vorkosigan au :')

[rathercommon]

This isn't a world that really matters to anyone. It's not on any important trade routes; it's not wealthy, doesn't have any real technology of value. The terraforming took hold well, so it's prosperous enough, but not so much to make it outright wealthy. There haven't been any real great thinkers from the world. There's not much culture of note there. If there were something that distinguished New London, anything at all, anything of real worth, then maybe people would care about what happened there. But there's nothing to take note of, and so no one interferes.

Which is a bad thing indeed. Because affairs on New London are...awful, honestly. Not so awful as to really arouse the fury of some of the more enlightened planets, because again, there's nothing really sufficient to distinguish this planet, but...The planet is ruled by a circle of quasi-religious oligarchs, a group of a few hundred wealthy men and women who use technology to make themselves appear to be magicians. They're able to conjure flames, make predictions about the weather and natural disasters, communicate over long distances, heal injuries that regular folk medicine can't; they use these remarkable deeds, and strictly control travel on- and off-world, and strictly control education, to make the people believe that they're nearly gods. It's almost laughable - indeed, on other planets, New London is sort of a joke, that planet where the people in charge have managed to convince people that they're magical. But the lines of control are cruel and efficient: the people are too afraid to rise up against people with such remarkable abilities, and so they work to prop up the horrid regime. They live lives of terror and squalor, while the so-called magicians live in luxury off their labor.

But those are secrets that can't stay secrets forever. The magicians are good at concealing the source of their power, to be certain. But there are people who are resisting magician rule, and they're making some small amount of headway. One rebel group, calling itself the Resistance, in one raid on a magician office, managed to acquire some communications equipment. One of the few survivors of the raid, Kitty Jones, actually managed to make contact with someone offworld - someone who knew what was happening on New London, how the so-called magicians held onto their power. And once she heard it all, Kitty - furious - began planning how to turn this opportunity into an outright coup.

An outside force is what's needed. She figured that out early on. And so, she rooted and researched and planned, and talked with offworlders more and more to try to determine who was best to contact. In the end, she hunted down a name: the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, a group of mercenaries with reasonable rates led by a man named Admiral Naismith who, someone had said, seemed to have some fondness for just causes. And finally, after some time, she contacted them, and she asked to meet.

Comments

[naismith]

The interrogation is, as he'd expected, illuminating.

They know who he is-- well, they know who Naismith is, which is well enough-- although they hadn't at first, he thinks. Miles suspects they make a habit of jumping whatever poor sods land just as a matter of policy, but he also suspects there's not too many that do it. He's likely among the first. (He does enjoy being unprecedented, he thinks irreverently as he gets a smack across the jaw for his trouble and he spits out blood, thankful his jaw hadn't cracked. What a bastard that injury would be.) While they'd let him cool his heels, they'd searched the net for information, and eventually, two and two had equaled four.

It left them afraid. Or at least they should be afraid, by his calculations, given the sort of martial force that the Dendarii could bring to bear against theirs, rather more primitive and weaponry limited to only what they'd had to bargain for. Which would all be hard bargains; galactics aren't much interested in the kind of wares they'd have to trade. Miles rather thinks his calculations are correct, too, by the way they aim their brutality. Threatens and violence, for sure, but he's careful not to call their bluffs on threats of death -- despots are always too eager to foolishly, erroneously kill their enemies even when leaving them alive is the better recourse.

Instead, he weaves all kinds of sweet, desperate promises about what the Dendarii could trade to have him back. He's their admiral, no, really, he assures them, they'll give whatever he says over comms, all manner of weaponry, and they're used to organizing hostage exchanges, we can all get what we want. Miles isn't faking the desperation, though he is faking the intent. There's not going to be a hostage trade; if they let him on the comms with Elli, all she'll get is the code words for retrieval and resistance manageable. When they throw him back in his cell, his arm is broken-- his ulna, he thinks, damn, because it's the left again, for maybe the fourth time in his life, he's not certain. That bone hasn't been replaced yet and it's certainly a familiar feeling. His breath comes raggedly and he pushes his way up the wall to his feet with his right hand, relieved to have it to shoot with, should the need arise.

Miles coughs, more of a hack than anything, and wipes the blood on his chin away. He's pathetically grateful to sit himself on the cot and rest his head against the smooth stone wall, looking up at the grate.

"I'm back," he sings out, audibly tired but determination threaded through there, strong, fierce. He has a real plan now. "Did you think of what you wanted from me, Lizzie girl?"

[rathercommon]

Kitty's heart ought to be hard to the man's suffering. Her cause is so much greater than any single life, after all, isn't it? It's about the freedom of an entire people. And Ivan does this for money, so it's not like he's taking on this risk unaware - he's being paid to be in danger. And yet the longer he's out, the more dread grows in the pit of her stomach. What if that cheerful, mad off-worlder doesn't make it through? What if whatever minister is running his torture gets reckless, decides he's too much of a threat, cuts his throat after all...She finds, as she sits and crafts her tiny weapon, that she worries for him. And she finds it's not just because the loss of him will hamstring their cause...She cares, she finds, because she desperately wants to hear more of his energy, his vitality.

When she hears the door open again, she jumps to her feet, then climbs up on her bed to listen through the vent. He coughs. He's alive. Her heart leaps. He's alive and still together, still articulate...Asking about that mad nonsense once again. She can't help it. She grins, fingers threaded through the grate.

"For you to be all right." That answer is one third manipulative - show him fondness, and he'll get fond of you, give him a connection to this movement - one third to maintain her cover - Lizzie-girl is a soft-hearted thing, after all - and one third honest. Because she can hear that he's in pain, and there's that pulse of sympathy, of loyalty. She wants him to be well.

But also - "And I want out of here." An answer from Lizzie, scared little girl, who doesn't know why she was arrested. An answer, too, from Kitty, though - and one that is for Kitty, not for her movement. It's selfish, to ask off-world. Off this planet. Out of here, truly, properly. But on the other side of this wall is a man who has all the stars spread out before him. If she can just see to her world, make everything all right, and then get out of here, get out there...She can be selfish for her birthday, can't she?

"But Ivan - " She climbs down off her bed and stows that little blade in her shoe. A little weapon, but enough to slice open a throat if need be. And if he's back, then they'll be coming for her soon. "What about you? Are you hurt? You poor man - You oughtn't be suffering this. What do you want? There must be something you want."

[naismith]

Miles had been impressed with her resourcefulness before, how quick on the uptake she was, but Miles can't truly like someone who isn't compassionate and hearing evidence of it now makes him smile. It's a weary, strained thing, but true.

"I haven't broken anything I haven't broken before," he tells her honestly, head lolling back against the stone. He winces as he jostles his arm and then settles it carefully on one upraised knee so it won't be knocked again. Miles casts for a way to reassure her that they are getting out of here without alerting their observers, but they hadn't met before and have no code words like he has with Elli. He's left instead thinking of his time on Dagoola IV, preaching a message no one understood enough to believe.

"Your sympathy is appreciated, though, believe you me. As for what I want, I believe our deal was a trade, wasn't it? Why don't you tell me about your life?" The life of an average resident of New London. "Like I said, out in the galaxy, news of what's going on here isn't being screamed from the mountain tops."

[rathercommon]

Right - here's her opportunity. To really make an advocate for herself and for New London. To give him something really wretched to take back to his commanding officers, so that they'll be sympathetic to this cause. So that after she's dead and gone, they'll keep on fighting for her people and her world. And yet...Yet even just thinking that causes in her a little twist of guilt. Ivan's already broken bones for her cause. For her carelessness, really - because she ought to have found a better place for him to touch down, oughtn't she? One where the government forces wouldn't have swarmed them. And as much as she wants to have that hard heart, as much as she wants to view him and his mercenaries as a tool to bring about the freedom of her world...

What do you want for your birthday. This madman. This insane chatterbox. This funny, wry, brave man. A mercenary is definitely not supposed to act this way.

"There's not so much to tell," she starts, her hesitation not completely feigned. "I was born in the city of New London - that's the capital of our world; you can guess from the name. My mum was a washer-woman, and my dad was a shopkeeper." And they both turned out to be cowards more than happy to throw their daughter to the wolves. That was something that had left her devastated at the time, but she's gotten well over it now. She's gotten...somewhat over it. "I went to school till I was fifteen - that's as long as you're allowed to stay in school - " How educated is this off-worlder? He's clever, that much is clear. She supposes Beta Colony wouldn't let its children stay ignorant. She supposes illiteracy must be nonexistent there. "And then I went to work as a barmaid. I was lucky to get that job, actually. People who are unemployed...We've not got good terraforming here, see, so the southern continent's still overrun by things terribly deadly to humans. People who can't find work, the only work for them is going to clear the south, and they die out there, lots of them."

Faintly, she hears footsteps. How many sets? How many people? And are they coming for Ivan again? To break more bones? A fierce protectiveness bubbles up in her, and her fingers go for the little weapon in her shoe. She's gotten this far by being smart rather than reckless; she ought to stay smart...

"The rest of us work in factories. Those are our options unless we're really lucky. Factories or front lines. You at least can expect to live a little longer in the factories - but not by much. They're dark, and in the dark it's hard to see what you're doing, so people get chewed up, quite literally. And it's not because we haven't got the technology to light them - oh, no. The homes of our betters are filled with technological marvels. They just don't care."

Two sets of feet. Four had come for Ivan - justified caution for an unpredictable off-worlder. Two guards probably means they're coming for her. And only two...The voices outside her door are low. Someone's going for the lock. And so Kitty says up to the grate, fiercely -

"We deserve better. We deserve to be free."

Which are perfectly acceptable last words, if last words they prove to be. The lock clicks, the door opens, and immediately she's on them. Two, just like she thought. And she sold her role well enough, it seems, or maybe these two are just awful at their jobs; they seem totally unprepared for her. Her razor catches one across the throat, and he falls. It's less coordination or skill than sheer luck that Kitty manages to grab his gun as he slumps to the ground, and it's completely luck that her first shot catches the second guard; he goes down, too, though he goes down still breathing. Just a stun, then.

When she uses their key to open the door to Ivan's cell, she's probably frightful-looking. Gun in one hand red with blood, shirt marked with the same, hair mussed, eyes ferocious. There's just a single moment where her expression falters when she takes in just how small he is - well, there go any notions of the fierce mercenary battling through hordes of enemies one-handed - but then it firms up again.

"Let's find a way out, yeah? Can you still shoot in your state?"

[naismith]

Miles listens with full attentiveness. He wonders how true this story is, but it has a ring to it that he recognizes as suppressed emotion, much like his own when recounting his history. (The boot knife is from my grandfather, yes... I'm very attached to it...) She'd had an inconspicuous, downright ignoble birth, and education stopping at fifteen-- any Betan, his mother included, would be aghast.

Her description of the conditions, factory or clearing out partially terraformed land, work at horrifying him. Miles's morals are thoroughly piqued. Already he's justifying to himself that if he's instrumental in establishing a new government, he can ensure that they're positively disposed toward Barrayar; in that way, he can weasel the money out of Illyan needed to pay the Dendarii for their trouble. That'll be enough, won't it? Does he really have to check in for orders first?

He imagines reporting home and saying to Illyan's face that he'd deposed an entire planetary government while he was gone but they really like Barrayar now, sir, can I please have three million creds for back pay, and winces. Alright, alright, he'll have to get orders. In the meantime, he listens, and plans.

Deserve to be free, indeed.

Miles startles at the sound of boots, at the door wrenching open, and has to bite his good fist to muffle the cries of protest or encouragement he wants to voice. When he hears the ensuing commotion, there's no doubt in his mind what's happened. He's intimately familiar with the noises made by a hasty escape.

Kitty pushes his door open forcefully and Miles stares wide-eyed at her. What's running through his head isn't that the blood mars her, hair askew, weapon in hand like some wild woman. No, he thinks, beautiful, and blurts out, "Can I take you back with me?" Embarrassment rushes through him a beat after and he hurriedly follows it up with, "To the ship. Back to the ship. It's not safe here."

Miles jumps to his feet despite his injuries and is suddenly grinning at her, wide and unrestrained. "I can still shoot; my right arm's fine. Although I confess I am not as fearsome an opponent as you." There's nothing but graciousness in his voice, and though his left arm is tucked close to his body, he strides toward her and says, "I'm Miles, by the way. They know who I am so I might as well tell you-- Miles Naismith. I admire your initiative."

[rathercommon]

For some reason, can I take you back with me sounds almost more like a boy asking for a puppy than a mercenary captain inviting an allied combatant to sanctuary aboard his fleet. Mercenary admiral, she corrects herself, because she certainly knows the name Miles Naismith - and, indeed, her eyes widen just a little bit when he identifies himself. It hadn't just been any officer they'd sent to liaise with her; it had been the very commander of the Dendarii. Sent to negotiate. Sent to listen to her cause, and there's a flush of triumphant pleasure that comes into her cheeks. They'd thought her worthy of meeting with their highest officer -

Later, Kitty. Later. Feel smug and superior later. Right now you've got to just survive.

"You bloody well better take me back with you," she answers, her grin somewhere between fierce, giddy, and hysterical. "I'm fairly sure I've been promised a birthday gift of getting out out here, haven't I, and I'll be awfully disappointed in you if you fail to deliver." Does she shake hands? God, no, her right hand's all bloody with that guard out there - and there's no time for that besides. "Kitty. Since they're probably going to be able to guess who I am. A pleasure, Admiral Naismith."

She doesn't wait for him to lead: she goes out into the hall and collects the gun from the stunned guard. It looks different from the one she's holding - sleeker, a little crueller. She hands it to Naismith, hoping he knows what it is and how to use it.

"If we manage to get in contact with your mercenaries, how long will it take for them to get here?"

[naismith]

It might sound like a boy asking for a puppy because that's essentially what it is. Miles can't help collecting beautiful, frightfully competent women the way some people collect coins. He values each of them deeply, of course, and on their own merits, but when he sees one, he wants it for his own. Miles at least tries to leave them better off for the association.

As for why he'd come himself, well... he'd hardly pass up something this interesting. That's the real benefit of being in charge, he often thinks gleefully to himself-- he can take the interesting assignments and delegate all the rest, and no one can say otherwise.

"Oh, that's not your birthday gift," he assures her happily, all bounce and verve now that they're getting out and he has such an attractive, er, capable accomplice. He barely notices the lingering pain and how he has to clutch his arm in close to his torso. "This is just part and parcel of the service, milady. As for how long it'll take... I suspect contact won't be necessary."

Miles follows her with alert eyes, looking out around corners before leaving cover, just as a well trained mercenary ought to.

"My troops take a dim view to holding me hostage. SOP is to send an extraction if it seems safely possible, and against these locals, well. You don't expect galactics to give them the best stuff, do you?" he asks wryly. "We're likely best off not going too far, or we'll make it difficult for my team to find us."

[rathercommon]

For just a moment, there's a slight darkening of her expression. A momentary cloud passes over her face. But there's no real time for feeling grim, is there? They've got difficulty and danger ahead of them, and nothing distracts you like feeling sorry for yourself. So, half for Naismith and half for herself, she explains away her dark mood: "I don't know whether to be relieved or furious that it was subpar equipment that kept us docile for generations."

Okay. Brooding enough; that's all she's got time for. At once, she turns her attention to the gun in her hand. "Right," she says, her voice firm - or, less charitably, bossy. "We've got to keep you alive, first and foremost. I expect that suits your goals no less than it suits mine. So if there's danger, I take the brunt of it. You let me defend you. Agreed?" She takes a look down at the gun in her hand, frowning as she tries to puzzle it out. There's not much time for that, though; she already hears bootsteps from a hallway down.

"Behind me," she tells him - only then stopping to consider that perhaps a mercenary captain is more accustomed to issuing orders than he is to taking them.

[naismith]

Much like they'd have had no motivation to sell them long range detection or communication equipment, they'd have no motivation to give them the best weapons or defenses, either. The entire relationship would be based off of taking advantage; no one but the shadiest of dealers would sell to a planetary government for the explicit purpose of subjugating their population, and those same amoral businessmen would have no qualms at all making sure that government stayed well in need and to heel. Jacksonians were ruthless that way.

"You're not the first planet to be kept in line by what the rest of the galaxy considers substandard tactics," he shoots back grimly, thinking of how it had been nothing more than bull-headed stubborn guerilla efforts that had kept Cetaganda out of Barrayar at the last.

Miles is then glancing at her in amusement over her prompt assertion of control over the situation. He's feeling charitable toward her, which is why being treated like dead weight doesn't grate on him; though he's not about to listen to it, either. "Don't count me out just yet. I've come back from worse situations, and of the two of us I unquestionably have more experience. Let's just face this together, what do you say?"

He's creeping his way down the hall, peering into doorways as he goes-- his own bit of presumption that she'll follow and help cover. "If we can find where they've dumped my stuff and retrieve my coms link, I can signal backup straight to our location, but I suspect we'll run into it eventually anyway."

In fact, he thinks he hears the muted thuds of a firefight dropping bodies some far distance down the corridor and around a turn...

[rathercommon]

She glances at him curiously. There's a story behind that grim aside, and one she decides firmly that she's going to get out of him. Personal experience? Some bit of history of the Beta Colony? (She half hopes it's the former and not the latter, because if the latter is the case, she'll be able to get it just by searching those open networks - and she rather wants an excuse to get it out of him by herself. Which...Some gratitude poor Admiral Naismith has to suffer for his help: he gets Kitty's curiosity. That's a heavy weight. Especially given all the mysteries wrapped up in that little frame of his. How does a small, frail creature like him come to lead a force like this? Especially at his age? Because it's quite visible that he's not so many years older than her - less than a decade for sure, probably much less. And perhaps more to the point, who put a madman in charge? And what has transpired to give this weak little madman such a strong sense of justice?

(Or did you just answer that last question by thinking about his personal qualities?)

Regardless - that curious glance is transformed to into a frown as he goes and fails to get behind her. Honestly - how frustrating. He needs to live; she only wants to. And to have the sheer gall to look at her with an indulgent little smile - honestly, she could pick him up and place him behind her. She ought to -

Especially when there's the noise of a scuffle drawing closer. Kitty hastens her steps to step in beside Naismith, and they turn the corner - and there, half down the corridor, is a demon. A demon in truth. Eight feet tall, fangs, armed, armored - she swallows the scream that tries to loose itself from her throat, and the noise dies as a squeak. How can she fight it - how - oh, she needs to protect the Admiral, with her very life, but how can she even stand against such a creature...

"Back," she gasps - "Get back, Admiral, run - "

[naismith]

There's not too many things that could get Miles to squawk indignantly these days, in his lofty position and advancing age. (Yeah, right.) One of them is certainly being manhandled in a demeaning way by an attractive woman. So it's just as well that Kitty's distracted from it, and Miles, too, because the second he sees Taura he lights up like Yule decorations.

Taura's neatly knocking out the last of three guards attempting to assault her, slamming their helmet against the corridor wall. This is a harder trick than it looks, Miles knows, doing it without permanent brain injury or death. If they're going to die, you may as well take the finesse out of it and kill them the easy way. But where Kitty sees a terrible demon-- as Miles himself had at first-- Miles now sees a beautiful, graceful, capable soldier, a woman. One who he doesn't mind being manhandled by.

"Sergeant," he calls out jauntily down the hall. "I was starting to think you'd stood me up." Miles shoulders his way past Kitty and glances over at her, not without sympathy. "I know she's fearsome, but this is reinforcements, I swear. She's completely trustworthy."

Indeed, her fanged mouth is stretching into a grin as she steps over the bodies and advances on them. "Maybe if you didn't want to get stood up you should bring me with you in the first place, Miles." It's a subtle jab that he'd left her behind when he'd gone down to the planet, which Miles accepts in the spirit in which it was given, that of worry.

"Ah, but then who'd come to rescue me?" He makes a brief, sweeping bow before accepting a replacement com link and stunner from Taura. "Milady Sergeant, this is our employer, Kitty. Kitty, this is Sergeant Taura."

[rathercommon]

Sergeant - ? So this is one of the Admiral's? For a moment, Kitty just stares, not knowing what to think. This isn't...a creature of the natural world, she's almost certain - because her limited contact with worlds beyond her own through that pilfered communication link demonstrated that humans are the only real life out there. No aliens. No spirits. So that means genetically manipulated, right? Like the Night Police, the special forces that New London uses against their own people, with wolfish loyalty and wolfish fangs sewn right into them - by science, not by magic like her people had always been led to believe. This creature doesn't look like them: she's too huge, too strong, too feral, her features too outsizedly animalistic. The Night Police are stronger than the average person on her world, but they couldn't possibly stand up to something like this...So if it's not nature that created this monster - this sergeant - before her, then it was genetic manipulation. But whose...?

Kitty takes her eyes off of Taura to turn a swift, hard stare upon Naismith. Her gratitude towards him is considerable. Her gratitude will be staggering if he manages to dislodge her government. But, God above, if he's the sort of man who would put human beings under the knife to make monsters, then she won't abide him being in power, either. He'll be next on her list, even if it rends her heart to turn on him. And yet...The hardness lasts only a moment, because the affection with which Taura is treating the Admiral is palpable. And it's not the sort of affection a trained dog turns on her master. It's wry. It's flirty. It's the affection of a human being for another.

And speaking of human beings -

"Oh - " She's been silent an awkwardly long moment, consumed by the process of understanding Taura, Naismith, and Taura-and-Naismith. And Kitty, no matter her savage determination, has manners enough to feel flustered at that rude pause. So, with her cheeks a bit pink, she gives an awkward, stilted little curtsy. "Erm - it's - awfully nice to meet you, ma'am." No, wait - "Sergeant." Better? Worse? God knows. She tries to draw herself up and seem impressive, as an employer ought to seem. Unfortunately, her best model of authority is her schoolteachers, and so she just ends up sounding a little stuffy. "That was terribly impressive work." And then she bites her lip just a little bit and glances from the corner of her eye at the Admiral, for some sign of yes that's authoritative-sounding or you sound like a complete loon, Ms. Jones.

[naismith]

Taura-and-Naismith as a pair is something that has confounded many before her, and they both know it. The height difference is the most superficial, but their whole demeanor with each other does puzzle outsiders. There's an assessing glint in Taura's eyes as she looks at her, but her smile is sincere and welcoming at the curtsy if Kitty can tell behind the tusk-like fangs. Taura is a forgiving soul. "Thanks," she says cheerfully. "I was just happy to have found Miles. He's slippery." That's not an exaggeration; she'd been profoundly worried, but now isn't the time to express that.

Despite Kitty's fears, Miles has brightened considerably at her attempts to be polite. He would be happy with anything short of making anti-mutant hex signs, but actually combating her own ingrained prejudices-- he can guess that New London must be like Barrayar that way, in the midst of their own Time of Isolation-- immediately ratchets up his admiration of her. Accepting him is one thing; accepting Taura makes him want to kiss her. Well, both of them. Erm. That has the potential to be awkward, doesn't it...

Miles wrenches his mind back to the problem at hand. "You can credit Kitty with our escape, actually. Very resourceful." He grins his approval at people who rescue themselves. "But we'd best be off. I trust you have an exit route picked out already?"

Taura returns to a more militaristic attention and nods sharply. "Yes, sir. Bel's waiting with the Ariel for us to board; its emergency evac shuttle is concealed a half-mile from here on a roof. The closest we could get," she apologizes.

"No mind, no mind. You did well." Miles waves her off. He glances back at Kitty. "You ready to go into space, my knowledge-hungry accomplice?"