//------------------------------// // 14. Ghost Ship // Story: Force of the Falcon // by Omega6047 //------------------------------// --Chapter 14-- Ghost Ship “Finally!” Twilight screamed in relief and happiness when Shaw managed to take the ring that inhibited her magic from her horn. She wasted no time, teleporting herself out of the bed. The flash of light temporarily blinded Shaw, as he didn’t expect to have a flash grenade blowing up in his face. Twilight immediately freed the clone, who started to rub his eyes in pain. “Oh my! I’m sorry, have I hurt you!?” She jumped back to bed and rushed to the clone. She wanted to help him, but that’s not what she ended up doing. Despite temporary blindness, Shaw tried to get up from the bed the moment he felt his hands being freed. Twilight didn’t expect him to move, and the moment she realized that he did, it was too late. Her body smashed into him just as he sat on the edge of the bed, causing him to fall over along with her. Shaw was the first one to hit the ground, with Twilight landing on top of him. “Uh… sorry again…” She said just before looking at his pained expression. “W-What is wrong!? Have I hurt you!?” He managed to look up at her. “Yes… You landed on my crotch… and are still standing on it…” Her eyes immediately widened as she jumped away from him, repeatedly screaming ‘sorry’ over and over again as her face got a bit more red. Shaw got up, trying his best to ignore the pain. “Damn it Twilight, calm down.” He said to her once he got his voice back. “I’m fine, I guess. Frankly, I’m just glad we got out of that damn bed.” The mare took a deep breath. “Alright, sorry. But… why have we woke up like that in the first place? Last thing I remember is Commander Falcon taking me to a bed in the castle.” “And it was probably his doing. I remember clearly going to sleep alone. He must have bought you here after I fell asleep and tied us up together. And you don’t have to call him ‘Commander’ when he’s not training you. He likes to loosen up when he can.” “Alright, I’ll remember that.” She looked downstairs. “Rainbow said that ‘it’s time to get up’. Do you think they’re getting ready to go to your ship?” Shaw nodded. “Great! Is the equipment ready? Have you finished it?” “Yes, I did. Now I just have to run few checks on this stuff and we’re good to go.” Shaw’s thoughts went back to Tracker, who walked in as they tried to free themselves. His relationship with the commando was… mixed. They weren’t enemy’s or anything like that, but they weren’t friendly either. Most of the time they didn’t really talk to one another unless they needed to. From time to time they would manage a short conversation, but that was a rarity. Sometimes he would get pissed at him for being a generally annoying to talk to, but that was even rarer. The two of then walked downstairs after Shaw has put on his armor and grabbed his weapons. They were quickly grated by Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Applejack chatting between each other while Tracker leaned against a wall in a corner of the room and Princess Luna scanned the titles of the books that filled the library. They quickly noticed them approach and the ponies started to smile deviously. “Oh, no…” Twilight muttered to herself, knowing what’s going to happen next. “So you two finally decided to come down here, huh?” Rainbow said. Ignoring her, Twilight turned towards her other smirking friends. “Listen, don’t trust anything she said. Absolutely nothing happened between us. Whatever she has told you is a lie.” “Oh, Twilight…” Fluttershy stepped forward. “You don’t have to hide that from us. We know very well that you two are close.” Her sweet voice was almost enough to convince her that what she was telling was the truth. But she wasn’t… right? “Yeah, ain’t no foolin’ us, Sugarcubes. Besides, I clearly remember Shaw borrowing that rope from me two days ago. Now, I didn’t expect it to be used quite like that, but I guess I’m happy that my friends used it bond together.” A chuckle escaped Applejacks mouth. Meanwhile, Shaw and Twilight were struggling against blushes that raged on their faces. Shaw at least had a helmet to cover himself up, but Twilight was forced to show the world her beet-red face. “I can confirm that.” Lucid Brush’s voice rang from the side of the room. “There is indeed more to your relationship than simple friendship. You can deny it all you want, but sooner or later you both will see things as they really are.” Unlike with the others, Lucid’s voice seemed to be completely serious as he said that. It made Twilight wonder was he actually serious about it. She knew that as a Joiner, he gained an ability to partly recognize ponies’ emotions, so maybe… No, wait. I’m over thinking this. Of course he’s not serious, he’s just a great actor, unlike my friends. I mean, me and Shaw liking each other that way? That would be a day. And besides… I can’t… not after what happened in those caves… She suddenly felt a need to cry, but was luckily woken up from her thoughts when Falcon walked into the library with Rarity. “…I swear that this is illegal! You should be locked up for this, you hear me!? Waking up a lady at such early hours!? Humph! What kind of mare would want a stallion like that!?...” Rarity kept complaining, but Falcon ignored her. “Is she always this loud?” He asked Twilight. “Well, not usually. Only when somepony’s forcing her to do something she doesn’t want.” “Hmm, I figured as much… well, she’s going to do one push-up for every word she says after we get back. And since she knows it and keeps going anyways, I guess she really wants to do a lot of them, so I think I’ll make her do two push-ups for each word. And she’s already said over 500 words.” “She likely doesn’t think you will actually do that.” Luna stopped looking at the books and walked over the rage filled Unicorn “Calm down miss Rarity. You’re just making things worse for yourself.” She touched the unicorn’s forehead with her hoof, suddenly making the tiredness that filled her body go away, finally making her shut up. “Now, since we’re already here, I suggest that we don’t waste any time. Commander, could you start the briefing?” “I’m on it.” He pulled out a holoprojector and showed everyone a miniature of the ship. “We’re going to salvage the ship for equipment that we can use, but first, I want to get the power back. We’ll split in two parties, Shaw will take Twilight, Rainbow Dash and Applejack with him to the maintenance level and bring the power back. Meanwhile, I will take the rest with me to the bridge and once the power is back up, I’ll make sure the ship is safe to walk around and download some data from the computer. After Shaw takes care of bringing back the power, I want you to go to the communications center and try to get as many useful things out of there as you can. If you want, you can also check the repairs room, there should be some spare parts there. I will go to the armory and medical bay. Once we’re done, we’ll meet in the hangar. If we’re lucky, then maybe we can find something that can fly. If not, Princess Luna will bring us back.” He turned towards the ponies “Each of you will be given a suit that will keep you alive in space along with an enchanted bag to keep anything we find in. If there are still any droids in the ship, leave them for us to handle unless we ask for help. Stay behind, and hide if you can. Now, could you see if everything is fine with the suits Shaw?” The clone nodded and walked down to the basement. “W-Wait!” Fluttershy cut in with a shaky voice. “I-I mean… I ask for permission to ask a question sir!” “Granted. Ask away.” “What… are those ‘droids’? Are they dangerous?” “Oh yes, they are.” Her face went pale. “They’re deadly machines of war designed with only destruction in mind. They will try to kill any of us on sight, so you better-“ She fell on the ground. Tracker walked over to her and knelt down. He placed two fingers on her neck. “She’s unconscious.” “Eh, great… well, I guess she should stay here anyways. If she was to pass out in a middle of a fire exchange, she might get herself killed. Tracker, you will take care of her when she wakes up. You can take her to that spot I told you about. It’s not that far away from her cottage, so she can lead you there.” The commando nodded. “Yes sir.” Shaw has walked back from the basement after a while, holding a large chest in his hands. “Alright, everything’s in order. You can all put those on now.” Rainbow was the first one to approach and take her suit out. It wasn’t anything special in terms of visual appeal. Something that Rarity simply had to point out and deny ever putting on. Luckily, Falcon was there to change her mind. The suits were plane grey, and in terms of design were exactly what you would expect a spacesuit to be (Twilight and Shaw weren’t paying much attention to being original or futuristic as long as the suits did their job). Each suit had two oxygen tanks on the back and saddlebags on the sides. There was also a black body glove they all had to wear underneath the actual suit. “Now, there’s one problem…” Shaw said, looking on Fluttershy’s unconscious body in Tracker’s arms. “What are we going to do with the sixth suit?” “I can go in her place.” Lucid said. “Sorry, but this suit is designed to fit a female inside, so-“ The Joiner disappeared in blue flames, only to reappear as a female version of himself. “Oh… right…” Not wasting any time, Lucid has put the suit on and shortly, they were all enveloped by blue aura of Princess Luna’s magic. They all disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Tracker and Fluttershy alone. The commando looked down at the pegasus in his arms. “They’re gone now. You can stop pretending.” Her eyes opened and she rose her head up to look at him, blushing slightly because of the position she was in. “W-Why haven’t you given me out?” “I just wanted someone to explain some things to me.” He suddenly dropped her on the ground, making her yelp as she barely managed to use her wings to fly up before she hit the ground. “Now let’s go. I want to get some target practice done.” He turned around and left the library, not looking back at the pegasus. “Wow…” Rainbow Dash stood in place, her mouth hanging open as she looked at the planet above her as her friends and Lucid were doing the same. “That’s just… wow…” The words were of no use for her at the moment. “I never thought it would look like that…” Twilight said. “Yeah, sights like that never get boring, no matter how often you see them.” Shaw said as he stood next to her. “Alright everyone, you can appreciate the sights later, we have a job to do. Princess, do you-“ “YUPI!!!” Pinkie screamed through the com-link in the helmet as she jumped around the surface of the moon. The low gravity has made her already unnaturally high jumps even higher, and now she almost appeared to be flying. “This is just THE BEST!!!” She was joined by Rainbow Dash, and both mares started to laugh as they jumped around. “Hey Dashie! Let’s try to do a moonwa-“ “Stop it this instant!” Shaw and Twilight yelled at them. “These suits are not designed for this! If you as much as fall over they might get damaged and you’re dead!” He continued. This seemed to get Rainbow to stop, but Pinkie was still busy jumping around and laughing like an idiot. Luckily, Luna was there to grab her with her magic and bring down to the ground. Before she could say anything, Falcon walked over to her and knelt down to look her I the eyes. “You, Rainbow Dash and Rarity are going to train until you drop down unconscious once we get back.” He stated, making all three ponies flinch in fear. “Now, as I was saying… Princess, do you see that thing on the side of the bridge?” He pointed at the Droids’ boarding capsule that was stuck in the bridge. The princess looked at it and nodded, curious as to what he wanted her to do with it. “Can you pull it out?” Her eyes widened as her glare turned towards him. “Wait, are you saying that I just had to pull that thing out to get in?” “To be honest,” Shaw cut in. “if you didn’t go the other way around, I would probably die under that pile of junk.” She had to agree, if it wasn’t for her he would be dead by now. With a sigh, Luna activated her magic and wrapped it around the capsule. It wasn’t hard to pull it out, and she has soon brought it down to the ground next to them. “What is that!?” Twilight screamed and rushed towards the capsule, braking herself away from looking at the ship in awe. She quickly started to look inside and around of it, checking every piece of it and writing whatever she learns in her notebook. “This capsule is used by Separatists to board ships.” Shaw explained. “It flies into the ship and opens up a way for droids inside to get into the ship. They probably wanted to eliminate the bridge officers to make sure we won’t run away in case we managed to fix the engines.” He sighed deeply. “Blasted bustards had us completely at their mercy.” “Still, I wonder how they managed to get inside our supply crates. I ordered to get them all checked before they were set to the ship…” He thought quietly. “I honestly don’t see any way, unless they’ve had someone inside… Well, that’s for another day to think about. Let’s get up there. Shaw, you know how to get to the maintenance level from here, right?” The clone nodded. Luna then lifted Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Lucid Brush along with herself up to the hole in the bridge. Falcon on the other hand, activated his jetpack to fly up. He didn’t have to use it, he just wanted to see how the fuel he got from the ponies will do in action. So far he has only checked if it won’t blow up, and so far it seems to work well. Especially since he’s in a low gravity. It’s burning out pretty fast, but it will get me to the bridge. They got up to the bridge in under a minute. Falcon was the first one to get there, followed by Luna who then brought the others through the hole. Not much has changed since he’s last saw the bridge. His brothers’ bodies were still lying around the bridge, only difference was that now they frozen along with their blood. The damaged wires that hung from the ceiling were no longer sparkling with electricity as the power generator was offline. The moment Rarity and Pinkie saw the grotesque scene before them they gasped in shock and fear. Rarity almost puked into her helmet and Pinkie’s smile turned into the most depressed look Falcon has ever seen her with. This was a scene that they would expect to see in a horror movie, not something that they were standing in front of. “W-Wh-What h-happened…” Pinkie managed to speak out with a weak voice, while Rarity did all she could to keep her mouth shut, fearing that if she opens them, she’ll puke. Especially when she noticed the soldier ripped in half that lied in the middle of a pool of frozen blood. “War.” Falcon answered simply. His voice sounded almost as if he was used to seeing things like that, which terrified the two mares even more. “I’m surprised by your lack of reaction Lucid.” He noted. The Joiner sighed deeply. “I… I have seen a lot of horrible things during my time in Chrysalis’ hive… What she did to other Joiners… There are no words to describe what she was capable of…” And she needs to be stopped… at all costs… “I understand.” Falcon answered and walked over to Rarity and Pinkie. “Do you need some time to cool off?” They both slowly nodded. “Luna, can you take them to the top?” The Princess nodded as well and wrapped the two shaking ponies in her magic, taking them to the top of the bridge. “What do you want to do here anyways?” Lucid asked. “You know, it’s strange to listen to you as a female.” “I can changed the way I sound if you want.” He did just that. “Umm… It’s actually stranger to listen to female speaking with a male voice. But as for why are we here, there are few things that I have to get from here.“ He started to walk towards a lightsaber that lied on the ground. “And then, I want to get some data I can from the main console. I thought I told about it during the beefing.” “To be honest, I… wasn’t really listening to you. I was talking with the Hive.” “About what?” He picked up the lightsaber, recognizing it as Sakri’s and then moving towards another one after he attached it to his belt. “The state of my wife and daughter. It seems that my wife can wake up soon, and I would like to be there when that happens.” “Well, I hope everything will work out fine for your family.” Luna has returned from the top of the bridge. “I’m sorry for the delay, miss Rarity has had a problem with her digestive system. I have left the two of them alone, they could use some more time to cool down. It must have been a shock for them to witness something like that for the first time.” “Probably, but it had to be done. The first time is always the worst.” Falcon said, picking up another lightsaber. He didn’t recognize that one, but he could tell that it was damaged. The yellow crystal fell out of the damaged hilt the moment he lifted the weapon off the ground. “Shame I couldn’t get Fluttershy here too, I’ll have to go here with her alone sometime later, once I’ll build up her courage.” He attached the damaged weapon to his belt and put the crystal in one of his belt’s pockets. “What are those sticks you are picking up?” Luna asked. “Lightsabers.” “Hmm? Swords made of light? I’ve heard about some crazy ideas for swords, but this one takes the cake.” “No, It’s blade is made out of plasma. It only looks like it’s made of light. You can ask Sakri about it when she wakes up, she can tell you more than me.” He picked up the last lightsaber, one that belonged to General Haskri. “Alright, not we have to wait for Shaw to bring the power back.” Luna placed the two mares on top of the bridge. Rarity was barely holding off the urge to puke, and Pinkie wasn’t far off. “Miss Rarity, I can sustain you for a moment, while you empty your stomach.” She nodded, feeling that she’s reaching her limits. Luna’s horn lit up and Rarity’s body was enveloped by aura of her magic. The helmet was levitated off of her head and immediately her stomach fluids and breakfast flew out of her mouth, falling on the surface of the bridge. Pinkie approached her and patted her back. “This was disgusting...” The unicorn said before puking again. She stayed like that for a while, letting herself calm down before she put the helmet back on. Luna has stopped using magic on her once the suit was filled with air again. “Do you need more time to calm yourselves down?” Luna asked and the two mares nodded in response. “Very well. Call me using the communicators you have when you feel ready to go back there.” The princess flew back into the bridge. Pinkie looked at her friend. “I can’t believe somepony would do something like that. This was… so horrible. And not fun at all.” “That’s not what got me the most. Have you seen how they reacted to this?” “I don’t think they reacted at all. Falcon seemed a little angry, but nothing else.” “Exactly. It was almost as if they were already used to it. I’m not sure if I want to know what made them so…” She almost felt like puking again. “If this is what war is like then I don’t think I want to ever be a part of it.” “Me neither, but...” Pinkie trailed off. “I feel like there will be time when Equestria will have to defend itself, and if there won’t be anyone to fight back… well, it might be even worse than that. The changeling’s attack on Canterlot was bad already, and if what Applejack’s dad said is true, they already plan to do worse.” “As much as I hate to admit it… you’re right. We have to make sure something like that will never happen in Equestria.” Shaw placed his hand on Twilight’s back as they walked through the dark hallway, lit up only be Twilight’s horn and Shaw’s flashlights. The hall was full of dead troopers and technicians who were killed as the droids marched through the ship, some weren’t even able to get their weapons ready. Luckily there was no blood. He felt as the unicorn’s body shakes under his touch slightly calming down once she felt his hand. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine.” She nodded, keeping herself near the clone as she felt a sense of safety when he was around. He looked back at the ponies behind. Applejack and Rainbow were also visibly frightened, though Rainbow was trying to appear brave. “I’m sorry, but you have to do it. One thing I quickly learned on the war is that training and simulations can only take you so far. A soldier has to face death itself to truly be ready.” Twilight seemed to understand, but that didn’t make her feel better. Every time they came across a dead body she found herself leaning closer and closer to Shaw’s side, eventually touching the side of his armor. She blushed brightly as she looked at the clone, who was also blushing underneath his helmet. She was about to step away, but the clone placed his hand on her back again. She quickly started to calm down despite the growing blush, earning herself a chuckles from Applejack and rainbow Dash. “Shaw, this is Falcon, do you copy?” He heard Commander’s voice from the com-link in his helmet. “I hear you, sir. We’re closing in to the target. It shouldn’t take more than another minute to get there.” “Good. How is your group holding up?” “At first they were in shock but it seems they are calming down now. We have encountered no droid activity so far.” “I wouldn’t mind if you hurried. There’s not much we can do from here without power. Falcon, out.” Shaw deactivated his com-link. They continued to walk forward to the generator for a while. Twilight haven’t changed her position even when Shaw moved his hand away, still walking beside him until they reached a sealed door. Not saying a word, Shaw walked over to a panel on the wall and pressed a button on it. As expected, nothing happened. Not bothered by this, Shaw ripped the panel off the wall and after searching for a moment, he grabbed few wires and ripped them out, leaving them connected with one side. “Twilight, put as much energy through that wires as possible.” She nodded and did what she was told. Few diodes started to faintly shine red, giving Shaw a signal to continue. He ripped off one more wire, and pressed it against one of the wires in his other hand. The lock on the door deactivated and Shaw pressed two different wires together, slightly opening the entrance. “Alright, not you have to open the door.” Still charging the wires with electricity, Twilight started to push the heavy door open. It was easy, since Shaw has already disabled all locks that kept the door closed and soon enough the way to the generator was open for them. “Well, let’s get to work.” The console in the middle of the bridge suddenly activated making Rarity and Pinkie jump in surprise as they were sitting on it. “Great, Shaw got the power back.” Falcon said as he approached the console. He logged into the system and attached his drone to it, soon starting to run scans on the planet above them once the systems were fully rebooted. While the results were downloaded to the drone, he also started to open all of the locked door in the ship and reactivated the ship’s defenses, setting them to only target droids. He connected his helmet with camera system on the ship, so that he can manually display the image from cameras on his helmet. “Alright, we can go now.” He picked up the drone and left, walking towards the way out. However he stopped when he noticed no one was following him. “What are you waiting for?” He said as he turned around, only to smash his hand against his helmet. All of the ponies were watching just activated computers in awe, almost drooling. Even Luna seemed to be in hypnosis. He activated the com-link. “Shaw, is Twilight alright?” “Listen for yourself…” The trooper responded. Falcon did just that, connecting himself to Twilight. “-haHAHHAhAhHahaHAHAahahahHA hahaHAHAhahaHA-!!!“ A maniacal laughter rang in Commander’s helmet. He immediately cut off the connection with the unicorn, leaving the task of calming her down to Shaw, who has proven himself capable of dealing with her occasional episodes multiple times. He turned back to his group. “Alright! You can stop being amazed now. We’re moving out.” Pinkie and Rarity were quick to obey the command, knowing fully well what would it mean for them if they didn’t. Luna and Lucid weren’t far behind. “I would appreciate if you took notes, Princess.” Falcon said once they reached the turbolift. She looked at him confused, not noticing the smirk under his helmet. They all walked into the lift, barely fitting inside. Falcon pressed one button and the door closed, startling the ponies. Immediately after that the lift started to go down, making the ponies scream in fear and prey to all gods they knew. Falcon on the other hand was on the edge of bursting into uncontrolled fits of laughter. Especially when he noticed that Luna is screaming too. The ride stopped as fast as it started, and the moment the way out of the lift was opened, everypony run out of it. Save for one, who was still screaming at the top of her lungs. “Damn, I didn’t know that you have such a girly scream Princess.” Falcon said, chuckling. Luna immediately stopped, realizing that she has stopped moving already. A blush appeared on her cheeks as she tried to appear unshaken by the ride, but her shaky walk was enough to give everything away. The armory wasn’t far away, so they reached it within few minutes. They came across a group of deactivated droids in front of the way into the armory. They probably run out of power when marching through the ship, or turned themselves off to save it. Not wanting to take a risk of them reactivating, Falcon shot each of them in the head with his pistol. He opened the door inside, and immediately explained everyone what should they be taking. He himself took few spare cells for his pike and grabbed a new DC-15 to replace the one he has lost during the attack on the ship. He also replaced his jetpack with one that was full of fuel. The bags they had with them were enchanted so that they can fit a lot more inside. They could easily put several miniguns inside and the weight was reduced to a fraction of the real thing. Still, even with the sie and weight of objects being reduced, the bags were soon filled and the ponies reached the limit of how much they can carry and after a while of collecting weaponry the group left for the hangar. “So, um… H-How are you feeling?” Fluttershy asked as she walked side by side with Tracker. They were no heading towards her cottage where she promised to show his a place where he can train shooting that Falcon have told him about. “I’m fine.” He answered simply. “Oh, I see.” She remained silent for a while, thinking about a way to get him to open up. She could tell that something was bugging him, and she simply couldn’t leave him like that. She knew she couldn’t just ask him about it, he would either say it’s nothing or ignore her entirely. She first had to start a normal conversation. “I’ve heard that you’re a commando. Could you tell me what you do exactly?” “I break things.” “Maybe you could explain a bit more?” “I could but I won’t.” “Alright, then how about you tell me a bit about yourself. For example, what do you like to do?” “Break things.” “I get that, but when you’re not breaking things or fighting, what do you like to do then?” “Prepare.” “For what?” She heard him growl silently in frustration. “Listen, I didn’t cover for you so that you can question me. So either you start answering my questions or shut up.” “Alright, what do you want to know?” “First of all…” He then started to tell about things he didn’t understand about the way ponies live, eventually getting caught up in a conversation with the Pegasus. There was one thing that came to her mind – success! Falcon and his group reached the hangar door. They were badly broken, completely impossible to be opened normally. “Well, what do we do now? Is there another way?” Pinkie asked after she tried to force the door open with her hooves with help from Rarity. Falcon smirked underneath his helmet and motioned them to step aside. He then grabbed one of the lightsabers on his belt and activated it. A blue blade extended from the hilt with a recognizable sound, startling ponies around him. “W-what is that!?” Lucid screamed. Falcon quickly grabbed the hilt with both hands, even though the weapon was light, it was still hard to keep it steady with one hand. Not answering the question, Falcon thrusted the blade into the metal door. Effortlessly, he cut through it as ponies looked at him with mouth hanging open. The piece of metal that he cut out fell on the floor after he kicked it out. “Now I know why they like that thing so much.” He said and turned off the weapon. He spotted Shaw and his group in the middle of the hangar. Twilight was visibly blushing, probably because of the little moment of insanity she has went through. The other thing that caught his attention was how close to Shaw she was standing. “You just wanted to use that thing, didn’t you?” Shaw called out to him. “The door were broken, we couldn’t open them.” “Well, never mind. We’ve found one working gunship. Every other ship is broken. As for other machines, I’ve found two working RTs and one TE that might work if we put some love into it.” Falcon walked through the hole he made. His group was hesitant to follow, but they overcame the fear after Falcon showed them that they won’t get burned if they touch the edges of the hole. Falcon looked at the sole gunship that med it through the crash. “Alright, you guys walk in. I’ll handle the flying.” “Now wait a second!” Rainbow stopped him just before he got into the pilot sit. “No offence, but I’m the better flyer here. If anyone’s going to fly us back home, it will be me.“ She said with a smug and climbed up the ladder to the pilot sit where she suddenly froze upon seeing the control panel. “Alright, I take it back, you can take a seat.” She jumped back down and followed the rest. Already with a plan of how to punish Rainbow in his mind, Falcon got into the pilot seat and closed himself inside. “Is everyone ready to take off?” He said to them. “Everyone’s inside.” Shaw said. Falcon nodded to them and sealed the ship. “You can take the helmets off now.” He said after the ship was filled with air, taking the helmet off himself. With every system seemingly ready, Falcon took off and flew out of the hangar after blowing up a hole in it. The lack of shields to protect it made it easy to do this to already badly damaged ship. They flew out into the space and ponies gasped in awe as they looked through the pilot’s cabin. Even Rainbow Dash had to admit that the feeling of flying through the space was almost as good as if she was to fly with her wings. The only thing that could be better than that, would be flying in space on her own. But it’s not like it would ever happen… Rainbow’s muscles ached as she tried to force herself up from the ground. “Come on! Is that all you got!?” Falcon screamed at her. Behind them Pinkie and Rarity were already lying unconscious while their friends were taking care of them. That’s what their punishment for their behavior the previous day was. To train until they can’t train anymore. She was mad. Not only on herself but also on Falcon. What was the point in running them into the ground so hard? They don’t have to be the best at everything, right? She’s already fast, so why force her to get stronger? Not that she was weak, but still. She growled in anger after he started to yell at her again. “THAT’S IT!!!” She yelled, managing to pull herself up. “I have enough of you yelling at us and making us do whatever you want, while you just stand there and watch! You probably wouldn’t be able to do it yourself anyway!” She felt anger boiling inside of her, ready to burst out onto the clone commander, who just stood there with crossed arms. “I challenge you to an Iron Pony competition!”