The biggest legends have the smallest starts.

That's what Maeve told herself, again and again, when she signed up for the 205th Annual Switchback Canyon Race. It was just a small time local competition. Nothing newsworthy. A short race through Switchback Canyon, so named for the sharp 45 degree bend halfway through. Seven mechs from the surrounding towns. 500,000 credits. The prize money was barely enough to pay for repairs afterwards. 

There was a lax selection process. No requirements for species or design. The only qualification was that the mech worked within acceptable limits. A routine standard, which Maeve barely passed. She had to turn down the overclock on the core by 10% to stop it from overheating during inspection. It wasn't ideal, but it worked. 

The seven chosen mechs lined up at the canyon's start, where the towering stone cliffs walled them in. All the eager spectators, families and their cubs, lined the cliff tops and waved their signs and posters. Several had banners supplied by the local favorite. He printed them himself, like he did every year, and freely distributed them to his fans a few hours prior. Probably used last year's prize money to pay for it. He should've spent that on fixing up his mech. He'd learn better this year. 

The mechs that showed up were what Maeve expected—a majority of returning competitors and a few newcomers like herself. At the front position was a sleek cheetah frame. The local favorite. White and purple painted on chipped steel. Long legs and a front-heavy chassis to propel them. An equivalent two wheel drive on a walker mech–all speed and little steering. But the pilot rarely needed to steer. This was a straight on race apart from a single bend in the middle of the canyon. Speed was all he needed. Most times.

The others were unremarkable. Some she'd seen the previous years. Some she hadn't. The two wolves were regulars. A flashy wolf frame that frequently came in second and their brother, another wolf frame, that usually broke down before reaching the bend. 

The raccoon was new. 

Maeve had never seen a raccoon try to race before. They were built for excavation and junkyard hauling. This one had some fun mods built into the hindquarters. Rear boosters that were tethered to the engine, from how pipes ran along the body into the chest. 

Risky. If the pipes can't handle the core heat, they might burst and cripple the entire mech. Power would need to be throttled, released in small increments, and monitored during sprints. If managed appropriately, the raccoon would reach the bend before the cheetah powered on. Not a bad idea. Maeve made a mental note of that for next year.

There was a weasel next to the raccoon. Another mech that never made it to the bend. The pistons on the back legs gave out at the turn. From all the rust she saw, at a glance, it wasn't going to make it this year, either.

Used parts, junkyard scraps, made up all the mechs here. Made for an uneven gait on most of them, which was part of the fun of the Death Canyon Race. Watching these tons of scavenged parts limp their way across the finish line? Good family fun. The kids loved it. 

Beside the weasel was another newcomer—another cat. The face had a more domestic structure than the cheetah. The muzzle was too short for any of the larger breeds, and the ears were too pointy for a snow leopard and too short for a lynx. A plain house cat model, apart from the hot pink tabby stripes painted on the silver frame.

Unsurprising, since larger cat frames were pretty rare in these remote junkyards. Still, regardless of scale, even domestic cat frames were good in short bursts. A great design for a quick race up and down a canyon like this one. If it weren't for the inexperienced pilot, the small cat might've been actual competition.

The pink tabby's owner was a younger girl. Barely old enough to even enter the race, if she didn't lie about it. Another risk factor. The young ones were reckless. 

A 21-year-old didn't know when to call it quits. 18-year-old? Or younger? Even worse.

The kid was working on a hind leg, checking the struts. A good idea. Most of the owners were inspecting their mechs. Ears pressed against the metal, listening for clicks or stutters in the core, or arms shoved in greasy compartments, making last-minute adjustments. All of them but Maeve, who was sunning herself next to her mech on a cheap beach chair, and the local crowd favorite, Charley, who was bothering the kid. 

Maeve's furred ear flicked. The kid giggled at whatever the favorite said. A schoolgirl's giggle. She definitely wasn't 21. Charley knew it, too. Despite whatever the kid was thinking, he wasn't over there to flirt. 

Charley did one last look over, an up and down on the mech's leg, not the girl, and turned. His eyes wandered over to Maeve's mech next, but they paused on her jean shorts and bare tan legs. Unlike the kid, he examined Maeve's legs far longer than her mech's. That wasn't much of a compliment to Maeve, though. If anything, it made her hair stand on end.

“Hey, I haven't seen you around here before," he said with a polite nod. Maeve peered over her sunglasses. Charley wasn't unattractive. A lean face and arms. Short brown hair on his head and pointed ears. A catty sort of look to him. A cat man with a cat mech. Not surprising. And not really her type, either.

Charley's brows furrowed and ears perked up when his gaze lifted. His scrutiny skipped her chest entirely, despite the few buttons she had strategically popped open. Expedited by the long white locks flowing from her ponytail down her shoulder. The stark white of her hair and ears surprised him, as they did most people. Foxes like her weren't common here. Despite the thorough inspection, Maeve wasn't flattered. He wasn't appreciating her curves or her fine ears and mane. He was confirming he hadn't seen her in the race before.

“I'm new." Maeve smiled, showing off the exaggerated points of her canines. “Maeve."

She held out a hand. His ears didn't budge. As expected, Charley didn't recognize the name. 

“Charles. You can call me Charley." 

“I know." Maeve flashed another pretty smile. She tossed her hair forward with a sweep of her fingers. “You're pretty famous."

Batting her eyelashes and shaking her mane didn't accomplish much. Charley's chin lifted as he squinted up at her mech again. He wasn't going to fall for any tits and ass tricks. He was here to win.

Maeve leaned back in her seat with an annoyed sigh. There weren't any rules against looking. She pushed her sunglasses back up her nose.

“Cat type?"

Maeve's ear flicked. She took off her sunglasses and looked where he did. The frame's face gave it away. She hoped the large, bat-like ears and the larger hatch lift would make it look more like a dog. Charley was local, but he wasn't stupid, apparently. “Yes," she answered with a slight hiss. “It is."

“Cheetah?"

Maeve smiled again. He wasn't stupid, but he wasn't that bright, either. No cheetah build had ears like that. “Serval," she corrected. 

Visible relief. His shoulders slouched and tension left his jaw as he skimmed across the remainder of her serval. He wasn't worried about anything but another competitive racer frame–like another cheetah. He wasn't concerned with a jumper. 

He wasn't interested in the legs. Didn't pay much attention to the forelimbs and feet. He lingered on the hind legs for a minute. His eyes drifted over to the tail, and his brow furrowed again. “Modded tail? Snake?"

Maeve shrugged.

Charley took a couple of steps. Just far enough to see the tip of the tail. “Scorpion?"

Maeve feigned annoyance. A little drop of her ears and a grimace. “Yeah," she admitted. “Scorpion. It was all I could find. You know how it is."

“Sorry to hear that. A tail like that is bad for drag."

Maeve's lip twitched. She forced a tight-lipped smile. “It's okay. We all work with what we have. We can't all afford cheetah tails."

She shouldn't have said that. But she couldn't help it. Charley didn't flick an ear about it, though. He'd made up his mind. She wasn't real competition. 

Charley nodded. “Anyway, I just wanted to say good luck."

“Sure. Same to you."

Maeve said it through her teeth. She watched him walk back over to one of the wolves. The usual runner-up. A frame that could beat his cheetah if they spent more money on upgrading the legs and less on the paint job. Though the black and contrasting, vivid blue did look really good. Better than her Serval-hybrid with its monotone yellow plates, because yellow was the cheapest colored paint her shop had.

All the other mechanics found it hysterical. They ribbed her for days over the old-fashioned paint job. Nobody painted their mech classical colors. Species matching hadn't been in fashion for decades. Maeve didn't mind the plain colors as much. She rather liked the classical colorations. 

There was something charming about a white and gray snow leopard frame, or browns and blacks on a wild dog–or the yellow base and silver spotting on her serval. But Maeve was biased, since she built the serval from scratch and painted it, too.

The faint sound of a squeaky air horn picked up one of Maeve's white-furred ears. A couple of short bursts to get the racers to finish up their tweaks. Time to quit lounging.

Maeve hefted herself up from her cheap seat. She moved her sunglasses up atop her head, eyes narrowed against the bright afternoon sunlight that reflected off the sheer cliffs. More spectators dotted the tops now. More signs with hearts and Charley written in bubble letters. 

Again, Maeve reminded herself. Small starts.

She hooked her pointed nails on one of the serval's leg panels and climbed. Her thick-soled boots had plenty of traction on the yellow paint. At least the cracks and rust made for easier climbing, even if she flaked off some of her cheap paint job doing so.

Atop the head, she yanked the lever on the hatch. With a reluctant hiss, locks slid open. It opened halfway, with help, and Maeve slipped in.

The cockpit was pitch black. Arid, from baking under the sun for hours and the bad seal. Maeve reached through the dark. The tips of her fingers felt along the panel on her right until she found a series of cold metal switches. She toggled the first, and a series of low hums reached her ears.. The core churned and revved back to life. It hitched in spots where the old steel abraded, but eventually fell into a steady enough purr behind Maeve. The next switch lit the cockpit.

A ribbon of light streaked across the dashboard as her panels illuminated. Mechanical buttons and levers flashed a brief red before reconsidering and changing to green. A display flickered, hesitantly coming to life and showing unstable numbers. Unstable, but good enough for the race's judges.

Maeve let the engine breathe for another minute, then she hit three keys on her left. One by one, the projected displays lit in front of her. A lensed view of the world outside, seen through the serval's eyes. The cam feed focused in and out until the field of view stabilized. Nauseating, but Maeve had seen it enough times. View checks were standard for any mechs that came through the shop. After a few hundred checks, it didn't bother her anymore.

The last switch, Maeve hesitated. Her ears twisted back, checking that the core still purred. A gravelly sound, but it ran. She gave it another minute, her hand hovering, then she flipped it.

The core groaned. A steady purr revved up to a growl as power surged through the serval. Lights in the cockpit flashed once, but they stayed on. Like she knew they would. Maeve smirked. “Easy, girl," she said, with an affectionate pat on the wall beside her. “The race hasn't started yet."

Maeve's ears leaned forward, but there wasn't a response. Only the satisfied, steady drone of the core behind her. When she talked to the mechs she worked on, they didn't usually say anything back to her. 

After all, they were a collection of lifeless parts. Electronic and mechanical. But it made her feel better, reassuring the dead steel around her, so she did it anyway. She'd saved plenty of mechs from the junkyard by coaxing them back to life like this. So she liked to believe.

Maeve tugged the belts behind her, fastening them across her chest. She mashed another few buttons, disengaging locks on the serval's joints. The head dipped and bobbed back up, bouncing Maeve's hair. Would've bounced her guts, too, if she'd eaten anything beforehand. Piloting was best done on an empty stomach.

The last switch she didn't want to activate, but, out of obligation, she did. A twist, and her old radio crackled to life. Snapping and popping with static, until she settled it on the right channel–or the wrong channel. Her ears flattened, hearing Charley's cloying laugh through the comms. Whatever the joke was, she had just missed it.

“Thanks, C."

That was one of the judges. An old man. She remembered the voice and the ears on him. Dog type, as was fitting for one of Charley's fanboys.

“Alright," the old dog's voice buzzed through the radio. “Looks like everyone is up now, except Jessie's raccoon. We'll give them a few minutes to try to get online. In the meantime, let's start our checks. Sound off when I call. C?"

“Charley in. All clear, as always."

Maeve wrinkled her nose. A smug answer, from the local favorite.

The old dog's voice blared in again. “Russel."

“Russel in. All clear."

Maeve tilted her head slightly. A more gravelly voice from the wolf pilot than she expected. Though, considering how many years she'd seen that same wolf mech at this annual race, albeit in different colors, he had to be older than some of the other contestants. 

A scratch of a pen. The old dog switched his mic on too early. Then he called the next. “Kelsey."

“Kelsey, all clear."

Maeve's ears twitched. That was the tabby, if her display read right. And it did. The pitched, girly giggle at the end confirmed it. 

“Marve."

Maeve snarled. She pressed a button on her radio, and the light flashed green. “Maeve in. Stable readings. All clear." Her hand whipped off the button, letting the light flare red.

Didn't matter that the old dog didn't know her name. He might not know now, but he'd learn today.

“Good to know. Alright. John-"

Maeve twisted the dial down. Reduced the comms to nearly inaudible, unless she pointed her ears directly at it. It didn't matter who she was up against. All that mattered was that solid hum reverberating through the serval around her. 

She did turn her ears towards the radio when they went back to the raccoon. Several calls, and not a single answer back. Likely an electrical failure. Her best guess was they hadn't actually connected those slick looking boosters and tested them beforehand. They probably overloaded their fuses when they tried to activate the core. A bad wire or a bad loop. Either way, they weren't going to fix it in time.

One down. Six racers remained.

“Too bad, Jessie. Maybe next year," the old dog said. His sharp laughter snapped through Maeve's radio. “We'll move on. Function checks. Racers, move to the line."

Maeve stretched her arms overhead. She locked her fingers and pulled on the joints until they ached. Once the race started, she wouldn't be moving her arms and shoulders much. She flipped a switch under her seat, and the steering controls grated forward on either side. Rudimentary controls, compared to more advanced piloting systems. Modern mechs typically ran off a single controller, with systems compensating for bipedal or quadrupedal movement. Balancers required for systems like that were expensive, and when they broke, they couldn't be repaired. So Maeve rebuilt the serval with manual steering. As manual as a mech could get, anyway.

As much as anyone loved a nice autopilot, there was something nostalgic about manual controls. The precision and timing needed to execute steps and turns. A careful handling that newer mechs didn't need. 

Charley's cheetah certainly didn't have manual controls. She saw how that thing cornered. Automated for certain. Which was why he was about to lose, and he didn't even know it yet.

She watched the other mechs move forward. Felt faint vibrations in the cockpit with each step her competitors took. The impacts of these multi-ton machines left welts on the canyon floor, reverberating through the ground and air. The quaking sensation, which would throw any person off their feet, was dampened in Maeve's cockpit by the serval's unlocked suspension. 

Each mech on her cam feed moved in perfect time. One leg planted, and the other lifted. Seamless alternations between left and right. All telltale signs of single controlled automatics. The reason most competitors had to cheap out on the frames–so they could afford those balancers. Every mech there moved in that programmed rhythm—except possibly the blue and black wolf. He seemed to switch systems every couple of years.

Maeve nudged her controls forward. The serval creaked once and responded. Slow, careful steps forward. Steady pressure, keeping either side balanced, so they moved in a straight line. Measured and paced. Maeve barely felt the movement. She loved that about cat mechs. No matter the exact frame structure, the ride was always smooth as silk.

She eased off once they reached the coarse white starting line. Where they stopped, they were approximately aligned with the other mechs. The tabby frame was a single steel paw past, but the judges wouldn't nitpick that. With an inexperienced pilot, they were lucky she stopped at all. The tabby bounced on its toes, ready to charge ahead. The jointed tail rippled, weaving left and right, waiting for an electrical signal to lock it in place as a counterbalance. An active state a cat didn't need while waiting at the start of a straightaway. A sure sign the kid was going to gun it the second she heard the flare.

Maeve listened with an idle ear as the old dog grumbled over the rules. She tapped her claws on the controls, thought about it, then switched the radio off. All that remained was the hum of the core and the faint creaking from the other mechs outside. 

“Alright, girl," Maeve said. “Let's knock that cheetah down a peg."

Silence. But the serval agreed. Maeve could believe that much.

She watched the feeds on the surrounding displays. The left clifftop was where the old dog stood with a couple of younger dogs or cats. She hadn't noticed the others' exact breeds. The old dog was the only judge she remembered. He was the only one that noticed her temps were high. If she lost this race, it was going to be his fault.

But she wasn't going to lose. Maeve flexed her hands on the controls. She watched the left display, focusing on the cloudy sky, and waited for the signal. Ears pointed forward. She was ready for what happened next.

The starting flare fired. A sharp crack, then a plume of vibrant red smoke shot into the air.

Another crack, as the pilots slammed on the accelerators. Cores increased to a roar, throwing power into the legs. Every mech lurched forward. All but one. 

The other wolf—or maybe it was a domestic dog. Some sort of canid frame with a long muzzle and pointed ears underneath all the bright orange and brown rust. Regardless of what it was, it lurched two steps, and something in the front right leg snapped.

An awful sound. Tons of steel falling nose-first. Crumpling plates and snapping wires. Screeching and sparks as metal grated together.

The other competitors ran past. The cheetah took off, a blinding sprint down the straightaway, and the tabby was two strides behind. 

The front runner and wild card were out of the way. Maeve flicked her ears and eased the controls forward. The serval started at a trot. Maeve glanced at her left display. The wolf maintained a similar pace. Smart. Throwing the accelerators slammed all that pressure on the forward front joints. Most mechs didn't handle force like that well, as the fallen hound demonstrated. Except that cheetah, which was made to run a full sprint at a moment's notice.

But that was fine. This wasn't a sprint. This was a race. And Maeve intended to win.

She held pace beside the wolf for a minute, letting the serval fall into a regular, gliding stride. The core's hum steadied, and the flashing numbers on her display stabilized. Green across all parameters. Maeve shoved the controls forward.

The serval broke into a run. 

And yet she barely felt it. Past the sheer rock walls soaring past, the blurred dots of spectators along the cliff tops, and the wolf falling behind her. Smooth strides pulled them forward through the canyon until she could see the cheetah's tail past the thick clouds of dust. Until she was neck and neck, challenging the tabby for second place on the last half of the straightaway. 

That initial burst of speed petered off. The tabby and cheetah's leads weakened as their overheating cores caught up with them. Charley was putting on the brakes, giving his cheetah a chance to breathe before the curve.

The kid? Maeve checked at her left display, where the tabby loped beside them. Smoke streamed out of the chassis from behind the neck and at the abdominal connectors. Its pace slowed. The kid wasn't letting up. Her mech did. A rust bucket mech couldn't keep up with a hotheaded pilot like that. Which Maeve knew, because she used to be a hotheaded kid burning out cores, too.

Maeve's ear twitched. She could smell smoke even in her sealed cockpit. Tried not to focus on it. Keep her eyes dead ahead, watching for the lazy red X's painted on the wall just before the curve in their nature made track.

But she couldn't do it. 

Too many years as a mechanic. She'd seen too many mechs sent to the scrapyard because of a mistake like this one. Cores burned out, melted into dead lumps of immobile steel, because kids didn't know better.

“Shit." Maeve hissed through her teeth. She let up on her controls and mashed through her radio. She scrolled channels until she heard giggling and hit the mic button. “Maeve here," she announced herself, and the giggling paused. The sudden silence through the comms served as a sort of inaudible perking of ears. “Your tabby's running hot. You need to open vents if you have them, or lay off the accelerators."

“So what? You're telling me to slow down?"

Maeve shrugged at her radio. “Essentially." 

“Yeah, right! Lick my heels, hag. You're not fooling me!"

Maeve's ears slicked back. She mashed the mic button and swiped the radio volume down. Somehow, she expected discussing heat channels and thermal readings wouldn't change the kid's mind. “Suit yourself," Maeve muttered. “Be hard to lick your heels when I pass you–"

Red flashed across the left screen. Maeve's smooth ride was interrupted. Her serval was thrown right. The entire cockpit twisted and jerked. Only the seatbelt kept Maeve from slamming her head into the wall, but she still felt the impact rattle her teeth and bounce her brain against her skull. 

“Fucking kids-" Maeve braced for the next hit. Leaned the serval into it, to offset. No good. The kid slammed the full brunt of her tabby into the serval's side, shunting them against the rocky canyon wall.

Maeve hissed at her radio. She leaned into her controls, forcing them forward. Ears flattened against the shrill grating of steel on steel and steel on stone. Numbers flashed across her panels. Damage across all the legs. The front right flashed nonsensical numbers. Pressure readings were completely off kilter. 

Another flash across her screen. Collision warning. 

Maeve slammed on her brakes. Her serval's legs locked in place, grinding them to a halt. The tabby ahead of her skidded to a stop, too, but it wasn't voluntary. 

A bright blue and black flashed across Maeve's monitors. The wolf bore down with forged fangs, crushing through the tabby's steel plated flank, locking the two together.

“Get off my ass! I'm going to win!"

Maeve heard the girl shriek through the radio. Soft as it was, it still made her flatten her ears. Before the wolf could respond, the kid got her controls in line and bucked him off. A swat of a steel paw tore off half the wolf's slick paint job. A solid hit that snapped the jaw hinges and sent jagged shards of teeth flying. A second swat caught the wolf's leg. The tabby's claws shredded steel plates and cracked into the subpanels, tearing out one of the supporting pistons.

Giggles pierced the radio again. “Serves you right, dickhead!"

Maeve threw her right control forward. The serval lunged a step and turned, pivoting on its front feet. A yellow plate snapped off the right haunch. A year's worth of Maeve's wages, thousands and thousands of credits, torn off, dented and beaten, lay in the canyon dirt now.

“Fucking kids." Maeve hissed again. She dropped the leg controls. Flipped a control box and slammed her fist on a button on the left wall.

The screen flickered. Gauges illuminated. The serval's numbers plummeted, dropping from wavering 60s and 50s down to 0. Each system's power allotment shifted from mild greens to scarlet. Core power routed away from the limbs. That power directed towards the tail, which jolted upright. 

Maeve grabbed a joystick at her lower right. Threw it forward. 

The stinger hit before the tabby took a second step. A direct hit, straight through the core in its chest. A spray of twisted mangled steel. Sparks and flame as electrical connections burst. Pierced straight through by the 2-ton blade welded on the serval's modified tail. Maeve drew the stinger controls back, and the blade wrenched free with a metallic shriek. Almost as high pitch as the screaming that cut through her radio.

Maeve could've screamed right back at the kid. She couldn't even see Charley on her visual displays. Only the faint, glitchy radar speck showed he had just reached the bend, and he was taking it with all the ease a cheetah frame offered. None. The cheetah slowed to a walk, if that. With no one on his tail, he didn't even need to trot through the bend. His mistake. 

Maeve dropped the stinger. Her hands worked quickly, flipping switches. The core chugged, forcing power back into the limbs. It sounded tired. Overworked. “You and me both," Maeve sympathized with it. “But we have a race to win."

She threw the motion controls forward. Charged straight at the wall. Directly in front of the wolf, who watched her slack jawed with missing teeth, balancing on its remaining 3 legs. The front leg mangled beyond use. Glowing red numbers probably stopped it where it was. The same red numbers that flashed across Maeve's screen. 

Numbers didn't matter here. Maeve kicked the console, shutting the warnings off. She pivoted the controls. Swept her hand along another two switches. The front legs snapped offline. 

The core roared. All power directed into the hind legs and the massive pistons. The serval pointed its nose up, towards the thin streaky clouds overhead. And it launched upwards.

Gravity fell away. Maeve's lungs burned, air thrown out of them. She forced a couple quick breaths. For a split second, they were airborne. The moment that momentous pressure subsided, and her arms were free, Maeve threw the switches back. The front legs jolted, sprang to life as they soared over the crowd. 

Then came the worst part. Landing. 

Maeve grabbed the controls on either side. Sank her claws into the leathery plastic. Tensed for impact. The ground rushed up to meet them.

A shockwave through every joint on the mech. Across the clifftop, throwing most of the spectators off their feet. Banners were flung into the air and fluttered away. She landed perfectly on the cliff top. Her calculated risk paid off. The flat space, the dead zone, between the crowds was clear like it was every time she'd come to see the same race. Everybody, all the people and their families, crowded the edge of the cliffs to watch the racers below. The space between was clear.

If she'd left the screen on, Maeve would've had to clear more than a dozen critical warnings. Leg damage. Joint damage. Stabilizers out. Core damage, from the scuffing sound she heard. But none of that mattered. Because she was too busy flipping the same switches again, while the tired core revved back up.

The second landing. That was the decider. And she couldn't spend too long considering the repercussions of another jump. Maeve pressed forward on the control again.

A horizontal leap. Propelled over the crowd once again. The following gust tore whatever banners were left out of their owners hands. They fluttered back into the canyon. Maeve grinned wildly as she pivoted core power again, watching her right screen as the cheetah trotted into view. 

They slammed down in front of it.

The cheetah had to skid to a stop. Core throttled down, legs locked, skidding across the canyon floor. A pivotal moment. This was where Charley took out all the stops. Every limiter cast aside. The final dash, full speed, towards that spray painted finish line.

Cheetahs were quick. Low warm up time. Accelerated to full speed faster than any other frame. But there was always that mechanical restriction. Switches, levers, activated in succession. Proper sequencing was needed to get into that infamous sprint. And now Charley had to grind that process to a halt and start all over again.

Maeve turned the serval. Kicked up more dust. She drove the mech forward. A full run. The core roared and scraped. She flattened her ears and forced the accelerators on. 

The canyon walls were a streaking blur. Maeve's heart pounded in her ears, faster than the mech's paws slamming into the canyon floor. A second later her right display flickered. The cheetah was there. Charley figured out his dials. They were back up to speed. Elongated strides overtaking the serval's. 

The finish line was in sight.

The last quarter of the track. Maeve swore under her breath. The cheetah was hitting full speed. Soaring past them now. Past the shoulder. Past the nose. Surging ahead. 

The serval's core was maxed out. There wasn't any power left to throw at the legs. Stride for stride, the serval couldn't surpass a cheetah. 

“Fuck it!"

Maeve tossed the switches again. The next stride, the serval's front legs skidded. Power cut, they slammed into the dirt.

One last jump. Maeve flipped a row of switches. Her displays cut out. The cockpit was dark, with only scant light filtering in through the serval's translucent eyes. Only two lights flickered. One on each joystick. Maeve grabbed the leg controls and slammed them forward.

The serval jumped. 

She couldn't tell how high or see the trajectory. She couldn't see anything but red dust flying before the serval's eyes.

The landing was rough. Worse than jumping the cliffs. The serval's bruised stabilizers couldn't compensate for the impact.

Front feet hit and threw Maeve forward. Seatbelts narrowly stopped her from slamming face first into the dashboard. The serval's claws grated through the dirt and rock at the end of the canyon. She was lucky the mech didn't somersault over both their ears.

They jerked to a stop. Maeve banged her head on her headrest. She deserved that one for such an ill-executed jump.

Maeve turned an ear back. The overheating core had shut down. The serval was silent. Joint locks didn't even thunk into place, with the forced shut down. Head and body floated on fluid neck and leg connectors. She could still feel the sway as she unfastened her seatbelt with numb fingers and stumbled onto her feet.

Maeve bumped her head again on the hatch, as she fumbled around in the dark. Her fingers slid across smooth steel until they found a lever. Twisted it. Reluctantly, the imperfect seal surrendered with a weak hiss, and Maeve shoved the hatch open.

Dust floated through the air. Maeve coughed a couple times, grimacing at the earthy taste and the smell of fresh dirt. A hint of oil, too, which wasn't a good sign. However, considering the beating her serval took, she couldn't be surprised.

The cheetah had stopped a couple paces behind her. Back paw still on the finish line. Charley was, similarly, on top of his mech watching the dust settle.

“Maeve!"

Maeve's ears turned. Her eyes followed, and she spotted the old dog below her mech. He climbed off a smaller frame, a riding raptor, and he wasn't happy to see her. 

“Do you know what you've done?"

Maeve's ears lifted. She looked back at Charley, a lump sitting on his mech, and then at the rest of the canyon. “I think I just won 500,000 credits."

“You could've killed people!" He stomped a boot in the dust. “You can't jump the canyon—"

“The rules didn't say anything about that." Maeve smiled, and she nodded at their audience. “And I didn't kill anyone, did I?"

The old dog flapped his jaws, but he didn't make a sound. Maeve smirked. 

The stunned silence from all the spectators, and the old dog's pinned ears answered. As did all the tattered banners littering the canyon floor. The mechanic and her junkyard serval beat the crowd Charley and his cheetah. 

A victory in more ways than one. The old dog certainly knew her name now, and it wasn't Marve.

Her name was Maeve, and she was going to become the greatest pilot anyone on this waste of a planet had ever seen.

Maeve leaned over and bared her pointed teeth. “Now do me a favor," she said. “Call me a tow, and put my new credits to use."