oo.com Received: from [66.218.66.160] by n38.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 01 Apr 2004 05:06:42 -0000 X-Sender: stephen@trekiverse.org X-Apparently-To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 10399 invoked from network); 1 Apr 2004 05:06:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.167) by m20.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 1 Apr 2004 05:06:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO avocet.mail.pas.earthlink.net) (207.217.120.50) by mta6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 1 Apr 2004 05:06:37 -0000 Received: from sdn-ap-022dcwashp0060.dialsprint.net ([63.191.160.60]) by avocet.mail.pas.earthlink.net with smtp (Exim 3.33 #1) id 1B8uP6-00040i-00 for ascl@yahoogroups.com; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 21:06:13 -0800 To: ascl@yahoogroups.com Organization: Alt.StarTrek.Creative Virtual Staff Office Message-ID: X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.92/32.572 X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 207.217.120.50 X-eGroups-From: Stephen From: Stephen X-Yahoo-Profile: oldmanasc MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ASCL@yahoogroups.com; contact ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list ASCL@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 00:05:48 -0500 Subject: [ASC] Story: Federation [1/1] Reply-To: ASCL-owner@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark & Cana Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US da. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/5x3olB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 19:24:25 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Jasjit Singh" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: "Star Trek" is copyrighted by Paramount, and Paramount owns Star Trek and the Star Trek Universe. The following story is not-for-profit. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Federation ---------- My name is Shu'ari. I am mother now, of two beautiful young boys. Watching them grow gives me great joy. We live in a peaceful society on a planet known as Aheura. Our people are not a space-faring race. We had at one time, pursued technological advancement, but the community elders saw what it was doing to our community, and decided to pursue another path, one of unification with the nature of our planet, and the land, and the community. We did not venture outside of our own solar system. We did not inhabit other planets. We stayed on Aheura, and lived our lives, generation after generation. My tale begins, when I was a growing girl, living in my father's house. He was a farmer, and tilled the soil from the rising of our sun to the rising of the two moons. He worked very hard to provide for his family. My mother sold rugs which she knitted herself. I would often run to the marketplace to hide in her stall when I wanted to be alone, and she would laugh and ruffle my hair when she noticed my crouching under the stall, trying to hide. When the Giul's came, we did not know that they had come to invade our world, and enslave our people. We welcomed them as visitors and offered them our hospitality. In return they showed us only cruelty. I remember the day when they arrived on Aheura. They materialized in the center of the marketplace, dressed in their khaki military uniforms, and bearing powerful weapons. They stood three heads taller than our tallest men, and wore strange helmets that prevented us from seeing their faces. They began to shoot with their weapons. There was screaming, I remember. Many people fell, others ran for shelter, some falling flat on their faces as they were shot from behind. My mother bundled me up urgently in a blanket and carried me with her, away from the marketplace, and away from the firing and screaming people. When we were in relative safety, she set me down and told me to run home and tell the others what had happened. I remember crying. I remember telling her that I didn't want to leave, didn't want to be alone without her. She smiled her warm, loving smile at me, wiping my tears away from my cheek with her hand. "Now there, Shu'ari," she said, "daughter. Be brave. You are your fathers daughter, strong and proud. You will see me again, of that I promise. Go now, and best speed." I nodded, and ran as fast as my legs would carry me, all the way home, not stopping to pause or think. When I arrived, breathless and sweating, my father was seated at the table, contemplating. "Father!" I cried. "There is an attack in the marketplace. Mother is alone!" He immediately stood up, and told me to stay with my brothers, in the house, and not open the door for any one. He left to search for my mother. He returned late, alone. She did not return to us, ever again. We did not see her or hear of what happened to her. I still grieve today. The Giul's were a savage race. They did not care for the suffering of our people. They established guard posts at every major junction in our cities, and sentries would be patrolling the areas. We had no weapons or skill in fighting. Our people were farmers, and poets. We did not know how to fight back. The Giul's took the men from the cities, my eldest brother among them. They left my father because he was elderly, and not fit enough for their labor camps. The young men were taken to the edges of our cities, to the mines the Giul's had established, and forced to work long arduous hours, and given little in the way of food or comfort. I wept for my brother. I did not see him for several months, and heard no news. I feared the worst. The Giul occupation lasted several months. I recall little of the political issues involved, but I seem to remember my father talking to one of our neighbours, about why the Giul's came to our homeworld. They were a technologically advanced species, but their ships relied on a technology which was dependant on a certain type of crystal. This crystal was very rare in the galaxy, but very abundant in raw ore on Aheura. The Giul's did not desire to trade or barter for the ore; they were a warlike people, savage and ruthless, and when they saw the opportunity to take what they needed, instead of pay for it, they took advantage of it. "Barbarians," my father had said, shaking his head, "to attack an unarmed, peaceful people." The Giul's were firmly entrenched on Aheura, and did not seem to be going anywhere. For an old man like my father, and a young girl like me, they had no use, so they left us alone mostly. My father still tilled the soil, from sunrise to moons-rise. But there was a sadness in him, with my mother gone, and now my brothers too. Until there was only the two of us left in the quiet house. I would bring the water from the wells, far outside of the city, back home, and on my path I would have to pass several Giul sentries. They scarcely looked at me. But they always had their weapons charged. And then one day, while I was out at the well, struggling to pull up the filled water-bucket, I heard a commotion. I looked behind me, and saw that the Giul soldiers were moving around, as if someone, or something had taken them by surprise. They were running. And then I heard phasor fire. I dropped my water-buckets, and ran back to the marketplace. My father was among a crowd of our people, calling my name. "Father!" I cried, running to him. He hugged me and led me to a safe shelter a little way away from the main marketplace. "What is it, father?" I asked him, concerned. He was looking out towards the streets in anticipation. "I am not sure, Shu'ari. The Giul's are worried. Something is happening. Their plans have been upset. Look, up at the sky." I looked up, and saw several brilliant flashes in the sky. "What does it mean?" I asked in awe. "Their ships have been in orbit since they arrived on our planet. Now their ships are fighting, it looks like they have some unplanned visitors." I looked around, at the milling crowd which was beginning to dissipate, and the Giul soldiers taking up positions. Eventually, the commotion subsided and a tense silence fell. The marketplace was still, and the Giul soldiers stood or sat with their weapons at the ready. But for what? My question was answered moments later when a group of people materialized in the middle of the market square. They were different from the Giuls. They wore colored uniforms, black and gold, black and grey, black and red. They also had weapons, but different from the Giuls. The first group of people that landed in the market square were immediately killed by a barrage of Giul fire. They all fell. But another group arrived, a short distance away, and they were able to dodge the Giul fire. They fired back with their weapons, and took up position. Many more seemed to land at different locations. The Giuls were now facing an enemy with weapons. "Let's see how they do against the strangers!" I cried. The Giuls were vicious. When their firearms failed them, they used knives and swords, and attacked the strangers with anger. They were physically stronger than the strangers, and often were able to kill them quickly. The marketplace was littered with dismembered corpses of the the colored uniform strangers. They bled red blood. It flowed in the street like a river. And yet the Giuls would not be stopped. But the strangers took position a little farther north of the city, near the well where I used to get the water from, and set up an offensive from there. When they could no longer fight with their energy weapons, they came running towards the Giuls with long hand weapons which I later learned were known as Klingon Bat'leths. They came screaming and yelling, even as their comrades fell from Giul fire. But they did not stop. They leaped and jumped over their friends' corpses, and kept coming. Until they were close enough to the Giuls to engage them in hand-to-hand combat. Those who had lost their bat'leths used anything they could get their hands on; I saw one man in a torn uniform, blood streaming down his face, get up with a tree branch in his hand, and swing it at the astonished Giul soldier. As we watched, our shelter was blown by a Giul weapon. We were in the open. My father gathered me in his arms to protect me, as a Giul soldier towered above us, and seemed to notice us for the first time. He raised his weapon to me. "Cover your eyes, child," my father whispered to me, putting his hand over my eyes. I heard a strange voice yelling out. And then the Giul weapon firing. I jumped. But I had not been hit. I opened my eyes to see the Giul soldier on the ground, limp and motionless, and on top of him, with a knife, a man in a black and blue uniform. The knife he held was dripping blood. He turned to us, wild-eyed. "I am a doctor," he said, "are you alright?" My father grinned at him. "If you are a doctor, you have a strange way of practicing medicine." The doctor looked down at the dead Giul soldier. "Yes," he nodded. "We were running short of men. We had to use every officer available." It ended shortly afterwards. The Giuls that survived retreated hastily to their ships, and left our solar system. The strangers buried their dead with great ceremony. There were so many of them that it took two entire fields. My father allowed them to use his land. He felt that it was the least that he could do for them, for driving away the Giuls. "What will you do now?" one of the strangers had asked my father. "We will rebuild our society, our culture, or way of life," my father had answered. "It will take many years, but we do have a hope for the future. We have the children, like Shu'ari here." The man looked down at me, and smiled. He had a black and red uniform on, and his face was bruised from the fighting, but he still had a twinkle in his eye. He squatted down so that I did not have to crane my neck to look up at him. I gave him the flower I had plucked from the fields. "Thank you," he said. "Who are you?" one of our people had asked him later on. "Why did you die to free us?" He had replied with a smile. "We are the Federation. It is what we believe in." When the strangers had left, I saw my brother again. I was deliriously happy that he was still alive. And we began the slow process of re-building our society, and our world. T h e E n d -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Awards Tech Support http://www.trekiverse.us/ASCAwards/commenting/ No Tribbles were harmed in the running of these Awards ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! 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