Head Right
Corik ran to catch up with Jethra, who was heading down the right hallway towards the turrets. He caught up with Jethra as they reached the stairs. Side by side the two made their way to the blast door at the top, and gave each other a quick look, trying to read what the other was feeling and thinking. Jethra looked confident, but Corik knew from experience that he barely ever revealed anxiety in his face. They were both nervous; who wouldn’t be?
The door was already open from those who had recently entered, and Corik saw outside the numerous turrets still open for manning. He and Jethra took two adjacent to each other, and began pounding away at the ships above.
The guns were heavy, he could feel it in the recoil from the shots and the sluggish response to his use of the pivot controls. The ships were fast and light, making it hard to land hits. However, the mass of the cannons made almost every hit a kill shot, and Corik favored that over versatility.
The turrets were perhaps the shining point of the barracks, perhaps the only truly effective defensive point in the entire area to counter an attack of this size. That meant he was in the best position to do some damage, but as he began to realize that also made this part of the station the prime target area. Corik didn’t like that.
The battle raged for what seemed like hours, though it could have been minutes for all Corik knew. As he fired he saw numerous turrets explode around him. The ships kept coming despite how many he and the others took down. The perimeter defenses were falling as well, and droids began taking aim at turret controllers as they finished the men off who been holding them off. This is an invasion force, Corik thought, one that won’t be held back by an isolated merchant planet.
As he continued pelting the sky, he saw in the distance a ship fly out of the hangar bay. As it came closer, he saw how it differed from the others. It was bigger than the average fighter, large enough for quite a bit of storage space. It was solid black, not like the others which were yellow with black stripes. Instead it bore a small yellow insignia on the side that resembled a ‘C’.
Alongside this ship was a bomber, which soon pulled ahead toward the platform the turrets were stationed on. Corik shouted as he fired directly at the ship, and it exploded into flames before it had a chance to drop anything. Corik had not chance to celebrate though, for a quad of lasers flew through the flames of the destroyed bomber towards them. They hit directly in front of Corik and Jethra, dislodging the turrets and sending them both flying backwards.
Corik landed with a thud and lay in a heap burned by the flames and broken from the fall. He looked over at Jethra who had landed a few feet away. He wasn’t moving. Corik looked up to see the black ship (the source of his injury) land in front of him. As his vision went blurry and dark, he saw the hatch open and a man in a black cloak step out, holding a glowing red sword and wearing a tainted smile that only added to the darkness of his nefarious image…