childofrebellion | The Race

In space the race changes as everyone positions themselves, using the room to bring in afterburners. There are some unexpected obstacles in some space debris that's drifted into the course.

Yamato hits his afterburners and rushes forward, darting around pieces of debris as he goes, leaving trails of coloured light behind him. As he catches up with a ship ahead of him, he curves around it, giving an easy barrel roll as he goes.

Sixth place, he counts down in his head.

Then the course is heading down again, back towards the surface, and he turns sharply to start rocketing down through the atmosphere, picking up more and more speed with every second as the air around the nose of the ship heats up to a burning orange.

On their way through the atmosphere, most of the ships are giving each other space, but one tries to dart ahead.

Yamato grimaces as it overtakes him and shunts him back into seventh place, and gives chase, using the speed picked up by plummeting downwards to draw up alongside the other ship, until the two are spiralling around each other, taking turns overtaking each other.

As the ships start nearing the ground, this part of the race rapidly turns into a game of chicken: Pulling up and out of the descent earlier means less risk of crashing, but pulling out later means more time to build up speed.

Yamato runs the calculations in his head and holds out for as long as mathematically possible, getting dangerously close to flying nose-first into the ground at the top speed, before he turns sharply out of his descent, slingshotting ahead of the ship that overtook him and the next ship ahead.

Fifth place.

Then he's flying into the narrow cave system, rapidly gaining on the ship in fourth place just ahead.

Back in the garage, Cassian holds his breath as Yamato descends until he pulls up. The comms don't work as well in the cave system which means other than the camera droids, its quieter. This is where a few more tricks come into play, briefly lighting up and shaking the caves.

Yamato holds his own during one or two flashes of light and one or two violent shudders of the cave -- it's when both come at the same time, a flash of light bright enough to momentarily blind him, and a sharp shaking of the cave, that he's in trouble.

He just barely avoids a pillar of rock, a shower of sparks flying from the hull of his ship as he skates across it. The force of it nearly sends him careening into the nearby cave wall, and it takes all of his skills to control the ship enough not to crash straight into it, instead scraping one wing over the wall with another shower of sparks.

It all only takes maybe two seconds at most, and then he's back in control, zooming ahead through the caves, but that's still enough time for the fourth place ship to put some distance between them.

As the ships emerge from the cave system, Cassian radios out, "Status?"

There's space now to gather up speed as they head back towards the starting line.

"Paintwork's looking pretty bad, cladding's taken some damage, and the stabilising flaps on the left wing are banged up," Yamato rattles off in reply. "Nothing too bad, though, the ship's still fully operational."

He's gaining on the fourth place ship, but since it's picking up speed too, Yamato doubts he'll be able to overtake it before the second lap of the race starts.

"Good, if you need it, I'm ready to do any quick repairs."

A couple of ships are pulling away into their garages for some fast fixes.

"Yeah, let's get some of the cladding damage sealed shut and replace this stabilising flap," Yamato says, pulling into the garage for a pit stop.

The cladding on the bottom and wing of the ship was scored pretty badly, after all. He doesn't want to get up to space and find that the damage is bad enough for the ship to start losing heat.

By the time that Yamato lands, Cassian has the supplies he needs out including a spare flap.

He's working as fast and efficiently as he can, "Test the flap and then you're good to go."

Yamato gives the flap a quick test, then gives Cassian a thumbs up to indicate that it's working.

Then he accelerates out of the garage, rejoining the race for the second lap as the other ships also accelerate out of their own pit stops.

He's still in fifth place, with a significant gap between him and the fourth place ship, but over the first leg of the lap, he works on closing the distance.

By the time they're at the first obstacle section, he's practically alongside them, and as that first obstacle section finishes and they start their ascent up towards space, he overtakes them with a burst of speed.

Fourth place, he mentally notes, readjusting his mental map of the race and its competitors.

Up ahead, speeds change once again as everyone adjusts to space. Afterburners come out and one ship has stronger ones, that they'd been holding off using.

Yamato growls as that ship pulls ahead of him, leaving him back in fifth place as it rushes ahead.

He kicks his own afterburners into maximum output, giving chase and managing to keep on its tail, even if he doesn't catch up just yet.

It's when they enter the descent back down towards the surface that he starts making gains. He keeps his afterburners activated, gaining more and more speed, far more than his last dive down, and as he does he starts overtaking ships.

Fourth place, he notes as he overtakes one, before spiralling around and overtaking another. Third place.

He keeps getting faster, and when he pulls out of the dive -- as late as he did in the last lap, but with the added speed this time around sending dust and rocks flying up in his wake -- he slingshots ahead of another ship.

Second place.

He can see Altax's ship now, as they enter the caverns, although it still has a hefty lead over him. He does, at least, switch off his afterburners as he enters the caves, letting himself slow down a little.

Edited 2019-08-16 04:25 (UTC)

Cassian holds his breath during that perilous entry down and waits for the comms after the caverns. In the caverns, Altax is taking a slightly different route that shaves a few moments off his time.

Yamato considers following him, but these tunnels are so narrow that he doubts there would even be any room to pull ahead of the other racer.

Instead, he takes the same route as before. This time, he knows what to expect, and despite the flashing and shaking in the caverns, he manages not to lose control or scrape up against obstacles.

Nevertheless, Altax's shortcut means that by the time they've both emerged from the caves, his lead over Yamato has grown significantly.

Altax pushes his engines to try and extend that lead.

Cassian notes Yamato's fuel use and says, "You have enough that if you want an extra boost, take it."

"Yeah, okay. Get ready to refuel when I pull in for a pit stop."

With that, Yamato pushes his engines, switching on his afterburners to give him an extra push. It doesn't close the gap between them much, but with the added acceleration, it keeps Altax from extending his lead any more in the last leg of the second lap.

With the second lap done, Yamato pulls into the garage for a pit stop, taking a second to just breathe out slowly.

Cassian shifts from comms to prep the fuel so as soon as Yamato lands, he gets to refueling, "There all set."

Yamato gives him a thumbs up through the glass of the cockpit.

"Thanks. See you at the end of the race."

Then he's roaring out of the garage and into the first open stretch of the third lap, kicking the engines into high gear to try to start gaining on Altax.

Cassian returns the thumbs up and sits back down, looking over the race,

"Three of the remaining racers didn't stop for refueling, the ones directly behind you."

"Tch," Yamato replies, before giving an irritable glance at his ship's sensors. "... Yeah, I see them."

They're nipping at his heels, threatening to overtake him at any moment. In this clear stretch of race, Cisco's modifications mean that he can keep ahead of them -- it's what happens when he reaches the obstacle section that worries him. If they're going to break out the dirty tricks, he reckons that'll be when.

For the moment, he keeps his focus dead ahead, as he flies into the obstacle section of the lap.

The obstacles are one of the few places left to try and change the race. A heat signature lights up on one of the ships as it starts readying a weapon.

Cassian spots it, "Directly behind you, the ship at your five o'clock is warming what might be a weapon."

"Thanks," Yamato says, glancing down at his radar.

With that warning from Cassian, when the ship behind him fires, he dodges out of the way, avoiding a blast of energy that would, he's pretty sure, have sent him crashing in a ball of fire.

Another ship seizes on the opportunity created by that first ship, tossing out a small spherical device that explodes with concussive force, sending Yamato spinning out of control. He wrenches back control of the ship before it can collide with anything and go up in flames, just barely, but the three racers that were behind him take the opportunity to pull ahead of him.

Fifth place.

Yamato swears loudly, giving chase. He promised Pan that he'd win this race, the entire plan relies on it, and getting shunted back to fifth place is the last thing he needs.

Cassian curses as Yamato's knocked back, "Only one of those ships stopped to refuel."

Its a possible edge, thin but something.

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