| With the race day quickly approaching, the contestants’ nerves are stretched taut finishing their final preparations. Taking a break, Lieutenant John Valdivia and Lieutenant JG Iniko Mpeba run into each other on the Deep Space 6 Promenade and trade friendly barbs about each others’ chances. Garll, the proprietor of The Blue Sea Deli, suggests to Lieutenant Janel Tarna that his skills as a medic might come in useful during the race.
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Finally the day of the race arrives to find the teams doing last minute preparations in their shuttles. Lt Commander Maxwell Traenor and Lt Valdivia meet up at their shuttle, Deep Thought. Only Lt Valdivia will be flying in the shuttle, which will be piloted by an AI based on data from his old friend Eric Lundrigan. The AI, who they dub “Lundy”, is skeptical that the other pilots will present much competition. Lt Commander Rendal Rennyn and LtJG Mpeba worry that their hastily assembled frankenstein shuttle, Ugly Baby, will fall apart, and discuss their competitors. Lieutenant JG Todd Manius has enlisted the help of Lt Commander Kael Thomas to build his shuttle, which he is piloting with N’rila and Lieutenant Eleonara Podgorny as the Subspace Scimitars. Lt Manius was blackmailed into flying in this race by N’rila, and is dating Lt Podgorny, so things are a little tense there. Captain Harrington James is acting as a judge, and also sponsoring one of the teams, Wintermyst, crewed by pirates. They have done some creative thinking to get around the “no weapons” rule.
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| The race consists of 14 laps around a course which passes through an asteroid field and a nebula, with some twists at the end. Deep Thought encounters their first challenge to the AI pilot on the first lap, where there are obstacles hidden in the nebula designed to be invisible to optical sensors. By the second lap, Ugly Baby is already falling apart. On lap 4, Wintermyst releases their surprise, sending one of their team members out to scatter EMP mines in the asteroid field. Ugly Baby manages to avoid the EMPs but loses most of their sensors to an asteroid during lap 10. By lap 11, Ugly Baby’s thrusters are falling out of alignment, making navigating around obstacles a challenge. At lap 12, Lt Valdivia and Lundy use Deep Thought’s prototype warp engines to send the asteroid field into turmoil. Shortly afterwards they hit one of the EMP mines and Lundy goes offline for several terrifying minutes. With a lap and a half left, Ugly Baby’s thrusters are so far out of alignment that they initiate their emergency thrusters to compensate. Turning them on causes a minor explosion which takes out the emergency thruster controls, leaving them without the ability to slow down. It also knocks out their backup-backup sensors so they have to fly the rest of the course blind. As Ugly Baby nears the end, Lt Mpeba makes preparations to manually kill the emergency thrusters, along with several other vital systems.
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| Finally the shuttles approach the finish line. Tensions mount in Lt Manius’ shuttle, with Wintermyst gaining ground steadily. N’rila decides to open the EPS power taps well past the redlines, causing the impulse engines to overheat. Moments later a relay explodes, taking Lt Podgorny’s console with it and knocking her unconscious. A frantic Lt Manius leaves the ship to autopilot and goes to look after his girlfriend, much to N’rila’s annoyance. Convinced that they are about to win, she reveals that she never had any real blackmail material on him. Lt Manius is angry at falling for her ruse, but with this revelation he no longer has any reason to continue the race. When another console explodes and knocks N’rila out he decides to evacuate the burning shuttle. He takes Lt Podgorny with him, but can’t get a transporter lock on N’rila, so he leaves her for the emergency crews to retrieve. As Lt Manius and Lt Podgorny arrive back on Deep Space 6, their shuttle explodes, leaving no life signs. Cmdr Rennyn and Lt Mpeba are flying completely blind at this point and narrowly miss the exploding shuttle before passing the finish line. Lt Valdivia notice the shuttle in distress, and realizing that it is Lt Manius’ shuttle, attempts to offer assistance moments before it explodes. He checks with the station and learns that Lt Manius is safe, but stops to check for the missing crew member. He tags the body for transport as the rest of the surviving shuttles finish the race.
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