forbarrayar | [ january i log: cetaganda ]

Entry tags:

[ january i log: cetaganda ]

Who: Everyone
What: Arrival on Barrayar and what follows
When: January 2nd - January 17th
Where: Cetagandan base
Warnings: None (at the moment)

welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to beyond the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling. A steep mountain range towers overhead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons, and the foothills behind you ascend quickly into rocky mountain faces. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.

And you're not alone. There are nine other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.

They're fitted with what look like futuristic tactical vests and armed with some kind of energy weapons that look deadlier than not. They surround you at gunpoint, dealing orders in intelligible English, but with some obscure, unplaceable accent, and their faces are colored with vivid paint. It quickly becomes apparent, however, that you are not the people they at first assumed -- something about Barrayarans, the barbarians in the mountains. The one who seems to be in charge steps away to murmur into what looks like a wristwatch-like communicator. After a minute or two of inaudible conversation, the officer steps back in. He orders his men to escort you all back to their base. As long as you cooperate, that's all that will happen.

the base
You are taken back to a military base of considerable scale and some serious fortification. There are two rounds of guard checks to go through, both taking what must be a lot longer than usual, and it's cold out. You are ushered past the guard checks into what looks like a barracks building, but relegated to a bunk on one end. They seem to have cleared the immediate area, with guards posted at the door, but there's audible activity beyond the short hallway in front of the door. They make it clear you are not under arrest, that you are merely being detained until they have ascertained the situation -- the word quarantine is used, but it doesn't seem to be of a medical sort. Either way, the only people who come to the bunk are those cleared by the guards, and they all seem much more interested than hostile.

They answer your questions with the very basic facts: the people who hold custody of you are the military service of the Cetagandan Empire, and the planet you are on is their Ninth Satrapy, and they're currently at odds with some of the native population. They won't say it outright, but it's clear they have no clue how you came to be here or why, but it's clearly of great interest to them. For the most part, the Cetagandan soldiers are civil, if at times distant and aloof, but if you look a little less -- or more -- than human, they'll eye you with visible curiosity, perhaps even some kind of appreciation.

At daylight, a few women in lab coats and the same face-paint as the soldiers come to the room to escort you across the base to the nearby medbay, two or three at a time. The medbay is an intimidatingly sterile and state-of-the-art facility, all gleaming chrome and polished glass and crisp holo displays. You are taken in one at a time for a physical examination -- they have to make sure you haven't brought any foreign contagions into their base, after all -- but the military physician isn't the only base personnel in the exam room. You hear the word exotic tossed around a few times until they realized they're talking about you. They call you the exotics.

the exotics room
For a military bunk, it's in surprisingly tasteful design. The room sleeps a dozen soldiers, so you even have a little bit of room to yourself, and while the furnishings are relatively spartan, they're hardly uncomfortable. If you're in need of clothing, the soldiers will bring you base fatigues – no rank insignia, of course, but the make of the textile is surprisingly fine.

You're served food at mealtimes, a combination of shelf-stable meal rations and what seems to be fresh food, all prepared with unusual artistry for a military base. There's a sophistication to the preparation that seems more like it belongs in a four-star restaurant than a military base. If you have any special medical needs, they'll do their best to attend to them -- and their medicine seems impressively advanced.

Soldiers and scientists alike come to the room every so often to ask you questions, more like interviews than interrogations, but behind the civility there's a burning intellectual curiosity. They seem intent on knowing as much as you'll tell them, and then some.

The nearest bathroom is at the end of the hall, and while they seem to have cleared the area of all other personnel, showers and baths are scheduled, and any trips to the restroom are chaperoned. The guards, while not hostile, are certainly not interested in letting you escape. You could try sneaking past them, but you probably won't get far.

Well, at least you've got each other for company: the exotics on the Ninth Satrapy.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ooc: will match format, tag me as you will and drop me a line or @ me in the discord group if got an idea that doesn't work for any of these, or something. o/ ]

ARRIVAL // EN ROUTE TO BASE

[ Wash is cooperating, for the most part.

Waking up face first in the snow wearing nothing but a body suit that's meant to go under much more protective armor isn't exactly the best morning he's ever had, but he's had worse, in some ways. The thermal layer is enough to keep him from freezing to death, but not enough to prevent a great deal of discomfort, and it had taken him far too long to struggle to his feet, to fight past the throbbing headache enough to try and take stock of his surroundings. There's just -- snow, mountains and foothills, none of it recognizable, a feeling deep in his stomach that leaves him sick and queasy and feeling like something's gone terribly, terribly wrong.

That was a while ago, now, and that feeling hasn't gone away. It takes effort to not sway a little with every step, and Wash finds his vision swimming in front of his eyes every now and then, just forces himself to ignore it and press on. When those soldiers had arrived, when they'd been given orders to escort them back to base, wherever that might be, Wash hadn't really felt like cooperating -- but they have weapons and he doesn't even have his fucking armor, can't even really remember what happened before he got here, and he's smart enough to know when he should pick a fight and when he should play along. There are others here, others being escorted along with him that had seemed just as confused and uneasy, and maybe they aren't any friends of his, either, but he'd rather be talking to one of them than one of their escorts.

He lags behind purposefully in their little escort group, or maybe he moves to the side, hangs out somewhere near the back -- either way he's found some way to move up next to you out of earshot from those soldiers, maybe while you're all still on the move or maybe after they've called for a stop for some reason or another. ]

Do you know what you're in for? [ It'd sound like a light-hearted quip and it kind of is, but there's something too dry about the way he says it, bitter and sharp. ]

BASE // MEDBAY

No -- No, don't. I'll just --

[ Fresh from a physical examination, Wash is still a little off-balance, not exactly recovered from whatever It was that brought him here ( or whatever it was they did to him to bring him here ). Some assistant is trying to help him out of the room, to offer him somewhere to rest before he's escorted somewhere to stay, and Wash is shaking his head, pushing them away, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. Those last words he snaps a little too sharply, the poor assistant backing away immediately into the examination room in response, and Wash has half a mind to maybe apologize or say something, but, never mind. He is fine. He's fine.

He just shakes his head, brings a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. According to the physician on staff, everything about his vitals looks normal, other than some obvious stress and tension, would you please relax, sir, but it's fucking hard to relax when there's bright lights and clean gleaming walls and people in lab coats tapping their pens on their clipboards, and.

Focus, Wash, Focus. Exotics. They'd called you an exotic. They're called Cetagandans, the Cetagandan Empire, and all the other words had been too alien for him to follow. He'd wracked his brain searching his memories of all the star map's he's studied but he's sure not heard of an empire. Wash tries to sit down, but he's too agitated, too nervous, something still twisting hard in his chest whenever someone in a lab coat walks past, and there's -- that facepaint. Strange. Foreign. Alien.

He's just leaning against a wall off to one side in the little waiting area by the medbay. He's not exactly unapproachable, he just seems -- more than a little stressed, right now, and he'll talk if you say something to him. ]

EXOTICS ROOM // WILDCARD

[ Feel free to run into him anywhere in the exotics room! You can probably find him staring and frowning at the fatigues he's been given by the Cetagandan soldiers, staring at the well-prepared food, or staring and not-quite-engaging with any of the Cetagandans that come by.

Basically he's going to do a lot of staring warily at things. ]

[ York and Wash are too far apart in the storm to notice one another. On opposite ends of the line as they're hustled to medical. But the exotics room is another story. York was cold in just his undersuit so he's already put on the Cetagandan fatigues, and is now looking around at the others; the pacing blue girl, the dragon moving furniture, and the hillbilly trying to break everything. He focuses on everyone in turn until he comes to Wash.

...there's no way.

Is there?

York squints his good eye, then opens it wide to stare. It is him. Older, more scarred, and with a wary expression that York's never seen on him before, but that's Wash. He feels a pang of guilt as he gets to his feet and works his way across the room -- he left. He left his friend behind in a horrible state. There's no making up for that, but... Wash is here.

Maybe he's not alone. If the other man can forgive him. ]

[ Wash is sitting on the edge of the bunk he'd been assigned, looking around warily at the people he's apparently sharing quarters with. Other exotics, if he's understood the situation properly, other people they'd just picked up in the snow with no real memory of where they came from. He should be talking to them, trying to find out more, but he's still a little on edge especially after that brief visit to the medbay, and he ends up just -- watching them, instead.

There's a girl who's entirely blue ( paint like these Cetagandan soldiers have on, maybe, but something tells him that's not the case ), people who are clearly soldiers, others who -- clearly aren't, and then there's someone looking his way, someone walking towards him.

Wash notices the scar, first, the blind eye, and then it actually still takes him a second or two to place that face, his heart seizing hard in his chest, lungs twisting into knots. It's been years. It's been years, and he hadn't had the time to bury him, hadn't had the time to do anything other than send the report to command, to take Delta and move on, and it's probably a good thing he isn't armed because the way his hand moves when he leaps up to his feet, he's very clearly reaching for one. He takes a step back when his hand finds nothing, only to find himself just bumping against the bunk, staring wide-eyed at York as if he's seen a ghost, and. Well. ]

This -- [ His eyes flick briefly to the door. There aren't any of those soldiers here, now, but if this is some kind of trick, some kind of a fucking joke, but there he is, standing in front of him in the flesh, looking completely real and very much alive. He shakes his head slightly, turns back to look at him. ] -- York?

[ York stops walking and raises his hands innocently when Wash startles backwards, only a few feet from his old friend. He takes in the differences, the scars and lines on Wash's face, the way he reached for a weapon when York approached. Not like the guy he knew, but it's been years and of course they've both changed. He's just glad to see his old friend alive and relatively well.

When Wash says his name he nods and drops his hands, a hint of a smile lighting his expression. ]

Hey Wash. It's been a long time.

[ He has a million questions he wants to ask but he'll give the other man time to adjust to his presence. Wash looks like he's seen a ghost but of course it's a shock, he thinks, considering their situation. What are the odds they'd both wind up here? ]

[ York is far too calm about this.

The last time he'd seen York he was face-down against the concrete with bullet wounds in his side, already dead for hours, and the last time he'd seen York before that was -- at Freelancer. At Freelancer, during the attack, when they'd locked him in because of his fucking condition and how unstable he was when the entire project itself was the problem, the entire thing was unstable, when Tex was tearing the place apart, and York, he remembers --

If this had been a few years ago, Wash probably wouldn't be handling this all that well, would've attacked him by now, would be letting all those whispers ( this is wrong wrong wrong are you slipping again, Wash, are you slipping ) get the better of him. He's different, better with those things now, and outwardly at least he stays calm enough, though obviously in some kind of shock, and something in that almost-smile makes him ache. Freelancer was too long ago. He and Carolina are the only ones left. ]

You look -- [ A pause. ] -- Better, than I remember.

[ It's meant to be friendly, meant to be a joke, meant to bring a smile -- but also the last time he saw you, you were fucking dead. ]

[ York doesn't get it, doesn't smile -- he's certainly worse off right now than he was the last time he hung out with Wash, before his failed implantation. But he answers in kind anyway. ]

So do you. Last I saw you was when you woke up from the surgery -- do you remember anything from then?

[ He'd been there, waiting for Wash to wake up, startled with all the others when he'd done so screaming and they'd been hustled out. And then. Well. A huge part of York wants to apologize right now, but Wash doesn't seem ready to hear it. So he waits, gestures to the bunk silently asking if Wash wants to sit down to talk. The other man looks a bit unsteady on his feet, which York understands. He does wonder why Wash hasn't put on the fatigues yet -- even inside it's cold and his own undersuit was sadly lacking for warmth. ]

What've you been doing all this time?

I remember everything.

[ Everything. Everything. Too much, too clearly, always, all the time, the surgeons standing over him with their assurances of everything will be fine before his world started to go black, their voices murmuring above him, the light, the flashes, the pain, memories that aren't his forcing their way into his mind and digging in until it hurts until it hurts and Allison, Allison, don't --

He shouldn't have said that. He knows better than that, now, but seeing an old friend back to the dead has a way of messing with you. What has he been doing all this time, so much, too much, he's fucked up in a hundred different ways, and part of him just wants to tell him and take comfort in the presence of an old friend, of someone he's missed dearly, but this can't be what it seems. Not to mention they're hardly somewhere private.

Wash doesn't particularly want to sit down to talk. Something isn't right. A lot of things aren't right, but. ]

What've you been doing all this time? [ Because apparently if you're here, you can't really have died. Did York manage to fake his own death, somehow, get Delta to go with the plan? But no, why would York ever have willingly left Delta behind, knowing the protocol at the time was for AI to be destroyed? ]

[ He remembers. And now part of York wants to ask for Wash's help, his advice, ask him what's going to happen to him without Delta and just how bad things are going to get. He's already seeing things, already has two people promising to watch out for him. Already feels like he's going to need that. But Wash is eyeing him warily, and with his echoing the question rather than answering... no. He doesn't ask, not yet. He needs to apologize. ]

Laying low, trying to keep tabs on everyone mostly. Just trying to survive and stay off the radar. [ That's what everyone he's heard about has been doing, except Maine. He takes a slow breath. ] I'm sorry I didn't come back for you. I had to run. I couldn't let anyone get D.

[ He rubs the back of his neck, fingers brushing over the base of the implant, and sighs. ] Guess that doesn't matter right now. Not here.

[ How much did York know? Wash never found out, never knew. Most of them were in the dark, clueless, but when the break-in happened Wash figured it had to do with some things getting out, with Tex figuring it out, at least, what had happened at Freelancer, the true nature of what she was. But did any of the rest of them find out? Did they figure it out? Did York? Did any of them know what the Alpha their AI kept asking after really was, did any of them know what really happened when they'd put Epsilon into him --

Breathe, Wash, breathe. He really doesn't want to talk about Delta or AI or anything Freelancer related within earshot of anyone else, realizes that just babbling about shit like that to people who have no business knowing it in a situation like this would be a hell lot more trouble than it's worth, but there's something that York says, something about the way he says it.

That doesn't matter now. Not here. They'd taken their armor, they could probably take their AI, but York couldn't fucking possibly have Delta with him because even if he'd faked his death even if he'd stayed alive, Wash had taken Delta from his fucking corpse. Couldn't let anyone get D. That doesn't -- ]

When was the last time you had him?

washington | red vs. blue | ota

exotics room, first day;

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wildcardish.

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MEDBAY

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