Star Trek - TNG - Section 31 - Rogue Read online

  An alarm light suddenly flashed on Zweller's console, and a klaxon brayed a warning. The tactical display at Zweller's left side came to life.

  "What is it?" Roget said, sounding cautious, though not particularly alarmed.

  "I think we're about to have some company," said Zweller.

  "A Chiarosan honor guard?" Heam ventured.

  Zweller felt his jaw clenching involuntarily.

  "I... I

  don't think so."

  "Shields up!" Roget shouted.

  "Red alert!"

  Something struck the shuttle at that moment, making the hull reverberate like an enormous bell. The engineer and the doctor fell into a heap atop Liz Kurlan. Tim Tuohy, the head of planetary studies, helped Gomp get his hooves beneath him. Everyone scrambled back into their seats and activated the crash harnesses.

  The shuttle rocked again, more violently than before, as though punched by a giant. His harness kept Zweller from being spilled from his seat. Though partly obscured by static, the tactical display showed a fast-approaching trio of small, aggressively contoured vessels. They appeared to be fighter craft of an unusual configuration.

  Zweller recognized them as Chiarosan.

  "Status!" Roget shouted, trying to compete with the rumbling of the hull.

  "Shields and weapons are off-line," Zweller said.

  "I can't keep anything working with all this atmospheric ionization."

  A static-swept male voice, deep and harsh, emanated from the comm system.

  "Federation shuttle: You will follow our lead vessel's navigation beam into Nightside.

  Consider yourselves our prisoners."

  Roget spat a nearly inaudible curse before replying.

  "We are here on a diplomatic mission at the invitation of First Protector Ruardh, the head of this world's duly elected government. On whose authority have you attacked us?"

  "Had we attacked you, you would be dead," came the reply.

  "You are in the custody of the Army of Light. If you attempt to resist or flee, we will not hesitate to destroy your vessel."

  Roget made a slashing gesture, and Zweller responded by temporarily interrupting the audio.

  "Make best speed for the capital, Mr. Zweller," Roget said.

  "There are bound to be official patrols there who can drive these characters off."

  Zweller shook his head emphatically.

  "They're right on top of us, sir. We'll never make it."

  The shuttle lurched again and the hull braces groaned.

  Zweller watched the structural integrity telltale dip into the red. A near-miss, Zweller thought; a direct hit probably would have breached the hull and blown everyone out of the shuttle. The lights flickered as the battery powered backup life-support system kicked in.

  Roget's frown could have curdled milk.

  "You don't seem to be trying very goddamned hard, mister."

  Raising an eyebrow, Zweller ignored the comment.

  "I don't think our welcoming committee enjoys being kept waiting, sir."

  After pausing to glare at Zweller, Roget tapped a command into the console, relinquishing control of the shuttle's navigational computer to their captors. He turned toward the somber group in the seats behind him.

  "Looks like we're taking an unscheduled detour, folks."

  "Never a cop around when you need one," Gomp muttered.

  Nobody laughed.

  The Archimedes abruptly banked and descended even farther. The shuttle barely cleared the hills beyond the sprawling city's night ward side as she continued into utter blackness, flanked by her "escorts."

  Chiaros IV had no natural satellites and possessed a thick cloud canopy, conditions that made Nightside quite dark, except when the clouds were riven by lightning and auroral fireworks. The Archimedes' trajectory, however, stayed mostly within the swirls of the clouds blown in from Dayside, cover that made the auroras--and therefore the ground-- difficult to see from the shuttle's windows. The few flashes of light that did enter the cabin merely served to prevent the crew's eyes from adjusting to the darkness. To the hapless occupants of the Archimedes, Nightside appeared more tenebrous than the inside of any tomb.

  After crossing the terminator into night, the Archimedes flew for more than an hour, changing directions sharply several times, banking and spiraling. Whether because of atmospheric effects or damage sustained in the attack, the onboard instruments couldn't determine the shuttle's location or even its altitude. Sitting behind his useless control

  panel, Zweller realized that he might as well have been blindfolded.

  Roget and the department heads somberly discussed their options, including whether or not they ought to open the weapons locker and put up some real resistance after landing. Though Gomp was the loudest proponent of the "stand-and-fight" notion, Zweller suspected that it was all rhetoric; he'd never met a Tellarite who didn't prefer a loud, abusive argument to actual combat. After everyone had spoken his piece, Roget announced that they were to forget about righting their way out of this situation; after all, they had come to conduct diplomacy, not warfare.

  They received a hail, and the crew cabin fell silent.

  "Prepare to land," said the harsh voice of their captor over the background of static.

  A pattern of lights appeared on the ground, perhaps a quarter of a kilometer below the shuttle. Roget tried to turn the landing over to the computer, but it again failed to respond. Zweller tripped the manual override and began bringing the craft down, aiming for the center of the landing pattern.

  A moment after the shuttle came to rest, the ground itself began to sink. Enormous mechanisms groaned as the surface beneath the shuttle lowered into a dimly illuminated subterranean chamber. Zweller watched on the viewer as a metal roof quickly rolled into place about eight meters overhead, shutting out what could be seen of the obsidian sky.

  "I'll bet this place is completely invisible from the air," Gomp said, sounding impressed.

  "Very neat."

  A bank of bright lights flared to life along the chamber's ceiling, revealing its enormous size. Several small fighter craft of the same type as their attackers were

  parked nearby. Perhaps twenty large, armed humanoids were taking up positions surrounding the Archimedes.

  Kurlan and Tuohy both gazed significantly at the weapons locker, and then back at Roget, as if to say. This is our last chance.

  "No phasers," Roget reiterated, and the rest of the human officers nodded their assent. Gomp spat a monosyllabic Tellarite curse.

  Roget fixed a steely gaze on Zweller, but Zweller met it unblinkingly.

  "Commander Zweller and I will go out first," Roget said.

  "Unarmed."

  Heam opened the shuttle's hatch manually, then stepped aside. Roget walked through it to meet their captors.

  Zweller followed, the planet's slightly higher-than Earth-normal gravity making his feet feel leaden.

  Prom what Zweller knew of Chiarosans, the soldiers of the Army of Light were fairly typical representatives of the species. A robust people, none of them were shorter than two meters. Zweller was immediately struck by the strangeness of their eyes, which were the color of iridescent cobalt, and had an almost crystalline appearance.

  Though broad in the shoulders, the Chiarosans were whipcord lean, their bare arms striated with muscles like steel cables, and half-covered with a fine, brown fur. The hairless portions of their skins resembled burnished copper, and shined almost as brightly as the long, curved blades that hung from the sashes of their gray uniforms.

  Their obvious strength was complemented by a fluid grace of motion, as though their musculoskeletal systems were capable of an impossibly wide range of motion.

  If one of these guys had helped us against those Nausicaans back in '27, old Johnny Picard never would have needed that artificial heart.

  The troops wasted no time escorting everyone off of the shuttle. After taking the Starfleet officers' com badges and searching them for w
eapons--as well as confiscating the phasers they had left aboard the Archimedes--the Chiarosans manacled the wrists of each of their six captives.

  The soldiers then frog-marched them out of the hangar complex, down a lengthy, narrow corridor, and then into a second large chamber. Several slim ceiling mounted illumination panels bathed the room in a dull white light. Zweller's gaze took in the room's bare stone walls and floor, which were adorned with edged weapons, as well as paintings and sculptures depicting what must have been important battles and revered war heroes from the annals of Chiarosan history.

  A pair of bare-chested Chiarosan males faced one another in the center of the room, neither of them acknowledging the presence of the Starfleet prisoners. The larger and more striking of the pair was yellow-haired; the smaller, darker Chiarosan appeared no less formidable, however. Both of them held long, curved blades in each of their hands, and were in the midst of sparring, their graceful, triple-jointed movements reminding Zweller of Japanese kata. Their limbs moved with unbelievable control and precision, almost faster than the eye could follow. Though their weapons clanged together forcefully, often striking sparks, both men obviously were exerting tremendous discipline over both blade and sinew.

  It occurred to Zweller that the trio of guards standing behind them were largely superfluous, present only to provide additional intimidation.

  Stepping inside the guard of the darker, smaller swordsman, the yellow-haired fighter suddenly trapped his opponent's thick neck between his blades. Though both men abruptly froze in place, Zweller half-expected

  the victor to snip the other man's head off, like a gardener trimming a shrub. Instead, the winner sheathed his blades after a moment, and the other man followed suit.

  The fighters bowed to one another.

  Shaking perspiration from his abundant hair, the winner of the contest turned toward the Starfleet contingent.

  The Chiarosan's head made the motion first, taming almost 180 degrees before the rest of his body followed.

  He greeted his "guests" with a smile made eerie by his pretematorally wide mouth and his razor-sharp, silver hued 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 want something.

  "Perhaps," Falhain said.

  "But none of that matters.

  What does matter 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. his

  "Genocide?"

  was 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 anthracite hard 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 are determined. We will achieve 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 rock walled 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 up swept 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 Col-tin 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'ma 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--" Koval looked impatient for a fleeting moment.

  "Falhain is having each of them interrogated. They are being held separately. And as far as any of them know, you are receiving precisely the same treatment."

  Zweller was relieved to learn that his cover wasn't blown, though he knew he would still have to mend his fences with Commander Roget. But even though Zweller

  appreciated Koval's professional courtesy, he knew it was never wise to mince words with a Romulan. Especially this Romulan.