Chapter Text
Part Three (Cont'd)
“This is impossible!”
Klath’s bellow of frustration echoed eerily through the entrance to the pyramid, bouncing off the surrounding walls. It was accompanied by the sound of his fist impacting the stone wall of the passageway.
Denella sighed. She was forced to agree with the sentiment. They had walked up and down the wide expanse of the entrance corridor a dozen times, and could find no trace of Jirel or Natasha. More than that, the corridor itself came to a dead end less than fifty metres from the entrance. Not only were their colleagues missing, there was nowhere else for them to search.
“Ok,” she said eventually, keeping her own frustrations under control, “Let’s get back to the Bounty. Maybe we can use the sensors to give us a better idea where we’re supposed to be looking.”
Klath muttered something that Denella was pretty sure was a particularly coarse Klingon expletive, but eventually nodded in agreement. They stepped out of the pyramid, leaving the still-unconscious Jem’Hadar soldiers inside where they had shackled them together, and walked into the clearing. Denella grabbed a communicator from the belt around her waist.
“Sunek, you there?”
She paused for his reply. There was none.
“Knowing our pilot, he is probably asleep,” Klath grouched, causing Denella to smirk despite their situation.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to hike back over there and—”
She was interrupted by a sudden roaring sound from over the horizon. Seconds later, the Bounty shot into view and flew over their heads, the whine from the engines and the blast of air as it passed by momentarily causing them both to duck for cover.
“Sorry guys,” Sunek’s voice came chirping from the communicator, “Little bit busy right now.”
“What on Qo'noS is he—?”
Before Klath could finish his question, a second roar filled the air, and a familiar Ferengi shuttle whizzed past overhead, more dust and dirt being kicked up in their faces by the backdraft from the thrusters.
“That Ferengi petaQ!” Klath shouted above the chaos.
Denella, her green hair swirling like crazy in the maelstrom, gripped the communicator tightly and roared over the deafening sound. “You need some help up there?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” the reply came, dripping with sarcasm, “One sec, I’ll just beam you up.”
It took a couple of moments for that comment to sink in.
“How will he be able to activate the transporter when he is flying the ship?” Klath asked once it had.
Denella considered this for a moment, then shrugged. “Probably best not to think about that.”
Given Klath’s attempts to freak her out earlier with his talk of giant fanged spiders in the forest, she couldn’t help but take some satisfaction from the look of concern that spread across the Klingon’s face, just as she felt the transporter take effect.
* * * * *
They rematerialised moments later, safe and sound in the Bounty’s transporter room, staring back at Sunek’s grinning face behind the controls.
“Hey, there you are!” he smirked, as the ship rocked slightly from a nearby explosion.
The two figures on the transporter pad stared back at him for a few moments, trying to piece together the wider implications of what they were seeing.
“Sunek,” Klath stated flatly.
“The one and only.”
“Sorry, small question, but I’ve got to ask it,” Denella offered eventually, “If you’re here, who the hell’s flying the ship right now?”
The Vulcan’s face creased into a proud beaming smile. “Glad you asked. Just before I came down here to beam you up, I input a random number generator into the navigation computer and left it to it. Voila, I just invented the self-replicating evasive manoeuvre. What have you done so far today?”
They all braced as the Bounty, now entirely under the control of an algorithm, swerved violently to the right. Denella didn’t look reassured.
“But…couldn’t a series of completely random coordinates just as easily fly us straight into the ground as it could anywhere else?”
“No. Probably not. Maybe. A bit?” Sunek offered in quick succession, looking slightly less sure of his masterful plan all of a sudden.
He remained where he was for a second, before turning and sprinting out of the transporter room in the direction of the cockpit, even as the entire ship lurched over to the left. He paused only long enough before the door closed behind him to impart a further morsel of vital information to his shipmates.
“Oh, also, there’s a couple of tiny hull breaches in the cargo bay that you’re gonna want to fix if we wanna get off this rock. Mostly not my fault. Ok, bye!”
As the doors snapped shut, Denella and Klath exchanged a look.
“Well,” she sighed, “If Grenk doesn’t kill him, I reckon I might have to give it a go.”
Klath nodded firmly, as the pair of them rushed off to aid in the fight.