Chapter 5 - Motor Fight

I gazed out of our crafts clear window into the darkness of space, the stars making little impact on the blackness before me.

I was on a silver spacecraft, on my way to the first match of the tournament for my team. The metal floor clanking beneath my feet and the ceiling rattling above my head.

"Why did we have to buy this shit to ride the galaxy? We need a better team ship!" Motig complained.

"It's the best we could buy, we don't have everything. I promise, once we have more cash, we'll buy a better ship!" I replied, slightly annoyed at his question.

"This match should be easy." Pete replied. "The team that we're facing only just qualified."

"Good point Pete." I told him.

In the spaceport at Earth, we had picked up a new companion. His name was Pete and he had a tan, a permanent one. He dressed like Malcolm, who was no bad thing, Malcolm was a great warrior, but he worshipped the guy. He had almost the same shades, same army green hat. Same short black hair. At least the top and trousers were different. He had camouflage trousers and a tight, grass green T-Shirt. Pete had black trainers, that had an excellent grip, but the problem was, he was by far the slowest in the group. But that didn't matter; we were on motorboats shooting between the old Earth islands of Kefalonia and Ithaka. We would be going at speeds of approximately one hundred miles an hour, maybe more.

"But we should never underestimate the enemy!" I warned. "We're using live ammunition here, so lets take them out quick!"

"YES SIR!" My team shouted in unison. As we approached the Gen Mo'Kai land called Tamarus (old Earth).

I was sketchy on the history. But I knew my great-great-great-grandparents lived there. Or so my mother had told me. Most of it had been destroyed by the Skaarj invasion, which mankind just repelled. But the lush islands and several other places had survived, and that's where Gen Mo'Kai lived now. We let them have it since we had found another planet, and they had helped us.

The Unreal Tournament sport of Motor race was formed when some Gen Mo'Kai fishermen discovered an old motorboat, from ancient times and 're-modelled' it so it was better. It was now bigger, with turbo boasters attached to the back, not propellers and several seats placed in places where people could sit and fire at people. I didn't know much beyond that, but then again, I didn't particularly want to know.

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Our arrival on Kefilonia, now known as Trama, was a pleasant one, we landed perfectly, somehow. But now we were at the southern dock, and were boarding our ships.

There was a seat for the driver, who was Pete, a seat for a Sniper, Tamika, a seat for the other person, which was Motig, who was using a shock rifle and a gun turret, where I was sitting. We had a choice of what turret we wanted, and me being I, choose minigun over Link. The turret was a green, like my minigun and had a massive minigun sticking out the front. The black seat looked comfortable and was black; the controls were a joystick kind of thing. I was told that to swivel the turret round, I moved the joystick left, and to swivel the turret right, I moved the joystick left. There was trigger button on the stick and a red button on the top for changing firing mode. A sheet of bulletproof glass protected the turret user, this didn't mean that the turret was invincible; you just had to fire at the other parts.

The rest of the ship was white. The driver was at the back; he controlled the speed of the ship and where we turned. He had a clear view as he was at the side. In the middle of the ship, was Motig, who was going to be nearest to the opposition, and then Tamika to the side of him. I was at the front, and so I would feel the full front of the waves, making it difficult to hit.

The rules of Motor race were simple. You had to take out the other ship, or kill all of there crew. The ships were heavily armoured, so going for the opposition was the best. It wasn't a race at all, so the title was misleading, but nobody cared. Once we got to the other side of the course, we turned around and headed back the way we came.

Boarding the boat, we were given the signal to get to the starting line, and there, we were given a minute to eye our opposition, well, not exactly. They were about fifty metres away so we couldn't see their faces, but I could see their boat.

They had chosen a link turret. This was pointier than the minigun turret, and didn't have a minigun attached. Instead, there was a small hole with four squares around it.

There ship was white, like ours.

"Destroyers! Ready?" The announcer asked.

"YES!" They screamed in unison. I think they might have been trying to scare us, but we just looked and smirked.

"Rapid Slashers! Ready?" The announcer asked again.

"Yep!" We chirped.

"THREE! TWO! ONE! RACE!"

And with that, Pete twisted his hand sharply, giving us a boost start. I turned towards my enemy and opened fire. Bullets spewed out of my guns barrels, showering the water with stray bullets.

Few shots hit my enemies ship, but what did hit, made no difference.

The other team, however, was doing well. Their sniper and other gunner were keeping my team low, where as the man on the link cannon, was slowly damaging my minigun turret.

"C'mon team! Lets show them what we're made of!" I screamed, opening fire once again.

Tamika nodded and peeked her head over the edge, letting off a loose shot that missed the opponent by miles. Motig stayed low, he needed to as well, if he poked his head over and shot, he would be dead in a matter of seconds and none of his shots would hit.

Pete was not enjoying himself. He swayed to and fro, making it hard for the opponent to hit.

I aimed for the opposing turret, and opened fire once again. We both were taking damage and both weren't giving up.

We were about half way through our first straight, and things weren't looking good. But things were getting worse when I heard a lone sniper shot and then was jerked forward as our ship stopped.

"PETE!!" I screamed, before I even turned to see his body lying on the floor, blood pouring out from his neck, his body limp and floppy.

"O SHIT!" Tamika shouted.

"Tamika! Drive!" I ordered.

"But I'm the sniper!" She argued.

"Are you disobeying orders?" I asked. "I'm the captain of this team, and I issue the orders! Get it?"

"Yes sir!" Tamika answered and quickly jumped onto Pete's seat.

Another, more serious jolt happened as Tamika shifted us into top speed within a second. I could already tell that she was a more aggressive driver.

"Motig!" I called.

"Yes sir?" he asked.

"Stay down until I say so!" I ordered.

The enemy was now insight and I opened fire again, this time having more luck with hitting. In the first few seconds of firing I hit one man several times. He wore yellow armour that was now covered in blood from his heart.

This was a slight moral boost for my team, as I smiled and continued firing, this time, at the Link Cannon.

The man manning the cannon I was shooting at fired back, and when I glance at my damage metre, I noticed that I was screwed if I didn't jump.

Letting go of the joystick, I stood up and leaped towards Motig as I saw the damage metre reach five percent. And as soon as I leaped, the turret exploded in a fiery fury of yellow orange and deep red. Rolling on the floor of the ship, I opened my eyes to find myself at Tamika's foot.

"Why aren't you moving?" I asked.

"You killed the sniper, I have no worry."

"Oh, do we have any spare weapons?" I asked.

"Cabinet, and you might want to move off Pete's dead body, ew!" She replied.

I nodded and crawled over to the white cabinet.

"Hey Motig!" I called.

"Yes?"

"Open fire on that Link cannon!"

Before turning, I saw a smile appear on his face. He twisted and shot several balls of energy with supreme accuracy. The best bit was, before they hit, he shot three lines of energy, making a purple explosion next to the turret. And within seconds, I head an explosion, and a scream as the man manning the turret flew into the water.

I knew he was dead; he had several layers of armour that would make even the lightest person sink.

Continuing with my journey towards the cabinet, I noticed I slight unease with my teammates. You tend to notice these things when you're a captain. Once at the cabinet, I swivelled round to face Tamika.

"What's wrong?" I queried.

"Nothing." She replied, not taking her eyes off the ocean before us.

"What's wrong Tamika?"

"NOTHING! NOW PISS OFF!" She screamed, glaring at me.

"Okay!" I said quickly.

I turned to open the cabinet. All I heard was silence. Motig had stopped firing; Tamika was still driving, but not making a noise herself.

"We can't work as a team if we don't communicate!" Motig broke the silence.

I opened the cabinet and tried to ignore him.

"We're in the tournament! We should be happy, we're most probably going to win now, but if we don't talk, then we may as well surrender. A team works by communicating! If we don't get along, then we're not a team!" Motig told us.

"He's right you know." Tamika sighed. I remained silent, but paused. "What do you think Sam?"

I still remained silent, but continued in my actions of getting a gun. Once I had my hands on a minigun, I turned, to see the two faces of my teammates staring at me.

"I think we should go and kick ass!" I cheered, and with a rousing cheer from my team, I leaned over the side of our boat, and opened fire.

With this enthusiasm, Motig and me shot, and killed another member of the enemy team. So much for 'Destroyers'. All they had left now was the driver who couldn't fire on us.

We were up to the turn in the 'race'. We turned and deliberately moved closer to the enemy.

"Tamika?"

"Yes sir?" She asked.

"Get hold of your sniper, I'll drive!" I smiled. She smiled back and jumped into the seating are I was in. At the same time, I lurched forward to grab hold of the throttle stick.

Driving was relatively easy, the black stick that stuck out of the covered motor. The handle felt warm, but that was most probably my cold hand.

I watched Tamika do her work. She stared, one eyed down the scope and tracked the opposition.

A click of the trigger and the sound of a bullet travelling at about five hundred miles an hour, told me all I needed to know.

"Got 'em!" Tamika celebrated.

Sighing that the race was finally over, I steered the boat towards the starting post.

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Night had fallen and I had come back to my boat. Pete's green clothed body in my arms. I sighed. He was a great man.

At least we had avenged his death.

"You all right?" A voice asked.

"Yeah, you?" I answered.

"I'm fine." Tamika replied, sitting next to me. "I saw you out here and came to apologize."

"You don't need to apologize Tamika! Pete's death wasn't your fault!"

"I know, I came to apologize about earlier, I'm sorry that I got in a mood with you, it had come at a surprise to me."

"Its all right."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah! Now c'mon, lets go to bed, I'm tired!"

Tamika giggled and rushed back to our hotel. Taking one last look at Pete's body, I stood up and laid it in the water, bowing my head, I turned and ran to catch up with Tamika.