Star Wars_ X-Wing 05_ Wraith Squadron - Aaron Allston [41]
Donos said, “She’s actually moving that bucket around pretty well. She was probably a pretty hot stick back on Tatooine.” He sounded more analytical than admiring, but it was the longest single statement Kell had heard from him.
Kell shook his head. “I’ve serviced rigs like that. They’re not like recreational skimmers. Their repulsor fields extend out ahead several meters. They have to be anticipatory to keep those haulers from gutting themselves on rough terrain. If she doesn’t know that, she’ll bounce—there she goes.” Indeed, the front end of Falynn’s hauler rose an additional two meters as the craft approached a boulder outcropping. The hauler went skyward, gaining enough altitude to lose repulsorlift contact with the ground, and Wedge’s vehicle gained another handful of meters on her.
Donos said, “She’ll take him.”
Kell pulled a handful of coins from his pocket. “Ten credits.”
“You’re on.” Donos’s coin joined his on the tabletop.
The other pilot candidates rummaged through pockets and began pulling out coins, money-transfer cards, jewelry, pieces of candy.
They ran now with Falynn’s bow to Wedge’s stern. Whenever she sideslipped to try to pass, he broke in that direction, blocking her move. The richness and color of her nonstop cursing were testimony to his success.
It couldn’t last forever. She slid rightward, he followed suit—and noticed too late that the maneuver led him right onto a nest of boulders. Their proximity kicked his bow up into the air and she slid around to his left, passing him before he reestablished contact with the rift surface.
He laughed. “Not bad, Falynn. You’ve proved you can learn at least one thing a day.”
“You’re going to look funny spitting out lunar dust while you’re teaching me, sir.”
Ahead, the rift turned leftward. Near the right wall was a tumbled pile of stone; between it and the wall itself the floor curved gently upward. Left of the pile was broad, open ground.
Falynn headed for the broadest open area. Wedge slid rightward, angling between the stone pile and the wall. As he squeezed between them, his repulsors kicked loose stones from the pile of boulders, raining them down on Falynn’s hauler. Her reflex slid her leftward and he gained on her going around the turn; he was a few meters ahead as they came out of the curve.
“Obviously you can’t win by flying fair, sir. What happens when we get to the end? Do you shoot me?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
The end of the run was within sight, a distant red glow where Janson had dumped his flare. The rift bottom was flat and smooth to the right of the straightaway, but grew stony and broken along the center.
Falynn drifted right. Wedge drifted left, toward the more difficult terrain. He saw Falynn turn to look at him; he couldn’t read her expression through the vacuum suit’s polarized shield, but knew she had to wonder what his plan was in giving up the speediest approach to the finish line.
She gained on him as they approached the rockiest portion of rift floor. But as they reached the point where the tumbled boulders were worst, he sideslipped right and his nose crossed over the highest of them. The move kicked him up several meters.
And he came down right on top of her hauler.
His vehicle’s weight forced hers down, compressing her repulsor emissions, slowing her vehicle. His own repulsors kicked him forward off her hauler. He held his control wheel on course by brute strength. His hauler straightened out as it came fully down off hers and onto the rift floor—and a second later he passed the glowing flare, Falynn’s hauler tucked in right behind him.
“You—you—”
“That’s right, Sandskimmer. I won.”
“You cheated.”
He laughed as he slowed his hauler and swung its nose around. “Falynn, consider this. When an Imperial laser cuts through your canopy and hits you, the energy will superheat the water