Tzenkethi Station
Undesignated Brig
The race away from the coming firefight was a mere jump between the two rooms, the group continuously firing shots behind them as more came from the attackers. Upon reaching the door to the brig, Taluk used the data chip from the downed lab guard to open the destination up for him and his friends. Once they split open, each of the group slid in like a short, yet thin line into the large room, Creepybloom providing the last shot against the approaching Tzenkethi before the doors shut. Not wasting a second, the filly then aimed her rifle and fired at the door's seals, cauterizing and melding the doors shut and preventing an easy break-in.
After pulling out two devices and setting them down, Creepybloom turned to face her comrades, wiping off a sea of sweat from her forehead with her hoof as she spoke. "Well, Ah might've played it extreme, but with the doors forced together like that, they won't be able to get in for a bit."
Dash gave a grin as she responded. "Heh, don't worry, I've got just the thing we'll need to break outta this rattrap when we're ready."
"Everyone, see who you can find, Taluk, could you help them try and break them out?" Twilight as the Tzenkethi ally gave a nod to her request and joined with one of the team members, Creepybloom setting up her other shield barrier before she began making her own walk around the prison cells.
They'd seen several differing beings in each of the cells, a humanoid with a blue jacket and red and white hat, along with bluish-black pants and a belt that carried six red and white balls. In another cell they saw someone they couldn't recognize, the being looked female, and was covered in orange and yellow colored armor, along with two spherical sections on the shoulders with glowing green lines within them. The helmet was in the color of red, with a green window revealing the face, and on her left arm was, shockingly, a cylindrical part that looked to be some kind of cannon. In some of the other cells, there were several different Iconian Heralds resting within their chambers, not making a sound as the group came to inspect them.
Rarity admired the suit on the strange humanoid being. "Oh, as much as I'd hold comments like this on this occasion, I must say, that suit is very fancy, darling." She commented as the being looked to her.
"Really? Well, it's not a fashion trend in my home universe, it's what my people have come to call a power suit." The woman said to the fashionista in response to her comment.
"Well, that's most unfortunate." Rarity replied.
"Yeah..." The woman said before she continued. "Well, since you seem to be curious, my name is Samus Aran, I'm a very well-known bounty hunter in my universe, and no, not the kind to perform deeds of evil."
Rarity gave a slight breath of relief as she responded. "Ah, good, I'd almost went nuts."
Nearby, Creepybloom was trotting in worry past each of the pairs of cells that contained nothing but Heralds, her hopeful smile slowing crumbling to a depressed frown as she tried to find her friend. "What if they ended up experimenting on her? Or downright killing her?-NO, no she can't be, maybe there's another-" She halted her thoughts as she saw her target at the last cell on the right, a pony with a greyish pink coat of fur and a curved hot pink mane and tail, with a cutie mark that exactly resembled Pinkie Pies, lying down with a sorrow expression and her eyes shut.
"Guys, Ah've found her!" The filly exclaimed with relief and joy as they all raced to her, Rarity staying behind to communicate with the one calling herself Samus.
Once Taluk reached the security pad, the pink pony gave a look of fear as the tall Tzenkethi spoke. "Don't panic, Mrs. Pinkamena, we're here to help." Upon seeing a familiar face alongside the group standing in front of her, Pinkamena's shield of fear lowered instantly as the shield was deactivated, allowing the group inside.
When Creepybloom went up to her friend, she gave a gleeful, teary-eyed smile as she spoke, "Pinkie, you're okay, they.... they didn't do anything to ya, did they?"
Pinkie gave a comforting shake of her head as she replied. "N-no, other than taking a sample of my blood for inspection, I... I think I'm fine." After the short exchange, the two held each other tightly in an embrace, not letting go for several seconds before they finally separated, Creepybloom fixing her stern look as she spoke again.
"Ah'd love to have a long chat about what'd happened, Pinkie, but we're being chased by some guards, so we have to get out of here."
Pinkamena gave a worried frown as she asked, "Are we getting out of here? How many are there?!"
"Not many, silly, but there'll be more if we don't light the fires and get going!" Pinkie Pie said to her counterpart excitedly, who drawing a look of surprise at seeing someone with a similar appearance to herself.
"Indeed, but there's a few others we have to break out." Twilight said as she turned to the other cells as she trotted to one of the Herald cells, Taluk making his way to Samus' cell as the princess spoke to the Iconian servant within the cell. "Well, today's you and your crew's lucky day, we're busting you out." She said with a smile.
The Herald spoke to her in a deep, distorted voice. "Starfleet.... we are surprised to see such primitives here on an advanced facility, what brings you here?"
Ignoring the technological remark, Twilight continued. "We're here to get valuable information about why the Tzenkethi are attacking planets near Alliance space, and break you and a friend of ours out of here."
"Even if you do, what advantage do we offer for your comrades?" The servant asked with disappointment.
"You mean weapons?" Rainbow Dash said as she turned to see a large, rectangular container with Tzenkethi text placed between the left wing of cells and the door. Moving over to it, she opened the container and found several devices placed within it. "These should do, pretty stupid to have these lying around if they didn't want a prison break to be easy." She said as she laughed.
Seeing the plates around the inside of the container, Taluk spoke up. "It's a good thing too, because whoever was operating this recycling station must've come to attack us. Perhaps they performed research a bit ago."
"Maybe." The Pegasus said as she took some of the weapons out along with Taluk, turning and making their way to Twilight before placing the staffs and weapons on the ground.
After a long moment of deactivating the force fields of all of the cells and all of the beings exited them, the group gathered up their gear and looked to Twilight as she spoke. "Alright, now that we've gotten everyone out of the cage, it's time to break out of the house. Rainbow, do you have a charge?"
"Definitely, you might wanna stay back though." Dash said as she took a device from her saddlebag and placed it against the door, tapping several keys on it before she and the group stepped back from it, the bomb exploding seconds later and shaking the room.
Reading their weapons, the group stood waiting for an attack, only to see their pursuers were now crushed by the broken doors. Near Fluttershy, the human with the strange balls looked down at the medical mare's saddlebag, noticing the Sylveon inside. "Hey, is that the Sylveon I caught earlier?"
Fluttershy gave a smile as she noticed the creature in her bag. "Yeah, he's okay though, I'll let him out when we get to safety." She said as the creature spoke it's name in response.
"Good.... oh, by the way, the name's Calem, I'm a Pokémon trainer from a town named Vaniville, or at least I used to be." The boy said as he and the rest of the group sped out of the brig and past the fallen Tzenkethi soldiers buried under the debris, not halting their speed as they raced through the hall.
Twilight then lifted her head slightly as she spoke to Applebloom. "Applebloom, do you know where the dock to the Quas is?"
"Should be right across from here!" The filly said as they raced through the hall, eventually reaching a set of doors spread widely apart, stopping as they inspected each one. Looking to the third one near them, Applebloom spoke again. "If I'm right, the third one over here should be it." They all then looked to the third door before Taluk slid the chip inside it and opened the door, allowing the group inside.
The group took no time passing through the doors of the dock, running through the hall without a second to spare. Upon reaching the doors to the Quas, Taluk tapped the keypad near the door before it opened, revealing a strange set of plates that could only be described as transporter pads.
The group gave a look of confusion until the Herald captain spoke up. "There was no docking port for our warriors to cross, since we use teleportation as a basic means of going and coming. This should suffice, however." Once he finished, most members of the group squeezed themselves onto each of the pads as Dash and a Herald kept watch for the incoming guards, Taluk tapping the button before they poofed out of the transporter through Iconian gateways. Once they were gone, Taluk waited for the Dash and the guard to step on before he tapped the pad once more in a rush before placing a detonator on the keypad and stepping onto the pad with the others, their forms vanishing through the brief sight of the portals.
Quas Warship, Bridge
The transition from the station to the cruiser was merely a microsecond before they were free to move, looking around the room and aweing at the marvelous designs, the top of the bridge was seemingly opened up, giving a full view of the space around the ship and the station. The consoles were mere spheres that rotated slowly and bore a gold shield with blue energy inside of it. The floor was shiny and red, reflecting everyone standing on it on it's surface, as for the walls, they were a sleek, curving set of long walls that seemed to give the bridge an oval shaped look, along with a large seat that awaited it's commander.
Twilight was amazed by the ship's interior, while she'd seen images and descriptions of the ship on the logs of the Iconian War, standing in one was like living a dream, forcing a smile as she examined the room. Remembering her mission snapped her out of her gazing, however, as she looked to her friends and spoke. "As much as I'd like to see our ride up close and personal, we have to get out of here, everyone, get to every controllable station in here, Heralds, mind giving us a hand?" The ancient warriors looked to their commander, who nodded his head as a sign of agreement, making the other Heralds joining up with the other pairs of officers and escapees and assisting them in their operations.
The herald commander gave a simple gesture at the two small spheres around the command station. "These will allow you to perform operations and give orders with mere thoughts and touches to the spheres, with the crew we have at the moment, we should be able to pilot the ship from here." Twilight nodded in acknowledgement before looking to Applejack and receiving a nod from the farmgirl. Upon this, she placed her hooves precariously on the spheres and thought for a short moment before the ship seemed to jump to life as a moan and surge of energy sounded right after.
"Alright, I think we should be able to head out with that done, Dash, how's the helm?" The princess said with eagerness in her voice.
"Ready on your word, ma'am,!" Dash replied before she readied her hooves for the go-ahead on the spheres.
"And our weapons?" Twilight asked Scootaloo as she stood at one of the consoles.
"She's armed to the teeth and ready to bite into our prey nearby!" The filly said with a fierce grin.
"Shields are also primed and standing strong, too." Appleejack said as she operated her console.
"Good, punch it, Rainbow, tear her off of the docking clamps if you have to!" Dash wasted no time as she tapped her spheres, the ship started to shake slightly before a forceful jump nearly launched everyone off of the floor as the group within the room held on for dear life.
"We're free, only a scratch on the hull, the clamps on the dock are broken." Applejack said as she looked at her console's diagnostics.
"Good, turn our ship towards the enemy fleet and commence the attack!" Twilight ordered.
Creepybloom gave a fearful frown as she looked to the princess and spoke. "Twilight, the I.S.S. Depression is startin' to activate!"
"So they'll use whatever means they have to stop us? Lock weapons on her and fire at will, let's put her down for good." Scootaloo tapped her sphere several times before the open view showed several dark blue beams of antiproton energy firing at the cruiser, no mercy being shown to the Terran warship before the vessel finally let out large, fiery explosions and a gigantic final one that tore the ship into several pieces.
"Ship destroyed, the Tzenkethi fleet is closing on us!" Creepybloom said in alarm.
"All of them? How many?" Twilight said with burning curiosity.
"About 34 ships, half of them battlecruisers, two of them are turning away, the Fearless and the dreadnought!"
Twilight gritted her teeth as she heard the Herald captain speak. "While this ship is formidable, she cannot engage such an armada alone."
"Good thing we aren't, Pinkie, tell Wyatt and Tarsi to form up on us and provide cover from the escorts, let's tear up the dreadnoughts like excited fillies and colts on Hearth's Warming Eve!" Twilight said with a smirk as Rainbow responded.
"Ya got it, Twi!" The ship jerked forward a moment after the pegasus' reply, blue beams and energy bolts shooting from the ship and hitting the large Tzenkethi ships, bright blue beams and red bolts striking the smaller escorts soon after.
The Quas tore through the fleet like an angry bull, cutting up some of the ships with quick shots and slicing several others with painful hits that forced them to break away, the Quas turning around in a swift emergency maneuver as it faced the fleeing enemy ships.
Dash let out a yelp of excitement as she grinned mischievously. "Yahoo! This is awesome, I hope the Alliance gets ships like these sometime!"
"Same thing I hope for." Pinkie said with excitement before she heard a short droning noise from her console and spoke to Twilight. "Twilight, a portal is opening, some more ships are coming through!"
The princess and her friends looked to the screen before a large blue anomaly appeared near the Alliance fleet, several ships being spit out of the portal as it spun with speed. Some of the ships were ones Twilight recognized, the Mon Calamari cruiser that Nom Carver had commandeered by the name of Freedom's Dawn, as well as the Tempest, but two others caught her eyes, a starship that had a sleek and pointy bridge section that was held by a short neck connected to a large bulk of hull. Around the hull were four long wings with small pointy sections at their tips, with a large fin on the top that displayed a red colored marking consisting of an animal that, upon closer inspection, looked like a fox with a wing on it's back. The other seemed to resemble a large dreadnought-sized ship with bulky hull and a long shape, two slim sections facing downwards on the ship's sides served as the wings and the engines were mostly built on the back of the bulges on the hull. Another ship also brought a shocked look onto her face, A Tzenkethi Rhas'bej battlecruiser.
The vessels swarmed the Tzenkethi fleet, finishing each of them off every second before only large pieces of debris filled the small area where the ships once stood. Twilight gave a thankful smile as she spoke. "The cavalry's arrived! Hail the Freedom's Dawn, Pinkie!" The pink pony smiled as she tapped her console before the screen changed to show Nom Carver within a portal in the front of the bridge, the captain giving a smile as he spoke.
"Whooeey! I'd say we came just in time, it's good to see you again, your Highness!"
"Indeed, we have some more friends here to help as well, and right now we need to retake the Tzenkethi cruiser nearby and stop the dreadnought before they can reach Equestria."
"That should be easy, that cruiser over there seems to be damaged, but she's still operable over there, and according to our scans, her shields are buckled."
Twilight smirked as she replied to Nom. "Excellent, that'll make fighting that dreadnought a bit easier! Dash, set a course after that dreadnought."
Dash gave a worried look as she spoke to the alicorn. "Uh, well we better do it quick, she's making her move without a second to spare!" The group turned to the screen upon her words as it split to show the Tzenkethi dreadnought opening a portal and starting to enter it.
Without giving a second thought, Twilight tapped one of her spheres and spoke. "All ships, form up and follow us full speed into the portal, we can't allow them to reach Equestria! Sparkle out!" Once the signal cut out, the ship jerked to the right and faced Nom once again as she spoke. "I'd like to explain, but there's no time. Pinkie Pie will send you everything we've found in transit, we'll contact you when we have our plan set up!" Carver nodded before the portal closed and showed the ship speeding towards the portal, several other ships speeding behind the ancient warship as Twilight ordered, "Keep our shields and weapons at the ready, Flash, may I speak to you for a moment?" Flash nodded as he and Twilight went to a vacant spot in the room as the ship shook from entering the portal, the ship moving slightly from the movement and speed within the anomaly as it and it's escorts chased on after the dreadnought and the Fearless.