Three days of regimental diets and workout schedules ended on Sunday morning. Anqien barrelled into the ferry terminal an hour before the sunrise, luggage swinging at their side. The Ukiba, the weathered steamship that ferried them to the race every year, towered over the wharf, its lamp-speckled smokestack silhouetted against the starry morning.

Straightening their jacket, they scanned the wharf and saw, radiant in fuchsia in a circle of lamplight, the unmistakeable shape of their teammate. Waving from across the concrete, they flew to meet her.

Anqien had long learned that these rides on the Ukiba, in which they shared the lounge with crew and sponsors, entailed generous amounts of polite socialising. Jinai was dressed for just that, wearing a shimmering, tailored gown of fuchsia silk, accented with lavender brocade flowers. It was split to the thigh, swishing and glimmering with every sway.

“Good to see you,” Jinai called as they stumbled to a stop before her.

“Uh—hello,” they answered, looking resolutely at her face, “how, how are you?”

She turned her head so she was smiling sidelong at them. “I’m fantastic, thank you, how about you?”

“I’m, good.” They nodded at the Ukiba. “Feels like leaving on a cruise every time. We should...probably head up.”

Together they went to meet the suits from Cloud Connectors, who mingled with the ferry crew by the gangplank. “Ah, there you are, Mx Liu, Ms Vailu, welcome!” A representative stepped up to meet them with their tickets. Once they had taken them, the two sailors were handed over to a ferry officer in smart black, sweeping them a bow and leading them up the gangplank into the towering steamship.

Emerging into the glinting lounge, they discovered Telaki already set up near the bar, looking sharp in a beige suit as she conversed with Janda. When the team arrived, their coach abandoned the intel officer, swooping forth to swallow them in a hug. “How are my little stars?” she exclaimed. “Ready for the big race?”

“About as ready as I could hope to be,” Jinai replied.

Anqien drew their mouth into a line. “I’m not.”

The conversation rambled through a scattering of light topics, Telaki buying them their drinks of choice while she launched into a tirade about her rocky taxi trip to the port. Many a time Anqien and Jinai turned to each other, exchanging a look that telegraphed I’ve heard enough about taxis for today, but they listened and nodded and voiced sympathetic dismay.

“Last time I said I’d never give them my business again, and yet—”

They were saved by the ferry’s foghorn cleaving the conversation in two, and then the crescendo of the ship’s engine as the vessel pulled out into the blue morning. Staring out the windows, they noticed the dark shapes of passengers congregating on the deck beneath their full-height windows.

“Ah, isn’t it nice to not be with the riffraff,” Janda sighed from just beyond their huddle, gazing through the glass as the golden lights of Muli Bay glided away towards the horizon.

“I feel kinda bad for it, to be honest,” Anqien said, chuckling. “We aren’t even paying for our own tickets.”

The public address tympana crackled then, emitting the buzz of the captain’s voice. “Welcome aboard the Ukiba!” they declared. “This is your captain Narao speaking, all set to take you southwest, to the city of Maka-do, Niro. The time now is six twenty in the morning. We are currently headed out of the beautiful harbour of Muli Bay, have a look at the lights if you can. The trip will be about twenty-five hours long, so make yourselves comfortable! Food and beverage services will begin shortly. We wish you a pleasant journey!”

Life in the top deck of the ferry felt almost no different from a leisure cruise, with drinks at their fingertips, a carpeted lounge room, and a hole-in-the-wall Niro restaurant one floor under. As the sun rose over the waters and stained the world pink, they chugged into the open sea, passing other marine traffic like a royal amongst commoners: fishing boats, sailboats, and coast guards, all well clear of their trajectory.

After offloading their luggage in their two-bed cabin, Anqien and Jinai took up residence in the lounge sofas and peered out on the passing sea. Peeking through the waves like the heads of breaching whales, they saw from above the islands they had verged before, landmarks on their westward flights. Each time Jinai stretched her legs on the chaise longue to adjust the gown over her knees, Anqien looked away.

It was hard to ignore Iki who spent much of the morning bumbling around the lounge while muttering, eyes affixed to his oversized filograph. “Hey, two of you,” he finally called out.

When they both turned, he dropped to a knee and flipped the device to face them. Onscreen, in whites and blues, glowed a map they knew well: of the three major landmasses and the speckling of smaller islands along the race route. Four cities on the map, each labelled among a web of topographical lines, were connected by hastily-scrawled lines.

“So, just a little preview,” said their navigator. “The route’s similar to last year’s, except for the change on the third port. Leg one runs from Maka-do to Nara-sa, then leg two from there to Antao, not Lijong.”

“Isn’t that just a few kilometres off?” Anqien put in.

“That’s right, no problems there as long as you’re paying attention.” Iki nodded. “Leg three runs from Antao back to Wulien, you know how it goes. We’re expecting weather to be a major factor, there are squalls on the forecast over the week. We’ve got Lujang with the anemo setup at the stern, gathering data as we speak.”

“Thanks for the great work, you two,” they said.

“Hey, I spent half my life studying for this role,” he answered, pushing up his glasses with barely concealed delight. “I’d be thrilled if my work could give you that final push to victory. You know?”

“I do know you’re amazing,” Jinai replied.

Iki’s sheepish thanks became an equally sheepish goodbye, and he disappeared down the ladder not a minute later, muttering about Lujang.

Telaki joined them briefly on the back of Iki’s interruption. “Sorry about all the ranting earlier,” she sighed, shaking her head. “That was too much, strike me down. Nothing a drink couldn’t soothe.”

“Glad you’re feeling better about it,” Jinai replied. “So who’ve you put in charge of the Cloudlander?”

“We got the Nitina Company in again,” she said. “They’re the ones you liked, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, it arrived in one piece,” Anqien answered. “That’s about as good as you could hope.”

“Oh, tell me about it. I’ve seen entire helms ripped from their axles. You’d have to go out of the way to achieve that, let me tell you.”

Outside of peering at the occasional islands and lagoons that floated by on the blue, the passing sea quickly became an exquisite wallpaper for their goings-on inside. They were proper socialites for the afternoon, making friends among the Cloud Connectors employees, cracking jokes and partaking of the canapes.

Afternoon passed into evening, and momentarily the sky on every side was awash in gold and red. Telaki, Jinai and Anqien were glued to the windows till the last sliver of pink had seeped out of the sky. Their coach sipped on a raspberry seltzer, and seeing their wanting looks she clicked her tongue and said, “No alcohol until after the race. We’ll toast to you, promise.”