by SF Edwards
Joda’s snarling, helmeted face appeared on the screen. Blazer could tell he did not appreciate how broken the neat formation had become. “All units. Monstero Nach Zero Zero. Line formation.”
Blazer pulled his trainer into formation behind Seri and Trevis and felt glad for the position as Joda vectored them towards one of the largest and longest canyons marring the face of the Proving Grounds. Blazer felt a cold sweat form on his brow as they dropped down over the surface and made ready to descend into a large crevasse. He could see that even his instructor back at the academy felt the strain. He had to keep his wits and reflexes about him, even more so as each twist and turn presented the craft with another deadly trick or trap. It would be his responsibility to act if Blazer made a mistake.
Blazer’s hearts pounded when they neared the surface. This was no simulation. This was real and despite having flown the course countless times in the simulator he wasn’t about to take any chances. An instruction appeared on his screen and he tapped his throttle back, opening up the distance between his craft and Trevis’ ahead of him. Everyone in the line behind him followed suit moments before Joda dove into the canyon. Flexing his hands over his controls, he watched Seri descend, disappearing into the dark canyon. He felt his lips and mouth go dry and did his best to moisten them before Trevis disappeared into the dark gash. Taking a deep breath, he slipped in right behind.
The walls of the canyon rose up to greet him. As he descended below the surface, the dim light of the local star disappeared, plunging him into total darkness. The adaptive optics in the canopy compensated, illuminating the rocky walls of the canyon with any available light. Blazer still felt like he was flying in the dark but the enhanced visuals made it bright enough to make things out. Many areas still hid in the shadows though. “Why even have a translucent canopy?” he asked himself.
“It’s a backup. That way if your sensors go blind you still have your eyes to see with,” Temblin reminded him.
Blazer nodded.
Trevis’ trainer began to pull away and Blazer pushed his throttle open to catch up. The plasma rockets behind him fired harder and pressed him back into his seat as the navigation markers indicated the upcoming turn before him. Blazer scoffed at the markers. He knew the canyon backwards, forwards, and every other way he could come at it. He zipped through the first turn, his belly thrusters firing to kill his momentum as he roared down the next length.
Blazer’s instructor nodded his approval on the screen. “Good! Just like we practiced. Just take it easy this run and keep your eyes up for anything. This place will throw the unknown at you any chance it gets. And remember Joda’s watching you, well, like a shark. He won’t tolerate showboating in the Proving Grounds or sloppiness.”
Blazer nodded and exhaled sharply as the first trap activated ahead of Joda. A laser web illuminated the darkness, a series of interwoven low-powered visible lasers bridging the walls of the canyon. Shooting out from multiple angles and positions, the beams of coherent light stretched several thousand metra down the length of the canyon forming an obstacle course of light.
Blazer raised an eyebrow when Joda’s engines flared and he dove into the array. Twisting his trainer about, Joda slid up and down, left and right, spinning and firing his thrusters at precise moments to guide his craft through one of the many possible routes through the web. None of the lasers even grazed his shields. Blazer shook his head as he watched the display and checked his sensors. Sure enough, Joda took the most difficult course through the web. He can showboat all he wants, I’ll take this easier course.
Blazer raced into the laser web behind Trevis. He’d flown the web and the entire canyon so many times in the official simulators and at his desktop that he knew it almost rote. The course he took was nowhere near as elaborate as Joda’s but it was the one he’d practiced again and again and he knew each maneuver, each subtle movement of his controls by heart. Slipping and sliding about, he dove and ducked around obstacles in his fighter, each maneuver timed to perfection. Then, as he raced out the other end, he looked with pride down at his shield display. He hadn’t crossed or even grazed a single beam. He held in a silent hoot of pride. If that doesn’t get me some bonus points, nothing will.
Remembering the course, he stole a look over his shoulder to see how the others behind him were faring. Zithe was two fighters behind Blazer and he needed to see how the Lycan would handle the proving grounds. This would be another one of the little tests that he and the Lycan would face in their bids to become team leader.
The light of her maneuvering thrusters illuminated the darkness, as Telsh’s trainer danced through the web ahead of Zithe. The glint of a laser impacting her shields lit up the belly of her craft through one maneuver when she overcorrected and then she shot free.
Blazer barely saw Zithe enter the field before he turned back to face forward. The next turn lay just ahead and in his overconfidence and desire to see Zithe’s progress, he took it blind. Working from memory, he turned back to watch Zithe but when he began to level out the wailing of his proximity siren greeted him.
Blazer made the mistake his instructor had warned him against since the beginning. He let rote memorization take over his actions in the cockpit. He had practiced the route in the simulators so many times before that he thought he knew everything about it. He was wrong. Right there in front of him hung a rock bridge, the natural formation crossing the expanse of the canyon hadn’t been in any of the simulations.
He didn’t even hesitate and ran on instinct. Practice from the annura of flying back home and in simulators helped. He took the quickest escape route he could find. He dove by pressing down on this throttle to ignite the dorsal thrusters. Nosing over, he fingered the slide rocker on the front of the throttle to the left as well, but it was too late. He was too close when the alert sounded and as he attempted to maneuver away, his right wing tip dug into the underside of the rocky outcropping. His shields collapsed in a brilliant flash when the low-powered ion screens that protected him from cosmic radiation slammed into the rocks and dissipated.
Blazer’s fighter cartwheeled under the force of the strike as the RCOS light on his console blinked furiously, unable to gain lock. Blazer’s hearts pounded in his ears. Shreg! Temblin can’t lock on, I’m on my own. With precious little time to recover, he careened towards the canyon floor below. Blazer slammed hard on the opposite rudder to kill the spin and leveled out the trainer relative to the canyon floor below.
He didn’t think, falling back on his training, he pulled up hard on his throttle. The ventral thrusters fired full force with the flow of his engines vectored down as much as possible before he pulled back on the stick pointing his tail towards the ground. The plasma exhaust cooked the ancient rocks below before it halted his momentum a scant metra from the canyon floor. An instant later, he rocketed back towards the top of the canyon before he nosed over careful not to leave the stone walls, failing the exercise if he did so.
Both his hearts thundered in his chest while he sped back down the canyon. Alert lights winked across his screens and he climbed as high as he dared in the canyon. Sweat stung his eyes. He held onto the controls for dear life, the muscles in his arms spasming. His legs shook as he fought his own flight or fight response, which wanted to get him out of the confines of the cockpit.
Not realizing it at first, he felt the controls begin to move beneath his hands and feet. He attempted to fight them before he saw the steady blue light of the RCOS controller in front him indicate that Temblin was in control and he pulled his hands free.
“You all right?” his instructor asked as Blazer began to massage the sore muscles in his arms through his flight suit.
Blazer nodded before throwing his head back to try and wipe off some of the sweat on his forehead with the terrycloth strip he stuck into the front of his helmet. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt such raw fear. Instinct drove him to save his own life. Instinct and an image of Marda’s face floating just beyond his vis
ion. He knew he had to survive, if for nothing else than to see her, hold her, touch her one more time. As he thought of her, another face appeared on his screen.
The snarly toothy face of Joda was not as calming. “Nach Three. Lead. Vaughnt, are you OK?”
Blazer nodded. “Yes, sir. I allowed myself to get distracted.”
Joda fixed him with a hard glare and even through the screen Blazer knew how a fish must feel right before it got eaten. “What is the extent of your damage?”
Blazer called up the damage display revealing the damage assessment. A holographic image of the trainer highlighted the destruction. Arrows pointed out each broken subsystem and relayed their functionality with the status of the self-repair microbots.
Joda won’t be able to see this, Blazer thought as he started to point at the display so turned and pointed over his shoulder at the right wing tip. “I am reading almost a complete loss of the starboard sensor pod and associated thruster array. I show good roll control using the port side thrusters though. There is minimal fuel loss due to the repair systems cutting the lines immediately. Readout also shows no measureable damage beyond the anhedral with minimal structural damage on the majority of the drooped tip. I am good to proceed with the mission.”
“Say again? How much of the wingtip did you lose?”
Blazer looked out to be sure. He based his estimate on the number of sensors offline in the drooping cranked arrow wingtip. The sensors remaining displayed the structural stress throughout the rest of the wing as well. He pushed himself up out of his seat for a moment to get a good look at the damage. Passing a wide point in the canyon, enough light came in to glint off the wing and give him his first actual view of the damage.
“From what I can make out, sir, about half the sensor pod was torn away,” he relayed sitting back into his seat, thank the designers for how modular this craft is. “I also made out that some armor was ripped away exposing some structure and the wingtip fuel tank. I see no leakage or evidence of damage there. Most of the thrusters are still in place and intact. Automatic cutoffs must have shut them down.”
Blazer’s mouth went dry as he watched Joda analyze the telemetry bounce back from the academy. He was making his own assessment of the damage. “Are you good to proceed?”
Blazer nodded and looked down at the small image of his instructor.
“Affirmative, sir,” Cadet Temblin interjected. “I currently have control and am ready to hand off whenever Cadet Vaughnt is able. I do apologize though, sir. I attempted to take control of the trainer prior to the accident but I couldn’t establish a good command and control link. It is working now though.”
“Copy that RCOS control. We’ll have the satellite checked when we return. Vaughnt, when you're ready, assume control of your craft and proceed on mission. Good job with that recovery.”
“Thank you, sir,” Blazer replied with a sigh and placed his hands back on the control. “I have the plane,” he announced to Temblin.
His instructor nodded and in an exaggerated movement, removed his hand from the controls before dropping them back down. Blazer could tell even from the small image on his screen that his hands rested on if not right next to the controls. Breathing out a sigh that he wasn’t sure how long he had been holding in, he looked at his sensor sphere. Sure enough, the lower right side of the sphere lay darkened. The loss of the sensor created a shadow into which the other two sensor pods could not see. He was not surprised to see that everyone behind him opened up their spacing from each other and him especially.
Feeling foolish, Blazer snuck a quick look back at the damage. Shadows fell over the wing now and he couldn’t see well. A few flashes and sparks lit up the darkness. Fearing that something might have broken loose he called up the damage display again. Minimal power ran to the wingtip and all the lines in the damaged section were down. That’s when the realization kicked in. It’s the repair microbots. They’re extruding through the tubes and trying to weld the broken pieces back together.
Stealing a look at his fuel display he noted that his statement about minimal fuel loss was a bit of a lie. The fuel bladder must have ruptured, I just can’t see it. According to the display the amount of fuel he lost was over half, the fuel management system unable to shift it into one of the other tanks in time.
The squadron proceeded through the rest of the canyon without incident. Blazer did have more difficulty with the rest of the mission than he thought he should have. He felt the loss of the thrusters with each maneuver despite the port thrusters firing harder to compensate.
With each move he felt aware of every sound the trainer made. Creaks and popping noises now accompanied every turn or roll. Were those sounds always there? Did I just ignore them before? I wonder if Temblin or Joda can hear them? Better not to ask. After they returned to their start point into the canyon they climbed free of its walls. Blazer breathed a massive sigh of relief--glad to have open empty space surrounding him again.
Vectoring around with the rest of the squadron they formed back up and headed towards the slipstream entry vector back towards the academy. Arion’s going to have front row seat to see my damage from his position in the formation. He never felt happier that Joda ordered chatter be kept to a minimum before they prepared to slide home. Looking over his shoulder, he spotted Arion’s trainer when it drifted alongside. Even in the darkness he could make out Arion’s helmeted head in his cockpit as it stared at Blazer’s fighter. As the last trainer joined the formation, they activated their slipstream drives for the academy.
After activating his slipstream drive back, Blazer released the controls for the first time since he’d retaken control of the trainer. With the autopilot in control, he took stock. I’m lucky to be alive right now. With the RCOS cutting out, I don’t even want to think about how little time I had to react. Bugger me sideways, I shouldn’t have let it happen. I should have kept alert; the Proving Grounds are all about surprises. The instructors had drilled that into them. The simulators didn’t show everything in the Proving Grounds and this cycle had proved that. Even after the land bridge, he had noted a good seven or eight more features in the canyon which had differed from the simulators. It was all a way to keep them sharp, to show them that reality was always harder than training and he had just been slapped in the face by it.
They dropped out of slipstream just outside the asteroid shell. The formation slowed to normal speeds before proceeding towards home. Passing through the asteroid shell, however, Blazer noticed several small meteoroids, the small metallic kind that the low-powered ion screen should deflect, breach the right side of his shield to ping off the armored hull. They weren’t doing much, if anything, in the way of damage. Blazer realized just how much he’d harmed his ship. Something over there was now interfering with the electromagnetic torus spinning about his trainer that protected him.
When the squadron approached to land at the academy, Joda ordered Blazer to hold back. He allowed his flight to land without him and as the last flight disappeared into the darkness he and Joda proceeded in together. Blazer went into the cavernous interior and the dim lights within shone onto his trainer. Thanks to his adaptive optics he got his first good look at the damage.
As Blazer entered the cavernous interior, the dim lights within showed the damage he had sustained. Blazer’s eyes went wide with shock. Stress fractures marred the wing like a spider’s web. They weren’t just on the wingtip but extended all across it to every part he could see.
It made Blazer question everything he’d done again. What’s caused all this additional damage? Should I have returned home right after the accident? Had the continued stress of flying the Proving Grounds caused the cracks to expand? If I’d returned home early, would it have meant a failing grade on this mission for sure? Could it have been the stresses of riding the slipstream? Would it have been better for me to fly home on normal drives? He did the mental math on that and realized he couldn’t have. He didn’t have enough life-support for that. And now
, looking at the damage he was sure that a washout was inevitable.
Blazer brought his trainer to a halt above the landing pads and began his decent. He pressed down on the throttle and felt the fighter drop away. Before he was halfway down, he felt the grappler beams take hold. Landing normally filled Blazer with relief. It meant the end of his mission and the end of the hard work and the fear of failure. Looking at his wing, he knew he had failed and wondered how fast they would wash him out.
Morbid fascination overrode Blazer’s desire not to look at the damage when the elevator reached the bomber deck. It was worse than he’d feared. The stress fractures were everywhere. Armored hatches stood popped open and as he descended into higher gravity he could hear and feel the low-level creaking and groaning of the space frame again.
When the elevator came to rest, he taxied his trainer clear but not towards his normal recovery parking spot. Beacons guided him to another one further away. Deck hands hurried away from the trainers they serviced as he taxied by. Some ran toward him while others away. Several returned in environment suits. At first Blazer felt confused until he looked back at his wing and saw why. A trail of slush hydrogen followed him, dripping from the shattered fuel bladder.
He reached his recovery spot, taxied to a halt, and after shutting the trainer down, just sat there. He wanted to just curl up and die. He lost track of time until his canopy split open. He hadn’t opened it. Someone from outside had. Outside was not where he wanted to be.
He didn’t want to face his squad mates, his instructors, no one. He had failed and he knew it.
He removed his helmet and looked over at the damage and the gathering crowd. His face fell back into his hand for a moment when he saw a technician run up with a boarding ladder. He heard it click into place and looked up.