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[unfazeable]

WELCOME TO THE SALTBURNT NETWORK

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STARR

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@starr (for now)

[unfazeable]

Sure. We met.

What's going on?

[she doesn't think—well.

a lot has happened between then and now.]

[cryptofascist]

[ Boy did they meet. ]

Words don't really measure up to much in light of what I did [ not what happened — though they were both under the influence, he was the one placed in a position of power at the auction ] so I thought I'd give you distance instead. As much as possible, indefinitely.

But that doesn't seem to be feasible for the next while, and that's something I can apologize for.

[unfazeable]

[the silence stretches into awkward. or maybe something interrupted her. the job, the obligations. impossible to tell, over the network, how hot her face gets. misguided embarrassment.

worse, for the fact she knows it is. easier to make it about something else.]

This about Yelena's idea?

[cryptofascist]

[ The silence soaks in, weighted. He thought it would be less burdensome on her to approach this over the network. Impossible to tell, but what right does he have to know or to even hope?

Her eventual reply wrenches him so suddenly out of himself, he doesn't even take time to mark himself undeserving of relief. ]

It's about positioning myself where I can get the most done.

[unfazeable]

[he doesn't know, then. he just meant that a hundred odd people isn't a crowd of size enough to hide in for any real stretch of time. confusing to ava, somehow. all the lab techs knew her name, but she lost track, at some point. shifts turning over. anonymity of goggles and gloves and white coats. they'd assigned her handlers and experts. the rest did not need to get attached.

she doesn't understand why he apologized, really—you don't want someone, you don't want them.]

You're security too, right?

Tell us your credentials, then. Not just an empty title for Saltburnt, is it?

[she'd felt—muscle. heard something tactical about the way he described the house. if he can help yelena, that means she'll help better.]

[cryptofascist]

[ Yelena's idea. It roots nearby, a glowering presence. He can't approach it guilelessly.

Ava is, paradoxically, perhaps the best person capable of providing the chance to prove himself. Or maybe it just feels right. ]

I'm a starship captain. I came up through security, worked everything from outpost defense to rescue operations and prisoner transport.

[unfazeable]

[there are, in fact, starships where she comes from. she's never seen one. could be, asking for a cv would be clever, but the fuck is that good for, these days?]

How long have you been in this house? I know you aren't fond of it.

Ever met someone with a decent plan to get out?

[yelena's idea. she knows she let the cat stick a paw out of the bag already, but somehow, the guilt on this one, no matter how misplaced, feels like assurance. he might be the right one.]

[cryptofascist]

Three months. I'm sure I've met more than I know.

[ He believes that. He has to believe that. ]

But one with certainty.

[ He can bring more than himself to the table. ]

[unfazeable]

Okay. You know Yelena, yeah?

Would be good to have another security overseer on the same shift. She's got details. Let her know I said we had a chat.

We don't need to be even. There's nothing to be even about. But if you need to do something, could be this.

[cryptofascist]

[ He agrees, after a fashion. "Even" doesn't exist. You just keep moving, doing, trying, and some days the hurt is less. ]

I'll do that.

Thank you.

@didnt_even_say_bye, lockdown, voice

[cryptofascist]

[ He's had no luck contacting Michael. His voice carries in urgent but even, accustomed to crisis. He's keeping his head — but he's not happy. ]

Starr, report.

[unfazeable]

[silence for a quaver-beat. then a burst of static. dirty snow across digital space. one syllable crawls out of it.]

▒▓█riel?

[cryptofascist]

[ He can't deduce anything from such a garbled sound, except that she can hear him. It's not nothing. ]

Yes, this is Gabriel. There's significant interference on this end. It doesn't appear to be affecting anyone but you and Burnham. The network has changed your ID's, mine and Andor's. [ And presumably Max's but he won't name her without confirmation. ] Specifically.

[unfazeable]

[the lull could be hesitation. terror. another glitch.]

▓ll al▒ve and ▒ccounted for █▓ ▒▒▒ van, b█▓ ██'re trap▓▓█.

[a spurt of senseless clattering, a low pulse.]

How ab█▓▒t the house?

[cryptofascist]

[ He can peace together the shreds of intel between slices of static. Trap threatens to infuriate him with its incompleteness. ]

Exits have sealed. I'm keeping it quiet for as long as I can. [ He doesn't know how much longer he'll have the clearance to do so. ]

Elaborate on "trap."

[unfazeable]

Doors ██▓ lock▓d. M▒ximo▓▓ can't get them op▓▓.

She's tried.

[cryptofascist]

As soon as we find an opening, help is on its way.

[ But he can't give her a time, nor make any guarantees. He can't make any meaningful assurances. Instead, he has a grave order. One he hoped to never have to give again. ]

Until then, you're going to have to keep everyone calm and start rationing. Anything you have, even power.

[unfazeable]

[the muddy bubble burst of static sounds vaguely like 'okay.' afterward, the haze that follows seems like a quiet.]

D▓d anythi▓r like this █appen ▒▒ your old j█b?

Pr▒son transp█▓▒t? Whatever?

[cryptofascist]

Yes. [ It sounds like it didn't at hers. The extent of her experience is unknown to him, just that she's combat-trained, capable, and willing to put her neck on the line for civilians. ]

Away teams have gotten stranded. Colonies isolated. It's part of why I became a captain. [ It's the whole of why he became a captain. The dignity of hope is the gleaming half of that whole. Turn it over and the other side is tarnished with grief. ] To make sure no one gets left behind.

[ Ava is not going to have to see that side. He's not going to fail her a second time. ]

[unfazeable]

Y▓▒ never lost anyone?

[somewhere out there, hundreds of yards away, sealed up behind layers of metal and insulation, it occurs to ava, only after she's said it, that it's an unkind question. his past, in the reaches of space, have nearly zero bearing on the fate of herself and two other women presently trapped in a van.

but what else does she have to go off of, really, except an excuse to speak in the eldritch fog of radio interference?]

tw mass death

[cryptofascist]

I did.

[ It's strange. It feels like everyone in Starfleet knows that about him. The massacre on Tarsus IV made galactic headlines. Most Starfleet survivors know each other on sight. On the other side of the mirror, his captors treated him as though their Lorca's crew losses were his own. They threw names at him to gauge his recognition. Many registered, but though their fates were gruesome, they were not the people he knew.

Upon debriefing with Burnham in this, his third universe, he found out they might as well have been. ]

But I fought tooth and nail. Every second. [ To preserve and, to his shame, to avenge. Gabriel hears the grit in his voice and winces. The man he was before Tarsus IV died in the cull, but who he was that very day is not as deeply buried. ]

[unfazeable]

[even the dead air seems to take on a pulse for the moment. a twitchy electronic heartbeat, fluttering thinly in the space between them.]

█▓ybe you shou▒d've lied to me, Gab▓▒el.

[her voice is unmistakably wry. gallows humor. hard to tell if it's indication she's well enough to make a crack about it, or if this is the last desperate finger on what passes for sanity.]

'No' uses up l▓ss br▒▓th.

[cryptofascist]

[ Maybe he should have. If he knew her well enough to tell her what she wanted to hear, and trust that she'd believe it, he might have said it. They're near-strangers in all but body.

Even so, he prefers real hope. ]

All that matters is what we do in this moment, and the next.

[unfazeable]

And ▒▓█t are we doing, G▒briel?

[her voice is quiet this time, and it's not just the jitter of energy rending through the soundwaves.]

Th▒s isn't your fau▓t. █▓at other thing w▒sn't, either. ▒▒st the house, isn't it? And p▓█ple mucking with stuff we don't und█▓stand.

cw sa allusion

[cryptofascist]

[ Gabriel scans the control room: the people and the monitors. The tempo of constrained panic hasn't changed. On one screen, Andor's and Guevara's wedding is carrying on calmly. With the crisis yet to break containment, Gabriel turns his back on the situation. ]

I was arrogant. And reckless. [ And in pain. He took the ill-ease festering inside him, cured it and strapped it around her neck. That was his fault. ] And I shouldn't have left you there.

[ What may have happened to her haunts him as doggedly as the certainty of what did. To say nothing of the humiliation she may have felt. ]