Compete (64 page)

“In Atlantis, this is how we acknowledge a special time together,” he told me, after letting my hand go reluctantly—and I was equally reluctant to be released.

“A wrist kiss?” I said with a playful smile.

“A
pulse
kiss.” Xelio’s virile, dark-eyed gaze caressed me. “I hope it’s only the very first one.”

And then with a wicked smile he was gone.

I returned to my cabin, my mind overflowing, and my senses heightened to a fever pitch.

Then, it being after midnight, it was time for Cinderella to turn back into a Gwen.

S
o, that was the Red Dance, and its fallout. And now, business continues as usual at the CCO, and I expect nothing.

Yes, I still hurt, and every time I see Aeson Kassiopei, my heart is pulled apart with a lonely, hollow need for him. But I’m a big girl—I can live with it.

I continue with work and classes. One interesting side effect—Anu, at least, gives me a tiny bit more respect now that he’s seen me all dressed up and with Xelio.

I also continue to train at the gym with Xelio on a regular basis, and now there’s an extra layer of pleasantly exciting physical tension between us. . . . Plus it appears Xel is very good company in general, charming and funny, in some ways reminiscent of Logan when Logan and I were at our best—a sparkling couple together. Xel and I are not exactly dating, but we see enough of each other that it’s safe to say we’re some kind of friends.

Talking about Logan—I belatedly recall now that Logan
did
see me at the Red Dance. In fact, I remember his intense multiple stares throughout the evening, even while he was with that blonde. But I was so focused, so occupied with Aeson and Xelio and everything else, that Logan’s attention became a secondary thing.

Wow, funny how some things change. . . . Logan used to be the one person who anchored me, and whom I thought I needed desperately. And now, it still hurts, there are still complicated unresolved feelings, but there is no longer the urgency to be with him.

What’s happened to me?

M
eanwhile, the first month of Red ends, and with it, end our restrictions about flying in the Quantum Stream.

We’re off the flight simulators once again, and real shuttle Pilot Training for Cadets resumes outside, all the way up to our arrival on Atlantis.

My new Pilot Partner Chiyoko Sato and I settle in, and find that we are both tolerably decent partners, and our joint flying gradually improves. Chiyoko might not be perfect, but compared to working with Hugo, she’s a blessed angel.

It turns out, neither one of us is particularly good at being specifically either the Pilot or Co-Pilot, or at least not in any pronounced way. We switch constantly, and we do okay in either role. But it is frustrating sometimes that we are still not doing as well as some other people, by this point in our training.

Whenever we go out outside to take our limited turns with the shuttles (we all get only 5 runs a month per Cadet Pilot Pair), we end up scoring 3s and sometimes 4s on our performance. I don’t remember getting even a single 5, which makes me wonder—how will I ever perform well enough to be a viable contender for the Games of the Atlantis Grail in Aeson Kassiopei’s eyes?

Meanwhile Instructor Okoi watches all of us like a hawk, and we are continually reminded that the Final QS Race will be a grueling test of all our abilities.

Two more Red months pass, and during the third Red month, which coincides with February back on Earth, my brother Gordie has his birthday.

Wow, Gordie turns fifteen this year. And naturally he absolutely forgets the day it happens—February 7—because it’s what he always does, and so does Gracie, because the only birthday Gracie ever remembers is her own—and for once so do I, which makes me an awful sister. So I end up trying to make it up to Gordie the following week, but it doesn’t work out, I can’t leave my ship that week, he can’t leave his, so I give up and just leave him numerous video messages with air kisses. Yes, I suck.

And then we enter Yellow, the Atlantean season equivalent of Autumn.

The first month of Yellow—and the tenth month of us being on the journey—signals that we’re in the final quarter of our journey. The fact that the Fleet is
decelerating
significantly is now visible, judging by the quality of the Quantum Stream around us—it is a finer, more translucent thing, and the view of the true interstellar space outside begins to intrude on the quality of the gray.

By the second month of Yellow, our month eleven in space, we begin to see actual stars again. For so long, they were only flickering shadows barely emerging out of the homogeneous grey darkness during the previous three months. . . . And now at last they are showing up as points of true light with extended tails.

What a weird wonder it is to know now we’re in such a distant and impossible location in the universe, so far away from our original home, Earth.

We are now closer to Atlantis.

And our Final Test, the second Quantum Stream Race, is only days away.

W
ith just three days to go until the QS Race, everyone’s doing practice shuttle runs, both outside and on the flight simulator consoles. The classroom deck is always busy and there’s a signup list to use the consoles even during after hours.

Chiyoko Sato and I manage to land a free half-hour time slot on the list, and so we meet up after dinner to use the flight simulator consoles one last time.

It’s around 6:30 PM and the room is packed with Cadets running shuttle scenarios. There are several people milling around waiting for their turn on the consoles.

Chiyoko is already here, saving our spot. She looks up at me tiredly, with her usual startled expression.

“Hey,” I say with a smile. “Let’s do it!”

And we power up the simulator and begin a run.

“You be the Pilot first,” she tells me.

I nod, and key myself to the Red and Green, Thrust and Brake, while Chiyoko takes the Yellow and Blue, Navigation and Adjustment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan and Oliver come in and take a console desk nearby. Logan gives me a brief look then turns away.

Immediately my heart skips a beat, and I hear the pulse in my temples pick up pace.
Yeah, Logan still has an effect on me
. . . .

So I force myself to ignore him and focus on the task at hand.

Chiyoko and I fly the virtual shuttle cleanly, and I engage the Red thrust to increase speed. Chiyoko handles the Blue Adjustment Grid, keeping us elegantly on course. “Time to slow down soon,” she warns me in her mellow quiet voice.

I flip over to Green and engage the Brake. Our shuttle starts to slow down in a gradual deceleration as we enter the scenario’s shuttle bay.

We finish and check our time. The Run Clock shows we took 17:04 minutes compared to the 15 minute Average.

“Damn,” I mutter tiredly. “Is there anything we can do?”

This is pretty much the same time we keep getting on every run, and have been getting for the last several weeks. Our improvement is minimal, pitiful, and sometimes it can be counted in seconds.

Chiyoko looks at me and sighs. “I don’t know,” she says.

We look at each other and think. Unfortunately as we do so, we are also wasting our precious time slot. As of this moment, we only have time for another practice run, and that’s it for our turn.

“Okay,” I muse out loud. “What can we do to shave more seconds off? I tend to brake as soon as you tell me, right?”

“Yes,” she says. “You do it very quickly, but not better than me. I think I brake a little faster.”

“What about accelerate? Which one of us is better at it?” I rub my forehead.

Chiyoko pauses. “Uhm. I think you are. I tend to hesitate a little.”

I sigh. “Okay, so which will gain us more of an overall advantage? To have a Pilot who accelerates faster but brakes so-so, or to have a Pilot who brakes faster?”

“I don’t know.” Chiyoko shrugs. “Maybe the Pilot should be the one who accelerates better, to account for speed.”

“This is very frustrating,” I mutter. “I wish we could just break up the roles and have each person do half of the Pilot’s tasks and half the Co-Pilot’s. That way both of us get to cover whatever we’re best at. . . .”

And then a crazy idea hits me. “Hey,” I say. “What if we tried it?”

“Tried what?” She looks at me in confusion.

“Splitting the Pilot and Co-Pilot down the middle?”

“Huh?”

I point to the consoles. “Normally we key either Red-Green or Blue-Yellow. What if I took Thrust and you took Brake? And you took Adjustment and I took Navigation? So I key myself Red-Yellow, while you key as Green-Blue!”

Chiyoko starts to frown. “How is that possible?”

“Well, why not? A single advanced Pilot can fly solo while handling all four functions. No one
says
a Pilot has to do Thrust and Brake.”

“But—” Chiyoko continues frowning. “That’s not what we are being taught.”

“Look,” I exclaim with excitement, “nowhere does it say that’s a hard rule. I mean, I think this particular role split is just a convenience.”

Chiyoko bites her lip. “Okay. . . .”

“So let’s just give this thing a try, for the heck of it,” I say with rising excitement. “We have nothing to lose, right? Let’s just try!”

“Okay. . . .”

And we do.

We re-key ourselves across functions, and start the shuttle run. It’s a little weird at first, for one person to just be responsible for going fast, and the other for slowing down. . . . But in minutes we realize we are doing very well with this new division of labor. I go really fast on Red, and Chiyoko takes over when needed to quickly slow us down with Green during turns and maneuvers.

We complete a clean run, almost effortless, and when we check our time, the Clock says we finished at 14:39 minutes!

“Oh, wow!” I exclaim. “That’s our fastest time ever! And, we’ve
finally
beat the Average!”

Chiyoko stares in absolute amazement. “I have never gone so fast. . . .”

“I know! So let’s make this split permanent!”

Her mouth falls open. “Will they allow us?”

“How are they going to know?” I grin. “Besides, it’s not in any rulebook. No one says we are
not
allowed to do it. It might not be Fleet standard, but I don’t think it’s illegal.”

Chiyoko puts her hand over her mouth and smiles.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this girl smile,
ever
.

“Instructor Okoi is going to kill us . . .” she whispers.

I laugh. “I’m willing to take that risk, if it means improving our chances in the Race!”

After just a tiny little pause, Chiyoko nods. “Me too!”

Chapter Forty

T
he day before the Second Quantum Stream Race is filled with Pilot Training review sessions. I am allowed to miss most of my work duties at the CCO in order to attend the sessions.

First thing in the morning, we rush to see our Pilot Pair Standings that have been posted on smart boards in the corridor between the Cadet and Command Decks.

Chiyoko and I check our Pilot Pair numbers and we have a reasonable #314 score, which puts us somewhere in the healthy middle of our ship’s Cadet Pairs. Our shuttle assignment for tomorrow is shuttle #47 in Shuttle Bay Four, and we are Pilot Pair two out of six in the relay lineup.

I note to myself that Logan Sangre and Oliver Parker are still at #3, with Alla Vetrova and Conrad Hart at #1 and Erin and Roy Tsai at #2. Meanwhile, Blayne and Leon manage to snag a very nice #173.

Oh, and Hugo Moreno? He and his “new and improved” partner Marc Goldstein got a #463, which makes me want to cackle with glee! Yeah, Chiyoko and I beat them by over a 100 points!

Now I eagerly look forward to calling up Gracie and Laronda later tonight to see how their numbers are.

But first, we have a Safety and Review session at 10:00 AM and a mandatory shuttle inspection at 1:00 PM.

When we get to Safety and Review, the classroom deck is filled with anxious teens.

Instructor Mithrat Okoi comes in, we salute, and he begins without any other preamble.

“This is your last class before the Final Test tomorrow,” he tells us in a grim loud voice. “First thing you need to know is the type of race course you will be following. Instead of flying in a
straight line
around the Fleet as you had to do for the first QS Race, you will have to fly in a zigzag or
sine wave pattern
around each ship in the middle column of the formation. In other words, you will ‘weave around’ each ship in middle column #2 as you move forward, alternating going left then right in each horizontal channel between ships until you reach ICS-1 at the head of the fleet. Then you return the same way.”