The Flight - 4:02

One more cursory glance at the control panel, and I'm free to wrap my fingers again through the grips on either side of the cockpit's eject hatch above my head, and start hauling my body out of the seat. The panel's readings are all normal, the same story they've been giving me for the last twenty minutes of the flight, through the first half of my exercise routine. We've got another twenty minutes yet before we'll have to land, and I can get a couple more sets in, if I keep moving.

Cockpits don't lend themselves easily to exercise routines. Cockpits don't lend themselves to much of anything, really, save the obvious. But actually flying the plane isn't an option, not today---Suhara will chew me out if I try, even if I just accidentally brush the controls. It's our first surface mission in weeks, and Suhara's got the remote helm. Her body is trapped back at the base, cocooned in one of the control tubes to keep her mind focused on the job of coaxing our tethered plane gently over the tops of the rainforest's trees on the planet's surface. My body is more free, I guess, to fly along over those trees, with my safety and stomach contents at Suhara's mercy. I'm a sort of physical failsafe, eyes and ears---ha---inside the cockpit, in case anything goes wrong with Suhara's remote control. At least, I'm in here for today, because she convinced me it's her turn to fly.

But whatever---this Failsafe won't waste a moment, not even the cockpit ones. Not when there's a chance some of the other juniors might be doing their own cockpit pull-ups, in hopes of chewing into my lead in the fitness rankings. Lence posts the rankings every night, so as recently as last night my lead still held---far enough ahead of the other females, even nipping at the heels of some of the males. Male competition won't matter, in the long run---the fitness rankings always keep the guys and girls separate---but I can't help a bit of a devilish grin at the thought of out-lifting even a couple of the guys.

So I grip the eject hatch handles above my head with renewed enthusiasm, hauling my body upward out of the seat again. Cockpit pull-ups are hard to pull off; you have to bend your lower half just right to make sure you don't hit any of the controls on the way up or down---

“Surface Control, this is KAT-56, over sector 21, I've got activity on the surface ahead, just east of our target.”

I let go of the handles as eagerly as I grabbed them, sliding back into my chair---and my failsafe duties---with an excited jolt, already bending forward to check the monitors in front of me. Suhara's statement is right; the edge of the screen is twitching with activity. Movement on the surface, maybe a pack of wolves out hunting---

“KAT-56, we copy that, what is your target?”

I frown at the monitor; the blip on the corner of the screen is widening, blossoming into a swarm of smaller blips, probably a dozen or more. Maybe not a hunting pack, then... The keng wolves usually hunt only three or four to a pack, not nearly this many. I'm already fumbling to resecure the restraints I'd stripped off for my exercise routine, the restraints I shouldn't have taken off in the first place---but seriously, nothing more exciting than cockpit pull-ups ever happens on maintenance missions anyway---

“Surface Control, we're headed to sonic station 22-A, currently over sector 21. Looks like activity on the border between sectors 21 and 22, can you confirm?”

On the border... Suhara's right. The pack is hugging the border, just east of the sonic station. I pull a grimace---the wolves' presence is practically proof of the sonic station's failure, the failure that our maintenance mission was supposed to forestall. So the sonic emitter is down, and we won't be able to count on its help in chasing the wolves away, not for this trip, or any other future maintenance efforts. And this sector guards the small strip of cleared land that serves as one of our runways, along with a few bunkers of supplies and servicing gear---not a good sonic station to lose.

“Activity confirmed, KAT-56. Do not engage---repeat, do not engage at this time, stand by.”

I drag my eyes through an automatic roll. It took me most of combat training's eight months to get pre-combat training's “do not engage” litany to stop bludgeoning my brains. SurfCon---and BaseCon and StatCon, too, for that matter---tend a bit toward the over-cautious side. Ask questions first, shoot later... then ask a heap more questions all over again in the post-mission debriefing. Fight only if attacked. Try retreating first.

“Standing by, 56.”

I can't help a grin at the unmistakable sound of Suhara's rolling eyes. Suhara Salway would never step so out of line in front of her superiors, not with her father's---and grandfather's---reputations for exemplary service, but the cocoons and cockpits hide all sorts of mockery from superiors' inspection. And I've got a bit of a backstage pass to Subordinate Suhara, having put up with a lot more of the side of my roommate and friend that the superiors will never see. I can feel her frustration---we've been part of Lieutenant Orwell's combat training team for eight months already. We're as eager as the rest of the team to see actual surface combat---as eager as the young lieutenant himself must be, after eight months of training juniors. One month left till graduation, and we're all free.

And, if the rankings hold, Orwell’s team might just have itself another winner. It takes one to train one, after all.

I fold my lip in a practiced bite, holding all angles of that particular grin in check. Not even the inside of an empty cockpit can be trusted with the expression of that dream; I've buried it as far away as I can from the sort of jinxing---and certain humiliation---that might surface along with it. Station-wide highest rankings might be within my grasp, but I've got plenty of competition for the top, some of them friends... some of them close enough to share the cockpit with me, albeit virtually.

“Surface Control, KAT-56, we've got movement, looks like they're heading south-southwest, vector 220, moving fast... 16, maybe 15 k.”

A glance at the monitor confirms Suhara's warning. The pack is on the move, the cluster of blips shifting as one swarm away from the sector border, heading south by southwest... That sort of vector will put them right in our flight path.

“Looks like an interception trajectory, Surface Control, please confirm and advise.”

I can feel Suhara's nervous energy twitching my own muscles; my fingers dance just above the controls. The cockpit's human failsafe is only useful for landings, take-offs... and combat. My fingers are just waiting for SurfCon's go-ahead, and I'll be in the game---the fighting game, at least. Local takes fight, remote takes flight. We've practiced it so many times that the simulations have to be sick of it by now.

“KAT-56, we've got---” The radio’s response breaks off abruptly into silence. Charged silence... I can feel my pulse beat twice for every lengthened second, my head running through the calculations from the readings on the monitor... The pack is moving fast, the plane even faster---less than a minute till interception---

“KAT-56, get out of there, pull up and get out now.”

The plane is already tugging upward under Suhara's immediate reaction, even before the words die on the flycom's lips. The man is trained to talk into a radio all day, spooling out a measured response for each and every scenario, from weather to wolf attack. He's not supposed to sound this scared.

I gulp a quick breath, my hands twitching away from the combat controls, closer to the flight systems. From the man’s tone, this is more than “do not engage,” this is “punch it out of there,” and the failsafe is probably more useful as flight control backup, in case Suhara's ascent turns out too steep.

Oy. Too steep indeed... I can feel my stomach gritting its teeth against the change of direction, my head already swimming with sudden dizziness. And there goes my vision, crackling in warning... then flickering out, and flashing back again.

I fling one hand down to the controls to slow Suhara's climb a bit, and fling the other hand to my visor. That black-out was the visor, not my accel-dizzy consciousness...

I squeeze a quickened breath past the sudden fear clawing at my throat. The visor. This is not the time for a visor failure... I can maybe bear the humiliation of passing out from the ascent, but I'd rather gouge out my useless eyes than crawl back to Torreson Base with a dead battery and a dead visor... But I was sure that I charged it last night; I don't forget to charge it, not ever, not anymore...

The plane is pulling out of a sickening dip, Suhara's attempt to recover from my instinctive intervention. I can't help but wince---I'll hear about that one later... But an angry Suhara I can handle, on my own two feet, rather than dragged limp from the cockpit.

And there my vision statics again, snapping in and out. This... this isn't a dead battery, this is some other sort of failure, maybe a loose connection or something---

“Surface Control, I'm---” Suhara starts, breaking off for a split second as the plane jerks again back into line. “We're having trouble, I'm... I'm losing connection somehow, Meia are you pulling manual?”

I scramble for the radio. “No, I'm not touching anything---” Blackness again; vision gone, then snapping back in a dizzying flash... Cockpit one moment, shifting dark the next... “I'm having trouble too---” My face scrunches with a quick cringe; I've only barely gotten my training peers to forget---or at least pretend to forget---my handicap, and I'm not eager to explain my vision's quirks one by one over open radio to the puzzled flycom---

“KAT-56, get out of there now! You're almost on top of them, you're gonna need to pull out or start shooting; both, if you can handle it!”

The wolves... I'd almost forgotten them, but the flycom sounds scared again. The pack is just ahead, between the plane and the wide strip of cleared ground that buffers the small runway from the thick surrounding forest. The flycom's right---we're almost on top of the pack already. But if we've got SurfCon's permission to start shooting...

I jerk my hands back to the combat controls---I'll only have a few short seconds during the plane's flyover, but our trajectory's almost perfectly lined up, and I can hit them hard, just squeeze off enough rounds---

Another snap, another crackle...

And I'm totally blind.






Author's note: This is the actual beginning to my YA sci-fi novel, Fighting Blind.