//------------------------------//
// Chapter Forty Seven- Battlestations! 
// Story: STAR TREK: EQUESTRIA 
// by Alicorne 
//------------------------------//


CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN



BATTLESTATIONS!


The Doctor shook his head quickly. “The TARDIS doesn't mount offensive weaponry. We'll be more help to you in your Power Room! Miss Doo!” He turned and gestured urgently with one hoof.
“On it, Doctor!” There was nothing soft in the expression of the gray Pegasus as she leapt into the air to open a panel behind one of the light fixtures. She shrugged into a black harness upon which twin saddlebags were hung, each one bulging with Luna knows what! With a single flap and a wiggle she settled them neatly behind her wings. I don't know what kind of effort it cost her, but both her eyes were steady and forward under her determined brows.
The Doctor whirled and began working his eclectic controls. On the old-fashioned display a schematic of the Hermes flashed onto the screen. He studied it intently for one entire second.
“Right! Three decks down and to the rear of the Ship. Lift station just down the hall! We'll do what we can, Captain! Come, Miss Doo, allons-y!” With no further preamble they he scrambled for the door, the tails of his coat flapping. I had to dodge as Ditzy zoomed after him.
“Keep the shields up and the power steady!” I bellowed to them with enough lungpower to give Luna pause! I swept an arm to Xantippe and Bob. “Come one!”
I let them get to the door before me. I went through headfirst this time, twisting my body and kicking off with one hoof. Yeah, I didn't get through. 
Daddy, when I hit puberty, once made a not-unkind comment about trying to put fifty pounds of ore in a five pound sack in regards to the way I was filling out my clothing. The comment came back to me as I squeezed through the TARDIS door. I realized that I'd overestimated the amount of room I had as I felt the doorframe scraped along my chest. I turned sideways as I stuck my head through and tried to stand as straight as I could, trying to bring my hips in and my chest back. A Yoga artist might have made it... but we don't do Yoga on Equestris! I grounded out on both fronts. Wriggling, I got the doorframe into my cleavage, ignoring the discomfort of nearly scraping a choice bit of anatomy off in the process. I choose expediency over comfort and heaved myself through by brute force. Even Equestrin flesh is softer than wood and I would fit if I just gritted my teeth and squeezed through!
It hurt and I felt as well as heard something rip as I powered through the opening. I examined the damage as I sprinted for the comm. The shirt collar had ripped. Oh, well, at least I wasn't as exposed as I was on Equestris. I wondered what they made these things out of these days! The old jumpsuits wouldn't have ripped like that!
Tyllae flitted up into my face straightaway, still clutching that ridiculous bag!
“Tyllae! Find Sunny and get to Sickbay!”
“Ok take jelly-babies, too?” She pulled the bag tighter to her while the Mare in my head facehoofed!
I bit my tongue to avoid saying something I would regret and she wouldn't understand. “Oh for the love of....” I willed myself to be calm. “Yes, go ahead. But hurry!”
“Kay-kayyy!” She trilled and pifed away, bag and all! Faeries!
The shipwide intercom blared just as I hit the button with my fist. “Captain to the Bridge! Captain to the Bridge! All decks prepare to repel boarders!” The Hermes swayed as the impulse engines powered up, the combat maneuvering just within the abilities of the inertial dampening system to keep pace.
“Bridge! Status report!”
I lost part of the reply as the Hermes took a hit from the Klingon disruptors!
“-eleported right on top of us!” Kirk didn't shout, though he did raise his otherwise cool and collected voice over the din. “Klingon transporters are powered up. They're so close their shields are interfering with ours. We've got multiple beam-ins and point-blank weapons fire! It's a slug-fest up here! … Belay those torpedoes! At this range we'll both be toast!” The ship shuddered again.
What's the range?” I felt myself slipping into the familiar time-dilation of Fighting Mode as the universe seemed to slow around me. A preternatural chill swept over me as I paradoxically relaxed and tensed up at the same time.
“Three hundred seventy-five yards!”
THAT registered even through the Augmentation! “Get above and behind them, over their Engineering section! Their disruptors won't bear on us there! What about the balephasers?” I barked.
“The only good thing about being this close…” I could just see Kirk's grim smile in my head. “Is that we're mauling them....” The Hermes rocked and shuddered. “But they have more secondary weapons!”
“Do what you can to break off and run for it! I'm on my way, Starry-Eyes, out!” I don't know what I could do up there Kirk couldn't, but my place was on the Bridge, damnit!
I charged toward the Turbolift just as my ears caught the sound of familiar voices and pounding hooves from that way.
“Gangway!” Bob shouted. “Wot are these guys?”
“I'd swear they're Diamond Dogs!” The Doctor said, not sounding winded or very much upset.
“Wotsa bleeding Diamond Dog, an' why're they wearing Klingon kit?” Bob wondered as he skidded around the corner in front of me, Xantippe in tow. Beyond them I could hear claws sprinting toward us.
I flattened myself against the wall as best I could as the little group swarmed around the corner. Ditzy wasn't with them!
“The TARDIS!” The Doctor cried out. “Get to the TARDIS! We'll be safe in there!” He brought up the rear, casting anxious glances up the corridors in all directions before hurrying by.
Bob dug a heel in and screeched to a halt as he passed me. “Three of 'em, Boss! Big blokes, too! Toight formation, they got no guns! Just bleeding big claws on their hands!”
“Where's Ditzy?”
“They split us up!” The Doctor spoke quickly. “Transmat or something! They appeared right behind us! I ducked and made it back to others but Ditzy...” He sighed. “Flew off in the wrong direction!”
he claws were getting close! “We'll be trapped in here!” I said. 
“We'll be safe in the TARDIS.” The Doctor insisted. “We can regroup and come up with a plan...”
“I'm not interested in being safe, Doc! These clowns are running around on my Ship and I'm damned if I'm cowering down here! The rest of you follow him, I have to get to the Bridge!”
The Doctor was about to protest, but they were almost on us. I could hear their panting breath.
“Go!” I shoved the Stallion in the chest, bouncing his bottom off the far wall as they rounded the corner.
They were big, not quite as big as me but having huge upper torsos clad in what looked like steel chestplates adorned with silvered sashes like the ones Kyr and this First Officer wore. Round steel caps were jammed tight on their heads, very nearly hiding their eyes. They had short, floppy brown ears, pugged muzzles with wet, black noses, and heavy jowls. Their bare lower halves had ridiculously short legs with clawed feet that were bare but they had leather cesti on their forepaws with hoof-long steel claws on them. They stank like, well, dogs!
I doubled my hooves and clubbed the leader alongside his jaw, hoping to break his neck but only succeeding in shattering his jaw and knocking him into the mutt behind him. They weren't as big as me but they were almost as massive. All my momentum  spent, I reached out and grabbed the third one right behind his steel claws and twisted my body one hundred and eighty degrees, trying to do the same to his arm. I would have dislocated any Pony... or Klingon... shoulder with that one. But these guys were fast on their  paws! He made a creditable swipe at me with his free claws but his feet were already off the deck as I managed to flip him flat on his back. He landed with a sound like an avalanche in a scrap yard, all the breath whooshing out of his body. I made sure he never took another. I yanked up on the arm I held, pivoted back to face my original direction... and stomped as hard as I could on his exposed throat and sprang away as he flailed his arms, maiming himself as he clutched at his crushed larynx. I paid no heed or spared any pity to his wet retching sounds as Number Two threw Number One aside, swiping with one paw and punching with the other.
I danced back, feinting a grab at whatever claw he darted my way looking for a chance as he advanced slowly. Number One got up, bleeding from the mouth and snarling incoherently from his shattered maw and sprang for the Doctor!
I didn't hold out much hope for the Little Stallion. I hoped with all my heart he would take his own advice and make for his TARDIS at Warp Speed. Instead, though, he sprang to his hooves and did the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Have Done. He reared onto his hind legs! Very macho in a Stallion sort of way but not only was he less nimble on just two legs,he left his guts wide open for disembowelment! What he did next startled me so much I caught a cut from one of those claws!
Even though I didn't have the attention to spare to see what he did I couldn’t help but look. Somehow he dodged that first swipe by the combined grace of Luna and Celestia if nothing else.
“Hai-ta!!” He cried, as he spun inside that other claw, tucking his head up under his attacker's chin and jabbed his forehooves into the Dog's arms on either side! It yelped as it staggered, it's arms locked rigidly into position. The Doctor spun away and raised his hooves again, but it was only a feint. So help me, he hopped straight up in the air and fired off a forward kick with a hindleg! 	
“Satike!”  He yelled as he connected with it's hip. The Diamond Dog fell flat on its mangled face, the Doctor helping it on its way with a forehoof strike to the back of its neck that apparently rendered it unconscious before it hit the deck!
That was the point when Number Two scored his one and only hit. I registered rather than felt it as the claws raked me from elbow to wrist. If I hadn't already been in the process of pulling that arm back I might have been far more seriously hurt. It must have surprised him when he caught me, for he hesitated for a fatal fraction of a second on his follow-through. My other hoof darted out and pasted the end of his nose with my fist, not elegant but undeniable effective! I snatched my hoof back as he clapped his paws to his nose and howled, albeit in a muffled fashion!
I caught a blur of blue out of the corner of my eye and danced back just as the Zebra Cavalry arrived. Xantippe slid in like a baseball runner making for the bag, all her weight concentrated on her outstretched hoof. With a start I recognized both the maneuver she very nearly took me down with while sparring and the fact that her skirt bunched up high on her hips to reveal her black, lace undies once again! After getting sliced once, though, I didn’t spare her more than a microsecond… though the Mare in my Head filed the image in her database with a cheery thumbs-up!
The blow snapped his ankle and it occurred to me that she only failed in practice because she didn’t want to do the same to me! I feinted to his face as he lurched against the wall, his previously unseen eyes bugging out in either anger or agony. I hoped I could keep him busy enough for her to get clear. If he decided to throw his life away just to get Xantippe there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. He could just fall down and pin her to the deck as his final act! Bob, though, had other plans.
He jumped forward and planted one hoof just short of Xantippe and delivered a spin kick to the side of the knee of the Dog’s opposite leg, blowing it out with a liquid pop! He wavered, teetering back and forth; flailing at the wall with his claws and trying with all his canine might to throw himself onto Xantippe!
But that Zebra was fast, far faster than I gave her credit for and I had to wonder if she’d been sandbagging me in practice. She got to her hooves in a graceful movement and snarled into her opponent’s face.
“Screw you!” She said with a nasty grin on her face as she flicked a blow with the heel of her hoof to his chestplate, toppling him backwards in a thrashing heap.
He swiped frantically at the air around his head, warding off an attack to his least damaged parts. I didn’t hesitate for an instant and stepped forward to deliver a kick to his fuzzy puppy jewels with everything I could put into my right leg! Contrary to what the slapstick comedy vids would have you believe such a blow… and I’d buried my foot up to the first metatarsal… is fatal, not funny. He didn’t live long enough to make a squeak. I jerked my boot free and it was over.
“A truly tasteless individual…” The Doctor said with a distasteful grimace. “Would no doubt make a comment about crushed nuts now being available with dessert tonight.” He straightened his tie and swept his eyes around our little group with a carefully straight face. “… Fortunately I am not such an individual.” I noticed he wasn’t even breathing hard, though Bob and Xantippe were panting with adrenaline. That was ok, I wasn’t either… and for probably similar reasons!
“Yeah.” Bob grunted. “That’d be roight insensitive. …Wish Oy thought to say it first, though!”
“I do not wish to be rude, but the two of you are truly crude!” Xantippe smoothed her outfit and treated the two stallions a reproachful look.
“There aren’t any rules in a fight to the death.” I remarked dryly. “Except to get it done as fast as possible by whatever means” I gave the bodies a once-over as I clamped my good hoof over my sliced wrist, the Augmentation already slowing the blood loss. “Speaking of means, Doc, what do you call that fighting style of yours?”
He looked at me questioningly, giving my wrist a significant glance. I shook my head and he flicked an eyebrow at me before answering.
“Venusian Aki-do.” He said as if that explained everything. “A non-lethal martial art I picked up long ago.” He surveyed the carnage for a moment. “Apparently not in fashion with Starfleet.”
“Hold on! You’re saying you learned it on a planet called Venusia? Never heard of it.” I eyed him skeptically.
“Your people call the planet ‘Diamel’ or Sol-II. In other times and other situations, my dear Captain, people do. Trust me in that.” He gave me a crooked smile with eyes that sparkled with Alien condescension. 
“Uh-huh!” I held his eyes for a second before turning my attention to other matters. “Is anypony hurt?” A stray trickle dribbling into my palm made me amend that statement with a grimace. “… Anypony else, I mean!”
“I do not wish to poke fun, but it seems you are the only one.” Xantippe said delicately. “At the risk of spreading mutinous discourse, perhaps you need a refresher course!”
“I took one down and set you two up for this one. That’s one and a half for me and a quarter each for you and Bob so don’t sound so smug!” I prodded the Yoemare in the shoulder with one finger just hard enough to make her stagger but not hard enough to wipe the smirk off her muzzle.
“I took this chap all by myself,  without killing him and without a scratch to be had!” The Doctor buffed a hoof on his shirt then admired it.
I was about to say something suitably acerbic, but Xantippe cut me off with a raised hoof.
“Wait a bit! It’s been a while since we last took a hit!”
We all listened intently to the sound of the Vectored Impulse Drive, our sublight propulsion, laboring.
“We musta did fer them...” Bob said doubtfully.
“Or we may have disengaged to go into Warp.” I said. As if on cue, the intercom blared to life.
“All decks rig for Time Warp Drive, emergency acceleration! All decks rig for Time Warp Drive, emergency acceleration!”
With no further preamble the Warp Drive kicked in, and the whole Ship gave a lurch as the Compensators barely did their jobs. The Hermes was in bad shape…
“We’re running!” I turned to Bob and Xantippe. “Tie this guy up, use those stupid sashes! If that won’t work…” We braced against the walls as Warp Two threshold was reached. Under emergency acceleration, with the damage we’d taken, the transitions were faster… and harder! The sound of the Warp Drive thrummed louder and louder. Xantippe looked around anxiously. “You’ll have to finish him off.” I cocked an eye at the Doctor. “We can’t risk his coming to and running around loose at a time like this!”
The Warp Three transition was worse than our usual at Warp Five and I envied the Doctor his extra legs as we rode it out.
“There’s rope in the TARDIS!” He dipped his muzzle into a pocket and came up with a brass key on a bead chain affixed to a… Luna help me… rabbit’s foot! He flipped it to Bob who fielded it neatly. “Use this key to get in. Ask the TARDIS where the rope is and she’ll show you!”
“Roight!” Bob clenched his fist around the key. “Where’s the terminal at?”
“Just talk, she’ll hear you!” The Doctor assured.
Warp Four came and the whites were showing around Xantippe’s eyes!
She swallowed and fixed her eyes on Bob. “I will remain on guard! Go fast and run hard! If he dares to stir, my wrath he will incur!”
Warp Five, our old bugaboo, began with an almost subsonic rumble as the engine strained to put us over the threshold. The otherwise smooth thrumming rose in pitch and began to oscillate ominously as the Hermes shuddered along its entire length!
“Crap! Hold on!” I bent my knees and got ready.
Xantippe clutched the amulet around her neck and dropped onto all threes. Bob crouched against a wall and the Doctor hunkered down and looked around anxiously.
“I suppose it’s too late for us to get to the TARDIS…?”
“No time! We’ll have to ride this out!” I barked.
“If this is to be my last deed,” Xantippe glared in the direction of Engineering. “I just want to say that I hate Warp Speed!”
The Hermes didn’t lurch, it bucked! The deck dropped a good six inches and the whole Ship slewed to one side, flinging us against the far wall as a catastrophic wrench imposed on us by our Warp Field shuddered the spaceframe! We heard the very bones of the ship creak and groan as the lights flickered off leaving only the permanently-enchanted glow-panels of the Emergency Lighting System going as the shaking receded and the sound of the Drive leveled off.
I shoved the corpse of Number Two away from me and got to my hooves, cussing as I collected a shallow cut from his steel claws in the process.
“Everypony ok?”
The Doctor hauled himself upright from where he’d ended up across the way from me, rubbing his forehead with one hoof. 
“Owww…” He muttered, shooting me a dark look as if it were my fault!
Bob and Xantippe must have grabbed each other when they went airborne for they were twined together tighter than a ball of yarn just then. He raised his head cautiously, none too willing to loose his grip on the Zebra!
“Bleedin’ heck!” He said. “It’ll be mealpacks fer dinner tonoight. Foive to one all moy pans’re all over the bleedin’ deck!”
Xantippe wriggled free and knelt on the deck with her knees tightly shut. She couldn’t bring herself to meet our eyes. “I have only one lament, I seem to have suffered an accident!” She muttered.
Bob guffawed and gave her rump a slap! “Well them bloomers’re not much more a strainer, aren’t they? More pretty than practical! No worries! They’ll dry out roight quick!”
The mortified Zebra punched him lightly in the chest as he helped her up by way of an admonition.
I smothered a grin. “I think we all need clean underwear after that one!”
“Speak for yourself!” The Doctor quipped, waggling his hindquarters in emphasis. He looked about as the lighting came back. “Did the lights come on or is that just the sparks in my eyes?”
I looked around.  “Engineering is still with us, though we’ve stopped accelerating. Warp Five seems to be about all we can manage.” 
“Five times the speed of light?” The Doctor, I thought to myself, indulges his curiosity at the damndest times!
I shook my head. “Geometric progression. We’re doing one hundred and twenty-five times ‘c’. Let’s hope its enough!”
“Fancy that! With antimatter, no less! What’s life without a little risk, eh?” He beamed and shook his head. “How quaint!”
“What’s your power source then?” I eyed him sourly.
“Black Hole at the End of the Universe! Bet I get better mileage than you lot!”
I gave him my best Vulcan Eyebrow for a moment. “Fine, be that way! Let’s go, Engineering’s gonna need all the help it can get! You two…”  I turned to the others. “Get squared away here and report to your battlestations!”
“Roight!”
“Aye-aye.”
“Come on, Doc!”
I sprinted down the corridor, my ears pricked for sounds of more Diamond Dogs and the Doctor frankly galloping to keep up. With him being so relatively short it wasn’t much of a squeeze to get us both into the Turbolift. I twisted the handle.
“Engineering.” The car accepted the command and sped off horizontally, then down, and then horizontally again. The Doctor, for once, kept silent. His eyes followed the progression of lights in the Turbolift visual progress window distractedly; no doubt his mind was on his Companion.
I took advantage of the silence to tab the Comm Panel.
“Bridge!”
Kirk came on almost at once. I could hear the subdued chaos going on around him, though none of it showed up in his voice.
“Captain! We’ve disengaged the Klingon for the moment and are making a run for it. We estimate seven minutes before they can begin to catch us. We’ve got damage to the Warp Drive and the port side balephaser bank. Partial decompression on Decks Six and Three. Minor damage to Spaceframe. At least four Boarding Parties still onboard. Sickbay reporting casualties, no numbers yet.” I heard him draw a breath before continuing, doubting what he was about to pass on. “And Engineering reports there’s a naked, cross-eyed, four-legged Pegasus tearing around down there trying to tell them what to do. I’m, ah, trying to corroborate that.”
The Doctor closed his eyes and sighed in relief. I gave him a pat on the shoulder as I replied.
“She’s on our side, Lieutenant. She’s a friend of Tyllae’s Doctor and I sent her along to do what she can to beef up our defenses. Advise Engineering to cooperate with her but Warp Drive is to be their primary concern. I’m taking the Doctor down there to assist then I’ll be right up.” I took a relieving breath of my own. “Sounds like you’re on top of things, Gorge. My compliments to you and the Crew!”
“I might be on top, but it’s one hairy vantage point! We’ll keep things together till you get here! I’ll pass along the Good Word and keep your chair warm for you!”
“Make it bigger and I’ll make you Commodore! Starry-Eyes, out!” Kirk, I had to admit, had turned out to be a real gem. Starfleet needed more Ponies like him on its Bridges. I was impressed that he didn’t waste time asking banal questions about my health when it was the Ship that really mattered. He should have been an Equestrin!
I shooed the Doctor out and pointed him toward Engineering. He galloped off, coat tails flailing, with a determined look on his face. I rode the lift up to Deck Three where I had to stop because of damage to the tube.
My ears popped as the door opened and the air was cold! The bulkhead to my right was shut and there was the stink of smoke and ozone in the thinned air. Damage Control parties in airsuits (Think of them as lightweight Environment Suits with inflatable hoods rather than helmets!) with the hoods thrown back trotted back and forth, antigrav sleds piled with equipment in tow. Crewponies in varying states of dress aided them, ignoring me scrupulously. That was ok by me, they had more important things to do than observe military protocol! I stiffened suddenly at the implication.  Evacuations? Things were worse than I hoped!
I snagged the leader of a Damage Control Party as they double-timed by. I eyed his cutie-patch, an old-style optical storage medium, and his name popped into my head.
“Ensign Laser Disk! How bad is it?” He stopped, which I hoped was a good sign that things weren’t quite so bad, and waved his crew on.
“Hit in Battery Room Three.” He nodded toward the sealed bulkhead. “It penetrated into the corridor and we lost pressurization. Six crew trapped in their cabins on minimal life support. They’ll be ok, we’ll get things patched up in no time. Environmental Systems took some damage. We’re down to seventy percent air pressure but at least we’re not losing any more. No casualties except burns and bruises as far as I know.” He smiled a grim smile. “They got one of their own Boarding Parties in the process. If we had more enemies like them we’d have fewer enemies like them!”
“They must be taking Romulan lessons!” I agreed. “Keep up the good work. I’ve got to get to the Bridge. Can you bypass the safeties on the nearest ladder up?”
“Can do, Ma’am!” He sprinted down the corridor and climbed two rungs at a time until he could access the hatch that slid across the opening to the next deck when the pressure dropped. I waited while he inputted the code that would allow it to open. After a bit there was light at the top of the ladder and a breeze blew down hard enough to stir the ends of my mane. Laser Disk slid down using just his hands as brakes to land lightly and step aside.
“I’ll lock it down again after you go, Ma’am!”
“Thanks, Laser! My compliments and get those Ponies out of there, ok?”
“Can do, Ma’am!”
The ladder access was actually a little bit wider than the TARDIS door, enough to keep from doing any more damage to my uniform anyway. As soon as I got my shoulders through I planted my hooves on the deck and pulled myself up in a single heave and ran for the Turbolift. I didn’t get three steps when I caught the telltale sounds of bare claws hurrying from the left side of the T-intersection in front of the Lift doors! They sounded too close to risk peeking around the corner; I might not pull back all my head if one of those mutts had good reflexes!
I slid to a halt just shy of the intersection and dropped into a crouch. From the sound of it there were just two of them. My plan was to hit the lead one hard enough to put him out of the way long enough for me to deal with the other. One-on-one I figured I had a decent enough chance as long as I could buy enough time to keep it that way.
They must have heard me pounding along, or maybe they were on the run from Security and were wary. The first one put on a burst of speed and sprinted along the far wall out of my reach, Augment reflexes or no Augment reflexes. His beady eyes locked on me and he, well, barked to his comrade!
“’Round da corner! Just one!” They spoke Standard!
He kept his steel-clawed arms close to his body as he crabbed along just out of reach, ready to rip me to shreds if I came a fraction of an inch too close as he maneuvered to get behind me. To keep my attention on him he darted a claw at me, trying to tempt me to close with him.
His buddy came in low and fast around the corner. He kept his arms close as he surged at me like a runaway ore cart. 	As big as these guys were, I doubted I could stop him with a single kick even if I wanted to risk laying my leg open to those claws!
Even worse, these guys had their teamwork down. As soon as the second one got in range of me the other stepped in, one claw going for my eyes and the other coming up to give me an impromptu hysterectomy!
I didn’t jump backwards, I couldn’t afford to risk getting caught in mid-air. Rather, I danced back with one hoof on the deck at all times until I retreated three quick steps to take up position in the middle of the corridor. If nothing else it kept both of them more-or-less in front of me.
There was no way they could flank me, whichever one tried it first would be at least crippled if I had anything to say about it! But if they both rushed me at once one of them would have a good chance of landing a killing blow. How to keep them uncoordinated…?
I feinted toward them half a step and they fell back in near-unison. Damn! Impasse!
Neither one took their eyes off me as they darted in and out, gauging my reach and reflexes and keeping me from going on the offensive.
Ok, discretion is the better part of valor and all that. Fifteen yards behind me was a bulkhead. The corridor going through it would narrow and they’d only be able to get through one at a time. I could make Starry’s Last Stand there. If they were that gung-ho about taking me one of them would have to decide to sacrifice himself. As long as they didn’t get any reinforcement from behind me I hoped I could psych them out enough to decide I wasn’t worth it. I wondered how far I could push my altered time sense… Damn dogs!
The Mare in my Head repeated the thought and had a sudden epiphany; of course she wouldn’t call it a ‘crazy idea’! She ran the concept across her displays for me. I let her know exactly what I thought about it and she sweetly wanted to know what my plan was!
The dogs saw the bulkhead coming up as I cautiously retreated. They both snuck a look at each other and I nearly had the one on my left in that brief instant. They closed up at once and pressed me closer. It would only be a matter of a few seconds before they’d try me, they weren’t about to let me get into a defensible position. Dogs, faithful in duty, keen of smell, acute of hearing…
No idea is crazy unless you try it! I backpedaled quickly and drew a deep breath. I jammed my fingers in my mouth and blew for all I was worth!
I’ve often been accused of not knowing my own strength. It was nice to know my lungs were on par with the rest of me! 		Both ears were ringing and I swear my teeth were rattling when I was through! As bad as it was for me, they had the worst of it. Both dogs wilted where they stood, eyes bugging and mouths opening in silent howls. The one on the right brought his trembling arms in to cover his ears while his companion went straight to his knees! The Mare in my Head… wearing ear protection, the little twerp... crowed in delight!
To my accelerated senses, they barely moved. The one who covered his ears got the heel of my palm under his chin, knocking his head straight back so hard I felt his neck snap through my hoof! I whirled and aimed a kick low down on the other below his chestplate. Like I said, these guys were good! Through his pain, his paws were already were moving to slash me. But the pain slowed his just enough. The kick went home and the arms stopped moving. I grabbed his closest arm and broke it over my leg like a plastic strut. Without wasting a motion, I grabbed his head and twisted it around as far as I could, I felt things pop and part. I kicked him in the back and he went face down on the deck. I danced back and watched them both twitch uncontrollably. Urine and feces stained the air as they finally went still. My time sense went back to normal as a wave of fatigue swept over me, quickly quelled.
I didn't spare them a moment of pity or regret. After all, I'm sure they wouldn't. I turned and raced to the Turbolift.
What with the Red Alert, I needed to use a password to ride up to the final deck. When the doors parted I was met by one of Rocky's Security Ponies, a Mare named Lock-Heart, who had a balephaser pistol aimed at the center of my mass. I noticed a look of relief on her rather plain face as she recognized me, she must have heard about the Diamond Dogs.
“Glad to see you're safe, Captain!” She nodded, eyeing the blood and the tattered uniform.
“Not as glad as I am!” Kirk spun the Command Chair around one hundred-eighty degrees and stood up. The stallion looked tense but hardly overwhelmed. “Ready to have a seat, Captain?” He gave me a coltish grin and held the chair for me. He, too, took in my rather worse-for-the-wear state of my clothing but mentioned nothing.
Throwing myself into the seat was quite frankly out of the question given that my hips were, ahem, just a little bit wider than the seat. I flicked my tail through the hole quickly, put my knees together and wedged myself in with a firm thrust that garnered a creak of protest from the swivel mechanism in the base of the chair. It was a long trip but I finally made it!
“Status, Mr. Kirk! How did we manage to get away and where are the Klingons now?” My eyes roamed the Bridge as I spun the protesting chair. Jerry’s number two, an electric blue and curly red stallion named Maglev, was intent on his board. His fingers flew as distributed what power the Hermes could still generate, routing it to where it needed to go while riding shotgun on the alarming number of alarms on his displays.
Communications was doing a brisk business at the hooves of the brown and cream stallion, Code, as he coordinated Damage Control and Security throughout the Ship with a padd in his lap and a stylus tucked behind his ear.  Subdued chatter from multiple sources poured from his board, live reports from the various partied involved.
The newly-appointed Second Watch Science Officer, the coal-black and stippled silver-and-black Mare named Milky Way was bent over her Sensors Display keeping close tabs on our pursuer, no doubt.
Helm and Navigation were busy, the short pink Mare with the blue-and-yellow swirled mane named True North recalibrating her Tactical Scanner via intercom with the balephaser crews while High Jump, the mint-green and jade stallion at Navigation constantly updated the Hermes course with every fluctuation of our Warp Drive.
“We got on top of them,” Kirk said as I completed my turn. “Just like you said, their disruptors couldn’t get at us… but the rest of their arsenal could. For such a small ship that thing is bristling with weapons! Short-range non-magical phasers or maybe some sort of point defense systems. Makes you wonder what… or who… they’re used to fighting to be mounting that kind of weapons array! Anyhow, at that range we couldn’t use the photon torpedoes; we’d be in the fireball when they went off. The problem was that they were mauling us with all those guns. Our pseudo-balephasers were hitting them hard but for every hit we scored they were scoring five of their own! We needed to hit them hard without cooking ourselves in the process and we had to do it fast before we lost too many vital systems. A torpedo was just the thing… and we had to get creative to use it!”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Lieutenant! How did you manage it?” I was well and truly curious. A photon torpedo has a yield in excess fifty megatons; it’s basically a warp-propelled antimatter bomb. Three hundred and fifty yards was in the vaporization radius of anything short of neutronium possessing less than protoplanetary mass!
Kirk smiled deprecatingly. “We disabled the propulsion system on the torpedo and kicked it out of the launcher using just the air pressure in the launcher. We physically pointed the Hermes at the Klingon and shot the thing out at the speed of a champagne cork! We figured seven seconds to impact. At emergency acceleration we’d go into Warp in just under four seconds…”
“So by the time the torpedo hit we were already making four or five times the speed of light, outrunning the explosion!” I finished, giving him an approving look. “Very neat, Gorge!”
“Well we were lucky we still had Warp capability by then! If they’d been a little more on the ball in their aiming it would have been a different story.” He nodded toward the Science station. “Ensign Way and I have been comparing notes. I don’t think that’s a Klingon crew over there, not any more! I see you’ve run into one of their boarding parties…”
I nodded, displaying my arm. “Two of them, well, maybe one and two-thirds anyway! Diamond Dogs from Earth, but they’re extinct like Dragons and Manticores!”
“The last Diamond Dog died over ninety-eight years ago in an isolated environment after the Eugenics Wars.” We turned as Ensign Milky Way spoke, absently pushing her luxurious mane to one side and fixing us with her pale, almost silver eyes. “Victims of the same sort of genetic and virological weapons that were deployed against all non-equine sentients by the, ah…”
“You can say, ‘Augments’, Ensign. My people left Earth because of those people for precisely that sort of thinking.” I said, yet again damning the memory of Khan! “So how is it that they’re showing up on a Klingon ship? They were dead and gone by the time they made contact with us.”
“I think their appearance goes hoof in hoof with the Magic that permeates that ship. As far as we know, Magic is a purely Equestrian phenomenon. No Alien species we’ve encountered have exhibited any trace of it.” She continued. “Therefore, this Magic has a Terrestrial origin…”
“Discord.” I said flatly. “Why am I not surprised?”
“You’d think that, with all the Arcane megawattage at his disposal that he’d just blast us out of the sky and have done with it!” Kirk put in. “Why bother with all these… theatrics?”
“Because he’s fruitier than a nut-cake!” I growled. “Nopony at home, toys-in-the-attic, too much LDS at Buckley insane!” I stopped to unclench the fist I didn’t realize I’d made. I forced myself to calm down. “It’s been the one thing going in our favor so far. He's obsessed with what he perceives as revenge and he wants to do it his way and it keeps him from doing what's expedient, like blowing us out of space without an effort.” I shrugged, trying to simply write his off as a typical non-Optimal by way of some trivial source of personal revenge on my part. “He knew of Diamond Dogs from back in the day so he staffed that ship with them. What would you care to bet that that ship is some sort of magical construct?”
“Not all of it!” Milky Way put in. “Sensors show that the forward section, the one we couldn't absolutely confirm as destroyed, is original construction. Everything aft of that is new... and Arcanely enhanced with power equivalent to a ship three times our size.” She added grimly.
I nodded, making a face while the Mare in my Head threw darts at a picture of Discord. “... They survived the torpedo then, didn't they?”
“Yes.” She confirmed. “They got under way about three minutes ago and are accelerating on an intercept course. They'll catch us in about five minutes unless we can get creative again.”
“We're at Warp Five point one-two-five, fluctuating plus or minus five points.” Kirk supplied. “How good is this Doctor guy and his Pegasus? And what's with the four legs?”
“They're more than we had before, that's all I can truly say.” Was all I could bring myself to say. “His manner suggests that he's supremely confident in his ability to Save The Day. We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope he's just not blowing smoke up our-”
“Power levels increasing!” Maglev called out. “Committing to Warp Drive!”
I thumped the all-call on the arm of my chair. “All decks rig for continued acceleration!” A heartbeat later I nodded to Helm. “Give her all you've got!”
“Aye-aye, Ma'am!” True North acknowledged and the Warp 
Drive thrummed louder. “Warp Five point two... three...six...nine...”
Kirk braced himself on the back of my chair while I put faith in my tightly-wedged status and waited...
The Warp Six transition was hard, but not on a par with the earlier ones! The Hermes strained at her traces and soldiered on.
“Warp Six! Six point three...point six...point nine...Seven!”
The ship gave a little skip and the sound of the Drive faltered ever-so-slightly before resuming. I noticed Maglev staring at his readouts, swallowing dryly.
“Seven point three...” True North continued as we held out collective breath. “Point six...point eight... point nine....”
Warp Eight happened only after a prolonged shuddering strain like an old-style aircraft pushing through the sound barrier.
“Eight point one...point two...point three....” She paused as the Warp Drive howled and the whole ship shivered. “...Warp Eight point three eight one five and holding firm!” No longer accelerating, the Warp Drive subsided into the background. We all took a breath as a beeping came from the Communications Console.
Code screwed and earpiece in and listened. “Engineering calling for the Captain!” He announced, grinning. “I think it's that Doctor guy!”
“Put it through, Code.” I said, permitting myself the luxury of sitting back in my too-tight seat.
“Hello? Helooooo...? I say, anypony home? Did the Captain make it all right?”
“Right here, Doctor! I take it that was your hoofiwork?”
“Oh, well we helped. A nudge there, a tweak there! I know a few shortcuts you lot won't pick up on for until the next generation or so! ...What?” He spoke to someone off to the side. “No, no! It's quite all right, it's supposed to make that noise! Ignore the smell! It's all within the limits I assure you... oh, dear! Back in just a second, Captain!” I heard him dash away and a peculiar buzzing trill ensued. In the meantime, Jerry came online.
“Captain? Starry...?” I heard him swallow. “You've got to see this! The dilithium crystals are regenerating! They did something to the Arcane enhancement and they aren't degrading under maximum power! Their matrix is re-initializing during use! … I don't know whether to buy him a drink or knock one back myself! If we were in prime shape we'd be outrunning subspace radio!”
“Status of the Klingon ship!” I swiveled my chair toward Milky Way who was already bent over her readout.
“Warp Six point nine and accelerating slowly!” She said then frowned. “I don't see how they're doing it. Base on what we've observed earlier our torpedo devastated a lot of their Engineering section...” She trailed off, stiffening suddenly. She looked up and straight at me. “I'm reading massive damage... but it's being repaired even as we speak. Their ship is healing itself! I can't describe it any other way!”
“Magically.” I stated with no little disgust in my voice. “Klingons magically repairing their Magically-enhanced ship.” I paused to close my eyes and rub the bridge of my muzzle, taking pains to keep the frustration out of my voice. It wasn't the time to indulge in either frustration or anger. I gathered up my emotions and dumped them in the lap of the Mare in my Head and told her to hold on to them for a while. She gave me a sour look that I ignored.
My voice and expression were neutral. “Can they catch up with us?”
“Unknown, Captain.” Milky Way tossed back her really quite lovely mane and looked at me honestly. “We don't know their capabilities... yet. I need more data.” She took a breath and steeled herself. “All I can give you is my opinion. And my opinion is, based on what I've seen, yes. They're being supplied with whatever capability they need. That can only be happening if Discord is onboard. That's my evaluation.”
I nodded. “I concur, Ensign. Time to intercept?”
“Based on current data, less than six minutes.”
“I heard that!” The Doctor spoke up. “Captain I can't explain how Discord would be able to do that. He has absolutely no knowledge of the Science involved.” He paused and continued again before I could speak. “That's it, of course! He's been able to gain some sort of insight. Access to knowledge he didn't have before! Power he never had before! Well this can't be good, can it?”
Part of me was pettily pleased that there were some things even the Doctor didn't know! I didn't indulge myself, however.
“He's made a thing he calls the Magic Prism.” I said hurriedly. “A crystal made up of, in part, of the very life force of countless beings. He told us that it allows him to see into and move among other realities. Its raw power is inestimable and he treats it like a tool, some damn sort of Magic Wand that makes him all-powerful. He's only limited by what he can think up. But he's gone crazy, Doctor! He's fixated on destroying us personally; otherwise we'd just go pfft!”
“Pfft is not good! We must avoid pfft at all costs!” The Doctor said in a rush. “Right! The trouble is that I've never run across Discord with this kind of power before. It's never happened before, it can't have happened before! He's mucking about with things not even he can control. He's trying to change the unalterable flow of History! Time can be rewritten... but not by him! Hmm... It would help if I could examine this Prism. That's it, then!”
“Slow down, Doctor!” I said calmly. “I think I'm one step ahead of you.”
“... Are you now? Really?” He said, intently.
“We can't outrun or outgun him.” I said. “The only thing left is to get him to talk... and he dearly loves to talk.” 'The bastard!' I added silently.
“His ego has always been his weak point.” The Doctor agreed. I could imagine him smiling. “Quite full of himself, that one!” I heard him cough discreetly into his hoof. “Not that I have that problem, you know!” In my mind's eye I could see the twinkle in his own.
I was glad ours was an audio-only connection! “I'll need you up here, Doctor. If he knows you it may shake him up enough to do something that will give us an opportunity.”
“My thoughts exactly, my Good Captain! Miss Doo can handle things here. I'll just nip up to the Control Room then, won't be a tick!”
“You'll never find the 'Control Room', Doctor. I'm on the Bridge.” I said gently. “Wait one minute before you set out. I want to pin down the rest of the Boarding Parties.”
“Of course! Of course!” He lied. I just knew he'd bolt off as soon as I broke the connection!
“Starry-Eyes out!”
“Toodle-loo!”
I signaled to Code to end the communication, then. “I need you to find out what decks the Dogs are on. Use the intercoms to flood the decks with ultrasonics. It'll stun them or slow them down at least. Get me Little Rock.”
He raised the Security Chief while he set up my request. In a moment Rocky spoke up from the comm.
“Little Rock here!”
“Rocky! What's your status?”
“We got Hostiles in the Primary Hull, decks Four, Seven, Eight, and Nine. Bulkheads are sealed and they are isolated. They have no heavy weapons so we're lucky in that regard. As long as we can hear them coming we can stun them at a distance. We haven't suffered any casualties since the initial beam-in. We'll be mopping them up in no time. It’s just a matter of coming at them so they'll have to close with us... just not too close! These clowns are fast on their bow-legged feet!”
“Sit tight, Rocky. I've got a countermeasure that works against them.”
“What's that? Rolled-up newspapers? I'd rather not get that close!”
“Sonics! Think about it, Rocky. They're dogs!”
“... Son of a, uh, bitch!” I heard him grunt a laugh. “How'd you find out?”
“They had me in a corner. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and whistled as loud as I could!” I said smugly. “They couldn't handle it!”
“Three cheers for your healthy pair!” He chuckled.
“...What? You better be talking fingers, buddy-buck!”
“Of lungs! Sheesh, already! Get your mind out of the gutter!”
So much for overcoming body-consciousness. “I should permanently reassign you to Chief Dog-Catcher!” I muttered. “Starry-Eyes out.” I tabbed off the comm and looked expectantly at Kirk who’d just wiped the smirk off his face… if not his eyes. I looked around at the rest of the Bridge Crew as they carefully studied their boards and sighed.
“All right! You all get five seconds of mirth at the Captain’s expense starting… now! Get it out of your systems, everypony!” I egged them on with my hooves and waited patiently while grins broke out all around. At least they were grinning with me rather than at me!
“Just for the record,” Kirk said innocently. “I’ve never had anything but the most professional admiration for all your parts!”
“You’re a source of inspiration and envy to all the female crew, Captain.” Milky Way rolled her eyes diplomatically.
“A good Captain is supposed to be bigger than life, right?” Code snickered as the less bold crew contented themselves with quiet smiles. Well, as a tension breaker it was a big success!
I made a show of shaking my resignedly. “And to think I gave up being a Miner on Equestris for this! Ok, Gorge, I’d like to buy us some time. Your trick with the torpedo got me thinking. Can we launch some at zero speed and scatter them behind us with proximity fuses? Anything to slow that ship down!”
“We can do one better than that!” Kirk became all business again. “There’ve been discussions in Starfleet about using the cargo transporters to deploy photonic torpedoes as a sort of space mine. Nopony’s had to do it yet, this might be a chance to see if the idea works. We’d have more tactical flexibility placing them that way!”
“You just got yourself a job then!” I nodded and jerked a thumb at the Turbolift. “Make it happen. Coordinate with Helm scanners when you’re ready to drop ‘em!”
“Aye-aye, Ma’am!” Kirk flashed me a feral grin and made it to the lift in two steps!
“Activate Main Viewer. Show me the Klingon ship.” I swiveled forward and waited until the image sprang onto the screen.
I scrutinized the grayish, bat-winged ship that was growing larger and larger on the screen. It was true, the bulb-and-boom at the front of the ship was darker than the rest of the vessel. Aft of that, livid green stripes pulsed and slowly writhed within the hull! They were concentrated and glowed brightest in the twin warp nacelles and high on the back of the ship were, presumably, our torpedo detonated. Looking at it, I couldn't help but think that the whole thing had become... infected somehow. Tainted by Chaos and crewed by Celestia-knows-what now?
“Ensign Milky Way.” I asked quietly, not taking my eyes off the screen. “Can you get me a life-form reading on the Switchblade?”
“Captain?” I heard her frown.
“Scan for life-forms on that ship. I'm checking out an ugly suspicion here. Indulge me.”
“Their shields are up, Captain. All I'll be able to tell is that there are life-forms aboard, I won't be able to-”
“I know what the Sensors can do, Ensign. I was Science Officer a couple of weeks ago.” I kicked the chair around far enough to look at her with one eye. “Scan the K1 and K2 emissions from Life Sciences and let me know what you come up with.”
She was still Ensign enough not to argue with a superior officer. “Aye-aye, Ma'am! Kirlian Field and Arcane Life Energy bands. Scanning now...” She bent over the hood of her display and worked her Sensors with both hooves. I finished my turn, facing her way and idly contemplating the end of her two-toned tail as it brushed the deck. The Mare in my Head swept her gaze higher. She, for one, didn't have a problem with the new Starfleet mini-skirts! I gave her a jab and told her to keep her mind on business!
Milky Way froze for a moment then lifted her head away from the display to recalibrate her instruments. She ran the scans again while my blood ran cold.
When she finished she turned my way with eyes wide in disbelief. My eyes met hers immediately.
“How many?” I asked quietly.
“I...” She swallowed and tried again. “I shouldn't be able to read much of anything. The last time around, when we first tangled with them before Equestris, we scanned just under two hundred Klingons over there. After their shields went up all you can tell is that there were Klingons onboard. Now, though, their shielding can't cover it up! Their ship is radiating a Kirlian Field of its own... and there's the life-energy of a metropolis on that ship! They aren't even trying to hide it. Or maybe they can't! I just can't explain it!”
“The Prism.” I told her. “It's made from people... and other... things. All their life-energy distilled into its being. A billion souls, probably more. Discord can spare a few million and not miss them for a second.”
The Turbolift opened and there stood the Doctor with his mouth on the control handle. He caught my grim expression and trotted onto the Bridge without a word as I swiveled forward and stabbed a finger at the thing on the screen.
“That's not a ship any more. It's a creature, isn't it? And it’s hunting us!”