Rura Penthe Part 2
Posted on Thu Aug 2nd, 2018 @ 5:22am by
Edited on on Thu Aug 2nd, 2018 @ 9:16am
1,486 words; about a 7 minute read
Mission:
Episode 4 - The Sum of Our Parts
Location: Alternative Reality Rura Penthe
Timeline: MD002 0730 hrs
Maybe he was knocked unconscious and he is stuck in an ultra-realistic nightmare. No wait where was the Pioneer heading? Darf rose to his feet as ordered and got in line. He needed to play it cool while he figured out what this was. Then it dawned on him. He had contacted Cardassia about the station going boom soon and causing some chronometric shenanigans. Maybe as they approached it had gone boom and threw him somewhere different in space and time. Now the realization hit him. How does he get back to his home reality when he is stranded on a penal colony?
May 29 2394 (relative time)
Darf had followed along with the crowd and made a mental note how no one was talking to each other. The guards, or labor bosses, as they liked to be called did not have any whips or even many weapons. He saw first hand why. The whips would have done very little to affect the rock skin of his people and while energy weapons worked their efficiency was not the same. No what the jailers had that was even more effective was a small remote that with the push of the button would alter the gravity enhancers that Brikarians had to wear off the home world to move essentially.
Darf had watched as one of his fellow people had fallen from hunger and could not get up in time. The ruthless jailer keep yelling at him to get up with an evil grin coming on their face. He removed the remote and with the tap of the finger lessened the effect of the enhancers making it almost impossible for him to move under the increased gravitational weight being imposed on his body. It was a very painful helpless type attack and it amazed Darf that everyone did not turn to help the man they just ignored it. What had happened to his people?
"What are you doing?" Varaldyr bellowed, snatching the controls away from the guard and restoring the setting to normal. She was cold, unhappy and still a bit confused by her sudden appearance on Rura Penthe. The last thing she knew, she was on the bridge of her old ship, the I.K.S. B'ang, on her way to Empok Nor. Then she had woken up on a cot in a room that way way too cold for her taste, wearing much more fur than she was accustomed to. Now she was responsible for meeting dilithium mining quotas on the prison asteroid.
She pushed the guard against the wall and returned his gravity controller to him. "You're not helping the quota by killing our workers." She found the prison system distasteful, and never in her life did she want to work here. Yet here she was, inexplicably. "You", she said, turning to Darf, "Pick him up." She had no idea what his species ate but she could see he was weakened and needed sustenance. "Follow me." She turned back the way they had come, back towards the general holding area. She was thinking hard. If someone questioned her actions, she had to have an answer that sounded convincing.
Darf was shocked by a Klingon with a soul. He hurried over and helped the smaller Brikar to his feet and supported him as they followed this new Klingon of mercy. Or was this just a good cop bad cop bit she was playing? "Thank you, for that he is not doing well and I am very confused as to what this is all about." Darf was desperate so he reached out to try and explain what was going on.
"Simple", Varaldyr replied. "Dead miners don't get any work done." She was a woman of short sentences. Simple grammar, direct and unambiguous statements. No room for interpretation, no subtleties or hidden meanings. And, she hoped, no showing her confusion and dissatisfaction with all of this. When they arrived she slotted a chip in a replicator, requesting one extra food ration. There was no reason to deny the request, or even log it as unusual. Food was cheap, it was the dilithium that mattered. Everything else was only to keep the workers cowed, disciplined, submissive. She handed the food over. "Here. He looks like he needs it." Her words were softer now, they were alone in the large room.
Darf took the offered meal and as he sat him down he took the plate and sat it on his lap. "Eat this, it will help with your shakes." He said and then turned to the Klingon. "Why are you really helping us. I have not ever meet a compassionate Klingon except once at the Academy they had a guest speaker. He was tolerable."
"I don't think a Klingon would speak at a Brikar academy", Varaldyr said. They had Klingons in the Federation, there were exchange programmes. She had learnt a lot in the Federation herself. But the Empire and the Brikar had never got along well. Varaldyr was no expert in the reasons, but she assumed the High Council considered the continued resistance of a minor power against the might of the Klingon Empire an insult, an affront, shameful. She didn't care. She wasn't warrior elite. "I understand we are enemies", she said after some time in thought. "I do not think treating your kind with contempt and dishonour reflects well on us." Diplomatic words, not something people on Rura Penthe were used to. The guard didn't understand. But who was he? Nobody volunteered for work on Rura Penthe. People who worked here were disgraced themselves, not quite as bad as the prisoners but on the lowest rung of Klingon society, able only to lord what little power they had over the prisoners. Of course they would turn out cruel. Varaldyr still had no idea how she ended up in this place.
"Well you're right, a Klingon would never be allowed on Brikar for any occasion. I was referring to Starfleet Academy. I am the Executive Officer of the USS Pioneer. That is up until this morning when I woke up on this colony." He had nothing to lose but time he needed to get back to his ship.
Varaldyr's head swung around, she stared at him. "You too?" Ordinarily, she wouldn't have trusted him. He was a prisoner, and had no reason to tell her the truth. But his story was too similar to her own. That he'd make it up, those chances were too remote. She chose to trust him. "I was on my old ship, on my way to Empok Nor. Then I woke up here. Rura Penthe. Shift supervisor, responsible for the ore quota. This isn't me."
Darf's gut paid off something was different with this Klingon, he could tell from the first moment. He was not alone here. Who else was in the reality? So many questions. "We need to get off this rock." He said with hope returning to his face.
"I can do that. You are a prisoner here." No matter how disgraced or incompetent someone had to be to work here as a guard or administrator, at least they weren't prisoners themselves. Varaldyr could quit. Though, she had no idea where to go from there. "Keep working. I will find out how we got here, why we're here. Then we can make plans."
Darf didn't care for the plan or the fact that he was trusting a Klingon but he had very little chance. "I... I am doing something I swore I would never do." He said his gaze drilling a hole in Varaldyr.
"I don't want to be here or do this either", Varaldyr said. "We cannot fight our way out of here, we need information." Of course, once Varaldyr was out, she could simply forget about Darf. Only, that wouldn't be the honorable way. "I will have some after this shift."
"Very well." Darf said as he turned to head back to work. Part of him glad he wasn't alone in this, part of him sad to see what had happened to his people in this reality, part of him wishing he would wake up and this would be over. The whole of him set his mind on blending in for the rest of the shift and hope his new fr...acquaintance kept her word.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Commander Darf Krakden
Executive Officer, USS Pioneer
Varaldyr of the House of QIr'aS
Klingon Ambassador to Cardassia
PNPC Glen Jati Niall
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