2020-05-24: Initiating a Gambit
- Log: Initiating a Gambit
- Cast: Erzebet Lefanu, Loren Voss
- Where: Windfall Island - Windmill
- Date: May 24, 2020
- Summary: Loren initiates part one of his plan to neutralize two threats to Solaris in one go: infiltrating Odessa's ranks. But, the hardest part of any infiltration is playing the part...
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
LOREN VOSS, INTELLIGENCE AGENT OF G.E.B.L.E.R., has set out on a mission, and the ground intelligence bureau has been able to give him enough information to actually locate Odessa operations outside of their remote locations. (How much does Solaris *genuinely* know? Are they limiting release so that if Loren fails, he can only have so much tortured out of him? Can Odessa, perhaps using their weird magic, to some extent evade even the eyes of the Holy Empire? It's a good question.)
Anyway, the recent military fiasco in Aquvy and Sielje was trackable, and a monitoring situation on Windfall Island allows Loren to find out a particular chowdery which seems to be sympathetic. He was provided with some key pass codes and verbal indicators of solidarity and --
VITALLY --
A membership card.
This was hard, because they had to make it look *plausibly* shitty. It uses paper originally from Meria Boule, treated... somehow to give it a rainbow sheen and a sort of laminated look. However, it was typewritten. BEN LYON, however, is a duly registered party member. The card is somewhat damaged...
CUT TO THE PAST
Tolone points a gunsmoke revolver down range. "Check it," she says, before shooting the card.
HERE, NOW
... which is good because the rounds have partially destroyed his membership number.
ANYWAY
The Odessa people oozing through Windfall Island have been working odd jobs if they were able bodied, recovering quietly in backyard sheds if they weren't, and hanging around this chowder place. Tonight, though, there's going to be a meeting.
Up at the Windmill.
It's near sunset and the group is meandering in ones and twos up towards the tower on the hill, with a 'main' party of about six with a picnic hamper. That main party features the towering beastman, Edward, who has been something of a central cog of this emergent organization. Edward isn't involved with the catering, and is going on ahead.
HOW WILL LOREN GREET HIS PEERS FOR THE MEETING?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
More than likely, that's precisely the intent. If the worst happens as a result of the plan that he's proposed, at least nothing pertaining to Solaris' assests will be revealed. And, ideally, he's likely to survive whatever might happen should the plan become undone...
Commander Sadalbari had approved the plan -- she'd even seemed interested when he proposed it.
Particularly when he'd gone so far as to recommend he be the one to carry it out given his first-hand knowledge of various aspects involved... and of course, the need for the appropriate bait.
That is, in fact, the entire point -- the goal of this, as risky as it is. Sure, Voss is a valuable Ether-user and a First Class citizen -- no matter what his fellows may think of him -- but there is no point to playing it safe, not when there is so much that might be gained by a calculated risk.
Commander Ramses had implied something like it over a year ago, in fact, back when Voss had been promoted. Turn a liability into an assest.
Throw two problems at each other and see if they cancel each other out. But first, he needs to instigate the conflict.
Which is the entire reason why Loren Voss is now just Ben Lyon, perfectly normal Odessa member. With a perfectly normal (if tragically damaged) identification card.
It's sunset.
He's aware that his heart is pounding. Glancing fleetingly towards the others, Loren creases his forehead as if he were thinking something over.
He just has to act like he belongs here.
Fine. That's the same trick he's done since he entered Jugend, nearly.
Walking up to one of the others he glances over at them as if to take their measure, then ducks his head in a short nod of greeting.
Perhaps they met before, once. Maybe it was something like that.
It in fact wasn't, but only Loren really firmly truly knows that.
He tries not to look at the beastman too much. At least he has operations in Ignas -- not to mention Lunar -- to thank for not finding beastfolk quite so strange anymore...
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Edward isn't even the most handsome of beastmen. He might be taken as an appealing horse if his head wasn't, well, more or less just a horse's head with an unusually flexible tongue; he might be an appealing man, if it wasn't for the horse's head.
Inside of the room, it is shadowy. There is a creaking from the windmill itself, the drive shaft of the windmill turning against nothing in particular as energy is harnessed and then simply... disposed of. As Loren is nodded at, given some passing pleasantries, he is also asked briefly to help with something--
Setting up the chairs.
The catering isn't fancy - boiled bread rolls, sliced in half, and a range of smoked fish in a spreadable form. There are a range of relishes. Curiously, nothing particularly pungent, other than the fish itself.
Edward clops his hands together as things seem to be more or less together. (The chairs all seem to be facing the central axis of the windmill.)
"Thank you all for coming tonight," Edward says, his voice gruff. "Got some news to announce... as you know, most of our wounded are coming along, so between them and the newer folks we're going to be moving along our operations shortly and so I encourage you to borrow money." This gets mild amusement.
"Unfortunately we're going to have to spread out and travel on civilian mechanisms on our way, but we should be able to link up for an operation with some other groups on the Thames, which will be our staging area to the next step."
"While you all eat your tea snacks here I'm gonna stand and ask if any of you want to come up and ask any personal matters, go for it. Anything or nothing at all. Remember, you make a cover for your buddy's pain when you come to ask me about the rain."
There is an interlude of several more minutes here. Some people come up to speak to Edward - and there is an opening perhaps if Loren wanted to make a move - but -
Edward looks upwards, and then announces, "Alright, Captain's gonna be down in a moment. Say, why don't we give her a good solid song."
His head turns, pale eyes focusing dead-on the new member. Those eyes show a profound violent insanity. But maybe that's just how he looks.
Staring directly at Loren, he says, "Buddy Ben, why don't you get up here and open us up. You know the tune, right? Just give us the first verse and then we'll all get into it."
TUNE CUE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sxTbfeYdO0
BUT THOSE AREN'T THE LYRICS.
HOW DID THAT SONG GO...?
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Even if Loren were even all that inclined towards Beastfolk (no, not even once), Edward probably would be about the last on his list. Maybe it's the eyes.
He has the look of a horse that eats likes to eat fingers, after all.
But the matter of mingling into the crowd is fairly mundane -- he trades a few comments about the weather with one of them, trying to ease into the pattern of socializing without actually socializing. In many ways, Jugend really did prepare him well for the world, just perhaps not necessarily in the way it had been billed.
He even helps with the chairs.
The food seems fine. He's eaten way worse than that since he first deployed in Aveh, he'd wager.
And so he settles in among the crowd, content to let himself sink into the background as Edward introduces things.
Mentally, he takes notes.
He doesn't approach Edward -- not yet, anyway. For now he needs to watch--
At least.
Until the spotlight is shone right upon him, so to speak.
There is, fleetingly, a moment of panic within:
Do they already know?!
Intel hadn't said anything about an Emperor-damned song!
If this is how it ends he's--
Cutting through the terror like a knife, though, emerges the clarity of An Idea.
He tilts his head slightly to the right and considers, apparently, too all appearances, Edward. He purses his lips, then shakes his head.
"You know I can't can't carry a tune, Edward," he replies with a defeated sigh, doing his best impression of a man awkwardly put on the spot. "Do you really think the Captain wants to hear me mangling it?"
Either this is going to go spectacularly wrong or spectacularly right. He tries not to think about how many bodies are between him and the door, or what might happen after that.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
There is a tension in the silence. Edward's lips pull back from those enormous blunt teeth. He opens his mouth -
and he says
"heh"
And then there's a few other laughs from the group, and the laughs turn into a practical if brief chorus. A woman in an eyepatch calls as she holds up the picnic hamper, "You can use this to carry it in." ("Haw haw!")
"Oh I agree completely," comes a voice from up higher in the windmill.
And then
a woman walks
from the top of the loft or whatever mechanical space there was up higher in the windmill
downwards, along the wooden shaft
It's a surreal thing, and it might have an especial frisson for Loren, because while, of course, he would know of such things as artificial gravity, there IS no artificial gravity in that tree trunk - barely shaped - it's an axle for one of the most primitive, lossiest ways to exploit the kinetic energy of Filgaia's atmosphere. And yet, a woman in a red robe is walking down along it, easy as you might walk down the street.
The axle creaks as Erzebet Mara Lefanu walks down it, the slow and steady rotation bringing her round as there is a momentary hush among the Odessa troops. (Loren may notice the discreet tossing of a pair of straw slippers to one side on the part of Edward.)
Erzebet comes to the end of her road, takes one giant step forwards, and reinverts herself, stepping forwards and sliding the slippers on as her glasses gleam in the last moments of the sunlight.
"I see you're all here and doing well. I'm so, TERRIBLY, glad to SEE that. Wow~! Look at how far we've come! And I recognize half of you, of course - but I don't know the other half, at least not by sight, not yet. I'm sure all of you have checked in with Edward. He told you about the move-out order, right?"
"Then I guess we don't have much else to discuss. Everyone, let's just let our hair down for a moment. I'll go over something from our Rhadamanthus after it gets full dark. I'm still waking up."
Her head turns and her gaze, veiled by orange light, rests directly on Loren. She shuffles towards him, her lips pulling back in a too-wide smile as she gets nearer and nearer. She extends a hand forwards.
"You were the one who made that joke, right? That's a valuable skill... to know when the joke is appropriate. Keeps morale up, what. You wouldn't happen to recall your name, would you?"
Touching her hand is like touching a corpse for a fleeting second.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
In those few moments, 'Ben' appears to be completely calm. At least, to the outside world.
Inwardly, he's calm.
He's calmly calculating the precise amount of Ether he's going to need to draw upon, should an escape become immediately necessary. That's the distance to the door, versus the structural integrity of the windmill, against--
And in seconds the situation becomes completely defused.
The mild irritation he displays when laughter erupts in a chorus about him is not entirely false. He shakes his head, and begins to open his mouth as if he were about to say something when--
Time, for the moment, appears to slow to a crawl.
He closes his mouth.
Is he really... seeing this?
A surreptitious glance to his side suggests the correct answer is 'yes'.
For this moment he's transfixed, watching her as she descends. Short of manipulation like deVriese's, this shouldn't be possible. Not under surface conditions. Not by an apparent unaltered human.
He wonders if intelligence proper knows about this. He wonders if Commander Sadalbari knows about this.
But wondering, when you're in the thick of it, is useless, right?
So he watches her as she descends, silent as the rest of them. He watches, perhaps keener than most here to pay attention to what she has to say once she reaches the floor, below.
Full dark?
Still waking up?
He files these things away for later, because that's all he can do. After all, it isn't like--
She turns the full weight of her gaze towards him.
"Yes, ma'am."
Here, the military training again comes in handy.
"Ben Lyon, ma'am. Joined up a few months back."
He reaches out to take her hand.
It's not the first corpselike hand he's touched, but it doesn't mean he doesn't start when he clasps hands with her. For whatever it's worth, his hesitation lasts only a moment, before he shakes.
Is this the same situation as Croze?
Right, and he'd never even mentioned her situation to Command. Because...
He can't remember why, and perhaps it's just as well that he doesn't.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
The impression is probably some kind of a skin condition because her hand is moving perfectly normally and this woman seems to be breathing. Though she does have an unhealthy pallor to her skin, this would be classed as 'invalid' or 'recovering from a bad infection'. She's not carrying herself like a sick woman, though. "Ben!" she says, cheerfully. "Is it short for anything, or just Ben?"
Erzebet steps closer even as Edward turns to go talk about something related to steamship schedules with the people with the food. Some oil lamps are being lit but Erzebet puts a hand on Ben's shoulder, as if to guide him in a slow walk around the open space surrounding the axle of the windmill.
"Have you seen much action yet...? There's a lot of room to move up, you know; I can tell you're alert. What brought you to the movement?"
"I know I look like shit," Erzebet continues conversationally, "but it's just some side effects I'm getting through. It's actually been a big benefit, you know, for moving on civilian routes!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Circulation problems would be his guess, if it weren't for the... feel of her hand.
He really is reminded of Croze, though Croze had seemed far more healthy than this. She just looks like she's been really ill with something. He has the sudden nagging urge to check the database on his device but this must await another time.
He doesn't have that kind of equipment on him right now, anyway, even if it were at all appropriate or even sane to do so.
"Benjamin, ma'am. But I go by Ben."
He glances the once back at Edward and the others. This isn't the sort of entrance he wanted, but now it really can't be helped. He goes along as he's guided, because he really has no choice in the matter.
He shakes his head, his mind's eye skimming the skeletal cover story he had prepared -- just enough to hopefully avoid suspicion, but not so much that he gets bogged down in the details. "Not yet. I was in university before..." He shakes his head again. "Rhadamanthus' message, ma'am. I saw it back then, and..." Loren hesitates, deliberately.
"I guess it just spoke to me."
There is a pause as she indicates herself.
"Oh, uh..."
He pauses, having to consider his options here. If she's been sick, asking about it directly would be a bad idea. 'Ben' should already know. So--
"I hope you feel better soon, ma'am."
Perhaps neutral might be best.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
"Ben it is, then," Erzebet says. "You can say Erzebet for me; but of course, if we're in an operation, we do use the ranks."
"Really! Where did you study? I had a similar way in," Erzebet continues. "I was never exactly far from things, but I was approached to help with a technical issue and I suppose in a sense I was radicalized! It was really exciting, wasn't it? It woke me up. You feel like you make a difference; like you're finally stepping on the stage of history."
"Of course," Erzebet says, modestly - "I can't say I'm more than a supporting player, even now."
Then she giggles.
She has to raise a hand to her mouth - she has to jam the knuckle of her hand into her mouth and bite down a little, a little too hard, as if she's forcing herself to stifle the giggle. After this she gives a light (but LOUD - and it wasn't really that light) slap at Ben's shoulder.
"Oh, my dear fellow," she says, "that's the funny thing. I feel great. Here, do you want to feel my pulse? It's like a runner's now. This is just some sort of biological reaction. Here, do you want to see a trick? I promise you,"
"It won't hurt!"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Understood, ma'am," he says, seemingly by reflex.
Where did he study, though?
"Guild Galad. I was studying medicine," he 'admits', glancing away, as if he were uncertain whether this would permit him to be seen as a proper 'soldier' for the revolution.
In reality, he's just hoping this little lie works out, that she won't interrogate it too hard.
He'd been hoping to put together some more details after he learned more, but, ugh, he really is learning on his feet with this right now, isn't he--
She talks about her own path in. He... hesitates, as if uncertain he should even say anything here at all and ultimately settles for a short nod, as if to suggest he agrees.
When is when he remarks on her health and she... responds by giggling.
And ultimately clapping him on the shoulder hard enough that he's still feeling it seconds after the fact. 'Ben', if anything, looks a little poleaxed at this moment.
"Uh," he offers. Does he want to feel her pulse?
And does he want to see a trick?
'No', probably, won't go over well.
Even if the promise of 'it won't hurt' sets off alarm bells.
"...Sure?" he hazards, shooting a glance back towards Edward, who suddenly seems more like a bastion of security, presently.
<Pose Tracker> Erzebet Lefanu has posed.
Erzebet extends her arm out - it's about pec-height on Loren.
"Hold onto it," Erzebet says, with a little grin. "Pull up your legs and just hang on. Or if you like, try to push my hand down." She extends her fingers outwards, palm facing down.
Erzebet is like an iron post. Full strength can dip her hand down a couple of inches - once - and hanging onto it, dangling like a monkey bar, works perfectly fine. She lists a little to the side - possibly due to the sheer necessity of physics - but other than this wobble, she walks easily and without even slowing down, if 'Ben' dares to dangle.
"There's wonders in the world, even nowadays, don't you think?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She extends her arm. He stares down at it for a long moment. Then slowly, tentatively, with the look of someone trying to carefully work out whether or not this is some kind of prank or trick or something bad, he takes ahold of her arm.
"..."
Even playing the role (such that it is) of the moment, he still hesitates when she asks him to basically monkey bar about on her arm.
And instead, he tries to push down her hand.
He's not the strongest in Gebler. He wouldn't even try to argue that point -- even for the cohort of captains, he's not up in front. But he's no weakling, either -- even if he's playing catchup in the martial arts next to his fellows who weren't attempting to learn medical, Ether arts, tactics, protocol, and all the other minutia that allows someone to function in an officer role, he's still been putting the time in when he can. It's been two years or so but he's getting somewhere with the blade, and his natural endurance has served him well.
In theory, then, he should be able to push her hand down, without too much effort.
He might as well have tried it against an iron bar. The honest surprise that blooms across his face might make Erzebet laugh.
Particularly when he just stares at her for a moment.
Might as well... find out how far this goes, 'Ben' thinks, swallowing any tattered remnants of his pride and grabbing onto her arm. This is for the sake of his people, he reminds himself.
She's not all talk, as it happens. Far from it. He's a healthy weight for his height, and she just barely wobbles. Even Commander Ramses probably... couldn't.
"I... yeah," he says at last, shaking his head. He has a lot of questions now, and he knows he's not going to get many answers.