//------------------------------//
// The World is Quiet Here... 
// Story: Heat Death 
// by ScottTrek 
//------------------------------//

Twilight slowly sat back into her captains chair, wiping the broken remains of her horn from her face, her breath remained slow and steady. As she slumped into her chair feathers fell like snowflakes from her wings. Twilight took a single moment to close her eyes and acknowledge her pain. It did not seem to be its own entity, instead it was a culmination of every pain she had felt in her life passing through her mind at once like road-map of every adventure and misadventure she had ever had.

Then the moment had to pass. 

"Status report." Twilight said, voice betraying nothing. She opened her eyes and saw the bridge crew present crowding in, faces of horror and concern. There was no time for that. "I said; Status Report!" 

The crew scrambled. 

"Engines down, main power down, life-support on backups, near total outer hull compromisation." Ember Glow listed off, "We're dead in the water."

"Casualty reports coming in from Hex and the medical team." Aurora said, her stutter gone. "Current estimation of 45% serious casualties, but... no reported fatalities!"

"Good." Twilight nodded. "Do we know what hit us?"

"No," Aurora frowned, "Sensor logs are scrambled, let me just..."

"It was Forge." The voice cut through the room like a knife. From the bridge door Bronze Spear staggered in, blood seeping from a head wound that mirrored his Princesses. "He detached from the hull and opened fire with Photon Torpedoes. Full-spread, point blank, straight into all our critical systems. I wouldn't have believed it if i hand't been looking right at him."

Twilight shut her eyes again. One ragged breath passed her lips. Then she opened her eyes and stood up. "Where is he."

"My brother and his team blasted his mini-body. Main chassis is holding position ten thousand kilometres of the starboard bow."

Carefully Twilight began walking. "Aurora; please fill in everyone on the plan as is recorded in my ready room. Bronze Spear; find someponies to ready a shuttle pod for me in 20 minutes. Ember; can you get Item number 17 from the vault?"

"Twilight... that item?" Ember said quietly. "But that won't effect Forge... and your horn..."

"Everyone, I know you are worried." Twilight said, voice sad and steady. "But right now we have one last moment before the storm... I know what i'm doing, please read the plan. and try to understand..." Twilight left the bridge, not waiting to see if her ponies had anything else to say. "Forgive me."