Chapter Text
Part Four (Cont’d)
“Ugh.”
Mizar tutted audibly as he checked his chronometer again.
Ten minutes. It had been ten minutes since Devan had disappeared on the trail of the fleeing Palmor. And Mizar’s feet were getting itchier by the second. He pictured the fifty bricks of latinum, sitting safely onboard his tiny shuttle in orbit, and tried to focus on that positive.
“You got somewhere to be?” Sunek piped up, filling the silence that had descended in the same way that he always seemed to, regardless of the situation.
Mizar glanced over at the perma-grinning Vulcan with a mildly irritated glare. “I’ve still got a bomb on your ship, don’t forget.”
“Oh yeah,” the Vulcan fired back, “Real big talk for a—”
“Hey!” Denella snapped, with palpable concern, “Let’s not play chicken with my ship, ok?”
Sunek adopted a slightly more grumpy expression, like he’d just been told off by his mother, and shrugged his lanky shoulders.
Behind the bickering duo, Tegras and Evina stood with Klath, who was now propping himself up on the back of one of Palmor’s lavish sofas to keep the weight off his injured leg.
“Do you think he’s really going to shoot Palmor?” Tegras asked the Klingon in a low mutter.
Klath suppressed a wince, both from a sudden surge of pain from his leg, and from the unmistakable sign that he was getting dragged into another conversation he wasn’t especially keen on having. “I do not know,” he admitted eventually, “I have not known that individual for very long.”
He paused and considered the events that had just unfolded, then continued.
“But…I saw a familiar look in his eyes when he saw Palmor Fot. A look that a warrior recognises. The look of striving for vengeance. And being at peace with the consequences of doing so.”
It was a look that Klath knew all too well throughout his life, and had last seen some months ago when he had fought a vengeful Klingon named Kolar to the death. But he decided not to explain that particular story to his current company.
Even so, the two Ktarians shuddered slightly at the implication of Klath’s words.
“So, it was all true,” Evina mused after a pause, “The hostage-taking, the weapons, everything that you did down here. You and your friends weren’t doing it out of choice.”
“No,” Klath acknowledged, “We were not. But I…apologise.”
The Ktarian woman offered a thin smile, and then looked over at Tegras for a moment. But before she could offer anything further, Mizar loudly tutted again.
“Right,” he sighed, “That’s just about enough waiting. If that idiot up there wants to spend the rest of his life on this fleapit of a colony, so be it.”
“Charming,” Denella replied acerbically, without a trace of amusement.
“I’ve done what he asked me to do,” Mizar shrugged back, “And I’ve got my latinum. So that’s good enough for me.”
“You’re a special kind of idiot, you know that?” Sunek griped.
If Mizar was further irritated by the Vulcan’s quips, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he allowed a victorious smile to crease across his face. “On the contrary,” he replied, “Unlike you hapless morons, who’ve been running around down here without a clue, I’m the one who actually had the plan from the start. One that seems to have reaped me plenty of rewards. And now everything else will be blamed on you idiots. So, farewell.”
Before Sunek could get in another retort, Mizar tapped a command into his communicator and patiently waited for the computer to beam him back to his shuttle.
And nothing happened.
The victorious smile faltered slightly as he quickly tapped the device again. And still nothing happened.
As Mizar’s smile vanished entirely, a dawning grin of realisation appeared on Denella’s face. “Problem?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“The transporter,” he grunted, “What the hell’s going on—?”
The main door of the living area hissed open behind Mizar, causing him to spin around on his heels in shock. Framed in the doorway stood a young woman in a Ktarian security uniform, pointing her phaser straight at him.
“Regulations governing the infiltration of a hostile’s location require that active units beam in a safe distance away, and activate transporter inhibitors before proceeding. To prevent escape.”
The woman stepped fully through the doorway, keeping her weapon raised.
“My name is Deputy Jalon Sep. And you are all under arrest.”
* * * * *
“Hold it right there, son.”
Tylor pointed his phaser across at Devan, as he took another step towards Palmor.
“Great,” Jirel couldn’t help but sigh sarcastically at the sight of the security officer, “Just what the situation needed. More people with guns.”
The grizzled Ktarian ignored the Trill entirely, keeping his focus on the active target. Just as his decades in security had taught him. “My name is Security Chief Tylor Ral, Varris IV Security Division,” he continued, “And I’m gonna need you to drop that weapon.”
Devan paused mid-step, but his own focus was still on Palmor at the doorway to the shuttle.
“You heard him!” Palmor screamed through the rain, “Stop this, now!”
“You took her from me,” Devan hissed at his fearful quarry, “You destroyed everything!”
Jirel turned to the grizzled Ktarian security chief and gestured to his raised phaser with concern for his old colleague. “Please, don’t shoot. We can explain.”
“I’m all ears, friend,” Tylor replied, not bothering to question the apparent presence of a Trill and a human on Varris IV for the time being and keeping his focus on the armed Ktarian halfway across the landing pad, “But first, how about your buddy over there drops his disruptor.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. It was very much a demand.
“Devan,” Jirel called out, “Listen to him, please. Let’s just talk!”
“I—I’ve told you, Jirel. Talking didn’t work. N—Not with counsellors, or doctors, or anyone.”
“Yeah, but it might now,” the Trill persisted grimly, “With a friend.”
Devan didn’t turn around. He didn’t lower his weapon an inch. He just pictured her face. She was smiling.
“You should listen to them,” Palmor offered with a nervy edge, “No point getting shot by Ktarian Security over this, is there?”
As he spoke, he licked his lips and tried to calculate how quickly he could realistically propel himself inside the shuttle and power the thing up, assuming there was an appropriate distraction. He concluded that it was worth a try. Especially as he didn’t want to get involved with Ktarian Security either.
“He’s not backing down,” Natasha muttered urgently at Jirel.
Not that he needed that pointing out. Devan remained focused squarely on Palmor.
“Hey,” Jirel tried again, “If you want justice, we got it right here. Ktarian Security just beamed in, Devan. So let them handle this, ok?”
“He’s right, son,” Tylor chimed in, “You’re pointing that weapon of yours at Palmor Fot. I know all about him. And if you talk to me, I can deal with him the proper way, ok?”
Palmor didn’t like the sound of this at all, and returned to bargaining for his escape. “I have more latinum,” he babbled to Devan, “I could give you—”
“All the latinum in the quadrant won’t make up for what you did.”
“I—I really didn’t mean to—”
“I know you didn’t,” Devan interrupted, “You just didn’t care.”
He inched another step forwards. Tylor’s finger tensed on his own weapon’s trigger. Jirel licked his lips and tried one final time.
“Ok, Devan, ask yourself, is this really what Etara would have wanted?”
Devan’s face flinched for the first time since he had arrived on the landing pad. He stared down at the weapon in his hands as the rain thundered down on the collection of bedraggled figures on the pad.
He considered the disruptor. The one he had bought just for this. The one he still hadn’t actually fired in anger.
He thought about Etara. He pictured her face, and her smile. He thought about their first date. Their first trip together. The first time he had met her parents. Their wedding day. Their honeymoon. Their life together. Or what life together they had managed to have. He pictured the woman she was, before the felicium. And he considered Jirel’s question.
And as his mind flooded with memories on the soaked landing pad of a criminal’s penthouse, he slowly lowered his disruptor.
Jirel felt his stomach untighten. Natasha breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“Alright, son,” Tylor nodded, “That’s a really positive step. Now just walk back over here, ok?”
Devan acquiesced. He kept facing Palmor, but he took a slow step backwards, as Tylor, slowly but surely, started to pace over to him. Ready to take the mysterious disruptor-wielding man into custody for the time being.
In front of him, at the foot of the shuttle’s steps, Palmor’s nervousness evaporated, giving way to a look of undeserved relief, with a tinge of self-satisfaction.
“Well,” Palmor offered, “I’m glad you’ve seen sense.”
Devan stared at the Ktarian. His mind was flooded with a fresh assault of memories.
He thought about the latinum he’d spent to satisfy her unsatisfiable cravings. He thought about the sound of her screams, as Palmor Fot’s felicium had agonisingly left her system. He thought about the sinking feeling of dread he felt when he returned to their apartment and found her missing.
And he thought about her funeral.
And then he didn’t think about anything. He allowed his instincts to take over. He raised the disruptor and fired.
It caught Palmor square in the chest, with enough force to send him flying back into the hull of the shuttle, before he slumped down onto the wet surface of the landing pad.
Devan heard Jirel cry out from behind him, as he stared at Palmor’s lifeless form. A split second later, he felt himself falling, toppled by the force of Tylor Ral slamming into him and forcing him to the ground.
Not that such a dramatic action really mattered. He released his grip on the disruptor immediately. It clattered to the floor as he fell, having served its singular purpose.
Jirel stared in shock, feeling Natasha grab his arm instinctively as they watched the scene unfold. Whatever he had been hoping to prevent by escaping from the Bounty’s cargo bay and coming down here, he had failed.
With Devan offering no resistance, Tylor quickly cuffed him and forced him back to his feet, before he glanced over at the unmoving form of Palmor, a neat disruptor blast in the centre of his chest.
He looked back at Devan and shook his head.
“Shouldn’t have done that, son,” he grunted with a shake of his head, as he led him away.
Devan didn’t reply to the older Ktarian man. But he did look over to Jirel as he was dragged past where the Trill was standing, with an empty look in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he offered simply, “For all of this.”
Jirel grimaced and nodded back at his old friend.
“Yeah. So am I.”
End of Part Four