• Published 19th Sep 2012
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Homeworld: Equestria - hiigaran



Finding himself in an uncharted system, the Captain of a military vessel ends up on a strange planet

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10: Midnight's Log

>CREW AUDIO LOG
>MIDNIGHT OIL, CPT-2IC
>HARMONY, SPR. CARRIER
>9626.31 GSY

Is this thing … I think it’s—oh, right. Green light must mean—ahem. Alright, second-in-command, Midnight Oil’s log, galactic standard year nine-six-two-six, point … Uhh, I think two eight? I’m still unfamiliar with this damn date system.

So, it has been a little over four days since we returned to orbit around our planet. The Captain disembarked after the first day back, along with many of the crew, leaving us running with the bare minimum. Not that I can blame everypony for wanting to take a break, though. After what we went through in that nebula, I was amazed even the best of the best managed to hold it together and focus. Rumour has it the Captain himself seems to have taken it pretty badly, though. That might explain why the purple unicorn, I think her name was … Twilight? Twinkle? Ahh, irrelevant. Anyway, it might explain why she literally dragged the Captain off Harmony.

I overheard a brief communication between the Captain and his superiors just before he left, too. Turns out everything the Bentusi had told us was spot-on, and after some final analysis and confirmation, our fleet will rendezvous with the same fleet that had assisted Manaan some time ago. Their scientists seem to have made some significant discoveries.

Hmm. Wish I could say the same for our guys. Some of the engineers who have chosen to remain on board have already started to inspect the core we obtained from the nebula, but for all their meticulous inspections, it seems we aren’t going to uncover even the slightest clue about where to look for the sixth and final core. It’s times like this I’m glad I just order ponies around, because I swear I can smell the stench of sizzling scientist brains up here.

One thing we did uncover about this fifth core is that it is the loyalty core. Using data from the Hiigaran’s original core, which, if I remember correctly, was the laughter core, a neural interface is being constructed to allow somepony to integrate themselves with the core. I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a scary thought. I’ve been told the way the device is designed, it detects the brain patterns and allows pretty much any living being to interact with the core. Or something like that, anyway. I lost the chief of science when she was explaining to me what an artificial synaptic bridge is. I don’t think she even knew, herself!

One interesting thing I read while trying to understand this interface was the history behind the technology. This current design works without any surgery or bodily modifications to the user, but earlier designs made my stomach turn. This S’jet woman who leads Hiigaran fleets used to have wires coming out of her head. Wires! From holes drilled into her head! So many, it almost looked like her mane! Actually, I think a topic change is in order. Just thinking about that makes me feel … Ugh!

Harmony is still going to be a while before the damage incurred from our battle will be fully repaired, but that large hole in our forward section has been hastily patched up. Not exactly pulled off with finesse, but a large slab of metal welded on by our resource collector seems to have done the trick. Repair teams have had the opportunity to enter the sealed-off sections to survey the internal damage, but according to them, it’s not as bad as it looks. I estimate another three, maybe four days, before everything is restored to the state our vessel was in before we left, including properly fixing up that hole, and restoring the appearance of our flagship.

In the meantime, we have made ourselves useful. No point sitting in orbit with a hoard of resources, so Harmony has taken on the role of some major construction operations, while supplementing our projects by performing short-jumps to resources in our solar system. Last briefing, we had a discussion about creating a homeworld defence grid, that basically consists of several hundred frigate-sized hyperspace inhibitors surrounding our planet, at a radius just a ways past our moon. Any unidentified vessels would be detected before they could get anywhere near us, and if necessary, Princess Luna will … Well, she will give our uninvited guests a full moon.

Of course, while several officers can see the benefits of this, including myself, I do have to question the timing of such an endeavour. The time and resources required to build all these inhibitors would be astronomical, forgive the pun. If it were up to me, I would first get some more ships added to our fleet. Sure, we now have a full hangar of strike-craft, two destroyers, a resource collector, and a mobile refinery, but with everything I know about these keepers, I certainly wouldn’t want to get caught short of ships, should we find ourselves in an ambush, or with an uncharged hyperdrive. But I guess the Captain knows best.

Still, I might just get what I wished for. We do have plans to construct a carrier. Not exactly powerful, though. It’s basically a smaller version of Harmony, and without any ion cannons. So practically defenceless, save for a few peashooters on it. At least it can house ten more strike-craft squads. Even so, it will only assist us in setting up this inhibitor grid, and then it will remain here, separate from our main fleet. While I can sleep a little easier at night, whenever ‘night’ is out here, I think the Captain is a little paranoid about any threats to us. Nice to know he is looking out for us, though.

Hmm, what else should I be noting? Everything else seems fine, I guess. Most of the remaining crew are apparently having a hot-sauce drinking contest on the mess deck, hosted by that annoying pink pony. What is she doing here, anyway? Civilians have no place here. I need to make a mental note to ask her later. Anyway, the bridge is a ghost town. Population, me. Corona is on leave, and Zenith is off doing some inspections on the weapons. Heard the two nutcases at the controls are a hoof-full. Quite frankly, I’m not too interested in interacting with either of them. Or that griffon down in construction, now that I think about it.

Then again, I’ve never trusted those griffons. Bunch of arrogant jerks, the lot of ‘em. No idea why the Princesses even agreed to let them serve aboard our ship. I mean, the fact that the Princesses agreed, simply because other nations had a problem with us possessing such powerful weapons and technology seems downright cowardly to me, and just makes us look weaker in their eyes. I’ll be damned if ponies are seen as pushovers! You’d think others would show us more respect. We control the sun and moon, for goodness sake!

Wow, I did not expect to get into a full-blown rant on griffons. Again. I should make another mental note to see if these logs can somehow be edited.

Anywho, unless I want to start making remarks about completely mundane issues, such as the hot water not working in one of the crew quarters, I think I’ll just sign off here. Midnight Oil, out.

Damn green light still on. Where the hay is the stupid off button? Maybe it’s thi—

>LOG TERMINATED