[ may i log: the good fight ]

[barrayarmods]

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!

Comments

[shri]

You take yourself much too seriously, I must.

[ It is not so grand a thing to observe, standing so close, but no more than touches. Not something great to spy on, because it is no more than letting. She lets him touch, he lets her hold and in the middle space - is everything. Taking shared breath in small space, butterfly brush of his lashes against her cheek. The wet salt she can taste on her lips is easier perhaps because she stopped knowing how to decades ago. ]

[vorrutyer]

Do I, now.

[ He reaches up and touches her cheek in turn. Rubs his thumb lightly, with the lightness of a bird's wing brushing the top of the head, over her skin. ]

And here I thought nothing was sacred to me.

[shri]

[ She holds still, feeling the exact line he maps, tracing to be all his own onto her. ]

That is not true. [ All men had something. That which to put them on their knees and their hearts could be glad for that privilege. ] For as little as I have known you, I think that has never been true of you.

[vorrutyer]

Mm. So what do you think is sacred to me?

[ He curves his hand against her jawline, exploring it in turn. ]

[shri]

[ That, she laughs for - she had heard the line once spoken by one of England's Queens. I have no interest in making windows into men's souls. ]

I can only hope it is not me. [ She lifts her head into the settle of his hand, feeling it warm on her skin. There, tucked away, are her own soft corners. Like any weapon, where she has been exposed, she is roughly smooth, but there - where she swallows, where she would be so quickly killed, it's a vulnerable corner. ]

But I think she must have been very holy indeed, for you to carry her so close. To steep yourself in so much corruption and trickery and deceit. You wear that fall so openly.

[vorrutyer]

[ There's a little flicker of surprise. She was holy. For a moment his heart twists - is she speaking in metaphor, or has Lakshmi cut so cleanly into his heart? Does she understand so much? Does she see so clearly? Or is she referring only to Barrayar? Lies hover on his lips a moment before he shakes his head. ]

Is that how it works? The more you love, the worse you make yourself?

[shri]

[ All of it and none of it. She assumes a woman, it is always a woman or country, and men talk about them in the same breadth in the same tone. They go just as mad, forsake themselves as dearly for a lover's sigh, their children's laughter, their countries soil. Which is to say, no, she doesn't know. But she knows those actions, those deeds, those words. I am a knight, sworn to protect the realm.

How far Galahad had fallen. To his knees and then down again. She isn't sure he can see any light anymore. His denial when she called him what he is. Knight. He looked at her like her touch hurt him for his need of it and he fought for her like she was his Queen, and he reminded her what words like fragile meant, but oh, how he could not bare for her to know such truths. Too much like Byerly, flinching from truths as she sees them.

A Knight no longer, he had said. Did he not understand that he would always be a Knight? He had stood taller than them all, he had risen far beyond their definitions of such. ]

No. But at times, we must go to the dirt, the dark, the grime, for that love and if that is what love asks of us. I know a man, Sir Galahad by title - [ she swallows, hurts, almost, she hasn't spoken of the greatest worry she has of her home, to anyone. She dare not, and she shouldn't not to someone like Byerly who would not forget. ] - his crest reads, Post Tenebras Veritas. [ She had never seen it save in embroidery upon his shoulders, not carved in stone of family estates, painted onto long lineages.

But she had seen it on his blade, seen it in his eyes when he looked at that darkness with her and strode into by her side. She sees it in Byerly now, caught as he is in the hold of her fingers. Brushed in the swipe of her thumb against the corner of his mouth. ] 'After darkness, truth.'

[vorrutyer]

Ah.

[ His voice is low. He understands that motto, though. How could he not? ImpSec's work is always that. Moving through the darkness, doing evil deeds. Getting close to people who are vulnerable who know a secret or two. Slipping them drinks, flattering them and touching them and pretending to be besotted. Coaxing them open and slipping fingers inside to fish out what they know. It's a wicked business, a cruel business, to seduce and betray. Weasely, Ivan would say. Soul-corroding might be a little closer to the truth.

But it's for excitement. But it's for money. It's for patriotism. It's for truth.

He rolls his shoulders in a shrug, his eyelids dipping low. He caresses her hand. ]

Do you prize the truth, Lakshmi? Do you love it?

[shri]

[ she's aware, even as she does it, that her laughter sounds unhinged. Aware, like looking into a clear still pool, and seeing yourself distorted, but still, yet, unmistakably you. It's old, and it's ugly, and she is so tired, she wants to say. She knows truth and she is tired and that is all she is. Hasnt he worked it out? He is so clever. No? Well, she ever wanted to be a kind queen, to be her people's Lakshmi. There, she will put it in his hands, he will have her fondest secret, and they could put her in the earth to rest.

No, counters the rest, she can't. Truth is not done with her yet. Not with her old woman's eyes in her young woman's body. It will not let go of her yet. But oh, her voice is mirthful. He is so young, they all are. Not because she is 25 going on 60. But because they have not lost yet.]

Truth? Truth took my first son before he could even say my name, truth took my husband. Truth took my throne, my dignity, and my hope. Truth took my fortress, then my people then my home. Truth took my father, my Jhalkiri, and my Devi's mother. Truth made me abandon my second son and took Devi's smile. Made me a rebel in my own home, made me do unspeakable acts and called me to face myself still. Truth made me stomach a life no one should endure, know death as comfort when every bone in my body is broken. When I wept for it in longing, it told me I was not done.

[that creaky door laughter, that empty room she speaks from, it goes quiet. ] It is all I have left, you see?

[vorrutyer]

Truth is cruel.

[ He knows that well. He's not an honest man, so he doesn't meet her confession with one of his own - doesn't speak of those nights, laying besides lovers he doesn't love, or laying alone and cold, when he wonders what the hell he's doing and what he's doing it for. But he thinks of it. Truth hasn't robbed him of so much, no. But truth still has left him bereft.

But. ]

But lies are worse. [ He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. ] Many dedicate their heart's blood to a lie. Better this than that.

[shri]

[ She excepts nothing. She never expects anything much anymore, not that way. People's lives - they were their own. The choices, the actions they undertook. She would only ever account for her own. ]

All the things I have done, all the things I have seen. That is the one thing I could never know.

[ She doesn't say one as more or less than the other. It is a life, and for that, it is unforgiving. ]

How is my - [ she breathes out slowly, a foolish mistake now, said in the heat of her fear. ] - my Satya?

[vorrutyer]

Ah.

[ He looks down, then, and away. A little uncomfortably, he admits: ]

She is...a bit wounded, I fear.

[shri]

[ She looks up to him, stricken, almost. Like a mother hearing her child is wounded, and here she was, unable to go to her. Unable to help her. Her fingers grip tighter for it. In his first angling, he had been right, when he had targetted the woman. Nothing was half so dear to her as Satya and the home she represented, the future, desperately sought for and fragile for it.

Cut her deeply, for that. Or just ripped apart the stitches of an old wound he could not have known the depth of. ]

How so?

[vorrutyer]

[ A shrug. He doesn't quite meet Lakshmi's eye. ]

Well. I did my best to wound her. To make serving the Cetagandans hurt very badly.

[shri]

[ No, she is not sure she wants to meet his eye either for that. Staying fixed on his shoulder instead, an unhappy set for it all. ]

I quite ruined that for you, didn't I?

[ A grimace with the words, barged in like she always did. She could skulk as well as the next man, but she never quite had the finesse others did. Learned it, most certainly - but she knew she could be bull headed. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ A small shrug. And - as always, honest when honesty is a bit cruel - ]

Yes. You did.

But perhaps it was for the best - I didn't feel entirely right about manipulating the girl.

[ But he did it anyway, without hesitation. Such is an ImpSec agent. ]

Still. I cannot help but regret that she's still over there, rather than over here.

[shri]

[ -- and that, that she shakes her head for. The hurt there, it stings, far, far deeply. Like something ripped out, pushed up. Through her lungs and out of her chest on a thready exhale. ]

She is my future - all I have done, all I will do, the death that I will die, the blood my people have spilt, will continue to bleed and she cannot see -

[ she served them, she fell victim to the things Lakshmi wanted to end more than anything. The English, Satya's Vishkar, the Cetagandans. The second verse was the same as the first, and her fingers curl in tightly, a wounded animal, licking at the blood of that kind of betrayal.

It would be easier to hate Satya. So much easier. But she can't, she could not, the one part of herself she never would be able to bring herself too. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ Byerly, though, purses his lips and looks at Lakshmi with raised eyebrows. Again, bluntly: ]

She's a person, not a metaphor, Lakshmi. Don't make her into a stand-in for your own successes or failures. That's not fair to her.

[shri]

[ Vices of position, if all problems to a hammer were nails, then all people were chess pieces to a Queen. She looks up at him - stung as ever that he ever dared to call her on that which no one else ever would. ]

I would rather be forgotten and what I fought for remembered than she know my name and be blind to that which she does.

[vorrutyer]

[ And he lifts his eyebrows at her clear offense, demonstrating with face and cant of his head his complete unconcern for her injured pride. Fond of her though he is, Byerly has very little respect for social sensibilities. A natural side-effect of being born at the top of the heap and living a shit life because of it. ]

Yes, well, it's something quite marvelous about human beings: their lives don't generally conform to what you would rather. Even if you're the grandest of queens. [ And then, relenting a little bit: ] She's a girl. One who was raised in truly unusual circumstances. I expect her lords and masters kept her as ignorant as they could. That doesn't have anything to do with you or your cause.

[shri]

[and where Lakshmi had risen to it through the respect, admiration and affection of those around her that kept her there, she recoils from him now. Her fingers deranged from his coat and her head tugs away in a shaking jerk. Wet hot rage of failure that turns so ugly and selfish through her.

Shoved down, kept behind the mask of office that after all these years. ] I am glad to have you returned to us, Vorrutyer.

[one of these years, she'll learn to curb this temper. But too much a mouthful of gunpowder makes it easy now to fall back on it now. Make it easy to pull from him now and get ready to walk away. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ He reaches out and catches her wrist, not letting her go quite yet. His voice is low and a little sharp - not angry, but with a note of intensity. ]

How do you think the girl would feel if she knew that she caused you pain? It's cruel to her to use her as an excuse for a bit of emotional self-martyring. Let her make you happy, not miserable.

[shri]

[ Her fingers curl in a warning for that hold. Allowed - for now. Her eyes narrowed and letting out a thin long breath as she looks down at his hand before back up at him. ]

She has made me happier than I have words for. She gave me something you could never comprehend. I could never look at her and not be grateful for all that she has bestowed unto me. [ The muscles in her arm, wrist flex in an agitation, with him - with Satya, with what she is, that she can't just be glad, with him for being right. ] I would never put the crimes of those that did it to her, on her shoulders, she deserves better. All of my people do. The whole world does. So many died for that.

[vorrutyer]

[ He tilts his head very slightly to the side. Doesn't release her. ]

And what did she give you?

[shri]

[ She swallows. Stubborn lift of her chin, that harsh line of her jaw, the roll and set of teeth like she's working through grit in her mouth. Tough to swallow, grind it down, littler and littler. Until it's everything and nothing at all to say. ]

I am very tired, Vorrutyer.

[ Not Byerly, lost that, she had no want to let him in any closer. Where he won't let go, she digs, elbows and knees and clawed words and clipped meanings to push him away. ]