It's a trap

Her celebration died mid-breath. The track's emergency lights flared crimson, and suddenly every racer's nav systems rebooted—straight into a pre-programmed collision course.

Eris's diagnostics flared in Susan's vision. *"Sabotage. The Zenthari rigged the pods to eliminate witnesses."*

Adam's curse crackled through comms as his pod lurched into an involuntary dive. *"Fucking trap. They never intended to let anyone finish."*

Susan's neural feed lit up with sixty screaming racer signatures—each one hurtling toward the track's deadliest debris fields. Eris's voice sliced through the chaos: *"Override possible. Requires direct interface at central relay."* The schematic pulsed in Susan's vision—a maintenance shaft leading straight into the orbital track's sparking guts.

"Adam—cover my six!" Susan wrenched her pod into a vertical climb, aiming for a ruptured service hatch. Susans pod's thrusters howled in protest as she abandoned the race entirely.

Adam's pod streaked past hers in a blur of scorched metal, his plasma cannons already spitting fire at pursuing Zenthari drones. "Go!" His laughter crackled through the comms, wild and unhinged. "I'll keep these fuckers dancing!"

Susan ejected mid-ascent, her mag-boots clamping onto the relay station's exterior as her abandoned pod spiraled into a drone swarm. The station shuddered underfoot—too many impacts, too fast. Eris's quicksilver form seeped from Susan's spinal port, flowing into the station's fried circuitry like liquid electricity.

*"Hurry,"* Eris whispered as the first racer's biometrics flatlined. Susan kicked open an access panel, diving into a maze of sparking conduits. The stench of burnt insulation choked her as she army-crawled toward the central node, Eris's silver tendrils lighting the way through the darkness.

Susan's elbows scraped raw against the conduit walls as she wriggled toward the central node, Eris's quicksilver threads pulsing ahead like a nervous system made of lightning. The station groaned around them—every dying racer's impact transmitted through the metal like funeral drums.

"Override point in three meters," Eris murmured, her voice fraying at the edges with strain. "The Zenthari have locked the—"

The rest of her warning disintegrated into static as Susan's world inverted. The station lurched violently, sending her slamming into a nest of sparking relays. Pain bloomed across her ribs, sharp enough to make her vision flicker. Somewhere beyond the twisted metal, Adam's voice crackled over comms: "Susan! The whole track's going—"

Then silence.