Chapter Text
Part Four (Cont'd)
The two Jem’Hadar approached the raised stage in the middle of the central chamber of the final resting place of the Jewel of Soraxx and paused. They stood at the base of the stone staircase that ran up to the jewel itself and began to check the area around them.
From the other side of the room, Natasha thought they almost looked reverential, as if they were paying their respects to the jewel as the ancient residents of this planet might once have done. But she also knew that the more likely explanation was that they were being tactically minded, checking for any other potential booby traps before they continued. She chewed her lip and looked over at their guard, seriously wondering if the other Jem’Hadar soldiers were now far enough away that she and Jirel could safely overpower Lota’sharam given the right moment.
Then, her focus was taken away by an unnecessary distraction.
“I’m sorry,” Jirel said from her other side.
She turned to look at him, slightly baffled. “For what?”
“For, y’know, making you breakfast.”
She paused and half-scoffed, not entirely sure where the Trill was going with this given the gravity of their current situation.
“I’m just saying,” Jirel continued, “It looks like we’re gonna die, so I feel like I need to say I’m sorry. I guess I just misread the signs.”
Her half-scoff metamorphosed into a full scoff. “Really? This is what you want to deal with right now?”
“Yeah, might not be the best time, but—I mean, there were definitely signs, right? And I know what you’re saying about last night, and how little you say it meant, and that’s cool. But I just—I feel like there’s something between us.”
“There really isn’t.”
“See, you say that,” he persisted, “But I know. I felt a connection.”
“Jirel, you absolutely didn’t.”
“Really? Do you honestly think that? Cos I think we definitely—”
“I flipped a coin!” she spat out in exasperation, abruptly enough to silence him.
She looked back over to see the dumbfounded look on his face and sighed deeply. She really didn’t want to deal with this now. But apparently he did.
“What?” he managed eventually.
“Metaphorically speaking, at least,” she continued despite herself, “I actually used my combadge. But, like I said, I’d been completely alone for six months, and I just wanted a…companion. Any companion. Except I ruled out Klath cos I really don’t have the upper body strength for all that, and I ruled out Sunek cos…y’know.”
Jirel, still dumbfounded, managed a shrug of understanding at that part at least.
“So, yeah, I decided that I was gonna head for either your cabin or Denella’s, so…I flipped for it. Fifty-fifty choice.”
“Huh,” was all Jirel could manage.
“Honestly, it didn't really matter either way to me, for what it was gonna be. I just didn’t want to be alone for another night.”
“Huh.”
“And, that’s kinda that. You wanted to do this now. And I’ve done it. So, to conclude, I’m sorry, but there really isn’t any sort of connection here.”
Jirel briefly searched around for something else to say, before sticking with what felt most natural.
“Huh.”
Seeing the slight look of hurt in his eyes, she offered him an apologetic shrug and then turned her attention back to their guard, who she found was now watching them intently, apparently intrigued by the pair of them.
“And what the hell do you want?” she snapped.
“Your conversation is fascinating,” Sixth Lota’sharam admitted.
“It really isn’t.”
“What’s the matter?” Jirel asked the Jem’Hadar with a snort, “You never had a row with your partner—?”
“I’m not his partner,” Natasha clarified to their captor as quickly as she could.
“Yep, getting that now.”
Lota’sharam, for his part, stared blankly back at Jirel, not really understanding the question in the first place.
“I have no partner,” he stated flatly.
“Really?” Jirel pressed, “Strapping young man like you?”
“The Jem’Hadar don’t really work like that,” Natasha said, “They’re generated in birthing chambers. And even if they wanted to, they don’t have the…apparatus.”
She gestured dismissively down at Lota’sharam’s crotch. He glanced down as well, confused as to what he was supposed to be looking at.
“Oh,” Jirel mused, “Well, no wonder you’re always so angry—”
That, of all things, seemed to do it. She couldn’t stop herself from turning back round to face him, frustration clearly etched across her features.
“Can you just, for one second, stop? Please? Just take a second to look at the situation we’re in and really - I mean really - take it in, hmm? Cos we’re screwed here, ok? And all you can think about is, what? Trying to chat me up? Or cracking stupid jokes?”
“I use a lot of coping mechanisms in situations like this,” he replied, entirely seriously.
“Yeah, well, they’re not helping. They’re really not helping.”
Lota’sharam continued to watch the two figures in front of him as they bickered, continuing to take advantage of this chance to study the enemy’s behaviour close up. Even if he didn’t really understand half of what they were talking about.
As Jirel and Natasha argued, and their guard watched on, none of them noticed that on the other side of the chamber, First Clora’gerax and Second Panar’atan had finished their strategic assessment of their quarry, and were now ascending the stone steps. They proceeded with caution, not certain that they had eliminated the possibility of there being more hidden tricks somewhere ahead of them, but it didn’t take them long to reach the top.
Once there, they saw the jewel up close, gazed at the deep red glow that was surrounding it. They stepped towards it.
And that was when the three figures on the other side of the chamber took renewed interest in where they were.
Because then, they all heard the voice.
* * * * *
The Bounty swept in across the clearing where the pyramid stood and then stopped dead in its tracks, hovering over the area.
Inside the cockpit, Klath jabbed a finger down on his comms panel. “Denella, we are in position. You should proceed.”
The Orion woman’s voice came back across the comms link from where she was primed in the ship’s transporter room. She wasn’t happy. “Crap. Klath, this is useless. I can’t get a fix on them. I can’t get a fix on anything down there.”
“Psh,” Sunek scoffed from the pilot’s seat, “There’s always something…”
Klath ignored the Vulcan’s comment and went to work on his own scans of the area, looking at the data in puzzlement.
“It appears that there is some sort of energy field shrouding the structure,” he reported, “It is possible that this is what also prevented the disruptors from firing earlier.”
“Yep,” Denella’s frustrated voice came back over the link, “That’d probably do it. Alright, this was a bust. I’m coming back up.”
The comms link clicked off, as Sunek swivelled around in his chair and fixed his colleague with a knowing look. “So, I take it we need a Plan B?”
There was no reply from the frustrated Klingon.
“I mean,” Sunek ventured into the silence, “We could just leave them behind…?”
Klath looked straight up at Sunek, deeply unimpressed.
“Kidding,” the Vulcan added, “Obviously!”
Before Klath allowed himself to question how much he trusted that the Bounty’s pilot had really been kidding, Denella bounded back up the steps and into the cockpit.
“If I could just get another shot with the phaser cannon,” he grunted at her, “We might be able to penetrate the field.”
“No can do,” she sighed, “Now the replicator’s well and truly cooked, no pun intended, the only other functioning systems that could take that sort of power flow would be life support or propulsion. And I’m assuming we still want both of those?”
“Plus,” Sunek added, gesturing to the ancient stone pyramid, “How sure are you that firing phasers at that old thing won’t bring the whole roof down on the pair of them.”
Klath growled in frustration and smashed his fist into his console.
“Hey!” Denella yelled indignantly, “Can everyone please stop doing that? You’re gonna break something!”
Klath went to reply, just as the console he had just smashed sounded an alarm.
“What now?”
Denella watched the Klingon’s jaw literally drop as he saw what his console was now telling him.
“What, Klath?” she persisted, growing more worried.
“According to my scans,” he said eventually, “A small Rigellian freighter just entered the atmosphere, and is commencing an attack run on our position.”
He looked down at his still-clenched fist, and then down at the console where he had struck it. The one that, as Denella had rightly complained about, he had clearly somehow broken.
“I do not know my own strength…”
“Ok,” Denella shook her head, ignoring the baffled Klingon to her left, “That sounds stupid. Sunek, any chance we can verify that the old fashioned way?”
“Getting us a visual now,” the Vulcan grinned, swinging the ship around to line the cockpit up with whatever the sensors were detecting.
As the view out of the window settled on their new adversary, the trio in the cockpit stared in disbelief, even as the ship grew closer.
“Well,” Sunek said eventually, breaking the silence, “They certainly don’t make Rigellian freighters like they used to.”
He grabbed for his controls in desperation, just as the Jem’Hadar fighter fired its first shot.