> Pony EVE
>  by Vashar23
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: The Birth of the Gods
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Pony EVE



Chapter 1: The Birth of the Gods
"Be bold Pilot"

In the first recorded years of the Forgotten Age ponykind went to colonize the solar system of Equus. The gift of the cosmos was shared amongst their various allies, like the griffins, the zebras and even some of the dragons, opening a whole new chapter of interspecies collaboration and unity. After a long age of tecnological and magical advancement the Warp tecnology was finally deployed, thus opening the entire galaxy to the space settlers.
However, space is indeed a VAST place. So many colonies scattered and a governing body spreaded too thin too fast, not to mention the inescapable racial differences, led to competition and fighting over available resources as it did on Equestria in an even more ancient time. Still, all that changed with the discovery of a natural wormhole leading to an unexplored galaxy.
Suddenly the possibilities had been doubled. The promise of new virgin system ripe with resources, both needed and undocumented, brought racial groups and megacorporations to a new alliance. They quickly begun colonization of the new systems, founding several hundreds small colonies to exploit their treasures. Because it gave the Equestrian Empire new stability and harmony the galaxy was called "New Eden".
To facilitate passage of the wormhole a massive gate was built around it, bearing the word "EVE" and the promise of an everlasting dream.


***


Twilight Sparkle lifted her head from the datapad and looked out of the great window of the hall.

It offered a majestic view of the Amarr solar system, the nexus of the Empire. The stars of the Throne Worlds constellation were the brightest of course, the sun of the system was a K5 type, projecting its orange sheen over the nebulae, cosmic void and the planet Oris nearby. Dozens, maybe hundreds of ships were flying outside, constantly docking and departing from the mastodontic station she was now in. Twilight have studied every kind of Amarr spacecraft and could recognize a small fleet of Imperial Apocalypse battleships led by a Prophecy and with a few Sentinels and Guardians in their midst, a formation of Navy Slicers made an elegant turn disappearing from sight, one of those fascinating tech 3 cruisers, a Legion, was flying solo.

But the majority of ships were of the industrial type. Sigils, Bestowers, Providences, even some Impels for the most precious and magical materials. All of them were serving this station, bringing modules and components for the construction of a single vessel.

Suddenly she heard hoofsteps approaching the door, when it opened a flock of unicorns, imperial guards and long robed priests, stormed in, positioning at the sides of the entrance and bowing for the pony they were diligently escorting.

Twilight jumped down from the couch end bowed deeply to the approaching figure of Empress Celestia, the immortal alicorn ruler of the Amarr Empire. She wore her traditional gold regalia and white vests with sun emblems. Her colorful mane and tail waving in a inexistent wind.

Her stern expression brighten upon seeing her beloved protege "Rise lady Eos."

"Your Highness, I was waiting for your arrival. My tests have been completed and I'm ready for..." But was interrupted by a gold plated hoof on her lips

"Why so hasty lady Eos. Its been a fairly long time since our last meeting and I'm eager to spend some time with you. Now, I think I gave you permission to rise from the cold floor hmn?"

Twilight blushed slightly as she stood up "F-forgive me, I'm a little nervous about my pilgrimage."

Celestia nodded and smiled sympathetically "An understendable reaction, you will die after all."

Twilight gulped and bowed her head "I'm not afraid."

"Hu-hu" Calestia moved next to the couch and  noticed the datapad "What were you reading"

Twilight levitated the device with her magic and stored it in the  saddlebags of her satin dress "An Overview of the History of Eden your Highness. I wanted to refresh my memory on how the galaxy came to be as it is now."

Celestia smiled again "You surprise me, that is a fairly superficial text covering the more general guidelines and without even illustrating the recorded, and often contradictory, proves of its statements."

Twilight blushed and averted the Empress gaze again "I don't n-need a lot of readings on this subject, it is sufficient for making me recall the various details. But if you think that I should focus on certified texts then..." But was interrupted again by a gentle hoof on her chin

"My dear Eos, you really should get out of the imperial library more, mingle with the aristocracy, making some friends. Besides," Celestia turn her eyes on the window and the fleets outside, murmuring softly "'certified' texts will only mumble about religious nonsense."

Twilight flipped her hears "Excuse me your Highness?" But Celestia ignored her an trotted closer to the large opening, looking at a point on the upper left of the space outside, Twilight followed Her and looked. There, near the uppermost section of the golden station, a great assembly line was working on building one of the most massive ships to have ever soared the stars of Eden, an Avatar Titan.

As a spaceship its size was almost unbelievable, it dwarfed even the Aeon supercarrier and it could host the most efficient logistics and fleet boosters, not to mention the most powerful weapon know in the Empire, the Sun Judgement "That, of course, was named after me and my holy Father." said Celestia.

"Wh-what? I was only thinking that, how..." But Celestia only loocked at her shocked protege and smiled softly. Twilight remembered some rumors about Celestia developing a telepathic ability strong enough to let her communicate even at the farthest reaches of lawless space, but they were far too exaggerated. She smiled at her mentor "Well, of course Empress. You are the most powerful, most wise and beatiful creature in Eden. It was only natural that the Empire designed his greatest weapon on the image of the daughter of the Sun God."

Celestia smile widened, but it vanished as she return to look at the Titan above them. True, the media had described the Avatar as the living embodiment of the  power of Celestia, the 'Sun Daughter'. The front of the ship was sculptured as a flaming sun, on its center golden and blackened plates showed the stylized visage of a unicorn pony, the sides of the behemoth vaguely resembling folded wings. Yet, Celestia knew that everytime her subjects cast their awed gazes upon this vessel they could see only the might of the amarrian Sun God and his righteous fury on the enemies of the empire. To win their hearts she led the amarr people with an equal might, secretly and slowly seeping ideas of tolerance and harmony while she was forced by the high hierocracy to move war and enslave other civilizations. Political intrigue was hard, slow and truly frustrating. If it would not have been for the Jovians and the Gallente she couldn't have ever taken full control over the empire. Some of the boldest youngs were starting to refer to it as the Celestian Empire and the relations with the other space nations were smooth. A good start.

She return to face her protege "Is it true what I heard? That you want to flight a Titan?"

Twilight blushed again and smiled embarrassed "It... was just a silly fantasy your Highness. I wish to develop both my skills at space flight and magic to achieve the most possible results, but I don't think that even I can reach THAT level. Well, it would be interesting to try, but I'm sure that you're the only being capable of piloting a Titan by yourself."

"Is it so? Well then, maybe we should start heading to the hangars while we talk, yes?" Celestia nodded to her guards and cohorts who set to escort the empress and her proteje to their destination.

On the way to the hangar bay Twilight and Celestia keep talking about Twilight achievements at the Imperial Academy and she shared her viewpoint on the Arek'Jaalan Project research on the Takmahl Centrifugal Primer (of which Celestia couldn't care less). The purple unicorn listened enraptured as the empress described her last meeting with her long lost sister, President Luna, about a new trade route of Quafe soft drinks between the Gallente Federation and the Empire.

Eventually they reached the hangars where Celestia chosen vassel for the space trip was waiting, an Abaddon battleship with a generous escort of Prophecy battlecruisers and Coercer destroyers. As they took off Twilight hoped to talk more to her mentor but Celestia was constantly assaulted by holocalls of advisors, priests and the occasional slaver tycoon, giving the current status of the planetside reigns, advising about political relations, warning of slave rebellions and suggesting how to show the might of the Amarrs to all the infidels. To her dismay Twilight had to return to her reading for most of the time.


***


However the promised dream came crumbling upon itself. After not even a century the EVE wormhole collapsed, destroying the Gate and severing the colonies from their homeworlds. Legends say that Holy Celestia of the Sun and Her sister, Luna of the Moon, were supervising the colonies at the time. The alicorn sisters never confirmed nor denied these rumors.
In the chaos and fear that followed they tried to led and confort their people, but something happened to Luna. Maybe it was her own fear and anguish or an outside force, but she rose to challenge Her sister. The following brutal battle crippled definitely the colonies and Celestia and Luna went lost.

Thus begun the Dark Age, a long and painful period were ponies, zebras, griffins, diamond dogs and dragons struggled in separate worlds, slowly losing knowledge of their origins and of each other. Of this age are commonly dated the relics of the ancient space faring cultures, the Talocan, the Takmahl and the Yan Jung. It is believed that the Sleeper Drones, sentient and deadly spacecrafts from wormhole space, are remnants of another race that belonged to this period.

First recorded civilization starts again on four different planets: Caldari Prime, home to earth ponies and diamond dogs, both industrious and power hungry; Amarr Prime, with the coronation of the first emperor of the Amarr Empire, a glorious reign of both the noble unicorns and dragons; Matar, where the tribes of earth ponies, pegasi, zebras and griffons started to amalgamate into a single culture; Gallente Prime, a late bloomer but the newfound harmony between unicorn and pegasi led to a quick cultural and technological progress.
The first of them to reclaim space and warp technology were the Amarrs. They rebuilded the first jumpgate, marking this as the Age of Expansion, and started a crusade of conquest in the name of their Sun God. They would have been followed by the Minmatars but the Amarrs found them first and enslaved them. It is at this point when the body of Celestia is found, trapped in stasis and with few memories of the Forgotten Age. The Amarr described (and believed) her presence as the Sun God sending them his own daughter to strike at the last of the Minmatar resistance and serve as the empire champion to a new era of victories.
Shortly after Matar had been completely enslaved the Gallente rediscovered warp technology as well and made first contact with the Caldari. Toghether they restored a jumpgate, sparking a period of expansion which mostly benefited the Gallente. Discontent and resentment started developing in the Caldari and when the Federation was formed they were forced to join. In their exploration the Gallente were approached by the elusive Jove Directorate, another space faring pony empire whose members are heavily mutated by implants and genetic engineering. They presented the Federation with the revived alicorn Luna, founded in space like Celestia, who quickly became its new immortal, and most frequently re-elected, president.
Angered by the presence of Luna the Caldari seceded from the Federation to start the Gallente-Caldari war, shortly after the Jovians cut off contact with the Gallente. During the war the Amarr Empire made contact with the Federation, creating a culture shock over the discovery of another alicorn. After some initial contrast between the two factions Celestia and Luna signed a trade agreement, the reunion of the two sisters was celebrated with mixed feeling from both Amarr and Gallente. The Amarr later tried to move war to the Jovians but they proved more tecnologically superior and powerul than expected. With the empire crippled the Minmatar rebelled and went to form the Republic. Celestia, disappointed with the governing hierocracy, took full control over the empire to restore it, bringing new collaborations and innovations.
Even with the Gallente-Caldari war still going the various races finally joined together for creating new international offices like the police department CONCORD, to regulate trade traffic and relations, and the Interbus company, as delivery service and public transportation. The Jovian made themselves publicly know to the four nations, giving the first capsule to the Caldari.


***


-Ah yes,- Twilight thought -the first capsule, or 'the fish tank of horrors' as some texts describe it. Funny how it is now the single most wanted thing in the universe.- She opened a sub-window on the datapad for a description of the capsule: a hydrostatic space pod fitted with a warpdrive and a tank of ectoplasmic liquid. It was designed to sustain a single pony (or non-pony) and giving him the ability to mind-control an entire spaceship -If they could remain sane after the extensive neural wiring and induced coma that is.-

"Lady Eos, we have arrived." The white unicorn guard escorting her announced, they where in front of a door marked Clone Bay. Twilight put the datapad back in her saddlebags as the stallion wawed his horn in front of the magic scanner.

The door slided to its side revealing a long hall with dozens of tanks of a brown-yellow liquid, each of them sporting a floating unconscious unicorn or a lizard-like creature. One of said lizards, a purple one with green fins and wearing a brown and white navy suit, was outside the tanks and running towards them. It kneel in front of Twilight "Greetings lady Eos."

Twilight smiled and waved a hoof at the baby dragon "At ease Master Spike" Then she turned to the guard behind her "Please, leave us alone for a moment." The stallion respectfully bowed and left the room closing the door.

Spike rose from the floor and hugged Twilight "Is so good to see you Twi. Life in space can get pretty dull, and those robed douches are the stuarts of dull."

Twilight returned the hug "Come on Spike, you should show more credit to the priests. Their dedication to the empire is exemplar (as of course expected) and you wouldn't believe all the new spells they were able to teach me. The Capacitor-Magic-Inducer is the most commonly used of course, but there are interesting application of a long range Telekinetic Manipulator, and the Laser-Multi-Focus was..."

Spike rolled his eyes "Yeah, yeah, whatever, don't start lecturing me" Then casted a quick glance at the door "Isn't Celestia with you?"

Twilight let out a sigh "No, she had to remain in the station, a sudden diplomatic meeting. She IS the empress of the greatest empire in the galaxy after all. She said she will be on the mothership when I'll return fron the pilgrimage, you know, when I..." She let out a small shiver

Spike put a clawed hand gently on the side of her neck "Hey, relax. The first time is no big deal really. You just have to stay focused on the route and quickly avoid the rats on the way.  It only sucks when some jackass pilot menage to pop you for scoring some cheap points on the lame board." Spike furrowed at the memory, he too tried to pass the pilgrimage but was ambushed by some empire-space outlaws. The common pirates, or 'rats' are easy enough to avoid near the gates, especially tanks to CONCORD's turrets, but independent pirates are always trickier.

Twilight smiled and patted his head "Don't worry Spike, you're still a great pilot. The recordings shows all the amazing maneuvers you displayed to counteract those ruffians, and with a underfitted frigate no less."

Spike blushed a little and puffed proudly his chest "Well, that's exactly why we dragons are the BEST capsuleers. Our inner fire makes the weapons hotter and the hull becomes as tough as our scales. Oh, that reminds me" he grabbed Twilight hoof and started to lead her among the vats "Your body is ready, it was completed a few hours ago."


---


Twilight narrowed her eyes as she stared at herself. The clone floating in the vat was mirroring her perfectly, but then again the cloning vats were designed for this specific purpose. It was a pale purple unicorn mare with a white and purple streaked mane mane and tail, a thin white outline in the shape of a big six-pointed star with three smaller stars around it.

The clones of capsuleers were empty shells, waiting to receive the mind and soul of the pilot in case his previous body was killed while still in a capsule, with ponies magic and cutiemarks passed on the active clone as well.

In the stretching of the term they were mindless souless lumps of meat, but as she stared at the lump of meat made in her form Twilight couldn't help but feeling slightly insulted. She was Lady Eos, personal protege of holy Empress Celestia, chosen for her unprecedented magical powers and talents, respected by that title by all the high hierocracy. She was supposed to be unique, a paragon of unicorns everywhere, and here there was another exactly like her, created by machines who could now be easily replicated. It was a stupid though of course, clones were vessels for the real pony and his magic, she would had been herself in a new body as much as she was in the old one. Because of her magical power the clone vat had to be agumented, clones made exploration of deep space ruins safe and she always dreamed of becoming nearly immortal as her mentor, but still...

Twilight line of thought was distracted by a sound of dropped boxes, Spike immediatetly snapped into a fighting stance in the direction of it  "Who's there?" A pink form jumped from behind a vat and tried to make a run to the door, but the unicorn cached her quickly with her telekinetic floating her in front of them.

She was a young pink earth pony with pink straight mane and tail, her body had some old bruises and marked tattered rags covering her flanks showed she was a slave.

Spike growled menacingly, some puff of smoke escaping his nostrils "Identify yourself slave, now!"

The pink pony answered with a squeaky terrified voice "P-P-Pinkamena Diane Pie. I-I was assigned to c-clean the room. Please, I d-dindn't mean to eavesdrop, I..."

Spike flexed his claw "If that is all why did you try to escape?"

Pinkamena shivered "Th-this place is so creepy, it makes me so s-scared. They told me to work in silence s-so I couldn't laugh at all the creepy things in the jars so..."

Twilight raised an eyebrow "Wait, laugh?"

"Oh, y-yes milady" the floating earth pony waved her forelegs a little, feeling a bit relieved "See, my Granny Pie taught me that if something scares you have to giggle at it and the fear will go away. I always liked to laugh and I do it often, so usually the scary things leave me alone."

Twilight relaxed and released Pinkamena who promptly bowed her head, while Spike still had his gaze fixed on her "I see. Tell me, what is your lineage?"

"I'm a Minmatar milady."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Lady Eos, personal student of Empress Celestia."

"What are your other duties on this ship?"

"I am to arrange a welcome-back-from-the-pilgrimage party in your honor. Parties are my special talent you see." She lifted her rags revealing a cutiemark of three baloons.

Twilight blinked a bit surprised at such a talent, but she smiled an put a hoof on Spike's shoulder "She's good Spike, don't worry" The little dragon relaxed, the unicorn returned to Pinkamena "Empress Celestia herself will attend this party, it doesn't need to be sumptuous but you will show all the proper respect to Her Highness"

The earth pony bowed deeper "I will milady"

"Good, because I will begin my pilgrimage shortly and she will be here for my return."

Spike looked at his friend "So you're going now Twi?"

"Yes Spike, I've waited enough time." Twilight nuzzled the little dragon farewell and returned to Pinkamena before leaving the room "I like a lot the Andurian Cinnanom Rolls with whipped cream, think you can prepare some?"

The pink pony smiled but her mane seem to flatten more "Of course, cinnamon rolls are my specialty. Well my specialty are cupcakes, but as party planner I can make all kinds of sweets, so yeah, I can make a lot of them."

Twilight returned to the supercarrier hangars were her personal ship was waiting. It was a modestly fitted Punisher, one of the best Amarr tech one frigates on the market, a personal gift of the Empress. In order to fully become a capsuleer Twilight had to perform a pilgrimage to the New Eden system, trow herself in the ruins of the ancient EVE Gate and let the immense gravity field of the eternally collapsing wormhole rip her to shreds, the pilgrimage ship was specially rigged so her consciousness would have traveled back to her clone. It wasn't at all necessary and her current body had been already prepared to control a capsule, however it was a custom of the Amarrs for gaining the favor of the Sun God in their new life. Plus it was an opportunity to see the very birthplace of all civilization.

Twilight entered her ship and gave the destination to the computer. A flight in low-security space was usually uneventful for a quick and careful pilot, so she floated out her datapad and switched it to audio mode "Might as well finish my reading as I walk to my death."


***


The collaboration of the five nations brought new problems as well. Criminal syndicates started to form, the principal of which are the Angel Cartel, the Guristas and the Serpentis Corporation. More violent and deranged groups have also came to be like the Blood Raider Covenant.

When the Gallente-Caldari war finally ended the clone research was brought to attention. The modern Empyrean Age begins when the clone was successfully integrated with the Jovian capsule, and the capsuleers started to roam the heavens. Many of these new space pioneers have grouped together and moved to zero-security space, creating their own corporations and signing alliances. The borders map changes every month due to these factions battling for systems.
But as the scene pass to the capsuleers the five nations still maintain control over the core regions and invest on new research efforts and political intrigue. The Caldari-Gallente Crielere Project for example promised to bring the greatest scientific achievements in the history of Eden, but was quickly disbanded for its dealings with the Guristas. The Amarr Empire declared war on the Blood Raiders after their use of a modified Insorum as a genetic toxin on Mabnen I, exiling them to the Bleak Lands. Luna return once again to be president of the Federation by a narrow margin after the Caldari invaded Caldari Prime, returning their homeworld under the State control. An attempted assassination to Celestia is averted as the Elder Fleet disable CONCORD and attacks the Empire and the Ammatar Mandate, the war ends with the deployment of the Titan superweapon (it is presumed it was given to the empress by the Jovians). A new criminal faction, only known as the Nightmare's Nation, starts making brutal raids at the borders of the core regions.
A peculiar event of this period is the Rogue Drones Plague. An ingenious Gallentean inventor had the idea of creating super-advanced drones that could think and act on their own, essentially acting as computer controlled spaceships. The prototypes were encouraging and were developed bigger and bigger drones, but then disaster struck. Draconequus, the biggest drone created with bits of technology from all the nations, became unruly, then unmanageable. It linked with all the other drones infecting the A.I., taking control of the major drones and making them rebel. By attacking spacecrafts the rogue drones incorporated warp technology and spreaded in other systems, multiplying themselves by mining asteroids and infesting other ships. Drone superstructures have appeared in every corner of the galaxy and mobile hulk lairs go to wander in the systems, occasionally causing severe problem to the populations. Some drones have even started to manifest some form of chaos related mag...


***


Beep, beep, beep. Twilight hastily turned down the datapad as the alarm started flashing, somepony was locking her ship "What the hay!?!"

She had just come out of the warp bubble and was several miles away from her last jumpgate. From the wrecked remains of an Amarr cruiser a hidden spacecraft flew out to intercept her. It was a Dramiel frigate, an advanced capsuleer Angel Cartel ship, and it was reading its weapons.

Twilight tryed to stay calm and immediately flared her horn in the Magical Injector, sending a ECM pulse "This will slow his sensors. Okay, rule one of low security traveling: avoid engagements with bigger threats and use evasive warp."

The gate was too far to be reached in time and too close to warp to it, so Twilight turned to the nearby planet. Once warped she turned again to an asteroid belt "Rule number two: use multiple warps so the enemy will have more difficulties to track your location."

Once safe near the asteroids Twilight relaxed seeing there were no rats around to harass her "This is bad, with that pilot camped right next to the gate it will not be easy to pass trough, and I'm not equipped nor skilled enough to face a ship like that." She turned a screen on a map of the current system, calculating a possible approach "Let's see, he was on the route to the opposite gate, I could warp from the asteroids here... The Dramiel will be able to lock me but it had short range autocannons guns so... WHAT?!"

The Dramiel had already found her location and was slowing from warp, she had let her ship drift towards the asteroids so Twilight dived right into the field "Rule 8: if too near to an asteroid field fly through it using them as cover, it will confound your attacker giving you opportunity to escape."

Twilight was confident about traveling through asteroids. they followed common laws of gravity (except when filled with rare magnetic minerals) and her ship was fast and agile, plus only fools follow you in an asteroid field. Which was exactly what the Dramiel was doing.

"Hmm, he's a very good flyer, let's see if I can outsmart him" Twilight smirked and started some evasive maneuvers, diving rapidly to left and right, circling asteroids and making loops. But no matter what she did the Dramiel was still on her tail.

"Come on, don't you have anything better to do? I have to... What's going on now?" Suddenly she was losing speed, but her capacitor was still giving full force to the reactors "The hay... He's using a webber! He had me locked from the start, so why... He's TOYING with me! I'll have his flank..." But was interrupted as the ship trembled and flared alarms. The Dramiel had started firing and the shields were dropping fast.

Angry and nervous, Twilight tryed to came up with a plan "This Isn't working, What can I do to... Oh yes, let's try to bring the fight to a homeground."

Before departing she had bought a bookmark on the location of a deep space ruin, half a mind to give it a look if she got the time. Ruins weren't that uncommon but they required some effort to be located, with luck the Dramiel's pilot would not be able to follow her that easily.

Putting magic in the injector again she casted a shield recharger spell and gained some time to exit the cluster of asteroids, align the ship and escape.

After two warps Twilight arrived at her destination. It was a superstructure of some sort, probably an ancient Takmahl space station, carcasses of spacecrafts were floating around.

Biting her urge to stop for studying the ruin she activated the afterburner and directed the ship towards an opening "Rule 14: floating within a space ruin can easily conceal your presence. If I hide myself in there the pilot wont be able to locate me, after some time he will drop his pursuing and I can return to the pilgrimage." She noticed an interesting looking piece of scribbled space junk "A bit of a shame thought, this artifacts look amazing up close. Maybe I should take some time to... Oh you've got to be kidding me!"

The Dramiel had already founded her and was closing in "All right, change of plans. Rule 25: lure your pursuer into dangerous territory and try to trick him into a trap. This one would had been more useful if it made some example of setting traps in space ruins."

Once again they were locked into a chase. The afterburner was giving Twilight enough advantage so the pursuer couldn't use the webber, the guns were a problem however and in a superstructure there wasn't much cover.

"This guy must have set scan probes in the entire system!" Twilight winced as a lucky shot got her, the shield went down. She had taken the offensive as well, sending precise laser shots to the enemy guns, but that Dramiel was incredibly well fitted and resilient "Come on, there must be something I can use... Aha, that looks good."

She flared her horn and sent a telekinetic pull on a huge metal beam overhead. It tore from the structure making the passage collapse and blocking the way.

"Yes! Take that you annoying haysee..." Her moment of victory was cut short as the attacker made a quick acceleration and tore trough the debris, totally ignoring the damage to his ship.

Twilight gulped. She was sure now that this jerk was out specifically to hunt her down. Did some aristocrat paid him to make her fail the pilgrimage? It seemed that way, the nobles were angered that a commoner had become Celestia personal protege.

Well they would not have this satisfaction. She dived into a narrow passage, the ship gravity field making her Punisher slide trough the walls. The pursuer did not desisted and kept shooting at her, the armor started to collect bullet holes.

Twilight kept her focus. She was flying at maximum speed and had redirected all the capacitor to the afterburner. The ship was scraping the walls, adding more hull damage, but she had flew in the ruin long enough to have an idea of the its layout. She knew were she was going.... sort of.

The Dramiel was closing in, soon it will be in range to activate the webber and the game will be over.

Before that could have happened Twilight emerged in a larger section of the structure, the opposite side covered with wrecked ships and old fuel tanks. Twilight tried to steer, firing all her lasers at the tanks. With a loud explosion and a purple flash the passage was engulfed in flames.

The Dramiel emerged from the smoke, bruised and burned but mostly unscathed.

It waited for the smoke to clear. The ancient walls were blackened, the wrecks were reduced to small debris and part of the outer shell had collapsed. Twilight's Punisher was nowhere to be seen.

The Dramiel started to circumnavigate the area, looking for it's prey. It failed to notice a golden sheen flashing a moment from a small crevice in the structure.

Twilight was painting heavily. A second after the explosion she had teleported behind the wall and deactivated her ship completely. She only recently mastered teleportation and developed a way to applied it to the entire spacecraft, an extremely taxing feat, but she hoped it would work as a surprise for her pursuer. With a wheezing voice she menage to whisper "F-final rule of the book: If everything else fails just hide, play dead and hope the enemy doesn't find you."

The Dramiel made a cuple more loops in the blasted passage, then it passed over her spot as it left for searching other sections of the ruined station. Twilight noticed it had a crimson red mark on its sides, a minmatar-looking tribal drawing in the form of a eagle claw.

Twilight waited several moments before flaring her horn again. Her ship was in bad shape, the explosion had nearly tore down the exterior armor and parts the hull of the ship was exposed, and the capacitor nedded to be replenished before she would be able to fly again. Some repair spells will patch her up for a quick escape but she needed time and some preparations.

More time passed before the unicorn decided she had an opportunity. With a last flash of her horn she jump-started the ship, fired the lasers to tear away her hiding plase and made a run from the gaping hole in the walls.

Twilight noticed the Dramiel had caugh on and was trying to lock her, but it was too late. She already had started to warp to the gate and prepared her horn to give maximum strenght to the afterburner.

Before her pursuer could reach her she will be close enough to the gate to make a system jump, and she doubted the pilot would be willing to follow her to her next destination.

---

It was beautiful.

The New Eden system wasn't all that great. In truth it was the most bare system in the galaxy, a small white dwarf sun surrounded by asteroids and wrecks.

But in this system was the great EVE Gate. It was brighter than any star and it projected rays of iridescent light in the cold void. The Servant Sisters of EVE believed that behind the Gate was the realm of God itself, and Twilight was thinking that maybe they were right.

The orange glow of the Gate was sorrounded by a vortex of transparent clouds, throught it the light of the stars bent like they were ripples of water. That was the gravity field.

Twilight focused the ship optical sensors at the center of the Gate, the interferences made the screen blurry and disturbed but she could see something. They were sections a massive superstructure, even bigger than the one she had escape from, it resemble the common jumpgates and it beared the word EVE on its top.

"This is it then, the gateway through wich all our ancestors had arrived more than twenty millennia ago. By the Sun God, how I would like a piece of it." She couldn't owever, the gravity will have crusched her to a nanometer before she could even reach it. Se resort to do what all pilots do as they visited the Gate, she expelled a marked cargo container that will testify that she had been here.

Twilight turned off all sensors and safetyes, giving the autopilot a direct route to the center of the Gate. She had succesfully passed her pilgrimage and it had been pretty exciting too. Celestia and Spike will be proud of how she fooled that mercenary, and no doubt a noble somewere will be fuming with rage.

Perhaps she will request for the pink slave to pass under her care as her personal servant, she seemed like a nice mare and Twilight disliked when slaves were mistreated.

The hull started to groan as she continued to advance, it won't be long now. Twilight started to make a mental cecklist of all the skillbooks and implants she will have to buy for her planned skillpath. She wanted to start as an explorer and expert of all kinds of dead space and zero-security space artifacts, so she needed good scanning skills and a well fitted battleship.

Maybe she should add some drone support to be more safe. Learning is so exciting and she was the fastest learner to have ever come out of the imperial academy.

The ship was now deforming, alarms of structural breaches flashing everywhere. Twilight silenced them all, basking peacefully at the light of EVE. She return to think about the great Avatar Titan.

Could she one day become able to fly it? Her teacher suggested it once joking on her great abilities, but since then she dreamed about it. Being bigger than anything else in the galaxy, commanding an immense fleet in the name of the Empire, feeling the power of the sun itself coursing trough her, being almost a demigod like her beloved mentor forever.

As the magnetic force tore her ship and her body apart she promised herself that this will forever be her goal.
> Chapter 2: Incursion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 2: Incursion
"I know you better than you know yourself"

Darkness

Twilight was floating in darkness

Was dying like this?

It didn't feel cold, nor did it feel warm. It was more like... slimy

Yeah she was definitely feeling funky

...and wrong

This was wrong!

Twilight wasn't supposed to reawaken like this! The vat was to open BEFORE she regained consciousness!

-Calm yourself girl... must be a... glitch...- Twilight felt her thoughts sluggish. Slowly she opened her eyes, her vision was blurred by the ectoplasmic contents of the vat.

She made it! She was back alive in her new body!

And she was drowning

Vats and capsules were also life supporting pods, giving the clone nutrients and oxygen. Somepony had shutted down the systems and the fluid was turning to a murky swamp water.

Now Twilight went in full panic. She forced her sore forelegs on the glass and started banging with her hooves. What was going on? Why had she been left like this? Were was Spike? Were was... Pinkamena?

She saw a pink form on the outside of the vat. It was frantically moving her arms around the pod, shouting muffled cries around her. Twilight tried to call to her and tell her how to save her, but her lungs were filled with ectoplasm.

More seconds of confused terror pased before Twilight could hear a second more muffled voice. Suddenly the vat regained power and the liquid started to flush away. The vat finally opened and Twilight collapsed on the floor, coughing hard.

Pinkamena rushed to her to help her stand, she was crying "I'm sorry... I'm so s-sorry... I'm so sorry..." She hug her closely as Twilight sputtered the rest of the ectoplasmic gunk taking rapid ragged breaths.

"Wakey! Wakey!"

Pinkamena frozen. Twilight took a moment to recollect her thoughts and look around her. She was in a much smaller room than the drone bay and she didn't recognize the steel grey design. Spike was there, tied to a pillar and with a metal muzzle on his mouth, his white navy suit was torn. He was scared but relieved to see Twilight alive.

"You returned a bit sooner than we expected, at least that lousy griffon did part of the job good."

Twilight turned her head. Beside her clone vat, next to the emrgency console, was a juvenile dragon. He was eigth feet tall and his scales were dyed black, he had cybernetic hindlegs that allowed him to walk on two feet, a cybernetic left eye and a metal jaw. He wore a dark leather vest and was smirking at her mockingly "Hello princess, welcome back amongst the livings. How was the Gate? Did you see God?" He narrowed his eyes "Was he funny?"

"Who... who are..." 

The ship trembled violently, Twilight fell on her side but Pinkamena helped her again to get up. The cyborg dragon came closer to the two mares "You know, maybe is better that you have woken up. You're just in time to see the fireworks"

"What arAAAAAH!" The black brute yanked her mane and started dragging her forcefully to a  window. Spike trashed and muffled enraged through the muzzle, Pinkamena was terrified "S-sir, don't... don't hurt her, please!"

Twilight had enought of this outrage, she tried to call her magic but she could let out only faint sparkles "Oh, don't bother using your pretty horn, we put a spell shackle on it. Does thist mean that we're engaged?" The dragon grabbed her neck and brought her face to the glass opening, there was a silvery sheen on the hull of the ship indicating a stealth cloak "Here love, take a look"

Outside was utter chaos. The imperial forces, CONCORD and a few foreign vessels were fighting against an unknown fleet.

Twilight had never seen spaceships like those before. They were mostly black with a rounded design and wicked spines and blades. Basing on their size she could categorize frigates, cruisers and battleships. They fought viciously and with precise coordination, advanced laser guns tearing gaping holes in the imperial crafts, and they seemed to have suffered minimal losses.

But worst of them all was the mothership that was engaging the Celeste 18, the supercarrier were she departed for her pilgrimage. It looked almost organic and was pouring waves of fighter and bomber drones on the other vessel, two battleships circling it like sharks and firing mercilessy.

Finally the sperstructure cracked and the Aeon exploded. Twilight realized with horror how many unicorns and young dragon were being killed before her eyes, and even more if the present capsuleers didn't have other clone bays serving them.

Tears flow down her cheeks "Who are you? Why are you doing this?"

The black cyberdragon laughed "Why, to entertain Her Holyness Celestia of course. Didn't you amarrians always enjoyed carnage?" He dropped the unicorn back to the floor "Maybe you would like to know that we are attaking all the four empires, leading simultaneously four fleets in four different empire systems. We don't want to play favourites you see."

An artificial monotone voice crackled through some speakers "Master, it is unwise and unnecessary to discuss evil plans with the captives"

"Ah shut up, it feels good" He smirked again at the light purple unicorn "Besides she is cuter when she cries"

Twili... no, Lady Eos would have none of it. She wiped away the tears with a foreleg and looked sternly at the dragon "If this is about showing the empires how big and scary you are then why did you ponynapped me? Why going through the trouble of secretly invading a supercarrier and stealing my clone vat? Are you planning to use as leverage against Celestia?"

The cyberdragon dropped his smugness and shrugged "Don't need to do that, soon both her and Luna will be brought down. Special orders from the Big Boss herself, not any of my business." He returned to smirk "As for the how we had a rat on the inside."

"A spy? Impossible! All personnel of a supercarrier is stricly tested for loyalty and resolve and even the engineers are chosen for merits. You can't have currupted a..." Twilight stopped. There actually was a category of individuals who were often taken aboard without caring for their standing with the empire.

She turned to the trembling pony in the center of the room "Pinkamena?"

The pink slave kept crying silent tears "I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry..."

The cyberdragon went to playfully pat Pinkamena flat and dull mane "Oh yes. I know a simple slave with no forbidden implants couldn't pass all the security of the carrier, but miss Pie here have a very curious ability. By specific body signals she can predict approacing guards and safe routes. After the battle started she disabled the alarm and ejected herself, your vat and that annoying geko" Spike shot a look of pure hatred "with a cargo container. Actually I would like to know how she dragged that thing to the cargo bay without using wheels."

The speakers crackled again "Master, the rest of CONCORD have cleared the gates and joined the battle. The route is clear, I suggest to stop explaining the plan to.."

"The captives, yeah, yeah. Then stop suggesting and get moving Slave!"

"Warpdrive have already been activated master."

Twilight couldn't stop staring at the pink earth pony. Did she really managed to steal an entire clone vat under the empire nose? She also seemed a very fragile mare, and was visibly devastated to have ponynapped her. She had been beaten by amarr slavers, was Twilight maybe the only imperial that showed her some kindness? How in the name of the Sun God, Celestia and even Luna could body twitches made a pony able to predict what will happen?

"Hmph, I keep saying that we should use a wormhole."

Use a wormhole?

"Negative master. Calculations concours with Master Moon decision to use the gate route. We will have to drop the cloak to approach the wormhole and there are 63.41% chances of enemy detection" Some static and the ship trembled at the breaking of the warp bubble "Jumpgate reached, started hacking of internal records. The jump will be deleted from memory and this ship will not be recorded to have left the system"

The cyberdragon blinked for moment and hissed "Who is now bragging plans with captives?"


---


They were now in zero-security space

The travel had proceded mostly in silence. Twilight was next to Spike to confort the little dragon, he was angry and ashamed to have let his best friend be captured so easily. Pinkamena was crouching in a corner, she hadn't move nor spoke for the entire trip, her pink bright coat was now dull. The Cyberdragon was sitting on the disabled clone vat guarding the prisoners.

Through some more verbal abuse and the voice from the speakers Twilight had discovered that they were on a heavily modified caldari Rook, a combat recon ship. The black ships were of the Nightmare's Nation, a new criminal syndicate supposed to be a fledgling group of space raiders. Somepony got that wrong obviously.

This didn't make sense. If they wanted her alive why didn't they capture her at the pilgrimage? Before the dramiel mercenary she had already encoutered a rag tag group of Blood Raiders who tried to disable her ship, but the Angel spacecraft didn't even have a warp scrambler. It just let her run around in circles.

The artificial voice returned, Twilight was certain it belonged to a capsuleer piloting the ship "Master, an inconvenience has been detected"

The cyberdragon didn't stop staring Twilight "If it is some Covenant idiots or campers I'm not interested."

"No master. I'm observing a minmatar Cyclone in front of the next gate on our path. It is repeatedly sending interspace messages at our approssimative direction"

The dragon looked at the speaker narrowing his eyes "Should I bother?"

"It is a capsuleer master, she is using the encrypted channel 6.7.B"

"Ah yes, the minmatars we contacted. Is she asking about the earth pony?"

"Affirmative master, she is demanding the liberation of one Pinkie Pie"

"Demanding, right" He made a little laugh and returned to Twilight "Just fly around the moron and ignore her, we can't be late to deliver the cargo."

Pinkamena perked her hears and looked at the dragon with fear and confusion "W-what? But... but you promised that I could return to my friends! You... you promised..."

He leaned on the vat "Don't remember, now shut up."

Pinkamena made some trembling hoofsteps towards the dragon, she sounded desperate "No, I... I don't want to come with you. I-I know how creepy a-and ugly your slaves are. I don't want to become a True Slave. Please, I want to return to my friends. I want to be f-f-free and return to my friends... please... you promised me..."

"Oh for the love of..." The cyberdragon was getting seriously pissed, he turned to the pony but stopped. Pinkie was looking pathetic and utterly miserable. Her blue eyes were reddened by the tears, her mane and tail were iron flat and plastered to her body and her coat was turning a dull pinkish grey. Even the baloons of her cutiemark looked deflated.

The dragon shrugged "Ah heck! I don't know why but you being sad seem like the wrongest thing in the universe. Fine, I'll let you go."

The pink pony mane puffed a little "R-really?"

The dragon smiled and got up "Of course."

In that moment Twilight saw something strange going on with Pinkamena. Her hears suddenly started to flap, followed by her eyes fluttering and finally a hard twitching of her forelegs knees.

Pinkie's eyes shrunk to pinpricks "B-b-beware of opening d-doors..."

The black cyberdragon put a clawed hand gently on her shoulder "Slave, prepare the airlock. We're about to lose a passenger."

"NO! NO, NO, YOU CAN'T DO THAT, PLEASE!"

He had his back to Twilight, she saw her chance. With the magnetic band at the base of her horn she couldn't cast spells, but she could use the sparkling tip to fumble with Spike's shackles lock.

While the dragon struggled with a trashing pink slave the voice returned "Master, we have a situation"

"What do you..." The air in the room become filled with a bizarre electrical charge for an istant. Outside the window a soft bubble was expanding, revealing different cloaked spacecrafts.

"The Cyclone launced an anti-cloak bubble field, I wasn't able to disable it in time. We are currently engaged with enemy vessels"

The dragon throwed Pinkie to a wall "No shit! Blast their asses to dust. How many are out there?"

"Two Rapiers, one Arazu and one Hound bomber. We won't be able to evade before they'll scramble the warpdrive and block us with webbers master"

"How in the Queen's name did they know we were so close?"

"The most acceptable answer is that they detected a ship receiving their message and activated the field when they assumed we were in range"

A torpedo hit the Rook but caused only a mild shake of the structure "...So they just stood there hoping to catch an invisible ship? What kind of stupid plan is that?"

"A plan that worked!"

The cyberdragon turned back and got a gust of green flames right on his face

Twilight had weakened Spike's bonds enough for him to break them and they used the torpedo hit to cover the noise. Spike trow away the metal muzzle and faced his much bigger opponent with a cold glare. More torpedoes and missiles were hitting the spacecraft.

The cyberdragon put a hand on the left side of his face, he was fireproof but the implants were overheated and they hurt like hell. The black dye had melted revealing green scales "You look almost cute acting all tough like that brat. I'll give you a good long spanking before I gouge out your eyes."

"Come and get them!" Spike leaped forward aiming for the softer scales of the stomach, but the cyberdragon clubbed him with a fist sending him to the other side of the room.

Spike recovered quickly and took a battle stance with hands on the floor. The cyberdragon lashed the tail at him but Spike ducked and with a claw left three deep cuts in it.

"Hrrgh, you are really starting to annoy me. I don't have time to daAARkh..." Twilight had charged his leg headfirst and impaled her horn in the servomotors.

The dragon tossed her aside, another missile made him collapse on his knee. Spike took the opportunity and clawed his face

"ENOUGH!" He pointed a palm at Spike as electric jolts sparkled around the arm. Blue lightning erupted from the hand and sent the baby dragon flying straight to the empty clone vat, knocking him out.

"You little buzzards fight well, I'll give you that. Guess the priests are better trainers than they look like." He charged his arm again "Queen Nightmare want me to bring you alive, NOT to bring you intact!"

"LEAVE HER ALONE YOU MEANEY!!!"

Pinkamena jumped on top of the dragon and jammed a metal rod she found somewhere right in his cybernetic eye. An electrical surge exploded from the dragon's arm and coursed through his entire body, knocking away Pinkie. After some moment the creature dropped unconscious.

A few second passed, the battle outside still raged. Twilight was gently rubbing her horn counting the scrapes and cuts provoked by the broken metal leg.

Since the dragon didn't seem to move anymore she went to the shaking Pinkamena., her mane and tail were standing straight up, making her look like a giant dull pink brush. Twilight helped her to get on her hooves and the two mares' eyes crossed. The light purple unicorn smiled, the pink hearth pony hugged her "I'm sorry"

A small groan arose from the vat "Huu... m-mommy?"

"Spike!" Twilight broke the embrace and rushed to her friend "Are you hurt? Is everything okay?"

"Huurgh... give me a moment... yeah I'm fine. Did you clubbed that jerk?"

Twilight helped him out of the vat "Yes, we beat him."

"Good, good..." Spike noticed the pink slave "Ah yes, now is that worm turn."

Pinkamena didn't look scared, rather she turned her gaze from the little dragon in shame. Twilight put herself in front of her staring at Spike severely "Don't you dare Spike, she helped us."

"Help.. Twi, she sold us to SLAVER PIRATES! Who openly attacked the Empire!"

"Aren't the amarr slavers too? She was enslaved, mistreated and wanted her freedom back. If we would treat the minmatars with more respect things like this would never happen."

"But she..."

"Spike!" Twilight stomped a hoof "Celestia herself is working against slave abuse, and you have friends in the Ammatars who descend from slaves"

"...b-but this is serious! She attacked a member of the imperial navy and kidnapped you, Celestia own protege!"

"Yes, I know," More explosions from outside, they were a bit fewer now "but think about this. The capsuleers out there are trying to rescue her, in a way she helped us from the start of this fight. Don't you think that she deserve some forgiveness?"

"I... (sigh!) You're right Twi, I'm sorry."

"That's fine Spike." Twilight turned to Pinkamena who was now smiling weakly "Is not over yet. Your friends will not be able to disable this ship if we don't help them. We need to reach the onboard capsule and disconnect the pilot"

"First," Said Spike as she found some chains in a now open closet "let's make sure our friend doesn't go anywhere"


---


"What is this... thing?"

They had reached the command deck and disabled the capsule, but the pilot launched a last minute self destruction sequence. By dumb luck Pinkamena had stopped it (according to her she felt a burning sensation in her left hindleg knee, meaning they had to push the big button for a happy ending), but many systems were now destroyed. Twilight and Spike had opened the capsule to check the state of the capsuleer.

It was a diamond dog... or rather was. He had his limbs removed and replaced with skeleton-like implants, large portions of his face were exposed revealing metal plates and wirings. The capsule was designed to physically connect with the spinal cord. The creature was dead, probably killed in the aborted ship self-destruction.

"Pinkamena spoke of True Slaves. Is this what they look like?"

Twilight got distracted by a static crackle of the intercom, followed by a high pitched mare voice "There is a friendly outpost in a nearby system, follow us."

The unicorn returned to the flight console "I would do it gladly but I don't have the slightest idea on how to flight a caldari spaceships, and this is even an advanced and modified model."

There was some muttering at the intercom about useless amarrs "Just tell what's left of the computer to set me as the leading commander, the autopilot will do the rest."

Spike and Twilight finally menaged to enter in the capsuleers fleet (registered as the P20C Corp), the commander was the Cyclone.

The pilots were in bad shape, one of the Rapiers had critical damage and the Arazu had been destroyed. They were forced to take the damage from the Rook while trying to find a way to disable and board the ship. If Twilight and the others hadn't intervened all the scramblers would have been destroyed an the pirates would have escaped "Yes, it was indeed a stupid plan."

They arrived at a gallentean administrative outpost. In lawless territory capsuleers alliances could build their own outposts who worked as small stations, serving the alliance members. Normal stations were very rare and served usually as rest-stops.

From the map on a holographic billboard they were in the Querious deep space region.

They receved permission and docked at the bottom section of the structure. The hangars were of the caracteristic gallente design with curved edges and tall roofs, the Cyclone pilot told them to stay on the Rook fo the moment. Twilight saw various starships outside in a defensive formation, maybe a precaution for this new pirate threat.

They waited at the airlock. After a few minutes the doors slided open revealing a cyan pegasus with a red minmatar latex shirt, a rainbow mane and tail, magenta colored eyes and a cloud cutiemark with a rainbow bolt "Oh yeah! That is why they call me Rainbow Danger Dash."
> Interstellar Correspondents: Nightmare's Nation attacks
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------



The screen shows a caldari news studio with the IC logo on the background wall surrounded by the smaller logos of the empires. At the right side of the desk sits a light cyan earth pony with a white bobbed manecut. She wore a flashy black, white, and pink striped dress and big deep pink sunglasses

"I, Photo Finish, am bringing ze news!

Two hours und 14 minutes ago massive, unknovn fleetz assaulted Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar und Amarr empires in core region space."

Four holoscreen activated on the left, showing the battle between the black spiked starships and the empires' navy forces

“Zey arravd simultaneously in ze systems of Angur, Tama, Balle, and Kamela. Combined effortz of navy und CONCORD do not hat been able to repel ze invaders.

Ze shipz hat been recognizd as Nightmare's Nation's crafts, an emergent pirate faction. Ze most shocking feature ov ze attackers is ze apparent use of artificial wormholes for travel. No empire thechnology exist to create wormholes.”

A fifth screen opens showing Nightmare’s starships pouring out from a wormhole sphere

"Scientists describe zis as ludicrous as ze discovery of fluid schmoozed space.

Ze attack hat been on station and planetside as well. Empress Celestia, President Luna, major caldari corp leaders and prime minister Mallet Shakes hat been victims of assasination attemps. Zese were led by vat seemed machine-like cybor'gh."

One of the holoscreens changed to show Celestia speaking from a balcony to a large crowd of ponies and dragons. Another showed Luna with a foreleg in a cast while a young pinto colt talked on a conference podium. The last three were of the Caldari ad Minmatars leaders

"President Luna hav been injured but her secretary Pipsqueak assure she is safe. Celestia repelled ze assaliants wiz holy fire magics and excessive force. Zis reporter will NOT comment possible 'banana bag' joke involvd.

Zere is also confirmation zat Lady Eos, high member of ze Amarr Empire and Celestia student vas killed in ze attack. She vas on ze traditional amarr pilgrimage and her body vas obliterated by ze Nev Eden Gate, but her personal clone vas on Aeon carrier Celeste 18 vhen it vas destroyed.”

The screens disappeared replaced by a big one showing the black ships escorting cargo transporters through a wormhole

“After ze attack the pirates have abducted -zzrzh-eral civilian und military transp-zZZzrks- to unknovn... vhait, vat is vrong vhit -zZZRKSsSSsh- Interference? Zat is imposs-kSSSSsrzZZrzZZZrrrh- NO! Photo Finish will NOT -brzh- interrup-bRRRZZzzZZzrRRKSSSSSssssSSSssssh-

The screen faded to black, from the shadows emerges a pony figure. She has a black coat with unfolded sleek wings and a long sharp unicorn horn. She wears a bluish metal armor with a symbol on the chestplate. She has teal eyes with teal irides and slit pupils and she speaks with a seductive feminine voice

“Citizens of the empires, capsuleers, my dearest children. We are Master Moon, Queen of the Nightmare’s Nation. We have come to you with an offering.

We have attacked the empires and showed you our might. We have show you the ineffectiveness of your leaders in protecting you and your loved ones.

The empires are obsolete, pitiful covenants of greedy individuals that don’t care about the well being of the unfortunates. They crawl to their old morals and empty promises, lying to themselves and denying you your rightful chances to risen and be happy. They steal the fruits of your hard labor and grew fat and complacent.

The empires are crumbling, they had been for a long time as they can’t stop fighting and deceiving each other. The deep space alliances are no different as they leave you to fend for yourself against the wolves. They all ignore your plights, but We do not!

It is YOU who is the future. The capsuleers are the future. Nighmare’s Nation is the future. We do not squabble for wealth, we do not seek to be more powerful than our peers, each of us is entitled of the sweat of his brow and no one else.

We have attacked you, yes, but now We present you a choice. The New Eden cluster needs a new order, and Nightmare’s Nation WILL and MUST be the center of a utopian society of unity and peace. Join Us and you will be its exalted members.

Oppose Us and you will meet your inevitable end. We will vanquish your fear and We will commute your flesh to dust!”
> Chapter 3: Exodus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 3: Exodus
“Back were you began”

“DASHIE!!!”

Pnkamena rushed to the cyan pegasus tackling her to the floor into a tight hug. In that split second her mane and tail puffed out and her coat returned to a bright pink, she was crying again but they were more tears of happiness.

“YOU DID IT! You saved me! I know you would do it! They had been so mean to me. They had all been so mean and they won’t even eat my sweets! They told me my songs were boring. BORING!!! They listen to sad, grim, boring, preachy things all day. And that mean grumpy meany-pants-on-fire wanted to throw me out! Even after he pinkie-promised to me! But I know you would never break a pinkie-promise Dashie”

The pegasus was squirming under the pink smiling chatter-box, more surprised to her exuberance than anything “Huu... yeah Pinks, you know I would never do that. Could you let me go now? There is some stuff I have to take care ouMMph...”

Pinkamena planted her lips on hers into a deep kiss, Dash protested for a moment (a very short moment) but then she returned it “I missed you... so much... ”

“... mmmh... I missed you too...”

They kept kissing each other, tongues moving in their mouths. Dash hooves were caressing Pinkie coat, one rubbing her cotton candy mane, the other sliding down to her...

Cough!

Dash and Pinkie stopped. Behind them Spike looked disgusted sticking his forked tongue out, Twilight was blushing embarrassed coughing in her hoof.

Dash sighted annoyed “Right...” she districated herself from Pinkie and stood in front of the two amarrians staring unemotionally.

Twilight felt more awkward but smiled politely and bowed her head “Thank you commander for saving me and my dragon friend. As Celestia protege I’ll make sure to fairly compensate you for...”

“I don’t take money from dead ponies!”

Twilight was shocked “W-what?”

Dash gaze narrowed “Haven’t you heard the news? You’re dead! These guys wanted to take you and make it look like you were dead for good. Are you so stupid that you have missed your own death?”

“Dead? I... can understand using me for leverage on the empress, by why faking my assassination? I don’t..”

“Beside...” Dash shot an angry glare “Why should I risk anything to save not one, but TWO high-class amarrians uh?” She took a step forward “Do you know what you guys are to me?”

Spike put an arm in front of Twilight glaring at the pegasus, the light purple unicorn knew this situation could go out of control “Please commander, there is no need...”

“I’m NOT your commander! you are EVERYTHING I hate of my life! You amarr treat my people as savages and dirt. You have enslaved my best friend as a filly. Heck, the Minmatars could had been as strong as the Caldari if it wouldn’t have been for you imperial jerks”

“I fully understand your anger, but...”

“You understand NOTHING!” Dash flared her wings “I should have let you the Nightmares have their way with you, THEN you would have understood what my Pinkie had gone trough all this years”

Spike faced the pegasus “Why don’t you go ask somebody to drop a bucked of cold water on you? There is a crisis right now and it is effecting ALL the empires”

Dash snorted at the little dragon. Twilight horn shackle was removed on their way to the outpost but casting any kind of spell would have made the situation worst. Even with the Ammatar Syndacate the relation between the Republic and the Empire were extremely tense.

Pinkamena put a hoof on Dash’s shoulder “Relax Dashie, these are my friends”

Dash was confused “Friends?”

Twilight was surprised “Friends?”

Pinkie giggled “Of course you are silly head, everypony that is nice qualifies as my friend and you had been always been super-duper-nice, even after I... you know... drugged your friend and gave your clone to those creepy meanies... And I listened to all your speeches, the recordings anyway...”

Dash raised an eyebrow “What speeches?”

“You mean you DON’T KNOW? Miss Eos always talks about how mean the amarrs are to the minmatar slaves and that they should care because is the right thing to do. She don’t say to free us because that would be bad for her health, but many slaves like her,” She winked at a confused Spike “and any friend of a nice pony who is my friend is my friend too”

Twilight embarrassed blush returned. Dash look pensive at her and Pinkie, then shrugged “Well, alright. I don’t like this but if Pinkie say you’re cool that’s fine. Now if you’ll excuse me...” She opened up a wrist communicator “All clear guys, need a squad to take a look at this thing. Say, how many of the Nightmares were on board?”

Spike dropped his stance and relaxed, all this tension was making a number on his muscles “Only two, a big dragon guy with make-up and lighting powers an a freaky cyborg-capsuleer dog. The second creep is dead and we tied up the fat jerk”

“Awesome, now...” She let a group of three pegasi pass, a mare and two stallions “... I need to do some boring paperwork and patch up my squad. You... Eos must stay in the rook until is safe”

Twilight feared this “Do you think those pirates are already searching for me?”

“Well, duh! They want you and I don’t think is for your flanks. Which reminds me I also have to buy you some clothes. Ugh, I HATE go shopping!”

“Can I go?” Spike took a look at the hangars outside “I need to check out what’s happening out there”

“Sui yourself squirt, but I can’t let contact the empress. Pinkie, are you coming?”

“In a moment Dashie”

Raimbow Dash exited from the airlock followed by Spike, leaving Pinkie and Twilight alone. Twilight felt embarrassed again “Sooo... have you heard my speeches?”

Pinkamena giggled a little “Well, not directly. My master would never had let me go at a slave-loving conference, he...” Her smile dropped “...he shouted at me for suggesting it. He was always so mean and rude, to everyone. Once he discovered my secret toys and the copies of the recordings of your speeches”

She started shuddering, Twilight moved closer and hugged her “He beaten me and beaten me and destroyed everything. He forbidden me to ever sing or play or laugh again. That’s why I stole you, without laughter I couldn't take it anymore, I’m so sorry”

“No miss Pie” Twilight broke the hug and looked Pinkie in her blue sad eyes “It is me who is sorry for how the amarrs have treated you. A sweet filly like you should have never become a slave, and I promise you will never be one again”

“Pinkie-pie-promise?”

“Huu, indeed. Pinkie-pie-promise”

Pinkamena smiled brightly “Tanks, oh and call me Pinkie. All my friends and best friends does”

Twilight smiled and they hugged again.


---


“That is, hum, was an imperial navy suit right?”

Raimbow and Spike were walking on the catwalks of the hangars, the little dragons was removing the military decoration from the ruined clothes “Yep, first class corporal of the amarrian fleet. I also know Empress Celestia so just try to give me some respect k’?”

Dash snorted “Aren’t you a little short?”

Spike glared “No. If you must know we dragon age slower than ponies, and we can enter the army at a young age because adult dragons can’t fit in a capsule.” He tapped his chin “Come to think of it is weird that cyberidiot was so big... no it isn’t, dumb jerks are always big.”

Dash was forced to laugh at that “No kidding. I remember this red dude who kept snoring smoke and didn’t want to move, until I kicked his mug. Boy I run so fast that...”

“COMMANDER RAINBOW DASH!”

Rainbow gave an exasperated sigh and lowered her head “...and here comes the paperwork.”

A light blue unicorn mare with a silver mane, purple eyes and a flowing purple cape was trotting to them, followed by a tall and slim orange unicorn colt and a short and fat grey one wearing amarrian civilian dresses. On the rear was a mauve pegasus mare with a sun and clouds cutiemark.

The unicorn at the lead waved with her magic a datapad in front of Rainbow muzzle “The Great and Powerful Trixie demand to know the meaning of this! You sent your entire P20C corp to a gate camp against ONE capsuleer and you let it destroy a valuable tech 2 cruiser?” Trixie looked at the docked ships “Trixie’s will adjourn her estimations, you nearly lost a SECOND valuable tech 2 cruiser. If you plan on wasting spacecrafts then use a standard version.”

“We needed stealth ships Trix, it was a covert op operation. I’m sorry that Cloud Kicker arazu was popped but thanks to the salvage of that caldari baby, plus a nice bounty from CONCORD, we can buy a new one.”

The unicorn scrolled her datapad “Which bring us to the next fact that Trixie is not happy about. According to your corp member you openly engaged a new and dangerous faction that have just attacked all the empires AT ONCE! Do you realize what you could have done? While Trixie’s Warlocks are can perfectly defend themselves and Trixie our alliance cannot attract such attention. It lost sovereign of yet another system.”

Dash rolled her eyes “That's what you get when you call an alliance ‘Bob’s Empire’.”

“This is serious you rambunctious pegasus! The Southern Coalition is still ignoring us but The Schwartz alliance is gaining strength and pressing on our borders.”

“The guys with the custom triangular ships? Pffh, please, they are so lame. They think that weird-looking blabbermouths are cool, their goals make no sense and they got the most stupid ‘political structure’ I’ve ever bother to look at. Heck, you can’t even tell who’s in charge anymore!”

Spike scratched his head a bit confused. He planned to stay in the Empire and go hunting raiders an doing missions for amarrian agents, he didn’t know much about capsuleers politics. Groups of pilots banded together and often operated in non-empire space, alliance were groups of corps who could claim control of no-security systems and multiple alliances could form regional power blocks. Things are so easier if you just aim and shoot.

Still he may have to start learning some of this stuff “Hum... You said that Dash corp was named P20C? What’s that?”

Raimbow smiled proudly “Is the short name of my company, the ‘PvPing 20% Cooler’ corp”

Spike stared at her dumbstruck, Trixie rolled her eyes. Dash explained to the confused dragon “You know, as in ‘We do pilot versus pilot combat 20% cooler than other corps’ corp. I’ve come up with the name myself”

Spike raised an eyebrow “You do realize that you sat idly in deep space hoping to catch a ghost ship and than trying to disable it with torpedoes?”

“Oh yeah, pretty cool right?” Cloud Kicker facehoofed

“Nevermind. Listen I’ve got stuff to do, I’ll catch you later. Be sure to take care of... that thing. See ya.”

As Spike left Trixie return to scowl at Rainbow “Trixie will add ineffective planning and bringing non-alliance members on an alliance administrative outpost. Trixie’s will be sure to remember this disrespect on your part.”

The pegasus shrugged “Whatever. Listen Trix, it’s been kind of a rough day. Can you and your boys meet me at my quarters later to discuss this?”

Trixie was about to reply dryly wen her entire face became red and contorted in disgust “NEVER!!! The Great and Powerful Trixie will NEVER follow you on any quarter of any station of ANY system! ESPECIALLY not when the offering involve her cohorts!”

Snails looked confused at Snips “Do you understand what’s going on eh?”

“No, but something tells me we missed something fun.”

“SILENCE YOU TWO!!!” Trixie returned glaring furious at the smirking Rainbow Dash “Trixie will report personally to Bob of your insubordination and disgusting behavior commander Dash, we’re done here.” She left with the nose in the air and the two colts behind her.

“Still the same Dashie I see, but I thought you didn’t liked amarrs.” Pinkie came bouncing from the catwalk to Dash an Cloud Kicker.

“Trixie is gallente and those colts are planetside civvies and cool in my book.” She went to the other pegasus “Don’t worry about your ship Cloud, but I must ask you to take your capsule for a moment. Our special guest will need it.”


---


“Hey, that’s my clone! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY CLONE?”

Twilight used her telekinesis to shove one of Dash pegasi away from her vat, they had reactivated it using some loose power cables. The main control panel was opened showing the genetic readings, the operativity of the organic reconstructor and the supply of neural talismans.

“You are altering my complexion and hair pigmentation and... were you also trying to give me a MUZZLE JOB!? What the hay?”

“Hey, you are a wanted pony princess.” The pegasus at the controls was a cyan mare with a pink mane and two white bolts on her flank “You have to change appearance and lose your name if you ever want to leave this ship.”

“I knew that, but...” Twilight was hesitant. There were many who knew her face and titles, lady Eos the protege of a living god, slaver sympathizer and to whom Luna had dedicated an advanced command ship. She could safely use her original commoner name, it was remembered only by Spike and Celestia, her parents had died a long time ago.

But changing her features? Becoming somepony else? She had already struggled to accept living in a body that wasn't the real daughter of Dusk and Star Sparkle.  Many capsuleers were used to change their characteristics, but for her the idea was almost abhorrent.

“Listen, it won't be so bad. After a genetic alteration you must wait a year to make a new change and by that time things may have settled. Sometimes is fun to take a new look, I used to have a pink coat and a blue mane for example. And again, you don’t have much of a choice here.”

“(sigh!)... Fine, as long as I can revert to my original body (-how can a clone be considered original?-) but I will do it.” She tapped the console setting her new color pattern and adjusting some of her facial features “There, I guess this is goodbye Eos”

“Great, now the second phase” Twilight wasn’t listening, intent of seeing for the last time her pale purple coat, white and purple striped mane and azure eyes in the reflection of the console. She noticed however a hoof hitting her head and knocking her unconscious.


---


“...they are called the Wonderbolts and are the most awesome gallentean fliers ever”

Dash was laying on a couch and showing Pinkie a poster of three pegasi in blue suits and zipping Ares interceptors in the background. Pinkie was wearing now some loose beige pants and a brown shirt.

“I thought the minmatars had the fastest ships. Do they use some extra-spicy fuel?”

“Something like that, the capsule can add the strength of pegasi wings to the thrusters and making a ship go a bit faster without using modules. Can you imagine how awesome would be to flying with them? The crowds adoring you and shouting your name?”

Pinkie giggle and sat on the couch with the forehooves in the air “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash! WOHOO!”

Both mares were laughing together as the door opened. Spike had an annoyed look as well as the unicorn at his side, a purple mare with a dark purple mane with a pink streak in it and violet eyes. She was wearing a yellow dress, the star cutiemark was unchanged “You know miss Dash, even if in hiding Twilight is still a lady of the Amarr Empire. You should have asked permission for this.”

Dash waved a hoof “Not one for formalities, and it worked!”

Twilight glared at the pegasus “Hurling my body in a forced crash course to the center of a star was not necessary.”

“I needed to erase evidence and you didn’t fell a thing! And beside amarr throw themselves in the New Eden Gate like is a fetish or something.”

“That’s a ritual pilgrimage! A way to prove ourselves to the Sun God so he can grant us his blessing!”

“Yeah, whatever” Dash got up from the couch and went to a holoscreen on the wall. She turned it up to the galaxy star map and set some coordinates “This is the route you guys and Pinks will take to return to empire space. I’ve made a deal with a hauler to take the rook to the market and sell it, he will give you a ride as well and drop you to a minmatar station. I will escort you with my assault ship, spend some more time with Pinkie and then leave.”

The pink pony pouted “Haaaw, aren’t you going to stay a bit more Dashie?”

“Heh, I would, by I have a corp to take care of. Looks like thing are about to go down around here.” She returned Pinkie “Beside your sisters are waiting for you.”

“YOU CALLED MY SISTERS?!” Pinkie jumped on Rainbow “Ohthankyouthankyouthankyou! This is going to be the best family reunion party ever!”

Spike coked his head “Pinkamena have sisters?”

“Isabelle Lilly Pie and Bellamena Marie Pie, but you can call us Inkie, Blinkie and Pinkie because saying long names all the times is boring.” She hopped to Twilight “I can’t wait for you to meet them, we can have so much fun all together.”

“Yes, about that.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head “I can’t return to Celestia if they are looking for me. I have to lay low and discover why Nightmare’s Nation made me look dead an tried to ponynap me. I was wondering if I could stay with Pinkie for a while.”

“Hu? You want to stay with me?”

“Well, yes” Twilight looked at Pinkie a little embarrassed “I’ve been sheltered by the imperial life for a long time and I need to start a capsuleer career from the ground up. And I though that you too could use some help after... having been a slave. But since you are returning to your family maybe I should...”

“Are you KIDDING?” Pinkie squeezed Twilight into a tight hug “It will be super-duper-great to have you with us. Ooh! Ooh! Maybe we could adopt you! You can be our stepsister Twinkle Pie, that will be wonderful! Bigger families make for bigger parties.”

“Oh, hum, okay, thank you Pinkie." The unicorn was blushing and smiled fondly at the pink pony. She wanted her to... be part of her family? She considered Spike and (esitantly) Empress Celestia to be her only family left. Twilight was dreading to be alone, but Pinkie wanted her as a new sister and they had met not even a day ago. What monster could laid a single hoof to a filly so sweet?

Pinkie finally broke the hug, Twilight turned to the pegasus who was sitting bored on the couch "Is that okay for you miss Dash?”

Rainbow shrugged “As long as you are nice to her that’s cool for me. What about you squirt? Are you going to be little bro Spikey Pie?”

Spike crossed his arms “No, I need to go around ad do some digging. While Twi hides I can return in the Empire as a civilian. You told me that you revealed to these Nightmare creeps of Pinkies abilities but someone had to put her on the supercarrier. Who was your last master Pinkie?”

Pinkie rubbed a hoof on her foreleg at the unpleasant memory “His name was Prince Blueblood, he presented me to the black meanie and sent me to the big ship. He always bragged about how he was related to Celestia, but I don’t need my pinkie-sense to know it was a make-up story”

Twilight facehoofed, Blueblood was the most stuck-up, unbearable and bigot noble in the history of the Amarr Empire. He was also the first heir of the Hard-Chaperons Royal Family, the most conservative of the five major families in the Empire and the most hostiles at Celestia's moral propaganda.

“Great, I’ll try to find something to make him pay. And with luck I could even reach the Empress and tell her of the situation.”

“You should be careful Spike. We don’t know how many informants the Nightmares have. It will be best if we don’t contact each other if not it is extremely important.”

“You got it Twi, don’t worry.” the little dragon headed to the door “If this is all I’m going to wait in the hangars.”

“Coming Spike,” Twilight turned to the others “are we all ready to go?”

“Just a moment Twilight” Pinkie gave a big smile at Raimbow Dash “I’ve decided to become a capsuleer too Dashie, and maybe my sisters would like it as well.”

“Really? That’s great Pinks! What do you think you want to specialize as a pilot?”

“Oh I don’t know, but all these ghostly invisible surprise ships looks so cool. And if my pinkie-sense can work in a capsule it will come really in handy. I’ll be like a... a robotic space ninja who can never be surprised and no one can defend against. Woooh, that will be soooo coooool.” Pinkie grinned evilly at the future legends of the invincible pink ghost who stalks meanies to the far reaches of space to punish them.

Perceiving her thoughts Twilight gulped “The Sun God save us all!”
> Chapter 4: Pies Sisterhoof
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 4: Pies Sisterhoof
“BIT: Bread of Interstellar Trade”


That wasn’t bad as a corporation name thought Twilight.

It inspired a sense of family, of close friendship. The perfect representation of their relationship.

With her radiant joyfulness and uncaring for personal space Pinkie had manage what a living god-empress had never succeeded, getting Twilight to make new friends (her current condition of exile probably helped, but that’s besides the point).

Pinkie seemed unique, she recovered years of slaver abuse by simply seeing again her fillyhood friend. When she saw her sisters she she was so happy that gave a huge party in the station atrium. Station security had not been happy about it though and all were baffled as to were the pink mare had found party autocannons.

She felt a soft pang in the back of her head and a neural warning message. A flood of new information finally settled in her brain “I know Armored Warfare!”

“Already? That’s the third skill you maximize this week, do you realize that you’re putting capsuleers everywhere to shame?”

“Don’t be like that Blinkie, and there is so much more to learn. Exploration, fleet command, magic...”

“But is not fair! You’re progressing faster than me and Inkie combined!”

“I was one of the faster learners in the Imperial Academy, some of my teachers had problems following me... Aaand I can use my magic to boost the learning talisman a little.”

Twilight and the Pie sisters were currently in a low security system of the Lonetrek region, north of the main Caldari State’s sectors (coordinates in the galaxy refers to the four empires position: Caldari is North, Gallente is West, Minmatar is Est and the Amarrs are South). Using her scanning probes Twilight got lucky and found a hidden cluster of dilithium ore, main component for the antimatter reactor of the propeller beanie cap, and they had set up a mining operation.

Inkie was piloting a Retriever and Blinkie a Procurer, two mining barges designed by the Outer Ring Excavation company. The ORE was originally a gallentean unicorn prospectors group that found asteroids with the rare nocxium mineral, the discovery attracted partnership of dragons and diamond dogs. Rumors have it that the new company discovered a huge deposit in the Cloud Ring region, whatever the case it struck rich and became independent from the Federation. For some reason Celestia was always happy to inform her sister that she had made another (unsuccessful) business proposal with the ORE.

Twilight was inside a Harbinger battlecruiser. Before her pilgrimage she had trained as an explorer, so she already had a decent set of skills to help her scan systems to find ruins and drifting asteroids (and unpleasant pirate outposts). In the time she had spent with the Pies she focused on combat, ship spells, armor defense and now warfare links to boosting a fleet. She had been impressed by Rainbow Dash stories on how she led her corp against criminal outpost and outlaw pilots, she now wanted to speed her silly dreams and learn to be a perfect leader.

Finally Pinkie was flying a minmatar Rupture cruiser, looping around the asteroids and chasing her sisters mining drones like they were butterflies. She had been capsuleer for a couple of months like her sisters but she had progressed very fast. Pinkie have been their main source of income, she could accomplish agent mission incredibly fast and was the bane of Angel pirates for her ability to avoid enemy hits. Twilight had studied the genetics and neural readings of the mare’s clone, but the workings of the ‘pinkie-sense’ completely eluded her. In a moment of frustration she almost took the lifeless body to disembowel it.

Starting to work in the Minmatar Republic the mares progressively moved to the State. Twilight had tried to discover the reasons behind her ponynapping, or the nature of the Nation leader. All the empires were shocked that Nightmare’s Nation was led by a third alicorn. Celestia and Luna had denied every knowledge of the black mare, but from the conferences both leaders seemed nervous. President Luna especially was more and more distraught, maybe because of the spreading rumors of the similarities between her and Master Moon.

Nightmare’s Nation hadn’t launched any more global assaults, performing only brutally efficient raids. Their unexplained ability to create artificial wormholes made impossible to predict were they will strike next.

Twilight ship intercomm piked up a diamond dog voice “My cargo hold is full, I’m gonna take the stuff to the station.”

“Alright, see you in a moment” For the operation they have asked the pilot of a Mark II Badger to haul the excavated ore and sell it in exchange of a fifth of the income.

As the caldari vessel left Pinkie voice resounded in the communicators “Booooriiiing! There are only rocks here, have you finish yet?”

“Not yet, we just need to roll a few more rocks and we’re done.” Inkie replied calmly, her barge relentlessly cutting the asteroids and storing the minerals.

“But is so not fun anymore! I’ve already made a double space loop and upside down, these drony-scorpion-thingies make the same loop again and again and again. Can I shoot a missile to the rocks and make some fireworks?”

“That’s a horrible thing you know. Do you think they’ll like it?”

“Oh, you’re right. That was so mean of me, sorry. Oh, I know! I’ll sing a song about how boring mining is!”

Twilight groaned, feeling her encapsulated clone letting out a few bubbles of air “Not another of your songs Pinkie, forced skill-learning requires concentration!” but the pink pony had already started to clog her communicator with a soft romantic singing.

“You don't want to tell me
But somehow you've guessed that I know
When I fire lasers at you
To discover the feeling of digging up your rocky soul

I don't want to be mean to you
But I'd like to tell you what I feel
That this mining fell like a crescent
so boring that makes me reel”

“Pinkie, even if sound can’t travel in space some genius made sensors so strong that...” The rhythm became more rapid, Inkie and Blinkie were giggling a little to her frustration.

“For there's more ways than one
And the ways of the world are a blessing
For when Pinky's sisters are mining
She owes the world nothing
Because mining is so boring!

Pinky's as fun as the Fourth of July
Happy and giggling, seldom denied
The trial and the error of my master plan
Now she rolls around rocks like a bored farmer’s...”

“Pinkie came on! Just wait a little more and we can return to the station and search something interes... ting.” Twilight noticed that the communicator was silent “Pinkie?” she moved the optical sensors around but Pinkie’s rupture had disappeared.

Pinkie stopped in the middle of a song and made a eleven thousand, six hundred and fifty tonnes non-recon spaceship disappeared.

This could only mean one thing.

“Inkie, Blinkie, heads up! We’re about to get company!”

A group of gurista’s pirate ships came out of warp a short distance from them. The computer counted a Pithior Nihilist, two Pithum Erasers, three Pithi Wreckers and two Pithi Plunderers. Inkie and Blinkie moved into cover without stopping their mining.

Amarr guns had limited effect on the titanium diborite plates of the caldari armors so Twilight had bought a supply of Terror kinetic missiles for the rupture and multifrequency laser gems for her laser beams. She locked the enemy battlecruiser, grayish beams started to perforating its shield.

The pirates launced their own missiles and fired with hybrid weapons, sort of a cross of projectile guns with laser technology. As they get closer Pinkie moved out of the asteroids and jumped the attackers on the side. She swarmed a cruiser with three Vespa combat drones, firing with reckless abandon. The guristas scattered, the cruisers trying to counteract Pinkie wile the rest moved on Twilight.

The unicorn kept her assault on the leading ship, letting her own drones taking care of the small frigates. The Nihilist shield fell but her beam guns were barely scraping the armor “An armor tanker hu? Guess I’ll have to add an extra punch.” she flared her horn and pumped some magic in the guns, overheating them and increasing the strength of the lasers.

Suddenly she heard a faint noise and her weapons lost focus, one of the Wreckers was jamming her with a tracking disruptor “Well, sometimes the rats can give you a little work.” she flared her horn letting out a ECM burst, all ships in the area lost the locked targets. She targeted the guristas again concentrating fire on the frigate first.

Soon the enemy spacecrafts started to explode. Twilight wasn’t really comfortable to kill non-capsuleers, even if they were regarded as nothing as scum and target practise.

Pinkie disposed of her pursuers easily. “Ooh goody, now we have bounty and salvage to add to our stash. How many more BITs before we can start our own corporation?”

Twilight activated the armor repair system “Just a few more. I want to be sure we have enough money to cover expenses and taking some rest from agent work.”

“Rest? How can we rest? When we start our corp I’ll have to trow an inauguration party! Such a shame that security never let me use my party autocannons.”

Blinkie took the intercomm as her asteroid disintegrated into dust “Another rock out. A couple more and we can leave.”


---


After Twilight’s harbinger fully docked to the caldari station her capsule ejected from the ship and flew to her corresponding quarters. Nothing fancy, a single passage in the wall of the hangars leading to a medium apartment with bedroom, bathroom and a living space. Like the rest of the station it had a heavy industrial look to it.

She put on her yellow dress and look at the curved holoscreen in the living room, it was transmitting the recent updates about the Sapphire Shores-Hoity Toity scandal. The time display showed it was almost time for her friend to make his call, he sent her a message yesterday about something important.

Twilight grabbed a carrot quafe soft drink and sat on the central sofa, a prime quality sofa from the Quills and Sofas emporium (she wondered the logic of selling only two things, one of which was utterly useless). She started checking some new ship fitting on the table holocomputers.

After some time a happy sing-song voice resounded from the videophone “I brought you a message!”. Twilight opened the second device on the table, a holoscreen rose showing a the flashing Interbus mail service, seven bubbles.

She pushed a button and the face of Spike appeared on the screen. “Hey there Twi, how are you doing?”

“I miss the imperial palace lavatory, and the price for Energized Thermic Plating is ridiculous here. Aside from that I’m good, got more BITs today and we will start our corp. Did you menage to contact Celestia?”

“No, with the last assassination attempts she is inapproachable. Beside if I try to get closer I’ll have to reveal my identity, my name is recorded amongst the dead of the Celeste 18 along yours. I’m not sure how high is the risk of the Nation or their lackeys of using me to find you. Have you discovered anything about them by the way?”

Twilight look depressed at the grey ceiling, taking another sip of quafe “No, nopony seem to known a thing about them, only that they’re are dangerous. What have you found?”

“Do you know about the Nighmares taking over the Traumark?”

“Of course, it was on yesterday morning news.” the Traumark Installation was the main trading hub and fortress of the Tash-Murky region, territory of the Murky royal family if the Amarr Empire. Very recently Nightmare’s Nation forces had conquered and destroyed it dealing a consistent blow to the Empire economy “What about it?”

“I’ve made some connections in CONCORD, I’m Assistant Officer Drake now by the way. According to them the attack wasn’t so strong as the media described it. The defences had been lowered and the Nightmares knew exactly were to hit to bring the whole thing down.”

This wasn’t good “Do you think they had another spy?”

“I know this for sure. The Murkys are the richest family in the Empire, they took badly the loss of the Traumark. Recently they also become political opponents of Blueblood.”

Prince Blueblood of the Hard-Chaperons family, the traitor who sold her and made Pinkie cry “Are there any evidence of this?”

“Not yet. CONCORD is about to launch an assault on the remaining Nation forces, but you can bet Blueblood will make anything about him disappear.”

Twilight hung her head “Yeah, I heard he is gaining a lot of influence with his new Equilibrium of Ponykind movement.”

“I think we have a possibility however. There are many contracts asking capsuleers to help in retaking the Installation. It’s a long shot, but we can use this to pick up some juicy information without anybody noticing.”

“Hmm...” Twilight tapped her chin “Yes, we could try to hack in the Nightmares’ outposts, but we must act swiftly and undetected. Cloaked recon ships... We need Rainbow Dash!”

Spike nodded “Indeed, I’ve already called her. She have another meeting to attend to but she will see you as well. I’m passing you the coordinates of the station, is in minmatar space”

Twilight laughed a little “Excellent work Spike, you are indeed my number one secret agent.”

The dragon smiled proudly “Of course I am. You can pay me with some crunchy Pyerite crystals.”


---


After docking their ships the four mares took the Interbus train directed to the Central Market Section, stations were so big that they were considered as orbital metropolises. Twilight had always been intrigued by the minmatar look, a slightly chaotic composition of ladar sensors, solar panels, frameworks and fernite carbide composite plates. A recurring joke in the other empires was that minmatar ships were held together with duct tape.

The station they arrived had a great welcoming hall with with kiosks, snack vendors and a small banking office. A wide opening led to the market itself, a huge main corridor with clothing shops, electronics shops, antiquities, booster drugs, restaurants and (Twilight mentally memorized the locations) small libraries. Costumers and visitors walked and trotted amongst stands of local food and crafts, a Zebra with a collection of finely mouth-carved wooden statuettes, a griffin selling spiced pastries and so on. Some earth pony musicians were playing folk music with tubas and accordions in a corner.

Instead of antiseptic and orderly open spaces like in the other stations minmatar markets were usually bazaars of different races, sometime even rustic. With so many odors in the open, both from food and people, sounds and colours they could create a more lively and comforting atmosphere than the common sterility of space. The Rens trade hub in the Heimatar region even had a recreation of the floating market of the matari city of Buckkok.

Inkie hired two pegasi buggy-drivers and the mares flew above the crowds. Twilight sat next to the gray Pie sister “You know Inkie, in the amarr stations we use cart transportation too. Rich clergyponies and aristocrats pay well to be hauled around by a fiery dragon or griffin.”

“Wow, that must look impressive indeed. But isn’t the griffin race a matari bloodline?”

Twilight blushed embarrassed at her mistake “The... the griffins are workers from the ammatars, but often we use slaves, as well as... pegasi... slaves. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

But Inkie simply smiled “Is all right, we heard what you said about slave abuse. If it weren’t for your morality Pinkie would have never found hope to keep living that way.” Twilight smiled back.

They finally arrived at the meeting place, the Lost Enterprise bar. Dash and her entire corp was there, she was talking to a orange earth pony with a blond mane and a grey caldari jacket, three red apples as cutiemark. She had the accent of the southern State region of The Citadel. “...and don’t think ha’ forget them interests. Mah work isn’t to cut out slacks fer too-lazy-tah-bother creditors!”

“Ah come on miss A, I’ll pay you back, I promise. I just need to find a big enough job and...”

“HI DASHIE!” Pinkie Pie skyrocketed between the legs of two confused dragons and run to hug Rainbow “WOW, I wanted to see you again so much! All this time I’ve trained in all those things you suggested me, and I’ve been having so much fun in running around and popping meanies. It got boring now because we had to dig boring rocks, but with you with us it will be super fun again!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow confused “Uuh... who in tarnation is this here filly?”

Rainbow took a moment to recover and gave a sheepish grin at the orange mare “She’s my friend Pinkie, yeah. We... got way back.”

“Yup, me and Dashie were fillyfriends, until some nasty slavers raided my colony and made me a sobby slave. But that’s okay now because she saved me and I’m a super-cool capsuleer and...”

“‘Kay, ‘kay, ah’ve got it!” Applejack waved a hoof dismissively “Now if ya could give us a moment we need tah conclude some business here!”

“Pardon me,” Inkie, Blinkie and Twilight arrived at the table were the two mares (and now Pinkie) were sitting “but who are you and what kind of business do you have with Rainbow Dash?”

Applejack snorted annoyed at the increasing intrusions “Name’s Applejack. If y'all must know RD here hafta give me back BITs I loaned ta her, lot’s of em.”

Pinkie gave a questioning look at Dash “You have debts? I thought you had still a lot of money when we left you.”

“Yes, well,” she leaned her head on the headrest of the seat “we lost a few more systems so the Lame and Incompetent Trixie suggested the most suicidal strategy ever. We drove back The Schwartz forces but we lost a lot of ships, so Bob had to take money from the corps to cover all the losses.”

Twilight cocked her head “So you asked a loan from another corporation in your group? Shouldn’t every alliance have a common bank account?”

“Actually miss, ah am not from Dashes alliance. Me and mah folks, Apple Core Mining, are still independent.”

“Anyway,” Dash poured herself another drink from a bottle of caldari vodka “most of the money was to rebuild space installations. Me and my guys didn’t have enough to buy us new ships and almighty Bob was too busy to give us a hoof, so we left.” She pointed a hoof at Twilight “I’m loyal to my friends and to my superiors, but if people don’t respect me or my friend they don’t deserve any piece of the Dash.” she smiled and winked at the unicorn, leaving her mildly confused.

“So she came ta me and asked to lend her some BITs for a spell, and now she’s late fer the last payment.”

Inkie tapped her chin “I see. And how much money Dash owes you?”

“thwenty three millions an six hundred thousands BITs, plus interests.”

Inkie made some calculation and than spoke “Maybe there have a solution for that. We wanted to ask Rainbow to help us on some CONCORD contracts, pretty good ones too. After we are done she surely will have more than enough money to pay you.”

“That may be so, but she hafta pay today. Ah ain’t supposed to let a creditor slip a payment or every kind of thieving varmint will know ah go easy on creditors. Standard caldari policy ya see.”

Twilight stared the orange pony almost shocked, were all caldaris loan sharks or were they just paranoid about money? “Hum, maybe we could give something for...”

Dash snapped “I’m not taking any charity from anypony! I can sell some ships and old modules to make up for it” she drank the last sip of vodka and got down from the chair. She turned to one of her pegasi, a brown colt with a blond mane and grey jacket “What can we spare Money Shot?”

The colt groaned as the other pegasi snickered a little around him “My name is Cashier.”

“No it isn’t,” Dash smirked “after that night your name is Money Shot. Now, start making some dirty talk about BITs raining down on me.” Twilight blushed, Pinkie giggled and Applejack tilted her head confused.

“(sigh!) All right. We could sell the industrial ships, since we don’t really need them for now. Adding to the salvage from the last raid... let me see,” he pulled out a calculator from his saddlebags and pushed some buttons “We still need seven millions and four hundred thousands.”

In that moment Twilight remembered something Celesta mentioned a short time before she was ponynapped. The information wasn’t that useful to her but right now it seemed the perfect bargaining tool “Excuse me miss Applejack, maybe I know how to make you cover up the rest of Rainbow debt.”

“Oh? Are ya one of those gallentean market experts? No offense but the Apple family been in business fer generations and know how to buck markets sales to the top. Ah don’t think any of yer tips can help me that much.”

“Actually I think this tip might interest you. I’m assuming your corp specialize in harvesting asteroids belts, correct?”

“Yeah, actually we’re doin’ some space varmints hunting too. Never shortage of them pirates I reckon.”

Twilight leaned closer, making sure nopony else were listening “I know, from personal sources of mine, that the empires are planning to release a way for capsuleers to mine planets.”

Applejack tilted an eyebrow “What, yer talking about fancyer moon harvesters? Ah don’t have a tower station yet ta build them.”

“No, there is no need for a pilot owned tower installation. With a special orbital platform you can organize a command center on the surface of a planet and connect it to mining factories. Is all automatic, so you only need to check once in a while to collect minerals and organize the structures.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes “That sound mighty nice, but who exactly are you?”

“You’re right, sorry if I didn’t introduced myself. My name is Twinkle Pie.” Twilight, for most of her dealings, used the name Pinkie Pie ‘adopted’ her with. It was a very cute name, and Pinkie was so happy to treat her like another sister.

Applejack however glared at her irritated “Yer lying!”

Twilight look the orange mare confused “Uh, no... my name...”

“Have nuthin ta do with breakfast snacks or pies. Ah can see when ponies lye ta me, and I can’t trust a pony who doesn't speak in perfect honesty.”

Twilight looked around, Inkie and Blinkie were a little alarmed, Pinkie was simply watching interested and Dash shrugged “Just be honest, she likes honest.”

Twilight returned to Applejack and talked lowering her voice “My real name is Twilight Sparkle. Please understand that I have reasons to hide my identity to most strangers. Is nothing illegal, but there are people looking for me with bad intentions.”

Applejack stared at her for several seconds, than she relaxed and hoped down from her chair “All right, I’ll not poke my nose in your problems. So you were talking ‘bout planetside mining?”

“Yes! These structures aren’t on the market yet, but after a few days they will release the books with the skills to operate them and analyze planet geology. I think that with the current Nightmare crisis not many people will know about the offer so you could start before anypony else.”

Applejack tapped her chin “Hum, mah brother Mac works as a director of Interbus food and ore transports. He could find me some of them books before they hit the market and maybe even these new gizmos. All right miss Twilight, ya got a deal.”

“Good, I’ll leave you sort things out with mister Mon... er, Cashier then. If you got a moment Dash I need to explain What we must do.”

While Applejack was busy got his money cashed in, and trying to be explained from a blushing Cashier what Dash meant with raining BITs, Twilight led the cyan pegasus to a more secluded part of the bar. After explaining the plan she wasn’t exactly thrilled “Why the hay should I help the amarrs to get back one of their fortresses?”

“Technically you won’t, we will do the fighting wile you sneak behind the lines and collect informations. With luck we can frame Blueblood for treachery, don’t you want that?”

“‘Course I want that! I want to see that featherbrain beat up to a pulp for what he did to my Pinkie.” she shot a look at the Pink pony who was picking an exasperated Cashier about night performances “But to get near I’ll have to help you with some firepower, I know how nasty these Nightmares are. I’m not comfortable fighting with and FOR the amarrs, is against my principles!”

Twilight rolled her eyes “You should drop your pride then, the Nightmares are a danger for all the space empires. Master Moon is counting on our prejudices and mutual hate to keep us separated and weak. The sooner we make a common stand against her Nation the better.”

Dash snorted “I see your point, but I still don’t like it.”

Twilight put a hoof on Rainbow shoulder and smiled “You said that you could give your loyalty to those who respect you and your friends. I’m doing this not only so discover what the Nation want with me, but to bring to justice those who have made Pinkie suffer. And I want you to be with us so that Pinkie can be closer to her best friend.”

Rainbow looked at Twilight’s eyes and blinked, she than stared at her convinced and with a confident grin “All right amarr, you get the Dash. Let’s get our business done so we can go out to kick some flanks.”