COMPETE: The Atlantis Grail (Book Two) - Preview

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (draft)

​CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I wake up on the day before the Quantum Stream Race with the gloomy knowledge that our Pilot Standing Scores will be posted today, which will determine our entry order for tomorrow.

The problem is, Hugo and I are probably in the bottom third of all our classmates. Our last three shuttle runs outside were precarious, terrifying, and at one point I thought we were going to die.

I'm not kidding.

That's how bad we work together and how poorly both of us seem to perform. . . .

We've had a total of five runs outside. That's how many learning flight opportunities each pair of Cadet Pilots in the Fleet gets—on a tight, carefully coordinated rotation schedule—due to the limited number of actual shuttles and the hundreds of thousands of Cadets. So we had to use our turns carefully.

Our first shuttle run happened two weeks ago. As usual, Hugo was Pilot, handling the Red/Green Grids, and I the Co-Pilot on Blue/Yellow—with Instructor Mithrat Okoi supervising us remotely via audio-link.

We launched, entered the flight lane between ark-ship formations and then flew in a straight line for the entire length of the Fleet in one direction, then returned. It was terrifying. Hugo's hands were shaking during both the launch and braking swipes, and I had to compensate like crazy to keep us straight and on course.

Flying in the same direction as the Fleet is called streaming. Flying in the opposite direction, against the Quantum Stream is called ripping.

We streamed okay, then did the necessary turnabout before reaching the terminal anchor ships in formation which are either ICS-1 in the very front or ICS-4 in the very rear. As we were ripping back, and it was time to brake, I signaled the timing on the Yellow Grid, but Hugo ignored me for about three long seconds. So we almost overshot our home ship, and heard the loud angry shouts from Instructor Okoi: "Engage Brake now! Cadet Pilot Moreno, wake up! Use the damn Brake!"

We circled back around ICS-2 and barely made it into our designated shuttle bay.

After we parked and exited the shuttle, with the whole class waiting for us to complete our lousy first turn, we got to see Instructor Okoi's thundercloud expression and hear his disdainful assessment of our performance.

"Embarrassing first run. You do not hesitate, ever," he told both of us, but was looking mostly at Hugo. "This earns you one point out of a possible five. Very poorly done."

And that was that. Most other people in the class got at least a solid 3, and some, like the Tsai siblings, Alla Vetrova and Conrad Hart, and even Logan and his partner Oliver Parker, got 4s and 5s. Logan gave me a cool stare as he watched us get the crappy low points and the tongue lashing from the Instructor.

The next four runs we did in the following days were slight improvements, but we only earned one 3, which was on the third run, and the rest were 2s. Overall, a pitiful 2-Point Average, which is not something you want.

Well, today we get to see the culmination of our shame. . . .

​* * *​

I shower and get dressed, skip breakfast, and head directly to the wide corridor junction between the Yellow Quadrant Cadet and Command Decks. On the walls here are several smart boards that are supposed to display the Pilot Pairs and our Standings, starting at 7:30 AM. The same boards are a posted in all the Four Quadrants, all around this hub corridor.

A crowd of teens is gathering very quickly. Girls and boys stare up at the boards periodically, waiting for their numbers to roll around, and discuss nervously and loudly. Most of the Cadets here are from the Yellow Quadrant, although I see a few Blues, Greens and Reds who happen to be in the area of this deck. Apparently the Atlanteans don't separate our scores by specific classes, and everyone's Standing numbers are simply listed in order, based on the total number of Cadets on this particular ship.