Zweller felt the thin rime of hoarfrost crunching beneath his boots as he walked across a featureless, rockstrewn plain. The air smelled of ozone, giving it a burned quality that belied its bitter chill. Despite the layers of clothing separating him from the elements, the wind bit into his flesh with innumerable small razor teeth, numbing his nose and ears. The cold seemed to aggravate the lassitude caused by the planet’s intense gravity. He jammed his gloved hands deeply into his jacket pockets in a vain effort to warm them.

About fifty meters before him sat a squat, frostencrusted structure, about the size of a Starfleet photon torpedo tube. The apparatus gave off a faint blue glow, which Zweller assumed wasn’t visible from the air; he recognized it as a Romulan cloaking device, probably merely one of many. Doubtless the machine was here courtesy of Koval, and its presence helped explain how the rebels had evaded capture for so long. Though Grelun evidently hadn’t seen fit to conceal the cloaking device from him, Zweller was certain that the blue light surrounding it was a protective forcefield of some kind. He probably wouldn’t be able to damage it even if he wanted to.

Zweller looked upward. The sky was utterly dark, except where small gaps in the omnipresent Nightside haze revealed momentary, random patterns of multicolored light every few seconds. It was an atmospheric conflagration that would have put Earth’s Northern Lights to shame. Zweller tried to guess the rebel base’s exact position–information that Grelun, the Army of Light’s new leader, had yet to divulge to him–but quickly gave up the effort. The atmospheric pyrotechnics gave him no clue; the highly energetic interactions between the solar wind and the planet’s magnetic field made such auroral displays visible from any point on the globe, and would be visible even in the brilliance of Dayside. The rebel compound could be anywhere from just nightward of Chiaros IV’s habitable twilight meridian to one of the poles to the frigid, windswept reaches of the Nightside equator.

A flash of illumination unlike any of the others drew his attention; it resolved quickly into a small point of light that moved almost directly overhead. At first he thought he’d sighted one of the outer Chiarosan planets until he realized that the luminous speck was moving far too rapidly. He followed the light with his eyes for several minutes, until it vanished into the haze on the horizon.

A government patrol ship,Zweller thought. It was right on top of us, but it couldn’t pierce the cloak.

The crackle of a footfall directly behind Zweller interrupted his ruminations. He instantly turned to face the sound, backing away to give himself room to maneuver. A colorful flash from the sky allowed Zweller to recognize Grelun’s dark visage, just a few meters away. For such huge people, these Chiarosans are remarkably stealthy,he thought.

Apparently contemptuous of the elements, Grelun wore only a light jacket over his gray duty uniform. Zweller tried to suppress a shiver and failed.

“You really shouldn’t sneak up on a trained Starfleet officer like that,” Zweller said, pitching his voice only a little louder than the chill winds.

“Do not worry, human,” Grelun said with an inscrutable smile. “You could not have hurt me.”

Anger flared within Zweller’s chest, momentarily banishing the cold. “Let’s hope we never have a reason to test that hypothesis.” For reasons Zweller still couldn’t fathom, Grelun was even more distrustful and xenophobic than his late predecessor, Falhain.

The Chiarosan chuckled dismissively, then glanced skyward. “I see that you are still brooding about your silent ship.”

It was useless to deny it. But it was just as useless to give up hope entirely. “Maybe your subspace receiver isn’t functioning properly,” Zweller said, trying to sound upbeat. “It can’t possibly work as well as the government’s orbital comm system. Maybe Captain Blaylock has been trying to raise me for the past week but can’t cut through all the atmospheric static.”

Grelun nodded soberly. “This may be so,” he said, and took a single long stride back toward the compound. “Nevertheless, my communications sentinels will continue listening to the sky.”

Grelun’s tone held little hope. The rebels did possess a fairly sensitive subspace radio transceiver, after all. Despite its being located at the bottom of Chiaros IV’s turbulent atmosphere, it should have picked up sometrace of the Slaytonby now. But the starship apparently had been silent ever since Koval had arranged for the shuttle Archimedesto be diverted here more than a week ago. And the security‑minded Grelun had given strict orders that no subspace signals be transmitted until after the planetary referendum. Zweller could make no attempt to contact his crewmates until Grelun had finished carrying out Falhain’s plan to evict the Federation from Chiaros IV.

But Zweller had another, even more fundamental reason to worry about the Slayton’s fate. He knew it was useless to dwell on it, but he found the matter impossible to ignore completely. He still couldn’t resolve one simple, nagging question to his satisfaction: If the Slaytonand her crew were safe, then why had the Federation dispatched a second starship to the ill‑fated conference in HagratИ? Grelun hadn’t seen fit to divulge which starship the two captured Starfleet officers had come from– if he even knew or cared about that piece of information–but Zweller was certain that he had never seen either of the unconscious captives before the rebels had made their escape from the battle in the Chiarosan capital.

Grelun interrupted his gloomy reverie. Taking a single long stride back toward the compound, he said, “Freezing to death will not make your silent comrades speak to you. And I have need of your services.”

Zweller’s teeth were beginning to chatter. “What do you want me to do?”

“Our two newest . . . guests have at last regained consciousness.” Grelun reached into his jacket and produced a Starfleet‑issue tricorder, one of the devices his troops had confiscated from the crew of the Archimedes.He tossed it to Zweller, who caught it clumsily between his cold‑numbed hands.

“I wish for our guests to see what I have already shown to you,” Grelun said. “But youmust be the one to show them,if they are to be persuaded that our cause is just.”

“I can do that,” Zweller said without hesitation. Stowing the tricorder on his belt, he fell into step beside Grelun.

He felt he had every reason to cooperate with Grelun’s request. Despite the complications created by Falhain’s unforeseen demise at the HagratИ peace conference–it was unfortunate that Zweller had not had a chance to confer with Tabor prior to the ambassador’s arrival on Chiaros IV, or to discuss the aftermath of the melee with him–Zweller was satisfied that he had already achieved Section 31’s desired objective: He had set the vast wheels of Chiarosan internal politics into motion, and once started they couldn’t be stopped. The outcome of the referendum on Federation membership–to be held in a mere three days–was now all but certain to go in favor of Romulus, thanks to Starfleet’s ‘catastrophic failure to maintain order’ in HagratИ. And assuming that Koval was as good as his word, Zweller would soon return to Federation space with ample compensation for this favor–a list of the Romulan intelligence operatives working within the Federation.

Zweller could see no serious downside to his decision to help Grelun end the genocidal war being carried out by Ruardh’s armies. This sort of meddling would almost certainly get him cashiered out of Starfleet, but he had been thinking about retiring soon anyway.

He felt certain he would still have a home within Section 31 after the conclusion of the Chiaros affair. After all, his assisting Grelun couldn’t affect the outcome of this mission. And, even more important, it feltlike the right thing to do.