Fic - Let Slip The Dogs Of War (1/1)
Feb. 12th, 2012 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99Title: Let Slip The Dogs Of War
Fandom: James Bond (Films)
Character: M (Judi Dench version)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own the character, the Flemming estate and Ion Productions do. No money is being made from this.
Notes: Written for the Awesome Ladies Fest, for the prompt - "they come out of the black. They come when you call."
Summary: She can command death.
~~~~
She has two thousand staff. The majority are eavesdroppers, translators, the boys (and girls) in the backroom. They are mostly safe. Then there are the attendant admin staff. They, too, are mostly safe, kept at one remove from the spying business.
She has seven hundred spies, by the traditional definition of spying. Active agents. Six hundred and fifty of them work abroad, with the remaining fifty in the UK, none of whom MI5 are ever allowed to find out about. She trusts her agency, but no others. Some of her agents are safe, as safe as spies can be, hiding behind their roles as cultural attaches and other such identities. If they are captured, she can get them back by diplomatic methods. Some of them are not safe at all, relying on their wits to keep them safe as they live undercover.
Of the active agents, she has sixteen with a licence to kill. They are never safe, but they knew that when they signed on the dotted line.
She has carved a reputation for being careful, her agent losses are half of those of the other major powers. Some of the stupider members of the CIA leadership see fit to mock her for it, something she knows about because of her sources in the CIA. She lets them because it does her little harm to be under-estimated. Yes, she is looked down upon, yes, it means she has to speak up when she wants anything done, but it also means they're more willing to take the lead role in bilateral missions, which saves her budget at least. She is a bean-counter as well as a spymaster, and she can never forget it.
Keeping her agents alive where possible, by not sending them on pointless and unnecessary missions, is vital. There is a power in not using all your weapons, even though people know you have them.
And yet ...
Sometimes she is tempted to use all of her arsenal in one fell swoop. Cast out all her country's enemies, kill those she can. She calls them her battleship moments, when she thinks they can win this endless war. She knows they can't, but the idea is tempting, particularly at the end of long, bloody weeks. And any of her dealings with Bond, not that they require a different heading because if she's talking to Bond, something bad has happened, or is about to have happened or is happening. He cuts a swathe across the world and she has to tidy up after him. She hadn't joined the service to be a glorified maid.
She'd joined to save the world, or Britain at least, and having her hands tied so she can only react, not act, chafes at her, but for now her command must remain 'hold, steady'.
Fandom: James Bond (Films)
Character: M (Judi Dench version)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own the character, the Flemming estate and Ion Productions do. No money is being made from this.
Notes: Written for the Awesome Ladies Fest, for the prompt - "they come out of the black. They come when you call."
Summary: She can command death.
~~~~
She has two thousand staff. The majority are eavesdroppers, translators, the boys (and girls) in the backroom. They are mostly safe. Then there are the attendant admin staff. They, too, are mostly safe, kept at one remove from the spying business.
She has seven hundred spies, by the traditional definition of spying. Active agents. Six hundred and fifty of them work abroad, with the remaining fifty in the UK, none of whom MI5 are ever allowed to find out about. She trusts her agency, but no others. Some of her agents are safe, as safe as spies can be, hiding behind their roles as cultural attaches and other such identities. If they are captured, she can get them back by diplomatic methods. Some of them are not safe at all, relying on their wits to keep them safe as they live undercover.
Of the active agents, she has sixteen with a licence to kill. They are never safe, but they knew that when they signed on the dotted line.
She has carved a reputation for being careful, her agent losses are half of those of the other major powers. Some of the stupider members of the CIA leadership see fit to mock her for it, something she knows about because of her sources in the CIA. She lets them because it does her little harm to be under-estimated. Yes, she is looked down upon, yes, it means she has to speak up when she wants anything done, but it also means they're more willing to take the lead role in bilateral missions, which saves her budget at least. She is a bean-counter as well as a spymaster, and she can never forget it.
Keeping her agents alive where possible, by not sending them on pointless and unnecessary missions, is vital. There is a power in not using all your weapons, even though people know you have them.
And yet ...
Sometimes she is tempted to use all of her arsenal in one fell swoop. Cast out all her country's enemies, kill those she can. She calls them her battleship moments, when she thinks they can win this endless war. She knows they can't, but the idea is tempting, particularly at the end of long, bloody weeks. And any of her dealings with Bond, not that they require a different heading because if she's talking to Bond, something bad has happened, or is about to have happened or is happening. He cuts a swathe across the world and she has to tidy up after him. She hadn't joined the service to be a glorified maid.
She'd joined to save the world, or Britain at least, and having her hands tied so she can only react, not act, chafes at her, but for now her command must remain 'hold, steady'.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 04:11 pm (UTC)I haven't heard of "Awesome Ladies Fest", so maybe this is common business for it, but I'm super happy you chose to tell the story/give acolades for an older, competent woman.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 06:37 pm (UTC)The actual fest was back in 2010. There's a link to it here - http://hazyflights.livejournal.com/199061.html There's a lot of fics there but an awful lot of them are wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-12 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 05:01 pm (UTC)I think she'd approve of Bond more if he didn't cause so much property damage. She has ambassadors and high councillors bitching at her about it constantly ;)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-14 06:51 pm (UTC)But yesssssssssss, I love how quietly lethal she is. I like that your fic explored HER. Like, I've loved the fics that explore her relationship with Bond, but it's great to read something that's more about who she is, rather than how she relates to Bond or how she feels about Bond.
I agree. I think something about him appeals to her, ie: the cutting through bullshit aspect that you wrote about in the fic. But Bond is super reckless, and that just goes against every instinct in her body to be careful and precise. Bond is a giant hammer, whereas M is all about surgical precision.