This story is part of The War of the Masters and is aimed at adults and older teens. Content warnings: violence, language, sexual and drug references.
Myrmidons
By Patrickngo, StarSword-C, and Knightraider6
Myr·mi·don
ˈmərməˌdän,-mədən/
noun
noun:
Myrmidon; plural noun:
Myrmidons
- a member of a warlike Thessalian people led by Achilles at the siege of Troy.
- a hired ruffian or unscrupulous subordinate.
noun: myrmidon; plural noun: myrmidons
“he and his myrmidons were ensconced in a bunker”
Prologue: Ashalla Temple College, Ashalla, Bajor. September, 2413.
“…she’s disciplined. It’s actually a little disturbing how disciplined.”
“How so?”
“For a Bajoran, she would make a good Vulcan,” the prylar says as we step out into the parade ground. Sheri Walford’s standing at attention in the middle of the quad.
She’s been there for days. Not because someone told her, but because she’s
persistent.
“WALFORD!” I use the tone I’ve used before to get her attention. “What are you
doing?”
“Waiting, ma’am.” She straightens to attention. There’s a lot of exhaustion in her eyes, and I can smell that she’s been sweating in that exact spot long enough to accumulate some truly epic body odor.
“Waiting… for what, exactly?” I know what she’s waiting for. Starfleet’s Training and Doctrine Command sent me the paperwork. I got it just a few hours before the request from the Temple to step in on the matter was passed to me by Kurland.
“Waiver processing, Ma’am,” she answers. “I passed my General Ed, and regulation stipulates my prior service time is good for Academy Credit.” The look in her eyes makes
my back hurt.
She’s a year young according to Starfleet regs but an adult according to Bajoran law, and Starfleet has the programs, and
I gave her the phekk'ta
literature.
“At ease, Marine.” I tell her. “Rest. Prophets, you… you need to get your head around the idea that you don’t have to do these theatrics!”
“I submitted six months ago, ma’am,” she tells me, still rigid, but at least her feet are shoulder-width apart. “No answer, when I came to check up on it, they said it was still in processing…”
“And you decided to wait in the quad.”
“Public property, ma’am. They can’t evict me for vagrancy if I’m not sleeping here, I know the ordinances.” She grimaces. “I’m not cut for civilian life, ma’am,” she tells me. “Lisa’s got her music, Nung’s got her thing, the boys have theirs. I need
something, and while I love having family,
bàn chân của tôi ngứa cho một boong, ma’am.”
My feet itch for a deck, I mentally supply from my rudimentary Viet. Silently, I wish every last bloody b*stard in Tran’s and Mulvaney’s governments a nice long stay in whatever Hell they believe in. Moab turned a generation of children into soldiers and spacers, then dumped them off on the rest of us for political reasons, no safety net, no de-transitioning. Their training methods must be some kind of violation of sapient rights, because not a single one of them, not one of the Discharge Kids, as they term themselves, has so far been able to say they’ve made a smooth transition to civilian life—their suicide rates are truly epic.
The
Pah-wraiths care more for those that serve them.
“Your application for an enlisted position is denied,” I tell her, handing her a PADD and stylus. “Sign here.”
“Ma’am?”
“Sign the damn acceptance form. You’re to begin summer term as a cadet in the Reserve Officer Training Program, which counts toward Academy credits and officer training,” I explain. “Which means you need to get cleaned up and grab sleep before reporting to your Cadet Training Officer for intake.”
Her control slips for just a moment. “You mean I—Aye Mum!” She quickly scribbles her name on the screen.
Her Uncle finally gets her off the parade field.
“A cadet slot?” the Prylar asks me in
Bajor’la.
“Determination, intelligence,” I tell him. “And I read her senior paper. She would be great in the Militia, but she’ll be
better fit to Starfleet, and she can do
more.”
Since I’m here, I might as well…
Along the way I find myself to be confined within me
No place for any others mind to interfere
To grasp the meaning of it all, to overcome my limits
And dance away from any void and empty tones
Just tell me why
Just tell me how I can survive this time
Believe yourselves and look away from all that's right within you
Leave all your worries at the door and drift away
I’ve tried to peer into the core but could not storm the sorrow
My hollow heart has bled me dry, left me to stray
Another time
Without a trace
Condemn me now
Send me to hell for I’m already failing
Intertwine the lines that swim beneath the dark
Realize the pain we live in
Demonize the need we reel in
No, in my memories I’ll dig deep enough to know
Centuries of dreams unending
Another me that yielded tears when someone had betrayed
No time should ever go to waste, it’s not that complicated
You’re free to live your life at ease, no more restraints
No heed for shadows on your way that try to steal your laughter
Your light will drive them all away, be confident
Will I refrain?
Can I repent?
Will you be there?
Erase the page for I’m alone and ailing
Intertwine the lines that swim beneath the dark
Realize the pain we live in
Demonize the need we reel in
No, in my memories I’ll dig deep enough to know
Centuries of dreams unending
Another me that yielded tears when someone had betrayed
So - this is my life
And it can’t break me down
Go - I will decide
Who can come in
And heal my disease
Burn it - in flames
Kill it - and maim
Why can't you see that you need to be freed
Intertwine the lines beneath the dark
Every bit of pain we're feeling
Every other solemn life
No, in the memories you will find somehow
There used to be a dream unending
No more need to be alone
Intertwine the lines that swim beneath the dark
Realize the pain we live in
Demonize the need we reel in
No, in my memories I'll dig deep enough to know
Centuries of dreams unending
Another me that yielded tears when someone had betrayed
Epica,
“Storm the Sorrow”
Music by Coen Janssen and Simone Simons
Lyrics by Mark Jansen
Fana Residence, Valan Township, Seles Province…
Nung’s different. Younger, human, same
phekk'ta brainwashing, only smart enough to understand it
is brainwashing. Of the kids, she’s had a weirder time adapting—her foster parents write glowing reports, her teachers as well. It’s a nice day when I visit her at the fosterage, not too hot out, and she makes us lunch. Pho’gah, a Moabite version of Vietnamese noodle soup.
“You let Walford make a fool of herself for three days,” I note, then take a whiff of the soup. “Mmm,
damn I wish I could cook like this.”
Nung looks up. “She’s a free sentient, Mum, her choice. She’s not property of anyone, not even on the genetic level.”
I blink. “What?”
“I sliced into the hospital database,” Nung tells me. “Following up on a rumour, and what that Vulcan of yours said at the hearing. My f*cking
genes are stamped Federation property with a national stock number. You didn’t tell me about it, but I know you saw.”
“First, what were you doing in the database?” I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but the amnesty deal only covers them up to 2412. I’d rather her foster parents
not have to pick her up from provincial court.
She shrugs at me. “I was bored,” she tells me. “Idle hands, training, keep it sharp… so I wanted to see what was there. It was educational.” She leans on her elbows. “My childhood, before I enlisted, was any of it real?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “I don’t know much at all about it, it was a black project from a decade before I was born. I’m pretty sure Moab III was the test site—several of your founders or their relatives were involved. And before you ask why I didn’t tell you, I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs it off. “Well, now the fursnake’s out of the cupboards on in the kitchens. There’s a rumour on Fleetbook that a bunch of us were lab-grown. I wanted to disprove it, found out I can’t, because I’m one.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
She shakes her head in denial. “No. You, I can tell. Not sure how Mr. and Mrs. Fana would take it… but I think I get why Khan went off the rails.” She stirs her lunch on the stove. “He
knew from birthing onward, what he was, and they told him he was
special, which is like, the
worst thing you can make a kid think, especially if he’s got objective proof of it. Hella way to feed megalomania, dig?”
“Are you worried about that?”
She nods. “Yeah.” Her expression is serious. “Bad enough when I was arrogant because I thought I was
lucky, or
skilled. Last thing you want, if you’re scr*wing around with eugenics, is to let your subjects start thinking they’re objectively
better than other people, and I was already fighting that urge, because I’m faster than other kids around here, and quicker mentally, better grades, easier studying, and I haven’t gotten sick like… ever. So I’m already wrestling with my own arrogance, and come to find out I was some Starfleet doctor’s pet experiment gone rogue?” She shakes her head. “Now I’m fighting off a different kinda mental illness.”
“Because it says ‘property’.” Here, this I understand.
“Yeah, ‘disposable’, so there’s a little depression there, and a real, valid concern that I’m gonna go all ‘augment supremacist’ or some crazy-*ss sh*t, or someone else will—someone else finds out what me and the others are, gets freaked, or worse,
lets themselves get all megalomaniac about it.”
“What do you think?” I ask her. She turns the burner off, and fills two bowls, one for me, and one for herself.
“Never let me get a position of authority,” she tells me. “That’s Humanity’s answer, anyway. I can see why—the Eugenics Wars were some
epic bad sh*t. Problem is, I looked at those numbers, and did some math. Some of us already guessed it, or saw something, or whatever. I was looking after a lead someone else dropped in Fleetbook, which means there’s lots of us, and my med-scans show my eggs are viable. My ovaries work… and if my ovaries work, then some Siegfried boy’s sperm probably works… and on the missions, people got horny, they didn’t stop when they were kicked. Long term, it’s going into the general gene-pool, so maybe Humanity’s answer isn’t the right answer.”
“But you don’t have an answer,” I point out.
“Correct, Ma’am,” she says, blowing on her noodles. “I haven’t worked it out. I don’t
know enough to figure it out… but I’m inside the problem, and the ‘humanity’ answer sucks *ss. I don’t want to be in quarantine for the rest of my life, but if one of us goes off the rez, that’s what’s gonna happen—because the people who aren’t stamped as property? They’re free, and they’re actually right from a certain point of view—we’re
dangerous.”
“I don’t believe that,” I tell her.
“Marissa Chung,” she tells me, “one of the grunts on Son Tay, one of the Goralis kids too—she got home, and nutted out, so they took her to a mental institution on Betazed. She killed three people and harmed dozens before they contained her, she’s in a coma right now. Soldier phenotype, like Jose, but girly. Rumour has it she was exposed to some heavy duty propaganda, and it cracked her brain like an egg. Made her
Điên, nuts, dangerous and delusional-they f*cked up the formula, I think, or maybe her batch of it, got something wrong either in the genetics or in the in-vitro phase, it’s hard to find info on that stuff.”
I get it now,
she’s scared. “You’re afraid it’s going to happen to you.”
“Marissa turned eighteen and went off the rails,” she asserts. “Suicides were mostly in the seventeen-and-a-half to nineteen range… What if I’ve got a time bomb in my brain, Captain? What if I get to eighteen, and my
mind comes apart?” she gestures out the window at her foster-brothers playing outside, “Who protects them from me, if I start seeing the enemy everywhere? If I lose the ability to
hold back?”
“Show me what you’re basing that on,” I tell her.
She slides a student terminal across the table. Most of the bookmarked information is ‘public education’ on Earth history certified by the Federation’s Department of Education. Extensive studies of the main players in the Eugenics Wars, the public data on Khan’s return, and FNN profiles of the Sons of Khan, an extremist group.
Later parts include the public speeches of Johnson Cave, the former Foreign Minister, and then, there’s the Denali incident from a few years ago… from the perspective of United Earth’s government.
It’s not hard to parse what’s going on in her head—Nung’s still a kid, extremely bright or not. It’s like looking at a primer on how to make someone like her hate and distrust themselves. Sometimes, just sometimes, human culture is so
wrong.
“You need to meet someone,” I tell her.
“Who?”
“Doctor Julian Bashir. Class of ‘64, CMO under the Emissary, or I guess Captain Sisko to you, during the Dominion War. Look him up.” I slide the tablet back across the table. “You’re not ‘fated’ to go insane, I
cannot believe that, and even if you are,
it can be fixed.” I gulp down another mouthful of pho and lean forward on my hands. “You know what I like to do, Amanda?”
“What?”
“Something I discovered in the war, something I don’t tell very many people. I’m sure you’ve felt it—you go into combat, you’ve got the enemy in your gunsight. And then you pull the trigger, and you know it—whether you’re the type that has to train and practice to take a life, the kind that has to pretend they're shooting a target instead of a person… or the kind that
doesn’t.”
“And you’re…”
I spread my hands, shrugging. “The latter. It’s
easy for me to kill people, and I
like it. I love flying and I like the challenge of pitting myself against another commander, but I get a
real kick out of personally putting a phaser bolt or a bayonet into whatever poor sod happens to be in my way. It’s addictive, it’s like a
phekk’ta drug to me.”
She just stares at me. “And you’re still in Starfleet? I mean, how do you deal with that?”
I take a pull on my mug of kava juice. “It took a little therapy, I won’t lie. I decided even though I didn’t like me very much afterwards when I got like that, I still loved being in space and having a job that meant something. I doubled down on trying to be the best damn captain I possibly can and trying to find ways to help people, be something I could be
besides a natural killer. I don’t
have to feed the beast, I just have to keep in mind the beast is there.”
“So you’re thinking—”
“Yeah. Nature versus nurture and so forth. You should look at some of the alternate theories on Khan and the rest of them, like out of Tau Ceti. Khan didn’t come out of nowhere—I fought with a few Taus during the war, and a bunch of the people who settled that system say it was Hindu ultranationalists made him as a
weapon. And don’t a lot of natural humans have something called an ‘MAOA-L variant’, correlates to aggression?”
“True,” she allows.
“I know for a fact I caught the equivalent on my dad’s side. But all I gotta do is decide, no, I don’t have any reason to kill this person and I got a lot of good reasons not to.”
She starts to nod. “I think I understand, ma’am.”
“So do me a favor, all right? Don’t sweat this cr*p, worry about what you can actually change. Keep up your appointments with your therapist. You got lucky you landed on Bajor—one bright spot of our history, we’ve got more experience dealing with PTSD symptoms than a lot of planets. And, next time you want to go on a slicing spree, Nung?” She looks up at me, a little red-faced. “There’s a form you fill out on the Ministry of Justice extranet site to get a license as a security tester.”
“I—Huh. I didn’t even think of that.”
I grin at her. “You play it right, you could even get college credit for it, if you want to go that way. And I think I’m gonna have seconds,” I add, reaching for the noodle spoon in the pot.
end prologue part one
