forbarrayar | [ may i log: the good fight ]

Entry tags:

[ may i log: the good fight ]

Who: Everyone
What: The culmination of months of planning and suffering finally comes to bear as the Barrayarans launch their debilitating attack on the Cetagandan base. Politics, as always, go sight unseen but felt everywhere.
When: May 1st - 18th
Where: the Barrayaran camp, the Cetagandan base, Riverfall Village
Warnings: TBD

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

TIMELINE
5/5 Eavesdropping
5/7 Hacking
5/11 Mystery Plot
5/15 Attack on the Cetagandan base

riverfall
The village is finally starting to get back on its feet after a few blessedly uneventful weeks. Other than the routine Cetagandan patrols, there hasn't been much activity in the village, and no new strife. The villagers merely continue their rebuilding efforts and tend to their fields, and they'll still gladly accept any help offered by outsiders.

With the village down nearly half its population, there's room to grow, even after last month's fight destroyed some of the homes, so Speaker Gura has been taking in refugees from other nearby hill villages – about ten refugees have moved to settle anew in Riverfall in the last few weeks.

barrayar
The time to strike is now.

All three camps are preoccupied with preparations for the attack on the 15th: as far as Barrayaran intelligence knows, no reinforcements are on their way to the Cetagandan base, and the guerrillas need to strike while the Cetagandans are still down nearly half their forces. It's the only shot they have at forcing the occupying troops to leave Vorkosigan Vashnoi and give them a chance at retaking the city – and they're not throwing away this shot, because they might not get another one.

The political unease surrounding Dorca and Yuri is a quieter tension, plaguing only those politically savvy (or well-positioned) enough to understand the situation, but if you're paying close enough attention to the moody Crown Prince, you'll note that Yuri's primary concern isn't the outsiders, but something much closer to home. He's never been a particularly warm man by anyone's account, but lately he's especially given to foul moods, and only part of it is grief for his most recently deceased son.

All further attempts at hostage negotiation from Zahal have been as curtly denied as the first, and just about as politely. Incorporating a rescue plan into their attack strategy wasn't exactly easy, but they won't get another shot than this at rescuing Princess Sonia – or Byerly, whose cover as a spy was recently blown during a failed attempt at smuggling Sonia out of the base. On the 15th, the Barrayarans prepare for war, some donning Cetagandan uniforms and face paint, others swiping mud over their faces to better camouflage themselves in the dark.

And the attack is a success. There's no real such thing as acceptable loss, but the top brass consider the 70 lives spent on the attack a fair cost for what they got: almost destroying the immediate Cetagandan power supply and the return of their Princess. Plus Byerly. The mood lightens considerably, but there is no rest in war, and just as soon as they take their next victory, Piotr, Dorca and Yuri are already planning the next move: finally retaking Vorkosigan Vashnoi.

camp
All three camps are heavily preparing, officers running drills nearly around the clock, quartermasters taking inventory and making sure every piece of equipment is clean and in working order, medical officers and techs preparing the sickbay tent as best they can for the inevitable injured who will return.

But despite the impending mission, tensions are still rising within the army – while top brass is vocally discouraging the fights that have broken out, it hasn't put a complete stop to them, and no one has openly endorsed the outsiders except for Piotr Vorkosigan. Vorvolk and Yuri are both still staunchly in the skeptic camp at best, but Dorca does not seem to have passed a final judgment on the outsiders before the attack. Perhaps he's merely biding his time, because for all the dissent about the outsiders, the Emperor hasn't barred Piotr from letting them participate in critical missions.

The soldiers make enough noise about it on their own. They're especially tetchy about the outsiders who crossed over from the Cetagandan side – they're as good as spies, as far as some of the soldiers are concerned. But even worse is letting Duv Galeni, a Komarran, not only remain in camp and feed on their resources, but actively participate in missions. For the most part, the soldiers in camp who have known the outsiders from the start and have befriended them are sticking with them, but the half of Piotr's army that was with Vorvolk after the split when the location of their last camp was discovered by the Cetagandans are nearly as suspicious as the Vorbarra battalion. Hostility towards Duv and those who escaped from the Cetagandan camp is especially severe, and it's no secret that some of them would prefer the outsiders dead rather than taking up space and resources in their army, though no one has been so bold as to actually make any attempts. Falco Vorkalloner, one of the Rangers who had been in Vorvolk's half of the army, hasn't been afraid to make his voice heard, though. He's even been heard saying that he thinks someone ought to make an example out of the Komarran and demonstrate just what they think of those who would side with the Cetagandans.

After the attack, the atmosphere of the camp is noticeably changed – the return of the Princess as well as what can only be considered a resounding victory for the Barrayarans has led to a jubilant and triumphant environment. And with Barrayarans, all celebration comes with a whole lot of drinking. Wine, vodka and maple mead are passed around aplenty in the nights and days following the attack, as soldiers burn offerings for their dead comrades and trade stories of action.

The tension with the outsiders begins to lessen after this victory, too. The fact that two outsiders, Wash and Lucy, are responsible for the Princess's rescue goes a long way toward relations between the outsiders and the rest of the army, and after the attack, Dorca gives the outsiders his endorsement as comrades to be trusted and honorary warriors fighting alongside them. Of course, this doesn't mean all hostility and tension merely dissipates – there are still plenty of soldiers like the now-deceased Falco who still think the outsiders are a threat and a parasitic presence. But things do start to lighten up a little after this victory...finally.

missions
General Piotr Vorkosigan himself leads the attack on the Cetagandan base, and Yuri leads his own contingent. Although there are some hitches getting in undetected, their plans to disable base security are overall successful, as is their sabotage of the power supply generators and Sonia and Byerly's rescue.

Meanwhile, Lakshmi and Sisko have found Falco Vorkalloner's dead body, and while it looks like an accident, it also looks like someone might have taken care to make sure it looked like one.

The unabridged mission results can be found here.

cetaganda
The social relief brought by the flower-viewing party quickly fades, and tension settles back over the Cetagandan base, underlined by Zahal's frustration with Piotr's flat-out refusal to meet his demands, or even so much as discuss them. He's sent more than one political ransom demand since Dorca's arrival, too, but to no effect. Given the recent guerrilla activity in Vorkosigan Vashnoi, he knows Piotr must be planning something, but with no informants left in the Barrayaran army, his intelligence is dry, and the investigations into weapons smuggling were ultimately fruitless. All known civilian resistance cells seem to have scattered and disappeared, their bases of operation boarded up or burned down. All he can do is concentrate as many troops as he can afford on the city's occupation, though he doesn't leave the base totally unmanned. But he does add another thousand troops to the occupying force in Vorkosigan Vashnoi in the week before the attack on the base.

Not everyone is being sent over, though, and the transfer doesn't make for as smooth a cover as one might hope. Gail is caught on an unauthorized trip to the city while off duty, and you might hear -- or overhear -- the dressing-down he gets from his commanding officer for it. He doesn't appear to have a ready excuse for it -- at least, not one that doesn't sound flimsy as hell.

Military matters affect those of the Star Crèche, however, and Zahal's frustration does not touch that sphere. Not that it isn't without its own tensions -- anyone who spends enough time with Diya and Sei (and Ba Talim, for that matter) will feel the rising tensions between them, though their origins are as obscure as the haut always are. The Star Gate Project, now officially under the jurisdiction of the Star Crèche, continues on with Micah at the lead, although they haven't for a moment forgotten that they are a prisoner here, or where their true loyalties lie.

After the attack, Zahal's fury reaches a boiling point, and since the Barrayarans did so much infrastructural damage, the consequences of military matters finally reach Diya and Sei, rankling them, too. The power shortage and damage to the science/medical complex has put a serious damper on Star Gate research, although as far as anyone is aware, the gene therapy trials and other related Star Crèche research goes on unimpeded, thanks to the successful protection of the secondary backup generator, which seems to exist only to power the medbay and gene labs. But since power is a hot commodity right now, Zahal is going to start pushing to reroute some of that power to what the haut would probably deem as lower priority needs.

base
The mood around the base is restless, Zahal's frustration trickling down into tensions among his officers and seeping into the very atmosphere. They're hardly prepared for the attack that comes because they don't even know what to expect. The soldiers all seem on edge, nervous, a little tetchy, particularly after Tarn's altercation with Diya and Natasha, and then the failed attempt to smuggle out the Princess -- but that did, at least, lead to the outing of Byerly Vorrutyer as a spy among the Cetagandans, confirming some suspicions held by the higher brass in Cetagandan intelligence. About the only comfort, if one can call it that, in all this tension is Byerly's summary fast-penta interrogation.

The gene therapy trials, despite some...trials, continue, and with much greater success than last month. Sei and Diya are as impassive as ever, but even so, there's a tangible undercurrent of mixed relief and triumph. Micahworks as feverishly as ever on the Star Gate Project with the aid and oversight of the military's scientific division and the exotics working as lab assistants. The satellite launch has proven to be a highly productive venture -- it's yielding data they couldn't have gathered otherwise, which is proving to be critical, and Micah spends time having Kaidan, Symmetra and Pearl put through another series of brain scans and consulting the neurology team as they study the results.

Although Sei is never seen outside of her force bubble, and doesn't actually travel around the base all that much, her presence seems to dominate the more civilian areas of the base, overshadowing even Diya -- although Diya is considerably less visible around the base after her altercation with Tarn. Amai is, of course, somehow seen just about everywhere, a constant social and professional presence that refuses to let anyone forget she's there. But after the 5th, she seems to be troubled -- she's far less impassive than the haut, and her anxiety and discomfort are much easier to see.

After the attack, Diya seems somewhat shaken -- it's almost impossible to tell how Sei is affected, but with facilities down, audits are being done on all existing projects to determine what's important enough to remain active while they have limited power. The base isn't quite in a shambles, but there's a lot of damage -- while the Barrayarans personally only carry swords and bows, they clearly have no issue with taking the Cetagandans' plasma arcs to wreak havoc at home -- and the atmosphere is overall demoralized. Sending more troops to Vorkosigan Vashnoi was clearly the wrong move, and it's a bitter pill to swallow, but Zahal begins to recall troops from the city in small waves to help better man the base, knowing full well that this must have been what Piotr intended.

missions
A few interesting tidbits are overheard in the dark of night, and Amai finds herself in the uniquely uncomfortable position of holding Diya's dark secret in one hand, and Sei's in the other -- and Ba Talim seems to know something, though it isn't clear what. And some creative hacking turns up some unexpected dirt on Sei that makes Diya's illicit ba experiments look like mere misdemeanors.

Despite the best efforts of the soldiers and the exotics and the fact that, even undermanned, they still outnumber the guerrillas by a landslide, the base is still overrun by Barrayarans and their attack is successful. The main and backup power generators are totally disabled for the time being, and it's unclear how long it will be before full power is restored to the base.

The unabridged mission results can be found here.

Note: Gavalas, Olivia, Zahal, Diya, and Sei & Ba Talim are available for threads on request. Hit up Madi (Gavalas, Diya, Sei & Ba Talim) or Ammay (Olivia & Zahal) if you'd like threads with these characters!

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[ He listens. Attentive, absorbing, memorizing as always, picking and pulling apart -- but there's something different in the way he listens to this. Something quieter, softer. When Byerly's done, he waits, just to make sure there's nothing more he wants to say.

A quiet sound. His eyes closing briefly, but he opens them again to look at Byerly, when he answers. ]

I understand how that feels.

[ To an extent, at least. He doesn't have the extended family of references, no, but Byerly has never been there, either, and Wash has. The inevitability of it. The dread, the fear. He understands that. And Byerly can take and leave that how he pleases. ]

Edited 2017-05-13 17:17 (UTC)

Mm.

[ He looks down, studying his shoes a moment. A little quietly: ]

I suppose I seem impossibly self-indulgent.

[ He'd been expecting something quite a bit more deflective. He'll take it. ]

Not so much. [ But, you know. Also not no. ]

[ A little bitter laugh at that. He caught the nuance. ]

What, no contempt from the man who's actually struggling with madness? How generous, Washington.

I don't think your struggle is any less real.

The fear of it is just as bad, sometimes.

Ooh, aren't you polite. It's all right to tell me I'm being a bit bullshit.

If I tell you that, then you just feel a little more sure that what you're afraid of isn't real at all.

[ A blink, and then a twisted little smile. ]

Aren't you a ray of sunshine.

Did it take you that long to figure it out?

Oh, no.

[ A short shrug. ]

So how will you know if you start slipping again?

I don't.

[ Which is the problem. What drove him mad in specific introduces complications that he struggles with constantly, and so he thinks there'll be signs. Things he can catch onto. But god, who knows, who ever really knows. There's nothing about any of this that can ever confirm to him that he's never left the ward, that he's still in the same bed, that he never left the surgery and all of this is just some kind of extremely vibrant and long-lived hallucination in the moment.

His is just a. Very specific, madness. ]

Fear of death keeps you alive. [ A slight tilt of his head, watching him again. ] Your fear of madness will keep you sane, too.

[ Well. To an extent. But see, he was doing you a favor. Kind of. ]

[ With a grim smile: ]

No it won't.

It might not.

But it's something to hold onto, regardless. And you'll need that.

Mm.

[ A beat. ]

So what is it you don't allow yourself to do?

[ A quiet amused sound, closing his eyes briefly. He knows what Byerly is asking, but. ]

Drink. Sleep.

[ Those are like. Half-real answers. ]

Have fun.

[ That one isn't. He stops himself from having fun just because he's a terrible killjoy. ]

Well, the first two might be the reason underlying the third.

[ He shakes his head with a sigh. ]

Sex is out, as well. But not violence? That seems backwards.

[ A slight laugh. Look, he has fun. He just. Knows people don't think he has fun . . . ]

Violence is fun to me, remember -- and just because I turned you down doesn't mean I don't have sex, you know.

But no. Different kind of control.

Oh? Different how?

If you're looking for something interesting, you're asking the wrong questions, here.

[ Hey you like being told where you went wrong right. Professional competence and all that. Still, there's a moment of quiet, consideration. Just how much is he willing to give him, here? ]

Memory, mostly.

[ Apparently a lot more than he ever thought he would. ]

[ Byerly's eyes narrow, mingled confusion and annoyance. He admits: ]

I don't follow.

Because you're thinking, presumably, of the kind of insanity you're afraid of. Babbling at walls, sadism and perversion. I've been resistant at all to the idea of it being genetic. Why and how would've been better questions.

[ He really does not normally do that but he can't say that part of him does not quite enjoy pointing out where Byerly could have gotten more out of him, and didn't. Even if he's not necessarily right, even if Byerly's just taking a different approach. It makes how much he's choosing to give up a little easier to swallow, at least. ]

Are you capable of coming over here, or are you going to fall over once you leave that tree? [ He wants to show you something. ]

[ By eyes Wash a bit warily - but then shrugs. They've come this far - and if Wash wanted to murder him, to silence what he now knows, he wouldn't need to call By over for it. So, with a step that's only a little unsteady, he pushes off the tree and approaches. ]

[ Wash does entirely expect some kind of refusal on grounds of possibility of murder, and while he's a little surprised he doesn't react too much. He waves Byerly closer to where he's still seated on those gnarled tree roots, moving a hand to the back of his own neck, jostling the chain of the tags he wears around his neck slightly. He leans forward, gesturing Byerly over, pushing aside some of his hair. It's not entirely hidden, Byerly might've noticed it before, but he's giving him a good chance to get a proper look, now.

There's metal, there. An implant, an interface, embedded his skin right at the base of his skull, something that looks not quite just like something was put in, but also looks like it was designed for external access. Lightning-forks of scarring spread out from it, white and faded from age but still noticeable, elaborate and extensive in the way they spread out from the implant down the back of his neck over the back of his shoulders, and it's clear they extend further down his back too under his clothing. ]

Any guesses? [ Surprising lightness, to his tone. Obviously not something Byerly's going to be able to guess, but try him, won't you. He'll tell you the answer. Or some of it. Something answer-shaped. ]

[ He frowns as he studies it. ]

Looks like a neural implant. Not dissimilar from what jump pilots get. Though obviously not that, since you don't use our jump technology.

[ That's said with a grimace. He's still half-dead from boredom from that long-winded explanation the first time they spoke. ]

[ He catches that grimace, in his tone -- he can guess what's that from. A slight, amused sound. ]

That's what the Cetagandans thought it was too, yeah. It is an implant, though not anything to do with piloting, I'm not a pilot beyond standard-issue training. [ Which mind for his work is a little more than most rank-and-file, but still. He's no pilot. ] Project I signed on with was experimental. Just one of the dozens and dozens of lets find the secret weapon programs you can imagine came up during the war.

[ He straightens, then. ]

Let's just say it didn't work, with me. And the side-effects were unpleasant.

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