Chapter Text
Part Four
Hexis Spaceport
Stardate 50398.3
Denella hadn’t been onboard the Bounty for long, and she was still getting used to plenty of aspects of life onboard this particular ship. More than that, she was still getting used to the entire concept of her new-found freedom, having been rescued from Rilen Dar and the Syndicate by Jirel, Klath and Sunek some months ago.
One thing she was struggling to shake was an innate distrust for people. During her time with the Syndicate, she had developed that side of herself as a vital defence mechanism. But during her time on the Bounty so far, it had proved to be more of a hindrance, holding her back from developing a level of trust with her new crewmates.
But right now, she was actually glad that she still had such a keen sense of distrust. It definitely seemed fitting when dealing with the woman standing next to her at the Bounty’s transporter controls.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
Maya Ortega glanced over at the meek green-skinned woman next to her as she passed her idle comment. Denella’s silence rather answered her question for her. It was the first time that Denella had met her since she had joined up with the Bounty, and the other woman hadn’t exactly made a brilliant first impression.
Not that Denella had mentioned anything to her about that. After all, she didn’t talk much.
Maya had arrived out of the blue while the Bounty had been dealing with some running repairs with the promise of an easy payday for the crew. And since then, Denella’s carefully honed sense of distrust had grown and grown.
She had repeatedly insisted to them that the job itself had rightly been hers anyway, and she had been working with a team of Idanian freelancers to move some cargo to a Benzite colony from Hexis spaceport. Except they had cut her out of the deal, for reasons she remained a little unclear on, and left her behind.
But she explained that she had all the necessary details of the pickup, and she was the face of the operation as far as the Benzites were concerned. So, provided the Bounty could get there before the Idanians showed up, the job was theirs.
None of it seemed strictly above board as far as Denella was concerned. But Jirel had quickly signed up to the plan. It had been a lean few months for the Bounty, after all. And with Denella’s own list of repairs growing by the day as she explored more of the ship’s overworked and under-maintained systems, they needed to find some extra funds from somewhere.
Still, Denella hadn’t trusted the plan from the start. And she again cursed the fact that she hadn’t been more vocal about her concerns before things had progressed this far. But her time in the Syndicate had worn down her confidence as much as it had honed her levels of distrust.
So, instead, she stood next to Maya at the transporter controls, waiting for a signal from Jirel and Klath down on the spaceport. A signal that they had finalised the details with the Benzites and were ready to beam back up. And a signal that, had everything been going according to plan, they should have received at least ten minutes ago.
Denella’s worries were rising. And even though the woman next to her was projecting a calm enough exterior, the Orion could tell that, behind her facade, she was getting concerned as well.
“Huh,” Maya tutted, breaking the silence again as she drummed her fingers impatiently on top of the console, “Just like Jirel to be wasting time. I bet he found a bar.”
Her tone was casual enough, but the silent Denella could detect a tell-tale edge in her words. They had to move fast at this part of the transaction, securing the cargo from the Benzites before the Idanians showed up in orbit. Even Jirel knew that there was no time to waste.
Just as Denella was getting close to plucking up the courage to say as much to Maya, the comms link on the console flared into life.
“Hey!” Jirel called out, the line flecked with static, “We’ve got problems down here! You wanna use that transporter any time soon?”
Denella still didn’t respond, not verbally at least. But her hands began to dance across the controls, far faster than Maya could react.
But as soon as she started to work, it became clear to both women that something was wrong.
“We’re working on it,” Maya reported back to the Trill, eyeing up the readings as she did so, “Looks like there’s a lot of interference down there.”
“Yeah, I know!” the sharp reply came back, sounding out of breath, “They took us down to one of their reactor cores to show us what we were supposed to be transporting!”
Denella continued to work on breaking through the interference, but she sensed Maya tense up a little more next to her. “Oh,” she managed, after a telling pause, “I thought you were just going to agree on the payment before we—”
“Trilithium resin? That was your precious cargo?!”
Denella didn’t stop working, but she did manage a curt glance at the other woman, for long enough to see that the details about the Benzite cargo wasn’t news to her.
“Jirel,” Maya began in a placating tone, “You have to understand that—”
“Save it, Maya! We’ll talk about this later. Just get us back onboard now, cos these guys did not react well when we told them we weren’t interested!”
There was the sound of a commotion in the background, and a noise that Denella recognised as being the one made when Klath’s bat’leth struck something solid.
“They did not react well at all!”
Denella was still working on cutting through the persistent interference wherever Jirel and Klath were when a second comms line flared up, this one delivering Sunek’s voice into the small transporter room from up in the cockpit.
“Um, guys, an Idanian Interceptor just entered the system, and they’re heading right here. And I’m no body language expert, but they’re still thirty seconds from entering weapons range, and their disruptors are already fully charged.”
Maya’s frustrations boiled over, for the first time since Denella had met her. She slammed her hand down on the console with anger, making the Orion woman jump slightly. “Goddamn it,” she growled, “We don’t have time.”
“For what?” Sunek’s voice returned.
“Sunek, my dear, listen to me very clearly. Those Idanians aren’t messing around, trust me. So get us out of here, now!”
The immediacy of the order shocked Denella even further. As did the way that Maya began to reach across where she was working at the controls, her hand reaching out to cut off the comms link down to the spaceport below.
“Survival of the fittest, darling,” Maya offered in her direction by way of explanation, “I’m sure they’d understand.”
It was all enough for Denella to forget where she was for a second. Before she even realised what she was doing, her hand shot out and grabbed Maya’s wrist. The strength with which she gripped onto her caused the human woman to fall silent.
At the same time, Denella called out in the direction of the Bounty’s pilot.
“No! Sunek! Jirel and Klath are still down there! I need two minutes!”
Maya glared at her, but the Orion stared right back, finding some reserves of courage from deep inside in the middle of a crisis.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” the Vulcan called back, “I’ll find two minutes. But, full disclosure, things might start getting a bit explode-y around here.”
With that, Denella released Maya’s arm and returned her attention to the interference. The other woman rubbed her sore wrist as she stared back at the previously mute engineer. “Huh,” she said eventually, with a slightly rueful grin, “Found your voice, I see.”
Denella’s fingers continued to dance over the controls as she worked her fingers to the bone to try and rescue two of the people who had rescued her not long ago. She didn’t look up.
“We always have time,” she replied.
Two minutes later, the Bounty arced away from Hexis spaceport, evading a disruptor blast from the Idanian Interceptor as it jumped to warp.
With Jirel and Klath safely aboard.
* * * * *
Some years after the incident at Hexis spaceport, an altogether stronger and more confident Denella walked up the steps to the Bounty’s cockpit, shortly after waking up.
She could already tell that the Bounty was at warp from the hum of the deck plates. The information on the data chip that Maya’s contact had handed over to them had confirmed that the target for their rescue was a particularly mineral-rich Class-L planet in Sector 374, adjacent to the considerably less interesting Sector 373.
She was surprised to see that, unlike usual, she was far from the first member of the crew to be up and working this early in the day. Both Klath and Sunek, neither known to be especially early risers, were busy at their controls.
“You’re up early,” she offered to neither of them specifically.
Klath didn’t look up from his controls, but he did offer a nod of acknowledgement. “We are heading to a heavily fortified location on the instructions of Maya Ortega. I am making sure that our weapons systems are correctly aligned.”
“Paranoia?” the Orion asked with a slightly cocked eyebrow.
The Klingon looked up from his work and met her look.
“Thoroughness.”
“But you’ve seen all the rest of her plans for this rescue, right?” Denella persisted, “You don’t think this is gonna work?”
“If the information is correct, then the plan seems reasonable.”
Klath paused for a second, then repeated himself for emphasis.
“If the information is correct.”
Denella nodded in unhappy understanding at this, as Sunek swung around to them in his seat. “Ugh. Ignore him. He’s been antsy ever since we crossed into this sector. Kinda wacky, if you ask me.”
Denella stepped up to the pilot’s console and glanced over the controls. “Huh,” she mused, “Looks like you’re in the middle of recalibrating the primary and secondary attitude controls.”
She gave the somewhat sheepish Vulcan a knowing glare, backed up by a similar look from the Klingon behind her.
“Well,” Sunek shrugged eventually, “This is Maya Ortega, right?”
With that, he turned back to his console and worked on finishing up his work on the attitude controls quickly enough to give him a chance to give the thruster systems a quick once over. For a second time this morning.
Denella regarded the two furtive workers on either side of her and shook her head patiently. Then she turned back and walked to her own engineering console, slipping into the seat and tapping the controls.
She had a sudden urge to run a quick check of the Bounty’s warp and impulse drives, to make sure everything was operating as efficiently as possible. Just in case.
This was Maya Ortega, after all.