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Chapter 7: Scars that Never Heal
Sykes sat in the cockpit of the Schneider, although for once he wasn't in combat. He touched the scar on his chin, feeling go across his jaw to his neck.
Memories of the crash filled his mind.
(Flashback)
Sykes punched the new Lightning Saix Tornado into the red line, the four experimental void boosters blasting to full output. The Zoid was suddenly thrown into five hundred miles an hour. Landscape flew bast him, greens, yellow, tan, blue. Then the Zoid tripped. The Lightning Saix was suddenly turned sideways and flipped, sending Sykes flying into his own canopy. The glass cut part of his face open, leaving a bloody trail with bits of glass stuck in there. Sykes was knocked unconscious as the Zoid's boosters exploded.
He woke up a week later with IP drips stuck in his arms, and stitches along his entire jaw. He'd drank his meals through a tube for a month, he couldn't move his mouth without ripping apart the stitches.
One day, Sykes had thrown up, and ripped the stitches open, painfully. The pain was so great he'd gone unconscious.
A month later, he was in rehab, learning to walk again.
"Sykes?"
(End flashback.)
Sykes looked up to see Terry staring into his open cockpit.
Sykes looked back down, refusing to answer her.
"Is something wrong?" Sykes looked back up, and then raised his head so she could see the eight-inch scar that ran from his Adam's apple to his temple.
"This scar, I've had it since three years ago, when I was in the military. It was a testing run. A new Lightning Saix Tornado. I was the guinea pig pilot. Its right fore leg gave out from the friction, snapped in half. The Zoid went into a sideways twist, going five hundred miles rolling sideways. When I stopped I had gone fifteen miles, through about two mountains."
"Ow."
"Yeah. I went through three months in a hospital and rehab. I never piloted a Saix again. One of those old war stories the press doesn't tell you."
"You'll be fine. I think Blaze likes you, he won't let anything happen to you."
