• Published 6th Apr 2012
  • 7,145 Views, 260 Comments

Equestria Trek: First Contact - MetBoy



A Starfleet ship discovers that the Orion Syndicate is enslaving ponies & her commander decides to do a good deed and return Rainbow Dash home. Things don’t go smoothly for the USS Judges, but what they find is one of their biggest discover

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Ignition

Ignition: In which preparations are made, and the plan is put into action.

---=={***}==---

The doing had required the efforts of many to accomplish; Ensign Tarah’s experience with personal equipment maintenance and modification was needed to over clock a personal shield into a makeshift environmental suit, strong enough to hold back the crushing pressure; Lieutenant Syoosi’s combination of physical ability, technical skill, and courage was needed to brave the depths of the bog to reach the wreck of U.S.S. Judges and salvage the shuttlecraft; Twilight Sparkle’s mighty magic was needed to push back the waters of the bog long enough to let the shuttle rise out without its own drive crushing it against an environment it had never been designed for.

Commander Delilah O’Niel only witnessed the last step of the process, her emotions a mix of awe and smug pride. The awe came from watching a pre-warp, ‘primitive’, creature hold back tons of water using nothing but her will. The smug pride came from the fact that this had happened without her needing to be involved. Everything, from the moment Rainbow Dash had been beamed down, to the moment Delilah arrived in Ponyville, had been done at the guidance of her officers. All of her people that had survived the landing had been kept alive and their wounds seen to, the foundation for friendly contact with the rulers of world’s largest nation had been created, and preparations had been taken against unknown future needs.

Delilah considered intelligent initiative to be one of the most valuable things to find in an officer; this proof that she had instilled her officers with enough of that quality that they would do what she would have told them to do filled her with a sense of satisfaction.

As the shuttle settled to the mud in front of her, Delilah nodded her thanks to the Unicorn. “Thank you Twilight Sparkle,” she said, before heading in through the opening hatch.

“Commander, I seem to recall you saying something about not wanting to give the locals weapons,”

Raat spoke via communicator while Delilah prepared her equipment for the boarding operation. The emergency supplies pulled from U.S.S. Judges had enough computer hardware to make up for the specialized hacking equipment that had been lost in Delilah’s quarters. However, Delilah needed to import the correct software and configure it before she could use them.

“Not quite, I said I wouldn’t give an oppressive government matching weapons to maintain a ‘balance of power,’” Delilah corrected her first officer, exercising the eidetic memory her implant gave her. “I have no intention of giving those Orion slavers and their Griffin outlaws any more of a chance than I can avoid. I agreed to arm the ponies as powerfully as we can, given our current resources, on the condition that they return all equipment issued. Princess Celestia agreed, speaking for her people, and her griffin allies.”

With her in the shuttle was Syoosi, who was preparing the transporter systems for the boarding operation planned. The large engineer chuckled, overhearing the conversation.

“And if they go back on their word?” Raat asked.

“Then I press some buttons, and any equipment we haven’t accounted for as back in our possession becomes trash. I think we can trust our new friends to be better than that, but I’ve already taken measures to secure our technology.”

“Commander?”

“Every piece of personal equipment aboard U.S.S. Judges was equipped with a chip, that can be used to locate it, or to disable it, either temporarily or permanently. I told the ponies and griffins that we have a way to make sure they keep their word, but not detailed the means.”

---=={***}==---

Bulwark, Sergeant in Celestia’s Royal Guard, was a big earth pony. Watching him put the heavy metal plates of his custom battle armor over his white coat, his color matching the exposed marble around the cave entrance, his golden mane hidden under the helmet equipped with ram’s horns of solid iron, Applejack realized that he easily rivaled her brother Big Macintosh for sheer size and bulk, and he clearly kept in shape, as she couldn’t locate any flab on his-

Applejack shook the thought off; this wasn’t the time for that. “Sugarcube, are you sure you want to go in first like this?”

“I’m positive, M’lady Champion,” he replied.

Applejack fidgeted slightly, still uncomfortable with the title that meant that, technically, she was part of Equestria’s nobility. After the whole Discord business, Princess Celestia had elevated the six of them, and as much as Applejack hated the idea, you just didn’t say no to the Princess when she made that kind of gift.

“I am ready to take the spearhead position,” Bulwark confirmed.

“I don’t know, Sugarcube, maybe we should do the herd thing, all go in together. Going in alone, you could get hurt.”

---=={***}==---

“Cousin, you could get hurt.”

The day had been normal for a colt growing up in Canterlot, the son of a family ranked at the lowest of the noble classes, what were once called the Equestrian Order, legacy of ancient military service. He woke up as Princess Celestia raised the sun, and ate a simple breakfast of hay. Before his mother put his bag lunch into his saddlebag, she said to him, as she did every day, “Remember to look out for your cousin, and keep him safe from harm. This is your duty to him, our family’s duty to the house of Blueblood, and our people’s duty to the Princess.”

Bulwark dutifully nodded, saying, “I will,” before he left the house to join his cousin on the way to school.

It wasn’t very hard, as even at a young age, he was a large colt. If someone threatened his cousin Blueblood, all he needed to do was to loom over them, telling them to stop, and they would.

He didn’t mind his duty, his cousin was nice to him, and helped him in turn. Not that he thought that much about it. In fact, he didn’t do much thinking at all; unless it directly involved his ‘duty’ Bulwark wasn’t a very fast thinker.

So Blueblood would let his bodyguard-cousin copy his class notes, once they got to the young prince’s mansion, but that day the walk home was interrupted.

“Come on, cough up the bits.”

Things started on the way home as they were passing an ally and heard the trouble. Three older colts had cornered a smaller foal and were extorting pocket money. The three were grown enough to have their cutie marks, but not their victim.

“I said cough ‘em up!”

The command was punctuated with a hoof-strike.

“No, this is wrong,” Bulwark growled

“I... I know, cousin, but they’re bigger than us.” It was true, even being big for his age, each of the bullies was bigger than Bulwark.

“That...” the earth pony stumbled, looking for the right words, but his cousin supplied them.

“Nobility demands we stop this, somehow... ‘Come on, let’s find a teacher, they’ll make this better.”

Another smack came from the alleyway.

“Not enough time. Mother keeps telling me I need to protect you, so you go. I’ll stop this.”

“Al-allright,” Blueblood said, galloping off back towards the schoolhouse.

Bulwark gulped, walking into the alley slowly. “Hey!” he shouted, “Stop that!”

“What’s this?” the ringleader of the bullies asked, “One of the little squirts wants to make us stop. Do you really think you’re enough to beat all three of us?”

“No...” Bulwark moved between the bullies and their victim.

“But I’ll let you hit me instead. I won’t hit back. I won’t even struggle.”

---=={***}==---

“... And when the bandages came off, there was my cutie mark,” Bulwark said, finishing his personal cutie mark chronicle.

As he talked, and Applejack listened, Maya had joined the pair in their preparations. With his stolid demeanor, Bulwark only reacted mildly as the Starfleet Ensign set up the personal shield generator and a communications headband on the beefy stallion.

“These ‘cutie marks’ sound important to your people,” Maya noted. “I’d like the chance to learn more about how they appear, and what they mean. So what does yours represent, Bulwark?”

“My Cutie Mark is a crenellated wall. A wall that does more than shelter those within, but helps keep them safe while they do what they need to. I take the hits so that others can be real heroes. I am willing to be hurt.”

“The needs of the many,” Maya commented, as she configured the equipment, “outweighing the needs of the few, or the one, right?”

Bulwark shook his head. “Almost, but not quite...” He trailed off, failing to find the right words. “The individual matters too... I just have more physical resilience than other ponies, and can afford to take more hits.” Bulwark stumbled for words to express the philosophy involved, then shook his head.

“I am prepared and ready to take the point.”

---=={***}==---

When the Orion Raiders first set up in the cave they took minimal precautions to guard the smaller entrance. The ‘gate’ was a roughly shaped collection of hull patches, around a basic door, anchored into the surrounding rocks with self-sealing stem bolts. A pony, small or limber enough, could work their way through the gaps between the barrier and the wall, but not quickly or easily. It was enough to “close” the entrance, without sealing something they might need later.

Bulwark was neither small nor limber, but as he rushed towards the gate, building momentum, it was clear that he didn’t think he needed to be either to get through. His heavy iron armor was added to his considerable bulk, and the sum multiplied by his speed; the result put one in mind of the proverbial “irresistible force.” He did not bother to unleash a battle cry, having no need to announce his presence. The steel lance at his flank was raised; the mounting pivot would not be able to withstand the forces, even with his earth pony magic to help manage the kinetic shock. Instead he simply lowered his head, trusting in his helmet to turn him from a pony into a battering ram. The crash as the impact destroyed not only the gate but the barrier as well was more than sufficient to equal a more civil knock on the door.

Plowing through the remains of the gate Bulwark didn’t stop, only slowed slightly as he tore the stem bolts from the stone, the door ripped away from the hinges and the metal patches coming apart at the seams. He trampled the twisted fragments of metal as he rebuilt his speed.

As soon as Bulwark cleared the wall, Applejack began her run in, following the royal guard; he would take the first hits, but she would support him, and it was just as well she moved when she did.

A pair of green, brightly glowing, disrupter beams lit the cave, their trajectories crossing near Bulwark’s center of mass as he continued charging forward. The energy shield he wore stopped the disrupter beams inches away from his body, which let him easily turn his path slightly to the right, to bear down on one of the two automated turrets that the Orion raiders had set up as a second line of defense.

“Target at ten o’clock,” Ensign Oasis directed Applejack, using a term for direction that had lost its connection to its original meaning. Maya didn’t have time to consider why a value on a digital display translated into a relative heading, as she acted as spotter for the ponies. The natives expected to be in the thick of the battle, and a few others, had been equipped with bands around their foreheads, holding a set of sensors and a communicator that let Maya covertly whisper into their ears. Lieutenant Bindalla was managing the telemetry feeds, so that Maya’s data pad give her awareness of the combat situation without immediately revealing the presence of Starfleet.

As Bulwark bore down on one of the turrets, a trained twitch brought down his lance, the shaft of steel-tipped wood falling into line with a click. The disruptor fired, beginning to leak through the personal shield, but not enough to stop him, not enough to do more than score his barding, before the lance penetrated the turret, destroying delicate internal devices.

Applejack, less burdened by personal armor, was able to accelerate more quickly than the guardpony. The second turret’s simple computer mind had classified Bulwark as the larger threat, didn’t turn to target the farmer until too late; before it could bring its beam to bear, Applejack’s hard hooves caved in the side of the machine.

As the two ponies surveyed the destruction they had wrought, something new intruded on their senses; the wailing of an alarm system filled the cavern.

“Ah think they know we’re here,” Applejack drawled sarcastically, a smile on her face.

Author's Note:

Author’s Notes for Chapter 9: Ignition
For those checking my blog posts... this is option 3. I split the chapter into two distinct parts, ending this chapter with the question of “how well will the plan work” as the cliffhanger. This chapter features a lot of action and character development, and should tell you a lot about my characters.

For those that DON’T follow my blog, and any new readers I’ll pick up with this update, I’d like to tell you about a group I’ve created, Star Trek Ponies, which is specifically for Star Trek crossovers, and Star Trek discussion, like the Star Trek Online discussion thread I’m going to post in the forum.

I have the next chapter about half-written, but I don’t think I’ll have it ready to publish before the new year... but I could surprise even myself! But thank you all for following me this far, and thank you for the feedback and ideas you've tossed my way.