Ashers lay on the bed looking up at her bandaged hands and forearms. Throughout her training with the LDF and even during the examinations her fierce confidence had never faltered but now, as she prepared for deployment, she was beginning to feel the fear that should have caught up with her ages ago. In training it was all well and good to be confident, even reckless. If you screwed up the consequences were unpleasant but not final. One could run a thousand laps of the campus over the duration of the course and survive ultimately unharmed. In real life however things would be different, dangerous. The slightest mistake could end her life or worse, someone else's. Ashers blinked and suddenly she found herself elsewhere.
The eager thrum of the shock racers engine reverberated through Ashers body, its immense power pressing her back into the seat as she accelerated along the straight and across the chequered line where the race had started and, very soon, would end. The cheers of an entire arena managed to reach her over the roar of her engine at a volume so loud it was almost all-consuming. The fans had come here to see a spectacle of speed, to share in the excitement of the drivers as they pushed themselves to the limit in the search for the perfect lap and bathe in the glory of a victor. Ashers was going to be that victor. She had decided it long ago. She would be the first rookie driver to top the leaderboard in the shock racers most prestigious global event and that would all start here. Today.
Third place and two laps left. Ashers was going to have to pull a miracle out of her pale arctic wolf backside if she was going to come first butt Ashers intended to do just that. Ashers passed through the next tight chicane with almost disdainful impunity, not even letting her foot off the gas as she catapulted herself around the following wide, left hand corner and onto the next straight. As Ashers came to the end of the corner the faint thrum of a second engine met her ears over the cacophony of the crowd and the roar of her engine. There! Just in front of Ashers was the driver placed second in the race. A sloppy exit from the chicane had cost him valuable time on the next corner and dragged him back to within overtaking distance of Ashers from which she could practically smell his exhaust gas. The opponent had a flashy vehicle with a lowered suspension and underside mounted neons that lit up the track in a bright orange which matched the chromed orange of his vehicles paint job. Anton Zachaeiv. Top placed racer from the Northern Empire and renowned for being brutally difficult to pass on the track. This was going to be a challenge.
The next three corners and S-bends turned into a kind of horrid cat and mouse play between Ashers and her opponent. Each time she found a new line that would take her past her Anton he would slide or accelerate his racer into her path, forcing her to back off and try again on the next twist or turn. Finally following one of the tracks two splits where she and Anton had diverged down different paths Ashers found her opportunity. The pair had reunited back on the track neck and neck with Ashers to the left and Anton to the right. The following corner was this arenas infamous corkscrew turn. A sharp descent straight descent leading directly into an incredibly tight left handed, 270 degree speed-bend that would take them back under the track they had just sped down. Anton was pressing her to the left, clearly hoping Ashers would retreat back down the track in order to avoid overshooting the corner which would put him back in the lead. Ashers did no such thing. Instead she matched his speed and, immediately before the corner wrenched the steering to the left and accelerated causing the tail to flick out into a drift that would glide her around the inside of the corner if she could execute the manoeuvre correctly. Anton hadn't anticipated this course of action and, as a result, disaster struck.
The two racers came together with a force akin to a fully equipped GEAR belly-flopping onto concrete. Before Ashers could react her vehicle was floating upside-down in midair. For a moment time seemed to stall and she could see the wreck of Antons vehicle spinning off beneath her, the front crumpled into the drivers space as though the racer had been comprised entirely of paper-mâché and with blood splattered over its fractured windscreen. In that moment everything was silent and still and Ashers had almost wished it would go on for ever but, as it tends to, time moved on. The screeching of buckling metal and the icy smashing sound of glass breaking assaulted Ashers ears. Her arms flew up in front of her face and then there was only screaming and pain.
"Ashers... Ashers? ASHERS?"
Ashers snapped back to reality with a start, her bandaged arms still suspended in midair before her.
"Are you ok?" Her dad queried in a concerned tone as he invited himself politely into her room.
"Yeah dad. I'm fine. I was just... Reminiscing." She replied in an earnest voice that masked her true feelings."
"You know Ashers. It's ok to be nervous from time to time. Heck I never regretted my marriage to your mother and that was one of the most nerve wracking experiences I ever had, besides letting you race for the first time." He he said, sitting down beside her with a chuckle in his voice. Ashers returned the chuckle with a smile and a chuckle of her own.
"Don't lie dad. You hate her guts and rightly so! What she did to you was unacceptable!"
Dad's smile immediately turned sad and he sighed. For a moment Ashers felt guilty, worrying she had ruined the last time they would be together for a while. She had been about to apologies when her dad replied.
"I guess you're right Ashers but still... I never regretted marrying her. If I hadn't taken that path in life where would I be now? Where would you be?" He said before pausing for a moment whilst he gathered his thoughts.
"Regardless. I am confident that whatever you do and wherever you want to go, as long as you truly want to do it you will be successful. That's not something I say about everyone you know." He said before grabbing putting Ashers in a headlock and giving her a noogie. "Now hop to it. We need to get moving."
Ashers laughed for real now. Her legs and tail squirming violently as she tried to press herself free of her fathers grasp. "I'll "hop to it" the moment you let go dad." She told him before grabbing her rucksack and getting up off the bed the moment he let go. Today she had donned an orange tank top, a pair of casual camouflage combat trousers and a pair of plain white bandages to function as handwraps for her hands and forearms. The two dyed in black streaks finished the look by giving her a tomboyish "not to be messed with" appearance stolen straight from full contact ball sports teams. Ashers double checked the contents of her rucksack, plenty of spare clothes, dyes and the other hygiene related products she would need whilst aboard the Parvans Claw. Once she was sure she had what she needed she went downstairs and met her dad in his 4 wheeler where he had been waiting for her.
"Are you ready?" He asked raising an eyebrow as he looked her over. To which Ashers simply replied.
"Yeah."
It took some time for Ashers and her father to reach their destination with the roads in and out of the rough suburban area they lived in being unfortunately congested despite the automation of most vehicles. Both of them suffered heavily in the desert heat, something they blamed on their arctic wolf genetics and, lacking the means to sweat, they ended up panting significantly even with the windows rolled down. Matters weren't helped by the fact that the conductive metal of her fathers vehicle amplifying the suns rays. Nonetheless when Ashers arrived she felt herself again. Full of confidence and raring to go. She hugged her father goodbye at the gate and then went in standing proud, rucksack slung casually over one shoulder.
Ashers encountered little trouble as she passed through security although she did bark a warning at one of the security guards made the bag search a little intensive on her underwear collection. The guard quickly backed off however embarrassed and seeming to be particularly wary of his weapons magazine. He seemed to be handling it incessantly as though to be sure it was still firmly in the firearm. Ashers asked him for directions and when she was cleared to go she went straight into the docks and followed his instructions.
Ashers took long, quick strides as she made her way through the dockyards, enjoying the freedom to stretch her legs once more after what felt like and possibly had been hours sat in her fathers 4x4. As she moved she let her eyes wonder the bustling dockyard. Workers and vehicles of all descriptions scurried around each with a clear sense of purpose. As lax as the guards might be this was still clearly a very smooth operation. Finally Ashers eyes latched onto the main event. The landcruiser loomed like the behemoth it was before her and it was hard to believe she had missed it when she first walked into the yard. Ashers knew from school that such things could float but now, with one right before her, it seemed an impossibility once more. Ashers was so distracted by the scale of the landcruiser that, when she reached the group at the loading ramp she almost bumped into them and had to stop suddenly causing the dogtags she wore around her neck to bounce from between her cleavage. Realising she was where she was meant to be Ashers grinned and found something to lean against whilst she waited.
