IPSA, Test Track, Area 52
(Skipper's POV)
We have arrived at a crazy looking race course that was set up. With tire walls, tire piles, road spikes, oil slicks, barrels, concrete barriers, stripped down cars, flamethrowers, a real armed tank, flaming trashcans, overturned trucks, mysterious goo, and a on fire airplane. Ending in a final drag and then a ramp and a flaming hoop over a pool filled with crocodiles. And finally the finish lane with a parking space we were supposed to turn into by hitting the brakes... fast.
"Welcome to the first of the new challenges," Rockgut said, "The Combat Driving course!"
"Team Penguin will complete the course in a heavily modified hot-rod race car."
"North Wind will compete in this armored SUV!"
"And Robo-team will deploy their fully autonomous R-SUV."
"Each of the obstacles you successfully avoid will get you a point," Rockgut said, "reaching the finish line will give you 100 points. If you crash... you get 0 points."
"This is not a speed trial," Rockgut said, "But do try and finish before the sun goes down."
"First Robo-team will go," Rockgut said.
Round 1: Robo-team
The driver-less R-SUV with all it's radar, GPS, Lidar, and cameras rolled onto the starting line.
"Start your engine!"
A V-8 filled the air as the R-SUV started it's engines.
"Ready!"
"Set!"
A airhorn goes off and the R-SUV quickly accelerated.
It dodged the Tire wall and then dodged and weaved through the tire piles. It drifted in order to avoid the Road spikes on the right side of the road. It then did a U-turn to drive on the wrong side of the road... or the right side if you're Private. It the S-curved to avoid the two Oil Slicks and avoided smashing the barrels aside. It then did a tight drifting turn to avoid the concrete barriers. It then weaved and ziz-zagged through the crushed cars. It activated it's brakes and entered a spin to dodge a blast of Flamethrower flames. It then drifted around a tank faster then it could fire it's weapon.
It weaved through the flaming trashcans and the R-SUV spun around and reversed drifted to avoid the 'jack-knifed' truck and the overturned truck. It spun around again and sped past the mysterious goo and under the upturned wing of the burning plane. It sped into the final straight-away and jumped the ramp at the end of it. It spun through the air as it went through the flaming hoop as crocs tried to bite at it. The car landed and went squealing across the tarmac and burned rubber across the line. The Car slides to a stop in the parking spot on the other side.
"One hundred and eight points," Rockgut said.
Round two: North Wind
The North Wind copied everything the robot's did but ended up sliding sideways across the line. The car rolled over and landed on the parking spot.
"All that work and you crash?" Rockgut said, "Zero points!"
Round Three: Team Penguin
"Rico take the wheel," I said.
"Oh yeah," Rico said.
Rico hopped in the driver seat followed by the rest of us and Rico drove to the start line.
"Start your engines!"
Rico put the car in ignition and the engine roared to life.
"Get ready!"
"Set!"
Before the Bullhorn could go off the car exploded.
"Zero points!" Rockgut said.
"That's wasn't a crash!" Classified said.
"We didn't even cross the start line!" I shouted.
"That was an explosion!" Kowalski said.
"Gasoline sparked," Rockgut said.
"That explosion could only have happened with high-explosive! Light plastic explosive like C-4!"
"It was a crash," Rockgut said, "Zero points."
"So far Robo-team has 108 points... Team Penguin and North Wind have Zilch, nada, nothing," Rockgut said.
"Something isn't right here," Classified said.
"I don't make the rules," Rockgut said, "Oh wait! I do you sore losers!"
"I have a bad feeling," Kowalski said
"It wasn't this hard last time," I said.
"Actually it is harder then usual," Classified said, "and something is off... I can feel it."
"Unfair competitions," I said, "we can handle it... Rockgut being unconcerned by an exploding car... is unsettling"
"The only way to get to the bottom of this..." Classified said, "Is to win!"
"And those winners will be us," I said.
"In your dreams," classified said.
"We have no need for trash talk," one of the Agent-bots said.
"Of course not," I said.
"Robots don't boast," Agent-bot A said, "we don't require ego inflation."
"Oh solid burn," Kowalski said.
"We will succeed in the name of Ultima Pentr- IASA!" The robot said.
"Pentr-?" Kowalski said, "No can't be..."
"Well that was weird," I said.
"Glitching already?" Private said.
"Not as perfect as they said they were," Kowalski said.
(Ultima Pentron's POV)
I threw 'Agent-bot A' across the interior of the crashed dalek ship that served as our base, "You almost exposed us!" I said.
"They must not know that Pentron is reborn!" I screamed.
"I will not slip up again," It said.
"You better not," I said, "Now go back out there and keep beating those organics!"
"Yes sir," 'Agent-bot A' said.
"I should have been put in charge of Robo-team," the Elite Unit said.
"But you would be recognized," The Lighting gunner said.
"Silence," The Heavy Assault Unit said.
"I could use this," The Minion-bot said holding up his laser bazooka arm.
"I doubt that works anymore," Faketron said.
"No power source," the Head of Pentron 3.0 said.
I turned to the display case that the head was being keep in.
"I will finish what you started," I said, "Team Penguin will be extinct."
"Then we have work to do," the head said.
(end of chapter three)