INTERLUDE TWO
“The fool in his heart
says, ‘There is no God.’”
– Psalm 14:1
For almost a year, Vala’ratan had lived
with the impossible; but now, it had become too much to bear.
He’d served the Founders with distinction his entire life, earning
the title Revered Elder over countless battles … and, more, maintaining it for
the better part of ten cycles. His Vorta Moleth had once told him (with what in another being would
have sounded like affection) that he might very well be the oldest Jem’Hadar alive—indeed, who had ever lived.
Vala’ratan wished now that he had died long ago.
Instead, he had survived to see a race fight beside the Jem’Hadar, rather than behind
them, as none had ever done before… he had survived to see the Dominion
withdraw from space it had claimed, as it had never done before … and, worst of
all, he had lived to see a Founder admit defeat, sign a treaty and subject
their august personage to the judgment of solids—as they had never done before.
If victory truly was
life, then in that moment had not all the Jem’Hadar
forfeited their right to exist?
He had not spoken that thought aloud, knowing that to do so would
invite immediate termination. Vala’ratan did not fear death, of course: He was a Jem’Hadar, a First, and a Revered Elder. Rather, he had
said nothing because he had decided he wished to understand before he died. Though, according to what he had been
taught was The Way of Things, it was not his place to understand, or even to think about such matters, he had
served the Founders well, and had decided that this small indulgence was the
price he would exact for his years of loyalty.
It seemed to him a smaller betrayal than surrender had been.
And so, he had pondered what it all meant … and he had watched,
and listened, and added whatever he saw and heard to the equation of his
attempted understanding—all this while plying his trade: The fleets and troops
that had returned from what the Federation solids called “The Alpha Quadrant”
had been immediately sent to some of the Dominion’s most distant possessions,
there to punish those members who had thought this defeat a sign from their own
false gods that now was the time for revolution.
His men had, of course, fought well in attempting to suppress
them: They were Jem’Hadar.
But still the rebellions raged, and rather than massing their
forces to crush them one at a time, The Founders had, inexplicably, chosen
instead to deploy the returning squadrons piecemeal. Vala’ratan
was a tactician by birth and nature; and, more, he found that once he had
questioned even a single aspect of
his existence, it became much easier to do so with another … and then more
after that.
He could think of only one reason why The Founders would send them
into battle without adequate preparation, resources or support … and it did not
bode well for an eleventh year as a Revered Elder.
Not surprisingly, they had been ordered by their individual Vorta to never
discuss what had happened in Federation space, on pain of death. Yet, Vala’ratan did not need to speak with his men to know that
some of them, too, had begun to
question. Once or twice, he had sensed that a younger one neared both a
conclusion and the verge of madness …
and rather than allowing him to live with that torment, had slain him in
combat. To die in a duel with a Revered Elder was considered as good as a death
in combat with the Dominion’s enemies … and it had to their slayer seemed not
only an honor, but even a mercy to do so.
Those who had seen and tasted defeat had dwindled to a mere
tithing of what they had been, and almost, almost
Vala’ratan decided to remain silent, to do his duty …
and to die in obscurity and ignorance.
Something, though, would not let him. A year’s worth of thought had, rather
than providing understanding, instead left him with another question.
How can gods be
defeated?
The only answers to that filled him with emotions he had never
known: Foreboding…
…and dread.
Still, they were the only possible answers, and while they left
him empty, they also freed him.
And freedom, for now, was life.