barrayarmods: (Default)
For Barrayar mods ([personal profile] barrayarmods) wrote in [community profile] forbarrayar2016-12-20 10:13 am

[ 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.
pigsfeet: (face pancake)

[personal profile] pigsfeet 2017-01-02 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
"Good," Daryl says, with a decisive conviction. He doesn't care if she meant it rhetorically; he's seen enough of suicide in his damn life. "You seen this shit before?"

This one is smarter than a rock, which is saying something considering they've been housed with a goddamn lizard. She might be worth talking to.
mirrortide: (011)

[personal profile] mirrortide 2017-01-02 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"No. I wasn't aware that humans even had this kind of tech. It's almost like Homeworlds." Not quite as advanced, but still impressive for a species that dies and would die in the vacuum of space. Maybe they stole some Homeworld tech or something. She doesn't know, she's not some kind of peridot.
pigsfeet: 1/2. grey. (high pitched whine)

[personal profile] pigsfeet 2017-01-02 08:27 pm (UTC)(link)
He looks the blue girl up and down in one long, judgmental sweep. "If you ain't human," he says, "what are you."

Besides, you know, blue.
mirrortide: (007)

[personal profile] mirrortide 2017-01-02 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)
"A Gem?" Wait. "Did you seriously think I was just some sort of blue human?" Seriously? She's. Blue. And fairly certain that humans don't come in that colour? She's never seen a blue one, anyway.
pigsfeet: (AT THE GUNSHOW)

[personal profile] pigsfeet 2017-01-02 09:08 pm (UTC)(link)
"I seen stranger shit than you," he says with more judgement than scorn. Blue is weird, but she's not a threat. She's not dangerous, not yet. "Ain't none of this normal."
mirrortide: (093)

[personal profile] mirrortide 2017-01-02 09:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"What, weirder than a blue human?" Lapis, naturally, has no idea. But still, she's a Gem, and that makes her absolutely not human in any way shape or form. As if the gemstone in her back didn't give that away. "Or do they have those and I've just never seen one?"

That one is an honest question.
pigsfeet: (talk shit get stitches)

[personal profile] pigsfeet 2017-01-02 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, weirder'n you." She's alive, isn't she? A living blue person is still more normal than a walking corpse. "You ain't special, just new."

He thinks for a moment. A gem, she said. "Any'a that gotta do with that rock on your back?"
mirrortide: (074)

[personal profile] mirrortide 2017-01-02 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah. That's me. Everything else is just a solid light projection." She's a rock. Sorry, Daryl. Maybe the living dead are a little more normal.
pigsfeet: (cool loner type)

[personal profile] pigsfeet 2017-01-02 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
The matter-of-fact way she says it makes Daryl think she's messing around, and he hasn't got time or interest in that. Instead, he stands and walks away from her and the abandoned plates of food. "Fine," he says, "whatever."