//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 // Story: The First Equestrian Starliner // by computerneek //------------------------------// “That’s everypony!”  Cold Coils calls, before leaping off the boarding ramp to the shuttle and flapping her wings to dampen her fall before she hits the concrete landing pad at a dead run.  As she gallops, she speaks into her headset. “Shuttle Three-Seven is loaded.” Another voice almost instantly comes over the line.  “Two-Three loaded.” A quick glance in that direction shows a yellow blur rocketing up and away from the shuttle, before detouring quickly to the side to make the next pad, with the next flight of shuttles.  She almost smiles; that mare had, as soon as she understood the situation, completely lost all of her shyness- and care about whether ponies realized she could fly. “Two seven loaded- Flight Two-Three is loaded and ready.  Ground crew report!” A purple blur, also going up, from another shuttle.  Princess Twilight has also chosen to take to the air for this operation- and since it’s an evacuation to the massive Starship Athena, she’s not surprised. “Swift Orbit Clear!” “Low Trajectory Clear!” “Rainbow Clear!” “Rarity Clear!” “Applejack Clear!” “Cupcakes!” “Midnight Clear.” She reaches the edge of the pad, and speaks into her own mic again.  “Cold Coils Clear.” Twilight’s voice comes in again.  “All clear, Flight Two-Three, launch.  Mark. Flight Two-Four Report!” Every vertical thruster on every shuttle on the entire pad behind her fires simultaneously, filling the air briefly with that deafening roar as the shuttles soar skyward like homesick meteors.  But she pays them no mind, hitting the next landing pad and detouring to the nearest shuttle with ponies still gathered around it. At the same time, reports start coming back. “Four seven loaded!” “Two one loaded!” “Four three trouble!”  The purple blur detours towards the named shuttle. Thunder suddenly rumbles.  She glances up briefly. It’s that massive dropship Twilight had Athena build.  It’s been a month since the attack was stopped; ever since then, Twilight’s had Athena working repair priority on her Distortion Drive, then to restoring her small craft, starting with heavy-lift passenger equipment, preparing for this very motion.  They hadn’t expected it to be an emergency, rather more of just exposing everypony to the thaumic energy aboard ship. This shuttle reportedly was launched early just minutes after the eighth manually-operated flight went up; unfortunately, most of their shuttles don’t support remote overrides, even with Athena’s assistance.  All of the ones that do are operating under Athena’s direct control, running back and forth faster than any pony captain could hope to move them. Then there’s this massive shuttle.  It’s not even finished- she’d seen.  It’s got three decks to it- the top two for passengers, and the bottom one for equipment.  Said lower deck is only half full, only some of the equipment having been installed. Each time it comes back, more of it is finished- probably installed while the passengers are busy filing out of it.  It’s been running back and forth as well, picking its own new landing spot- floating in midair over some debris or something, at least a couple of times- each time… then departing again as soon as it’s loaded.  At least once, it flew through the city to pull trapped survivors out of various skyscrapers, making many stops before it finally returned to orbit. She reaches the shuttle she’d selected.  Some family or another is fighting over which shuttle to go into; this one’s only half full.  She practically shoves them up the steps. “Move it!” she yells. “There’s more than enough space!” Yet another voice sounds through her headset, exuding an unnerving calm in the middle of the emergency situation.  “Ground crew at Orbital Control Central, please hold Flight Two Five and beyond.” “Roger!” she cries back into the long-range channel, while at least one joyous whoop comes back over the short-range lines. Yeah, that’s another thing.  Ever since Flight Six left, Athena herself hasn’t been in orbit.  With the remaining thermal energies contained she knows not where, the massive starship descended to the planetary surface- and has been moving strategically around, loading ponies directly.  Far faster than loading with shuttles. And if she’s instructed them to hold Flight Two Five and beyond, that means she expects to arrive at their location- being Orbital Control Central, the location with the most shuttles and platforms, and therefore her last stop- before the said flight is ready to launch. She glances over at Athena’s shuttle…  Yeah, it’s stopping in another suburban neighborhood a good mile away, this time loading from the back of the lines to these pads. She continues cramming ponies into shuttles.  Flight Two Four has not been ordered held- meaning they’ll still be able to get more ponies to safety, faster, by launching it than by holding it. Another voice comes over the long-range channels.  “Flight Two-Five at Orbital Control Central, requesting permission to load anyways for docking in upper bays upon arrival.”  That permission had been denied at a couple of places; it was faster for them to simply abandon their shuttles than to try loading up passengers and flying them in…  or, at least once, none of the upper bays were available. Other places, it had been granted. The last several times, it’s been granted more often than not. The response comes back.  “Permission granted; limit two flights.” “Roger!” cries one of the workers at the pad entrances, also on the long-range.  She, along with the rest of those workers, are responsible for the counting and assignment of the ponies entering- so that no shuttle is overfilled. “Don’t panic,” she yells, only partway into the Royal Canterlot Voice, as she glides overtop the veritable sea of ponies entering the ship.  “Enter in an orderly fashion!” She hasn’t a clue how the ship is fitting quite so many ponies in so quickly.  She only remembers a single door or two leading out of those bays, not nearly enough to have so many ponies- almost the full width of the bay- trotting in continuously. She eyes the darkness rumbling in the distance.  So far, the evacuation of the planet has been successful; aside from the initial attacks, they haven’t lost anypony. Rather unfortunate that, unlike the pro-Equestria nation that stopped by a month ago (and never left, by choice), this anti-Equestria nation not only has a far larger army but is using ships Athena can’t take control of.  Athena had managed to exact quite a lopsided loss ratio on them with the pro-Equestria nation’s then-empty ships and the system defense nodes- but that hadn’t stopped them. These… monsters, for lack of a better term. Sure, they’re technically ponies- but they’re here explicitly to kill and destroy anything that might relate to anypony with anything even remotely resembling magic.  They’d shredded almost every ship in space in the process of fighting the battleships and defense nodes- then of course, Athena herself had started launching what Twilight called “thermonuclear weapons” at them- and forced them to take cover. The problem with those weapons is that they’re too powerful, according to Twilight and several ‘munitions engineers’ from down here, to be used in the atmosphere- they’ll shatter the planet.  As a result, while extremely effective in cutting the attacking fleet down to size in space, they couldn’t do anything about the ships that had made it to the surface. The ships that are now sweeping across the surface, shooting up everything in sight.  The few of those that tried coming too close to the Athena, of course, shortly found out that the massive ship is protected.  None of her weapons systems are working- but that’s what she herself is here for:  Princess Luna, the Princess of the Night and the High General of all Equestria’s combat forces. Turns out magic is effective against spaceships. So they’ve bunched up, and Athena has moved quickly, loading up ponies and staying away from them.  Reportedly, her shields are still inoperable, and her armor is still damaged- meaning they actually stand a chance of destroying the massive ship.  She might have gone hunting for them, but she agrees with Athena- she might be able to overwhelm and destroy a single ship or pair of ships, but the teams they have now will overwhelm her. And they’re coming.  She rises high above the operation, scanning all around.  The destruction is visible from every direction, closing in on them. She gets on the short-range band.  “The enemy approaches,” she declares.  “How long do we have left?” “Ten and a half minutes,” Twilight’s voice responds.  “How long do we have?” “Five.  Maybe.” Something blasts suddenly out from Athena’s side, going almost instantly supersonic and hugging the ground as it rips off into the distance, eliciting more than one scream from the ponies below.  As it gets near the oncoming destruction, she sees it starting to trade bolts of light with the same. “Somepony’s in trouble,” she mutters, moments before a massive explosion graces the enemy lines. It won’t be enough.  She’s joining Luna in the air, watching as the lone fighter Athena finished and launched earlier does battle with the enemy, streaking around like a shooting star, yet still making pinpoint corners.  It’s earned them precious minutes to load the ship- but they’re not done yet, and despite the tiny ship’s best efforts, the enemy grows closer.  There’s just too many for it to fight. “Twilight,” Luna greets.  “How goes?” “We don’t have enough time,” she states. “I see the shuttles are still moving,” Luna adds. Twilight nods.  “Yeah. Only the ones on Athena’s control by now, though.”  She hefts a massive weapon of some sort. “Found this in the armory- going to make a last stand.  Give them a chance.” Luna bows her head.  “Allow me to join you.” Twilight sighs.  “Celestia will miss you.” Luna grins, sparkling black armor forming around her once again.  “Oh, dear sister of mine, I know, but she will understand. Your friends will miss you.” She nods.  “I know. But it’s better me than all of them.” Fluttershy rises up suddenly on Twilight’s other side, toting an even bigger weapon.  “If you’re staying to fight, so are we,” she declares. “What-?” Twilight asks. Fluttershy smiles at her.  It’s not her usual, kind smile, but more of a protective smile, quite at odds with the pegasus’ personality. Twilight glances downwards, spotting Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie, Rarity, Midnight, and even Cold Coils- who had gone aboard earlier- wielding similar weapons down on the surface.  “What-?” she begins. “Nopony hurts our friends,” Fluttershy declares. “Alright,” Twilight states, priming her weapon and aiming it at the approaching ships.  “Everypony ready for this?” The streaking meteor of a fighter rips through the enemy squadron, shredding several ships as it passes.  They still haven’t managed to hit it. Twilight aims, and fires, striking the nose of an oncoming ship, just below the front windows.  It then drifts sideways for a few seconds, nearly colliding with one of its allies before it jolts back into position. As if this were some kind of cue, everypony opens fire. During one of the brief moments when her massive weapon is working its automatic reloading, Twilight glances down at the ground.  Their enemy is almost on top of them- at this point, nopony will be able to get back to the ship. There’s still a decently large crowd on the ground, staring up at them- and at the Athena.  The Athena is no longer on the ground, rising swiftly up from it with a steady hum, and then the impossible happens. The middle of the ship seems to twist into nowhere, moments before the rest of the ship follows suit, vanishing into nothing. Then, at the same time as she spots a sudden white glow around absolutely every pony left on the ground, everything turns white. Finally, the white goes away.  Funny, she thought that was enemy energy fire- but she sees she’s inside a ship. “Welcome aboard, Captain,” Swift Orbit greets, before sipping from a coffee mug held in his magic. She lands solidly on the decking beneath her hooves, wings falling slack.  Her massive weapon is simply gone. “What?” she asks.  “Is everypony safe?” “Yep,” he states.  “And your ship is truly impressive.  Your fight gave her enough time to shed all her excess heat, refuel, and operate some fairly major repairs.” “...  What? That’d take months!” He nods.  “Yeah. Athena?” “Subjective operating time since departure from local planet Earth, one point three seven years.” “Subjective?” Twilight demands immediately.  “What about objective?” “Kronos active.” “When did that happen?” “One point three seven years, subjective.” Blink.  “How about objective?” “This vessel is currently holding a timeline position at zero point three milliseconds after Kronos departure.”