My Own Battle For Betazed
Rated K+
Note to readers: It helps to understand this series of POV's if you have read the book "The Battle Of Betazed" by Charlotte Douglas and Susan Kearney. Their book and Paramount's ST:TNG are the basis for this series, which are for entertainment purposes only and no infringement is intended. Will and Barin's POV coming soon.
Deanna's POV
Home. It’s not the same as it was when I last saw it. The Dominion have killed several people I have known for years with deadly experiments and ravished our planet. Now I must fight a battle I fear most in order to save our culture and way of life and in order to do that, we must go back to our ancestral past.
I miss Will and wish for him to be by my side, but this battle I must fight without him. If I don’t there will be no future for Betazed. There will be no future for my Imzadi and me. I have no idea if I will live or die. I don’t even know if I will see my Imzadi again, but what I do know is I must work with the most dangerous Betazoid on Betazed, Hent Tavren. He’s man who killed many people, including his parents, with his mind.
I found Tavren and he taught me a lot before he died. Thing is, I don’t know if I can do what he proposed. It scares me to think about using my empathic skills for violence, but I know it is something I must do if we are to defeat the Jem’Hadar.
Of course, I will need help from every Betazoid still alive, but they are underground, hiding. All of them are angry because of what the Dominion has done to their family and friends. Many are dead due to the experiments done on them to find a way to make the Jem’Hadar telepathic. Their minds cut opened and dissected, some so butchered that death was preferable to them.
Some were even tortured for information to the point they wanted to die. My mother’s dearest friend, Okalan, was one of them. He begged my mother to kill him, but another friend who was with her chose to do the deed in place of my mother. My mother felt Okalan’s gratitude, yet her heart was torn by his loss.
I don’t know if Betazed will ever be what it was before the Dominion invasion. How could it be the same after all the tragedy that has befallen us? I have no choice but to explain to my people how Tavern killed with his mind, a technique long since forgotten. It is so grotesque that I do not want to tell them, but I know no other way to break free of our oppressors. In order to carry out the plan, I will need the strongest Betazoids that are still alive most of all and one of them is my mother. I could lose her if we do not succeed, but we will do this for my little brother and the future of Betazed.
Can I do this? Can the people of Betazed do this? We all detest violence, especially violence of the mind. What choice do we have, but to return briefly to our primitive past in order to defeat our enemy? Yes, we too had a violent past, just as Vulcans did. Like Tavren, the strongest telepath could kill with just a thought. Eventually we learned to control our impulses and became peace loving people.
I worry more for my mother, a powerful telepath. She will have to help liberate Betazed. I can’t because I am only half Betazoid and therefore I am not strong enough telepathically. Several Betazoids will die trying. I just hope it’s not my mother.
Regardless of not being a true telepath, I want to help. I have to help and I will do the best I can. If we succeed I hope we can go back to being peaceful people again. In order to help, I have to do one of the things I dread most. My job is to shoot and kill any Jem’Hadar still moving.
Can I do it? Can I actually bear the feeling of death all around me? I’ll be sensing not only the emotions the stronger Betazoids throw at the Jem’Hadar, but also feeling of death all around me. Those of us who survive, will hopefully be able reject our primitive tendencies after having a taste of it again. I pray to the gods for my brother’s sake that we can.
Lwaxana's POV
The only thing that gave me joy the whole time the Dominion had control of our planet was Barin’s desire for chocolate. Thanks to his sister, he developed a love for it at a very early age. Problem was, he was very sick and thanks to the damn Dominion there was no medicine for my son. He almost died. I don’t know what I would have done if he had died from the Rigelian fever. My son was the only thing keeping me going. I could not give up the fight for our planet or our lives.
Thanks to the Dominion, food was so scarce that many parents, including myself, went without so their children could eat. We rationed it out, but sometimes I gave my share to my son so he would not go hungry. I did everything for him and his future. I joined the Resistance for Barin’s sake to keep him safe and well. If he had died from that childhood illness I don’t know if I would have continued. I know I could not bear to lose another child, even if I still had Deanna. It still pains me to think of Kestra and I know I would have died if Barin had not survived.
Okalan was our last hope for our children to get medicine, but he was capture as he was leaving the hospital. There was no ryetalyn so more children died all because of those bastards dumping the life-saving medicine. We could do nothing for our children except watch them die one by one.
We searched for Okalan with only primitive weapons, because we weren’t a violent society until those monsters came. We found him severely to beaten, tortured, and blinded by those brutes. First I felt his pain and after Enaren honoured his request to die, I felt a fiery rage build in my blood. I wanted every Cardassian and Jem’Hadar barbarian dead.
Many of the women lost their lust for life. Their regal poses disappeared and all that was left of them was troubled minds and frail bodies. They became exhausted from worry and fear of what would happen to their families if we were found in our Resistance cell. We functioned on survival only.
That was life for us during the occupation, but I have no regrets what I did to them. I probably should because before they came, I was never a violent woman. I abhorred the thought of violence until they came and took over our planet; killing us like lab rats and discarding us as though we were objects to possess. I wanted nothing but their demise the whole time the Jem’Hadar were on our precious planet.
With the help of the Cardassians, the Dominion captured and destroyed the minds of the strongest Betazoids with their experiments. So, many died at the hands of the Dominion. Their goal was to make the Jem’Hadar telepathic, but it failed causing the ugly animals to die from the emotions that flooded their minds. I felt joy when we discovered this default in the Jem’Hadar. Our minds could kill the Jem’Hadar with just a powerful thought.
I didn’t care if we killed the demonic lizards, if it would save our children. I didn’t care if we returned our ancestral ways. All I wanted was them dead and gone from our planet forever. I wanted the beasts to stop committing genocide on my people dead even if it meant murder.
We had no weapons to overpower them, except our minds. Our telepathic abilities were the only way we could defeat them. The desire to choke the life out of every Jem’Hadar filled our veins like poison and our hatred for them grew each time a friend or family member died because of them. We felt our love one’s lives extinguished with devastating pain due to those hellhounds.
Yes, I asked for the mentally ill Betazoid, because I knew he was our only hope for survival. It was a risk I had to take and with the agreement of the council, we demanded Tevren’s freedom. We all knew what he did. We knew he killed many people, including his parents, but we were to the point of dying either by the hands of the Cardassians and Jem’Hadar or from starvation and illness. It didn’t matter that he was sadistic and murderous anymore. He was our salvation from the hell we were living and the unseen powerful weapon that we needed most.
I blame those fiends for turning me into the very thing that I hate most. We all did and I blame them for our barbaric thoughts. They ruined our peaceful way of life and everything that went with it. There isn’t a Betazoid on the planet who doesn’t want them dead. They have affected us all; tainted by their actions towards us.
Thankfully, the crew of the Enterprise gave us an alternative to murdering the Jem’Hadar, but it still doesn’t change the anger we all feel towards the Dominion. We didn’t have to become murderers to gain our freedom, but we still had to use our minds to incapacitate the Jem’Hadar. The influx of emotion onto the Jem’Hadar enabled more Betazoids to help with emancipation and we would not have to learn to kill. Making them catatonic so we could imprison them was the preferred choice, even though our feelings towards them wanted them dead. None of us wanted to take the risk of becoming like our captors.
Many Betazoids died because of the alternate technique, but we all willingly scarified ourselves so that others could live. We lost so many family members due to the Dominion; our own sacrifice was nothing compared to the hundreds more who would die if we did not.
Yes, I did it. We all did it. We did it for our families and for our future. We sent all our hatred and anger for them to their minds, paralyzing some, confusing others. We caused chaos among the Jem’Hadar and those who didn’t become catatonic turned on each other. Instead of us killing them they killed each other. Many Jem’Hadar are dead because of what we did and suffice it to say, I’m glad. We didn’t have to murder them directly with our minds, but rather we did it indirectly. So, for as many Betazoids we lost due to the technique, many more Jem’Hadar are dead and I don’t regret it.
The Federation took care of the Dominion while we destroyed those hideous monsters’ defences. Our anger with the Federation left almost as fast as they arrived, but we know now that we can’t rely on them to protect us against all invaders. As much as we hate it, we’ll have to upgrade our weapons because we can not completely return to our old ways, thanks to those evil creatures.
I don’t regret my barbaric thoughts towards the Dominion. I don’t regret making the Jem’Hadar kill each other and as much as I loathe bloodshed, it was the only way. Did I really become everything that I hate? Have Betazoids lost what they believed in all these centuries because of what we did? I don’t think so. I think we’ve saved our way of life and gained everything.
I must admit though, I’m one of the lucky ones! I have my life and both my children. Not too many Betazoids can say that after what we went through. Thank the gods of Betazed!
Will's POV
During the war with the Dominion Deanna became frail and depressed. She worried about Betazed and I worried about her. I had no clue what to do to help her through that terrible time, but I tried. When she turned down all food, including chocolate, I became very concerned for her, but she refused to see Doctor Crusher.
Then came the day that Starfleet requested her to go to Betazed on a covert mission to help the resistance’s cause. Her mission was to get a cold blooded killer out of a Betazoid mental hospital and bring him to the resistance so they could learn his telepathic killing technique.
This mission was very dangerous and I not only feared I would never see her again, but I also worried about Betazoids learning the techniques of a cold blooded killer. It could have been a change that caused irreparable damage to all of them and that was not something I wanted Deanna and her family to go through.
I was angry because Starfleet decided to send her out on this mission, but Deanna agreed to do it because she felt she had to do something to help her people. There was no way anyone could change her mind. She was very determined to help and insisted that it beat sitting around and worrying about her family and friends on Betazed.
The mission was a success and Deanna returned safely to the Enterprise. Or at least she was physically safe. Mentally, I wasn’t so sure, but I was there to listen to her if she needed to cry on my shoulder.
Of course she told every sordid detail she went through during that mission. At first, she was stoic as she spoke of the events that occurred while she was on Betazed and then one day the dam broke. Behind closed doors she used my shoulders to carry her through the emotional release
In time, she recovered and then one day out of the blue, she asked me to marry her. It took me off guard, but there was no way I could say no to my Imzadi. I was the happiest man on the Enterprise that day and all was well with the universe again.
Now, Deanna and I have nothing but the future to look forward too. It’s a future full of hope, full of joy, and full of promise and soon we will be having our first child. This child is apart of the first generation of Betazoids and Humans unaffected by the Dominion war. The lives they will lead was made possible by what happened on Betazed a few years ago.
Barin's POV
Ten years ago, my mother and sister did a miraculous thing. They helped to free Betazed from the Dominion and I’m here today talk about it or at least the result of that day.
Maybe I should start at the beginning. I was five years old when the Dominion invaded and took over our planet. We were peaceful people who hated violence and needless bloodshed, but that sort of changed after that.
The Dominion killed many Betazoids during their tyranny, but in the end, Betazed retook their planet. How exactly none of the elders will say, not even my sister, Deanna. They all insist that it is best we did not know how it was done, because if we did, such things could continue to occur. They have all buried it deep within their psychics; locked it deep within their minds so that no other telepathic being can know exactly what happened that day. So, to this day, only the adults of that time know what they did to retake our planet.
All the children, me included, were left in the resistance cell with the adults who were too old or too sick to fight the battle. Yet if the other adults had not succeeded, it would have fellen to us to fight the Dominion.
I had been very sick, and my mother argued with the doctor about using her own blood to keep me alive. I’m not sure how that worked, but I vaguely remember hearing their argument. Against his better judgement, the doctor did as my mother insisted. Then, after Betazed was back in our hands again, I got the treatment I needed and got better.
Today, my sister is happily married to her Imzadi and they are about to make me an uncle. I have a girlfriend, which Mother seems to despise because she is not from any house of Betazed, just from Betazed, but according to Deanna, Mother was like that with her too. Deanna says Mother doesn’t really hate my girlfriend; it’s just her way of showing she loves me.
Whatever. I like Kiana and if it wasn’t for my mother, sister, and all of the elders we would have not met nor would any of my friends be free to have fun without fear or suffer some sort of terrible death because it was found that we were telepathic or empathic when we hit puberty. We are free to be kids. We are free to go about our lives and become whatever we want to become in life.
Kiana wants to be a doctor, my best friend, Jarik, wants to go into cybernetics, and I want to be a delegate of Betazed. Not traditional, as my mother says, but she’s happy one of her children wants to follow in her footsteps and carry on the fifth House’s name. Thing is, it will be my future wife who does that, of course, because Betazed is still a matriarchal society.
Well, that’s Betazed for you. It’s very much steeped in tradition, but you know what, I have my mother and sister to thank for that, because if it wasn’t for them, I might not be here right now to enjoy all of this. Thanks to them, I have a life of freedom and choice that is buried deep in tradition too. Thanks to them, I have a past to be proud of and a future to look forward to also. They are two great and powerful women who helped to free Betazed from Dominion reign.
Don’t ask who the head of my sister’s house is. That doesn’t matter, because, according to my brother-in-law, Will, my mother still has her nose in Deanna’s life to this day and I don’t expect her to be much different when I grow up, neither does Will for that matter. After all, she is the daughter of the fifth house of Betazed, holder of the sacred chalice of Riix, heir to the holy rings of Betazed and she won’t let you forget it either. My sister still says the chalice of Riix is a molded old clay pot. Well, some things never change, but life goes on and I think I hear my mother calling me.
© Mriana July 2005
