//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - Flashback: the Second // Story: FTL: Wings of the Federation // by Appy //------------------------------// Derpy cinched the final belt of her riot gear tight. Neither her, Carrot Top, nor Dinky had actually removed the armor they had equipped from before they encountered the General, though. At the time, they had rushed to put their armor on; they didn't know what would be coming next. Now, with proper time to gather themselves, Derpy had set about readjusting her armor as comfortably as possible. Satisfied, she exited the bridge and turned towards the shield control room. This, Derpy thought, was news that need to be told face-to-face, not over an intercom. Carrot Top looked up as the doors to shield control hissed open. Standing before her was a less than happy Derpy. "Captain?" Carrot questioned. "The General," Derpy practically spit the last word, "has just volunteered us for his boarding party. We're going, like it or not." Carrot paused. "But Captain, we've no weapons aboard. Does he expect us to go hoof-to-hoof against the Rebels?" "He is so graciously lending us the sidearms of his troops," Derpy replied with heavy sarcasm. "But I absolutely refuse to let my daughter take part in this killing. We'll give her a few riot shields to carry. We're likely going to be under fire, anyway, so having some cover will come in handy." "Good," Carrot replied. "Dinky's a sweet girl. We shouldn't be forced to taint her with something like this." "I agree. I still have to tell her, though. Go to the equipment lockers, get everything ready, and adjust your armor if you need to. I'm going to go get Dinky." "Yes, Captain," Carrot replied. Leaving through opposite doors, they went to do as they had agreed. The door to weapons control opened as Derpy approached them. Entering the room, Derpy saw Dinky sitting in a wheeled chair in the center of the room, using her magic to spin the chair. Dinky, noticing her mother, used her magic to abruptly stop the chair's spinning, sending her to the floor in a heap. When Dinky stopped seeing comical little stars orbiting her head, she looked up at her mother and asked, "What's up, Mom? You don't look too happy about something." "The General recruited us for his boarding party against the Rebels. You, me and Carrot are all going to be joining his assault on the cruiser that we're currently attached to." "Uh. Wow. That's... a big bomb to drop. You—you're not kidding, are you?" Dinky asked, hesitantly. Derpy sighed. "I wish I was. I really, really wish I was. But the General is understaffed, and needs all the help he can get with this raid. We're going into a live combat situation, and there's not a bucking thing I can do about it," she seethed. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself before continuing, "Something big is happening. The General intends to find out what, and he needs our help." "I'm scared, Mom." "I'd call you stupid if you weren't. The General can blow it out his flank if he thinks I'm going to let you fire a gun, though. Think you can levitate a few riot shields?" Derpy asked. Dinky nodded. She didn't know what else to say. "Alright. Let's go to the lockers, grab what we need, and head to the airlock. Think you're ready, Dinky?" "No." "Me neither." ____________ Derpy, Carrot and Dinky entered the connected airlocks of the Wrath and the Rebel command ship. Derpy observed their so-called "boarding party." First, she noted the six well armed and armored, combat-trained soldiers of the Society of the Silver Moon branch of the Federation. Though more at home sticking to shadows and performing covert operations, the SSM soldiers were no strangers to open offensives. These particular six had experience in just such a scenario. Hitscan, the cowering mechanic, was decked out in a set of the Lunar Wrath's spare riot armor, and doing his best to not think about the pistol he was holding, praying to the goddesses that he wouldn't need to use it. The General himself was similarly equipped in the Wrath's riot armor, and wielding his unique MagiPistol. Said pistol was specially designed, and packed more of a wallop than the run-of-the-mill, mass produced versions, at the cost of overheating more often. Though, due to the General's disciplined marksmanship, that was never a problem. Notch, the naked and defenseless Engi, opted to follow at the back of the offensive push with Hitscan, both being completely out of their element. Lastly, herself, Dinky and Carrot were wearing the Wrath's remaining three suits of riot gear. Derpy and Carrot were carrying the sidearms of the soldiers that did not require them, as the soldiers had the full-sized rifle versions. Meanwhile, in place of a laser pistol, Dinky levitated four full-body riot shields, forming a moving wall of cover. The party stood in the connected airlocks of the Rebel command vessel and their own ship, the Lunar Wrath. They had sealed the airlock to their ship was sealed to prevent any intrusions while they were away. The Rebel ship's airlock was likewise sealed. The six soldiers stood in a V formation, with the General making the bottom point of the V. Dinky stood in the middle of the V, levitating the riot shields, with Derpy and Carrot wielding their pistols on either side of her, behind the makeshift wall. Finally, Notch and Hitscan stood behind the General, away from the action of the front lines. "On your go, sir," one of the soldiers spoke. "On the count of three. One... two... three," the General said as the airlock into the Rebel ship hissed open at a tap of his fetlock-computer. The twelve of them moved in unbreaking formation. A Pegasus mare spoke up as the party entered the ship, "What is the—" before she was cut off by the sound of the General's pistol firing. The mare doubled back and fell to the floor, her face a hissing, scorched mess. "Take no prisoners, leave none standing," the General ordered. The group moved through the halls, led by the General's directions. They picked off the few stragglers who didn't get out of the way in time. Any who did manage to escape into cubbyholes or side rooms were promptly pursued and quickly ended by one of the soldiers. Derpy and Carrot refused to attack the fleeing ponies. The party's armor and shield wall protected them from the few and far between crew members who attempted to fight back. Hitscan was on the brink of tears at this point, having not fired a single shot. Carrot looked as stoic as ever, while Dinky concentrated on keeping the shield wall up, attempting to ignore the methodical slaughter they wrought. Derpy's mind was in overdrive, her over-protective maternal instincts driving her to immediately fire upon any that posed a threat to her daughter. Several tense minutes of no disruptions found them, still in formation, in front of a larger door. "This is the bridge," the General stated. "My guess is that the little resistance we faced thus far have retreated to here. The few that managed to evade us have likely informed their superiors of the situation. That is, of course, providing they haven't already noticed through any cameras they may have. I believe they know our intentions and will, at all costs, protect the information we seek. Prepare for a fight." With another tap of his fetlock-computer, the door opened. Immediately, they were bombarded by a number of laser projectiles. The doorway, being just a bit wider than the shield wall Dinky was still holding, funneled all their assailants' attacks through the opening, and into the shields, rather than the ponies behind it. "Advance!" the General shouted. Dinky moved slowly, eyes darting every which way, attempting to head off any projectiles that the more wily of attackers tried to get past the wall by maneuvering a shield in their paths. The V formation contracted slightly to fit through the aperture of the doorway before reforming to its former size. Their attackers had the advantage of high ground, as the twelve Federation members were forced to climb a ramp to reach the bridge proper. Dinky began to sweat, the magical strain of not only holding and maneuvering multiple objects, but also keeping them in place as enemy projectiles pummeled them was taking its toll on her. Derpy chanced a glance upwards. The high ceiling was domed, creating a space that would have been open and welcoming, had their greeting party not been outright hostile. In the air, Derpy spotted a Pegasus taking aim at their group with a large rifle. "Above!" Derpy shouted as she brought her pistol to bear. Both Pegasi fired. Derpy's projectile struck home, burning a hole straight through the Rebel Pegasus' wing. The Pegasus, a large stallion, screamed as he plummeted. He landed on another Rebel, crippling them as well. At the same time, another scream sounded behind her. "The General's been hit!" one of the soldiers shouted. Derpy reacted instantly, shouting, "Reverse formation, protect the General!" Nobody argued. The V shape inverted, creating an upside-down U around the General. "Dinky," Derpy said, "stand by the General. Cover him with the shields." Dinky nodded, saying nothing. Unwilling to leave her mother unprotected, Dinky continued levitating two shields on the front lines, one in front of her mother, another in front of Carrot. With the other two shields, she formed a shell around herself and the General. Looking down at the General, Dinky noticed how grievous his wound actually was. His unprotected neck was directly hit by the Pegasus sniper, and she could see the the bare muscles exposed to the air as blood pooled around him. If he managed to live through the wound, it would doubtlessly become infected. Still, through his pain, the General worked on his fetlock-computer. "Here," he said through grit teeth, "take this." Using his wing, the General handed Dinky his MagiPistol. She took it by the mouthgrip, confused. "Use it!" the General demanded. Dinky nodded, unable to do otherwise. Unused to firing weapons from the mouth, she twisted her head awkwardly, trying to get a feel for it while still levitating the four shields. Drawing a bead on the exposed head of a Rebel unicorn readying a shot, Dinky fired. The shot struck true, dissolving the unicorn's entire muzzle. She uttered a tortured cry, clutching her half-destroyed, mouthless face before falling over dead. Dinky gave a small internal cheer as the shot struck home. Unpausing, she continued to fire at any targets which presented themselves. This was life and death, and a nanosecond could make the difference between the two. So she fired. And fired. And fired. When the exchange of lead and laser finally ceased, two of the six Federation soldiers were dead, one was wounded, and Derpy was nursing a minor wound to her left foreleg. Three of the shields, still held in the heavily sweating unicorn's telekinetic grasp, were severely deformed from the amount of laser fire they'd absorbed. The bridge was littered with bodies of ponies, among other things, of all shapes and sizes. Earth Ponies, Unicorns, Pegasi, and even a few Griffins and Diamond Dogs were scattered about. Some, in their death throes, collapsed across various consoles and terminals. Several were still moaning in agony. The General, despite the protests of his soldiers, stood. One foreleg clutching his wound, he carefully trotted to a control panel among the numerous computers spread across the bridge. He pointed at two of the remaining soldiers and said, "Guard the door. I want no surprises." Leaning heavily on one of the other soldiers while still clutching his wound, the General used his free foreleg to tap out a series of commands on the console. After a moment, he stomped his hoof in frustration, saying, "Damn the Rebellion! It's heavily encrypted. I'll have to download everything and decode it elsewhere." The General carefully inserted the hoof which held his fetlock-computer into a slot. The console emitted various beeps and chitters as the download initiated. Beneath their hooves, the ship seemed to rumble with the heavy steps of something large. The rhythmic thumping grew louder and heavier as its source approached. The soldiers standing guard at the door readied their weapons, unsure of what was to follow. They chanced a nervous glance to each other before returning their focus to the door. The steps paused. Then, from the doorway they entered, they heard a deafening cry echo in the confines of the ship, "FEDERATION! GET OFFA MY SHIP!" A plume of yellow flames roasted the two soldiers who were guarding the door. Their screams lasted less than a few seconds, such was the heat of the fire. Through the door squeezed a red dragon a little bigger than an Equis manticore, Derpy observed casually. Then she did a double take. Dragon. Oh buck, she thought. "Hold that thing back!" the General shouted. "If this download is interrupted, the data will be corrupt! We need this data." "HA!" roared the dragon. "I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY AND STOP ME WITH THEM PUNY GUNS OF YOURS." "Open fire!" the General called, foreleg still in the console. "WITH PLEASURE," the dragon cried, expelling another breath of fire, causing all but the General and the soldier he was leaning on to scatter. The smell of death and cooked meat permeated the air as the dragon's breath seared the corpses littering the room. "To Tartarus with all of you!" Hitscan shouted as he made a break for the door, "I'm done with this crap!" Before he could cross the threshold of the door, however, the dragon flicked his tail, sending Hitscan flying back. He crashed into a computer monitor, leaving it a sparking scrap heap as he fell to the floor. "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THAT EASY, PRINCESS-APPEASER." "B-But I don't want to die!" Hitscan shouted, futilely. "SHOULDA THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU WENT AGAINST THE REBELLION," the dragon responded. As he inhaled a deep breath, Dinky galloped over, four shields still in her telekinesis. Halting mid-gallop, she slid on her hooves, halting between the dragon and Hitscan. She brought the four shields in front of her and sobbing mechanic as the dragon finally exhaled, bathing Dinky's shield wall with fire. A wave of heat rushed over Dinky as the flames traveled harmlessly around her shields. The dragon continued its assault, unabated. Dinky's shields began to glow increasingly red until, under the searing onslaught, they were dripping, and finally nothing but a ball of molten metal in her grasp. When their draconic assailant ceased his stream of fire, he stared confusedly at the unharmed ponies. Taking the lull in action as an opportunity, the unicorn fired her pistol, striking the dragon directly in the eye. The red-scaled beast roared, spewing flames and what little breath he had left towards the ceiling, eyes clenched in pain. When he stopped to take another breath, Dinky slung the molten slag that was once four shields at the dragon's face. Though the heat of the slag itself did not affect the dragon, the quickly cooling metal would seal both its mouth and nose, hardening into a solid muzzle. Derpy, seeing what her daughter was trying to do, flew over to the dragon, rapidly beating her wings to assist the metal in cooling. The dragon, more concerned with the incessantly flapping Pegasus around his head than his cooling mouth seal, swatted his arms in an attempt to smack his aerial combatant down. Finally, noticing his inability to breathe, let alone open his mouth, the dragon clawed at his face, attempting to break the metallic seal. Realizing it could not free itself, it wanted to do the next best thing: take the dirty Federation ponies with it. Lumbering towards the large glass window that made up the front of the ship, the suffocating dragon wound his arm back, before releasing it in an earth shattering—or rather, in this case, glass shattering—punch. The airtight seal of the room was punctured, as all the oxygen began to leave out of the hole in the glass. Unable to pull his arm out of the hole, the trapped monster thrashed about. His struggles only led to his arm being sucked out into space up to the elbow, and then shoulder. His thrashing only enlarged the hole further, until eventually, the dragon himself was ejected into space by the force and size of the hole. Notch acted quickly. It had stood to the side as the dragon was struggling, waiting for the moment it would be lost to the empty space outside. Being nothing more than a colony of nanobots, Notch altered its form into a sort of puddle. It extended its "puddle" form across the hole in the window, sealing the gap with its "body." Though a number of the nanobots that made up its form were sucked into space before it sealed the hole, it accomplished what it needed to. The room was once again airtight. The computer the General had his hoof in beeped once, before a light turned green. Sighing, he grunted, "Download completed." He took his hoof out of the console. "Captain," the General called weakly. Derpy landed from her flight and limped over to the General, who unbuckled the clasps around his fetlock-computer, and went to give it to Derpy. "Sir?" she asked. "Take it... take it to the Princesses. Whatever it is, it's important. The Federation needs to know about this." "But, General, I—" Derpy began to protest. "No buts, Captain. Take it... I won't be able to do it myself." "General, I really—" "That is an ORDER, Captain. And likely the last one I'll ever give." The General forced the small computer into Derpy's hooves. He turned to walk away, managing one step, two, then three, before he collapsed. He never got back up. Of the twelve that entered the Rebel ship five were dead, the Notch was currently keeping the air in the room, and two were wounded. Dinky was on the verge of magical exhaustion, and Hitscan had soiled himself. Derpy trotted over to the hole in the glass that Notch was currently keeping sealed. She asked the rather spread out Engi, "Notch, right?" "Correct," came the monotone voice. The two blue "eyes" it had in its equine form were centered in the flat mass that covered the hole. They stared at Derpy. "How are you going to get out of there?" Derpy asked. "We will not," Notch replied. "But—we can't just leave you there!" Derpy cried. "You will," Notch replied. "Don't—don't be silly, Notch. Now isn't the time. We have to go!" Derpy protested. "You will go. We will not. We give ourselves for the betterment of the Federation. Our body does not require oxygen; we will shut down until we are destroyed or rescued by chance. We let the void take us. The Machine Spirit protects," Notch said. Derpy sniffled, holding back tears. "'M—Machine Spirit?' I didn't know the Engi had any gods." Notch processed this information. It could have given Derpy an estimated percentile of Engi who worshiped the Machine Spirit and/or other gods. Instead, detecting this as something it defined as "a moment," a thing which organics cherished, Notch internally determined that said "moment" would be ruined by reciting figures such as those. Notch instead blinked, saying, "Some do. Now you must leave." Derpy nodded, defeated. "Come on," she said, projecting her voice to get the others' attention. "Let's go." One of the remaining soldiers, a stallion, carried on his back the wounded soldier, a mare. Dinky struggled to take her eyes off the Engi, though it was not Notch she was seeing: it was the dragon she had slain, the one sucked into the void. Though long drifted out of sight, she ran the moment through her mind over and over. Outside the window, the battle between the Rebels and planetary defense raged on. One Rebel fighter exploded spectacularly, the resulting glare jarring Dinky out of her reflections. Hitscan seemed thoroughly ashamed at his uselessness in the entire situation. "I never got any training. I'm a bucking mechanic," he muttered under his breath. Carrot was silent. Dinky, Carrot, Hitscan and the two soldiers filed out of the door. Derpy hesitated, turning back to the Engi. "T—Thank you," she choked, before galloping out of the room. Notch blinked. ____________ Everypony was gathered on the bridge. Derpy disconnected the airlocks, and pulled the Lunar Wrath away from the Rebel command ship and orbital war. Keeping as low a profile as possible, she headed to the FTL jump beacon. "Alright everypony, to your stations," she said. "You," Derpy pointed at the stallion soldier carrying the mare, "What's your name?" "Hotshot, ma'am," he replied. "Well, Hotshot, take your friend there to the med bay. Down the hall, around the left corner. Labeled with a big red plus sign, can't miss it." "Shouldn't you go, too, ma'am?" he asked, nodding towards Derpy's injured leg. "It can wait. I'll be fine." The stallion shrugged—a difficult task, considering he had a full-grown pony on his back—and followed Derpy's directions. Hitscan went to the restrooms to clean himself up, while Carrot Top plotted their course on the FTL charts. Dinky went to the weapons systems. Triggering the intercoms, Derpy said, "Next Federation base is five jumps away. Prepare for jump." They jumped, but their escape did not go unnoticed. ____________ On the Rebel command ship... Notch internally calculated how long, traveling at the rate he measured them doing as they exited the bridge, minus several hooves per second for assurance, it would take the crew to reach the safety of the Lunar Wrath before it would surrender itself to the void. He believed in the Machine Spirit, but Notch still did not want to go to the void. Though Notch knew it was completely incorrect and unnecessary, the Engi reasoned with itself that it would remain as a sealant for the hole until the remaining Federation ponies were safely back aboard their own ship, for their own protection. It was pointless, Notch knew. This room, as with the rooms of all ships, was airtight. Yet Notch still hesitated to surrender itself to the darkness. Nearby, undetected by Notch, a griffin shoved a rather heavy diamond dog corpse off of himself. "Pfft," snorted the griffin, looking at the dog, "I never liked you anyway." Looking at the carnage, the griffin said to himself, "Guess this makes me captain?" Limping heavily, he moved towards a communication console. In his periphery, he noticed on the radar that a ship had just FTL jumped. "Probably them," he correctly mused. Logging the unique jump signature of the ship he just detected, he began to transmit the signature to all Rebel ships within range, along with a voice message. "Attention all Rebel ships. The vessel with the following jump signature has the information. No expense is too great to stop them. Send this message across the fleet, and get that ship! The fate of the Rebellion is at stake!" "System shutting down. The Machine Spirit protects..." Notch spoke. Releasing its hold from the hole, the vacuum of space once again began to reclaim the bridge as Notch's pool of nanobots were scattered into the void like a cloud of dust before the wind. The griffin clutched the console in a death grip to avoid being forced into space. Using his claws, he climbed his way across the computers, digging his knife-like talons into the plastic and thin metal of the consoles for handholds, as the intense force continued to pull him. "I did not just go through all that shit to die by some stupid hole in a window," he grunted. At last, the griffin climbed his way through the doors, sealing them. The intense force pulling him ceased, as the bridge closed off from the rest of the ship. The griffin made his way to the emergency shuttles, sighing, "They don't pay me enough to do this job."