Saga (17 page)

Inside the tank, we were quiet as we glided toward the spaceport, the interior space filled only with the hum of the engine. Athena fed the newscast through to our screens, and we watched the gathering spectacle. There was no point in noting possible rivals. With a record 126 entries, the race was going to be little more than a massive bust-up. Early race leaders were nearly always taken out by the chasing pack. The winners tended to come bursting from the main bunch only as they approached the finish, having had a relatively quiet race and preserved their defensive shields. It could happen that a small breakaway group would reach an understanding not to fire on each other and get enough corners between themselves and the chasing aircars that they broke completely clear of the melee. All such understandings fell apart as these breakaways neared the spaceport and the final stretch of the course. Then spectators would have the hilarious entertainment of the breakaway group firing on each other at close range, within sight of the finishing line, but sometimes so destructively that none of them made it across. Our tank didn’t have the acceleration to win a sprint at the end, so Arnie’s plan was to try to get into a breakaway group, in other words, to hold our fire in the hope that those in the vehicles around us felt the same way. It was largely a matter of luck, really. There was a rule that meant no one commenced firing until after the two-kilometer line. But after that, it was every aircar for itself. You can imagine the chaos.

 

Not many other vehicles had yet placed themselves in their allocated starting position. That was a mistake on our part; already we were drawing attention to ourselves, and I winced when I saw our tank in the dead center of the newscast screen.

“Cameras heading our way.” Athena had seen it, too.

A male presenter, immaculately dressed in a green suit, tapped on the side of the tank. “Anyone in there?” He turned and beamed into the camera.

“No,” I whispered, shrinking into my seat. Milan, though, threw open the turret hatch, and his beaming, handsome, stupid face was all over the newscast.

“Here we go,” muttered Athena resignedly.

“Hello up there.” The cut was back to the presenter. “So you are . . .” He checked the screen unrolled on his clipboard. “Number seventy-four: Arnie’s Repairs. Are you Arnie?”

“No,” replied Milan. “He is.”

Arnie had stuck his head through a hatch. A camera scrolled around to him.

“So, black and red. With all those signs, are you sending out a political message today? Is that why you brought this old tank along? Anything you would like to say to the viewers?”

“Nope. Yes. Valiant, I hope you are watching. See, I told you.” Arnie ducked back down, angry, embarrassed, and proud at the same time.

“And you, young man?”

“I just want to dedicate our win to all the anarcho-punks out there. You know who you are.” Milan waved a clenched fist around and turned a little in order that the camera would take in the perma-tats visible on his biceps. Behind me, I heard a sigh and could imagine Athena shaking her head, but I didn’t want to miss a moment of the broadcast by turning around to check.

“So, are you going to win today?”

“No question. Not when we have this baby.” Milan patted the cannon affectionately.

“And what will you do with your green card?” Unseen by Milan, the interviewer winked into another camera.

“Partttyyyy!” Milan gave a great roar, flexing his arms above his head and pulling his monster face.

“Nice shot,” grumbled Athena. Fortunately the close-up did not stay on our screens for long; the cameras moved rapidly across to the next vehicle.

“Hey!” Milan called down to us when he had returned to his seat. “Whatcha think? What a star, right!”

“Yeah,” replied Athena dryly. “Good job.”

Slowly, one by one, then in twos, threes, and more, the other vehicles arrived to take up their starting positions. On our immediate right was a slim cigar-shaped two-seater; we could see the two-woman crew through their clear dome. Every year, a bunch of slender racing cars would accelerate as fast as they could from the start, hoping to use their speed to get out of range of the cannons of the chasing pack before the two-kilometer mark. They never did. On the other side, a customized Mosveo Starburst with the colors of Noble Warriors slid into its starting position. Three crew, again designed for speed rather than combat but with much more stability than a two-seater. They would make good breakaway partners, screening us from the left.

“Milan, do something useful. Stick your head up and see if you can offer a peace deal with our neighbors.” Athena had formed exactly the same conclusion as I had. I looked back over my shoulder, giving her a nod and a smile.

“Those two hot chicks? No problem.”

“No. Not the women on our right. We’ll have to take them down fast. The entry from Noble Warriors.”

“Gotcha.”

I scrolled my view around so I could watch. Milan caught their attention with a wave, and then patted the main cannon while shaking his head. They understood and gave us the thumbs-up. Milan acknowledged them with the same gesture but under his breath muttered, “Just while we get clear; then you suckers are wasted.”

3:40 left on the countdown. At last, we were nearly there.

“Headsets on,” called out Athena. “It’s gonna get loud.”

Arnie didn’t seem to mind her calling out the orders. Which was just as well because we were used to her, and I don’t know if I trusted Arnie enough to respond to him as fast as I would to an order from Athena.

2:35 and from the seat parallel to mine, on the other side of the tank, Nathan gave me a little wave. I saluted him.

2:00.

“Anti-gravity on.”

Across the vast spaceport plaza, 126 vehicles rose up, as if an army of beetles had been awoken by the order to march. All around us, a deep hum throbbed and resonated, creating infinitely many beats as a result of the slight difference in pitch of the various engines.

“All systems are go. Shield one hundred percent in all directions.” Athena sounded as if she did this every day. I was very proud of her. I hoped Arnie was thinking that he couldn’t have got a better crew, even if his guild had formed one for him.

With thirty seconds to go, the crowd began to join the countdown. Despite the fact that we were over a hundred meters from the nearest stand, we could just make out their faint cries above the pulsing sound of the anti-gravity engines.

“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen . . .”

“Ready propulsion.”

A pause.

“Ten, nine, eight . . .” She counted down with the official clock and the crowd. “. . . three, two, one. Engage.”

A great cheer and motion all around. My teeth smashed together painfully and the tank smacked my legs and the base of my spine, flinging me up out of my seat.

“Ouch.”

“What?”

“What the jumping jeebie was that?”

“Hush,” Athena cut in. “We’re down. On the ground. Anti-gravity has gone, switching to manual drive.”

“Sorry,” whispered Arnie. “The anti-gravity couldn’t cope with full thrust.” I turned around; his head was bowed, his hands pressed hard against the sides of his stocky head.

“This is embarrassing.” Milan was disgusted and shocked.

“Oh, well. Sorry, Arnie. Maybe next year.” Nathan, on the other hand, was trying to offer some consolation. Good old Nath.

“Not next year. All my credit went on this entry.” Arnie sighed, then slumped forward, covering his head completely with his arms.

Poor Arnie. He was a broken man. It was one thing to daydream about entering the great aircar race, but a whole new level of folly actually to use all your credits on an entry that didn’t even lift off the ground. I could hardly look at him; he would be feeling terrible, a total donkey. All his detractors in Valiant were being proven right.

“Oh no. Cameras. Incoming.” It was Milan who alerted us. “Tell you what, they try to make us look stupid and I’ll shoot them. No, I’ll shoot them anyway, take out their power.”

“Wait,” ordered Athena. She was concentrating intently on her screen, her face gray from its light.

“I’m not leaving here without shooting something.”

“Don’t!” She raised her voice. “You’ll get us disqualified.”

“So what?” Milan retorted.

Theoretically we could carry on, but it was pointless. On manual drive, physically rolling over the ground, we would still be lumbering around the course three hours after everyone else had finished.

“So, I have a plan. Positions everyone. I’ll explain as we go. Arnie, turn us around.”

“Around?”

“Yes.”

I flicked to the newscast. We were on. So were two other unfortunate vehicles stalled at the start. Their crews were getting out to the jeers of the crowd. A large tow truck was heading our way.

“Athena, tow truck.”

“I see it. Get us moving, Arnie.”

“Which way?”

This was annoying. “Come on, Arnie,” I chipped in with some irritation. “She said turn around. So turn.”

“Whatever we are doing, it had better be fast.” Which was as close as Nathan would get to shouting at Arnie.

At last, we were off. Instead of turning, we were jolting along in reverse, which I suppose was the same as what Athena wanted. The tracks along the sides of the tank created a loud squeal as we scurried away from our starting position.

“Tow truck has halted.” Nathan was relieved.

“Listen up.” As Athena spoke, I strapped myself into the chair. The motion of the tank over the ground, without the cushion of anti-gravity, was rough. “There is nothing in the rules about us having to use anti-gravity, or to prevent us from going the wrong way. So look at your screens. I’m displaying the point we’re heading for; it’s the narrow part of the track, shortly before it widens into the spaceport plaza. See the curve? We’re going to lie in wait just after the last bend and near the home stretch, and when we’ve taken out every single one of the other entrants, we’re going to complete the race in our own good time.”

“Yes! Good plan; I like it!” cheered Milan.

“We can’t hope to stop them all, can we, though?” asked Nathan.

“Probably not. But it’s a good spot and we’ll have the element of surprise. In any case, it beats going home early.”

By the time we set up, our good humor was back. Even Arnie was sitting up alertly, his face attentive to our chat. We had stopped about a hundred meters from the final corner. The road at this point was wide enough for only about four aircars. Our goal was to try to stop everything that came our way. For now, though, despite the knowledge of impending combat, we had to wait. I tuned into the race coverage, and so did Nathan.

“I’m going to have a snooze; wake me with ten minutes to battle.” There came a click that suggested Milan had switched off his headset.

For the next hour, the rest of us watched the race, rarely speaking. Could we really hope to stop the entire race from rushing past us? Some of the others had to get through, surely? Still, at least we would have some impact on the race, rather than just leaving completely demoralized.

A group of twelve fast vehicles eventually got clear of the melee.

“Good. That suits us,” observed Athena.

“Ten minutes.” Athena was underneath the hatch, pulling at Milan’s trouser leg.

“Right. What’s incoming?”

“The leading group of six is twenty-seven seconds clear of the pack. There are forty-three vehicles in total left in the race. Not including us.”

“Forty-three. Right.” Milan yawned.

It was a nice pose, but I bet he had been awake all the time and was as nervous as the rest of us.

Our screens changed to forward view, the newscast and commentary switched off.

“Drop your targeting right on the corner, Milan.”

“Athena, come on; I’m awake now and on the job. Just leave it to me.”

A hundred meters of empty, quiet road.

A distant bank of white cloud was drifting gently toward the City center; it was a scene of utter tranquility, just an empty road. An empty, quiet road. One hundred meters. Empty.

Beep, beep, beep. Thwomp!
The tank rocked as if it had just experienced a sudden shiver.

“One down.” Milan was matter-of-fact. I smiled to myself, sure that despite the laconic tone of voice, he was thrilled with the effects of his shot.

The leading aircar had, of course, all its remaining shielding facing behind it, back toward the chasing aircars. The moment it had entered our view, the auto-targeting had picked it up and Milan had fired straight at the aircar’s unguarded nose. The now powerless aircar bounced three times along the road surface before stopping. Behind it, the other vehicles swerved, but one racing car shot into the air, taking a huge uphit from the disabled aircar.

“Two down.” Instinctively Nathan had fired at the exposed underside of the flying vehicle, where again there was no shielding. The racing car continued its flight, but powerless now, instead of righting itself on a cushion of anti-gravity, it crashed heavily onto the road, scattering metal parts in all directions. Milan was firing constantly, the tank a vibrating chamber. In the space of thirty seconds, it had become very hot inside.

“Nath, take the back one in the flank as it skirts the wreck,” ordered Athena.

The first shots were coming back at us. Nothing to worry about yet, although Athena was rotating our shields all the same, spreading the power loss evenly. I was ready to take anti-missile measures, but either these aircars were all out of missiles, or they were saving them.

“Three down,” announced Nathan proudly. His target continued on the course it had taken to dodge the ruined aircar and smashed into one of the barricades that lined the road.

“Milan, switch to the two-seater; its shields are nearly gone. Arnie, ram that big mudgrubber; there’s no way we can hole it.”