"You can't be serious!"
Deleth shot her a glare over his shoulder. "I am deadly serious."
"Listen, we can't afford to be choosy about who rescues us! I'll broadcast a message to both our peoples, and we'll go with whoever gets to us first."
"If you send a message via regular subspace channels, all you'll do is bring more Klingons down on our heads. They'll reign fire from orbit and kill us both, along with everything else alive in this valley - down to the bacteria. Your people will be intercepted as soon as they enter Klingon space, and killed. I have access codes to encrypted Romulan subspace channels, not to mention my people have cloaking technology and far more experience with stealth operations into Klingon territory!"
Efet was so frustrated she wanted to cry. Her face was hot and just looking at Deleth made her feel awful. The cold hard truth was, Efet didn't trust the Romulans. She didn't trust them to come for them, and she didn't trust them to return her to her people. For all she knew, she'd end up being dissected in some Tal Shiar secret prison somewhere. Deleth was so cold, she found it hard to believe he really care about her concerns, which he deflected offhandedly, as though she were a petulant child. She could hardly believe this was the man with whom she had blissfully shared her body just hours before. For the first time, she was seeing the sharklike Romulan soldier in him, and she didn't like it.
"So, I should just trust you that your people will return me safely to Cardassia?" Efet snapped, letting her bitterness and disappointment taint her voice. "The Romulan Star Navy will just ferry me back to my homeworld, like its an all-expenses-paid pleasure cruise!"
Deleth sighed deeply. "And suppose they did not?" he asked, turning to her and grasping her by the shoulders. Efet stuck out her chin and looked up at him defiantly. "If they did not return you to Cardassia, would it be so terrible to stay with me?"
Efet's jaw dropped. That was absolutely the last thing she'd expected him to say. "I -I -!"
"I don't want you to go back to your people!" Deleth told her forcefully. "I want you to stay with me! Why is that so terrible? You could live with me on my homeworld, where you'd have access to advantages you'd never dreamed of. You wouldn't waste away fixing ODN relays on some backwater outpost."
"Deleth," Efet managed, "you hardly know me."
"How can you say that!" Deleth gave her a look so heartbroken, he seemed to be in physical pain. Efet knew at once that she had made some major miscalculation when it came to his feelings for her. The agony in his eyes cut her up inside into ribbons. "I was willing to give my life for you. To share my life with you. And you say I hardly know you!"
"I misspoke," Efet whispered, but he went on before she could speak further.
"You have made your feelings clear. If remaining with me is so distasteful, then I will see to it that you are returned safely to Cardassian space, one way or another." He released her and stalked on ahead, his shoulders hunched.
"Deleth!" She ran to catch up with him.
"We have work to do," he gritted out. "We still have to take the Klingon guard compound. Let us agree to put our... personal feelings aside for the time being."
Tears glistened in her eyes. Efet wasn't sure how things had gone so wrong so quickly, but she felt sure they could work this out. She knew Deleth had taken what she said as a rejection, and was trying to push her away to protect himself. She wasn't sure if she could forsake her own people to follow him into an alien and hostile environment, but she knew she cared deeply for him and it was something she was willing to consider. It was staggering to realize he had actually dreamed up some kind of future for the two of them, something beyond a mere sexual encounter. A lot of men had fantasies about alien women, but few seriously considered a life with one.
Deleth absolutely did not wish to talk right now, so Efet settled for following along behind him for the time being. They were heading towards the landing strip where she'd been left on that first day, then veered slightly north-west to a small hollow in the thick jungle. Deleth signaled to her to stay quiet as they crept forward. The compound was small - Deleth had been right, surely no more than five or six Klingons could be stationed here at the same time. It was a squat one-story building, built up against a large boulder that erupted out of the landscape. Efet could see weapons mounted on the roof, and more at the barred windows, but there was no sign of life. If they were lucky, the Klingon guards had all been buried alive in the landslide, leaving no one to man the station. They could break in, commandeer some subspace communications equipment and the hovercraft, and be on their way within ten to twelve hours. Efet nearly shook with excitement. She had never been so close to escape, she could almost taste it!
Deleth waved at her, then held up a pebble and tossed it in the direction of the compound. It bounced harmlessly off a glittering force field. That wasn't entirely unexpected; the guards would've been foolish to leave their compound unguarded, with doors unlocked to any and all prisoners in the vicinity.
Efet crawled over to him to whisper into his ear, "If I can find the emitters, I can bring down the force field. It should only take a few minutes." One of her classes at the Ministry of Science had been in disabling and enabling various force fields and containment fields, including those used by the major powers in the Quadrant: Cardassian, Federation, Klingon, and Romulan. She sketched out a small image in the mud of what the emitter would look like. Deleth nodded, then made a half-circle motion with his finger, which Efet took to mean that they would each search for an emitter in the area ringing the compound and meet in the middle. She went left and he went right, staying low to the ground like voles.
She had made her way nearly to the massive boulder when she spotted it, cleverly disguised and hidden in a nook in the stone. Almost crowing with excitement, Efet found a small branch and pried the box open to find a tangle of components - typical sloppy Klingon work - and she had it rewired in under a minute. When the force field went down, she couldn't contain herself - she actually jumped up and down to celebrate.
Something hard pressed against her spine. "Move, and I'll kill you," a voice growled.
Efet nearly fainted. She didn't dare look over her shoulder to see who it was. Instead, her eyes darted about, hoping to spot Deleth and warn him away before he got caught, too. How could she have been so careless? She had been so close!
The door to the compound opened, and a female Klingon appeared. She was holding a phaser rifle and was watching the jungle, no doubt ready for an attack. Efet's captor pushed her forward, and putting her hands up in surrender, she meekly complied.
When they entered the compound, Efet was tossed to the floor, falling onto her hands and knees. Behind her, the door was slammed and locked. Blood pounded in her ears; she felt faint. How could she have let them take her unawares? Where was Deleth? Had they hurt them? She dared a glance up through the fall of her hair covering her face. A male Klingon, a big study fellow who wore fur and one of those sashes, stood guarding the door.
The female Klingon yanked her to her feet. "Where is he?!"
"Who?" Efet played dumb.
"The Romulan!"
"I-I don't know what you're talking about." So they hadn't captured or killed Deleth after all. Relief flooded her body.
The female Klingon laughed in her face. She had a fierce sort of beauty, with that spray of eyebrows and her jagged teeth. "This petaQ thinks us to be fools!" She got right up in Efet's face, nose to nose. "Do not lie to me again. You reek of Romulan."
The male Klingon roared in frustration as he checked a computer console. "The force fields are still offline!" he snarled, then tore a piece of casing from the console and flung it down the hall.
"Silence!" the female Klingon told him. Turning to Efet, she said, "It was you and your companion who tampered with our emitters, fix them!" She held a knife to Efet's throat.
Efet squeezed her eyes shut and tried to accept death. Summoning all her courage for one last lie, she said, "It was De- the Romulan who sabotaged the emitters. I can't fix them. I was trying to break one when you caught me."
The female Klingon's eyes narrowed. "That cannot be," she muttered. Turning to her companion, she barked at him, "Where was this one taken?"
"How am I to know? It was before my time here." The male Klingon glowered at them both.
"You fool! If we knew what her profession was, we'd know if she had the knowledge to dismantle our emitters or not." She grabbed Efet and began marching her down the hall.
The Klingon compound was poorly lit, and dank, and reeked of food, leather, oil, and something that was presumably Klingon body sweat. It reminded Efet of the time she'd spent on the Klingon ship when she was being brought here. They passed a room that seemed to be the kitchen - Efet heard animals squealing, and Klingons liked their food fresh, sometimes still wiggling. There did not seem to be a brig here, as the female Klingon marched her into what was clearly quarters. It had two racks of bunks, and a room off to the side that presumably held a shower and a toilet. Actually, given the smell, maybe not a shower, Efet thought as she wrinkled her nose. The female Klingon shoved her towards a bed, and Efet sat, still holding up her hands in surrender. The Klingon female stormed over to a cabinet and swore loudly as she began digging through it.
"What are you doing?!" the male Klingon demanded to know as he followed them in. "Kill her and be done with it!"
"Silence, you pig! She's our only leverage against the Romulan." The female Klingon swore again as she flung what appeared to be medical supplies on the floor. "These are all expired! Useless!" Slamming the cabinet shut, she walked back toward Efet. "I was trying to find a regenerator and an abortifacient, but the idiots who commanded this hellhole let everything expire and moulder. They have failed us all!"
The male Klingon seemed taken aback. "Why bother?"
"She's been raped, you baktag!"
Efet cowered before them, trying to play the part of victim as best she could. The female Klingon seemed to pity her, and Efet would rather not reveal anything of the true nature of her relationship with Deleth if she could help it. The Klingons quarreled for several minutes, until the female finally ordered the male to try to fix the emitters and sent him stomping off. That being done, she turned back to Efet and put her hands on her hips.
"Do I need to hurt you, or will you talk willingly?"
"I'll talk," Efet said quickly.
"Will the Romulan come for you?"
"I don't know," Efet replied.
"I think he will." The female Klingon frowned. "Why were the two of you lurking out there?"
"We were trying to break in, we thought it was empty," Efet admitted. "We found the landslide and thought maybe the guards were all dead."
"No, not all!" The female Klingon blew an irritated snort through her nose. Efet wondered who she was and how she'd ended up here. She must've arrived after Efet, as she had no idea who Efet was or that she'd been an engineer. She seemed like she was in command, but Efet was pretty sure that Klingon women weren't usually given command positions. Perhaps she merely outranked the sole surviving male. He seemed to chafe under the female Klingon's insults and commands, something Efet filed away in her head as potentially useful. Right now, although she was in great danger, she had several advantages. They didn't know Efet's capabilities, or what her relationship with Deleth was really like, and most importantly, Deleth was still at large. Efet had no doubt he'd come to rescue her, and it was up to her to make his attempt successful.