Chapter 1: Countdown to Zero

"No one can hear you scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. . ." The announcer paused his amplified flute-like bird song echoing back at him as the view screens lit up the audience before him,

" Life forms and various sentiances! I wanna hear you prove them WROOOOONG!" The crowd of lifeforms erupted into a cacophony of noise as the announcer strutted up and down the stage his dark red plumage raised in excitement. Above him loomed a line of ships silently hovering above the view dome.

"Spectacular!" The announcer finished with his strutting grabbed the mic in one clawed foot and motioned to a view screen with a feathered wing, "I hope you'll share some of that excitement with our racers. First up! From the ever changing trash heap of a planet it's the Mogg from the planet Mogg in the ship, can you guess it?" The Audience let out a collection of noises that all translated to the same thing, “MOGG!” The massive view screens behind the stage flickered to a hulking ball of metal and scrap as a particularly chittering centric applause went up. Covering it's jagged exterior where groups of the brown insectoid Mogg. Even now making adjustments to their ship.

"Now don't worry they have been banned from using a Mogg drive like all of our contestants, but I imagine they still have plenty of surprises in store for us!"

"Next up, you all know them as the weirdos that want your blood and knowledge!" The Announcer pauses for the audiences' chuckle. "It's the Cetansian research ship, Dutiful Dawn!" The view screen flickered to a strange creature gently moving in space. Long and elegant with strange fin shaped protrusions running down its body. At what could only be described as its head, or atleast the direction that the other ships were facing, a pair of large pupiless white eyes stared at nothing.

The Announcer looked up at the ship floating on the screen and made a gagging noise, “Considered by many of the bipedal mammalian races as one of the more mutually attractive races. They may have the ugliest ships in the galaxy. Unlike the ships of our next contestants!” The screen shifted to a graceful ship constructed out of pearlescent metal plates connected with thin golden strands glittering in the starlight, “It’s the Ambliks of shattered Contritus in the ship.” The Announcer did a double take at the prompter, “ The Ship Name? Anyways I certainly hope their ships are made of sturdier stuff than their planet was! Because this race has no rules against weaponry and it looks like our next contestant has brought plenty of weaponry to make things interesting!” Appearing on the view screen to various noises of displeasure from the audience a ship larger than the others appears on the large view screen, bristling with weapons and a large metal wedge with a brilliant glowing edge sticking out of the front. Scraps of previous ships hung off the hull of the Saalesh ship as trophies. “It’s the old flagship of T’chima’s criminal empire the Event Horizon!”

“Now please they may be hated by many, but they have the same right as anybody to this race. How else could the underdog of our race have made it here if there were any rules on what can or cannot be used here! Hailing from the strange species that destroyed their own planet it’s the only single pilot ship! The Ambition!”

Sasha grimaced as she listened to the Caelen announcer as he mocked and belittled her ship. A simple ship with a conical front and small wings and a fin on the back. Remnants of when the spacefaring ships of Earth had to be constructed in the atmosphere of the planet. The white hull was covered in marks of wear and tear from the Escape. Sasha had bartered and begged and ultimately had to take the old ship from the Glass Palace’s history exhibit. “There there, they don’t know who they’re talking to yet.” Sasha gently patted the retrofitted controls in front of her. Strapped into a pilot swing in the center of her ship. She was surrounded on all sides by blinking control panels with hastily written notes in galactic common taped on top of various buttons saying things like. “Reminder! Don’t use life support and Thrusters at max.” or “pick up supplies soon. Low on eggs.” and finally “Remember do this and you're free” This one was written in much neater handwriting than the rest and was signed -Oggmun. Sasha didn’t like looking at that note, but would often glance at it and the dull glow underneath. Looking back at the small transmission screen next to her the Announcer was just finishing ragging on her ship, “- ust barely getting into space the humans immediately got put on the Coalition's protected species list after they found out they had jumped into the void of space after abandoning their planet!” Sasha still hadn’t gotten used to the noise of a multi-species audience. A collection of noises that ranged from a familiar laugh to the horrible hissing scream of an amused Amblik came through her audio feed.

The announcer waited for the laughter to die down and then raised his feathers to their height and shouted, “ Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for! When I flash the coordinates of the grand prize on the screen the first one to reach it will be crowned our victor!” With a flamboyant bow and a spreading of his brilliant red wings holding the microphone in one clawed foot, he motions to the large viewscreen behind him. Flashing from a view of Sahsa’s retrofitted ship to a set of Coordinates.

64:70 LYC=255303

With the flaring of engines, the motley assortment of ships race off into the dark of space.

Chapter 2:

What to do when viewing a race through the warp of a Mogg field.