Children of Steel Read Free Page B

helmet
could be used on my vacuum suit in place of the standard unit. A
flight helmet was considerably more expensive then the standard
helmet as it was extremely lightweight, and had a special visor on
which the aircraft could display information. It and the rest of
the gear also cost another ten thousand credits. I had to admit the
rate I was spending money was making me a little worried, it was
still only my first day.
    Twenty minutes later I was suited up and
ready to go. I met the Chief by his office door. In flight gear he
looked even bigger, if such a thing could be possible.
    "Well Raj, Let's go."
    "Okay chief."
    "First rule, there is no rank among flight
crew once the mission starts, and it starts as soon as you leave
the equipment room. Call me Ron."
    "Sure thing Ron, which one are we
taking?"
    "Number 5 just finished a thousand hour
overhaul and needs a check flight. This way I kill two birds with
one stone."
    "Which profile do you want to fly? The full
one or the 50,000 feet and below?"
    "We'll do the full one; I want to see a full
assault re-entry with a practice drop run done over the south end
of the field. Use the practice LZ over there."
    "Okay Ron you got it."
    At that point we came up to shuttle five. It
looked pretty clean and was obviously well taken care of. Ron stood
back while I did the walk around. My first clue that this wasn't
training anymore and that I was finally in the 'real' world was
that he didn't follow me around, and there was nothing 'wrong' to
be found. I got out the logbook and looked at the entries to make
sure the shuttle was signed off and what all the previous problems
were. I made a mental note that everything was supposed to be
fixed, but that the main Gyro had a tendency to experience phase
lockup during small attitude adjustments and that it hadn't been
replaced, just reset.
    "Okay Ron, I'm satisfied, want to look?"
    "Hell no, who do you think signed it off this
morning? I know what's in there. Let's light the fire and go."
    I took the pilot seat and Ron took the
Weapons Officer's position behind me. I ran through the pre-flight
checklist, the pre engine start, and finally the engine start. It
took me about thirty seconds, practice makes perfect.
     
    Engine start when without a hitch, and as I
taxied carefully out onto the tarmac I felt a little nervous, while
this wasn’t a test like I’d gone through in training, it was still
a test of sorts. It was also my first non-training flight ever.
    I called the tower for clearance and started
us down the runway for take off.
    “Ring it out a little why don’t you Raj?” Ron
said from the back seat.
    “Sure thing Ron!” I replied and moved the
throttles to full after burner, enjoying the way the shuttle jumped
into the air. It wasn’t long until we had passed fifty thousand
feet. Assault shuttles were fuel hogs, but they moved incredibly
fast for their size.
    I leveled us off at eighty thousand and we
ran a few speed runs and a few other tests that Ron wanted run to
check the overhaul, then he told me to head for space.
    I again got clearance, then started the
ascent part of the profile, starting the rockets as the turbo
ramjets started to die in the thin atmosphere of near space,
shutting them down and sealing them off.
    I set up orbit when we reached a hundred
miles, and we killed some time as Ron quizzed me on all sorts of
emergencies and emergency procedures. Surprisingly all of them had
to do with combat damage for some reason.
    Then it was time to fire the rockets and head
back to the field on an assault approach. These could be pretty
tough to fly, and were hard on the pilot. You normally came down
hot and fast and to an extremely low altitude for the speeds you
were traveling at. He didn’t say much of anything during it until
after I’d made my first landing and takeoff, then simply told me to
knock it off and head back to the ship.
    As we climbed out of the cockpit I was pretty
nervous. It had been a lot less grueling