Chapter 2

"Captain, this is not the time for decency. We need answer, and we need them now." Fleet Admiral Nechayev whispered. They had been interrogating the M'loi prisoner for over an hour now, and he had given them nothing. She continued, "allow my people to do it, and we'll have it out of him in under an hour."

"And what, pray tell, Admiral, is the method for this...extraction?"

"Telepathic persuasion."

"He is a M'loi, Admiral. They're trained to resist telepathic probing." Picard knew the moment those words left his lips what Nechayev was going to say. But he hoped against hope that he was wrong.

"There are other ways of using the Betazoid abilities to extract information, Captain."

There it was. "You mean torture, Admiral." Picard's voice became dangerously low. It was not a question.

"I do not require you to approve of these methods, Captain. All I require of you is to do your duty" She stared him straight in the face.

Picard was silent. Duty. Picard briefly wondered how many despicable acts were justified by saying that word. Picard knew that Betazoids, or at least the more telepathically gifted ones, could cause pain, or death, if they focused their telepathic powers intensely enough onto a mind.

"This is a war, Captain. You would do well to remember that the next time you get squeamish." Alynna Nechayev turned to the tall, dark eyes woman, "Yallah, you may proceed."

Picard left the room as quickly as dignity would allow. The prisoner, strapped to a chair, began to moan with increased urgency as the Betazoid, Yallah, sat opposite, stared unblinkingly at her prey.

Picard turned briefly before leaving the room. The M'loi's eyes were on him, and in those white orbs, Picard saw one thing.

Pain.

Picard felt nauseous, as though he were experiencing some of what the prisoner was being forced to endure. The organization that he had given himself to, freely, and for his entire adult life, disgusted him. How dare they?How dare they resort to...to this? Hadn't they fought before to stop others from utilizing these barbaric practises? Wasn't there some sort of guarantee in the Federation Charter against this sort of thing. But of course, the M'loi don't enjoy the protection of the Charter. Silly me, thinking it was a philosophy. Do unto others before they do unto you.

Picard walked out of the building that they had been in, and took a look around. A barren, windswept plateau greeted him as he kicked some of the sparse, luminescent rocks that littered the ground, like so many ornaments. What the hell am I doing here?I should be back on the Enterprise, with Beverly, not bandying around with that toad of an Admiral. It had been two months since he had left his beloved Enterprise. Two months of hopping around this system in a runabout, looking for one man the Admiral had said was an important source of information. When they finally caught him, he looked so pitiable, so scared about what was going to happen to him. Probably a logistics officer. Probably not even a volunteer. He had tried to give the man a decent standard of living while on the runabout, and the Admiral didn't really care how the M'loi lived, as long as he did so long enough to answer her questions.

He looked into the distance after being shaken out of his thoughts by the wind. There, under a sheet designed to look like what, a forest? So that if anyone were to look at the runabout, they would see a small copse of trees. IN THE MIDDLE OF A BARREN PLATEAU WITH NO WATER. Stellar. Picard hated everything right now, but the Starfleet Corps of Engineers officer who designed that pointless piece of camouflage was his current target. An unfair target, but one nonetheless.

He missed the Enterprise. How he missed Beverly. Beverly. No. Do not think of her. Do not sully her by imagining her with you here now. She would not want to be with you if she knew what you were doing. Try as he might to put his mind on different tracks, Picard could not drown out the sounds that he was hearing from inside the small installation. The screams from the man they had captured, and were currently questioning.

He was almost glad when those screams stopped. Is he dead, or unconscious? Picard fervently hoped it was the former. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.

"Captain, we're going. Please send to the Sulieman that we are ready to leave."

"Yes, Admiral." He knew they weren't taking the M'loi with them. I wonder if he was killed, or just left there?

"Captain Picard to Runabout Sulieman, begin prelaunch procedures." In the distance, he could hear the whine of the engines coming online. Well, that sounded about right.

What didn't sound right was the explosion that followed, nor was the crater where their ship had been what they were expecting. Oh, good. An ambush.

Bright lances of light streaked towards them from all around. Yallah, the Betazoid, was almost immediately hit, and Picard didn't need a tricorder to know that she was not going to live much longer. A large depression in her chest had formed from the energy in that blast, and she hadn't made so much as a sound as she slumped to the dust, her lungs unable to compress enough to work her vocal cords. However, what he did hear was a terrible shriek in his head, one of surprise and pain, as Yallah's life was extinguished.

Picard returned fire to somewhere. He couldn't see the assailants, but it felt better to have his phaser humming in his hands, than it was to simply wait to be shot. He moved towards the Admiral and began taking pot shots to where he hoped there was a target. His arm barred Alynna Nechayev from getting up, and assisting in the return fire. He didn't like her very much, but he knew his job was to keep her alive.

"You, you, get over here now," he pointed to two of the black clad operatives, "take the Admiral to the installation, we'll hold up there. You, you and you," the remaining three targeted by his finger, "you're coming with me, we're going to cause a distraction. Whatever you do, don't stop firing. You stop firing, and we're all dead."

Moving from cover to scant cover, Picard watched the two he had marked to assist the Admiral weave their way back towards the 'safety' of the installation's door.

The installation looked to be little more than a door in a hole, but it connected to the many passageways and tunnels in the mesa itself, constructed shortly after the war had began. Starfleet intelligence suspected that this sector would be overrun eventually, and had a series of these 'natural' fortifications build across many worlds. they were largely constructed out of duranium alloy, which protected it from the frequent meteorite hits that the worlds in this system were forced to endure. Duranium, being what it was, would provide an effective energy barrier from the M'loi weapons for a time.

Another of the operatives was killed, his death being just another random event in a war full of random events. If the shooter had liked my bald head less than this man's hair, that'd be me lying in the dirt. The thought stuck with him for only a split second, before being replaced with a more pressing matter. Picard directed his phaser to hit the area the fatal beam had emitted from.

"Picard to Nechayev, are you secure?"

"Yes, Captain. Pull back now."

Picard turned to his two remaining companions, and motioned with his thumb for them to get back. He turned with them, and almost immediately fell to the ground.

When Jean-Luc Picard awoke, he found himself staring at a metal ceiling. This is not the Enterprise. Where am- ah. Right. Hell. At least Q isn't here.

"It is good that you are awake, Captain Picard. I was not sure if the shock to your nervous system would be too much." Doctor Yalarian, one of the surviving members of the team, was working near the Captain's leg, which, Picard noted, hurt like a sonofabitch.

"What happened? How long have I been out." The thudding against the duranium door told him that they were not safely away yet.

"You were struck with a compressor, Captain. The M'loi use compressed Ralon weapons, which cause severe radiation as well as heat damage. You are fortunate to be alive, and fortunate that H'mari could pull you to the door. I was required to amputate your leg below the knee to save your life."

"But, I can feel it. It hurts like hell, you can't tell me it isn't there."

"What you are experiencing is a variation of Phantom Limb Syndrome. Although it will likely be more severe due to the nerve damage suffered from the nature of the weapon used."

"Where is the Admiral?"

"I'm here, Captain. I wanted to thank you for-"

"No, Admiral." Picard didn't want her thanks. "Now, do we have an alternative escape route?"

"The Admonisher is scheduled to search the area if we do not report in within a week of our scheduled return. However, I do not believe we have a week to wait in this hole. Do you agree, Captain?"

"I do," Picard knew she was right. However, he didn't fancy their chances of escape when there was exactly eleven legs between six people.

"Which means a couple of difficult choices are going to need to be made..." she seemed hesitant.

He knew what she wanted him to do. Well, she'd have to come out and say it. "Admiral, do you have orders for me?"

"Yes, Captain." She paused, and took a breath before continuing, "the five of us will be moving through the tunnels and removing ourselves from the Mesa. You, being injured, will be unable to keep up with us. Therefore, I am ordering you to remain here. You will be supplied with rations and weapons, and you are to hold this entrance for as long as you are able. You are not to be taken alive. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Admiral. Quite clear."

"Thank you, Captain. Godspeed."