No idea where to start

Posted on Tue Apr 22nd, 2025 @ 8:56pm by Leiddem Kea (*) & Chief Armoury Rormu Yazlin & Owen Mathieson

Mission: Shackles
Location: Cotrie
Timeline: Evening
2582 words - 5.2 OF Standard Post Measure

Leiddem had spent ages in the records before he needed to come back outside of the ship to get some fresh air. He looked around for people and spotted the security chief and Owen looking around. It was such a confusing place but he had discovered that they called the settlement Coterie. He had no idea where they had found the Starfleet Standard word but Cotreries meaning a small group of people with shared interests, often one that does not want other people to join them was absolutely apt.

"You two okay?" He wondered watching a couple of women from the same species watching them all with interest. He had never seen someone with such pale skin and pale hair but he was not sure what to even say to them.

"It's sickening." Yazlin shook her head, she wasn't okay with any of this. "Do we know what happened to the ship's original crew?" She had her rifle strapped across her back and was just slowly pacing the perimeter of the entrance they had been allowed to enter. Not quite guard duty but making sure they weren't being cornered or otherwise ambushed. Though if that had been the plan they wouldn't have returned their weapons to them. "I'd love to.. hand them over to the authorities." that last part was spoken through gritted teeth.

"Slaves are always sickening." Leiddem sighed and nodded. He hated the slavery trade with a vengeance after what they did to Reuben and Jeassaho. It had ruined them for years thanks to Reuben being taken by them but at the very least Gregnol knew what was happening these people would have had no idea having them seen technology like the Slavers had. "Some of them survived the original 'landing' but they have died over the last months." He explained.

"Knowing the sentiments expressed by some of the other members of our illustrious crew, that's probably for the best. Wouldn't want to be the next Orion they run into." Yazlin tried deflecting it away from her own feelings on the matter. "It's amazing what they've been able to do here without the help of people more well versed with this tech. It even seems like they've been able to keep the replicators running."

“Yeah which surprised me but they were pretty tight lipped over it.” Leiddem said pointedly. He did not believe it himself, one of them had to have some experience of technology to be able to keep that type of equipment going. The Betazoid was not sure he would have been able to himself.

Like any good scholar, Owen had spent most of the time he'd been left to his own devices carefully taking notes. Whilst the initial temptation was to ask questions, the guarded wariness of their new hosts didn't lend itself to easy conversation and he had settled, instead, on drawing some preliminary conclusions from observable evidence. Whilst Yazlin paced, the linguist had perched himself on a nearby rock and spent most of the time Leiddem had been occupied either chewing on his pencil or scribbling notes to himself in short-hand no living being was going to stand a chance of decoding. He frowned, and though at first it could have been at any number of things, eventually he proved to be somewhat listening to the conversation by adding, "There's still a few things they haven't figured out, despite inadvertently making use of it."

Scrunching up his nose, Owen then glanced over at the pair now hunched over in quiet conversation, and rose from his rock to evoke a similar sense of discretion by moving close enough to lower his voice.

"They seem...surprised by being able to communicate with us. A group this diverse, they have no doubt realised the proximity to the ship impacts their ability to understand each other, but our own devices extended the range beyond what they're used to."

"So they've not gotten their hands on personal communicators, or they've been unable to remap them to their persons. Which makes sense if you have no idea what they do or how they work. From what I gathered the most advanced species here might have gotten up to the digital age, but most of them are pre-industrial." Yazlin shook her head again, to be ripped away from everything you knew like that must've been horrible. "Where do you think they'd keep them, if any of the Orions did survive?"

It took Owen a moment to realise the question had been somewhat directed his way, or at least that it had been left for him to respond to. Glancing around, having given the notion no thought up until the point, his gaze eventually settled on the hatchway Leiddem had recently emerged from. "Well, unless they found a way to fashion a makeshift jail out of twigs and rocks, the most secure holding cells would have been on board." He squinted at the Betazoid, not quite able to make out his face over the glare of sunshine. "They seemed pretty intent on not giving us free reign to explore, right?"

“Where I would hold anyone or a refrigeration unit if I had no power on a vessel to spare on keeping someone secure. Most can only be opened from the outside.” Leiddem commented finally coming out of his thoughts to look at his companions properly. It was messy inside but he could roughly work his way around as he knew where the bridge was now from going there with the other group.

Yazlin thought that over for a moment, "If I were to design a slaver ship, I'd make damn sure the holding brigs wouldn't rely on power to keep them secure. Good old fashioned dead bolts and bars would be the way to go. Probably near the cargo areas, away from any vital bits in case the cattle gets ideas."

“Where they are on Mary Rose.” Leiddem reminded his boss. “They let us go up to the bridge maybe they will let us explore the other direction?” He hinted always happy to test a theory.

"There is also the option of asking them directly," Owen pointed out. "From their point of view, and gleaning what we can from the information we've been given so far, we're as alien to these people as their captors and they likely have no concept of the quadrant's socio-political climate to trust that we're not somehow just another facet of the same organisation. Honesty," the linguist added, "And transparency may be advisable if we want to reassure them we're here to help and not hinder."

“I am too low on the food chain… I mean chain of command to make that choice but will follow your example boss.” He said to Yazlin with a smile deferring to her. He really did not know what to make of it all right now, his head was spinning from the reality of so many unknown species.

"Alright then, let's ask someone. Who among the Coterie do you believe most receptive to or questions?" She had her own ideas, but her idea of leadership was enabling people in her team to express and develop themselves. So she was curious to get their insights.

“Not Mina. She is too secretive already. Maybe the strong silent one Myoporulin.” The Betazoid said completely hashing the name Myoporulin with his accent but he had the grace enough to make a face and took flummoxed by the name. “And hopefully one of you can say it better.”

"Let's hope it's more a case of being the strong, silent yet obligingly forthcoming when prompted type," Owen remarked, hands on both hips as he stared back towards the settlement and, perhaps a little on the late side, glanced back to realise both sets of eyes were trained on him. A moment's furtiveness allowed the penny to sink. "Ah. Send in the guy with the degree in languages." He reached up to scratch the end of his nose. "What's our priority then? The overall fate of their captors or specifically the whereabouts of any survivors?"

"Let's start with the overall question, work our way inward from there." Yazlin felt it would be easier to dig from the mor surface level down than immediately going in for the info that if there was any to be had they'd done a good job of hiding it until now.

It all sounded like that now and a plan and a way to moved forward and find out a little more about what was going on. Leiddem smiled and looked around for the man called Myoporulin. “There he is.” He pointed out as the person walked across the tented area outside of the ship.

Myoporulin wasn't too happy with all of the outsiders fretting about their small compound. They had already gone in to the ship when he had preferred they'd stay outside of the perimeter. How could they possibly know to trust these people from the sky? It had been skypeople that had taken them against their will in the first place. He saw a small group gathered near the edge of the tents, and most of them suddenly seemed focused on him.

Yazlin made eye contact with Myoporulin as he was seemingly just patrolling the area. Once both of them had acknowledged they had seen each other there was no other way about it but to simply step up to the green man that looked like he could disappear among the foliage easily. "Hey, how are you doing? I heard you were something of an important person around here."

Myoporulin frowned at that, "We're all important people." He had never seen himself as elevated above others in the group. "What is it you want?" He knew flattery when he saw it, even in other species he realised.

"We were just wondering about the original crew of the ship. Do you know what happened to them?" Yazlin was simply stating the question as a curiosity, no judgement, trying to hide the more hidden agenda. Her hands were behind her back, squeezing hard into each other.

"Most of them died in the crash. Some sustained fatal injuries and succumbed later." Myoropulin casually remarked, that part of the events wasn't some big secret and it was no problem simply giving them that information to throw off their scent. "We burned the remains to prevent illness." It wasn't something that was normal in his culture, but some of the others had insisted. Something about carriers of disease that were smaller than the eye could see.

"None of them survived now? Shame I would love to have a conversation with them." Leiddem said letting the anger and horror of the situation show all over his face at it all. He had never been a fan of Orions before now but this whole thing had made things a lot more solid for him that there were currently only 2 that he liked and both were up on the ship luckily.

"Do you know how many were accounted for?" Having stood back in mild amusement at Rormu's attempt, and making a note to have a discussion with her about the traitorous nature of body language some other time, the historian stood with hands on his hips and the nonchalant squint of an affable soul's well-meaning intrusion. "Pretty typical of them to pour all their resources into reinforcing their holding cells, didn't have enough left over for seat-belts, I guess."

Myoropulin shrugged a bit at that, "it was chaotic. We were fighting them at the time. Nobody took a head count." His eyes darted towards the ship for just a moment as he thought about the people they'd had in the holding cells. Most of them succumbed to their wounds within a week or so of their mutiny and crash, a couple more were executed for their crimes. Only one remained and they had agreed among the Coterie that she'd be kept away from these new sky people.

Yazlin rolled a shoulder and cocked her head to the left a bit as she listened. "We noticed quite a few of the ship's systems are still functioning, despite the severe crash. Is there someone in your group that's fixing them? Perhaps we can have them meet with our Engineers, teach them a thing or two about the systems."

Leiddem raised an eyebrow as Yazlin went straight into it and asked her questions. He had to admire the forthright approach to things rather than his bull in a china shop mode. He turned to the man expectantly wondered who was the engineer.

"Some of us are from places that were technologically advanced." Myoropulin pointed over his shoulder in the general direction of the main camp for those that called themselves the coterie.

"Still, this is very advanced stuff, and alien tech." Yazlin pressed.

"What are you implying?" It was clear the man felt defensive about the topic, which in general meant that one was onto something. He wasn't good at hiding his discomfort with the conversation. "We're just glad we got some of that stuff working again."

“Fair.” Leiddem hated using his abilities but even before that he could see that the man was uncomfortable with everything. “No one is implying anything we are just trying to investigate everything.” He admitted. “We like to understand what is going on.”

"What's going on is that we got taken from our homelands, carried half way across the known stars, and crashed on this planet. It's miracle we're still alive, and while we were at it we added the miracle of food creation from energy." It had been in general terms how Shairo had explained the replicators to them. They had been quite apprehensive, but after she had eaten two meals in front of them without ill effect the more brave of them had created their own meals. "Without it we would've had to solely rely on local flora and fauna for sustenance, and I'm not sure it would've supported our community."

"You've done well for yourselves," Owen agreed, more as a means to avoid lapsing into distracted silence when their new friend already had his hackles up. "Admirably so." An amiable smile was utterly sincere, just as his sentiments had been. Despite whatever suspicion lingered, there was no doubt the survivors had demonstrated resilience beyond anything that could be construed as reasonable. "Certainly enough to have earned autonomy over your situation. Would it be better," Owen offered, "if we were to ask how you think we can be of most help?"

"I think there might be people in our community that wish to return to where they were taken from." Myoporulin wasn't one of those, but he was also conscious of the fact that if too many of his compatriots were to leave their little community would no longer be viable. "I think several of your colleagues are already trying to figure out if that's a possibility."

"They are. But is there anything here and now we can help with?" Leiddem wondered, trying to take a softer approach seeing his normal straight to the point was not working in the slightest. He wanted answers for things but it seemed for once he was going to have to bide his time.

Myoporulin simply shrugged, "not that I can think of. If there's anything, we know where to find you. You're kind of hard to miss."

Leiddem could not argue that point at all.