The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [153]
“You can’t imagine how little I care about your happiness, Gul.”
Nodding, Madred said, “Understandable. Still, I am, at last, satisfied. You see, I never knew if I broke him. Lemec, that tiresome fool, came in before I had my answer. I could never be sure if he remained defiant to the end, or if Lemec’s entrance provided him with the hope that I had so meticulously taken away from him.”
Daniels shook his head. “You’re crazy.”
“Am I? Given the opportunity to hold my request to see Glinn Driana over my head, he instead runs away, afraid to face me as a prisoner, afraid to treat me that way. I know she is dead—she had radiation poisoning, and she is allergic to hyronalin—but Picard could have lied to me, manipulated me, as I did him. But when we reached the endgame, he chose to retreat rather than confront.”
Madred then decided to laugh some more, at which point, I almost turned the screen off, but then Daniels interrupted him. “Captain Picard didn’t use the glinn against you because he didn’t need to—and we didn’t need you. The intelligence we had was more than sufficient. The raid on Raknal V went off without a hitch. There’s never going to be a base on that planet, Gul Madred, and you were completely helpless to prevent it.”
That got Madred to stop laughing, at least, but he was still smiling. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve won.”
Daniels asked a few more questions, but Madred said nothing. Disgusted, I turned off the screen and went back to the bridge.
Will and Deanna were both seated at their places on the bridge when I came out. The former said, “Captain Kartok has beamed down an occupation force to hold Raknal V. We’ve been ordered to deliver Gul Madred to Starbase 522.”
“Grand. I’ll be glad to be rid of him.” I sat in my seat, my two trusted advisers at either side.
From my left, Deanna said, “You should be proud, Captain. Madred is a bully, and ultimately the only way to defeat a bully is not to engage him.” She smiled at me. “You won.”
I thought about how close I came to admitting to there being five lights six years ago, and how easily I let Madred once again trap me in his web of words three days ago, and I shook my head.
“This does not feel like victory.”
‘Til Death
Bob Ingersoll & Thomas F. Zahler
Historian’s note:
This tale unfolds in the weeks leading up to the feature film Star Trek Nemesis.
BOB INGERSOLL & THOMAS F. ZAHLER
Bob Ingersoll is a practicing attorney with the Cuyahoga County Public Defender Office in Cleveland, Ohio, who hopes to get it right one of these days so he can finally stop practicing. For over twenty years he used his legal background to write the regular column “The Law Is a Ass” for Comics Buyer’s Guide, a weekly trade newspaper for the comic-book industry.
He has written scripts for numerous comic-books, including Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lost in Space, Quantum Leap, and Hero Alliance. He was the co-author of the novels Captain America: Liberty’s Torch and Star Trek: The Case of the Colonist’s Corpse.
He has no idea what he wants to be when he grows up.
When Thomas F. Zahler’s father introduced him to Star Trek and comic books, he probably had no idea what an impression they would make on the boy. Thom became obsessed with both, but decided it would be easier to become a cartoonist than join Starfleet.
After graduating the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, where he learned to draw funny pictures and tell stories, he began a successful career as an artist, working for clients across the country. His work has been seen everywhere from advertising campaigns to magazines and throughout the world of comics. He wrote and drew the action-adventure-spy series Raider, and is currently writing and drawing the critically acclaimed superhero sitcom comic book Love and Capes.
Zahler lives in northeast Ohio.