Chapter Text
Part Four (Cont’d)
Jirel felt like a kid again as he busied himself at the helm of his ship.
Before he had found Sunek, he’d done all of his own flying. And while his egotistical side enjoyed the feeling of sitting in the centre chair, regardless of how little he’d actually done to earn it, he had to admit that he’d missed the rush that came from a bit more of a hands-on role.
It may have been tired and beaten up, and it may be far from the fastest ship in the galaxy, but the Bounty was still a nimble old slugger of a vessel, ever-willing and ready for this sort of close combat at impulse speeds, with plenty of deadly firepower and flight controls tight enough to turn it on a proverbial sixpence.
And Jirel was making sure it did just that. He would be the first to admit he wasn’t half the pilot that Sunek was, though he’d never do it within earshot of the Vulcan, but he was still capable of holding his own when the chips were down.
Having drawn the fire of the Pakled ship, he deftly swung the Bounty back around and brought it to bear on the form of the modified Andorian freighter.
“Fire!” Klath bellowed from the chair behind him.
K’Veth tapped her controls. Twin blasts of phaser energy shot out from the Bounty’s wing-mounted cannons, followed by a volley of micro torpedoes.
The Pakled ship had nothing like the Bounty’s reaction speeds, and the cumbersome larger vessel’s shields glowed white hot as they absorbed them. Seconds later, they returned fire from their deadly disruptors.
“Evasive!” Klath called out, now in full-on battle-hardened Klingon captain mode, “And bring us to bearing 285 mark 2. Target their aft shields!”
Jirel’s fingers jumped over the helm controls as the Bounty gracefully avoided most of the disruptor blasts, but one impacted heavily on the Bounty’s own shields, causing the lights to momentarily dim in the cockpit.
“Shields weakening,” Natasha reported, “Looks like they’re packing a hell of a punch.”
“They are Klingon disruptors,” Klath noted.
“Gotta love the Pakleds,” Jirel grimaced.
“They are an old design,” the Bounty’s temporary captain continued, “Designed to operate on a regularly modulating energy frequency. Try to match the harmonics of our own shields to their weapons, it should give us some additional protection.”
“On it,” Natasha nodded, digging deep into her Academy era engineering training to carry out the complex task.
Meanwhile, the Bounty swung past the aft section of their quarry, just as Klath had ordered, and K’Veth fired again. “Direct hit!” she reported, her voice energised with the violence of the battle.
“Unknown vessel,” the voice of a Pakled filled the air over the comms link, “We do not know you. But don’t try to stop us, because we are smart. And we are strong.”
“Nobody likes a show-off,” Jirel muttered.
Several more disruptor blasts came rushing towards them. Jirel swerved the Bounty around a few of them, but several hit home. An access panel on the left side of the cockpit blew out.
“Return fire!” Klath bellowed, “Continue targeting aft shields!”
“Are we responding to their hail?” Natasha asked.
“We just did,” the Klingon pointed out.
K’Veth’s latest round of weapons fire impacted directly on their enemy’s weak spot again. “Their aft shields are bucking,” she reported with relish.
Another explosion rocked the Bounty. Two more relays exploded above their heads and showered them with bright, white-hot sparks.
“So are ours!” Natasha cried out.
Amongst the chaos and the carnage Klath remained almost zen-like. He watched the battle unfold and directed his troops as if he was still on the bridge of the Grontar. “Match their movement,” he called out to Jirel, “Come to 310 mark 5. Fire at will!”
He kept a tight grip on the armrests of his chair, as the battle continued all around him.
The blood lust continued to course through his body.
* * * * *
“Damnit!”
Denella spat the word out as she thumped her hand down on the almost useless controls in front of her, emphasising her frustrations.
“I take it that means we’re not getting main power back anytime soon?” Erami asked mirthlessly from the other seat.
“We’re not getting anything back. Power, warp drive, weapons. Even the impulse controls are dead.”
“Huh. I really did get ripped off for that quantum singularity, didn’t I?”
Denella didn’t offer a smile, and looked back out of the Kendra’s cockpit window at the battle still raging in the Kervala nebula.
The good news was that the Bounty has successfully diverted the Pakled’s attention entirely away from their shattered shuttle. The bad news was that her precious ship was now getting the full force of their weaponry. And there was nothing that they could do to help them.
“They’re taking a beating from those disruptors,” she despaired as yet another volley of fire from the Pakled ship slammed into the Bounty’s collapsing shields, “We’ve got to do something.”
“I’m all ears,” Erami shrugged.
Denella couldn’t find anything to add. They had been left entirely impotent in the fight. A pair of hapless spectators to what was happening in front of them, waiting for a rescue. Like a couple of damsels in distress.
And then, she had a sudden spark of inspiration.
“Actually, we do have something we can use.”
Leaving Erami looking a little baffled, she stood up from her seat and clambered across to the rear of the cockpit, stepping over the remains of the picnic that were now strewn all around the deck from the chaotic journey the Kendra had been on since brunch.
“What?” Erami called back to her.
She ignored the question for the time being, focusing on bypassing the dozen or so safety protocols in place behind the panel she was working at that she needed to circumvent in order to carry out her plan. Satisfied with her work, she rushed back to the front of the cockpit and jabbed a finger down on the comms link.
“Denella to Bounty,” she called out.
“Bounty here,” the voice of a stressed Natasha came back, accompanied by the sound of a small explosion, “Bit busy right now!”
“I can see that,” the Orion replied, “But I think I’ve got a plan. I’m gonna eject the antimatter pod and lay a trap. Just get the Pakleds over here.”
“Got it,” Natasha’s response came, before the comms link clocked off.
Satisfied her message had got through, Denella started to frantically tap her controls, preparing her trap now the safety protocols were bypassed.
“We’re ejecting our antimatter pod, are we?” Erami piped up from her side, “I’m not quite the engineer you are, but don’t we need that to, y’know, escape?”
“We’re not getting the warp drive back online,” Denella pointed out, “If we’re escaping from this one, it’s certainly not gonna be under our own steam. So, if we’re not gonna be using that antimatter pod for anything…”
Erami considered this entirely valid point, then shrugged. “Alright, what the hell. Stupid warp coils never worked on this crate anyway.”
Denella nodded back as she continued to work.
“One question,” Erami added, with a little less confidence, “We dump the pod and, I’m assuming, blow it up in the faces of those Pakleds, you sure we’re gonna have enough juice left to get away from that with just our thrusters?”
Denella kept her focus on her controls, but nodded firmly.
“Definitely,” she lied.
* * * * *
Despite their perilous situation, K’Veth was still enjoying every second of the fight.
It didn’t take a seasoned warrior to see that things were not going in their favour. The enemy had greater firepower and stronger defences. The battle may well be lost.
But, in some ways, that was making her first true experience of fighting on the battlefield even more glorious to experience. The idea that she might actually die in battle, the highest possible honour for any Klingon warrior, just made her heart beat faster as she fired at the enemy again.
Even if their enemy was a modified Andorian freighter full of Pakleds, and the battle was taking place in a pink and purple nebula, she still felt an unfamiliar sensation inside. One that she didn’t think she’d ever experienced before in her lifetime of exile.
A feeling of pride.
Klath had been right. She was discovering her personal sense of honour. Of self-belief. Perhaps for the first time ever. And suddenly it felt like there was nothing she couldn’t do. Maybe, she thought, as she glanced over at the man in the centre seat, who still willingly carried the scar she had left behind on his cheek, she could even consider his offer of joining.
But for the time being, she had more pressing engagements to look after.
“Their shields are weakening,” she reported excitedly after her latest volley.
“Not by enough,” Jirel chimed out from the pilot’s seat.
“You all heard Denella’s plan,” Klath commanded from the centre of the room, “Get us to their position, and make sure you bring our enemies with us.”
The Bounty shuddered again from another glancing blow from the Pakled ship’s disruptors, as Jirel swung the ship around through the swirling gases. “Don’t think we’re going to need to worry about that part,” he called back grimly.
“Ventral shields have collapsed,” Natasha reported, “The hull is exposed!”
“Divert power,” Klath barked.
“There’s not much left to divert!”
Klath spun back around to Jirel, even as K’Veth fired a flurry of micro torpedoes from the Bounty’s aft launcher into the Pakled vessel, slowing them a tad. “Keep our exposed side from their line of fire,” he ordered, “And increase speed to full impulse.”
“Aye, aye, Captain Klath!”
They raced on towards the trap that was being set.
As they neared the Kendra’s position, K’Veth fired again, ensuring that the Pakleds were still in hot pursuit of them. She felt another surge of adrenaline inside as every last micro torpedo slammed home. The blood lust rose higher and higher inside her.
Her only regret was that it would be the antimatter pod, rather than her own weapons, that delivered the fatal blow.
* * * * *
“Gisjacheh!”
This time, Denella opted to loudly curse in her native tongue into the smoke-filled cockpit, as she desperately grappled with her controls.
“I beg your pardon?” Erami offered from her side.
“Pod ejection systems are offline,” she reported despairingly, “And every power transfer relay to the system is fried!”
“Warning,” the computer noted, “Antimatter pod ejection systems are offline.”
Both occupants of the cockpit fixed the increasingly annoying computer with a stern glare, before Erami clambered out of her seat. “On it,” she nodded, as she rushed for the cockpit exit, “I’ll eject it manually.”
“Be careful!”
Denella called out before she’d even realised what she was saying. It was enough to cause Erami to stop in the doorway and look back at her. But despite the slight curl of a smile on her face, she didn’t offer any sort of quip in return, she just nodded back.
“Always am,” she added.
With that, she exited the cockpit, heading for the rear section of the shuttle, while Denella composed herself and focused on the scene out of the cockpit window. Ahead of them, she could see the Bounty was gaining, with the Pakleds right behind them.
In her mind, she willed Erami to hurry up, wondering if she should have gone back there to do what was needed, and feeling helpless once again.
But ultimately, she elected to trust her.
She watched in horror as a further blast from the disruptor banks of their pursuers collapsed the Bounty’s shields entirely. One more hit and the hull would be compromised. Or worse.
It was now or never.
“Ok!” Erami shouted out over the shuttle’s crackling comms link, “Pulling the ejection levers…now!”
There was the slightest of shudders that passed through the Kendra like a ripple, as the shuttle’s tiny and seemingly harmless antimatter pod departed from a hatch on the underside of the dirty orange-hued hull. As soon as she felt that sensation, Denella fired the Kendra’s thrusters, pushing the tiny ship backwards and away from the pod, as fast as the remaining propulsion system would allow.
The Bounty and the chasing Pakleds loomed ever nearer.
“Get back up here!” she called out, “I’m gonna have to detonate it any second!”
The Bounty swept over the top of the shuttle. The Martan was closing, its disruptors glowing in preparation for another assault that would cripple the Ju’Day-type raider. And the Pakled ship was now directly above the pod.
Erami arrived back in the doorway of the cockpit. But there was no time to brace herself.
They were out of time.
Denella detonated the pod.