Mars Canyon Race It’s time for a Stardust Space Academy tradition: the exciting annual race across Mars’s rocky canyons, which happens once every Martian year (twice as long as an Earth year). Coach Pigeon is busy training and preparing the cadets, who aspire to be as good as the legendary all-time Mars Canyon Race champion, Swift Starlight. The race will span some difficult terrain that the cadets have not explored before: Valles Marineris, the red planet’s grandest canyon of all. Eagle and Raven get into some serious boasting and taunting, each confident that he’ll handily beat the other… which leads to a dare: why wait for the official race? They’ll quietly meet after class at Valles Marineris and settle the bet to see who’s faster. Without telling anyone – only Starling sees them go – they head off to do just that, which leads them both into some serious trouble.