Compete

by Vera Nazarian

  “Who?”

  “Consul Suval Denu! Who else? Your exalted Court Protocol Instructor!”

  “Oh,” Gennio says with a minor shudder. “Him.”

  I look from one to the other, not liking the sound of this. “Who is he?” I say. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Anu makes a snort.

  “Oh, nothing’s wrong,” Gennio hurries to say in a placating way. “He is just a little—”

  “Oh, you’ll see him soon enough.” Anu makes another even more rude snort and takes a deep swig from the steaming glass of lvikao. The delicious pastry aroma from the glass wafts at me.

  “So when are you going there?” I ask. “Can I come with you, please?”

  Both the aides give me a curious look.

  “You want to come on the shuttle?” Gennio says. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. . . . The CP may not expect you to leave this ship—”

  “Oh, for crap’s sake, let her come,” Anu says. “It’s not like she has anything important to do besides scribbling. Her Pilot Training Class is at 1:00 and this is going to take no more than half an hour. It’s educational!”

  “Are we going now? When are we going?” I straighten in my seat, while my thoughts race. . . . I need to call Logan immediately and tell him I’m coming.

  “As soon as we’re done here. No need to check in at the CCO, I already sent an email to the CP that we’re all coming in an hour late.”

  “You did not!” Gennio exclaims, horrified.

  “No, of course I didn’t, fat-brain.” Anu puts down his glass. “You are going to go over there and tell him yourself. Make something up, if necessary. Then meet me and Earth girl over at Shuttle Bay Two.”

  Apparently, in addition to the usual non-intrusive general weapons scan everyone gets upon arrival in any shuttle bay, there’s also a mandatory high-security scan before boarding a shuttle for the Imperial flagship. Fifteen minutes later, after being scanned by guards for unauthorized weapons, Anu and I stand on a drafty shuttle bay platform next to a small saucer shuttle, feeling the wind corridor motion of the air in the long concave tube down below the platform, a few steps away.

  The shuttle is the exact same personal flyer model I am now used to. It is inert, hovering in a parked position about three feet off the floor of the bay.

  Anu stands idly, with crossed hands, as we wait for Gennio to show up. He says nothing and doesn’t even look at me.

  Earlier, I managed to excuse myself on account of needing to use the bathroom, and dropped by my cabin where I left a hasty video message for Logan that I’m on my way. And now I’m here, shifting from foot to foot nervously, and hoping that Gennio convinces Command Pilot Aeson Kassiopei that there’s a good reason for this shuttle trip.

  A few minutes later, Gennio comes running.

  “So?” Anu asks.

  “All is fine. We can all go.” Gennio glances at both of us with an expression of relief. “The CP did not even say anything, just told us to be back within the hour.”

  “Great!” Anu slaps one hand against his thigh, then immediately turns to the shuttle hatch. He sings a brief sequence in a low baritone and the hatch opens.

  We climb up the short ladder and go inside.

  I follow them from behind, and pause momentarily as the familiar ivory-cream interior of the rounded hull greets me. Wall panels of slate-grey orichalcum alternating with pale cream with embossed spiral designs circle the chamber. In the center there are six seats in a suspension harness, and a seventh command chair with a hovering control panel before it.

  Gennio makes a move toward the command chair, but Anu is there first. Overtaking him, Anu slides into the main pilot chair and says, “No, you co-pilot today. Pull up the secondary console.”

  Gennio nods and takes the closest of the six seats next to the command chair.

  And then they both look at me.

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” Anu points me to the other adjacent chair on the other side of him. “Sit down and watch how it’s done!”

  I take the seat and glance over at the main control panel that’s hovering before Anu.

  “Gwen, engage your safety harness, please,” Gennio says to me from his chair on the other side of Anu.

  And then we all buckle in. I pull the belt-level harness together, and as it joins at the buckle, the vertical harnesses descend from all directions, whipping like snakes, which never ceases to startle me.

  Gennio hums a soft tenor sequence and one of the panels separates from the walls and levitates toward him, turning its nether side up to reveal a console.

  “Wow, neat!” I say.

  Anu stares at me. “Now, you do it. Might as well grab a console and help pilot, since you’re here.”

  “What?” I panic, and my brows rise. “Are you crazy? I don’t know how to do anything yet! I mean, I just had one class yesterday—my first ever, where they barely taught us the names of buttons and function keys. We never got to do any flight simulator stuff yet! I don’t even know how to turn this console thing on—”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Anu gives me a brief disgusted look. “Just do what we do, there’s nothing to it. Takes about five minutes to figure out—”

  “No, Anu,” Gennio interrupts. “She is just learning, you can’t expect her to—”

  “Sure I can.” Anu glares at Gennio. “Are you forgetting our own pilot school?”

  And then he turns to me. “Listen, Earth girl, when they teach us to pilot back on Atlantis, they just stick us in a shuttle and make us do it—all in one day. The Instructor Pilot sits down and shows you, and you try it until you get it right, or you crash and die. None of that fancy flight simulator nonsense. You’re in a damn shuttle, aren’t you? So you’ve got everything you need to learn. Now, learn—unless you are an idiot with half a brain or less! Which I’m guessing you are!”

  As I listen to Anu’s tirade, I feel my face grow hot with anger. Me, an idiot? What about him? What the hell is he thinking?

  As I stare in outrage, he makes another sarcastic snort. “Just as I thought. You are too stupid to learn like an Atlantean. I have no idea why the CP made you an Aide, unless he just wants a female around the CCO, so he can look at you when you bend over—”

  “Anu!” Gennio exclaims in a serious voice. “That’s quite enough! You are really out of line! You need to apologize—”

  Me? I’m so angry, I am white-knuckled as I clench my fists, and my head is beyond hot. I imagine mashing my fist into Anu’s pasty long face. I am going to break his face and crack his nose and. . . .

  Instead I take a deep breath. And then I say, fiercely, through my teeth, “Anu Vei, apparently you aren’t afraid to die. Because I am about to kill us all. I am going to pilot this shuttle right now. Show me what to do.”

  “No, Gwen, please, don’t—” Gennio begins.

  But I shake my head. My face is locked in an implacable expression. “Show me!” I exclaim, thinking back on what sequence Gennio sang a few moments ago. “How do I call up the console?”

  “It’s somewhat advanced,” Gennio mutters nervously. “You need to auto-key the panel to yourself first, then call it to you. See those walls, the panels that are grey are all potential consoles—”

  I guess Gennio has no idea how much voice training I’ve had.

  “Like this?” I say. And then I focus on the nearest orichalcum wall panel and sing the sequence that’s quite familiar by now, keying and calling it to me like a hoverboard.

  Anu and Gennio start at the rich sound of my mezzo-soprano, and then stare as the panel obediently hovers in my direction.

  I easily command it to turn over, and the console is revealed.

  “Now what?” I say in a hard voice.

  Gennio’s mouth has parted. “Wait! You really are serious?” he says.

  “Deadly serious.” I glare at him and Anu.

  Anu makes a grunt noise. It’s a sound of satisfaction.

  Moments later, all three of
us have the controls “on,” with the ready lights enabled—dim pulsing colors moving in response to the faintest sound under the bumpy touch surface—as long as you keep your fingers on it. Meanwhile, the window shields on the hull walls directly opposite us have come down, revealing flight windows with the outside view of the shuttle bay.

  I glance back and forth from the keys of my console to the observation windows before us. I’m shaking slightly, with a combination of anger, terror, and stubborn resolve.

  Just for a moment I remember the stress of having to take driver’s education back at school in Vermont. I flash back to my poor Dad attempting to teach me to drive, in one of our older cars. . . . Oh lord, I was so bad! Even on my last attempt four months ago, I flunked the written test out of sheer terror, despite knowing all the answers, and barely missed getting a learner’s permit.

  This—this is so much worse. Infinitely worse. It’s so not like driving a car on Earth.

  I am going to die.

  And I am going to take two other people with me.

  “Okay, Gwen,” Gennio repeats, for like the tenth time. “Remember, there are four basic functions. Red and Green control the Propulsion, also known as Thrust, and Brake—in other words, Go and Stop. Yellow and Blue control the direction and course correction. Yellow sets the initial course, Blue refines and balances it according to environmental factors, adjusting and controlling the overall flight.”

  “Got it,” I say breathlessly.

  “One very advanced Pilot can perform all four functions and fly alone. But for best results and best safety, you need at least two Pilots per vehicle,” Gennio continues.

  “And in a large spacecraft like an ark-ship, you need four Pilots,” Anu interrupts.

  “Right. Fortunately we are in a small shuttle,” Gennio continues. “Now, the main Pilot—in our case, Anu—will handle the primary Thrust and Brake functions. I, the Co-Pilot will handle the Navigation and course correction Adjustments.”

  “No, you won’t,” Anu says. “She will Navigate. She’s Yellow, so might as well let her perform her proper function. You just handle your own Blue crap.”

  Then Anu glances at me disdainfully. “You have the easy part—setting course. We’re simply going to a nearby ship, so plotting the mini-course is a no-brainer.”

  “But if you were Navigating the whole Fleet across vast interstellar space, that would be a different matter,” Gennio says. “Very difficult, probably the most difficult task of all. Imagine—if you set the wrong course across stars, we get lost and we die.”

  “Exactly. But for now, Earth girl, you just Navigate us across a tiny ship-to-ship length of the Fleet—easy! While fat-brain here—he has to course-correct and control the initial path and trajectory you set, all while compensating for our own variable speed and the Quantum Stream general velocity—all of which is the Blue control function.”

  “Slow down! Too much! Too much information—this is probably very confusing to her,” Gennio says with a worried frown. “Are you sure, Gwen, can you handle this?”

  “Yeah,” I say, while my gut fills with cold terror. “Now tell me how to Navigate.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “First,” Gennio says, “we start the shuttle. The main Pilot sings a Major keying sequence while holding down this four-color ignition key.” And he points to a kind of raised bump in the bottom center of the console where four different-color lights race in a circle around each other. I recognize it from having memorized it the night before for my Pilot Training class.

  “Go ahead, put your finger on it, Earth girl,” Anu says. “If you don’t, you won’t be recognized by the shuttle as a Pilot for this flight. All Pilots must make contact and be keyed to the shuttle console.”

  I place my index finger on the ignition key and watch the two Aides do the same.

  Anu, followed by Gennio, both sing a simple three-note sequence, and I follow their lead.

  In that moment the hull walls of the shuttle come alive, and a low harmonic hum rises. Hair-line threads of golden light race around the etchings in the hull. . . . Somehow I can feel an echo of that fine vibration where my finger touches the panel.

  I realize it is my literal connection to the ship.

  Next, Gennio shows me how to call up the Navigation Grid. “Each of the Pilots has access to four virtual coordinate grids, depending on need. They are hologram projections that pop up above the console and you can do things like plot coordinates, for example to go from point A to point B.”

  He points with his finger to each of the four corners of the console. “These buttons call up grids. Red, top right corner button is Propulsion Grid. Green, bottom right, is Brake Grid. Blue, top left, is Adjustment Grid. Yellow, bottom left, is Navigation Grid.”

  “Okay,” I say, while the shuttle is vibrating all around us.

  “You can tap any of the four corners to switch between grids any given moment.” And Gennio demonstrates by tapping the yellow corner.

  Immediately a rectangle grid of yellow light shines brightly over his console, like a ghostly laptop display screen. I see fine lines marking grid squares stand up in the air, appearing out of nowhere.

  Next Gennio switches to blue, and a blue grid pops up, then a green one, then a red one. “You can make it 3D if you tap it twice.” And the moment he does, the red rectangle suddenly morphs and extends, taking up a strange three-dimensional space, as though a translucent box of light is hovering over the console.

  “Wow!” I say. And then I tap the yellow corner key on my own console. Up pops my Navigation Grid, golden-yellow. I tap it again, and it elongates into 3D space.

  “Enough playing,” Anu says. “Time to get going.”

  Gennio bites his lip nervously, then tells me, “All right, this is how you set up the Navigation itinerary. First, you choose Destination.” And he presses a spot on the console smart surface that’s right next to the yellow corner grid button—basically swipes his finger off to the side.

  Immediately a small secondary grid appears in the air over Gennio’s console, right next to the main Yellow grid. I replicate his movement by sliding my own finger across in a swipe. A similar yellow square pops up before me. It is populated by rows of weird Atlantean symbols that blaze yellow, like an array of angry alien emoji drones.

  “What’s that?” I say, while my mind goes, “oh, crap.”

  “Okay.” Gennio points to the very first one on top left. “See that circle character? That represents you, in other words, this ship. That’s like the Home button, okay?”

  “Okay. . . .”

  “See the four-point star character right next to it? That’s the Fleet Menu. In other words, you can use it to call up a list of all the ships in the Fleet.”

  “Got it. What about the other weird characters?”

  Gennio shakes his head. “Don’t worry about them. They’re other menus. Ignore them for now. All you need is the Fleet Menu.”

  “All right.”

  “Now, tap the Fleet Menu.”

  I do as he says, raising my finger up in the air to touch the projected holo-character star made of yellow light.

  At once the character expands into a long scrolling menu of Atlantean numbers, in three columns.

  “Holy crap!” I exclaim.

  “Just a visual representation of our actual Fleet formation—three adjacent columns of ships, each one a number, lined up the exact same way we’re flying in space right now,” Gennio says. “Now, to scroll up and down, just touch the edge of this menu grid on either side.”

  I make a scared sound and very gently move my trembling finger to engage the scroll function. The numbers start moving down through the air. I slide my finger in the other direction, and they scroll up.

  “Good,” Gennio says. “Now comes the easy part—find the ICS-1 flagship and tap it. That will choose it as our flight Destination.”

  “But I don’t really know how to read these numbers.” I bite my lip. “I only know how to cou
nt to maybe twenty in Atlantean?”

  “Hah! Congratulations, you’ve achieved the reading level of an Atlantean three-year-old,” Anu says with a snort.

  “You know what?” I turn in a burst of fury, and glare at Anu. “One more word from your filthy mouth and I will stuff my fist in it!”

  “Whoa!” Anu makes a hoarse laugh and sits back from me. “Earth girl’s got a bite!”

  “You just shut your Atlantean trap!”

  Gennio shakes his head at both of us. “Please, Gwen. Okay, let’s just continue, please.” And he points to the moving columns of numbers. “Fortunately all you need is to count to four in Atlantean. There are four Imperial Command ships in the Fleet. They are all in the middle row. And they are spread out evenly, the entire length of the Fleet. Unlike the other ark-ships, each Imperial Command Ship is designated by a large circle, with a number inside. ICS-1 is at the very beginning of the formation, so just scroll up all the way until you see a circle with a #1 in it. By the way, there we are, ICS-2, see it?”

  As he points, I see a big bright circle with two dashes in it, among the sea of numbers—our own current ark-ship. It inches downward slowly, eventually disappearing off screen. I scroll with my finger to speed up the movement, passing hundreds of numbers, and finally reach the top of the menu. Just as Gennio said, there’s the other big circle with one dash, up on the very top.

  “Now, tap it to select our Destination.”

  I do as I’m told.

  In that instant something weird happens. The Fleet Menu grid disappears and instead two circles suddenly pop up on the main Navigation grid. They float in the air—the circle with #1, our Destination, is on top, and a blank circle designating us, the shuttle, on the bottom.

  “That’s it, Navigation set!” Gennio says. “You did it, Gwen, good job!”

  I exhale in relief. “Okay, now what?”

  “Now, I take over, and fly!” Anu says harshly.