Lyra, Vinyl, and Thunderlane gathered outside the room where Blueblood was being held. “Get up to the bridge and plot a course for Beaumonde,” Lyra told her pilot. “We might find somepony there with enough money to buy our cargo and grease a few hooves to make the Empire look the other way. We'll sell for cheap so they can justify the expense. I want us in the air the moment the engines are running again.”
Vinyl flashed a comically serious salute. "Shiny. I'm on it."
Lyra waited until Vinyl was gone, then turned to Thunderlane. “Remember,” she warned, “you just need to scare him.”
Thunderlane tapped the hilt of his knife thoughtfully. “Pain counts as scary, right?”
“No!” Lyra hissed. “Well, yes, but no. Don’t torture him. I don’t want that kind of thing on my ship, okay? Violence perceived is violence achieved, or something like that.”
“That don’t make sense,” Thunderlane grumbled, but he didn’t argue further. He opened the door and politely held it for Lyra.
Prince Blueblood was in understandably poor spirits. His horn was covered by a cone made of rosewood wrapped in iron bands to suppress his magic, and his face was a bloody mess where Mac had kicked him. For a pony that probably had a broken jaw, he didn’t seem to be in much pain.
"Hey, Spuddy!" Lyra said cheerfully. "Sorry about the horn cone. We couldn't have you throwing the rest of us around like you did Octavia."
"I didn't think we had to use it," Thunderlane added. "I said we should just cut that horn right off, but Lyra thinks we shouldn’t stoop that low. I still say you'd look better without it."
Blueblood took a deep breath and let it out in a resigned sigh. "I would prefer to be called by my proper name. ‘Spud’ is just a fake title I assumed out of necessity. If this is about getting me to fix the engines, you're wasting your time."
"Reckon we don't need you for the engines," Thunderlane said. "That nice mare you shot is working on them. She's still alive, by the way. You didn't kill her. I know you were just all kinds of torn up about shooting an innocent mare."
"We just want to know why the Empire wants Tick Tock’s sister," Lyra said. "I've given Thunderlane the job of finding out. Given the situation, I hope you’ll understand if he’s a little… rushed.”
"You don't frighten me," Blueblood said with a sickeningly self-assured smile. "I know how you operate, Heartstrings. You don't torture ponies. You and your pathetic lackeys like to imagine that you are more honorable than the rest of the 'Verse. You’re a petty thief with delusions of nobility."
Lyra accepted the insult without batting an eye. "Octavia isn’t petty," she said. Blueblood's cocky smirk disappeared. "I could have given this job to her, but I didn't. Why do you think that is?" Thunderlane pulled out his bowie knife and gripped it tightly with his teeth. "I’ll tell you why; it’s because Thunderlane is going to enjoy it a lot more than Octavia ever would."
Thunderlane grinned. "Go do captainy stuff, Lyra. Leave me and Prince Charming alone for a while."
"You kids be good!" Lyra said. She leaned in so that only Thunderlane could hear her and whispered "Remember what we talked about."
"But what if he's stubborn?" Thunderlane asked.
"He won't be. He'll cave."
Thunderlane glanced at Blueblood, then leaned in to ask something else. “No,” Lyra sighed, “you can’t just pretend that he wouldn’t talk.” She stepped back into the hallway and shut the door, then set out for the engine room. Derpy seemed like an honest pony, but she wanted to make sure that the cross-eyed pegasus wasn’t just banging on the engine with a wrench and hoping for the best.
After Lyra was gone Thunderlane took a seat in front of Blueblood. "Alone at last!" he said with relief. "I thought she'd never leave. You and me, we don't get to spend nearly enough time together. We don't know each other half as well as I'd like. Hay, we've been pals for years and I never even knew you were a gutless traitor that likes to shoot at mares when you’re nervous."
"Talk all you want," Blueblood said. "It doesn't matter. The Empire will find us very soon. In one week's time I will be enjoying a bath with a pretty mare and you will be rotting in a prison cell."
Thunderlane's smile change subtly and became much less friendly. "That may be, but I can guarantee that she won't like you for your smile. Those pretty teeth are going to be the first things to go."
"You are embarrassing yourself," Blueblood said calmly. "The captain pretends to be coldblooded, but you and I both know better. Even a pony like you is above torture."
Thunderlane giggled, sounding almost like a child. “That’s a funny way to say ‘both’,” he said. “I didn’t know there was an l in ‘both’. Boooolllllth.” He frowned and tried to collect his thoughts. “Reckon we’re getting away from what’s important. I’m tryin’ to say that we’ve known each other for a long time, Spud."
"Blueblood."
"Whatever. You were here when I first joined Lyra's crew. Remember how I looked before they made me get cleaned up?” Blueblood shivered. “Yeah, you remember. Did I look like a pony that was above much of anything? You don't have to answer that." Thunderlane reached up and flicked one of Blueblood's ears. "I've changed my mind. I think I'd like an ear first."
“You wouldn’t!” Blueblood insisted. “Lyra would never allow it.”
Thunderlane leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Yeah,” he sighed. “Lyra’s like that, ain’t she? I don’t blame her for it, I guess. She’s a nice pony most of the time, and she’s always been honest with me. I really like that about her. She’s way too nice to let me cut you up like I’m threatening.” He eased forward until he could whisper and still be heard. “You know what, though? Lyra isn’t here.”
To his credit, Blueblood remained calm right up until he felt the blade touch his ear. "Alright, alright!" he shrieked, sounding so much like a frightened mare that Thunderlane would have laughed had he not been so disappointed. "The Empire won’t say why she’s important! They haven’t even released an official statement to the military yet! I only know about her because I have a few important friends that still talk to me!"
Thunderlane sheathed his knife and stood up quickly, kicking over his chair as he did so. "I can’t believe that I’ve been living with a worthless loser all this time!" he huffed. "You're just a... a flip-flop! You act tough one minute and you're full of LAN-dan JIANG the next! Ain't you supposed to be some kind of noble-blooded outcast or somethin'? Where's your sense of pride?"
"I just wanted to go home!" Blueblood whinnied.
"Quit whining!" Thunderlane barked. "Lyra gave you a home when you didn't have one! You should be ashamed of yourself." He looked regretfully at Blueblood's ear. A small tricked of blood was leaking out from where his blade had nicked the skin. "I really expected better from you. I’ll never make that necklace at this rate. I'm going to find Lyra; maybe she'll have something fun for me to do."
“Wait! I could help you if you let me go.” Blueblood tried to smile, but the pain of his broken jaw turned it into a grimace. “You have no idea how badly the Empire wants that little mare. They’ll pay.”
Thunderlane opened the door and looked around to make sure that the Captain wasn’t still outside. “Would this agreement involve turning on the Captain?”
“Yes, it would.” Blueblood ran his tongue over one of his teeth and winced. Shepherd Mac had cracked one of his molars. “I’ll make sure that you are compensated. You’ll make enough to buy your own ship, hire a crew, and keep everything running smoothly for years.”
Thunderlane took plenty of time considering his options. He didn’t want to rush into a decision that he would regret. “You know where the suits are” he said, and cut the bindings around Blueblood’s forelegs. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”
*****
The engine room was not the hive of activity that Lyra expected. Bon Bon and Octavia were talking pleasantly with Derpy, who was propped up against the main reactor. The injured pegasus mare was carefully plugging every cable back into a cable box. “Hi, Captain!” she chirped.
“Hey there, Derpy. How are things coming?”
“Very shiny, Captain.” Derpy looked around at the engine room and sighed happily. She was obviously still under the effects of the null spell, but she looked awake enough to function. “She’s beautiful. You should really treat her better.”
“What do you mean?” Lyra asked. “Spudblood said she was in great shape!”
Derpy winced and plugged in another cable. It sparked and startled her so badly that she almost dropped the box. “Yeah, about that; I don’t think he really knew what he was doing, Miss Captain. Her thermal coupling wore out a long time ago and her radion accelerator core needs new clamps. I turned the coupling backwards because you can get a bit more use out of them that way, but-”
“Hang on!” Lyra said. Her head was starting to hurt. “Say everything you just said again, but pretend I’m Thunderlane.”
“I don’t know if I should. I don’t want to be mean.” She saw Lyra’s unamused frown and took a steadying breath. “Spud was only able to make you think she was running fine because you didn’t know what to look for. She’s a mess, and the only reason you didn’t notice is because it’s almost impossible to stop a Firefly.” Derpy fidgeted nervously with her hooves. “I-I’m really sorry. I don’t want to insult you or the rest of your crew. I’m sure you’re a great leader, but-”
“But I didn’t know enough to tell that my own mechanic was lying to me,” Lyra finished. “Don’t be sorry for being right. How long will it take you to get my ship flying?”
Derpy looked over her current work, then tried to size up the rest of the room. “Most of what Spud did was just pulling a bunch of wires out. He probably thought nopony else would know where they went. I might be able to have it working in twenty minutes if I can get the compression coils to carry a charge.”
“Good. Keep being clever and we’ll be out of here in no time.” Derpy blushed at the compliment and returned to work.
Vinyl spoke over the intercom, her voice amplified in the cramped space of the engine room. “We’ve got a bit of a problem up here. Lyra, you’re going to want to take a look at this.”
Octavia stood up and dusted herself off. “What seems to be the matter?”
“Get your sexy flank up here, ‘Tavi. The alliance found us, and they’re a lot angrier than we thought!”
Everypony ran for the door, but Lyra pushed Bon Bon away. “Stay here!” she ordered. “Derpy is going to need help. Do whatever she says. Dong-ma?”
“I’ll be here,” Bon Bon promised. “Just make sure that maniacal pilot of yours doesn’t get us all killed.”
“No promises!” Lyra yelled as she and Octavia took off down the passageway. They reached the cockpit in record time and found Vinyl browsing idly through her playlists and looking out the window. Mac was already there, praying quietly over his Bible. “What are you doing?” Lyra demanded. “Get us into the air!”
“That’d be pretty impressive without using the engines,” Vinyl shot back. “Right now we’re waiting on Bright Eyes. I don’t think it matters, though. We’re sort of outnumbered.” She pointed to the instrument panel. “See all those red dots? They’re all here for us, and they’re super upset about something.”
Lyra looked up through the bridge’s window and saw a huge gathering of ships assembling above the moon’s gravity well. Thirteen vessels, each of them carrying enough firepower to vaporize her beloved Sereneighty in an instant, were clustered together in an attack formation. “Do they know where we are?” she asked.
“Not yet, but it won’t be long once they start looking." Vinyl sat back in her chair and sighed helplessly. "The moment we fire up Sereneighty they’ll be on us like worship on an alicorn. I’ve got the scrambler going so they can’t pick up the ship’s serial number, for all the good it will do. I don’t know what else to do, Lyra."
“We’re dead for sure if we just lie here,” Lyra said. She sat in the captain’s chair, but didn’t bother with her safety harness yet. “We run. We don’t have any other choice.” The bridge was silent while everypony contemplated their chances of escape. Vinyl finally selected the music she wanted, but waited to play it out of respect for her friends.
Thunderlane eventually made it to the bridge, and Vinyl briefed him on the situation. “This ain’t the kind of thing that I signed on for,” he grumbled. He leaned against the steel rail separating the bridge from the lower airlock’s access bay. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“Not a clue,” Vinyl sighed. She looked over the imperial ships with a practiced eye. “Those are Warhammer fighters out there. They're really maneuverable, but they aren't half as fast as Sereneighty; their engines aren’t even big enough for anti-G bubble drives, let alone any of the newer stuff. We could outrun them if they don’t blow us up right away, but the bigger ships would just follow us.” She sat up in her chair and studied the fleet more carefully. “Hang on a second. They’ve put the smaller craft in front to look for us.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Thunderlane asked. “Sounds to me like they know what they’re doing.”
Vinyl began to giggle. “Oh, they do. They’re ready for almost anything.” She used the intercom to call the engine room. “Derpy! How much longer until we’re ready? We need to do a hard burn as soon as we can.”
“Almost there!” the pegasus answered. “I have one of the compression coils working. It isn’t enough for a hard burn, but you can fly at normal speed.”
“Good enough. Limber up those engines and get the other coil ready within the next two minutes.”
“But I don’t–”
The pegasus was cut off as Vinyl switched off the speaker. “Everypony needs to find something to hang on to,” she warned. “Things are about to get awesome.” Thunderlane shared his rail with Mac, who was starting to look extremely nervous. Lyra fastened her harness while Octavia braced herself against the cabin door.
The beginnings of Vinyl’s song began pumping through the ship’s speakers, filling the bridge with a heavy bass beat. “Here we go!” she exclaimed. She ignited the engines and launched the ship away from the moon, angling Sereneighty toward the imperial fleet. “Let’s hope that I know what I’m doing!”
“Vinyl, turn around!” Lyra shouted. “You’re going the wrong way!”
“You worry too much,” Vinyl soothed. “Nothing can touch me, Cap. I’m like a song on the wind.”
Octavia somehow managed to speak over the music and still retain her polite tone. “Vinyl, darling, I really think you should explain yourself!”
Vinyl completely let go of the controls and spun her chair all the way around to glare at her wife. “Hey! I’m flying this ship, thank you very much. Me pilot, you first mate. I think I’ve logged a lot more time at the controls than you have. Dong-ma?”
“Vinyl!” Lyra shrieked, covering her eyes and cowering in her chair. Vinyl enveloped the ship’s controls in her magic and narrowly avoided colliding with one of the Empire’s Warhammers. She turned around and frowned irritably, then pulled her goggles down over her eyes to block out the rest of the crew.
“That’s what happens when you distract the pilot!” Vinyl shouted. The ship careened hard to port and dodged a torpedo that would have fried anything electronic onboard. “Shut up and let me fly.” She turned up her music and pushed the ship to even greater speeds, heading directly toward the cluster of Solar Empire carriers.
The deafening music cut out as an authoritative voice automatically overrode Vinyl’s dubtrot. “This is Commander Shining Armor of the SES Warhorse. You are on a collision course with this vessel and three others. If you don’t change course we will be forced to open fire!”
Vinyl shut off the radio with her magic. “He won’t shoot,” she said confidently. Her voice was almost lost in the aural hell that filled the bridge once again. “The Empire wants what we have way too bad to risk damaging it.”
The nearest Warhammer opened fire and barely missed one of Sereneighty’s engines. “Or maybe the Empire is being too secretive for their own good and these guys weren’t told that they had to take us alive,” Vinyl said. “Whatever. No big deal.”
Sereneighty rolled out of the way as another torpedo nearly put an end to her escape. Vinyl made the ship dance through the enemy lines, maneuvering like she was piloting a nimble sporting craft and not a one hundred and fifty ton cargo vessel.
The carriers ahead were spreading out to open fire, but they couldn’t risk shooting down their own pilots. By the time the smaller ships were out of the way, Sereneighty had already rocketed through their lines and was moments away from crashing into the Warhorse. “Here comes the chorus!” Vinyl shouted. “Everypony, sing along!”
Sereneighty turned on her side and shot between the Warhorse and one of her sister ships. Mac began praying hysterically while Thunderlane and Lyra screamed. Octavia, however, gritted her teeth and remained silent.
“Chur ni-duh!” Vinyl whooped, making a rude gesture at the enemy ship as they passed. Lyra caught a glimpse of the Warhorse’s bridge, and saw a pony with a white coat and blue mane watching them pass. His expression was priceless.
Vinyl turned the intercom back on. “Derpy, we need a hard burn! Now!”
The ship’s anti-G bubble formed as they passed the Warhorse’s engines. The bubble was essentially an inverted gravity field, pushing everything away from a central point that was located right behind the ship. It pushed Sereneighty forward, but also extended behind her.
In this case, it was big enough to reach the Warhorse’s thrusters. They were far more powerful than anything the little cargo ship had, but gravity couldn’t pull in two directions at once without causing serious problems. The Warhorse’s engines automatically compensated by leeching more power from the rest of the ship, increasing their output tenfold but causing large sections of the carrier to go dark.
Sereneighty rocketed forward as the larger ship’s gravity field repelled her own. No Firefly had ever accelerated so quickly, and the crew held on tight as inertia pushed them back into their seats. Octavia’s hooves scraped against the door frame as she tried to avoid being thrown down the stairs like a ragdoll.
The flight soon stabilized, and Vinyl shut off her music. “That was amazing!” she cheered. “Derpy, sweetheart, you did great!”
“Thanks…I think.” The pegasus sounded a little dazed. “I think I’m upside down. What happened?”
Vinyl pushed away from the control panel and spun around him her chair, throwing her legs out in all directions as she savored the high that only a dangerous flight could bring. “Thank you! You’ve been a great crowd!”
“Keep going!” Thunderlane urged. “I’d say we just caused them no end of annoyance, and I don’t want to find out what they’ll do to us if we get caught!”
“They’ll never catch us,” Vinyl said. “They’ll have to get the Warhorse powered up first. We probably fried a few of her important systems anyway, so those will have to be fixed. They’ve also got to call back all those Warhammer fighters so they don’t get left behind. We’re totally history to them. Dear Celestia, I’m awesome!”
Octavia had finally regained her footing, but looked a bit out of sorts. Her mane was disheveled and her bow tie was crooked. She took the time to fix both problems as best she could before marching up to the pilot’s chair and pressing the release button for Vinyl’s flight harness. “Captain,” she said curtly, “I request permission to return to my quarters.”
“Why?” Lyra asked.
“Because I need to rip off the pilot’s flight suit with my teeth.” Octavia grabbed Vinyl’s forelegs and yanked her out of her chair.
“Whoa!” The unicorn exclaimed. “I uh, I guess we’ll be back later. Just point us toward Beaumonde and I’ll look over the route once we-ugh! Alright, I’m coming!” Octavia dragged her off the bridge, practically carrying her without any visible effort.
Lyra and Thunderlane shared a look. “I’ll be in my bunk,” both said at the same time. They giggled uneasily, and even Shepherd Mac joined in. The tension in the room slowly began to dissipate as the adrenaline worked its way through their systems.
“Um, h-hello?” Derpy’s voice called over the intercom. “I’m still upside down. I got tangled in some wires and I think Miss Bon Bon fainted. Can anypony hear me?”
Eventually Mac set out to rescue Derpy and Thunderlane went to check on Blueblood. Lyra had the bridge all to herself, so she took out her lyre and began to play. For a while she enjoyed the solitude and watched the stars twinkling at her in the black. She was in one of her rare good moods and wanted to savor it.
Bon Bon knocked politely before walking onto the bridge. Good mood over, Lyra thought wryly. Back to work, Captain Grumpypants. “Did you need something?”
“I was told that you had chosen our destination,” Bon Bon said. “If you leave Tick Tock and his sister on Beaumonde they won’t last a day. It’s a Rim world.”
“Barely.” Lyra strummed another cord on her lyre. “They can hitch a ride to a Border world without much trouble. That way they’ll be out of the Rim but not right in the Empire’s lap.”
“You know they won’t make it that far!” Bon Bon accused. “By the time we make it to Beaumonde the Empire will have posted a massive reward for their capture on the Cortex. They’ll be grabbed the moment they step off this ship. Even if they somehow survive for any significant amount of time, Tick Tock won’t be able to treat his sister.”
Lyra’s control of her magic wavered and she plucked one string a bit too hard, souring the melody she had created. “I notice you’ve done a lot of talking about helping them, but none about the trouble they’ve caused. That nice mare that fixed our engine nearly died today, along with the rest of us. We could have been blown all over hell and gone. Having them on the ship is like holding a live grenade.”
“But they need help!” Bon Bon argued. “The Empire did horrible things to poor little Vision. How could you possibly turn them away? If you throw them off this ship and they get captured, you’ll be no better–”
“Don’t!” Lyra shouted. “Don’t go there, Bon Bon. You won’t like what happens if you finish that sentence. This is your one and only warning.”
“Very well,” the Companion said. “Have it your way. Just know that if they leave, I’ll go too. Somepony needs to help them.”
Lyra rolled her eyes. “Do you think I care?” she asked. “You just rent my shuttle. You don’t take orders or bits from me. You’re a grown mare and you can go wherever you like.” Bon Bon stormed off, taking Lyra’s good mood with her.
The bridge remained quiet as she idly twisted back and forth in her chair. She had her ship, her crew, and a huge amount of emptiness outside. All things considered, she should have been happy with how the day had ended.
She wasn’t, but she tried to enjoy it anyway. She considered playing her lyre, but the desire had left her. Instead she decided to retire to her bunk. Lyra opened the hatch leading to her cabin and carefully climbed down the ladder inside. She gently placed her lyre on her desk and sat on the small bed bolted to the wall. For a while she stared at the floor, unsure of what to do now that the day was over.
Something wispy dangled in front of her eyes and made her look up. Lyra came face to face with Pretty Vision, who had somehow wedged herself between two support struts on the ceiling. Both mares screamed, causing Vision to lose her grip on the metal. She flailed about helplessly before tumbling to the floor and landing flat on her face.
“Don’t sneak up on ponies like that!” Lyra yelled. “How did you even get in here?” She completely forgot about being angry when she heard Vision start to sniffle. “Are…are you crying?” The scrawny little mare didn’t answer, which shouldn’t have been a surprise. “Hey, come on, don’t do that. I’m sorry I yelled at you, okay? Are you hurt?”
Vision looked up through her drooping mane and held her bloody nose. “I fell,” she whispered pitifully.
“Yeah, you did.” Lyra knelt down and looked at the injury. “That doesn’t look so bad. Do you want me to find your brother?”
“Hide-and-seek,” Vision said. “Can’t let them find you. No telling.”
“Uh-huh. Does he know that you’re playing hide-and-seek?” Once again, Lyra didn’t get an answer. Vision began looking around her room, still huddled on the ground as though she was afraid to take up more space than she was allowed. “You don’t stick to a conversation very well, do you?”
Vision’s eyes settled on a collection of shelves that held a variety of ancient objects. “You like those?” Lyra asked. “I’ve always had a thing for archaeology.” She carefully plucked one of the artifacts off the shelf with her magic. “I think this one was part of a sword. Lots of ponies think these are just pieces of junk from the Times-That-Were, but I feel like there’s more to it. Some of these tools don’t look like they were made for ponies, or even diamond dogs.”
Lyra pointed to a crude sketch hanging on the wall above her collection. The creature she had drawn walked upright on two legs, and had a pair of spindly appendages attached to its upper body that would allow it to grasp tools and whatever else it took an interest in. “I think this stuff might have been made by a forgotten species. That’s what they might have looked like.”
“Got used in a war,” Vision said quietly, looking at the piece of metal Lyra was holding. “Wasn’t treated right. Broken now.”
“You can tell all of that just from looking at a rusty hunk of iron?”
Vision carefully took the artifact in her mouth and put it back on the shelf. “Wasn’t talking about the metal,” she mumbled. “And that was a shovel.” Lyra watched in silence as she climbed nimbly up the stairs and trotted off in search of her brother. The cabin was quiet for a long time after she left.
Eventually Thunderlane disturbed her by yelling that Blueblood had escaped. Lyra grabbed her pistol and swore violently. One thing after another, she thought. Just once I’d like to think that the universe doesn’t hate me.