Prisoner 6655 or Ensign Charles Greene formerly of the USS Fermi sat staring at the empty torpedo casing.  He could just end it all here and now.  Poof! Gone in a cloud of an antimatter reaction.

Sighing 6655 pushed those thoughts aside.  If he didn’t build these torpedoes somebody else would and they wouldn’t know how he was sabotaging their guidance systems. Not enough to arouse suspicion,  but just enough to maybe give a Federation or Klingon ship a chance to survive… or even escape. 

6655 looked up when two new prisoners were shoved into the assembly room. One was wearing  a Starfleet uniform with a a dirty gold tunic. Much like his own.  A Lieutenant judging by the pips, and an alien species had never seen before.  The blonde woman… she was in civilian attire. No rank there or indication why she was here, but considering she looked human she was either on a starship or a political prisoner. Those never lasted long.

Looking out over the factory floor as they were led in, Xarin noted the relatively primitive conditions.  For just one second, he swore he caught the eye of one of the imprisoned Starfleet officers, but then, nobody looks up for too long in one of these camps.

“Quite the collection of misfits they have here don’t you think 2460. God I hate those numbers but better than having all my neurons set on fire by the blasted Vorta yet again.” Without stopping prisoner 8472 stepped forward and looked around. As with Xarin she noticed the glance from the Starfleet officer in the dirty gold uniform and could guess at what he thought.

Before could say anything else the Jem’Hadar guard behind her roughly shoved her forward, “Enough taking worm. Take those two empty spokes and start work. If you do not you will die, if you sabotage the torpedoes you die.” With that, he pointed to the workstation next to the ensign she had noticed earlier.

With a sigh 8472 shrugged, “If we must.” She took a step forward and the guard tapped his wrist and pain shot through her almost dropping her to the ground before it stopped abruptly.

“Let that be a lesson, next time you speak when not asked you will be in solitary for a week.”

Hands wrapped around 8472’s arms and heaved her to her feet.

“You don’t want solitary, trust me,” the arms’ voice told her. It belonged to another officer, a human woman and Lieutenant Commander in what was once a teal uniform. Whether it could be called teal now was up for debate, it was nearly as dark as the bruises on her face, some of which were badly covered by her long purple hair. The woman regarded 8472 for a moment with large grey-green eyes.

She turned and look at the women who lifted her up and gave her a quick nod in thank.

“Get to work,” Greene hissed from his station, “before they shock all of us.”

Shuffling quickly over to the designated workstation, Xarin scoffed internally at the torpedo design.  Modifications for efficiency immediately formed in his brain. Not that he intended to use any of these modifications, but it was good practice for any engineer, even a downed one, to be always looking for improvements.  In the relatively dim surroundings, his eyes revealed to him more than most would see.  For example, the fact that the Jem’Hadar on duty’s uniform was just as dusty as the prisoner’s, or the fact that there were only two Jem’Hadar in the room.  Admittedly, both were armed to the teeth.

“Whatever it is you are planning sir… Don’t. The Jem’Hadar have wiped out whole shifts because one person sabotaged a torpedo.” Greene warned.  Who am I to lecture them on not doing something that I am currently doing? He asked himself as he adjusted to the targeting sensor.

“You mean like you’re doing to that panel?” Xarin whispered in an almost creepily quiet undertone. “You’d be more effective if you moved the third pin to the left by three micrometres.”

Greene adjusted the targeting sensor further out of alignment.  “I guess if it doesn’t work we’ll all be dead and we won’t care.”

The purple-haired woman watched with interest from an adjacent workspace. Not being an engineer herself she didn’t know how to effectively sabotage the torpedoes, so class was currently in session. Prisoner 3436 or ‘Lavender’ as she was known outside the Jem’Hadar penal system observed them furtively, taking notes. ‘Third pin to the left, three micrometers.’ Given the circumstances this was probably the best form of protest, acting out just got her thrown in solitary, and with less teeth than she had had before.

The base shook with a deep rumble like thunder. The guards glanced at each other and rushed out of the room leaving the prisoners to their own devices. The base shook again.  This time from the unmistakable sound of directed energy fire.

Thinking quickly, Xarin dumped the contents of the torpedo he was working on onto the floor.  “You can use the torpedo casings as cover.” He didn’t exactly look at the others when he said this, just prepped what he could for survivability.  After getting the casing ready, he tipped the table over before attempting to lug the casing over to the rear of the table.

Lavender scanned the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. Nothing popped up. The tools used were small and intricate for the most part and the Jem’hadar were brutal but not stupid. Still, she hoped they could capitalise on the chaos. Attacking a penal colony was more a Federation move than Klingon in her mind, so there was a good chance the attacking ships would beam out any Federation species once the shield was down. The Commander in Lavender tried to balance any future punishment if the attack were to be unsuccessful with the potential opportunities of the now to shatter the status quo, but the ganger in her took over. It was now or never. Lavender brandished a tool with a thin, sharp probe on the end like a shiv and took stock. The room shook again, releasing bits of dust and debris onto the inmates.

“Quick, help him! And take cover!” She ordered the others at the table, darting under an adjacent table and watching the doors for Jem’Hadar, her eyes wild with adrenaline.

Having gotten help setting up the barrier, Xarin then began gathering the tools together, as well as any baseball or softball-sized chunks of the cave that he could find.  “Here’s the plan, when the Jem’Hadar come back through that door, we make sure he doesn’t live to regret it.  Once one Jem’Hadar goes down, we’ll at least be armed.”  Meanwhile, the room shook with even more vigor.  One of the untouched tables in the back fell over, spilling the torpedo and its components to the ground.   “Now, a few years ago, I served on a ship with a plucky young fella.  He taught me about a rather dangerous Earth game that we’re going to try out.  Any of you ever play dodgeball?”

“Dodgeball?  Against a Jem’Hadar? Have you gone completely insane?” Green demanded.

“One thing I’ve learned from humans.  Most games can be quite deadly if a rock gets involved.” Xarin smiles, and, seeing a Jem’Hadar entering the door, chucks a baseball-sized piece of rock at him and nailed the Jem’Hadar’s forehead.  “That’s one.”

Lavender understood what the Kratoan had been driving at as the barrier started to make shape and she helped lugging casings into place. The first Jem’Hadar hit the deck and Lavender couldn’t help but appreciate a couple of really good ideas he had had. The second Jem’Hadar guard who entered was pelted with stones and whatever the prisoners could find and was quickly unconscious. Even if whatever attack was going on didn’t liberate the prisoners if they could keep the approaching Jem’Hadar to a trickle maybe they could wrest control at least of that area of the prison.

“Quick grab their weapons before more come,” said the blonde prisoner. “They will lock down these rooms pretty quick so we need to move out of there.”

Greene couldn’t believe what was going on. They were all going to die. He knew it.  Sighing he took a piece of a torpedo casing and flexing the thin metal over the edge of the work bench he moved it up and down until it snapped free creating a crude knife. “We’ll, if you people are going to get me killed I might as well die fighting.”