Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows


24

Fluttershy didn’t like all the red dots that just appeared on the readouts and compared to the number of blue dots which were the already deployed stiletto’s well… she didn’t need to do any math to know those space pirates were out in force and seem very oddly focusing all of their forces to right on top of her.

Of the things Fluttershy knew, she knew wasn’t an expert pilot. Another of the things she knew was that flying through an asteroid field in a fighter wasn’t the best of ideas, Fox and his friends could feasibly do so because their ships had energy shields. She was still trying to get a grasp of the control system and was lucky thus far that nobody had figured her out.

Among all of her pressing thoughts going through pretty little head as she sat there shivering in her seat, Fluttershy was most worried that she might be the cause of the deaths of those flying around her because they’d have to protect her from all those numerous red dots.

Shaking her head Fluttershy tried to force herself into action knowing she was nearly frozen with fear, she felt like she couldn’t do anything and she was in the middle of all this. She just had to; she just had to get out of here!

If there was one thing ponies were great at, it was running for their lives and Fluttershy had a unique fight or flight response. The fight response Fluttershy had involves staring something into submission. Given this wasn’t a situation where staring at something harshly would help, she instead had a flight response. Fluttershy tended to forget she had wings whenever she was scared and had to flee from something, in this situation she had nowhere to run but everywhere to fly and while dragging along a possible infirmed living being.

Fluttershy twisted the stick in her left hoof to the right and it turned. She lightly pulled back on it and the ship pointed upwards, then she lightly pushed forward and it now pointed downwards. After nodding to herself that she understood the concept of how the controls work, she pushed the throttle of the likes that would be common to see on an airship back in Equestria. She had to keep in mind there was no up or down in space, aside from that she has never personally flown a vehicle before now, much less an airship and now wasn’t quite a good time to be learning while you were zooming deeper into an asteroid field while being shot at.

In all Fluttershy was flying blind, dragging behind someone who was possibly dying, sick or just unconscious and there were plenty of other beings out here that would soon die one way or another. There was nothing she could do to prevent any death from happening at this point no matter how hard she wished they wouldn’t occur; then again she didn’t think she could worry about every single life in the universe all at the same time which was impossible. So she would just have to focus on herself and her needs, which was admittedly very hard for her to do because of her her inclination towards kindness and helping others in need.

These thoughts truly didn’t sit well with Fluttershy given she currently held someone else’s life in her shaking little hooves as she steered around several large pocketed lifeless rocks floating around in space barely getting used to maneuvering the stiletto around before she came under attack.

“Direz what are you doing, is she insane? Flying into an asteroid field is incredibly stupid.” One of the stiletto pilots intoned seeing Fluttershy drag her cargo further into the asteroid field.

“Actually I think she knows what’s she doing, she’s leading them off of us as they’re after the bounty hunter who’s been a thorn in their backsides since forever. Given she was the only survivor of that pirate attack on the colony she was born to, that’s actually saying quite a lot about how scared of her they are considering how dangerous she is.” The current flight leader of the stilettos watched as several large space pirate ships and their fighters turn to give chase as Fluttershy delved into the asteroid field, while others launched an attack on the Valhalla. “They are the ones who are suicidal for blindly chasing after stiletto thirteen into that death trap. Form up four wings of three they are actually taking some time to launch an attack our way, we should feel so lucky they decided to give us the time of day. We need to give the other squadrons time to launch and assist with the time thirteen bought us.”

“What about Direz, will she be okay in there by herself.” One of the other twelve defending stiletto’s chimed in.

“She’ll be fine, she’s a crazy good pilot and with an emphasis on crazy. I doubt she’d let someone like Samus ‘freaking’ Aran down. This is stiletto one, all wings form up! We’re moving on the defensive. Valhalla I would advise you get all other flights in the air now! Also would it be too much to request the Vic Viper do something other than sit around collecting dust?” The twelve fighters split off into four groups and took off for a swarm of space pirate fighters that were about to begin pestering the Valhalla which had immediately started firing back.

“I really don’t like where this is going.” Fluttershy muttered to herself as she dragged the ship with a living person behind her through and around asteroids at a relatively slow speed, she really did not feel like kicking into high gear quite yet. She had been listening to their chatter it, sounded like she was going to be alone out here and didn’t like her odds of survival. It was seconds later that she kicked her stiletto into high gear by putting the ship on full speed as she could get it with her right hoof when the entire stiletto shook from an energy blast that struck it. She was not a happy camper and was most certainly not alright.

The mass of Samus Aran’s ship was what had been keeping Fluttershy from going too fast as she dragged the other ship carefully around through asteroids before she came under heavy fire. It was all a bit hard for one pony to take in; she was to be mindful not only of herself but her passenger she was dragging along. Now she was moving at a quite a clip and barely avoiding the asteroids scraping against them every now and then, she didn’t even know what was causing the ship to roll at times and knew that she had no weapons with which she could defend herself. Not that she would have used the weapons at all or even attempted to kill her tailgaters.

A small part of Fluttershy knew that the ones shooting at her or mostly the tethered ship behind her were aiming to kill both of them when they couldn’t fight back. It was a really upsetting thought that they knew she couldn’t fight back and were taking every opportunity to let her know it given the large amount of poorly aimed fire in her general direction. The asteroids and the general toughness of the ship behind her were the only thing currently keeping her from dying in a fiery explosion.

Going into a particularly sharp turn around a larger asteroid, Fluttershy looked back and saw fifteen other fighters trying to put a hole in the ship she had tethered to hers before she turned back to what was in front of her, an endless sea of rocks slamming and bashing against one another slowly.

Poor Fluttershy was really having a hard time keeping up with all the things going on around her. An asteroid was floating down into her path from above which she swerved around; a group of fighters were trying to pincer her from both sides and that included the ones still behind her trying to poke holes into the rear of the stiletto that she was piloting pretty well for a being with no fingers.

Somewhere along the line Fluttershy lamented that if Rainbow Dash were in this situations, she’d probably have them shooting themselves considering how frantic they were with firing off shots. She was barely even compensating for the mass of having to drag the other ship through the weightless environment. At times like these Fluttershy prayed that the pegasus ability of incredible spatial awareness to see her through this.

Fluttershy twisted the control stick awkwardly and it sent her ship into a downward spiral between two relatively large asteroids she hadn’t seen, her ship passed through the space before the two asteroids before they slammed together. She halted her ships forward momentum by cutting the throttle and looked back to see the space rocks drifting apart from one another. She was happy that the tethers hadn’t been cut and were apparently made of stern stuff; the other ship was also okay and it was a saving grace for her sanity to see it intact. The whole universe was seemingly out to get her at this moment and Fluttershy knew it wasn’t just her paranoia talking.

She pushed the throttle back to full when the rocks floated far enough apart to squeeze her cargo through and she was once again on the move, apparently the three groups of chasing space pirates had been stalled by a few asteroids when she went into the awkward spiral. The space pirates had taken to trying to shoot through the asteroids so that they could reach the temporarily stalled Fluttershy before she could get too far.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness…” It was the mantra that Fluttershy muttered as her eyes darted about wildly as she had to pay attention to more than one thing at time and she wasn’t handling it well. The stiletto took several more shots, the readouts turned slightly red most likely telling her something was going to break soon and everything in the cockpit was shivering or was that just her and her nervous breakdown? She had to find a way out, she had to escape, why was there nowhere to run? She was in space for crying out loud!

“Fluttershy, are you okay?” Luna’s question was completely drowned out and unheard because of the most shrill and positively loudest scream Fluttershy had ever given in her entire life was heard.

The overly panicked Fluttershy jerked her left hoof jerked back on the control stick sending the stiletto into a U-turn that resolved into a full on death spiral as the other ship gained momentum having been swung around too hard. This sent fluttershy and her world spinning as she lost complete control of the situation.

The fighters that had been hounding Fluttershy up to this point suddenly went into a panic trying to avoid the self made bolas maneuver that Fluttershy had just pulled. End over end the two ships twisted until the cables came into contact with a small asteroid. As they both wrapped around the asteroid twice the tethered football shaped ship had managed to smash into one of the attacking fighters causing it to go careening into a larger asteroid which exploded violently.

The destruction of the asteroid sent shrapnel everywhere taking out five more pirate fighters while the others were slightly damaged by the debris of the asteroid, which still left at least seven fully operational fighters with many more converging on Fluttershy’s position. The stiletto and the other ship were now bound to opposite sides of the same asteroid they were now stuck to.

Fluttershy just whimpered as she was dizzy, confused, scared, about to barf when she couldn’t afford to not knowing when she would next be able to eat and was just one more incident shy of completely snapping mentally. The glass of canopy was struck by a chunk of asteroid and it cracked.

“Fluttershy are you okay? Please calm down, tell me what is going on.” The worried tone didn’t get through to the pony in question staring at the crack in the glass with a deep rooted fear in her heart.

“Luna… I’m not in a good position to really talk right now, please hang up and try again. If this number will continue to still be in service or even alive in the next few seconds… well you’ll definitely be the first to know about it.” This was the moment Fluttershy would follow the teachings of Pinkie Pie, take refuge in the complete audacity of the situation when you had no hope left to give. It was all going downhill from here and she could really use a bit of humor right now. Looking up through the canopy through the many asteroids blocking her sight she could see the stars, the stars that had multiple ruthless space pirate fighters closing in with a larger ship that had carried them this far and was taking care to blow away the surrounding asteroids leaving her wide open for the coming assault.

The crack in the canopy grew slightly as a blast sent chips of destroyed asteroid at it, but it didn’t let any air escape. Fluttershy held her breathe fearfully staring at the crack. The ship shook as more beams of energy struck the stiletto peppering it and the surrounding rock, the ship on the other side of the asteroid was probably getting just as damaged in the bombardment. Fluttershy wondered if the person in the other ship was even still alive at this point and if they were wearing a space suit, if it was open to vacuum then that person most likely had a limited air supply even if they were in a space suit. She feared the worst and hoped for the best.

Fluttershy was a pony and would never abandon someone even in this situation; at least if she died she’d have someone else to talk to about how hard she had tried her best. She was feeling quite useless right now, she was even ignoring Luna’s plea to talk about what was going on. It was a surprise that the armor on this ship had even held out as well as it had or that the thrusters were still in an operational order at all.

The large ship descended and fired several more blasts, one of which took out the right booster of the stiletto and shook the entire ship. Fluttershy closed her eyes and tried to smile despite the rapid beating of her heart and the fear of imminent demise, she was trying to focus on her happy place in such a stressful situation. Only she certainly didn’t feel herself being exposed to the vacuum of space. The shuddering of her damaged ship stopped and the sounds of warnings that she didn’t understand were still going on throughout the semi-operational stiletto.

Opening her eyes Fluttershy watched as a very temporary small star was born of the large space pirate vessel exploding from five large beams of solid blue energy ripping through it as if it was made of tissue paper. A scorched mark covered white forked arrowhead shaped ship shot out of the explosion followed by four glowing orange spheres of light.

The ship that had just saved Fluttershy started to bore large holes through the asteroids and pirate fighters in front of them alike with beams of raw energy that Fluttershy didn’t think even Twilight could compete with given their obvious power. It was downright scary and they weren’t even aimed at her and here she thought she couldn’t be any more afraid for her life.

At the same time the bright orange orbs of light separated from the incredible ship and started to move and fire on the pirate fighters with the same ferocity that the ship did on their own accord. The pirate fighters tried to fight back, but they were clearly outclassed by this fighter’s weaponry and incredible speed that made Fluttershy feel like she was slow again.

“I’ve got you covered; now get back to the Valhalla on the double! You’re ship looks like it’s holding together on a wing and a prayer.” The strong voice said and despite the strength of conviction in it, the ship the voice had come from looked pretty badly damaged after obviously having dealt with the other large space pirates ships. If it still had that kind of power even looking as bad as it did, Fluttershy didn’t want to think about what it would be like to have something like that thing as an enemy.

Fluttershy blinked and turned to steering stick and the ship slowly rotated since the added mass of being strapped to the asteroid was slowing it down. She looked at the console and saw an arrow pointing back through the largely opened hole in the asteroid field. Despite being slightly slower missing one booster, she would get out of the asteroid field unmolested thanks to that person who just rescued her. Her ship was slowly limping its way towards a slightly battered Valhalla. Taking the glowing memory stone out of her saddlebags, Fluttershy held it up to her face.

“I’ll be fine Luna… things… just got really complicated for me for a while. Don’t worry; I think everything will be okay. So we’ll be able to talk later if that’s alright with you and I’m really sorry that I currently don’t have the time to do so at the moment.” The even tone Fluttershy spoke made it clearly known that even she wasn’t so sure that everything would be okay, she was after all going to be involved in a crash landing once she entered the gravitational field generator onboard the Valhalla.

Sighing as she put the stone away Fluttershy realized that if the person in the other ship on the other side of the asteroid was in fact still alive, even if the possibility was very little after all they had just went through, she was going to have to crash the Stiletto upside down to give them the best chance at survival. This meant that she would have to pop the canopy very quickly and leap to safety or else she’d be crushed by the full weight of an asteroid, that or rely on the completely unsound structural integrity of the stiletto after what she had just put it through.

Looking at the cracked canopy Fluttershy was completely certain that she did not trust the structural integrity of this ship with her life, she’d also need to look for a place to escape to before she flew into the hangar and inevitably crashed. She wiggled herself out from the chair straps and wiped at her sweaty forehead with a hoof, she went to the back of the ship and raided its meager stores of some thickly packed clear plastic packets of dried fruits and nuts. Nobody would question if they went missing if the ship was crushed right? Fluttershy was getting tired of having to raid hydroponics section and the very impressively stocked kitchen for food, the bathrooms were always an ample supply of fresh water so she didn’t have to worry about that at least.

Getting back into the seat she saw that she was on approach to the Valhalla and hoped that she could do this without serious injury to herself. Oh Fluttershy already knew she was going to get hurt, it was just the matter of how badly she got hurt doing it. Taking a deep breath she put on her game face, the pony’s game face looked very much like a horrified grimace as she slowly inverted the asteroid so that she was upside down on the approach of the very much right side up hangar.

The following crash didn’t kill or get Fluttershy caught, but she’d definitely be feeling it for the next few days. In said following days the famous bounty hunter Samus Aran was given a peculiar vaccine and was given a ship on loan from the Galactic Federation because her ship was in the process of being repaired onboard the Valhalla. The ship under repairs was thankfully clean of whatever had infected Samus.

Unfortunately for Samus, she wouldn’t be seeing her old ship for a long time if at all. Many people tried to cover up the fact that something had happened to it for the fear of reprisal from the bounty hunter. Everyone came to wonder the same thing, who in their right mind was brave or stupid enough cross a person who was noted for her unstoppable determination and causing entire species to go extinct? Not to mention this was the same person who had a tendency for things like entire planets blowing up around her while she survived said explosions every single time.

Of course the most feared and famed bounty hunter in the Galactic Federation systems known as Samus Aran had other problems to worry about and wouldn’t find out her old ship, one she cherished and had for quite a long time, was stolen.