Shahr could feel the sweat running down his face. Like all Starfleet vessels, the environmental controls were set a little warm for most Andorians’ comfort… But Shahr was also about to pilot a Sovereign-class starship for the first time. His last ship had been a piddly little atmospheric fighter. This was the big leagues.

The melange of emotions coursing through his body was a lot to handle. Fear of the situation they were in. Nervousness to pilot a real starship. Elation at piloting a real starship. Resolve, knowing his shipmates were counting on him. Shahr took a deep breath, and studied the controls.

Of course, since coming aboard, he’d spent a considerable amount of his free time in the holodeck, running training simulations to familiarize himself with the ship’s controls. There was more too it than simply knowing the console layout. For starters, Shahr memorized the control scheme. He drilled and drilled until it was second nature to him. Sure, he might not be getting into the kind of dogfights he trained for in his little IG fighter, but in a dangerous situation, time is precious. Can’t be wasting it trying to recall simple commands.

Second, Shahr had to know internalize the ship’s responsiveness. How long did it take the engines to respond, how quickly would the vessel turn, what kind of damage would affect the helm. Fortunately, Federation holodeck technology was pretty good at simulating this information… but it wasn’t perfect. Still, it gave Shahr a good baseline to work with.

Flexing his hands, Shahr got to work.

“Engaging thrusters. We’re almost wedged between three different subspace bubbles, I need to back us out of this corner before we can come about.”

As the Valkyrie slowly backed away from the derelict ship of horrors, Shahr monitored the sensor overlay on his panel. As the ship cleared the three bubbles initially bracketing them in, another came into view behind them. Fluttering maneuvering thrusters on the saucer section’s port side, Shahr began to swing the ship around. The aft end of the nacelles pivoted away from the incoming bubble, as the saucer section swung in an arc towards it.

Shahr arrested their rotation along the x-axis by cutting port thrusters and engaging starboard, then cut thrusters all together. A quick inspection of the sensor overlay showed they had put a few thousand kilometers between themselves and the derelict ship. “Hopefully the crew will start to shake off these hallucinations as the distance grows” Shahr thought to himself, then returned his focus to the helm.

“Density of subspace distortions seems to be lessening. Switching to impulse engines.” Shahr toggled a control on the touchscreen and ramped power up to one quarter impulse. Possibly a bit premature to move that quickly, but their distance wasn’t nearly safe enough of the derelict vessel was truly about to explode. Shahr imagined he could feel the powerful impulse engines kick in, but he knew inertial dampeners were working just fine. It was all in his head.

What had started as a slow, methodical manipulation of the controls turned into a rapid, blue blur as his fingers really started to fly. Shahr piloted the sleek starship through the field of overlapping distortion bubbles. Positive 30 degree angle on the y-axis. Negative 15 degrees on x. Execute a pi/2 arc around this bubble. Shahr called out each maneuver in his head. Not that he would’ve even noticed if he’d been calling them out loud. His entire focus was on the overlay in front of him, and the controls at his fingertips.

“Almost there, captain. Should be free to maneuver at will within 30 seconds.” Shahr announced, without taking his eyes off the console. The fingers of his left hand twisted clockwise, and the starship rolled to starboard. His right index finger jabbed at the controls for aft, dorsal thrusters, and the Valkyrie pivoted “up” along its new y-axis. Out of the corner of his eye, Shahr saw the display for the ship’s shields blink a warning. They had just barely skimmed over the last bubble, but barely still counted. They were free.

Shahr slowly leaned back in his chair, his muscles almost refusing to release the built-up tension. He engaged the impulse engines just enough to halt the ship’s momentum, and brought the sleek vessel to a halt. There bridge was quiet. Shahr took a deep breath, then finally turned to look around.

“That’s it, captain. We’re out. We’re safe.”