Cardassia Prime

The shuttle had been the first clue that Gul Dukat’s reputation for vengeance and spite had not been exaggerated. Bruised, walking awkwardly in leg restraints, with blood encrusting a split that ran the length of his left forehead ridge, Reclan Delak, until recently 1^st Glinn of the Second Order, had only slowly comprehended just what kind of transport he was being loaded onto. Through swollen, half closed eyes he took in the dim dank interior with its security seating in tight, narrow, restrictive little rows, filled with Bajorans, Ferengi, Klingons and other assorted aliens.

"Civilians." His lips cracked a little as he blurted the word out in distaste. He pulled up sharply in the doorway, raising his manacled hands and gesturing at the malevolent, brooding complement of prisoners. "Is this Skrain’s idea of a joke?" He said, nakedly aware that insolence was all he had left and it was a weak weapon.

Sending him to trial amongst common criminals, denying him the right to even a military prison transport, the scales along his dorsal ridge began to stand on end in premonition.

"Shut up Juristan." The guards on board stepped forward to relieve the station guards of their charge. They took him by the arms, casually backhanding the mouthy prisoner almost as an afterthought, before slamming him into a secure seat and activating the force fields.

The two station officers turned away quickly and moved out of the doorway, uncomfortable at the sight of one of their own being degraded by being stowed amongst the thieves, cheats, pimps and prostitutes of the system. It was a potent message to send to any other uppity officer who might feel compelled to question the Gul’s authority or attempt to strip him of his dignity. The image of a 1^st Glinn strapped in amongst sim’heads, deviates and the dregs of society was a powerful one and would serve as an adequate demonstration of the Gul’s total intolerance of dissent and his vindictive ability to deal with it.

The doors rolled back trapping the stench of unwashed alien bodies in the cabin. Rec stared straight ahead of him as the engines powered up and the docking clamps thumped as they released. He was unable to see the station as the ship drew away, thrusting to full power and speed as quickly as was practicable.

There were no viewports. These passengers had no need of the luxury of seeing where they were going. They knew. Slowly, reluctantly, reality gnawed at the resilient hope that the Juristan had been nurturing. The hope that things might still turn out for the best. It was just starting to dawn on Rec. He wasn’t bound for the Military Tribunals on Cardassia III but the Civilian Courts of the Justice Ministry on Prime.

A thick, viscous glob of spittle landed on the side of his head and drooled slowly down past his eyeridges, stretching obscenely and catching the thin light in its moist thread. Hands pinioned he was unable to raise them to wipe it away. Slowly he turned his head to face a Bajoran, scabbed and scruffy, thin and twisted, with eyes that burned with the fever of hatred.

"Welcome to hell Spoonhead." The man’s voice was as reedy as his exterior was rough. "May you die slowly, in pain and alone."

Main Courtroom Justice Ministry Cardassia Prime

"The Ministry of Justice is an exemplar, a unifying and stabilizing influence throughout the Cardassian Union. On your visit here today, you will observe the administration of justice at first hand."

The row of children seated in the first rows of the public gallery rapped their knuckles against the railings in front of them in a show of traditional approval and then, childishly, shifted in their seats, whispering to each other in excited anticipation. Their guide, a gray haired, scholarly Conservator smiled at them with indulgence. Kardassu’s future arrayed before him, bright expectation on their young faces.

Along with most of the population of the Cardassian Union, the young audience had watched trials before. The edited highlights formed a staple part of the daily digest of news and current affairs broadcast on the public vid screens that were displayed on the outside of most public buildings, in promenades and squares throughout all population centers of the Union. The images and messages from the Ministry of Information and Education were a constant and subliminal backdrop to Cardassian society. Only in rural regions, in the wilds of the provinces, in the distant mountains, were the screens escapable.

For the children sitting excitedly on the benches of the court, however, this was a special day. It was part of their progress to adulthood. One of the rites of passage that marked their entrance to society as adults. Observing the operation of the Cardassian Bureaucracy in all its majestic detail was a part of that journey. It instilled in the child an unshakable confidence in the structures and the quintessential correctness of Cardassian civilization.

Their excitement stemmed from this gravitas but also from something far more primeval. It was the chance to watch, up close; to see a full trial, unedited; to smell the scents of fear as prisoners were taken down. It was THIS that had the youngsters' scales rustling like Kanabra stalks in a breeze. It was this intrinsic aspect of Cardassian nature that the very structures they came to watch today had been designed to harness - for the greater good of society.

"Now …" The Conservator continued " …we will briefly discuss the establishment of the Ministry of Justice in its historical context and then …" he smiled tolerantly at the children, "… I’ll preview some of the trials you will see here today."

Justice Ministry Cells

The small cell below the court complex comprised a seat that doubled as a latrine and enough space in which to stand up. The tall Cardassian looked enviously at the tiny Bajoran in the cell opposite who was able to curl up, feline like, on the floor and sleep.

Reclan Delak stretched as well as he could and resumed his position lying on the floor his long legs propped up on the seat and gazed up at the ceiling.

Slowly, as the days had slid past after his audacious assault on Dukat the future had darkened, shade by shade, for the Juristan Glinn. Now, as he awaited the final stage of his descent, not even the most optimistic of Juristans could have seen a light at the end of this particular tunnel.

The level of Dukat’s antipathy had revealed itself in spite filled stages. The first hint had been his journey aboard the civilian Justice Ministry shuttle. His subsequent delivery to the Ministry’s cells on Prime, rather than the cells of the military barracks, had merely confirmed the sense of grim foreboding that had tightened around him on the long journey from Terok Nor to which he'd tried to resist succumbing.

It was clearly to be a civilian trial, with the full coverage that that implied. The military usually dealt with their own, quietly, behind the scenes, out of the public eye. They had that power and generally, they exercised it. A chill had seeped under Rec's scales as the reality that he was obviously to be made ‘an example of’ sank in and his mind began to whirl with the possible outcomes that such a reality implied.

The much more explicit indication of Dukat's personal attention to detail lay in the overly enthusiastic treatment he had received at the hands, fists and feet of the interrogators at the Justice Ministry. The lack of questioning was no real surprise. His crimes were witnessed by others and admitted by him. They were simple, straightforward and uncomplicated. They required no lengthy investigations nor tricky cross examinations. None of this affected the zealousness of the interrogation team who had set about their task with the relish of those to whom brutality was an art.

As a solider who had made brutality his trade Rec recognised himself in them and expected no mercy. He found none.

Now, as he waited for his trial to commence, he felt the oddly unfamiliar feel of a uniform rubbing against his bruised and beaten ridges. After having been stripped of it on Terok Nor he’d been wryly amused by the sudden reappearance of a smart set of armour complete with ranks and insignias on the morning of his trial.

The Justice Ministry did so enjoy their artistry.

Main Court Room

The Archon

The opportunity to put the occasional solider on trial, with full pomp and major admonition, not only subdued any tendencies towards rebellion within the ranks but allayed the disgruntled, though unvoiced, suspicions of the general population that their military leaders were somehow above the law.

When the subject solider was also from an ethnic group with a reputation for drunkenness, brawling and violence then the show promised to be a good one, fulfilling society's craving for tarnished heroes, reinforcing stereotypes and exposing fallibility, in one grand gesture.

The guards who led Rec before the Archon were blank faced in the best tradition of impartial Cardassian military officers. The Juristan stood alone in the high winged dock, the rain of knuckles rapping around him issuing from the shadows of the court room and he looked up into the face of Cardassian Justice. The old woman above him, her hair dressed in an ornate style, robed in the trappings of the law, peered down at him from beneath hooded eyes and crashed her rock gavel onto the bench, declaring the proceedings open.

The fact that the Bajoran Occupation was assuming a gravity within the court that it was not accorded in the fighting, was an irony almost too bitter for the solider to swallow. It was all the better to demonstrate the contemptible nature of his crime, if it could be said to have occurred in a time of 'conflict'. The memory of spitting on the arrogant long neck Gul after smashing, first his jaw then his nose, fluttered through his distracted mind and a rueful smile twitched his mouth. It was simultaneously the stupidest and most supremely satisfying thing he’d ever done.

As the result of his trial, like all others on Cardassia, was never in any doubt and the representation of the 'facts' bore such a fleeting acquaintance with actuality, Reclan took little interest in the proceedings other than to stand, sit and make admissions on cue. He suspected if he listened too closely to the perverted history that was being portrayed, the thin leash he held on his temper may well fray.

Instead he took himself into the mountains of Jurista again. He felt the hound bounding beneath him as the sky beat down and the peaks arrayed themselves like an honour guard around him. The clear air and the distant sparkle of the river washed away the court room and the drone of the voices in a rush of freedom that only those born in the shadows of the Kinnauri ranges could truly know. The niggling uncertainty of how many years it would be before he'd know that freedom again, shuddered like the thunder from a distant avalanche.

He was going to jail.

He accepted that now.

The shame was too great to dwell on it too long or too deeply. He flushed deeply as he recalled, suddenly, the image makers capturing his every look and gesture and displaying them over every vid screen in the Union.

It was to his family that his thoughts unwillingly leapt. Hopefully they would be spared the sight of this, though certainly not the knowledge. With his fall from grace he had guaranteed theirs as well. Thankfully, he knew, that as farmers they would care little enough for the little they had to loose. The things that 'society' valued; advancement, position, access to the little luxuries and fancies of the ruling classes had meant little to the Juristan home he had left behind such a short time ago. They would keep their lands, though hope of social improvement was no longer an option. Of all of them it would impact on little Rulay the most, when her time for enjoining came the taint of the convict connection would close down some choices.

They had not seen him, nor would they. Not until he was released, when ever that was. That was all that remained to be determined now - how long and where. He tightened his arms which were crossed over his chest in reflexive apprehension as a premonition spread through him that the 'where' would be the worst there was.

Despite the best efforts of the Ministry of Justice to extend such a fine show eventually the point had been reached where sentence must be determined and implemented.

Rising stiffly to his feet and standing to attention as his role in the script demanded, Rec braced himself for the Archon's words.

"In times of such turbulence and threat to the Union the one thing that Cardassians need to be able to rely upon is the loyalty and the probity of those who are entrusted with their protection. Our Military are the envy of the Quadrant. Equally feared and respected which is as it should be, our Military represent in essence what Cardassia stands for, sacrifice, duty, honour, courage and fealty."

She paused allowing the rapping and murmurs of assent and approval to flutter about the court room like bats disturbed in a vast cave. Her eyes, lost in the shadows of the ridges above them and the lighting that cast her into an eerie insubstantial presence.

"Therefore when I am faced with the onus of passing sentence on a solider who has abandoned his duty, who has indulged in a vicious and violent assault on his commander, in a time of conflict no less, who has turned his back on the opportunities extended to him by a generous state to develop himself, who has squandered the training and the education freely given to him, despite the unfortunate circumstances of a humble birth…" She sighed and shook her head in aching and genuine sorrow over such gross ingratitude and blatant waste. The moment was beautifully framed and captured by the image makers. She looked up briefly, a glint of a light reflecting in her pale eyes as she focused again on the prisoner.

"Therefore I find myself unable to pass sentence at this time."

A gasp went up from the court room and Rec's body resonateted as if he'd been struck. His eyes slid about as he remained at attention, trying to read from the court staff what was happening. The flicker of hope he'd extinguished roared back into life, like a flame before a hot, dry, desert wind.

"I suspend sentence until such time as the Bajoran situation stabilizes. I feel that justice cannot be served fully whilst other, courageous, loyal soldiers of the Orders still serve the Union dutifully on that benighted planet amongst those barbarians. This …" She glared at Rec with scorn, " … coward should not even commence his sentence until those members of the military have completed their service to the state and Bajor has been subdued. Until that time, sentence is reserved."

Rec almost staggered. This was a sentence without end. It was a sentence usually reserved for 'politicals', for those whom the state wished to legally 'disappear'. The sound of the distant avalanche in the clear distant mountains of Kinnaur deafened him. He'd never see them again. He'd never ride those hills or see a sky shot through with the crimson and the purple of summer storm clouds boiling over the ranges at sunset.

His arms had been locked up by the guards and they had started to remove him from the dock as her final words did, finally, make his knees buckle.

"The Prisoner will await sentence at Hutet. Take him down."

Hutet

The desert surrounding Hutet

New prisoners were herded from the transports that had delivered them from the various courts of the vast Cardassian union to this place and they were then marshaled in the receiving yard. There was not a great deal of processing that remained, personal possessions and clothing had all been stripped prior to transport. All that remained now was 'ident' administration.

The tunic and trousers scratched roughly, as they were no doubt designed to do, and the sun reflected harshly off the bare sandy expanse of nothing that surrounded Hutet as it did by nature's design. Rec squinted into the glare. The desert stretched away in all directions, beating as if it were alive as the heat haze distorted it and curled the horizon.

The line of prisoners inched forward. Male, female, Cardassian and alien. Dressed similarly in the dull, gray cloth of convict garb.

Cardassian justice was swift and inexorable. It had been only a few hours since Rec had been half dragged, stumbling in numb shock, from the court room, the Archon's sentence pitching his world into an abyss. Still reeling, still half expecting a hand at any moment to reach out and pluck him from this wasteland - chide him for his impetuosity and gloat at the scare he'd been given, still unable to conceive the depths to which he had been flung, he shuffled unthinkingly, obediently forward with the rest of the prisoners.

The guards who surrounded the marshalling yard carried their weapons with the kind of insouciance that indicated their readiness to use them and the kind of faces that revealed their desire to.

Reaching the front of the queue Rec stood passively as a medic quickly scanned him to confirm the ident details in the PADD before him. The medic nodded briefly to a beefy Galt who stepped forward and took the PADD and a small hand device from him. The Galt jerked his chin toward a one of a row of huts and gestured the tall Juristan to walk in front of him.

Almost catatonic, still unable to comprehend the reality of his spiral into this place, the sight and sound of it barely registered to Rec's senses, he had only an overwhelming sense of distance. His eyes had comprehended only the distance that surrounded this place, only the wide burning desert that mocked him with the distance from Jurista, from the mountains, from his life.

He barely noticed the two Galts standing in the shadows of the hut until they grabbed his arms and dragged him down onto his knees, a knee rammed into his back and forced him forward over a small frame that energized a forcefield to hold him in place.

"Try not to move." A voice from above him said sardonically. "Hurts more if we have to go back over the numbers."

The smell of his own scales, his own flesh burning and melting intensified the pain. When the brand of the Second Order that adorned his shoulder blade had been placed on him with pride and dignity, he had born the short sharp pain that had accompanied it with satisfaction. But as the tattooing laser sank through the layers of his epidermis, etching the numbers and letters that would forever identify him as a Huteter, he felt his first real and agonizing connection to this place.

Cardassia was a leader in research into mutagenics and they had used Hutet to test various aspects of their weapons development. The adaptation of one of the mutagens for use as an indelible and immutable tattooing agent had required only minor modifications. The agent ate into the tissue, rewriting the code of the skin as it went, sinking into the layers of flesh and mutating them into their own image. Attempting to remove the tattoo only activated the mutations to sink deeper and deeper into the body, eventually finding the delicate network of nerves and chords that supported the Cardassian spine and chewing through them like a vole through a conduit, crippled or killed the victim.

The Hutet tattoo was designed to mark its wearer for life.

The brilliant pain as the identity code was carved across the back of his wide flat neck, lit the room in a flash of understanding; the filthy, decrepit shed, the boots of the soldiers filling his vision, the dust their feet stirred up filling his nose, the acidic agony of the tattoo eating his future.

Rec suddenly made a noise. A release of air. A grunt.

The guards looked at each other and raised their eyeridges. They had bets on when each prisoner would call out. They always did - eventually. The only interest lay in how soon.

As the shape of his new life cauterized painstakingly across the expanse of his neck and his knees bit into the earthen floor, his mouth opened and he roared. It was a sound filled with pain, anguish and the horrified realization that there was to be no rescue, there was to be no escape - there was only this.

A Hutet Tattoo

Unlike other public buildings and spaces, which all bore the mark of classical Cardassian design, that were things of beauty and elegance, functionality in form unsurpassed in the quadrant, here the buildings were ugly, unmatched and decaying. The layout of Hutet was designed to allow the minimum number of guards to provide the level of security necessary to keep those on the inside - inside. What went on under the cover of night, in the shadows, in the barracks, in the dormitories, between the allocated work periods - well that was all part of the punishment. The true defeat of the spirit lay in not being able to escape. Whatever hell the scum chose to create for themselves within the parameters of that one truth was a bonus.

One by one, hands rising instinctively but yet not daring to touch the fiery ribbons that now scorched across their necks, the new prisoners were shoved from the reception centre out into the main yard of the prison. From here, other than being called upon to perform their allocated labour assignments, they were on their own.

The huts, dormitories and barracks were scattered randomly around the bare, dry ground. Through the forcefields the desert raced away into a distant horizon none here could ever hope to reach. Guard towers poked up randomly around the camp, vid screens, beyond reach but readable, displayed work schedules.

Rec wandered aimlessly, there were few figures about, the labour units were still at work in the mines that burrowed beneath the desert and through the far off scrubby ravines, or in the plants that dotted the perimeter of the camp. The new prisoners, their tattoos raw and weeping wounds, stepped warily aside from those whose convict uniforms showed signs of wear and whose tattoos shone blackly under the bright sun.

Drawn by instinct he found himself tracing the boundary. The force fields distorted the images of what lay beyond them through their lethal rippling waves. His ruptured skin slowly dulled into a quiet flame as he made laps of the edges of his new existence, staring out at the unyielding desert until his eyes watered from the glare.

The memories of the mountains of Jurista tortured him. His mind kept overlaying the harsh flat barren cauldron before him with the wild splendor of his home and lacerating him with the keen grief of knowing that he'd lost them.

Dimly he became aware that the light was fading and the yard was filling with prisoners returning from their labour. Feeling, foolishly, that even by moving from the boundary he was leaving Kinnaur further behind he lingered at his sentinel. As night established itself over the camp the announcements began, work details, barracks asignment, meal rosters. Reluctantly he turned from the perimeter, noticing for the first time that he was one of a handful of figures who were drifting from the edges back towards the centre of the camp.

It was whilst he was queuing for the evening meal that he first became aware of the quarantine field that seemed to have sprung up around him. No eye met his, no face turned to his, everywhere he looked, the backs of prisoners were rotating towards him. The sense of total isolation grew as a sea of gray hunched backs presented themselves as he tried to find a place to sit in the vast hall. The ostracism shouldn't have surprised him, he guessed, dumping the tray and carrying the bowl of unidentifiable stew and the hunk of bread out into the night. What he was would have been passed around from ear to ear and he could expect to find no love lost for the military in this place. He hunkered down onto his haunches keeping the wall of the dining hall behind him, though he didn't risk opening the wounds on his neck by leaning against it. Desultorily he dug the bread into the tepid, gluey stew and forced himself to chew.

The tramping of feet in the darkness told him that the dining hall was emptying. A splash of light fell out as the door opened and he shifted further back into the night, watching and listening as the assorted dialects and languages of the quadrant carried to him. He waited until the last of the voices had died away before he stood up.

The stars shone brilliantly in the dry air of the high desert, providing just enough illumination on their own to guide him towards the barracks he was looking for. The moon had not yet risen but he could make out the numbers and symbols of the dormitory that he'd been assigned.

For a moment he paused. His shoulders slumped in defeat and despondency. The surreal sense that none of this was real gripped him cruelly. Almost dizzy with misery he raised a hand to steady himself against the doorway and tried to find the courage or the will to go through. Filling his lungs he raised his head and shouldered open the door.

Sun goes down at Hutet

The long room was filled with bunks arranged in haphazard clusters that conformed to some agenda or alliance he did not yet know. Rec walked further into the dorm, aware of the conversations that began to subside behind him like sand sliding into a furrow. Aliens seemed to have staked out their own enclaves, Klingons hulked threateningly in one corner, assorted species had banded together to form another bastion mid way.

Winding slowly between a cluster of bunks, populated by Cardassians he paused and glanced at the array.

He placed a hand on an bare bunk. No bedding, no indication of ownership.

"Empty?"

No face turned towards him nor did a voice respond to his one word inquiry. He sprang quickly up onto it and lay down on the hard alloy frame, rolling immediately onto his side as the fresh wound to his neck reminded him sharply of its presence. He could feel the tightness of the scabbing over the figures and numbers.

The dorm was eerily quiet, whispers brushed against him just beyond his grasp. The atmosphere was as tense as the moments before a storm broke.

"That's my bunk."

A growl that was barely a voice sounded behind him.

Rec shut his eyes momentarily, almost too weary and too vanquished to respond to the obvious threat yet knowing instinctively that he must. Sitting upright and staring down at the scarred Cardassian face that looked coldly back up at him he answered shortly.

"Not any more."

The scarred head tilted to better look up at him and a wide smile that revealed yellowing rotting teeth spread over his face.

"You've forgotten where you are Glinn." The scarred head smiled back. "Look around, this ain't Bamarren."

There was an instant of warning, the sudden shift in weight on the bunk as they swarmed quickly up from behind. An instant of warning but no time to react. As he launched himself forward at the scarred head he was seized from behind and dragged backwards off the bunk.

He tried to separate himself from what was happening as he heard the sound of the material of his workpants being torn apart. The hands that held him were unyielding, biting into his forearms, thighs and calves. His struggles, as he twisted and attempted to thrash about, were not only ineffectual but merely served to reinforce his utter powerlessness. He was slammed heavily across bare bunk, the wind knocked from him as the metal alloy edge crushed his chest.

More hands, what felt like an army of hands, forced his legs apart whilst one grabbed him by the hair and craned his head back at ungainly angle.

Hot breath that held the stench of cheap alcohol and something else, something he didn’t recognise, a sweet sickly odor, whispered in his ear. The whisperer carried a message.

"The Gul wanted you to feel welcome here Juristan. We’re here to make you feel at home."

As the voice spoke a savage surge of pain tore him open whilst the sound of a multitude of voices baying in delight assaulted his ears.

The hand in his hair wrenched back harder, arching his neck unnaturally, cracking the first of the scabs that were trying to form along the freshly made tattoo and flattening his windpipe so that breathing was almost impossible and sound completely so.

The voice continued on in litany of mocking, toneless taunts that played over the background of grunts that mercilessly matched the searing, tearing thrusts of his anonymous rapist. He felt himself being ripped roughly open as the rapist ploughed into him again and again.

The angle of his head focused his eyes on the ceiling, the tatty, derelict filth of the dorm hut’s scaffolded roof was the limit of his visual world. The blindness to who was responsible seemed to escalate the pain. The piercing agony riveted his body and though he tried to convince his mind that it was only pain, nothing more or less than the physical pain he’d endured many times in battle, every stabbing stroke from the rapist, every blow to his hips as they were driven forward by the momentum into the metal of the bunk, every burning, bloody, brutal time the bastard buried his shaft into him, he knew it was significantly, scarifingly different.

Rape as a weapon of war. Cardassian military policy had accepted it. Now he knew why. It assaulted the mind as much, if not more, than the body, it threatened the sense of self, the essence of the identity. It humiliated, hurt and defiled more efficiently, quickly and effectively than any other weapon.

The rough and brutal rhythm of the rapist increased in tempo, the guttural sounds of penultimate release rising to match the frenzied ramming, till in a series of powerful, rending plunges the rapist released a stream of stinging secretions deep within the wounded flesh of the Glinn. As he withdrew, the tortured flesh closing in his wake, the hand in Rec's hair released slightly allowing the Glinn to gulp more air, then with a malicious tug pulled him back into position.

"There’s a lot of us here who want to welcome you Glinn." The voice mocked him as the freshly ruptured wound was impaled again.

Rec stared mutely at the ceiling. He felt his life trickling away from him as certainly as the blood that was trickling down between his tautly pinioned thighs. The Glinn, the soldier, the son, the brother, the friend, the lover that had existed out there, in what was now the past, were dying as each vicious, violent thrust planted the reality of Hutet, of the present, of the new truth of his existence deeply and foully inside him.

He lost track of the number who assaulted him, along with his sense of himself under the filthy scrappy ceiling of the hut. As they brutalized his body, he banished Reclan Delak. He stripped him from his mind and from his soul and from his memories. He wasn’t sure who he was going to replace him with yet. He wasn’t sure he wanted to replace him. He wasn’t sure he could. He just knew that he wasn’t going to let Reclan Delak die being abused by the scum of this pit. This heap of brutalized meat could die but it wouldn’t contain the essence of who he was. He could do nothing, but he could do that. He could deny them that.

When the bleeding had turned from a trickle to a stream and the tearing had flayed his flesh too much to provide any further satisfaction. An army of eager hands rolled the almost comatose Glinn onto his back and then hauled him onto his knees.

Dazed and unfocused his eyes rolled back in his head and he’d have collapsed but for those keen and willing hands holding him upright. The stench of fetid flesh and the heat of firm skin against his face forced him to focus. The naked belly of a Cardassian was before him, the scales alive with tiny vermin. A hand was clasped around the engorged and veined penis that emerged from below the belly. A second hand grabbed him by the hair and forced his face towards it.

More assiduous disembodied hands held his face forward and one slipped into his mouth dragging it open. The swollen, stinking, scabrous organ choked him. Without considering it he bit, hard, grinding, letting his back teeth rip and rend at the flesh that filled his mouth, hanging on clenching his jaw as with an agonized yelp the owner attempted to drag his member out. Skin, scales and lumps of flesh tore from the putrid penis as the injured Cardassian lacerated himself trying to wrench it free, desperately punching his tormentor in the face.

His fist crashed into Rec’s forehead, once, twice, then his teeth snapped together, as another fist collected him beneath the jaw. A high pitched, scale curling shriek tore from his would be assailant’s throat and the Cardassian tumbled to the ground in front of him.

Stomach heaving Rec spat the lumps of flesh and scales from his mouth as he wilted under a flurry of blows, slumping to the floor, cowering in a ball, as fists and feet rained on him, until he slid gratefully into unconsciousness.

The blood, the noise, the sexual excess, the chance to be powerful, the chance to inflict pain, the mob reacted with frenzied hunger, fed off each other and fell upon the limp abused body of the new prisoner. The Cardassian whose mangled manhood oozed thick dark blood between his fingers was just as brutally kicked aside but then ignored, in the mob’s frantic rush to get to the designated victim.

The audience who had gathered around the walls, or perched on bunks to garner a better view, or who were keeping lookout on doors and windows, craned their necks and felt the ripple of excitement that presaged the taking of a life. So intent were they that the designated lookouts on a rear door didn’t see the small, hunched figure of a crippled Cardassian limping slowly across through the dark and dusty night towards the barracks.

The cripple slipped in, unregarded and unnoticed, in time to see the prisoner disappear beneath the storm of the maddened mob. As he stepped out from the shadows, dragging his withered leg behind him, the audience that he passed through fell silent, their looks shifting from vicarious pleasure to resentment and apprehension.

Nub neither hurried nor dawdled as he made his way towards the scrum of bodies. As they noticed him, participants fell away until finally the battered, lifeless body of the new prisoner lay exposed. His lower clothing completely gone, the blood of various wounds mingling, his face already misshapen and swelling further.

Standing a moment and observing in the sudden strained silence of the hut, Nub’s pale almost white eyes strayed over the assemblage. The soft whimpers of the wounded Cardassian, still holding his hands over the bloody mess of his stinking sex drew a nod from the cripple. Wordlessly two prisoners picked up the moaning would be assailant and carted him from the dormitory.

Barely lifting a finger Nub indicated the Glinn and another two stepped forward and lifted his insensible body under the arms and followed the cripple’s shuffling, sliding gait back out the door.

Central administration block Hutet

Trimok stared down at the bleeding, battered half naked Cardassian and shrugged. Powerfully built, Trimok, had spent his adult life in prisons, the last half decade in this one. He faced his middle age as a warlord amongst other tyrants with a small slice of hell as the prize. To maintain his dominance required a mix of brute force, cunning and instinct.

It was instinct that had caused him to send Nub out to retrieve the new prisoner. His interest had been piqued in an individual who'd inspired such particular attention from Dukat. Trimok still nursed a grudge against the long necked Gul that nearly a decade had failed to temper. When the whisper that a Glinn who'd struck him and earned a trip to Hutet for his troubles reached the warlord's ears, he'd acted on the itching of his ridges to have him brought to him.

Now he looked down at the bloody mess at his feet and glared at Nub.

"What's this?" Trimok poked the insensible smashed and shattered figure of the Glinn with his toe. "He wont make it through the night. You should've left him there."

"You should've seen the other one." Nub snuffled as he attempted a laugh.

"What do you mean?" Trimok's eyes cut like knives on the cripple.

"He bit Yollar's dick off." Nub laughed wheezily. Trimok had crippled Nub, personally, years before, in punishment for a misdemeanor neither could really recall now. Now the petty tyrant kept the invalid supplied with sim'taa and protection, in return for his unquestioned loyalty.

The crowd that was gathering behind Trimok were more of his loyal, dependent or just plain fearful army. Their barracks was their castle and their keep, Trimok was their king and Nub was his eyes and ears.

Looking again at the minced face of the unconscious figure, Trimok shook his head, the features were barely recognizable.

"Juristans." He laughed grimly. "Yollar was a fool to think he could stick it in there and expect to get it back." He turned and scanned the faces of his assembled minions. "Zera … Zera …" He barked.

A woman, younger than she looked and once pretty, now drawn and pinched from hunger, work, abuse and sim, slipped from the back to the front of the group in response to her name and looked expectantly at Trimok.

"One of yours." He said, rolling Reclan onto his back with the toe of his boot. "Another mad Juristan. Thumped Dukat. Bit off more than he could chew now though." Trimok flung his head back and roared with laughter faintly irritated, as always, by the sycophantic tittering that accompanied him now that permission had been granted to react.

Zera looked at the raw, bleeding face on the floor and couldn't make out any features. He looked dead and was probably the better for it, she thought.

"Who was he." She asked tentatively.

"Delak. Second Order Glinn." Trimok answered. "Though I think you're burying him a little hastily Zera." He watched her sallow face colour slightly at the name. "You know him?"

"I … think … there was a family …" She halted as memories long locked down erupted to the surface and flooded her mind with glimpses of mountains and hounds and crops and a childhood before service to the Obsidian Order had claimed her. A native of Kinnaur she knew instantly who it was who lay so mangled and abused, pooling blood at her feet, though her last glimpse of him had been years ago, when he was a young lad on the brink of his Emergence, wearing an ill fitting cadet's uniform on a gangly frame.

"He's yours." Trimok waved a hand dismissively, suddenly bored by the diversion. "If he lives."

The warlord swept grandly down the row of pathetic bunks that marked his 'army's' barracks and took himself into the semi private cubicle he'd fashioned for himself at one end of the grim bare room.

Taking their lead from their master the crowd drifted back to their bunks and the little private worlds they'd made for themselves.

Dropping to her haunches Zera looked carefully at the Kinnauri's injuries with the practiced glance of one who'd seen killing up close and for whom it held no mystery. Sucking between the gap in her teeth she concluded that her first guess had been correct. This Delak was dead - he just hadn't got there yet. Her fingers felt over him, internal injuries, probably hemorrhaging, the kicking had done the worst of the damage and he would never have much of a face again without treatment. Trimok's gift to her, she thought to herself, a corpse to get rid of.

A groan and a twitch from the Kinnauri dragged her attention back to him. From behind the veil of red an opening that could have been a mouth, gaped slightly and blood bubbled up and out through the cavity.

She ran her hand over the stubble that passed for hair on her head and tried to ignore the tug to try and 'do' something. Four years here had taught her that Hutet did 'to' you, you didn't 'do' things in it or to it.

When the Order had abandoned her, deeply undercover and widely exposed, and she had found herself here as a result, she had closed herself off and applied herself to learning a new skill, the art of surviving. Now this potential corpse had been dropped at her feet and instantly she could almost smell the Kanabra crops at harvest time in Kinnaur again.

"Help me." She snapped decisively to a lounging figure behind her, as she placed her hands under the unconscious Glinn's arms. Grumbling, but acquiescent her comrade grabbed the legs and they swung him wordlessly onto Zera's bunk. The movement seemed to stir him into a lighter stage of consciousness and he groaned again, his head tossing feebly from side to side.

"Fuck." Zera swore, as she watched him struggling to come back to life. Typical bloody soldier's instincts, she thought, battling for consciousness when insensibility would be a lot less pain. For an instant his eyes, two pools of dark gray in a field of raw meat, flashed open and looked directly at her. They held no awareness, other than pain.

Reaching down the front of her tunic she pulled a small rock of sim from beneath a ridge. She'd miss that later, the thirst was already kicking in. Acting quickly before she had a chance to change her mind she slipped it between his lips. At least if he was going to die then he could do it without pain.

For Rec, the moments after falling under the fists and feet of the enraged mob had passed like a lifetime, he had felt his ribs collapsing into his lungs and his face collapsing in on itself before insensibility eventually swept him kindly away.

Almost imperceptibly at first sensation had tried to return. As he fought to rise through the darkness of unconsciousness he fell instead into a mire of pain and confusion. With an animal instinct he knew he was dying. He couldn't remember the battle, or the planet, or the enemy, he knew only the suffocation of suffering.

Unable to cry out, he felt his face shifting and subsiding as he moved his head, his body was nothing but a foci for pain without origin. He briefly glimpsed a face, a Cardassian face. He tried to open his mouth, tried to speak, he had to pass on his Shri-tal, but instead of speech he felt liquid fill his mouth, the bubbling of it coming from deep within. Then it was all swept aside by the most piercingly beautiful sensations of tranquil bliss that he had ever experienced. He floated mindlessly, numbly cupped in a rapture that drove all pain, all questions from his mind.

Sim'taa

Zera slipped out of the dormitory and made her way across the yard. It was not yet late and the lights still glowed dully from the prison infirmary. Passing close to the wall, she went to the rear of the low roofed, shabby building and approached the trustees' entrance. The grill was secured but the inner door was open, as usual.

A patina of dust and grime lay inside, blown through the ever open door. The trustees ran a lucrative business through the rear door of what passed for the prison infirmary, their positions within secured by graft, luck or lies and extending to them the quasi-authority and protection of their direct supervisors - the guards. But the presence of the trustees also gave the warlords a window of opportunity to exploit.

The medical staff comprised prisoners of appropriate backgrounds - there were no shortage of doctors within the union who had found themselves imprisoned in Hutet, the illegal mutagenics masters, covert identity changers, black-market providers of highs, lows and assassination assistance. The cunning ones found themselves work detail in the infirmary.

It was Trimok's trustee, Scheknell, whom Zera was now planning to exploit. The dingy storeroom was empty, lit only by the weak bulb from the treatment room opposite. Low voices came from within, as the day's sanctioned injuries, those that had been deemed worthy of attention, received their remedies. She hissed through the bars of the grill.

Footsteps slid towards the door, the figure was illuminated behind and she couldn't identify it.

"Schek?" She hissed again.

The figure turned and shuffled away. Zera scratched idly at her arms as she waited, her mouth already felt dry, and the prospect of servicing Schek in return for some basic treatment for the Kinnauri - while she was unstoned - was unsavory. She was turning away, the itching becoming more intense and her mouth starting to feel as arid as the desert that surrounded her, thinking that the Kinnauri would be better off dead anyway, when a low voice called from within the infirmary.

"Zera?" Scheknell sounded suspicious and a little gruff. "Trimok send you? There's nothing till the next guard rotation."

"I'm not here for Trimok." She said, slowly returning to the grill. "I want to buy some med-treat."

There was a moment's silence, then the sound of the grill unlocking. Scheknell's gray hair caught the weak starlight as he beckoned her inside. Zera remained mutinously still, just beyond the door.

"NO." She said obstinately. "Med-treat first."

The trustee chuckled. "I could always just take my payment now though - couldn't I Zera? And the rest of them here could too."

She remained just beyond his reach, wary but determined.

"And have Trimok hear you've been stealing?" She answered boldly. "Go ahead."

He shuffled forward and peered out into the night at her. Her thin prominent neck ridges and the constant itching advertised her addiction.

"You look thirsty." He said cruelly. "Just what kind of med-treat where you thinking of. Trimok rationing you again?"

"It's not for me." She snarled, dreading the onset of the cramps and the night that lay ahead before she got her next dose. "A yardie's been bashed. A new one. You'll need to bring bone and tissue regens and there's internal damage, you'll need a good scanner not just some surface shit."

She wrapped her arms around herself shivering despite the dry hot night. The trustee looked dubiously at her and ran his tongue wetly over his lips. They glistened in the weak starlight.

"That's a big order Zera. The bill will be …" He ran his eyes over her contemptuously, taking in her thin frame and dull scales. " … large. I don't know that you have the currency."

"Stop haggling Schek." She snapped irritably. "It's still more than you could get for free."

He looked at her. The years and the sim'taa were aging her but she was still able to do things that made his ridges hum just thinking about them. Only this time, he smiled sadistically as he turned away to collect his kit, this time, he thought to himself, I'm going to hurt you Zera.

* * *

Laughing, Schek looked up from the bunk bed and shook his head in amusement.

"You're kidding aren't you Zera?" He mocked her, the scales around his groin tightening at the prospect of just how much she would owe him, assuming he could keep this lump of meat alive for a few days. "Since when did you start investing in lost causes?"

"Shut up and treat him." She snapped, trying not to double over as the first warning cramp seized her belly. "Sooner you do it, sooner you get your payment."

Whistling tunelessly between his teeth, Schek began scanning the insensible figure on the bed, quickly picking up the sim'taa in his system. His smile twisted nastily as the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Yollar being dragged in missing his dick and the ribald chat that had followed about the Juristan Glinn that had bitten it off. Zera was Juristan. She'd even sacrificed her sim for him, that was something unusual. Schek knew that fucking for him was no big sacrifice to her, it was the only currency that Zera possessed, and even then her possession of it was questionable. In reality Trimok owned the rights to her. But fucking when she wasn't sim'ed - that twisted his smile further.

He really was going to hurt her.

He scanned the internal damage and set up some deep tissue regens to halt the hemorrhaging and start mending the ruptures. There was a variety of injuries. Those from where the Juristan had been raped looked worst but were least threatening. It was the hidden, silent, seeping of blood from within his chest cavity that was likely to kill him. Schek was actually good at his work, he'd wanted to be a doctor but society didn't offer such careers to those from the kind of background he'd had. He'd practiced anyway and known he was better than most of the legals.

Feeling Zera's eyes following every move he made, he reminded himself that she knew enough to notice if he skimped or cheated.

"I don't have enough tissue regens to spare. Some of the wounds are just going to have to heal the old fashioned way." He explained without looking up.

The bones would take a little longer, especially around the face. He set about pushing them back into shape and rationing out the bone regens he had. He passed the time imagining the ways he could make Zera suffer and how much he could risk hurting her before Trimok would adjudge him to have damaged the merchandise.

Finally he sat back on his heels and looked up at Zera with a satisfied smile.

"Time to pay up Zera."

"What about sleep meds … pain meds." She demanded.

The callous smile that spread over the Trustee's face was familiar to her.

"You can keep on giving him your sim if you want to Zera. You can't afford anything more from me till I've been paid for what I've done so far." He snapped the scanner back into his kit and stood up. The bulge in his pants testifying to his anticipation. He stood for a long moment enjoying looking at her, his tongue making quick sallies wetly to the corner of his mouth before he reached down and unfastened the cloth belt of his trousers.

Without a word he jabbed his thumb at Zera and indicated the floor in front of him beside the bunk. Feeling as if her scales were trying to tear themselves loose whilst her muscles began to grip and pinch in objection to the denial of sim, Zera sank obediently to her knees before him.

Storm clouds over Kinnauri Ranges

In the days that followed time and place ceased to have any relevance as Rec hovered in the half light of a sim'taa high. Pain and pleasure fought a battle in his body and mind, each waxing and waning in turn, as the effects of the sim that Zera continued to provide him, rose and ebbed in his system.

The mountains of Kinnaur would stretch out before him in a dreamscape that was more wondrous than reality and he wandered freely over the trails that swept across the steep and shifting scree slopes, his feet never stumbling as he passed over the loose and slippery surface like a spirit released. The shade of the caves of Zanskar sheltered him from the ferocity of the coppery sun of Prime as it hovered at its zenith and the cool, sweet water that dripped from the walls within tasted pure and perfect. Then, as the light of the moon leached the colour and the heat from the day, he climbed higher and higher, reaching peaks and promontories that had lured him since childhood.

Finally he stood above the Kinnauri valleys, the expanse of the ranges of Jurista folding away in all directions at his feet, the rivers snaking silver far below him and the air as soft and as kind as the breath of a lover caressing him. He fell forward into it and let it fold sensuously around him.

The air supported him, billowing warmly around him, cushioning him from pain as he drifted over his home, over the mountain peaks, over the deserts and out into space. Cardassia fell away from him and the stars swam around him like friends.

A rhythmic thumping, matching concussive movement that shuddered through his body, proved to be his first lucid moment after the rape and the beating. His mouth was dry and Kinnaur was a distant dream.

Days had passed that he was not aware of.

The thumping took on other sounds. A grunting that matched the jolting, a slightly wet sound that was familiar.

He opened his eyes and saw first the bare metal bars of a bunk above him. The sound was coming from his left, the waves of movement issuing from that direction as well. He became aware of a weight across his lower legs and with effort lifted his head.

A figure was draped over his shins, its face buried between them, its arms stretched forward, hung limply over the edge of the bed. The figure was crouched and as he slowly turned his head he saw the lower half of a Cardassian male's torso, fucking the bared backside of the figure that lay across his legs with the vigorous thrusts that had shaken him into consciousness.

As Rec's brain slowly took in what he was seeing, the figure across his legs went rigid as the male torso slammed deeply and with a brutal finality into the prone anonymous body. The sound of hoarse breathing accompanied the crude bodily sounds of the faceless male withdrawing himself from the flesh of the figure that now lay heavily across Rec's lower limbs. The torso turned away and disappeared into the gloom of the unknown world that lay beyond the sordid little space that Rec could identify as himself, a bunk and another body.

Just as his thirst became more insistent so did the vague sensation that his body felt weak and damaged. The memory of how it had become that way resurfaced and he jolted at the co-joined horror of both remembering what had happened to him and witnessing what had just happened across him.

The figure that weighted his legs stirred and rolled onto its side. A Cardassian face, an faintly familiar face, stared up the bed at him.

"You're awake." The voice was feminine despite its husky and scratched tones but lacked any discernible emotion or even interest. It took a moment before Rec realised she'd spoken to him in Kinnauri.

He opened his mouth to speak but the dryness of it caught the words in his throat. Then he watched mutely as she slid off his legs and dragged her pants up from around her ankles, unashamed of her half nakedness as she adjusted them around her waist. She disappeared silently into the darkness that lay beyond the bunk on which he lay. As his eyes grew a little more accustomed to the gloom, he could vaguely make out the shapes of other bunks and figures moving in the dimness of the distance and the sounds of other beings carried to him.

"Here." Suddenly she reappeared at his elbow out of the nothingness and back into the tiny world he was inhabiting. Raising the flask she carried to his lips she poured a trickle of water into his mouth. The cool, liquid rolled over the arid interior of his mouth and throat and Rec sucked at it greedily, clutching at the flask with his hands to try and speed the flow.

"No … No …" She spoke in rapid Kinnauri. "Slowly now … you'll choke … " His weakness startled him as he felt her easily beat away his hands. The water finally soaked into the skin of his mouth and moistened it enough to speak.

"Who …?" He croaked, his voice unrecognizable to him.

"Zera." She answered brusquely, then climbed onto the bed edging him over to make room for her spare and frail little frame. "Zera Tilak - this is my bed and I need to sleep."

"Tilak … " He recognised the name. Kinnauri. He remembered a Zera but the skinny, pinched figure beside him was a stranger. "What …"

"Shut up. Try and sleep." She snapped and rolled on to her side presenting her bony back to him. Her voice softened imperceptibly as she continued. "You'll have to get up tomorrow or they'll send you to the labs Rec'o. If you can't walk, you can't work. If you can't work, you can't stay."

A low level hunger that was beyond mere appetite tugged at the edges of his consciousness and blended with the indefinable pain that rocked his body. A shiver ran through him and he felt a cramp seize him viciously before suddenly tossing him aside, gasping and limp.

Zera stirred slightly beside him and elbowed herself over to face him. She fumbled in her tunic and pulled something out which she raised to her lips and bit before spitting a portion of it into her hand and holding it in front of Rec's lips.

"What …" He started to protest as suddenly another rigor shook him.

"Meds." She said sleepily and forced her fingers into his mouth delivering a grainy substance that fizzed and stung. "Now … sleep." She pushed him back over on to his side and spooned up against his back.

The meds banished the need that had begun to gnaw at him and Rec lay wide eyed staring into the dark, aware of the murmuring and movement of others around them and the sounds of voices, of bodies, of pain and what perhaps was passing for pleasure.

With pathetic relief, that was tinged with sad recognition of the unreality of it, he felt himself drifting back to Kinnaur. Closing his eyes, he surrendered willingly to the falsehood and decided not to think about what was fuelling it.

Kinnaur

(0)