Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [79]
“It was,” said Picard.
“I see,” said McAteer. “And as I understand it, you weren’t finished. Later on, after you had completed your repairs with the help of the Magnians, you could have recrossed the barrier without worrying about your crew’s exposure. Yet you chose a different course. You went after a Nuyyad supply depot.”
Picard frowned. “Starfleet sent me across the barrier to see if there was any truth to the reports we had received about the Nuyyad. I was satisfied that they were indeed a threat to us—that, in fact, they were in the midst of preparing an invasion.”
“But in your own words, Starfleet had sent you across the barrier to see if there was any truth to those reports. Did Starfleet also ask you to make a tactical strike against the Nuyyad?”
“It was not what I had been ordered to do,” Picard confirmed. “However, as a Starfleet captain, I am charged with the security and defense of the Federation, and in that light I believed this action was both necessary and justified.”
“Justified by what? The word of people who had already proven themselves untrustworthy?”
The captain felt a hot spurt of anger. McAteer had no idea what it was like on the other side of the barrier. He had no right to level such a criticism.
No, he thought, remembering his oath. As your superior, he has every right.
“By that time,” he said, “I was inclined to believe the Magnians’ story. First, they had explained the reasons for their deception to my satisfaction. Second, after our destruction of the ship orbiting Magnia, the Nuyyad had reappeared in force and carried out a potentially devastating attack.”
“I wonder,” said McAteer, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “if what you did to their other ships had something to do with that.”
“They did not attack us, Admiral. They attacked Magnia.”
“If your logs are accurate,” said McAteer, “a number of your people were on the planet’s surface by then, working hand in hand with the Magnians. The Nuyyad must have perceived that and come to the only reasonable conclusion—that the one certain way to remove the threat posed by the Stargazer was to take control of Magnia and extract your personnel.”
“Or,” said Picard, “they were as vicious and grasping as the Magnians claimed.”
“The point,” said the admiral, stiffening a bit under the lash of the captain’s retort, “is that you didn’t know. You couldn’t be certain. And yet you felt this was sufficient evidence to warrant an attack on a nonmilitary target.”
“It was not nonmilitary,” Picard maintained. “It was significantly better armed than the Nuyyad’s ships.”
“It was a supply depot,” McAteer insisted. “It could have contained nothing more than foodstuffs.”
“With all due respect,” said the captain, “you helped foil an invasion fleet a few weeks ago by stowing aboard a supply ship. That contained foodstuffs as well.”
The admiral took the point in stride. More than likely, he had considered it already and prepared a response.
“I was helping to defend the Federation against a documentably hostile fleet that had already invaded our space,” said McAteer. “You, by contrast, were in alien space—the Nuyyad’s, for all we know—which would have made you the invader. I don’t believe our situations were at all the same.”
“All I am saying,” said Picard, “is that a supply facility may be a key component of an invasion fleet.”
“And then again,” the admiral insisted, “it may not be. Which is why we don’t attack them unless and until we are certain. And the veracity of the Magnians notwithstanding, you were not in a position to be certain.”
“Unfortunately,” said Picard, “we are seldom in that position. A starship captain must be prepared to act on what information is at hand, no matter how scanty or unsubstantiated.”
“Or not act,” said McAteer, “as I believe you should have done in the case in question.” He looked to his colleagues. “I have no further questions.”
That meant it was Mehdi’s turn. The captain relaxed a bit, knowing that