i contain multitudes
Mar. 5th, 2013 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
autokineticAegis starts giving the subordinates days off. There is a brief argument with the teachers about this during which she points out that if the teachers force a leave-given student into the simulator room, she can't stop them, but Sue needn't link them and they needn't be given assignments, so it would be more productive to just let them sleep, and if they thought they needed an eight-person team it was the height of foolishness not to give them ten or twelve for exactly this reason. She rotates people out before they start making mistakes - the battles are coming thick and fast now, and they're getting harder, and it's better to do with one less commander now than to have one burn out from sleep deprivation and stress later when it's worse.
She takes one battle off herself, after arguing with Qiaochu about it - he thinks she should, she thinks she's fine - but the team suffers more without her than it does without anyone else. They lose four ships. It's not the first loss - the buggers have been learning, have been compensating, they've gotten stray ships before - but it's the worst. There's no further discussion of Aegis taking time off. They need her and her speed more than anyone else.
Except Sue, who is essential, who obviously cannot take a day off at all.
But he seems to be holding up all right, and he can hang back from the strategizing and serve just as a relay; he doesn't have to be fully in the fight every time. He generally is, but it's an option if he starts to crack around the edges.
The battles keep coming.
They keep winning. They hold their losses down very, very low.
And then there is a planet.
They've been near planets before. Only a handful of battles have taken place outside of solar systems; they've had to worry about gravitic effects from gas giants and, on one memorable occasion, Aegis had to maneuver six ships through an asteroid belt, flicking her control between vessels several times a second and almost burning her fingertips with friction-heat against the controls before she could get a Little Doctor onto a flying rock and atomize the pursuing bugger fighters. There've been planets in the distant background before. But this time the planet is right there.
The buggers didn't come out to meet the invaders.
And the teacher who is in her and Sue's simulator room, wearing an earpiece and probably relaying the words of Mazer Rackham so neither commander has to look at the old fart directly, says, "This is the last battle."
Aegis holds her hands ready and waits for the fleet officers to join the link.
She takes one battle off herself, after arguing with Qiaochu about it - he thinks she should, she thinks she's fine - but the team suffers more without her than it does without anyone else. They lose four ships. It's not the first loss - the buggers have been learning, have been compensating, they've gotten stray ships before - but it's the worst. There's no further discussion of Aegis taking time off. They need her and her speed more than anyone else.
Except Sue, who is essential, who obviously cannot take a day off at all.
But he seems to be holding up all right, and he can hang back from the strategizing and serve just as a relay; he doesn't have to be fully in the fight every time. He generally is, but it's an option if he starts to crack around the edges.
The battles keep coming.
They keep winning. They hold their losses down very, very low.
And then there is a planet.
They've been near planets before. Only a handful of battles have taken place outside of solar systems; they've had to worry about gravitic effects from gas giants and, on one memorable occasion, Aegis had to maneuver six ships through an asteroid belt, flicking her control between vessels several times a second and almost burning her fingertips with friction-heat against the controls before she could get a Little Doctor onto a flying rock and atomize the pursuing bugger fighters. There've been planets in the distant background before. But this time the planet is right there.
The buggers didn't come out to meet the invaders.
And the teacher who is in her and Sue's simulator room, wearing an earpiece and probably relaying the words of Mazer Rackham so neither commander has to look at the old fart directly, says, "This is the last battle."
Aegis holds her hands ready and waits for the fleet officers to join the link.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 11:47 pm (UTC)"I just need to know you're not going to go behind our backs and order the landers to attack, or send another fleet after the buggers, or pull crap to get us to do our subsequent desk jobs in stupid ways," Aegis says. "We can cover everything else. We're already working out the details."
no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 11:50 pm (UTC)Four minds. Taptaptaptap.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-05 11:55 pm (UTC)One thinks the buggers can never be trusted and landing the fleet will be suicide, that they should attack now while they'll have surprise and the fleet can be salvaged. One thinks that if they're going to trust the kids to handle the war they would be fools not to trust them to handle peace. One thinks that the buggers' complete standstill is a reasonable sign of goodwill and they should put Sue in a link with buggers and human diplomats and use him as a relay to come up with a treaty which may or may not bear any resemblance to what Aegis came up with. One thinks the buggers should be wiped out just to demonstrate to any other aliens that humans run into in the future that there is no fucking with the human race.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:03 am (UTC)The fact that the buggers can be trusted is obvious. He shows that person the raw intention that he got from them, the way they think when they say 'big sisters', the intricate history and layers of meaning. Maybe it will be harder to dismiss them as lies firsthand.
Wiping out the buggers is a dumb fucking way to make a statement, and there's no one else around to make the statement to. Does this person remember what it was like to fear their own destruction at the hands of an unstoppable alien force? Do they remember the formation of the IF around this fear? Do they think that perhaps that is not the first message humanity should be sending to any new species they meet, in case that new species has a few reactionary chuckleheads like no one Sue cares to name hanging around in positions of power?
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:09 am (UTC)The other chuckleheads mostly shout him down without help.
Aegis thinks that as long as the buggers are currently admiring their prospective big sisters for being smart and decisive and strong, all this sitting still in the sky is not in any way helpful towards retaining the sisterhood option. They have a workable ceasefire and a workable plan and a workable relationship with the other species to fall into; they can continue working on details while the ships work on landing on their designated island. Peace is not less urgent than war.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:15 am (UTC)Eventually the chuckleheads agree that they will authorize the fleet to land as long as the bugger ships land first and the Little Doctor stands ready for suicide-mission detonation.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 12:20 am (UTC)You see, big sisters, we will put down our weapons as you say, we are your little sisters, we will obey your judgments, sing the queens. Here we are - The concept is of just having shed a layer of exoskeleton. Buggers have internal skeletons, too, but their exterior armor is still useful protection, and they are softer and more vulnerable when they've just shucked a layer. Here we are, big sisters, we have a place for you to put watchful bodies.
Aegis quietly coordinates the fleet into landing formation.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 01:10 am (UTC)...He feels like he kind of wants to give an entire species a hug.
He shares this feeling with Aegis.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 01:12 am (UTC)The fleet comes to rest on the island. The sensor drones that give the sims pictures of the battlefield are not equipped for this; they get a blurred picture of flora and sky.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 01:25 am (UTC)He doesn't try one.
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Date: 2013-03-06 01:26 am (UTC)In the corner of their sim room, Earpiece Guy starts slowly applauding.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-06 01:28 am (UTC)