Rescue at Midnight Station

by Sparky Brony


Part 5.

The shuttles start firing at the fast-moving fighters as they approach, though the fighters do return fire, it’s ineffective against the fully charged shields of the shuttles. They blow past the shuttles and push hard for Voyager.

“They took the bait, they think Voyager’s the greater threat to them.” Twilight says, “Alright, let’s close the door on them.”

Rocking Voyager side to side, dodging long range ground fire, Dash smiles and sings out, “You’re never going to bring me down, you’re never going to break this part of me!”

All the shuttles make hard turns to head back towards the fighters strafing Voyager. The larger ship is formidable in its own right, the phasers turning two of the shuttles into fireballs in a matter of seconds.

“Alright Wonderbolts, light them up.” Spitfire calls, then joins in the song, “My friends are here to bring this round, not flying just for popularity.”

Four fighters against seven shuttles and Voyager. It is over in a matter of seconds and the shuttles loop around Voyager to streak back towards the base. Twilight calls over the com, “Any more fighters will likely focus on the shuttles, Voyager, it’s your turn.”

“Okay, we see the target.” Bon Bon says softly, watching her targeting screen, at the right moment, she taps her keypad, “First volley away.” Soft thumps announce the launch of two photon torpedoes. Rainbow Dash banks the starship hard as the torpedoes continue in, impacting the shields but not doing much else.

Lyra locks on to a fighter firing the aft phasers in short bursts scoring several hits, “We’re here to let you know.”

“We need to smack down the shields!” Rainbow Dash calls as she skips the ship around so she can pour fire into the shields.

“Working on it.” Lyra says, intently working on her screen, “I see the shield generator, but it’s heavily protected.” She presses a pad, bringing her into the com net, “Shuttle Calhoun, I need concentrated fire at these co-ordinates!”

“That we won’t let this go!” Lightning Dust sings out as she banks the shuttle and opens fire.

Sparkler looks up, “Rainbow Dash, that’s our first real target, we don’t hit that, we are done.”

Rainbow takes a moment to glance up at the master display on the main viewscreen, the shield generator system is highlighted and blinking, she blinks a few times, “Our music’s a bomb and it’s about to blow!” The Calhoun streaks forward, launching a volley of her own microtorpedoes along with devastating blasts from the forward phasers. As the aeroshuttle peels away, Voyager comes in hot, her phasers painting the shields in nearly continuous blasts.

“And you can try to fight.” Sparkler sings out and nods once to Bon Bon, watching the shields start to spark as they route more energy to deflect the phasers. Four thumps announce four more torpedoes on the way. They streak through the faltering shields and impact the generator station. Bright secondary explosions announce the death of the shield generator for the station. Voyager flies through the fireball as Rainbow Dash pulls away, shouting.

Bon, Bon is on the case, though, as Voyager pulls away, the rear torpedo launchers fire several times, connecting with power junctions and other equipment as Tom paints one target after another.Singing out Bon Bon watches the impacts, “But we have got the might!”

“We’ve got more incoming!” Sparkler calls, she reopens her connection to the com net, “Heads up, Wonderbolts, fighters incoming. Keep them off Voyager!”

“Of the Federation on our side!”The shuttle pilots sing out in unison.

Lyra works the rear phasers again targeting the fighters with a full volley, “Got the music in our hearts.”

Rainbow Dash ignores the responses over the com as she skids the ship around, she punches the impulse engines for another pass over the asteroid. She leans back, “Focus on the weapons this pass, Lyra.”

“We’re gonna blow this thing apart,” Bon Bon and Lyra sing together.

Without the formidable shields over the facility, the weapons emplacements encircling the landing field are reduced to rubble one by one as Rainbow Dash keeps the ship just over a hundred meters above the facility as they pass over it a second time. Every phaser array on the ship lights up, knocking down security structures and flattening the crew barracks, leaving smoking craters behind. Dash’s wings are spread wide, “Alright, everypony. Hold on!”

The shuttle pilots sing out, “And together, we will never, be afraid of the dark!”

Voyager dives in a split S maneuver ending up inverted, less than twenty meters above the rocky face of the asteroid, her ventral phaser arrays being brought into play. The Keritans are smart, though. Secondary shields are around the fighter launch bays. More fighters are exiting quickly, keeping the shuttles busy. Rainbow Dash pours fire into the launch bays as Bon Bon releases another volley of four torpedoes at them. As Voyager reaches the landing field, Dash flips the ship in a half barrel roll and flares the ship as the torpedoes impact, short circuiting the shields and flattening the bays. Though nearly twenty fighters are still active. The landing struts extend quickly as the ship settles onto the landing field.

Tom pumps his fist, “Now that’s how you pilot a starship.”

As the ship stops shaking, Sparkler barks out, “Alright, transfer all shielding to the dorsal hull. There’s no air out there, so let’s establish environmental containment and give them a path home!”

Pinkie Pie looks up, “We’ve got com signals from crew members.”

“Beam them aboard, we need them to help guide everyone in. Prioritize bridge crew first, then security personnel. This ship is going to have a lot of tired and hurt people aboard.” She blinks, “But before everything else, get the computer core aboard.”

Pinkie looks at her display, “I have a good signal, energizing.” A few agonizing seconds later, “Okay, core is aboard in cargo two, oh, I see Tom and Tuvok! Beaming them to the bridge!”

Two forms appear slowly with the hum of the transporter beam. As it fades, Tom looks around, “How are you all on the bridge?”

Sparkler is barking out orders, Tuvok leans over, “Obviously they recreated the bridge on a holodeck. Let them work, Lieutenant.”

***

Lightning Dust is one happy mare at the moment. Piloting the aeroshuttle is an absolute blast, she’s responsive, and quick, and quite heavily armed for a ship of her size. Two other ponies are in the shuttle with her, another Wonderbolt, Surprise, sits at tactical, focusing on everything but directly forward. And Mjölna, an earth pony who has had all the technical knowledge necessary dumped into her head. She’s sitting in the flight engineers station. Ready for any problems that easily could crop up. All the shuttles have an active data link with Voyager, so if something happened to one of them, they’d be back in their program in the main computer there. She banks the shuttle hard, this fighter has a damned good pilot. She pops off a few phaser shots, which causes the Keritan fighter to corkscrew away from its strafing attempt on the grounded Voyager.

“Shuttle five, you’ve picked up a tail.” She calls.

“I see it, I’ll give them a fun ride.” Fire Streak calls out as he pulls a hard turn.

“I’m on it!” Spitfire calls out as she brings her shuttle behind the fighter, her phasers slam into the fighter, though it remains undaunted, still questing to hit the shuttle before it. Spitfire grimaces as she continues firing, the shields on the fighter aren’t exceedingly strong, but it still takes a couple of good hits to put them out of action. Finally, the fighter expands into a fireball. She hoots as she does an aileron roll through the debris field.

Over the general com net, Lyra's voice rings out, “Alert, shuttles, four fighters incoming.”

Sky Stinger calls back, “On it!” his is the smallest of the shuttles, but it has something the other shuttles do not, a microtorpedo launcher. He pulls a hard starboard turn and dives the shuttle towards the fighters trying to sneak among the ground clutter. He glances at his weapons pony, Vapor Trail, and nods. She reaches a wing forward and taps the key. The launcher on the nose of the shuttle emits four of the 13.3 centimeter projectiles. They streak towards the lead fighter. With a loud flash, then a second, and a third, the fighter breaks up and it’s remains crash into the ground. Sky Stinger taps the key for the forward phasers and two more of the fighters turn to dust. He banks his shuttle hard to follow the last fighter. “This guy's got Discord’s own luck.” He growls as the fighter adroitly avoids each shot he fires.

Vapor Trail looks at the status display, “Voyager, we got three, but I think the fourth is going to make it close.”

Her words are prophetic as the fighter breaks out to the sky above the grounded Voyager. As the fighter flies over the larger ship, a hatch opens in the back, and a cloud of small objects emerge and fall towards the Starfleet ship.

Voyager’s ventral phasers light up again, reaching out and vaporizing some of the small objects, but there are too many. As they land on the upper hull, they explode.

Sparkler picks herself up from the floor, “Why didn’t the shields stop them?”

Lyra frowns, “It looks like they were moving too slowly, they passed right through them.” She shakes her head, “I’ll try to adjust those parameters.”

Sparkler looks at ops, “Damage report.”

Lyra checks her screens, “Nothing serious, the bridge is open to space. We’ve got a couple of other openings on the saucer section. But nothing on the engineering section, power levels are good.”

Bon Bon speaks up, “Com from the surface, its Seven of Nine.”

Sparkler taps the key, “Go ahead Seven.”

“We have a serious problem.”

That gets everypony on the bridge to quiet down completely, “Whats going on?”

“We have been unable to open the cargo doors, we are trapped. And we are taking fire from the guards.”

Sparkler growls, her eyes flick back and forth, thinking furiously, finally she looks up at the speaker in the ceiling, “Seven, get everypony away from the hatch. We’re gonna use the ship's phasers to cut through.”

“Understood. Give us thirty seconds.”

Sparkler hops out of the captain’s chair and gallops over to the tactical station, “Bon Bon, we need a narrow beam to cut a hole. Can you do it?”

Bon Bon taps her panel as she nods, “The phasers are pretty flexible. I’ve got some of the ventral arrays set up for anti-personnell roles. Give me a moment.”

Sparkler taps her hoof impatiently before Bon Bon looks up and smiles. She turns back, “Okay, it’s time. Fire.”

The meter-wide phaser arrays glows before emitting a pencil wide beam. Under Bon Bon’s careful control, the beam cuts through the thick armored door. Once a large hole is cut, she shifts to a ventral tractor beam emitter and yanks the cut piece out and deposits it on the ground. “I’ll keep an eye out for soldiers.”

The transporter is working continuously, bringing crew aboard as fast as the system can cycle. First one, then two, then over a hundred people start running towards the open hatchway of Voyager. Plasma bursts come from the soldiers still inside, which is answered by phaser fire. A few soldiers emerge on alcoves above the landing field. Only to be immolated by the ship’s phasers. Bon Bon grimaces as she targets one soldier after another.

“Incoming!” Pinkie Pie calls from ops.

Lyra takes up the dorsal arrays, the fast moving fighters streak over Voyager, being chased by the ship’s shuttles. Beams from the grounded starship deter the incoming fighters, getting them to turn away from the stream of sentients running along the rocky ground.

“There sure are a lot of them.” Rainbow Dash says softly as she watches her display.

Sparkler leans forward, “And we are going to free every slave these monsters have taken,” she says with a growl. She glances at the tactical display and taps her com pad, “Shuttle four, the Flyer has several tails.”

“On it!”Fire Streak calls out. He watches as the Flyer takes a hit from the plasma bolts of the Keritan fighter, “You aren’t going to get away from me.” He fires his phasers, most of his shots miss the agile fighter, but he gets it to turn away. He smiles grimly as he presses the attack, and soon another fighter is an expanding ball of plasma and debris. “Flyer, you are clear.”

Twilight breathes sigh of relief, a quick glance back shows both Naomi and Mezoti are pale as ghosts, “It’s alright girls, it won’t be too long.” She directs her attention forward, then loops the shuttle around to fire at a fighter that was trying to sneak along the ground towards Voyager. The Flyer shakes hard as another fighter’s shots connect, Twilight loops the Flyer in a barrel roll, bringing her ventral phasers into the fray as she hits the fighter hard enough to get it to peel off. She glances down at her display, “Voyager, my shields are getting low.”

Sparkler’s voice comes over the com net, “Flyer, you have biologicals on board, peel off and go to warp at the agreed rendezvous point. We’ll catch up with you there, almost done here.”

“Roger.” Twilight pulls away, pulling away from the asteroid. It’s too crowded, too much debris and energy to go immediately to warp. She punches her impulse drive and the Flyer leaps forward.

“Alert, Flyer, incoming!” Come’s Sparkler’s voice.

Indeed, three fighters are powering towards the Flyer, at sublight, they are extremely fast and maneuverable.

“On it!” Comes the voice from two other shuttles.

Twilight abandons her attempt to go into warp as she twists away from the tenacious fighters, she pulls her own split S, then an immelman, “I can’t shake them.” She calls out as more shots impact her shields, which are dangerously close to failure, the display blinking red.

One of the fighters explodes under concentrated fire from shuttle one. Spitfire growls as she shifts her fire to the second fighter. Shot after shot streaks out towards the maneuverable fighter. “Fleetfoot, give me more phaser power!”

Fleetfoot growls right back, “If you’d stop missing the target, it’d be dust now.”

“The last hit took out my phasers!” Misty Fly calls out.

“I’m out of position I can’t get a shot!”

Misty Fly glances at High Winds beside her. They had gone through the academy together; High Winds had been Misty’s wing pony for as long as she could remember. Without needing to suggest it, High Winds simply nods, “Go for it.”

“Out of it I guess,” Misty says as she puts the ship to max power.

High Winds transfers every scrap of power the ship has to its engines. Lights, life support, the last of the warp power, phasers, even shields. The little shuttle leaps forward, “For Equestria, and for Princess Twilight!”

Misty banks the ship hard, “Alfa Mike Bravo.”

Spitfire is finally able to connect with the second fighter, blowing it to expanding metal fragments and a massive fireball.As she turns she sees Misty Fly’s shuttle Slam into the enemy fighter. The impact rips the wing and side off the Keritan fighter, sending it into a spin before exploding, at the same time the shuttle pod disintegrates from the stress of the impact. Gulping, Spitfire squeaks, “Misty…”

Spitfire looks at the now expanding debris field, she keys her com, her voice leaden, “Shuttle three is down, Flyer, you are in the clear, get to warp.”

Twilight powers away from the battle, Spitfire shadowing her until the Flyer streaks away at warp. She loops back, “Voyager, did the data link work?”

A few seconds of static, then, “Checking now…yes, they are back in Equestria. A little worse for wear, though.”

Spitfire breathes a sigh of relief, then she pulls a hard turn, “We are down to two fighters, let’s show them what the Wonderbolts can do when we are really mad.” Acknowledgments come over the com as the shuttles converge on the last of the fighters, which are powering towards the inner part of the star system. Lightning Dust whoops as microtorpedoes from the Calhoun impact on one, then the second fighter, along with phasers from shuttles flanking her, cause both fighters to disappear in fireballs. All the shuttles loop back to head towards Voyager.

“Nearly done!” Come’s Sparkler’s voice, “Is Captain Janeway aboard?”

Pinkie Pie looks over, “She refused transport, she’s clearing out the smelting area and making sure no more slaves are left behind.”

Sparkler glances at Rainbow Dash, “Life form scan, how many non-Keritan’s are in the facility?”

Rainbow Dash taps her console, after a few seconds, “Two. Captain Janeway is one of them.”

Sparkler growls, “Beam them both to the bridge and close up the hatches, we are taking off now.”

Rainbow Dash powers up the impulse engines and thrusters as two more forms beam to the bridge, a young man is in Janeway’s arms, both crash to the deck as the transporter releases them. Janeway staggers to her knees, “Any more?”

Sparkler shakes her head with a smile, “We’ve got them all. Okay, Rainbow Dash, punch it!”

The ventral thrusters fire, lifting the ship slowly from the surface of the asteroid, Lyra bends down to inspect her display, “Sparkler, we’ve got nearly a hundred fighters incoming from the inner system. They must have had a second base nearby.”

Sparkler smiles, “We will be gone before they can do anything, Wonderbolts, go to warp, we’ll meet you at the rendezvous.” She looks back at Captain Janeway, “The ship is yours, Captain.”

Janeway stands up, tugging her uniform straight, then wincing. Tuvok leaps forward, “you’re injured, Captain!”

“I’ll be okay, but you’ve been commanding this mission young lady. You can finish it while I go to sickbay.”

Sparkler sits straighter in her chair, puffing out her chest a bit, “Aye Captain.” She glances at the display, “Okay, Bon Bon, all that’s left are the slavers. Fire.”

The rear torpedoes bark again, belching a full spread of torpedoes. Which streak towards the station, flattening the smelting complex and the rest of the equipment on the asteroid. Sparkler nods as she watches the explosions fade away, leaving not much more than craters behind, “They won’t have any reason to gather more slaves anytime soon.”

The young man that Janeway had pulled with her starts to rouse, she looks down and offers a hand, “Icheb, let’s let the ponies do their job and go get fixed up.”

Voyager is finally clear of the asteroid, Rainbow Dash dodges side to side, avoiding incoming fire from the new batch of fighters, “Let’s go.” She calls out as the nacelles rotate, in a flash of Cherenkov radiation, the ship streaks to warp.

***

Captain’s log, Stardate 54022.7

It is taking quite a while for the crew to recover from their ordeal. During the fight, Chakotay received several plasma burns and without the doctor, treating him is a slow process. In the interim, since the holographic ponies of Equestria have been so helpful, and the fact that the damage to the bridge was more severe than initially thought, the holographic bridge is still in operation, with Amethyst Star as my temporary first officer with a field rank of lieutenant commander. Ensign Paris has found himself fascinated with the very colorful pegasus named Rainbow Dash, who sits with him at the helm as Voyager has been tasked with returning many of the former denizens of Midnight Station. Six days have passed, B’Ellana has been busy trying to adapt our power systems and data network so we can download the doctor, as well as the other denizens of the holodeck, back to where they belong.

“Why in the hell did they use such an antiquated system? Actual electricity? Through copper conductors? That’s centuries old technology.” B’Ellana growls as she uses a torque wrench to tighten a connection.

Seven of Nine pauses in her scan of the holomatric cable, “It’s reliable, relatively efficient, and it worked.”

B’Ellana closes the access port, “Well, when I have to make a conversion system, from scratch, mind you, to take our electroplasma system and use it to generate actual electricity, it’s not an easy process. The windings are exact, and any error in the insulation can cause the system to short out. And boom, no more Doctor.” She taps the access plate with her wrench, “I’m not even certain of the frequency! I did find that it’s got AC/DC conversion inside, so it accepts AC power at a higher voltage. But if I don’t have much margin for error, if any of this solid state equipment fails, we may not even get it’s operating system to post. How they got these ancient systems to work with our data storage systems, I’ll never know.”

“I believe I can answer that.” Seven says as Janeway walks into cargo bay two. The former Borg picks up a cut piece of the holocable, “There were isolinear components in the cable here, some of them acting as an interface for the digital signals. The core was not much more than a storage receptacle, the actual programs were run via the cables. In fact, with this sample size, we might be able to work out more places for our holographic population to be able to roam within the starship.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Captain Janeway says softly, “You said you were nearly ready for power up?”

B’Ellana nods, “It should work, based on my scans, I believe the settings I have set into the power systems will allow it to boot up, then we can initiate a core dump via the holocables into our core.”

“Are you worried about malicious programs on the core?”

She nods, “There will be a gateway program to inspect all the data to prevent malicious program infestation. Add in the normal diagnostic cycles for the main computer, I think we are protected.”

“Alright, go ahead.”

B'Ellana nods as she presses a pad on her station. She looks at the power converter as it starts to spin up. The whine grows louder as she monitors it’s output, “We are at 3,000 rpm. Engaging the exciter.” After a few moments she smiles, “Time to close the breaker.” With a loud thunk, electricity is sent into the core. B'Ellana and Seven move over to the monitoring station. They both look at the status display, with Captain Janeway hovering behind them. B'Ellana smiles as a small indicator light slowly brightens. “50 Hertz, that’s what I thought it would be.” She smiles as she taps a few buttons, getting the displays to flicker to life and the fans start to spin, adding a bit to the din. The status displays slowly light up, and B'Ellana starts to work on the controls.

“It looks like the OS is stable. Starting the transfer.” She taps a few keys, “aTheir file structure is rather chaotic, so I’ll do a general core dump and let the AI direct the files where they need to go.” She watches the displays, “A good number of the files are corrupted. The computer is shunting them into cold storage. But it looks like our characters are in good shape.” She shakes her head, “They didn’t do very much real maintenance.” Okay, the largest programs have been transferred, the rest are likely smaller bit characters in the holodeck. Let’s go to sickbay.

Twilight Sparkle meets them at the door to sickbay, pacing back and forth. She brightens at the sight of B'Ellana striding towards her. The pony's ears perk forward, “Is he okay?”

B'Ellana huffs, “Twilight, I kicked you out of cargo bay two because I needed to concentrate. Please, let me work.”

Twilight’s ears fold back, “I’ve read up on engineering theories, I can help you.” She scuffs a hoof on the deck, “please?”

B'Ellana stands there for a long moment, she looks over at Seven, then back at Janeway. Finally, she sighs. “Twilight, I know you want to help, and you have been very helpful for getting us out of the mines. I truly appreciate everything you’ve done. We have transferred the programs. We need to see if the Doctor is okay.”

Twilight immediately brightens, her tail starts to wave from side to side, “Can I join you in checking?”

B'Ellana nods, getting a loud squee from the alicorn. She gestures and Twilight nearly leaps through the door into sickbay. She turns and gallops into the Doctor’s office. “Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Hologram.”

B'Ellana sighs and shakes her head as the computer chirps in response. Nothing happens for a long time. Twilight frowns as the computer continues working. She glances at B'Ellana, Seven, and Janeway, “Computer, is something wrong?”

The computer's voice is silent as it continues to work. Finally the air ripples, “Please state the nature of…” His voice is cut short as the pony impacts him in a tight hug. He looks helplessly at Captain Janeway.

“I was afraid you were dead.” Twilight says softly, hugging him tighter, wrapping her wings around him as well.

“Well, obviously, I’m okay Twilight. I’m here.”

“You remember me!” she chirps.

“Of course I remember you. And you kept my emitter safe.”

She finally releases him, her horn lights, lifting the device and floating it over to him, attachingit to his shoulder. “I did my best.” She reaches out a hoof, “You promised to visit me in Equestria on a regular basis.”

That gets a smile, “I’ve been rather busy. But I will visit when I can.”

Janeway steps forward, “I hate to break up this reunion, but Doctor, we really do need your help. Our medical staff isn’t nearly enough without your skills.”

The doctor looks around then he tugs on his uniform, “I’m still parsing out a lot of information from the transfer. But I can do my job, Captain.”

Janeway nods, “Let’s get to work.”

On the holographic bridge, Rainbow Dash offers a hoof to Tom, who taps it with a closed fist, “Dude, you fly this ship like it’s a part of you.” She leans forward, “Are you sure you aren’t part pegasus?”

That gets a huff from Rarity, “Oh, don’t be silly, Rainbow Dash. Pegasi are not real to humans.”

Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes, “Need to do more reading, Rarity, winged horses are in human history. One was actually named Pegasus.”

Tom shakes his head, “No, RD, I'm one hundred percent human.”

Rainbow Dash pouts, “It would explain a lot.” She taps her panel with her wings, “One more destination, it’ll take us seventy hours to make it.”

Sparkler nods from her place in the captain's chair, “Engage.”

Tom leans over, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what is that on your foreleg there?”

Rainbow Dash looks down at the band with the patch, “That is the flag of Equestria.” She points, “That’s Princess Celestia,” then she points to the blue alicorn, “That is Princess Luna. They control the day and the night and are our leaders.”

Tuvok speaks up from Ops, “You know, wearing non standard accessories on Starfleet uniforms is prohibited.”

Tim looks back at the Vulcan, “In case you didn’t notice, they aren’t wearing Starfleet issued uniforms.”

Tuvok straightens, “Obviously, but should they decide to wear modified Starfleet issue in line with the ranks that Captain Janeway has provisionally authorised, those armbands would not be allowed.

Rarity huffs,"But darling, I thought they needed some true colors. Something unique to remind us of our heritage. Since we are not actually Starfleet members after all.” She stops, tapping her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “Though we may be federation citizens...if Equestria is ever accepted into the federation."

Tuvok looks at the white unicorn, a single eyebrow rising, "You do realize you are a program, in our computer, right?"

Rarity sputters, "Does that mean we won't be accepted? Valued?" Every single pony's eyes go wide, looking at Tuvok.

"Go head Tuvok, answer the young lady."Tom says with a huge grin. Offering a fist to the pegasus next to him with a huge grin.

Tuvok finds himself at a loss for words as the ship continues at warp, trying to get ever closer to the Alpha Quadrant, and home.