The Captain's Grave

Camus touches Resalon's arm sensing he feels as she does. "I don't know anything about them. The captain said something to my brother about 'smuggling' the crate, but I didn't hear the rest."

She leans over to the deck collar and suddenly activates it. The collar opens, and a woman's voice from inside says, "Nothing happened. Maybe it's broke."

Camus holds her hand top her mouth. "I didn't mean to--"

The woman pulls the sack over her head revealing her middle aged self. Purple hair, glowing tattoos on one side of her head, and sharp features.

This can only be the Empire's Colonel Celia Tyde, known as The Butcher to the rebel cause. Everyone would recognize her description, coupled with the Empire insignia on the kit bag.

"Ah I see," Resalon says to Camu. As he continues to wonder about the mystery within the sac, it reveals itself. His eyes go wide as he sees a person he's only ever heard about in ballads, her purple hair, and tattoos the subjects of much derision.

He steps back reflexively, the bile almost rising from his stomach. It is a visceral reaction more than anything and he knows that he had better keep his cool. There had to be a reason she was here. His captain must have had a plan and he would respect that.

Cordell flinches at the sight of the Colonel. Even he recognized her from the stories some of former rebels told.

He takes several steps back, stumbling over his feet and other cargo as he retreated. He doesn't know why she would be the one in the container, but it couldn't be good, right?

Out of habit more than anything else, his eyes scan the purple haired woman, evaluating her condition.

Adil resists the urge to step back with the rest, but instead steps between them and Tyde, raising their hands playactingly to everyone.

"Colonel," they say as calmly as they can. "We mean you no harm. You have been in stasis..." They are not sure where to go from here.

"You were accidentally awoken. And we are unprepared." They explain. "Is that a problem? I am sorry to bombard you with questions, but we don't know the reason you were in stasis. Are you at risk? Are you a risk to us? Do you need to be refrozen?"

These seem like the more pressing issues, and will hopefully focus the minds of those present on finding solutions rather than reacting to danger. Adil does not know why the captain --the 'late captain', technically, but that has not sunk in yet-- would have her on board, but telling her that might not be the best idea till they have more answers.

Her eyes give nothing away, but they might linger on Adil a moment longer than the rest of you. She climbs out of the crate slowly, wearing only underclothes. Her body is marked in scars, and a few oddly placed glowing tattoos. "I'll answer your questions but only if your ship's captain is here. Is that one of you?"

"The captain is dead." Adil says trying to keep the sadness from their voice. "Killed escaping the Flying Cragworm but an hour ago."

They hesitate for a moment before adding. "You can talk to me." Because you don't want to talk to Dante. They add to themself.

She looks at the others obviously and then at Adil again, but she accepts the invitation. "I was to be smuggled out of the Empire, and when we got far enough away, I'd explain why I've turned traitor to the Emperor. But surprise twist, I've always been a traitor. A mole placed early on in the beginning days of the rebellion. We feared that the Empire was using their resources to gather any strange technology they could to control the people. Or if not control to kill, or pacify. I've spent the last decade proving to them I was the best woman for the job, and eventually rose to head of research division. That's when I found what they truly planned."

She looks like she wants to pace, or wants a drink. Maybe both.

"At this point, I'm hated by everyone, by the rebellion for the atrocities I've committed, by the Empire for what I know. My name is already being circulated to death squads for kill on sight. If you're loyalists, then tell me now so we can hash this out. If you're honour lies with your late captain, then you've got to help me, by the love of freedom, you must!"

Adil looks pointedly at the Empire uniform being transported with her, leaving the question of why someone turning traitor would travel with such identifying items --only useful if they planned to use that past identity again.

They can not see much harm in admitting that their ship is no friend to the empire --dangerous as Tyde is, they outnumber her significantly-- but watch to see how they react to unspoken inquiry.

"I think we should help her," Resalon says to the others once he manages to overcome his initial reaction to the woman followed by awe and a frozen tongue. "If the captain went to such lengths to protect you, then we should surely provide you support."

He almost felt sorry for her. To be hated by everyone must be a lonely existence and he had the utmost respect for her dedication even though as yet there was probably much more to find out about the woman.

'if' Adil thinks, not sure yet that the captain was protecting her. 'Smuggling a crate' does not necessarily equate to 'protecting the contents'.

She follows Adil's pointed look at the uniform. "my uniform is in there, and a few supplies. The uniform could come in handy. I am a colonel, after all. Or was."

"I understand." Adil says placing just enough emphasis on the word to be noticed by the colonel if they recognised Adil from past meetings, but not by anyone without that knowledge.

"I am Adil." They say, to establish protocol and avoid the use of past names that could be embarrassing --and not relevant. "There are people on this ship who may not be happy with your presence. How should we address you to maintain your cover?" They ask acknowledging Resalon's statement as though it was always assumed to be true.

"Do you need our medic to look at you?" They ask, quirking an eye towards Cordell. "I am sure that..." they indicate the stasis pod, "can't have been comfortable. Then I am sure Camus can find you something less controversial to wear... unless you want to go back under."

They have many more questions, but want to get Areen's input when it comes to talk of where they are to go next.

"I'm in your hands. Call me Ceebee. These tattoos make me easily recognizable, so unless you've got a head wrap, or... "

She looks at Cordell. "An inspection is wise. Perhaps you have bandages, for these -- burns?"

Cordell grimaces a bit when she looks at him. The speed at which Adil and Resalon seemed to accept this person was kind of jarring. Honestly, it comes as a surprise to the doctor that he's the last hold out on whether or not they should help.

"Why were you in stasis?" He asks, instead of responding to her, his tone nearly robotic in its lack of emotion.

Before 'C.B.' (and somehow it bothered him that she decides to keep the 'butcher' part rather than 'C.T.') responds to his question, Cordell pushes on - his voice remains quiet, but an underlying layer of stress quickly begins to become evident in his demeanor. He still had the captain's blood on his hands and now he's expected to accept 'The Butcher' on board and that Captain Lauchmair was keeping a secret like this from them?

"Numenera aren't toys. Using ancient, barely-understood technology to literally untether your body from the flow of time isn't something you do just to save yourself the discomfort of living a few weeks as a stowaway. Now you're saying that you can shield your identity with bandages? You couldn't find any bandages at port, so temporal stasis was the next best thing?"

He looks between Adil and Resalon now, "You don't find anything weird about that?"

"I trust...trusted the captain implicitly. That's the difference between you and me I guess."

He bore no malice for Cordell. He was a man of science and as such should question things. But Resalon was a fighter and loyal to the captain, and would never even think about doubting the intentions of anything the captain had planned or already put into motion.

Cordell reeled back from Resalon's words like he'd hit him.

How - how could he imply Cordell didn't trust the captain? When he's the only one here not taking post-mortem testimony on what their captain supposedly wanted at face value? The doctor's eyes darkened to an even blacker pitch and there was the faint feeling of static in the air as the nanites reacted to the frustrated Nano's mood.

"Is that the difference between you and me?" Cordell asks bitterly, then turns back to the Butcher. "Fine, forget my first question. I've got a better one: what was our captain's name?"

It hadn't been lost on him that the woman had woken up and asked if one of them was the captain - that she hadn't said Captain Lauchmair's name even once in her story. All Camus had seen was the captain treating the body with respect - which was natural for any decent person to do. Where the captain's actual motives came into this plot were a complete mystery.

Adil reaches out a consoling hand to Cordell. I agree with you. They try to convey. But this is not the time to discuss 'trust'. Not in front of her.

"We will need to talk to our navigator." They say to Ceebee. "Camus, can you, quietly, fetch Areen. And then go to my bunk and gather whatever cosmetics you can find to cover the tattoos --surely we can do better than full face bandages to avoid attracting attention. Bad enough having someone appear on board mid-journey." They are thinking that they can work something with Areen to arrange a landing where they can 'pick up a lucrative passenger'.

"Wait." They say a moment later, apologetically fishing the captain's cabin key from his pocket. "Maybe make sure this is locked, and then 'misplace' the key? We don't want Dante setting up in there and doctoring the log, or finding what is in the hold." The captain's notes might also include details about what is going on.

Resalon ignores Cordell's question. Emotions were high with the death of the captain and now this new addition to the 'cargo' was surprising and unsettling. To argue further served no purpose especially since they were stuck on the ship together. For the rest of the conversation he reamins silent, and despite the ruckus Cebee's discovery has caused, he finds that he admires her.

When Adil mentions the next course of action, he nods in agreement.

Hearing her speak the captain's name doesn't relieve him as much as he thought it should - and he should probably take the time to examine why he felt so strongly about it. But, when Adil reached out a hand to him and said his name, the nano knew it was a request to calm down. To put the doubts he had away for now.

He forces himself back to neutral, the somewhat electric atmosphere in the hull becoming clear once again.

"I can go get Areen," Cordell suggests quietly, "or go to one of the rooms. It's dangerous to have just one person sneaking around."

He felt bad that Camus had to deal with any of this at all, when she was the one suffering the most from her brother's death. Leaving her to be the runner didn't seem fair. And, well, Areen knew the captain well - better than most of them - he thought maybe talking to her could give him some insight onto what the captain was thinking.