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Chapter 13 - Nothing Is True, Save For The Blood We've Shed 013

 "You're serious?" the words were incredulous, the tone was baffled, the looks were bewildered, and the body language was disbelieving.

 "Deadly serious, Miss Blake." The response was flat, unyielding in it's emotionless delivery.

 "You want us, me, to help fix up another pod and follow Clarke down to Earth?"

 "We do."

Raven Reyes and Octavia Blake exchanged long looks with one another, both visibly trying to wrap their heads around the answers to their shocked pair of questions, before looking back at the Chancellor and his Council. The pair of them had been less than pleased to be to be summoned by The Council, but disobeying wasn't much of an option, and the hope that it had been something to do with Clarke had been a strong motivator. And, in fairness, their hopes had been realized. The subject had been Clarke and her mission, but rather than providing some manner of good news about Clarke's status, they had been informed that they were going to be sent down as well to provide their blonde friend and leader with assistance in completing her mission.

How, exactly, they were expected to do so wasn't exactly clear to them just yet, but…

 "We're listening." Raven spoke for the both of them, folding her arms around her breasts, her confusion turning to expectation, and Octavia immediately mirrored her stance. The Council shifted in their seats, several of them looking quite sour at the lack of respect and deference being shown by the pair of young women, but none of them were foolish enough to make an issue out of it. Not when the situation was admittedly precarious. "What's the plan for getting us down there, and how are we supposed to be of any help to Clarke? You lot couldn't even drop her off in the right place, so it's not like we can meet up with her easily."

 "Hmph." Jaha grunted, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, his chin posted upon his thumbs as he examined their pair of them over his interwoven fingers. "You will assist Sinclair and a selection of his best and most trusted engineers in repairing one of the smaller Exodus craft, one large enough to be modified to hold two passengers and a small cargo of supplies. When that is prepared, you will be sent to intercept and join Clarke. Marshal Kane."

 "Yes, Chancellor." Kane acknowledged, getting to his feet and waving the two girls over to a large, highly detailed satellite image map, heavily marked. They approached and listened attentively as he spoke, his fingers tracing across the image and the markings. "Clarke has a map similar to this one, with extensive notes on the local terrain. It's from before the war, of course, but we don't think that too much has changed since then. At any rate, given the time frame she has to work with, we can expect her to be taking a fairly direct route between where the pod landed and Mount Weather. Since there is no way that she'll be able to miss the pair of you making reentry and landing, we'll launch you directly in her path. Of course, we don't know exactly where she will be along that route, so it may take some time for her to either double back or catch up to you. To that end, we've decided that the best place to deploy you is somewhere that we are reasonably sure will still provide shelter to you, due to it's construction."

He traced the red line that indicated Clarke's most likely route, before tapping thrice on one particular location. The two girls leaned closer, peering at the terrain and reading the label attached to it.

 "Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, huh? Hope that's not a prediction of anything." Raven commented wryly, gazing down at the image of rolling green and tarnished white. "What's the distance between where Clarke landed and Mount Weather? And where did she land, anyway?"

 "She landed fairly close to Joint Air Force Base Andrews, here," Kane responded, tapping another section of the map, one on the far, eastern side of Washington from Arlington and Mount Weather. "Possibly even on it's grounds. From there to Mount Weather is a good eighty miles or so. Assuming she can go eight miles a day or so, which is the best guess we have for someone in her condition that's not used to Earth's conditions, we're looking at right around two weeks of travel time. But that's only if everything is still standing. If some of the bridges over the Potomac are damaged or destroyed, it could increase exponentially. That's why we'll be sending you with enough rations to hole up inside the underground barracks for the Tomb Guards at Arlington until she meets you there."

 "And if these barracks are too heavily damaged? I may not have been able to attend all the same classes as the other kids, but I read Bellamy's stuff. I know that Washington was America's capitol city. It must have gotten hit hard in the Final War, right?" Octavia asked, and Kane nodded both in acknowledgement and confirmation.

 "It's possible, but the barracks area was heavily modified in the mid 21st century to have similar standards to war-bunkers of the era, and it was mostly underground as well. Even if it is damaged, we expect that enough of it will still be usable for the three of you. Stuff was built tough back then." He explained, and Octavia nodded thoughtfully as she frowned down at the map.

 "If the bridges aren't intact, how is she going to cross the river? It's not like anyone knows how to swim anymore, outside of reading that little pamphlet from Earth Studies." Raven wonders aloud, leaning down to peer closely at the map, or rather a specific portion of the small numbers annotated on it. "It's nearly half a mile wide at best, assuming the War didn't widen it, and nearly thirty feet deep."

 "She has a few options, several of which she was taught as a matter of course, even if this exact scenario wasn't expected. Using felled logs to keep herself afloat as she crossed, that sort of thing." Kane responded confidently, rolling one wrist in the classical 'etc, etc' motion. "However, I imagine that, even if the bridges are damaged to the point of collapse, much of the rubble and debris will still be there beneath them. More than enough of it to fill in thirty-odd feet of water, or at least give her plenty to hold on to and pull herself across in the water if needs must."

That made plenty of sense to the girls, and it was reassuring as well. Neither of them was deluded about the fact that Clarke would likely do something stupid in the name of completing her mission, something dangerous to her health and well-being. Though they could at least hope that her more risky tendencies would be curbed by the knowledge that the lives of dozens, even hundreds, rested on her success. Hopefully that knowledge would temper any notions of disregarding her own safety to the point of suicidal stupidity.

 "How long do we expect it will take to fix up this pod? What's the time frame we're supposed to be working with?" Raven asked, the question (and her gaze) directed at Sinclair, who gave a thoughtful frown in response, drumming his fingers lightly on the table as he contemplated the question with all due gravity.

 "Obviously, we want to make sure it's done right. The experience working on Clarke's pod will be of significant assistance, and should speed things up. We'll also be using one of the pods in the best condition, which should make things simpler and quick as well. Call it…a month and a half? A month at the very best? I wouldn't do it any faster than that, no matter whether or not I thought that it was possible. Rushing things won't do anyone any good."

 "Yeah, not much point in leaving early if we end up dead." Octavia muttered in agreement, resisting the urge to cast a suspicious glance in Jaha's direction. While she knew that he wasn't likely to risk the chance to find out if Earth was habitable before the life support systems totally collapsed, she still wasn't dumb enough to trust him. "And this isn't going to change anything about your agreement with Clarke, right? This isn't some clever loophole or excuse you're using to try and shorten the time before you can start murdering people? Triple the people, so only a third of the time?"

 "No, Octavia. The agreement still stands. The three of you will have the same full six months that Clarke alone was going to have. The Council just thinks that, since we know our repairs and modifications work sufficiently well to get people groundside alive, it would be beneficial to have the three of you working together." Abby offered diplomatically, and the younger of the surviving Blake's didn't even try to resist the arching of her eyebrow, the cocking of her hip, or the distinctly unimpressed expression.

 "And how do you plan on keeping this quiet from the people? Raven and I are the two biggest conduits between the Skybox and the rest of the population. People know us, people recognize us. It was one thing for Clarke to disappear, people didn't bother her or visit her before she left, they used intermediaries. We go missing though? People are going to notice that, people are going to wonder about it. People might start to wonder about other things, too."

The question, and the ensuing commentary, was definitively on the pointed side, and the Council exchanged glances and shifted about again, looking even unhappier at the reminder than they had been earlier. All of them were fully aware that she had a distinct and sizeable point, however (thus much of the discomfort, in all due honesty), and that it really did need to be addressed. Their control over the population was very much a precarious balancing act, after all.

 "We have several strategies in place, which will continue to be developed and refined as events unfold and your departure time approaches. The Council would prefer to keep those strategies to themselves for the time being, however." Jaha responded stiffly, and neither girl bothered restraining the urge to roll their eyes. Ignoring it, the Chancellor continued. "The both of you are dismissed, at the moment, until we summon you again. I'm sure that I don't need to explain to you that this must be kept secret, of course."

Octavia considered pointing out that they could do whatever they damn well pleased, since Jaha didn't try to execute them, not after the agreement he had made with Clarke. Hell, even without that argument, it wouldn't take much to turn the entire Ark against him. He hadn't been popular in years, just the best choice of a particularly bad lot…which wasn't saying much of anything, unfortunately. However, Raven's hand was already lightly gripping her elbow, a gentle pressure sufficient to keep her mouth shut, and keep it shut she did, save for an irritated huff as the two of them were escorted from the room. As the door shut behind them, they could hear the chatter of the Council start up, some of it louder than others, and they exchanged a speaking glance with one another before immediately heading for Raven's residence.

The trip was short and silent, the two teens moving quickly and providing only the barest of acknowledgements or conversation to those that they passed. Less than polite, perhaps, and something that they would not normally do, but nothing about the current circumstances were 'normal'. Chatting with their fellow Arkers wasn't the goal right now, and frankly would have the Council look suspiciously at anyone they did chat with. They didn't want to inflict that sort of attention on anyone lightly, especially not for no gain whatsoever. It's not as though they were going to tell anyone else what was going on, not right now, because it would do nothing but bring trouble for themselves and for the public at large.

 "Okay, seriously, what the fuck Rae!" Octavia snapped the instant they were through the door, even as her friend shut the door tightly and locked in. It wasn't like her mom was going to be home any time soon, after all. She was either drunk on moonshine in someone's room, or getting fucked in someone's room so that she could buy moonshine. The younger girl began to pace, gesticulating a bit wildly as she did what could only be reasonably called ranting.

 "O…"

 "Sending Clarke, fine. I'm not happy about it, but it was her idea, and it will work for us when everyone is down on the ground."

 "Octavia…"

 "But just expecting the two of us to fix up another fucking pod and drop in without any extra training, no information to work with?"

 "Octavia, calm down…"

 "Not to mention, they clearly have no fucking idea how they're going to keep this quiet, or handle the fallout when it obviously has the lid taken off! 'Several strategies' my cute fucking ass! These morons can't even strategize going to the bathroom without a fucking how-to guide, and they…"

 "OCTAVIA!" Raven shouted, bringing her rant to a stuttering, blinking halt, and she turned her head on her friend and glowered, though the older girl was unaffected entirely by her ire, instead frowning at her with a distinctly quelling air. "This isn't helping. Breathe deep and seek peace, okay?"

Octavia made a noise reminiscent of an angry bull before obeying, slowly but visibly calming down as she settled herself physically, mentally, and emotionally. She had always been the more volatile of the two of them, Raven the more in-control (even if neither of them came anywhere close to matching Zoe), a legacy of their very different but equally hard upbringings. She, so desperate to let her emotions flow after hiding in darkness and silence for hours and days on end. Raven, keeping her emotions under lock and key to survive her mother's abuses and petty cruelties.

 "Good." Raven nodded in satisfaction at the sight of it, gently pulling Octavia over to her bed and sitting them both down on it. "Now, you're not wrong that the Council obviously has very little in the way of a plan, outside of Kane and Sinclair's plans for once we're on the ground and for repairing the pod itself. And you're right that the lack of extra training isn't great, especially not for you -no offense-, even if we do have the stuff Clarke taught us to fall back on."

Octavia knew exactly what Raven was talking about: Earth Skills. Bellamy had tried to teach her what he could, and she'd had some remedial lessons since then, but by and large the Council hadn't been remotely interested in providing her with the same education that the rest of the Ark had gotten. Which left her at a pretty noticeable disadvantage when it came to surviving on Earth.

 "So, what we're going to do is help catch you up and do some more training, try to get ready as best we can in the time that we have. Sinclair will let me leave most of the work to him and the guys, will leave me more time to prepare with you. As for keeping it quiet…they can figure that out for themselves. It's not our problem to solve for them." Raven decreed, and Octavia nodded in acceptance and agreement. She had a goal now, that was good. She could pursue that goal until she achieved it, and in achieving it she would be reunited with Clarke.

She had a debt to pay, a debt that could very well take the rest of her life, but she meant to pay at every moment it was possible to do so. Not just from pride, or the debt's weight on her heart, or a desire to grind her every success in the Council's face and help Clarke make their lives as problematic as humanly possible. No, as true as all of those things might be, there was one very simple but life-defining factor that mattered most: Octavia Blake was in love with Clarke Griffin, and would do anything for her.

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Diana Sydney was not the most pleasant individual on the Ark, a fact that she was not oblivious to and could care less about. She was a bitch, selfish and greedy and interested in little more than her own power and privileges, and she was damn well aware of it. Ideals were a useful leash for control and lever for manipulation, nothing more or less. Perhaps, in a more ideal world, one where mankind was not restricted to a barely-functioning conglomeration of metal floating above the mass graveyard that was their homeworld, she could have been something more. She would have had the space, the incentive, to be a better person.

Or perhaps she was destined to have been a horrific person, willing to sacrifice lives without hesitation for her own personal gain.

When she had finally been elected Chancellor, it had been the happiest moment of her life. Finally, finally, she had the ultimate position of power. She had respect, she had influence, she had the ability to fulfill her whims. She had had such plans for the Ark, plans that would allow her to establish what amounted to a hereditary dictatorship. Plans that would have put her on the throne, and allowed her to rule it from the shadows through her future children.

But her lynchpin had avoided her grasp.

Despite all of her best efforts, and they had been as varied as they had been numerous, Jake Griffin had remained thoroughly uninterested in her. She had tried everything that she could imagine. She had looked at the women he dated, emulated their best points and scrupulously avoided the weak ones. Befriended every woman her own age that she could, using them to test his interests, his likes and dislikes and shaped for herself a perfect mask, a mask that should have guaranteed that the sole descendant of the Ark's founder would have fallen for her…and failed.

It would have guaranteed her ascent to power, being the wife of the respected great-grandson of the idolized Alexia Griffin, created a genuine dynasty, but instead he had fallen for fucking Abigail Murphy. Abigail! The ice-hearted bookworm bitch that cared more about test tubes and medical diagrams than anything in creation, and Jake had fallen for her because she had done the one thing that she had never tried: ignoring him!

Years of effort, wasted, all because Jake preferred women who didn't care about his name or family legacy! Everything that she had ever done, all the changes she had made to herself, all the pieces of the mask that she had carefully crafted, all of it had sabotaged her efforts! She would find the irony hilarious if it had happened to anyone else!

Instead, she had been forced to watch as someone else got the life she had wanted, and squander it. Abigail had given birth to a daughter, a beautiful and intelligent daughter that had had the entirety of the Ark eating out of the palm of her hand practically from the moment she had been born. The family's friendship with the Jaha's had resulted in her being deposed the instant Thelonious had run against her, the only person who had dared to do so since she was elected (that wasn't on her payroll, at any rate), and her fall from grace had been a humiliating one. She had been forced to order her supporters to vote against her when the tide had been clear, simply to avoid them all being earmarked as hers! To make her loss even more humiliating in an effort to preserve her strength for a later victory!

She was jolted from her internal, seething rant when there was a sharp rapping on her door. Checking her watching, she plastered a warm smile and turned towards the entrance to her room.

 "Come in!" she called pleasantly, and after a heartbeat her door swung open and one of her most useful and influential tools slipped in. "Ah, Sung! Please, make yourself comfortable. Tea?"

 "No, thank you Miss Sydney, I just have a couple of minutes before I have to be back on duty." Sung Shumway, Security Commander and Second In Command to Marshal Marcus Kane, said just as pleasantly as he shut the door. Diana, meanwhile, made her way over to her desk and pulled out a small device. She activated it as Shumway approached her, a series of red lights blinking in a column before turning green, and at her nod he spoke again. "It's been confirmed that Clarke made it to the ground alive, and now the Council is planning on sending Reyes and Blake down after her with some additional supplies. Kane is planning on giving them some extra training, but it's only going to be six weeks until they leave. Not much time to work with, especially as far behind as Blake is the rest of her age group."

It went without saying which Blake Shumway was talking about. Not only was there only one Blake worth mentioning in the same breath as Clarke Griffin and Raven Reyes, there was frankly only one Blake worth mentioning in general. After the revelation of his involvement in hiding his sister and helping conceal the law-breaking involved, he had lost his position as a guard and been relegated to a permanent placement amongst the janitorial staff. He had done little of relevance since then, besides bitterly hate anyone and everyone involved in running the Ark or holding positions of even the most relative importance.

A hatred that unfortunately had extended to her as well, despite her attempts (through intermediaries) to try to tempt him onto her side of the divide. Even his hatred of Jaha was insufficient to win him over. Still, despite that…

 "This could prove to be an opportunity for us. The male Blake might not be our biggest fans, but if his sister gets sent to Earth to play side-kick for the Princess of the Ark, he might come around to seeing things our way. Especially if he doesn't know whether Earth is survivable or not." She mused thoughtfully, before pausing and looking over at him, raising an eyebrow. "Is Earth survivable?"

 "The eggheads are arguing over it, but there might be some evidence to indicate it. I don't understand half of the crap that they spouted off, but long story short they think she might have tried to repair a small radio or something and communicate with us, but couldn't pull it off. There's been an uptick on the AM and FM bands, but none of it is strong enough to make it through the atmosphere. She'll need get something heavy duty, like Mount Weather, working to punch through the interference." He responded, not sounding remotely concerned by his lack of knowledge or understanding, and she nodded thoughtfully even as she hid a disgust sneer. The man was an arrogant lazy prick, who was only good at schmoozing with people infinitely his better and making nice with them.

 "Thus sending Reyes and Blake down with some supplies to help her." Diana drew the obvious connection allowed, crossing her arms and drumming her fingers lightly on her elbow as he nodded in acknowledgement. She was positive that this was an opportunity for her, though it's exact nature was thus far beyond her, and she gave a short huff before shaking her head. "We'll let this play out a bit. Wait for more information to become available before we make any plays. I'm trusting you to keep this between us and to keep your ears open, Sung. No one else can be trusted with this information, or with your efforts."

It was transparent praise, manipulative praise, but Shumway was arrogant enough to take it entirely at face value, as he visibly preened at her words before backing away and turning towards the door. Only when it had shut behind him did she turn off the small handheld jammer and allow her contempt to show unrestrained. She couldn't wait for the time where his usefulness to come to an end and she could be rid of him. His subtlety and covert talents were already strained to the breaking point, despite the fact that his position ostensibly gave him access to everywhere and everything. The man was practically above suspicion, and still…!

She sighed gustily, heading over to her bed and lying down, rubbing her face in an exhaustion that was more mental than physical. Running a ring of rebellious types and balancing their indignity with their loyalty to her was hard enough, but having to make sure Shumway did blow his own cover just by being a brainless, self-centered idiot was probably the toughest part of this little job. She'd almost respect him more if he was planning on stabbing her in the back, but she was pretty sure the idiot was genuinely loyal to her, which was actually somewhat of a shame. There was something to be said for stupid, utterly loyal followers, but unfortunately for him he wasn't the right balanced of smart and stupid required to be a competent, utterly loyal subordinate without being too ambitious. He was just too likely to cause her significant amounts of trouble down the line, no matter what sort of dead-end job she could give him to keep him happy and out of the way.

Still, she would make sure he died happy, if nothing else. She could give the man whatever he damn well pleased, after all, and just take it back once she had had a bullet put in his head. The dead could hardly object if you reclaimed the gifts that you had given them, after all.

All of that, though, was for the future, of varying distances. What she needed to do right now was game out how this latest shift in the relatively static day-to-day existence of Ark life could most be used to benefit herself and her goals.

That was the only thing that mattered, after all. The advancement and preservation for Diana Sydney of what was best and most pleasurable in life.

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