Title: Close Your Eyes and Think of Cardassia Writer: Charlene Vickers E-Mail: cvickers@internorth.com, cvickers@my-dejanews.com Series: DS Codes: S Rating: G Other: Title Challenge (see other post) Summary: Bitter Benjamin peels potatoes. Thanks to Heather Cook, who encouraged me to take up my own challenge. **** Scrub, scrape, rinse. //Close your eyes, Ben, and think of what you've done.// Scrub, scrape, rinse. He could do it with his eyes closed. Had done it every night since he got home. Amazing how many kilos of potatoes a restaurant could go through in a month. //The war, the wormhole's collapse, Cardassia's destruction; it's all your fault. All because you couldn't say one little word.// Scrub, scrape, rinse. //The word no, Ben. When they asked you to go to Bajor, you could have said no. You could have resigned, could have come back to the family business. You could have stopped the deaths of millions of innocent people with one word. No Sisko, no wormhole, no Dominion, no war.// Scrub, scrape, rinse. //And what of the Bajorans, Ben? You stripped them of their faith when you gave them scientific evidence of the Prophets' existence. Who needs to have faith when you have proof? But then you snatched that proof away. You left the Prophets and the Wormhole undefended because you were afraid to stand up to your commanding officer and make a decision that would destroy your career. Instead, you risked the lives of the Prophets. You chose your career over the spiritual centre of the Bajoran people. Are the Prophets dead, Ben? Is Bajor? Do you know? Do you care? Does that shiny new medal make up for it all?// Scrub, scrape, rinse. //'This time next year we will stand in the corridors of the Cardassian Home World.' Isn't that what Martok said? Think about Cardassia, Ben. Close your eyes and think of Cardassia. Because pretty soon there won't be a Cardassia to think of. It'll be dead, just as the Founders promised: but it won't be their fault. You opened the wormhole. You let the Founders destroy the Obsidian Order, and without the Order Cardassia is weak. Cardassia can't even defend itself without the Jem'Hadar. How many coups, Ben? How many riots? How many massacres? How many madmen? How much longer until the last Cardassian is dead?// Scrub, scrape, rinse. //Kasidy was right; you're a parody of virtue.// Scrub, scrape, rinse.