My Brave Pony: Starfleet Nemesis

by Scipio Smith

By Luna's Light: Cerise Wonder

By Luna’s Light: Cerise Wonder

The changeling infiltrator who had taken over her identity and thrown her into one of the cells in her own prison hadn’t even had the common decency to keep her office in that state that she’d found it.

As a result, Major Cerise Wonder was somewhat grumpily putting all of her squad photographs back into their proper places on the wall when she heard the knock on the door.

“Just a second,” she murmured, as she finished hanging the Wonder Girls squad photo back on the closest hanging to the desk. Only when that was done did she look around to her see Lieutenant-Princess Twilight Sparkle standing in the doorway.

The princess came to attention as soon as she had Major Wonder’s…attention, and offered her a crisp salute.

“Please, your highness, don’t salute,” Cerise said. A thin smile crossed her features. “Damsels in distress don’t get to pull rank.”

“I’m sure that you don’t need to be so hard on yourself about that, Major,” Twilight said. “Changelings are very adept at this sort of infiltration and replacement. Wiser ponies than you or I have been taken in by them in the past.”

“Perhaps, although that doesn’t salve my pride as much as you might think,” Cerise muttered as she stalked over to her desk. “Would you like to come in and sit down, princess.”

Twilight walked into the office, but didn’t sit down. “Thank you, Major, but I’m not staying long. Captain Lightning Dawn wants to move out soon.”

“You’re returning to HQ?”

“Yes.”

“I daresay I’ll have some questions to answer once the captain submits his report,” Cerise murmured. She drummed her fingers on her desk. “Still, all the questions that will be asked deserve to be asked. I’ve gotten sloppy here. Out of shape, physically and mentally.” Not to mention spiritually.

Having already offered her reassurance, Twilight looked as though she wasn’t certain what else she could say in response to Cerise’s self criticism. She stood diffidently on the other side of the desk, looking slightly awkward as a silence began to grow between them. “Well, I should probably rejoin Lightning, I mean Captain Lightning Dawn, and Princess Cadance. It was nice to meet you, Major Wonder. I’m sorry that we didn’t get a chance to meet, really meet, much sooner.”

“Thank you, princess, I appreciate that,” Cerise said. She climbed to her feet. “You saved my life today, Princess Twilight. You saved a lot of lives today. I hope you’re proud of yourself for that.”

“Well…” Twilight didn’t look entirely at ease with the compliment. “I helped a little.”

“Spoken with all the modesty of a true hero,” Cerise said. “I can’t claim to know very much about that, but I do know that if you don’t know your own worth then the rest of the world won’t discover it of its own accord.”

“I think there’s a difference between knowing your own worth and shouting about it.”

Cerise chuckled. “Perhaps you’re right. As I said, I don’t know much humility. Thank you, once again, Princess Twilight. May I shake your hand?”

Cerise thrust out her hand, and Twilight took it with only a moment’s hesitation born out of surprise. She had a good firm grip.

“I appreciate your thanks, Major Wonder,” Twilight said. “Although…I don’t suppose your gratitude would extend to letting me speak freely for a moment.”

Cerise smiled wryly as she let her hand fall away, clasping both of them behind her back. “Let me guess, you’ve had a tour of this facility before you leave.”

“The sheer number of criminals being housed here is quite astonishing.”

“Well, we are the largest incarceration facility operated by Starfleet anywhere in its jurisdiction,” Cerise said. “It takes up eighty percent of the entire planet.”

“I would appreciate the logistical challenge that presents, and the way that it has been overcome,” Twilight said. “If it weren’t for the purpose to which it is all being put. Honestly, Major, do you think that this is necessary?”

Cerise was silent for a moment. She turned away, and faced instead the window that looked out over a great wall of cells rising up towards the planet’s surface and descending down towards it’s core: thousands upon thousands of small cells in which sentient beings were caged like animals for the duration of their natural lives. Most of them became animals long before they tasted the release of death. She could hear them even now, rattling their cages, screaming and shouting, growling and snarling and roaring. They all seemed to end up the same way. When they came in, some of them were quiet and some of them sobbed for their mothers and some of them sang sad country songs about home and sweetheart and the wrong they’d done.

But they all ended up as savage animals in the end.

And, what might have been worse, most of the guards ended up the exact same way. You couldn’t stay in a place like this, you couldn’t treat people the way that they treated the inmates here, and not have it rot your soul away to nothing in the process.

She hated this place. She’d known that for a long time but it was as if the princess’ question, simply phrased, had crystallised that feeling into something undeniable and inescapable.

She hated this place, and she wanted to get out.

And yet, at the same time, she couldn’t quite bring herself to admit to the moral depravity in which she had spent half of her career mired so deeply. She said, “I suppose that it must seem very barbaric, and I can admit that a lot of our guests here are being punished more harshly than they deserve…but we do have some real monsters here. Prisoner 61305, name Vulcan, a planet-broker and a merchant of death, his list of crimes is too long to recite. With creatures like him there’s really no alternative but constant confinement; except perhaps for putting them to death.”

“Or showing them the error of their ways,” Twilight said.

Cerise glanced at her over her shoulder. “Do you really believe that’s possible? Do you really think that hideous and sin-stained monsters can become something more?”

“I don’t need to believe,” Twilight said. “I’ve seen it happen.”

Cerise waited a moment before she looked away again. “I kind of wish that I could see that myself, princess. Of course, I’m not really sure that I should be saying that as a loyal and faithful Starfleet officer. Evil is evil, after all, and in the end we all have to pay for the things that we’ve done.”

“Do we, Major?” Twilight asked. “Forgive me for saying so, but couldn’t Starfleet itself be described as a planet-broker and a merchant of death.”

A guffaw of laughter escaped from Cerise’s mouth. “Very good princess, and very boldly spoken, too. You certainly don’t lack of courage, to speak like that to a complete stranger. You strike me as a mare of pure conscience and immense rectitude; I’m guessing that you haven’t studied my service record in any detail because if you had then I have no doubt that being in my presence would disgust you. And yet, for all of that, or even because of that, I wish that I could see with my own eyes what you have seen: monsters that have spent their whole lives in darkness touching the light and, in so touching, becoming beautiful.”

“I’m not as easily disgusted as you think,” Twilight replied. “I was taught that it matters less what you’ve done, or even what was done to you, and more what you intend to do about it after.”

Cerise turned around, to face the princess once more. “Wise words, princess. Ones that, perhaps, more of us could stand to live by.”

There was a time, Cerise reflected, when she had believed in Starfleet. There was a time when she had sworn by the code of the force: Duty, Valour, Sacrifice. There was a time when she had been willing to sacrifice everything, even her life, for the glory of Starfleet and the security of Unicornicopia.

And then it had turned out that the sacrifice Starfleet really wanted was her soul.

Major Wonder stood in her office at Starfleet HQ, located in the east wing of the palace in New Canterlot, staring at an old photograph of six ponies in uniform, grinning for the camera like it was their wedding day. She was in the middle of them, a younger mare then, still wearing the long and somewhat elaborately styled mane that would turn out to make her look a lot like Princess Cadance. Young Cerise, then only a lieutenant, stood in the centre of the picture wearing what was perhaps the widest smile of all.

She’d been so much younger then. So young, and so naïve.

Cerise Wonder had been born with a golden horn, and so it had been practically pre-ordained that she would join the Starfleet as soon as she was old enough. Her parents, her teachers, even family friends and neighbours had all pressed the option upon her with great enthusiasm. Everyone got the idea of enlisting in Starfleet pressed upon them with great enthusiasm when they were at school – unless they were such an irredeemable klutz that they were a danger to themselves and others – but Cerise got it more than most.

You have the power to defend the weak and helpless, so don’t you owe it to them to use that power in the service of His Majesty?

In truth, she hadn’t actually required all that much persuading. By the time she was fourteen Cerise had already made up her mind to enlist, she just didn’t tell anyone about it because she liked the attention that came from having everyone suck up to the special golden-horned girl as they tried to convince her to use her powers to save the world. All the boys – and some of the girls – wanted to make out with her, and those of the girls who didn’t want to make out with her were insanely jealous. She was the most popular kid in school. Eyes and whispers followed her wherever she went. Dates, gifts, you name it, she got it. She loved it. It didn’t do her ego much good, safe to say, but she loved it nonetheless.

She’d been so young then, and such an idiot. Cerise cringed looking back at herself.

And then she’d joined the Starfleet and, with that magical golden horn, it didn’t matter that her grades were below the level necessary to get onto the officer track, she’d been put on said track anyway because whoever heard of a golden-horned unicorn serving in the ranks. She’d been fast-tracked through the academy, the subject of envy and favouritism in equal measure, and she’d even come under the tutelage of the Grand Ruler himself. They hadn’t been master and student the way that His Majesty was with Commander Lightning Dawn, but His Majesty had taught her how to unlock the awesome power of the uniforce within her, how to control it, and how to wield it in battle for the good of all space ponies.

Or that was how she’d seen it at the time. She’d really drunk deep of everything that they were serving back then.

Duty. Valour. Sacrifice.

She’d passed out of the academy, and been given a squad. Six mares, including her. The six smiling mares in the picture that she was staring at. The Wonder Girls, a supremely arrogant name but nobody had complained about it.

They’d all been too good-natured to complain about the excessive arrogance that she’d carried around with her in those days.

Her magenta-eyed gaze lingered on the photograph, lingered on the ghosts that hung around it, lingered on the smiles upon every beaming face that now seemed so, so naïve.

Cressida had worn her auburn mane in braids and fought with a sword and shield in battle; she’d called herself their shield, their protector, their tower of strength. Selene had played the mandolin, and talked cheerfully of all the stories that they’d have to tell when they got home. Lesley had her salary sent home to her mother and her five younger sisters. Rika had called herself Cerise’s rival; she wanted statues raised to herself all across the empire and for everyone to be taught her name in the history books. Amber had carried a camera around with her everywhere so that they’d have pictures of their great adventure up in space to look back on fondly.

All gone now. All of them dead and all of their dreams turned to dust. All of them sacrificed in the Crystallite War.

She still wasn’t sure exactly why they had fought that war. She didn’t know what the Crystallites had really done to them. All she knew was that at time she’d believed all the stories about the monstrous, egotistical crystallites: how they used their beauty to seduce the minds of lesser creatures, how they stole gold and jewels and hoarded them for themselves, how they took over worlds to pillage of all their wealth. Like so many others, like all the young space ponies who had eagerly enlisted to fight this terrible menace, she’d been eager to get out there and do her part to keep the galaxy safe.

She’d been cock-a-whoop when the orders came for the Wonder Girls to ship out for Jemanite and take the fight directly to the Crystallites on their home planet. Dreams of glory had filled her every waking hour, and even intruded upon her sleep aboard the troop transport for good measure. She imagined wielding the purging fire of the uniforce against hordes of ravenous monsters bent on destruction and domination.

What she’d gotten was turning her uniforce upon defenceless villages, burning them to the ground while all around her Starfleet deployed its most powerful weapons against enemies who could hardly fight back, hammering them from the skies with their warships, burning a swathe across the planet as their fleet and armies converged upon the crystallite capital.

And she’d kept on doing it. Even though it made her sick, even though her dreams of glory had turned to nightmares that tormented her whenever she closed her eyes, even though she knew, she knew in her bones that what they were doing was wrong she had kept on doing it. Because she was a good soldier. Because duty, valour, sacrifice.

She didn’t even have the guts to ask the Grand Ruler to his face why they had to kill absolutely everybody in order to win the war. She’d just helped him to do it.

Gods forgive her.

Amber had thrown away her camera because nobody wanted to remember this. Selene had stopped talking about the stories she’d tell of her time with the Starfleet. Lesley couldn’t bring herself to write to her family, unable to lie to them or confess the truth of what they were doing out there. But they’d kept on fighting until…until one day they were all dead, and Cerise Wonder was the only one left standing.

The most cowardly of all of them.

She’d run all the way to Conva and hid there for twenty years, burying herself in the warden’s office in a prison deep beneath the earth, letting it tear her apart little by little, piece by piece, waiting for someone else to do something, waiting for a hero with pure intent and a clean conscience to sweep away the sins of the Starfleet and cleanse the organisation, waiting for someone else to decide that it was their problem to do all the things that Cerise Wonder wanted done but didn’t have the guts to do.

And then Twilight Sparkle died.

The shining hope of Equestria, the realm’s delight, the hero that Cerise had been counting on to change the world gave up her life and absolutely nothing changed. And that was when Cerise realised something that she should have realised a long time ago: you couldn’t just sit back and stew in your own inadequacy while you waited for a hero to fix everything. You had to pull on your big-girl pants and do your part, up to the limits of your strength and so she’d called in every favour she had left, used every connection that remained to her and gotten herself a transfer back to HQ, and then she’d made enough of a fuss to get Rainbow Dash on her team and she’d started trying to see what lay behind the curtain. She might not have achieved anything, but at least she hadn’t been sitting in the warden’s office in Conva waiting for someone else to take the needful action.

It matters less what you’ve done, or even what was done to you, and more what you intend to do about it after.

I hope you’re right about that, princess, I really do.

Cerise frowned. “I know that I’ve taken far too long to do this, girls; but I’m going to make things right. Or at least…I’m going to make things better. Or die trying.

“That…that’s about the least I owe you, don’t you think?”

She turned away, tapping her earpiece with one finger. “It should all be starting soon, are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied.

“I might not have time to say this when the fun starts,” Cerise said. “But good luck out there, Rainbow Dash. And when you find Princess Twilight, tell her I owe her a drink for saving my life.”

And tell her I owe her even more for saving my soul.

“One drink?” Rainbow replied. “When I find Twilight I’m gonna buy every drink in the bar.”

And then it started, the voice of the Grand Ruler was replaced by that of Princess Luna as she began to speak the truths that had lain unspoken for too long.

It had started, and Cerise had work to do.

She sat down at her desk and turned on the communications device mounted into same. That way she could listen to the Resistance traffic through her ear – as Sunset led a team of her allies to rescue the princesses Leilani and Celestia before they were moved as part of Operation Nemesis – and the Starfleet traffic through the desk.

“What the- what happened to His Majesty?”

“HQ, this is Warspite, is anyone else experiencing transmission issues, we’re getting Princess Luna up here and she’s-“

“Is this some kind of a joke or something? What’s going on with the broadcast?”

“Crap crap crap someone’s hacked the transmission feed! I’m locked out!”

“Attempting to sever broadcast link…no effect!”

“What’s she saying? What’s she talking about?”

“HQ, this is Manehattan Command Centre, somebody needs to turn that gods-damned broadcast off before a riot starts!”

Cerise tuned her communications to the palace internal frequency, because as entertaining as it might have been for her to listen to the complete panic engulfing Starfleet across the galaxy at this turn of events it wouldn’t really help her to complete her assignment.

“I watched as we surrendered our lands, the homes that we had built together to an invading army and I did not speak out,” Princess Luna declared on the big screen near the door.

“Did Nightmare just call us invaders?”

Show time. “This is Major Cerise Wonder of the 101^st Special Service Company to all palace and headquarters units, who’s in charge out there?”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Uh, that would be me, ma’am. Lieutenant Colin Flower. All the more senior guard officers and the senior staff are attending Major Stirskewer’s funeral.”

“What are you doing about this situation, Lieutenant?”

“Um, I don’t know what I should be doing, major. I’ve had no orders from Captain Shaina-“

“If the dissidents behind this can hack His Majesty’s broadcast it wouldn’t surprise me if they can hack our communications too.” In fact, Brass Bolt should have started work on exactly that the moment that Princess Luna started broadcasting. If they could disrupt comms in and out of the palace it would make it that much easier for Sunset Shimmer and that much easier for Cerise to run interference. “We can’t expect orders from the higher ups, we’re going to have to play this by ear if we want to get through this.”

“Get through what, ma’am?”

“Pay attention, lieutenant,” Cerise snapped. “Princess Luna isn’t out there giving a speech on the weather, she’s issuing a call to arms. We need to expect an imminent dissident attack and react accordingly.”

“I, uh, right!” Flower said. “Yes, ma’am. What are you orders, major?”

Cerise brought up a holographic schematic of the palace. She mentally highlighted the areas where Sunset and her gang would want to go – Princess Leilani’s tower and Queen Celestia’s chambers – and in her mind’s eye she plotted a route to get them there.

“Pull all guards out of sectors Red Delta and Orange Tango, and focus deployment around Blue Bravo and Blue Alpha, the main approaches to the inner sanctum.”

“But there’s nobody in the throne room right now-“

“Of course not, these cowards wouldn’t dare strike when His Majesty was present, but they may look to secure some sort of propaganda victory in his absence,” Cerise said, making it up as she went along but doing so pretty convincingly in her own opinion. “Besides, there’s nothing of value in Red Delta is there?”

“No, ma’am, there’s just Millstone and I can’t imagine even seditionists being interested in her. I’ll issue the orders now.”

“Good boy,” Cerise murmured. That should clear the path for Sunset Shimmer to get as far as Leilani’s (code-name Millstone amongst the guards) room in Red Delta section, and then from there they would have to go down again, through Orange Tango and then they should be able to cut through Orange X-ray before heading down another level to Green Charlie. “Now, aside from Blue floor the obvious place for some kind of propaganda effort would be His Majesty’s own chamber in Black Lima, so pull anyone you have in Green Charlie out redeploy them there.”

“But…if I pull the guards out from Green Charlie won’t that leave Waifu unprotected?”

“I’m sure the Queen will be perfectly safe, these primitives worship her after all.”

“I suppose so, Major, okay. I’ll issue the orders.”

Sunset’s voice came over the earpiece, dripping with acid. “Waifu. Princess Celestia’s code-name, Princess Celestia, is Waifu?”

“Everyone has a code name assigned to them by the guards if they spend enough time in the palace,” Cerise said.

“I know but waifu? I mean come on! Seriously, you people.”

“Do you want to know what you’re code-name is,” Cerise asked.

“I don’t know, do I?”

“Turbulence.”

“Huh. That’s actually pretty cool.”

“It’s not supposed to be a compliment.”

“Maybe not, but it absolutely is,” Sunset replied. “Now, we’ll wait a few seconds for the guards to start to move and then-“

The desk mounted communications unit practically exploded with sound. “Command, this is admittance security, we have an unauthorised intruder loose in the building!”

Really? Were you that careless as to be seen coming in? “This is Major Cerise Wonder, what’s going on?”

“Some kind of crazy blue unicorn came in here demanding to see Colonel Glimmer, and when I saw that the Colonel has been black-flagged I tried to tell her to get lost but se wouldn’t listen. So I order security to escort her from the building, but she dropped some kind of smoke bomb and took off. I don’t know where she’s gone.”

“Copy that,” Cerise muttered. To Sunset, she said, “Sunset, what are you doing?”

“She’s not one of mine, it sounds…”

“What?”

“Sweet Celestia, that sounds like Trixie.”

“A mare with a good heart and a lot of bad luck,” Sunset said. “Can you keep them off her?”

“I’ll do my best, but I make no promises,” Cerise replied.

And so Cerise sat in her office and listened as the guards tried to track this Trixie unicorn, and cringed as that very same Trixie accidentally gave away the existence of Sunset’s group, at which point her job became a matter of misdirecting the guards so that Sunset’s resistance ponies didn’t get swamped beneath the numbers of ponies at their actual location.

And she thought she was doing an okay job of it, if success was defined as Sunset and her ponies not dying, until suddenly the desk communicator squawked again.

“This is Captain Shaina Emerald of the Royal Guard! Major Cerise Wonder has been declared a traitor to Starfleet! All orders from her are to be ignored with immediate effect! Lieutenant Flower, where are the enemy?”

“It’s not clear, captain, we have pockets in Blue Alpha, Red Tango and Orange X-ray.”

“Orange X-ray? You idiot, they’re heading for Green Charlie, they’re going after Waifu.”

Cerise leaned forward. “You know, every time you call her that the Gods kill a kitten.”

“Cerise?”

“Hey, Shaina baby, what’s up?”

“What are you doing, Cerise? Why are you betraying the fleet?”

“I’ve been betraying my conscience for yeas in the service of Starfleet; I figured it was about time that I switched things up a little.”

“This isn’t funny, Cerise!” Shaina snapped. “Your name’s been marked for death already. There’s no coming back from this.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I’ve got no intention of coming back,” Cerise said. “Shaina, speaking honestly, can you really say that you don’t have any misgivings at all about what’s been going on lately?”

“Of course I have misgivings, I’m not blind and I’m not stupid,” Shaina said. “But what gives you the right to privilege your own conscience over your oaths of loyalty, over the wisdom of His Majesty, over everything that we’ve dedicated our lives towards.”

“The fact that I have to live with the things that I’ve done gives me the right,” Cerise said.

“You think this is going to make up for Jemanite?”

“I’m not sure anything can make up for Jemanite,” Cerise said. “But as a very wise unicorn once told me: it’s not about what you did, it’s what you’re going to do about it now. So I’m doing this, and I have no regrets.”

“I can’t protect you from what’s coming next.”

“Are we going to be sparring together soon, Shaina.”

“No joy. His Majesty has something special in mind for you and your rebel friends, and I don’t think you’ll enjoy it when you see it. Shaina Emerald out.”

The communicator went dead. They must have changed the frequencies to lock her out. Took them long enough.

Cerise tapped her earpiece. “Sunset, my cover’s been blown, and from the sounds of it we don’t have much time. You need to get to Celestia and get out of there.”

“Understood, we’re nearly there- what in Celestia’s name is that?”

“What is it?” Cerise demanded.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is looks really mad.”

“Hold tight,” Cerise said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Princess Twilight, thank you…for showing me the way.

Author's Note:

This chapter is here for two reasons: first it's a bit of a break after a couple of fairly hectic chapters; more importantly, Cerise has been around in this fic for a good while and yet it's never really been established why she does what she does, and so I thought it was as good a time as any to let her explain herself and her motivations.

Way back when I agreed with the person (N Harmonik?) who suggested that Roy Mustang was an inspiration for the character, and Cerise's backstory here bears the imprint of that influence too.

Next chapter will be Sunset Shimmer and her crew.

Comments

[Legendbringer]

Oh, this was a great backstory for our dear Cerise.

[N Harmonik]

I didn't make the comparison to Roy Mustang, Alchemystudent did.

Nice going, Trixie.

[Scipio Smith]

8934500
Okay, but in my defence that was over two years ago.