Come in, come in. Sorry about the mess. You would have thought that ten years on an island living with nothing but a hologram for company would have given me time to refine my organisational skills.

Yes, of course. I guess It just felt like longer… Anyway. I read your message. I must say, it’s been a while since anybody wanted to talk about The Maquis.

You’ll have to send me an advance copy

I’m no diplomat or politician. It’s not my place to speak for the wider Maquis or the Federation as a whole. But I can tell you my own story.

Despite what some of my old Voyager crewmates may tell you, I haven’t always been as calm and collected as I am today. In fact, when I was younger I spent a lot of my time being angry and frustrated. Frustrated about my heritage, angry about my fathers insistence on following those ancient traditions.

It took me years, and a run in with some aliens in the Delta Quadrant before I was able to let go of a lot of that negativity, and take away the power those negative emotions had over me.

You know, I actually first signed up to Starfleet as somewhat of a protest against my father. He was so… Calm. For a rebellious teenager, there was nothing worse. Every time I acted out, dismissed him. He would just respond with kindness and empathy.

It was infuriating. I had actually made up my mind to join Starfleet months before I told him. We were on a rare trip offworld, to Earth. I was fifteen. To give you an idea of how full of angst I was.

He wanted me to see where my ancestors had evolved. He was trying to educate and bond with me. As an eagle circled us overhead he told me “You are home”.

Something about the weight of the moment and the frustration of the day's travel tore down my mental barriers. I responded to his bonding attempt with comprehensive rejection. I told him I was leaving the tribe.

I’d had this circling around my mind for so long I’d done everything but tell him, I even had a Captain lined up ready to sponsor my application. Looking back, I couldn’t have picked a worse, more hurtful moment.

But my decision was made. I made contact with my sponsor, passed the entrance exams and 18 months later I left for the academy.

Back in those days, the Academy was an amazing place to be if you were a Picard, or a DeSoto. Somebody who knew what they wanted to do, somebody who had a clear purpose. As you may have gathered, that wasn’t me back then. I was confused, conflicted. I didn’t help that there was a prep squad officer… Did you ever run into Nimembeh?

You’ll know he had an eye for trouble makers and back then, I definitely was one. Only I wasn’t ready to back down. We butted heads, a lot. But it was thanks to him making me run 20 laps around the academy track that I met Sveta.

Sveta was the one who recruited me and Be’lanna for the Maquis. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My first year at the academy was… Bumpy. My grades were good, but my discipline wasn’t. I kept getting put on report and as a result, when I went back home to Trebus that Summer I had every intention of never going back. I spent the summer conflicted, until I eventually went to my father for advice. In his calm wisdom, he told me that only I could choose my own path.

Exactly what I didn’t want to hear. But he did talk me into a vision quest, a ritual I’d firmly resisted to that point.

To his credit, it worked. The quest helped me realise the meaning of his words, his advice. It’s absurd to look back on now, that I just didn’t understand that my choices were my own. But for a young, conflicted boy that realisation lifted the weight of the world.

So I went back to Starfleet, I graduated from the Academy. But I never found the passion that my classmates seemed to have, I just ticked the boxes.

Then I got assigned to the Vico. I made it to Lieutenant before I came face to face with my first Cardassian. It was one of Starfleets first encounters with their Galor class cruisers. The Vico was only an Oberth class, we were just charting the sector. The Cardassians pushed us around and to my Captains credit, he didn’t take the bait. He pushed back, but remained calm.

I didn’t. After one of the Cardassian’s taunts I powered our weapons. I could have cost a lot of lives that day. Fortunately, the captain noticed and told me to power them down while talking with the Cardassian.

After that we retreated. I was furious. But he shared with me a piece of advice that I’ve never forgotten “it’s almost always smarter to avoid violence than to provoke it’.

Indeed. That was my first encounter with them. But far from the last. Things deteriorated on the border from that point. I was transferred to the USS Gage and ended up fighting the Cardassians on more than one occasion. Where I had been filled with anger, I just became numb.

During a short break in the fighting, I made it home. I… Saw my family for the last time. I spent the entire time drifting around. I was so preoccupied with how much I had changed that I didn’t try to reach out, to reconnect. I found myself thinking they were all so foolish on more than one occasion. War was raging above their heads, and they refused to even own a phaser. My father tried to reach out to me. He could see I was hurting and was never one to mince words. He told me outright that he could see I was full of rage. I rejected him, and stormed off saying that I would be leaving in the morning.

That was the last time I spoke with him, something that I will always regret. He didn’t show up to see me off the next morning.

It’s okay. I came to terms with it a long time ago.

Years later, the armistice agreement was signed. I was on the Gettysberg at the time, on a mission to Bajor with relief supplies. I ran into Sveta there, she told me how she had tried to settle on Riva Prime which had been devastated during the war. She tried to recruit me there and then, but I wasn’t interested. I thought it wasn’t my fight.

When I beamed back to the Gettysberg, I found out I couldn’t have been more wrong. Captain Gordon told me there had been an attack on Trebus, reports were incomplete but there was a supply ship going out with humanitarian aid.

To her credit, she immediately let me take leave to join the mission. After all, Starfleet couldn’t officially be involved due to the treaty.

Four days later, I stood in what was left of my village. A few piles of rubble. The homes, the people, the history had been incinerated in seconds by weapons fire.

A waste of life. There one moment. Gone the next.

I returned to the supply ship and contacted Sveta. She had heard about the attack and was waiting for me.

A few weeks later, and I was an outlaw with my own ship. Running missions for The Maquis in the DMZ..

The Federation and the Cardassians were throwing every bit of propaganda they could out to demonise us. But the Maquis were just ordinary people. People with families, people with homes and people who lost everything because the Federation was desperate to get a treaty over the line.

Then they were wiped out.

But when we got home, I read up on what had happened while Voyager was away. I learned about the Dominion.

In some ways, that’s almost the worst part. Many ex-Maquis don’t feel like they can be too angry at the Cardassians given what happened to them in the years that followed. They got what they deserved and then some.

But what happened to the colonies in the demilitarised zone must never be allowed to happen again, to that end I’ve submitted a proposal to Starfleet.