Looks like someone put a chink in Grenk's armor and a kink in his plans...
Fun rising action - looking forward to the conclusion.
Thanks!! rbs
Fun rising action - looking forward to the conclusion.
Thanks!! rbs
Star Trek: Bounty - 13 - "Something Bad Happened Today"
- Thread starter BountyTrek
- Start date
Part Four (Cont'd)
“Yee-haw!”
Sunek’s latest whoop of delight filled the shattered cockpit of the Bounty as he gleefully tapped on the controls in front of him. He was back where he belonged, in the Bounty’s pilot’s seat. The storm was back where it belonged, on the horizon.
And he was happy.
Happy that he had been just the right amount of angry when it mattered.
“So,” he called back, “Am I awesome, or am I awesome?”
Behind him, Klath and Denella shared a knowing glance.
Sunek had beamed them aboard from the Boundless Profit, now bereft of any defensive systems, a few moments ago. And they had quickly taken off after the others.
Klath sat at what remained of his weapons console. Although the Bounty’s own defensive systems were also offline, he could still use the sensors to locate their friends. Meanwhile, with her own engineering console wrecked, Denella had taken up position in the battered centre chair, usually reserved for Jirel.
“We can massage your ego some other time, Sunek,” she responded patiently, “Keep sweeping the area.”
With a shrug, the Vulcan did just that. The battle-scarred Bounty, having only been patched up by Grenk’s men, wasn’t as manoeuvrable as it usually was, but he was able to bring them around in a lazy arc and swing back over the site.
“I have them!” Klath boomed out, “A Trill lifesign. And two humans. On the surface, sixty metres from the mining dome.”
“On it,” Denella nodded, jumping out of the chair and racing to the rear steps as quickly as her bruised body could move, heading for the transporter room.
As she left, Sunek couldn’t help but glance back at the Klingon.
“You in the mood for some Vulcan ego-massaging too, big guy?”
Klath grumbled quietly under his breath.
He was thankful for Sunek’s arrival, given the likely suicidal option that he had been considering beforehand. But equally, he knew the Bounty’s pilot would never let him hear the end of it if he actually admitted that.
“Bring us in over the lifesigns,” he instructed instead, “You may…gloat later.”
Sunek’s grin widened as he brought the Bounty into position.
“Oh, trust me, I will. I’m gonna gloat like I’ve never gloated before. This is gonna be a gloating masterclass. Whatever you thought you knew about gloating? Forget it. They’re gonna have to redefine the word.”
As Klath suppressed another grimace at the likely truth of that statement, Sunek merely continued to grin. He was feeling good.
The storm was under control.
****************************
Down on the surface, Jirel, Natasha and Maya watched as the Bounty slowly swung back towards them.
Having escaped the habitation dome through the airlock, they had retreated across the low-oxygen surface of the Class-L planet as best they could. And now their rescue was here.
“Gotta hand it to them,” Maya smiled, “They know how to make an entrance.”
Jirel watched his ship, and smiled.
His ship. The only place that he’d ever really called home. Once again, that ship, and the people on it, had come through in the nick of time.
“They really do,” he nodded in satisfaction.
Natasha also found herself feeling happy. She knew that if anyone had told her back in her Starfleet days that one day she’d consider a battered, thirty year old Ju’Day-type raider her home, she’d have laughed. But here she was, reassured at the sight of the Bounty.
Even Maya was smiling. At the ship she once helped Jirel to acquire, and the crew that she had mostly helped him assemble. The ship that, having rejected Jirel’s final payment back at the start of this latest misadventure, she still had a significant stake in.
She had left it behind a long time ago. Just as she’d left everything else behind in her life, all the way back to Niki Kolak. But now, she wondered if it was time to stop leaving things behind. She turned to look at Jirel, and wondered if, despite everything, this was where her future had been the whole time. Whether it was time to turn over a new leaf once and for all. If the Bounty’s crew would let her.
She had no way of knowing, but Jirel was thinking the same thing about her.
As the sound of the riot back inside the habitation dome continued in the background, the three figures waited patiently to be beamed back aboard.
And then everything changed.
From Jirel’s perspective, it happened in an instant. One second, he was staring up at the Bounty. Then he sensed Maya glancing over at him. And then he had a sense that they were no longer alone.
He spun around, with Natasha following suit. There, a few yards behind them, stood Grenk, a disruptor raised in front of him.
“Jirel!” he wheezed in the thin atmosphere, “You’ve ruined everything!”
Too consumed with rage to wait for the inevitable reply, or quip, or any sort of response, Grenk fired.
Jirel barely had time to process the flare from the disruptor. But he did process the feeling of Maya Ortega shoving him out of the way.
Leaving her in the line of fire.
“No!”
The Trill heard himself call out out as he fell to the ground.
He saw the blast catch her square in the chest, with enough force to throw her down next to Jirel. He scrambled through the dirt to her, even as Natasha’s medical instincts kicked in and she dropped down to them, pressing down hard on the gaping wound in Maya’s stomach.
“Maya!” Jirel cried out, staring down at her eyes, even as the life seemed to ebb from them. Her lips began to move. She whispered something. He had to lean in close to hear it.
“...Never…leave home without it.”
Jirel felt her left arm straighten, and instantly knew what to do, without the need for a Miradorn-style telepathic bond.
“Damn you!” Grenk squealed, as he brought his disruptor to bear on the Trill again, “Why won’t you just—!”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.
With the defences that had formerly prevented non-Synergy weapons from working now deactivated, Jirel whirled around and delivered a single blast of red fire from the tiny type-1 phaser that Maya’s sleeve had deposited into his hand. And silenced Grenk forever.
He killed him. In cold blood.
Natasha didn’t process what had happened, keeping her pressure on the bleeding wound.
Jirel turned back to Maya, with tears forming in his eyes. She mustered a weak smile of satisfaction in his direction.
“Hey,” he managed, as soothingly as possible, “It’s gonna be fine, ok? They’re gonna beam us up any second now.”
She nodded. Her eyes started to glaze over. She managed to mutter something else with her remaining strength.
“I’m sorry, Niki…”
Jirel had no idea what that meant. Nor did Natasha.
But Maya simply smiled peacefully, as the transporter took effect.
****************************
Jirel paced up and down the main corridor of the Bounty, just outside the medical bay.
He had barely had time to carry Maya into the bay before Natasha had urgently ushered him back outside. She needed to work fast. In peace.
To his side, Denella stood still, having rushed here with them from the transporter room. There had been no time for an emotional reunion. Instead, they waited in silence, as Jirel continued to pace.
After a moment, footsteps approached from the cockpit steps.
“Jirel,” Klath boomed with relief, confused by the Trill’s lack of reaction.
“Hey,” Sunek added from over the Klingon’s shoulder, “What the hell’s—?
He was interrupted by the doors to the medical bay opening. Natasha emerged, her clothes and her hands slick with blood. She didn’t need to say anything as she locked eyes with Jirel. He could already feel his heart starting to break.
She gently shook her head.
It was a point blank disruptor blast. There was nothing she could have done.
The silence in the corridor was deafening.
End of Part Four
“Yee-haw!”
Sunek’s latest whoop of delight filled the shattered cockpit of the Bounty as he gleefully tapped on the controls in front of him. He was back where he belonged, in the Bounty’s pilot’s seat. The storm was back where it belonged, on the horizon.
And he was happy.
Happy that he had been just the right amount of angry when it mattered.
“So,” he called back, “Am I awesome, or am I awesome?”
Behind him, Klath and Denella shared a knowing glance.
Sunek had beamed them aboard from the Boundless Profit, now bereft of any defensive systems, a few moments ago. And they had quickly taken off after the others.
Klath sat at what remained of his weapons console. Although the Bounty’s own defensive systems were also offline, he could still use the sensors to locate their friends. Meanwhile, with her own engineering console wrecked, Denella had taken up position in the battered centre chair, usually reserved for Jirel.
“We can massage your ego some other time, Sunek,” she responded patiently, “Keep sweeping the area.”
With a shrug, the Vulcan did just that. The battle-scarred Bounty, having only been patched up by Grenk’s men, wasn’t as manoeuvrable as it usually was, but he was able to bring them around in a lazy arc and swing back over the site.
“I have them!” Klath boomed out, “A Trill lifesign. And two humans. On the surface, sixty metres from the mining dome.”
“On it,” Denella nodded, jumping out of the chair and racing to the rear steps as quickly as her bruised body could move, heading for the transporter room.
As she left, Sunek couldn’t help but glance back at the Klingon.
“You in the mood for some Vulcan ego-massaging too, big guy?”
Klath grumbled quietly under his breath.
He was thankful for Sunek’s arrival, given the likely suicidal option that he had been considering beforehand. But equally, he knew the Bounty’s pilot would never let him hear the end of it if he actually admitted that.
“Bring us in over the lifesigns,” he instructed instead, “You may…gloat later.”
Sunek’s grin widened as he brought the Bounty into position.
“Oh, trust me, I will. I’m gonna gloat like I’ve never gloated before. This is gonna be a gloating masterclass. Whatever you thought you knew about gloating? Forget it. They’re gonna have to redefine the word.”
As Klath suppressed another grimace at the likely truth of that statement, Sunek merely continued to grin. He was feeling good.
The storm was under control.
****************************
Down on the surface, Jirel, Natasha and Maya watched as the Bounty slowly swung back towards them.
Having escaped the habitation dome through the airlock, they had retreated across the low-oxygen surface of the Class-L planet as best they could. And now their rescue was here.
“Gotta hand it to them,” Maya smiled, “They know how to make an entrance.”
Jirel watched his ship, and smiled.
His ship. The only place that he’d ever really called home. Once again, that ship, and the people on it, had come through in the nick of time.
“They really do,” he nodded in satisfaction.
Natasha also found herself feeling happy. She knew that if anyone had told her back in her Starfleet days that one day she’d consider a battered, thirty year old Ju’Day-type raider her home, she’d have laughed. But here she was, reassured at the sight of the Bounty.
Even Maya was smiling. At the ship she once helped Jirel to acquire, and the crew that she had mostly helped him assemble. The ship that, having rejected Jirel’s final payment back at the start of this latest misadventure, she still had a significant stake in.
She had left it behind a long time ago. Just as she’d left everything else behind in her life, all the way back to Niki Kolak. But now, she wondered if it was time to stop leaving things behind. She turned to look at Jirel, and wondered if, despite everything, this was where her future had been the whole time. Whether it was time to turn over a new leaf once and for all. If the Bounty’s crew would let her.
She had no way of knowing, but Jirel was thinking the same thing about her.
As the sound of the riot back inside the habitation dome continued in the background, the three figures waited patiently to be beamed back aboard.
And then everything changed.
From Jirel’s perspective, it happened in an instant. One second, he was staring up at the Bounty. Then he sensed Maya glancing over at him. And then he had a sense that they were no longer alone.
He spun around, with Natasha following suit. There, a few yards behind them, stood Grenk, a disruptor raised in front of him.
“Jirel!” he wheezed in the thin atmosphere, “You’ve ruined everything!”
Too consumed with rage to wait for the inevitable reply, or quip, or any sort of response, Grenk fired.
Jirel barely had time to process the flare from the disruptor. But he did process the feeling of Maya Ortega shoving him out of the way.
Leaving her in the line of fire.
“No!”
The Trill heard himself call out out as he fell to the ground.
He saw the blast catch her square in the chest, with enough force to throw her down next to Jirel. He scrambled through the dirt to her, even as Natasha’s medical instincts kicked in and she dropped down to them, pressing down hard on the gaping wound in Maya’s stomach.
“Maya!” Jirel cried out, staring down at her eyes, even as the life seemed to ebb from them. Her lips began to move. She whispered something. He had to lean in close to hear it.
“...Never…leave home without it.”
Jirel felt her left arm straighten, and instantly knew what to do, without the need for a Miradorn-style telepathic bond.
“Damn you!” Grenk squealed, as he brought his disruptor to bear on the Trill again, “Why won’t you just—!”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence.
With the defences that had formerly prevented non-Synergy weapons from working now deactivated, Jirel whirled around and delivered a single blast of red fire from the tiny type-1 phaser that Maya’s sleeve had deposited into his hand. And silenced Grenk forever.
He killed him. In cold blood.
Natasha didn’t process what had happened, keeping her pressure on the bleeding wound.
Jirel turned back to Maya, with tears forming in his eyes. She mustered a weak smile of satisfaction in his direction.
“Hey,” he managed, as soothingly as possible, “It’s gonna be fine, ok? They’re gonna beam us up any second now.”
She nodded. Her eyes started to glaze over. She managed to mutter something else with her remaining strength.
“I’m sorry, Niki…”
Jirel had no idea what that meant. Nor did Natasha.
But Maya simply smiled peacefully, as the transporter took effect.
****************************
Jirel paced up and down the main corridor of the Bounty, just outside the medical bay.
He had barely had time to carry Maya into the bay before Natasha had urgently ushered him back outside. She needed to work fast. In peace.
To his side, Denella stood still, having rushed here with them from the transporter room. There had been no time for an emotional reunion. Instead, they waited in silence, as Jirel continued to pace.
After a moment, footsteps approached from the cockpit steps.
“Jirel,” Klath boomed with relief, confused by the Trill’s lack of reaction.
“Hey,” Sunek added from over the Klingon’s shoulder, “What the hell’s—?
He was interrupted by the doors to the medical bay opening. Natasha emerged, her clothes and her hands slick with blood. She didn’t need to say anything as she locked eyes with Jirel. He could already feel his heart starting to break.
She gently shook her head.
It was a point blank disruptor blast. There was nothing she could have done.
The silence in the corridor was deafening.
End of Part Four
There really was nothing else that could have brought peace to Maya.
And as for Grenk, the Walking Dead rule applies: Never leave a mortal enemy alive. They never intend to return the favor.
I'm still looking forward to all the gloating... Probably be muted by the condition of ship and crew.
This one definitely deserves an epilogue. As in, what happens to Grenk's shattered operation?
Thanks!! rbs
And as for Grenk, the Walking Dead rule applies: Never leave a mortal enemy alive. They never intend to return the favor.
I'm still looking forward to all the gloating... Probably be muted by the condition of ship and crew.
This one definitely deserves an epilogue. As in, what happens to Grenk's shattered operation?
Thanks!! rbs
Part Five
It took three days for the Bounty to limp back to a neutral port for repairs. By which point, everyone had time to catch up on everything that had happened.
They had discovered that, after Grenk’s demise, an unlikely armistice had been brokered between the surviving Miradorn and the prisoners, apparently led by Shel-Lan and Gel-Lan. They had seized the now-ownerless Boundless Profit, loaded up on what duridium there was available, and taken off into the night.
Meanwhile, the shattered Bounty had hightailed it out of there. The ship was a wreck. Denella hadn’t even been able to estimate the time it would take to fix up. Nor now much it might cost. Though there was, for once, latinum to fund it all, thanks to their earlier payment from Maya.
But it wasn’t just the ship that was shattered. Her captain was as well.
With the Bounty parked up, Jirel stood in the middle of the empty cockpit and looked around with sadness. There was barely a single surface that wasn’t broken, damaged or scorched from the firefight that had nearly destroyed the ship. His captain’s chair, which had never been the most pristine of items, had a number of fresh burn marks across the weathered fabric.
It was in an even worse state than it had been when he had first stepped foot inside, back at the Tyran Scrapyards*. When the galaxy had been at his and Maya’s feet.
Ever since then, this place had felt like home. Like it was where he belonged. Here, he felt supported.
But he didn’t feel that now. All of a sudden, he felt empty. And alone.
She was dead. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not on the Bounty.
“Jirel.”
He hadn’t heard Klath entering the cockpit. Which, given the heavy footsteps of the Klingon, was a testament to how lost in his thoughts he had been.
Klath, for his part, was a little surprised to see him. For most of the journey, Jirel had isolated himself in his cabin. He had barely said a word to the others since that fateful moment outside the medical bay, and had instead spent his time drinking his way through the remains of his liquor cabinet in private.
And while he hadn’t found any contentment, he had made up his mind.
“I…have been meaning to talk to you,” Klath continued, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he reluctantly led the conversation, “Earlier, on the Ferengi’s ship, I spoke with Maya.”
The mention of her name forced Jirel to turn and acknowledge the hulking Klingon, the Trill using all of his mental strength to keep his eyes from moistening. He still had no idea how he felt about Maya, given her deception and subsequent sacrifice. But he knew enough to be in pain.
Klath felt uneasy at the lack of a verbal response. He was used to being the mute one in most conversations, and this role reversal was distinctly unnerving. Still, he continued.
“After what she had done, I…called her a coward. But, having heard what happened, I now see that I was mistaken. Whatever her prior actions, she died with honour—”
“Goddamn it, Klath!”
The ferocity of Jirel’s snapped response was enough to stop the unflappable Klingon warrior in his tracks, as he stared in shock into his friend’s eyes, red with anguish.
“Would you just…spare me the stupid goddamn honour speech for once!”
“I was merely—”
“Yeah, well, don’t. Ok? I don’t care if she died with honour! Nobody apart from you and your stupid beliefs cares about that! I care about the fact that she died at all!”
Jirel’s stinging words gave way to silence. Klath resisted the instinctive urge to meet this attack on his beliefs by ripping the Trill’s head from his shoulders. His friend was hurting, after all. But equally, he had no alternative words of comfort to offer him.
“You know,” Jirel continued, his tone calmer but sadder, “I’ve always said that everyone on the Bounty, all of us, are running away from something.”
Klath took some further offence at that. Klingons didn’t run away from things, after all.
“I guess I always thought I was running away from my past. From responsibility. But something Maya said to me was right. I guess I’m just running away from consequences.”
With a final unhappy glance around the shattered cockpit of the Bounty, he walked off past Klath to the steps at the rear of the room.
“This time,” he muttered, mostly to himself, “It’s gonna take a lot of running.”
Without another word, he descended the steps, leaving the baffled Klingon behind. He disappeared into his cabin, only for long enough to grab a small rucksack that was lying on his bed.
Then he resumed his walk down the corridor, passing by Denella’s cabin door.
****************************
Denella sat at her desk in her cabin and sighed.
In front of her, the cracked screen of the padd displayed the longest repair schedule she had ever drawn up. Which was saying something on the Bounty. She was prioritising everything as best she could, but it was a laborious process.
She stretched her tired back, rolling her head around and wondering how long it had been since she had eaten. And then she saw something in the corner of her cabin. Something she had completely forgotten about amongst everything else. She rushed over to rescue the victim of the Bounty’s latest misadventure from where it had fallen.
A long-stemmed, colourful flower. Its pot now shattered as a result of the ship’s violent landing.
A flower from Orpheus IV, where she had grown up. A gift from Juna Erami†.
Silently cursing herself for missing the plant’s plight until now, she carefully carried its wilted form back over to her desk. A stray petal dropped to the floor, but it was still clinging to life. It just needed some repair work of its own.
Denella gently inhaled the scent of the flower, allowing her mind to fill with happy memories of her childhood. Before the Syndicate had come along.
And she added an extra, high priority task to her repair schedule. A new pot and a very careful piece of replanting for this most treasured of items.
The scent of the flower also meant that she couldn’t help but think of Erami herself.
She set the plant down and tapped the computer interface on her desk, calling up her subspace messages. A familiar list, almost all from the Bajoran, popped up. Even though they had only said goodbye a few weeks ago, it already felt like months had passed.
Having promised to keep in touch with her new friend, Erami had been true to her word. The list of messages proved that.
All of them sat there. All of them still unread.
The Orion stared at the list, feeling as overwhelmed as the last time she had looked at it, and then turned her attention back to the padd.
She could deal with the repair schedule.
The messages remained unread.
****************************
Jirel walked on, adjusting the rucksack on his shoulder.
He passed by Sunek’s cabin without a second glance.
****************************
Sunek lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, then calmly closed his eyes.
Moments later, even though he was still in his cabin, Sunek was suddenly no longer there. Instead, he was on the Voroth Sea, listening to the gently lapping waves below.
He took in a deep lungful of salty air, then turned to look at the storm on the horizon. The storm that had allowed him to be just angry enough.
“Told you you needed me,” the storm announced with a light roll of thunder.
Sunek considered ignoring the irritating sound of his own voice. But deep down, he knew he had come here for a reason.
“You’re really cocky for a guy who’s just an emotional echo of a mind meld stuck in someone’s subconscious, you know?”
“Is that what you’ve decided I am today?”
Sunek had never previously thought that a thunderclap could sound pompous, but the latest crackle from the storm cloud somehow felt like that.
He sighed and looked down at the tranquil surface of the water. The irony of his increasing need for meditation over the last year hadn’t passed him by. He had hated it in his youth on Vulcan, and had been glad to leave it behind when he found the V’tosh ka’tur.
Yet, these days, he seemed to do more meditating than he’d managed during his brief, abortive attempt to qualify for the Kolinahr ritual.
And here he was again, in a meditative scene from his childhood masquerading as a daydream. Seeking some form of solace.
“Anyway,” he offered eventually, “I might have needed you for a bit. But that’s it. Now you’re done, ok?”
A shaft of lightning streaked out from the clouds to the ground.
“Oh, Sunek,” his own voice replied, drifting across the becalmed water, “I’m going nowhere…”
Sunek suppressed a shudder.
He thought back to how he had regained control of the Bounty. How he had chased away or otherwise subdued every last Miradorn worker. He recalled the terror in their faces, as they had fled from the angry Vulcan in the dirty vest, clutching a deadly Klingon blade.
And he pictured the first two Miradorn he had run into, in the Bounty’s cargo bay. The critical moment that had instilled such panic and fear in the rest of their ranks.
The two Miradorn that he had killed.
Still, there had been no other way. They were all over the ship. He was just one Vulcan in a dirty vest, against a dozen adversaries. He’d had to do it.
He’d been just angry enough. And he’d been in control. He was sure of that.
Pretty sure.
He looked back up at the storm. It was back on the horizon, where it belonged.
But, all around him, on the deck of the ancient sailing ship, he couldn’t help but wonder if the wind had picked up a bit...
****************************
Jirel reached Natasha’s cabin. He paused at this particular door, and considered reaching out for the buzzer.
Of all the people onboard, she had made the most effort to talk to him since Maya’s death. And he wondered if now was the time to stop shunning her.
After all, even though she was the newest member of the crew, it felt like she knew him better than anyone.
But eventually, he decided against it. Even she couldn’t help him this time.
So he walked on.
****************************
As she sat on her bed, Natasha was entirely unaware of Jirel’s moment of crisis outside her door.
Instead, she was lost in thought, gently fussing Spotty, the infertile tribble she had recently adopted, and that had miraculously survived the Bounty’s near-destruction‡.
She paused and wiped a fresh tear from the corner of her eye. Inside, she felt the guilt chewing away at her. It had been there ever since she had failed to save Maya’s life.
And she wasn’t quite sure why.
Throughout her years as a medic, she had lost patients before. Indeed, one of the first things they taught you at Starfleet Medical was the age-old saying that being a doctor was the only profession with a 100% failure rate.
Everybody dies.
And while every single previous loss in her care had affected her, none of them had provoked such a sense of guilt. Especially when there really was nothing she could have done for Maya’s injuries. Even with access to an entire Federation medical facility.
And yet, she felt guilty.
She stared down at the trilling tribble in her hands and suppressed another tear. She saw an image of a face forming in her own mind.
Maya Ortega was the first person that had died in her care since she had left Daniel Cartwright behind. The bloodied, broken ensign on the deck of the USS Navajo.
The man she should have tried to treat, but who she ran away from, into an escape pod. Leaving the mortally wounded ensign, and the mortally wounded starship, to its fate§.
That was where the guilt was coming from.
As she felt a fresh supply of tears welling up inside her, the console on her desk across the room suddenly chimed out. Secretly glad of the distraction, she gently set Spotty down and walked over.
She was somewhat shocked to see that it was a subspace message from Admiral Bryce Jenner. The Starfleet officer who had, for some reason, asked her to keep him apprised of the Bounty’s movements. And the man who happened to be Jirel’s adoptive father¶.
Jirel knew all about the arrangement, even if he understood it less than she did. But either way, she had been diligently sending him updates when she had the time.
But this was different.
A message from the Admiral directly. A direct request for an update on their current situation.
Up until now, he had always waited for her to send the messages. As sporadic as they were, he seemed happy to wait.
But for some reason, this time he seemed more urgent.
She was so distracted by this conundrum that the distant sound of the Bounty’s rear ramp lowering barely registered with her. It must just be Denella, heading off to start some repairs.
She stared down at the admiral’s message, and allowed that to distract her from her guilt.
****************************
Jirel reached the bottom of the Bounty’s ramp and set off across the landing pad towards the set of doors that led to the rest of the spaceport they had landed in.
Halfway to the doors, he stopped and turned back.
He smiled sadly as he took in the scarred hull of the ship. His ship. His home.
Except, it no longer seemed to feel that way. In a way, it wasn’t even his ship. He’d never actually fully owned it. And he also knew he couldn’t do this any more. Not now.
So, once again, he ran away from the consequences.
He had no idea where he was going, or what he would do when he got there. But he knew that he couldn’t stay here.
He turned back away from the Bounty. From his friends onboard. And from the memory of Maya Ortega. And he walked on.
The doors closed behind him. And Jirel was gone.
THE END
* - The Bounty's own 'origin story' in the Tyran Scrapyards was told in the prologue of Star Trek: Bounty - 12 - "The Woman Who Cried, Among Other Things, Wolf".
† - The flower gifted at the end of Star Trek: Bounty - 11 - "Love, but With More Aggressive Overtones".
‡ - 'Spotty' first appeared in the epilogue of Star Trek: Bounty - 10 - "Take Arms Against a Sea of Tribbles". How did he (and the flower in Denella's cabin, for that matter) survive a crash landing on a toxic planet, you ask? Plot armour, I guess.
§ - A callback to the very first scene of Star Trek: Bounty - 1 - "Where Neither Moth nor Rust Destroys", and an incident explored in further detail in Star Trek: Bounty - 7 - “One Character in Search of an Exit”.
¶ - An arrangement first discussed towards the end of Star Trek: Bounty - 2 - "Be All My Sins Forgiven".
It took three days for the Bounty to limp back to a neutral port for repairs. By which point, everyone had time to catch up on everything that had happened.
They had discovered that, after Grenk’s demise, an unlikely armistice had been brokered between the surviving Miradorn and the prisoners, apparently led by Shel-Lan and Gel-Lan. They had seized the now-ownerless Boundless Profit, loaded up on what duridium there was available, and taken off into the night.
Meanwhile, the shattered Bounty had hightailed it out of there. The ship was a wreck. Denella hadn’t even been able to estimate the time it would take to fix up. Nor now much it might cost. Though there was, for once, latinum to fund it all, thanks to their earlier payment from Maya.
But it wasn’t just the ship that was shattered. Her captain was as well.
With the Bounty parked up, Jirel stood in the middle of the empty cockpit and looked around with sadness. There was barely a single surface that wasn’t broken, damaged or scorched from the firefight that had nearly destroyed the ship. His captain’s chair, which had never been the most pristine of items, had a number of fresh burn marks across the weathered fabric.
It was in an even worse state than it had been when he had first stepped foot inside, back at the Tyran Scrapyards*. When the galaxy had been at his and Maya’s feet.
Ever since then, this place had felt like home. Like it was where he belonged. Here, he felt supported.
But he didn’t feel that now. All of a sudden, he felt empty. And alone.
She was dead. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not on the Bounty.
“Jirel.”
He hadn’t heard Klath entering the cockpit. Which, given the heavy footsteps of the Klingon, was a testament to how lost in his thoughts he had been.
Klath, for his part, was a little surprised to see him. For most of the journey, Jirel had isolated himself in his cabin. He had barely said a word to the others since that fateful moment outside the medical bay, and had instead spent his time drinking his way through the remains of his liquor cabinet in private.
And while he hadn’t found any contentment, he had made up his mind.
“I…have been meaning to talk to you,” Klath continued, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he reluctantly led the conversation, “Earlier, on the Ferengi’s ship, I spoke with Maya.”
The mention of her name forced Jirel to turn and acknowledge the hulking Klingon, the Trill using all of his mental strength to keep his eyes from moistening. He still had no idea how he felt about Maya, given her deception and subsequent sacrifice. But he knew enough to be in pain.
Klath felt uneasy at the lack of a verbal response. He was used to being the mute one in most conversations, and this role reversal was distinctly unnerving. Still, he continued.
“After what she had done, I…called her a coward. But, having heard what happened, I now see that I was mistaken. Whatever her prior actions, she died with honour—”
“Goddamn it, Klath!”
The ferocity of Jirel’s snapped response was enough to stop the unflappable Klingon warrior in his tracks, as he stared in shock into his friend’s eyes, red with anguish.
“Would you just…spare me the stupid goddamn honour speech for once!”
“I was merely—”
“Yeah, well, don’t. Ok? I don’t care if she died with honour! Nobody apart from you and your stupid beliefs cares about that! I care about the fact that she died at all!”
Jirel’s stinging words gave way to silence. Klath resisted the instinctive urge to meet this attack on his beliefs by ripping the Trill’s head from his shoulders. His friend was hurting, after all. But equally, he had no alternative words of comfort to offer him.
“You know,” Jirel continued, his tone calmer but sadder, “I’ve always said that everyone on the Bounty, all of us, are running away from something.”
Klath took some further offence at that. Klingons didn’t run away from things, after all.
“I guess I always thought I was running away from my past. From responsibility. But something Maya said to me was right. I guess I’m just running away from consequences.”
With a final unhappy glance around the shattered cockpit of the Bounty, he walked off past Klath to the steps at the rear of the room.
“This time,” he muttered, mostly to himself, “It’s gonna take a lot of running.”
Without another word, he descended the steps, leaving the baffled Klingon behind. He disappeared into his cabin, only for long enough to grab a small rucksack that was lying on his bed.
Then he resumed his walk down the corridor, passing by Denella’s cabin door.
****************************
Denella sat at her desk in her cabin and sighed.
In front of her, the cracked screen of the padd displayed the longest repair schedule she had ever drawn up. Which was saying something on the Bounty. She was prioritising everything as best she could, but it was a laborious process.
She stretched her tired back, rolling her head around and wondering how long it had been since she had eaten. And then she saw something in the corner of her cabin. Something she had completely forgotten about amongst everything else. She rushed over to rescue the victim of the Bounty’s latest misadventure from where it had fallen.
A long-stemmed, colourful flower. Its pot now shattered as a result of the ship’s violent landing.
A flower from Orpheus IV, where she had grown up. A gift from Juna Erami†.
Silently cursing herself for missing the plant’s plight until now, she carefully carried its wilted form back over to her desk. A stray petal dropped to the floor, but it was still clinging to life. It just needed some repair work of its own.
Denella gently inhaled the scent of the flower, allowing her mind to fill with happy memories of her childhood. Before the Syndicate had come along.
And she added an extra, high priority task to her repair schedule. A new pot and a very careful piece of replanting for this most treasured of items.
The scent of the flower also meant that she couldn’t help but think of Erami herself.
She set the plant down and tapped the computer interface on her desk, calling up her subspace messages. A familiar list, almost all from the Bajoran, popped up. Even though they had only said goodbye a few weeks ago, it already felt like months had passed.
Having promised to keep in touch with her new friend, Erami had been true to her word. The list of messages proved that.
All of them sat there. All of them still unread.
The Orion stared at the list, feeling as overwhelmed as the last time she had looked at it, and then turned her attention back to the padd.
She could deal with the repair schedule.
The messages remained unread.
****************************
Jirel walked on, adjusting the rucksack on his shoulder.
He passed by Sunek’s cabin without a second glance.
****************************
Sunek lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling, then calmly closed his eyes.
Moments later, even though he was still in his cabin, Sunek was suddenly no longer there. Instead, he was on the Voroth Sea, listening to the gently lapping waves below.
He took in a deep lungful of salty air, then turned to look at the storm on the horizon. The storm that had allowed him to be just angry enough.
“Told you you needed me,” the storm announced with a light roll of thunder.
Sunek considered ignoring the irritating sound of his own voice. But deep down, he knew he had come here for a reason.
“You’re really cocky for a guy who’s just an emotional echo of a mind meld stuck in someone’s subconscious, you know?”
“Is that what you’ve decided I am today?”
Sunek had never previously thought that a thunderclap could sound pompous, but the latest crackle from the storm cloud somehow felt like that.
He sighed and looked down at the tranquil surface of the water. The irony of his increasing need for meditation over the last year hadn’t passed him by. He had hated it in his youth on Vulcan, and had been glad to leave it behind when he found the V’tosh ka’tur.
Yet, these days, he seemed to do more meditating than he’d managed during his brief, abortive attempt to qualify for the Kolinahr ritual.
And here he was again, in a meditative scene from his childhood masquerading as a daydream. Seeking some form of solace.
“Anyway,” he offered eventually, “I might have needed you for a bit. But that’s it. Now you’re done, ok?”
A shaft of lightning streaked out from the clouds to the ground.
“Oh, Sunek,” his own voice replied, drifting across the becalmed water, “I’m going nowhere…”
Sunek suppressed a shudder.
He thought back to how he had regained control of the Bounty. How he had chased away or otherwise subdued every last Miradorn worker. He recalled the terror in their faces, as they had fled from the angry Vulcan in the dirty vest, clutching a deadly Klingon blade.
And he pictured the first two Miradorn he had run into, in the Bounty’s cargo bay. The critical moment that had instilled such panic and fear in the rest of their ranks.
The two Miradorn that he had killed.
Still, there had been no other way. They were all over the ship. He was just one Vulcan in a dirty vest, against a dozen adversaries. He’d had to do it.
He’d been just angry enough. And he’d been in control. He was sure of that.
Pretty sure.
He looked back up at the storm. It was back on the horizon, where it belonged.
But, all around him, on the deck of the ancient sailing ship, he couldn’t help but wonder if the wind had picked up a bit...
****************************
Jirel reached Natasha’s cabin. He paused at this particular door, and considered reaching out for the buzzer.
Of all the people onboard, she had made the most effort to talk to him since Maya’s death. And he wondered if now was the time to stop shunning her.
After all, even though she was the newest member of the crew, it felt like she knew him better than anyone.
But eventually, he decided against it. Even she couldn’t help him this time.
So he walked on.
****************************
As she sat on her bed, Natasha was entirely unaware of Jirel’s moment of crisis outside her door.
Instead, she was lost in thought, gently fussing Spotty, the infertile tribble she had recently adopted, and that had miraculously survived the Bounty’s near-destruction‡.
She paused and wiped a fresh tear from the corner of her eye. Inside, she felt the guilt chewing away at her. It had been there ever since she had failed to save Maya’s life.
And she wasn’t quite sure why.
Throughout her years as a medic, she had lost patients before. Indeed, one of the first things they taught you at Starfleet Medical was the age-old saying that being a doctor was the only profession with a 100% failure rate.
Everybody dies.
And while every single previous loss in her care had affected her, none of them had provoked such a sense of guilt. Especially when there really was nothing she could have done for Maya’s injuries. Even with access to an entire Federation medical facility.
And yet, she felt guilty.
She stared down at the trilling tribble in her hands and suppressed another tear. She saw an image of a face forming in her own mind.
Maya Ortega was the first person that had died in her care since she had left Daniel Cartwright behind. The bloodied, broken ensign on the deck of the USS Navajo.
The man she should have tried to treat, but who she ran away from, into an escape pod. Leaving the mortally wounded ensign, and the mortally wounded starship, to its fate§.
That was where the guilt was coming from.
As she felt a fresh supply of tears welling up inside her, the console on her desk across the room suddenly chimed out. Secretly glad of the distraction, she gently set Spotty down and walked over.
She was somewhat shocked to see that it was a subspace message from Admiral Bryce Jenner. The Starfleet officer who had, for some reason, asked her to keep him apprised of the Bounty’s movements. And the man who happened to be Jirel’s adoptive father¶.
Jirel knew all about the arrangement, even if he understood it less than she did. But either way, she had been diligently sending him updates when she had the time.
But this was different.
A message from the Admiral directly. A direct request for an update on their current situation.
Up until now, he had always waited for her to send the messages. As sporadic as they were, he seemed happy to wait.
But for some reason, this time he seemed more urgent.
She was so distracted by this conundrum that the distant sound of the Bounty’s rear ramp lowering barely registered with her. It must just be Denella, heading off to start some repairs.
She stared down at the admiral’s message, and allowed that to distract her from her guilt.
****************************
Jirel reached the bottom of the Bounty’s ramp and set off across the landing pad towards the set of doors that led to the rest of the spaceport they had landed in.
Halfway to the doors, he stopped and turned back.
He smiled sadly as he took in the scarred hull of the ship. His ship. His home.
Except, it no longer seemed to feel that way. In a way, it wasn’t even his ship. He’d never actually fully owned it. And he also knew he couldn’t do this any more. Not now.
So, once again, he ran away from the consequences.
He had no idea where he was going, or what he would do when he got there. But he knew that he couldn’t stay here.
He turned back away from the Bounty. From his friends onboard. And from the memory of Maya Ortega. And he walked on.
The doors closed behind him. And Jirel was gone.
THE END
* - The Bounty's own 'origin story' in the Tyran Scrapyards was told in the prologue of Star Trek: Bounty - 12 - "The Woman Who Cried, Among Other Things, Wolf".
† - The flower gifted at the end of Star Trek: Bounty - 11 - "Love, but With More Aggressive Overtones".
‡ - 'Spotty' first appeared in the epilogue of Star Trek: Bounty - 10 - "Take Arms Against a Sea of Tribbles". How did he (and the flower in Denella's cabin, for that matter) survive a crash landing on a toxic planet, you ask? Plot armour, I guess.
§ - A callback to the very first scene of Star Trek: Bounty - 1 - "Where Neither Moth nor Rust Destroys", and an incident explored in further detail in Star Trek: Bounty - 7 - “One Character in Search of an Exit”.
¶ - An arrangement first discussed towards the end of Star Trek: Bounty - 2 - "Be All My Sins Forgiven".
Great emotional epilogue. Now begins STB 14: The Search for Jirel...
I'm really liking how the reactions of the various crew members are handled. They're really more a family now than ever, but they haven't realized it yet.
Thanks!! rbs
I'm really liking how the reactions of the various crew members are handled. They're really more a family now than ever, but they haven't realized it yet.
Thanks!! rbs
Thank you for reading and commenting here, and throughout the ‘first season’ of ST:Bounty.
The ‘misfit family’ dynamic is definitely what I’m aiming for and developing throughout this series. Every character isn’t quite what they’re expected to be, to some extent. Literal misfits. The unjoined orphan Trill, the Starfleet officer who did the wrong thing, the ex-slave girl turned grease monkey, the dishonoured Klingon exile and the emotional Vulcan idiot. Even the ship, a battered old raider saved from the scrapyard is running away from being decommissioned (or whatever you do to civilian ships).
There might be a long gap before the next story. The first few episodes of the ‘second season’ are coming together nicely (IMVHO), but none are really ready for public consumption. So consider this a season break, I guess. Star Trek: Bounty will return later in 2024.
In the meantime, at the risk of causing a bit of forum clutter, I might set up a Bounty ‘overview’ thread to index the stories so far in one place, and also post any random character bits, backstories or development ideas I have lying around on my hard drive, to keep everything ticking over.
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