The Golden Oakes Library looked oddly pristine on the surface of the moon. Although it could not stay rooted there forever, its innate magic was enough to keep it alive for at least some time on the moon. Long enough for it to be used as a deterrent against Dan or any other ship that passed near it, anyone looking to interfere with Vice Grip's operations, all of which were buried under the surface.
Dan, Twilight, Phoenix and Rarity all looked out the main viewport of the bridge. Their home was facing them, its potent defensive measures turned against them. Like Dan, Vice was adept at using the strength of his enemies against themselves. Like Dan, Vice was clever and knew that the easiest solutions worked best. Like Dan, he was cunning and had multiple plans in place. Like Dan, he could infuriate people almost as easily as he was infuriated by them.
It made Dan's blood boil for more reasons than he could count. Every motionless green leaf, every branch that didn't sway in the wind, the whole library frozen in time like it had been placed at the center of a black-and-white photograph, made Day's eyelid twitch with rage enough to rip Vice in half.
Thrawn came up to stand behind Dan. "We're in position now."
"Launch the pods," Dan ordered.
The Chiss admiral hesitated for only a split second. "Launch all escape pods."
"Aye, sir."
The Chimaera launched its escape pods. With a crew of almost four-thousand, there were not enough pods for every crewman and trooper board- Imperial design. Tiny chuffs of pressure released from the Star Destroyer's hull as the escape pods jettisoned. The pods then floated away from the vessel, their engines not firing, just to slowly drift into the ink of space. No power and no lifeforms aboard and no lights, the tiny escape pods blended in to the blackness of space, becoming almost invisible to the naked eye... and to sensors.
"Excellent."
"You still have not told me what those are for," Thrawn said.
Dan turned to him. "Blue Man. Get the group assembled in the hangar."
"I do not have the slightest idea what you mean by any of that."
"BLUE MAN GROUP. HANGAR. NOW. TWILIGHT, NICKY, RARITY, WITH ME, NOW. WE GO. NOW." He stormed out of the bridge. Twilight, Phoenix and Rarity moved to follow him, with only the lawyer pausing to give a perplexed Thrawn a shrug of consolation.
The ship was big, so it took them a few minutes to return to the main hangar. Dan stopped at what he thought was a vending machine to grab a cold drink, but it turned out this was another piece of technology that just looked like a vending machine. He knocked it over before he left; thankfully it did not appear to be vital.
Cold drink in hand- wait, how the hell did he get one when it wasn't a... okay, nevermind. He crushed the can and tossed it over his shoulder for Twilight to catch with her magic and deposit in a refuse bin. Or at least what she hoped was a refuse bin. The arrived at the hangar to find the rest of the Danfiant and its crew waiting for them.
"Dan, I did what you wanted-"
"Good. Go back to fixing the ship now."
"But the escape pods have no navigation interface. And the ship," Colress tried to explain, "The Danfiant is nowhere near spaceworthy. It's going to take some time before she's ready to fly again, let alone fight."
Dan patted his shoulder. "Just try to get as much of it working as possible."
"All stations- maintain alert status delta. Repair Team Five to Deck Eleven."
The hangar was busy with activity. White-armored stormtroopers, gray-clad officers, droids, support crew all were moving about, fixing and repairing things. Dan led his friends or rather, they followed him as he cut a path through all the hustle and bustle, right to a new arrival on the hangar deck. At least one ship was there that hadn't been there when he arrived- Boba Fett's ship. And it was next to Barro's fighter.
He found both pilots next to their respective ships, as he had expected.
"So what? You're both leaving NOW? After all the-"
Barro raised a hoof. "Save it. Dan, you don't need help from either of us. And quite frankly, you don't want it."
"In my case, you can't afford it," said Boba.
"I don't know WHAT we're going to need. So I'll take what I can get. Also, these Imperials? They're working for me, for now at least, so I can have them keep you from escaping if I want," Dan said.
The two countered him with bemused glares. "You really want to test that?"
"Well-"
"You don't want to give me another reason to kill all these people," Barro said, and returned his attention to his fighter. Boba resumed loading his ship; having saved the Imperials, he charged them his usual rate, plus what Barro had already paid him. He didn't need an excuse to make money twice.
Phoenix came up to Dan's side. "Nicky, don't try to talk me out of this."
"I'm not going to. I'm saying, try a different approach. And hurry- we don't have a lot of time."
"Alright, alright. In the meantime, I need something from you and Twilight."
"What is it?" Phoenix asked. As he did, Twilight and Rarity, having overheard him, joined the conversation from a few steps away.
"Twilight, I need you to get Cap, Jake, Dollars and the other humans out of the Crystal Heart. We need all of Team Jerk and we need them now. For Phase Two."
"I can do that," Twilight said. "I'll need Knight's help, though."
Dan nodded. "Go get it done. Get everybody and meet us back here."
"Okay." She, Phoenix and Rarity went to perform an isolated summoning spell. Technically, because the Crystal Empire was contained in the separate dimension inside the Crystal Heart, summoning magic could be used to bring someone out of it without causing the entire Crystal Empire, complete with Crystal Palace, the surrounding city and the chunk of land it sat upon from appearing inside the Star Destroyer.
They had to be careful when summoning using the Crystal Heart; one wrong move and it might be another thousand years before they saw anybody inside there again, or the Empire might appear and destroy the Chimaera. So Phoenix would make the specific, very specific, summoning and Twilight and the Gears would keep everything contained. This was actually possible thanks to Vice Grip's tampering with the Crystal Heart- the Magic Gears could read its status electronically.
Dan turned back around. Again, he approached Barro, intending to enlist the white broadcaster's aid.
"So. Where are you going to go?"
"Back to Corellia. Back to my studio apartment with Michael. Thinking of dropping a line?"
Dan thought for a moment. Oddly enough, he was reminded of how Twilight had convinced him to stay, back when she first came back from the Crystal Empire. Maybe there was a strategy there he could use.
"How did you get here in the first place?"
Still visibly grumpy, Barro turned to Dan. "You really want to know?"
Thinking back, Dan also remembered that his own origin tale had taken up a whole episode. And they had about five minutes until they were in range of the library again. "On second thought, no. But look, we really need your help. I'm not good at asking for things- usually I beat people, or threaten to beat people and that gets the job done. For you, just once, please. Please help us."
Barro sighed. "You haven't thought this through, Dan. The railgun on this ship can crack the surface of a planet- what do you think that will do to the moon?"
"Uh, yeah, but-"
Barro got up. "The lasers can set the whole thing on fire. Do you think the Golden Oakes is going to survive that?"
"Yes, I see, but still-"
"AND the missiles are powerful enough to cause the moon's orbit to destabilize, possibly sending it spiraling into the sun, into deep space or back down into the surface of Equestria!" he yelled. The white pony face Dan and got right into his face. "Factoring in all those things, exactly WHY and HOW do you think such destructive force could be helpful, when I'm surrounded by people I can barely tolerate, trapped in a situation I don't control, forced to be here, and painstakingly deal with literally EVERYONE's problems when I could just as easily handle a dozen things on my own and say screw every last one of you people, had I not been burdened with the fact you're my only friends?"
"...Wow," Dan said. "Are we kind of alike or something?"
"GET AWAY from me. NOW," Barro said, shoving the human. But Dan did not relent.
"I think I might be starting to like you!"
"You can like the darkest part of my lily-white-"
"AS I was saying," Dan quickly interjected, "There IS a way you can still help. And you don't have to fire a single shot. Well, maybe a few, but not directly at the moon."
Defeated in argument, Barro rubbed his face. "What, then?"
Dan pulled one of the stormtroopers close to him. "I need you to teach the Spaceballs how to shoot good. I know you guys have had your differences in the past, but, you can put those aside for now to help out your friends, right?"
Barro strangled Dan. As he felt the pony's bloodrage-fueled hooves around his throat, throttling him into the floor, Dan couldn't help but smile. He never realized he had so much in common with Barro. He remembered that as he tore him off his chest and the two of them settled their problems the old-fashioned way.