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.
Aegis's door slides open. She's been bunked alone since Sue left. She's ordered to report to a shuttle leaving for Command. She pretends to be surprised and to protest about her age. She's ignored. She goes. She's the only one on it, besides the pilot. Well, I'm on my way anyway.
Maybe it'd put him out of commission for a minute, fixing the damage, right when we're almost there and I'd get to play collision-stopping hero, suggests Aegis. But it might not even be him, they might be letting him finish up the unit of classes or something first.
Old, says Sue. And irritable. And cagey. Well, not really irritable - he tries to act like he's my 'enemy', but that's fucked, he's obviously here to teach me. That's part of what's weird about all this. Why the fuck are they giving me this nasty old fart as a teacher, and why the fuck is he dressing it up like his job is to make my life hell?
Well, we'll see if I can run interference. Let him read my psych file if he wants it and decide what to do from there, they're less confused about me than they are about you, they have a few years of me reading my own mind and laying it all out in English for them.
Aegis twirls her way back to the terminal displaying her book. Presently she loses interest in it and she picks up a project she's been poking at to little effect: trying to decipher the contents of her save file from the fantasy game. She last played it a few years ago, but it's a fond memory, and she'd like to know which bits of code are her birds, which her castle, which the colored clouds that wafted across the sky. If she had root access to the underlying meanings of all the characters in this save file she could cheat at empire-building. So far she's not getting anywhere; it's some arcane programming language and she hasn't been able to learn anything from resources available on the nets.
In the eight days it takes to fly to Command School, which turns out to be inside the asteroid Eros, she puts down the code-deciphering project again, picks up and finishes the one book and six of its successors, and teaches herself to actually dance: there's nowhere to fly here, but she can play at a makeshift imitation of ballet, in the corridor between bunks and control room.
Bird, hey bird, have you been officially told we're coming? Could you meet us at the dock?
If I were them, Aegis said, and all I cared about was trying to get you to play the game again and not letting on about whatever secret, and I were a little stupid, I'd try cutting off your desk privileges, telling everyone not to talk to you, and giving you nothing at all to do but go play the game on the simulator.
When you turn eighteen they have to, legally, allow planetside leave and invite you to re-up, even if you or them determined that the leave at age twelve could go hang - what do they think they're doing? If they want you they shouldn't be antagonizing you when you're two years away from telling them all to fuck themselves and if they don't want you they could ice you now.
Maybe I can steer the conversation around if they don't let me see you for long enough that it makes sense for me to ask. Of course, maybe they'll cut me off, maybe the faction which doesn't think I'll do any good is in charge here and they just plan to put me in classes and not in contact with you at all.
After a week has gone by, she asks her xenobio teacher (that elective being offered here, too): "Excuse me, I have a friend who goes here but I haven't seen him. Can you tell me where he is? He goes by Sue, but he might be in the system as Thomas Sanderson."
"At Tactical the system was set up to let us find each other," Aegis says, affecting polite puzzlement. "I'm not going to bother him when he's got other things to do, or anything, but my desk messages aren't going through." (This is true, she sent one and it bounced.)
"Yes," says Aegis. "I'm aware of that. But I think there is something wrong with the internal desk messaging system, and the automatic repair request apparently didn't reach anyone either, and so I want to find my friend another way. I know he's here. If you can't help me, can you tell me who can?"
She looks up laws and his semi-public student record - the first she can get, the second is hiding but not that well and she can crack it but all it tells her is that he is still, technically, enrolled in Command School plus his vital statistics. She relays everything she finds to Sue as she goes. Nothing new on your end, is there? They're not pulling some "so your little friend is looking for you, don't you want to come play the game, maybe you'll run into her"?
If this shit goes on long enough, I'll start asking literally everyone about you so it won't look weird when I home in on these people, she says. I'll make a fuss. They can't do this to you, they could slap you in the brig if they gave you a direct order to play the sim and you wouldn't play but solitary confinement is not on, it's against the law.
Sue's champion is getting increasingly profane in support of his point, which is that they should quit fucking him around and at least introduce him to Aegis, even if they don't introduce him to anyone or anything else. His opponents seem to think there is some grave hazard inherent in doing that. Sue's champion seems to think his opponents are idiots.
Her champion is roundly informing everyone that they're idiots, too - "There is no surer way to destroy her value as any kind of soldier than to deny her reasonable and politely requested information! Tell her Sanderson's locked up, even if you won't let her see him! Tell her you want her help getting him to cooperate! For the love of God, don't tell her his location is classified, she knows damn well that means something's up!"
Sue gets all this too.
"...But I don't get the information he wants so I can tell him I know it and it's okay even if he himself can't know it, or whatever files you have on him and this situation, or anything about why it's so important that this particular student plays games instead of getting iced?" Aegis asks.
"I didn't particularly expect you to, sir, but it could easily be the quickest way to get him to do what you want," Aegis says. "I don't know what the information is or why he wants it, but it sounds like he's willing to have a power struggle about it, and it won't actually make him any more likely to pull this kind of thing in the future if he wins one. It also won't make him less likely to do it if he loses one."
"I graduated Tactical a couple of weeks ago and they haven't let me see you till now, but now they want me to talk you into going back on the simulator. Somehow. For some reason," says Aegis, dutifully playing for the likely hidden cameras and going on petting his hair. "They moved Howlett too, at the same time, he thought it was probably about you to begin with, I don't suppose you've seen him?"
"The guy who sent me here said you don't want to play to 'extort information' from the higher-ups," Aegis says, twirling some of his hair around her finger. Giving him the usual haircut would have required more human contact than he's been allowed and he's shaggier than usual.
"It's apparently really important. I mean, the thing they're hiding isn't necessarily important, they could just be being obnoxious about need-to-know and clearance and stuff, but the getting you on the simulator, if they're pulling illegal not to mention ineffective crap to get you to do it." Pause. "I wonder why. They could just ice you. They iced people in Battle School, in Tactical, I haven't seen it here yet but they must do, they can't just be chasing a sunk cost..."
"But at least supposedly we're not under any particular threat of my being taken away," says Aegis. "I could probably even move in, if you want, although I'm not sure how they'd keep you in when I left the corridor to go to classes - I'm pretty sure you are still under house arrest, here - and we might not like whatever they come up with."
She goes.
She comes back, and sets up in the other bunk in his room.
They go to sleep.
When Aegis wakes up, she feels - wrong.
Bricks and clay. The blanket over her weighs a hundred pounds. She ought to be forcing herself to sit under running water, ought to be reaching for the soap - but she's -
"Sue?" she asks tremulously.
"But they - I'm unusable like this - they can't train me to do anything if I'm fucking bedridden -" she exclaims. "...Oh god, they never wanted me to convince you of anything or else they gave up on that awfully fast, I'm here so they can extort you, that's what I'm for -"
"You know who does," hisses Aegis.
"It's not safe for you to have it while there's any of the C24 left in your system suppressing your mutation," replies the man. "But on the plus side, now you can link up with your friend."
Aegis buries her face in Sue's shoulder and sobs.
"You didn't join a social club, you joined a military," says the nasty old fart. "Now. We only need her to link up with you for a short time, you can finish a certain simulator sequence with her and some of her old Battle School friends, and we can give her something to suppress the C24 and she'll be back to normal - with her exoskeleton too - or you can prolong this power struggle."
"I'm confident you'll work around the distraction issue with the extra processing power you'll get from being in a link," says the nasty old fart.
I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, she says, turning her face into his shoulder again, and this time sharing is easy, there's no hurdle to clear or circumvent, and she sends a rush of feelings - the sack-of-cement awfulness of her traitor limbs and the terror that it's permanent and she'll never, ever fly, the creeping fear that now her brain's exposed to the elements and someone less friendly than Sue might notice and hurt her where she lives, impotent fury at the IF and their clumsy, stupid, secretive misrule and she could do it better, and she is so glad Sue is on her side but she doesn't know what she wants her side to do, she's defiant and terrified all at once.
If we can get off this rock, he says, and get back to Earth, I guarantee you you can have your exo again. Howlett's a pilot, I bet he'd be in if I tapped him. It'd be risky, but we're fucking geniuses. We could get it done. Or we could knuckle under and do what they want and get it back fast, unless and until they decide to fuck us over again. I'm with you either way.
If we leave the station now we're fugitives. They don't have to let us go anywhere till we're eighteen. We could get caught, especially if anybody starts doing something obvious like getting exoskeleton specs. It was originally supposed to be military hardware, the IF definitely has people involved in whoever's keeping the plans.
"Whatever your name is," she says to the old guy, "...Sue could already link me. I had to let him in, he couldn't just do it whenever he wanted until you fucking drugged me, but he could do it, and I didn't ever let on because I thought you'd take my exo, but now you've gone and done it anyway, so give it the fuck back and then we'll link and play your fucking game."
The old guy blinks. He was clearly not expecting this.
And they give her her exo, and she scrambles into it with practiced urgency.
And she vaults off their table and spins and says "Well, I know who I'm going to pretend the enemy ships contain next time I play the sim."
"You playing?" she asks Sue.
They're put in the same room, with two simulators. The old fart is there. "You will both recognize some voices," he says, and he explains the revised scenario. They have subordinates now, who are two of Sue's old toon leaders, three of Aegis's, and one of the toonlike formation formerly known as Medusa.
"You're in command," he tells Sue. "Swan's your second. But if you check out, Swan's authorized to take command from you - all she has to do is press that button." He points out a button that appears on her console and not his. "I advise not checking out, boy."
"Do you know my guys well enough to link them up?" Aegis asks Sue.
He taps Aegis first, then finds his old toon leaders and links them with easy familiarity. Last, he sorts through the minds in the simulator rooms and touches the remaining four, familiar enough to recognize even if he can't find them without looking like he does with Aegis and his old army.
Ooh, she adds. Processing boost.
And she moves at the speed of thought.
She instantly turns off all the voice controls except the "unusual parameter" input and holds her hands at the ready over her console.
Let's kick some ass, he says cheerfully, to a concurring chorus from the other six members of the link.
And the simulated battle begins.
They lose no ships; one of Qiaochu's is damaged, but Blue Moon sails in to the rescue before it's any worse than that without anyone even having to tell him. They all think so fast and Aegis moves so fast and they don't need to speak or look away from their own parts of the screen wasting valuable fractional seconds of reaction time on saccades. They are on fire.
The simulation ends, and Aegis is grinning at it when the screen says she's supposed to report back to the bureaucrat's office.
"Hey, I'll meet you in a bit," she says to Sue as she drops the effort of the link and falls back into her own head. The world around her seems to speed up as she slows down. "Supposed to go have another meeting."
"Not a factor," says the bureaucrat. "We've had faster-than-light communications since shortly after the Second Invasion. These are closely guarded I.F. secrets and I can have you court-martialed if you spread them around, by the way. The only reason you're hearing this is because so many people are so very sure that I need to tell your friend this before he loses a sim battle on purpose, and I think you're best placed to judge when and how."
"Can we communicate directly with the fleet officers before they appear on the sim?" she asks, her mind racing. "Do they even know who's commanding them? How much risk is there of a ship going rogue and just not responding to our controls in the middle of a battle because its pilot thinks we're being idiots?"
"It's not zero, sir, this operation in particular has already had a problem with getting orders obeyed. As for what to say - Hey, have any of your ships been slightly damaged by space dust? Are all your FTL communicators working normally? Are any of your crews suffering from morale problems that could make them move slower or contradict orders? Do you know more about the terrain than we do, do you have any bright ideas? Who's been in space for forty years and has a baby on board by now, we can put them in the back!"
"Okay. But - we're not buggers, sir, we can use the brains on those ships if you let us talk to them, we can subdivide more and give them their own missions so we're not spread so thin, Sue can link a lot more than eight people if he can reach that far, and I don't share your opinion of their uniform machinelike adherence to their orders regardless of morale anyway."
"I'm not making a power play, sir. I've stopped arguing with you entirely about the object level. If you're wrong, but not so wrong for the situation to be irrecoverable, and you get fired, I want whoever replaces you to have a paper trail that shows that I have historically not been an idiot and should be listened to in any future matters that may come up, so that we can not die."
"Sir, it is now abundantly clear to me that you and others who are in miscellaneous positions as my superior officers are willing to break international and military law in order to get me and Sue to do what you want. Why should I believe that fleets of soldiers who have been en route for however many years of subjective time will not decide to do the same thing, if ordered into a position that's not immediately, visibly valuable by someone whose voice clearly signifies that we're half their age?"
"There have got to be hundreds of people in some of these fleets, any of whom could throw an operation off if they so chose, and all of them belong to a species that produced, for example, Sue. I am not convinced, sir, that the laws governing following lawful orders will hold up any better than the laws governing requisition of written copies, if we find that we have to order some fraction of a fleet into a suicide mission, or if one of us makes a mistake and is heard to say something inopportune by the survivors, or if someone has, as I suggested earlier, a baby on board - those little birth control chips are very effective, but statistically stranger things have happened. If I am not a worse commander because I am fifteen years old, sir - if I and Sue, and not you, are the correct choice for commanding our actual invasion fleet - then I want every resource I can think of to requisition, before I need it so it's there if and when I do, and if you get in my way, sir, then I want you to take responsibility for that choice, obey the law, and write it the fuck down just so you're clear on what you are doing. I have not been just some fifteen-year-old student who should be denied things by default since I was sat down in front of instruments that controlled real ships against live, unfriendly fire."
"You can't have it in writing because it's not an order," he says tiredly. "I don't need to order you not to establish contact with the fleets outside the simulator, because the only means you have of doing that is your friend Sue, who clearly doesn't give a rat's ass what he's been ordered to do. If I wanted to facilitate that contact through something resembling an official channel, then I'd have to start giving orders. And then you could experience the tedium of ansible communications with a ship in relativistic transit for yourself."
"...Mazer Rackham? The old guy is Mazer fucking Rackham? What'd you do, put him in a ship and speed him up and turn him around just so he could abuse a new generation of students? He shot the right target one time and this makes him worth dilating into the future for his shit teaching skills?"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 think I know why Rackham was waking you up at night. They must be seriously limited in how they can schedule these battles; it'll be a miracle if we never have to split and do two at once. We're going to have to be up and at 'em on negligible notice whenever they run into the buggers they mean to fight. They needed to see how you'd take that. That's going to be hell on all of us. I think we should unilaterally give them days off so we're not dealing with sleep-deprived as well as overpressured soldiers. ...Can you relay in your sleep?
Then she pauses.
Something has occurred to her.
"Why," she says aloud, "are there people on the ships? We can take control of them remotely. Why aren't they unmanned drones set up for remote control for a computer or a larger group of Sol-orbiting remote pilots to handle?"
She thinks.
"To land," she speculates finally. "Colonies. We're gonna wipe out the buggers and take all their stuff."
"Can you link up Ahmed? I want to see if he's up for talking to Rackham about buggers for us," says Aegis.
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.
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.
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.
Her fingers brush fur, and she feels suddenly, bizarrely, like she's birding and Sue is pouring himself through the link at her - but there's no actual transfer, he's not linking normally if that's what's going on.
Under her fingers is a fluffy critter of some kind. Like he literally conjured up a stuffed animal.
"Okay, so," she says to Ivy, "how are you his soul, what does that mean?"
"Straaaange," says Aegis. "...So you actually went to a weird bar with magic in it and actually went home with a one and a half of me and a one and a half of you and got an Ivy who can be in or out, that's - yeah, I think that's even weirder than the FTL communications and the fact that we're actually invading the bugger worlds."