Chapter 20

On board the Stargazer

"Captain…" Picard's head jerked up at the sound of Zev's firm voice coming closer. How long had she been speaking to him?

"Captain Picard," repeated Commander Zev walking toward him with her hands clasped behind her back. "Whatever that technology was you…obtained on the Malkatan base, it was quite effective."

"Hmm? Yes, it appears so," he answered, trying to shake the images of Beverly from his brain again. He straightened in his chair, and sat back, leaving his hands on his knees.

Zev noted the Captain's faraway expression. "Do you now feel free of the singularity net's influence, Captain?"

He shrugged slightly. "I suppose….." he got to his feet and looked toward tactical, finding the station empty. He turned back to Zev with a frown. "Where's Vigo?"

Zev's single functional antenna curled toward him in what he had come to recognize was Andorian amusement. "I ordered him to go and take a shower—he stunk."

Picard laughed. "He's not the only one. I suppose we should all learn to start getting back to normal life."

Zev's antenna twitched. "If that is possible. Sir?"

"Yes?"

Zev let her hands drop to her sides in a more informal stance. She was militaristic to the core, another Andorian trait which often put her at odds with some of the more mild-mannered rules and regulations of Starfleet. But her strict demeanor was one which he recognized in himself, and perhaps that was why they got along so well. So to see her change her stiff posture in front of him was unusual. "Sir, you must forgive Vigo for the things he said to you. He certainly did not really mean them."

Picard sighed and closed his eyes tiredly and then opened them slowly. "You mean the things he said about my responsibility for the deaths of my crew…including Jack?" Zev said nothing, so he closed his eyes again. "Or was it the vulgar things he said about Beverly Crusher?"

"Captain, he was-"

His eyes snapped open and he stood up to face her. "He was completely out of line!" he shouted. "He had no right to talk about her in that manner."

Zev stared back at him with her antenna pointed in his direction, indicating she had no intention of backing down despite his sudden fury. "Captain, Vigo like you and I was under the influence of the singularity net, and its mind controlling effects. I am sure none of us want to be judged by the actions we engaged in while on the base or any lingering after effects we may now be experiencing."

Still seething, Picard paced away from her and then turned back, struggling to get his emotions in check. "Commander…I'm very sorry that I shouted at you. Of course…perhaps we are all still suffering some ill effects."

Zev reached up to lightly touch the top of her head where her antenna had been severed by a Malkatan blade. She blinked, recalling that the blade had been left intentionally dull, and her torturers had spent several days sawing it off.

"Perhaps some of us will never stop suffering these effects, Captain." She fixed him with a serious stare. "Do you know that I cannot stop wondering if my family has forgotten me?"

"Oh Zev, I am sure that is not the case."

Zev's antenna flattened on top of her silver hair. "Before we came out for this last deep space mission my wife threatened to leave me, Captain."

Picard stared at her in surprise. "But…but Mira loves you, Zev. I have seen it in her eyes each time I've met her. Even though…as you know, I am no expert at reading women's emotions."

"But she told me…." Zev's right hand began to shake-a nerve tremor left over from having her wrists clasped in restraints for days. She quickly bit her knuckles, and then placed her hand behind her back. "But Mira said I've spent too much time away from home," Zev said quickly. "Captain, I am not even getting to see my children grow up. And she is right. Why did it take being captured and tortured on an alien planet for me to truly understand the things that should be important to me?"

Picard looked down at his boots. "Zev, I don't know," he said softly. "You see, I have been wondering the same thing about myself. Perhaps we have both been too focused on our careers—too focused to see that there is more to life, my friend," he smiled faintly.

Zev smiled back and her antenna lifted slowly. But her smile faded. "You and I may someday recover, Captain. But not Vigo…and if there is a court martial…."

Picard shook his head. "If there is a court martial, I will take responsibility for everything—our capture, torture…even the deaths of the crew. I am captain…and I recognize that this is on me, Zev."

Zev's expression grew dark. "Captain, have you wondered why Vigo insists upon blaming you at any cost for the deaths of the crew?"

"You told me down on the base—General Unh convinced Vigo that I wouldn't give up the security codes, and they murdered the crew because of my refusal. He believed the Malkatan's lies…."

Zev slowly shook her head. "No. Vigo created the story about the security codes to cover something even more horrible. He knew I wasn't present when the crew died and had no way of knowing what really happened to the crew. And he knew I was as compromised mentally as he was. But as more of my memory has returned, Captain, I have remembered what Vigo was like when they brought him back into the room with me."

For some reason, Picard walked back to his seat and sat down stiffly. He knew he didn't want to hear what she had to say, but he looked up at her anyway…waiting.

"Vigo was screaming and flailing in the arms of the Malkatan guards, and was covered in blood," Zev continued. "He kept screaming: 'they made me do it, they made me do it!'"

"When the Malkatans left us alone, I asked Vigo what they made him do. And he looked at me and said 'I thought they were Malkatans…they all looked like Malkatans…I didn't mean to do it', and he cried and cried until he fell unconscious." She looked away. "I suppose that I blocked it out, because the meaning behind his words was too terrible for me to face. The Malkatans must have used their mind control to convince Vigo to kill our people. They thought it was a game…."

Picard brought his palms to his face. After an agonizing moment, he dropped his hands and shook his head. "I don't believe it. In fact, I can't believe it. No."

"Then I hope and pray to my gods and yours that you are right, Captain. Because if Vigo did kill our people, no matter how buried it is within the other hallucinations he will eventually sort out what is real and what is not; and he will remember. And there is no recovery from such a realization."


Just then the doors to the bridge hissed open and Vigo stepped through. He smiled and the skin around his eyes crinkled in a way that made him seem really happy, which was a nice change. It would have been less unsettling to see him smile so genuinely had they been discussing less morbid topics. He approached his station, still smiling. "There is nothing like a hot shower," he said, oblivious to the stares of Picard and Zev.

"Are you saying we finally have hot water on this ship? Because that would be a first," Picard added, attempting a jovial tone. The last thing he intended to do was set Vigo off again. If Vigo had killed the rest of the crew, he should undergo a court martial. But there would be no trial which in Picard's mind could fairly convict this man, knowing what he had been through—what he had been forced to do. But still he fought a wave of revulsion, just looking at his once trusted officer.

Vigo laughed in a bizarrely carefree way, and then frowned, looking down at the sensor controls. "Sir…we have an incoming ship."

Picard sat up straighter in his seat. "On screen," he ordered.

The view screen filled with the image of a very familiar ship. Picard pushed himself out of his seat. It was the strange crescent shaped ship that had lured them into the trap in the first place!

"Sensors read this is the same ship we encountered prior to being trapped in the net, Captain," reported Vigo excitedly.

"Sir, I think we are right to suspect that the ship that lured us must belong to the Ferengi who were collaborating with the Malkatans," said Zev. Her voice was calmer than Vigo's but the tense undercurrent in her voice matched the way Picard felt. Finally they had a legitimate target for their collective aggression.

Picard slammed his fist into his palm angrily. "Set in a course to intercept, ahead full impulse."


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