By the Light of the Moon
The Borg drone’s head rolled along the ground until it finally came to a stop under a black shoe. Lieutenant Commander Worf placed his foot on it in a proud visage of triumph, if only momentary. Still holding his Bat’leth in hand, he stared out amongst the Red Guard soldiers, glaring back at him dumbfounded.
Many of them appeared rather green, which matched their combat experience. Worf knew the horrors of war would not bold well on such a peaceful society.
“Many of you have never seen an enemy slain!” he yelled out amongst them. “It is your duty to look down upon the dead with confidence in yourself! Do not waiver and do not hesitate. If a citizen has been taken, then they are no longer a citizen. They are the enemy! Only death can save them! The enemy will show you no quarter, and it must be the same for us. If you do not want to be forced to slay your own, then protect them from turning into the enemy! Now do your duty! Protect this city! Protect its people!”
The Red Guard shouted their war cry, softer than Worf would have preferred, before spreading out in the hunt for more drones and their first victims.
Worf looked down at the head beneath his feet. Whoever this once was, he could rest now. His battles were over and his honor restored.
Back inside the palace, Data was conferring with Princesses Twilight and Luna.
“I would advise against what you are planning,” Data stated plainly to Princess Luna. “It is unlikely you will be able to exit the atmosphere of the planet safely, let alone board the ship. It is more probable that you will be deemed a threat and destroyed. I do not think you would be capable of deflecting a Borg disruptor with your magic.”
“It is decided, Mr. Data,” Luna said boldly, confidently. “Our sister needs us and we must go to her!”
“Princess Luna,” Twilight started, placing a hoof on Luna’s shoulder. “We don’t know what you could find up there. Princess Celestia may already be gone. We hav–”
“Enough!” Luna cut her off. “We shall not cater to such unpleasant assumptions. We shall go to her. We shall save her as she once saved us!”
Before Twilight could argue, Princess Luna, in the stronger, more confident form of Nightmare Moon, pushed Twilight aside with one of her long black wings and took off, leaving them behind.
“We shall… we will save her!” she whispered to herself.
“Yes… we will…” said a second voice her mind.
Luna ignored it as she soared ever higher, heading straight for the bright open sky, illuminated by a sun which should have been set over an hour before, if not for her sister’s capture.
“Tie that rope real tight there, Big Mac,” Granny Smith said pointing.
Big Macintosh gripped the rope tightly between his teeth and pulled hard, lifting the log a little higher into the air. He twisted the rope around a trunk until the tension eased. The knot was made and the trap was set.
“This’ll teach those whatcha-call-its from trying to take our farm!” she commented, shaking her hoof slightly.
“Granny, I put the egg basket where you said, but I don’t think it will do much,” said a doubtful Apple Bloom.
“You leave that to me, young’n,” she answered. “Your old granny was around in the last dragon war, ‘n I can tell you, those overgrown lizards never forgot the Apple family name!”
“Dragon war?” Apple Bloom repeated, confused. “There’s never been a dragon war that I know of.”
“Dern tootin! That’s ‘cause the war only lasted for five hours! You can still find Ole’ Lumpy flying around dizzyingly from time to time. Never did get that big bump outta his noggin. Heh-heh.”
Granny Smith donned her cooking pot helmet with the camouflage of a few green leaves tied to it for good measure.
Suddenly, out of thin air, two Borg drones materialized looking around, their laser sights analyzing the scene about them. The red beams settled upon the three ponies, turning to face them.
“I see we have our first catch of the day!” Granny Smith commented, smiling deviously. “You ready, Big Mac?”
“Eeyup!”
Luna rose up passed the cloud line higher up into the sky. As she rose into the stratosphere, she noticed the moon off into the distance. It sat quietly, awaiting its master to position it for the next night.
Moving celestial objects was never an easy task. Each time her sister and she moved them, they nearly depleted every last drop of magical power they could muster. After completing a rotation, both princesses would often rest together in the castle, one getting ready for bed, the other recuperating to begin the night or day.
Luna sometimes wondered how her sister managed rotating both the sun and the moon while she was banished for a thousand years. Most times these thoughts brought a melancholy shame for putting her sister through that pain.
And now, here she was, possessed by the very thing that resulted in the thousand years of anguish. But it would be different this time. She was protected by the Elements of Harmony and the noble cause of rescuing her sister. No matter what that thing whispered, she held tight onto that goal, acting as a talisman against its attempts to consume her.
Her thoughts carried through her journey until she caught sight of the moon. Luna suddenly had an idea. She altered her course. Instead of flying straight into the jaws of the beast, she veered off toward the celestial object she was so fatefully bound to.
“With the power of Nightmare Moon, I should be able to move the moon and still have the power to continue fighting!” she thought.
Hiding in the shadow of the moon, her strength gathered as the blue-black aura concentrated into a thick pulsing beam. The beam struck the moon with a bang heard by none in the vacuum of space. The magic surrounding the impact site spread wide into the shape of a tremendous hoof, thrusting the massive sphere forward, keeping its orbit.
Occasionally peeking around the edges of the lunar surface, Luna stared at the massive objects before her. Three perfectly square crafts lie still in orbit of her world. The middle one was positioned slightly closer to the surface. She surmised that must be the lead ship, and that is where she would find her sister.
The moon lay in a geostationary orbit, not that Luna knew that or what that even meant. However, she was distinctly aware that such a low orbit left a rather large gap of empty space between the moon and the ships that she would still need to fly across. She would have to run the gauntlet and hope to make it to the other side.
As expected, she did not feel nearly as drained as she normally did after completing a rotation, thanks to her newly reacquired powers. She stared at her target contemplating where best to penetrate.
That robot had explained to her about the shields, weapons, and described several points of potential entry, none of which seemed reasonable. She would have to take a leap of faith and hope.
She closed her eyes tightly. If she could inhale, she would have deeply, but in space, only her magic sustained her.
“Relax…we’ll be with you the whole time,” the voice tried to reassure her.
It had the opposite effect. She would need to rely once again on the word of the voice, the same voice that led her astray all those years ago. It was not a comfort.
She crouched down low on the moon’s surface. Her eyes narrowed sharply on their target. With a large whoosh of her wings and quick kick off the ground, Luna sprung off the moon, launching herself toward the lead cube.
Chrysalis wandered lost in the middle of the Borg cube, entirely unaware of where she was or where she was supposed to go. Each corridor looked identical to the last. She ran into over a dozen nodes of one color or another, attaching its corresponding device to each.
At one point she found herself facing a tremendous void in the middle of the ship. I looked like a tunnel so large that it could fit the whole of Canterlot twice over within its spaces. Chrysalis realized she must have reached the center of the ship, like an enormous castle in the center surrounded by a moat of empty space. The void was so massive, there was simply no easy way around it.
She turned back the way she had come and made a different turn. At once the incredible view was gone, replaced by the familiar, and almost never ending identical corridors.
After a time, Chrysalis started to feel fatigued. Maintaining the image of Princess Cadence was easy when everypony around her loved her. This abhorrent façade of a Borg drone would not even receive love from its own mother, let alone any living being on that ship.
She found a compartment of charging alcoves with no drones within. She quickly figured that all of them must be actively working at present, and she probably would not be caught.
She hastily climbed into one of the alcoves and locked herself in. The surge of energy whooshed through her. The tingling sensation triggering euphoria as it coursed through her veins.
She would have loved to close her eyes and let experience take over her senses, but she would not lose caution to the wind. She was in a dangerous place and needed to maintain her wits about her. So her eyes remained open, vigilant, while her body replenished its energies.
Time had lost its meaning for her somewhat and after what felt like blissful years in the alcove immediately came to feel like seconds upon leaving. She managed to pull herself away though. She was strong enough to accomplish her mission and she needed to press on. Her freedom, and potentially her life, depended on it.
She continued on aimlessly, occasionally stumbling upon another node. The drones continued to ignore her, just as Picard had said. Her sense of danger started to diminish somewhat, that is, until she nearly walked into a scene that should not have been possible.
She rounded the corner of a particularly long corridor, leading off into a large chamber. Green lights from varying computers and machines glared brightly from every direction. There were no less than twenty Borg drones scurrying about in their soulless activities, and at its center was Princess Celestia.
Chrysalis blinked upon seeing the princess. She nearly called out to her, happy to see anyone she recognized, even if it was her former nemesis and jailer. However, she held her tongue and stayed off to the side in close observation.
If the princess was here in the middle of all these drones, than it is likely she is their prisoner. She walked gingerly around the room, pretending to investigate charts and figures, occasionally glancing at the Alicorn. Something was different.
The princess’s fur was no longer white, but a dulling grey. Her crown wasn’t in fact a crown at all. It was some kind of machine. As she rounded on one side of the room she noticed a glowing red light covering one of her eyes.
Chrysalis froze.
“They’ve turned her into a drone!” she thought nervously. She started to ponder if this would become her fate as well; to have her mind and soul stripped away, leaving nothing but an empty shell behind.
Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the supposedly mindless drone of Princess Celestia suddenly spoke aloud.
“So… it would seem my dearest sister has come to try and rescue me… How wonderful.”
Chrysalis watched as the echoed voice coming from the princess ceased but her eyes twitched. Each twitch resulted in an action from one or more drones. A visual display appeared in front of Celestia, showing Princess Luna advancing towards them.
“Let’s have a little fun, shall we, dear sister?”
At once a large bolt of green energy shot out at Luna. Chrysalis watched in horror as the younger princess just managed to dodge the attack.
“Princess Celestia is controlling them!” Chrysalis thought wildly. “And she’s attacking her own sister? What is going on here!?”
Luna flew straight at the cube. There was no place left to hide. She would do everything she could to reach her sister. Then she saw the first green explosion of a Borg weapon.
A colossal fireball of brilliant emerald shot out from the lead cube. It was so massive that the princess would be nothing but a flick of dust in the path of it. With only seconds to respond, she dove as hard as she could, whilst throwing a shield around herself.
The ball of flame whooshed by her, missing by mere inches. The heat from the flames scorched her shield, burning its energy, until it just popped. She survived, but if the next shot was any closer, she knew she would most likely burst into flames.
The energy from the Borg weapon continued its course behind Luna, impacting into the moon. A large black crater appeared behind the cloud of debris.
Luna quickly decided it would be wiser to fly in a zigzag pattern, if anything, offering less of an easy target. After a second blast shot out from the cube, Luna was able to dodge it a little more easily. Then the Borg shot two more at her in a cross pattern. She swerved to squeeze through the narrow gap between them before it closed.
She slid through tightly, her shield burning away a second time. The fireballs converged just behind her. The impact of the two triggered a massive explosion.
“Ahhhh!” Luna screamed.
She was no match. Her shields broke, her outlying feathers burned, and she was thrown forward from the blast. In a daze, the blast carried her the rest of the distance to the cube. She suddenly felt the cold hard metal of the hull as she impacted into it.
Her eyes were blurry, but she could just make out a hole in front of her, with lots of green light emanating from within. It was an opening into the ship.
“I made it,” she said softly.
She smiled briefly before losing consciousness.