Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [93]
Steeling her nerves, she began moving around the conference table toward Zweller. “He was working with you, wasn’t he?” she asked.
Zweller looked up at her, a flicker of surprise in his gaze. She was glad to see that for once in the last hour, she had been the one to surprise him. She continued: “He was part of your group. He didn’t come here to promote peace, he came here to help end Ruardh’s regime and lose the Geminus Gulf to the Romulans.”
“He was doing what was best for the Federation, Marta. He was following his orders.”
She began to turn, then brought her left hand up in a clenched fist. Her blow connected to Zweller’s jaw with a crack, and he went cartwheeling backward, out of his chair.
Sprawling, the commander rubbed his jaw. “Ow,” he said simply.
“Get up too soon and I’ll knock you right back on your ass, Corey.” Batanides massaged her fist a bit, and looked down at her friend. “How should I react? First I find out that one of my oldest friends has betrayed his ideals and is collaborating with the Romulans. And now I find out that the man I loved-who was slaughtered in the midst of a peace initiative-is just as much a traitor to everything I believe in!”
“I’m not a traitor, Marta,” he said emphatically, holding his hands up, palms outward, as if to ward off any further blows. “And neither was Aubin. We were following orders from Starfleet, orders that worked to the benefit of the Federation.”
“Oh, yes, I can see the big benefit. A starship and her crew destroyed. Countless Chiarosans dead. A famed ambassador murdered. The fleet’s flagship about to be booted out of the system, unless, of course, we go to war over a rebel prisoner who has requested asylum. Have I missed any of your benefits?
“And who exactly was it who cut your cloak-and-dagger orders, Corey? I’m a flag officer in Starfleet Intelligence! Don’t you think I would know about any clandestine deals with the Romulans?”
“You know as well as I do that there are branches of Starfleet that are more… covert than Intelligence.”
Batanides seemed unconvinced. “Shadowy government bureaus may be all the rage for your buddies, the Romulans, or some of the other warlike cultures, but they haven’t existed on Earth since the twenty-first century.”
Zweller sighed, then stood, keeping a discreet distance from the admiral’s striking range. “What do you want to hear, Marta? That you’re right? That those in power have never seen a need to secretly bend the rules that they uphold in public? That even Starfleet Intelligence has never stepped over the line to protect the Federation from its enemies? What is it you want to hear?”
Squaring her shoulders, Batanides looked her compatriot in the eyes. She had to say the words out loud, though she feared even thinking them. For years she had heard the rumors of a shadowy group of operatives; now, she might have been in bed with them, literally and figuratively.
“Tell me there is no Section 31. Tell me that you’re a rogue agent. Tell me that Aubin was an ambassador who was just trying to settle a civil war on behalf of the Federation’s diplomatic corps.”
In Zweller’s eyes, Batanides saw sorrow, and perhaps a bit of pity. She knew then that her friend still loved her, and that his loyalties were conflicted.
But she also saw the cold, brutal truth: Section 31 was real, and Aubin Tabor had done its bidding.
He turned away from her, hands clasped behind his back, and stared out at the stars.
Batanides massaged her bruised hand, trying to calm herself, breathing as regularly as she could. A smoldering rage was building inside her. But what could she do about it?
Batanides turned her back on Zweller and started to go. Then she stopped at the door, and spoke to him once more over her shoulder. “I’m going to bring Section 31 down, Corey. For my memory of what Aubin was… and for the man you used to be.
“And you have to decide whether or not you’re going to stop me.”
Chapter Fourteen
For a few