8
"Date, give me repulsorlift engines, one-third power." Corvin feathered his starboard rudder pedal, turning his now rising X-wing to face the closed shuttle bay doors. The snubfighter wavered slightly from side to side as the repulsor field lifted it from the deck, actions he canceled out with delicate maneuvering of his control stick. The matching grey of the walls and floor threw his spatial awareness into disarray, so Miles and one of Orion's engineering staff acted as deck chiefs, helping him guide the fighter.
His helmet radio, now synced up with Orion's comm systems, crackled in his ear.
"Okay, Darick. You've got three meters on either side. We are clearing you for launch. Force fields are in place, bay doors are opening now. Good luck." Miles' voice filled his headset. He looked out the canopy to his right, seeing Miles shoot him a thumbs-up. Returning the gesture, he flipped down the orange visor on his flight helmet and faced forward, waiting for the doors to open.
After what felt like an eternity, the doors slowly opened, and once the way was clear, Corvin goosed the stick forward, and gave the X-wing a bit of thrust, sending it through the force fields and into the vacuum of space. The stars filled his canopy view, and filled him with a sense of calm. However, that feeling quickly vanished when he brought the X-wing around in a slow turn toward the bow of Orion. The massive debris field filled his view, and his heart crept up into his throat. Corvin shunted more power into the engines, and began the flight into the fresh graveyard of ships. His hand tightened on the flight stick, and his heart rate accelerated slightly. This set him even more at ease. Normally, the sight of a starfield was enough to put his troubles aside, but these stars were new and foreign to him. He was worried his sense of direction might be thrown off if he had to maneuver in a hurry, but he steeled himself and shook of his discomfort.
The remains of the Starfleet vessels now took up most of his forward view. A rotating piece of the saucer section of one ship stood directly in his path. Setting his lasers to fire in pairs, he triggered several bursts, vaporizing the chunk of metal and clearing his way. He rolled his X-wing onto his starboard wings to avoid a warp nacelle, firing once more to split the pylon in two.
"Captain Garrett, how many Federation ships were operating in this sector when Karath attacked?" He asked as he cleared more debris, getting ever closer to the shuttlecraft.
"Last station logs indicate there were two civilian transports, a Vulcan freighter, and one light cruiser docked at the time. And of course, there was the Lucas, a Galaxy-class cruiser. That was the ship that collided with one of Karath's vessels after their blind jump."
Corvin looked around, seeing the saucer section of the Lucas drifting well away from the center of the graveyard. It seemed largely intact, though one side had been heavily damaged.
"Why do you ask?"
"This seems like a lot of debris for six ships, and any remains of the station itself would appear to be separate from what's left of these vessels." Corvin pulled the stick back into his chest, turning his ship ninety degrees straight up while executing a half rotation, now flying parallel to the massive slab of metal in his path. With the slab now "above" him in relation to his orientation, something caught his eye. The markings and patterns on the piece were familiar to him, and were unlike most of the other flotsam in the field.
Imperial garbage. They dumped it into the debris field intentionally. Something isn't right.
"Um, Orion… Those smaller signatures you mentioned on the bridge- What type of energy were they giving off?" He asked, glancing as far behind him as he could.
Varik came onto the channel. "Scans picked up ion energy markers from four different locations in the graveyard."
His blood ran cold. "Confirm, Orion. Four ion signatures?" He asked as he transferred power back to his shields.
"Confirmed, Lieutenant. Four pings, all ion."
Warbling from Date reaffirmed his worst fears as four TIE fighters emerged from their hiding places in the space junk. The spherical fighters powered up and began to circle his X-wing, producing the signature whine of the twin engines that made Corvin's blood run cold. His hands became vice grips on the control stick, and he prepared to fight for his life.
[A/N: So right about here, there would be some kind of epic 4v1 dogfight, with lots of badass action and super cool space laser shit, and quite possibly a few explosions. But... I'm having some trouble writing a sequence that can do justice to the vision in my head, which is the reason for this chapter being dreadfully short in comparison to previous installments. It might be some time, but I'll get to it (hopefully sooner, rather than later).]