Touchstone 1 - Stray

balanced and effective Squad is more complex than matters of age and qualifications. They’ll be brought into active service when there is the right team for them.”
    I wondered if this touched on the reasons some Setari were so nasty to Zan, but kept my mouth shut about that and instead thanked her for showing me all the torturous stairs. She said she’d come swim with me if our schedules matched up again. Definite progress on the Zan front.
    And now, while I was writing this, I’ve been scheduled to test with Fourth Squad tomorrow. I think I’m looking forward to it, but I have to wonder if Ruuel’s too-many Sights mean that he’ll look at me and see right through to all the shivery anticipation the thought of him creates. Alyssa used to say that time spent with impossible-to-achieve guys is time well spent because it gives you a chance to find reasons not to like them. But I don’t feel equal to dealing with Ruuel right now.
    Ah well – the worst that can happen is that I can make a total idiot of myself, and have that immortalised in mission reports forever. Such a lot to look forward to.
    Thursday, March 13
    Fourth Squad
    There was an email from Ruuel when I woke: “We’ll be combining this test with productive work, so be prepared for an extended session.”
    Given how sore my legs were after all those stairs yesterday, my first reaction was to use what Dad would call “ripe and illustrative words”. But I decided it was a good thing. Setari exploring the Ena aren’t going to be the slightest bit interested in my internal monologue.
    The contrast between my last squad testing session and this one was massive, but it started out almost identically, with Fourth Squad standing in a circle in the middle of the same test room. The difference being that as soon as I walked into the room, Ruuel brought me into a squad channel and began the briefing, moving so that his back was no longer turned toward me. Tiny things, but underpinning a vastly different attitude.
    “We’ll test in the same order that we will rotate enhancement, starting from myself to Sonn, then Auron, Ferus, Halla, Eyse. Ferus, you’ll be primarily responsible for ensuring Devlin’s safety, with Auron as your flank. You’ve observed the techniques Spel used to bypass the resistance to enhanced Telekinesis and Levitation. We’ll save testing Combat Sight and Speed for the combat simulation rather than individually, and concentrate on the attack elements. Devlin, report any new or unusual reactions immediately.”
    Ruuel would have been a disconcerting team captain to start out with: he basically sets the bar high and expects you to get over it. I suppose he would have taken it slower if I hadn’t worked with First Squad already, but he sure likes to get through things quickly, testing unenhanced Levitation, Telekinesis and Light talents and then enhancing and going through them again in less than a minute. Unenhanced he can lift maybe a hundred kilos, and enhanced about four times that. With his Light talent he created a curving spike from his arm, much the same as the nanoliquid swords. Enhanced it distorted the same way as Mara’s whip, shifting colour and becoming more intense, but not too spectacularly different.
    It’s more interesting for me doing these tests now that I can look up squad information before each person tests. Fourth Squad is evenly broken into guys and girls. The girls are Fiar Sonn (primaries of Ena Manipulation, Combat Sight and Electricity), Charan Halla (Place Sight, Gate Sight) and Mori Eyse (Path Sight, Combat Sight, Teleportation). My two minders are both guys. Par Auron is very tall, about six foot four, with primaries of Path Sight, Gate Sight and Levitation. Glade Ferus is my height, with primaries of Telekinesis, Combat Sight, Symbol Sight and Speed. They both have minors of Ice and Fire and I get a bit of a buddy sense from them.
    Personality-wise, there was no-one outstandingly off-putting. Ferus has an evil gleam in his eyes occasionally: not nasty, but I bet he gets up to mischief when he’s not on mission log. Auron seems quiet and calm. Sonn is serious with an impatient overtone. I found Eyse interesting: she smiled at me once, a nice wry smile. I guarantee she has a sense of humour. Halla I haven’t figured out. She had a bit of an edge, but not directed at me I think. Overall, although they were nowhere near as open and warm as First Squad, Fourth’s one of the easiest squads I’ve