Explode: Team Supernova (The Great Space Race) Read online

  Zissel nodded as best she could. “Sorry about that. It’s the smallest size we have. Think of it as comfortable.”

  Stars, what an idiot. “No, this won’t work on my body.” She swished her tail to make the point. “Do you have anything…skirtier? Or wrap pants, maybe? I can wear wrap pants.”

  “Everyone gets a similar uniform for the first leg of race. You’ll get your own clothes back at Checkpoint One, but this will build camaraderie.” Zissel looked genuinely apologetic, all three eyes softening their expression. “I guess no one told the costume shop we had a contestant with a tail this time. I guess it wouldn’t be a problem to make modifications as needed, as long as you’re displaying the logo. Clip a hole for your tail or something. We’ll find you a cutting tool of some kind. And I’ll ping the costume shop to let them know you’ll need something custom for the gala.”

  Modifications….

  Sarr’ma studied the garment. Looked like something a Bellaphor fainting nun would wear: baggy and ugly-colored. But she could work with it.

  The interior design degree had been a fabrication, but she was training to be an engineer. If she couldn’t reengineer a marling jumpsuit, the university should give her her money back.

  “Oh, I don’t need a tool.” The hostess’s snakelike blue face didn’t show astonishment or confusion in the same way a Mrrwr’wrn or human face would, but Sarr’ma guessed that the rapid blinking of the center eye’s nearly transparent third eyelid was that species’ way of showing being off balance.

  Sarr’ma purred to herself as she ducked into the indicated dressing room. Oh, the audience was going to love this. And maybe it would get a smile out of Tripp.

  *

  Tripp changed into the jumpsuit. A little tight through the shoulders and chest, but he was used to that. Clever idea, the uniforms. Sure, it was more marketing for Octiron, but it also put the contestants on an equal footing, at least in a fashion sense. No way to tell miner from millionaire, military officer from university student, by what they were wearing. No one would be thrilled by the uniforms—even he could recognize they were butt-ugly, and he didn’t ask much from clothes other than they started out clean and didn’t have rips exposing body parts that would get him arrested on a semi-respectable planet—but the fabric was soft and the loose fit meant everyone would be comfortable.

  Except for Sarr’ma. Stupid of them not to have alternate outfits; this one wouldn’t work well if your body type differed much from the human model. Hadn’t there been a contestant with four arms, too? That person would have even worse problems dealing with the jumpsuit.

  Although that might have been the point. Create tension and drama right off.

  Yup, they definitely screwed up Sarr’ma’s costume on purpose. He wondered what annoyances they’d dreamed up for the other contestants.

  Maybe he should have tried an easier way to get Zel back—like storming the Kallrydis family compound on Arias single-handedly. At least that way he’d die too fast to be humiliated.

  *

  When he saw his partner again, he had to smile. Sarr’ma hadn’t needed his pity—she’d turned the tables on the company with her “modifications.” She’d cut the jumpsuit in half above the waistband, opened the front of the top pretty much completely, and wrapped it around so it accented her slender waist and suggested it might fall open at any time to reveal her breasts while actually providing reasonable coverage. The pants had been split open from the crotch down and turned into a skirtlike thing made up of swishy, ragged panels that accommodated her tail and—probably not incidentally—showed off her slender, well-muscled legs and kind of forced you to speculate about underwear or lack thereof.

  Zissel turned an interesting shade of pale greenish-blue. “That’s…impressive,” she muttered weakly, then added in a stronger voice, “The cameras are getting this, right?” Since she had a com-unit to communicate directly with the being controlling the cameras—she called him Gus but it wasn’t clear if he was a person or an AI—the loud question was more a signal to the two of them to react.

  Tripp, taking the hint, applauded. The transformation was worthy of applause. How the stars had she…?

  Oh right. Claws. Functional ones after all, and apparently capable of quite delicate work. Duly noted.

  That might be important later.

  Or at least star in an entirely inappropriate daydream or two. Turned out his libido wasn’t dead after all, and wasn’t this a black hole of a time to find that out?

  No time or brain-cells to spare for it, and on intergalactic holo-vision to boot.

  Sarr’ma twirled around. Tripp tried not to check for panties. Okay, he didn’t try too hard not to check, especially since he—and a good chunk of the intergalactic viewing audience—had already seen the red lace in her earlier outfit.

  Even knowing what color they were, he couldn’t be sure they were still there. No reason to think they weren’t, but a female-fancying person couldn’t help wondering…

  Even if it meant he tented his jumpsuit in front of millions of viewers. It wasn’t a live broadcast, for the most part, but no way the producers would edit out something like that—it would be too amusing for everyone but him, and reality shows like The Great Space Race thrived on that.

  Which was part of why he’d been shunted here: to humiliate him for someone else’s private entertainment. Tripp, after all, had had the nerve to defy a member of one of Arias’s first families.

  Even remembering that didn’t help the state of his erection.

  He didn’t know a thing about her species’ anatomy, he reminded himself. Sometimes folks with generally humanoid shapes were quite different under their clothes. No point in weaving a fantasy about someone who might not even be anatomically compatible.

  The threatened tenting subsided, though he still enjoyed watching Sarr’ma do her little dance. Him and millions of viewers.

  She stopped, facing the hostess and thus probably looking right into a camera. She seemed to know a lot about making yourself look good on a reality holo program. She pointed to her chest and smiled another of those warm grins that managed not to show teeth at all. “Logos still show.” In fact, given the size of the logos relative to Sarr’ma’s body, they took up roughly half her chest, so it could be argued no one would miss them.

  Except Tripp would bet most of the viewing audience would be transfixed by what was below her waist. Even if you couldn’t care less about the flashing potential, it wasn’t every day you saw such a lovely tail.

  Seriously. That black, silky appendage was not only visually appealing; it expressed her moods as well as her face did. It was fascinating to watch.

  The race hadn’t even started yet, but his catlike partner had already won one round by getting the audience on her side.

  “How did you do that without a laserknife or scissors?” the hostess finally asked.

  Sarr’ma bounced in place. “That would be telling,” she chirruped. “It’s so much more interesting to let everyone wonder.”

  Chapter Four

  THE T-47 YACHT was about what Tripp expected. Top of the line, all sleek, shiny yellow-and-silver with a huge corporate logo—but when he gave it a good thump, it sounded kind of tinny, like a cheap in-atmo personal flyer that cut weight by barely squeaking within safety specs. Might be the trinium he’d spent his adult life mining could be processed into something both strong and incredibly light—he knew it could be used for an array of functions including making spaceship hulls, but when he saw trinium, it still looked like slightly shiny rock. Might be the company that built the T-47 figured their customers cared more about looks than strength.

  Or maybe his expectations were skewed by mining equipment, which wasn’t pretty, but was sure as stars solid.

  The bridge looked impressive—more shiny chrome surfaces, the yellow-and-silver theme broken up with flashes of orange. The cushy ergonomic seats were brightly upholstered with something that looked and felt soft and elegant, but, Ziss
el announced to them and the audience, was easily cryo-cleaned. But he couldn’t help wondering if everything was as functional as it was pretty. He tested out the chair. Sure enough, it was comfortable, but slightly wobbly, as if the installer had been rushed.

  The instrument panel was…complicated.

  At least he thought it was. Sarr’ma skipped right over to it. “Nice layout,” she said. “Thankfully straightforward. I have plenty of interplanetary flight experience, but I understand my partner doesn’t.” She asked some technical questions that he’d never have thought of, nodding as if the answers—delivered by a still-invisible AI, not Zissel—made perfect sense.

  At least based on what he could glean from her questions and the AI’s answers, the important systems of the ship, the engines and hyperdrive and weapons and transporter, were all state of the art. Not that he’d know state of the art from twenty years out of date in this context, but it was reassuring the company had provided good stuff where it really mattered.

  But she’d said nothing about the pretty décor that he’d have thought would catch the eye of someone studying design. Stars, he’d exclaimed how nice the chairs were (wobble and all, they were still far superior to most of what he’d experienced) and how the floor sprung a bit under your step so you’d be comfortable all the time.

  The galley was well equipped, something you could actually cook in if you knew how to cook anything beyond the basics.

  Which he didn’t. To his delight and probably hers, the kitchen equipment turned out to be fully automated. Synth-coffee would appear at breakfast time, for instance. With sufficient warning, the ship’s resident AI could obtain fresh food and set up the kitchen to do all the work. The fresh food, Zissel explained, would be bought out of their winnings except on very special occasions, but plenty of vacpac meals were on hand and would be restocked when they ran low. Sarr’ma seemed relieved that there was a good supply of meat-based meals—she was, she explained to both him and the audience, an obligate carnivore, though she could eat small amounts of carbs as a treat, and the plant-based protein of a lot of vacpacs was indigestible.

  Thank goodness Octiron had at least bothered to provide them with the kind of food Sarr’ma’s species needed. The company might be happy to inconvenience and embarrass them, but not to make them sick.

  Then again, the team captain being stuck in the sanitation chamber didn’t make for great holo.

  “So when do we get to see the engine room?” Sarr’ma asked, bouncing as she spoke and tugging on Zissel’s sleeve.

  “Don’t you want to see the cabins and lounge area? They’re quite roomy for a racing yacht, and fitted with the finest accessories, provided by our sponsors.…”

  “I can’t wait to see the hyperdrive and engine,” Sarr’ma interrupted. “And the transporter controls. I’m sure the cabins and lounge are cosmic, but I need to know how to work with the drive and engine to win the race. Which we’re going to do, of course. Are there technical manuals on the ship’s computers in case something goes wrong?”

  “Oh, Spartacus—that’s your friendly AI—and a couple of ’bots maintain all of that stuff,” Zissel assured them. “It’s been checked over thoroughly and will be again before start time. I know on smaller races, the racers need to be more hands-on, but Octiron and its sponsors want the contestants to focus on the entertaining side of racing, not mechanics. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of the technology; it’s that bleeding-edge. No offense. I’ve been working on the show for three seasons and all I understand is ‘it’s advanced.’ The long-distance transporters are so new, there are no commercial services yet. When I have to talk about that stuff, it’s scripted. I read it and hope I’m pronouncing everything right. That’s what engineers are for, right? And AIs and ’bots that engineers programmed to do maintenance.”

  Sarr’ma nodded. “Sure, lady. Glad the ’bots know what they’re doing.”

  Then she looked away from the hostess, away from the camera, and rolled her eyes at Tripp.

  The tip of her tail pointed toward the door to the area they were pointedly not exploring on camera.

  Obviously she was going to be exploring that area as soon as she got a chance.

  Tripp didn’t blame her. Not that he knew anything about maintaining hyperdrives and matter transporters, but it made him twitchy that they were being discouraged from checking that area out.

  If he’d learned one thing from the terrible events of the past few months, it was to ask lots of questions and to pay attention when the people in power skirted the answer.

  *

  Sarr’ma was still fuming about the way the racers were expected to trust someone else to take care of their ships. Even if ’bots had to do the actual work—the components might be too fragile or tiny to trust to fallible living hands—you should know your equipment inside-out. But she forced herself to pay attention to the lounge area and cabin and squeal at appropriate times. At least they were legit squeal-worthy. Having both a lounge and a sit-down galley wasted weight and space—she preferred a racing yacht that skimped on cushiness to maximize agility and fuel efficiency—but she had to admit the lounge was gorgeous with its orange and yellow slouch-couches and scoop-chairs. The cabins were ridiculously large for a racer. Of course, Octiron was hoping the contestants would hook up over the course of the race. And there was so much bedding! Multiple pillows, soft, silky sheets, fluffy blankets, and something called a duvet, all in yellow and silver-gray with orange piping, of course. The ship was temperature controlled, so either they didn’t have all-in-one thermasheets in this galaxy or this kind of conspicuous fabric consumption was a smoothstyle fashion thing in this region. Rich people who dabbled in amateur racing (or liked to pretend they did) were the obvious target market for this elegant yacht, not hardcore solo distance racers, and they’d probably love the excessive bedding and beautiful lounge.

  She’d rarely seen the tiny cabin in her own racer, preferring to nap in her chair on the bridge. Hazards of solo racing.

  But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t enjoy the ridiculous luxury. Making a nest of all those pillows and diving in. Taking advantage of the private sanitation chamber with a sonic cleanser and a genuine water shower, which meant a water recycling system was also weighing the T-47 model down. (Silly!) Then maybe taking another nap wrapped in that blissful bedding.

  “I’ll have a hard time getting out of that fancy bed,” she confessed. “What about you, Tripp?”

  To her delight, Tripp turned a delicious red. She had a blusher as a teammate!

  With luck, he’d relax soon and start enjoying himself instead of being quiet and gruff. But if he didn’t, the blushing would at least be entertaining.

  Finally, Zissel returned them to the bridge. “Before we move on and get you ready for the opening gala, there’s someone you two have to meet. Spartacus, please activate visuals.”

  A silvery humanoid form appeared. Very solid in appearance, though Sarr’ma knew it was a holo-projection, it was smooth-featured and sleek, “wearing” a sleeker version of their jumpsuits, but just as silver as its “skin.” She figured it was supposed to look androgynous and non-specied, but she read it as more or less human male. “I am Spartacus,” the AI announced.

  Tripp, to her surprise, stifled a chuckle. So he could laugh. Good to know, even if she didn’t get what was funny.

  “I am here to work with you, optimize your racing experience on the Supernova, and keep you and the ship safe and in good repair. You may alter my appearance if you prefer a more distinctly male or female interface.” The AI’s voice was light but resonant. Like its appearance, it was almost but not quite species- and gender-neutral; she’d still be inclined to place it as human male. “Do you have any questions at this time?”

  I have a few, like can you get us into the drive room or at least show us the technical manuals? But that can wait until we’re not on camera. Meanwhile, keep ’em guessing.

  “Spartacus is a mouthful, esp
ecially if we need to get your attention fast. Can we call you Sparky?”

  She glanced at Tripp as she said it. The corners of his mouth were turning up, as if he wanted to smile but wasn’t quite sure how.

  The AI’s face remained impassive—it was probably programmed that way—but its silky voice sounded irked. “I am named for a legendary human hero.”

  Who knew? Apparently Tripp, from his expression. Tripp’s almost-smile reached his eyes. His mouth and the rest of his face wasn’t quite with the program, but it was closer than she’d seen so far.

  Stars, he had pretty eyes when he wasn’t glowering. And a full, kissable mouth when he wasn’t holding it in a tight line as if to hold in rude things he knew he shouldn’t spew out.

  “We’ll use your full name on formal occasions,” she went on. “And maybe you’ll become our hero—then we’ll definitely call you Spartacus. But logically, you need an easy nickname because I’m sure we’ll call on you a lot.” An appeal to logic was good with a machine, and she imagined even AIs liked their egos stroked. “You’re an entity made of electrical impulses. Sparks. We take it for granted, but it’s amazing you exist—it wasn’t all that long ago that flesh-and-blood people were still figuring out simple ’bots— and it blows my mind we can talk like this instead of having to use code. I’d like to honor that.”

  Which sounded bubble-headed but had a lot of truth to it. True AI had taken generations to develop and still weren’t common in settings such as private ships, at least not in her galaxy. The fact she was standing here teasing an electronic entity that obviously had personality and opinions was literally awesome when she thought about it.

  Sparky’s holographic face beamed soft light, which she guessed was its equivalent of a smile. “Very well, Sarr’ma Settazz. I like what you have to say. For you and Tripp Gallifer, I will be Sparky.”