The race captivated John's attention for some reason. Bme it on his red neck roots, or the fact that his piloting skill was judging the movements of the racers, he couldn't look away from the screen. He hadn't been so invested in something recreational for a very long time.

  The racers all shot off the line at incredible speeds. The small ships were just tiny cockpits strapped to a rge engine; the power-to-weight ratios they created would have been unthinkable back on Earth. The racers themselves were all jockeying for positions, trying to line their ships up in the best spots so they could get the maximum gravity acceleration as they prepared to be slingshot around the pnet.

  Serena, despite being the favorite, was in fact not in the lead, but somewhere in the middle of the pack. She appeared to be burning at a slightly different angle than most of the other ships, taking the upcoming turn wider than the majority of the racers. Annie was behind her, mirroring the Dark Elf's approach.

  "That bitch. She is going in for a hot drop." Chris said beside him. "God damn it, I hate when she does that!"

  "Hot drop?" He asked her, not taking his eyes off the screen.

  "Yeah. In a few moments, she will change her angle again and approach the atmosphere at a steeper angle. She will get a greater slingshot effect coming out the other side, but the risk of her ship burning up increases a lot. Every time she does it, I end up needing to repce a bunch of the pod's parts as its heat shields begin to fail. I swear she has no self-preservation." Chris expined to him, then continued to grumble about all the extra work that was about to be added to her pte.

  Her predictions proved true, and in a few moments, Serena changed her angle and began her dive towards the pnet. Annie and another couple of racers followed her, their ships all cutting through the pack. John thought it was interesting that most of the racers were still bunched fairly close together, considering how much open space there was in... space.

  I guess there are only so many optimal lines they can take.

  He stayed fixated on the screen, and in another minute, the ships all started to interact with the upper atmosphere of the pnet. The pods looked just like fireballs on the screen, the trace gases interacting with the ship's shields, turning into a burning psma as the pilots recklessly charged around the pnet.

  "The speeds they are moving at are incredible." He said, looking at the table on the side of the screen.

  "Yeah. They will reach their apex soon, probably around one hundred and twenty-five kilometers a second or so. If they go much faster, they will eject themselves too quickly on the other side to be able to slow down for the moon." Greg said. "Oh shit, that one went in too steep!"

  John looked back at the television just in time to watch one of the racer's ships explode, the ship disintegrating in the atmosphere. "Holy shit!"

  "And the first casualty for the night has been confirmed, Tara Ringweld. Her pod's heat shielding appears to have failed when she got too close to the atmosphere. Recovery crews are enroute to recover her cockpit. We are still getting life signs from her transmitter, so now it is a race to see if they can recover her before she burns up in the descent." Darnell said on the screen.

  "That's what can happen when you try to mimic the champion. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Tara, and let's hope she makes it and has a speedy recovery." Ananta said, the snake woman sounding sincere. The camera stayed on the wreckage for a moment, but then switched back to the racers, the two commentators continuing their observations like there wasn't a woman fighting for her life right then.

  I suppose there isn't a yellow fg or anything to slow down the race while they rescue the pilot and clean up the crash. Not that the racers are anywhere near there anymore.

  Over the next twenty minutes, another five pods failed during the loop around the pnet, two of which collided with each other, killing both pilots. The rescue crews managed to get to the remaining racers in time, including the first girl, Tara. They were all transferred to a medical facility somewhere in the Third Ring for treatment.

  Ash topped up everyone's drinks as the racers moved towards the moon and their next challenge. Serena was now in the lead, with Annie and two other racers following close behind her. It would be another thirty minutes before they arrived, so everyone just chatted while keeping an eye on the show.

  Eventually, the pods all started to turn on their axis, their engines firing to slow them down. It almost seemed like a game of chicken to John, the pilots waiting until the absolute st moment to do a deceleration burn to slow down enough that they could maneuver in the giant canyon on the moon. Several pilots misjudged and smmed into the surface, not at great speeds but enough so to damage their crafts, knocking them out of the race. Out of the fifty racers who started, forty remained.

  The trench itself looked like a giant snake had slithered across the moon, leaving a wavy track over six miles deep and five miles across. It ran for several thousand miles, though the 'track' for this event was only a hundred and fifty miles long. The pods couldn't operate anywhere near their maximum speed, which gave whoever was the most agile the advantage here.

  "So they need to pass through those rings?" John asked, looking at a giant floating ring at the 'start' of this event. It was octagonal in shape, with beams of green light connecting the 'joints' together. It appeared to be the size of a rge football stadium, and rotated slowly as it awaited the first racers.

  "Yeah. They get smaller further down the track. This is the part of the race where the pack starts to separate more, as the EMP shots will slow down the ships and make maneuvering more difficult. Not to mention, the rocks being flung on them from above." Greg replied. "It can get quite chaotic at times, but Serena is a master at it... Honestly, the only pilot I know who might be able to do better than her is..." He started to say, but trailed off.

  "Is who?"

  "Nevermind, I don't want to stroke her ego anymore than necessary. She gets unbearable that way." Greg replied, gncing at Ash.

  "Fuck you, Greg. You know I want nothing to do with these races." Ash said, lounging back on the couch. "You and Serena keep trying to get me to try it, but all I see is a bunch of pampered rich idiots trying their best to kill themselves in the dumbest way possible."

  "Says the woman who once flew into the hangar of a pirate base to unch a torpedo. Not to mention your antics the other day with the pirate fleet. Admit it, you are curious if you could match up with the empire's best racers." Greg replied, smiling at Ash.

  "As if. No, Greg, I don't want to be a racer. I want to prove myself the best fighter pilot in the Empire. I'm already this guild's ace, now I need to work towards becoming the ace within the western sector of the Kestrel Empire." She said, grumping a bit at Greg.

  "You need to get a different ship then, one with a hyperdrive. Hard to prove yourself the best in the sector when your ship is stuck in this system, Ash." Tanya said, teasing Ash.

  "Don't pretend I don't see what you are doing, Tanya," Ash replied, tossing a pillow at the dwarf. "I won't give up the Tengu just because it doesn't have a hyperdrive."

  The two of them bickered for a bit, with Greg and Chris tossing in the odd barb. John and Niki just watched them, the four of them providing entertainment while the racers were flying down the trench to the 'start' of this part of the course at breakneck speeds.

  The racers started passing through the ring, and that was when the insanity began. Balls of blue electricity started to fly across the canyon, connecting with several ships. The lights on those ships would fsh for a moment, their engines dimming, before the pod would recover and dart off again. Momentum wasn't lost when they were hit, but John could see that the shots were fouling several of the pilots' trajectories.

  "What happens if they miss a ring?" He asked as one of the ships did just that.

  "They lose two seconds on their p time. Sometimes it makes sense to take the penalty, as you can make up for it by being in a position to move faster, but it is a calcuted risk." Greg replied.

  Another ship was hit with the blue balls, but this time a rock came from above, striking the vessel and pushing it lower into the trench. The pod recovered, but was now several seconds behind. Another ship got hit with several balls, stalling the vessel out completely. It smmed into the side of the canyon, knocking it out of the race. Yet another ship got pinned to the floor of the canyon by the rocks falling out of the sky.

  It was insane.

  Serena and Annie were masterful, the pair of them avoiding the majority of the weapons fire, and were pulling away from the pack. There were a few other racers who were several seconds behind yet maintaining the same pace as them, but the vast majority were stuck in the chaos in the back.

  The two women in the front, however, kept hitting every ring, gaining time on their less fortunate racers who would miss rings or would circle back to take the rings they were forced to avoid when dodging attacks. The announcers were having a field day with the event, mocking a few of the pilots and praising others.

  If you could get past the five deaths so far, it was actually a hell of a show.

  Five people have died... and I am enjoying this? Am... am I broken?

  John didn't want an answer to that.

  Serena and Annie blew through the final ring and started their ascent off the moon, heading towards the station and the final leg of the race. The pair of them were head-to-head now, which was incredible since Serena had been racing for decades, while this was the first time Annie had ever raced.

  "She is really good at this," Niki said quietly.

  "She is. You said she was in your css at one point?" Ash replied to her. "That is even more impressive. Serena has been racing for as long as your friend has been alive."

  "She isn't really my friend," Niki whispered, but Ash wasn’t paying attention to her, as the racers were approaching the corridor that they needed to race down to make it to the finish line. It was lined with floating green light, several miles across, and filled with asteroids that were slowly drifting along the path. John could make out several of the Leeches, which looked like manta rays, moving around the asteroids. Really big manta rays.

  "How do they?" He started, then paused, not sure about what he wanted to ask exactly.

  How do they survive in the vacuum of space? What do they eat? How do they even move?

  He had so many questions.

  "Magnetism and Mana," Ash said, reading his thoughts. "They are simir to the Javarians that way, able to move through space with magic. They will then attach themselves to ferrous metals and feed off them. They tend to live in asteroid belts or on small moons where they don't need to fight gravity so much. They really like to suck on energy sources, hence why they are usually a pain in the ass for miners. We mercs usually have to hunt them down when we are under contracts with miners."

  "I see," John said. He would need to do some research at some point and see what other kinds of space creatures existed.

  The racers punched into the corridor at Mach Jesus, weaving in and around the asteroids. They were moving fast enough that the creatures didn't have time to register them before they had long passed them, causing the announcers to ment the fact that they didn't get to see what would happen when one of them managed to tch on to a pod.

  That changed when the main pack of racers began their run through the asteroids. The remaining thirty or so ships, unable to maintain the speeds that the leaders did, had to go through the asteroids more slowly. Several of the monsters managed to grab hold of the pods, draining them of power, and began eating the hulls. The racers would try smming the creatures against asteroids, attempting to knock them off their vessels.

  Eventually, safety ships would move in, bsting the creatures off the pods, disqualifying the pilots but saving their lives. It knocked the total number of racers down to eighteen.

  Back in the front, Serena had pulled ahead of Annie, and with the track clear, she crossed the finish line and took first pce. Greg pumped his fist, cheering for his friend and partner.

  "Ah ha! She did it! I knew- Huh?" Greg said, then faltered.

  Annie's thruster exploded, causing her pod to careen into the side of Serena's pod, knocking them both off course. They tried to recover, but the pair of racers crashed into the side of the station, destroying a sensor ptform that extended from its surface. They both scraped along the station, coming to a stop in crumpled wrecks beside each other.

  "By the Stones!" Greg, Chris, and Tanya said as one.

  "By the World Tree!" Ash said at the same time.

  "Holy Crap!" John added, his eyes glued to the television.

  Sports in this world are insane.