Howler’s Gorge - that’s what the frostbitten mountain race track was called, owing to the statue of a chanting Bindu Monk that had once hung at the crest of the high vault down onto the frozen lake like a blessing for a smooth flight… or sometimes a benediction of last rites for those who failed to control their descent properly. That statue was gone now, but the older racers and the younger ones who had run the track more than their share of times all claimed they could still hear the deep-throated singing that had once rumbled through the statue’s vented mouth. K’arkh was neither old nor a local racer, but his presence was reason enough for chatter that the aging nosaurian man in the hanger hushed his nonsense a moment and changed subjects shortly after the diminutive pilot had passed he and his gaggle of younger racers by.
“That K’arkh fellow there, you see that mask of his that he wears?” The old nosaurian mumbled past the cheap cigar in his mouth, pointing his chin after the pilot in question. “They say he killed some Gen’Dai and claimed his helm as a trophy.”
“Nah that’s not right,” said one of the younger pilots, a Veknoid lad with a chip on his shoulder in all such conversations, “he killed a squad of some Republic black-ops type and now he’s on the run. Look at that helmet, it’s clearly-”
“Shut your overgrown mouth, Brost,” complained the old nosaurian. “Gen’Dai wear whatever armors they like, makes no difference who it belonged to before.”
The pilots continued chittering about K’arkh, and he could hear them, but he made no matter of it. Truth be told, some distorted version of his reputation usually preceded him, and that was a good thing in its own right. Nobody had enough information to do anything but underestimate him once word got around, and so if no one had come looking for him, that meant he was clear to race. At least if anyone tried to take issue with him on the track he could handle it with no reprisals. There were a few places in the galaxy where there was still some class in the sport of Pod Racing, but Ando Prime wasn’t one of those places.
The intercom horn gave a short blast overhead in the hanger, and crews began scattering while pilots began mounting their pods. K’arkh strode up to his own pod - a fixed-fuselage model after the newer fashion - and rose a hand in greeting to the scrawny Bimm who was just scrambling out of the cockpit behind a pair of pit droids.
“It’s all in order K’arkh,” said the furry humanoid, standing just a little shorter than his pilot counterpart as he approached. “I found that catch in the secondary booster relays that you mentioned; it shouldn’t give you any trouble at all.”
“I hope not,” K’arkh’s baritone voice rasped out from behind the interlocking plates of his chosen helmet. “The gorge is somewhat unforgiving to weak-willed thrusters.”
The Bimm chuckled and tossed a rag into a bucket. “Not to worry, just try not to drag your ass through any solid rock like you did last time we were on Tatooine aye? I like to spend my trips in the commissary, not in the storage hanger.”
“I think you spent plenty of time in the commissary, Gormir.” K’arkh pat the Bimm’s paunchy little belly none too gently as he passed by, and climbed up into his pod. The tow-bot arrived in succession with a number of others, and began docking with K’arkh’s desert-orange hovercraft immediately. As it began to pull away, K’arkh sat up in his seat and called back again.
“Gormir, who are you betting on?”
The little Bimm called back, “I’ve made wagers on Klege Vorovur and Tellum Riss to place in the top five… Brost Ingelius is favored to win.”
K’arkh’s laughter sounded crunching gravel as he shook his head. “I suppose you haven’t bet-”
“No not a penny,” said Gormir, circling around the to other side of the pod as it turned. “You know I never bet against you.”
K’arkh shrugged and pat the side of his podracer. “You may wish you had one day.”
“Pfefff! I’ll be too old and fat to care by then, boy.”
******
Out on the starting line, K’arkh waited quietly for the race to begin. Other drivers screamed and called at each other, nursing old grudges and fostering new ones in shrill notes that were only accentuated by the glacial winds that carved between their racers. The only interaction K’arkh bothered to indulge in was the turn back from his position in 3rd place where he’d qualified, and scope out the other solid-fuselage pods in the line-up. They were further back, but not so far back that they couldn’t spy the X-mark he tossed their way, and toss it back in a quiet gesture of solidarity. They knew they were the future of the sport, even if no one else did. It had started some three hundred years prior with one mad little Xamster who’d dared to weld his cockpit onto the front of his engines, rather than drag behind it on cables. No one knew what had become of the fabled Twin Block Special that had started the first sparks in the tinder of what would eventually become a slow-building trend - its disappearance had been overshadowed by even greater upsets at the time. But now was the time for a fresh take on high-speed high-stakes racing, and K’arkh intended to lead the way.
Leading wasn’t something K’arkh struggled with on the tracks, but it was something he crept up on during proper races. Third place had been a strategic choice on his part for this particular starting line, and so had been the slightly underwhelming specs he’d uploaded into the official qualification simulator bracket. It was enough to get him on the front line, but also little enough to make people want look the other way, hoping to see the most impressive start to the race. In the transition from his past life to his present, one thing hadn’t changed about K’arkh’s specialty: he still thrived in the corner of the eye.
The declarations were made by the host, the call to thrusters made by the announcers, and the canyon rumbled with the bellows of twelve different pod racers’ finely tuned engines roaring to life. All eyes were on Brost in his beautiful Turbodyne 444; no one was looking at the dingy orange VS Titanoid Fusion whose turbo-jets began to glare white hot a scant millisecond before the final horn blasted. It was a risky move, and usually only the boldest and most foolish pilots attempted it; K’arkh was neither, he was a killer waiting to pounce, and he was versed in a far wider array of craft modifications than the typical pod racer pilot - he knew what his ride could handle.
As the horn blasted, the turbo-brake yielded to the power of K’arkh’s thrusters, and his solid-fuselage racer was already rounding the ornamental pillars in the center of the track by the time the gondola cables on the rear racers snapped taut. All eyes were where they belonged now, but it was already too late. K’arkh let off the thrusters as soon as he'd pulled the break-neck twist around the pillar, and gave his body the brief moment it physically needed to recover from the 0-500 acceleration, but then he clamped down on them again and blazed ahead. The crowd may have favored Brost Ingelius to win that day, but fortune now favored a different contestant, and he would not be denied his victory by the likes of these spectators-turned-racers.
Of Uncertain Origins
Re: Of Uncertain Origins
The particular arrangement of Howler’s Gorge that the contestants were running that day was a Pro-Am course usually named after the last season’s “Track Favorite”, which in this case was Klege Vorovur, the old nosaurian in the Plug-8 Leviathan who usually dominated the Amateur League events that occurred in the Andobi Mountains - Gormir had bet on him placing in the top five, along with Tellum Riss, the native Talid who was another promising upstart rookie and had won the Andobi Mountain Run the year prior. Both of those contestants were indeed in the top five racers as the bulk of the pods came spiraling into the final lap of Klege’s Chaos Cruise, but the first two racers were nowhere to be seen.
K’arkh hadn’t seen much of the other racers since having begun the race five or so minutes ago - the course was short and he was focused on beating the existing top time record, not contending with other racers - and so he was a little bit surprised when Brost Ingelius came rocketing out of the icy mountain canyonside with his engine turbines glowing red hot at full thrust. The masked Noghri leaned and jerked left on his control yokes to slide underneath the emerging contestant in the opposite direction so they would both be demolished in a pancake collision. In the few brief moments of straightaway that they shared while crossing the heavy duty bridge, K’arkh glanced over and found the Veknoid tossing a rather unnecessarily careless gesture his way. He took advantage of the other pilot’s momentary distraction and slammed on his boosters, cutting ahead just as they entered the twisting ice tunnel of the first glacier.
The waterfall that ran down the trailing edge of the glacier blasted across the glassteel windshield of K’arkh’s pod and obscured his view of the world for a split instant before the 522mph windsheer peeled it off again - the moisture didn’t even have time to freeze onto his Titanoid’s short fuselage before it was whipped off into a thin contrail. Coming out of the mountain tunnel, Brost was hot on his tail again as they barreled down the short slope onto the smaller remnants of the glacier that had formed pool-like stretches. Brost had superior repulsor traction on the icy surface and wound around the vault a rise and glide over the best portion of the second ice pool, but K’arkh didn’t need the extra traction or the safety of superior altitude in order to safely navigate that portion of the course. He’d studied each turn of the race carefully, and run it in a simulation many times; rather than trying to steer around on the slick surface, he pushed straight ahead, threading his solid-fuselage racer through the straight and narrow path down the center of the track. He missed a pillar of ice on the upper pool by scant inches, and slipped underneath an icy arch on the lower pool at full boost, slipping once again underneath Brost as flying pod came crashing back to the ground.
Beyond the glacial pools lay the canyon gap vaults, and Brost pulled ahead for a moment, riding a boost around a wide turn while K’arkh’s engines cooled for a moment, but cooling was one of the functions the Noghri has invested in most, and combined with the mountain air, the engines were ready to blast ahead again as soon as the track straightened out. Brost saw K’arkh approaching just as he was about to let off his thrusters, and tried to ride the boost out a little further, but it nearly cost him his engines’ integrity. K’arkh slipped around the Veknoid’s Turbodyne as a thin line of dark grey smoke was squelched, and he gained the lead going into the winding tunnel that represented the last obstacle course of the track.
K’arkh was all set to swing right as the fork in the track approached, but at the last moment, a strange discrepancy in the appearance of the path ahead caught his eye and he swung left, grazing the edge of a long chunk of clear ice that had apparently been knocked over somehow. He growled as he pressed quickly up the lefthand track, knowing that his pod was lower to the ground that Brost’s, and the Veknoid would surely glide over the fallen ice to the righthand track. It couldn’t be helped, but K’arkh cut his turns as sharp as possible, speeding up as he reached the point of convergence. As the two tracks came together again, it appeared Brost had been thinking of him all the while as well. The broad sides of his Turbodyne 444 podracer came swinging out of the righthand canyon at such a sharp angle of turn that one of Brost’s gondola cables was bobbing with slack - he was about to ram sidelong into K’arkh, and in a collision between their two pods, the Veknoid’s heavy, broadsided pod engine was sure to bowl over K’arkh’s diminutive racer. Brakes that could have held the Titanoid’s thrusters back from a much higher speed slammed into full drag, and K’arkh lost momentum at a rate so great that his chest almost touched the control yokes of his repulsorcraft. Brost met no resistance at the point where he’d expected to, and as K’arkh’s nimble racer whipped right and picked up speed around the final sharp turn of the cave, the Veknoid’s uncontrollable lefthand swing drove his lefthand engine nose-first into a massive pillar of ice.
It almost hurt K’arkh’s soul a little bit to see such an eruption of flame behind him as he swooped out of the cave onto the final straightaway. The Turbodyne 444 was a gorgeous podracer - a marvel of engineering straight out of the factory - and the icy pillar in the middle of the cave had undoubtedly been slowly forming for hundreds of years, like a tree that grew thicker and stronger with each season of cold. Unfortunately, both had been subject to the destructive forces of unchecked bravado and careless racing habits. K’arkh crossed the finish line in a top five linup that wasn’t added to for another 12.32 seconds when Klege and Tellum rolled out of the cave jockeying for second place. The spot went to Tellum, and Klege cursed both of them to their faces when they met a half hour later to participate in the victory ceremony, but there was a smile on his face, and it was clear why. They may have edged him out for the top spots, but old Klege was still the track favorite and they all knew it. He would take his spot at the front of the pack again once they were gone, and go back to enjoying his local fans. Today though, the strange little racer in the ornamental mask took the platform and received the electrum medallion for 1st Place.
Klege’s Chaos Cruise wasn’t K’arkh’s goal though. There was no Winner Take’s All option for the victor’s purse, and even if there had been it wouldn’t have been that much of a purse. He would finish the Pro-Am Circuit and feel out the other true competitors like this fellow stranger Tellum Riss, and then he would begin to push his skills to their true edge against the other real racers once they had qualified themselves for the semi-pro circuit. This race had been little more than a means to a parts run, but it served that purpose well enough, and it had revealed one true competitor to him. Others would appear later, and K’arkh would gather intel on them with as judicious an investigation as ever he had any other mark. He thrived in the corner of the eye, with the readied blade of preparation firm in his grasp, and racing was no different.
K’arkh hadn’t seen much of the other racers since having begun the race five or so minutes ago - the course was short and he was focused on beating the existing top time record, not contending with other racers - and so he was a little bit surprised when Brost Ingelius came rocketing out of the icy mountain canyonside with his engine turbines glowing red hot at full thrust. The masked Noghri leaned and jerked left on his control yokes to slide underneath the emerging contestant in the opposite direction so they would both be demolished in a pancake collision. In the few brief moments of straightaway that they shared while crossing the heavy duty bridge, K’arkh glanced over and found the Veknoid tossing a rather unnecessarily careless gesture his way. He took advantage of the other pilot’s momentary distraction and slammed on his boosters, cutting ahead just as they entered the twisting ice tunnel of the first glacier.
The waterfall that ran down the trailing edge of the glacier blasted across the glassteel windshield of K’arkh’s pod and obscured his view of the world for a split instant before the 522mph windsheer peeled it off again - the moisture didn’t even have time to freeze onto his Titanoid’s short fuselage before it was whipped off into a thin contrail. Coming out of the mountain tunnel, Brost was hot on his tail again as they barreled down the short slope onto the smaller remnants of the glacier that had formed pool-like stretches. Brost had superior repulsor traction on the icy surface and wound around the vault a rise and glide over the best portion of the second ice pool, but K’arkh didn’t need the extra traction or the safety of superior altitude in order to safely navigate that portion of the course. He’d studied each turn of the race carefully, and run it in a simulation many times; rather than trying to steer around on the slick surface, he pushed straight ahead, threading his solid-fuselage racer through the straight and narrow path down the center of the track. He missed a pillar of ice on the upper pool by scant inches, and slipped underneath an icy arch on the lower pool at full boost, slipping once again underneath Brost as flying pod came crashing back to the ground.
Beyond the glacial pools lay the canyon gap vaults, and Brost pulled ahead for a moment, riding a boost around a wide turn while K’arkh’s engines cooled for a moment, but cooling was one of the functions the Noghri has invested in most, and combined with the mountain air, the engines were ready to blast ahead again as soon as the track straightened out. Brost saw K’arkh approaching just as he was about to let off his thrusters, and tried to ride the boost out a little further, but it nearly cost him his engines’ integrity. K’arkh slipped around the Veknoid’s Turbodyne as a thin line of dark grey smoke was squelched, and he gained the lead going into the winding tunnel that represented the last obstacle course of the track.
K’arkh was all set to swing right as the fork in the track approached, but at the last moment, a strange discrepancy in the appearance of the path ahead caught his eye and he swung left, grazing the edge of a long chunk of clear ice that had apparently been knocked over somehow. He growled as he pressed quickly up the lefthand track, knowing that his pod was lower to the ground that Brost’s, and the Veknoid would surely glide over the fallen ice to the righthand track. It couldn’t be helped, but K’arkh cut his turns as sharp as possible, speeding up as he reached the point of convergence. As the two tracks came together again, it appeared Brost had been thinking of him all the while as well. The broad sides of his Turbodyne 444 podracer came swinging out of the righthand canyon at such a sharp angle of turn that one of Brost’s gondola cables was bobbing with slack - he was about to ram sidelong into K’arkh, and in a collision between their two pods, the Veknoid’s heavy, broadsided pod engine was sure to bowl over K’arkh’s diminutive racer. Brakes that could have held the Titanoid’s thrusters back from a much higher speed slammed into full drag, and K’arkh lost momentum at a rate so great that his chest almost touched the control yokes of his repulsorcraft. Brost met no resistance at the point where he’d expected to, and as K’arkh’s nimble racer whipped right and picked up speed around the final sharp turn of the cave, the Veknoid’s uncontrollable lefthand swing drove his lefthand engine nose-first into a massive pillar of ice.
It almost hurt K’arkh’s soul a little bit to see such an eruption of flame behind him as he swooped out of the cave onto the final straightaway. The Turbodyne 444 was a gorgeous podracer - a marvel of engineering straight out of the factory - and the icy pillar in the middle of the cave had undoubtedly been slowly forming for hundreds of years, like a tree that grew thicker and stronger with each season of cold. Unfortunately, both had been subject to the destructive forces of unchecked bravado and careless racing habits. K’arkh crossed the finish line in a top five linup that wasn’t added to for another 12.32 seconds when Klege and Tellum rolled out of the cave jockeying for second place. The spot went to Tellum, and Klege cursed both of them to their faces when they met a half hour later to participate in the victory ceremony, but there was a smile on his face, and it was clear why. They may have edged him out for the top spots, but old Klege was still the track favorite and they all knew it. He would take his spot at the front of the pack again once they were gone, and go back to enjoying his local fans. Today though, the strange little racer in the ornamental mask took the platform and received the electrum medallion for 1st Place.
Klege’s Chaos Cruise wasn’t K’arkh’s goal though. There was no Winner Take’s All option for the victor’s purse, and even if there had been it wouldn’t have been that much of a purse. He would finish the Pro-Am Circuit and feel out the other true competitors like this fellow stranger Tellum Riss, and then he would begin to push his skills to their true edge against the other real racers once they had qualified themselves for the semi-pro circuit. This race had been little more than a means to a parts run, but it served that purpose well enough, and it had revealed one true competitor to him. Others would appear later, and K’arkh would gather intel on them with as judicious an investigation as ever he had any other mark. He thrived in the corner of the eye, with the readied blade of preparation firm in his grasp, and racing was no different.