Pony EVE

by Vashar23

Chapter 4: Pies Sisterhoof

That wasn’t bad as a corporation name thought Twilight.

It inspired a sense of family, of close friendship. The perfect representation of their relationship.

With her radiant joyfulness and uncaring for personal space Pinkie had manage what a living god-empress had never succeeded, getting Twilight to make new friends (her current condition of exile probably helped, but that’s besides the point).

Pinkie seemed unique, she recovered years of slaver abuse by simply seeing again her fillyhood friend. When she saw her sisters she she was so happy that gave a huge party in the station atrium. Station security had not been happy about it though and all were baffled as to were the pink mare had found party autocannons.

She felt a soft pang in the back of her head and a neural warning message. A flood of new information finally settled in her brain “I know Armored Warfare!”

“Already? That’s the third skill you maximize this week, do you realize that you’re putting capsuleers everywhere to shame?”

“Don’t be like that Blinkie, and there is so much more to learn. Exploration, fleet command, magic...”

“But is not fair! You’re progressing faster than me and Inkie combined!”

“I was one of the faster learners in the Imperial Academy, some of my teachers had problems following me... Aaand I can use my magic to boost the learning talisman a little.”

Twilight and the Pie sisters were currently in a low security system of the Lonetrek region, north of the main Caldari State’s sectors (coordinates in the galaxy refers to the four empires position: Caldari is North, Gallente is West, Minmatar is Est and the Amarrs are South). Using her scanning probes Twilight got lucky and found a hidden cluster of dilithium ore, main component for the antimatter reactor of the propeller beanie cap, and they had set up a mining operation.

Inkie was piloting a Retriever and Blinkie a Procurer, two mining barges designed by the Outer Ring Excavation company. The ORE was originally a gallentean unicorn prospectors group that found asteroids with the rare nocxium mineral, the discovery attracted partnership of dragons and diamond dogs. Rumors have it that the new company discovered a huge deposit in the Cloud Ring region, whatever the case it struck rich and became independent from the Federation. For some reason Celestia was always happy to inform her sister that she had made another (unsuccessful) business proposal with the ORE.

Twilight was inside a Harbinger battlecruiser. Before her pilgrimage she had trained as an explorer, so she already had a decent set of skills to help her scan systems to find ruins and drifting asteroids (and unpleasant pirate outposts). In the time she had spent with the Pies she focused on combat, ship spells, armor defense and now warfare links to boosting a fleet. She had been impressed by Rainbow Dash stories on how she led her corp against criminal outpost and outlaw pilots, she now wanted to speed her silly dreams and learn to be a perfect leader.

Finally Pinkie was flying a minmatar Rupture cruiser, looping around the asteroids and chasing her sisters mining drones like they were butterflies. She had been capsuleer for a couple of months like her sisters but she had progressed very fast. Pinkie have been their main source of income, she could accomplish agent mission incredibly fast and was the bane of Angel pirates for her ability to avoid enemy hits. Twilight had studied the genetics and neural readings of the mare’s clone, but the workings of the ‘pinkie-sense’ completely eluded her. In a moment of frustration she almost took the lifeless body to disembowel it.

Starting to work in the Minmatar Republic the mares progressively moved to the State. Twilight had tried to discover the reasons behind her ponynapping, or the nature of the Nation leader. All the empires were shocked that Nightmare’s Nation was led by a third alicorn. Celestia and Luna had denied every knowledge of the black mare, but from the conferences both leaders seemed nervous. President Luna especially was more and more distraught, maybe because of the spreading rumors of the similarities between her and Master Moon.

Nightmare’s Nation hadn’t launched any more global assaults, performing only brutally efficient raids. Their unexplained ability to create artificial wormholes made impossible to predict were they will strike next.

Twilight ship intercomm piked up a diamond dog voice “My cargo hold is full, I’m gonna take the stuff to the station.”

“Alright, see you in a moment” For the operation they have asked the pilot of a Mark II Badger to haul the excavated ore and sell it in exchange of a fifth of the income.

As the caldari vessel left Pinkie voice resounded in the communicators “Booooriiiing! There are only rocks here, have you finish yet?”

“Not yet, we just need to roll a few more rocks and we’re done.” Inkie replied calmly, her barge relentlessly cutting the asteroids and storing the minerals.

“But is so not fun anymore! I’ve already made a double space loop and upside down, these drony-scorpion-thingies make the same loop again and again and again. Can I shoot a missile to the rocks and make some fireworks?”

“That’s a horrible thing you know. Do you think they’ll like it?”

“Oh, you’re right. That was so mean of me, sorry. Oh, I know! I’ll sing a song about how boring mining is!”

Twilight groaned, feeling her encapsulated clone letting out a few bubbles of air “Not another of your songs Pinkie, forced skill-learning requires concentration!” but the pink pony had already started to clog her communicator with a soft romantic singing.

“You don't want to tell me
But somehow you've guessed that I know
When I fire lasers at you
To discover the feeling of digging up your rocky soul

I don't want to be mean to you
But I'd like to tell you what I feel
That this mining fell like a crescent
so boring that makes me reel”

“Pinkie, even if sound can’t travel in space some genius made sensors so strong that...” The rhythm became more rapid, Inkie and Blinkie were giggling a little to her frustration.

“For there's more ways than one
And the ways of the world are a blessing
For when Pinky's sisters are mining
She owes the world nothing
Because mining is so boring!

Pinky's as fun as the Fourth of July
Happy and giggling, seldom denied
The trial and the error of my master plan
Now she rolls around rocks like a bored farmer’s...”

“Pinkie came on! Just wait a little more and we can return to the station and search something interes... ting.” Twilight noticed that the communicator was silent “Pinkie?” she moved the optical sensors around but Pinkie’s rupture had disappeared.

Pinkie stopped in the middle of a song and made a eleven thousand, six hundred and fifty tonnes non-recon spaceship disappeared.

This could only mean one thing.

“Inkie, Blinkie, heads up! We’re about to get company!”

A group of gurista’s pirate ships came out of warp a short distance from them. The computer counted a Pithior Nihilist, two Pithum Erasers, three Pithi Wreckers and two Pithi Plunderers. Inkie and Blinkie moved into cover without stopping their mining.

Amarr guns had limited effect on the titanium diborite plates of the caldari armors so Twilight had bought a supply of Terror kinetic missiles for the rupture and multifrequency laser gems for her laser beams. She locked the enemy battlecruiser, grayish beams started to perforating its shield.

The pirates launced their own missiles and fired with hybrid weapons, sort of a cross of projectile guns with laser technology. As they get closer Pinkie moved out of the asteroids and jumped the attackers on the side. She swarmed a cruiser with three Vespa combat drones, firing with reckless abandon. The guristas scattered, the cruisers trying to counteract Pinkie wile the rest moved on Twilight.

The unicorn kept her assault on the leading ship, letting her own drones taking care of the small frigates. The Nihilist shield fell but her beam guns were barely scraping the armor “An armor tanker hu? Guess I’ll have to add an extra punch.” she flared her horn and pumped some magic in the guns, overheating them and increasing the strength of the lasers.

Suddenly she heard a faint noise and her weapons lost focus, one of the Wreckers was jamming her with a tracking disruptor “Well, sometimes the rats can give you a little work.” she flared her horn letting out a ECM burst, all ships in the area lost the locked targets. She targeted the guristas again concentrating fire on the frigate first.

Soon the enemy spacecrafts started to explode. Twilight wasn’t really comfortable to kill non-capsuleers, even if they were regarded as nothing as scum and target practise.

Pinkie disposed of her pursuers easily. “Ooh goody, now we have bounty and salvage to add to our stash. How many more BITs before we can start our own corporation?”

Twilight activated the armor repair system “Just a few more. I want to be sure we have enough money to cover expenses and taking some rest from agent work.”

“Rest? How can we rest? When we start our corp I’ll have to trow an inauguration party! Such a shame that security never let me use my party autocannons.”

Blinkie took the intercomm as her asteroid disintegrated into dust “Another rock out. A couple more and we can leave.”

After Twilight’s harbinger fully docked to the caldari station her capsule ejected from the ship and flew to her corresponding quarters. Nothing fancy, a single passage in the wall of the hangars leading to a medium apartment with bedroom, bathroom and a living space. Like the rest of the station it had a heavy industrial look to it.

She put on her yellow dress and look at the curved holoscreen in the living room, it was transmitting the recent updates about the Sapphire Shores-Hoity Toity scandal. The time display showed it was almost time for her friend to make his call, he sent her a message yesterday about something important.

Twilight grabbed a carrot quafe soft drink and sat on the central sofa, a prime quality sofa from the Quills and Sofas emporium (she wondered the logic of selling only two things, one of which was utterly useless). She started checking some new ship fitting on the table holocomputers.

After some time a happy sing-song voice resounded from the videophone “I brought you a message!”. Twilight opened the second device on the table, a holoscreen rose showing a the flashing Interbus mail service, seven bubbles.

She pushed a button and the face of Spike appeared on the screen. “Hey there Twi, how are you doing?”

“I miss the imperial palace lavatory, and the price for Energized Thermic Plating is ridiculous here. Aside from that I’m good, got more BITs today and we will start our corp. Did you menage to contact Celestia?”

“No, with the last assassination attempts she is inapproachable. Beside if I try to get closer I’ll have to reveal my identity, my name is recorded amongst the dead of the Celeste 18 along yours. I’m not sure how high is the risk of the Nation or their lackeys of using me to find you. Have you discovered anything about them by the way?”

Twilight look depressed at the grey ceiling, taking another sip of quafe “No, nopony seem to known a thing about them, only that they’re are dangerous. What have you found?”

“Do you know about the Nighmares taking over the Traumark?”

“Of course, it was on yesterday morning news.” the Traumark Installation was the main trading hub and fortress of the Tash-Murky region, territory of the Murky royal family if the Amarr Empire. Very recently Nightmare’s Nation forces had conquered and destroyed it dealing a consistent blow to the Empire economy “What about it?”

“I’ve made some connections in CONCORD, I’m Assistant Officer Drake now by the way. According to them the attack wasn’t so strong as the media described it. The defences had been lowered and the Nightmares knew exactly were to hit to bring the whole thing down.”

This wasn’t good “Do you think they had another spy?”

“I know this for sure. The Murkys are the richest family in the Empire, they took badly the loss of the Traumark. Recently they also become political opponents of Blueblood.”

Prince Blueblood of the Hard-Chaperons family, the traitor who sold her and made Pinkie cry “Are there any evidence of this?”

“Not yet. CONCORD is about to launch an assault on the remaining Nation forces, but you can bet Blueblood will make anything about him disappear.”

Twilight hung her head “Yeah, I heard he is gaining a lot of influence with his new Equilibrium of Ponykind movement.”

“I think we have a possibility however. There are many contracts asking capsuleers to help in retaking the Installation. It’s a long shot, but we can use this to pick up some juicy information without anybody noticing.”

“Hmm...” Twilight tapped her chin “Yes, we could try to hack in the Nightmares’ outposts, but we must act swiftly and undetected. Cloaked recon ships... We need Rainbow Dash!”

Spike nodded “Indeed, I’ve already called her. She have another meeting to attend to but she will see you as well. I’m passing you the coordinates of the station, is in minmatar space”

Twilight laughed a little “Excellent work Spike, you are indeed my number one secret agent.”

The dragon smiled proudly “Of course I am. You can pay me with some crunchy Pyerite crystals.”

After docking their ships the four mares took the Interbus train directed to the Central Market Section, stations were so big that they were considered as orbital metropolises. Twilight had always been intrigued by the minmatar look, a slightly chaotic composition of ladar sensors, solar panels, frameworks and fernite carbide composite plates. A recurring joke in the other empires was that minmatar ships were held together with duct tape.

The station they arrived had a great welcoming hall with with kiosks, snack vendors and a small banking office. A wide opening led to the market itself, a huge main corridor with clothing shops, electronics shops, antiquities, booster drugs, restaurants and (Twilight mentally memorized the locations) small libraries. Costumers and visitors walked and trotted amongst stands of local food and crafts, a Zebra with a collection of finely mouth-carved wooden statuettes, a griffin selling spiced pastries and so on. Some earth pony musicians were playing folk music with tubas and accordions in a corner.

Instead of antiseptic and orderly open spaces like in the other stations minmatar markets were usually bazaars of different races, sometime even rustic. With so many odors in the open, both from food and people, sounds and colours they could create a more lively and comforting atmosphere than the common sterility of space. The Rens trade hub in the Heimatar region even had a recreation of the floating market of the matari city of Buckkok.

Inkie hired two pegasi buggy-drivers and the mares flew above the crowds. Twilight sat next to the gray Pie sister “You know Inkie, in the amarr stations we use cart transportation too. Rich clergyponies and aristocrats pay well to be hauled around by a fiery dragon or griffin.”

“Wow, that must look impressive indeed. But isn’t the griffin race a matari bloodline?”

Twilight blushed embarrassed at her mistake “The... the griffins are workers from the ammatars, but often we use slaves, as well as... pegasi... slaves. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

But Inkie simply smiled “Is all right, we heard what you said about slave abuse. If it weren’t for your morality Pinkie would have never found hope to keep living that way.” Twilight smiled back.

They finally arrived at the meeting place, the Lost Enterprise bar. Dash and her entire corp was there, she was talking to a orange earth pony with a blond mane and a grey caldari jacket, three red apples as cutiemark. She had the accent of the southern State region of The Citadel. “...and don’t think ha’ forget them interests. Mah work isn’t to cut out slacks fer too-lazy-tah-bother creditors!”

“Ah come on miss A, I’ll pay you back, I promise. I just need to find a big enough job and...”

“HI DASHIE!” Pinkie Pie skyrocketed between the legs of two confused dragons and run to hug Rainbow “WOW, I wanted to see you again so much! All this time I’ve trained in all those things you suggested me, and I’ve been having so much fun in running around and popping meanies. It got boring now because we had to dig boring rocks, but with you with us it will be super fun again!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow confused “Uuh... who in tarnation is this here filly?”

Rainbow took a moment to recover and gave a sheepish grin at the orange mare “She’s my friend Pinkie, yeah. We... got way back.”

“Yup, me and Dashie were fillyfriends, until some nasty slavers raided my colony and made me a sobby slave. But that’s okay now because she saved me and I’m a super-cool capsuleer and...”

“‘Kay, ‘kay, ah’ve got it!” Applejack waved a hoof dismissively “Now if ya could give us a moment we need tah conclude some business here!”

“Pardon me,” Inkie, Blinkie and Twilight arrived at the table were the two mares (and now Pinkie) were sitting “but who are you and what kind of business do you have with Rainbow Dash?”

Applejack snorted annoyed at the increasing intrusions “Name’s Applejack. If y'all must know RD here hafta give me back BITs I loaned ta her, lot’s of em.”

Pinkie gave a questioning look at Dash “You have debts? I thought you had still a lot of money when we left you.”

“Yes, well,” she leaned her head on the headrest of the seat “we lost a few more systems so the Lame and Incompetent Trixie suggested the most suicidal strategy ever. We drove back The Schwartz forces but we lost a lot of ships, so Bob had to take money from the corps to cover all the losses.”

Twilight cocked her head “So you asked a loan from another corporation in your group? Shouldn’t every alliance have a common bank account?”

“Actually miss, ah am not from Dashes alliance. Me and mah folks, Apple Core Mining, are still independent.”

“Anyway,” Dash poured herself another drink from a bottle of caldari vodka “most of the money was to rebuild space installations. Me and my guys didn’t have enough to buy us new ships and almighty Bob was too busy to give us a hoof, so we left.” She pointed a hoof at Twilight “I’m loyal to my friends and to my superiors, but if people don’t respect me or my friend they don’t deserve any piece of the Dash.” she smiled and winked at the unicorn, leaving her mildly confused.

“So she came ta me and asked to lend her some BITs for a spell, and now she’s late fer the last payment.”

Inkie tapped her chin “I see. And how much money Dash owes you?”

“thwenty three millions an six hundred thousands BITs, plus interests.”

Inkie made some calculation and than spoke “Maybe there have a solution for that. We wanted to ask Rainbow to help us on some CONCORD contracts, pretty good ones too. After we are done she surely will have more than enough money to pay you.”

“That may be so, but she hafta pay today. Ah ain’t supposed to let a creditor slip a payment or every kind of thieving varmint will know ah go easy on creditors. Standard caldari policy ya see.”

Twilight stared the orange pony almost shocked, were all caldaris loan sharks or were they just paranoid about money? “Hum, maybe we could give something for...”

Dash snapped “I’m not taking any charity from anypony! I can sell some ships and old modules to make up for it” she drank the last sip of vodka and got down from the chair. She turned to one of her pegasi, a brown colt with a blond mane and grey jacket “What can we spare Money Shot?”

The colt groaned as the other pegasi snickered a little around him “My name is Cashier.”

“No it isn’t,” Dash smirked “after that night your name is Money Shot. Now, start making some dirty talk about BITs raining down on me.” Twilight blushed, Pinkie giggled and Applejack tilted her head confused.

“(sigh!) All right. We could sell the industrial ships, since we don’t really need them for now. Adding to the salvage from the last raid... let me see,” he pulled out a calculator from his saddlebags and pushed some buttons “We still need seven millions and four hundred thousands.”

In that moment Twilight remembered something Celesta mentioned a short time before she was ponynapped. The information wasn’t that useful to her but right now it seemed the perfect bargaining tool “Excuse me miss Applejack, maybe I know how to make you cover up the rest of Rainbow debt.”

“Oh? Are ya one of those gallentean market experts? No offense but the Apple family been in business fer generations and know how to buck markets sales to the top. Ah don’t think any of yer tips can help me that much.”

“Actually I think this tip might interest you. I’m assuming your corp specialize in harvesting asteroids belts, correct?”

“Yeah, actually we’re doin’ some space varmints hunting too. Never shortage of them pirates I reckon.”

Twilight leaned closer, making sure nopony else were listening “I know, from personal sources of mine, that the empires are planning to release a way for capsuleers to mine planets.”

Applejack tilted an eyebrow “What, yer talking about fancyer moon harvesters? Ah don’t have a tower station yet ta build them.”

“No, there is no need for a pilot owned tower installation. With a special orbital platform you can organize a command center on the surface of a planet and connect it to mining factories. Is all automatic, so you only need to check once in a while to collect minerals and organize the structures.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes “That sound mighty nice, but who exactly are you?”

“You’re right, sorry if I didn’t introduced myself. My name is Twinkle Pie.” Twilight, for most of her dealings, used the name Pinkie Pie ‘adopted’ her with. It was a very cute name, and Pinkie was so happy to treat her like another sister.

Applejack however glared at her irritated “Yer lying!”

Twilight look the orange mare confused “Uh, no... my name...”

“Have nuthin ta do with breakfast snacks or pies. Ah can see when ponies lye ta me, and I can’t trust a pony who doesn't speak in perfect honesty.”

Twilight looked around, Inkie and Blinkie were a little alarmed, Pinkie was simply watching interested and Dash shrugged “Just be honest, she likes honest.”

Twilight returned to Applejack and talked lowering her voice “My real name is Twilight Sparkle. Please understand that I have reasons to hide my identity to most strangers. Is nothing illegal, but there are people looking for me with bad intentions.”

Applejack stared at her for several seconds, than she relaxed and hoped down from her chair “All right, I’ll not poke my nose in your problems. So you were talking ‘bout planetside mining?”

“Yes! These structures aren’t on the market yet, but after a few days they will release the books with the skills to operate them and analyze planet geology. I think that with the current Nightmare crisis not many people will know about the offer so you could start before anypony else.”

Applejack tapped her chin “Hum, mah brother Mac works as a director of Interbus food and ore transports. He could find me some of them books before they hit the market and maybe even these new gizmos. All right miss Twilight, ya got a deal.”

“Good, I’ll leave you sort things out with mister Mon... er, Cashier then. If you got a moment Dash I need to explain What we must do.”

While Applejack was busy got his money cashed in, and trying to be explained from a blushing Cashier what Dash meant with raining BITs, Twilight led the cyan pegasus to a more secluded part of the bar. After explaining the plan she wasn’t exactly thrilled “Why the hay should I help the amarrs to get back one of their fortresses?”

“Technically you won’t, we will do the fighting wile you sneak behind the lines and collect informations. With luck we can frame Blueblood for treachery, don’t you want that?”

“‘Course I want that! I want to see that featherbrain beat up to a pulp for what he did to my Pinkie.” she shot a look at the Pink pony who was picking an exasperated Cashier about night performances “But to get near I’ll have to help you with some firepower, I know how nasty these Nightmares are. I’m not comfortable fighting with and FOR the amarrs, is against my principles!”

Twilight rolled her eyes “You should drop your pride then, the Nightmares are a danger for all the space empires. Master Moon is counting on our prejudices and mutual hate to keep us separated and weak. The sooner we make a common stand against her Nation the better.”

Dash snorted “I see your point, but I still don’t like it.”

Twilight put a hoof on Rainbow shoulder and smiled “You said that you could give your loyalty to those who respect you and your friends. I’m doing this not only so discover what the Nation want with me, but to bring to justice those who have made Pinkie suffer. And I want you to be with us so that Pinkie can be closer to her best friend.”

Rainbow looked at Twilight’s eyes and blinked, she than stared at her convinced and with a confident grin “All right amarr, you get the Dash. Let’s get our business done so we can go out to kick some flanks.”