Fixer-Uppers, Monday

[endsthegame]

If Ender was really honest with himself, he didn't really want to go to work today. Which is exactly why he went-- it was his routine, and right now he didn't want to drop that, at least.

In the end, he went for a compromise, and rather than manning the desk, he slipped back into the workshop to poke at his plans for improving his laptop, among other things. It was a somewhat effective way of keeping his thoughts at least a little his own.

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[momslilassassin]

Ben walked into the shop with lunch and two enormous cups of coffee and pushed back his very tiny panic attack when Ender wasn't immediately visible.

"Ender?" he called.

[endsthegame]

"Back here," Ender called. His voice carried from there, which was probably a good thing.

It also helped he didn't have to play 'what volume shall we play the music at?' with Stark anymore, these days.

[momslilassassin]

"I brought coffee," Ben offered as he leaned in the workshop's doorjamb.

[endsthegame]

"Put it near the holographic display?" Ender requested. "I'm a little mobile at the moment."

[momslilassassin]

"You certainly look busy," Ben agreed, putting Ender's cup down and taking a swig from his own. "What are you fixing?"

[endsthegame]

"Nothing, actually," he said. "I'm lookin into some new, easier to manifacture materials for the colonists back on Shakespeare. Something that works with the elements they have at their disposal."

[momslilassassin]

"Oooh," Ben said, eyes lighting up with the possibilities. "What do you have so far?"

[endsthegame]

"Not much yet, but I've only just started," Ender said, and added, in a somewhat uncharacteristic display of openness, "Looking for a distraction, I guess. Here, look at these elements - they're the ones most common on Shakespeare."

He pulled up a display on the holographic projector.

[momslilassassin]

Ben stepped closer and peered at the projection. "And that's all there is?" he asked. "Is there a way to break down their ships too and experiment with some hybrids?"

[endsthegame]

"I think they've stripped a lot of the ships for parts already," Ender noted. "The ones they haven't... well." A pause. "It's a colony of veterans. There are some things they might not be ready to let go."

[momslilassassin]

"Got it," Ben said, reaching into the Force to summon Ender's coffee and hand it to him. "There's no point pushing them on something that might not prove to be productive anyway."

He pointed his finger at two of the elements and rattled off a series of suggestions for them. "Think those might work?"

[endsthegame]

Ender finally remembered about his coffee, albeit idly, and took it. He sipped it thoughtfully. "Maybe," he said, "But I might have to work out some equations and synthesize some samples in the process. Maybe run it past the physicists on the colonisation team... hm."

He flipped the display around until he got a close up on one of them. "We might be able to use some of the local plantlife to strengthen the plastics we'll be bringing in from Earth."

[momslilassassin]

Ben hid a smile as Ender started drinking the coffee. In a few minutes, he'd try a similar approach to get Ender to eat.

He was under the impression that he was quite sneaky.

He leaned in, shoulder almost brushing Ender's, as he got a closer look at what Ender was suggesting, then nodded. "That could work. If you'd like, I can get you one of the survival packs most of our ships are equipped with and you can poke at the weather-proof tent material and stuff."

[endsthegame]

"That might be useful," Ender noted. If Ben was using any dirty tricks, he hadn't noticed them; he genuinely was subliminating as much as he could into his research, which meant he was more than a little absent-minded about everything else. "As far as I know, the weather doesn't get too extreme on Shakespeare, but they've only just found a cure for the Gold Bug issue. There might be more hazards they're just not aware of yet."

[momslilassassin]

"Especially if they start exploring past the colony they've already established," Ben said. "The temperatures would probably get more extreme towards the poles."

He finished his coffee. "Most of the threats are on a microscopic level so far?"

[endsthegame]

"Yes. The Formics cleaned the place out centuries ago, by what we've been able to tell," Ender said, waving away the display to show Ben one or two of the pictures of Formic orchard the colonists had made. "There's some wildlife, but nothing really threatening, and the worst of the diseases can now be treated."

[momslilassassin]

Ben waved the bag of lunch into his hand, then held out a sandwich to Ender before taking one himself. "You don't think the Gold Bugs were left as a biological weapon?"

The Empire's move on Mandalore and the Hapan Royal family in the last war had left that idea burned into his mind.

[endsthegame]

"And what would the point of that be?" Ender asked, taking said sandwich, though this time he simply put it aside by the holographic display and left it there. "Nevermind that the bugs bear all the hallmarks of biology native to that planet, but what would leaving a biological weapon behind accomplish? There aren't any Formics around to take advantage of the situation."

[momslilassassin]

"Revenge?" Ben suggested. "The Empire created and launched a nanovirus to exterminate a specific family just because they're petty like that."

[endsthegame]

"That's thinking like a human being, not like a Formic," Ender said, sighing. "They stopped killing human beings when they found out we weren't mindless limbs. They wouldn't kill just for killing's sake."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded. "You're the expert," he said. "Eat your sandwich."

His mother hen was showing again.

[endsthegame]

"Hm?"

Ender actually blinked at him for five seconds before he got what Ben was getting at. He glanced at the sandwich on the display. "Oh, right."

[momslilassassin]

Ben glanced quickly at Ender's knuckles, just to be sure. He worried when Ender got this wrapped up in something--it meant he was avoiding something else.

"Generally speaking, it works better when you put it in your mouth," he teased.

[endsthegame]

They were fine; no self-cannibalism yet, though Ender's progress in terms of sleeping schedule had gone back down the toilet.

"I must have forgotten about that," Ender said, a little dryly. "Are we sure I can't absorb nutrients through my hands?"

[momslilassassin]

"If you can and you've been keeping it from me all this time, I'm going to be annoyed," Ben said with a little laugh. "That would be astral."