The Adventures of Augment Gothic (A Star Trek SI)

by Joe Lawyer

A present-day Star Trek fan is forcibly thrust into that dimension and made anew as an Augment, a genetically engineered superman, on the whim of a mischievous god. Armed with knowledge of this dimension's past and future, he's determined to live well, have fun with alien women, and make it look easy. Elements of DS9/TNG/Voy/Ent. Originally co-written with GothicJedi666.

21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to or part of Star Trek. This fan fiction was written purely for fun.

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul, and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am consigned to live as long as God Himself. Never." – Elie Wiesel, Night

"All were expecting to die, and every day of their life was a day of suffering and torment. All had witnessed terrible crimes, and the Germans would have spared none of them; the gas chambers awaited them. Most, in fact, were sent to the gas chambers after only a few days of work, and were replaced by people from new contingents. Only a few dozen people lived for weeks and months, rather than for days and hours; these were skilled workers, carpenters and stonemasons, and the bakers, tailors and barbers who ministered to the Germans' everyday needs. These people created an Organizing Committee for an uprising. It was of course, only the already-condemned, only people possessed by an all-consuming hatred and a fierce thirst for revenge, who could have conceived such an insane plan. They did not want to escape until they had destroyed Treblinka. And they destroyed it." ― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

The Adventures of Augment Gothic

Chapter 21

Onboard The Flighty Temptress. On route to Bajor.

With a shit eating grin on my face, I moved over to the replicator in my captain's quarters, looking forward to scratching off another line item on my hedonist bucket list for this new life.

"Computer, I'd like a platter of sushi and sashimi, chilled, mixed traditional selection, with two sets of chopsticks, soy sauce and ginger. On the side, please include a bottle of sake and two cups, traditional set and temperature," I ordered and my Vulcan designed and manufactured replicator dutifully provided, reproducing my selection based on the Earth culinary replicator pattern database I'd downloaded when on Earth.

A bright light appeared and white particles swirled mesmerizingly, bringing into existence a work of culinary perfection that hadn't existed mere moments ago. My food order looking as lovely, fresh, and well prepared as if I had just ordered it at one of the finest Micheline starred Japanese restaurants from my time.

I had lived in this time for a few years now, and still, a replicator made my eyes light up in wonder every time I used it. Even better was the fact that I owned this one, it was mine. Part of me was hoping that I'd never lose that sense of wonder and awe that came from being a Star Trek fan now living the dream. Sure, I faced potential death at pretty much every moment of the day and had survived many missions on Bajor that I would have considered suicide missions in my old life, even a pretty damn good assassination attempt on Earth itself, but I still loved every moment of this new life.

"Is this really necessary, Gothic?" Kira moaned pitifully from behind me, to which both Ro and I chuckled. "I said I was sorry, didn't I?!"

Turning around, I was met with a delectable sight that made my heart beat a bit faster and my loose-fitting silk pants rise in the front. You couldn't pry the smile off my face. Yes, I faced a lot of danger in this new life, and Prophets only knew if I'd survive the battles to come, but there were most definitely some serious benefits to this new life. Living my life like I was a multi-millionaire in a porno, acting on his every decadent, hedonistic, and depraved whim, living out every fantasy on Risa, that was most definitely in the benefit category.

Kira was looking very sexy right now as she laid on her back on the dining/conference table in my Captain's quarters, squirming a bit at all the attention and scrutiny on her from Ro and I. The reason she was complaining was that she was lying on the table totally nude.

"Yes, you did, my dear," I responded with a grin, making sure to very obviously ogle her as much as possible, "but that doesn't mean you won't be punished."

The months of good eating on this mission, beginning with first acquiring the weapons from Gaila, the weeks on Earth, and all the travel time on my ship had had a very beneficial effect on Kira. Her breasts, which were already a good size and extremely perky, had grown at least half a cup size or more and her ass had filled out rather nicely. I had tweaked my replicator so that it provided her with additional nutritional supplements, vitamins, and other medicines in all her food in a regimen that had long ago been designed for someone in her situation.

It had worked better than expected. Luckily it hadn't gone to her stomach or else she'd have been pretty mad at me for altering her food composition without her consent. I'd caught her admiring her new looks in the full length mirror a few times during our journey, turning from side-to-side to look at her profile, so I knew that she was pretty happy with the effect all this good eating had had on her.

"This is so humiliating," Kira grumbled, still squirming and now blushing a bit, but also rubbing her thighs subtly together, her breast jiggling with the movement.

I brought the platter of sushi and sake to the table and started placing the chilled sushi directly on her naked body, from tits to crotch, to which she reacted with a curious mix of shivering and giggling as if I was tickling her.

"Ahh!" she yelled in surprise. "Why is it so cold?!"

"Stop squirming and stop talking," I ordered, pinching and twisting one of her large pink nipples a bit, though I knew she loved that kind of thing. "Take your punishment like a big girl."

"Yes, sir," Kira whispered, moaning slightly.

Ro looked on with a very amused smile on her face, taking it all in, with a mix of curiosity and arousal, maybe even a hint of jealousy in her eyes. She was wearing the silver T'Pol style bodysuit she'd found programmed in my ship's replicator. She might not have the near perfect body and proportions of T'Maz, but she looked mighty sexy in that outfit. I'd tweaked the replicator pattern to include some advanced Minosian materials that would help resist energy weapon fire, yet not appear like armor. Getting my girls to accept wearing armor was still a work in progress, though there may soon come a day when I would just order them to wear it.

"Ro, why don't you get ready for dinner," I suggested with a smile, looking at her clothes. She took the hint and without any complaint or hesitation reached up to her throat with a smile and unzipped her bodysuit from neck to crotch, before wiggling out of it entirely, leaving her as nude as Kira. Amusingly to me, as I hadn't asked her to, she got on her knees in front of me and delicately undid the draw string on my pants and pulled them down. Her eyes were locked on mine the whole time, before my cock hit her in the face as it was unleashed. She placed a mischievous kiss on the head before getting up.

"I spent several years on Earth at the Academy and I've never heard of anything like this, you said this is an ancient Earth practice?" Ro asked dubiously, as she watched me finish placing the sushi on Kira.

"It's an ancient practice from the nation state of Japan on Earth, a practice called Nyotaimori, or 'serve (foods) on the female body.' Commonly called 'body sushi'. Feel free to look it up in Earth's historical database. It's essentially the practice of serving sushi or sashimi from the naked body of a woman. In this case, Kira's," I answered as I ran my hand gently up her thigh to her pussy, my fingers playing with her delicate folds. She had been complaining, but her pussy was really wet and I could smell her arousal.

"This can't be a current practice, right?" Ro asked incredulously. Obviously her time at the Academy amongst Starfleet hadn't exposed her to the more decadent side of humanity's history.

"No, I don't imagine the practice survived the various wars on Earth. It was something that began nearly 800 years ago on Earth in the Edo period of Japan, and had several resurgences of popularity over the years, with mixed reactions from people in the centuries since."

That was true, though many in the more modern day (meaning in my time, not the 24th century) saw it as exploitation, cruel, decadent, humiliating, and overall degrading to women, while others saw it as a celebration of the beauty of the female (and human) form and human sexuality, akin to a living art installation.

"You experienced this kind of thing in your dimension and time?" She asked. "Your era must have been so very different from the Earth we know."

During our journey I had shared more of my true story with both girls.

"Well, it was," I said with a laugh, "but I certainly never experienced this before in my old life. Hell no. To be honest, I saw it in a movie once and thought it looked cool."

Utter silence.

"And to be honest, my fondling and fingering of the model isn't exactly normal either."

Both of them looked at me with such incredulity, Kira having lifted her head from the table to look at me with such a deadpan look that I couldn't help but throw my head back and laugh really, really hard. A large guffaw from Ro and an indignant snort from Kira was the next response. Kira soon started shouting at me, so I stuck two of my fingers in her mouth to shut her up. Interestingly, probably without even consciously realizing it, she started sucking them, swirling her tongue around them, seemingly pacified. I suppose my Augment-level libido had resulted in some unintentional training to stimuli.

"Let's eat!" I spoke, moving to stand perpendicular to her torso. Ro took the spot to my right and followed my lead. I poured the soy sauce into Kira's belly button, to which she practically squealed, but luckily didn't move enough to where the soy sauce spilled out. Then I dipped some of my spicy tuna roll in her belly button. Normally the food was never placed on the woman's skin directly, usually on a sanitized leaf or something, but I had had Kira do a deep clean in the sonic shower beforehand and had requested the food be chilled coming out of the replicator.

Picking up a lovely piece of nigiri with a fresh piece of raw salmon on top of a bed of rice with my fingers, I dipped it in the soy sauce in her belly button and placed it in my mouth. As I expected, 'Chez Replicator' did a fantastic job with it and it tasted delicious. Kira's squirming in embarrassment made it even more delicious.

Ro watched on with a small smile at her friend being 'punished' like this, "You can use your fingers to eat it?"

Nodding, "Yep, sushi was historically meant to be a finger food, but you could also eat it with chopsticks," I said, gesturing to the sticks I'd also replicated, though she looked confusedly at them. "Chopsticks are two small thin pieces of smooth which come to a blunt point, held with one hand, and you use them to pinch the food between the sticks to pick up food to eat. In this case, I felt it would be more sensual to use our fingers than poking Kira with blunt sticks." I laughed at that, Kira made a sound of appreciation, to which I playfully pinched her nipple again.

"The table slut should be silent!" I ordered in a faux serious tone. As much as Kira pretended, I could tell that she was getting off on this. "Go ahead and eat!" I instructed.

Ro picked up a small piece of salmon maki roll and dipped it in the soy sauce in Kira's belly button before putting it in her mouth.

"That's pretty good!" she said, with a grin.

"Our beautiful table is making it taste even better," I said, before leaning down and taking Kira's puffy, cold, and engorged nipple in my mouth, sucking it and swirling my tongue around the tip. Her squirming this time was less due to the cold and more my expert ministrations. I let her squirm and moan this time without correction.

Just like that we took turns eating from Kira's beautiful body, alternately sensually feeding each other and Kira with pieces so that she could partake in the meal too, till we ran out of food.

"I think our table deserves a reward for taking her punishment so well, don't you think?" I asked, before leaning down and giving Kira a deep kiss. I had fed her some sake in much this same way, so my girls were a little tipsy at the moment.

"I agree, she has been a good sport, though I can tell she's been enjoying this punishment just a little too much," she said, while running her fingers through Kira's delicate folds, her fingers coming out sopping wet. It seems that Kira was ready for this to transition to something more than eating.

Kira protested playfully at this rebuke from her fellow Bajoran.

"You're right, my dear, why don't you shut her up?" I suggested, pulling Kira to the end of the table by her legs for easy eating. Ro quickly got the hint and got up on the table and swung a leg over Kira to straddle her face and lower her own wet pussy to Kira's eager lips.

Kira eagerly began eating her out to Ro's delight, while Ro ground her pussy down on Kira's face.

I moved a chair to the end of the table, lifting both of Kira's legs to my shoulders while kissing and biting her soft inner thighs, teasing her endlessly while avoiding where she really wanted me to be. Eventually, the torture became too much so I decided to put her out of her misery and attacked her pussy with gusto, putting both her thighs around my ears and putting all my experience with her body to good use. Her muffled cries of pleasure practically echoed in my cabin as I brought her to orgasm twice over.

Eventually, I decided it was time for the main event, so I stood and took my much larger cock than the one I had been born with in my hands and slapped her clit a few times with it, like it was a club, between soaking the head in her folds. She shuddered in delight each time I clubbed her.

Ro leaned down to me and we shared a deep kiss on top of Kira.

I leaned back and Ro bent over fully over Kira, in a 69 position, where she took my cock in her mouth, getting it nice and wet and ready for her friend to enjoy.

"Put me inside her," I ordered. Ro placed me right at Kira's entrance and I thrust into her hard, hilt-deep. Her scream of shocked pleasure was delicious.

I wasn't in the mood for slow love making so I set a fast and hard tempo, with Kira's legs wrapped tightly around my waist egging me on. Ro kept her face right next to our coupling and was 'thanking' Kira for tonight by licking vigorously at the point of our joining.

From time to time I pulled out of Kira's silky, wet, and tight pussy to thrust into Ro's mouth, my fingers automatically threading themselves in her hair as I fucked her mouth as hard as I was fucking Kira, then going back into Kira's depths once again.

At some point the sheer eroticism of the situation overwhelmed me and I threw my head back and thrust one final time, unleashing my load deep inside Kira. Kira screamed like a banshee into Ro's pussy which set her off too.

That was just the start of a long night of debauchery with these beautiful and deadly women.

Yeah…this new life was filled with a greater chance of dying on any given day then in all the time I'd spent on deployment in the most dangerous warzones of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it was also filled with pulse pounding combat, adventure, and porno level hedonism. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Life was fucking good.

XXXXX

Sitting down in my captain's chair in the cockpit of my ship, I let out a sigh of contentment. That had been quite the bacchanal and the fulfillment of some long-held fantasies. The girls were dead to the world in my bed right now, having migrated towards each other once I'd stealthily exited the after-sex cuddle pile that I had been the focus of.

With them insensate, it was the perfect time to conduct some business that required absolute privacy.

"Computer, secure the cockpit, lock the door to my quarters and disable computer access from that location until I request otherwise," I ordered aloud.

With that command the cockpit doors sealed and a hum filled the air, my cabin also becoming a very comfortable brig, though its occupants would hopefully never learn of that.

"Open a communication channel with the following frequency and authentication," I said, before typing in a ridiculously long alphanumeric code.

It took several long minutes where no doubt my comm signal was bounced across the length and breadth of the known galactic subspace communications network before the extraordinarily complex encrypted communication protocol synced up.

Once the connection was fully established and secured Sloan's calm face appeared on the screen.

"Sloan, I swear, I call at completely random times, completely unexpectedly, and yet you're always available. Do you ever sleep, man?" I asked jokingly.

The man's lips upturned maybe a millimeter at most, "But your call was expected, Gothic, considering the incident you found yourself involved in with the Tikuma."

"Quite a shock to find yourself in the presence of a ship the size of a small moon," I responded with a grin.

"I can only imagine. There were no indications in the historical texts or in your recent encounter with them that the Hur'q or the Collectors, as you've named them, had the technology or capability to field such an outsized ship. They have obviously advanced quite far in their exile, though the speed of that development is likely unnatural," Sloan explained, glancing off to the side as if consulting another display. "The Collectors have been upgraded to a Priority 1-level threat to the security of the Federation as a result. Section 31 has reallocated significant resources to preparing for or eliminating that threat."

"Were you able to recover the Tikuma's sensor records?" I asked. Knowing what they currently had in hand would help me set an appropriate price for my sensor records.

"Yes, but much of it was corrupted or incomplete due to the sheer amount of damage the ship sustained during battle. A large amount of technology was also stolen from the ship when they were boarded which has further complicated matters," Sloan answered, looking at me intently, almost certainly seeing where this was going. "The Trident did not indicate you had suffered any noticeable damage, are you perhaps interested in sharing your sensor records with us? Of course, we'd be more than happy to compensate you for your trouble."

"Oh, Sloan, your profilers know me so well," I joked, before my face cleared and all emotion drained from my face. It was time to put my game face on and get serious. "I think I need to provide some context first. When we arrived in the area, after answering and rebroadcasting the Tikuma's distress call, both ships were disabled from battle with each other. We didn't just take sensor readings from a distance, I took my ship inside the Collector vessel where it continued to take scans. I landed in their launch bay itself, my team and I walked its corridors, found piles of Federation corpses, planted explosives, stole technology, we even got to see a new type of Collector which I'd never encountered before. Given their insect-like nature, I believe it was this hive's 'Queen' equivalent. Take a look for yourself; this is a small taste of what I have to offer Section 31."

With those words I sent a copy of the sensor readings and visual records taken by my gun camera of what I believed to be a Collector Queen eating a beautiful human woman whole, while she screamed in abject terror. Unfortunately, my sensor records had even managed to pick up the crunch of bones being bitten through as she was swallowed then chewed. Sloan glanced off to the side as he obviously played the video on another screen and reviewed the sensor readings, the woman's scream being audible to me even through our connection. I closely watched his expression and other than a brief tightening around the eyes, he didn't react much at all. I suppose Sloan had seen some pretty fucking terrible shit in his years with Section 31.

"Interesting. T'Maz and our analysts had speculated that they might have something akin to a Queen equivalent, but we had no true evidence of it," he responded, still looking over what I'd sent, likely even running the sensor readings I'd shared through a program to determine if there were any discrepancies that indicated the readings had been fabricated. While I sincerely doubted he believed that I was peddling fake data, given the fact he could already independently confirm that we had been in the vicinity of a Collector ship and knew that wasn't in my character, you didn't get to Sloan's position or survive the shit Section 31 got up to without being exceedingly paranoid and checking on the veracity of anything and everything that you relied upon to make a decision.

"What I have for you today is the following. First, the sensor readings from my ship, such as they are, from space and while we were inside the Collector ship for 27 minutes and 39 seconds. Second, the sensor records of three tricorders on continuous active scan during that entire period, including specialized scans directed and initiated by one of my team as we encountered things that required greater scrutiny. Third, examples of some of their weapons and other random bits of technology we managed to steal. Fourth, a report I wrote on the incident and any insights I had both during the boarding and after examining the data," I listed, though Sloan had an amazing poker face and wasn't reacting at all. "And finally, I saved the best for last, 37% of a Collector database we managed to download from a console we encountered near the launch bay. It is a considerable amount of data, I assure you. I'm sending an inventory of what I have for sale now."

Sloan just stared at me in silence for several long seconds, before his eyes started scanning my latest transmission for several minutes.

"Section 31 would be more than happy to purchase everything you are offering," Sloan responded, a smile on his face now that we were negotiating. If Section 31 had declared the Collectors a priority 1-level threat than what I was offering was a treasure trove of new data for his organization to better understand this new enemy and thus counter them if need be, with no risk to them or their assets. "What is your price?"

"1 million bars of gold pressed latinum to be deposited into my personal account, a copy of the Federation's restricted replicator pattern database, as well as any other government with an equivalent you have access to, and some current Starfleet technology to be decided at a later date that is not normally available to civilians," I proposed.

"Done," Sloan instantly responded, which made me wonder if I had really fucked up here and set an incorrect value for this data…or was this the Federation's eschewing of money at work? Whatever, I thought with a sigh, it was done. No sense wondering what I could have done differently. That amount of money was the equivalent of building three galaxy-class starships like the Enterprise after all, so it was not exactly chump change.

"To be clear, Sloan, I do intend to keep a copy of all the data and a few weapons I recovered," I clarified. "You would not possess the only copy."

"No, we understood and expected that," Sloan responded nonchalantly.

A loud beep from another display indicated my bank account had just received a 1 million bar deposit from an unknown party. Fuck, they even paid me in full before they received anything. I wasn't even aware they knew of that bank account, as I only opened it to handle the payment for this one transaction and I would be promptly draining the account to spread the money to other banks and accounts to better hide the money trail. This was another reminder that Section 31 could be scary good at what they did.

"We will send a secure courier with the rest of your payment, and to retrieve the data and physical items you sold us within the next week or so. You'll receive all the pertinent data necessary to effect the transfer within the next 24 hours."

"As always, a pleasure doing business with you, Sloan," I said, now all smiles, not surprised that Sloan would not want to risk the Collector database being sent over subspace. No, they'd want to do it the old-fashioned way.

"Oh, the pleasure was all ours, Gothic," Sloan answered with a truly shark-like smile that sent a shiver down my spine.

XXXXX

Resistance Base. Jeraddo aka Lunar V Base. Bajoran System.

On the Bajoran moon named Jeraddo, the newly formed 'Gothic Cell' or 'Team Gothic' as I had jokingly named it in the privacy of my own thoughts, occupied what had been, until now, an abandoned base the Resistance had used in the past. The reason for creating the new cell off planet wasn't just because I was becoming increasingly well-known and popular among the rebels (and feared by the Cardassians), but also because Shakaar and the other Resistance leaders wanted me out of sight as they took on their biggest operation to date. Out of sight, out of mind and all that.

To be fair, Shakaar was not so shallow a person or leader as to worry about me being liked more than he was, but he was worried about the long-term implications of the Resistance visibly relying on an outsider too much for their most famous and substantial victories, and about those same victories not being credited to native Bajoran freedom fighters. Give the man some credit, he was thinking beyond the here and now and trying to imagine life on Bajor after the Cardassians were long gone. Success, just like failure, needed to be planned and prepared for, which was something people often didn't realize.

I greatly respected that he did realize that. Oftentimes the fighters in the Resistance had an abundance of zealous devotion and passion for the cause, but little in the way of an ability to plan long-term or the good sense to exhibit a modicum of restraint. The Cardassians leaving Bajor would only be the start, then the even more difficult part of building a new, stable, and sustainable society would begin.

I could certainly understand why they'd want me out of sight, it was their world and their freedom and future that was at stake, so I hadn't protested at all when I'd been offered command of my own cell on one of Bajor's moons. I had, however, insisted on taking both Kira and Ro with me, as one person did not a resistance cell make and we were an incredibly effective team when working together. My fierce, beautiful and deadly ladies were happy to stay by my side, even Kira, to my surprise, who hadn't protested at all. That was quite a departure from the shows and her fierce loyalty to Shakaar. Of course, she could have been ordered to watch me, but that really didn't make much sense considering the number of successful missions under my belt and the sheer number of valuable resources I'd provided to the Resistance in their struggle. Given the number of life and death situations we'd been through, I trusted Kira with my life at this point.

My new cell had also been assigned someone I'd never met or worked with before, Neela, a mechanically gifted and sexy young Bajoran woman, who was currently overhauling a small squadron of sub-impulse raiders that had been stored on Jeraddo in the past, along with Kira and Ro. These vessels were also a good reason for why I was here. I had an industrial replicator onboard the Temptress and very decent tech skills of my own, so it made sense to put me in charge of getting them working again and thus available for future operations. None of the replicators that I'd given the Resistance could handle the heavy lifting necessary to produce most of the parts for a viable ship.

The weapons we'd bought from Gaila, including ship-based weaponry, and the replicators I had picked up on Earth, had already been slowly distributed to the very angry and passionate, but also very hungry, rebel cells across the planet. All of whom were very grateful, or so I'd been told. Of course, they weren't strictly able to reimburse me, much less pay me a premium. I had fronted about 80% of the money needed for the weapons and replicators they needed to fight the Cardassians and take on bigger targets, but I had made a good deal to get a lot more land than had originally been promised to me once the Occupation was over in exchange. With so many Resistance cells involved and benefitting from the deal it'd definitely be honored once the Cardassians were gone. Most of the Resistance leaders, after all, went on to become the bigwigs of the Provisional government in canon.

I wasn't worried, the Bajorans as a whole were pretty honorable when it came to their deals; if you treated with them in good faith you could expect the same. If you fucked with them, though, you wouldn't find a fiercer enemy. The Klingons could learn a thing or two from them. Whatever 'turn the other cheek' they might have had in their cultural DNA had long since been burned out by the Cardassians over the last half century of rape and murder.

This concession along with the right to choose anywhere I wanted on the planet, as long as it wasn't owned already, was going to pay huge dividends once the Occupation was over. Besides, I'd paid for Gaila's weapons from the funds in my Section 31 expense account and gotten the replicators for free from Section 31 as part of my mission, so they hadn't really cost me anything. No need to tell the Bajorans that, I thought with a chuckle.

The replicators were emergency portable versions, designed for new colony launches, only good for providing food, clothing, other odds and ends, as well as small parts for machines. Still, these were replicators available to Federation citizens on Earth, so they were very robust and very high in quality and would definitely save many lives on Bajor. Everyone was happy with the deal in the end. With so many displaced or dead, there was a lot of unclaimed land available all across the planet that I could freely choose from.

The real money, though, had come from Section 31, who were more than happy to buy any and all information on the Collectors from me that I hadn't simply sent to Starfleet. This included the data I'd gathered from all our tricorders, which hadn't been shared with Starfleet, unlike the rest. I now had a VERY large sum in gold pressed latinum that could be used just about anywhere in the alpha quadrant. A 5 percent reward split between Kira and Ro Laren, meaning 25,000 bars each, for their parts in the whole thing, made both very happy and rich women. I had actually tried to give them a larger cut, but they wouldn't hear of it considering we hadn't actually gotten into combat. Again, Bajorans were a very honorable people for the most part.

Thoughts of tricorder sensor readings brought my thoughts back to an ongoing design project of mine. Tricorders were good and all, and my version based on several different alien scanning technologies was even better, I just wished I was having better luck with my idea for creating an omni-tool equivalent using Star Trek technology, which I wanted to build seamlessly into a vambrace-like device on my left forearm. It would serve as a hidden tricorder/comm system/computer/control system for my armor and have inbuilt holographic controls and displays. Unlike the physical buttons and displays of a tricorder, I wanted everything to be holographic and able to be projected from a small holo-emitter built into the vambrace, though a backup hard screen for stealthy viewing should probably be included, which I made a mental note of.

The display I envisioned wouldn't be a fully interactive hologram like you'd see on a full-sized holodeck or holosuite, but it would have just enough substance to provide some physical resistance or haptic feedback when I wanted to type something or manipulate some data from its scans. In my opinion it was a huge leap forward in both design and functionality, if not necessarily technology. As this wasn't a piece of technology I wanted to keep only to myself, maybe Data could offer some help with the design work. He seemed to have a knack for it and had enjoyed the design challenges he'd helped me with in the past. He also worked fast and for free, which was always good!

I was also hoping to take my personal shield device, which I had had since I was first on the Enterprise, and integrate it into the prototype armor or maybe into my standard armor as a whole. My personal shield had saved my life and several members of the Shakaar Resistance cell in the past few years when I'd jumped in front of a Cardassian disrupter bolt or three to save their lives.

However, the new armor I envisioned might be beyond me at this point, a bit of biting off more than I could chew type of situation. Making it viable in the real world, versus a virtual design, was proving quite a difficult design challenge due to power, space and weight issues, not wanting a heavy and bulky power pack strapped onto my back to power all of this technology. Plus, I wanted to add a sexy Cortana equivalent from the video game series Halo as a pseudo VI that I could give verbal commands to and who could interact with me, again for my personal use. Unfortunately, the power and space requirements were seriously high. Yep, a lot of design obstacles were standing in the way of my badass omnitool and armor coming to fruition. I had faith, though, the glimpse of the future the orb had given me seemed to indicate it was only a matter of time before I figured it all out.

A much simpler bit of tech were the Bajoran Raiders, as they were called, which I was now in charge of. They were lightly-armed sub-impulse (meaning thrusters only) raiders used by the rebels. The Bajoran resistance engineers who had originally designed the craft had designed them without any comfort in mind, in a strictly utilitarian style to reduce resource costs and maintenance/repair complexity. This style required the two flight crew occupants to bend their knees to even fit in the seats, for instance. Although capable of achieving a high-altitude orbit, and some limited space travel, these vessels were most effective in atmospheric combat. For weapons, the vessels were armed with dual phaser emitters and were equipped with literal fire extinguishers under the seats. Not even joking.

The raiders were shared assets amongst many cells, scattered across the planet, depending on the needs of the operation. Each cell that was able to contributing and maintaining their own group of raiders for the benefit of the whole. Although various cell members would freely share technical knowledge between factions, there were cells that simply didn't have the resources or know-how to maintain any kind of space transport, but might need it for their various operations.

While they were downright primitive compared to what the Federation had, or even my own ship, they were many decades ahead of what NASA had on my old world. The Raiders could fly from Jeraddo to Bajor in next to no time at all, and while they required some skill and resources to keep running and combat effective, they had little trouble with things like atmospheric re-entry. I figured the nations of my Earth and time would have happily killed to get their hands on even a single Bajoran Raider.

As for the new woman in my life, from what I'd been told, well, warned really by her previous cell leader, Neela liked to test the boundaries, both in her technical skills and her abilities as a fighter. Neela was also easily the most ardently religious, or perhaps the most conservative, of any member of the newly formed Gothic cell by a long shot and that was saying something considering Kira's deep faith.

Neela, who was quite attractive in her own right, also wasn't having sex with me, surprisingly, since she didn't seem to like me all that much. At least that was the impression I got at times. She didn't dislike me either. She was young enough that she'd never known a Bajor that wasn't occupied by a foreign power, in fact, I was pretty sure I was the first alien she'd ever met that wasn't Cardassian. So, while she knew that I wasn't a Cardassian, and that I was definitely working to free Bajor, my victories being well known in the Resistance, she still saw me as an outsider. At least this wasn't causing friction when it came to our work.

All three Bajoran women in my cell had made a competition of repairing and overhauling the raiders under our care. Each had three raiders to care for and get fully operational after years of disuse in some cases. The first to complete their work on their assigned ships would be the winner, and thus got to choose whatever crazy alien alcoholic drink they could find in my replicator's pattern database for the losers to try first and report if it was any good. The crazier the better was the name of this game. It was also a fun and harmless way to motivate each other and a great way to expose them to alien cultures.

As for me, I was spending most of my free time going over the data we'd stolen from the Hur'q moon ship/mobile hive. We only had time to grab 37% of the alien database, but there was just so much to go through that I wasn't really getting anywhere, even with the assistance of my ship's neural interface to drastically speed up the process.

Even after weeks of intense study I still didn't know much about the Collector's technology, stolen or otherwise, or how it worked. Their society, however, was much easier to understand.

This was, admittedly, a bit of an oversimplification, but they were essentially bugs that lived in hives, most akin to a Terran bee, each Hur'q caring little for itself or its own life and lacking much in the way of a personal identity. They served the hive, but not necessarily the Queen. While there was only a single queen per hive, and they were certainly extremely important with a vital function that only she could perform, she could be replaced easily enough if she wasn't productive enough, became too old, became diseased, was too injured, or was failing in some way in her duties or the leadership of the hive.

This replacement, in nature, was called 'supersedure.' A new queen replacement would be grown and the old queen would be killed to allow the replacement to take over. It was unclear, though, how sentience affected this process when it came to the Collectors. So, a Collector Queen wasn't 'served' so much as she was cared for, but only as long as she was adequately doing her job. So, in some twisted sense, the ideals of a meritocracy were at work.

To allow her to do her job, she got the highest level of protection the hive could provide and the best food available, as I'd unfortunately seen firsthand. That woman's screams of abject terror as she was eaten alive whole haunted me to this day, and I had previously thought nothing could phase me anymore after spending years on Bajor. It was possible, maybe even likely, that the Collectors in the mobile hive we'd boarded would grow a replacement queen soon, then kill the old one, after the damage the hive had suffered at the hands of the Tikuma. This was a wild ass guess, of course, as it was unknown how the Collectors assigned blame or how this failure, even if it was even considered one, would be regarded.

A Hur'q hive was a big family, only not in the way a human would understand it, as there was no love and affection or bonds of blood between them. All the drones the queen produced were more or less the same being, but with advanced genetic engineering. They weren't just copies, though, each Hur'q did have a limited sense of self within the role they were modified extensively to fulfill, based on the current needs of the hive, so they could act independently within their assigned role. Killing the queen, for example, wouldn't cause all the drones and other Hur'q under her command to simply fall to the ground dead or listless, because she wasn't actually directing them constantly, or in real time.

There were layers of leadership/management between the Queen and the drones, in the form of a strict caste system. Warriors, technicians, pilots, food gatherers, laborers, engineers, and so on were modified extensively to serve their one assigned role, from birth. Each caste then having its own leaders, but they were groomed for that role too from birth, well, hatching, and had the required skills implanted to fulfill their role.

They had no music, or art of their own, or even any proper scientists or researchers as far as I could tell. They didn't even invent new things, though their engineers were masters at copying other people's technology. I suppose that required some form of creativity.

This might explain why they had taken relics and tech from other species, because they had no way of inventing their own from scratch. However, the race had obviously changed greatly since their exile from our dimension. Perhaps long ago they'd had art and a culture of their own and even proper scientists. For some reason they seemed to have lost that spark of creativity, or genetic engineering and such a strict caste system had driven it out of them.

Also, the Hur'q had no gender, as we knew it. Well, the Queen did, but the rest were drones, so no sex either, no real culture, much like the Borg. For that reason alone, I felt better about killing them; they were more like advanced robots, than people. Hell, Data was more alive than any individual Hur'q in my opinion.

I also learned that they were not truly united as a race either, as each mobile hive/moon ship answered to a greater hive that had a mobile planet of all things. The power requirements for that, well, I didn't even want to think about it anymore. There had been a few references to what exactly powered their ships, even the planet-sized one. It had stunned me. Using an artificial singularity for a power source wasn't a completely unknown technology in the Alpha quadrant; the Romulans powered their ships that way after all. The truly stunning part was the sheer scale of the thing. As far as I knew the Romulans used a miniscule singularity to power even a state-of-the-art warbird. The Collectors, somehow, had learned (or stolen the knowledge) how to create and safely harness a singularity many thousands of times bigger. That was far, far beyond anything any of the Alpha quadrant powers were capable of. No wonder they could move planet-sized ships.

And the sheer number of fighters the planet ships could carry… it was in the millions. Millions of fighter craft manned by pilots willing to throw themselves recklessly to their deaths at any given time to achieve victory. It was fucking terrifying, and that was before taking into account the sheer amount of ground troops they could shuttle down onto a planet. No wonder they had been so successful in stealing the technology from what were obviously far, far more advanced races. Quantity had a quality all its own. That had been proven time and time again. The alpha quadrant races did not have the skill or experience in dealing with a foe like that, a foe who didn't believe in building mid- to large-scale ships beyond those intended for some special applications.

Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you looked at it) they invaded planets and mostly tried to take people alive, to eat. In that sense, they abandoned the bee theme and were more like locusts, a plague on the stars. It kind of reminded me of the Wraith from Stargate Atlantis, actually, or the Zerg.

Even worse was the fact that there was more than one hive planet, but thankfully they didn't answer to any central authority to combine their forces. Each hive, like a beehive, was self-sufficient and was concerned only for the prosperity of their own collective. This meant if there was an invasion of this galaxy that we might only face a small fraction of their race, rather than the whole lot.

Not that this would make much difference. The Hur'q had mobile planets and the ability to move them to different realities. From their records they'd already scouted many alternate universes, even some Trek ones, and many places that weren't, while looking for their original home, and this galaxy appeared to be the one they were searching for, or at least close enough not to matter. What drove them to return to their native universe, I didn't know for sure, but given how akin to insects they were, maybe some instinct was driving them to return home. I really had no idea.

Their tech, from what little I understood, was scary advanced. They could produce enough energy to move planets at FTL speeds after all. They had hand held weapons more lethal than any phaser or disrupter. They had grenades, a few of which I'd stolen, that used the same micro-singularity technology as their ship's propulsion, though I found out that they rarely used them since they wanted to study their enemies' bodies as well as their tech, if not eat them. That was part of the reason why their genetic engineering was so advanced. They used whatever bits of worthwhile DNA their enemies possessed to advance their own genome forward artificially.

Sadly, there was no information in what we'd stolen on their sensor tech and their engines beyond general references, or if their planet hives had ship-to-ship weapons or not.

They did have weaknesses, though, no proper starships for one, beyond their fighter craft and troop carriers. They had mobile hives, but the only defense those hives had, other than running away, were their fighters. They weren't shielded as we knew it either. Which made some sense as bee hives sent drones out to sting a predator until they either died or went away. Drones were expendable and easily replaceable so suicide runs, much like a Terran bee dying upon using its sting, made sense for them as there was a very short period between hatching/birth and full maturity. The ability to replenish their forces quickly would give them a decisive edge over any species, like humanity, that took a decade and a half or more of growth to be even slightly useful in combat. A male human didn't even reach full physical maturity till 22 or so!

Secondly and thankfully, their warp engines were slower than ours. Mostly due to having to move such ridiculously huge masses I imagined, something we weren't even capable of. Their next weakness was that most of the hive slept during journeys. If they had things like cruisers, a much more modestly sized ship than a fucking small moon, I was sure they'd be able to keep up with the fastest ships in any of the Alpha Quadrant fleets. Thankfully, their fighters did not possess FTL capabilities either.

They also didn't have any kind of transporter tech…yet, or ways to jam such technology. Though that might change soon enough as many races in the alpha quadrant had transporter technology. While they weren't inventive like humans were, they weren't exactly stupid either and their skills at reverse engineering were great.

Their bio-armor technology was totally beyond my understanding at the moment. Unfortunately, its secrets would remain unknown to me considering the extremely limited diagnostic and engineering tools that I had available to me at the moment, and that galled me because I definitely wanted to take some of its functional capabilities for my own. It was made of something organic, like beeswax, only clearly it wasn't something that soft, with advanced cybernetic parts that served as an interface between the Hur'q drone's mind and the armor itself. This allowed it to move as if it was part of their bodies, like an exoskeleton with dense artificial muscle fibers, which suggested that beneath the armor they didn't have any natural exoskeleton and might just be as fragile as humans without it.

Sadly, with this level of advanced armor you could forget about stunning them, a serious problem for most Starfleet officers. I didn't think even the Klingons would have much luck stabbing them with their blades as the strength required to cut through the material was high, although swords had proven effective as Collector armor had weak spots, the eyes, neck and joints for example.

There was next to nothing on their warrior's weapons in the data we'd stolen, though I figured this had something to do with members of the tech/engineering caste having that knowledge directly implanted when they were young, rather than a true security precaution. It could also mean that that data was stored on a separate database elsewhere in the ship and we hadn't gone in far enough. The database we'd interfaced with and copied data from was pretty much wide open. Given its proximity to the launch/landing bay, I had suspicions that it was a repository for data taken from their victims' captured ships and technology, with general references to Collector tech to make it useable or for cross-reference.

It was unfortunate that their weapons' technology wasn't included in the data. No, there would be no easy shortcuts this time, if I was going to learn anything about their weapons' technology, I'd have to do it the old-fashioned way, by studying and attempting to reverse engineer the few working examples of that tech that I had stolen.

My computer beeped and I read the incoming coded message from Bajor. We had had news that a long planned joint operation had finally come together, one that I was very eager to go on as all the recent study had gotten dull.

"Ladies!" I called out. "We've got a mission."

Ro and Kira didn't bother wearing much these days, or anything at all, when it was just me around. I ran a pretty relaxed operation unless something important was happening, but with Neela around now there was far less random and impromptu sexual fun for me. Not that I minded too much, the Occupation was coming to an end, that was easy to see even for an outsider. It was like a feeling in the air, of excitement and anticipation. The Cardassians themselves looked almost resigned, tired, and angry. That was a dangerous combination in its own right, but one that promised good things in the mid- to long-term.

The Federation was applying a lot of political pressure on the Cardassian Union to withdraw from Bajor as the proposed treaty with the Cardassians would grant them access to habitable and mineral rich planets that didn't have angry locals on them. Once the treaty was finalized and signed by both governments the Union would want to divert their resources to colonizing and fortifying those worlds, rather than stay on Bajor any longer, a planet which had become increasingly unprofitable in the past two years. Of course, if the Cardassians had known that there was a stable wormhole in Bajoran space, practically right under their noses, there'd be nothing that could entice them away and no amount of indirect pressure or concessions from the Federation (or anyone else) could have forced them away. Thankfully, they wouldn't find out till it was too late, just like in canon DS9, and the Federation had been invited in.

Still, the planet wasn't liberated yet, and I had a mission to complete.

"Yeah, boss," said Ro as she came over to the computer I'd been working at. "What's the mission?"

Once my team of lovely Bajoran women were assembled and gathered around I began explaining what violent and bloody fun we'd be having today. In this case, it was a mission I'd long wanted to do.

XXXXX

Two newly repaired and flight worthy Bajoran raiders-with a hell of a lot of parts courtesy of my ship's industrial replicator-one piloted by myself, the other by Kira, with Neela and Ro as our respective sensor operators, departed Jeraddo, as the sun seemed to slip over the horizon on the moon.

We'd timed our flight well and had several minutes before the Cardassian picket ship in orbit on the opposite side of the planet came into view and we'd be visible on their sensors. Given its small size, low tech design, and extremely low power signature compared to most modern ships, the raiders were pretty hard to pick up on the sensors of the less advanced ships of the Cardassian fleet. A Galor-class warship, with its state-of-the-art sensors, would have detected us, but the spoon heads were already withdrawing and redeploying their frontline military forces from the planet, so we didn't have to worry about that. Resistance intelligence had actually gotten quite good over the years in knowing exactly what fleet composition was in orbit and in system at any given time, which made our current flight quite a bit safer than had been the case in the past.

While the redeployment of those ships could be explained by my future knowledge, and the Occupation otherwise soon coming to a close, there had been whispers of a terrible battle between a task group of Cardassian warships and an unknown enemy that had crossed into Cardassian space, a battle that the Cardassians had handily lost. The Obsidian Order's fingerprints could be seen all over the attempt to hush up the news and keep it from spreading, but some things were just too big to truly cover up. With recent events with the Tikuma fresh in my memory, I couldn't help but wonder if the Cardassians had encountered a Hur'q mobile hive, possibly even the same one we'd boarded. Of course, it was just as likely to be someone else entirely. The spoon heads weren't exactly a popular race and they had no shortage of enemies, both internal and external.

As the raiders dove into the atmosphere, I was again impressed at just how easy and fun these little ramshackle vessels were to fly. The controls were pretty simple and intuitive compared to that of my own ship and yet similar in some basic respects, at least for sub-impulse flight. These things were meant to be flown by barely educated people who'd never flown before, people who didn't have the benefit of an expert flight instructor with years and years of experience, or the opportunity to log dozens of hours of practice flight time before risking it all in the real thing. No, there were no 'practice' flights when the Cardassians would destroy you at first sight. And unlike my own flight training on Earth, there certainly were no ultra-realistic full immersion holographic flight simulators for people to train on in complete safety. It was pretty much learning on the job, with your life in jeopardy every time you flew, so the ship needed to be as easy to fly as possible from the start. I didn't want to say 'idiot-proof' but that was kind of the point.

In our eagerness to get into the fight we pushed our thrusters to the point that our physical heat shielding threatened to melt away. Again, there were no fancy energy deflectors or shields on these babies.

The need was pressing though and the timing needed to be perfect considering this operation had so many moving parts that needed coordination to succeed. The Shakaar resistance cell, along with about a dozen other cells, would be taking part in a joint operation in the hopes of liberating the labor camp at Gallitep, a very, very big deal in the show, which was another sign that the Occupation was seeing its final days.

If you wanted to truly understand the true scope and horrors of Gallitep, imagine if Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Concentration Camp in Germany in World War 2, had comfortably been operating for over 50 years, with no war to distract them and plenty of resources, with an entire planetary population as potential victims and no one to fight for them. On Bajor, every native Bajoran was a Jew, every Bajoran was an undesirable. The threat of being sent to Gallitep was one of the most potent threats the Cardassians used to keep the Bajoran people in line. Death was a mercy compared to the horrors that you would experience there.

Canon DS9 only gave the most cursory glimpse of the horrors that were regularly committed on the Bajorans there. Women, old to barely toddlers, raped in front of their families for fun. Husbands, beaten until their wives couldn't recognize them. Old people buried alive because they couldn't work anymore. Executions were common and oftentimes for no reason at all. The condemned forced to dig their own mass graves.

There were many stories of evil that came out of that place, all of them true. Cardassian soldiers using living targets on the firing range. Babies being thrown into fires. Families forced to rape each other to live another day for the amusement of their Cardassian overlords. When I had learned of that hellish place I had nearly gotten on my ship, hellbent on killing every Cardassian there. Kira had convinced me not to, saying that such an ill-conceived and poorly planned rescue attempt would surely result in my death and the deaths of so many other Bajorans in that place and that served no one.

So, yeah, I was more than happy to do my part in this fight.

The historical parallels were striking, so I hoped that this operation signaled another. Allied forces had similarly liberated the camps of the Nazis during the end of the German occupation of Europe when they were pulling back to Germany. Could this be the beginning of the end of the Bajoran Occupation? I know I kept thinking that, but I really wondered when it would happen.

Regardless, what mattered right now was that our two raiders would provide air support for the Resistance forces on the ground soon to be attacking the camp. Of course, we weren't the only Bajoran Raiders involved in this operation. I couldn't see them, as my current ship had less sensors than a Federation garbage scow, but I knew that other cells had sent ships and they would be dog fighting in orbit so that no spoon head craft could bomb the camp from space. The Cardassians wouldn't care about Bajoran civilian casualties, or about the lives of a few remaining Cardassians if the camp had already fallen, so they would prevent them from any form of orbital bombardment.

My team was more than capable of handling the job we were given in this large coordinated operation, but part of me felt that my skills and abilities would be better used down there, in the thick of bloody ground combat. But I understood; it was important for these imprisoned Bajorans to see Bajorans liberating the camp. A human like me doing the heavy lifting would be helpful, and it would undoubtedly save lives, but it could damage them in some intangible ways. The Bajorans needed to see that they had the strength within them to do amazing things, to accomplish things on their own that they could be incredibly proud about. They'd desperately need that belief, that strength, in the years to come. I couldn't argue with the long-term benefits, even if more people would die in the short-term because I wasn't there.

My 'Bajoran Babes' and I (they didn't mind me calling them that, by the way) had just entered the atmosphere and any moment now we would be making our first strafing pass over the labor camp. The camp's shields had (hopefully) already been sabotaged on the ground by our insiders, or else we'd be in serious trouble. These insiders were a group of condemned prisoners who had worked secretly against the Cardassians and I was certain that many pf them had lost their lives in the attempt. We had to do our part now so that their sacrifice would not be in vain.

Our primary objective was to keep any Cardassian air assets from destroying our forces on the ground, but one asset in particular was at the top of our list of priority targets. The camp itself still had a dedicated, heavily armed and shielded state-of-the-art gunship, which was definitely out of our weight class on a one-on-one basis. They could also call upon patrol ships and small Cardassian fighters in range that could destroy the rebel ground forces and everyone in the camp, if they felt it had already fallen. Fighting them, though, was the job of our friends in orbit. Our secondary objective, if possible, was to use the Raider's heavy phaser weapons to destroy any guard towers with heavy weapons that we could from the air. The two objectives weren't mutually exclusive if my plan came to fruition.

"We are approaching the camp, time to extreme weapons' range is 40 seconds," Neela calmly reported from behind me.

Just like with the F-14 Tomcat from the 1980s on my world, our ship's limited computer power couldn't automate or render easy to use even the limited information these primitive sensors could report; it was important to keep in mind that they were 'primitive' by modern 24th century standards. So, she was monitoring the sensors, reporting to me mission pertinent information, and assisting me in identifying our targets, while I focused on flying the Raider to the best of my considerable ability. If the Resistance had more resources available the Raider could be made a one person craft, but technological resources were more scarce than living personnel to do those same tasks, and thus more valuable.

"Raider 1 to Raider 2, 35 seconds to contact. Lock on pre-designated targets and prepare to fire," I ordered Kira's craft.

We had received drawings of the Camp itself and Kira and I had chosen our targets ahead of time. While we weren't on the ground attacking the Camp, maybe history would one day say that I had fired the first shot on this momentous day, the day we liberated Gallitep. I could only hope and pray to the Prophets that we'd be successful so that Bajorans could once again write their own history, though I'd settle for our insiders successfully sabotaging the Camp's shield generator right now. If they hadn't succeeded, at least in that regard, this would be one very short operation, our lives soon snuffed out by the guard towers' anti-air disrupter canons. Did I not mention these Raiders were unshielded? Unfortunately, our sensors were not capable of telling us if the shields were down or not, so we'd have to test it the old-fashioned way.

"May the Prophets bless us this day and guide our hands," Kira whispered over the open comm.

"Targets in range. Fire in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. FIRE!" I shouted over the comm, two overpowered crimson phaser blasts from both my and Kira's Raider's canons streaked with accuracy towards a pair of guard towers at the main gate of the Camp. A pair of bright explosions signaled their destruction. Though I couldn't hear it over the whine of the engines and our speed, I imagined the Camp's alarms had just gone off.

"Targets 1 and 2 have been destroyed," Neela reported happily, in a bloodthirst voice.

"Weapons free; weapons free!" I ordered, before veering sharply to starboard and lining up new targets of opportunity.

The many tales of casual torture, rape, and murder that occurred each and every day at Gallitep went through my mind as I switched to rapid fire and fired my phaser canons at a building that was the camp's armory, walking my shots across its roof and hoping for secondary explosions. Moments later it exploded in a giant ball of turquoise flame, as hundreds of energy cells had obviously been ruptured. Kira had targeted the Camp's main guard house.

"Secondary targets 3 and 4 destroyed," Neela reported.

"Acknowledged," I responded quietly, concentrating hard on my next moves, as I turned back around at hundreds of miles per hour and focused on picking off groups of Cardassian soldiers running from their barracks to defend the camp. If anyone saw me in that moment they wouldn't see the emotionless face of an Augment who could switch off their emotions to get even the most bloody job done, no, I didn't want to turn off my emotions this time, I was delighting in this slaughter. The spoon heads I hit with my phaser canons were practically sublimated into pink gas. These were weapons designed for hard targets, not personnel, after all. They certainly got the job done though.

"Gothic, the hanger doors are opening," Neela reported to me, now sounding serious. The Camp had a heavily armed gunship that was permanently stationed onsite. Despite our best efforts, the Resistance had been unsuccessful in getting access to this ship and it had its own independent power core, so its shields would be functional and more than sufficient to withstand our onboard weapons.

"Begin phase 2," I ordered, before Kira and I broke off our attack and quickly veered in different directions, though I headed North away from the camp at maximum speed, heading towards the Hill Province, acting as if we were retreating. We had painted huge targets on our back, now it was up to the Cardassians to take the bait and follow us. "Neela standby to give the signal to the ground forces to assault the camp."

The Gallitep labor camp had been around for virtually the entire 50 years of the Occupation and its many horrors were well known. As such, this wasn't the first time the Resistance had tried to liberate the Camp, nor even the first time they'd attacked with Raiders, but hopefully it'd be the last.

"Are they following us?" I asked Neela, who paused for several long moments.

"They are. Sending signal now," she answered. "They'll be in extreme weapons' range in 25 seconds. Will we be able to reach the canyons?"

"You better hope we can," I responded quietly.

The fact that 25 seconds had elapsed was announced by several orange disrupter bolts flying dangerously close to the cockpit's window. The missed bolts were hitting the hills and ground around us, as I engaged in evasive maneuvers, carving out huge depressions wherever they struck and sending dirt and debris into the air.

"How close to the canyon opening?" I asked, banking left and right at high speed to avoid being destroyed.

"3.2 miles," Neela responded.

"Send the signal," I replied.

3.2 miles when you were traveling at these speeds went by in no time at all and we were soon descending into the canyon and taking turns and banking at a thousand miles per hour in a very, very unsafe manner. Unlike my pursuers, however, I was both a far superior Augment and had cheated by memorizing the exact layout of the area, including this canyon, before the mission had even started. Luckily the canyon walls were doing what I wanted and were soaking up damage. Where did I get this idea you might ask, from a movie, of course, but I wasn't planning on telling anybody that. Let them think that it was my tactical brilliance at work.

At the next turn on either side of the canyon, my Augmented eyes saw a flash of movement on the ground followed by two bright blue pulses of energy flying up from either side of the canyon, unerringly tracking and striking the Cardassian gunship that had been trying to destroy me, courtesy of the Resistance and a pair of 'stolen' isomagnetic disintegrators. The gunship exploded in midair, its fiery debris falling to the ground. These were weapons designed by the Federation for the use of Starfleet Special Operations, weapons that I'd actually provided the Resistance specifically to deal with Cardassian gunships, armored vehicles, and other shielded hard targets. They'd certainly done that and come in handy today.

"Rot in hell, you fuckers!" I whooped aloud.

Destroying those guard towers and other secondary targets had been important, but not as important as depriving the camp of their dedicated gunship. Liberating Gallitep would have been near impossible had it remained to protect the place. Thankfully the Cardassians had behaved as expected and took the bait. Now it was all up to the Resistance ground forces and our forces in orbit. Our part in this operation was over.

"Gothic, I'm getting multiple alarms from our engines. We took some indirect damage at some point, or we pushed the engines too hard because I'm getting multiple system warning alarms. I don't think we're going to be able to land safely, much less return to base," Neela reported fearfully, our previous feeling of victory dampened by reality once again. It was always something on Bajor during this fight. Nothing ever went perfectly.

Sigh.

"Get ready to bail out," I ordered, after several moments of deep thought as to the most prudent course of action. "I'm going to crash the ship into the side of the canyon."

It was a testament to the amount of trust I'd earned with Neela that she didn't even protest my decision. Destroying the Raider made sense to me if we couldn't get back to base, much less land safely. If this mission was successful the Cardassians were going to pull out all the stops investigating it. We couldn't risk the ship being torn apart and the Cardassians possibly learning that a Federation designed and produced industrial replicator had contributed so many vital parts to this ship's construction. I wasn't entirely sure if such a deep analysis would actually even be able to tell that, but why risk it? If they thought their gunship had shot us down, killing us, before they were destroyed themselves, even better. Let them have their illusion that their pilots had taken us down in battle before they died themselves.

XXXXX

Bajor. The Hill Provinces.

Once again I was back in the Hill Provinces of Bajor, a large mountainous area on Bajor which had served in the past as the perfect ambush location for a particularly rich Cardassian military convoy we'd hit. That successful mission had also given birth to the Resistance legend of the 'Pantsless Sniper', something which made Kira both cringe in embarrassment and glare at me in annoyance, like I had come up with the name or something, any time it came up. I wondered if Neela had heard that particular story. If she hadn't, I think Kira would love for her to know!

Given the limited safety equipment aboard our Raider, we thankfully didn't suffer any injuries. The rocket ejection of our seats worked as designed and the parachutes had slowed our descent to the ground. And yes, I said parachutes. Did I not mention how these craft were the height of utilitarian?

Crashing the damaged Raider into the side of a mountain would hopefully lead to the spoon heads thinking that we were dead, but out of an abundance of caution Neela and I would be laying low until the heat died down.

While losing the ship wasn't ideal given how limited the Resistance's resources were, it was a fair trade given how important the mission to liberate Gallitep really was. That dedicated Cardassian gunship would have seen everyone killed if it hadn't been removed from the battlefield, so I was happy with the way things had gone down.

Building a new Raider wouldn't be much trouble, they were designed to be pretty easy to build with a minimum of hard to come by materials, the space frame itself being the hardest part to make. Jeraddo itself had been chosen as a Raider base because the moon possessed the materials needed for the space frame. I could add mining and material refinement to my long list of skills now.

The rest of the ship had been designed to be modular for ease of building and repair, something the Federation could learn from. Using my industrial replicator, I could replicate most of the pieces and parts and then assemble them together. I had the tools and the help of three young Bajoran women with the right skills and plenty of enthusiasm between them. I could only hope and pray to the Prophets that they'd successfully made it to our fallback positions safely. Regardless of how things went the plan had always been to spend a week or so away from base and then rendezvous once things had settled down. If the Cardassians managed to follow anyone back to their fallback position better to only let a few people be killed rather than risk the entire movement.

"Let's recruit members for a new Resistance cell we'll start ourselves," Neela zealously suggested, as we made our way up and down the hills these provinces were named for, heading towards the nearest populated village. Luckily the topography gave us plenty of options for cover and the area was filled with minerals that would make scanning for us difficult. Neela was excited and on an adrenaline high after our recent victory. Of course, we had no idea how the larger operation was playing out, but our small but vital part of the whole had been a success.

From the various talks we'd had when getting to know her, we'd learned that Neela had actually grown up in these provinces, so she was directing us where to go. The safest course of action would be to find a village or town and blend in with the locals, hopefully finding sympathetic folks willing to provide aid to the Resistance. Two solitary Bajorans in the middle of nowhere in this area was going to stand out a hell of a lot more than just two more people in a village.

"They probably already have one nearby," I pointed out logically. "It'd be better to seek their help, rather than start over from nothing. Besides, we have our Cell, we just need to get back to base."

Even now it was best to not provide any specifics on our base's location; you never knew who was listening.

Jeraddo was currently visible in the night sky, and it was just one of many. Sometimes the moons of Bajor looked so close that I imagined that I could just reach out and grab one. It was a beautiful sight. Bajor really was a beautiful planet, and part of me was quite looking forward to choosing some land for myself and building a home here. Of course, I'd still go on adventures in my trusty ship, but having a real home on the planet would be nice for downtime.

I could even build a lab, fabrication shop, and a reinforced landing pad for my ship. Now that I was thinking about it more, maybe an island with a high central hill to build on? One with great views and miles of clothing optional beaches that were all mine sounded lovely. Bajor, just like Earth, had plenty of islands all over the place. With my ship and transporters, it didn't exactly have to be close to the major cities. This wasn't the first or even tenth time I'd had these thoughts, but the idea of it always comforted and excited me.

"Yeah, we'll make it back," she responded, not realizing that I had been daydreaming for a bit there. "In the meantime, I'm an engineer, my skills are in high demand, so I'm sure we'll find something to do. And you're… well, what can't you do?"

I could understand the sentiment. She hadn't been around me very long, but she'd heard Kira and Ro wax poetically about me and my prowess in combat…and in the bedroom. No doubt they'd filled her head with the idea that I was some kind of superman. Which, to be fair, I kind of was, but that didn't mean I wasn't mortal just like her. My ego certainly wouldn't mind being told I was a sex god or something though.

"And we already have our own weapons," Neela added. Thankfully there had been just enough room in the cabin for us each to have a Cardassian disrupter pistol on us.

"I've killed plenty of Cardassians with my bare hands, Neela," I boasted while continuing to scan the area for threats.

Though I could break Cardassian necks with my bare hands, having a fully charged energy weapon certainly made things easier, and infinitely safer. This was a good thing, because as we made our way into the village proper, we ran into a Cardassian patrol who were far more alert and agitated than was normal. Normally, I'd have been able to avoid such a thing, but I was lacking my normal equipment and I was working with someone I didn't know that well. Plus, I was unfamiliar with the area and its patrol patterns.

"Halt," the officer in charge ordered. "Identification! Now!"

The four troopers under the command of a low-ranking officer fiddled with their weapons, looking like they were ready and eager to bring them to bear in a moment's notice. That was a dangerous combination for anyone they encountered tonight. Clearly they were not here just to intimidate the locals; they didn't need five heavily armed men for that. Besides, if they'd been here having fun they would have been noisy enough for me to hear them long before I got inside the village's walls.

Neither I nor Neela had any ID on us. Well, actually, we did, just not on us at the moment, which was a bit of an oversight. The rebels made pretty good fakes these days, as travel was forbidden without them. But they weren't something you thought to take on a mission that involved flying a freaking raider in combat! I had a Cardassian disrupter pistol and a knife on hand, but not much else; a rifle would never have fit in the cockpit. I felt practically naked right now! If the Raider had been even a bit larger I would have prepared better, my natural paranoia and tendency towards overkill being what it was, but space was always at a premium in those things and I was too tall as it was. My girls had had to modify my Raider specifically for me, so that I could even fit inside the damn thing.

"Is there a problem, sir?" Neela asked innocently, trying to sound meek and obsequious. The Cardassians enjoyed their power over the native Bajorans and acting subservient to them could often help avoid trouble, or at least escalating the situation.

Somehow I didn't think her harmless little submissive girl act was going to cut it, at least not this time. She could probably get away with being here, but I was human and decidedly too dangerous looking for them to not to be both cautious and suspicious. There were certainly other humans on the planet, to be sure, but we tended to be visiting merchants, or people from an independent human colony world come to study the planet, we weren't typically wandering around extremely remote villages in the dead of night after a major Resistance attack and there had been a Raider spotted in the area.

"I haven't seen you two in this village before," the officer said with obvious suspicion. "Travel is restricted without ID and travel papers. But you knew that already, didn't you?"

With great effort I forced a smile.

"Look, sir, as you can clearly see, I'm not Bajoran," I explained. "I'm a human from an independent colony world. I'm just out here enjoying the local culture, if you know what I mean, my lady friend and I were just out enjoying the countryside and my speeder broke down. All my identification and travel papers are in the transport."

From the looks on their faces and the steadily rising tension in the air, I could tell that there was no use trying to talk my way out of this. A bribe may have worked, and could have smoothed things over a bit, but again, I had no money on me.

"Come with me," the officer instructed as he approached to restrain us, which was his first and last mistake. "I will hand you over to-"

As I pushed Neela to the ground my stiff knife hand lashed out and crushed the windpipe of the officer in charge before anyone even realized that they were now fighting for their lives. As the soldiers raised their weapons to fire I spun the wheezing and slowly dying Cardassian officer around and used him as a living shield.

His desperate, wheezing attempts to order his men not to fire were in vain as multiple beams of deadly crimson disrupter energy hit and killed their own leader, who couldn't order them not to fire with his throat crushed. His body jerked wildly in my hands before going still. Holding up this newly dead weight was child's play for someone with my strength, and raising my pistol over the dead officer's right shoulder I quickly and efficiently gunned down the four remaining troopers before they could fire again, most momentarily stunned by what they had just done. It was all over in about two seconds. Mess with an Augment at your own peril, motherfuckers.

Well-honed instincts and plenty of recent combat experience meant that I then quickly and efficiently head shot each one of the still bodies on the ground to make sure the job was truly done. No sense taking chances and then getting shot in the back.

"Just don't stand there, my children, take a weapon!" I heard a female voice order, to which I immediately dropped to a knee and aimed my weapon in the direction the voice had come from. Had the Raider's sound output damaged my fucking hearing? What was going on with me tonight?!

I slowly rose up as I saw the speaker was a Bajoran woman; that didn't mean we were safe though, there were plenty of Bajoran collaborators in the Occupation. When Neela glanced at me clearly asking what to do, I gave a discreet nod to go with it for now. So we both grabbed a disrupter rifle from the dead soldiers as villagers appeared to tidy up the scene and dispose of the bodies. Better to have a missing Cardassian patrol than corpses lying around. The remaining weapons would be used by the locals to protect themselves in the future. Waste not, want not.

"You two are with the Resistance?" The woman, who was dressed in the robes and vestments of a Vedek, of all things, asked Neela.

Naturally, we didn't admit we were with the Resistance, there were traitors around after all, and the spoon heads weren't above letting their own soldiers die if it would lead to a rebel cell that they could capture alive for interrogation. While the military itself might not necessarily do that, the Obsidian Order certainly would. Those fuckers loved to interrogate people and they didn't care how many of their people they had to sacrifice to get results.

"Oh please, people with your skills don't just drop out of the sky," the Vedek joked.

Well, we sort of had.

"Sometimes they do," Neela remarked, obviously thinking along the same lines as I was.

We exchanged a smile at that and I was glad that she wasn't mad at me for knocking her to the ground. To an outsider it would have been abundantly clear that I was protecting her. A Vulcan would see the action as very logical and have been grateful in their own way, but Bajorans were more like humans in that they were a very emotional people and logic was often left by the wayside.

"What are your names, my children?" the Vedek asked. Why was that phrase and the overly superior and condescending tone that it was said in so freaking familiar?

Telling her even our names could be dangerous. The Obsidian Order would already have that information by now, at least on me, Neela was probably an unknown to them still. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't already a fairly in-depth file on me and most of my cell complete with psychographic profile and whatever information they might have stolen or gotten their hands on from Starfleet. Section 31 was closely monitoring attempts to get more information on me, but they weren't infallible.

"We'd prefer to keep them to ourselves," Neela said.

Caution always trumped politeness when your survival and that of your entire family was on the line. Which also made sense since the spoon heads couldn't target a family unless they knew the name of that family.

"As you wish, my children," said the holy woman, as if annoyed we didn't trust her. "Now we must get out of sight. The Cardassians will return and in greater numbers when they realize that their soldiers are missing."

Since even I couldn't fight an army, at least not without proper time to prepare and my full load of weapons and gear, this seemed like a very good idea.

XXXXX

Rebel Base. Hill Provinces.

The Vedek, who still had her face hidden by a hood, led us underground to the local Resistance cell, which wasn't named. According to its leader it was just called the 'Hill Cell', which suggested that the leadership of this cell had changed so often due to them being killed that they didn't bother with it anymore. Naturally, the leader, who also never gave us his name, had several questions, the first of which was where we had come from.

"We actually came to your Province by way of Raider Base V," Neela explained.

While all the rebels by now knew of the super human in their ranks, and my many victories with the Resistance, they'd had decades of aliens subjugating their people and the rest of the galaxy ignoring their plight, so they were far more comfortable speaking directly to one of their own. It didn't bother me.

"You have raiders?" the leader asked.

Well, there were some waiting at the base. And if I was really desperate or in a serious emergency I could call my own personal ship down by instructing the computer to travel to my location and beam me up when in range. Unfortunately, with the spoon head ships in the system on high alert and without a good pilot at the helm to engage in evasive maneuvers, it would most likely be shot down and that sure as fuck wasn't going to happen if I could help it. A ship's auto pilot always took the most direct and boring course at a safe speed, which was fine if you were running cargo under benign circumstances, not so good if you needed to escape some space Nazis in a combat situation. Though now that I thought about it, if The Flighty Temptress had a cloaking device, even a direct and boring course would be fairly safe. It was the very height of irony that I probably had the most technologically advanced cloaking device in the quadrant yet didn't have the ability to use it.

"Not anymore," I said. "Why do you ask?"

We were soon given an answer, sort of.

"Prefect Dukat has recently ordered every Vedek, Ranjen, and Prylar who openly supported the Resistance rounded up," we were told. "We have hidden Vedek Winn with us, but it's only a matter of time before the patrols find her."

Vedek Winn?! As in Kai fucking Winn! And this order, had it been in response to our raid on Gallitep? Had it ultimately been successful? No, it was too soon, he said 'recently'. Maybe some other Resistance operation had pissed him off.

"She's here?" Neela blurted out.

Did Neela know her? It wasn't a stretch to assume that Winn was the woman in the Vedek robes we'd already met.

"Yes, Winn is known to everyone in our Province. She used to travel through this area quite regularly preaching and attending to the sick," the rebel leader explained. "Until recently the Cardassians overlooked the offense of travelling without permission, for the Vedeks at least. Then word came from Terok Nor to take her and every religious figure like her who might be aiding us up to the station."

Now I understood, they were meant to serve as hostages and a deterrent to the Resistance. With the Resistance being so active lately and willing to take on targets as well defended as Gallitep, Dukat must be worried the Resistance would turn their sights on the station next. With so many Vedeks on the station, many would hesitate or refuse to attack or sabotage the station with them onboard. It was actually a pretty smart move.

"We have to get her out of here," Neela suddenly insisted, turning to me imploringly.

Her passion about this was surprisingly intense. I'd not known her that long, of course, but I'd never heard her sound like this before.

"Is this personal for you?" I asked quietly, so that only she would hear, wanting to know what was behind this emotion.

Neela nodded her head slowly.

"Winn saved my family from a Cardassian officer that was going to execute them because the Cardassians wanted our land," Neela solemnly explained. "We were still displaced, but we survived, and were taken to a monastery and sheltered there. Eventually I left to join the Resistance, to do my part in driving the Cardassians away from our home. My family is still there to this day."

Every member of the Bajoran Resistance had a sad story just like that, with varying degrees of horror. Her story was one of the milder ones I'd heard. The Cardassians and their constant evil bullshit were the best recruiters the Resistance had and could be counted on to always provide.

"You want us to get the Vedek out of the province," I summarized.

"What is your plan for our escape, child?" Winn inquired, as she lowered her hood and I saw that same face I'd seen in the show once upon a time. Pretty presumptuous that she immediately thought we'd agree to risk our lives to save hers. We owed her nothing!

As the Resistance leader answered I struggled with the very, very strong urge to shoot the possible future Kai right here and now. Doing that in the middle of a Bajoran rebel camp would be a very bad idea, they'd almost certainly turn on me and I might have to kill them in self-defense. To cover it up though and preserve my mission, I'd probably have to kill all of them.

With that in mind, along with the fact that Winn hadn't actually done anything bad yet, as far as I knew, I stopped myself from killing her. I might change my mind later though, if a more opportune moment presented itself. I would not let things progress to the point that she started worshipping those Pah-wraiths, or Soul Wraiths to give them their true name. They were pretty much super powerful demons as far as I could tell with similar abilities to see through time as the Prophets themselves. Though maybe that was always her role and the Prophets would be super pissed with me if I messed up the timeline, but wouldn't they already know if I was going to? What a mess.

"Our plan is for two members of our cell to escort one of the villagers, who will be dressed up as a Vedek, out into the hills and from there evade our pursuers and reunite later on," the leader of the local Resistance cell explained.

Not a bad plan, albeit incredibly dangerous for those three people. I doubted many spoon heads would know the difference between an imposter Vedek and the real one. A least not without some way of checking with an identity database.

"What I ask is that you take the real Vedek with you to one of our hideouts and wait for the patrols to move on or for them to follow the decoy party," the rebel leader asked. "Then take her to your ship and off world if need be, or at least to somewhere on Bajor far from here."

That sounded simple enough. Once the heat had died down I could risk calling my ship in. Then transporting us up wouldn't be much trouble, I had a transporter after all.

"Shall we go then?" Winn said to Neela. She had obviously recognized a devoted fan in Neela. Fuck me.

XXXXX

"Follow me, your eminence," Neela insisted as she led us. I was following behind the two of them so they didn't see my eye roll.

Neela brought Winn and myself to a natural cave hidden by several boulders. Inside the cave were food, blankets, and a pair of Cardassian disrupter rifles. Not that we needed more weapons at the moment, they were here in case the local rebels ever fell back to this hideout in an emergency.

"Won't the Cardassians be able to detect us in here?" the holy woman asked.

I doubted it or it wouldn't be much of a hideout.

"The boulders visually obscure the entrance so our lights and our thermal signatures are hidden," Neela explained, "and the hillside is rich in kelbonite. The mineral blocks sensors so we won't be detected that way."

Even a standard Starfleet issue tricorder would have trouble finding us with such exotic metals all around us. Though if Bajor wasn't so mineral rich, then the Cardassians would never have come here in the first place.

"You intend to wait here until the Cardassians give up and abandon their search for me?" Winn inquired.

That was the plan.

"Yes, your eminence," Neela responded with a nod.

Waiting was going to be oh so boring when sex was off the table. Kira was almost always down for some sexy fun during the long wait times that were so common between action on missions. Though Neela and I didn't yet have that kind of relationship, I could have worked on that during the long periods we had nothing to do. She was decently hot and a good person, I would have been done for some fun, but Winn was definitely not an option. I know Dukat banged Winn in the show, but I wouldn't fuck her with a borrowed dick.

"Very well," Winn replied, seeming nonplussed. "And now, child, how do you know me?"

So Neela told the holy woman about her family's tragedy and the story jolted Winn's recollection,

"I remember your family. Your sister is doing well, child. They miss you so much," Wynn said.

It was a while before anything else was said that I actually cared about.

"And your human travelling companion?" Winn asked.

The less she knew about me the better.

"Gothic leads our Resistance cell," Neela explained with a proud smile. "He's an excellent fighter and pilot."

Before she could ask the obvious, why a human was fighting to free Bajor, I changed the subject. The less she knew about me the better. I didn't even want her knowing my freaking name, but that ship had sailed.

"You'd best both get some sleep now," I interrupted. "Come morning the Cardassians will be out in greater numbers searching these hills and we may have to have flee the area quickly."

I had no intention of making any kind of stand in a cave that only had one exit as far as I could tell. Unless there was something I wasn't seeing here, this seemed like a really poor choice for an emergency hideout. I'd seen many a former farmer turned Resistance fighter make some pretty questionable decisions in my time on Bajor, so frankly I wasn't all that surprised. One of the reasons I was so well regarded in the Resistance were my victories, of course, but also my track record in keeping my team safe and alive, sometimes despite themselves. The loyalty and respect I had engendered in many a fighter was another reason, I suspected, that I was given my own cell off-world.

"I'll take first watch," I offered.

Being an Augment meant that I could function at peak performance without food or sleep for much longer than other people. Vulcans were capable of doing much the same, as their race had evolved on a very inhospitable desert planet.

"Very well, my child," Winn agreed, "but please wake me to take watch when you tire. I, too, will do my part to protect us."

Now that wasn't going to fucking happen. It was extremely unlikely that Winn would turn on her only protectors at this point, when we were relatively safe at the moment, but I wouldn't be taking more than a quick power nap with her around. I strongly suspected/worried that if the Cardassians caught up to us, all bets would be off with her. I'd seen that bitch do some truly evil shit in the shows to advance her position or preserve her reputation. She'd happily throw us to the wolves if it ultimately saved her skin, all the while acting like she was doing nothing wrong, or justifying it by saying that her life was worth more than ours and that we should be happy to give up our lives for her. No, there would be no sleeping with her around. Normally, I would let Neela take watch at some point, but I was concerned that she might be compromised by Winn given their history.

"I will," I lied.

I gave a dark chuckle in the privacy of my thoughts, future role or not I was going to blow this bitch's head off if she even looked at me funny. Accidents happen all the time with jumpy people involved in dangerous situations, after all.

XXXXX

Rebel Base. Jeraddo.

A full week went by like this, a full fucking week stuck in a damp cave listening to Winn and Neela discussing the Prophets and having to stomach Winn's ultra conservative interpretation of the Bajoran faith. Don't get me wrong, I didn't believe the Prophets existed, I knew that they existed, and given their power I saw no reason why they shouldn't be worshipped as gods by the Bajorans or anyone else that wanted to. Unfortunately, just like on Earth, Bajor had its fair share of people who twisted religion to serve their own purposes and justify all manner of sins that would otherwise be against the very faith and beliefs that they pretended to live by.

It wasn't just my knowledge from the shows any longer that proved the Prophets' existence and power, I had had an orb experience; I had even felt their touch when they stopped me from blowing Dukat's head off. I knew that they had a plan for the galaxy, one that I was (now) a part of even before the Prophets knew I existed, which was confusing until you fully accepted and somewhat grasped the idea of them living outside of linear time, well, as much as we were able to.

Somehow, and I don't know why, but I had the distinct feeling that these events had played out in canon DS9, that Neela and Winn had been destined to meet on Bajor during this period, after the Resistance had successful liberated Gallitep. I was also pretty sure that by the end of it that Winn would have had Neela eating out of the proverbial palm of her hand, radicalized to do her bidding, no matter what it was as long as Winn said it was the will of the Prophets. I recognized the familiar methods and tactics of radicalization from my time in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same methods that would see young, impressionable, and disposable pawns strap explosives to their chest to kill others. Of course, the one doing the radicalizing would never make that sacrifice themselves. They were too important to die like that.

The difference from canon was that I was here this time, here to limit and temper Winn's ability to influence Neela and turn her into a radical willing to do whatever she said. The presence of a non-Bajoran had definitely thrown Winn off her game, which seemed practiced, especially as I questioned and debated everything she said, much to her frustration at times. Who knew memorizing so many ancient Bajoran teachings and writings on Earth would have been so useful?

As the days went by waiting in that cold, dank cave, my desire to kill Winn steadily increased. At one point, when I'd just about had enough of her sanctimonious bullshit, I made the decision to shoot her sleeping form. I had stood up, pulled my Cardassian disrupter pistol and was just about to put a few disrupter bolts into her sleeping head. The thought that I may very well have to kill Neela, as collateral damage, crossed my mind, but it wasn't enough to stop me in that moment. What did stop me, was the presence of the Prophets once again. Yet again they stilled my hand and somehow asked, but without words, that I let her live, that she had a role to play and they would like me to let events play out. They had found me a much harder sell this time around, but I still holstered my weapon and sat back down.

I suppose I had years to kill Winn, and by keeping her alive I had a better idea of what the future held. Like I had long ago decided with regard to my future knowledge, while I wasn't opposed to flipping the script, there had to be a compelling reason for it with plenty of upside. In this case another favor from the Prophets was a hell of an upside. And besides, she didn't become a truly evil bitch, rather than just a shady, self-serving religious/political figure, until the later seasons of DS9. She was just an annoying sanctimonious bitch right now.

What had made the week even more horrible was not knowing what had happened to Kira and Ro. Thankfully, this would all be over soon.

XXXXX

Rebel Base. Jeraddo.

"I just heard from Shakaar," Kira reported as I worked at the computer in my ship, continuing to study and explore the partial Collector database we'd copied. It was vast and unfortunately organized in some kind of incomprehensible fashion that I couldn't discern yet, but I felt like there was a lot here that I would find useful, if only I stuck with it. "The plan worked, though a lot of our people died making it successful. We liberated the camp and its prisoners, though people are celebrating like the Occupation is over or something."

Kira shook her head in disbelief. She knew that there was still a lot more work to be done before this was all over. Her time under my leadership had obviously given her a bit more perspective and an eye for the big picture.

"You're right, we've got a lot to do before that day comes, but it's also important to celebrate victories like these. The Bajoran people haven't had a lot to be proud about in a long time," I sagely advised. Since when did I become the voice of wisdom and experience?

"You're right, of course," she said, looking thoughtful.

"How are the freed prisoners?" I asked.

Kira's eyes misted with tears before she moved to sit in my lap and put her arms around my shoulders.

"That bad, huh?" I asked quietly.

"It was so horrible, Gothic, much, much worse than we even realized," she answered, equally quietly, tears in her eyes, though I could tell it was a mixture of sadness and joy. "I wish you could have seen the joy in their eyes though, Gothic, when they realized that they were being freed, that their suffering was finally over. You helped us achieve that!"

I just nodded and smiled.

"Even with good food and medicine from the replicators you brought us, most probably won't make it more than a few days, but those last days will be free, to be spent in the loving embrace of their people. They'll return to the Prophets free of the pain of this life," she whispered. "Many of the ones we think will survive have expressed a desire to join the Resistance."

"May the Prophets bless them with new health and new hope for a better tomorrow," I prayed quietly, Kira nodding in agreement, while we cuddled in silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts. "I hope that many can recover so that they can have their chance to join the Resistance and fight back against the Cardassians. There wouldn't be a more dedicated group than them."

We'd need more people like them, people willing to do whatever it took to drive the Cardassians off the planet, as the spoon heads weren't packing up to leave just yet. Despite our significant recent losses in personnel and equipment, the rebel movement was growing stronger every day, with recruitment expanding the ranks as our victories became better known. Victories always helped with recruitment. It was really just a matter of time now.

"The spoon heads are going to strike back, and hard," I warned Kira. "Things are going to get worse before it gets better, at least for a while. You know that, right?"

She nodded into my neck, but didn't seem too concerned.

"I know," she whispered breathily, her breath tickling my neck, "but with you helping us and leading us, I've never felt more hopeful about the future, Gothic. I always felt like I'd die in this struggle, but now I'm wondering what the future of Bajor will look like and can't help but be excited about it."

I kept silent, touched at her faith in me, so I just held her a little tighter and placed a few kisses on her forehead.

"How about you and I privately celebrate our victory?" she suggested with a lascivious smile and a rather brazen rubbing of my cock.

I looked into her eyes and saw that lustful look again. So, it was going to be that sort of celebration. I was happy to help and hopefully Ro Laren would join in when Kira really got going and started screaming to high heaven. Part of me was also hoping in true 'porno style logic' that my ladies' screams of pleasure would finally break down Neela's walls and make her super horny. That dusty pussy of hers wanted me, I just knew it.

It was only a matter of time.

XXXXX

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Chapter 22: 15,012 words

Chapter 23: 18,993 word