Otheusz

Personnel File
Name:	Otheusz
Rank:	Civilian
Position:	Maintenance Officer
Species:	Ornaran
Age:	26
Gender:	Male
Orientation:	Homosexual
Birthplace:	Penthas, Ornara
Height:	5ft 6in / 1.68m
Weight:	157lbs / 71kg
Hair:	Dirty Blonde
Eye color:	Blue
Played by:	Dean Charles Chapman
Writer:	TWilkins
Interests
Eating Animals Ornaran Occultism The Federation Cultural database
Education
2361 - 2374: Penthas Select Academy 2371-2375: 2374 - 2371: No formal education, though developed skills and knowledge through everyday life 2371 - 2373: Enslavement by the Grey Scars’, no formal learning 2373 - 2381: Informal mechanical, tactical and combat training under the Grey Scars’ guidance 2381 - present: Starfleet operational training aboard the USS Theurgy
Service Record
2373-2381: Forced servitude within the Grey Scars pirate conglomerate 2381-present: Informal service aboard the USS Theurgy
Decorations
2381: Ensign Inej Avirium told Otheusz that he had ‘done a good’n not fuckin' the thing to buggery.’, in reference to Otheusz’ attempt at reassembling the replicator within his quarters.

Otheusz was a refugee from the pre-warp planet of Ornara, whose fledgling attempt to find aid for his ravaged homeworld, resulted in his capture and enslavement at the hands of the notorious pirate conglomerate, the ‘Grey Scars’. Following his capture, the Captain of the pirates, who had branded herself ‘The Grey Queen’, took a special interest in Otheusz’ innate electrokinetic abilities, elevating him to a position within her personal retinue, where he was forced to aid the pirates in their menagerie of misdeeds for close to a decade… In 2381, when a group of Starfleet Officers were captured in a Grey Scars ambush conducted on the planet Aldea, Otheusz, for the first time, came face-to-face with the Federation, who were in-part responsible for the catastrophic events that had befallen his home planet. Being convinced to defect from the Queen’s command, under the promise of safety aboard their ship, Otheusz aided in the officer’s escape from the Grey Scars’ brig, and was ultimately granted asylum aboard the renegade Starfleet vessel, the USS Theurgy. Otheusz took up responsibilities aboard the USS Theurgy, and though he didn’t completely trust the Federation, he did aid in the opposition against the parasites that compromised Starfleet Command at the end of the 24th century.

Biography

Childhood

Otheusz was born in the year 2355, nine years prior to the arrival of the Starship Enterprise-D of the United Federation of Planets, and at his age, Otheusz had been too young to fully understand the impact that this event would have upon Ornaran society.

Before to the arrival of the Enterprise-D in their planet's atmosphere, Ornara had been slowly fading under the threat of a virulent plague, a disease so potent that it had ailed them for centuries. Its symptoms could only be repelled by taking a dose of felicium, which in turn could only be obtained through trade with the neighbouring planet of Brekka, creating a cycle of commerce between the two civilisations which spanned twelve generations. Every attempt to stop taking the drug that had been made in the past two-hundred years, had ended the same. Symptoms. Sweating, tremors, nausea, delirium, anger, hallucinations, and of course, crippling agony…

Thus, over the course of two centuries, Ornaran culture diminished as a result of their felicium dependance. Art was sacrificed for the production of tradable goods, education became focussed on essential skills over higher learning, and as long as any living Ornaran could remember, their entire society lived and breathed for the next euphoric high that came alongside a felicium injection. It had been so long since the plague had first appeared, so many generations that had lived and died under its threat, that even the best kept records made life before the plague seem too good to be true; old dusty books concerning spacecraft and renewable energy, the topic of bedtime stories and fairy tales... It was just a fact of life that Ornarans needed felicium, and Brekkian’s provided it; for a price.

At least, until the Enterprise-D appeared in their skies.

Though the specific events of what took place aboard the alien vessel were unknown to the wider populace, when the news broke that the last working inter-planetary freighter, the Sanction, had been lost, it was no shock to anyone that Ornara fell into pandemonium overnight. At first, it was outrage, stories of the advanced alien starship that had refused to help them, the barbaric alien society known as Starfleet, that had damned them to their fate… But once the rage had subsided, once reality had begun to sink in, the realisation that felicium was then, and forever, out of reach for their entire species, damning each and every one of them to an agonising death… The outrage took a turn for the worse.

Before that fateful day, all things considered, Otheusz’ childhood was above average compared to most children who had the misfortune of being born on Ornara. With a mother who worked in the felicium distribution industry and a father who worked in the government of their capital city, Penthas, Otheusz and his brother enjoyed a privilege that few others on Ornara could; never having to worry about where the next dose of felicium would come from, getting an education at one of the few good schools on the planet, enjoying holidays at a second home in the countryside, with spectacular views across lake T’Lior… It was a lifestyle exclusive to only the smallest percentage of Ornarans, those whose lives existed outside of the factories and fields that engulfed the majority of their workforce, and Otheusz, as much as any Ornaran, had a relatively happy childhood.

Thus, after the Enterprise-D had abandoned them, and the reality of their plight began to sink-in, Otheusz’ sheltered upbringing had left him ill prepared for the carnage that was set to unfold. It wasn’t by any means uncommon for people to quarrel on Ornara, particularly when a felicium dose was concerned, but the onslaught of violence that rippled across the planet in response to the knowledge that felecium was gone forever, was unthinkable. Riots erupted en-masse, and within hours of the announcement, looting and violence had appeared on every corner of every city, quickly escalating to outright murder, everyone clambering over each other just for the faint chance to get another dose of felicium for themselves. This, paired with a rash of suicides from those too afraid to endure the pain, resulted in a total collapse of infrastructure within twenty-four hours of the Enterprise-D’s departure, the entire planet ravaged into barbarism within the span of a single day.

Living in one of the few upmarket areas of Penthas, Otheusz’ childhood home became a quick target for opportunistic looters, and their relatively safe neighbourhood promptly became a battleground for those less fortunate than themselves. As violence reached their part of the city, Otheusz and his family made the decision to flee, abandoning their home and most of their possessions, with the intention of escaping to their home on lake T’Lior, no plan beyond the desperation to stay together. Their vehicle got them out of their neighbourhood just as the masses arrived, looters breaking into homes, searching for felicium, whilst anarchists simply set them ablaze and watched the plumes of smoke stretch into the sky. Otheusz had been wracked with terror, clinging on to the one stuffed animal he’d been able to grab from his bedroom, an enormous bird that was almost as tall as he was at nine years old… It gave him some small comfort, but his terror only grew more virulent as their journey out of Penthas became impeded, their vehicle unable to pass through the overwhelming crowds that had taken to the streets, giving the family no other choice, but to flee on foot.

As they joined the wailing masses, hysteria erupting in every direction, Otheusz’ father had led the way, a strong and tall man, whose position of privilege had led him into a healthier lifestyle than the majority of the malnourished workers who made up the bulk of the crowds. He pushed his way through the masses, Otheusz clutching his hand tightly as tears streamed down his face in a never-ending cascade, his eyes set on the enormous stuffed animal held underneath his father’s free arm. Behind him, his brother and mother were following, their hands interlocked in a grip firmer than iron, as the four pushed through a horde one-hundred-thousand strong; a chain of family whose only thought was a desperate desire not to be apart. They were pushed and buffeted by the riots for hours, slowly making pace through the sea of limbs, slowly drawing upon their destination with each struggling step… Their effort was monolithic, and thus, it made the truth even more harrowing, when upon emerging from the crowds and finally having a chance to escape to relative safety in the countryside, Otheusz could only look back in anguish, wondering at what stage he had lost his brother’s hand…

The symptoms began when the pair were still a day’s walk away from lake T’Lior, fatigue and guilt already ravaging their every step, the sweat they’d accumulated from walking for so long, turning into a deluge that seemed to erupt from every pore of their bodies. At first they hoped it to be a sign of exertion, but it was soon accompanied by bodily tremors that threatened to break their bones apart within their skin, and even young Otheusz knew what such symptoms meant... Father and son collapsed underneath a tree upon a riverbank when the vomiting began, and it was all too soon that the delirium began to set in, and the pair knew that they would never reach their destination; instead of forcing themselves through even more pain, they bundled together with Otheusz’ stuffed animal in the shade of a ruzova tree, it’s translucent pink leaves shattering starlight all around them, as the pair tearily waited to die.

Delirium gave way to hallucination, and soon every second was wracked with the agony, their bodies buckling with the sensation of a thousand blades piercing their skin all at once. Otheusz burned with the heat of a sun, his body growing so hot that he wanted to tear his own chest open just to feel a breeze against his heart, only for his next second to arrive and have his body thrown into a sensation of eternal winter, his bioelectricity thrumming against his brittle skin, like an animal trying to tear him apart from the inside out. His father flickered between fits of rage, bloodiying his fists against the bark of the ruzova tree, whilst Otheusz curled up on the riverbank in the throes of agony, sobbing silently as he longed for the death that was promised to finally arrive, if only to spare him from the unending pain.

The symptoms stretched onwards for days, hallucinations and delirium their constant companion, pain so severe that it seemed to wound their very souls, countless hours spent waiting for a death that had been promised for generations… Waiting. Every minute passed slower than a lifetime as their screams of pain echoed up into the country air… Until eventually, their screams long since grown hoarse, quite unexpectedly, the symptoms began to subside, days of torture ceasing as swiftly as they had begun, leaving Otheusz hungry, thirsty, filthy, and exhausted beyond any measure, but very much alive.

It took the pair days to find out why they had survived, and neither of them were in a fit enough state to appreciate the apparent panacea that had befallen them, the miraculous disappearance of all symptoms of a plague that had harassed their species for lifetimes. It was only later, much later, that their society had discovered the truth about felicium, that its curative effects had long-since grown redundant, and that the entire population of Ornara had been conned into dosing themselves with ever more potent narcotics, for the past two-hundred-and-something years. The symptoms of the plague? Symptoms of felicium withdrawal. The Brekkian trade agreement? A vicious lie that had spanned the centuries.

Teenage Years

It took months for the Ornaran population to fully pass through the violent stages of felicium withdrawal, Othuesz and his father’s week-long symptoms being comparatively ‘mild’ compared to the average, and it exacted a heavy toll on Ornaran civilisation. What little had survived the catastrophic riots, was instead ravaged by their consequences; unquenchable fires tore through cities, destroying everything in their paths, whilst even the most stalwart pieces of Ornaran infrastructure, fell victim to the woes of neglect. Power plants were left unmanned, throwing the planet back into the dark-ages as the technology failed, whilst dams burst their banks and flooded, devastating hundreds of hectares of agriculture, whilst excess water runoff flooded cities and caused sewers to overflow with filth.

The population of the planet fared little better. Between the rash of suicides, those lost to the rioting, and those who didn’t survive to see the other side of withdrawal, millions of Ornarans had died, taking with them so much specific knowledge that could never be replaced. With no power or authority to show for themselves, the attempts of officials to reestablish order within the cities failed, leading to the majority of the planet becoming a lawless wasteland, where the strong hoarded the resources and the weak bowed for scraps… The irreversible damage done to Ornaran society, made even life underneath the thumb of felicium sound preferable in comparison…

Fortunately for Otheusz, the community that developed on lake T’Lior quickly proved to be an idyllic place for a fresh start. It did not lack for resources, with water and fish from the lake, and an abundance of quaint vegetable gardens and fruit trees. Thus, those who had taken shelter in the homes along the lake’s bank, never found cause for conflict with each other. Instead, after the period of unease had passed, the period in which everyone still believed that despite the lack of symptoms, they were still going to die, the ragtag band of refugees welcomed each other with open arms. So many strangers pulled together into a community, and that community quickly grew into a bustling settlement, a sanctuary of knowledge and cooperation, where minds that had been addled within the froes of felicium for so much of their lives, had become free for the first time. For Otheusz in particular, seeing the world though these new eyes felt like a veil had been lifted…

For the first time in his life, Otheusz became able to appreciate things, things that were not just his next dose of felicium, and the feeling of euphoria that came with it. Simple things, things that most people might take for granted… The feeling of swimming, immersing himself in water as he splashed and dove with his friends, seeing who could hold their breath the longest, laughing at faces filled with shock as the cold water prickled against their skin… The sensation of a warm fluffy blanket during a cold night, swaddling himself up into a sleep that wasn’t interrupted by cold sweats and shivering when the next felicium dose was due… The sweet taste of yahoda fruit, something so minor, so commonplace, but still something that had felt dull and flavourless when the relief of felicium was all that he craved… Of course, he felt guilt for enjoying such things, knowing that his mother and brother were still lost to the turmoil of the world, but the young Ornaran couldn’t deny that for the first time in his life, he began to understand what happiness was meant to feel like. Many of the adults in their collective taught the children the fundamentals of advanced topics, mechanical engineering, agricultural sciences, as well as the smaller joys, such as how to catch a fish or climb a tree, creating a group who could all contribute towards their small society, and for a long time, Otheusz lived a life of relative safety within the confines of his little home.

As the years passed, though his life upon the bank of lake T’Lior was relatively sheltered, it was not without its challenges. Otheusz still grew up in witness to the devastation that their society had been subject to, and experienced first hand the challenges of a world sent back in time. Things that they had taken for granted even under the thumb of felicium, medical care, clothing, technology, all became scarce within this new world, with nobody to solve the shortages but themselves... The group turned to some of the more obscure believes from the old Ornaran pantheon for guidance, long abandoned in the face of the plague, and practised rituals both occult and esoteric, paltry things that perhaps none of them truly believed in, but that brought their group comfort nonetheless. Otheusz was taught rituals of protection, of divination, things that whilst appeared meaningless, were acts of ritual and affirmation that seemed to stave off the unknown fears of this new reality, and embolden him with hope for the future.

As time passed, Otheusz began to develop a keen interest in that technology, the relics of Ornaran society, electronics that had been neglected for hundreds of years, that would have surely been capable of the most marvellous of feats back in their prime. He began collecting the oldest books and instructional manuals that he could find, studying on long-defunct technologies, so that he might apply such ideas to his new community. With only his own ingenuity and a few books that were centuries old, Otheusz had managed to construct a rudimentary hydroelectric generator at the mouth of the outflow river that led away from their lake. It was little more than a turbine and a generator, and though it only provided enough power for them to keep their lights on, it was a win for their community, and Otheusz had never been so proud of his accomplishments in his entire life.

At fourteen, Otheusz’ community had begun to realise that the long term effects of felicium addiction didn’t always fade with time; in the cases of some, like Otheusz’ father, the cravings never quite went away, and thus it became the responsibility of others, even someone as young as Otheusz, to help their small society where their families could not. Thus Otheusz, out of necessity, began participating in the dangerous endeavour of returning to the streets of Penthas once again, mostly to scavenge for supplies and resources that their community could use, but always with the hope of finding his mother and brother again; a goal he never had much luck in achieving... The populations who had remained in the rundown streets of Penthas had adapted to the fall of society in different ways, forming gangs and tribes who warred and squabbled over territory and resources, never failing to emerge from the debris like shadows when Otheusz and his trading party arrived within their borders… The negotiations were always tense, but possessed of a cordiality that prevented things from becoming too heated; the gangs were far more attuned to violence, but their poor diet and lifestyle led to diminished bioelectrical capabilities, which provided Otheusz and his group with the advantage… It resulted in an uneasy truce that lasted for several months, the boundaries tested every once and a while, but never crossed…

It was a life that they had all started to become used to, and one that changed even more abruptly than it had started…

Otheusz had been returning from another excursion to Penthas, laden down with new supplies for their community, talking excitedly with a couple of the other traders in their group, only for them to arrive home, to find that their lakeside paradise had been the subject of a brutal raid. It had hit Otheusz harder than the pain of withdrawal, his legs sprinting towards his smouldering home, abandoning the supplies he’d been hauling, sprinting through the ruins of the T’Lior community as he screamed for his father until his voice grew hoarse. His home had been scorched beyond recognition, the technology they’d built for themselves destroyed, as if worthless to their aggressors, parts trampled underfoot as scorch-marks were left in the wake of their generators. He’d run around the stretch of lake a hundred times, looking in every possible hiding place, and yet he only saw destruction… The supplies they’d stockpiled for the winter scattered and destroyed, not even stolen, their belongings trampled and reduced to molten slag, their homes destroyed, their gardens burned, but most devastatingly, their people gone… The only clue as to what had happened to their community, was the smallest shard of fluorescent green glass that Otheusz had discovered, buried underneath the rubble of what he had just a few hours prior, called his home.

Otheusz never saw his father again after that day. Their smaller group had spent weeks taking shelter in the ruins of one of the few houses that still had a roof, hoping desperately that their families and friends might return, but it had been all for naught; a community of two-hundred strong at its peak, was reduced to a rabble of fifteen heartbroken souls. As winter approached, and the need to find a more secure shelter arose, Otheusz and the rest of the group gathered what supplies they could carry, Otheusz recovering one thing from the rubble, the charred, but mostly intact, stuffed bird that he’d loved so much as a child, before the group set off into the unknown. Their journey continued for weeks, the few places they found that might have accommodated their group for the winter, all riddled with some problem or another, vermin, infestations of insects, toxic mould, until the group came upon a colossal campus buried deep in the most remote parts of the countryside, stretches of land he’d never laid eyes on before, with huge metallic gates branded with a rusty, but legible sign, that read:

- OEI -

He knew what that stood for; he’d read about it in one of his books.

The Ornaran Extraplanetary Initiative

Leaving Ornara

By the time that Otheusz and the remaining survivors from the T’Lior community had settled into life at the Extraplanetary Initiative facility, it had become common knowledge that the plague that had hampered their civilisation for a dozen generations, had actually been eradicated over two-hundred years ago, and that the Brekkian populace had been knowingly exploiting the Ornarans through felicium addiction, for the past two centuries. What started as wandering whispers was now a call for war. The group’s occasional trips to Penthas became far more dangerous, as the population’s anger towards Brekka reached a fever pitch, yet had no outlet for the fury… With no access to their neighbours, the anger quickly spoiled into violence, and with far less to offer now than they’d presented when living on the shores of T’Lior, Otheusz and the other traders were no longer immune to such outbursts. The calls for vengeance were brewing across the planet, and though Otheusz’ anger towards the Brekkians was as absolute as anyones, the blame for every wrong in his life laying at their feet, he and his friends had far nobler goals.

Within the husk that had once been the proud cornerstone of the Ornaran Extraplanetary Initiative, laid a graveyard of derelict freighters and spacecraft, damaged, certainly, but in the most minor of ways, ways that even Otherusz at sixteen could understand how to fix. It took the group time, months upon months, pouring over every manual and instruction held within the facility, inventorying each of the derelict ships to ensure they had enough parts, all whilst maintaining the tedious monotony of survival, but eventually, over time, progress began to take shape. They chose the most intact ship of the bunch, its issues the easiest to repair, and began working towards its completion. The work was hard, tedious, every twist of a spanner being consulted by at least four different manuals, the parts stripped from other ships being checked one-hundred times over, to assure their suitability, but eventually, the group accomplished the unthinkable.

They’d followed in the footsteps of the bedtime stories Otheusz had heard as a child; they’d get the chance to see the stars for themselves…

Even with the repaired craft, they spent weeks more on the planet’s surface, gathering as much food and water as they could fit within the weight parameters of the vessel, bringing backup power cells for the essential technologies, the oxygen recycler and the engines, taking every manual that was relevant to the ship’s operation, and each studying it front to back… They slept on the ship, ate on the ship, scarcely left it unless for the most essential tasks… They endured several long weeks of anticipation, of excitement, of fear… Weeks of preparing themselves for a journey that would take them to a place that they would have only dreamed of before then, with a grandiose plan, one that would see them return with a gift that would bring about a new age of prosperity for their people, for their planet. Their goal had been to seek help from an advanced species, not unlike the Starfleeters, to secure aid for their planet, so that Ornara might heal from its wounds, rather than have them fester even more… The group’s opinions on the direction of this aid however, were greatly splintered.

Everyone knew the stories of the Enterprise-D, but the views of their group concerning the motives of the Starfleeters greatly differed. Some believed that the Federation had cost them everything, and were directly responsible for the riots, the rash of suicides, the countless deaths and wanton destruction that had flooded Ornara since that one fateful day in 2364. Others believed that the Starfleeters had saved the Ornarans from the grip of Brekka, and that their actions led to a direct halt in the transfer of felicium, ended the supply train, and halted the exploitation that had doomed their species for over two-hundred years; they argued that the actions of the Enterprise-D had given them a chance to build something new from the ashes. After all, how could the Starfleeters have known that Ornara would so readily tear itself apart? Otheusz thought that those who believed in the latter, were lunatics… How could a species who would willingly condemn another to the fate that the Ornaran’s had shared on that diabolical day, ever be considered ‘saviours’?

But despite their differing opinions, in the early days of 2372, the Ornaran transport vessel, renamed ‘the T’Lior’, breached the atmosphere of their planet, and hurtled itself into the optimistic void of space. Its crew cheered with glee at the thought of how close they were to finally achieving the outcome they so greatly desired; a golden age for the people of Ornara... They angled their ship away from the planets of Ornara and Brekka, away from their past and trauma, and plotted coordinates that led them into the stars, into the unknown. And to the credit of the crew, their optimism endured for a solid few weeks, before despair returned once again…

Whilst Otheusz and the others had read every word of knowledge that pertained to the construction, maintenance, and operation of their vessel, they had failed to understand the sheer vastness that awaited them above the atmosphere, and their belief that some advanced alien civilisation would be only days away, was sorely misguided. The Ornarans did not have great knowledge of space travel, and the confirmation of how close the planet Brekka was to their own, severely confounded their understanding of the distribution of sentient species within the galaxy; what they believed to be the norm, was in-fact, an infinitesimal chance. Thus, the T’Lior had barely passed the edges of their own solar system before the last of their reserve fuel ran out, powerful solar winds their only chaperone, as the ship fled aimlessly into the void; had their vessel’s propulsion not been bolstered by the unusual electromagnetic field of their system, they’d never have reached even that far. The crew drifted for another two weeks before their food supplies began to dwindle, even with the strictest rationing, and afterwards, the dregs of Ornara’s most hopeful, could only watch as their life support gauge flickered at zero.

The ship that was to be their salvation, slowly becoming their tomb.

It was only then, by an act of fate both cruel and benevolent in equal parts, that the crew of the T’Lior were awoken with the most violent jolt, their entire vessel buckling against itself, hissing with a noise that ignited fear in all of their hearts… Otheusz was the first upon his feet, rushing forwards to the bridge as the rest of the Ornarans were thrown throughout the hold, his blue eyes alight with fear as he clambered forwards to the viewing screen, and took in the harrowing sights before them… It was benevolence in a way, that they had encountered another ship, the precise goal of their mission achieved. It was cruel in another way, because they had in fact, encountered two vessels, and both appeared to be attempting to destroy the other.

Another jolt took Otheusz off of his feet, as a bathe of green energy swirled across the viewscreen, the T’Lior’s speed increasing as it was pulled towards one of the alien vessels, the rumbling within their deck-plating vibrating through Otheusz’ very being. The Ornaran turned, moving with desperation across the cramped bridge, desperate to warn his friends of what was happening, his body being thrown haphazardly around the bridge from the inertia, when the most peculiar thing occurred. It started with a feeling of warmth, of weightlessness, a light that encircled him as he felt his entire body become slippery, his very being seeming to fall apart and reattach itself a thousand times a second… It was all light, nothing more, and then, something else…

Capture and Enslavement

It was only later, after seeing the technology used a dozen more times, that Otheusz came to understand that he’d been transported, lifted straight out of the bridge of the T’Lior and unceremoniously dumped onto the deck of a new vessel, a grimy pirate runabout branded ‘the Carcharodon’. At the time however, Otheusz had absolutely no understanding of the events that had befallen him, only knowing that when the light had faded, he’d ended up somewhere else… He’d searched frantically around him, but the rest of the Ornarans were nowhere to be seen, and instead, he was surrounded by strangers. His eyes took in, for the first time, aliens of a variety of colours, forms and shapes, mouths erupting in strange noises that he couldn’t understand, bizarre and unfriendly eyes looking at him as though he was a disappointment, a worthless spoil of a reckless attempt… But a spoil nonetheless.

Before Otheusz had known what was happening, one of the aliens had closed in behind him, attempting to restrain him as he screamed and thrashed, any shred of composure left within him, shattering in the face of desperation. His mind had whirled into a frenzy of dread that surpassed any of the terrible things that he had encountered on Ornara, fear thundering like slush through his veins, as he kicked and struggled against the thing behind him, his body responding to a threat like it had always been taught to… With a spark.

The terror within him had acted as a powerful boost to his energy reserves, and despite him having spent several days existing off of only the most meagre of rations, Otheusz’ adrenaline riddled body had managed to muster up enough strength, to send a bioelectric charge roiling down his arms. He’d practised of course, with his father as a child, and with others as he’d grown older, learned how to discharge his own bioelectric energy through his skin, his hands, learned the precise amount of power to stun another Ornaran, but not kill them… However, they were skills he’d never had to use before, not on another person... Otheusz hadn’t known whether it had been a result of his inexperience with his abilities, or whether the alien had simply not possessed the same reliance as an Ornaran would have… Either way, when his assailant had staggered backwards from the surge of bioelectric energy that had rippled outwards from Otheusz’ body, the Ornaran had been as shocked as the rest of the onlookers when, eyes smouldering like a fish upon a campfire, the alien slumped backwards, falling onto the deck-plating with a resounding thud, like a slab of meat upon a butcher’s block.

It was the first time he had killed someone. It was a weight that he’d never had time to process, as after that moment, the Ornaran remembered nothing, and by the time that he had awoken, everything in his life had changed.

When his consciousness had returned, Otheusz had been greeted by an imposing woman, her skin patterned with ink and impaled with small shards of metal, teeth sharpened to points and dark hair that seemed to stand of its own accord. The Ornaran came to know the woman all too well over the years he spent under the thumb of his captors... She was the Captain of the Carcharodon, the flagship of the Pirate Conglomerate, known as the Grey Scars. She hailed from a species known as Human, and following Otheusz’ inadvertent murder of the previous leader of the Grey Scars, she had assumed the title of ‘the Grey Queen’, seizing the opportunity before her predecessor was even cold. And unlike said predecessor, the Grey Queen didn’t take chances.

When Otheusz had awoken to the sight of the woman, his first instinct had been to fight. It was a mindset he’d been forced to adopt each time he had made the long journey to Pentas with his trading group, a primal urge that told him to let his electrokinetic abilities loose at the first sign of danger, let his bioelectric energy crackle within his fingertips, so that he might survive whatever threat was to come… And when he saw the Grey Queen before him, just the two of them within a room, a malevolent smile playing upon her face, Otheusz had done just that. Yet, no sooner had a sparkle of electricity crackled within his fingers, did he feel a vice suddenly tighten around his neck…

The Grey Queen had already seen the power Otheusz held within his small body, seen it immolate her former Captain from the inside out, and unlike her predecessor, she was not a fool. In her desire to exploit the Ornaran’s electrokinetic abilities, she had seen fit to install a safeguard to prevent the boy from turning such power against her, a specially engineered collar, welded tightly around his throat. She had watched the boy as though he were some curiosity within a museum, her cold, dead eyes observing him as Otheusz had thrashed against the unyielding metal band that encircled his neck, his desperate gasps for air drowned out by the high-pitched hum that began to ring within his ears. The Ornaran had collapsed to the floor in horror, his numbing fingertips clawing into the metal that tightened around his oesophagus, spittle slopping against his chin as every vein in his body seemed to writhe and crawl against him, squirming in roguish desperation as the world began to fade into black… Until, with the faintest of hisses, the collar released its pressure, and Otheusz was sent sprawling onto the grimy floor, his lungs screaming as he gasped for air and then coughed it back up, the sound of blood hammering in his ears, slowly replaced by the sound of a cold chuckle, a symptom of the cruellest amusement…

It was an interaction that served as the perfect forenote to what his life was due to become, as property of the Grey Scars Pirate Conglomerate. It was a life that represented the epitome of misery.

In the months that followed, the Grey Queen had maintained a perverse interest in Otheusz, favouring him as one would a pet, not a person. The woman had mounted a chain upon his collar, to both lead him around, and to fasten him in place when she had no use for his presence. She took great pleasure in parading him around the Carcharodon, dragging him like an animal in front of the dozens of strangers that resided abroad; criminals and marauders, all who jeered and laughed at the Ornaran’s presence. Otheusz’ eyes were frightened at their varied and disturbing appearances, whilst his ears felt numb to the alien noises that seemed to pour from their lips… The Ornaran learned quickly to bow his head and avoid any eye contact with them, his tearful blue gaze instead swallowing up the floor beneath the Grey Queen’s boots, her footsteps a pathway towards damnation that he had no choice but to follow.

She forbade him from speaking unless asked a direct question, punctuated by the exclusive use of a shared language between the aliens aboard, keeping the use of their universal translator rare, solidifying Otheusz’ status as a pet aboard their vessel. It was a fact he learned rather promptly, at a time when his naivety and ignorance convinced him to attempt and appeal to her empathy, to explain that there had been a mistake, and that he’d done nothing to deserve his punishment… No more than a squeak had slipped out through his lips, before his throat was once again clamped in a vice, jolting the words from his tongue and sending him reeling downwards, writhing against the filth-ridden floor as cacophonous bellows of laughter rained down from whatever members of the Carcharodon’s crew were close enough to witness. Thus, he became near mute, days of silence stretching into months, as those around him belittled and abused him, goaded him into arguments that he couldn’t participate in, ridiculed him whilst he had no choice but to endure.

And so, Otheusz’ life became one of torment, and over the course of the few months spent aboard the Carcharodon, any dignity he had once thought he possessed, was ground down to dust by the pumice of his new reality. His name became ‘Sparky’, or ‘Sparkles’, amongst other, more colourful misnomers, his entire existence becoming a symptom of the moods of his ever-erratic Queen. If he ate, it was scraps from a plate upon the floor, the use of his hands dependant on how cruel those around him were feeling. If he rested, it was with his collar chained to a wall, its anchor too high for him to lay or sit, his legs aching under the agony of time, as he waited for nothing but the return of his tormentor. If he washed, it was with a bucket of freezing cold water and a worryingly stained rag, if he was lucky; more often than not, said bucket was dumped over his head.

Even the vague comfort provided by the rituals of his people were lost to him in the wake of his suffering, lacking both the components and the ability to perform any of the rituals he had been taught as a teenager, to the point that such faith began to abandon him entirely… What good were Ornaran beliefs to him, when he was no longer on Ornara? Instead, the little solace that Otheusz found, came from the days when his bioelectric energy overcharged within his body from its lack of use, sparkling across his skin like fire as it longed to be released; it would get him thrown into a cell and forgotten about for a few hours, maybe days if he was lucky… It caused him immense pain, but it gave him a chance to be alone, to sleep, to be forgotten by the crew as their minds became too preoccupied with piracy and plunder to pay him any heed… Even the greatest pain was worth the chance to shut his eyes and imagine a life that was not his own.

Yet when his stint aboard the Carcharodon came to an end, the vessel docking at a criminal refuge within one of the many abandoned cities upon the planet Aldea, Otheusz’ torment seemed to reach an apex. It had been the first time the boy had seen the light of a sun since leaving Ornara, and the warm embrace was short-lived. He’d cried silently as his emancipated body was dragged by the neck to a shanty little structure, his mistreatment paraded before a cabal of criminals, all of whom seemed to take great amusement in his plight. He’d been fastened to a rusty chair, barely able to contain the sob that threatened to burst out from his dry and peeling lips, as a woman had emerged from the shadows with a forehead split into two protruding domes… The chair had hummed into life, as the woman had approached, an unseen force pressing him down with the weight of star, holding him immobile as the Queen and the new figure discussed terms in language that Otheusz’ ears couldn’t comprehend, their vapid gestures towards him forcing the Ornaran to consider, that this could be where he died…

That fear continued to swell within him, its conviction becoming tenfold, when an agreement was reached and the stranger approached him with an unknown tool, a cylinder that glimmered with shards of sharpened metal, needles coated with flecks of crimson, that was swiftly plunged down into the crest of the his chin. It burned with a virulence that had made Otheusz seethe, a boiling hiss erupting from somewhere deep within his throat; the restraint hadn’t even afforded him the chance to scream. The procedure was simple, and it served a simple purpose, yet it seemed to last for hours, every pause in the pain being followed by an even greater agony, the feral buzz of her machinery scratching at his very soul. The Queen had watched the entire process, reveling in some form of twisted amusement at his torture, and when it was concluded, and Otheusz was shown his face in a grime-smeared mirror, she cackled with glee at the look of horror in the Ornaran’s eyes…

He saw the result of the woman’s work; a brand upon his skin.

The stranger had labelled him with a mark upon his flesh, one that he’d seen many times before. It was a symbol that lived up to the namesake of their little faction, a single grey line, one that ran across the centre of the chin of each and every member of the Carcharodon crew, and now marred his own pale flesh as well. A simple thing, a thin stretch of darkness that traced across his smooth and innocent complexion, stretching up from where the collar dug into the skin of his throat, all the way to the quivering edge of his bottom lip... Simple, but a mark that labelled him undeniably, as property.

A single grey scar…

Arrival on Aldea

Receiving the brand of ownership upon his chin did little to reduce the suffering that Otheusz’ captors inflicted upon him; if anything, it seemed to embolden those around him to deepen their dedication to his misery. Otheusz’ existence was demeaned ever further with each passing day, serving as entertainment during the idle months spent processing their spoils and salvage upon Aldea. The inactivity fostered a rowdy boredom amongst the volatile aliens, and Otheusz became one of the few outlets for it… He was put to work with the rest of the crew, hauling scrap and debris from derelict ships into piles to be sold or repurposed, working until his hands were torn and bloody, and his feet were blistered from the scolding hot sands. Unlike the rest of the crew however, Otheusz did not enjoy a sense of camaraderie from their work, nor was he compensated for his efforts in latinum or a cut of the profit… Instead, the Ornaran spent his days being mocked and belittled in alien tongues, raised voices screaming at him as he passed, globules of spit landing on his raw and burned skin, a constant parade of anything the crew could do to attempt to get a rise out of him… Anything that would make the Ornaran’s life that little bit less pleasant...

One day he was held down whilst his head was shaved bare, his matted blonde hair falling in clumps to the floor as he thrashed against his tormentors, crying at the loss of one of the few things he had maintained from his homeworld. Another day, he was left chained outside come evening, abandoned to spend the night out in the viciously frigid air, attempting to grasp a few miserable hours as he rolled against the sands, his rest cut short by the shrieks and pecks of circling birds... Mealtimes became a spectacle of humiliation, a performance that made him long to eat from a plate upon the floor again; he would be fastened to a post whilst the others went to eat, throwing scraps at him for their own amusement, his own hunger overcoming the few shreds of self-respect he had remaining, eating morsels from the floor amidst the chorus of laughter from his audience. What little down time he was afforded, was spent huddled against a wall in a dingy corner of the Carcharodon’s mess hall, afforded no privacy, attempting to grasp a few desperate hours of sleep, without so much as a blanket to offer him comfort or warmth…

The worst days however, involved something different entirely. The first time had been a punishment, he’d gotten angry when one of the crew had tripped him at their salvage site, Otheusz slashing his hand open upon a jagged sheet of metal he had been hauling. The wound had poured with blood and burned like fire, and in a split-second decision, he lashed out at the man who’d caused it. Another day, he’d knocked over a barrel of deuterium that someone had left in the middle of their work-site, quite by accident; he hadn’t known how it had appeared behind him so suddenly… One time it was because the Klingon painstik hadn’t hurt him enough. Another occasion involved him accidentally dropping a heavy section of scrap near someone’s foot. Once, he’d gotten burned under the sun too quickly. Occasionally he’d make eye contact with someone when he shouldn’t have… But most of the time, Otheusz hadn’t known what he’d done wrong... He only knew what he had learned; that it must have been his own fault…

Sometimes it was cruder forms of torture, but the physical pain that the crew would inflict upon his body, was nothing compared to the Queen’s preferred method of torment… She’d have Otheusz taken to a room aboard the Carcharodon, a room that defied all of the Ornaran’s understanding of space and physics. Its doors opened into a sea of endless white, an infinite expanse that seemed to exist outside of reality, stretching endlessly into each direction without pause. He later came to understand the technology as a holo-deck, but at the time, the time he spent staring into the infinite colourless void, did things to his mind that Otheusz was unable to put into words… Time lost all meaning within the space, and even sleep became unbearable within the expanse, his mind playing tricks on him as hours stretched into weeks, days into months…

He was told it would stop if he behaved, but he could never work out what he’d done wrong…

Alas, Otheusz’ torments were more than just a simple means of torture, more than just amusements for the crew to pass the time; the Grey Queen had painstakingly constructed each of his trials with a specific goal in mind… The abuse Otheusz received was never about pain, never about his beatings or physical tortures; anything they inflicted upon him in that regard would be quickly repaired by the crew’s surgeon… Instead, the Grey Scars inflicted agony upon the boy, that was designed to bring the greatest harm upon his mind, upon his spirit… It was a process of methodical humiliation and suffering, designed to break him beyond any means of repair, to erase whatever he had been before and reconstruct him as a loyal asset to the Grey Scars, a tool as simple as a disruptor or a tricorder, something that didn’t question orders or think for itself…His punishments were designed to teach him that he had no control, no autonomy, that his life was theirs to do what they wished with. They made him gaslight himself into believing that a punishment meant that he had done something wrong, rather than the other way around, reconditioning him to believe that he was what they allowed him to be, not his own person… And over time, the Ornaran began to believe it…

The torments continued long enough that Otheusz began to lose track of time; time was meaningless when the only difference between each day was what torment awaited him. There were moments when the Ornaran began to forget his real name, the sound of the human word ‘Sparky’ echoing within his own head when he thought of himself, of his future. He slowly stopped struggling against the beatings, nor got angry or embarrassed by the humiliations; they became a part of his existence as much as breathing, they became more familiar than eating, they became him, as much as anything else. Even when he closed his eyes, his wanderings of fantasy lives and dreams faded in the wake of his crushing reality, and thus, after almost a year of Otheusz’ life being blown away by the arid dust of Aldea’s ghostly shipyards, the Grey Queen had finally decided that the torment had gone far enough to break the Ornaran fully. Far enough that she could now put her plans to the test…

For the Grey Queen, Otheusz was a prize that few pirates could hope for, his unique bioelectrical abilities a boon that most criminals could only dream of. He was a living weapon, undetectable by transporters or scans, an individual who could infiltrate an enemy vessel and incapacitate a crew with just a touch; the panacea that would open up a golden age for the Grey Scars… As such, the Grey Queen was determined to exploit him to the last, and to do that, she couldn’t have her most valuable asset running off, and requesting asylum aboard the first ship she sent him to infiltrate… So she constructed a new norm for Otheusz’ life, a parade of mistreatment that followed his every move. Her crew were under the strictest instruction to ensure that the Ornaran would be woken by something harsh, from sharp kicks to his side, to buckets of rancid water thrown into his face. Her orders ensured that he would spend his days being dragged around by a chain upon his neck, forced into hard labour and rewarded with beatings even when he believed that he’d done nothing wrong… Forced him into a mindstate that embedded subservience into his psyche, like an iron spike within his soul.

Thus, when Otheusz awoke one morning of his own accord, no familiar sting of pain to his ribs, or deluge of grimy water to his face, perhaps for the first time in a year, it set him on edge. It felt wrong, and he knew well enough to know that it was his own fault somehow… Perhaps he was too dirty to kick, or he hadn’t mopped the decks hard enough to produce enough grime in the bucket of water… Either way, he’d been terrified of his failings as he raced down to the Scars’ work-site, panicking beyond imagining as he sprinted across the sands in the mid-afternoon sun, throwing himself into the most back-breaking work the second he reached the crew, without a thought for his own safety, in the vaguest of hopes that he might somehow redeem his own mistakes. He worked himself so hard in fact, that over an hour had passed before he realised that something was disturbingly different about the crew that day… Something that made every ounce of his body and soul scream in unease…

Nobody had interacted with him.

Even as the day drew to a close hours later, the pirates roughhousing and shouting amongst themselves, Otheusz hadn’t received so much as a look of contempt the whole time he had been there. No shoves, no shouts, no beatings to speak of… It was like he didn’t exist. This confusion was so great, his stress so high, that it was only as he caught his own reflection in a slab of sand-polished metal, that he noticed that the collar that had encircled his throat for so long, the device that had began his servitude within the Grey Scars, was gone.

The emotions that roiled within him were immense and insane. He thought about bringing vengeance upon those in the crew that had wronged him, using every ounce of his power to char them from the inside out. He thought of taking off into the evening sun, sprinting into the desert and to freedom, escaping the heinous life of torture and humiliation that he’d come to know. And then, he thought about the realities of his situation… He knew that he couldn’t fight everyone, not after so long of not having used his abilities, not after being on the brink of starvation for months on end, kept alive only by cocktails of nutrients cooked up by the crew’s doctor. And he knew that he couldn’t run either, not to anywhere safe at least. Otheusz was aware that he was on a different planet now, a different place that was no-doubt far from Ornara. He knew that he didn’t know what awaited him out in the desert, nor did he have any guarantee that anyone would help him, even if he did find them; Starfleet had abandoned his planet to destroy itself, the other Ornarans had allowed him to be kidnapped alone, the Grey Scars had tortured him for over a year with no end in sight…

Those thoughts whirled within Otheusz' mind as the hours passed him by, the Ornaran standing alone as the night descended into the desert around him, his tear-streamed eyes staring outwards onto the sandy horizon, as all the fleeting thoughts of what his life might or could have been began to fade from his mind. It was with a sniff, and a motion to wipe at his face with the threadbare dregs of his sleeve, that the boy turned away from the promise of the unknown horizon, and slowly forced himself to return to the pain that awaited him in the familiar… Both of his options seemed only to hold the promise of suffering, and the Ornaran decided that if he had to play with a stacked deck, he could at least choose to know the cards…

It was only then, even after spending so much time under the thumb of the Grey Scars’, that hope faded from his shattered heart, and Otheusz began to understand, truly understand, that the universe was not the beautiful place that the storybooks of his people had taught him about…

The Grey Scars

Otheusz never reached his grimy corner of the Carcharodon’s mess hall that night. Instead, his return to the ship had been intercepted by none other than the architect of his torment, the Grey Queen, awaiting his return with a smug smile and a perverse sense of pride. Otheusz’ night in the desert had not been spent alone; the Queen had eyes and ears upon her prized possession at all times, his value far too great to leave unsupervised, a half-dozen disruptors ready to stun the boy into oblivion if he elected to take a chance at escape… Yet, he had not. The decision Otheusz made to return to the Scars had been his own, without bias or threat, and it demonstrated to the Queen, that her methods had been successful after all; she had fully eradicated whatever aspect of willpower existed of the boy, before he came into her care. Voices had whispered in her shadow that her time spent breaking Otheusz had doomed the Grey Scars into obscurity, a year spent scratching salvage in the Aldean deserts, destroying what little prestige the Scars had within the criminal underworld… Well, she had proved the voices wrong; her time had been well spent.

The only task remaining to her, was the trial of rebuilding the young Ornaran into something new; the epitome of a perfect pet…

She began the project that very evening, guiding Otheusz’ trembling and confused form to her private quarters, where a steaming hot bath awaited him, the room heavy with the smell of the most expensive Ruji bath salts and Bolian essential oils; a ‘reward’ for his choice. Otheusz had been terrified of her intentions, fear wracking his form that he must have done something truly unforgivable to have been ignored for the day, much less led to the Queen’s private chambers… Yet, he complied with her commands. It may have been out of fear, respect, or some twisted concoction of the two, but the boy quickly found himself stripping with meagre care for his own dignity, immersing himself within the bubble-swamped water as requested, his small body almost drowned in the Queen-sized tub… It was nothing short of euphoric.

Otheusz had not washed in anything but freezing cold water since his childhood, and it made the sensation of a warm bath all the more powerful. The warmth swelled relief into his bruised and battered body, his tender limbs, his peeling skin, his aching bones, a salving warmth that made the sensations surrounding him so much more powerful. Dizzying smells rose into his nose, a nose that had become so accustomed to filth and dust, that he scarcely remembered what it meant to smell something nice, dulling his senses as the world continued in a steamy haze around him. The Queen’s voice softened his ears as he felt the unfamiliar spectre of relaxation loom above him, telling him how ‘proud’ she was of him, how ‘well’ he had done, how much he deserved a ‘treat’... It was a powerful tincture of emotions, and it did something unfathomable to his psyche; it made him, in some grotesque and disturbing way, proud of his choice.

And his reaction to such a thing, did not escape the Queen’s notice; it brought another cruel smile to her face.

The new cycle continued from then onwards, a new path the Ornaran was forced to walk upon, yet this time of his own volition. Otheusz was still mocked, belittled, and tormented by the crew, still tripped and jeered at as he passed, and he still had a very strict set of rules to follow: no speaking, no making eye contact, no using his abilities until he keeled over from the pain of repressing them… Rules he was well aware of the consequences for breaking. However, the new cycle represented something far different for his mind… His days were seldom spent hauling scrap any longer, and instead, the Grey Queen had created quite the repertoire of activities for the young Ornaran, overseen by her vigilant eyes as she watched with glee as the emancipated pet began to grow into a far more useful tool…

Almost overnight, individuals who had abused him for months transformed from torturers to tutors, and Otheusz became an unexpected protégé, relentlessly instructed on the inner-workings of a dozen different types of vessels. And despite his severe lack of understanding of such complicated feats of technology, these vessels infinitely more advanced than the T’Lior had been, Otheusz was as a quick a study as even the most dedicated of Starfleet cadets; Starfleet cadets didn’t suffer the threat of a whip or knife whenever they made a mistake, after all... The vessels he studied began with their own flagship, before expanding to others; those obtained over the years through the Grey Scars’ various endeavours, broken vessels left to rot within the Aldean deserts, and through simulations created in the holodeck, of which Otheusz still had little comprehension. He learned rapidly how to maintain the systems of the Carcharodon, and dozens of other types of vessels, before expanding into more esoteric topics; how to disable ships without breaking them, what systems were the most crucial targets aboard different vessels, the comparisons between sabotaging a Klingon Bird of Prey versus a Tellarite freighter…

His lessons were nothing if not harsh and uncomfortable, with some of the other Scars begrudging their new roles as tutors to one they detested, but unwilling to resist under the watchful gaze of their Queen. They made things difficult for him, being deliberately obtuse in their teachings, maximising their opportunities to beat the boy for his failings, but even that only lasted for so long. The Ornaran began to pick up key phrases in the most basic of Federation standard, Klingon, Denobulan, and dozens of other languages native to the crew; a crude and arduous process, consisting mostly of pointing and gesturing, but Otheusz became aware of a few broken words in a few alien tongues, able to repeat them, and most importantly, understand them; the Ornaran was still largely forbidden from speaking outside of his lessons, but the ability to receive instructions without the aid of a translator, was a step in the right direction, as far as the Queen was concerned.

Soon enough, his development progressed into the field of combat, being instructed on how to fight hand-to-hand, and eventually, with a pair of fiendishly sharp blades; no matter the Queen’s confidence in his booming loyalties, she wasn’t about to hand him a disruptor. He learned first with some of the Queen’s loyalest underlings, those who were less likely to ‘accidentally’ act on the crew’s growing discontent for how she favoured the Ornaran, scoundrels who taught him how to fight dirty and go for the win at all costs. When he’d grasped the basics, the Queen had him practise in the holodeck instead, disabling most of the safeties and throwing him into very real fights against disturbingly dangerous opponents: Vulcan masters, Klingon warriors, Orion assassins… All whose holographic bodies rent his electrokinetic abilities useless. He was transported to sickbay dozens of times, broken and bleeding, but eventually, he started to win…

Tactical drills were born next, gearing the Ornaran up for the real-world scenarios that the Queen had envisaged him for, all the way back when she’d first obtained him. Otheusz had begun aboard the Carcharodon, learning how to remodulate weapons and shields when under fire, as well as repair the Carcharodon’s critical systems even with a plasma leak broiling onto his hands. He’d rehearsed how to access transporter controls aboard a vessel he’d infiltrated, how to beam two-dozen of the Scars’ most brutal pirates onto an enemy bridge. He’d been taught the finer points of active sabotage, how to disable shields, weapons, propulsion, life support… How to cripple a vessel before the Carcharodon needed to fire a shot. Over time, the art of subterfuge came naturally to him, how to hide in even the most unassuming spaces, tricks to confound bio-scans, cause distractions and escape threats… Slowly growing into the perfect tool for criminal activity, armed with an undetectable weapon all the while. .

Otheusz was still punished gravely for his mistakes during this period of education, and whilst his torment had become a truth of life by this stage, the lash of a whip against his back, or kiss of a blade against his skin, kept the Ornaran determined to learn as fast as possible. However, more than that, were the newly introduced ‘rewards’ for his success, bestowed by the Queen herself when his deeds had been satisfactory… They were things that others would take for granted, or even laugh at, but they were things that pulled Otheusz faster into the Queen’s thrall with each passing day… He was granted his own quarters, barely a cupboard adjoining the Queen’s boudoir, a mattress on the floor and shabby blanket and pillow, but to Otheusz, it was the most generous blessing he could have received. His successes in linguistics earned him a warm meal, his combat victories earned him new clothes, his advancements in understanding alien technology with fruit platters and sweet treats… He was allowed the opportunity to grow his hair out once again, to pet the stray felines that roamed the ghost city they called their home, to eat regular meals that kept him alive far better than the cocktail of nutrient injections the Scars’ healer had been dosing him with previously; all things easily replicated and/or worthless to the scars, but all things that lit Otheusz’ world like fireworks upon his blackened soul.

Yet it was perhaps most disturbing of all, that Otheusz’ mind quickly became addicted to the feeling of praise, chasing the fleeting high of recognition from the Queen as though it were a felicium dose, its effects just as feral within his chest…It gave him a perverse sense of accomplishment in himself, a sense of satisfaction that he was worthy enough to please the Queen; blinded enough by her newfound generosity that he became willfully ignorant of the torment she had so readily inflicted upon him, became increasingly able to ignore the new depths of character that he had become expected to stoop to.

As Otheusz’ dedication to her grew, the Grey Queen’s faith and expectation in the boy swelled in kind. She began keeping him close at hand always, much to the chagrin of the rest of the Grey Scars, and though the favour she bestowed upon him was inconsiderably small in the grand scheme of things, the sort of favour an owner bestows upon a pet, the rest of the crew were not content with losing access to their favourite punching-bag, and the Queen knew it. It only took a few months before she began bringing him with her on her excursions to the city of Aldea Prime, ensuring the boy stayed close by her side as she attended to business within its bustling streets. Otheusz had walked as her shadow, thoughts of fleeing her never growing taller than bubbles upon the surface of his mind, quashed by the comprehensive damage she had done to his mental state over the years, the disturbed belief that he could only ever exist whilst she allowed it...

Suddenly, Otheusz had become something to show off to her reemerging contacts as the Grey Queen attended dealings with Orions, Nausicans, Ferangi, arranged trade with scrap merchants, discussed contracts with a variety of sour and shady types… She paraded him like a new handbag in front of jealous eyes and forced smiles, commanding him to show off his electrokinetic abilities, only to cackle with condescentian when those around her asked to purchase him. It only took a few months before her obsession with displaying him became great enough that she had taken to gambling Otheusz’ newfound talents within the Aldean fighting pits, utterly confident that the boy would best anything that came against him; a confidence that was not unfounded. Between the Ornaran’s smaller stature, his speed with his daggers, and the potent bioelectric charge that he could throw into an unsuspecting Klingon, Otheusz’ bouts were steeped in victory, to the extent that the Queen had become inundated with private offers to purchase the boy, all of which she continued to turn down.

After all, she still had grander designs for the strange alien pet she’d found drifting through space...

Rise to Infamy

His first true mission was only the beginning of a long line of foul misdeeds that became attached to his name, the same ploy that the Grey Queen had envisaged when Otheusz had first been beamed aboard the Carcharodon… The Ornaran would be set adrift in a derelict shuttle, heavily damaged and leaking plasma, the boy struck down with wounds that the Queen’s crew were all to willing to give him, and steered into the path of whatever vessel had the misfortune of being within the Grey Scars’ crosshairs... The pattern repeated like a play within a theatre. Otheusz would be recovered, taken to the ship’s sickbay, where he’d incapacitate the physician and whatever guards were left on standby, leaving no weapons fire or residue for sensors to detect. He would progress to other systems, to disable the ship in whatever way was most efficient, in preparation for the Grey Scars’ looming ambush. Sometimes that meant disabling propulsion or weapons systems. Sometimes it meant transmitting shield frequencies. Sometimes it just meant holding the Captain hostage until the Carcharodon arrived.

Always, it meant another victory for the Grey Scars.

Under the haze of the Queen’s conditioning, it became difficult for Otheusz to determine the lines between what was right and what was wrong, and even though Otheusz knew that he was hurting people with his actions, he found it hard to pay attention to that fact. The once gentle Ornaran had become vicious, every fight transforming into one for survival, every perceived enemy, someone he wanted to kill; behaviour he had learned under the brutal tutelage of the Grey Scars, behaviour he had been rewarded for, behaviour that had reduced his own suffering… The promise of some paltry reward and shallow praise from his Queen, had become enough to make him forget the reality he was bestowing upon others... After all, Otheusz had no knowledge of who was good an evil within the tumultuous realm of space; his only knowledge of the galaxy beyond Ornara was limited to the Brekkians, the Federation, and the Grey Scars, all of whom had proven themselves cruel and self-serving in the Ornaran’s eyes, willing to inflict suffering on others for personal gain.

He’d come to accept that suffering just seemed to be the currency of the universe..

Over the years, Otheusz’ role within the Grey Scars developed all the more, whilst the Queen’s attitude towards him delved ever deeper into fanatical obsession. Otheusz became adept with the Grey Scars’ own technology, and his impeccable work ethic put the rest of the pirates to shame. His understanding of the systems aboard the Carcharodon grew greater than that of even the dedicated engineers, and his loyalty to the Queen was absolute, his position elevated to bodyguard as much as pet. When the Grey Scars’ operations became hindered by a growing Klingon presence in the system, the Scars developed a penchant for ambush tactics, baiting vigilant Klingons into investigating ships crashed upon AldeaPrime’s outskirts, only to spring a trap and walk away with their technology, and a few corpses, courtesy of Otheusz’ skills honed in the fighting pits… When the vigilance of the Klingons subsided, the Grey Scars would take to the shipyards above the planet once again, raiding supply depots and docking freighters, high-risk endeavours that fueled the gang with inordinate reward. And the onset of the Dominion War led to vicious acts of piracy that struck against all fronts, dire acts of cruelty that served to grow the notoriety of Grey Scars evermore...

And the Grey Scars did indeed grow, in every facet, with Otheusz’ sweat, blood and tears oiling the path that the pirates took upon that journey. Their resounding successes attacking both shipping lanes and the [Aldean shipyards, as well as their effective quashing the watery investigations of the Klingon forces, afforded them new opportunities for trade within the Aldean criminal underworld. Occasional dealings with the Orion Syndicate developed into staunch relationships, until the Grey Scars had become one of the main contributors to the acquisition of new slaves in and around the Aldean system. A new venture that would eventually push Otheusz to a tipping point.

The Queen’s megalomania grew to a disturbing height during this time, her haughty majesty transcending all reason as she became a cornerstone of the Aldean criminal cabals. Her treatment of the crew as a whole soured, however for most, the increased financial gains softened that particular blow. Instead, it was Otheusz who felt the change most dearly, whose duties to the Queen became beyond those of a loyal servant or bodyguard, became something more perverse than even his fogged-over mind could rationalise… She had decided that her control over Otheusz was so absolute, that even his electrokinetic abilities, once denied from him for so long, were now just another tool within her arsenal. She’d use him as an instrument of torture on those who’d displeased her, slaves, captive Klingons, disgruntled crewmen, and in the most severe of cases, she had bound Otheusz into service as her personal executioner.

Yet still, she desired more from him. Otheusz came to dread what was once a reward, a steaming hot bath within her chambers, for he came to know that the Queen only afforded him such things when she had personal need for it… His body washed of sweat and grime, his hair clean and fair, his movements accompanied by a waft of Xyrillian lipton salts and Draylaxian pearblossom, Otheusz would be instructed to use his electrokinetic abilities for the purposes of ‘entertainment’ for herself, and whatever guests she wished most to impress. Yet as disturbed as he was, with his hands hovering above her naked skin, gentle thrumming of electricity rippling off of him and into her nerves, her groans of debaucherous pleasure ringing in his ears, Otheusz knew that as easy as it would have been, he could not strike a killing blow.

Otheusz’ circumstances began to teeter back towards the foul once more, and as the height of the Grey’s Scars’ golden age was reached, Otheusz’ own reality began to sink. The crew’s disapproval of the ‘unfair’ treatment bestowed upon him by the Queen, grew into unbridled hatred. Not only did they detest that only Otheusz seemed to have the Queen’s attention, but that she had instructed the Ornaran to torture some of them on more than one occassion, and despite the hypocrisy of their outrage, it hung in the air like smoke. Eyes burned into him as he roamed their territory, eyes that wished the cruellest fates imaginable upon the servant, and the Ornaran knew that, sooner or later, an attempt would be made.

It was within this dour realisation, coupled with the Queen’s increasingly deranged demands, that Otheusz began to feel the haze of obedience leave him. Her methods became madder, harder to rationalise, with Otheusz finding himself increasingly appalled by the actions he was commanded to perform… The Queen’s ego transformed her view of the boy, warping him from a prized pet, into nothing more than a valuable tool, and the rewards and praise for his ‘good behaviour’ had long ceased, causing what little incentive he had to ‘look the other way’, to fail. His woeful case of conditioning and desperation for the Queen's approval began to break apart at the seams as he witnessed first hand, her transformation from something cruel, to something truly demented.

The fragile veneer that the Grey Queen had placed over Otheusz’ world was crumbling, and the women had become too enthralled by her own success to notice it.

Otheusz’ slow recovery from the Queen’s mental games, only served to cause him further distress as he went about his life within the rings of the pirate syndicate; his circumstances had not changed at all, he just became more conscious of the pain he caused, more conscious that he was only seen as a tool, a weapon, never a person… The boy became bitter, filled with spite, hatred for everyone and everything around him overflowing like a soup left to boil, his psyche ruined with the knowledge that he had become a monster, whilst remaining crushingly aware that he was as powerless as ever to do something about it. His only solace was that in the Queen’s new height of power, he was afforded more freedom than ever before, and had taken to reconnecting with some of the more occult beliefs that he had been taught to practise back on Ornara, a reconnection with his roots that might have been the only thing keeping him sane in such difficult times.

Whilst his hatred of the Queen grew further with each passing day, Otheusz wasn’t so blind as to realise that the status she afforded him was the only reason he was alive; without her favour, the rest of the pirates would tear him apart without a thought. The forfeit for killing the Queen, would be the certainty of killing himself; or worse, whatever diabolical tortures the Scars could conjure up, knowing that Otheusz didn’t need to survive this time... Thoughts of fleeing into Aldea Prime and disappearing played upon his mind, but that option failed as easily as the first; the eyes and ears of the criminal network would find him in hours, if one of the Queen’s equally vile competitors didn’t make an attempt to snatch him up first. Otheusz even had moments where he considered defecting to the Klingons, a faint hope that occupied his mind on sleepless nights, despite knowing full well that, given his body count, they would kill him on sight; it wasn’t like he could explain himself to them, after all.

However, Otheusz had been able to endure the torment of his own head; taking his anger out on Klingon patrols became a lovely salve to his hatred. It was instead, a chance encounter, that truly pushed him to the brink; nothing spectacular, just an average day that truly shattered what remained of his blackened heart. Otheusz had taken to guarding the cells that laid beneath their ever-growing compound, watching over the prisoners who were due to be sold into slavery; not a pleasant job, but something that got him away from the Queen and her crew… Yet one evening, his prowling amidst the cells as vigilant as always, he saw a young child, terrified and crying, crushed in the corner of a cell too crowded to breathe in. It was an image harrowing enough, without Otheusz noting one final detail, small hands clutching at a battered stuffed animal, as if it was the only thing that could protect them in the face of such abject horror…

A small, stuffed bird.

Had Otheusz a means of communicating with the prisoners he’d been guarding that fateful day, he might have made an attempt to rescue them from the Scars’ clutches, to try and do something to spare the child the fate that he himself had endured… Yet, he knew only a handful of words in a handful of languages; blue, sharp-ear, Federations, pointy face, bumpy nose, onion… These species were not one he recognised, and despite his best intentions, he didn’t particularly enjoy the prospect of watching them get eviscerated by disruptor-fire before they even got out of the base… So instead, Otheusz bowed his head stoically as he watched them escorted out by a slaver a few days later, acknowledging an apex of ire for his circumstances for the first time in years, determined that soon enough, even if it killed him, he would escape the Queen.

The USS Theurgy

The opportunity arose in the year 2381, when a Federation landing party stumbled into one of the Grey Scars’ ambushes on Aldea’s surface. Instead of having the crew strike him in preparation for the attack, in order to paint an image of a wounded pilot, the Queen had taken to stabbing Otheusz instead; plunging shrapnel deep into his gut with her own hands, whilst deriving some sort of sadistic pleasure from the act, reluctantly dosing him up with a healing mixture to dull the pain… He’d been bait, once again, but her methods were shockingly more severe. Yet despite his wound, he’d been forced to act in the resulting ambush, grappling with a taller alien who resembled a Klingon, a furious scuffle ensuing that resulted in Otheusz being taking a hit from a phaser, his hand ripping a talisman from the alien’s uniform as the Ornaran tumbled to the floor.

What Otheusz considered a talisman however, was actually a Starfleet translator, and with it in his possession, he had visited the Starfleet captives later that day. Otheusz had been angry, as he always was, and coupled with the increased rage of seeing representatives of those who had destroyed his homeworld, his hatred was incandescent… Yet, with the translator in hand, despite his limited speaking ability proving a challenge, they established a dialogue, and eventually, the Vulcan Seren convinced him to aid them in their escape, and subsequently seek asylum with Starfleet. Thus Seren, Inej Avirim, Adam Kingston and the injured Erev-Sae-Reyanad Xan, joined Otheusz in escaping from the Grey Scars’ encampment in a rundown shuttle, reaching the safety of the cloaked Starfleet vessel that had been hidden within the Aldean dockyards, the USS Theurgy.

Once aboard, following a conversation with Natalie Stark, Otheusz made his official request for asylum aboard the vessel, a request which was subsequently granted.

Otheusz’ experiences both on Ornara, and with the Grey Scars, coupled with his bitterly pessimistic outlook on the galaxy, made it extremely difficult for him to put any trust or faith in Starfleet, and thus, he mostly kept to himself whilst aboard, remaining within his own quarters and finding little comfort in the luxurious surroundings that he now found himself within. He spent the rest of the Theurgy’s stint on Aldea wrestling with his own reality, torturing himself with the litany of misdeeds he had inflicted upon the innocent, punishing himself for the things he had done under the Queen’s command, whilst ever watching out of the viewing port, awaiting the day that he saw the Carcharodon return to claim him from the relative safety he had found aboard.

Despite the minimal expectations placed on him by the Theurgy crew, the assurances that he did not need to serve on their vessel, Otheusz refused to believe that they too wouldn’t eventually demand their fee for saving him. In preparation for the day, the Ornaran spent much of his time studying the mechanical aspects of the Theurgy from within his quarters, relying on schematics and trial and error to come to grips with the Theurgy’s systems, disassembling and rebuilding his replicator, personal workstation, sonic shower and several atmospheric control panels innumerable times, until they almost worked perfectly, and he’d been asked rather pointedly to stop tampering with things by a less than cordial Engineering officer; Otheusz considered fighting them, but his better judgement prevailed...

Seren and Inej Avirim, or ‘Avi’, were the only members of the crew who spent any significant time with Otheusz, helping to aid him with his learning of some fundamental basics of the Theurgy’s systems, as well as helping aid the Ornaran’s developing speech and linguistics skill; though to call the simultaneous tutelage from both a deliberate and well-spoken Vulcan, and the mostly incoherent blend of Risan slang and nonsense from Avi, an aid, might have been a stretch. Still, the Ornaran began to redevelop the ability to talk, to hold a conversation, and both Seren and Avi did wonders for helping the boy gain some watery semblance of comfort within the unfamiliar maze of the Thuergy’s corridors and bulkheads.

Following the USS Theurgy’s departure from Aldea, Otheusz requested an assignment, preferring to get ahead of any debt that he was wracking up under the guise of Starfleet generosity… It was an unassuming trial period under the tutelage of Liam Herrod, where it was believed that his experience working on the weapon and shield systems for the Grey Scars would provide the most benefit. However, during the Battle of the Houses, Otheusz was gravely wounded after seizing up during combat, something that had never happened to the Ornaran before, an event that shook him greatly. He narrowly escaped death, but unfortunately came to discover that the brutal attack by the Klingons had resulted in him losing both Avi and Seren, the only true friends he had made in perhaps his entire life, massively setting back the long journey he would need to make to become whole again.

After recovering from his injury received during the Battle of the Houses, Otheusz had to deal with both the resounding grief surrounding the fates of Avi and Seren, as well as the reality of the heinous crimes he had inflicted upon others when he had served under the Grey Scars. With such burdens in his mind, Otheusz focussed on himself once more, secluding himself predominantly in the quarters assigned to him as his life seemed to unravel within his head. Not long ago he had taken great joy in disassembling Klingons, yet only a few weeks aboard the Therugy had softened him to the point that he hesitated, that he failed to be aware of a threat… Natalie Stark had assured him that he was a person, not a weapon, and it seemed that those words had struck truer than he ever would have realised.

It took him time, a long period of isolation only interrupted by the mandated counselling sessions he was assigned, but eventually, the Ornaran was able to build himself up once more, becoming stable enough to request a second assignment aboard the Federation vessel… Though this time, it was not out of a desire to preempt a debt, but instead, an acknowledgement that they had saved his life, and requested nothing of him in return. Otheusz’ misgivings about Starfleet and the Federation were plenty, however, Avi and Seren had both been good people, and they had believed in the organisation and its mission… It gave Otheusz something that he hadn’t felt in an extremely long time, hope. Besides, he was certain within his own head, that whatever crimes might have been attached to the USS Theurgy, they would pale in comparison to his own…