Horse Play

by Alden MacManx


Chapter Fifteen

Twilight and Jamie entered the Captain’s cabin. Once the door shut, Twilight asked, “What is it you want to know about Harmony, Captain?”

Jamie sat at his desk, reaching in to a lower drawer and pulling out a dusty bottle. From another drawer he pulled out two small shot glasses. As he poured, Twilight could smell blackberries and something else. “I am aware that your Harmony relies on six elements, that being Loyalty, Honesty, Generosity, Laughter, Kindness and Magic. When you first came aboard, I assigned minders to each of you that I hoped would complement you, despite the fact I am not a magician, I figured Leadership could be a good substitute. Would you agree that I did a rather good job in picking your minders?” he asked as he finished pouring and slid one of the small glasses towards Twilight.

“I would say that you have done an exceptional job in doing so, Captain. My friends have nothing but compliments about their assigned guides. Why did you assign Commander Seiryuu to Spike? Is it because you wanted to put the dragons together?” Twilight asked in reply, picking up the shot glass in her glow and sniffing it before tasting.

“Correct, Princess. I did not want Spike to feel left out. I have little brothers, as well as a twin brother, and having been a little brother myself, I wanted Spike to have someone he could relax with. It seems to have worked,” Jamie observed before sipping the blackberry brandy carefully. “When it comes to this Harmony, I feel that you could use some backup when we go down to visit the Master. Do you think the six of us, along with the six of you, reinforce your Harmony to the point where it would be of assistance to you?”

After one taste of the potent brandy, Twilight hurriedly set the glass down, but not spilling a drop. “I do not know, Captain. It has not been tried before. Are you sure you want to risk yourself and the ship’s officers to something unknown and unproven?”

Jamie took a deep cleansing breath before replying. “Yes, I do, Twilight. This war with the Ratzis has gone on for over six years now, ever since I found their first encroachment on New Edmonton. Commander Hartens’ home world was devastated in a Ratzi fleet action we did not see coming and matters there got worse before it got better. If I can end this war with them and bring peace to the ISA again, then yes, my officers and I are more than willing. Does that answer your question?”

Twilight can read not only Jamie’s determination, but also his fatigue at the thought of war, war and more war. “Yes, it does, Jamie, but I still have some related questions. You strongly believe in friendships between different species, correct?”

“Very much so. Yours will be the fourth species I have brought in to the ISA in the past four decades plus, and I hope to keep doing so for the rest of my days. While I can be hard as adamantite at need, I prefer the comfort of friends and relatives. For instance, my senior staff aboard, apart from Commander Seiryuu, have served with me for decades. Commander Seiryuu I first met when I took command of the Gilgamesh before the battle of Brigadoon, when he was a lieutenant. Even then, I saw his potential and guided his career to here,” Jamie said before leaning forward at his desk, looking Twilight square in the eyes. “Don’t you DARE tell him that. Gottit?” he growled.

Twilight could feel the intent behind Jamie’s glare and smiled. “Your secret is safe with me, Captain!

“Now, as for your idea, I do not know if it will work, but I cannot see how it will harm anything to try. If you want to, I will allow it. I advise you to essentially be receptive to everyone in your Harmony and focus on your purpose in uniting. If you can, follow my lead,” she advised, going serious.

“I can assure you, Princess Twilight, that we will all do our best to help you and yours. Our goals coincide now, and I would vastly prefer being your friend in spacing and exploration without the threat of the Ratzis looming over our heads,” Jamie said before tossing down the rest of his blackberry brandy. His eyes crossed and he gasped. “Want the rest of your shot?” he wheezed.

“You can have it, Captain. It’s a little strong for my tastes.”



The next day, the command staff met again, this time with the information they had retrieved via CyberTap. While it had lots of historical and technical data that was previously unknown about the Ratzis, there was not as much data about the Master’s bunker as they had hoped. Still, there was some.

“This area here is where those of us of the Six would go for our conversations with The Master,” Inquisitor said, pointing out the corridor and door where he would go in the building. “Here, here and here are the subordinate class briefing areas, what you call Levels Two, Three and Four.”

He then pointed out several of the larger doors on the sides of the kilometer-wide building. “This is where the equipment we cannot build ourselves come out of, that being command chairs, creators and imprinters. Without them, our species will fade in a matter of a few decades, when the ones we already have wear out. Everything else, we have decentralized production, but the information about those three key systems has been held by the Master alone,” Inquisitor told the group.

“So, we must all be cautious when we are inside the command bunker,” Captain Somers advised. “What we need to do is find the Master. How can we conceivably do that? The floor is open to suggestions.”

“We could do another cloaked flyby, to allow the mages to take a look with clairvoyance. No other ship of the ISA has been this close before,” Commander Seiryuu suggested.

Commander Diaphane replied to that inquiry. “We were doing that during the first pass. The regimented magic coming from that building essentially put up ‘static’ that blocked our direct sensing.”

“While we did not use active scanners on the flyby to maintain stealth,” Commander Seiryuu said with a sigh. “So much for that idea.”

“However, we do have details as to the location of the tunnels and corridors. We have a good Teltrans lock, so we can get there with room to spare,” Captain Somers said soothingly to the Exec.

“Cap, y’all got any idears on what ya wanna do once we can get down theah?” Commander Davis drawled.

Captain Somers smiled at his Chief Engineer. “Ah shure do, Beau,” he drawled back. “After consulting with Princess Twilight, the landing party is going to consist of thirteen beings.”

“Oh, what a lucky number…” Lieutenant Commander M’Ranx said under his breath.

“Those on the away team will be Princess Twilight and her group, all six of their advisors, and Inquisitor. It is hoped that when Inquisitor does what he does to talk to the Master, the Master will be so confused he will be open to an attack with Harmony. That’s the plan, at least,” Captain Somers told the personnel in the conference room.

“And if it does not work?” Commander Seiryuu asked.

“Step one, get us the hell out of there. Step two, bombard the place. Step three, we run like heck, doing as much damage as we can, leaving an opening for the Fleet to come in and sterilize the planet down to bedrock,” the Captain said firmly.

Inquisitor stood, drawing attention to himself. “Captain Somers and I talked about this last night, and we both agreed that the suggested course is the only smart move. Once the Master gets his senses back, he will push very hard indeed to eliminate any and all opposition, anywhere in this galaxy. The only safe life is his life,” he said, quashing any opposition to the plan.

“Captain, if I may,” asked Lieutenant Khaball, the lowest ranked person in the conference. “Why are the advisors going along?”

“Princess, if you would explain,” the Captain said, sitting down.

Twilight stood up. “Lieutenant, you have witnessed us calling up Harmony more than once. It is hoped that you and yours can also generate Harmony among you, to reinforce my Equestrian version and help counter the Master. Friends do help friends, right?”

“That they do! Besides, I have promised Rainbow Dash I would teach her how to fly ships and shuttles. This will be the best way I can keep my promise,” Lieutenant Khaball said firmly.

“Hell and damnation! Ah ain’t gonna let mah friend Applejack go in alone! Us farm folk stick together!” Commander Davis declared as cheering began.

“It would be rude to let Rarity go into trouble without a suitable escort,” Lieutenant Commander M’Ranx said. Lieutenant Mulholland and Doctor Harris stood up to show their support.

“Okay, then!” Captain Somers said when the noise subsided. “We head in, starting in one hour. Commander Davis, double-check the atostors are fully charged. Everyone dismissed, except for the Exec, Sardon, Commander Hartens, Lieutenant Khaball, Princess Twilight and Inquisitor. A little last-minute orbital planning before going in won’t hurt.”



The away team appeared in the corridor that Inquisitor used to talk with the Master. Seeing as it was dark, the two unicorns lit up their horns as the rest of the party broke out hand lights. Inquisitor walked to the door he used and put his paw on the marked plate. With a hiss, the door snapped open, to reveal the cubicle with a screen and a chair, as described to them.

Inquisitor sat down in the chair and said something in the Ratzi tongue, which everyone’s translator rendered into STE. “I am here, Master, and I demand an accounting,” he stated.

The screen lit up with a chaotic jumble of colors and shapes. “Looks like something Discord would come up with,” Fluttershy said quietly before a voice came from a speaker.

“Inquisitor. I do not sense you. I see you, but do not feel you. Why?” a voice came from nowhere and everywhere in the room, some of the shapes on the screen jittering in time with the words, said voice sounding both confused and stuporous.

“I am my own being now, Master. I have broken free. The mission was a failure and only I remain to return to tell you how flawed and faulty you are!” Inquisitor asserted. “You are not fit to lead us anymore! You have been in disarray ever since your failure and our forces are in retreat throughout space!”

“Report to me, Inquisitor. Report to me and the dissonance shall be repaired. I shall be repaired. I shall be whole. We shall be whole,” the voice said, a white line appearing on the floor. “Report to me.”

“I shall report to you, Master, and prove your incompetence to everyone!” Inquisitor said, getting up out of the chair. He followed the white line deeper into the complex, the others following.

Twilight shivered some as they followed Inquisitor. “This regimented magic is getting stronger the farther we go, but the order is… changing… like more than one order is trying to impose itself,” she reported as they walked.

“How many order sources are there, Twilight? Lieutenant Khaball asked.

“One dominant and… five others,” Twilight said after a few steps.

“That gives me an idea,” Captain Somers said. “Inquisitor, where are your… compatriots, to give them a name?”

Inquisitor answered quickly. “They are most likely in Central Command, doing what we would normally do, which is overseeing the rest of the species at their tasks. Master wanted me to supervise the destruction of the dark magic source personally, so he could witness, through me, its destruction. When you severed the power connectors, we broke contact and that seems to have been the start of the dissonance.”

The group kept walking, now going down a large spiral ramp. “I’m beginning to see how your species ran matters. Master at the top of the pyramid, going through the six of you and your compatriots, who oversaw six main domains of your existence, and so on down the line. Has it ever happened where one of your compatriots, or yourself, has ever been killed in action before?” Captain Somers asked.

Inquisitor nodded. “Oh, yes. More than once, while combating other species in other parts of the galaxy. However, those times, Master was prepared to lose one of us, because he knew we stood a chance of losing. This time, he apparently was not prepared for my sudden loss of signal. You were not expected to put up much of a fight, our orders being to get the nullifier in range and shooting. After that, he was prepared to lose me, but not before.”

“Good to see we’re not as predictable as you thought,” Lieutenant Mulholland said from where she was walking next to Pinkie Pie.

“Good for you, yes. Good for Master, no,” Inquisitor said before Rainbow Dash called up from where she was, leading the pack.

“People, we’re coming up to a big door,” she said as she flew back to the group. “It’s got some writing on it that I don’t understand.”

The group hustled up to the door. Commander Davis pulled a more powerful light out of his pocket and shone it on the door, which was large enough to fly a cutter through without worrying about scraping the paint. He shone it up at the top left corner of the writing and tried to illuminate it.

“Other way, Commander,” Inquisitor said patiently.

“Sho ‘nuff,” Commander Davis said, adjusting the light’s position.

“Main Army Strategic and Tactical Emulator for Responses,” Inquisitor said out loud before the door shuddered and slid aside, squealing loudly. “This dates back to before the Great War.”

The white line led farther in. “Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly…” Lieutenant Commander M’Ranx grumbled from where he stood next to Rarity.

“Ah done got insecticide, Master Chief.”

“Get it ready, we might need it.”



The white line led them farther inside the complex, going off the main corridor into smaller ones before terminating at a sliding door barely wide enough to allow three ponies to stand side by side. The door slid open to reveal a room large enough for everyone, brightly lit, with seats and consoles all around the room, and doors inset in the center of each wall. Once everyone was inside, the door began to slide shut, but stopped after a few inches.

“Inquisitor, you must rejoin the collective,” said the voice of the Master from overhead speakers. The door to their right opened. “We are waiting.”

Twilight and the other ponies looked inside, to see five Ratzis, all looking like Inquisitor, standing in alcoves, a reddish light over each of them, a sixth alcove standing empty. Twilight and Rarity could feel the magic on them when the door opened, the regimented order of the magic grating on them. “Harmony! Now!” Twilight called out.

Captain Somers looked at the officers with him. “Let’s do this!” he ordered.

The rainbow aura of Harmony quickly built to surround the ponies, lancing in to the room with the other Ratzis. It took longer for a dimmer aura to form around the Hurin’s crew members, but not much longer. When the aura finished forming, Captain Somers felt like he was the center of consciousness for the other crew members, being their director without manipulating them directly.

Inquisitor was seen to go rigid when the door slid open, by turns raising his arms and lowering them, trying to remove the shield crystal from his head. Jamie told one of his crew to keep Inquisitor under observation and not to let him into that room. L’Dan took that job, his arms hanging loose, ready to pounce if needed.

Commander Davis, Doctor Harris and Lieutenant Mulholland watched the other three doors to the room intently, with Lieutenant Khaball inhaling slightly, enough to allow her to lift off the floor and watch from above.

Twilight found the Master, despite his confusion, was more than willing to put up a fight against the effects of Harmony. Fortunately for Twilight and the others, the confusion did allow Twilight and friends to force their rainbow deeper into the room, closer to the Ratzis. As the rainbow beam penetrated, Captain Somers observed the consoles around the room. He noticed two panels that had started to light up with red lights across them. While he could not read Ratzi handwriting, he did know when something meant trouble, and he was seeing it.

“Inquisitor!” the Captain called out. “Over here!”

When the white rat turned to look, Lieutenant Commander M’Ranx extended his arms and grabbed Inquisitor, pulling the rat to them. On touch, the rat was inducted into the gestalt the ISA members were part of. <What do the lights on those panels mean?> Jamie asked telepathically.

At a glance, Inquisitor took in the displays. <They mean Master is drawing on more resources to hold off the Princess, and the resource generator cannot cope with the demand. If Master does not ease off, the generator will overload.> he thought back.

<Come deeper into the gestalt, Inquisitor. Let us help. Do not fight us. Remove your shield crystal.> Captain Somers requested. Without hesitating, Inquisitor did so, and he allowed the upper thoughts of his mind mix and mingle with the six others, enabling the rest to read the symbology on the consoles.

<Inquisitor, stay in physical contact with any one of us. Our gestalt will keep you shielded. Beau, L’Dan, shut down those alarm systems!> Jamie directed as he walked over to Inquisitor and used his left hand to grab the rat by the scruff of the neck.

Commander Davis looked over the panel he was in front of. It took only a few second’s study to determine his panel is a main processor control and indicator panel, similar to Hurin’s main processor aboard ship. He could tell the processor was not only drawing more power, it was seeking out more capacity as well. Lieutenant Commander M’Ranx’s panel proved to be a power distribution control system, indicating the main generator is in override potential while beginning power draws from outside networks. The human and Baastari shared a glance before getting to work. Nothing more was needed.

While Beau denied the main processor additional capacity, L’Dan opened the breakers leading outside the building, denying additional power. Immediately, the door in the center of the back wall snapped open, revealing some sort of armed security bot, two weapons atop it glistening with a building charge. To its misfortune, it happened to be facing Lieutenant Commander Harris. The vampire did not hesitate.

He lunged forward, grabbed the two weapons atop its chassis and twisted. The metal the bot was constructed of had deteriorated with age, and the two weapons snapped off with the application of some Armstrong Patent by the vampire, followed by a shove that propelled the bot back into the room it had tried to come out from.

Meanwhile, Twilight and the Elements of Harmony were having difficulty, until the ISA gestalt started their manipulations. The resistance to Harmony faded enough for the rainbow energy to engulf the five Ratzis inside. When that happened, Commander Davis’ panel lit with enough danger warnings to shock any engineer before fading rapidly. Power demands dropped rapidly as well, to a level that caused L’Dan to check over everything multiple times before being assured that power supplies were not damaged.

The rainbow light of Harmony started coming from the room the security bot had come out of. Twilight and company all let out a surprised gasp as they felt their power affecting a sixth Ratzi, one they could not see. Lee Harris saw the rainbow light coming from a domed structure in the middle of the room. The light appeared to come out of the dome over to a clear spot of floor before taking the shape of a Ratzi before fading, leaving behind a Ratzi like no other he had ever seen. This one was gray instead of black and white, with red markings near the whiskers and at the base of the ears, and the iris of the eyes were multicolored.

The strange Ratzi looked at Lee, gathering its wits before saying, “After ten thousand years, I’m out of the box,” then it collapsed in a heap at Lee’s feet.

Out with the ponies, the rainbow aura faded, causing Twilight and friends to fall to the floor in exhaustion. The five Ratzis inside blinked some before the reddish light went out, the iris of the eyes a different color, one being purple, one white, one yellow, one blue and one orange. The one with the purple eyes went over to Twilight. “Need a hand up?” it asked.

“Would not be a bad idea,” Twilight said wearily.

When Captain Somers saw the rainbow nimbus of Harmony fade out, he sent a thought among his own crew, <Break gestalt!> Instantly, everyone was back in their own minds, the telepathic linkage dissolving. He looked in where the ponies were, then into the room with Doctor Harris. “Well, something happened,” he said before going to his knees as a migraine headache the size of a supernova (or so it felt to him) blossomed between his ears before he passed out.