Compete (50 page)

Here, you make a hard left turn into the space between the flagship and the second ark-ship in the middle formation column—taking care not to overshoot the flagship—and cross over to the other flight channel lane, which is the one you use to return, this time
ripping
against the Quantum Stream.

When you reach the anchor ship, ICS-4, which is the last ship in the Fleet, you again make a hard left turn in the space between ICS-4 and the second-to-last ship, and emerge in the original race lane where you started. Now you fly straight again until you reach your home ship and the Finish Line.

Note that if your home ship happens to be in column #1, you begin your race by moving in the “return” lane. You have to first fly
ripping
against the Stream toward ICS-4 in the back, then turn and
stream
toward ICS-1—basically you are still going in the same direction in a circle, but the
order
of which ship you reach first (ICS-1 or ICS-4) is reversed.

Yeah, it sounds complicated, but really it’s simple—you fly to one end of the Fleet, turn around, fly to the other end, and come home to your ship, all while circling the middle formation column #2.

The time it takes you to complete the course, by crossing the Start/Finish Line, is marked as your Race Score. After you cross the Finish Line, you return back into the same shuttle bay, park the shuttle, and surrender it to the next Pilot Pair for their turn in the relay.

The six Pilot Pairs who use the same shuttle also share a common Shuttle Team Score that gets added to the individual Pilot Pair Score. This ensures that every effort is made to work well with the Cadet Pairs going before and after you—so that the shuttle is in good shape for each leg of the Race.

And now, about the scores. . . .

We’ve been told that the
top three
highest scoring Cadet Pairs from each ship will receive distinctions, including Quadrant distinctions. And the top 200 Cadet Pairs overall, will receive First Fleet Honors.

“A
ttention, Cadets!” the booming voice of Instructor Mithrat Okoi echoes from the walls of the shuttle bay around us. I’m guessing he is being transmitted to all the four shuttle bays of Imperial Command Ship Two.

We grow quiet immediately.

“Welcome to your first Quantum Stream Race. Pilot Pairs, line up! On my mark—first Pair, you have control of the shuttle. Go!”

Hugo and I are the third Pair in our line. He looks very pale and withdrawn this morning, like he hadn’t slept properly, and gives me dark frowning stares. I, on the other hand, probably look too wound up, still feeling cocky after the previous night.

We watch tensely as all around us the first two Cadets in every line run for their shuttles and climb inside. Seconds later, the shuttles come alive, move off the platforms and start entering the launch channel, ten seconds apart.

I realize that traffic controllers give them timing instructions from inside the shuttles, but it still looks very random and terrifying. It’s a wonder they don’t collide in the busy launch tunnel.

Once again the terrifying reality of what’s happening slams me with panic.

Breathe, Gwen, breathe
. . . .

I can do this.

Seconds tick, then minutes. We have no idea what is happening outside, out there in the Quantum Stream. . . . All we know is that it takes about 15 minutes to complete the course of this length on the average, and the time to beat is 10 minutes, a record set by some Atlantean Cadet back home.

Fifteen minutes later, the first of the shuttles start returning. The wind churn in the launch tunnel is incredible as the small flyers come bursting in, slow to a stop and park on their platform spots. Pilots emerge in haste, looking dazed and overwhelmed, and signal their replacements to take over the shuttles.

Immediately those in the second batch of Pilot Pairs go running to claim the shuttles.

Another minute, and our shuttle #72 returns.

As soon as the Cadet Pilots immediately ahead of us run to take control of our shuttle, I find myself standing in the very front of our line, with Hugo breathing down my neck.

The Cadets in the first Pilot Pair that has just returned with our shuttle stand looking somewhat bewildered. Then the girl starts yelling at the boy, and he shows a cringe-worthy expression of disgust.

“Hey, so how was it?” Hugo calls out to them.

“It sucked, hard,” the girl says, whirling around. “We nearly lost control. That first hard left turn up in front of the Fleet—watch it! This bozo here almost made us overshoot the flagship and Breach! And oh, the lane itself is so crowded, tons of other shuttles, just horrible!” And she continues giving her partner a hard time.

“Great,” Hugo mutters. And he glares at me.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing. You just keep it cool, okay? We can’t afford to mess up.”

“I know. And—you first,” I say.

A few minutes later it’s our turn.

Shuttle #72 comes in, the Pilot Pair before us climbs out, and hands it over to us.

“Go, go!” Hugo cries to me.

And we race for it.

A
s soon as we’re inside the shuttle, Hugo grabs the Pilot chair and I take the Co-Pilot one next to him. Immediately I buckle in and call up a console panel from the wall, keying it to me, while Hugo is still messing with his harness button, with trembling fingers.

“Move it, Moreno!” I say in a hard voice uncustomary to me. “Or would you like me to take the Pilot chair instead?”

“Shut up!” he growls and gets his harness together, then keys himself to the console.

Both of us swipe the undersides of our respective consoles, making them light up. At the same time the window shields separate automatically, revealing the viewport with the crowded scene of Shuttle Bay One outside.

“Hurry!” I say. “Sing the ignition sequence already!”

Hugo glares at me as he sings the 3-note sequence while holding down the large button with the four-color racing lights—as the Pilot he has to go first—and I as Co-Pilot immediately do the same thing.

The shuttle comes alive with a low harmonic hum. Hair-fine threads of golden light race around the etchings on the hull.

I glance up and see something new—the two panels flanking the viewport on both sides light up in bright red text, in English, and oh crap . . . it’s the
QSBEP-1 Emergency Instructions
list, posted in duplicate, one on each side of the shuttle, like a grim reminder.

Hugo notices it too, because I see him stare momentarily.

Another thing we notice also is the appearance of a large readout in the center above the viewport. This is our Race Clock. It will be digitally displaying our progress in real time.

In that moment the voice of the Atlantean automated air traffic controller sounds from the walls.
“Ten second warning . . . . Shuttle #72, prepare to enter the launch channel.”

Hugo and I go crazy, as we pop up our grids, and Hugo coasts us over to the edge of the platform.

“
. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . You may enter the launch channel.”

Hugo sings the sequence, and then his Red Grid goes 3D.

We are now off the platform and in the channel.

“
Shuttle #72, you may launch now!”

Hugo swipes to engage the Thrust.

We blast off.

The tunnel blurs around us and in seconds we are outside in the muddy grey spacescape. The saucer hull wall of ICS-2 looms behind us.

Meanwhile, the “racing lane” area just ahead is full of speeding shuttles already in the Race. They pass by us like meteors, bullets, or specks of plasma light. . . .

Oh, wow!
How are we ever going to
merge
into that hellish speeding traffic?

“Okay, get in the stack! Now!” I yell, wildly entering corrections on the Blue Grid, because I see it—the stack of shuttles that had emerged just before us from the same shuttle bay, lining up in a vertical array next to our ark-ship.

They are our competition.

And directly ahead of them, the Start/Finish hologram projection stretches out like a virtual suspension bridge—a tightrope made of golden light across the racing lane . . . It continues for five kilometers, ending at the next formation column.

Yeah, did I mention, the racing lane is several kilometers wide?

“I know! I know!” Hugo yells, and positions us into the array, about a hundred feet away from the hologram strip of light.

We come in as the third “pancake” from the bottom. And in seconds another shuttle takes the spot right above us so that we can see its purple plasma underbelly as it moves in . . . then another comes in, until there are seven more shuttles directly overhead.

We wait on the sideline in our stack of ten.

“
Pilots, prepare to enter the Race! Ten second warning. . . .”

Hugo and I flip between grids like crazy. While he preps us for the Thrust on the Red Grid, I flip to Yellow and set Destination to be our own starting position—in other words our own ship, ICS-2. That way the shuttle will know what general course to take as we steer it manually.

“
. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Start!”

In that same moment our Race Clock readout lights up with an initial 00:00, and the milliseconds start flying.

Our shuttle lurches, and we careen like crazy, merging into the racing lane. The shuttles above and below us do the same. We all time our entries so as to avoid hitting each other and all those other racing objects.

Hugo sings in a nervous voice that’s barely on pitch, and then swipes the Thrust.

Holy lord in heaven.

We blast forward like a comet. . . .

The racing lane stretches out before us into infinity. The hologram Start/Finish Lanes projected from every ship in the Fleet form a strange pattern of stripes before us, directly in our way, so that it feels like we are moving through an actual physical tunnel lit intermittently with golden lines. My vision starts to go haywire.

Okay, that was
not
expected.

Hugo bites his lip and swipes right and left constantly to veer us away from the slower shuttles in our way as we catch up with some of them. Meanwhile, other shuttles pass us by, going faster. . . .

I hold my breath and manipulate the Blue Grid wildly, adjusting for Hugo’s wild maneuvers.

Each time we pass an ark-ship, there’s a new stack of ten shuttles—either waiting on the sidelines to enter the racing lane, or in the process of merging in. . . . This complicates things to an insane degree, because now we also have to constantly watch for new merging shuttles in addition to what’s
already
in the lane with us.

At least there’s an equal number of shuttles
exiting
the lane as they cross their own ships’ Finish Lines, so that the overall balance of traffic remains the same.

“Over there! Damn!” Hugo exclaims, as we see what looks like a burning crash explosion up ahead, as two shuttles collide . . . and the flames are immediately extinguished by the space vacuum.

“To the right, up, up!” I scream, working the Blue Grid, while Hugo circle-swipes on Red, and we barely miss running into a pile of debris, then keep going. Other shuttles similarly maneuver around the unexpected, tragic obstacle.

Oh my God. . . . Those poor kids just died in that crash.

But I cannot allow my mind to wander. So I take in a shuddering breath and keep working the Blue Grid, keeping us as straight and even as possible.

A quick glance at the Clock, and the readout says 07:34.

At this point we’re almost at the front of the Fleet formation and the ICS-1 flagship is coming up.

“
Shuttle #72, prepare to turn left ahead. . . . Fleet termination, ten second warning.”

Hugo does not respond—he’s busy swerving around a group of shuttles.

That’s when I realize we’re coming in too fast.

“Start to Brake!” I exclaim. “Brake now!”

“I know! Shut the f— up!”

Hugo flips to Green and swipes down, slowing us barely in the nick of time, because the flagship is right there, and so is the turning channel—that last five kilometer gap between ICS-1 and the ship directly behind it. . . . If we don’t make this turn, we overshoot the flagship and Breach out of the Quantum Steam.

Hugo flips to Red, circle-swipes, and we turn into the space belonging to the middle column #2, and go sideways then spin about slightly—I go crazy on Blue Grid, trying to compensate the wobble—and then we emerge into the opposite direction racing lane.

“Merge! Go!” I scream.

And we do . . . just barely. A whole bunch of other shuttles are also making this hard turn. It’s a zoo!

But at least we’re flying in a straight line once more.

I check the Clock readout and it shows 09:47.