadily after a successful move. The sounds of drills, the drumming of crystals at the bottom of empty metal hoppers, and the occasional sound of disruptor fire aimed at a miner reached her ears—all sounds that Ravi had become accustomed to—and when she got bored, Ravi stood and made her way towards the meditation centre.

As the centre came into view, Ravi a pair of arms grab her and pull her away. Panic set in and the girl's eyes went wide with fear. The sound of a disruptor was loud in Ravi's ears, and green flashes of light flew in all directions as the Romulan officers and the kidnapper shot at each other. There was a loud whimper, and Ravi could tell that the person who grabbed her had been hit by one of the blasts. They fell to the ground in a jumbled heap, clutching their arm in pain. Ravi scrambled to her feet and tried to run, but the kidnapper caught hold of her again and pulled the small girl into her arms. Ravi kicked and screamed, calling for her father and trying desperately to get out of this person's grip, but it didn't work. The kidnapper only strengthened their one-arm hold on Ravi and fired shots behind them as they tried to escape.

Ravi let out a scream just before they ducked behind a corner. One of the Romulan officer's disruptor shots had hit her in the shoulder. The smell of singed clothes and hair mingled the scent of the blood dripping from her wound. Wails of pain left Ravi's mouth and tears fell from her green eyes, and this seemed to anger the person who had kidnapped her. They took a moment to pause and fire at several Romulans who were gaining on them. Ravi watched several officers fall lifeless to the ground and she turned, eyes gleaming with tears, to the person who'd taken her.

For a moment, Ravi wondered if she was imagining all this. She thought that it could be a bad dream. A woman who looked like her was responsible. Ravi was confused. How could it be that a person would hurt one of their own?

"Why are you doing this!?" Ravi cried.

The woman didn't respond. She fired a few more shots at the officers following her and then made another run for it. She securely carried Ravi in her arms, and when the woman thought she'd lost the officers, she made a sharp turn towards the shipyard where an old Romulan freighter was waiting. The woman sat Ravi at the edge of the airlock and finally the girl could get a good look at her kidnapper.

Her face was cut and bruised, deep pink dilithium dust caked into the fine lines carved into her skin. The undersides of her cracked nails were filled with grime, as was her matted hair, and the woman's clothes were nearly beyond threadbare. Ravi could see how malnourished the woman was and immediately came to the conclusion that she was one of the miners from the caves. It had been a while since she'd seen one looking this bad. For a moment, Ravi wondered if someone in the mines had put her up to this, a desperate attempt to get back at the Romulans who dominated their lives. But as she gazed up into the stranger's bright blue eyes, Ravi could see a faint spark of something powerful crackling inside.

The girl tried to make a run for it again, but the woman grabbed her again and brought her deeper into the cargo hold. A few Remans appeared from the cockpit, and they took Ravi from the woman.

"No, no! I won't go!" she cried. "Fath—"

Ravi suddenly fell limp as the woman pinched a nerve on the girl's shoulder. She handed a small but hefty bag to the Remans and held up her hand in a sign, separating her index and middle finger from her pinky and ring fingers. As the Remans nodded to her in respect, Romulan disruptor fire disturbed the exchange. The blast hit the woman straight in the back, and she crumbled to the ground, rolling down the ramp into the ship's cargo hold. She landed softly onto the damp sparkling dust covering the ground and after a few moments, disappeared from sight as the ramp lifted, closing up the access to the cargo hold of the ship.

The Romulans shot at the ship from the ground as it rose into the air, but they failed to mobilise quickly enough to follow the ship as it left the atmosphere. For several hours, Ravi lay unconscious in the small crew quarters as the ship sailed through the stars. The Remans followed the plan given to them to the letter, and they stopped for nothing, not even Ravi. She'd woken up a few hours into their journey, panicked and terrified. She called for her father, screaming desperately as if he'd be able to hear her even lightyears away. But soon, the freighter was out of Romulan space, past the Neutral Zone, and firmly planted in Vulcan space. Even her father couldn't come to fetch her this far without starting a war.

"Take me back!" Ravi yelled at the Remans, tears falling from her eyes. "I want my father!"

As one of the Remans was about to talk back to her, the sound of a hailing ship rang in throughout the freighter. Ravi looked on, frightened and confused as people who resembled her appeared on the small screens scattered around the ship's bridge.