Title: Kindred Knights: In the Driver's Seat (1/2)
Fandom: Star Wars (Kindred Knights)
Summary: It was Nerca Beyul's first time in the driver's seat. She was barely eleven years old, and this wouldn't yet be legal for another five.
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: (young) Nerca Beyul (no, not me; the character)
Genres: action
A/N: Written for scififive, and set obviously way back before most of the other Kindred Knights stories.
Kindred Knights: In the Driver's Seat
It was Nerca Beyul's first time in the driver's seat of a real airspeeder (as opposed to the simulators she was familiar with in some of her classes at the Jedi Temple). She was barely eleven standard years old and what she was about to do wouldn't be legal for another five. But her master was in trouble and she didn't have time to search out any help. So she settled herself comfortably into the driver's seat of her master's speeder.
Nerca had always been big for her age, but sitting on the very edge of the driver's seat with it set in the forward-most position, her feet barely reached the pedals and she could hardly see over the control panel.
She was determined, though, to make this work.
Keeping her master in mind, she turned the speeder on quickly. It revved to life. She only allowed herself to revel in the feel of the power at her fingertips for a small fraction of a second. Then she threw a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure the way was clear and threw the speeder into reverse.
To both her surprise and her delight, she backed out cleanly.
She didn't allow herself to revel in that either, but threw the speeder into drive and hit the accelerator pedal. The floor of the parking garage rushed past beneath her until it fell away to empty, open air.
A cool draft of that air greeted her, making everything suddenly real. Her hands held the steering controls in a death grip. She was doing this. She was really doing this and she couldn't turn back now.
Using the Force, she calmed herself and forced all of her muscles to relax fractionally. To do this, she had to loosen up a little.
Nerca's dark eyes scanned the lanes of fellow airspeeder traffic as she settled in to a lane herself. It was difficult—especially to such a new driver—to split her attention between the speeder in front of her and looking for a specific one in the dozen other lanes around her, but she managed it.
There! There it was! The vehicle she was looking for! She saw it!
Two lanes up and to the right of Nerca, a sleek, blade-shaped airspeeder was moving inconspicuously along with the other vehicles. Luckily for her, that lane was moving in the same direction she was and they weren't too far ahead for her to easily catch up.
As gently as she could, Nerca eased out of the flow of traffic and into the other lane with the speeder she was chasing. She found out rather quickly that this lane was flowing quicker than the one she'd previously been in. And the blade-speeder (as she had named it in her mind) was definitely keeping up with the faster pace.
Reluctantly, she sped up enough that she was constantly a safe following distance behind the blade-speeder.
She followed behind it through several intersections, staying at the same distance. And she also kept a careful eye out for police droids—if one of those spotted her, she'd get in deep trouble for underage driving.
Ahead of her, the blade-speeder sped up suddenly, taking off at a speed that was probably double the legal limit. Nerca muttered angrily her breath as she sped up to follow after them. They had to have spotted her.
The wind that rushed into the airspeeder's open cabin and through Nerca's golden hair felt so right to her, as though she'd been feeling it all of her life. The speed that she reflexively coaxed from the engines to keep up with the clearly better blade-speeder felt amazing. The twists and turns—which she handled on pure instinct before she even realized that they were there—felt as easily and mindless as breathing.
She never wanted to let it go. Never.
It was then that she rather abruptly realized that the speeder she was chasing was edging away from her, and it would slip away from her completely if she didn't do something quick.
She looked down at the controls frantically, but there was nothing she could think of to do that would draw any more speed or power from the already maxed out engines. For a moment, she despaired.
But then, she realized, if she couldn't make her speeder go any faster, maybe she could slow down the speeder that she was chasing. A stabilizer! If she could hit a stabilizer somehow, the speeder would lose at least some of its control and have to land.
Nerca glanced down at her seat, then let go of the steering controls with one hand to feel around clumsily beneath the seat. If she remembered correctly, there should be… Yes, there! She gratefully wrapped a hand around the blaster's handle and yanked it out from under the seat.
Sitting back up just in time, she noticed she was about to collide with another speeder and threw hers sharply to the side to avoid a nasty crash. Again, she muttered angrily at herself under her breath. That had been a stupid mistake.
Now is not the time to kick yourself! she thought sharply. Now is the time to shoot that speeder's stabilizer, before it gets away!
Even though her hand was shaking, she lined up the blaster and took the shot. The first energy bolt missed wide to the right as the targeted speeder swerved. The second, more carefully aimed shot, also missed.
The third shot, though, hit exactly where she wanted it. The targeted stabilizer sparked and flared out of life.
The speeder in front of Nerca turned into a loose tail spin and spiraled slowly downward, like a falling leaf, and she realized the stupidity of her mistake.
TBC in part 2