The Reaper War had been won. The Normandy might have been battered, bruised and limping on FTL drive alone, but they'd patched her hull, broken atmo from an uncharted garden world and pointed her at Earth. An Earth with her great cities still buried in rubble and smoke... but an Earth that had survived, and a galaxy to go with it. 'Battered and limping' was a reasonable description for Kaidan Alenko himself, with his ribs still complaining about being hit by a flying chunk of LAV, but he'd eventually managed to find a space to grab some precious rack time and reflect on the prospect of peace.
He'd woken to find himself halfway to buried in a snow drift, and had been halfway to deciding this was all an elabourate hallucination before wearing an unfamiliar uniform had nearly gotten him shot by the search party that had stumbled across him. The Alenko half of his heritage lent him a certain surface resemblance to the Barrayarans, but his accent, his facility with tech, and his squeaky-clean genes were far more galactic in nature. All the same, he'd found himself quickly pressed into work.
He'd had little time for his customary reflection, but one thought kept cropping up: finding out that he'd come down with a late-breaking case of L2 biotic psychosis might have been better than the reality that he was hip deep in another war before he'd even made it home from the last one.
a. Village Life:
The villagers may be adapted to the climate, but that they're so happy to share what little they have with the guerillas has been bothering Kaidan, or more specifically the lack of reciprocity from his end of the equation. The final straw had been when a widow had seen him shivering at the tag end of a patrol and had grabbed him by the ear in a gesture that could have been carbon copied from his grandmother. He was released to the camp stuffed full of venison stew, and sporting a pair of knitted socks and a bemused expression.
He'd figured out at least one way to try and even the score a little. Thus, his next span of off-duty time sees him back in the village, this time with a shovel in hand as he balances precariously on the roof of the widow's cabin to try and clear off the snow load the way her arthritis no longer permitted her to. He could probably use a hand... although whether in terms of assistance or mocking applause is entirely up to the observer.
b. Camp: Fireside
It's not a proper fireside booze-up until the drunken singing starts. Maple mead appears to be a slightly less lethal (and much tastier) feral Barraryaran version of ryncol, and even the tolerance that his amped-up biotic's metabolism grants him isn't enough to overcome it. Kaidan, flushed and weaving slightly in his seat, is somewhat thickly trying to encourage a little cross-cultural musicology after discovering that some of the very oldest Barrayaran drinking songs share a common Earth origin with some of the oldest ones he knows. "No, see," he's attempting to explain. "The way I learned it from Pressley is only one person actually has to remember the words. Everyone else just sings 'How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now' and the 'God damn them all'. Dead easy."
The song that consisted mostly of creative profanity involving Cetagandans was a lot easier to get going.
c. Camp: Training!
Although somewhere in another time and place he was Major Kaidan Alenko of the Systems Alliance, and a Council Spectre to boot, this meant precisely dick-all here on Barrayar. His initial reponse of name, rank and serial number to the questions posed by his rescue party had been met with nothing more than a flat exhortation of prove it. While a better debrief had come in time, he was still out in the training field alongside every other new recruit, sternly ordered to keep the techno-witchery of his biotics tamped down and to focus on hand to hand combat instead.
Being trained was an opportunity to assess his trainers, as well as his fellow trainees, and in between the throws, the knife work with wooden practice blades and a series of thoroughly nasty and effective close quarters techniques that would make a Phantom jealous, Kaidan's been developing a solid appreciation for what the guerilla forces under Count Vorkosigan are capable of, and of just what kind of leadership the man himself inspires.
Some of that appreciation is visible on his face as he takes a breather on the sidelines and watches another round of trainees get introduced to the many uses of a well-placed elbow.
d. Cetagandan Base: Water Treatment Plant
"Oh, come on you son of a bitch." The classic cry of a tech being thwarted by a willful bit of machinery is followed by the clang of a wrench being applied in a precision strike to a recalcitrant valve. There's a hopeful gurgling of liquid through a pipe soon after, and Kaidan pops up from out of cover with a satisfied huff shortly after. Welding and pipefitting's a little more manual labour than the electronics his sentinel class training has him certified for, but he's another pair of semi-trained hands that can, and has been, put into service to get the water back on line.
"For people determined to keep their planet in the feudal age," he reflects as he gathers his tools and moves on to the next spot on the main intake line, "They sure know just where to stick a shaped charge."
[[OOC: Also open to other suggestions! PMable, or pingable over at minor_ramblings.]]
Kaidan Alenko | Mass Effect | OTA
He'd woken to find himself halfway to buried in a snow drift, and had been halfway to deciding this was all an elabourate hallucination before wearing an unfamiliar uniform had nearly gotten him shot by the search party that had stumbled across him. The Alenko half of his heritage lent him a certain surface resemblance to the Barrayarans, but his accent, his facility with tech, and his squeaky-clean genes were far more galactic in nature. All the same, he'd found himself quickly pressed into work.
He'd had little time for his customary reflection, but one thought kept cropping up: finding out that he'd come down with a late-breaking case of L2 biotic psychosis might have been better than the reality that he was hip deep in another war before he'd even made it home from the last one.
a. Village Life:
The villagers may be adapted to the climate, but that they're so happy to share what little they have with the guerillas has been bothering Kaidan, or more specifically the lack of reciprocity from his end of the equation. The final straw had been when a widow had seen him shivering at the tag end of a patrol and had grabbed him by the ear in a gesture that could have been carbon copied from his grandmother. He was released to the camp stuffed full of venison stew, and sporting a pair of knitted socks and a bemused expression.
He'd figured out at least one way to try and even the score a little. Thus, his next span of off-duty time sees him back in the village, this time with a shovel in hand as he balances precariously on the roof of the widow's cabin to try and clear off the snow load the way her arthritis no longer permitted her to. He could probably use a hand... although whether in terms of assistance or mocking applause is entirely up to the observer.
b. Camp: Fireside
It's not a proper fireside booze-up until the drunken singing starts. Maple mead appears to be a slightly less lethal (and much tastier) feral Barraryaran version of ryncol, and even the tolerance that his amped-up biotic's metabolism grants him isn't enough to overcome it. Kaidan, flushed and weaving slightly in his seat, is somewhat thickly trying to encourage a little cross-cultural musicology after discovering that some of the very oldest Barrayaran drinking songs share a common Earth origin with some of the oldest ones he knows. "No, see," he's attempting to explain. "The way I learned it from Pressley is only one person actually has to remember the words. Everyone else just sings 'How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now' and the 'God damn them all'. Dead easy."
The song that consisted mostly of creative profanity involving Cetagandans was a lot easier to get going.
c. Camp: Training!
Although somewhere in another time and place he was Major Kaidan Alenko of the Systems Alliance, and a Council Spectre to boot, this meant precisely dick-all here on Barrayar. His initial reponse of name, rank and serial number to the questions posed by his rescue party had been met with nothing more than a flat exhortation of prove it. While a better debrief had come in time, he was still out in the training field alongside every other new recruit, sternly ordered to keep the techno-witchery of his biotics tamped down and to focus on hand to hand combat instead.
Being trained was an opportunity to assess his trainers, as well as his fellow trainees, and in between the throws, the knife work with wooden practice blades and a series of thoroughly nasty and effective close quarters techniques that would make a Phantom jealous, Kaidan's been developing a solid appreciation for what the guerilla forces under Count Vorkosigan are capable of, and of just what kind of leadership the man himself inspires.
Some of that appreciation is visible on his face as he takes a breather on the sidelines and watches another round of trainees get introduced to the many uses of a well-placed elbow.
d. Cetagandan Base: Water Treatment Plant
"Oh, come on you son of a bitch." The classic cry of a tech being thwarted by a willful bit of machinery is followed by the clang of a wrench being applied in a precision strike to a recalcitrant valve. There's a hopeful gurgling of liquid through a pipe soon after, and Kaidan pops up from out of cover with a satisfied huff shortly after. Welding and pipefitting's a little more manual labour than the electronics his sentinel class training has him certified for, but he's another pair of semi-trained hands that can, and has been, put into service to get the water back on line.
"For people determined to keep their planet in the feudal age," he reflects as he gathers his tools and moves on to the next spot on the main intake line, "They sure know just where to stick a shaped charge."
[[OOC: Also open to other suggestions! PMable, or pingable over at