Part 7 (2/2)
”Sure is pretty,” Presinget said. ”The pictures don't do it justice. I never thought I'd get to see it for myself. Only pretty-boy s.p.a.ce Force types ever got to go into s.p.a.ce, when I was younger.”
”It's absolutely beautiful,” Klerran agreed. ”I hope we can keep it that way.”
”We'll try real hard, old friend. Right, Rik?”
”Eh? What's that, Presinget?” Rikkadar asked, startled. ”I'm afraid I was wool-gathering. Happens a lot at my age.”
”You were dreaming about that cute lady sitting over there, that's what you were doing,” Presinget leered. He indicated Deanna Troi with a twitch of his tangled brow. The counselor was sitting on the other side of the table with Riker, Worf, and Data.
Old Rikkadar smiled. ”No, actually I was thinking about how lucky I am.”
”Lucky?” Klerran asked. ”Even now?”
”Even now,” Rikkadar replied, nodding. ”I began my life as a boy working down in the mines, and here I am-nearly at the end of it, no matter what happens-an old man flying among the stars. I suppose I was waxing philosophical about it all, and feeling myself a very fortunate person indeed, despite everything.” He suddenly grinned. ”Sorry. Won't happen again, I promise. Oh-I think someone's coming.”
The door to the observation lounge slid open as Captain Picard and Kerajem entered the room together. Everyone stood.
”Please be seated, all of you,” Picard said, taking the center seat on the Enterprise side of the table. ”Let's begin.”
”Yes, let us make a fresh start,” Kerajem said, taking the chair opposite Picard's. ”The first order of business, Captain, is this.” The First Among Equals handed Picard a Lethantan data cube, a bright, s.h.i.+ny box about ten centimeters on a side. One face bore some simple controls. ”It is a copy of the ancient writings you were curious about, along with a self-contained apparatus with which to read them,” Kerajem continued. ”We chose this form instead of providing you with a printed copy, as the actual scrolls run the equivalent of several hundred modern volumes.”
”I'll look at the contents of this cube later today,” Picard said as he set the device on the table. ”Many thanks for your courtesy in providing this to us, Kerajem. I know it will be very helpful. Please, now, let's discuss your situation with the Krann.”
”Certainly,” Kerajem said. ”What would you like to know?”
”Everything you would care to tell us about your people, and about your conflict with the Krann.”
Kerajem folded his hands together in front of him and looked at them. ”I'm afraid our history is not a proud one in some respects,” he began after a moment. ”At times, it has been rather dark. One of the most terrible periods in our history concerns the Krann.”
”We were once an empire, Captain,” Klerran said. ”We were limited to one star system and two planets, but we were an empire nonetheless. It was our native star, Ma'ak Terrella, the sun under which our race evolved-the star that you visited before you came here.”
”There were two habitable planets circling that star, the third and fourth out from the sun,” Kerajem continued. ”We lived on the third planet, Eul Ma'ak Lethantana. The fourth, Ma'ak Krannag, was inhabited by the Krann.”
”Some think we and the Krann are of the same race,” Klerran said, ”and that we were separated from one another in antiquity.”
”We know very little about the Krann, actually,” said Rikkadar. ”We don't even know exactly what they look like.”
”You don't?” Riker asked, surprised.
”That is not unreasonable, Commander,” Data said. ”The Lethanta need never have met or even seen any of the Krann to be on the brink of war with them. Recall the conflict between the Romulan Empire and the Federation approximately two hundred years ago.”
Kerajem continued. ”As I was saying, we don't know much about the Krann-except that the ancient writings say they are not unlike us.”
”Humanoid, you mean?” Riker asked.
”If that's the term for it, then, yes, Commander,” Kerajem said with a small smile. ”Many of us do think the Krann are humanoid. Before today, I would have said something like 'They probably look a lot like people.' I have trouble thinking of myself as a 'humanoid.'”
”Kerajem, you mentioned that the Krann represented a terrible period in your history,” Picard asked. ”What did you mean by that, and does it have anything to do with what's going on out there now?”
”I'm afraid it does,” Kerajem said heavily. ”Our people went into s.p.a.ce in the normal course of things, and one of our first objectives was to explore and colonize the fourth planet in our home system. That was Ma'ak Krannag. We planned to exploit its resources as fully as possible, as our own were rapidly becoming depleted. When we got to Ma'ak Krannag, we discovered the Krann, who lived in tribes scattered all over the surface of their world. The most advanced of these tribes had just developed agriculture. They were no match for us.”
The First Among Equals paused, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to say. ”We enslaved the Krann, Captain,” Kerajem said, staring at the tabletop, unwilling to meet Picard's eyes. ”We took everything they had. We stripped their resources from them. Over the following centuries, we poisoned their air and water and food with the runoff from the industries we had relocated to Ma'ak Krannag to keep our own world pristine. We even gave the Krann a religion and forced them to wors.h.i.+p us as G.o.ds. We worked them to death and made them sing our praises for it. We slaughtered the ones who were of no use to us-the sick, the old, the ones who could not or would not work.”
”It went on for centuries,” Rikkadar said softly, his eyes watering. ”Centuries.”
”When did all this occur?” Worf asked.
”As nearly as we can tell, we first landed on Ma'ak Krannag about seven thousand years ago,” replied the First Among Equals.
”How long did your occupation of Ma'ak Krannag go on?” Riker asked, tight-lipped.
”We think it lasted for just under a thousand years,” Presinget said. ”It could not have been much longer than that.”
”What happened to end it?” Troi asked.
”There was a revolt,” Rikkadar answered. ”The Krann rose up almost as one and drove us out. They'd had a millennium to learn our weapons, our ways, our tactics, our weaknesses, and they'd learned them well. They'd had a thousand years to educate themselves in our ways and come up with effective means to fight and defeat us.”
”How did the rebellion occur?” asked Picard.
”There were many more of them than there were of us on Ma'ak Krannag, of course,” Kerajem said, ”since ours was only an occupying force bent on control and exploitation. We were only tens of thousands to their billions. They rose up one night, each with a knife, and slaughtered every Lethanta they found-men, women, children, it made no difference. Obedient housemaids slaughtered families. Dedicated nurses killed their patients. Faithful workers murdered their overlords. It came to be called the Night of Blood.”
”What did the government on Eul Ma'ak Lethantana do in response?” Picard asked.
”There was not much to be done,” Presinget answered. ”By the time the government found out what was going on, our occupation forces had been effectively destroyed, and our facilities and industries on Ma'ak Krannag had been taken over. The Krann were in control of their own world for the first time in some ten centuries.”
”The revolt wound up costing many more Krann lives than Lethanta,” Kerajem added, ”but in the end, the Krann won, and they kept their victory. During the following few years, we sent police forces and then entire armies to Ma'ak Krannag in repeated attempts to reestablish our control over the planet, but it was all for naught. The Krann fought us off and, using our own captured s.h.i.+ps, carried the war to Eul Ma'ak Lethantana.”
”Did you seek peace?” Troi asked. ”Did you finally come to terms?”
”We did,” Kerajem said. ”Our economy was in ruins following our loss of the labor and facilities on Ma'ak Krannag, and the ensuing war drained us even further. Peace was in our best interests, even if the settlement did not especially favor us. We agreed to recognize the Krann as sovereign on Ma'ak Krannag and pay heavy reparations for our past exploitation of their world and their people. They smiled and signed the treaty, and we got along well enough for a century or two, at the end of which time they attacked us in force.”
”The Krann could not get over their hatred of you,” Riker observed. ”Revenge is a powerful motive.”
”Your continued presence threatened them,” Worf guessed. ”Your star system was not big enough for both peoples.”
”We think it was a little bit of both,” Kerajem replied. ”Revenge and fear make a deadly mix. Whatever the motive behind it, the final attack devastated our world. The Krann had developed weapons designed to eradicate all life on our planet by sterilizing it with radiation. All of Eul Ma'ak Lethantana must have been dead within a week of the Krann bombardment.”
Picard held up a hand. ”Yet you are here. You and your people live.”
”We do indeed,” Kerajem said, not without pride. ”At the time of the attack, our people were mounting our first deep-s.p.a.ce colonizing mission. The only other habitable world in the Ma'ak Terrella system was Ma'ak Krannag, and we surely weren't welcome there. We needed to go to the stars.”
”Without warp drive?” Riker asked.
Kerajem nodded. ”We lacked the ability to travel faster than light as you people do, but our population was increasing while our resources were diminis.h.i.+ng. We had to do something to relieve the population pressure on our world. One plan involved building independent s.p.a.ce-faring colonies inside hollowed-out asteroids. These asteroid s.h.i.+ps were designed to sustain succeeding generations of colonists bound for the stars.”
”Hollow asteroids?” Troi wondered. ”Wait a moment. I think I've heard of this.”
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