The plan was working. The field had underestimated Westwood Motors early on, and now Erin led the field by two laps. As he flew into the last turn, Daiko checked the leaderboard for overall points placing—fifth…fifth place at the god damn Apostar Primera.

  Erin pumped his legs until he was just behind the W.A.S.E. dash meck.

  “Looks like Andre Tenesto from W.A.S.E. is getting his first face-off against the young Erin Kage”

  As the two dash mecks barreled into the arena from the track, Erin accelerated, forcing Andre to do the same. At the last moment, Erin braked and slipped back into the pack. When Andre burst onto the arena, he was all alone—save for Cenn, who peeled inside far earlier than the other clash mecks.

  She took up a position in front of Andre rather than striking outright. The lime-green dash meck slowed and attempted to skirt right but Erin was there already. To Andre’s credit, he nearly escaped the trap, but Erin managed to smack his meck’s calf before it took another stride. At such high speeds, tripping was nearly as good as a KO if you could time it right. Andre stumbled, and in that moment of surprise, Cenn turned and swung—but before she could finish the strike, she was tackled from the side by a hulking forest-green meck.

  In a blink, Andre rebalanced and accelerated through the first wave of clash mecks, Erin right in tow.

  “Enzo to the rescue! The brothers from Desponia fend off Westwood Motors. Maybe W.A.S.E. does have what it takes to keep B.O.M.S. from repeating this year.”

  “Forty-five percent total integrity,” Val said through the com.

  Daiko stared through Cenn’s forward feed to check if the impact was affecting her when the emcee’s voice boomed again.

  “Westwood Motors finishes the 89th lap. You know what that means! Pits are now open with ten laps to go!”

  The maze began to slide back into the floor like a magician closing up shop. The team battlements shifted inward, narrowing the distance between them and the arena. The wind on Daiko’s face as the entire pit slid forward made him feel like he was at the prow of a ship.

  Enzo broke off from fighting Cenn despite having her mostly isolated from the rest of the field. Cenn’s status feed was awash with red integrity alerts, and Daiko knew she wasn’t the only meck hurting for a pit stop.

  “Back to camp, Cenn,” Daiko said.

  “Yeah, in a second.” Her voice had a dreamlike tone.

  “What—why?” Mina said, once again not checking to see if the com was still open.

  “I want to see this next part personally…”

  Daiko’s gaze flicked between Cenn’s forward feed and the stadium’s main holo. Six lead dash mecks were approaching the track. Though the track had one entrance into the arena, it had three exits. Similar were the unwritten lawas that said no dash meck should enter the arena alone, it was also understood that no dash meck entered the middle exit unless they were alone.

  The middle exit was a near 90 degree incline where one small decrease in speed, or knock from a neighboring meck could send your meck to the scrap yard. Pilots only chose it if they had enough distance heading into the track from other mecks. The reward? It cut off an entire kilometer of your lap distance…and it was also one of Westwood Motors last tricks.

  At the last second, as the dash mecks were angling toward one of the safer routes, Erin cut away and took the middle route. The crowd erupted, and their cheers rose to a fevered pitch as it showed the replay of Erin missing the barrier between exits by the barest of margins—Daiko thought he saw the dividing rail scrape a layer of paint off his bracer.

  “Erin Kage dupes the other lead mecks!”

  “That’s my boy!” Cenn yelled.

  Already a lap ahead, Erin now threatened to make it two, and the other lead dash mecks like himself would be pitting after this lap. Daiko knew the other team managers no longer wondered but feared whether Erin could keep going.

  “Alright, you had your show, now back to base,” Daiko closed the coms but Cenn was already heading in. Gas-powered socket wrenches, welding torches, and the hum of skiffs filled the air as dozens of pits began upgrades and repairs.

  Daiko stood from his chair to stretch as Cenn barreled into the garage. She didn’t slow, letting the crash net catch her. Operating the skiff frame, Roman secured the joist around her meck’s waist, locking its limbs into place with telescopic prongs until it lay splayed like a patient on an operating table.

  “I’m heading down,” Daiko said.

  Mina shot him a skeptical look.

  “Erin’s going to pop out before the rest. I doubt there’ll be more than one or two clash mecks out of the pits by then.” He paused, rubbing his thighs. “Unless you don’t think he can’t handle it.”

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  She curled her lip but refused the bait. Sliding past him toward his chair, he nearly reminded her that the chair wasn’t for assistants but thought better of it. If she wanted to sit in that seat one day, she might as well try it on.

  Daiko leaned on the railing of the pit’s third-level catwalk, watching his crew move like a single organism. They’d drilled this procedure for weeks, knowing it was their only planned stop, and it showed.

  Val swung on her belay line around the propped-up meck, slab in one hand, overriding maintenance protocols wherever she saw fit. Snake, usually lording over the main hub, was crammed into Cenn’s cockpit running a manual diagnostic—one leg dangling outside because the man was too lanky to fit.

  With her cockpit occupied, Cenn hung from the newly installed pauldron, pointing out weld points while Roman climbed the meck’s frame with his spark-pike, sealing fault lines.

  Even Arthur was in motion, moving equipment out of the way. At one point, he used his crutch to snag a suspension hook out of Val’s way without her even noticing.

  “It’s working!” a voice called.

  Daiko turned to see Mark jogging into the pit. The resemblance to Val was undeniable—same brown hair, same almost-laughing expression—and while time had deepened the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, the team's success in recent years had given him a second wind.

  Joining Daiko at the rail, Mark seemed ready to hug him—he settled for drumming his fingers on the railing spastically instead.

  “You’re early,” Daiko said, eyes shooting up and down between Mark’s fingers and his eyes.

  “I couldn’t just sit with the wigs while the team’s down here,” Mark shook his head with a grin, then glanced over the pit below. “Our uncle never imagined we’d do this with the garage. Westwood Motors sounds so official when it's on top of the pole.” His voice tightened. “Who would’ve guessed?”

  “None of us,” Joyce approached more gracefully than Mark had. Her silver hair framed sharp blue eyes which gave Daiko an apologetic look.

  “You lost your charge, m’am,” Daiko said, nodding to Mark.

  She leaned on the railing beside the two of them, looking genuinely exhausted.

  “Keeping him away from the pit this long was a victory in and of itself.”

  She gave him a warm smile, and he returned it.

  “So what now?” Mark asked, as though they hadn’t been talking about him. Daiko sighed

  “We follow the plan.”

  “So we’re going through with it,” Joyce said, “Erin’s not going to pit—he’s just going to keep running?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow,” Mark said, raking his hands through his hair. “You think the hull will hold? I mean, of course you do…’

  “It’ll hold.”

  “Right. Right, right, right. But just think. We’ll be the first amateur team to win the Primera and Erin will be the first dash meck to do it without a pit stop. The sponsors will kill to know how we forged the hull.”

  “Sure, but the hull is only part of it, right?” Joyce added. “You’d still need a pilot like Erin.”

  “That’s true.” Daiko said.

  “I’m not talking about logistics,” Mark rubbed his hands before him, “I’m talking about all the new orders were going to have from other teams needing the same job done to their mecks.”

  The crowd roared, and the three looked at the holo above the central hub to see Erin dipping into the arena all alone, crossing the lap line well in front of the others.

  “Well,” Daiko said, “we’ve got a race to finish.”

  “Of course,” Mark clapped him on the shoulder, grinning wider with each pat, “Go on and take care of our boy.”

  Joyce purred beside him, “oh, I think he’s being taken care of already.

  Her gaze flicked to Mina, sitting on the manager’s chair. Daiko slung a glare at her, but she winked and tugged Mark away.

  Before she could get him all the way out of the pit, he leaned over the railing.

  “This is our day, team! Go get ’em!”

  As Mark finally left, Val swung on her line, and snagged the railing in front of Daiko.

  “Hull’s at eighty-five percent, boss man. Arm’s good as new too—oh—and I sent security Mark’s height and description with an armed and dangerous warning,” She glanced up from her slab. “anything else?”

  “Just get Cenn back out there,” Daiko scanned the crew one last time. From what he saw, they were about to beat their best pit time. As he turned back to Val he caught her shoving a flask back into her jumpsuit pocket with a hiccup.

  “Val—”

  “Double time, boss. No time for chatter.”

  She swung away, arcing around the suspended meck like a mosquito on a mission.

  “Get those clamps loose, Crutchy,” she called as she passed overhead.Arthur took a swipe at her with his free hand. “And Snake, make way for the old lady.”

  Snake slid from the cockpit without a word, replaced almost immediately by Cenn, who gave Val the bird before sealing herself inside. Val tapped a command on her slab, and the meck began lowering to the floor.

  Roman yipped as he leapt from the meck’s hip to avoid being crushed, catching a suspension chain midair and rolling when he hit the ground. Val landed clean on the shoulder plating with barely a bounce.

  “Outta the way, Ro,” she said.

  They wouldn’t win any safety awards, but damn if they weren’t one of the fastest crews Daiko had ever worked with.

  Daiko headed toward the stairs up to the roof, passing Snake on the way. Their controller was a mute so held up nine long fingers—nine laps to go. Daiko slapped his shoulder and kept moving. By the time he reached his chair, the roof trembled as Cenn was jettisoned out of the garage for the last time.

  “That’s a new record,” Mina said without looking up, her eyes following Erin as he took the center loop out of the arena—widening the gap between him and the leaders.

  The stadium’s holo shifted to a close-up of the Imperio’s box. Alistar Aralto sat with his steepled fingers concealing his expression. Whether by Alistar’s own hand or through the quiet work of his PR agents, Daiko suspected promises were already being whispered to every team still in the running—each one carrying the same directive: take those bleeding amateurs out of the Primera.

  When Daiko retired from the war after thirty years of service, he’d all but disappeared. A hero to the people suddenly gone like the wind, now back from the grave. Winning today—smearing the Aralto name in engine grease—would be a small pittance compared to the debt he was owed, and he’d waited a long, long time to finally collect.

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