The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [148]
Madred looked up at me, his face having been repaired. “So, it would seem fate has thrown us together again, human.”
I stepped forward. “You are on board my ship, Gul Madred, and you will address me as ‘Captain.’ “
Inclining his head, he said, “My apologies. I’m afraid I’m far more accustomed to my role as jailer than jailed.” He gave a small smile and added, “How grateful I am that it is you who are my interrogator, Captain. So often in that room, I found myself dealing with dullards and simpletons, enemies of the state who provided no challenge whatsoever. I feared that now, with the positions reversed, I would be confronted with a boorish chief of security who would badger me with tiresome questions.”
“Such as asking you what you were doing on an outdated ship so far from Cardassian space—or, rather, Dominion space?”
Again he smiled. “Yes, rather like that question. And you give the Akril class far too little credit. It is one of our finer designs.” The smile fell. “Or rather, it was.”
I had to admit that a certain smugness crept into my tone when I said, “Your Dominion masters were unable to make the upgrades work, were they?”
“They are hardly our ‘masters,’ Captain.” Madred’s tone struck me as defensive. “We are part of the Dominion now, not its slaves.”
“Really?” I started to pace back and forth in front of the force field. “Your government is run by the Vorta—yes, I know, Legate Damar is nominally in charge, but he’s obviously a puppet of the Founders. You can practically see the strings.”
“Perhaps—but Cardassia is great once again.”
“Cardassia is nothing! Your entire culture, your entire nation has been subsumed in order to become part of a larger totalitarian state.”
Madred whispered, “And what, pray tell, was the alternative? Cardassia was in a shambles, Captain. I am the last to lament the end of the Obsidian Order—they were a collection of paranoid fools—but their destruction left the government vulnerable to civilian takeover, which in turn left us even more vulnerable to outside attack. Our people were dying in droves. We lost worlds to Klingon aggression and Maquis terrorism. By joining the Dominion, Cardassian lives were saved.”
“And how many more lives were lost since the war began?”
“I would be a fool to deny that sacrifices have been made. But at least the losses are now primarily soldiers who have pledged to give their lives in service to Cardassia. When the Klingons attacked, they showed little interest in limiting themselves to military targets, and the Maquis were even more indiscriminate.”
“A life is no less valuable because it has agreed to serve. All life is precious, Madred.”
He chuckled at that. “What a charmingly naive point of view. Allow me to refute each of your points, Captain. Life is not at all precious—if it were, it wouldn’t be so easily disposed of. As for the military, its primary function is to protect the state and the people within it. Of course a civilian life is of more value, because the military’s job is to put itself in danger to protect civilians. There is no other conclusion to be reached from that position—unless your Starfleet does not protect civilians.”
“Of course it does.”
“Then why do you continue to fight the Dominion?” Madred rose and walked toward the force field. “You must see that this war is a tremendous waste.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Then why do you continue to fight it?”
Another smile. “That is my question to you, Captain. Why do you resist the inevitable? Why fight the Dominion?”
“What alternative do we have?”
“Join us!” Madred spoke with passion, now, more than I’d ever seen him evince. “If you join the Dominion, you can save lives—a position your Federation, as well as the Klingons and Romulans, would have been far better off emulating rather than fighting. If you don’t believe me, you need only to glance at your collective casualty figures to see that I am right.”
Now he was simply playing games. And, I realized, I was playing them as well. One of the last things Madred ever said to me before I