Neil piloted the small craft into flight through the night sky, the two moons of Krathal lit up the land with a soft glow while the stars twinkled above and the moonlit seas twinkled below. Neil kept silent as the craft gained more altitude, his hand gently increasing the throttle as he climbed higher and higher above the cloud layer with the whines of the air breathing engines being the only sounds in the cockpit. Two other craft joined him on his continuing ascent flying parallel to him on both his port and starboard sides.

Chatter over the radio broke the silence. “Neil, this is Forest, is your frequency good?” asked a distorted static-filled voice from the radio. The voice repeated Neil’s name as he adjusted the analog knob on the radio until the audial distortion ceased. “Yes, I can hear you,” Neil responded. “Epic,” the voice over the radio replied.

Neil looked at his dash, the altimeter read 30k leaps, which then increased to 31k leaps, then to 32k. The altimeter continued to increase steadily as the barometer continued to fall: now reading very close to a vacuum. Once the three craft had left the atmosphere into space Neil heard a thud and felt a push of acceleration as the engines automatically switched from air-breathing to vacuum mode. Neil reduced the throttle slightly to ease the G forces.

“I can’t believe you two actually convinced me to do this again,” Neil spoke into his radio.

“Well, of course!” a stronger voice over the radio mocked, “How could I resist beating you again, pipsqueak?!”

Neil rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, Desmond.”

“So you two know the routine,” said Forest, “We circle west to equatorial orbit and then we’ll start at the 10th west longitudinal line.”

Neil naturally nodded in acknowledgement. “Gotcha,” he confirmed as he entered his desired orbital parameters into the autopilot computer. After the autopilot took over Neil relaxed and had free mental capacity to ponder his current whereabouts. He started to have second thoughts about the events that were about to unfold. “Guys, do we really have to do this tonight?” he asked nervously.

“Why, what’s wrong, Neil? Afraid you’ll lose again?” Desmond taunted.

“No, it’s because the last time we did this my mom really busted my ass!” Neil bluntly stated, “She doesn’t even know I’m out flying the ship right now!”

Neil’s mother, Chloe, always had strict and strange attitudes around flying. Chloe had no issue with deep space travel or lower atmospheric flight, but when in a planet’s immediate orbit or in the upper atmosphere she would always preach and practice extra cautious flying to an overbearing degree, this would mean there would be no hypersonic flight and they would always keep the shields up to maximum regardless of the situation.

Chloe’s biggest rule, however, was absolutely no hot reentries. Even though consumer-grade smallcraft could routinely withstand high-speed ballistic reentries Chloe would always reverse the engines and activate the ventral thrusters or antigravs to slowly sink into the atmosphere. Chloe would also refuse to fly on any public or commercial space transportation service that involved high heat or plasmafication at any phase during takeoff or reentry. Most of all she forbid her family from doing any of the same, and this meant one hard rule set for her son: “There will absolutely positively be no aerodragging!”

Aerodragging was a popular thrill sport among the youth, the setup and rules for the sport were quite simple: enter a ballistic orbit, match initial velocities, and once a set longitude line was crossed the race would begin. The participants then dived into the atmosphere, aerobraking under manual pilot, and the first one to cross another set longitude line would be declared the winner. Neil had been sneaking off with Chloe’s smallcraft to aerodrag for quite some time now in opposition to her wishes, he’d never win a race as his mother’s ship was the least aerodynamic of the ones flown by him and his friends, but the thrill and testing of his limits kept him coming back.

That was of course until their last race when they flew too low and were caught by the local police for making sonic booms over a large city. Forest immediately cracked under the pressure and confessed everything to the authorities about their activities, their parents were notified and…

“Yeah, I remember your mom was so pissed!” Forest chuckled, “Man, we didn’t see you for like three weeks!”

“Yeah,” Neil agreed while internally criticizing Forest’s tone-deaf lack of responsibility for getting them busted last time, “She banned me from flying and sent me off to clean trash from the hunting grounds for three weeks!”

“Whatever excuse you need,” said Desmond, “Go home if you want, because we know how this ends anyways!”

“In your dreams, Des!” said Neil rejecting Desmond’s offer to a chance of forfeiture, “The only reason I even came back to this was to have a chance at finally beating you!”

“Pfffft good luck, we all know I’m the best!” Desmond gloated.

“Yeah, well not all of us have a rich daddy who will give us the best shiny new performance model for our birthday because we lack skill, daddy’s boy!” Neil snarked back.

“I hate to interrupt your trash talk session,” Forest interjected, “But isn’t that like your mom’s ship, Neil?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry,” Neil assured, “She’s out deep into the hunting grounds tonight so we’ll be back before she even finds out I’m gone. Backup plan is I’ll just say we went to go hang in the Grand Lakes!”

“Whelp,” said Desmond, “Looks like it’s whuppin time for you again!” Desmond then gave out a loud chuckle, “This is getting old at this point. Don’t you get tired of losing?”

Neil rolled his eyes in response to Desmond’s tryhard attempts to taunt him. Neil had long enough of Desmond’s victory laps and constant one-upping over him. Neil pondered on all his past races, all the past humiliations, and carefully thought through several scenarios in his head, and after a minute in deep thought Neil spoke into his dash radio. “You know what? I agree!” he stated calmly.

“Wait, what?” Desmond asked in a confused response.

“I agree,” Neil said, “So how about we make this interesting? If I win, you owe me, let’s say, 2,500 credits.”

“Excuse me!?” Desmond responded, surprised at Neil’s request to a bet.

“You owe me 2,500 credits,” Neil reiterated, “Or is your dad actually poor?”

“Okay, fine!” Desmond scoffed in acceptance, “But if I win, you’ll be my slave for a month!”

Neil gazed out to space ahead of the cockpit and witnessed Krathal’s sun, Kra, peak over the curved horizon of the planet. Kra’s bright rays washed out the stars and filled the cockpit with a warm glow, the normally harmful solar radiation and typically blinding light being safely filtered out by the cockpit’s tinted glass windows. Neil’s eyes lit up just like the orbital dawn and he smirked deviously. “It’s a deal!” he said.

“Oh well, have fun being my slave!” Desmond responded with upmost confidence.

“Want any in on this, Forest?” Neil asked into the radio.

“Oh no, this is totally between you guys!” Forest responded.

“Alright,” Neil replied.

“Okay, so rules are the same,” Forest started to explain, “We start the atmospheric dive at 10°W and first one to cross 50°W is the winner. There will be no actions that will likely result in fatality or injury, and flight will transition to subsonic by the time we hit the troposphere. We don’t want any repeats of last time. Understood?”

“Understood!” Neil and Desmond both responded.

“Alright you two,” said Forest, “Form up wing-to-wing and match velocities, we’re coming up on 10°W”.

The trio adjusted their speeds and maneuvered their vessels until they were flying perfectly parallel port and starboard to one another. Neil kept an eye on the planetary navigation map that was centered on the dash, it indicated they had crossed Krathal’s prime meridian and the longitudinal coordinates now read past 2°W.

“Okay guys, get ready!” Forest alerted.

3°W.

Neil gripped the control yoke hard with his left hand and held his right hand on the throttle.

4°W.

“Okay, we start in 5…” Forest started counting down.

5°W.

“…4…”

6°W

“…3…”

7°W

“…2…”

8°W

“…1…”

9°W

The sweat was dropping off Neil’s forehead. He was thinking about backing out, but he had already set his terms and was dedicated to what he was about to do. He then heard Desmond speak over the radio, “When we land, Neil, I expect to see you in a maid outfit!” Neil frustratingly muted Desmond’s radio frequency in response.

10°W.

“…GO!” Forest declared the start of the race.

Neil pulled back the throttle lever throwing the engines into full reverse initiating the ballistic descent. He was tossed forward by the sudden deceleration, his seat harness momentarily turned into a hundred pound weight pressing into his chest. He then set the throttle lever back to zero as the racing participants began their atmospheric entry.

Everyone pitched up as they started their hypersonic plunge into the mesosphere. The consumer-grade craft Neil piloted began to vibrate as drag started affecting the vessel upon entered the thin upper atmosphere. A ghostly glowing orange cushion of plasma formed under the bellies of each of the vessels as the shaking of Neil’s craft got more intense.

The race was off to an expected start. Neil’s craft was slowly starting to fall behind the other two and Desmond’s was gradually taking the lead. Neil did not break concentration in the realization of his initial lagging, though, he continued to grip the steering yoke tightly as the heat surrounding the craft glowed hotter and hotter.

Neil then pushed forward on the steering mechanism slowly pitching the nose of the craft downwards while his friends were still pitched to point their bellies towards the plasma. The craft’s warning system flashed red lights throughout the interior and a computerized voice urgently spoke the words “WARNING: DANGEROUS ANGLE OF ATTACK. WARNING…” Neil ignored the repeated warnings as he adjusted a dial on the dash directing power towards the forward shields.

The nose of Neil’s craft was now aligned straight with his forward vector. With this new aerodynamic profile he began to increase in speed and started to overtake Forest’s craft. Forest took notice of this and transmitted to Neil over the radio.

“Neil, your angle of attack is too shallow! You’re taking too much reentry heat to the nose!”

Neil gripped the controls, calmly keeping his craft on course as he stared into the fiery display ahead of him as it grew in intensity. “Yes, I know!” Neil responded plainly. The computerized voice continued to blare it’s concerning alarms: “WARNING: DANGEROUS ANGLE OF ATTACK, EMERGENCY AUTOPILOT OVERRIDE OF MANUAL CONTROLS IN 5 SECONDS…” Neil then flipped two switches on the overhead dash revoking the autopilot’s emergency privileges to override the manual controls.

“Neil, that angle of attack won’t survive peak heating!” Forest warned.

Neil observed the other two participants. He had overtaken and was ahead of Forest by this point but was still a good way behind Desmond. “Don’t worry,” Neil reassured, “I don’t plan to hold this AoA.”

“I hope not,” Forest responded, “You are nuts you know that?”

Neil chuckled, “I know!”

The craft began to shake more and more violently as they continued their meteoric descent into Krathal’s skies. They had now crossed 25°W, the mid-point of the race. Neil was at an equal distance between Desmond and Forest, still pointed low, and the plasma surrounding the craft was now starting to form flames.

Neil observed that his descent profile was no longer giving him an advantage as they hit the lower mesosphere, and thus he decided now was the time for the next part of his strategy. Neil pulled back on the controls finally pitching his craft up to point it’s belly into the flames. The computer voice spoke again, “WARNING: HEAT APPROACHING DANGEROUS MARGINS…” Neil promptly flipped another switch silencing the warning system for good.

Neil flipped more switches on his dash and dialed more knobs as he heard Forest’s shocked voice come over the radio again. “Neil, what are you even doing?”

“Truth be told I never did push this craft to it’s limits any time we raced before,” Neil explained, “Desmond’s fancy-ass hot rod is built for atmospheric flight, but this standard model has much stronger void thrusters.”

Forest started to sound nervous, “Neil, what are you planning?!”

“I’m redirecting power from the shields to the engines,” Neil bluntly stated.

“You’re WHAT?!” Forest responded in horror.

“There were no rules against engine assist, and this thing packs a lot of vacuum thrust!” Neil further emphasized.

“I’m pretty sure this violates the rule of no potentially fatal actions, Neil!” Forest plead.

“Except it doesn’t,” Neil stated with confidence, “Because I don’t intend to die, I intend to win. Besides, the ablative tiles will soak up the heat!”

“In the names of all the gods, and by the guiding lights of our ancestors, this is the most reckless thing you’ve ever done, and that’s saying a lot for you!” Forest yelled, “Besides, those tiles are for emergency shield failure!”

“They’ll hold, then!” Neil said assuredly.

“Neil, if this maneuver doesn’t send you on a fiery trip into the Nightlands then your Mom will!” Forest argued.

“Willing to take that risk,” said Neil as he too silenced Forest’s radio frequency.

Neil then threw the throttle into full ahead and the sudden acceleration pinned him against his seat. They had crossed 40°W and Neil was picking up more and more speed as they slammed into the lower mesosphere. Reentry flames had now fully engulfed the vessel which shook violently as it’s belly and wings tanked the thickening air.

The vacuum engines screamed as they gave it all they got and the wings struggled to hold on during the hypersonic flight. Neil saw that he was slowly gaining on Desmond, meanwhile Desmond in response activated his void engines but the void engines on Neil’s model simply overpowered Desmond’s.

The two flaming craft were now past 45°W as they entered the upper stratosphere and Neil slowly gained more and more on Desmond. Neil knew that his advantage was running out as the air grew thicker and thicker, so in one last reckless push he once again pointed his nose downward giving him one last sudden burst of speed over Desmond.

“Almost there”, Neil said to himself as he was now running parallel to Desmond.

The cockpit glass was clearly starting to form brown scorch marks and Neil could hear the glass itself warping. “Almost there…”

Miraculously, Neil’s craft was the first to pass the finish line of 50°W by as little as a single craftlength ahead of Desmond. Now plunging into the mid stratosphere Neil pulled back up to face the belly of the craft back into the coming air, Desmond’s craft then once again screamed ahead of him as he started to rapidly slow down. The plasma slowly disappeared as he brought the craft below hypersonic speeds, he then unmuted the radio frequencies of both Forest and Desmond.

“You asshole, you cheated!” Desmond complained.

“No I didn’t,” Neil said, “There was no rule against engine assist!”

“You…!” Desmond attempted to complain again before he was cut off by Forest.

“He’s right, Des,” Forest said, “No rules were stated so it was allowed.”

“Yeah, Des,” Neil gloated, “You owe me 2,500 credits!”

“Well,” Desmond reluctantly sighed in defeat, “Fine, you fucking win!”

Neil grinned.

The trio slowed to subsonic speeds as they descended into the troposphere. They switched their engines to atmospheric mode as they now gently flew through Krathal’s skies. Forest flew below Neil and got a good look up at Neil’s craft.

Forest let out a long nervous whistle over the radio channel. “Oh shit, Neil,” he muttered as he got a good look at the state of Neil’s craft, “Your Mom is gonna murder you!”

“Oh don’t worry,” Neil said, “I’ll just let you take it so she doesn’t see it and then I can say I let you borrow it and we can clean it up before she sees the mess!”

“Might take more than some cleaning,” Forest stated, “But okay”.

Neil grinned relishing in his victory.

A couple hours after the conclusion of the race Neil had handed the craft over to Forest who then dropped Neil off at his home. By now it was already mid-morning at Neil’s home and he was tired and worn out from the race.

Exhausted while satisfied with his victory he fastened his sun hood to his poncho and decided to reward himself with a nice sleep under the shady treeline. He dozed off quickly and slept heavily beneath the shade.

Neil was stirred awake sometime later by the sounds of antigravs executing a landing cycle. He opened his eyes as he heard a door slam and he connected the dots mentally. Feeling a sudden rush of adrenaline he picked himself up and made an attempt to break for the woods.

But before he could run he heard an enraged voice shouting “Neil, get the fuck over here!”

Neil tried to keep silent and not move. But then he heard it again, “I know you’re there, Neil, I can smell you!”

Neil then slowly crept around to the front of the house. There he saw his mother, Chloe, standing before the scorched ship which was now present sitting on the dirt path. She looked furious while bearing very little patience. Neil kept his distance.

“Well, Forest’s mother called me so I had to come see it for myself!” she snarled as she pointed to the damage and burn marks covering the exterior of the vehicle. “Care to tell me how this happened?”

Neil tried to formulate a story in his brain but was too racked by the development in the situation. “Well, you see, Forest and I were hanging in the Grand Lakes and…”

“You went aerodragging” Chloe interrupted him with a direct accusation.

“What I was trying to say is that we were in the Grand Lakes province and we ran into that guy who likes blowing things up,” said Neil attempting to spin a lie, “And…”

“Neil,” Chloe once again interrupted, “We both know you are a very bad liar and wouldn’t last a second in a seedy back alley. So just tell me what I already know.”

“Um,” Neil’s eyes shifted, “Maybe?”

That was confession enough for Chloe. Chloe just groaned and pressed her hand up to her face. She then spoke in a quiet but still angry tone, “Oh for fucks’ sake Neil. I am a very permissive parent, I mostly let you do what you want, and I only have one major set of rules and you keep breaking the big one.”

Neil just stood silently and grasped his hood and looked away in shame.

“You know what, Neil? I’m not even going to keep yelling at you, you’re old enough to know how you fucked up,” Chloe said sternly, “But you are banned from flying until I say so, and you are going to replace all those ablator tiles, change the cockpit glass, and repaint the hull!”

“Yes, mom” Neil murmured.

Chloe sighed again. “And one more thing, Neil,” she said in a disappointed tone, “Next time you do something stupid, just promise me that you will not trust Forest of all people to cover your ass. The little rat can’t ever keep his mouth shut, he blabbed about everything and that’s how I found out.”

Neil just nodded along.

“Well get to work,” Chloe ordered, “I’m gonna go back to trying to get us something to eat, hopefully with no more crazy interruptions.” Chloe then stormed off and Neil looked upon the task ahead of him.

A few hours had passed until it was once again nighttime and Neil worked under the light of a work lamp. He had the craft propped up on a jack as he chipped off the burnt ablative tiles with a chisel and mallet. He scraped off the thermal-resistant plaster with a scraper tool and removed whatever residue was left with a sander.

Neil paused his work as a shadow cast by the moons loomed over him. He looked up to see Chloe standing over him holding a freshly-hunted animal carcass up over her shoulders. “So, how’s it going?” she asked.

“I’m about halfway through getting the old tiles scraped off”, Neil simply responded.

Chloe nodded her head at the status update. “Okay, good.” Chloe then looked to her left and right and then switched to an encouragingly curious voice, “Did you win at least?”

“Wait, what?” Neil asked in a puzzled response.

“Did you win?” Chloe reiterated her previous question.

“Yes,” answered Neil with a confused smile, “And Desmond was really not happy about it.”

Chloe processed Neil’s response. She then smirked slightly. “Hmph,” she said with a tone of pride, “Now that’s my boy, I knew you’d somehow show his smug ass eventually. Maybe I can… reconsider your flight ban if you do a good job cleaning up the ship.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I don’t think I need to race any more after this,” Neil assured.

“Good,” said Chloe, “But you are paying for the damage. It’s most likely going to cost 2,400 credits.”

Neil just smiled and said “Don’t worry Mom, I already planned for that and got it covered. I left room for error in my math too.”

“Well, you’re smart,” said Chloe, “By the way, if you need a break and get hungry feel free to come inside for a bit.”

Neil just smiled as he continued working. There was a reason he didn’t bet Desmond more than 2,500 credits: Neil had planned out the race over and over in his head before they even departed the previous night. Neil knew what the craft was capable of and already knew how he would fly, but he also knew the craft would get damaged and had estimated the repair costs and within a good margin. He bet everything on his precise plan and skill, and to him he had won what he truly wanted.

To Neil it wasn’t about the money, he did not care for such things. To him it was about the respect, overcoming obstacles, the thrill, and most importantly ensuring that he will never be bothered by such things ever again.

Neil’s thoughts turned attention to Forest.

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This art and story was an idea I had floating around in my head for a while. I wanted to upload more canonical content to my worldbuilding, lore, and characters so I came up with a story from Neil’s past.

To clear up any confusion Neil in this art and story is 19, which is still considered adolescence for arpines (who reach legal adulthood at 23), as opposed to most of my art of him in which he’s a matured adult at 34. And yes, Neil had a longer mane when he was an adolescent.

I wanted to show a scenario where Neil showed some of the earliest hints at the ace starfighter pilot he’d eventually come as well as showcasing early examples of his strategic thinking. I also wanted a window to peer into Neil’s life growing up, Chloe’s complicated character (which extends to her parenting), as well as life on Krathal in general.

Hope you enjoyed!

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Neil Vortex, Chloe Vortex, and all other characters, concepts, art, story, and settings all belong to me.

Art done in Clip Studio Paint.