Lieutenant Commander Iynx’s Personal Log, July 4th, 3382 AD.
Things are not looking good. It has been two days since our ship was attacked, two days since the death of Captain Star Gazer and much of the crew.
The ship is damaged beyond our current capabilities to repair it, and our chief engineer is barely keeping the reactor from breaching and destroying what is left of the ES Harmony. This is not how I thought this voyage would turn out.
We’re running on minimal power, multiple decks have been breached and whole areas of the ship are just… gone. Without FTL we are stuck for now, and we are running constant scans for any sign of those ships coming to finish the job. Honestly, if they do turn up I don’t think we will be able to do much about it. We only survived the last encounter thanks to Princess Twilight.
Speaking of Princess Twilight, she has yet to wake. Doctor Geneser assures us that she will be fine, and that she simply used up all her magic to get us out of there and is recovering from that endeavour. I sure hope she wakes soon… she will know what to do.
She has to.
Fire.
That is all that surrounded the alicorn.
Things seemed to go in slow motion for Twilight as fires roared around her and what was left of the bridge crew fought valiantly in the losing battle to keep their ship together. The bulkheads creaked as the ship was torn apart and another console exploded, taking yet another crewmember with it.
And still those ships fired upon the Harmony, intent on leaving none of the crew alive to tell the tale.
There was only one thing to do… she had to save her crew.
…
Twilight awoke with a start. Medical white walls greeted her, not helping the pounding headache converging around the base of her horn. Things blurred in and out of focus as Twilight slowly managed to regain her senses and awareness, before things finally began to come into focus.
To say the medical bay was a mess… would be an understatement.
There still seemed to be an abundance of power being fed to the sickbay, likely due to the horrific amount of patients within, but it wasn’t as pristine as Doctor Geneser usually liked to keep it.
Some of the walls were blackened and charred from fires that existed only recently, some wiring hung from points in the ceiling as engineers were actively trying to place them back where they should be and medical equipment as well as emergency rations were spilled out everywhere as the medical staff attended the many patients around.
Twilight tried to sit up, only for a zebra wearing a medical coat to place a gentle hoof on her and guide her back down onto the bed.
“Princess Twilight,” Geneser spoke. “Your doctor knows best, so please get some rest.”
“What? Why am I in sickbay?” Twilight asked. “Last I remember I was in engineering, feeding my magic into the reactor.”
“You saved the ship, and sent us on quite the trip.”
“The FTL worked?” she asked.
Geneser nodded. “Sadly however, we no longer have the drive, though for that we certainly must strive.”
“I’m sure Silver Wrench is already hard at work,” Twilight said, this time successfully managing to sit up, despite Geneser’s protests.
“Overworked, more like,” Iynx said as she entered the medical bay, moving towards Princess Twilight. “I asked Geneser to notify me when you woke, how are you?”
Twilight noted the tired look on Iynx’s face, and the fact her right arm was in a sling. “I’m fine. My magic is recovering, though I’m not quite at my full strength as of yet.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re well, your highness,” Iynx said. “Things have been really tough the past two days.
“I was out for two days?!” Twilight’s eyes widened.
“I’m afraid so,” Iynx sighed. “And things, as I said, are tough right now. The Captain is dead, much of our crew are either deceased or injured and the ship is constantly trying to tear itself apart.”
“Do we know where we are? And do we still have the thaumatic drive?”
Iynx nodded. “We still have our sub-light engines. Though, they are powered down right now to conserve energy. As for where we are, whatever you did to the FTL drive sent us light years off course, right into uncharted space. Now don’t get me wrong, we know where we are in relation to Alpha Centaur and Equus, but without FTL it will take a long time to get to either world.”
“Which one is closer?” Twilight asked in a commanding tone.
“Ma’am?”
“Which planet is closer?”
Iynx thought for a moment. “According to our charts, Equus.”
Twilight nodded. “Gather all remaining senior officers on the bridge, there are some things we need to discuss.”
Iynx saluted. “Yes, you highness! At once!”
“Hold on a moment,” Twilight called out as Iynx went to leave. “One more thing.”
“Alright, what is it?”
“What exactly happened just after the battle?”
Two days earlier
An empty expanse sat quietly, the distant stars twinkling gently around it. Nothing disturbed this specific spot in space, no stars, planets or even an asteroid.
All was silent.
Until a violent flash lit up the area as a starship suddenly decelerated from FTL. The transition was not smooth as the ship began to diverge from its course and roll unsteadily through space, fire spewed from multiple parts of the ship including the large upper engine at the back, debris was thrown off of the vessel as the ship continued to spiral.
The RCS boosters spread around the hull automatically kicked in and slowly began to bring the ship to a halt, they worked until the starship sat completely motionless in the middle of space.
Iynx groaned painfully as she picked herself up off of the floor of the darkened bridge, carefully minding her bruised and bleeding broken arm.
“Report!” she shouted out as the rest of the surviving bridge crew did much the same.
Nimble Star pulled himself into his chair and began to check around his console. “The FTL drive is burnt out, thaumatic drive is also offline though the damage is minor and that shouldn’t take long to bring back. Luckily for us, the RCS boosters are mostly intact and stopped us from drifting too far.”
Nimble suddenly adopted an incredibly perplexed expression. “Hold on, that can’t be right… We’re light years away from our last position!”
“Impossible,” Iynx dismissed. “We were only at FTL for a few minutes at most, even if it was a bit of a bumpy ride; your equipment must be damaged like everything else.”
“Well I’m running a diagnostic as we speak, and yet so far there is nothing wrong.” Nimble frowned as another thought struck him. “How did the FTL activate anyway? It was disabled!”
“The Princess must have done something,” Iynx theorised.
“Well, that would explain why we are suddenly so far from out previous-“
There was a small bang above the helm and sparks fell down onto Nimble, causing him to flinch back.
“Gah! The ship is falling apart!” Nimble fumed. “Iynx, what does your console read?”
With her good arm, Iynx began to scroll through the wave of incoming reports. “Shields are gone, hull integrity is at sixteen percent. The upper engine is still on fire and we have hull breaches all over the ship. The only thing that could make this worse is the ship actually being destroyed.”
“Well don’t talk it up,” Nimble grumbled.
Iynx moved from her station and towards the captain’s chair. On arrival she couldn’t help but glance towards Star Gazer’s burnt body that was slumped just in front of the seat.
“Damn,” Nimble sighed. “The Captain always wanted to make first contact, bet he never imagined it would end like this. He deserved better.”
Iynx stared at the body a few moments more, before placing a talon onto the seat’s intercom and activating it.
“Silver Wrench, are you there?”
“Iynx,” Silver Wrench’s panicked voice came over the intercom. “Thank Celestia I could reach you, I was unable to contact sickbay from here.”
“Sickbay? Silver, what’s going on?”
“It’s Princess Twilight, she’s collapsed and I can’t rouse her!”
The griffon swore under her breath. “I’ll be right there!” Iynx told him, before switching the channel on the intercom. “Iynx to sick bay, we have a priority one medical emergency in engineering, Doctor Geneser report there immediately!”
Iynx switched off the intercom and turned to Nimble. “Nimble, you have the bridge. I want all able crew to begin repairs immediately.”
“Yes ma’am,” Nimble nodded as the griffon made her way to the still functioning elevator.
“You heard her!” Nimble shouted at the other few remaining on the bridge. “Get to work.”
Those few crewmembers scrambled for a moment to get back to their stations, getting on the comms to organise the various repair teams that would no doubt be very busy for the foreseeable future.
Present Day
Princess Twilight and the remaining senior officers were gathered in the captain’s mess, one of the more intact rooms on the ship. They were all gathered around the table, various reports laid down upon it.
“The reactor’s been mostly stabilised,” Silver Wrench reported. “But it’s still being strained, until more repairs are made I suggest we keep power usage to a minimum.”
Twilight hummed as she entered deep thought. “Are we producing enough power to activate the thaumatic drive?”
“The thaumatic drive, ma’am?”
“Well, Lieutenant? Are we?” Twilight asked again.
“N-no, you highness,” Silver stuttered. “Not currently.”
“Alright. What if we evacuate the lower decks? We could then cut power and life support to those areas, would that free up enough power?”
Silver Wrench paused a moment, doing the calculations in his head. After a few moment the unicorn responded.
“I… believe so.”
Princess Twilight nodded. “Then make it so. Once the engines are online, set course for Equus at as high a speed as you can safely manage.”
Nimble Star did a double take. “Set course for Equus?! Ma’am, all due respect but that would take years at sub-light speeds!”
Twilight frowned at Nimble. “Then we better hope our engineer is up to the task of repairing the FTL in that time. Besides, do you have a better idea, Ensign?”
Nimble grimaced. “No… your highness.”
“If on that topic, that is all,” Geneser interrupted. “What about a distress call?”
“We can’t,” Silver Wrench stated. “Exterior communications are out, if they weren’t we’d be telling Equus itself of our situation, we can’t even do ship-to-ship communication right now. All we have is most of our interior communications such as the intercom system.”
“I don’t think it would be a good idea right now anyway,” Iynx noted. “With those ships out there, I still worry that they could follow our trail. A distress call would only add to that little problem.”
“I agree,” Twilight said. “The idea of a distress call can be discussed again at a later date, though for now that isn’t an option.”
“We understand,” Iynx stated. “Is that all, your highness?”
“There is one last thing…” Twilight said. “Though I am taking command of the Harmony from this point onwards and I know the ship and its crew inside and out, and even though I have two thousand years of experience ruling Equestria, when it comes to commanding a starship specifically my expertise is sadly lacking. I may need somepony else with more experience in a command role too.”
Twilight smirked. “That, and I can’t fit in the captain’s chair.”
“Your highness, where are you going with this?” Iynx asked.
“You are up for promotion, are you not?” Twilight rhetorically asked towards Iynx. “Well then, Commander, consider yourself promoted.”
Iynx’s jaw hit the floor. “Princess I… I don’t know what to say.”
“I would say, after what we went through, you have all earned promotions,” Twilight stated to the group. “And I shall see to it when we get home. And we will get home, that I am certain of.”
And with that declaration, the meeting was concluded. Over the next day more systems were repaired and the lower decks evacuated and deactivated. Both luckily, and tragically at the same time there was enough accommodations available for the evacuated from those who didn’t survive the attack, though some did have to bunk with one another instead of having individual rooms of their own as before.
And then on the afternoon of July fifth, with everypony at their stations, they were ready to go. Ensign Nimble Star sat at the helm, the newly promoted Commander Iynx behind tactical and Princess Twilight Sparkle stood vigilantly beside the captain’s chair, which sat sadly empty. There was no room on board the Harmony for the dead, and so Captain Star Gazer and the other casualties had been buried in space, their caskets floating in the void for eternity.
Though, knowing Star Gazer’s love for the stars, resting amongst them was probably what he would have wanted.
“Thaumatic drive is spun up and ready to go,” Nimble Star reported. “The quicker Silver gets the FTL fixed, the better,” he added in a mumble.
“Bulkheads sealing off the breached sections are holding,” Iynx reported. “We still have weapons, and if needed I should be able to raise the shields to about fifty percent, on the bright side that would be a hundred percent the shield strength of a Celestial Class ship.”
“It will do,” Twilight said. “Ensign, set in a course for home.”
“Course is set, your highness.”
“Then get us out of here.”
Outside, the single engine still in use flared to life, its sub-light capabilities activating. The ship performed a left turn, lining it up with the distant system where Equus laid in wait for their return. The distant stars shone some light onto the hull, displaying the horrific scars from its battle, and yet also giving hope as despite it all the ship kept on running.
The ship then began to move forward, starting its journey home and moving into a future that was wholly uncertain and full of both intrigue, and danger.