//------------------------------// // Chapter 12 - Missing in Action // Story: Future Tactics - The War Games // by TheFullCrumb //------------------------------// Twilight’s eyes widened as she stared down Isaac, almost daring him to say that he was joking. The silence grew ever more heavy as their eyes continued to stare deep into each others’ souls. The disappearance of the Director of their sponsor was nothing short of disastrous, as it both reflected badly on the crew of the Solus Invictus, and it reflected even more poorly on the company itself. Isaac gritted his teeth, clenching his fist tightly as his gaze shifted towards the ground. With a grunt, he walked over to where Reaper’s helmet sat, kicking the helmet across the room. “We served together aboard the Miner’s Defiance for 20 years, you Trog-loving son of a Torassi bitch! Couldn’t have tried talking it out, just had to always be such a fucking loose cannon, didn’t you, Reaper?!” Twilight could only watch in slight fear at Isaac rapidly kicking the helmet around the room, screaming profanities and insults at the headgear of the corpse formerly known as Reaper. He was angry, very angry, and Twilight understood his anger, but they faced a far more potent crisis; if they did not locate Akane Zvaro, then there was a higher possibility of them being simply shot out of the sky upon the Transition back into Realspace. Their Identify-Friend-or-Foe transponder was not fully logged with Zvaro-Jun TechCorp, and if the information Akane had provided was of any indication, their orbital defenses were of the highest caliber, including anti-capital Particle Cannons, orbital stations housing a hundred fighter wings each, and a sensor grid that could detect a fly farting two sectors over. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, trying to get her own mind to calm down and reflect the position she was still in. She was upset, certainly, but being a Commander was still something she had to remain calm for. “Chief Humphries, notify all security personnel. As of this moment they are all on active duty. Start a search pattern beginning from the Command Deck, sweeping towards the rear. Zharkov, White, mobilize other members of the crew, arm them as you can, and sweep through the areas that Security cannot. We have a short amount of time before we Transition, and I doubt our coordinates will take us far enough away that we can keep those PCs from tearing through our Defense Fields. I’ll be up in Command to do what I can to protect this Fortress.” As she started to gallop, Isaac snatched the trailing end of her uniform, spinning her around to face him. “We’ve got so many things going on right now, what are you going to be able to do, Commander?!” Isaac backed up as Twilight smiled, the hairs on his neck standing on end. “Isaac, I’m a Category 12 Etheric Being, according to the Galactic Etheric Scale. Stay quiet and watch me work, and you might learn a few things about how Equestrians do things.” With that statement, she flipped around, galloping from the SimCenter, leaving the humans and suited ponies with a lingering question in their heads. As Isaac activated his armour’s radio, Vasili tapped him on the shoulder, bringing his attention back to the room. “Humphries, your security is a little lax, it seems.” “What makes you say that, Zharkov?” “Oscar Stoneclaw is also missing.” --------//|0|\\-------- “Hey, hold that steady, and I might be able to- gah! How can you be so useless?!” Akane would have never thought she could ever be captured; she was smarter than the best, and scrappier than the rest. She was trained in over 14 different martial arts, including Torassi Low-Gravity Igna-Style. She could hack her way through most security systems, and was often contracted out personally to test the security of other companies. Which was why she felt so annoyed at the situation she found herself in. “Lady, lady! Calm down! Look, for some reason, we’ve been sealed in here, wherever here is. Wait, you’re that Zvaro-Jun representative, right?” “I’m the Director, thank you very much! Gah, why do these PAWs completely fail at doing even the most basic of instructions? Come on, pick up the plasma cutter and get these cuffs off of me!” Akane glared over at her accidental companion, a rather impertinent Gryphon that had seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was not very forthcoming, as her previous questions had simply been met with what she assumed was an unwillingness to share information. Of course, with how little she actually knew about the crew she was enlisting as her transportation, she could chalk it up to simple ignorance on his part. However, considering their predicament, she had no other choice but to at least trust him a little. As she struggled to get the little maintenance robots to cut off her restraints, she could have sworn she heard a small chuckle as she felt her restraints snap apart, the tell-tale hissing of the plasma cutter dissipating into the air surrounding them. “You could have asked, you know. Despite all appearances, every member of House Stoneclaw goes through at least the introductory engineering course. Part of that includes designing restraints for more ornery captives. Human restraints are far less refined. So many weak points-” Oscar flinched as Akane snatched the plasma cutter from him, tightening the cutting beam to almost a pinpoint as she worked on the nearest wall. Clicking his beak, he looked around, trying to figure out where exactly they had found themselves. The PAWs were adamantly refusing to acknowledge their presence, but they were simply designed, and the intelligence afforded to the small machines was not enough to have a profound effect on their programming. He looked around at the small conduits where the PAWs entered and exited, ignoring the cursing issuing from Akane as the plasma cutter sputtered and shut off. “Damn cheap VMC tools! Couldn’t go with the better option, could you? No, standard toolkits have to be the cheapest option, don’t they? Stupid! Fucking! Garbage!” Akane kicked the wall as hard as she could in the limited space she had to move, cursing under her breath when her foot became lodged between two conduit sheaths. Leaning back, she bit her lip, Oscar glaring at her with half-lidded eyes. He knew that she would most definitely be in a non-zero amount of pain, but Oscar was not a medical technician, and his understanding of human physiology was not a non-zero amount. Akane’s laboured breathing brought his attention back to reality as he sighed and laid down on his side. “You’re going to dislocate your ankle if you try and force your foot out of that position, you know. Here, let me see that cutter.” Akane begrudgingly passed off the plasma cutter, watching with a raised eyebrow as Oscar widened the cutting beam, moving slowly as the tip of the tool contacted the conduit sheath. “These aren’t VMC tools, either. Our industrial technology may not be as… refined as yours, Director, but we at least know how to operate our own tools. This is a Hegemony cutter, anyways.” “Well, excuse me for not having the patience to examine the tool thoroughly! If you’ve forgotten, we’re trapped with… no… way… out.” Akane’s breathing quickened as she glanced about wildly, her eyes narrowing to pinpricks as Oscar watched the telltale signs of an anxiety attack settle in. As she continued to breathe heavily, she felt something grasp her leg. Almost on instinct, she tried to kick, only to feel the grasp tighten. “Try and kick me, and you’ll end up losing that foot. You’re almost free, hold on.” With another hissing of super-heated metal, and a clang of sheathing clattering to the deck beside either of them. Akane tentatively shifted her foot, slowly pulling back until her foot was free. Clacking his beak, Oscar smiled, though he was very much perturbed by how easily the human broke down when faced with the difficult nature of their predicament. Gryphons were often exposed to tight, cramped corridors, especially when working on an engineering internship aboard the massive undertaking the Hegemony had been contracted to begin over 7 years ago. Oscar had been sworn to secrecy, considering the sensitive nature of what the project entailed; even their tentative allies, the Equestrian Coalition, had no knowledge of the project. “How are you dealing with this so well?” “Working in cramped engineering conduits. Gryphons are conditioned to be without fear from the moment we graduate out of our respective fields of study to the end of our chosen internships. Most of us are trained as military personnel, with a minimum length of service in the Hegemon’s Guard of 3 years. I will be honest, this type of close quarters movement is not what I had envisioned when I was transferred to the Cradle Security Forces, but it’s not unfamiliar. I’m going to assume you suffer from claustrophobia?” “I-I’m not going to answer that.” Oscar chuckled, clicking his beak as he looked around for any sort of panel, or note of how they were sealed in the area. Nudging Akane, he looked at a panel underneath her, noting the weld pattern and the metal it had sealed. “Panel’s below you. Had to have been a professional with this weld job, but if we can switch sides, I’ll start cutting through it.” With a grunt, Akane shifted, trying to roll over the Gryphon as he squeezed beneath her. Her eyes attempted to adjust as the cutter pulsed its way through the metal, but after only a few seconds, she turned away, blinking away the spots that had appeared in her vision. As she listened to the metal hiss and groan as Oscar worked his way through the panel’s welded portion, she closed her eyes, imagining the lakes and waterfalls of Deepwell. As she lost herself in thought, a distant thud brought a question to her mind, a quick shaking and rumbling confirming it. “That was a defense platform. That’s… that’s not right. Deepwell’s Defense Force should have received the transmission of the Solus Invictus’ drive signature and IFF by now-” “Unless the bastard that sealed us both in here prevented your broadcast somehow. I’m going to have a word with that human, Humphries, after this. He and that pompous Commander Sparkle are going to be very, very sorry that they put me through this mess. Me, a member of House Stoneclaw, the ruling House! If I was not on poor terms with my father, I would have put in the call myself! I hope Deadwood is all right, though. Wish he’d had magic… then the bastard that jumped us both would have been...” He trailed off as he braced himself, the metal hissing once more as he put the cutter on target. The light burned in his eyes, illuminating the darkness around them in small bursts. Shielding his eyes as much as he could, he blinked, trying to get the peskiest of the light-induced spots out of his vision as the cutter sputtered again. Lifting it up to where he could grasp it with his other claw, Oscar tapped it lightly, feeling how much heat was radiating off of it. “The cutter overheated, didn’t it? That’s a problem with almost every VMC-” “Hegemony.” “Hegemo- well, I’m assuming that it’s a part of your tools. Considering from how it feels, it has almost the exact same shape as a standard VMC plasma cutter.” “You’d be mostly right, considering about a millennium ago a Union of Earth’s Colonies ship was handed over to us. We’d built our society around our technology and understanding of the Kepler and her mysteries, but it landed directly in the middle of our capitol, its landing thruster assemblies flattening a good portion of the city as it put down. Gryphons are nothing if not industrious, and once we put to pulling that ship apart to understand it, we became a well-entrusted ally of the Equestrian Coalition. For us, though, we had to show a different side of the Gryphons, meaning that we had one of our outlier villages become our ‘capitol’ to maintain appearances. Celestia was keen on keeping the secrets of the Everfree Desert contained, especially since the whole incident with the UEC ship set off her sister all that time ago.” Shaking the cutter again, Oscar smiled as the cutter sparked, the small cutting beam hissing once more as he touched it to the plating. As he shielded his eyes, he felt a nudging at his side, Akane prodding him with a free hand. Before he had a chance to speak up, the plating below him gave way, the panel clattering off of the walls below. Catching himself at the last second, he lowered himself slowly, letting his eyes re-adjust to the low-light conditions of the new conduit he found himself in. Barely glowing red lights dotted the wall at equal intervals down the edge of the cramped service conduit. As he found himself face-to-face with what appeared to be a small utility kit, he fished around until his claws clamped down around something that brought a smile to his face. Whispering a prayer to his proud ancestors in thanks, he pushed a sliding switch forward, his smile growing wider as a powerful beam of light cut through the darkness. “What does it look like down there?” “Some kind of service conduit. Considering that I fit just barely- oh, there’s a second flashlight. Reach your hand through the hole, and I’ll pass it off.” Registering the distinctive silhouette of the human’s hand, he pushed the extra flashlight into her grasp, only releasing his own when he was certain she had a firm grip. “Looks like the direction I’m facing here leads towards more service conduits, but they… it looks like it expands about a good 100 meters ahead. I’ll move away, give you as much room as you need to squeeze out of that space.” “How kind of you. I’m going to have my own words for that Commander when I get out of these cramped spaces.” Akane wiggled as quickly as she could, her own lithe frame sliding into the service conduit far more effectively than Oscar’s own body. Keeping her flashlight trained on the Gryphon, she crawled close behind as he dragged himself through. True to what he had said, the conduit did in fact widen out, allowing them some much needed breathing room. “Hey, we don’t know if anyone even knows about this service conduit. All we can do is move forwards, and hope for the best.” Oscar nestled his flashlight inside of his beak, motioning for Akane to follow him as they began their journey through what Oscar was hoping was not the bowels of the ship. Many of the service conduits were not fully sealed to vacuum, and others were completely inaccessible. If it had been due to combat damage, or the crash that put the Solus Invictus below the sands in the Equestrian Desert, he could not say, but Oscar was hoping it would lead to one of the airtight service catwalks near the main reactor. The majority of the catwalks had been removed when they had added in their own reactors, the Magicite control rods needing far more room than the old fusion plants that the Kepler had mounted. In hindsight, he cursed himself for not paying more attention in the orientation for the Mechanical division of the Engineers. “Well, what about that dro-” Akane barely had time to begin saying ‘drop’ before both she and Oscar began sliding down a rather long shaft. Thankfully, it widened out as they tumbled and rolled out of a poorly-welded vent cover and straight onto a catwalk overlooking the Tunnel Drive. Oscar sighed, spitting the flashlight out of his mouth before glancing around. “Looks like we’re in the clear. I can guide us out of this section now, but- Akane, what in the name of the Sisters are you doing?” “It’s the… Tunnel Drive. It looks like an old Voidspace Engine from one of the Wyvern-class Colony Conveyors. Ships designed to ferry entire settlements in their holds from a dying planet to a vibrant one. What was the ship name before it was re-designated the Solus Invictus?” Oscar had to stop for a minute to recall, though he had just been thinking on it- “The Kepler. Battle Fortress from-” “I know the era. Damn, they built them big, and they built them tough. Fortress design classes at most of the Messier Universities start off with the success of the Wyvern-class. I just… I never thought I’d actually ever get to see what your planet was capable of. What’s the material being injected through those glowing rods?” “The rods are the injected material. We call it Magicite. It’s a powerful crystalline matrix infused with pure etheric energies. Basically a massive… what was it that the Torassi called it… ah, right! A Mana Battery! At least, our equivalent of it. The main couplings,” Oscar motioned around to the various pipes and clamps that pulsed with an otherworldy glow, continuing as Akane’s eyes became almost like saucers at her amazement, “feed the Etheric Pumps in the Tunnel Drive. I was… a part of the Engineering Team that helped bring the Commander’s theories and equations into reality. We originally built a small-scale version...” “And… what happened to it?” “We still haven’t found it. Magicite, when used in drives and generators, it has a percent of a percent of a chance of going critical. However, the more members of the crew that are rated 5 or higher on the G.E.S. that are on active duty with the Engineering division, the more it seems to be stabilized. I doubt we could make the drive much smaller than it is without a complete rework from the ground up – we did use the Voidspace Engine that the Kepler originally had as a base. Combining the power of crossing into the Void with a computer-assisted Portal Gate spell, with the calculations as precise as possible, we could jump… pretty much anywhere in the galaxy, provided we fed the Drive properly.” Akane stared at the massive compartment as they continued along the catwalk, Oscar muttering under his breath about lazy technicians leaving their tools where they could affect the superconductors siphoning the energy from the drive to the rest of the ship. As they passed panel after panel, a heavy rumble shook the ship, tossing Akane towards one of the railings. Impacting with more force than she thought she could withstand, she felt herself teetering over the edge, the corners of her vision filling with white noise as her body’s adrenaline output spiked. As she felt herself slipping over the side, a strong grasp tugged her back from the edge, a muffled voice trying to get her attention. “Miss Zvaro! Miss- Akane! Dammit, you’re bleeding… looks like a laceration just below your diaphragm. Any higher and you would have been choking on your own blood as it pooled in your lungs.” “H-hah… suddenly you’re a medic?” “Hegemon’s Guard, remember? Medical training is simply one of many things we train on. Medics get far more in-depth occupational training, but we can at least keep you ambulatory before we get to the medical center. I hope it isn’t as bad on other areas of the ship.” --------//|0|\\-------- “Damage report! Why did we lose the fields on the starboard for a second there?” “Commander, we’ve got reports of damaged conduit on that side! Looks like we’re venting coolant and Etheric Essence in three compartments! Damage control teams have sealed the areas, but we need a shipyard for the major repairs! Infirmary reports that the wounded are safe for now, but we can’t keep taking hits, even with you boosting the Kinetic Field as you are! Those Orbital PCs are really kicking our ass here!” The fight outside of the Drive Chamber was, unfortunately, going far more poorly than Twilight had anticipated it would. Then again, she had not anticipated there would be a fight. She could feel the recoil of the Solus Invictus’ own batteries firing back, a little experiment from Applejack’s division – upscaling the Etheric Projector and Rifle experiments so that the recoil was simply absorbed, and did not lead into a feedback loop that would detonate the user. Of course, when Applejack had stated that she had built them, Twilight was beside herself with worry – after all, the previous tests of the device had all gone horribly, and she would rather mothball the project than blow up the Fortress on accident. However, while the accuracy of the emplacements was a bit lacking, she could not fault the power of the guns. Only 3 were active, as the mounts that served as their capacitor banks were slow to produce, even with the Manufactory online. The magenta lines of energy that arced with Etheric energy made contact with another Orbital PC, the offending platform detonating in a short-lived explosion of shrapnel, high-speed debris and purple lightning arcs. “Main cannons are recharging! Ma’am, should we deploy interceptors?” “Belay that. This isn’t a war, and we are just defending ourselves! We scanned an orbital body on our way in, right?” “Yes, ma’am! Orbital Body, Habitable Moon type. Uninhabited, but we might be able to hide in its sensor shadow-” “I just want to put a moon between us and those Particle Cannons! Do it! And forget about trying to escape their sensors – they could probably see into the atomic range if they wanted to!” Julia and Ditzy Do nodded to each other, the Fortress listing as the starboard and stern engines fired, external cameras displaying the changing of the burning exhaust from red to white to blue, forcing the Solus Invictus out of Deepwell’s orbit and towards the forest moon that orbited her. Twilight, strapped into a suit with wired leading out of it that pulsed magenta, snarled as she shunted her own energy into the mix, forcing the engines to glow a heavy purple as a majority of crew felt themselves forced into walls or into the deck plating with the increasing gravity occurring. “Reports from all divisions! Artificial Gravity systems are being overwhelmed by the increased thrust! We may not be able to sustain this burn for very long, Commander!” “Just get us to that moon, Lieutenant!” --------//|0|\\-------- Oscar looked up in horror as he began to feel the heat from the Drive Chamber, the area filling with thermal radiation the likes of which he had never experienced before. Akane stopped to catch her breath as she turned and looked at the drive. Lifting her wrist to her mouth, she tried to speak quickly, but no words would come out. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed Oscar, grunting with exertion as her face turned red with the effort. Dragging him the last twenty meters to a side hatch, she dropped in, tumbling over the Gryphon passing out on the floor as the hatch whooshed shut behind her. “If I have to save your feather-duster ass again, I might just leave you.” “… they’re burning the engines too hot.” “What… do you mean?” As Oscar blinked slowly and pulled himself to his paws, she could see that part of his face was burned in a single line down towards his beak. He turned to the glass of the hatch, touching the seared flesh without a second thought. “They’re trying to escape your orbital defenses. Of course-” He stumbled as he felt another rumble, though the one he felt through his paws was different, more robust than an impact. “We’re… firing back? That shouldn’t be possible, unless… no, she didn’t.” “What do you mean?” “Twilight and Applejack were coordinating on a project to build an equine-portable weapon capable of unleashing a beam of Etheric energy onto a target. All attempts at that version, the Projector and the Rifle, were more like handing an unstable nuclear device to a toddler; you just know it’s going to go off. Applejack thought she could scale it up, make it more like an Etheric Cannon, but if she got that working… it’s probably a cobbled-together proof-of-concept more than a defense cannon- that’s why they’re rabbiting! We can’t kiss sky in this scenario, and burning out-system to a Lagrange Point isn’t possible with the range of those stations.” Oscar looked up past Akane, pulling a lever and opening another hatch. Ponies, Gryphons, Minotaurs and Humans all ran past, paying them no heed as Akane bit her lip, her eyes welling with tears as various medical personnel cantered, sprinted and thundered past. “Medical teams to Gunnery Station Alpha. Etheric Cannon offline. Entering orbit of Deepwell’s Moon in 0-5 minutes.” “Deepwell’s moon? No.. we have to get to your bridge, or at least some kind of comms console!” “Finally! All right, Mag-Rail’s through the corridor to your left. You’ll need me to punch the emergency functions so we can get up there faster. When I say go, go. All right?” Akane nodded as Oscar shouted, jumping and weaving through the crowding ponies and other creatures, the human barely keeping up with him at a dead sprint. The signs barely meant anything to her, other than they had similar forms to the Terran version of English, but with significant alterations to make it almost unreadable, but she trusted that Oscar knew where he was going. Another thump, rumble, and Akane could feel herself get lifted off her feet before a voice resonated in her ears. “Mag-lock soles activating, stand-by. Entering zero-gravity.” “Zero-G? But-” “Those PCs must have taken out one of the main generators for the Artificial Gravity! Get in the Mag-Rail now! We’ve got a direct path to Command, but we have to go now!” Without another word, Akane clambered into the Mag-Rail’s pod, feeling a set of hooves on her back as she tumbled in, her face colliding with the cushion of the closest seat in the pod. “And other ponies told me that I was nothing without magic. I found you two, didn’t I?” Oscar narrowed his eyes at the muted-orange unicorn staring him down, frowning before offering him the seat next to him. “This doesn’t make us friends, Deadwood.” “That it doesn’t, pillow-stuffer. But we have bigger events to worry about.” Akane narrowed her eyes at the both of them, trying to read the unspoken words being passed between the two of them, giving up when she found that she could glean no information from either of their faces. Leaning back, she sighed, staring up at the ceiling of the Mag-Rail’s pod. She could feel the rumbling and explosions on the outer edge of the hull, but the aftershocks, a rippling sensation throughout the ship’s exterior that transmitted through deck plating to the crew, was strangely absent. “Yeah, the Bastion’s launching within the week. She’s going to need an excellent Navigator, and I cannot think of any other pony than you who would fit the bill. Ditzy Do and that Julia lady have it covered on the bridge, but the Bastion’s a warship, for the defense of the Fortress as per Article 298-78/C, concerning support ships and combat fleets in regards to a Battle Fortress’ capabilities. The Hegemony’s pushed her construction to the forefront, foregoing all other major projects to get that destroyer in the air. Of course, all of the Bastion’s main batteries are experimental at best, based on the experimental research happening onboard the Solus Invictus, so we do at least have a slight edge. However we’ve got to-” Oscar felt himself lift off the seat in the Mag-Rail as it ground to a halt, slamming all three occupants into the front portion of the small car. Akane groaned as she shoved Oscar and Deadwood off, sighing and grunting as she struggled to her feet. Tapping a nearby keypad, she re-activated the pod, trying to avoid damaged areas while still struggling to keep standing. As she worked, she felt something wet drip down her forehead. Reaching up with her hand, she dabbed at it slightly, only to feel herself retching when she realized she was bleeding. Bleeding wounds in zero-gravity were no joke, and could grow toxic the longer one went without gravity – it was a space-dweller’s worst nightmare. Oscar was bleeding from a wound on his rear leg, while Deadwood had a gash near his horn. “We… we have to get to the bridge! If we can’t get into gravity, we...” Akane trailed off as she felt her focus faltering. It was like a fog had descended, though somewhere inside she knew she might be going into shock. Her mind screamed at her to keep pushing, keep going, though her body wanted to rest, for her to close her eyes. For a moment, she was almost peaceful, and then everything came rushing back with a sharp stinging sensation in her nostrils. Oscar was stretched underneath her, holding a smelling salts capsule as she regained her focus. Nodding, Oscar crawled up, trying to keep himself from drifting. “We all have to get to the bridge. We… we can’t keep going unless we get them… help. Help, that’s a funny word.” Oscar seemed to drift away slightly, barely registering the hands that lifted him, or the grunting of a tired human as Akane and Deadwood made their way to the Command Bridge, slowly dragging until they could see Twilight shouting orders. “Commander… Sparkle. Commander!” Twilight could barely hear them over her own thoughts as she turned to come face-to-face with the injured human and her two escorts. Deadwood was stumbling from side to side, his mind swimming in a sea of confusion as shock started to set in, a concussion the least of his problems. “Gravity restored in Command Bridge section. Stand-by for re-initialization. Exiting zero-gravity.” Akane had to catch herself as she felt the blood pour down anew, but it was seemingly slowing down enough to where she could let it clot up properly. However, she had her mind set on the console in the center of the Bridge, the communications array. Her hands reached out, grasping for a headset until they found purchase, collecting it and placing it on her head. Breathing deeply and sliding down to a sitting position next to the console itself, Akane tapped her own personal implant for a comm-link, establishing a temporary bridge between the Fortress and the Defense Stations controlled by the surface facilities of Deepwell. “A-Akane Zvaro, IFF Code Alpha-Juliet-Tango-One-One-Niner-Three. Confirm code.” Akane stared at Twilight as the ship continued to rumble, but something had changed. The rumbling had died down, reports flooding in from various areas of the ship as gravity was restored in several sections, including the Medical Bay. Oscar and Deadwood slid down beside Akane, chuckling as they groaned, their pain evident to the approaching medical personnel. Oscar nudged Deadwood as they were both carefully lifted onto stretchers, medics gently moving them as not to disturb their wounds. “You know, this still doesn’t make us friends, Deadwood.” “That it doesn’t… Oscar.” Oscar stared at Deadwood as he was wheeled away, every word he wanted to say fleeing him in that small moment. Deadwood had soundly beaten him, and he had not even fired a single shot save for the simple act of calling Oscar by his name. Akane, however, shook off her medics, glancing over at the Commander she had so inconvenienced with the amount of damage inflicted to the Fortress. Twilight shrugged, calling up the damage reports on the main monitors for review. Biting her lip, she slowly let out the breath she had not realized she was holding, and spoke once more. “Several of our experimental gun batteries are out of commission – not that surprising, honestly. 128 wounded with 46 dead and another 57 unaccounted for due to sealed areas. That’s personnel we can’t easily replace, Miss Zvaro-” “Actually, how about we give you some help in that regard, Commander?” Twilight shot a stare at one of her sensor technicians, bringing up an incoming signature. The data all matched except the drive signature, a signature eerily similar to Twilight’s own Tunnel Drive. Before she could even speak, a massive hole in space-time opened off of their starboard section, a small vessel exiting from it. It looked like a long, tapered box with a set of powerful engines strapped to one end, but sensor readings indicated it held much moree. “Kinetic Cannon batteries, Starswirl rocket pods, and a...” Twilight trailed off as her hoof touched the screen. According to the power readings, the entire central portion of the ship held a massive weapon, of what sort, though, she could not discern. Small craft detached from opening hangars, shuttles flying in tight formation through the debris from the short, yet devastating skirmish. Before she could say anything, a video-feed entered her vision as a Gryphon she did not recognize saluted her. “Commander Sparkle. I am Captain Janus Stoneclaw of the Gryphon Hegemeony, the commanding officer of the Assault Destroyer Bastion. It took us longer than we anticipated to get our own Tunnel Drive aligned correctly, though I assume you might want to oversee that personally. Shuttles are en route to replace any lost personnel – I also am requesting a transfer of one individual to my command crew.” “Captain, with all due respect-” Twilight spun around, hearing the wheels of a gurney returning to the Bridge. Deadwood smiled as he looked at his Commander, motioning her over to him. “Commander, if he’s going to request a Navigator, I volunteer for the transfer. It will be good to be useful… once I’m out of the woods with my injuries. Get down to Deepwell. We need that Catalyst.” --------//|0|\\-------- Deepwell was a gorgeous planet, but despite its beauty, Twilight could not help but think of all the death that had been incurred thanks to a single human. Isaac sat beside her, with Janus beside him. It felt almost surreal to be seated in what amounted to an upper-class lounge, where a waiter would bring out cheese or crackers, among other snacks and drinks that were available. Akane sat across from all three of them, her eyes gleaming even under the bandages wrapped around her head. Zvaro engineers had swarmed the Fortress the moment they had docked with the orbital elevator, materials and personnel surging through the access hatches as a reparation for the damage dealt, though Twilight would have preferred the engineers she knew – she did not know if some of them were trying to figure out her Tunnel Drive, her baby, and that made her tense up whenever another Zvaro-Jun engineer brushed past her. However, the sheer difference between the docks at the orbital elevator and the actual surface facilities were such a stark contrast that Twilight felt as if she was suffering from visual whiplash. Soft music wafted in from subsurface speakers scattered all around the room, hidden in almost any object she could think of. Her eyes went over every detail, every piece of the room as she drank it all in, feeling desperately as if she was standing in a dream and she was still actually aboard the Solus Invictus, trying to keep her crew alive. “I wish I could do more than I’ve been authorized, but the Board of Investors won’t let me give you more than stipulated by our Reparations Policy and our marketing and merchandising deal. I swear, if I had even an inkling that we would have gone through something like that-” Isaac held up his hand, silencing Akane before she started to rant, motioning to Twilight to speak. “Miss Zvaro. Akane. Thank you for your hospitality, and your sponsorship...” Twilight trailed off as she shook slightly, feeling the stress still bearing down on her. “But I do have to object – your engineers requested not just basic, but detailed blueprints for a drive technology that they have no right to examine, especially after what happened,” Twilight spat out, feeling Isaac’s hand pat her on the head to try and keep her level-minded. She had her duty in her mind, but her own emotions were harder to keep in check, to keep in line. Her eyes locked with Akane’s, their emotions similar in aspect, but different in source. “Commander, I understand how you must feel–“ “With all due respect, Miss Director, I don’t think you do. The Equestrians are much less formal compared to many societies formed by humanity, including the one you found yourself from. She went out of her way to befriend all her new crew members, even members of my Fortress before she took us into her crew, and for them, losing a friend is like losing a brother or a sister – the pain runs deeper than words can express. Imagine if you were the commanding officer of an expansive crew, except the crew felt more like a family to you, and you lost 46 brothers and sisters. How would you feel?” Isaac interrupted, making Akane back down and sit in silence. She hated to admit it to anyone, but Isaac had a point – she did not understand Twilight’s feelings of utter failure. She had never seen anyone die before, either, but she had stood and watched as many covered gurneys were rolled out of the Fortress for Equestrian burial rites in accordance with each of the different race’s customs – Pegasi cremated to be spread among the winds, Earth Ponies to be covered in earth to represent their lifestyles, and Unicorns cremated like Pegasi, except their ashes were compressed to create a small Mana Gem, a stone that would never age, nor decay, as long as Equestrians remained to keep it safe. Minotaurs were burned upon a pyre according to their ancient traditions as warriors, leaving their possessions to be shared among the remainder of their clan. Her hands clenched and unclenched as she sat there, the silence overwhelming as she felt the tension rise. Akane Zvaro was a woman of action, of ambition, but there were no words nor actions to take, nothing that would bring back the dead. “I know I don’t understand how she feels; I don’t think I ever will truly get it. But we have to come out of here with something. The Solus Invictus is still in need of major repairs, and I know some of my engineers were eyeing those cannons your Chief Engineer designed. I can’t talk feelings or the past, but we came here originally to talk business, and it’s better we continue on. They wouldn’t have wanted you to stay rooted in place, would they?” “N-No, Akane,” Twilight replied, her voice barely a whisper. She was feeling the effects of the adrenaline breaking down in her system, the exhaustion creeping around her eyes. She felt her eyes start to close until she felt an odor wafting into her nose, the smell of freshly ground beans and slight amounts of hazelnut. Opening her eyes, she noticed that Isaac was holding a metal cup filled with coffee, that black elixir calling to her as she squirmed in her seat. Isaac chuckled as he passed off the cup, watching her down the mug quicker than anyone could have thought possible. “We’re loading up Catalyst Ore right now, Emerald-class for now. Sapphire-class is highly restricted right now due to some unsavory skirmishes between the Torassi and the Thalrazyne that have been encroaching on War Games zones for months. However, I think that it should be enough to build more specialized devices. I did see that Ether Cannon in action, although it exploded in a rather spectacular fashion.” “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Zvaro-Jun TechCorp messed up badly, but they’re attempting to save face in the most cost-efficient way possible. Of course… that also means that they’re pushing out the toy line a bit faster. The “Frontier Guardians” line.” Pulling out a small figurine, Akane tapped the mane, showing off the action pose of Commander Sparkle, the translucent plastic swirling around her as a representation of the sheer etheric might the Commander could muster. Janus lifted the figurine, tapping it as he clacked his beak, what Isaac had come to know as the human equivalent of ‘biting your lip when thinking.’ Twilight looked out the window, staring at the waterfalls and the various birds floating around on natural thermal updrafts. It still felt odd, the numbness inside from the loss of life still something she knew she would be dealing with for a while, but she knew that she had to agree – no sponsorship meant no capital for protecting the Fortress, getting new equipment, and maybe making it so that the same loss of life would not occur again. Glancing up, Twilight locked eyes with Akane again, setting her jaw in a grim frown. “Then let’s talk business, Akane.”