Space Race Championship Release Details and Preview

There’s not much longer now until Space Race Championship releases. I’ve said that plenty of times before, but this time is different. This time there’s an actual date. And I’m running a sale on all previous novels before that date arrives. Here’s the run down of dates before I give a new preview for the latest novel.

Already started from today and running for a week is a price drop for The Alternate Adventures of Halesowen. Taking over from midnight on 25/March will be Secrets Behind the Truth, again for a week. On 1/April, Elemental Heroes will be passed the baton of the price drop. The price for all three during their week on sale will be 99p, making for a pretty good deal. After Elemental Heroes ends its week on sale, Space Race Championship goes live.

It's already up on the Kindle Store, allowing preorders until release on 8/April. There’ll be the usual post upon it’s release, but with the details of release out of the way, it’s now time for another preview. With Tom and Lee set up with what they’ll be using for the Championship, they’re now in training for when it starts.

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The Space Kicker moved forward with increasing speed, then made a drop at the last second. Lee quickly swapped to the rear camera to see it pulling around to enter the hangar. Swapping to one of the cameras within the hangar, he watched a blue blur appear for a second on the feed.

Looking up, the Space Kicker had pulled up in front of the viewshield.

“How was that?” Tom asked.

“As good as could be expected,” Lee said. “Now would you be able to do roughly the same thing except approach from below?”

A pause of a few seconds, in which Lee had a feeling Tom was doing some calculations. “In two tries I think I can.”

It took him three. On the first try he overshot and ended up boosting over the DSSC instead of through it. On the second he scraped the upper lining of the hangar and had slammed to the floor trying to correct it. On the third try, there had been a moment where it looked like he might have failed but managed to pull it off.

“Yeah!” the exultant exclamation came through the speaker. “This really is great. I really must thank you for entering me into this. It’s the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

Lee smiled at that. “You’re welcome. This is definitely fun for me as well. We’ll give it a few more runs before heading back down.”

Lee recited the next checkpoint he had in mind. This one involved something similar to what Tom had done during Space Racer, but instead of strafing around the fittings of the hangar roof he needed to dodge around several smaller ‘craft. That couldn’t really be done, but Lee was leaving it up to Tom to create a pattern of random shifts before flying through the DSSC’s hangar.

“Going good,” Lee stated, seeing the pattern of left, left, right.

The Space Kicker then strafed left sharply before driving a long right. Lee watched as it continued on for longer than it needed.

“Pull off!” Lee exclaimed, but only received crackles from the speaker.

Lee watched as it finally faltered in its constant speed, then stopped. It stayed still for a minute.

“That… wasn’t meant to happen,” Tom said in a questioning tone.

“Are you sure everything’s fine with it?” Lee asked. “Do we need to return?”

“All reading fine.”

“Scanning for static pulses,” Lee informed, having thought on the next reason for a failure. “Irregular patches around, and some thin streaks…” It was an odd combination. The patches were uncommon but not unusual. The streaks of static meant someone had been firing a special type of laser infused with the stuff.

Hitting one of those streaks alone wouldn’t be enough to cause issues, but enough of them in close proximity would.

“Move away from the area,” Lee advised. “Too much static, and I think someone might be training using CSP lasers.”

“Aren’t they meant to be prohibited to security forces only?” Tom asked.

“I think they might be, but it’s always possible a friend of someone in security is helping that friend train in a more active way.”

The Space Kicker moved away from the area, with the DSSC following suit. The two set up a new checkpoint to practice, but no sooner had Tom started than Lee shouted for him to abort.

“Static streaks inbound! Get inside quickly!”

Lee kept his eyes locked on the scanner, now tuned exclusively to look out for static, and just about heard Tom say he was inside when the streaks passed over the central point of the scanner.

The lights flickered slightly, but that was the only effect the static had on the DSSC.

“I recommend we head back down,” Tom said. Lee hadn’t heard him enter. “Even if we aren’t being targeted, I don’t think we’re going to get much more done today unless we were to head out further.”

“I’m sure the crew of the Sur-C are tracking the static appearances, but I’m still reporting it.”

“As you should. Land at mine and I’ll get a full diagnostic run on the Kicker when we land.”