16 year old Seki has always dreamed of travelling the stars. He has always wanted to experience first hand the adventure his ancestors went through when they left Earth. And for that, he needs to win the annual Trappist Interplanetary Race which will determine if he will be able to take part in Trappist Empire's Second Deep Space Expedition. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned. Cross Race Destiny Part 3 These hands! I can't control them! By Shiina Ai

"That concludes my report, big sis Kin."

"... I've told you... call me colonel..."

"Ahaha, sorry. Slip of the tongue."

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, big sis Kin."

"... I've received report from another team that one of the racing teams is suffering some suspicious setbacks. It's not really your concern, but just be careful out there."

"Another team? Me and Sunflower isn't the only one?"

"Of course not. It's a big event. Failure of this event would reflect badly on the empress. Not just our organization, other intelligence agencies are on the watch too. Unfortunately some of their agendas may not align with ours. We don't even know how many of them are corrupt. So be careful and don't trust anyone, okay?"

"Of course, big sis Kin! I'll certainly watch my back."

"Sigh... well, just stay safe. I'm out."

Big Sis Kin's face disappears from the screen to be replaced with a blank black screen. While I expected that some other organizations would be involved as well even without Big Sis Kin's warning, it doesn't help my anxiety. After all, this is my first mission and if we're talking about other intelligence agencies, I'd be pretty well outmatched.

We're talking about Imperial Intelligence, Office 7 and Cloud Advent here. They don't mess around. If you're caught by one of them, you can expect that you will never come home for various reasons. That's not even counting the other more obscure organizations created for various purposes such as Council of Flames and Imperial Lance. At least with Imperial Intelligence, they'll tell your family whether you're executed, banished, deported, died during interrogation or given a new identity. With Council of Flames, just a snap of someone's fingers and you'll disappear without a trace.

It's that bad.

As for the other teams of our organization, Office 12, Big Sis Kin never said anything about them offering help. It's a big possibility that they're either around to evaluate our performance or eliminate us if we fail. Well, I don't think Big Sis Kin would give the order to eliminate a couple of newbies if we fail, so maybe they're instead tasked with finishing the job if we do fail. I don't intend on failing. If I get this done right, I'll live rich and can retire within five years.

But for now I just need to avoid screwing up and complete the job with my life intact. Should be easy, as long as the other agencies don't get in the way. I really hope they don't get in the way. That would suck in so many ways.

"Hek, your shield is depleting, what's happening?" Mel says as I enter the control room overlooking our garage.

"Solar radiation... hitting the shield... hard. Nobody... anything... sun flares!" Hek said through the static.

"There isn't one! We're not detecting any sun flares," Mel says as he frantically pulls up several system diagnostics and news articles, "And there's nothing about sun flares in the news either."

"Damn right... flares!" Hek says with even more static.

"I don't think he can hear me. The interference is too strong."

"Mel, get me the shields and reactor diagnostics," I say as I put the headset back on my head, getting right to work bringing up the Raylon Mk6's schematics. I can see that the shields are seriously getting a battering from all sides. This isn't a solar flare.

"Mel, I'm going to rewrite the shield protocols. Can you send Hek the reactor adjustments to output more power?"

"Sure, but boosting the reactor output is not going to solve the problem and looking at the starchart, its still a long way before he clear the photon overflow."

"It's just to buy me time," I explain while my fingers work furiously on the keyboard, "We didn't expect the photon overflow to happen now, so we set the shields to maximize efficiency in blocking solid objects. If I do this right, Hek's ship won't be affected by the photon overflow anymore."

"But what if you do this wrong?"

"The shield fails and Hek dies from radiation poisoning."

Mel chuckles as he sends Hek the reactor adjustments through short-range data burst. It's a good thing we prepared for this. Normal data transmission won't work with so much radiation. For it to reach the other side safely, the data must be compacted and packaged in a way that the decoder on the other side can recover undamaged data and unpack it for viewing. Otherwise any data sent would be nothing more than gibberish.

"Hek, I'm sending you a new shield protocol. This should work. If it doesn't, well, nice knowing you, Hek."

I press the transmit button and sits back against my chair. While resting my head on the headrest, I close my eyes thinking of so many different ways Hek can die if the shields fail under such intense solar radiation. Although I wanted to kill him so many times after spending the past few weeks as Sera, I never really wanted him dead.

"Woohoo! It works!" Hek's voice comes loud and clear through the headset, "I knew you love me, Sera."

No no, this has nothing to do with love. Why does your thinking lead you to that? It has nothing to do with love at all!

"You're troubling her, Hek. Just so you know, she's making a very disgusted face as if she's seeing an ugly, disgusting piece of pus-filled corci rat."

Wait, don't exaggerate, Mel!

"Uhum! How are you doing now, Hek?" I ask as I continue to monitor his systems, now no longer affected by the photon overflow.

"Ah, I managed to get 4th place, but the first team has a huge lead on us now. I can boost the drives, but the next obstacle is asteroid surfing. Just checking, this shield can handle micro asteroids right?"

"It's currently on reduced effectiveness against solids and you'll drain shield strength quickly if you go in with the current protocol. Don't worry, you only need to revert to the previous shield protocol right after you exit the radiation field."

"This will work?" Hek asks, his voice tinged with worry.

"Yes, as long as you still have the previous protocol in the database. You didn't delete it, right?"

"Nope, I wouldn't throw away anything you give me, Sera."

Please don't say it like that.

Mel decides to make an unnecessary comment over the communicator. "Hek, she's making that disgusted face again."

I don't need you commenting about my face, Mel!

******

"Sunflower, can you hear me?" I say into the two way secure communicator.
Unlike the one I use with big sis Kin, this is the more basic communicator that all agents receive for free. Thus, it only transmits audio. The one I use with big sis Kin requires the other side having a similar device. As Sunflower spent all her points buying the glorified floating broomstick, she couldn't afford the communicator.

"Loud and clear. What do you need?"

"What do you think about the fact that the photon overflow wasn't reported until all the ships were in the area?"

"It's certainly suspicious, but the chairman is claiming that it was human error and has already suspended one employee for negligence. So unless we can find evidence that proves otherwise, there's nothing we can do about it. I'll sniff around and see what I can find, but personally, I think this scandal is too weak for us to use."

"You're right. It's not the first time the organizers been using their positions for personal gain. As for my end, nothing's out of the ordinary."

"Alright, keep me posted. I'll inform you if I found anything worthwhile. Over and out."

"Understood, over and out." I take out the tranceiver from my left ear as I look out the glass window.

I am currently in the Dorleone Garage Complex, south of the capital city. Well, south of the capital city sounds like we're outside of the capital city, which is not true. In reality, the capital city of Trappist Prime, the glittering jewel of the empire, is so vast it will take four months for a person with the average steps to cross from one side to the other even if he walks day and night.

Despite having a lot of tall structures, the view can still be considered harmonious. It is unlike the village where I came from, where even the few tall structures were nothing but eyesores. Perhaps it is because of the shape of the buildings? In Apresmidi, all the tall buildings were wide and blocky, while the buildings in the imperial capital are mostly triangular or curved, making an interesting view. Perhaps it also looks better because sunlight is the inherited desire of every human being, and thus, a city with lots of sunlight is easier on the eyes than a village without sunlight.

Oh well, even if we knew this back in Apresmidi, it's not like we can do anything. After all, Apresmidi is a fortress village. It is the village that provides supplies, relaxation and labour force to the accompanying border watch fortress ten kilometres away. What matters to the folks back home isn't pretty buildings, but functionality. Cubes and cuboids are efficient shapes.

"How's it going?" I ask Mel while patting his shoulder once I'm back in the control room, informing him that it is his turn to go take a rest.

He makes an exasperated noise, his face looking tired. "He's on autopilot. Damned idiot forgot to switch to auto when he fell asleep. I had to do it for him."

"Wow, what an idiot!"

Truly, if he didn't set the ship on autopilot, it would’ve been very likely for him to either hit the other racers or an asteroid. While the chance of hitting a stray asteroid is minimal as he has already passed through the inner asteroid belt, the risk is still there. The autopilot we use may not be the best money can buy, but it is designed to take in sensor contacts and make course corrections which is better than flying without any guidance. It's more than enough to handle simple flight pathing.

“Anyway, I’m going for a nap,” Mel yawned stretching his arms above his head, “Goodnight, Sera.”

“Goodnight, have a good rest.”

“How about coming-”

“Hek will die, Mel.”

“He’ll live. He has the lifeforce of a cockroach.”

“You do realize that if he die, you’ll be in deep debt?”

“My father will cover it.”

“Go to sleep, Mel.”

“Right away!” Mel salutes as he turns around and leaves quickly from the control room.

Breathing out the sigh of someone who’s so done with these assholes, I sit down in front of my console. The screen comes alive with astro charts detailing the information about the race, the racers and the situation concerning the state of the Trappist system. It is from here that we find information with which to assist Hek, plan ahead to overcome obstacles or change our strategies to handle the changes and dangers posed by the cosmos.

Suddenly the door behind me opens and closes with a sound so tiny, so inaudible that the average person can hardly hear. I already know it’s not Mel. Mel is never quiet, just the heavy thumps of his fat ass steps can wake a slumbering root serpent. So with knowing that this is not Mel, I ready my hand on the small titanium knife that I keep under my belt, preparing myself for an assassination attempt.

“Relax, it’s me, Sunflower,” the voice says before I can turn around to confront the source.

“Did you not learn how to knock?”

“Sorry, force of habit. I don’t usually work with a partner.”

“So why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to keep your distance?”

“It’s best if we use a different method for communication now. I found out that after the problem with the photon overflow, they’ve been monitoring all signals, wired and wireless. Our communicator is not longer safe.”

“I thought our communicator was specifically designed to counter that?”

“Well, they have the counter to our counter. They have Office 10 decrypting communication signals.”

“Office 10, Ears of the Goddess?”

“That’s the one. No chance of our cheap newbie communicator standing up against that. They’re checking the security cameras too.”

“I see, but I can’t keep going outside every time I need to speak with you. That would be too suspicious considering that there are only two of us in the team and school is on break.”

“And I can’t keep sneaking in every time I need to speak with you.”

“So should we speak in codes?”

“Let’s not. It’s a pain in the ass.”

What do you expect me to do then?

I look at her with a feeling of helplessness. It’s amazing how blue her eyes are, so bright, as if it’s glowing. How straight, smooth and shiny her hair is. Her neck so thin and translucent, I can even see the veins along it, pulsing with life. And her breasts, not too big, not too small, a big handful.

“What’s with your hands?” The pair of breasts ask.

“Huh?” Only now I realize that my hands have reached out, both only inches from her beautiful and well-formed pair of breasts.

“I... I need your identity chip.”

“What for?”

“I wonder why... eh wait... let me think. No, I know what I want to do, just let me structure my words.”

She crosses her arms at her waist, waiting for my answer. Dissatisfaction, disbelief and impatience clear on her face. It is clear that she’s getting pissed. I need to think of something quick or the hottie will think I’m a pervert.

“I-I can’t keep going out of the complex or it will be too suspicious. So you need to be able to go in and out without attracting attention.”

Yes, I have finally thought of a solution.

“How does having my ID chip help with that?”

“It’s too late for you to join the team, but as a full-time member, I can register you as part-time assistant. You can’t enter the garages and control centers other than ours, but nobody will notice if you come and go. There are plenty of those around, so you won’t be singled out.”

“Do I get paid?”

“Err, no. Not even I get paid, you know. Nobody’s getting paid in this team.”

“Fuck that!”

*As always, your feedbacks are very appreciated. Praises help me write faster, constructive criticisms help me to write better.
**This is the other one that I've almost finished last christmas, but work as well as working on Calamity & Slaughter, a visual novel with lesbian romance in a doomed world took too much of my time. Hope you enjoy this story.