Chapter Text
Part Two
Denella was still worried about Erami the following morning, even as she pored over her repair schedule for the day in the Bounty’s dining area as she finished breakfast.
She tried to keep her attention on the scuffed padd in front of her, detailing the remaining tasks to be completed on the Kendra’s warp coil, as well as the rest of the work she still had to do with the Bounty to fix the damage the tribble infestation had caused. But she couldn’t help but worry about the Bajoran in the Ferengi shuttle on the other side of the landing pad, wondering exactly what was going on with her. Why someone had ransacked her ship, and why she had been so casually certain that nothing had been taken.
As her attention drifted away from the padd and the remains of her half-eaten breakfast once again, and she began to daydream her way through her other problems, the door opened and Jirel stepped into the room, shaking her back to the present.
“Hey,” the Trill nodded as he walked to the replicator and ordered himself a jumja tea, “You seen Klath around?”
“Should I have?”
Jirel walked over to the table and sipped his tea. “Not especially,” he shrugged affably, “But I just checked, and he’s not in his cabin. And you know it’s not like him to get up this early. Especially given how much bloodwine he was putting away last night.”
Denella stood up and carried her leftovers to the replicator to dispose of them, finding herself still focused on her own issues, rather than Klath’s. “I dunno. Maybe he’s gone over to the port. Buy his lady friend something nice?”
“They split up.”
This was enough for her to pause as she grabbed the padd from the table.
“Oh,” she offered, “Really?”
He nodded, as they walked over to the door together and stepped back out into the Bounty’s main corridor, heading for the rear cargo bay and the ramp down to the landing pad.
“Apparently, he asked her to become his wife. Because they’d been…y’know. And she declined, because she didn’t feel honourable enough to accept it. You know, Klingon crap.”
“Got it,” Denella nodded back as they entered the deserted cargo bay and she tapped the controls to lower the ramp.
“And ever since then, he’s been moping around, and I can’t get through to the guy. And now he’s vanished.”
Denella forced her own issues to the back of her mind for a moment in order to focus on what Jirel was saying, and paused at the top of the ramp as the metal structure made contact with the landing pad below with a gentle thud.
“Hey,” the Trill continued after a sip of tea, “You’re closer to the big idiot than I am.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. And I’m fine with it. Honestly. So, with all the weapons training and Klingon studies you’ve been getting up to with him, have you got any idea what I’m missing here?”
She considered the question for a moment, then nodded.
“par’Mach.”
“Gesundheit.”
“No,” she smiled patiently as they started to descend the ramp, “It’s what Klingons have instead of love.”
Jirel paused halfway down the ramp and looked back at her with a hint of amusement. “Klath talked to you about love? Why was I not invited to that conversation?”
“You think he talked to me about it? The galaxy’s most repressed man? No, it came up in something else I was reading. And, as you might expect with Klingons, it sounds pretty intense.”
“How intense?”
“The way it was described in what I read was that it was part love, part lust, part passion, part anger, part hunger, part yearning, part extreme violence. All wrapped up in a physical longing that can consume even the hardiest of warriors.”
“Huh,” Jirel mused, taking another sip of tea.
“There was a case study of a human anthropologist asking a Klingon colleague to explain how it made them feel, and she demonstrated by strangling all three heads of an Aldebaran serpent, then skinning it with the nails of her fingers. And, while the anthropologist suggested that his colleague might have been exaggerating for dramatic effect, the point is that if he’s experiencing par’Mach, this is gonna be hitting him a lot harder than one of your moments of pining.”
Jirel paused mid-sip and stared back at her. “Um, what is that supposed to mean?”
Denella gave him a knowing look before she resumed her descent down the ramp. Jirel quickly followed her.
“You know what I mean,” she sighed, “The little looks you give our friendly local doctor every now and again. You’re not great at disguising it.”
“Psh,” Jirel retorted, a little too quickly, “Wh—? I mean—That’s stupid. You’re stupid. Do you have any idea how stupid you’re being right now—?”
“All really strong denials. Either way, if that is really how Klath feels for K’Veth, then it’s gonna take him a while to get over it. So, if you are gonna try and help, make sure you’re at least a little bit tactful, hmm?”
“Hey, I’m always tactful.”
Denella offered him a raised eyebrow as they reached the foot of the ramp, just in time to see Erami making her way over from the Kendra. Without even thinking about it, her face lit up into a broad smile as she saw the Bajoran. A reaction that she immediately told herself was due to the fact that she was simply glad to see that she was ok after last night’s issues, rather than anything else.
“Hey,” Erami smiled back, “Reporting for duty. All set for another day of hard graft. Ready to go?”
“Absolutely,” she nodded back, before gesturing to the Trill next to her, “Um, this is Jirel. Jirel, this is Juna Erami.”
Erami extended her hand and Jirel accepted the handshake.
“Nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he replied with a cheeky grin, “So, tell me, what are your intentions towards my engineer?”
Erami suppressed a smirk at this impish comment, as Denella fixed the Trill with a significantly less happy look.
“Maybe work a bit harder on that tact.”
* * * * *
The promenade was just as busy as it had been the previous day. But this time, even though she was still sensing a lot of stares being fired off at them, Denella found that she cared a lot less about all that. She definitely felt more comfortable.
She was still some way from actually being comfortable, but still, she was sure that she was decidedly less uncomfortable than she had been. Which she was taking as progress.
They were on their way to the same salvage yard as yesterday, located some way past the promenade and in the less glamorous sections of the port. One final trip was needed for some additional spare parts for the Bounty’s ongoing repairs.
“You know,” Erami offered from her side, “We definitely have time to stop for a coffee today. We’re way ahead of schedule.”
That much was true. Back at the landing pad, the Kendra was now back up and running, which just left a few remaining tasks on the Bounty on her repair schedule. Still, Denella was entirely focused on the work, and so they kept walking. Leaving Erami to glance frustratedly at the queue for I'danian spiced lattes as they hurried past.
They eventually reached the far end of the gaudy main strip of shops and bars and entered the significantly less fancy and utilitarian confines of the port’s supply and repair area. Here, near to the central core of the port’s structure, the corridors were more like that of an orbital station or starship, narrower and gunmetal grey. The walls showed signs of wear and tear, a revealing blemish that hinted at just how long Kervala Prime’s spaceport had sat here, servicing passing ships of all shapes and sizes.
This was where the salvage yards, the scrap heaps and the vast stores of spare parts and raw materials were stored. And where the two women were hoping to find the final parts for their repairs to the Bounty.
The conversation had been flowing between them all day so far, despite the awkwardness of the previous evening. But it had only really covered surface level topics. Their schedule for the day, Erami’s long list of favourite Bajoran folk artists, and other such frivolities. But now, away from the hullabaloo of the promenade, Denella decided to shift the conversation onto slightly more serious matters.
“So,” she said, as Erami finished casually listing her top five uses for leftover hasperat, “Wanna talk about what happened last night?”
The Bajoran paused. She’d been expecting that question to come at some point, but she also knew that there wasn’t really an answer she could give that would keep her happy. At least, not one that involved the truth. So, instead, she did what she normally did whenever people started to ask her difficult questions, and she tried to style the whole thing out.
“About the bandits? Yeah, had a word with port security and they’re gonna check the sensor records, see what they can pull up—”
“Come on,” Denella sighed, stopping in the middle of the corridor that they were walking down and turning to her.
“I know, I told them the same thing. They really need to boost security on those outer landing pads if they want people to keep parking up out there.”
Denella shook her head and folded her arms in front of her, indicating that Erami was going to need to style things out a lot better than that. “Just tell me what the hell’s going on. Are you in trouble? Whoever it was that trashed your ship last night was clearly looking for something. Something specific.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because when you looked inside the ship to see if anything had been taken, you barely took five seconds before you said nothing was missing. Which means that either you knew exactly what they were looking for, and it was still there. Or you knew it wasn’t even there in the first place.”
Erami couldn’t help but muster a sideways smile and a shake of her head, even as Denella maintained her entirely serious stance. “You sure you’re an engineer, not a detective?” the Bajoran replied.
“What I am is someone waiting for an answer.”
“It’s really not that interesting.”
“It’s interesting enough for someone to break into your shuttle.”
Erami scrutinised the Orion’s unflinching face for a moment, then sighed and walked on down the corridor, with Denella falling into step alongside her.
“Tell you what,” the Bajoran offered as she walked, “With everything that happened last night, the stupid empathic restaurant, the bandits, everything else, how about we just…start again, hmm? Pretend all that never happened?”
“A do-over?” Denella snorted, echoing Natasha’s phrase from earlier.
“A what?”
“Whatever, fine, we can start again. And we can start with the truth.”
“I told you, it’s really not that—”
“And, just so you’re aware, you are being a huge hypocrite right now.”
Erami snorted at this, as they rounded another intersection in the corridor, her mood darkening as the debate continued in an orderly direction towards becoming a full-on argument. “How am I being a hypocrite?”
“Because you spent last night - hell, all of yesterday - trying to get me to talk about myself, and my past. And now, the second I want to know something about you that isn’t your favourite type of stew, or some boring fact about folk music, you’re just gonna clam up?”
“Hey,” the Bajoran snapped, “Careful what you say about my music. And this is completely different, Denella!”
“How is it any different?”
Erami growled in frustration and set off down the corridor with a faster pace, trying in vain to somehow outpace the argument she was involved in. “Look, let’s just go get these stupid parts, finish the repairs on your ship, and then I’ll be more than happy to get the hell out of your hair, ok? Cos I am telling you for the last time that this is none of your concern!”
“Ugh,” Denella sighed, rushing to keep up, “I didn’t mean—!”
Both women, and their argument, stopped dead just around the next corner of the corridor.
Ahead of them, from either side of a branching junction a few paces away, a Pakled emerged. Each wore a dirty brown uniform, and each held a stubby grey disruptor pistol. Both weapons were levelled straight at them.
“Put up your hands,” the Pakled on the left grunted.
With no immediate alternative course of action available, both women complied, raising their hands to the ceiling of the corridor.
“You owe us,” the Pakled on the right nodded, directing his comment at Erami.
Denella kept her hands diligently raised, but looked over at the Bajoran, with a singularly unimpressed glare.
“Kinda feels like this is becoming my concern.”