Free Icarus by Stephen A. Fender Page B

flight school. It also
occurred to her that Kestrel seemed to have improved on a few of them. By lunch
time, Roslyn could see he was beginning to tire from everything she and Drake
had thrown at him, and she decided to call it a day.
       Just before the spheroid shells opened, Drake called to Shawn over the
communications channel from his position in the control room. “Nice flying,
Commander. Can’t wait to see how you do out in the void.”
      “Thanks, Drake,” Shawn replied wearily, wiping a newly formed bead of
sweat from his brow. “It’s been real educational.”
      “Don’t think this means I’m signing you off to jump into the real thing
just yet,” Lieutenant Commander Brunel called out sharply from the second sim,
tossing her head back and freeing her long black hair from the confines of her
helmet.
       “I wouldn’t dream of it, Raven,” Shawn offered with his most sincere
smile.        
       She stepped down the ladder to the deck and met Shawn at his sim as he
was unstrapping himself from the cockpit. “All in all, though, I’d say you
weren’t half bad.”
       “What she means, Commander, is that you’ve done better than half the
pilots on this ship ever have,” chuckled Drake over the loudspeakers.
       Roslyn craned her head up to the simulator control room.
“Eavesdropping again, Lieutenant I’rondus?”
       “Sorry, ma’am,” he offered, but his tone suggested otherwise. “Guess I
forgot to shut down the microphone. See you both in debriefing.” Drake shut
down the remainder of his controls, and Shawn looked up at the observation
bubble in time to see him make a hasty exit.
       “What’d he mean by that?”
       “Since it’s just you and me in here, you should know that you made it
to level ten without so much as a scratch. That’s a new record.” Her tone held
caution, as if she were trying to halt Shawn’s ego from overinflating. “The
best anyone has ever done is level six.”
       “And who would that be?” Shawn asked as he gathered up the umbilicals
that had connected his flight suit to the sim. “You?”
       “No,” she smiled modestly. “Not even I’m that good.”
       “So who is—”
       “Just remember,” she interrupted curtly. “I didn’t say anything. I’d
hate to have the word spread that there’s another sim ace on board. Every pilot
and his brother would be lining up to challenge you. We’ve got enough on our
hands right now, and I don’t want anyone losing focus.”
       “So who’s the other simulator ace, then?”
       She smiled and jerked her head toward the compartment door, indicating
Shawn should follow her. “Maybe if you live long enough, you’ll figure it out.”
     
    * * *
     
       After the debriefing, Shawn had wrangled up Jerry, Ensign McAllister,
and Lieutenant Maltos for a quick bite to eat. The younger officers grilled him
about his simulator time with Raven and Drake, but heeding Raven’s words, he
was tight-lipped about the whole encounter. All he’d recounted was that he did
well, and that he was looking forward to getting into a real fighter soon—even
if was only for a patrol flight. Truth be told, he wasn’t nearly as excited
about being behind the controls of a fighter as he was about getting back into
space in general.
       With their meal finished, the junior officers retired to the Rhea ’s
recreation deck, allowing Shawn some time to shower and change back into his
normal service uniform. He sat down at his desk, pulling out the data cartridge
Melissa had passed him the night before. As he absently fumbled with it, an
image of her face crossed his mind. He thought back to when she’d
singlehandedly knocked down two drunken patrols at Jack DeLorme’s bar back on
Minos, and he reflexively smiled. He switched on his computer terminal and
inserted the media, but before it could access the material there was a knock
at his door.
       “Come in,” he called out, flipping