by Andy Mangels
Inside the detention cell, a man and a woman sat side by side on a low-slung cot, the room's only piece of furniture.
Both prisoners were attired in somewhat distressed looking Starfleet dress uniforms, the man wearing red, the woman in blue. Though their com badges were missing, each officer's collar bore a trio of shiny brass pips, indicating that both held the rank of commander.
still guess I won't be pulling rank on anyone here. Have to rely on the old Corey Zweller charm instead.
The man rose to his feet first. Tall and vigorous-looking, he had rumpled brown hair that made an incongruous counterpoint to his neatly trimmed beard. His manner was calm, belying the outrage behind his blue eyes.
"I am Grelun, who now guides the Army of Light," the dark-haired Chiarosan said to the male prisoner before the officer could speak. Then the Chiarosan angled an impossibly limber elbow in Zweller's direction.
"I present to you your countryman. Commander Cortin Zweller." Grelun then made a courtly, triple-jointed bow toward the prisoners. Zweller interpreted the gesture as ironic, a Chiarosan sign of contempt.
Barely acknowledging Grelun, Riker trained his piercing gaze on Zweller.
"Would you mind explaining exactly what is going on here. Commander?"
Abruptly returning to an upright posture, Grelun overrode Zweller before he could respond.
"Please accept my apologies. Commander Riker, Commander Troi. I regret that you were handled so roughly. I assure you, we were as gentle with you as the circumstances would permit."
Zweller noticed mat the woman's eyes were unusually dark. He decided that she probably wasn't human after all, at least not completely. Perhaps she had some Betazoid ancestry. That could pose a problem. Zweller used the disciplines he'd learned during his training as an agent and quickly erected a barrier around his thoughts and emotions.
"Then can I infer that you intend to return us to the Enterprise?" Troi asked.
The Enterprise? Zweller struggled to conceal his surprise from the Betazoid. Johnny. He hoped his old friend wouldn't get himself swept up in this dangerous situation.
But he remembered the brashness of his old Academy classmate all too well; if Jean-Luc Picard was here, then he would soon be in the thick of things. And an already complex and dangerous situation would undoubtedly become even more so.
"In a short time, yes, we will send you back to your ship," Grelun told Troi.
Riker glanced at Troi.
"Deanna?"
The Betazoid scrutinized Grelun for a long moment before speaking.
"He's not lying. W. Though he harbors a great deal of hostility toward us, he's sincere about his intention to release us later. But I sense there's something important he wants to accomplish first."
Grelun bared the points of his teeth, evidently displeased that one of his prisoners could find him so transparent.
Looking as though he'd just solved a puzzle, Riker addressed Grelun, ignoring Zweller for the moment.
"I think I understand now. We'll be free to go. But only after the Romulans have finished ... influencing the planetary referendum."
"Once my people formally acknowledge the Federation's inability to make good on its promises of security and order," Grelun said coolly.
"Only then will you be free to leave us."
"If your faction wins in the vote," Riker said, "we won't have a lot of other options."
"Exactly so. Your Federation's own laws will force your withdrawal from our world. And with the Federation gone, our independence from all degenerate outworiders will be assured."
"That is until the Romulans take your world from you by force," Troi said placidly.
Grelun's hands twirled for a moment in a complex, eye-blurring pattern, as though he were cleansing the very air of her words.
"This they could have tried to do long, long ago. Because they have not, we will speak no more of it."
Zweller noticed that Riker had begun looking at him appraisingly.
"Commander Cortin Zweller," Riker said, a
calculating look in his eyes.
"Captain Picard has told me a great deal about you. Including the fact that we might find you among the Slayton's survivors."
Survivors?
Zweller's heart leaped into his throat. He took a deep, calming breath before speaking, pausing to make certain that his mental shields were still intact.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that the Slayton was blown to pieces several days ago," Riker said.
"By whom?" Zweller said, swallowing hard. He had grown quite close to many members of the Slayton's crew. For the past several days, he'd been trying hard to avoid facing the possibility that, except for the few who had accompanied him to Chiaros IV, they were all dead.
"When we left the Enterprise for the peace conference," Riker said, "we were still trying to determine exactly what happened."
Zweller wondered if Koval might be involved. But what did the Tal Shiar chairman have to gain from the Slayton's destruction? It made no sense; the Romulans had already all but won the Geminus Gulf. The region simply didn't have enough value to justify the commission of an overt act of war.
"We recovered some wreckage," Troi said, "shortly before we escorted Ambassador Tabor to the peace conference."
Taking care not to let the Betazoid sense just how well he knew Aubin Tabor, Zweller said, "How is the ambassador?"
Riker shook his head.
"I don't know for sure. The last time I saw him, he'd just been run through with a rebel dagger. One of your friends here evidently tried to assassinate him."
Zweller suddenly felt as though there wasn't enough air in the room. So many friends and colleagues gone, so quickly. It was too much to digest all at once.
"You call us assassins?" Grelun barked, his voice tinged with murder. He made a quick hand signal to the holding-cell guard, who immediately dropped the force field
Then a wicked-looking dagger appeared in Grelun's hand, as though conjured out of thin air. The rebel leader took a single menacing step toward Riker.
Riker made no move to back away, nor did Troi.
"Speak that lie again, human, and I will cut out your tongue! Your "ambassador" was caught drawing a weapon on Falhain."
"That's not how it looked from where I was standing," Riker said. His muscles were tensed, but he didn't budge. He neither advanced nor gave ground.
Zweller knew that to show fear before a roused Chiarosan warrior was to provoke a lightning-swift, lethal attack. But he also knew he had to disperse some of the tension in the air, or else Riker was sure to be crippled or killed. Concealing his apprehension behind a stern expression, Zweller stepped between the two men and spread his hands in a placating gesture.
"Falhain would not have wanted this. Noble Grelun," Zweller said, struggling to back his words with the correct blend of authority and deference.
"Too much blood has already been spilled. Instead, I ask you: Let me show them what you've shown me."
A long moment passed, during which time Zweller wondered if Grelun weren't seriously considering killing them all. Then the rebel leader sheathed his blade as quickly as he had drawn it. He stared at Riker and Troi, his eyes still as cold and hard as the farthest reaches of frozen Nightside.
Grelun's gaze remained fixed on them even as his body swiveled toward his guards, to whom he said, "Manacle them and bring them to the vehicle pool." He then stalked away down the corridor and was gone.
Riker emerged from the cell, followed by Troi. The presence of the three armed guards seemed to persuade them both that any attempt at escape would be ill advised
The pair stood impassively while the guards bound their hands before them.
"I don't see any handcuffs on you. Commander," Riker said to Zweller.
"Am I correct in assuming that you've decided to cooperate with these people?"
Zweller sought the proper words to answer Riker's pointed question, but they refused to co
me. What came instead was a surge of guilt for having deprived Riker and Troi of their com badges after they'd been dragged unconscious into the catacombs beneath the Hagrate auditorium;
there, a pair of Falhain's most vigilant guards had kept Zweller "supervised," and out of the fray for the duration of the peace conference. Zweller knew that by taking the com badges--which the Chiarosan guardsmen had promptly confiscated--he may have prevented Riker and Troi from being beamed to the relative safety of their own shuttle.
But he was also well aware that brief captivity could be a powerful instrument of persuasion. And it was terribly important that he persuade them.
"I have no choice but to help Grelun and his people," Zweller said finally.
"And all I ask is that you keep an open mind."
Then he led Riker, Troi, and the guards down the corridor toward one of the hangars.
The andgrav-propelled transport's hull was painted a dull, unobtrusive black. The passenger cabin was wide,
windowless, and unadorned, everything in its interior the same monotonous gunmetal blue. Zweller shifted in a vain effort to get comfortable in his too-hard, too straight seat. Clearly, human ergonomic considerations had not been uppermost in the minds of this vehicle's designers.
A pair of surly-countenanced warriors, a male and a female, sat facing the still-manacled Riker and Troi, who passed the fifteen-minute trip in silence. Seated between the guards, Zweller let his thoughts wander behind the safety of his mental shields. Though he found the transport's gentle shudders and vibrations oddly comforting, he knew he didn't dare relax his guard in the Betazoid's presence.
Zweller found himself desperately hoping that Tabor had somehow managed to survive whatever injuries he'd suffered in the Chiarosan capital. Zweller had always regarded Tabor as both a friend and a mentor, the man who had given his life and career a clarity of purpose that even Starfleet Academy had not been able to do. Tabor had saved him from the consequences of his youthful impetuousness decades ago, on more than one occasion.
Had Tabor not warned him away from the beautiful young woman Zweller had taken up with during a shore leave back in '29--1 woman who turned out to be a Tzenkethi saboteur--Zweller would likely have returned to the Ajax in a body bag, to say nothing of compromising the safety of the ship and her crew. Just two years later, during his second tour of duty with Captain Narth aboard the Ajax, a female Vulcan agent had recruited Zweller into Section 31, where he had come under Tabor's direct supervision and sponsorship. A universe of opportunities, none of which ever seemed to come fast enough for him as an ordinary Starfleet officer, had opened up for him then. And he had never looked back.
And now Tabor might well be dead. Swept away, just like Captain Blaylock and the crew of the Slayton.
Zweller found coincidences hard to accept. His mind returned to his earlier query: Had Koval been responsible for the attack on Tabor as well as the deaths of his shipmates?
Perhaps the Romulan had never intended to surrender the spy list. Maybe he was already back on Romulus, confident that Zweller would never survive his sojourn on Chiaros IV. Regardless, it was abundantly clear to him now that Koval had another agenda besides his deal with Section 31.
But what is it?
The vehicle ceased its shuddering, touching down with a light thump. A moment later, the guards perfunctorily removed Riker's and Troi's manacles and handed them thermal blankets, which the captives wrapped about their shoulders on their way to the vehicle's rear hatchway. Still wearing his jacket, Zweller declined a blanket of his own. Then, his tricorder at the ready, he led the way outside the transport.
Because this near-Nightside region did not have the benefit of the mountains and canyons that shielded much of Chiaros IV'S habitable meridian, the howling wind struck them brutally. They had to lean into it as they walked in order to make any forward progress at all. The charcoal sky scattered the wan almost-twilight, revealing the tumble of indistinct shapes that lay ahead. As they trudged closer, those shapes resolved themselves into ruined stone walls, the remnants of dwellings, and the fossil-dry pieces of a shattered water-extraction machine.
Chunks of burned, shattered masonry lay about in random heaps, like toys discarded by some colossal, tantrum prone child. The exposed bedrock, wind-scoured for countless ages, bore scorches and craters of obviously much more recent origin. Jagged flashes of ionospheric
brilliance leaped across the sky, casting fleeting, irregular shadows in every direction across the detritus of unnumbered destroyed and uprooted lives.
As they walked, Riker shouted to be heard over the keening of the wind.
"Is this the same village from the hologram Falhain showed us in Hagrate?"
Zweller hadn't seen Falhain's presentation at the peace conference. But the rebels had made him well acquainted with those particular--and extremely persuasive--holographic images.
"I'm not sure. Commander," Zweller shouted back.
"But does it really matter when there are hundreds more just like it?"
They came to a stop before a partially demolished wall, which appeared once to have been part of a village well. The squat ruin offered them some small respite from the raging winds. Zweller watched as Riker's boyish face changed, settling into hard planes and angles.
Troi looked physically ill. An aurora crackled far overhead, like an electrical arc jumping between the uprights of an old-fashioned Jacob's ladder.
Zweller handed the tricorder to Riker, who immediately began scanning the wall and the surrounding terrain.
The dour-eyed guards stood by quietly while Riker pored over the readouts.
The wall bore a small humanoid silhouette. A child's shadow, rendered in a micrometer-thin layer of carbon atoms. Several other nearby structures bore similar marks.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down, Zweller thought without a scintilla of humor.
Riker's mouth was moving. Lip-reading, Zweller thought he made out a "My God."
Zweller shouted into the wind.
"Chiarosan weaponry
isn't all ceremonial flatware. Commander. Especially among Ruardh's people."
Zweller paused, smiling mirthlessly before continuing.
"Sometimes those folks use disrupters."
Zweller could still feel the bone-deep chill even as the antigrav vehicle returned them to the rebel compound nearly an hour later. Nobody spoke until after the guards had escorted Riker and Troi back to their holding cell.
Standing beside the guard outside the cell's force field Zweller was the first to break the grim silence.
"Now do you understand why I've decided to assist Grelun's movement?"
Nodding, Riker said, "I understand that you see them as the local underdog. I probably would myself, in your place.
But how do we know you showed us the whole story?"
"Commander, I hope you're not implying," Zweller said with a scowl, "that there's any way to justify the slaughter you just saw."
Riker shook his head.
"Of course not. But how do you know the rebels aren't the ones actually responsible for the killing? They could have staged the massacre themselves simply to discredit Ruardh's government."
Outside the cell, one of the guards growled and spat on the floor.
"I don't believe that, Commander," Zweller said.
"And I don't think you do either."
"I sense no such duplicity among these people, WU," Troi said.
"They follow such a strict code of warrior ethics that I don't think they have the capacity to mount and maintain a deception of that sort." She paused to look at one of the guards who stood in the corridor, and a look of surprise lit up her face before she spoke again, "h fact, Grelun's warriors seem every bit as bound by honor as Klingons."
Riker appeared to mull the facts over for a moment,
then sighed and looked at Zweller.
"All right. Maybe we ought to take this story at face value. When did all this begin?"
"Over
a decade ago," Zweller said, "when Ruardh and her council decided that the tribal ethnic minorities were too much of a drain on the planet's extremely limited natural resources. The government started forcing the tribes farther and farther from the prime habitable zone.
That should have been a death sentence. But these people were just too tough and ornery to die.
"More recently, Ruardh started worrying that the exiled tribes might complicate her initiative for Federation membership. So she ordered them liquidated, town by town, village by village. There are new massacres every few weeks, but Ruardh has managed to keep a lid on things so far by jamming whatever long-range subspace communications capabilities the rebels may have. And since her people control the orbiting transmitter, the Federation knows only what Ruardh wants us to know. If the Federation wins the referendum--and Ruardh hangs onto power--these people can't hope to hold out for much more than another year or two. Not without help, anyway."
Riker stroked his beard calmly, giving Zweller the impression of a man about to place a bid in a friendly game of poker.
"Commander, the sooner we get back to the Enterprise, the sooner we might be able to provide that help."
"Grelun has promised to release all of us after the referendum," Zweller said.
"That includes the three of us and my shuttle crew."
Troi shook her head.
"Even if the vote goes the way Grelun wants it to, we'd all still be stuck here for the next three days, unable to help anybody. And if what we
saw in the village is any indication, a lot more people could die during that time."
Excellent point, Zweller thought, taking care to keep his mind opaque to Troi's empathic senses. He wondered how many more Chiarosan children might have to pay with their lives for his adherence to prearranged mission timetables. After all, if they were all to escape to the Enterprise sooner rather than later, there might be time to expose Ruardh's crimes to the general populace--and to the Federation Council--before the planet-wide referendum.
Zweller assumed that the vote would, in any event, still go against the Federation because of its earlier failure to broker peace between Ruardh and Falhain. But that also meant, as Zweller reasoned it, that an early departure could not disrupt the bargain he'd made with Koval on behalf of Section 31. Therefore, his mission objective would still be accomplished even if he and the other prisoners were to leave right now.