Fighting Reflections

[Cptn Corizon 0]

The box on his desk was opened. The red book laid face down against the glass. A silver dagger laid next to it, shimmering even in the darkness, it's cold reflective surface undimmed. A glass of amber colored liquor lay unattended.

 

Of all the things he'd done in his life, all of things he'd experienced, none haunted him so...vividly.

 

At some point, a certain disconnect was supposed to happen in his line of work, letting you go about your life with some form of normality. Something though. Something deep in his consciousness had kept that from happening.

 

It was as if the memory had never faded like so many others, like it had happened just the day before. The inner recesses of his mind ached in the pains of memories. Memories he'd long wished to forget.

 

The experience was so utterly visceral.

 

Stardate 7403.25

 

The first subjects arrived today. I have to admit, I was taken aback by their...I am not sure there's a word to describe it, not in any tongue I know. They all looked so helpless, so pathetic. It took me a few minutes to remind myself that I was not one of them, and that they neither deserved my empathy or my pity, they were, after all, the enemy.

 

Trials will begin on the subjects sometime this week, after we've had a chance to properly inspect the new arrivals. I have to admit, learning their physiology in great detail will prove a boon to our work, even if the cost in lives has been higher than we originally expected.

 

Stardate 7403.29

 

We've finally completed processing the new arrivals. I have to say they're actually the lucky ones, compared to the rest of their people. We feed them, give them proper medical care. I've begun to wonder why they hate us so much.

 

You can tell right away that they do hate us though. The way they look at us, the way they sneer in their smug superiority, confident in their place in whatever afterlife they've been trained to believe in.

 

Stardate 7405.18

 

It's been almost a month since this latest batch arrived, and the survival rate has not been nearly as high as predicted, whether or not that is actually a good thing remains to be seen.

 

I can't say I am sorry that they're dead though. The way they look at you every morning as they're brought in for inspection, the way glare in silent hatred; it makes me wish a slow and painful death on them all, and makes me smile to realize I am the exact instrument of their death.

 

Some promising work has been yielded at their expense, and I was pleased to report to central of it, and they were most pleased in my progress. I think I'll celebrate tonight, perhaps a drink and good book before bed? That would be a welcome change from reading autopsy reports all evening.

 

Stardate 7407.06

 

I've found myself hating them more and more with each passing day and month. At first I hated them because they were so utterly pathetic, helpless, and unclean. So different from me, and yet so...full of hate. They hated me for what I did to them, and I hated them for being different, for being pathetic excuses for life.

 

Now I hate them for something far more insidious. I hate them because though they hold the secrets I desire, they keep them from me.

 

They bring this torture on themselves. If only they would reveal to me what I wish to know. The secret their DNA holds.

 

Stardate 7407.16

 

We picked up the pace of our testing. Central is pressuring me more now for results. I didn't know what to tell them. They asked me if more subjects would help...I told them no. Secretly I desired to tell them yes, to kill as many of them as I could, but then I thought about having to see more of them every day. Their pathetic faces, their glaring eyes...it made me ill.

 

Stardate 7407.16

 

Several subjects have begun to show promise now. I am beginning to think my work is actually going somewhere now. Perhaps, in a few decades what I've done here will finally be known and recognized for what it is.

 

I am saving these people. Saving them from themselves.

 

 

Stardate 7408.26

 

The problem with viral agents isn't, as one might think, finding something that will kill a target species. That's actually the easiest part of the whole process. No, no...the hardest thing is to find an agent that will spread quickly enough to kill as many people as possible without being detected.

 

You hurdle is to find something that can be easily spread, is deadly enough to kill, and can't be detected until it's to late to do anything about it. In the past, we've found such agents and they've been useful, a way to end war without even firing a bullet.

 

Stardate 7409.15

 

There was an accident in the lab today. Months of research was simply lost, destroyed by fire. Almost the entire complex was lost...

 

They tell me I'm being transferred to another facility to begin work on a new project. I can't say I am unhappy...at least I'll never have to look at their faces anytime soon, not where I am going anyway.

 

He looked down at his hands, for the briefest of moments, he saw, there on his skin, boils and lesions like his subjects had once had. It was...startling.

 

Pulling back, he looked into the glass in front of him...instead of the image he normally saw, a silver-haired man in a Starfleet Uniform, he saw a man in dark clothing, with black hair...and a spoon upon his head.

 

The images from the diary came flooding back. Instead of bad nostalgia, it was a full on attack. He fell to the floor in anguish and pain, trying to scream but nothing came out. He laid, screaming but not screaming, gripped in fear as if he were no longer in control of his body, for what seemed like hours, languishing in agony. Finally succumbing, he blacked out.

 

“You had quite the nightmare, didn't you?”

 

Opening his eyes, a haze formed briefly obscuring his view. Where was he?

 

“Commander,” the haze began to give way to the dark, bleakness of an antiseptically cold room. The voice was familiar but he didn’t quite recognize it yet. “I am glad to see you’re finally awake.”

 

Reflexively wiping at his eyes the haze cleared more and he looked towards the only source of light in the room. Sitting across from him was a solitary Cardassian figure.

 

“Who the hell are you?”

 

“I am Gul Mahet,” the Cardassian said, his officious tone dripping with the same disdain he'd just felt. “But, if you earn it, you may simply call me Mahet.”

 

“Screw you.”

 

“Such anger...but then...our tests reveled that.”

 

“Your...your tests?” Corizon glared in silent rage. “What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“All in good time, Commander...All in good time...”

 

He woke in a cold sweat, a piled heap in the still, new floor of the Excalibur-C. The memories were so close to the surface it hurt, but were fading now. Slightly disoriented he tried to stand, only to fall to the ground once more.

 

Resolving himself to not give into the inner turmoil still raging inside his brain, he forced himself to stand and look at his reflection in the windows. He closed his eyes and opened them. He saw only himself...for now.

[LeftEar JoNs 0]

Ooooo - intrigue! Who was the spoon head reflection? Undercover officer or actual Cardassian?

Gul Mahet - was he performing experiments on Corizon? And who were the people being experimented on?

 

w00t!

Edited December 5, 2007 by LeftEar JoNs