The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [31]
“If that’s the term for it, then, yes, Commander,” Kerajem said with a small smile. “Many of us do think the Krann are humanoid. Before today, I would have said something like ‘They probably look a lot like people.’ I have trouble thinking of myself as a ‘humanoid.’”
“Kerajem, you mentioned that the Krann represented a terrible period in your history,” Picard asked. “What did you mean by that, and does it have anything to do with what’s going on out there now?”
“I’m afraid it does,” Kerajem said heavily. “Our people went into space in the normal course of things, and one of our first objectives was to explore and colonize the fourth planet in our home system. That was Ma’ak Krannag. We planned to exploit its resources as fully as possible, as our own were rapidly becoming depleted. When we got to Ma’ak Krannag, we discovered the Krann, who lived in tribes scattered all over the surface of their world. The most advanced of these tribes had just developed agriculture. They were no match for us.”
The First Among Equals paused, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to say. “We enslaved the Krann, Captain,” Kerajem said, staring at the tabletop, unwilling to meet Picard’s eyes. “We took everything they had. We stripped their resources from them. Over the following centuries, we poisoned their air and water and food with the runoff from the industries we had relocated to Ma’ak Krannag to keep our own world pristine. We even gave the Krann a religion and forced them to worship us as gods. We worked them to death and made them sing our praises for it. We slaughtered the ones who were of no use to us—the sick, the old, the ones who could not or would not work.”
“It went on for centuries,” Rikkadar said softly, his eyes watering. “Centuries.”
“When did all this occur?” Worf asked.
“As nearly as we can tell, we first landed on Ma’ak Krannag about seven thousand years ago,” replied the First Among Equals.
“How long did your occupation of Ma’ak Krannag go on?” Riker asked, tight-lipped.
“We think it lasted for just under a thousand years,” Presinget said. “It could not have been much longer than that.”
“What happened to end it?” Troi asked.
“There was a revolt,” Rikkadar answered. “The Krann rose up almost as one and drove us out. They’d had a millennium to learn our weapons, our ways, our tactics, our weaknesses, and they’d learned them well. They’d had a thousand years to educate themselves in our ways and come up with effective means to fight and defeat us.”
“How did the rebellion occur?” asked Picard.
“There were many more of them than there were of us on Ma’ak Krannag, of course,” Kerajem said, “since ours was only an occupying force bent on control and exploitation. We were only tens of thousands to their billions. They rose up one night, each with a knife, and slaughtered every Lethanta they found—men, women, children, it made no difference. Obedient housemaids slaughtered families. Dedicated nurses killed their patients. Faithful workers murdered their overlords. It came to be called the Night of Blood.”
“What did the government on Eul Ma’ak Lethantana do in response?” Picard asked.
“There was not much to be done,” Presinget answered. “By the time the government found out what was going on, our occupation forces had been effectively destroyed, and our facilities and industries on Ma’ak Krannag had been taken over. The Krann were in control of their own world for the first time in some ten centuries.”
“The revolt wound up costing many more Krann lives than Lethanta,” Kerajem added, “but in the end, the Krann won, and they kept their victory. During the following few years, we sent police forces and then entire armies to Ma’ak Krannag in repeated attempts to reestablish our control over the planet, but it was all for naught. The Krann fought us off and, using our own captured ships, carried the war to Eul Ma’ak Lethantana.”
“Did you seek peace?” Troi asked. “Did you finally come to terms?”
“We did,” Kerajem said. “Our economy was in ruins following our loss of the labor and facilities