Your name is <span class="mu-s">Terian Choke</span> and you are an <span class="mu-s">Urgi</span>. You were stationed as a petty technical officer on the planet of <span class="mu-s">Newroost</span> by the Accord government, which is <span class="mu-i">completely</span> fine by you. You have very little interest in being a military engineer working on the front line against the machine collective or dealing with renegade Redwing regiments out in some cold space colony; instead having the job to secure territory and maintain bases in the blue zone of your species new homeworld. This is also, completely fine. What is <span class="mu-i">not</span> fine is that the bird you bet on to win on is <span class="mu-i">losing all of his events.</span>

<span class="mu-g">”Swim damn you! Swim you sorry excuse for a bird!”</span>

In the Consortium, every type of competitive event is open to sports betting. You may be halfway across the galaxy; but your credits are just as good here or there. Zaloon racing is supposed to be the best type of sport to bet; since the racers are too stupid to take bribes or get disqualified for cheating. They just take whatever performance enhancing drug cocktail their handlers make for them; which is all public information. Perhaps you should have studied biochemistry more if you wanted even more of an edge.

<span class="mu-g">”GO ORANGE!”</span>

He overtakes Blue, then Orange and Red come up close behind. They close their armor plates together and squeeze the water out of the interim space; the diving section of the race is next. You know your racer is going to reach the base of the river first with his own body's divebell technique. Unless...

<span class="mu-g">”No! NO!”</span>

He stops to take in breath, giving critical seconds for the other racers to make it to the dive site. He overshoots his oxygen he'll need, as two other racers rapidly dive to the finish at the base of the river.