Just like that….

Cathy hated tents, they were uncomfortable and cold. Besides, she couldn't get any sleep, not that it mattered; there was no school tomorrow.

Or anymore. Cathy rolled over, trying desperately to wake herself up from the dream, but she knew that this was harsh reality, not a dream.

Because of them, because of the Federation council, making the peace treaty with the Cardassians, allowing them to take as many planets as they wanted and evicting the colonists who'd gotten there first. The colonists had built on that planet, building homes, schools, power stations, tamed the land. What did the Federation do ?

Give it to the Cardassians.

Oh, sure, they'd offered another planet, but the colonists, Cathy amongst them, didn't want to help build another planet. She wanted her own colony back, with her friends and school. A normal life.

Cathy listened to the sounds of her younger sister, Kelly. She was 5 years old, missing her mother terribly and sobbing her little heart out each and every night.

Cathy couldn't understand why Starfleet allowed the Cardassians to capture Federation citizens and allow them to be tortured, executed or….turned into comfort women, as she feared had happened to her mother, her aunt and elder cousins.

Why ?

The Cardassians were animals, hiding behind a façade of civilisation, they looked down upon other races and stripped them of everything they had.

Cathy got up to make herself some tea and as she did, she looked at her reflection in the mirror. It was hard to believe the tall, bitter girl with long brown hair was the same vivacious girl a few years previously. Cathy had had friends, a family, a normal life on one of the colonies.

Now, she had to look after her sister, her father was rapidly becoming a drunk and now she was seriously considering joining the Maquis.

Cathy sighed, closing her eyes and opening them again, staring again at her reflection.

She saw a bitter young girl, angry, full of hatred - hatred for the Cardassians and the Federation, hatred for the people who'd abandoned the colonists of the DMZ and the people who pretended to be civilised, but instead were nothing more than animals.

Cathy looked at her father, still snoring away. She couldn't stay here forever, besides, many teenagers and adults were joining the Maquis. It should be simple, join the Maquis and make the Federation and Cardassians pay for kidnapping her family and the other for abandoning them and letting it happen.

Just like that.