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– Chapter 8 –
The lesson everyone looked forward to was Sledding. The boys because they would get to fly sleds, and most of the girls because their tutor was the dashing Jeremy Cage. The rumours said Cage had retired as a fighter pilot after a brush with the Naga of Pershwin’s human marauders. Now he walked with a limp, which made him all the more dashing in the girl’s eyes.
For the first lesson, they descended to Academy One’s shuttle bay - a promising start. The cavernous bay was deserted, except for a solitary yellow sled in the centre. Mervyn, looked around for any sign of Cage but there was none. Slowly, the class congregated around the sled.
It was a fine piece of machinery: a small darkened cockpit perched on swept back wings and a large engine snuggled into either side of the rear fuselage. This one looked newly painted. The class chatted among themselves. Mervyn ran his fingers lovingly over the uneven hull feeling the raised bumps of the integrity field and magnetosphere distributors – at many times the speed of light, even a grain of sand has enough energy to destroy your craft unless it is magnetically deflected, at those speeds nothing can be allowed to touch the hull.
Suddenly, the sled’s cockpit sprung open.
‘Greetings, to my humble abode!’ Cage shouted from the cockpit, like a demented jack-in-a-box. He grinning a wide boyish grin, as if it were the best joke ever. Climbing out of the sled, he looked every bit as dashing as the girls had hopped. His clingy jumpsuit showed off his slim, wiry, physique to good effect. He jumped nimbly out of the sled and strutted around, like a peacock on heat. He walked with a pronounced limp, though he managed to swagger at the same time.
He’s exaggerating, Mervyn thought, suspecting Cage made the most of his wound to impress the girls. Mervyn decided right there that he didn’t trust Cage at all.
‘This, is a Mark-three formula-two racing sled,’ Cage said, patting the sled. ‘Together, we are going to learn to fly this baby, and survive the experience.’ He swaggered around round again, ‘Take a good look at her. She will be your friend, your enemy, your nemesis, and your lover.’ The girls tittered in embarrassment, and the boys looked anywhere except at a girl. ‘When you leave this Academy, you will know her better than you know yourselves.’ He continued his limping progress, pointing out the main features to the class.
‘Any questions? Yes, Sinita.’
Sinita licked her lips nervously, and the girls around her started to giggle, ‘What happened to your leg, sir?’
‘I don’t see what this has to do with sleds,’ Cage said with a smile, not at all dismayed by the question. Sinita’s chima turned pink. ‘But as you have asked – I had a run in with some human marauders.’ Mervyn had the distinct impression Cage enjoyed talking about himself, especially to the girls – they all leaned towards him as he spoke in hushed tones.
‘Humans are among the Galaxies finest warriors, second only to the Centaph -- maybe even their equals. Give me a squadron of Humans, I say, and I’ll drive the Centaph out of our sector; humans adapt quickly to new situations, they have an insatiable curiosity, are endlessly inventive, and viciously destructive. A combination of traits which makes them unpredictable and dangerous,’ Mervyn felt several eyes come to rest on him. De Monsero glanced away quickly as Mervyn looked up.
‘Just when you think you’ve got their measure, they do something new -- as I found to my cost when I fought against them,’ Cage tapped his leg.’ Beside him Mervyn heard Loren muttering indignantly under her breath, ‘Oh, please.’ He guessed she would not be joining the Jeremy Cage fan club. ‘Of course, no one knows where they come from – slaves originally, but they’re pretty good at escaping. They gravitate towards Ethrigia because of our physical similarities. Probably from some uncharted backwater of the galaxy’s spiral arms I would guess.’ Mervyn had heard this theory many times, though he failed to see its relevance to his life – he belonged wherever his family and friends lived. He was from Starlight, which was all that mattered.
When he had finished showing off, Cage let them all clamber into the cockpit and experience the authenticity of a real sled for themselves. When it was Mervyn’s turn, he climbed eagerly into the cramped sled. This was his dream -- being a sled pilot and winning races.
He lowered himself into the pilot’s seat. From here he could easily reach all the controls on the curved panel in front of him. The main controls looked deceptively simple; two large balls set into the tops of the flight panel, one on either side; slide control pads surrounded the balls; above the control panel stood the different viewscreens; controls for life-support, the shields, and a myriad of other tasks would be above his head when the hatch closed. The navigator’s control panel, behind and to the right of the pilot’s seat, contained duplicate life-support systems.
Mervyn reminded himself the right-hand ball controlled forward and backward pitch, and side to side role. The left-hand one controlled direction; the slide pads controlled thrust, speed, vertical lift, the small positioning jets, and the main engine functions.
He caressed the control panel to get a feel for the craft. Everything fitted exquisitely, he could feel the firm curve of the control balls under the palms of his hands, and his fingers fell easily into place on the touch slides. The controls were exactly the same as his formula-three sled, comforting and familiar, Mervyn began to feel at home. For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to believe that his dream of becoming a champion sledger might become reality.
He remembered the first time he sat in his old, smashed up, formula three sled, wondering if it would ever fly. He had purchased it for virtually nothing from a scrap yard where it has lain undiscovered for years. With the help of Loren and her Uncle Tom, they had stripped it down to its chasse and begun the arduous task of rebuilding every single part.
What had started out as a hobby turned into an obsession. For two years they spend every spare moment, and every penny they could earn rebuilding and renewing the sled. The experience meant he knew the sled intimately, and he knew just how to set it up to gain the maximum from any course.
Getting the sled tested and certificated as space-worthy was by far the most expensive part of the project. Loren’s interest didn’t extend much beyond getting the sled certificated and selling it on to repay the loans. She grudgingly allowed Mervyn to fly it, ‘Just the once.’
The first time he felt the acceleration from the sled’s refurbished engines, Mervyn acquired a new obsession: racing. Hammering out an agreement took a while, and not without a lot of adult intervention from Uncle Tom. Eventually, they agreed a fifty-fifty split on prize money and the sled to be sold if Mervyn won no raced in the first half year.
Two years and plenty of prizes later they were still racing. It wouldn’t have mattered if they never won anything: with Loren as mechanic and Mervyn as lead pilot, it only took two races for the pair to be smitten on the whole race scene. Somehow, they never seemed to make a profit, all the prize money went straight back into preparations for the next race or the next season.
Despite his faithful sled being his ticket to the Space Academy, and a career boost he once could only have imagined in his wildest dreams, he still missed it. This Academy owned Formula two sled would never replace his dear old Marmaduke.
Tarun’s friend ,Jenny, poking her head through the open hatch, ‘Hurry up Mervyn. Stop daydreaming, it’s my turn next!’
Mervyn jumped, jolted out of his daydream, ‘Sorry, just seeing how it feels,’ he said, scrambling up and surrendering the cramped pilot’s seat to Jenny. To Mervyn’s annoyance Cage grinned impishly at him, as if he could read Mervyn’s mind.
Finally, Cage announced that until everyone attained a basic flight grade they would spend half their time on theory and the other half on flight simulators. Mervyn, felt bitterly disappointed. Somehow, he had expected to start flying sleds immediately, but it kind of made sense to l
earn the theory first. He cheered up when Cage announced he expected everyone to pass their basic grade by next semester.
Cage led them away to the sled simulators. Mervyn wasn’t the only one who looked wistfully back at the sled. He caught both De Monsero and Aurora taking final peaks at the graceful flying machine as the lift doors closed on the shuttle bay.
The simulators, suspended in gyroscopes, looked like a row of fairground rides, but inside they perfectly mirrored a Mark III formula-two sled – cramped and hot and sweaty. Cage sat in an airy control booth at the end of the row. He talked them meticulously through the instruments. As a treat, he announced, he would talk them through a launch. Mervyn and Loren tossed an academy badge to see who would go first. The badge spun slowly in the air, then landed face down: Mervyn’s turn first.