The Forever Hero by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

a moment, Gerswin snapped his head to retract the helmet’s impact visor, and with his left hand wiped the sweat away from his eyes, and off his forehead.
    That done, he snapped the clear impact visor back in place.
    â€œShould have opted for arcdozers,” he muttered.
    â€œWhere would the glory be, Lieutenant?”
    â€œThanks, York. Thanks, loads.”
    â€œGrit level at ten percent and stable. Permanent power loss at ten percent.”
    Gerswin frowned. The fans in both thrusters would have to be repolished and retuned. Either that, or replaced with another set, if there was one to be had.
    â€œPrime outrider. Less than one minute to sheer impact.”
    The pilot’s eyes flickered from the thrust indicators to the balance lines, to the speed readouts, to the radalt, and down to the VSI, which still indicated a constant rate of climb.
    He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and squared himself in the padded shell seat.
    â€œStand by for impact.”
    Even as he glanced through the armaglass of the canopy at the indistinctness of the western hills, blurred as they were from the clouds and the fog, the flitter lurched, throwing him against the broad harness straps.
    Not only his stomach, but the instrument balance lines showed the flitter nearly ninety degrees nose down. The VSI pegged momentarily, then dropped back to a descent rate of two hundred fifty meters per second.
    Gerswin twisted the thruster throttles around the detente into overload while bringing the stick back into his lap.
    â€œGround impact in fifteen seconds!” screeched the console.
    A thousand kilos piled onto Gerswin’s muscles and slender frame, and his vision blurred around the edges.
    â€œGround impact in thirty seconds!” screeched the console mindlessly.
    Whhheeeeeeee!
    â€œPrime outrider. Interrogative status. Interrogative status!”
    â€œStuff your status,” he grunted without keying his transmitter. Instead, he eased the stick forward and to the left to bring the flitter level and back on course for Prime Base. Next came the down-throttling of the thrusters.
    â€œPrime outrider. Interrogative status. Interrogative status.”
    Gerswin sighed.
    â€œStatus summary. Flying strike. Flying strike. Fusilage over-stressed. Fans set for repolishing. Assorted external damage. Flitter down. I say again. Flitter down.”
    â€œInterrogative ETA.”
    â€œEstimate arrival in fifteen plus.”
    â€œUnderstand fifteen plus. Interrogative special procedures.”
    â€œPrime Base, that is negative this time.”
    Gerswin sighed again and checked the homer. Forty kays to go, and the screens showed clear skies between him and the foothills base.
    Clear skies between him and base, but not overhead, where the high clouds still brooded. Clear sky, except for the ground fog.
    He readjusted the thrusters and returned to his normal scanning pattern.
    Another few minutes and he would begin the landing check list.

XX
    Gerswin took another step toward the Maze.
    Did he want to go through the twisting and turning tunnels, where anything might wait in the upper reaches? Or where rats thesize of Imperial cats lurked in the darkness for their next chance at dinner?
    He laughed. There was no reason to face the Maze, not while wearing an Imperial uniform and stunner, but the old instincts died hard.
    Overhead, the clouds rolled eastward in banks of darkened gray, but the air was dry and cold.
    He circled more to the north, along the outcroppings that felt like rock, but were, instead, massed metal and bricks and compressed purple-red clay. Between the upthrust chunks grew an occasional patch of the purple grass or a small grubush, with its thin branches and straggly leaves.
    Eventually he had worked his way north and west far enough to get around the pile of rubble from which the Maze rose southward and stood in the cleared area beneath the northern wall of the shambletown. He stood looking southward and