And then I heard it. Softly at first, among the overwhelming applause for Lotus. “SeaTech. SeaTech!”
“Hawk, they’re cheering for you!” Luther bellowed. “Show them what you’ve got!”
I didn’t respond, just shot the Pod into overdrive as the closing stretch appeared in the distance. The surface of Mars rolled so fast under me, it was blurry. My vision shrank, and all I could see was my competitor and the final Ring. Lotus was only ten seconds ahead, then eight. Their thrusters weren’t flashing, meaning they’d used up all their secondary boosts early on to take the lead.
The sky was dark now, with thousands of stars bearing witness to the end of the Race. My heart pounded, I was nervously sweating, and I held my breath as we raced for the finish line.
Lotus began drifting closer, but I didn’t let it bother me. Lotus wasn’t going to take my Pod out. If they tried and crashed, they’d be eliminated from the Race, like Sage had been when they’d collided with a rock cliff.
I glanced at the screen and saw three of the icons had been removed from the map. Barret, Espace, and Sage were all out of the race. When had that happened?
Lotus crept closer, and I lifted discreetly. “What happens if three Pods don’t make it to the finish line?” I asked.
Holland’s words were clipped. “The one farthest along will continue.”
“Guys, Sage is still in Space Race. Barret and Espace must have sacrificed themselves for Sage to continue.” The rules were different than when I’d raced as a kid. How convenient.
“So Lotus could risk damage to you,” Luther said through my earpiece. “They’d better not try anything stupid.”
The Ring grew closer, and my Pod sped along like a bat out of hell, my cockpit shaking and vibrating with intensity as my overdrive pushed us along. I broke into first place, but Lotus was right beside me, nose and nose.
At the last second, with the Ring within reach, I shot the projection of our Pod from the front cameras directly into my competition’s path, causing the Lotus pilot to be confused. The hologram was a split-second ahead of the real Pod I sat inside, and I entered right after it, with Lotus right behind.
The Ring exploded into holographic fireworks as I passed through the finish line, and I slowed the Pod, carefully cutting off the overdrive function. Another ten seconds, and it would have been fried. The timing had been perfect. My team was shouting and hollering their congratulations loudly into my ear, and I grinned as I looped the Pod around, seeing thousands of cheering people in the crowds. SeaTech had won, and the audience seemed thrilled.
Orion and Oasis came next, with Luna Corp followed by HyperMines, and the Race was completed.
I landed where we’d started and hopped out just as Luther, Jade, and Holland arrived on the transport lift. I stared at the Pod and set a gloved hand on the hull, closing my eyes. I pictured Preston Lewis there, wrapping his arm over my shoulders and telling me there was never a doubt in his mind, just like he’d always done after a victory. “This one’s for you,” I whispered to his memory.
I’d been so caught up in my own past, I hardly noticed the crowd was chanting “SeaTech” repeatedly. I slowly turned to face them, removing my helmet. I thrust my arm in the sky, smirking so widely, it hurt my cheeks. Luther was the first to arrive, and he picked me up, spinning me around.
“We did it!” When Luther let me down, Jade took her turn, embracing me tightly.
Holland lingered behind, and I could tell he’d wanted to race so badly. “You’re the best, Arlo.” He smiled despite being sick and forced from competing.
“I’m just glad I didn’t embarrass us. You would have won too, Holland.” I grinned at him, and it seemed to spruce up his mood.
Someone handed us a bottle of sparkling wine, and Luther opened it, spraying it over me in an archaic tradition. The rest of the pilots had arrived, even the disqualified members, and everyone stared toward us. Varn leaned against their damaged Pod, shaking his head and muttering at his pilot, who was on a stretcher. I waved at him, and he glowered even deeper.
The drones were filming it all, and I spotted the commentators coming to join us. Baru and Yon were both much shorter in real life than on screen. “Do I have to do this?” I asked them.
Baru answered first. “You’re under contractual obligation…”
“Fine.” I stood there while the others backed away, leaving me alone in the spotlight.
“Hawk Lewis, the highest ranked under eighteen ever before you prematurely retired. How does it feel to win today?” Yon asked.
I glanced at them and at the crowd beyond. The footage was playing on the giant floating screens, and I cleared my throat, hearing it echo across the Mars landscape. The cheering had stopped, and everyone was listening with interest.
“It was a team effort. SeaTech has managed to put together quite the—”
“But you were the Pod sprinter, Hawk. What happened to Holland Kelley? Wasn’t he supposed to compete?” Baru asked, his eyebrows raising while he tilted his head to the side.
I’d never liked being interviewed, and now, with so many people watching, I wanted to be anywhere but here. “Holland wasn’t feeling well, and we decided he wasn’t fit to race today. I’m just glad I was able to step in.”
“What do you think of your chances on the rest of Space Race? You’re impressing everyone so far. Can you continue to improve your rank?” Yon asked.
I stared at them briefly and gave them my best confident smile. “We’re going to win. I’ll see you at the finish line.” I turned away and walked past Sage’s Pod toward my friends.
“There you have it. SeaTech wins the Mars Pod Race. Let’s take a look at some highlights,” Baru said through the huge speakers surrounding the audience.
I joined the others, who were still basking in our victory, and felt the presence behind me before I heard the footsteps. Varn Wallish had a smug grin on his face. “Don’t think this is over, Lewis.”
“Good thing your pals sacrificed themselves, or you’d be heading home. I wonder how Mr. Under would deal with you then. Maybe you’d finally understand why I decked him.” I didn’t want to taunt him, but he was giving me no choice. Plus, it was kind of fun.
I wasn’t going to let him disrupt our victory. Tomorrow was another day, and the Race would continue with seven of us. Unfortunately, Sage was one of the teams moving on.
“Watch yourself. You weren’t supposed to make it this far.” He poked me in the chest as he walked by.
I took a chance. “What’s your company building out here?”
He stopped, turning slowly as the rest of his team arrived. The pilot was on a hovering stretcher, but she looked responsive as they moved her toward a medical station near the crowd’s edge. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. Say hi to Frank Under for me.”
Eighteen
“Why did you let me stay up so late?” Luther asked the rest of us.
“Hey, I told you to go easy on the caffeine,” Jade told him, saving me the trouble.
“That doesn’t help me now,” Luther mumbled.
This felt good. Not just the win, but the camaraderie. Holland was feeling much better, but he’d lost a bit of his boisterous energy from early in the Race. He’d been preparing for that moment his whole life, and a possible sabotage from another team had ruined the moment. He’d recover, but I expected it to take some time.
“Lotus is gone.” I watched their Racer depart the Martian starting line. The fanfare was still present, with dozens of corporate vessels watching this leg of the Race continue. There were only seven teams at this point, but unexpectedly, our win last night had been enough to push us into third, giving us a head start on the last four teams. I checked the screen, using my rear camera to watch Luna Corp wait idly behind.
“It’ll be strange without Espace and Barret,” Holland admitted.
“Not to me,” Jade countered. “Espace tried to screw us over early on, and I won’t forget t
hat. I’m glad they’re eliminated. Barret too. Everyone we outlast is one more we don’t have to contend with in the future.”
“How great would it be at the end, defeating our old employers?” Luther laughed lightly.
Four of the teams had been linked to the three of us. Me with Sage, then Oasis; Jade with Luna Corp; and Luther with Lotus. We had conflicting emotions tied up with them, because when you worked for the Primaries, you weren’t only an employee. You lived there. You relied on them to house you and feed you. It created an unhealthy bond of dependence that shouldn’t be natural to mankind.
Yet here I was again, loyal to SeaTech, another Primary, and I was as reliant on them as any of the others. The difference was, they seemed to care. I’d been able to see my father off as he’d departed on a rented transport. Soon he’d return to Earth, to stay with my mother in their new retirement condo. It sounded too good to be true. Your value was determined by how much you could do for a CEO, and I was making a promising show of expanding SeaTech’s reach, so I considered this a success.
With a touch of the screen, and the activation of our Core, I brought Pilgrim to half speed, chasing after Lotus, who was twenty minutes ahead. The next Ring was five hours away, which gave us a break to regroup. We hadn’t slept much, and Luther looked ready to drop in his seat.
“Captain Lewis, a word, please,” R11 called.
I was at his console a moment later, and he explained that he’d gotten close to a translation on the alien text, when he hit a roadblock. He was running the program through something he dubbed a splitter, which took the math equations and flipped them. They ran from end to start and in any possible variation, stating that not all problems might look the same, though the rudimentary systems would be equal.
I half understood what he was suggesting, but I nodded along, encouraging him, and he continued, the screen flashing through hundreds of intricate calculations.
“Holland, take my chair,” I said, and he hopped up, smiling as he jumped into the lead pilot’s seat.
“Yes, sir.”
The Racer wasn’t overly large, but I was beginning to find its clean interior and smooth lines a nice change from Capricious. She’d been a reliable hauler, but being aboard a fresh and newly minted ship was a huge step up. I glanced at the floor, remembering my own was patched up from a Core leak seven years ago.
I bypassed the kitchen and headed for my bunk.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but the sinking mattress woke me an hour later.
It was Jade. “You awake?”
“I am now.” She was sitting on my bed in the dark, and I could tell something was on her mind.
“What is it?” I propped myself up, and she turned toward me with glistening eyes.
“This is real, Arlo. What if there are distant planets with real civilizations beyond our solar system?”
I was drowsy, and I rubbed at my eyes while responding. “We don’t know what the message says. It might be from a long-vanished race, or it could be fabricated by one of the Primaries. All we can do is wait until R11 figures it out.”
“Then what? What if they’re real? Attempting to make contact?”
I stared at her and was hit with a revelation. “I think you’re more afraid of finding out they don’t exist, aren’t you?”
She smiled as a single tear fell down her cheek. I wiped it away with a thumb, and she nodded. “This can’t be our destiny. You said Sage is creating mass weapons, and we both know what this means. War is coming. And there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“We can win this Space Race.”
“And sneak away to Proxima? What will happen to our people?” she asked. “We leave them to die in a fight?”
Most of my life, I’d been forced to look out for numero uno, and the few times I’d acted for the greater good, I’d been knocked down a peg. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again. But seeing the look in her eye, I was drawn in. I flipped my legs over the mattress, sitting beside her.
Before I had a chance to reply, she continued. “And that’s saying the Primaries will even let Bryson take it. From what I’ve seen, the chances of that are slim to none.”
“What would you have us do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Find a way to fight this. Work with Eclipse.” Jade’s tears subsided, and she frowned. “We’ll win the race and use the platform to our benefit. We can convince Bryson to team with Eclipse, start a new way of living.”
I glanced past her shoulder, ensuring we were alone. “I’m not sure how much convincing we’ll need to give him. I appreciate your passion, but what else can we do? We’re just four people and a robot in a Racer—in a competition designed by the Primaries and the Board, the same people you’re talking about facing off against.”
Her chin lowered to her chest, and she stared at her hands. “I know, but it could work. Promise me you’ll consider it.”
“I will.”
“Good.” Jade looked at me. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.” I anxiously waited for her to speak. The room was quiet, only her breathing breaking the silence.
“I’m not who you think,” she said.
“You’re not Jade Serrano?”
She shook her head.
“Then who are you?”
“I am Jade, but my real last name is Trevors.”
Trevors. It clicked, and I glanced at the doors. “Wait. No relation to Erik Trevors?”
“That’s right,” she said.
Erik Trevors was LunaCorp’s CEO. “Are you his daughter?”
“No.” Jade’s voice was small. “His niece.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, feeling more coming on.
“I know how much you hate the Corporations, and if you learned I was related to a Primary CEO, you’d freak out on me.”
I sighed, coming close to arguing with that point, but she was right. “I don’t care, Jade. If you were one of them, you wouldn’t have been kicked off Luna.”
“I wasn’t technically kicked out.”
“Then what?”
She cracked her neck, pausing in thought. “I was removed from my position and was offered a cushy role with the executives. No one was intended to discover my betrayal. But I didn’t want to be employed by a Corporation that allowed their personnel to be killed and covered up. When I saw Bryson’s message, I was intrigued.”
“Intrigued enough to leave a life of luxury behind?” I asked.
Jade nodded. “I guess so.”
“Did you make the right decision?”
“Maybe. Either way, I just wanted you to know. No secrets.” She headed to her own bunk. I wanted to follow her, to tell her I didn’t care what her last name was, but I refrained.
“Get some rest. I’ll head to the bridge.” I left her there, letting the news of her lineage sink in.
____________
“I don’t know how anyone watches this footage for more than an hour at a time.” Luther scrutinized the feeds as they discussed every team member on Lotus in depth. They hadn’t played ours yet, and I was dreading what they’d drudge up about each of our team members.
“I kind of enjoy it,” Holland said.
Jade smiled at him across the cockpit. “We can tell.”
“The fact that the Board hasn’t announced the next elimination round gave me concern,” I admitted. We were a few hours from the final checkpoint of this leg, and we still hadn’t been told what the competition was.
“Captain Lewis, there’s an incoming message from Lead Chair Octavia Post,” R11 informed us, and I accepted the transmission. It was like she’d read my mind.
“Congratulations to each of the contestants on making it this far. As you can see, Saturn is approaching, and you’ve been promised another event to determine our final four.” Octavia beamed, and I felt her eyes staring at me through the screen, even though this was a universal broadcast.
“Four! I still can’t believe they’re cuttin
g three of us.” Luther slapped the back of my chair and settled his hands onto his hips. “This really isn’t—”
“Fair?” I laughed. “It’s their race, and we’re but a small cog in their plan. Way I see it, we have a chance to crush three more dreams.”
Octavia kept speaking, and I focused, lifting a finger when Holland started to interject.
“You have engineers for a reason, and while we’ve never had a checkpoint quite like this, the Board thought we were due to expand our team members’ effectiveness in a Race. As at Mars, when your Racer passes through the last Ring before Saturn, your time will pause, and the first-place team will have that lead the following day. The winner of this elimination round will receive an additional hour’s advantage.”
I glanced at Jade, and she was pensive, biting a strand of her hair.
“The competition will take place tomorrow at 1200 hours. Dock at the Ganymede neutral station and rest up, because you’re going to need it.” Octavia looked different, older even. She was worried about something, and I doubted it had anything to do with the results of the Space Race.
The screen went dark, and Saturn appeared again in her majestic beauty. Not every planet elicited a reaction from me, but there was something different about her: the way the rings presented in their perfect symmetry, the lines of the planet. It was as inhospitable as you could imagine, but that somehow made it all the more appealing.
The moons were hubs for the workers, with most of the Primaries controlling this entire region. These moons were distributed more evenly, according to rank.
“What do you think the competition is?” Luther finally asked Jade.
“No idea. I suspect it has something to do with communication, or Core enhancements. Why does it seem like we’re being set up? That the other teams will already know what’s about to take place?” Jade didn’t sound anxious, just intrigued.
“Whatever it is, you’ll beat them and we’ll move on,” Holland said.
“If only it were that easy. I’ve met these innovators on the other teams. Marley Cage from Lotus is world-renowned for her experimentation on energy transference, and it helped secure five percent higher flash rates from a Core coupler. These guys are all pros. My counterpart at Luna Corp basically lived on a ship, while I worked on things in the office, trying to maximize mining equipment’s effectiveness. I don’t know if I can defeat them, especially if they already understand the parameters.” It seemed her points were valid.
Space Race (Space Race 1) Page 20