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Sue graduates from Tactical School a year early, he's barely fifteen. He's toned down the flirting - he treats Aegis completely platonically, in particular - and has cut down on the unhealthy amount of sleeping-with-everything-that-wants. And he's apparently, via his independent study, gotten far enough through the curriculum that they're nudging him along to Command.
They've given Sue a strange old man for a tutor, who appeared in his room and started a physical confrontation, which Sue won; Sue related this story to her with something between amusement and irritation.
And a quicker-than-average flurry of notes has been piling up in the psych data since about that time, according to the timestamps.
Aegis knows before they tell her that they're going to send her to Command early too. She's just barely fifteen herself when she gets another update of the psych files and sees that Sue's had - well, the files aren't terribly clear, some of the communication is happening via in-person conversation and memos that don't get stored in these folders, but Sue's had some kind of breakdown and the only things they can think of to get him out of it, get him back into shape to train and fight, are her friendship and Howlett. They have mixed feelings about both - Howlett's insubordination problem; their bewilderment that Aegis and Sue can be so close when "she's the one person he can't link!" - but they're desperate.
Bird? They don't talk as often over the long distance, just as there was a lull when he went to Tactical ahead of her; their schedules have nothing in common and their contexts less. But he knows her, and he can reach this far if he tries. And she wants to know what's wrong.
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autokinetic
He laughs. "Maybe that's how they picked our staff."
autokinetic
"Maybe they booted up the old fantasy game and got it to pick," snorts Aegis. "Maybe they were having a good day on the 'moral' axis and polled everybody and these are the volunteers."
"I miss that game," he sighs, and hugs her.
Hug hug hug.
"Bird," he mumbles, smiling.
"Bird," he mumbles, smiling.
He sends her the remembered image of bird-hugs.
Actual hugs are superior.
Actual hugs are superior.
The battle schedule is relatively light; their next engagement is almost a day later.
As Sue settles himself in front of the simulator, he tries to scrutinize it with his power, looking for minds.
As Sue settles himself in front of the simulator, he tries to scrutinize it with his power, looking for minds.
autokinetic
Aegis takes over much of the work of getting their forces divvied up and assessing the field of engagement while Sue works on that.
He pushes himself. With a little work, he can see Earth, lit by the glow of billions of minds. But he needs to go much, much farther than that, to a pattern that looks like the ships glowing in the simulator, to... almost, almost, he's almost got it, just a little farther, if he could just reach...
A sparkle of golden light by the side of his neck, and then there's a housefly zipping into the lights of the simulator, dancing from ship to ship. Sue flips the perspective of his display, rotating through the formation twice, then slides out to an expanded view that shows all of them. He feels like he's there, all of a sudden, like he is literally, physically present among the fleet.
He finds commanders and taps his mind across theirs like a child dragging a stick along a fence.
A sparkle of golden light by the side of his neck, and then there's a housefly zipping into the lights of the simulator, dancing from ship to ship. Sue flips the perspective of his display, rotating through the formation twice, then slides out to an expanded view that shows all of them. He feels like he's there, all of a sudden, like he is literally, physically present among the fleet.
He finds commanders and taps his mind across theirs like a child dragging a stick along a fence.
autokinetic
Hell yes.
Processing power for the win.
The buggers never know what hit them.
Blue Moon's flagship has a scratch on it at the end. A literal scratch; he was doing a tight formation and one scraped along another. Nobody dies.
When the simulator goes dark Aegis throws herself across the room to fling her arms around Sue.
Processing power for the win.
The buggers never know what hit them.
Blue Moon's flagship has a scratch on it at the end. A literal scratch; he was doing a tight formation and one scraped along another. Nobody dies.
When the simulator goes dark Aegis throws herself across the room to fling her arms around Sue.
Sue flings his arms around her right back. There's a golden flicker in the air, and his link to the far-off commanders wavers, then steadies. He lets them go one at a time, then the local staff, and finally Aegis.
autokinetic
"Beautiful," she exclaims, hugging him tight. "We're golden. Just gotta keep it up."
He laughs and, in the spirit of celebration, kisses her forehead.
autokinetic
She takes it as a chastely meant gesture, and grins and lets him go. "Okay, I have to pee, and I have to eat something, and then I have to dance up and down a long corridor about six times because I am manic right now," she says, and she races for the nearest bathroom.
Sue giggles and hugs himself.
Then he returns to their quarters.
Then he returns to their quarters.
autokinetic
Aegis is back later, hair a complete mess from all the dancing.
He snickers when he sees her.
"You look," he says gleefully, "like a bird's nest."
autokinetic
"Pfft," she says, and she grabs her comb and starts fixing her hair and twists it up in a bun.
Sue giggles and bounces on his bed.
autokinetic
They don't have classes anymore, but there are still books to read, and Aegis calls up a book and reads it.
She winds up staying awake a bit later than usual on this day, mostly so she can know right away how Sue's linking-in-his-sleep experiment goes.
She winds up staying awake a bit later than usual on this day, mostly so she can know right away how Sue's linking-in-his-sleep experiment goes.