Chapter Text
Part Three (Cont’d)
Of all the things that Jirel could accuse Martus Mazur of being, and ever since he had fallen for that Vulcan supply ship scam all those years ago, that was a fairly extensive list of things, it turned out that being a bad actor was not one of them.
As Mazur led him and Klath through the village square, past the Makalites clearing up what was left from the earlier festivities, he couldn’t help but begrudgingly admire his commitment to his character. From the moment they had emerged from the hut, the El-Aurian had effortlessly slipped back into his role as The Seer, walking through his flock with a kind and peaceable demeanour, a million miles away from the frustration and anger there had been in private.
“My Brothers, my Sisters,” he called out serenely, as the Makalites regarded him with reverence and awe, “Everything is proceeding as The Seer has foreseen. Our salvation is nearly here.”
Jirel and Klath walked a couple of paces behind the overly grandiose performance, with the Trill beginning to feel a little uncomfortable about the way he was being so adoringly regarded by the villagers around them.
Being a saviour was a lot less cool now he knew the truth.
“He is quite the performer,” Klath muttered to him surreptitiously as they headed across the square, “I do not trust him.”
Jirel was more than inclined to agree, on both points.
“Do not fear,” Mazur continued ahead of them, “The Seer will make sure that everything is prepared for. For all of you.”
This somewhat empty comment seemed to be enough to keep the Makalites happy. The villagers that they were passing began to nod and chatter in excitement.
“Like my mother always said,” Jirel offered back to the Klingon, “Never trust anyone who has a habit of referring to themselves in the third person.”
They eventually reached their destination, the squat metal-walled building that some of the Makalites had referred to as their temple. Mazur, billowing robes and all, entered through the main doorway, and Jirel and Klath followed.
Inside, the temple was a fundamentally simple sort of design, much like the hut that they had come from. There was no proper floor inside the dank confines of the temple itself, meaning that they still walked on the dirty ground, albeit mostly bereft of grass and plants. Aside from the four main outer walls, the only other adornment was a long wooden table, with a series of candle-type lamps burning at strategic intervals in order to fully illuminate the room.
The table itself was covered in jewels and precious stones, while below the table were a number of substantially less glamorous items such as woven cloth, wooden sculptures, clay pots and even various bits of food. It appeared as though the Makalites had literally been donating anything they could to secure their salvation.
It seemed clear that they had now stumbled into the very heart of Mazur’s latest scam.
“Amazing what a fancy speech or two and an authoritative enough voice will do to a group of people, isn’t it?” Mazur chuckled as he gestured to the riches on display.
The El-Aurian quickly moved over to the table and produced a small knapsack from underneath his robes. He began to pick up some of the larger gems and jewels, examining them in the candlelight, before depositing those that passed the test into the bag. And as Jirel watched him sort through the mountain of ill-gotten treasure that his display as The Seer had managed to accumulate, he couldn’t help but feel a palpable pang of guilt deep inside his gut.
“This is low, Mazur,” he grunted, “Even for you.”
In general, the Trill accepted that he was a man who had occasionally exploited a situation when it presented itself. It was sometimes a matter of necessity when you encountered as many sticky situations as he did. But what he was seeing now was something else entirely.
Mazur, for his part, didn’t look back, continuing to deftly examine each jewel at a time. “Please, spare me the ethics lecture,” he tossed back casually, “If I’d wanted one of those, I’d have sent a distress call to Starfleet.”
At this comment, Jirel felt a slight pang of concern, as he suddenly realised that he hadn’t seen their own former Starfleet colleague for a while. But before he had a chance to ask Klath about Natasha, Mazur continued.
“Besides. For all I know, given my luck, all of these’ll end up being worthless.”
He paused and held up a particularly large purple-tinged gem, turning it around carefully in the candlelight, and then shrugging.
“Eh, maybe not all of them…”
“So you’re cutting and running,” Jirel sighed, “Just like you did with that Vulcan supply ship stunt you pulled on me. You’ve got the Makalites to hand over all their possessions, and you’re gonna leave them with nothing.”
Mazur tossed the purple jewel into the knapsack, and gestured to the various objects on or under the table that he was paying no interest to. “I’m leaving them with plenty,” he indicated, “Just helping myself to an appropriately sized payment. And I deserve it, because you have no idea what I’ve been through down here these last two months. I’ve helped these people out, given them hope, wasted so much time just…listening to their endless problems!”
“Thought you El-Aurians were good listeners?”
“We have our limits. So, I think I deserve a little something in return.”
“Exploitation,” Klath muttered.
“Reimbursement,” Mazur countered.
“And what happens to the Makalites now, hmm?” Jirel pressed as another jewel was tossed into the knapsack, “You just leave them here, after everything you’ve promised them?”
“Would you rather give them all a lift?” the El-Aurian replied, before shrugging, “Besides, they’ll get over it.”
“You sure about that?”
“That’s the beauty of dealing with people that are so easy to manipulate. They’ll all move on from this as soon as the next movement, or religion, or wanderer with a powerful-sounding voice and some mystical-enough words stumbles past.”
“Nice to see that legendary El-Aurian empathy shining through.”
Mazur ignored Jirel’s barbed comment and concluded his extensive examination of the various treasures inside the temple, lifting the clinking knapsack over his shoulder and walking back over to the door. “Whatever,” he grunted, “I’d say it’s time for us to get out of here, hmm?”
Jirel looked from Mazur to Klath and back again. He was still conflicted about the morals of the situation they had found themselves in. But equally, he knew that the Bounty and her crew weren’t in a position to call themselves the galaxy’s morality police. And everything that was happening down here was way outside of their pay grade.
“Fine,” he sighed eventually, “But where’s Natasha?”
“Who?” Mazur replied dismissively as he peered out of the doorway to see whether the coast was clear or not.
“Human lady, average height, overly friendly, red hair, irritating ability to turn every little thing into a grand ethical dilemma?”
Klath nodded along with this description at Jirel’s side.
“Not familiar,” Mazur shrugged.
Jirel reached for his communicator and tapped the controls to open a comms link. “Jirel to Natasha. Where are you?”
There was a crackle of static, but no response. The Trill looked at the Klingon with a note of concern.
“Could be the radiation?” he offered.
“Possible,” Klath replied, in a subtle tone that suggested a significant part of himself didn’t believe that for a second, “She was over on the other side of the village when I left her, still investigating the…disease.”
At the doorway, Mazur sighed, clearly irritated by the latest delay to his increasingly improvised escape plan. “Look, we don’t have time for this. The longer we wait, the more these village idiots will have started to pack up their things and join the queue for a lift. I’m sure your friend will catch up with us.”
Jirel glared back at the man in the robes with no small amount of distrust. “We’re not leaving here without her,” he stated flatly, “So you’re just gonna have to wait.”
“I’m telling you,” Mazur pressed, “We need to get—”
He suddenly grimaced in pain and staggered slightly, his legs half-buckling underneath him as he started to drop to his knees. Neither Jirel nor Klath moved at first, their sympathies for him not exactly running over. But eventually, Jirel stepped up and helped him back to his feet.
It was then that he saw the signs of the debilitating red rash on Mazur’s arm.
“What the hell?”
The El-Aurian regained his balance and quickly pulled the sleeve of his robes back down, but it was too late to hide what Jirel had seen.
“It’s nothing,” he managed.
“The hell it is,” Jirel shot back, now more concerned, “I thought you said this disease only affects the Makalites.”
“Perhaps,” Klath added, “It might be in your interests to locate the doctor after all.”
“No need,” Mazur grimaced as he internalised the fresh flare of pain from his arm, “Just…get me out of here.”
Jirel grimaced as he considered the situation, then looked back at Klath. “Ok, here’s what we’ll do. You get the All-Seeing Eye back to the Bounty, and I’ll go and track down Natasha—”
“No,” Mazur countered, pointing at the Trill, “You should come with me.”
“Any particular reason?”
“The Seer and the spotted man parlaying together in the forest will be a lot easier to sell to the locals if we’re seen,” he pointed out, “So as not to arouse any suspicions.”
Jirel sighed again, frustrated by how completely and entirely wrapped up in Mazur’s little scheme he now was. He didn’t really want to openly admit quite how concerned he was feeling about Natasha’s absence, or how much he wanted to be the one to go and find her. But equally, he couldn’t see an obvious flaw in Mazur’s logic.
“Fine,” he nodded eventually.
The three of them made for the exit to the hut together, as Mazur worked on regaining his strength as fully as he could. He realised that his best laid plans were at risk of unravelling with these additional delays. And that he may be forced to take more drastic action to make his escape.
As Klath walked off towards where he had last seen Natasha, Mazur felt around under his robes, and smiled at the reassuring form of the concealed Edosian disruptor pistol.
* * * * *
Sunek let out a frustrated sigh as he lounged back against the dull wall of the Edosian ship’s engineering deck.
“Man,” he tutted, “These Edosians can really talk.”
He paused suddenly, tapping the headset he was wearing and seeming a little bit more concerned about whatever he was now hearing.
“Oh, you—You heard that, did you? Sorry, I thought I’d muted the—Yep. Shutting up.”
Denella stifled a smile as she checked the tricorder readings again, and started to look more satisfied with the work that she’d managed to do. Repairs to the microfusion reactor were complete, and the local radiation levels were already dissipating, as expected.
With Sunek busy with Edosian Internal Security, she had even been able to finish everything without being distracted by more of the Vulcan’s complaints. In fact, given how the other side of the conversation over the headset seemed to be going, for once it was Sunek who was having to deal with someone who wouldn’t stop talking.
“Yep, right, cool,” he babbled quickly down the headset, “I mean, not cool, obviously, cos…y’know, all the crew are dead, but—Tell you what, you just give us a shout when you’re in orbit, ok?”
With that somewhat awkward matter out of the way, and regardless of whether or not the overly talkative Edosian official on the other end was actually finished or not, he lifted the headset off his head and sighed.
“Ugh. Some people, am I right?”
Denella kept the various quips that jumped to the front of her mind to herself, and instead merely gestured to him for some sort of report.
“Ok, so, the good news is: They don’t think we were to blame for any of this.”
“Was that even an option?” Denella asked with a hint of a smile.
“Point being,” Sunek continued quickly, “This is an Edosian prison transport, supposed to be on the way to a penal colony on Farkas II. They lost contact with it about nine weeks ago, until some rugged, clever, handsome genius re-activated their comms beacon.”
Denella raised her eyebrow at this, for a number of reasons. “I thought you said you didn’t touch anything?”
“I touched one thing,” he shrugged back, considering the rest of the matter closed, “But, that means they’ve been able to pinpoint our location, and they’re sending another ship along to clean up the mess they’ve made. So, as the rugged, clever, handsome genius once said to his lackey: I think our work here is done.”
The Orion engineer kept her eyebrow raised, but shook her head. “Not quite,” she pointed out, “But the leak is sealed, which means we can work on getting those other idiots out of whatever mess they’re in.”
She gestured for Sunek to follow her, as they squeezed back through the doors to the engineering deck and back into the remains of the corridor.
“How are we gonna do that?” he asked as they walked.
“Radiation levels are already dropping around here,” she explained quickly, absently waving her tricorder at him as she talked, “Meaning that we can retune this to deal with the worst of what’s left. And…”
She led Sunek through another set of damaged doors, keeping an eye on her readings to confirm that they were in the right place.
“…We can also retune this.”
She gestured in front of them, and Sunek saw the telltale sign of a transporter pad. Denella walked over to the controls and powered them back to life. “We’ve still only got the dregs of emergency power,” she continued as she worked, “But that’ll hopefully be enough to get some juice into this thing. Just need to make those adjustments and we’re good to go.”
“Why don’t we just wait to get back to the Bounty before we beam them back there?”
“Who said anything about beaming them back?” she winked, gesturing at the pad, “Come on, let’s get this show on the road.”
Sunek’s face dropped slightly as he caught her drift, pointing to his chest.
“Me?”
“Who else?” she shrugged, “The radiation might be clearing up around here, but I still can’t get a proper lock on them way over on the other side of the next valley. So I’ll beam you over there, you round them up, and by the time I’ve hiked back to the Bounty, you’ll be getting back as well.”
Sunek reached for a string of ready-made excuses, but Denella was ready for them. “Or,” she added, “Do you wanna climb all the way back up that hill to get back to the ship?”
The Vulcan stopped and contemplated this valid point. Seconds later, he bounded over to the transporter pad.
“Thought as much,” Denella smiled in satisfaction as she finished clearing the interference, “Right, I’m getting a fix on the settlement. Lifesign readings are still a bit sporadic, but I’m definitely registering a Klingon.”
“Sounds like those kids of ours,” Sunek grinned.
Denella tossed the tricorder she had recalibrated to deal with the radiation over to him. He caught it first time.
“Take that with you, it’ll help pinpoint where they are,” she noted, “Also, I’m gonna set you down just outside the village. Don’t want to make any more of a nuisance of ourselves, do we?”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Ok,” Denella finished up, “Now, the radiation levels are still high over there, but it should be safe to re-materialise you.”
Sunek’s face immediately dropped. “Wait, ‘should be’—?”
Denella allowed herself a slight smile of satisfaction, as the suddenly-terrified Vulcan disappeared.