This is just excellent -- chilling, wrenching, gets you right in the gut. Well done.

Very powerful. It's vaguely nausiating actually tha's what makes it so good. You can almost taste the blood in your mouth and feel the terror that David/Duv felt.

Hot damn! Vorkosigan fic, and from a good author, no less!

I'm usually very wary of reading fic of my favorite books (Vorkosigan, Discworld, etc), but I'm glad I read this one. Duv Galeni's one of my favorite characters and you've really done him justice. The incredible bloody _mess_, the chaos and fear, the eventual realization that he did that...perfect.

(and I've read some of the Scarlet Spiral stuff and someday I swear I'll get around to reviewing more Narutofic, gah)

I can see why David Galen became the very introverted Duv Galeni, who never much talks about his past. Having those kind of memories would indeed make you the kind of person who'd "go insane so quietly he'd rack up huge amounts of damage before anyone'd notice". Well written.

You already know how much I like this story, since I beta'd. But really, it's brilliant. You really capture the horror of the moment, That woman screaming - such a simple, haunting detail - really carried the emotion of the piece in its repetition. The image of the woman recoiling from the Barrayaran soldier and his trigger-happy colleague is terrifying and real. Make the weapons early 21st century earth, and this could be a scene in any big city today where terrorists are wont to make victims of friend and foe alike.