Thirteen Days: Ends And Means

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Garrison finds Scott cursing at the flight simulator. Something of a philosophical discussion is had.


"It handles like a fucking flying elephant," were the snarled words that greeted Garrison as he stepped into the flight simulator, Scott's latest run at the glider program having ended in fiery death -again. Scott didn't even look at the younger man, just glared at the console in front of him and the blinking red 'Crash' message on the screens as if he wanted to blast a hole through the simulator. "That's five times I've killed us. Five."

"I guess asking for peanuts on this flight is a no go then, eh." The Canadian strapped himself into the other seat. The X-Men had two backups for each role on the glider, tripling the number of people who could operate the gilder back to earth. The trouble was that it meant training three times as many people. Kane had drawn instrument duty, learning to keep his eyes on the various gauges and pass information along to the pilots or navigators. "I mean, you are trying to fly into an unpowered re-entry."

"Which is starting to look like less and less an option." It was less of a snarl, this time, but not by much. Scott called up his results from the last five programs onto the screens, trying to figure out just where he'd gone wrong. "We have got to commandeer those Soyuz capsules once we're aboard, or not all of us are going to get back down." It had been raised as a possibility, a fallback option, using the station's own emergency return vehicles. It was beginning to look like a necessity. Adapt the plan yet again, Summers. The plan was a constantly evolving thing. It was beginning to give him a headache with its constant evolving.

"Yes. I for one was glad when our plan involved hitching a ride on outdated Soviet era technology back to Earth, assuming we manage to capture them intact." Garrison double-checked his readouts. "On the bright side, you might get to be the first Americans actually killed in space."

"What's this 'you'? I don't think Canada's hit that particular milestone yet either, has it?" Scott said, calming down - although he wasn't ready to let go of his bad mood entirely just yet. Helped him focus. His gaze moved up and down the screen, his mind racing. "And this is going to sound like the oldest pilot's excuse in the book, but I'm not sure the problem is me. I programmed the weight the glider would be carrying into the simulation... we're either overweight, or the weight's not well-balanced." Or maybe he was just grasping at straws.

"I thought Clarice's ass was getting big." Kane flipped a couple of switches, toggling a new display. "You thought about HAHOing out of this thing once we're deep enough in the atmosphere? Probably easier than trying to land this crate safely, especially if we're in the situation that we've got extras in with us." He declined to mention that going up toe to toe against Magneto in space might fit the weight issue for them, with a much smaller group coming back home.

"Lovely thought under optimal circumstances. Especially with no need to hide the jump this time. But what if we have wounded? Not to mention the extra wear of the gear for that many of us... getting to the station in the first place is going to be touch-and-go." Scott shook his head, leaning back in the seat rather than booting the program back up again. He needed a break. "There are too many factors here."

"Likely why this plan sucks. No offense. I can't imagine anyone coming up with a plan that would suck less, but still." Kane sighed and shifted in his seat. "Considering the options, I'm amazed that you ended up getting volunteers for this."

"You were at that briefing," Scott said dryly. "I had to turn people down. Some powers just aren't meant for a space station environment - or any environment that's near Magneto." He shook his head, reaching out to the console and saving the results from his last five runs for analysis. "I also got volunteers very quickly. I don't think some people had to think even twice about it." He wasn't sure that was such a good thing.

"Proof that everyone in this place is out of their minds. Go into space to fight the 'Master of Magnetism'," Kane made the little quotes with his fingers. "inside a metal can floating in a lethal void. We're not looking at just getting creamed, Scott. We're going to go all the way to getting cheesed."

"And?" There wasn't even a hint of humor about the response. "Once upon a time, I ordered a number of my friends, and my wife, to stop a tsunami. I've noticed that the more insane the situation is, the bigger the risk one takes trying to make it right. Besides, you volunteered too, Garrison, so I'm going to assume you weren't all that comfortable with sitting safely on Earth and hoping it all works out, either."

"Sacrifice in and of itself isn't a virtue, Scott. We're over a barrel on this because it's Magneto, and there's absolutely no way that any of us are going to give him a chance to kill more people. But you don't think that hasn't occured to other people on this planet. Maybe the ones who put a giant weapon into space and are counting on us to take it out quietly?" Kane shook his head. "There are two crimes going on right now, and we're only dealing with one. Dying up there means that we traded some of us for them. It doesn't mean we changed anything down here."

"Don't think I'm unaware that the Russians probably think they're using us. It just doesn't really matter, because it doesn't make us any less better an option for the rest of the world than their nukes." Scott altered the display, comparing two sets of results. "I'm no politician, but I can't imagine they're going to escape consequences over this. The US might be willing to keep its mouth shut about these satellites so that we don't have to risk global panic over the idea of Magneto coopting them, but none of us - except maybe Charles - know what's going on behind closed doors over the issue of their existence in the first place. I tend to doubt it's pretty. But it's also a long-term issue." A faint sigh escaped him as he studied the results, side-by-side. "We don't have the luxury of the long term right now. Ask me again in a week if we're both still alive, okay?"

"We're never going to have the luxury of the long term. That's what bothers me." Kane tapped a few buttons, rotating his display. "As a cop, every arrest reinforces the idea of the law. That it matters. That people can't get away with things. We risk a terrible amount to save lives, and that's very good. But what are we reinforcing? My job involves understanding that I can die tomorrow over something as stupid as a speeding ticket, and that's fine, because it's part of the larger whole. I don't know if I've found what I'm sacrificing for other than my teammates if Magneto punches an i-beam through my head."

Scott raised an eyebrow. "You don't know what you're sacrificing for? You're sacrificing for the people he'd kill with those satellites, or with the missiles he might hypothetically commandeer. You want more than that? This is the wrong job." He leaned forward again in his seat, searching for the other program, the Soyuz simulation. "We don't reinforce a damned thing with the Russian government or anyone else who doesn't care to learn. But I know police officers, soldiers, emergency personnel and ordinary citizens in more countries than I have energy enough to count right now who have seen us at work and know that being a mutant doesn't mean anything. That we've got the same capacity as any human being to do what's right." It was slow, but it was change.

"I guess I'm not satisfied with the status quo. Charles has talked about change for too long, Scott. And we're not changing anything. We're hiding in the house on the hill and letting people use us for their own ends." Garrison shrugged. "We gave Russians people to execute in return for saving some lives. Now we're going into space with a very good chance of being the ones doing the executions ourselves, planning a pitched fight in an orbiting space platform. Who's going to pay for putting that thing up there in the first place? Who's going to take responsibility for their first strike with it?"

Kane shook his head. "As long as we live behind codenames and run around choosing when we get involved, we're not going to change anything. We'll lose people, we'll feel good about our victories, and the world will roll on because we let it. Yes, we're saving innocent lives. And we're giving a free pass to the people that endangered them in the first place." He closed his section of the terminal down. He'd already run it flawlessly three times already, having one of the simplest backup positions to learn. Garrison got up to leave Scott to his practice. "So no, Scott, maybe that's not enough for me."

Scott's hands stilled on the console, and after a moment, he looked up at Garrison. "If that wasn't your way of telling me to scratch your name from the roster for this mission, sit back down," he said, quite calmly. Stepping hard on the urge to lose his temper, or even to argue. They needed clarity right now. "I wasn't calling up the Soyuz program for my own benefit - I landed that tin can successfully on the first try. But however wrong-headed you think this mission is, if you're going, you're having the best shot I can give you at getting back down."