Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [99]
“You couldn’t break me,” Picard said, as if reading Madred’s thoughts. “You have no idea of my limits, but I know yours. Jil Orra is your limit. She’s your breaking point, Madred.”
“Oh—” Madred shook his head suddenly. “Now you’ve given yourself away. I know you better. This is a masterful bluff, but still a bluff. Your Lordship Jean-Luc Picard, I know you. You will not torture a child.”
The captain’s dark eyes hardened. “I won’t have to.”
“You’ll have to show me what you mean.”
The standoff reached a new peak. Not the summit, but a very important notch.
His own words drumming in his ears, Madred stood as still as he could manage on his shivering legs and demanded of himself that he give away nothing, at least physically.
Picard studied him for many seconds, searching for weakness or pretense, seemed frustrated not to find any, and turned to the Klingon. “Show him.”
The Klingon reached into a small utility bag and took out a gleaming metal device with a glowing red panel.
“All right, Picard,” Madred said. “What is that? I know you’re hungering to tell me.”
“Yes, I am.” Picard took the device from the Klingon and held it up. The glowing red panel was counting down the numbers from 100. 99. 98.
“This is a K’luth device. Klingon warriors use it as a test of bravery. When the number counts down to zero, it sends a wave of neural disruption in a fifty-foot radius. It is a most unpleasant way to die.”
“And your point, Picard?” The device in Picard’s hand continued to count down. 90. 89. 88.
“A simple one. Only I can stop the countdown before detonation, and that I will not do unless you reveal the location of the captured Federation citizens, and the others as well.”
“And you’ve brought my daughter to your little party because … ?”
“Because your own death would mean too little to you as long as Jil Orra lived to continue your line. Her life is something you care about. Your weakness.”
“Father,” Jil Orra began, her voice cold. Madred interrupted her.
“Do not fear, Jil Orra,” he said confidently. “This noble Starfleet officer would never kill an innocent child, even to save dozens of other innocent lives. That is how humans are weak. It is why they will, in the end, be overrun.”
“Father,” Jil Orra insisted, “he is not killing me. I am here of my own free will, because of what you have done. If you will not release your prisoners and stop your butchery, I do not wish to be your daughter any longer. There is only one way I can escape that shame.”
“Picard,” Madred began, “you have …”
“I’ve done nothing,” Picard said. “What she says is true. She is here at her own request.” The device in his hands had reached 55, and were the numbers falling faster now? Madred couldn’t tell. He had to think, but there was no time! Would Picard let his daughter die a horrible death? Madred had spent his life figuring the odds, but in his time, at his leisure.
And there was something about Picard, something harder. Had the loss of his ship changed him? “Your ship,” Madred began, searching for data.
“Very perceptive,” Picard said. “My ship. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you’ve lost it. I know now that ships are more than vehicles. They’re an amalgam of everything we’ve taught ourselves to do over the ages. A ship is the echo of civilization itself, all in one package.
“We rose from the muck, taught ourselves carpentry, metallurgy, chemistry, navigation, architecture, art… . We discovered how to handle and use the elements of nature, right down to warping space itself … . We learned compassion and conquest and how to use each. Everything that mankind has learned over the eons can be found somewhere on a starship, and every kind of person as well—from a maverick who does what he likes to”—Picard paused and smiled—”those of us who see the value in consensus.
“The ship, Madred, the ship is why you could never break me and why if I face death today, so be it. I’ve faced death a hundred times. You’ve never faced it at all. Because I served on a ship, I will always have the advantage over such as