The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [146]
But it might not have been. If there were only two survivors, it meant the Pakliros was worse off than the Grissom. We’d saved those final six—they’d been transported to the T’Mala, who were tasked with towing the Christopher back to Starbase 522—and could we truly not do likewise for our enemies?
Once, I would have had a much easier time answering that question.
Ensigns Seo, Jeloq, and Cruzen from security were approaching the transporter room from the other direction. They all had their phasers out. There was a time when standard procedure was to leave one’s weapons holstered until necessary, but those times had passed.
I entered the transporter room, the three security officers trailing behind me. As they got into a triangle formation, weapons pointed at the platform, I turned to the transporter operator, Chief T’Bonz.
The Vulcan woman said, “I have acquired a lock on the two Cardassians. Continued scans have detected no other life signs on the Pakliros.”
I nodded. “Energize.”
Two Cardassians materialized, a man and a woman. Their uniforms were torn and filthy, and both had evidence of injury. The woman had the insignia of a glinn.
However, I barely noticed her, as I found my entire focus on the man. It was a face I’d last seen in person on Cardassia Prime six years ago, but which I’d seen in my nightmares with alarming regularity ever since.
“Gul Madred.”
Palming the blood from around his right eye, the Cardassian gul looked at me with as much shock as I’m sure I viewed him. “Captain Picard. What a surprise,” he said flatly.
The glinn collapsed on the platform and started shaking. I turned to T’Bonz. “Beam her to sickbay.” I tapped my combadge. “Picard to Crusher. Doctor, you’re about to receive a wounded prisoner.”
“Understood.”
I looked back on the face of one of the few sentient beings for whom I had ever truly felt hatred. “Are there any other survivors?”
Slowly, Madred shook his head. “No. Glinn Driana and I are the only ones left.”
“Very well.” I affected a more formal tone of voice. “You are on board the U.S.S. Enterprise. By order of the Federation Council, I hereby declare you, Gul Madred, and Glinn Driana to be prisoners of war.” I turned to Ensign Seo. “Take him to the brig. Alert sickbay—they can treat his wounds there.”
Without another look at his face, I left the transporter room.
A Cardassian brings me into a large, dark room. My wrists are cuffed together in front of me. There is another Cardassian with small eyes and a gul’s insignia sitting behind a large desk.
“A challenge,” he says. Then he gets up and walks around the desk toward me. With a nod, he dismisses the one who brought me in, leaving us alone in the room together.
“You should prove an interesting challenge—possibly the most interesting to come through that door in many years.”
I ask, “What do you want?”
“Why, you, of course,” he says, as if it were blindingly obvious. “Picard. Jean—”
“—Luc?”
Beverly Crusher’s voice startled me out of my reverie. It had been six years, yet I remembered my time with Madred as if it were last week. Indeed, I remembered it with greater clarity than I did the events of the previous week.
But my chief medical officer was providing a report. “Yes, Beverly—I’m sorry, you were saying?”
“My patient has received third-degree burns over several parts of her body. I can treat that, but it’s secondary to the greater issue. She has radiation poisoning. Luckily for her, we were able to access the Pakliros’s medical database. She has a flag on her file that says she’s allergic to hyronalin.”
“But there are alternative treatments,” I said.
She nodded, her red tresses bouncing slightly. “Yes, but they’re less effective. I honestly don’t know if I can save her.”
I could hear the fatigue in her voice. The war had gone on for a year and a half, and wars are never easy times for physicians. I put what I hoped was a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Do what you can, Beverly.”
Again, she nodded. I squeezed her shoulder and then moved toward the exit.
“Jean-Luc?”
I stopped and turned.
Her expression