Song Out Of Tune
Posted on Sat Dec 15th, 2012 @ 5:26am by Eldren Tohr
Mission:
The Struggle Within
Location: Bajor and SB900 Jefferies Tubes
*** Bajor – Many years ago ***
Light from the bulb lamps flickered in the tunnels and vaulted rooms of the Kohn-Ma hidden base.
In the scant light Eldren Tohr watched the monitor and noted down numbers and positions, various documents strewn on the table before him.
His eyes darted to the entrance, hand going for the disruptor at his belt, as Dolen vral stepped through it.
“Always on alert aren’t you?” Dolen Vral greeted him.
“Yes, always.” Tohr responded to his leader “One never knows when a stealthy cardassian can sneak up on you, no matter where you are.” Keeping to browse the documents scattered on the table as he answered.
“Is there some mission we have to undertake?” Tohr asked after a while seeing that his friend didn’t speak limiting himself to stay right there, watching.
“Maybe” Vral answered then, looking around the room, the computers lining the walls and the racks filled with weapons. “Perhaps the hardest of all.”
“Yes…” Tohr scoffed tossing a file on the table “And what might that be that we haven’t already done?”
“This is not a joke Tohr” Vral replied his expression suddenly grave. “The war is over.”
Hands on the table Tohr looked up to meet Vral’s gaze: “Is this a joke?”
“No. I’m afraid not.” Vral responded stepping closer and taking a sheet filled with names from the table casually scrolling it.
“The withdrawal has started, following political pressure from Federation. I’ve been informed that one Commander Sisko of theirs is coming to take over Terok Nor starbase and one of ours, Kyra Nerys, will act as his XO under the Provisional Government aegis.” The sheet with the names flew back to his place on the table.
“The provisional government will be puppets in Federation hands.” Tohr snapped “What do they know of what we passed in the last fifty years? They’ve adhered to their silly non-intervention rule labeling us as minor internal matter of Cardassian Empire… And now they suddenly awaken and let those responsible of all atrocious deeds against our people to slip away like sands between our fingers??” The tone of his voice rising notably with the last words.
“Bajor is weary Tohr. This thing has gone long enough we’ll have peace and freedom again like our forefathers the most of the people agree to this possibility and all of this…” Vral shrugged waving hands to encompass the locale of the base “Will be no longer needed.”
“No longer needed?” Tohr replied his lips twitching in a snarl “And what should we do now if we’re not allowed anymore to kill cardassians? What are you going to do Vral?”
Dolen Vral looked down to the table browsing some sheets of paper as if embarrassed “I’ve been offered a position in the administration of one of the new provinces that are going to be created.”
Eldren Tohr widened his eyes for an instant “And what of me then?”
Dolen Vral met his eyes again “Land is going to be given to all who desire it. A new peaceful life…”
“Ha!” Tohr replied full of scorn “Peaceful life as good as the one just given to our torturers.” His hands moved quickly then to the desk gathering up documents and list of names “I’ve never held a hoe before now nor could I know how to keep an orchard… For as long as I can go back in my memories I can only remember blades, disruptors endless hours of combat training. I’ve also accepted to undergo that damned experiment that could have killed me to make me the perfect scalpel of death for our enemies…” His tone had become bitter “And now you tell me that war is over. The tool is needed no more and can be discarded… Is that it?”
Vral stood in silence.
“IS THAT IT??” Tohr bellowed as the blood rushed to his head.
Vral slowly shook his head “You’re not yourself. How much time is that you don’t talk to a Vedek. You’ve lost the Prophets’ light. Why don’t you…”
“I’ve been fighting for the Prophets’ light all my life!! That’s what I’ve been told everytime! All of the things I’ve done. All the faces haunting my sleep… Had been for the damned Prophets’ Light!!” Tohr shouted moving closer to his comrade.
Vral stepped back seeing Eldren’s fit of rage becoming uncontrollable “You’ll be a criminal. The resistance cell is disbanded, no one will support you. You’ll be hunted down just like with the cardassians.”
“I do not care.” Tohr replied filling satchels with documents and equipment. “I know where the raiding ships we often used for ambushes are hidden. I’ll take one and then I’ll be off on my own.”
Eldren Tohr stopped half-way closing the satchel “Are you going to try to stop me?” he asked looking Vral directly in the eyes.
Was that pity, friendship, guilt or the murderous light that shone in Elden Tohr’s eyes he’d seen each time he sent him against a cardassian it is not to be known. But Vral lowered his eyes shaking his head slowly.
Without any other word Tohr pushed him aside striding down the corridor without looking back.
*** SB900 – Present ***
The roar echoed down the Jefferies tubes as a startled spider watched, from his jailbox, the biped suddenly rising to sit. Hands clutching to nothing but thin air.
He stood there, motionless, for a moment. Transfigured, eyes lost in the half-shadow of the conduit. Then slowly turning to the box he watched the spider inside, silent.
“Bad dreams again it seems little one, huh?”
With a groan he stood then, his eyes as cold as before “Time to move on. Have to make contact with our way out of this starbase. In the Cherry Pit he’s known as ‘Eli’ Samuels. They say he’s a skilled smuggler.”
He put a dead cricket through a slit in the box “That’s your breakfast and don’t be squeamish. I ate worse in my days. I’ll be back.”
Without waiting for an answer Eldren Tohr crawled out of sight in the tube as the tiny eyes of the spider glittered in the dark watching him go away.
*****************
Eldren Tohr
Song Out Of Tune
Dolen Vral
Part of the new melody
Iggy
Silent Prisoner
