“Five, four, three, two, one, halt.”
Shining Armor was a white unicorn with an electric blue mane and tail, and he wore a crisp jacket with the rank of general emblazoned upon the sleeves, no other adornment. After all, he had nothing to prove to anypony else, he was already the captain of the royal guard.
The HS Tempo came out of warp in the middle of a hive fleet, a field of space covered in massive biological ships ten to twenty times larger than the Tempo, alive and writhing in agitation at the intrusion into their midst. The Tempo had pierced their psychic defenses by the simple nature of not having a single psychic member, and achieving warp through alternate means. Never before would a hive fleet have faced such an abrupt entry.
“Music, and pause for contact” Shining Armor said calmly.
A soft violin tune began playing throughout the ship, every pony, griffin, and dragon on board relaxing a little as a soft voice sang of banding together, of hope and safety.
The cloud of defensive spores around the main Hive Ship began to react, moving towards the Tempo at ever greater speeds, as the Hive Ship’s giant claws began to move. Ever so slowly, it began to reach out for the Tempo, like an animal grasping at prey.
Shining Armor knew that, as the first contact, his crew were anxious. Their plans and reactions untested, and they would be covertly looking to him, gauging his bearing for a crack of uncertainty or fear. So he sat taller, and stilled his thoughts. He trusted in their strategy, and he would radiate that trust.
The first wave of spores crashed against the shimmering purple shield like water against a stone, silent green sprays of acid ricochet away into space as tiny explosions of energy marked the deaths of countless sub-intelligent life forms, mindlessly battering themselves against the unyielding shield.
“Contact made,” Armor said simply. “Begin deployment.”
As one unimaginably large claw smashed into the shield and cracked under the strain, crews in the middle of the Tempo were sealing their suits.
Each team was made of six beings, picked for their ability to work together, and to generate Harmony by their very nature. They were wearing pressure suits, and each team included one unicorn, trained for the most strenuous form of combat ponies had ever faced.
With a swelling crescendo in the music, there were twenty flashes of light in the launch bay, and then there were only the support staff, standing there, waiting anxiously for the teams to return.
In a flash of light green light, a cluster of six figures appeared inside of the hanger orifice of the hive ship, clustered around a golden shimmering device that pulsed gently with stored power, six glittering gemstones hovering inside of it.
“Y’all alright?” the leader, an earth pony named Apple Bloom asked sternly, glancing around at the other five in the dim light of their suit’s illumination.
“I’m good, just need to get… There we go,” Sweetie Belle, the team unicorn, said as her horn’s green light shone through her suit’s glass dome and formed a bubble of shielding around them, protecting them from any ambush.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Scootaloo said, sounding almost bored as she tucked an energized spear against her side with one wing and looked around. “No big baddies to stab yet?”
“We’re inside the big baddie,” Diamond Tiara said, chuckling. “I’m sure you’ll get your chance though, once we give it a poke.”
“Our goal isn’t to hurt any of them,” Spike, a relatively small dragon, reminded Scootaloo..
He was twice as tall as the rest of them, but considering the size he would one day grow to, he was still tiny.
“Yeah, this whole thing is about allies,” Silver Spoon, another Earth Pony, said firmly. “And using our magic to get them un-stuck from their ways. Come on, let’s do this.”
They each put a hoof or claw against the golden device, and with a click, it deployed a spike down, stabbing into the fleshy wall hard enough to make some of the ponies wince.
But then they could feel it, the mind within the ship, the consciousness so overwhelming and desperate, flooded with gnawing hunger that drove it ever onward. It turned it's attention on the group of six, and it Knew that they had come to break it's soul.
It screamed, and the shuddering horrible sound of pain shook the small cluster of intruders, but they instinctively reached out to eachother as a splash of green acid hit the shield, dripping down to the floor they stood on, as the thing that had spit it rushed towards them.
Apple Bloom and Spike wrapped themselves around a wide-eyed Sweetie.
“We’ve got you. Just hold on,” Spike said gently.
The device’s pink butterfly gemstone shone even brighter than the rest, as Scootaloo braced herself just inside the shield, spear raised.
“We’re good,” Scoots said confidently. “I can take em.”
The buglike creature hit the shield with a thud and crack, as Sweetie winced, but did not drop her shield.
Then more and more began flooding out of every crack and orifice in the hanger.
“Remember, they’re just like changelings! They just need our harmony, and they’ll change!” Silver Spoon said, bracing herself for the rush.
Soon, they could see nothing beyond their shield but writhing bodies, desperate to kill them.
Shining Armor could feel a tingling on the back of his neck, and a bit of sweat on his brow. He was maintaining the Tempo’s shield with his own power, and it was finally starting to take a toll, as an entire Tyranid ship smashed against them, disintegrating into a cloud of gore and acid.
But his team was holding strong, the plan had to work.
“Visual,” one of the crew said sharply, getting every single pony in earshot to look up, searching the Hive ship desperately for…
“Thorax, ventral starboard plate,” the crewmare continued, directing everyone’s gaze to the right spot.
A dark red was spreading, not blood but a soft looking red fuzz, the sharp spikes and armor being corroded into a smoother surface as they watched. The progress sped up exponentially, overwhelming the hive ship as every single living ship in the area stopped in the middle of their attack, stunned or perhaps witnessing their queen’s rebirth, in horror or in confusion.
Two massive gossamer wings, big enough to envelop moons, unfurled from the ship’s back as it gained black eyes with star-like scatters of blue throughout.
The hive ship had been harmonized, the hive had fallen. Long live the hive.
The other living ships fell to the power of harmony one by one in rapid succession, in an hour every team was back on the Tempo, treating injuries and resting.
Finally, the broadcast came through. An image of a human, half between a heavily armored man and a bug of some kind, bright green but now harmonized and healthy looking.
“You cured our hunger,” he stated simply, quietly, through sharp teeth and mandibles. “Why?”
Shining Armor stepped off his chair and stood proud in front of the screen.
“Noone deserves to suffer, just to live. That is our belief. We do not require your alliance, but we offer this cure to other hives, and we offer our protection from them as well. We are the Equus Alliance, and we have come to stop the war.”