by PJ Strebor
As an afterthought, Commander Worsfold added another cherry onto their cake. Five days of advanced flight training around the planetoid Cos was seen by some as a reward, but by most as the greatest challenge they had thus far encountered. Cos had claimed more lives than any other area in training command.
The small lava rock spun rapidly on its axis, providing the airless world with a gravity of one point nine.
Nathan prepared his morning coffee before joining his best friend at her table.
“Morning, Moe.”
“What’s good about it?”
Like all of the trainee pilots, she was feeling the bone-numbing fatigue.
“Hey, we’ve passed carrier qualification. That’s good. And in two weeks we graduate fighter training school and get our wings. That’s good.”
“If I live that long,” Moe said. “I knew Worsfold was a hardass, but the last three months have been murderous. He’s already won hard case of the year award, so how about cutting us a break? I can barely drag myself out of my rack in the morning.”
“Only two weeks to go, my friend. You’re tough enough to last two weeks, aren’t you?” Around a wry smile he added, “Or are you getting soft?”
“Hey, hotshot, I can outlast you any day of the week.” She smiled sweetly. “Just because you’re the chief flight instructor’s pet project, you’re getting off light compared to the rest of us.”
“My oldest and dearest friend, get stuffed.” He knew she was baiting him, but couldn’t help responding. “Am I flattered that Commander Worsfold has allocated so much of his time to tutor me? Yes, of course I am. He’s a fabulous instructor. But getting off light? I’ve been complaining about him for the last three months. Do you have a memory problem? Or is it a general brain fart?”
Moe could no longer control her neutral expression. Her laughter drew Nathan in.
“So why is Worsfold on your case?”
He shrugged. In reality he had no idea.
“Hey whatever the reason, it’s worked. You are a shoo-in for the Ellison trophy.”
“It’s not over yet. And you’re only a few points behind me.”
“Fourteen isn’t a few, Nate.”
He yawned. “I thought four years at the academy was tough, but this is …” Nathan shook his head. The words left him before he could form the sentence.
“Perhaps it’s training command’s policy to stress us out,” Moe said. “You know, simulating battlefield conditions.”
“Maybe.”
After breakfast they kitted up: light armor over regulation V-suits.
Their third day on the rock began as their first had. Nathan and Moe strode toward their boats. “I’ve got a feeling they’re going to qualify us in high gee today,” Moe said. “I really do.”
“Hope you’re right,” Nathan said. “Another week of ‘get your nose up, Mister Telford’ and I might fly into a mountain to spite him.”
“Oh, what’s the matter, teacher’s pet,” Moe teased. “Is the big bad commander all over your case?”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. She knew how much he hated the term. So the commander had taken a special interest in him. So what? Worsfold could be picky to the point of being pedantic.
“If they pair us up for Hares and Hounds today,” he said, “I’ll be all over you like flies on a carcass, Ensign Okuma.”
Moe bit her lip and shivered mockingly. Nathan chuckled as he took the gantry steps two at a time.
“Good morning, Mister Telford,” Worsfold said.
“Mornin’, Skipper.”
“Are you up to doing some circuits and bumps today?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Very well, then.” The commander’s mouth warped. “If you remember to keep your nose up, I’ll consider it.”
“Generous as always, Skip.”
“Let’s get about it, then.”
Moe might be right about today. It felt … special, somehow.
Nathan strapped into his chair that sat on the topside of the fuselage. He made a cursory examination of the hangar, noting the access gantry had withdrawn, and the surrounding pier began to separate.
“SMC, Epsilon One online,” Nathan said in his calm, unhurried baritone.
“Epsilon One, SMC online, Sir,” the computer acknowledged. With the complexities associated with space travel, no vessel could afford to be without the services of a shipboard management computer.
“SMC, set status of sphere: real time, non-magnification. Prepare for drop sequence.”
“Sphere set on real time, non-magnification. Drop sequence initialized. Standing by, Sir.”
“SMC, drop position on my mark.”
“Confirmed, on your mark, Sir.”
“Mark!”
The iris snapped open, the top cover panel slid aside and the chair dropped into the sphere. The aperture and panel snapped shut above him with a dull metallic clank, an instant after his head cleared it.
His logic told him a spherical chamber covered by seamless holographic panels surrounded him with a real-time image of the hangar area. His mind told him he floated in mid-air within a gravity-free environment, but his other self would battle against his natural instincts for some time. Monitors and their fighter complement did not stand off from an enemy exchanging massive salvos of torpedoes. They were close-in attack vessels that had to get near to an enemy to do damage. A clear range of view in all directions came in handy.
He took three deep breaths, exhaling slowly. Nathan brought up each holo menu in turn, examining the readouts to confirm the positive preflight status of his boat.
“Commander – Telford.”
“Commander.”
“Sir, I have completed preflight. All indicators are in the green.”
“Very well,” Worsfold said. “Proceed.”
“Aye, Sir.” He examined the hangar area. No other boat had cleared their pier.
“Flight control, Epsilon One.”
“Epsilon One, Flight control.”
“Request permission for immediate departure from hangar area and clearance to launch area.”
“Epsilon One, Flight control.” The same bored voice. “Permission granted to depart hangar area.”
Nathan acknowledged. “Commander—”
“Proceed.”
“Roger. Proceeding.”
Nathan did a fast rotation of the chair to confirm no personnel were in the hangar and the pier had separated completely from his fighter. By touch alone he guided his fingers to the maneuvering controls. The boat slid smoothly from the pier at a sedate pace, clearing the hangar doors.
Without a single jerky movement, he taxied the fighter across into the boat bay. His TF-51 Specter fighter stopped on the center line.
“Flight control, Epsilon One. Request permission to depart the boat.”
“Epsilon One, Flight control. Permission granted. Good luck.”
“Roger, and thank you. Commander, I have received permission to depart the boat.”
“Go.”
He took his fighter into open space and awaited orders.
“Very well,” Worsfold said, “make a powered descent to ten thousand, where you will be on a heading of one-eight-zero true.”
Nathan pointed the nose toward the planet at an oblique angle and pushed the throttles forward to the red mark. Forty-five seconds later, he leveled out smoothly at ten thousand meters.
“Proceed to coordinates Alpha Gamma two-four-eight, and arrive there in precisely thirty-eight seconds. Go!”
Nathan had spent hours examining the contoured three-dimensional schematics of the flight training area, and so had a better-than-fair idea where to go. From the painful throbbing between his shoulder blades, he also suspected what would come next.
“Proceed to coordinates two-seven-niner, drop onto the deck, reduce speed to two hundred kph and take us through the KC. And Mister Telford…”
“Keep my nose up?”
“Go!”
The Kondrach
ev Chicane had a long-standing reputation as the trickiest and most potentially dangerous flight training scenario any pilot would face in their career. The valley of death, as a past student — probably a fan of Tennyson — had dubbed it, had claimed lives over the years, together with a healthy respect from those who accepted its challenge.
Nathan prided himself on not scaring easily, but this would be his third time through the dangerous maze in as many days. His unaccustomed apprehension returned. The first time he had flown along its menacing path, his nerves had jangled for an hour after he landed. The second time felt little better. The KC had been designed for experienced pilots undergoing advanced training at fighter tactics school. Not a grommit.
The Kondrachev Chicane was more of a narrow, meandering ravine than what could be rightly called a valley. A long, winding snake of black death, waiting to tear a boat to pieces with the jagged black fangs protruding from its sheer cliffs. A pilot had to be very much on the ball in order to traverse its twenty-kilometer length without becoming part of the scenery.
Nathan arrived at the coordinates, skimming twenty meters off the deck, pulled the speed back to 200 kph and pointed his fighter at the gaping black entrance. He took several deep breaths, exhaling slowly, as the rotting teeth of the maw grew in his front holo panels. It’s just another challenge. Just another challenge. Even at the standard speed of 200 kph, the opening hurtled toward him at an unnerving speed. In the blink of an eye, the boat was swallowed by the dark ravine. The raging walls streaked by like a furious black gale. His pilgrimage through the chicane would take around six minutes of mind-jarring concentration.
After two minutes his nerves stretched as taut as a bow string. His concentration remained absolute, but he still noticed the trickle of sweat running down his back.
“Mister Telford, increase speed to three hundred kph,” Worsfold said.
“Aye, Sir,” he acknowledged, fighting to maintain focus. Three hundred clicks? Too fast. It’s too bloody fast. He nudged the throttle forward and hung on.
The task of controlling the speeding craft became twice as fast, twice as frantic, twice as dangerous. The knot between his shoulder blades burned with a fury he had rarely experienced. For the next sixty seconds he battled for survival, all the time envisioning a number of grisly accidents that could befall Worsfold.
“Increase speed to four hundred kph,” Worsfold ordered.
He acknowledged with a tight, “Aye, Sir,” but his hand hesitated over the throttle control. Nathan’s teeth locked together as he pushed the throttle forward to the next notch.
The moment the boat jumped forward, something happened. It felt as if a balloon popped inside his head. His whole body felt as though a great flood of icy water had hit him. Shocking as burnt flesh, the sensation washed away all doubt, all fear, all logical consideration. For some reason he could not fathom, Nathan began to chuckle. “Aye, Sir, speed is now four hundred kph.” His chuckling continued to grow as he realized how easy this was. The sweat dried on his skin. The tension lifted from his tortured muscles, replaced by a soothing calmness and sense of peace he had never known. He knew, without any basis in logic and against the absent forces of empirical evidence, that he could do this. Not arrogance gone wild, nor a sudden bout of insanity, it just … was! The chuckling settled into the warm pit in his stomach, the luminous peace spreading throughout his being.
The connection between mind and body became more tenuous than ever. The boat and he had melded into one. He thought of what he needed to do and the boat pitched and turned to his commands, as if his body was no longer required as the middle man in the transaction. Nathan could sense the hum of the engines through the throttles and could perceive the sharp edge of the screaming wind as it shrieked across the flight controls.
The Kondrachev Chicane. A problem? Not in a million years. The Valley of Death? Ha! He could fly backwards through this piddling little rat crack. What had he been thinking before? The big bad chicane wasn’t a shark waiting to tear him apart, but a gummy-mouthed minnow. It was nothing. He was nothing. The universe was endlessly wonderful and he was less than a speck within its enormity and more than a deity.
When the TF-51 burst from the far end of the chicane, the danger vanished. With it, the feeling of utter peace was ripped from him like a torn limb. Nathan groaned as his energy leached from him as if sucked into a brutal vortex. His eyes blurred and his hands began to shake. Try as he might to fight off the utter fatigue, he could not resist it. Against every instinct in his being — with the notable exception of his personal survival — he uttered the words he had vowed never to speak.
“Commander, please take over.” The weakness in his voice startled Nathan.
“It’s my boat,” Worsfold acknowledged.
Nathan released the controls and slumped into his chair. He did not lose consciousness, but drifted in a state of limbo for some minutes.
“Are you still with us, Nathan?” Worsfold’s voice sounded calmer than it had been in months.
“Yeah.”
“Try to relax. We’ll be back on the ship in no time. ”
“Skipper, what happened to me?”
“What happened? Oh, Nathan, something wonderful happened.”
Worsfold’s tone reminded Nathan of an old-time evangelist who had regained his long-lost faith.
***
Commander Worsfold remained silent throughout the endless journey back to Chiron, for which Nathan was grateful. He could not have felt more drained if he had been fed through a meat grinder. Body, mind and soul.
Back onboard the boat, he recovered some of his energy but still had difficulty extracting himself from his combat chair. Worsfold shooed away the pier commander and helped him unbuckle and get shakily to his feet. His legs turned to rubber and he leaned on the commander till they arrived at the briefing room. A strong cup of coffee and ten minutes of rest aided in his recovery.
“I guess you’ve been wondering why I’ve been pushing you so hard,” Worsfold said presently.
Nathan finished his coffee and got unsteadily to his feet to get a refill. “I may have been a little curious.” As always, he tried to keep his emotions in check, but the chicane had clawed at his mind and body unlike anything he had experienced.
“I saw something in you, Nathan,” Worsfold continued, “and if there was the tiniest possibility of you reaching your full potential, it was my duty to push you over the line to get there.”
“Even if you got us both killed?” Immediately he regretted his hasty, cruel statement. “I apologize, Skipper. That wasn’t fair.”
“That’s all right. There was a degree of risk involved, but I felt you could do it. The chicane is the great breakthrough, but this is only the beginning, young man, only the beginning.”
“I felt something in my head,” Nathan said, “like a balloon popping. Everything changed, became effortless. The moment I cleared the chicane, the euphoria vanished. Then someone dropped a house on me. I’ve come down from adrenaline highs before, but nothing like that. I guess you know how that feels.”
“No, Nathan,” Worsfold said quietly, “I don’t know. When I attended flight school, I had an instructor called Constance Kondrachev. Connie was hands down the finest pilot I have ever met. She thought I had potential, so she pushed me almost to the point of breaking. If you think I’ve been hard on you, believe me, next to Connie I’m a pussycat. As things turned out, I didn’t have what it took, but that’s fine. I learned a lot along the way. Connie had a very special knack for flying, and she always looked out for anyone who might be similarly gifted.”
“A knack?”
“It’s been called many things over the years. Sometimes the Rapture or the Madness, or just the gift. I care to think of it by an old flyer’s expression: the right stuff. Whatever you wish to call it, Nathan, it’s difficult to quantify.” He rubbed his chin absently. “Did you ever run the academy marathon?”
“Four years in a row.”
; “Then you know about the wall.”
The first hint of understanding began to filter through Nathan’s confusion. The wall stood as an intimidating barrier of greatest stress during the endurance race.
“So you pushed me hard to get over the wall?”
Worsfold nodded. “The experience of this day will stay with you for the rest of your life. In time you will feel differently whenever you drop into a combat sphere. It will start slowly at first, like exercising an unused muscle, then build gradually until you will be capable of doing things you couldn’t currently dream of. It’s rare, special and almost unique.”
In a flash, Nathan recalled his time on Truculent. How something like this knack had come to his rescue at two critical junctions during that stressful assignment.
“Where does this, ah, knack come from? I mean, why me and not someone else?”
“That’s something even Connie couldn’t answer. Perhaps it’s a gift from the universe. Perhaps it’s genetics. Perhaps it’s plain good luck. I don’t know, and you shouldn’t care why. Just be grateful you have it. Connie believed the gift chooses the recipient. I wouldn’t know, myself; I’ve never been into that mystical stuff. All I know is you are the only person I have heard about in the last thirty years to have shown this talent. It starts in the young, then, if properly nurtured, matures into something you can control. In time it will manifest itself in times of greatest stress and during the most intense danger. So, Nathan, savor it, treasure it and in time you will learn to properly utilize it.”
“I will. I promise you.”
CHAPTER 9
Date: 12th December, 321 ASC.
Position: Pruessen Empire. Planet Pruessen. Brandenburg city. Imperial Palace, war-room.
Status: Weekly strategy briefing.
Commodore Oscar Draeger took his seat at the briefing table, sitting as he always did at the right hand of Emperor Thaddeus. Viceroy Roth sat to the emperor’s left and leaned in to whisper a last minute nugget of wisdom to the most powerful person in the empire.
Along the lengthy table, a sea of high-ranking officers and officials waited patiently. Now that Draeger had arrived, fashionably late as usual, the meeting could commence. Draeger knew that no one would voice disapproval of his tardiness, for the man who sat at the right hand of the emperor could do no wrong.
