Chapter Text
It is a depressing finish for the last official Planetary Relay Race in the Terran Accord. Only a half dozen entrants for what had once been the most prestigious event in the outer reaches of the Terran empire. In reality, it’s only a race between Helena Guthrie and Jo Deegan, the last two professional racers in the system.
Their planet skippers scream through the final relay ring, flying past empty grandstands, barely a hair's breadth from the other. Normally thousands of fans fill the seats, hoping to catch any glimpses of the daredevil pilots as they weave around each relay point, trying to get any edge as they fly a great circuit around the small solar system. But with the Affini heading to them, what’s the point?
Moksha Station, even just a few short years ago, was a center of transit, trade, and tourism in the distant territories of the Accord. The place was often so packed, you couldn’t walk two steps without bumping shoulders with someone. Now, it’s a shadow of itself. Tourism dried up the moment the draft began. Trade and transit slowed shortly after. Moksha had never been so empty. Most of the station’s tenants had already abandoned the place. Some left to join the growing rebellion, some left to join the Compact on their own terms, even more just chose a direction in space and didn’t bother to look back. But neither Helena nor Jo were willing to leave. The race is everything to them.
Once their skippers pass the finish line, the pair take some slow cooldown laps around the station, burning off any excess nitro thrust and letting their adrenaline fade. The rest of the racers eventually limp through the finish, mostly bushwackers and bored colonists. They could never hold a candle to Jo, much less Helena. But when an official race has open slots and you’re just rich enough to own a planet skipper, why not?
Helena lazily aims her skipper towards her hangar bay, marked by her familiar green and orange flag projected onto a hardlight display along with her sponsor logos. Jo is still running laps, sending out friendly chats and congratulations to the other racers. She’s always like that. Happy, peppy. It disgusts Helena.
The pilot hops out of her cockpit and motions to the hangar bay droid to start cleaning the small craft. She lost, and she knows it. Results for relay races aren’t revealed until an hour after the final racer crosses the finish line, but she still knows she lost. Jo was easily half a skipper-length ahead of her.
Helena pitches her helmet at the wall with a scream of frustration. The last terran relay race ever, her final chance at solidifying a legacy, and she loses. The compact is set to arrive in just a day or two, and no race is scheduled for before then. The whole system’s automated too, so it’s not like she can just ask an officiator to run an extra race just for her and Jo. Anger coils in her chest like a tense spring as she stalks out of the hangar.
Her next port of call is the dive bar just one floor up from the racer bays. Pilots get discounts, and it’s just seedy enough that tourists don’t frequent the place, not that that’s an issue right now. The bar-bot has her favorite cocktail prepared before she even sits down. “Fifty credits, gorgeous,” it says in its digital voice.
The orange creamsicle cocktail is exactly as sweet as it always is, and burns just like it always does. Being able to get actual liquor this far out in Accord space is one of the bigger benefits in being a professional racer. It’s not just the beer flavored water that’s laced with mind-affecting chemicals either; it’s actual booze. As the liquid courage flows into her, she unzips her green flight suit, and lets the top hang off her hips. The bar is still stuffy and warm, but compared to the cockpit she’s been in for the past couple hours, it feels like an air conditioned paradise. The sounds of footsteps distracts Helena from her second cocktail and she turns to see Jo, striding in with a big smile on her face.
“You were incredible, Lena! Ohmygod, your tight corner around Rho-45 was insane!” Jo raves as she sits down next to Helena. Of course the blonde racer with her perfect curls and perfect face sits down right next to her. Why can’t this damned woman let her mope in peace?
The woman is perfect. Beautiful, a killer pilot, a head taller than Helena’s own spindly form. If someone said that her rival spends her off time taking care of sick puppies and cooking food for the elderly, she wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. It's all artificial though. It has to be. No one can be as amazing as Jo without being fake.
“I still lost,” Helena says, trying not to let the bitterness taint her voice. She always feels shown up around Jo.
Jo rests a hand on Helena’s “Oh come on, babe. It was just luck. Let’s drink and enjoy ourselves before the plants get here. You’re probably going to kick my ass next time. Especially if we can get some Affini tech under our hoods.”
Helena yanks her hand away and hides it in one of the pockets on her flight suit. There would be no next time. This event was the last Terran Accord race ever. Jo will always be listed as the final Accord Champion. And what did that make Helena? A loser. A big fucking loser.
She drains the rest of her cocktail and taps her wrist ID on the cashier pad. “Whatever, fine.” She pauses when she feels the familiar shape of a skipper mod-chip sitting in her pocket. “Actually… Jo, how about one more go around the relays. Not a race. Just… one last time for old time’s sake. See the sights.”
Jo visibly brightens. “That would mean the world to me, Lena. Give me an hour and I’ll meet you at the hangars!” She says. Helena smiles back at her with just a touch too much menace and takes her leave.
She only has an hour. Helena races down the stairs to the hangar deck, gripping the chip in her hand as a plan quickly forms in the maelstrom that is her thoughts. She’d caught an Affini broadcast a few days ago that discussed what life was like in the Compact for those human pets they called Florets. Limited rights, but a guarantee of care and safety. No sane alien overlord would let their precious little pets fly something as dangerous as a planet skipper. All she has to do is get Jo domesticated.
As she skids to a halt in front of her hangar computer, she pulls the chip out. It’s a custom piece of computer hardware; colloquially known as a “Mutiny Mod.” She’d used them when she was still a blockade runner for a smuggling syndicate, but she didn’t have a use for them after she went straight. Now she just collects them as reminders of her past.
Mutiny Mods allow a small spacecraft to make limited long range communications. By using the whole ship’s frame as an antenna, instead of just the dedicated radio array, short messages can be sent and received. And if you aren’t tuned to the specific signal that a mutiny mod is set to, all it would look like is radar static. Perfect if you are trying to send a small update or warning, or, as their namesake implies, start a mutiny, without anyone knowing. They’re illegal to use of course. But as long as you’re a registered collector, you can have as many as you want.
Helena’s plan is so simple. Jo will never know a thing. All she has to do is plug this little chip into her rival’s skipper, set it to broadcast a feralist message, and the Affini will book her the moment they get their hands on her ship. The pilot laughs to herself as she grabs her tools to put her plan in motion.
~
It takes Helena more time to re-code the spare mutiny chip than she was hoping, but she’d eschewed her hangar computer for her personal tablet. The Affini would assuredly scan the station’s network, and she didn’t want the MAC address for the chip to show up on an official device. With her tablet, she can just do a factory reset, and no one would be the wiser. The only downside is that she’ll have to re-download her race photos. After half an hour of work and with a freshly re-imaged tablet, the pilot creeps over to her rival's hangar.
The space is rather bare bones, compared to her own. Very little paraphernalia or memorabilia, not even any trophies or ribbons. The walls are just painted in her colors: pink, blue, and white, and that is it as far as decoration goes. Helena always felt that Jo’s colors were gaudy, so having a hangar with nothing else in it eats at her. The temptation to spray paint a pithy taunt on one of Jo’s walls comes to mind, but that would place too much suspicion on her. No, she must stay focused on her little act of sabotage.
With the coast clear, Helena climbs up onto the body of Jo’s skipper. The small antenna bumps along its middle reveal her target, and with a quick twist of her omni-wrench, the cover for the drive computer pops up. To anyone else, the rats' nest of cables, wires, blinking lights, and unlabeled ports would look like an e-waste trash pile, but to a professional racer like Helena, it’s beautiful, even if Jo’s cable management could be best compared to pasta shapes.
Planet skippers are cheap ships. Their limited range makes them virtually useless for any commercial purpose, and that’s not even considering their flimsy frames and low weight tolerance. But their inexpensive nature makes them one of the most moddable ships available. Perfect for tricking into racers or, as in her past, blockade running. Modding ships is an art form to Helena. But as she looks at the mess in front of her, she’s reminded that Jo’s approach to altering her ship is tearing out systems one by one until the engine doesn’t start, then putting it back together just enough to fly.
Helena had done some work on Jo’s skipper in the past, usually after races where she wasn’t blindingly angry with the other woman, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see the drive computer in this state. But its messiness works even better for her plan. With this chaos of wires and ports, a single mod-chip will be easily overlooked. She plugs the mutiny mod into the communications array, then quickly replaces the cover. Jo will never know she was here. Just to be safe though, Helena does a quick safety inspection, tightening some loose bolts, and replacing a few stripped ones. Just something to explain why she’s in her rival’s hangar in the first place.
She programmed the chip to activate and broadcast after an hour of flight. Just one hour, and then Jo will announce to the world that she hates the Affini and wants to join the rebels. It’s too perfect. Just the thought of watching her rival’s face as she’s dragged off to be turned into a floret puts a smile on Helena’s. That bitch will finally get what’s coming to her.
Helena checks her tablet for the time: fifteen minutes to go. The device might be outdated, but even so, the clunky piece of tech brings her a sense of pride. It’s the first prize she ever received from winning a race here on Moksha. She instinctively checks her tablet again as she walks back to her hangar, trying to combat a growing sense of unease in her belly. She still has time.
In an effort to calm herself, Helena sets about fully inspecting her ship. She trusts the hangar droid to do a basic inspection and refill her fuel, but nothing in depth. So when she finds a row of loose bolts, she's glad she double checked. As she tightens each bolt, her mind hones in on the familiar task, quickly blotting out everything, save her tools and her ship, to her conscious mind
The pilot becomes so engrossed in fixing her skipper that she doesn’t notice the presence leaning against the door until a voice calls out.
“Hi, Lena. Whatcha doing?”
Helena straightens in surprise, smacking her head against the hull of her ship with a dull thud. Jo is here. She’s been watching her. Does she suspect something? Helena narrows her eyes at her rival. Did…. Did that bitch put on makeup? Lipstick and eyeliner definitely. Great. Even now on a recreational trip around the race route, little miss perfect just has to show her up. No one is even going to see them out there, so what’s even the point of looking fancy?
Helena looks down at herself, in her grease-stained tank top and her oil covered hands. She looks like shit compared to that goddess. The sooner the Affini drag her into the… Floret hole, or however florets are made, the better.
“Just fixing up a few loose bolts. I checked your skipper too.”
Jo brightens. “You did? Thank you so much, you’re always so thoughtful.”
Helena waves her off. “Think nothing of it. Seriously.” Half the reason she did it was to once again prove that not only is she a better pilot than Jo, but that she’s a better mechanic too. She’ll never say that out loud though. “Now, are you good to go? Or am I going to have to drag you to your skipper and lock you in it?”
It was supposed to come out like a threat, but Jo blushes and giggles in response. What the hell is wrong with this woman?
“As you wish, ma’am.” Jo winks at Helena then disappears to her own hangar. One hour and she’ll never have to worry about that woman again. She opens a timer on her tablet as she climbs into the cockpit. She wants to watch Jo, see if she realizes anything when the signal goes off. Plus, it’ll remind her to call the Affini. Not that she’s planning to forget.
With a smug grin she straps herself into the pilot’s seat. She forgoes the helmet today. It’s really only useful for marking the next relay point in a race, since it displays them faster than her nav computer, but for a leisurely run like this, it’s hardly necessary. Instead she pulls her stringy brown hair into a loose bun.
A sigh of relief leaves her lips when she turns the ignition on her skipper. The sensation of such a powerful engine thrumming behind her is intoxicating. Maybe what Jo had said before about plant tech is true. Thoughts of piloting a ship even faster and lighter than her skipper dominate her imagination for a moment.
Her day dream is horrifically ripped away from her when the skipper’s display lights up, indicating Jo’s turned her own craft on. She starts the timer right as her radio crackles to life and Jo’s voice comes through. “I’m lifting off now. Meet you in space, Lena, unless you don’t want to spend time with me.”
She’s baiting Helena, teasing her. There is no other explanation. “Yeah, yeah, right behind you. Just waiting for STC to give me the all clear.”
“Alright, I’ll wait for you just outside station orbit.”
When the automated space traffic controller sends a thumbs up, Helena flicks a few switches, taps a few buttons, then pulls the yoke towards her. The thruster fires harder, pushing the skipper up and forward. The familiar weightlessness sets into her arms as her craft crosses the gravity barrier and slips into space.
Sure enough, Jo’s ship is floating above the station. She’s putting it through a few spinning maneuvers, showing off how dexterous and skilled she is.
“Oh! You’re here.” Her rival sounds out of breath as Helena floats closer. “I was trying to figure out how you did that twist turn around Kappa-79, but I keep pulling too hard to the left.”
The answer was blindingly obvious to Helena. She rolls her eyes before answering. “You’re putting too much forward thrust into the turn. Kill the speed and you’ll make it.”
Jo taxies next to Helena’s skipper, smiling widely at her through the cockpit. “Oh! That makes sense. Thanks, Lena. It just sucks that with the mods I made yesterday I don’t think my skipper can pull it off. I tried that thruster boost you were talking about, so I think unless I kill all forward thrust, I’m always going to be a hair too fast.”
“WHAT?!? Are you insane! Your fuel line will never be able to survive under that kind of pressure,” Helena screams into her comms.
The other pilot giggles. “I got rid of a couple things that weren’t contributing in our races: some insulation and an old fuel management system. Now it has room to vent and I just have to remember to replace the line every race. Plus, I know you’ll tow me back if anything does go wrong. Just like you always do.”
This was how Jo always beat her. It wasn’t more skill or a better skipper. No, the woman was just flat out insane. No other pilot would ever risk themself the way she does. “You’re an idiot, Jo,” she says.
“Love you too, Lena. Now come on, let’s get going.” Jo turns her craft and zips out of sight a moment later. Helena grumbles and follows.
~
Their skippers dance through the void in a delicate but deliberate flight pattern. Their radio chatter quickly shifts from banter to casual conversation as they slowly hit the relay points floating in space.
During the whole flight, Helena keeps an eye on her tablet and the slow progress of the timer. Ahead of them is a bright red planet, colloquially known as Sarra. Early colonists tried to settle there, but the intense desert heat and frequent sandstorms put a quick stop to those efforts.
This leg of the race usually had the competitors dipping into the planet’s gravity field, then using orbital launch mechanics to sling-shot their skippers forward. And for their casual cruise this afternoon, the pair of pilots see no need to change that. They speed past the Upsilon 12 relay, feeling their seats rattle and shake under them as gravity tries to take hold of the skippers.
“This has been really nice, Lena. I’m glad we could do this. Maybe once the plants are here we could do it again. Or get dinner.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you want.” Helena only responds to fill the dead air. Her attention is far too focused on the timer sitting on her dash. The seconds count down, each one feeling longer than the last.
The numbers hit zero, and her comms detect some static interference. She smiles. The message is sent. It doesn’t matter if any rebels catch the message, all that matters is that it came from Jo’s ship.
Helena finally looks up at her rival’s ship, and finds it veering deeper into the gravity field. She rolls her eyes and follows after. Leave it to Jo to do something stupid on a casual flight. But as she follows the other skipper, something seems off. Jo isn’t pumping her thrusters or activating her boosts. Her ship just keeps listing more and more towards the desert planet below.
“Jo, what the hell are you doing?” She shouts into the radio. There is no response. “Jo, this isn’t fucking funny.” There is still no response. Her rival’s ship keeps turning and turning, dropping and dropping. The telltale signs of atmosphere burn begin flickering across the nose of her ship.
Something is wrong. Helena kicks her own thrusters and closes the gap between them. She pulls next to Jo who signals at her through the cockpit window.
“Power loss.” She signs. “All systems dead.”
This is bad. At the speed they’re flying, a direct impact into the planet below will kill Jo instantly. Helena had plenty of boost, more than enough to clear the planet’s orbit. But not nearly enough to drag Jo’s skipper behind her too. The thought of just leaving and letting the woman crash springs to her mind, but even with all her hatred, Helena can’t stomach the thought of actually killing her rival. She just wants her to never be able to race again.
“Planet surface 80km and falling. Pull up now and signal for aid,” her computer warns hers. As flames begin to envelop their crafts, Helena leaps into action. She sends out tethers that magnetically attach to Jo’s skipper. They’re supposed to be used for slingshot maneuvers during daredevil exhibitions, but in a pinch they can work as tow lines.
With the lines attached she starts pulling up and up, trying to level her skipper out before they impact. But gravity and a whole extra ship’s worth of weight fight against her efforts. The planet’s surface grows closer and closer. More panicked warnings are ignored as Helena fights with every fiber of her being.
She kicks her boosts onto their maximum strength and pins her accelerator to the floor of the cockpit, hoping against all hope that the horizontal momentum will cancel out the speed of their descent.
50km to the surface.
40km.
30.
20.
10.
5km.
They're still going too fast, but Helena’s managed to straighten the skippers out. She hits the emergency air brakes as they get within a few hundred meters of the ground, but she feels Jo’s ship still flying forward. There’s an audible snap as her tethers break, and Jo goes flying past, all systems still dark.
Helena watches as her rival’s skipper hits a dune sending a massive shower of sand into the air. It doesn’t look good, but she’d managed to slow them just enough. There’s a chance she’s okay.She keeps her ship airborne just long enough to land by Jo’s wreck. It punctured the dune, forcing the front half through the sand hill, and burying the thrusters under at least a ton of the red grit.
“No, no nononono,” is the only thing that Helena can say as she practically dives out of her skipper to runs towards the wreckage. The heat instantly begins to dry and burn her skin, but she takes no notice of it. An ugly red smear is visible on the inside of Jo’s cockpit. Helena kicks the canopy off with all the strength she can muster. As the plexiglass dome goes tumbling down the sand, she breathes a sigh of relief. Jo is alive.
Her face is bleeding profusely from a gash along her forehead, and she’s slumped forward completely unconscious, but she’s breathing. There’s definitely a spinal injury too. You don’t crash this hard without one of those. Helena sprints back to her ship, and slams the activation button on her emergency beacon as hard as she can. It sends out a distress call on every frequency and communication channel. She won’t be able to respond but help will come. It’s all she can do right now.
To her surprise, her radio comes alive mere moments later. “We have you in our sights, petal. Are you able to stay safe for another twenty minutes?” That has to be an affini. She doesn’t consider how they’re able to tap into her short range comms as she yanks the receiver from its holster.
“This is Helena Guthrie. Jo Deegan crash landed at my coordinates. She is severely injured, likely spinal. Please send help.”
“Loud and clear, petal, we’re still a couple of jumps away. We’ll be there in ten minutes.” There’s a newfound urgency in the alien’s voice.
Only then does the Affini’s words register to her. Jumps? Ten minutes? The Affini are powerful enough to make that many jumps in such a small time? And advanced enough to connect to a single radio unit from who knows how many light years away? How did the Accord ever think they stood a chance?
“A-alright. Please hurry.” She tries to calm herself. The Affini are coming. Jo will be okay. That’s the only thing that matters…. The mutiny chip. She’s running back to her rival a moment later. The crash has bent the computer cover almost entirely off, and she sees her chip. The end is burnt, almost unrecognizable as the sneaky little thing she’d plugged in an hour ago.
The realization hits her like a truck. Jo said she removed insulation. She didn’t mean heat insulation, she meant electrical insulation. When the mutiny chip activated, the electrical current that turned the ship into its own antenna didn’t have anywhere to go. Except back into the ship’s computer and engine.
This crash is her fault. Fear grips her chest, and she yanks the chip out, but it snaps in half, leaving most of it still in the port. She hucks the half she’s holding into a small stream of falling sand and watches it get buried. That’ll have to do for now.
When she looks up next, a ship larger than any she’s ever seen is hanging above the atmosphere. The Affini have arrived.
~