P: The Dance

In some ways the Prince of Eks Corp was more mature than his age would otherwise indicate. In others he was still a somewhat spoiled child. Brendan knew this about himself, and he also knew that finding nothing could be as important as finding something, but at the moment he simply felt frustrated.

Nothing. His detour had given him nothing. He didn't even know for certain what he'd expected to find. Standard patrols had crisscrossed the region and none of their scans had revealed anything out of the ordinary, but some part of him had obviously believed that he would be different. He would find the clue that everyone else had missed.

It was embarrassing, but even though Adrian might tease him about looking for aliens that he didn't believe in, at least his search was unlikely to attract public notice. Even so, Brendan couldn't quite forgive himself. Using this race as an opportunity to look for traces of a ship that had simply vanished had been a ridiculous, and potentially dangerous, waste of time. He should have known better.

He hadn't even had a logical reason for thinking that he could find anything that others hadn't, it had just been a feeling. And despite loading the little ship with sophisticated sensors, he hadn't detected anything in the region. The childish urge to throw a temper tantrum at the universe's annoying, uncaring, reasonableness added tension to his jaw as though he were a primitive creature that could bite what annoyed him.

He was thankful that only Adrian and his closest family members would ever know that he had made the detour that would allow him to search the area himself. On the bright side, neither he nor his shadow had detected any trace of unauthorized vessels or drones following the course, and he had been successfully catching up with the entrants ever since the sixth checkpoint.

He shook off his self recriminations and began increasing his ship's acceleration until his body creaked under the strain. His frustrations began to burn off too, as sensors within the ship protested the rising heat building up within its complex crystalline and metallic bowels. Adrian's joking words, about dumping superheated plasma like the old weapons, had given him the idea for a somewhat risky maneuver. The Norse Belt would be both an excellent testing ground, and an opportunity to outrun all of the princess candidates, despite making the unproductive detour.

Imagining the unknown winner's reaction when she discovered that she hadn't placed second, but first, made him grin. He checked the current placings and noted that the Kittiwake and Pensword entrants were still among the leaders. Seeing Zinnia's expression if she actually won might even be worth the awkward engagement that would follow.

An urgent message from his brother Lief popped up, and Brendan immediately cut his acceleration before opening it. A moment later his eyes rolled as his drive kicked in again. He obviously wasn't the only one who could still be rather childish. The urgent message on the secure pinpoint beam had merely been displaying Lief's rather unhappy reaction as he realized that he was probably going to fall further behind than he considered safe.

To be fair, Lief had started out a good distance ahead of him, and it had actually been his detour that had pulled his brother into a shadow's standard following pattern. But Brendan had warned his brother from the beginning that he wasn't going to be able to keep up when this little ship began to push the limits of what it could do.

--

Brendan danced. He forgot about the race as he made his way into the Norse Belt at a speed that reduced kilometers to fractions of a second. He danced the line between life and death as joyously as any man had ever danced atop a mountain. Or perhaps he painted with fire, or burned with passion, as his tiny ship leaked superheated mass in delicate whip-like strokes that burned the path he danced along clear.

The core of the system that mirrored his moves and allowed the tiny vessel to be his glove, his second skin, to respond as quickly and easily as his own body, was as good or better than any commercial core available. Adrian Koine wasn't the most desired Original in the system for his pretty face, and Brendan Aldrich was more than just the future King of Eks Corp, he was also an expert technician who had been studying in his chosen field for most of his life. The hours that the two friends had sunk into this small ship hadn't all gone into building drives.

The core system that supported the Prince of Eks Corp was fully customized to its owner, and it volunteered nothing that might distract him from his dance. The tiny ship might appear to be bouncing around as randomly as the disordered asteroids that clashed and spun within the Norse Belt, but neither ship nor stones were moving at random, each were responding to the forces that impelled them along their paths according to the simple and unbreakable laws that governed all matter and energy in existence. Everything could be calculated if enough information could be acquired.

The system could have told him about the Jade Corp entrant who was frantically chaining overrides so that she could still pursue him. It could have told him about the elegant maneuvers of the ship that was still conserving reaction mass, even as it gradually outpaced most of the other entrants. It could have told him about the way his shadow was falling behind them despite taking risks that would have frozen their mother's beating heart. But it reported nothing that might distract him.

Fast. Every decision, every reaction, was being made faster than anything within his genetic library could ever be accessed. For once in his life, he was free of the imprint that previous generations had written into his essence, and everything was riding on his own experience and his instincts. Brendan's smile was nothing but a slight curve and a bright gleam, but his heart was ecstatic, even though he knew that he had absolutely nothing to gain from risking everything in this moment.

--

Brendan cleared the wandering edge of the belt safely, and far ahead of any of the entrants, but it was a short lived pleasure. Messages and notifications that had been suppressed began to flow across his screens, but it was just one small number that really sobered his expression. Dumping heat and plasma in small controlled micro bursts had served to keep him cool enough, and allowed him to cut directly through the belt much faster than anyone ever had before, but… He didn't have enough mass left to maintain his lead.

One of the many messages had been from Adrian. Brendan couldn't tell if his friend was referring to the experimental core or the entrant, but his message gloated: "I was right, and my girl is probably going to be worth her weight in credits."

According to the current placings Adrian might not be wrong, but Brendan would bet his own investments that whoever had been moving behind the scenes was not hoping that the half beyonder Cinder Sector girl would win.

Adrian would be disappointed, but Brendan actually kind of hoped that the candidate backed by the hidden faction would win. It would probably simplify many things, even though it might be a bitter revelation. Eks Corp really needed to know who and what they were actually dealing with, and it would be a lot harder for the hidden faction to hide once they had their pawn in place.

He didn't like to think that Tea Corp or Zinnia herself might actually be deeply involved in the anti-original movement. Jade Corp or one of the Rian family corporations might be even worse. But knowing who they were dealing with would give them power.

Knowledge had always been power, and power granted control. They didn't need to prevent people from pulling the kind of strings that could change what was placed in front of the King, they just needed to be able to see who was trying to move the strings. And if all of their suspicions were wrong, as unlikely as that was, well…

If she was someone that he might be able to trust, then he could just focus on getting to know his future queen, and making sure that she had the opportunity to learn everything she might need to know in the future.