Exports, however, weren’t Yurievsky’s only stock in trade. He was also an expert in finding and securing imports that were directly beneficial to Pridnestrovia. It was this particular expertise which had made Yurievsky a de facto member of UrGa’s driver selection committee when the team decided to make its entry into the World Grand Prix Organization, and some might even say that he had the final say in picking the driver whom the team should pursue in terms of getting their signature. UrGa Motorsports had not had a lot of choice going into their very first season of WGP2, namely its third season, with only TJUN-ia’s Lane Carter deciding to take the plunge and embark on a test drive with the team. Things went a little better for the team in Season 4, with a number of drivers actually deciding to join the team’s pre-season test drive, but there was more than just a little confusion throughout the team when it was decided (supposedly with Yurievsky’s input) when they chose to offer their second seat to Major Harry Zoomtwat of Featherstonehaugh Cholmondeley (reportedly pronounced as “Fanshaw Chumley,” according to Yurievsky's sources). Literally no one could see the point of UrGa hiring a driver that looked like he came straight out of a painting depicting the Revolution of 1910 when the people of the Transnistrian Governorate overthrew the governor and installed a republican form of government in his place. There was nothing that Pridnestrovia could offer to Featherstonehaugh Cholmondeley that would make sense in the grand scheme of things (F.C. being a place that appeared to be perpetually stuck in the interwar period) and vice versa. This led to inevitable tensions between Yurievsky and Vasily Gatutin, team principal of UrGa Motorsports' WGPO outfit, as well as between Major Zoomtwat and his teammate Taras Matviyenko. It wasn't until the end of the season that Yurievsky revealed to the rest of the team (the rest of the upper hierarchy anyway) that the reason Zoomtwat had been picked was because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs believed that the major was in possession of the Scepter of Saint Bogdan, a priceless historical and national artifact dating back to the earliest days of the Pridnestrovian proto-state. The scepter was successfully recovered from Zoomtwat's possessions, although he did say before leaving that he had almost had the scepter turned into golf clubs.
The only time that both Yakov Yurievsky and Vasily Gatutin had been in agreement in who to sign for the team came in Season 5 of WGP2, when UrGa offered their second seat to young Shalmaneser Kalhu of Adab. Gatutin had liked how Sal Kalhu had looked in preseason testing and was more than willimg to give the place to the young Adabian in order to develop his pace and racecraft. Yurievsky meanwhile believed that Kalhu's entourage would be a good way for him to get acquainted with the big movers within Adab's government and economy, thus helping him grease the wheels of the entry of Pridnestrovian products into Adab. Yurievsky also hoped to gain access to Adab's oil industry in order to add another source of the very valuable resource into Pridnestrovia's own reserves, but that wasn't the only deal that he managed to get out of the Kalhu signing. As it turned out, Adab was home to a burgeoing ceramics industry, and though most of their production was focused solely on practical day-to-day stuff such as tableware and the like, Yurievsky had been able to convince some makers to start producing ceramic armor plating for the Pridnestrovian military. Most of these consisted of ceramic plates for soldiers' personal body armor, while the rest went into new batches of explosive reactive armor being made for Pridnestrovia's newer tanks. Personal relations between Vasily Gatutin and Saad Kaykali (Sal Kalhu's manager) notwithstanding, this particular partnership between Pridnestrovia and Adab had proven very beneficial for one Yakov Yurievsky.
So now when the time came for UrGa to finally make the leap up into the top tier of open wheel motorsports, WGPC, Yakov Yurievsky expected that he would once again have a say in the process of determining who gets offered a race seat with the team come the new season. However, what Yurievsky didn’t count on was the possibility of Adonis Fitzpatrick, UrGa’s first driver down in WGP2 during Season 5, not driving for the team anymore after he received an offer from Scuderia Orange Cow of Baker Park. UrGa would still hold a preseason test to determine who among their candidates would be the best fit for the team going into Season 20 of WGPC, but because it was now possible that they would need to fill two seats instead of just one as they usually did, Vasily Gatutin decided to take matters into his own hands and offer one seat in the team to a driver whom he had been keeping his eyes on ever since she turned up for a handful of tests with UrGa down in WGP2: Skiia Vialiv.
This time it was Yakov Yurievsky who couldn’t see any reason why UrGa had decided to make the offer to the driver from Tropicorp. As far as he could tell, even though Vialiv was affiliated with Tropicorp, there was no additional incentive at all for the team to bring her in. UrGa was already using tires from Tropicorp Racing Supply; they didn’t seem to be getting any discounts on the tires for as long as Vialiv was with the team. And using Tropicorp engines didn’t appear to be part of the deal as well; UrGa was still running the Preston engines that they had been using for the past three seasons in WGP2 while they worked on finally getting their homegrown engine homologated to WGPO standards and approved for their own use as soon as possible. And, as far as Yurievsky could tell, Vialiv was not in possession of any valuable national or historical artifacts relating to the Pridnestrovian state. For all intents and purposes, the deal between Urotovsky-Gatutin and Skiia Vialiv boggled Yakov Yurievsky’s mind to no end.
However, Yurievsky would have not paid much attention to it were it not for the fact that Adonis Fitzpatrick came back from his tests with both Orange Cow and Tropicorp Colourworks Racing without having received any offers for his efforts. And with Vasily Gatutin having already promised Donny that the Fleftic driver was always welcome to come back to UrGa anytime, it meant that the scheduled UrGa preseason test would now be all for nothing except for maybe a testing or reserve driver role. In that regard, Yurievsky had already had his eyes on two particular drivers through which he could envision a massive windfall with regards to improving Pridnestrovia’s position in the multiversal stage. One of those drivers was young Lilly Nattmordsdottir from the nation of Mlima Kijani. Initial scouting reports had already earmarked Lilly as potentially being able to fit the UrGa design philosophy, and thus she was one of a handful of drivers who received an invitation to test for UrGa in the preseason, but before the test could occur, Lilly announced that she had decided to sign for another team instead, namely Sivaleinen of Mertagne.
Yurievsky honestly saw Lilly Nattmordsdottir as a missed opportunity in the grand scheme of things: Mlima Kijani was a land that, as far as Yurievsky could see (with the help of his friends in the Foreign Ministry), was in dire need of a good helping of order amidst all of the chaos engulfing. Graintfjall had tried to introduce or restore order in the country (depending on who one wanted to believe in geopolitical terms) but with the withdrawal of their troops from conducting counterinsurgency operations in Mlima Kijani, perhaps it was time for another country to introduce their own brand of order to fight against that chaos. After all, it had worked out for both the Federal Republic of Estoria and Ceroat; who said that Mlima Kijani wouldn’t benefit from having at least a dose of Pridnestrovian order within its lands? Such a deal would also have been beneficial for Pridnestrovia considering all of the natural resources in the country just waiting to be exported to a country that would make full use of all of them. Yakov Yurievsky was aware that there was some current of hatred against communism running through Mlima Kijani at the moment, but why was he worried about that? Pridnestrovia was no longer a communist country, the hammer and sickle on its flag notwithstanding.
But the other driver on whom Yurievsky had had his eyes on was a much different kettle of fish compared to Lilly Nattmordsdottir. This other driver not only was an established name in open wheel racing but was also affiliated with one of the most mysterious nations that Yurievsky had ever encountered in his life. The Nexus Wardship of Former Citizens of the Nimbus System was, for lack of a better word, intriguing. Yakov Yurievsky was not overly familiar with the history of the place, but there were snippets that he could remember such as how these people had fled from a place engulfed by war or darkness or whatever and established a new country in this much more peaceful corner of the multiverse. And along with themselves, they had brought along something called Imagination (with a capital letter I) that, to the Nimbans, was both power source and object of religious devotion. Imagination was for all intents and purposes, as far as Yurievsky could tell, the god of the Nimbans, and it was the cornerstone upon which the rest of their society was built.
Olivia Stone was from the Nexus Wardship, and not only was she already a proven race winner in WGPO, but she also had some sort of connection to this Imagination that she and her fellow Nimbans revered so much. Again, Yurievsky had little if any clue as to the extent of this relationship between Stone and Imagination, but from what material he had managed to scrounge up, Nimbans were capable of manipulating Imagination to suit their own needs. Yakov didn’t know if this ability was innate only to Nimbans themselves or if it could be taught to an outsider, but it was the personal use of Imagination that had made Yurievsky cast his eyes upon Olivia Stone in the first place. He was aware that the Nimbans utilized Imagination in their racing teams and products, but of course he wasn’t familiar with the ins and outs of the business. He did know that their funny-looking Chase Cutters (the race cars with eight wheels, four at the front and four at the back) were powered by Imagination, and that their racing tires were also imbued with Imagination, however that works. It was the aforementioned use of Imagination, as well as personal manipulation of the stuff, that truly intrigued Yurievsky and planted the seeds of what he had hoped would have been another fruitful partnership in his mind.
Yakov Yurievsky had seen Olivia Stone’s participation in the Lumberjack Challenge in Tropicorp, how she had managed to chop through a massive log with only two or three swings of an axe. Yakov knew that not even the sharpest and newest axes would have been able to do that, even in the hands of the biggest and most muscular lumberjack known to man, and his suspicions were confirmed when he ordered a detailed analysis of footage of the event. There was a distinctive blue glow on the edge of the axe blade, a sure sign that Imagination was at play. Such use of Imagination only confirmed to Yurievsky that the things that he had been formulating in his mind were not possible but actually doable. Ever since he had heard of the possible properties of Imagination, Yurievsky had envisioned a Pridnestrovian military armed with equipment imbued or infused with Imagination. He imagined a soldier using Imagination to turn his bullets into unstoppable copper or lead slugs while at the same time making his own body armor absolutely impenetrable to the enemy’s own weaponry. He saw tanks with Imagination-infused armor and covered by another layer of the blue protection produced by the crew’s mental efforts shrugging off direct hits from enemy armor. Fortresses could hold out against enemy bombardment indefinitely under a shield of Imagination. And if petroleum products infused with Imagination could produce a cleaner and more efficient burn, imagine what Imagination-infused explosives could do? Or even Imagination-infused uranium and plutonium?
In any other season, Olivia Stone would have been a no-brainer for the second seat at Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports Division. But Vasily Gatutin, in his infinite “wisdom,” decided to go for the driver whom he had always wanted to sign instead of the driver whose appearance in UrGa would make the most benefit for both Pridnestrovia and the driver’s registered country. And everyone in the team, even Yakov Yurievsky himself, was absolutely sure that there was no way that Olivia Stone would go for a position in which she would be relegated to a reserve and testing role in a team with two WGPC rookies in the actual race seats. So the reserve role was offered to one Nepö Kinder instead, and Stone unfortunately remained a free agent going into the new season. However, as it happened, the first two races of the season saw Gatutin’s golden girl Vialiv unable to score any points at all while Donny Fitzpatrick claimed a podium in his very first WGPC race, and once again Yurievsky saw an opportunity to make right what had gone wrong. To that end, Yurievsky wrote a letter (or more specifically an email) to Stone, first apologizing for the fact that she and every other driver that took part in the UrGa test had been misled into thinking that they were getting an opportunity to drive for the team, and then informing her that he was working on a possible deal for her to come into the team and replace Vialiv at the halfway point of the season.
However, Yakov Yurievsky may have underestimated the extent of the power that Nimban Imagination actually held because in the race immediately following his email to Olivia Stone, Skiia Vialiv defied all of the odds and won her home race at the Cocoabo Park Circuit in the Cocoabo Preservation Grand Prix. Even with his famed silver tongue, there was simply no way that Yakov could spin that into anything that would remotely resemble Olivia Stone even having a ghost of a chance to take Vialiv’s place in UrGa come the second half of the season. Not even the fact that both UrGa cars failed to finish in the points in the very next race in Diarcesia would have persuaded the board of directors of the greater Urotovsky-Gatutin conglomerate that getting rid of Skiia Vialiv now was a good idea. And it seemed that Stone herself might have gotten cold feet because she didn’t respond to Yurievsky in the week leading up to the Ramngardian Grand Prix, and then come the weekend of the Nimban Grand Prix, Olivia’s home race, she dropped the bombshell that she had instead decided to sign for a testing and reserve role for another team, specifically Cygnus Motorsport of Esmerel. At the same time, Yurievsky replied a short and curt reply from one Baxen Aurora, whom he vaguely recalled being part of Stone’s entourage, thanking Yurievsky for the information and stating that the Pridnestrovian would be hearing from the Nimbans soon.
Yakov didn’t really know which rankled him more, Aurora’s short and almost dismissive email reply or the fact that Stone decided to take a reserve role for another team with two WGPC rookies against all of UrGa’s expectations. Everyone in UrGa was so sure that Stone wouldn’t do that for them, and yet that was exactly what she did for Cygnus when they came calling. No matter Stone’s reasons for doing that, Yakov Yurievsky could see that that was the door of opportunity being slammed shut in his face. The Nexus Wardship was sitting on perhaps the biggest and most powerful resource that mankind would ever know, more powerful than even oil or stable isotopes of radioactive elements, yet Yurievsky believed that they were letting it all go to waste in personal or racing applications. It all seemed like a massive waste to him. The Nexus Wardship could have made itself one of the most powerful nations in the multiverse if only they extended the usage of Imagination to its logical conclusion. And, had Pridnestrovia managed to get a deal going with the Nexus Wardship through Olivia Stone, Yurievsky would make sure that it did indeed head for the logical conclusion. But for the meantime, the “financial advisor” of Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports would have to sit back and bide his time.
But just when it looked as if one door of opportunity had closed, another one had been opened up for Yakov Yurievsky.
Yurievsky had thought that the ship had sailed on the possibility of ever bringing Lilly Nattmordsdottir into the team when she signed for Sivaleinen before she had even set foot in an UrGa car, but when she had gotten involved in an incident with UrGa’s own Adonis Fitzpatrick, Yakov realized that the racing gods might be telling him something here. He had failed to land the fish that he truly wanted the most in the form of Olivia Stone, but there was nothing stopping him from casting his line into the water yet again and coming up with an equally worthy and useful catch in the form of the Kijani driver instead. He might not be able to bring Lilly into the team this season thanks to Skiia Vialiv’s victory in her home race as well as scoring points for UrGa in Crossbay yet again, but who was to say that her contract would get extended into next season?
The hunter may have been denied his prize, but he had just found new prey, and he was now on his way to stalk his new target.
Armed with a renewed sense of purpose, Yakov Yurievsky started composing another email.
TO: Lillý Náttmörðsdóttir
FROM: Yurievsky Yakov Leonidovich
SUBJECT: Apologies
Здравствуйте. I am Yakov Leonidovich Yurievsky, and I am the financial advisor of the Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports Division. First of all, allow me to extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to yourself and your team, Sivaleinen, for the unfortunate incident involving yourself and one of our drivers, Adonis Fitzpatrick. Allow me to say that I personally believe that the incident was not your fault at all, although some in the team that I represent may think otherwise. And I also do not believe it to be deliberate in any way or form on your part. These things happen in motorsport all the time, and I am sure that you or one of your team representatives would say the same to my team if our positions were reversed.
Secondly, delivering the apologies of Urotovsky-Gatutin Motorsports is not the only reason why I have decided to reach out to you. There is something else that I have in mind, something that relates to your future in this sport. However, it is not something that I feel comfortable discussing via electronic means, not at this junction at least. If you have any time in your busy schedule to fit in a personal meeting with me at the Akresna Circuit in Auruna then that would be most agreeable. However, if your schedule is busy then, feel free to inform me of a time and place in which you would like to meet with me and continue this discussion.
Respectfully yours,
Yakov Leonidovich Yurievsky
To be continued…
