The Koprulu Sector

by TheKopruluSectorUnion

Chapter 63: Deals and Upgrades

When the Iron Claws first took over the orbital platform, most of the other mercenary groups that survived the conflict joined their ranks, which increased the Iron Claws’ influence in the system. However, many of these recruits were from rival groups that still bore grudges against each other, which often end up being the reason behind several acts of violence breaking out on the platform.

In response to these outbreaks, the Iron Claws set up a series of laws to regulate all the mercenaries that came to the platform and a security force to enforce those laws so that they could avoid a repeat of the disastrous gang war and maintain their control over the platform.

While they primarily serve the Iron Claws and their interests, the Enforcers also acted as an informal police force that ensured that a degree of public safety and order was maintained at all times, which lowered the crime rate significantly on the platform. Though this didn’t mean that crime wasn’t an uncommon sight on the platform but whenever someone breaks the laws, the Enforcers would arrest them and take them to the Iron Claws Headquarters where they are detained in cells until they can be judged for their crimes and sentenced accordingly.

Inside one of these cells, Lyra was lying down into her cot as she looked up at the grey ceiling of her cell and sighed out in frustration at her situation. All she wanted was to get a drink and vent out some stress. Instead, she got into a bar fight with an idiot and his friends. Granted, beating them up helped her with all that pent up stress but it wasn’t worth being arrested for it.

Even without all her equipment, she could have fought her way out of the bar if she wanted to, but doing that would reveal her identity as a Ghost, which would have caused a lot of problems for her and Skyfall so she surrendered herself to the Enforcers.

After she was arrested, both her weapons and her precision gloves were confiscated and were replaced with a pair of hoof-cuffs. She even had an inhibitor ring secured around her horn. It wasn’t as advanced as the neural inhibitor inside her head, but it was just as effective as it would send a painful jolt of electricity into her head if she tried to cast a spell, including her psionic abilities.

With no other means of escape, she had given the guards a name and hoped that she would come to help. She had been waiting for a while and thought that she wasn’t going to show up when the door to the cellblock suddenly opened up as a guard entered, followed by Trixie whose eyes widened in surprise when she saw Lyra inside her cell.

“What in Celestia’s Light are you doing in there?” the blue mare asked incredulously.

“Well you see…” Lyra paused as she tried thinking of a way to explain what had happened without making it sound like it was her fault but was interrupted from her thoughts by the appearance of the gryphon that had arrested her.

“Commander Gilda.” The guard said as he saluted the gryphon, “I didn’t know that you were coming.” Lyra’s eyes bugged out when she heard the guard calling the gryphon, commander and made a mental note of that. It might be useful later on.

“Well, now you do.” Gilda said to the guard dismissively before she saw Trixie and smiled, “Well if it ain’t the ‘Great and Powerful’ Trixie.” She said mockingly as she made air quotes with her talons. “I thought you were dead after you went missing a couple of weeks ago. Where were you this whole time?”

“Hello Gilda, nice to see you again.” Trixie replied sarcastically, “And for your information, Trixie was abducted by pirates, but as you can see Trixie is alive and well thanks to that mare over there and her companions.”

“You’re shitting me!” Gilda said in disbelief.

“No Trixie isn’t… shitting you.” The blue mare said in return, her muzzle scrunched up in disgust, “Now would you care to explain to Trixie why she is locked away in that cell like a common criminal?”

“Oh, cause that’s what she is.” The gryphon said, gesturing to Lyra, “Your friend over there was arrested a couple of hours ago for assaulting my men and causing over five thousand bits worth of damage to the Salty Spittoon in the process.”

“She did what!?” Trixie exclaimed, her eyes widening in surprise before she turned to Lyra, “Why did you do that!?”

“Hey! It wasn’t my fault; it was those idiots that started the whole thing!” Lyra shouted from her cell in protest.

“Yeah, you’re right about them being idiots.” Gilda stated. “But it still doesn’t change the fact that you broke the law.”

“Whatever…now how much bail do I have to pay to get me out of these?” Lyra asked, holding up her restraints before turning over to Trixie and asked, “Hey Trixie, mind spotting me the bail money? I kind of left most of my money back on the ship.”

“Wait a minute.” Trixie interjected as she glared at Lyra, “You had an Enforcer come to Trixie’s home in the middle of the night and drag Trixie all the way here just so Trixie can pay for your bail?”

“Well…when you say it like that, it sounds bad.” Lyra said weakly in return. “But I’ll pay you back when I’m out of here.”

Gilda chuckled at their exchange before she shook her feathery head and said, “Sorry, but the Iron Claws don’t work that way. You break the law, you get punished, simple as that. You’re staying in that cell until your sentence is up in a month or until I say otherwise.”

“A month!? I can’t stay here that long.” Lyra exclaimed.

“Why? You got a hot date waiting for you or something?” Gilda asked mockingly, “Well tough luck.”

With the inhibitor ring rendering her psionic abilities inert, she couldn’t maintain her hold on Seeker’s mind. While she was still under her influence, the spell she placed on her mind would eventually wear off and when that happens, she would either escape back to Khalai Space or even worse, come after her and Skyfall to seek revenge. Either way, she needed to get out of here as soon as possible.

“Look, isn’t there a way we where can work out a deal?” Lyra inquired.

This drew Gilda’s interest as she approached the cell, “Deal, huh? What kind of deal are we talking about?” She asked.

Lyra smiled to herself a little at how easily the gryphon took the bait. If you wanted a Kel-Morian to give you the time of day, offer them a proposition and they will listen to you, guaranteed. Now to see just how high was the gryphon’s price.

“Simple. I pay for the damages done to the bar plus extra for your troubles and in exchange, you release me.” Lyra offered. When they raided the Rust Reavers’ ship for supplies, they had also taken their cache of stolen valuables out of spite. She didn’t know how much it was worth but hopefully, it would be enough to sate the gryphon’s greed.

Gilda tapped the bottom of her beak with her claw as she thought about the offer. A moment passed before she shook her head, “Sorry but no deal. I can’t let you out of there just cause you got deep pockets. The law is the law.”

“Surely there must be a way to reduce her sentence at least?” Trixie asked on Lyra’s behalf. Despite the fact that she was dragged all the way here just to pay the bail, she still owed her for saving her from the Rust Reavers.

“Well…” Gilda paused as she looked over at Lyra, “…some of my men are in need of serious medical attention after the beat down you gave them back at the bar so if you could foot their medical bill and pay off the damages to the Salty Spittoon, I could reduce your sentence down to say…a week?”

“A week? Can’t you go any lower?” Lyra asked.

“Sorry, but that’s the best I can do, take it or leave it. Your choice.” Gilda returned before she stuck her clawed hand through the bars and asked, “So do we have deal?”

Lyra blinked her eyes in disbelief as the gryphon just stacked the deal even more in her favor, and while she would have liked to be released right away, it looked like that this was as good as it was going to get, so she made her way towards the bars and shook Gilda’s hand.

“Deal.”

---

Outside the Golden Icicle Hotel, hundreds of feet up in the air, a pegasus was flying up the side of the building, making sure that nobody inside could see her ascent, which was easily carried out thanks to the ever present snowstorm. Under the cover of snowfall, the pegasus eventually made her way to the top of the hotel where she tapped against one of the window three times in quick intervals. Then window then opened up, letting the pegasus inside before it was closed again.

Once she was inside the heated confines of the Royal Suite, Scootaloo vigorously shook the snow off her suit, “Brrr! Couldn’t you have opened up a little faster?” she complained as she pulled back her hood and goggles, “I thought I was gonna freeze my wings off out there.” While the ursalisk hide kept her body nice and warm, her wings were left exposed to the frigid temperatures.

“Sorry, I was a little busy preparing lunch for everypony.” Sweetie Belle deadpanned as she brushed the snow that the pegasus had gotten on her off her head and shoulders.

At the mention of lunch, Scootaloo looked down at the table and saw a plate of sandwiches on a tray along with a few empty mugs next to a pot of steaming hot coffee. Her stomach then let out a low gurgling groan, reminding her that she haven’t had anything to eat all day.

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes before she pushed the tray towards Scootaloo, “You can have some if you take these to the others in the living room.” She said before she turned around to clean up the kitchen.

Scootaloo wordlessly took the tray in her hands and made her way out of the kitchen and towards the living room where she saw Apple Bloom and Rain Sight chatting while they worked together on building the laptop from scratch. They stopped working when they saw her walking up to them.

“Any of you up for a coffee break?” Scootaloo asked, holding up the tray.

“Sure, I think a break from all this is what we need right now.” Rain Sight said as she cleared the coffee table to make room for the tray.

“Sounds good to me.” Apple Bloom said in agreement. “I kind of need to get the taste of soldering iron out of my mouth, blech.” Even though she didn’t know how to use precision gloves, Apple Bloom was just as dexterous with her mouth and hooves, though it typically leaves a strange aftertaste in her mouth.

“Alright everyone, dig in.” Scootaloo said before she took a sandwich and stuffed it into her mouth, eager to stop the grumbling in her belly.

She heard Apple Bloom clearing her throat before she gestured to her casts and asked, “A little help?”

“Oh, sure.” Scootaloo said as she poured some coffee into one of the mugs and passed it to Apple Bloom along with a sandwich. “Here ya go.”

“Thanks.” The earth pony replied before she bit into the sandwich and washed it down with the coffee before letting out a contented sigh when she felt the liquid caffeine warming her up on the inside. “Ah, that feels so much better.”

As they enjoyed the refreshments, the three mares talked about various subjects to pass the time. When they started talking about Twilight and of her near daily check-ins with them, their talks soon turned into a discussion about the progress they were making towards their escape plan and its eventual execution

“How are things going with building that super computer of yours?” Scootaloo asked.

“Pretty good, most of the parts we got from the Iron Will are still in perfect condition so I should be able to finish putting it together in a few days, a week at most.” Apple Bloom explained.

“Speaking of parts, Scootaloo.” Rain Sight spoke up, “Do you have the ones we asked for?”

“Yeah, I got it right here.” Scootaloo said as she unzipped her suit and brought out a bag of computer parts, which she handed over to Rain, “By the way, Eye Glass said that he and Rainbow Dash might not be back before nightfall.”

Although they were able to gather all the parts they needed from the Iron Will, they couldn’t just bring them to the hotel without rousing suspicion. Rainbow suggested that they stash everything inside Tom’s cargo bay from where they could deliver the parts in small amounts directly to their suite. While it was a time consuming process, it saved them from answering troublesome questions from the hotel staff.

“Did he say why they’re going to be late?” Rain Sight inquired.

Scootaloo shrugged her shoulders, “I didn’t bother to ask him about that. All he said that they’re going be busy taking care of something back on Tom. We could contact him on Tom’s radio and ask him.”

“No need, I’m sure Eye Glass would tell me about if it was something important.” said Rain Sight.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

---

Inside Tom’s cargo hold, Rainbow Dash sat on a large crate as she watched Eye Glass moving around the ship while carrying various lengths of cables, which he connected into ports and sockets that she never even knew existed on the old cargo shuttle. The other ends of the cables lead to the strange contraption that they had salvaged from the wrecked starfighter back on the Iron Will.

She had asked him how the machine worked but the red unicorn only said that it was better to show her than explain it to her, which she agreed to so she stayed behind on the ship so she could keep an eye on Eye Glass while he put on the promised demonstration. However, she didn’t count on Eye Glass taking so long to set everything up.

“Are you done yet, Gramps?” Rainbow Dash asked, her voice heavy with boredom.

The unicorn stallion merely sighed as he plugged another cable into the ship’s wall, “For the 24th time Miss Dash: No, I’m not done yet. Just be patient, alright? I promise you that it’ll be worth the wait.”

“It better be.” Rainbow Dash grumbled, “How much longer is it going to take anyways? It’s been like 5 hours already.”

“Actually, it’s only been 2 hours and 37 minutes since I started.” Eye Glass said, earning another groan from the pegasus mare.

“What are you, a stopwatch?” Rainbow Dash snapped in frustration.

“Nope, just a guy with a watch.” Eye Glass said, chuckling in amusement.

“Oh haha, laugh it up wise guy.” Rainbow Dash muttered as she watched Eye Glass walking off with some cables. Thinking that it might take a while before he’d be finished, she decided to take a nap and made herself comfortable on the crate, but trying to do so was easier said than done.

After several minutes of unsuccessful tossing and turning on the metal crate with nothing to show for it except some mild discomfort, she gave up and just laid her back down on the crate, which was ironically the perfect position for her to take a nap. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, she closed her eyes and started to doze off, until Eye Glass called out to her.

“Miss Dash, I’m-Are you sleeping?” Eye Glass asked.

“I was trying to at least …” Rainbow Dash grumbled as she got back up and looked down at the stallion below, “…anyways, what were you going to tell me?”

“Oh right. I wanted to tell you that I’ve just finished plugging in the last of the cables into the ship’s system and was going to test them out.” Eye Glass said. “I was wondering if you could go outside and tell me if it works properly.”

“Outside? Why do you need me to be outside?” Rainbow Dash asked as she cocked her “Can’t we just test it in here? You know, where it’s nice and heated?”

“Well, we can’t know for sure if the device works or not unless one of us goes outside and check it out.” Eye Glass said as he led the mare to the device sitting on the floor and pointed to a small terminal on its side, “So unless you know how to operate this thing like I do, suit up.”

Rainbow Dash stared at the terminal for a few minutes, trying to discern its function but gave up and said, “Fine, give me a minute to get ready.” She said before she trotted off to retrieve her snowsuit.

---

Minutes later, Tom’s cargo bay doors opened up as Rainbow Dash, now suited up in her Cadian leather snowsuit, stepped out of the shuttle before the bay doors shut themselves. She then walked several meters away from Tom before turning around to face it. She then reached for her communicator and turned it on.

“Alright, I’m standing outside now.” she said before her communicator crackled with static before she heard Eye Glass’ voice coming through.

“Good, I’ll begin the startup sequence now.” Eye Glass said. “Tell me if anything happens outside.”

“Got it.” Rainbow Dash said as she looked at Tom, expecting something to happen to it. Several minutes passed and all she saw was the snow billowing around the shuttle. “Er, isn’t something supposed to happen right about now?”

“Don’t rush me. It’s been ages since I did anything this complex.” Eye Glass said in return as sounds of banging could be heard through the comlink followed by some mechanical whirring. “There, the field emitter should be starting up now.”

“Great, so what am I supposed to be looking for anyways?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Oh, you’ll know when you see it…or you won’t.” Eye Glass replied cryptically before he chuckled at his joke.

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow asked and soon received her answer when Tom’s started to glow in a shimmering light, which made the ship briefly appear blurred and distorted before parts of the hull started vanishing, followed by the rest of ship. Her communicator sounded off before she heard Eye Glass’ voice.

“Well Miss Dash, did it work?” Eye Glass asked expectantly.

Rainbow Dash didn’t respond at first as she walked towards where Tom had vanished and noticed that there was an odd distorted image in the air in front of her. Feeling a little curious, she reached out to the spot where Tom had been and felt it touching something solid. She moved her hand around and felt the familiar outline of her ship, confirming her suspicions that it was still there, only invisible.

“Yeah…it works.” Rainbow Dash said into her communicator, “Why didn’t you tell me that thing was a cloaking generator from the beginning?”

“Oh but where’s the fun in that.” Eye Glass chuckled through the comlink, “Besides, it’s payback for that comment you made back at the Iron Will.”

“Jerk.” Rainbow muttered before she noticed some black smoke coming from where the cloaked shuttle was. “Er… gramps, is there supposed to be smoke coming out of Tom right now?”

“Wait, what?” Eye Glass shouted before his comlink went dead seconds before the cloaking field on Tom collapsed as the ship reappeared before her.

Worried that something had gone wrong, Rainbow dashed over to the back of the ship and opened up the cargo door from the outside. As the ramp lowered itself down, the black smoke billowed out through the opening. She then saw Eye Glass, whose body was covered in black soot, staggering out of the ship before he dropped to his forelegs and started coughing.

“Are you alright?” Rainbow asked in concern.

“Yeah…just need some fresh air.” Eye Glass said as he breathed in some of the fresh but cold air, which agitated his lungs even more as he went into another coughing fit. “God, I’m getting old.”

“Take it easy for a while, gramps.” Rainbow said before she turned her attention to Tom and the black smoke coming out of the cargo doors. “What happened in there anyways?” She asked.

Eye Glass took a few minutes to recover before he answered her, “Not sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say that some of the access ports couldn’t handle the stealth generator’s output and got fried.”

“Hey! Are you saying Tom’s junk again?” Rainbow asked, her eyes narrowing on the older stallion.

“Take it easy there, that’s not what I meant.” He said, waving his hands in front of him, “All I’m saying is that the stealth generator isn’t fully compatible with your ship.”

“Well any ideas on how to make it so that it won’t blow up my ship, gramps?”

Eye Glass scratched his chin as he tried to think up a solution, “Hmm, if we could adapt the generator to the ship’s system, then that should solve the compatibility issues but the problem is that I have no clue on how we could do that.”

“Wait, but I thought you said you were an expert on ships back on the Iron Will.”

“I’m just an amateur enthusiast, Miss Dash.” Eye Glass corrected her, “The best I could do is jury-rig the whole thing so that it won’t overload so quickly. We’d need the help of a professional technician to modify such an advanced piece of technology like the stealth generator.”

“Couldn’t we just ask Apple Bloom for help?” Rainbow Dash suggested.

“I don’t think so.” Eye Glass said in return, “She’s busy enough as it is putting together that laptop of hers, which is our best bet off this world. The stealth generator was just extra insurance or a Plan B if she couldn’t finish it in time before Twilight turns on you.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a Plan C then, would you?”

“You let me worry about that.” Eye Glass said as he stood back up on his hind legs, “For now, let’s clean up the mess inside the ship before we head back to the others.” Rainbow sighed as she followed him into the ship and let out a groan when she saw the blackened state of the cargo hold’s interior. This was going to take a while.

---

Trixie let out a tired groan as trudged her way out of the operating room, where she had just finished treating the last of the patients for the day, most of whom had been the Enforcers that had tried to gang up on Lyra, only for them to have their collective backsides handed back to them by the mare.

While the mage was happy about the extra business and bits that she was getting, there had been quite a lot of patients today besides the Enforcers and treating that many patients had left her very sore and tired. She wanted nothing more than to just climb into her bed where it was nice and comfortable and go to sleep.

However, before she could do that, she still needed to check up on a certain patient of hers before she turned in for the night so she entered the small ward where Skyfall was still asleep in his bed. She then lit up her horn and bathed the stallion in its light as she scanned him for any changes in his body.

The unicorn smiled when she saw that his liver was now fully healed, telling her that the operation she had performed on him yesterday was a success. The only problem now was that he still hasn’t woken up from his comatose state. The only thing she could do now was to keep caring for him and wait.

She then let out a weary yawn as she felt the fatigue finally catching up to her. She decided to stop and turn in for the night as she dropped her spell and made her way out of the ward when she suddenly heard a groan coming from behind her. She turned around and saw the stallion stirring awake from his coma.

Skyfall groaned as he regained consciousness but wished he hadn’t as his head was pounding with a severe headache. He moved his hand to his forehead to massage the throbbing in his head but realized that he no longer had his precision gloves on him. He opened his eyes and looked around the room, wondering how he had gotten here in the first place.

He soon recalled everything that had happened back on the pirate ship, including being shot in the back, but he didn’t feel any pain coming from his back nor the rest of his body. He guessed that his partner must have saved him but wondered where he was as he took another look around the room but was alarmed when he saw a blue unicorn mare dressed in Umojan robes approaching him.

Worried that she was an enemy, Skyfall tried to get off the bed but trying to move about so much right after he just woke up from a coma wasn’t a good idea as he became lightheaded before he fell off the bed and hit the floor with a muffled thud. He groaned as he laid there on the floor but he didn’t stay there very long before he felt himself being lifted into the air.

“Please, you shouldn’t be out of bed so soon. You’ve been unconscious for the past five days.” Trixie said as she levitated Skyfall back onto his bed. “There, isn’t that better?”

Skyfall was quiet as he was still shocked that he had been unconscious for so long but nodded in return. He then turned to the blue mare and opened his mouth to ask her whom she was and where was his partner but all that came out was a hoarse rasp due to his dried throat.

“Here, this should help.” Trixie said as she levitated a glass of water over to him, which he accepted and drank from it, emptying it within seconds when he realized just how thirsty he was. After he was done with the drink, he put the empty glass aside and turned to Trixie, and opened his mouth to ask her the same question as before followed by a few others, but before he could open his mouth and do so, Trixie cut him off.

“Trixie believes that you have a lot of questions on your mind, correct?” she asked. Skyfall raised an eyebrow at the mare referring herself in the third person but nodded to her all the same. If cooperating with the strange mare helps him get the answers he’s looking for, then so be it.

“Good, then Trixie suggests that you make yourself comfortable, cause a lot of things happened while you were unconscious and it might take Trixie a while to explain everything.”

Author's Note:

Wow, the story has achieved over 2000 views! In celebration, have a chapter!

Okay, that may not be much of a prize but I apologize for taking so long and I take full responsibility for it since I was in charge of this chapter. I blame procrastination and writer's block.

Comments

[SPudRum]

Congrats :D

[Amethyst Blade]

This remind me of this
3.bp.blogspot.com/-DENKkTlmVaY/Tvd1LLFhhzI/AAAAAAAAZOo/XUr-ncbRj-8/s320/Capture.JPG
1.bp.blogspot.com/-dT3mXqto3JQ/Uj2GHuInEiI/AAAAAAABiW8/051YDivk5V4/s1600/Capture.JPG
4.bp.blogspot.com/-kalvJBUs4Og/TvBCwKgPQmI/AAAAAAAAYkQ/5Gij_eSyht4/s320/1.JPG
i.ytimg.com/vi/3Ua546C3H-Q/mqdefault.jpg
And some more but I'm too lazy...

[Gapeagle]

4868909

Yeah. That was actually the first crossover art that I found when I entered this fandom. It got me so stoked because, well, you probably could have guessed that I am a big Starcraft nerd.

But only one of those gifs is true to this story.

[Amethyst Blade]

4923017 Eh...I see that they have elements and stuff from many different characters...in starcraft...

[TheKopruluSectorUnion]

4923019 Well.....not even that. These are the CMC. Just more mature and thrown into a world not meant for ponies. Apple Bloom = Apple Bloom and so on. They may not be exact but they are not suppose to be based on any existing Starcraft characters. Since, you know, those characters did at one time exist in this universe.

[Amethyst Blade]

4923786 You know base on fantasy world rule I can see them as sort of reincarnation....but meh, they are not exactly the same but everytime i think of twilight i see Nova

[Amethyst Blade]

Meh...Kill Lyra and her companion! Kill the TERRAN! FOR THE SWARM!

[Not so New Brony]

4927406 We could do that but we still have plans for Lyra and Skyfall. As for what they are...stay tuned and find out.

[Amethyst Blade]

4936017 I will be watching from the
fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/358/0/4/who_called_in_the_fabulous_by_sefling-d4k30eb.png