With a satisfactory click, Frank established a two-way connect to the local security.
Hello. He greeted plainly.
One of my crew members has rendered themselves unconscious, trouble with the fuel atomizers. Please bring a transport and cot to that level.
He waited long enough for there to be a confirmation. The message was pretty run of the mill; these sorts of accidents happened all the time. Anyone working with the medic team on race day could guarantee a paycheque by the end of the day, and often overtime.
The confirmation said they’d be down to that level within twelve galactic measures of a minute.
Taking the first turn, Loske haled back on the thrusters to give herself space to maneuver. Invisible suggestion made her reactions sharp, and tuned her into a rise of debris that had been concealed by the bend of the turn. Discarded swoops and rocket engines from the less fortunate. She went between them, swerving to the right and left with a responsiveness she hadn’t expected the fickle vehicle to have. Swerving to the right and left, Loske responded to them as if they were still, and she easily careened past them and other drivers -- pulling into the secondary row of racers.
Meanwhile up ahead, the troublesome trio were still creating a mess of smoke and metal. The crowds roared their approval at the elimination of racers. Medics on standby activated once the final pod passed over the discarded bodies of the swoop racers, with the mandate to salvage who they could.
Cedric’s incoming transmission interrupted her focus only momentarily. The choice to comm rather than any sort of telepathic connect was puzzling for a heart beat, and seemed to be to excess, when she could clearly feel him through the whispering of their Force Bond.
From his and the other’s vantage point, they were privy to the decision-making of the president who controlled this world. Suggesting that the race was subject to additional dangers, other than the malicious drivers was worrisome. They were still a mile or so from the track itself - given the dangerous nature of pod racing. The crowds were the closest, and the elite were more elevated. Away from the runaway zones of unfortunate malfunctions and the splash zone of would-be whirlies.
Her worry soon manifested, and she stole a glance from the stretching track upward and around to the rising threat. The back of her neck itched, and she felt a jolt of apprehension like electricity through her veins. The ships looked like they’d been glued together with the random carnage that littered the planet, misshapen, discoloured and generally mechanic atrocities. They became more of an eyesore when the weapons system was realized. In a shared instance, a mutual alarm bounced between those ethereal threads.
The turrets unleaded on the racers. Blossoms of fire erupted the volatile combustion chambers, there were some bursts of crimson when arms were entangled with the onslaught. The drivers panicked, swerving to the right and left to avoid the trajectory of damage. Woefully, with seven in the skies, it was tricky to get out of the way. Nigh impossible. It was like monkeys in a barrel.
This was a total clusterheck.
She physically wrenched herself to the left of her pod, slamming against the sides of the drum while a stream of metal tore through the right side of her central container. Plumes of smoke rolled back toward her, invading through her filter system and making her cough. The display within the pod blinked red irreversible damage to the core fuel tank and main compressor.
Loske had a mission here: Win the race for the Imperium’s establishment of the planet. Or at least, win the race and earn some merit in the negotiations. There was quite a bit banking on maneuverability and talent. Her training, and gut, suggested another mission: Preservation.
There was a bit of relief that former objective would be maintained with
Leon Gallo
under phoenix emblem -- but only if either of them survived. Which wasn’t looking too likely at this juncture.
She couldn’t drive this janky pod and try to use The Force at the same time. Her focus would be far too split to have any sort of success, she was far from having that sort of intimacy with the metaphysical. Options raced through her mind -- Push through, focus on the race: Then those turrets would still be a risk and could turn on the crowds. Where were they from? Were they from the president? That was the only clue she had from Cedric’s communication.
Try to pull them with the force: Too much concentration. She’d crash and die or something. Start blastin’ back: Too puny a blaster versus the raggamuffin ships. Wait it out, let someone else take care of it: Unlikely. Now that they were around the bend and cliffside, the president’s chamber with the more qualified individuals was several hundred leaps-and-bounds away. Unless there was some miracle in the stands, the racers were sitting ducks.
The theatrical option would win. Her pod was too irrevocably damaged to do much use with her primary objective anyhow.
With a split second to make her decision, Loske gave a powerful juke to her air scoop lever -- the metal projections that kept her aerodynamic quickly sealing. This sent a violent shudder through the turbines, with all that excess energy and velocity. At the same time, her thrust stabilizers rejected the notion, roaring to life so forcefully that the two actions countered each other and the front of her turbines ended up digging their noses aggressively into the dirt. She
gurhk’d a grunt at the interaction, but the force of impact ricocheted up through the steelon control tables, links and finally her pod. What had previously been horizontal and parallel to the ground was now acutely dug into it, and with the stiffness of the cables, it was basically a slingshot. At the same time the nose of the vehicle impacted the ground, she triggered the ejection seat for an additional boost and focused as hard as she could on willing her ethereal asset to augment her catapulting route from pod to bad guy ship with some extra zest.
The salvo of lead didn’t stop, but she was fortunately en route between two steady streams. Her landing was less than graceful. She only managed to cling onto a random extension of one of the ships, which creaked with her latching onto it. The metal dug into her gloved hands and tore up the leather while she grunted to hoist herself up on the ship, her legs kicking frantically. With some focused effort, and aid from an invisible source, she managed to right on top of the ship. Quickly, her golden blade activated and with a fell swoop disembodied the ship’s solo canon. The ship buoyed, and she had to crouch so as not to be tossed off. This was the...fourth one? Fifth one? Why were there seven?
Alyson Halle
. These creatures wouldn't catch the desire to escape in her eyes, but Cataline could tell. The plus had to be that there attention span seemed limited and he had finally moved to watchin the race.
Loske Treicolt
- she hadn't met the woman, but she had heard about her. Cat had heard something about a
