Chapter Text
Part One (Cont'd)
“So there we were, no weapons, no shields, with five Jem’Hadar fighters bearing down on us…”
Klath scowled and quietly wondered how he’d allowed himself to get into this position.
On the other side of the table, Sunek was midway through telling the story of the Bounty’s misadventures prior to their arrival at the starbase to a small audience. Except, as Klath had silently noted, this particular telling carried several embellishments of the author’s own creation. Instead of Jirel and Klath fighting off a pair of Miradorn in a bar brawl on Hestina, it had been Sunek and Sunek alone. Instead of Denella and Klath who had defeated a pair of Jem’Hadar soldiers in hand to hand combat while searching for the Jewel of Soraxx, it had again been Sunek and Sunek alone. And now, instead of them battling one Jem’Hadar fighter, there were five.
And there had also been an unnecessary number of tangential segues seemingly designed for no other narrative purpose than to underline the supposed sexual prowess of the Bounty’s pilot.
If that nauseating part of the whole spectacle hadn’t been enough, it was clear even to Klath that while Sunek’s choice of audience were listening to his story, they didn’t believe a word of it. Even the odd word that was actually the truth.
“…I steered us right between them, like, threaded the needle to perfection, and those first two fighters flew right into each other and just…!”
The Vulcan excitedly underlined this part of his work of fiction by miming a huge explosion with an accompanying sound effect. Klath’s scowl deepened.
Sunek had suggested they head to the local township, rather than the starbase itself, to find somewhere for a drink. All the better to avoid the stuffy confines of a Starfleet rec area. So, they had followed the Vulcan’s instincts and ended up here. The bar itself wasn’t to Klath’s tastes, decorated in bright gaudy colours, but the drinks menu was long, and the walk from the Bounty had been even longer, so they had elected to stay.
Most of the other patrons were local residents of the planet itself. A curious insectoid species with vaguely orange exoskeletons, prominent mandibles and huge black compound eyes that they had managed to discern were called Kraterites. The locals didn’t seem to mind the arrival of a Klingon and a Vulcan, though it was somewhat hard to tell given that their native language consisted of a succession of chirps and clicks that neither of their universal translators seemed willing to even attempt to translate.
Still, it had meant that it had been easier for Sunek to spot the two female Starfleet ensigns when they had walked in to enjoy a spot of downtime of their own. And despite Klath’s protestations, the Vulcan had insisted on approaching them, and moreover had somehow managed to convince them to join them for the evening.
Right now, as Sunek’s tale continued, Klath couldn’t tell if that was a decision they were regretting or not.
“Really?” one of the two women, a human who had introduced herself as Lara D’Amato, said to the excitable Vulcan, “They both just…”
She echoed Sunek’s earlier explosion mime, down to the unnecessarily loud sound effect.
“Oh yeah,” Sunek nodded, still convinced that this was all going well, “Lit up the place like a fireworks display. But, there were still three more of ‘em, so I swung the ship around, and—”
“Let me guess,” the other woman, a blue-skinned Andorian named Taris, said.
This time, she and D’Amato mimed the explosion together, before collapsing in fits of giggles that revealed how much they believed about the Vulcan’s tale.
“Fine, laugh it up,” Sunek shrugged, still unabashed, “But that all happened, right, Klath?”
He looked over at the burly Klingon for support, flicking his head and gesturing with his eyes in such a way that even Klath could tell was a plea for backup. Not that Klath was ever going to read it that way. Klingons weren’t good at small talk.
“His story is…exaggerated,” he said eventually, eliciting further smirks from the ensigns.
“Ah, come on!” Sunek pouted, “Would it have hurt to play along for a bit?”
“Only a foolish warrior lies about his victories,” the Klingon countered.
Taris and D’Amato both nodded in sombre agreement, as they looked back at Sunek, who shrugged in defeat. “Well, maybe I miscounted.”
“So,” Taris said to Klath, “We’ve suffered through all your friend’s best lines, you got any you wanna try out while we’re here?”
Klath sighed. Klingons weren’t good at lines either.
“Klingons believe that actions speak louder than words,” he offered simply, in a tone entirely bereft of any sort of flirtatious subtext.
“Wow,” D’Amato admitted, “That’s a good one.”
Taris nodded, as the two ensigns eyed up the confused Klingon in a new light. Sunek, not appreciating the sudden lack of attention on him, jumped back into story mode. “Hey, ok, how about I tell you how we - I mean, it was mostly me - escaped from this crazed Ferengi marauder…?”
As the ensigns rolled their eyes in amusement and Sunek launched into his blockbuster take on the Bounty’s run-in with a Ferengi trader called Grenk and his modestly armed shuttle, Klath was distracted by a familiar uneasy feeling. He felt an unnerving tingling sensation somewhere in the back of his mind. A feeling that he was being watched.
Suppressing the instinctive urge to reach for the bat’leth that he knew wasn’t there anyway, he scanned around the bar as casually as he could manage, not wanting to let anyone out there know he was aware of them. It was still as bustling as when they had arrived, and all Klath could see was Kraterites, chittering away to each other in their unintelligible tongue. And while their large, unblinking eyes made it hard to tell who exactly was watching who, Klath couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
But the uncertain feeling remained. So much so that when Taris gently tapped him on the arm to get his attention, his hand instinctively shot out and grabbed her wrist tightly, accompanied by a deep growl as he snapped his head around to the ensign.
“Ow! What the hell?” the Andorian cried out, as D’Amato and Sunek both reacted with equal amounts of shock to the Klingon’s sudden movement.
Klath released his grip as soon as he realised his mistake, a feeling of foolishness washing over him as Taris rubbed her wrist and winced in pain. “I was just asking if you wanted another,” she said, nodding her head at the empty glass in front of him.
“I apologise,” he managed to reply, “Are you hurt?”
Taris allowed D’Amato to take a look at her wrist, still glaring at the Klingon. “Nothing broken,” D’Amato replied eventually, flashing Klath a similarly unhappy look, “But you need to chill out, ok?”
Klath looked around at the two distinctly unhappy ensigns, and the equally unhappy Sunek, under the oblivious belief that the Klingon might be jeopardising his chances of getting anywhere with either of the Starfleet officers. “Perhaps I…should get the drinks?” he offered eventually. Nobody disagreed.
He stood and made his way to the bar itself. A Kraterite bartender quickly moved over to meet him and began to chitter excitedly, handing him a drinks menu for good measure. Still feeling an unsettling sense that he was being watched, and having no idea what any of the options on the menu were, he gruffly pointed at a drink at random and indicated the need for four of them with his fingers. The bartender chirped a few times, before getting to work.
Presently, four very tall glasses, filled with four very lurid green cocktails and topped off with four very luminous straws, were placed on a tray in front of him. The disgruntled Klingon briefly considered trying to change his order, before sighing and picking up the tray.
If the High Council could see me now, he thought to himself.
“Interesting choice.”
The voice came out of nowhere. Still on edge, he spun around so quickly that he nearly dropped the tray. The source of the voice just smiled at him, the reddish ridge of bone across her forehead almost blending into the harsh red lighting running around the walls of the bar.
He had no idea what species she was, but felt it was rude to ask. It was also, presumably, rude of him to take quite so much time to check her and the revealing deep blue dress that she wore over. But it took Klath a few seconds longer to realise that.
She didn’t seem to mind, looking him up and down at the same time and smiling, before looking back at the tray of gaudy cocktails with amusement. Klath felt himself squirm involuntarily.
“Wrong order,” he found himself saying, though he wasn’t sure why.
She kept her eyes fixed on him as she picked the glass in front of him on the tray up and took a small sip through the straw, before setting it back down. “Quite nice,” she conceded, her voice measured and overly sultry, “I think the locals call it a Kraterite Love Sling.”
Klath suppressed a fresh grimace. Any hope he had of at least selling it as a warrior’s drink based on the name disappeared in an instant.
“I’ve been watching you,” she added, maintaining eye contact and running a slender finger down the same glass, “You don’t seem to be enjoying the company you’re with.”
This got his attention back on her, but it was more from suspicion than anything else. Could she have been the one that he had sensed? “That is none of your concern,” he stated flatly, but firmly.
“I could make it my concern,” she replied with a flirtatious smile, “I can promise you that I’d be much more...agreeable company.”
Klath felt something inside him stir as she licked her lips, but he was still on edge, and something about her unsettled him. “Another time, perhaps.”
At this, she shrugged and turned around, walking off incongruously into the crowds of chattering Kraterites with an exaggerated shimmy of her hips. Klath watched her leave.
“Hey! Klath! Where the hell are those drinks?”
Sunek’s bellowed call from across the bustling bar snapped him back to normality. With a mildly annoyed growl, he returned to the table and set the tray down.
“Wow,” D’Amato laughed when she saw the glasses, “What is that supposed to be?”
“It is…” Klath paused, recalling the specific name the mysterious woman had used and deciding to play dumb for the sake of his flagging reputation, “Green.”
Taris shrugged and picked up one of the glasses. Sunek and D’Amato followed suit. Klath remained troubled, his senses still on edge. He no longer felt like he was being watched, but something was definitely wrong.
“You ok, buddy?” Sunek asked, as he swirled his drink around with the straw.
Klath ignored him, still piecing everything together in his head. He was definitely missing something. Something about the woman he just met. The one who said she had been watching him.
The drinks. She’d touched one of the drinks. One of the glasses. But which one?
He looked down at the tray. The glass that had been closest to him was now missing. One of the other three must have picked it up. He visualised them all taking the glasses from the tray, rewinding the scene in his head.
Taris lifted her drink up, bringing the straw to her mouth.
It was that one.
Before her lips touched the straw, Klath smacked the glass out of the shocked Andorian’s hand, sending it flying onto the floor where it smashed into tiny pieces.
“Seriously,” Taris snapped, “What the hell is your problem?”
“I apologise,” Klath said simply, pushing the remaining glass on the tray over to her and standing up to leave, “Take mine.”
“Klath?” Sunek asked, looking as shocked as the two ensigns at his friend’s erratic behaviour.
The Klingon ignored him. He crouched down to the broken glass and tore a strip from his tunic, soaking some of the liquid up, before standing and looking back at the bemused faces around the table. “Excuse me,” he said simply.
He turned and exited the bar, as the others watched on. After a few awkward moments, Sunek shrugged and turned back to the two Starfleet officers.
“So, as I was saying, this Ferengi ship must’ve had…twenty, thirty disruptors…”
* * * * *
She leaned on the dirty metal hull and yawned, checking the local time again with a glance inside at the shuttle’s chronometer.
It wouldn’t be too much longer now. She knew that Kolar often had a tendency to gloat, but given how crowded the bar had been, she suspected that this time he would just need to see proof of his success before returning.
As she waited, she allowed herself to speculate about what she might do now. The latinum that he was paying her wasn’t exactly a king’s ransom, but it would afford her the chance for a modicum of luxury, for a few weeks at least. As she contemplated whether it would be too vain to invest in a medical procedure she had read about that could accentuate the curves of her skull ridge, she heard footsteps approaching.
She turned to see Kolar stalking back to the shuttle. It didn’t take an empath to see that he wasn’t in a satisfied mood.
“You failed!”
As he spat out the words, he aimed a rough slap across her face for good measure. The blow was a glancing one, but it stung enough to bring tears to her eyes. She whirled away from any follow-up attack and backed away from the fuming Klingon, gently rubbing her swollen face.
“What do you mean?” she grunted back, tasting blood in her mouth, “I gave him exactly the same dose as the others.”
“Did you see him drink it?” he hissed.
She went to retort, but couldn’t help but pause for a fraction of a second. Which was more than enough of a reaction for him to deduce exactly what the answer was before she had a chance to decide whether to lie or not.
Growling with rage, he stormed back into the shuttle.
She felt her jaw tenderly, reasoning that it might be a good idea to keep her distance from him for a while longer given his anger. Inwardly, she cursed herself. She had become so used to their usual plan in dealing with the names on Kolar’s list that she had stopped waiting around to guarantee that their targets physically drank their spiked drinks. Because they had always done it before.
Except, apparently, this time.
She could already sense this was going to impact her chances of being paid in full, any thoughts of sculpting her skull ridges now disappearing fast. Kolar clambered back out of the shuttle clutching a large holdall and closed the shuttle’s door behind him.
“You made a mistake,” he chided, becalmed but still clearly angry, “And now you’ve jeopardised everything.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she managed in return, “I thought he would—!”
“You were wrong!”
She shrank back further, her still-aching jaw reminding her that she didn’t want to risk a run-in with the Klingon’s simmering wrath. “What now?” she replied quietly as the door sealed shut.
Kolar shot her a glare, then looked out across the township below, from where they had parked on a small landing platform on top of a nearby hill. Beyond the lights of the town, shimmering in the gloaming, he could make out the spherical modules of the starbase.
“Now,” he said eventually, determination clear in his voice, “I need a new plan.”
“What?”
He gestured down at the township, in the vague direction of the bar they had found Klath in earlier.
“First of all, I think we should keep an eye on his Vulcan friend down there…”