Space Race (Space Race 1)

by Nathan Hystad

  Bryson entered with Holland and Luther behind him. “These bastards will do everything in their power to lie, cheat, and blast you from this Race. Do not be naïve, Arlo. None of you.” He glanced at his son, who nodded.

  “How was the dinner?” Jade asked them, shoving a seat free from under the table as Luther came over.

  “A mess. The other captains had a meeting. The top five, at least.”

  I added that piece of information to my memory banks. Maybe that was an opportunity. Those ranked six to nine were excluded from the club.

  Bryson peered at R11. “And I assume you’ve solved our issue?”

  “Sure did. We’ve passed, and R11 is his usual self.” The robot stood after my comment.

  “Sir, I request to return to my station,” he proclaimed.

  “Go ahead, R11. And thanks for today.”

  He paused at the exit, stopping momentarily to reply, “You’re welcome, Captain.”

  Mars was two days away, and we talked like we’d already made it past the first major checkpoint, ensuring our stay in the Race.

  Bryson looked at his son through squinted eyes. “Do you not think you can handle it?”

  “I can—”

  “You’re going to crush those arrogant Primaries,” I promised him.

  “As long as we’re not in the bottom two, we’re fine,” Jade said, sipping her drink.

  “I’d prefer to be in the lead, not at the edge of the pack.” I turned my attention to our CEO. “Bryson, where are you going to be during the Race?” I realized he’d never told us.

  “I’ll watch at home, but I should be in contact. I’ve also ensured that Pilgrim has the live Race feeds integrated into the network so you can keep tabs on the progress. This is unprecedented. The Board is using their own feeds, and claim to be impartial, but each of the other Corporations will be featuring their individual coverage as well.”

  “Except SeaTech.” He’d never told us why, but I hoped my comment would stir a response.

  “That’s right. Except us.”

  “Why is that?” Luther asked, saving me the trouble.

  “As I’ve said, there’s a lot at stake here. My father never believed in sharing newsfeeds outside our own islands. And it’s something I agreed with him on.”

  “Will you be there at the end?” Holland stared at his father with desperation.

  “Of course, son. I’m sorry you had to see that tonight, but it’s clear the Board and Primaries aren’t pleased to have Hawk Lewis in the Race, or the newest Primary. I haven’t earned their respect yet, but with your help, we’ll make history. You all have my faith. Work as a team and do not give up, no matter the situation. I will be rooting for you, as will the entirety of SeaTech.”

  Bryson left us there, contemplating his speech. It was late, with the Race beginning in ten hours.

  “I’ve always hated politics,” Luther said. “Bunch of stuck-up suits deciding things they don’t understand. They proved it again tonight, and still ended up winning.”

  “But we’re still in the Race,” Holland said.

  “At what cost? Your dad just handed over a gold mine,” Jade told him.

  “That won’t matter. Not when we win.” Holland had managed to retain his optimism.

  “I’m with you. Let’s focus on the task at hand. Space Race.” I yawned, and it was contagious.

  “Is anyone else ready for bed?” Luther asked.

  “I am.” Jade was the first up, and we all departed, heading to our own bedrooms.

  There was a lot at stake for us, not to mention for SeaTech, but at least we were about to finally begin. Two months had sped by, and tomorrow was the start of the Race.

  Fourteen

  “Would you turn that off, Holland?” I called from the central cockpit seat. He’d been watching endless feeds of the Race coverage leading up to the opening, and it was making me see double. The constant speculation of who would win the final prize was grating on my nerves. It was always Sage Industries versus Luna Corp at the forefront of the discussions, with Lotus occasionally being thrown into the ring for drama. No one thought any of the bottom five could possibly win, and the entry of SeaTech was almost laughable to the commentators.

  “They were talking about us,” Holland said.

  “Fine. Then it’s going off. Or at least mute it,” I ordered.

  We were ten thousand kilometers from the Moon, each of the ten Racers lined up at a starting point. I wondered if Varn Wallish or Luna’s Lina Nebu was as nervous as I was. I’d learned about Lotus’ Chen Wei over the endless coverage, and I doubted that man even had an emotion in his body. He was the definition of concentration and practice, from what the feeds showed me.

  Jade seemed the calmest, leaning over R11’s seat, discussing some plug-in mod she wanted to test. I hoped whatever it was didn’t affect our takeoff.

  “Here it is!” Holland said, and I connected the middle dash screen to his shared feed.

  It was from the Board’s channel, and I saw the name SeaTech appear in the top right corner of the broadcast. “And lastly, Baru, we have the tenth-place SeaTech team, who inexplicably used the number eleven on their Racer. Some consider this to be a slight in the eyes of the Primary Corporations. Others say it’s Bryson Kelley’s lucky number, but no one can be sure. He’s refused to comment about his odds or the ship’s number, but that’s not uncommon for the unconventional reclusive CEO. What’s your take on their chances, Yon?”

  Yon sat beside his co-host and stared at the camera drone blankly for a second. “Chances? To do what? Be the first eliminated? Then I’d say their chances are actually great. They’re green, Baru. No experience. They’ve been together for two months, and he’s using discarded workers from the top Corporations as his crew. What was he thinking? Arlo ‘Hawk’ Lewis? The man has a checkered history.”

  “You do know that Hawk Lewis was one of the premiere Pod sprinters of his era, don’t you?” Baru asked.

  “Of course I know that.” Footage played behind them, and I recognized the race. It was from my last event. They showed me speeding through the final checkpoint in first place, my Pod painted light gray, the number forty-nine on the doors. “But that was years ago. He’s been hauling for Oasis, doing menial jobs since the incident…”

  “You seem to be forgetting how many people he saved from that rogue attack five years ago. If it wasn’t for Lewis, hundreds would have been killed,” Baru said.

  Ice flowed through my veins as I watched them discussing the most pivotal moment of my life.

  “Frank Under of Sage Industries wanted to compensate him. And what did the most powerful CEO receive? A punch in the face! This Hawk Lewis is out of control. Bryson better watch his back,” Yon claimed.

  I flipped it off, and Holland finally muted his feed. “Sorry, Arlo.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Those guys have no idea what they’re talking about,” I said, but they had most of it right.

  I glanced out my 180-degree viewer and saw HyperMines beside me. No one was to my left, since I was in the last-placed team. We had the disadvantage by a few kilometers, with Sage Industries at the lead, but I didn’t care. In the grand scheme of things, the distance meant nothing.

  “Captain, we’re getting something,” Luther said.

  “Is it the map?”

  “Downloading now.” He whistled a flat note. “First checkpoint is…only five thousand kilometers away. And it says…”

  Holland turned the volume on again. “This just in. We’re receiving word that the maps have been distributed. The first Ring is only twenty minutes from the starting line, and to spice things up, the Race committee has decided that the last Racer through the checkpoint will be eliminated.” Yon appeared delighted by this news.

  “Damn it,” I muttered. “They’re trying to get rid of us.”

  The Ring blinked to life on my radar, an orange blip. I zoomed out, seeing the next mark was a good one-hour flight.

  Our ships each had t
o fall within a certain threshold for our Core drives, but slight modifications were allowed, given that the base met all proper criteria. Bryson would have developed the best technology possible, but we really had no idea what the other Racers were working with. This was going to be interesting.

  Each of the ten Racers was on my screen too, with two numbers attached to them. The left digit referenced the team number, starting with Sage Industries at one, and the right indicated their current rank. We showed a ten.

  A drone flew past Varn’s Racer, which was more compact than mine. Two wings tilted up at a forty-five-degree angle, and I could picture his smug smile as his fingers waited above his throttle icon.

  The feed continued to show the rest of the teams, and my nerves got the best of me. This was real. A few months ago, the Race had seemed like some distant, elite event that had nothing to do with my world. Now here I was, sitting in my own Racer’s pilot seat, about to begin.

  “Race clock is starting,” Luther said, and I saw the digits on my dash tick down from sixty seconds.

  “Team, we won’t fail ourselves. They want us gone today, but we’re going to disappoint them. Understood?” I shifted in my seat, adjusting the straps.

  “Yes, sir!” they chimed as if they’d been practicing.

  “Give ‘em hell, Arlo,” Luther said supportively.

  “Send their metal asses to oblivion,” R11 said, and we all went silent. “What’d I say?”

  “Sure, thanks, R11. Everyone ready?” I asked. The clock was at ten, and the feeds showed throngs of people gathered at each of the Primary Corporations’ head offices, watching the event on giant screens. They’d been given the day off to celebrate. Another manipulation to televise unwavering support over the Race. The sheer number of them out in the emptied parking lots was surprising.

  When the clock hit zero, I gunned it.

  Nothing happened.

  The other ships blasted forward, their thrusters a series of blue, orange, and yellow waste particles, depending on their Core alloys. “What’s happening?” I barked as I hit the throttle. We moved at suborbital speed.

  “They didn’t reconnect the link after the tests. I must have missed it,” Jade said, her fingers actively moving across her keypad.

  My screen blinked green, and I had power again. But we’d lost precious seconds. Pilgrim lurched ahead as I avoided the steady increase of the Core, pushing her to the limits.

  I quickly shifted our trajectory, aiming a straight line for the Ring. I still couldn’t believe they’d added one so close, with the threat of losing after the first few minutes. Clearly they were setting me up for failure, but I had news for them. Arlo Lewis didn’t take kindly to being screwed over.

  I glanced at the map, witnessing Harding, the eighth rank, drop to ninth. That was my target. Their Racer was round, almost like a sphere, mimicking the shape of their first major mine success on a planetoid found within the Belt.

  “Team, Harding is the target. I want us to do everything in our power to beat them through that checkpoint,” I said.

  Sage was almost at the Ring already, meaning they were farther ahead than their Core should have allowed them. If they were playing by the rules, I suspected they’d burn out a few couplers to be the first through the Ring. Varn Wallish would want everyone to know he was the team to beat, and his actions gave me an idea.

  We’d crossed half the distance, with us steadily climbing on Harding. “R11, do the math. At current speed, will we beat Harding?”

  His response came a second later. “We will, but the risk of damage upon entering is forty-three percent.”

  That wasn’t good enough. “Jade, head to engineering. Be prepared to swap out two couplers,” I said.

  “Wait, you’re suggesting we fry the drive already?” she asked.

  “Did I ask your opinion, Serrano?”

  “No.”

  “Go to the damned room and be ready!” I shouted. Time was running out, the Ring growing closer. I glanced at the viewer, seeing five drones circling me. This was all being filmed, and I could imagine Bryson nervously watching us in last place, the threat of removal from the Race imminent. I wasn’t going to give these Corporations the satisfaction.

  “In position,” Jade said, her voice tense through my earpiece.

  “Hitting overdrive now.” I triple-tapped the icon, bypassing the warning it flashed on my screen. The lights of the cabin went dim, and we lunged forward. Something fell from behind me, and the dash flashed off, then on again.

  The Ring was coming up quickly, and I did everything in my power to steer into it. Pilgrim sped through the opening, the energy barrier skimming the hull of my ship.

  “We did it!” Luther cheered, pounding his palms on his armrests.

  Jade must have replaced the fried couplers, because the lights came on again as I urged Pilgrim to the normal maximum thrust. Before I grew too excited, I checked the next Ring, and Luther was right. It was nearly an hour away, heading deeper into the system.

  “That was incredible,” Holland managed. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “I’ve done it a couple times with Capricious to avoid collapsing atmospheres, or to prevent being smashed to pieces by unmarked space rocks. I knew the theory was there…”

  I glanced at the map and saw the number seven beside my icon. Wait. There were two ships behind us, so not only had we avoided being last, but we’d passed HyperMines and Barret.

  Harding’s icon was gone, and I had Holland turn the feeds on again.

  “We’re not sure what Captain Lewis just pulled, but he beat the odds. SeaTech is currently in seventh position. As for Harding, they’ve been eliminated, and that’s a surprise to everyone. Captain Luis Cooper must be very upset,” Baru said.

  Yon was smiling ear to ear, and he set a palm onto his bald head. “As predicted, the top five Corporations finished in the proper order, with Sage in the lead. All the teams are safe until Mars, when two will be cut after a grueling Pod race. Wind, dunes, and a unique gravity will all be at play. Can an underdog move ahead in such an event? Maybe Espace or… dare I say it, SeaTech. This portion of Space Race is brought to you by Orion’s DX-28 Drone. With a DX-28, you get security and surveillance, as well as peace of mind. Link your PersaTab to learn more.”

  I turned it off as Jade returned. “Arlo, you’re brilliant.”

  “I’m pretty sure Varn was using the same trick to look superior. I only applied the concept to our advantage,” I said.

  “You’re being humble. It was a solid plan,” she admitted.

  “It was also risky,” R11 said. “Blowing one coupler can result in other failures, not to mention prolonged—”

  “Drop it, R11. Let’s take the small victory and concentrate on surviving the next few hours.” I saw five more checkpoints between our position and Mars, but at least all nine of us would be Pod racing. The individual team clocks stopped as soon as they entered the Mars Ring, meaning if Sage entered first, they would leave first, with the time difference between them and the next team, and so on. I wanted to have every advantage I could.

  Espace was in sixth, and that was who I mentally targeted. Adrenaline coursed through me, and I was optimistic for our chances.

  The Race was on.

  ____________

  Fifty-five minutes passed, and we entered the second Ring in the same position. To my surprise, there had been a few shifts above us, with Lotus moving ahead of Luna Corp for second place. Orion and Oasis had also switched slots, with my former employer taking fourth.

  It was too early to panic, and we were very slowly gaining ground on Espace. Their Corporation owned the area formerly occupied by France, Great Britain, and half of Germany, specializing in ThermaSuits and medical devices.

  I read up on Captain Clara Dupont as I flew us toward the third Ring, finding her resume to be impeccable. She was a doctor, with ten years of overseeing their entire mining operation’s welfare, and was their highest-ranked pilot on
the two-year search for a captain. It shocked me to hear that teams had anticipated this event for a while, keeping it under wraps from the common citizens until recently.

  Bryson made all his moves, trying to sneak closer to the top ten, which was almost an impossible act. But he’d done it, and now it was time to show the world what SeaTech was capable of.

  I closed the file on Clara and opened the public one on myself. It was concise and to the point, with an old photo of me from my early days at Oasis. I hardly felt like the same person.

  “I’m going to take my sleep shift,” Luther said, walking up behind me. “Try not to mess with my battle station while I’m gone.”

  “Battle station?” Holland asked.

  “Sure. That’s what I’m calling my station. Every ship needs one.”

  “I’ll take some shut-eye too,” Holland informed us, and the duo exited the bridge.

  With a quick glance at the dash, I noted we were still two hours from the next Ring. While much of the Race was intuitive and exciting, there were going to be a few stretches for us to hone the ship, and repair any issues with the Racer. It was why Bryson had prepared us for the lulls.

  “Arlo, the boss asked me to install something in the ship’s communication network.” Jade’s voice had an edge to it.

  I left the pilot’s seat, with the ship on auto. “And what is it?”

  She peered over her shoulder as I approached, and brought a schematic up on her screen. “A project I was working on in my spare time at Luna Corp. It essentially uses the Core’s waste particles, recycling them and utilizing them as a booster on the incoming and outgoing ComNetwork.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “We’ll be able to send and receive messages from extremely vast distances.” She smiled as she said it, and I guessed she’d been working on this project for years.

  “Did Luna support this?” I was surprised they’d let her out with the details.

  “It wasn’t theirs. Just something I tinkered with after hours.”

  “Not much of a social life on the Moon?” I started to laugh, but when she didn’t respond, I stopped. “Sorry. Go on.”