Captain's log, Stardate October 2, 2154.
It has been some time since our last encounter with the Klingons and the automated repair station. Since then things have been quite for both us and the humans. Since our departure from Earth we’ve explored 4 class M planets filled with life, and 1 Class E that was still in early development between to binary stars. A very rare astronomical phenomenon according to Lt. Shimmer and Captain Archer.
As a Master Engineer, I admit my own knowledge is limited on this. One thing I realized about the humans on Enterprise was they were all universally knowledgeable about both ships systems, with few restrictions by rank and profession, and most are able to understand the minute nuances of most major areas of study on the ship. This seems to include astronomy, most of the sciences, even quantum theory for some. But one flaw I can’t get over his how universally skilled everyone is and yet none are specialized, again with a few exceptions such as Commander Tucker the Chief Engineer and such. I must confess this way of thinking can have advantages, but at the same time not having any crew specialize, or so few, I feel can be a hindrance in the long run.
I’ve spoken to Captain Archer about this once before, and he did clarify a few things on the subject. Everyone on a Earth Starship knew the basic functions of all essential systems. But specialists do exist for specific things such as antimatter assembly, warp core maintenance, weapons, everything. Astronomy and science are also heavy in the crew because as it turned out, Enterprise is a exploration vessel not a combat vessel as I once assumed.
Yet for its size it is a capable combat ship nonetheless. Where the Hydra is a pure combat vessel I feel having our Earth allies will help alleviate some problems in our journey and vice versa. Both ships are great in an area the other lacks, and together I feel our alliance will only flourish as we discover new things out in the universe.
On a side note, Lt. Shimmer, and Lt. Scratches Sonic Canon is ready for its first test run. So, we diverted from our return home to an dead star system with no life to test the cannon in a nearby asteroid belt.
*Hydra Uncharted Star System*
Trixie sat in her command chair with Commander octavia at her side. The Hydra was flying side by side the Enterprise as they approached an asteroid belt in a dead star system. The Hydra took point after they reached 20,000 kms of the belts edge. Once they reached 10,000 kms both ships stopped with the Hydra still in the front and Enterprise about 100 kms off the Hydra’s aft.
The asteroid belt was massive spanning thousands of kilometers in diameter. Initial scans from the Enterprise suggested the system was once a thriving system with over twelve planets and over one-hundred moons.
Now, all that remained was a system sized asteroid belt. A graveyard of worlds. Trixie thought it was oddly fitting for such a place to be the test site of their new weapon.
Glancing behind her, Trixie saw Lt. Vinyl Scratch at her station. Her bright neon blue mane matching her visor stood out in contrast to the dark grey panels in the ship. Then again, it wasn’t hard to find anyone with a few exceptions in the ship.
“Status report, Lieutenant?” Trixie asked the mare.
Lt. Scratch looked up grinning at her Captain. Placing one hoof on the top of the console she was at, the unicorn lifted herself to stand on her hind legs over it.
“All systems are ready, Captain. All we need to do is make sure Enterprise is no less than one-hundred kilometers from us and we’ll be ready to test,” The mare said sitting back down, but then she abruptly stood up again. “Oh! And we need to be within one-hundred kilometers of an asteroid to be sure the weapon works!” She added hastily.
Trixie nodded turning back around in her chair to face forward again.
“Very well, Lieutenant. 3rd of 5, take us into the asteroid belt. Slow and steady. Comm. have Enterprise monitor from a safe distance,” Trixie commanded her two crew.
3rd of 5 responded with abuzz of his wings and obediently took the Hydra into the asteroid belt at ¼ impulse power. Lyra at the communications lifted a foam thumbs up hand from under her station that also had ‘#1 human’ written on it.
“Sure thing, captain!” Lyra siad.
Trixie rolled her eyes at the Ensigns antics. Octavia scoffed looking rather offended at the mint unicorn. She then turned to Trixie tapping her shoulder and leaning close to whisper into her ear.
“I know we went to the Academy together, but you really should run this ship tighter, captain!” Octavia said under her breath.
Trixie nodded resting her chin on her hooves, bracing them on her legs.
“Don’t worry, Octavia,” Trixie said gently punching Octavia’s shoulder. “The ship is a well oiled machine. If things get out of hoof, then I will put on the bad pony mask. Until then let things go as they are. The crew needs some breathing room. We’re a long way from home, and it’ll be awhile before we get back. Until then we need to keep the crew active and happy. If that means being lenient on command structure then so be it.”
Octavia seemed to think on this while Trixie kept her attention on the main view screen. The Hydra was slowly maneuvering into the asteroid field when suddenly the screen started to blur with static. Trixie twitched, and tilted her head slightly, before turning back to see Lt. Sunset Shimmer by Lt Scratch.
“Interference from the asteroid field, Captain,” Lt. Sunset explained without Trixie needing to speak. “This particular field has a particular mineral we call raw tritanium inside some of these asteroids. We need to find one big enough to simulate the structure of a typical ship, that way we can measure the sionic canons effectiveness.”
Lt. Scratch nodded in silent agreement, with a wide grin on her face. Her visor flashed forming two pixelated eyes showing happiness. Both Trixie and Octavia felt uneasy looking at a digital representation of a pony's emotions instead of their real face. Then again, Lt Scratches record says she’s a friendly upstanding officer. So, they had nothing to complain about. Other than it was peculiar.
Shaking herself and regaining her composure, Commander Octavia sat upright and adjusted her collar out of habit before returning her gaze to the mares. “How does this help us test a weapon? Will it destroy the asteroid?” She asked bluntly.
Lt. Scratch chuckled shaking her head, but Lt. Sunset Shimmer scoffed and rolled her eyes.
Lt. Sunset stepped forward giving an arrogant stance towards Commander Octavia. “No, this weapon isn’t so crass as you, Commander. It-”
She was interrupted by Lt. Scratch jumping from her seat and rushing beside her. The white mare grabbed hold of her fellow unicorn grinning, as a pixelated sweat drop formed on her visor. “W-what she means, Commander, is that the weapon isn’t a conventional weapon.” She said wagging her stubby tail. “It’s a modification to the ion cannon that charges ionized particles that overload a ship's systems sorting them out. If a ship is shielded this will heavily drain their shields.”
Octavia nodded at this. She could see the advantages to such a weapon, especially considering what they’ve faced so far. Romulans, Klingons, advanced ships from alternate realities and the future. She truly felt this was a welcomed asset. TRixie however had a skeptical look on her face, as if she could already see something wrong with this. Octavia took note and waited to see where the blue mare said before making a potential fool of herself.
Trixie leaned forward standing up and walking up to the mares. She closed the gap where only a few inches of open space was between her and the two Lieutenants and asked, “What’s the drawback?”
The two mares looked confused for amount, and then to each other and then back to her.
“What do you mean, Captain?” Lt. Scratch asked, with a pixel question mark appearing in the middle of her visor in place of the eyes.
“You do realize that if you do this you’ll short out the canon? It wasn’t built for that kinda thing.” Trixie stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.
Lt. Sunset Shimmer however scoffed rolling her eyes again. Trixie took note and narrowed her gaze at the unicorn.
“You got something to say, Lieutenant?” Trixie asked, in a authoritative tone and stepping face to face with Sunset.
The yellow fire maned unicorn was a few inches taller than Trixie. Better built too, but Trixie didn’t even flinch at the sight of the mare. She stood with such confidence that left most on the bridge dumbstruck. Lt. Claw nodded in silent approval of Trixie’s stand. Lt. Sunset however looked unimpressed.
“Of course we knew that, Captain. That’s why we rerouted power through the shield grid as a way of dispersing the energy though the shield grid.”
Trixie said nothing, but raised her brow. Her tail swishing side to side in an irate manner that was clear on her face as well. “And? That’s all you did? You don’t see any potential problems with this, Lieutenant Sunny Smiles?”
Sunset narrowed her eyes at her Captain. There was a clear lack of respect present in the mares posture and behavior. The rising tension between the two was so thick it threatened to suffocate everyone on the bridge. Lyra and Scratch hid behind their station consoles, Claw had one claw over his disruptor, and Octavia was starting breathing at a faster rate matching her racing heart.
“If you use the sonic canon the way you have it setup you’ll cause feedback in the ships shield grid, which is tied to the main power relays, and what happens when the relays overload? Trixie asked, knowing full well the answer. She was testing to see if either of the unicorns knew.
To her surprise Lt. Scratch slapped her hoof against the head as if she suddenly realized her folly. Sunset only glared at Trixie.
“Don’t worry, Captain!” Vinyl said saluting her. “We’ll get it fixed and then we can run a simulation to see if it works.”
To everyone's surprise, and especially Octava, Trixie sighed shaking her head and turned to sit back in her chair and left the conversation hanging. Octavia knew better though. Trixie care a lot for engineering. She wasn’t going to let this go lightly, or at least she never did before. Lt. Sunset snorted and went back to her station and sat in her seat silently. With the conflict averted the crew went back to their tasks.
3rd of 5 kept the ship on a steady course. Lt. Scratch was now scanning the asteroid field and found a suitable target. Grinning to herself, she tapped her visor and turned to face the to COs.
“Captain, I found a suitable asteroid, bearing 010 mark 025.” The unicorn said sending the coordinates to the helm.
3rd of 5 adjusted the heading to match the coordinates. Soon the view screen was filled with more static rendering it useless. Trixie glared at the screen feeling uneasy not being able to see. Through her training at the Academy taught her how to deal with things should this happen, she still prefered being able to see what was out there.
“Lt. Claw, give me the tactical readout.”
The griffon compiled by adjusting the view screens settings. A digital tactical layout of the asteroid field came into view. It was crude but it satisfied Trixie. While they settled into position, Octavia excused herself from her seat and walked up to Sunset Shimmer. The fire maned unicorn was hanging over Lt. Scratch adjusting the sonic canon. She was so fixated with what she was doing she didn’t notice the grey mare behind her.
Octavia glared at the back of the mare who was ignoring her. She loudly cleared her throat getting Sunset’s attention. The unicorn turned suddenly almost colliding with the earth pony behind her.
“Lieutenant, can I speak to you in private?” The mares tone clearly indicated that she wasn’t asking, she was telling Sunset.
The yellow unicorn nodded and they both walked to the turbolift. Stepping inside they scrunched together inside as the doors closed them in. Octavia turned her neck to face Sunset Shimmer face to face with a nasty scowl on her face.
“Lieutenant, I want to make something very clear to you,” Octavia started to say with a stern but calm tone. “If you have something to say, say it. If you ever have information vital to the mission, by all means share it. However, you do not ever disrespect the Captain, or the ranking officers in front of subordinates. It’s unprofessional and goes against the Officer Code of Conduct.”
Sunset rolled her eyes in a dismissive manner but nodded. “Yes, Commander.”
“Don’t you dare roll your eyes at me again, Lieutenant.” Octavia said with a growl. “Or I WILL demote you on the spot, and I’ll have you scrubbing the pylons until we reach home.”
Sunset and Octavia glared into one another's eyes. A tense feeling rising in both of them. A power struggle that both mares were determined to win. Neither wanted to back down, but they knew they couldn’t remain here forever. So it came down to who would blink first.
*Asteroid Field*
Among the asteroids a larger asteroid was sitting in place surrounded by a few tiny ones. Among the floating pieces of space rock was a small squadron of ten ships. They were single person craft, shaped like arrowheads with two stubby but long tail fins that were parallel with the arrow frame hull. The majority of the top of these ships was transparent for the pilots to see out of. Where the fins met the main hull two leg dangled nest to to large engines on each ship. Most were ponies, but two were griffons.
One of the ponies inside a ship was resting. Her snoring unheard to her comrades as she lay their waiting. Suddenly a loud beeping from her ship signaled something was approaching.
“Dash! Wake up! We got ourselves an easy target today!” A gruff masculine, but clearly female voice said over her comm.
The pony snoozing stuttered awake. Her head smacked against the top of her ship rattling her brains in her helmet.
“Huh, wha-? I’m awake! What’s going on?” The mare asked readjusting inside her pony sized cockpit. She reached forward with her front legs and wrapped her hooves around two red glowing stick throttles gently sliding them forward to bring life to her once silent ship. Her viewport became lit with glowing orange HUD information. The ship screen zoomed in on a large disc like ship with two navels on the end of it with an adjoining pylon. The pony named, Dash, hadn’t ever seen such a ship but her scans showed it was lightly armored and not well equipped to fight.
Scans showed another ship nearby but it was far into the asteroid field it wouldn't be able to interfere for some time. The dart shaped craft beeped and Dash saw the round ship was initiating a deep scan of the large asteroid they were hiding around.
“Alright! It’s time! Lets disable that ship and snatch what we can! I’m sure the Ferengi will pay handsomely for anything we can procure!” The masculine female voice said.
“You got it, G,” Dash said adjusting her helmet. “I’ll take point, Gabby, you got my tail?”
“Don’t worry, Rainbow, I’ll have you covered,” a softer female voice said over the comm.
“Alright then,” The voice named G, said. “Storm Breakers! Engae!!”
With the order given the small fleet of ships shot one by one out from behind their asteroid cover. Ten red and black arrows of death swarmed together before scattering into five groups of two each. Two groups went above, two went bellow, and the last went straight for the ship the hoped to pillage.
*Enterprise*
Archer was sitting in his quarters at his desk, with his dog Porthos sitting on his lap. Porthos was a loyal beagle hound who loved cheese as much as Pinkie Pie loved to party. Archer was catching up on some reading from an old book he managed to procure before leaving Earth. It was an old book that told tales of ancient mythical creatures on Earth throughout history. This particular one was about griffins and their iconic usage in history. Ever since he learned that griffins were a real thing he decided to read up on them from human history and then read about how griffons were from Equis. It was amazing to him when he learned unicorns and pegasi were real, but griffons among other things? Changelings, and dragons, there was truly a whole universe of diverse species all around.
He then got to thinking if there was one time when all these creatures once inhabited Earth. Maybe another planet? The possibilities are endless as the star were. One thing was for certain, the pictorial images in the book were spot on with how Lt. Claw of the Hydra looked. So that means that humans at some point did see griffons in enough detail to take great paintings and details of them.
Porthos pawed the chest of his blue uniform whining loudly at his owner.
“What’s wrong boy?” Archer asked his dog placing the book down. “You want some cheese? Well, we can’t tonight bud. Chefs gonna have a cow if we sneak in again. Captain or not.”
Porthos responded with a wag of his tail and another paw to the chest of hi s owner. Archer laughed picking the dog up and holding him above him. Archer then pulled the small dog close and pet him gently on the head, ruffling his fur. Porthos wagged his tail happily from the affection he was receiving.
“Captain Archer to the bridge.”
The man sighed. He put Porthos down in a small dog bed he kept at the foot of his bed. The tiny dog barked at his master.
“Sorry boy. Duty calls again.”
Archer said walking out of his quarters to the bridge of the Enterprise. Like most Federation vessels of the age the Captain's quarters were alway on the bridge for fast response. Archer slowly emerged and walked over to his center seat.
“What’s going on?” He asked Lt. Reed.
Malcom Reed was the tactical officer of Enterprise sitting to the Captains right on the bridge. The man was looking down at his sensor reading screen seeing a few blips that constantly appears only to disappear again.
“I’m getting ghost readings, Captain. I’m not sure but I don’t think we’re alone out in this field, sir,” Reed said. “I recommend we go to tactical alert.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t it just debris and asteroids out there?” The human captain asked.
“Perhaps, but we’ve encountered threatening races out in the middle of nowhere before, sir. Based on past experiences I strongly recommend we go to tactical alert,” Lt. Reed suggested.
Archer couldn’t deny that. In all the years the Enterprise was out in space they indeed met several hostile aliens species. Some retaliated from them trespassing, others attacked without reason. One such race was the Arkonians. A race of reptilians that were at odds with the Vulcans for centuries. There were many species out there yet to be discovered, and as T’pol once said, ‘not every spices thinks like humans do’., or something along those lines in Archers memory. The point remained the same. Not everyone out deep in space was friendly, so Lt. Reeds caution wasn’t unwarranted, but arming could also be seen as a threatening maneuver.
Regardless though Archer knew Lt. Reed meant well. Atop of his stunning reputation he was usually right about these things. Archer trusts him that much.
“Very well, polarize the hull. Keep the phasers charged, but don’t deploy them yet,” Archer instructed his weapons officer, and sitting in his chair. “If someone’s out there I don’t want Enterprise to seem like the aggressor.”
“Aye, sir,” The man replied.
Following his instructions, Reed did as Archer ordered. The ship’s hull was polarized and weapons were ready to be deployed at a moments notice. In the meantime he kept a close eye on his external sensor scans. If there was a ship or ships out there, he would find them. He would need a little help though.
“Sub Commander, a word please?” Lt. Reed asked their vulcan officer.
T’pol the vulcan science officer, and second in command of Enterprise stood up and slowly walked over to Lt. Reed’s station and stood behind him in an almost regal way. Lt Reed didn’t care for many Vulcans, but he always admired their strict discipline. Like his ancestors in the English Royal Navy, Vulcans stood tall, almost proud looking. Pride of course was beyond a Vulcan since they worked hard to suppress all their emotions. Pride was seen as a dangerous thing to Vulcans, but T’pol proved otherwise, so long as things didn’t get out of hand.
“Thank you, Sub Commander, I need help. This asteroid field has some unique properties that are causing my readings to get a bit sketchy. Think you could help clear things up?” He asked the Vulcan.
T’pol raised her brow with her usual curious expression.
“Sketchy, Lieutenant?” She asked him.
Lt. Reed cleared his throat looking back at his Commander eye to eye. It was proper after all.
“Sketchy. It means to be unclear or lacking in detail. My readings are “sketchy” because of the interference from the asteroid field and I believe there are ships out there, but I can’t know for sure.” The man clarified, with gesture towards his sensor readings.
T’pol looked down at his monitor to inspect it thoroughly. Indeed there was a lot of interference on his screen.
“I’ll have to divert power to the dorsal sensor grid. Should take less than a minute. Let me know if you see anything, peculiar.”
“Thank you Sub Commander,” the man said.
As T’pol walked back to her place, she immediately began to transfer power as she said she would. With the increase to power and a few minor adjustments the dorsal sensor grid was beginning to send a clearer picture of what was it there. Ten blips appeared to be closing in on Enterprise at a rapid pace. Lt. Reed saw it almost immediately and though his readings were unclear he began a deep scan of these ships.
Indeed he confirmed ten small fighter sized craft approaching Enterprise with weapons charged and shields raised.
“Captain! Ten ships are approaching from the bow, their weapons are charged!”
Archer almost had a feeling this was going to happen. When their voyage started years ago he often wondered if finding hostile species was normal. Turns out it was such a regular occurrence he’d call but become numb to it when he heard they were under attack.
That didn’t cause him to shrink from his duty as a Captain. He steadied himself, his years of experience all collected into his thoughts and he created a nice easy step by step process.
“Malcolm, ready phasers. Arm torpedoes. Hoshi hail those vessels and send a message to the Hydra that we have company.” Archer ordered to his crew.
Like a well oiled machine the crew was on alert and ready for battle. Lt. Reed armed all weapons in less than three seconds, and Hoshi was already transmitting to both the hostile ships and the Hydra. However as she tried to raise a link with the Hydra all she got was interference. Like she was trained she stopped what she was doing and gave the initial report.
“Captain, there being jammed by the hostile craft. I can’t hail them or raise the Hydra,” Hoshi relayed to him.
“Keep trying, in the meantime get us out of here Ensign Mayweather. Take us back to the Hydra.”
“Aye, sir!”
Mayweather steered the Enterprise into a wide turn making an run through the fighter craft. Like flies they scattered into three groups to give Enterprise room to not collide with them. The three groups spread skimming over the surface of the Enterprise, some taking a few shots with powerful beam cannons from their bows. The polarized hull was barely enough to fend off their attacks but the dart shaped craft didn’t stop. Once the human vessel cleared them they regrouped to give chase.
The one named Rainbow Dash bolted forward with two craft on her tail. The ship spun on its axis revealing a cloud with a rainbow lightning bolt shooting through it. The mare herself went into a low attack with her two friends at her side. The three ships flew in perfect synch, left then right, like they did it a thousand times before.
Their combined phase beam fire was enough to scorch the polarized hull but barely made a dent in it. Suddenly the Enterprise phase cannons opened a barrage of fire onto them. The three scattered across the hull. Dash was able to avoid all the shot, but one of her wingmen came under fire taking several direct hits. Its shields collapsed and two more direct hits set the small craft ablaze from a plasma fire.
“This is Gabby! I’m hit! I’ve lost lateral control!”
“Gabby, get out you’re no good anymore. I’ll take care of things!” Dash grunted, feeling worried for her friends safety. “Cloudchaser, you got my tail?”
“I’m on it, Dash!” A second voice said with bold confidence.
Dash along with Cloudchaser at her tail weaved over the hull of the Enterprise targeting the phase cannons. The polarized hull was able to deflect most of the damage but when the two ships focus fired on one dorsal cannon and destroying it completely.
Dash and Cloudchaser cheered for their victory, but were quickly distressed when the Enterprise suddenly spun on its axis. The wide saucer section hit both ships sending them into an uncontrollable spin out into the asteroid field. Dash was barely able to take back control of her fighter when she came face to face with a large asteroid.
She pulled back on the throttle and her fighter’s internal alarms blared. The inside lights became dark red and Dash Struggled to keep her craft in control as it scrapped against the asteroid taking massive amounts of damage. Cloudchaser was worse off.
Her fighter collided head on with a smaller asteroid damaging her ship to near non functionality and sent drifting into the field. A group of the fighters banded together to take on the Enterprise. Their fire concentrated on its weapons. However, the Enterprise took cover behind a large asteroid and continued to weave between the giant rocks forcing the fighters to scatter into even smaller groups to keep up.
On the Enterprise Archer was in the command center at the back of the bridge with T’pol discussing possible strategies to beat their pursuers. The ships shook as the fighters laid fire on them as Mayweather tried to evade them.
“What are our options?” Archer asked his Vulcan officer.
“There aren’t many options. There are strong pockets of ionized rock, methane ice, and large concentrations of dry plasma in the larger asteroid bodies,” T’pol suggested.
Archer had known T’pol for many years, and so he picked up on tiny quirks of hers. In this instance there was a slight pitch raise in her voice, her left ear twitch slightly, and she had an almost exasperated tone in her voice. Under normal circumstances Archer would have poked fun at T'pol's ‘human’ habits, had the situation not been dire.
“Could we ignite those concentrated plasma spots?” he asked.
T’pol nodded. “Like we did against Duras? Perhaps. Our photonic weapons should be enough to set off a plasma fire that would disable their ships, but without sufficient distance between us we’d leave ourselves disabled as well.”
T’pol then looked at the view screen of the pursuing craft.
“I also, doubt Mr. Mayweather, despite his skills as a pilot could ever hope to evade these craft long enough to gain sufficient distance for us to safely ignite the plasma.”
The male human captain sighed loudly trying to come up with a plan.
“What about the Hydra? Any word on them?”
“No sir. The interference from both the ships and the asteroid fields own unique qualities make it impossible to determine their location.” T’pol said factually.
Archer really hated Vulcans sometimes, but he understood their blunt logical behavior.
“Then we can’t locate them?” He asked feeling a slight headache in his near future.
“I’m afraid not sir. Close proximity would allow us to detect them and vice versa. Hence, why we can see these smaller ships.” The Vulcan stated.
“Mr. Mayweather, take us to the Hydra’s last known location.” Archer ordered. “Malcom, keep firing. Try to set torpedoes to proximity detonation and fire at will.”
With both officers complying, Archer returned his focus on t’pol. “Any other bright ideas?”
*Hydra Bridge*
Commander Octavia was on edge again.
Her bout with Lt. Sunset Shimmer had her in a bad mood, not to mention the mares blatant disrespect not only to their Captain, but to her as well. She wanted so bad to court martial the mare, but she had to put that on hold.
On top of all that, Trixie had been gone for several minutes leaving her in charge again to go fiddle in engineering. Octavia was beginning to feel anxious. It had almost been ten minutes since Enterprise sent their last transmission, and Octavia was starting to worry.
“Ensign Heartstrings, any word from Enterprise?” The mares asked the mint green unicorn.
“No ma’am. Not a peep since they last transmitted.” Lyra replied still trying to send a message out.
Octavia was about to reply when a loud grunt from Lt. Claw get her attention. For several minutes now he’d been trying to boost his scanners when he detected strange anomalies in the asteroid field, but were inconclusive.
Octavia stood up and walked over to the griffin. She placed a hoof on his shoulder gently to get his attention. His beak turned slightly so his eyes could meet his commanders.
“Commander,” He said nodding.
The grey mare nodded back patting his shoulder. “Lieutenant, what’s got you all riled up?”
“Ugh, these sensors are garbage ma’am. Archaic! When we get back we need to upgrade these damn things,” Claw complained, with violent gesture to his screen.
Octavia glanced at the machine with a odd look on her face. Nothing seems wrong aside from they couldn’t tell what was it there. There were indeed several anomalous readings but nothing conclusive. But to call these sensors old? That seemed odd.
“Why do you say these are ‘old’ Lieutenant?”
“Because ma’am these sensors are old. This ship has old K5 multispectral sensors, some of the newer ships in the logistics fleet are on K7 hardware now.” He said tapping the screen. “These are good for combat compared to the K7 upgrades, but they have better IRR (Interference refresh rate) than our K5s do.”
Octavia nodded knowing where he was coming from on this. It was widely known that K5 multispectral sensors were designed with the specific task of assisting the automated point defense system of the Hydra. This would leave the gunner to only have to worry about the main disruptors and photon tubes. But one fatal flaw of the K5 sensors was it’s lack of good IRR, which helped filter out interference from outside the ship, such as gas giants, nebula's, and other spatial anomalies. This left them with the old K5 sensors, which were still great for combat, but not suited for exploration or finding things.
Thinking about this then brought Octavia’s attention back to the anomalies on the sensors currently. They were erratic, and they were getting closer and more clear. It made her think it could have been Enterprise doing a weapons test on the asteroids, but why were they moving so oddly?
She decided it was time to investigate.
“Lt. Claw keep an eye on those anomalies and arm all weapons,” She said sitting back in her command chair. “Raise shields and go to battle alert.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Claw replied.
Octavia turned to 3rd of 5.
“Helm, takes us to course 111 mark 050. Ahead nice and steady. Keep an eye open for any story asteroids.”
“Yes, Commander.” The changeling said.
The ships engines roared to life and the Hydra made a quick turn heading for the anomalies in the asteroid field. 3rd of 5 was good at dodging the asteroids but the Hydra was too big to miss every single one. Thankfully Lt. Claw used the disruptors to destroy any larger ones they couldn’t avoid. The two worked well without saying a word. Between them was a mutual respect for one another.
Whenever 3rd of 5 maneuvered the ship Claw almost always managed to hit his target. Octavia continued to be surprised by the crews growing synergy despite them barely knowing each other.
It wasn’t long until Claw managed to isolate the anomalies. Bringing them on screen showed the Enterprise being pursued by at least seven small ships. Claw did a quick scan. It wasn’t clear but he did get enough information to know what was going on.
“Commander, the Enterprise is being pursued by some old saberdart fighters.”
Octavia looked surprised by that. She turned to face him directly, a look of disbelief written clear as day on her face.
“Did you just say those were saberdarts? No one uses those anymore, Lieutenant,” She said almost accusingly at the griffin.
“I don’t know what to tell you ma’am, but those are saberdarts, and I think I know who they are,” Claw said enhancing the image of one.
It bore a insignia that Octavia immediately recognized. Two wings, a horn with a upside down horseshoe behind them came into view. Most of the crew gasped at the insignia, Lyra and Vinyl both nearly hid under their consoles. Octavia let out a nearly feral growl smashing her hoof on her chairs armrest, before tapping the internal comm button.
“Captain, you need to comet on the bridge.” Octavia said in an ordering tone.
A few seconds passed before she got a reply.
“This is Trixie, I’m on my way. Octavia, what’s going on up there?” the blue mares voice asked.
Octavia’s face contorted into a angered expression.
“It’s the Equestrians for Species Segregation, Trixie. They’re out here and they’re attacking our human friend,” Octavia said coldly.
“.... I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
The comm went silent and Octavia leaned back in her chair. She took a deep calming breath trying to steal her resolve. She needed to be strong now. Her crew need her leadership until Trixie got there. Using her anger to help focus her stress, Octavia leaned forward almost out of her chair staring down the screen as if she were in a staring contest with it, and determined to win at any cost.
“3rd of 5 take u directly into that swarm of ships! Claw, get the point defense grid online! When we strafe the Enterprise I want those ships to be turned into space debris!”
“With pleasure, Commander,” The griffin said overcharging the disruptors. “All set Commander!”
Octavia grinned. Most of the bridge crew were on edge to see such a sudden show of aggression from the usually team and calm commander. Lyra thought it was like looking at a rabid timberwolf out for blood. It made her shiver to see such a crazed look on her old friends face. 3rd of 5 felt a cold absence of love from the Commander that made his blood chill, but Claw was enjoying it. 3rd of 5 could only describe what he felt from them as a sick twisted love coming off the pony and griffin.
Octavia glanced once at Claw and nodded to him. He nodded back preparing to fire as soon as they were imposition. Then Octavia gave one last order.
“3rd of 5, take us in.” She said.