“The precogs say this gives us our best odds,” Cinereal said. “And they’ve consistently said that. There’s no sign that he’s manipulated them or their results.”

“He’s tough,” Effervescent said. One of the remaining core members of Foresight.

“Yes, he’s tough,” Cinereal said. “Right now the best reads our thinkers are giving us are for three of these entry points that weren’t in our original attack. Two were heavily guarded, we think those guards were moved or reduced in number to cover other points. A third was discovered and reported by one of our original teams, before the comms blackout. We’ll be entering from three separate directions with three teams at each entrance, for nine teams in total.”

She hit a button, bringing up a map of the complex. “Combat is a problem solving exercise, and our problem is that we don’t know what happened to the other teams. In transit and low-risk areas, such as this area with cubicles, you’ll need to breach and clear with three teams simultaneously, because the area is too wide. Fail to do so and you may be flanked or attacked. By the early reports from our team, this is an ongoing risk.”

She tapped an area highlighted in red. “In high-risk areas, you’ll want to lead with the strongest team, switching out as injuries or weariness take hold…”

Weariness.

A part of me still felt shaky, like I hadn’t left the room in Earth Shin behind. I’d listened to that part when I’d trusted Sveta to save Armstrong. I would have held back regardless, because of what was on the line, but the distinction was that there had been a reason I’d been okay with hanging back, and that reason was that I was scared.

Have to get right back on the horse. Aunt Sarah had loved horses, had escaped into them as a healing post-trigger, taking care of them at a family friend’s until she was well enough to ride. Mom hadn’t liked it, but Aunt Sarah had been the one to do tutoring for the owner of a stable just for a chance to ride a couple of times a month. It even flavored the language she’d used. She’d had a term she’d used in our training that she’d called ‘horsing’. The idea was that horses tended to go where you looked, and flying capes had to focus on seeing distant things on the ground, and we’d unconsciously drift out of formation to get closer to those things. If we drifted in the directions we were looking then she’d call out the term and get us back into formation.

Every time the word was uttered, it had driven young Crystal insane with irritation. But it had broken us of the habit.

When I thought of the term ‘getting back on the horse’, it was in Aunt Sarah’s voice.