Songs: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Ain't No Easy Way; Los Tiki Phantoms - Góndola; Dick Dale - Miserlou
"Be careful, okay? And take care of Tina." Mordecai said while I was working on one of Scooter's runners. I found that I had started to be less pessimistic about everything and had thrown myself into all kinds of activities lately. Maybe I just felt better now that I was fully used to the new leg and didn't have any pain in my leg anymore. Maybe it was that I knew I could leave Pandora and go elsewhere easily on cargo ships, if I needed to. Maybe it was all the self confidence I had gotten from the competitions on Artemis. Maybe it was finally meeting Anouk. Who knew.
Whatever it was, I was ready to recklessly go into one of the Pandoran races. I was good at driving, I prided myself on my driving skills for 10 years, because I had nothing else to do all day out in the Middle of Nowhere. So after hanging out with Scooter for a good while, we figured we should do a race.
So here I was, fixing up some last bits, checking that everything worked. Scooter rolled out from under the car and grinned at Mordecai.
"Don' you worry, now, Nova here's a good driver, she knows what she's doin'. This is gon' be awesome!" he replied.
"He's right." I agreed and pointed at Scooter. Mordecai was shaking his head and sighed, before smiling at me.
"There's so many ways to die on this planet, I'll never understand why you'd choose something like a car race." he said.
"I won't die!" I protested and laughed.
"You better not die!"
"Let me tell you a secret." I said with a grin and beckoned him closer. He came closer until I could whisper into his ear.
"I never die."
"That's my line." Mordecai replied and just shook his head.
"Well, don't worry. I'll be careful and we'll take care of Tina, too. I mean this isn't Bossanova's death race or something. Everything will be fine." I told him. He sighed again. It was clear he'd rather have me stay out of dangerous activities, but he also full well knew it wouldn't go down well with me if he mentioned it. I knew he was scared and I tried to play things as safe as possible, but we were back on Pandora, so safe wasn't really an option anymore.
"That's not very reassuring, but fine. I guess I'll have to let you go. How long until the race starts?" he asked.
"I dunno... twenty minutes? Ten?" I answered and shrugged.
"Hey Tina! Come over here, they're starting soon!" Mordecai shouted. It didn't take long until Tina came running over, a mischievous grin on her face.
"Nuh uh, ain't no one startin' without me. Ain't that right, auntie?" she said and gave me a smug look.
"Right as rain, girl." I agreed.
"We almost ready, ladies!" Scooter shouted from under the car. Mordecai gave me a quick kiss.
"Promise you'll be careful." he said.
"I will. See you later." I replied and got into the car and ready to drive, adjusting all my mirrors and controls.
"Hey, Tina!" Mordecai called. Tina, who had jumped into the car already, looked up at him, as she prepared some grenades.
"What up?" she asked.
"Careful, yeah?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be careful and won't die, yada yada yada." she replied and rolled her eyes, before getting back into her gunner seat. Scooter rolled out from under the car and hopped into the passenger seat next to me.
"Well. Good luck out there, I guess." Mordecai said and turned around to leave the garage, as we started up the car.
"Hey, Mordy! Love you!" I shouted over the noise of the engine.
"Love you, too, chica."
With that he walked out and Tina, Scooter and I were left to our own devices. I checked my ECHO device. It was high time we made our way to the start line, because the actual race would start soon.
"Everyone ready?" I asked as I turned on the engine. It didn't exactly make a healthy sound, but I knew that was because Scooter and I had tweaked it to do the maximum speed the car could handle. I really hoped we didn't miscalculate anything and explode the car out there. That would be awkward.
"Ready!" Tina shouted.
"Ready. This is gon' be fuuuuuuuun!" Scooter added to that. I grinned and drove out of the garage and towards the start line. I could see about five other teams in the race, most of them hodunks, some of them bandits. The route was pretty clear for Pandoran standards and barely involved any dangerous obstacles.
"And now it's time for what you've been waiting for: the Hodunk kickoff race for this year! Whoever is the first to do five laps wins the mystery box!" someone announced over a loudspeaker. There was a woman standing on a pedestal, holding a massive flag. She was scantily clad, but it seemed to be the norm at races.
"I wants the mystery box, I wants the mystery box, I wants the mystery box!" Tina was chanting from the back of the car. I got ready to start driving and speed up as quickly as I could.
"Patsy up here will give the start signal... best of luck!" the announcer said. I looked up at the woman waving the flag.
"Ah, sweet Patsy." Scooter said with a dreamy smile on his face.
"You know her?" I asked.
"Yeah, she's my cousin." Scooter answered.
"Ah." I said, not asking any further. Whatever was going on between Scooter and Patsy, I probably didn't want to know. I kept my eyes on her waving the flag, a fake smile pasted on her face. She swung it a few more times until she quickly lowered it. That was the signal to start.
"Go, go, go, go, GOOOOOO!" Tina shouted immediately, as I put my foot down on the gas pedal. We took off pretty slowly compared to the rest of the cars, but Scooter and I had been working tirelessly to make sure we were able to accelerate fast. I quickly shifted into second, third and fourth gear. There were about 4 cars behind us, the other five in front of us. I tapped on my ECHO device.
"Tina, you know what to do." I said. It was way too loud for me shout it up to her, so we figured it would be best to just use the ECHOs.
"I GOTCHA, GUUUUUURL!" Tina screamed into her ECHO device. It didn't take long until we could hear an explosion behind us and soon after another one. Looked like Tina had done a great job with her homemade grenades.
"WOOOOHOOOOOOO!" Scooter shouted as I shifted into the last gear and as we were getting closer to the car in front of us. We quickly overtook them and they didn't look happy about it.
"Tina, I think you better hold on tight or do something about the guys behind us. They don't look happy." I told her.
"On it, sis."
"Maaaaan, we'll end up being the only ones still in the race if Tina keeps on throwin' bombs left, right and center like that!" Scooter shouted, sounding suspiciously excited about blowing up our opponents.
"That's kinda the point, isn't it?" I asked Scooter, as I overtook another one, almost losing control of the car in one of the more dangerous bends in the road (if you could really call it a road, even).
"Sure is!" he replied and screamed something unintelligible at the car we were passing. We were on the third position now which was when I actually had to focus. From now on, the only way we could still overtake people was by maneuvering smartly or by throwing grenades at them.
The thing about the grenades was that they'd also be thrown at us, so that kind of added to the difficulty of the whole situation. It was Scooter's job to have a look out for anyone who was trying to kill us in the race, but he seemed preoccupied with having fun while Tina was in the gunner seat, shooting and throwing grenades.
"Scooter! Focus! We're on third position, there's a couple people left that might try and kill us now!" I shouted at him.
"Oh yeah, almost forgot. Sorry!" he replied. I sighed and quickly glanced at my many mirrors. Looked like there was someone closing in on us from the back, but he had to slow down for the next bend. We were also getting dangerously close to the next car in front of us. I really hoped Scooter was keeping an eye on them.
"Grenade directly in front of us!" he suddenly screamed. I swore under my breath and moved the car to the side, but not without losing some momentum and almost losing control and crashing us.
"The other guys are coming up close behind us and I ain't got too many grenades left!" Tina announced over the ECHO.
"Oh for fuck's sake. Just shoot them, Tina, okay?" I answered her.
"Roger that."
The next thing we heard was rapid fire from the machine gun mounted on top of the car. Hopefully Tina knew what she was doing there, I got the feeling she was just wildly shooting all over the place.
After a good while of that we suddenly heard a loud bang and the sound of a massive explosion following that. Some car must have blown up close to us, because I could even feel the heat and some of the pressure from the blast. It almost pushed me off the road and right into a massive rock.
"Got 'em."
"How many are left, guys?" I wanted to know. There were quite a few cars that had exploded at this stage, so I was wondering whether there might not even be that many left. We might be lucky and win some cash without even finishing the race.
"Uh... One, two... GRENADE!" Scooter screamed suddenly.
"Fuck, where?"
Scooter didn't even answer. All I could feel was an enormous heat and the car being pushed off the road quickly by a massive pressure wave.