For All The Right Reasons Pt. III

[Veloras Itana 0]

For All The Right Reasons

Pt. III

"The Valley Of Death"

 

 

 

Large thick plumes of black smoke rolled in collumns beyond the rise at the end of the road. The air was thick with the scent of burning flesh, smoldering wood, blood and the emerging stench of decay. So cloying and repugnant, it made Itana's head swim. She glanced in terror up at her father. This was a familiar smell. The sounds were like those from her nightmares. She knew what was happening and, she knew what they'd find at the bottom of this hill. The Cardassians had been here. The aftermath of their presence here was carried on the wind like the eerie portents of death itself. She clutched her stomach tightly and began to tremble as her father scooped her up and ran as if he were being chased toward the settlement at the base of the mountains.

 

"No..." Ranik whispered. "By the Prophets, please no..." He ran, carrying Itana, with tears welling in his eyes. Stopping short at the road's end Ranik gasped in horror at what lie before them. The settlement was gone, descimated from the air. With the exception of a few stands of burnt trees and the charred remains of a few doorways, nothing still stood. The sweeper teams of Cardassian soldiers sent in after the air strike had been and gone and there was nothing, not even livestock left alive. The remains of dozens of Bajorans were strewn about like chord-wood, still smoking and covered in thick pockets of cherry-red blood. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry." He cried as tears drew a track through the growing patch of blown soot on his face. "We're too late."

Itana pushed her father's hand from the side of her head and turned to look at what the Cardassians had done. "Put me down please." She whispered through clenched teeth, holding back her tears and the panic she felt welling in the pit of her stomach. She slid down her father's leg to the ground and looked around wide-eyed. They stood their for a while, side by side as if in a trance, unable to believe or even comprehend what they were seeing. Ranik sank to his knees beside his daughter, still clutching her hand as if he were afraid that if he let go she would slip into the pyres and die with the rest.

Sliding her hand free of her father's, Itana walked closer to the devastated village. She could feel her panic ebbing as she passed a pile of bodies that appeared to have been killed while trying to run away. Blinking once her head slowly turned, committing each scene to memory with a stolid glance. Her eyes fell on those of a young man in his mid-twenties. Frozen in place for all time, the young man stared in terror at the sky, his mouth contorted in the agony of his last moments of life. Itana didn't cry. She wanted to but, she couldn't. She just stood there, staring at him as if she half expected him to sit up and explain how one being could inflict so much pain on another and then just go on with their day as if nothing had happened.

By standard comparison to life on planets such as Terra, Itana was far too young to spend the majority of her time considering such notions. She was a child. Twelve years old to be exact. Her eyes told the story though, as plainly as any childhood fairy tale. From the moment of her birth she'd been witness to things that most people go a lifetime without ever seening. The kinds of things that were a part of everyday life for Itana and her family. Senseless violence, death and cruelty of the sort that nightmares are made.

Her nightmares were now where her reactions to these things were mainly relegated. Her conscious mind had developed the ability to fend off the tears and in most cases even the terror that are associated with someone so young seeing something so horrible. The desensitizing proccess she'd been forced to hone now rendered her numb. She stood there a moment longer, looking into his eyes, bowed her head in silent prayer and hoped that the Prophets had seen him safely to the other side. Emotionlessly her hand slowly came up from her side as she bent and closed the man's eyes before turning back to her father.

"Daddy, we have to go." She said blankly, looking toward the mountains. Her father murmured a few prayers of his own and stood, once again taking her hand.

"I know Tana." He uttered quietly, following her eyes to the steppes of the Kohlar mountains. "If there are survivors that weren't captured, they'll be in the mountains. Look around..." His throat seemed to choke on the words as he said them. "Look around for usable clothing and any food we can carry. It'll be cold up there tonight."

Something about the rocks the mountains were made of made it hard for the Cardassians to find the people who hid there. She'd heard her father and other men talking about it on many occassions when he believed the twins were both asleep. She and Itara would lie there and listen to their father and his friends talk about ways to make the Cardassians leave Bajor. It made them feel better to know that someday their daddy would help them be free. Even though, at the time, neither of them really understood what free meant. All they did know was that, by the way people looked when they whispered about it, it was a good thing.

Itana and her father collected what they could salvage from the remains of the Kendra Valley settlement and began the long trek into the mountains to look for survivors. They didn't speak much and, when they did, it was only about movement in the brush ahead or noises neither of them could identify. Itana didn't tell her father at the time but, she was terrified. The Cardassians usually left a small party behind to pick off the stragglers and anyone they may have missed. Neither she nor her father had any form of weapon. Nor were they dressed for a night in the mountains but, there was no other choice. If they tried to return home by standard means of transportation, they would surely be shot to hush what they'd seen at the Kendra Valley. Ranik had seen too many people disappear never to be heard from again to risk that. Their only chance now was to find the cells that kept to the mountains and try to arrange to be smuggled back to Rakantha Province via the underground.

 

...To be continued.