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// Never Split the Team! 
// Story: My Little Space Empire: Mechs are Magic 
// by Wheezyandbreezy 
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Rarity ground her teeth as she lay on her silken sheets in her queen sized recessed bunk. She'd been trying without success to catch a nap for the last two hours. Twilight had put them on full alert a full eighteen hours earlier and S.P.I.K.E. finally convinced her to try and sleep. She sat up in bed and put a hand to her head. How did S.P.I.K.E. expect her to sleep with everything going on.

Pinkie was one of her best friends and she'd had to watch her panicked and screaming, trying to fight off non existent enemies. Then a few hours later Twilight had put them on high alert, "AND WOULDN'T FUCKING TELL HER WHY?!" Rarity growled groggily. Then had come, "that ABSURD ORDER" to send a hastily crafted invasion force to a planet they'd already investigated. 

On top of that they had split the team! They had fought shoulder to shoulder for four years! Yet now Rainbow was hurtling through the void faster than light, but thankfully at a leisurely pace by Imperial standards. Fluttershy had been heartbroken at the news that she'd be separated from her little knight, and she'd had to guilt trip her and Applejack into not simply defying orders and going with the invasion fleet.

She decided to rise and dress herself. Her bed had always depressed her with its loneliness, so she saw no reason to linger there. The second she opened the door she saw S.P.I.K.E. standing there, his mechanical face frowning. "Rarity." He said in the voice of rebuking a child.

Rarity would have none of it. "S.P.I.K.E.! I will not be ordered about like a child! And certainly not on my own ship!" S.P.I.K.E. didn't move and his face didn't change. Rarity sighed hard and her face softened. "S.P.I.K.E. one of my friends is going to a wild goose chase on a planet we've already searched, another had a mental breakdown, and all we can do is sit here and wait for an enemy that may already be at our gates and we're none the wiser. No one could sleep through that."

S.P.I.K.E. rolled his eyes. "You're just like Twilight with her finals." They walked slowly down the corridors in uncomfortable silence. When they reached the bridges all the helmsmen snapped to their feet and saluted. Rarity apathetically dismissed them and stared into the void. Her pattern oriented mind instantly picked out obscure constellations from the dots of light in the heavens. She looked hard at every dot, every star trying to see any blur of camouflage distortion. 

She sighed hard and shook her head as she walked slowly out of the room. She barely bothered to say, "Steady as she goes gentlemen." She wandered the corridors without any destination in mind and her feet carried her to her officer's lounge. She saw Applejack raise a glass in acknowledgement of her, but Fluttershy was too drunk and too sad to do anything but blubber on the bar. 

The two of them had spent their time consoling themselves after Rainbow's departure. They had both begged to go with her, but Twilight had insisted they stay. She wanted a stout wall between the cloners and Terra. Rainbow had to join the invasion fleet because she'd trained up a whole company of brash hot headed new mech pilots, and she was the only one capable of keeping them in line. If ever they got uppity Rainbow would threaten to perform manual stimulation on them with her augmetic arm, and it was amusing to see just how fast they would fall into line.

Applejack was still in love with Rainbow and seeing her again had cut her deep. Then to have her torn away from her gave her a need for a stiff drink. Fluttershy had taken the departure especially hard. This was the first time they'd been apart since they'd met and she dearly missed her little knight. 

Rarity pulled up a stool next to them and the automatic bar gave her a large glass of cognac. She saluted her friends and took a small glass mixing spoon. She picked up a single drop of her cognac and dropped it onto a napkin. Rainbow had explained the tradition of pouring one out for the departed, so she now did so for her sister.

The three sat in heavy silence for a long while. They all felt crushed by the tense atmosphere. Rainbow gone, Pinkie crazy, Twilight giving nonsensical orders, an invisible enemy on the prowl, what could they say? That, oddly enough, gave Applejack something to say. "Heck, shame Pinkie Pah ain't here. She'd know ha to lahghten the mood."

Just then S.P.I.K.E. appeared, concern was evident in his holographic face. "Uhh guys. . . Pinkie's here!" He pulled up a video feed of Pinkie's mech boosting through the fleet. "We tried to hail her but she's locked out her coms." They all snapped to their feet, except for Fluttershy who snapped to the floor, then her feet. 

"Whah idn't Twah with er?" Applejack said to S.P.I.K.E. 

S.P.I.K.E worriedly replied. "I don't know! She isn't accepting calls!"

Rarity attempted to hail Pinkie, but the connection was rejected. "Ladies suit up! Something's wrong!"

Applejack nodded and Fluttershy saluted, "Yes Admirable!" Then she promptly ran smack into the doorway. 

Applejack picked her up like a sack of potatoes and sprinted to the ship's teleporter. She put Fluttershy down in front of her mech and spared a moment to ask, "Shah, are y'all sure yer fit to flah in y'all's condition?"

Fluttershy leared. "Hell we Wonderbolts used to drink before every battle. Steels the soul." She said as she weakly pounded her chest with a delicate fist. Applejack shook her head. They mounted up and gave chase after Pinkie Pie. She had stopped just outside the fleet's cannon range and their big slow mechs sluggishly closed the distance. 

Rarity made it back to the bridge and barked orders to her crew. A video feed of Pinkie's position was brought up and Rarity squinted at the screen. "What is she doing?" Rarity whispered. She should've known better than to ask. Pinkie stared into the black empty void in front of her. She slowly raised one of her mech's large mechanical arms and launched one single crack missile into the emptiness in front of her. After a few dozen miles of uneventful flight the missile seemed to detonate prematurely.

Suddenly the void filled with thousands of warships. The camouflage failed like a tarp was suddenly snatched off of the top of the fleet. They had waited just outside of the Terran fleet's cannon range. Rarity was stuck still with shock. The entire screen was filled with battleships, landing craft, and fighters. This wasn't a scouting party like the last time, this wasn't even an attack to cripple the Terran fleet, this was a full scale invasion of Terra.