Space Race (Space Race 1)

by Nathan Hystad

  I received a spattering of mumbles.

  “Captain, I’ve managed to do it. I have the results from the test, and can now read your mysterious message from afar,” R11 said.

  The red beam hit us, striking the ship’s underside, and the power drained slowly. My dash began to dim, and the cabin lights faded until we were in the dark. The viewer was totally blank, since it relied on power to relay the cameras onto it.

  I couldn’t believe the timing. “R11, did you create a backup? Can you still read it?”

  “No, sir. The files are embedded into the protected drive connected to the Core. I cannot access them until we bring Pilgrim to operating order,” the robot replied.

  “Then we have all the more motivation to finish this.” Not only was there a Ring waiting for us to pass to the next Race round, but we had contact with a distant alien world on the line.

  “We won’t even know when the other teams have reactivated and are flying for the Ring,” Holland said as he bumped into his chair.

  “Turn the Tabs on.” I initiated mine before standing and let the pale white glow direct me. Jade was already dashing through the corridor to Engineering, and Holland and I followed her.

  The ships had been inspected earlier, checking that there were no advantages on board, and to keep it fair, the camera drones had recorded and displayed the results for everyone to see. It was an unexpected transparency, and it gave us hope we could win.

  Anything with a modicum of power left was brought into the room, and the Core sat cold and dark behind the clear protective partition.

  “Strip them!” Jade passed us each a tool kit, and we set to work while she opened a hatch in the smooth gray bulkhead, pulling a palm-sized battery unit out.

  We had a couple of spare Tabs, as well as electronics that stored any energy from places like the bathroom and kitchen, and those were what we dismantled. Holland’s glowing screwdriver slipped, and he hissed as it dug into his skin. But he didn’t complain, just kept working.

  “All right.” Jade slid the battery closer and began building a wire harness. By the time she had the functional but messy group of cables connected to the battery, we’d pulled apart four devices, and she started the transfer process. The first one was from the shower control, and the blue light drained from the charge level while entering the battery, storing it. “We need this to be past fifty percent for the next level.”

  We knew this, but Jade reminding us was obviously part of her process. When we had all four loaded into the battery, it was at thirty percent.

  “It’s not enough,” Jade said, already sounding defeated.

  “I have an idea. We can use the Tabs,” I said.

  “They aren’t meant to be dismantled, and it’ll trash them. I’m not positive I can make the modification to—” Jade sat up, glancing at the door. “I know what would put us over the edge.”

  “What?” Holland exclaimed.

  “R11!” She sprinted away, leaving us scratching our heads, and I finally understood.

  The robot entered, the light of my Tab reflecting off his mechanical eyes. “I will give you my backup power.”

  “Jade, if we do this, how long before R11 is up and running? He’s the only one that can read the transmission,” I said. “Unless you already completed the translation?”

  “No, Captain. I have not made it that far,” R11 responded.

  Jade looked between us both and shrugged. “Do you want to stay in the Race or not?”

  I rose, my knees creaking at the effort. “Of course I do.”

  “Then strap him in and drain the batteries.” Jade moved quickly, accessing the power source through R11’s panel. “Sorry, buddy. We’ll get you charged up as soon as we’re able.”

  “Do not worry about me. I could use the rest,” he joked, and his eyes dimmed, his head lolling to the right as she disconnected the device inside him. Once we had that attached to the battery, her harness worked its magic, filling the power to sixty percent in a few minutes’ time.

  “I wonder how the other teams are doing?” Holland asked nervously.

  “We have the advantage,” I bragged.

  Jade frowned at me while detaching the battery from R11’s still form. “We do?”

  “Sure. We have Jade Serrano.” I gave her my biggest smile, and she rolled her eyes.

  “That’s not helping. Holland, we need to connect this to the secondary power system, which will reboot the Core’s peripheral functions. Once we accomplish that, the Core will begin to charge itself.” She said it with so much certainty, it had to be true.

  We opened another hatch in the engineering room’s bulkhead, and I held my Tab light up for them to see while they worked on the giant board. Once Jade affixed a series of ten minuscule wires to various sections on the board, she stopped, reaffirming she had them in the proper locations. She mumbled the colors and numbers to herself, and I smiled, watching her work. It was obvious this was her calling in life.

  “Why are you so smug?” she barked.

  “I’m not.” Here in the dim engineering room, during one of the most stressful moments of the Race, she was all I saw. The curly dark hair, the way the shaved part underneath accentuated her neck. I tried to shake the cobwebs loose and concentrate.

  “Here we go.” She tapped a switch on the battery pack. Nothing happened.

  “Did we mess up?” Holland asked, scanning over the contacts like he was aware of what he was searching for.

  Then the panel began blinking, a square of yellow in a tiny indicator light near the top corner. Then another. Then over a dozen.

  “This is it!” Jade set the battery on the floor and hugged me.

  Our faces almost touched, and she laughed with joy. I probably held a moment too long, and Holland cleared his throat as Jade and I stared at each other from inches apart.

  “Guys, can you focus?” the kid asked, and Jade stepped away, grinning widely.

  “How long will this take?” I asked.

  “I expect the Core to begin—” Jade was cut off as the Core itself started to glow along the edges.

  “We did it.” I gazed at the drive, silently willing it to hurry up. “What happens if we couldn’t do it? Would the Board send someone in?”

  “Hopefully before the air supply ran out,” Jade griped.

  Jade was cleaning up, and I helped her. The Core pulsed slowly, then faster with each passing minute, until it was solid. “When can we use her?”

  “We have to give it a while, but we should be able to forward some power to the maps. Let’s see where everyone else is on the challenge,” she said.

  “You mentioned there would be a few different solutions to bring her to life. What are the chances one of the teams did it in the same manner as us?” Holland asked her as we jogged to the bridge.

  “There are better and less risky options, but I went for speed. I have no clue what the other technicians will choose,” Jade responded.

  Luther was spun around in his chair, grinning at us. “Way to go. I heard the hum of the Core.”

  Jade crossed to his dash console, and he gave her room while she crouched under the desk, pulling a panel from beneath it. A second later, the screen shone. “Now try it.”

  Luther did so as she evacuated the tight space, and only two of the teams’ icons appeared. One was Sage, the other Luna Corp.

  “They haven’t started to fly yet, but they’re operational, putting them on the radar, and we aren’t. Which tells me they’re slightly ahead,” Jade muttered. “Damn them. How could they have done it any faster?”

  The screen buzzed, a line cut in the center of it for a second, sliding away. Luther knocked his knuckles on the dash. “What was that?”

  “Probably the ship rebooting,” Jade suggested.

  It happened again, jogging loose a memory from years ago. “Wait. Early in my tenure with Sage, a drone approached my freighter. It wasn’t on the radar, so it couldn’t be tracked. My dash did the same thing, and o
nly when I ran a complete visual playback of the hull’s external cameras did I see the bastard. Apparently, it was a competitor trying to scan me for product listings, but Sage adds an additional layer of protection against a breach of that nature.”

  Jade’s gaze flickered to the main viewer, which was still dark. “What are you suggesting?”

  “That someone’s trying to hack our network.”

  “Why would they…?” Holland stopped and turned toward R11’s empty console. “You think?”

  “Jade, see if we can get the external cameras on.”

  “It’ll delay the boot,” she said.

  “I don’t care! The Board is trying to hack us, and if they find the communication from Paedra…” I didn’t have to say any more. She rushed from the room, likely returning to Engineering.

  She came back a couple of long minutes later and nodded at Luther. “Try it now.”

  The map continued to stretch and morph. “I thought these ships were protected from assaults like this,” Luther said while attempting to switch programs. An image from outside Pilgrim appeared, and I saw Oasis in the distance.

  Jade puffed her cheeks out. “They are, but not when the network is down. When the ship powered off, we became vulnerable.”

  “Meaning?” Holland couldn’t stay still; he was fidgeting with his hands nonstop.

  “Meaning they can access the information for a short window between us powering the Core and full system restart. They have about ten minutes.” Jade focused on the screen, showing different camera angles, and we saw it on the fifth feed. “There it is!”

  The drone was black, no distinguishing lights indicating it was operational.

  “How do we stop them?” I asked. “If they find that message…”

  “What if this was all a ruse?” Luther spun slowly to face us. “What if this leg of the Race was only a distraction?”

  Holland looked ready to burst. “Hacking us?”

  “Yes. Have you ever heard of something like this in a Race before?” I asked, and they all said they hadn’t. “Right.” I shoved a finger toward the drone trying to steal our data. “Then we have to stop this thing.”

  Jade smiled in the dim glow of the console. “I have an idea, but we’d better be quick about it. I judge the network will restart within a couple of minutes, and that’ll let them upload everything we have, including the translation efforts R11 completed.”

  She ran to my chair and opened a hidden compartment. The thruster dash to the right of my seat blinked on, and she rerouted the camera feed near the drone. It was above the wing, and she used the controls to lift the duo flaps up. I rarely employed those. They were almost a worthless feature, unless I was within a planet’s atmosphere and lost command of the Core. Then they might save our lives.

  Jade increased the leveler, the screen starting to flash red.

  “Little archaic, right?” I asked.

  “The flaps? Yeah.”

  “That’s because they’re hiding something. I wish I’d thought of this sooner. Bryson had a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and this wasn’t one of the secrets he’d shared with me. But I accessed the blueprints and figured it out pretty quick.”

  I was losing my patience. “Figured what out?”

  “He added an extra shield layer to the wings, and if I do this right, it can cause a disturbance to anything within the vicinity.” Jade didn’t explain any more; she just went to work, using the keypad to issue her commands. We watched the camera feed as the wing pulsed blue, and the flap sparked before shooting a beam of crackling azure lightning at the drone. It ignited, a fire quickly snuffing, but we saw the power coursing through its circuits.

  The cabin’s underside lights came on, signaling the reboot. “Did we get it?” I asked.

  The drone drifted away, spinning in slow circles. “It’s dead, and by the time they send another one out, we’ll be behind the security system again.” Jade looked pleased with herself.

  I took Holland’s seat and went limp. “That was close. I can’t believe they masked this attempt behind such an elaborate stunt.”

  “It’s the Board. They’re used to thinking outside the box and manipulating people. Dad’s going to have a few things to say about this,” Holland said. His nervous bout had ended, replaced with anger at the invasive attack.

  “Guys, Luna and Sage are off, heading for the Ring, and I’m pleased to announce we now show on the radar.” Luther had returned to his battle station, and with the added power to the ship, all our consoles were turning on.

  “Everyone in position. We’re making a run for the Ring as soon as we possibly can.” It felt vindicating to prevent the Primary’s or Board’s invasion of our network. I bet no one had expected us to find out. By all rights, our cameras shouldn’t have been working yet, and if I hadn’t experienced a potential breach several years back, we would have been sitting ducks.

  The Core charged slowly, and I stared at the center dash display, at the various main components from the ship’s system. “Jade, when is it safe to hit it?”

  “Looks like Lotus is in the game!” Luther bellowed, and I saw the icon on the map. That made four, and then five. Oasis blinked, and we were in a tight sprint.

  The first two ships were crawling for the Ring past Saturn, and my viewer finally turned on, exhibiting the ringed planet through the void. “Why aren’t they flying faster?”

  “I suspect they solved the reboot differently, focused the power on the thrusters first. That’s good in theory, but it holds the rest of the ship’s reset back,” Jade informed me.

  “And us?” I wished I had a countdown to full power. Watching the small icons inch toward their goal caused some serious anxiety.

  “Lotus is moving.” Luther sounded worried too.

  “Arlo, I suggest we hold. I know what it seems like, but we’ll have a better shot if we delay, and wait for at least eighty percent power.” Jade knew what she was talking about, and I wanted to trust her judgment, but it was tough staring down the cut line of the Race when we were so close to the end. Two more days. That was all I needed to manage.

  “Damn it! Oasis is moving too.” This from Luther again.

  “Arlo, we can’t lose. Dad will…” Holland was desperate. We all were.

  “Trust me, team,” Jade said softly. The bridge was filling with restarting beeps and chimes, and even the lights were up to full power. But they took far less energy than the Core drive.

  My fingers drummed impatiently along the pilot’s chair’s arm. Future projections shot around my mind while we waited. Each of the four icons was distancing from us. Surely we had enough in the tank to thrust past them—at least past Oasis, who was currently in fourth.

  “Don’t do it, Arlo.” Apparently, Jade could read my mind. “Steady.”

  I glanced at the readouts, seeing we were around seventy percent.

  “We need some math here. At eighty percent, it’ll take us four minutes to get through that checkpoint. It looks to me like our competitors are speeding up.”

  Jade was firm in her resolve. “Not enough.”

  Another five minutes passed, and Luna Corp was only four minutes from the Ring. We couldn’t win, but I could be damned well sure not to be eliminated.

  Orion and Hyper were on the radar again, and Hyper had started moving, making us and Orion the only two not heading toward the target.

  “Seventy-nine. Be ready, Arlo,” Jade warned, but I was already prepared.

  Every bone in my body was focused on getting us to the Ring before as many other Racers as we could. We’d managed to fend off the data breach, and we’d show them we couldn’t be toyed with. We had our pride, and SeaTech deserved better than the treatment they’d been given so far.

  “Eighty!” Jade shouted it a split second before I hit the thrusters, sending Pilgrim in a mad dash for the finish line. We quickly passed HyperMines, and Oasis not long after. I almost felt bad for the other teams, with three of them being cut, but if it wasn’t
us, I’d sleep well tonight.

  “Gaining on Lotus!” Luther was boisterous, a laugh in his tone.

  I gripped the left arm of my chair as we sped through the short distance. The space station was filled with important people, the entire Board and most of the Primary lead staff, and now we were proving we deserved our position in the Race. Luna Corp entered the Ring, and I noticed Holland didn’t have the competition feeds on, which I was grateful for. It would only distract me, not to mention drain valuable power.

  Sage continued to accelerate, and Varn Wallish adjusted his trajectory in an attempt to block me or send me wide of the target, but I held the course, coming within ten feet of clipping his ship.

  Pilgrim entered in second place.

  Twenty

  “That was invigorating,” Holland said. Instead of celebrating in the lounge tonight, we’d decided to stay on our own floor.

  I sipped my coffee, needing the boost after such a draining event. “I would have loved to have seen their faces while we fended that drone off.”

  “Me too. Any chance they’ll confront us about that?” Jade asked.

  “Doubt it. That would be like admitting their guilt.” Luther answered the door, allowing in a robot with a rolling tray filled with food of all kinds, and a full stock of unopened bottles on the lower level. “Who’s this from?”

  The plain-faced robot paused, accessing his banks. “Octavia Post.”

  “Tell her thanks.” I stood up, stretching my back, and walked over, kneeling at the trolley. Jade must have been thinking the same as me, because she left the suite and returned a moment later with a compact device. She scanned the entire rolling cart and shrugged. “Seems clean to me. Other than the Tab on top.”

  “You sure that would catch whatever voyeuristic technology someone with Octavia’s power would have?” I saw a Tab stuffed on the cart between two dishes. The food smelled delicious.

  “Bryson gave me the newest iteration. Said it’d locate anything resembling a bug.” Jade grabbed the Tab and passed it over to me.

  “Octavia has a message for us.” I smirked and set the holographic projector on the table. Holland was already filling his plate with samples from each bowl.