Chapter Text
Part Three (Cont'd)
Jirel stood in front of the imposing wooden door of the main reception hall of Starbase 216 and paused for a moment of reflection.
Is this a good idea?
He decided not to answer that question for the time being. The fact was that he needed to see the admiral right now. And this was where he was. So he prepared to do what he always did in just about every situation. Go charging right in and hope that he could somehow talk his way through to the other side. He listened to the sound of polite conversation and clinking glassware from the other side of the door and took a deep breath, summoning up his usual fragile front of bravado. Shields up, red alert.
It was a good idea.
The scruffy Trill stepped through the doors in his faded grey tunic and trousers, into Admiral Jenner’s formal reception for the crew of the USS Copernicus, before they went out into the unknown.
The reception hall of Starbase 216 was suitably large. The ceiling was easily three stories high, and Jirel was sure he’d been in shuttlebays that felt more cramped. Right now, the hall was filled with Starfleet officers as far as the eye could see, all dressed in brilliant white dress uniforms. Civilian waiting staff glided effortlessly around the room carrying trays adorned with canapes and champagne. Or whatever synthesised version of champagne was permitted at a Starfleet reception.
Jirel strode through the crowd, his shields of misplaced bravado holding firm under a barrage of stares from the assembled throng. He returned fire to some of them with a confident smile or two, pretending like he belonged while idly wondering if there had been anything in his limited wardrobe back on the Bounty that might have come halfway to passing as appropriate attire.
Still, this was definitely a good idea.
He swerved around a couple of particularly confused Grazerites, still keeping an eye out for the admiral, only to quite literally run straight into another familiar face carrying a glass of champagne. Or at least, he had been carrying it. The liquid was now spilled all down the front of his immaculate dress uniform.
“Seriously,” Commander Cameron Kinsen snapped at the wearily familiar Trill in front of him, “Who are you?”
“Hey, Cameron!” Jirel beamed, channelling auxiliary power into his bravado, “Great party! Sorry about, um…”
He started to wipe the champagne off the slowly simmering officer’s jacket.
“Stop that,” Cameron snapped, grabbing Jirel’s hand, “And what are you doing here? This is a Starfleet reception, not a neighbourhood frat party!”
Jirel’s shields took a direct hit. He considered devising an elaborate backstory about how he had accepted an offer to join the Copernicus as a civilian envoy. He even contemplated telling the champagne-covered officer that he was a guest of honour, his Trill symbiont having served about another USS Copernicus with an earlier host. Even though he didn’t have a symbiont, or have any idea if there had been a previous ship.
Mercifully, just as he was imagining what rank he would have had in this fictional previous life, and whether Commodore would be pushing it too far, he spotted his quarry.
“Hey! Admiral!” he shouted through the crowd, “Admiral Jenner! Over here!”
Cameron shook his head and tapped his combadge, even as Jenner looked over in their direction. “Security to the reception hall,” he barked, “Now.”
“No need for that,” Jirel replied, waving goofily at the admiral, who had fixed him with a firm scowl.
Jenner reluctantly excused himself from his current company and made his way over, his scowl deepening with every step.
But this had still definitely been a good idea.
“Hey, I get it,” Jirel said to the admiral as he approached, “My invite got lost in the mail, that’s fine—”
“What the hell are you doing?” Jenner hissed at him, clearly in no mood to mess around.
Jirel rotated his shield frequencies, keeping his bravado levels intact as he fixed the admiral with a glare of his own. “We need to talk.”
“Jirel,” Jenner scoffed, “You don’t get to—”
“Either we talk now, or I head to the front of the room at your very important little party here and try to get a karaoke contest started.”
Jenner grimaced further. Jirel kept his gaze focused on him, not wanting to blink first.
“Sir,” Cameron offered, “Security are on the way—”
“That won’t be necessary, Commander,” Jenner replied curtly, eliciting a look of surprise from the younger officer, “I’ll handle this.”
He jerked his head towards the exit and marched off. Jirel went to follow, but not before he allowed himself a moment to fire a final shot of smugness in Cameron’s direction, impacting directly on the officer’s own bemused defences.
“Sorry about the shirt.”
* * * * *
Jenner led Jirel down the corridor and into a small meeting room, empty save for a small table and four plain chairs. He didn’t take a seat.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Jirel began, “It’s just, I need to—”
“How long have you been here?” Jenner snapped before he could get any further, “Two days? Three?”
“I mean, two, I guess—?”
“And here’s where we are,” the admiral continued, ignoring any attempt to answer his rhetorical question, “I’ve got your engineer in the brig charged with hacking into Starfleet records…”
“That’s actually what I was here to talk to you about—”
“...I’ve got half a dozen complaints on my desk about that Klingon of yours causing a scene at some Kraterite bar earlier…”
“Was not actually aware of that—”
“...Yesterday, I was handed a report from base ops about a sighting of a - and I’m quoting here - ‘severely inebriated Vulcan in the company of two junior officers’ two nights ago…”
“I’m sure he was just—”
“...And that’s before we get back to this repair schedule the size of a war fleet I’ve got to somehow clear with the head of operations.”
“It’s really just a few—”
“So,” Jenner concluded, “You say we need to talk? Where exactly do you want to start?”
Jirel paused and licked his lips, his bravado shielding falling to critically low power levels after that flurry of direct hits.
“And make it quick,” the admiral added through the silence, “Cos if this takes longer than five minutes, I’m calling in that security detail Commander Kinsen just summoned and telling them they can report that you were resisting arrest.”
“Ok,” Jirel said, sticking to the main issue at hand, “Denella. It’s—I’m here about Denella.”
Jenner paced across the room, his hands clasped behind his back, allowing him to continue for the moment.
“I just thought you could, I dunno, maybe—”
“What?” Jenner scoffed, “Have a word with Starfleet security? Tell them to just drop the charges? Hey, maybe I can team up with you and your drunk Vulcan pilot, and we can plan an elaborate jailbreak, hmm?”
Jirel’s shields collapsed. “I mean,” he offered weakly, “We’ve got our understanding…?”
Jenner sighed in exasperation and stared down the Trill on the other side of the room. “Look, I’m gonna be straight with you here, for your own sake: You are nowhere near as big a deal as you think you are, ok? And you, and the rest of your little crew, need to start realising that. I can slip you the odd assignment here, I can arrange the odd repair there, and I’m very grateful that you were able to bring Lieutenant Kinsen back. But you cannot just show up here and start acting like you own the place. Because you don’t, Jirel. I do.”
Jirel remained silent as the admiral continued to fire. A hull breach was in progress.
“And whatever our little understanding might be, it doesn’t extend to pulling the sort of stunts you’re trying to pull. My understanding will only get you so far. And frankly, you’re pretty much running on empty right now.”
Jirel forced himself to suppress the flinch, not wanting to reveal quite how much damage his words were inflicting. With no other option left, he tried to land a disruptor blast of his own. “If I’m as unimportant as you’re saying,” he replied eventually, “How come you’re asking Natasha about me?”
Jenner’s face twitched slightly in annoyance. Jirel had scored a hit, no matter how late and futile it might have been.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” the admiral retorted, “You’re gonna get your repairs done, get back on your ship, and get the hell away from my starbase. For a long, long time. I’m out of errands. And I’m definitely out of patience.”
“And Denella—?”
“Is in the hands of Starfleet security.”
“Right,” Jirel said with a sad shake of his head, “It’s like that, is it?”
Jenner checked his watch and sighed, smoothing his uniform back down and preparing to return to the reception. “Jirel, if it was up to me, it would have been like that months ago.”
The admiral made for the exit, leaving Jirel behind. As he reached the door, the Trill found one final question to fire off. “So...who was it up to?”
Jenner stopped for a moment. He considered giving an answer, but decided against it. Instead, he stepped through the door. Jirel was left alone, in several meanings of the word.
This might not have been a good idea, he conceded to himself.