Flight of the Outcast by Brad Strickland Page A

we'll each have logged five hours of real flight time in trainers. You give up midbreak for that, but it's worth it."
       He seemed excited by the prospect. Asteria thought about flying. It wasn't piloting, not Space Fleet flying, but something like a merger of pilot and craft. Skimmer pilots sat in a command seat and operated hand controls, but not Space Fleet captains. She had always thought such piloting seemed exciting, and she still wanted to see what it was like…but somehow her enthusiasm had faded.
        What's wrong with me? It was hard to get through the days, knowing that each class was going to be a challenge. It was harder to get through the nights, dreaming about her father and her cousin. Asteria felt drawn, weary, dulled by routine. She hoped flight training would spark some life deep inside her. Lately she had begun to wonder if all this was worth it—the long hours, the constant rain of insults and orders from upperclass cadets, the demanding teachers, and the relentless tide of work. She had wanted to become a pilot to pay back the Raiders for what they had done to her family—but it would take four long years for her to earn her pilot's seat. Revenge was going to be a very cold dish.
       "I was reading about your dad just yesterday," Dai said suddenly. " The History of the Tetraploid Wars . There's a whole chapter about the Adastra. It mentioned your dad's name as one of the badly wounded."
       "Yes," Asteria said flatly. "He was hurt."
       Dai frowned. "It said—I'm sorry, I shouldn't even be—"
       "No, it's all right," Asteria interrupted, softening her tone. She thought of the ridiculous statue on campus, the heroic Aristocrat supporting the gruesomely wounded Commoner. "What did it say?"
       Slowly, Dai replied, "It said that he was so badly hurt that the doctors wanted to harvest his nervous system and implant it in a Cybot. But he wouldn't let them. So they did a massive reconstruction. It said your father's surgeries pioneered three new types of cybernetic implants."
       Asteria nodded, her throat tight. "That sounds about right. One of his eyes was a cyber unit, one of his legs, and an arm from the elbow down."
    "I'm sorry."
       She swallowed. "I grew up knowing him like that. He didn't let it bother him," she said. "I think…never mind."
       "What?"
       "Nothing."
       "Come on," he said. "No secrets, all right? We're fellow Commoners here."
       Asteria took a deep breath. "I think he would have stayed in the Space Fleet if they'd let him," she said. "I don't believe he ever wanted to be anything else. Not a farmer. Not—not anything. The way he talked about the Fleet—it was home to him. But too many people in the Fleet would have talked to him about what he did during the attack, and the Aristo who brought the ship back to port didn't want him talking. So they made a deal. The Fleet patched Dad up, and he agreed to keep it all to himself in exchange for a land grant. He settled for a life as a farmer. And as my dad."
       "That's not exactly settling," Dai said shyly. "Uh, I mean he sounds like a good man."
       "He was," said Asteria. She felt like crying. She turned away from Dai and dimly realized that in their brief conversation something in her life had shifted permanently.
       They left the library and went to dinner. After the meal, as the cadets were scattering back to their dorms. Dai and Asteria walked back to Bronze 1 together. Darkness had fallen, and they took one of their usual shortcuts. It led past the reflecting pool.
       Asteria, deep in thought, barely heard Dai talking. "What?"
       "I said, 'What's that humming?'" Dai responded. He was only a dark silhouette, but Aster could see that his head was cocked.
       Asteria stopped in her tracks. She heard it too, a faint buzzing that seemed to come from somewhere overhead. "I don't know—"
       But at that moment, she felt the tingling jolt of energy that her belt gave