Though he was asleep for almost four hundred years, when Phineas was shaken from his eventual slumber he felt as if he had been asleep for an eternity. Fortunately, he did not have nightmares about specters of his past. Instead, he woke up to live one all its own. The rocking of the ship was what brought him back to wakefulness. He jolted and sat up on his cot, closing his eyes as the lights brightened thereafter.
"Iopteryx!?" he thought. He felt ill when the thought crossed his mind that he; like the pony from the escape pod, would be the undoing of the Desolus and those aboard.
"No, damn it!" he protested mentally. "Find out what the fuck is going on before you start freaking out!"
He might as well have had wings with how high he launched himself from the bed, not even folding it back up into the wall. He hit the floor with a metallic thump and sped through the door into the cockpit. He suited up with practiced speed and raised the shuttle's canopy. He did not bother using the ladder; instead opting for the jetpack alternative. He needed to fast and even his speedy hooves were too slow. The hold's door hadn't fully lowered when he bolted through the small space between it and the ceiling and went on to tear through the hallway, his boosters screeching all the way.
"Tsubar, what in the name of the Ghu'arat is going on!?" Romaz barked over the crew's comms.
"What makes you think I have anything to do with this!?" the mechanic shouted indignantly in response.
"Are you forgetting Magin-9 already!?" Uolix chimed in.
"That was an isolated incident!"
Phineas leaned his body to and fro, banking and swerving around corners with ruby light running across the black walls. At the back of his mind, he attempted to piece together what he could from their exchange. Otherwise, he was preoccupied navigating the Desolus.
"I never did get to show Tsubar I've beaten the challenge..."
The double doors parted seconds before Phineas roared into the ship's bridge. He reared in the air, sending a gust of heat frontwards and cancelling his momentum. His boosters cut out and he dropped onto the floor with them folding up and retracting back into their places.
Gaali and Javic were there on either side of him, their Arcane-Manipulators practically blurs as they tended to their controls. The floor angled downwards to Romaz in a hub of computers, holograms surrounding the semicircular array of screens. On the Desolus' main window was a projection of the attacker.
***
It was not an Iopteryx. In fact, it was not a Star Terror at all -or at least, not a Star Terror as Phineas knew them. What had the Desolus in its sights however, was terrifying in its own right.
It was not that it outclassed the freighter in size. If it was larger, then it was only a marginal difference. What made this thing so unsettling was the fact that it was a blend of metal and flesh. A vessel of war infused with the body of a fully grown dragon, its black scales lined with strips of light similar to the walls of the Desolus. The upper portion of its head had been made mechanical, a skull of black metal that clashed with the organic lower jaw. Its eyes were blood red and shone brightly underneath the artificial crests with ran on either side of its snout.
Armored plates ran down the back of its neck, its limbs were replaced in full by machinery. Its wings had been removed, with two large engines mounted to take their place. There was a superstructure on its shoulders, a metallic hump where the cyborg's masters controlled their weapon.
"... What the hell." Phineas deadpanned after his dramatic entrance.
"Javic, direct starboard lateral cannons on the Draconix! Scanners show a rise in energy level. It's charging a weapon!" Gaali said with urgency in her voice.
"Right!" Javic replied and her speeding arms became even faster.
The monstrous construct came around the Desolus, powering off to its right side. The dragon's maw opened, releasing a dark vapor into the vacuum. From its throat, a cannon extended. At the end of its barrel, four pointed pylons spun. Streaks of purple energies gathered in the weapon, which started to emit a powerful glowing as an orb took shape. The weapon was a Spell-core blaster...unleashing the forces that allowed interstellar travel in one powerful beam.
It was destruction in its purest and deadliest form.
Romaz clutched her controls in her claws, preparing to send the ship into a roll and tear away from the cyborg. With everyone at the bridge devoted to their tasks, Phineas was completely thrown for a loop as to what was going on. They were being attacked by a cyborg -a Draconix according to Gaali- for reasons he could only assume were related to Tsubar's less than ideal dealings. Because of this, Startrot inferred the Desolus had left Gallopso and was now in deep space. If Tsubar was indeed correct about his pursuers waiting for him since the freighter docked, then being attacked on departure should have been expected...even if the means in which the attack happened was far from predictable.
If being attacked by a cyborg really was a result of the mechanic's affairs, then the stallion was willing to forgive his earlier deviation from conduct. A broken visor and a few cuts were the least of the Seapony's problems.
Apertures on the Desolus' hull opened, its arsenal of guns sliding out and taking aim. One by one the cannons on its right side fired off energetic spheres of energy which exploded against the Draconix's body, searing the armor and blowing off chunks of scale.
In turn the Draconix deployed its own offense. From the hump on its shoulder, one large turret moved into position. It swung its long barrel around, the killing end locked onto the freighter. Electricity arced from the barrel, releasing a bright blue miasma as it readied its counterattack.
"Aw damn!" Romaz snarled when the warning flashed before her eyes. By her input, the Desolus angled itself to the side, moving downwards diagonally so that it was positioned underneath the cyborg dragon. The cannons on its left side aimed upwards and unleashed their barrage into the underside of the dragon.
In response, the cyborg rolled and angled itself down. Its thrusters flared and the dragon soared right past the Desolus, several of the cannons' shots missing their mark and soaring off into infinity. When it was below the freighter, the Draconix twirled about, aiming the Spell-core blaster at the bottom of the ship.
"Double damn!" she exclaimed.
Phineas bared his teeth, he couldn't stand just watching this happen. He turned and jetted from the bridge, seeing that there was no time to explain what was happening. He figured that he would help in the only way he could in such a dire circumstance.
***
"Open the cargo bay, Romaz!" the captain heard Phineas say several minutes later, or rather, demand.
"Startrot what are you-?!" she responded, only to hear the stallion's frantic words.
"There is no time to explain! You need to stay focused on flying this ship while I do what I can to keep that thing busy!"
"But wh-"
"Open the damn door!" Phineas barked. "And release the shuttle!"
"If you survive this I'm going to teach you a thing or two about respect!" Romaz hissed, but complied nonetheless.
The hold's outer door began to lower, red lights flashing inside the expansive chamber. Phineas was strapped into the shuttle, forelegs wrapped in the neuro-link sleeves. The small craft's engines fired up for the first time in 378 years and he took off, spinning the shuttle around and deftly speeding past the enormous crates the Desolus was loaded with from Gallopso.
He tore out into space and arced around the Desolus, the augmented dragon looming into his view. Phineas deployed the shuttle's phasers, sorely wishing he had gotten around to calibrating the guns. He buzzed by the dragon, the two guns mounted on the shuttle's lower hull peppering its hide with bright golden beams of magical energy before Phineas disengaged, twisting around and avoiding a swipe from the Draconix's glistening claws. They were surrounded by an intense magical field; like that of an energy blade. Such things were able to slice through even the strongest substances!
The shuttle came around for another pass, initially giving the cyborg a wide berth before closing in on one of its engines, beams scoring their hits and slicing across the hull plating. By time the dragon positioned itself to attack, the agile craft was already out of its strike range; its bulky heavy weaponry only fit for tracking large targets.
"Crafty one, aren't you?" Romaz mused once she caught on to the stallion's intentions. "Javic, hit that thing with all we've got!" she ordered the technician.
The Desolus dove, all of its guns bearing down on the Draconix. Explosions of light rippled out from where the blasts met their mark, stripping away at the dragon's body. Phineas frowned as he observed from afar. Cyborg or not, the dragon was still an Equestrian. For it to be used as a means to end in such a manner violated its rights to life itself!
"At least we could put it out of its misery..." Phineas thought, surprised that he was able to conceive of such a thing. If in destroying the machine, the creature would be killed, was it a matter of mercy or necessity?
He could not give it any more thought, for he was quickly losing synch with the shuttle. Refocusing his attention, he regained control of the craft and brought it around once again.
The dragon lashed out at the Desolus, the Spell-core blaster aimed right at the freighter's engine, threatening to fire right at that moment. The shuttle soared in, dual streams cutting across the dragon's neck and striking the weapon in its mouth. Sparks jumped as the beams ripped into the cannon, the precision weapons doing their damage swiftly. The shuttle was gone as quick as it came, leaving the dragon's energy-coated claws behind it.
The Draconix waved its head back and forth as the Spell-core cannon started to malfunction. The orb sustained by the pylons started to bulge and contract, destabilizing. The gathered energy was released gradually as a purple cloud which rolled out from the corners of the cyborg's jaws, rather than a spectacular explosion. Flashes of lightning went off within the mist that billowed out all around the Draconix, making approach via shuttle extremely perilous.
Where Phineas was unable to attack, the Desolus' cannons compensated, showering the cyborg with an explosive assault. Its engines went with a tremendous bang, its armor blown away and the Spell-cores ruptured. The explosion gouged a grievous injury into the sides of the Draconix, shredding its forelimbs apart. Phineas had to dodge the shard of metal that went flying, bringing back less than pleasant memories of the Iopteryx. He was never going to be free of them, he feared.
Charred flesh and machinery drifted once the explosion cleared, the electrical cloud dispersed by the spontaneous release of power. The guns of the freighter continued to hammer the remains of the cyborg, unrelenting. Before long, the enemy "ship" was torn apart entirely, reduced to bits of scale and metal to drift in space.
***
"Good going, Phineas!"
That was what he was greeted with when he returned to the Desolus. He landed the shuttle and the hold's door was closed behind him, with resounding praise from the Seaponies over his PDA. All of them except Tsubar. "Oh good," he thought bitterly as he undid the straps. "Did I get another rival?"
The canopy raised and he departed the shuttle with a short burn of his jetpack. Maybe in time he would be on better terms with the mechanic. Until then, his concern was learning the meaning of the attack. Just what was it that Tsubar did to warrant such... excessive force?
"... WHAT?!" Phineas blurted out in the bridge.
"Yep," Romaz said coolly. "It's about time you learned the galaxy's divided. Everyone wants a share bigger than everyone else's. When Earth fell and the Federation's turf was freed up? The story goes that everything was chaos. When things settled down, you had the fringe worlds... and the Hoof-Talons. Then you have those like us: Gaali, Javic, Uolix, Tsubar and I, who are trying to make our own living. Sometimes the things we have to do are... the things we have to do."
"So Tsubar's story-"
"A lie. You'll find that he's good at lying. Sometimes I think he wishes it were as simple as messing with a bunch of thugs, though."
"And Hoof-Talons is after you all..."
"When Gaali said your kind made themselves known the rest of the galaxy... boy did they do just that." Romaz said, then sighed deeply.
"Ponies and gryphons raiding ships and colonies... at first they were just pirates... then they evolved into something more. In a few years, they are an allegiance of scumbags and psychopaths," she explained, raising her Arcane-Manipulators to make a holographic representation of the galaxy; a complete version of the one Phineas had on the shuttle.
"You have the Yithith, Kilo, Ghanax, Shu'badi and so many others trying to put them down," said the Seapony, various parts of the map being highlighted as she named the other races of the galaxy. "But the Hoof-Talons went from a crime ring to a crime empire. They have been reigning terror across the stars no matter what has been done to stop them. You're lucky we found you instead of one of them."
"... And Tsubar did what he did to save you all? Even when he knew he'd be going against that?" Phineas inquired.
Romaz nodded. "Lost most of his body doing it, too. He's more machine than Seapony by now."
"Sweet Celestia..." Phineas murmured.