Part Two
The Bounty streaked through space at warp, the cargo bay loaded up with vintage bloodwine.
From the forward pilot's console, Sunek gazed out of the window at the streaking starscape ahead and tried to use his innate Vulcan senses to tell precisely when it was going to happen. There wouldn't be any outward sign that it had happened. One patch of space was much the same as the others in most respects. But still, he knew that they were just about to cross a particular metaphorical Rubicon.
Any second…now.
He glanced back down at his instruments and tutted unhappily. He'd been five point two seconds off.
Must be losing it, he thought to himself.
"We're now entering Klingon space," he called out five point two seconds later, "ETA to Brexis II, thirty-two hours."
The news didn't come as much of a surprise to anyone. They had transmitted their details to a nearby sentry post to secure passage across the border a scant few minutes ago. Still, it felt like the sort of thing that deserved an announcement.
To the right of the cockpit, where Klath sat at his usual tactical station, he couldn't help but feel something inside him as he heard the Vulcan's words. A mixture of happiness and unease as he returned to Klingon territory. He didn't think he'd given away any outward sign of his true feelings, but he hadn't factored in quite how well his crewmates knew him.
"So," Denella asked gently from the rear engineering station, "How does it feel to be back?"
Klath snapped a glare at the kind face of the engineer, as the unease suddenly swamped the happiness inside.
"It is just another region of space," he replied with as casual a tone as he could muster, "There is nothing to…feel about it."
"Right," she nodded back, evidently not convinced.
Klath found himself quietly grinding his teeth at this, and decided that he would rather be elsewhere, before Denella decided to discuss his feelings any further.
"I should check over our paperwork," he announced to the rest of the crew as he stood, "Everything must be in order for our arrival."
He turned and walked down the steps at the rear of the cockpit, just as Jirel swivelled round in his centre chair.
"I'll give him a hand."
"Jirel," Denella cautioned as the Trill strode towards the steps in the Klingon's wake, "Don't try to get to the guy. This is bigger than some tribble hunt, ok?"
"Hey, you know what it's like with paperwork. Just gonna lend him a hand. Scout's honour."
Before Denella could argue her point any further, he disappeared down the steps.
Natasha watched the exchange from her own console on the left side of the cockpit. It still wasn't clear what the console had been used for in the past. When she had first been offered it as a place to sit, the entire thing had been powered down and broken. But Denella had since found time to rig up a few of the consoles, turning it into a rudimentary station showing a variety of sensor readouts. And right now, she kept a close eye on what the sensors were telling her.
There was something about travelling the galaxy in a ship as small as the Bounty that made her a little more wary of something like flying into Klingon space, compared to how she had felt onboard starships in the past.
She could acknowledge the irony of her concerns, given that the last time she had been onboard a starship, the USS Navajo had been destroyed with all other hands by Jem'Hadar fighters. Still, compared to the surroundings of the Excelsior-class ship, the Bounty often felt like she was flying around the galaxy in a tin can.
"Surprised nobody's come to meet us yet," she offered into the silence that had descended.
To her surprise, a new voice responded to her concern, as Karn stomped up the steps and into the cockpit.
"The border points have received your registry," he grunted, "Besides, I don't suppose anyone would bother to alter course for a…garbage scow like this."
As the young Klingon somewhat pompously glanced around the Bounty's weathered cockpit, his verbal attack made Denella's defences rise faster than a deflector shield.
"If you don't like it here," she replied, as calmly as possible, "I'm more than happy to give you a brief tour of the airlock."
Karn swivelled around and glared at her, with no small amount of menace. For her part, Denella held her own just as much as she had done during their bat'leth fight. She even felt confident enough to lick her lips and reach into her growing list of Klingon phrases.
"Or, perhaps I should say: mamI' DaneH'a'! nItebHa' mamI' DaneH'a'!"
Karn looked a little taken aback to hear her respond in Klingonese. Or, more specifically, that she had chosen to respond with that particular bit of Klingonese.
"You just asked me if I wanted to dance."
"Oh," Denella replied, looking a little less sure of herself, "Well, what's the one that goes: Your mother has a smooth forehead, and your father drinks Romulan ale with Starfleet admirals?"
Karn considered this for a moment.
"I'm not telling you," he grunted back eventually, "Besides, it was merely a…friendly passing observation about your vessel."
From behind her console, Natasha struggled to remember ever hearing the word 'friendly' being delivered with less friendliness. Still, Denella was determined to defend the Bounty's honour.
"Yeah, well, pass your observations somewhere else. Because there's nothing wrong with her."
For once, that statement was actually true. For the first time in a very long time indeed, Denella had finally managed to repair and resolve every single one of the Bounty's most pressing issues on her to-do list. And while there were still plenty of refits and improvements that she had in mind, every ship's system was - at this moment in time - fully functional.
Until a sudden alert chimed out from her engineering station in front of her.
Karn's face twisted into a slight sneer, as Sunek spun around in his pilot's seat and innocently gestured at her console.
"What's that noise?"
Denella shot an annoyed glare at the Vulcan and his ever-present ability to see a hornet's nest and elect to prod at it for his own amusement. With a slight sigh, she forced herself to acknowledge the alert.
"There's nothing wrong with her…apart from a minor power drain in the secondary EPS transfer system."
"Huh," Karn grunted, "Not just a garbage scow, but a broken one-"
"She's not broken!" Denella snapped, before reluctantly correcting herself, "I mean, technically, in a more accurate sense, a very small part of her is a little bit broken. But that's it!"
Karn's sneer widened, to the point that Denella's anger caused her to jump up from her seat and stare the Klingon down from across the cockpit. Natasha noted the stand-off, and the way that Denella's hands had balled into fists by her side, and decided it was time to step in.
"Um, Denella…?" she managed to calmly whisper across the room.
The fuming Orion and the sneering Klingon stared each other out for a few more seconds, before the engineer finally backed down and retook her seat, still quietly simmering away.
At the front of the cockpit, Sunek turned back to his own controls with a wry smile.
"ETA to Brexis II, thirty one hours, forty nine minutes…"
'*'*'
'*'*'
Klath sat in the dining area of the Bounty and stared at the screen of the padd in his hand. Though he wasn't really reading anything off the screen.
He was being distracted from the mundanity of the paperwork by a gnawing feeling inside him, one that he was struggling to pinpoint. It definitely felt familiar, but like something he hadn't experienced for some time. As such, he was having a hard time figuring out exactly what it was. He was also being distracted by the presence of an elephant in the room. Or, more accurately, the presence of a Trill in the room.
Jirel sat on the other side of the table with a padd of his own, doing his best impression of someone doing vital paperwork. Rather than someone looking to have an awkward conversation.
"Tsk," he tutted, breaking the silence and forcing Klath to look up.
The Klingon's irritation grew as his colleague theatrically wagged a finger at the padd.
"Import duty," Jirel continued, "That's where they get you. Every time, with the import duty…"
Klath didn't really know what to do with that. But he could recognise it as a clumsy attempt at small talk. And there were few things in the galaxy that Klath despised more than small talk. Especially the sort of clumsy small talk that seemed to be disguising a deeper desire from the speaker to discuss something more important. He really despised that.
So, rather than offer what he felt would be a needless opinion of his own on the intricacies of galactic import taxation, he returned his attention to the padd. Or at least he returned to staring at the padd, while he contemplated exactly what it was he was feeling inside.
"Course," Jirel tutted again moments later, "It's not as bad as that stupid new transit tax the Ferengi Commerce Authority seem to slap on everything these days-"
"Jirel," Klath snapped, a little more harshly than he'd intended, "Is there something specific you require from me?"
"Wha-? No! No. Not really. We're just, y'know, two friends, hanging out and working on some paperwork together, right?"
Klath was perplexed by this comment. After all, he hadn't asked anyone to 'hang out' with him. And he was almost certain that Jirel wasn't really working on their paperwork in any way. Given that all of the forms for their delivery to Brexis II were on the padd in Klath's own hands.
Part of him wanted to ignore him entirely. He had more than enough on his mind as it was without getting involved in a conversation he didn't want to have. But bitter experience had taught him that his crewmates tended to persist at times like these, so he elected to confront the issue head-on.
"You clearly have something to say," he grunted, "So, say it."
Jirel squirmed a little more for a moment, not anticipating quite such a direct approach, even from Klath. But ultimately, he relented.
"Fine. I guess I'm just a bit weirded out by you and all this…Klingon stuff."
Klath's look of confusion deepened at this.
"You are aware that I am a Klingon?"
"Yeah, I'd noticed that. And yeah, you're a Klingon, and Klingons like Klingon stuff. But…I dunno, I'm just surprised how seriously you're taking all this. The tribbles, the meal, the delivery. And now you're-I mean, do you really think you can get this guy to reverse your discommendation thingy?"
Now it was Klath's turn to squirm slightly, as that subject came up.
"You know I cannot explain the reasons for-"
"I know. It's not right to talk about what you did, or why you were exiled. And you know what? Ever since you first told me that, I've never once pushed you on it, have I?"
Klath conceded this point with a slightly thankful nod.
"I mean," Jirel continued, "If you want secrets, that's fine by me. Hell, everyone on this ship has plenty of them. But…I dunno, I guess I don't know if you're getting a bit too eager about all this, y'know?"
Klath set the padd to one side and stared across the table at his friend. He hadn't wanted to have this conversation, but Jirel seemed to be insisting on it.
"I am not sure you want to hear my truthful thoughts on this mission."
"Try me."
Klath stared for a few moments longer, then began to speak.
"Jirel, you are my friend. We have served together on this vessel for many years now. You should know that I appreciate everything you and the others have done for me in that time. And I have greatly enjoyed my time here. But…if there is even a chance that I can return to the Empire, and to my people, then I would leave all of this behind in an instant."
On the other side of the table, Jirel felt the frank certainty with which Klath delivered those words hit home with the strength of a bat'leth strike.
"Couldn't have minced your words a bit?"
Klath shrugged his burly shoulders. Any guilt he might have felt for his comments was being entirely overwhelmed by the other feeling he still had inside. One that he was pretty sure he had now managed to identify.
"Klingons do not 'mince words'," he offered back.
A moment of silence descended, which Klath took to mean that this latest round of small talk was at an end. He tapped at the padd a few more times, before standing up and handing the device over to the Trill.
"I have finished the paperwork," he reported simply.
Jirel accepted the padd with a slight nod, before Klath took off towards the door. Just as he was about to walk through, the feeling of guilt inside temporarily overwhelmed the other, now definitively identified, emotion. He paused.
"I…apologise. If I was too harsh."
Jirel turned back to his friend and mustered a half-smile.
"No. You weren't," he lied, "I guess…I just didn't realise that you still wanted the whole warrior Empire thing, y'know?"
"That," Klath replied, with complete sincerity, "Is all I have ever wanted."
With that, he walked out of the door, heading for his cabin. As he walked, the sense of guilt melted away, and his mind was now entirely filled with the other feeling. The one he had now identified. And one that he had probably not felt since well before the fateful day of his discommendation.
It was a feeling of hope.
'*'*'
'*'*'
He had been intending to rest, but once Klath got back to his cabin, he found that such a pursuit was beyond him.
The feeling of hope was becoming infectious, and that was starting to concern him. As Jirel had said in the dining area, he had to avoid getting too eager about their mission. Too much hope, he knew, was a dangerous thing.
Firstly, there was no guarantee that Toran wouldn't just kill him as soon as he saw a disgraced Klingon in his presence. That certainly wouldn't be unprecedented. Then, even if Toran was as liberal a council member as Mortath had suggested, and even if he did agree to hear his case, there was no guarantee he would be swayed by his argument. He could easily see Klath's discommendation as an entirely legitimate decision.
And, deep down below all of the new-found hope, part of Klath wondered whether or not that was true.
He paused midway through his twentieth lap of his cabin and closed his eyes. He pictured those fateful moments on the bridge of the IKS Grontar, as he sat in the command chair of a Bird of Prey for the final time.
He recalled how, in the midst of the Klingon Civil War, his crew had detected an unidentified vessel in the Tygon Nebula and altered course to investigate.
Finding that the ship was in a region of the border rumoured to be used by the House of Duras to smuggle in illegal weapons to boost their supplies, and seeing that it appeared to be deliberately hiding from their scans in the denser gases of the nebula, he had opened fire.
And destroyed an unarmed and entirely undefended freighter on a resupply mission to a border outpost. Condemning the twenty-seven Klingons aboard to a death without honour, denying them a chance to enter Sto-vo-kor.
He had already been forced to relive those fateful events several months ago, when Kolar, a brother of two of the crew members from the freighter, had tracked down and murdered each of the surviving members of the Grontar's crew. Before Klath had been able to defeat him in battle.
And he had returned to those memories several times since. Each time, he wondered if he could have acted differently, if he could have been less impulsive and taken time to further observe and study the mysterious vessel from a distance.
He had known that Duras's forces had become infamous for springing traps from nebulae and other sensor-masking areas, using their cover to remain hidden with their shields raised and weapons armed, as squadrons travelling under cloak were unable to do.
But it should also have been clear to him that one vessel was not a squadron, or a battle fleet. And even if he had suspected the one vessel to be working as a lookout, with the rest of the trap hidden deeper inside the nebula, he should also have considered the alternative explanation. That it was merely a supply ship, bereft of a cloak or weapons, trying to protect itself and avoid enemy forces during a time of war.
Yet he hadn't considered that, even for a second. He had trusted his warrior's instinct. And his warrior's instinct had been wrong. He had been wrong.
And that was why he was trying to control this new-found feeling of hope before it threatened to get out of control. Because if even he felt as though his actions had been wrong, if even he questioned whether he deserved to return to the Empire, then what chance did he have of convincing Toran?
His contemplative pacing was interrupted by the door buzzer, which he initially acknowledged only with a grunt of irritation. He really didn't want to deal with another round of small talk from Jirel, or another of his colleagues checking up on him. But the Bounty wasn't exactly the sort of ship where you could pretend that you weren't in.
"Enter," he called out reluctantly.
He was surprised to see that it wasn't Jirel who walked into his cabin. Nor any of his other shipmates. Instead, K'Veth walked in.
As he stared at her, he tried and failed to recall the last time he had been this close to a Klingon female. And he couldn't help but recognise the stirring of another feeling inside him. There was an element of hope attached to this one, as well.
But whatever feelings of desire he might have been experiencing, they were entirely overridden by his greater sense of shame. A discommended Klingon trapped in exile did not deserve to indulge in such things.
"You," he grunted as she allowed the door to close behind her.
It wasn't exactly his best opener, he had to admit to himself. Even if she did acknowledge it with a slight nod as she looked around his sparse cabin.
"You are not with your brother?" he added, in what he was forced to concede was a pretty poor follow-up line as well.
She looked back at him and his awkwardly rigid stance and mustered a smile. Then, she stepped over to the solid, hard metal slab that served as Klath's bed, and sat down.
"No," she replied with a trace of humour, "Karn is…checking over your ship. And, I am sure, making his opinions known to your shipmates."
Klath nodded back, struggling to reciprocate her more casual air.
"He is a forthright individual."
"He is an arrogant fool," she snorted back with derision, surprising Klath all over again, "He talks of honour and of what it is to be a true Klingon, but he knows so little about what that really means. Neither of us do."
Klath maintained his rigid, formal stance. He wasn't quite sure how to respond to this.
"You do not wish to know the reasons for our own exile?" she continued.
At this, he looked down at her where she sat, a little insulted by the question.
"I should not have to tell you that it is not proper for Klingons to discuss such things. A Klingon's discommendation is between themselves and the High Council."
K'Veth's expression shifted slightly, and she stood back up before taking a step across the small cabin.
"You may know that, but I don't," she replied sadly, "For Karn and I, our shame is not our own. We were born into exile. We share Mortath's house, and his dishonour."
Klath shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Despite his efforts to discourage her, she seemed intent on getting dangerously close to talking about the exact thing he had suggested that they shouldn't talk about. He silently cursed this latest intricacy of small talk.
"That is why Mortath has not joined us," she continued, "He feels that he is beyond saving, but without him, we may be able to convince Toran to reappraise our personal cases."
She looked over at the far wall of his cabin, where his small but perfectly maintained collection of weapons was displayed, including those he had loaned to his shipmates for the tribble hunt. She gazed at the shining blades with awe, and a hint of sadness.
"Our father has tried to teach us our people's ways on Mentok colony. To be sure that we know what it means to be a Klingon. And yet we have never even set foot on Qo'noS…"
She turned back to him with a look of fascination.
"But you have. Ever since we first met, I have seen that you are surely a true warrior, born to the Empire."
Internally, Klath was now feeling too many conflicting emotions to keep track of them. A sudden flash of pride had now joined the party as a result of K'Veth's comment. Swiftly followed by a fresh helping of shame as he again recalled the Tygon Nebula.
"As I said," he managed to reply, "It would not be proper to discuss it further."
She stepped a little closer, keeping her eyes focused on him. Klath felt his heart beat a little faster as she did so.
Five years. It had been five years since he had been this close to a Klingon female, he now remembered. A brief, torrid affair with a bounty hunter he had crossed paths with at a Mizarian spaceport.
"But you feel we have a chance of pleading our cases?"
Her unfortunate choice of words briefly distracted him from his other feelings.
"Klingons do not plead," he noted with a glare, "But based on what your father has told me, and what I have read about Toran since then, I believe there is…a chance. Toran is a growing influence on the High Council, offering a more progressive view of the past. He sees that nothing is absolute, that all things are fluid and worthy of reappraisal. Several other dishonoured warriors have already had their family honour reinstated thanks to him. It may be unlikely, but there is a chance."
She nodded and drew herself even closer to him. Klath felt a fresh pang of desire shoot through his entire body.
"And you would leave all that you have here behind for that chance?"
He forced himself to look away from her to take in the confines of the Bounty and think about his friends. But he already knew the answer. He'd made that clear to Jirel earlier.
"Yes. I would."
She smiled and leaned up towards him, tilting her head to whisper into his ear.
"How very…honourable," she hissed.
For a fleeting moment, Klath was almost overcome with the urge to act. But just as suddenly, he saw the bridge of the Grontar. And amongst her talk of honour, he felt his sense of shame return with a vengeance.
He stepped back from her with a single decisive movement.
"It might be wise for us to focus on our mission."
If K'Veth was offended or ashamed by his actions, she didn't let it show. She didn't even do what Klath might realistically have expected a Klingon woman to do in the face of such an apparent rejection, and reach for one of the weapons on the wall to challenge him to a fight to the death. Perhaps another aspect of the legacy of her upbringing away from the Empire.
Instead, she mustered as proud a nod as she could manage, before turning and making for the door to the cabin.
She stopped at the exit and looked back at him with a slightly curved smile.
"At least now I know that…there is a chance."
With that, she walked through the door and left Klath alone, not entirely sure how to take her parting words.
Five years, he thought to himself bitterly.
Still feeling a swirling mass of conflicting and contradictory emotions inside, he spun smartly on his heels and headed for the bathroom of his cabin. Intending to take a very high frequency sonic shower.
'*'*'
'*'*'
K'Veth walked the short distance over to the Bounty's guest cabin where she was staying for their journey to Brexis II. She maintained her proud air as she stepped inside, and only allowed her shoulders to slump down when the doors had closed behind her.
As she looked around the empty cabin, she wondered how long she had to contemplate her issues in private, before Karn tracked her down to demand an update.
The truth was that she was failing in her task, in two quite distinct ways.
Firstly, she was failing to keep Klath suitably distracted on their journey to Brexis II. She wasn't entirely sure how, given that she was pretty sure she couldn't have been less subtle about her intentions if she had tried. And yet, he had remained impassive.
And secondly, she was increasingly concerned that the attraction she was showing towards the Bounty's burly weapons chief had ceased to simply be a falsehood, but was actually becoming a genuine thing.
Perhaps it was her fascination at meeting a Klingon warrior so well versed in the ways of the Empire that she had heard so much about. Perhaps it was the excitement about her mission as a whole, and the anticipation she felt as they got closer to its completion.
Or perhaps it was simply nothing more than a genuine attraction between two entirely eligible and available Klingons.
Either way, she thought to herself as she paced over to the sonic shower, it would probably be best to keep that part of her situation to herself when Karn demanded his update.
Things had definitely gotten more complicated.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"So…what now?"
It was a legitimate question that Sunek was posing.
The Bounty had dropped out of warp and come to a dead stop on the fringes of the Brexis system. They were still some distance from their intended destination in the inner part of the system, but it seemed like it wasn't a good idea to make the rest of the journey just at the moment, given the circumstances.
Jirel sat in the centre chair of the cockpit and looked grimly out of the window. At the forms of the two Birds of Prey that had decloaked and intercepted them as soon as they had approached the boundaries of the system. Behind and to his right, at her newly functional console, Natasha again felt very keenly aware of the relatively flimsy vessel she was currently sitting in.
Neither of them had much of an answer to the Vulcan's question, not being especially well versed in dealing with the Klingon Defence Force.
With no response forthcoming, and despite the twin sets of disruptor cannons that were still being pointed at them with menace from the ends of the wings of the two dark green vessels, Sunek couldn't help but swivel around and gesture at Denella.
"Come on then, time to break out all that conversational Klingon of yours again. You…know how to say 'hello', right?"
The Orion engineer offered the grinning Vulcan a withering glare, a mouthful of phlegm and a sharp dose of Klingonese.
"TarghlIj yIngagh, yIruch!"
"Takes one to know one," Sunek shrugged back.
Before the bickering could continue, the four individuals in the cockpit heard three sets of heavy footsteps marching up the steps at the rear of the room. Klath walked in and stared out at the view ahead with an unerring feeling of kinship.
It had been nearly a decade since he had seen a Klingon Defence Force ship in the flesh, and he was immediately drawn to the familiar lines of the two small but potent escort ships. Both of them were of the smaller B'rel-class. Just like his own former command.
Behind him, Karn and K'Veth stared out with more of a look of awe. Outside of simulators and holosuites, neither had ever seen a Bird of Prey before.
Breaking up the collective moment of reflection, Jirel swivelled around in his seat and gestured to Klath.
"So, small issue, the locals don't seem to want to let us past. We've sent over our delivery papers, we've tried hailing them, and they shadow us whenever we even try to back off."
"Also," Sunek piped up, "They've got lots and lots of guns."
"Also, that."
Klath dropped into his usual weapons station and quickly tapped at his controls. After a moment, he nodded in satisfaction.
"They do not yet have weapons charged," he reported, "That is a good sign."
"Not exactly filling me with confidence," Jirel replied with a slightly nervous edge.
Klath remained calm as he looked over at the Trill, significantly more accepting of the situation than anyone else in the cockpit.
"They will be ships from Toran's honour guard."
"They're not being very talkative," Natasha pointed out with a slight shiver.
"They are not supposed to be talkative," Klath countered, "They are here to protect him from any potential incoming threats. Right now, they will be assessing our papers and our transmissions and deciding which action to take."
"And then they let us past?" Jirel asked.
"Hopefully."
The Trill gave his Klingon colleague an especially unhappy look, as Sunek piped up from the pilot's seat again, a little less amused than usual.
"Ugh. This is such a dumb way to run an empire, you know? Literally every ship in the universe has a comms link. If you guys just talked a bit more, you'd save yourselves a hell of a lot of trouble."
Klath ignored the Vulcan's latest slight against his people, and also chose not to ask himself how much of his comment was a reference to the events in the Tygon Nebula. After all, on that occasion as well, Klath had chosen to act first, rather than to talk.
Sunek, for his part, just spun back around to his controls, and suppressed the latest nervous gulp that threatened to jump out of his mouth as he again saw the menacing ships off their bow.
Eventually, the two hawk-like vessels both eased back on thruster control, their twin wings lifting up to a more even keel as they prepared for cruise mode, and then turned to face back into the inner Brexis system.
"They have reached a decision," Klath pointed out, "They will escort us to Brexis II."
"Neat," Sunek muttered sarcastically, just as his navigational computer piped out an alert, "Receiving coordinates and course information from them. Finally. They say we're to proceed to our destination at warp two."
"Whatever you do," Jirel said, still warily eyeing up their escorts, "Don't improvise."
Sunek tutted as he tapped his controls with precision, mildly affronted at the very idea that he wouldn't do what he was told. Then, in unison, the three ships jumped into low warp, as they sped towards their destination.
Still watching the sleek Birds of Prey as they shadowed the Bounty in tight formation, Karn's eyes glinted with awe.
"Such magnificent vessels," he muttered.
"Psh," Denella couldn't stop herself from firing back, "The Bounty's twice the ship either of those things are-"
She was immediately interrupted by another unwelcome alert from her console, and responded with a choice, untranslatable expletive in her native Orion tongue.
"What?" Jirel asked, swivelling around to the frustrated engineer.
"Ugh, nothing. Just…a malfunction in the secondary deflector array. I'll take a look as soon as we've landed."
Karn couldn't help but offer a superior sneer at this latest issue, as he turned and exited the cockpit with K'Veth in tow. Once they were gone, Denella calmed herself down and patted her console as patiently as she could manage.
"Hey, listen," she cooed at the ship, "You know I think you're the best no matter what, but could you just try to work with me on this one? Please?"
Jirel mustered a grin, as he turned back to watch the stars warping by. And he tried not to feel too unnerved by the sight of their ever-present escorts.
'*'*'
'*'*'
A short while later, the Bounty sat on the landing area in the grounds of Toran's vast homestead on the surface of Brexis II.
The residence was the sort of place that, even for those not especially well-versed in Klingon politics, immediately told you someone important lived here.
The central building was a lavishly tall structure, some four stories high. It was rendered in a deep red stone that had evidently been mined from the similarly coloured rocks of the hills and mountains in the distance. The grounds of the compound were filled with several smaller buildings and vast open plan spaces, and there was even a fenced-off enclosure to the south side of the estate which housed the foraging forms of Toran's collection of pure-bred pet targs.
As the Bounty's crew and their two Klingon guests descended the ship's rear ramp. They were met by an imposing sight in keeping with the rest of the residence.
From the front gate of the estate, two lines of Toran's honour guard were lined up along each side of the entrance. They stood with ceremonial swords raised, awaiting their master.
Jirel took in the scene with an impressed nod. It was likely the most effort anyone had ever made to welcome a slightly battered decades-old Ju'Day-type raider landing on their planet.
He looked over at Klath, who was quietly grinding his teeth as they waited.
"Hey, don't do that. You're gonna ruin that beautiful smile of yours."
Klath shot an unamused glance back at the Trill.
"Please, Jirel," he muttered, "I have told you how important this is to me."
"Yep, ok, I get it," Jirel replied with sincerity, holding his hands up by way of apology, "I mean, I don't think I 'get it' get it, but I get it. Get it?"
Klath didn't really get it at all, but he nodded back. It would have to do.
"Huh," Denella mused as she glanced at the padd she was holding, "Klath, did you know you're the named sponsor for this delivery? Isn't this all from Mortath?"
Klath paused before he responded, a little confused by that turn of events himself. That gave Karn the chance to jump in with the answer.
"I would assume that was done on purpose by Mortath," he explained, "If the bloodwine has come from Klath himself, that might curry more favour with Toran."
"That would make sense," K'Veth nodded, "Perhaps our father did it as a…note of thanks. For agreeing to bring myself and Karn along with you."
Denella considered those answers for a moment, not entirely satisfied with them. But before she was able to ask any follow-up questions, there was movement at the front gate.
Toran, son of Kradon, came striding out in full battle armour, flanked by two more sword-carrying members of his guard.
Again, even a casual observer couldn't have mistaken him for anyone other than a very important individual. He carried himself with an air of supreme confidence that suggested he didn't mind people making that assumption whatsoever. His long, lustrous black hair cascaded behind him like a lion's name. His armour was made of thick, studded red and black leather-type material, topped off with a heavy silvery metal jacket and shoulder pads. And it clearly housed an imposing physical form.
The overall look was capped off by the shining blade of the bat'leth that was slung proudly behind his back.
Toran paced up to the Bounty's significantly less imposing crew in his heavy black boots, and regarded them in turn with a slight look of superiority, and a healthy dose of distrust.
"So," he bellowed at them, "I am told you bring me bloodwine."
Denella overcame the slightly overwhelmed feeling she got from being in the tall Klingon's presence, and silently proffered him the padd in her hand. One of the guards swiftly accepted the device, gave it a distrusting once over, then passed it on to his master. The Orion couldn't help but wonder whether that particular bit of ceremony had been necessary. How dangerous could a padd be?
Toran gave the details on the screen a cursory glance, then nodded in apparent appreciation.
"Sixteen crates of the 2349. An impressive haul indeed. And who is it that brings me such a bounty?"
Entirely oblivious to the pun he had just made, Toran addressed his question directly to the three Klingons in the motley group. As if it was impossible for anyone else to be in charge. Jirel couldn't help but feel a little affronted at being so casually snubbed, but also rather glad that he didn't have to talk directly to this particular Klingon, who he noticed had a few inches in height over even Klath.
Klath, feeling the beating of his warrior's heart as he stared back at a genuine member of the High Council, took a firm step forwards, towards Toran.
"I do," he called back proudly, "Klath, son of Morad."
Toran's eyes narrowed a fraction, the only outward sign that he recognised something about the name. He gestured to the other two Klingons in the group with a jerk of his head.
"You. Speak."
Karn and K'Veth glanced at each other, a little more wary than Klath had been about announcing themselves. But, in the end, they stepped forward and spoke in turn.
"Karn, son of Mortath."
"K'Veth, daughter of B'Eleya."
"Sunek, son of-Ow!"
The Vulcan's unwanted cameo was halted by a swift and sharp kick to his shin by Denella, and any pithy follow-up he might have been planning was stopped by her accompanying angry glare.
Toran ignored the idiocy going on elsewhere in the group, and kept his attention on the trio of Klingons in front of him.
"Hmm, Mortath. A name I recognise."
He stared directly at Klath with a fierce glare.
"I recognise yours also. And I have no wish to take any bloodwine from you."
He threw the padd to the dusty ground at Klath's feet with anger and spat out an all too familiar invective directly at his face.
"biHnuch!"
In a single swift motion, Toran clasped his hands tightly in front of his chest and whirled his entire body around, turning his back on the dishonoured trio. His two guards copied his actions one after the other.
It was the timeless gesture of disgrace towards a dishonoured warrior, and one that caused Klath to feel a fresh pang of shame as he recalled the similar gestures he had received during his final moments inside of the halls of the High Council on Qo'noS.
Behind him, Denella and Jirel shared a worried glance. Neither of them were entirely well versed in the intricacies of this part of Klingon culture, but it seemed clear that this wasn't a positive step for their friend. Elsewhere in the group, Natasha felt herself tensing up. Even Sunek was silenced, watching the scene in front of them in rapt attention for once.
But Klath, much as he felt ashamed, had also been expecting such a response. His proud stance didn't weaken a single iota as he spoke directly to Toran's back.
"We bring this wine to you, Toran, son of Kradon. And request that you grant us an audience, to present our cases."
His words were met with a moment of silence. A curious stand-off set in between Klath and the three other Klingons looking off in the opposite direction to him.
Eventually, Toran broke the silence, though he kept his back turned.
"Huh," he grunted, "You seek restoration?"
"We merely seek the right to tell our stories," Klath clarified, with due deference to the warrior in front of him, "Whatever you wish to do is for you and your wisdom to decide. We do not have the honour to seek anything more."
Toran considered this statement for a moment.
"My reputation is becoming a nuisance," he grunted unhappily, "It is true that I have reassessed the crimes of several others, and that I feel the Council has been too inconsistent with its punishments in past times. But that does not mean that I am prepared to listen while every miserable exile in the quadrant pleads for the restoration of their name. Besides, I have honoured guests arriving soon, and I must prepare for them."
Klath remained stony-faced, refusing to show any sign of weakness, even to the backs of the three Klingons in front of him.
"Very well," he nodded with a bow of his head, "Then, if you will permit it, we will leave the bloodwine as a mark of respect, and we will never return."
As soon as he finished speaking, he shot a fierce glare at Karn and K'Veth, silencing any words either of them had been ready to speak.
There was a long pause. Klath felt the hope inside start to dissipate, as he began to wonder if he had gone too far.
Finally, Toran replied.
"Having travelled all this way, and risked so much to get here, a lesser exile would have got down on their knees and begged me to hear them out."
"Yes," Klath replied simply, "They would."
"And, for that sort of cowardly display, I would have cut them down where they stood."
"Yes. You should."
To the surprise of everyone, not least Klath, Toran turned back around at this and glowered at him for a moment, before his face creased into a toothy smile, and he nodded.
"Very good, Klath, son of Morad. I will accept your bloodwine. And I will take the time to look at your cases. But know this: I promise nothing more."
Klath kept his response to little more than a curt nod of acknowledgement, despite the sudden burst of fresh hope that exploded inside of him. Toran turned away again, and gestured to his guards with a bark of Klingonese.
"Ha'!"
The guards walked in lockstep with Toran back to the front gate of the estate. Klath began to follow, a respectful distance behind, and gestured for Karn and K'Veth to come along.
The remaining quartet of Bounty crew members exhaled as one. None of them had the slightest urge to follow them.
"So, I'm confused," Jirel managed, "Did that go well, or not?"
Denella puffed out her cheeks and mustered a shrug.
"As anyone who's heard my Klingonese will tell you, I'm not exactly an expert, but I'd say that went just about as well as it could have done. For now."
"Huh," the Trill replied.
He realised immediately that his somewhat equivocal response had elicited some curious looks from the others, and he quickly moved to disguise his deeper feelings on the matter.
"I mean, um, that's great news."
Denella gave him a look that suggested his disguise wasn't entirely successful, then nodded back in the direction of the Bounty's interior.
"Well, for being such a good friend, you wanna help me fix the poor girl's latest bunch of system failures?"
Jirel sighed and nodded, as Sunek yawned loudly.
"Guess I'll head for a quick nap while you're-"
"Nuh huh," Natasha interjected, jabbing her finger at the Vulcan, "We've got some bloodwine to unload, mister."
"Ugh," Sunek griped as the four figures started back up the ramp, "They'd better be paying us well for all this…"
'*'*'
'*'*'
The Bounty's engine room, such that it was, was a small area located directly behind the main cockpit, accessible via a short walkway to the side of the steps that ran down to the main deck of the ship.
There was no need for the room to be permanently manned, as Denella could manage all of the ship's systems from her console in the cockpit, so it was usually empty, save for the squat, gently pulsing warp core assembly that powered the vessel's recessed warp engines.
Which meant that, against the backdrop of the gentle hum of the core, it was often the perfect place onboard to have an argument.
"Who said I wasn't pleased for the guy?" Jirel sighed.
"You did," Denella retorted, "Maybe not in your words, but you don't need to be a body language expert to pick up on what's wrong with you."
They were working their way along a succession of access hatches in the ceiling of the engineering bay, Jirel patiently opening each hatch in turn before Denella scanned the components inside with a bulky engineering tricorder to try and pin down the source of one of the Bounty's latest maladies.
She knew there was a power drain in the Bounty's secondary EPS transfer system. But finding the exact source was proving more of a challenge than she'd hoped. Especially as she was being distracted by their ongoing argument.
"You know I'm right," she added, as she peered at the readings from behind the latest hatch, before shaking her head and gesturing for Jirel to close it back up.
"You're not-!" Jirel went to fire back, before he stopped himself and sighed, "Ok, fine. I guess I'm a teeny tiny bit unhappy with all this. I guess I just didn't realise how much all this stuff still meant to him."
He finished tightening the catch on the panel with his hand, and they walked on to the next one, as Denella shook her head in disbelief.
"Come on. You've known him for way longer than I have. And you didn't get the sense that he wanted his honour back?"
"I dunno. I just assumed that was why we're all here. You, me, Sunek, everyone. We're here cos we've left our pasts well behind us. We're all running away from something, right?"
Denella's jaw clenched slightly, recalling her own miserable past with the Syndicate, as Jirel started to unlatch the next panel and gently lower it down.
"That might be the case for some of us," she admitted, "But I don't think that's true for Klath. And besides, just because the rest of us don't wanna go back to where we came from, that doesn't mean we'll always be here, Jirel. And you have to be ok with that. You've had a pretty healthy turnover of crew down the years, right? You know none of this is forever."
Jirel considered this in silence as Denella scanned inside the latest panel, then scrunched her face up in frustration.
"Ugh," she tutted, "What the hell is causing this? We've been over just about every circuit and junction box in the whole unit."
Jirel shrugged as he dutifully fixed the latest panel back into place, pausing in the middle of tightening the catch to look back at the Orion.
"So, what's in your future? What are you gonna leave me for?"
She looked up from her tricorder and shrugged, the atmosphere between them settling down again after their slightly heated discussion.
"Field promotion to chief engineer on one of those fancy new Starfleet ships that split into three bits."
"Huh. Is that right?"
"Oh yeah. I mean, after spending this long on the Bounty, imagine working with a ship that's actually designed to fall to pieces all the time."
They shared a laugh as they walked on to the next panel, the tension of their argument now dissipating, as Jirel gestured around at the ship.
"You sure that your, um, close personal friend isn't gonna take offence to that comment?"
"Nah," Denella replied, reaching over and patting the hull plating, "She knows I'm only joking. And she also knows the truth. I'm here until one of us dies."
Jirel smiled again, then paused underneath the latest panel, his expression turning a tad more serious once more.
"Still, you're probably even closer to him than I am. You're really telling me that you'll be happy to see him go?"
She sighed, as he started unhooking the panel.
"When that big Klingon lummox finally walks off this ship for good, I'm gonna bawl my eyes out for days. But you know what? If he does that here and now, after being accepted back into the Empire? I'm also gonna be happier than I've ever been for anyone. And that's what you need to do as well. Instead of being selfish."
"I'm not being-!" he began to retort before he stopped himself again, reluctantly acknowledging the truth of her statement, "You're right. I can do that."
"And that's all we really can do. Just support him, and make sure we don't do anything that might affect his chances-"
Before she could finish speaking, she jumped back in shock.
As soon as Jirel finished unhooking the latest panel, he realised it felt different to the others they had worked on so far. It was like there was an additional force above it. The reasons for that additional force became clear a split second later, as the panel was sent crashing down to the deck at his feet.
It was followed by an avalanche of tribbles.
Jirel didn't even have time to move before he was sent crashing to the deck as he was swamped by the small, furry and chittering creatures, a seemingly never-ending supply tumbling out of the conduit behind the panel and down onto the Trill.
Denella realised that she had found the source of her EPS power drain.
The tribbles were in the Bounty's machinery.
And more than that, as Jirel's head disappeared under the tribble mountain, she realised what else this all meant. They had brought an infestation of tribbles to Brexis II. Right to the home of a member of the Klingon High Council. The only man in the galaxy who might be able to restore Klath's honour.
From the centre of the pile of fluff and fur, Jirel managed to push his head back above the surface, as even now, the odd chirping tribble fell from the conduit and onto his head.
"So," he managed, spitting a strand of tribble hair from his mouth, "Scale of one to ten, how do you think this is gonna affect his chances?"
The two friends surveyed the scale of the problem, as the tribbles continued to chirp away.