Despite her bravado, Korenna couldn't help but feel a twinge of apprehension as she approached the cruiser. Gorst had a point- something had to have destroyed all those other ships. She kept on her course, though- she wasn't about to turn back after all it took to get here.
Back at Hopkins Station, Gorst was reading through the data from Korenna's ship uplink. "These readings..." he said, half to himself. "This doesn't make any sense. Ganymede's been derelict for decades, but the energy profile it's givng off is almost like..."
A flashing light on Korenna's dashboard caught her attention. "A target lock? From who?" She looked around, but couldn't see any new ships- but her eyes went wide when she realized the source. Ganymede itself, the plasma railgin on its front starting to glow with power.
Gorst's voice came over the speaker, "Korenna, MOVE!" but she was already slamming on the control stick, upper thrusters bursting to life as her ship dove, just in time as a lance of plasma shot forth from Ganymede, blazing through the spot she'd been moments before. She threw her ship into reverse and shot back towards the debris field as smaller cannons sprung to life, filling the area with laser fire. She wove between the bolts as best she could, but with the sheer volume of lasers, she wasn't going to last long. "Gorst, give me something!"
"Shit! Uh..." He frantically scanned through the data output. "There's a big cluster of wrecks at these coordinates," he said, sending her a telemetry. "Take cover there!"
"That plasma cannon's gonna punch right through! I know you've got that bet with Louis, but trying to get me killed is a bit much!"
"Trust me, I have a plan!"
She groaned, but headed for the cluster, firing her retrorockets to come to a stop. The wrecks absorbed the bulk of the laser fire, but her sensors picked up the plasma cannon recharging. "Now what?"
"The logo, on your dashboard- right before the cannon fires, press it and dive."
"This better work or I'm haunting you." Korenna hovered one hand over the logo, keeping the other on her control stick while she watched the plasma cannon's readout. 70 percent charged. 80 percent. 90. Now!
The plasma cannon fired, obliterating the first wreck it struck and sending the rest scattering into space. Ganymede's sensors made a sweep of the area. Detecting no active ship signals, it reentered standby mode.
No active signals detected. Entering standby mode.
Just below the now-destroyed cluster, Korenna's heart pounted in her chest as she watched Ganymede's guns power down. After a few tense moments of quiet, she reached for the communicator. "Gorst, what the hell was that?"
"Prototype cloaking device. It was supposed to be a birthday surprise- we were gonna install the full version when you got back. So, uh." He shrugged. "Happy birthday."
