tushanshu | ( video )

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[A man appears on the network of indeterminate age, extremely short-- under five feet tall, easily-- with a slight hunch to his posture and Germanic features. His eyes are sharply alive, bright with challenge. There's no hesitation as he speaks, in a gravelly kind of accent that sounds almost Russian, the words flowing quickly as he makes them up on the spot.

Right now, he desperately needs intel of all kinds, and eventually a spotter to watch him while he uses his seizure inducer. That fact he's assiduously ignoring. He'd checked his neurotransmitter levels this morning, and he has at least three days, even with all the stress of arrival. No, four days, probably. Five. Really, he can go a lot longer without one than the ImpSec medical staff had given him credit for. --Focus, Vorkosigan.]

So. I see you all have quite a neat set up here. Let's not waste time. Who can bring me up to speed, ex tempore? Surely we have more intelligence than "don't say its name" on our bogey man. Since confirmed facts are likely to be scarce, personal accounts would be acceptable.

I'm also taking proposals for getting miserably drunk at the bar, as is traditional in times of drawn out peril. I need someone to drag me home, y'see; alcohol has quite a soporific effect on my constitution. [And Ivan is unfortunately not here to do the dragging. Miles ignores the resulting pang that inspires in him.

Then he hesitates imperceptibly, the memory of his previous catastrophic failure to report his seizures clanging loudly through his brain. No. He can't ignore this, much as he'd like to. The only thing that scares Miles more than never going home is turning into a vegetable, mindless and drooling. He can at least do the preliminary investigation about options.]

Information about local medical facilities would be appreciated as well. They're not all-- er, at this level of technology, are they? [He looks dubious about anyone surviving on that level of medical care, but immediately recovers with a wide, convincing smile.] I'd just like to know preemptively for when I wake up with a skull splitting headache.

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[He wrinkles his nose somewhat comically, displeased and disbelieving that there's nothing more to know.]

Makes it feel like home? [he finishes. Maybe that was wrong. Miles can sympathize if it wasn't, however.] I've had a couple missions that made me vow to wring the neck of whoever was responsible for the lack of intel. That leads to people being killed, good people. [Something he obviously knows by experience, given the grave surety with which he says that.

As for the drinking... Well, Miles can't say he wasn't drinking at seventeen. Not excessively, since he was too busy doing such things as accidentally appropriating a mercenary fleet, but to be entirely honest, Miles has always done whatever he wants and he can't blame others for doing the same.]

I've been reliably and consistently informed that the Brazen Turtle is the place to be. Foreigner run, apparently, so perhaps friendlier to our woes than a local establishment.

No. Back home we always knew what we were fighting. Training was harsh but we always got it. This is just--

[just wrong, is what he wants to say. It's either too complacent or a set-up. Maybe he was being paranoid, but then if there was one thing he had learned since coming to the wall it was that things were rarely as straightforward or simple as they seemed. Being brought here to fight in a war without receiving training, without receiving intel on the enemy doesn't make him feel like a soldier, it makes him feel like cannon fodder. Like he wasn't supposed to survive this war they were playing at.]

Maybe I'm just being too paranoid. [He gives Miles a short, almost curious look.] You a soldier too?

Convenient, that, [he allows.] I've known who I was fighting when I was lucky, but what... is a deceptive luxury. It's not possible to be too paranoid. [From his vantage point of over a decade of combat experience, as both commander and grunt, Miles has an intensely personal interest in such conversations.]

Former. I know, I don't look the part. [His grin is slightly wolfish, as if daring comment.] Medical discharge. But it was a long career.

[Not long enough for him, but Miles would scarcely dare to complain when it was his own remarkable stupidity that had ended it. The only reason that discharge hadn't been dishonorable was pure nepotism and he knows it. He's also happier than he'd thought he'd be as Lord Auditor, so it seems churlish to complain, too, when Gregor had given him such a high honor, so well suited to him.]

Where I'm from, we don't fight a who, just a what.

[It's best to just stick to the story of being an ordinary soldier of the survey corps. And as far as they are considers, titans are the only enemy. Reiner knows better than that, knows how deep these conspiracies go, but he can be a surprisingly good actor.

At the comment of looks, he gives Miles a bit of a grin.]

I've had my ass kicked by Annie too often to judge by looks anymore. There's a lot more to a good soldier than what they look like.

And what is the what, in this case? [He can hardly pass up a leading statement like that. Miles falls prey to his curiosity oh so easily.

Since he doesn't know Annie by name yet, he doesn't react to that, merely smirks in answer to the grin.] Wise of you. You're a good few steps ahead of many of your fellows in that, I'd wager. Surprising, really, how often someone lets a pair of tits or a few inches of height cloud their threat assessment. [A mistake he'd never made, with his mother, but the entire planet of Barrayar could learn a good lesson on.]

Titans. They're a bit hard to explain if you've never seen them. We don't know that much about them to begin with. They suddenly showed up a century ago and have been decimating the human population since. If it wasn't for the walls, the human race probably would've died out a long time ago.

[It's almost impressive how many lies he can cram in the span of just a few sentences.

He gives a little shrug to the rest of it though.]

Seems to me like anyone who judges by that is going to be overlooking a lot of great soldiers. And a lot of dangerous threats.

[Now that is weird, and his surprise is briefly visible.] Non-humans? Astounding. We've traveled hundreds of thousands of light years and never run into any. There's plenty of theories about that, let me tell you. Do you miss the fight? [Miles would. It'd be his clear duty to be there and support the dwindling pockets of humanity, and he's ridiculously duty driven; it's killing him to be here and not home as it is, and civilization is hardly riding on his presence.]

It does often turn out to their detriment, [he agrees, thinking oddly of Cavilo for a moment, which is an unpleasant memory if ever there was one.] Just looking at the selection of those brought here proves it, though, hmm, as you've pointed out, we're not meant to be soldiers, are we?

[Non-human, huh. If only you knew, Miles, if only you knew.

The next question takes him a little by surprise though and it shows on his face, eyes widening, then flicking away to stare at the far wall for a moment. He does miss it, but what he misses isn't the battles. What he misses is being part of the 104th and being able to surround himself with these humans and pretend their fight is his fight, pretend he can be a hero too for a little while. But it has been made more than clear that that is not something he can have, not anymore. The only allies a monster can have are those as monstrous as itself.

Unseen on the camera, Reiner's hand tightens into a fist as he forces himself to answer]

Yeah. [His voice is just a little rough. He hopes he can just pass it off as homesickness] I mean, it's my duty. It feels weird to just... sit here and slack off. Doesn't feel right, you know? [He gestures a little, forcing a grin onto his face.] I know we are supposed to be at war here and all, but if my old instructor could see me now, he'd probably yell at me to start making myself useful already.

[Which brings him back to the heart of the matter, and one of the subjects he's been experiencing unease about since arriving here. Reiner has been trained by various groups. He's been trained to be a warrior and he has been trained to be a soldier, and as different as those two things were, they had one common feature: he had been trained. And that is something that is very conspicuously absent here.]

I think if we were really meant to be soldiers, they would be training us. They bring all sorts of people here but they are not teaching us to fight. The only time you do that is if you aren't expecting them to survive anyway.

[A pause.]

Or hoping they won't.

[It reminds him, unpleasantly, of humanity's first attempt to retake Wall Maria. Nobody had meant to return from that crazy expedition and as a result, nobody had.]

[Miles can read that inner dilemma. Oh, he knows it too well. The adrenaline rush, the simplicity of it, of knowing precisely your function and worth-- and the people, God, the people around you in the thick of combat. Miles had in no small measure found it addictive. If these damned seizures hadn't taken him out...

Well. No use bemoaning it now. Miles had had that depressive episode and been dunked in the ice bath to be shocked out of it, thank you, Ivan. But the understanding is still clear and fierce in his eyes.]

Duty. Yes. It tears me up that I'm here and not there, and I haven't been here half as long as you. But when captured, a soldier's duty is survive, escape, sabotage. In that order.

[There's an unrelenting steel to him, now, which had been previously concealed under his jovial air but reveals itself to have been present all along.] Who says we have to live down to their expectations? If they won't train us, we'll train ourselves. I happen to be experienced in the endeavor. Let's start with a name. Who are you, soldier? [It's a gamble, reverting to a brisk military tone here, but Miles takes it. He's survived off of gambles his entire life, and it's easy, so easy, to pull out his old Admiral Naismith voice, which sounds surprisingly similar to his Lord Auditor voice, come to think of it, except for the accent shift.]

[The gamble pays off. Sometimes it feels like he has been trained since he could walk, and he has had his fair share of instructors. Shadis was not by far the first drill instructor he had encounter, and he hadn't by far been the cruelest. When Miles uses the brisk, military tone, something in Reiner's shoulders goes rigid, his spine straightening.]

Reiner Braun, sir.

[There's a short thrill at having it succeed. Yes. He's not totally lost. He's not alone, worthless, foresworn to his oaths-- anyway, he has potential allies, ones he can work with. Miles has done a lot more on a lot less, he tells himself, and it's sheer practicality driving him here, not the nearly vicious, exhilarated satisfaction he gets from playing Naismith.

Really. He has to. This is more a job for Naismith than Vorkosigan, and he isn't taking the Admiral out of retirement with the expectation that he'll get to keep him. It's just a short jaunt, he promises himself, for as long as he's here. No one present even understands the difference between Naismith and Vorkosigan the way someone from his Nexus would, immediately, by name or accent. It's purely for his own mental balance. But even Miles can't delude himself enough to appoint himself Admiral again, when the Dendarii are nowhere near, and even if they were, the extant ones aren't under his purview. No, Miles reins himself in, tempers his forward momentum to a dull roar, painful as it is.

He bites down on the reflexive urge to follow it up with Rank?] Thank you. [It never hurts to be polite. Miles's tone is still brisk, but he's never been a disciplinarian as a commander and it's mild, alert, confident. His accent slides, without his noticing, into flatter vowels; Betan, or to an Earther's ear, something like American.] Miles Naismith, but just Naismith for now, I think. Ranks would be entirely premature.

What do you specialize in, Braun? [He needs an assessment of his capabilities.]

[Which is exactly what he won't be getting. Reiner might be responding well to his brisk tone of voice, but he's no fool. He lasted years before his identity was discovered back home, and he's intending to live much the same here. It's harder, no lie. Eren and Armin are out there; they have too much information on them. Killing them however was no option. At best they could hope to coexist, if not peacefully, then at least in a strange, tense sort of cease-fire.]

Titan extermination using the vertical manoeuvre gear.

[Miles is of course clueless that this might not be the full story. He is aware that if there's more to it than that, anything not told to him is certainly not at his disposal, if even this much is. First he needs a plan, obviously, before officially approaching them.

Two more days to a workable outline, he estimates.

His brain snaps quickly back to attention at this new piece of information.] Vertical maneuver gear? [he asks curiously.] Just how big are these titans?

[He makes a short, thoughtful noise, crossing his arms.]

Depends on the kind. The little ones are three to six meters, then there's the seven meter class, eight to fourteen meter ones, fifteen meter ones, and the unusual ones that fall outside of the normal classifications. The biggest titan humanity has ever faced was sixty meters tall.

[Who just happens to be the initiative less kid Miles is talking to in another conversation. What a danger. Humanity's biggest enemy!]

Edited 2014-01-29 17:45 (UTC)

The little ones? Good God. Sixty meters isn't an enemy, it's a small freighter! [Thinking of things in terms of how large the equivalent spaceship would be? Of course.]

No wonder you need vertical scaling gear. You take that on yourself? [A split second later, he follows the connection and adds,] And Annie does, too?

[Honestly, for his size, Bertolt has very few defences when transformed. It is something that always worries Reiner a little. His titan was slow, certainly, but it was nothing compared to Bertolt's. All he had going for him was his size, and the steam he could emit. Beyond that, it would be rather simple to cut away his neck.

Which naturally is nothing he is going to share with this guy.]

That's what we were trained for. The military police doesn't really take on titans in the way the survey corps does, though.

[Those with the highest marks were those kept farthest away from the titans. Humanity's corruption was ultimate at times.]

[He can't help his curiosity here. He'd understood from Annie that the MP were a lofty position, which makes sense from his perspective-- they have to keep the regular military in line. ImpSec had a similar problem and Miles had been ImpSec for years.]

And you're survey corps, [he fills in.] If not, er, scaling the titans, what do the military police do?

[Drink and gamble, mostly.]

First and foremost, they form the King's guard, making sure our king is protected at all times. Apart from that, they serve as a general police force and are in charge of collecting taxes. It's a pretty prestigious position. Most of everybody dreams of getting into the Military Police, but they only take the top ten trainees of each year.

Edited (THAT PHRASING KEPT BUGGING ME) 2014-02-01 22:50 (UTC)

[So he really had been right about how prestigious it was. Since part of Miles's job these days was spotting corruption, he's alive to the implications. A frown tugs at his mouth.]

The king's guard collects the taxes? That seems like it'd encourage some self-determined raises.

[He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck for a moment and glancing away. He's good at playing the role of the chagrined soldier.]

I can't deny that. It's mostly made up of people who joined either for the prestige or the safety, after all. Though I can't really fault them for that.

[And suddenly, he's thinking of Marco. Bright-eyed, idealistic, sometimes almost painfully naive Marco. He had wanted to join out of nothing more than a straightforward desire to protect the King and serve the people. Reiner had watched him train for three years, dedicating himself to getting into the top ten, always so devoted to his role as a soldier that Reiner hadn't been able to do anything but admire that.

And then he had died, a day away from fulfilling his goal, while someone like him got to live. The world was unfair.]

Not all of them though. There's some good and honest kids too, the kind that joined for their ideals rather than the food. I don't know if it's enough to make a difference though.

[Another food joke. Miles understands the implications behind all these statements all too well, however.]

That's the trick of it, isn't it? [he agrees.] You have to get the ratio skewed the other way. Ideals over food, and hope the ideals live long enough that they can be tempered into reality.

So where do you fall? [He can't just talk philosophy-- he has to push it, make it personal. Miles leans in, interested.] On the ideals to food scale.

Edited (to / too error REALLY SELF) 2014-02-02 17:57 (UTC)

Ideals or food, huh?

[He sounds almost thoughtful. Sometimes he wishes choice could've been part of his actions, but it never had been. A warrior did not always get to choose the duty it must carry out. It had to be done. Whether he still believed in the ideals and half-truths they had filled his head with as a kid or not, some things had to be seen through to the end.

But since coming to the wall, whatever early notions of heroism had quickly given away until but one driving force remained.]

I can't say I joined for anything like that. All this time... All I ever wanted to do was to go home.

[That makes him thoughtful for a moment.] I see. And now? Is that still your goal?

[This fellow's life is clearly more complicated than Miles might have credited at first. He doesn't want to make any presumptions, and similarly he wants to know his overall goal. If he's going to try to gain his cooperation (the word recruit isn't quite right-- recruit into what?) then it's necessary information. Not just to manipulate him, but because Miles generally likes to leave his tag-alongs in a better condition than how he found them. Though he doesn't think of it in those terms, it's straight forward magnanimity on his part.]

[His eyes narrow a little, something burning bright in them.]

Yes. I'll do anything for that.

[Not just for the sake of going home himself, but more importantly to bring Annie and Bertolt home. Bringing them home is paramount to anything at this point. Their mission seems lost from what he can see, he cannot go back to how anything was. At best they can home, and hope their coming home without results won't be taken too hard.]

[Miles sets back in his chair, satisfied.]

Then we're in agreement. [There's a calm, collected air to him, a sign of just how comfortable he is with authority. It shrouds him without him thinking about it. He doesn't mean to, he does try not to be overbearing, but Miles is defined by those that support him and they're invisible shadows at his back even now.

Shadows he must return to.] I have my own duty.

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