Chapter 0181
Shihua, overhearing their conversation, let out a disdainful chuckle.
Leck, ever perceptive, glanced back at her. Though Shihua had a bit of fame abroad, she wasn’t a household name.
At least, not to someone like Leck, a leading figure in National Airlines, who hadn’t heard of her.
“Lady, I fail to see what’s amusing,” he said.
Shihua was of course aware of Leck. Initially curious about his prowess, her opinion plummeted when she heard that he had been bested by Madison in a solo performance at an international civilian flight show.
“It’s nothing,” Shihua retorted with an offhand dismissiveness that didn’t escape Leck’s notice.
However, with the assessment at hand, he chose not to dwell on the
slight.
The assessment began.
Madison’s assigned plane was not far from Charlie’s, with the three aircraft adjacent, Charlie sandwiched in the middle.
She wasn’t overly concerned; in full view of everyone, Charlie surely wouldn’t sabotage her own flight.
Then…
Madison cast a glance at the pilot to her left.
This person wasn’t next to her during yesterday’s assessment. A
random switch by the organizers?
Madison stayed vigilant throughout.
Coincidentally, the plane she was assigned to faced directly across from Leck’s.
Leck waved to her from a distance, signaling a friendly gesture.
Madison waved back in kind.
Once aboard, an official co-pilot handed each competitor special glasses.
Through them, Madison and the others saw the virtual markers, displaying longitude and latitude, cardinal directions, but no actual proportional distances.
They had a minute and a half to memorize the markers. When the time was up and the glasses were removed, they had to navigate their planes around the marker they’d seen, in the actual space in front of
them.
Calculating the correct proportionate size and circling around without touching the marker was deemed a pass.
It was a task of considerable difficulty.
Madison took a deep breath and, upon the start signal, pushed the throttle, guiding her plane to move smoothly along the ground.
With everyone’s markers differing, Madison’s was to the left, while Charlie had to reverse.
It was a scene of chaos, as a hundred planes spun in place like headless flies.
Madison’s focus was mostly on locating her marker, though she kept a watchful eye on the plane to her left, suspicious it might be one of
Shihua’s pawns.
At first, the pilot seemed earnestly engaged in the assessment, prompting Madison to gradually lower her guard.
She piloted her plane around her marked point, earning a silent nod of approval from the co-pilot, who seemed impressed.
The pilot before her hadn’t just failed to pinpoint the marker; they had crushed half their plane onto the wrong spot, scoring zero.
Scores from each task were fed directly into the system, awaiting the final assessment to declare the rankings instantly.
As Madison circled, she caught something in her peripheral vision that made her instinctively veer left to avoid a collision with the adjacent plane.
But if she moved even slightly, she’d touch the marker and score zero.
“What?!” exclaimed the co-pilot, witnessing the impending conflict.
But the pilot in the other plane was oblivious, stubbornly swinging their tail toward Madison’s aircraft.
She had to choose: dodge and score zero, or stay put and risk a collision, leading to the other pilot’s disqualification.
As she hesitated, the other plane’s tail was nearly upon her.
With a “click,” the co-pilot’s eyes widened, speaking rapidly in English,” Move and you’ll touch the marker, scoring zero!”
Madison backed away, allowing her left wing to pass over the marker.
She spoke evenly, “An assessment can be retaken. But an aircraft is national property, safeguarded by whichever country sponsors it, ensuring the safety of countless lives. For that, I am willing to stand guard.”
Her words stirred the burly co-pilot, almost moving him to tears.
3.5
The pilot on her left, seeing Madison’s retreat, broke into laughter.
His smile, along with his actions, was captured in full by the aerial
cameras.
At the seats beneath the large screen, a stir erupted among the
onlookers.
They noticed two planes had ground to a halt, and one pilot disembarked, signaling to international judges for a pause in the assessment.
It was Leck.
This unexpected halt led to an announcement across all the headset radios: “Assessment paused.”
The hundred planes stilled, and pilots disembarked.
As judges approached to understand the situation, Leck charged across the field and landed a punch on the face of a fellow pilot!
Nearby pilots and judges from the same country rushed over to break up the fight.
The main judge demanded to know what had happened.
Madison remained silent, her expression icy as she indifferently watched the male pilot get hit.
Though she didn’t understand why Leck had suddenly halted the
assessment.
Leck, pulled away, pointed at the assaulted pilot, furiously shouting, ” Assessment rankings are based on skill! Sabotaging another’s assessment – is that how our national instructors taught you? You’ve disgraced our country’s pilots!”
His words, in clear English, reached all the pilots, casting a certain
look upon the punched pilot.
Leck addressed the chief judge, “I saw everything from my angle. He intentionally forced the adjacent plane to evade! Furthermore, his tail exceeded the field boundary, a violation. Why didn’t the judges stop him?”
Leck detested assessments and competitions marred by corrupt judging.
In personal competitions, scheming might be the norm, but here it was a matter of assessing individual ability.
Leck found such conduct shameful!
Madison’s co-pilot stepped forward to negotiate, “As an assessment official, I witnessed the entire scene. The other pilot deliberately forced evasion, causing my pilot to touch the marker. And then I saw his triumphant, malicious grin!”
With even the international co-pilot corroborating, the male pilot faced many scornful glances.
He could only stammer a defense, “I was avoiding my marker sol chose a wider circle. There’s nothing wrong with that!”
“But after exceeding the line with your tail, your co-pilot and the fi judges should’ve stopped you from moving further. It could affect the pilots around you!”
Leck pointed at him, “You’re unworthy of being my colleague!”
In that moment, the male pilot looked desperately towards Charlie, amid the crowd with a grim expression, hoping for support.
But when Charlie noticed him looking her way, she vanished into the throng, showing no intention of intervening.
