Race to the Finish

by Craig Martelle

  “I see Dixie’s girls up there,” Thad said as his engines cut a spray of water along the shallow stream he was following.

  “Snort,” Maximus said.

  “Don’t you have a window to lick or something?” Thad asked without taking his eyes from the view ahead.

  Maximus diligently stared at the controls, all business. If the animal could talk, Thad thought he would be trying to help.

  “This is still our last race together,” Thad said.

  “Snort, snort, snort,” Maximus snorted. “Aruff, ruff, snort.”

  “Exactly,” Thad said. He punched the accelerator to follow the Pink Revenge through another series of turns.

  They emerged into another straightaway. Thad swore violently when he saw the Pink Revenge slam down on top of the LeClerc.

  The red and white ship dodged sideways at the last second.

  * * *

  Sledge watched Thad trying to catch the LeClerc and the Pink Revenge. Now’s as good a time as any, he thought. “I’m going for another beer. Want one?”

  “Only if you’re buying, Mister Hammer,” Dixie said without looking away from the screens.

  Sledge hurried up the stairs and ducked into the concessions hallway. With his back to the wall, not liking the idea of hiding in plain sight, he pulled out his SagCon mission tablet and jammed his finger on a button he’d pre-formatted for this exact occasion—in violation of SagCon rules but in full support of two combat veterans making a huge mistake.

  The Pink Revenge was full of spyware. Pulses of encryption code burst from the airship.

  Sledge looked at a monitor over the concession stand and saw electronic snow fill the screens showing the race leaders—the Pink Revenge, the LeClerc, and the Calico.

  The crowd hissed and booed. “Somebody fix the video feed! I paid good money to see this!”

  Sledge stepped to the concession stand. “Two beers, cold as you can make them.”

  “They are always cold,” the young Pierre said.

  “Are you moonlighting?” Sledge asked.

  “I thought I would see more of the canyons and the mountains out here, maybe paint something on my break.”

  “You get a break?”

  Pierre shook his head, finished pouring the beer, and slid the two glasses to Sledge. He shook his head when Sledge presented his arm for payment.

  “Careful, kid. That will get you fired and locked up.”

  “Don’t care,” Pierre said.

  Sledge knew he should straighten the struggling artist out, but he didn’t have time. He hurried back to his seat.

  * * *

  Thad pulled back with both hands and pressed down with his feet, causing the Calico to flare and jump straight up. He lost direct visual of the Pink Revenge and the LeClerc. Cameras showed them touch wings as Dixie’s girls dropped down like attack Air Forces pilots. The only thing missing were the auto-cannons.

  LeClerc’s ship recovered immediately, shrugging off the attack like it was nothing. The Pink Revenge fought gravity—wings bending, afterburners pulsing, and antigrav bundles glowing white hot.

  Thad’s foot pedals pushed against his feet to keep him from stalling. He relaxed the downward pressure while shoving his arms forward. Afterburners flared. Antigrav bundles deactivated. The Calico shot after the LeClerc like a bullet from a gun.

  Maximus howled.

  “I know! I see them,” Thad said. He had a choice: shoot past LeClerc and take the lead or go back to help Dixie’s girls.

  * * *

  The crowd went wild, but Dixie held her beer with both hands. Cameras showed the LeClerc with a decisive lead and the rest of the pack—minus the Pink Revenge and the Calico—struggling to catch up.

  * * *

  Thad hovered near the wreckage of the Pink Revenge long enough to watch Leslie and Chelsie climb out of the cockpit.

  “They’re okay, Maximus. You can stop losing your freaking mind now,” Thad said.

  Leslie gave him a thumbs up. Chelsie pressed her cleavage together and blew him a kiss.

  Thad shook his head and flew away from the scene even as he sent their location to the race officials and safety crews. The pack was ahead of him, but his camera showed LeClerc no longer in the lead.

  He un-muted the race commentary.

  “I don’t know what happened to them, Candy. For the love of Christ, this is worse than Thanksgiving dinner at your parents,” Phil said. “We have search and rescue crews scouring the area. Ah, there we have a report that the Pink Revenge is down but the pilots are uninjured.”

  “Don’t bring up in-laws. Do you want to tell our audience what happened last Christmas at your parents’ place?” Candy said.

  “Do we have to do this right now? In the middle of the biggest race development since the Darklanding Derby started?” Phil asked.

  “You brought it up.”

  “You exhaust me, woman.”

  “Woman? You’re going to regret that tone later.”

  Phil tuned up his best announcer voice. “The question we all want answered is where can LeClerc be? How did he surrender such a decisive lead?”

  “Absolutely, Phil. No one could have taken the lead from him. He’s just too good.”

  Thad tapped the mute button. He was too far behind to win the race and didn’t know LeClerc’s location. “Strap in and hold on, Maximus. It’s time for plan B.”

  He found the entrance to the cave complex. “Looks smaller than I remember.”

  “Snort.”

  The Calico shuddered as he cut speed to minimum velocity. “The survival beacons we placed are sending strong signals. All we have to do is follow the course we plotted out and we will emerge too far ahead of the other LAR contestants to lose.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Shaft

  “Snort, snort, snort, snort, snort!” Maximus said.

  Thad checked his cameras.

  The LeClerc dropped in behind him.

  Thad opened a comm channel to the million-credit airship. “You’ve got to be kidding me, LeClerc.”

  “Hey, I don’t hold it against you, Fry. If you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.”

  “This is within the rules,” Thad said.

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” LeClerc said. “This will be fun. Stupid, for you at least, but fun.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Maybe,” LeClerc said. “But I doubt your controls are responsive enough to survive underground flight. Even if you know the way.” A pause. “You sly bastard! You plotted your course in advance! Nice.”

  Thad powered his forward lights, sending five beams thrusting ahead of him.

  “That isn’t going to help. You should know this. The speed of light is faster than your reaction time.” LeClerc seemed to think this was the funniest joke he’d ever made.

  Thad tried to ignore him. Most of his attention went to instruments and control screens. The Calico vibrated around a corner. In the relative darkness of his cockpit, he realized there was dust covering the interior. It would have been nice if P. C. Dickles and his crew had cleaned up once they finished their upgrades to the ship.

  The miner foreman and his crew were probably betting against him. The man knew better than anyone what he was going to do. Was there a more perfect place for his ship to disappear?

  Thad needed to do something to get LeClerc off his tail.

  “Why so timid? I thought this would be easy for you,” he said.

  LeClerc smirked. “I’ve never flown down here. Wow, look at the size of that tunnel. Are you sure we shouldn’t go that way?”

  “Dead end,” Thad said without thinking.

  “Thaddeus Fry, I think I’ll follow you. It’s good that I’m here. If you’re nice and say please, I will fly back to the finish line and report your last-known location to the rescue crews. Your miner buddies who have been keeping this a secret won’t be pleased, but at least you will be alive,” LeClerc said.

&nbs
p; Thad muted the channel and tried to think. The LAR hotshot was smarter than he looked. It hadn’t taken the man much to figure out these passages and caverns were the well-kept secret behind Darklanding’s sudden success.

  Maximus struggled to find a comfortable position. Sitting upright was starting to bother the animal.

  Thad hailed LeClerc. “The miners aren’t your business. Don’t ruin their livelihoods.”

  “I’ll do whatever I want, Fry. You know that.”

  “Could be a PR disaster for you.”

  “I do this for fun.” He went quiet to follow Thad through a complicated series of three-dimensional turns. “The other reason is that I’m famous, the reason people like you and everyone at the Mother Lode hate me?”

  “Money.”

  “Right. No one can accept the fact that my family has been rich since humanity went into space. I have so much money, it is more of a theoretical construct than a real thing. I’m too big to fail. You don’t know who your messing with.”

  Thad hit the afterburners, accelerating into one of three relative straightaways in the labyrinth. Almost as soon as he rolled the controls forward, he yanked them back and dove straight downward into a vertical shaft.

  Maximus jerked his head around to glare at Thad.

  “I know, I know. This isn’t the way,” Thad said. “I think we have enough room to turn around, but maybe there is an easier side tunnel down here. This almost looks man-made,” Thad said, realizing too late that he wasn’t just talking to the pig-dog. He cursed and muted his microphone.

  The vertical shaft reminded him of how Mast described his vision quest on the rare occasions he would talk about it.

  The incoming communication light beeped several times. Thad reluctantly opened the channel. Next time, I’m leaving it off.

  “You can’t keep muting me,” LeClerc said.

  “Drives you crazy, I bet,” Thad said, checking his altimeter, which flashed error next to a negative reading.

  “What is this place?”

  Thad formed an answer and hoped he wouldn’t need to give it.

  “You know what, Thad? While we’re having this little heart-to-heart, I need to report a crime. Dixie’s girls tried to kill me.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Don’t be an asshole. You don’t care.”

  Thad shook his head, adjusted his course, and wished LeClerc would fly into a wall. “You have proof?”

  “I knew they were going to try. Not sure why they waited so long. I’m going to punish them when we all get back to the Mother Lode.”

  “Shaunte banned you from the Mother Lode.”

  “Whatever. She can’t enforce that. My record will be expunged once I win this race. I’ll have some prize money to blow. Tia will be out of the hospital.”

  Thad flinched, jerking the control stick, and veered toward a wall. Maximus howled mournfully as the sheriff fought the controls. The right wing of the Calico scraped the wall, filling the vertical shaft with dust and debris.

  Without thinking, he hauled back on the double control yoke and smashed his right foot down while he lifted his left. The Calico groaned and shuddered as it made the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree flip. Thad punched the afterburners and antigrav bundles. Climbing out of the shaft was going to be hard.

  He checked his fuel, then decided he’d have to ignore it. When it was gone, it was gone, and that was all.

  LeClerc imitated the maneuver without striking the wall, following Thad up. LeClerc and the LeClerc seemed bored.

  Maximus started doing the dog-pig-thing pee-pee dance in his seat.

  “I told you to go before we left!”

  “Arooooh!”

  “Problems?” LeClerc asked.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m going to win this race. You’re going to make a full confession and leave Darklanding,” Thad said, then turned hard into the natural tunnels toward his survival buoys and the course he’d plotted to the surface after his subterranean crash landing.

  “I’ll leave when I leave. When I get bored of Dixie’s girls or they are all hospitalized. Two of them are going to pay double for that little stunt in the ship the SagCon SI put together for them. See, Thad, I already know more about what really goes on than you do.”

  “Update, LeClerc. I’m in the lead and you are going to lose. You’ll confess, I’ll present your case to the galactic courts, and you’ll go to some rich person’s jail,” Thad said.

  “Where I will tell reporters all about your little underground secret. That vertical shaft wasn’t natural, Thad. Even a ground-pounding loser like you knows something isn’t right on this planet.”

  Thad concentrated on flying. He felt heat rising to his face.

  “That shaft wasn’t made by SagCon, which leaves two options. The Gloks are holding back some serious details about their technological ability or there was an advanced alien race on Ungwilook long before humanity found this miserable rock,” LeClerc said. His ship suddenly squeezed past Thad to take the lead.

  “Watch it, LeClerc! The passages get crazy up ahead.”

  “I doubt it, Sheriff. You’re bluffing. As usual.”

  Thad gritted his teeth. LeClerc’s knowledge about the shaft was problematic. What really concerned him was something LeClerc couldn’t know yet. The mystery shaft wasn’t the only one of its kind. It was too far from Darklanding to be the same shaft Mast described. Which probably meant there was a third and a fourth and who knew how many others.

  LeClerc pulled farther ahead. He would either crash in the next complex of turns and switchbacks, or move too far ahead to catch. Thad increased his speed, aware of the impossible demands he was making on his ship and his skill.

  “This is a tough stretch,” LeClerc said. “Bigger tunnels, though. Why don’t you come up and we can duke it out?”

  “We already did that. Or did you forget how I kicked your ass after you assaulted Tia and the others?” Thad said.

  LeClerc laughed. “I didn’t forget. My lawyers are drawing up a lawsuit. Got it all on video, Thad. Celebrities of my status all have a porn video “leaked” to the media about halfway through their career. It’s a time-tested cash cow.”

  “Forget the confession, LeClerc. I’m going to get that video. The unedited version that shows what you really are,” Thad said, hammering the Calico forward of LeClerc.

  “I was never going to confess because I was never going to lose. And if you want to get shitty about this…” He raced alongside Thad in the Calico, then juked sideways, ramming their wings together.

  Thad dropped under the LeClerc’s wing and fell back. Realizing he needed speed to make the next twisting, underground climb, he accelerated around LeClerc on the other side of his ship.

  LeClerc slammed his wing down on the Calico. “No, you don’t! I’m done playing with you, Sheriff!”

  Thad lost speed and altitude. LeClerc’s progress didn’t matter if he couldn’t get up this tunnel and onto a horizontal vector. Thad needed to push him into a mistake.

  He ignored taunts, flashing damage lights, and low-fuel warnings. The controls vibrated in his hands. He suspected the Calico was losing the boxing match, taking more damage than the LeClerc when they collided.

  Seconds before the afterburners and antigrav bundles stalled, Thad limped into the final passage.

  The LeClerc fell on him, smashing his canopy. Cracks spiderwebbed across the nearly indestructible window. If this had been a void race, he’d be done. Wind hissed and whistled into the cockpit. Thad flew faster but LeClerc pulled away.

  “Hey, LeClerc,” Thad grunted. “There is one last thing I should tell you about the exit.”

  “Nice try, Thad. I’m done with your boring threats and weak bluffing,” LeClerc said. A heartbeat later, he struck the waterfall covering two-thirds of the exit.

  Thad lost sight of him in the exploding mist. Depending on speed, hitting a wall of water could do bad things to antigrav bundles.

/>   Thad edged the Calico to the right, tipped it up on one shaking wing, and popped through the only dry gap in the exit. His control panel screamed every possible malfunction warning now.

  But he was still in the air. And above ground. And looking down on his defeated foe.

  “Welcome to last place, LeClerc. Celebrities of your status always have a fall from grace. Some recover. Others develop a drug problem and go insane,” Thad said.

  “This isn’t over.” LeClerc’s radio barely transmitted through the static of his overloaded systems.

  “You’ll be lucky to match the speed of a ground car. Say hello to the other pilots when they pass over you in…” He checked his position and the clock. “…about five minutes.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch!”

  Thad laughed.

  Maximus bobbed up and down, whining continuously now.

  “I know, I know. You have to pee. Thanks for ruining our moment,” Thad said, then focused on keeping the Calico in the air for the rest of the race.

  The finish was a near thing. Five LAR pilots chased him around the track, gaining considerable ground on each corner as Thad’s ship bucked across the finish line.

  He landed in the winner’s circle and dropped the emergency hatch.

  Maximus sprinted into the grass and raised his leg on the victory pavilion.

  Thad shook his head, then spoke to the converging camera crews. “I couldn’t have done it without the best copilot in the galaxy.”

  Cameras swiveled to immortalize Maximus during his moment of relief.

  “Good pig-dog,” Thad said.

  Reporters laughed.

  “Where’s LeClerc?”

  “How did you defeat the galactic LAR champion?”

  “Are you going to make a career of LAR racing?”

  “When is the title match? Do you think you can win it or was this a fluke?”