Throttle Fifteen
After taking the curve after the river jump with a bit of a wobble, Diana pulled back on the throttle and allowed the Scrap Rocket to slow down a little. She put more room between herself and the two ships remaining ahead of her, even if she was technically faster.
Passing Krison would be stupid at that point. He would have the rest of the lap to blast her apart, and the other ship guarding him was now likely very aware that Diana and Zil Rossi were after them.
The Purple Streak came up next to Diana, and as they ended the curve and came back onto the path with the stadium on either side, the ktacha pilot pinged Diana over the comms. “That was some crazy manoeuvring back there,” she said.
“We have a saying where I’m from,” Diana said. “If it’s crazy but it works, it’s not crazy.”
The fox-like alien barked in laughter. “When do we take out the next one?”
“In the canyons,” Diana said. “Give them space until then.”
“Understood.” The comms clicked off, and Diana settled back.
She raised a hand to wave to the few spectators likely to be able to see her as they shot past the stadium. Aliens of all sorts were waving signs and screaming, not that she could hear over the ship’s engines. She flicked on the commentator’s broadcast to catch up with what was happening behind her.
“—seem to be forming two groups all vying to push ahead. But at this point, they’re out of luck if they expect to catch up! Krison’s still in the lead coming into the final lap, but he’s down one buddy after that spectacular bit of teamwork from Diana, Ahvie, and Zil Rossi. The borel mushroom ship is coming up in a close fifth. The rest of the lot are just hitting the big river jump, that is, if they can mak— ohhh! What a spectacular miss!”
Diana glanced back. There was that big ship, with the borels in it. They seemed very competent, if a little passive, and then way behind them a few ships were fighting for the sixth spot.
She was pretty content with the lead she had so far. More was better, but then there wouldn’t be any room for something interesting to happen.
The finish line came and went, and they continued around a curve and into the open field of scrap just past the stadium. There were a couple more smoking wrecks than Diana remembered, and some of them had the balls to open fire at them.
Diana cursed as she saw bullets ping off a semi-transparent dome around Krison’s ship. He had a full shield equipped, and judging by the red flashes that lanced out of his ship and tore gaping holes in the still-fighting vehicles left on the field, he was well-armed too.
She lowered the Scrap Rocket closer to the ground, kicking up a wall of dust behind her, but also lowering her profile. She didn’t think they could take that many hits without things getting too damaged. Ahvie only had so many redundant systems to rely on.
“How are you back there?” Diana asked.
“Ahvie is ashamed to admit,” Ahvie said in a surprisingly subdued voice, “that she may have soiled herself, a little.”
Diana chuckled. “Never been on a roller coaster before?”
“This is nothing like that!” Ahvie protested. “There was ramming, and then that big explosion. Ahvie thought she would die.”
“This is a bit of an unorthodox race,” Diana admitted. “But it’s not all that bad. Just keep us flying, and we’ll win this thing. We’re in fourth already. Third, if we pass the Purple Streak over there.”
The field narrowed down, the scrap being replaced by large stones jutting out of the ground. Diana shifted in her seat before they dove into the canyon. She didn’t do any wild moves, not yet.
“Zil Rossi, you still on the line?” Diana asked.
“I can hear you,” the other pilot said.
“It’ll be an easy one. I need the ship ahead distracted. There’s a bend up ahead, I think there are a few ships just before it too. I need you to shoot the walls in front of the ship before they hit the bend, distract them while I accelerate enough to catch up.”
“Can do,” Zil Rossi said. “How are you going to take them out after that?”
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“Superior flying,” Diana said.
The bend in question was coming up far too quickly for Zil Rossi to have any hope of getting a clear answer.
The Purple Streak flew a little lower, the armour along one side of the ship opening up even as the main gun rose out of its recess. It was an impressive bit of engineering, considering it was entirely made of scrap.
“We’ll be pushing things again in a second,” Diana said.
“We don’t have a lot of fuel left,” Ahvie said. “Enough to end the race, but pushing the engine to go faster will burn more. And our heat hasn’t decreased by much.”
“Keep an eye on the fuel,” Diana said. “How hot is it back there? Behind our thrusters?”
Ahvie took a moment to reply, and when she did, she was clearly confused. “Very?”
“Good,” Diana purred.
The loud bark of the Purple Streak’s cannon firing was all the warning Diana received that she had to act. She pressed the throttle up and shot forwards.
Ahead, the remaining guard ship was weaving around, trying to avoid the deluge of stones coming down from above. The gunners at the back saw Diana coming, but their fire was wild, and they couldn’t get a bead on the Scrap Rocket, not before they hit the curve.
The turn made it so that the ship moved out of sight, if only for a moment. Diana pulled up and flew close to the wall. It meant that she had to duck around some outcroppings, but she could do that all day without breaking a sweat.
They caught up to the guard ship, and one of the faster gunners spotted her above. They tried to aim up, but by then it was too late.
Diana dove back down, then carefully swooped into place just ahead of the guard ship then she slowed down.
The ship moved up to ram into her rear, but she gave them a bit of gas just before that could happen.
The guard ship had a single gun mounted on the front, but the osel behind it had bigger things to worry about than aiming and firing at her, like the large red-hot thruster slowly approaching the front of the ship.
Paint started to peel off the frame, then a few plastic components started melting.
The pilot threw the ship to the side, but Diana matched their move without losing any ground, the continuous heat from the thruster slowly turning the plate armour onto the front of the ship a nice glowing orange.
Things started to fritz inside the vehicle. Diana imagined that whatever wiring they had in there, it wasn’t made to resist that kind of heat for any period of time.
A few of the osel from the back opened parts of their cockpits up and started firing at them, but they only had handguns, and they missed most of their shots in the rush to fight the Scrap Rocket off anyway.
Something caught fire inside of the ship, and smoke started to pour into the cockpit.
The pilot banged against the edge of the cockpit until something broke and fresh air could pour back in. That distraction cost them.
Diana swerved into the next curve.
The guard ship’s pilot only saw the curve coming when it was already nearly on them. Maybe if they were faster, and not choking on burning air, they might have turned in time. As it was, they started to turn, scraped against the stone sides of the canyon, then the ship burst apart into a spinning mess of flying metal bits that scattered across the narrow canyon.
Diana let out an excited shout, fist pumping as she levelled off her flight. “Another down, Ahvie!”
“Ahvie saw!” the mouse-like alien said. “That was some very good flying.”
“Now we only need to take out that chump up ahead, and we’re in the clear. Told you we’d be placing well.”
“Ahvie apologises for doubting you.”
Diana laughed, she couldn’t help it.
“Oh! Would you look at that upset! Diana and Ahvie are blowing up on the path to first place. The Purple Streak is right on their tails! The Bone Crusher must be feeling the tension right about now as they’re about to enter the Ship Graveyard for the last time!”
“Mhm.”
Diana leaned forwards as the canyon ended. Now it was just her and Krison, and she was more than certain that she could fly circles around the osel ahead.
***