Day 021: Trust In Treachery
Summary: The scouting party returns from the crash site, defense plans are made, and a Grounder joins the Delinquent camp.
Date: Day Month Year
Related: Leads into No Rest For the Wicket.
Cole Tink Lark Grey Gertie Cassandra Morgan Gideon Silas 


Grounds, The Camp

With the removal of underbrush and a half-dozen small trees, there is now a tiny clearing around the dropship. It has begun to fill with detritus from the ship, including all of the seating, padding, and removable plates or bulkheads.

Several tents have been set up within the clearing, set close together within the confines of the surrounding trees. A small collection of weapons sits under a parachute-cloth shelter by the door of dropship, open for community use. A three-holer latrine is set up downwind of camp in the prevailing breezes, and a rough wall stretches between trees at the edge of the clearing, dropship plates and felled tree-trunks stacked up and lashed together as best as the Delinquents can manage. There is a gate at the north end, a single panel that can be rolled aside at need.

The forest immediately surrounding the camp has been cowed into near-silence, but is still vibrant and green to a people used to stark metal bulkheads all around them.

Day 21 After Landing

Cole has turned the bend. He's certainly felt better, but it'll have to do. Because yet again, people come crying to him to fix all their problems. The only upshot to this is for once, he's not the only tech-trained person trying to get some stuff done. With a collection of rocks, sticks, and drawing in the dirt, he has created a small crude model of the camp, sticks laid down to represent the wall, hole and all, a large rock for the dropship, and markings in the dirt for all the 'ideas' he currently has.

But right now, he's currently eyeballing that large hole in the wall. One arm is across his chest, the other has it's elbow propped on it, fingers tapping against his cheek, the man in thought. "Great." A short sighs escapes him. "I didn't expect it to be torn down by horses." There's a certain part of him that's impressed by Grounder tactics. The other part of him hates it.

Tink has left Kai's shadow to join the techs in figuring out this mess. She has her hands shoved in her pockets and looks at the drawing that's before her. She's not saying much yet, keeping that quiet, mouse front up just a little bit longer. Her earlier outburst about sheep, stupid horses and grounders was missed on most of the folks here that weren't at the battlescene. She does make a point of showing Cole where they pierced the wall towards the top, "At first…I thought they were trying to scale the wall but then…when they attached the ropes to the horses…they just pulled, using gravity against itself."

Panic atop the walls. "Movement!" calls some jittery Deliquents, set to guard the walls proper. But in a handful of moments more, another call comes out, "It's some of ours!"

And Lark emerges from the treeline first - the main gate opening to allow her entrance. Behind her, many of the other deliquents that left to investigate the crash site - with two of their own upon stretchers. But Lark's eyes - wild upon exiting the treeline, draw down with relief as she enters the camp proper, other deliquents, no doubt, rushing to help the others inside.

Rushing over towards where Cole was, she asks him, voice rich with concern. "Did they attack already? We won, it looks like?" she asks, no doubt still dirty from the hike, her shoulders slumped, breath heavy.

Grey has looked better. His eyes are sunken and his forehead sheened in sweat. His right arm is bound up at his side, and a bloody bandage wrapped around his ribs. He leans on another Delinquent, pulling the other teen to a halt, gesturing for the rest of the group to stop, and calling out painfully, "Did they use sickness? Oxfor said that Trikru get people sick before an attack."

Gertie's returned with the rest of the delinquents that had gone to the crash site. She's filthy, exhausted and stinks like nothing on earth, but there's grim determination on her face, along with a smile of relief as they finally cross through the gates and into the camp itself. "No I'm fine. It's Grey and Lip that took it bad," she says, glancing over to the pair before hunching her shoulders and fishing her canteen from her pack. She unstoppers it, gulps down a couple of mouthfuls and then looks over to the hole in the wall. "Well shit. That's not good. How did they manage that?" So many questions being fired at those that remained, and she presses her mouth into a tight line, hovering near the others in order that she gets to hear any information that's going to get given.

"Have to admit, of all the things I did expect, using ropes and horses wasn't one of them." Cole giving Tink a look before rubbing at his forehead, thinking. "Well, if we didn't have something else added onto the suddenly really large list of 'things that need to be done' that appeared in the last couple of day. This can be fixed. A two-meter hole? Not the best thing in the world, but not horrible either. What I'm wondering is what can we do to prevent that from happening again." A nod at Tink, perhaps imagining what she's describing. "Makes sense. Why bother climbing over it when you can just pull a part of it down. But, this isn't our only issue." he moves over to his little model. "Going to have to try and convince a lot of people to start working on what I have in mind." And then he's distracted by movement. "We got people coming in, get a medic out here!" First he sees Lark. "We didn't win, Lark. We got lucky. And yeah they did. Some other Grounders bought us some time. If they hadn't, they would probably be less of us here right now."

The sound of movement from outside has a skulking Cassandra emerging from the Dropship, raccoon-eyed and sluggish. Her matted hair is partitioned around a thin bandage that dresses her temples, beneath a large, black and purple bruise at the side of her forehead. All signs of the Blood Fever have passed from her, but she looks gravely unwell all the same, from injuries sustain. Her trusty machete is once more secure at her hip, its edge sharpened and cleaned of vegetation. Every so often her fingers fidget by its hip while she watches the arrivals, silent and wary. For now, she remains with one booted foot up on the ramp.

Drawing her hand up to her forehead, Lark massages it briefly, unshouldering her makeshift pack just to… fall upon the ground. Eyes lift to Tink, then Cole as he speaks. "Some of the Grounders are helping us?" she asks, her nose crinkling a bit as she takes a step back - lets her eyes track back towards the group she came in with.

"How do you tell the difference between a good Grounder, and a bad one?" she asks, her tone of voice hushing a bit, almost as if she were speaking to herself. Her eyes were on Gray.

A beat then, her jaw tight. "What do you have in mind?" she asks Cole then, turning her attention fully back towards him.

On the Ark and other civilized places, assuming there are any left, doctors wear scrubs to keep from getting blood all over their clothes. On the ground, Morgan takes his off. At least from the waist up. Between Stone, Fiona and Joacquim, it was busy and bloody even with the other medics working. And then he figuratively collapsed, exhaustion setting in since he had been treating the sick for days before that. The commotion of the others returning to camp and people talking about it wakes him and he wanders out of the ship yawning and still covered in dried blood.

Tink looks at Cole grimly and tells him, "We're going to get hit with hundreds…not just a small war party. The wall…yeah that might help delay things but we're going to have a hard time warding off an army with what we have here." She wants to make sure he has all the information, "Last night…yeah that was the welcome party. The real attack is coming later." She's a little pale from getting over the Blood Fever but that gleam in her eye isn't from that, "I think we need a boom…as in a big boom."

Grey looks out behind him at Cole's response, wincing as he twists, "Ow, damn it." He pats the shoulder of the Delinquent bracing him, then moves to lean against a tree just outside the hole in the wall, "How many did we lose?" Lark's glance gets a painful little shrug, and he answers more quietly, "Do they have a weapon pointed at you?"

There is noise in the trees near the gate, and another pair of sentries are shouting: "Grounders! Grounders!"

Indeed, there is a Grounder emerging from the woods astride a white horse. The horse has been smeared in ash to darken its coat, but there is no mistaking that without the ash and oil, she is a rather lovely white mare. The Grounder in question is very familiar to this camp from the soles of her boots to the top of her curly, oiled ponytail. She has her hands up, fingers braided together behind her head, showing she is not wielding a weapon, despite the small armory she currently carries on her person. Slung across the back of her saddle is a very impressive deer, quite dead and tied down. She slows a few steps from the gate, and shouts, "Heya, Skaikru!"

It may be clear that the Grounder coming in through the gates right now is unarmed, but that doesn't quell Cassie's suspicions when she catches sight of the woman on her horse. Flattening her back against the Dropship, the girl bares her teeth in a hiss and draws her steel machete, keeping it pointed across her body in preparation for Gideon's approach.

"That's because we have to move outward, Tink." Cole remarks, taking a stick in his hand. And this is where he kneels down next to his model of the camp. "The wall should be our last line of defense, not our first. It's been something that's been on my mind for awhile. And if I heard right, if we got a lot more coming for us, then we're going to have to kill a lot them. And we can do that, we just need time. And I'm going to need both of your help for that." he looks at Lark and Tink. See…here…we need to dig spike traps. Deep enough to fall in, implae themselves on it. Get some E-Ess kids to camoflague them up. Run right into them." There's marks on the ground around the outer perimeter of the camp. "Next…I've been thinking of something akin to a fire trap. Though that would require someone lighting it manually and….still debating that one. But my main two concners as of right now, is getting someone to check the bullets we have, which ones are duds, which ones aren't. And building explosives from the hydrazine. Which we have more than /plenty/ of hydrazine for. And we don't need a lot of it to make a very larg boom. So…what we need to…what the fuck is /that/." He's standing when Gideon just /strolls/ right into camp. His tire iron is in his hand.

Gertie turns at the shout from the Grounder, her arms coming about her waist in a small self-hug. "Well huh…" The tip of her nose flares with the intake of breath that follows, and then turning towards the dropship as she catches Morgan coming out, she goes to intercept him before anyone else can. "Could you take a look over Lip when you have a minute? Grey got hit pretty bad too, but…" She lifts her chin Gideon's way. "He might be busy for a minute." Beat. "If you need anything fetching, just say, my feet still work even if my brain's quite dead."

Lark lets her eyes linger on Tink - but she inclines her head. "We still have the hydrazine? That stuff could probably give us all the boom we need - if we can get gunpowder to go with it," she states. A handful of moments, and she nods her head, kinda hunching down next to Cole as he explains his plan.

"This sounds like it can take a lot of time - do we have any idea what direction the Grounders are coming from? Maybe we could set up an obstacle - maybe place mines or something in their path, make them scared to advance too quickly - give us more time to get all this stuff in place," she says, bringing up a hand to kinda rub the tip of her nose. "If we're getting…"

Lark glances over her shoulder at Cole's explanation, and as Gideon shows - she draws a knife from her coat, her eyes not going to Gideon, but the trees. "An emissary? A distraction?" she hisses.

Morgan wanders down the ramp, reaching up to scratch at his chest because dried blood is itchy! He's heading toward the group when he stops to listen to Gertie. "Of course. I can do it right now." He looks around for Lip but the boy must have gone to piss behind a tree. "I'll take a look at… Oh for fuck's sake! What's she gonna do, throw the deer at you and crush you under it? Use your fucking brains people! You KNOW which Grounders have been friendly and which haven't."

Grey grimaces as no one answers his question about casualties, "Damn it." He fumbles for the handle of the baton over his right shoulder at the warning call, giving up in pain and pulling the knife from behind his belt with his left hand instead. He stays leaning against the tree a moment, and then looks up sharply at the call from outside the camp. He does a very stupid thing and starts toward the gate from the hole in the wall, bracing himself on a tree here and there as his weary legs and burning side threaten to let him collapse. "Gideon?" Surprise colors his words, along with… concern? Oh, and pain, definitely pain. He slips the knife into his belt at the small of his back again, a tired little smile gathering at one corner of his lips, "I'm… pretty sure… she's not tryin' to screw us over."
Gertie pages Grey and Lark: Was Lip walking by the end of the trip back? Morgan's asking.

"I don't know jack," says Cass in a low voice, her sword still braced defensively across her torso. She eyes Gideon suspiciously, but at least she doesn't charge her, so that's good — especially for her physical and Morgan's mental wellbeing. She would probably fall and die if she tried. "I know they attacked us. I know they made us sick. I know four more of our people are dead because of it, and they got the audacity —" she emphasises this big word of hers, proud to be using it — "to blame me 'n' Asher for all that. Just like Arkers."

Gideon remains outside the gate, but her hands drop, resting at the horn of her saddle. Her mare gives a light swish of her nail, head bobbing several times as the archer just calmly waits. "Skaikru," she says at the gate, "best not leave good fortune just sitting outside." She will wait for someone to open the gate, or to invite her through the hole, but she definitely is not going to come in unless invited. When Grey looks over at her, she just offers him a slight shrug of her shoulders and small smile. "Hello, Grey kom Skaikru," she says, voice light, but also carrying a bit of relief at the sight of the Skaikru male.

Tink doesn't care that a Grounder is present. She's not worried about one Grounder…it's the impending army that's on their doorstep. But it's not good to reveal your master plan when Grounders are present so she stops what she was going to say and just stands there impatiently waiting for someone to get the Grounder out of the camp.

Gertie tilts her head to the ship. "He's already been taken in," she says quietly, distracted now by what's happening at the gates. Her own hand is on the knife in her belt, though she remains where she's now standing, by the ramp on the dropship. "There was nothing left," she goes on to say, allowing her eyes to slide from Gideon and back to Morgan. "Everything incinerated. Everything gone, even the lakes that must have been there, boiled away to nothing but puddles." Her nose scrunches and she falls quiet then focusing her attention on the interplay between Grounder and camp.

"Whatever. I don't have time for this." Cole remarks, going back to his discussion about defenses. "Yeah, Lark. We have literally tons of it. And a grenade? I'd say…maybe half an ounce for it, encased in metal to create a forty-foot kill zone. That's my guess. I'd love to test that theory, but we just might not have the time for testing. Mines? Yeah, I was thinking something larger. There was word for it. Claymore, I think. They were designed to explode in a certain area."

"Yeah, maybe it will, but I'd rather some of this get done, than none of it at all. We got time, let's make the best of it. As for direction…I don't know. We're kind of sitting in the middle of the woods. They could come from any direction. If we knew which way they travelling from…then maybe we could plant a bomb large enough to take a whole load of them out at once. The key here is death by numbers. We'll run out of bullets eventually, so we need to hit them as hard as we can, thin out their numbers and hopefully bottle-neck them into a killzone. If we can do that…I don't know. But it's better than waiting for them to just come in and kill us."

There's a glance at the deer. "Will someone tell her to get the fuck lost? Before someone with an itchy trigger finger makes a mistake we'll all regret? If she's not attacking us, great. But she's not doing us any favors just standing around and putting people on edge."

Though Morgan's watching the other, he is listening and he nods at what Gertie says. "Yeah, I pretty much expected that." No braking, no parachutes, big boom. "And taking out an entire village, they said. They couldn't have fucked it up more if they'd tried. Could you tell if it was full of people?"

One of the guards on the walls shouts, "How do we know the deer isn't poisoned or something?"

"I saw Thripoda. I'm sorry for your loss." Grey's voice is tired, but he sounds sincere. Looking up at the man on the wall, and at Cassandra as well, "I'll eat first. If I get sick and die, you'll know it's poisoned. If I don't, then at least I get a nice hot meal before anyone else." Cole's mention of trigger fingers, however, causes Grey's eyes to widen and he jerks his gaze back up to the wall, his face twisting with a wince of pain as he does, "Oh shit. Did we…? shit."

Cassandra, who left with Asher the night before the larger party departed for the crash-site, slides her eyes towards Gertie when she brings that news. "They're all dead, then?" she asks, fingers fidgeting around the hilt of her machete. "Everyone who came down on the second Exodus Ship? You're sure?" Fortunately for Gideon, Grey and whoever else is putting faith in the Grounder, wise ex-Cs have decided not to put any more triggers within reach of Cassie's fingers. They'd have to prise her sword from her cold, dead hands, though.

Gideon quirks a smile slightly at the guard that speaks to her. "Considering I plan to eat it with you, Skaikru…" Then she shrugs. "Now, I am more than willing to sit out here and wait for you to realize that a warrior of Trikru is standing at your gates, offering not only food, but knowledge… so, it is entirely up to you." She shifts in her saddle, and her horse ducks her graceful head, nosing around the grass and starting to graze lazily.

Then the archer looks to Grey, and her mouth thins a bit. She shakes her head, not responding to his words of Thripoda.

Tink has decided to ignore the folks around her and focus on Lark and Cole, "Fine…grenades and mines are good but I'd also like to get something in play that launches things…that we can point at archers. Not a full-size catapult or anything but someone that gives you distance and gets them before they get close." She grabs a stick and starts to draw something in her head for Cole and Lark to look at.

Lark pauses a handful of moments more, letting her eyes flicker between Grey and Gideon. Drawing back closer to Cole, she murmurs. "Either way - explosives, away from the walls - lower their numbers. They made us seem like we were going to be overwhelmed, but if they attacked once, maybe… we can pull it off again?" she says.

He explains his plans, but Lark glances across towards Tink, and quiets herself.

"You say a group of Grounders helped us out. Do you think her knowledge would be legit?" she asks Cole, leaning a bit towards him.

Gertie nods to both Morgan and Cassandra. "Didn't get to pick over anything there before the Grounders arrived, so it wasn't possible to tell how many might have been on the ship. Probably couldn't have even if we'd been able to do that. It'd have been been impossible to survive though, and anyone on it is now dead." Her voice is flat as she gives the information, there being no margin of error for hope or miracles in her delivery. "Carved out a crater right where Thripoda must have stood." Past tense. It's all in the past tense, and the hand not wrapped around her knife finds its way back into her pocket, her eyes narrowing as she tries to catch some of the conversation between Grey, Gideon and the others.

The word 'knowledge' catches Cassie's ear. Though she doesn't rid herself of her sword, she does lower its tip, and emerges from hiding to upnod Gideon on her horse, bringing her injuries to the plain light from above. "Let her in," she calls out. She may not have much authority around here, but as one of the more suspicious sorts at Camp, perhaps her assent holds some significance to others who guarded the camp last night, and weren't so willing to put down their spears when the peacekeepers from Coesbur arrived.

Grey pushes away from the tree he's leaning against, moving up to the side of Gideon's horse, "If those jackholes won't help out, I will." Probably not the best idea, given that his right arm is still tied down to his chest. "Do you have any idea what the hell is goin' on around here, D — Gideon?" He approaches the horse and its rider warily, casting a glance at the beast as if expecting it to attack him at any moment. When Cassandra calls for the gate to be opened, Grey looks up to the guards, making a shooing sort of 'get to it' gesture.

"Of course they're all dead." Cole grunts at Cassandra. "We saw the explosion from here. You really think anyone would survive that? That was sort of a given." To him, no parachutes or reverse thrusters, yeah, he put that together awhile ago from what he saw. "No more Exodus ship. Lucky for them. In some ways, they lucked out to be dead before they realize what hit them. At least it was a mercy."

But the debate about the ship or Thripoda isn't on Cole's mind. Defenses are, and his eyes go to watching what she's scribbling in the dirt. "Once they get to the wall, it's a matter of time before they overcome it. Which already happened. So what we do, we need to give ourselves a buffer zone before what we work up and the wall itself. That zone should be where the rifles come in.

The man considers himself lead tech chews on his lip when Lark suggests she let her in. "Fine." he grunts. "Let her in. But if she tries anything funny, she wants to share her 'knowledge', she can. But she tries anything funny, I say shoot her on sight."

Cole is also watching what Tink is drawing on the ground. She wasn't being ignored.

"Let's hope it was the rebels trying to get way after they lost." Morgan says. "There still hasn't been any contact with the Ark since." Turning, he looks back to the ship but sees one of the others taking care of Lip so he stays where he is. "They said we have a couple days probably. I'll assume one. It's long enough for me to go get a bath. And we need to stock up on water again."

Gideon begins to dismount, swinging smoothly out of the saddle. It becomes evident just how much gear she is carrying from a small arsenal of arrows to two swords, an extra bow, and other odds and ends. She has one earbud tucked in her ear, the white wire going back into her clothes to connect to her music player. It is currently blasting Titanium — or at least she thinks that is the song title. When the gate opens, she grabs the leads of her horse and leads the mare into the delinquent camp. She casts a glance to the group at the hole in the wall, but then up toward the dropship where Cassandra skulks. She starts taking careful stock of what is around her — including the number of suspicious looks she is given. She comes up to one of the chairs from the dropship, and starts to unload.

"You should know who you are dealing with," Gideon says after a moment, pulling her primary quiver off with her twelve perfectly fletched arrows, dropping it on the chair with the rest of her armory.

Tink has something drawn that's inspired by the grenades that Cole was talking about. It's got a small hydraulics that could launch a grenade pretty far, giving them an ability to hit the enemy before they get in rifle range, "We could make two or three of them and then start to par them down before they hit the rifle range." She looks over at Cole and asks because chemistry is not her thing, "Do we have enough materials to make more ammo? It's not infinite and is going to run out with the way these guys shoot."

"Thought it was only girls that worried about not smelling great," Gertie says, the first hint of humour showing in the tone of her voice as she leaves her knife in her belt so a hand might be raked through her hair. Stiff with sweat, dirt and whatever else she's not been able to finger comb from it, she ruffles it quickly and then simply watches as Gideon makes her way into the camp. "Do you trust her?" she asks of Morgan, her lurking on the fringe of things meaning she's still standing quite close to him. It's a valid question, and her eyes glitch his way with the asking of it.

'Let her in', for Cassandra, doesn't mean 'trust her'; the skulking, raccoon-eyed delinquent's sword remains in plain view of Gideon, sharp edge pointing outwards, and it's the same sword she took from a Grounder she killed, on the battlefield where the Delinquents at large first met this Archer and her ashen mare. She eyes the woman warily, but just as curiosity killed the cat, her attention is given in equal measure to what she starts to unload on the detached metal chair from the Dropship. She's silent with the Grounder, and to Morgan she only mutters, "Float 'em all."

Grey probably would rather not put a hand on the side of Gideon's horse to accompany the Grounder in the gates, but it's that or stagger drunkenly, so he clasps a hand around a stirrup and trails along into the camp. Apparently, he has more concerns on his mind now than whether he can still get sick by going inside. Looking up to the guards from inside, he spots the rifles and his shoulders slump. Shaking his head, he mutters, "Fuck." Nodding slowly at Gideon's words, he releases the stirrup and lowers himself alongside the new armory with a groan, "Oh yeah. We have rifles." In case that wasn't obvious now. "Was hoping to use that as a bargaining chip." Leaning his head back against the dropship seat, he looks up to Gideon, "I'm sure I should. I'd also like to know what happened with the sickness, how the wall came down, how many attacked us, and if we lost anyone else. But…" his left hand gestures around at the various discussions and the suspicious glares. Finally, he raises his voice a little, "Hey… Morgan… got a minute?"

"Did Tuan need bring Fiona fish after he already knew war had been declared?" Morgan asks in turn. "Did they need to stop the ones attacking and send them away right when they were about to enter the camp? Did she need to bring us a deer? And most importantly, we're in the middle of their territory and outnumbered. Can we afford to turn away the only help we're likely to get when they could easily do nothing? Even if we're not sure about it?" Looking over when he hears his name, he heads over to Gret, nodding a greeting to Gideon. "Yeah, need me to take a look at you? I hear you got hit hard."

"I'm not a chemist. I have a really vague idea about how blackpowder is made, but I wouldn't trust myself to create it without a good chance of blowing myself up." Cole shrugs at Tink. "I'm sure we could make more ammo, but that might require more time than what we have. I like the idea Tink, I do. We just need time to build something like this. We have to figure out what's the most important. Do we build spike traps, grenades, bombs. Or do we start checking for dud ammo try to look into making more blackpowder and working on these slingshot looking things? The question is, what can we do fast enough that would have the most impact?" That all explained, he jerks his head back towards the hole in the wall. "And there's still /that/ to contend with. Almost as an aside, he stares a look at Gideon. "You. Grounder chick. You said you got knowledge? Let's hear it. Because these defenses aren't going to build themselves and I don't have a whole lot of time right now."

Gideon actually flinches back in cultural-ingrained fear when someone with a gun comes near, and she immediately loathes herself for such a reaction. Grey is given a stoic, and quite cold look when he casually mentions, oh yeah, we have rifles. She inhales deeply through her nose, and she shakes her head slightly. "So I see," she says more or less in a low voice. Then she starts to unlash the deer, allowing the heavy animal to slide off the mare's flank. It lands heavily on the ground, and then starts to haul the creature to lie flat. "If you have a place, I will hang this to drain…" Then she looks up to Morgan and Grey, and Cassandra to a lesser extent. "May I leave my belongings here, and perhaps we can go somewhere to speak?" Then she looks over at Cole, and she crosses her arms. Her eyes narrow at being referred to as Grounder chick.

"Tuan brings fish to everybody," Cassandra makes mention, while watching the Grounder chick unload. "Fiona isn't special." This seems like such a trivial, petty point, but she makes it sound like something more significant than 'fish' is being talked about there.

Gideon may loathe herself for flinching at the sight of guns, but it seems to sit well with Cass; fear in an enemy (or frenemy, or potential peace-maker's) eyes puts her more at ease, and as a result, she doesn't flinch when Gideon nears, nor clench her weapon any tighter. It's now being held rather loosely in her palm, mostly for show. "You can leave your stuff here. No one will take it." The delinquent in a camp of delinquents can't really guarantee this being true, but she seems to have some confidence in her voice. She looks to Morgan and Grey for their word on that talk.

"Maybe we can divide and conquer," Tink is used to the way Cole speaks so she doesn't flinch, "We each take a project, round up a few folks to help with the stuff that doesn't require science and then try to go from there. I know Kai is already working on some ideas to defend the camp." She looks to Lark to see if she has a particular project she's interested in doing, "Worst case…we build the plans and try to trust some of these guys to execute."

"Show a little gratitude, Cole. Or at least some manners." Grey shifts in his lean against the chair uncomfortably, then looks over to Morgan, "Took an arrow in the side. Between ribs, apparently. Max pushed it through. Cauterized it last night." He looks up to Gideon, accepting that cold look with a grimace, then looks down again to start untying the sling holding his right arm in place over his side so that Morgan can actually look at the wound if he wants to. "Yeah. I'm sure someone can handle the deer. Thanks, Gideon." And then back to Morgan, "I'm feelin' a little lost here, Morgan. How many'd we lose?" Given the ex-C's attention to the graves outside the wall, it's probably not a surprise that that's his first real question. "If we're goin' somewhere to hear what Gideon's got to say, someone gimme a hand up." And he holds up his left hand.

Morgan helps Grey to stand. "Yeah, let's not stand here where anyone can see. I wouldn't be surprised if there were spies in the woods keeping an eye on us." He looks around a moment then shrugs. "Let's head into the ship and talk. I'll update you there and we can listen to Giden while I check out your wound."

Lark pauses a moment as Tink glances towards her.

"I think… everyone has ideas, and if we all choose one thing, we'll run out of time before any of them come to full fruition. So I would help you with your idea, Tink, if you could use the extra hands," she states. A pause, and click of her tongue, her hand lifting up to brush through her own hair.

"Most of the digging stuff that you had an idea on can be done by anyone, Cole. But it sounds like your idea is a little more technical, Tink?" she asks. She had her knife out still, lingering by her side - with the occasional glance to the side towards Grey and the Grounder.

"She'll get sick in the Dropship," Cass points out to Morgan quietly. "Better elsewhere." She jerks her head towards the Tech Tent, since most of the Techies are out here for the moment.

"I'll show plenty of gratitude when every single Grounder coming for us is a mountain of bodies." Cole utters darkly to Grey. If Gideon doesn't feel like sharing anything she knows, the techie will only wait so long before his attention is pulled away back to Tink and Lark. "Then we to decide who's going to work on what. What I am, what you, Lark, and Jabira are going to work on. If one of us can /find/ Jabira. Haven't seen her in a day or so. I can handle working on explosives. Grenades, bombs. And probably repairing the wall. Since it is kind of my responsibility right now. One of us will need to work on checking ammo, another person with spike traps. Tink, I figure you're gonna want to do this slingshot thing. If you think you can get enough people to build it in a day or two, do it. If we can find a chemist, try to convince them ways to make more blackpower." Lark gets a shrug. "I would say two things, if we can all handle working on two things at once. I can, I've been doing it." But the conversation elsewhere is pulling his attention away. A little. "I want to hear what she has to say, it might be useful in what we're trying to do here."

"You." Gideon looks at Cole with the same look he gave her. "Sky asshole." Which is probably her flippant response to being called Grounder chick. Her head tilts, and her hazel eyes narrow further at Cole. "I spent several days in your Flame-forsaken prison hold, and I have done nothing but support your people since I was set free. I come bearing information, weapons, and food. So, perhaps you could save the attitude for those ready to see your insides become your outsides." Rankled, the archer nods to Morgan at his words. Then she starts to step away from her chair and her horse, who is pleasantly chuffing around her bit before shaking out her mane and tail, ash-stained skin shuddering. The mare seems incredibly relaxed and docile for being a warhorse. "Ste Delano," she says over her shoulder to the horse, who just nickers softly.

"When they come to kill us, we stack 'em like cordwood, Cole. When they come with food and information, we say 'thank you, Gideon kom Trikru.'" Grey thanks Morgan for the hand up with a nod, starting forward alongside Morgan, Cass, and Gideon, "Tech Tent." His eyes cut sidelong to Gideon, and a small, tired smile touches his lips, "Good call, Cass."

Tink looks around and nods, "Yeah…I'll find a person or two to help me with the slingshot." The biggest amount of time is going to be spent on protyping but once I got it figured out, we should be able to bang out a couple. She glances over at the girl that calls Cole a 'Sky asshoole' and shrugs, not all that interested in her yet. She isn't crazy about having the non-tech in the techie tent but if Cole isn't protesting, she's leaving it alone, "Kai is also working on the spike traps so we might be covered there. It's low tech what she's doing but it will work in a pinch."

She may have plenty attitude of her own, but when someone other than her gets called on it, it nets a smirk from Cassandra's lips. She moves to lean against Morgan's shoulder, which could easily be mistaken for a friendly gesture, but in reality she's just having trouble standing up. She tries not to let it show, and for the moment, sheathes her machete within easy reach to avoid accidentally stabbing anyone should she faint. "Ste Delano," she murmurs under her breath. She eyes Grey aside when he commends her as they start towards the Tech Tent, seeming to have expected something else.

Morgan pauses at what Cass says and looks over at Gideon, since that's a very good point. "Do you have a resistance to the disease? Though she might get it from one of us anyway if not. I might not have gotten sick but I could still be a carrier." But Gideon's a big girl and can make her own decisions. He gives Cass a surprised look but figures it out a moment later and waits till she's steady before heading to the tent.

"She wants to talk. Let'er talk." Cole remarks. But he's not saying apologizing and he's certainly not saying thank you. "Because I don't much care what she's done or hasn't done. Play the self-rightous justification card for someone who actually gives two shits about it. We got enough of those people around here as it is who love to play that one all the time. My time is limited and I have work to do." Pragmatic, thy name is Cole.

"I do not often work with our tactical sicknesses," Gideon confesses. "I'm a scout." She holds up her hands, revealing blackened palms from using ash and oil. She looks up at their dropship, and she looks uncertain — her memories resurface of the stench and darkness of their hold, and how much she missed the sunshine. "I would like to stay outside, if that is alright." She glances to the tech tent, with its mostly open walls, and she nods slightly. She shrugs her shoulders toward Cole, her expression returning to stoicism.

Although he's been rather incapacitated with a bad case of the fever, Silas has managed to make a belated recovery while he was bleeding and swearing in his own little corner. But, for better or for worse, it seems he's recovered well enough to not be pooling out blood while he manages to make his way out from the dropship with a sniffle and a grunt. But Gideon wasn't accounted for in his list of potential encounters today. And his scrunched up face and furrowed brows really gives that away. Silas' casual walk turns into an aggressive stomp down the ramp of the Dropship as he raises his voice, throwing a finger over towards the Grounder woman's direction as his eyes travel around those near her as he asks, "Who let the fucking monkey in the camp?" the words along with the malice of his voice less than welcoming- but it's Silas, after all. "I don't know if we've all forgotten, but we're at war with these fuckin' weed whistlers."

<FS3> Gideon rolls Resolve-3: Failure.

Grey is… not looking so good. He's got a rather bloody bandage around his middle, looks like he's been on his feet for four days straight (coincidentally, he almost has), and he's not moving so well. So when he growls, "Shut the hell up, Silas," there's not much threat there. "And the people who let her in are the ones who want the deer and info she's offerin' up." To Gideon, he adds, "Yeah. Outside's good. No sense any of us gettin' sick if we can help it." And he tries to put a hand on the Grounder woman's shoulder to guide her toward the Tech Tent, shuffling in that direction himself.

There was a pause from Lark then.

Glancing from Cole, towards Grey - then the grounder again, she takes a moment to stow her knife away in the inside of her jacket, zipping it up. A handful of moments more, and she kinda meanders that direction as well, bringing up a gloved hand to rub at her tired eyes.

"She brought us food, Silas. She didn't have to." Morgan points out, moving with the others to the tent and not so accidentally being between Silas and Gideon. "Learn to figure out who the actual enemy is before you make more of them for us all."

Gideon takes a rather aggressive step toward Silas, and her lips peel back over her teeth to flash her snarl. She is halted however by the combined efforts of Grey's hand on her shoulder and Morgan being decisively in the way. There is no doubt that Silas was close to seeing what happens when an angry Gideon retaliates, but she is restrained. She instead allows herself to be drawn off to the tech tent, where she can speak to the group about what lies ahead.

Grey's fingers press at the back of Gideon's shoulder a moment, then drop away as he steps past her and into the tech tent. He sits half of his ass on the edge of the little table, turning his right side so that Morgan can attend to the wound. With as small as the tent is, it's likely that some of the listeners will have to crowd around outside. "Okay. Whatcha got for us, Gideon?" A weary smile touches his lips, "Besides the deer, and an arsenal and… yeah."

It's not just Grey that makes a move to halt Gideon. Cass too draws her machete halfway, flashing the base of its blade in warning. And though so-called Boner has no room to judge anyone's personal affairs, she also sends a very shady glance the ex-C's way when she spots that telltale hand of his on the Grounder's shoulder.

Threats or no, the minute they're in the tech-tent, the girl takes a seat. It's likely apparent to Morgan in particular that she looks extremely dizzy by the time she does so, moving off from his supporting shoulder to see to herself. The sword is for show, no more, even once she draws it fully to press into the ground, so that she can lean on its hilt.

The tech tent is Cole's domain. Or so he's said and likely thinks. Most times he's happy to rule here with an iron fist, where he usually is found working on something. And one of the dropship chairs is his throne, the one that has random junk scattered around it when he's in the middle of one of random projects that he's working on. Or well, would when people aren't sick or being executed, but it's a home away from home. But his chair is still thankfully in the same spot that he left it being he drops himself himself it. There's a look at Gideon, expecting to hear what she has to say, but he says nothing, rather waiting.

"Told you not to overdo it." Morgan tells Cass as he moves over to Grey. He removes the jacket, taking extra care with the arm on the injured side then starts unwinding the bandage. "Four died from the disease." he says, answering the question from earlier. "No deaths from the attack though Stone is seriously hurt, Fiona and Joacquim less so but not minor."

Tink enters the tent, being here a few times since they landed and Cole needed someone to build something. She shoves her hands in her pants and finds a corner to stand, taking the sidelines to hear what folks are saying rather than busting in with her own opinion.

Gideon is momentarily disarmed when she steps into the tech tent. Her gaze sweeps over each little bauble of technology present. She reaches up, tugging the earbud from her ear, and letting the wire fall limply across her shoulder. She reaches into her pocket, pausing the music player just as it starts up a new song. She then glances over at the delinquents who have joined her in here, and she crosses her arms. Her gaze sweeps over the monitor, but Grey's pressure to her shoulder and her words that draw her eyes around.

She huffs out a slow breath. "Coesbur has not answered the call from Indra… not yet… Oxfor is decisively dragging his feet, trying to give time for those we sent to Tondc to speak with our kruhead, Indra kom Trikru. But… Indra is not who you are actually dealing with right now. The sickness, those who attacked you… this is from Sonia kom Trikru, one of Indra's gonahedas." Beat pause. "War leaders." She gestures offhandedly. "She is moving far faster than is typical of Indra, and she is acting far more carelessly than is in her character."

Grey wears only the bandage beneath his jacket, due to the simple fact that his old shirt is the bandage now. He winces and hisses his way out of the jacket, nodding slowly at the news, "Four more graves." Not that he's in any shape to dig them himself. The ex-C braces his right hand on his knee, keeping his arm out of the way so that Morgan can examine the wounds without having to hold it up. He's also got a slice across the back of his left shoulder, and an even shallower one on the back of his left forearm. His eyes rise up to watch Gideon take in the tech tent, and he smiles a little, then glances over to Cassandra, his lips tightening a touch in a challenging look. And then he's focusing on the information provided by the Grounder among them, "So Indra's movin' faster than everyone else wants, and Sonia's movin' faster than Indra wants? Might be some leverage there? Maybe. We ran into some very angry Trikru at Thripoda." He gestures down to his side, "They don't get that this is a double tragedy. Each clan lost hundreds in the crash." Probably.

"We've met," Cassandra quietly mentions of Sonia kom Trikru. Other than that, she's quiet, letting Gideon dispense what information she may.

Once Grey's bandage is off, Morgan takes a moment to just look over the worst of the injuries. "Did they flush the wound before they cauterized it?" he asks after a moment. "If not, I might need to open one side." He lightly presses around the edges then places his hand flat over the entrance then exit wound to check the temperature.

"Sounds like she's personally invested if she's running off half-cocked." Cole says, hands idly picking up some random bit of circuitry, looking it over in his hand, then blowing on it.

"Something doesn't seem right." Morgan says, glancing at Gideon a moment. "How'd it all happen so fast? The dropship came down and exploded and they attacked Cass and Asher what, a couple days later and declared it war? Threw them into a hole to get infected and sent th em back? Seems damn fast to me."

"Maybe personal…someone she cared about died in the event," Tink can't bring herself to say crash because it really bothers her that the Exodus folks went toast. She gives a shrug and pulls out her notebook, starting to make drawings of her idea on the slingshot shooter, still listening but for now, she's not heard anything that's going to help her build stuff.

"There is no way to prove that," Gideon says to Grey, and her mouth is thin. "All the Trikru see is something fell from the Sky… your Sky… and crashed and killed hundreds of Trikru. And no Skaikru is going to convince Indra or Sonia that it was an accident, because why would they believe any of you." It is a statement more than a question, and she looks over toward Cassandra, and she frowns. She reaches up, rubbing at the back of her neck, working on the sore muscles there. "But, the point being is Coesbur has not joined the Trikru armies." She breathes out a sigh. "Which… is good, and bad, both… the longer Oxfor stays out of this conflict, the more likely that his place as steheda will weaken. He will eventually need to make a decision." She crosses her arms, taking a slightly half-cocked slouch, resting her weight into one hip.

"There is some good news… Sonia is operating ahead of Indra, which means you are not dealing with the full force of Trikru… just a warleader and her band, which numbers in the forties, by my last count. But, she is gathering supporters…" She looks between the Skaikru. "She is out for blood… more so than even I expected." She tightens her jaw a bit. "You guys did something to seriously piss her off… more than just annihilating a village."

Then she looks to Morgan, and she looks honestly surprised. "We are warriors," she says simply, as if that should explain that.

When Gideon suggests that they've done something serious to piss off Sonia, Cassandra immediately glances around the tech-tent expectantly, preemptively prepared with a blank, 'wasn't me' expression. "You know Enan kom Trikru?" she asks the Grounder chick once she's finished. "She's under Sonia. Seemed reasonable. Seemed like someone we could talk to. Took us back here. Gave us back our weapons." She pauses. "But not our horse." Apparently it's an important horse.

"I… uh… I'm not sure, man." Grey responds a little uncertainly to Morgan, "I was… kinda outta it at the time. What with the burning and the pain and the…" he winces at the pressure, "ow." Then he simmers down to listen to Gideon, "Why do you believe us, Gideon? Why does Oxfor, if he's delaying? If we can convince a few Trikru, isn't there a chance we can convince the others?" He lets out a breath, frustration and grief passing over his features, "If they used the rifles to defend the camp, it might be a good idea for Oxfor to move people out of Coesbur. In case the Mountain Men attack. I was hopin' we could use the threat of the guns to hold off any attacks." He blinks, looking back to the other Delinquents, "Speakin' of… how many people attacked? Was it Sonia's full forty? How'd you keep 'em out of the camp?"

"Family. I'd say. That'd be the only reason I could see driving anyone to be that pissed off." Cole notes calmly. "So. Forty people now, then a lot more later. Huh. Well, that makes things a little bit clearer. If not any easier." The piece of circuitry is still in his hand. "It's a catch 22. They want us dead for wiping out their village. Killing more of them is just going to piss them even more off. If we can't prove our innocence, seems like our hand is being forced until we either kill all of them or they kill all of us." He leans back in his chair. "At least it makes things simpler." Then to Grey. "I heard some other Grounders appeared and got the attacking ones to back off. Don't know, I wasn't there."

"I was there…" Tink tells the group as she keeps working on her design, "It was a grounder medic, big ass guy, small blonde one with a shine towards Fiona, and some others." It's clear she only took note of the ones that stood out. All hell was breaking loose and then it just fades away after they broke down the wall with horses…" She frowns at her drawing and glances up, "We were this close to getting breeched and they backed off so my only thought is those guys from the treeline that popped by to check on Fiona talked them into backing off."

"I don't think there were forty." Morgan answers, continuing to inspect the injury. "But a lot of them were hidden in the woods. They'd have come through the hole they made except some others stopped them. I recognized Tuan and Wren." After a moment, he steps back. "Keep the bandage off. It'll just irritate the burn without any salve to put on it so letting it breath will be the better option. At the first sign of infection, I'll need to open it up and make sure nothing was left inside." Germs, dirt, spinters. "I want to talk to whoever did it."

Gideon looks at Grey, and she smirks. "Because you are not warriors." The words are said without malice or even amusement, just with fact. "You came down here expecting nothing but trees, and instead found us. You do not have armor, nor weapons." Though she grimaces. "Or at least that's what we were all lead to believe." She frowns, head bent slightly. She decides to nod scold them for their guns — someone else can do that. Then she shakes her head at Cole. "Sonia is from Tondc, and I knew her when I was the kruheda's second." Her throat tightens as she dredges up those sore memories. Cassandra's inquiry about Enan draws her brows up, and then she smirks. "After infected, we allow two things to happen: either a miraculous escape, or we let the infected go. Enan was just playing her role…" Then she releases a sharp, almost cold laugh. "Do you really want me to go to Oxfor to explain he needs to relocate many scores of people because the Skaikru used guns?" She fixes Grey with a stoic look, and she shakes her head. "You go tell Oxfor that. I will not."

She says nothing as the Skaikru start to identify who may have spoken to the other Trikru and why they ceased their attack. She was not there, she cannot speculate.

Grey nods slowly at the description of the attack, "Then I think we'd better make it clear to folks that without the Grounders, the camp'd be overrun. Maybe that'll keep some fingers off triggers." He sighs heavily, "Also sounds like it might be time to start real trainin' with the rifles." There's a look of apology cast toward Gideon at that. "We didn't have weapons. We found the rifles in storage on the ground." He nods to Morgan, "You sure you don't just want to see me walkin' around with my shirt off?" Apparently he can find humor even in pain and weariness. "Max did it, though." And then he's looking back to Gideon, "I'm not saying he needs to. I just don't want more people to die because we had to use the rifles to defend ourselves, Gideon."

"Then maybe she's just a bitch if not that. Wants to get her hate-on for first thing she sees. I don't know, I'm not a mind-reader." Cole shrugs. "Doesn't matter. But if I'm going to die because a bunch of people want to blame me for something I didn't do? Well, life isn't fair. And if I'm going to die, I'm going blow up as many of them as I can before I'm killed. It's either that, or we pack everything we can and run in the opposite direction. Get off Trikru lands, find our own place." Though that second suggestion he is loathe to really consider it and from the tone in his voice he doesn't believe that would really work anyways. "We're the past the point of no return, Grey. Prepare for the worst, expect for the best. And if we all die, then it's just our time. Doesn't mean we shouldn't give it a helluva shot."

"At the time, it was true." Morgan notes with a shrug, echoing Grey "We came down with nothing. And we still don't have nuclear missiles." Or they'd have used one instead of a dropship. "That's just a bonus, Grey." He nods at what Cole says, in full agreement with the tech again. It's almomst scary.

Tink goes back to her drawing, as they sit there and talk about what to do. She gets draws a few variations, giving a little giggle that's a little dark in nature and she then hands her notebook over to Cole to take a look at the bad boy she's come up with. She doesn't seem to care she's interrupting the conversation, this is freaking science which is more awesome.

"And how long have you had the rilfes, Grey kom Skaikru?" Gideon fires back, her annoyance evident. She then looks at Cole, and she shakes her head. "Your people would have shot me without thinking twice if I had not come here in obvious friendship… is that not the same thing, Cole kom Skaikru? Would you have killed me even though I had nothing to do with the attack on your people?" She snorts. "Even now, you're talking about blowing people up who are just following orders… do you think they are worth killing because they believe in their leaders, their people? Do not think yourself so high and mighty…" She pauses just logn enough to shrug. "And besides… once you leave Trikru lands, you're just in another Kru's lands, and this time without allies. The best you could do is go to the Wastes, and live with the Exiles." And her tone alone suggests how disgusted she is with that idea.

"Get your fun where you can, I guess." Grey lets his arm relax at his side, still trying his best not to move too much. "Thanks, Morgan." Shaking his head a little at Cole, he notes, "Just because we're under attack doesn't mean we can't try to get as few people killed as possible." Looking over to Gideon, he closes his eyes a moment, letting out a breath before he admits, "Almost nine days. The same night Rawlins and his friends jumped me." Taking in a long, slow, painful breath, he opens them again, "And if we kill Sonia? Will Indra listen then? Or if we kill her, will the people who are just following orders listen to reason? You can't ask us to just sit here and die, Gideon. We're not gonna do that. 'Cause even if we weren't warriors, some of us are now."

The sound of Cassandra's machete briefly dragging against the ground can be heard as she scrapes to her feet. She's been listening to the ongoings quiet as a mouse, with a lot to learn, but nothing much to add. "Politics," she mutters under her breath. "My head is killing me." Quite possibly meaning that literally, she turns to exit the tent.

Cole blinks, when the notebook gets shoved at him, taking it and looking it over. He raises a brow at the woman. "You really think you can build this?" he glances at her. "Do it. I'll get on the explosives to arm it." he nods, handing it back, narrow his eyes at Gideon. "Because we just got attacked last night, so maybe we're just a /tad/ jumpy right now. Because that was because your people attacked us. And yes, I am. And will kill every goddamn Grounder that tries to hurt anyone in this camp. But I won't kill them if they leave us alone. It is very simple problem." He smiles very thinly at the scout. "They are all worth killing. Every single one of them. So long as they plan to attack us, they're all free game to me. The moment that stops being the issue, then I'm happy to leave them alone. You said yourself, they're not willing to listen to us, so what would you have us do? Because I would /love/ a solution that doesn't revolve around blood and murder, so tell me, what is it? What should we if we want to avoid it?" And yeah, he'll actually wait for an answer from her, before continuing. "If there's no other option than killing, then killing it'll be. I don't want this fight, your people are forcing the issue. But if you think for one moment that I'm just going to roll over because they feel we should die? No, not gonna happen."

"Yes." Morgan tells Gideon. "In fact I do think they're worth killing. For the simple fact that they're trying to kill us. If they don't want to die, they can go the fuck away. And don't forget that your people attacked us first before we even knew you existed. So if some people are having trouble trusting the Trikru? I'd say they have cause." He looks after Cass and says "Go lie down and rest, Cass. Drink before you go to sleep." And then he looks at Cole who says almost the same exact thing a second sooner.

Gideon shakes her head, but does not respond immediately. There is something to be said about thinking before speaking, it seems. The archer digs her fingers into her arms for now, slipping into what has to be a genetic trait of perfected stoicism. She glances over toward Cassandra briefly, and then back to the others. She takes a deep inhale, nostrils flaring on the exhale.

Tink wrinkles her nose and nods, going to see what she can start to pull together to work on her idea. She gives everyone a jaunty salute and slips out to make Cole's bidding done.

Grey watches Cassandra and Tink leave, then looks back to Cole and Morgan, "A whole bunch of folks in this camp want to point out differences between us on the ground and the people still up on the Ark, right?" He might not be one of them, but at least he's willing to acknowledge the point, "I think it's pretty clear that C-bur and this Indra aren't seein' eye to eye either. Just shootin' any Grounder who comes up is a real good way to make that difference go away. It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle with the rifles, that's done," he grimaces at that, "but there's gotta be a way that we can limit the dyin' on both sides. I don't know how the Trikru sees assassination, but I'd be damned happy to take Sonia out, and even Indra out, if that'd stop this war from gettin' worse."

"War is for those who're either blind to other avenues of peace or simply don't want it at all." Cole sighs, running a hand over his face. "I don't /want/ war. I want peace, I don't much enjoy burying our dead. But it's kinda hard to do when one side already has it's mind made up and there's nothing we can say or do to change that. So if it's war they want…they'll get it. In /spades/." Fingers touch his lip, thoughtful. "That being said, I don't hate you, Gideon. Hell, I don't even hate Coesbur and as much it might not seem, I actually appreciate what the others did last night and what you're doing now. As far as I'm concerned, and not that /my/ word means a whole helluva lot, you're welcome in this camp. People can bitch at me if they got a huge problem with that." He lifts himself up from his chair. "But I /will/ defend this camp. Even if that means I burn this goddamn forest to the ground to do it."

"Then all I can offer is my experience, and my bow," Gideon says finally. She pulls herself upright, dropping her arms. "You decide if you want it." She appears to be preparing to leave, but is stopped once more. "One last thing you should all know… our Commander went to war with an entire kru because, when she demanded her lover be released, all their Queen sent her was her lover's beheaded head. Kill warriors, scouts, and whoever else of the Trikru armies, but be careful about killing any Trikru who dares to cross your path." She sighs, shoulders loosening in heavy acceptance. Then she looks at Grey at his suggestion of assassination, and again she remains mute on the subject. She is already toeing the edges of treason here, no need to actually step over the line entirely. Yet.

Morgan watches Gideon and just nods at the lack of response. "That being said" he says more conversationally, "I'd much rather be friends with you all. I was saying as much when Grey still wanted to kill you all." Since he's done looking over Grey's injuries, he steps back. "I'm not saying they're right, Grey. Just that there's cause. I'd prefer they think instead of reacting because they're afraid." Gideon's offer - is it an offer? - gets a blink. "Are you offering to fight with us and give us advice on how to fight the other Trikru?"

"Uh… Cole… we're in this forest." Grey opens his mouth to say more, and then Gideon makes her offer. His eyes widen, and he winces as he snaps them over toward her, pressing his hand to his wounded side. He's silent for a long moment, and when he speaks, his voice is quiet, "You sure?" He slowly pushes himself off the table to stand fully on his own, "I… I don't think any of the Trikru'd take that very well, Dee."

"If I didn't want it, I wouldn't say you would be welcome here." Cole states. "Like I said, anyone /attacking/ this camp. Those people will be met with a firery retribution. Anyone else? If they don't mean harm, there's no reason not to give them a fair shake. But, evertying else? I don't know about anyone else left in this camp, but I'm /tired/ of being scared and I'm /tired/ of being picked off. I think it's high time we put the fear of god into anyone bringing a fight to us. And give a clear signal that we are not ones whom which anyone wants to fuck with." There's a look at Grey, offering a slight knowing look. "I know, Grey." Then he gets up to his feet. "I have defenses to prepare and weapons to build. Anybody who's not sick or injured, there's something for them to do. Because I don't think we have a helluva lot of time to get it all done before Sonia and her buddies decide to make another visit." He pauses passing by Gideon. "I don't want Coesbur catching hell from the rest of the Trikru for doing what you've done. This Indra doesn't seem to forgive much and I don't want your village getting caught in the crossfire." It's a respectable warning, before the mechanic moves out.

"I have…" Gideon's tongue clicks slightly. "Invested interests to see that the Skaikru are not wiped out." She glances toward Grey, and he gets a slightly gentler nod. "I'm sure," she murmurs in reply, though there is a certain shake that accompanies her fingers. She clasps her hands a ther hips to stop them from such displays of nerves. She shrugs her shoulders a bit. "Then it would be wise that the Trikru do not find out. I have made my decision… I will help you prepare for Sonia's attack… you are all in desperate need of actual training." Those words are said haughtily, with a touch of Warrior Superiority. Good thing Gideon is not terribly respected by her people, or Cole's words might actually hold some concern to her. All she does is shrug.

And another criminal joins their ranks. Morgan takes Gideon at her word. She know what it'll cost her better than any of them do. "I'm going to go check on the injured and sick. Then I'm going to go wash the blood off me and my clothes. When I get back, I have an idea for you Cole."

Grey doesn't pay much attention to Cole or Morgan as they take their leave, keeping his eyes on Gideon. He nods at her response, and when the other two Delinquents have left (he barely notices), he steps forward, aiming to touch her forearm lightly with the fingers of one hand. "Thank you, Dee. I'm scared for what that choice means for you, but thank you."

Gideon just nods after Morgan, and fixes Grey with a stoic look. She allows him to touch her forearm, and it just barely thaws a bit of her chill. "We will talk later," she says, obviously upset about something. Then she starts to move out of the tech tent, glancing over to him briefly, before stepping out after the delinquents.

Grey reaches to catch her arm, wincing as he extends his right hand, but it's not a strong grasp, easy to pull free of if she tries, "Yeah, I didn't tell you about the rifles. I know." Frustration flickers over his features, but he just lets the emotion drop, too tired to hold onto it, "I'm sure there's things you didn't tell me about your people too."

Gideon is stopped, and her hazel eyes flicker up to meet his. Her frown is hard, and set, and does not seem to be leaving her lips any time soon. She shakes her head slightly. "Grey… whatever information I may have withheld is nothing compared to this…" Then she sighs, and gently pulls her arm from his grip. "I need to clean off myself and Delano… if we are staying here, then we should not look like we don't belong here."

Grey flinches back a little from that frown, but nods none-the-less, not trying to recapture her arm, "I'll get you some clothes. You can change in my tent. I'll wait outside." There's a moment's pause, and he adds, "Your old bow's still here, too, if you want to swap it out for one of the ones you brought."

Gideon nods. "Thank you," she says, voice calm. She steps out of the tent now, putting on her best show of Trikru stoicism.

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