Chapter Text
Epilogue
Jirel sat up in the single bed of the Bounty’s cramped medical bay and winced.
Natasha had worked tirelessly on their journey back out of Syndicate space to heal his myriad wounds. And he was just about back in one piece.
“Five broken ribs,” she reported as she ran a final scan over his body, “One punctured lung, a ruptured kidney, broken leg, fractured jaw—”
“Thanks doc, I get the picture,” he replied with a knowing grimace, “And thanks for patching me all back up. Again.”
“Good news is, next time it happens, you’re entitled to a free soda.”
They shared a smile, as she quickly stopped thinking about how worried she’d been when she’d first seen the state he was in after his reunion with Rilen Dar. It wasn’t the time to get into all of that.
Instead, she continued with the scan, and opted for a different area of conversation.
“I get it, you know.”
“Get what?”
“What you said earlier. About how uneven the moral line can get out here, and all you can do is try to do a bit of good where you can. For what it’s worth, I think this ship does more good than you give yourself credit for. Even if it is just one ship.”
“I’ll remember that the next time we take on a supply run for the Syndicate,” Jirel replied, matching her resulting withering look with a cheeky smile, “Kidding. Obviously.”
In the following moment of silence, as they maintained each other’s gazes, Jirel was certain that the two of them were sharing a moment of something or other. But he stopped himself from pursuing that any further. It wasn’t the time to get into all of that.
“Well,” Natasha said eventually as she finished her scan, “I’m officially calling this treatment over. You’re good to go.”
The door to the medical bay opened and Denella walked in. Natasha saw the look between the two friends, and got the message. “I, um, guess I’ll go grab a coffee,” she nodded, flashing a smile at Denella as she exited.
As the door closed behind her, a relieved looking Denella walked up to the fully mended Jirel and gave him a warm hug.
Then, as she broke the hug, she gave him a fierce slap across his face.
“Um, ow?” Jirel managed, with some justification.
“That’s for being a complete idiot,” she replied, smiling despite herself, “I told you not to follow me, and you nearly got yourself killed back there! What the hell did you think you were doing, flying out into Syndicate space like that?”
“You did it first.”
“That’s different. I had to.”
“So did we,” he replied, with an uncharacteristically serious tone, “You know that if you go charging off on some crazy suicide mission, the rest of us are gonna have your back. We’re gonna come after you—”
“And get caught by the Syndicate boss with the grudge against you? And get beaten within an inch of your life? And have to get bailed out by your engineer on said crazy suicide mission?”
Jirel looked a little more sheepish when she put it like that. “I didn’t say we’d be any good,” he offered with a shrug.
Denella’s smile widened as she shook her head in amusement.
“How’s our guest?” he asked eventually.
“She’s still…getting used to everything. From my experience, it takes a while to get everything right in your head. But…she’s ok.”
“Is she gonna stick around?”
“Not right now,” Denella said sadly, “There’s a Betazed centre just inside Federation space that helps people like Sarina. Over in the Corvin sector. Natasha suggested it as a starting point, and Sarina wants to go there. I said we’d take her?”
Jirel nodded silently, though he felt as though his blessing really wasn’t needed for that particular order.
“Longer term…I don’t think she knows,” the Orion woman continued, “But I’ve said I’ll stay with her for a while, while she gets settled. For as long as she needs me.”
“Take all the time you need. We can handle the repairs—”
“Like hell you can,” she smiled, as she turned and made for the exit, “But don’t worry, I can multitask.”
Jirel smiled back as she left. Moments later, Natasha returned, clutching a freshly replicated mug of coffee in her hand.
“Didn’t I discharge you?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jirel said, rubbing his slapped cheek, “But I think this is gonna bruise.”
* * * * *
The Bounty sat parked on the surface of Corvin III, next to the calming expanse of the Betazed care facility.
The ship’s rear ramp was deployed, and the crew, along with Sarina, stood on the soft grass underfoot along with one of the employees of the centre, a porcelain-skinned woman called Palia Rani.
“You can stay with us as long as you need,” the Betazoid woman explained to Sarina in a soft and kindly tone.
The younger Orion woman looked around the countryside that surrounded the facility and saw the rolling hills and the woods in the distance. She managed a smile. “It reminds me of…home,” she whispered.
“Me too,” Denella nodded with a smile of her own.
As the two Orion women walked away from the group, to take in the view by themselves, Rani turned around to the rest of the Bounty’s crew and gestured around in a friendly manner. “The rest of you are welcome to stay as well, while you make your repairs.”
Jirel looked up at the shattered remains of the Bounty’s port wing, and took in the other signs of battle damage across the long-suffering ship’s hull.
“Thanks,” he nodded, “We might need it.”
Natasha looked around at the picturesque surroundings of Corvin III. “Well, I’d definitely be happy to spend some time here,” she offered, glancing at Klath, who didn’t appear to share that particular belief.
Sunek, for his part, kept his inquisitive focus on the Betazoid woman. “So, hey, like, you can really read our minds? You can, y’know, tell what I’m thinking right now?”
Rani looked back at the Vulcan with a somewhat disgusted expression on her face.
“Yes.”
Jirel glanced awkwardly over at Natasha. “I mean, we probably shouldn’t stay too long…”
* * * * *
After a brief tour of the rest of the facility, Denella left Sarina to settle in, happy that she was being looked after.
She didn’t rejoin the others, or even start on the Bounty’s latest repair schedule. Instead, she returned to a spot a short distance away from where they had landed to consider the view again.
Sarina had been right. The place could have been Orpheus IV if she hadn’t known any better. The deep blue sky, the rolling hills and the warm, rich red of the soil all brought back a sea of memories in her mind. She also knew that this would be as close as she and Sarina ever got to their old colony. They would never be able to actually go home again. Orpheus IV was lost to them.
She heard heavy footsteps approaching, as Klath stepped up alongside her.
“Beautiful, huh?” she ventured as she contemplated the view.
Klath’s grunt was enough to betray the fact that the Klingon was still slightly less impressed by the beauty of Corvin III than everyone else seemed to be.
“It is very green,” he managed.
He turned to look at his friend, who was still staring out at nothing in particular into the distance. On seeing her troubled look once again, he reluctantly opted to flex his developing small talk muscles once again.
“Do you…wish to talk about it?”
Despite everything, Denella stifled a smile before she collected her thoughts. “I guess I was just wondering how many more there are out there,” she mused as she looked up to the heavens, “How many more Sarinas.”
Klath considered this for a moment. “We could attempt to rescue more of them. It would be quite a battle.”
“Take on the entire Syndicate? In the Bounty?”
“We could find a larger ship,” Klath retorted, apparently in all seriousness.
She turned her attention to her Klingon companion and smiled warmly. They stood in silence for a moment.
“You fought well, Denella,” he offered eventually, “You should be proud.”
She managed a slight nod, but his words didn’t seem to have the positive outcome that he had been hoping for. He pushed further.
“I was…going to suggest that we have a feast. In honour of your battle.”
At this, Denella raised an eyebrow. If she didn’t know any better, she’d have sworn that the gruff, burly Klingon was trying to make her feel better. “To toast the great battle of the Numekk nebula? Bloodwine? Toasts? All that?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“And you’d compose a song for it?”
Klath shot a worried look at the Orion woman, only to see the smile on her face that gave away the fact that she was messing with him. “I could try,” he replied with a hint of amusement of his own.
She sighed and shook her head as she turned back to the Bounty, leaving the view behind. “Thanks for the offer, Klath. But I’m not sure a feast is really necessary. Tell you the truth, I don’t really feel like celebrating.”
The two friends started to walk back to the ship together.
“Why?” Klath asked as they went.
She looked back up into the sky as they walked, a tinge of sadness clear on her face. She thought about what she had been compelled to do. The lives she had ended, the carnage she had caused. And she thought about how many other slave girls might be out there, still needing to be rescued, somehow, by someone.
“Because it doesn’t really feel like I won.”
* * * * *
In the end, there was no feast to toast the battle of the Numekk nebula, but the tired and tormented crew of the Bounty did at least find some moments of peace on Corvin III.
Denella spent as much time as she could with Sarina, reconnecting with her old friend and trying to help her recover.
Sunek spent most of his time on Corvin III receiving a succession of disgusted looks from the various Betazoids that were unfortunate enough to pass nearby to him.
As he had promised, the recovered Jirel took charge of the repairs, with help from Klath and Natasha. Even though he knew Denella would re-do them all as soon as she had the time, it felt good to at least pretend to help.
Jirel even managed to sell an appropriate excuse to the Talarians about the delay to their shipment of mining supplies. Though he was less sure how he was going to sell the fact that most of the supplies were now irreparably damaged from the Bounty’s latest firefight.
As the sun set at the end of the day on Corvin III, Sarina sat cross-legged on the bed in the quarters that she had been assigned, opposite her friend. The two friends had spent almost all of their time together since they had been reunited talking, about the past, about happier times, and about all of Denella’s adventures with the Bounty. They barely touched on Sarina’s experiences, but Denella didn’t need to know any of the details.
The important thing was that her friend was already adjusting. She was smiling. It was a smile that brought joy to Denella’s heart.
“I just…can’t believe it’s really you,” Sarina managed as they looked at each other, “I can’t believe you did all this. For me.”
“I just…I guess I always thought I’d see you again, one day. I never wanted to—”
Denella couldn’t ignore the guilt inside any more. She stifled a sob. “I’m sorry,” she managed, as Sarina touched her shoulder with concern for her friend, “You don’t know that I—I was supposed to protect you. Look after you. But when the Syndicate came, I—”
She stifled another sob as she recalled her fight or flight decision back on Orpheus IV.
“I saw them ransacking the homestead, dragging you away, and I should have attacked. I should have fought them!”
“There were too many of them,” Sarina whispered, “You couldn’t have fought them all.”
“I should have tried. You were being carried away, I had my dagger, but—When I was caught, I was trying to run away. I—I tried to run away…!”
The younger Orion woman shifted across the bed and gave her friend a comforting hug, one that Denella accepted.
“But you came back,” Sarina whispered.
The words, and the hug, seemed to melt the guilt from Denella’s soul. She controlled her tears and managed a faint smile. A moment of silence descended.
“What do I do now?” Sarina asked eventually, as they broke the hug.
Denella looked around the comfortable surroundings of the quarters Sarina had been given, and remembered the same confusion she had experienced after her own impromptu rescue all those years ago. How after so many years with the Syndicate, she had forgotten what it was like to be free.
“Whatever you want to do,” she said eventually, her smile returning.
Sarina considered the enormity of this statement for a moment, then nodded. Denella rubbed her arm supportively, then started to get up to leave her friend to rest.
“Stay?” Sarina whispered, “I…don’t want to be alone.”
Denella wiped away the remaining tears and nodded in understanding. She lay back down on the bed next to her friend, as Sarina settled down to sleep.
* * * * *
The two girls swung their legs off the side of the tree trunk as the sun continued to set. In the distance, they heard the sounds of the other children returning from their adventures in the forest. It was nearly time to head home.
Denella looked over at Sarina, who had now been silently contemplating her answer to the question for so long that Denella was wondering if she’d forgotten about it.
“Sarina,” she said in her best stern grown-up voice, the one she’d learned from listening to her mother chide her father when he stayed out too late working on his shuttles, “You know it’s rude to ignore someone. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Sarina swung her legs some more, looking up into the darkening sky. “I’m thinking,” she insisted, with a hint of irritation, “Don’t rush me.”
The younger Orion girl chomped on the final bite of her snack, while Denella returned to kicking the rusty red dirt at her feet.
After a long time searching through her brain, Sarina was finally satisfied that she’d found the right answer, and nodded with confident certainty.
“Happy,” she said, “When I grow up, I’d like to be happy.”
Denella screwed up her face at this. It seemed like a silly answer as far as she was concerned. But then, she was still mostly thinking about what sort of things she would do if she was a famous archae-lol-ologist.
So she accepted Sarina’s answer with a friendly nod, as the other children’s voices grew ever nearer, and their time on top of the hill together grew shorter.
The two girls sat together and watched the sun set.
* * * * *
In the safety of the quarters on Corvin III, Denella looked down at Sarina, as she lay peacefully sleeping with her head tucked onto her friend’s shoulder. And she smiled.
Shifting slightly, careful not to wake the younger woman, she settled back and closed her own eyes.
And, as per her doctor’s orders many days ago, Denella finally got some rest.
The End