Copyright Marketa J. Zvelebil
The sun which warmed and gave light to this planet, appeared lazily on the edge of the horizon, bathing the glass-like domed structures of Ka'rakram in a golden light. The multi-coloured domes reflected the sun's rays, painting a varied array of jagged lines crossing each other in the air. Even the inhabitants, used to this wondrous display, stopped and enjoyed the glory of the multi-coloured spectacle. In the various domes, the multitude of beings were getting ready to start a new day.
It was an organised mess around the table with five youngsters of the Klingon/Eredith-K'S'vait mixture boisterously eating their first meal of the day. The eldest were getting ready to leave for their respective educational facilities. K'Kraith looked with maternal pride at her offspring.
Once a lowly servant of a Klingon Starship commander, she could not thank the powers above enough for her good fortune in being exchanged for a few rocks. She would do anything Klingonly possible to protect her children, husband and this - her new home.
Srak, her oldest, switched the vid-comm on, and was flicking absentmindedly through the many broadcasting channels.
Various images invaded the centre of their main living place. To amuse himself Srak moved the images to the middle of the table. The other children started to poke their knives into the life-like image of a newscaster. The utensils would shimmer and half-disappear into the newscaster's form. Then the otherwise perfect image of the humanoid K'S'vait was decorated with coruscating ripples that emanated from where ever a particular tool was stabbed. The favourite target of the children was the K'S'vaits rather handsome face. Squeals and chortles of laughter resonated through the room. K'Kraith smiled indulgently and felt happiness and pride welling up in her.
As she was about to turn back to her duties a number of heart-stopping screams reverberated round her. Not all the screams came from her children.
She spun round. Where, once the upper part of the K'S'vait newscaster had been subjected to the children's "attacks", writhing misformed beings were moving in an agonisingly slow way, crawling along the floor, which was in this case the table top. The differently coloured life-sustaining liquids that oozed out of their bodies onto the table looked too real. The images of blood overflowed and moulded themselves onto the terrified children.
"Switch it off!" she screamed at her oldest son, her heart beating painfully against her side.
"Mother, who are they?" asked Srak, trying to hide the shaking in his adolescent voice and the trembling of his hands as he guided the images off the table and diminished them in size, ultimately banishing them to a small corner of the room.
"I don't know," she answered, her own blood freezing in her veins. She started to listen to the calm commentary behind those terrifying images: "...behold the results of the genetic manipulation that each one of you has been submitted to. The debate whether this is right or wrong has been going on for a long time. It has escalated recently culminating in the formation of The Federation of All Sentients. The FAS have had already major successes in leading a large number of people, of YOU, to choose freedom. Others have asked for evidence of the charges we have made that malformed children, YOUR children, are born, CREATED, and used as slave labour. Here IS your evidence! Here are YOUR children! There is no more time to waste. SAVE these K'S'vaits. Rise up NOW! Choose free Choice! Before it is too..."
K'Kraith stopped listening and noticed that the children were now looking at her rather than at the vid-com. 'This could not be true - these had to be lies by those few malcontents she had heard about,' She thought and said:
"These images have been made deliberately to scare us by a few who are against our way of life, against all that your father works for," and she started to worry about her husband, already at work in one of the xeno-gentech labs.
"But we will not be scared! We are of the Klingon warrior race and Klingons are never scared! We will fight against these lies!" she continued in a harsh hard voice, one that her children have never heard before. They nodded and then, one by one, some in a stronger voice than the others, her five sons loudly echoed the one Klingon word their mother had taught them early - "Quapla!"
---
K'Fron, chief of police and planetary security, was sitting in his favourite chair and enjoying his bowl of hot vraek half listening to the early morning news.
The vid-comm displayed the newscaster as sitting in one of the chairs positioned near a large domed window. K'Fron liked to pretend that the newscaster was present in his own room and reporting to him personally. He watched the seated image reading the news that had been censored by his office only a short while ago. He didn't need to listen to the news, as he would have read the summary of what was to be broadcast. Listening to the news, however, gave him a sense of well-being. Knowing that things were going his way.
His gaze was unfocused and he dreamily thought of last night and the Orion female he had invited to dinner. Followed by their leisurely and long walk in the central park, where under the benign light of the two moons circling the planet in close formation, they had discussed the finer points of the contract that would bond them to each other for the rest of their respective lives. One part dealt with the number of offspring and K'Fron felt deep satisfaction when he thought of the number they had, at last, agreed upon: at least three sons and a minimum of six children in total. Not a bad size for a K'S'vait family.
Suddenly he tensed. The vid-display shimmered and holograms of terribly malformed bodies replaced the newscaster on his chair. The images were made even more bizarre by the fact that the vid-computer tried to mould the images of multiple beings as seated on the chair. K'Fron switched the automatic moulding off. Now the images invaded his room which had suddenly been transformed into a crystal mining and growing factory. K'Fron found himself in the middle of the holographic image. All around him the images were trying to perform tasks that were well above their physical ability. Then the holograph changed, showing individual close-ups of the malformed K'S'vaits, making evident the suffering, the pain and indignities of those that were diseased. Again the holographic vid changed and showed the unfortunate-ones dying in sheer agonies, writhing on K'Frons gleaming crystal floor. After the initial shock, K'Fron started to take in the calm commentary behind the terrifying images. The vid-holograms were accompanied by a dispassionate report accusing the government of genetic experimentation, of allowing the frequent genetic malfunctions to live and of using them as cheap labour, as virtual slaves. It accused the lab technicians of cold-bloodedly allowing the extremely malformed to die. It gave statistics that implied a genetic failure of non-compatible couples of 3 in 4. It called the Master's Law a coercion, an abomination to all life. It encouraged people to speak out, to raise and march on the government buildings, to demand free choice of mates and an end of the importation of "alien" beings. This message was repeated nearly three times before it was suddenly cut off midway. K'Fron had recognised the voice. He had had dealings with the owner of that voice before. 'It was that young Romulan halfling!' he thought furiously. The half-empty bowl of vraek now forgotten, K'Fron left his home quickly to head into the centre of the city, where his offices were located. 'It would be a long time before he would be able to return home,' were his thoughts as he started the ground-car and took off at a brisk speed.
----
K'Tanu sat around the table with his two young children. He smiled gently at his beautiful daughter. Her face bore discernible marks of the Vulcanoid race. A perfectly formed oval face, large black eyes and the elegantly pointed ears that were framed by equally black slightly curly hair. She allowed a small smile to part her lips. Having also inherited the Vulcan intelligence, she had insisted from the tender age of three that she be allowed to follow the teachings of Vulcan and Surak. K'Tanu, who believed that if IDIC was to be followed, it meant also the interbreeding of ideas and not only of "blood", had arranged for Vulcan education tapes to be smuggled to him by the few Vulcan traders that visited this planet. He had even managed, recently, to arrange for an old Vulcan that resided on this planet to be her Master in the art of emotional control.
A single, slightly mischievous, eyebrow was cocked at him as his daughter noticed his thoughtful observation of her. Again she smiled slightly and with a nod of her head reminded her father of his morning duty to feed the second of his children.
His son, two years younger than his daughter, was patiently waiting to be fed. At the age of eight he could not feed himself. Blind and disabled from the neck down the child was totally dependent upon others for his physical needs. More physically structured as a K'S'vait than his sister, his birth posed a problem for the slim Vulcan woman that had been his mother.
Although genetics had been developed on the planet to a high degree, other areas of medical care were lacking far behind other cultures in the galaxy. K'Tanu was well aware of that and as a government official was trying hard to change that. Especially since the lack of advanced medical knowledge had cost the life of the woman he loved and had been the reason for his only son to have his neck broken at birth.
They had offered to put his son to sleep at birth or to take him into care but K'Tanu had refused both. He had too much respect for any life to allow his own child to die and he knew that a K'S'vait in care was not cared for very well. He never regretted his decision. His son had always provided him and his sister with cheerful company, for although blind and trapped in an useless body he possessed a keen intelligence and great wit.
"Father, you are preoccupied today," he now stated after having patiently waited for his next bite of food for over five minutes.
"Sorry, Sakim," K'Tanu said and fed him.
Meanwhile his daughter T'Charu, had put on the Vid-com, expecting to hear the daily news. What greeted her, however, upon switching on the vid-com was not the news, but Rakholt's message and the images of the "unfortunate-ones".
She listened and watched quietly as distress clouded her lovely features. Sakim moved his head, cocked it and listened intently. T'Kanu could not believe his ears or eyes. At first rage overtook him, denying the possibility of such atrocities in his home-world. Then doubts began to gnaw at him uncomfortably. They all watched in silence until the broadcast was cut-off in mid image.
T'Charu switched the vid-comm off and looked at her father enquiringly.
"Is this true, father?" she asked.
"I don't know, my child," he answered honestly.
"If it is, then something should be done," stated Sakim in a voice filled with emotion.
"If it is, something will be done, but not by overthrowing the government," remarked his father but pondered where he could find the truth. He knew one thing, however, there would be trouble before the day was over.
"T'Charu, you will stay in with Sakim today." he said and looked at his daughter, when she started to protest he continued: "Listen to me, there may be unrest in the city. This is a serious situation. I must go to work and find out what is happening, but I must be sure you two are safe, otherwise I will worry too much. Will you do as I say?"
T'Charu looked at him, then nodded. He bend down and touched the head of both his children, then without another word left the relative safety of their dwelling.
T'Charu, with her hand cradling that of her brother, looked after her departing father, uncertain whether she would see him again.
"Kaidith" she whispered for both of them, 'What is is.'
----
The "Avenger" stood in the middle of his small, but most loyal, group of followers. He watched the Vid-recording in silence and with internal satisfaction. The inhumane representations did not bother him. It had not bothered him to "fashion" some of the physical atrocities that were displayed by the unmentionable-ones. If one looked closely and carefully one would observe the fear in the eyes of many of these people, at least of those that had any sort of eyes. One might have expected anger, dejection, but not naked fear. However, Rakholt was not worried about that. He knew that by the time the shock of seeing these Vids would wear-off enough for anyone to notice the fear it would be too late. As it was already too late to do anything for those unfortunate beings displayed by the vid. They were all dead. It was better that way. More dignified. He had to kill them. The suffering displayed on the recording was all the more exquisitely horrific by the use of the drug he had fed them. Death was an unfortunate side-effect. The advantage to him would come when he showed those Federation people the dead and blamed the ruling party. Portraying the current government as ruthless killers. The Federation would not interfere then.
A tight satisfied smile tugged at the lips of the handsome Romulan face. The first step of his scheme was proceeding according to plan. He pressed a touch-sensitive patch on the remote Vid-controller that he had been holding in his hand. Slid it non-chalantly across on to a tabletop at the corner of the room and calmly turned to face his closest entourage and friends. Each of the fourteen beings in the room bore close resemblance to one of the identifiable species in the known galaxy. There were four which could have passed for pure Klingons, two Orions, three Tellerites, one Gorn and four Mentory. All were first generation mix, where the original dominant genes had been allowed to express themselves due to the fact that these species were able to have viable offspring with the indigenous K'S'vaits without any genetic manipulation. The offspring only came to term if the unborn child was a male. All female foetuses had, so far, aborted before birth.
All fourteen members were fanatically against the inter-breading being forced upon them, for reasons different yet tragically similar. Some had seen their mothers suffer giving birth to babies that nature never intended for them to have. Some had seen their brothers die due to illnesses that occurred because of blood incompatibility so common between some species. But most felt they did not belong on this planet. They felt that they belonged to the world their fathers or mothers had come from and to which they were not allowed to return. They felt betrayed. Angry, alone and resentful. This mixture of uncontrolled, unbalanced emotions was turned into focused rage and eventual action by the ever-resourceful and highly intelligent Rakholt. He surveyed the face of each one of them, lingering on those he felt in need of more support. They all stood silently and rigidly to attention. Raw energy surging through every nerve in their bodies. Muscles tense as a the strings on Vulcan Ka'athyra, waiting for the word to be given, for action. Waiting to start the next phase of their plan. Each of these chosen fourteen was a leader of groups of over hundred strong, ready to lead their individual detachments to battle and victory.
---
Away from the raising panic in the grand capital city, in one of the small crystal producing factories the forgotten-ones were having their breakfast in a large communal hall. For a room filled with so many people there was a relative silence in the hall. Most of the beings were intent on feeding themselves and out of a common decency-code that they had developed among the small community, they ignored each others' attempts to eat in any way that their physicality allowed them.
In the middle of the room was a large vid-com that was informing them of their duties for that particular day, and imparting information that would be useful for them such as the time of the monthly medical team visit. Most of the information had been already repeated five times and most had ceased to listen to the monotonous voice of their bored company director whose duty included preparing the daily vid-com program. It took a while before, one by one, the disinterested forgotten-ones noticed that the message and visual had changed - that there in the three-dimensional glory of the holographic vid-com they were seeing beings such as they. Only these unfortunate ones looked in worse health than most of them. They all recognised two things at once: The voice of Rakholt, the man who had pledged to save them and to stop further disabled K'S'vaits from being born but also they immediately saw the unaccustomed emotion of fear in the eyes of their fellow-sufferers. Not many of them had been frightened before. They had little to loose and as such fear seemed superfluous. They were not full citizens of this planet, most people did not know they existed at all, but they got food and adequate medication to make their physical discomfort bearable. They lived waiting to die. But the naked terror in those eyes starring at them in condemnation, the untreated wounds, and other obvious maltreatment made each one and all shiver inside. For the first time in their life they felt threatened. They feared betrayal by the one they had entrusted with all their hopes and dreams. They feared reprisals of those that had kept them alive so far, and they felt an illogical shame in their own existence.
In absolute silence they stared at the images and listened to the voice of their so-called saviour, till the images suddenly disappeared and the vid-com itself fell into reproachful silence.
No one, nothing moved, the stillness was absolute. The past revealed, the present changed and the future dangerously uncertain.
Next chapter.