Fleet of the Damned (Sten #4). Allan Cole

he knew that under the current circumstances it was an offense of basic regulations for a soldier not to wear the decorations to which he was entitled. It would be just like the IPs to look up everyone’s record jacket, then check chests or sashes for exactitude and use any difference to bust another candidate out.

      Sten yessired Mason while marveling at Chief Instructor Pilot Ferrari. So much for the theory that fat slobs only get promoted to warrant officer. That might be his current serving rank, but Ferrari was now wearing the stars of a fleet admiral, with decorations banked almost to his epaulettes.

      Sten noticed, in spite of his awe, that there appeared to be a soup stain just above Ferrari’s belt line.

      “If I’d known you had all those hero buttons, Candidate,” Mason went on, “I would have given you more attention. But we still have time.”

      Fine. Sten was doomed. He wondered how Mason would nuke him.

      Minutes later, he found out.

      Ferrari had called the class to attention and congratulated them. The formal testing was complete. Any of them still standing was successful. All that remained was the final test.

      “Do not bother,” Ferrari said, “going through your notes and memories in preparation. The end test we are quite proud of, not the least because it has everything yet nothing to do with what has gone before. You have twenty-four hours to consider what such an examination might be. We find that suspense is good for the soul. The test, by the way, will be administered singly. Each instructor pilot will choose candidates, and it is his responsibility at that point.”

      And now Sten knew how Mason was going to get him.

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      THE AIRCRAFT — at least Sten guessed it was an aircraft—was the most clotting impossible collection of scrap metal he had ever seen. It consisted of a flat metal platform about two meters in diameter, with two seats, two sets of what Sten thought to be controls, and a windscreen. The platform sat atop two metal skids. Behind it was some sort of power plant and then a long spidered-metal girder that ended in a side-facing fan blade. Above the platform was another fan, horizontal to the ground, with twin blades each about six meters long. The device sat in the middle of a wide, completely flat landing ground. Two hundred meters in front of the aircraft, a series of pylons sprouted.

      Sten and Mason were the only two beings on the landing field. Sten turned a blank but—he hoped—enthusiastic face toward Mason.

      “We got a theory here in flight school,” Mason said. “We know there are natural pilots—none of you clowns qualify, of course—and also a lot of people have flown a lot of things.

      “No sense testing someone for basic ability if we put them on their favorite toy, is there? So what we came up with is something that, as far as we know, nobody has flown for a thousand years or so. This pile of drakh was called a helicopter. Since it killed a whole group of pilots in its day, when antigrav came around they couldn’t scrap-heap these guys fast enough.

      “You’re gonna fly it, Candidate. Or else you’re gonna look for a new job category. I hear they’re recruiting planetary meteorologists for the Pioneer Sectors.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Not that we’re unfair. We’re gonna give you some help. First you get two facts: Fact number one is that this helicopter, unlike anything else I’ve ever heard of, really doesn’t want to fly at all. It won’t lift without bitching, it glides like a rock, and it lands about the same if you don’t know what you’re doing. Fact number two is it’s easy to fly if you’re the kind of person who can pat his head and rub his stomach at the same time.”

      Sten wondered if Mason was making his notion of a joke. Impossible—the man was humorless.

      “Next, you and me are gonna strap in, and I’m gonna show you how the controls work. Then you’ll take over, and follow my instructions. I’ll start simple.”

      Right, simple. Ostensibly, the few controls were easy. The stick in front controlled the angle of the individual fan blades—the airfoil surface—as they rotated. This stick could be moved to any side and, Mason explained, could make the helicopter maneuver. A second lever, to the side, moved up and down, and, with a twist grip, rotated to give engine speed and, therefore, rotor speed. Two rudder pedals controlled the tiny fan at the ship’s rear, which kept the helicopter from following the natural torque reaction of the blades and spinning wildly.

      The first test was to hover the ship.

      Mason lifted it, lowered it, then lifted it again. It seemed easy.

      “All you got to do is keep it a meter off the ground.”

      He told Sten to take the controls.

      The helicopter then developed a different personality and, in spite of Sten’s sawing, dipped, bounced the front end of the skids on the field, then, following Sten’s over-controlling, reared back… then forward… and Mason had to grab the controls.

      “You want to try it again?”

      Sten nodded.

      He did better—but not much. Power… keep that collective in place… real gentle with that stick.

      Sten didn’t prang it this time, but the required meter altitude varied up to about three.

      Sten’s flight suit was soaked with sweat.

      Again.

      The variable came down to plus or minus a meter.

      Mason was looking at Sten. “All right. Next we’re going to move forward.”

      Mason moved the helicopter forward about fifty meters, turned, and flew back, then repeated the whole maneuver.

      “I want you to hold two meters altitude and just fly down there in a straight line. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

      The helicopter porpoised off. He scraped his skids twice, and his flight toward those distant pylons was a sidewinder’s path. Mason took over and put Sten through the same routine three more times. Sten had no idea if he was about to be trained as a pilot or a weatherman.

      The next stage took the helicopter all the way down to the pylons and S-curved through them. The first time Sten tried it, he discovered he had straight and level flight somehow memorized—the helicopter clipped every single pole as it went down the course. By the fourth try, Sten managed to hit no more than four or five of them.

      Mason was looking at him. Then Mason signaled—he had it.

      Sten sat back and, per orders, put his hands in his lap.

      Mason landed the ship back where it had started, shut down, and unbuckled. Sten followed, stepping off the platform and ducking under the rotors as they slowed.

      Mason was standing, stone-faced, about thirty meters away from the helicopter. “That’s all, Candidate. Report to your quarters. You’ll be informed as to your status.”

      Sten saluted. Clot. So much for the Emperor’s ideas about Sten.

      “Candidate!”

      Sten stopped and turned.

      “Did you ever fly one of these things before?”

      And Sten, through his honest denial, felt a small glint of hope.

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      A DAY LATER, Sten’s name, as well as Bishop’s, Sh’aarl’t’s, and Lotor’s, went on the list: Phase One. Accepted. Assigned to Imperial Flight Training, Phase Two.

      In Phase Two, they would learn how to fly.

      There should have been some kind of party. But everyone was too tired to get bashed. Of the 500 candidates, fewer than forty had been selected.

      According to the clichés, graduation should have been announced by the IPs lugging in cases of alk and welcoming the candidates to the thin, whatever-colored line.