forbarrayar | [ march ii log: ageless beauty ]

Entry tags:

[ march ii log: ageless beauty ]

Who: Everyone!
What: The skies finally lighten, and so do spirits, but there are still quiet machinations in the dark. The good doctor's fate is finally decided.
When: March 18th - 31st
Where: Barrayaran camp, Cetagandan base & Riverfall Village
Warnings: TBD

Quick links:
Riverfall
Barrayar: Plague / Camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Plague / Base / Missions

First: Special thanks and credit to Vee (

veelynn) for lending us her beautiful photography for this event!
TIMELINE
3/19 Art Fair
3/20 York & Ratchet's arrival to the Barrayaran camp
3/22 Raid: Medical Supplies
3/26 Haut Sei's arrival, Eavesdropping Eta
3/27 Eavesdropping Sigma
3/27 - 3/28 Rat Race
3/29 Official reception for Haut Sei
3/30 Mystery Plot

One thing can be said for the month of March: at least the weather's gotten better. By mid-month, while the piled-up snow is slow to melt, the temperatures have now risen to just freezing rather than well below freezing. It's still a pretty cold March, but by this point, anything close to freezing feels like a balmy spring, and they have a nice string of sunny days for the rest of the month.

riverfall
Although their numbers have been thinned by the flu epidemic, Cetagandan patrols still pass regularly through the village, allowing those spying for the Cetagandans to pass along information via dead drop.

Riverfall was hit just as hard by the epidemic as the camp, and by the end of the month, the village houses no more than sixty people. The aid from the outsiders and soldiers in caring for and treating the sick goes a long way, but by the end, there are still a lot of bodies to bury and souls to burn death offerings for. There's an overall somber cast to the village despite the brightening weather.

barrayar
The Barrayarans haven't been hit as dramatically as the Cetagandans, but their numbers are much fewer, and patrols are still thin. Anyone healthy enough is being asked to pull double shifts, stretching their resources where they can, but at least the food situation is improving considerably thanks to both Xav's relief supplies and the lightening weather.

Once seeing both his daughters recover from the flu, Prince Xav leaves camp on the 19th to rendezvous with his transport back to Vorbarr Sultana so he can make another risky attempt at getting off-planet and back through the wormhole blockade. Ezar, as Piotr's aide-de-camp, sticks around -- and so does Negri, of course.

Knowing that it would be safer (if less comfortable) and possibly more useful for the Barrayarans to rendezvous with Micah rather than try to get them back off-planet, Xav leaves Doctor Niadem's fate in Barrayaran hands…and not to great result. Now that the Cetagandans have Micah, Piotr and his general staff -- and anyone in-the-know enough about the situation to provide any advisement -- are still debating what to do about Micah and the wormhole device. They could either try to rescue Micah to their side…or leave them in Cetagandan hands and hope to make contact via one of their informants.

This makes cultivating informants on the Cetagandan side an even higher priority, and if anyone has any ties to outsiders on the other side, personal or otherwise, Piotr wants to hear about it. Any intelligence about the Star Gate Project is vital.

plague
The ill in the camp and Riverfall are recovering, slowly, but the flu is still spreading, reaching its apex, and people are still getting sick. Even as the weather clears up, it's still damp, and many of the sick are falling to pneumonia, a near-certain death without antibiotics. They've already exhausted the medical supplies Xav and Ezar brought with them, and the medical raids went poorly -- only resulting in enough antibiotics for about 20% of the village and camp's combined population.

By the end of the month, though, the Barrayarans are finally beginning to pull through. The camp and village start to recover, with the mortalities over the month total to 58 influenza-related deaths. It's time to bury the death, burn a death offering, and keep on moving on.

camp
Both Olivia and Sonia have recovered from their bouts with the flu, more or less intact despite Olivia's very touch-and-go health for a while. Now Sonia's repaying everyone's visits to her by tending to the sick and helping out where she can. And as the weather warms up and people start to recover, the line for the bath tent starts getting longer…it's still pretty cold, but after lying around in the sickbay tent for a while, few people are going to complain for the chance to wash.

Morale is still buckling, so amidst all the doom and gloom, Sonia decides to try and bring a little levity to the camp by hosting a makeshift little art show on the 19th. The Princess can often be seen with her old antique camera, taking candids or scenic pictures in the mountains, although she rarely shows her work to anyone else. Tonight, though, she has hung up a variety of her black-and-white photos around the camp for the art fair -- some of the candids are even of outsiders, and Sonia's aim seems to be catching everyone in their warmest, happiest moment. There's no sense of tragedy or despair in her work.

She's encouraged as many of the soldiers and outsiders to contribute anything in the way of art -- stories, songs, performance, or craft, she invites it all. A few soldiers make a surprisingly harmonic little chorus, and some visiting villagers give engaging tellings of Barrayaran legends. Lakshmi shows off some of her embroidery, and Beth and Tucker both bring a little singing to the table, although the majority of Barrayarans probably aren't going to appreciate a cappella Queen. Daryl shoots a mouse and either fails to understand art entirely or transcends to a brand new plane of artistic enlightenment. Also, please don't let Tucker pose nude for you.

It winds up doing some good for morale -- giving the soldiers some other context to focus on besides the war, something of an escape, or a reminder of what they're fighting for and what they long to live to see again. And for the first time, Sonia doesn't feel quite so useless.

missions
The medical assistance provided by the outsiders doesn't go unappreciated, nor without effect. Not every day is a success, but at least they manage to keep the mortality rate from climbing too high.

The medical raids are a near-unmitigated disaster, with every single raiding party running afoul of Cetagandan guards and losing some of their bounty on the way out. They only manage to make away with supplies/topicals/OTC analgesics for 40% of the population, vaccine for 20% of the population, and antibiotics for 35% of the population.

The race to Micah's location in Vorkosigan Vashnoi is a frantic one, but despite the outsiders' efforts as well as Natasha, Byerly and Kaidan's efforts to slow down the Cetagandans, the Cetagandans get to Doctor Micah Niadem first.

Here are the unabridged mission results.

cetaganda
Piotr's attempt at psychological warfare was a total success: Zahal is furious over the severed body parts of his own soldiers discovered around the camp, and even more so over the wholly unintentional but devastating biowarfare that comes with it. That part has Piotr rather tickled.

With full intel on Micah's location in hand, Zahal sends as many able-bodied squads to Vorkosigan Vashnoi as he can, including several exotics. Natasha, Kaidan and Byerly work covertly to try and slow the operation down, but ultimately, the Cetagandans still reach Micah first and bring them back to base -- taking proper precaution to vaccinate them before bringing them in, of course. It wouldn't do for their newest and very valuable asset to suddenly die of some backwater plague.

The Cetagandan base is still pretty thin on the personnel front, but they're managing to continue operations as normal. The announcement of the visit from the Handmaiden of the Star Crèche has every able-bodied person on base in a frenzy as they try to prepare and make the base suitable for receiving her. This is clearly an occasion of great honor as well as face -- if she were improperly received, ghem-General Zahal and Lady Diya would surely suffer for it.

plague
The plague reaches its apex in the Cetagandan base, but with Ratchet and Natasha's help, they were able to synthesize a vaccine for the flu. The quarantine isn't airtight, so there's still risk of infection, and they have to make sure those distributing the vaccine aren't at risk of spreading the infection. Overall, they're able to inoculate about 80% of the uninfected population.

Amai makes a full recovery, despite being dramatically (albeit not entirely unrealistically) convinced she was on death's door every second.

By the end of the month, the Barrayaran flu has about a 30% mortality rate on the Cetagandan base, resulting in about 3000 influenza-related deaths.

base
The quarantine remains in effect until nearly the end of the month, but finally, once the epidemic has died down and the Handmaiden has been vaccinated, Haut Sei Navarr arrives. The base hurriedly puts together a formal reception for her on the 30th, and rather than another party, it is just that -- a clearly ritualized receiving of her presence, so rarely seen beyond Eta Ceta, let alone the rest of the Empire.

The reception for Haut Sei is exceedingly formal, and unlike the relatively lighter air of the party last month, inappropriate behavior is going to be much less generously tolerated here. The exotics are not required to attend, but if they do, it'll be about a four-hour reception with a clear ritual protocol that will nonetheless seem very obtuse to outside viewers. Diya is prominent in the reception, being the only other haut on base, and is in fact the only one truly suited to receive her -- although, unlike Diya, Haut Sei does not appear in public unmasked. As is the custom of haut ladies still in their constellations, Haut Sei travels in a float chair encased in an opaque force bubble -- she can see out, but no one can see in. She brings with her a small entourage of servitors known as the ba, who serve not only as testing grounds for new genetic combinations, but are also genetically engineered for loyalty and service. Ba are not clones -- each ba is a work of art unto itself, each carefully created, and while they are not quite so fey in their beauty, the aesthetic effort is undeniable. All of the ba with Haut Sei are curiously hairless, which seems to be a popular trend in their design among the haut these days.

Meanwhile on the scientific end, the Cetagandans are delving deeper into what is officially referred to as the Star Gate Project. They're working with Satya to build a hard-light mapping device, but in the meantime, they have laid out the most crucial parts needed to build it: high-precision electromagnetic bearings to hold up the Necklin rods and spin them by a magnetic field for reduced friction; high-quality seals and pumps to create the necessary vacuum required for precise jump-plotting; something generating EM shielding to prevent interference, a problem unique to creating a Necklin field of this size and in this environment; and high-precision controls and controls software based on those used in existing jump ships, modifications for which are underway. And, of course, the Necklin rods themselves, which they have yet to figure out a way to fabricate.

And now that Micah is on base, the Cetagandans can finally put them to work in the wormhole lab on some of those elusive five-space math problems.

They're still developing their theory of neural netting and how a Necklin field might directly interact with the human brain without a jump implant. Based on their research so far, this may not actually be much of a problem, but there's another factor they have yet to work out: how to key the Star Gate to an exotics' own home universe. The Cetagandan neurologists have a few theories that they're working with Deanna and Natasha on.

missions
With help from the exotics, they're able to vaccinate 80% of the base's uninfected population. Satya and Pearl, despite their hard efforts, have yet to finish the hard-light mapping device by the end of the month.

A few exotics learn a bit more about Sei and Diya's history, as well as Diya and Amai's plans for covering up their less than authorized experiments. It also comes to light that the haut are planning to open gene therapy trials for any exotics who experienced power loss.

The race to Micah's location in Vorkosigan Vashnoi is a frantic one, but despite the outsiders' efforts as well as Natasha, Byerly and Kaidan's efforts to slow down the Cetagandans, the Cetagandans get to Doctor Micah Niadem first.

Here are the unabridged mission results.

Note: Negri, Amai, Zahal, and Olivia are available for threads by request only. Please hit up Madi (Negri & Amai) or Ammay (Zahal & Olivia) respectively for 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

[ Is surely obvious by now, but Miles still won't answer. Sorry, Wash. ]

Is not relevant to this story. Shall I continue?

[ It is, but he likes confirmation. He'll press on it later, waving a hand in a gesture for Miles to continue. He'll have to ask about you being in an ImpSec basement sometime, too. ]

[ All things they can discuss later. Miles refocuses on his tale. ]

I have to give the Cetagandans credit. We have galactic rules about how prisoners of war can be kept, and they technically kept the letter of the law on all of them. Plenty of space, sufficient light, a certain number of doctors per prisoners, a certain amount of rations and clothing. But they way they had set it up...

[ He shivers in remembering it. Even now, picturing the dull gray dome above him is enough to conjure up nightmares. ]

We were all trapped under a force field dome. Completely gray, with no day or night or change whatsoever. Maddening at best after long enough spent there. The rations were dumped down in a pile once a day, and the strongest hoarded meals from the hungry. Clothes too, and other supplies. If you were small, weak, or just too slow, you were robbed and beaten. And meanwhile, we had doctors but no medicine.

[ Wash listens, quiet, attentive, nodding a little grimly -- his eyes close for a moment, trying to imagine it. For all the hell he's been through, it's always been in isolation. A horror in some ways, a blessing in others. Having to claw and fight your way for rations . . . He wonders how well Miles did at that. No doubt he found some clever way through it. ]

It's always about the letter of the law, isn't it? [ More than a little bitter. Damn the Director. ] Always about toeing the line.

Sounds like hell, even for a temporary infiltration.

[ Miles swallows a bit. Despite Dagoola IV arguably being his wildest success, he still has nightmares about it sometimes. ]

It was. I was jumped immediately. Beaten and stripped naked not by the Cetagandans, but by the people I'd come to save. Th Resistance was eating itself alive in there.

[ A sharp inhale, a shudder. ]

Damn. [ He can picture it, as much as he doesn't want to, ten thousand people trapped under a gray dome, all slowly going mad and tearing each other apart. ] How did you manage?

Well, my objective was to sneak the leader out. But ... when I found him, he was all but dead. Decrepit, alive but rotting in his own filth.

[ Dead already in all the ways that mattered. ]

It was then I realized I had to rescue the entire Resistance. All of them. All ten thousand. I had the fleet backing me up outside, and I knew they could see me in there. Both they and the Cetagandans had a feed of the prison.

So I started small. Charmed one faction into following me based on one premise: getting control of the food supply again.

[ He's surprised that leader wasn't dead already, but well. Maybe that was worse than death. Of course the Cetagandans would have a feed, but somehow hearing that chills him a little more, the idea of them watching everything they were doing to these people unfold.

God. They'd formed factions in there, too? How long were they there? Another shudder, but a nod, that seems sound, and at this point Wash hardly doubts Miles' ability to charm his way to people. ]

Food's probably the best way to have motivated them to do anything. [ An easy way to manipulate them, as awful as it is. ]

[ Wash has grasped one part of it. But from the way Miles' eyes glitter ... it's clear that's not all he was doing. ]

Indeed. Simple and practical. I gathered up enough people to raid the food - and then we passed it out to everyone. No fighting, no clamoring. Mostly. We ended up with fourteen teams of people sweeping the terrain at regular, precise intervals, since of course the Cetagandans kept the positioning random, and timing was hard to judge at best.

[ Do you see it yet, Wash? ]

Edited 2017-03-27 23:50 (UTC)

[ What he does see is that that sounds absolutely nothing like the desperation of a faction of prisoners scrambling for control of food, and more like, well. ]

That sounds more like you had command of a resistance, Miles.

[ A resistance, weren't they? They would've known how to fight, what it means to scout and sweep the terrain, even if they'd forgotten in their madness under that dome. Was that enough, then, was that all it took? Enough organization -- and moving at regular intervals, to ready the fleet outside? His mind is working, but he's mostly looking at Miles, clearly interested, fascinated, even. What was his way out? ]

[ Close. Very close. Enough to get a pleased sort of hum out of him in response. ]

Indeed. That is what we had again - an actual resistance, not just maddened chaos.

[ A beat. ]

Though honestly, my plans were a bit more practical than that. Given I had fourteen shuttles.

[ Ah. There's a bit of a smile, there, leaning back slightly as he listens. ]

Convenient number of teams moving at regular intervals, then.

Exactly. The plan had been just to get me and the leader out, after all. Getting ten thousand people to my fleet in a very short window was going to be impossible without drilling everyone first.

[ Fondness leaks into his tone as well. Bless his amazing group of mercenaries for being so incredibly fucking smart about it too. For reading him and making the whole plan actually work. ]

But - well, if the Cetagandans had figured me out, then we'd be just as screwed. Hence my food raids.

[ That fleet meant a lot to him, didn't it -- not that Wash didn't already gather that before, but he can hear it in his voice, now. ]

Doubled as a way to keep everyone on your side, I'm sure. [ Telling them the plan would've never been an option. ] Your fleet would've seen the food raids.

[ A statement, not a question -- would've seen them, then, and by the sound of it read them accurately. ]

[ He beams even more at that. ]

They knew me well enough by then. Doesn't make what they did any less brilliant, of course.

[ Although here his smile falters. The camp haunts him badly enough, but the escape is what ultimately gave him PTSD. Still causes him to flash back if the situation is too damned similar. ]

[ That slight falter has Wash's brow creasing, slightly. For as good as the plan sounds -- it must not have gone that smoothly. He's quiet, for a moment. ]

Sounds like they valued their Admiral. [ Genuine, though it's intentional that he isn't asking after what happened next. Miles can go on when he wants to. ]

To excess, at times.

[ Though that's not the tragedy here. He's quiet a moment, building himself up to the last part of the story. ]

It was tight. Tighter than it should have been. We lost a shuttle towards the end. And the one I was in ... it was the last to go up. The bay door wouldn't close because of a jammed ramp, and we were moments from being sucked into space and killed too.

[ Red hair seems to flicker at the corner of his vision; he makes a gesture as if to reach out, then lets his hand fall. ]

Beatrice managed to kick the broken ramp off just as the shuttle lurched to one side. I practically threw myself at her, trying to grab her hand, but ...

[ . . . Ah.

It's silly, maybe, but when Miles lets his hand fall Wash just reaches out to catch it anyway. Instinctive, brief, a light squeeze before he pulls away again. Silly and still a little too close to home. He'll carry on as if he didn't do that. ]

But. [ Soft, prompting. No point talking around it, it seems. ]

[ Miles jolts a bit at the gesture. And grips Wash hard before he pulls away, his fingers painfully tight. Don't make him let go right now, Wash. Please. ]

I - [ Oh god. This was probably a bad story to tell. It's all fun and games when he can pretend to be this amazing war hero, but the ending kills him every time. It hadn't just been Beatrice. That whole shuttle - his crew and the Marilacans on it - the weight of Murka's head in his hands, having had it shot off at the last moment -

His breath suddenly thunders in his ears. He can't seem to focus past this all-devouring need to hold on, dammit, and not let him fall. Or is it Miles that's falling here? The faint breeze stirring around them seems a rush of noise instead. ]

[ Whatever happened, it's worse than what Wash thought it'd be.

He doesn't try to pull away again, with the way Miles is holding on, with the way the look in his eyes, he couldn't possibly pull away. Wash just looks up at him, caught a little between wanting to know and just -- wanting to let it rest, if the thought of it is affecting him this badly. Has he ever seen Miles at a loss for words?

Wash squeezes Miles' hand back in turn, doesn't seem to mind how almost painful that grip is. He pushes himself up from the ground, settling himself next to where Miles is seated, instead. He doesn't know what happened, no, but he knows that look, knows he's seeing it all right now, crystal clear in front of his eyes as if it'd happened yesterday. The same thing happens to Wash, after all. Every damned night. ]

Miles. [ Quiet. ] You're here.

[ Not there, but here -- the kind of thing Wash himself needs to hear, and the best way he knows how to respond. ]

[ It doesn't help that he's not actually told this story much. To Simon while he was half out of his mind on painkillers, yes. To his mother after, in pieces. Otherwise ... he tends to focus on the dramatic bits and not this personal, scarring bit of tragedy.

(Red hair, tall and fierce. Kicking at the ramp with sheer bloody determination and frustration, and then the lurch after.)

Dimly, he's aware that Wash has shifted closer to him; mostly he holds onto Wash like he's a lifeline, or Miles is his. The only thing preventing him from dropping into the abyss. But - there is no abyss here, is here? Just the log and the snow and the rolling mountains of Vorkosigan's district all around them.

Slowly but surely, his breathing begins to ease. Not quite so ragged and agonized. ]

I - I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me.

[ Wash doesn't know what happened, but he doesn't really need to. ]

I do.

[ There's a gravity, an understanding in his voice. He knows what happened, he knows what'd come over him. Being back there. It doesn't matter where it was, doesn't matter what happened, Wash knows the horror of that alone, suddenly losing your anchor to the present reality and being lost in memory. Everything's always so vivid, for him, he has a good memory and he'd really rather not, and so often he still hears the screams, still feels himself aching for her, for Allison, Allison don't, please -- even though he never even knew her. ]

It's fine. [ Don't be goddamn sorry about it, Miles. He shifts a little closer, the way he tends to do with people he's more comfortable with, with Carolina when he knows she needs something. York would've gone to her, held her hand, hugged her, maybe. Wash just always stays close, lets their shoulders brush together like he's doing here, lets her lean against him, if she wants. ] You're here now.

[ That slight touch is probably better for Miles anyway. Any more than that and he might fall back into his memories, spurred on by the weight of someone against him. The flickers of Beatrice's face and hair seem to diminish slowly, until he feels mostly like he's back in his own skin again. Back on the log in the snow. Back on Barrayar.

God, now he's just exhausted. He reaches up a hand to rub at his face, his fingertips seeming to tingle uncomfortably as well. ]

You do? [ He murmurs at last, managing to look up at him. Silly question, isn't it? Wash had memory, after all. ] Even here?

[ A soft, amused sound, a bit of a smile, and it isn't fake or forced but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. Where he is wouldn't matter when the problem is him. ]

Even here. Most nights, if not every. [ He can his control his thoughts well enough when he's awake, well enough but not perfectly, and try as he might he has to sleep sometimes. ] I've a good memory, remember?

[ Squeezing Miles' hand again, just to ground him a little -- he's back, mostly back, but he doesn't seem quite here yet. That drifting, Wash knows it, too. Sometimes it takes him longer to really wake up. ]

[ That seems too much to bear. Miles has these episodes at random, when something sparks the memory into a bonfire. To have them most nights, maybe every night ... At least his nightmares had subsided after a while.

Focusing on Wash is what's bringing him the rest of the way down to earth, metaphorically speaking. ]

Too good. [ He can't seem to swallow around the lump in his throat. ] Is that why you only sleep a few hours?

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