We grow quiet immediately.
“Welcome to your first Quantum Stream Race. Pilot Pairs, line up! On my mark—first Pair, you have control of the shuttle. Go!”
Hugo and I are the third Pair in our line. He looks very pale and withdrawn this morning, like he hadn’t slept properly, and gives me dark frowning stares. I, on the other hand, probably look too wound up, still feeling cocky after the previous night.
We watch tensely as all around us the first two Cadets in every line run for their shuttles and climb inside. Seconds later, the shuttles come alive, move off the platforms and start entering the launch channel, ten seconds apart.
I realize that traffic controllers give them timing instructions from inside the shuttles, but it still looks very random and terrifying. It’s a wonder they don’t collide in the busy launch tunnel.
Once again the terrifying reality of what’s happening slams me with panic.
Breathe, Gwen, breathe. . . .
I can do this.
Seconds tick, then minutes. We have no idea what is happening outside, out there in the Quantum Stream. . . . All we know is that it takes about 15 minutes to complete the course of this length on the average, and the time to beat is 10 minutes, a record set by some Atlantean Cadet back home.
Fifteen minutes later, the first of the shuttles start returning. The wind churn in the launch tunnel is incredible as the small flyers come bursting in, slow to a stop and park on their platform spots. Pilots emerge in haste, looking dazed and overwhelmed, and signal their replacements to take over the shuttles.
Immediately those in the second batch of Pilot Pairs go running to claim the shuttles.
Another minute, and our shuttle #72 returns.
As soon as the Cadet Pilots immediately ahead of us run to take control of our shuttle, I find myself standing in the very front of our line, with Hugo breathing down my neck.
The Cadets in the first Pilot Pair that has just returned with our shuttle stand looking somewhat bewildered. Then the girl starts yelling at the boy, and he shows a cringe-worthy expression of disgust.
“Hey, so how was it?” Hugo calls out to them.
“It sucked, hard,” the girl says, whirling around. “We nearly lost control. That first hard left turn up in front of the Fleet—watch it! This bozo here almost made us overshoot the flagship and Breach! And oh, the lane itself is so crowded, tons of other shuttles, just horrible!” And she continues giving her partner a hard time.
“Great,” Hugo mutters. And he glares at me.
“What?” I say.
“Nothing. You just keep it cool, okay? We can’t afford to mess up.”
“I know. And—you first,” I say.
A few minutes later it’s our turn.
Shuttle #72 comes in, the Pilot Pair before us climbs out, and hands it over to us.
“Go, go!” Hugo cries to me.
And we race for it.
As soon as we’re inside the shuttle, Hugo grabs the Pilot chair and I take the Co-Pilot one next to him. Immediately I buckle in and call up a console panel from the wall, keying it to me, while Hugo is still messing with his harness button, with trembling fingers.
“Move it, Moreno!” I say in a hard voice uncustomary to me. “Or would you like me to take the Pilot chair instead?”
“Shut up!” he growls and gets his harness together, then keys himself to the console.
Both of us swipe the undersides of our respective consoles, making them light up. At the same time the window shields separate automatically, revealing the viewport with the crowded scene of Shuttle Bay One outside.
“Hurry!” I say. “Sing the ignition sequence already!”
Hugo glares at me as he sings the 3-note sequence while holding down the large button with the four-color racing lights—as the Pilot he has to go first—and I as Co-Pilot immediately do the same thing.
The shuttle comes alive with a low harmonic hum. Hair-fine threads of golden light race around the etchings on the hull.
I glance up and see something new—the two panels flanking the viewport on both sides light up in bright red text, in English, and oh crap . . . it’s the QSBEP-1 Emergency Instructions list, posted in duplicate, one on each side of the shuttle, like a grim reminder.
Hugo notices it too, because I see him stare momentarily.
Another thing we notice also is the appearance of a large readout in the center above the viewport. This is our Race Clock. It will be digitally displaying our progress in real time.
In that moment the voice of the Atlantean automated air traffic controller sounds from the walls. “Ten second warning . . . . Shuttle #72, prepare to enter the launch channel.”
Hugo and I go crazy, as we pop up our grids, and Hugo coasts us over to the edge of the platform.
“. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . You may enter the launch channel.”
Hugo sings the sequence, and then his Red Grid goes 3D.
We are now off the platform and in the channel.
“Shuttle #72, you may launch now!”
Hugo swipes to engage the Thrust.
We blast off.
The tunnel blurs around us and in seconds we are outside in the muddy grey spacescape. The saucer hull wall of ICS-2 looms behind us.
Meanwhile, the “racing lane” area just ahead is full of speeding shuttles already in the Race. They pass by us like meteors, bullets, or specks of plasma light. . . .
Oh, wow! How are we ever going to merge into that hellish speeding traffic?
“Okay, get in the stack! Now!” I yell, wildly entering corrections on the Blue Grid, because I see it—the stack of shuttles that had emerged just before us from the same shuttle bay, lining up in a vertical array next to our ark-ship.
They are our competition.
And directly ahead of them, the Start/Finish hologram projection stretches out like a virtual suspension bridge—a tightrope made of golden light across the racing lane . . . It continues for five kilometers, ending at the next formation column.
Yeah, did I mention, the racing lane is several kilometers wide?
“I know! I know!” Hugo yells, and positions us into the array, about a hundred feet away from the hologram strip of light.
We come in as the third “pancake” from the bottom. And in seconds another shuttle takes the spot right above us so that we can see its purple plasma underbelly as it moves in . . . then another comes in, until there are seven more shuttles directly overhead.
We wait on the sideline in our stack of ten.
“Pilots, prepare to enter the Race! Ten second warning. . . .”
Hugo and I flip between grids like crazy. While he preps us for the Thrust on the Red Grid, I flip to Yellow and set Destination to be our own starting position—in other words our own ship, ICS-2. That way the shuttle will know what general course to take as we steer it manually.
“. . . three . . . two . . . one . . . Start!”
In that same moment our Race Clock readout lights up with an initial 00:00, and the milliseconds start flying.
Our shuttle lurches, and we careen like crazy, merging into the racing lane. The shuttles above and below us do the same. We all time our entries so as to avoid hitting each other and all those other racing objects.
Hugo sings in a nervous voice that’s barely on pitch, and then swipes the Thrust.
Holy lord in heaven.
We blast forward like a comet. . . .
The racing lane stretches out before us into infinity. The hologram Start/Finish Lanes projected from every ship in the Fleet form a strange pattern of stripes before us, directly in our way, so that it feels like we are moving through an actual physical tunnel lit intermittently with golden lines. My vision starts to go haywire.
Okay, that was not expected.
Hugo bites his lip and swipes right and left constantly to veer us away from the slower shuttles in our way as we catch up with some of them. Meanwhile, other shuttles pass us by, going faster. . . .
I hold my breath and manipulate the Blue Grid wildly, adjusting for Hugo’s wild maneuvers.
Each time we pass an ark-ship, there’s a new stack of ten shuttles—either waiting on the sidelines to enter the racing lane, or in the process of merging in. . . . This complicates things to an insane degree, because now we also have to constantly watch for new merging shuttles in addition to what’s already in the lane with us.
At least there’s an equal number of shuttles exiting the lane as they cross their own ships’ Finish Lines, so that the overall balance of traffic remains the same.
“Over there! Damn!” Hugo exclaims, as we see what looks like a burning crash explosion up ahead, as two shuttles collide . . . and the flames are immediately extinguished by the space vacuum.
“To the right, up, up!” I scream, working the Blue Grid, while Hugo circle-swipes on Red, and we barely miss running into a pile of debris, then keep going. Other shuttles similarly maneuver around the unexpected, tragic obstacle.
Oh my God. . . . Those poor kids just died in that crash.
But I cannot allow my mind to wander. So I take in a shuddering breath and keep working the Blue Grid, keeping us as straight and even as possible.
A quick glance at the Clock, and the readout says 07:34.
At this point we’re almost at the front of the Fleet formation and the ICS-1 flagship is coming up.
“Shuttle #72, prepare to turn left ahead. . . . Fleet termination, ten second warning.”
Hugo does not respond—he’s busy swerving around a group of shuttles.
That’s when I realize we’re coming in too fast.
“Start to Brake!” I exclaim. “Brake now!”
“I know! Shut the f— up!”
Hugo flips to Green and swipes down, slowing us barely in the nick of time, because the flagship is right there, and so is the turning channel—that last five kilometer gap between ICS-1 and the ship directly behind it. . . . If we don’t make this turn, we overshoot the flagship and Breach out of the Quantum Steam.
Hugo flips to Red, circle-swipes, and we turn into the space belonging to the middle column #2, and go sideways then spin about slightly—I go crazy on Blue Grid, trying to compensate the wobble—and then we emerge into the opposite direction racing lane.
“Merge! Go!” I scream.
And we do . . . just barely. A whole bunch of other shuttles are also making this hard turn. It’s a zoo!
But at least we’re flying in a straight line once more.
I check the Clock readout and it shows 09:47.
Once again, the hologram Start/Finish Line projections from the ark-ships in formation flash by us, in the optical illusion of stripes, as we hurtle through the channel, this time ripping against the Stream toward the end of the Fleet.
“How much time?” Hugo mutters without taking his eyes off his Red Grid.
“Ten-seventeen on the Clock,” I reply, glancing up fast.
He cusses.
We still have to make one hard turn before we can get to the Finish Line and our own ark-ship. And with less than four minutes left to make the 15-minute Average, our time is not good at all.
“Go faster!” I yell.
Hugo growls and swipes the Thrust to increase speed. The way seems relatively clear up ahead, so at last we have a brief opportunity to make up some time we lost while slowing down and making the turn.
I admit, we’re really moving scary-fast now, passing a bunch of shuttles. Hugo seems to have found his rhythm. The Clock shows we have just over two minutes to go before the 15-minute Average.
“Shuttle #72, prepare to turn left ahead. . . . Fleet termination, ten second warning.”
Okay, now we’re nearing the anchor ship, ICS-4, and the end of the Fleet.
“Doing good, get ready to Brake, Hugo!” I say, watching the Yellow Grid notches.
“Okay, got it!” he shouts back, then engages the Green Brake.
We coast smoothly up to the cross-channel just before the anchor ship ICS-4.
Hugo circle-swipes, as we maneuver the turn, and I circle-swipe to micro-adjust.
Just as we’re coming out of the turn, ready to merge into the racing lane and the home stretch, there are three shuttles that come hard on our tail, and two of them spin out.
They hurtle directly at us. . . .
Hugo cusses, freezes momentarily.
“Go!” I scream.
And then Hugo flips to Red and starts to maneuver us wildly out of the way of the oncoming disaster.
We spin out also, as we merge crookedly into the racing lane, coming at a super-wide angle.
“No! Don’t hit that ark-ship!” I scream, as my fingers fly on the Blue Grid.
Hugo reacts by swinging us even more out of alignment, until we are drifting out of the racing lane completely and starting to spin in a circle, completely losing our sense of direction.
“Brake! Brake! Just Brake!” I yell, as the violet plasma-coated hull of a nearby ark-ship starts to loom closer and closer. We’ve swung out of the racing lane completely and are about to slam into the column #3 formation space on the other side.
“Turn back! Turn! Move right!”
Hugo is circle-swiping uselessly, still on the Red Grid when he should be switching to Green to Brake.
Finally he flips to Green and swipes to slow down.
Our shuttle starts to slow and coast, and the angle of our drift widens even more, as though in slow motion.
We are now past the column #3 formation and still moving . . . slipping out of control and spinning farther out into the muddled off-black abyss that stretches only a single kilometer beyond the edge of the formation.
We come to it softly. . . .
As we pass the Quantum Stream Boundary, it feels gentle, a mild prickling, like a static curtain moving all around us. The shuttle lights flicker, as though a charge is being drained.
And then the view outside the window changes. It’s no longer homogeneous ugly grey but rich living black.
The Fleet is gone.
But oh, the stars! There are stars all around us once again! Billions of them! They are sharp and in focus . . . and we are drifting alone among the mauve and rose and gold radiance of a glorious, unknown giant nebula.
Stunningly beautiful.
Not a bad place to die.
Chapter Thirty
Panic hits me with a surge of adrenaline. It blasts through my moment of stark, cold, debilitating, idiot paralysis.
“The Emergency Protocol . . .” I whimper, while I stare at the glorious colored stars and giant nebula . . . and at Hugo, turned to stone next to me.
“Oh my God . . .” he whimpers also. He is still in paralysis mode.
It seems, both of us have lost our voices from the terror.
I regain mine quickly. “Hugo! Wake up! Get a goddamn grip!”
I breathe heavily, wildly, panting with frantic panic. My pulse hammers in my temples, as I turn to the QSBEP-1 Emergency Instructions list that’s lit up in red text on the wall panel before me.
There’s not a second to lose, I recall. We have to hurry, because the Quantum Stream field trace dissipates almost instantly.
“Okay, what! What do we do?” Hugo mutters, looking like he’s about to weep.
We both stare at the Emergency Protocol.
“Okay,” I speak in a crazed hurry. “We listen to the space around us in all directions for any QS signal trace. Which means—turn the resonance scanners on!”
“Okay, yes,” Hugo responds. “Right! We use Global Scan Mode!”
We activate the resonance scanners and listen.
The ship’s acoustic grid crackles to life all around us, as we start hearing the eerie silence of space from the hull itself, with occasional pulsar bursts of unknown radio frequency, interpreted by the ship as dull bursts of faint static.
“How long do we listen?” Hugo exclaims after a while.
“I don’t know!” I am starting to hyperventilate a
t this point, and a lump is rising in the back of my throat.
“So, we keep listening!” Hugo looks at me, then looks out at the glorious space vista outside, fidgets in his seat.
“Yeah . . .” I say. “We kind of have to. This is the first step in the Emergency Protocol and we can’t proceed past it.”
“Oh, God . . . oh, God. . . .”
About five minutes later, as the shuttle resonance scanners cycle on all frequencies, we’re still picking up only faint crackle echoes of distant radio waves from the stars. None of them are even close to being the Quantum Stream field traces.
Our only chances and our luck have come and gone, many, many long minutes ago.
It’s time to face it, but neither one of us—Hugo or myself—can.
We’re cut off.
We’re going to die here.
I listen with intense focused attention to the resonance scan going on around us. Empty eerie crackle, punctuated by silence.
My eyes are brimming with moisture now, and the lump in the back of my throat is choking me.
Gracie. . . . I’m never going to see my sister again.
Nor my little brother Gordie. Or George. My entire family back on Earth—I won’t be able to help them, or even stupidly die in the Games of the Atlantis Grail while trying to help them.
And I will never see him again.
Aeson Kassiopei.
“Hey! What was that?” Hugo reacts desperately at a small blip noise, followed by a hollow reverb echo.
I tense up and listen fiercely.
But it’s all nothing.
“Okay, is there anything in these damn instructions we can do? Anything?” Hugo says after another few minutes.
I frown, and stare at the red text, my mouth moving over the lines silently, reading the items over and over. Willing them to have a hidden magic solution.
“Instructor Okoi said our shuttle would lose the acoustic resonance charge that connects it to the Stream.”
Hugo stares. “Yeah? So? What does that mean, what can we do?”