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"We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds."

~Aristotle Onassis

Chapter Twenty-two: Storm Winds

"That's it. Easy does it."

"I'm not made of glass, you know." But Julie did take it easy, as she got her feet under her. The medical orderly didn't offer more unsolicited advice, but she did hold Julie's arm quite tightly, and if that was the difference between standing and falling, the psi-op supposed she'd deal with it.

"It hurts," she hissed, as her side protested.

"How badly?"

"It...not too badly." Julie coughed into her free elbow. "It just hurts. But I think I can deal with it."

"Miss Richardson, I'm not signing off on putting you back on the combat roster this soon after you nearly died."

"I'm fine!" Julie released her arm, and ground her teeth together as she forced herself to stand unaided. "See? Just...just fine."

"Right." She seemed quite unimpressed. "I'll sign off on putting you back in the psi-lab, if someone keeps a close watch on you. But not active-duty, not for another week."

"Come on-"

"No arguments." The orderly glared. "You've nearly died two ops in a row. You can at least take a week to rest."

"I..." Julie relented, just a bit. "Well, I suppose I would enjoy some peace and calm."

"That's the spirit," her minder said, a lot more approvingly. "In fact-"

"Hello?"

"Sylvie?" Julie turned, eyeing the ravenette as she picked her way through the medbay. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard you were shot, and they wouldn't let me in until now," Sylvie answered.

"For good reason," the orderly muttered, but it was low enough for Julie to pretend she hadn't heard.

"I just...came to see you," Sylvie finished, eyes lowered. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Julie blinked slowly. "I'm absolutely fine."

Quiet, for a long moment.

"I'll just pop out and fetch you both some lunch," the orderly announced. "It's about that time."

"Merci, but I just came from-"

"You may have, Paris, but my patient hasn't eaten." And off she went with a spring in her step, and Julie frowned at her back the whole way to the door.

"I," Sylvie muttered irritably, "am from Nice."

"I..." Julie didn't suppose there was much she could say about that, so instead she sank to a seat with a little groan. "Well-"

"Let me help you!" Sylvie caught her arm just too late, and she sighed. "You shouldn't just...stress your injury like that!"

"I'm not porcelain," Julie objected, a tad stubbornly. "My god, you sound like my aunt when I would skin my knee as a kid. Old fussbudget. You could tell she was a nurse!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to offend-"

"It's all right!" Julie cut her off before her wide-eyed worrisome whirlwind could get to full steam. "It's really all right. They've just been handling me with kid gloves around here, that's all." She gave her friend a reassuring smile. "I'm itching to get back on the duty roster."

"You were shot twice on two separate ops," Sylvie objected.

"I noticed." Julie was proud of how dry that came out. "But I'm the only psi-op we have. I have to do my part for the war. I'm the only one who can do...what I can do."

"...well..."

Julie frowned. She tilted her head to the side, eyeing Sylvie very speculatively for a minute.

"You're not just here to check in on a friend, are you?"

"I...of course I'm here to check in on you," she demurred. "I...very much care for you. You are one of my few friends on the ship."

"...and?"

"...and," she agreed, in a small voice. "Hiroshi and his team have scheduled me for Awakening starting tomorrow."

"You Volunteered?" Julie actually whooped, loud enough the Frenchwoman flinched. "That's awesome!"

"I hope so." Worry shone in her eyes. "He warned me my hair would go white."

"Temporarily." Julie waved dismissively. "My roots are already reddening back up, see?" She patted her hair, and the dulling dye she needed to touch up. "Just make sure to get some black dye - or try a new color! It's the perfect opportunity to screw around without worrying about bleach." She dimmed, just a bit. "The eyes are permanent, though."

"I like purple eyes," Sylvie mumbled. "I don't think that would bother me at all. They are gorgeous."

"Are they?" Julie chewed on the idea for a minute. "Well, I suppose you've said as much before. And Lord knows it's better than red or white!"

"I'm nervous," Sylvie admitted. "I've heard all the rumors."

"I mean, I suppose the Elders would do horrible things to anyone with psi-abilities," Julie admitted. "But I never really believed all the rumors about what they do at those so-called black sites. I mean, I suppose the sites have to exist, but they're probably prison camps. Not experimentation centers or anything. It doesn't make sense from the Elders' perspective."

"Unless there is something you do not know," Sylvie pointed out, and Julie had to grant that.

"But," she continued, resolutely ignoring the thought, "being a psi-op means you have the ability to protect yourself far better. No one's likely to take you in the first place. And you still get a gun! Even though you probably won't use it, not like you will your amp." She smiled. "We'll get to see a lot more of each other in the psi-lab."

"I would like that," Sylvie agreed. "Still...I can't help worrying."

"Come on." Julie tossed her head. "Sit down. I've done Awakening before, remember? Let me assuage your fears."

"That's a big word." But she clearly understood what it meant, because she settled at the redhead's side. "Does it hurt? Awakening."

"Well..."

They talked. They talked for a good long time, going over Awakening, life in the psi-cubicles, training, and any other detail the new Volunteer was curious about. The orderly came and went, leaving lunch in her wake and sauntering out with the oddest smile.

The whole time, Julie went out of her way to avoid drawing Sylvie's attention to the fact that she'd never taken her hand off the redhead's arm.

"Sharpshooter, huh?" Jane Kelly reached out and gave Cameron Rogers a good shove on the shoulder. "Who'd have guessed?"

"Not me." Cameron examined his sniper rifle for a long minute, before gently sighting in. "Wow, this thing gives a good view."

"That's why it's called a sniper rifle," David offered helpfully. He glanced downrange, crossing his arms. "Let's see what you can do with it."

"Well..." Cameron steadied his stance, and Jane watched him locate the sniper target hanging in the far reaches of the cargo bay. For a moment, the newly-minted squaddie judged his shot. Then-

Crack!

"Nice!" Aileen cried, as the target visibly jumped. "There may be hope for you yet, Maple Syrup."

"That nickname is never going to catch on," Cameron muttered. Jane and Aileen traded a glance, and the Irishwomen's eyes glowed with matching fervor to invalidate his objection.

"And then there's this." Jane plucked the smaller weapon up from its perch. "It looks like it comes out of a pirate movie. Arr, avast ye mutons-"

"Well, it's quite accurate!" Cameron set his rifle aside and snagged the Shadowkeeper left-handed. "I know they're coming out with magnetic sidearms, but it shouldn't be long until Chief Shen figures out how to upgrade this thing."

"Sure. That's what you say." Aileen was gracious enough to let Cameron get off a few shots with the pistol at that point, not that she looked terribly impressed. Jane could have made a lot of comments herself: the reloading process was archaic and glacial, the weapon appeared to spray grape shot, and it looked like its recoil was a donkey-kick from hell.

She could have commented, but she was too busy coughing because it produced acrid-tasting smoke in gouts.

"Jesus!" David waved it away from his face, backing up to get away from the white clouds. "That stinks!"

"It's a gun," Cameron snapped. "A flintlock! Of course it does!"

"I'll stick to my crossbow, thanks." Aileen turned up her quivering nose. "Mine is smokeless!"

"Yeah, and yours could have been designed in 1100 AD-"

"You've had your go." Jane, nose pinched with one hand, poked the irascible Canadian with her other. "Let the ladies have a turn, why don't you?" She scoffed. "Some gentleman."

"I'm not a gentleman." Cameron left it at that, though, and he backed away from the range, still fondling his flintlock.

"That's obvious, honey." Aileen brushed past him with a chipper grin and perky stride, and in a moment, she'd located her new toy. "I mean, I want to keep the Bolt Caster-"

"It'll have just as much stopping power and more rounds in the mag," Jane reminded her, reaching out to pat the device's stock. "You have to recognize the advantages that-"

"Yes, I recognize them." Aileen turned downrange with a sigh. "I just like the Bolt Caster."

"Well, poor you: having to choose between two fancy upgraded guns." David shook his head, leaning on the far wall with arms crossed. "All I've got is my cannon."

"You hear that, Aileen?" Jane eyed David speculatively. "He says he's got a cannon."

"Aren't you in rare spirits?" the other Irishwoman wondered. "Something in your water this morning, dear?"

"That's lieutenant dear," Jane corrected, reaching up to touch her pin. "Remember: don't tell Commander Gallant to screw himself, or you might...get promoted."

"Somehow, I doubt it's as simple as you make it sound." David tossed his head. "Jane, you're damn lucky you walked out of there without being transferred to stocking duty. Or worse, engineering."

"I know." Jane sobered. "I know, David! By rights, I should be in a haven in Swaziland by now. You don't have to rub it in."

"But I like being a pain in your arse," David objected. "It's fun to piss you off."

"Go ahead and keep doing it, then. Sooner or later, you'll regret it!"

"Or will he?" Cameron wondered. Aileen snickered.

"Probably for all of two seconds, until Jane finds a whip-"

"Shut up and shoot!" Jane shoved her friend, while David coughed and glowered at Cameron. "You two-"

"It's you two," Aileen objected. "I'm sensing a bond between you: something different from professional respect-"

"Shoot the targets, woman!" Jane leaned down and pulled her upgrade from its resting place. She worked the pump that she still wasn't entirely sure why what was essentially a handheld railgun required. "Or you'll be the one that regrets it."

"Or will I?" Aileen wondered, and Jane shoved her again.

"Yes, you will," she promised. The Ranger lifted her shard gun, trying not to grin. "After all, mine's bigger than yours...if not as big as David's cannon."

Edward Gallant snorted. He also coughed, clutching his chest as the sudden bout of snickering went poorly with his half-drink.

"Oh, lord." He watched the feed of the group in the range for another moment, until Quinn started shooting, her companions all chortling and faux-flirting with each other, competing for who could get the most raucous approval. "Lord have mercy. Morale."

It wasn't guns and it wasn't grenades, but Gallant had gone to West Point, even if he was the worst soldier to ever stumble out its gates and get shellacked in the real world. All the guns, grenades, and even tanks and planes in the world were useless without a force that was fit and willing to use them, and the inverse applied just as well. Even a rag-tang band of misfits and rebels with limited supplies could do damage that far exceeded its meager status...if properly energized and competently led.

And after Sophie Weber's military funeral three days before, and at the cap of this long string of questionably successful combat actions...well, Gallant saw the signs of hard resiliency in his organization. Hammered, beaten, flung left and right, sure...but they weren't destroyed.

And Gallant was proud of that. Of them.

Beep! Beep!

"Come on." Gallant swiveled his chair, putting the feed on mute. He steeped his fingers, waiting as the door hissed open. "Doctor. Chief."

"Commander." Tygan was the first inside, and then Lily Shen. In their wake came Bradford, who looked somewhat less skeptical than he had after Jane had skulked disbelievingly from Gallant's office. In fact, he'd been a bit more than skeptical of Gallant's decision, and fairly emphatic about it.

Which, Gallant thought dryly, just makes it all the sweeter that events are bearing out in my favor, doesn't it?

Promoting Kelly had been the right decision. At the time, Gallant had hoped that leveling the playing field between them - and turning her obvious love and care for her squadmates into an asset on his side - would encourage her to become the field leader he required, and the jury was still out on that much. But even if it changed nothing on the battlefield, he'd won her respect, at least tentatively, with his willingness to put faith in her.

But mostly, Edward Gallant had done it because, upon mature consideration of the woman who'd told her commanding officer off in a pitched firefight and then unashamedly spoke her mind to him when called for disciplining, he'd realized she reminded him quite forcefully of another promising young soldier. Favoritism was to be avoided at all costs, but Gallant knew he would have done exactly what she had under the same circumstances. They were cut from the same cloth, only Kelly might be able to avoid the mistakes Gallant had made in his meteoric rise and equally meteoric plunge. If someone sat her down, put faith in her, and kept a hand on the tiller to keep her from wandering into the bushes too often.

Now Gallant just had to keep Kelly from figuring out exactly how convenient for their command relationship his little "reaction" had been...or that his real medication was not kept in a plastic container on his desk.

I'm a slimy, conniving bastard, he thought, rather cheerfully. She has no clue what my symptoms are supposed to look like.

"Well, now that the Group of Four has convened..." Somehow, Gallant wasn't surprised that Shen and Tygan only stared blankly. Bradford sighed.

"They're hopeless, sir. And I'd appreciate not being compared to that band of military geniuses." He pulled out a seat across Gallant's desk. "Shen?"

"John, you don't have to-"

"Nonsense." Bradford didn't move an inch until Shen had sighed, rolled her eyes, and taken a seat.

"So." Gallant leaned back in his chair, picking up that pen the nasty prankster had left for him and rolling it between his hands. He glanced about his command crew. "Let's start with you, Doctor Tygan."

"Commander." The scientist inclined his scarred head. "I have finished development work on an interface - we're calling it the Skulljack - that I believe will allow our soldiers to connect with Advent officers' neural chips."

"Hot dog," Gallant muttered. "Shen?"

"I can build it, Commander," she assured him. "It's a bit heavy and unwieldy, and unfortunately it has to be used at close range-"

"Close range?" Bradford interrupted. He snorted. "Don't worry. That won't be a problem, Shen."

"Good." Gallant nodded slowly. "That's the next piece of the puzzle...if we can find an Advent officer." He reached up to the back of his head, only realizing he was doing it when his fingers hit buzz-cut hair. "I have to admit, I'm curious about that...thing."

"We'll get answers," Tygan promised. "And as I'm sure you've seen, we've produced enough magnetic rifles and shard cannons to outfit our field forces, and I am in the process of upgrading our swords and axes with electrical stun elements. I should have the conversion process complete within the week."

"Better." Gallant cracked a thin smile. "Armor?"

"That is taking some time, as we lack a large stockpile of Advent alloys," Tygan admitted. "I doubt we'll make much progress until we recover a sizeable sample of the material."

"Understood." That tasted sour in Gallant's heart. "I guess our troops will have to keep praying for a little longer." He glanced to Shen. "Anything in particular on your end?"

"Apart from me wondering how on Earth we're going to procure the materials to upgrade the psi-lab to have a second training cell?" Shen's tone could strip paint. "It's not going to be easy, sir. And we're going to have to power the damn thing when we're done, which will be its own saga."

Gallant grunted. "That's unfortunate. However, I'm still happier to be worrying about how we can manage to train two psi-ops at once rather than fretting over only having one."

"My, sir," Bradford observed. "You are in a bright-side sort of mood today, aren't you?" He eyed Gallant thoughtfully. "That happy over the Kelly situation, are you?"

"Morale's up. And a commander's morale is directly connected to that of his troops - if they're flagging, I can pick them up by being stoic." Gallant shrugged, dutifully not showing how self-conscious he was at that exact moment. "Just stands to reason that it flows the other way too."

"Right." Bradford did at least have the courtesy to leave it at that, and Gallant coughed into his elbow in what was certainly a very unsuspicious way that alleviated all of his subordinates' concerns in an instant.

"Let's move to the business of the hour," he encouraged, and something tightened in his gut when what air of cheer had been in the room faded, flowing out the vents as Shen and Tygan's eyes hardened. "Sergeant Dragunova's data."

"Yes." Shen leaned her elbows on the desk. "I examined the information she pulled from the Advent network in India, and cross-referenced it with the information Shadow Man provided in his transmission."

"And?" Gallant reached for his cane more out of habit than anything else. "Black site?"

"Black site," Shen agreed. "Sir, the vast majority of the prison's occupants were moved by rail to a facility in the Ural Mountains, well off the Advent grid."

"Do we have a location?"

"Yes, sir. But..." It was Tygan now, and Gallant frowned while he fished in his coat for his datapad. "The Ural facility seems to have been a staging area, if you will. A sort of...processing center, to weed out certain individuals and send them further on."

"To where? And what about the others?" Gallant steeped his fingers, pen still lodged between them.

"The rejects are disseminated back to Advent prisons in need of labor," Bradford supplied. "Spread around the globe. I don't know what the screening facility is looking for, but whoever qualifies gets moved to another facility."

"Where is it?" Gallant repeated. Tygan finally got his datapad out, and he hit a few buttons.

"Here, Commander." He passed the device over, and Gallant took it gingerly.

"...Switzerland," he muttered. "Why is it always Switzerland?"

"The Alps, in particular," Shen pointed out. "High in the mountains, well away from human population centers. It's off-the-grid, and likely heavily fortified as well. This..." She hesitated. "Well, sir, it matches what Shadow Man had to say about missing civilians."

"So. We found our black site." Gallant eyed the map coordinates, feeling a hungry twinge deep in his belly. "What else do we know?"

Silence. He saw Shen, Tygan, and Bradford trading glances.

"Sir...we have no intel," Bradford finally muttered. "It's...probably very heavily guarded. Not just Advent, but aliens - and not their weaker units at that. I'd expect mutons and heavy gun emplacements."

Gallant laid the pad down. He gave each of his senior staff a searching glance, before drawing a breath.

"Could we find an officer there, do you think?"

"At least one who could suit our purposes," Tygan agreed warily. "But, Commander-"

"We'll send a team. We deploy the passive jammers, kit them in full stealth, and drop under cover of darkness. They slip past the perimeter, get in, find out what the hell's going on, get out." Gallant let that breath out. "We have no choice but to take a look. This is the mission. This is the war."

"Sir, we can't," Shen objected. "That facility will probably be protected by state-of-the-art Advent defenses. We would need someone with an insider's perspective on how Advent arranges sensors and traps, and we don't-"

"We do." Gallant's lips twitched. "We have a hard-bitten Reaper from the Russian Steppe, Chief, and we have an ex-Advent captain with a score to settle and a feisty bullpup."

"...Dragunova and Mox." Bradford turned that idea over in his head. "They might have a chance. But two's not enough. If their cover is blown, they'll need someone shadowing them, packing heavy firepower."

Gallant sighed through his teeth. "Pity Shen's robot stands out like a sore thumb."

"Actually, sir..." That made him snap his wide-eyed gaze to her, and the engineer grinned. "I've been working on that, and I actually developed an active-camouflage element for the BIT. I can't make Junior invisible, but I can make him hard to spot, especially after dark. And a sound dampener would be an easy addition for his giant footsteps."

"...are you serious?" Gallant demanded. "You can make him a giant mechanical ninja?"

"Not quite," Shen demurred, with a small chuckle, "but I can keep him in the shadows if smaller team members take point."

"Send in the robot, then," Gallant ordered. "And David White, with the grenades. And..." He hesitated now more than ever. "Well..."

"No. No." Bradford shook his head. "Sir, she's been shot two ops in a row-"

"We need her," Gallant insisted.

"Sir, she's still in medbay," Bradford protested. "Sir-"

"She's the only psi-op we've got."

"Sir, Sylvie Richard Volunteered while Julie was deployed with Dragunova-"

"I'm aware of that!" Gallant snapped, and Bradford broke down. "Damn it, John, Richard's never fired a shot in action in her life, and she hasn't been Awakened or even held an amp! She's an untrained, un-Awakened load for a combat team, and you know it, however brave she might be." Gallant shook his head. "No, John. I'm deploying her."

"Sir...you can't keep burning Julie at both ends," Tygan objected quietly. Gallant glared at him, and he raised his hands. "I am not a military man, and I readily leave military decisions to those best qualified to make them. But I am in charge of the medical team in addition to my other duties, and there is only so much any soldier can take, be she ever so brave, be she ever so resilient...or ever so armed with powers ever so supernatural."

"I'm aware," Gallant assured him, voice low. "But Julie's our edge and our advantage, and combined with Junior, White, Mox, and Outrider, it's possible she'll be enough of an edge."

"...you have to give her three days," Bradford relented. "Just to heal up."

"She can have thirty-six hours. That's how long it would take for us to pack up our operations here in Asia, plot a course, fly to Italy, and get Firebrand briefed, supplied, and ready for deployment." Gallant leaned back. "We're going in, and we're going hot. Mark those five for the op, and put them under Lieutenant Kelly's command." Gallant tried to conceal his worrying nerves with a ferocious wolf's grin. "It's time we take the fight to them. For Sweden."

The wet drops slipped down over Evangeline Moreau's face in ragged sequence. They fell from her chin when they passed her lips, and she heard the little plink noises they made upon impact with the metal floor, if they didn't hit her bare, dirtied, scabbed feet first.

They weren't teardrops. They were drops of sweat.

Evangeline had never been a very athletically driven sort of woman. She'd lived in Paris, for God's sake - sure, the gym had been a part of her life, but only a small part. She'd been concerned with her post-partum belly and her bikini photos, and she'd been no fonder of getting all sweaty and messy for a minor gain at best than anyone else with the brain the Elders gave them.

But this wasn't Paris, and the Evangeline of black site confinement was not the Evangeline of a month before. A year before? It didn't matter. She'd lost all track of time, but it didn't matter.

She was dirty, with no way to clean herself. Occasionally, she would wake from sleep to the worst of the mess cleaned from her cell, but otherwise she had to take care of her needs in a corner, and live in the stench. She was hungry, subsisting off of some sort of paste that dripped from a spigot overhead but which she somehow knew was food, as if the idea had been psionically implanted in the back of her mind.

She was fairly certain that was exactly what had happened.

But none of it mattered. None of it, because cold, icy determination had suffused everything in her life.

I'm not going to die. I'm going to survive, she swore once again, as her body burned from the trials she forced it to endure. For Nathan.

She didn't know if Charlotte was in this facility with her. Was her friend one cell over, despairing? Two cells over, doing the same thing? Push-ups, knee lifts, crunches, hand-stands as best she could? Or was she not even in the same facility? Country? Continent? Evangeline didn't know, and she bleakly wondered if she would ever see her best friend again. She doubted it, but she had to hope and had to try, and if Charlotte was here, she had to at least plan on attempting to rescue her when the moment came.

And a moment would come. Sooner or later, a moment would come, and Evangeline would manage to escape. She had too much to live for not to.

So there were no more tears. Just sweat, just cold determination, and just searing unwillingness to give up and yield. She worked her body until she could work no more, then slept as well as she could naked and in the cold, then awoke to do it again. When she could take no more of the rigorous schedule, she worked her brain, trying to recall all the myriad details of the languages she'd learned as a child, or history or geography, just as if she were teaching Nathan.

And she did her best to keep track of how many times she slept. Assuming she'd kept something roughly like a regular schedule since she was put in here, she guessed it had been close to three weeks since her arrival. She still had no idea how long of an interval there had been between her kidnapping and being sorted into this hell, but at least it was something.

It was roughly the twenty-sixth day - or, at least, the twenty-sixth time she'd slept - when it happened.

"What?" Evangeline woke suddenly, as the world...groaned around her. It hummed and it vibrated, and she stumbled to her feet, leaning on the wall. It almost felt like she was...moving...

Something hissed. It was loud in the stillness, and Evangeline yelped in spite of herself. Her heart thundered, and she waited as machinery worked in the frigid air. She shivered. It certainly looked as though she was moving, though without her glasses she couldn't tell for sure.

It stopped. It stopped in a flash, and Evangeline's heartbeat was the only noise. Gently, she pushed off the wall, trying to peer through the barrier in front of her to get a little better view. Glass it was, but hazy, fuzzy glass, and she wiped at it as best she could, trying to figure out what had changed. She could see shapes in the green glow all around...other glass cells, she realized after a moment, with darkened shapes in them that must have been people like her. She counted a dozen in her row, and there must have been more over and below her too.

There were others, outside the cells. They were below her by a little, wearing black and black alone, clustered around little control panels...

No. No, there was one in red, and Evangeline's eyes fixed on him. She could see nothing but his scarlet uniform, but something about his position screamed authority - and Evangeline halfheartedly raised her hands, hoping for his attention.

Maybe...maybe they're letting us out...

Hiss!

"What the-" Evangeline broke off as something burst open at the top of the cell. She yelped as green liquid fell from above in three places, inundating the metal floor and coursing up to her toes in a freezing tide.

"Wait!" she cried, as the liquid rose past her ankles almost in a flash. It stung, too, and her eyes went wide. "Wait! Please!"

Past her knees. Evangeline tried to grab onto the ceiling, but it was two feet too high for her. She beat at the glass, screaming as the liquid rose, and rose, and rose past her thighs and up to her hips, stinging at her flesh like a thousand hornets as it coursed over her stomach and up, up higher and higher...

The freezing, stinging wave reached her shoulders, and Evangeline's mouth went dry. She clawed at the glass, praying and gasping for breath as the tide lifted her up, up toward the metal ceiling...

Henri, she thought desperately. Nathan! My son!

Then there was only one more gulp of air left, and the chemical solution inundated her completely.

Evangeline Moreau managed to hold her breath for three minutes, even as the solution ate away at her skin and stung her eyes and ears, ripping into her flesh like the stripping acid it was.

Standard black site procedure left the subjects in chemical treat for forty-eight hours.

Author's Note 22: Personnel Management

My standard practice with psi-troopers is to have two. One trains in the lab and goes on every mission that comes up, until (s)he is injured or otherwise unable to continue training for a while. The second one seamlessly slots into the now-empty training cell, and remains training and taking missions until it's his/her turn to be wounded and taken to medbay. By this point, #1 is usually back in service. Rinse/repeat.

The Skulljack just gets more and more painful to think about the more you make the mistake of thinking about it.

I think the magnetic weapons tier is aesthetically my favorite of them all, gun-wise. The energy weapons turn me off for some reason, but the shard gun is just a thing of absolute beauty. I love the noise when it fires, and the sleek look of the thing. The same for the mag-cannon versus the machinegun or the plasma cannon. Now, the same can't be said of swords: I dislike the arc blade on general principles(AKA it looks butt ugly), but I've always been a man whose tastes run to the practical. If a weapon is beautiful, that's because it is exactly what it needs to be for its task and nothing more or less. I don't get into weapon customization much for that reason(and when I do, it's usually to make them jet-black or mottled forest-green - you know, practical customization). Plus, as a longtime fantasy writer, swords are a favored thing of mine - and it's no coincidence that the most legendary magic/fabled swords in my works tend to be absurdly simple designs rather than embellished and ornate ones.

That said, the base model sword in XCOM 2 is a machete and barely nicer to look at than the arc blade. The fusion sword, however, is freaking beautiful...and the Assassin's sword is just a masterwork, and not just for its practical gameplay benefits.

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.