Compete (47 page)

In Atlantean language class, I’ve picked up enough basic phrases from our Instructor Chior Kla to at least recognize a few words spoken by the Atlantean officers and crew in the meal halls (and a few cuss words from Anu Vei). But after only a few weeks, I and the rest of my fellow Cadet and Civilian classmates, have a long way to go before we can speak Atlantean well enough to hold a proper conversation.

Meanwhile, I am doing reasonably well in Combat class, taught by Oalla Keigeri. The Twelve Forms of Er-Du are becoming second nature, and I spar well enough to be in the top third of my class.

It’s also interesting to note that whenever I practice my Forms at one of the gyms, I often find Pilot Xelio Vekahat is there too, working out with weights and punching bags, naked to the waist, covered in sweat, and beautiful enough to make me turn away and blush. He glances my way and acknowledges me with a confident smile, which makes me recall the times during Qualification on Earth when I first had to work with him on the Forms. After his workout, he sometimes lingers, watching me move, and I find the almost tangible sensation of his gaze upon me a strangely stimulating thing.

There’s no question that Xelio Vekahat, with his long midnight hair and sensual eyes, is also completely out of my league. But for an awkward nerd like me it’s nice just to be noticed for once. I don’t think it’s anything more than that, but I enjoy the charge of energy I get during these workouts.

Oalla Keigeri is also the Instructor for my Navigation Class. I haven’t mentioned Navigation before, because it’s a very specialized short tech course for members of the Yellow Quadrant only, held just once a week. We get to learn the in-depth function of the Yellow Navigation Grid, and also the role of
sharp
notes in various command sequences.

In a nutshell—sharp notes compensate for the natural
degradation of pitch
that happens over an extended duration of time (a weird form of acoustic entropy at the quantum level). They are used to fine-tune the Grid itself and other instruments that require pitch precision.

During Technology and Systems classes, Instructor Klavit Xotoi takes us on frequent tours of the ship and makes us disassemble things down to their basic components. Some people find it tedious, or icky—as in the case of sewage and recycling systems—but personally I love it. My favorite part still remains the Hydroponics greenhouse deck. Instant peace and Zen-state relaxation.

Overall I find Culture classes with Nilara Gradat to be the most casual and relaxing. After all, Instructor Gradat was the one who first taught us about zero gravity dancing. We learn other basic aspects of everyday Atlantean life—the kind of entertainment they have, and their equivalent of films and television, books, and games. Atlanteans love to tell stories through music, so their equivalent of opera is a very big deal on Poseidon.

Of course, the serious stuff is also interesting. One of the aspects of Atlantean society is the early age at which children begin to study and assume adult responsibilities. “You will find that we have very young people doing work that you might find surprising,” Nilara Gradat tells us. “If you think this Fleet is full of teens, wait till you see our towns and cities and the kinds of business trades that are handled by your peers.”

The bulk of my time outside classes is taken up by work at the CCO. Gennio, Anu, and I have arrived at a basic common routine in our various tasks, and I find I’m comfortable around them. Even Anu is slowly growing on me, even though he’s still a real prick. Meanwhile my chronicle of the journey of Earth refugees to Atlantis is turning into a book filled with fascinating events and descriptions.

Back in my cabin I call up Gracie and Laronda on a regular basis. We gossip, chat, and make things a little easier for each other. “Girl, I still can’t believe about you and Logan!” Laronda tells me every time, mourning my breakup. “How’d you let that boy go? You were so perfect together!”

“Apparently not perfect enough,” I say, and try to change the subject.

I’ve even chatted with Dawn and Hasmik a few times, though my brother Gordie seems to be an elusive fish and almost never calls me back, no matter how many messages I leave. Seems like he’s always doing a shift at his ark-ship’s Hydroponics, and I don’t blame him.

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered that Gracie calls Blayne almost every day, and I don’t know, but is something happening there? Not sure, considering Blayne is about two or three years older than my sis, who’s going to be turning thirteen very soon—her birthday is August 14, which is in the middle of the third Blue month of the arbitrary Atlantean journey calendar. I trust Blayne way more than I do my own sister, so whatever it is, I’m not too alarmed.

A
t the end of three months of Blue, Gracie turns thirteen, and we enter Green, the Atlantean equivalent of spring. During the first week of the first Green month—our fourth month in space—there’s a second Zero-G Dance, this one hosted by the Green Quadrant.

Since officially the CCO has nothing to do with it, and I’m in no mood to dance or remember what happened the last time, I skip the dance entirely.

I hear it goes quite well, with the Resonance Chamber decorated like a stunning green garden filled with flowers, and Pilot Erita Qwas having her Green Quadrant organize a scavenger hunt in the middle of the event.

What’s far more exciting for me is that at the end of that month,
real
Pilot Training begins—we finally get to train on real shuttles outside.

During the second month of Green (our fifth month in space) is our only chance to practice actual live flight runs before our first test—the Semi-Final Quantum Stream Race.

The Race is scheduled for the final week of the second Green month. That’s right before the dangerous third month of Green begins—our sixth month in space, also called Jump month—when the Quantum Stream becomes too deadly and unstable for beginners.

The Race is the day after tomorrow.

It’s what we’ve been training for, our first major Test.

The Quantum Stream Race will determine our Cadet Preliminary Standing in the Fleet.

And for me, it might make a huge difference in
status
.

For the moment, I’m still neither a Cadet nor a Civilian.

But if I succeed in this Cadet event, I might be able to convince Command Pilot Aeson Kassiopei to allow me to proceed with my insane plans regarding the Games of the Atlantis Grail.

The only thing I’ve got to lose is . . .
everything
.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I
wake up on the day before the Quantum Stream Race with the gloomy knowledge that our Pilot Standing Scores will be posted today, which will determine our entry order for tomorrow.

The problem is, Hugo and I are probably in the bottom third of all our classmates. Our last three shuttle runs outside were precarious, terrifying, and at one point I thought we were going to die.

I’m not kidding.

That’s how bad we work together and how poorly both of us seem to perform. . . .

We’ve had a total of five runs outside. That’s how many learning flight opportunities each pair of Cadet Pilots in the Fleet gets—on a tight, carefully coordinated rotation schedule—due to the limited number of actual shuttles and the hundreds of thousands of Cadets. So we had to use our turns carefully.

Our first shuttle run happened two weeks ago. As usual, Hugo was Pilot, handling the Red/Green Grids, and I the Co-Pilot on Blue/Yellow—with Instructor Mithrat Okoi supervising us remotely via audio-link.

We launched, entered the flight lane between ark-ship formations and then flew in a straight line for the entire length of the Fleet in one direction, then returned. It was
terrifying
. Hugo’s hands were shaking during both the launch and braking swipes, and I had to compensate like crazy to keep us straight and on course.

Flying in the same direction as the Fleet is called
streaming
. Flying in the opposite direction, against the Quantum Stream is called
ripping
.

We
streamed
okay, then did the necessary turnabout before reaching the terminal anchor ships in formation which are either ICS-1 in the very front or ICS-4 in the very rear. As we were
ripping
back, and it was time to brake, I signaled the timing on the Yellow Grid, but Hugo ignored me for about three long seconds. So we almost overshot our home ship, and heard the loud angry shouts from Instructor Okoi: “Engage Brake now! Cadet Pilot Moreno, wake up! Use the damn Brake!”

We circled back around ICS-2 and barely made it into our designated shuttle bay.

After we parked and exited the shuttle, with the whole class waiting for us to complete our lousy first turn, we got to see Instructor Okoi’s thundercloud expression and hear his disdainful assessment of our performance.

“Embarrassing first run. You do
not
hesitate, ever,” he told both of us, but was looking mostly at Hugo. “This earns you
one point
out of a possible five. Very poorly done.”

And that was that. Most other people in the class got at least a solid 3, and some, like the Tsai siblings, Alla Vetrova and Conrad Hart, and even Logan and his partner Oliver Parker, got 4s and 5s. Logan gave me a cool stare as he watched us get the crappy low points and the tongue lashing from the Instructor.

The next four runs we did in the following days were slight improvements, but we only earned one 3, which was on the third run, and the rest were 2s. Overall, a pitiful 2-Point Average, which is not something you want.

Well, today we get to see the culmination of our shame. . . .

I
shower and get dressed, skip breakfast, and head directly to the wide corridor junction between the Yellow Quadrant Cadet and Command Decks. On the walls here are several smart boards that are supposed to display the Pilot Pairs and our Standings, starting at 7:30 AM. The same boards are a posted in all the Four Quadrants, all around this hub corridor.

A crowd of teens is gathering very quickly. Girls and boys stare up at the boards periodically, waiting for their numbers to roll around, and discuss nervously and loudly. Most of the Cadets here are from the Yellow Quadrant, although I see a few Blues, Greens and Reds who happen to be in the area of this deck. Apparently the Atlanteans don’t separate our scores by specific classes, and everyone’s Standing numbers are simply listed in order, based on the total number of Cadets on
this
particular ship.

I know the same thing is happening today all across the Fleet, as Cadets get their Pilot Standings. I think of Gracie, and I
know
for a fact her scores are going to be better than ours. Gracie and her Pilot partner got 3s and 4s on their five live runs.
Way to go, sis.

I stand in the crowd, getting elbowed by other teens, looking at the running vertical scroll marquee of alphabetical names followed by the name of their partner, and then the score. Each person’s name gets mentioned twice during the marquee, so that everyone gets alphabetized in turn, with the partner name in parentheses.

An alternate marquee, to the right, lists the Pilot Standing Numbers first, followed by names. Here I see that Pair #1 is Alla Vetrova and Conrad Hart, followed by Erin and Roy Tsai at #2. Why am I not surprised? I also notice that Logan Sangre and Oliver Parker come in at #7.

Meanwhile, Hugo is not here, not on this deck. He is probably checking the smart board over at the Blue Quadrant portion of the corridor.

My name comes up first before his, alphabetically. I squint and see:

Lark, Gwenevere (Moreno, Hugo) – 547

Oh yeah, that’s bad. . . . Considering there are 624 Cadet Pilot Pairs on ICS-2, we are not rock-bottom, but pretty close to it. And I can safely bet we’re among the three lowest scoring pairs in our specific Pilot Training class, which is supposed to be the advanced, higher level class.

I turn around and see Blayne Dubois on his hoverboard, levitating upright a few feet away. His face looks mellow.

“Hey, Dubois!” I say. “What did you and Leon get?”

“Hey, Lark.” He shrugs, craning his neck in his usual gesture to move the longish hair away from his blue eyes. “No idea yet. Waiting to see my name or Leon’s.”

“My score is just awful,” I say.

He nods thoughtfully. “Well, don’t sweat it too much, it’s just a number. Not the End of all Things. That comes tomorrow during the Race.”

“Thanks, very encouraging.” I make a pitiful snort.

“Any time, it’s what I do. Want to grab breakfast?” he says.

“Sure.”

He pauses in that moment to stare at the board. “Ah, there we go—
Madongo, Leon (Dubois, Blayne) – 351
. Okay, I suppose.”

And then we head to the meal hall, where most of us are too nervous to eat.

I
show up at the CCO for work at 8:00 AM, and fidget nervously for the next two hours in anticipation of the next Quantum Stream Race prep-related event on today’s schedule. At least Command Pilot Kassiopei is not in the office this morning to see me be all pitiful and stressed out, but Anu and Gennio give me funny looks.