‘There they are!’ said Malachi. In his excitement he elbowed Jayce so hard in the ribs Jayce bumped into Coral.

‘Hey!’ Coral shoved Jayce away from him.

‘Sorry. They’re out of the forest?’ Jayce asked.

‘Yeah. Was there a landslide? The terrain just changed from trees to rocks.’

‘They’re in the gullies. Those are old obsidian mines. Over the years the streams make them collapse.’ Jayce adjusted the display so he could see several kilometres ahead of the racers. ‘See that waterfall ahead? That’s where they’re heading.’

‘That waterfall is the next checkpoint?’

‘Yeah. So?’

‘So, what happens when they cross it?’

‘They’ll dive down the cliff. It’s okay, the skimmers can take it.’

‘But Ellie doesn’t know how to do that. Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘I just found out! You literally just told me.’

Malachi tapped his headset urgently. ‘Ellie?’

‘Yep. I’m in fourth place. Red stalled in the trees.’

‘Nice work, Ellie. But listen, the next waypoint just came in. It’s the edge of a waterfall.’

‘A WHAT?’

‘Just stay alert.’

‘Is a waterfall a cliff?’

‘Pull up early and let the anti-grav do the work.’

‘You want me to fly over a cliff?’

‘Don’t panic, Ellie.’

‘I’m not panicking! This is going to be amazing!’

‘Ellie!’

‘Okay, shut up now, I’m concentrating!’

The race entered the gullies.

Blake and his cohort held their lead. White stayed close in third place. Ellie brought up the rear.

The stream had forked here. The soft earth floor of the forest had given way to hard grey rock where it had been exposed by the erosion of the topsoil.

The landslip at the edge of the forest had broken the ground in such a way that the path of the stream had fractured along with the volcanic bedrock. Tributaries branched off to the left and the right. Some disappeared under jumbled rocks. Here and there small pools had formed where the stream could find no outlet. Only a fast but shallow channel of water was left to chart the racecourse.

The water had painted the grey floor of the gully black where it had gathered speed and splashed clear of its banks.

The roar of engines echoed off the canyon walls and enveloped them in a bubble of sound.

Ellie saw the pack ahead, three skimmers side by side. White on the left, Blake’s yellow-and-black in the middle and Kian’s and Blake’s green-and-yellow on the right. They moved almost as one.

Ellie held back. Now was not the time to push forward. Not yet. This terrain was new. She had to study it first and see what the others did.

‘Mal.’

‘Here. The road looks good from here. What do you see?’

‘Lots of rocks. The walls are getting higher.’

‘Jayce says not to worry. He’s raced this route before. He says it’s mostly straight, no hard turns to worry about, so just follow the path and take them if it’s safe. Okay?’

‘I’ll take them when I can.’

‘Sure, but when it’s safe, right?’

Ellie closed the link. Safe was for other people.

The gully grew deeper and wide enough to become a canyon, and the pack raced through a corridor of stone. The only plant life Ellie could see were trees and shrubs at the top of each canyon wall where the ground was flat enough for roots to find purchase in the thin soil.

The canyon turned left. Blake and Kian moved as one into joint first position. White turned a half-second later, giving up precious ground. He settled into second place and waited for his chance to leap forward.

Ellie copied their racing lines but turned earlier than they had, shaving metres from the distance between them

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With more turns like that I could pass them.

The canyon straightened out. Ellie made her move. She powered forward. The rock walls blurred into shades of grey and the distance between her and the pack began to close.

With a clear road ahead of them, White began probing the leaders. He snaked left and right, looking for an opening that wasn’t there.

Blake and Kian flew as a team, staying equidistant from the walls and from each other. Working together, they denied White every opportunity to pass.

Ellie moved closer. She sensed an opportunity was near. The others were concentrating only on first place – Blake and Kian on how to keep it and White on how to take it. That meant they weren’t thinking about her.

That gave her the advantage.

A voice in her headset made her jump. ‘Ellie!’

‘Not now, Mal!’

‘If you’re going to pass do it soon. The canyon narrows up ahead. It’s only wide enough for two.’

‘That’s what I’m about to do! Stop interrupting me!’

‘Hurry. It’s now or never.’

White drifted left again, putting pressure on Blake, trying to force an error. Ellie was back enough to see it wasn’t going to work. Blake would move left and close the gap between his skimmer and the canyon wall. In response, White would swing back the other way and try to pass on the centre line, between Kian and Blake, or he would move all the way to the right and try to pass Kian on the outside. Either way, Kian would see him and cut him off long enough for Blake to move back to his place on the centre left of the canyon.

It was obvious to Ellie that White had no chance as long as Blake and Kian worked as a team.

But if Blake overcompensated on his swing back to the centre line it would leave a small opening on his left.

Assuming everything went to plan.

Assuming White and Blake moved as she needed them to.

Ellie didn’t know who was inside the white skimmer, but she knew how racers thought, especially when first place was at stake.

White neared the edge of his swing left but Blake was already countering. The gap between them and the wall was the smallest it could be.

There was no room to pass. Yet.

Ellie trusted her instincts, set her jaw, and accelerated.

White reached his limit and swung right, back to the centre. Blake, anticipating this, moved at almost the same time.

Each was concentrating on the other. One on opening a door. One on closing it.

Neither saw Ellie approaching.

Together, White and Blake moved right. The space between them and the left wall widened, but the gap was still too small. There was no way through in level flight.

Ellie changed her target. Instead of aiming for the gap, she aimed for the wall and rolled her skimmer to the right. Trusting the anti-grav to push her away from the wall, Ellie took the gap on her side.

But as she began to pass, Blake saw her.

He sneered at her through the clear canopy and slammed his controls to the left. White didn’t matter any more. It was Ellie he needed to take out of the race.

Ellie reacted in a fraction of a second. She couldn’t accelerate through the gap in time. She wouldn’t give up her chance to pass Blake. She refused to let Blake ram her. That left only one option.

Ellie hit boost for the second time.

The anti-grav field exploded from the underside of her skimmer. This time it kicked against the rocky slope where the canyon wall met the floor.

The angled boost sent Ellie up and over Blake, flipping her skimmer through a full revolution as she arced over the centre line, over Kian, and landed on the far side of the canyon. Now Kian was on her left, and behind them White looked on, incredulous.

Ellie wobbled, steadied, and pushed forward. The rock walls flashed past. She exhaled after the rush of the crazy manoeuvre. Then Ellie sucked in a lungful of air in fright.

Ahead of them, the canyon had narrowed to the width of two skimmers.

The walls were closing in. Fast.

Blake surged forward, moving in front of Kian and forcing Ellie closer to the wall on her right. Kian moved behind her to prevent her slowing down. Ellie couldn’t accelerate free of the trap in time. There was nowhere to go.

Out of options, Ellie punched the heel of her palm onto the boost one more time. She braced for the familiar sudden change in g-force. The console buzzed angrily, flashing red. Something was wrong. Before Ellie could react to this new danger, the impellers overloaded. The supercharged pulse kicked down twice as hard as before. The violent leap crushed Ellie into her seat and knocked the wind from her.

Ellie soared into the air. This time there were no tree branches to claw at her skimmer. She crested the edge of the canyon and sailed high into the air. In only a few seconds, she would begin the gentle arc back to the hard rocks below.

Malachi’s voice buzzed urgently in her ear. ‘Ellie, impellers are offline. What happened?’

Ellie replied with unusual calm. ‘I broke the anti-grav. I’m twenty metres up. I cleared the canyon.’

‘You’re not supposed to do that.’

‘I know!’

‘You’re going to crash!’

‘I know!’

‘Impellers will be back in fifteen seconds.’

‘I’m going to hit the ground in ten.’

‘Open flaps and landing gear, anything to create drag and slow down.’

‘That won’t work.’

‘It will, you need to slow down.’

‘I need to go faster.’

‘Ellie, you can’t—’

‘Trust me! No time to explain!’

The skimmer reached the zenith of its climb and started to fall. There was no time to panic, so Ellie concentrated on not crashing.

At fifteen metres, Ellie calmly, quickly and methodically ran through checks and hit controls in sequence to fire up the anti-grav cushion before she hit the ground.

The warning buzzer sounded again. That wasn’t going to work.

At ten metres, impact warnings shrieked at her.

‘I know, I know,’ Ellie told the skimmer, as if it was nothing more than a minor annoyance. Below her, the race had moved on, following the canyon to the left. She tried to steer back, but the skimmer wasn’t an aircraft or a zero-g racer. It didn’t move in the same way. She was flying a rock.

The ground raced up to meet her. Impact was seconds away.

At five metres, Ellie levelled out the skimmer’s path. She counted three more seconds, then aimed at the ground and accelerated.

‘Ellie…’ said Malachi’s voice in her ear.

The buzzer was screaming now. She killed it and held her course.

Four metres.

Three metres.

Two metres.

She nudged a correction and held her breath. This was going to work, or the race was over.

One metre. Ellie squeezed her eyes shut. Looking now wouldn’t do her any good.

Zero metres.

Negative one metre.

Negative two metres.

Negative three metres.

The cockpit chimed success. The impellers came back online.

The skimmer bottomed out against the rock floor of a second parallel canyon. The invisible force of the impellers cushioned Ellie from the worst of the impact, but white-yellow sparks still sprayed behind her.

Ellie bounced around the cockpit as the skimmer bounced around the canyon, but she fought the controls and won. Certain that Jayce wouldn’t mind a few scrapes and dents, she whooped with excitement.

‘Ellie?’ Malachi sounded worried.

‘I’m a genius!’

‘You’re lucky there was another canyon so close.’

‘Luck’s got nothing to do with it, Mal.’

‘Well don’t get ahead of yourself, professor. You’re not out of this yet. That canyon’s a dead end.