Chapter 2098: The Duel

Over the following weeks, Ning trained with the pilots almost every day.

Dorn started him in the Rank 1 Mecha and moved him into larger machines as soon as he proved he could handle each one.

Within the first week, he was flying Rank 2 models, and by the end of the third, he was being cleared to train in the Rank 3 machines the pilots used for their own exercises.

Each step up brought a heavier, more powerful machine, with more complex controls and greater demands on the pilot, and each one was a new pleasure to learn.

The training was relentless.

There were formation drills, in which Ning flew alongside groups of pilots in tight patterns around the hub, holding his position to within meters while the formations shifted and turned around him.

There were live-fire exercises at ranges set up in the empty space beyond the hub, where pilots fired real weapons at drifting targets and practiced engaging moving objects in open space.

And there were mock engagements, in which pilots flew against one another in simulated combat, their weapons set to harmless training levels, scoring hits against each other’s machines.

Ning held back, as he always did.

He made small mistakes in formation, drifting slightly out of position before correcting himself. He missed a few targets on the firing range, and he lost several of his mock engagements, allowing veteran pilots to catch him in positions he could easily have avoided.

But even holding back, he was good.

His formation flying was steadier than that of some pilots who had been doing it for years. His shooting was precise, and his reactions in mock engagements were fast enough that even the pilots who beat him often had to work hard to do it.

Little by little, the skepticism that had greeted him on his first day began to fade.

The pilots who had laughed at him stopped laughing. The ones who had complained about babysitting stopped complaining. The broad-shouldered pilot who had muttered about holding a cadet’s hand flew alongside Ning during a live-fire exercise, and afterward, he clapped Ning on the shoulder and told him he had a good eye.

Dorn did not soften at all.

He was hard on Ning from the very first day, and he remained hard on him every day after that. He criticized every small mistake Ning made, every drift out of formation, and every missed shot.

He made Ning repeat drills until they were perfect, then made him repeat them again. When Ning lost a mock engagement, Dorn made him fly the same engagement over and over until he understood exactly where he had gone wrong.

Ning did not mind. He found Dorn’s gruffness oddly refreshing.

Then, near the end of the fourth week, Dorn ordered Ning into a mock duel against himself.

The other pilots gathered to watch. Dorn was one of the best pilots on the hub, and everyone knew it. He had more combat experience than almost anyone stationed there, and in mock engagements, he almost never lost.

Several of the pilots exchanged glances as Ning and Dorn launched their Rank 3 Mechas out into the empty space beyond the hub, and Ning heard one of them quietly placing a bet on how long the cadet would last.

The duel began.

Dorn came at him immediately, fast and aggressive, closing the distance and firing a series of precise shots that forced Ning to roll away.

Ning dodged and fired back, and for several minutes, the two machines circled one another in the darkness, exchanging fire and testing each other’s defenses.

Dorn was very good. Ning could see why the others respected him so much.

But Dorn had a habit.

Ning noticed it after the third exchange. Whenever Dorn pressed an attack, he always rolled to the left to evade a counterattack, never to the right. It was a small habit, probably one he had developed over decades of flying, and it had likely saved his life more times than he could count. Most opponents would never have noticed it.

Ning noticed it.

He waited for Dorn’s next attack, then fired his counter not at Dorn’s current position, but at the space to the left where Dorn would roll a moment later.

Dorn rolled straight into it.

The training shot struck the side of his Mecha, and a hit registered on both their displays.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Dorn’s voice came through the channel, flat and expressionless. "Again."

They flew again, and this time, Dorn did not roll to the left. He changed his patterns entirely, flying with a caution and unpredictability he had not shown before, and the second duel lasted far longer than the first.

Ning let him win that one.

But he had already made his point, and both of them knew it.

When they returned to the hangar, the pilots who had been watching were staring at Ning with expressions he had not seen on their faces before. The one who had placed the bet looked faintly ill.

Dorn climbed down from his cockpit and walked toward Ning. He stopped in front of him, his scarred face unreadable, and for a long moment, he said nothing at all.

Then he gave a single, short nod.

It was grudging, barely more than a dip of his chin, but it was there, and every pilot in the hangar saw it.

After that, things changed.

The pilots stopped calling him "the cadet."

They started using his name instead, calling him Ning when they spoke to him in the corridors, inviting him to sit with them during meals, and asking his opinion during briefings.

The broad-shouldered pilot began saving him a seat in the mess hall, and the tall woman who had said he looked like a first-year began asking him to fly as her wingman during formation drills.

At the end of his sixth week on the hub, Dorn called him into the briefing room.

The other pilots were already there, and when Ning entered, Dorn handed him a tablet.

"Command reviewed your performance," Dorn said gruffly. "And mine. They asked for my recommendation."

Ning looked down at the tablet. It was a formal notice, bearing the same seal as the orders that had brought him to the hub.

He had been formally accepted into the training program as a pilot candidate.

Ning looked up at Dorn.

Dorn’s expression did not change. "Don’t let it go to your head, cadet."

Then, for the first time since Ning had arrived, he almost smiled.

"Ning," he corrected himself. "Don’t let it go to your head, Ning."