Chapter Text
Six months after the Dominion War, First Castellan Elim Garak stood in the ruins of what was once Central Command. Few of the computers were functional, much like the rest of his war-torn planet. After the death of Legate Corat Damar, the task of rebuilding and defining a New Cardassia had fallen to him, a former exile. And here he was, stood at the very epicentre of the destruction, trying to reconstruct his traumatized world with scarce resources and a government consisting of less than ten people.
Everywhere he looked, there were piles of household garbage, piles of rubble where beautiful buildings once stood, and even worse was the smell. Because the sanitation plant had also been destroyed, the stench of excrement, mildew and death hung heavy in the air. Disease and malnutrition were rife, with many families resorting to catching and eating vermin because their crops would no longer grow in the contaminated soil.
As he stood there considering the pitiable condition his people were living in, a tear came into his eye. In times gone by he would have considered this a weakness, but not any more. He was no longer that person who shoved his emotions to one side because they were inconvenient. His time living amongst aliens on Deep Space Nine had changed him forever. He had discovered that when he ignored much of his Obsidian Order training, he was highly empathetic, and it was these qualities which would serve him now, not the thirst for information at all costs.
He watched as children played ball with a crunched up mass of discarded rags, all painfully thin, filthy, with glassy looking eyes. It was obvious that despite their street games, they'd been deeply traumatized by the Dominion bombardment, even as they played, there was no joy on those little faces. Some of them had lost both parents in the bombardment, living on the scraps they could scavenge, beg or steal. Orphans had little to no rights under the old system, that had to change, these kids had already suffered enough injustice in their short lives without suffering the further injustice of social exclusion and having decent careers closed off to them.
Entire families lived in the shells of the ruined buildings, able to keep dry only because of large sheets of plastic, but there was barely enough to go around. These plastics had not been produced in over five centuries because of the long term toxic side effects of their use, but right now toxic shelter was better than none at all. It would be winter soon, with temperatures as bone chillingly cold as those he remembered from his days on Deep Space Nine. Mammalian species such as Humans, Betazoids and Vulcans had of course found this frigid environment perfectly comfortable, but to any reptile species, it was fucking COLD.
Garak then thought about their hospitals, they were operating at above capacity. By now, the wounded were either healed, or buried in one of the mass graves. But, were the survivors the lucky ones? They faced starvation, disease and living conditions so terrible that even a Pakled waste extraction engineer would gawk at them.
Just yesterday, he had the misfortune to watch a little girl and her mother die from Vole Fever. The woman's husband had been executed by the Dominion for collaborating with the Klingon-Federation alliance. It had been right then, when he watched the lights drain from their eyes for the last time that he made up his mind. No matter what else happened, even if it cost him his life, he had to reach out to the Federation. He was pretty sure they wouldn't deny him a shipment of mass replicators given the circumstances, and some gravatic turbines. Without those, they couldn't even feed themselves, let alone begin the monumental task of rebuilding the cities to their former glory.
He wasn't going to have this conversation over subspace, especially as he didn't want Romulan ears prying into the conversation. No, he intended to travel to the very heart of the Federation, in person. At the very least, he should have Admiral Ross on his side, given that during the latter part of the war, he had practically worked for Starfleet Intelligence by decoding Cardassian messages. Something he was only able to do since he was one of the few who had actually helped to invent that particular code during his time with the Obsidian Order.
He was going to have to get to Earth, somehow. He had an antiquated scout ship about the size of a Federation shuttlecraft at his disposal, small, and manoeuvrable, and armed with phasers only. Sure, it had plenty of antimatter, but the small problem was that there was only enough dilithium crystal in it's core to get as far as Deep Space Nine, and even that was pushing it. Knowing his luck he would probably end up running out somewhere in the Denorious Belt, but he had to try. If he could just reach his former home in exile, then perhaps Kira could help him with his dilithium shortage.
There was just one thing he knew for sure, if he succeeded in rebuilding his shattered planet, then things had to change, big time. No more warmongering, no more occupations, no more torture and executions of prisoners, no more trails in which people couldn't defend themselves, and absolutely no rule by the Military. A Cardassian Gul should defend his homeland, not go out terrorizing alien races. He should also answer to his government, not be the government. When he truly thought about the crimes of men like Dukat, it made him want to throw up. Major reforms were necessary, reforms that would bring Cardassia and the Federation much closer, at least this was his hope.
He also knew that many on his world would not agree to such radical changes, but enough did that they had actually voted him in. As the very first elected leader of his people, he had an obligation to show the people that these reforms could work, and could be beneficial to everyone.