[snip]

This time the leader seemed to deeply furrow his large brow. A slightly clawed like nail pointed to Will. Again the alien spoke in ways no one could understand. But at least for the moment the spears and axes weren’t pointed their way. The male then pointed to himself and a large trio of rocks, gesturing to Will then one right hand rock while the male took a hunched over seat on the left side, with the table like larger rock between them. The large male alien picked up several small stones placing two on Will’s side and two on his side. Before using a fifth to scrawl a line down the large rock’s middle. He then tossed that one aside and looked as if hopefully to Will for some expected response.

GM CockRoach

O’Dell stood at the ready to follow the orders given to him by the Captain.

O’Dell

Chris smiled. “That looks promising Will. It looks like a game of sort like Go, Othello, chess or checkers. Or something completely different. But that’s me being Captain Obvious. Be careful but see what the dude wants. He might give us the keys to the Last Starfighter.” Chris laughed at his little joke.

Captain Chris Taggart CO

Will followed the alien and sat down across from him, at the Captains comment he looked back and nodded slowly, he didn’t want to indicate any one thing or another.

Mwezi stepped over to look at the rock table, studying it quietly and trying his best to decipher their meanings. Two rocks on either side of a line. It had to have some meaning. The question was what the meaning was. He guessed from their general clothing that the aliens weren’t a particularly advanced civilization, as he couldn’t see any sign of artificially manufactured materials.

He was certainly glad that he had taken the time to learn Starfleet Standard and hadn’t depended on the UT to allow himself to understand the crew though, otherwise the past few hours would have been much more difficult. He tried to catch the attention of one of the auxiliary aliens, leaving the leader alien to interact with Will.

He grunted slightly at one reptilian alien, then grabbed a handful of berries from a nearby bush and held his palm towards the alien. “Berry. Food.” he spoke in his native tongue, knowing the alien wouldn’t understand the words, but hoping he would get the meaning. He plucked one berry from his hand and ate it. “Food.”

If they could establish a baseline, they may be able to communicate eventually. It was times like these he wished an expert like the legendary Sato were on their crew.

The alien looked at Mwezi, then the berries. It barked something their tongue that sounded like “..N’zun” then took it and ate it without another word and returned his look to their leader and Will with the rocks.

Mwezi, CTO

Will carefully picked up one of the rocks on his side and examined it shortly. He looked at the alien and spoke “So we have sides and two rocks each” He spoke with curiosity in his tone. Will lowered the rock back and looked at the Alien, indicated to the ‘board’ between them with a gesture “So what now?” He asked the ALpha group leader.

CSO

Reid stared at the board. “The Captain is right. It looks most similar to Go. Don’t move anything yet. I’m guessing… in this culture, this is diplomacy. And right now, if we lose, we die.” The board starts out in perfect balance. Two stones each. Centre stone divides the board. What’s the objective? Reid studied every facet of the proposed game, hoping to understand. He played Go and Chess for amusement. Maybe this was similar.

-Dr Alex Reid, CE

The game didn’t seem so much a true ‘game’ though after more study if anything it seemed the alien was using it more in a ritualistic like fashion for some means of hopeful communication. The number 2 seemed important in some way to him. Perhaps a clue was in the amount of groups currently on hand? Alpha group with the aliens and Beta group with the Chernov crew? Then the question was which rock on either side represented if this was true which group? And how might moving them imply things to the brute like aliens?

The leader while waiting for Will to make his move seemed to finally sense the confusion coming off him and the others. Seeming to let out a grunt of irritation or sigh it moved both his rocks forward halfway to the middle point line. Then looked to Will as if questioningly again in some form.

GM CockRoach

Blaze was Studying the Aliens weapons and armor thinking of possible defense and weaknesses against their armor and weapons. The leather armor was a good. Lightweight easy to move in and provides a good amount of protection especially depending on what Leather was being used. Maybe he can make some wood armor if we can’t find any animals to harvest leather from.

Dr. Alexander Blaze (Engineer)

If Blaze wanted to make wooden armor he would need better means to secure it to a person which he didn’t have, plus better tools then he had to form the wood and cut large amounts down. Even then it would take days or week or more or work which really wasn’t realistic. Besides beyond maybe the security members no one else among the team was trained in proper armor use and even then security was trained in the modern Starfleet models not primitive restrictive wooden types. Perhaps he should put his focus into helping William puzzle out the intent of the alien leader.

GM CockRoach

William examined the move the alien made with care. Of not a game then what? He took one rock and raised it slightly then pointed it at himself and raised an eyebrow then placed it down the halfway mark “Do you mean that this would be me?” He spoke aloud mostly to fill the extremely uncomfortable silence, the young man was not exactly a qualified Diplomat nor a Xenolinguistic expert, perhaps he should spend a weekend or two to become one after he got back… if he got back. Next, he picked up the second rock and used it to point at the alien “And this would be you or your group?” He placed it next to his other stone on the halfway mark. He knew that it was important that he get a line of communication with this alien soon.

CSO

The alien leader watched Will intently, looking at his gestures. When Will pointed the one rock to himself and placed it halfway the alien made a gesture with his hands in a up/down fashion seeming pleased. Could this mean ‘yes’ in their body language? When Will then moved the other forward and gestured to the leader the gesture was repeated. So perhaps it did mean ‘yes’! The leader then took both his rocks and moved them to the line putting them down with a bit of strong force seeming pleased some, he then made a finger walking like gesture on both rocks as if to mime both groups walking together perhaps?

He then looked to Will making what seemed the ‘yes’ gesture followed by a questioning look where his hand moved back and forth in a side to side way which perhaps was their body language for ‘no’ given what he’d seen. Looking at things perhaps the alien was asking if they were to walk with both groups together and wanted an answer from Will who he had taken to be the leader it seems.

O’Dell kept a look out for any sudden movement that could be a threat to the away team while at the same time looking out for the two NE Enlisted members.

O’Dell

No other movement beyond the two groups was seen or felt as Will and the alien leader ‘talked’.

GM CockRoach