//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Beyond Imagination 
// by Argent 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 5

        Wanderlust was out the door in a flash. “How long do we have?” He asked as he met Dawnfire on the stairs.
“I’m not sure. We’re still outrunning them, but we’re slowing down fast.” She responded as the two bounded towards the armory. “Is there anything you can do?”
The unicorn had to concentrate for a few seconds, desperately searching the ship’s systems. “We’re losing power, but I can’t tell why. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Shit. Help me with these weapons.” The two frantically donned their gear as quickly as they could before rushing to the upper deck of the ship. 
It was still the middle of the night, as dark as it ever was on the ring, and in the ghostly half-light Wanderlust could see the black-on-black flutter of wings all around them. “What are they?”
“I have no idea, but there are a lot of them. If we keep slowing down, they’re all going to catch up.”
“How many?”
“How the hell should I know? I can barely see the damned things!” Dawnfire walked to the edge of the ship and looked down. “Oh Gods, I hope they don’t force us down. Wands, come take a look at this.” The unicorn walked over, nervously glancing over his shoulder at the barely-visible wings flashing past. “I thought that griffon was being dramatic when he talked about ‘Dead Lands’.”
“Celestia, what is this place?” As far as he could see the ground was gray and barren. Strewn about seemingly at random were massive hulks made of stone or metal, interspersed with broken spires that jutted towards the sky like the splintered bones of the world itself. “What happened here?”
“Not important right now.” The pegasus snapped. “Is our speed still dropping?”
“Half the speed of sound and plummeting.” Wanderlust replied instantly. “I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to stop it.” That thought scared him. It’s almost like a part of me just stopped working. Why can’t I tell what’s going on?
Dawnfire pulled him back into the moment. “It’s a fight, then. Are there any guns on this thing?”
The unicorn had to think for a moment, he was still too preoccupied with the power loss. Focus on it later. As long as we’re still flying, there are bigger concerns. Wanderlust took a deep breath to order his thoughts. “There are a dozen telescopes and observation devices I can’t even name, but I can’t find any weapons.”
“Damn” She swore. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way, then. We hold them on the deck and retreat inside if things go bad. Try to keep the control room to your back. Until then, I guess we wait.”
“Do you know anything at all about what we might be up against?”
“This is farther than anyone I’ve ever met has traveled before. We’re in uncharted territory.” 
“Shit. This is not the way I wanted this day to go.” The unicorn lamented. Can’t I just get one day to think?
“Such language, Wanderlust.” His companion observed, raising a hoof to her mouth to cover a mocking grin. “I’m shocked.”
“What can I say? You’re rubbing off on me.”
“About time.” She growled, only half joking this time. 
About that time Allegro poked his head out of the control room. “What’s going on? Is there any way I can help?”
Dawnfire looked at Wanderlust and shrugged. The unicorn said, “Go below and stay safe: there’s probably going to be a fight. Be ready to move, though, just in case we have to land” The other pony retreated back into the ship.
“He’d be a lot more useful if he had a weapon.” Dawnfire muttered as she started to pace around the deck.
“We’ve had this conversation before, Dawn.” Wanderlust replied with a sigh. “He’s not changing and I’m not going to let you force him.”
The pegasus had just opened her mouth to reply when her eyes went wide and she started moving. “Incoming!” Dawnfire screamed as she bowled into Wanderlust, knocking him off his hooves. A black cloud of feathers sailed over them as they hit the deck, accompanied by an otherworldly shriek.
“What is that thing?” Wanderlust yelled.
Dawnfire was already on her hooves. “Who cares, kill it!” 
Wanderlust rolled to his hooves in time to see the creature struggling to stand. At first, he thought it was a pegasus, but it looked wrong. It was out of proportion: long spindly limbs and a tiny head that ended in a bony, almost beak-like protrusion. Its feathers were patchy and ragged, its eyes were a dull black and its mane and fur were mangy and sparse. The sight paralyzed him until it opened its mouth and shrieked, a sound so loud that it was physically painful. The screech was drowned out by a thunderclap as burning plasma splashed across its body, leaving the beast smoldering and thrashing about on the deck. 
        “Get up! There’ll be more.” Wanderlust jumped to his hooves and drew his weapons in time to see another of the creatures come screaming towards them. A heartbeat later it was met by Dawnfire’s weapons and sent, in flames, off the other side of the ship. “Behind us!” She yelled. Wanderlust whirled to see three more of the creatures careening towards them from in front of the ship. As they tore through the ship’s safety fields, the system finally failed and Wanderlust was assailed by the onrushing wind.
        He screamed a warning to Dawnfire and cut the ship’s speed as quickly as he could, sending himself sliding roughly into the back of the control room and the hostile creatures flying past them. 
        “What are you doing? We need to outrun them!”
        “We can’t! Either I slow us down or we get blown over the side!” Wanderlust yelled back as he fired at one of the attackers that tried climbing over the control room. Its body fell forward, forcing him to scramble to avoid it. “How many more are there?” One hit him from behind, knocking him down before he blew it away.
        “Just keep shooting!” The other pony screamed back. Wanderlust had no intention of doing otherwise. His perception shrunk to a blur of black feathers, snapping beaks, reaching hooves and burning fire. The only breaks in the thunder of weapons-fire were the frantic seconds required to switch power crystals. Wanderlust lost all perception of time: it could have been seconds or hours before a deafening crash split the air and the ship bucked, sending him sprawling to the deck. “Get below!” Dawnfire yelled as the ship pitched forwards and started falling towards the ground.
        With a herculean effort, Wanderlust heaved himself across the deck and into the control room as the ship tilted further and further forward. As it neared vertical, Allegro’s hoof snaked around the corner and pulled him inside the body of the ship. The ponies fell upwards as Wanderlust tumbled inside, slamming into a wall near Dawnfire.
        Pinned against the cold metal of the ship, he could feel it plummeting towards the ground, could feel systems fading away as the ship died piece by piece. He almost felt like a part of him was dying with it. As their altitude spun down to zero, Wanderlust felt the ship expend one last massive surge of energy and for a split-second he felt as if he were floating: a safety system to cushion the impact, some small section of his mind filled in, and then he settled gently onto the ceiling. 
        “What happened?” Allegro asked groggily, a hoof on his head: he’d apparently hit it against something during the fall. 
        “I’m not sure,” Wanderlust replied, rising to his hooves. Half-active systems were still trying to maintain a connection, making it was difficult to concentrate. “but I think some sort of weapon hit us from the ground.”
        Dawnfire jumped upright at that. “Then they’re going to be here, and soon. We need to leave right now.”
        As she and Allegro hurried towards the stairs, something was nagging at Wanderlust’s mind. He realized he still had access to the ship’s map. He frantically tore the portable map out of his pack and manipulated the controls as gunfire erupted outside and Allegro’s voice called to him. 
The fighting seemed to intensify outside until Dawnfire’s voice broke over his radio. “Either you get your useless ass out here right now or we’re leaving you!”
        “I’m coming! What am I walking into?”  He responded, shoving the map back into a pouch and running towards the stairs.
        “Minotaurs, lots of them.” She barked in response, her voice clipped and the gaps filled with the staccato crack of gunfire. “They’re heavily armed. Stay low.”
        Wanderlust bounded out of the control room to where the other two ponies were taking cover behind a pile of debris kicked up in the crash. Allegro was curled into a ball with his legs over his head and Dawnfire was crouched low, rising every few seconds to fire a burst of plasma at the unseen enemies. 
        “What’s the plan?” Wanderlust gasped, rising to a crouch and firing his weapons blindly over the rise. Something cracked past his head and he dropped to the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
“Lay down covering fire while Allegro and I move into whatever the hell that is. We’ll cut through there.” She pointed with a hoof at an opening in a metal wall behind them. “When we reach it, I’ll signal you and you’ll move back while I cover you. Sound good?”
“Ready when you are. Allegro, did you catch that?” The earth pony nodded and whimpered. “Good. Tell me when, Dawn.”
There were a few tense breaths as the staccato reports of the minotaur’s weapons went unchallenged. “Now.” She barked. As Wanderlust started firing, the other two ponies jumped to their hooves and ran. A few seconds later, Dawn started firing and Wanderlust rose, catching a glimpse of a number of massive figures lit in the ghastly glow left behind by the plasma as it burned through the dust. He could hear the projectiles around him like a swarm of gnats as he sprinted through the open. As he reached the opening in the wall of metal, one slapped him on the back of the head. His barding saved him, but the impact sent him rolling across the blackened ground. 
Dawnfire scooped him back to his hooves. “Move!” She didn’t have to tell him twice. Wanderlust could hear the shouts behind them as he and his friends took off into the maze of metal passages. As they neared the first corner, a dozen projectiles caromed off the wall next to Wanderlust’s head and he responded with a burst of plasma without turning. 
The pegasus was leading them at random, making twists and turns, doubling back, anything to confuse their pursuers. It seemed to be working: the shouts and the echoing sound of hooves seemed to be fading until one of them burst from a side passage with a roar, backhanding Dawnfire across the face as she passed.
As the mare went sprawling from the force of the blow, Wanderlust shoved Allegro out of the way, lunging with his knife for fear that a stray shot might hit one of his friends. The unicorn leapt onto the minotaur’s back and plunged the knife between its shoulder blades. The beast roared and slammed him into one of the metal walls. 
Wanderlust’s head rang as he held on for dear life, plunging the knife in again and again, gritting his teeth and trying to block out the sounds that escaped the minotaur as it fought for its hold on life. Finally, it fell backwards with a groan, nearly crushing Wanderlust before he had a chance to dive out of the way. 
As he caught his breath, he looked down at the minotaur. It was wearing black armor over its torso, and a pair of crossed red lances were embroidered on its right breast. Some sort of netting held an array of pouches. Wanderlust started to open one, but Dawnfire cut him off. “No time. They’ll have heard the struggle.” With one last glance at the red lances, Wanderlust followed the others deeper into the structure. 
Three turns later, Dawnfire led them up a narrow metal staircase that creaked ominously as they climbed. A few levels up, she led them down a side passage at random. Upon rounding a corner, she stopped in her tracks. “What the hell?” She muttered. 
Wanderlust edged past Allegro for a better look. “I have no idea.” He responded. The next room was massive. They were near the ceiling, and the ground was clearly visible far below. Filling the space between was a network of walkways and gantries arrayed in evenly-spaced cubes. 
The three of them stood staring for a moment before Dawnfire took the first step forward. “Are you insane?” Allegro asked. “We need to find another way: half those walkways are more rust than metal.”
“This one isn’t.” Argued Dawnfire. “And this is the last way they’ll expect us to go.”
“Not to mention that there’s no way a minotaur is getting across this room alive.” Wanderlust added. 
“There’s no way we’re getting across that room alive!”
“Look, Allegro,” Dawnfire said impatiently, “if it makes you feel any better, I’ll test out the walkway first.”
“What will that prove? You’re a pegasus: you must weigh about half of what I do.”
“Allegro, it’s either this or we fight our way through Celestia knows how many minotaurs.” Wanderlust snapped. Allegro looked like he was about to argue for a moment, then sighed in resignation. 
“I don’t like heights.” The earth pony muttered as they started across.
“Then don’t look down.” Dawnfire suggested. 
Walking the length of the room seemed to take them ages, but they made it across safely. Dawnfire led them through four more random turns before she finally stopped. Wanderlust’s legs felt like they were on fire: the three had run most of the way. Allegro sank to the floor and lay there in the dust. Dawnfire wasn’t even breathing heavily. 
“Don’t get too comfortable. They’re going to keep looking.”
“So,” Wanderlust gasped. “this is your area of expertise. What do we do now?”
“We keep moving until morning, then we find a place to hide. We only move at night, and we don’t stop until we’re out of this hellhole. I don’t suppose either of you thought to grab food on the way out?”
“A little.” Allegro said. “I brought the survival rations, and all the water I could carry.”
“Okay, that gives us food for maybe two weeks? So we either get out of here fast or starve.”
The earth pony opened his pack and tossed a pouch to Wanderlust with his teeth. “I managed to grab the trading supplies, too.”
“Thanks, Allegro.” The unicorn replied as he tucked the pouch away. At least I remembered the power cells.
“Great, now we can buy food if we meet any wandering grocers in the middle of this deserted wasteland.” Dawnfire said, prompting a glare from the earth pony. “I just wish we knew what direction to head. There’s no telling how turned around we got in the crash.”
“What did you think took me so long when the shooting started?” Wanderlust asked with a tired smile and produced the map. “I managed to mark Archive before I had to leave.” Consulting the ghostly image of the ring floating between them, he finally pointed to his left. “That’s the way we need to go.”
“Let’s get moving, then. Allegro, get up.”
The earth pony clambered to his hooves with a groan. “The next time a princess asks me to go on a quest, remind me to just say no.”
“I’ll do my best to remember that.” Dawnfire said dryly as she began walking down the corridor. 
She set a slower pace this time, giving Wanderlust a chance to actually examine their surroundings, though there wasn’t much to see. Anything that wasn’t metal had long since rotted away. There looked to have been something, possibly signs or labels, painted on the walls but they were too worn to read. Whatever the structure was, it was a honeycomb of metal compartments. There were heavy doors at the end of each corridor, and at the entrance to each room, as if the designers had wanted the ability to seal it section by section. The walls seemed to grow closer the longer they spent inside, the narrow passages shrinking around him. 
“I never got a good look at them.” Allegro said suddenly. “The things that attacked us in the air. What were they?”
“I don’t know.” Dawnfire snapped.
“They looked like pegasi.” Wanderlust said.
“I know.” The mare snapped again. 
“Have you ever seen anything like that before?” Allegro asked, sounding a little uneasy.
“Yes, thousands of times. I just never thought to mention it.” Dawnfire replied, sarcasm dripping from every word.
“What’s wrong with you?” Allegro said. Wanderlust thought he had an idea, but the earth pony had spoken before the unicorn could tell him to drop it.
“How would you feel if it had been earth ponies twisted into whatever the hell those things were?” There was a touch of fear in her voice. Well, if they’d been unicorns I’m sure I’d feel about the same. “I hope I never find out what those things were. I hope I never find where they came from. I hope I never see one of the damned things again.”
Allegro opened his mouth again, but this time Wanderlust was quick enough to stop him. “Any idea why the minotaurs are after us?”
“The bounty on our heads.” Dawn sighed. “Whoever’s employing them is after it. I’ve never seen minotaurs this well-equipped, though.” She paused for a moment. “I’ve heard rumors for years about kingdoms to spinward that still have the old knowledge.”
“Old knowledge?” Allegro asked.
“Magic, technology, all the things we’ve lost. Things like this.” She explained, lifting a wing to highlight the weapon at her side. “They’re said to be immensely powerful, and all paying fealty to something. Some ruler nobody’s ever seen. It’s said that even the dragons kneel to him.”
“Do you believe it?” Said the earth pony.
“The day I see a dragon bend a knee to anyone is the day I eat my mane.” She said with a snort. “It’s all just stories. Chances are whoever hired these minotaurs stumbled across some old storage cache somewhere and decided that better-equipped underlings were more useful.”
“What if it’s true?”
“Then they catch us, and we die.” She responded coldly. “You can’t fight that kind of power.”

*

“What happened here?” Wanderlust whispered, his voice filled with awe. It had taken them hours, but they had finally emerged at ground-level in the middle of what appeared to be a wide avenue. To their right a canyon of towering buildings, reduced by unknown forces to little more than skeletons of structural supports, stretched to the horizon. To their left the buildings were fewer and farther between, interspersed with, and sometimes half-buried under, mounds of rubble larger than any building he had ever seen in Equestria. 
Everything was charred black, as if some kind of titanic blaze had swept through the entire area and every flat surface was covered with a thin gray dust that clung to their hooves and fur. Most unsettling was the feeling that they weren’t wanted, that this wasn’t a place for the living: nothing grew, nothing moved, there was no sound. Not even a breeze broke the unnatural stillness. 
“Chances are we don’t want to know.” Dawnfire had spoken quietly, but her voice still echoed in the stillness. “Which way?” Wanderlust consulted the map and pointed across the street towards a tall tower. “It’ll be dawn soon, we should wait out the day when we reach that building.”
They had long since switched off their barding to conserve energy, meaning that Wanderlust could feel the ground crunch at every step as they crossed the vast open area. He cringed with every sound that echoed off the shattered husks of the city. There was something deeply unsettling about seeing destruction on this scale: one could have dropped the whole of Ponyville into this city and lost it in the clutter and yet whoever had built it couldn’t stop its utter devastation. 
        Between the street and building was a wide plaza. The space was dotted with benches, stone planters for trees and the entire space was centered on what must have been a magnificent fountain. Now, it was just a blackened stone bowl surrounding a centerpiece of shapeless metal, melted in whatever cataclysm had befallen the city. 
As their hooves clicked on the broken tiles that covered the square, Wanderlust’s ears perked up. There was a gentle humming noise in the distance, nothing that would normally cause alarm, but in the deathly silence of the broken city any sound was out of place. 
        “Into the fountain!” He hissed at the other two. “Right now!” They scrambled across the uneven paving stones and jumped into the lower section of the fountain, hiding behind a stone wall. As the hum drew closer Wanderlust risked a peek over the rim. A dart-shaped vessel the size of a small cottage was drifting slowly past, twenty or thirty feet above the street, two bright beams of light sweeping the path in front of it. Dawnfire pulled him back down to the ground and silently glared at him. 
        They stayed pressed to the ground, faces in the dust until the humming of the search vessel faded into the distance. Motioning for them to stay down, Dawnfire slowly lifted her head over the wall and watched for several seconds before rising. “Come on, we need to move before something else shows up.” The three sprinted across the rest of the plaza, their hooves clicking on the tiles as the area was abruptly bathed in sunlight. A few minutes later they were huddled together in a small room on the third floor of the building.
        “That was close.” Wanderlust whispered. Dawnfire nodded, glancing towards the door. 
        “Like I said, we’ll have to move at night: less chance of them finding us. We have the advantage now, though. Their search area keeps expanding the longer it’s been since they’ve seen us.”
        “What do we do until then?”
        “Get some sleep.” She whispered with a smile and a nod towards Allegro, who was already snoring. “I’ll take first watch.” With a nod, Wanderlust settled his head onto his hooves and was asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

*

        Wanderlust stood in the plaza, looking at the street. He was surrounded by trees and flowers. Birds flitted through the air and filled the world with music. The unicorn paused to admire the fountain. Water flowed down steps of white stone, atop which stood a winged unicorn of gleaming platinum. For a moment, Wanderlust thought it was Princess Celestia, but the eyes were wrong, as was the cutie mark. The few rare times he had seen the monarch, she had looked kind and caring. This one had steel in her eyes, and there was a set of scales on her side. 
        Kneeling before her were three smaller statues: a unicorn, a pegasus and an earth pony, all cast from iron. The three statues were presenting her with what appeared to be large knives.
        “They’re called swords.” Wanderlust started and whirled. The voice had been right next to him, but he was completely alone. “Not our creation, but a symbol we adopted, nonetheless.” The voice added solemnly from his other side.
        “Who’s there?” He asked, his voice shaking. The question echoed off that walls of the plaza, but that was the only answer he received. “Hello?” He called again, his hooves clicking off the dark green tiles that paved the plaza as he moved towards the street. Again, his own echo was the only response. 
        The glare off the spotless alabaster buildings nearly blinded him as he looked down the canyon they formed, towering over the wide boulevard. Trees were planted in an orderly row down the center, stretching off into the distance for as far as the unicorn could see. The other direction was much the same. There wasn’t another pony, nor even a hint of one, in any direction. As far as he could tell, this city might have been empty since the day of its creation. 
        “Sir, there’s a problem.” Wanderlust jumped at the sound of the voice. It was faint, slightly garbled; he couldn’t tell where it was coming from or who was speaking. He spun around, but he was still alone. Whoever was speaking, he couldn’t see them.
“Report.” A second voice barked.
“Multiple unknown contacts just broke the solar perimeter.” The first voice again. This time, there was more than a hint of fear in its tone.
“Hit the panic button: we have a plan for this.” The second voice again. They seemed to have a different source every time they spoke. “Start evacuations, signal Fleetcom to intercept, spin up ground defenses and switch relays to standby.” The orders came rapid-fire as Wanderlust stared into the sky, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “This is nothing we haven’t faced before.”
“Hostile Formation Five has broken past the rimwall defenses, sir. Estimate casualties in excess of five hundred vessels.” A third voice, this one was more urgent.
“Remaining strength?” The second voice again. It sounded tired, as if the speaker had been awake for days. 
“Three hundred warships, sir. They’re approaching Iniba now, sir.” 
A long pause, broken by the barely-audible click of hoofsteps on metal. “Authorize strikecom to fire on inhabited territory.”
“Sir?” 
“You heard me.” The authoritative voice sounded angry.
“Evacuations are still ongoing, sir.” The third voice objected. 
“I’m aware. Authorize them to fire.”
“There are civilians within-”
“And we all know what happens to them if we’re overrun.” The one in charge snapped.  “Give the order.”
Silence followed as Wanderlust walked slowly down the wide street. A shadow slid slowly across him, and he looked up to see a swarm of massive, metal objects cutting silently through the sky above him. There must have been dozens, if not hundreds, so large that the one above him entirely blocked out the sun. Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light, followed by nothing.
“May the gods have mercy upon our souls.”

*

        “Wanderlust, wake up.” Dawnfire’s voice and an accompanying prod from a hoof woke him.
        “What’s going on?” He asked, bolting upright.
        “Keep your voice down.” Dawnfire whispered.  “You were having a nightmare, talking in your sleep.”
        “Sorry,” Wanderlust replied in a whisper. He looked up at the sunlight streaming through cracks in the wall. “How much longer until we can move?”
        “It’s only been a couple of hours. Get comfortable, we have a lot of waiting to do.”
        “Lovely. I don’t suppose you have a deck of cards?”
        “Cards?” Dawnfire asked, cocking an eyebrow.
        Wanderlust sighed. “Nevermind.” He shivered a little. “When did it get so cold?”
        “It’s a little harder to ignore when we’re not moving around.” She took a few steps and lay next to him. “I wish we’d had warmer clothing with us but I suppose this is the best we can manage.”
        “Just don’t let Allegro see, he’d have a field day.” Wanderlust muttered. The earth pony was still sound asleep in the other corner.
        “You don’t realize I’ve heard those conversations, do you?” The look on the unicorn’s face made her laugh. “You don’t survive for as long in the wilderness as I have by not listening to what’s going on around you, Wands.”
        “So why haven’t you said anything? I was expecting you to murder him or something.”
        “I don’t go around killing for the fun of it. Well, not usually, at least.” She amended with a wicked gleam in her eye. “I thought I’d let him have his fun for now. Just don’t get any funny ideas.”
        “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He promised with a smile. A cry from above them made him start. “What was that?”
        “Those creatures we saw earlier are nesting in the tops of the buildings. I think they’re mostly nocturnal.” Dawnfire replied, growing more serious. “We’ll have to be careful tonight.”
        “Is there anything that’s actually going to go our way today?” Wanderlust lamented. 
        “We’re still alive, Wands, that’s something.” She reminded him. “Now keep an eye on things while I get some sleep.” She closed her eyes and leaned against the unicorn, leaving him with nothing to do but stare at the wall and think until nightfall, with only the occasional glance at the pegasus nestled against him.

*

        “They’re still searching for us.” Wanderlust was looking out over the wasteland that lay beyond the building that had served as their temporary refuge. Shattered structures were strewn about the vast plain haphazardly and the ground was thick with rubble. In the distance, dozens of dart-shaped ships were drifting through the sky, searchlights combing the ground. 
        “Luna never said it would be easy.” Allegro muttered groggily from behind him.
        “We just need to stay low, stay quiet and keep to the debris. Come on, let’s go.” Dawnfire led them across the plain, sticking close to the remains of the decaying structures.
        “How far do we still need to go?” Allegro asked a few hours into the journey.
        “We’re maybe four weeks away from Archive on foot.” Wanderlust replied. “Let’s hope we can make our food last until then.”
        “How long has it been since you missed a meal?” Dawnfire asked from the front.
        “It’s been awhile.”
        “We have food for two weeks, more if we stretch it. Going a week or two without won’t be at all comfortable, but it’ll be survivable. You’ll adapt.” She spoke again after a minute of silence. “Gods, would you look at the size of that thing?” Wanderlust blinked and his jaw dropped. They were approaching a structure so large that he had assumed at first that it was part of the landscape. It was broken into several pieces, but it was obviously rectangular, metallic, several hundred feet high and at least a mile in length. 
        He was about to comment when his ears caught something. “Coming this way, into cover now.” The three of them scrambled through the open and took cover in the crumbling remnants of a low stone structure. They stayed as still as possible as the gray ship drifted past above them, a spotlight missing them by feet. The unicorn watched as the light played across the structure in front of them, revealing some writing near the top that he couldn’t make out.
        As it drifted into the distance, the three kept watching, concerned that it might turn around until suddenly a beam of white light lanced from the ground and impaled it. The three ponies jumped to their feet as the ship, engulfed in flames, tumbled out of view behind the rubble. 
“Shit. We need to move.” Dawnfire yelled as she started running. “That’ll draw them all this way.” They sprinted through the dark, not stopping until they had reached the interior of the mammoth structure. 
Wanderlust watched through a crack in the wall as the ships searching for them sped past. “What was that?”
“No idea.” Allegro replied. “Maybe somepony out here is on our side for a change.”
        “Some ally. Pointed them straight towards us. Not to mention that now they’re not going to let up anytime soon.” Dawnfire growled.
        “With any luck, whoever did that is now priority one. We may be able to slip out unnoticed.” Wanderlust said hopefully. Dawnfire just grunted. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”
        With that the three ponies, cold, tired and alone, walked silently into the night.