Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont’d)
The view ahead was a beautiful one, there was no doubt about that.
But as much as Sunek wanted to be able to appreciate the view, all he could feel as he stared out of the Bounty’s cockpit window was a growing sense of trepidation. They had been inside the Badlands for several hours by that point, and the view ahead hadn’t changed all that much. And that was starting to get to him.
For the scientists of the galaxy, the Badlands were a fascinating mixture of fiery plasma storms and gravitational anomalies, still not fully explained by current astronomical theories.
For the captain of a freighter or a transport, they were a certified nuisance. A turbulent expanse of navigational headaches nearly three hundred light years across, lying pretty much right on the most direct path between Federation and Cardassian space.
For the average mercenary, they were manna from heaven. A vast region of space where detailed sensor readings were impaired, communication was patchy and effective monitoring by any form of law enforcement, especially on the post-war Cardassian side, had become virtually impossible.
But for Sunek, the Badlands were just becoming irritating. He had been trying to make sense of them ever since the Bounty had first penetrated the edge of the storm front, but he was still no nearer figuring out the best way of dealing with the unpredictable maelstrom.
The entire ship continued to gently buck and weave around from the effects of the gravitational eddies all around them. The sensor readouts he was using as a guide as he eased the ship through the storms were patchy at best. And the view ahead, of the swirling, crackling plasma storms themselves, was starting to make him a little nauseous.
It was like flying through soup. A turbulent, chaotic, vomit-inducing soup.
“FYI,” he called back to the rest of the cockpit, “This sucks.”
The entire ship rocked again as Sunek quickly tapped his controls to veer around the worst of the turbulence, indirectly underlining his point.
Behind him, in the centre chair, Jirel itched his spots as he kept his own attention on the view. To his side, Maya leaned against his chair, looking significantly more serene despite the ever-bucking ride the ship was on.
The rest of the crew were at their usual positions. Klath grimly kept his focus on his tactical readouts, looking for any sign of trouble in the patchy readings. Denella monitored the Bounty’s essential systems as it flew on into the storm, while Natasha offered a second set of eyes on the sensor readings, trying to get first sight of their destination.
“Just keep her steady,” Jirel muttered back to his tetchy pilot, “The Bounty was built for this sort of thing. This ship loves the Badlands.”
“Yeah, well, this ship’s pilot doesn’t,” the Vulcan grouched.
It was true that the Bounty was more suited than most to navigate this sort of expanse. The Maquis themselves had utilised the Ju’Day-type raider as one of their preferred vessels during their years of operation. But that fact didn’t really settle Sunek’s concerns. And he couldn’t help but feel a slight chill passing down his spine as he stared out at the storms ahead of them.
He glanced back down at his garbled sensor readings and tutted in frustration. “Ugh,” he grimaced, “This really sucks. According to Maya’s coordinates, we should be right on top of this asteroid by now, but—Holy crap!”
He frantically tapped at the controls, just as a major gravitational eddy bucked the nose of the ship vertically upwards. The rest of the crew braced themselves as the inertial dampeners struggled to keep up.
Eventually, Sunek got the ship level again, and steadied his frayed nerves with a quick Vulcan breathing exercise from his youth. Just as he was about to ask what had caused that sudden burst of turbulence, he caught himself as the crackling clouds in front of them parted, and the unmistakable sight of an asteroid was revealed ahead of them.
“Um,” he announced, “We’re here.”
Jirel turned to Natasha as Sunek delicately brought the Bounty into orbit. “Anything down there?”
“It’s hard to scan through the plasma interference,” she sighed, “But…I think I’ve got a structure. Northern hemisphere, near the pole.”
“That’s the old habitation section for the mining operation,” Maya nodded, “The whole northern polar region was covered in rodinium deposits.”
“I’m not scanning any rodinium,” Natasha offered.
“Then they did a good job mining it,” Maya pointed out.
Jirel did his best to ignore the discussion between two people he still would prefer to not be talking to each other, and focused on the task at hand. “Lifesigns?”
Natasha looked back down at her readings, tapped the controls, then sighed again. “Looks to be deserted,” she reported back, “But again, I’m never going to be entirely sure given the interference.”
“I am not detecting any vessels within range,” Klath added, “Although, like the doctor, my range is somewhat…limited. It is possible there may be bandits or looters in the area.”
“Did I mention how much I love this plan?” Sunek chimed in from the front of the cockpit.
Jirel cast a sideways glance at Maya, who offered a slight shrug in return, then he stood from his seat and turned to the cockpit exit. “Well, I guess we didn’t come all this way to sit and stare at the thing. Maya, Denella, let’s go hack a database.”
As the three members of the impromptu away team made their way to the rear steps of the cockpit, Klath stood and grabbed his bat’leth from where it was hanging on the wall behind him.
“Hey,” Jirel motioned to the Klingon, “I’m sure we don’t need—”
“I believe it would be wiser for me to join you down there.”
“You don’t trust me?” Maya tutted from Jirel’s side.
“I do not trust the interference,” Klath replied diplomatically, “There is still a possibility that whatever has been left behind down there is being looted.”
Jirel looked back at the steely gaze of his friend and mustered an understanding nod. “Fine. If you think we need backup, who am I to argue?”
With that, they continued their journey down the steps, leaving Natasha and Sunek to keep an eye on the Bounty.
As he descended the steps at the back of the group, Klath shook his head and muttered.
“You always need backup.”
* * * * *
It didn’t take long for Jirel to silently appreciate bringing along his backup.
The dank interior of the abandoned offices was barely illuminated by the two beams of light that shone out from the torches that he and Denella carried. It didn’t make for a welcoming scene.
The Trill walked at the front of the quartet, alongside Maya, who was navigating them through to their final destination. Denella and Klath followed close behind, working together to scan for danger with the Orion’s torch and the Klingon’s bulky old tricorder from the Bounty’s limited stash.
Not that there seemed to be any danger to scan. The entire complex was eerily quiet.
The operational headquarters of what purported to be the base for Synergy Mining Enterprises on the asteroid were somewhat modest, consisting of little more than a pair of squat modular prefab buildings.
One of them contained the limited habitation area for the miners themselves, rudimentary barracks that were little more than prison accommodation. Which made sense, given how Maya had described the operation that was run here.
The other housed the slightly more comfortable offices and accommodation for the staff of the company, overseeing operations out on the asteroid itself, which would have been conducted the old-fashioned way. Back-breaking labour in heavy EVA suits for hours at a time. Until every last drop of rodinium had been extracted from the rocks.
The two were connected via a pressurised covered walkway, which was where the four of them had beamed into. From there, they had made their way into the larger office prefab. The scant torchlight illuminated the unfriendly interior of the place. Short grey corridors that led to either sleeping racks, common areas, a cafeteria, or the main office itself. Which was where they were heading.
“This is the place,” Maya nodded as they reached the end of the corridor.
She gestured to a pair of stout dark grey doors ahead of them, which remained definitely closed, powered down like the rest of the base. With a slight tut, Denella slid over to an access panel next to the door, popped the end of the torch into her mouth to free up her hands, and got to work.
As she worked, Jirel shone his torch back down the corridor, and Klath remained tense.
“Anything?” he asked the Klingon.
Klath looked down at the tricorder and growled in frustration. “The interference is significant down here as well. I am not detecting anything. But that does not mean we are alone.”
“You deliberately made that sound more scary than it had to be, didn’t you?” Jirel replied witheringly.
Klath didn’t respond, and merely kept his attention back down the dimly-lit corridor, using his own innate Klingon senses to make up for the tricorder’s failings.
“It’s a wonder anyone got any mining done down here,” Denella observed as she pulled a length of wiring out of the access panel, “Having to check over their shoulders all the time.”
“While the mine was operational, there was a hell of a lot more security,” Maya explained, “Orbital sentries, guards, armed shuttles. To keep the whole place secure from anyone trying to get in. Or get out, for that matter.”
“Well,” the Orion replied with a hint of satisfaction, “The good news is that this place is a whole lot less secure than it used to be.”
Just as she said that, the doors to the office opened with a shudder, and Denella took her torch back out of her mouth and shone it inside.
“Good work,” Jirel smiled, as they cautiously stepped inside.
“We should be able to access the database from any of these terminals over here,” Maya gestured to the far side of the room.
She and Denella paced over and started to work, as Jirel and Klath kept watch at the door.
The office had been mostly cleaned out before the operation had left for good. Most of the desks and workstations had been dismantled, or had their interfaces removed. All furnishings or signs of comfort had been packed up and shipped off, leaving behind a desolate look. But some of the bulkier or older work areas remained, albeit powered down. And that was where the two women headed.
Denella withdrew a small power pack from the pocket of her overalls and plugged it into the station, giving the computer a shot of power for the first time in weeks. “Ok,” she nodded, “We’re online.”
As she went to work, Jirel felt his spots begin to itch as he kept his torch beam aimed at the doorway. He licked his lips and called back. “How long is this gonna take?”
“Not getting scared, are we?” Maya shot back, as she kept an eye on Denella’s frantic work.
“No. Just impatient.”
“Tsk. No sense of adventure. Just like old times.”
“I like an adventure just fine,” the Trill remarked, “I just remember how all of your adventures used to end.”
Despite the situation, Jirel quietly cursed himself for lapsing back into banter mode with her so quickly, feeling him starting to fall back into his own ways with her despite still not trusting this new venture of hers.
Mercifully, before their back-and-forth could become any more flirtatious, Denella called out. “Ok, I’m in. Not much to it in the end.”
“There’s a good engineer,” Maya purred a little patronisingly, “Now we need the details of any new operations started over the past month. They’ll have moved everything they took from here to another site.”
“On it,” Denella nodded as she tapped away at the computer, “But…there’s a whole other encryption layer on some of this information. Lot of security for a mining operation, isn’t there?”
There was an edge to her question, but Maya played it with a straight bat. “When you’re breaking as many interstellar rules as this company is, you tend to want to keep things as secret as possible.”
Denella couldn’t help but accept that this made sense, as she continued to work, virtually snooping around the database of Synergy Mining Enterprises as best she could.
“Ok,” she said as she worked, “Getting something here. Security protocols, staff rotas, personnel lists, and a whole bunch of requisition orders for duridium processors.”
“No,” Maya grimaced, shaking her head at the screen, “This isn’t everything. We need exact coordinates, otherwise we’re flying blind.”
“Fine. Let me see what I can—”
She was stopped by the unmistakable noise of a muffled grunt from Klath. The Orion engineer looked up and peered at her colleague through the darkness, already on edge. She knew what that noise meant.
Jirel knew it as well. Even if the tricorder wasn’t helping them, Klath’s Klingon senses were not being inhibited by the interference that was all around them.
And in the last few seconds, Klath’s senses had told him that it might be wise for him to draw his bat’leth.