Ponystar Equestria: The Last ponystar

by Commander Celestus

Chapter 4: The End

Chapter 4: A Losing Battle

The Cyponian raiders swarmed around the Ponystars in the Cimtar system like so many angry hornets, but hornets armed with pulsar-cannon and ship-to-ship missiles. They were backed up by at least twenty destroyers firing heavier ship-to-ship missiles and heavy pulsars.

The Imperious Leader’s strategy had worked beyond even her expectations; with the desire for peace so strong among the ponies, the Alicorn Council had agreed almost unanimously to the peace conference, and the President’s misplaced faith in Altair had led him to refuse Commander Celestus’ request to put the fleet on alert. With the exception of the Equestria the ponystars had been taken completely by surprise, gun-crews had been off duty and pilots had been taking downtime. Now they were scrambling to their positions, guns began to fire, but far too few. To make things worse, without their point-defence batteries ready the other ponystars had suffered serious damage from the Cyponian missiles in the first minutes of the attack. Equestria’s pilots and gunners tried to protect the rest of the fleet, but she was leading the line, and could do nothing to protect the ships at the rear.

“Thank the gods for Colonel Pie,” Star Flash smiled. She was sure that the old battle-mare would laugh at her for saying that, but the Colonel could not hear her. “If she hadn’t scrambled us, the whole bucking fleet would be finished!” She loosed off a missile at a destroyer, not waiting to see if it hit home as Cyponian fire blazed around her tiny fighter.

“Flutter, there’s a Tin Can on your tail!” she cried, seeing her friend in trouble. The cyan Pegasus brought her fighter around in a tight turn and opened fire on the raider, which exploded in a shower of debris. Star Flash shook her head as she went after another raider. “What the buck do the other ponystar crews think they’re doing? We may be the best pilots in the whole fleet, but there’s no way the Equestria can hold these off on our own!” she cursed loudly. The whole peace conference thing was going to hay in a hand basket, and she was in probably the worst fight of her life.

A Colonial fighter exploded on her right wing under fire from a Cyponian raider. Star Flash pulled her fighter into a dive, ready to destroy Cyponians until either they were all gone, or she died.

“An’ that last one ain’t gonna happen, Tin Cans!”

The Epona, the President’s ponystar, was already crippled and burning. Her guns were mostly silent, a single dorsal turret still blasting away and a couple of point-defence batteries still firing. Colonial fighters clustered around the stricken ship, trying to provide cover for an evacuation by shuttles and gunships. Battle damage meant that there were crew trapped in several section of the ponystar, and the Cyponians were continuing to pound at her with missiles from their destroyers.

If the rest of the fleet had been ready when the attack came they might conceivably have been able to defend the President’s ship, but they had not been. The Bellerophon had fallen back, her guns silent, her fighters still in their bays, and nopony had been able to contact her crew. The Titan was launching fighters, but a missile impact in her port bay meant that she could only deploy from her starboard bay, so half her fighters were useless. Two more ponystars, the Ajax and the Triton had suffered hits on their engines and were drifting; a circumstance that meant that each blast from their batteries contributed to send the ships into a slow spin, and the Erinna had lost her dorsal battery completely.

“Look at them! We are getting our plots spanked out there worse than a schoolfilly caught stealing apples!” Colonel Pie yelled as she watched the display from the Equestria’s scanners. She was scared, she’d been in battle before many times, but this was different. Before they’d been ready, at least in a cautious posture; this time they had been taken completely by surprise and totally unprepared. The ponystars in the fleet had been too close to each other when the attack came, and with three now drifting, while Altair’s ship was not fighting, the other ships were having trouble manoeuvring.

“Colonel, we just lost two more destroyers!” Omicron cried. His voice betrayed his own panic.

“No panic, soldier! We’ll beat the Tin Cans! How many destroyers do we have left?”

“Two, sir,” Omicron was trying to control his voice, but it was proving difficult as he watched the fleet taking a heavy pounding.

“What the buck are the other ponystars doing? Do they think we’re on a bucking pleasure cruise?” the Colonel asked through gritted teeth. “What’s their status?”

“Epona’s out of the fight, sir, she’s crippled and burning, two squadrons launched, the rest were destroyed when the port flight pod went up. Titan’s lost a flight pod too; she got two and a half squadrons in the air and still launching. Triton has just one squadron up, more ships launching…” Omicron went on with his report, listing ship after ship; all damaged; none with her full fighter wing in the air.

“Mr. President!” Celestus steadied himself against the command station as the ship shuddered under the impact of a Cyponian missile. “The Colonies are under attack! We need to head home!” He felt like he was repeating himself over and over; the shock of discovering the treachery of Altair and the genocidal intentions of the Cyponians had been too much for the President.

The President only moaned despairingly to himself.

“How could I have been so wrong? I… I have led us all to ruin!”

“Mr. President, do I have your permission to leave the fleet?” Commander Celestus sounded desperate.

Colonel pie sympathised with him, the President had gone to pieces and was gibbering like a pony deranged. The fleet needed his leadership, not his self-pity.

“Colonel! Another missile strike on the Epona!” Omicron cried.

“Buck!” Colonel Pie swore. “With her defence batteries down… pull our fighters back!”

The missiles streaked through space towards the stricken ponystar. One exploded short, taken down by fighters flying point defence, but the other three hit home with a lethal accuracy on the burning ship. Atomic warheads detonated with the blaze of a sun and Commander Celestus’ ‘phone went dead.

Devastating explosions tore through the Epona from stem to stern, blasting debris into space, some living. Colonial fighters flying point over her turned and fled, but those who were closest to the ship were too late. A final huge explosion tore the President’s ponystar apart, fragments of the disintegrating ship slamming into fighters and evacuation ships alike.

“By the gods!” Colonel Pie watched the Equestria’s main monitor as the Epona detonated. The single contact of the President’s ponystar broke apart into multiple contacts, transponders identifying Colonial ships were wiped out, and alarms flashed red as debris flew towards the Equestria.

The President was dead, and with him most of the crew of the Epona, not to mention pilots from other ponystars, including the Equestria. Fragments of the destroyed ship created a lethal storm of shrapnel, adding to the confusion and destruction.

Celestus turned to his command crew, who were watching in stunned silence.

“Full speed out of here! As soon as it’s safe, jump towards the Colonies!” he hated the idea of running and leaving his pilots out there, but if there was even a chance that the Colonies could be saved, he was willing to take it. He’d have jumped from where they were, but to jump so close to other ships would unleash a backwash that would wreak havoc in the fleet.

“Gunnery, keep up covering fire!” Colonel Pie yelled. “Helm hard about! Spin up the FTL drive!” she watched the battle on the main monitor that dominated CIC. It was not going at all well, one Ponystar destroyed, two more drifting, all damaged. The scanners relayed an explosion in the forward area of the Ponystar Etruria, and then the Etruria was drifting aimlessly, her CIC destroyed. Her gunnery was still firing, but the ship was doomed. The Colonel was torn between the desire to protect the fleet, which was reduced to five ponystars that were still more or less fully functional, and then the Titan with just one flight pod left, and the drifting Ajax and Triton which were taking heavy damage.

“Full power to the engines!” the pink mare yelled. “Get us clear of the fleet so we can jump!”

The ship shuddered as a volley of pulsar-fire from a Cyponian destroyer struck her port flight pod.

“Gunnery! What the buck do the point-defence gunners think they’re up to?” Colonel Pie was regarded as fierce by the crew for good reason. She stamped her hooves on the deck as she watched the progress of the ship. She was glad they were at the front of the fleet; had they been in the centre this would be far more difficult.

The huge ship slowly broke away from the fleet as the Etruria exploded. The Equestria shook as the shockwave from the exploding Ponystar struck, but the gunners continued to fire.

The Tin Cans were sneaky, Colonel Pie thought. Against the swarms of fighters the Ponystars’ heavy weaponry were all but useless – you couldn’t use a nuke against a fighter. On the other hoof, against a planet they were quite useful, and that was what the Commander thought the Cyponian baseships were doing.

“Get us the buck out of here so we can jump!” she roared.

---

Star Flash’s pulsar-cannon ripped into the hull of a Cyponian destroyer. The cyan Pegasus cheered as explosions burst out into space. The destroyer fell back, port launch tubes ablaze.

“Yee-hah! Look at that baby burn!” Star Flash cried happily. “That’ll teach the tin cans to mess with us!”

“The… the fleet…” Flutter looked at the burning ponystars and the debris from the Epona. She did not share her friend’s optimism; the fleet was in disarray, only now were the ships anywhere near to operating as they should in battle and the Ponystars had all taken heavy damage.

“Hey, they’re just bucking tin cans! We’ll make ‘em pay for Epona and Etruria!” Star Flash hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. She whirled the fighter around and opened fire on a group of raiders. “What the buck? Where’s Equestria going?”

“I’m sure the Commander has a good reason for leaving the fleet,” Flutter tried to reassure her.

“I sure as hay hope so!” was the reply. Star Flash blasted a raider that was trying to destroy one of the few Epona fighters that was still in the air. “’Cause if he hasn’t, I’m gonna be letting him have a piece of my mind even if it means cooling my hooves in the brig for a month!”

“Thanks, Star Flash,” the Pegasus stallion piloting the Epona fighter radioed to her. “Read your call sign.”

“Yeah, and I read yours, Cara. Sorry we couldn’t save your ship.”

“Star Flash, the Thetis!” Flutter cried in horror.

The light ponystar Thetis had been at the back of the fleet. Her commander had moved her forward to cover the crippled Triton and Ajax, but that meant that she was exposed to heavy fire from the Cyponian destroyers, and she had taken heavy damage. Her guns had fallen silent, and it was plain something was seriously wrong with her. As the fighter pilots watched, explosions tore through the ship, and then she was left dead in space, ablaze from one end to the other.

“By the gods!” Cara gasped.

And then, as they watched, the Triton and Ajax collided. Compartments ruptured, flight pods fractured. Fires were already burning all over the two ships, and the collision caused yet more damage to the helpless warships. Ajax, the smaller ship, tumbled away, explosions ripping through her hull, tearing her apart. Triton remained in one piece, but out of control, with fires spreading through her.

At that moment, Equestria jumped away in a flash of light, leaving only five ponystars still fighting the swarming Cyponian ships. All the Colonial destroyers were gone, and the sky was full of debris. Five ponystars had been destroyed and the Bellerophon was not taking any part in the fight at all.

“Hey, any of you hot-shots want to teach that traitor Altair a lesson?” Star Flash asked belligerently. She knew he had betrayed the Colonies, and also that he was on the Bellerophon. His ponystar was sitting out of the fight, so it was time to bring the fight to him.

“Flash, be careful!” Flutter warned as her friend brought she fighter around to attack the traitor’s ship.

The warning was timely, for now the Bellerophon moved, coming around to face the fleet.

“What the buck?” Star Flash pulled up sharp; if the Bellerophon was about to join the fight, something told her it would not be on their side.

“Nuclear launch detected!” Cara yelled.

Nuclear missiles launched from the Bellerophon’s missile tubes, aimed at the Ponystar Oleander. The fighter pilots watched in horror, unable to do much and praying to the gods that the ponystar’s point defence batteries would take out the missiles.

Two of the missiles blew up under the defensive fire, but the others struck the Oleander’s engine section with a blinding flash. The tylium fuel of the ship’s engines ignited, and just like that the Oleander was gone, blown to pieces before anypony could evacuate. The ship was lost with all hands, and they were down to four battered ponystars facing thousands of Cyponian raiders, a couple of dozen destroyers, and one undamaged ponystar.

With the new dynamic of the battle revealed, Titan launched a missile at the treacherous vessel, but Bellerophon’s point defence batteries blasted it out of the sky.

It was then that the Bellerophon began to launch her fighters, except they were not Colonial fighters but fresh Cyponian raiders, joining those that had expended fuel in the assault. Damaged raiders sought sanctuary within the warship’s flight pods, while other landed to re-arm.

“Hades! That ain’t fair at all!” a surviving Triton pilot gasped as she saw the final evidence that Count Altair was truly the enemy within. Apple pulled her ship around to take a run at the Bellerophon, a hoof on the missile controls.

---

The Equestria had three jumps to fly back to the Colonies, and she was damaged, fires burning in the port flight pod. Colonel Pie was trying to co-ordinate damage control, while Celestus tried to contact the Colonies and Atepomonus was watching, still in a state of shock.

“Captain!” Celestus turned to his son. “Get every pilot we have still on board, have every reserve fighter loaded and ready to launch!” His expression told the alicorn pilot all that he needed to know.

“We can’t fight off a Cyponian massed attack with ten fighters and one ponystar!” Atepomonus replied angrily. “You saw the fleet; we lost two ponystars before we left, maybe three!”

“There’s at least two ponystars defending each of the colonies as well as planetary defences. If we can warn them we may just be able to put up enough of a fight to scare them off like we did at Caprica ten years ago,” the old alicorn answered with determination. It had been at the battle of Caprica that his wings had been crippled, and then casualties had been terrible. But they had survived then; he only prayed that this time they would be as lucky as they had been then. He smiled, that was funny, praying when he hardly believed in the gods any more. “Besides, if we don’t try to warn the Colonies, then what happens at the Fleet doesn’t matter. The fleet’s nothing without the Colonies!” Those ponies back at the fleet signed on for battle; back at the Colonies there are civilians who never signed on for any part of this gods’ damned war!”

“Father, none of us signed on for a massacre!”

“No. But we signed on to fight the Tin Cans. The civilians back at the colonies didn’t. So we are going back to Caprica to try to save them if there’s any way in Hades we can, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Atepomonus saluted.

“Get those bucking fires under control!” Colonel Pie yelled. “What am I dealing with, a bush of rookies out of school? We need every bay ready to receive ships as soon as we reach the colonies! Gunnery, you will be ready. Every bucking shot has to count!”

Atepomonus galloped from the CIC, headed back to the flight pod where his ship was being re-fuelled and where the reserves were being readied. He knew why his father and the Colonel were angry, and he was angry as well. They had all been taken in by Altair, and all along he had been working for the Cyponians, leading the fleet into a trap while at the same time leaving the colonies open to a full Cyponian assault. He only hoped that the forces at the Colonies were having better luck than the fleet at Cimtar. His father was right, civilians came first.

“Ready for our second jump, Commander!” Omicron shouted across the CIC.

“Jump!” Celestus yelled. “Jump!”

The ponystar shook as she jumped a second time, closer to the colonies.

Moonstone worked the communications, trying frequencies. To her horror there was a lot of Cyponian chatter on open channels. Some of it was in machine-code, but some was speech, and what it said was all too plain. She turned to the commander, panic written across her face; she was an experienced ponystar officer, but nothing could have prepared her for what she had heard.

“Commander, it’s too late, the attack on the Colonies is under way!” she cried, a catch in her voice. “I’m getting communications from all twelve Colonies, nuclear bombardment from orbit, planetary defences completely non-operational. It… it’s a massacre,” tears welled in her eyes. “The ships we left behind are helpless. It’s the end, sir, the Colonies are falling.”

In a moment the Commander was at her side.

“Moonstone! Caprica…”

“Nuclear bombardment from orbit… good gods… holocaust. Nuclear holocaust! Whole cities…”

A move of the hoof put the confused reports and over it all, the terrible voice of the Cyponian Imperious Leader, broadcasting on an open channel for all who would hear.

“The great day of my wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” she intoned. “I bring vengeance, my little ponies, I bring justice, I bring to you oblivion as the final judgement upon your evil, I pour out my wrath upon all the ponies who dwell upon the colonies.”

“Is that the Imperious Leader?” Moonstone asked, awed by the robot alicorn’s voice. “It was that thing that Altair said wanted peace.”

“She wanted peace all right,” Colonel Pie replied darkly. “The peace of the grave; she wants us all dead.”

“Genocide,” Celestus groaned. “That was her plan; and we failed to stop it. The President was right, he led us all into ruin; and ponykind may not survive this day.”

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Note: Atepomonus is named for a Celtic horse-god who was identified with Apollo. So now you know.