Chapter 130: Leo’s First Time Going Into Orbit

[9]

Leo’s hands tightened around the glowing grips.

[8]

Under the floor of the cockpit, the racer’s engines woke up one by one with a low rising whine, and the whole ship started trembling gently beneath him like a horse pawing at the ground.

WHRRRRRRRR...

[7]

"Straight up, lean, push," he muttered under his breath. "Straight up, lean, push..."

[6]

Across the pad, the pink racer’s engines flared to life with a bright white glow, and through his headset, he could hear Vexa humming happily to herself.

[5]

’Okay,’ Leo thought, and his heart was hammering so hard he could feel it in his fingertips, and his palms were already sweating inside the grip. ’Okay, okay, okay... It’s just like the sim. It’s just like the canyon run. Except real and going straight up... Into space.’

[4]

’...This is fine.’

[3]

He squeezed the left grip to the first thrust setting, the way the techs had shown him, and the trembling under him became a deep steady roar.

VRRRRRRRRMMMM!

[2]

"See you up there, Leo!" Vexa sang.

[1]

Leo set his jaw and stared straight up through the canopy at the open blue sky.

[0]

WHOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Both racers left the cliff at the same instant.

The force slammed Leo back into his seat so hard that the breath was punched straight out of his lungs, and the whole world turned into noise and pressure and shaking.

...The pad dropped away beneath him in a single heartbeat.

Then the cliff, then the estate and then the whole coastline shrank down into a little green and white smudge beside a violet sea, and the racer was tearing straight up into the sky with its engines screaming, while somewhere down on that tiny smudge, six girls were standing at a railing with their hearts in their throats.

RRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOAAAR!

’HOLY...!’ Leo thought, with his cheeks pulled back and his arms pinned to the armrests. ’This is so much faster than I thought it’d be!’

Off to his right, the pink racer shot upward beside him, and for the first two seconds, they were neck and neck then the pink racer simply pulled away.

It climbed in a smooth perfect curve, gently leaning toward the horizon at exactly the right moment, as if Vexa had done this a thousand times, which, Leo realized with a sinking feeling, she probably had.

"Wheeeee!" Vexa’s voice crackled through his headset. "Come on, Leo! Keep up!"

Leo’s racer was still pointing straight up.

He was climbing, and climbing fast, but every second he climbed, the planet pulled harder on the back of his ship, and the nose kept trying to wobble sideways as the air buffeted the hull.

SHUDDER! SHUDDER!

’Okay, straight up... I did straight up,’ Leo thought frantically. ’Now lean. When do I lean? Now? Is it now? Jin-Ah said lean slowly... how slowly is slowly?!’

He eased the grips forward.

The nose of the racer tipped toward the horizon, and the whole ship lurched as the air slammed into it at a completely new angle.

KRRRRRRRK!

The racer shook so hard that his teeth clacked together, and a red warning light started blinking on the panel in front of him.

[Warning: Excessive aerodynamic load]

"Nope, nope, too much!" Leo yelped, and yanked the grips back.

The nose snapped up again, too far this time, and the racer pointed straight up again with its engines roaring, and he could feel the speed bleeding away as gravity dragged on his tail.

[Warning: Ascent efficiency falling]

’Too early! Then too late! Jin-Ah, what did you say?! Lean slowly... lean slowly while pushing... or was it push and then lean?!’

Far above him, the pink racer was already a small bright dot curving smoothly across the blue.

"Leo?" Vexa’s voice came through again, and she sounded honestly puzzled. "Are you okay down there? You’re kind of... bouncing."

"I’m fine!" Leo shouted, much louder than necessary. "I’m totally fine! It’s a strategy!"

"...It’s a weird strategy."

"....It’s a human strategy!"

He gritted his teeth and forced himself to breathe out slowly, the way Vexa had told him at the weights.

’Okay, calm down,’ he thought. ’Calm down, man. You’ve flown through asteroid fields... You cut a frigate in half a few days ago. You can fly up a stupid sky.’

He eased the grips forward again, very gently this time, just a few millimeters.

The nose tipped slightly toward the horizon.

The shaking got worse for a moment, then settled into a steady rumble, and the red warning light blinked once more and went out.

RRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM...

’Okay... okay! That’s better!’

He held it there, with his hands sweating inside the grip, and the racer climbed in a long shaky curve after the tiny pink dot far above him.

[Altitude: 12 km]

Then the sky hit him from the side.

WHAM!

A wall of wind slammed into the racer’s flank like a giant hand, some high, fast river of air he’d never seen coming, and the whole ship was shoved sideways and rolled halfway over before he even knew what was happening.

The horizon spun in the canopy, the clouds flipped upside down, and a dozen new warning lights flared across the panel at once.

[Warning: Crosswind shear detected]

[Warning: Attitude unstable]

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Leo shouted, hauling on the grips.

The racer bucked and twisted under his hands, fighting him like an animal, and for one horrible second he felt the nose start to drop back toward the planet.

’No cradles,’ he thought, with his heart in his throat. ’No guide... it’s just me and the grips. Come on... come on, you’ve done this before...’

And suddenly, he had.

He was nineteen again, sitting in the fourth row of Aoi’s flight simulation lab with the cheap plastic stick in his hand, flying the canyon run on a Thursday afternoon while the virtual wind howled through the rocks and threw his little ship against the walls.

’Don’t fight the wind,’ he remembered. ’Let it push you, then use it...’

He stopped hauling on the grips.

He eased off, let the gust roll the racer another few degrees, and then, right as the wind began to weaken, he pushed the grips hard into the roll and let the wind carry him straight through it.

The racer flipped neatly back upright and shot out of the windstream on the far side, climbing again, steadier than before.

WHOOOOSH!

Leo let out a breathless laugh.

’Canyon run,’ he thought, grinning. ’Thanks, Aoi...’

Outside the canopy, the sky was slowly starting to change.

The bright blue was getting deeper and darker the higher he went, turning from the color of the sea into a rich heavy blue, and the white clouds that had been floating around him a minute ago were far below him now, spread out over the planet like a blanket of snow.

The air screaming over the hull was getting thinner and quieter.

[Altitude: 30 km]

"Push," Leo muttered. "Fifty kilometers... then push hard. Eight kilometers per second."

His eyes flicked to the speed readout.

[Velocity: 4.1 km/s]

’That’s... not eight,’ he thought. ’That’s not even close to eight...’

"Leo!" Vexa’s voice came again, brighter now and a little smug. "I’m almost at the edge! Do you want me to wait for you? I can slow down! I don’t mind!"

"Don’t you dare slow down!"

"Okay!" She giggled. "Then I’ll see you in orbit... eventually!"

Leo glared at the tiny pink dot, which was now curving almost flat along the horizon high above him.

’She’s way ahead,’ he thought, and a hot flush of competitive irritation rushed up his neck. ’Way, way ahead... If I lose this because I don’t know how to go up, Harper is literally going to kill me.’

And then Vexa would get married... to him... immediately.

’Nope. Nope, nope, nope... not happening.’

[Altitude: 45 km]

The sky outside had gone dark violet.

Above him, the first faint stars were starting to appear, little pinpricks of light glittering through the thinning air, and the roar of the engines sounded strangely muffled now, like it was coming from far away.

[Altitude: 50 km]

"Now push!" Leo shouted, and squeezed the left grip all the way down to full thrust.

KA-WHOOOOOOOOM!

The racer kicked under him like a living thing, and the force crushed him back into his seat even harder than the launch had.

His vision narrowed at the edges, his arms felt like they weighed a hundred kilos each, and the speed readout started climbing in big fast jumps.

’Heavy... so heavy,’ he thought, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached. ’Back on Earth, this would’ve knocked me out cold.’

But his body held.

He could feel it holding, the same strange new strength he’d felt lifting the bar in Vexa’s training room, keeping his hands steady on the grips and his eyes open while the racer roared and shook around him.

’Level 8,’ he thought, almost laughing. ’Okay... okay, that’s actually useful.’

[Velocity: 5.2 km/s]

[Velocity: 6.4 km/s]

[Velocity: 7.3 km/s]

’Come on,’ he thought, holding the grips steady with both hands. ’Come on, come on, come on...’

The sky turned from violet to deep indigo, and then the indigo bled away into pure endless black.

[Velocity: 8.0 km/s]

[Orbit achieved!]

SHHHHHHHHHHHHH...

The roar of the engines dropped away all at once into a smooth quiet hum as the shaking stopped.

The crushing weight on his chest lifted off like someone had taken their boot away, and Leo’s body floated gently up against the straps of his harness.

He was in space.

Leo let out a long, shaky breath and slowly loosened his white-knuckled hold on the grips.

"Made it," he whispered. "I actually made it..."

BZZZT-CLICK!

"Leo! You made it!" Vexa’s voice burst through his headset, so delighted that he could practically hear her tail wagging inside her cockpit. "You’re in orbit! I saw you get hit by the jet stream on my scanner, and I thought you were going to spin all the way back down to the cliffs... but then you just flipped right through it! How did you do that?!"

"Practice," Leo said, still a little breathless.

"Practice?! They told me you’ve never launched from a planet before!"

"I haven’t," Leo said, and grinned. "Different practice..."

"You’re so weird," Vexa said happily. "I love it... But you’re still way behind me, Captain Handsome! I’m almost at the first gate!"

Then he looked down.

Nexus-Prime filled the whole bottom half of his canopy, huge and bright and breathtaking.

The oceans were a deep shining turquoise, and the clouds swirled across them in great slow white spirals, and he could see the long violet coastline where Tarn Point was sitting on its cliffs, too small to see from here with the girls standing at the railing watching for him.

The thin bright edge of the atmosphere curved along the horizon like a glowing blue halo, and above it, the stars spread out forever.

Leo stared at it for a long moment, and for just a second, he forgot about the race completely.

’This looks...’ he thought quietly, ’...quite beautiful.’

The guide in his back stirred and Leo blinked.

It had been quiet the whole way up, completely still while he struggled with the grips, but now it was waking up, and it felt different from anything he’d ever felt before.

It started as a faint warmth at the base of his spine, then spread outward through his whole body, through his chest, his arms and his fingertips, warm and electric and buzzing, like a current running through every nerve he had.

His fingers tingled inside the glowing grips, and the hairs on his arms stood up, and his heartbeat slowed down and grew steady and strong, like a drum.

Under his hands, the racer seemed to change.

The grips, which had felt stiff and foreign the whole way up, suddenly felt light, as if the ship had gone very quiet and was listening to him, and when he moved his fingers even a millimeter, the nose drifted exactly where he wanted it to go.

The hull hummed around him... just like it had when he’d laid his palm on it in the hangar.

It was pulling at him, but in a direction he couldn’t name, and with every second it pulled harder, filling him up until his whole body felt strange and light and alive in a way it never had before, even in the throne of the Wanderer-7.

’What... what is this?’ he thought. ’This is new... this is really new.’

Far ahead of him, across the black, the tiny pink dot of Vexa’s racer was curving toward the first glowing beacon gate around the little moon, with a long glittering trail of exhaust stretched out behind it like a ribbon, and she was so far ahead that he could barely see her at all.

Leo looked at it then he looked down at his hands on the grips, which were still tingling with that strange warm current, and slowly, his mouth curled into a grin.

’Heh...’