Jaress Kel - Shooting the Messenger

[Doz Finch]

Constantly in awe of Jo's ability to set a scene, and how the words just flow so right. I realise it's not a sim with tags, but it is a key mood setting sim, and a fab read. @Jo Marshall

 

Jaress Kel - Shooting the Messenger

 

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((Earlier: Niu Hotel, Borrel District, Witherington, Indre III))

 

Jaress Kel watched from his lofty location as a unit of Cardassian troopers surged through the neon-drenched streets of the Borrel District, their shining metal uniforms and heavy boots thudding against the solid ground. Sounds of the vessels hovering overhead faded into the distance as they stormed towards their target; a large hotel that loomed tall and high like a monolith of richness and excess.

 

Or, at least, it did. Once upon a time. Kel remembered it.

 

Early in the hours running up to the invasion, air attacks from Cardassian low-flying bombers had taken a run at the city, landing their incendiary weapons into the walls of the opulent structure. Windows were smashed, doors were pitched out of their recesses, and floors crumbled in parts, revealing the twisted metal and concrete skeleton that formerly held them together. The interior was a sombre maze of wreckage and debris, once great hallways and chambers reduced to decaying mounds of broken furniture, shattered decorative glass, and steel slowly giving way to the onslaught of rust. 

 

Looters had descended like locusts, leaving nothing but hollowed-out shells of what had once been exquisite chandeliers, sumptuous carpets, and elegant furnishings. The magnificent paintings on the walls had been removed, the marble pillars had lost their polished lustre, and even the cutlery from the once-luxurious restaurant had gone. Left were the lingering odours of smoke, the strange quiet that filled the empty corridors, and haunting recollections of what had been lost.

 

Kel couldn't blame them if he tried. They still had their lives to live. Had to make do with what they could find and scavenge; piecing a life back together from the ruins the Cardassians had left in their wake. A war fought on too many fronts. A war lost on all.

 

The desperate survivors had taken sanctuary in the hotel, creating makeshift houses and shelters out of whatever they could find among the shattered walls. Others had created curtains out of tattered clothing, rudimentary beds out of old mattresses, and even started little fires in whatever they could scrounge to put together, casting flickering shadows on the peeling walls. The lower floors were their sanctuary, while the upper floors were his. A vantage position from which to view and observe.

 

In the great hall, a solitary chandelier hung over the stairwell. A gleaming reminder of the magnificence, grandeur, and luxury that Witherington once provided. Nobody would steal that. Kel had prohibited it.

 

He could hear the Cardassians moving closer. Up the stairs. He could picture the corridors like veins, pulsing with energy and carrying the troopers further into the hotel's depths until they arrived at the peak of the hotel's splendour – the Presidential Suite.

 

They were too late.

 

Kel: Bentel tana ja'ital1.

 

Unable to fend them off, unable to run, unable to rally his people to defend themselves, he'd placed the antique disruptor pistol beneath his chin, and painted the wall behind him. 

 

Cardassians flooded in. Sadly, their target sat like a puppet with its strings severed, slumped in a chair. As close to an underworld monarch as the resistance on Witherington would get–the last vestige of leadership holding back the ruinous onslaught of Cardassian cruelty.

 

 

1 Bajoran: Prophets protect my light (beloved).

 

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Jaress Kel

Bajoran Resistance

Witherington Colony

G239304JM0