Lap eleven: Delphine creeps up behind her again. Clarke manages to block her at first, but Delphine passes her on a turn. Yves is pleased.
Lap eighteen: Clarke and Delphine lap the ship in P20, one of the Harkoners. On-planet, that ship would keep racing. Off-planet, they’re eliminated and have to retire, because there’s got to be a gap between the first- and last-place ships or the race director can’t change variables safely.
Lap twenty-three: Clarke spins out as she emerges from the corkscrew, which has one fewer loop than before. She manages to stay on the course and not get hit, but she drops back to P5.
“Good time to box, Clarke,” Amira says.
Clarke doesn’t want to box already. Everyone has to take at least one pit stop, where they get at a minimum fresh batteries and thruster shells, but that usually doesn’t happen until at leasthalfway through unless something’s broken. Nothing’s broken on Clarke’s ship, and Lion’s Head is sixty-two laps. If she comes in now, she’ll be flying on tired shells toward the end of the race. Tired shells mean less dexterity.
“Can we put it off?” she asks. She’s whipping around the starfall again, chasing Engel Brandenberg from Chronicle and being chased by Belette. “The ship feels fine.”
“We’re getting shimmy, and need to switch strategies for mid-pack racing. Come in.”
Fuming, Clarke does as she’s told. Pilots who disobey orders don’t get their contracts renewed.
The pit lane entry branches off the course from the top, marked by a set of blue beacons. Clarke swings up toward them and slows down until she can extend her tires without them getting ripped off, then slows even further as she crosses the veil. Gravity takes effect again. She lands smoothly, barely bouncing at all, and drives toward her box.
The pit lane speed limit is 80 km/h. It feels like crawling.
“You’ll be P9 coming out, maybe P10,” Amira says. “Stay with the pack, and—”
“Why,” Clarke demands. She rolls into the box and takes a second to flex her hands while the crew flurries around her with practiced, efficient movements. “I was top two for the first twenty laps. I’m still fastest average pace. Why wouldn’t I—”
“We’re not taking risks,” Yves says, cutting over both of them. “If you finish top ten and Matthew hangs on to P12, the team moves up the rankings. That’s what we need, not another DNF.”
Emotions tear through Clarke like brushfire: anger, frustration, spite. The crew drops her back to the pavement and sherockets out of the box. She retracts her tires as she crosses the veil again, and the pit lane exit inserts her at the top of the course in P9.
Yves doesn’t want her to be aggressive? Fine, she won’t be. She’ll just make it obvious to everyone watching that today, on this course, she’s better than P9, and they’llhaveto let her overtake.
Time to go to work.
8
She catches P8, David Lauerfrom Martian Motors, and proceeds to be a blatant pest. She drafts shamelessly, threatens him at every turn, jumps in and out of his blind spot. She doesn’t make an actual move, though. There’s plenty of race left. She can be patient. She can be obnoxious as hell while she’s being patient. Amira’s end of the radio is mostly silent, which Clarke knows from experience means Amira’s arguing with Yves to let Clarke do her thing and doesn’t want to distract Clarke with the back-and-forth.
Their joint tactics work. On lap twenty-six, as Clarke and David bank into the second straightaway, Amira says, “All right, Clarke. Go hunting.”
Finally.
Clarke takes P8, beating David around a bend, and goes looking for P7. It takes longer to close that gap, and the race director tosses out a couple tough variables, but Amira tells her about them with plenty of warning. She passes Thierry next, moving up to P6 on lap thirty-nine.
She feels electric. She feels unstoppable. She feels like she understands this godsforsaken ship for the first time all year.
And then, the moment she’s been waiting for: Everyone else starts to pit.
Almost everyone. Julian’s been in already; he’s always liked pitting earlier than most. But everyone else in front of her—Delphine, Engel, Belette, Oliver—turns off at the blue beacons. Julian was P2 behind Delphine, but he’s P1 now.
“Gap to Julian?” she asks Amira.
“Seven-point-two.”
Seven seconds. That’s a big lead, but not insurmountable.
She’s not just up against Julian, of course. This is not a two-person race. But for the span of a few heartbeats, before the other race leaders come back onto the track, it’s like Juniors all over again. Julian’s in front of her, and Clarke’s going to catch him.
She’s P4 when everyone’s out of the pit. Engel is P3. He’s Chronicle’s other pilot, Julian’s teammate, and he’s very good. It takes Clarke until lap forty-seven to catch him, and then he blocks her until lap fifty-one, when there’s an opening to pass during a turn.
Amira doesn’t let Clarke take it. She wants to scream, not understanding why, but then they barrel into the next corner and Amira barks, “Now, Clarke, now now now” and shegoesand she’s P3, with eleven laps remaining.
