The race
25 Mar 2016Sinaarrgghh
"All readings normal, I'm happy to go."I let go of the comms toggle and waited on the pad. Glancing around the small cockpit everything was glowing nicely as I mentally re-checked all the controls.
"Clear to launch"
The bay locks dropped out of view and the sidewinder lifted easily from the pad as I retracted the landing gear, almost without thinking. It was clear to me that I'd spent quite some time in a sidey, even if it wasn't this one. If I stopped to think about things I would have to look to double check the location of whatever control was needed but if I just let my body do it everything seemed to work.
My borrowed ship made it's way to the slot.
"No more than 5km out remember, and don't take too long!"
I smiled behind the mask. Zara was impatient but I was feeling more confident about my foolish decision by the second.
Once outside I boosted and was pushed back into my chair, it was a nimble little ship. I turned hard left and was impressed by her responsiveness. It was fun but I had to be serious. Moving toward the corner of the station I took good notice of the various gaps and spaces in the structure. The capacitor was full again so the boost was duly triggered as I applied thrusters. The g forces were violent this time, the grin was growing. I gently guided the ship into a long canyon like structure, enjoying the view racing past the window. Some common sense prevailed as I moved out before the end. She would have fitted round the corner structure though.
Around the back of the station there was work going on. I moved down to take a look and was suddenly confronted with a view right through the structure. The outer skin had been removed and I could see suited figures on the other side of a huge space. From this distance they looked like tiny insects working at a massive mis-shaped metal panel, whatever had caused that would have made a bit of a bang. I moved up and quickly the void vanished from view.
Happy now I made my way inside and landed without incident, the ship did feel like home. I wondered whose it was. I'd been told that the sideys me and Zara would use to race round the station had been in storage for so long that their pilot was marked as officially missing. The maintenance techs had marked them up as 'undergoing repair' and conveniently forgotten to mark them back in. They were used for routine 'drive shakedown' or 'thruster test' flights which allowed them to fly close-in to the station and just enjoy themselves. I had resolved to check my service logs a bit better after learning that!
That evening, during the stations quieter times and with the chief handily elsewhere, the sidey became home again. This time there was another one in the pad alongside and we were listening to a countdown.
"3"
My heart was racing, I felt like a child about to do something naughty but immensely good fun.
"2"
My mouth was dry but the grin stretched from ear to ear.
"1"
I flexed my fingers. Ready. Waiting. It took forever,
"Go!"
The sidey roared below me, gears rising already as I was slammed into my seat. To my left another column of fire was heading up, it had started at exactly the same time as mine. Officially the station docking control were not interested in our flight but I knew there was a book running. I'd stuck a thousand credits on myself as, annoyingly, I wasn't the favorite. As we got to the slot she rolled her ship sharply to the left and banked, showing the top of her craft, and boosted straight out. I hit the forcefeild and the noise of the engine quietened as we left the atmosphere. My boost came a second later and I let the ship curve gently into the black towards the corner. As we reached the corner of the station she was a ship length ahead of me, we both boosted again. She didn't leave herself much space for error and was skimming close to the side of the station. I was slightly further out, the better to boost round the next corner smoothly. For some unknown reason a voice came to me.
"Lead her gently lad, she'll do the work and thank you for it. Easy now."
It was a soft gentle voice with an unfamiliar accent but I didn't have time to dwell on it now. The next corner was coming up fast. Zara was above me and being closer in looked to be ahead. She reached the corner first, clearly flying FA off, her craft was now pointing straight at the wall and her engines were off but she wasn't slowing. As she reached the corner she boosted, gained a little more ground and waited a moment before triggering her thruster, keeping close to the station. I boosted round, close to the structure myself but now noticeably further from the central axis than she was. I saw the edge of the gap I knew was there and triggered my thruster to tighten my line in.
The scaffold that the panels were attached to seemed to suddenly loom and I was in the vast space, the stars ahead of me evidence of the large shortcut I'd found. I boosted through. The figures were still hard at work. I wondered what they'd think of seeing me racing past. Probably not a lot, I thought. The far side grew clearer and I headed as close to it as I dared, keen not to loose any of my advantage. I felt my fingers tighten on the sticks as the walls grew closer, then closer still, then gone. I was outside the station but didn't enjoy the open space for long. There was another of the long canyons just above me and I slipped into it. The corner structure seemed very solid ahead. It loomed larger and larger. I had boost but wasn't using it yet. The gap appeared and I lined up. The walls seemed so close I could touch them as the little sidey slid between them, I boosted out. A grateful breath escaped me, I'd not realized I'd been holding it. I started to curve out into the black and checked my radar.
It looked as though she was behind me but there wasn't enough time to study the radar more. I now wanted some space to line up on the slot so went FA off, then engines off and positioned the craft towards the slot. I hit the engines to start changing direction and applied as much thruster as I could to slow my movement across the face of the station. A quick glance at the radar told me me Zara was close, too close. As I slipped neatly into the slot Zara came through, at full boost, backwards. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, her engines were going overtime trying to slow her down as she hurtled through the space. I was racing towards my pad, dropping all the time, waiting until the last moment to drop my gears. Ahead of me Zaras bottom thruster lit up and she started to roll round, her momentum clearly slowed. As she approached level her gears came out. I was still a few meters clear, gears out and lined up as she touched down with a bump.
I was a curious mix of emotion. I hated loosing. On the other hand I'd just seen someone who had clearly been racing sidey's like this for years pull off one of the most outrageous moves I'd ever seen. I thumbed the radio toggle.
"Wow, nice flying!"
"Where the hell did you go?" came the response. "I swear I thought you'd punched her into the side of the station!"
I had a sinking feeling as I realized I'd lost my bet. The money wasn't the problem. Zara's proposition had come with three clauses. The first two were fine but I'd taken this bet to get out of the last one. I didn't expect her to let me off now.