Coordination

§ 2025-10-11 22:14:01

[22:20] Mercifully, the Valcens allowed them to head back to 'their' room without supervision. Judging by the tension in Jason's body, the whole situation would just have escalated further if either of them had tried something like that. Out of earshot, Jason offered his unfiltered thoughts: "It's exhausting to feign polite conversation with a fucking monster."

...it raised the question how the conversation would have gone if he had put no effort into it, given that it had been plenty adversarial already.

[23:09] "Well, you did a good job, given the circumstances". Greg almost remarked that impoliteness would only cost themselves and innocent kavkema, but Jason obviously knew that well enough, so it would only annoy him further. "I'm afraid that with the Powers That Be of this planet, 'polite' is as good as it gets. And that it might have to be our survival strategy, in some straits; best to practice it". He wondered how level-headed *he* would be, had we witnessed the things Jason had. Perhaps Jason would have to be the voice of restraint then — a sobering thought.

[23:18] "Yeah, well, you and Saira can hopefully stop having to do any of that in the morning, once you're out of here. I don't fully trust that we'll be safe until then, but it's not like I have an immediate alternative." Jason's face was cycling through grimaces. "I can stay awake and guard you, though, for what that's worth without weapons other than my fingernails in my name."

[00:49] "Thanks, man. Although —" Although you shouldn't throw away your life for the sake of mine. "— let's try to be either outgunned or outnumbered, but not both". He grinned, to some degree. "I think we still have a chance of talking our way through until we're out of here, even if it's not going to be fun."

[01:02] Jason nodded a little numbly. He paused at the top of a flight of stairs and tiredly shot a glance into a corridor and its branching structures visible from his vantage point, realising he'd lost track if they were on the right level. For a few seconds, he held still, then inhaled sharply and nodded as he regained his bearing, leading Greg up another flight of stairs as he said: "I'm glad you're better." It wasn't the kind of mundane pleasantry he usually bothered with – 'we were worried you might die' was in there somewhere.

[02:01] "Me too — me too." That should have meant 'I'm glad you are better, too', but Greg couldn't be so sure that Jason was, in fact, better. The situation was taking a terrible toll on him. Greg should perhaps help him with navigation through the corridors, if he could — or perhaps Jason would feel better doing so by himself. "We'll make it". This was more of a cheer than a statement of fact.

§ 2025-10-25 22:52:36

[23:07] Disconcertingly, Jason's body language did not radiate agreement. Intellectually, that made sense – they were an absurdly long way from home, well beyond the reach of any reinforcements. Even if they had been on perfectly amicable terms with the locals, there was enough potential cultural friction that something might have blown up eventually. And then what?

From all he had implied so far, Jason had a very And Then What in mind. The good part was that even if they all self-immolated here, it would likely have no repercussions for anyone back home, for much the same reasons that they were stranded here now. The bad part was the self-immolation. Jason might be trying to get Saira and Greg out of the blast radius of whatever And Then What's shape would prove to be, but it could still take out Jason.

"I was only just talking to Saira about all this," Jason mused, angling their path off of the spiralling stairs and nodding to a mute Nayabaru guard standing by the corridor that seemed to take no notice of them. "We weren't sure when you'd be well again. I gave it a week, tops, to let that stall us. But since you're better now, I definitely want you two out in the morning, as soon as you're able."

[23:54] "No argument on that", Greg replied. "It's just— look, I know you're not afraid of putting yourself on the line for the sake of the mission. You're better at that than the rest of us. Still, I get this nagging feeling that when we two are are our way to safety, you're going to stay behind and... take more of a risk than is strictly needed. You already gave me good reasons for leaving, but if we're sitting on a ticking time bomb, I'd like to know, and if you're planning to jump on it, I'd *really* like to know. I promise, keeping cool under danger was in *my* training too, and Saira's and Samanta's. Being in charge of security doesn't make you more disposable than us, you know that."

[00:05] What Jason wanted to say was 'This has nothing to do with the mission.' It was on the tip of his tongue. It would have been the truth. It was also obviously the wrong answer. He shifted his shoulders, visibly dislodging his grumpy discomfort. Ticking time bomb. He could focus on that. "There's no time pressure on this. You and Saira clear the area, I give you some time – ideally a few days – before I do anything. Either way, you leaving isn't on a schedule, other than that I'd like you out of..." – he gestured mutely at the whole compound they were currently walking through – "...as soon as possible, because I independently think it's not good for you."

[01:20] Jason was still dancing around something, and if he was keeping something unsaid for Greg's peace of mind, it was having rather the opposite effect. Or maybe that was intentional — making Greg even more araid of that grim place — but that didn't seem his way to do things. Either way, he wasn't placating Greg's fear that he would take some excessive danger on himself. "Plenty of stuff can happen in a few days. If you mean *after* we're gone — that's a hell of a risk to take, case in point, when they inevitably blame our disappearance on you. Whatever it is that you're seeking to do without us, for all that I'm getting sick of this place" (and he bitterly thought about Edaaj leaving gloomily) "wouldn't it be easier with more support?"

[01:37] "No one's going to blame anyone, we asked to be allowed to leave. They're not going to hang me for that," Jason insisted, even as he came to a stop beside one of the myriad of heavy doors on this floor – cell doors, most likely, with one of the same having been repurposed as a guest room for the humans?

And he nudged the door open, revealing Saira inside, by posture having been in the process of taking a nap – but the sound of the door had her scrambling unelegantly to sit up, gawking at the two figures for an instant of fog-brain before uttering: "Greg!" with a sound of surprise. Even through the suit she was wearing, a tension was apparent, like a coiled spring – maybe she was curbing an instinct to hug him.

Was was the formal etiquette for someone in a suit engaging with a crewmate outside it? Samanta technically hadn't explained that one.

[01:58] It took Greg a few seconds, too, as the signal from his eyes and ears fought its way through his brain, jumped back and forth through its circuits, and finally found a way out through his limbs and vocal cords. "Saira— my God— are you— is— are you alright? All in one piece? How have you been?" He was actually somewhat surprised that Saira hadn't thrown her arms around him, but she might have had excellent reasons not to. (The suit, surely, but why was she wearing it now? The room was hardly interplanetary vacuum...) He patted her upper arm with camaraderie — the default standard degree of physical etiquette they had come to expect.

§ 2025-11-08 23:52:25

[23:56] On the other hand, Jason was still wearing his, too; Greg had just gotten accustomed to that. Admittedly the incident with infection had shown Greg that it was potentially bad to take it off, but that mishap had cut right into his flesh, and despite evidently having been peeled out of his suit, Greg hadn't gotten ill from just breathing the air unfiltered. Yet. Unless the Nayabaru had fixed that already, too.

Saira meanwhile had clasped a hand to his, giving it a squeeze. "You're asking me that?" She shook her head mildly. "You were out like a light for several days. Even back home that kind of symptom— ...we weren't sure if you'd—" She exhaled tensely. "You've gotten back on your feet much faster than we thought," she added, finally, more flustered than the encouragement she had likely been shooting for, glancing at Jason with both confusion and mild alarm.

Then, finally, answering: "All fine, though, no one's mistreated us, if you're fishing for that. Same for you?" The 'I hope' was elided for brevity's sake.

[00:50] "... Yes. Yes, actually, no complaints on their hospitality. They have, uh, good doctors here. Well, competent doctors, let's say." His recovery had, indeed, been fantastic; although adrenaline probably made him more lucid than he would otherwise have been. Unsustainable, certainly, as if there were stitches on his brain being tugged by strain; he was going to drop like a stone as soon as they would be out of danger. Which might only be the case back on Earth... "But there's something skeevy in here, too — we were just talking about that. This Valcen is playing some manipulation game I can't really follow, and I take the kavkema don't have as great a time as us here. You think so?"

[00:59] From the look on Saira's face, she was alarmed at the speed the conversation was going. Maybe she had hoped it would take a bit longer before they would be having this particular conversation. "It's—" she started, pausing awkwardly, before simply ending on: "Yes?" She pursed her lips for a moment, then pressed on: "I am guessing you two have already spoken about this?" So she was in on the general shape of the plan – and by the sound of it, quite concerned about it.

[01:23] Greg blinked. He had been precipitous; their timeline was not so tight. "Sorry for springing it on you like this, but, yeah, it has been on our minds for a while. We don't have to do anything right now, but I figure the sooner we all get on the same page, the better. Jason's discussed it with you too already, hasn't he?"

[01:34] Saira carefully sat back down. It wasn't a good day if she had to choose between airing her thoughts and not undermining Jason with them. She still respected him, even if she didn't understand his vehemence. She trusted he knew what he was doing, in some sense. But having been given only the rough outlines of sketches, it looked like suicide to her.

More damningly, nothing he had told her in their earlier conversation had made it sound like he thought otherwise.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Please tell me you're not going to make it your problem, too," she added, softly, but a hint of bristling crept into her tone despite all precautions. If Jason had something set the same crazy idea into Greg's head, she probably wouldn't be able to keep herself quiet and would go into a full-on rant.

[02:30] If Jason had told her the same things he'd told Greg, Saira didn't seem fully convinced, to say the least. "Not unless we're all in agreement. No foolhardy actions, no leaving someone behind —" He avoided mentioning that it wasn't *his* foolhardy actions that might lead to trouble — "No secrets between us, I'm sure". Here he shot a quick glance in Jason's direction. "We get, in my understanding, a couple days to mull over it. Unless you have an alternative timetable?"

§ 2025-12-07 00:00:00

[00:05] Jason grimaced. "I want you two out of here as soon as possible," he said. "But technically you can linger a few days, of course, we discussed that. I just think—" He heaved an audible breath. "I just think that staying here longer will just increasingly open you up to... whatever it is that the Nayabaru will do with us if they start to be bored. So, personal preference, you leave as soon as they let you, and before they change their mind about it." His left hand was curled into a loose fist and pulsing almost in time with the syllables he spoke.

[01:54] This was, more or less, the point where Greg accepted that Jason was not going to say out loud what he'd witnessed. At least as long as they were still among those walls, which rather counted for Greg as a point in favor of leaving, because vagueness would only conjure increasingly horrible images. "No argument with that. As you noted, in theory we're allowed to leave... though if they decide to try their hand in crimes against humanity, I doubt they'll be happy to have us out and running. Permission or not, if we have a good reason to leave, we'll have to be stealthy afterward. And then you'll have to reach and rejoin us, of course; we're not getting separate flights back to Earth. So I'm all for getting out of here, but what I want to be sure about is that you have a good plan to leave with us safe and sound. Not at the same time, if your call is otherwise, but — soon after".

[02:09] Jason shook his head, his posture tight and his tone firm. "I've told you both before, let me be the one to worry about me. I want you on the train back home, regardless whether I'm aboard or not. I intend to be there, but you cannot wait for me. Clear?"

[03:13] How about we club you over the head and drag you out of here with us, instead. Jason wasn't at all making things easier with his insistence to be abandoned to potential torture and execution, or something in that range of pleasantness. The slightest hard edge crept into Greg's voice. "There's no issue with clarity, I ensure you."

§ 2025-12-20 23:30:51

[23:47] "What I would really want," Saira commented, her posture reserved and cautious, but full of the unpleasant tension from the situation at hand. "Is if we can try to contact Samanta in the morning. She may have opinions about this scenario." She rocked back and forth subtly, transparently trying and failing to knead the tension out of her composure.

"Samanta will tell us off for letting Greg out of his suit in the first place," Jason offered drily. "On that note – if you two are going ahead and you're in a considerably less sterile environment than this..." He waved a hand indicatively and dismissively at the room. "...establishment, Greg might have more use for a suit than me, at least in the short term."

"You want to give him yours?" Saira arched a brow.

"Yeah?" Jason shrugged mildly.

"Uh, at this point, that's kinda gross," Saira grimaced.

"Yeah, yeah, sweat and grime, but it's Terran sweat and grime. Just giving the man some options, don't hang me for it," Jason glowered.

[00:45] If that was an offer of peace — and it was a nice offer: Greg grinned a bit despite himself — he definitely didn't want to throw it back, yet... Swapping fluids with a fellow human was almost certainly a greater breach of hygiene than moving outside. Samanta's input would actually have been welcome on that. "Thank you, man, but if you're going to take it off, at least let it get air for ten minutes before I get it on!" he chuckled. "I'll do the same when I'll hand it back to you, promised".

[00:59] "You want it?" Jason asked, fishing for confirmation, but by body language clearly ready to take it off and air it out for as long as anyone wanted. "I don't want you getting sick again." Of course, that was ignoring that the suit hadn't done anything to prevent the infection in the first place, but it had been profoundly unlucky – slipping to slice open both the suit and your leg, both, was just not going to end well in any universe. That might even have led to infection back home.

[02:23] "It might help". Maybe. They had all spent more than enough time swapping germs in the spacecraft anyway, and it's not like Jason had ever been sicklier than Greg in the whole mission. This was, of course, another instance of Jason insisting on self-sacrifice — but, at least, a relatively innocuous one. Perhaps he could trade this lesser danger against greater ones. "But if you're going to make good on it, I want you to promise to keep yourself safe until we get you a spare." He smiled. "You can't go to battle with in your bare primate skin, without even scales".

[02:47] "No one's going into battle," Jason dismissed, though his tone wasn't entirely right for it. As he spoke, he unlatched the helmet of the suit and pulled it off. It became immediately apparent that there was definitely a scent in there – fortunately not awful, more overall 'human' than 'sweat'. The initial impression was unpleasant, then gradually – even before dissipating – only intimate, like having one's face quite close to a friend while hugging them.

Jason walked to the corner of the room and balanced the helmet on the ground there, its opening pointing up, and started to peel out of the rest of the thing. "I think we still have some wipes I can use on the inside, too," he mused. "But I suppose that'll need to wait until we get access to our gear."

His shirt was definitely in a worse state than the suit, with the fabric under his armpits slightly stiff from the repeated exposure to drying sweat. But he didn't stink any more than that initial assault on Greg's nostrils had warned.

Once he was fully out of the suit and the suit sprawled in the same corner as the helmet, Jason slid down the wall, all light grey shirt, boxers and socks, and stretched his arms out over his bent knees, exhaling exaggeratedly. "Well! I suppose I'll find out how clean this air is now." He sounded marginally nervous about it – which made sense, given how much he had insisted on keeping the suit on all this time.

Saira failed to resist an urge to quip: "Promise it was cleaner before you got out of that suit." But she was smiling wryly over it.

[03:17] Greg probed briefly the interior; it really wasn't as bad as he expected. Either Jason's training included a degree of control over his sweat glands, or the suit's fabric was really good at removing anything nasty. "Well, you've made less of a mess than I expected", he joked. The situation was so much less tense now; perhaps there was hope yet for everyone to come out alive and sane. "So, how are you feeling in Silvanus' crisp air?"