Shaking perspiration from his abundant hair, the winner of the contest turned toward the Starfleet contingent. The Chiarosan’s head made the motion first, turning almost 180 degrees before the rest of his body followed. He greeted his “guests” with a smile made eerie by his preternaturally wide mouth and his razor‑sharp, silverhued teeth.
“Clear water and rich soil to you, my guests,” he said in heavily accented but intelligible Federation Standard. “Please allow me to thank you for coming among us.”
“You didn’t give us a great deal of choice in the matter,” Roget said, his face an impassive mask.
The blond Chiarosan chuckled. His sparring partner merely stared belligerently at the captured officers.
“My name is Falhain, and I command the Army of Light,” the yellow‑haired Chiarosan said. “Allow me to introduce Grelun, my Good Right Hand.”
Zweller heard Gomp muttering behind him. “And here I am without my dress uniform.”
“Shut the hell up, Gomp,” Tuohy hissed. Sullenly, Gomp complied.
Fortunately, Falhain appeared to be ignoring everyone except for Zweller and Roget, perhaps sensing from their body language that they were the senior officers present. Or maybe, Zweller thought, the Chiarosan rebels are familiar with Starfleet rank insignia.
“As you may have gathered,” Falhain said, “my people are having . . . difficulty accepting our government’s plan to enter the Federation.”
Zweller opened his mouth to reply, but Roget beat him to it. “Sir, abducting Federation citizens is hardly a constructive way to air your grievances.”
“Desperate times prescribe desperate tactics,” Grelun said, his eyes narrowing to slits.
Falhain nodded toward his lieutenant, then locked a humorless gaze upon Roget. “I will cut straight to the heart of our ‘grievances,’ as you so trivially characterize them: Ruardh, our world’s ‘duly elected leader,’ leads a government of murderers.”
Zweller tensed. His superiors had not included that information in his mission briefing.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“I’m talking about unanimity, my honored guests,” Falhain said. “The kind of unanimity that earns a planet Federation membership. My people are paying the price for that unanimity. With their lives.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Roget said, shaking his head.
“I speak for many of the outlying tribes and clans–a tiny minority of this planet’s population, to be sure–but a people who prize their tradition of independence. That independence is unpopular in the capital, where we are seen as little better than vermin who compete with the cities for water and arable land, which our world gives to no one in abundance.”
“The Federation can help you resolve those problems, if you let us,” Roget said. “Besides, your alternative is far worse. The Romulan Empire isn’t likely to respect your people’s independence.”
Falhain laughed mirthlessly. “The Romulans have never frightened us. Nor have they ever tried to conquer us.”
“We have nothing that they want,” Grelun said.
“Maybe Ruardh and her ministers don’t believe that,” Zweller said. After all, the Romulans always wantsomething.
“Perhaps,” Falhain said. “But none of that matters. What doesmatter is that the Federation has allied itself with an ender‑of‑bloodlines.”
His eyes as cold as a Nightside storm, Grelun addressed Zweller. “For the past six years, Ruardh’s people have been trying to extinguish the clans, to increase the cities’ share of our scarce subsistence resources. At last count, this has cost my people over 600,000 lives. Only a small fraction of that number survive, to fight on and avenge the murdered.”
“What is your word for it, human?” Falhain said to Roget, who was blanching visibly. “ ‘Genocide?’ ”
Zweller swallowed hard, taking in the enormity of Falhain’s charges. If they were true, then how much worse could Romulan rule actually be for these people?
“So now you’re abducting noncombatants?” Roget said.
Falhain bared his teeth, making Zweller think of a cornered animal. “Unlike Ruardh, we have at least confined our targets to those wearing uniforms. And as long as the Army of Light answers to me, we will continue to strike only at the guilty.”
“We are even prepared to listen to Ruardh’s honeyed words of peace,” Grelun said with a sneer, his anthracitehard gaze engaging Falhain’s. “Even though doing so may well be an exercise in futility.”
Moving too quickly to see, Falhain’s hands flew to the hafts of his blades, making plain his intended response to any further challenge to his authority. Grelun remained as still as a statue for several protracted heartbeats, then backed slowly away. But Zweller could see that fire still burned in the dark‑haired warrior’s eyes.
Falhain won’t be able to keep that Good Right Hand of his tied behind his back forever.
The rebel chieftain relaxed his posture and turned his cold gaze once again upon Roget and Zweller. “My people are not bandits, humans. But we aredetermined. We willachieve peace, either at the talking table . . . or with the sword.”
Then Falhain brought his impossibly limber elbows quickly together, a motion that produced an alarmingly loud noise which was half whistle and half sandpaper rasp. Responding immediately, the guards hustled the sextet of Starfleet officers out of the room.
Zweller was the first to be separated from the others. Almost an hour after the meeting with Falhain had concluded, one of the guards escorted Zweller from a rockwalled holding cell and ushered him into a small, darkened office. A pneumatic door hissed shut behind him. Zweller was now unguarded, though still manacled. He approached the door through which he had entered. It remained solidly closed. Zweller guessed that the guard had locked it from the outside.
He heard a footfall behind him, and turned quickly toward the noise. “Lights,” said an aristocratic male voice, and the chamber’s illumination immediately rose to a faint twilight level.
A tall, ramrod‑straight figure stepped into view from the shadows of an alcove. He had straight raven‑black hair, combed forward, and the tips of his ears came to graceful points. His upswept eyebrows lent an air of expectation to his expression, as though he were a man accustomed to receiving satisfactory answers to his every question. He wore a gray‑and‑black Romulan military uniform, which was unadorned except for the emblem on his collar. The stylized sigil conjured for Zweller a mental image of a voracious, predatory bird.
Commander Cortin Zweller stood facing Koval, the chairman of the Tal Shiar, the Romulan Star Empire’s much‑feared intelligence bureau–an agency which even members of the Romulan Senate crossed only at their peril.
Zweller held his shackled hands up. Koval spoke a terse command to the computer on his desk. The manacles dropped to the floor and Zweller gently rubbed his wrists to restore their circulation.
“Mnek’nra brhon, Orrha,”Zweller said, a phrase that meant “Good morning, Mr. Chairman,” in the other man’s language. Sometimes it was a good idea to remind an adversary that his secrets might not be as safe as he thinks–especially an adversary with whom one expects to do business.
Koval raised an eyebrow slightly, then replied in perfect Federation Standard. “Morning? An odd choice of words, Commander Zweller, considering where we are. But I must compliment you. Your accent is virtually undetectable. Section 31 trains its operatives well indeed.” He bowed his head almost imperceptibly.
Zweller failed to suppress a wry smile. Conversational Romulan 101,he thought. Aloud, he offered, “All part of the service. And likewise, I’m sure.”
“Then let us avoid any further irrelevancies and proceed directly to the business at hand.”
“A moment, please,” Zweller said, carefully holding the Romulan’s gaze. “About my colleagues–”