Jori's Diary 3
Jori's Diary- Part 3
NOTE:
THE PAST Jori writhed in the tangled sheets. Her hands were twisted up over her head and her legs caught in the bedding. Sweet slicked her body and she moaned in despair. "Prophets, help me. Please not again. I can't take it again." She sobbed. "Jori?" The quiet voice tapped at the edge of her consciousness as she tried to make the fear and pain retreat. "Jori!" Louder and more insistent now as hands gripped her shoulders. She had to obey that voice. The voice wanted her to do something…If only she could remember. A stinging slap reddened her cheek and her eyes opened to see a gray, ridged face leaning over body, blocking all sight of the surroundings. "Jori, wake up. You are having a nightmare again. Sit up and take a deep breath." Dukat's voice took on a soothing tone and he brushed her sweat-slick hair back out of her eyes. His arms pulled her up and steadied her as she tried to focus her eyes in the near dark. "Dukat," she sobbed. "The dream…." "It's all right now, Jori. I'm right here and no one will hurt you. The guards are right outside the door and we are perfectly safe." The Cardassian Prefect of Bajor held the sobbing comfort girl in his arms and rocked her back and forth. His words were soft, but the crystal blue of his eyes gleamed like ice in the darkened room. THE PRESENT The Bajoran recording disk was watching her, Kira
thought. Its scratched surface winked and glittered in the light of her quarters and
seemed to reproach her for not picking it up and listening to the rest of its secrets.
Jori's secrets. The diary of a comfort girl that had been Gul Dukat's mistress during the
Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. One in a long line of Bajoran woman that he and the other
Cardassians had used and cast aside at whim. She picked up the disk and inserted it into the audio feed slot. The soft voice of the comfort girl reached out again and Kira leaned back to listen at the fragments of her life with Dukat… «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»"The dream comes less often to me now.
Sometimes only once a week as the Cardassian doctors had told Dukat when he took me to be
examined on the first day I was brought to this station. The frightening part for me is
that I can never tell when it will surface. Sometimes when I am cursed at by a Bajoran
worker from the ore processing level, sometimes when a visiting Gul looks at me a bit too
long and leers at me in the way that so many of them do. Sometimes when I see a girl-child
that is about the right age and she looks up at me with an uncomprehending look. My heart
starts to beat in slow heavy thuds and I think that I will not sleep through the night no
matter what I do." I don't know why the dream starts there. Why it doesn't start at the end of my stay in that camp, or before my arrival when my family died of Issko Fever and exhaustion on the march from our home to the first labor camp. But always, it starts soon after my arrival when I finally feel some degree of safety since this camp was different from the start. It is like I am outside my body, watching my past unfold and being powerless to change anything. The camps that I had been in for the last two years had taught me that the enemy was not always the gray, scaly one in the black uniform. The Cardassians held the whip, yes, but the Bajoran 'enforcers' that were in charge of the day to day management of life in the occupation camps, and the ever-present risk of a terrorist raid that resulted in bloody reprisals made life near unbearable. In some ways I was 'lucky'. All my family was dead. I had no one to worry over. When I was taken out of the food line in Hamera Relocation Camp and put on the transport, I sighed with the knowledge that no one would miss me that night at roll call. My bunk would be allotted to someone else and I would not even be a memory to my barracks mates by morning. The transport doors slid open with a hum when we finally drew up to a large yabbera farm. The golden-orange stalks rippled in the eastern breeze and I breathed deeply to clean my lungs of the stench of my former camp. Here everything looked bright and peaceful. An unexpected look since there were Cardassian 'minders' walking throughout the area. It seemed strange to see them strolling around with there weapons holstered and to see that most of the Bajoran workers were not cringing in terror or scattering to move as far from then as possible. A Glinn came down the path towards us and we fell into ranks that, by this time, was second nature to us. He stood several feet away and looked us over silently for several minutes. I cleared my head of all thoughts and tried to find the peace at the center of my pagh that the monks had told me would shelter me from fear or pain. It never seemed to work well in my case. I still felt fear and I could still fear pain. A bottle of kanar might be more effective, I often thought impiously. The Glinn looked like most other Cardassians. Regular height, stocky, dark eyes and a face that could look cold and cruel. But this one didn't seem to have his mask in place. He looked neither cruel nor detached. He seemed to be showing some interest in us and I wondered if that boded well for us. He cleared his throat and addressed us in a low voice that we had to strain to hear." "I am Glinn Das'chak. I am in charge of the facility you see here. You will be assigned work in the fields tending crops or in the factory that produces yabbera pulp. You will find that you will be treated better here than is the norm in most other camps simply because I believe you will be more productive with full rations and shorter hours. Do not think that I will allow the quotas to go unfilled, though. I expect you to work hard. If you fulfill my expectations, you will continue to benefit. You will now be cleaned up, fed and given any medical treatment necessary. Tomorrow you will receive your assignments and begin training. The rules are posted on the message boards. They will be followed without question. If you do not obey the rules you will be punished. Dismissed." "He turned and marched back the way he had come and our group looked after him in puzzlement. No one had been hit or shot. He hadn't yelled or threatened. This was such a new thing to us that we couldn't immediately accept it. As we stood there with our mouths hanging open like rus-fish on a hook, the Bajoran in charge of our group started us moving towards the……." «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»Static filled the air as the recording chip skipped over a damaged segment. Kira opened her eyes and reached for the controls to try to capture more words. Finally, she thought, something besides sex. Maybe her hopes were not so far-fetched and the disk would provide some tactical or historical value. After several minutes the disk yielded up more of its tale. «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»"…..I had been there for six months before Jesup finally asked me to 'walk in the woods' with him. He was so shy and he tried so hard to hide that fact that I didn't have the heart to say no even though I knew what a chance we were taking. I sneaked out when the forth watch sounded and met him behind the laundry sheds. He took me by the hand and we ducked into the shadows of the hera-trees. Only one of the spring moons had risen and I couldn't see where to place my feet. I had to trust him to guide me past any trips until we reached a tiny natural arbor. He sat down and leaned against the trunk of a tree and patted the ground beside him. I folded my skirts and joined him. I found that my tongue was firmly stuck to the roof of my mouth and my mind was as blank as could be. This condition seemed to be contagious since Jesup was also silent. We sat this way for a very long time and listened to the undergrowth rustle with the movements of little pos-mice and insects. I took a deep breath to let the night enter into my mind and felt all the tension drain out as I exhaled. The camp and day to day life seemed to be a dream so that I might open my eyes and it would dissolve into mist. I shook my head. Such fantasies could get me killed if I let my guard slip at the wrong moment….." «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»Static whispered for several more seconds as the disk tried to read the damaged vocal codes. «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»"….I had told him we should use different
routes. But he told me I was being foolish to worry. The fact that I was proven right
later did nothing to lessen my fear and shame at being discovered. The memory is so clear
to me that I can still feel his lips on my skin as I close my eyes. I can't tell this to
anyone else. The other comfort girls will only get sad or drunk if I tell of the past. We
have an unspoken agreement not to share our memories of As soon as we reached the scanty shelter of our little clearing, we tore at each other's clothes so that we could be together and try to hold all the thoughts and fears at bay. His lips pressed upon mine and I fell back to lie on the leaves as his body moved over me. His skin felt feverish in the coolness of the night and I wrapped my arms around his waist. I moaned his name and kissed his face and lips until he took my chin in his hand and stilled me. 'Jori, whatever happens to us, whatever future the Prophets allow, I want you to know that I love you. If I should live a century or an hour, it will make no difference to how I feel for you.' His words frightened me since I was superstitious enough to feel the weight of sorrow in them. I told him not to talk like that. He had to live so that he would someday come back from Lakita and see his child that I was carrying. He had to return from there because I couldn't bear the thought of us being apart forever. He stroked my face and arms and told me about what he had tried to do to keep us together. He had requested an audience with Glinn Das'chak. To his surprise it had been granted and he found himself escorted to see him that afternoon. He told me of the conversation and why we might not see each other for a long time.""Jori, I told Das'chak that you were going to have my baby and that I wanted permission to marry you and take you with me to Lakita. He shook his head and asked me if I loved you. Jori, that was the one question I never expected to have him ask. I told him of course I loved you, I wanted you for my wife. He looked at me for a long time and asked if this was the first labor camp that I had been in and I told him yes. He then told me that I was young and selfish to want to take you with me. I was mad at that but didn't want to take an even bigger risk and show it so I told him I didn't know how he could say that since I wanted to take responsibility for you and our child. That's when he told me about Lakita. You mustn't tell anyone that he told me this, Jori, or we will all end up in the interrogation cells. It has a reputation of taking in six prisoners and only letting one out. If the guards don't get you in a cleansing, than the overwork or disease will." "At my cry of horror, he put his hand on my mouth and continued," "Jori listen. Das'chek said he was trying to
make a camp that would make the Central Command see that that was not the way to treat the
Bajorans. That is why he treats us better than most. He wants to show that we shouldn't be
whipped into the ground and broken on the ore carts. He is arrogant and shortsighted and
still thinks we are beneath him, but at least we have a better chance with him than we do
with most of the other spoon-heads. He told me he would tell the soldier in charge of the
transport to see that I get a job in the administration unit. Probably as a clerk or
something. It will make it more likely for me to have access to items that I can barter
and if I am lucky I will still be in good condition in a few months. He said he is going
to visit Lakita in the winter and he would check on me then. He might be able to arrange
for me to be transferred back here then and you and I can be together. Right now though,
the quota is something he can't change. Many of the people sent here are old and sick or
have little children. He doesn't mind that because he knows that they don't have a good
chance in any of the other camps and he likes to show he can get a full quota of work out
of us when other camp commanders would just have us shot. But when he was told to supply
25 young, strong workers to Lakita he knew he would have to pick the ones that fit that
bill or his neck would be in the noose. Jori, we might yet be together. It is at least
more hope than most of us have the right to expect." "He told me that if I get into the
administration unit I should keep my eyes and ears open to anything that has to do with
the regional organization of the camp system. He wants to know the real quotas on deaths
and injuries and how much is being spent on each prisoner's upkeep. Not just the numbers
that are supplied to Central Personal and Accounting" His eyes and hair gleamed in the moonlight and he
pressed his lips against mine. I opened my mouth and whispered his name over and over. Our
lovemaking was quick and furtive. We didn't wish to be caught by any of the patrols or by
the terrorists cells either. The thought was in our minds that the terrorists were as
likely to kill us as help us. A strange thought, but they often believed that if you were
not with them, you were against them and , by default, deserving of death or injury. At
the least, they would be fearful My lips traveled over his face and down his neck to rest in the hollow of his throat. I slipped my hands down his back and caressed the smooth skin as our breathing slowed down to normal. Neither of us wished to break the stillness of this last tyst. But someone else was not so considerate. We both heard the sound of heavy boots walking through the ferns and leaves and I could feel Jesup tremble as he prepared to drag me to my feet and run. I sometimes wonder if things would have been better for us if he had done that. I will never know, of course, only the Prophets can know for sure. What I do know is that a throat was cleared and a small palm light played over our faces and shown on our bodies where skin showed through our open clothes. It didn't take a warp core scientist to figure out what we had been doing. Softly, just above a whisper, the camp guard spoke, 'Prisoner Jesup, woman, get up and come with me. And if you are smart, you will be very quiet.' Then, amazingly, the guard turned and walked away back towards the camp. I started to whisper to Jesup but he put his finger to my lips and just nodded. We stood up and arranged our clothes as we followed the Cardassian back to the trip wire and into the shadows of the laundry sheds. As the darkness enfolded us beside the shed I
wondered what the punishment would be. Most of the time, if lovers were caught 'walking in
the woods' outside of the trip wires, they could expect to be taken to the parade ground,
given 10 lashes on the whipping post, and left there in chains for two days without food
and water no matter what the weather was like. I feared for the baby if this happened, but
the thought that they might think we had been trying to escape the camp was worse, for the
punishment for that was The guard turned to us and motioned us closer. "Prisoner, do you remember me?" Jesup nodded. "You took me to see the Glinn." "Then listen, I know what happened at the meeting and I know that if I turn you in you will both be shot for attempting to escape." He motioned with his hand to cut of Jesup's protest. "I could see what you were really doing, but the Glinn might not see it that way so let's make this easy for all concerned. You go back to your barracks and I will go off duty in 15 minutes. This never happened and it will not EVER happen again on my watch. Understood?" We nodded in relief. He motioned us to go and we ducked down and ran toward the barracks. With a quick ki….." «:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»Static blared out again and Kira sighed in
frustration. She stabbed at the button to end the playback and stood up to stretch her
cramped muscles. Where was this tale going? The first parts that she had retrieved had
dealt with the girl's affair with Dukat, why was she recounting some dream about her life
prior to that? "Sisko to Kira." "Right away, Captain." Kira took the disk from the slot and locked it in her desk drawer. The mystery of the past would have to wait just a little while longer. ~ The End - for now ~ |