//------------------------------// // Part 3. // Story: Rescue at Midnight Station // by Sparky Brony //------------------------------// Things may come, and thing may go. Empires rise and fall. A society may flourish one day, only to be wiped out by the Borg on another. This is the way of the Universe. It is hard to tell if Midnight Station was built by the Keritan or another race, but one thing is for certain, it was made with parts and equipment scavenged from other races of the Delta Quadrant. Motes of light and small static sparks grew brighter as Twilight Sparkle materializes in what seems to be an open area.Feeling the beams energy leave her, Twilight crouches down, her horn lighting for the briefest moment as she cast the chameleon spell her mom taught her.The light bends around her as she shimmers for a moment slowly fading from view.Even visual sensors are unlikely to detect her while the spell is running. She looks up at the starry sky, the thin atmosphere making the sky look almost completely black with just the points of light, and the distant planets truly visible.She knows generally where the Delta Flyer is in its orbit around the asteroid, but with its lights off and in low power mode she can’t even make it out. She has chosen well, from here she can see the expansive complex laid out before her. Though her ears are useless in the sparse atmosphere of the asteroid she still finds herself flicking one.The better news on that is her hoof steps are silent as she moves towards the complex.As she approaches she sees there seems to be some kind of airlocks for access.Even a fairly large landing area marked out, likely for cargo vessels. Twilight freezes as a bright light in the sky resolves into a large cargo vessel. The ship glides gently into place, it’s retro thrusters begin to kick up dust as it touches down on the landing pad. In a matter of moments, an environmental containment field pops into existence around the landing pad. Twilight tiphooves closer, large cargo doors open on the ship and bay doors in the complex open in answer. Twilight watches in fascination as one creature walks out, covered head to toe in some kind of armor. Then under his watchful eye, some other creatures trudge out of the bay doors, pushing large hoppers, apparently filled with some kind of refined material. Twilight leans forward, something about the lead creature pushing the carts has grabbed her attention. It is looking at the ship, and then at the obvious guard. Twilight gallops forward, she knows something is about to happen, she skids through the environmental containment field as the creature raises a cry and whirls around to charge the guard. Feet piston as the slave lowers a shoulder and catches the guard in the gut. The rest of the slaves, another four creatures, rush towards the ship.Twilight silently hopes that none of them are members of the Voyager crew she knows in her gut this won’t end well.She cringes and turns her head away as the guard presses something on his belt, and the doors on the cargo vessel snap closed.The fleeing slaves to skid to a stop. Five heads turn as the bay doors from the complex close as well.Twilight gulps softly, she knows that the next few minutes are going to be bad, something she doesn’t want to see. That little voice is proven right as the environmental containment field dissolves. The air around the slaves is suddenly gone. She pushes her power into her horn. Even with being on the mobile emitter, she has enough energy to teleport the five.But she can’t, tears form in her eyes as she stops. If those slaves suddenly disappear, the slavers will scour the area, and while they wouldn’t be able to see her, they would know someone is here or worse, take it out on the other saves. Twilight grits her teeth and turns away as the slaves grasp at their throats gasping for air in the near vacuum.She closes her eyes, wiping a tear with her foreleg, thankful that the loss of air means she can’t hear the screams or cries for help. Twilight sits down and folds her wings around herself, trembling and shuddering as the attempted escapees struggle with the sudden loss of air.One by one falling to the ground, their bodies lay on the landing pad. “Please just be a lesson, give them back air before they die,” Twilight begs softly to herself, knowing no one can hear her but needing to say the words. She repeats herself, then again, and again. Her hope fading by the moment as the area remains nearly a full vacuum. She counts out five long minutes before she can suddenly hear again. She glances back, shudders, then walks into the large storage area. Several more slaves rush out the newly reopened door. More of the hoppers are being pushed by other slaves.Twilight doesn’t want to see the dead, she can’t.Though she can hear what she assumes is the sounds of the other slaves, picking up the bodies, grunting as they do so. She walks quickly, thanking Celestia that she’s invisible to whoever the Keritans are as she moves through the large warehouse area.Would the crew be up in this facility? Or down in the mine. Some scans did show that the complex extends for miles underground. She turns a corner and then flattens against a crate as one of the Keritan soldiers walks past. The tall creature doesn’t seem to hear or notice her, so she trots towards a large wall opposite the cargo bay doors.And before too long, she’s looking at what seems to be some kind of data terminal. Twilight directs her attention internally, to one of the subprograms she’s downloaded is the universal translator.It’s a fascinating program, a translation spell!As she looks at the various displays, the words morph in her sight into a readable form. Though she knows the translation isn’t perfect, she might be able to get something useful out of all of this. She reads up, her wings and forehooves running over the computer terminal control board. Twilight glances at the screen every few moments as she navigates through the system, but after a few minutes she Huff’s and backs out. Making sure that she’s not leaving a trail, she shakes her head and looks around. Everything of higher security has some sort of biometric security lockout. Only a Keritan soldier can access the information. Twilight sighs, well, this is going to take some time. *** The debris floats in a lose orbit around the asteroid, the hulk of an old Ord-Mirit mining ship, its crew long since dead, hanging lifelessly in space. Shattered bulkheads have been pounded on by not just weapons fire, but micro-meteor impacts as well, are held in the weak gravity created by the ship’s superstructure.Its side has been ripped open, exposing the corridors and cargo bays to the vacuum of space.No life, no energy, no light remains. Except for the small deflector dish of the Delta Flyer, barely poking out of the ships hold. Mezoti taps her screen, this is a busy part of space, she has four cargo ships she is monitoring as they spiral down to landing areas on the asteroid. And let’s not forget the several small fighter craft that seem to be in lazy patrols around the asteroid itself.She hasn’t had to move the Flyer at all, though. Twilight had found a very good, out of the way, place for them to observe inside the debris field of a larger vessel. The six hours waiting for Twilight hasn’t gotten any communication from the asteroid. “It’s been too long. We need to help her.” Mezoti looks over at Naomi, “I know you want to go but… Can you use magic? Go invisible at will? Fly? Twilight is the only one among us that can do the job, to sneak in and find the crew.” Naomi leans back in her seat, “I know, I just want to help, the entire crew except us, got taken from the ship. Staying up here and waiting for Twilight to finish her search just feels wrong.I feel so useless.” “So,” Mezoti leans back from her controls stretching and looks over at Naomi, “you are bored?” Naomi huffs and puffs out her cheeks. looking at Mezoti before nodding, “I shouldn’t be bored, I should be terrified, I’m angry, I’m frustrated.And I just want to do something.” “Other than brush your hair.”Mezoti said and tilts her head. “One time, just one time…”Naomi huffs and looks down at her brush on the floor.“I was trying to de-stress.” Mezoti smiles, “Naomi, I understand what you are…” she trails off. “Twilight is hailing us.” Naomi leaps to the control, pressing the control, “Twilight, have you found my mom?” “Not yet Naomi.” Comes Twilight’s voice very softly, “I’ve searched the above ground complex, and I haven’t found anyone from Voyager. I did find an access tunnel that heads down to the mines underground, though.” “Are you sure this is the right place?” “No, I’m not certain. But based on the information we’ve gotten, this is the most likely place. If it isn’t the right place, we’ll find the right place eventually. But I hope this is. I don’t know how communication is going to be down in the mines. So, I’ll let you know what I find when I can.” Suddenly her voice gets very quiet, “Someone’s coming, Twilight out.” A soft click announces the closer of the com link. Mezoti looks over at Naomi, “She can do it, Naomi.” Naomi looks at the computer readouts, stroking her console with a finger, “I believe in her.” *** The image of Pinkie in her spy suit, with her night vision goggles perched on her mane pops into Twilights mind bringing a smile to her face. She knows Pinkie can’t be here right now, but for some reason, she wishes she had her support or the support of the rest of her friends. Pressed up tightly against the wall of an elevator, she feels it move down into the depths of the mines.Her small size allowing her to occupy a space behind the carts where no one is standing, though it forces her to keep her tail and wings tight against her body. The sound of the boots of the slavers had covered up her hoofsteps as she entered, but she is thankful that she’s a computer program and doesn’t have to breathe at the moment. The lift drops quickly, the half dozen guards seem to be impassively facing the door. After a few moments, it slides smoothly to a stop. As the doors open, the guards begin to filter out, slipping out from behind the cart Twilight follows them into the room.Looking around slowly, she finds herself in some kind of monitoring room, several more guards are sitting there, looking at different displays. Twilight spreads her wings and takes to the air, the better to keep her hooves from making noise, the spell makes it impossible for her to be seen, but hooves on a metal floor can draw attention. Though she doesn’t have to work that hard to stay afloat, the gravity on this asteroid is significantly less than on Equestria or on Voyager. She gets above the Keritan’s thankful for the relatively high ceilings. She lands softly, as quietly as she can, on some sort of metal air duct. The duct crosses the room but hangs a few feet from the ceiling. While a larger creature wouldn’t fit, she was a little pony after all. Some kind of monitoring room, several more guards are sitting there, looking at different displays. From her perch, Twilight scans the room glancing at the screens as she looks at the exits.With a blink she looks back at one of the security cameras. ‘Is that Neelix?’ She thinks and leans forward, the Talaxian is swinging a pick, and then another Starfleet uniform moves into view.It’s Chakotay, he leans over and swings his own pick into the rock face.Though Twilight focuses on his face, the two are conversing.So, the crew is communicating, that means they might be developing plans to get out. That gets a smile from Twilight, she’s going to have to help accelerate those plans. She moves over to look out one of the expansive windows, and feels the excitement building in herself. More of the crew is either eating, or lying down on the pallets, she charges her horn and winks out of existence. She appears in the cavern and drops to the floor, she saw her destination, and a few steps have her near the prone form of Captain Janeway. The other slaves also seem to be resting. Twilight leans forward, right next to Janeway’s ear, “Psst.” The Captain doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch. Twilight nudges the Captain’s head with her muzzle and whispers fiercely, “Captain Janeway!” The human’s eyes open, she looks around, “What?” Twilight leans down, keeping close so no one else is able to hear, “It’s Twilight Sparkle, we brought the Delta Flyer.” Janeway nods, “We?” “Naomi and Mezoti are on the Flyer still, Azan and Rebi are working to get Voyager repaired.” Janeway’s eyes narrow, “Repaired? What happened to my ship?” “It soft-landed on an asteroid about a light year away from here. They are waiting for our signal to come and try to get you. They are working on the necessary repairs.” Janeway sighs, “We are dealing with very effective slavers. They know how to break those that they bring here. Escape is going to be very hard. If we had a contingent of marines, I could see us being broken out of here, but other than that, I don’t know.” Twilight grimaces, “I know, they don’t tolerate slaves revolting very well either.” She stops for a moment, a few tears leaking down her cheeks, “I had to watch them kill slaves that tried to escape.” “What happened?” For a few moments, Twilight is silent, then she slowly recounts what happened at the landing area. Finally, she’s sobbing quietly into Janeway’s ear, “There was nothing I could do, Captain. If I saved them, then the alarm would be raised. And I likely would have never been able to find you. And any chance of you escaping would be gone. But they killed them, without any remorse, or compassion. They even made other slaves retrieve their bodies.” Janeway turns her head towards Twilight, “Listen, you made the right decision. I know at least one of my crew is dead down here. And several have already been injured in the few days we’ve been down here. I’m glad that Naomi and the Borg children are safe, and part of me wants to send you away, continue back to the Alpha quadrant. But do you think you can get Voyager here safely?” Twilight nods, then remembers that Janeway can’t see her, “Yes, I’m pretty certain.” Janeway closes her eyes, “Someone is going to have to disable the internal security measures.” Twilight nods, “I’ll handle that.” “And someone is going to have to find a way to download our holo programs back from the computer core.” “What if we can’t?” Janeway sighs, “The doctor is here. We need him back. The rest of the programs could be recreated, but I wouldn’t leave any sentient here if I can help it.” “We will figure it out. You’ll know when we are back.” Janeway looks at Twilight, well, where her voice is coming from, “You are personally responsible for Naomi and the other’s safety, understood?” Twilight blushes, “I know I’m fictional, but I am a Princess of Equestria. I will do everything I can to keep them safe.” Janeway nods and relaxes, “If it becomes too dangerous, I want you to leave us. I will not sacrifice the last few members of the crew if they can be saved.” “Captain,” Twilight nuzzles the human briefly, “I’m going to get as many of you out of here as I can.” She moves away, she knows it’s not a good idea to talk to every crew member, but one specific person gets her attention. The crew member in question is standing at a serving station, serving food to the slaves trudging slowly by her. Twilight takes wing to be of the right height, she brings herself right next to her ear, “Seven.” The former Borg doesn’t react more than her eyebrows rising, “Twilight?” She whispers. “I’ve talked to Captain Janeway, we are going to be back to get you all. But I wanted to tell you that Azan, Rebi, and Mezoti are okay.” Seven of Nine sighs softly, “Thank you, Twilight.” She whispers softly. “We will get you all out of here, Seven.” She flies straight up and a quick teleport has her in the control room. She flits through, heading for the lift, but she stops short, the slaves aren’t going to be able to wait at that kind of choke point in trying to escape. She glances around and moves over to an open doorway. Stairs, okay, they can do that. She flies up the stairwell. Automatic weapons seem to be emplaced at every junction in the stairwell that encircles the lift shaft. The lower gravity of the asteroid will be helpful though in climbing out. Though the weapons do worry her. The controls are going to have to be shut down before a single captive starts up the stairs. Twilight feels a flutter in her stomach, she doesn’t see anything happening without casualties. She promised Naomi, but the lives of the crew outweigh everything. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any misgivings about this. Finally, she emerges into the surface complex. She can’t be transported while she’s invisible, so she finds a secluded place to land. She eases up on the spell keeping her invisible, thankful to Starlight Glimmer for giving her that spell. She notes the route as she finally activates her communicator, “Twilight to Delta Flyer, beam me up.” She closes her eyes as the cool tingle of the transporter beam takes hold. *** Twilight presses a few keys on the console, and the display brings up what she saw, a map of what she was able to find inside the complex and mine. “Where is the computer core?” Naomi says, looking over Twilight’s shoulder. “I don’t know, I didn’t see it while I was in there.” Mezoti moves over and sits down on Twilight’s other side, “So, you are going to have to render the guards immobile, you are going to have to cut down their internal defenses, and whatever external defenses they have to allow Voyager to come in?” Twilight nods, “We have to do get more than just Voyager’s crew out. From what I’ve seen, there’s probably four or five hundred captives between the complex above ground and below. I don’t want to leave a single slave there if we can help it.” Mezoti frowns, “Transporters, even running them as fast as we know how, will take hours to beam everyone up. The ship’s shields will be down the whole time. And you can see the fighters they have patrolling. Voyager will get carved up.” “What if we can make our own fighter screen?” Naomi asks. Twilight looks at her, “What?” “A fighter screen, all the shuttlecraft of Voyager have some weapons, even photon torpedo launchers. They may not be able to do as much as a runabout, but they can keep the fighters off of Voyager’s back.” “Who will fly them, in combat no less?” All three get quiet for long moment, then Twilight perks up, “Can holo-emitters be installed in the shuttles? They have sufficient computer capabilities to run characters from a program right?” Naomi leans forward, calling up information for several moments, then she leans back, “There are EPS taps available, Azan and Rebi can install them, though one of the holodecks will have to be taken offline.” “Oh, that’s easy,” Twilight says, “Just put Equestria into dynamic storage, the program will still run, just in the computer core rather than in the holodeck.” “Okay.” Her fingers fly over the keypads, “We get some good pilots, maybe some World War two aces or something to fly the shuttles. They can keep smaller craft away. But how do we get the…” She trails off, “Girls, something his happening.” Twilight’s head snaps to look outside the window at the station. Bright balls of explosions are quite visible. She charges her horn and teleports into the pilot’s seat, “Someone is attacking them.” She taps a few keypads, “Magnifying.” On the screen shows several small ships attacking the station. Small, wedge shaped fighters fly close to the asteroid, she looks at her readouts, “This is our chance.” She powers up the active scanners of the Delta Flyer. In moments, her makeshift map fills out with detailed information, “Okay it doesn’t look like they noticed our scans in the chaos.” One, then two of the fighters are blotted from the sky, then another three of them hang in midair. “Tractor beams.” She moans. Mezoti directs the visual scanners, “They are trying to soften up the place, they are trying to save captives just like us.” A large ship, nearly half of Voyager’s size, hangs back. She presses a few more keys, “It’s not heavily armed. In fact, those fighters aren’t even as well equipped as a Starfleet shuttle.” “Here come the fighters from the base.” Naomi calls. A dozen crab shaped fighters streak off the surface of the asteroid, they ignore the smaller fighters and head right for the larger ship. Quickly it looks like the raid is a failure. The larger ship tries to turn, but the fighters keep pouring weapons fire into it. As the small crew of the Delta Flyer watch, it’s shields are overwhelmed, and a large white energy pulse bathes the entire ship. Weapons fire from the attacker immediately stops and the fighters use their own tractor beams to start bringing the ship closer to the asteroid. “Looks like they only added to the number of captives.” Twilight says softly as the other ship is brought towards the asteroid, “Hold on, there’s still a fighter working.” The pilot of the little fighter seems to have the best luck in the universe. Nimbly avoiding shots from the surface and the fighters, it pours fire into one weapons emplacement after another, slowly whittling down the cannons directed at them. Whomever he is, he drops what look like bombs over the complex, and they streak down to impact on the shields. Twilight sighs, “With just that one ship…” The luck finally runs out when a shot disables something on the small fighter, it careens out of control, “Get away.” Twilight whispers, hoping the ship will be able to make it safely into warp. The pilot doesn’t hear her, the ship spirals in an erratic path, hitting one of the slaver’s fighters, and both ships are consumed in a large fireball. Twilight looks down, trying to prevent tears from escaping. “They’ve got more slaves to mine whatever ore they have there.” They girls watch for a long time as the larger ship is brought down on the outskirts of the landing field. The sensors show that transporters are in use, and in less than an hour, the ship is tractored off the ground and then pushed out of orbit. Twilight plots its trajectory and sighs, it won’t be of any help. “Well, we have to figure out how to get in there. And we need to get weapons and com badges to the crew.” Naomi stands up and moves to the small cargo area, “We have a few phasers aboard, and we have these.” She lifts up a bench seat, small posts with deployable legs are sitting there, a cone shaped piece of equipment is on the top, “Transport enhancers. You get them down into the mine, we can transport everything they need down there.” “Naomi, you are brilliant!” Twilight says. “But if I’m doing that, how are we going to get the computer core? And disabling the guards.” Naomi looks at Twilight, “I’ll tag the computer core.” She taps a few keys, and the information from their scan shows up, the computer core blinking, “All I have to do is tag it for Voyager to beam it out.” “It’s a little more complex than that, you are going to have to initiate a shutdown, otherwise programs like the doctor that are in use could be corrupted. And it would be smart to physically disconnect the power and data lines.” “I can do that. It’s not that far underground, the transporter can reach.” “No. It’s too dangerous!” Twilight snorts, “I’ll figure out how to do it. Let me think.” Mezoti speaks up, “You can’t be in three places at the same time, you are going to have your hooves full enough, not only are you going to have to deliver the equipment to the crew, you are going to have to stun the guards and disable that command deck. If Naomi gets the computer disabled, I’ll have to shut down the guard room on the surface and their dedicated computer, that should knock out their defense cannons.” “What about the fighters?” “Voyager and the shuttles can disable them. We’ve seen what their capabilities are. We can shut them down.” She brings up the hangar bay, “A few well placed quantum torpedoes from Voyager can turn that into a smoking crater. So, all they have to deal with is the fighters that are patrolling.” Mezoti turns back to Twilight, “If we work together, Twilight. We can do it.” Twilight looks at the two of them, “Captain Janeway said you are my priority when it comes to safety.” Naomi growls, “Twilight, they have my mother, they have Seven, they have everyone I care about. I’m not leaving without them.” Twilight looks between the two girls, the quiet determination in Mezoti’s face, and the stubborn resolve in Naomi’s. Nothing is said for long moments as the purple alicorn studies the two girls. Finally. she sighs, “She is going to kill me, or send me to magic kindergarten.” She shudders, “But if you girls feel you are in any danger, I want you to beam back to the Flyer.” Both of them nod. Twilight turns and activates the com panel. “Twilight to Voyager.” After a few seconds, “Voyager” Twilight furrows her brow, “I know that voice, Lyra? What are you doing there?” “Oh, Sparkler needed some help, so a few ponies volunteered to help her on the bridge, and in a few other areas.Were actually on a holodeck bridge, but the controls are routed here so…At your service Princess!” Twilight glances back, then finally shrugs her wings, “Okay, we have a plan to get the crew back. Here’s what we need to do.