Saving Mar

15 GHOST

Mar attempted to enter the bridge first, clearly hoping the biosign was one of her crew, but Erika caught her good arm and gave her a grave look. To Jon's surprise, Mar slowly took a step back and allowed her able-bodied companions to secure the room first.

"What a mess," Shran grunted at the sight.

Bodies were everywhere, sprawled across their seats and all over the floor. The captain was still sitting in his chair, ample body slumped and chin resting on his burly green chest as he was struck completely unaware.

Erika shuddered. "They didn't see it coming."

Morkal leaned closer to the captain to inspect the wound in his abdomen. "Looks like disruptor fire."

"Who slaughters a ship full of hardened criminals?" Shran wondered, scowling. "And with hardly any pushback. What are we dealing with here?"

"They obviously trusted the enemy, whoever it was," Erika theorized. "They probably shot the captain first. And this girl," she pointed to a young Orion flat on her stomach with one arm stretched towards the turbolift, "seems to have been the last to die. She almost managed to reach the exit."

"They're not all dead," Jon remarked, studying his tricorder. "That biosign is in here. Someone is only unconscious—or pretending to be."

"Huh," Mar finally spoke up. The moment they stepped inside it was plain that the little dot on the tricorder screen could not have been one of her women. She'd lost some of her urgency and her face fell into a mask of stone—observing, suspiciously quiet.

Walking over to the closest corpse, she stepped on their fingers, slowly transferring all her weight, attempting to crush the limb. "Not this one."

"We have a more civil tool, Mar," Erika reminded her, pointing to the compact scanner in Jon's hands. "They weren't the best of people, but we shouldn't stoop to their level."

"Whatever," Mar growled and begrudgingly removed her foot.

Jon slowly turned on the spot, then stepped into the direction where the signal seemed strongest. There was just one body there: a slender young Orion man. He didn't look like a slaver to him—but he supposed not all Syndicate members were chosen for their musculature. Jon kneeled next to him and took as detailed a scan as his tricorder was capable of providing. The man was dying.

"That him?" Mar asked, tight-lipped. "Can you wake him up?"

Morkal once more dove into the mysterious depths of his kidney bag and pulled out a small bottle of water. Jon took it from him with thanks and sprinkled some of the contents into the unconscious slaver's face.

He woke up with a start and an ugly cough. His amber eyes rolled in his sockets for a moment before he was able to focus them on something. Then they widened curiously.

"They said... you would come," he wheezed weakly.

"Who said that?" Shran rushed to ask.

The man's sight traveled across their faces until it found Mar. His thin lips stretched in a sour smile.

"I've... got a message... for you."

Jon turned to her with a silent question, but her gaze was too entranced by the Orion to react to anything else.

"What message?" she whispered, the lump in her throat audible in her voice.

"Goes... 'you—or them?' They... said you'd know what it... meant."

Jon scowled, studying her mien that was quickly filling with horror. All color drained from her face, giving her an eerie, ghostly look.

"Why were you attacked?" Erika spoke up, focused on the situation at hand, unlike Jon. "Who did this to you?"

"Treacherous... ingrates..."

The man's eyes slowly closed again as his face went slack. According to Jon's data, he was still alive, but barely. He considered calling in Phlox—perhaps they would need the man's help with accessing the systems to find out what happened to his crew and their prisoners.

"Captain Archer," Shran's voice sounded from afar, somewhat tense. "I believe this," he pointed to a dot blinking on one of the still functional screens, "is their distress beacon. The pilot must've activated it before he died."

"What? How did we not detect it?" Jon stood up and checked the console, but he could make no sense of the displayed glyphs.

"It's likely set to a very specific frequency only the Orions monitor," Morkal offered. "Otherwise any one of their enemies could pick it up and come finish them off."

Just as he finished the sentence, the console bleeped.

"And it seems like we have company," Shran sighed. "I hope this thing still has some weapons, or they will vaporize us before we can get back to our ships."

.

There was only one ship, and being outnumbered and outgunned, it asked for salvage almost politely. Jon had hoped to collect more information from the ship, but as he opened his mouth to negotiate, Mar silently touched his elbow, a plea in her eyes.

Apparently, the women had been taken by whoever had obliterated the Orions. There were only the bodies of the slaver crew on board. Shran briefly skimmed over the manifest before they left, which informed them that the Kallara was supposed to deliver the women to these coordinates since the day it had first attacked them out in space. This was just a job for them, after all.

But who had paid them to do it? And who had slaughtered them even though they'd—mostly—delivered?

Was it because of Mar? Who was she, really?

Jon watched her mien the whole journey back aboard the Enterprise. She was still so pale, even though a chunk of it was probably due to pain and blood loss. Her sight stayed trained on the bulkhead of the shuttle, but her eyes were glazed. He would expect her to rage or despair, to push for clearer answers that an ominous message of a half-dead Orion. Instead, she looked... defeated. Even though the search was far from over.

.

She asked to speak with him privately as soon as they got off the shuttle.

"Do we at least have time to get you treated?" Jon pointed to her injured arm, still supported only by Morkal's bandana.

She eyed her limp arm and sighed. "We do."

"How are you so sure?" Jon pressed. "Is this finally the time to tell me what you know, Mar?"

She pressed her lips together. He kept boring his gaze into her, brows drawn. It wasn't so important before, but now it felt that whatever she was hiding might hinder their rescue efforts, and he wasn't going to let it.

The other captains shuffled their feet awkwardly. They weren't privy to their conversation history and its unsettling intimacy. The clash of their metaphorical horns at this moment likely seemed suspicious—but Jon was too worried to care about appearances.

A tense few seconds passed before Mar spoke up.

"Captain, there's a very good reason I keep things from you," she exhaled wearily. "But I would like you to know that it's no longer an issue of trust between us. Alright?"

Jon could see Shran's antennae twitch curiously at her repentant tone. Erika folded her arms over her chest, eyebrows levered. Only Morkal seemed uninterested, twiddling his thumbs while patiently waiting.

"My ready room, after decon and your treatment—we'll talk," Jon said curtly, looking away, his stance clearly signaling that the conversation is over for now, given their audience.

Mar just nodded silently and stepped away. The sudden absence of fight in her bothered him. He might've thought she was no longer concerned for her crew, but he knew better. Something was terribly wrong—so wrong Mar gave up before they even knew what they were facing.

So wrong time no longer seemed to factor into their chances of success.