Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [109]
“My apologies. I have stolen your lives. They will now be given back.”
“What about the other Madred Villages?” Brent Atherton blurted out. “Are they shutting down too?”
Madred paused, and plainly this was the part he hated. Interesting—the apology was nothing to him.
“The other installations … will be purged also.”
Maybe it was real. Steve glanced at Mark, then at Brent. Maybe it really was happening. They weren’t drifting toward delusion.
“All right, Picard,” Madred said, turning. “You’ve proven to me that you are no longer merely a benign tumor. You are a barracuda. Granted. Allow me to be in awe. You have what you wanted. Now I want my daughter.”
“That will be up to her, Madred,” Captain Picard said fluidly. “You’ll have to win her back.”
Madred balled his fists and went up on both toes. “I want her back!”
“Then act decently and honorably. She will return to you.” Picard raised a communicator, and only then did Steve notice the captain wasn’t wearing any kind of combadge. “Picard to Half Moon. Captain Reynolds, commence beamdown.”
“We’re ready, Captain. Energizing.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“What’s going on?” Atherton demanded.
“It’s all right, Captain,” Picard assured. “Just a little unfinished business between myself and our gracious host over here. Stand by.”
Steve choked out, “Standing by, sir.”
Twenty meters away, transport beams sizzled into form, three of them. Humanoids … a human woman … a Klingon … and a Cardassian teenaged girl.
Must be Madred’s daughter.
New respect caused Steve to stare for a moment at Jean-Luc Picard. Kidnapping? Not exactly Starfleet method.
“Jil Orra,” Madred uttered, clearly relieved at her return.
The teenager stepped forward then, leaving the doctor and the Klingon behind. “Captain Picard. I can speak for myself.”
Picard stepped back. “Very well.”
“Father, I wish to explain. I am the one who contacted the Federation and told them about your prisoners. I told them you were holding Federation nationals, and Klingon, and Romulans, Orions, Deltans, Lenzhai, and at least one Andorian, and where they could find you.”
“Why would you do this?”
“Because you lied to me and I felt foolish growing up to believe lies. You humiliate me when you lie.”
“What lie have I ever told you?”
“You said that the enemies of Cardassia deserved their fates, and you were their fate. You said we must be vigilant against all who are not Cardassian. Then I found out you were also capturing and torturing Cardassians. You even have Cardassian Madred Villages. How could you do that? Using your own people as experiments? I found out you never let any of these people have their freedom, even after they have served you in terrible places like this. I could understand that for our enemies. But I couldn’t sleep at night knowing that you never let your captive Cardassians go free either.”
Madred’s voice went to a low grinding. “You … contacted … the Federation? You?”
“Yes. And I will continue working with them, and with anyone else who wants to believe that not all Cardassians are like you.”
“You’re only a little girl!” the father burst. “You can’t know what you’re thinking!”
Beside Steve, Brent Atherton bent over and placed his hands on his knees, breathing deeply as if he were about to retch. But is wasn’t that, Steve knew. He stood beside Brent and watched the weight of the past months’ horror roll off those shuddering shoulders. While the weight of responsibility had been bearable, this relief was almost overwhelming.
Silent as they witnessed the drama before them, Steve put his hand on Brent Atherton’s back and just stood there with that simple tactile contact assuring them both that all this was really happening.
His daughter took another step or two toward Madred.
“When I was much littler,” she told him, “you took me into your torture room and you let me see men like Captain Picard sprawled in agony on your floor and you didn’t think