“Do you even know what that means?” Thad asked.
Mast shook his head violently.
“Fine. I’m going up.” Thad climbed into the cockpit but stopped when he saw LeClrerc’s red and white airship streaking across the sky. A sonic boom shook Thad’s canopy.
“That is a very fast ship,” Mast said from the edge of the tarmac.
“Speed isn’t everything,” Thad said.
* * *
Thad sat at his favorite barstool reviewing his flight data. Cantina music played on the auto-piano. Pierre dealt cards at a blackjack table while the young Pierre tended bar with the personality of a sloth.
A cheer went up as Leslie and Chelsie strode in wearing short-shorts, tight halter tops, and flight goggles.
“That’s some hot ass LAR pilots,” a patron yelled. Men roared in agreement and banged mugs of watered-down beer on tables.
“Take me around the world, Leslie!” someone yelled.
She gave him the finger.
Both of the rookie LAR pilots looked tired. Sweat-matted hair and smeared eyeliner completed their steampunk costumes.
“We’ll still love you in last place.”
“Piss off!” Leslie said. She violated ten of Dixie’s rules and went straight to the bar with her copilot in tow. The young Pierre served them whiskey before they ordered it, then retreated as though he’d been assaulted.
“They don’t take us seriously,” Leslie said to Thad.
“Sheriffs and prostitutes challenging the galactic LAR champion does seem to be a novel idea,” Thad said, sipping ten credits of whiskey as slowly as he could.
Leslie leaned one elbow on the bar, nearly dumping her cleavage right in front of Thad. “You think you can beat him because you raced in the amateur leagues?”
Thad refused to take the bait. “Everyone in my unit did it. There was a course near our base. We raced each other. Won some local titles. Even beat some of the Air Force’s hotshots, but not very often.”
“So you don’t have a chance?”
Thad didn’t answer.
Leslie twisted toward Chelsie. “We’re still betting on LeClerc.”
“He can’t win if he doesn’t finish,” Chelsie said.
“Shut up, Chels. Not in front of the Sheriff,” Leslie said. She leaned close to Thad. “We’re actually pretty good. We know how to run a hustle.”
“I am sure you do,” Thad said. “Try not to get yourself killed in the process.”
“How sweet…”
“Or me. I plan on surviving this race.”
Leslie rubbed his leg. “You’re a big, strong stud. I bet you do win.”
Several patrons heard this last part and started laughing. “Hey, guys, let’s bet on the sheriff!”
“Like your outfit, Leslie!” a man yelled. “Chelsie's would look better with no shirt!”
She patted Thad’s thigh. “We better get upstairs and change before Dixie sees us. You coming? Help two fellow racers get out of these tight, sweaty outfits?” She ran her hands down the curves of her body, as did Chelsie while standing behind her—four hands sliding over a very small amount of clothing.
“You’re killing me.” Thad shook his head slowly while smiling at his new friends.
Leslie winked and blew him a kiss while Chelsie slid two fingers into her mouth without breaking eye contact. “That’s the idea. Come on up and see us sometime.” The women linked arms and strutted away.
Thaddeus looked into his empty glass and wondered what he was doing in Darklanding. The music was too loud and he wasn't in the mood for the constant stomping and hollering of the patrons. The Mother Lode had been more crowded since the LAR came to town. He wondered if Pierre had lowered the price of drinks.
"A penny for your thinking," Mast said.
"Second-guessing myself, I reckon," Thaddeus said. "It seemed so obvious when Tia ran down hallway with her mouth bleeding. Our interview with Leslie and Chelsie bothers me. I thought they would be willing to stand up to LeClerc."
"They are not willing," Mast said.
"Thanks, Mast. I know that, now."
His Unglok deputy pondered the information, unfazed by Thaddeus's sarcasm. "Do you think Dixie's girls are good pilots?"
Thad shook his head. "It doesn't matter. If we had years to train, we still probably couldn't beat him."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Maximum Copilot
The girls in the Mother Lode avoided Thaddeus for the next two days. He didn't see Tia and wondered if she was recovering from her injuries. Some of her fans speculated she had taken a big payoff and left the planet. Dixie refused to confirm or deny the accusations.
Mast came to work later and later each day, each time looking as though he hadn't slept. He coughed too much and ate too little.
"It's good to see you up and around, Mast," Thaddeus said.
"It is good that you think it is good. Are we arresting criminals today or playing with airships?" Mast asked in a raspy voice that had spent the night surviving coughing fits.
Thaddeus shrugged. "I have a job for you that involves both. Find Maximus and bring him to the civilian airfield where I park my ship."
"I will do this," Mast said, holding one hand to his mouth in anticipation of a cough that did not come. "Do not worry about me, Sheriff. I am not always this sick."
"I could order you to get medical attention," Thaddeus said.
"I have already sought the best medicine available, Sheriff."
All of this was on Thaddeus's mind as he stepped off the trolley. His airship, which he’d finally leased after having stolen it twice, was parked in a three-sided lean-to that had seen better days. He walked across the tarmac, wondering how many of the other civilian craft would be entered into the next race. Leslie and Chelsie had moved their ship to a more private location, someplace that he had not been able to find.
All of the professional LAR pilots kept their gear and their crews near the racetrack stadium on the floor of Transport Canyon. This civilian airstrip was on the mesa as far away from the race course as possible.
He wanted to practice in privacy, as did LeClerc, apparently. Thaddeus inspected his airship and went down his checklist as he watched the hotshot take off and perform a series of basic maneuvers. That wasn't what Thaddeus had expected. The galactic LAR champion was reviewing basic skills taught to novice pilots.
LeClerc did a series of touch-and-go landings, then practiced stalling his airship and recovering it. Thaddeus leaned against his own ship and studied his rival. Next came barrel rolls and loops. He saw the red and white airship fly upside-down only feet above the tarmac.
"I wonder if he knows I'm standing here," Thaddeus muttered.
There was a lot of flash in the second half of LeClerc’s practice routine, but he always came back to the basics and honed them to perfection. Thad climbed onto the port-side wing and stretched out for a nap, hat covering his eyes. A good solider could sleep anywhere, even when he was tuned up for a fight.
Something warned him against going up while the hotshot was there.
Time passed invisibly as a cool breeze brushed over his perch. A thin line of light peeked under his hat, glowing in his vision even with his eyes closed. The red and white airship came and went, engines roaring and the sonic boom shaking him and the wing on which he napped. He had to ignore his enemy. Now wasn’t the time. He’d faced un-winnable odds before, more often than he liked to count.
Trolley bells rang at the gate, just out of view from where Thaddeus rested. Thad sat up and looked toward the chain-link fence surrounding the main hangar. Mast and the pig-dog thing appeared on the tarmac a moment later.
He climbed down and stretched his back.
“I muchly found Maximus. He was teasing a small gang of Ungloks by playing dead, then expelling gas into the atmosphere when they ventured near him,” Mast said. “I gave the children the paper badges you told me to give them. I am still confused and worried about what this means.”
Mast made a skeptical face. “I worry they will definitely be attempting to enforce laws. Which they make up in huge childish arguments while playing in their cave-fort hideouts. Adults will not follow their laws.”
“Did you play in a cave-fort when you were a kid?”
Mast’s eyes brightened. “Very muchly! Did you?”
“We called them treehouses.”
“My people would never build domiciles in trees.” Thad started to pull down the ladder to his airship, then turned abruptly to Mast. “What did you say about adults not following the kids’ laws?”
“Well, they will not honor the authority of children, with or without paper sticker badges,” Mast said.
Thad closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead as he imagined hundreds of Unglok child-deputies corralling their parents on the streets of Darklanding. “Mast, those badges are playthings. Kids pretend to be sheriffs.”
“Pretend?” Mast pulled out his hand tablet and scrolled through several screen menus. “Ah, here is my dictionary. Oh, no. That is going to be a problem.”
Thad locked the ladder into place and slapped it with his hand as he called Maximus. “Here! Up, up!”
The pig-dog thing stared at him, then bark-grunted.
“I think he is calling you a sons-of-bitches,” Mast said.
“Up! Maximus, up!”
Maximus looked at Mast, then Thad, then shrugged. He bolted up the near vertical ladder with ease. His ass and back legs stuck into the air as he wiggled into the copilot’s seat face-first.
“I must muchly look away,” Mast said.
Thad laughed.
“Is that within the rules of the LAR?”
“Absolutely. Copilots are only a tradition. It’s kind of a game. The right seat can’t be empty. People bet on who popular LAR pilots will chose.”
“LeClerc brought his own copilot. A very skilled pilot, I have heard oftenly. But strange and introverted,” Mast said.
“That’s what I thought. I wanted to get him to jump ship and ride with me, but he won’t come out of his room at the Mother Lode,” Thad said.
“Jump ship? Like wing to wing? That would be muchly exciting to watch,” Mast said.
“It’s a figure of speech.”
“Oh.”
Thaddeus climbed into the pilot seat. He twisted to take a good look at Maximus. "All set there, copilot?”
"Snort. Grunt, grunt. Snort, snuffle," Maximus said.
Thaddeus reached up to pull down the hatch, but waved for Mast’s attention and pointed at the fading image of LeClerc’s airship. "Where do you think he's going?"
Mast shielded his eyes from the glare of the setting sun with one hand. "Maybe he is going to have a picnic like Dixie and Sledge enjoyed. They very muchly enjoyed it, I think. I cannot even say how much they probably enjoyed it. They were all alone, in the scenic mountains of Ungwilook…”
"Okay, I get it." Thaddeus snugged up the safety harness around Maximus’ stomach. He looked funny sitting upright. "You okay like that, big dog?"
Maximus huffed. He wiggled so that he was slightly off-center, slouching like an old drunk. Moments later, the pig-dog was making a contented sound a little bit like purring.
"We'll see if this works. I may have to have a custom set of safety restraints made for you," Thaddeus said.
"Snort, snort, snort."
"Good luck," Mast said.
"Hold on there, partner. You're not getting off that easy." Thaddeus lifted a pair of virtual reality goggles from the center compartment, clicked the power button to be sure they worked, then synced them with his airship. He tossed the boxy headset down to his deputy. "These are survey goggles. Find yourself a place to sit and watch where I fly. I need to get your observations on the race course. This is your planet. You'll see things I won't." He paused. "Or I can put Maximus down there and you can climb in and fly with me.”
"Have I ever told you, Sheriff, that it has always been my dream to view my planet through VR goggles? I will stay here and do my duty on the ground," Mast said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Race Course Secret
"This is better than flying," Mast said.
Thaddeus worked the controls, easing into his flight routine. To his surprise, he did not see LeClerc’s airship. "Weather looks good for a flyover. Are you getting this, Mast?"
"Yes, Sheriff. I see everything. There is the red arch. The one that is visible from the finish line stadium. My grandfather said it was once great a place for spirit quests.”
Thaddeus circled the racecourse and the nearly vacant stadium. Unglok work crews cleaned the place and dozed sand from the parking lot. "I think I'm going to fly through it. Why don't they go to the red arch for spirit quests now?”
"Some still travel beneath it. But not muchly during a race. It is an easy spirit quest but very nice, or so I am told," Mast said.
Thaddeus steered his airship low to the ground and went through the arch from the racetrack side. In the copilot seat, Maximus snuffled and sniffed rapidly. He looked around and then pressed his face against the window.
"Stop licking the window, you filthy animal!”
"I am glad that I am not with you right now," Mast said.
Thaddeus pulled up and climbed to about a thousand feet. "I'm going to follow the last racecourse, as best I can remember the beacons from the video feed. It changes each race, but I think there should be some similarities.”
"There are many mazes in the canyons," Mast said. "Above ground and below. Can you fly that ship below the surface?"
"Sure I could, if I wanted to crash and die.”
Maximus snorted agreement.
"Some of the underground caverns are quite expansive. Many of my people venture underground for their spirit quest. Some travel farther below the crust of the planet than others. A good Unglok pilot could surely race through the Linvok Cavern without making a crash."
"Are you going to volunteer for that job?"
"I am not even a bad pilot," Mast said. "Flying is not something my people do naturally—very muchly not, they say. When you see an Unglok becoming champion of the LAR then I believe pigs will fly as well.”
“Snort, snort, snort.”
"Nevertheless, there are a few of my people who can fly very well.”
"Well, let's hope none of them compete against me during the big race. I have enough to worry about.”
“Mister Pierre and all of the men in the Mother Lode have said many times you cannot win against LeClerc. They are muchly betting on where you will finish.”
"I figured. Where did they say I will finish? Actually, forget I asked," Thaddeus said. "You know what, to hell with it. Tell me how to find this cavern."
The sound of Mast’s voice changed dramatically. "You are not going to attempt this today?”
"I'll have a look at the entrance and think about it. You can send me survey coordinates from the VR goggles. Shoot them over to me and I will practice some basic maneuvers while I wait," Thaddeus said.
"One moment while I figure this out," Mast said.
Thaddeus flew every possible variation of the racecourse, or flew over every possible variation, to be accurate. He wanted to get a good lay of the land before he descended into the canyons and valleys where most of the action would take place. He was accustomed to Transport Canyon and the broad vistas it presented. What he saw now amazed him. It was like a whole other world existed on the planet and it was a world of puzzles and secret places.
"Now that is a maze," he said.
"I am sending you the coordinates. Please be careful," Mast said.
Maximus whined as Thaddeus approached the entrance to Linvok Cavern.
Thaddeus saw it. He checked his radar and infrared sensors, surprised at how far into the opening he could see. It almost looked like
it was open on top, but he knew it wasn't. There were gaps, but the cavern disappeared quickly below ground. "It looks like it would be easy to get inside."
"Yes, it does. But once you go inside, I will learn many new forms of profanity from you," Mast said.
Thaddeus aimed the airship toward the huge cave entrance. Flying into it felt like landing on an intergalactic battle carrier. He had never landed on one of the behemoth spaceships, but he'd been a passenger many times. The sense of speed was distorted because of the massive black void he was entering.
That changed quickly. He cut his speed. Walls and ceilings and floors rushed at him with what seemed incredible velocity.
"I do not think… If you see a tunnel… Are you there, Sheriff?”
Thaddeus didn't try to answer. No amount of directions from his guide would help him now. Even if he could get a clear radio communication, the only place he was going to fly was where he was allowed to fly. The tunnels twisted and turned and dropped and climbed. He fought the controls. Sweat poured down his back. Maximus howled and farted.
CHAPTER NINE
Green Cavern
"Mast, for the record, this shortcut is impossible," Thaddeus said.
“Um, can you back up?” Mast asked through the radio static.
Thaddeus laughed, banked hard to his right, then dove straight down into a hole that looked like the express tunnel to Hell. He activated all his forward lights to pierce the inky darkness. The only constants were the rock walls on all sides and fifty meters of hazy headlights in front of him. He was about to say something to Mast when the passage turned horizontal. He cranked the control stick so hard that Maximus bumped his head on the side of the cockpit despite being strapped into the chair.
“Arrooooh! Snort, snort!”
One wing scraped something Thad couldn't see. He adjusted course. He struck something else with the same wing. The cavern was now large enough to accommodate his ship. His problem was the twists and turns and the velocity he needed to maintain to remain airborne. Modern airships relied on antigravity bundles and thrusters as much as aerodynamics but that didn't mean they could function independent of the laws of physics. Even when the way was horizontal, he encountered multidirectional intersections with updrafts, downdrafts, or both.
Race to the Finish Page 4
