//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Not Alone After All 
// Story: The Battle for Equestria 
// by GhostRaz6 
//------------------------------//

	Unknown UNSC Shipyard. Date: September 27, 2548

“I don’t care. The build remains on schedule. Finish it no matter what happens. I don’t care if the Covenant starts glassing the planet.”

“Sir. It’s not a matter of progress; it’s a matter of supplies. We only have enough for one ship.”

“Are you saying her sister ships won’t be able to be completed?”

“Not as the current classification, no.”

“Fine. Make the Grim Torment a Destroyer.”

“And the Dusk?”

“Use her for pieces for the Yamato.”

“Yes sir.”


Eight years later… Slip space
Rear Admiral Travis Stevens awoke in a cryo-pod and to a female voice saying, ”Good morning Admiral. Sleep well?” The pod opened and released the admiral as he coughed, spitting up the crap they made him swallow before the sleep. Sure, he knew the actual name, but it tasted like crap so that’s what he always called it. 

“I slept fine, Lusankya. But will you please learn how to drive?” He said going around to the other crew members who were also waking up after their jump from Earth. 

Lusankya laughed, ”You know I fly better than anyone else on this ship.” Her figure appeared on a nearby holoprojector. Her figure appearing as a woman clad in white flight armor without a helmet and her hair cropped short to regulation standards. The AI proceeded to look around the cryo-bay. “Well, that’s everyone we need right now. The marines will stay asleep until we exit slip space. You know how they complain about not getting their beauty sleep.” The admiral smiled while the rest of the bridge crew chuckled at the AI’s joke. A couple of the ensigns were already getting dressed and heading for the bridge when the admiral stopped them.

“Go eat first, then head up to the bridge. I don’t need my crew thinking on empty stomachs.” Stevens said pulling on his pants and reaching over to grab his uniform shirt. His light grey hair cut marine short. He had always liked it that way, ever since he was a marine fighting insurrectionists until now. He had just gotten out of the corps when the Human-Covenant war had started so he decided to head to officer school for the UNSC. He got average grades when he attended there and when he graduated he got stationed on Earth. Not a lot happened so he was stuck just doing paperwork for some admiral he didn’t remember. That is until he was reassigned to Reach as one of the ODP commanders. That was two years before the Fall of Reach. After Reach fell he was given a ship two months before the first invasion of Earth. He survived the first invasion only to have his ship destroyed in the beginning of the second invasion. How he made it out of that mess alive, he’ll never know. His dark green eyes watched as the two nodded and said, “Yes sir.” Before heading out the door.
As Admiral Stevens finished buttoning up his uniform shirt, Lusankya spoke again, “Ten minutes until we exit Slip space.” When she finished speaking, Stevens headed to the door and made way to the ship’s bridge. As he entered, he walked over to the main display in the center of the room.

“Lusankya. How are the reactors?” He spoke pulling the information up on the screen.

“Reactors 1 and 3 are operating nominally, I’m just bringing reactor 2 online.” She spoke as the holoprojector by the display lit up and her figure appeared again.

“Why was number 2 offline?” He kept his eyes on the screen switching it over to the weapons display. In the upper right hand corner, the ship’s name was displayed: UNSC YAMATO.  Admiral Stevens had read up on the history of the name. It was named after the Japanese super weapon back in the Second World War. The Yamato, along with its sister ship the Musashi, were the largest battleships built in the world. It boasted the largest guns and the best armor. Too bad it went down the way it did. The UNSC Yamato was like its older counterpart. It is the first and last of its kind in the UNSC navy; the only Battleship-class in the entire UNSC fleet. It had been commissioned during the tail end of the Human-Covenant war by a private company who had planned on building three but apparently only had the resources for one and a smaller sister ship. So the Yamato was the only one of her kind and the admiral got the personal honor of being on her maiden voyage.

“Sir, reactor 2 experienced a slight malfunction once we jumped from Earth so I shut it down and had the engineer crew work on it while everyone else slept.” Lusankya explained turning to face Admiral Stevens.

“Anything serious?” He asked glancing over at her as she crossed her arms.

“No sir. Just a burnt up cable leading to the weapons. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed. All MAC guns are still functional.” Her figure turned just as the rest of the bridge crew started to enter the room.

“Well with where we’re heading nobody will see the explosion.” He looked at the reports that were just coming in. MAC gun 1, 2, 3, and 5 were online and ready to fire while 4 was offline for maintenance and all 1,000 Archer missile pods were online. Point defense turrets were just coming online as they were slowly decelerating from slip space.

“Sir, five minutes until we exit slip space into neutral space.” She spoke.

“Wake the marines now Lusankya. We need them ready, just in case.” Stevens watched as the status on MAC gun number 4 switched from red to green. He smiled inwardly. He felt like a kid in a candy store. Big guns. He’d always been a sucker for a big boom. And that’s exactly what a MAC gun delivered. A big gun with a big boom. The ensign that oversaw the weapons turned in his chair to look at the Admiral.

“Sir? Should I bring the Super MAC gun online?” The ensign spoke uneasily. This is the first time he’d ever seen an admiral, much less been in the same room with one.

“Bring her online.” Stevens turned to face the view of space. Currently the metal shutters on them were still closed until they exited slip space. Admiral Stevens made his way over to the captain’s chair and just sat there, waiting for the shutters to open so they could get a good look at stars.

Near Ponyville, Equestria
Twilight Sparkle set up her telescope on hill as Spike came up carrying a large book and a blanket. As she finished making adjustments, Spike was finishing setting up the blanket on the ground and putting the book on it. In the distance she could hear the beat coming from Vinyl Scratch’s home. Twilight just smiled as she opened the book with her magic. A Guide to the Stars. It had proved an interesting read so she had brought it for a reference. Sure she already knew about most of the star formations and the night sky but it was still interesting to watch Princess Luna’s handiwork.

“Thank you, Spike.” She said turning back to the telescope.

“No problem Twilight.” The small purple green dragon said back to the purple mare.  Looking through her telescope she saw a beautiful array of stars in the night sky. She kept admiring the view, going from star cluster to star cluster; studying each one in turn. Then she noticed something off. One of the star formations that were usually there was gone.

“That’s not right.” Twilight said mostly to herself.

“What’s not right?” Spike asked waking rousing himself before he fell asleep on the blanket.

“Well I was looking from constellation to constellation and one of my favorite ones isn’t there, even though it should.” She said taking her eye away from the telescope to look at Spike then eventually to the starry sky. Sure enough, the same constellation was still missing from view. Then a few seconds later another constellation disappeared and the previous one appeared. 

“What’s going on?” Spike said as he watched the disturbance next to Twilight.  Meanwhile, in the Everfree Forest, another being was watching the stars also. His face shrouded by a black helmet and the rest of him obscured in black body armour. When he saw the same thing Twilight was seeing not far away, he sprinted to his damaged craft. When he reached it, he found the transmitter beacon, recorded a new message and sent it on a UNSC band. 
He sighed, “I hope this one gets out. Not much life left in the reserve battery.” He grabbed his suppressed SMG from the storage crate nearby. It’s not like he needed it. The creatures that inhabited this planet were peaceful… and primitive compared to the UNSC. So it meant that they were not part of the Covenant. He turned on his armor’s built in cloaking device. Being a Spartan-III has its advantages sometimes. He slowly made his way out of the forest, taking note of the purple pony and purple green lizard on the hill. He gave them a wide berth and moved slowly towards the town and into its main market area. He quickly made his way over to the apple stall and grabbed a sack of apples, turning off his active camo at the same time. No point in being invisible if you’re carrying a sack that will give you away, he thought. He then made his way over to a pastry stall and grabbed a few slices of bread and slowly made his way back to the forest. Funny, the purple pony and the lizard weren’t on the hill anymore…