Chapter 133: Racing With Vexa [III]

The black pad rushed up beneath him.

Leo flared the racer hard, tipping its nose up into the wind so sharply that the whole ship shuddered and groaned, and the engines roared one last time as he slammed the landing gear down onto the stone.

THUD!

Half a heartbeat later, right beside him, the pink racer came down too.

THUD!

The impact rattled through Leo’s spine and into his skull, and then everything went quiet.

The engines spun down with a long, falling whine.

WHRRRRRrrrrr...

The shaking stopped, the warning lights faded one by one, and the only sound left in the cockpit was Leo’s own ragged breathing and the soft tick of hot metal cooling under the morning suns.

He sat there frozen, with his hands still locked around the grips and his heart hammering so hard that he could feel it in his teeth.

Sweat was running down the back of his neck inside his flight suit, and his arms were trembling from the cliff climb, and his ears were still ringing from the roar of the engines.

Up on the terrace, he could see the tiny shapes of the girls pressed against the railing, but he couldn’t make out their faces from here, and he couldn’t tell from the way they were standing whether they were cheering or panicking.

’Did I...?’ he thought. ’Was I first? I think I was first... Was I? It was so close... it was so, so close...’

He looked across the pad.

Through the side of his canopy, he could see Vexa sitting perfectly still in her own cockpit, staring straight ahead with her hands frozen on her grips, and her tail wasn’t moving at all.

Neither of them knew.

On the canopy display, a small symbol was spinning slowly in the corner.

[Confirming first contact...]

It kept spinning, and spinning, and spinning.

’Come on,’ Leo thought, and his fingers dug into the grips. ’Come on, come on... just tell me.’

His mind raced through everything at once... the cliff climb, the stall warning, the gear dropping, the impact.

Had he touched down first, or had she? Had her gear been a fraction lower? Had his been a fraction slower?

If she’d won, he’d be getting married... today... to a pink cat-girl with a racing trophy collection and a cook who sang.

’Pink frosting,’ he thought numbly. ’Oh no... the pink frosting...’

[Confirming first contact...]

Over the comms, he could hear Vexa breathing, small and fast and shaky.

"Leo?" she whispered.

"Yeah?"

"...I can’t look."

"Me neither," Leo admitted.

The symbol stopped spinning.

DING!

[First contact: Silver-blue racer]

[Margin: 3.2 meters]

Leo stared at the words.

He read them once, then again, then a third time, and then it finally sank in, and a sound tore out of his chest that he didn’t even know he could make.

"YEEEEEEESSSSS!"

He punched both fists straight up into the air and smacked his knuckles on the canopy so hard that it rang.

CLANG!

"OW! Yes! Ow! YES!"

He fumbled at the canopy release, and the glass slid back with a hiss, and the warm salty air of the cliffs came rushing in, and he half climbed, half fell out of the cockpit onto the wing.

FSSSHHH!

Across the pad, Vexa’s canopy was opening too.

She climbed out slowly, pulling off her helmet, and her purple hair tumbled loose around her face, and for a second, she just stood on the wing of her racer looking at him then she jumped down onto the pad and came running across the stone toward him.

Leo dropped down off his own wing, bracing himself, because he honestly had no idea if she was going to hug him or punch him again.

She grabbed both of his hands.

She was laughing, and she was also crying at the same time with big tears running down her pink cheeks while her fangs flashed in the widest smile he’d ever seen, and her tail was whipping back and forth behind her so fast it was a blur.

"You won!" she cried. "You actually won! Three meters! THREE METERS! Leo, that was... that was the best race of my whole entire life!"

"You’re... not mad?" Leo asked, completely thrown.

"Mad?!" Vexa squeezed his hands so hard his knuckles cracked. "Why would I be mad?! I’ve raced for ten years, Leo, and nobody has ever pushed me like that! Nobody’s ever found me through the Afterimage! Nobody’s ever beat me!"

She wiped her eyes on her shoulder, still laughing. "I’m not mad at all... I’m so happy I could explode!"

Then her ears perked straight up, and her expression changed to fierce determination.

"I demand a rematch!"

"Vexa..."

"A rematch! I demand it! Next time, I’m going to win, and then I’m going to marry you, and I’m not going to go easy on you this time!"

"You didn’t go easy on me this time...!"

"I went a LITTLE easy!" she insisted, and stamped her foot then the rest of the world came crashing in.

"LEO!"

The girls came pouring down the stone steps from the terrace all at once, and Harper reached him first, as she always did.

She slammed into him at full speed without slowing down at all, wrapped one arm around his neck and dragged him down into a headlock so tight he could barely breathe.

"You IDIOT!" she yelled, rubbing her knuckles hard into the top of his head. "You big IDIOT! You clipped a moon beacon! I saw it on the projection! You nearly crashed into a moon, Cap! And then you flew under a cargo ship! I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill you so much!"

"Harper... can’t... breathe..."

"GOOD!"

But even while she was yelling at him, she was laughing, and even though her eyes were wet, she didn’t let go of him for a long time.

When she finally did, Camila was right there.

She threw her arms around his waist and hugged him so tightly that he almost lost his balance, and then she pulled back and looked up at him with her eyes shining, and a whole stream of Spanish came pouring out of her.

"?Gracias a Dios! ?Gracias a Dios, ganaste! ?Me ibas a matar del susto, Leo! ?Te lo juro!"

Then she realized what she was doing, turned bright red and ran to hide behind Aoi.

Aoi stepped up next and didn’t say anything at first.

She just looked up at him with a warm proud smile, and then she reached up and brushed a smear of soot off his cheekbone with her thumb.

"Well done, Leo," she said softly. "You remembered our classes well..."

"Every Thursday," he said, grinning.

Her smile grew even warmer.

Elena came after her, walking at a perfectly measured pace with her chin up, and she stopped in front of him and looked him up and down critically.

"Your landing was sloppy," she said coldly. "You flared too late and hit the pad at an angle. If that had been our ship, I’d be replacing the forward landing strut right now..."

"Thanks, Elena."

"Your reentry angle was too steep, and your approach over the water was reckless beyond all reason..."

"Got it."

"And you nearly died against a moon..."

"I know."

She paused, and for a second, Leo noticed that her hands were trembling a little at her sides.

"...Congratulations, Captain," she said, much more quietly, and then she turned on her heel and walked away before he could say anything else.

’Was she... worried?’ Leo thought, watching her go. ’Elena? About me?’

Jin-Ah stepped up with her slate held out in front of her and the race telemetry glowing on the screen.

"The margin was three point two meters," she reported precisely, "which at your landing velocity translates to a time difference of zero point zero four one seconds... Statistically, it’s one of the closest finishes in the recorded history of space racing as a whole."

She paused, then lowered the slate a little.

"I’m very glad you won, Leo," she added.

"Thanks, Jin-Ah."

"And you did not remember anything I told you about the ascent."

"...I remembered the ’go up’ part."

Jin-Ah closed her eyes, very patiently.

Last of all, Chloe walked across the pad.

She walked straight past Leo to Vexa, who was still standing nearby with her tail wagging, and stopped right in front of her, and tipped her head back and stared up at her.

She just stared without a word, with her green eyes completely calm and completely unblinking, and the corner of her mouth twitched up into the smallest most victorious smile Leo had ever seen.

Vexa’s ears went flat.

"...Okay," Vexa said nervously. "Okay, I get it... You win this round, little scary one."

Chloe held the stare for three more seconds, satisfied, and then turned around and walked back to Leo and took hold of his sleeve.

Leo couldn’t stop laughing.

Vexa recovered quickly, the way she always did, and spotted Camila peeking out from behind Aoi.

"Oh! Cupcake girl!" Vexa bounded over, and Camila squeaked and tried to hide further behind Aoi. "Leo said your cupcake was really, really good! Can you make me one? Please? I’ll trade you anything! I’ve got a whole greenhouse!"

Camila peeked out at her, very red, and then looked at Leo, and then back at Vexa.

"...Maybe," she said in a tiny voice. "If you stop trying to marry him."

"Hmm..." Vexa thought about this very seriously, with her tail swaying slowly. "Can I have the cupcake first and then think about it?"

"No."

"Aww."

Harper snorted, and then she walked up to Vexa with her hands shoved deep in her pockets and stood beside her for a moment, looking out at the two racers sitting on the pad.

"...That afterimage thing in the clouds," Harper muttered without looking at her. "That was some seriously nasty flying, cat-girl."

Vexa’s ears perked up.

"Really?!"

"...Don’t make it weird."

"You think I’m a good pilot! How is that weird?"

"I said don’t make it weird!" Harper groaned, and stomped off, while Vexa beamed after her.

When everyone had finally calmed down, Vexa clapped her hands together loudly to get their attention.

"Okay! Listen up, everyone!" she announced, standing up very straight with her chin lifted. "Leo won, fair and square, by three point two meters... So I’m keeping my promise, right here, in front of all of you."

She turned to Leo, and her voice went more serious.

"I’ll sponsor every one of your IDs, I’ll get you residency on Nexus-Prime, and I’ll help you with everything you need to get started here, whatever it is... That’s your prize, Leo... You earned it."

Leo looked at her and nodded slowly.

"Thank you, Vexa."

"Don’t thank me," she said, and her grin came back. "You beat me. That’s the deal... And besides, all I really want is to see that chubby gunboat of yours get even better. Seriously, Leo, your ship deserves it, and so do all of you."

They walked down to the hangar together, and the moment Leo stepped through the archway, the comm panel on the Wanderer-7’s hull gave a small, pointed chime.

[This unit acknowledges the Master Captain’s victory in a vessel that was not this unit. This unit will not be discussing it further...]

"Sorry, Vela," Leo said, patting the ship’s landing strut as he passed. "You’re still my favorite."

The panel stayed very quiet, and Harper, walking just behind him, snickered so hard she had to stop and lean against a crate.

"Cap," she wheezed. "Cap, I think you hurt its feelings..."

"It’s an AI, Harper. I doubt Vela has feelings for us to hurt..."

"It’s a sulking AI," Harper said, delighted.

Later, after Harper had dragged everyone off to celebrate with Ollo’s lunch, Leo slipped away for a few minutes and stood alone on the cliff path above the hangar, looking out over the violet sea.

He held up his hands and turned them over slowly.

They looked perfectly normal, but he could still feel it like the memory of warm water... that strange new current that had run through him in orbit and made a ship that wasn’t his feel like it was.

’What was that?’ he thought. ’The guide’s never done that before... It’s always been a pull, telling me where to go but this time, it was like... it was like it reached out and grabbed the ship for me.’

He flexed his fingers, and nothing happened.

’And it found Vexa through the clouds... through five copies of her.’

He didn’t have an answer, and he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get one anytime soon.

’Maybe I should tell Aoi,’ he thought. ’She’d probably have a theory... She always has a theory or Jin-Ah would turn it into a chart.’

He smiled a little at the thought of Jin-Ah trying to graph a feeling in his spine, and decided it could wait until after lunch.

"LEO!"

He turned around.

Vexa was bounding up the path toward him, with her tail swinging and a huge excited grin spread across her face.

"There you are! I’ve got news!" She skidded to a stop in front of him, nearly bouncing out of her boots. "Tomorrow, we’re all going into the capital to file your IDs! I just called the Central Registry and told them we’re coming..."

"Okay," Leo said, smiling. "What time?"

"Oh, I told them to clear the whole morning," Vexa said cheerfully. "All of it. Every appointment."