hexarchate_rpg | should we help or hinder the assassination of Jedao?

[In the current move, Flute has just informed the team that they are to accompany a group of Lanterner assassins to a conference where the Lanterners will attempt to assassinate Jedao. This post is for reactions and plans, both in and out of character.]

Sasha's quiet as the group heads from the Catastrophe Axe back to the Cantata. She wants to have a cup of tea and spend a few hours working her way further into the Axe's grid, but work comes before play, and figuring out how to handle Flute's instructions will be a fuck of a lot of work.

Once everyone's safely on the Cantata and the lock has closed behind them, she starts issuing orders. "Grid, please ask Sulen to meet me in my office in twenty minutes, and inform everyone there will be a team meeting in the common room in one hour. Reshad, I'll want you in the meeting with Sulen."

She pulls her memory stick out of her pocket and gives it to Alaric. "Find Aymad, stick this in the minigrid--not in the main one--and see what you can find out about the watchers in Flute's system in the next hour."

Then she turns to Seyli. "I know you want to yell. Go ahead and do it. You've got twenty minutes." [These are heptarchate minutes, so it's more like ten minutes in our calendar.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sulen meets the away team outside the lock. "I made tea in the common room," they say. "I tried to make coffee but it was more complicated than it looked. Is everyone uninjured?"

"Nobody's injured." Reshad, having dropped the airheaded act she'd assumed for Flute's benefit as soon as she was relatively certain of being away from bugs, seems quieter than normal, thoughtful.

"Thank you for the tea." She bows acceptance of the meeting, and heads for a cup to clear her whirling mind.

[So Reshad, being a big nerd about the Historical Figure Shuos Jedao, is absolutely going to argue for subverting the assassination mission and kidn- she means, attempting to ally with - the General. Who better to tear down the h*archate than the Immolation Fox?]

"Fuck, yes, I would love some tea. Thank you." Sasha's grateful to Sulen, and beginning to wonder how Ashari gets by without them. With much excitement, presumably.

"We learned a lot, and I will fill you in very soon, but first Seyli and I need to debrief. Seyli, where are we doing this? My office?"

Seyli had remained silent and brooding in the encounter with Flute and the entire way back. They never dropped their guard, but it was clear they were displeased.

"Excuse me?" Their eyebrow raises as they look at Sasha and they forget to tack Sir onto that comment. They've lost their cool a lot in the past, but they were never as stupid to take it out on their commanding officer (not that was an option for most of their career). Seyli doesn't think much of Sasha at this point, but she's certainly weird, as far as commanding officers go.

"I not going to yell and certainly not at you if I was. Sir." They're bristling now, shaken out of that shocked tension.

"We can have a quiet conversation over tea, then. In my office."

Sasha leads the way, with a brief pause to acquire tea and jam. She observes the formalities, sitting neatly behind her desk and gesturing to Seyli to close the door and take a seat of their own. "Triage. What concerns you most, about that meeting?"

This isn't Kel and this isn't mercenary work, and they remind themselves as they follow Sasha into the office that they have to expect things to be unusual. Should be happy that things are unusual. Seyli is not happy.

"What doesn't concern me? We're getting tangled up in a mission that involves someone who never lost a fight, without any significant backup, or clear support?" They give Sasha an incredulous look. "Sir, I fail to understand how you can ask that question with the information before us." They remain standing, hands folded behind their back in a casual parade rest.

Thank the Prophet, they're talking. "Sit the fuck down, Seyli. You're hurting my neck."

Sasha's going to need Seyli's input as she starts making plans, which means she needs them thinking, which means she needs to reassure them somehow, which is going to be an interesting exercise, since they aren't exactly stupid. "Strictly speaking, we are the backup. I know you'd prefer a few more moths and a lot more heavy ordnance. But I believe you have not registered that Alaric and Ione and Aymad and I could kill everyone on this station, given a couple hours' lead time. Three, if their firewalls are really good. Humans are fucking fragile and very dependent on specific levels of oxygen."

Seyli finally drops into a chair, sighing heavily as the do so. "I understand a lot of your plans tend to go heywire," they say when presented with the reassurance. "But that is...useful information to know. You're right, I haven't put those pieces together about the four of you." They'd been too wary of everyone to start thinking and it was helpful for Sasha to put things so bluntly.

"What role do you want me to take, in all of this then? It hasn't escaped my notice I seem to be the only trained infantry person."

Sasha has been perfectly successful in breaking things, she thinks ruefully. At least Seyli's listening.

"Your role is security, and our mission is extracting information. Alaric and Ione both have significant operational experience, but they don't ordinarily shoot at people--they specialize in other methods of distraction--and they obviously don't think like military. Your ability to predict the way an armed adversary will react is very important." Maybe more important than Seyli's ability to shoot people, if Sasha's luck holds.

"In the nearer term, it sounds like you're going to be stuck training some Lanterners. What do you need from me, to make that assignment endurable?"

Seyli breathes in and then out, thinking about what is even reasonable to ask. They run through the options and finally settle on something that feels like they can ask for: "Don't send me with the flower girl, if you can help it. I don't have time to teach and babysit at the same time. Or if she does come, you assign someone else to mind her that isn't me."

"Fuck, that would be an operational security nightmare. You're safe from dealing with Fyedlet on the way out, and Alaric, too, for that matter. You'll have a tech--probably Aymad. I might also send Gerae, because the man remembers every word he hears, if I can figure out who's fit to babysit him."

Sasha turns her teacup in her hands. She wants more jam. Possibly she should find calories that aren't jam. "The team meeting is going to be a mess, because I need data, and we're all from different times, so I have to ask everyone. I need you to bear in mind two things. First, our fundamental responsibility is to keep the moth alive and report back to Ashari. Second, our resources are fucking strange. If you need something in order to get a job done, ask for it; you can't assume a tool doesn't exist just because it didn't exist in your time. Got it?"

Well, that's good. Seyli relaxes for a second and then remembers just what they're going into and tenses up once more. "I'll do so, sir. Sasha," they correct in an attempt to at least look like they're trying with Sasha. She hasn't done anything and this is a weird situation all around. "I'll let you or whoever I need to on the team know what I need when I need it. I trust I'm not going to sound like a moron when I describe a tool that I'm not sure is real but would help?"

Sasha makes a noise that's halfway between "huh" and a genuine laugh. "If you can think of something that Alaric hasn't heard of and doesn't offer to invent, I'll scare you up a bonus payment. Did he tell you, he doesn't have a heart?"

"We've not really talked." Honestly, they've kept themselves busy getting the range cleaned and keeping to themselves.

"Do you need anything else from me, sir?" Seyli asks with a polite smile, eager for this one-on-one to be over.

"No. See you in 85 minutes."

Seyli can spend those minutes not in a meeting. Sasha envies them.

should we help or hinder the assassination of Jedao?

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