Qualifying

“Temperatures look good,” Stefan’s voice came through Phoebe’s earpiece. “I think you can go again.”

Phoebe, hanging from her stirrups as Soot heeled tightly round the acute corner of the BSCH Tower, gritted her teeth. She’d made mistakes on this run and nothing Soot could do on this short descent to the sharp left into the stadium would pull them out of the hole. They needed to try another lap, but conventional wisdom and their plan for the qualifying session assumed they’d come in to perch, water Soot and then try again. That meant a warm-down lap on the way in and a warm-up on the way out, easily four minutes before their final qualifying attempt. If she took another attempt now, there probably wouldn’t be time to do all that and get the intended final run.

Soot levelled out as he dropped, squeezing first one and then a second tight sweep of his wings in before snapping them open again to swing through the tenth ring and back into the stadium. Phoebe struggled to get upright on his back. Never mind Stefan’s insistence on riding Soot harder and longer, she was going to have to talk to the tech again about stirrup position.

Steady, powerful wingbeats drove them up the stadium over rustles of enthusiasm from the crowds below. The first ring spat them out over the narrow strip of sand along the riverbank and again Phoebe leaned hard right, straining her leg almost onto tip-toe against the stirrup bar. Soot seemed keen to keep his pace up, and Phoebe let him. She needed to get back into the mindset of having actual data to work from and trusting it for aspects of her dragon’s condition that she couldn’t see with bare eyes.

They swept down the river, the water choppy under the wind. Spray stung Phoebe’s cheeks, but she held her stance. She might not have her stirrups set right for cornering yet, but for holding her weight up off Soot’s wing joints, they were much steadier than the old harness, and she didn’t have to force her legs so stiff for these fast sections. It wouldn’t make them any less vulnerable through this stretch in the race, where bigger dragons might well have two to three knots’ airspeed advantage over them, but it would help with endurance, for her and Soot both.

The shadow of the grand suspension bridge fell across them and Soot folded his left wing sharply, heeling them over into a tight swerve through the fourth ring. Phoebe leaned into the corner and almost slipped out of her right stirrup altogether, hanging painfully on her left ankle until Soot could right them.

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Soot forced altitude towards the fifth ring as they crossed the shore, wind off the sea tugging at his stroke. The fifth defined a tight hairpin, since they had to enter it from the far side. If Phoebe could get her legwork right here, Soot would have a much-needed advantage over bigger drakes. Commit too hard, though, and she could still fall right out of the harness.

She hesitated leaning in, despite her best efforts, and felt that carry over into Soot's turn. He was still nimble, the sinuous twist of his spine wrenching Phoebe around as she kept her bottom leg firmly planted, but their angle through the ring wasn’t as tight as it could have been and his next stroke felt sluggish.

The sixth ring hung just off the shaded side of the bridge’s nearer tower, with the seventh by the far tower on the other side. They swept over the inverted arc of the suspension cables, another section where Soot would be vulnerable to bigger dragons. The breathtaking view out to the sea, and inland over the estuary, couldn’t soothe Phoebe’s sense of vulnerability. Their pace this lap didn’t feel great.

Through the seventh ring, they crossed a stretch of sandy beach, heaving with tourists, before the course swung right through a narrow alley between towering hotels. The eighth ring all but touched the glass walls of both buildings. This was Soot’s kind of territory. Phoebe threw herself left again for a sharp swerve through kaleidoscopic reflections off the windows that surrounded them. Soot#s reflection raced across the face of the building ahead.

It took all her balance and fight to get her weight over to Soot's other flank, the tendons in her legs hot ropes. Soot slammed a massive forward stroke to cut their speed as the right-hander through the ninth ring turned into a stalling hairpin round the BSCH tower, then it was into the descent and round the final sharp left into the stadium.

“One minute thirty-eight point eight for Tenryuu, that’s not going to be enough, she’s still only in sixth.”

“I don’t understand why she went for the second run. It’ll be touch and go if she can get out again.”

“Well, she did improve her time.”

“Only three tenths. And you can tell she’s not comfortable on Soot's back today, should’ve come back in and seen if they could tighten anything up.”

“Can we still chalk this up to teething troubles, do you think?”

“You mean the personnel changes?”

“It’s a growing team, they’ve got a lot of new resources they’re wrestling with.”

“I hope it’s not. Phoebe's always had an instinct for her dragons. She needs to trust that.”

“And if it was her call to go for the extra run?”

“Hmph.”

“Anyway it looks like the rest of the championship leaders are starting to launch to make their final runs, there goes Incandesia from the Lautern stables. Can Coro find four tenths to steal pole position from Andoal?”