barrayarmods: (Default)
For Barrayar mods ([personal profile] barrayarmods) wrote in [community profile] forbarrayar2017-02-02 08:00 pm

[ february i log ]

Who: Everyone
What: New arrivals, desperate times, whispers down the hall.
When: February 1st - 18th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: TBD


Quick links:
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Missions



welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to in the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling -- in fact, it's dangerously cold, and all you have is the clothes on your back.. A steep mountain range towers just ahead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.

And you're not alone. There are a few other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.
There's a war on, they say, and you unlucky bastards have just been dropped right smack in the middle of it.

barrayar
The cold snap hits the guerrilla camp hard, especially with a handful of new people to care for. On the 1st, a few people from Riverfall Village come to the camp, Village Speaker Yakiv Gura among them, who seems to have a rapport with Piotr. They bring extra supplies with them, such as clothing, heavy wool blankets and bedrolls, as well as extra firewood to help fend off the cold. The new outsiders are accommodated the best they can -- they're all provided bedrolls and any extra clothing they (probably) need -- but the Barrayarans don't have an extra tent to spare, so that means all twelve outsiders are force to share a tent that ordinarily sleeps ten. On the plus side, it should provide some warmth. The cold is

A young boy comes in tow of the villagers; Speaker Gura tells Piotr that the boy turned up a week ago and insisted on helping them with the supply haul, despite his small size. He's clearly Barrayaran, and looks as though he might have been living on hisown for a while. He doesn't speak mcuh, and when asked his name, will only give it as Negri -- first or last, no one's sure, but the boy doesn't seem easily fazed. Piotr tells the villagers he has no room in his camp for lost children, but somehow the day after the villagers leave, Negri turns up in camp again. He's curious, but quiet and unobtrusive, wherever he is in camp. He's a very good listener…even when you might not want him to be.



On the 3rd, the Barrayarans and outsiders awake to discover that the part of the cave where they've kept the majority of their food supply has collapsed, either blocking their access to the cache or destroying it entirely. It's impossible to tell. The villagers can't spare much more than they already have been -- certainly not enough to feed the hundred and fifty-odd soldiers in the camp -- so while they try to find out a way to recoup their food supply, they have no choice but to slaughter their own horses for food. Food will be heavily rationed, but fairly -- the outsiders receive no less than the rest. The prisoners, on the other hand, get nothing. There probably isn't enough wild game in the area to sustain the camp, but Piotr sends out hunting parties, and when they get wind of a Cetagandan supply drop on its way, they organize a raid on the supply lines.

camp
With temperatures well below freezing, no food, and excruciatingly little in the way of advantage against the Cetagandans after their last infiltration attempt, morale is beginning to drop. Piotr and Olivia remain bastions of perseverance as always, but Sonia is beginning to buckle and wilt as the days go on. The soldiers do their best to entertain themselves and keep morale up, but all they've got are maple mead, and old card and dice games. They could use some new forms of entertainment. Maybe a snowball fight might get the blood moving -- assuming you can stand the wind chill. Thankfully, there's no shortage of warm clothes and wool scarves.

The cave isn't big enough to simply move all of camp inside, but the sickbay and mess tents are moved where it's a little warmer and out of the harsh wind. It's generally crowded with off-duty soldiers despite the food shortage, because no one wants to be out in the cold right now. Things get a little better after the mostly successful raids, but food is still heavily rationed.



missions
The hunting parties are only moderately successful; there isn't much wild game out there right now, and while the soldiers fare alright, the outsiders' hunting party fails miserably. The raiding parties yield a little more in the way of relief, enough now that they don't have to keep eating horse meat, but Pearl was captured by enemy forces in the chaos.

Maine helps Piotr with a very successful final interrogation of ghem-Miko, the Cetagandan scientist taken prisoner last month. He reveals that the Cetagandans have been studying the locations where exotics appeared, as it seems to be linked to wormhole technology, and that the Cetagandans are planning on building a device to control it. They have the technology, they're almost sure, but it's a puzzle they haven't solved yet. Ghem-Miko doesn't live long past his interrogation -- public execution by decapitation is his sentence, and when it's done, a few soldiers carry off his body and severed head.

Piotr's interrogation of Duv Galeni goes about as well but, blessedly, less fatally. It becomes known that Duv is from Komarr, the planet that sold Barrayar out to the Cetagandans, and that Duv Galeni is really David Galen, a relative of a few Counselors in the head of Komarran government. However, he's able to successfully convince Piotr that he isn't allied with the Cetagandans, and after a few days of agony, Duv is granted parole at Piotr's discretion.

On the evening of the 15th, Maine, Beth and Byerly inadvertently catch Vorhalas in the act of trying to sabotage what little of their food supply they've been able to recoup. He tries both fight and flight, but the three outsiders are able to take him down and drag him to Piotr's doorstep. It quickly becomes apparent that Vorhalas was responsible for the cave-in earlier in the month. Piotr is both furious and victorious; he now has a lead on the traitor conspiracy among his men, and his esteem of Beth, Maine and Byerly has gone up considerably for their part. Vorhalas is up next in the interrogation chair, and this one won't be pretty.

The unabridged event writeup is here.

cetaganda
The recent supply drop not only provides resources for the base and for distribution to their other outposts, but also brings fresh species for transplant into the gardens at the Grow Labs. The arrival of a handful of new exotics gives rise to a fresh wave of buzzing curiosity around the base. All of the new exotics are given thorough physicals, just as the first wave were, and provided with fatigues and anything else they might need. They make an even dozen now, their bunk at capacity. The Cetagandans are beginning to become accustomed to having the exotics on base, some of them even forward enough with their curiosity to be friendly. Darkstalker now has a small following of ghem lady scientists who regularly feature him as a subject in their art.

New arrivals will be processed as the first were -- once everyone has been whisked out of the extreme cold, everyone is subject to a thorough physical, including a number of scans that may or may not seem totally arcane to you. Other than a blood sample, nothing they're doing is at all invasive. Lady Diya d'Zefyst, while not a physician, is present at all physicals. She is easily notable not only for her striking, almost ethereal beauty as is typical of the haut, but, as the only haut on base, she is easily distinguishable by her lack of facepaint.

While the exotics still have freedom of movement around the base, the recent extreme temperatures have their hosts diplomatically suggesting they travel as much as possible, they are provided cold weather wear, as the mess hall and medbay are in separate buildings from the barracks. Weather warning aside, they encourage the exotics to take advantage of the non-restricted recreational facilities -- exercise rooms, art rooms, the lush gardens in the Grow Labs -- and will satisfy any reasonable curiosities.

base
In an effort to make the exotics feel more at home, the Cetagandans decide to put on the sort of function they might for visiting diplomats, full of art of all sorts, to show that they're just as willing to share their culture with the exotics as they're asking the exotics to share with them. The function is hosted on the evening of the 7th in an annex to the Grow Labs apparently meant for this express purpose, as it shows off the most beautiful and elegant of the Grow Labs' specimens, and acts as a live arboretum in and of itself, and quite vibrantly beautiful.



If there's one thing the Cetagandans are good at (besides art, and language, and genetics) it's throwing a good party. Functions like this are always an opportunity for Cetagandans to try and socially one-up one another; everyone is in their most fashionable dress in the latest fashions they manage to keep off-planet, or at least a dress uniform, wearing fanciful scents and vibrant facepaint they might not otherwise on the job. For the artistically inclined ghem (read: a lot of them), this is the chance to show off their artistic endeavors as well -- large sculptures of unusual and improbable materials, walkable installations meant to engage every sense, and of course the living art engineered by the ghem ladies, ranging from relatively simple and tame pieces such as koi fish patterned with clan insignia or black roses and blue orchids, to complex combinations of non-human DNA to create some genetic sculpture. There is, of course, food and drink -- in the usual flagrant Cetagandan style, although the hors d'oeuvres and drinks are even more ecletic than the usual mess hall fare. It seems as though the Cetagandan passion for genetic art extends even into the culinary realm.

At the center of the party is a particular kind of art installation called a discernment garden. Housed in a beautiful, improbably architectural tent, the discernment garden consists of a series of rooms, each meant to test the refinement of the senses -- not unlike a varietal wine tasting. Each room is dedicated to a single sense, inviting participants to judge a collection of samples and suss out the differences, or match tastes and smells and textures to labels; the end of the garden presents its visitors with a final art piece incorporating all five senses, as a final test of one's refinement. Some of the ghem might (a bit wryly) confess that this is actually more of an education tool used for Cetagandan children, but this is meant as a gesture of good will toward the exotics.



missions
On the evenings of the 6th and the 8th, some of the exotics do a little sneaking around, and not for the first time. York lends Kaidan his access badge to the R&D Lab on the 6th and Kaidan, along with Sans and Symmetra, stumble onto a whole lot of wormhole data and schematics to construct a device capable of controlling the phenomena of the exotics' appearance. On the 8th, Deanna and Natasha sneak around to the tactical buildings and overhear some marital discord between Zahal and Diya, and a troubling glimpse at their diverging plans.

On the evening of the 13th, Jasper, York and Daryl are all in the medbay when a biocontainment breach sends it into automatic lockdown, trapping them inside. They overhear Diya arguing with one of her subordinates over unauthorized use of ba genetic material, whatever that is.

The unabridged event writeup is here.
shri: (» we will never be bought or sold)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-10 01:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ Sick, Daryl had called her when he'd visited her. She's been avoiding looking at herself because she remembers Galahad the same. A man that was a mountain, immovable, corroded down. Like time could be a physical thing and it had come to collect from him.

She can't imagine she looks better, now. like death and taxes, they had come to collect from her too. Granted, she has never paid a tax on anything in her life - the great boon to being royalty, and then a rebel who lived in slums who wasn't on anyone's records except as dead already.

Soon, it might be true.

She smiles mean, old, tired. It's nothing pleasant. An old woman in a young woman's body that was wearing away. It's nothing she will say, though, she has told Miles of the blackwater and that is enough as far as she is concerned.
]

Death comes to collect on us all, did your commanders never tell you to watch for it?
infailtration: (2519159)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-10 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
They taught me to defy it. But this doesn't look like the kind of death they meant.

[ He reaches up and his fingers curl around the bars. There must be something that can be done, but she needs to tell him what's wrong first... an unlikely scenario. But seeing her like this has only made him more determined to get her out of here. His eyes drift to the lock holding the cell door shut. It looks like the same type that seal the labs he's not allowed in.... maybe he can practice cracking it. ]

Let me help you. You'll need to be on top of your game when we break you out.
shri: (» this is the start)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-10 02:37 am (UTC)(link)
[ She has no business, pushing herself up out of the bed. The skirts moving around her in the stride she forces herself to up to the edge of her cell towards him. Coming up fast as she can and the bite of her words is hissing. ]

Hold your tongue before you lose it.
infailtration: (pic#10657609)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-10 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
What, you want to stay?

[ Or does she just think she can do it herself? York doesn't flinch back from her, just tilts his head like he can't believe what he's hearing. ]
shri: (» are too vicious to tell)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-10 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
[ Wounded animals fight hardest - or at least as the saying goes, and to force herself this way is painful, her breath is strained - that shot, oh how that shot aches in her shoulder. Clean through at the time, but messy. Bullets were far cleaner affairs now than those early rifle shots of the 1850s. It reminds her, daily, for whats waiting for her. ]

I want to have nothing more to tell them when they elect to drug me again. [ It's a hissing whisper, pressed in close into that near space. ]
Edited 2017-02-10 07:39 (UTC)
infailtration: custom art by <user name="reikofanel">, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE (york (13))

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-10 03:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He nods once; though he doesn't think they'll interrogate her again, he wasn't going to tell her the plan (such as it is so far) anyway. ]

You won't. I'm asking you if there's anything I can do in the meanwhile. Do you need to see a doctor?

...my name's York, by the way. We didn't have the best introduction.
shri: (» but they're not the sweet kind)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-11 12:07 am (UTC)(link)
York.

[ A breath, like somehow - it's clicked, she'll get to his question momentarily. Something dawning on her face, crawling across the edges softly not unappreciative, just - smiling. ]

York, Washington, Maine. You are all from the new continent, aren't you? [ Or named for it. Not something she has ever seen - but hours spent pouring over the United India Company's maps and trading routes. This station destined for New York, for Washington city, for Maine when she remembered seeing the earliest maps brought before her. Nothing defined, until the Civil Wars she'd heard in faint messages echoing back to the rest of the world of a new country going through its first throws of development. Nothing unusual, except she bit her lip in some concern. War was perfect for Lycans and their allies. ]
infailtration: (pic#10657624)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-11 12:19 am (UTC)(link)
[ Huh. She's the first one to put it together, but then again most of the exotics aren't from his world. ]

The new continent? [ Is she from Earth of the past? York tilts his head curiously as he answers her. ] If you mean the US, we're named for states. But the three of us are actually all from different planets.

[ Her expression, though. ] Why does it look like that worries you?
shri: (» we are higher than the sparrow)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-11 12:31 am (UTC)(link)
[ Tired as she seems to be constantly, she leans her cell door. Slow uneven breath, shaking her head. Standing too long makes everything ache, though she just looks like... maybe she should sleep a little longer. ( close her eyes, oh let this be someone else's complaint. ) ]

Yes... the US. The United States of America. Though I believe they were not that United not so long ago. [ She shakes her head. ] Consider it just another war to be fought, why it worries me hardly matters. From what I understand, no one else has to worry about battling Lycans and Vampires and the things that live in the dark.

[ Miles stunned expression like she was mad. She was, of course, anyone would be for electing to start a one woman vendetta against the whole British Empire. ] It's nowhere I have seen except on maps.
infailtration: (pic#10119114)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-11 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
...well I was going to say it sounds like you're from our world's past, but we definitely don't have Lycans or Vampires. Only in fiction.

[ He's not looking at her like she's crazy, though, just like it's someplace different. Someplace with the supernatural. He doesn't know how it's possible she's from an alternate world, but he believes her. This wasn't an ordinary wormhole that brought them here. ]

Where are you from, then? I can't place your accent.

[ Her name might help him guess, if he knew it. ]
Edited 2017-02-11 04:38 (UTC)
shri: (» and the scars that mark my body)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-11 05:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ She'd been fishing, maybe. Maine wasn't exactly forthcoming and she didn't feel a need to burden him with the wars of her home, their conversation more about mutual silence than anything. She and Carolina had moved around each other more in business than idle chatter.

She'd been hoping maybe, he might be able to tell her something. But if they're fiction to him then -
] Perhaps I shall take solace in you as my future then. One that is free of such things.

[ It's pained, but she's trying. Trying as fondly as she can. ]

Washington did not tell you? [ Don't be better, Lakshmi. ] I was born in Hindustan - or India. The Eurasian subcontinent. [ Miles words, not hers. ] I am the Queen of Jhansi.
infailtration: (pic#10907432)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 12:06 am (UTC)(link)
It's possible.

[ Unlikely, he thinks, but not any more unlikely than a parallel universe. So maybe.

And then he's shaking his head. ]


He didn't tell me anything about... [ York gestures awkwardly, referring to her drugged interrogation. He witnessed Vortala's, he has some idea of how upset she probably still is about it. ] He didn't tell me your name, either, or should I address you as Queen? I've never been around royalty.

[ He doesn't seem any more or less respectful for learning that she's a queen, though. In the end it's just a title. He respects her first as a person and then for what she can do... or could do. Right now he isn't certain she'll even be able to run when they bust her out. ]
shri: (» we go together)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 11:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ She laughs, shaking her head slowly. Because it's that or talk about her interrogation. ] Not at all. Believe me, if you're like any of the others I've met so far, I think you would trip around the idea.

[ Wash trying to form around the word Rani, Daryl's digging your highness. If it's another reason to low saying the truth of herself, it's dealing with -- all that. People could be so strange over the notion.

Not that she blamed them.
] Lakshmi, or Rani, whichever is easier to you.
Edited 2017-02-12 11:18 (UTC)
infailtration: custom art by <user name="thebutt">, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE (8-1)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 11:53 am (UTC)(link)
[ A shrug, then, to the thought of tripping over titles. ]

Yeah but I'd get used to it, if that's what you wanted. I'm military, so it's not like deference is a foreign concept... not that I'm great about that either.

[ It's not that he has trouble with authority, he just feels like people should have done something to earn it. And a lot of the time that's not true. He's curious what being a queen entails where she's from, though, maybe she does deserve a bow or two. For now he rolls her name around in his head a few times before trying to say it -- it's not difficult, he just doesn't want to sound like an idiot if he does mispronounce it. ]

Lakshmi it is. It's good to have something to call you in my head. [ A quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the guard isn't coming to kick him out, before he goes into smalltalk. ] Are all queens so good with swords?
shri: (» but nothing ever hits home)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 12:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It's flattery, oh she knows that - and maybe Byerly should leave her a little more jaded. But he doesn't seem like that. Doesn't want anything from her or from this situation. Enough that it makes it good natured. ]

Some, at least in my home. The Queen of Orcha was just as well versed. [ Her eyes crinkle teasing back. ] Are all of you named after the states so bad with them?
infailtration: (pic#10657630)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 12:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He huffs a laugh, good natured and amused. ]

Yeah, well I'd never seen one in person before. Let's see how you'd do your first time with a Sangheili plasma gun.
shri: (» and the shivers move down)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 12:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Her nose wrinkles. ] Never seen one before? They are irreplaceable, even with modern weaponry, you cannot find anything better for close combat - [ He cuts her little rant off though, as he talks and she's keen, as she leans forward. Though she can do nothing but lean against the glass that separates them holding her weight. ] Plasma? I thought that was just a fit of fancy for physicists playing with light?

[ She has no idea what it truly means. Something Tesla had babbled on in his long-winded manner about everything new and interesting to him. ]
infailtration: (pic#10907432)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 12:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Most of us carry knives, but a handgun works pretty close. At least in my experience. [ And this is something he can actually explain, he thinks, so he tries. ] You could call it light, but it's more like what makes light. Plasma's just really high energy matter, it can produce immense heat. A controlled burst can cut right through titanium armor and the person inside -- the trick is powering the weapons. Humanity hasn't quite figured that out yet but we can use alien tech if we're careful.
shri: (» I'll leave with your head)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 12:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She looks so quickly taken by the idea. The same way she had been when she and Maine had broken into the backup supply. It was new to her. Like a child first trying out such things. No, she did not handle so well to the notion of being so far from home?

But to hear about something like this.
] Truly? Such a thing is ... my sieges would have gone far differently with such things. [ A quick bark of lighter that is only a little mean. ] I'm fond of the thermite rifle for what it can do to even a Lycan, but that seems far above even that

[ Go figure, Lakshmi, they've got space travel mastered. ]
Edited 2017-02-12 12:46 (UTC)
infailtration: (pic#10657601)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 01:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Thermite's some pretty serious stuff, but yeah. Most of the time alien tech is on another level entirely from what we've got.

[ He considers how much to tell her, then, what might put her at risk if they decided to do another interrogation. But it should be safe enough. ]

I've been learning the weapons they use here too. Pretty high tech stuff, they've got plasma arcs and nerve disruptors. [ Grimly, then: ] I don't think it's gonna matter how good you are with a sword if one of those gets pointed at you
shri: (» I'll go there with you)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 01:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Her smile is sharp and pointed. All flicker of how she had been - and he had done his job, she's still so terminally tired looking, so exhausted to her core but there's a flicker there. She's not quite dead. ]

It's not so awful if you do not let it hit you.
infailtration: (pic#10119110)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[ As if in direct opposition to Lakshmi's, York's smile back is sad, the person that her comment makes her think of someone he loved greatly. Still loves, as a matter of fact -- he's never managed to let go. ]

I used to know someone who said that. She was a badass too.
shri: (» the gravel and the stone)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 01:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Has she ever looked like that over someone? She doesn't know, she doesn't think so. Not for a very long time, regardless. Written etched to his face. Sad at the edges, but not regretful. Piotr looked like that for his wife.

Her tongue clicks, like a mother soothing over a hurt.
]

She seems more than that. Who was she?
infailtration: (pic#10907487)

[personal profile] infailtration 2017-02-12 01:19 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Who was she? Such a simple question, three words that send York reeling. Who was she? A soldier. A commander. A friend. Potentially a lover, once upon a time. He hadn't come here for this kind of conversation, but he couldn't not answer, either. ]

Carolina. [ Quietly: ] She was everything.
shri: (» it keeps my veins hot)

[personal profile] shri 2017-02-12 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She doesn't know Carolina very well, just a mutual want of weapons which forms a close bond, in a war-torn mess. A determined woman, hard. Pretty, in that English kind of way. If too harsh to ever meet their standards of delicacy.

That only endeared her to Lakshmi.
]

A fierce woman? Red hair, green eyes? Seems like she'd lay a man flat for daring to look at her the wrong way?

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