Gemini Ecliptic : : Chapter 8
To flippantly dismiss Tsang Lao as an arch villain betrays the arrogance of his would be judge. In Terra’s twilight, Asia contained over three-fourths of the world’s population. The Water Wars would never yield a winner, because the Himalayan glaciers had all melted. The continent would never again be able to provide enough water for the thirsty billions. From the few records we have of Lao’s reign, I argue he knew this. He never intended the launch of atomics against Russia as a means of victory, but a mutually assured destruction that might save the rest of the species. The deaths of nine billion people and the resultant slight nuclear winter might have been enough to save our homeworld, had it not been for the geological cataclysms that followed. So I must ask you: had his actions allowed humanity to remain on Terra, would he still be reviled as the Beijing Butcher?
- Diary excerpt from Justicar Conservator Mishuhara Ito as entrusted to Pontifex Gaius Johannsen in 2570 AT.
The weeks following the abduction attempt at the Basilica passed quietly, everyone who knew about the events were subdued and worried. The silicates presented a visible threat, easy to demonize. Now the danger lurked in shadow, without a face. Worse still, the threat came from their own kind.
Jensen, Jared and their friends set about their task of developing the Gemini Defense in earnest, each session showing considerable progress. The efforts the cadets made while their leaders were in the capitol dramatically improved the overall mood and the timetable. The day before had seen the group spread out across half the campus, ranging from the training room in the northeast quadrant of the grounds and stretching to the Spire in the center. Tomorrow, they hoped to increase the range by another 25 percent.
The focus and concentration required of all of the Adepts had proved taxing to say the least. Jensen and Jared had begun to look more worn with each passing day. Misha had watched them closely, watched them now as they sat in the lotus pose in the Spire. They had been in stage three for just under 10 minutes when he spoke to them.
“I want you both to focus on reclaiming energy from your surroundings. Before you leave here today, your reserves should be replenished,” he said.
The duo remained motionless, but heard and obeyed their mentor. Since they had discovered their strange new power, their training in empathy had never been more stringent or rigorous as it had become in the past two weeks. Misha pushed them sternly, stretching their abilities and more importantly expanding their understanding of how to use them. They marveled at the new details that emerged. In the phenoptic, they discovered that the motes and spark of power were actually the points of intersection between strands of energy. The strands connected the powers to their sources; sunlight looked more like streams of glowing rain, sparking vibrantly when the strands crossed. Each time they pushed themselves, the strings became clearer, more discernible, and now, they realized, the seemingly infinite strands, tangling together, every so quietly vibrated. The resonance of their humming would intermingle with the powers around them, forming complex harmonies. If they mentally touched one strand, it would sound, changing the melody of harmonics around it. The strange song echoed through their minds, a quiet symphony playing forever, surrounding them and passing through them.
They had briefly described this new development to Misha, who had smiled and asked them to promise to share it with him one day, guiding his mind as they had done before. Other than that, he had made no further comment about it. Now, as they sought to draw from the ambient forces, the song somehow grew louder, but more soothing. The sunbeams rang deeply. The breeze played a complex chord from the basso to the soprano. The Spire itself, now an unbroken crystalline sextuple-helix, amplified, channeled, and drove the song higher and farther. Never had they experienced anything like it. The music filled every sense. It flowed into them, the feeling of warm silk across their skin, a cool stream of water across their tongues, and it smelled of the heady ozone of a rainstorm. They felt lighter than they ever had before in their lives. Their bodies and minds added complex, mysterious tones to the song. The sound grew louder, the pace and pitch and timbre climbing and building, exultant as though the music had longed for eternity for someone to hear it and now that its audience had arrived the flood of sound had broken through the dam, a torrent unleashed.
Something pushed against the song, and the song pushed back. The hammering of some intent to break the melody reached a fevered tattoo until it battered their minds. The intrusive sound somehow seemed familiar, urgent, calling to them. They turned their thoughts away from the song, but the song tried to pull them back. The hammering ceased, until a violent crash shattered the peace. Words, no cries, screams, terror washed over them. Suddenly, the phenoptic receded, and they realized the panicked cries came from Misha. Misha, who was at that moment shaking them, eyes filled with tears. Behind him, Samantha, Jager and Sasha stood faces ashen.
“Misha,” they croaked out, their own voices feeling rusty and unused. Their mentor collapsed between them, his arms wrapped tightly around their torsos as his sobs wracked his body.
“We’re back,” Jared soothed. “Shh, we’re okay.”
Misha’s sorrow and fear rattled them both to their core. They had never seen the man so emotionally unhinged. Jensen ran his fingers gently through the older man’s hair. Jared rubbed his back slowly, providing confirmation that there were there, safe, present and with him.
Jager was holding Sasha in a very similar way, her face buried in his shoulder. The fear in the man’s eyes caused cold to grip Jensen’s and Jared’s hearts. Something had gone very wrong, but they had no idea what.
Finally, Misha calmed and sat back on his heels, running his hands repeatedly over his face. When he appeared to be more composed, Jensen whispered, “What happened?”
Samantha answered him just as softly. “We are hoping you can tell us.”
They tried to explain what they had experienced but words proved useless.
“You were out for four hours,” Misha stated, his voice wrecked. Only then did they realize the light flowing into the room had moved from early afternoon into evening. “I kept trying to get you back, but nothing worked. Then the Spire started to, vibrate?” He aimed the question at the trio standing behind him.
“It began to sing,” answered Sasha. “Like crystal near a tuning fork.”
“We ran here as soon as the sound triggered the security system,” Jager explained. “It was loud enough to be heard across the campus, and it kept getting louder.”
“How long?” Jared asked.
“It started about twenty minutes ago,” Misha replied. “By the time the others got here, your pulses had all but stopped. I couldn’t tell if you were breathing anymore.”
“We’re so sorry,” Jensen said, overcome by the lingering fear in their beloved mentor. They reached out to him as one and held on.
“It’s okay,” he whispered back to them. “Just don’t do it again.”
Samantha watched them, her eyes tired. “I’m giving you a direct order,” she said. “You are to engage in no activity you’ve never done before without first discussing it thoroughly with all of us. I don’t care the circumstances. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” they quietly answered.
“These close calls are about to do us all in,” she said, her words somewhat broken.
Jensen and Jared vowed to themselves to do everything within their power to prevent any more trauma for their friends. But at the same time, they had no idea how to explain to them, to make them understand.
Because at the moment that Misha broke through to them, when they turned their minds from the song, the music had become a voice.
“You going to explain what the hell that was, yesterday?” Tom rarely sounded churlish, but at that moment, they knew failure to explain was not an acceptable alternative
The day had dawned bright and, for the time of the year, with subtle traces of spring warmth. The Optia had ordered the lot of them to stay out of their classes and spend some time outdoors. That the three mentors would accompany them went without saying. Twelve figures, clothed in white winter gear, walked into the surrounding woods and vanished against the snowy landscape. Two hours later, they stood as a unit on the Aerie, a rocky precipice 500 meters above the valley floor. The Aerie provided a spectacular view of the Academy and the surrounding landscape. As the others took in the panorama, Tom waited impatiently at Jared’s shoulder.
Jensen called everyone over to them, and he and Jared explained, to the best of their abilities, what had happened to them in the Spire. Some seemed horrified. Others looked enrapt. All looked concerned. Jared explained that they had a standing order to not engage in any new activity without consulting their mentors first.
“It’s about damned time,” Erica grumbled.
“We know.” Jensen said. “We aren’t going to take any more unnecessary risks. I think we finally figured out that even the things that seem small and innocuous tend to become traumatic events for all of you.”
“If you would have asked us, we could have told you that months ago,” Nazumi said in her typically placid manner.
“You’re right,” Jared responded. “We haven’t been talking to you guys enough. But in our defense, we have a lot to manage. We are as new to this as you guys are, and we need you all to help us keep things in balance.”
“So you are giving us permission to meddle?” Tom asked hopefully.
“Yes, Tom,” Jensen laughed. “Meddle away.”
“Oh, we will,” Alona interrupted. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
A few questions popped up about their encounter with the strange music, and they did their best to answer them. Nazumi seemed particularly fascinated by this new turn of events, and expressed a hope that one day they could guide her to that place. In all of the discussion, the two young men never once mentioned the voice they heard. Their friends seemed satisfied by their answers, but one set of eyes watched them closely the entire time. Misha knew they held something back. Something else happened in that trance, of that he was certain, but now was not the time to try and pry it out of his charges.
True to form, Chris complained loudly about the absence of food on their small expedition. It didn’t take long for the others to agree that it was time to head to the mess hall.
The descent took less time than the climb, but more care to be certain their footholds in the snow didn’t give. They still managed to chatter amicably all the way down.
“You two ready to ski?” Mike asked.
“Ski?” Jared asked back. “You mean that weird thing when people put wood on their shoes and slide down a mountain?”
“That’s the one! My family would go skiing at least once a year. It’s tricky to get the hang of, but once you do its fun.”
“They don’t have skiing here,” Jensen countered.
“Duh,” Mike rolled his eyes. “Ouray has some of the finest skiing in the worlds.”
“We aren’t going to Ouray, Mike,” Jared explained.
“Huh, it was my understanding you would be spending mid-term break there.”
Jensen and Jared shared a look that clearly conveyed they had forgotten about the break. Out of a sense of contrariness, Jensen protested. “What if we want to go somewhere warm? With beaches and an ocean?”
From behind them they heard Jager and Misha burst out laughing. They turned scornful eyes on their mentors, which deterred them not one bit.
“You do that.” Jager laughed. “Misha and I will video Loretta clomping across the sand to drag you both back to the village by your hair.”
“Not to mention she would probably whip you both for not coming on your own.” Misha joined in.
“And for making her get sand in her shoes.” Jager continued.
The boys fought to hold in a grin, because what had just been described would be the likely result of them choosing to spend the break anywhere other than Ouray.
Calling out to the rest of the crew, Jensen asked “What are you guys doing for break?”
In startling unison, they all answered “Going to Ouray.” In all, that seemed to settle the matter with resounding finality.
“Don’t worry,” Tom soothed. “Ella gave us all rooms at her Inn.”
“You aren’t getting rid of us that easily,” Sasha answered the overly hopeful expressions on the cadets’ faces. “We’ll be at the cabin with you.”
“So did everyone know we were spending break at the cabin but us?” Jared asked, incredulously.
“It’s a good thing you got yer looks,” Mike drawled, affecting Chris’ accent. “Cause neither one of you are very quick on the uptake.”
They were about to retort when Mike yelped, jumped in the air and turned on a mischievously grinning Chris, who had apparently just pinched his ass.
Nazumi Takamura strolled down the quiet corridor of the outer ring of the Core, leisurely making her way to her next class. She may not be an empath, but she knew full well that Jensen and Jared were following her. She could stop and let them catch up, but truth be told, she knew what they wanted to discuss. She would let them work a little harder at it.
For the entirety of their young lives, she and her twin brother, Raidon, had spent almost every moment together. Now that Alona Tal had caught her brother’s eye, everyone noted the separation between the siblings. No doubt they worried about her. Her lifelong companion had, in a way, moved on. The others in the group had paired off. She smirked, not knowing if whatever was going on between Chris and Mike could be called a pairing. She doubted they even knew.
However, she wasn’t depressed. She didn’t begrudge Raidon a shot at happiness. She didn’t feel excluded or left out. Nazumi had always been intensely practical. Life would eventually pull her and her brother apart. This was known since before they both hit puberty. Weighing down the change with overwrought sentimentality did no one any good. Her friends still surrounded her. Classes kept her more than busy. That Jensen would forget this fundamental aspect of her personality amused her, especially given the worried glances he and Jared kept shooting her way.
She supposed it was time to let them off the hook.
“Hurry up,” she barked. “You have less than five minutes to conduct your inquiry then I have to be in class.”
Less than two seconds later, they had flanked her. She fought to hide her grin at the obvious tactic to be certain she didn’t bolt.
“So, Nazumi,” Jensen began.
She rolled her eyes. They didn’t have time for small talk. She proceeded to lay out the entire situation as she saw it, hoping to speed up the process. In short, all was as it should be, and they had far more pressing business that demanded their attention.
“So you don’t miss Raidon,” Jared asked, his eyes large and puppyish since he caught up with her.
“Of course I miss my brother,” she answered. “But this was inevitable. Face it; there were always only two choices for us: die in the war, or hopefully find someone to share our lives with. I can’t be anything but pleased for him.”
Her answer startled the two young men. They had not thought of it in those terms, but she made a powerful point. “I always forget how level-headed you are,” Jensen said fondly.
“And every time you do, it’s a mistake,” she teased. “The paths we walk down are rarely ever known to us beforehand. Without you two doing whatever it is you do, the two circles would not have merged. Had that not happened, look at the relationships that never would have formed. Tom and Erica are talking marriage. Raidon and Alona are growing closer each day. And Chris and Mike are, well, Chris and Mike.”
“Wait,” Jared interrupted. “Marriage? When did this happen?”
“It hasn’t,” she replied. “Yet. It’s not something I foresee happening for some time. First, the Academy rules forbid it, and then we leave here and go to the front. If the war is still going on, that is. If they want to hold fast to each other through that, I couldn’t be happier for them.”
“We keeping missing things,” Jensen said sadly. “No matter how hard we try, we keep missing major events in our friends’ lives.”
Nazumi stopped and turned to look at the two men. “You have burdens and responsibilities beyond anything any of us has ever seen,” she said tenderly. “We all know that you love us, that you want to be there for us in every way, but we also know that you can’t possibly do it all, amazing powers or not. It’s time you figured that out.”
Wide eyes stared back at her. “I forget that you two refuse to scan us,” she continued. “I think even Tommy picks things up.”
“Tommy?” Jensen wondered at the nickname.
Nazumi chuckled. “The merger of the two groups is about as complete as it will ever get. Pet names and all.”
“We didn’t know,” Jared replied, sounding a bit lost, and more than a bit regretful.
“Stop it!” she ordered. “That right there? Stop it. No one is accusing you of being bad friends except yourself. Friendships aren’t just about what you can do for the group. We have to give something back to you, and this is it. This is our gift. We will watch over each other, and over the two of you. You are carrying around responsibilities that you don’t need. You have enough.”
“We just,” Jensen started, “We just wish we could be more involved, closer. Like we used to be.”
“Jen,” she answered him kindly, “You can’t. There’s no going home again. We accept it. You need to, too. Even if all of this hadn’t happened, we all have to graduate. We couldn’t avoid the complications forever. This way? Is better. We have each other and a whole new group of amazing people. And we still have the two of you. This isn’t bad. Not even close.”
“We came here to check on you, make sure you were okay,” Jared smiled. “And instead, you made sure we’re okay. Pretty cool trick.”
Nazumi beamed at him, then turned, and slid her arms through theirs. As they walked arm in arm down the hallway, her light, trilling soprano voice added, “You have a great deal of catching up to, loves. You are merely men, after all.”
The nine had become twelve. Misha, Jager and Sasha joined their effort in stretching and strengthening the configuration of the experimental psionic net. The group now covered the entirety of the campus grounds, all equidistant from each other with Jensen and Jared at the center. The pair was separated by the same distance from each other as they were to the rest of the Adepts, a good 500 meters. Their continued effort to increase the distance they could tolerate between them had made this slight separation no more than an itchy nuisance. They stood in the middle ring of the Core, the corridors empty, cadets tucked away behind the classroom doors.
It struck them, at that moment, how very little contact they had with their fellow students. They had no classes with any but their immediate circle, and even in the mess, an invisible barrier stood between the table where they sat and the rest of the student body. Now, the original fear that their newfound celebrity would shatter their privacy seemed foolish. They only had privacy. The days of being swept away in the bustle of thousands of fellow Adepts going about their schedules felt so long ago, almost nostalgic. They had to focus on the advice Nazumi had given them. They could shoulder only so much. This, like so many things that came with their new responsibilities, had to go by the wayside.
It felt rather sadly like growing up.
Their coms sounded, the standard check-in that everyone had taken position, and the drill could begin. The empaths had made astounding strides in achieving phenoptic ideation on their own. It accelerated the progress of the exercise in orders of magnitude. Jensen and Jared slid effortlessly into the phenoptic, immediately filtering out the energies from the surrounding Adepts, focusing on the members of their group. In short order, they located their friends, Misha’s pattern being the brightest and most easily recognizable. The empaths reported over the coms that the kinetics could begin
At first, the individual patterns sprang into vivid life, wild swirls of color, but they remained isolated. Long minutes passed and the stretching out of the energies finally connected with the empaths. The resultant web lacked the concentrated power of the individual powers, but it stretched across the entire campus, enmeshing over 100 square kilometers in a psionic net. This would be more than enough room to execute the maneuver in fighters and actually engage the enemy
Jensen and Jared marveled at the accomplishment, the beauty of its intricate design. The colors mingled, shifting, forming an odd spectrum of remarkable loveliness. As they studied the product of their friends’ devotion, the gentle chiming of the music they had heard in the Spire began again. They knew now not to chase after it headlong, but they also realized the song existed whether they heard it or not. Vigilantly guarding their consciousnesses, assuring they didn’t slip into the same trance that had so horrified their superiors, they let the sounds fall into the background. Even with these efforts, the strange symphony grew louder, clearer, more intense.
It wasn’t until Tom’s voice came over the coms that they realized something was up. “Guys,” he said tremulously. “What’s happening?”
They immediately focused in on their friend, and suddenly understood his concern. The web had grown in intensity. It now appeared to be at least four times as strong, and looked to be growing.
“Well, fuck me,” Chris brusquely interrupted. “All this sparkly stuff. That’s phenoptics?”
None of the kinetics had ever achieved the ideation state. Now, by the voices coming across coms, all of them were.
“Do you hear it?” Alona whispered, her soft voice oddly amplified by the communication device.
Now, all of their friends were hearing the song. Cold seized Jared’s and Jensen’s hearts.
“Disengage!” they shouted. “Disengage now!”
The web remained intact.
“Do you hear us?” Jensen continued to yell. “Disengage from the web right the fuck now!”
Still, nothing happened.
Hoping this would work, and not damage any of their friends, they launched a massive power surge through the net. One by one, in rapid succession, the nodes of the net shattered, until the entire thing collapsed.
Panting, Jensen and Jared ran toward each other, Jared talking into his com. “Is everyone all right?!”
Panic rose in them as no one answered the call.
Finally, a voice, probably Tom’s, replied. “Ow.”
The pair laughed loudly in profound relief. “Everyone, meet at MedLab 1,” Jensen ordered. Finally, all of the others confirmed that they were on their way.
When the duo cleared the outer ring of the Core, they could see several people converging on the Lab. They could sense the others headed their way from the other side of campus. Alona, Chris, Mike, Raidon, and Sasha sat waiting for them in the main examination room, the startled medics trying to figure out what was happening.
“Do we need to exam them?” one young woman, whom Jared knew as Terrell asked.
“No,” he answered. “We’ll take it from here, thanks. If we need additional help, I’ll be sure to call.”
The medics quietly left, casting surreptitious glances over their shoulders. Jensen and Jared started scanning the five, trying to find any sign of trauma that surge might have caused. No one spoke, knowing that explanations, if there were any, should come when everyone was present. It took only a few minutes more for the others to arrive, slightly out of breath.
Satisfied that no one had sustained permanent injury, it was time to try and explain what happened, though the two young men had as many questions as the others.
“So that was the music,” Misha broke the ice.
“That was the music,” Jared answered.
“Why don’t we back up to the kinetics sudden ability to go phenoptic?” Jensen interrupted.
“I have no idea what happened,” Chris replied. “One minute, it was just like normal, the next, I could see the energy just like you guys described it.”
“The web,” Nazomi began cautiously, “did the two you charge it up?”
“No, we didn’t,” Jared responded.
“Then how did it suddenly gain power?” she asked.
No one had any answers.
“And when the power reached a certain level, everyone could hear the music,” Sasha offered.
“Why didn’t any of you disengage?” Jensen demanded.
“At first,” Misha said, “I couldn’t hear you. Then, after I could, I couldn’t break out of the web. It was like I had forgotten how to shut down, but the really scary part was, I didn’t want to.”
“It was kind of like being plugged into happiness,” Alona suggested. “Letting go of it felt painful, like loss.”
No one said anything more. Jensen ran his hands down his face, he and Jared obviously trying to make sense of this strange development.
“We need to tell the Justicar,” he finally spoke. “And the Optia. If possible, we need to try and recreate it for them.”
Before anyone could protest, Jared interrupted. “We will need the rest of you to stay disconnected. Watch over us and if we don’t come out, try blasting us out. You’ve created the web before in close quarters. Now, it should be much stronger. Hopefully, the strain of trying to create the distance between the nodes is what triggered the music, or hearing it, or however the hell we’re going to explain this.”
Sasha looked to Misha, who appeared lost in thought, his brow furrowed. “They are right, you know,” she said softly. “They deserve to know what’s going on, and explaining it won’t do any good.”
Misha didn’t look up from the spot on the floor he had been staring out for the last ten minutes. Finally, he exhaled loudly, looked around the room at all of the faces he had come to cherish, stopping on the two that had radically changed his world.
“This is going to be an interesting conversation,” he said, gracing the pair with a trademark smirk, before rising, tucking his hands in his pockets, and strolling out the MedLab doors.
Jeffrey sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tightly together, staring out the windows of his office at the Academy. He had seen a great deal in his nearly fifty years, more than he had ever wanted to see, but today shocked him to his core. The session with Gemini shattered a number of illusions he didn't even know he held and opened up horizons he had never known existed. He and Samantha had taken nearly an hour to even enter the phenoptic, but once they had achieved that strange, beautiful state, it took another thirty minutes before their heartbeats returned to normal. He never imagined this was the world as the two adepts saw it every day. Arguably the single greatest outcome, for him, for the exercise would be the extraordinary state of peace he felt when focusing, meditating on the glittering realm of pure energy. He could not recall ever having felt so calm, most certainly not since the war started. Even now, as he tried to grapple with the rest of the lesson, his mind would flit to that moment of revelation, and it soothed him.
The rest of the session stretched his credulity to the breaking point. For millennia, physicists claimed that the universe was musical, that the nature of the cosmos could only be truly expressed as music. Frankly, though the sentiment persisted generation to generation, few gave it much credence. The God equation, the idea that the entirety of existence could be expressed in a short mathematical statement, which would sound as music, and be the mind of God, moved theoretical physicists from scientist to high priests. Jeffrey counted himself among that camp of disbelievers.
Until this morning.
The universe, it seemed, was in fact a vast, infinitely complex and intricate song. Strangely, considering the magnitude of impact the revelation had on him, he could not recall the song. No matter how hard he concentrated, the melody would not surface. He and the Optia had started the morning with a more than healthy dose of skepticism. The seemingly treacherous state of mind required to experience this musical manifestation did nothing to assuage their concern. Hefty assurances from Misha and particularly Jensen and Jared, eased their discomfort to a degree. Looking back, those three hours seemed so much more like a matter of a few minutes.
The implications of all of this currently occupied the Justicar, troubling him on a number of levels. First, the ramification on what mankind thought they knew about the universe would no doubt be shattered. Beyond that, the problems for the Adepts themselves sprawled out endlessly before him. The allure, the temptation to surrender to the sights and sounds of the phenoptic overwhelmed both he and Samantha. Neither of them was inexperienced, nor gullible. That they almost lost themselves in that world drove home the dangers of this, for lack of a better word, technique.
Clearly, this visualization step was required to actualize the Gemini Defense. Jeffrey had made it no secret that he had no desire to see the two young men actually execute the tactic. From the onset, his goal had been for them to develop it, then teach it to others, specifically active duty Adepts, and deploy it in the field, while Jensen and Jared remained safe at the Academy. As it stood, only those two seemed capable of remaining aware enough to avoid becoming lost in that state of consciousness. Even Misha, the most talented, quite possibly the strongest, empath he had ever met was not immune to the lure. Hopefully, the two young men could train their mentor how to avoid the trap.
The thought made Jeffrey smile. Gemini seemed to consistently teach its elders more than the elders taught them. Jensen and Jared would never believe the statement, but in the privacy of his own mind, he knew the truth. It gave him a level of comfort, a reprieve from the maelstrom of his thoughts. The pair had risen to every challenge presented to them, blasting through obstacles and achieving results that changed the rules of the game. If anyone could figure out how to make this work, those two could.
The door chime sounded, and he bade his visitors to enter, knowing it would be Samantha, Misha, Sasha and Jager. Once all were seated, he took a moment to inventory their appearances. Samantha still looked a bit pale, the shock not having quite worn off yet. Misha, as he expected, radiated smugness. This was chief among the things he loved about the empath. He took the successes of his charges as his own. Conversely, their struggles and failures were also deeply personal to him. No, he could not have chosen a better person to care for Jensen and Jared. That gave him comfort, especially as the demands of the capital only seemed to grow, limiting his time with the pair.
"Schedules have to be changed," he said softly, taking all of them slightly by surprise. "Misha, you are going to have to train the entire group how to remain self-aware enough not to become lost in the phenoptic. We can't take any risks here, and I need to know that someone, other than Gemini, can remain in control enough to make this work."
"I would like to be in on that," Samantha added unexpectedly.
Jeffrey nodded his consent. "How is flight training going?" he asked.
"They all show relatively high skill levels in the simulators," Jager answered. "Some stronger than others, but all slightly ahead of the timetable we had planned."
"How long until they have co-pilot certification level adroitness?" the older man asked.
"I estimate a month and a half, if we push it, but given their other workloads, two to three months would be more probable."
"Break is next week," Morgan said. "After that, I want you to prep them for the six week deadline. Excuse them from other classes or commitments. Misha, use the time currently allotted to the ExTac class itself for your training regimen. They can't go any further until they get past this present barrier. After that, they can resume drills."
"Why the rush?" Sasha asked.
Jeffrey sighed deeply. "I want to see if this tactic can even work. The only way we get there is to get them in fighters. I have a group of pilots selected. I have no idea how long it will take the cadets to adapt from the current drills to the rigors of fighters, but I want them to have as much time to make that leap as possible. Also, if this succeeds, and frankly, from what I saw today I think it can, we need to get this into the training program for active service Adepts."
"It wouldn't hurt to be able to give the Senate and Consuls a ray of hope, either," Misha said coldly.
"No, it wouldn't hurt."
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