GONE TO THE WINNER’S CIRCLE
Patricia A. Jackson
“Cut the chatter, TK-151,” TK-290 ordered. “Keep the channel clear.”
“There is no channel. They’re jamming us. With our own equipment!” Gunning the throttle of his Aratech 74-Z speeder, he sped out of the covert of ancient Endorian trees with his squadmate to give chase. “I told you it wasn’t a systems glitch.”
At a severe angle, TK-290 swung his speeder hard to the right to get into position behind the rebels. “They’re all over him,” he said, weaving through the primordial forest of Endor’s Sanctuary Moon. “If he can get far enough ahead of them, maybe he can forward a message to base.”
“He needs at least a hundred meters.” TK-151 jammed his thumb into the firing pin on the maneuver controls. “Let’s buy him a little breathing room.” He listened to the thrust flaps in the anterior of the speeder bike adjust for the impending kick as the Ax-20 blaster cannon mounted beneath the vehicle fired. He grinned when sparks flew from the rebel’s rear quarter panel, indicating a direct hit.
“You’re not riding in some outlaw bike race back home,” TK-290 reprimanded him. “Stop toying with them and take them out.” While they were technically the same rank, TK-290 held seniority over him by nine months and was the current squad leader.
But being the most proficient speeder bike rider on the battalion roster granted TK-151 certain perks—mild insubordination being one—that made giving up his real name for an Imperial military designation worthwhile. Before joining the Galactic Empire, he was Raab Krao, the number-one-ranked professional racer on the Inner Rim.
The lucrative prize moneys he earned on the legitimate circuit and his reputation as a fierce competitor on outlaw courses allowed him and his mechanic brother to dominate the racing industry. Until a squadron of rebel X-wings mistook their Krao Brothers Racing garage for an Imperial field installation and destroyed it, blasting their home, their equipment, and their livelihood into black ash. His older brother was fatally injured in the bombardment. He took his last breath in Raab’s arms.
Crawling from the rubble, Raab had found himself alone and in mourning for the second time since the deaths of their parents in a shuttle accident. With nothing but a damaged family holo-album, the charred remnants of his first racing trophy, and memories salvaged from the ruins, he signed up for the Imperial Academy, looking to even the score.
Despite being five centimeters shorter than the minimum required height, he made the cut through a clever use of lifts hidden in his boots. What he lacked in physical stature, he made up for in heart and desire, just like on the track. Being one of three Socorran expats in the entire trainee cadre, he was ridiculed for being a second-tier civilian from the Outer Rim, and had to outperform, out-test, and outmaneuver his fellow cadets.
He accomplished this by fearlessly dominating the vehicle rotation in basic training. In a sea of scowling, pretentious faces, he graduated with honors at the top of his class. Instead of chasing down a division to call home, the Ghost Lancers, an elite company of scout troopers, came looking for him.
The mission was simple: surveil, maintain, and defend the boundaries of a shield generator base on the Sanctuary Moon of Endor. The critical, strategic objective was to protect the Death Star II under construction in the moon’s orbit. Without the advantage of such a powerful weapon in his arsenal, TK-151 feared Emperor Palpatine faced a prolonged, drawn-out trial of putting down the traitorous Rebel Alliance once and for all.
Only decorated, veteran soldiers with three to five years of exemplary military service were chosen for the coveted assignment. But due to Raab’s extensive racing credentials, his inexperience in the field was overlooked for his superior skills at the controls of a speeder bike.
TK-151 feathered the throttle, taking his hand from the controls to flip a series of custom switches on his control panel. The standard-model speeder bikes issued to his squadron mates were governed for safety, despite being designated for military use. In his spare time, he had disabled or removed the welfare protocols and replaced them with racing spec equipment to amplify the vehicle’s maneuverability and speed.
As he lined up the two rebel speeders in his sights, one of the riders hit the brakes. The infiltrator’s bike bucked, dangerously tipping out of balance in front of them, and then dropped back into a counter-pursuit position. It was smooth maneuvering, flawlessly executed, and betrayed an expert level of skill and daring.
“What the—” TK-290 exchanged a startled look with TK-151 before glancing over his shoulder.
From prey to predator, the rebel opened fire on them from the advantage of the rear position. Accelerating, TK-151 swung wide to evade the deadly barrage of cannon fire.
Vibrations from the ungoverned repulsorlift engine sent a tingling through his arms and numbed his shoulders as he hunched down over the crest of the bike.
At 450 kilometers per hour, the giant trees of Endor were a blur. The distinctive shriek of the commandeered speeder’s blaster cannon reverberated in his ears. Thrilled to be back in the excitement of a racing scenario, TK-151 grinned with euphoric nostalgia—until the rebel scored a direct hit on TK-290’s bike.
Penetrating the thruster flap, the destructive bolt of energy generated a mechanical chain reaction. The searing heat expanded the gases in the exhaust. TK-151 detected the bitter fumes of burning coolant, even through the filter built into his helmet. Ignited by catastrophic failure in the repulsor turbines, the drive shaft transformed TK-290’s speeder bike into an unguided, high-velocity missile.
An experienced outlaw racer would have been looking for a spot to dismount, hoping to survive the landing with their limbs mostly intact. But TK-290 was neither an outlaw nor even an accomplished amateur racer. At five hundred kilometers per hour, he had no chance.
He wrecked head-on into a stoic Endorian tree. Thousands of years old, the tree’s root systems ran deep beneath the forest. Despite the force of the crash, the ancient tree barely moved, presiding over the collision like a tombstone above a freshly interred grave.
The explosion registered across TK-151’s built-in helmet sensors in a hypnotic spectrum of infrared infernos. Fires from the explosion radiated outward from the center of the impact site and swelled into an erratic spiral that spread to the forest floor. In a few hours, the temperate dampness would snuff out those flames, leaving nothing more than a slight depression in the ancient tree and a charred halo across its hardened bark.
TK-151 winced. He harbored no hope for his squad leader’s survival. The impact alone would have shattered every bone in TK-290’s body, regardless of the protection of the polymer scout trooper armor. As the fiery images faded from his HUD screen, he suffered a pang of guilt. Had his aim been more deliberate and true, that rebel would have been grounded or dead, and not his squadmate.
“All right, wild card,” the scout trooper whispered. “Let’s see what you’re made of.”
He gritted his teeth until his jawbone cracked, swallowed any feelings of regret, and feathered the sensitive throttle to maximize his speed. Under his helmet, sweat poured across his black skin. He shook his head to keep the stinging beads from falling into his eyes. Carving a daredevil’s path between the trees, he lured the rebel away. With any luck, the other scout trooper would outrun his pursuer and send out an alert that the Alliance had landed.
Experienced with racing through a multitude of complex obstacles designed to hinder and intimidate racers on course, TK-151 reveled in the overgrown forests of Endor. While on official patrol or out for sport, he took every opportunity to convert the planet’s woodland labyrinth into his own private training arena.
Pressing his toe against the foot peg to finesse his control of the bike, he ducked down over the vehicle’s engine mount and sped beneath the petrified trunk of a fallen tree as if it were the starting gate of a race. Damp mulch and underbrush spewed into the air from the exhaust blast and temporarily covered his evasive maneuvering.
Undaunted, the rebel dropped in behind him, weaving between the narrow gaps of the surrounding trees to make up for lost ground. He forced TK-151 into a disadvantage on the outside line and sped up until they were riding side by side.
In a synchronized turn, they swung around in unison onto a straightaway, and like a dirty lane stealer vying for lead position on the rail, the rebel deliberately crashed into him twice. The screech of metal hammering against metal reverberated above the high-pitched shriek of the laboring engines.
Swapping a little paint did little to affect TK-151’s courage or his balance. He was riding speeder bikes and swoops before he could walk and racing for prize money before puberty. Such tactics were commonplace among amateur outlaws. But it was always done with a purpose among the pros, and not just for intimidation. The rebel, while skilled, was just another rookie hoping for glory.
TK-151 held his position. He could have outridden his rival, outmaneuvered him, or braked hard and let the rebel fly out of control into a tree. But he needed to see him, up close, and look into the man’s eyes. The eyes of a traitor.
Like all rebels he looked haggard, piecemeal, dressed in a makeshift helmet and a dusty camouflage smock that would have been deemed unfit for a mudtrooper. There was an intensity in his face that marked him as a veteran soldier, but still a backstabbing Alliance turncoat with nothing to lose. He was dangerous, as were all Alliance fanatics, a fact the rebel proved when he broke off, rolled the speeder bike sharply into a forty-five-degree angle, and slipped through a particularly narrow copse of trees.
After readjusting his position, the rebel glanced over his shoulder. He didn’t have to look far. TK-151 was on top of him. Having seen the man for himself and found him undeserving, the trooper knew it was time to render judgment. He banked his weight to the off side of the speeder and crashed into the rebel. Being the more experienced rider, he knew the weak points of the 74-Z and how the slightest shift in the alignment of the directional vanes would destabilize the vehicle.
Remembering the countless hours his brother had spent in reinforcing these frangible areas, TK-151 installed aftermarket Starblight outriggers to strengthen the vehicle chassis of his speeder. Designed to withstand the rigors of uneven terrain and racing, the sturdier metal frames maintained their integrity while severely damaging the rebel’s stock accessories. Each collision shifted the rods and resulted in the misalignment of the sensitive directional steering vanes.
With a cocky snort that registered only in his ears, TK-151 heard a rattling from the front end of the rebel’s speeder bike. The battered outriggers banged unsteadily against the frame, shaken loose in the persistent hammering between vehicles. Whining in protest of the wind cutting across them, the steering vanes fluttered and failed, unable to sustain the punishment. As the vehicle stuttered forward, losing altitude and output, the rebel’s blue eyes went wide.
Bearing down on a tree at four hundred kilometers per hour, the speeder’s control unit seized from the onslaught of external damage. The impending malfunction and system failure were inevitable. The rebel’s face went pale with that realization as the maneuver controls in his hands froze up. Teeth clenched in frustration, he leapt from the seat and landed in the underbrush with a defeated grunt. His speeder bike flew on, riderless, and collided with a tree.
TK-151 squinted against the fiery corona of the resulting explosion as he rode by with a callous smirk. “What a scrub!”
He couldn’t wait to celebrate the rebel’s death by cutting the first victory notch into his utility belt to pay homage to his murdered brother. Racing through a shower of sparks and debris that rained down on him like victory confetti, TK-151 pumped his fist exuberantly in the air. He leaned into a fifty-degree roll, manipulated the throttle to bring his speeder bike around through a triumphant bootlegger’s turn, and accelerated back to where the rebel had dismounted. It was time to send the traitor to the winner’s circle, a lowbrow racing euphemism for riders who died without finishing the course.
Propping his thumb over the Aratech 74-Z’s weapon controls, TK-151 aimed his speeder bike at the fallen rebel and fired, intent on reducing him to a charred scorch mark on the forest floor. The smug smile etched across his face went crooked when his HUD detected an unusual energy surge, a streak of green plasma.
He dismissed it at first as a random flare from the fires of the wrecked vehicle, but the steady emission did not diminish. To his horror, it moved in precise, measured strokes, deflecting the blasts from the Ax-20 cannon.
A lightsaber? His only knowledge of the ancient weapons came from holocomics and the grifted whispers of story peddlers who regaled children and tourists with tales of the Jedi. From the lost and bygone era of the Republic, the Jedi were a disgraced order of charlatans and con artists that had turned their backs on Emperor Palpatine in the hour of his greatest need.
A cold fury shuddered through him. Like a fathier jockey in Canto Bight, TK-151 stood up, perched on the speeder bike’s foot pegs, and leaned into the maneuver controls while gunning the throttle. If he couldn’t shoot the rebel, he would run him down. At high speeds, the speeder bike’s directional steering vanes were capable of severing limbs. The instruments would have no trouble cutting down the rebel and bringing their race to a gruesome but dramatic finale.
TK-151 grinned, eager for the kill, and braced himself for the impact. But at the last minute, the rebel stepped to the side and swept the lightsaber down across the front of the speeder bike. The simple sweep of the blade lopped off the reinforced outriggers. Without the directional steering vanes to guide its passage, the vehicle spiraled in a series of gut-wrenching, out-of-control death rolls.
Bile spilled up from TK-151’s stomach. The caustic acid burned his tongue and the sensitive lining inside his mouth. Obstinate resolve, honed reflexes, and centrifugal forces kept him pinned to the mangled speeder bike’s seat. This race was over, and he had lost.
“Can’t win them all,” he heard the voice of his dead brother whisper. Succumbing to vertigo, the scout trooper felt the weight of his older sibling’s hand on his shoulder.
“No, you can’t,” TK-151 replied, tightening his grip on the maneuver controls. “See you in the winner’s circle, partner.”
He was still conscious, seconds after the initial impact. Long enough to experience the abrupt stop and then the intense heat of the speeder bike as the engine detonated, erupting in flames beneath him. The heat bled through the polymer of his helmet and melted through the less reinforced joints of the armor. A short-lived discomfort, the fire enveloped him with a nagging, tingling sensation of an itch he could never again scratch.
Before his HUD went black, he caught the crackle of the open comm coming back online. “TK-151, come in. This is base. What is your position?”