No Quarter Given (SSE 667) by Lindsay McKenna Page A

the stick so hard her fingers were aching. Fifty feet from the runaway, she felt Griff jerk the stick violently.
    "Ease up, Coulter! Stop strangling the stick. Use two fingers to land this thing!"
    Two fingers? Dana panicked, momentarily losing track of her altitude. The runway rushed up at her. The stall buzzer rang harshly in her ear. The nose was too high!
    Griff cursed richly, rescuing Dana from another lousy landing. Again, he'd gotten them down in one piece. Once they'd landed, he ordered Dana to try it again. No sooner had she gotten the trainer airborne than she got sick a third time.
    "That's it," he growled at her. "Land this thing! You're no good to yourself or me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to die in this cockpit because you can't concentrate on your flying. Get us down, Coulter."
    "No!" Dana gulped back the bitterness in her mouth. "I can do it! Let me have one more chance!"
    "No way. Land this thing. Now!"
    Dana hadn't meant for emotion to enter her voice, but it did. "Griff, give me one more chance! Just one! I know I can do it. Please..."
    Her plea tore at him. Sitting in the rear seat, he glared at her helmeted head through the cockpit plexiglass. "You're weak, Coulter. You don't have what it takes."
    "I do, too! Let me prove it to you. I promise I won't get sick again. Just let me try one more landing. If I do it right, will you let me have another hour in the air?"
    Griff wanted to say no, but another part of him admired her courage. "You get sick one more time, and I'm grounding you, Coulter," he warned gruffly.
    "Okay," Dana agreed. "But let me land and prove I can doit!"
    "Doit."
    "Yes, sir!"
    For the next hour, Dana forced herself to concentrate as never before. Her flight suit was wringing wet with sweat at the end of that time. After the last landing, she sat in the cockpit, so weak she couldn't move. All her emotions, her feelings, had been extruded and used up in forcing her body not to react to her airsickness. She threw up one last time taxiing back to the ramp, but Griff said nothing as long as she continued to steer the plane back to its slot without incident.
    Griff climbed out first, moving around to the nose of the trainer, finishing out his report and grade on her. When Dana didn't move, he scowled and came around to the port side of the trainer.
    "Coulter?"
    "I'm coming." Dana willed herself to move. Feeling incredibly weak, she was afraid she'd collapse. Grasping the windshield and side of the cockpit, she forced herself to stand. Her knees were shaking so badly she wanted to sit back down again, but Griff's glare made her decide otherwise. As she stepped onto the wing, Dana was afraid to see the grade he'd given her. Wiping her hands on the damp thighs of her flight suit, she forced herself to take off the helmet. Her hair was wet, plastered against her skull beneath the cotton helmet liner.
    Griff came forward, thrusting the board toward her. She took it with a trembling hand.
    "You can't take this, Coulter."
    Dana's entire focus moved to the grading box. A 2.0! At least he hadn't failed her. Not yet. The last three landings had been decent, but not great. Those he'd graded as 2.1s. All the others were 1.9s. The average came out to a barely passing grade. Swallowing back the sudden tears of relief, Dana searched numbly for the pen in the pocket of her left sleeve.
    "Here," Griff growled impatiently. "Sign the damn thing. I'm in a hurry. I've got things to do."
    Stung, Dana took his pen, her name illegible because of her shaking hand.
    Taking back the board, Griff pinned her with a dark look. "Admit it. You can't make the grade, Coulter."
    Her nostrils flaring, Dana held his gray gaze. "I'll make it." The words were bitten off and flung back at him.
    "I'm not putting up with another two hours of airsickness from you."
    "I'll make sure I don't get sick."
    "You don't get it, do you?" he rasped. She looked frail and pale, standing there, the suit clinging to her tense form. "Students