Chapter Eight
Backseat Driving
Quark…?
Mmph, just a dream…
Quark, are you okay? The words echoed round in enigmatic whispers like some kind of espionage mission. Or maybe it was just the delicateness of someone trying to get someone's attention without being smacked in the face by the one the waker was trying to wake.
Oh, could he just sleep whatever the problem was off?
Can you hear me? the voice asked again with some more stable sense of clarity.
Rom trying to wake him up again?
No, wait. He didn't live on the station anymore, did he? Idiot.
He moaned.
"Quark?"
Pel…
He blinked.
The pucker-browed, wide-eyed, clench-toothed face was hovering above him like something between some frantic little child and a concerned mother. Hey, kind of like Rom! He might have laughed if he was in a better mood.
"What?" he growled instead, closing his eyes.
"Sh!" Pel hissed half-covering his mouth as she did. "He'll hear."
Besides Pel and the sound of a Human that was most likely Bashir, he could hear the distinct sound of engines running— the kind that meant being thrust forward as well as small inner-workings of machinery that told him even before he could use his other senses in the situation, that they were most-likely on a small vessel. An escape vehicle. Where and why were the questions, but whoever was in charge of the craft was pushing it to its limit by the sound and the slight shaking.
A cold floor was beneath him. His shoulder and that part of his back that was hurt from some fall when he had been taken over by
the parasite were hurting more from his second fall. He probably had a bruise on his elbow too, and his head hurt a little.
An exit was sealed off. The lights were dim. The space was smaller because of the crates that were sealed down around him; though, it was not an especially large space anyway. It was more like an oversized trunk than a holding bay.
"Are you hurt at all?" breathed Pel.
Quark just looked at her and raised a brow sulkily for a moment.
He was just recalling Broik to mind. He was not the one who had fired at them, though. Who had that been? He couldn't recall. Not Pel. He knew that for sure.
"Who's flying this thing?" Quark whispered back.
"Broik, as far as I know," whispered Bashir.
"Or what's controlling him," Quark remarked, but that made him remember his own parasite.
He stood up. A wave of dizziness swept over him. His ears were ringing. In his panic he almost forgot to be quiet as he gasped, "How long do I got, how long was—?"
"Shhhhhh!" both Bashir and Pel hissed on either side of his woozy head.
He slumped back down to his knees. He had not quite reached full height, and knee-level was where the party was anyway. Holding his head as in an attempt to keep it steady he could not help but feel sick.
"It's under control," said Bashir; they were all speaking as quietly as possible. "Miraculously, I have the device that immobilizes the parasite with me, and we just used it now on you before we woke you."
"That would explain why I feel like I'm going to vomit, I'm assuming," Quark grumbled. "Can't you adjust it, so it doesn't affect my hearing at least?"
"Not with the equipment I have access to," Bashir answered. "You should be thankful I have it at all."
"I am."
"Besides, the side-effects might get better now that you're awake."
Quark waved his hand aside. "So Broik's flying the ship… Who was the other guy?"
"What other guy?" asked Pel.
"There was another person originally," Bashir backed up. "Not a Ferengi and not the Aavarans."
"Too oversized and hairy," Quark agreed. "But I thought you said that no one can get on or off the station. Can't even beam off, right? So what's going on?"
"The unknown technology at work again, most-likely."
"Right."
Quark could not help but notice that Pel was looking deeply concerned at him out of the corner of his eyes, but when he turned to her, she quickly looked away. Betraying herself more easily that way anyway, especially with the tensing of her whole little frame, Pel could only look at Bashir again.
With a half-smile, Quark returned to Bashir.
"But why'd he kidnap her?"
"He didn't," said Pel. "This is my ship. I have an alert system, of course."
She pulled it from the pocket of her tunic coat. The alert was still blinking silently. She turned it off.
"There was no one with me at the moment, so I went to investigate. I thought I could overtake him at first, but I heard… well, like you said, someone else. I think… I think he was Bajoran. They had you two in the hold. I went in after you to get into a better position where I could catch them off guard in the cockpit with this from the hold." She revealed a handy little weapon of her own. "But that's when we were taking off. By the time I was prepared again, the doctor woke up and told me to wait. We've been waiting a while now." She sounded disappointed. "Adjusting his gadget there. We might even be close to a destination now."
"This other conveniently mysterious person didn't come with then?" Quark asked.
"When I listened at the door," said Pel. "I didn't hear another person in the cockpit besides Broik, and Broik was frantic enough for two, anyway. We can take him easily."
"Won't he have us locked in here, Pel?" Bashir asked.
"Of course he will," said Quark, "but this is her ship so…"
"But he'll hear the override of the lock, won't he?"
Quark shrugged. "There's three of us and one of him. He might know we're in here talking already, so the sooner we get going the better before he gets a weapon of his own ready. He's probably not unarmed."
"Is your thing ready, though?" asked Pel.
"What thing?" Quark demanded.
Bashir held it up. "With some of Pel's equipment I was able to devise a way to make my parasite immobilizer more secure behind your head so it can stay on and is timed for every three and a half hours to initiate the immobilization. I wanted to make sure that no matter what happened we could still use this.
"Now we can use it on Broik," Pel insisted as though she had pressed this to Bashir several times already.
"Hopefully, without anyone getting hurt," added Bashir.
#
Fear.
Paralyzing. Deep-rooted. All-consuming.
Fear.
Blackness. Total blackness. Deaf and senseless. Then the light and sound would return. And his hands would be sweating like an ice cube in the sun.
Broik was still shaking. The terror hurt so much sometimes he thought he might pass out from it, unless he was already dreaming. Admittedly, he felt as though he went in and out of consciousness continuously, but what he was doing he could not rightly say. He was just fleeing. He had been planning to flee since Starfleet arrived.
Blackness again overtook him.
Is it Starfleet I'm running away from? Or the Keeoopii?
He didn't know.
He didn't know anything, really. A Bajoran had been there to help him with his boss in the hold. Why the hold and not the cockpit? He was not sure. He was not sure how Quark got into his hands or why, anyway, but he had him and some other person. What was he for?
He didn't know.
Blackness.
He was flying a ship. Or at least he thought he was. Most of the time it seemed like he was doing it as a sleepwalker flying aimlessly through voids, passing empty stars and planets and space-dust, but he knew he was aimed for home.
He had not been home for a very long time. Part of him knew that he would not recognize it, really. So much had changed. A blood-red rage was filling him about it as he thought of it.
He had avoided it for so long. Not out of rage, really originally, but out of fear more than anything. Fear of a home that was slipping on the other side of a scale. What weighed down one side was weighing just as much on the other— no, more so! It was heavier now than it had ever been.
That was why he remained at that bar. The stability of Quark's was as eternal as Morn there first thing every morning to sit at the counter. Through every era and dominion, it remained stable.
Well, okay, it was anger too. He'd admit it. He was almost angrier about it than Quark was. But fear took a top-shelf position. 9000 years of the same Ferenginar coming to an end. Was it a punishment for the abuse of the Rules of Acquisition to make laws to oppress females? Now everyone was oppressed. That's all he knew, and he didn't want to go back.
No.
He was compelled to go back. He was afraid to look back the way from which he had come.
Blackness overtook him.
Stars came into vision again, but it was a sound, which had roused him. Fear peaked to its zenith. He spun around to the holding door. Someone was overriding the lock. But Quark did not even have Rom there. He was usually the expert at such things!
The other person with him?
Wasn't it… Dr. Bashir?
Really?
Why was Bashir here? He recalled him as a good customer and a fine tipper as well as a good doctor that saved his boss more than one, and Broik himself from the embarrassment of having to live with a broken tooth, which they never told anyone about.
He ran his tongue across that good-as-new tooth now.
He won't be here for long. A voice seemed to consume him despite not truly hearing it.
Blackness enshrouded him as the emotions of rage and fear boiled over together. He knew no more, except that he had managed to fumble for that phaser he had stolen.
#
Pel held up her weapon, but Broik was already firing.
A high-pitched scream escaped her, and she ducked as fast and as hard as she could.
Tssw…!
The heat of laser-fire seared above her scalp as she collapsed onto the floor. Blinking almost stupidly, she came to her senses enough to decide that she didn't think she was hurt, despite the narrow escape. Had she had hair, it probably would have been singed. But hardly able to catch her breath, she had to keep her mind on Broik as Quark and Bashir came through the doorway.
Before Broik could fire again, with gritted teeth and still on her stomach, Pel had her little pistol aimed just between Broik's eyes before he could fire again. Broik stopped with a growl and a Ferengi hiss.
"Broik!" said Bashir.
"Or whoever's listening," Quark quickly corrected. "You're outnumbered! Give it up."
Recoiling more like a child from a beast than a beast itself, Broik dropped the phaser.
Quark snatched it up at warp speed.
Pel was up on her feet still holding her weapon and her teeth still fenced together as she breathed fiercely through them. She hated to admit it, but it was comforting to stand beside Quark in this. Like when she had been with him against the Dosi.
What a team they might have made, but she shook her head.
She lifted her eyes to Bashir ready to use his special weapon, and he was careful not to expose it as he came forward.
With a pout, Broik was about to sit in his seat at the controls.
"Ah! Ah!" said Quark motioning with his phaser. "The other seat."
Broik, or what was left of him in that seething shaking mass of flesh, at first seemed unable to move as he glared hard at Quark.
"Can he hear us?" whispered Pel.
"Sh!" said Quark, and then to Broik again he said, "You heard me. Siddown. Like a good hostage, and if you can hear any of this, Broik, if you don't cooperate I'm taking this from your paycheck, okay?"
The pout returned on Broik's face, deeper this time.
"Really?" asked Bashir with a raised brow.
"Rule of Acquisition Number 10," said Pel with a promptly. "'Greed is Eternal.'"
Quark did not answer but kept full senses on Broik— listening hard for any sudden flicker of inner-movement that would become violent outer-movement quickly enough. But Broik was still only sluggishly moving towards the correct seat.
Though Pel was concentrating perhaps just as hard upon Broik, suddenly something caught her eye rather than her ear. Just as Broik sat down and Bashir moved swiftly forward to use his weapon, a light blinked on the computer screen. She leaned down to see it clutching the side of the pilot chair.
"We're headed for Ferenginar," Pel gasped as she looked.
"Rule of Acquisition Number 255," said Quark. "'The person who owns the kinky ship better fly it.'"
It wasn't, of course, a rule of anything, but she had already been obeying the rule even before he spoke. They were coming into orbit. The craft made a lurch as it was not on automatic and no one had been there to make the switch for planetary entry.
They were not the only ship coming in nearby either. Ferenginar was a very busy place, especially within the past few years because of the changes and everyone going about to be there in person to monitor their business transitions. The nearby ship likely took note of them— likely to notice their stupidity, really. They would have to be careful when they landed or the observers might want to try to "sell" their services. But that was the least of their worries at the moment.
First they had to land.
That lurch was enough to distract everyone on board, except apparently Broik. Or the parasite. Perhaps the real Broik had been coming through a little in the presence of Quark and Bashir. Pel did not know how it worked, but from what Bashir had told her, there was some amount of inner battle over the brain between host and parasite. As she was steadying her ship like an expert rider calming a runaway kabyu, the Keeoopii parasite lunged forward against Pel just before Bashir could attach his parasite immobilizer.
It was like when the bonive went wild just when the kabyu was calmed, and there was no taming a male bonive easily once it was
on a rampage. It was an activity that still scared her and had her watching only in awe at the ease with which Mr. Mustan-Gia and his wife could do it while riding a kabyu.
She left her weapon in the chair as Broik was ripping her off the chair. Quark fired, but Broik had Pel twisted round so that he almost hit her instead. Not helpless herself, Pel kicked her riding boot back into his shin. They both fell to the floor with Broik's howl.
"Idiot!" Quark was shouting; though at whom Pel was not one hundred percent sure.
Broik kicked his boss into the controls.
The madness that ensued from a single person against three was amazing. Even while it was happening Pel felt somewhat beside herself. The ship was entering the atmosphere. Bashir was struggling to separate her from Broik, and Quark, once he recovered from the wind being blown out of him, took over the controls despite his faux rule.
The ship was already hot.
Pel snatched the phaser from Quark as her own weapon had skidded across the cockpit, and just as she turned Bashir finally had Broik by the ear— the best natural way to immobilizer a Ferengi out of control. The howl was a terrible torrent of pain, fear, and manic fury, but Bashir very soon ended it with the immobilizer pressed behind that ear before Broik could do anything else.
Pel then dove to Quark's side at the controls.
"No, use this lever!" she snapped.
"But that's the backup!" Quark snarled.
"I know! But the main control is partly jammed again, because of you ramming into it!" she shouted back.
"I can hear you, you know!"
The musical alarm was going off.
It was definitely heating up in there and far more than because of the argument.
"Give me the controls!" Pel said.
"I'm trying! Get off my back!"
"Just cooperate for five seconds, will you?" snapped Bashir.
"We're leveling it!" Pel returned.
"Mind your own business, Bashir!" Quark barked.
The glow of red around the ship was subsiding only to reveal a smoking vision of tangled purple and green foliage and dome-like structures cropping through them like mushrooms. Lines of high and highly-packed roads with high rails round them peeked through and disappeared again into the oncoming foliage they were aimed for.
"Oh!" Pel squeaked.
She threw her arms over her head. Quark grabbed her and pulled her under the control panel.
Down they plunged through the layer of swamp-cake. First, the frosting of mossy, swampy foliage, which they tore with them through the canopy. Then came the cakey plunge. The deep suction boomed through their bodies. They slammed forward, but they were already against the plushy foot-hold beneath the control.
Then as suddenly as it happened, it was over.
Opening her eyes, Pel lifted her head just a little.
All was dark and silent for a moment or so except for mud sloshing around the ship and everyone's racing systems beneath heavy breaths.
She let her head drop again against Quark's arm still partway around her. Quark barely moved except for his continued panting breaths.
Howling.
Pel almost let out another shriek of her own to hear it. Quark tensed against her, but the howls were not nearly as menacing, fearful, or rabid as they had been before despite coming from Broik. Though, it was a sound of full panic as he tore himself out from under the other seat's foot hold.