Chapter Text
Part One (Cont’d)
“Empty?!”
Mizar’s frustrated voice filled the confines of the Bounty’s cargo bay as he hissed into the communicator in his hand. Next to him, Devan instinctively flinched at the harshness of his tone, and began to wring his hands in front of him to try to sooth his rising worries.
“Ha!” Jirel called out with gusto from the other side of the bay, “Not such a great plan now, is it?”
“We’re still tied to a bomb, Jirel,” Natasha calmly reminded him, accompanying her comment with a sharp tug on her end of the cuffs.
“You might want to listen to her,” Mizar grunted, “And we can still beam out of here and detonate that thing whether I get my latinum or not.”
Jirel struggled for any sort of retort to that, eventually opting for a weak shrug of his shoulders. “Still not entirely convinced it’s a bomb,” he managed, in a substantially less confident tone of voice.
Mizar returned his attention to the communicator in his hand, barking out further instructions to try and smooth out this unexpected wrinkle in his plan. “He must be hiding it,” he grunted, “He has to be.”
To his side, Devan stepped forwards, still rubbing his hands together with worry. “Mizar. I—If they’ve got Fot, then we sh-should beam them up. It’s not about the latinum—”
“It is to me,” Mizar snapped back instantly, “Why else do you think I’ve been helping you? Out of the goodness of my heart?”
The shorter Ktarian shrank back, his brief attempt at an assertive action abandoned. Jirel watched on with intrigue from across the bay, trying to pick up on any clues as to what had led his former crewmate from the scrapyards down this unhinged path.
“I want you to find that latinum, ok?” Mizar continued into the communicator, trying to keep a lid on his rising sense of frustration, “Search that place from floor to ceiling. And if it’s not there, I want you to get Mr Fot to tell you where it is, and for you to go get it. Understood?”
There was a short pause over the static-filled comms link before Denella’s equally frustrated voice returned.
“And how exactly do you expect us to ‘go get it’, hmm? You told us to come down here and take hostages. We’re not exactly a mobile operation any more!”
As Mizar searched for a solution to that obvious issue, Devan’s rudimentary assertive streak found a minor second wind. “If we b—beam them up now, we could get Fot to—”
“Shut up!” Mizar snapped as his frustration boiled over, causing Devan to jump in shock, “You know as well as I do that if we keep using that transporter, we’re gonna get the security forces on our backs for sure!”
That barrage was enough for Devan’s assertive side to flee the scene completely, as he meekly returned to his role as the literal silent partner in their criminal enterprise.
Across the bay, Jirel slowly shook his own head, struggling to fully marry up his memory of working with Devan Gol at the Tyran Scrapyards with the Ktarian he saw now. He had always been a quiet individual, content to stay out of trouble. Jirel had always been the more outgoing and talkative one. Usually overconfidently talking them both into trouble before Devan’s more reserved and diplomatic side talked them back out of it.
But now, something had clearly changed. The Ktarian’s quiet side was no longer a result of him simply being calm and reserved. Now he was more fearful and timid.
On their journey to Varris IV, Jirel had expected to spend most of the trip catching up with him over as many of the random bottles of alcohol lying around the Bounty as they could get through. After all, it had been the best part of a decade since their time together at the scrapyards. But instead, Devan had been withdrawn as soon as he had beamed aboard, and had spent most of the trip holed up in the spare cabin, or otherwise in furtive conversation with Mizar.
It hadn’t exactly been the reunion that Jirel had been expecting.
And the more that this unfortunate situation continued to unfold, the more Jirel wondered exactly what had happened to his old acquaintance.
While the Trill was worrying, Mizar had been pacing, and he now began to reiterate the bones of his revised plan to the rest of the Bounty’s crew over the comms link.
“Ok, listen to me,” he sighed, dialling back his frustrations and allowing his old charming tone to return to the surface, “I really don’t want to be that guy, but you’re not getting back onboard this ship without that latinum. Alright? So I don’t care what you have to do, where you have to go, or who you have to kill down there, you need to find it. Got it?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the comms link. Long enough for him to opt to continue when no immediate response was forthcoming.
“Or do you want me and my colleague to transport over to our shuttle, and then set off the little present we’ve given you in your cargo bay—?”
“No,” Denella’s curt response came quickly, “You don’t need to do that. We’ll find the latinum.”
Mizar’s face creased into a self-satisfied smile at this, his broad shoulders fully relaxing. “Thank you for your cooperation,” he offered, with just about the least amount of warmth it was possible to bestow on those words.
Without waiting for any further response from the other end, he clicked off the comms link and shot a look at the still-cowering Devan.
“I swear, if those idiots down there mess this up—”
“Hey!” Jirel called out, “Don’t call my crew idiots! That’s my job!”
The Trill felt the need to call out for a few reasons. Partly in honest defence of his absent shipmates, partly out of his continued jealous thoughts towards the handsome Ktarian, partly out of the intense feeling of shame that accompanied those thoughts, and also partly to take the heat off Devan.
Let’s give him someone else to get angry with, he thought to himself.
Mizar glanced over at Jirel, who did his best to look as imposing as he possibly could while still sitting chained up in his underwear. It wasn’t a look that threatened to come close to troubling Mizar from his position of superiority, but the mild farce of the sight at least seemed to cause him to call off his latest rant in Devan’s direction. Which Jirel silently decided to take as a win.
Instead, Mizar merely glanced back at the other Ktarian and jerked his head to the exit. “Come on then,” he offered, “We might be stuck onboard here for a bit longer. But we can still get ready.”
The two of them walked off, leaving Jirel and Natasha to continue their futile efforts to free themselves from their cuffs.
Neither of them tried to spend too much time thinking about what exactly they were getting ready for.
* * * * *
Denella heard the comms link go dead and let out a deep, tired sigh over the ever-present sound of the patter of rainfall against the windows of the Ktarian Moonrise. She turned back to survey the situation inside the bar and tried to figure out what the hell they were going to do next.
To one side of the room, eleven hostages remained gathered together. Sunek and Klath had joined her in the middle of the bar while she had checked in with Mizar.
Next to them, Palmor was slumped in a chair, having gathered from the conversation he had just overheard that his predicament was far from over. Even if it wasn’t quite clear exactly which way it was now going to go.
“Well,” Sunek tutted eventually, idly spinning his disruptor around in his hand, “This trip has turned into a hell of a pile of suck. What now?”
“We should return to my original plan,” Klath boomed out, “Make our way to a transporter pad, return to the ship ourselves, and take it back by force.”
“You’re forgetting the part about the bomb in the cargo bay again,” Denella countered.
The Klingon defiantly shrugged his burly shoulders.
“I am still not entirely convinced it is a bomb.”
“Besides,” Sunek pointed out, “Surely those two geniuses up there won’t go and blow up our ship while they’re still onboard?”
Denella considered this for a moment, but shook her head. “I’m not sure what they’re capable of doing. But I know that’s too much of a risk. Besides, as soon as we leave this place, we’ve now got a dozen witnesses who’ll raise the alarm before we even get to a transporter.”
Sunek and Klath looked over at the hostages. The Vulcan shrugged. “We could always—”
“We’re not gonna hurt them,” Denella countered quickly.
“I wasn’t gonna say that, obviously!”
Before the Vulcan could offer a full explanation of exactly what he had been proposing, Denella turned back to Palmor. “Ok, Mr Fot,” she sighed, “Let’s try this the easy way. Where’s the latinum?”
“I already offered you my winnings!” the Ktarian whined, gesturing over at the abandoned Tongo game on the other side of the bar.
“We need a hell of a lot more than that, I'm afraid. Where’s the latinum from your safe?”
Palmor wrung his hands together nervously. But despite the weapons all around him, he elected to remain mute in response to this question. Because, while he wasn’t exactly a brave man, preferring to stay a suitably safe distance from all of his more nefarious business dealings on Varris IV and allow his subordinates to accept the risks instead, he was also a gambling man.
And right now, he was gambling that he could keep hold of his latinum after all.
Like all committed gamblers, he had weighed up the odds of success before deciding to embark on such a high risk strategy. And he had decided that those odds were in his favour.
Based on what he had seen and heard of their captors so far, he didn’t get a sense that they were the type to shoot him any time soon. In fact, none of the strangers had so much as fired a warning shot from their disruptors since they had arrived.
Then there was the way the Orion had conducted herself while they had been in the basement. She had been determined and forceful, and hadn’t bought any of his efforts to talk his way out of it. But there had still been an undertone of kindness to her tone. A hint of compassion in her eyes.
And then there was the ongoing discussions over the comms link, which suggested to Palmor that their captors were not the ones that were set to profit from this particular operation. They were just here to do the legwork. And from his own dubious experiences on Varris IV, he knew that people were always less willing to be ruthless if it was all for someone else’s benefit.
So he decided to roll the dice. To twist. To hold onto his Evade card for a later turn. And not to tell them anything.
It was a strategy that might have worked, but for one thing. He hadn’t factored in the other players at the table. Not the captors themselves, but the other hostages. The ones with no qualms about selling the least popular man on Varris IV down the river.
“He’ll have moved it somewhere,” Tegras piped up, standing up from his position amongst the gaggle of hostages.
Palmor jerked his head around to where Tegras stood, shooting daggers at him from across the room. For his part, Tegras stared back at his old enemy with a satisfied smile. Buoyed by her colleague’s showing, Evina stood up next to Tegras and nodded her head.
“He’s right,” she nodded, “He must have another secure location.”
To Palmor’s side, the three hostage takers glanced at each other. None of them looked overly delighted with this somewhat scant offering of information.
“Well,” Sunek offered eventually with a healthy portion of sarcasm, “Duh-doy.”
The two Ktarians suddenly looked a little less satisfied with their actions, and glanced at each other with considerably more concern. Then, just as they began to regret making themselves stand out in the crowd quite so much, the bartender chimed in.
“Whenever the safe gets full, he arranges a transfer. Atmospheric shuttle comes and takes the latinum away. If it’s empty, that’s where it’s gone—”
“Stop that!” Palmor snapped impotently as he was slowly and methodically sold out, “If you try to take me down, I’ll take every single one of you down with me—!”
“Quiet,” Klath grunted with fresh annoyance, silencing the fearful Palmor once again.
“Last shuttle pick-up was two days ago,” the bartender added, more concerned by the disruptors than by Palmor’s threats, “But I’m afraid I can’t tell you where they take it.”
Denella nodded, then turned back to Palmor, determined to tug on this particular thread some more. “So, Mr Fot. Where do they take it?”
In his mind, Palmor began to run the odds again. It didn’t take him long to decide on a new course of action. Double or nothing.
“It goes off-world,” he muttered, “By secure transport.”
His answer was enough to elicit a loud growl of frustration from Klath, with enough intensity to cause Palmor, and most of the other hostages, to flinch.
“This is insufferable!” the Klingon spat, “We have been sent on a fool’s errand!”
“Habit of a lifetime,” Sunek chipped in, as Klath kicked a bar stool clean across the room to punctuate his frustrations.
Denella allowed the Klingon’s outburst to subside naturally, and got her own mind into gear. She paced over to the bar area and tapped a series of commands into the computer console located behind it.
“Hey,” Sunek called over, gesturing at the bottles of alcohol behind her, “While you’re there, Trelok would love a—”
“Shut up, Trelok.”
As Denella continued to work, Sunek glanced over at the hostages and managed an awkward smile. “That’s just, y’know, a bit of banter. Actually, technically, I’m her boss as well—”
“He’s lying,” the Orion engineer called out.
“Well, don’t tell them that!”
“No, not—Him!” she sighed, pointing an accusing finger at the squirming Palmor, “He’s lying. He’s got to be.”
“How can you be so sure?” Klath asked.
“Because,” Denella said, gesturing down at the screen, “The barman said the last pick-up from the safe was two days ago. The only ships that have left orbit since then have been two ore freighters and a prison transport. None of which, I’m assuming, do much in the way of latinum transportation.”
“Meaning?” Sunek offered.
“Meaning that wherever the latinum was transported to, it’s still on the planet somewhere,” she continued, gesturing over to Evina, “So she was right. He must have a lockup or a holding area somewhere. That right, Mr Fot?”
She glared at Palmor, who appeared to be suddenly finding his shoes endlessly fascinating. Seeing a chance to work off some of his mounting frustrations, Klath stepped back over to where the Ktarian sat and lifted him out of his chair by his collar.
“My colleague asked you a question.”
“Ok, ok!” he babbled, as Klath dropped him back down into the chair, “I have a secure facility, over on the other side of the settlement! The next orbital pick-up isn’t until tomorrow!”
Denella smiled in satisfaction. Sunek grinned broadly. Klath nodded, but couldn’t help but look a little disappointed that he hadn’t had to use any more force to get the information.
“There,” Denella said, “Was that so hard?”
Palmor folded his arms in angry defeat, as the Orion considered their next step.
“Ok, I guess we’ll have to restrain the rest of our friends over there somehow. Then we should have enough time before the alarm gets raised to get to—”
She stopped herself as she spotted something unsettling on the computer interface she had been working on. Something that suggested that the alarm had already been raised. Away from the main part of the screen where she had called up the public transport logs, she saw a small flashing light. She tapped the screen for more information, and didn’t like what she found.
“Um, guys…we might have a problem.”
Sunek walked over and peered over the rim of the bar at the screen itself. Even though it was upside down, he could see the tell-tale signs that an alert of some description had been activated.
It wasn’t clear how it had been activated. Presumably during the initial melee after they had made their entrance, one of the Ktarians had reached out and triggered it.
But however it had happened, it was clearly a problem.
A sound from outside, louder than the permanent rainfall, seemed to add further confirmation to the existence of a problem. It was a sound that distinctly sounded like several small vessels landing on the hard ground outside.
Klath sidled over to a window and carefully peered out.
He saw several small vessels landing on the hard ground outside. Each one clearly belonged to the local security force on Varris IV. The doors of the shuttles opened, and several figures clad in dark brown uniforms scurried out and took up strategic positions behind nearby cover. All of them carried phaser-type weapons.
Within moments, they had surrounded the entire front of the Ktarian Moonrise. And while he had no way of knowing for sure, Klath was certain that a similar scene was taking place at the rear of the building.
They were surrounded.
“Yes,” he nodded, turning back to Denella and Sunek, “I believe we have a problem.”
End of Part One