Gendo Ikari folded his fingers together, lacing them into a plateau. This phalangical construction fell next to Gendo's mouth, muffling his speech when he began. His elbows rested on his desk, and his eyes shifted from the desktop to his guests, standing at the other end of his office, at the bottom of the Sephiroth. "I have examined the records from the latest Angel attack." His voice was cool, collected. "Earth Defender Squadron Blue performed adequate service in an emergent situation." Gendo paused while the US Naval officer rolled his eyes. While this officer was standing at attention, it was only the loosest sort- within the regulations, without adhering to the proper spirit of things. Gendo felt his fingers tense together, but he pushed back his annoyance with this particular person. The unfortunate truth was he could prove useful as Instrumentality progressed, since progress along the true path would likely stir up resistance from others. "As a result, I believe it best to work to further integrate Blue Squadron into NERV operations, on a Liason Command basis. Needless to say, we will retain our own spheres of interest- Blue Squadron will deal with Qindoc, we will deal with Angels. However, certainly we can grant each other mutual assistance when possible, such as air support for an Angel attack, or ground defenses if the Qindoc decide to attack Tokyo-3."

Gendo paused for a moment. So far, other than his backhanded compliment, his words had not elicited any response. Perfect. The American officer was probably bored, and boring this type was the first step in getting them to acquiesce, and acquiescence was the first step in manipulating them into the scenario. "Therefore, I believe it best that we begin a series of cross training exercises. The easiest way to accomplish this will be to swap, for training purposes, commanding officers."

Whitman cut him off unceremoniously. "Fuck no."

Katsuragi stiffened. Fuyutsuki cleared his throat. Gendo straighten the papers on his desk, lining the angles up so that the edges of the paper and desk aligned harmoniously. It soothed him. "I'm sorry," he said, evenly.

"I said, 'Fuck no.' As in, not simply no, but fuck no," Whitman explained . "I don't have time for this kind of kindergarten bullshit. You want to do joint training? Sure. Joint contingency planning? Sure. This mickey mouse crap is just going to fuck everything up. Since you're not in my chain of command, with all due respect to your position as head of NERV, shove it up your ass and die. Sir." Whitman turned on his heel and took a step to the door.

Ikari didn't move. "Please allow me to finish. I was saying, I'm sorry that you do not wish to be cooperative, and to work together in a spirit of full teamwork. However." Something in that last word made Whitman flinch involuntarily. "This set of exercises has been approved by the Earth Defense Command. Within the set of guidelines described previously." Whitman stopped, and turned back around. Gendo passed the paper on his desk to him nonchalantly.

Whitman read it, the tension growing in his hand causing it to crumple slightly in his grip, "Very well." He turned back around and marched directly out of Gendo's office, Katsuragi hard on his heels.

–

Ikari Shinji tapped the button at the wrist of his plug suit, causing it to draw tightly against his skin. He settled back in his locker to relax a bit, to catch his breath. His efforts were quickly interrupted, however, when Soryu and Ayanami strolled in, unannounced.

"Hey!" Ikari started. "What if I wasn't finished changing yet?"

Soryu chuckled, running her fingers through her hair, pushing the mass back away from her face. "So what? It's not like you're that impressive or anything. And it's not like you'd get to see any of us. We were ready to go before you arrived, as usual."

Ikari searched his brain for a proper retort, but only could find a weak one. He was about to offer it when the other door slid open. A shorter, broad shouldered man walked in, in the brilliant white uniform Ikari recognized only from meeting Eva 02 at sea- the uniform of the United States Navy. The man wore dark aviator sunglasses over his eyes, making it seem like his gaze bored through all three of them at once. "Get your asses in the simulators."

He started to turn to go. The Eva pilots started, a bit taken aback at it all. Soryu began, "But, you're Whitman-Shosa! You're in charge of that band of delinquents over at the airbase, not us!"

Whitman stopped halfway to the door. "Change of plans for the time being. I'm in charge of your training menu for the next few weeks. But I don't have time to explain every pissant thing. Now, shut your trap and get in the simulator."

Soryu clenched her fists, fuming, stunned into temporary silence. Ikari jumped into the breach presented by the opportune silence. "Um, excuse me? We usually get a tactical briefing in the briefing room before any simulation, and, well..."

Whitman turned back, glowering. His eyes, hidden behind the dark sunglasses, seemed now to focus on Ikari. "Briefing? Tokyo-3 is under attack. If you don't get in the simulators in the next three minutes, everyone dies. There. A briefing. Shut up and get in the simulators. You don't want to know what happens if you say one more word." And with that, Whitman marched out of the room, and the Eva pilots rushed for the simulators.

–

"And then, for point 43-C, the Squadron will execute Evolution 14 again, this time along the left echelon. Any questions?" Katsuragi activated the lighting controls in the briefing room, illuminating Blue Squadron and her best enthusiastic smile.

She thought she heard crickets chirping in response to her query, like some sort of bad comedy show. Instead, she realized a moment later, it was the sound effects from Shadow's video game leaking from around his headphones and infiltrating across the room. Katsuragi scanned the room quickly, taking in Blue Squadron, much as one takes in the cockroaches in a dark room just as the lights come on. Dice leaned over her desk, scribbling her way though last night's homework. Short had out a pack of playing cards, and the lights coming up caught him cheating at solitaire, which he sheepishly gave up. Kasuragi sighed, trying not to let the anger boiling inside her rush free in a containment failure. At least Songbird had managed to sit perfectly still and pay attention- unlike Viper, who shifted slightly so that his head perched in a funny position on his desktop, and he began to snore, loudly.

"Captain Taylor?" Katsuragi asked, false brightness filling her voice.

Viper snorted for a moment, then kept snoring. Kasturagi slammed her briefing notebook on the podium.

"Captain Taylor!"

Finally, his head shot up. "What?"

Katsuragi hung her head slightly. "Did you even hear any of the briefing?"

"Sure. Take off, meet Qindoc, shoot down Qindoc, come home. Easier than falling down."

"Wrong mission," said Songbird.

He thought for a moment. "Fine, Take off, fly to big Qindoc target. Break through fighter screen, smash big target. Come home."

"Try again," suggested Short, mixing the cards on his desk to announce his surrender.

Viper looked around quickly, then shot out of his seat in a blur, grasping his helmet and kicking the chair out of the way.

"Not that one, either," responded Dice, frustration edging into her voice.

Viper shrugged. "There are three mission types- fighter sweep, strike and intercept. What the hell else could we be doing?" He turned back to face Katsuragi, his face twisting into a puzzle.

Dice tossed her math book down on the table. "Formation flying. You know, like we did back in the frickin' T-6? Formation flying, with stupid names." Exasperation flooded her voice.

Katsuragi blinked as she realized Dice wasn't annoyed with Viper. "Is there a problem, Lieutenant Devlin?"

Devlin rolled her eyes, sighing audibly. "We're fighter pilots, Major. Not a goddamn drill team."

Katsuragi lifted her thick briefing book. "Lieutenant, I've performed a number of analyses of the past several combat and training missions run by Blue Squadron, and it shows a 49.87% decrease in formation flying skills in the past several months. Clearly, this is a major deficiency in Blue Squadron's skills, which we need to correct in order to increase teamwork efficiency and therefore combat effectiveness."

Songbird cut in, her voice politely even, compared to the raspy exasperation in Dice's. "Major, how many combat victories did the squadron score over the term of that skill decline?"

Kasuragi flipped open her briefing book to the appendixes. "27 confirmed, 14 probables, plus a cruiser."

Dice shrugged. "You can lead a horse to water."

Katsuragi puzzled over this expression, and then decided, like most things the gaijin pilots did, it was to annoy her. "Man your planes."

–

Ikari flexed his hands on the controls of his simulated Eva, glancing around the projected images around him in the cockpit. His legs quivered and flexed semi-consciously, trying to keep the blood flowing properly through them while he kept Eva-01 still, scanning over the Tokyo-3 skyline slowly, concentrating hard on not missing a flash, twinge or speck out of place. Still, he felt the crawling fear in his stomach ripple and grow as the minutes passed. Commander Whitman had passed no information to them at all about the mission- just as the simulation started, he announced that a fusion reactor had blown, obliterating NERV's control center. They had to defend the geo-front on their own, without any support.

After they had maneuvered their Evas into place over the geo-front, and slid themselves into a circle to watch for any threats, the other pilots had gone dead silent, feeding the gnawing fear with a pervasive loneliness. He fingered the radio control on his panel, then released it. He wasn't sure what he'd say, for one, and for two, he wasn't sure that anything he had to saw wouldn't lead to some sort of angry retort from the other pilots.

The next few minutes stretched into several epochs, during which Ikari might have believed the bacteria on his skin would have evolved into having a spine. He couldn't take it any longer. He punched his radio button.

"Anybody see anything?"

Soryu's response was predictable. "No, and how do you expect me to concentrate with you yelling in my ear?"

Ikari leaned back, the warm LCL sliding over him as he started to sulk. This was going to be troublesome. Still, he willed himself to concentrate- their embarrassment at the hands of Blue Squadron, and the role his inattention had played in it, had not escaped either Katsuragi or Soryu, nor had the latter allowed him to forget about it. As he started to replay the last incident in his mind, a light flashed, a harsh, attention stealing red. Several small contacts on his radar screen, low and close and fast, ripping their way through the sky towards the three of them.

"Watch out!" he shouted, scrambling for his autorifle. He snapped off a burst at the flying machines- a dark corner of his mind screamed that they were Qindoc fighters- but didn't seem to connect. They were quickly on top of the trio, the ungainly noses spitting shards of fire that exploded on the ground, burning a trail to their powercords, much like the last exercise. Eva-00 made it around as her power was cut, and snapped off a shot at tight quarters. It found it's mark, the fighter turning into a black and red smear in front of the giant humanoid robot. Eva-02 was caught completely flat footed.

They immediately broke out of their formation. Ayanami and Soryu fled to the nearest electrical ports, and stood by, waiting for them to leap from the ground. They never came. The same corner of his mind that identified their enemy reminded him that Control was down, and thus no one could give the order to send replacement power supplies.

"They're not going to come- all we can do is try to fight off the attack!" Ikari shouted over the radio.

"Acknowledged," replied Ayanami, rushing back to close with him.

"Shut up!" responded Soryu as she broke for the next place where a spare cord might arrive from. When it didn't, she impatiently ran off for the next, and the next, until her Eva went limp for lack of power.

Meanwhile, Ayanami and Ikari turned back to back, allowing them to effectively guard Ikari's powersupply, while the countdown on Ayanami's continued.

"They're coming again," Anayami warned cooly. Ikari raised his rifle, prepared this time. He took careful aim on one, and depressed the triggers. A stream of bright tracers rushed from his gun, flying out until they intercepted a Qindoc fighter, which exploded in a bright white point, lighting the nearest building aflame. As they flew by, Ayanami's sure aim brought down another one before the fighters rocketed out of range. Before they could return, Ikari watched her remaining power countdown, until it hit zero.

When they returned, their formation had split into two. While Ikari drew a bead on those attacking from the front, forcing them to break off their attack, he could not turn around quickly enough to engage the other formation. His power went dead, and his own countdown began.

The Qindoc fighters stayed just out of range until the counter his all zeros, and the screens went pitch black.

–

The holographic display in the Blue Squadron ready room displayed Blue Squadron's movements overhead, leaving long comet tails behind them to mark their progress through Katsuragi's program of increasingly complex formations. The Major shook her head as Short failed to pop into formation properly. This was the third time he'd failed this particular effort, and was only further proof that she was right: Blue Squadron needed remedial training in group formations. How else could they pull off coordinated maneuvers in combat?

This was the top scoring squadron in Earth Defense Command? It's a wonder Tokyo-3 wasn't a smoking crater, smashed by a meteor dropped from orbit by the Qindoc.

She picked up the radio microphone. "Blue Lead, this is Ground Control. Take it back to the IP and run maneuver sequence 16 again. Short messed up C turn again."

There was a pause. "Ground Control, Blue Lead. Kilo Mike Alpha."

Katsuragi's brow furrowed, squinting at the display. She wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it was pretty sure that Blue Squadron wasn't turning back like she had ordered them to.

"Say again, Blue Lead?"

"I said negative, Ground Control. Blue Lead, taking control."

"Blue Lead, you will return to the IP and attempt the maneuver again!" Katsuragi shouted into the microphone, which she then slammed to the desk.

"He didn't hear that one," sounded a youthful, feminine voice. Katsuragi spun in her chair, facing the girl. She was Japanese as well, the same age as the rest of the squadron, but dressed in greasy coveralls. She had commandeered Viper's seat in the ready room, as well as Short's deck of cards. "Taking control means that he's shut down the command frequency. You know, in case the Qindoc take over the command frequencies and start issuing nonsense orders." She shifted a pile of cards to another.

Katsuragi bared her teeth, trying to be friendly buy generally failing. "Just who are you?"

The girl looked up. "I'm Shinobu. You know, Viper's crew chief. Did you even read the squadron files? You know technicians are part of the squadron, too, right?"

Katsuragi's balled fist slammed into the desk. "Why are all the children in this squadron so damned disrespectful?" She flinched slightly, surprised at the emotional outburst.

"Major," replied Shinobu, evenly. "Has it occurred to you that we're not children anymore? This is a combat squadron, not a high school math class."

–

Ikari hunched over as he settled on the bench of his locker. The his failure, followed by the long minutes settled into the simulator, in complete darkness, felt like weights loaded across the yoke of his back. He stared at his feet a moment, letting the silence wash over him.

Sadly, his peace lasted only for a second. The door opened with a woosh, and in strode the other pilots. Soryu grabbed a seat, crossed her arms over her chest, and glared right through Ikari, her eyes ripping through him and deep into his locker. Just exactly what he wanted to see right at that moment, between her glare and Ayanami's continuing inscrutability, both of them accusing him in their own way just how much the current predicament, and the dressing down that was yet to come was all his fault. And no doubt Whitman, who seemed like a terror to Blue Squadron, would lay into them for all of their problems.

As if to compound his misery, the brightly starched uniform, containing Whitman, entered the room.

"What the hell happened out there?" he demanded.

Soryu's eyes locked on Ikari, fire seeming to shoot from her pupils. "Shinji fucked everything up!"

"Not what I asked," responded Whitman.

There was a pause- for himself, Ikari wasn't sure exactly what Whitman was asking. Eventually, Ayanami spoke up. "Everyone died."

Whitman nodded. "Everyone died. Remember that- if we fail, everyone dies. Now, how come we failed this go 'round?"

Soryu drew her arms tighter across her chest, closed her eyes and tried to give herself a noble air by lifting her chin just so. "Because we didn't have any help from Control!"

"Control was destroyed by a traitorous saboteur, as you discovered right after launch. Try again."

"Then it was Shinji's fault, since he didn't catch the enemy in time." She didn't bother to look at the object of her accusation.

"Ikari detected the enemy fighters half a second after they were visible on his radar scope. I might add, Soryu, that they were detectable from your set, but you never seemed to find them. In fact, you seem to want to blame everyone else for this clusterfuck- and have no desire to take on responsibility yourself."

She balked at this response. "What did I do wrong?"

"You bolted from the scene of the action, when it was clear that you couldn't get another power hookup," Whitman continued, sounding even as he painted her into a corner.

"Well, I can't fight without power," she said, eyes falling to the floor.

"Yes, you can. Ayanami did. If you had stayed, rather than running, you might have given Ikari a fighting chance. All three of you might have been enough to stave off the attacks. Might. Still, there was a way to solve this problem without letting your power run down. Anyone?"

Silence met this. Ikari considered the question. Somehow, he just knew Soryu would be too upset to come up with an answer, while Ayanami wasn't creative enough. Then, it dawned on him. "We could have protected the power cord, and swapped it between ourselves between attacks."

Whitman nodded, with a bare hint of a smile. "Good. Next time, think of it in the simulator, not the ready room. You must, must know the way your machines work. Dismissed."

–

"... and this is the point where Blue Lead deviated from the flight plan and undertook manuevers on his own," sighed Katsuragi. She wanted to yell at him. She wanted to bring him up on charges. She wanted to do something, anything to remind herself that she was in charge here. But, honestly, there was nothing that showed her she was. She was most definitely in the outgroup here- Blue Squadron was too tightly knit for her to bowl over. She turned to Viper. "What do you have to say for yourself, then?"

Viper ignored the tone of her statement, and stood up. "Thank you, Major. Now, once we broke out of the maneuver section of the program, we began a little game of 'King of the Hill.'" He started to fast forward to an interesting section of the replay, as trails twisted around each other, each one trying to cut in on Blue Lead. "Now, Dice, here you opted to open the scissors..."

Katsuragi settled back into a chair, pushed aside by Viper and the rest. They eagerly jumped into a dissection of the forty or so minutes of air combat that followed their deviation from the plan. She tried to listen. Maybe she could learn how to get her authority back from that usurper, Viper.

–

Ikari Gendo shut down the document in his reader. Blue Squadron was going to be an interesting tangle to unravel. Part of him burned with resentment for their willingness to upset such a well worked scenario. Another part of him shivered with delight at the chance to work with such a challenge, to weave it into his scheme. He folded his hands in front of his face and began to consider his options.