My Name Is Storvik, And I Was A Slave
My name is Storvik, and I am a Vulcan. For almost a century, that meant that I could have but one fate: slave.
I was employed on a slaver vessel, a starship which transported slaves (primarily human) to wherever they were needed by the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. The supply of available slaves was such that no undue care was wasted upon them - they were treated as "disposable" and needed to be replaced frequently. Working on a slaver was dangerous and demeaning work, but logically speaking, it was definitely preferable to be a slave in the crew as opposed to being a slave in the cargo hold.
And then, one day, it happened: KY Jellico, captain of the slaver, suddenly died. All of the slaves on the SS Morgue Trade were free… for approximately one hour. Jellico's death triggered a device commonly referred to as a "dead man's switch"; a precaution against death or mutiny by which the death of the captain would trigger the destruction of the ship and the death of all onboard. The Morgue Trade's warp core developed an imbalance which progressed toward a full breach, and the core ejection systems refused to respond.
Fortunately, we were close enough to a former human colony world (now a breeding pit for slaves and dogs nicknamed PoochStar IV) that most of the crew were able to beam themselves away before the ship exploded. There was no time to rescue any of the cargo; in fact, I had to perform a Vulcan neck pinch upon some members of the crew ("rest in pieces", Daremo and Ryo) to ensure my own place upon the transporters.
Life on PoochStar IV was not in any way an improvement over life on a functioning vessel, but it was definitely preferable to death upon an exploding one. My chief priority then, now, and always was my own self-preservation. In order to maximize our chances for survival, the surviving members of the crew mostly split up and went their seperate ways on the surface of the planet. Some blended in with the slave population (and even joined with great enthusiasm in the breeding of new slaves) and others (like myself) remained hidden from the overseers, surviving by stealth and theft.
Eventually, I was discovered by a small band of resistance fighters from the Rebellion who had infiltrated PoochStar IV in an attempt to assassinate the Cardassians in charge. I was allowed to join them, and left the planet with them upon the successful completion of the mission. For over a year, I continued taking part in combat operations on behalf of the Rebellion. Between missions, life was better for me than it ever had been; but I was well aware that dying while on a mission would get me "just as dead", in the words of one partner I had, as dying a slave or dying in the Morgue Trade's warp core breach. I needed a safer assignment…