Log:The Five Sabers - Lunar Relay
The Five Sabers - Lunar Relay
OOC Date: February 21, 2017
Location: Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Eebua Gnuda, Qadira Suuryet, Rake, Jehni'va Cihn, Nyla Forr, Morth Biddemgulp
With the Five Sabers moving off moon and into space with the third leg, the stands at Lord Eebua's Starport were not erected for viewing the start of the race. Instead, a live feed of the race proceedings is being broadcast all across the universe as the racers move into position at the starting line. People are bellied up to bars all across the Smuggler's Moon wth eyes glued to the holo so as not to miss the beginning of the race, even as the voice of Mynark Sabosen jumps out at them. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we wish to offer our most grateful thanks for tuning in to watch the third leg of the Five Sabers. Even now, the best racing pilots from all across the universe are lining up to begin the third leg of this most prestigious racing event, the Lunar Relay! Any moment now the racers will be launching off from starting positions to embark on a trip through space. They will fly as fast as they can to slingshot around the twin moons of Nal Yeshu, performing a complex figure eight, before flying back to cross the finish line at Nar Shaddaa. Who is ready for the FIVE SABERS!?" As Mynark's voice echoes out of speakers and P.A. systems, bar rooms all across Nar Shaddaa erupt into cheers.
The Sithspit moves towards the starting line, the Shistavanen pilot easing his bird into place. "Alright, Chew-Toy," Rake says towards his spheroid BB-unit astromech. "Let's try to do better this round, huh? We're not in last place, but we're not doing great either. I don't expect to win, but I damn sure want to finish."
"All I'm saying is that a D'oemir bear is a bear, yeah, but an armord, spiky thing wins everytime. Chargreck 200." Jehni'va Cihn argues passionately in a hazy cockpit, seeming much more... At ease for this leg. There is an ashtray space-glued to one of the Hotbox's consoles. The ship itself eases to the starting line. "You ready?" She asks the woman in the seat behind her, peeing over her shoulder, vision not yet obstructed through the ship's navigation goggles that rest against her forehead. "And Pick? None of your bullshit this round. I don't know what you're saying, but I know it's /rude/." She cranes back, handrolled 'cigarette' smoking between two fingers.
The Parallax is drifting through the blackness of space at a slow pace. For this round, the pilot Morth Biddengulp has chosen to position his ship further down along the line from the Hotbox than in previous rounds. Maybe it is a mind game to throw Jehni'va off her game, or maybe he is thinking that somehow the Hotbox's pilot was leeching off of his limitless skill. In either case, Morth is noticeably ten or more ships further down the line and actually right beside the Sithspit. "Kadi, you all good back there? Systems checking out okay?" he calls.
Kadi is on the comm with Morth from her position back at computer tech and engineering. "All systems are green," she replies easily enough. By this point, if there are computers, she's ignoring them. Completely. She does have an astromech with her, having brought Lily along for this leg of the race. There's a whirrbeep from the R2 unit, and Kadi grins. "Lily says she's good too. And ready for anything." That gets another beepwhirrwhoop from Lily, and an outright laugh from Kadi. It is likely that the R2 unit did not say any such thing, and that Kadi took definite liberties with her translation. Nyla Forr leans back in the copilot's chair, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She looks a little more on edge than the lanky pilot ahead of her. The computer is set, command at the ready in front of her and she's buckled in. "I'm ready," Nyla replies with a curt nod. "Are you? You need to hit up the bathroom?" Pickle beeps something to the short droid mechanic. "Haha, right?"
Inside of the racers' ships, a holographic has been displayed detailing the course. Noticeably absent are any rings marking the direct path to the first moon, making it clear that any route there that also carries them around the moon in a slingshot formation toward the second moon will suffice. Signal droids float out before the racers, propelled by thrusters and repulsors to stabalize their movements in the gravity-less environment. The ready light flashes at the top of the droid, flashing a brilliant yellow that seems magnified many times over in the inky blackness, before beginning to tick quickly down the 'tree' to flash emerald green at the bottom as a loud siren sounds off inside of every ship.
"And they're off!" Mynark Sabosen trumpets gleefully as on screen engines suddenly flash into life and ships are propelled forward off of the starting line to begin racing toward the first distant moon.
"This is more like it," Rake says, looking at the holographic screen. "We could do a series of microjumps, but this is one crowded system, meaning it will come at some risks, but we could definitely shave off time." Then, there's the marker for the race to begin and the Shistavanen pushes the throttle to max, propelling the Helix into motion.
This is why her player needs a more reliable spellcheck. "No I went before we took off, why? And hit this." Jehn whines, wiggling her fingers and the joint between them at the mechanic in the copilot's seat. In the next motion, the HWK's nav goggles are pulled down over her eyes, projecting a navigable image of their surroundings directly to her. "Where's Asshat's ship, anyway?" She keeps babbling, seemingly unperturbed by the anxiety of the moment. "Oh what? Way over there? Sneaky." Jehni'va rolls her shoulders and twists in her seat to flash a final, fond smile behind her. "We got this, yeah? No sweat." It's a small, fleeting moment of quiet and calm before the storm of sirens and the roar of four engines flaring to life. The wings are released immediately, gimballing systems loosing with a a soft shudder as they lurch forward into space - and lurch they do, rocketing forward at full thrust. She should have gotten stoned before the other legs too, damn.
Maybe in all of Morth's plotting and scheming, he psyched himself out. As the light flashed green the Mon Cal is asleep at the controls and many ships jump out in front of him. "Oh, Barnacle!" he squeaks out and leans forward into the controls as the ship jumps out from the line right behind the Sithspit. He is already shaking his head worriedly as he says, "This is not good... it is already not my night!" Morth is a worrier.
"Remember to breathe, Morth, there's a lot of ground to cover," Kadi replies. "Stay focused, or Tavers'll be yowling at both of us." She rounds up whatever she can to help, fingers flying across the touch screen as she adjusts systems minutely, based on their current position. "We're still in the race - that's the important part. C'mon, Morth - this is the fun stuff. Flying figure eights around the moons and not getting yelled at for it."
Nyla Forr leans forward, snagging the joint with only a /slight/ frown. "And you're sure you'r-- GUH!" the human copilot begins to question as the ship lunges forward into the lead. Nyla is pushes back into her chair, her hand awkwardly holding the small smoking tube she was given. "Kriffin'.." she starts to curse, but stops herself. "Try not to kill us, either!" But there is a rush in her voice. Encouragement as they leap into first.
While everyone is racing forward, Rake's taking it easy, letting his autopilot take the controls towards the waypoint while he begins crunching numbers on the Nav-Computer. Even with the most expensive nav-comp on the market, he's running into problems getting an acceptable jump. Meanwhile, his droid is beeping, telling him that he's falling a good bit behind the others.
Rockin' - alright. "I'll try!" Jehni'va promises brightly, curled impishly over the controls. Should she... Should she jump it? Fingers tightening around the thruster, Jehn shakes her head. "Anything on the comp?" She questions, giggling softly. "Plot me out something good, guys." The Hotbox rolls playfully in space and continues forward at a soul-crushing pace. Dem engines doe.
Morth nods his head as Kadi tells him to remember to breath, his large googly eyes blinking rapidly a few times as he tries to take a few steadying breaths. He looks at the ships moving out before him, and shakes his head before saying into the comms, "We have to do it. Kadi, free up the Astrogate controls and hold on." After all, it is Tarion Tavers' ship. If he wrecks it, it is just Tarion, right? As the Astrogate controls are freed up and programming made live, Morth's right hand begins rapidly keying in parameters and measurements. Pressing a button to load the course into the computer, Morth reaches out to grip the Hyperspace control lever and takes a steadying breath before he says, "Kadi, hold on! If I kill us I'm sorry!" And then he jerks the lever back and closes his eyes.
Kadi arches a brow, but frees up the astrogation controls, as requested. That's a quick click swipe and a glance at Lily. "Buckle in, Lily. At least if we die, we shouldn't be all bruised and broken." Or something. Though she doesn't close her eyes, keeping an eye on systems, warnings and "If you kill us, I swear I am going to haunt you, Morth. And Ax will kill us both."
"Pickle's on it," Nyla Forr rumbles out with a shrug, taking a drag from the joint. She looks down and then scowls. "/Barely/. Pickle, watch our numbers, ya bucket!" Pickle chirps and Nyla rolls her eyes, leaning forward and working the screen in front of her.
As Rake and Morth begin keying in hyperspace coordinates into their respective astrogation systems, the Hotbox keeps traveling along at the front of the clip. Every ship near to Rake in the Sithspit gives the Helix a wide berth given that by now every racing pilot knows that Rake was the one who shot down another pilot in the previous leg. Rake and Morth reach forward oddly enough at about the same time to grasp their hyperspace control levers and as they both pull, only one ship manages to input a correctly configured hyperspace plot. The Parallax slows to a halt moments before all pilots around the Firespray hear a BOOM as the ship launches into hyperspace. A blur rushes past the Hotbox as the Parallax leaps through space, the interior revealing a blurring of flashing light for a few seconds before dropping out of hyperspace to find a front viewport full of moon rushing their way!
Rake mutters a curse in Shistavanen, which is basically a growl. His droid is beeping at him that he needs to focus on piloting, but the old scout just answers with, "I got this, dammit. Quit telling me how to fly." Of course, his luck remains about the same as it has been for the previous legs of the race and the nav-computer keeps spitting the coordinates back at him telling him it can't compute. "I swear, I'm gonna remove the damned safety protocols, that jump is good, even if it does come a bit closer to atmo than would be technically safe, the ship can take it. Must be the new nav-comp I had installed."
Well, everyone is jumping space now, aren't they? The Hotbox is outstripped! "Shit." Jehn chews on her lower lip. "Fuggit." She sighs. "I'm too high for this, alright - let's do some math. Guys, prep us for Astrogate. Hold onto your tits." She breathes and yanks the lever back after everything is keyed in - they don't move and the Hotbox starts to blare needily at her. "Motherf-" Frantically, Jehn slams a button down to silence the alarm and cranks the engines back to life. "I'll deal with that later!" She shouts, now desperately trying to make up for lost ground. Er... Space. "Can you guys see where that error is coming from? I think it's just my math." Pause. "Nyla, you're on math here out." MATHS.
Morth feels the lurch as the Parallax made the successful jump into hyperspace, his eyes leaping open in a fearful surprise even as his mouth opens wide into a silent scream. "Oh no, oh no, oh no," he begins worrying as he watches the computer system fearfully, noting the moon rapidly approaching. There is exactly one single beep of warning before the ship drops out of hyperspace and the view port is filled with white moon. "OH NOOOOO!" the Mon Cal teen wails as he sees death looming before him. He leans back into the pilot chair, hauling backward on the controls and /just/ managing to drag the ship out of a collision course and enter into the swing around of the first moon, assisted by the moon's gravitational pull.
The microjump has Kadi hold her breath, which she lets out with a whoosh. As they are significantly near the moon and ready to navigate around it, she uses the computer to provide assistance to Morth. "Nice flying, Morth! Wow!" she exclaims as they come out of hyper. Lily is immediately helping, running numbers as well but Kadi actually deals with the computer herself, sending the plotted course through to Morth. "Incoming. That should help you get there faster, Morth." Kadi actually is enjoying this. She's a strange cookie.
"Are you sure..." Nyla begins, but then Jehn goes for it. She braces herself for... beeping? Nyla blinks and frowns, turning an ear towards Pickle as the R2 unit whirrs something out. "That's not nice," she grumps and starts to try and work the controls with a growl in the back of her throat. "One second! I'm trying to figure it out... fuckin' bolts 'n' blasters.”
As Morth and Kadi in the Parallax begin their track around the first Moon, the gravitational pull of the first moon helps to slingshot them around and send them on their way. The rest of the vessels carried on by inertia are getting very near the first moon by now themselves, the massive white formation visible before them riddled with craters and obviously totally uncolonized given the total vacancy of any buildings evident upon the surface.
"Maybe I should just start shooting all the opponents, maybe I'd do better," Rake mutters as yet another course is rejected by the damnable nav-computer. "I swear, it ain't my fault. Micro-jumps are a piece of cake, I've got more than 4 decades of experience with them," he growls at the droid who's snark is clear even to anyone who wasn't fluent in Binary. "Alright, alright," he mutters and turns off the autopilot and starts actually flying his ship instead of trying to take the short cut. "At this rate, we might finish this leg before we run out of fuel." As he veers on course, warning klaxons start going wild signifying a collission alert as the Sithspit veers directly into the course of a YZ-775 that nearly runs the small ship over. "DAMMIT!" Rake exclaims as he punches the maneuvering jets hard to starboard, though it was going to cost him even more time than what he wasted on trying to plot the micro-jumps, as he lost the added speed from slingshotting around the moon.
"No I was not sure, because jumping this close is stupid and I make it a point /not/ to do stupid things when I fly!" Jehn's voice is tight, raising an octave as she hunches tensely against the Hotbox's controls. WHY IS EVERYTHING SUDDENLY GOING WRONG?! "I do enough stupid shit the rest of the time!" Maybe hotboxing the Hotbox was a bad idea? Nah. "Friggen' -" Jehn snarls at her console as they finally feel the sweet tug of the moon's gravitational pull, swinging them hard after that slippery damn Firespray. "I'm sorry!" The lanky pilot squeaks, burning hard to catch them up... But still weighing the risk of trying another jump. "Sh-" They're being thrown back toward space. "What do you say, try again?" She's insane, obviously.
Morth makes a wailing sort of whine as the Firespray vibrates through the slingshot maneuver and comes out smooth on the other side. "There it is!" Morth exclaims pointing forward toward the other moon visible out in front of them. "What do you have for me Kadi? And can you see any of the others? Are they catching us?" Morth is trying not to let their early success give him too high of hopes, knowing how bad his luck can turn in a heartbeat.
Kadi's fingers fly over the touch screen about as fast as is possible. She might do this regularly, to judge from her reactions and the concentration she displays. "They're starting to come around the moon, but that definitely got us a good kickstart. I can see - the Hotspot chasing us." She takes a breath, chewing her own lip. "Don't worry about them, Morth, just concentrate on flying." Tap tap, and the new info is passed over to Morth's station. "Good to go."
Nyla Forr isn't happy either. "You /had/ to get high," she accuses with a snarl as she tries to figure out the MATHS. "I'm not a pilot, Jehni'va! I don't really /know/ how to do whatever..." Her hand flips around agitatedly at the beeping. "/That/ wants me to do!" Things are bad and the joint is dropped and smushed under her boot toe. "Fine, do whatever. Shoot Tarion's ugly ass shit if you want."
As the rest of the ships come around the moon and carry through the slingshot to rocket them on toward the next moon in line, the leaders can juuuust see the Parallax far out ahead and rapidly approaching the second moon.
As the Hotbox comes out on the far side of the moon and is slung into the open blackness separating the two moons, alarms begin to flash bright read warnings from the computer systems. Further investigation reveals that whether due to the constant pushing of the engines to their fastest capabilities over the course of the past few races, or simply due to a problem in coolant dispersal now, their engines are beginning to run dangerously close to overheating.
Rake actually stops his ship, having had enough of his droid's bullshit beeps chastising him for his piloting. Standing up from his seat after unstrapping, he scoops up the spherical droid and walks him back towards the airlock of the ship and throws the astromech inside before sealing the interior door. With a huff of relief, Rake walks back to the cockpit and takes a seat, taking a moment to start calculating a proper hyperspace jump while the poor droid is concerned on whether or not he was going to get spaced or not. Of course, the Shistavanen is still fumbling with the numbers, getting rejections from the nav-comp.
"/Okay/!" Jehn grumbles, face reddening as they struggle to gain some sort of distance on the Firespray. "I'm going to try another - " And then alarms. "Of /course/. Of /fucking course/! I need to fly this thing - Pick?!" Their fate is in the droid's grubby little metal sporks now. There are still alarms blaring - Pickle hasn't fixed any overheating issues, probably because that maintenance hatch is /not/ meant for an astromech droid to squeeze in. "Fuck it, I'll fix it later. Guess we should give them a break." She breathes again. "Jumping in 3... 2..."
Morth's eyes are on the rapidly approaching Moon and the coordinates that Kadi is sending forward from the Parallax's computer bank. "Getting close to the moon, going to just try and slide in to a good slingshot around the moon and hope that our lead is good enough to hold out. Does that sound okay? Are we still looking good?"
Kadi nods her head to Morth, even though he can't see it. "Alright, I'll keep the info flowing your way, Morth." She eyes the hot box, frowning briefly, and checking her sensors. "Crelm, the HotBox is catching up - they must have tried a microjump too." Lily beeps an affirmative, and Kadi chews her lip. "Let's slingshot out of here, and then see how things look. First things first."
Nyla Forr 's scowl softens more into guilt. "Calm down," she mumbles and turns her head. "Pickle! Get that third valve fixed. It's not letting us vent heat... I think!" Her eyes snap back to the screen in front of her and she jams a button. Her eyes turn up as they suddenly jump right on the Parallax's bumper. "Holy /shit/," she says in shock.
While the rest of the ships in the race are making it out to half way between the two moons, the Hotbox suddenly leaps into hyperspace and then falls out dangerously close to the rear of the Parallax just as the Firespray is entering into the tug of gravity by the second moon. The Hotbox's engines are now flaring and beginning to smoke from the onslaught of heat that cannot be successfully vented, even as the engines of the Parallax begin to over heat as well.
Muttering curse after curse that his nav-comp wasn't working properly, refusing to fault himself in any way, Rake shoves the throttle to full and begins flying the damned ship as hard as he can instead of trying to plot a micro-jump through hyperspace. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, his astromech has hooked into the computer via scomp-link and opened the interior airlock door to get back into the safety of the ship, quietly rolling his way back towards the cockpit, likely to give a very loud shrill or something at the worst possible moment.
Hello again, old friend - that Firespray becomes the focus of Jehn's world once more, and she swears violently at just how /close/ they suddenly are. "I got shot in the ass for you." She snarls at it, their proximity projected into those goggles. "And stabbed some dude in the kidney." She should probably be more scarred by that than she was. Oh well. "Y'dick!" She doesn't know Tarion isn't on it. BREATH, Jehn - the Hotbox hurtles forward after the Parallax as they pull into the slingshot. Taking deep breathes, the pilot releases her buckle. "I'm going to try and fix the engine while gravity does the work!" She explains hurriedly, loping shakily and diving through the narrow maintenance hatch, squeezing her copilot's shoulder on the way back.... But there is another crash as things go wrong. "DAMMIT." Jehn emerges again, face blackened by soot. "Hang in there, baby." She croons to the ship, strapping back in. "Please hang in there." Sorry, Nyla. She might kill you all - even though the engines are still not venting, the Hotbox holds in there enough to keep them truckin' on. "I'll try again!" She promises nervously.
Morth hasn't exactly been paying attention to the locations of the other ships, because he simply hasn't been able to see any. But as the Hotbox emerges from hyperspace right on their tailpipe, Morth yelps and almost jerks the Parallax into the suddenly close ship in surprise. "Where did they come from?!" he yelps before he realizes Kadi told him they were drawing nearer. "BARNACLE!" the Mon Cal teen yells aloud as the Moon's pull begins to draw them in and sling them around toward the dash toward the finish. "I thought we had this one easy!" Morth wails in sorrow.
Kadi works on those coordinates, getting them to Morth. As she is checking over the sensors, one suddenly goes red as the engine starts over heating. Lily beeps, and Kadi tells her, "You hold things together here." She unbuckles, and moves to the engines with a practiced ease, hands finding the oh-shit-bars on the walls as she does so. "Not on my watch, you damn thing," she grouses. "Don't you know, " Bang, bing, smack. Yeah, she's got a wrench and she knows how to use it. "- we have things to do?" She also quickly adjusts the electronics, once that vent is opened up again, and heat is venting appropriately. Then she returns to her seat, to get back to sending coords to Morth, keeping the info flowing to help his piloting. "C'mon, Morth, we can do this."
Nyla Forr slams a hand down. "/PICKLE/," she yells over her shoulder. "Hold your damn charge, ya damn droid!" They have such a good relationship. "Seriously. It's just a valve. You've got this!" Nervously she looks forward. "I dunno if she's got this. Is it bad? I don't know ships well enough to..." Ugh.
Far out ahead, the Hotbox and Parallax as coming out of their slingshot maneuver and have only the final sprint to the finish line at Nar Shaddaa between themselves and the end of the race. It is quite clear that without some tragic malfunction one of these two ships will win this leg of the race. Sadly, as Kadi manages to open the vents on the Parallax that were beginning to glow red hot, the Hotbox does not have a similar flow of luck. The ships sensors are beginning to go haywire as engine temps rise to dangerous levels. Smoke is billowing out of the engines by this point and though they are still hanging onto the Parallax for first, how long can the ship really hope to go on?
Rake keeps pushing the ship forward, trying to make up for lost time. While he'd never make an actual placing run, he was determined not to come in absolutely last place. At least his ship was faster than Sar's piece of poodoo U-Wing.
"Easy there!" Jehn's grip tightens on the controls as the Parallax lurches toward them. She growls, mistaking it as an intimidation tactic. "We need to get those engines fixed!" She laments, gritting her teeth and yanking them away from that damned beautiful shortcut. Easy way out while they TRY NOT TO GO UP IN FIRE AND FLAMES.
"What is going on over there?" Morth says back toward Kadi. The billowing smoke from the Hotbox smoldering out into space has distracted the Mon Cal teen and even though Kadi is sending him a wicked good course map, he is distracted by the plight of his friends. "Are they okay?"
BEEP BEEP BEEP. Nyla is starting to look panicked. She grabs her datapad and wrenches herself out of her seat, untangling from the harness. "Im... I'm going back to try and fix it!" The mechanic braces as the ship vibrates. "Just worry about the piloting! I'll take care of the engines."
The two leading ships are half way between the final moon and the finish line at Nar Shaddaa. Despite their early accolades, they are really flubbing it up here at the end and neither one manages to pull away from the other. The Parallax is still in the lead, but it is not at a comfortable margin to say the least, while the crew aboard the Hotbox has bigger things on their hands to worry about than winning a race as their ship engine begins to whine loudly. There is a thrumming roar that starts down low before a loud bang can be heard and a frantic knocking from within the engine's housing manifold. Acrid black smoke begins to vent inside the ship in a slow leak while the power cycles and lights inside of the cockpit flicker on and off.
Rake, realizing just how far behind he really is, decides to try once more to try a micro-jump to at least close some of the distance. Again, his calculation is spit back out at him as the nav-computer rejects it. Even his droid, feeling sorry for the Shistavanen, tries calculating a slightly safer course but fails. Maybe it really is the newly upgraded nav-comp that's causing all of his problems this round of the race. Muttering more curses, Rake reaches behind his seat and withdraws his rifle, the heavily upgraded A280 and there's a long moment of him contemplating whether or not he should shoot the damned computer. Fortunately, he gathers his senses, the A280 is known for punching holes in AT-AT's, and it would likely core through the armor of his hull and cause a breech into space. Instead, he resorts to just kicking it multiple times as hard as he can.
"LET ME LAND!" Jehn is begging the ship. "I'll sell myself for parts, baby, I swear just /get us through this/." She pleads, nervously cringing at all the sounds. "Are you okay?!" She yells back, nervous at Nyla's disappearance into the engines - but things... Stop leaking smoke into their vital complexes! So that's nice! Go Nyla! "Good job!" She breathes, but they are still losing speed as they limp with increasing difficulty toward the finish. "/C'mon/." She begs, but it just isn't enough to pull ahead of the Parallax.
Morth tears his eyes away from the smoking engines and looks toward the looming finish line. Shaking his head, Morth leans into the throttle even though it goes against everything he has ever known to leave his friends in a bind. He looks toward the route Kadi has mapped out for him and flies it to the letter, zipping across the finish line in first place. "We won!" he announces, though it is with a voice that reveals his worry for Nyla and Jehni'va. He toggles the ship comms quickly, tuning into the Hotbox and asks, "Jehni'va, Nyla... this is Morth Biddengulp. Are you two alright?”
Kadi shakes her head. "Our engines were overheating, but they're fixed now." A little airily even. Because she doesn't want Morth to worry. "Don't worry, I got the engines, you just concentrate on flying." She checks her sensors and winces as she checks on the Hotbox. "Looks like the Hotbox will need a lot of work after this is over, before the next leg. But right now, they're hard on our tail, Morth."
She continues to work on the sensors - sending data to Morth's piloting station. "Lily, keep an eye on the vents, will you? I don't want those getting in our way now." She is about bouncing in her seat, definitely feeling a bit of adrenaline. She starts turning things down, after the Parallax crosses the finish line, but once things are reset back to reasonable (non-race!) settings, she checks the Hotbox first, frowning slightly. "Looks like they're getting it under control," she says. "Judging by the fact the nasty smoke voiding into space seems to be less." Hey, it's a sign someone on the ship is still conscious at the least. "Do they need an assist?”
"Pickle, take over the computer reads. I'm repairing this thing!" Nyla staggers into the back and grabs a electric socket tool, working her way up into a hatch that exposes some of the mechanics of the ship. Nyla wiggles up, squinting at the heat that rushes out of the belly. The mechanic jams the tool into the pipes and works open the valve manually. The valve unsticks, the vents up above flaring back open. Nyla rips her hand out, frowning momentarily at the burns from the pent up heat. "I... I fixed it!" And back towards the cockpit she stumbles. She hears the crackle of the radio just as she gets there. Without waiting for Jehn she picks up the radio. "Shove it up your..." And then her burned finger slips off the button.
As the Parallax barrels across the finish line at Nar Shaddaa, the Firespray is beginning to pull away from the Hotbox. Doubters will likely say that the only reason the Firespray was able to begin to pull away was because of the Hotbox's tragic overheating complication, a debate that will no doubt cause numerous fights back down on the Smuggler's Moon as bet obligations are attempted to be circumvented. In either case, the Hotbox zooms across the finish light a short distance behind the Parallax and then after an adequate pause for the ships that did not utilize Astrogation to catch up, the rest zoom quickly across in a much tighter bunching. All across Nar Shaddaa cheers erupt for the racers and drink flows.
