Lieutenant Commander Riley Delar: The Broken Cycle
Zeph
(( Side Gates, Æstin, Valaria III ))
They waited in the narrow alley while a pair of civilians passed by the mouth without glancing in. When the footsteps faded, Riley gave the smallest nod. They moved.
The dash to the wall was quick and silent. Hands found stone. Boots scraped mortar. In seconds they were climbing.
Riley crested first, flattening against the corner parapet as he scanned both directions. Guards clustered farther down the wall-walk, attention focused inward toward the city. Good. He gestured the others up and swung onto the roof of the adjacent building. For the moment, they weren’t being watched.
Riley: Should we head inside and discuss our next move?
Nis: Response
Richards: You mean… inside the buildings?
Katsim: Wh…why would we go inside?
Riley suppressed a sigh. They weren’t clear of the city yet.
Riley: Yes. Inside one of the buildings. To plan our next move.
Nis: Response.
Richards: Do any of them look empty to you guys? Oh. That one there has boarded up windows.
Richards pointed toward an aging structure abutting the wall — decrepit, battle-scarred, and forgotten. Exactly the sort Riley had meant. A flicker of déjà vu brushed his thoughts — slipping through damaged buildings on Bajor, avoiding Cardassian patrols during the Dominion War.
Katsim: It is closer to the wall.
Riley: Now that’s the sort of building I was talking about.
Nis: Response
Richards: It might be our best bet. We don’t want to stay out in the open for too long.
Katsim: We should try to stay to the shadows.
They crouched near a chimney stack, pressing into what little shadow the rooftop offered.
Riley (quietly): Not quite what I had in mind…
Nis: Response
Richards and Katsim edged toward a cracked window and peered inside. Tables. Chairs. Stone slabs. No candles burning. No mourners. A mortuary. The familiarity of ruined interiors tightened something in Riley’s chest.
Richards: I wonder if this is one of the guild buildings she was talking about.
Katsim: We need to get out, not go in.
The sound rolling through the streets — distant but growing — made the decision for them. An angry crowd. Moving.
Peri slipped along the ridge tiles to scout. Moments later she returned, voice barely above breath.
Katsim: If we go that way, we should have an easy jump to the wall. Then we can climb down on the other side.
Riley nodded.
Nis / Richards: Response
The noise below sharpened into distinguishable shouts.
Katsim: We need to go.
Riley: Right behind you, Commander.
They moved. A narrow gap. An easy step. A longer leap. Boots scraped tile. Riley stayed last, scanning alleys as they advanced. The wall loomed. They climbed. Riley paused at the crest, sweeping the streets.
No one looking up.
Yet.
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response
Riley (quietly): Now’s as good a time as any.
They dropped to the far side. Boots struck packed earth. The wall swallowed the noise behind them. They didn’t slow until the city was no longer in sight. For now, they were clear.
The wall receded behind them as they angled toward a low ridge dotted with scrub. The land beyond Æstin was not barren — just tired. Gray-brown soil lay compacted beneath sparse growth, as though it had forgotten how to breathe.
Riley crouched briefly and pressed his fingers into it. Too firm. Too thin. He rubbed the dust between his fingers. He’d seen soil like this before — farmland pushed past its limits.
Riley: How far?
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response
They moved at a steady pace, keeping to shallow depressions. The adrenaline of escape faded, replaced by quieter responsibility. Riley studied the ground as they walked.
If the dump site held concentrated organic waste, then the nutrients weren’t gone. They were misplaced.
Riley (low): If they’re piling organic waste in one location, they’re concentrating nitrogen and phosphorus. That’s not sustainable.
He didn’t frame it as a plan. Just observation.
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response
A bird startled from scrub ahead. Riley scanned the horizon. No patrols. Just open land. A faint scent drifted on the breeze — organic, but layered with something sharper.
The ridge rose before them.
Riley: Let’s take a look before we get any closer.
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response
They crested the ridge slowly. The basin beyond spread wide beneath them, a gouged depression ringed by pale, exhausted earth. Dark mounds lay scattered across the low ground. Thin runoff channels streaked outward from the center.
The smell followed a moment later — fermenting, alive.
In the basin’s center, the soil was black. Steam curled faintly where microbial heat met cooling air. Through that dark ground rose dense clusters of wild vegetation — thick growth thriving without order or cultivation.
Beyond the basin’s invisible boundary, the soil returned to the same gray exhaustion they had crossed minutes earlier.
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response
Riley studied the gradient. The vegetation thinned the farther it spread from the mounds. A perfect bullseye of fertility surrounded by depletion. He thought back to the sap fields — orderly rows, residues cleared, nothing returned to the soil. Everything removed. Year after year.
Exported.
And here — everything discarded. Concentrated.
Riley (low): They’re starving their fields… and feeding their garbage.
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response
The land wasn’t empty. It was imbalanced.
Riley: The nutrients aren’t depleted. They’re concentrated. Which means this isn’t scarcity.
A measured pause.
Riley: If the cycle’s broken… it can be repaired.
Nis / Richards / Katsim: Response