Kira Nerys quotes from Deep Space Nine

Benjamin Sisko

That’s enough!

Odo

Who the hell are you?

Kira Nerys

Odo, this is our new Starfleet Commander.

Kira Nerys

Red alert. Shields up.

Miles O’Brien

What shields?

Odo

It sounds like you’re trying to talk yourself into something. Or out of something.

Kira Nerys

Either way, I have to betray someone.

Odo

The only important thing is not to betray yourself.

Kira Nerys

How can I possibly turn against my own people?

Odo

Are they? Your own people?

Kira Nerys

They’re no different than I used to be.

Odo

Used to be?

Jadzia Dax

I forgot how different it was.

Kira Nerys

How different what was?

Jadzia Dax

Being female. I haven't been one for over eighty years. All this attention...

Kira Nerys

I imagine it must take some getting used to.

Jadzia Dax

Actually, I find it quite enjoyable.

Kira Nerys

You may need this.

Odo

Thanks, major. You know I never use them.

Benjamin Sisko

Major, I gave you a direct order.

Kira Nerys

Court-martial me.

Benjamin Sisko

I can't. You're not in Starfleet.

Jadzia Dax

If I were your superior officer, I'd court-martial both of you.

Kira

When I was very small, I remember there was this tree right outside my window. It was the ugliest, most gnarled and battered old tree I'd ever seen. Even the birds stayed away from it.

But you loved it.

Kira

I hated it, because it had grown so huge, its branches blocked out the sun for kelipates, and its roots buried themselves so deep in the soil nothing else could grow there. It was a big, selfish, annoying—

Nasty.

Kira

Nasty! Nasty old tree.

Sounds to me like it had a lot of character.

Kira

[after a pause] A lot.

War crimes? How can there be war crimes when there hasn't been a war? Oh, I can understand your wish that there had been a war. Your need to indulge some pathetic fantasy about brave Bajoran soldiers marching to honorable defeat, but in fact, Major, you and I know there was no war. No glory. Bajor didn't resist. It surrendered.

Kira Nerys

The Bajorans were a peaceful people before you came. We offered no threat to you. We could never understand why you had to be so brutal.

Well, we can't have that, Major. I want no more secrets between us. Anything you can't understand, I'll explain to you.

My word, my every glance was law! And the verdict was always the same: Guilty!

Kira

You're insane!

Oh, no, no, major. You can't dismiss me that easily. I did what had to be done! My men understood that and that's why they loved me. I would order them to go out and kill Bajoran scum. And they'd do it! They'd murder them! And they'd come back covered in blood, but they felt clean. Now why did they feel that way, Major? Because they were clean.

Kira

Look! I regret a lot of what I had to do!

How convenient for you.

Kira

You're Marritza, aren't you?

You mistake me for that bug? That whimpering nothing? Ho-ho, you stupid Bajoran girl! Don't you know who I am? I'm your nemesis! I'm your nightmare! I'm the Butcher of Gallitep!

Kira

The Butcher of Gallitep died six years ago. You're Aamin Marritza, his filing clerk.

That's not true, I am alive! I will always be alive! It's Marritza who's dead! Marritza...who was good for nothing but cowering under his bunk and weeping like a woman! Who would, every night, cover his ears, because he couldn't bear to hear the screaming for mercy of the Bajorans...

I covered my ears every night. But I couldn't bear to hear those horrible screams. You have no idea what it's like to be a coward. To see these horrors... and do nothing. Marritza's dead. He deserves to be dead.[With a look of tragic sympathy, Kira deactivates his cell] What are you doing?

Kira

I'm letting you go.

Security! Get in here! [Kira enters his cell and he backs away from her into a corner]

Kira

You didn't commit those crimes, and you couldn't stop them. You were only one man.

No, no, don't you see? I have to be punished, we all have to be punished! Major, you have to go out there and tell them I'm Gul Dar'heel! It's the only way!

Kira

[close to tears herself] Why are you doing this?

For Cardassia! Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth! My trial will force Cardassia to acknowledge its guilt. And we're guilty, all of us! My death is necessary!

Kira

What you're asking for is another murder. Enough good people have already died. I won't help kill another.

Kira

[holding the rapidly dying Marritza] Why!?! He wasn't Darhe'el!

He was Cardassian! That's reason enough!

Kira

No. No, it's not.

Kira Nerys

But she's teaching a fundamentally different philosophy—

I'm not teaching any "philosophy." What I'm trying to teach is pure science.

Kira Nerys

Some might say pure science taught without a spiritual context is a philosophy, Mrs O'Brien.

Kira

Commander, I heard what you said to Vedek Winn at the school. I just wanted you to know you were right what you said about the Bajorans, at least about me. I don't think you're the devil.

Sisko

Maybe we have made some progress after all.