Layal's First Job, Day 2
Posted on Sat Feb 15th, 2025 @ 7:23am by Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal
Edited on on Sun Feb 16th, 2025 @ 9:32pm
1,074 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Cold Cases
Location: Bajor
Timeline: Winter 2365
The next night that Layal went to work, the Cardassians kept them overnight at the compound. The second day had been harder. The guards yelled more. They were told to work faster. When the children complied and tried to work faster, sometimes they were struck and told that their work was sloppy and made to do it over again. After several hours of this treatment, the children were tired and weary, and the girls were ordered to march to the kitchen to help prepare lunch.
Layal’s arms were tired and she hung her head as she began walking, only to have a Cardassian hiss in her ear that she needed to straighten up and walk properly. Terrified she’d be hit again, she pulled her shoulders back and held her head high in a way that her father had taught her to. “You still look too much like a Bajoran,” the guard hissed louder, now a disgusted sound to his voice as he kicked Layal with his boot from behind, knocking her to her knees.
“Now get up and try again!” He yelled.
Layal held her eyes wide open and refused to blink because she knew if she did that tears would fall, and she was afraid of what the Cardassians would do next if they saw her cry. She gritted her teeth, and pressed her palms to the floor and pushed herself back up to a standing position. With a deep breath and as much resolution as a seven year old could muster, she pulled her shoulders back again, and lengthened her back, making herself as tall as she possibly could, and stuck her chin out and stood there. She did not make eye contact with the Cardassian. She had been taught for as long as she could remember that was a grave sin.
“Don’t just stand there!” Barked the guard. “March!”
Layal flinched slightly at the loudness of the order. She didn’t notice, but this pleased the guard as she marched in line behind the others, some of whom had received similar abuse from other guards along the way.
The conditions in the kitchen were only slightly better, but before they could begin work they had to shed their outer clothes and their hands up to their forearms were treated with scalding hot water and a disinfectant that burned their young skin, leaving it feeling raw and tender to touch. Here they had the older Bajoran slaves to follow and mimic, though try as they might, the young girls still found themselves poked and prodded with long sticks that the guards here carried.
Layal watched mortified as a girl slightly older than she was, was struck in the back of the knees by a Cardassian causing her to drop a tray of food. Then the girl was struck in the legs several more times for spilling the tray. The injustice burned at Layal deeply. Her friend would never have dropped the tray if the Cardassian hadn’t hit her. It was the Cardassian’s fault.
The afternoon was much like the morning, with harder work and more yelling and beating by the Cardassians. With some of the jobs that they were assigned, Layal began to suspect that they were being given the jobs just to be worked, and that they were not actually projects that the Cardassians needed to be completed. Occasionally she would steal a glance with one of the other children, but no one dared said a word. Not here on their turf.
That evening, like the night before, the children were taken to a common room and given an evening meal. This time Layal didn’t hesitate to approach the table to say a prayer of gratitude and begin eating. Tonight it was a stew with chunks of meat and vegetables. She’d only ever had a very watered version of this broth before. Layal shoved large spoonfuls into her mouth, her cheeks bulging as she chewed the meat and vegetables. The kids ate quickly, assuming that they would be going back to the shelter in the cave after to see their den mothers. They had not yet been told they were staying the night in the compound.
As the children finished they started to make an orderly line at the door. The Cardassian waiting for them there was the same one who had given them their meal the night before. With an exaggerated honeyed manner to his speech he praised the Bajoran children. “Excellent job today, my children. I heard there were many improvements today.” The Cardassian smiled at them, not realizing that children are sometimes better than adults at spotting the sinister person behind the friendly facade.
“Follow me. This way,” he cooed.
The Cardassian “caretaker” as it were, led them through the hallway, but instead of taking them to the transports, he took them into an empty room, with a stack of folded blankets. No beds, nor pillows. “Make yourselves comfortable. There will be plenty of work to do in the morning.”
Before the children could protest or ask questions, the door had shut, locking the children inside of the room, and the one who had seemingly sealed their fate on the other side of the door.
At this point, Layal, who had fought so hard to keep herself together throughout the day, felt her lower lip begin to quiver. All she could think about what her mom and dad. It had been weeks since she had seen them. She wondered if they had died, and if that was why she was here. Or what if they had come home tonight and didn’t know where she was. All she wanted in that moment was to see them again. To see one of them again.
She soon felt a gentle arm on her shoulder. Gyn, one of the older boys, had come to walk her over to the group that the older children had quickly formed, gathering the younger ones like her in the middle and trying to form a comforting circle around them. Layal wasn’t hearing much of what was being said, but for a brief moment she felt someone safer inside the arms of her people
A Post By
Lieutenant Commander Corin Layal
Judge Advocate General, USS Artemis
Starfleet Criminal Investigations Unit
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