Title: Working remotely
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: General
Length: 2500ish words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Also for trope-bingo 'minor characters'. Geo, post-canon (manga canon)
Summary: It turns out peacetime missions are a lot less work than desperate attempts to find more resources to keep Autozam going, and doing the busywork takes a lot less time when Eagle isn't deliberately filling things out badly before Geo goes back over it and removes the sarcasm.

Geo's still not sure his free time needs quite this much to fill it...

oOo

Geo Metro dropped back into the Captain's seat of the NSX, and sighed. Not just because the view from here still seemed wrong - though it did, even though he'd been acting Captain for two years by now - but because he still hadn't had the heart to have the chair adjusted. All the cushioning was arranged to pad it for Eagle's short and skinny figure. As Eagle didn't even reach Geo's shoulder, it really wasn't comfortable, but getting it redone felt like admitting it was going to be a long time before Eagle was back in the chair himself.

(Technically it meant he was risking a back injury every time they headed out, as the padding was meant to be there to counter the acceleration, which was felt more on the bridge than anywhere else on the ship - there was less dampening here so that changes in the ship's trajectory were more obvious to the bridge crew. But it was never that bad, and he'd only once had a chair which actually fit him - thanks to Zazu taking offence at how badly the previous one hadn't.Zazu hadn't been on the bridge much in the past two years, so he hadn't had an opportunity to be offended by this.)

He'd argued every time they returned to Autozam that they shouldn't confirm him as Captain - that it would be demoralising for the crew. Like saying that Eagle was done, he wasn't coming back, when that was very much not-

Well. It wasn't settled, though the longer Eagle spent sleeping in Cephiro the more Geo suspected that even when he woke, he might be staying with Lantis, and it would have nothing to do with his health.

By now, he suspected the only person who would be demoralised by the change in chair and title would be himself, but as far as he was concerned that was still a reason to keep arguing.

At the moment, they were cruising through empty space, with three days until they made it anywhere interesting. There was nothing much for Geo to do - he was on shift, but the monitoring systems would alert him if there was anything he needed to react to. He just needed to be present so he could react. But he'd cleared up all of the forms and gone over the mission plans several times, checked all the stock manifests, sent all the messages he needed to ahead of them and back to Autozam - it turned out, peacetime missions were a lot less work than desperate attempts to find more resources to keep Autozam going, and doing the busywork took a lot less time when Eagle wasn't deliberately filling things out badly before Geo went through and fixed it all.

Some days, he was tempted to fill out the paperwork as sarcastically as Eagle normally did - but he wouldn't be able to get away with it if he sent it in by mistake. Whereas Eagle had done so more than once when he was particularly irritated with their orders and about to ignore them, but Eagle had the gift of smiling brilliantly at anyone demanding to know if he was serious and asking why they thought he might not be?

The confusion he could cause was impressive. Geo didn't have that skill.

Right now, there was nothing to do, but he had to be here, and at least helping keep the road going about them. Fortunately, Zazu had introduced him to the latest virtual distraction - he pulled the headset off his belt, pulled on the matching tactile gloves, and connected the gaming set into the seat so it would be turned off if an alert did go.

The virtual 'waiting room' for the current fad gaming service faded into view around him, overtaking the view of the bridge. A number of 'doors' represented the games he'd been playing recently, and he headed back to the latest combined tactical and development game, where the ultimate goal was to have as many sustainable, healthy lands as possible - and you could do that either by carefully guiding and defending the ecosystem of one little land after another, or you could go out and start stealing them from people.

It was a little... on the nose, really. But a game needed to have a 'tactical' component before they were allowed to clock hours while on duty, and watching the ways people careened around making alliances and fighting each other for sometimes bizarre reasons when it was notionally 'without consequences' was certainly some kind of education. But Geo had launched himself off into the furthest corner of one quiet server, and was nurturing a set of seven lands like his own virtual garden project.

He hadn't expected to get that invested when Zazu told him about the game - but the art style was semi-realistic but incredibly cute. All the little alien plants and creatures that started appearing when you got things right were blobby bright colours, and they just looked so happy when you took care of them - and it was somehow so satisfying to see them thriving. He wasn't particularly interested in the player-versus-player parts of the game but he engaged in that enough to make sure his little friends were looked after.

Today, there was a flashing alert when he got logged on, and after a quick check of the current status on his little part of virtual space, he settled in to study it. Someone had come over and had a thorough poke at the defensive systems he'd rigged up, had tried to get past what looked like the weakest point, and disengaged when it became clear that was a trap - he allowed himself to grin at that - and then had... sent him a message?

He poked at the data his minor trap had caught first, and then, with a frown, at the player's public ID. They were... very high level. High enough they should probably have been able to break through his defences if they really wanted to, especially when he wasn't logged on to respond, and instead they wanted to talk?

The message was plain text, no sound or video. 'Your defence strategy is impressive. I am in need of someone to strengthen the defences of the small alliance I lead. Would you be open to working together?'

He looked at the message for a moment, then pulled the player's game history again and frowned. The account was registered in Chizeta, seemed to only take out other players occasionally but did it very effectively when it happened, and... there was a two week space of very little activity recorded which lined up with the international Conference Geo had managed to avoid while Eagle was comatose.

(He at least couldn't be forced to take up all the politics for Eagle, he wasn't a good liar at all.)

Instead of answering the message in the game, he logged off, and pulled off the headset so he could get a normal interface up in front of him, and log into his private-official inbox, the one which was on work systems but his as an individual, rather than the official Captain's messages, which were a matter of record as soon as he sent one.

There were a couple of messages left from the last time they'd been organising a round of meetings on Cephiro, and he picked one of the contacts out and spent nearly half an hour composing a very short message that, summed up, read 'Do you have an account on this game? If so, is it going to cause some kind of international incident if I join up with you and then lose half your lands by accident?' Only it had a lot more polite words and started 'Your Highness'.

They were pretty near a branch of the main communication network, hence why the game system actually worked so smoothly right now. So he wasn't surprised when his message listed as 'sent' within a few moments. He was,, however, startled when it only took another half hour before he got a response back from Princess Tatra.

'The account isn't part of my official duties, so there should be no official repercussions.'

He eyed that 'official' suspiciously - Tatra was, he'd decided, a little too much like Eagle when you didn't expect it.

Following a hunch, rather than anything in the response, he logged back on to the game - and, sure enough, there was a request for a real-time conversation. If they'd been on some kind of confidential mission, he wouldn't be allowed to accept - but then, on a confidential mission he shouldn't be logging on to externally hosted games, either. So he accepted, shaking his head.

"Good, ah, morning, your Highness," he said, doing a quick timezone conversion. "I hope you're well?"

"Very well," Tatra said, the slightest delay in the transmission, and just a little interference - not enough to disguise her amused tone. "I was not aware that Autozam's military played these games officially, Captain Metro?"

Far too much like Eagle, he thought, wryly, fully aware he was being teased. "The crew needs occupation while we're stuck onboard."

"That seems reasonable."

"I was... a little surprised to be right in my guess?" he ventured.

"Oh, the account isn't actually mine, it's Tarta's," Tatra said. "She was very excited for a few days, until the tactical elements came into play, then I think it felt... a little too familiar. But I... well, I felt sorry for the places she was about to abandon with the account, so..." She laughed. "I blame it on the art style! It's far too emotive."

Geo agreed fully with that particular assessment. "It's very effective in getting you invested, yes. ...You do seem to be a little more active than someone just defending their lands, though."

"Well, there were a couple of new players nearby in-game who were having trouble, some more experienced players kept waiting for them to get just far enough their lands were sustainable then stealing them instead of putting in any of the work, so I reached out to see if they would like a hand - we got their lands back for them, and working together seemed to make sense, so we made a little alliance, and one thing led to another and now…"

"You have one of the top-ranked accounts and at least three thousand players working with you to slowly wipe out all the bullies in the game?" Geo had to grin.

"Thank you!" she said, cheerily. "Would you like to join us?"

He snorted. "While I wouldn't mind helping with your mission, I don't have reliable access. At the moment it's not too bad, but in a couple of days we'll be out of range of the main satellite network, and that's if nothing comes up to divert us earlier; I don't want to leave your people vulnerable because I'm unexpectedly missing. Even in a video game, that's just bad manners. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are just as good at defensive tactics, if you have other things taking up your own time now your little alliance has grown so much."

"Perhaps, but few who think with such creativity in terms of whole defensive systems rather than setting up multiple individual measures."

The unexpected compliment made him flush. He wasn't good with praise of himself. (One reason he really liked working with Eagle - beside him, Geo stood little chance of standing out, and that was fine. He liked being second in command! And Eagle gave compliments freely, but at least gave them behind closed doors, and let Geo be flustered when he wasn't on the bridge in front of everyone.) "Thanks," he managed.

"I do see the connection issues could pose a problem, but how about this - instead of actively running defence for me, how about you act as a… consultant, of sorts? Adviser might be a better word - if you look at what's in place now and come up with a strategy that I can have people implement, and perhaps help individuals if they have questions, maybe a few examples or tutorials I can spread about… a breakdown of the little system you have going on your own lands would go a long way…"

"I'm not getting out of this easily, am I?" he said, and realised he'd said it aloud when Tatra laughed. "I'm sorry, your Highness! Uh, no offence-"

"Oh, none taken! But yes, I'm rather determined when it comes to helping people I've taken under my wing, so you might find me sending you a few messages until you agree. If you wanted to save yourself the trouble…"

Snorting, he settled back in his chair, trying to wriggle until it was a little more comfortable. (It didn't work any better than it had for the past two years.) "Fine. Yes, your Highness, I'll play defence adviser for your little consortium. As long as our offline identities remain out of the game with other players."

"Of course," Tatra agreed, and there was a chime as he recieved three new messages in the game's inbox, one of which was a formal agreement she must have been drafting as they spoke - then he read it, and tried desperately not to laugh again, as no, she'd just changed out a few words on the agreement that Autozam and Cephiro had signed when Cephiro agreed to help advise and support Autozam with revitalising the ecology. Chizeta had been a witness, so she'd obviously kept a copy. "Will you be available in two hours? I've a budget meeting I have to attend, but I can pull an in-game meeting to introduce you to some of the players in the Alliance to happen after that."

"I should be."

"Brilliant! If you could just have a look at the information I'm sending over, that would be great, and any ideas you might have of where to start improvements would be most welcome…"

"I'll see what I can do," he conceded, shaking his head wryly. Somehow, he suspected he'd just taken on a whole new job.

Well. It would certainly give him something to occupy his time. But if he was going to be spending that many hours in VR… Tatra logged off, presumably to go attend the Chizetan cabinet meeting, and he logged off to pull up his messages again just long enough to ping Zazu a quick message.

He was probably going to get wailed at for asking for this chair to be fixed while they were in the middle of nowhere rather than docked with easy access to spares, but hey. This was partially Zazu's fault for introducing Geo to the game. It was only fair.