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KIRA’S MOMENT OF TRUTH

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Regarding the episode “Return To Grace,” imagine the fascinating universe in which Garak would have to go along as well, due to Tain’s requiring him to attend the conference. Remember, every possibility must happen somewhere.

 

            Dukat glared at Garak’s presence, but made no protest, undoubtedly realizing that it was futile, even dangerous to attempt to contradict Tain’s orders. Garak’s frosty look in return made it all too clear that the animosity was mutual.

Staring from one to the other, Kira asked, “What is wrong between you two, anyway?”

Dukat said sharply, “I don’t want to talk about it. Ask him. Only when I’m not around, though.”

After his rapid departure, she turned the question to Garak.

Garak spoke of the business of Dukat’s father only with extreme reluctance, but knowing the Bajoran’s stubbornness, he wisely knew that it was the only way to get her to drop the subject. He explained as briefly as possible.

Kira was affronted. “Well then no wonder! I can’t say that I blame him!”

Peevishly, Garak replied, “Well what choice did I have? If I had refused my orders, someone else would have tortured him instead; it was not within my purview to spare him; and then I would’ve been in trouble, too. Besides, I didn’t even know our Dukat then, or any of his family, so it’s not as if it was anything personal.”

“You unspeakable brute!” Kira couldn’t stop herself from blurting. She was to mightily regret that remark later, in the engine room, when the “tailor” came upon her and Dukat and Damar ostensibly talking business, specifically the Klingons, but with Dukat making his usual, predictable moves on her.

At the time that Garak entered, Damar was just saying, “Dukat, I don’t know why you continue to ask Kira to your bed. Just go ahead and do what most of us did during the Occupation: knock her down, have her, and be done with it.”

Kira favored Damar with a razor-sharp glare.

            Dukat reached to fondle her hair. “Unlike many of my soldiers, I have acquired no taste for the fine art of rape.”

She reared back resentfully. “Well then you’re out of luck with me, because that’s the only way that you’ll ever have me!”

Dukat’s eyes flared with anger, and too late she realized that she might have gone just a bit too far this time. In her rage at his unwelcome touch, her retort had sounded very much like a dare.

Sure enough, Damar took it as a challenge and urged, “Take her now! And if you don’t, I will, if only to teach her a lesson.”

Not contradicting the legate, the gul took a calculated step toward her, and Kira involuntarily flinched and stepped back a pace.

“Garak, help me.” Kira kept her tone calm, with effort.

He eyed her dispassionately. “You would expect a ‘brute’ like me to help you? Perhaps instead I should show you just how brutal I can be.” He casually moved a bit closer.

Three against one. Not even an experienced freedom fighter could hope to win against those odds. And what they threatened….

Working not to cringe again, Kira retreated yet another step, but Dukat followed with a deliberately measured pace forward, unmistakably intrigued. Her lower lip betrayed her by beginning to tremble, and she bit down on it hard.

“You’ve hurt yourself,” Dukat told her, wonder in his voice.

Only then did she taste the blood. She had to struggle to keep her eyes from flickering nervously, but while occupied with that, she heard her breathing become unsteady. Did her own body have to betray her at this crucial moment?

“You’re frightened.” Dukat was truly astonished. “I’ve never even imagined you showing fear, before this.”

“We’ve found her weakness.” Garak spoke like the interrogator that he was, sounding delighted in his still resentful vengefulness.

“Now that we know it, we should exploit it,” Damar said.

The three were evidently in agreement, although so far, none of the men appeared inclined to make the first move. Kira instinctively sensed that, as soon as one did, all three would be on her like a pack of wolves. She closed her eyes to conceal the panic that she felt rising inexorably, so that her brown orbs wouldn’t give her away any more than they already had.

But by now, Dukat was as fascinated as if she’d been an entirely new species. He took an experimental step farther in her direction. Hearing it, or perhaps even feeling the subtle air currents due to his proximity, Kira was unable to prevent her eyes from snapping open once more, revealing the stark terror that she was feeling.

“You’re genuinely afraid! Of us. Of this.” As Dukat made yet another step, Kira’s back connected with the wall, and forced an automatic gasp from her.

All three Cardassians were eyeing her in various degrees of fascination and cruelty. Never taking his gaze from her, Damar inquired, “Garak? She called you a brute?”

“She did. We had an argument just a little while ago.”

“How unfortunate. For her. Maybe you should demonstrate your brutality.”

“By joining you two in rape? Or by torture?” His reckless tone demonstrated that he would be pleased either way.

“I wonder which she fears more?” Dukat said speculatively.

Kira willed her eyes to remain steady this time, revealing nothing. But her mind raced. Ziyal was not within earshot of even her fiercest scream, she was quite sure. Neither was any of the crew, although she bore no illusions that the crewmen would help her; they were far more likely to want to join in with the men. Whether or not Dukat would allow that from any underlings besides his right-hand man Damar, she was not so certain, but she did not wish to risk it, in any case.

Unable to keep a tremor out of her voice, Kira spoke as evenly and diplomatically as possible. “Garak, I apologize. I had no right to call you that. Gul Dukat, sir?” She watched his eyes widen at the sudden, unprecedented respect in his title and in her tone. “I realize now that my hasty remark sounded like a dare. That was not my intention. Please forgive me.” She felt the protest of her rebellious pride, but forced it away; too much was at stake.

“Wow,” Damar commented in stunned amazement. “We’ve really got her this time. I’ve often said that Bajorans need a lesson in respect; it looks like our most obstinate one is finally getting hers.”

Internally, Kira rebelled at the indignity, but outwardly, she dared not show it.

Again Dukat put out a hand to touch her, this time caressing her cheek, but now she endured it motionlessly, except for the trembling that she could no longer even try to hide, as well as silently, but for tiny little whimpers and gasps that she could not quite suppress. All three of the men found the small sounds entertaining, judging by their smirks.

Dukat asked her quietly, “Were you ever raped during the Occupation?” It went without saying that he meant by any of his people.
            “No,” she whispered, shivering.

“Fear of the unknown,” clarified Garak.

“The way to tame her once and for all,” suggested Damar.

Her eyes closed and she shuddered violently.

In the same soft tone, Dukat speculated, “But you heard things. From other Bajoran women.” Phrased as a statement, it was still obviously a question.

This time, her tremor was nearly a spasm of terror and disgust, accompanied by a wince. “Yes!” Kira was nearly breathless with fright.

Garak was nodding. “A genuine phobia, all right, and she’s got it bad. I would suggest that we begin the way that most any torture session begins: by stripping her completely. That can easily lead either to a gang rape or torture, whichever you prefer.”

Dukat was clearly about to agree; as Garak spoke, his hand had shifted to the neckline of Kira’s uniform.

Realizing that attack was imminent, and that any persuasion that she might hope to effect had to start immediately, Kira blurted, “I’ll beg you on my knees if I have to, if it’ll stop you! But please, if you must do this, be gentle, I implore you, and I’ll promise not to fight!” Now the tears finally came, and she let them. “Just please don’t tear me apart!!”

“Yep, she’s heard plenty about us from other women,” Damar announced smugly.

Dukat smirked back at him. “While I admit that I’d love to see the good major on her knees, it would not be nearly as delightful as seeing her nude and helpless beneath each of us.”

Kira muttered tensely to herself, “How could I have avoided this all through the Occupation, only to have it happen now?!” She gritted her teeth and pleaded, “Please, don’t do this to me!! Not this! Anything but this!!!”

Garak grinned secretively. “Shall I then torture you instead?”

She stared at him wordlessly.

Damar chuckled. “I think that you’ve put her into shock.”

Hearing that, Kira shook herself to snap out of it, and asked plaintively, “Garak! Why won’t you accept my apology??”

“Because it wasn’t sincere. You only said it because you’re scared and in trouble. You still consider me a brute.”

“Then prove me wrong!”

“Oh no, I am a brute, on occasion. I plan to prove it to you.”

“No!!” She stared into his unyielding eyes for just a moment, and then turned her pleas once more to Dukat. “I said that I had no intention of daring you! Why won’t you believe me???”

“I believe you,” he answered easily. “But at this point I no longer care what you intended. The part of your somewhat rash statement that is significant is that I will have you no other way, that you’ll never give yourself to me willingly. I therefore have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, by taking you this way.”

“No!!! Oh no no!!” Her back against the wall, literally as well as figuratively, and by this time leaning all of her body weight against it, her head rolled from side to side in misery. The instant that she felt Dukat’s hands take a firm grip on both of her upper arms, she cut loose with all of the volume that she had to emit a startlingly high-pitched scream, followed by a desperately harsh, “Ziyal!!!!” The well-aimed punch that Dukat delivered to her midsection knocked the wind – and all sound – out of her. She was gasping severely just to breathe, as Garak and Damar grabbed her from either side and dragged her down to the floor. Her clothes were gone dizzyingly fast, and her eyes blurred in shame and terror.

 

 “You’re…helping me?” a miserable and exhausted Kira asked from a bunk in someone’s private stateroom aboard ship, after later regaining consciousness.

“We couldn’t just leave you there on the floor; crewmen would’ve found you, and you’d’ve gotten more of the same,” responded Dukat casually, ministering to her as routinely as if he did so every day.

“And you couldn’t take anymore,” added Damar smugly.

“Am I badly injured???”

Garak answered, “Oh yeah. But we’ve got the bleeding stopped. That’s another thing: if we’d left you, you’d’ve bled to death.”

“But I will recover?”

“Eventually. But that amount of injury will be slow to heal,” he told her pragmatically.

“Can’t you just repair the damage instantly with a dermal regenerator?” she requested.

“We could, but you’ll learn your lesson better this way.” Damar sounded quite self-satisfied.

Kira eyed Dukat, bending over her. “Ziyal will wonder what’s become of me.”

“I’ll tell her that you’re not feeling well, and that I’m afraid that it’s contagious, so she’s not allowed to visit you.”

Giving up that route, Kira implored, “Can’t I at least have a painkiller?”

Garak smirked. “You have to be joking.”

“You know that that’s not our way.” Damar grinned.

Even Dukat agreed, “We want you to suffer; it’s part of your punishment.”

“But it hurts so much!” Silently, the Bajoran cursed herself for how whiny she sounded.

“That’s the idea.” Dukat was uncharacteristically blunt.

“That’s what we want to hear,” Damar concurred with gusto.

“Then we achieved our purpose,” Garak concluded with clinical efficiency.

“It feels like I’m torn in half!”

“That’s a fairly accurate assessment,” the professional torturer confirmed.

“It will take you quite a while to recover.” Damar clearly relished her plight.

“What happens then? After I’m healed.”

“What do you mean?” Dukat glanced up as he worked.

Timidly, she whispered, “Are you going to do it again???” She clearly feared the answer.

“No,” he admitted nearly as quietly. “Unless you make any more ill-advised remarks.”

“Never again!” She shivered spasmodically.

“I suspect that you won’t.” Damar was almost unbearably smug. He added significantly, “And of course, you’ll comply from now on, when Dukat asks you to his bed?” He framed it as a question, nearly daring her to rebel.

“Yes, sir,” she responded timidly with eyes downcast, avoiding Dukat’s penetrating gaze.

“Looks like we’ve finally tamed her.” Damar exchanged a gloating look with Garak.

 

Once back on the station days later, Kira’s face burned with shame as she saw Sisko recognize her completely subdued humbleness toward Garak. Meek and respectful, she was utterly incapable of even meeting the Cardassian’s eyes, and she obeyed even his most casual commands automatically. Even worse, she knew that he was issuing them gratuitously, just to flaunt and revel in his power over her. The commander’s evident astonishment reddened her flaming cheeks even further.

 

Her real nightmares recommenced, however, when the Cardassians and the Dominion retook the station from the Federation.

Dukat wasted no time in informing Kira that she would report to his quarters as soon as both were off duty each “night.” The smug expressions of Damar and the pardoned, reinstated Garak taunted Kira as she humbly consented to Dukat’s demand.

Timidly, she asked of the other two, “You…won’t be there??”

“Not unless you need another demonstration of our authority.” Damar looked her up and down, clearly wishing that she would require a renewed lesson, but willing to leave her to Dukat’s pleasure, since the gul was the one who truly desired her, as long as she obeyed him.

“You will obey Dukat without rebellion, then?” Garak demanded clarification.

“I will,” she confessed in shame.