Chapter Text
Part One (Cont’d)
“Seriously, why are you grinning so much?”
Sunek’s demeanour had a tendency to annoy at the best of times, but given the circumstances right now, it was seriously getting on Jirel’s nerves.
Since he had broken the meld with the unconscious Natasha, the aforementioned grin had remained resolutely plastered on his face, and he seemed in no hurry to explain it. Despite how little about their current situation seemed to merit such a reaction.
They were working side by side at the medical computer. Or, more accurately, Jirel was watching on as Sunek worked to put Natasha’s diagnostic plan into action by focusing the scans on the hippocampus. Their patient remained motionless on the bed in front of them, but Jirel was finding it too difficult to look directly at her, so he kept his focus on the computer screen.
And on Sunek, and his grin.
“No reason,” the smiling Vulcan shrugged as he worked, “Just, y’know, thinking about how there’s three of us in here at the same time. Three people, all together. That’s cool, right? When there’s three of you?”
Jirel had no idea what to do with any of that.
He knew that it had to be at least the tenth time that Sunek had made an unsubtle reference to the number three since he had broken the meld, and he was beginning to wonder whether it was some sort of hidden code that Natasha had somehow managed to imprint on the Vulcan. A code that needed to be cracked in order to solve the mystery of her ailment.
But before the Trill had time to venture much further down that rabbit hole, the computer chirped out an urgent sound, indicating that the tests were complete. Jirel’s hopes of a swift resolution to the crisis were immediately extinguished by Sunek’s grin giving way to a look of confusion as he studied the results.
“Huh,” he mused as he chewed his cheek.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jirel urged, peering at the mostly unintelligible series of charts and readings that were displayed on the screen.
“Computer can’t find anything around the hippocampus. Nothing conclusive enough to give us a full analysis anyway. Tox screen, chemical breakdown, nothing worked.”
“So?”
“So, this plan sucked.”
Jirel shot daggers back at Sunek, making his opinion on that comment abundantly clear.
“What?” the Vulcan said defensively, gesturing to the unconscious Natasha, “Don’t look at me, it was her plan.”
The Trill shook his head in frustration, still avoiding looking down at the patient.
Truth be told, he had kept a close watch on her all the time that Sunek had been in the meld, while he had been the only fully conscious person in the room. At one point, the swirling mass of worries he was feeling inside even caused him to reach out and clasp her hand, to try and offer some sort of support to the immobile patient.
Almost as soon as he had done it, he had thought he heard a noise outside, and had quickly pulled his hand away again, doing his best to adopt the demeanour of the sort of person who would never consider holding a coma patient’s hand for moral support. Still, in a weird way that he couldn’t quite fathom, just for that second or two, it had felt like he was helping.
As he contemplated their latest dead end, he felt a sense of palpable frustration join the worry he had inside, but he elected not to take it out on Sunek any further.
The Vulcan, while he could be lazy, and insubordinate, and annoying, and everything else, was clearly trying his best on this one. And right now, he was the only available medical option the Bounty had.
“So,” Jirel sighed in the end, keeping his tone measured as he idly itched his spots, “We’ve still got nothing?”
Sunek felt the need to check over the results again, but he soon looked back at the Trill with his best approximation of an apologetic face. “Sorry buddy,” he offered, with more than a hint of sincerity, “There’s definitely some sort of foreign compound in there wreaking havoc, but the computer can’t get enough data on whatever it is to get a full picture. It’s like it’s…hiding from us or something.”
Jirel suppressed a shudder at that comment, and felt his tone growing a little less measured. “So that’s it?” he grimaced, “We’ve got no plan? No ideas?”
Before Sunek could reply, another alert chimed out from the computer. And even Jirel knew that this one hadn’t been planned.
“Crap,” Sunek reported, “It’s worse than that. Her lifesigns are dropping again. Like, way down. Whatever the hell she picked up from that stupid plant, it’s spreading.”
Jirel gripped onto the side of the computer monitor with enough force to make his knuckles glow white. It wasn’t an action that was lost on the observant Vulcan.
“We’ve got to do something,” the Trill muttered, half to Sunek and half to himself.
Sunek sighed deeply and mustered a shrug.
“We do have one option,” he pointed out, “I could go back in.”
* * * * *
Denella bounded into the Bounty’s cockpit, her face streaked with its usual coating of grime and dirt after a prolonged period of engineering work in the Bounty’s small engine room.
“Try increasing speed now,” she said as she slid behind her engineering station at the rear of the cockpit.
At the front of the cockpit, Klath sat somewhat incongruously at Sunek’s usual pilot’s console and tapped at the controls in front of him. After a second, there was a slight, but perceptible shift in the procession of stars streaking past the cockpit window, and Klath turned back to her with a satisfied nod.
“It worked,” he reported, “Our speed has increased by 4.7 percent. ETA now 19 hours.”
Denella couldn’t help but smile with pride. Not so much at herself for managing to squeeze out another improvement from the Bounty’s ageing systems, but for the Bounty itself.
“Attagirl,” she said with satisfaction, gently tapping the top of her console for effect, “I said you could do it, didn’t I?”
Klath stood from the pilot’s chair now their course was steadied, and made his way to his tactical console to re-check the latest sensor information.
It hadn’t taken long for him to locate a destination for them. They were headed for a well-established neutral port facility in the Beta Ramis system, where they were sure to find medical help. But he wanted to keep a close eye out for anything he might have missed. Because both he and the Orion alongside him knew that they were still a long way off their target, and it was unlikely Natasha would last that long. Even if Denella had managed to trim some three hours off their flight time.
Their efforts were, in a lot of ways, performative. But as neither had been able to offer much assistance in the medical bay, at least here they could feel as though they were being useful. Even if they had both conceded in their own minds, perhaps not useful enough.
As he sat down at the more familiar tactical console, Denella continued to butter up the ship.
“You never cease to amaze me, you know. Always got a little bit more to squeeze out of that warp drive of yours, haven’t you?”
Klath couldn’t help but express a grunt of amusement at the continuing theatrical performance from the engineer. A grunt that wasn’t missed by Denella herself.
“Problem?”
Klath paused in his latest check of the sensors to glance over at the green-skinned woman.
He had always been baffled by the apparently universal predilection for engineers and technicians, regardless of what fleet they served, to anthropomorphise their vessels. Even Klingon engineers were not immune. During his time in the Klingon Defence Force, he had once served on the same ship as a chief engineer who insisted on performing the Death Howl whenever he heard one of his former ships had been destroyed in battle.
He had never dared ask whether he truly believed that a Bird of Prey could enter Sto-vo-kor.
Klath knew that Denella’s own relationship with the Bounty wasn’t quite that delusional. But on occasion, he felt it might be a close run thing.
“Your conversation is…unnecessary,” he offered to her as an explanation for his grunt.
“Hey,” she said defensively, “It works, you know? The old girl definitely responds better if you say the right thing to her.”
“The ship is not responding to you, Denella,” he countered, feeling himself slipping into the argument despite himself.
“Then explain the 4.7 percent increase in speed. Yeah, ok, a bit of tinkering, maybe. But also a hell of a lot of compliments. And you deserved every last one, didn’t you?”
She patted the console again, as Klath rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I suspect,” he offered, “The…tinkering had the more substantial effect.”
Having got his comment in, he quickly snapped his attention back down to the sensor readouts, before she could offer a further retort. Instead, a moment of silence descended.
“We’re still too far away, aren’t we?” Denella said eventually, entirely more seriously.
Klath considered her comment as he tapped the sensor controls. He knew that it was important for him to temper his reactions to such medical emergencies onboard the Bounty.
Back before his discommendation, such crises rarely afforded too much concern inside the Defence Force. If a warrior was badly injured or sick, either they would recover to fight another day, or they would not, and instead gloriously enter the afterlife. It was usually as simple as that. But he knew that those options offered no comfort for the Bounty’s crew. So, instead, he took a moment to find some appropriate words of support to ease Denella’s concerns.
“She is a strong fighter,” he pointed out, recalling what he had seen of Natasha since she had joined the Bounty’s ragtag crew, “I am sure she will endure against this disease.”
“Still,” she persisted, “We’re nearly a day away. That’s a hell of a long time to endure.”
Klath went to offer another response, but then spotted something curious on the long-range sensors that gave him reason to pause and verify the readings. “Perhaps,” he grunted, “Not as long a time as that.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, jumping up from her own station and bounding over to check the readings for herself.
“I have detected a ship, six hours away. Intercepting them would take us off course for Beta Ramis, but I believe it is likely they would have the facilities to assist us.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Klath gestured down to the sensor readings as Denella arrived next to him, and she immediately realised that Klath might be onto something.