Task Force: Gamma

KarlKoester · Guest

Onboard the USS San Antonio Karl Koester waited with other Starfleet ground forces in the troop embarkation area. The final battle of Cardassia Prime would commence soon.

It had spread like a wildfire through the troops on the ship that the Cardassians had turned against the Dominion and Breen wholesale.

"Why do you think that happened Petty Officer?" Crewman Rose asked him.

"Just like Cardassians to turn traitor." Koester replied icily as his hands gripped the TR-116 rifle.

The weapon had been a deadly accurate reaper in his hands during his one man war on Dantana. It was der Vergeltungswaffe: the vengeance weapon. And it was with this weapon that he'd brought swift and deadly justice to any Cardassians that found themselves unlucky enough to be in his crosshairs.

As the San Antonio continued behind the main force with the other troop ships Koester prepared for battle. The Jem'Hadar were equally hateful opponents. They too had enslaved thousands of Starfleet and Klingon prisoners during the Tunnel Through the Stars project. He would kill them as well and had killed many.

Then the announcement that the Dominion chose to standdown and the mission was now shifting to what amounted to security duties on Cardassia Prime.

"Eight hundred million dead?" the young crewman beside him said.

"At least that many." Koester replied before they beamed into the ruins of the capital.

The smell of smoke and the unmistakeable odor of death assaulted Koester's nostrils.For the love of God how much had this planet been devastated? He remembered one other thing. He remembered the video clip from the female detention block on that Dominion/Cardassian project to build an artificial wormhole with Federation slave labor. He remembered the Glinn and his brutal field interrogation of a female prisoner and the subsequent riot. He remembered Andi died during that riot.

Crewman Rose looked a little unsteady before Koester began: "Don't feel sympathy. The Cardassians brought this on themselves and deserved every death inflicted on them. My only regret was that I wasn't able to send more of the unholy vermin to Hell where they belong."