Ghosts of the Past

Posted on Sun Oct 5th, 2025 @ 3:57pm by Captain Lorut Vila & Lieutenant Commander Frasier Greene

2,045 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Echos of the Obsidian
Location: Cardassian Holding Station
Timeline: MD-1, Afternoon

Vila appeared in a holding cell. It was familiar to her. She'd been in one several times in her life. A Cardassian holding cell. She called out.

"Where the hell am I?" She asked. Around her, she could see the grounds of the old Outpost, which the Bajorans called Kejal, which had been used as a transfer point for Bajorans and Maquis looking to flee Bajor when the Cardassians came.

She couldn't know yet that it had been quickly and rudimentarily outfitted as a Cardassian outpost, taken over-not by force, but by mere dumb luck, as the outpost Master had taken a short leave, not expecting anything to happen. This unmanned planet had been a sitting duck. Of course it had been.

She wasn't alone in the cell, and she turned. Her uniform was still crisp, though her phaser was conspicuously missing.

"Any idea what's going on?" She asked the others in the cell. From what she could see, there was a block of cells-filled with Bajorans and what she assumed were Maquis, based on the markings they bore.

A tattooed human woman, whose clothing was soiled with grime quickly crossed towards her. "Quiet," she hissed. "Before they punish all of us."

Vila turned quickly. "What do you mean?" She whispered. "I just need to know what's happening..." She whispered. She looked around the holding cell. It was herself, a few Bajorans-a couple in Starfleet uniforms but a few not, and an assortment of others.

The nameless woman didn't reply as beyond a door jerked open and footsteps approached.

A moment later, a face appeared. It was Legate Jar from earlier.

"Kora Nor," he said, simply. Her face instantly changed. She knew the name.

"The former Obsidian Order hideout? I thought we destroyed it..." she said. She was saying this aloud on purpose. Vila remembered it from her Militia days. A cold dread filled her body, but she couldn't lose her marbles now.

"You did," the Cardassian confirmed. "But we're bringing it back. It's been twenty years. It's time."

With that, the door opened and she and two others were removed.

"Lorut Vila. Long time, no see," Jar said. "This time, you won't get away. To the interrogation room," he ordered his comrades.

Orlan shifted against the wall. His uniform was torn and stained, and bruises darkened his jaw, but his eyes were sharp and steady as they met Vila’s.

"Commander Orlan Jeth. Bajoran Militia once—Starfleet now."

He gave a faint, humorless smirk.

"They’ve been working me over for days. Haven’t gotten a word, and they won’t. Whatever they think they’re rebuilding here, they can’t scare me back into the past."

"Captain Lorut Vila. USS Intrepid..." she said. "Stay strong," she said, her voice low and the steady, lilting language quiet as they spoke in their native language.

He straightened as much as the cell allowed, forcing his battered frame into something resembling parade rest.

"If they take you next, don’t give them the satisfaction of fear. It’s all they’ve got left."

Vila nodded. "I know." She did. She had been around the block with this before. "We're Bajorans. We survive," she said.

The cell door clanged open. Two Cardassians stepped inside, weapons ready.

Orlan pushed himself to his feet under his own power, meeting their eyes with quiet fury.

"Round four already?" he rasped. "Better bring more than bruises this time if you expect me to talk."

A sly smile grew upon one of the Cardassians at Orlan's fighting spirit before unleashing a fierce hook to the Barjoran's jaw that sent him tumbling.

The third occupant, the frightened woman withdrew sharply from Orlan falling body and huddled closer still of the corner of the cell. Again, her actions drew another smirk to the faces of their captures before they turned their attention to the intended target.

Vila was grabbed, and dragged along without the grace she wasn't expecting but would have thought-she WAS a woman, after all. She was put into an interrogation room, and a shield was raised. She couldn't fight back. Not yet.

They began.

"Captain Lorut Vila, formerly of the Militia, but now a fancy Starfleet officer. Didn't we move up?" One of the guards sneered. Vila, however, was scanning the room for an out. She could get it. Soon. She just needed to think a moment. She remembered that the chairs here were rudimentary, hewn together quickly and without tools. They had had to move fast.

She could use that. She moved with a quickness, using the chair as a battering ram to work her way out of the room and into the corridor.

It had worked. For a moment. But just as fast as she was out, a different guard had overtaken her. A phaser in her side, and a pain stick in the base of her skull.

"Oh, no you don't."

She was now tied to the chair, the Guls clearly struggling to control her. The lessons she'd learned in the Militia and in her time in the camps were hard won and not easily forgotten.

A painstick in her side caused Vila to cry out momentarily. She pulled it together quickly.

"What do you want?" She asked, her tone dripping with anger and indignation.

"Answers," came the reply. "Your cell mates. Names. Dates. The attack on Kora Nor. Who helped you?"

Vila's eyes narrowed. "It's been twenty years. How should I remember?" She asked.

The painstick was reintroduced to her rib cage. "Nonsense," the Cardassian said. "Your Cell leader was Okki Rodose. We know that much. And your brother...Ude? He was involved. We just don't know how."

Vila remained stone faced. "Neither do I. We didn't speak much. My mother was already mad that he recruited me." That was the truth, or at least, part of it. Vila knew exactly what Ude had done, of course, but she wasn't about to say.

"Nonsense," came the Gul's reply. "You remember everything. How could you not?"

Vila sighed. Of course she remembered. Too much. More than she'd ever wanted to. Still. She wouldn't budge.

"I am older now; as far as I know, the Cell leader is dead of old age. He was already older. I am sure you already know who it is, so let's stop patronizing each other and you just tell me what the hell is going on."

The Gul came around from her side to look her in the eyes. "We're here for you. For retribution for the lives you took. For the men you've killed."

Vila's eyes didn't flicker. She simply raised an eyebrow.

"I killed who I had to, or they would've killed ME," she said, simply.

"I am sure you think so. But those men had families..."

"I HAD A FAMILY," Vila shot back. Instantly, she calmed herself down. "Send me a different guard and I'll think about talking," she said. As she'd been going back and forth, she'd managed to work herself free from the restraints, though it wasn't easy-her arms were bruised, and she was fairly sure she'd twisted her am in the process.

A moment later, the Gul had her in a headlock, and the painstick was now in her neck.

"Sit back down, Captain," he said, spitting the last word out. "We're not done," he said.

"The attack on the original OO building. Who ordered that? We know you were there. You were the one who planted the bombs."

Vila swallowed lightly. She simply shrugged. "What makes you think I know? I was just the girl setting up the bombs, as you said. I dropped them, lit them, and ran like hell," she said.

"I don't believe you."

Vila shrugged again. "Well, too bad."

She wasn't sure what happened next, she just knew that the pain was fierce and hot, like a poker had been placed into her brain. She could feel it-the blood, coming slowly out of her nose and ears.

"Names."

Vila finally spoke.

"Wimok Muk," she said, her voice raspy from the pain and injuries.

It wasn't the ring leader but it was a name. He hadn't specified, but at least the Gul seemed interested.

"We didn't have that name..." he said.

Wimok was now relocated to Earth and living under a new name, Vila knew. But she wasn't about to tell him. All records of him had been destroyed, to the best of her knowledge, and all that remained on Bajor of him was a distant Aunt, if she was still alive.

The coils flared again, and Vila's body arched against the restraints, muscles trembling as the machine mapped each neural pathway with clinical precision. A pungent sting of ozone and sweat filled the chamber, the only accompaniment to the slow, deliberate cadence of Gul Merak’s boots on the floor. He adjusted the settings with surgical detachment, layering auditory hallucinations into the torment—whispers of betrayal from trusted comrades, the imagined sound of family members screaming in distant rooms. The brilliance of Cardassian technique lay not in the breaking of bones but in the erosion of certainty, the corrosion of loyalty, until the subject could no longer distinguish truth from illusion. As the prisoner sagged forward, gasping, Merak leaned close, his voice low and almost tender. “Your secrets are already mine,” he murmured. “All that remains is for you to believe it.”

Vila was close to breaking. Still, she would not. She would hold out as long as she could.

"You will have to kill me." Six words. More of a dare than a statement.

It continued.

The restraints cut cruelly into her wrists and ankles as the current surged, sending a jagged cascade of fire racing through every nerve; blood welled where metal bit into skin, dripped in thin rivulets down the chair’s frame, and sizzled faintly as it struck the humming coils below. The neural device burned deeper this time, the prisoner’s eyes rolling back as teeth cracked against the pressure of an unrelenting scream, flecks of blood and spittle staining their chin. With a twist of his wrist, Gul Merak shifted the current to target the pain centers exclusively, bypassing protective shock responses—every inch of Vila's body became a raw, flayed nerve, each breath a fresh razor dragged along their lungs. The smell of scorched flesh clung to the air, acrid and heavy, as Merak’s shadow fell across the ruin in the chair.

“You see?” he said, almost gently, wiping a fleck of blood from his glove. “Even your body confesses before your tongue does.”

Her breath came more ragged. "I don't know how to tell you. I don't remember."

"The assault on the command building at Tobol prison. That was you, wasn't it?"

"Yes. And I will bomb this place, too."

She noticed the others around here-not nearly as bad off as she. She realized she could use this to her advantage. The pain stick was moved, lower, inching closer to unspeakable places to do unspeakable things.

"I will tell you what you want to know. BUT. You must let the others go. And I want to SEE it."

There was silence for a moment. Merak left the room. The guards remained, the pain stick still positioned but not on. Merak returned, and nodded once to the guards.

When the machinery finally powered down, silence fell like a sentence. Vila sat motionless, breath shuddering through the haze of pain and confusion. Merak stepped back, studying his work with the calm scrutiny of an artist finishing a portrait. The lights dimmed, leaving the faint reflection of the prisoner’s eyes—hollow, unfocused, uncertain if what they’d endured was real or merely conjured by the Cardassian mindscanners. “You will rest now,” Merak said softly. “When you wake, you’ll tell me everything.” The door sealed behind him with a hiss, and the chamber’s hum resumed—low, rhythmic, patient—as though the room itself were waiting to begin again.

The others were escorted out. A beam of light-presumably to a waiting ship or something- took them away.

She was alone now. Just her and her wits. True to his word, Merak did not return yet, and she let the woozy darkness of unconsciousness take her.

 

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