Fluttershy slowly dropped her helmets bubble, reached up with her hoof and slowly wedge the memory stone in her left ear. After her bubble popped up she turned to Mira and the others, the suit reacting to her mood, the two long pink petals sticking up at the back of her head fell down to veil the right side of her face as she shyly pawed at the floor with a hoof. She wasn’t good in a direct fight; even if she could protect and handle herself well enough.
Ever since she joined Rhizome’s fight against the hornets, Fluttershy hasn’t directly been involved in the fighting, sure she might have cleared a room by herself but that was quick and simple thinking alongside using her small stature to her advantage compared to the taller beings she was with. At best she’s only come up with useful plans and tactically speaking she dealt a lot of damage to a massive number of hornets with them; she thankfully wasn’t Rainbow Dash who would have likely flown straight into a wall of energy weapons being fired directly at her with a bravado that would coincide with suicidal tendencies.
In this situation fighting was necessary, something Fluttershy was hardly good at unless she was under extreme duress and fighting for her life on her back. She did pretty well last time considering she was impaled through the chest, had numerous bruises and a broken leg at the time. This time she was actually wearing something that would protect her from a few glancing shots, maybe even a few direct hits like all the other suits. It was safe to say Fluttershy would rather curl up in this room and not leave it until things were safe, but that wasn’t an option and she didn’t like where they were all headed after they were finished resting.
The Rhizomian suit patches were useful, slap one over a suit that lost its regenerative capabilities and the entire suit restores to full functionality and form. Depending on how often the suits takes damage, the Rhizomian suits could theoretically take an infinite amount of damage even if it had less durability than something made of sterner materials.
Mira’s Space Ranger armor could take a lot more of a pounding, but didn’t have the ability to restore itself back to full condition after a fight and would need to be sent in for repairs. There was a big upside to having biological armor that can heal itself and protect the wearer.
As long as the damage threshold was not exceeded the Rhizome suits would work perfectly and continue to do so while prioritizing life support functions. A mechanical suit could only carry so much air and only recycle it for so long, plus there were better chances of this type of suit having system failures compared to a biological suit that breathes with its wearer.
The pony moved over to sit down in a circle with the Rhizomian’s and Mira after she was done flicking her left ear irritably. Fluttershy cowered as the ship was rocked by what sounded to be a huge explosion.
“We can only rest for about five more minutes; we’ve wedged the carrier into position now all we need is for Janet or those mercenaries to finish them off. We’re about to hightail out of here, so does anyone have any good ideas or any comments to make?” Mira was still looked to as the leader of this operation and she was going to make sure that they had no complaints. She promised Fluttershy they’d survive and they were going to even if it was over her half dead body, good thing her thrusters were still working or else flying around looking randomly for an exit would never work.
“Um… I can find an exit…” Fluttershy daintily toyed with the pink petals that reminded her of how her mane used to hang in her face. She got Mira’s attention easily enough; she was being a lot shyer now than she has been for the past few weeks. It was a comforting feeling for Fluttershy that she could still be herself, of course now wasn’t a time for being shy. “I’m in contact with my friend Discord, he can see us right now and he’ll guide us to an exit as best he can. We’re going to need to do some fighting and… well he can get us out. After that we’ll be in open space, which will be much more dangerous than being in here and being in here will get us killed anyway.”
“Good point, but we haven’t really pushed the thrusters to full on these things yet. Hope those exhaust plants are as powerful as you say they are Professor Triffid.” Hearing the professor describe the strength of the suits thrusters had Mira wondering why he stated it was a bad idea to use them at full strength while in atmospheric conditions, she’d find out once they hit open space though. She wasn’t going to question Fluttershy about the glowing stone too much, she trusted the pony explicitly after getting to know her over a week of spa trips. “Since you have a method for getting us out of here faster, one that doesn’t require a large amount of explosive we currently don’t have, we’ll follow you’re lead Fluttershy. Truffle, Kleptchi and Pwerta you’ll be behind her, I’ll take up the rear with Triffid. Roller can just do his own thing; he seems capable of taking care of himself anyway. Now let’s get the door and everyone get their weapons ready, Fluttershy you’re going to need this.”
Roller just rolled his eyes and revved something that sounded like him saying, well of course he could take care of himself as he didn’t currently have a flat and could still go fast. His ability to describe his health wasn’t exactly the greatest thing in the world; he was still confused about how he and everyone fell through the floor after he was brought into a hug with Fluttershy and the others.
Fluttershy looked at the hilt of the thorn sword she was just given by Mira, a blade with thorns would grow out of the hilt and then it would be a weapon otherwise it could perform different functions including a onetime Jaws of Life feature that turned it into a small tree.
“I’m moving out Discord; please give me the directions as needed.” Shaking her head the pony moved up to the door to this room and poked the control panel, the door opened up. Sticking her head out of the doorway slightly, she looked around the corridor and didn’t see anything so far. She took a few steps out and then kicked off the ground into a hover. So far so good, Fluttershy heard Discord give her a direction to start moving in, she steeled her nerves and continued to think of the mantra that she was just destroying big dangerous toys that children shouldn’t play with. “Let’s go!”
Fluttershy shot off down the corridor at full atmospheric speed clutching tightly at the thorn sword hilt held in both her hooves, leading the others while following Discord’s directions. When she first came upon few hornets the blade immediately sprouted from the hilt and she swung as hard as she could, while flying by them at a blazing speed.
The pony continued onwards spiraling a bit before she righted herself not looking back; she took the lack of energy weapons fire to mean that she succeeded in neutralizing the machines. She took a right turn and saw a glimpse of several forms still following her, including Roller. Her left ear flicked as she continued flying forward trying to keep focused on it for any more instructions from Discord.
If there was one thing Fluttershy wasn’t good at doing, it was flying fast. She was having some problems keeping her flight path straight. She flashed by several more hornets that had opened up fire on her before she destroyed them with another swing of the sword she was holding onto for dear life; she was flying so erratically that evasive maneuvers weren’t needed.
Fluttershy slowed down and curved around to the left at the next four way intersection, and was immediately under fire. She dropped down in shock and was caught by Roller who put her in a position where she destroyed three of the five hornets. The wheel spun around really fast horizontally like a top as they rammed through them while Fluttershy held her blade out. The other two hornets were taken out by multiple thorns fire from behind her, after that she kicked off Roller and was back in the air within seconds leading the way.
A left turn, then a right, they weren’t being interrupted by any patrols. Discord was leading them around the patrols; he was pretty good at that as Fluttershy really didn’t really want to go on the offensive.
“Ten incoming on the way you have to go next, just a heads up. Left turn and get ready to swing that thing around some more.” Hearing Discord’s advice Fluttershy looked up at her left ear and flicked it a bit before lowering her eyesight to in front of her and she made a left turn while swinging. The acidic edge of the sword ripped through three of the robots, the other seven started firing at her airborne form.
Fluttershy immediately dropped to the floor and went into a high speed roll with her thrusters pushing her forward along the ground, she popped out of it into a spiraling straight into the air with a flourish which destroyed four of the hornets in their way. Two more hornets went down to thorns fired at them and the last one was slashed in half with a vertical swing from Pwerta wielding a thorn sword of her own as she flew between the two halves of the yellow and black machine as it fell apart.
Dizzily the pony shook her head and twitched her left ear; she turned right down the next corridor. Now she had to fly straight until the airlock came up on her left, she and the others were going to get company and they had to hold it together. When they reached open space things were bound to get worse before they could get better.
Staring down the hallway Fluttershy had a firm frown upon her face; she shot forward and swung the sword loosely taking out the first of a large pack of flying hornets while getting between them so they’d shoot each other. The ones before had been on the ground slowly trudging about, these hornets were all much more prepared for the escaping counter offensive team that had rammed the three hornet carriers together.
Evasive maneuvers were a must in close quarters and especially while flying at break neck if you hit anything resembling a brick wall speed. The Rhizomian’s were doing this while they pumped round after round into the hornets as the flew through them and came out the other side with Mira flying backwards planting a few shots into the stragglers that survived the initial rush lead by Fluttershy and Pwerta.
Fluttershy’s heart was thundering in her chest as she swung the sword haphazardly as she flew through the entire flock of machines tearing them to shreds with the acidic edge of her blade. She would never do this to a living being and these were just toys of a bad colt, yes it had to be a very bad colt that couldn’t just play nice with others so his toys had to be taken away. She dodged deftly out of the way of some ionized green air that shot past her and the offending hornet was shot down by Mira.
Within seconds of clearing the pack having swung her sword one last time taking down one last hornet, she could vaguely hear Discord yelling in her ear to keep a look out to her left. She saw the airlock and slowed down by pointed her thrusters in the opposite direction to come into a hover before dropping to the floor, she tested the airlocks panel to find it wouldn’t open. Kleptchi flew forward and Fluttershy flicked her glass knife towards her with her bat wing as the others moved to cover the airlock from the two directions that hornets would have to come in from.
“Fluttershy when we get out into open space pay attention to your surroundings at all times, because they will be firing at us from all sides. Now excuse me I’ve got some hornets to deal with.” Mira raised up the hornet’s arm she had liberated from one of the robots and started to fire it down the corridor alongside her pea shooter. The hornet’s arms had their own power sources in case their main batteries were ever compromised, they’d still get off a few shots and be powered by both their arms. As fragile as they generally were, hornets were good at staying operational in certain situations. “Come on guys, keep them off of Kleptchi!”
Kleptchi was sweating as bolts of energy flew by behind her head and she hurriedly twisted several wires in the three fingers of each hand, after a moment she slammed four wires together and the airlock popped open.
Everyone piled into the airlock and Mira flew in last to shooting the panel on the inside of the airlock closing the door shut behind them. Fluttershy was breathing heavily and shuddering, the other Rhizomian’s looked to be tired and Mira looked to be glowing with excitement.
Kleptchi was already kneeling by the next panel and she stopped at the last wire with her thumb and forefinger on both bits of metal prepared to squeeze them together, she handed the knife back to Fluttershy and looked to Mira.
“Right, everyone be prepared for what’s about to happen. Keep an eye out everywhere around you, oh and Fluttershy?” Making sure she had eye contact with the pony Mira smiled. “Can you ask your friend which direction we should be flying to head towards the mercenary’s ship?”
“Straight down from the airlock in the next minute, can’t miss it really. Your blue friend sent all three ships rolling when she rammed them together.” Fluttershy could definitely hear the amusement in Discord’s voice. “And I must say how positively chaotic of her, I really like that in your new friend my dear. Please don’t get hit out there... I worry a lot for your health and I’m only getting winks of sleep with fear for your safety.”
“I’ll be okay Discord.” They had about ten seconds from what Fluttershy understood, until the time allotted by Discord was up. She turned away from the door to look at Mira. “We need to go straight down from our current orientation, open it in the next six seconds.”
“Remember to use full thrust everyone, three, two, one… go!” Mira pointed to Kleptchi who smashed her two fingers together and the airlock burst open sending them all flying out into space, everything suddenly became soundless except for everyone breathing in the depths of space.
Everybody's jets activated at the same time and they swerved for the Great Fox in the distance, they mentally activated the full strength of the exhaust plants strapped to their backs. Fluttershy grabbed Roller as she too went to full thrust and they all shot off at a blistering pace with green beams of death lancing silently through space all around them. They were moving too fast for any of the shots to be too accurate, but evasive maneuvers were still required to avoid taking too many hits, a suit breach out here was certain death.
The pony’s heart was positively racing, she hadn’t personally been blown out an airlock by accident and doing it on the purpose caused her heart rate to spike as she sped for the Great Fox in the distance that was destroying large numbers of robots and the four fighters harassing the robots were keeping them from reaching the vessel.
Fluttershy ended up flying by a fighter at a blistering pace with Roller adding his star burst to her momentum, for a second both Fluttershy and a grumpy bird looked each other in the eyes. Recognition of what they were each seeing could barely be had before Fluttershy was out of his sight being followed by a group of suited individuals also flying at incredible speeds.
-
“Holy flap, did you guys see that! This is Falco, the hippies are out; they are heading for you Rob. If you want to help blow the vessels to smithereens, now would be a good time for an assist.” Falco watched as the Great Fox started firing away at the hornet carriers with its two massive cannons opening up large holes in the three vessels.
“I’ll help cover their escape Fox; use the smart bombs and to take them down.” Peppy Hare broke off from the rest of the fighters to start shoot away the robots giving chase to the escaping the suited beings flying at incredible speeds.
“Fox, help me!” The voice of Slip said over the communications, he had at least two hundred hornets swarming at him.
“Darn it all Slippy, I keep telling you that you need more simulator practice!” Fox flew in behind Slip and started to rapidly blow apart the robots attempting to puncture the Slip’s shields under a mass of energy weapons fire and cleared them off his friend. He sighed, why couldn’t his friend keep flying like he did at Area Six? “Right this is Fox everyone, I’m authorizing the full use of smart bombs now. Form up on me and let them have it guys!”
Three fighter ships formed a flying V and they all fired three small red jewel shaped bombs towards the recent holes opened up in the three fused ships. Within seconds the ships started glowing internally when multiple blast waves went off destroying the hornet carriers and the surrounding hornets.
The fourth fighter was making sure that not even one hornet could get close to the Great Fox or the ones gunning towards it for safety, it was also picking off the stragglers.
All that was left now was for them to clean up the mess that was left behind.
-
Fluttershy turned off her exhaust plant and flipped over to start it up again to slow down before angling for the hangar of the Great Fox, the others followed her in her turn and burn to slow down to a crawl. Roller wiggled in her grasp, but she wasn’t about to let go of him. Flying in space was so different from flying in an atmosphere, momentum was bit problematic for Fluttershy and she didn’t even know how she was taking the vastness of space so well. It took a moment, but she realized that she wasn’t taking it well at all. She felt a grand need to put something excessively solid beneath her hooves again, the memories of drifting out in space caused her to start hyperventilating as memories of starvation returned to her.
The pony calmed down when she felt a gentle hand squeezed her shoulder as it gently led her into the ship. Once they all settled down in the ships hangar they heard a coughing noise and a Rhizomian fell over, immediately attracting the attention of everyone. They all gathered around her as she was coughing up blood all over the insides of her helmet.
“Fluttershy get over here, I need your help to keep her calm by letting her hold your hoof. Professor Triffid I need you reload this spiny plant with anesthesia, the Fire Veins has likely run its course enough for it to be effective. I also think the adrenal fluids I jammed into her earlier are starting to wear off and her body is started to feel every bruise and injury dealt to it. None of us are in good condition, but Great Mother preserve us we’re all going to live!” Pwerta was immediately over Kleptchi with Fluttershy galloping over with a fearful look on her face. “Do you hear me Kleptchi Mossport?! You better hold it together; the Great Mother doesn’t need you returned to her soil just yet as you still have life in you! Professor where’s that anesthesia!”
Kleptchi the bronze skinned Rhizomian with the long green hair smiled slightly up at Fluttershy with tears in her eyes. Fluttershy felt the strength in the grip on her hoof and she gripped the three fingered hand back, the grip didn’t weaken however and in fact it seemed to be staying steady and strong. Taking as many shots as she had, she was still very strong.
For every shot that didn’t make it through the suit, it left a nasty bruise on Kleptchi and it wasn’t any different from the bruises left on the other Rhizomian’s and Mira. It was just that she had taken the worst injury out of all of them and she did her part to protect her home planet of Janet Rhizome, she helped them get in and out of the ship with her well studied knowledge of machinery to help hot-wire the doors. Slamming into the doorway on the way out of the airlock didn’t help her body any in the slightest, she had bravely clenched her teeth and endured a nearly blacking out. Knowledge was power and she being the oddball Rhizomian that she was, Kleptchi had studied the technological developments of other races and was a top scholar in the field.
Truffle was just an athlete, Professor Triffid was just a scientist and the one feverishly working to save Kleptchi’s life was both a great doctor and one of the best multiple species masseuse Rhizome would likely ever see. They weren’t fighters, they weren’t a warrior based species, but darn it if they didn’t give it their all to get this far to let even one more casualty be a permanent one.
“Kleptchi you’re going to be okay, I promise you. You’re in good hooves.” The Rhizomian jerked in Fluttershy’s hooves when she was jammed in the chest with that cactus plant again, then she became slightly limp.
Only time would tell if Pwerta would be able to prevent the worst casualty of a short war against the invaders of her home. Fluttershy would refuse to remove her hoof from Kleptchi’s hand until things got better.