Chapter Text
Part Two (Cont’d)
“Completely unacceptable!”
Shel-Lan and Gel-Lan stood patiently next to each other inside Grenk’s private dining area on the Boundless Profit, and took the latest tirade from their boss on their collective chin.
The Ferengi paced around in fuming annoyance, ignoring the first course of his evening repast, a Ferengi crab cake with a side of spiced lokar beans that was slowly going cold on the dining table. His focus was entirely on his head bodyguards.
“I told your men to disable Jirel’s ship, that was all! It would have been so much easier to retrieve once it was merely drifting in space!”
On the opposite side of the table, Grenk’s reluctant dining companion for the evening picked at her own appetiser with a silver fork. Maya Ortega’s focus was elsewhere.
“And now this whole salvage operation is taking five times as long! And costing me ten times as much! Well, I tell you one thing, this is going to come out of your paycheques, you hear?”
Shel-Lan and Gel-Lan were Grenk’s most trusted and longest-serving bodyguards. They had been dealing with the irritable Ferengi for longer than any of their fellow Miradorn. So they were used to getting this sort of humiliation from their boss. But they were also starting to get sick of it.
The two Miradorn kept their attention on Grenk, but internally, they used their sibling telepathy to share their more candid thoughts about this latest rant.
Shel-Lan was quick to remind Gel-Lan how much worse things had gotten recently. Ever since the Bounty had disabled their shuttle and left them marooned on a deserted planet earlier in the year, life in Grenk’s employ had taken a turn for the worse.
They had painstakingly repaired the crashed shuttle, while Grenk had barked orders and eaten his way through most of the emergency rations. They had thanklessly protected him from myriad spacefaring dangers as the tiny shuttle had limped back to port, and had then tirelessly worked to prepare and fit out the Boundless Profit, Grenk’s newest mode of transport.
And on top of all of that, Shel-Lan added, since Grenk had acquired Synergy Mining Enterprises, they had been working double duty. They were now both Grenk’s personal bodyguards, and also head supervisors for the mining projects themselves. And Grenk had never considered appropriately remunerating them for their extra workload.
“…I don’t care how long it takes for you to work this off, you’re paying me back!…”
Gel-Lan silently agreed with his brother’s points, but suggested that there was little they could do about it. He was their boss. And while the pay wasn’t generous, they still needed the latinum.
“…I pay you too much as it is! And your performance these last few weeks has been especially sub-par, don’t think I haven’t noticed!…”
Shel-Lan chided his brother for being too faithful, and told him what he had read in the unauthorised biography of Grand Nagus Rom. About the time that Rom, as a younger man, had formed the Guild of Restaurant and Casino Owners, and unionised his fellow employees to fight for better working conditions against his own thankless boss.
“…And your men are getting too sloppy! This isn’t the first time they’ve screwed up lately!…”
Gel-Lan countered that there was no Miradorn word for ‘union’. And even if there were, their loyalty to their boss should override such selfishness. It was the Miradorn way, after all. Loyalty to one’s brother, or to one’s job.
“…Am I making myself clear?”
The silent and somewhat circular debate was brought to an abrupt pause when both Miradorn realised that Grenk was addressing them, and that neither of them had been following what the Ferengi had been saying. After a few seconds of staring at their silent, blank expressions, Grenk snapped again.
“I said: I expect you both down on the planet within the hour to oversee the next mining shift. Am I making myself clear?”
This time, he had made himself clear. And even though they were supposed to be off-duty until tomorrow, they both merely nodded their affirmation at this latest humbling order and exited the dining room. As they walked out, Shel-Lan silently promised Gel-Lan that he would read the relevant passages from Rom’s biography to him later this evening.
With an angry sigh, Grenk turned back to the table and took his seat opposite Maya, trying to allow himself to focus on the more pleasurable aspects of the evening he’d planned. While he had been ranting on, Maya had barely touched her own food. She had only loosely been following along with the details of the rant. Instead, she had found that, once again, her mind had been filled with thoughts of Niki Kolak.
“You should ease off on them, you know,” she idly noted as Grenk sat down, “It might backfire on you one of these days…”
“I don’t need business advice from you,” he scowled back, as he pushed away his crab cake in frustration, “What I require is for you to fetch me a hot meal!”
Maya maintained her proud position on the other side of the table and raised a wryly amused eyebrow at this suggestion. “I don’t think I’ll be doing that. And I’ve been thinking. Once we leave here, there’s a small colony two sectors away. I think you can drop me there.”
Grenk’s eyes narrowed a tad at this, but she kept her back straight. She was determined that she wanted to get away from him and his personal yacht as soon as possible.
“My dear,” the Ferengi said slowly, “I will drop you off where I say I will drop you off. So, I think I’ll stick to the original plan. You can come with me while we tow Jirel’s little ship back to port. And while you’re here, you should do your best to keep me happy. So…”
He pushed his cold plate further towards her with a knowing look. She still didn’t move from her seat, grimly clinging onto her pride.
“Also,” Grenk continued, “I’ve been thinking that I might use your…powers of persuasion to help round up another one of my debtors. I saw how easily you were able to sucker in Jirel and his crew. We could make quite the team, you know…”
“No, thank you,” she responded with a thin smile.
“Who said you had the option to decline?”
At this, her proud demeanour dropped for just a second. She suddenly felt very alone, and again realised she had lost control over her own destiny. Out here, with dozens of guards at his disposal, there was nothing stopping Grenk from enslaving her just as he had done with the others.
Satisfied that he had made his point, Grenk’s face creased into a cackling grin. “A little joke,” he explained, with only a partial amount of trustworthiness, “But please think about the offer. I can take in this new debtor the old fashioned way, of course. But your way was so much more fun…”
With a sigh, she pushed her own plate away and stood up. “You know, I’m actually not all that hungry. I might have an early night.”
Grenk’s eyes narrowed a little as he watched her leave. “Don’t start getting a conscience on me now,” he muttered idly, “Before you start feeling guilty about Jirel and the others, remember that they left me behind on that planet.”
“At least you survived,” Maya muttered back as she reached the door, “And what did this new debtor do to you, anyway?”
“He stole from me. Just like everyone else.”
In Maya’s head, she pictured the scrap of mouldy food in her hand, back on Turkana IV. The one that she and her friend had risked their lives to steal. She felt a fresh stab of guilt.
“Maybe they were hungry…”
Grenk, mouth now full of cold crab cake with spiced lokar beans, looked up at her with a look of slight confusion.
Maya glanced back at this latest bully that had found their way into her life, and then walked out of the door. Suddenly a little more clear about what she had to do.
* * * * *
“He needs to rest!”
“He needs to work.”
That appeared to be the extent of the debate. The two armed Miradorn brandished their disruptors at them and gestured down the corridor.
Natasha grimaced and looked back at Jirel where he stood alongside her. They had barely had enough time to fall asleep after her round of triage before the guards had indicated that it was time for their next shift.
While the shifts out on the harsh surface of the planet weren’t all that long, it seemed their downtime in between was even shorter. She had no idea whether that was standard practice, or a special part of Grenk’s punishment specifically for Jirel. Either way, despite the attempt at a brave face that the Trill was pulling, she knew this had been nowhere near enough time to get his strength back.
“Don’t worry,” he managed, “I’ll be fine.”
She went to counter this with her most authoritative medical voice, but before she could get anything out, they were being roughly shoved in the direction their guards wanted them to move.
It was a short journey to the airlock through the corridors of the habitation dome. And soon they would be back out on the Class L surface. Natasha was sure that Jirel would indeed be able to make it through another shift. But if this was the sort of treatment they could expect, she also knew he wouldn’t make it through too many more.
“Seriously,” she tried again to appeal to the guards as they turned a corner, “You need to give him more time to—”
She stopped in her tracks, along with the rest of the four-person convoy, as they rounded the corner and were confronted by an unexpected sight.
In the middle of the corridor, just ahead of the doors to the airlock, stood Maya Ortega. Looking as effortlessly regal as if she had taken a wrong turn on the way to a Federation ambassador’s reception being inexplicably held elsewhere in the drab mining facility.
“Hello, boys,” she smiled demurely at the Miradorn twins.
Jirel’s face quickly turned into a scowl, while Natasha looked more than a little concerned. Their guards exchanged words of confusion. First silently, with each other, and then out loud, with the surprising interloper.
“What do you want?” the Miradorn on the right asked her.
“Tsk,” she tutted, “One of your delightful boss’s little jokes. He thought it might do me good to put in a shift or two down here to earn my passage back to civilisation. Can you believe the nerve?”
Both Miradorn remained silent, but they both telepathically admitted to each other that her story definitely sounded like the sort of thing their boss would do.
“So,” she continued, idly gesturing at Jirel and Natasha, “I’m to escort these two to their next shift.”
Jirel’s glare darkened even further. He couldn’t help but offer a retort. “Like hell you are.”
“Calm yourself, darling,” she replied, suppressing the pang of unexpected sadness that his glare caused to flare up inside her.
The guards, for their part, still looked unconvinced.
“We weren’t informed of any such plan,” the twin on the left grunted.
Maya theatrically rolled her eyes and gestured to a comms panel on the wall next to her. “Fine,” she sighed, “Feel free to call up to the yacht and double check. But this is cutting into some perfectly good duridium mining time.”
The Miradorn shared a glance, and the twin on the right then nodded and walked over to the comms panel to verify this unlikely order.
All the while, Jirel kept his glare laser focused on Maya. The woman that he had spent so much of his life conflicted over. Either madly in love with her, or wishing that he had never met her. Or sometimes both. He kept glaring at her, even as the twin reached the comms panel, and she sprang her trap.
In an instant, she grabbed the Miradorn’s arm. The telepathic bond between the twins came into play immediately. As one twin found themselves in danger, the second twin reacted, instinctively bringing his disruptor to bear.
But Maya had already anticipated that action, and deftly manoeuvred herself behind the first twin, meaning that the second twin’s disruptor blast merely impacted with devastating force on his own brother’s exposed back.
The sickening pain of the impact registered on the second twin as well, aghast at his actions. Which left him wide open for attack. Maya pivoted the limp arm of the first twin in her grasp around and fired the disruptor in his hand, hitting the second Miradorn square in the chest.
The whole thing took a split-second to play out, but seemed to unfold in slow-motion. Still, before Jirel and Natasha realised what was happening, they were standing in the corridor, with unmoving Miradorn twins on both sides of them on the ground.
And Maya Ortega, standing impatiently in front of them.
“Well?” she motioned to them, gesturing at the two bodies, “I’d take their disruptors if I were you. You’re probably going to need them.”
Jirel went for the nearest disruptor. And to Natasha’s shock, the Trill immediately brought it to bear on Maya herself. Anger still burning in his eyes. Maya, for her part, remained passively standing in front of the pointed weapon. She nodded her head in acceptance.
“You probably should do that,” she sighed, “I deserve it. But then, I’m also the best chance you’ve got of getting out of here. And getting back to the others.”
Jirel didn’t lower the weapon, but Natasha stepped forward.
“They’re alive?”
“Klath and Denella are on Grenk’s ship. And if I can read Klingon facial expressions like I think I can, I’m pretty sure Sunek is alive somewhere. I know you don’t really have any reason to trust me, but for what it’s worth, that’s the truth.”
Natasha felt a rush of relief inside. But Jirel kept the disruptor raised, staring back at the woman that had lied to him far too many times for him to remember. “Is this another trick?” he hissed eventually.
She stared back with complete sincerity. A look that Jirel was painfully aware she was an expert in faking entirely.
“No. This is me…finally doing the right thing. But, if you’d rather just shoot me, then I can’t really stop you.”
She found a moment of serenity, picturing Niki Kolak’s face even as she looked back into the eyes of her former occasional lover and business partner.
Jirel gripped the disruptor a little more tightly, feeling his trigger finger starting to twitch. Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder. And his conscience reactivated inside him.
“Jirel,” Natasha whispered, “That’s not who you are.”
The Trill’s face flashed into a frustrated snarl, before he eventually admitted defeat. He lowered the disruptor and mustered a calmer look in Natasha’s direction. She smiled back at him sadly.
“Ok,” he nodded, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Natasha grabbed the disruptor from the other guard, and they took off down the corridor, with Maya leading the way.
As they dashed on, Jirel regarded Maya’s now-exposed back, and still felt the weight of the disruptor in his hand. But Natasha had been right. That wasn’t who he was.
At least, not yet.
End of Part Two