Chapter Text
Part Two
Yessik City, Barkan V Colony
Stardate 47693.4
Jirel ran for his life.
He careered through the streets of Yessik City, slaloming through a host of confused pedestrians as he desperately raced on.
Several steps behind him, caring a lot less about avoiding anyone in their way, a group of armed goons pushed their way through the crowds, sending colonists tumbling to the ground in shock or running away in fear.
He turned down a side street just as a blast of disruptor fire whistled through the air behind him, accompanied by a few screams of panic from the crowds. Ignoring the aching in his muscles from the all-out sprint he was in the middle of, he kept on running, and at the same time, he grabbed the stubby communicator from his belt and bellowed into it in desperation.
“What part of ‘emergency beam-out’ aren’t you getting??”
There was a fizz of static over the comms link, and for a moment he feared that the device in his hand was broken again, after the hasty rewiring job he’d attempted on it last week. But, as he turned down another side street to avoid another burst of disruptor fire, the response finally came.
“I’m working on it,” Maya said over the sketchy link, as calm as ever, “There’s a lot of interference around the colony, you know. Just keep your spots on.”
Another disruptor blast whistled past, impacting on a nearby wall.
“I’m gonna be lucky to keep my head on if you don’t get that thing working!”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”
“I’m not being—!”
He raced around another corner and skittered to a halt. In front of him, blocking the entire width of the latest side street, stood several more armed goons. He spun around in despair, but the chasing pack head already turned the corner and cut off his only means of escape.
He was surrounded.
From within the gaggle of goons, a one-eyed Andorian stepped out of the crowd, his own disruptor raised at the Trill.
“Look, Thelev,” Jirel began, putting on his best appeasing tone, “You’ve got to understand, this was all an honest mistake. I had no idea that—”
“No excuses, Jirel,” Thelev hissed back, his voice sounding scratchy and distorted through the scars across his larynx, old wounds that the grizzled trader wore on his face as a badge of pride, much like his eyepatch.
Jirel gulped and raised his hands above his head in surrender, as the blue-skinned man took another pace towards him, the goons behind him shadowing his moves.
“I’ve warned you before, Jirel. One of these days you’re going to end up crossing too many people. Looks like today is the day.”
Jirel saw him bring his disruptor to bear. With a wince, he looked up despairingly at the communicator in his hand and screamed out.
“Maya!”
The one-eyed Andorian jabbed his finger down on his trigger a split second after Jirel felt the transporter effect starting up.
* * * * *
As he rematerialised on the transporter pad, his first instinct was to check his body for signs of a smoking, disruptor blast-sized hole.
Once he was sure he was still in one piece, his second instinct was to begin to rant at the woman behind the transporter controls.
“Unbelievable,” he began as he stepped off the pad, “You set me up!”
“I took a calculated risk,” Maya countered with a shrug.
“A calculated—? You switched the bag of latinum I took down there to hand over in return for the dilithium with a bag full of rocks!”
“I honestly didn’t think Thelev would bother checking until you were safely back onboard with what we needed. He’s not usually that thorough.”
“Yeah, well, he checked. He definitely checked. And you didn’t think to maybe mention this little plan of yours to me before you sent me down there to make the swap?”
“If you’d have known, you’d have had to lie to him,” she pointed out, “And I really don’t trust that poker face of yours.”
He fixed her with an unamused glare, before he turned and stormed out of the transporter room, into the main corridor of the Bounty. She sighed and took off after him, persisting with her defence as they walked.
“Look, I just thought there was a good chance that we might get the dilithium and the latinum out of this little transaction.”
“Yeah, well, now we’ve got neither. Which means we’re not gonna double our money by flipping that dilithium, like you promised we would. Which means we’re gonna need to compromise on the repairs again. We can either fix the impulse stabilisers or the secondary power circuit. Not both.”
He marched on down the corridor, continuing to grumble as he did so. The walls of the corridor still looked run-down and tired, a telling reminder of the repair list they still had to work through. Even though it had now been several months since they had liberated the Bounty from the Tyran Scrapyards, they had made little progress on the myriad issues plaguing the ship that were the reasons the Ju’Day-type raider had been towed to the scrapyards in the first place.
“You’re the one that insisted on bay seven, darling,” Maya offered casually as they walked.
“And don’t ‘darling’ me, ok? Because we are absolutely, one hundred percent, definitely broken up this time.”
He stalked on, avoiding the knowing glance she gave him which suggested how much she doubted the veracity of that statement. Although he was forced to agree with it. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d broken up with her since they had first got together. But it was a lot.
Instead of dwelling on that, he marched on into the dining area, still ranting.
“So, unless you’ve got some other dumb plan to screw up, I’d really like to hear how you think we’re gonna—”
He whirled around to her and stopped immediately, as he saw the shocking sight of a huge Klingon warrior standing in the corner of the room. His eyes boggled in fright.
“Holy crap! Maya, we’ve been boarded!”
The Klingon remained standing where he was and merely turned his head nonchalantly in the Trill’s direction. He didn’t exactly look like he was here to seize the ship.
Maya, with a patient sigh, stepped over to the stoic form of the Klingon. “He was supposed to be a surprise. He returned my message while you were down on the planet. I met him down in Yessik City yesterday. He was looking for work. And you’ve said we need more muscle around here, so here he is.”
Jirel looked at Maya, then at the Klingon. His look of fright had given way to a more perplexed stare.
“I am Klath, son of Morad,” the Klingon boomed out.
“Well, Klath, son of Morad,” Maya smiled as she completed the introductions, “Meet Jirel, son of…oooh, awkward.”
The orphan Trill fixed Maya with a withering look, before he uncomfortably focused back on the impassive Klingon. “Ok, I’m not sure this is gonna work—”
Suddenly, a shrill alarm sounded out from the Bounty’s barely-functioning automated systems.
“Proximity alert,” Maya noted, now altogether more serious.
“Great,” Jirel griped as they raced for the door, “So Thelev has a ship as well. Your plan just keeps getting more amazing, you know that?”
They dashed up the steps into the Bounty’s empty cockpit, with Jirel immediately making for his pilot’s seat and checking the controls.
“Got a ship on an intercept course,” he reported, “Weapons range in eight seconds!”
He broke the Bounty out of orbit of Barkan V and pivoted the ship around to face the enemy vessel. It was a lean and squat ship, slightly larger than the Bounty, with two ugly disruptor cannons poking out of the front of the vessel. Both were glowing fiery red, ready to destroy them.
“Ah, crap,” Jirel groaned, as the disruptors fired, “Hang on!”
He swung the Bounty away just in time, as the twin blasts scorched past their port wing.
“I told you, Jirel,” the rasping voice of Thelev came over the open comms link, “You crossed the wrong guy today.”
Jirel ignored the taunts of the Andorian, and kept his focus on the firefight. “Take it we’ve still not got the shields operational?” he called back.
“Not last time I checked,” Maya replied.
“Ugh. Ok, let me try and get us—”
Before Jirel had the time to say anything else, he saw another burst of energy flying out. Except this one was from the Bounty itself, towards the enemy ship. The blast from their phaser cannons hit home onto the other vessel’s shields.
“Huh,” he mused, “We’re fighting our way out then, I guess.”
He swung the Bounty away from another disruptor blast from Thelev’s ship, and quickly executed a tight arc to bring them around to the rear of the other ship, desperately sticking to them as they tried to shake them off.
“Ok, Maya, take your shot!”
The Bounty’s twin phaser cannons flared out again, sending rapid staccato bursts of red fire that seemed to have been specifically tuned somehow. They impacted heavily on their quarry’s shields and collapsed them. A single micro-torpedo followed, slamming into the rear of the hull and crippling them entirely.
Jirel turned the Bounty away and set a course for safety, a little shocked at the ease with which Maya had dealt with their enemy. “Hey,” he called back, “Where did you learn to shoot like that—?”
He swung around in his seat to see Maya stationed behind the rear engineering console, with her arms folded in quiet satisfaction. At the weapons console, on the right side of the room, sat Klath, son of Morad.
“In the Klingon Defence Force,” he replied simply.
Jirel looked from the Klingon to the human woman and back again.
“Um,” he managed eventually, with a smile in the direction of the frowning Klingon, “Welcome aboard, I guess?”