//------------------------------// // Desperate Manuvers // Story: Adventures Across Space // by zalla661 //------------------------------// Trixie and Pinkie stared in shock as large brown human like creatures beamed aboard the ship and began to attack the Empress with large curved swords and disruptors. The empress deflected the bolts with a magical barrier she erected around her and her horn pierced through the Klingons armor like with was nothing. Two Klingons noticed Trixie and Pinkie and went after them a the dead end of the hall. Trixie pulled her disruptor out and shot the first Klingon point blank in the chest. The second got a faceful of confetti from Pinkie’s Party Cannon, which seemed to appear out of nowhere. Trixie looked bewildered at the large blue cannon before shaking it off and shooting the confused Klingon square in his chest. Using the confusion of the boarding Klingons Trixie and Pinkie slipped into the destroyed turbolift. They could see up where Empress Celestia tore through. Using the opening they quickly climbed up. Pinkie slipped her Party Cannon into her mane and went first as Trixie straed at her in disbelief. *How does that thing fit in her mane!?* she thought to herself as she followed Pinkie up the shaft. They climbed on either side of the turbolift tunnel where the turbolift rails were and used the emergency ladders to climb upwards to the next level. The sounds of battle and death cries echoed in the turbolift as they made their hasty retreat. Then about halfway to the next deck a Klingon screamed signaling his imminent death and from beneath the Empress looked up at the two fleeing ponies from her spot in the destroyed lift. Once they were at the next deck Trixie looked back down. She used her magic to holster her disruptor pistol and released the clamps that held the damaged turbolift in place. The Empress had a look of shock as the lift suddenly feel to the dark depths of the shaft. Sighing in relief Trixie continued after Pinkie who was working on getting the shaft doors open. On the bridge Commander Octavia was having a very bad day in what seemed to be a series of unfortunate events. “Commander, disruptor batteries have been exhausted, and we have only twelve torpedoes left in stock,” Claw said as the disruptor arrays went offline. Octavia groaned achieving for the hundredth time it felt at the news. “Commander, the squadron is reporting that enemy fighters have begun to pursue them along with the Klingon vessels. Archer is on his way with Columbia to support,” Lyra said from her station. *It was nice to have a bit of good news for once.* Octavia mused ruffling her unkempt mane. She took several calming breaths, and closed her eyes. She tried hard not to focus on anything around her for a short time. It was an exercise she did with Trixie back in the academy and it had served her well over the years as a means of temporary stress relief. With each breath she took the world around her faded out. The alarms were silent once more. The commotion on the bridge was a simple harmony of white noise to her. The smell of burning iron and plasma burns became a welcoming scent. It took but a moment for her body to relax to an optimal state before Octavia opened her eyes moments later. Years of practice had honed this skill to a science for her. Having an obnoxious marefriend like Trixie made it easy to get said practice, though Octavia would never tell her that. Once her eyes were open Octavia rna through a series of thoughts in her head. Their weapons were all but gone. Shields were on the brink of failure. Hull integrity was compromised, to say the least. The only saving grace was the comms, and life support were unaffected it seemed. All in all not a good situation to be in. Just when Octavia was about to give her next order Lt. Sunset Shimmer stepped to her side as the ship took another hit. “Commander, Ensign. Scratch and I have finished the modifications to the deflector array. We’re ready to test the new weapon,” Sunset said with a cocky grin. Octavia nodded taking note of the unicorn mares grin. Something about her was off. Sunset Shimmer took the nod from Octavia as a “go” signal and went back to her station by Vinyl Scratch. The visored pony was huddled over her console and running calculations and power distribution flows and redirecting them to the deflector array. Sunset Shimmer stood by her side and the two exchanged a brief dialogue before Vinyl started drawing power to the deflector array. *Enterprise Bridge* Archer was pacing again around his seat. The turbolasers from the station were proving ineffective to the Hydra’s shields. The Enterprise however was taking minor cosmetic damage from the lasers. Columbia was in a similar state as the two ships flew side by side into the depths of the Sol Dios. Archer was pursuing the Klingon attack force into the station afraid they might compromise the operation to destroy it. With mere minutes left there was no room for error. Archer had ordered Enterprise to enter the weapon port to assist their allies. Columbia followed close behind.Archer knew the Captain of the ship well. Erika Hernandez. Captain Hernandez was a close friend of Archers and a welcome ally in their desperate hour. She would help him and die by his side no matter what. She was a good friend and a loyal officer to Starfleet. He did however have an advantage that would hopefully pay out in the end. He thought back to his gamble and hoped he made the right choice. As they approached the core they were greeted by a wall of high yield missiles. Both the Enterprise and Columbia flew to the upper portion of the core chamber where the Hydra was fending off several Romulan, Empire, and klingon vessels. Although the Klingons were a third party attacking everything in sight that wasn’t Klingon. Just as the Enterprise and Columbia came within weapons range Lt. Reed got a proximity warning from his tactical station. “Captain, I’m reading a power buildup from the Hydra, sir.” Archer quirked his brow stepping towards Lt. Reed. “What kind of power buildup? It’s not dangerous is it?” Archer asked worried his allies were critical. Malcolm Reed shook his head after reading his scans over. “I don’t think so, sir. I think it’s intentional.” Archer thought it was odd. What could they be doing? He thought. Just then Archer watched as the Hydra made a dive for the core with the Avenger and the Romulan ships at her tail. The fighters and bombers from the Hydra returned to the ship as the energy buildup reached a critical point. Archer and the crew watched as the Hydra circled around the core repulsors. Reed watched his console to see the Hydra was building a critical amount of energy. Meanwhile T’pol was monitoring from her station conducting a series of scans when the hydra released a powerful shockwave of energy around it. The shockwave expanded all around the Hydra like a bubble that knocked out several systems onboard the Enterprise. “What happened?” Archer asked as the lights died across the ship. “Status report!” “We’ve lost main power. Engines are offline,” T’pol said calmly. “What can we do?” Arched asked, stumbling over to T’pol as the ship shook. “I’m attempting to bring main systems back online.” As T’pol said this the Enterprise began to slowly descend towards the core due to gravitational forces pulling them with no propulsion. The Columbia too was succumbing to the gravitational forces and falling behind the Enterprise towards the core. The Romulan ships and the Empire ships collided with the core. The impacts caused severe damage to the core and its shielding. The Avenger collided with one of the Romulan vessels and was split into two. When that happens the Enterprise and Columbia regained power and joined with the Hydra as it circled around the power core repulsors. “Captain, I’m receiving a transmission from the Hydra,” Hoshi said. “On screen.” On the main view screen Commander Octavia came to view in the captain's chair on the Hydra bridge. Archer stood by his seat holding himself up with the chair. “Commander, what’s going on? What was that shockwave your ship created?” “There’s no time to explain Captain Archer. We are at the brink now,” Octavia said with a wistful tone. “Our weapons aren’t enough to destroy the core. We’ll need help.” Archer looked at Lt. Reed and gave him a silent nod. Reed nodded back and prepared all their weapons while Archer addressed Octavia. “Commander, what do you need from us?” Archer asked. “We need your help to destroy the repulsors. Once that’s done we can destroy the core and escape through the weapon port.” “Understood. In the meantime we’ll-” “Captain, I’m reading a subspace distortion coming from the Avenger.” Archer looked at the view screen as T’pol brought up an image of the two halves of the Avenger falling towards the reactor. Then the two parts of the ship suddenly stopped in place and became suspended in place as T’pol monitored the subspace distortions coming from the ship. *Warship Avenger* Heiress Luna gasped feeling her head throbbing. She lay on the floor as the ship was falling apart around her. Her ship's alarms were blaring, and the remainder of her crew was trying to get to the escape pods. Heiress Luna rubbed her sore head as she tried to reach for her command chair when a crew pony came to her and helped her up from the floor. “Heiress! We need to get off the ship! The crew has already evacuated we should-” *BWA HAHAHAH!* Both Luna and the pony looked terrified as a high pitched cackle echoed throughout the ship. The two ponies looked around in fear as the laughing intensified. Then from around them a slithering mismatched being formed around them. It was a serpentine creature, with a brown body. It had a goat like head with a lion paw for one arm and a eagle claw for the other with two mismatched legs of a goat and dragon with two tiny wings on its lower back. The creature wrapped around Luna and the pony and gently around them. The creature gave them a cruel grin as he placed his face against Luna’s. The creature patted the alicorns head gently as he looked into her eyes with his deep yellow ones and gave a hearty chuckle. “Hello, Lulu. How looooong has it been?” “D-discord… Gods help us…” Luna muttered in fear. The creature Discord chuckled again and looked at the crew pony. He then snapped his clawed fingers as the crew pony turned inside out on the spot. Luna gagged as the pony screamed, if you could call it a scream as his insides sprawled all over the floor. Luna slowly began to pant heavily as Discord grinned at her. “Oh, the fun we’ll have today…”