Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont’d)
“This is crazy…”
It was already the sixth or seventh time that Sunek had said those exact words since Sokar’s announcement in the hangar bay. And it almost certainly wouldn’t be the last.
His mind had been flying at warp speed ever since he had crossed paths with the second face from his past in the last couple of days. He had barely noticed as Sokar had introduced the Bounty’s crew to his two cohorts, Tepal and T’Prin. He had only been vaguely aware as he had led them from the hangar bay through a dizzying maze of corridors. And he hadn’t really been listening when dinner was suggested.
Because his mind was still struggling to put all the pieces together. Sokar, one of his best friends back at the ShiKahr Learning Institute, was here. Apparently commanding a Romulan Warbird.
Sunek had gotten used to a lot of things not making sense in his life. But this was stretching even his sense of credulity.
He struggled back into the here and now and looked around at their surroundings. Sokar had brought them to the enormous main dining hall of the Tolaris, a vast expanse of a room which had presumably been designed to keep hundreds of hungry Romulan soldiers fed at a time. Meaning that the room slightly dwarfed the current dining party, who occupied a scant few seats on a single one of the long metal tables that were laid out around the room in tight formation.
There was a clear delineation down the middle of the table, though Sunek hadn’t been paying enough attention to remember whether that was deliberate or not. He sat with the rest of the Bounty’s crew on one side, while Sokar sat with T’Prin, Tepal and T’Len on the other. In between the two groups, the table was adorned with a veritable feast of Vulcan cuisine, a display of luxury that seemed a little unnecessary both for the size of the dining party and for the occasion. It was more like a state banquet than a friendly cosy meal.
He looked over at T’Len, who was directly opposite him. She smiled back at him, knowingly.
“I take it you knew about all this?” he managed. There was no unhappiness at being deceived in his comment, merely a tinge of awe.
“I felt it would be a nice surprise,” she replied with a good-natured tone.
“Yes,” Sokar jumped in without prompting, “T’Len and I crossed paths some months ago on Abrion IV. We were both eager to get together with some V’tosh ka’tur members again. And she was especially keen that we tracked you down, in particular, Sunek.”
She looked down at the table with mild embarrassment. Sunek felt that pesky dopey smile creep back onto his face.
“This is crazy…” he whispered for the seventh or possibly eighth time.
Sokar let out a hearty laugh and turned back to the rest of the Bounty’s crew, who were still looking distinctly uncomfortable with the situation. “My apologies to you all,” he offered, “It wasn’t our intention to deceive you.”
“Hard fail on that front, just FYI,” Jirel replied curtly.
Sokar’s broad smile remained, but Jirel saw something change in his eyes. He definitely looked a little irritated by the Trill’s comment.
“I’m sure you have plenty of questions,” Sokar continued with a deliberately pleasant tone, “And I’ll be happy to answer them. It’s just unfortunate that our method of getting you here had to be a bit…cloak and dagger.”
“Was that a pun?” Denella asked from Jirel’s side, without a trace of mirth.
Sokar didn’t answer, the signs of irritation on his otherwise smiling face growing a tad more recognisable. He gestured to the feast in front of them. “But first: Please, eat,” he continued, “Thanks to T’Prin here for preparing such a repast. She has been busy reprogramming the replicators with appropriately Vulcan food.”
The slender Vulcan woman at the end of the group nodded and smiled.
At the end of the Bounty’s side of the table, Klath looked at the food with distrust. They had already been deceived once, and given the proliferation of poisons and biological agents throughout the galaxy, it would be an act of pure stupidity to accept anything from their untrustworthy guests without completing some sort of rudimentary inspection first.
He looked back across at his hungry colleagues to see that they had all already started eating. The Klingon rolled his eyes in frustration.
“Hey, a free meal’s a free meal,” Sunek quipped to the watching Vulcans as he loaded his plate with generous slices of fried Flatroot.
“You really didn’t have to do this,” Jirel added, as he chewed on a portion of Adronn feltara.
“But it’s appreciated,” Denella said between hungry slurps of Plomeek soup.
Natasha mustered a nod of agreement, her efforts to do anything else hindered by a mouthful of Shav-rot.
On the other side of the table, the four Vulcans watched on for a moment with a shared look of satisfaction. T’Prin turned and looked at the final member of the Bounty’s crew, as Klath unhappily sniffed a piece of freshly prepared Saffir.
“And what about you, Klingon friend?” she asked with a smile, “Is my cooking to your tastes?”
Klath glanced up, looking unsettled as he realised that he was the centre of attention. He still wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t all being poisoned, but he reluctantly took a tentative bite of the warm bread and swallowed loudly.
“It is…edible,” he said, after a moment of guarded consideration.
“Our brave warrior,” Denella grinned as she ripped off a similar chunk of bread from the communal pile, earning an especially dark glower from the Klingon.
Sokar roared with laughter at this. Jirel smiled, but there again seemed something off about his reaction. It hadn’t been that funny. It felt like he was compensating for something, somehow.
“Think of this as a thank you,” Sokar offered as his laughter subsided, “For bringing us our supplies.”
At this, Denella paused, midway through helping herself to a second portion of T’mirak rice. “You…actually need all that stuff?”
It was Tepal who replied, from the left side of Sokar. “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to keep a Romulan Warbird running,” he said, “But it does tend to need a lot of spare parts.”
Denella recalled the state of disrepair she had seen in the hangar bay, as well as in the corridors on their walk to the dining hall, and nodded. It made sense.
“This is crazy…” Sunek offered, for what may have been the ninth time.
“I’m still a bit hazy on how you ended up with this ship,” Jirel admitted, toying with his food for a moment.
“We found it,” Tepal replied simply, his tone switching to a more terse and guarded level.
“Forgetful guys, those Romulans. Imagine losing a thing like this.”
Sokar smiled back at the Trill, but there was no trace of even false mirth in this one. “The Tolaris - or whatever the Romulans might have called it - was drifting through the Sendran system when we happened upon it,” he explained in a slightly superior manner, “Completely abandoned, but very much repairable.”
“I guess that bit’s still a work in progress,” Denella offered.
Sokar flinched slightly. Must’ve hit a nerve, the Orion woman thought to herself.
“Romulans do not abandon their ships,” Klath boomed out suddenly, “They destroy them before they end up in the hands of an enemy.”
Sokar glanced over at the Klingon dismissively. “The Sendran system was a Dominion stronghold during the war,” he explained, “We suspect the ship was boarded and captured before the crew had a chance to scuttle it, and the Dominion took it away for further study. Only to abandon it when they fled back to the Gamma Quadrant.”
“Makes sense,” Natasha nodded thoughtfully, “Starfleet heard similar reports of starships being seized by Dominion forces from time to time.”
She was sure she detected a slight flinch on Sokar’s face when she mentioned Starfleet, but she quickly dismissed it. After all, if she was being entirely honest with herself, the word still had a similar effect on her.
“The superstructure and the warp drive were fully operational,” Sokar continued, “But you are right that the rest of the ship required a lot of work. With the supplies you have provided, however, we should be able to bring all essential systems online.”
“Like the cloaking device?” Denella asked, politely but pointedly querying his definition of essential systems.
Sokar’s smile tightened another few notches. Tepal chimed in with a response. “As Sokar said to us when we first drew up the repair schedule, when your ship has a cloak, it tends to become an essential system. Because it’s so…’wicked cool’.”
Sokar burst out laughing again. Natasha couldn’t help but stare at the sight, realising too late that the bearded Vulcan had noticed her gaze.
“Is there a problem, doctor?”
“Oh, um, sorry,” she managed, shifting in her seat, “It’s just—I guess I’m still getting used to the idea of laughing Vulcans.”
She tried a chuckle of her own, her comment meant to be good-natured. But Sokar and the others didn’t match her reaction. If anything, the mood across the other side of the table seemed to grow substantially darker. She stopped chuckling and coughed awkwardly.
“Interesting,” Sokar nodded, with a raised eyebrow, “Tell me, Ms Kinsen, what do you have in common with Adolf Hitler?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Or Khan Noonien Singh? Or Vlad the Impaler? I mean, you are all human, are you not? Surely you must all think and feel and act the same way?”
Natasha struggled to figure out whether he was being serious, or whether this was a particularly committed joke on his part. None of the Vulcans seemed amused, that much was clear.
“Hey,” Sunek managed, breaking the icy silence that had descended, “Come on, you don’t need to do the whole—”
“Or is it only you humans who are allowed to embrace their individuality?” Sokar continued, with what was now sounding like a well-trodden spiel, “While the rest of the galaxy must conform to these narrow little stereotypes? The logical Vulcans, the brutal Cardassians, the warlike Klingons—”
“Present company excepted, obviously,” Jirel chimed in, causing Klath’s glower to deepen further.
“Um,” Natasha managed, “Look, I’m sorry if I offended you. I just meant—”
“Doc, relax,” Sunek chimed in, looking a tad embarrassed, “This is just some old rabble rousing stuff from when we were young. Right, Sokar?”
The bearded Vulcan stared at Natasha for a few more moments, long enough for her to get the distinct impression that his forthcoming climbdown was not entirely genuine. “Yes. Perhaps it is,” he replied, “But you have to understand that it does get…tiring, to be constantly seen as aberrations.”
“All we want,” Tepal added, “Is to be seen as a natural - perhaps even a logical - part of an inherently chaotic universe. Not a strange deviation from the norm.”
Natasha nodded in understanding, still feeling like every pair of Vulcan eyes in the room was silently judging her. Even Sunek. Another silence descended. Everyone’s appetites appeared to have vanished for the time being.
“Well,” Jirel managed eventually, “Again, you really shouldn’t have…with all the food. But now we should probably offload our cargo and leave you to get on with—”
“My people will deal with the cargo,” Sokar shot back, as if he hadn’t really been listening, “You are our guests.”
Something about that comment piqued Jirel’s suspicions all over again. His people?
“Besides,” he continued, looking over at Sunek, “I’m sure that Sunek would like to stay for a while.”
“Perhaps,” Tepal offered to the others, “The rest of you would care for a tour of the Tolaris?”
Denella mused on this for a moment, then shrugged and nodded. After all, it wasn’t every day you were offered a tour of a Romulan Warbird. Regardless of what condition it was in.
Evidently, however, this wasn’t a belief shared by Klath.
“I will assist with the cargo,” the Klingon replied simply.
Sokar and the other Vulcans looked back at the impassive Klingon, but decided against pushing the issue.
All things considered, Jirel mused to himself, he had been to less awkward dinner parties.