Old Ways Die Hard - Part 3

Posted on Thu Mar 12th, 2026 @ 7:39pm by Captain Daegan Baas & Lieutenant JG Ryan Kellerman

1,852 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: What was Lost is Found
Location: Planet Kril'Es
Timeline: MD 6 - 2200

[Kurul's Home]

Dareem arrived outside of his old friend's home. The lights inside were low, the hour deep enough that even the local insects has become selective about when they sang.

He paused at the threshold, listening. He could not tell if Kurul or his family were sleeping.

Dareem knocked anyway.

It was late but Kurul had always been a night owl and with all the evens of the recent days he had much to think about. Sipping from his tea, he surprised at the knock at such a late hour. Setting his up a side he moved to and opened the door.

"Dareem? Is everything alright? What brings you here so late my friend?"

Inside, the house bore no resemblance to Dareem's own. There were signs of life everywhere--cups left where they had cooled, a young person's garment folded over the back of a chair, a small light near a stack of old books. It was not at all disorderly but rather lived-in.

"We must speak, my old friend."

Kurul could see that there was something serious on his mind and he brought his old friend into his home. After the pair took seats at the table Kurul listed to his friends...proposal.

Looking back towards his sleeping area where his human wife slept. Turning back to Dareem, whispering, "Are you MAD?!"

Dareem fixed his old friend with a soft look. "How long have we known each other, Kurul?"

The memories from all those years ago resurfaced... Two fresh faced young men stepping off a transport onto the grounds of the Imperial Academy; they teamed well and their friendship grew. Their first assignments had separated them but they reunited once again when they found themselves boarding the Sahriv.

"Longer than most have the privilege of living. But why? Soon our living standards will be back to what we used to know; something most here have only heard about from stories.

"This planet is likely to become a thriving joint colony world. All of us, yourself included, will quite possibly be governing their own settlement. This world is ours to make it the way want. Isn't that what we dreamed about so long ago...key positions in the Senate...one supporting the other if either of us became Praetor? We have that here. Granted we have know armies or fleets at our command, but we have earned the loyalty of the people here. Why throw that away?"

Dareem looked around the room for a long moment, running his eyes over the folded garment on the chair, the stacked books in the corner, the second cup on the table.

"This is a good life," he said quietly.

"It is...and as far as the Valkyrie... We have only seen a glimpse of what has come to pass since we've been here. Though they did mention the use of their quantum drive is still limited even in Starfleet."

The former tactical officer nodded, digesting Kurul's words. His friend's fascination with new technologies and their promises of bright futures was not shared.

"Quantum drives," Dareem repeated. "Food replicators. Holography. Duotronic computer cores." He paused a moment before continuing. "We've toiled here on Kril'Es for over a century--with minimal technology. Both of us have taken turns using hand tools when we've had to. We both remember those difficult harvests. We've both buried our comrades and loved ones beneath this very soil."

Dareem stopped speaking and abruptly walked over to an open area which served as the living room and knelt down, picking up a small toy. It was a wooden ball that had been hollowed-out and half-filled with metal beads.

He held the toy aloft for Kurul to see. "Jasmine's children will reach adulthood. They will learn of the ways of life on Kril'Es. Perhaps they will become administrators like their grandfather. Perhaps not. They will find mates within our limited genetic pool, work the land, have families of their own, and die on this unforgiving rock."

He stepped forward and handed the toy ball to Kurul.

"They will never know our ways--Romulan ways. Maybe that's what you want, old friend."

Shaking his head as he took the toy. "We've made our own ways. If what the Captain said is true we none of us will need to till soil much longer...if at all. We've not hid the fact that the Empire and the Federation were enemies from our children and grandchildren, but Romulan, Human, Andorian, and Violacean survivors put all that aside. Our children and grandchildren all play, learn, and work together. Many have even intermarried.

"What is so important that you would cast all that aside?"

"What is so important?" Dareem repeated, walking to the window. He looked out into the dark, where the settlement lay in uneven silhouettes. A few lights glowed but it was late and most of the colony had likely turned-in for the night.

"We were not farmers, Kurul." His voice was calm and low. "We were not administrators. We were not meant to become caretakers of compromise."

"We didn't compromise, we survived. What do you think we where meant to be?"

Dareem nodded. "Yes, we survived. And we did it well. And that's precisely the problem."

He turned back to his old friend. "You speak of intermarriage--of children who do not remember enmity. You speak of peace as if it is an achievement in itself."

"Isn't it?. But that can wait. You still haven't told my why? Has the arrival of the Federation rekindled those old feelings we had in our youth? What do you expect to gain from this?

"When we were cadets," he said, "there was an instructor at the Imperial Academy. Magister Viluth. You remember him."

Nodding. "Of course."

"On the day we took our oaths," Dareem said, turning, "he told us something off the record. He said the Empire did not endure because it conquered. It endures because, when the moment came, someone chose its future over their own comfort."

Kurul picked up his tea and leaned back. He lifted the cup and it had cooled too much for his liking and he looked at it as Dareem's word repeated in his mind, '...their own comfort', he shoved the cup along the table, some of its contents sloshing out.

They had accomplished so much here, he had buried his first wife, taken a second and had numerous grand and even great grand children. All of then had been raised to respect others and to do what was right regardless the personal cost.

Rising he walked, pacing slowly...

Dareem could hear the Magister's words as though they were spoken earlier in the day and not 140 years before. He sighed and dropped his eyes to the floor.

"During our tour of the Valkyrie," he said, meeting Kurul's gaze, "I spoke to a Starfleet officer. I broke protocol. I asked about the status of Romulus. I asked if everything was still the same."

He paused and his eyes found their way to another toy on an end table, belonging to another of Kurul's grandchildren.

"She allowed me access to a terminal--limited access. I saw the plains of ch'Rihan in the southern provinces where I grew up. At some point while we were toiling on this rock, the Federation and the Empire engaged in an information exchange as part of some new diplomatic reality."

Dareem closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose as if all the air in Kurul's little house might somehow produce an old memory. He could smell of the stekot'l fields of the ch'Rihan--warm and dry under the pale sun of Romulus, the grain heavy on the stalks. An abundant season. The scent was sharp and dusty and nominally sweet, like a loaf of bread in the oven beginning to brown.

When the wind moved across those endless golden fields, the stekot'l didn't just sway, it made a soft sound that grew into a chorus like a billion soft whispers. The slender stalks brushed against one another and if one wasn't used to the plains, they might be fooled into believing the great ocean was near. It was a sound a Romulan child from the ch'Rihan knew before learning language.

With his eyes still gently shut, Dareem spoke again. "And do you know what I realized?"

Turning back, "What?"

"I realized that the plains were still there."

Kurul almost laughed as he huffed at the response. "What did you expected that the Federation had destroyed them or something?"

Dareem also joined in the small laugh, adding, "Of course."

He let the silence stretch a little longer. "The Valkyrie computer showed them to me like a curiosity," Dareem continued. "A cultural archive. Old survey scans. Agricultural records. Historical commentary. A Federation annotation here and there explaining what the stekot'l harvest meant to 'traditional Romulan society.'"

He turned to face Kurul now. "Something else I discovered in their archive, old friend. Several years ago, the Empire shared its cloaking technology with the Federation."

Kurul was genuinely shocked at that. "REALLY? Had to have been significant diplomatic progress for THAT to happen." Kurul continued thinking Dareem was making his point for him. "Such diplomatic progress would be hampered if a group of Romulans did what you are proposing."

Dareem's expression turned into a rueful grin--there was absolutely no humour in it.

"Diplomatic progress," he spat, as though the words were foul. "I also learned there was no reciprocity."

He closed the gap between himself and Kurul, almost getting into his old friend's face.

"The Federation shared virtually nothing!" Dareem shouted. "And yet we were just given a tour of a state-of-the-art Federation vessel with such enormous advancements--quantum slipstream drive to name just one." He lowered his eyes, fixing them somewhere between he and Kurul.

"My old friend," he said, softening his tone. He placed a hand on Kurul's shoulder. "We are all that remains of the old guard. It behooves us to make the first strike and return to our people and show them Romulans are capable of more."

A slow breath was taken in and released. "They had only seen one side of the current situation, but if Starfleet own people had admitted to deception. The old ways had always been to strike when the opportunity presented itself. Even if the Empire was on a favorable footing with the Federation such a coup would be hailed as a tremendous victory.

"Very well...let's plan your coup. Humans value the life of their people and the innocent above all. So if we keep this a bloodless coup we have a better chance of success."

"Sab khut hafeth. Frazhannempal was qailefeth." ("Seize today, for we know nothing of tomorrow.")

Dareem steadied his gaze on Kurul and clapped him once, forcefully, on both shoulders. "We do this as brothers."

---

Kurul - played by Baas

Akir - played by Baas

Sokah - played by Baas

Dareem - played by Kellerman

Posrun - played by Kellerman

L'ena - Played by Niami

 

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