“He had a gun… and in the end you still edged out a win?” Niu asked for the third time already. They sat on a bench in the small infirmary room and waited for the doc to give Robin clearance to leave.
“Why does that come as such a surprise? You were with us when Patience trained me…”
“Yeah, right… but who knew you would really learn something? I mean you even got your place in the top 10 after I took you in as a student. No one expected that either… training you really is fruitful!” Happy absentminded mumbled.
“Wait, what did you mean by ‘no one expected me to win’? I thought you said I was well prepared and would ‘win my rank with ease’?”
“Huh?” Niu jumped up, “Oh! Do you hear that? I’ve got a call incoming. Sorry, I’ll have to leave. We will see each other tomorrow, right? Byyeeeee!”
Robin only could hear her giggling for a moment longer after she ran out of the room.
“Damn midget!” He cursed, but a smile formed on his lips.
It was a freakin’ exhausting day, but in the end, he did quite well. Patience would be so proud, when she heard of his fight. Thinking back to when he jumped down from the container like a professional martial artist, he grinned before suddenly freezing up.
“No! She’s never allowed to know of this! Jumping from some roof is definitely not something she would approve of…” At the thought of Patience insistently and forcefully explaining why that was a stupid idea, Robin began to shudder. Good thing he didn't tell Niu the details, that'll be a secret he'll have to take to the grave!
After he was allowed to leave half an hour later, he went directly to his room and fell into his bed. It was already past midnight and he was really exhausted. Following his fight with Hopewing, he had a short chat with the Apex staff. But as they just watched the surveillance video and knew what had happened, no one tried to put any blame on him.
Seems like Hopewing sneaked out of his medical room to manipulate Robin’s and Niu’s ships, but as they were protected, he needed the help from a staff member. Fortunately the guy didn’t want to have anything to do with the fallen hero, as he was literally a sinking ship, and went to get some help after the fight broke out.
The next morning Robin dug into the breakfast as if he was eating for three, while a cheerful Happy was accompanying him. Afterwards he performed a final check on the Melody. At the same time he also connected the false battery pack to the ship and made sure everything was prepared for the final race that was about to start early morning the following day. While the IPC Themis transported them to the location of the next race, on the other side of Ruca II, Robin met with Jim and told the tale from his heroic fight the day before.
Time ticked by and soon Robin found himself sitting in the Melody, neatly lined up with the other ships on the starting grid of the new course. Like before they had a few hours to get used to the track and check out the danger zones - this time the organizers from Apex were especially thorough with their introductions, as no one wanted to lose another pilot.
The track itself was really great, Robin would love to fly it for real at some later time. It was the longest of the three AHC tracks by far and it'll take around 15 min for the pilots to do one of the four laps.
He stayed in the back of the group as they flew their training laps on the new course and observed the surroundings for a good exit point. The track was comparable to the last one, only much longer. There were a few straights more than 15 km long and six craters to pass. The most spectacular sections however were a 20 km long tunnel and another canyon. The latter at least was wider than the last and only had hills surrounding it. The risk of hitting walls and crashing the ship was much lower there. Through the tunnel the pilots had to fly with a more adapted speed and so even if someone hit the wall in there, these modern ships were safe enough to keep the pilot alive.
Robin already decided in his first lap, where he would orchestrate his big departure. He needed to have high speeds to gain enough distance in the blink of an eye, a reason to leave the track and a reason for Apex to not immediately send someone after him.
“The canyon it is… huh, some people will think of bad karma with canyons after this.” He chuckled, “Time to plan the next steps…”
The rest of the day Robin flew lap after lap to make sure he knew exactly where he had to hit the hills to catapult him off the track, without sending him into the wide open space.
When he finally crawled into his bed that evening, he felt well prepared and oddly nervous.
He was pretty confident in fleeing the race without anyone noticing, however what if he finally reached the location of the Drel outpost only to find nothing at all, the map being wrong or time had claimed whatever the Drel left behind?
Once more Robin checked the ancient map with his Interface, matching it with all the data he had on Ruca II and finally fell asleep late at night.
Early in the morning of the next day Robin found himself once more neatly lined up with the other ships on the starting grid, but this time it was for the final race. The countdown had already dropped to under one minute and Melody's thrusters were glowing bright blue through the excess of unused plasma.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Tightening his grip on the two joysticks, Robin felt as prepared for what is to come as possible. The rest will depend on his luck. There was nothing to lose anymore but everything to win!
*ding*
The red light turned green and the Melody shot forwards, tailing behind the other pilots. Robin allowed the 10th ranked to pass him early on, to make sure he would not implicate any other ships when leaving the track.
Soon he entered the tunnel and stuck close to the little group in front of him. After coming out from this section, he would enter the canyon. Taking each turn with grace and not feeling pressured to keep up with the other ships, he realized how much he had grown over the last months. If he tackled this race seriously he should have quite the good chance of reaching the top 6, more than respectable for a rookie.
When he saw the bright light in the distance, Robin cleared his head and focused on the only important thing right now.
“Let’s leave the stage like a champ!” He laughed and grabbed the throttle.
***
Patience sat in a small room to the side of the big training hall, where she was just beaten up. While she flinched a bit at the thought of her consumption of cooling packs over the last days, all in all she was in quite the good mood. Her training went well and she felt her growth every day.
Lately she even befriended the mind-bending Zela. If Patience overlooked the fact that she still was losing every match against her, the woman was great company. Also, it wasn’t as if she only lost anymore. Some of her other colleagues learned to fear her quite a bit. Her punches hit harder each day, her own endurance increased and her defense became more solid.
For many martial combatants, Patience was a real pain in the ass - well many non-combatants felt the same, as she still hadn’t tempered her short fuse, but one step at a time.
Right now, she was allowed a break by her coach, Moel. Robin really did manage to reach the top 10 in the second race and gained a spot in the finals! That was big news for Patience, she knew how hard Robin had trained for this chance. She still was a bit surprised by his sudden idea to become a racing pilot, but she was happy non the less.
On her datapad she watched the live feed and just saw the Melody flying through a long tunnel segment of the track. It was still the first lap and while Robin lost one rank and dropped to the last position, it looked like he could keep up with the rest pretty well.
“You can do it, mate!” She cheered for her friend, “There are so many high speed segments and as those are your absolut forte, you will leave them in the dust in no time!”
Patience watched on as the Melody exited the tunnel and after another turn entered the canyon. A freakin’ long section that bears some risks to anyone who overestimates their abilities. However, she was not surprised at all when the Robin’s ship gained some height and began to accelerate.
“Wuhuuu!! Get them, mate - they are nothing…feed them dust!” She screamed at the little display, totally on fire and forgetting where she was.
The initiated maneuver for passing the group in front of him however didn’t take place, instead, the Melody sharply lost speed all of a sudden and Patience could even see the two oversized thrusters to flicker on and off a few times.
Speechless she could only watch on as Robin tried to fight with his ship. The commentator from Apex also switched his attention to the ship way behind. Millions in the whole Mereus Cluster watched as the thrusters finally came back to life and the reporter even threw out hints at Robin’s track record for high speed sections and how he still had a chance to catch up to the rest of the field.
All that ended however, as suddenly the Melody first began to lurch about, only to jank to the right directly towards one of the hills at the side of the track. Patience watched in horror and just before she had to see how her friend catapulted himself into space, the image turned black, only showing a small blinking message:
- - - Connection Lost - - -
***
Robin hadn’t thought of his crazy stunt being streamed into the whole Mereus Cluster, watched by millions of people, or that it may have been a good idea to give Patience a heads-up before he set off an EMP-bomb in the middle of the race.
Right now however, he was concentrating on the Melody only. Her systems slowly came back to life as he shot along the moon’s surface. The last risky step was the re-ignition of his thrusters before the low gravity of Ruca II slowly pulled the ship into its rocky ground while still at full speed.
While he waited for the EMP-based shutdown to pass by, he tried to gain information about his surroundings. Unfortunately the radar was still off, too. He could only hope that the EMP had disabled all surveillance- and camera-drones and none were shielded. If they still were observing him, things would become really awkward in a few moments.
The idea for this stunt obviously stemmed from the incident in Beakrath. After some investigations were done by Beakrath Security, it was concluded that the reason for the electromagnetic pulse was created by the malfunction of a plasma engine. Some older models were famous for this problem and the Melody also had this tech installed. Hence, simulating the accident came naturally.
Seconds ticked by and the ground came closer and closer. He had gone for a flat angle to not drift into space, but the downside was obvious. The first display that showed any useful information monitored his ship’s speed and altitude: 403 m/s | 11 m
“Whooho.. that will be close!” Robin said and began to sweat a bit as he saw the altitude drop to 10 m. The radar came online next and at least he now knew that no one was watching him as he was about to either crash into the ground or flee the scene.
Only when the display showed an altitude of 4m left did the engine and thrusters finally come back to life. Robin immediately yanked back the right joystick as well as the throttle to raise the nose and slow the ship.
“Puhhhhh…” He took a deep breath. Finally he had taken all the hurdles - from the advancement to the second and third race, his beef with TechnoBlood and Hopewing and now the bail-out from the finals. It was time to see if all this was worth the struggle. Checking the map one more time, Robin set a new course, leaving the Apex area further and further behind.
Four hours later the Melody slowed down and entered a small, flat mountain range.