forbarrayar | [ february ii log ]

Entry tags:

[ february ii log ]

Who: Everyone
What: Traitors exposed, celebrations had, sleight hands passing cards under the table. And so begin the preparations for what is soon to come.
When: February 18th - 28th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: Torture (interrogations thread)

Quick links:
Riverfall
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Party / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Moon-poetry party / Missions

The harsh weather rages on, which temperatures still averaging far below freezing, and the wind is still strong. But things are a little less dire for the outsiders, and for the exotics -- well, they have their own chills to deal with.

riverfall
Riverfall village is your typical Dendarii mountain village, which means it's small, humble, and mostly poor. This is the most rural of the rural around here, a little backwater even by Barrayaran standards. Most of the villagers live in houses of wood and stone built themselves or by ancestors. Despite the cold, there are plenty of people outside at any given time -- working, mostly, because the daily grind stops for no one, but even the occasional group of children taken over by fits of cabin fever. The village is built up against a rocky mountain face, from the top of which the eponymous waterfall flows into the river that borders the west edge of the village and continues down the mountain. The place isn't exactly hidden, but if you don't know your way around, it'd be hard to find without a native guide.

The villagers are wary of the outsiders at first, even more than the soldiers had been -- the rural Dendarii are as superstitious as they come -- but, slowly convinced of their good intentions, start to warm to them. They're a blunt, hardy people, largely uneducated and tending toward the most extreme of Barrayaran sensibilities, but they are undeniably fierce. The General Count trusts them, so they'll be more or less civil (by Barrayaran standards, anyway), but you might catch the occasional scrutinizing, watchful stare. With Cetagandans in camp and exotics among them, they border on hostile, especially those who are visibly nonhuman. They keep their heads down enough to keep from getting into trouble with the soldiers, but they do not like you at all.

Not everyone in Riverfall speaks English -- Russian is everyone's first language, and only about half the village has any passable command of English. Thankfully, the village's Speaker Yakiv Gura speaks English, if heavily accented. They're clearly stretching to the limit to help the camp, but to the Dendarii, there's no higher act than one in the Count's service, especially when it comes to fighting this war.

barrayar
Even after scoring themselves a little extra food, morale in the camp is at an all-time low. The miserably dangerous weather hasn't let up, food is still heavily rationed, and everyone is still at least a little tired, cold, and hungry all of the time. It doesn't help that they've lost a few soldiers in the last couple of weeks, and in Riverfall, too, some villagers have died of the cold despite their relative warmth and safety, mostly children. This is hardly the first harsh winter they've faced, but that doesn't stop the inexorable loss that comes with it. Some villagers may be somberly putting their loved ones to rest in the village graveyard when the outsiders are in town.

But Piotr finally calls Negri out as a spy sent by his aide-de-camp Captain Ezar Vorbarra, partly to deliver a message and partly to test Piotr, because Ezar loves coy bullshit. However, he does learn that both Ezar and Prince Xav Vorbarra, Olivia and Sonia's father, are en route to Vorkosigan's District with relief supplies from Beta Colony secured by Xav's ambassadorial connections and tireless lobbying. Once Piotr judges it safe to release this information, it bring with it a bit of hope -- and to seal the deal, Piotr and Olivia arrange a celebration of sorts in the village.

Finally outing the ring of reason in the camp helps to bolster morale, too. Vorhalas is interrogated, and the names of his co-conspirators are revealed: Lieutenant Boris Vortala, who killed himself in disgrace shortly after his fast-penta interrogation at ghem-General Zefyst's hand, and their commander Captain Aaron Vorbataille. Vorbataille has, of course, already started to make his escape -- but with the help out of the outsiders, he won't get very far. Once Piotr is satisfied with Vorbataille's interrogation as well, both men are put to execution, but not by beheading as Doctor ghem-Miko: the sentence for treason is death by public starvation and exposure, and in this weather, it doesn't take long. They are publicly and emphatically denounced as traitors with no honor to speak of, sending a very clear message. Although this might seem like a gruesome sight to the outsiders, to the Barrayarans this is simply how it goes, and very few of them are sorry to see these traitors suffer, particularly as Vorhalas was the one responsible for their food shortage in the first place.

Reports from those soldiers and outsiders who were in the village at the same time as the Cetagandan field science team present the General Count with another troubling problem, however: the implications of the Cetagandans building a device that could control this phenomenon are terrifying, particularly to this threadbare resistance movement. But sabotage seems hardly a worthy solution, either. This is the only lead they have on sending the outsiders home, and so many of them have already put their lives on the line for the cause of a planet that otherwise nothing to most of them. There would be no honor in robbing them of their only chance to return home. But whether they should continue to allow the Cetagandans to proceed with their research or try to find a way to copy their plans themselves, a dubiously possible venture at best, weighs heavily on his mind. It only complicates his strategic concerns further, but by his military orders in the next couple of weeks, at least one thing is clear: he wants Cetagandan bodies.

camp
Morale is critically low among the soldiers, particularly after a few casualties during a recent skirmish with a Cetagandan patrol, but spirits definitely begin to lift with news of relief. The soldiers are now more or less accustomed to the outsiders' place in the camp, and they're even starting to become a little friendlier toward them, particularly those who've been involved in the war effort. They might invite outsiders to play card or dice games with them, or share a conversation over an admittedly meager meal, or better still, bond with them in the true Barrarayan form: over a lot of alcohol.

Negri has more or less built himself a niche in the camp, and doesn't look like he's going anywhere any time soon. But he isn't the only spy around. They desperately need a man on the inside, particularly with the troubling news about the wormhole device, and right now, that man is Byerly Vorrutyer. Starting next month, Piotr is sending him on assignment to infiltrate the Cetagandan base under the cover of a cowardly collaborator.

party
By the time they have the party on the 21st, the villagers have warmed up to the outsiders a little, but they don't really bond until the party. With what little they have to share, they scrape together as much of a feast as they can: not much, but by this month's standards, any hot meal prepared with fresh ingredients seems absolutely decadent. And because this is Barrayar there is, of course, plenty of liquor, that Barrayaran moonshine maple mead not the least among them, and there's no shortage of wine or vodka, either.

The hillfolk light lanterns all around the village and raise large tarps to cover the open center of the village where they usually hold gatherings. Inside, protected from the wind and lit by the bonfire and braziers placed around the perimeter, it's actually almost warm. Every villager who's ever laid hand to an instrument seems to gather there to play music all night long, an energetic mix of lively folk music and raucous drinking songs. Anyone with any musical talent would be welcome to join them as well. There's plenty of dancing, too, very little of it formal or complicated, but everyone's having a good time for the first time in weeks, maybe months, and the mood is infectious. By the end of the night, morale seems to have risen overall, and people in camp have something real to look forward to. The partygoing visitors are put up in warmed tents within the tarped village center or in the villagers' homes where they have room. Come morning, they'll head back, but for just one night, it's almost like there isn't even a war on.

missions
Outsiders have been assisting with moving supplies between the camp and Riverfall all throught he rest of the month, and it mostly goes smoothly. Vorbataille is caught on the 20th, although he and Vorhalas aren't publicly executed until a few days later, when Piotr is satisfied with the intelligence he's extracted. By the time he gets Vorbataille's name out of Vorhalas, the traitorous Captain has already fled -- but thanks to Carolina, Duv and Zarya, he's dragged back to camp for his interrogation.

That evening, Maine and William have the misfortune of encountering a dragon -- Darkstalker is on a mission with a Cetagandan patrol, and they run right smack into each other. A fight breaks out, but ultimately Darkstalker and the Cetagandans come out on top, and the outsiders and Barrayarans are forced to retreat -- but not before managing to kill a Cetagandan soldier or two, just barely escaping with one of the bodies.

Miles finds himself in a terrible position when a guard patrol shift goes horribly wrong in a skirmish against some Cetagandans, resulting in the death of their squad leader and a very ugly aftermath.

Zarya, William, Beth and Miles are in Riverfall with some Barrayaran soldiers on a supply run when a Cetagandan field science team arrives with a few exotics in tow. This is a rare chance to learn more about the Cetagandans' scientific exploits, and among other things, they find out that whatever it is that brought them here, the Cetagandan scientists are convincede it has something to do with the wormhole that collapsed 700 years ago.

The unabridged mission writeup is here.

cetaganda
The Cetagandans are a notoriously tight-lipped bunch, but they're blowing away most of the smoke surrounding their wormhole science research. As has been alluded, they're currently working on a device to harness the phenomenon that brought all the exotics here in the first place, and hopefully find a way to send them all home with it. They invite any exotics with scientific expertise to a series of interviews about neurology, astrophysics, and mechanical engineering. None of the advisement they receive helps to solve one of their most critical problems -- that of generating a Necklin field to match the one that must have surrounded each exotic -- but it certainly puts them closer to their goal, particularly in the area of neurology, and they're hardly going to stop there. But it's clear that the mathematicians and astrophysicists on base don't have sufficient expertise to solve the most complex equations before them. But on the brighter side of things, in the interest of this scientific exchange, they're letting the lab techs help a little more beyond just grunt work.

Meanwhile, the genetics project that seems so strange and arcane to the exotic carries on, largely behind the scenes, although Diya is increasingly at odds with her husband and even some of her senior staff, particularly the precocious Amai ghem-Soren. But there is very real purpose behind it -- and far more than just one -- and Diya d'Zefyst is a woman of great ambition. And more than anything else, she is haut.

Unfortunately, the relative peace on base is abruptly broken when Daryl, Lakshmi and Wash all manage to escape in a wild breakout attempt on the 25th. York and Ratchet are left behind, and as a result, some of their privileges revoked. They're now being watched a little more closely as a result.

base
Overall, despite simmering tensions under the surface and the miserable weather, life on base seems to be going more or less smoothly around them. The Cetagandans have had some recent victories against the Barrayarans, so morale is high. Unfortunately, after the breakout they begin cracking down on security with the exotics -- going back to treating the exotics a little more like they did when they first arrived. They aren't under guard, but after the 25th, they are being watched.

They still maintain that insistent veneer of civility, however, breaking only in cases where they feel the need or security risk is significant enough. The ghem on base remain overall cordial and courteous to the exotics as they ever were, which is to say considerably and always with a touch of smug superiority. With her success at the party earlier this month followed by her performance in the moon-poetry garden, the often-sequestered Amai ghem-Soren is seen more around the base.

moon-poetry party
The moon-poetry party is about three hours long and steeped in ceremony, each participant taking their turn to recite. This is, apparently, not a recitation of one's own work, but rather selections of classical Cetagandan poems, and in so referencing something culturally ubiquitous, each makes a statement in its mere selection and juxtapositions. If you pay close enough attention, you might notice that each participant has very subtly coordinated their outfits to further complement the theme of their recitation. Although there is a definite dignity to the party, it doesn't take much to pick up on the fact that this is yet another arena ghem use to try and socially one-up one another. Among the participants are both the Chief Medical Officer Colonel Faro ghem-Naru and Doctor Amai ghem-Soren, whose performance was especially well-received, the theme apparently being something about subtle passions.

missions
The science interviews with the exotics go more or less well, although not quite so hopeful as the Cetagandans were hoping. They do, however, learn some things about FTL travel in other worlds as well as other kinds of neural implants.

On the evening of the 21st, York, Natasha and Kaidan accidentally bear witness to what is clearly some kind of travesty: clearly a human being, but both overgrown and underdeveloped, and exhibiting powers of hydrokinesis and psychic empathy, referred to only as a ba.

On the 23rd, Jasper, Lapis, Pearl and Darkstalker accompany some soldiers and a field science team to Riverfall village, coinciding with a visit from some outsiders and soldiers. They encounter some outsiders while there but also pick up a bit on what it is the Cetagandans are doing -- that the Necklin field problem still remains their biggest problem, and they've been getting conflicting orders from the higher ups lately.

The unabridged mission writeup is here.

Note: Negri and Zahal are available for threads by request only this round. Please hit up Madi or Ammay respectively if you want threads with either of those NPCs. You can also request a thread with Village Speaker Yakiv Gura if you want, in which case hit up Madi.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ God damn it. ]

Miles -- [ The thing about moving faster is that it the bounce is less noticeable, but it's still no less hard to hold on, to feel like he's balanced. He grips the edge of the saddle, his other hand instinctively moving up to what he can hold onto, which happens to be Miles himself. He's holding on well enough, despite everything, and maybe he likes the feel of it, likes the thrill.

Doesn't mean he appreciates the surprise though. ]

[ Miles, meanwhile, lets out a whoop. And cackles like a maniac the rest of the way. ]

Great, isn't it?

[ He's certainly exhilarated. And he seems completely assured of their safety here. ]

[ The longer they stay at the pace, the more Wash has a feel for it -- he wouldn't say he's relaxed, not even slightly, the tension in his body entirely obvious, his grip on the saddle tight. But there is a rush, a rush that reminds him a little of the first time he went off-world, or the first time he flew on his own. But no ships or anything, here, just a horse and a saddle. ]

-- Could've done with a warning, still. [ But he isn't disagreeing. ]

[ Good. The man can handle excitement, then. Miles does eventually slow again, but only because the horse is getting kind of tired. ]

That spoils the fun. Much better as a surprise.

[ His grip relaxes, as the horse slows -- he makes some sound, low, amused. Fine, you jerk, but he'll still remember that. ]

Remind me of that if you're ever on a ship I'm piloting. [ He will spin around so many times. ]

[ Miles just grins even more at that. ]

Oh, I've been on a spaceship far too many time for that to be novel. Don't assume all us Barrayarans are barbarians.

Doesn't mean I can't still throw you for a loop.

[ He's actually really just a competent pilot and not particularly great but look he's proving a point here. ]

Us Barrayans, huh? [ An observation, more than a question, one hand reaching down to idly stroke the horse's side. With the Cetagandans he'd assumed all of the exotics were from other worlds, like he was, and Duv was from a different planet at least, but here there was Byerly from somewhere that-a-ways and maybe Miles, too. ]

Maybe if it's a literal one.

[ Well, he'd likely enjoy it either way. He slows the horse down to a steady walk again so that they can talk. Ah, he'd said "us Barrayarans" hadn't he ... it's not wrong. ]

Just so. I was off-planet when this effect pulled me in, but I was born here.

[ Or will be, rather. ]

Still counted as an outsider, I guess.

[ Maybe it stands to reason, since he'd likely shown up just face-down in the snow out of nowhere like the rest of them had, but curious to Wash, anyway. ]

There's spacefaring tech elsewhere on the planet? [ There's the exaggeration that he'd assumed that Cetagandans had been making about all the Barrayans being horribly, terribly backwards. Until he got here he'd really thought it was probably propaganda of some kind. ]

Indeed. It grants me some protection, anyway.

[ Ah, but spacefaring tech. He has to really think a moment to remember his history lessons. ]

Very limited - the planet's only had the tech for maybe twenty years. Only ambassadors and stowaways off world, before Cetagandans. My planet was cut off for seven hundred years.

Limited's not nothing, at least, even if we don't have any of it here.

[ It'd be nice to have some kind of tech around to fight back with, but they've apparently survived so far. Being cut off for seven hundred years, though. ]

Politics?

Messy. Full of civil wars. I should almost thank Cetaganda for uniting us.

[ Almost. He shrugs a bit. ]

But given we arrived fleeing a nuclear holocaust, there is an understandable cultural prejudice against mutants.

[ To put it extremely mildly. ]

[ He remembers the way Miles had said mutant earlier, bitter, harsh. Wash is quiet, then, still stroking lightly over the horse's side. ]

Sounds like understandable cultural prejudice might be putting it lightly.

[ And moving on. Wash won't pry or dwell, unless Miles himself talks about it further. ]

The Cetagandans were full of a lot of talk about helping Barrayar.

[ That's for the best. He'll loop back around later, surely, but this time he just shrugs gently. ]

They're full of something, all right. I survived one of their POW camps - and let me tell you, they love being technically correct about galactic regulations about prisoner treatment.

[ And Miles knows for a fact that Cetaganda will eventually blow up an entire city in his district just to prove a point. ]

I sat in on an interrogation. [ It's clear from his tone that he didn't fucking like it -- it was Lakshmi's, too, but he won't say that, won't breathe a word of it to anyone. He doubts the Barrayans treat their prisoners all that much better, but comparisons didn't change anything. ] It was just that, but I might have some idea of how they'd treat prisoners.

[ Quiet, for a moment. ]

There were five of us in that escape.

[ Miles is sober as well. Fast penta is merciful compared to Barrayaran torture, that's for sure. But ... there's a certain inhumanity in it too. All and all, considering his situation, he might prefer the torture. ]

What happened to the others?

It didn't matter how well we knew the patrols when someone decided to take a well-timed walk in a different direction.

[ Luck of the draw. That's all it came down to. ]

Captured. Injured, too, but I couldn't tell the extent of it.

[ Since Miles has apparently been a prisoner of theirs, maybe he'd have some idea of what might be happening to them. ]

[ Well, shit. He'd like to pace, but they're still on the back of this horse. He settles for drumming unhappily on the back of his saddle. ]

Fast penta will be first. After that ... it will depend on how much the Cetagandans can yet use them. What they were trying to use you outsiders for in the first place.

Exotics, was the word they use. I don't know what they wanted with us.

[ Wash in the meanwhile sounds like he's almost forgotten he's on the back of a horse, just thinking of York and Ratchet, now, of leaving them behind. ]

I was going to go back for them. [ And then he was, uh, stopped. By Maine knocking him unconscious. ]

[ MIles just shakes his head sharply. ]

I sympathize with the impulse. But you can't just go back. If any of us lead Cetaganda back to the camp, we are all dead. They will nuke us from orbit.

[ Said with grim certainty. ]

I know.

I've been running through it in my head, all the possible ways I could try and convince the Count to allow a rescue attempt, but. If it were up to me, I wouldn't allow it. [ So much risk for no real gain. They'd gotten Lakshmi back, gained two new fighters with no loss. York and Ratchet being interrogated was of no cost or consequence to the Barrayan camp. If anyone from from a rescue attempt was captured? Not as much. ] Didn't seem to stop you, though.

[ Rani's sword and shield, weren't you. ]

I'm a gross hypocrite, I know. But I definitely did it without the general's permission.

[ How does he justify it? He really, truly can't, can he. A soft sigh. If he had someone on the inside ...

Wait. Wait. He will. ]

There may be another way.

[ You are, in fact, a gross hypocrite, but in the exact same way Wash would be if he were you, so. You get a pass.

That perks his interest, though. ]

I'm listening.

I've done spy work in my time, of a sort. Mercenary stuff but the same tactics still apply. And I'm familiar with Cetagandan tech. If you gave me a message, I could probably get it to your friends.

[ Via Byerly, but better to pretend to be some kind of expert hacker instead. ]

[ Mercenary spy work. Aren't you a bundle of surprises. ]

Couldn't make use of it to get to Rani?

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