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Braze's world swayed violently as the pod gave a sudden, gut-twisting lurch. The low, uneven grumble of the Hotmess Express reverberated through the hull, a sound that wormed its way past the haze of unconsciousness and dragged him back into the waking world.
His white lashes fluttered, jade-green eyes blinking against the fractured light seeping through the pod's battered interior. Confusion clung to him like smoke. The cracked windshield before him was an opaque mess of dirt, sand, and hairline fractures with no real no view, and no real answers to give.
Leaning forward in his seat, Braze braced, then drew his leg back. With a sharp exhale, he slammed his boot into the frame. The entire assembly burst free with a metallic pop, the windshield spinning away into the glaring light beyond.
The brightness hit him first and he winced before the movement caught his blinded gaze.
From just ahead, a shadow unfurled across the sand. It was long, sinuous, and tipped with barbed flesh that writhed and flexed. Braze's eyes went wide, breath stalling in his parched throat as the truth slammed into his little groggy concussion addled brain; Sarlacc tentacles, already on the hunt with one rearing high over the pod casting a dark shadow over him.
To be continued…
Dice Roll Results
• First Roll: 8
• Second Roll: 4
• Third Roll: 11
• Fourth Roll: 18 Total41:
Rolled once on July 30th, got a very lucky 17 to start.
Rolled twice (on accident) on August 2nd. Got a 15 and a 14.
Rolled once on August 10th, got an 11.
The race had entered its fourth leg as Ronhar continued to speed down the track, desperately trying to get ahead of Damien Dooku
and Tansu Treicolt
. No matter how fast he went or what maneuvers he pulled, he just couldn't seem to outrace the pair.
If he was going to win this thing, he'd have to do something drastic.
Ronhar boosted power to his podracer's massive engines, momentarily pulling upside to Tansu Treicolt
's podracer. He quickly cycled through his available weapons and selected his podracer's ion disruptor. A blast of ion energy surged out from the right side of Ronhar's podracer, making its way toward Treicolt's vehicle. A hit from the ion disruptor would surely disable anything it came into contact with, shutting it down long enough for Ronhar to take the lead. Of course, at the speeds that everyone's podracer was going, such a hit would surely prove fatal as the podracer crashed into the ground. But that wasn't really Ronhar's problem: after all, anyone foolish enough to try and outrun Ronhar should surely know the consequences of doing so!
Unfortuantely, Ronhar's risky maneuver had put his podracer directly into the path of a tractor beam projector. Ronhar tried to avoid it, but was unable to do so, with the tractor beam pulling his podracer away from Triecolt at the last possible second. Ronhar had no idea if his ion disruptor had hit its mark or not, as he was currently preoccupied with not dying an incredibly painful death against the stalagmites jutting out from the wall. As his podracer began to turn and spin, Ronhar allowed the spin to occur, gently rocking his controls back and forth as he righted his podracer. He managed to straighten it out mere feet away from the wall, and instantly sped off toward the final section.
Such a maneuver had surely cost him precious time that he couldn't afford to lose. Hopefully, he had at least taken out Treicolt for his trouble.
The rest of the obstacles proved far easier to avoid, now that Ronhar could fully focus on racing and not murdering his opposition. Still, he had to wonder who in their right mind would build a podracing track over a Sarlacc's pit!
Morrow continued conjuring a rattle from the nearly empty cup even as Talin's elbow pricked into his ribs. Holoscreens projected several angles of the race, though he was largely uninterested in anything other than whether Damien's left engine would suddenly sputter out. It'd be nothing short of a miracle if Morrow's 'fix' held up; that thing was no autothresher. It had been tempting to place a bet against Damien, knowing this, but he'd taken his friend at his word and bet on him. So far, it looked promising.
Without a word, Morrow rose from his seat and skulked through the stands. He weaved across the line at the Huttaburger concession toward the drink dispenser droid. It snatched his flimsy paper cup and added it to the queue of refills, scanning what little was left of the contents to determine the proper beverage.
He waited, idly glancing over to a holoscreen to check on the race. Again, he was surprised to see no crashing and burning from Damien.
BOUNTY HUNTER'S LICENSE #49 Engaging an active target: [X] Morrow DM's Open!
The sound of footsteps approached from behind him.
Arris stopped a diplomat's reach. Close enough, but no breath against the ear. She had a hand on each hip, fingers a twitch away from two irons that mourned for her grip.
"The ship nearby?"
The droid considered their exchange as it added the cup to the refill queue. Each container had a unique serial number, and so the refill would be added to Talin Treicolt
's bill, at a discount of course.
Danger sense detonated in his psyche, and instinct kicked in. Haize shifted all throttle to the reverse thruster and deftly feathered the airbrakes. The pod swung into a broad drift sideways, repulsors struggling to keep the nacelles level as the front stabilizer bucked under the load. A panel to his right pulsed an angry red, and the smell of ozone and burnt lubricant filled his nostrils. The yoke danced to a wild tune in his hands as the pod lost all countervailing from the front.
A long whip of flesh exploded from the tunnel walls, warping the airflow in its wake. Thick as a CR90's turbine, it smashed through two pods ahead as if they were made of drywall, reducing them to a spray of durasteel shards.
"By the stars...whose fethin' idea was it to build a racetrack around a Sarlacc pit?"
The tentacle quickly slid back into the walls, ravenous for another meal. Haize did not hesitate; he had already lost so much time that escaping Serolonis now seemed a distant dream but he wasn't one to give up. Mocking that stranded podracer earlier also seemed a tad bit ironic, in hindsight.
He kicked in the throttle back to the main engines and spurred the pod ahead. With the front stabilized almost dead, most of his attention was consumed by handling the machine. Up ahead, clouds of acid green periodically puffed from the floor beneath. Davik couldn't read their pattern, nor did he have the time to do so. He succumbed to the flow of the Force just as his old mentor had taught him, and the omnipotent river carried him through the traps unscathed.
--
DICE:
Round 1: 11 (rerolled by Kyric from initial roll of 6)
Round 2: 17
Round 3: THREE, MAN?????
Round 4: 11
Slow and steady wouldn't in fact win the race. Klar had to keep reminding herself of that.
Goon Squad was less a racer and more an overbuilt tractor spread out over a wide area. It could plow through SOME issues, it could really motor on the straightaways, but it suffered when trying to take sharp turns - and this area of the race was filled with sharp turns and things to do hairpin maneuvers around. She was able to plow through a couple of tentacles without losing much speed, but the whipping around corners slowed her down. The acid vents DEMANDED respect, if nothing else.
Klar sank down into her seat and swung her weight into the bobs and weaves, keeping herself largely free of caustic spray. Some of it, of course, landed on her and the pod. Geysers sprayed heat and awful everywhere, after all. Getting even close to them meant getting sprayed with liquid malice, like frying bacon too aggressively. Skin burned, robes withered, paint faded, steel pocked. Bad stuff.
It was only when she reached the shutter-blinking tractor beams that Klar realized just how much speed she'd lost to hazards. Slow and steady wouldn't win the race, but it DID keep her alive. She pushed Goon Squad as steadily forwards as she could, grumbling curses under her breath.
Speeding off into the middle of the racing pack, Fett was beginning to make some progress after a fumbling start. It was starting to become a game of luck and by the looks of it, no one had more luck than Dooku. He needed to race dirtier than dirty in order to push things ahead. He no qualms about that.
He pressed forwards, leaning closer and rushing ahead when Fett saw that same Devaronian. He saddled up alongside him and the alien rushed for his blaster again, though a mean cross-pod punch to that hard head rattled him enough to drop the blaster, sending it clattering across rock and stopping in the sand.
The grasping tendril arms of the sarlacc began to reach out and a quick ram of his pod caused the Devaronian to move into its path, being torn from his pod and dragged, screaming, into the sarlacc pit.
The Sarlacc's Pit yawned before her, an ancient wound in the rock, wide, dark, and disturbingly alive. Nala kept her pod tight on the line, just ahead of Braze's battered wreck. The sound of his misaligned thrusters was a constant mosquito whine at her back. She didn't bother glancing behind; his survival was the galaxy's misfortune, not hers.
The first tentacle cracked across the tunnel like a whip, striking so close she felt its vibration through the yoke. She throttled down just enough to let it pass, then slid her pod under the next sweep. She skimmed so close to the floor vents that she caught a shimmer of heat off the caustic geysers. A hiss of vapor sprayed up ahead, and she cut hard left, threading the gap between two vents as acid droplets hissed on her hull.
Beyond the mist, a shape loomed: Koda Fett's pod, riding the chaos as if it were built for him. Nala watched him swerve into the Devaronian, saw the pod rip apart, and the screaming body vanish into the Sarlacc's waiting maw. It was a clean, ugly execution, exactly the sort of thing she respected and understood. Koda stood watching his work when she slid into his blind spot.
One hand on the yoke, the other flipped a recessed switch, arming her pod's rear thruster flare. This wasn't designed for racing, but rather as a defensive countermeasure. In close quarters, though, it could fry a sensor array or blind a pilot, making them vulnerable to error. She angled in, closing until the hum of his engines vibrated through her canopy.
Then she triggered it. A burst of searing white filled the gap between them, heat and light washing back at him. She didn't stay to admire the result. Instead, she snapped her pod hard toward the narrow opening ahead, engines screaming as she shot into the next stretch of tunnel. The Sarlacc's reach faded behind her, replaced by the sharper, colder dangers of what lay ahead. She kept her eyes forward; in this race, looking back was for people who didn't plan to survive.
Distracted by her sister's valiant attempt to regain maneuverability, Talin barely heard the call. She reached for the earlier discarded datapad, readin' over the odds, ready to recite. When she turned back to where the voice had come from, no one was lookin' like they wanted to bet. Maybe they'd thought better of throwin' their credits away. A cerulean gaze swept across the seats next to her - Morrow was noticeably missin', along with her cup.
"Better not get me no diet." She muttered.
Tansu became her prime focus again. Narrowed eyes watched intently to see if she'd be able to manage a repair - and it became evident someone was comin' up on her quickly. The force was still quiet, her sister still distant in the meld, but Talin mustered up all that panic and screamed loud as she could through their bond.
The tunnel widened just enough for her HUD to flash its next cruel joke: Sarlacc's Pit.
"Shut the feth up. No fethin' way."
Tentacles the width of her torso whipped from recessed burrows in the walls, striking blind at anything that moved. The first lash caught the air right where her canopy had been a second earlier; she leaned hard on the stabilizers and slid under, sparks hissing as one tip clipped her roll cage.
"Rancors AND sarlacc's? Who's runnin' this joint? Thissa deranged zoo?"
The next tentacle came low. She popped her right repulsor, bouncing just high enough for it to pass beneath, then dropped back onto the line right as the floor erupted.
Caustic vapor billowed up from a geyser vent, splattering the undercarriage of her pod. The stench hit first, then the sound of acid eating into the outer plating.
"Ah chit chit chit!!" The ticking in her ear meant it'd be ugly if she didn't clear it fast. She rode the throttle light, dancing the pod from vent to vent until the geysers fell behind her.
Ahead, alternating tractor beams swept the track like the galaxy's slowest, deadliest metronome. She tracked the rhythm for two beats, muttering under her breath: "One… two… now."
The pod shot forward in a blur, clearing the first beam with inches to spare, banking just enough to slip through the second gap before it cycled live again. Her shoulder clipped the edge of the third field, enough to throw her yaw off.
"C'mooonnn." She grunted, wrestling it right as a wall was meant to greet her and veerin' straight away.
That guy who'd been shooting at her's pod came up alongside so fast she barely caught the glint of its hull before her warning sensors screamed. Another misfortune of having her Force connection dampened. Her peripherals were as average as any 'ol suckers.
"Aw, hell—"
Throttles vibrated in her grip as an ion disruptor blast lanced across the narrow gap between them, blue-white energy licking toward her port engine. She released tension on her throttles, hastily slowing, and dropping her pod into a low veer that shaved just enough distance for the bolt to crackle past and slam into the wall. So bright was the impact her vision washed in white until she could blink it away.
When it cleared, Ronhar was gone — yanked sideways in a violent snap of motion. The tractor beam had him, dragging him toward a forest of stalagmites like a mynock on a power line.
Who was she to waste a gift?
She dropped in right behind him, throttling up as the beam's grip faltered and his pod wobbled free. Her eyes flicked to the broken curl of engine guard still dangling from her port side — ugly, jagged, and just begging to be used.
"Alright, pony… I said I'd fix ya but this'll have to do"
As Ronhar started to straighten out, she slipped in close enough for the draft to grab her. Then, with a sharp kick of the rudder, she swung her damaged side into a jut of wall. The loose guard tore free in a spray of sparks — and sailed straight intro a trajectory meant to nail the gap between his stabilizer struts. If it jammed, it'd jam hard. The moment his repulsors caught uneven drag, his whole pod would lurch, and who knew if he'd clip the nearest stalagmite cluster, spin out, or what. But she was too close for it to be a total null.
"Oops." deadpan, already veering away with big he-had-it-comin energy.
ROUND 1: 19
ROUND 2: 19
ROUND 3: 8
ROUND 4: 7 - Sabotage to Ronhar Tane
Damien blasted past the Rancor's lair with speed and just a little bit of recovered finesse. It'd took quick-thinking and adept controls of a vehicle that was being pushed to its theoretical limits in order to avoid getting pulverized, yet even in his success, the difficulties that would follow would only grow more in abundance. Tansu and Ronhar were still to his rear, the racers behind him being far enough to prioritize on eachother when compared to the obsidian devil that propelled ahead of them with unceasing vigor.
His eyes darted from his front to his rearview mirrors, watching Tansu's pod with a bit of worry, a bit of guilt coming to the fore considering his relentless showboating may have contributed a bit to her pod's condition. Soon those feelings would have to be buried as a team of four more vehicles suddenly dropped onto the track on all sides of his pod, assuming a formation around him that threatened to box him in entirely, their intentions anything but good.
His hands clutched the sticks a bit tighter as he activated the forward thruster-brakes, drastically lowering his forward momentum until his entire pod had slipped through the small gap between the rear two Vesper's before they could slam their pods inwards and turn him into scrap. The Vespers collided with an ear-shattering sound of metal against metal, their pilots turning around towards Damien to find the scoundrel's weapon extended from his cockpit.
A single shot rocketed towards the first, the disruptor shot doing its namesake and triggering an explosive reaction that blew out its engines, sending the Vesper into a death spiral along the ground after its pilot went flying off like a ragdoll in the air. The other one would recover before Damien could get a shot off on its engines, his instincts still feeling a bit dulled even despite his apparent luck being retained throughout the race.
Damien retreated his hand back into the cockpit and took hold of the controls once more, burning his engines back up to speed as he drifted past the rear Vesper and took position between the two at the front. What followed could only be described as a high-speed 3-on-1 brawl, with Damien alternating speed and vector to avoid the brunt of their attempts to ram him until losing control. Careful feints would eventually bring one of them close enough for Damien to gun down the pilot with a shot that burned through the glass of their cockpit, but not enough to take out the pilot.
Luckily for him, the Sarlacc pit that they quickly approached would finish the job. As the three pods drifted around the pit -- with Damien at the lead in part to his apparent disregard for safety limitations -- the Vesper that had barely survived a mid-powered disruptor blast would find itself being dragged into the Sarlacc pit as if it were a midnight snack for the beast inside.
Damien blasted past the Pit with the final Vesper on his tail, his pod beginning to show a few more signs of obvious damage after the Gamemaster's attempt to even the odds had gone awry- for him anyway. A smirk curled to his lips as he settled into a pattern of weaving left to right once more, timing his movements to shift his pod just a second before a rising geyser of caustic gas jetted from the ground where he once had been. The Vesper, lacking either the maneuverability or the heart to move in this environment as him, began to fall behind. A few blasts from his pistol towards the fringe of their pod would add to their discouragement, giving Damien the sign that he was looking for to once more push his pod to its theoretical limits at once.
A bright flare of blue and yellow radiated from his engines and boosters, and Damien found himself pushed into the back of his cockpit's seat once again by the sheer acceleration that he had committed to once more. The speed was enough to make him no more than a blur to the waiting gauntlet of mounted tractor beams that followed with nothing more than speed and an insurmountable confidence, or foolishness, depending on one's perspective.
"We are arriving at a natural conclusion, Majordomo. The Serolonis Riot 5000 has proven to be both a triumph and a setback on my part. I did not anticipate that the will of the force would elevate one racer above all others," Rathmar reflected from his booth, directing his thoughts towards the Rodian Majordomo, who could only respond with a faint smile.
It was evident that there was no statistical way for a single individual to dominate the competition in such a manner unless they possessed insider information. However, the question of who that might be now occupied the Vigo's thoughts. Perhaps it was that Zeltron, Mauve who orchestrated this humiliation, although that reasoning seemed tenuous, at least for the time being.
He glanced over at the terminal as Braze
seemed to return to the land of the living after being unconscious for most of the laps. Though they came face to face with the Sarlacc's tentacles who where quite prepared to send them to a rather ceremonial grave. His hand clutched the end of the armrest as Ronhar Tane
tried a brutish attack on Tansu Treicolt
.
He felt an even greater sense of satisfaction when Tansu Treicolt
with the grace of a true professional used her broken podracer to cripple her opponent. It was not mere racing any longer but a vendetta against one so sure of himself that he believed cybernetics would be the answer to winning the event.
"Not to worry, Podracer Treicolt. The Imperial shall learn a lesson about being uncivilized on the track." He remarked with a smile as the sabotage button was pressed again, and his hand moved towards a nearby lever to engage a concealed racer positioned before the entrance to Section Five.
A tailored Holodroid, identical to the podracer, appeared to thwart the man's efforts to secure victory in the race, while his weapons were aimed solely at Ronhar Tane
.
Then came Koda Fett
and Nala
. The bounty hunter's swift, ugly execution of the Devaronian was a thing of pragmatic beauty, but Nala's counter-maneuver was something more. Her silent, calculated rear-thruster flare, designed not to destroy, but to blind and disorient, was the mark of a true predator.
But then, the main event. Damien Dooku
reaction to the Ghishi team was everything Rathmar had hoped for. The Vigo had introduced a true, unforgiving challenge, and the young showman rose to meet it. Dooku did not simply run. He weaved, he feinted, and with a series of daring, near-suicidal moves, he dismantled Rathmar's hand-picked team of enforcers.
A slow, satisfied smile spread across Rathmar's face as the last of the Ghishi pods was dragged into the Sarlacc's maw. "The final act is, as they say, the most… revealing, But let's see if our racers can handle the Mirror Meld." he murmured to the Majordomo, as the podracers zoomed by on the terminal into the most dangerous and distracting section of the speedway.
Section 5: The Mirror Meld
Who Is The Real Racer: Utilizing advanced holographic technology, The Racetrack creates illusions of competing racers. These illusions are positioned at different locations along the track to disorient the podracers, leading them to believe that their adversary is either beside them or directly behind them, poised to strike.
Saboteur's Holo-Walls: Black Sun techs have projected hard-light holograms over false passages and jagged wall faces. The illusion makes the tunnel appear wide and clear until the pod smashes into solid rock hidden beneath the light projection.
(Special Sabotage from Tansu Treicolt) Now There Are Two Of Them: Rathmar has sent a Holodroid in the guise of Ronhar Tane
to mess with his mind as the droid shows up in an identical pod racer, firing its weapons in random intervals to force the cyborg out of the way. -3 to next roll.
The final stretch of the track would prove to be the most treacherous one yet, though not for the same reasons as the previous segments he'd conquered thus far. Almost immediately upon entering, Damien was forced to deactivate his engines, shifting power to the front-thrusters and significantly decreasing his forward momentum before his daring transitioned into death. He weaved towards the edge, skimming against the side of a boulder laden beneath a holographic mirage of the track's boundaries. It forced him to pull back to the center, where his grip over the controls would be kept steady to avoid a catastrophic mistake the next go around.
Slowly but surely, Damien proceeded on, increasingly upping the amount of thrust he was able to produce as his eyes grew more aware of their surroundings, his instincts growing more confident in his assessment as to where the holographic mirages began and ended. His confidence carried him forwards even as other racers joined on his flanks, though each one would find themselves tested with a shot from his blaster, or the briefest of taps with the side of his racer to determine their authenticity.
Once he was satisfied, Damien pulled away from the many distractions aimed to throw him off his game, maintaining his centered position on the track at speeds that were dissapointing in comparison to the death-seeking velocity that had carried him where he was so far. He was less focused on putting up on a show, having felt comfortable enough in his ability to weave around both obstacle and hard-light illusions that were meant to throw them off their game-- or kill them if they were unlucky.
Damien continued on this course until the finish line was in sight, where he'd finally give the crowd exactly what they wanted by the finale of the race. His thrusters activated across the rear of the pod, roaring in tandem with his engines to boost him fanatically through the last stretch of the race, and clear past the finish line until his engines began to finally sputter out from the immense stress that he'd put them under. It was truly a wonder that his engines hadn't burned out long before that point, but Damien wouldn't question whether it was coincidence or the luck that he'd inherited from his mother.
Either way-- it was done.
The pod sputtered the last dozen or so meters into a dug-out where Damien could finally take a deep breath and calm his heart-rate down to its normal pattern. After a minute or two of that, Damien raised the cockpit's glass and hopped out from the pod with a single leap to the ground. Damien raised his wrist-communicator up to his lips, opening up a channel to Morrow
after seeing him nowhere near their team's dugout. <"I'm in desperate need of huttaburger if you aren't too busy flirtin' around."> His stomach rumbled as he leaned against one of the cooling engines, his hands shifting to rest in his jacket's pockets as he watched the track to see who all else would follow next.
It took a beat before Morrow realized the inquiry had been meant for him. It cut through the commotion with a certain pointedness that made every other voice in the concession little more than unintelligible droning. Alarms began to ring in the back of his head as soon as he realized he didn't recognize the voice. That vague sense that something was off from earlier in the race returned, this time far more evident. He turned to meet the voice's owner, face twisting into a dubious glower.
"No." Morrow had hardly processed the question. Denial was a knee-jerk instinct.
The air grew heavy like a portent. A feeling of impending peril took over, stoking Morrow's heart into a slow race. Concealed beneath his cloak, his hand slowly slithered toward the grip of his blaster. Fingers wrapped around the molded steel, anticipating anything that might warrant a draw. Behind him, the droid finished his refill and held the cup out expectantly, unable to detect the tension or compute the cues of the imminent conflict in front of it.
"What's it to you, anyway?" Morrow hissed, pretending not to know what she'd come for.
Damein's voice rang through the earpiece, but Morrow wouldn't reply. His eyes remained locked on the woman in front of him. Sweat coaxed from the brow by Serolonis's heat ran a thin river down the right side of his face, making one cheek twitch slightly beneath the sensation. Likewise, a spasm went through his index finger that rested just over the hem of his holster.
She didn't twitch a finger, even as Morrow's hand moved like a subtle snake beneath the cloak. For a weapon, no doubt, but maybe she just didn't notice that part.
"What's it to me? Hmm." She pretended to think long and hard. "50,000 credits. Add half that given who's standing right in front of me."
She wasn't the type to play things coy or cautious in her line of work. This cyborg's speed was always quick and dirty. Might as well have been her motto, if that wasn't already the case with half the Bounty Hunters and thugs in this galaxy.
"I bet your friends are nearby, too, right?" She snickered. "Tell you what - I'll be generous. Let's go for a spin in that freighter, ring Razmir on the comms, and let him know you plan to be a good boy. Or..."
One sly finger caressed the grip, eager to draw, if it came down to it.
The flaming flare that erupted from the passing pod flashed a blinding light and a searing heat, lashing out at his pod. His visor might have been able to shield his eyes from the flash but his pod, rented from some backroom scrapper piecing together pods from old wars, was not able to shake the effects of the blast.
In an instant, the metal framework at the front seemed to melt down as wires sparked and fizzled. The dying whir of the engine sputtered, whining until it gave up altogether and the pod slowed until the repulsors quit. Fett leapt from the rock, slowing with his jetpack while the pod crumbled into a gnarled mess of scrap metal.
Rolled once on July 30th, got a very lucky 17 to start.
Rolled twice (on accident) on August 2nd. Got a 15 and a 14.
Rolled once on August 10th, got an 11.
Rolled once on August 15th, rolled an 11-3 (8)
Ronhar couldn't believe what was happening.
Despite his best efforts and the use of his podracer's various weapons, Damien Dooku
still stubbornly clung to first place, defeating every attempt Ronhar made to pass him. Not only was he winning this race, he was doing so commandingly, and was quite literally leaving Ronhar in the dust.
Blast! How was he doing it? From what Ronhar had seen, the man looked normal enough. It must be the podracer! Yes, that had to be the explanation! Clearly, his podracer must have some sort of hidden tricks up its sleeve or access to advanced technology that Ronhar had never seen before. Clearly that was the only reasonable explanation as to why he was defeating Ronhar so soundly!
In idea formed in Ronhar's head. Wasn't the galactic renown bounty hunter Koda Fett
participating in this race? Ronhar flipped on his commlink, and sent a message to the bounty hunter:
"Hey Fett, you still alive? Want to make an easy 10,000 UCs? Get me Damien Dooku
's podracer and bring it to these coordinates. I'll throw in a pair of Merzoidian Blaster Pistols any anything else from my catalogue if you do."
With the message sent, Ronhar focused on finishing up the race. Damien Dooku
was already far ahead of him, Tansu Treicolt
was coming up on his right side, Ronhar Tane
swooping in from his left...
Wait, what?
Ronhar's eyes widened as he did a double take. Was he seeing things? A perfect replica of him and his podracer were speeding past him, firing bursts of ion energy and flame directly at his podracer. It took Ronhar everything he had just to avoid getting it, and his podracer slowed dramatically as he attempted to get behind his doppelganger. Ronhar slammed on the podracer's brakes, halting his momentum for just a moment as the replicant shot past him. Ronhar then fired his podracer's laser cannons into his imposter, blowing it up in a dramatic display of podracer parts. The holographic droid flew onto the track, where it shattered into a thousand pieces.
Ronhar was royally pissed, as that had shaken him up considerably. He was already struggling to figure out his personal identity, and seeing himself as a droid most certainly did not help. Blinded by rage and visibly shaken by his counter, he looked to take out his anger on the closet available target: Tansu Treicolt
. Ronhar flew toward her, firing his flamethrowers from the side of his podracer as he attempted to fry the engines of his rival.
After all, if he wasn't going to win this thing, he would have to settle for causing a bit more mayhem instead! What was that saying again? “Revenge was a dish best served piping hot out of the barrel of a flamethrower”...
With the front stabilizer busted, the podracer's performance quickly degraded and there wasn't much Davik could do about it. Crossing the finishing line with a baleful look on his face, he knew he was going to be stuck on this chithole planet for a while.
Unless…
Unless there was someone out there to lend him a hand off-world.
Finally a leg of the race she was equipped to deal with. Holographic racers and trap walls? The former could be sensed through the Force with a bit of concentration, and the latter were a threat to the more vulnurable pods - Goon Squad was built as solid as industrial farming equipment because most of it had at some point been industrial farming equipment. Unfortunately for Klar, that fact was coming back to bite her.
The engines steamed and sputtered, shuddering every time she tried to use a speed between 'too slow' and 'might blow a gasket'. The couplers that held the engines together were straining, and this made the controls unruly and unreliable. While the blonde had been convinced that the Force had led her to a potential diamond in the rough with the Right Stufftm to squeak out a surprising victory with the right pilot? All told, Goon Squad had started off pretty strong and then started flagging about halfway through the race. It wasn't farming equipment with a secret capability. It was a desperate attempt by a man with no credits to hail mary a solution using the junk he had laying around.
The blonde pushed her controls forward, determined to at least get the old heap over the finish line. If it only had one real race in it, the least it could do was finish.
Total41:
