Admiral Twilight was not happy in the least. Here she was, the pride of her Mistress’s empire and now she was going to be in trouble for her failure.
The admiral paced around her chair at the center of her bridge as the Haymaker made it’s retreat with the rest of the fleet back to the Sol Star. As her ship banked to starboard aligning itself with the fleet the Admiral could feel her heart rate increase. Nopony every angered the Empress and lived to tell about it.
Before they got far a group of six earth vessels and the Hydra came around the front of the Haymaker and performed an alpha strike. Each vessel fired every single weapon port they had, focusing their fire on one point of the Haymaker’s shields.
The Haymaker shook violently as their shields went down. The alarms blared in Admiral Twilight's ears as she screamed out orders like aerial animal. Several of the other officer ponies ran around looking over several monitors to assess the damage. TWilight cursed Trixie and the Terran Empire as she watched them flee to regroup with the rest of their fleet.
Meanwhile in the engine room of the ISS Haymaker, an engineer pony found a strange device next to the main reactor. She was a unicorn in a black suit boots and a utility belt around her waist. She had a long blonde mane and looked down at the strange device with curious emerald eyes.
“What’s this?” She asked lifting the device in her magical aura.
Inspecting it she looked the device over. It was small like a 20oz can. It was yellow with warning labels on one side of it. She took a moment before she recognized what it was.
She trotted over to her work station and set the device down and pulled out a small PDA and activated it. She held the PDa in her aura and spoke into one corner of it as she inspected the device she found while the rest of the engineering crew was running around trying to fix the ship.
“Engineering personal log, Lieutenant Sandy reporting,” She said looking over the device in her hooves. “I just found an old J-77 power core near the main reactor. Heh, I haven’t seen one of these since my academy days!”
She took another PDA, thinking fondly of the days she spent at the academy in question. She entered a data log for the J-77 and looked into where she’d store it. She took a moment to glance over at a old photo of her and a stallion beside her. She smiled at the photo rubbing her slightly large belly tenderly.
“I’ve just finished cataloging the J-77 once the campaign is over. For now my thought’s are on my beloved. I’ll be home soon love. Then we'll start that family you always wanted.”
She chuckled lightly as she stored the eJ-77 core away under her desk.
“So, now that that’s done we still need to calibrate-”
KABOOM!
The poor mares words were cut off as the desk where she put the core suddenly exploded. She never saw it coming.
On the Haymaker bridge, the ship lost all power, losing all lights within. Admiral Twilight growled yelling profanities at her luck.
“Somepony get me some light!” She yelled running over to Fluttershy's station. “What happened, feather brain?”
“There was a… a …. Explosion in main engineering. It’s all gone.” The timid mare squeaked under the Admiral’s tense gaze.
“Well, get the power back! We’re sitting ducks out here-”
“Admiral! We have a transmission from the LUna’s Revenge!” another pony yelled out interrupting her.
As the secondary batteries came on, the light’s inside the Haymaker turned red. All Empire ships had them. It usually meant there was no saving the ship. Admiral Twilight sighed in relief when partial power came back on a few moments later.
Just then the transmission from the Luna’s Revenge came upon the main viewer. There with a smug grin was Captain Derpy, smiling down at Admiral Twilight.
“Hellooooooo Admiral!” Captain Derpy said in a sing song voice.
The mare gasped dramatically, covering her mouth with her hooves. “YOur ship is sooo badly damaged! Oh, my dear Admiral do you require assistance?” Captain Derpy asked in mock concern.
Admiral Twilight growled at the mare, dragging her booted hooves across the floor.
“Get your lazy butt out here and tow my ship, Captain!” The Admiral demanded.
Derpy didn’t comply however. Instead she hissed then began to laugh loudly and obnoxiously. The violet Admiral stared at her underling in bewilderment, as did the crew. Nopony had ever laughed at Admiral Twilight’s face like that, with trixie being the only exception.
“How dare you! I’ll see to it you hang for this!” Twilight threatened.
Just then another transmission, audio only, cut through the main viewer as a small audio box. From it came a familiar voice that made the blood over everypony run cold that heard it.
“Be silent foolish child,” The voice said calmly.
Twilight immediately lowered herself to the floor and bowed, so did every other pony. Even Derpy did as she continued to hold her smug grin.
Then the voice spoke again, “I am disappointed in you, Admiral Sparkle.”
The voice was filled with nothing but venom and sarcasm behind it. The words rang true in the Admiral's ears. She felt afraid. Very afraid.
“Heh, he, please my Empress, I can fix all of this! I just need-”
“More time?” The voice said over the comm. “You have had plenty of time, Admiral.”
Suddenly the view screen opened up to show a white alicorn mare sitting upon a gloriously elaborate throne of white stone covered in red cloth. The mare herself was as tall as a human, her horn made her a foot taller, and had golden armor over her body.
Her mane and tail were bright blue flames that crackled loudly, complimenting her deep magenta slit eyes. She wore a four pronged crown with a violet emerald on the front most prong.
She glared down at the fallen unicorn and scowled at her.
“You failed me catastrophically Admiral. I gave you a chance and you squandered it,” She said looking at her hoof with disinterest. “However, you can redeem yourself, Admiral.”
The fallen unicorn stood up immediately. *This is my chance to get back in her good graces!* She thought smiling, Derpy frowned.
The white mare looked down at Admiral twilight with a stern expression that could pierce the hull of a capital ship, and said, “I want you to find my sister’s student and bring her home, Admiral. Vice Admiral Derpy will help assist you.”
Twilight gawked at her Empress. She then shifted her glance to the wall eyed mare. There was a smug grin on the grey mare's face, as she waved to Twilight.
“Of course my Empress!” TWilight bowed again. “For the Empire!”
The Empress saluted as the view screen went blank. Derpy followed suit with a salute and her part of the screen went blank.
Admiral Twilight growled smashing her hoof against the metal floors of her ship. She was in a quite a pickle now. She had no ship to command her Empress was very displeased with her, and now Derpy was right behind her in the rank structure.
It wasn’t looking good for her, but she had an idea. One that would solve both her problems at once and get her back in favor with her Empress. Turning to the timid pegasus pony under her command she called out in an angered voice, “Fluttershy!”
“Yes, ma’am?” The yellow pony squawked.
“Get Flash back up here!” Twilight ordered.
“Yes, ma’am!”
Not thirty seconds later, Flash Sentry appeared on the bridge from the turbolift with two other stallions in security uniforms at his side.
“Yes, Admiral?” He asked saluting Twilight.
Twilight saluted and the the ponies rest.
“We have a mission. It is of the utmost priority!” She said.
“What’s the mission?” Sentry asked, as Twilight walked past and into the turbolift.
“We’re going to capture that traitor Trixie.” Twilight snarled, as the doors closed.
*Hydra Engineering*
Pinkie Pie was running around like a mad mare. She was replacing coils here, a relay there, clapping hooves with a zebra as she ran by, and gave a hydrospanner to another pony. Engineering was a tussle of madness due to the battle.
Relieved when she heard the ship was going to take a breather while the fleets rallied up, Pinkie took the opportunity to make as many repairs as she could. In her own record breaking time she managed to get one-hundred systems back up from her previous seventy, in under an hour.
She was positively beaming with joy at her success. Of course she’d never admit it was not her doing. She would say it was due to her great crew under her command. Teamwork always won the day here.
While Pinkie nose dived into a shaft to being reparing several more systems, the doors to main engineering opened up revealing Scope and his friend Tucker, Enterprises Main Engineer.
“-and this is main engineering for the Hydra!” Scope said with pride.
Tucker whistled at the massive size of the ship's engine.
“Wow, you ponies sure love things tall,” Tucker said looking straight up.
Scope chuckled walking beside the human. “Nah, actually the race that we ponies made contact with called the Thrane were the ones who designed this.”
“The Thrane?”
“Yeah, after looking over the data archives on your ship, the closest race you’ve come across that’s like them is the ones you call the Vulcans.” Scope said.
“Ugh, yeah… Vulcans,” Tucker said with much heated sarcasm. “Are these, Thrane like babysitters to you guys?”
“Babysitters? No. We’re partners!” scope explained walking Tucker to the service lift.
“You see Mr. Tucker, it was about the year 2133, when we first met the Thrane. They came to our world seeking a fugitive who escaped from them. That fugitive was the one that nearly destroyed one of our colonies and made us focus on a war fleet that I told you about.” Scope said allowing Tucker to recall the story.
Shaking his head, Tucker stepped off the service lift and looking down over the railing. It was at least one hundred feet down from here. He was impressed by this ship.
“Ah recall, so these thrane are friends” Tucker asked in his southern drawl.
“Yeup, they’re our friends,” Scope said. “Although they can be very…. Annoying to talk to.”
“Are they?”
“Yes, it’s kinda like… I don’t know.” Scope admitted. “It’s kinda like talking to T’pol. Although she is much more easy to talk to than you described her as.”
Tucker laughed placing his hands on his hips. “Yeah, she has come a long way after she was first put on Enterprise.”
“Well be that as it may, Pansy is the worst kind of mare to be around,” Scope said with a chuckle.
Tucker shared a laugh with him. “Yeah, that pony friend of yours is something else.”
Both the pony and human walked along sharing tales with one another as Tucker was given the grand tour of engineering. Meanwhile, Pinkie was listening in on them from an overhead maintenance shaft when she received an audio message from the bridge.
Taking out her PDA she activated the audio talk function and spoke happily into it, “Engineering this is Pinkie Pie speaking!”
“Pinkie, what is the status of the ship's reactor and the H-Drive?” asked the voice of Captain Trixie.
Inkie read back from the loud voice from her PDA.
Gently rubbing her ears she replied back, “H-Drive is still down, but all the major systems are back online. Weapons and shields are at 80% capacity. The hangar is still under reconstruction but operable.”
A brief silence passed while Pinkie waited for her response.
“What’s the status of the bombers?”
“Bombers are still operable, but the hangar still can’t be opened right now.” Pinkie said with some concern in her voice. “Will we need the hangar?”
“Not as of now Lt. Commander. Get back to repairing the ship. I’ll keep in touch, Trixie out.”
“Bye…” Pinkie said somberly.
A few minutes passed and Pinkie just sat there feeling drained. He wasn’t sure about it, but something in Trixie’s voice made her very sad. She never got over the angry look that Trixie gave her after her first few attempts to impress the mare.
She felt bad when she made Trixie drop a lit torch on her arm and had to be rushed to the medbay. Suddenly she felt a large jolt run through her body as it ran down her back to her tail. Gasping she felt her tail spas out then her ears flopped and then her hooves ached.
Once she regained control of her body she jumped down from her place and unto the scaffolding. Making a mad dash to the nearest control console she hit a ship wide alarm and voice over the internal comm., “Intruders in main engineering! Security response-”
The pink mare was cut off as the area around her lit up with a deep green light. Several ponies in heavy armor appeared from thin air as the green receded into them. Pinkie had just enough time to roll for cover as the first pony in armor shot a green bolt from his rifle into the head of one of the engineering crew. The poor stallion was caught unaware and took the bolt to the head and dropped dead on the sot.
The armored ponies looked around a once said, “We have main engineering. We’ll search the ship for the Captain.”
Once the pony was done talking, they ran past Pinkie's hiding spot and into the main engineering area. They began to shot at all ponies who were fleeing right as the Hydra’s Security force came rushing in. At the front of it was Major Spitfire and her MAREs Commandos.
The invading ponies looked around assessing the situation, when another mare stepped forward and looked over the scene. Pinnie looked at the mare in her officers uniform and recognized her immediately.
‘Twilight?”
The pony named twilight looked around pulling her rifle off her back in her magical aura, rallying her troops.
“Take them! Kill them all and find Trixie!” She yelled charging at the MAREs commandos followed by her troops. “AD Victoriam!!!”