“So, what exactly happened?” Orelia asked as she piled into the briefing room the three men that had accompanied Sidda to see the Ferengi Daimon. She’d opted to get a proper debriefing from them in moderate privacy versus right there in the transporter room where the operator would hear everything and anyone in the hall as well, then from there the gossip network would have it in the hears of intelligence agencies the galaxy over.

“As we said,” Deidrick had waited for the door to close behind him at least. None of them took seats which just highlighted the size difference between Orelia, Orin, Deidrick and then R’tin in his own weight class. “Hilke made some flippant comment about wanting to buy Sidda. Orin stepped in to stop her immediately opening up on him, I stepped in playing the part of Master Orin’s interpreter,” he held a hand indicating Orin, who smiled and nodded his head, “and Hilke then just kept dumping fuel on the fire.”

“Don’t forget he kind of lost it when we mentioned the Martian Thorn. Something happened there Orelia and Hilke doesn’t want to talk about.” R’tin hadn’t opted to sit, but perching on the table’s edge wasn’t out of the question. “He shut down, said he knew absolutely nothing, then suggested there was one price we might have that could jog his memory, implying the Boss, and then she lost it. Orin bailed her up over his shoulder and we high-tailed it with a Ferengi shrieking at us that we’ll never do business with him.”

‘Never seen her like that,’ Orin signed. ‘She would have shot him as well if I hadn’t grabbed her gun hand.’

“Good call on that big guy,” R’tin said. “Seriously, it was like even the concept of slavery was pissing her off.”

“It should piss anyone off,” Orelia grumbled. “And we’ve all seen dear cousin’s anti-slavery drive recently enough.” They had after all delivered most of the slavers to a Federation magistrate for processing shortly after collecting them from Port Royal, but three of them had taken rather long walks outside when the width and breadth of their operations had been discovered.

“Okay, so, we’ve lost the trail then?” R’tin asked.

“There is another group out there,” Deidrick stated. “We only went to Hilke because his assistant was talking to us and we have some idea of what a Ferengi is and wants. We could try these Malon folks.”

“You mean I could try these Malon,” Orelia clarified and Deidrick nodded in the affirmative. “Well, we can always try at least, right?” She took two steps towards the door that would lead most directly to the bridge, down the ship’s neck. “Oh, uh, did any of you actually see any slaves down there?”

‘No,’ Orin replied. ‘Plenty of hired muscle and Ferengi corporate types milling about.’

“And the Malon we saw were all working in the fields or mines without your usual slave inducements. I suspect they’re all just underpaid miners.” Deidrick pulled out a small device from a pocket, not much larger than a combadge but with a lens on one side and a simple button on the other. It wasn’t a great image recorder, but it was decent enough and lacked anything a modern holorecorder would have to set off alarms. “Fields of this blood dilithium stuff and they’re just taking it out of the ground.” The camera was tossed to Orelia.

“Right, well, let’s call the Malon and see if they want to talk business.” She looked at Orin and smiled. “Talk to Kevak, get some finger food ready. If we’re going to talk to the Malon, let’s do it with proper Orion hospitality.” Then her eyes locked on R’tin just as he was opening his mouth. “Vondem Orion hospitality, R’tin.”

“Yes ma’am. Lavish setting, nice food, and relaxing discussion. Absolutely no belly dancing.”

“Were you offering?” she asked.

“The galaxy isn’t ready for this,” R’tin replied, waving a hand to indicate his lithe form.

Not but an hour later however and Orelia found herself in sickbay, summoned with Orin on her heels by the beckoning command of Bones. It hadn’t been some polite call directly to them, asking them to come, but a shipwide barking. “Orelia, Orin, sickbay, now!” had echoed through the ship.

That directness was apparently one of the reasons Sidda liked the elder human and had kept her around. It was, Orelia had decided, an acquired taste and one she hadn’t yet. She found Bones to abrupt, grating and disrespectful. Likely it was a shared opinion, so the two would have that in common at least.

She hadn’t even had a chance to ask what the issue was before Bones was upon them, tricorder in hand, the wand from the front of the older Starfleet model in her other and waving around her throat, then the same treatment with Orin. “Typical young doctors,” Bones grumbled as she went to the computer terminal and loaded the tricorder’s findings into it.

“What,” Orelia started, then stopped as Orin tapped on her shoulder then pointed past her to a bed where Sidda was lying on her side, a blanket pulled up to her shoulder, Revin seated in a chair next to her. “What’s going on? What’s happened to Sidda?”

“Exhaustion,” Bones answered as she spun about with a hypospray in hand and stalked back over to them. “And if you don’t want to end up stretched out on one of my biobeds, you’ll be a good girl and take your medicine.”

“And if I refuse?”

“If this was a Starfleet ship, I’d relieve you of command. But it ain’t,” Bones shrugged, “so I could just settle for shooting you and then administering this boosted pheromone and adrenal suppressant.”

Orin pushed past her, presenting his upper arm to Bones and sighed one word. ‘Explain.’

“Something down there caused the captain’s body to get a little hyperactive on pheromone and adrenaline production. Like, wore her out while she was pissed off and sulking in her quarters hyperactive. Only reason she’s in here at all is missy there,” Bones tossed a thumb over her shoulder at Revin as she dosed Orelia, “called me for help when Sidda curled up for a nap and wouldn’t wake when she wanted her to.”

“Wanted her to?” Orelia asked.

“Closed space, Orion pheromones, already existing emotional bond. What do you think? Revin is as high as a kite right now and I’m lacking any medications I could use to flush her system at the moment. Going to be another few hours for substances to synthesize correctly in my lab.”

‘Will she be fine?’ Orin asked.

“Of course,” Bones snapped back. “She needs rest. She’s already dosed as well like you two. I heard about the incident with the Ferengi. Likely adrenaline helped fan those flames. And before you ask, no I don’t have a cause yet, I’m still working on that. But you two showed elevated signs of hormone production, just not to the same extent. You the least of all three,” she said to Orelia directly.

“Me, the least?” Orelia asked as she turned back to the human woman.

“Yes. Whatever it was, it was down there, you likely got some sort of transfer when they beamed back up. And no, I’m not ruling out the blood dilithium, but I’ve run a few models and for Orions it’s biochemically inert.”

“The same,” Tavol said in a surprise entrance to the conversation, “as most species. I would conjecture some sort of psychic impact on our Orion crew.” He had stepped out of the adjoining medical lab, which before they came into possession of the ship was best described as a house of horrors, though depending on your viewpoint its new purpose wasn’t too far off the original mark.

“Orions aren’t psychic,” Bones disagreed.

“That is not entirely correct Doctor,” Tavol stated. “But their potential is similar to humans at this time. But this blood dilithium seems to nonetheless have some sort of impact on Orions, females more so than males it would seem since Orin was exposed the same as Sidda and is marginally impacted it would seem.”

“And Sidda’s family line more than most,” Orelia added. “Just…trust me on that.”

“Whatever,” Bones said. “Either way, you two are likely going to feel a little off for a while. Come and see me if you feel tired or if crew members get all weird around either of you. It’s easier to dose all the Orions aboard than the entire crew.”

“Huh.” Orelia expelled her withheld breath and looked once more over to her cousin and the small Romulan woman at her side. Revin looked to be sleeping herself, head lolled to one side, eyes closed. She didn’t see what Sidda saw in her, but it wasn’t her place to question it. “Fix this,” she then ordered before turning and marching out the door.

“Doctor,” she could hear Tavol start as she walked away, “I have a theory about the Orion equivalent of the medulla oblongata I’d like to run past you.” The door to the sickbay closed behind her before the science truly started to bore her.