Chapter Text
Part One
“Help me!”
She woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed and sucking in a lungful of stale recycled air. As she tried to calm her breathing down, she ran a shaking hand across her clammy forehead. Natasha Kinsen, former junior medical officer for gamma shift onboard the late USS Navajo, lay back down in bed and sighed deeply.
It was only a dream.
When she was a little girl back on Earth, that sort of revelation after a nightmare would have reassured her, reminded her that there was nothing to be scared of. Even if she had to run to her parents in order to hear it.
But right now, that same fact did nothing to calm her. Because it was the same dream that she had been having every night. The same burning section of corridor on her old ship, the same despairing cry for help from the same mortally injured young ensign. The young ensign that she had left behind to die on the Navajo when she had fled. The bloodied face that she had run away from. The one that she was still running away from. And the one that, no matter how hard she ran, she couldn’t escape.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts, then swung her legs out of bed, reaching for the flask of water that sat on the floor next to her and taking a long thirsty gulp. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, feeling her heart rate slow back to normal.
It was a morning ritual that she was becoming increasingly used to.
Even with her eyes closed, sitting in a windowless cabin, she was a seasoned enough space traveller to detect the sensation of the vessel she was on slowing to sublight speeds. She also knew that meant that the Bounty, the small merchant ship that had rescued her from her unplanned exile on a remote planet in the Kesmet Sector after she had escaped the destruction of the Navajo, was arriving at Starbase 216.
She was back with Starfleet. She was home.
And she felt numb.
* * * * *
A few minutes later, after she had showered and dressed, Natasha walked up the steps into the cockpit of the Bounty to find the rest of the ship’s ragtag crew all present and correct.
At the front of the cockpit, idly rocking back and forth in the pilot’s seat, was the ship’s resident laughing Vulcan, Sunek, who had turned his back on the cold logic of the rest of his species. To the left of the room as she looked was the imposing Klingon tactical officer, Klath, while at the rear of the room, manning her own console, was Denella, the Bounty’s Orion engineer.
And in the middle of it all, in his self-appointed captain’s chair, was Jirel Vincent, the unjoined Trill she was still struggling to figure out. Despite the fact that they had spent a night together after the Bounty had rescued her, and before she had managed to cajole the crew into an ultimately fruitless search for the Jewel of Soraxx.
She’d never admit it to the wannabe space adventurer in front of her, but that night they had spent together had been the only night since the Navajo’s destruction when she hadn’t been plagued by nightmares. But she was sure that was just an unhappy coincidence.
“Morning, doc,” Jirel said as she entered the cockpit, gesturing through the cockpit window, “Just in time for our grand arrival.”
Starbase 216 was one of several such facilities that had been constructed as a planetary facility on a Federation-aligned world, rather than an orbital platform or a standalone station in deep space. Through the cockpit window, Natasha saw the eerily Earth-like qualities of the planet below. For just a second, it looked like she really had come home.
And yet, she still felt numb.
“Good,” she managed to reply, the simple comment sounding even more weak and hollow than she had been fearing it might.
Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Jirel grinned back at her as he jammed a finger down on the comms panel of his chair, putting on his best captain’s voice to make a good impression to both the starbase below and their guest. “Starbase 216, this is the Bounty, requesting clearance to land.”
There was a pause. Quite a long pause. Jirel’s grin started to hurt slightly.
“This is Starbase 216,” the response eventually came, a female officer’s voice drifting over the speakers, “We have no record of your ship’s registry, Bounty. Break off descent or we will consider your approach a hostile action.”
Jirel’s grin dropped off his features like a stone. To his side, Klath’s console sounded out an alert. “They are locking…” the Klingon paused as further identical alerts chimed out, “Multiple weapons on us.”
From the front of the cockpit, Sunek let out a hearty chuckle.
“Well, our reputation clearly doesn’t precede us,” Denella added with a deeply amused shake of her head.
With his grin now located somewhere near his ankles, Jirel quickly jammed his finger back down onto the comms panel. “Um, Starbase 216, this is the Bounty again,” he said, appreciably faster than his earlier hail, “There’s no need to—Um, just—If you could check with Admiral Jenner? I’m sure he’ll—I mean, I’m sure you’ll find our landing clearance. Um, over?”
There was another pause. An even longer one. Revelling in the discomfort in the room, Sunek swivelled around with as serious a look as he could manage to maintain. “Should I prepare for evasive manoeuvres, sir?” he deadpanned, eliciting a further smirk from Denella and a roll of eyes from Jirel.
“Sunek,” the Trill muttered, “Shut up.”
For once, the Vulcan actually obeyed that request. He didn’t say a word. He did, however, deliver the most elaborate mock salute Natasha had ever seen in Jirel’s direction.
Eventually, just as Natasha was starting to wonder whether the starbase below really was about to open fire, the same female officer’s voice came back over the comms link. “Clearance for landing confirmed, Bounty. Landing pad J-12.”
“Smooth, Jirel,” Sunek grinned as he tapped his controls and started to guide the Bounty through the planet’s atmosphere, “Real smooth.”
Jirel looked back over at Natasha and mustered as laid back a shrug as he could manage. “Probably just her first day.”
Natasha smiled despite herself and watched as Sunek guided the Ju’day-type raider down through the atmosphere.
Starbase 216 was an irregular collection of functional hemispherical modules of differing sizes rising out of the ground of the planet. They were dotted around a wide expanse of one of the northern continents of the planet, surrounded on all sides by lush blue-green forests. Each of the modules were surrounded by a series of circular landing pads, connected to the main modules by covered walkways. As they approached their designated landing point, Natasha also spotted various settlements off in the distance, towns and cities on the Federation-aligned planet existing in harmony alongside the starbase itself.
The Bounty, still scarred and wounded from the many recent firefights it had been involved in, gently glided down onto landing pad J-12, dwarfing the two small runabouts and collection of one-person worker bees that were lined up on the edge of the pad.
“Another perfect landing,” Sunek chirped, shutting down his controls, “Now, how about we find the nearest bar down here, hmm? Drinks are on me.”
“Same thing he always says when we get to a Federation planet,” Denella said to Natasha with a shake of her head.
“No bar tab,” Klath nodded.
“Psh,” the Vulcan replied, slightly affronted, “I’m offering to walk to the replicators and back all night, aren’t I?”
He jumped out of his seat and made for the exit of the cockpit, but the slow uptake from the rest of the crew caused him to slow down.
“Count me out,” Denella sighed, standing from her own console and arching her back in a lazy stretch, “I’ve got a repair checklist the length of my arm to start working through. Need to give the poor old girl a serious makeover.”
Jirel stood and gestured at Natasha, giving Sunek an apologetic shrug. “And we’ve got a hot date with Admiral Jenner. Gonna drop our guest off and…explain why we’re five days late.”
“Explain by saying…?” Denella asked, intrigued.
Jirel considered this, recalling their misadventures on their return from the Kesmet Sector. Their futile trip to try and locate the mysterious Jewel of Soraxx. “I’ll think of something,” he offered eventually.
Sunek shook his head at the chorus of negative responses and turned to Klath. “Well, buddy. Looks like it’s just you and me.”
Klath glanced around the cockpit, looking around for anything to use as an appropriate excuse of his own. At a loss, he reluctantly nodded. “I…suppose so.”
He stood and joined the rest of the crew as they prepared to disembark. Jirel gestured to the bat’leth which was slung over his back, as usual. “And hey, Klath, leave that behind, yeah? Ever hear the one about the heavily armed Klingon warrior who walked into a starbase and started a war?”
The Klingon went to protest, then sighed in silent defeat and removed the weapon from his back.
“Cheer up, Klath,” Sunek grinned as he led them down the steps at the rear of the cockpit, “How much danger can there be on a starbase?”
* * * * *
Denella stood a short distance away from the Bounty and unhappily surveyed the damage. Jirel stepped down off the ship’s rear ramp and walked over to her, turning and following her line of sight. It didn’t take long to see why she was looking so glum.
The Bounty was a mess.
All around the ship, the hull was pock-marked with dozens of ugly scrapes and charred scars from weapons fire. The starboard wing was especially badly hit after a glancing torpedo strike, while the other wing had an ugly hole blasted right through it, a shimmering forcefield the only thing helping to maintain the structural integrity of the appendage.
“Crap,” he offered simply.
“That’s your engineer’s official report as well,” the green-skinned woman offered without a trace of a smile, wiping her face and leaving a smear of grease behind before walking off to check the rest of the ship.
As Jirel surveyed the sorry sight of his long-suffering vessel, a trio of Starfleet officers exited the main module of the starbase they had landed next to and marched over to where they stood. All three wore yellow undershirts below their matching grey and black uniforms. And the two on either side of the trio had their phasers drawn.
“Boy oh boy,” the officer in the middle of the trio, carrying a much less threatening engineering toolkit, said as he looked up at the damage.
He was a tall man, with light brown skin and a typically serious Starfleet haircut, contrasting jarringly with the scruffy mop on top of Jirel’s head. Still, if he was put off by the sight of the Trill, his Starfleet levels of politeness didn’t let it show. He smiled warmly and offered a firm handshake.
“Lieutenant Ravi Kapadia,” he said, “Welcome to Starbase 216. Admiral Jenner ordered me to oversee a repair schedule down here, but…I’m not sure where to start.”
He gestured to the Bounty and chuckled. Jirel smiled back as he broke off the handshake and pointed over to Denella, who was walking back towards them. “Pretty sure our engineer is way ahead of you with all that, chief.”
As Kapadia turned around and saw Denella, Jirel didn’t need to be telepathic to see that this was the first time the Starfleet officer had met an Orion woman in the flesh. Even though she was clad in a set of dirty grey overalls that didn’t really fit, her green hair was messily tied back behind her head and her face was somehow even more streaked with dirt than it had been just moments ago, Kapadia’s jaw still hit the ground.
Denella, for her part, barely glanced at the young lieutenant as she proffered him the weathered padd in her hand. Kapadia didn’t take it. He was still staring.
“Ok, Lieutenant,” she began, “I’ve drawn up a rough list of where I’ll need to start. I’m assuming that you can replicate most of…”
She trailed off as she realised Kapadia still hadn’t taken the padd. Or indeed moved at all. She looked up to see him smiling slightly dumbly at her, his jaw still hanging somewhere past his knees. With a sigh, she looked over at Jirel.
The Trill coughed slightly and tapped the officer on the shoulder, enough to jolt Kapadia back into the moment. Still flustered, he nodded dumbly and took the padd. “R—Right,” he stammered, his voice croaking slightly through his dry mouth, “Well, I’m sure we can work it—Work through it—Um, this, together.”
Denella grabbed Jirel by the arm and walked a few paces away from the still-babbling Kapadia, muttering surreptitiously to him. “Jirel, can you talk to the admiral? I really don’t need…that,” she gestured at the Starfleet officer, “Not again. I mean, my checklist covers everything. If they just get us the supplies, I can do all the rest myself—”
“Denella, look at the state of her,” he replied, gesturing to the Bounty, “We’re gonna need his help on this one. But I promise, as soon as I’m done with the admiral, I’ll come back down and help, ok? It’s not just gonna be you and Lieutenant Libido.”
They both looked back at Kapadia, who quickly returned his attention to the padd when he realised he’d been caught staring at her. Denella sighed even deeper. “Fine. But if he doesn’t stop drooling soon, I’m gonna have to whack him with the thick end of a coil spanner.”
She reluctantly walked back over to the Starfleet engineer, as Natasha walked down the Bounty’s ramp and over to Jirel. The two armed security officers that had accompanied Kapadia out to the landing pad moved over to them.
“Lieutenant Kinsen, welcome back,” the taller of the two offered, “We’ve been asked to escort you directly to Admiral Jenner.”
The shorter officer glanced distrustingly at Jirel. “Both of you.”
Natasha nodded, finding herself struggling to focus on anything beyond the familiar uniforms the two officers wore. The one she had worn for the last decade. The one that now made her feel numb. The frail smile she managed to give them felt bitter as it crossed her face.
To her side, the more relaxed Trill gestured to the phasers in their hands. “Don’t think you need those, guys,” he grinned, “She’s one of you, remember.”
Neither officer smiled at him, nor did they lower their weapons. The taller of the two offered him an especially curt reply.
“They’re for you.”
Not for the first time since they had arrived at Starbase 216, Natasha noted Jirel’s cocky grin disappearing from his face as fast as the local gravity would allow.