The set-up: After that donkey Riker smashes up the Enterprise, a lot of people are temporarily out of a job. Admiral Nechayev, fed up, assigns Picard to serve as her executive assistant. She drags him along aboard the Yamato on a long string of inspections at various Federation stations and bases, including DS9. Starfleet is well aware of the Dominion at this point and the Cardassians are supposedly cold-war neutrals. When Nechayev arrives at DS9, she is infuriated to find a whole Cardassian fleet already docked. She roars aboard the station to have words with Sisko and orders Picard to also stay aboard and make himself visible in a show of Federation presence…
Picard drifted miserably from one locale on the Promenade to another. For a while he’d considered entering the Bajoran temple and meditating away some time, but Nechayev knew that he had no religious convictions and the temple was modern in construction and of no personal interest to him. He next hovered by the infirmary, but again Nechayev might find out and he knew that she had no sympathy whatsoever for ailments of the heart and soul, of the type that were afflicting him. For Picard WAS heartsick. In the space of a few months, he’d lost his only remaining blood relatives, his ship, and his self-respect, in just that order. The first two he could have done nothing about. The last, he considered regaining by fighting his new posting or resigning, but it had all seemed too much trouble at the time…just too much. EVERYTHING seemed too much, and little wonder. His crippled self-esteem barely flickered anymore and all his days seemed dark and endless now.
And so he came, inevitably, to Quark’s, where most of the Cardassians Nechayev so wanted him to impress were hanging out. He was able to get a hot sort of spiced cider, the closest thing to tea which the bar served, and then found a corner which sheltered him from the worst of the clientele yet still left him exposed to view, as the admiral wanted. There, he hunched and withdrew, to mull over his situation. He just HAD to do something soon or Nechayev would break him completely…he HAD to!
Having the Cardassians nearby, hearing their harsh voices and gating laughs, awoke memories which also need attention. Years ago, Picard had been captured and tortured by Cardassians, and the person who had ordered him on the mission which had ended in this personal tragedy had been Nechayev. The irony of having her again order him into unwanted proximity to his hateful race was not lost on the captain. He trembled as he dredged up bad recollections of things, dreadful things, which his interrogator had done to him. Sometimes, Picard swore he could still even hear his voice, soft and insistent and insinuating…
REALLY insistent. He could hear it even through the muted background babble of Quark’s. Picaaard…Picaarrrddd, it seemed to say; I knew you would come, Picaaard…
So close to reality, TOO close. What-! Captain Picard jerked his head about, gasped, and scrambled to his feet. It couldn’t be…it COULDN’T be…!
Gul Madred stood there, genuine and solid. He smiled, a horrendous, terrifying smile.
Picard felt his guts shrivel up into a tangled knot. He froze, went utterly rigid, as the Cardassian gul oozed up to him.
“Here with the admiral, are you?” Madred murmured, in that hated silken lover’s tone. “Oh yes, I know. I know about your Enterprise, about your appointment. I know how much both must have caused you pain.”
His voice lingered on the last word, lips shaping the sound with exquisite pleasure. He sidled even closer to Picard, who still stood unmoving, eyes wide with dumb astonishment.
“I know pain too,” Madred whispered, mouth now but inches away from the captain’s ear. “And so I come here sometimes, to play a special game. Would you like to join me?”
Jean-Luc stared into the eyes of his former inquisitor, mesmerized. Quark’s noisy bar, his patrons, even DS9 itself no longer existed for him. He did not know how Madred had found him; he couldn’t begin to calculate the odds of again encountering this man-in this place, at this time-out of all other men in the vastness of known space. The hows and whys didn’t matter. He knew only that Madred beckoned and that he, Jean-Luc Picard, felt compelled to obey.
The gul surged away, his dark bulk cutting a swath through reality. Picard followed in his wake, as helpless as a sleepwalker. They moved to the back of the gaming floor, to the foot of the stairs, up to the next level. The holosuite gaped open. Both men stepped inside. And when the doors slid shut behind him their whispery glide grated like screeching nails on the blackboard of Picard’s soul.
-----
“Do you recognize it?” Madred whispered.
Jean-Luc gazed fearfully about the transformed confines of the holosuite. A latticework of filtered illumination shone down like malignant moonlight. Metal cables reared into agonized uprights from floor to ceiling. The shackles gleamed. The rare, precious blade of the knife on the desk glittered. And the lights-mon Dieu, the lights-!
Picard remembered it all. Minos Corva. The defence plans. Celtrus Three. All the exquisite details of his former torture resurfaced in a frenzied boil.
Madred stalked about his victim in a slow circle.
“How good to see you looking so healthy, Captain. I do mean that. Do you believe me?”
“I-what do you-“
“When I heard about your mishap with the Enterprise, I was aggrieved…shattered, really, thinking that you must have perished with your ship.”
“I-“
“But then I discovered that you were nowhere near the site of your vessel’s destruction! And now-well-here we are. Together again.”
Picard swallowed, his dry throat clicking as he gulped.
“What-what do you want with me?” he managed to croak.
“Why, to finish our business, Captain. We never did.”
The human squeezed his hazel eyes shut. You must leave! his sanity cried, you must leave-NOW! But his sanity had checked in at the door along with his intellect and self-esteem. Madred’s words raked aside his mind’s warning like so many fallen leaves, scattering them to the winds and into itty-bitty bits (the kind that got stuck to your socks and NEVER seemed to come off no matter how much you picked and picked). He felt the Cardassian’s hand on his face, felt his gusting breath, as hot and moist as his clutching fingers. The hand slid over his temple and up over the dome of Picard’s bald pate.
“Smooootthhh,” Madred whispered. “So soft and smooooth. We didn’t have time for this before. But now…”
His voice trailed off suggestively. Picard moaned. He was lost.
-----
Jean-Luc Picard screamed as the wildfire swept down on him and shielded his eyes with his hands. Even then he could hear the roaring and crackling, feel the blasts of heat and the hot feathery brush of cinders whirling about him on the turbulent updrafts. He began to sob when he caught the smell, the unmistakable odour of living vegetation cooking and burning.
Gul Madred snapped his fingers and the fire, the wind, the furnace-blasts of heat all vanished. Picard opened his streaming eyes cautiously. Devastation greeted him. Heaps of ash and roasted soil. Charred remnants of vine on the burnt cables. Robert’s vineyard-HIS vineyard now-all destroyed.
Madred’s steps sent up small clouds of soot as he approached the human, fallen down upon his knees on the scorched earth.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he breathed, gesturing about at the ruination all around him. “The power of fire… For some it can smelt, give heat and life. For others, nothing but death.” He reached to touch a blasted grapevine, still clinging to its support. “One moment a thriving, beautiful, productive vinery. The next-“ The wood crumbled and he smiled. “Nought but a raisin farm.”
There’s more, involving a Borg, which I’ll happily type up if anyone wants to read it, but that was the joke!
