What Dreams May Haunt
Posted on Mon Mar 10th, 2025 @ 11:25pm by Captain Marc Kidd & Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal
Edited on on Mon Mar 10th, 2025 @ 11:30pm
2,423 words; about a 12 minute read
Mission:
Episode 2 - The Sins of History
Location: The Quarters of Corin Layal - Deck 4 - USS Artemis
Timeline: MD013 0330 hrs
Layal’s dreams sometimes haunted her. The Occupation had never ended, and she’d grown into an adult under the harsh, fascist, leadership of the Cardassians. Sometimes she died a slow painful death working as a slave in a concentration camp. Others she was in the resistance, fighting for freedom.
Her resistance cell had been led directly into a trap. Before they could even get into position to lay out the mines they intended to plant the Cardassians began shooting at them from all directions, stunning them unconscious. They didn’t use fatal settings, that would be too quick, it wouldn’t teach them any lessons, and had the potential to kill perfectly good labor.
Layal went from being stunned near a field to being strung up by her wrists in a dark room. She tried to struggle against the restraints, but found herself unable to move, almost as if she was paralyzed. She struggled to breathe. The air was heavy and her lungs couldn't seem to catch enough air.
Gul Vamcet was the administrator of Porchet Labor Camp. Of course Labor Camp was a polite term, this place was in fact a death camp. He rarely took an interest in inspecting the new inmates however, he felt especially good this morning and stepped into the standard Cardassian torture room. A Bajoran woman was strung up by her wrists. "What makes this one special that I should be summoned." He bellowed to a guard. The answer came quickly and in clicked words. She was simply hard to break and they knew that the Gul enjoyed a challenge. "Very well. Leave us." The guards did not have the stomach for what was to come and took their leave.
"Now, as with most livestock you have two options. Work well and you will be treated well, work poorly and you will be dead to make room for better stock. Remember Kec ka los. (pronounced seec ka loosh and translates to Work makes free.) Repeat it for me." Vamcet's words were not requests. The tone was equal, as someone who would give a command to a dog or a horse.
The face was enough to invoke a visceral response in Layal. She recognized him as soon as as he came into view. Terrified didn't begin to describe the fear that she felt in her bones when she realized that her fate was in the hands of Gul Vamcet. Her only hope was that death would not be quick, so perhaps there would be a window for escape.
She opened her mouth to speak, or rather tried to, but words didn't come to fruition. "Gguu... Ggguuu..." She wasn't gagged, but she might as well have been as she tried to address the Gul by name.
Vamcet did not hesitate the back of his hand flew quickly and with precision. It connected with her mouth and some blood began to trickle. "Wrong answer. Like most animals you will have to be broken. Trained for what your existence truly is. Now repeat for me Kec ka los."
She tried again. "Vamcet." She managed to spit his name out but nothing more. She tried to speak out in defiance or scream for help, but her voice wouldn't work. Frustration and panic began to settle in as Layal continued to try to speak, but found that her voice would not cooperate. A type of dream paralysis was muting her, but she was not aware that she was dreaming. She had memories. Years of fighting in the resistance. Friends who had died. Leaving her parents behind in the camps. Learning of her father's death. Now she was standing, strung up really in front of the Butcher of Porchet, wondering if this would be her last stand.
She could feel her heart begin to pound in her chest as she took in her surroundings. Unable to speak she tried struggling against the restraints instead. She wriggled her wrists at first, trying to see if there was any give so that she could slip through them. When that didn't work she started thrashing, lashing her legs out toward Vamcet as if she were reaching to kick him.
Vamcet walked out of the light and into the surrounding darkness. For it was there that there was a table filled with the tools of his trade. On this table was something akin to a cattle prod, multiple cutting tools, a laser scalpel that would cauterize anything he severed. As well as many other torture implements. He chose the cattle prod first. "You will speak only when spoken to, and then you will address me as sir or master if you would like." He stopped speaking and pressed the prod to her chest, volts of electricity wracked her body. "Now, allow that to serve as a message for you. I have learned much about you animals in these past months. Among that is your blind belief in a higher being. Well, you should know that there is a higher being and that is everyone in the galaxy in comparison to you. So, we will take the symbol of that belief next." Vamcet drew a small dagger from his belt and traced it along the ear that had Layal's earring. "If you say anything save Kec ka los you will lose this ear. Now, you may speak."
The initial jolt of electricity stung, thought the discomfort was more in the buzzing of the electricity soaring through her veins and muscles and in involuntary spasms that it caused. Her chest burned and she was sweating. She felt both hot and chilled as her clothes stuck to her body, they were now drenched and clung to her thin frame. Her hair too, wet and stuck to her neck. She longed for a free hand to scratch the itch, to get the stinging sweat from her eyes. These discomforts more prominent in her mind than the busted lip from Vamcet's earlier strike to her face.
The blade felt warm as Vamcet traced it against her ear. She heard his warning, and considered it a true threat and considered whether her pride was worth it.
"Kec ka los," she repeated, though she did not feel defeated. Yet. She just needed time.
Vamcet removed the dagger from her skin and placed it back into his belt. For the time being he kept the cattle prod in his hands. He walked in a circle around her as she hung there, sweating and heaving. The look of disgust was prevalent on his face. The stank of sweat hung in the air and stung his nostrils. "Very good. We may make a useful piece of chattel yet. You keep repeating that to yourself and you will go far. Now, I know that each and every one of you are good at something, something that can serve us. Now, what do you do. Speak!"
Layal growled, a guttural sound emerging from the back of her throat as she regained her courage. "I kill monsters like you," she retorted as she spit in his direction.
The retribution was quick and painful. Vamcet said nothing he simply shot out his leg and connected with her midsection. Layal swung from the ceiling much like a boxer's punching bag would. When she swung back toward Vamcet the prod was waiting as it connected with her chest and more electricity ripped through her already battered body. "One person's monster is another's hero. Now, for that remark you will lose something, something that will bring closer to what you truly are. As I said I know that you all seem to have a belief in a higher power. Well now you should know that there is only one higher power and that power is that of Cardassia." Vamcet retrieved the laser scalpel in a deft motion severed her ear which contained her earring, the symbol of Bajoran faith.
The searing against Layal's ear caused a deafening burst of white noise, like static itself was banging on her eardrum as Vamcet took the scalpel to her ear. A sharp pain seemed to electrocute the entire right side of her face, and then came the high pitched ear piercing tone, ringing in her ear. Her vision went blurry and the room seemed to spin. Layal blinked hard and squinted, tears now forming in her eyes.
When her vision cleared Layal saw her own ear on the ground below her feet. The crescent shaped piece carefully crafted out of beritium and made to fit her ear still attached, the delicate chains held on to the cuff that had been knocked loose from her upper ear and was now just tossed on the floor like garbage.
As the image resonated with her, the back of her throat began to burn and hot flashes rushed over her, the beads of sweat now pooling around her forehead. She tried to fight it, but her stomach began to wretch and churn right before she vomited all over the floor in front of her. The contents of her stomach mainly stomach acid and water. She continued to dry heave and wretch, as she gasped for air.
"Good, good. Now you know what is above you. Get it all out, the confusion as to what you are." Vamcet was interrupted by her retching. The sight and sound did not disgust him, it actually angered him. He caught her with another back kick to the abdomen which sent Layal swinging again. "Now, I want to say it for me. You are nothing merely chattel. Say it! Tell me that you are nothing more than something that can be sold or used as we see fit. Say I am chattel."
As she swung back and forth on her chains, the room seemed to get bigger and smaller, while the ringing in her ears dulled the sound of Vamcet's arrogant voice as he dictated his orders to her. She shut her eyes to try to stop the dizzying sensation that the swinging was causing, but that just made it worse. Layal took a deep breath as she mustered up the energy to find her voice.
"No." The sound coming from her throat was gravelly and weak, but it was defiant.
"Wrong Answer!" Vamcet seethed. He struck at her again with a closed fist right on the ridges of her nose. "We will flatten that thing properly." This time she was sent swinging in a circular fashion and blood began to gush from her broken nose. In the moment that Layal swung Vamcet seemed to calm down. "You know perhaps I am going about this the wrong way. I have been attempting to force you to do as I command, and yet perhaps you do not know how to follow those commands, or you simply believe life will be better for you should you not. When I train hunting dogs at the very beginning I allow them to exert their own free will on the situation. Let them choose to serve, and so I will do the same for you."
Vamcet began to pace the room still holding the prod as Layal's swinging slowed. "You have two choices. The first is doing as instructed and commanded. Thereby living the life you are meant to and gain a purpose. Your other choice is to do none of that and I simply allow you to be sent off as pleasure stock. You would be a nice addition to my experiment where I see how many Cardassian males it takes being inside of you before you simply tear open and die. So, which will it be I wonder."
"Tevan akah olkes ul pahna," May you burn in hell, Layal cursed in her native tongue.
"Very well. I see you have chosen. Perhaps your womb will produce something of use to us. No matter, I doubt we will see each other again. Guards!" Vamcet bellowed the command and two Cardassians stepped in the torture chamber. Despite the blood that poured from Corin these two Cardassians seemed to leer at her form as her clothing stuck to it due to sweat and blood. "Take her to the breeding room. Tell them she is to be used until she is torn asunder. I will be there shortly to record results." The guards thanked Vamcet for his gifting her to them and the rest of the men.
She didn't fight, the battle already lost. Death would be quicker this way, the guards would lack the restraint to draw it out. Shock most likely would be the cause of death.
The room was black and Layal woke up in a panic. Her heart was racing and she was ready to run. She wasn't in pain, but was sticky with sweat. Had some benevolent guard left her somewhere that she might escape. She went to push herself up off of the ground and almost fell off of the bed when her hand met the empty space beside her instead of the ground. The jolt from almost falling was enough to wake her up. She raised her right hand to touch her ear lobe. It was there. It was just a dream. Layal was disoriented. The room seemed to be turned around and not in the right place. Things didn't feel right.
Where was she?
As she fought against the dizzying feeling she repeated to herself that the dream wasn't real. It wasn't real. Her racing heart finally started to calm down once she remembered where she was. She was in quarters on a ship. The Artemis. It had been just a few days.
"Computer, lights." When she gave the order, the computer obediently lit up the room around her, displaying the comfortingly sterile appearance of standard Starfleet officer quarters.
She was Lieutenant Commander Corin, a Starfleet JAG officer. Not a Bajoran Resistance fighter. The Occupation was over.
Layal swung her legs off of the edge of the bed and pressed her bare feet against the floor. She brought her right hand up to her chest and rested there. A sick and uneasy feeling felt heaving on her chest. A feeling that would linger with her long after she woke up and into the days of the trial.
A Joint Post By
Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal
Judge Advocate General, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
Gul Vamcet
Administrator of Porchet Labor Camp
Cardassian Union
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