"Well my dear Captain," Madred rose from his desk. "I believe we have had enough of these time-consuming pleasantries."

He pushed a yellow button at the corner of his desk and two guards immediately entered. They took several steps through the entry and waited. Picard felt a tightness in his stomach. A flood of memories crossed his subconscious and he sensed the first prodding fingers of fear. Madred stepped from his chair and motioned toward the door.

"Come. There is someone I want you to see."

Picard blinked. He did not trust his sense of relief. He had fully expected to be stripped of his identity and bound as he was before. Tentatively, he leaned forward and rose from his chair. Gul Madred's stared at him, his face expressionless. Picard remembered his near complete ambivalence toward him as a subject of interrogation. That detachment had returned. This was a dangerous man, and he revealed nothing about this next stage of the game.

Madred left his guards to escort Picard down a series of rock tunnels, not unlike those he had been originally captured in. Seemingly unending, the corridors meandered and joined in an unsolvable maze. As the group traveled down a continuous slope, the rockface sides began to effuse a musky wetness. Picard could smell the dank odor of despair. Ahead, muted moans echoed against the stone.

Passing three iron-barred doors, the guards stopped, opened the fourth door, and motioned Picard inside. He stepped into the dark, empty cell and listened to the bars close behind him with a clang.

For the moment he stood still, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He welcomed the time to think over his current predicament. It appeared, for the time being, he had some control over this situation. Perhaps his first encounter with the Cardassian military carried repercussions for them that they were not willing to revisit. In the relative quiet, Picard snapped to attention at the soft clatter of chains from the corner of the cell.

"Who's there?" He asked sharply.

In the instant the strained, whisper of a response hit his ears, Picard was seized by dread.

"Jean-Luc?"

His feet tripped over themselves as he sprang toward the sound with desperate urgency.

"BEVERLY!"

He cried out her name more to convince himself that his unthinkable fear had come true. As he moved forward, the light he blocked from the door cast across a wooden bench. In the shadows sat a shacked form hugging it's legs, head bowed. Picard threw himself to his knees in front of her and gripped her shoulders gently.

"My god! Are you alright? What have they done to you?"

She slowly raised her head and allowed the sight of her Captain to sink in. Blinking against the backlight, she searched his familiar features half believing he was a mirage.

"Beverly? Answer me!" Picard shook her out of the trance.

A watershed of tears burst forth as she leaned into his arms. Gasping between sobs, she recounted her capture and interrogation. Madred had told her he had killed Picard this time because he wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know and that Starfleet had been told that she was dead as well. He had injected her with some drug and asked her questions about invasion plans and weapons schematics. When she told him she didn't know anything about security, he beat her, insisting that her captain would have shared this information with her.

Picard listened in horror. His mind's eye envisioning Madred circling his latest victim. The thought of any of his friends being subjected to the torture he received was hideous. The reality that he had laid even a finger on Beverly was almost unbearable. He held her close to him as her body shook with relief and fatigue.

"My god...I'm so sorry..." he spoke softly. Within minutes, she had given over to exhaustion and fallen asleep in his arms.