Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [47]
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 Hagraté?”
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 disruptors.”
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 forcefield, 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, Will,” 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. “In 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