Chapter 135: The Best Student Needed Remedial Training
Instructor Kade ran the course himself.
He was a broad, weathered man, and he watched the Falcon land on its stand with the flat attention of someone assessing a structural crack.
"You know what your bird’s problem is?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," Lucian said.
"Say it anyway. Astor doesn’t."
Lucian didn’t hesitate. "If I go down, it struggles to leave me."
"It trusts your decisions," Kade said. "It doesn’t yet trust the battlefield without them."
He turned to Jin, since Jin was apparently involved now.
"Vale has the cleanest command habits in the first year. Voice, posture, intent—the bird reads all of it inside half a second. While he’s conscious and communicating, that pair is one of the best in this building." He shrugged. "When he isn’t, it becomes a very expensive guard dog that will stand over him until the mission fails around it."
"It happened during the casualty assessment," Lucian said to Jin. "You were there."
Jin remembered. Lucian had become a simulated casualty, the Falcon had refused to leave him, and Jin had possessed no ability whatsoever to command a beast that wasn’t his. Glitch had eventually planted himself over Lucian until the bird accepted that its handler was guarded and left to scout.
"It trusted Glitch enough to leave," Jin said.
"It did," Kade replied. "Under pressure, after another beast had already put itself between Vale and danger. Later, during the independence course, it stayed beside a marked casualty even after the recovery drone had secured the position. The problem has appeared more than once. I want the correct decision deliberate, repeatable, and visible to Vale."
"It isn’t incapable of choosing for itself," Lucian said quietly. "It’s proven that. But when it believes I may still need it, it struggles to hand that responsibility to anyone else."
Kade grunted. "Devotion without delegation. Gets handlers killed."
While Kade set the beacons, Jin asked the question he’d been mildly curious about since arriving at Meridian.
"Can I ask something dumb?"
"Go ahead."
"You could have attended a better academy."
"A better-ranked academy," Lucian corrected. "That isn’t necessarily the same thing."
He watched Kade pace out the extraction distance before continuing.
"I had offers. Good ones. Their recruiters came, watched us run demonstrations, and told me everything we already did well." He spoke evenly, without a trace of self-congratulation. "They talked about placement, advancement, and what I might achieve. Mostly what I might achieve for them."
"And Kade?"
"Kade watched the same kind of demonstration and told me our coordination only looked flawless because I was standing there supplying every decision."
Jin raised his eyebrows.
"He said a real field mission would eventually separate us, knock me unconscious, or destroy communication. When that happened, my Falcon would have to choose between guarding me and completing the objective that might get us both home. He believed it would choose wrong and we might both die because of it." Lucian’s mouth moved slightly. "He was the only instructor who looked at us and saw a problem."
"So you picked the man who insulted you."
"I picked the instructor who could correct something that might get my Falcon killed. Prestige can wait. That couldn’t."
From across the course, without looking up, Kade said, "Spotting it was the easy part, Vale."
"Yes, sir."
"We’re still correcting it."
The course had two objectives, positioned so there was no way to complete both from one place. Lucian had to remain protected inside the marked casualty zone, while the Falcon had to activate an extraction mechanism ninety metres away before the timer expired.
Lucian himself lay in the zone. Not a dummy. Jin understood why the moment the Falcon’s head tilted at the sight of its handler going down.
Under the simulated-casualty rules, Lucian could not speak, gesture, or deliberately shape commands through the contract. Their basic bond remained, so the Falcon could still sense his broad emotions and physical condition, but Lucian could not guide its decisions.
He was a body on the ground.
Barriers and proximity sensors made injury impossible, while the training constructs scored by approach and controlled contact. From the observation line, Jin could command Glitch normally.
He could not command the Falcon. He couldn’t contract it, reach it mentally, or use the Engine on it, and there was no channel to the bird at all.
All he could do was build a situation in which leaving became the correct choice.
First attempt.
Lucian went still, and the Falcon dropped over him within two seconds, wings half-mantled and body immovable. Ninety metres away, the extraction beacon lit. The bird saw it; Jin watched its head turn and its attention catch.
It did not move.
A construct rolled toward the casualty zone, which settled the matter entirely as far as the Falcon was concerned. Jin sent Glitch into the guard marker, and the little lizard planted himself between Lucian and the construct, tail low, and held.
The Falcon looked at him for a long moment.
Then it returned its attention to the approach lanes over Lucian’s chest and remained there until the timer reached zero.
"Reset," Kade said.
Lucian sat up, removed the casualty band, and looked visibly annoyed—not with the bird.
"That’s mine," he said. "That’s exactly what I taught it."
"Protecting you until you’re both trapped in a collapsed zone isn’t protecting you," Kade replied. "Again."
Jin watched the Falcon while they reset. It knew Glitch. It didn’t posture at him or treat him as an enemy, but familiarity wasn’t enough to make it hand him responsibility for Lucian’s life.
Second attempt.
Before the reset, Jin crouched in front of Glitch.
Glitch had spent the entire first attempt with his chest out and chin raised, staring directly at the Falcon. Through the bond came a steady wash of smug superiority and the unmistakable sense that he considered his own performance embarrassingly better than the bird’s.
"Stop that," Jin said.
Glitch lifted his head, offended.
"You’re making it about you. It isn’t about you. Don’t stare at the bird, don’t crowd Lucian, and don’t puff up." Jin turned him bodily toward the approach lanes. "Face out. Watch the entrances. Act like guarding him is already your job and nobody needs to ask whether you’ll do it."
The response through the bond was pure sulking, sharpened by a sour suspicion and an image of the Falcon receiving praise for Glitch’s work. Jin understood the complaint.
"I want you to make the bird able to leave."
A long pause followed. The sulk lingered, then grudgingly folded down into something closer to concentration.
Lucian went down. The Falcon mantled.
Glitch took the marker, faced outward, and did nothing at all.
The Falcon watched him for eleven seconds.
Then it left.
Jin straightened. The bird had done this before during the casualty assessment, but then Glitch had protected Lucian during a real crisis. This time, under controlled conditions, the Falcon had looked at the situation and deliberately made the transfer.
It was progress.
Only progress.
The Falcon was halfway to the mechanism when a second construct activated near the casualty zone. Glitch shifted into the correct interception position, and the barrier flared. According to every sensor on the field, Lucian remained entirely safe.
The Falcon did not pause to judge that.
It turned in the air and came screaming back.
The timer expired with the extraction mechanism still dark.
"Not entirely wrong," Kade said before Lucian could speak. "Returning to a threatened handler is a defensible decision. The problem is that it didn’t make a decision. It didn’t assess whether the position was already held. It reacted."
Lucian nodded slowly, his jaw tight. "It accepted Glitch right up until the situation changed."