Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [10]
The question, Picard thought as he stood on the transporter pad and waited for Ben Zoma, is why?
A moment later, the doors to the transporter room opened and the first officer arrived. With a nod to Goetz, the red-haired operator on duty, Ben Zoma mounted the pad and took his place beside the captain.
“Sir,” he said.
“Commander,” Picard said in return.
Goetz made some last-second adjustments, then looked up from her controls at the captain. “Ready, sir.”
“Energize,” said Picard.
Suddenly, he and Ben Zoma were somewhere else—on a much smaller transporter platform in a dim, dingy cargo hold. There were three figures standing in front of them, a male and two females, all of them dressed in snug-fitting, dark green garb—and all of them carrying weapon holsters on their hips.
They looked one hundred percent human. But if they were from Magnia, as Serenity was, it was only their ancestors who had been human. They themselves were something more.
“Captain Picard, Commander Ben Zoma,” said one of the women, “please come with me.” Her tightly braided hair was a pale, pure yellow, her eyes as green as the sea.
Picard wondered how strong her powers were. Could she move a drinking glass without touching it? Tell him what he was thinking about at that very moment?
No doubt, Ben Zoma was wondering the same thing. But then, he, too, had met the Magnians before.
“Very well,” said the captain. Then he allowed the woman to escort him and his first officer out of the hold.
As they passed the other two Magnians, Picard saw how closely the pair studied him. Their curiosity was understandable. He had helped liberate their world from an oppressor—one they hadn’t been able to resist, for all their power. Had the captain been one of them, he would have been curious too.
Without another word, the blond woman led the way out of the hold and into a narrow, sporadically lit corridor. Turning left, she followed the bend of the passage for a few moments. Then she stopped in front of a sliding door and placed her hand over a copper-colored plate on the bulkhead.
After a second or two the door hissed open, and the blonde motioned for Picard to enter. Doing so, he found himself in a lounge of sorts, albeit a cheerless one. In the center of the room, there was a round table at which two figures were seated.
One of them was Serenity Santana, looking every bit as darkly beautiful as Picard remembered her. Perhaps even more so, if such a thing was possible.
The other figure was a member of a species Picard had never seen before. He was arrayed in a bronze breastplate and coarse, dark garments—a large, fleshy-looking specimen with tiny black eyes and a fringe of oily-looking hair falling from an otherwise smooth scalp.
The captain felt an immediate aversion to the fellow. It wasn’t his looks, though they were certainly repulsive by human standards. It was the way he comported himself—as if he were superior to Picard, Ben Zoma, and even Santana, as if he were in fact doing them a favor just by being there.
“Captain Picard,” said Serenity, getting to her feet and speaking with surprising formality—for the benefit of her companion and Ben Zoma, the captain imagined, since he and she would have had no need to do so on their own.
“Miss Santana,” Picard responded, in the same vein.
What he would have preferred to do was take her in his arms, and he believed she would have preferred that as well. But this was neither the time nor the place for such intimacies.
Serenity turned to Ben Zoma. “Commander. It’s good to see you again.”
The first officer smiled. “Same here,” he said, though not without a few obvious reservations.
After all, as Admiral McAteer had taken pains to point out, Santana hadn’t been entirely honest with them the last time they met. It was only fair to wonder what she was up to.
“Gentlemen,” she said, indicating her hulking companion, “I would like you to meet Dojjaron, Sword-Bearer and Foremost Elder…of the Nuyyad Alliance.”
For a moment, Picard believed he