Chapter Text
When Alina walks into the gym, Aerin is crouched on the floor, a rag and a bottle of polish in hand, scales from the driver’s-left side of the ship pulled open and away from the body of the hovercraft. She has headphones on, so Alina doesn’t bother greeting her before she stops by the locker room. She slips into her flying jacket and pulls her favorite set of goggles, old and well worn in at this point, and stuffs a pair of grippy leather gloves into her pocket before returning to the open gym floor.
“Almost ready?” Aerin pulls her headphones down and turns–finally!-- to Alina.
“Sure. This doesn’t really need to be finished now, I’m just polishing everything before open practices on Thursday. Just let me pull the scales back.” Aerin sat up and smiled, setting the bottle and the rag on the floor. “While I do that, do you want to grab the practice planets?”
Alina would do anything that Aerin asked for. Getting the bag of shining glass balls from the equipment closet in the back room is nothing. She dumps the planets into their chutes, switches off the tunnel maintenance lights, and
The two of them climb into their ship, affectionately dubbed “ The Gupp”. Theirs is one of only two two-seaters on Boston’s roster: this one has a pilot’s seat pressed all the way forward and down in the ship, between the eyes, while Alina’s scoring seat is perched just behind the upper fin. This ship, Alina knows, if half the reason she stays in Boston. Anywhere else, and she would be pushed further into the body of the craft, without the rush of air around her body helping her to stay in the moment.
Really, something in the back of Alina’s head says, this ship could be anywhere. As long as Aerin is in it. Alina pushes the thought away. She likes Boston, her teammates that have become like a family to her, the Lux gym open to her at all hours, and her little apartment.
They take it easy for the first few minutes, checking that the Gupp is handling all right (it always is) and that Alina is judging her location in the tunnels accurately (she always is). Alina catches a couple of stray planets floating though the back tunnels and drops them into the chutes in the Gupp, while Aerin finishes her checks.
When the two of them are ready, Aerin accelerates, making sure to stick to the button of the tunnel so Alina can sit upright without coming too close to the ceiling. They speed through the back tunnels and into the main maze of the Lux arena, letting the air whistle around the scales of the ship. They pass through the glass and metal tubes, picking up planet after planet, until Alina is out of breath and reaching out to grab the last planet with an unsteady arm.
“Nice!” Aerin calls over her shoulder, slowing the hovercraft to a crawl.
Alina grins. This kind of simple accomplishment is one of her favorite feelings. Part of why Aerin and Alina work so well together in a two-seater is their chemistry: they can understand each other’s choices and predict each other like nobody else, and it allows them to fit together in a tiny little ship built for speed. Neither of them are too fussed about the larger maneuvers that the four- and six- seaters spent their time on, preferring to practice as a separate entity as they are now.
The two of them are so in sync that sometimes Alina is convinced that Aerin can tell what she’s thinking. She gets this look, when she’s in the zone, focused on the Gupp’s upkeep or on the little map display in the front of the ship, where she seems like she sees everything.
–-
With a little under an hour left in Thursday’s open practice, Boston’s coach splits the team for a short scrimmage, mixing the strongest ships with reserves for balance. Alina is the captain of her half of the team, and once Megan and the others huddle up around their ships, she starts to call out instructions.
“Ok! Winnie, take your ship around the shallow center tunnels and try to block off access for larger craft. The fours will work around you - Jill’s ship to the west, Hads’ to the east. Franks and I will be all over, but we’re on radio, so shout if you need us. Got it?”
They don’t hesitate when they’re getting started this time, and Alina is flying again, leaning most of the way out of her seat to pick up the smaller, faster competition planets. Aerin takes them first around the very outer track around the arena, gaining speed as she pilots the little ship around gentle turns. She’s clearly trying not to grin at the speed, the competition, the fun of the scrimmage. Alina wonders at it: how many people see this side of Aerin, open and unrestrained? She knows she would do anything to keep the twitch at the side of her mouth going.
Alina glances through the glass walls on the track to see scattered spectators waiting for the scrimmage to really get going. Then they’re off into a tunnel towards the center, still at a breakneck speed.
“I need us a little lower down!” Alina shouts to be heard over the whistling of the ship and the clunking of planets against the walls.
Aerin doesn’t respond, just pushes the Gupp a bit closer to the bottom of the tunnel, allowing Alina to stand all the way up on her seat, held only by the straps around her ankles. She leans all the way to her left, her hair whipping up towards the tunnel ceiling, and uses the backs of her gloved hands to bump a cluster of planets away from the wall and toward the chutes of the ship. Temporarily blinded by the brightly glowing glass, Alina collapses back into her seat and does her best to hold on to the cluster until she can get each planet slotted into the craft.
When she can see again, she crouches forward and checks Aerin’s map. It’s looking okay– Hads and her crew seem like they’re handling Megan’s 6-seater, corralling them around a particularly tight loop of tunnel in the east of the map, and Winn’s big ship is unimpeded in the center zone.
“Want to knock Suski out of the west side?”
Aerin doesn’t take her eyes off the front shield of the ship, but she leans back and says “Absolutely. Let’s get her.”
And the two of them are speeding off again, this time through the tight wind of tunnels connecting the central area to the west. They don’t slow enough for Alina to pick up many planets, but the rush of air across her face as they barrel through dark tunnels is worth it. Aerin is such an astounding pilot that the time spent chasing down the opposition won’t impact their score much, so long as they keep their current pace.
Alina watched the green light indicator blink across the illuminated maze of Aerin’s map, inching closer to the red light for Tapani’s ship as Aerin navigates her way through the course. They should be about a minute out when they round a corner–
–And collide with another ship.
With a jolt and a shower of sparks, Alina tips back, losing grip of her handholds, feet slipping from their rests, and falls.