The Argonaut fell back. But Jason kept on driving. He was determined to finish the race - and get the 5 points for coming 6th - even if it meant limping over the line a long way behind the leaders.
He burst out from the S-bends to see the wide-open bay leading to the Port Arthur hairpin.
He saw the all-black Car No.1 bank into the final turn with clinical precision, disappearing behind the huge rocky pillar, closely followed by Barnaby - still holding off the French racer in the Renault - and then Ariel Piper swooping in close behind them.
And then it happened.
Ariel’s car didn’t take the left-hand hairpin.
Instead, it just kept on going straight ahead, shooting out and away to the right, heading for the open ocean.
Jason’s eyes almost popped out of his head.
‘What the - ?’ he said.
Washington’s car took the final turn - pleased now to be moving up into 4th - and headed for home.
But Jason just kept watching Ariel’s hover car. It was now shuddering violently and listing away to the right - the absolutely wrong direction - shooming off into the distance in a superwide right-hand arc.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Jason said. ‘If she missed the turn, she would have pulled up by now…’
Then came the realisation.
‘She’s lost control of the car.’
And as he said those words, Jason saw the final hairpin approaching, and suddenly he had a choice: he could finish the race - and get the 6 championship points for coming 5th - or he could help Ariel.
The Bug pointed out that the School would send out recovery vehicles to get Ariel.
‘No,’ Jason said. ‘Look at her. She’s too far gone. They won’t get to her in time. We’re the only ones who can help her.’
And with that, he made his decision.
Instead of taking the final left-hand hairpin turn himself, Jason banked the Argonaut right, booming off after Ariel’s out-of-control hover car.
The commentators had never seen anything like it.
That the Pied Piper had missed the final turn under intense pressure was nothing new. But that the Argonaut had shoomed off into the distance after it was!
Two orange-painted truck-sized recovery vehicles were dispatched from Race HQ - standard practice for a race mishap. They couldn’t know that this was no ordinary mishap.
The Argonaut zoomed low over the ocean, came alongside the tail of the red-and-white Pied Piper, both cars turning in a wide right-bending arc.
‘Sally! Get me Ariel’s radio frequency!’ Jason yelled into his radio-mike.
Sally did so, and as the Argonaut pulled alongside Ariel’s shuddering car, Jason saw Ariel grappling with her steering wheel.
‘Ariel! What’s wrong!’
‘I’ve lost power in all my right-side magneto drives, Jason! They all switched off at exactly the same time, just as I was about to take that last hairpin!’
‘What kind of control have you got?’ Jason asked.
‘Nothing! It’s like everything just cut out at once! Thruster controls are gone! Electronics are unresponsive - I can’t even shut down - and my other mags are losing magnetism fast.’
This was bad. Ariel’s left-hand magneto drives were bearing the weight of her whole car, and were thus losing their power twice as fast as they should have been. They were also driving the car in a wide circle, banking right.
What made it worse was the sight looming up ahead.
The southern coastal cliffs of the Port Arthur Peninsula rose up out of the ocean like a gigantic wall. High ocean waves crashed at their feet. Ariel’s wide right-bending arc had brought her round a full 270 degrees: she was now rocketing northward, about to crash into the coastal cliffs.
‘Ariel! You have to eject!’ Jason yelled.
‘No!‘ Ariel shouted back.
‘No? Are you crazy! Why not!’
‘ Jason, if I eject, the Piper will smash into those cliffs, and I won’t have a car anymore. And without a car, I’ll be out of Race School!’
‘And if you die, you’ll also be out of Race School!’
‘I am not going to eject!’
The cliffs were approaching. Fast. Wide. Immovable.
There couldn’t be more than ten seconds to impact. Jason thought quickly.
‘All right…’ he said.
He gunned his engine and swung the Argonaut in underneath Ariel’s speeding red-and-white car.
The cliffs rushed toward them.
Nine seconds…eight…seven…
The body of the Pied Piper cast a dark shadow over Jason and the Bug, blocking out the sun. Jason saw the underbelly of the Piper less than a foot above his open cockpit.
Six…five…four…
The cliffs were very close now.
Then Jason pulled back on his stick, causing the Argonaut to gradually rise…
Clunk! The arched hunchback of the Argonaut clanged against the underside of the Pied Piper. Its wide flat tailfin also touched the bottom of Ariel’s speeding car, providing a kind of three-point stability.
Three seconds…
And Jason gunned his thrusters, taking the weight of two hover cars with the engine of one.
The two cars rose together - slowly, painfully - one balancing on top of the other.
Rising…rising…
Two seconds…
Further…
One second…
The cliffs were right on top of them now, rushing forward. The Pied Piper was going to clear the clifftop, but the Argonaut, it seemed, was not.
Too late.
Impact.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The radio aerial on the underside of the Argonaut was ripped clean off by the clifftop as Jason rushed over the cliff at astronomical speed.
But they’d made it, clearing the clifftop by inches, pushing Ariel’s car over it.
The danger averted, the Race School recovery vehicles swept into position on either side of Ariel’s car, capturing her inside a fat beam of electromagnetic energy that extended out between them. The Pied Piper‘s stability returned immediately and the two recovery vehicles guided it back to Race HQ.
For his part Jason pulled the Argonaut away from the recovery vehicles and returned to Pit Lane.
As they entered the pits, the Bug said something to Jason.
Jason replied. ‘Shut up, you cheeky little bastard.’
* * *
The Argonaut cruised to a smooth touchdown in its pit bay, where it was met by Sally McDuff, Scott Syracuse and a crowd of buzzing onlookers.
Sally was smiling broadly.
Syracuse was frowning darkly.
Among the crowd were a phalanx of photographers and local journalists.
‘You are one crazy little fella!’ Sally roared, yanking Jason bodily from his cockpit and giving him a friendly thump on the helmet. ‘But mark my words, young man, don’t you ever put my little Bug in danger like that again!’ Jason smiled, turned to face Syracuse.
‘Congratulations, Mr Chaser,’ Syracuse said. ‘You just made a name for yourself. You also failed to finish the race, which means you lost the 6 championship points that would have gone with 5th place. We’ll discuss this later.’ And with that Syracuse turned and left.
Cameras flashed. The journalists shouldered each other out of the way, shouting their questions, asking Jason
what had compelled him to risk his life to save Ariel. But after the initial frenzy, there came a shout: Ariel Piper had just arrived back in the pits. The media pack dashed off and Jason was left in his pit bay with the Bug and some peace and quiet.
He sat down, caught his breath. The Bug plonked down beside him.
After a few minutes, Sally came over. ‘I just checked your rear magneto drives on my personal electrometer. Guess what? Those mags were only ten per cent charged when they were attached to the Argonaut.’
‘What?’ Jason said. ‘Only ten per cent? Where did you get them?’
‘Sam
e place as everyone else,’ Sally shook her head. ‘The School’s Parts and Equipment Department. It’s where all the cars at the School get their equipment. But wait, there’s more.’
‘Yes…’
‘You remember that other magneto drive that crapped out on you early in the race and forced you into the pits around Lap 5? Well, I checked it too. It was also undercharged. Same level. Ten per cent.’
‘So what do you think it means?’ Jason asked.
‘It means,’ Sally said, ‘that either we got galactically unlucky getting three bogus magneto drives in our allotment…’
‘Or…’
‘Or someone set us up,’ Sally said.
The words hung in the air.
‘Someone arranged for us to collect three bogus mags from the Parts Department. Think about it. I picked up eighteen magneto drives for this race, three sets of six. We were going to have to use all of them at some point today. So we were destined to wipe out or at least have an unscheduled pit stop at some stage. Jason,’ she frowned, ‘I think someone sabotaged our car today.’
A few moments later, Ariel Piper came by their pit bay. The media tornado had got what it needed from her - some sound-bites to match their footage - and had gone on its way.
‘There he is, my knight in shining armour,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ Jason said. He introduced Sally and the Bug. ‘Thanks for what you did out there,’ Ariel said. ‘And for understanding why I couldn’t eject.’
‘Forget about it,’ Jason said. ‘You woulda done the same for me.’
Ariel snuffed a laugh. ‘I don’t know about that, Jason,’ she said. ‘For some of us, heroics aren’t the natural first
instinct. But thanks again.’
She stood up to go.
‘Oh, and one more thing,’ she said. ‘My Mech Chief, Bonnie, did some quick diagnostics on my car when I got
back. Some of my magneto drives had apparently been doctored before the race, drained of ninety per cent of
their power. And my onboard electronics had also been infected with a time-bomb computer virus that was
programmed to go off late in the race - which was why I lost all control on the last turn.’
‘No way…’ Jason said. ‘We got bogus drives, too. But not the other stuff.’
Ariel locked eyes with him. ‘Someone didn’t want me to finish this race today. And if it hadn’t been for you, it
would have been worse - a lot worse. I’m scared, Jason. I think someone wants me out of Race School permanently.’
PART III: ENEMIES WITHIN
CHAPTER ONE
There was no rest for Jason and his team after the high drama of Race 1.
The races continued - at the rate of two per week, usually held on Tuesday and Thursday, with classes in between.
One thing quickly became clear: the boy in black, the winner of Race 1, was a seriously good racer. He also won Race 2. And Race 3.
Jason managed to come fifth in Race 2, but ‘DNF’d’ Race 3 - Did Not Finish - on account of another mysterious mechanical problem, this time a bottle of thinned coolant.
The boy in the all-black Car No.1 won by a mile on each occasion - and each time he was shadowed by his stablemate, Barnaby Becker. As such, both of them flew to the top of the Championship Ladder, at 30 and 27 points respectively.
Their mentor Zoroastro strutted around the Race School like a coach with the two top-placed racers in his stable - while behind closed doors other racers complained that Zoroastro’s drivers were unfairly driving as a team, with Barnaby flying obstruction for the supercool boy in black.
It took only a few questions for Jason to find out who this mysterious and talented boy in black was.
His name was Xavier Xonora, and it turned out that he was Zoroastro’s nephew. Now, not only was he blessed with dashing good looks, great driving skills, an incredible racing pedigree and a top-of-the-line Lockheed-Martin car, Xavier Xonora also had one other thing going for him.
He was a prince.
A solid-gold bona-fide prince. His parents were the king and queen of the Principality of Monesi, a small sovereign European state not far from Monaco.
Whenever he walked by, the Mech girls at the Race School tittered and whispered. Every society mother in Hobart begged him to attend their dinner parties, hoping the young prince might take a liking to their dreamy-eyed daughters.
Jason and the Bug would bump into him occasionally in the pits. One time Jason smiled and said, ‘Hey, Xavier.’
The Prince froze in mid-stride. Turned.
‘If you insist on speaking to me, you will address me as Prince Xavier or Your Royal Highness,’ he said, before moving on, nose held high.
‘Okay,’ Jason said after him. ‘Like that’s gonna happen.’
* * *
Life at Race School was just non-stop. Classes, races, homework and sleep.
For Jason, grappling with the sheer pace of Race School life was difficult.
While he loved the chance to race nearly every other day, no sooner were you finished with one race than you were back in the classroom analysing it. And then it was straight into the simulator, the race lab, or the pits to practise, practise, practise.
Worse still, for Jason and the Bug a special arrangement had to be made for them to do regular schoolwork in amongst their racing classes.
It amounted to more information than Jason had ever absorbed in his whole life and at times it was a struggle. While he was certainly smart, he had never been comfortable with the time-tabled nature of school life. It was all he could do to keep up.
Scattered in amongst his racing classes were regular sessions in the School’s giant centrifuge - a huge mechanical arm (with a race-car cockpit attached to its outer extremity) that swung in fast sweeping circles. Like the old Dynamic Flight Simulator at NASA, this centrifuge was designed to test each racer’s G-force tolerances.
Jason invariably blacked out around 8-Gs, which was the average. Some other racers and navigators could get up to 8.5 or 8.7 before losing consciousness. It was perhaps surprising then when it was discovered that the student who could withstand the most G-forces was…
…the Bug.
The little guy could withstand an astonishing 9.3-Gs on the centrifuge - and still perform certain physical and mental tasks. And while many of the other students gagged or vomited when they were on the centrifuge, the Bug spent the whole time squealing with delight, like a kid on a roller-coaster.
Jason and the Bug were living in their own dorm room in the east wing of the Race School.
It was a high-tech white-walled three-level apartment - with recessed bunk beds, auto-fold-down sofas, and even a sliding pole to allow quick access between the multiple levels. In effect it was a kid-sized apartment, and as such the best cubby house in the world. It even had spectacular views over Storm Bay.
Jason loved it, loved the independence of it.
But the Bug was different.
For all his astounding mathematical abilities (and his incredible results on the centrifuge), he was still essentially just a quiet little 12-year-old from a dusty desert town who missed his mum and his dad.
So late at night Jason would sit with him as they wrote long emails home, and when they got a reply several minutes later, the Bug would leap up with delight.
Then they’d sleep and suddenly the alarm clock would be ringing and it would be time for the next race.
And what a variety of races they were.
Gate races, enduros, sprints and last-man drop-offs, on an equally varied array of courses.
After 15 races, however, the points ladder didn’t look good for Jason and the Argonaut team. It looked like this:
INTERNATIONAL RACE SCHOOL CHAMPIONSHIP LADDER
AFTER 15 RACES
DRIVER NO. CAR POINTS
1. XONORA, X 1 Speed Razor 118
2. BECKER, B 09 Devil’s Chariot 105
3. KRISHNA, V 31 Calcutta-IV 102
4. WO
NG, H 888 Little Tokyo 100
5. WASHINGTON, I 42 Black Bullet 99
Prince Xavier had won an astonishing five of the fifteen races, garnering 10 points for each win. He’d also had strong finishes in the other races, giving him a whopping 118 points out of a possible 150.
Of the twenty-five racers in total, languishing down near the bottom of the ladder was:
20. CHASER, J 55 Argonaut 79
After their zero-point efforts for not finishing Races 1 and 3, Jason and the Bug had started the season at the bottom of the competition ladder.
They’d had a couple of podium finishes since - mainly in gate races and the superlong enduros (long-distance races that lasted up to eight hours) - and the points they got for those lifted them slightly up the ladder.
But then around Race 9 they were suddenly beset by technical problems again.
After the ‘depleted magneto drives incident’ of Race 1, Sally McDuff had started electro-checking their drives before each race. In Races 9 and 12, she found that they had again received depleted mags from the Parts and Equipment Department.
But other technical problems also surfaced.
More thinned coolant in Race 13. A mystery computer virus that occasionally caused the Tarantula to malfunction. It was as if in every race they were fighting against an army of invisible gremlins constantly getting into their systems. If they finished at all, it was only after a huge effort.
So one day, Sally went off to the Parts and Equipment Department to investigate the faulty parts, only to return an hour later, fuming.
‘Stupid greasy punk. The desk guy just waved me away,’ she growled. ‘Said “Sorry, honey, that’s how it goes. Sometimes you just get a dodgy mag or two.” Honey? Honey! So I told him we got six dodgy mags in one race and he just shrugged and stared at me. It was like talking to an Easter Island statue.’
Their mentor, Scott Syracuse, offered little sympathy.
It didn’t help that their stablemates under Syracuse - Wong and Washington - were in the top five on the ladder and performing well in the same races, and experiencing no technical problems at all.