Chapter Text
Part One (Cont'd)
Klath roared with effort as he lifted the heavy tritanium sheet above his head and set off up the Bounty’s cargo ramp once again.
The ship was parked in a loading area on the outskirts of the main city of Redrax, surrounded by the cargo that they were loading onboard. As Klath headed up the ramp, Jirel and Natasha headed back down, midway through loading crates of other miscellaneous supplies. To one side, Darhall had propped himself against a pile of crates, watching on and very much not offering to help, while Denella checked off what was being loaded on a small padd, and offered Klath a sympathetic look as he continued up the ramp.
“Sorry, Klath. All the anti-grav units for this section were booked out.”
“Still,” Jirel smiled as the unhappy Klingon struggled on towards the top of the ramp, “That’s what you get for oversleeping.”
The still somewhat hungover Klath grumbled quietly to himself as he disappeared inside the Bounty’s cargo bay.
“Anyway,” Jirel said to Natasha with a wink as she assessed the weight of the next crate, “Told you we’d find a job.”
“Although I’m still trying to figure out what the catch is,” Denella added with an uncertain glance at the Boslic next to her.
“No catch,” Darhall replied, “Frankly, you should all be thanking me for giving you such lucrative work.”
“Presumably it was more lucrative before you took your cut,” Jirel fired back.
“Call it a finder’s fee. I had intended to do this job myself, but something else came up. A shipment of tulaberry wine destined for a resort on Risa. Pays twice as much as this little shuttle run, and comes with a complimentary weekend in one of their suites.”
When he put it like that, it made sense that he was giving the Bounty this alternative delivery. An altogether less glamorous run to Sector Gamma 432 with a collection of engineering components, tritanium, ODN relays and isolinear chips.
“Always thought you needed to work on that tan, Darhall,” Jirel replied.
The Boslic ignored him and stepped over to Denella, with a knowing leer on his face. “The suite is for two, you know,” he muttered, “Private pool, so no need to pack a swimsuit.”
Denella suppressed her shudder internally and kept her well-practised defences raised as she politely stared down the lecherous Boslic.
“Darhall, do you remember our little agreement?” she replied, casually reaching for the Orion dagger on her belt and flashing it at him, “You don’t say things like that to me, and in return I don’t introduce my favourite dagger here to your favourite part of your body.”
Darhall shrank back slightly, still maintaining his leer.
“If you two are done flirting,” Jirel chimed out as he descended back down the ramp, “We’d get all this loaded a lot faster if—”
“Hey guys, need some help?”
The unexpected question was enough to stop Jirel in his tracks. It had certainly sounded like Sunek, but it couldn’t possibly have been him. Because he was offering to help. Yet, as he looked over to where the voice had come from, there was an unmistakably Sunek-shaped figure approaching them from the far side of the landing area, with T’Len beside him.
“Who are you?” Jirel asked, “And what have you done with the real Sunek?”
“Yeah, ok, very funny,” Sunek sighed patiently, “Do you want my help or not?”
Jirel and the rest of those present in the landing area watched on with open mouths as Sunek walked over to the nearest stack of crates and picked one up. Then, without any complaints, sarcastic comments or attempts to feign a back injury, the wiry Vulcan carried the crate up the ramp.
“By the way,” Sunek added, pausing halfway up the ramp and gesturing to T’Len, “Is it cool if my wife tags along with us for a bit?”
“Sunek,” Jirel replied with complete sincerity, “If it means you’re gonna help out like this, she can take my cabin.”
“Ah, that definitely won’t be necessary,” the Vulcan grinned with an unsubtle glint in his eye.
“…Right,” Jirel nodded, slightly uncomfortably.
“Y’know, cos we’re totally doing it—”
“Yep. Got it.”
Sunek turned and continued on up the ramp, whistling a jaunty tune as he did so. T’Len followed him, carrying a crate of her own. Jirel turned and looked at Denella with no small amount of astonishment. She shrugged.
“Cute couple.”
* * * * *
Sector Gamma 432 was an unremarkable part of the galaxy. In fact, it was downright boring.
It was within a few hours travel of several populated star systems, and therefore perhaps should have been busier than it was. But it was one of those sectors where there was always a more convenient route to get where you needed to go without passing through Sector Gamma 432 itself.
No exploration vessel would ever consider visiting either. The entire sector contained just three planetary star systems, all three both uninhabited and uninhabitable, along with half a dozen brown dwarfs and a run of the mill type-4 emission nebula.
The rogue planet designated Epsilon-543-tau by Federation scientists was set to traverse Sector Gamma 432 on its current course, and had been identified as a body of scientific interest. But it wasn’t due to pass into the sector’s boundaries for another 300 years, which wasn’t much use in the here and now. In the here and now, Sector Gamma 432 wasn’t exactly flush with strange new worlds. In fact, it wasn’t exactly flush with anything.
And as the Bounty slowed to sublight speeds at the end of its overnight journey to this particular position, it looked to be the only ship for light years in any direction. Which, given that Darhall had told them they were headed here to rendezvous with another ship and drop off the cargo in their hold, was more than a little troubling.
“Nothing,” Klath reported with an unhappy grunt from his tactical station, “Sensors detect no ships in the entire sector.”
“Maybe they’re running late?” Natasha offered, from where she sat behind her own console on the right of the cockpit. She still felt a little silly sitting there. Partly because she felt the presence of T’Len where she stood over her shoulder. But mainly because the console itself still hadn’t been set up to serve any specific function, the dirty bank of controls and monitors in front of her were all still powered down and dark.
Still, in her previous life as a Starfleet medical officer, she spent her time stuck down in sickbay, so for the time being she was just glad to have a front row seat. Even if she felt a little bit like a competition winner manning a pretend station.
“Maybe someone wrote the coordinates down wrong,” Sunek offered, his good spirits continuing despite their current setback.
They were mainly continuing because, since they’d left Redrax, he and T’Len had barely left his cabin.
“Maybe someone input the coordinates into the guidance computer wrong,” Denella fired back from her engineering console at the rear of the room.
After a moment of silence, Jirel emitted a despondent sigh from where he sat in his tatty centre chair.
“Darhall.”
“You believe this is a trap?” Klath glowered, tensing up in anticipation.
“Not exactly,” the Trill replied, “But I think that after that stunt we pulled on Sentrick III, just punching me in the face wasn’t gonna be enough to level the score.”
“So, he set this whole thing up?” Natasha asked.
“We just spent most of yesterday putting our backs out lugging all that useless scrap onboard and wasted another day flying all the way out to the middle of literally nowhere. I’d say our Boslic friend is on his way to that suite on Risa, laughing himself stupid right now.”
The others in the cockpit considered this for a moment.
“Ok,” Denella said eventually, “But if that’s true, how come he gave us our share of the payment up front?”
Jirel turned back to look out of the cockpit window, in lieu of having an answer for that question.
“Besides,” Sunek said, swinging back around to the rest of the group and grinning, “If he really wanted to get his own back, couldn’t he have just slugged you in the face a couple more times?”
He let out a chuckle, even as he saw that the others didn’t seem to be in the mood to join in. Instead, they were all staring at something over his shoulder. “What?” he continued, obliviously, “Guys, why are you being so—?”
He swung back around, following their collective gaze until he arrived back on the view out of the cockpit window. And all he could see was a wall of green metal.
“Oh,” he managed, “I see.”
The Bounty hung in space in the middle of Sector Gamma 432, the tiny ship now dwarfed by the immense form of the decloaked Romulan Warbird.
End of Part One