The hallways were dark and blazing with fire, smoke and electricity as the four ponies made their way through the ship's broken interior, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo keeping their weapons at bay as they trotted to sickbay. After checking the readout of the ship, they found that the ship was not only severely damaged, but she was also being swarmed by several squads of Tzenkethi troops with ease, while the crew had their tactical training, they hadn't been prepared for such a quick move by an old threat. What worried Dash more was what Twilight was planning, only mere moments ago did she hear her friend's voice giving the go on evacuating the Equestria, and if they were indeed doing it, she'd have a bone to pick with the giant warriors for taking away her ship.
Nearing the end of the hall, Scootaloo held her hoof up and swung her head around the wall to get a peek of the next hall, she could see a few guards near the doors of what she assumed was sickbay. Smiling, she looked to her friends behind her and motioned them to follow her.
The guards turned and had their weapons ready, but lowered them upon seeing the four equines coming around the hall, as Starlight and Trixie trotted over to the line of officers guarding the other side of the hallway, Dash looked to one of the security guards and spoke to them. "How's the lookout? Anyone in there hurt?"
"Only a few, the Princess is in there with the rest of the crew since the bridge was destroyed, but they're fine."
Dash gave a frown as she replied to the soldier. "Well, we should keep this place safe and ready for transport to the Aquarius, we'll need something to get off of this ship."
Trixie and Starlight were crouched at one of the farther arms of the defensive barricades, keeping their weapons ready as Starlight looked to her friend and asked, "Well, probably not the safest spot to ch-" She was cut off as they saw a faint dark blue field appear and then vanish before revealing a large being standing over them, he was wearing dark grey armor that had sections that lit up in purple. The Tzenkethi was soon joined by several other soldiers, who'd appeared in a similar fashion behind him as they readied their weapons.
The warrior in front of the two mares had lifted an arm up, a blade appearing from his gauntlet as he prepared to strike at the purple unicorn. "Starlight, NO!" Trixie then lunged at her friend, knocking her out of the way has she quickly got up and using her magic to form a blade-like weapon out of it, the weapon striking the Tzenkethi's as the two engaged in a duel. "Starlight, get over there and help the others!" Starlight nodded as she quickly trotted past the officers near her, who, despite being wiped out viciously, were focusing their efforts on the sudden attack in front of them.
Rainbow and Scootaloo were focusing their fire on the Tzenkethi with no trouble at all, taking out several of them before they'd left only two left, including the one fighting Trixie. Starlight trotted over and joined the two, aiming her weapon and firing at the last warrior that was coming at them, vaporizing him.
Trixie was keeping her ground with the Tzenkethi, she'd taken several tactical training sessions with Dash over her service, but while she had taken a lesson in fighting a Tzenkethi, this one had more up his sleeve than she expected. As she swung her magic blade at the Tzenkethi, the soldier smacked his blade against hers, grinding the two for a moment before the blades swung off of each other, having the chance, the warrior swung out his arm at Trixie quicker than she expected, stunning the mare for a moment before swinging his blade at the horn, cutting its upper half off with a loud crackling slice. Trixie let out an ear-piercing scream before the soldier in front of her smacked her again, knocking her down to the ground on her back.
"NO!!" Starlight yelled as her horn glowed in a turquoise color, the Tzenkethi's arm also being enveloped by the aura before Trixie, with strength gathered from the pain of losing her horn, used her hind legs to kick at the soldier above her, knocking him down before pulling out her pistol and firing at the warrior, finally killing him.
With no enemies in sight, Starlight galloped over to Trixie, who was standing up and holding her head in pain and with tears in her eyes as Starlight spoke to her. "Come on, let's get to sickbay!" Starlight used her magic to grab the broken piece of the horn as she and the injured magician trotted over to the doors of the medical room.
Upon entering, Twilight turned her head to see the two mares, and upon seeing Trixie, let out a horrified gasp as Starlight spoke to her. "She was fighting one of those Tzenkethi outside, can you get a med-kit for her please?"
Twilight looked to Fluttershy, who'd taken a moment to look at the two visitors. Noticing Trixie's injury, she trotted over with a worried look as she examined it. "I think we can fix that, but we're just starting to get our supplies for the evacuation ready, and it's already packed up, can you hold until we reach the surface?" Trixie gritted her teeth in pain again before nodding to the Pegasus and taking a rest on one of the beds. Twilight looked to Flash as she spoke to him.
"We should go and help out Dash while they're getting ready." Flash nodded as he pulled out his spear with his wing, Twilight pulling out her phaser as the two trotted out the doors. When they came out, several more Tzenkethi had already shown up and were firing at Dash and Scootaloo.
Scootaloo took a moment to duck, pulling out a few photon grenades and readying her rifle before she broke cover and shouted, "Fire in the hole!" and throwing three grenades, which exploded around the Tzenkethi seconds later. One of the warriors was still alive, however, and aimed his weapon at Scootaloo and fired, the bolt hitting the filly on her right forearm and forcing a yelp from her, but she still stood and retaliated with a shot that struck the Tzenkethi in the chest, knocking him down for good.
"Scoots!" Dash yelled as she went over to Scootaloo in worry.
"I'm fine, just a little bit hurt." Scootaloo said as she and Dash took another look at the hallway, two more were heading towards them. Dash and Scootaloo readied their weapons, but Twilight looked to them with a stern look and spoke to them.
"Get inside sickbay, we'll take care of these two!" Dash nodded as she and Scootaloo galloped to the doors of sickbay. Twilight aimed her rifle at the leading warrior in front of her and fired, the shot taking out the shields protecting the soldier, while Flash readied his staff and struck the other Tzenkethi's blade. Twilight then fired another shot out at the incoming trooper as she flew in the air with her wings, striking the warrior in the head as he fell to the ground. She looked to see Flash making swift moves around the other Tzenkethi as he managed to smack the warrior back with a rough strike to the blade. Without hesitation, he struck the blade into the Tzenkethi, the soldier standing for a moment before falling to the ground lifeless as the guard pulled out the blade. Twilight and Flash looked to each other as the Princess spoke again. "I'm sure glad I have you by me and Spike's side, Flash."
"As I've said, I'm always happy to help." Flash replied as the two then made their way back into the medical room. Twilight then looked to Fluttershy, who let out a smile as she spoke to the Princess.
"Twilight, I've gotten everything prepped and ready, I've also checked the ship and it seems everyone has evacuated but us, so should we get ready to make our way down there?"
"No, I'll get us there in time... but first," She looked to the wall console near the door as she finished. "...we have one last thing to do. Rarity? Dash?" The two mares looked to her with sad expressions, but nodded after a moment and followed her to the console. Twilight tapped the panel a few times before speaking. "Computer, initiate self-destruct sequence, authorization Twilight-Alpha-775." The screen then changed to show the code that Twilight had revealed to the computer, as well as two other blank sections as Rarity spoke.
"Computer, Commander Rarity Belle, Chief Science officer, destruct sequence Belle-Delta-Gamma-304." The first blank section changed to show Rarity's command code before Dash spoke as well.
"Computer, Commander Rainbow Dash, Chief Tactical officer and Pilot, destruct sequence Rainbow-Delta-Theta-236."
The last bar changed to show the code Dash had given to the computer, which then changed to show a blank section as it spoke. "COMMAND CODES AUTHORIZED FOR SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE, AWAITING FINAL CODE."
"Computer, Admiral Twilight, code 101010, 60 seconds silent countdown." Twilight waited a moment as she looked to her two friends and the others behind her as she spoke again. "Enable."
The screen then changed to a message in red text as the computer spoke one last time. "SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED FOR 1:00, THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER AUDIO WARNINGS."
Twilight then looked to the group behind her as she spoke. "Well, we don't have much time, once we're there, get into your seats immediately!" Upon her sentence, the Princess' horn glowed magenta as a flash appeared around the group before they appeared in the main section of the Aquarius. Without a second of thinking, everyone got into whatever seats they were near. Twilight and her friends sat themselves in their seats as Dash hit a button on her console and everyone was held by straps holding them to the seat. Twilight looked to Dash and ordered, "Dash, emergency launch, get us away from the ship!" Dash nodded as she quickly tapped the console and the ship jerked back, the windows showing the docking port for the Aquarius getting farther out as the ship turned towards the planet and sped off towards the surface.
"Everyone hold on, it's gonna get rocky!" Dash said before she looked to the left side of the ship to see a piece of debris coming towards them fast.
"Dash, watch o-" Pinkie tried to say, but was cut off as the ship was struck by the small piece, spinning out of control as they saw the port nacelle breaking off of the ship.
In orbit, the Equestria was being torn apart by the Tzenkethi warships, the hull burning in fire as the ship slowly started to fall down to the surface. The computer screen in sickbay was flickering with static as it counted down, several Tzenkethi guards entered the room to see no one inside, the computer screen was counting down and had reached it's 5-second mark once the soldiers saw it. "05, 04, 03, 02, 01." Upon reaching the last second, the ship's stardrive section was the first to blow, the hull being blown away as the saucer went next, breaking apart in a blaze of fire as the ship made several more explosions, creating a fireball of metal and death that sped towards the atmosphere.
The Aquarius wasn't being shown any mercy either, despite finally stopping it's spinning from the impact of the debris thanks to Dash's piloting skills, the ship was moving towards the surface at a uncontrollably fast rate. Orange waves of heat covered the windows of the bridge as the crew held on for dear life. When the orange clouds, which began turning white in mere moments cleared, Dash noticed the surface, it had several mountains in the area that towered over the grassy plains below, the mountains seemed to look to be sharp and bark-like, as they didn't have the random rough curving that most mountains on Earth had. There was also a strange cliff out in the distance, which seemed to lead out to the ocean as the ship fell. Dash looked to her console, which had a large section of red text that read, "LANDING GEAR DAMAGED."
Dash looked to her friends behind her as she yelled, "Everyone hang on, We're gonna crash!"
Rarity's pupils shrunk as she and Fluttershy closed their eyes as the ship came down. Upon impact, Rarity let out a terrified scream as the ship smacked against the ground and sled across the grassy plain. One section of the grass, a large bulge, hit the right side of the ship and tore the starboard nacelle off in the process. The ship kept sliding across the plain, metal and dirt grinding and flying into the air until it finally slowed and came to a halt, the ship's metal groaning under the applied friction between the grass. When the smoke and airborne dirt cleared, the ship sat still, a few small fires and a few lights remaining active as the ship let out a dying creak, sitting on the torn grass as broken parts of hull hung and started to fall from the ship.