The Star Vampire sailed through space, smooth and quiet as an owl in flight. Despite the speed that it was racing forward at, its unique propulsion system made it a ghost's shadow in the void of space. Inside the cockpit, though, the sound of abrasive electronic music pulsed rhythmically. The Star Vampire's teenage pilot, Kiril Genome, diligently attended to its controls and instruments, smoothly maneuvering between obstacles on the race course.

The fighter's radar picked up another ship closing in, and Kiril smiled. There he was, the fool with the guts to challenge the legendary Void Dragon to a private death-race. The next Red-6 Grand Prix wouldn't be for another few months, and so Kiril had taken to accepting challenges from the few isolated loonies that wanted the thrill of racing him. The extra income never hurt.

This guy was really nothing special. A hadron-accellerant engine, electron shields and the usual tricks; EMPs, plasma mines, and a proton lance that he thought Kiril didn't know about. Absolutely nothing Kiril couldn't handle. He had taken a head start at the beginning of their race, but Kiril took the inside track and quietly pulled ahead a few minutes ago. Only now was he catching up.

Kiril pulled back, letting his challenger pull ahead a short ways. He lined up behind the ship, and shifted the Star Vampire into its mecha form. Targeting the other fighter, he charged up the Hydra, and fired its concentrated blast. Surprisingly, the other ship somehow anticipated the beam and swiftly dodged it. Kiril fired a volley of hadron cannon blasts, but these too were dodged. Kiril was intrigued. Either he actually had a decent level of skill, or a sophisticated tracking system. Either way, Kiril would need to deal with him quickly, as his energy readouts indicated that he was now charging his proton lance. The Star Vampire didn't have enough charge in its battery after half a race and several high-power shots to deflect a shot like that and still win the race. Dodging would be too risky in mecha form, so the only choice was to eliminate the other racer before he got his shot off.

Kiril began to punch numbers into the Cor Leonis, plotting several advanced, complicated trajectories. The computer system handled about half of the work, leaving much of the calculations to Kiril. His hands danced furiously along the controls, before finally slamming down to release the chaff missiles. They launched, scattering sheets of thin, reflective metal between the two ships. He then fired the Hydra again, splitting its beam into many, far weaker shots. The lasers hit the chaff, bouncing in many directions. After being reflected back and forth several times, many of the beams zipped toward the challenger's fighter. He dodged each expertly, weaving between the many refracted beams, then slowing and flying straight as though to taunt Kiril. 

"You're good," Kiril said to himself, quietly, "But you don't seem to count very well."

The other half of the beams, which had taken more complex, reflected routes, then shot toward the other ship. Not anticipating these beams, it was lanced by the lasers in several directions, and then exploded.

Kiril sat back in his cockpit seat, content with his victory. He set up the online credit transfer to begin (an arrangement made prior to the race to complete their wager should either of them die), and charted a course back to Red-6. 

---

After making it back to his hanger-apartment on the ramshackle space station and docking the Star Vampire to recharge, Kiril sat at his workbench with a cold drink. He was half-stripped out of his flight-suit; mostly unzipped with the upper half hanging from his waist and his chest bare. The living arrangements weren't bad; he had room to work and keep his ship, the rent was fairly low, and not too many questions were asked. The otherwise squalid state of the apartment and the area it was in didn't bother him.

He set his phone in its docking cradle and set it to read through the Red-6 bulletin boards for him. It kept him up to date on ongoings in the Deadzone, and was also where challenges to Void Dragon were typically posted. Given that the general public couldn't say whether or not he was actually some kind of experimental robot, much less who he was, thid was the only reliable means of getting his attention. There was another reason that Kiril always listed to the local news, but that was a far more personal matter.

As the synthetic voice on his phone prattled off mostly meaningless information, Kiril tinkered with a few projects lying out on his bench. Experimenting with weapons had been his fancy lately, particularly ones that could run off of an ambient power source.

Kiril fiddled with various bits and bobs as he listened to the news, but grew tired before long. Yawning, he shut off his phone and stripped entirely out of his flight-suit, hanging it next to his helmet. He pulled on boxer shorts and an oversized tee-shirt, brushed his teeth in a dirty mirror, washed his face, and climbed into "bed." It may have been a hammock suspended between two large pieces of industrial equipment and covered in overstuffed quilts and blankets, but Kiril liked it. As Kiril drifted off to sleep, he dreamt a dream he often had: a dream of stars and gods, of men and myths.