Epilogue
In the end, there was war.
The Maquis were eradicated. Thousands of them died fighting, many others running. A few dozen survived and were incarcerated by the Federation. Those who were captured by the Cardassians and Dominion were killed after gruesome interrogation sessions. The colonies they protected were destroyed, civilians murdered, cities annihilated. There was nothing left to protect, and no one left to do the protecting. All they had fought for was lost, one spark among many that stoked the fires to come. The Federation protested, the Cardassians disregarded, and the Jem'Hadar exterminated.
The Federation was victorious, but it was a pyrrhic victory. The war itself had not gone well, despite the outcome. Dozens of Federation worlds had been occupied and brutalized. A hundred starships – the entire Seventh Fleet – had been destroyed in a single engagement. Two hundred more were lost in the operation to retake Deep Space Nine. Three hundred were slaughtered at the Second Battle of Chin'toka. That was just the beginning. The war had been won, but the cost had been more horrible than anyone could have ever imagined.
And the Cardassians…
For the first time since the war had begun, he returned to his house. Like many Cardassian homes, it had held many generations of his family. He pushed in the door and walked through. The sunlight did not abate – the house now had two walls, not four. The roof was gone, blown apart by blasts that came from orbit. The stained glass that had adorned the house was scattered over the floors.
He trudged up to the second floor, testing the stairs on each step as he rose. The floor held his weight, but he was not sure it would for much longer. Exploring what was left of his family house, he came upon an aberration – one of the windows had survived. His grandmother had been an artist – she crafted such things and had been well known for her skills. Many of the shattered windows had been her work, but this one defied logic and was intact.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall adjacent to the colored glass. He stared through the window to look out on the city. Flames still licked the buildings, reaching skywards, and there would be no one to put them out – eventually they would extinguish themselves when there was nothing left to burn. The smoke snaked up into the sky, mingling with clouds of black ash that muted the bright Cardassian sun.
That ash contained the city, he reflected. It contained what was left of the buildings, the monuments… the people. It danced in the sky, all that was left of that which had made Cardassia proud. Debris that had been the Cardassian fleet fell from orbit, leaving burning streaks of flame in the blackened sky.
His parents were dead. His brothers were dead. His aunts, his uncles, his cousins, his nieces, his nephews… the house was empty. His family was carried by the wind, scattered over the burned-out shell of a planet that was Cardassia Prime. Nor had they died alone – eight hundred million Cardassians had died in the waning hours of the war.
Eight hundred million. They had reached up with a united hand to grasp the stars and the arm had been severed at the shoulder.
Looking through the glass into the ashen sky, he swore the sun dimmed further as the dust swirled around, carried by the somber wind. Gul Veroz Evek, Cardassian Guard, Fourth Order, the last of his line, rested his head against his grandmother's window and wept.
Carry on my wayward son…