Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen Read Free

screaming at her, as Jane’s few belongings were thrown out the door of the crummy family module on Ceres: no wonder your real parents never came back for you, you’ll never amount to anything, do you hear me? Nothing!
    If old Bill noticed her momentary reverie, he didn’t show it. His eyes were fixed on the instruments—fingers making subtle attitude adjustments, and their car falling towards its assigned parking spot. Jane could make out the domed bleachers that ran along the inside of the track, and the various pit assemblies which lay just inside the bleachers.
    One of these pit assemblies had an empty stall that beckoned with flashing yellow lights.
    Bill guided them in by instinct more than sight—Jane barely felt it when the landing struts finally touched down.
    Even though he was ancient, Jane had to admit, Bill still had the right touch. She just hoped that, as crew boss, he’d be the man to help her take the Armstrong Cup. She’d spent a lot of money bringing him out of retirement—at the grudging suggestion of her old crew boss Mike Lomba, who’d quit the circuit and gone back to Earth.
    “Let’s hurry,” Jane said. “I’m ready to give the new Falcon a whirl.”
    Bill reluctantly took off his headset and pressed the button for the revolving dome lid, which began sliding up from one side of the parking stall.
    “You think that’ll make a difference?” he said.
    “I spent almost as much money on that bike as I did on you. It better be money well-spent.”
    Bill stared at her, and a shuddering in the car’s frame told them the stall was being pressurized.
    “First rule I always tell my drivers, it ‘aint the crate, it’s the ass sitting in the crate that matters most.”
    “You come up with that one yourself?”
    “Nope. Richthofen.”
    “Who?”
    “Baron von,” Bill said.
    Jane just shrugged her shoulders.
    “Lord, Jay-Jay, don’t you read history?”
    “Unless it helps me win, it’s a waste of my time.”
    Bill sighed, never taking his eyes off her.
    “Mike told me you were the most single-minded, ferociously competitive driver he ever worked with. That you don’t back down and you don’t take no for an answer.”
    “Mike was right,” Jane said firmly.
    “Would it matter to you if I told you the real reason Mike quit?”
    “He said his mother was ill and he had to go home.”
    “Mike’s mother’s been dead for ten years.”
    Now it was Jane who stared.
    “Mike didn’t have the heart to see you come here and get killed.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jane said, voice raised.
    Bill didn’t answer right away. He simply sighed again.
    “You really don’t read your history, do you?”
    “Like I said—”
    “I heard what you said,” Bill snapped, cutting her off. “Everything you’ve done up to this point—every track you’ve ever won on—was practice. Cazetti is the real deal. Time for you to finish your edumacation.”
    • • •
    Jane was doing 200 kilometers per hour. A breezy trial pace. The Falcon hummed reassuringly through the fabric on the insides of her knees—her legs gripping the machine tightly. The repulsors on the machine’s underside kept a comfortable distance between the machine’s lower hull, and the hurtling surface of the track.
    Speed was freedom. Jane had been going full-throttle her entire life. In more ways than one.
    None of her foster homes had liked her for that reason, nor she them.
    A bad fit. That’s what the social workers had called her. Couldn’t hold her mouth, nor her temper, and the harder some of those families had cracked down, the more energy Jane had put into defying their rules. Until, at last, she’d been put out on her rear. And thank goodness for that.
    If she’d once harbored dreams of Mom and Dad—the real Mom and Dad—returning from deep space to rescue her, Jane had learned that there would be no rescuing in this universe, except the kind she made for herself.
    The Falcon was proving to be