Reflections

[Maj Vaos 0]

October 5, 2397

 

 

The stars streamed by as Korix watched out the window. He couldn’t help but smile as the Agincourt put distance between themselves and the petty politics engulfing Earth. Everyone gave Marines a hard time for being trigger happy…but at least Marines, unlike politicians were pro-active and not reactive.

 

Marines shoot first and ask questions later. Politicians ask stupid questions, then if the opinion polls are right…then they think about shooting.

 

He’d had this same argument a million times with his brother. It always struck Korix as strange how different the two of them really could be; his brother always the cool headed one was destined to be a politician.

 

He believed in the value of cooperation and diplomacy, Korix could care less for the latter and only thought the former useful when it advanced the needs of Bajor…or now…the Federation. Of course, the sharpest distinction between the brothers was their faith in the prophets.

 

The Occupation broke Korix. Seeing his parents executed at the hands of the Cardassian, scrapping for every ounce of food and unable to do anything about it, destroyed his faith. He couldn’t revere any gods that would stand by and watch such horrid suffering of their people.

 

Sure, he accepted that the “prophets” existed…but he sure as hell wasn’t about to start praying to them.

 

Of course, Korix was a man of contradictions. His name for starters…Korix Vaos…when his name was Vaos Korix…he wore the earring…

 

When a fellow cadet asked him why he did those things, if he didn’t believe in the imminence of the prophets…Korix didn’t have trouble responding.

 

“I don’t have to believe in the dogma to respect the traditions of my people,” he’d said of the name. And the ear ring: “This is all I have left of my mother.”

 

The young cadet blinked, blushed and held his head low. “I am sorry…I didn’t know.”

 

The same reaction that Hanna-Beth Rieve had…

 

Korix would never understand humans and this notion of sympathy. What in the world was there to be sorry for? Sure the Occupation had been terrible. And he’d probably be the same again. But if all you did was sit around and be sorry about it, then what was the point of living anymore?

 

The Occupation had shattered his dreams, broken his spirit, turned his dreams to dust, and ruined his faith. But he’d be damned if he was going to give the Cardassian the satisfaction of knowing that they had broke him. And to Korix, crying over it…living the past…was breaking.

 

And now, with the recent attacks on Earth…humans he thought, needed to learn that lesson. They could sit around and sob, and descend into the darker realms of the human spirit. They could break the alliance, declare war on the Romulans, whip out every last one of the pointy-eared green-bloods, but none of that would make them feel better. Nor would it bring back anyone who’d died.

 

That was the true lesson of the Occupation. Sure it would have felt good to eliminate the entire Cardassian homeworld in the aftermath of the Dominion War. But would that have brought back anyone killed in the Occupation? No. Would it revive his parents from the dead? No.

 

As Korix watched the stars streamed by, he reflected on how sheltered humans really were, and pondered if that was why when something actually did break through their sugar coated shields of protection they flipped out.

 

He shook his head. They have so much to learn…

Edited October 12, 2005 by Maj Vaos