The eastern training yard was empty except for Lucas and two of his squadmates. The afternoon light was thin and grey, the kind that made the stone flags look colder than they actually were.
Lucas had been thinking about Squad 7 for three days.
Not obsessively. Not like a puzzle he was trying to solve. More like something he'd seen that didn't quite fit, and he kept turning it over in his head without meaning to.
In the maintenance yard, they hadn't talked. That was the thing he kept coming back to. Five people, one broken training frame, and not a single order given. James had carried brackets. Xander had inspected a plate. Luna had sorted materials. Kara had scrubbed scorch marks off a warding plate. Nobody had told them to do any of it.
Lucas had stood across the yard with a storage manifest he wasn't reading, watching them work. And the whole time, he'd kept waiting for someone to step up. To direct. To say you do this, I'll do that.
It never happened.
They'd just... done it.
---
"Alright," Lucas said. "Three-person exercise. Standard formation. Two objectives, west and north. Evan, you take west. Mira, you take north. I'll anchor center."
Evan nodded. He was already moving to his position before Lucas finished the sentence.
Mira rolled her shoulders and settled into her stance, eyes on the northern marker.
It was a simple exercise. They'd run it a dozen times. Lucas would hold the center, Evan would secure the west objective, Mira would take the north, and they'd regroup. The whole thing took four minutes when they were sharp, five when they weren't.
"Go."
Evan moved. Mira moved. Lucas held center.
Four minutes and twelve seconds later, they were done. Clean. Nothing to critique.
"Again," Lucas said.
They ran it again. Four minutes, eight seconds. Better.
"Again."
Evan looked at him. "We just did it twice."
"I know. Again."
They ran it a third time. By the end, Mira was breathing hard and Evan's jaw was tight, but the time was consistent. Four minutes, ten seconds.
Lucas stood in the center of the yard and watched them reset.
"Okay," he said. "New rule."
Evan and Mira both looked at him.
"You two handle it. No assignments. You decide who takes what. Don't wait for me."
Silence.
Evan glanced at Mira. Mira glanced at Evan.
"What do you mean?" Evan asked.
"I mean what I said. You figure it out."
"Figure what out?"
"The objectives. Who takes which one. What you do if something goes wrong. All of it."
Evan stared at him like he'd just been asked to solve a math problem in a language he didn't speak.
Mira, by contrast, shrugged. "Fine."
Lucas stepped back. "Go."
---
Mira moved first.
She took two steps toward the north objective, then cut left. A feint. She was testing the angle, seeing if Evan would follow.
Evan didn't move.
He was watching her, waiting for something. A signal. A word. Lucas felt his own weight shift forward, his mouth opening to say Evan, cover her—
He stopped himself.
Mira reached the northern marker, tagged it, and turned back. She looked at Evan. He was still standing in his starting position.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm doing the objective."
"Which one?"
"The north one."
"I thought you were taking west."
"Why would I take west? You were closer to west."
"I was waiting for you to tell me which one to take."
Mira stared at him.
Lucas stared at both of them.
"Just—" he started, then stopped. He took a breath. "Just do it again. Figure it out."
They did it again.
It went worse.
---
The second attempt lasted almost seven minutes.
Mira took the north objective again. Evan, apparently deciding she'd claimed it, went for the west. But he moved too slowly, still checking over his shoulder, still waiting for Lucas to correct him. Mira finished her objective and doubled back to help, but she misjudged Evan's position and nearly collided with him at the western marker.
They both stopped. Looked at each other. Looked at Lucas.
Lucas didn't say anything.
They finished the exercise. Seven minutes, four seconds.
"Again," Lucas said.
"Lucas—" Evan started.
"Again."
They did it again. Seven minutes, twenty seconds.
Finally, Lucas snapped.
"Just talk to each other."
Mira turned on him. "About what?"
"About—" He gestured at the yard, at the markers, at the two of them standing there. "About what you're doing. Who's taking what. What you're going to do if something changes."
"We don't know what's going to change," Evan said. "That's the point of the exercise. It's supposed to be unpredictable."
"No, it's not. It's the same exercise we've run a dozen times. Nothing's changed. Nothing's unpredictable. You just—" He stopped.
Evan and Mira looked at him.
Lucas looked back at them.
He didn't know what to say.
---
They ran it one more time.
It went fine. Not great. Fine. They finished in five minutes, thirty seconds. Mira took the north, Evan took the west, and they didn't collide. They didn't talk. They just moved.
When it was over, Lucas dismissed them.
Evan left immediately, relief visible on his face. Mira lingered for a moment, watching Lucas, then walked off without a word.
Lucas stood alone in the training yard.
---
He sat down on the low stone wall at the edge of the yard and stared at the objectives.
He'd told them not to wait for him.
They had.
He'd given them the same freedom Squad 7 had.
It hadn't produced the same result.
He thought about the maintenance yard. James carrying brackets. Xander inspecting a plate. Luna sorting materials. The whole time, nobody had told anyone to do anything.
They already knew each other.
That was the first thing he noticed. Not just their names or their abilities. They knew how each other moved. What they'd notice. Where they'd be without being told. Xander had stepped wide so the wind lifted needles out of James's face. Drake had shifted his weight before his heel touched the slate. Nobody had asked them to.
We don't have that.
He thought about Evan. Reliable. Followed instructions. Waited for orders. He'd never had to learn what Mira would do on her own, because Lucas had always told him.
He thought about Mira. Capable. Independent. She acted on her own judgment. But she'd never had to learn what Evan needed, because Lucas had always covered the gaps.
I removed the orders. I didn't give them anything to replace them with.
That was the answer. The visible structure wasn't what made Squad 7 work. The structure was just the shape. What made it work was underneath.
He knew that much.
What he didn't know was how to build it.
He sat there for a while longer, watching the light fade. Then he got up and walked back toward the barracks.