A young teenager sat at the eye-shaped window, gazing out of her home onto the streets of her homeworld. Hardly any of her people were on the streets, but groups of Jem'Hadar marched along them, going wherever one of those damned Vorta had told them to go. It was ridiculous. The Jem'Hadar on the streets of Cardassia Prime outnumbered the Cardassians! Jil Orra Madred sighed, and pulled her legs up so she could rest her chin on her knees. This treaty with the Dominion had ruined everything that she and her sister had planned since she had been seven!
Jil Orra stood up, and walked across the room to the large, clear dome that she kept her pet wompet in. She sat down on the floor beside it and ran her hand along the transparent metal, feeling the cracks of the doorway in the smooth surface.
{"Remember, Jil Orra, you must look after your wompet. He has no mother or father now."}
She opened the door and picked up the wompet, holding its long, thin body in her hands.
{"Do humans have mothers and fathers?"}
She stared at the smooth white fur, as smooth as Bolian silk, her sister told her.
{"Yes. But their mothers and fathers don't look after their children like we do..."}
She remembered her first wompet, the one that her father had given her when she was seven, when everything had still been right.
{"Jil Orra, your father wants you. He has something for you," the Glinn said, smiling at the little girl, who looked up from her drawing.
"A surprise?" she asked eagerly.
"A nice surprise," the Glinn replied.
"What is it?"
"You'll have to come with me to find that out," the Glinn teased. Jil Orra pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. She followed the Glinn out of the quarters she was sharing with her father while he was at this special posting. She trailed along the shiny, bland metal corridors, the sameness occasionally broken by double doors. The Glinn stopped at one of these doors, and opened it.
"Your daughter, Gul Madred," he announced, and Jil Orra stepped around him into the room. It was large, much larger than any of the other rooms here. She turned slowly, looking all around her. The room was mostly empty, with various torture devices hung from the roof, or lined up along the walls. She wondered if her father had had the opportunity to use them yet, then found that her question was answered when she looked straight ahead. A wide desk was at the end of the room, backed by the lights that her father favoured to break his subjects. In front of the desk a pink, scaleless, hairless humanoid in a red shirt was tied to a chair. In front of the humanoid was her father, and she ran across the room to greet him.
"Father!"
"Jil Orra, good morning," her father said, giving her a big hug. "How are you today?"
"Good," she said, wondering what the present that the Glinn had promised was.
"Look what I have for you," her father said, taking her by the shoulders and turning her. In front of the pink scaleless humanoid was a large, clear dome, and inside it was...
"A wompet!" she cried out happily. "Oh father, you got me a wompet! Just like you promised!" She fell to her knees beside the dome, and pressed her face up against it to watch the little white creature run around. Her father bent down and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Do you like him?"
"Oh yes," she breathed. "He's just what I always wanted. But you said I was too young to have one." She looked up at him, and he smiled back.
"I changed my mind. I think you are the perfect age for your first wompet. What are you going to call him?"
"Rikan," she giggled.
"Rikan? After your uncle?" her father asked, surprised.
"Yes. Because they both have beady black eyes."
Her father straightened up, and laughed. He turned to the humanoid tied to the chair.
"Isn't she precious?" he asked.
"She's adorable," the humanoid replied. Jil Orra turned from contemplating Rikan to look at the humanoid. It looked just like a normal Cardassian, except it was pink instead of grey, and it had no ridges or scales. It was wearing a red shirt, which left most of it uncovered, and Jil Orra made no pretence at not staring. Then she noticed marks from torture all over it, and her original guess that it was her father's new subject was confirmed. She turned to her father.
"Father, what is it?" she asked, pointing to the humanoid.
"He, Jil Orra," her father laughed. "He's a human."
"Oh. I've never seen a human before, have I?"
"No, you haven't. They're ugly creatures, aren't they?"
Jil Orra nodded. "Will you take Rikan out for me?"
"Of course." Her father opened the door of the dome, and carefully lifted Rikan out. She held out her arms, and her father laid Rikan in them. It began to wriggle, and nuzzled at her throat. She giggled, and slid one arm out from under it, the other arm clutching it to her chest. She began stroking it, marvelling at its soft fur. She had never felt anything so soft before. She felt the back of her neck tingling, and turned to see the human staring at her. She stared back, stroking Rikan. Her father was right, humans *were* ugly creatures if this one was anything to go by. She wondered if even human females had no hair, and asked her father, who laughed fondly. The human looked shocked.
"Of course they do. Most humans have hair, Jil Orra, but this one doesn't."
She nodded, and returned to playing with Rikan, ignoring the human. Finally, her father lifted Rikan out of her arms.
"Remember, Jil Orra," he told her, putting Rikan in its dome and shutting the door. "You must look after your wompet. He has no mother or father now."
She nodded, and stood up. She picked up the dome and hugged it to herself. "Do humans have mothers and fathers?" she asked, not looking at the human. Her father knelt down at looked at her eye to eye.
"Yes," he told her seriously. "But their mothers and fathers don't look after their children like we do."
She nodded again, and left the room. The Glinn was waiting for her to take her back to her quarters.
"I told you it was a nice surprise," the Glinn told her as they walked back. She grinned happily, and clutched the dome closer to herself.}
"Ow!" Jil Orra broke out of her reverie and looked at the tiny drop of blood forming on her fingertip. She took this wompet's head in her hand and turned it so that she could gaze into its beady black eyes. She stared until the wompet struggled, trying to break eye contact, but she wouldn't let it.
"*Never* bite me again," she said firmly. "I'm in charge here." She released the head and began to stroke the wompet, who reacted happily. Walking out of that room had been the last time she had seen her father when everything was still right. The last time before her seven-year-old's world had begun to crumple, leaving her with a burning desire for revenge.
Jil Orra sighed, relaxing as she stroked the wompet. The human in that room hadn't broken. Oh, he'd given up his secrets easily. Of course he had given up his secrets. Her father had been one of the most talented interrogators in the Obsidian Order, after all. But he hadn't broken, and her father had been forced into returning him to the other humans before he had broken. She sighed. Because that human hadn't broken, her father had been disgraced. Not officially, of course, but everyone knew it. The Obsidian Order had decided that if he couldn't even break a human, he wasn't good enough any more, and he no longer got any important jobs. He'd been demoted to Glinn, and set to ordinary surveillance jobs. What a waste of talent. She and her sister had been both embarrassed and furious. They both knew that it hadn't been their father's fault. It was the fault of that human - that Captain Jean-Luc Picard. At first, she and her sister hadn't known the human's name, but they found out once they decided that that was what they wanted to know. Then, they had begun plotting ways to get revenge on the Starfleet Captain. They were going to make him pay for refusing to let their father break him.
Then, of course, that Gul Dukat had made a treaty with the Dominion, and they had come into Cardassia. As allies, Dukat claimed. //If they were supposed to be our allies,// Jil Orra wondered, //why do the Jem'Hadar try to intimidate every Cardassian that they meet? Why do the Vorta behave as though they hold us in contempt?// There were Jem'Hadar everywhere, and Vorta popped up wherever they weren't wanted. The worst thing was, the Dominion and the Federation hated each other. They were at *war* with each other, with no end in sight. It was impossible for a Cardassian citizen to even move along the outskirts of the Federation. It was ridiculous! How was she and her sister meant to get their revenge if they couldn't get into the Federation?
Jil Orra sighed, shifting the wompet's weight slightly. She and her sister had been determined to somehow get into Federation space and take their revenge, but before they had figured out a way, the Dominion had gotten rid of the Obsidian Order. They'd disbanded it, killing every member they could get their hands on, including Glinn Madred. Jil Orra and her sister found someone they wanted to get revenge on more than Picard, so paused their plotting against *him*. They could deal with him after the Dominion. Her sister had come up with a way to sabotage a transporter to kill the Vorta that had given the order to destroy the Obsidian Order, but... How where they supposed to know that the Vorta were clones? The Dominion had just replaced that Vorta with an identical one.
Jil Orra sighed, idly stroking the wompet. Arranging for the deaths of Vorta was pointless, if they didn't stay dead. Something more permanent needed to be done. Somehow, the Dominion had to be forced out of Cardassia, and relations with the Federation had to be rebuilt. It was the only way to give her and her sister the freedom they needed to deal with Picard. That human who had destroyed their young worlds. She thought again of the words her father had spoken just before she left the room that day.
"Their mothers and fathers don't look after their children like we do."
Even though, now that she was older, she knew that those words had not exactly been true, having been spoken only to eat at Picard's spirit, she held onto them. //Humans might look after their children,// she thought, //but not like we do. If they cared for their children as much as we cared for ours, Picard would have realised how much his actions would have affected my father's children, and he would have allowed himself to be broken.//
Jil Orra sighed, and held the wompet up to look at it, draped across her hands. It was pointless to think of what might have been, the only thing that should be occupying her attention now was what she could do about it. The wompet didn't like being held in the air, and it struggled to break free. Jil Orra smiled to herself, imagining Picard in the wompet's place - helpless and struggling, his life in her hands.
//Only, she thought, I don't feel for Picard the way I feel for my wompet.// She flipped the dome's door open and placed the wompet inside, watching it run around in relief. //When I have him where I want him, I won't give him the safety and security he will wish for.//
She sat with her faced pressed up against the dome, staring at her wompet in silent mimicry of the little child she had been then.
FINIS