Part Three
The two horses proudly thundered along the soft ground of the valley in a full rhythmic gallop. They tore across the landscape in unison, as the two equally proud riders astride them kept a tight hold on the reins.
As they approached a small stream that trickled down the gently sloping valley towards a larger tributary that ran through the middle of the plain, both riders gently slowed their steeds to a gentle walk to allow them to ford the water without incident.
Jirel felt the comforting rush of the fresh, crisp air on his face as his horse tip-toed through the water, both flanks of the beast next to his legs expanding and contracting as it caught its breath. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, he found himself feeling something close to a sense of contentment.
Until the inevitable comment came from the other rider.
"You're still sitting up too high in the saddle," Jenner called out, "You're making the horse work harder in the gallop when you do that."
The Trill caught the grimace that threatened to leap onto his face, as his contentment vanished as soon as it had begun to appear. Even after all these years, his father was still finding something to criticise.
"The horse likes it just fine," he countered, patting the neck of the chestnut brown animal under him, which snorted back in what he took to be affirmation.
'You should keep yourself down low, and lean forwards. Helps with the centre of gravity."
Jirel was already regretting his decision to follow Hesk's advice. Respecting the family that one had through the family that one still has was easier said than done when the family he still had was Admiral Bryce Jenner.
His father had been surprised to find him suggesting that they go for a ride together, but had set his work aside immediately.
And then they had saddled up and set out together, in what was supposed to have been a gentle ride up to the mountain pass and back. A chance to get some fresh air, enjoy the sights of this largely unspoiled stretch of rural Colorado, and possibly even reconnect a tad more than they had so far.
Except, it hadn't taken long for the gentle ride to get seriously competitive.
"Didn't seem to stop us beating you to the stream, did it?" Jirel couldn't help but shoot back at his father's critique of his riding style.
He knew his style wasn't perfect. He was almost entirely self-taught, after all. While his father had been away with Starfleet.
But he wasn't going to take the inevitable criticism lying down. Any more than he had back on Nimbus III last year, when the more formally trained Natasha Kinsen had offered her own comments on his riding ability.
He stifled another grimace at the reminder of that part of his life.
"I wasn't aware it was a race," Jenner offered back as the two horses reached the other side of the stream and stomped out of the clear water.
"Sounds like the sort of thing someone who just lost a race might say."
Jenner eyed his son with a mildly withering look as he deftly turned his horse towards him to continue the debate.
"Did you want to come out here and do this to spend some time together? Or try to turn this thing into another fight?"
Jirel kept a grip on his own reins as he allowed a slightly cocky smile to cross his face.
"I told you I don't wanna fight you. But do I wanna beat you in a race? Well, that's a different story entirely—"
He suddenly stopped himself and looked around the valley, peering up towards the high hillsides all around them.
Not for the first time since he had arrived back home, he had an unerring feeling that he was being watched. And he was pretty sure that, so many miles away from the homestead, this time it wasn't going to be Hesk.
He shielded his eyes from the midday sun and tried to scan along the tops of the hills. Not really sure what he was expecting to see. Unsurprisingly, from this distance, he couldn't really make out anything. Aside from a distant shuttle tracking across the sky, many miles away.
But that couldn't have been what he had sensed.
"You're not gonna win any more races if you keep sitting that high in the saddle," Jenner chided again, oblivious to his son's concerns.
This snapped Jirel away from scanning the hilltops, and returned him to the argument.
"Ah," he replied with a note of triumph, "So you admit it was a race."
Jenner's face tensed slightly at this, but there was a slight curl of a begrudging smile dancing across his mouth. Whether it was the fresh air or just the sensation of being away from his Starfleet responsibilities and back on horseback, he was starting to enjoy the verbal sparring match as well.
"No," he argued back, gently manoeuvring the horse back in the direction they'd been heading, "But from here to the mountain pass is."
He didn't bother waiting for a reply, and immediately kicked his horse onwards.
Jirel took a moment to consider what to do.
If he wanted to be the bigger man here, he'd decline the challenge, of course. And if he wanted to be more of an amateur psychiatrist about the situation, he'd definitely suggest that this sort of mildly toxic competitive streak didn't exactly count as quality father/son bonding. If anything, the two of them were falling back into an old pattern.
Jirel was trying to prove himself, and his father was always one step ahead.
But despite all of that, he really wanted to beat him to the mountain pass.
So, without any further dwelling on the matter, he kicked hard on the flanks of his horse, and they took off in hot pursuit.
'*'*'
'*'*'
High up on the hillside, the hooded figure watched the two men on horseback kicking up the dust as they rode away.
Through the binoculars, he could make them out more clearly. One horse leading, but the other gamely catching up.
He hadn't been worried about being spotted. Not only was he far enough away not to be seen clearly from down in the valley, he had also known instinctively when to duck down for cover, to ensure he avoided Jirel's prying gaze.
He didn't need to be here at all. But with everything now so close to being complete, he felt the need to make sure that everything was proceeding as it should with the two men down in the valley.
Satisfied that all was indeed well, he stepped back from the side of the hill and reached into his cloak, tapping the small comms device hidden away in there.
Seconds later, the transporter effect took hold.
And he disappeared from view entirely.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"This is Prosecutor Gr'aja of Verillian Security Division Beta-Four to the unidentified vessel. Please drop to impulse and prepare to be boarded."
Denella fixed Brooks with a distinctly unimpressed glare where he stood in the middle of the now-full cockpit of the Bounty and listened to the sound of the hail.
It hadn't taken long for her and Klath to identify the ship that was bearing down on them. Mainly because Prosecutor Gr'aja had begun hailing them almost immediately. And now that she had called their passenger to the cockpit, she was waiting somewhat impatiently for an explanation.
"It's really not what it looks like," Brooks managed, his usual measured tone displaying a hint of nerves at this new development.
"So what is it then?" the Orion woman offered back with a deadpan expression, "Believe me, we're all ears."
A chirp from Klath's console punctuated their conversation.
"Whether we drop to impulse or not," the Klingon pointed out, "The Verillian ship will intercept us in four minutes."
"Better hurry up with that explanation," Denella persisted, keeping her focus on their passenger, "Or should I just pull over and surrender—?"
"No," Brooks cut in quickly, "You don't need to—This is just a misunderstanding."
"Right. Feels like you have a few of those."
"Doesn't everyone?" the scientist offered back, rediscovering a hint of his charm along with a hopeful smile.
"Sheliak Corporate, anyone?" Sunek chimed in from the pilot's seat, after he and Natasha had rejoined them from her cabin.
Denella silently noted that little misunderstanding from the Bounty's past. And it was fair to say that the Sheliak example wasn't the only misunderstanding they had. When you lived the way the Bounty's crew did, it was inevitable that a few unhappy paths would be crossed from time to time.
She even recalled their recent trip to Sector 374. And their fateful showdown with Grenk, a Ferengi who they had endured a significant number of misunderstandings with. And she considered the heavy cost they had paid when those misunderstandings had caught up with them.
Still, she wasn't about to let Brooks off that easily.
"I need more than that," she pressed him, aware of the ticking clock on Klath's readouts.
Brooks looked back at her defiant glare and his shoulders sagged slightly, seeing that he was going to have to offer up a more complete explanation. He took a second to get the details straight in his head, then launched into it.
"Ok, fine. Truth is that…I was slightly taking advantage of the generosity of the Verillians back on Five-Sigma. Like I said, it's taken me a while to find anyone to help me move my cargo out of there since the Andorian traders so unceremoniously left me there."
"Taking advantage how?" Denella pressed.
"Well, latinum has been a little short. So I…may have run up some light-to-moderate storage fees. Which may or may not remain unpaid. I was just hoping Verillian Security wouldn't be quite so on the ball about it."
Denella sized the human up, then nodded in the direction of the approaching ship.
"If I hail them, will they confirm that—?"
"And some stolen property!" Brooks sighed with exasperation, "Fine. Yes. You got me. That's the truth. The…whole truth."
"What sort of stolen property?" Klath's voice boomed out from behind the scientist.
"The, um, duridium sheets back there. They're an especially premium grade. High purity. I needed the best possible sheeting to construct the extra space, because I need to keep the storage for the chroniton particles as unreactive as possible. No outside interference."
Natasha immediately glanced over at Sunek, and the Vulcan instinctively caught her eye and offered a subtle shake of his head. Suggesting that he wasn't entirely buying that as the reason for the odd scans they had seen.
She couldn't help but wonder why he had been so precise with his explanation about the sheets, as if he already knew that was something they had concerns about.
"But," Brooks continued, "Obviously everything in my price range wasn't up to the task. So I was able to find a willing light-fingered Verillian to…secure some higher quality materials for me. That little thief must've sold me out the second we left the system."
Denella remained unconvinced. She looked over at Klath, who glanced at his panel.
"The Verillian ship will be here in three minutes. Scans suggest that it is a powerful vessel. They will have us outgunned."
"They're not gonna attack you," the scientist persisted, "Verillians are officious, insular, sticklers for the rules. But they're not violent people. Especially over a simple…misunderstanding."
On cue, the Bounty's comms link flared into life again.
"I say again: This is Prosecutor Gr'aja of Verillian Security Division Beta-Four. Please drop to impulse and prepare to be boarded."
Denella suddenly felt every eye in the Bounty's cockpit on her. Her shoulders felt heavier, as the weight of a command she didn't entirely want hit them once again.
She weighed up the decision she realised she had to make. Whether to help their passenger, or hand him over.
She wondered what Jirel would do. And then tacitly admitted that might not be the best way to approach problems like this, given how things usually went for the Bounty.
"Two minutes to interception," Klath noted, not entirely helpfully.
"Please," Brooks persisted, "You know how difficult life can be out here. And you helped me with those mercenaries back at the Benzite port."
"I'm not going to fight a Verillian cruiser for you," Denella countered.
"And you don't have to. Just get me out of here. They're not going to push things too far over a bit of stolen duridium."
The Orion engineer suppressed a sigh. And eventually, just as she had back in the Benzite port, she found herself feeling the need to help out.
She stood and moved over to Natasha's sensor panel.
"What else is around here?"
The human woman tapped the controls and brought up an overview of the sector, including all star systems and passing traffic. It only took a second for Denella's eyes to light up.
"There's a Talarian freighter bearing 161 mark 274, tracking down that shipping lane 0.2 light years away."
"You know what I like about you?" Sunek grinned from the pilot's seat, "How you focus on the really important stuff."
Denella didn't even dignify the Vulcan's friendly sarcasm with a retort. Though to her side, Natasha looked confused.
"And?" she asked.
"And…I think we're gonna pay them a visit."
A few seconds later, the Bounty altered course.
And the chasing Verillian ship followed suit.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"Come on. We're doing best of five."
"Like hell we are."
The father/son bonding session had escalated still further.
Their impromptu race to the mountain pass had merely been the first stage of what was turning into a multi-stage event across the countryside.
Or at least it had been, until Jenner had called off Jirel's plans for the fourth stage. Which, as far as Jirel was concerned, was simply down to the fact that the admiral now led the series by two to one.
"Come on," he pressed, as the horse underneath him panted from the exertions of the afternoon's activities so far, "You can't quit now. And that first race was a cheat anyway. You gave yourself a handy little head start."
"We've pushed these two hard enough," Jenner countered, as he patted his own steed, "Besides, we've got a long ride back home ahead of us after all this."
Jirel knew that was true. They were already a long way past the mountain pass they had originally been aiming for. Still, he couldn't quell the clear and unwelcome competitive streak that was beating freshly inside him.
"So you're just running away from the challenge?" he scoffed, eagerly pressing his father's buttons further, "Guess someone's worried about getting shown up."
Jenner scowled, trying his best to suppress his own competitive streak to focus on the actual reasons he had for wanting to take this trip in the first place.
"If it makes you feel better," he offered back, "We can count that first run to the stream. Which would make it a tie."
"Which means we need a decider—"
"Jirel," Jenner sighed, "Just shut the hell up for a second. I didn't want to do this just to race you all the way to Arizona."
The Trill didn't respond immediately, allowing his father to continue.
"You wouldn't talk to me on the runabout. You sure as hell weren't talking to me back at the house. So can we just stop racing and…do this."
Jirel felt himself immediately closing up again, withdrawing away inside. There was plenty that he knew he wanted to talk about. But after his entirely unsuccessful visit to his mother's grave, he didn't feel ready to try anything like that again just yet.
Noting the silence, Jenner sighed again.
"I see," he grunted, "Maybe we can't."
With that, he gently tugged on his reins to turn the horse back towards home and trotted off slowly the way they had come.
For a moment, Jirel considered avoiding the ride back entirely. Just keeping on going, racing away from the Jenner homestead and all the awkwardness contained within. Maybe he really could make it to Arizona.
But he saw that move for what it would be. Just more running away.
And while he didn't especially want to talk about his own issues, he did have some choice questions for the older man trotting away from him. So, with some reluctance, he kicked his own horse on to catch up.
"Fine," Jirel griped, "You wanna talk? We can talk. For a start, we can talk about what the hell's brought all this on."
"Meaning what?"
"You know what I mean. You've haven't tried speaking to me even once since Starbase 216. Just exchanging notes with Natasha. And now, all of a sudden, you're desperate to talk. So why now? If it's not just stupid guilt cos you've heard how much my life has fallen apart, then what?"
He waited patiently for his father to answer, as Jenner silently considered the best response to his son's ire.
Despite instigating this latest attempt at a serious talk with his son, Jenner wasn't quite sure how to respond to this. The truth seemed far too complicated, after all.
So, he elected to follow a different course. One that he still hoped would lead them both to where they were heading.
"I'll tell you later," he replied with a half-smile, "In the meantime, best of five, did you say?"
Despite the lack of response to his questions, Jirel didn't need a second invitation. He instantly kicked his horse into a gallop as his father did the same.
The two of them raced back towards the pass, into the afternoon sun. Both horses thumped their hooves into the dusty ground along the top of the hillside.
As they approached a corner, Jirel deftly tugged tight on the reins, allowing the horse to judge its own route around the bend. He felt himself pulling away from his father, and was already starting to construct a suitably gloating victory speech in his head.
All attempts to get some answers to his questions had been forgotten, as his competitive streak made a full-on return.
And then, just as he mentally began the second draft of the victory speech, he heard a cry of pain from behind him. He immediately slowed his horse and turned back.
He was shocked to see his father's horse galloping past him, now shorn of its rider. A short distance back in the dirt, his father lay in an awkward heap.
"Dad!"
He galloped back and dismounted in a shot, helping the struggling Jenner back to his feet.
"Ugh," the older man griped as he coughed out a lungful of dust, "Goddamn thing threw me clean off. Must've gotten spooked by something—"
He immediately groaned in pain as he tried to rest his weight on his right foot, and had to brace himself against Jirel to stop himself from tumbling back to the ground.
"My ankle," he managed through gritted teeth, "Must be broken."
"I'll call for help," Jirel replied, "Where's your communicator?"
"In the damn saddlebag," Jenner grimaced, gesturing as best he could in the direction that his horse had fled, "Along with the field medkit."
"Great. So I guess we'll never be seeing any of that again."
"She'll find her way home," Jenner grunted with a hint of pride towards the animal, "When Hesk sees her, she'll report us missing. Won't take anyone long to find us with a shuttle's sensors."
"And how long's that gonna take?"
"Could be a while," Jenner conceded.
"Ok," Jirel sighed, "So I should ride back. See if I can catch up with the other horse, or at least—"
"You're gonna leave me out here?"
"To go get help. Or, what? You want to walk all the way back home, like this? In this heat?"
Jenner tentatively tested his foot again and flinched at the predictable rush of pain.
"What's the matter?" he couldn't help but fire back, "Scared of a bit of hard work?"
Jirel had no idea if he was lashing out because of his injury, or if that had been a deliberate attempt to tap into his competitive streak all over again. But either way, he didn't consider riding off for another second.
Instead, he wordlessly adjusted his father's weight on his shoulder, while taking hold of the horse's reins with his other hand, and started the long, slow walk back home.
As he walked, he glanced over at his father's pained face.
"There'd better be a drink in this for me."
'*'*'
'*'*'
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Captain Mordar of the Talarian freighter J'Daya sat in his vast command chair and stared at the viewscreen with visible confusion.
On the screen, Prosecutor Gr'aja of Verillian Security Division Beta-Four maintained his own stance without flinching in the face of the burly Talarian's anger.
"As I explained, we have been tracking a small vessel in this sector which we believe is harbouring an individual of interest to us—"
"Yes, yes," Mondar sighed with a dismissive wave of his hand, "I heard you the first time. But tell me, Prosecutor Gr'aja, does the J'Daya look like a small vessel?"
The Verillian paused before responding. The main in the huge chair had a point.
The J'Daya easily dwarfed the Verillian cruiser that had intercepted it. The blocky freighter spanned over two kilometres from bow to stern. It followed the usual design brief of such Talarian freighters, where bigger was unanimously considered to be better.
With so much ore to shift in their mining operations, there had been a flurry of larger and larger ships constructed to deal with the cargo, culminating in behemoths like the J'Daya.
A more level-headed approach might have been to build a larger fleet of smaller, faster ships to deal with the task of transporting the ore. Not only would that minimise disruption when ships were unavailable for maintenance, it would also mean they could be more easily repurposed for other needs in the future. But nobody had suggested that in any discussion on the matter.
So, the Talarian merchant fleet was instead made up of these increasingly unwieldy, gargantuan ships. Over a mile of dirty grey metal, roughly cylindrical in design, with two bulbous warp engines protruding out of either flank at the rear.
The fact that such an uniquely size-based arms race had erupted in the rigidly patriarchal confines of the Talarian people, coupled with the unerringly phallo-adjacent shape of the resulting fleet, had quickly become a favourite subject of psychoanalysts throughout the galaxy.
But whatever else could be said about the J'Daya's design, it certainly would not be considered a small vessel.
Just as Captain Mordar liked.
"Well," Prosecutor Gr'aja managed eventually, opting for a different line of questioning, "Have you seen any other vessels around here? Perhaps a…smaller one?"
This new query did little to lighten Captain Mordar's mood.
"How the hell should I know? We're transporting forty thousand kilotonnes of monazite from the Rezzik system. As I'm sure your readings are telling you, that means we're emitting a hell of a lot of thoron radiation. Throws out sensors for anything smaller than a mid-sized escort."
"Then," the Verillian pressed, "If I may ask, how do you avoid such smaller ships?"
At this, Mordar mustered a superior smile.
"The hull of this ship is nearly two metres thick. It's their job to avoid us."
This attitude again threw Gr'aja off his stride, but he persisted. He and his crew had tracked the smaller ship until their scans had become obscured by the vast radiation-heavy body of the phallically-inclined J'Daya. And he didn't want to quit now.
"Even so, we have tracked the other ship towards this location. And I request that we are allowed to conduct a full inspection of—"
"You'll do no such thing," Mordar snapped back, "Verillian Security has no jurisdiction in Talarian matters, and I'm three days behind schedule as it is. So leave us the hell alone, or you're gonna cause an incident that'll bring a fleet of Talarian warships to the Verillian system."
Gr'aja quickly backtracked, suddenly feeling a little isolated.
"Well, that won't be, um, necessary. But…perhaps you have a record of your sensor logs for the past few hours. Something we can use to figure out what happened to our target?"
"We do. And you can't have it. If you have a problem with my decision, talk to my employers. Or contact Talarian Security. I might actually listen to them."
Before Prosecutor Gr'aja could muster another hopeless request, Captain Mordar terminated the comms link with an angry growl.
Leaving the cream of Verillian Security Division Beta-Four with an entirely unsolved case on their hands.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"Well, the good news is: We're not gonna die of thoron radiation poisoning."
Natasha delivered the news with an uneasily bright tone as she re-checked her tricorder readings inside the Bounty's cockpit, then felt the need to deliver a slight correction.
"Provided we don't stay here for longer than seventeen hours. And even then…I'm gonna make sure we all get a shot of something to make sure we're completely safe."
"You've really got a knack for reassuring your patients, doc," Sunek chimed out from the forward pilot's seat.
"Well," Denella offered, "I'm not planning on staying here that long. Just long enough for the Verillians to clear off."
Next to her engineering console, Dr Brooks looked over at the green-skinned woman and mustered a thankful smile.
"Thank you. Again."
"Just can't help looking out for the little guy," she shrugged back.
"You do realise," Klath pointed out, "That we have likely just committed a number of crimes in the eyes of Verillian Security."
"Were Verillian Security after us?" Denella replied, her face an innocent picture of plausible deniability, "I had no idea. Must've been all the radiation, interfering with our old communications relays and sensor pods."
Klath's mouth curved into a knowing smile.
"Agreed," he nodded back, "A most…unfortunate situation."
Denella smiled back, before turning back to the front of the cockpit.
"Sunek, keep us where we are for now. We'll say our goodbyes to the Talarians once we reach the next star system."
"Aye, aye, Captain Denella, sir!" the Vulcan called back.
Despite the good-natured intent behind Sunek's latest use of that quip, Denella couldn't help but suppress a flinch at the reminder of the weight on her shoulders.
"And Sunek?" she offered back.
"Yes, Captain Denella, sir?"
"Shut up."
The Vulcan chuckled as he settled back in his seat and let someone else handle the driving.
The vast Talarian freighter lumbered onwards through space, leaving Prosecutor Gr'aja and the Verillian Cruiser behind.
Entirely oblivious to the tiny Ju'Day-type raider clamped to the underside of its hull.
'*'*'
'*'*'
The ungainly trio of figures continued to shuffle down the mountain pass.
Jirel and his father both breathed heavily with exertion as they stumbled down the gentle slope, while the loyal horse next to them picked its own way down with carefully-placed steps.
They were still a long way from the Jenner homestead. But all three were tiring from the effort they had already put in to get this far. And it was the older man who threw in the towel first, as his injured ankle jarred painfully against a rock underfoot.
"Goddamnit," Jenner cursed with a wince, "I need to stop. And rest."
The still-present competitive streak inside Jirel was tempted to brave the situation out and argue the case for pressing on. But in truth, he was just as tired. With some difficulty, they manoeuvred their way to a rocky outcropping next to the path and sat down, inhaling lungfuls of dusty air.
"See," the Trill panted, "This would never have happened if you lived near a shuttle route. Could've flagged down a ride by now."
"We're making good time," Jenner coughed back wearily, "Plenty of daylight left."
"We'd be making better time if you weren't so heavy."
"I'll have you know I've lost five pounds this last couple of weeks. That goddamn CMO and his health kick…"
Leaving his father for a moment, Jirel stepped over to the horse and unhooked the canteen of water on the saddle. After pouring some of the liquid into a small depression in the ground for the animal to drink from, he returned to the rock and passed the canteen to Jenner.
For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the contented sounds coming from the thirsty horse. Then, Jenner felt the need to say something, as he took a gulp from the canteen. To make another attempt to connect.
"I read them all, you know."
This threw Jirel slightly. He glanced at his father with a quizzical air.
"The messages from Ms Kinsen. About your…status. I always read them all."
"Well," Jirel replied with a sliver of sarcasm , "She'll be glad to hear that all that spying wasn't a waste of time."
"Sounded like you got in a hell of a lot of fights. Orion slavers, Nimbosian cowboys, angry Pakleds. Like you never stopped fighting."
Jirel accepted the canteen back and took a sip, before grudgingly smiling.
"Yeah," he nodded, "I've heard that a lot. Someone once told me it was because I never know when to give up—"
He caught himself suddenly, as his mind painfully flashed back to a moment in a bar on Golos II.
'*'*'
'*'*'
The Nausicaan stopped on the spot, and eyed the weapon uncomfortably, as the pained Jirel awkwardly hobbled over to where Maya stood, gesturing at the phaser in her hand.
"You had that the whole time? And you let me try to fight them?"
"Never leave home without it," she reminded him, "But I like to watch you fight. You never did know when to give up."
'*'*'
'*'*'
Another flood of memories rose up inside Jirel and needed suppressing. He stared down at the canteen and tried to fight them back.
"Maya told me that," he eventually added in a quieter voice, "But…I guess she was wrong. Looks like I know exactly when to give up."
Jenner looked back over at his son and shifted his weight awkwardly on the rock.
"I am sorry, Jirel. About what happened to her."
Jirel mustered a nod back. He still didn't want to be talking about this, especially with this audience. But he thought about what Hesk had told him. About how his father wanted to reconnect.
Maybe it was worth a try.
"I just—I'm not sure what to feel about everything that happened. Or how to feel. I still just…I dunno. I can't believe she's gone."
"Did you love her?"
While the bluntness of the question was the sort of thing Jirel expected from his father, the subject was definitely not. But he felt compelled to answer.
"I don't know. I mean, she sold me out to a Ferengi who enslaved me and my friends, and nearly destroyed my ship—"
"You know," Jenner affirmed, with the confidence of a man who had loved and lost.
Jirel mustered another glance over at his father, and nodded weakly.
"Yeah. I loved her. But then, I also love—"
He stopped himself immediately. One thing at a time.
For his part, Jenner mused over his response. There was a lot that he could think to say, even if he couldn't quite think of the right way to say it. In the end, all he could muster was a platitude.
"Well, all I can tell you is: It gets easier."
He didn't entirely feel comfortable saying it, and the look on Jirel's face suggested that he might have been expecting more. But for the time being, it was all that he had to offer.
With that, he tested his right foot again and grimaced, before gesturing back down the pass.
"Speaking of which, we should press on."
Jirel nodded.
Part of him had been hoping for a little more advice after opening up like that. But then he remembered who he was talking to.
He fixed the canteen back on the horse's saddle, helped his father back to his feet, and the three figures continued their slow walk back down the mountainside.
Getting closer to home with every step, if no closer to reconnecting.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"You know, you're making me use my brain a lot today, Doc. And to think, earlier on, I thought you wanted me to use my—"
"Let's stick with the first organ, ok?"
With the Bounty safely uncoupled from the Terellian freighter and back underway to the Vandor sector, Natasha and Sunek were back in her cabin. Continuing their investigation. Such that it was.
Natasha had redoubled her efforts to track down more details about their passenger, but was still finding information in the public records to be thin on the ground.
"It's just," she sighed as she leaned back in her chair, "Anyone of his age working in the sciences for that long should have enough of a history to find something. Published papers, research grants, talks he's given, conventions he's attended. But…nothing. Apart from the last six years."
"Uh huh," Sunek replied with a disinterested air.
She turned her head to look at the Vulcan, who was idly lazing on top of her bed and staring up at the ceiling, in the absence of any other chairs in the room. Though mercifully, after his earlier misunderstanding, he was at least fully clothed.
"Sorry," she offered, "Am I boring you?"
Sunek glanced over and sat up.
"What? Oh, right, no. I mean…kinda, yeah? But not really."
Natasha did her best to ignore most of the insults in that stream of consciousness, as she patiently stared back at the tousle-haired Vulcan and embarked on another round of ego-massaging.
"So, I'm clearly out of ideas again. Why would a scientist have no background like that? Did he have a late career change? Has he spent his life at Starfleet Intelligence working on classified projects?"
She sighed again and rubbed her tired eyes in frustration.
"I feel like the answer's right in front of me. But I've been staring at that screen for way too long. I just can't put my finger on it."
Sunek swung his lanky legs over the side of the bed and regarded the doctor with a slightly confused glance.
"Are you messing with me right now?"
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, it's pretty obvious what the reason is, right?"
Natasha suppressed the sudden urge to take out some of her mounting frustrations in all manner of casually violent ways, and settled on a stern glare in the pompous Vulcan's direction.
"Oh," Sunek continued, noting the look, "You're not messing with me. You really haven't figured it out—?"
"Sunek. It's been a really long day. Just…enlighten me."
"Huh," he mused, "Well, I mean, logically, if there's no info on this guy until six years ago, then that kinda suggests that six years ago…he didn't exist."
Natasha's tired brain started to tick over.
"Right. Ok. I see. So, what you're saying is he's…the product of a genetic experiment? Or he's used some sort of rapid ageing drug? Or—"
"Or…he changed his name six years ago."
Natasha felt a sudden rush of embarrassment joining her frustration and her tiredness.
"Um," she managed, "It's been a really, really long day."
Sunek raised a curious eyebrow, still not entirely sure she wasn't messing with him. Then, he stood up and gestured back to the screen.
"Still, that would explain why you can't find anything. Cos you're searching for the wrong name."
"So, this has all been pointless then," she sighed in defeat, "I really don't think I've got the time to sit here and research any scientist, of any given name."
Part of Sunek was in complete agreement, and was already contemplating what snacks he might replicate before heading for his own bed.
But before he could shrug his shoulders and take the lazy approach, the part of Sunek that was being medically cultivated these days sprang into action. The part of him that was less lazy, and more helpful.
And so, against what might once have been his better judgement, he elected to mull over Natasha's plight again.
"Well…you know enough to narrow the search a bit, right? I mean, he's human. Federation citizen. Kinda mid-thirties. You've got height, skin colour, hair colour. And you know he's got some sort of link with the Vandor sector."
Natasha studied the face of the oddly helpful pilot.
"You really wanna burn the midnight oil trying to dig something up with as flimsy a set of search criteria as that?" she asked, not sure if she was the one being messed with now.
Not really, Sunek absently thought to himself.
"Sure," he grinned.
Natasha uncertainly smiled back, then turned back to the console and started to work, with Sunek standing next to her and watching on.
"Hey," he offered after a few moments, "You got any snacks around here?"
'*'*'
'*'*'
Away from the Bounty's pair of amateur investigators, Denella sat in the cockpit alone, in the middle of a particularly fierce yawn.
As the Orion completed the involuntary tired reaction, she rubbed her face and tried to refocus on the screen in front of her.
She knew she should be resting, as Klath and the others were, but in her dual role of captain and engineer, she also knew there was so much she had to do. So she was in the cockpit. Alone. Working.
Working on planning out the Bounty's route after they had dropped off Doctor Brooks, looking for the most efficient way of finding their next job. And working on re-prioritising various maintenance tasks that she had been putting off as non-essential.
Just generally working.
As she worked, she found herself thinking about Brooks, and about the number of individuals he seemed to have crossed. From Verillian Security to cutthroat mercenaries.
And while it was true that the Bounty had a fairly long list of individuals and collectives that they had crossed, it still seemed a lot for a single scientist. No matter how resource-poor he claimed to be.
She wondered if she should trust her instincts, and listen to those suspicions.
But then she shook her head. She was sure she was just imagining things. Too much time on the Bounty, falling into misadventure after misadventure, had clearly made her paranoid.
Besides, she was too tired to be suspicious.
'*'*'
'*'*'
In the Bounty's guest cabin, Doctor Lester Brooks was very much aware of the number of suspicions he was starting to arouse onboard.
He knew there would be some, to think otherwise would be naive. But he was also confident enough that they were not going to cause an issue. Not now they were this close to the Vandor sector.
As he sat at the desk of the mostly empty cabin, he retrieved a small comms unit from his pocket, tapping a short text-only message ready for transmission.
He waited for a moment before sending it, using the comms device to track the Bounty's navigation system's standard pings to nearby subspace marker points, which he could then use to piggy-back his message on entirely undetected.
In truth, he knew there was little need for that level of subterfuge.
Even if he had aroused suspicions, there was no chance that anyone onboard would be tracking outgoing transmissions that closely. And even if they were, he could conjure up a dozen different excuses as to why he'd been using a personal comms device.
But he didn't want to take any chances. Now that he was this close to success.
And besides, doing it this way allowed him to show off his intellect. Even if he was only showing it off to himself, he still enjoyed doing that.
So he waited patiently for the next window to send the message.
A message that simply read: Prepare for arrival.
'*'*'
'*'*'
"That's it. I need to stop."
"We need to keep moving."
As the father and son team's long slow walk back home had continued, and fatigue had settled in with a vengeance, the atmosphere had steadily degraded all over again. Whatever moment of near-understanding they had threatened to reach at the top of the mountain pass had long been left behind.
"Nope," Jirel panted, easing his way over to the side of the path with his father leaning on his shoulder for support, "Gotta rest."
He deposited his father onto an improvised flat rock seat and released the horse's reins, before he flopped down onto the dirty ground in exhaustion. Oblivious to the increasingly tense atmosphere, the chestnut brown steed began to graze on a patch of grass, as Jirel caught his breath.
"We've only been moving for half an hour," Jenner pointed out, through deep breaths of his own.
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one dragging an old man and a horse along with them. Plus, you're the one who insisted we stop last time, remember?"
Jenner didn't rise to that. Instead, the two of them sat in silence for a moment.
"I mean," Jirel continued eventually, his frustrations rising, "What sort of idiot gets lost on Earth? There must be a couple dozen starships in orbit, thousands of transporters all over the place, billions of people wandering around—"
"We're not lost. We're just hiking back."
"No. I'm hiking back. You're hitching a ride on my shoulder."
The familiar pattern of the argument began to take shape. This time, Jenner was irritated enough to take the bait, and jabbed an accusing finger at his son.
"You just need to get used to a bit of hard work—"
"Oh, right," Jirel snapped back, scrambling back to his feet, "That's what this is about. Same as it always is. Look, I get it, ok? I've been a huge disappointment to you. Ever since I flunked that entrance exam, you've been very clear about that. I failed to get into the Academy, I ended the run of Jenners in Starfleet, and I let you down—"
"You didn't let me down because you failed, goddamn it," Jenner bellowed back, unleashing words that had festered inside him for a long time, "You let me down because you didn't even try!"
Jirel went to fire back an immediate retort, but stopped himself. Which allowed his father to continue his rant.
"Getting to sit the entrance exam is a huge honour. You have any idea how many strings I had to pull for that? And that was how you thanked me! By staying out partying and wasting your big chance!"
Jirel again caught himself from saying what he wanted to say, and opted for a different tack.
"Ok, so, let's say I had passed. What then? I get into the Academy? Maybe I somehow scrape my way to graduation by the skin of my teeth? And then I live out my life as some unremarkable officer on some unremarkable ship somewhere? Would you have been proud of that?"
"I wanted you to—"
"I know what you wanted me to be," Jirel pressed, anger dripping from his words, "You wanted me to be just like you. And your father, and his father. A starship captain. Well, I was always going to disappoint you with that sort of entry requirement. So I guess I thought I'd get the disappointment out the way early."
"That's bullcrap, Jirel. Just some easy excuse you've made up for yourself to justify what you did. For the opportunity you wasted."
"See, this is the problem. You've never had any respect for me—!"
"You've got no respect for yourself!"
Jenner growled the words at his adopted son, stopping the Trill in his tracks. The grey-haired Admiral forced himself up straight on the rock, suppressing the pain from his ankle as he did so, to press home his point.
'Look at you, for god's sake. What the hell has happened to you? What got dragged back here from Mivara II? I know you've been through a lot just lately, and it's been rough for you. But…you've just given up, Jirel."
"I—!"
Jirel forced himself to bite his tongue again. He stepped away from his father to try and calm himself down. But it was no good. The argument had taken its full form. It was an unstoppable force.
He turned back to Jenner and dived straight back in.
"You know, when I was a kid, I thought there was something wrong with me."
"I'm sure it was tough," Jenner offered with a calmer edge, "Growing up on—"
"Not the spots!" Jirel snapped back, "This is Earth. There were kids from ten different species in my class at school. Nobody cared!"
He tried and failed to quell the rising anger inside, then continued.
"No, I thought there was something wrong with me, cos I didn't just get abandoned once. I got abandoned twice."
Jenner went to retort, but Jirel wasn't prepared to be interrupted right now. He had tapped into a rich seam of latent pain.
"First by my real parents, whoever the hell they were. They didn't want anything to do with me. And then by you. You were always flying away to do whatever Starfleet wanted. And it always felt like you couldn't wait to leave."
"That wasn't—"
"And mom was amazing. She really was. But I still felt like there was something missing. I mean, why did you even adopt me if you didn't want to stick around?"
Jenner adjusted his weight awkwardly, suddenly finding himself on the defensive.
"Your mother wanted a child—"
"And I wanted a dad!"
He bellowed his words with enough force to cause the horse to look up from its meal, whinnying slightly in surprise.
Jenner just stared back across the dirt path at Jirel. At a loss for words. For a moment, the two men just stared at each other. Watched over by the startled horse.
Jirel forced back a wall of tears that welled up inside of him having found himself bearing far more of his soul than he'd been intending to.
Eventually, seeing that his father had no response, he snorted bitterly and shook his head.
"Well, you know what? Screw it," he said, stepping over to the horse, "You abandoned me enough times, I can sure as hell abandon you."
"What are you doing—?"
"What I should've done right at the start of this whole stupid thing. I'm gonna ride back to the house and get Hesk to call you a shuttle."
"Jirel," his father pressed, "You're not going to—"
"Yep, I am," he retorted, unhooking the canteen of water from the saddle and tossing it into the dirt at his father's feet, "Besides, if your Starfleet training's so great, I'm sure you'll be fine for a few hours out here."
With that, he clambered back onto the horse and rode off.
Leaving his father, and the angry words they had exchanged, behind.
'*'*'
'*'*'
The Vandor system lay at the heart of the sector that bore its name.
It was an unremarkable binary system in the middle of a galaxy teeming with unremarkable binary systems. The fourth planet was the only one with habitable atmospheric conditions.
The Bounty cut a graceful figure as it descended through the atmosphere, before settling on a flat landing pad next to a small collection of prefab buildings.
Once the rear ramp was deployed, the huge crate that represented the sum total of Dr Brooks's cargo descended, floating on anti-grav pads, with a Bounty crewmember keeping watch at each corner.
"I'm afraid it's not much to look at," Brooks offered bashfully as he gestured to the buildings, "There is more space underground. But as I said, I need to expand if I'm going to scale up my work."
From the far side of the crate, Natasha watched on cautiously.
Her efforts to dig up more details on their passenger had proved continually frustrating, despite a surprising amount of assistance from Sunek. But while she may not have had anything concrete, she was still harbouring a healthy suspicion towards the apparently charming scientist.
Oblivious to the look he was getting, Brooks tapped a code into a panel on the prefab building they had approached, and the set of doors in front of them yawned open.
"This is a cargo elevator to take us down to the storage bay. We can put the crate down there."
Natasha tensed up a fraction at this. She hadn't been expecting this to be a trip under the surface of Vandor IV. Something about that didn't sit well with her.
"I guess we can leave you to it then," she offered.
The still-exhausted Denella glanced over at her colleague, with some irritation.
"I want my anti-gravs back," she pointed out, "These things weren't cheap. Now come on, let's finish this delivery."
Before Natasha could offer a retort, the Orion led the rest of them in manoeuvring the crate inside the elevator. With a tap of a wall-mounted control panel from Brooks, the entire floor began to drop, as the lift mechanism carried them downwards.
While Natasha was sure she was being paranoid, she couldn't help but feel as though she was descending into someone's lair.
They emerged in a cavernous storage area filled with other crates and containers, and moved their own cargo off the elevator platform using Denella's precious anti-grav units.
"Huh," Sunek mused as he looked around the metal walls of the enormous space, "Thought you said you needed to expand?"
"Well, this is just storage," Brooks pointed out, "The experiments happen elsewhere."
"Ok," Denella shrugged, "Cargo officially unloaded. Dr Brooks, it was a pleasure doing business with you, but we need to—"
"Ah, you're here!"
The unexpected new voice caused everyone to turn around in surprise. Except for Brooks, who had been expecting it.
From the far side of the room, a slender human man with scruffy white hair came ambling over, beaming widely. Something about him felt unerringly familiar to Natasha, but she couldn't quite place it.
But while she couldn't, Sunek could. His photographic memory clearly told him this was the man he had bumped into back in the bar on the Benzite port.
"Hey," he piped up, "Didn't I—?"
"It's in here, isn't it?" the tall human asked Brooks excitedly, patting the side of the crate, "Have you seen it? Did the Verillians do everything just like we asked? Oh, I hope they did."
Brooks smiled back at the Bounty's crew and gestured to the newcomer.
"Apologies, my…assistant here is a little excitable. Too excitable, if you ask me."
The tall human turned to them and smiled even wider.
"Ah, yes, where are my manners? Friends, welcome. My name is Rasmussen. Berlinghoff Rasmussen. And I want to thank you all in advance for helping me to go home…"