A Barren Future
Artie, Buddy, Dyno and Myte were lounging on the hangar deck.
It was one of the perogatives of being majors that they didn't have to work so hard as the poor enlisted ponies toiling on the deck, fuelling up and arming dropships, carrying crates of equipment around, performing weapons checks and instrument checks and struuctural integrity checks and check-the-checker checks. They were officers, and relatively senior officers at that, and so they were spared such arduous duties.
Buddy had ordered their grim-faced sergeant, the replacement Rhymey who talked a lot less than the old model but made up for it by glowering at everyone he could look at, to help out the deckhands if they needed it. Artie had sent the kid, Danaus Swift, on a snipe hunt to find him a staff sharpener. He wondered how long it was going to take the young newbie to work out that there was no such thing and Artie was pulling his leg.
Amazingly, none of the others had gotten what he was doing at first; Myte had nearly given the whole thing away by asking what a staff sharpener was. It was as if none of them remembered what it was like to be fresh faced newbies getting sent on snipe hunts by your CO. Maybe none of them did; Artie had to remind himself some times that his own service record was atypical amongst Lightning Squad. Lightning had joined the team fresh out of training under the Grand Ruler; Dyno and Myte had been aides to their father before he sent them to Unicornicopia; Buddy and the late Rhymey had spent their prior careers operating solo; Starla's service record was redacted, you didn't ask what she'd been doing. Artie was the only one who had done any kind of stint in a regular unit, 101st Airborne Infantry 'The Screaming Stallions'. He was probably the only one who had ever dreamed blissfully of the day when he'd be the senior officer and get to inflict harmless torments upon apple-cheeked junior lieutenants.
He didn't miss the airborne. Not one bit. He'd joined Starfleet because he wanted to be a hero like his grandfather, but he'd found life in the regular forces to be so...morally complex. He'd preferred the black and white certainties of life in an elite squad, under the personal command of the Grand Ruler's own student, reporting to His Majesty on a regular basis. He'd preferred the comfortable world of monsters and demons, the sure knowledge that all those you struck down had it coming, where they had even been alive to begin with.
But now, it seemed, that they were back into the murky and complex world he thought he'd left behind. Artie was almost sure that he had made the right choice, he wouldn't have been able to look Starla in the face if he'd let her go on this hunt without him, and when he came face to face with Rhymey again in whatever world came next he wanted to be able to look him in the eye too, even if it was only to say 'I saw you avenged'. But the cost...hunting Twilight, hunting Pinkie, hunting all the girls that they had fought beside and hurt beside...he couldn't make it sit right in his stomach.
And he wasn't sure that he envied those that could.
"Hey, Artie!" Dyno yelled. "You've been staring at that wall for like five minutes, what's up?"
"You know what's up," Myte said. A smile played across his proud castillian features. "Our resident artist is having doubts, aren't you?"
"I am not having doubts," Artie declared haughtily. A moment later he added, "Okay, maybe I'm having...some small doubts, but you're not? None of you?"
"Nope," Buddy said, without looking up from the letter he was reading as she sat sprawled across a pile of crates. "That's all you, pal."
"Come on," Dyno said. "What makes this different from a hundred other missions? It's not like we've never killed before."
"We've never killed somebody we mourned before," Artie replied. "Seriously, we mourned when she was killed. We went to her funeral. And now...now we're going to kill her again? None of you think that's a little messed up."
"She was never really dead," Myte said. "And she was only fooling us the whole time; she's evil, just like all the rest of them."
"If that's true, then what does it say about us that none of us suspected a thing?"
"Starla suspected," Myte said.
"Yeah, well, Starla," Artie muttered. Starla...Starla was taking this very personally. More personally than a desire to avenge Rhymey could explain. Honestly, it was starting to worry him just a little.
"Whatever, dude," Buddy said, still not looking up from his letter. "I just want to get this done, get back home and fill in my transfer paperwork."
"Transfer paperwork?" This was the first Artie had heard of this. His eyebrows rose. "Transfer to where?"
"Herboss," Buddy said, and he finally looked up as he rested his letter on his lap. "Lily, she...I mean, Colonel Bud, she...look, all of this, the monsters, the running around after Lightning and Starla, this a young stallion's game. Look at Rhymey, one moment he was here and the next...gone, just like that." Buddy snapped his fingers. "I don't want to die and leave Daphne bouncing between foster homes, and I don't want to find myself middle-aged and single because I spent my whole youth running around with you guys, no offence. I'm here for Rhymey, to see right done by him but after that...I'd done. Lily says there's an opening for an Executive Captain in the Herboss garrison."
"That's a drop in rank," Artie observed.
Buddy shrugged. "Not a huge drop, it'll be worth it. And Lily, she...she asked me to stay, you know? When I went on that mission there, during the Sombra War. I didn't take her up on it then, but now...it's time to settle down, time to give Daphne a mom again...time to put my feelings ahead of my career maybe."
Artie got up off the box he'd been sitting on and wandered across the hangar deck, holding out one hand to Buddy. "I'll be sorry to see you go, but I hope it works out for you. Good luck among the walking plants."
Buddy laughed as he took Artie's hand in a firm grip. "The Herbolites aren't so bad once you get used to them. And you're a little older than I am, perhaps you should think about putting a ring on the finger of that elf princess of yours and giving some thought to the future."
"I wouldn't advise that," Starla declared as she strode onto the hangar deck with a grim and thunderous countenance. "If there's one thing that I hope you all learn from the fate of Rhymey it's that no good can come of mingling with the lesser species. Artie, you should break it off, find yourself a good space pony girl and...and treat her right."
Artie frowned. "Come on, Starla, even if Fluttershy-"
"If?" Starla snapped. "If? You doubt it?"
Artie raised his hands in submission. "I just meant...Ila isn't Fluttershy."
"Maybe not," Starla muttered. "But they're all inferior." Her nostrils flared in an almost bovine fashion as she snorted. "Where are Danaus and Sickle Cut?"
Artie let out a small, slightly nervous laugh as he scratched the back of his neck.
Starla shook her head. "Get them back from wherever you sent them off to and prep for combat. We're about to drop out of warp. Also..."
Dyno took a step closer to her. "Something up, Lucero?"
Starla scowled. "As of 1700 hundred yours yesterday Supreme Commander Lightning Dawn was declared Absent Without Leave; he was last scene leaving hospital in company with Queen Kyrstalline and a pair of unconverted refugees. In his last recorded transmission he ordered three Starfleet cruisers to break off contact with the Princess Twilight Sparkle the frigate on which is believed that the traitors made their escape. Since he cannot be found...we have to consider the strong probability that he is with them now."
Silence crashed amongst the other soldiers like the falling of a bomb from a great height.
"Madre de dios," Dyno muttered.
"Who would have thought that the big guy would turn-"
"Now hold on just a minute," Artie said. "How about we take a breath before we start slinging the word 'traitor' around. Come on, this is Lightning we're talking about. Whatever's going on I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for it."
"I know exactly what is going on," Starla snarled. Her whole body was trembling as though she could barely contain her rage. "It's her. That Equestrian witch she...she did something to him. She ensorcelled him, twisted him, corrupted him. She took a noble and true-hearted warrior, the soul of duty, the stallion that I loved and she...she stole him away from me. She killed that stallion and left something else in his place." She bowed her head, for a moment Starla Shine, indomitable warrior, their battle angel, seemed so lost in the mire of sorrows that Artie wanted nothing more than to comfort her...if only he could have found the words to do so.
I don't know what I can say to make this better but I wish I did because...because I hate seeing you like this.
That might have been good enough for Pinkie Pie but somehow he doubted that would do a lot to mollify Starla in her present state.
She closed her eyes, her whole body rising and falling with her breath. "I mourn for Rhymey as a comrade in arms," she said. "As a warrior fallen I honour him. But as the root of all our sorrows and misfortunes I...I confess I hate him."
"The root of all?" Buddy said. "Kinda harsh, don't you think?"
"Cannot all our troubles be traced to associating with this cursed world of Equestria?" Starla demanded. "Were we not merry and content before Rhymey came to that place, and Fluttershy cast her spell upon him? The doom befell us then, and all our griefs can be traced back to it."
"But what of our mission, and our burden?" Myte asked. "We have a responsibility, as the superior species, to cast our mantle over lesser peoples and impose peace and security upon. To lift them up when they are humble and-"
"And to war them down when they are proud, yes, I know the destiny of our race well enough," Starla snapped.
"Then why do you question His will?" Myte said, his voice deceptively soft considering that he was on the verge of accusing Starla of heresy.
Starla's lips twitched, and she bared her teeth in a snarl. "No one calls me heretic. No one questions my piety or my devotion to His Majesty! I am Starla Shine, daughter of Galaxia Shine the Angel of Victory, and all I have learned of duty and destiny fell from the lips of the Grand Ruler himself. I am the very benchmark of loyalty. But we did not fulfil our destiny, and none can dispute that fact. We did not war down these over-proud Equestrians who think themselves so wise with all their talk of friendship. We did not rain down fire upon their world until their haught princesses bent the knee, we did not tear down Twilight's castle and reduce that pompous, interfering wretch to tears at the ruin of her hopes, we did not shatter the foundations of Canterlot in our fury. Instead, blinded by lust and the memory of a love lost many years ago, His Majesty allowed himself to be deceived as I think even he would now acknowledge. But things will change now, believe you me. A reckoning is coming, and not Twilight alone but all her ilk will finally recieve the justice they deserve."
"And Lightning?" Artie asked. "What will he recieve? What do we do if...if we found him...with them?"
Starla opened her eyes, and her eyes were hard as steel, her gaze was sharper than any blade. "If he will not repent his follies," she said, and every word from her mouth fell more heavily than ever Artie's staff had ever descended on a foeman's head. "If he has truly betrayed His Majesty and our cause and us...if he has betrayed me, and forsaken me for...for her...if he has done these things then I will kill him with my own hands."
"Kill him?" a nervous laugh escaped from Artie's mouth. "Starla, come on, this is Lightning we're talking about."
"The Lightning Dawn who led us to victory over Titan is already dead," Starla declared. "A lesser thing stands in his place, a wretch to whom death would be a blessed release."
Whatever Lightning might have done, Artie had to admit as he looked at Starla right now that Lightning was a braver stallion than him to have willingly made her this angry.
Starla turned away. "Get the other two back here and get set for descent. I'm returning to the bridge to see if they have any new information on where she is."
She began to go, but stopped with her back to the guys. She looked back, a wry smile upon her face. "Hey, Buddy?"
Buddy stood to attention. "Yes, ma'am?"
"It'll be a shame to lose a good warrior, but I confess that I can't think of a worthier cause. Colonel Bud will be lucky to have you, personally and professionally."
"I, uh...thanks?"
Starla snorted. "One last thing: treat her right, do you understand? Or you'll answer to me."
Buddy's face drained of it's usual red colour as he slammed his foot into the deck. "Understood, ma'am!"
And with that Starla stalked off into the shadows. Artie found himself following her without really knowing why. She was walking so fast he had to run to keep up with her.
"Starla, wait up!" he called down the corridor in an effort to arrest her progress.
She stopped. "What is it, Artie?"
Artie came to a halt just behind her. "This doesn't seem like you."
Starla was silent for a moment. "Could you be a little more specific?"
"Any of it," Artie cried. "I mean...all the years I've known you, you never gave even a hint of this? How long have...have you wept all this while?"
"I'm not weeping."
"Maybe not on the outside," Artie replied.
Starla snorted, as she placed a heavy hand upon the grey metal wall of the corridor. "I am Starla Shine, daughter of Galaxia Shine. Do you know who that is?"
Artie nodded. "I don't think there's a soldier in the Starfleet who hasn't heard of Galaxia Shine, Starfleet's Angel of Victory. Whenever she shone upon the battlefield, the enemies of Starfleet knew pure terror."
"Did you ever meet her?"
"No," Artie said, with a shake of his head. "I'm not old enough to have had that honour."
"I have fewer memories of her than I would like," Starla confessed. "Duty came first for her, before even her own family. But what I do remember...the stories that I had heard from those who had known her better than I...she was a great warrior, her strength in magic was second only to His Majesty himself, she...she was a good mother, a great mother. And a good wife, when she was here.
"I'm nothing like her."
"I don't know," Artie murmured. "I've heard you have her look."
"Not what I meant, Artie," Starla growled. "I have tried, the Grand Ruler knows that I have tried to equal up my noble mother in all respects. When I fight, I strive to be as brave as her, as strong as her; when I'm with Lightning I try to be as devoted a wife as her; when he moves in me I pray his seed will quicken in my womb that I may bring a daughter into the world, a shining girl whom I can love as well as...as she loved me. But I've failed. In arms I fall far short of her puissance; in magic I can't measure up; as wife and mother...well, I have no child and my husband chose another in the end, so what does that say about me?"
"You don't know-"
"I have eyes to see, I have ears to hear," Starla said. "I know what was going on with Lightning. And I ask myself why? What did I do to push him into her embrace, what did she have, inferior race that she was, that made her more desirable to him than I was? What...what made her better than me, in his eyes?"
"Starla, I..." Artie's voice trailed off, because what could he say to her, in the end? He should have seen it, that night at the bar, with Lightning. He should have seen the signs of this, the way that he was acting. He should have seen this and done...something. He didn't know, but anything would have been better than nothing, surely? His mouth was dry, his tongue had no words upon it. There was nothing he could say to make this any better. "I...I'm sorry."
"I've given everything to be a good soldier and a good wife," Starla said, in a tone of morose melancholy. "I have devoted my life to the service of my people, to my duty as an officer and as a wife to Lightning. I've let all other things fall aside, even the stars I loved. I've given everything and...I've failed. I am trapped in my mother's shadow, my husband has forsaken and what am I left with? Nothing, not even a single friend in the entire universe."
"Not true," Artie said. "You've got one, at least."
Starla blinked. "Thanks, Artie, that...that helps, a little." She shook her head. I should get to the bridge."
"Mind if I come with?"
Starla looked at him for a moment. "Sure, come on," she said, and led the way.
They arrived on the bridge just as the Revenge dropped out of warp over the lush and verdant world of Luminoth. In the windows, the stars seemed to shrink, resolving themselves from spectral streaks of light into mere pinpricks in the darkness. Also out of the windows that covered three sides of the bridge Artie could see the ships of the Luminoth station, the two old battleships and half-dozen cruisers who showed the flag and protected the fairy world from raiders, as much by the very name of Starfleet as by the firepower that they could unleash.
And below the ships was Luminoth itself, the blue of oceans mingling with the green below them as flecks of white obscured the view here and there.
"Major Shine," said the captain as Starla strode onto the bridge. "We've arrived."
"Contact the battle squadron and the local garrison for any sign of our fugitives," Starla said.
"Already done," the captain replied. "The ground troops haven't seen any sign of them but the squadron claims that the Princess Twilight Sparkle descended through the atmosphere late last night."
"Did they report this to headquarters?"
"Communication to United Equestria is sketchy at best, the seditionists are broadcasting on all frequencies, making it hard for transmissions from out here to get through."
"I see," Starla growled. "Can you detect the ship's energy signature?"
There was a moment's pause before an officer on the bridge replied. "Yes. Energy signature detected."
"Bring us down into low orbit right on top of them," Starla said. Her whole body was quivering, whether with anticipation or anger Artie wasn’t entirely sure. "And hail that ship."
There was another pause as the crew worked under Starla's direction. The stars seemed to rise, and Luminoth grow larger, as the Revenge began to descend down as safely as possible towards the surface.
"Hailing frequencies open, major."
Starla snatched the mic out of the young officer's hands. “This is Major Starla Shine of the Starfleet addressing all the ponies aboard the Perfect Pony Princess Twilight Sparkle, but especially to all the members of the rogue squad formerly known as Friendship is Magic,” Starla practically shouted into the communications device. “I’m not interested in dialogue with murderers and traitors so keep your mouths shut and listen up. I know that you are all in cahoots with the traitor Twilight Sparkle. I know that Fluttershy murdered Major Rhymey because he found out about your little scheme. I know that you are all a pack of worthless scum and in the name of the Grand Ruler I, Starla Shine, vow that I will see you all pay for your crimes against United Equestria.
“I want my husband back, I know that he’s down there with you under your malign influence. I want to see Rhymey’s killer hang from the highest yardarm in New Neighfolk for what she did, and I want to see Twilight pay for what she has done to His Majesty and to me. If you make me come down there and take you by force then rest assured that I will kill each and every one of you and where possible I will do it slowly and in such a manner as to cause you all a great deal of pain. But, if you surrender now and give yourselves in peacefully, if you tell me where the great traitor may be found, then I will spare the lives of all of you save Fluttershy. I’ll even be merciful and kill her quickly, with a snap of the neck as the rope tightens. And the only punishment the rest of you will receive…is having to watch as I take the head of Princess Twilight Sparkle.”