The Blood Racer (The Blood Racer Trilogy Book 1) (35 page)

              “Yes,” I replied. I would have rather spent the night alone, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She had done a lot for me over the last day. Besides, it would be good to have a distraction for a while, even though I knew I would do very little sleeping.
              I ended up being right. She went to retrieve a few blankets and pillows for us, which were surprisingly comfortable, and we made a sort of nest in the hold of my ship. The blankets were plush and warm, and I guessed that she had probably made them herself. I was a little jealous of her talent. I was a good pilot, but that was more of a work skill. I wished that I had something I was talented at. Darby could make things. Killian had been able to play music, even write his own songs, and that was a wonderful thing. Now he would never play another note again. I was glad that I had at least heard him play a few times. Maybe I could take up an instrument. Maybe the ocarina, in his memory.
              Behind my head, because that’s how we were situated, Darby eventually began drawing in deep, slow breaths. She had fallen asleep relatively easy, despite having lost a close friend earlier. I had a feeling she was waiting to be alone to do her grieving, which meant that she was holding it in, trying to keep things normal, for my sake. I sighed. I knew the strength it took to do that. I lived it every day with my brother and sister, trying to pretend that things were okay when it was all we could do to keep our heads above water.
              Zanna was growing wiser to it, though. She was at an age where she was starting to do it too, and I began to wonder just what kinds of things she kept from me, thinking that she was protecting me. In my mind, I replayed the argument we’d had about our mother’s garden, how she had hesitated to tell me that it was failing, how she only said something because I had made her angry. I knew it was about time for me to start talking to her like an equal rather than a child. I kept telling myself that putting it off was for her benefit, that she was better off being oblivious to things. But in reality, she was not oblivious. She was smarter than I gave her credit for, and it was my own trepidation and insecurity that kept me from reaching out to her.
            I made a vow then, to myself, to bridge the gulf that had formed between us. It had been me that had allowed it to grow, so it needed to be me that closed it.
              I just wish I knew how.
              With a deep sigh, I rolled over onto my side and let my mind wander back to Rigel. It always seemed to end up there. I toyed with the fabric beneath me and remembered the times that he had I would make little forts in our houses, made out of tattered blankets and sheets, and huddle within them like the rest of the world couldn’t get to us. Our parents would always play along, walking by and saying things like, “Where are Elana and Rigel? They were just here.”
              I smiled at the memory. That was only ten years ago, more or less…but it suddenly seemed like a thousand. I felt like everything I had ever known was on another planet, and I was alone, drifting among the lonely stars and singing my woes to them. A few days ago, no one had wanted to kill me. Now, I couldn’t say the same. People were planting bombs on my ship in an effort to blow me out of the sky. I couldn’t help but blame myself. What kind of pilot doesn’t notice a foreign container on her own vessel? Especially one the size of a small suitcase. I even looked over the
Kicker
when Beatrice had left me in it the previous night, and I hadn’t noticed it then. It was a total oversight on my part. If only I had made sure…
              I felt a jab somewhere in my memory, a voice telling me to make sure of something.
Just make sure that…the only things on your ship are things that can help you. Anything else will kill you.
             
Those were the words that Grace Buchannon uttered to me on the docks of Shiloh. I had to practically catch my breath as the realization hit me. She had been trying to warn me. She knew that there was a bomb on my ship, and she had tried to tell me. And later, when Killian’s had gone off, she’d had perfect opportunities to shoot the rest of us, especially Rigel, who had waited so long to finally begin evading. She must have been missing on purpose. And the storm…it was perfect cover. It would have been a perfect excuse as to why we were able to get away. I had thought she was just a bad shot. But in reality, she had taken great measure to avoid killing us.
              I was more awake and alert than I had been in days. The tumblers were finally falling into place. Grace was not an enemy like I had thought. She was a victim. She had been under orders from Beatrice. Being the daughter of an Archon had its perks, truly. But in this case it had been a detriment for her. I don’t know what Beatrice had threatened her with, but whatever it was, it had to have been terrible. She had forced Grace to install the gun on the
Amber Sphinx
. Of course. That’s why she was so late to Gideon Chambers’ speech! She had been installing an anti-air cannon on her ship. Those were the ‘repairs’ she had been making!
              I thought about waking Darby, to tell her the revelation I had just made, but I decided to keep it to myself for now. She’d had a rough day, and I wanted to let her sleep.  I could tell her in the morning, and I needed to try and get some sleep, too. If the captain was right, the racers would be occupied most of the night with a challenge, which would hopefully mean that Darby and I could start off again and still be relatively close to where we were in the pack.
              This brought up another concern. I knew that the captain was basically Darby’s father, but he was still doing us a huge favor. He was moving an entire city of people so that we wouldn’t have to drop out of the race. Something told me that he wasn’t the kind of man to do such a thing out of the goodness of his heart. He had another motive, and I had a feeling it involved me. Why else would he invite me onto the bridge, into his central command, just to speak with him? He had been gauging me for something. Looking back, it was clear. He’d been trying to get a read on me for some reason. He was doing a favor for me, but I knew that it was because he wanted something in exchange.
              I tried to run through the possibilities, to mentally list what things he might ask of me, but other than possibly wanting a share of the prize money, I came up with nothing. It was a mystery, and I didn’t like that.
              If only Rigel was here, I could just talk to him, and he’d be able to say something to ease my mind. He had a knack for that, an ability to get to the root of my troubles and find the right words to comfort me. It had been him, after my mother had died, that kept me from slipping away. He had been there to keep my head above the dark pool of grief, and to give me the strength to continue on. Then, when his own mother had passed from pneumonia, I had done the same for him. We knew how to heal one another. Though I had seen him just that morning, I found myself missing him terribly.
              Even so, with my mind focusing on something other than the race, I was eventually able to drift off to a restless sleep.

              I don’t know how long I was out, but the sound of my hatch door squealing open was enough to startle me into consciousness. I scrambled up onto my knees and fumbled for my pistol, which had fallen out of the holster sometime in the night.
              “Easy!” Moore said, sticking his head through the hatch. His dark skin seemed almost golden in the dim light. “Captain wants to see you. He says your friend is in trouble.”
              Still blinking sleep out of my eyes, I looked over at Darby, who had been awakened with me. We exchanged no words, but immediately clawed our way out of the hold. Darby paused to gather the blankets and pillows from the
Kicker’s
hold.
              “Go with Moore! I’ll be right behind you!” she shouted.
              Moore was already dashing up a nearby set of winding stairs, and I clumsily bounded up after him, trying to regain my motor functions. He said nothing else to me, but simply led me on the same path Darby had before. At least, I assumed it to be the same path. Things looked familiar, but we were traveling at three times the speed, so I could have been wrong. Either way, we ended up at the guarded door to the captain’s bridge. Gerard was there, yawning as though he had also just gotten out of bed. He gave us a thoughtful look, but opened the door without protest. He must have known we were coming. I hadn’t brought my pistol, so he had no problem letting us breeze right by.
            Once past, Moore stopped just inside and I burst into the room, not knowing just what to expect. Immediately, I noticed that all the technical staff from the day before were gone. It was only Bragginton, hunched over the transponder table just as he had been yesterday. The light from the table cast shadows across the lines of his face. It made him look much older, wearier, and I wondered if he had been awake all night.
              “Who’s in trouble?” I asked urgently, breathing heavily from the run. “Is it Rigel?”
              The man looked up at me solemnly, and gave a slow nod.
              My heart dropped. “What…what happened?”
              Bragginton let out a breath, staring down at the table. “About fifteen minutes ago, the racers left the mountaintop where they had spent the night. The
Mistress
was in the lead, and the
Alpha Red
came right up on her tail to pass…”
              The muscles in my throat were tighter than braided steel. I blinked, wide-eyes at the captain. “And then?” I whispered.
              “And then we lost his signal,” Bragginton said gravely.
              The door to the bridge opened again, and Darby stumbled through, carrying a large flask of water. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
              I ignored her, taking a step closer to the captain. “What- what does that mean? You lost his signal?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
              Behind me, Darby made a small whimper.
              “His transponder is off,” Bragginton said. “As he was coming up on another ship, I can only think that he was brought down.”
              I leaped for the table, staring down at it as though it would suddenly reveal some clear truth. “Where!?” I asked, my voice rising with agitation.
              Bragginton tapped the screen and swiped his fingers, finding the location on the map which was now blank. A few clicks ahead, of the blank space, I could see the signal of the
Mistress
motoring on alone.
              “Exactly where?” I asked, now knowing what I had to do.
              The captain tapped the screen and held his finger on it until a set of coordinates popped up in a box of text. Knowing what I wanted, he jotted them down on a piece of scrap parchment and handed it to me.
              “And we are…?”
              Without a word, he swiped his hand and moved the map a bit to the south. There was nothing there, but I knew that was because Ravencog gave no signal. I stared at the second set of coordinates and placed my hand on the screen, using my fingers to judge the distances. My heart was racing, but I tried to remain calm. If I miscalculated the heading, I would end up in the wrong place.
              “Elana, if he went beneath the Veil…”
              “Don’t,” I said, cutting across Darby as she spoke. I wasn’t about to let her plant that idea in my head. Rigel was not gone. There was no way. I would not accept it.
              It took me only a few more moments to gather my heading, and I turned from the table toward the door.
              “Miss Silver,” Bragginton called after me.
              I stopped and turned to him.
              “I must implore you,” he said sternly. “Do not activate your transponder until you are at least a league from here.”
              I nodded. It was a simple request. “Roger. Wilco.”
              I headed for the door again, only to hear his voice call out once more. “We’ll meet again soon, Miss Silver.”
              His cryptic message put a stutter in my step, but I shook it off and bolted from the bridge with Darby right behind me. She offered no more protest, of which I was glad. I didn’t care if she went ahead and won the race, I had to get to Rigel. His ship was probably damaged, and he needed help. Yes, that’s all it was. Just some damage.
              It turned out that I needed no help to get back to the hangar. It was probably because I had just come up from it, but I was able to find my way back with no trouble. Even Darby’s muttered instructions of, “Left…down…straight…” were unnecessary as I ran. In just a moment, I was practically tumbling down a set of stairs into the hangar.
Darby was right on my heels. I assumed she’d be hopping into the
Foxfire
to go with me, but instead she followed me right to my hatch. When I opened it, I turned around to face her.
              “What are you doing?” I asked. “Come on! I need to go for Rigel, but you can finish this thing!”
              She just shook her head, forcing a smile and handing me the flask of water. “No, you should go. I’m going to stay here. Take this.”
              I took the water that she handed me despite the frenzy in my heart and mind, but I faltered in the middle of boarding my ship. “You’re not coming?”
              She shook her head again, her face full of sorrow. It hurt me deeply to suddenly see her in pain. “I don’t want to compete against you, Elana,” she said, her voice quiet and frail. “And I lost my best friend yesterday. I don’t feel much like racing anymore.”
              I blinked, searching for the right words. “Well…you have to finish…for Killian.”
              She gave a watery chuckle. “It never meant that much to him. We were only doing it for fun, you see.” Her eyes moistened. “And now he’s gone.”
              I ducked back out of my hatch and wrapped my arm around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She returned it, leaning her head against my shoulder. “Thank you for everything, Darby. You saved my life. And whenever I hear a beautiful song, I will always think of Killian.”
              She gave another small laugh as she pulled back. “So will I. Thank you.”
              I gave her one last encouraging smile as I stepped back into the
Cloud Kicker
. “I’m gonna come back and visit you. I’ll bring Rigel.”
              She grinned and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Good luck!”
              We exchanged a final wave and I closed the hatch, wasting no time in powering up the engines. At once, I noticed that the overhead lamps were functioning again, which was a relief to see. I flipped on my main power and cranked the engine, making sure all my instruments were good, and then checked my rear view mirror. It was mostly out of habit, but I happened to see that there was another person in the back of my ship.
              Startled, I spun around in my chair to make sure I was seeing clearly. It was the same wild-haired, apron wearing, sooty-faced man that I had spotted running through the hanger when I had first landed, the same one that had been working on my ship the day before. He was bent over my Leap engine, and had the covering opened up while he tinkered inside it.
              “Hey!” I shouted, jarring him violently. “Who
are
you?”
              He looked in my direction, his eyes gigantic. “I…like old things. I was - I was only curious. Watts…my name…um…is Watts.”
              “Well, please get away from that, Watts” I said, trying to reign in my panic and anger. “I’ve almost got that thing working.”
              He nodded, wringing his filthy hands together as me made his way to the hatch. “Working, working. Working jet. I know. I know what it is.”
              I could only stare at him incredulously as he opened my hatch and left. He was polite enough to shut it behind him, but I still stared at the handle for a moment, wondering if he had really been there or if I had just imagined it.
              In an instant, I remembered what I was doing, and turned back to the windscreen. I reached up for my radio cord, but remembered that I now had a second radio, tuned in to a frequency of three hundred gigahertz, which I had never used before. I retrieved the microphone corded to it and brought it to my lips.
              “This is the
Cloud Kicker.
I’m ready for departure.” My voice was oddly high-pitched and squeaky.
              At once, the platforms began rotating, spinning and lifting me into the prime takeoff position as the large hatch descended. The immediate burst of daylight was blindingly bright, but it didn’t take my eyes long to adjust. I flipped on my turbines and lifted off before the traffic control voice came back.
              “You’re cleared,
Cloud Kicker
. Good luck.”
              I didn’t respond. I was too busy blasting out of the hangar and into open air. Using my compass, I put myself on the correct heading and punched the throttle. I wasn’t going to waste any time. I had a bit of flight time before I reached the spot where Rigel’s transponder signal had vanished, and I didn’t know how I was going to spend it. In reality, there was nothing I could do except worry.
            And that’s exactly what I did.
            For an eternity, I stared into the blue expanse in front of me, willing my ship to go faster, hoping beyond hope that the
Alpha Red
was somehow salvageable. Even if I didn’t find him, I would just hope that he had gone on, that whatever damage he might have sustained had just shorted out his transponder, and that he was actually okay.
           Those were the longest minutes of my life.
              As I began to near the right location,
I had no idea what to expect. I leaned forward and peered out my windscreen, trying to spot the moon before I checked my compass. I was almost there. I was almost to the place where Rigel’s ship had vanished, but I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. Was I hoping he’d just be flying there, making laps and waiting for me to join him? The idea was insane, of course. In the back of my mind, I knew it was nearly pointless to be coming after him. It had been nearly two hours. If he had been shot down, that meant his ship had fallen beneath the Veil and was irretrievable.
              I couldn’t accept that, though. I couldn’t accept the fact that I was helpless, powerless, that I was useless and I couldn’t save him. I had left him in the storm and now he’d been shot down because of me. As I neared his exact coordinates, my hysteria was escalating, bringing itchy tears to my eyes. The sky was empty. There was no ship, there was no sign of him. There were only clouds.
              I let out an obnoxiously loud sob, fidgeting my feet against their pedals. My muscles were tensed to the point of tremors. I couldn’t feel my fingers. They were white and cold, numb from my iron grip on the yoke. Even my stomach felt like it had been rolled up and tied in a knot. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t have really lost Rigel…could I? As I powered through a thick wisp of cloud, something in the distance caught my eye, a tiny speck of dark color amidst the bright blue.
              Immediately, my breath caught in my throat, removing the lump that was forming there. I leaned forward for a better look out the windscreen, but I was still too far away to see clearly. I cleared my teary vision with the back of my wrist and settled into my seat, watching the speck grow larger as I drew nearer. I still had to fight the trembling of my extremities, but I knew it must be Rigel. It had to be. Sure enough, as I came close enough, I was able to see the pontoon backpack that had been the award for the challenge. Dangling from it was the shape of a boy that I could never mistake.
              “Rigel!” I screamed, practically leaping out of my seat.
              Oddly, my hysteria was even worse now than it was when I’d feared him dead. I was bouncing in my chair, shrieking nonsense and crying so hard that I could barely see. I passed beneath him, forcing myself to contain my excitement. As I cruised by him, I noticed that he was unconscious. His arms, legs, and head were all hanging limp as he drifted slowly among the clouds.
              Still fighting the madness of my own adrenaline, I brought the
Kicker
around for another pass, cutting my throttle and approaching him slowly. Once I was practically upon him, I hit my VTOL turbines and cut my engine. With no forward thrust, my ship slowed to a stop, and I was simply hovering in place, just as Rigel was.
              Acting quickly, I spun my seat around and leaped into the cargo area, wasting zero time in climbing the ladder to my roof hatch. I spun the lever so fast that I barely had time to duck my head as the hatch swung inward. Instantly, the cool air rushed in at me, dancing crisply across my cheeks. I retrieved my helmet, fastened it under my chin and pulled my goggles down over my eyes, climbing the last few rungs of the ladder.