rix_scaedu: (Default)
This follows on from All In Motion and was written to M.B.'s prompt on Patreon. It comes in at 995 words.


The three of them withdrew to the edge of the park, which was also the precipitous edge of one of the municipal high-rise administration buildings.  Someone had given some thought to getting people down to the ground without relying on outside help in an emergency, and pivoting bars set with anchor points were positioned on the parapet.  They'd been released from their holding positions, and stood erect at the moment, but once an abseiler was suspended from one their weight would pull it back down into its storage groove where the attached rope would be protected from direct exposure to fire and, incidentally, much harder to cut.  For Mayin and Reaver, wrapping their rope through the harness and tying off while providing suppressing fire was a well-used drill that came back easily.  The Oberxiao wasn't as skilled but he had the concept down and he could shoot straight.

Read more... )
rix_scaedu: (Elf)

This follows on from All In Motion and was written to M.B.'s prompt on Patreon. It comes in at 995 words.


The three of them withdrew to the edge of the park, which was also the precipitous edge of one of the municipal high-rise administration buildings.  Someone had given some thought to getting people down to the ground without relying on outside help in an emergency, and pivoting bars set with anchor points were positioned on the parapet.  They'd been released from their holding positions, and stood erect at the moment, but once an abseiler was suspended from one their weight would pull it back down into its storage groove where the attached rope would be protected from direct exposure to fire and, incidentally, much harder to cut.  For Mayin and Reaver, wrapping their rope through the harness and tying off while providing suppressing fire was a well-used drill that came back easily.  The Oberxiao wasn't as skilled but he had the concept down and he could shoot straight. 

Read more... )

 

 

rix_scaedu: (Elf)
This was written to [personal profile] kelkyag 's prompt for my March 19 prompt request. It follows on from Talk Turns to Action which has links to the earlier pieces of this story. This part runs to 1,570 words.

Mayin zigged and zagged through the park in a crouching run, a decade's worth of skills and experience coming back to her despite her lack of recent training. She came across one inconvenient interloper and had him down before he knew that she was there. She took his weapon and left him in the recovery position, reasonably certain that she hadn't killed him. She also managed to make contact with Wraith without getting shot, using a recognition code they'd used before - the call of a creature that had never walked this planet.

The three person screening team worked better than the two man had, simply because it gave them an extra weapon for suppression fire when they had to move their charges across open pieces of park. A couple of the interlopers attempted the sort of grandstanding heroics you saw in the action genre but picked the wrong time and place for their tactics to actually work. Mayin had to shoot one of them. She was prepared to concede that this lot were a little better trained than she'd thought on her first assessment of them, but there were some gaping holes in their skill sets and background knowledge.
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This is now followed by On The Ground.
rix_scaedu: (Elf)
This comes from [personal profile] kelkyag's prompt for Mayin back in September.... My series of stories about Mayin is back on LJ with a landing page here, and the piece immediately before this one, Rules of Engagement 2, here. This piece runs to 1,127 words.


"Neoma," said Mayin quietly to her niece. "I need you to go with Reaver. You have to be very quiet and do exactly what he tells you to do. These two," she indicated the business-suited woman and Sharvon, "will be going with you too."

"If you're good," added Reaver, "I might be able to show you how to tie up the bad guys with their own underwear."

Read more... )
rix_scaedu: (Default)
This follows on from Rules of Engagement and was written to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt "Mayin, please?"   Apparently it runs to 441 words.


Sharvon had sent back the requested acknowledgement to the message that had come over a data feed label line in his drone camera array.. Almost immediately his eyebrows went up as a response came back.  “Uh, he says ‘They want a victim for execution  I will make them choose me  Backup requested  Over’  He’s going to offer himself up to be shot or something? Is this guy nuts?”

“I’m sure he won’t be that blatant about either what he’s doing or his mental state.  Tell him ‘Request granted’.” ordered Wraith.  He turned to Mayin, “Thale, how do you know the oberxiao?”

Mayin looked at Wraith and Reaver in turn before answering, “He sought me out because he believes I became his luck witch after I blew him up while out on field operations.  Originally he wanted back the thing of his he believes I hold to create that bond – now he seems it think it would be easier to marry me.”

Wraith blinked.  “What does he think you’ve got?”

Reaver gave a short laugh and grinned.  “I’ll explain it to you later,” he promised.  “Over a beer or something, somewhere Thale can’t hear us.”

Mayin, who was still peering over the blast wall section said, “Looks like they’re about to do something, so if you jokers would like to stop rabbiting on about my personal issues….  We free the hostages, then what’s our exit?”

“Lift six,” replied Reaver.  “If the podium’s twelve, it’s at two on the park rim.  It’s how the official party got here and it was locked in place after they arrived, so it’ll still be there.  I have an emergency key but either of you could probably unlock it in under five.”

Wraith said, “So, you secure our exit access.  Thale gets the sound guys, and I shoot anyone who wants to play executioner.”

“And that’s when it will all get messy,” commented Mayin drily, “because they won’t like that.”

“Their issue, not mine,” replied Wraith.

The business-suited woman who’d arrived with him, and was his and Sharvon’s boss, carefully pulled off her shoes and shoved them in her hand bag without sitting up.  Catching the look Reaver gave her she responded, “What?  I know I can’t run properly in these but they cost me a week’s salary a month ago.  I’d rather not lose them and it sounds to me like I’ll need to run again very shortly.”

Out on the other side of the wall two of the interlopers were moving towards the sound console, and the blonde oberxiao with the prosthetic eye and hand was interjecting into the speech the intruders‘ leader was making.

This is now followed by Talk Turns to Action.
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I have realised that I know what her enemies called Mayin when she was in the military (Lang Mugou and then Three Nine Seven), but I have no idea what her own colleagues called her. They would have given her a nickname or call sign of some description but what?

Something that sounds innocuous until you realise what it's short for, perhaps.
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I wrote this to the prompts from [livejournal.com profile] sauergeek and [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag here. As they were one after the other for the same thing, I wrote this as one larger block.   This follows on from The Party Assembles.


“Rules of engagement?” Wraith spoke while trying to identify the controller of the camera drone that their camera man was picking up but not controlling.

“Clear and immediate threat to the techs and/or the hostages,” replied Mayin.

“They come after us or get us on camera with their drone,” added Reaver.

“They start using the park as a sniper post for elsewhere in the city or they turn out to be the diversion while the real bad guys do their thing elsewhere,” finished Wraith.

“And what do we want to achieve,” asked Mayin, “aside from getting us and the hostages out of here alive?”

“Gathering intel from these bozos is not my problem,” answered Wraith.

“And I think the authorities would frown at us going all hunter-killer on these guys,” put in Reaver.

“Neoma,” said Mayin quietly to her niece, “you need to stay here while we go deal with the bad guys. I need you to curl up in a ball on the ground with your back against the wall. Stay there until we come back.”

“Why?” Neoma looked frightened.

“Because no-one will be trying to hurt you, but the smaller you are and the better protection you have, then the less likely it is that you’ll get hurt by accident.”

The suited woman asked, “But wouldn’t we be safer with our backs towards the wall?”

“If someone else finds you, we want you to look like people and not like something disguised in clothes,” replied Wraith.

Sharvon the cameraman said quietly, “I can’t curl into a ball, drones to control and all that.”

Wraith looked at him speculatively. “Can you do anything to their drone?”

“If I’d been allowed to bring my kit for exclusive shoots, hey I could have taken over it and the sound board over there,” he nodded vaguely in the direction of the console the techs were hiding behind, “but I wasn’t and so I can’t just hack into that stuff. If we have time, I can add their drone to my network then cut off their privileges but that would give us a brief window where their guy has access to my entire network.”

“Not really what we’re after then.”

Wraith was about to say something else when Sharvon said, “That’s…interesting.”

“What is?” Everyone may have asked that at once.

“I’m getting a message on a data feed channel.” Sharvon adjusted his display and turned his screen so everyone else could see it. “See, that blue field there. It’s meant for a type of transfer I don’t need to use. I understand ‘Friend query’ because it won’t let you use punctuation characters, but I can’t read this box thing that follows.”

“That’s a military electronic signature chop,” replied Wraith. He looked at Mayin, “Would this be your mysterious friend?”

Mayin took a look at the screen. “He’s the only oberxiao out there and this is an oberxiao’s chop.”

Wraith said quietly, “The one with the prosthetics? Oh…my. Sharvon, the answer is ‘yes’.”

This is now followed by Rules of Engagement 2.
rix_scaedu: (Default)
This follows on from The Responsible Adults Need To Get Together.... and was written to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt "that cliffhanger Mayin is stuck in."


“Ah, people,” said Sharvon the cameraman, “I’ve got someone in a set of overalls and toting a bag, no those are tied together shirts, coming in this direction.

Wraith looked at his feeds. “That’s Reaver. This is all about to become less one-sided.”

Reaver arrived at a crouched run, emerging from a formal shrubbery directly behind their position, and dropping down behind the wall without standing. “We gotta do something about those thorny pears in there, I swear they’ve got a micronutrient deficiency or something – those thorns should be bigger and sharper.” He looked around. “Okay then. This looks promising. Who’d like a present from Uncle Reaver? Sorry I’ve only go the stuff I took off the bad guys.”

Neoma, looking entranced, asked, “Did you really tie them up with their own underpants?”

Reaver looked back at her and replied, “It’s an underappreciated art, short stuff, but I did. Now, my presents are a bit big for you,” he opened the improvised bag of tied together shirts and pulled out a G149 which he handed to Mayin, “so you won’t be getting one today. Who are you here with?”

“Aunty Mayin. It was supposed to be ‘an educational experience’.” Neoma pouted. “I don’t like this educational experience.”

“Then you’re a sensible kid,” Reaver handed another weapon to Wraith, who immediately, as Mayin had, checked the weapon for maintenance, load and status.

Reaver was about to add something else when Sharvon said urgently, “I’ve just had another drone camera pop up op on my screens. I don’t know if he can tell I’m here, but I’m fairly sure the operator is working for the bad guys.”

“Let me guess,” said Wraith. “Someone wants to make a televised speech and demonstration.”

The besuited woman looked at the new camera feed and snorted quietly in disgust, “Amateurs!”


This is now followed by Rules of Engagement
rix_scaedu: (Default)
This follows on from An Educational Experience Goes Completely Pear Shaped and was written to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt reminding me that I'd left things on more than a bit of a cliff hanger...

The Memorial Park during an unveiling ceremony was, in Mayin’s opinion, no place to be holding a protest over the end of the war. An armed protest involving shooting. She assumed the unknown protesters had the official party pinned down, or at least had intended to. Intention was a fine thing, but she knew that four of their original fifteen were currently out of play, tied up with their own underwear.

Her wartime comrade Reaver was good at making do with the materials to hand. Plus he was still a free agent.

And if all the responsible adults present were doing their jobs then Oberxiao Huhn Jan-li should already have used the military communicator she’d bet her flat’s rental lease that he had in his artificial arm to report the situation to the proper military authorities. Given the lack of appropriate skill sets being displayed by the enemy, she doubted they’d know that a military issue prosthetic would carry a whole lot more around in it than a civilian one, particularly as discharging service personnel routinely had their prosthetics swapped out to keep military communications and weapons out of general circulation.

Even if they did, they might not have twigged what choice pieces of equipment the Oberxiao could be carrying around concealed in plain sight.

Looking at the PR cameraman Sharvon’s feeds, Mayin could see her brother’s friend Georas and the comms guy Hitch, who she knew from her time in the service, sheltering in place behind the speaker system controls. Something about that wasn’t quite right, and Mayin cautiously sneaked a peek over the memorial wall to confirm what she thought. She dropped back down into place swearing.

Her niece, hiding nice and small beside her said, wide eyed, “Aunty Mayin, those are really rude words!”

At the same time Wraith, on her other side, asked, “What?”

Mayin answered her niece first, “Yes, small piece, they are. Don’t you go repeating them now, you don’t need the universe as annoyed at you as it is at me. Wraith, those two back room techs out there have moved that console to hide an access hatch.”

He repeated one of the words she’d used then added, “I admire their steel, but we could use Reaver, those weapons he’s picked up, and your friend you haven’t told me about who’s got his own gear – all about now, thank you.”


This is now followed by The Party Assembles.

rix_scaedu: (Default)
I wrote this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt "I'm also fond of Jonna, Mayin, Parthi, and Rensa, for characters with fairly well-developed stories in various states from "not done yet" through "might benefit from a final wrap-up segment"." Which lead to some further discussion, some thinking on my part, a lot of making what I wanted to happen be feasible and plausible, and finally the following 1,314 words about Mayin. It follows on from Getting Out More.


Memorial Park was on a mesa, and so stood on solid ground. It was surrounded by public buildings with roofs that were level with the mesa top and thus extended the limits of the park. All the memorials were in the Park proper while all the access routes were via the buildings. Most people reached the top by using the scenic elevators on the Veterans’ Affairs, Public Library, Community Services and Parks and Waterways buildings. Mayin and her niece, Neoma, came up through the Public Library, pausing to look at the new releases and borrow a few on their way.

Read more... )


This is now followed by The Responsible Adults Need To Get Together....

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I have written this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt about Mayin.

She’d told Jan-li, Oberxiao Huhn, to let her think for a while, and he’d promised to. In the same conversation in the moonlit roof top garden she’d also warned him not to keep hacking the city’s security cameras to find her, “Sooner or later, someone’s going to notice,” she told him firmly, “and probably get entirely the wrong idea.”

He’d thought for a moment and replied, “You’re probably right but I have-.” Then he’d shaken his head ruefully and said, “I should stop being quite so focused and take a step back.” She’d given him an electronic address where he could contact her and then he’d walked her to the station. Since then, she hadn’t heard from him.

Mayin decided it was the right time to distract herself by going back to an old interest.

Her pre-enlistment abseiling club was long disbanded and she needed one reasonably handy to where she lived now, so she searched through the community and public announcements for something suitable. That was how she found the Renshkin High Towers Abseiling and Free Climbing Club. Their info and contact page said all the right things, the blurb sounded good and checking the appropriate registration and safety authorities showed that they had all right affiliations and certificates. The only thing left to do was turn up at a meeting and see if she liked these people.

A tall, spare, grey haired woman was meeting new comers at the climbing gym door and she directed Mayin to a group of teens gathered near the most basic wall. She was also the one who joined their little gaggle and introduced herself as Erridan Glade. “I’m assessing visitors and newcomers so we know what you can do and what training you need,” she went on. “Perhaps the group of you that arrived together could begin?”

There were six of them, mid-teens, and Mayin thought they were probably three couples, even if they didn’t recognise it themselves. After they ran through their names one of them said, “A bunch of us have been watching Guirdon and we got into an argument about whether we could do any of the things he does and well, we thought abseiling and rappelling and climbing would be something we could learn to do.”

“I see.” Erridan nodded. “Well you’ve been sensible about it and come to us. And you?” She turned to Mayin.

“I’m Mayin Thale. I was in an abseiling club at the end of school but then I enlisted. I did a bit more while I was in the service and I thought I might go back to it as a hobby now I’m out. Also, I thought I should get out and widen my circle of acquaintance.” Mayin gave what she hoped was a friendly smile at the group.

“So,” summarised Erridan, “you’ve done some adventure training and-”

“No, sorry,” interrupted Mayin, “I’ve given you the wrong impression. I completed the Advanced Operational Climbing and Rappelling Course within the last two years.”

Erridan paused and almost did a double take. That made a couple of the more observant teenagers take another look at Mayin. “We’ll put you in with our advanced group then. Did you bring any gear with you?”

rix_scaedu: (Default)
This follows on from An Old Friend and was written to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's first prompt.

Fortunately, the rest of Mayin, Edan and Ley’s dinner was much less fraught. Mayin minded the table several times while her brother and sister-in-law danced. Rigo came past and topped up their wine and water several times, a courtesy he extended to the table of the lady in apricot. The Oberxiao’s party seemed to be celebrating someone’s birthday and they were still in their seats when Mayin’s threesome left. He had not approached any of them again and Mayin wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

That uncertainty contributed to her decision to decline her brother’s offer of a lift home in the taxi he and Ley has hailed in favour of a stroll through the roof top park below the restaurant to the public transit station at the far end. The park was thirty storeys below the restaurant but still twenty storeys above the street, and being on a roof limited what it could contain. The trees were focal points, even though barely one and half times Mayin’s height, and the two pools that mirrored each other in the park’s design were too shallow to accommodate fish. In Mayin’s current mood, the lighting made up for those possible deficits because while the main path through the park was brightly lit, off the path there was barely any lighting at all, leaving only the ambient city light and, tonight, the moon for illumination.

She was admiring the moon’s reflection in one of the pools when she heard someone coming up behind her and just as she was tensing for action, the Oberxiao said, “You left before I could ask for a second dance.”

Mayin turned around to face him. “Staying longer would have been stretching the evening out too far for us, and my brother and his wife are paying their baby sitter by the hour. How did you find me?”

“I might, theoretically, have hacked the security cameras,” he said in a noncommittal fashion. “We could have children too, you know. Daughters like your niece and sons…well, I used to have nephews.”

“I’m sorry about your family.”

“Thank you. I continue to hope that I can persuade you to help me start again.”

Mayin gave a wry smile. “That wasn’t what you said when you first came to my apartment.”

“I wasn’t in full possession of the relevant facts at that time,” he replied smoothly.

“And you upset all my plans too, you know,” answered Mayin. “I just wanted to fit in and be home again, and then you turned up. You are offering things I want,” she admitted, “but I would have to leave here and my family, and then there’s our personal history.”

“You were doing your job and I was doing mine,” he said flatly and then added, with what Mayin could only describe as a seductive note, “I could be open to negotiation on the subject of our home base.”




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I wrote this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt. It follows on from Logic Fail (2).


A waiter coughed quietly behind the woman in the apricot dress, the one who objected to Mayin ‘flirting’ with a member of their former enemy. “Will madam be rejoining her own party or leaving now?” He asked the question in a polite and neutral tone.

Diverted, the woman turned to look at him and said, “I beg your pardon?”

“After the scene madam has made in confronting another customer, madam has a choice: either return to her own party and be circumspect for the rest of the evening or; leave. Right now.” The waiter positively loomed at the woman in apricot, and Mayin recognised him – Rigo, another former member of her unit, had once spent six weeks undercover as a steward in an enemy officers’ mess.

“You can’t talk to me like that!” The woman bridled in indignation.

“Madam,” Rigo’s voice remained calm, “it is my job to speak to you like that and, if you refuse or are unable to choose one of the options I’ve presented, it becomes my task to remove you from the premises.” His expression remained almost neutral as he added, “With all due discretion, of course.”

“I’ll scream.” There was a rising pitch to her voice.

“Madam can attempt to scream, but the manager feels that you have done enough damage to the evening’s ambience already.” Rigo flexed his shoulders ever so slightly.

“But she-,”

“Is an old friend of mine and if he hurts her, I will kill him.” Rigo smiled. “I promise.”





This is followed by A Walk In The Park.
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I wrote this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt "Logic Fail: Jan-li and Mayin". It follows on from Fitting In.


The Oberxiao had handed her into her chair, bowed and returned to his own party. Their next course was served almost immediately and Mayin noticed that the fourth place setting had already been removed.

“He is a fine figure of a man,” commented Ley neutrally as they ate, “and he does dance very well.”

“He does do that,” Mayin agreed quietly, between bites. “He also just did the closest thing he can to introducing me to his family.”

“Should you reciprocate?” Edan speared a piece of vegetable and made sure it was coated with the sauce from the main item on his plate.

“If I was considering saying yes,” Mayin said slowly, “but I really have no idea what I want to do about him at the moment.” Then she added, “Do either of you know the woman in apricot coming towards us with a determined look on her face?”

Edan and Ley both looked.

“Never seen her before.” Edan resumed his quest to transfer as much sauce from his plate to his mouth as possible without dripping any down his front.

“No,” Ley emphasised her answer with a shake of her head. “What do you think she wants?”

“How dare you!” The woman in apricot launched into a splutter of outrage at Mayin as soon as she reached the table. “Dancing with the enemy!” Then she narrowed down to an envenomed, “Don’t you know what they did to my brother?”

“Probably nothing worse than the things we did to them,” replied Mayin quietly, “and unlike you, I choose not to make a scene in a public place. I’m sorry if your brother is dead or damaged but there are places you and he, if he’s still alive, can receive help or support.”

The woman’s face went red. “Help? Support? It doesn’t bring him back the way he used to be!”

“After ten years away, none of us are the people we used to be, for good or ill,” Mayin told her.

“There’s no need for you to be nice to them!” The woman rounded back on her, “Flirting and who knows what else!”

“He was being nice to me,” Mayin told her. “Besides, you want payback for whatever happened to your brother? The odds are,” she jerked a thumb at the Ambassador’s table, missing that the Oberxiao was looking concernedly in her direction, “each of those men is now the sole survivor of his extended family. The odds are anyone who actually did anything to your brother is now dead, along with their entire family.” She dropped her voice to a near whisper and the woman in apricot leaned down to keep listening, “Besides, worrying about what you think isn’t my biggest problem. That man I was dancing with, I gave him those injuries. Not our side, not my unit, me personally and he knows that, yet he still seeks out my company. What would you think in those circumstances?”



This is followed by An Old Friend.

Fitting In

Jan. 27th, 2014 04:00 am
rix_scaedu: (Default)
I wrote this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt "May I suggest something in Mayin's story for 'fitting in'?"


“What do I intend to do with him?” Mayin repeated the Ambassador’s question. “I am not required to do anything with Oberxiao Huhn, sir, and with that luxury in hand I intend to take my time in deciding what to do about the situation.”

“A fair answer,” the Ambassador acknowledged. “I have wondered, as a matter of personal curiosity, how did you hide the trigger that Jan-li tripped to set off that explosion? I always thought he was too sharp eyed to get caught by anything obvious.”

Mayin regarded him, the rest of the table, then the maimed man standing beside her. “Oberxiao Huhn didn’t trigger the explosion, Ambassador, I did. I knew someone would be pursuing me at that point and I intended that the pursuit would end there.” There was a sharp intake of breath from the civilian-clothed young man at the table, and Mayin added, drawing herself up, “I am a Shadow in the Dark and I intended to kill.”

“As was proper, Lang Mugou, and no-one is trying to corner you about it now.” He glared at the Ambassador’s aide and put his left hand, the one that was still his own flesh, on her back in what he hoped she would accept as a supportive gesture, “Allow me to return you to your brother and his wife with the hope that we may dance again later.”

Mayin let him guide her around the dance floor back to her brother, Edan, and his wife, Ley. “Lang Mugou?” She was gentle in her questioning with an element of surprise behind it. “Where did that come from?”

“It was what we called you,” his hand was still warm on her back, “before it was decided that such naming of our enemies inflated them in our minds. We changed to numbers but I think you deserve to be more than Three Nine Seven.” She looked at him sharply, “Particularly as you blew me up.”

“So was that a nickname or a title?” She could remember some of the names they’d had for identified but unknown enemies.

“Both,” he said. “It would look well, I think, on our family genealogy.”

“You seem confident that you can persuade me to marry you,” Mayin remarked as they reached the table she was sharing with her brother and sister-in-law.

“I appreciate you,” he replied calmly. “That departed gentleman from earlier seemed to lack the ability to do so. I am confident that you would fit better into a household with me than into one with someone like him.”

This is followed by Logic Fail (2).



rix_scaedu: (Default)
I wrote this in response to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's prompt of "Mayin."


“Oh my,” muttered Ley to her husband Edan as they watched his older sister, Mayin, being guided around the dance floor by the man with a cybernetic hand and eye and wearing the foreign military uniform, “physical competence is very attractive, isn’t it?”

“You think he looks attractive?” Edan looked surprised. “I thought he’s rather…sallow.”

“I’m talking about the way he moves,” his wife gently corrected him, “and he does fill out that uniform well. Plus, of course, he just saved Mayin from the embarrassment of being abandoned mid-dinner.”

At the same time, out on the dance floor, Oberxiao Huhn Jan-li was murmuring, “Although I am happy not to have to drive off my rivals, I could wish, for your sake, that they were more circumspect in withdrawing their suit.”

“Tonight was our first meeting, he didn’t count as a suitor,” Mayin dismissed her brother’s acquaintance with a shrug.

“All the more reason to stay till the end of the evening,” Jan-li said disapprovingly. “If he runs off like that in the middle of introductions, he’ll soon run out of people who’re prepared to introduce him to potential brides. Besides, I could see you were hurt.”

“I’d been beginning to like him,” Mayin confessed, “but he didn’t care for my service history.”

“He doesn’t like for Shadows in the Dark?” Jan-li smiled as he used his people’s nickname for Mayin’s old unit.

“The stories they tell about us are collectively true, if not true for all individuals.” She admitted, “As a group we could be said to lack social couth.”

“That doesn’t change my mind,” he told her as he steered them between two corporate-looking couples. “Now that the music is ending, allow me to present you to my colleagues before I return you to your brother and his wife.” He added, “I’ve been researching your family.”

“Legally?” She tilted her head consideringly.

“Barely,” he admitted. “I’m afraid that since I forced our acquaintance, you have a file other than your service one with your government’s intelligence organisations. I must admit I am tempted to add comments to their notes but I feel that would be overplaying my hand.”

“Almost certainly,” Mayin replied as the music ended and they turned to applaude the orchestra. The Oberxiao had manoeuvred them to be so close to his table at the end of their dance that to refuse to meet his colleagues would have been a public snub. She allowed him to usher her up to the older man at the head of the table.

“Sir,” her dance partner addressed his superior in their own language, “I would like to make known to you my luck witch, the former Shadow in the Night May-in.”

“A pleasure, I’m sure.” The ambassador smiled and the expression around his eyes was amusement.

“Admiral Perger,” Mayin replied in the same language. “It’s an honour. There was a time when I would have worked very hard to be this close to you.”

“I’m sure there was,” the ambassador chuckled, “but those days are behind us now. So,” he leaned back in his chair, “now you have Oberxiao Huhn’s attention, what do you intend to do with him?”



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When one of her parents' five children was to be drafted for a decade's service in a generations long interstellar war, Mayn volunteered while her brothers were still discussing how to decide which of them would be chosen.  Now, she's home, the war is over and Mayin is trying to readjust to a civilian life.  She also has a suitor...

The stories so far are:

Back Again;
Reintegration;
In The Ashes of Victory;
Working On Plan B;
Next Moves;
Discussion and Declaration;
Mayin's Lack Of A Love Life Analyzed;
They Had The Best Intentions;
On the Dance Floor;
Fitting In;
Logic Fail (2);
An Old Friend;
A Walk In The Park;
Getting Out More;
An Educational Experience Goes Completely Pear Shaped;
The Responsible Adults Need To Get Together....;
The Party Assembles;
Rules of Engagement;
Rules of Engagement 2;
Talk Turns to Action;
All In Motion; and
On The Ground.

There is also a background piece, The Road To War: a background piece for the October Prompt Request.
rix_scaedu: (Default)
I wrote this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's first prompt "Something in Mayin's story."

Ley and Edan were hosting a dinner in a restaurant for an acquaintance of Edan’s and Edan’s elder sister, Mayin. They were, frankly, matchmaking and both the invitees knew it. “You’ve both been discharged after a decade away,” Edan had told Georas from his work’s Technical Support Division. “You have that in common, at least. She’s very quiet, I don’t think she knows what to talk about to people who weren’t enlisted.”

“It can be difficult,” Georas had agreed. “All the things we used to talk about aren’t really appropriate anymore. Gossip about the war was an important survival currency. Now,” he flashed a smile, “not nearly so much, but I haven’t been able to find an acceptable substitute.”

“You’ve got nothing to lose by meeting her,” Edan had urged and so Georas had agreed to come to this dinner for four. The restaurant was at the top of a spire, the view being one of its selling points. The tables were arranged around the edge of the viewing platform and there was a dance band that unkind reviewers had suggested was to give diners something to do as they waited between courses. Edan had booked them a table in the middle rank, neither next to the viewing windows nor next to the dance floor.

The sister was nice. Shorter than him, with short, dark hair and fair skin. Ankle length dinner dress in a muted orange-pink colour, a matching clutch bag under her arm and heeled sandals on her feet. Her expression was not shy, precisely, but definitely watchful. She looked like a tech, or a comms op, maybe even ship’s crew. She even asked intelligent questions about his work, and seemed to understand his answers.

Edan’s work acquaintance, Georas, seemed to be a very together sort of fellow, his brown hair still in a military cut. He seemed very buttoned down, neither as squirrelly as some techs she’d worked with or as ultra-focussed as others. Mayin liked that he didn’t assume she wouldn’t understand his answers to her questions and because she was paying attention to him she merely noted that a largish party was being shown to a long table next to the viewing window. Something about the group kicked at her brain, but she firmly squashed her hypervigilance and continued with her conversation. She saw exactly when it all went pear-shaped over the entrée. He asked her which unit she’d been mustered out of, she answered him truthfully and saw his smile turn into a rictus.

When the entrées were finished he and Edan went to the men’s room together.

“You told me that she was shy,” Georas said furiously. “She’s not shy, she’s just deciding whether she’s going to kill me or not. That entire unit was, is, crazy. They use enemy finger bones for poker chips! No, sorry. I’m just not interested. Here’s the money for the food I ordered. I know she’s your sister, but please don’t ask me about this again.”

Edan came back to the table alone and made Georas’ apologies. Mayin heard what he said about a stomach upset but knew why Georas had bailed on the evening. She straightened her back and prepared to brave out the rest of the dinner. Edan called over a waiter and as the fourth setting was being cleared from the table a familiar voice behind Mayin said, “Excuse me, but may I have this dance?”

She turned and Oberxiao Huhn Jan-li stood there offering her his hand. He was resplendent in a formal uniform, his cybernetic hand and eye gleaming in their respective fashions, the blonde hair that seemed odd to her with his skin tone was cropped and neatly combed, and he was unequivocally pleased to see her.

rix_scaedu: (Default)
I wrote this to [livejournal.com profile] kelkyag's first prompt "Mayin. (So, we've heard a little bit of how courtship traditionally works in Jan-li's culture. What about Mayin's? Her family keeps trying to introduce her to people, or was ...)". 

“Well,” remarked Raquel to her sister-in-law, Ley, “Uncle Charlie thinks the ones who’ve been soldiers are scared of her.”

“What?”  Ley stared in surprise.  “Those big, tough men are scared of Mayin?”

“That’s what Uncle Charlie thinks from talking to them,” confirmed Raquel.  “Not that they said that, of course.”

“And our friends who haven’t done military service all said they felt like they had nothing in common with her.”  Ley sighed.  “Just because she wasn’t doing the same things they were doing for the last ten years…  I mean, so she hasn’t seen a few movies.  So what?”

“We introduce her to apparently suitable men,” Raquel stirred her hot drink disconsolately, “and she sees them once, never to meet again.  If she was living at home our parents would be doing most of this because, let’s face it, you can’t build a relationship with someone you don’t know exists.”

“Oh, I know,” agreed Ley.  “Are we sure she doesn’t have a cyber-correspondent or that there isn’t someone she met in the war she’s holding a torch for?”

“Don’t think so on the first,” mused Raquel.  “The second, it’s possible.”

“But if that’s the case, why isn’t she pursuing it?”  Ley spooned some of the milky froth from the top of her drink into her mouth before she continued, “And there’s this man from the aid delegation, he seems to like her just fine.  I can see why she wouldn’t want to pursue that relationship but at least he was interested enough to kiss her and he has nice taste in flowers.  Deep pockets too,” she added thinking of the pink blossoms on the bare brown stems.

“What man from the aid delegation?”  Raquel perked up.  “If she fell for one of the enemy, that could explain a lot.”

“It didn’t sound like that was the issue at all,” Ley clarified, “but he was definitely interested.  If you see them on the news, he’s the one with the cybernetic eye and hand.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Raquel was promised, “But maybe she’ll like this new man you’re taking her to dinner with tomorrow.”

rix_scaedu: (Default)
So, how did Mayin's war start...


The root cause of the war was resources but that was obscured by a broken treaty and the death of a diplomat.

Space is big but man’s ability to travel it is not.  Resources need to be found in places which can be reached and from which they can be retrieved at the least possible cost.  Habitable planets are the jewel in the crown of any star empire but getting all the resources needed to build and maintain a star fleet out of the accompanying gravity well is a costly business.  That makes certain types of metal and mineral rich asteroid belts very valuable.  Worth fighting for.  A clustering of systems with such belts even more so.

After the initial disputes about jurisdiction, allegations of claim jumping, demands to be protected and the resulting military skirmishes, there was a treaty negotiation.  The treaty was fair, equitable and took a great number of intelligent, resourceful and well-meaning people a great deal of time and effort to negotiate and get ratified.

Then Merrick Minerals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merrick and Sons which was itself a wholly owned subsidiary Lansborough Family Holdings, set up an unlicensed mining operation in a system ceded to the treaty party it didn’t belong to.  It complicated this manoeuvre by eliminating the prospecting team sent in by Chung Mining who did have legal rights to the area in question.  Merrick Minerals relied on the Lansborough political connections to protect them from the consequences of their multiple illegal acts, that strategy having worked for them before.  However, that protection gave the appearance that their actions were government sanctioned.

During the subsequent peace talks in the offended nation’s capital one of the visiting diplomats was attracted to a local woman from a family with some rank and social standing.  He made perfectly proper and acceptable approaches to her and her family in the correct local form.  However she had other suitors and one of them decided to improve his odds of being the successful suitor by eliminating several of his rivals.  Unfortunately for the negotiations, the frank and unabashed assassination of a foreign diplomat in front of his delegation by a member of a local ruling class didn’t strike this ardent gentleman as something which might cause problems.

The peace process broke down at that point and war ensued.

The lady and her family chose a suitor who actually had both political nous and common sense.

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