Chapter 4: Red
One of the sub-missions assigned to some of the crew of the Dominator II, myself included, was to find as much information as we could on the Red Starfighter, and hopefully find out their identity. When we finally found out who they were, it turned out to be the last pony I expected.
– Extract from When We Saw the Universe by Captain Twilight Sparkle
The Dominator III was a very different ship from its predecessor. While the Dominator II had been designed to look sleek and majestic the Dominator III gave off an image of power and strength. The ship’s hull was made of various heavy metals and coated in a dark red paint, which was mostly still intact. The ship looked like a solid red brick, with a curved front. At the top of this curve was a wide red tinted window, and behind the window was the bridge.
Bolkarn Lord Gofthraki was in command of the ship; he was sitting in the large black commander’s chair, unlike all the other chairs on the bridge which were constructed from plastic the commander’s chair was made from the same metal as the ship’s hull. It wasn’t very comfortable, but comfort was not something that the Bolkarn cared about. Draped across the back of the chair was a cloak he wore, made of the skin of a manticore he’d killed during a visit to the Bolkarn’s mines on Pony-Earth. The beast had killed almost an entire squad of Bolkarn before he killed it with his hammer, which was propped against the right hand side of his chair. The hammer was a solid block of metal with a short handle that was barely bigger than its wielder’s hands. It was also stained with the dried blood of its many victims. Sitting against the other side of his chair was a long black sword, the sword was mostly just for decoration but he did know how to use it, and any member of his crew who ‘disappointed’ him would have a choice for how he’d kill them, they could either choose to die by his hammer or by his sword. And then he’d kill them with the one they didn’t choose.
The Dominator III was currently cruising casually through space, they did have a destination in mind but they weren’t in any particular hurry, they could just jump through hyperspace and arrive there almost instantaneously. But first they had to find a suitable place to cross into hyperspace. The ship was returning to Bolka after making a series of visits and inspections to the many worlds that the Bolkarn had occupied and set up mines on. This was not something that Gofthraki enjoyed doing. He wanted to be part of the attacks, to be in the midst of battle and conquest. He had been once, long ago. He began at the bottom, and overtime came to dominate battlefield after battlefield before finally being given the title of a Lord and put in command of the Dominator III. Now he felt as though he’d been put out of the way, to make room for new younger Bolkarn to take his place as great heroes of battle while his glorious deeds were forgotten by the new generation. He gazed through the window at the infinite number of stars out there, with goodness knows how many planets orbiting around them. He wanted to turn the ship towards one of those stars and launch an attack on one of those planets, they’d never see them coming and the Dominator III would crush them within hours. It would all be oh so easy, and oh so glorious.
The ship had left the planet Celo-7 several hours ago, shortly afterwards they’d discovered that two slaves from the mine had stowed away onboard the ship and later stolen two escape pods. The Dominator III had opened fire on of the two and damaged it, though they didn’t know how severely. Both escape pods had landed on two very inhospitable planets with very little chance of survival for their occupants, and Gofthraki had decided to leave them to their fate. But he couldn’t help wondering what a younger Gofthraki would’ve done, a Gofthraki who wasn’t a lord, who wasn’t in command of a ship that could probably ram through an entire fleet of battleships as though they weren’t even there. That Gofthraki would probably have gone down to the planets himself, inhospitality be damned, and smashed the stowaways heads into paste with his hammer. Was he going soft? Maybe he was. As those thoughts crossed his mind Gofthraki vowed that the next time he had an opportunity to prove that he wasn’t going soft he’d take it.
Then one of the bridge crew spoke up, “Lord Gofthraki, sir, we’ve reached a suitable point for crossing into Hyperspace. Shall I prepare to… hold on… sir, there’s something coming through Hyperspace, just in front of us.”
Gofthraki stared out of the window as the something popped into existence a short distance away from the ship. It was a small ship, and very hard to make out clearly at that distance.
“Give us a closer view,” he ordered.
“Aye aye sir.”
A holographic screen activated in front of the window, displaying the same view. A red ring moved across the screen and over the small ship, the image was replaced with another, this time a much closer and larger view of the ship. The ship was shaped like a squashed bullet, and painted a bright red color save for a black patch on the top that must be the cover for the cockpit. They could see tiny holes pointing forwards, probably weaponry. Gofthraki didn’t recognize the design.
“What it is?” he barked.
“I’m not sure,” one crew member said. “The computer is studying the design to see if it matches anything in our records.”
“Sir,” another one said, “The ship is hailing us.”
“Then let us hear what they have to say. Put them on screen.”
“I’m afraid we have audio only sir.”
“Then put that on the speakers.”
“Aye aye sir.”
There was a crackle as the speakers were activated, and the message was heard throughout the entire ship. A long bout of laughter came through the speakers and echoed round the dark corridors of the Dominator III. The crew stared at each other, not sure of what to make of it while Gofthraki just scowled. Then the laughing stopped and whoever it was spoke.
“Attention Bolkarn ship,” they said in Bolkarnese, the voice sounded distorted and sometimes buzzed, whoever it was must’ve wanted to conceal their identity. “This is the Red Starfighter; you will now abandon your ship and hand it over to me.”
There was a brief moment of silence across the Dominator III, and then everyone onboard burst into laughter.
“I’m guessing that’s a no,” the Red Starfighter said.
“That’s right, ‘Red Starfighter’,” Gofthraki bellowed. “If you think we’re going to be intimidated by one tiny ship then you’re clearly dealing with the wrong race. Open fire!”
The Dominator III’s weapons burst into life, firing bursts of energy in the direction of the small ship. The ship shot away, ducking, diving and weaving in and out of the path of the blasts. The Bolkarn fired a few small missiles at it, but it dodged those to. The missiles changed course to follow it. The ship shot over the top of the Dominator III, and then flew away with the missiles trailing behind it.
“That should sort them out,” Gofthraki said, now wearing a smug grin on his face.
Then the Red Starfighter changed direction, and so did the missiles. They were heading straight for the Dominator III. At almost the last second the Red Starfighter changed direction, the missiles did not. They slammed straight into the hull of the ship which shook from the force of the explosions.
“Damage report,” Gofthraki shouted.
“Minimal,” came the response.
“Good,” Gofthraki thought, the ship was strong; it would take more than two of their own missiles to destroy them.
“Sir, the craft is opening fire on us.”
“Then return fire.”
The Red Starfighter’s craft shot some of its own energy bursts into one of the Dominator III’s weapons banks, dodging out of the way as the ship opened fire on them. The weapons bank eventually exploded and the Red Starfighter pulled away from the ship, before turning back and opening fire once again, this time on a missile launch port which was destroyed very quickly. The resulting explosion was intensified when several missiles went up with it.
“DAMAGE REPORT!” Gofthraki shouted again, slamming a fist down onto the arm of his chair.
Part of the right side of the hull had been ripped away by the explosion, and now the Red Starfighter was turning for another attack. Gofthraki understood why they were being beaten by this thing. The Red Starfighter was small and fast, a hard target to hit, but they should be scoring a few hits. Why was every single shot they fired at this thing missing? The Dominator III on the other hand was the exact opposite, strong yes, but slow and a very easy target. They couldn’t quickly turn their ship around to face an oncoming threat, which was why the ship had weapons mounted on all sides. The ship was rocked by another, much larger explosion and alarms started sounding.
“They’ve… they’ve taken out the engines,” a crew member shouted over the noise.
Gofthraki let out a scream of rage, and then he saw the Red Starfighter descend into view, only a few feet away from the window.
“Now, I’m going to ask nicely,” said the voice from the speakers. “Abandon ship or I’ll open fire on the bridge.”
“NEVER!”
“I can do worse you know.”
“YOU AND WHAT ARMY?”
“Oh goody, you just gave me the perfect opportunity to do this!”
The Bolkarn watched in horror as several dozen ships of various sizes suddenly appeared out of Hyperspace, they were surrounded and outnumbered.
“Now, I’m going to ask nicely one more time,” the Red Starfighter said. “Either abandon ship now or you won’t have a ship to abandon.”
One secondary objective that had been assigned to the crew of the Dominator II was to gather as much information as possible on the Red Starfighter. Twilight had been given a major role in this task, originally when she’d first heard about this she was going to request that she be assigned to it before learning that she’d been selected for it anyway. The Red Starfighter had first appeared about eighteen months ago, around the same time that the resistance liberated Pony-Earth from the Bolkarn. The resistance first heard about them about a month later when a Bolkarn ship called the Dreaded VI made contact with them. Apparently the Red Starfighter had attacked the ship and ordered the crew to abandon it and then given the slaves control of the ship along with the option to join either the Red Starfighter’s own fleet or the resistance, the slaves choose the latter option.
The Red Starfighter’s actual first assault was on the Dominator III, the circumstances were apparently the same as with the Dreaded VI, though in this case the Dominator III didn’t have any slaves on board and the Red Starfighter simply captured the ship after ‘persuading’ the crew to abandon it. The resistance had only heard about this incident some time afterwards from some of their spies on Bolka. Since then they’d been keeping track of the Red Starfigher’s movements as best they could. From the information they’d been given they knew that the Red Starfighter was an Equinoid, and female. Ever since they’d been able to determine that fact Twilight had wandered if the Red Starfighter was from Pony-Earth, though exactly where the Red Starfighter came from they still didn’t know.
Twilight and General En stepped into meeting room 18. This was one of the smaller rooms in the Silver Centre, able to accommodate about 15 individuals, though they certainly didn’t need that many. The purpose of this meeting was to go over and share the most recent information they’d acquired about the Red Starfighter, and compare it with whatever they had so far. Twilight and En weren’t the first to arrive; the only other members of the Red Starfighter Committee were already there. nVVe was floating above one of the many tables in the room, nVVe had been assigned to the committee because all the blue lights shared a mental connection, if any of them learnt anything about the Red Starfighter nVVe would know about it immediately. Sitting on the opposite side of the room from nVVe was Liha. Liha was one of the Dominator II’s engineers, Twilight didn’t know the name of her species nor where she came from, she hadn’t meet anyone else of that race either. Liha was an orange skinned humanoid, she had a third eye set into her forehead and shoulder length white hair, but Twilight thought it looked more like spaghetti then hair. She was also one of the few members of the resistance Twilight knew who almost always wore her uniform, though she also wore a white jacket over it. She was also wearing a belt with several pouches and hoops holding various tools and other things, one hoop was currently empty and its usual contents, a small screwdriver, was being twiddled between the five fingers and two thumbs of her left hand. Liha’s job on the committee was to try and determine where the Red Starfighter, or at least her ship, came from. They’d been able to produce a few possibilities for what the ship looked like based on descriptions from eyewitnesses, unfortunately very few of these agreed with each other and some seemed to be very exaggerated. Liha had also been studying some recordings they had of communication between the Red Starfighter and the ships she’d attacked, the Red Starfighter’s side of these recordings was heavily altered presumably to disguise her voice. Liha had been trying to restore these to how they originally sounded, she hadn’t managed it yet.
Twilight took a seat and extracted the folder from her saddlebags while General En stood at the end of the room and cleared her throat for attention, Liha quickly put her screwdriver away.
“We have recently received new information which may be a big step in discerning the origin of the Red Starfighter,” she said. “Captain Sparkle, if you please.”
“Yes sir,” Twilight said and extracted a few sheets from her folder which she distributed to the others.
“This picture was taken by one of our space probes as it was passing Planet 46,” General En explained. “It shows a Bolkarn ship, specifically the Great Annihilator, being attacked by what we presume to be the Red Starfighter.”
The Great Annihilator had made contact with the resistance during the first week of the Dominator II’s most recent mission and the photograph had been received shortly afterwards. The Red Starfighter’s small ship had been highlighted in the photograph; otherwise it was rather hard to see. Twilight extracted another sheet of paper and inserted it into a projector at the back of the room. An enhanced and enlarged image of the ship appeared on the opposite wall. The image was slightly blurred, but it was still easier to see then the original. Liha stared at it.
“Hey Twilight, you got any of the drawings with you?” she asked.
“Yes, hold on,” Twilight took out several more sheets and levitated them over to Liha.
The sheet’s Twilight had passed to her showed several drawings based on the various descriptions of the Red Starfighters ship they’d been given. Liha started going through them all, she’d look between the drawings and the photograph and some she’d toss aside while others she’d lay down on the table, Twilight noticed that the ones that were on the table seemed close the what the ship actually looked like so she must be tossing the ones that didn’t match. Twilight could remember what some of them looked like, a few of them were far too big to be a starfighter, and one had a set of enormous spikes protruding from it. While that would certainly be intimidating it wasn’t very practical.
“Well?” Twilight asked Liha once she’d gone through all the drawings, there’d been 23 in total. Liha had tossed aside nine of them and now spread the remaining 14 over the table.
“This is the basic description we were given the most,” she said. “So I’d say this is definitely the real Red Starfighter.”
Twilight glanced at the drawings; while they weren’t exact they were certainly the same ship. Some of the descriptions had given the ship decorative paintwork such as a monstrous face on the ship’s front; another one had two large missiles attached to the side of the ship though the ship itself had the same shape as the real one.
“So do you have any idea where the ship came from?” General En asked?
Liha stared at the photograph for a few seconds before answering, “I’m afraid not,” she said. “It doesn’t match any design I’m aware of.”
Liha had had a keen interest in space travel since she was very young, and over the years she’d gathered as much information as possible about every spaceship ever created, old and new, to find a spaceship she didn’t know about that was more than a year old was very unlikely.
“It could be a custom built ship,” nVVe suggested.
“Good point,” Liha said. “Or it could be a different ship, we’ve always assumed that the Red Starfighter has been using the same ship since the beginning, but they could have switched to a new model. Though I’ll admit I don’t recognize any models from any of the descriptions we were given, so there’s that theory shot down already.”
“The original could’ve been a custom made ship as well,” Twilight suggested.
“Another good point.”
“Perhaps we would be able to better determine its origin if we were able to examine its internal workings,” nVVe said.
“Okay, good idea,” Liha said. “But how are we going to do that?”
“She has a point,” Twilight said. “We only got this image purely by chance so I think it’s unlikely that we’ll get another one that easily. And we can’t have probes following every single Bolkarn ship just on the off chance that the Red Starfighter will show up.”
“I agree, but I think that is the only way we could manage to get another photograph of the Red Starfighter,” General En said.
“But it’s not a practical solution sir,” Twilight replied. “We don’t have enough probes for an operation like that for a start, but we’d also need to know when a Bolkarn ship is travelling through space and its course, and there’s no guarantee that the ship would be attacked by the Red Starfighter.”
“Twilight’s right, I mean… wait a moment, I’ve got an idea,” Liha exclaimed, as all three of her eyes widened and a wide smile spreading across her face.
“Well?” General En asked.
“Okay, how about this, we plant a series of bugs on several Bolkarn ships and have them monitor the ships radio transmissions. We’ll also have those transmissions being relayed to a probe waiting in Hyperspace fitted with an x-ray camera. If the bug picks up the words ‘Red Starfighter’ over the transmission then it’ll send the ships location to the probe which will jump out of Hyperspace a short distance away from the action and start taking pictures.”
There was a short silence as Liha grinned at the rest of them, waiting for a response.
“It’s a good idea,” Twilight said. “But…”
“But?”
“How exactly are we going to get the bugs planted?”
“Zark! I didn’t think of that.”
“We’d also need to make the bugs themselves,” General En pointed out.
“Oh don’t worry; I can do that pretty easily. And getting a probe set up should be pretty easy to.”
“So we just need to think of a way to actually install the bugs then,” Twilight said.
“Exactly.”
The meeting carried on for another hour after that. Liha gave a report on the progress she’d made in regards to restoring the audio of the Red Starfighter to its original form, and Twilight was asked if the space probe had taken any more photographs of the Red Starfighter. It had, though only three more and the quality on the others was rather poor. She’d also been asked if they’d managed to photograph the vast fleet that sometimes came with the Red Starfighter, however on this occasion the fleet hadn’t appeared. They also listened to the recordings of the Red Starfighter from the Great Annihilator. The Red Starfighter always started with laughter, none of them knew why. Though because of this an idea as to who the Red Starfighter might be had popped into Twilight’s head the first time she’d heard it, but after thinking about it she’d just dismissed the idea as incredibly unlikely and chalked it up to just wishful thinking.
Eventually General En called an end to the meeting and they all prepared to leave, nVVe was the first to go and floated out through the door without flashing a goodbye. Liha picked up a crutch that had been leaning against the back of her chair; Liha had suffered a wound to her right leg during an incident when a group of Bolkarn had boarded the Dominator II and since then had been walking with a limp.
“Hey Twilight,” she said in English, to speak English over time thanks to spending a lot of time with Lyra since Liha had made Lyra’s arm and was responsible for maintaining it. “You got any plans for tonight?”
“Not really,” Twilight replied, “Except maybe spending a night doing some more reading.”
“Well, I was thinking a few of us could have a night out. You, me, Lyra, Lyra’s girlfriend…”
“Bon Bon.”
“Yeah, her… actually I haven’t met her yet. Anyway, I’m going to be meeting Lyra in a short while to give her arm a check up.”
“Well when you do tell her I wanted to talk to her.”
“Will do. So, you interested?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, then I guess I’ll see you later. Bye.”
Liha left the room, Twilight was about to follow her when General En spoke.
“One moment Captain Sparkle.”
“Sir?”
“We are having some new crew members assigned to the Dominator II, one of them is a particularly significant figure on his home world and I am about to go and meet him. I would like you to come with me.”
“Very well sir,” Twilight said and followed General En out of the room.
General En led Twilight back to the Silver Center’s food court; Twilight understood why they were meeting this new recruit there as she’d often arrange to meet up with her friends there after a meeting. The new recruit was sitting at a bar at the far end of the food court drinking a large glass of a green drink called Glando. Twilight had never tried it herself, but it was apparently very popular.
The new recruit was a large humanoid being; in fact he was a similar size to the Bolkarn, with tough looking dark grey skin and wearing various pieces of armor which included a helmet that appeared to have a translator built into it, he also had a large sword hanging from his belt. He looked towards them as he heard them approach and got off the stool he was sitting on.
“Greetings,” he said in a deep voice. “I assume that you are General En.”
“You assume correctly.”
“And your companion?”
“Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said, then realizing she’d forgotten something, “Captain Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight waited a few seconds for the slight chuckle that almost always followed when she introduced herself to someone. To her relief it didn’t come.
“Captain Sparkle is in charge of organizing any new information the Dominator II receives and with coordinating our attacks on Bolkarn mines,” General En explained.
“Certainly an important position, though I assume this means you rarely see combat yourself.”
“I have a few times, though not since... never mind.”
“Something personal you’d prefer to not talk about?”
“Yeah.”
“I understand. So we should change the subject, I realize I haven’t introduced myself yet. I am Phaurn, Champion of Vendagol.”
“And I’m pleased to meet you,” Twilight said, raising one of her hooves, Phaurn had to bend down to shake it.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of your home planet,” Twilight told him.
“Vendagol has yet to become involved in the Bolkarn conflict,” General En told her.
“Oh, then why join the resistance then?”
“The resistance needs all the help it can get,” Phaurn told her. “And I believe an individual should be allowed to become involved in a conflict even if his people do not. And by doing so I may help my world to continue to stay out of the conflict.”
“Well I can guess I can understand that idea. So, I assume you will aiding us in our attacks on the planets that the Bolkarn have occupied.”
“Indeed.”
“And is that sword the only weapon you’ll be taking into battle?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I may have to reorganize some of my basic attack strategies to accommodate for you and that sword. I assume that’s why you wanted me to meet him,” the last part was addressed to General En.
“That is correct Captain Sparkle.”
“Well what would your standard tactics involve?” Phaurn asked.
“Usually find some cover and open fire on any Bolkarn who happen to be in range while slowly moving closer to the mines, though I’ll admit once they actually get into the mines there isn’t that much cover.”
“A basic, but sound strategy.”
“How well does that armor stand up to bullets?” Twilight asked. “I can see a few gaps in it actually.”
“I will admit that I have yet to find out.”
“Then may I suggest that you wear our own body armor, we know that it’s mostly bullet proof, though it does have one or two week spots but it does its job.”
“I will consider it.”
“Good. I think you should also carry a blaster with you just in case. If that sword is going to be your main weapon in a conflict that mostly uses firearms you could easily get into a situation where it’s not much use, like if you stuck behind somewhere and being fired upon from nearly every side. A sword isn’t going to be much use there unless you throw it, and then you’ve lost your weapon, and you might even miss.”
“I will have to give that some thought.”
“Please do.”
Silence followed this, Phaurn didn’t respond to Twilight’s last remark and she wasn’t sure what to say next. The silence was eventually broken by General En.
“Do you have anything else you wish to ask our new recruit Captain Sparkle?”
“Oh, erm... no. Sir.”
“Very well then, you may go,” General En said. “I have other thinks to discuss with Phaurn.”
“Thank you sir.”
Twilight saluted and trotted away and out of the building. She really wasn’t sure what use a sword would in the battles they’d have to fight; really a sword would only be useful if your enemies were also all armed with swords. Twilight wandered if she’d have to persuade Phaurn to abandon the idea of using the sword and carry a blaster in its place, or at least make the blaster his primary weapon. Twilight supposed that something like a sword would be useful as a backup weapon, blasters could run out of power and a gun that fired physical projectiles would eventually run out of ammunition. A sword didn’t have anything that could run out, although it could maybe break, or its sharp edge could be blunted. One the rare occasion where Twilight involved herself in a battle she’d always carry a blaster, and if it ran out she’d resort to firing blasts of pure magic at her enemies. But too much of that would eventually wear her out.
Since she didn’t have a schedule to stick to this time Twilight decided to walk back to the Halwic, and walking would give her time to think. As she walked she gazed around at her surroundings, the tall buildings still amazed her. Glancing upwards she saw Rainbow Dash flying overhead, and once Twilight was close enough to be able to see the Halwic she saw Rainbow Dash fly back in through a window. Twilight thought that maybe she should ask Rainbow if she’d be interested in Liha’s plans for a night out. Twilight passed many different species as she went along, some she knew and some she didn’t. At one point a blue light floated through the door of a building across the street, and at another time she walked past a pegasus pony who’d lost her wings which had now been released by a pair of stiff wings and a pair of small jets. The walk back took about two hours, and as she approached the building Twilight saw Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy coming out of the front door.
“Hey Twilight,” Rainbow shouted as she saw Twilight approaching, Fluttershy just smiled.
“Hello you two,” Twilight said.
“So what’ya been doing?” Rainbow asked.
“Oh you know, just lots of boring meetings,” Twilight replied. “How was your…” then Twilight glanced at Fluttershy, “never mind, sorry.”
Fluttershy smiled and shook her head, “I don’t mind,” she said.
“Good,” Rainbow said, giving Fluttershy a friendly nudge. “And it was AWESOME!”
“Of course it was. It always is.”
“I know!” Rainbow’s voice had risen to a rather high pitch with all her excitement and she now had a wide grin slapped across her face. Fluttershy let out a small giggle.
“So, where are you two going?” Twilight asked.
Rainbow Dash’s grin instantly vanished, “Oh, we were going to go and see Applejack.”
“Oh,” an awkward silence followed, which was eventually broken by Rainbow Dash.
“You want to come with us?” she asked.
Twilight sighed, “I wish I could. But I’ve got important things to do. Next time I’ll come, I promise. Pinkie Pie promise.”
“Ok,” Rainbow said as Twilight went through the gestures of a Pinkie Pie promise. “After all, she’s not going anywhere yet.”
“Yeah, I guess not. Well, I guess I’ll see you two later.”
The three of them all said goodbye and Twilight watched Rainbow and Fluttershy walk away. Twilight sighed, thinking about Applejack had caused her mood to drop, and now she needed cheering up. She’d probably ask Rainbow if she’d want to join in with Liha’s night out later after they got back, maybe Fluttershy would be interested to. She walked into the hotel, and after quickly signing in headed for the elevator as usual and found Lyra waiting for one. She had a pair of saddlebags slung over her back with a bottle sticking out of one of them.
“Good afternoon Captain Sparkle,” Lyra set when she saw Twilight.
“Lyra we’re not on duty right now, you can drop the ranks,” Twilight told her.
“Oh good. Liha said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I do, but let’s head upstairs first. I think Bon Bon should be there to hear what I’ve got to say as well. How is she by the way?”
The elevator doors opened and they both stepped in, Lyra pushed the button for the highest floor it would go to.
“She’s fine, not perfect but fine. Mind you she has just been rescued from two years of slavery in a Bolkarn mine so normally I’d expect her to be in a pretty bad state.”
Twilight nodded, a lot of the slaves would need to go through some therapy to get over the trauma they experienced in the mines, Lyra herself had taken a while to get back to her old self when the resistance had rescued her.
“How’s the arm?” Twilight asked her.
“Doing well, Liha needed to adjust some of the joints and tighten some connections and some dirt got trapped in it during the last mine assault but that was easily fixed. She’s trying to rework it so that the movements a bit smoother and faster.”
“And what’s the bottle for?”
Lyra grinned and lifted the bottle out of the bag with some magic. The label stated it contained imported Equestria wine.
“A little something to celebrate,” Lyra told her. “Though before that I’m taking Bon Bon out for dinner at Feldrian’s.”
“Oh wonderful!”
Feldrian’s was a restaurant that Twilight had discovered after her first few days on Xentrill, after first getting over her surprise that an alien world actually had restaurants Twilight found that the food they served there was really impressive. And the head chef was willing to experiment and expand the menu and before long they started serving Equestrian food. Twilight had introduced the place to all her friends, Lyra included, and they’d all had several wonderful evenings there, with the possible exception of the time when Rainbow Dash almost sat on a Vl’hurg.
“Liha was asking if you’d be interested in joining her for a night out, but I guess since you’ve got plans…”
“Yeah, she did bring that up. I told her we could do that another time. Tonight it’s just going to be me and Bon Bon.”
“You know, I was going to talk to you last night while we were still on the ship,” Twilight said. “But you were... um, busy.”
“Oh, right,” Lyra blushed and let out an awkward laugh.
“Nothing to be embarrassed about,” Twilight told her. “In fact I think you deserved a bit of time together after all you’ve been through.”
“Thanks Twilight,” Lyra said.
As the elevator ride continued they carried on talking. Lyra asked how the Red Starfighter investigation was going, and after answering that question Twilight told her about Phaurn and Lyra seemed intrigued when Twilight mentioned his sword. Eventually they reached their floor and Lyra led the way to her room, extracting her key card from a saddlebag with her arm before going inside.
The room was almost exactly the same as Twilight’s, the only exception being the double bed which Lyra had insisted upon having when she was assigned a room for when she found Bon Bon. Bon Bon was standing by the window on the opposite side of the room, gazing out at the city in amazement. When she heard them come in she turned round and bounded towards Lyra. The two of them embraced and kissed, Twilight couldn’t help but smile at this. Lyra showed Bon Bon the wine bottle and told her what she had planned for that evening, Twilight just stood by the door waiting patiently.
“Hello Twilight Sparkle,” Bon Bon eventually said.
Twilight wasn’t surprised that Bon Bon recognized her, after all the stuff she’d wound up involved with in Ponyville and Equestria in general she’d be more amazed if Bon Bon didn’t know who she was. Twilight just smiled and gave a nod in reply.
“So, you wanted to talk to me,” Lyra said gesturing for Twilight to come a bit further into the room.
“Well Lyra, when you first joined the resistance you said your reason for doing so was so you could find Bon Bon,” Lyra nodded. “So now that you have done do you still want to be a part of it?”
“Well... back when I joined up I thought I’d just rescue Bon Bon and we’d find some corner of the universe to hide in where the rest of it would just ignore us,” Lyra said. “But now, after all I’ve been through I don’t think I can give this up. I’ve made friends, and I’ve seen some of them die. I’ve seen innocent beings die and worlds that have been torn apart. I can see that all of that has to be stopped, and sure I can’t do much to help, but ‘not much’ is still something. So my answer is that I’m going to carry on until this is all over.”
“Thank you Lyra, somehow I knew that’s what you would say,” Twilight said.
Bon Bon gave Lyra a kiss on the cheek, “I’m so proud of you Lyra,” she whispered into Lyra’s ear.
“So, what about you?” Twilight asked Bon Bon. “Do you want to join us?”
Bon Bon shook her head, “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t fight, and right now I’d rather get back to a normal life. But I guess if Lyra’s still going to be fighting that’s not going to happen for a while.”
“Well then, I guess that means you’ll be staying here,” Lyra said.
“What?”
“Well when we rescue the friends or family of someone in the resistance and they don’t want to join in, they usually just stay here when they’re out on a mission.”
“How long would that be?”
“A month.”
Bon Bon shook her head again, “I can’t wait that long. I may not be fighting, but I’ll come with you.”
“Are you sure?” Lyra asked.
“Absolutely,” Bon Bon said. “From now on I’m going to stay by your side as much as possible. You need me Lyra, you need someone to come back to after attacking somewhere, and you need someone by your side when you wake up from your nightmares.”
Twilight saw a few tears starting to well up in Lyra’s eyes and a wide smile spreading over her face. Then Lyra gave Bon Bon a tight hug.
“Thanks sweetie,” she said.
Twilight noticed a tear running down the side of her cheek and quickly brushed it off.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to see if I can give you a room for two on the ship then,” she said.
“Thanks Twilight,” Lyra said, giving her a thumbs-up.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you two together,” she said and left the room.
Twilight trotted back to her own room, and after stepping inside stripped off her uniform and translator headset. Before settling down with a book she picked up a small radio she had and called up Liha with it.
“Liha,” she said once she got a response. “I think I will join you tonight.”