We stopped right where the Monocero used to sit, I scanned the forest for the red flag, assuming I was meant to look for it in that direction. But as the scene intertwined with what I experienced before I kept losing myself into my thoughts. Letting my mind float as Marlon moved the machine unexpectedly, woke me up from imagining myself down there.

“Where is the red flag?” He asked in a bitter tone.

I scanned through the treetops. If there was a red flag hidden inside the forest, then a quick color filter should’ve done the job. Yet, I couldn’t find anything. The forest was just that, a forest. No red flags.

“I can’t find it.” I answered.

Marlon hissed. “This is a simple search task. How can you not find it?”

“It’s not in this area.” I scanned the entire forest down to the anthill next to the cross at the entrance. There was no abnormality. “At least not the forest.”

“Did you completely forget how to scan when you went berserk last time?”

I twitched up. I bit my lip, then sighed out a breath. Did he think I was the mind pilot last time? “Have you trained for years to be a mindless heart pilot?” I used to be one for sure. But that didn’t excuse me for lashing out on people for no reason. He had been sassy to me and I had enough. “Do you hate me?”

“Mindless? Get off your high horse, only cause your family has been aces for eternity, doesn’t mean you will be one. You are stuck with me, forever. As a backseat pilot.”

What? How important was that my family had aces as pilots. Did he want to keep me as a pilot? It wouldn’t matter when I wouldn’t find the flag. “Your backseat pilot is a first timer being in the mind seat. You heard the rumors, I trained to be a heart pilot.”

“Rumors also said you stopped being a pilot until yesterday. Did you even want to pilot?”

I could not answer it. My guess was that he’d blow up once I’d give him my honest answer. “I did.” I bit my cheek. Then I continued my search. “Can we move over here?” I sent him the coordinates, approximately half a kilometer away from the designated location of search.

“Five hundred meters off our target object.” He didn’t move. “No.”

“I want to scan the place over there.” I said. “What if it was over there?”

“Are you stupid? The instructor wouldn’t give us a false location.” He had a sour tone in his energetic voice. “They should’ve let us do a mock battle.”

A heart pilot who would not listen to the mind pilot's suggestions was as useless as a holed bottle trying to hold water. And obviously they wouldn’t allow a mock battle with me inside the cockpit. They were not ready for another accident.

“Why do you need to do the test again? Didn’t you fight off several Monoceros alone when you crossed the Atlantic?” He could finish this test by himself, so why would he bother arguing with me?

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I saw him stiffen his shoulders, then proceeded to move to my target location. From how he presented himself to how he spoke to me, it made me think that, for some reason, he had problems with other pilots before. Maybe even aces.

We hovered above the sea with riffs beneath our feet. I repeated my scans, just this time I filtered through the ocean. Fish, starfish and some algae. Nothing, there was nothing. Where would it be?

“No luck?” He asked. “I never heard of a search task as a test. This is my first time hearing of it.”

I knew the reason. And I had no reason to tell him anything more than the rumors already did. Finishing this test as quickly as possible would relieve me of this rude pilot. “You can move back.”

And he moved towards the coast again. But from this position I saw something flash red high up in the sky. Just above the forest. I think it was stuck to a balloon. “Wait.” I targeted the balloon to get a close up shot of it. The balloon looked red but the lower part was blue, as if – “The flag is on the balloon.” I gave him a clear image of it.

Marlon grabbed the rifle and targeted the balloon.

No! There was no way this person was actually this dumb. We were to retrieve the flag in one piece, not shattered pieces of a test object. I removed the target.

“What are you doing?” He screamed. “You really want to fail this stupid ass test. Why would you even be allowed to pilot? You went and destroyed several Terrans and hurt a possible ace pilot and a veteran pilot. One even crippled.”

What did he even know? He heard rumors, that’s it. He didn’t know what happened that day and did he really think I wanted to hurt all those people? Or destroy our weapons which would have ensured the safety of another shipment. I didn’t choose to seek destruction. I started – “You are actually – “ Then I stopped. There was no point in going all out like this idiot. I breathed in and out to calm myself. I wanted to pass this test too. Marlon was not a suitable heart pilot. He fought and complained. Even attacked me there where it hurt. Now I wasn’t surprised why he was stuck with me. No other mind pilot would accept listening to this idiot.

But there had to be another solution, than shooting it down. I checked our fuel tank. The balloon kept gaining altitude and we decreased our tanks by floating above the ocean. I targeted the flag, tracked the altitude and checked our weight. It was too high and we were too heavy. There was no way for us to return to base through flight.

I looked down at him. He watched me.

“What did you do?” He asked.

“Do you want to finish this test?” I replied.

He faced the display before answering. “Why not shoot it down?”

“I think we would fail when we damage the flag.”

“It’s just a flag.” He dismissed the importance of retrieving something undamaged.

I explained. “If we destroy what we are supposed to bring back, does that make us capable pilots or –”

“Fine.” He put the rifle away.

I sent him the coordinates and how much fuel he had to use.

“Everything.” He started moving the Terran at full speed.

The acceleration pushed me into my seat and watched him do the maneuver. Wings spanned, tilted upwards and right before we hit the cliff, he flew high into the sky. One kilometer high. It got harder to breathe by every moment, like someone decided to use your lungs as a trampolin. I clenched my thighs and jaw. The G-force put a heavy toll on us. I opened the status display, showing me that Marlon was in a worse shape than me, but he stayed conscious.

Just as we reached our highest point, I felt light. The same lightness I had felt three years ago when I was in the sky before.

Then Marlon grabbed the red flag, along with the balloon.

And we fell.