Chains of the Past

Posted on Fri Apr 7th, 2017 @ 4:33am by Commander Cor Cordale & Lieutenant Commander Ziyal Tajor

Mission: The Trial of Cor Cordale
Location: Primary Engineering

Ziyal wanted to get to know the other department heads. She walked towards the office of the Chief Engineering Officer and third officer, Cor Cordale. She pressed the chime, letting him know that someone wanted to see him.

The office chime rang, but there was no answer. Not from in the office anyway. "Hey." a voice came from the side, and there stood the third officer: Cordale, the Thux. A brilliant cobalt blue fur coat on his weaselish frame, blemished only by his prosthetic left arm, which was a model older than he was easily. The arm itself had probably arm better weeks, and wore several scratches and wear marks. He stood with a minor bunch, but it seemed natural on him.

"Welcome to Primary Engineering. I'm the chief, just call me Cor. What can I do for you, or is this an office chat?" he asked with a smirk. Seemed friendly enough.

Ziyal could not help but smile back as she turned to the engineer, "I'm here to try and see what I can dig up about the Jennari. You've been there for a lot of the things that have happened."

"Not my favorite people. C'mon, let's have a sit." and invited her into the office. No pictures of family, no pictures of graduation. Just schematics, and a few models of various classes of starship. Though the first thing to greet the two of them upon entry was the fresh smell coffee, with a hint of cinnamon.

"Like coffee? I'll pour you a cup, otherwise, help yourself to the wall." he motioned to the replicator, while he poured himself a cup of Joe.

"Now, first and foremost, freedom is the highest cause a Thux can work towards. The Jennarii, or however you say it, are slavers. Pure and simple. The day we met them we kinda threw everything we had at them, and it bounced. Then, three of them came over with their... Rhetoric."

He actually bristled..

She nodded, "I love coffee, I think it's what Starfleet runs on more than antimatter." She said, trying to make a joke. "You'll probably need to slow down a bit, I'm not familiar with Thux culture, or what you are meaning by slavery."

He nodded, and motioned to the large metal container that contained the sacred beverage. "I mix mine with a little cinnamon to give it a little extra kick, but cinnamon doesn't dissolve, so watch for grains." he cautioned. "And you're probably right. Antimatter runs the ships, but engineers run on coffee." he smirked, enjoying her joke.

He drooped a bit though... "Yeah, I'm kinda making it up as I go along. Borrowing from other cultures when something feels right. I.. eh, that's another story for another mug, not gonna be a Mopey'Thux on the first visit. Catch me after some scotch, and we'll have a good chat. Best to know, Thux are loyal, strong, and your best friend in a fight." he detailed quickly.

"The Jannarii wanted to impose their way of life on the Federation, and opposition would be met with extermination." he said, pretty clearly. "So I think it's a solid combination of slavery and colonization." a pause to sip some coffee, "Help clarify?" he asked, honestly.

Ziyal nodded, not sure what he meant by making it up as he went along. Probably something to do with the mopey Thux. "Makes sense, go on." She said, taking a drink of the coffee and appreciating the cinnamon.

"So anyway, where was I.... yeah, they show up with their religious book about how to live life the right way, and... well it was one of the few mistakes I'll ever call the Captain on, but you don't bring someone who used to live in chains to a talk with slavers." he paused, "You know what, a lot of what I'm going to have to say is colored by who and what I am, and who and what I was. Got time for a bit of a long chat? It's a shitty story, and I'll let you know when it has a happy ending, but the main character is pretty charming, and modest to boot." he smirked.

"I mean I can tell the rest of the brief without filling you in, but I think it may help you understand if you knew where I was coming from."

Ziyal had read Cor's file, but there was something diffrent about hearing from the man himself. She smiled at him, "Only if you listen to my story when your done." She said, settling in to watch what was shaping up to be a very fun experience.

"Can't get a better deal than that." he commented, then took a swig. "Long ago. I honestly don't know, but not like long long ago..." he smirked, "There was a latinum mine, lorded over by Ferengi and inhabited by Thux. Jovial, hard working, honest folk who mined latinum, ate terrible food, slept in uncomfortable beds, and did this every day for ... hell I don't know. Years."

It struck the Thux then that he knew very little about events he was personally present for.

"But let's focus on three in particular. Cor, Sil, and Cal. Three friends, brothers almost. Inseparable. They slept in the same area, ate at the same time, worked the same tunnels. They laughed, they drank, and while drunk they invented games to pass the time. You know, like you do. Every now and then, the overseers would call a meeting and we'd all gather in the main cavern, and one of us would be promoted to the foreman of a new mine. We'd cheer, and they'd walk off tall. Sometimes we'd even get letters from the other Thux that left before, talking of riches and profit for all."

He paused, that droop came back. He clenched his coffee mug just a little tighter. "After a while, all the letters sounded the same."

"They paid us, but got most of it back, so Sil had a plan. We'd secretly horde our money, save as much as we could, and at one of the meetings we'd surprise them with enough pay to buy out our contracts. Then we'd go off and make our own profit. Make our own mark in the world out there. Sil, the planner." he paused, "We... we were doing good on the plan, but then I got caught in a cave in. Sil made it out, Cal made it out, but Cor... he slipped and his arm got pinned under tons of rock."

The fingers on his prosthetic clenched and relaxed, almost involuntarily, "We couldn't let the overseers find us not working. We'd all get in trouble. So Cal went and got some booze. Pain Killer he called it. Taste Killer more like it. Sil... Sil came back with a heat shovel, the edge white hot."

Cordale then rolled back the shortened sleeve of his uniform's left arm, showing exactly where the Thux ended, and the prosthetic began. "I woke up in the infirmary, with this. Set us back a bit, but..." he just shook his head, "We'd make it back. Together. And we were on the road to just that. A few dozen meetings later, the three of us are sitting and listening. Another letter, another promise of profit. Then they announce the names of the Thux to be promoted." he took a breath, "Cal, and Sil. They had to go, and they couldn't let on that the ruse was thinner then smoke. They had to go, and I had to applaud." a pause, though he held up a hand to let her know he was okay. Just, really dusty in this room. "When the shock wore off, and the overseers were about to conclude business, I remembered that we didn't have enough to buy out three contracts.... but we had enough to buy out one."

"I bought my freedom from that mine that day." he said, with an air of certainty. "I never saw another Thux outside of that mine, and when I went back to check some time later, it was empty. As far as I know, I'm the only Thux in Starfleet." he said with a nod. "No racial history, no culture, no heritage, nothing but some mining songs and some drinking games that the rules only make sense while you're drunk. That's why I kinda pick and choose from the mistakes and lessons other races made. Especially humans. Ever read their history? Wow it's like a Do and Do Not of what to and not to do." he took a swig of coffee, "And that's why Freedom is the most important thing to a Thux. Anyone, or anything, that threatens the freedom of others is frowned upon heavily. The Jenarrii are on that list, as was the Admiral."

"I'm in the middle of writing a book. Book of Thux, cause I suck at naming things." he smirked, "It's not a religion, but more of a collection of suggestions. Don't be an asshole, try to help make someone's life better when you leave, know when to shut up, that kinda stuff. I... I don't have anything of my own to look back on, but if I meet any more Thux I don't want them to be stuck not knowing." he took another swig, "As for Sil and Cal, they're always with me. Everytime I replicate or repair the prosthetic, I carve their names into the forearm plate. One day, when I'm ready to let them just be memories instead of guardian angels, I'll keep the plate bare. Until then..." and he showed Ziyal his prosthetic in a better light, where two hexagonal Ferengi number sequences of three distinct digits could be seen in the metal. From this angle, in the light, the dogtag that hung from the collar around Cordale's neck could be seen, with another Ferengi number sequence on it: Cor Cor Dalle. One One Five.

His name. His number.

Ziyal looked, nodding solemnly as she absorbed his story. "We carry the memory of the lost with us, always. They live in us and what we leave behind." She said, placing her right hand on his prosthetic. He could clearly see her missing middle finger.

He gave a nod, "Humans have a medical condition called phantom limb syndrome. It's sensation in a limb your missing. Cute name, yeah... but like you said, they're with us. Sometimes, when I'm stressed or just worried, I think I feel a hand on my shoulder, or someone taking my hand. Creepy as hell sometimes, but maybe... who knows."

"Usually, I just take them drinking. Lightweights." he chuckled, but noticed her missing finger. He didn't obviously point it out, cause that's rude. "You sat through my tale. I promised I'd hear yours. So please..." he motioned towards her with his coffee mug. Shame about her finger, though it was a good thing she wasn't a human. It's apparently the one they use most.

Ziyal thought for a moment, "Well, in some ways, your tale is a lot like my own. Well not just my own, but the one that grounds me, who I am. I don't know how much you know about Cardassians like myself. We believe in Loyalty, Family, and Duty. We pride ourselves on being tough minded and cunning. There is a quote from Ambassador Spock that says, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." That is how we think, in many ways that is who we are."

Ziyal sipped at the cofee to collect her thoughts. "In Cardassian litature, a story that follows the life of one person is often seen as being short sighted. Our great litature follows many pepole, over the course of generations. All of whom show consistant selflessness for their whole lives. Our lives are not seen as being just our own, to do with as we please, but embedded in a rich tapestry of history and tradtion."

Ziyal smiled, thinking about the values that she cherished. Then the smile soured. "However, the Cardassion Union became the dark side of those dreams. I don't have time for how that happened, but suffice to say that it warped and twisted the values that we held deepest into a evil mockery of them. Loyalty became blind, family was turned into a liability, and duty went to the undeserving. The needs of the many became the needs of the state. So we became slaves in chains that we forged for ourselves."

Ziyal took a sip of her coffee as she transisioned closer to her own story. "I was born in those chains. Chains made heavier by my parents belief in Oralius. I'm a follower of the Oralian Way, a secritive religion with a long and proud history. However, the Union persecuted and killed anyone who they found practicing the religion. Yet, we were still loyal to Cardassia. Even though the Obsidian Order hunted us as traitors. It is said that the Obsidian Order knows what you have for dinner and can have you executed for putting too much salt on it. I don't know if that's true, what I do know is that my earlyist memories are tained with fear of them."

Ziyal considered for a moment, thinking back to the events of her childhood. "One day, a huge spaceship appeared over our small colony. Invaders who occupied our town. The irony of it is that it made us more free, not less. The invaders did not monitor our every movement. They did not pull pepole screaming out of their houses for crimes that they did not even know they had commited. They did not execute those who chose to follow a higher power. Ironically, the occupation made us freer."

Ziyal took anouther sip of her coffee. "In time we learned that we were at a crossroads. We could choose to break our chains and join with the invaders, something almost unthinkable. Or we could remain in them because we had grown comfortable in them. In this chaos, my grand-father wrote a book in the style of the repetitive epic. In it, he traced the lives of two families over ten generations. One family chose to serve a goverment that would serve them. The outher chose to serve a goverment that served only it's self. Both families gave their undying loyalty to their goverments. The family that served the goverment that served them prospered. The family that chose to serve the goverment that served it's self was destroyed by the very goverment that they had poured their hearts and lives into. My grand-father argued that we stood at the crossroads of history and that all future generations would look back on that day as a turning point."

Ziyal thought for a moment about that turning point. "We chose to join the Federation. My father joined Starfleet Intelligance. It sounds weird I guess, my origin story as it were just has me as a very young girl who's parents are upset about something I didn't really understand at the time. However, that is what made me. What informs who I am. I'm not just Ziyal, a nervious lutenant who might be way in over her head, but the inheritor of a legacy. A legacy I will one day pass on to my own children. Or at least that's the story that I tell myself."

Ziyal looked at Cor, "Although it is in diffrent ways, I think we are both escapees of the chains of the past."

Cordale listened to her story, those icy blue eyes of his never wavering, never being distracted by something behind her, never losing focus. The only time he moved was to take a muted sip of coffee every now and then. At the end, he was silent as he parsed everything together. "If we share anything in common, rather than chains, I think it's better to focus on us both inheriting a hell of a legacy." Cordale pointed out. "I know it sounds odd to say, and hear, but trust me it helps... you're safe here." it was now his turn to put his hand on her's. That heavy prosthetic against her hand. "And that office door is always open. No really, lock's busted." he smirked, "Ever get to the point where you need a friend and a drink, find me. We can discuss legacies."

"And interesting segway time, it's legacies like that that the Jennarri are looking to take away." Cordale worked that in so smooth, you'd think he planned it. "I think I'm saying it right. But anyway, that's pretty most of it. They showed up with tech we couldn't scratch, and rocked up like a meteor. Rather than end us, they boarded and gave us their ultimatum. Conform to their way of life in like... a month, or die."

"Since then, we've been prepping, we've been war gaming, we've been chasing leads." a final swig of his mug to finish it off. "It hasn't been pretty, but we can't always be mapping nebula or chasing solar flares."

Ziyal nodded in agreement, "If only life were that simple. Back in the good old days of Kirk perhaps. So what did you try during that battle?" She asked.

"Things really were simpler back then, weren't they?" he thought, and then chuckled. "Well, we didn't try anything radically out of the box like gravitic warheads or anything. I wasn't really on the bridge during the encounter, I was here keeping us powered. I can get you the logs of the power distribution network during the attack so you can see power draw and drain events. Maybe see a pattern there." he offered. "I'd say your next move should be finding someone who was on the bridge during the initial attack and asking them for a rundown of what happened on their end."

"Now, I'm not saying I'm some kinda black market high end weapon manufacturer or anything, but any engineer worth his salt can turn a photon torpedo into a graviton payload delivery system with pretty much what I have under the sink. Not a single request. Not one." he sounded almost insulted. "I mean, when the standard weapons fail, you kick it up a notch. When the top shelf stuff won't work, you gotta improvise."

Ziyal nodded, trying to think through the reports she had read. "The report mentioned a Polaron Torpedo modification, I'm not familiar with those."

"Polarons are tricky." his posture changed to something more casual. He was comfortable explaining things to people, "They're terribly effective as weaponized particles, cause there's really nothing in the universe that benefits from exposure to them. In high concentrations, polaron radiation is fatal to almost every form of stable solid humanoid life. Changelings are resistant but eventually even they'll succumb."

"There's really almost no non-weaponized use for a polaron." he summarized. "Now, as a warhead, yeah it'd be brutal but I never heard of one being deployed. I do know that there was a general call for all hands to abandon ship. If a polaron torpedo was deployed at or around that time, it'd kill everyone outside the ship proper. Escape pods are shielded against common radiation bands, but polaron radiation is anything but common."

Ziyal nodded, "One of the things that made the Jem'Hadar so tough during the early stages of the war, and to a lesser extent through all of it was that they used a phased polaron beam as their main weapon. Starfleet should still have the technical documents about how they did it. If we needed one, do you think you could make it?" She asked.

Cordale gave a nod, "Yeah, gruesome weapons. Even a glancing shot was a serious issue." a pause then as he considered her question, "Are we talking handheld polaron weapons, or starship scale?"

Ziyal sipped her coffee. She was enjoying her visit with Cordale. "Starship scale, I don't know of any handheld polaron weapons, mostly because of many of the concerns you noted earlier."

Cordale put his empty mug down and cupped his chin in thought, "You'd have to really shield the power source, actually, and fire off the polarons in quick bursts. So that.." he paused, and chuckled, "See, the danger in presenting a problem to an engineer. Once you open that box, we're usually already thinking of a solution. To answer the initial question, a full beam is tough because of the shielding and the radiation. Pulses, however, are quite possible." he paused again, and now started to actually pace behind his desk, "Could also use the navigational dish to charge and eject a mass of high-energy polarons. Isolate them in a short-lived magnetic shell, and then ... sorry, thinking out loud. Short answer, beams no pulses yes. Long answer, well... might need a refill." he picked his mug back up with a smirk.

"If I could get some details on their shielding tech, I could work on a workaround. Maybe something not quite so inimical to life."

Ziyal nodded, and noticed her cup was almost empty as well. She took the last sip and put the glass back on the table. "There was some shielding that we developed during the war, I'll be sure to forward those files to you. My main question is if we can do it. I want to make sure if it comes up we can do it. Although, I suspect you are the kind of person I would enjoy hearing the long answer too."

He smirked, a motion that looked almost comical with his muzzle, "Well, the medium answer is yes, it's very doable. Just not in sustained beam form. Pulses put less of a strain on the system, and generate less deadly radiation. Well, it's still plenty deadly on the receiving end." he pointed out. "But to answer the main question, yes. We can do it. I can start running simulations and drills to see about how quickly we could implement it if necessary." he offered.

"Might even run the numbers on possibly setting one of the phaser arrays to a rotating particle effect. Dial a weapon, in cheesy Ferengi salesman speak. Modulate, emulate, and then fire. Or eradicate, to stick with the rhyme but that sounds a little too violent. We're talking about a WEAPON to be honest... Though I think something like that would need a ton of approval stamps, and would probably burn out the array quickly." he paused to think, "So yeah, for the moment let's just concern ourselves with polarons."

Ziyal laughed quietly, "You reminded me of my roommate at the Academy. She has a tendency to think a bit bigger than the problem. And occasionally she would go on these mad power trip rants where she would want to take apart a star or something equally as audacious."

"Are you kidding? Taking apart a star is easy. Outrunning the shockwave? That's the trick." he chuckled. "I prefer to think of it as Anticipating Problems and Requests." he pointed out, "See, if you tell someone 'Yeah I can make a phaser into a toaster' then someone will ask if it butters the toast too." he explained.

"So when you tell someone 'I can make a phaser array into a polaron pulse emitter' then someone's going to say 'well, since you made it launch polarons, what about positrons?' and now there's a whole Standard Model of emissions that people want." he chuckled as he continued thinking out loud, "Might as well just make a weapon that shoots Physics at people. Oh wait, we have that." he stopped pacing, and just smirked.

Ziyal looked at him quizically. "I'm not an engineer, I'm not sure I got that that bit."

He put his living hand up in a posture to suggest an apology, "Sorry, I kinda got carried away. Physics has this thing called the Standard Model. It's a predictive sort of blueprint for how the universe is put together. Stuff like 'If there's a positively charged particle out there, there must be an opposing charged antiparticle' and so forth." he started, "And well, if you go down the list for every particle out there and almost every waveform, there's a weapon that utilizes it. Positrons, Antiprotons, Bosons of all sorts. It's pretty weird. Hell there are still folks in the Federation who prefer solid mass projectile weapons, so we're even throwing kinetic energy at our enemies." he chuckled.

"Gravity, light, heat, sound... we've weaponized just about everything really." he paused, "We're pretty far off topic. You came here asking about polarons and here I am about six seconds away from talking about high-energy snark." he chuckled.

Ziyal laughed quietly, "Well, can we weaponize high-energy snark? I know some people who can make really cutting remarks on the fly."

Cordale gave a chuckle, "Once we unify language. Some things just don't translate." he gave her a smirk, "You're a lot more fun to talk with then most of the folks who come down to Engineering proper. Most of the time they have requisition orders and hardly a friendly hello." He paused for a moment, "It's good that you got to stay. I think you'll make things nice and interesting here on the Victory. Interesting in a good way. I know Valeria's people use Interesting in like a bad way but I think you'll do just fine here."

Ziyal nodded thoughtfully as she stood, "Thanks, it's good to hear that. I really do want to become a member of this crew. I've enjoyed talking to you too. Personally, I've always thought that 'may you live in interesting times' can be seen as a blessing and a curse. Sure things might be interesting because they are bad or chaotic, but they can also be interesting because technology is advancing and we are exploring new ideas and new places. Living in an interesting time means that you get a shot at really making a difference in the world."

"Means the Universe is watching. Give them something to look at." he summarized, as only a Thux could. "Door's always open, let me know if you need anything, and help yourself to a refill. I gotta get back to fixing things, the glamorous life of Engineering is never done." he smirked before putting his mug back by the coffee source. "Just, helps to bring your own mug."

Ziyal laughed, "I'll be sure to bring my own next time. Thanks for your help Cor. I should probably be getting along, so I'll leave you too it. She said, leaving the Thux's office.