Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont’d)
“…So, that one ended fairly acrimoniously, as you’d expect. Then there was Lieutenant Paul Guthrie, an engineer from the USS Heracles who came onboard the Tripoli as part of a big crew exchange program…”
“Natasha,” Jirel sighed, for what felt like the thirtieth time since she had started talking.
For the thirtieth time, she ignored him.
“…I mean, he was…cute? Yeah, really cute. Had one of those bodies that was right in that sweet spot, y’know? Nicely toned, but not so big and muscly that you’re worried he’s gonna spend more time in the gym than he is with you…”
Jirel sighed again and leaned back, gently banging his head on the metal cylinder behind him, part of him not caring if he accidentally set the detonator off.
“Natasha?”
“…Oh, and then, I mean, this barely counts. But I had a bit of a fling with an Orvadian ambassador during a two-week layover at Starbase 312. Took me most of the time just to work out how to say its name. What was it again…?”
“Natasha, could you just—?”
“…Ah, yep, Cr’xx-ala’rhyrrpo’o’jahn. That was it. Emphasise the second ‘x’ and roll the ‘r’s. Otherwise you’re saying the Orvadian word for a sort of ceremonial belt. Honestly, I just ended up calling it Crxxy for short. Didn’t seem to mind…”
Jirel closed his eyes and sighed even more deeply.
“…Ah, and how could I forget S’stalath? Now he was the sexiest Gorn commander I ever met—”
“What the—?” Jirel called out, having located his final straw, “You slept with a Gorn?!”
On the other side of the cylinder, Natasha’s mouth curled into a satisfied smile, enjoying the ease with which she was able to wind up the Trill, despite the peril of their wider situation. “You do realise I’ve made most of this list up, right? I’ve been naming names for ten minutes now. What sort of girl do you think I am?”
A rush of emotions hit Jirel all at once, all competing for his attention. After a hard-fought scuffle, shame defeated the combined strength of relief and annoyance by TKO. “Oh, yeah,” he managed, “I got that.”
“Serves you right, anyway,” she scoffed, “I felt sorry for you, after you’d just coughed up that embarrassing nickname story. So I give you a free hit in return, ask me about anything from my past and I’ll tell you the truth. And you pick my sex life?”
“Hey, I just wanted to know—”
“Something that was none of your business. As usual. Just as me and Mizar Bal are none of your business.”
“Hey, it was a perfectly valid question. And it deserved a bit more than some dumb made-up story about jumping into bed with a Gorn.”
“Who said I made that bit up?” she replied, a fresh smile dancing across her face as she prepared the Trill for some more well deserved torment, “You know, I think it was the eyes that first drew me to Commander S’stalath…”
Just as Jirel’s own eyes began to boggle, they were interrupted by the sight of Devan entering the cargo bay and shuffling over to a tool cupboard recessed into the wall.
“Hey! Devan’s here!” Jirel called out with exaggerated gusto, eager for any sort of conversation other than the one he had trapped himself in.
But there was no answer as the nervous Ktarian rummaged inside the cupboard, searching through the various tools and equipment inside.
“You know,” Jirel persisted, “Denella really doesn’t like people going through her stuff.”
Still no response, aside from Devan muttering a barely-audible string of words under his breath as he finally selected a specific tool and walked over to where Jirel and Natasha were still shackled, before he began to tinker with the metal cylinder itself.
“Listen,” Jirel continued, now with a more serious tone, “I meant what I said before. We can help you. Whatever the hell is going on here, we can help. Whatever you’re doing. Um, what exactly are you doing?”
The top of the cylinder opened with a gentle hiss, as Devan kept his focus on his work. “I’m recalibrating the bomb,” he replied as calmly as he could manage, “For long-distance remote detonation.”
Jirel considered this for a moment, then shrugged. “I mean, I’d rather help you do something else—”
“Jirel, please,” Devan managed, blinking fiercely from the stress, “D—Don’t try all that. The jokes, and the small talk. I—I can’t do all that. I’m sorry.”
“Ok, fine. No jokes. But please, Devan, just talk to me? You’ve barely said anything since you came onboard, and now all this? Help me understand what’s going on here.”
“There’s no point,” the Ktarian replied in a quiet voice, “No point in any more talking. T—That’s all I’ve been doing. With counsellors, or friends, or whoever, and it never—Believe me, Jirel. If there was any other way, I’d have done it.”
As Devan talked, he deliberately avoided making eye contact with his former colleague. Instead, he kept his focus on running the small ODN recoupler in his hand over the internals of the device in front of him. After a few seconds, he stopped working entirely and took several deep breaths, staving off the encroaching sense of dread as best he could.
“I have some anti-anxiety shots in the medical bay,” Natasha chimed in with her best kindly doctor tone, “They might help.”
“I’m fine,” Devan gasped, as he forced himself to stand back up straight, “I don’t need another medical opinion.”
“I’m sure you don’t. But I’m more speaking as someone who’s currently tied up to the explosive device you’re working on. A shot might calm your shaking.”
No response. Devan shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus on the task at hand, knowing it was likely that Mizar was growing ever more impatient.
“Hey, I get it,” Jirel said, refusing to give up in his efforts to reconnect with his acquaintance, “You need latinum. Hell, we all do, right? And you thought this sort of crazy scheme wasn’t gonna fly with me, so you thought you had to go to this kind of extreme—”
“I already told you,” Devan interjected, “I—It’s not about the latinum.”
“Then what?”
Jirel refused to ease up on his pressing, now that he had Devan on his own, away from the more overbearing presence of Mizar. For her part, Natasha was on exactly the same wavelength, as she joined in the questioning again.
“You mentioned someone called Palmor Fot,” she offered, “Who is that?”
Devan felt another rush of anguish rush through him. He steadied himself on the side of the cylinder, then gripped the recoupler a little more tightly and finished his work on the final relay. With that, everything was ready.
“I—I can’t say,” he replied eventually, as he stepped back and started over to return the coupler to the cupboard, “It’s between me and him.”
“Huh,” Jirel nodded, “Revenge, then. For what?”
Devan didn’t turn around. He kept his focus on returning the tool to the cupboard. But Jirel had found a thread, and he gave it a few gentle tugs.
“For what, Devan? If not latinum? A business deal? A woman?”
There was a sudden clattering sound as Devan’s legs buckled for a moment, forcing him to grab onto the shelves of the cupboard for support. It was the first time he’d thought about her for a while, and he hadn’t expected the rush of emotion to hit him quite so strongly. Back on the other side of the bay, Jirel craned his neck around to see the sight of his old friend struggling to keep a lid on his emotions.
It seemed like he had his answer.
“A woman,” he nodded quietly.
Devan turned back to him, his face racked with emotion. Jirel saw the same face he’d known back on the Tyran Scrapyards. But also different somehow. Darker. “I’m sorry,” he managed to get out, “I—I don’t want to—”
“Hey,” Jirel offered with a half-smile, persisting with his gentle charm offensive on his estranged friend, “Remember back at the yards? What was that big Nausicaan’s name?”
Devan looked confused by this sudden change in the Trill’s line of questioning. On the other side of the bomb, Natasha listened on, silently. Though while she was glued to the conversation, she also saw something out of the corner of her eye which caused her some amount of interest.
“I don’t think I remember him having a name,” Devan admitted eventually.
“Me neither,” Jirel chuckled, “What is it with Nausicaans? Either way, I remember when we crossed him.”
“You crossed him, Jirel.”
“Sounds familiar,” Natasha muttered from behind the Trill.
“Ok, semantics,” he shrugged, “Point is, someone - possibly me - stole a big scrap project from his docking bay. And when he found out who it was, he swore he was gonna have his revenge. So we spent weeks hiding out in other sections of the yards, avoiding him, ducking the fight.”
Devan nodded unhappily at the memory as Jirel continued with a knowing smile.
“Until you convinced me that we couldn’t keep running forever. We had to look after ourselves. You told me that together, we could stand up to that Nausicaan.”
“I did,” Devan nodded, “And then—”
“Yeah, and then he beat us so badly we ended up spending two weeks in the medical bay,” Jirel acknowledged, imagining Natasha’s eye-roll in his mind even if he couldn’t see it, “But the point is that we got through it, together. And I promise you we can do the same with whatever’s going on here. Just tell me why you’re doing this.”
Devan stared back at the ungainly sight of the underwear-clad Jirel strapped to the bomb, and found himself replying. For a second, Jirel saw a flicker of something play across his friend’s face. “My wife,” he said quietly, “Palmor Fot stole my wife from me.”
“Ok,” Jirel nodded back in understanding, “I get it. So if you untie us, I promise you that me and my crew will help you get her back without the need for hostages, or bombs, or—”
“No!” Devan snapped suddenly, turning back for the exit of the cargo bay, “I’m sorry, Jirel. But I can’t make you any more of a part of this.”
Jirel grimaced in exasperation as Devan disappeared back into the main corridor of the Bounty. He called out in frustration.
“I’m already part of this! A very big, strapped-to-a-bomb part of—Ow!”
He yelped in pain at the sudden, unexpected sensation of Natasha yanking on the cuffs to get his attention.
“What the hell was that for—?”
“Ssh,” she muttered, “Look over there.”
Given their relative positions on either side of the bomb, it took Jirel a few moments to figure out exactly where ‘over there’ was. But as soon as he saw it, he knew that was what she was talking about. Next to the supply cupboard Devan had been working in, just within reach of one of their outstretched legs, lay a small engineering tool.
One that must have fallen out of the cupboard when Devan had staggered into it.
A small engineering tool with a number of uses. Including cutting through metal.
* * * * *
The rear doors of the Ktarian Moonrise opened with a telltale hiss.
For a moment, all that was revealed through the opened doors was a patch of darkness, leading to the bar’s rear storeroom. Then, there was a brief hint of movement, as Klath peered around the corner of the door with his disruptor poised.
Rain thudded down onto the ground of the alleyway behind the bar, but the Klingon peered through the continued downpour, all the way down to where the alley opened up onto a wider square of ground that the row of buildings the bar was a part of backed onto.
And in the middle of that square sat the stocky form of an atmospheric shuttle from the Varris IV Security Division, side door opened ready for boarding.
Having tactically assessed the situation as swiftly as his old training from the Klingon Defence Force allowed, Klath ducked back inside the dark storeroom. He had a tight grip of his weapon in one hand, and a tighter grip of the miserable Palmor in the other, the wily Ktarian still very much in the middle of a hostage situation.
To their side, Denella kept a similarly tight grip on Evina, while Sunek had Tegras in his own grasp. All kept their disruptors visible enough to keep their unwilling Ktarian companions keenly aware of the gravity of their situation.
“It looks clear,” the Klingon reported, “Though I am certain there will be guards positioned on the roof, and possibly more nearer the shuttle.”
“Hey,” Sunek chimed in, “Trelok has firm assurances from Chief Whats-his-name that we’re clear to get to the shuttle. That right?”
The Vulcan held up the small comms unit that they had located to continue their ongoing dialogue with the security team now that they were mobile.
“That’s right, Trelok,” Security Chief Tylor Ral affirmed, electing not to correct the Vulcan’s take on his name for the time being, “You have my word. We’re just glad that you’re giving us the other hostages for the time being. Safe and sound.”
“See?” Sunek grinned at his colleagues, “I’m a genius.”
“If you’re that confident,” Tegras grunted from Sunek’s side, “Perhaps you should leave a few more hostages behind.”
“I’m a genius, but I still need insurance.”
Denella suppressed a shudder at that off-hand comment. The logic of their plan made sense, and it was clear that whatever security teams were positioned around the shuttle would be significantly less keen to start shooting with civilians in the mix.
Still, the fact that she was on a Ktarian colony, having already committed a fair few felonies and on her way to committing half a dozen more, and was now using an innocent woman as a shield, for the benefit of two people who had installed a bomb on her ship, wasn’t exactly filling her with comfort.
“I’m sorry about this,” she offered to Evina.
The dirt-streaked miner studied the Orion’s expression for a moment, and then nodded. “Yes. You are, aren’t you. I’ve seen a lot of thugs down on this colony before, but there’s something different here. You’re—”
“Green. I know. You’ll get used to it,” Denella offered quickly, before looking back at Klath, “We need to get going.”
“The transport inhibitor?”
Denella fumbled around in her pocket and then held up the small disc device she had carried with her from the bar. “It’s not exactly designed to be used like this, but it should be enough to disrupt anything if they try to get clever.”
“Won’t stop a phaser though,” Palmor muttered from Klath’s side.
Denella kept her focus on the Klingon, who shrugged his burly shoulders in tacit acknowledgement of that point. Though there wasn’t much they could do about that. “We go,” Klath concluded, “But stay alert.”
The six figures, led by Klath and the ever-reluctant Palmor, stepped out into the downpour.
* * * * *
“Huh. Well I’ll be damned.”
Behind the cover offered by a large air filter stack on the roof of the bar, Tylor peered down through the rain at the motley gaggle of individuals as they emerged. True to the data that had been provided by the drone scans, there was indeed a Klingon, a Vulcan and an Orion on Varris IV. Armed, and leading their remaining trio of Ktarian hostages towards the empty atmospheric shuttle at the end of the narrow alley.
To his side, Deputy Jalon Sep moved over to him in a low crouch, keeping her voice low, but her tone still effortlessly formal. “Strike team inside reports that all other hostages are accounted for. And unharmed.”
“Just like they promised,” Tylor mused to himself.
Jalon didn’t look entirely satisfied with that response from her superior, but she was careful not to let it show in her demeanour. She knew how important it was to maintain trust in the chain of command during a crisis situation.
“Chief,” she offered instead, in as even a tone as was appropriate, “They still have three hostages. And they appear to be taking them onboard the shuttle.”
“Let them go,” Tylor muttered back as he watched the group slowly advancing towards the shuttle, “And make sure everyone understands that order, ok?”
Despite her level of training, his deputy paused for a moment.
She knew that wasn’t the appropriate response to an order. The appropriate response was to affirm acknowledgement of said order and set about relaying it to the rest of the team. But she was sufficiently taken aback by the content of the order that she remained where she was for the moment, long enough for Tylor to notice.
“Relax, Deputy,” he offered with a wry smile, “We’ve got most of the hostages out. But my instincts are still telling me we need to see the play out a little more.”
He paused for a second, feeling stronger for the rekindling sense of excitement he was feeling to investigate such a mystery that was in front of him.
Retirement or no retirement, he suddenly felt like a detective again.
“Besides,” he added, “They’re getting into one of our shuttles, aren’t they?”
She nodded in sudden understanding at the full extent of his plan.
“We’ll activate the transponder remotely as soon as they’re underway, and track them at a safe distance. See where it leads us. Like I said, there’s more to this than some junkie holdup.”
“Yes, Chief,” she replied, “Understood.”
Now satisfied with the plan, she grabbed her comms unit, ready to issue the order to the rest of the units. But, thanks to her momentary diversion from established procedure, she was delivering the order some twenty seven seconds later than Tylor had issued it.
Which turned out to be a problem. Because right then, the shooting started.
End of Part Two