forbarrayar | [ june ii log: the underestimated power of the forces of the unseen ]

Entry tags:

[ june ii log: the underestimated power of the forces of the unseen ]

Who: Everyone
What: Let's go steal us a spaceship.
When: June 18th-30th
Where: the Barrayaran camp, the Cetagandan base
Warnings: TBD

Quick links:
Barrayar / Cetaganda / The Hijacking

TIMELINE
6/28 Hijacking of the Star Gate, Haut Sei's death

barrayar
Things are as tense as ever in the Barrayaran camp, but at least morale is on the rise -- in a way. While Piotr's decision to help the outsiders as part of his plan to strike back at the Cetagandans hasn't been the most popular, ever since Vorvolk's summary demotion and dismissal from Piotr's general staff, few are bold enough to put forth criticisms of the General Count, especially considering his plan now has Emperor Dorca's endorsement. House Vorkosigan has always been deeply loyal to the Emperor, and that loyalty is repaid in kind with confidence, though it isn't necessarily shared by the Emperor's son. Yuri still has his own objections, and he certainly has no love for the outsiders, but he recognizes Piotr's brilliance as a military strategist, and rather than continue to stir malcontent in Vorvolk's wake, he has decided to fall into line with his father in backing the plan.

It isn't just the Emperor's endorsement, either. In the wake of Vorkosigan Vashnoi and the despair its destruction had wrought, the soldiers crave some direction, something to rally behind -- anything to get back at the Cetagandans. And those soldiers who have known the outsiders since the start…well, many of them are just as sympathetic as Piotr, some of them even more so. Piotr makes a public speech in his camp on the matter to drive up morale, and points out to both his and Dorca's troops that they have an utterly unique opportunity: hit the Cetagandans in a way no one has done before, and nip in the bud what could be the biggest threat of the war to date. "We won't let there be another Vorkosigan Vashnoi," Piotr declares to his troops, impassioned. "Not as long as I walk this planet. The Cetagandans may have already left its scars on Barrayar, and the war may rage on still, but we can ensure their ambitions go no further than this world -- and if this does not bring us honor, what else will?"

The speech is to great effect, but to anyone paying close enough attention, it's clear that what's really keeping Piotr upright these days is Olivia. The destruction of his own district's capital dealt an especially hard blow, but he's not a man who can afford to buckle now.

Vorkosigan's District is wracked with a heat streak, the sun beating down on them from the cloudless sky. Rain is rare, and while it's cooler up in the mountains, it's still hot as hell. Make sure you're drinking enough water, maybe take a cold bath or a dip in the creek, and…don't stand too close downwind of the stables.

The Barrayaran camps have spent the last few weeks communicating with Micah and the outsiders on the other side, preparing for the hijacking of the Star Gate. They pull together a modest cache of weapons and do their best to ready themselves, but when the night of the 28th comes, all they can do is make do with what they have. Sonia, unbeknownst to Olivia, Piotr, or anyone else, disguises herself as a soldier and slips into the rank and file at the last minute. There's a small panic among the top brass when they discover the Princess missing, but after the fight, when the dust starts to settle, soldiers who were in the shipyard report having seen the Princess there -- and that not a single one of them was able to stop her from getting aboard the Star Gate ship.

cetaganda
The atmosphere around the Cetagandan base is increasingly conflicted. Sei carries out her gene therapy experiments as always, and in Diya's stead she runs the genetics research project with ruthless efficiency and, apparently, increasing pressure. Amai is perpetually uneasy ever since she was drafted (blackmailed) into working against Sei, and there are murmurs that Sei is frustrated over some of her coms not going through properly.

Zahal is catching some serious flak from central command for resorting so quickly to nuclear measures on Vorkosigan Vashnoi; it was clearly not an order he received or even requested, and his superiors aren't happy with that. Coupled with Diya's recent passing, he's not so much his usual composed self these days. And with no clear direction after Vorkosigan Vashnoi, the soldiers are getting restless and antsy.

By the 25th, construction on the Star Gate is complete, and Micah is working with the exotics to execute their plan, loosely codenamed the midnight shift, in conjunction with the Barrayarans. They've been providing directions about how to proceed with regards to sabotage and preparing for the hijacking on the 28th. In their off hours in the lab, they've been constructing dozens of small, short-radius EMP charges to be planted in the other ship sin the shipyard.

Sei is murdered by Jasper on the evening of the 28th, before the hijacking begins. Lapis did tell Amai that they'd take care of things with Sei, after all. But because things go to hell so quickly that by the time they have a chance to process the site of Sei's death, the responsible parties are already long gone. Amai also seems to have gone missing, except she isn't really missing -- having been blackmailed into helping with the hijacking, she had no choice but to go with them. Her career might has well have a DNR order on it at this point.

In the aftermath of the hijacking, the base is in a logistical shambles, despite them having taking comparatively much fewer casualties than the Barrayarans. However, beyond the initial emergency response, Zahal's response has been disorganized, enough that they don't manage to immediately get any ships off the ground to pursue the hijackers.

the hijacking
The unabridged mission results are located here.

The Barrayarans don’t descend from the mountains until after dark, their faces smeared with mud to keep the light from reflecting off their skin. Ezar and Piotr lead the infiltration force, while Yuri and Dorca lead the assault on the shipyard perimeter. Casualties in a mission like this are inevitable -- it's just a matter of how many.

While Byerly and Lakshmi are infiltrating along with the rest of the security task force, another force is taking out the shipyard perimeter security. An initial wave of soldiers takes out the perimeter guard, while a second wave fans out through the shipyard to dismantle internal security, including any inner guards. Sonia sneaks herself in on the mission, disguising herself as a soldier in uniform and sticking with the second wave. They're able to secure the shipyard more or less successfully, but it's at the cost of quite a few bodies, and their hold is shaky at best, especially with alarms being triggered after the security task force fails to disable internal security.

Meanwhile, Micah and Kaidan are working on the anti-aircraft protocols, Julian and Pearl are destroying the gene samples, Nash and Symmetra are destroying the research, and Tarn and Lapis are trying to create a diversion. Unfortunately, it doesn't entirely succeed, and with the alarms going off, it makes everyone's job harder. Sisko and Deanna move in with the second wave into the perimeter so they can get started on re-engaging the flight mechanics.

It doesn't take long for things to get bad, and the ghem soldiers begin to close in on the shipyard. There are Barrayaran assault teams both inside the base and in the shipyard, among which are Wash, Miles, Vex and Tucker. The Barrayarans are fighting fiercely, but they're still vastly outnumbered, and they push the perimeter into the shipyard, forcing the rear guard further back. Timing for the Star Gate's departure is starting to run out. Thankfully, though, despite the delays, everyone manages to get to the Star Ship just in time for takeoff -- except for Vex and Tarn.

Micah detonates the EMP charges in the Cetagandan ships as they take off, but they've only planted 23 devices. Luckily, the Barrayarans took initiative and brought along some bombs to plant in the shipyard, like they do. The Barrayarans provide cover fire until the the Star Gate ship clears, and once it does they begin to fall back, taking even more casualties as they pull out. The bombs that go off shortly after their retreat take out another 22 ships, leaving the Cetagandans with only 5 immediately available -- but plenty enough to go after the Star Gate ship.

The Barrayarans retreat back to the mountains, many of them wounded, and at least a hundred of their small army died in the attack on the base, including both Lakshmi and Tucker. The Cetagandans' attention is sufficiently occupied right now, which is good, because now more than ever the Barrayarans need a chance to recoup.

The Star Gate ship breaks orbit, but it's only a matter of time before they'll be pursued. In addition to Micah, both Sonia and Amai are aboard the ship when it lifts off, and later Negri is discovered to have somehow stowed aboard while no one was looking.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. You were burned ( OUTSIDER'S TENT )

[ The morning of - she isn't any different to any other day. Isn't out of turn to anything else, and if she has any idea that anything that might be coming for her, she takes in only as she always does. The Blackwater didn't grant immortality, only eternal life. Death held her just the same as it did any other. I need you to continue the cause should something happen to me. How Devi denied it, but she knew it to be true.

After all, she had died once already. If there is any truth to her own legends, she suspects it's only in that she has ever been too stubborn to know when to stop.

But that morning, she does stop, in the fire in the middle of the tent that has kept them warm all winter. To die in battle, she was told, once and much smaller, ensures that the life will pass on, but that she should go to it in fullness of herself and her cause. So she does that, dressing purposefully. So close together in this tent, now, she doesn't bother who watches her and who doesn't, no more than cares what others do. Her leg braces, arm braces, the scarf she ties to her middle, the belt that covers. Last is her hair, brush out, the gold settled into it, and - there, now, from the beginning to the end.

All days like they are the first, all days like they are the last. They are, after all, just one life.

The mark on her forehead tattooed in, that dark stain from a lifetime ago, but now she picks up the knife from where she left it at her side, picks it up, and dances the tip of the bare blade against the pad of her littlest finger. The prayers come then, by the fireside, burned out - but embers hot still, and they fuel the sound of the words in her mouth - to Durga, to Lakshmi, to Ganesha and Krishna in syllabic chant.

( Did Satya say them, still? )

Twist of red in all that black. Watching it's brightness reflected in the flat shined silver of steel. Promises the blade it's purpose made whole in her hands and presses it hard into her skin.

Blood wells, bright and red and holy from underneath it, and she lets it blot there like ink for a moment more. ]

II. you were about to burn ( FIRE FIGHT )

[ She had spoken truth - when she had told Nash that she found herself at utter purpose in the midst of a fight. C True as it had been when she was eighteen, blood stained and voice stolen in the effort of screaming over guns - so too it is now, years past the time she should have died in a kind of fight that was far different. Some things, at least, never changed.

Sword in one hand and once they're caught, the Cetagandans on them, she takes a certain kind of satisfaction - a quiet that comes from nothing else as she pivots on her heel to slash the man lining up his sights on her from one side of the neck to the other. Pitiable fool, he didn't know how to protect his weak spots even with armour. The next thing she does is yank the Plasma Arc weapon - whatever they were called and hardly did she know otherwise, except what she was told. That it wouldn't be any good in camp - but they weren't in camp, they were here, in Cetaganda's base, so what were they even going to track?

But no good in her hands. Instead, she throws it to the person nearest to her who she hopes has a better damn idea about how to use it than she does. ]

Cover me!

[ It's shouted, and think quick, she isn't slowing down even slightly. Trust is earned only one way in battlefields after all. But her plan is simple. Ahead is a group of guards that are taking cover behind barrels. She wants them distracted from the front as long as possible. ]

III. you’re still on fire ( DEATH )

[ It isn't very strange to taste blood in her mouth, anymore. After all, what was the blackwater but made of that same thing. Thick as it was dark, life-giving even as it took its price. No, nothing to notice, when she feels it bubbles in her mouth, her nose, trickling and choking life a footnote to some greater cause. A first and last thing to notice and her only thought of it is familarity of beginnings that follow endings. The greenest fields were the ones washed this way. Come, Kali, make life again.

Which is, she doesn't feel the hit, the plasma fire that scorches nearby, but not her exactly. She has said it, thought it often enough. What is dying to her but something she must do over and over again. She doesn't feel it anymore or any less than any of the other deaths that came before it. It doesn't have to be special, fool's thought death would be special. Enough heat, enough fire, a throwback from the explosion it causes that sends her reeling. All things are paid - blood for blood - and was this not what it took to kill Sir Perceval. Was it not the same for Sir Bors, gone in the canons of the British on the walls of Jhansi.

Fitting then, like a closing page on a very long book. All ripped air and shards of metal. Fire that scorches her, the explosion that is loud and makes the air so quiet afterwards that as she stumbles, reeling, onto her knees and the sword she now used to dig into the ground, to hold her up now. A sitting target, when the nerve disruptor hits right shoulder, the feeling going from it immediately, but her hold so tight that the nerves clutch to the weapon even as she sways. Ah, is the mild thought, that's why her hip feels strange. What an odd weapon. Would it work on a Lycan? She should take one with her. Give it to Tesla - he will look so pleased, with a new toy, and Devi would tell her she was bleeding too - of course she is - that piece of metal in her leg wasn't so polished grey anymore, it ran rivlets. But it was set in very deeply and she would - need to pull that out, wouldn't she?

She needs as one half-formed thought follows, half there, half gone already, she curls her still usable hand around that metal, stuck out of her abdomen - how polite, that had already made sure she couldn't feel much as she did it - and takes hold of the metal that adorns her now better than diamonds ever did. It was important, she must not get scars, Manu, it is not fitting for a Queen to be scarred. Hush, Kashi, she tells that minds eye, or maybe says outloud, hush Kashi, it is more unfitting to be Queen rendered like this, and with a growled hiss of pain and last remaining effort, she pulls it out of her own flesh.

Then she topples, bleeding out, knees, to hand. Dimmed like forging coals, she hits the ground. ]

You can sleep now, you said. ( REUNION )

[ She only really has one other purpose here, - the one she has asked Piotr for when he had first been captured and pursues now. Kicking down every door in the path that she remembers towards the cells that she had escaped from, as weak as she had been, half hanging onto life it is still remembered. Now - now making her way through it, she takes that - that life - like it was her right. So that by the time she does find him, she blood splattered, a sword in each hand, and breathing ragged, wretched and bright. Hair half unravelled, she doesn't think she can feel the skin on the outside of her leg. Someone in short range had clipped her jaw and slashed the upside of her chin.

But nor did she even have words for what she sets her eyes on him - alive and whole. Better than her fireside imaginings where she had seen him clear as glass, dull-eyed and all that brightness snatched from her.

They don't have much time, but it settles an impossible lump in her throat. For now, it's quiet - only because she's made it quiet, and enough people are distracted in the chaos of alarms blaring and the Barrayarans making their presence known otherwise. But it's all she can do right then to swallow down, trying to form the sound of his names as more than a croak out of the smoke in her mouth. ]

[ He hasn't been placed back in his cell, mercifully, but when the chaos started he'd certainly been secured. She'll have to take out a few guards to get at him, but surely that's nothing to her. It's hardly a blip on the radar for Miles. Oh god, he thought he'd never see her again. He'd hoped that maybe - maybe with everything going on she'd be here - but hadn't dared to really believe it.

But here she is. Bloodied but real in front of him. It's all he can do not to hurl himself bodily into her arms. Instead, he settles for rushing to throw his arms around her, reaching his hands up along her spine. ]

-- Lakshmi! Lakshmi, you're here!

[ Please lean down a little more so he can kiss her. ]

[ It takes her a second, where heart catches up with head and they both process the act of her hands that move before either of them are finished talking to each other. The swords clatter out of her hands, and those blood stained, unforgiving hands take the only selfish bit of softness she has as her own to do just that.

Grips him hard, kissing all that smoke out of her lungs. Scraping her mouth over his. Demanding as she walks him back, straight into the wall behind him where she can lean heavily in her exhaustion. The only effort she has left pouring out in the act of scraping her teeth over his lip, the wretched heave of his name back into his mouth.

He's alive, he's alive, he's alive. ]

[ Glad to be alive, and desperately glad to be kissing her. He's all but ferocious in turn, letting out a soft groan as her teeth scrape his lip. Meeting her tongue with his, letting his hands reach up to cup the sides of her face, to hold her as close as he possibly can. God how he'd missed her. How he'd regretted not having the chance to take time alone with her and do all they could. And now ... well, there's still no time, but this is good enough. He can live and breathe her for just one perfect moment. ]

[ Her fingers sink into his shoulders, wrapped around his upper arms. Terrified, terrified of what she'd find when she found him but - here is proof, the only comfort she knows how to take. Breathed as deeply as she can.

When she pulls back, it's not to go far, her forehead settling to his, her eyes shut so tightly. Some careful illusion. She so often counts death in every breath, so often readies for her own - but she can so barely handle another's fate. ]

You fool, you wretched fool. [ It's croaked, where she does not say soft things, no - My heart, must you cut yourself out of me like that? no, I love you so. But in such pained words, it's there. ]

[ It's the most beautiful rendition of I love you he could hope for, really. With a laugh that's nearly a sob, he flings both arms around her. Pressing his forehead to hers as she does to his. Warm and real. ]

I told you. You still have your sword, my lady. Even if your sword did a foolish thing.

[ He's still here, he lived, they're together now. That's all that matters. ]

[ She holds fast to him, a returned embarrassed as she turns her face into his temple, odd as the angels are, it never mattered - not to her, and not so much as she needed this moment. For it all to be worth it. ]

That I do. These hands have had nothing else to hold to, and they ache for their sword.

[ Someone else must forgive her for saying it so desperately into his skin because she cannot care right now. ]

[ He'll forgive her. Hell, he's feeling much the same way. He gladly leans into her touch, her embrace. Fingers lingering on her back. ]

Then I am yours once more.

[ She could keep him here just for that, but even so she pulls herself up that little, her back straightening. ]

But I cannot keep you. I took whatever distraction I could. But it will not hold for long.

You can still hold me as we run. All the better to keep me from lagging behind.

[ He reaches to take her hand if she lets him, squeezing hard. ]

[ And lets him take it she does - more to that than anything else. She lets no take anything from her - but here, now, blood etched and living on the edge of something - it's the only way she could want him to.

Her fingers thread back, gripping as hard as she could in return. ]

I will need your other to be free. Do you know how to use one of those?

[ She gestures to the dead guards, but especially their weapons. Far beyond her but - well, spot on, from what she understood, for him. ]

[ Miles lights up instantly; he gladly leans down to retrieve one. ]

Of course. Quite simple, really - I'll be happy to cover us.

[ She takes up her swords just the same, and no - she has no want to let go of him. Not after having him back so soon, but all the same, if he's going to cover her - she would need to take it in her stride.

But for now, she doesn't. A blade in one hand, his in the other. ]

We should have a few more minutes to circle back around to the rest of the soldiers. I came in through the shipyards with Byerly, the Count's troops should be coming up that way soon.

[ Miles, meanwhile, carefully warms up the disruptor in his hand. Between the two of them, they ought to be plenty deadly.

His breath catches a moment at the news. ]

Piotr is coming?

[ For that she smiles, her head jerking to indicate out the door and far, far beyond that, a battle that has begun to rage. ]

Oh, yes.

[ but then - did he know - ? This wasn't just a rescue attempt. ]

They all are, Piotr, Emperor Dorca and Crown Prince Yuri. It's time Miles. I need to know, are you staying or not?

[ Well - of course, duh. He knew about the Star Gate plans. But still. Knowing that his grandfather is out there, fighting for the outsiders ... ]

I - I've decided to go home.

[ Is this him breaking his oath to Piotr? No - it's a fulfillment, dammit, though Piotr may not see it that way. Ah, well. ]

lakshmi bai | ota | cw: death

CLOSED TO MILES

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DEATH

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