Future Tactics - The War Games

by TheFullCrumb

Chapter 18 - One More Day

“Come on, Rainbow Dash! It’s just a little further now!”

Sunshine felt strange on Rainbow’s coat as she blinked, looking around. Ponies she was not familiar with danced around, some playing with a beach ball bouncing around, and others swimming close to a beach she did not realize was nearby. As she watched and smiled, something began to feel off. Ponies were turning to static recreations, artifacts of a damaged monitor flowing over them as if it was not entirely there.

“Oh right. The bomber. I’m dead, huh...”

“All right, transfer her on three! One, two, three!”

Earlier

Twilight sat in stunned silence as the scanner brought back the final moments of Eagle Leader, Rainbow’s bomber, as a rail-cannon round tore straight through it. Something sat unwell with her, though she swore she saw a small plume of a booster ejecting from the wreckage. She could not be certain, and her focus was ill-advised to be split when she had a battle to win, despite how desperately outnumbered her small fleet was. Wolfpack Rockhoof was giving as good as it got, its own field projectors sitting at one-quarter of their full capacity. Carter was tied up rescuing ejected pilots as the Bastion screened incoming torpedoes and missiles, flak launchers pluming and thundering, though no noise was made in the vacuum of space.

Isaac stared at the screen, tapping a copy over on his own integrated wrist-pad, replaying the strange plume moment over and over until something clicked. With a quick salute, he turned and bolted down the hallway, pushing his body as hard as it could go. Tearing a helmet out of a human pilot’s hands, he sealed it around his own neck, slowing his momentum as he slid next to an entry door for the Mag-Rail system.

“Computer, emergency override – Recovery Lander Hangar, authorization code Alpha-Zulu-One-One-Seven, authentication Security Chief Humphries!”

Without a word, a single pod slid into the harness that was normally reserved for emergencies, Isaac jumping inside and holding onto the emergency restraints designed for individuals to remain standing, especially during conflict. His eyes narrowed as he replayed the footage over and over in his mind. Without a doubt, she was alive, but if she was, her vitals monitor was damaged, and she was mere minutes from a horrible end via asphyxiation. Closing his eyes, he muttered a quick prayer for success to the Nine Heavens, bracing himself for the mission he was about to embark on.

“Recovery Lander Hangar, emergency override. Please exit now to return to normal service.”

Leaping out of the Mag-Rail Pod, he glanced over a duty roster on the nearby wall, ascertaining which of the boats he would be able to commandeer. All of them were either in service or on the repair roster, except for one, and he had heard rumours about the ship. Narrowing his eyes, he glanced over at the older ship, a transport they had modified from its run on the Miner’s Defiance. Smirking, he shoved past several technicians and pilots, sliding a trauma pack over his back with a rebreather unit strapped to his chest, barely slowing his pace as he leaped over a tall railing, landing on the deck plating and bolting past every crew member he could find. Before he could take a seat in the cockpit and warm up the vessel, he heard two voices, ones he had become intimately familiar with due to some of their attempted shenanigans onboard.

“Yeah, he was sprinting like a bat out of hell! He even used the emergency override to get down here- sir, what’s going on?”

“Abigail, Vasili, no time to explain. Get strapped in, we’re going on a rescue mission.”

Without hesitation, the other two sealed their helmets, taking positions in the secondary and tertiary pilots’ seats, eyes narrowing as the transport lurched, Isaac pushing the engines hard before they were even out of the hangar. Technicians dove out of the way as he spun completely around and blasted out of the main shielded zone, feeling the ship’s main gravity kick out as the weightlessness set in, though it only lasted for a second before the acceleration slammed into them like a freight train, afterburners igniting as cannon fire shot past them. Vasili began whooping as they turned, twisted and spun around each individual shot, Isaac a far better pilot than they had ever considered. Wreckage in the distance was brought up on the main viewscreen, a faint vitals signal being transmitted from a suit. Abigail was about to ask when warnings began covering the edge of the viewscreen’s monitor, detailing out the major helmet breach that had occurred, and showing a very minimal countdown for how long left until she would expire. Her main extremities were already devoid of blood and oxygen from what he could tell, and her face was already showing signs of icing over. One of her eyes had already burst from the expansion of liquid, and she was drifting slowly. The world seemed to slow down as Isaac turned flight control over to Vasili, disconnecting his safety harness and clambering into the rear of the transport, narrowing his eyes as he prepared a sealant mask and a breathing apparatus for immediate rescue.

“Vasili, blow the rear hatch!” Isaac felt the pressure drop as he was sucked out of the ship, a harness attached to his back zipping out like a fishing line as he kicked in a small set of nozzles, puffs of air redirecting him on an active-set path towards the floating cyborg pegasus, her rainbow tail already having shattered from debris blazing past. It was a shame to see the lovely colours marred by incoming enemy weapons fire, but his mind was on far more important items. Something about how long her vitals were still processing gave him a little worry, as any other being would have been unconscious and possibly expired from hypoxia, but Rainbow was surviving far longer than any other individual he had ever met. The silence of space was far more terrifying for anyone who was not familiar with it, and he had a feeling that had her helmet not lost its faceplate, she would be losing her mind at the sheer lack of noise. His own breathing accompanied him as he slowed down his pace of air intake, calming himself for a sterner focus.

As he drifted closer and closer, he could see the pirates blasting apart other interceptor flights, Hawk and Falcon flights chief among them – their distinctive brown and blue stripes made them distinguishable, and it hit him even harder when he saw an errant flak shell detonate, destroying any chance at pilot recovery. Slowing himself as he reached Rainbow Dash, he detached the trauma pack from his back, retrieving the faceplate sealant mask and oxygen recovery system. Warnings kept appearing, detailing out a possible chance of Rainbow going septic if she was not moved into a gravity environment. He glanced at her suit, noting the large puncture wound across her wings; if she survived, she would likely never fly again, and for a Pegasus like her, that would be tantamount to death. If she survived, he reminded himself.

As he finished sealing the mask around her face, he slowly increased the pressure, noting her heart rate and oxygenation as he withdrew a roll of duct tape, attempting to correct any other breaches in her pressure suit. As soon as he thought he was ready, he removed a cable from the pack, hooking a line between himself and Rainbow in case they were separated. Rounds came eerily close to his face as he continued his job, keeping a very close eye on her vital signs. The timer for Hypoxia was beginning to crawl slowly upwards, which should have been impossible, but an earlier conversation with a Changeling reminded him to not be as narrow-minded as he once was. Glancing around to check for debris, he tapped his suit transmitter, eliciting Vasili’s attention.

“Winch us in, slowly. I don’t know how well the seals will hold. How long will it take to re-engage the rear hatch once we’re in?”

“No more than two minutes, sir. Is she-”

“She’s alive, barely. I had less than thirty seconds before asphyxiation. How the hell she survived longer than any creature I’ve known, I will never know.”

A tug on his belt signalled the winch was online, and he was determined that no matter what, she would make it out alive, despite anything pointing to the contrary. Something was still nagging at the back of his mind, reminding him that he needed to have a very important conversation with Twilight. Rainbow was sluggish, barely functioning as she opened one eye, glancing around before closing it again, curling up as best she could with her cybernetic legs. Shaking his head, Isaac stared back at the transport, smiling that a request that had been put on the docket for his crew joining the Solus Invictus was accepted. That transport, the one he recalled was Lucky Thirteen, was a godsend for every time anyone had ever needed her. She came back when all others would not, and he was overjoyed that she was bringing her fabled luck back to him once more.

Feeling his feet touch down and mag-lock to the plating of the transport’s main seating area, he watching the hatch door, tethered for easy retrieval, winch back to its mooring, small rotational control jets guiding it in with little movements before a heavy locking noise was heard and the hatch re-attached. A hiss resounded inside as the compartment repressurized, allowing Isaac to remove his helmet and take off Rainbow’s sealant mask.

“Hey, sir-”

“Abigail, you’ve got more medical expertise. Get back here. Vasili, get us back to the Fortress, now,” Isaac ordered, trying to work his way around what was left of the one eye, attempting to staunch the bleeding before it became toxic in her veins. “If she goes septic, then she’s dead where she lays right now. Grab that gauze and bandage kit there – yes, you’re going to pack it until we can get her to the Medical Center. Put that strip there, and that strip- no, do not pull out that rod! That is pretty much keeping her from bleeding out at this point.”

As Vasili attempted to clear the free-fire zone without being struck by any munitions, Abigail paid close attention as Isaac worked very deft and dexterous hands to patch and repair any damage that could be sewn or fixed. A lot of it he simply noted on a logbook dataslate included with the trauma pack, sighing as the list grew longer and longer. She stole a quick glance, realizing he had slated Rainbow for multiple experimental surgeries to attempt to save her, meaning that if she survived, she would not be a member of her own species; several of the ‘surgeries’ were straight genetic-modification treatments for something she was severely unfamiliar with. She was unfamiliar with a majority of advancements that had been made since she escaped the Kepler all those centuries before, and she did still have a lot to catch up on.

“Solus Invictus, this is Chief Humphries. I have an Emergency Trauma case, authentication code Alpha-Zulu-One-One-Seven. Dataslate with patient will detail out the emergency requirements needed for survival. Have Chief Fluttershy administer the main surgeries – she has the experimental medical expertise. Chief Humphries out.”

“Sir, how much of that is necessary?”

“Well, she’s not going to be able to fly like normal after this, but there’s going to be a lot more than that where she will have to just get used to it. Still can’t believe how useful Chrysalis’ genetic engineering is...”

Present

“Trauma team, clear the way!”

Isaac floated the emergency medical gurney out from the transport, keeping Rainbow as steady as possible while the medical staff attempted to keep pace. Some of the medical equines had opted for cybernetics, allowing them to keep pace with the hovering medical transport, crew members shoving out of the way before they were pushed to the ground and forced to egress from their previous positions. Vasili and Abigail had already taken his report up to Twilight, who was apparently not pleased, given that Vasili was transmitting his uniform’s radio, and Twilight was beyond livid for Isaac not clearing the transport usage before he left. The man had simply stated that Isaac had the power to veto certain regulations due to his position as security chief, and Twilight had dressed down Vasili in a manner that would have made one of Isaac’s drill sergeants back in the UEC very, very proud. He was not sure who had taught her those kinds of insults and profanity, but he made a mental note not to piss her off in the future.

As he glanced around, still keeping pace with the gurney, he saw Twilight sprinting to meet up with it, her eyes a red mess when she finally matched pace and got close enough to not yell at him.

“You are a sick son of a bitch, you know that? What if she was dead when you got there-”

“Apparently, a Pegasus can survive almost four times as long as a human without oxygen in the vacuum of space. Might be due to hollow bone density that allows them to fly – could store extra oxygen to allow part of the body to continue to live,” one of the human medics stated plainly, eliciting a concerned and angry glare from Twilight as they turned into the main surgical wards of the Medical Deck. Isaac and Twilight slowed their pace as they let the medical team push the gurney into the operating theatre, where many of them were already beginning their operation. Multiple machines that neither the human nor the alicorn were familiar with were wheeled in, some device akin to a more massive version of one of the cloning pods warming up before the doctors darkened the small viewports of the theatre doors.

“How did you-”

“When I was a member of the UEC navy, I was a crack pilot, one of their best. It’s part of the reason I made it to Captain so easily. Pirates took out my bomber-” Isaac paused as he felt a kinetic round impact the Fortress’ field projectors, the shockwave causing the deck to shudder. “-took out my bomber, and I basically had to eject. My bomber went critical, fusion plant destabilizing in a brilliant flash, and it was the security chief of the carrier I had deployed from that hopped onto a rescue boat and hauled my ass out of the fire. Genetic grafts and regrown skin, but my arm? I would not let them regrow it. The arm’s a reminder.”

“What kind of... what is Rainbow in for?”

Isaac sighed as he held his head in his hands, glancing down at his wrist-pad and narrowing his eyes. Multiple calls for security personnel to take over gunnery stations from injured personnel were being routed to his personal implant, eliciting a groan as he stood up, glancing over at Twilight before he left her sitting by herself in the small waiting area outside the operating theatre. As he left, Starlight entered, taking a seat beside Twilight. Levitating a magazine, she sipped from a small thermos of liquid, flipping through the electronic paper print and checking the status of the crew from a personal dataslate.

“Pirates are outnumbering us by a decent factor, but gunnery teams report four, make that five cruiser-class vessels out for the count. We’ve had to detail out engineers to the cannons, trying to keep them operational – two have melted barrels, while three have blown capacitors.”

“Rainbow is alive.”

“Two battlecruiser-class- wait, she’s alive? How?”

Twilight sighed, glancing at the doorway where Isaac had just left. She knew for a fact any gratitude he received would be brushed off as him ‘doing his job above and beyond the rank-and-file,’ but she could not help but feel for him. From what she understood about the human, he had lost many of his friends and comrades over the years, and a good portion of his crew had taken their leave back at Nexus Station. He was at heart a good person, but his own life had stabbed him in the back every time he had ever assumed that something was going good for him, and he just considered protecting everyone as ‘part of the job description.’ His file was extensive, and the marks on his body that the mandatory physical had shown were less cuts as some had thought, and more tattoos, reminders of every crew member he had lost, or had left. Another shudder went through the plating as another kinetic round was stopped by the field projectors.

“We can’t keep this up forever. Field projectors are down to twenty-three percent, and we are running out of nano-fluid to resupply the Wolfpack Frigates. We’ve lost forty-four percent of our main interdiction force, and that includes both bombing craft and interceptors. If we were to keep launching assets, we would lose.”

“What am I supposed to do, Starlight? We’re outnumbered, we’re outgunned, and the Bastion is taking on more damage than they should be able to take considering their field projectors. I can’t see a way out of this, and anything else would be a miracle of divine proportions to help us-”

“Commander Sparkle, drive windows opening almost right on top of us! Unknown signatures! You’d better get up here!”

--------//|0|\\--------

Twilight bolted through the entrance to Command, glancing up at the various drive windows opening up, massive vessels many times the size of even the Solus Invictus appearing through the portals of energy. Colossal triangular prisms of armour and engines emerged, the incoming weapons fire slowing as she watched the sensors detect the new targeting solutions of the pirates, though their weapons were very much ineffective against the heaviest plating Twilight had ever witnessed. Without skipping a beat, the massive vessels slowed, and before she could issue orders to return fire on the pirates while they were distracted, the volume of torpedoes and missiles that suddenly erupted from the massive vessels tore through the meagre plating of the pirate vessels, reducing their numbers within a matter of several seconds.

“Who the hell-” Twilight turned as she heard Isaac’s voice, his eyes going wide as he fell to his knees, tears forming in his eyes as his face twisted into a mask of fear and awe.

“Who are they, Isaac?”

“They’re... they’re Thalrazyne Dreadnoughts. Each one is the equivalent of a small moon in population, as their genetics are wholly incompatible with the cloning systems used by a standard Battle Fortress... but to see so many in one place, that’s-” Isaac was cut off as the communications array received an incoming message from the closest Dreadnought.

“Salutations, youngers. You are present before Matriarch Elteniar. She sends her kinlo- regards.”

A collective sigh of relief was heard from most of the Command crew as Twilight fell back into her chair, staring wide-eyed at the name of the vessel that had just been their incoming miracle. Switching his wrist-pad back to a standard configuration, Isaac began detailing out crews for pilot recovery and also funerary recovery, his own standards far more revealing of the character he had than Twilight had realized. However, once he had finished detailing out assignments to crew members and security personnel, he returned his attention to the name of the lead Dreadnought, the realization dawning on him of just who had just saved their entire collective ass.

“That’s the-”

“The Solace of Dawn.That is the Thalrazyne Battle Fortress. You know, they could have told us it was a damn Dreadnought!Fuck... Thalrazyne wormhole drives are no joke.”

“Wormhole drives?”

Isaac turned around to see Applejack and Rarity enter Command, their eyes widening at the name of the vessel that had saved them as well. Both of them suddenly finding themselves needing a wall to support themselves with. Pushing himself off the ground, he nodded to the two mares, leaving Command to return to the Medical Deck, his first thought of how Rainbow Dash was holding up.

--------//|0|\\--------

“Multiple amputations, genetic augmentation in order to save her life, new cybernetics. She’s lucky to be alive, Chief Humphries.”

Isaac stood in front of the massive cylinder that he had been told was a Regrowth Enhancement Chamber, some kind of experimental medical device that Fluttershy, along with Chrysalis, had designed using a damaged Cloning Pod that Engineering had been refurbished. Rainbow Dash floated weightlessly in the pod, a good portion of her extremities having needed to be amputated. From her expression, she was still sedated, which was a relief – she was less likely to panic and cause damage to herself while in that state. As he stood there examining the vitals readout, he felt a rough leg tap him on the back, Twilight motioning for him to shift to the side. Fluttershy muttered out the various treatments Rainbow had been subjected to, Isaac and Twilight ignoring her as they looked at the new appendages growing from the amputated regions. Twilight tapped her chin with her forehoof, raising an eyebrow in a quizzical expression.

“The genetic modification, what was used?”

“Twilight, compared to how she was, she won’t be nearly the same as before. We were able to splice some genetic material, but it was not from Equus.”

“Whose DNA did you splice into her?”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow before she pointed a pen back at Isaac, who stared blankly until he realized she was referring to him. He took a much more definitive look at Rainbow’s new appendages, the realization dawning on him that the new limbs taking place of her forelegs were more akin to bulky arms from a standard humanoid, with a bulbous end that he could have sworn was the main part of a hand. Staring at Fluttershy, he followed her with his eyes as she brought up new genetic information on her dataslate, handing it over to him so he could read it for himself.

“Officially, Rainbow Dash now falls under the category of a Chimera, since she contains what normally would be disparate genetic codes. So... she’s pretty much a brand new being in her own right. If it had been anyone else, it would have never worked. It shouldn’t have worked.”

“That’s... well, I have something to tell you both. Chrysalis brought this up to me, and while it’s not something I am comfortable with, it does correspond as to why the genetic modification worked as well as it did. You... might want to sit down for this.”

Fluttershy nodded to one of her assistants, having them set up a set of chairs in the Control Room next to the area where the REC sat. Taking their seats, they gazed up at Isaac, who rubbed his chin, narrowing his eyes as he looked at all who were present, and sighing deeply. They could tell that he was somewhat bothered by what he was planning to tell them. With a slow blink and a quick breath, Isaac leaned against the console, facing Twilight and the others.

“So, Chrysalis and I, out of sheer curiosity as to why genetic compatibility for most of your crew was so high for cloning, decided to do some digging. We compared Equestrian genetics, and we found a decently comparable match. The issue? I found it in a UEC Navy database... and it was an enemy I’ve fought in the past. The enemy that took my arm.”

“Wait, you can’t mean... but that’s impossible.”

“You’re talking about the Graawl, aren’t you? Our genetic code... is just like those monsters?”

Leaning back further, Isaac silently nodded, closing his eyes as he swallowed heavily. Staring over at the window that opened onto the area that Rainbow floated in, he leaned onto his elbows, putting his face onto the surface of the console. The others exchanged glances as they watched him turn back around, Isaac stepping carefully as he walked around them and tapped several symbols on a larger screen. Displaying the genetic codes of the various leaders of each department within the Fortress, he played a simulation whereby a new genetic strand based on human DNA was introduced and spliced into their genetic codes. With a quick calculation, it gave a quick simulated picture of what future versions of that genetic code would appear to look like. A collective gasp escaped from their mouths as they saw the hybrid images.

“So... we can all undergo these modifications?”

“Simulations states that you’ll be around forty percent more effective at operating and maintaining the Fortress, oddly enough. Despite all the enhancements you have made in order to accommodate the various species of your crew, a majority of them can undergo the genetic splicing and gain abilities that may very well be the best of both worlds... how long have you and Chrysalis been running these simulations?”

“Well... about the same length of time we have been working on the Earthshot calculations to make sure that we won’t overload the Tunnel Drive.”

The expression on Twilight’s face was all he needed to know, as her face betrayed that her brain had stopped processing information as she attempted to understand the timeframe of what Isaac had been working on. Fluttershy was already at the console, double-checking the data that was available from a small database Isaac had opened for access. He could hear a muffled gurgling from the other room as a rapid beeping noise began to echo, a heart-rate monitor spitting out warnings as the erstwhile new Chimera began to thrash inside the pod. Multiple medics rushed to the side of the pod, tapping in their codes to allow more sedative to flow through intravenous lines into Rainbow’s body.

“She’s going to be out of commission for a while, isn’t she?”

“She’s shown herself to be extremely resilient. I would not be surprised if when we are able to introduce some of our own modified Growth Accelerant Gel that she experiences much more rapid regrowth! This is... amazing. Chief Humphries, Twilight, I will see you both when we arrive in orbit around Equus.”

“Commander Sparkle, we have a delegation from the Dreadnought The Solace of Dawn. They want to meet the Commander that chose to stay and fight instead of flee at the first sight of a Thalrazyne battle fleet, and offer them a token of their admiration,” Twilight’s uniform radio barked, one of the navigators seemingly nervous as she relayed the information. She could not blame them, either – the Thalrazyne were far more terrifying in person than she could ever have given them credit for. Something, though, still sat strange with her. The communications request had come out of an old-style radio frequency, as if they were talking through a television camera instead of a standardized communications array. She knew that they were widely considered to be one of the most advanced races in the M83 local group, but the design of their ships seemed vastly counter-intuitive to the reports.

“This is Security Chief Humphries. Signal them to land in Bay Seventeen – have a security team on standby as well. The commander will meet them there.”

--------//|0|\\--------

Bay Seventeen had been hastily cleared as the Thalrazyne transport touched down faster than expected. Something about their craft screamed low-technological, but the uniforms and armour that the Matriarch’s honour guard wore were decidedly anything but. Glowing lines ran down the length of each helmet, down into the chestplate and shoulder guards, where the four arms of the Thalrazyne were far more prevalent. Isaac’s security detail was already in place, equines with weapon harnesses on a bit of a tight leash to prevent a diplomatic incident from occurring.

“Ah, Comtrannan Sparkle. We bear good will for one so small. Tendrils of haunted whispers echoed to us, and we answered their call.”

“Before you ask, Comtrannan is just their word for Commander, or Leader. It’s not a fancy title, it just never translated well into the trade language used by pretty much every race in this galaxy when conversing normally.”

Twilight gave a little bow, smiling as she came up to see the Matriarch herself returning the gesture. Glancing out at the vessels in the distance, she could see the massive drive windows opening up once more as they swallowed the Dreadnoughts, leaving only the wreckage of the pirate fleet behind, except for the ship the Matriarch commanded personally. Isaac watched the delegation with curious intent, attempting to ascertain just how they had known to jump in when they did. From his memory, Thalrazyne wormhole drives, or ‘blink drives,’ as he recalled their nickname was, pretty much negated anything more advanced than an integrated-circuit based computer. No crystalline drives, no heavy optical recording, everything was done in the computer or not at all, since any time they crossed through the threshold their drives created, it would fry any sort of advanced technology along those lines. It did, however, preclude basic fire-and-forget systems, like the types used on missiles and torpedoes, the chief weapons their Dreadnoughts used.

“It is a pleasure to receive a Matriarch of the Thalrazyne. Your arrival was a miracle in the works, as you saved our lives.”

“No need to thank Elteniar. We hold great counsel for those who listen, and those who know that only by proving your worth can you know your true inner strength. Knowing yourself is not as important as knowing your strength.”

“’To know your weakness and act despite them is to know strength.’ Matriarch Galiar said that, didn’t she?”

Elteniar bowed slowly, the gesture close to a nod that either a Coalition member or a human would use. Bending one of her knees, she knelt down, bringing herself to almost eye level with the augmented alicorn. Without another word, she withdrew a small object, what appeared to be some sort of talisman of sorts, but what it was designed after was what Twilight was most shocked by; the talisman itself was marked after Rainbow Dash’s own mark, almost identically.

“We are acutely aware that one of your cadre is undergoing intensive treatment. She may not have her original spirit-marks after her new ordeal, but this should suffice. A reminder of our admiration of her courage and honour in the face of insurmountable odds.”

“Wait, that doesn’t answer the most obvious question! How did you know we were in trouble?”

Elteniar sighed, standing back up and turning to her honour guard as she shook her robes, the clothing less a method of covering and more a symbol of her role as a Matriarch, if Twilight was reading the situation correctly. Withdrawing what appeared to be a frequency scanner, the matriarch tossed the device over to Isaac, who raised an eyebrow until he realized he was looking at a local-broadcast marker signal, the types either used for in-system distress calls, or locator beacons for other ships to pick up.

“Someone on board is broadcasting our position.”

Comments

[BestinDworld]

hmmm so somepony either gave out a distress call

or we haves rats in our castle

[TheFullCrumb]

11180692
Because Discord feels like a cheat in some cases, and he's hard to write normally.