The Sky's The Limit Part 29

I thought a moment and decided I had no reason not to share the information. "We are meeting a fleet of Starfleet, Klingon, and Romulan ships at the Betreka Nebula and then proceeding to Raknal V to destroy the Dominion base being constructed there."

"Really?" Madred looked at me again, this time with a surprising intensity in his eyes. Prior to this, he was engaging in his usual tired word games, but now he seemed eager. "Captain, I have intelligence that would be of use to you."

I regarded him with derision. "You expect me to believe that?"

"I am a gul in Central Command, Captain. I have the rank and position to know a great deal about the inner workings of our war effort, and I know what is happening at Raknal V."

"And you will just give me this information?"

He nodded. "In exchange for getting to see Glinn Driana. After I have spoken to her, I will gladly tell you everything I know about Raknal V."

"Tell me first, then I will allow you to-"

"No!" The vehemence with which he said that one syllable almost struck me like a slap. The two security guards on duty, Horowitz and Simone, both moved their hands to their sidearms.

Seeing that, Madred made a show of calming himself. "I will see Glinn Driana, or you receive no information from me."

With that, he turned and sat back on the bunk, staring straight ahead.

"You have my terms, Captain" was all he would say.

I left the brig.

"Be quiet!" he screams as he again turns on the four lights that he claims are five.

"In spite of all you've done to me, I find you a pitiable man."

"Picard, stop it," he says, raising the control for the neural implant, "or I will turn this on and leave you in agony all night."

I bark out a laugh and point at him. "You called me 'Picard'!"

"What are the Federation's defense plans for Minos Korva?"

I give him only one answer: "There are four lights!"

He activates the implant. Pain racks my body as he insists there are five lights. I try to resist, taking refuge in an old song from my childhood...

Ironically, it was time for the appointment I'd made with Deanna. I had forgotten that I'd even made it until I was outside her office, simply wishing to speak with her.

Once again, I entered to find her reading over a padd. "Captain," she said at my entrance. "I'm glad you could make it."

I took my seat opposite her, tugging my uniform jacket.

"How has the interrogation been going?"

I filled her in on what Madred had said-which was very little-and then told her about the trade he proposed.

Deanna put a finger to her chin. "Do you believe that his intelligence will be useful?"

"It's impossible to be sure. He's correct that he is of sufficient rank to possibly be aware of what is happening on Raknal. But he might also be lying in order to see his subordinate." I gave a half smile. "Lying is Madred's modus operandi, after all."

Leaning back in her chair, Deanna said, "What I find curious is Madred's interest in the glinn. Why does he wish to see her particularly?"

That brought me up short. I honestly hadn't given that a moment's thought. "You know-I have no idea."

"It might be worth discovering that."

I shook my head. "But it almost doesn't matter-I can't fulfill my end of the bargain either way. Glinn Driana is dead. And therein lies my dilemma."

"Which is?"

Again, I tugged on my uniform jacket. "The only way I will be able to obtain Gul Madred's intelligence is to lie to him. I must...I must do to him what he did to me."

"Captain," Deanna said, leaning forward and putting a rea.s.suring hand on mine, "there is no danger of your doing to him what he did to you."

"He manipulated me, Counselor-he lied, he caused me pain, and in the end he broke me. If I lie to him, if I tell him that Driana is alive and well and gain intelligence from him, and then renege on my part of that bargain-how does that make me different from him?"

She removed her hand. "Captain, there is a war on, and-"

"I don't accept that rationalization."

Tartly, Deanna said, "It's not a rationalization, Captain."

"Isn't it? When we use war as an excuse for extreme behavior, where does it end? Madred tortured me, ostensibly to obtain information about Minos Korva. His nation was at war with mine, or at least they intended to be, so does that justify his actions, done as they were for the greater good of the Carda.s.sian Union?"

"Of course not," Deanna said.

I gestured in a manner that was almost pleading. "Then how do I justify manipulating Madred now?"

Deanna stared at me for a moment, her face unusually opaque. "At Ricktor Prime, would you consider your actions justifiable?"

I shrugged. "The Dominion invaded Ricktor Prime. We were defending our territory."

"Exactly. But if there wasn't a state of war between the Dominion and the Federation, would your actions at Ricktor Prime have been justified?"

I hesitated.

Deanna went on. "You would have at least attempted a peaceful solution-but war has been declared. If there is to be a peaceful solution, it would not have happened at Ricktor Prime. Ethics can be situational-what you did at Ricktor Prime would have been a court-marial offense three years ago but is an act of heroism now."

"Hardly that," I said, but did not argue the point further. "Yes, all right, perhaps so, but where does it end?"

"I think the better question is, why did it start?"

Again, I was brought up short. "What do you mean?"

Now Deanna was speaking more formally, counselor to captain rather than therapist to patient. "Captain, it is completely inappropriate for you to interrogate Gul Madred-and potentially damaging. Besides undermining Lieutenant Daniels's authority, you also are exposing yourself to psychological damage. Madred's treatment of you six years ago is a wound that his presence has ripped open. This ship cannot afford a wounded captain right now."

"Counselor, you don't understand, I needed-"

Now she was back to being a therapist. "Captain, I understand completely, more than anyone, because I know the truth. As you just said, he broke you. So why do you keep going back to see him? Why do you continue to let him hold power over you?"

Shaking my head, I said, "He doesn't have any power over me, Counselor, he's my prisoner."

"No, Captain. You're still his."

I found I had nothing to say. The notion was ridiculous.

Wasn't it?

Very quietly, Deanna said, "I've watched the recordings of your sessions with Madred. He has manipulated every conversation you two have had. As far as he's concerned, you never left his office, and he's still trying to break you."

I thought back to the conversations in the brig and realized that-as usual-Deanna was right.

"I've been a fool," I whispered.

"No," she said, "you've been a victim. That's not a crime, Captain."

"Perhaps not." I stood up, straightening my uniform. "But allowing him to continue to victimize me is."

With that, I turned and left the counselor's office.

"It's up to you. A life of ease and reflection and intellectual challenge-or this." He indicates the office where I have been for the past several days, subject to his whims and manipulations.

Barely able to speak, I ask, "What must I do?"

"Nothing, really." He looks up at the lights. "Tell me how many lights you see."

I look up. The lights blind me, but I stare directly into them. Madred has said that the Enterprise is destroyed, and I am believed to have perished with them. I have nothing left.

"How many?"

I stare at the lights.

"How many lights?" The door behind me opens. "This is your last chance. The guards are coming. Don't be a stubborn fool. How many?"

I'm about to answer, to tell him that I do in fact see five lights, when another Carda.s.sian gul appears at my side. He's furious at Madred. "You told me he would be ready to go."

"We had some unfinished business," Madred says rather lamely.

Angrily, the other gul says, "Get him cleaned up! A ship is waiting to take him back to the Enterprise."

It was another lie. Only this time, I believed it.

From my ready room, I instructed the computer to show me the feed from the brig. The station on my desk lights up and I see Lieutenant Daniels standing where I had stood previously.

Madred sat on his bunk, looking confused. "Who are you?"

"My name is Lieutenant Daniels, chief of security of the Enterprise. I have a few questions for you, Gul Madred."

"What has happened to Captain Picard?"

Daniels smiled. "The captain is a busy man-he has better things to do than listen to the likes of you."

And then Madred threw his head back, and he laughed.

I frowned. This was not what I was expecting.

"What's so funny?" Daniels's tone was of great annoyance.

Madred shook his head. "From the moment I beamed onto this ship, I wondered if I would be able to learn the truth. For six years, I've been plagued with not knowing the answer. But now-oh, Lieutenant, you cannot possibly know how happy you've made me."

"You can't imagine how little I care about your happiness, Gul."

Nodding, Madred said, "Understandable. Still, I am, at last, satisfied. You see, I never knew if I broke him. Lemec, that tiresome fool, came in before I had my answer. I could never be sure if he remained defiant to the end, or if Lemec's entrance provided him with the hope that I had so meticulously taken away from him."

Daniels shook his head. "You're crazy."

"Am I? Given the opportunity to hold my request to see Glinn Driana over my head, he instead runs away, afraid to face me as a prisoner, afraid to treat me that way. I know she is dead-she had radiation poisoning, and she is allergic to hyronalin-but Picard could have lied to me, manipulated me, as I did him. But when we reached the endgame, he chose to retreat rather than confront."

Madred then decided to laugh some more, at which point, I almost turned the screen off, but then Daniels interrupted him. "Captain Picard didn't use the glinn against you because he didn't need to-and we didn't need you. The intelligence we had was more than sufficient. The raid on Raknal V went off without a hitch. There's never going to be a base on that planet, Gul Madred, and you were completely helpless to prevent it."

That got Madred to stop laughing, at least, but he was still smiling. "It doesn't matter. I've won."

Daniels asked a few more questions, but Madred said nothing. Disgusted, I turned off the screen and went back to the bridge.

Will and Deanna were both seated at their places on the bridge when I came out. The former said, "Captain Kartok has beamed down an occupation force to hold Raknal V. We've been ordered to deliver Gul Madred to Starbase 522."

"Grand. I'll be glad to be rid of him." I sat in my seat, my two trusted advisers at either side.

From my left, Deanna said, "You should be proud, Captain. Madred is a bully, and ultimately the only way to defeat a bully is not to engage him." She smiled at me. "You won."

I thought about how close I came to admitting to there being five lights six years ago, and how easily I let Madred once again trap me in his web of words three days ago, and I shook my head.

"This does not feel like victory."

'Til Death

Bob Ingersoll & Thomas F. Zahler

Historian's note: