Galactic Racing eXtreme - Episode 1, Part A
#1 of Galactic Racing eXtreme
Galactic Racing Xtreme
Prologue
_In the year 2311, nanoengineering has completely altered human affairs. Hunger, disease, and death have been all but eradicated. All needs are met, and all desires can be realized. Men and women can re-engineer their own bodies to suit any taste, from anthropomorphic forms to cyberized techno-shells. Quantum cell technology powers everything from homes to vehicles to interstellar starships. Human beings now share the Milky Way with dozens of other sentient races.
In this new universe, old forms of entertainment, particularly in sports, have become outdated. In a world where broken bones heal themselves in seconds, and even the destruction of an athlete's physical body is merely an inconvenience, extreme, high-risk sports draw the crowds.
Few of these new sports are as popular as the Galactic Racing Xtreme League. With over 120 high-tech, death-defying racetracks on as many planets, the GRXL pits the fastest, toughest, most skilled pilots in the galaxy against one another, driving the most advanced vehicles ever devised for competition. Some race for the enormous prizes offered; some for the honor of their clans and home worlds; some, simply for the age-old love of racing.
The goal of all of these champions: VICTORY!_
Episode 1, Part A
Four, three, two, one ... NOW! The engine's roar became a deafening blast behind him as Kaje hit the T-recycler. Being powered by a Q-cell, his engine didn't burn fuel, but by reabsorbing its own waste heat and using the thermal energy to boost its output, the Wild Rider could gain a sudden burst of speed. Of course, keeping all that heat bottled up inside would fry the power plant after a while, so like any good racer, Kaje Inaro knew to save his car's special abilities for when he needed them.
The short boost worked; on his left, Burn Desire fell behind, and Kaje gave a feral grin as he saw Harl shaking a fist his way. If not for the scream of their engines, the gazelle-morph would probably be giving him an earful of the most colorful oaths and curses in the Standard language. After making sure that he had enough of a lead that Burn Desire couldn't easily catch up to him, Kaje switched off the T-recycler and let the engine breathe, thermal indicators on his helmet's HUD falling back from the red zone to normal levels.
"Nice one! That'll teach Harl to boost up too early in the race," a familiar female voice declared through his headset. Looking right, Kaje smiled warmly at the driver of Angel Blue, the blue-and-white racer beside him. Anjie Avi, his teammate and lover of five years, grinned back. Unlike Kaje, who piloted his racer in a prone position, paws gripping his hand yoke biker-style, Anjie drove sitting upright in the traditional style, her muscular, snow-white wings tucked safely between her back and her foam-cushioned seat.
Kaje grunted. "Typical newbie. Runs his ride to redline in the first three laps, so he's got no tricks left when the real drivers catch up to him. Either he'll learn real quick how to manage his power, or he'll wind up back in the regionals by next year."
"I hope not. He seems like a pretty nice guy, if you ask me."
"What, you wanna take him home with you tonight?"
"Ha! I said he's nice, not good! At least, not as good as a certain tiger I--WHOA!" Anjie exclaimed as something three feet long and dart-shaped blew by, trailing smoke and flame.
"Missile!" Kaje shouted over the link, craning his neck around. Sure enough, there was Burn Desire right behind them, Harl Gebbard with a murderous scowl on his face, his curved horns giving him an almost satanic appearance as he launched two more missiles, one aimed at each of the drivers who had just passed him. Wild Rider and Angel Blue veered away toward the sides of the track, evading the explosive projectiles - and providing a clear space between them, which Burn Desire promptly drove through.
"Nice guy, huh?"
"Used up all his tricks, huh?" Anjie retorted, then accelerated ahead, trying to overtake the trigger happy gazelle-morph. By now they were halfway through the final lap, coming up on a two-hundred-foot-high vertical loop. All three switched on the high-powered electromagnets in their tires and undercarriages, causing them to glow neon blues and greens as they adhered to the metallic track surface. As they started up the loop, Anjie made her move, activating her own T-recycler to boost up beside Burn Desire. Before Harl could react, she swerved Angel Blue hard left, slamming into his racer with devastating force.
Burn Desire drove diagonally off the side of the loop, its momentum carrying it in an upward arc until gravity pulled it back to earth. The doomed racer slammed upside-down into the duracrete beside the racetrack, exploding in an impressive orange fireball, blue-white arcs of energy forking out in all directions as its Q-cell ruptured.
"Hah, gotcha! See ya at the finish line, creep!" Anjie hollered triumphantly, coming down off the loop ...
Just as her racer was obliterated by a guided missile.
"Shit!" Kaje veered sharply away, barely keeping himself on the track as he tried to avoid getting caught up in Anjie's fiery demise. A bolt of electrical discharge glanced off the Wild Rider's composite shell, but his HUD showed no damage, so Kaje kept going, swerving from side to side so as to make himself a harder target to lock onto.
Though the other racers were still far behind, it was obvious who had launched the missile that had taken Anjie out: a red-and-black vehicle with a launch tube raised behind and above the driver's cockpit. Kaje recognized it as Slash and Burn, the racer driven by Harl's senior teammate, Verl Wanyard. Suddenly, he realized why Gebbard had been so eager to get out in front: to lure other drivers ahead with him, so that his partner Wanyard could pick them off from behind. And we fell for it! Kaje thought bitterly, a snarl forming on his feline muzzle.
Pulling his foot off the accelerator, he dropped back toward Wanyard, dodging a missile on his way. As soon as Wild Rider was back beside Slash and Burn, Kaje let loose with a primal roar, slamming his racer sideways into his opponent. Wanyard had seen his partner's demise, though, and refused to let Kaje push him off the track. Using one arm to steer, he raised the other and aimed it toward Kaje's head. The cyborg's forearm split in half, revealing a nasty-looking plasma weapon. Kaje barely had time to duck before a red energy beam sizzled through the space his head had just occupied. With a growl, Kaje hit a switch on his hand yoke, and a cutting beam activated in the hub of each of his wheels, slicing through Wanyard's wheels, axles and undercarriage. Out of control, Slash and Burn spun out, and was promptly rammed, smashed and driven over by the remaining racers, many of which were also caught in the ensuing explosion, creating a wall of flame and wreckage that slowed down everyone else on the track.
Far ahead of the crash, Kaje sighed with relief, pulling ahead and finishing in first place. There was the usual cheering from the spectators, holos taken, his racer moved to the R-Tek team trailer for repairs and maintenance. When all of that was taken care of, Kaje walked over to the recovery trailer. Passing the wrecks and charred remains of Wanyard, Gebbard and various others, he came to what was left of Angel Blue. Still trapped in its cockpit was Anjie's broken, blackened body.
"Hey, babe," he said casually. Of course, he knew that Anjie couldn't hear him - her eardrums were just as fried as the rest of her. He also knew, though, that Anjie wasn't really dead. Extending his claws, he dug them into his lover's chest, breaking off the left half of her rib cage. After a moment, he uncovered what he had been looking for: a small blue crystal nestled next to her spinal column, still connected to the network of microfilaments that connected it to her body's central nervous system. After pulling it out and brushing off the ash and grease, Kaje tucked the crystal - Anjie's personality, her memories, and everything that made his lover unique - into his pants pocket. Whistling cheerfully, he gave the docs a thumbs-up, then headed back to the trailer to start getting Anjie's new body grown.