Girls Night Out XXII: The Need For Speed

Posted on Mon May 28th, 2018 @ 7:56pm by Captain Charybdis MacGregor & Commander Fiona McCray & Commander Yuna Raza & Lieutenant Commander Selune
Edited on on Mon May 28th, 2018 @ 9:27pm

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Operation: Risa!
Location: Risa, Rome arcology, the seedy section
Timeline: 2265

Car Chase: From Fedepedia, the Federation encyclopedia

A car chase is the vehicular pursuit of suspects by law enforcers, or the pursuit of individuals by criminals, both vehicularly enabled. Car chases are often captured on film and broadcast due to the availability of video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase. They are a popular subject with media and audiences due to their intensity, potential drama and the innate danger of high-speed driving which often ends in tragedy.

News media outlets will often broadcast live chases in order to bolster ratings, ostensibly to warn the citizenry of the potential hazard. These chases often become viral video hits, gaining significant popularity online through repeated rewatching and sharing.



Sure enough, as Selune had indicated, there were indeed hover vehicles in pursuit of them. And from the looks of their relative positioning, they were not midsize delivery vehicles, but high-powered performance machines. On a resort planet it did make sense for such vehicles to be about- after all, Risa appealed to nearly every potential recreation, and the pastime of piloting high performance low altitude hover vehicles was still quite popular.

"Next time you want to steal a roomy family wagon, can we at least steal a fast one?" Selune moaned as she tried to force more speed from their getaway vehicle.

"Oh aye..." The engineer snarked back, "If you had moved along at a smart rate rather than gawk I might have had more time to comparison shop!" The sleek vehicles behind them were cutting through the streets like sharks.

A brief glare was Selune's only response before she turned her attention back to the art of not colliding with fast moving objects.

Fiona's PDD located a hospital near the center of the arcology, but there was actually a small clinic much closer... if they could make it there. The vehicles in pursuit of them were gaining rapidly, and soon they would be close enough to try to force them off the road.

"So..." Selune muttered as she wove around another hover chariot that was shuffling along at near glacial speeds, "Normally I have state of the art navigation software, a preplanned flight path and something that doesn't handle like the brick it resembles... a little help on where to go maybe?"

"Oh, stop yer whining," Fiona snapped and began looking for a proper map and programmed in their location for the PDD to route them.

It was at that point that a disruptor bolt whizzed by the vehicle, then another and another. As the first bolt flew past Selune's well-trained reflexes instinctively swung the vehicle down a side street, blocking the line of fire for a few more seconds as her hand hunted for shield modulation controls. She did manage to find the windscreen wipers before several more bolts ripped through the air around them, forcing her into a sudden banking corkscrew onto yet another road and throwing around anything unrestrained around their vehicle. Which of course included passengers who had not yet heeded her warnings about safety harnesses.

"Seatbelts," she growled through teeth gritted in concentration as she desperately tried to avoid colliding with traffic and avoiding being shot to pieces, "Seatbelts and directions, please," the last word coming out with more than a hint of agitation.

Fi started calling out directions between curse words.

The ride got rough... really rough. The dust they were blowing up from low flying clouded the air, as the explosions of dirt and debris from the disruptor fire impacting the buildings and road near them buffeted the hover, adding to the turbulence. Something shattered and there was a gut-wrenching tearing sound as they banked hard, scraping along a stone storefront.

"Who ARE those guys?" Fiona paraphrased an old long forgotten action movie.

"Autograph seekers. Happens every time I perform, now you know why I joined Starfleet," Char quipped before slamming into the starboard side of the cab after a particularly hard maneuver. She grunted and righted herself, then shook her head and began issuing orders.

"Okay people, action time. Yuna, front seat and listen to the pilot, strap in. Your job is to be her navigator- Fi, hand her your PDD. Noodles, strap in... sorry, but this isn't as smooth a rescue as we'd hoped." The injured noodle vendor groaned, though he had already complied even as more bolts whizzed past the vehicle, Selune dodging this way and that to give them every possible chance.

"These guys aren't going to keep missing forev... oh," Selune started as disruptor fire tore off her side mirror.

"Port! Hard to port here!" Yuna shouted as the delivery wagon flew into a crowded intersection and Selune miraculously avoided being the centerpiece of a pile-up between a monorail tram, a crowd of pedestrians leaving a club and a few of the arcology chariots.

"Fiona, I need a miracle- can you overload the power core and eject it? We need something to throw off or take care of at least some of our pursuit... Selune, give me ten seconds of straightaway driving please, heads down everybody." Charybdis hauled one of the removable seats out and folded it in half, as it was designed to do. "Pop the hatch then close it after me Fi, please..."

Fiona looked at her then grabbed her purse with one hand and popped the hatch with the other while she juggled the PDD a moment then tossed it to Yuna. "Get directions Fi-ona, get me a better car next time Fi-ona, Fi-ona I need a miracle... put yer seatbelts on Fi-ona... jaysus christ!" The engineer groused angrily.

"He's not here, so it's your fault for being the reliable one," the first officer teased with a grunt. The wee Scot's retort peeled a layer of paint off a passing building and dyed the pathway bright Andorian blue.

The first officer did a split, bracing her legs against either side of the vehicle to gain what potential leverage was available, one knee bent and the other straight. As soon as the hatch popped open, she twisted her body to hurl the seat at the nearest vehicle, slamming it into the windscreen and causing it to spin out. Fiona slammed the hatch shut, and Char shouted "Maneuvering restored if you please again, Lieutenant!"

Not waiting for the flexible Vulcan to reseat herself properly, Selune slammed the hovercar into a sharp turn, once again wishing for inertia dampeners as the g-forces tried to throw them around the vehicle, succeeding with those who were not properly harnessed in. Selune heard the rather distinctive sound of the curvaceous commander impacting the port side of the vehicle as she winged it to starboard.

The engineer was keeping up a steady dialog in gaelic interspersed with the occasional, "Port... starboard...TREE!" which wasn't terribly helpful given that Yuna was trying to give directions now as well.

A few bolts passed through the back windscreen hatch as Charybdis tackled Fiona and shouted "Incoming!" As Selune picked her head back up there was a small sizzling hole in the front windscreen that now made a whistling noise as she drove.

There was a low groan from Selune, the irritating whistling instantly getting on her nerves. Squinting angrily, she took out a trashcan to make herself feel better as she dodged around a tree. The satisfying crash echoing from behind them suggested that one of their pursuers hadn't quite been as agile.

"They're really startin' tae piss me off," Fiona growled from the confines of Char's bosom.

"Throwing seats isn't going to work... we need a way to really get rid of them... how far to that clinic, Yuna?"

The security chief had been distracted by the disruptor fire that was becoming more accurate by the moment , and even as she realized she had not looked at the map for a few seconds the rear-view mirror on her side of the hovercar dissolved in a crackling burst of energy. Eyes wide she looked at the map, then shouted, "Starboard! Starboard, turn here! Just under a klik, Commander, give or take..."

The vehicle shuddered as Selune braked hard, turning so sharply they were almost vertical before throwing everything back onto the accelerator as she forced the distraught hovercar to make a turn it was never designed for. The lurch of her innards being pulled three distinctly different directions suggesting she wasn't either, and she had a moment of concern for her passengers before her mind took over and she slipped back into her evasive mindset to avoid a heavy lifter that tried its best to cut her off.

A 'BWOOORP!" noise sounded from overhead, and Selune recognized the distinct sound of the thrusters of a pair of Class D shuttlecraft overhead, even as a spotlight illuminated their vehicle.

"Great, now there's more of them, probably planetary security if they have shuttles," muttered Selune, "No way we'll lose those them with this thing."

"No, this is good, this is a good thing..." Char said from the back. "If the security forces arrive then these guys won't stick around, and we'll... YOW!" Another disruptor bolt tore through the cabin as Char tackled Fiona again, a practice of which she had long since grown weary, this time leaving a scorched burn through the back of the leather jacket. "Or not!" the scientist said through gritted teeth. "Yuna, I need distance and progress reports! Fi, I need that miracle really soon here..."

"Four blocks- no, go straight!" Yuna exclaimed, trying to navigate Selune to drive off of a bridge.

"If you say so," the increasingly agitated Caitian growled, pulling back into a sharp vertical bank over the safety railing of the bridge before twisting into a corkscrew dive towards the waiting road, yanking them up just short of plowing solidly into another hovercar, leaving a trail of sparks to accompany the harsh screech as their escape vehicle tore through the roof of the inoffensive parked vehicle, along with the noodle vendor's stomach contents decorating the side of their getaway car.

"Miracle... I'll get yer miracle," the wee woman snarled as she half climbed half tumbled over the front seat in to Yuna "Sorry Dottie," she grunted as she accidentally put a somewhat grubby foot in the Trill's face. There was a tearing crunching sound and she tossed a panel into the back seat with a hearty, "Heads oop!"

The colorful metaphors flowed from beneath the dashboard like Risan wine. There were a couple of sizzling pops and Selune's dashboard suddenly became a wash of yellow and red lights. A warning chime started going off frantically. "Get ready to go full manual and execute an emergency landing without power," came a very calm very crisp voice from beneath the dash.

"Powercell overload... Powercell overload," a warning voice joined the frantic chiming.

"You might want to secure yourselves back there!" Fi reversed her position so that she could use her legs. She kicked out three times sharp then pushed hard with her feet.

The engine of the hover let out a keening note then went >>wubb wubb KLONK!<< Then vehicle bobbed and lurched drunkenly as something bulky dropped out of the bottom of it. A large glowing cube tumbled out behind them into the pathway of their pursuers. Fiona had popped her head up long enough to see it to its destination, then she waved bye bye and ducked down taking Yuna with her, "DOWN! NOW!" she barked. Selune cringed lower in her seat and Char covered the civilian with her body as she mumbled something in an alien tongue.

Selune found herself fighting the yoke without any power other than the backup reserves. The mad celt had overloaded the main battery then jettisoned it the hard way. Which meant something very specific was about to happen. The Caitian cringed waiting for the earth-shattering kaboom that would have her ears ringing for the second time that night.

There was a muffled WHUMP!, then it felt like a giant had booted the hover in the rear. The night turned daylight bright for a moment, then debris that had been the parts of their pursuer's vehicles began to rain down around them. A couple of large white puffy spheres rolled and bounced gaily past the hover as it began its fall. Evidently the bad guys had paid extra for the full safety package in addition to the speedy models.

Only Selune's skill kept them from plowing into the front of the clinic. The hover without power was indeed a flying brick, but she got it down with minimal property damage, as long as you ignored the trail of destroyed recycling units she used to slow them down.

As they skidded to a halt precisely into a designated handicapped parking space, Charybdis and Yuna were both already in motion, doors open and hauling their compatriots out of the vehicles. Scooping the injured vendor under one arm and Fiona under the other, the Vulcan vixen muttered, "Selune, remind me to assign you extra leave time to go flying without us. No commendation for original thinking on that one Lieutenant, but damned if that wasn't a miracle... "

The scot let out a yawp at being womanhandled yet again. She put up with the indignity of being treated like luggage with at least a shred of her normal good humor though. "Naaaah... joost a good old-fashioned power overload and reliably crappy Rigellian craftsmanship."

"Are you coming Selune?" she threw back over Char's shoulder to the frozen Caitian, "if you don't come in you have to talk to the cops and tha bad guys... oh... and your fur's on fire." The last bit was said with what was perhaps a bit of malicious albeit matter-of-fact glee.

There was a brief panicked scuffle as Selune flailed at herself before realizing the impossibility of the statement, then she turned and threw a narrow-eyed glare at the engineer. She looked for all intensive purposes like she was about to chase the woman down and make her suffer. The effect was completely ruined when she tried to pounce from the vehicle with her seatbelt on.

"The night is still young Fi, I'll get you back for that," she muttered as she extracted herself and began stalking after her retreating passengers.

"Just you wait and see..."

 

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