Ensign Ivalyan Keros- Here Be Beasties

[Ivalyan Keros]

((Elder’s Chamber - Temurian Settlement))

Sylvax: She’s not telling us everything.

Willow: No one ever truly does, even the most honest among us.

Ivalyan: ::dryly:: No. But most people aren’t managing an Orion arrangement and a planetary relocation simultaneously. The shape of what she’s holding back matters.

Sylvax: When that report came in… her reaction was genuine. I could sense real fear, concern… something personal underneath it. But there’s more to this situation than aggressive wildlife delaying a relocation. ::pointing at his temple:: I can feel that much.

Willow: Of course it’s personal Ryden. They want to be able to settle, have a life, have a home. Nothing is more personal than that.

Ivalyan went still for a moment.

Fear. Not exasperation. She ran the moment back through her memory and looked at it again with that correction applied. The tightening around Leda’s eyes. The way her posture had shifted inward, just slightly. She’d read exhaustion and irritation. She’d missed what was underneath both.

Ivalyan: ::quietly:: I read it wrong. ::Not self-flagellating. Just accurate.:: I thought she was emb-b-barassed by the interruption. That changes w-w-what we’re walking into down there.

Sylvax: I don’t think she’s lying to us. I think she’s deciding how much she trusts us before she tells us the rest.

Willow: Unlike myself, that’s how most operate. You don’t start telling a total stranger everything, you wait and see if you are going to call them a friend first.

Ivalyan: ::evenly:: Which tracks. She’s protecting something beyond the settlement logistics. The Orion piece is the part I keep coming back to. That wasn’t a slip. She made a decision to say it.

What else had she missed? Damn it. Her one job here. Focus Ivalyan. Focus. What other cues? Sometimes she wished she was a betazoid, someone who could intrinsically feel empathy. Instead she came from a race that could drink to excess and feel great the next day. Useful for school though. 

Sylvax: Which means if we want answers… we probably need to earn them first. We stay careful. We learn what we can. And we assume the situation below is worse than advertised.

Willow: Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I have already expected as such. This transaction - in order to get her to trust us, it’s only fair that we take care of her worst situation.

Ivalyan: ::drily:: Significantly worse, probably. I’ll k-k- keep watching her on the surface. If the fear is personal it’ll show again when we’re actually down there.

((The group returns to Leda.))

Sylvax: We’ve discussed it. We’ll help deal with the creatures in the cave systems. In exchange, we expect access to the power cores we discussed… and an ongoing conversation afterward.

Leda: Then I’d say we have a deal.

Ivalyan let the chittering wash through the room without reacting to it. She was watching Leda’s face instead. The tight press of lips behind the composed smile. The prayer underneath the decision. Or was she sending them to their doom intentionally? Or was she feeling indigestion? Damn damn damn. 

But…Leda had made a hard call. Ivalyan respected that without showing it.

Leda: First and foremost - let me send a message to my grandson, Kiro. I believe he’s meeting with the technical team from your organization and I’ll tell him to give them his full cooperation in regards to accessing the cores.

Ivalyan: We appreciate it.

She meant that too. Clean access without a fight was worth more than people usually gave it credit for.

Leda: Of course. I’ll provide all the information I can about these creatures. We can also offer you transportation down to the planet as well, or give you beaming parameters. Drakos Prime has roving antimatter storms that can make transporting a challenge without proper calibration.

Ivalyan: We’ll take whatever you recommend. You know the surface better than we do.

Willow: Your assistance is greatly appreciated. We will gladly take you on that offer.

Leda: We have a forward camp on the planet and we’ve been conducting regular excursions into the cave system - as much as we can, anyway. As a show of good faith for your generous offer, I’ll accompany you down to the surface to help get you oriented. I assume you have preparations you’d like to make first? What else can I tell you before we leave?

Willow: It is true that we will have preparations we would want to make before starting out. I have a store of weapons I would like to access. However, until then I do have several questions to which you could answer.

Ivalyan: :: eyes on Leda:: Tell us about the fear. Not the creatures specifically. The part that keeps the excursions going even when they stop going well.

She left it open. Let Leda decide how much of the door to walk through.

Leda: ?

Willow: In order to conduct our extraction of the pests from the cave system, it would be ideal for any and all information you have regarding them.

Ivalyan: ::nodding once:: Numbers, behavior, territory if you have it. We’d rather know too much than walk in blind.

Leda: ?

Willow: Any information that we can reference while we prepare would be ideal - greatly appreciated.

Ivalyan: ::quietly, still watching Leda:: Whatever you give us, we’ll use it carefully. You’re coming down with us. We’d like to make sure you come back up.

Somewhere deeper in the settlement, something mechanical cycled through a reset. The familiar high-pitched chirp punctuated the silence and faded again.

All: ?

Ensign Ivalyan Keros

Counselor

SB 118 Ops

O240304IK3

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