The Federation pony brought the shuttle’s velocity to what was practically an astronomical crawl, moving at just a few meters per second through the very outermost region of the system. In the incredible distance, the warm orange glow of a star reached out into the darkness. What surrounded it were not things which formed naturally in the cosmos. There were no planets, be them young or old, violent or stagnant. No rings of rock, ice and metal. There was only the orange stellar eye, the collection of plasma which glowed bright since the earliest era of creation. There was only the star and the horrendous constructs that were placed around it.
Phineas recalled his encounter with one of the deathless creatures inside the converted Harmony warship and was thankful that there was no way for him to partake in the stench of death by the grace of the vacuum and his own isolated air supply. To think about what a whole army of them stunk of when they were gathered together as they were in the hulking constructs made his stomach churn.
Phineas’ map revealed them to him, though he was still millions of miles away. Images that were projected in front of him that disturbed him deeply and left him in silent stillness- left him wondering what twisted turn of fate ordained his arrival in this star system. They were stations… bases for the undead with an unsettling architecture. Gigantic spheres made out of what Phineas guessed to be the same metal used in the construction of their ships. In fact, on closer inspection the stallion noticed that the components for the bases were their ships. Thousands upon thousands of them of all shapes and sizes, cobbled together into one structure, numerous pathways of sallow energy flowing through the gaps and canyons they formed.
Bone-like structures jutted out from the uneven surface, some of these serving as massive columns which met with imposing spiked rings that loomed over the black surface littered with glowing effigies to the deathless form. Monoliths of grotesque creatures rotting away stood tall, light spilling out from gaping wounds instead of blood. Huge open maws on the surface of the stations were akin to volcanoes, spewing hellfire into the void, fangs glistening with scorching flame.
“So this is what they’ve been up to… when they aren’t hunting down the living…”
The stallion wondered if his foe was waiting for him inside one of the death-husks. If it really was in one of the stations, which station was it in? He figured that the words he shared in the Hex-core were an outright summons from his enemies, goading him into rushing off alone as he did when battling the Hoof-Talons. If they really did want to make him abandon they convoy, it made sense to him that the whole affair was just a trap waiting to be sprung. He figured that by springing the trap he would find himself right where he wanted to be.
Was this where he wanted to be? In all fairness, he was in a random system out of billions. It was entirely possible that he missed the mark by entire galactic sectors, or was too late to act and the plan was changed. Phineas cursed mentally. ”I should have put more thought into this…”
The silver stallion sat back in his seat, smoldering. He was back to square one in not knowing where he had to be, with the added pressure of being in hostile territory. For all he knew, this was the beginning of a whole stretch of space controlled by the undead forces. For all he knew, he was in the rotten heart of the undead empire, being fenced in by the rising tide of evil. Maybe that was the trap after all!
Snorting irritably, Phineas began powering up his thrusters and brought up his star map. He had no idea where he was going to go, but he knew he couldn’t stay. A phantom thought crossed his mind as he sought out a course- that he was still dealing with the same problem of his old life with circumstances many times more morose than anything he knew in his long lost past.
“I’ve got no place to go, but there’s no way I can stay…”
Phineas chuckled dryly. Some things were better left behind and forgotten. Some things refused to be left behind and forgotten. And some things just did not change no matter how much time passed, be it a year or hundreds of them.
"My life is like some fucked up comedy."
His engines gave off their pinkish glow, moments away from blasting off into stellar warp and traveling down the prismatic way. Just before he committed to the jump however, Phineas noted the readings that were appearing on his displays. His sensors were picking up on anomalous activity around the stations, rising energy levels and magical concentration. Phineas arched a brow and powered down his warp drive. Pinkish vapor flowed out of the twin engines as the pony looked on at the proceedings with great confusion.
“Are they… warping?” Phineas thought out loud. One peculiarity about the undead forces was their ability to mobilize without betraying their movement to tracking equipment that looked for the telltale signs of an interstellar jump. Yet, paradoxically, Phineas was doing just that, detecting a warp signature from all of the death-husks orbiting close to the star.
The husks began to move. Slowly and without any visible means of propulsion, the metal aggregates drifted into formation, black shadows against the bright star. In time, the four stations formed a square with each structure at one corner of the shape. The fires being belched from the ornate jaws turned the most brilliant shade of green and the torrents of electricity that ran across the surface features of the structures lanced up and outwards. From afar, they looked like writhing tendrils, flashing and pulsating yellow-green light. So intense was the light that it was visible to Phineas, twinkling specks that could have been distinguished from the aura of the star.
”I don’t know what’s happening here but I have to stop it,” Phineas thought. The engines flared up and the shuttle rocketed toward the stations, purple streams of light trailing it all the way. Aiming reticles appeared on his view screen before merging into one central marker that was a yellow circle with an X in the middle.
As he drew nearer to the undead bases, his senses and reflexes were primed to dodge any defensive firing. He expected to be greeted with a hail of energy blasts and beams and he was more than ready to do his deadly dance to evade them, but nothing happened. His guns were charged and ready to unleash hell, but they weren’t. The stallion’s immediate question was ”Why,” and his answer was ”Trap.”
The missile aperture opened and a single warhead was sent soaring from the silo. Phineas banked the shuttle and broke off from the attack, swerving away but keeping an eye on the missile as it went on its way. It traveled at such speeds, a blue streak of exhaust left in its wake like a comet. It closed in on one of the stations and began to corkscrew, the nosecone splitting apart to reveal the drill waiting to bore into the station’s hull.
Seconds away from impact, a rift appeared in between the four stations. Like a torn canvas, the space in between the husks erupted upwards and fluttered about, frayed edges glowing a venomous green color. Beams of light streaked out of the tear as it widened more and more, expanding and changing shape into a swirling vortex right before the pony’s eyes. The detonation of the missile against the surface of the death-husk was a tiny spark compared to the ominous glow of the rift that opened.
“They were not warping…” Phineas stated, mystified, “they were opening a portal!”
And from this portal, the black giant emerged, imperious and terrifying. Slowly, it slipped from the fissure, the darkened and malformed beak rising high out of the ethereal green. Following it was the immense length and girth of the Marauder, ascending completely vertical relative to the orbital plane – or was it horizontal and everything else was vertical?
Phineas brought his shuttle around and cancelled his momentum, hovering before the behemoth still flying out of the portal. It seemed as if minutes were ticking by as seconds as the titanic vessel appeared. When it finally exited the rift, the tear mended itself, bulging and distorting before finally settling back as the familiar black background the pony was accustomed to.
”Not a trap,” Phineas realized then. ”All according to plan…”
The imposing vessel tilted over as lumbering as any colossus would even in microgravity. Slowly and ponderous, the Marauder leveled itself with everything else and Phineas glared hatefully at the craft. Not only was it the figurehead of Hoof-Talon rule, it was now repurposed as the seat of power for the undead’s leader! His tiny ship hung several hundred meters away from the tip of the horrible titan. The pony expected it to turn its weapons on him, or at least for it to let loose the malefic magics which it used to decimate the Harmony’s ranks. He could see the runes etched in its black hull, the morbid ornaments lining its plating of tortured masses, their eyes and screaming mouths glowing red and orange with their pyre.
Puffs of arcane flame billowed out of the seam formed when the beak started moving, dissipating in the void. Phineas remembered the sight, staring down the gullet of the colossal spaceship. This was it. He knew that inside the Marauder would be where this battle would happen. The battle to end a war.
“It’s about damn time we met face to face…” Phineas murmured to himself as he watched the beak open in full. The interior of the ship’s “mouth” was completely different from what he remembered. The huge guns that dwarfed his shuttle were replaced with dark, arcane altars. Jagged metal blades arranged like teeth in the beak and runes glowed with all the hues of a raging inferno, bathing the black and white craft in its hellish light.
“Thanks for the warm welcome. What was that thing I said before, about making you choke?” Phineas growled as he maneuvered the shuttle into the misshapen beak. It started to close behind him as a section of the wall ahead started to part, folding away to form a circular entrance into the Marauder proper.
The throat of evil awaited Startrot beyond it. He flew his ship through the entrance, but rather than follow the tunnel down to its eventual end, wherever in the ship that may be, Phineas aimed his primed weaponry up to the ceiling and fired freely, directed energy beams and orbs blasting through the hull plating. The shuttle flew up through its improvised path, dissolving the walls with its energy blasts as it made its way down the length of the beastly spacecraft. Phineas glimpsed the undead prowling the halls as he went firing his guns, seeing bits and pieces of them go flying with each explosion of magical fire and sparks.
“Aw damn!” Elysia hissed as the battle-pod went careening on through towards the Marauder. Its beak was all but closed as it was making its final approach, thrusters leaving white hot trails of exhaust behind it.
“We’re not going to make it!” Alikir shouted to the ranger, gripping his gun controls uneasily.
Elysia made a guttural sounding growl in her throat as the battle-sphere grew closer, but was unable to make it in time to enter the Marauder. At the last moment, the spherical fighter craft listed sharply to one side and swerved, flying alongside the leviathan of a vessel rather than crashing into it.
“So he decided to just go into the flagship of the enemy, huh?” Alikir asked, his voice displaying a strange mixture of elation and frustration at the same time.
“We need to get in there,” Elysia said simply, not taking her eyes off of the Marauder’s hull. Around her, plumes of arcane flames erupted from the anguished mouths of the deathless effigies, the fires lighting up the cockpit even more than it already was with overpowering shades of reds, greens and blues.
“No doubt about that,” Alikir replied, “put some distance between us and the ship. I’ve got an idea.”
Elysia had the battle-pod do a wide turn, shooting off away from the ship and passing over one of the death-husks, rolling in and out to duck the path of beams all the while. It then looped around and started flying straight for the ship, swerving from side to side and up and down as it navigated the line of fire.
Alikir surveyed his holo-display lining up the free range guns with his target: one of the occult cannons putting the most pressure on their approach. He opened fire, sending off twin lines of magical bolts that crashed into the cannon. The explosion ballooned out from the Marauder’s hull, shards of metal sent flying in all directions. The battle-pod’s magical shielding materialized for the small impacts, but the screech and popping the two Space Rangers heard was telling that admission into the Marauder was not a free deal.
“Micro-locks engaging!” Elysia said.
“We just got this thing fixed and now we’re busting it up again!” Alikir snarled as he fired unrelentingly, molten slag surrounding the pod’s view screen as it burrowed through the cannon’s housing.
Moments later it burst into one of the flagship’s expansive passageways, where it came to a lurching halt, jerking its occupants against the straps that kept them in their seats. The two rangers were panting breathlessly as the battle-pod bobbed up and down gently roughly four feet off of the room’s floor.
“Nice timing on the microgravity braking,” Alikir managed to bring himself to say.
“Nice… shooting,” Elysia responded.
Not even seconds later, several plates of metal lining the walls started to slide out of place, revealing compartments from which the undead foot soldiers flooded into the section of the ship as a mob, paying no mind to the danger of it being exposed to space. Sallow bursts of energy went flying at the battle-pod as they opened fire with their guns.
“No time for rest, Space Ranger! Get on those guns!” Elysia shouted as she fired up the engines again and sent the pod speeding through the chamber. Its guns went live not long after, blasting apart the far wall, where the ship disappeared chased by the necrotic bolts of the undead.