Lost Souls

Posted on Sat Jun 10th, 2023 @ 7:33pm by Commander Steven Greco & Lieutenant Evelyn Stewart & Lieutenant Commander Keishara Davaris

2,090 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Prologue: Centre Predominate
Location: The Ktarian’s and Benzite’s Cargo Freighter
Timeline: MD 15: 1500 hrs

Stewart was doing her best to keep her balance as she stood precariously on a cargo container full of mining drills, feeling for seams in the bulkhead and tapping for signs of secret compartments. She flinched at the awkward stretching she had to do to reach the whole area. Being covered in grease, and however old the gunk of this freighter did little to help her mood. “Checks out?” She called out to Kei who was going through the cargo manifest yet again and the verification of the dock master at their last space port.

They practically tore the dilapidated ship apart for the better part of three days and Stewart was frustrated they were going through everything yet again.

"Apart from the ship being very unsafe, yeah. Everything checks out." Kei huffed her cheeks out. "I mean I could cite them for over a dozen violations in relation to health and safety, transportation of cargo, lack of a licence, and that's just off the top of my heads." she unzipped her uniform at the top. It was nice to expose some skin. The air on the ship was very stuffy. "And the environmental system is crap."

Stewart smiled to herself at Kei’s complaining. “Haven’t been on many third party cargo freighters, have you?” She asked while conducting another scan before being satisfied and jumping down and moving to the next section of the room, pulling open a conduct casing to start feeling around. “This is nothing. Believe me, you don’t want to get stuck on an Tellarite freighter whose captain’s idea of environmental controls was life support and nothing else.” Stewart scrunched her face at the memory of the smell and shook her head.

"Oh I've been on plenty before I joined Starfleet, but I'd hardly call this rickety smelly old thing a ship. I have been on Pakled ships that had better hygiene ratings than this." Kei continued voicing her displeasure and moving forward. "Tellarite's are a species unto themselves." Kei chuckled and then frowned. A flash of emotion surfaced but disappeared just as quick. It wasn't from Evelyn and there was no-one else on board. Kei simply shook her head and dismissed it thinking it was her imagination. "Now a Jebrezlan ship... that was one of my worst. I had to trade with them when I was trying to make a living back when I was younger. Picture this..." she made a picture shape in the air with her hands. "They use slime as communication. You have to use their goo to speak, and to 'hear' them." she shuddered.

Stewart couldn’t help the face she made when she thought of how that situation would be. A moment later she laughed as she shook her head. “You’re right, that is an image.” She finished prodding around and put back the panel cover before feeling again for secret compartments she missed. “These old freighters are so full of nooks and crannies, no wonder the Orions love them…” she commented as she worked.

Kei arched an eyebrow, "What is a 'nook' and 'crannies'?" she asked. "I don't see them on the manifest..." she studied it once again to make sur she hadn't missed those.

Evelyn just shook her head as she laughed. “Kei, we gotta get you out and having fun more.” She commented scanning behind a bulkhead before pushing herself up off the floor. “I think that’s about it. I went over pretty much every cubic millimeter of this cargo hold the last three days. There’s nothing here. Ready to get out of here and head to the DMZ?”

"I have fun." Kei defended herself as she looked up from her PADD. "It's not my fault Humans have a throw away saying for nearly every situation... I mean a 'crannie' sounds like something you can catch and isn't very pleasant." she sighed and shook her head. "But yes, I am all for the DMZ... replace the smells in here with the smell of alcohol will be FUN."

Stewart just smiled as she nodded in agreement, packing up the last of their scanning equipment. “I don’t know about you but I’m taking a sonic shower first. I think Char would be appreciative.”

"We don't sme..." she went to smell her clothing and pulled her head back so quick she almost pulled a muscle. "Ahem, yes. A sonic shower is probably a good idea." Again there was a flash of emotion. Was it relief? Kei frowned at the very notion of it.

Evelyn saw the frown but thought maybe it was in reference to their current states and didn’t pry. She swung the kit onto her shoulder and headed for the door to the cargo bay and towards the bridge for the transport back. She felt a slight shift in the floor subtly rising when Kei took a step towards her. “Wait…step back and do that again.” Stewart herself focused more on her own feet and feeling a change in pressure.

Kei did as she was asked and took a step back and then forwards again. "Do you feel something over by you? See something?" she asked. At this point she was listening to Evelyn's intuition but in the back of her mind with the two flashes of random emotion she felt that this was not a coincidence.

Evelyn brought her finger to her lips to tell Kei to be quiet before silently gesturing for her to keep moving back and forth between her feet on the spot a few more times, doing the same. Confirming her suspicions she pointed to the floor as she started looking around. “The floor’s uneven. It’s been cut. But it wasn’t like this yesterday….it was full of supplies so it laid flat. Now….you feel that?” Evelyn asked, making the bulkhead lift under Kei’s foot ever so slightly by putting pressure on her side, unbalancing it. Even so, her eyes looking around for what was different. Containers had been moved she realized, thinking nothing of it earlier. She thought the other crews would have moved them around, but she couldn’t access the edges as easily. She scanned the spot with her tricorder and frowned at the readings. “Nothing…but I know it wasn’t like this when we left yesterday….” She thought out loud before glancing around. “Help me move these containers.”

Kei nodded, she felt it now that she thought about it. She couldn't believe she hadn't noticed before. Hidden compartments, under the floors were always the best hiding places, especially if they had things on top of them before to conceal them. "Yes ma'am." Kei teased a little as she helped Evelyn move the containers to a better spot.

Between the two of them they managed to shove and pull containers out of the way until they were able to move to access the edges and lift the floor out of the way.

As they crouched down and lifted the durasteel, Evelyn was surprised by what they found. She looked down into the faces of about thirty Romulans. They all looked dirty, under fed and dehydrated. There was more than one family amongst them, families with small children. It was clear these were refugees being smuggled as well. All of them watching the two officers warily, clearly frightened. Stunned, Stewart looked at them all. “What the hell? How did we missed this?” She asked Kei. She wasn’t naïve, she knew there was an active slave trade on the black market, even crossed paths on the rare occasion with her brother at trading posts when she was younger. Desmond always refused the offers outright, threatening to bring in the authorities if the smugglers didn’t get out of whatever backwater post they were at. But Evelyn but it was different seeing it first hand, much less find it now.

Keishara stared down at all the faces staring back up at them, at her. Their emotion all too clear now and it washed over her like a wave. The fear, the desperation was all to familiar but at the same time felt like a distant memory, a part of her that she wanted to remain buried. She reached under and pulled a small machine from the underside of the floor. ""Bio dampeners." she sighed. "Are you alright?" she reached towards them. They cowered back into the darkness, a small whelp from a child below being let out.

Stewart was met with a similar reaction when she tried to help them out. Immediately she backed off, putting her hands up so the group could see. “Okay, okay….” She said, gesturing for Kei to do the same before sighing at the situation. She noticed the adult Romulans seemed to relax, ever slightly. “We aren’t going to hurt you. We are Starfleet, we are here to help.” She said calmly to the group but saw no positive change in their demeanor. If anything they seemed more confused. “They don’t understand, the universal translator isn’t working.” She commented, glancing silently around the hole and room for signs of the bio dampeners before turning back to watch the group eyeing the women. “Can you read them?” She asked Kei as calmly as she could.

"I think us being Starfleet is the problem." Kei mentioned. "When you said that word flashes of fear and panic spread though the group." Kei took off her uniform jacket down to her under top/vest. She had noticed some food containers nearby and propped one open before returning back to the opening. Looking down at them she opened her arms wide to show no threat and offered the food. "Feldor staam toreht. (Please, friends. Choose to live.)" she looked over at Evelyn. "My Romulan is a little rusty without a translator." she admitted.

Evelyn saw that none of them attempted to take the food. If they were afraid and distrustful of Starfleet she could blame them. She chewed slightly at her lip as she considered what to do. With a sigh she tapped her combadge. =A= Stewart to Greco =A=

=A= Go ahead. You found something, Lieutenant? =A=

Evelyn surveyed the group. =A= Yes, Sir, about thirty of them. I suggest you get over here and bring Lieutenant s’Lovok with you. =A=

=A= Understood….Greco, out. =A=

Stewart moved slowly to sit on the floor. She was careful with her movements as to not startle the refugees. She sat there silently watching the group as they watched the officers. She could hear the confusion in Steve’s voice and wondered how they were going to explain this. “If they don’t trust us, I doubt they will eat what’s left of our lunch. It’s best to just wait. Hopefully seeing Amarok will help gain their trust.” She commented to Kei quietly.

When the engines went through another cycle, the heat exchanger for the evaporator must have failed and frozen up because cold air from the exhaust was blowing into the pit since they lifted the flooring. Despite doing their best to hide it, the Romulan children couldn’t hide their shivering. She suspected the adults told them they couldn’t appear weak in front of non-Romulans.

Unable to take the sight, Evelyn started taking off her uniform jacket. “Give them your jacket.” She said to Kei, “Who knows how long it will take Amarok to convince them to come out of there and in the meantime it’s freezing in there.” Pulling off her own, she knew it was far from the best thing to give them with the stains and smells, but it was better than what they had. She slowly offered it to the closest adult Romulan. ”For the children.” she said in the dialect she knew. She was far from fluent in Romulan but had a conversational vocabulary in the language between her studies at the Academy and its close proximity to the Vulcan language.

Kei hated seeing this. It made her blood boil to see people trafficking and brought up memories of the time she was kept as a slave and she could feel herself balling her fists before coming 'back to Earth' when Evelyn spoke to her.

She passed down her jacket as one of the Romulans warily accepted it.

Stewart sat on the deck and quietly watched the group in rumination while they waited for the XO and Romulan to arrive.

 

RSS Feed