Disclaimer: I don't either Star Wars or Star Trek, but I do claim the original characters that I've developed to play in George and Gene's sandboxes.

Well hello there! Weighing in at about 3600 words, here's Chapter 2! It took me a fair bit longer than I'd planned, I ended up graduating college and then moving cross-country in the interim. We'll see how long it takes on this next one, but I'm optimistic it won't be nearly as long. I've got the entirety of it plotted and mostly drafted already.

For now, read and enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Chapter 2

The sensor operator, Jayk Dattpe, started in surprise at the brief but brilliant explosion of light, and straightened at his station. The readout panel, where his feet had been kicked up a few seconds before, squealed with alerts as the antiquated equipment tried to process what the sensors were telling it.

"What in the nine hells was that?" Captain Alayck was behind him. The lightshow had caught the attention of everyone on the bridge of their Interceptor IV frigate.

A small wisp of smoke was now drifting up from his station. It wasn't any use. After a moment of strained operation, it had spat out an analysis of 'Unknown Energy.' "Not sure," Jayk answered, as he gave the old console a frustrated smack. The damn thing had overloaded the sensors when they tried to analyze it. "Shavit!"

Most of the credits they'd reaped in this sector, that hadn't gone to their overhead in the Zann Consortium, had gone straight into improved weapons for the five ships in their little flotilla. Not into the better sensors they actually needed to hit something.

The pirates had been enjoying good success in this little portion of the Outer Rim; the raid of an enormous Mon Calamari passenger liner had netted them enough credits to arms their ships to defend against increased Imperial Patrols. But striking at Mon Cals just raised the ire of the Rebellion as well as the Empire. Their captain had blundered in, his lust for credits, battle, and advancement in the Consortium the only thing on his greedy mind.

Something was hazily coming into focus on his screen now, a strangely-shaped vessel that the explosion left behind. 'That's a helluva botched drop from hyperspace,' he thought, anger at his captain briefly forgotten. 'And I've never seen a ship like her before.' Putting what was left of the sensors to use, he scanned the new vessel. Its primary hull was saucer-shaped, with the aft splitting catamaran-style that had engines of some sort attached. Arcs of energy were dancing over her durasteel-gray hull, magnifying his difficulty in getting a good reading with antiquated and overloaded equipment.

A bark came from behind him, breaking his concentration. "Boy! Do we have a new victim? Or are you still working out which controls to press?"

Quiet laughs broke out across the bridge, and he bit back a snarl. He longed for the dignified discipline of a Navy ship. But that was another life, when he was still an Imperial officer.

A few moments of pained silence passed, where Dettpe was keenly aware of the attention of everyone on the bridge. Running his eyes over the read-out one last time, Jayk gave his assessment. "It doesn't match anything in our database, but going off of the design, she's a pleasure cruiser of some type. Based on the energy readings, they're experiencing power difficulties after their drop from lightspeed."

The chuckles stopped and silence reigned. A new atmosphere of tension and excitement emerged, one that always came with the appearance of a new source of credits. Alayck stepped into Jayk's line of sight, looking at the sensor station, his eyes alight. "Weapons?" he whispered, almost reverently.

"No identifiable torpedo bays or laser turrets..." A new alert sounded. "But they've raised shields and..." Several new contacts appeared from the cruiser, "They're launching some form of snubfighters, unknown designs." There. As professional as any report he would've given in the Navy.

A grin grew on Captain Alayck's face. "Fighters? This could be fun." Bloodlust replaced the greed in his eyes. "Good, those Mon Cals last week barely put up a fight."

He turned sharply to face the rest of the bridge. "Signal the Forsaken," he barked. "Tell Rowas and his boys to launch." A Rodian nodded eagerly, and spoke quietly into a comm as Alayck continued, "Run dark, take us in slow, thrusters only, I don't want their fighters to see us until we're on top of them. Now..." the old captain faced his motley crew, his savage grin mirrored on their faces. "These poor gentlebeings look a little lost. Let's show them whose space they're in."

'I've got to hand it to him,' Jayk thought as he quietly cleared the data showing the presence of energy weapons from the sensor readout. 'Alayck knows how to get his crew their credits worth.' The pirates had erupted into raucous cheers as they eagerly prepared to swoop down on yet another 'helpless' vessel.

Unfortunately for them, their captain had made enemies lately - too many. And a few of them had put out good-sized bounties on the pirate's head. And now he was looking to score one of them. In the confusion that would result when the 'unarmed ship' responded to their attack. Then he'd claim his prize.

In the centuries since its founding, fighter craft had never been a common sight within Starfleet. Or within the fleets of most of the Alpha Quadrant powers for that matter. Combat-enabled shuttles or runabouts appeared now and again, but they were a rarity. But the Maquis, they changed all that. Their use of 'Raiders' and the overlooked Peregrine design against the Cardassian Union had raised a few eyebrows at first, but their surprising success perked up a lot of ears at Command. It led to Starfleet's increased production of the tiny craft, where thousands had served with distinction in the Dominion War.

Starfleet took debilitatingly heavy losses in that conflict; in two years almost sixty percent of the Fleet had been lost. Then the Borg came again in the 2380s. Now that the dust had finally begun to settle, the need for cheap and easy-to-produce units to replace their vast losses was clear.

So shipyards from Utopia Planitia to Andoria churned out interstellar fighters; Peregrines, Raiders, Ventures, even old 23rd Century Hornets had burst onto the galactic scene in droves. New designs, such as the Valkyrie, emerged. The Klingons had picked up on the same trend; a deadly little fighter they were calling the Warfang accompanying the Birds of Prey into combat now.

Every starship in the Fleet had a few fighters of some kind aboard, and dedicated Fleet Carriers were beginning to leave the yards as well. One controversial – and classified - group, the Seraphim Build Team at Utopia Plantia, were even in the midst of designing a massive new starship, an expensive fusion of a command ship, fleet carrier, and explorer the likes of which the Alpha Quadrant had never seen. Like they had in Earth's twentieth century, fighters and carriers were changing the scope of warfare once again.

Ensign Kyle Janson wasn't thinking about any of that.

As he dashed through the corridors towards the Carrollton's hangar deck, the only thing running through his mind was irritation. His first date in seven months had been interrupted. The end of the dry spell was in sight! But whatever that impact had been, it had cut off power to the holodeck in the middle of his carefully programmed flight simulation. The old Earth two-seater Nieuport 11, in which he'd been pulling an Immelmann, had vanished, and all the plans he'd had of impressing his date with his flying skills had figuratively gone down in flames.

The disappearing act had been followed by the Red Alert klaxons a few moments later, and the brusque voice of Commander Kallos over his commbadge, "All pilots, report to your ships." From hence came his mad dash across several decks to the forward section of the saucer, where Ivory Squadron would launch.

As he approached the hanger doors, his commbadge beeped again, this time it was the raspy voice of the CAG, Commander Mancuso, "All right, this is no drill. That collision, whatever the hell it was knocked out our sensors and we've landed in unknown territory. Ivory Squadron, break into flights and form a CAP out to 0.5 AU, pattern Rawlings Gamma. Each of your flights will be joined by a Venture Scouts, you'll need their long-range sensors and tachyon detection. Nazguls—"

'How in the hell did we get into unknown space? The Federation has had this entire sector scouted for decades.' Still in a sprint, he burst through the doors of the hanger deck and collided with a hanger technician. Shouting a quick apology, he kept up his pace, mixing in with Chief Frasier and his deck crew, who were there in force, moving skids of micro-torpedoes to the fighters, and running last-minute diagnostics and quick repairs on what minor battle damage hadn't been repaired from their last skirmish with the Orions almost three weeks past. He passed through the rows of Nazgul's Valkyries till he reached the Peregrines of Ivory Squadron and finally his own fighter.

He sat down in the cockpit of his Peregrine, breathing hard from his marathon, and began running through his pre-flight check. He had just corrected a small misalignment in the torque sensors when a quick flash of blue in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he grinned as his Andorian wingmate, Ve'ka, bounded aboard her own fighter in three quick steps.

With a touch he activated his comm, "Any idea how we ended up in unknown space?"

"Not a clue, pinkskin," He could see the antenna atop her head flexing, reflecting her excited mood. "Don't care really, I need to stretch my wings."

Kyle grunted in agreement, "I feel the same way."

There was a comfortable silence between the two for a moment, both hurriedly going through their individual checks, as a number of deckhands did the same. After only a minute, the deep booming voice of the CAG sounded again, "Ivory Leader to all units, we've got launch authorization, let's punch it."

And they were out! Soaring into the black at one-quarter impulse. Kyle pulled himself into a barrel roll, reveling in the freedom for a moment before settling into his flight formation, Lieutenant Tanner's Peregrine taking lead. 'No matter how real it looks,' he thought. 'The holodeck can't ever match this.'

"That'll be enough of that Six," Mancuso's voice was stern. "No more acrobatics, stay in formation. I don't want us to get caught by anything with our pants down.

"Ruining all our fun," Ve'ka muttered over a private channel as they began their patrol.

Rowas grinned as his three squadrons of fighters left the Forsaken's hold, heading at their best speed towards their unsuspecting prey. His motley assortment of old Z-95 Headhunters and BTL-B Y-Wings might not have been able to stand up to a modern Imperial Squadron, but they could pack a punch when it came to any freighter convoy or passenger liner. Squinting at the tiny HUD display, he examined the readout on his approaching foe.

The Twi'lek's smile grew, the fifteen ships looked like nothing more than glorified shuttles. He loved shuttles. They made such pretty little explosions when you pierced their engine compartments just right. Even better, he had them outnumbered two-to-one, and their little mothership had even gone to the trouble of not closing their bay doors. The fore of the little saucer laid there open and inviting, just begging for a few concussion missiles to be tossed their way. These frakkers didn't know what was coming to them.

His comm beeped as one of them attempted to hail him, an authoritative voice in an unknown language filling his ears. Tongue dancing over the points of his sharpened teeth, he snarled orders. "Headhunters with me to engage their shuttles. Y-Wings, hit the big bantha, ion cannons only, disable their engines, I don't want a torpedo sending the whole thing up before we can kriffin' board her."

A few grunts of acknowledgment came over the channel, and they accelerated, his twenty-four Z-95s gaining a quick lead against the slower Y-Wing group. With luck, he thought, they'd have all their opponents blown out of space in time for the bombers to disable this pleasure cruiser's engines unopposed.

The unknown - and, he suspected, human - voice, was harsher now, and several fiery orange shots flashed past his canopy. Laughing, he threw his fighter into a spin, bracketed the offending craft and fired, crimson lasers peppering her as shields sprang to life.

Kyle grunted as he threw his Peregrine into a series of spiraling maneuvers, evading the oncoming fire. The bastards had come in hard and fast, brushing aside Mancuso's warning shots and letting loose up with a deadly rain of plasma.

Fortunately, their weapons weren't as formidable as they appeared, only on par with a Type-V phaser. But those were still deadly in groups. And their fighters were more maneuverable than any Orion ship he'd seen in the last few months.

So far, the Ivories were holding their own, even outnumbered over two-to-one. Nine of the unknown e-shaped fighters had gone, but it hadn't come without cost. Third Flight had lost two fighters so far, and their Venture scout was dead in the water, plasma streaming from its port side.

Ve'ka's voice came over the comm, her voice angry, "Ivory Seven to Five. Sir, Third Flight's getting cut to pieces. Permission to break off and engage."

The response didn't come from Lieutenant Tanner, but Commander Kallos in Flight Ops, "Negative Lieutenant Ve'ka, stay close to the Carrollton. Nazgul Squadron will cover for Third Flight. That second group of fighters is on fast approach, and they're armed with some form of Breen energy dampener."

In the distance, he could see Commander Arobor's Valkyries decloak, and drop down on the fighters hitting Third Flight like an axe splitting a log. Six more of the little e-shapes blossomed into fireballs, the rest turned and made a hard burn back to wherever they came from. Sensors weren't picking up any active signatures in the area.

"You heard the lady." Lieutenant Tanner finally spoke. "Let's hit those y-fighters of theirs before they can get the Lady C."

Shaking his head, Kyle pulled his Peregrine up into a sharp turn and followed the rest of his flight. The third enemy squadron was only a hundred kilometers from the Carrolton. And these boys weren't as maneuverable as the other fighters had been. He gave a whoop as he let loose a burst of phaser fire that clipped one of them, sending it spinning into one of its fellows, annihilating them both in a fiery explosion.

But his elation evaporated almost instantly. "Janson, I'm hit! They got me with the dampener, I can't maneuver!" Ivory Eight's voice was frantic.

"I've got ya Jenkins, don't worry." Ve'ka's fighter had pulled a u-turn, and he did the same, dialing up to full impulse.

"It's going to be fine Tanya," he said, as he let loose on two more of the little y-fighters that were closing in on the young ensign's fighter.

It wasn't to be. A crimson bolt – later he would realize it was some sort of torpedo - intersected with her impulse engines and her fighter detonated, the flash momentarily blinding him. Her scream echoed in his ears, and his blood boiled.

Eight's killer had turned hard and was giving the hard burn back to its carrier, along with the remaining three of its companions, Ivory Squadron had proven her mettle today. But they weren't done yet. His sensors went crazy, alerts going off as four new large signatures appeared less than ten thousand kilometers away. Knife-fighting range for starships. They were already firing, the starfield filling with plasma, and it was focused on the Carrollton.

But his attention had narrowed, almost to tunnel vision, as he stared at the fleeing ion trails of Ensign Tanya Jenkins's killers. He was dimly aware of shouted orders over the comm, the X.O.'s voice ordering them to break off from the fighters and engage the heavy ships at will. Torpedoes free.

He made the adjustments unconsciously, as he, Tanner, and Ve'ka spun to avoid harsh green fire coming from one of the new contacts, modifying his micro-photons to detonate at proximity. A detonation to starboard. Third Flight's wounded Venture was gone, erupting into a white sun as her small warp core breached, the shockwave sending the fighters who killed her tumbling.

They hadn't taken casualties like this in all their skirmishes with the Orions.

His eyes focused back on Jenkin's killers. They'd taken away too many of his friends today.

Lieutenant Tanner was on the same page as him apparently. "Janson, Ve'ka, set your photons to proximity. Nazgul Squadron and First Flight is forming up on the new ships. Let's take out the rest of these bastards."

Ve'ka's voice was tight with the same anger and anguish he felt, "Got it pinkskin. Let's show the little klahzs what happens when you run from Starfleet."

"Ratchet up your impulse to 125," Tanner continued. "We'll rake them in a high pass."

Kyle grinned, despite himself, "Got it."

And they went to work.

The bridge of the Ill Gain was chaos, and Captain Alayck was furious. In between shouting coordinates to the gunners, Jayk barely had time to be amused by the apoplexy. Rowas's squadrons had been shattered, and the remnants were retreating under covering fire from one of their ships, IPV-type patrol craft.

'Even if Rowas makes it back,' he thought, 'the captain won't let him live long.'

The Corellian was roaring at the Twi'lek over the comm now, ignoring his crew as they tried to bracket the cruiser that had caused all the trouble. That ship was firing at them now and moving like nothing he'd seen before. Five hundred meters long, and it danced like a corvette; long, deadly beams traced their ships, leaving fire in their wake.

Alayck's shouting match ended abruptly as his erstwhile squadron leader's voice rose in a loud scream and ended in a burst of static.

Dettpe glanced down at the sensor screen, "He's gone captain, the sleemos just destroyed the last of our fighters."

One of the crew, a Neimoidian, spoke up, "Captain. This ship, it must be some new Imperial prototype. We should retrea-"

The captain cut him off, "Run! After they've blooded us like this? Hells no, we like a good fight. It weeds out weaklings-like you Lugol."

His target shrank, and Alayck strode forward to the center of the bridge, "Signal to the rest of our ships," he said. "Ignore the fighters for now, focus all fire on their port engine. She's always twisting it out of the line of fire, it has to have been damaged."

"Ivory Squadron's just mopped up the last of the fighters, sir," reported Commander Kallos from Flight Ops. The Carrollton rocked slightly, as laser blasts from two of the smaller ships impacted the shields.

Sensors had come back up just in time to detect the approaching four vessels, there was another holding position 500,000 kilometers from their position, lobbing long-range missiles at them. The things only hit like a wet spitball, but First Flight of Ivory was moving to disable them anyway, their phasers picking off the little missiles as they went.

"Cruisers moving to bracket us," the steady voice of O'Mealy came from tactical.

"Evasive pattern Kirk Epsilon," Michael barked. "Have Nazgul Squadron form up and engaged the smaller two ships, leave the cruisers to us." The shaking lessened for a moment as the Carrollton shot between two of the bigger ships, leaving their opponent's trap in shreds. He winced as another fighter, one of Nazgul Squadron, detonated in a hailstorm of crimson fire.

"Lieutenant Harcrow, load fours probe with our sensor logs. Launch them as close as you can approximate to the entrance of the wormhole."

Harcrow nodded grimly, and the captain turned his attention back to the battle at hand. "Quantum torpedoes, target their carrier. Fire!"

The first pair of the six bright blue torpedo bulbs hit the carrier's shields, which flared dark red before vanishing completely. The others speared the carrier amidships and it split in two, the aft section exploding while the front of the ship tumbled, trailing debris and crew into the black of space.

Captain Michael Harris grinned. "Ensign Jacobs, move us towards that wreckage. Lieutenant, have you launched those probes yet."

The blond man looked up, "Aye sir."

"Good, as soon as we're within five thousand kilometers, lock a tractor beam on what's left of that carrier, and put it to starboard. I want to use it to soak up some of their fire on our next pass."

Harcrow grinned and his native Georgian drawl emerged for a moment as he replied, "Aye sir."

"Ensign, move us back, keep them to our starboard as much as possible. Jensen, I want frequent short bursts of phaser fire, half-power, let's see if we can blind their sensors…"

Another detonation rang out as one of the small ships in the distance succumbed to the fire of Nazgul and Ivory Squadron. A few cheers broke out across the bridge. The jubilation was short-lived though.

A sudden explosion cut him off. Their enemy had out-maneuvered him. Vibrant green and crimson fire suddenly concentrated to port, on the nacelle, still weakened from their unexpected journey through the wormhole. Drive plasma spewed as it was breached sending the Carrollton into a tail spin, and Michael found himself flung violently into an all-too-familiar console.

His head struck something. Hard. He gazed up at the ceiling. Odessa Kallos was kneeling over him. She was shouting something. Mike tried to concentrate, but he couldn't make it out. It was so distant. He was tired. What had they been doing? It had seemed so important. He blinked slowly, and then all faded to black.