Mercenarys apprentice, p.16
Mercenary's Apprentice, page 16
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next day dawned bright and clear, a perfect day for racing. Since race day was always exciting for the entire circus, Anwyn and the team strolled to the Big Top for breakfast with everyone. With six people racing, Feron hoped to earn the circus a good profit from the multiple events. The dining hall was full of cheerful conversation and laughter. Veraz and Shir-ella spent time speaking with Tevia and Chakri. Anwyn smiled to see Veraz sitting beside his fellow Edetto, or in Chakri’s case Edetti, since there was a different term for male and female of their race.
After breakfast, Owen sent a Mythri flyer to pick up Veraz for a security brief while Anwyn, Mark, and Drew used the team’s flyer to travel the short distance to the track. Junior races were running first, which meant Jace and Marisol were already in their racing gear. Jace had been doing well in races over the past several months and was excited about this one. Jemal would be Marisol’s spotter and pit crew while Jace had his father Dan. Anwyn and Mark volunteered to assist.
The circus had set up in a deep bowl-shaped valley on the capital city’s outskirts. The Morvaisians had informed them that they frequently used this location for large events during the planet’s dry season. It was well-maintained and contained a huge arena with seating for thousands, which the circus used for performances. Farther down the valley was a long racetrack that looped through the surrounding woods at several points. It contained obstacles, but none as challenging as those of Anwyn’s first races on Addison. Jemal warned that the narrow track and the bordering trees would create enough hazards.
They arrived at the racetrack early, but Deveron and his two guards were already there. A large Hrithain contingent accompanied them, some of whom were in uniform. Deveron was in the casual Hrithain version of civilian clothing. Anwyn realized why when he squatted beside Rehan and helped with last-minute adjustments on the scooter they had brought. Intrigued, she went to take a closer look.
“You were missed last night at dinner,” he commented while tightening something on the scooter’s undercarriage.
“We do three shows a day when we’re performing. I won’t let down the circus by leaving the rest of the act to themselves.”
“Admirable, I’m sure. You missed the argument between your uncle and my sister. Or, more precisely, the argument my sister attempted to start with your uncle.”
“He chose not to participate?” She smiled.
“I believe Gavoria hurt the Hrithain case for joining us with her argumentativeness. Your uncle, on the other hand, remained calm. The queen seemed impressed.” Deveron nodded at the piece of scooter he had been working on and wiped his hands on a cloth he had partially tucked in one sleeve. “It didn’t hurt her opinion of Owen that he rescued one of her advisors a few days ago during that bombing event.”
“Well, I like what Manon is trying to do for her world. I think she’ll make better progress on that score by joining the League. I’m glad she approves of my uncle.”
“She’s meeting with your uncle privately this morning.”
“Good.” She looked at Rehan, who squatted beside his scooter. He wore black racing gear, making him look more menacing than usual. She smiled. “Were you able to adapt that civilian model to your needs?”
He glanced at her and stood.
She had forgotten how tall these people were. Rehan was taller than Deveron, and the colonel already towered over her. She looked up at him and grinned.
He looked down at her and nodded. “Yes.”
She cocked one eyebrow as her smile grew. “I’m glad to hear that. Good luck today.” She offered her hand to shake.
He glanced at her, puzzled. Deveron said something in a language she didn’t recognize, and Rehan shrugged and took her hand.
Oh. She remembered that Hrithain didn’t shake hands. They used some other hand motion, but Anwyn couldn’t recall what it was.
“Good luck to you also.” His response sounded stilted, but his deep voice was still melodious.
“See you at the finish line,” she told both of them and headed back to the circus crew.
The crowd was growing, but the early youth races wouldn’t pull as large an audience as the later, highly competitive ones. A younger group raced first on a much shorter track. No one from the circus was in that race, although she had heard a few circus youths were pushing to be allowed.
Then it was Jace’s and Marisol’s turns. They faced a competitive field of eight other teens. The track was longer but with some of the worst terrain blocked off. The race was shorter than adult races, only three laps instead of five.
Jemal and Dan worked as a team to support both young people, providing advice about conditions on the track through their implants. Anwyn loudly cheered each time they passed the start-finish line. During the final lap, Jace pulled ahead enough to be alone in the home stretch. He copied Anwyn’s classic finish—he stood on the scooter’s foot bars and whipped off his helmet to wave it in the air, ending the race driving one-handed. Marisol came in third, which was impressive for her first race.
Anwyn joined the rest of the circus racers and support team in congratulating them. There was a short break to reset the track for the longer races. Holo cameras activated so viewers in the stands could see the entire race, even the sections that ran through the woods.
Jemal handed her a mug that contained the light fruity drink he had introduced her to shortly after she joined the circus. She had learned it made the perfect drink right before racing. She turned to discuss plans with the other circus racers while sipping on the beverage. She only turned her back on her scooter for a few moments, but when she looked again, a group of Hrithain, none of whom she recognized, were walking past.
She was about to check their scooters again to be safe, but the announcer called the first race. She jumped onto her scooter, fired it up, and gracefully coasted to the starting line.
Rehan threw his leg over his recently reconditioned scooter and started the engine. He guided it to the starting line and wound up beside the woman Deveron found so politically intriguing. He was familiar with the colonel’s plans and agreed with them. So did Bilai, his security partner.
Theirs was a traditional relationship within the Hrithain royal family. His and Bilai’s parents and Deveron’s mother had raised the three together. Two other royals and their security pairs had been part of that childhood group. His family were members of the Hrithain nobility, as were Bilai’s. Looking back, Rehan couldn’t recall a day in his life when he hadn’t known he belonged to Deveron and Bilai in a relationship closer than that of any siblings.
He glanced at the Mythri woman. As a student of history, especially military history, he had enormous respect for the Syrithii stock that helped form the Mythri race. He wondered if the woman, or her people in general, realized how highly respected her ancestors were inside the Empire. The fact that they had destroyed an entire Hrithain war fleet and risked their existence as a race to do it resonated with the Hrithain view of honor.
Adding to that, he thought he could like the woman. She wasn’t afraid to stand up to Deveron, which few of his people would do. He hoped Deveron could convince her to help with his plan to forge peace, or at least détente between League and Empire.
Like Deveron, Rehan believed the Empire would benefit in the long run. Also like Deveron, he knew the emperor had given tacit approval to Deveron’s plans. Something he was certain Gavoria was not aware of.
He worried about the princess. She had been disgraced since the failure to win the planet Orinaro for the Empire. She had become bitter and blamed that defeat and the loss of her son on Owen Owens and the League of Free Planets. She wasn’t supposed to be on Morvaise, but she had convinced some of the more conservative royal council members to back her presence here. Deveron suspected she was planning something underhanded and hoped to stop her.
Rehan knew his participation in this race wasn’t a whim of Deveron’s. He had known from the moment Deveron suggested it that his primary role in the race was to protect the Mythri woman.
Although he wouldn’t mind winning. The tall human with the sarcastic look needed taking down a peg. It would be fun to try, at any rate.
Anwyn looked to her left and realized Rehan had pulled up beside her in the starting lineup. Deveron thought Rehan would be good at this. She grinned at the man. Let’s see how good he really is.
She glanced at where Drew, Feron, and Dan had also lined up. This would be a Malcolm Star Circus clean sweep, she decided. She gunned her engine, excited for the race to begin.
“Keep an eye on the Hrithain,” Shir-ella whispered in her ear. With so many people racing for the circus, Shir-ella had been added as a spotter for this race. Although they shared a secure link through their implants, the standard for racing was messaging through the rider’s helmet.
“I’ll leave him in my dust,” she replied confidently. The two racers she was most concerned about beating were Feron and Drew. Both were excellent, and both had beaten her on occasion, but she had confidence in her skills and hoped to come in first today. She glanced at the stands, wishing her uncle was watching. He’d never seen her race, and she would have liked to show off for him.
She brought her attention back to the race. They were about to get underway. She leaned forward with her head lower than the sharply slanted windscreen and focused on the track in front of her. She heard the crowd's shouts and felt the handgrips' minimal vibration as she settled herself.
The tiny forcefield that prevented the scooters’ forward motion dropped, and they all took off at top speed. She angled her body even lower over the front of the scooter, well below the windscreen. She grinned fiercely as she fought through the mass of vehicles at the beginning of the race.
She pushed harder and reached the front of the pack. Along with her were Feron, Drew, and the annoying Hrithain. There was one more scooter with that group. He looked like a local, and his scooter and racing gear were in the colors of the Morvaise flag. He was too well covered in protective gear to see his face, but he was racing well, pacing the leaders.
This grouping was too large. She glanced at Drew, and he nodded.
“I’m going for the lead,” she told Shir-ella.
“Watch out for Morvaise number six,” her spotter replied. “He’s trying to ram other scooters.”
“I’m well ahead of him.” She tried for more speed. “Let me know if it looks like he’s catching up.”
The track was wide open in front of her. Only Drew was ahead of her, although the Hrithain and Feron were close behind. The Morvaise racer she had seen, number eight, had dropped back somewhat. She couldn’t see the one Shir-ella had been concerned about.
She reached the first sharp turn that took them into the woods, out of direct visual contact with spotters and the spectators. They could still see holos of the race, and Anwyn heard the faint cheering over her scooter’s soft hum.
The biggest danger on this track was steering through the trees, which were sometimes closely spaced. She wove through them, relying on her quick reflexes to avoid a collision. Drew was still ahead of her, and she was still fighting Feron and the Hrithain for second place.
“The race is won in the last two laps, not the first one,” Shir-ella reminded her.
She knew that was true, but she had always liked being as close to the front as possible in races. Once Drew got too far ahead, it would be nearly impossible to catch him.
The race continued through the second and third laps. She and Drew changed places a few times, and once the Hrithain passed her for a quarter lap. Feron was always a scooter length or two behind her.
Going into the fourth lap, the Morvaise number six who had been going after back-of-the-pack racers began to work his way forward. She didn’t think he could catch up to her, but it was good to have Shir-ella providing updates.
She was nearly in the trees on lap four when she realized something was wrong with her steering. The handgrips were nearly wrenched out of her hands as the scooter tried to veer toward the left. That would cut off Feron, who was close behind her. Even with her heavy worlder strength, it became more difficult to direct her scooter, and precise steering was vital in the trees. At their speeds, even in protective gear, hitting a tree could be fatal.
“Anwyn! What’s happening?” Shir-ella asked. Anwyn knew her friend could see enough on the holos to realize something was wrong.
“Losing my steering.” She strained to remain on the track.
“Do you need to pull out of the race?”
“No!” She was determined to keep trying as she hurtled toward the trees with increasingly uncooperative steering.
“Try to stay on course. I’ll get you.”
The voice in her headset wasn’t Shir-ella’s. She recognized the slight Hrithain accent and was furious. “I’ll manage. Stay out of my race!”
She struggled with the steering for another few seconds. Suddenly she felt rather than heard the snap vibrating through the machine as the steering mechanism broke. She was seconds away from hitting a tree when she realized another scooter had pulled alongside hers.
The Hrithain leaned so far over that she expected him to fall out of his seat. He somehow got one arm around her and pulled her off her scooter and onto his in an incredible feat of strength. The empty scooter continued into a nearby tree with a loud crash, violently breaking apart on impact.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
For a moment she thought the man was about to drop her, but he shifted his weight on the scooter as he left the track and slowed down. He hadn’t been able to seat her securely while getting out of the way of the rest of the racers. His arm looped around her waist, balancing her on his hip. It wasn’t comfortable, and she would have complained under other circumstances.
She was wise enough to remain still until the scooter stopped and he had set its undercarriage on the ground. As soon as it was safe, she shrugged out of his grasp and stood panting and disheveled on the forest floor with her helmet half off.
The Hrithain slipped off the scooter and stood facing her. She grimaced but had to acknowledge his assistance. “Thanks. I would have jumped off in a moment, but I appreciate the help.”
She heard her grudging tone and tried a smile to seem more appreciative. He had missed a chance to win to help her. Instead, she sounded ungrateful.
She needed to do something else right away, so she strode toward the crashed scooter, pulled off her helmet, and dropped it. Could she determine the cause of the steering malfunction, or was the vehicle too badly damaged?
Anwyn reached the damaged scooter and knelt to look at it. Most of it was still together, although several pieces had broken off. She might still get some information from the damaged steering mechanism. She heard more than one call on her implant as she investigated the crash.
“I’m all right,” she mumbled to everyone, absorbed in checking the scooter’s underside.
In the corner of her vision, a large hand reached down to turn over another chunk of metal, this one from the engine. The Hrithain. All right, I need to think of him by his actual name. Rehan handed the piece to her and continued to look.
“Steering mechanism?” he asked in that deep but soft baritone.
“Yeah. Got stuck angling to the left. Then it broke altogether.” She worried about accepting his help. For all she knew, he or some other Hrithain had sabotaged the scooter. Then why rescue her? The other attempts had seemed aimed at her death, not merely taking her out of a race. She still didn’t trust the man, but she thought the evidence pointed to someone else as the saboteur.
Before she could continue her thinking in that direction or continue her search for what had caused the problem, Mark and Jemal arrived. Jemal was on a spare scooter with Mark riding behind him. Before the scooter came to a complete stop, Mark was off and rushed to her. He pulled her upright and into his arms. She clung to him for a moment, realizing how close she had come to being injured. Even if she’d thrown herself off the scooter before it crashed, she would probably have been hurt.
Jemal, seeing her in Mark’s arms, bypassed them completely and dropped to his knees beside the crash. He was close enough to Rehan they seemed to quietly confer about something.
“Over here,” Jemal called.
Anwyn and Mark moved closer to the two men pawing through the wreckage. “What have you found?”
Jemal nodded at Rehan, and Anwyn realized he didn’t know the Hrithain’s name. “He found part of the steering mechanism.”
“Rehan, can you see any damage that wasn’t caused by the crash?”
He looked up at her and nodded, his face still nearly expressionless. “Sabotage.”
Jemal turned on him angrily. “Was that you? Or one of your fellow Hrithain?”
Both men stood, and she was afraid they would be fighting in a moment. She slipped between them, facing Jemal, while Mark grasped her friend’s shoulder.
“No, Jemal! He got me off the scooter before the crash. I would have been injured or killed if he hadn’t stopped racing to help me.” Part of her hated defending Rehan, but her innate sense of fairness insisted she make her friends understand he’d helped her.
“He could have done that to keep you from knowing he damaged it in the first place,” Jemal insisted.
She shook her head. “Think about it. If he wanted me to crash, all he needed to do was ensure he wasn’t near me when the steering went out.”
She understood the fury in Jemal’s eyes. She would feel the same way if someone had tried to kill him. Still, she needed to redirect that anger toward whoever had committed the sabotage. She was sure it hadn’t been Rehan. Besides, as large and tough as Jemal was, she suspected he wouldn’t stand a chance against Rehan in a fight.
Something else slowly replaced the anger on Jemal’s face. Concern, yes, but also suspicion. He was giving Rehan the benefit of the doubt, but barely. She turned to Rehan now that she had somewhat defused the immediate conflict.
