Articles of the Federation by Keith R. A. Decandido

Author:Keith R. A. Decandido [Decandido, Keith R. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Space Opera, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9781416510291
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2005-06-01T08:07:46+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

WHAT OZLA GRANIV looked forward to most was eating good food.

She had been on Tezwa for four months now. Tezwans tended to make their food spicy to the point of being volcanic. At first it had been something of a relief when she’d started traveling to the areas that were being rebuilt in the wake of either the retaliatory Klingon strike or the terrorist attacks made by Kinchawn after his ouster. Food was hard to come by in those areas—as were water, proper shelter, and plumbing—so the people there were subsisting on Starfleet combat rations. Though initially a palliative to the gut-boiling Tezwan cuisine, after six days of the rations, Ozla had soon come to the same conclusion the Tezwans had when they’d first started eating them: They were appallingly bland.

Not that there weren’t plenty of other reasons why departing Tezwa would be an enjoyable experience. On her first day, she’d visited the site of the makeshift hospital where a Starfleet runabout, the Tsavo, had been destroyed by one of Kinchawn’s loyalist soldiers. Besides murdering Starfleet personnel, both security and medical, the attack had also killed dozens of civilians, including children. Some of the civilians had been injured while being evacuated; others had just been unfortunate enough to be nearby.

One of those had been Vara Tal, reporter for Seeker. Based on the padd that was somehow recovered from her remains, she’d been interviewing medics, having already spoken to several Tezwan, Starfleet, and Federation civilian physicians. Her last interview had been with Dr. Dennis Chimelis of the U.S.S. Musashi, who was also killed in the runabout explosion.

In the months since the crisis, new hospitals had been built to replace the ones that had been set up in buildings not originally intended for medical use. All that remained on the site now was a grave marker, which the locals called a memory stone, for the dozens who died in the explosion.

Ozla’s mistake had been thinking that the overwhelming sadness she felt upon visiting the site of Vara’s grave would be the worst it would get on Tezwa.

Over the last four months, she’d spoken to Tezwans of all stripes, including civilians and soldiers, rich and poor, well-fed and starving. She’d spoken to Starfleet personnel and the Federation ambassador, a harried but determined Bajoran woman named Lagan Serra.

She had come here hoping to continue Vara’s work. Now, she was coming away with something far worse.

Tezwa was a defeated planet.

Kinchawn had seized power and brought the wrath of the Klingon Empire down on the Tezwans’ heads. Then, when he’d been removed from power, he’d brought some wrath of his own. It had taken the Tezwans centuries to build up to being a minor spacefaring power. It had taken less than two months to reduce them to pre-spaceflight levels. Tezwa would be reliant on Federation assistance for at least the next two decades. Their infrastructure was decimated, their economy had collapsed, their government services were a shambles. Their most arable farming land had been blasted

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