Eventually, and quite honestly to his surprise, the resident Mechanic had found use for Elias. While he wouldn't say this out loud... even if he could that is, he would keep his mouth shut to the opinion that some much needed professionalism was provided by his hand. It wasn't that the crew was incompetent, but he damn well knew that there weren't enough clipboards with checkboxes about the place to warrant a reasonable insurance fee.

Of course, he hadn't exactly told them where he got his knowledge from either. Rag-tags of this sort probably wouldn't take well to a veteran that hadn't fought for the rebels. Not to say that he was a patriot or anything of the sort, truth be told he harboured a great deal of resentment for the government and the military for having left him behind to suffer the Reavers. But he could hardly expect strangers to tell the difference, could he? He was even more glad that they hadn't picked up on the name Riemen, but it was probably just because these folk were from a different part of the 'verse. He respected the Anabaptists and he considered himself forever in their debt. But he wasn't one of them, the stars were for him. After all, what the hell could possible even await him if he settled down? 

As he was sawing through a piece of wood for a little personal project, he was very abruptly disturbed be the sound of people in the distance panicking. Soon he heard the reason for their fear, quite understandably. Carefully setting his tools aside and brushing dust off of himself, he went out to meet the officers of the law head on. 

Nothin fancy, no hiding, he was simply going to go out and meet them. That's that, right? Well no, most likely things would not be all that easy. But it wasn't as if he could hide and make himself scarce like the Anabaptists had gone and done. At best he'd be a liability getting somebody else caught because they were stuck with his ass.

Thus, he simply strolled over to where the greatest commotion was, writing down "I AM UNARMED AND COMPLIANT - I AM MUTE" on his little piece of blackboard as he did so. One hand would be raised to show surrender and that he was unarmed, whilst the other was simply displaying what was written down. He looked over to any crew present hoping they could confirm the text.