1: In space, nopony can hear you squee
I move slowly through the hallway, its triangular, alien shape only reminding me of its inherent dangers. I'm in enemy territory, and every moment of it has my mindset walking on hot coals. The space station has been eerily quiet since the Buccaneer docked. I'd almost rather hear an intruder alert. As it stands though, it's all putting one hoof in front of the other, and keeping an ever-vigilant eye for Sumasi soldiers or security systems. I'd done my best to disable them from the ship, but you could never be too careful with alien technology.
The hallway seemed to be composed of some sort of translucent, glassy material, which clicked under my hooves despite my best efforts to muffle them with my magic. It seemed as if it was lit from behind, giving the passage a very bright, sterile look. The only disturbances in the glowing surfaces were at each meeting point, which was a dull gray, and the occasional blue hologram panel. As I near an intersection between hallways, I hear slow, plodding footsteps coming from an adjoining hallway. My horn flares in a forest green light, and I blur, my coat and mane becoming the bright white of my surroundings. Not a second later, a Sumasi lumbers into the passage. It is an odd thing, a skinned, almost greasy looking thing suspended on three legs, its head looks like something that would belong on a fish, and its deep black eyes gaze down my hall, though by its scanning posture, I doubt it knows I'm here. It extends an arm to a panel, and its three digits press keys with a dexterity unfitting to their obviously aquatic origins. Seemingly satisfied with its work, the creature turns and moves in my direction. I hear it muttering under its breath as the triped lumbers by. My translator takes a moment, but soon I hear it whispering in my ear:
“Nothing here… System glitch seem come from else.” I frown. They had detected my hack after all. After it had moved a significant ways down the hall, I carefully wrap my magic around the handle of the rifle on my back, its weight reassuring in my grasp as I position it in front of my left eye. With a mental command, the sight I see through my scope is in infrared, the walls significantly dimmer than the Sumasi. I carefully tweak the calibration of the shot, seeing the static-filled ring about the creature, a tell-tale sign of a personal shield. Given my research on such arrays, they shouldn't protect against certain wavelengths of ultraviolet light. My magic finds the trigger mechanism inside the handle of the weapon, and I activate it. With a shrieking sound much louder than I'd like, a shimmer tore through the air. The Sumasi turned its head and reached for its weapon, but my shot hit its mark much too soon. Its head disintegrated into a fine black powder, and its form lurched to the floor. My eyes dart side-to-side as I check for any signs of detection. I move towards a holo-panel on the wall, my horn lighting as I do so. As I approach, the display turns green, and through the strings of text, I determine there's been no alert. I trigger a maintenance shaft, and a portion of the wall near the body folds open. I stow it quickly, then continue deeper into the station.
After my run-in with the guard patrol, I took care to stay out of sight as much as possible, ducking between the limited maintenance corridors as often as I could. The corridors aren't too much different from the main hallways, though they lack almost any lighting of any kind, and are much narrower. If it weren't for my optical implant, I doubt I could have seen, as even in night-vision mode, I could only make out the vaguest of shapes.
As the last hatch slid open, I carefully raised my head into the station's primary archive room. What I was met with was a grand, alabaster chamber, pyramidal in shape, adorned with rows upon rows of towering cerulean archive arrays. From my position in the corner of the room, I could see one or two techs busily typing away at terminals, while several more were seated in the center at what must have been a table of some kind, working with holopads or eating something. I cast my camouflage spell and crept across the room, before finding an out of the way terminal I could access. It was situated at the end of a corner row of the shelf-like storage units, where I'd assume didn't get much traffic. I raised a hoof, attaching my bracer to the console as I type with my magic, flipping through data at a breakneck pace. As soon as I found the files, though, I hit a bump, in the form of encryption. The console flashed red as I attempted to access the files, a warning popping up in the alien language indicating something along the lines of restricted access. I boot a hacking algorithm, but I'm met with a shocking sensation as I do so, as my neural implants can't complete the operation. I load a much simpler program to just cut the files for later when a high pitched whine broke out throughout the station. A voice cut in through my thought process.
“Deadeye!” The voice called, “I think these fish-for-brains figured out there's an Equestrian corvette docked to their station. How long 'till you have the files?” I sigh, detaching the Interface Bracer.
“It's done, Captain, but I'm on the other side of the station. What are my options for exfil?” I think, relaying it through the secure channel before making a break for the maintenance hatch.
“Sensors read an airlock not far from you. Relaying coordinates now.”
“Thanks, Dash. Sure you'll be there in time for an extraction?”
“No sass until you're out alive, Lieutenant. See you in a few!”
I shuffle through the dark passage until my readouts told me to surface. I throw the hatch open quickly, and whip my rifle into a guard's head. I spin, taking a shot at the guard opposite them, sending the Sumasi sizzling to the ground in two pieces. I flip the lever-action quickly before dispatching the stunned guard as well. I bolt to the doorway, jumping inside and shutting it as quickly as my loadout would allow. Not a moment later, I heard a thunk outside the hatch. I take a deep breath, and open the airlock, revealing the cyan hull of the Buccaneer just outside. I jump with the decompressing atmosphere, and into an open hatch on the side of the small ship. Slipping in, sound resumes with a hiss as it slams shut and the Buccaneer races away from the Sumasi station.