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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.
autokinetic
"He's very attached to this 'learn from your enemy' plan," he sighs. "But it doesn't seem to be working out as expected."
autokinetic
"No shit. Can we be rid of him, sir? I'm sorry he's had to do all this time-travel crap only to be worse than useless, but that doesn't make him not worse than useless to us now."
He waves a hand dismissively. "Fine. He does have useful insights about the buggers, though. I suggest you try to pry them out of him."
autokinetic
"I'd like to assign Ahmed to talk to him about that; I think he'll do a better job than either I or Sue at maximizing useful insights to pointless antagonistic crap, given that Rackham has now positioned himself to personally star in my and Sue's nightmares both."
autokinetic
"Permission to go break the news to Sue and discuss possible ways of telling the subordinates and linking up with the fleets, sir?"
autokinetic
"Okay, let's start with the smaller revelations and work our way up and see if you wanna sit down. Nasty old fart is Mazer Rackham. They accelerated him and spun him around and brought him back specifically to teach you or whoever wound up with your job about the buggers."
autokinetic
"I know, right? We're shut of him, I'm going to get Ahmed to talk to him about buggers in case he knows anything actually useful. Second revelation: faster-than-light communication exists."
autokinetic
"Faster than light communication exists and there's devices capable of it connecting our sims and our actual real-life fucking invasion fleet with human beings in it," she says flatly.
autokinetic
"I know, right? The psychologists screamed at the security people and eventually the psychologists won and the bureaucrat told me so I could tell you in some non-horrible way." She shakes her head. "But this adds a wrinkle. It's not impossible that you can link up the fleet officers on top of us. Then we can do better - we can lose fewer people. We can't even just aim at not losing entire ships. Anything more than cosmetic damage could kill people, or destroy stuff they need to get home after they're through."
autokinetic
"It's worth trying, isn't it? What do you need to be able to find their minds if you can do it at all?" Aegis asks.
He frowns, rubbing his hands together distractedly.
"I don't know," he says. "I can link people I've linked before over... any distance, I think. I can find people I haven't linked before, if they're close by, and link them that way. What I don't know how to do is find people I've never linked light-years away."
"I don't know," he says. "I can link people I've linked before over... any distance, I think. I can find people I haven't linked before, if they're close by, and link them that way. What I don't know how to do is find people I've never linked light-years away."
autokinetic
"So basically I get to go have that argument I just had about whether we're allowed two-way communication with the fleets again?" Aegis says.
autokinetic
"Then they'll be surprised," says Aegis, "if you can do it - what's the adjustment period for new linkups usually like?"