Okay, finished my chapter.

Chapter 4:

Tony Waterback was considered one of the best pilots in the galaxy. The gray-furred jackrabbit from Technoir had won the Carrotan space race 5 years in a row, and was going to enter the sixth. He had built his own ship: a compact 1-man flyer with 2 large boosters, and 2 wings that curved up and around the top, each wing carrying a small pulse cannon in case of emergencies. This was an emergency.

He had been practicing by the old Sluggion asteroid belt when an old Shellian defense system had booted itself up and opened fire on his ship, at the same time calling for help. The asteroid-mounted turrets had been easy to deal with; their armor had been shredded by space dust and the only weapon they used was an outdated laser battery. However, the Shellian fighters that responded to the distress call were much more dangerous. They had piloting skill that rivaled Tony’s own, and ships designed for combat as well as fancy flying. Tony’s pulse cannons weren’t even getting past the shields on the fighters, and turning tail and running seemed to be the only option. Tony gunned the gyro thrusters, spinning his ship around in a perfect 180-degree turn before rocketing away from the Shellian fighters.

Luckily for Tony, the Shellians only carried clumsy radar-guided missiles and plasma cannons, which he could easily dodge. The only problem was that the Shellians would not give up chase. Tony led them all the way around Pezrock, Medivo, and even Chrysilis, and they never faltered in their chase. Apparently he had to find a friendly system that would destroy his assailants. Carrotus seemed like a good option, so he started heading towards there.

However, Tony’s luck ran out when he reached the Carrotan Asteroid Belt. The asteroids were thickly clumped, and Tony was having a hard time maneuvering around all of them. He started concentrating more on the asteroids than the Shellians fire, which proved to be a mistake. After swerving around a particularly large asteroid, Tony found himself flying head-on towards a shellian missile. He tried to turn his ship, but it was too late. The missile struck his left wing, completely obliterating it and leaving the stump smoking. The ship could still fly forward, but due to its lack of left wing, it could not turn to the right. Tony struggled to pilot it out of the asteroid field, and somehow managed to succeed. His ship shot away from the last of the asteroids, the Shellians in hot pursuit.
Carrotus loomed ahead. The Shellians took this opportunity to break off before Carrotus’s defense fleet saw them, leaving Tony’s smoldering ship streaking towards Carrotus.

Landing without a left wing hadn’t seemed to hard to Tony at first. He had forgotten about air resistance, though, and his ship persisted in turning to the right, throwing the landing angle off completely. Tony was coming down in a large empty field and had plenty of room to land, but it would be tricky with one of his wings gone. Tony tried adjusting the landing angle, but overcompensated and ended up hitting the ground side-on, smashing the right wing like aluminum foil and sending the main part of the ship to a spinning, flipping finale before finally stopping upside-down. “Dangit, I spent a million credits building this thing!” thought Tony. “At least the ten thousand spent on this grav-chair were worth it. That was one heck of a ride!” Indeed, Tony’s grav-chair was the only reason he was still alive: the anti-gravity stabilizers had kept him in suspension so that he wouldn’t receive any shock from the crash.

Tony picked his way out of the wreckage and inspected the damage. The cockpit had survived mostly, with the exception of the nose, which was bent nearly 90 degrees to the left. The body was dented in several places, and opening the service hatch confirmed that the fusion generator used to power the ship had been smashed like a soda can. About 100 yards away, Tony could see the sun reflect off what used to be his right wing.

“(-),” swore Tony. He seemed to be alone in the field, but as he looked around, he saw a building some ways away. Perhaps someone there could help him get back home…