Ponies and Lasers and Clankers, Oh My!

by Tekket

Chapter 10 - When The Ship Hits The Fan

19 B.B.Y. Bridge of Confederate Dreadnaught Dawn of Dusk, Decaying Orbit, Unknown Planet, Sector G6 (See Galactic Map)

Captain 72624 stood on the bridge of the massive Separatist vessel as it groaned and roared all around him like some wild beast, while droids chattered nervously into comms, directing fire teams to different areas of the ship and relaying damage reports. Klaxons blared throughout the length of the ship, and the pounding of metallic feet could be felt through the deck as droids marched or ran through every corridor.

With all the commotion going on the bridge, the Captain wondered at how he was keeping himself so composed. Every single one of his circuits was screaming at him to run, to hide, to shoot, to do something and yet still, he just stood amidst the chaos of the bridge, hands at his sides and watched as the whole world fell apart around him.

Back above Muunilinst, things had been bad, and he had been a bit afraid seeing as the Separatists had been completely outnumbered, but he hadn’t been the one calling the shots then. Even here, above this remote planet, it had seemed almost like a dream; if he screwed up with the ponies it wouldn’t really be much of a cause for concern, as he could just retreat his forces to space and think of another plan.

Now there was no more time to think, to plan, and no second chances. Nobody seemed to know what had gone wrong, they only knew the results. A massive explosion had torn through the engines, which had led to cascading failure throughout the ships systems.

The Captain shook his head to clear his thoughts and focus on the current objective as he felt another gravity shear wash over him. He had already made an announcement over the PA system for all droids to magnetize, so there would hopefully be very few droids being thrown about by the random bouts of gravitational change now.

Looking out the main viewports however, 72624 felt something grim settle onto his logic processor, as the view of the picturesque planet below once again came into view. On top of everything that had happened, the explosion had caused a malfunction with the reaction controls and the positioning thrusters, making the entire ship spin like the needle of a compass while it began changing course towards the deadly atmosphere of the planet.

“We’re about to make another pass!” the thin voice of a pilot droid spoke up over the din, and as the Captain watched, the view outside began to brighten, even though they were now on the night side of the planet, as ionization built up around the outside of the hull, the orange glow dying off as the nose of the ship flipped towards space again, and then brightened as the spin continued carrying them around to face straight at the planet below.

The deck beneath everyone’s magnapeds began to shift and shake, nearly causing the Captain to stumble into the shivering form of the LEP servant droid standing nervously at his side.

“Hey, assistant, get yourself to an escape pod and get ready to eject, I already told all nonessential droids to evacuate!” He crouched down and poked the diminutive droid hard in the chest to get his point across.

“And go where? At the rate we’re going, the pod will burn up in the atmosphere well before it lands. Did you know, this close to a planet, only 23.6 percent of emergency launches survive a return to a planet’s surface? I’d rather ride this burning hulk all the way down to the ground, thank you. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and land in an ocean.”

Pix crossed her tiny arms over her chest and turned her head away, making high-pitched huffing noises as she did so, while the Captain shook his head and stood up, crossing over to a console with a pilot droid staring at it intently.

“How long until our orbit takes us out of the atmosphere?”

“Well sir, this dip is dropping our trajectory quite a bit because of how long we’ll be in the upper atmosphere, but we’ll only have one more shot to get back into a stable orbit once we pass through and get carried back into space. Unless we get full control of our engines within the next few minutes though, our thrusters won’t be enough to stop us from plummeting down to the planet.”

The Captain placed a hand on his headplate, before turning to another bridge officer.

“What’s the situation with the engines? Have we been able to get back there yet and see what the damage is?”

“Uhh, the first fireteam has just declared that they entered the main engine bay, they said it looks like that explosion destroyed the engines. The fuel pumps are gone.”

“Can we fix it?” The Captain couldn’t help but let some of his apprehension creep into his voice as he asked. Without the fuel pumps, they’d never be able to get the main engines restarted in time to make a correctional burn out of the atmosphere.

“Doubtful, sir. They’re gone. Poof, boom, exploded to smithereens. Whatever happened back there was more than a fuel leak.”

72624 stood back and thought. He thought long and hard, and in the end, he didn’t really get anywhere, as no matter how he looked at it his situation was, for lack of a better term, buggered.

After weighing the options available to him, the commander droid shook his head, gave a very believable replication of a sigh, and made his choice. Activating his comm, he patched himself back into the ship’s PA system to make one final announcement.

***

TV-44 had just stepped into the main hangar with his so called “tour group” in tow, when he heard the voice of the Captain come on over the loudspeakers, catching the attention of every droid on the ship.

“Attention all crew! This is your Captain speaking. We’ve suffered major damage to the engines, as well as several other systems, and the dreadnaught’s current trajectory has been altered to impact on the planet below. It is too late to prevent it now, we’ve travelled too low. We will shortly pass back up into space for the final time, during which I want as many droids and as much equipment taken off the ship as possible, to regroup on the planet below. This is the end of the Dawn of Dusk. All droids abandon ship!”

As soon as the announcement ended, several doors on either side of the hangar slid open to reveal hundreds of droids marching or running into the main hangar, while large hidden elevators in the floor began lowering and bringing up ground vehicles and storage cubes for transport in the massive landing craft.

Making his way to one of the shuttles as two B1’s boarded the ramp, the tactical droid suddenly found himself being yanked back by one arm to look into the teary-eyed face of the purple alien.

“Where are you going? We need to get to Princess Luna! She’s hurt, we need to find her!”

Pulling his arm back, the black droid shook his head and silently cursed the universe. He didn’t know if being able to understand and communicate with these aliens now was actually useful or if it would end up being a liability.

“She’s unlikely to have survived the fall, but very well. We can’t leave yet anyway, the plasma outside the hull would burn the shuttle in seconds. You have until we get the all clear from the bridge to find her. If we all stay here and die, then there’d be no point to trying to join together in the first place.”

Signalling two of the commando droids with them, TV-44 instructed them to begin sifting through debris in order to help find the dark alien princess.

“If anyone else wants to help you’re more than welcome to, but the guards will bring you all back here as soon as we’re clear to leave.”

“Thank you! Come on!” The purple alien said, wiping tears from its eyes, and pointed towards the jagged, broken hoops of a hailfire droid that lay shattered a few dozen meters away, “I think she fell towards that over there!”

Clasping his hands behind his back, the tactical droid began surveying the damage in the hangar.

Most of the debris was comprised of various droids, although there were several vehicles and interior superstructure broken into pieces and littering the deck. Walking over to a sparking security B1, the Colonel realized the droid was still functioning, if barely, one hand scraping across the metal deck in a vain effort to reach its blaster, both legs having been sheared off above the knee joints.

The struggling and sparking continued on for a few more moments until a chunk of the metal ceiling from above slammed into it and ceased the soldier’s movements.

TV-44 tilted his head and contemplated just how many droids they’d be able to get off the capital ship with, and even with a generous estimate, he wasn’t liking the numbers. He was about to see if they’d be able to cram a few more soldiers into the shuttle with his group when the PA system buzzed to life once more, and a droid voice began issuing evacuation commands.

“We are now clear for evacuation! All droids, please reach the nearest transport or escape pod in an orderly fashion. The most important equipment are recharge stations, ammunition, and vehicles. Anything else that can fit onto a transport is considered secondary. Abandon ship. All droids, abandon ship.”

As soon as the announcement system shut down, the Colonel was walking quickly back towards the boarding ramp of the shuttle, looking around for the purple alien princess from before, while the whine and scream of fighters and bombers dropping down from the racks in the ceiling and zooming out the hangar doors drowned out nearly everything else.

What gave the black droid pause was the one sound he could clearly hear above the sound of the launching droid ships.

Looking back across the length of the hangar, the Colonel noticed droids turning their heads and raising their blasters, engaging an enemy that he couldn’t yet see. However, from the fact that every droid that saw the unknown threat opened fire on it immediately, his mind automatically connected the dots to assume either some clones or jedi had managed to infiltrate the ship and were now making a beeline for a transport.

His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the white forms of two clones weave between piles of broken vulture droids and tanks, blasting at anything in their path; a path that ended at TV-44’s shuttle.

Pulling his blaster off of his back, the tactical droid motioned for the commando droids to keep the ponies safe while droids from all around the hangar converged on the two stowaways, blocking their way to freedom.

Out of the corner of his photoreceptor, the Colonel saw the purple alien struggle into view, dragging the unconscious form of the dark blue princess behind her. Simply by turning his head, he could see the small trail of blood left in the princess’ wake, until one of the commando droids rushed over to help carry the dark alien.

Climbing onto a wrecked airspeeder for a better view, TV-44 was suddenly thrown backwards from the concussive wave of an explosion, while several droids further forward were blown apart or disintegrated.

Between the gap in the droid bodies came the two clones, running for the ramp of the shuttle, gunning down any disoriented droid that tried to stop them. The cream-colored alien, which had been the most eager to leave and had been waiting closest to the small ship, was grabbed by the arm and tugged violently up the ramp behind the clones, who held it specifically behind them, preventing any sort of shot without the possibility of hitting the alien. While the Colonel was moving his head, he could have sworn a shadow moved from under the ship for just the slightest fraction of a second, but nothing appeared to have changed when he stood up. As several shots were heard from within the cabin of the shuttle, the ramp closed and the ship began to wobble into the air and out the energy doors of the hangar, the colorful aliens running after it with outstretched arms, yelling things that the Colonel couldn’t quite catch. while every droid in the hanger quickly opened up on the retreating ship.

“Hold your fire!” TV-44 yelled over his personal comm, knowing that if the droids caused the death of the alien, their destruction would be even more assured than it was at the moment.

Turning to the assorted aliens, he tried to get their attention and get them to gather around him again, but everyone’s attention was quickly drawn to one of the massive landing craft as it began sliding out of the hangar and heading for the surface, which was visible every now and then through the exterior doors while the capital ship continued to spin.

“Attention all crew! We have just entered the light side of the planet. There are now only six minutes until we re-enter the atmosphere and any attempts to leave will become fatally dangerous. At this time, no more equipment should be loaded and all efforts should be focused on evacuating droids aboard what available ships we have!”

“Six minutes…” the Colonel thought to himself out loud as he eyed over the other landing craft and transports. However, it was a risky gamble at best to try and board the remaining ships. Every droid that had been moments ago fighting the two random clones was now once again busy crowding around the front ramp of the massive craft and the other various space-worthy vehicles, trying to get on quickly in order to escape the doomed dreadnaught and inadvertently cutting off access for the alien group.

“What just happened?! What are we going to do now? What were those things? We need to go after Gentle-quiet, she needs our help!” TV-44 shook his head and looked over at the purple alien princess that was once again butted up right in front of him, pointing back through the energy seal that the shuttle thieves had just left through.

“There is nothing we can do for your friend right now. More importantly, we need to find another means of transport for you, or none of us will get off this ship in time.”

Scratching his head, the tactical droid wondered whether the translating software was as accurate as he had been led to believe, as he had surely misheard the alien’s last sentence.

“Follow me. There are still some escape pods close enough for us to reach them if we hurry.”

Motioning to the guards, the tactical droid began striding towards the side of the hangar, heading back for the door they had come through, when he felt his weight shift slightly and saw the colorful aliens start tumbling towards the floor corner like they were rolling down a hill.

Looking around, he was satisfied to see that all the droids remained where they were, their magnapeds keeping them in place, while the large landing craft hadn’t seemed to suffer too much from the sudden change in orientation.

The ponies wouldn’t be so lucky.

As the wreckage of the other shuttle slid past towards the ponies, the leg of a spider droid impaled through its cockpit, the tactical droid noted the aliens groaning and getting to their hooves right in front of the sliding wreckage. A moment before they would be crushed however, the nearby droid guards grabbed and pulled them out of harm’s way.

Signalling for the group to follow, the Colonel began guiding them all towards a bank of escape pods a few corridors away when the stresses on the hull began to make the metal creak and groan once more. Feeling the sudden shift again, the black-striped droid looked back to see his organic companions splayed out on the ceiling, the purple alien cradling the head of the dark princess carefully as they all groaned in pain.

“Come on, you can still run on the ceiling, but we need to get to those escape pods if we’re going to have any chance for survival.”

“And then we’ll go get Gentle-quiet for sure?”

The question came this time, not from the purple alien, but from the shockingly pink one, who was standing on a pipe and whose eyes were exactly even with the Colonel’s, despite the fact they were on opposite surfaces.

Backing away a step, TV-44 held up a hand to prevent the alien from coming closer again and replied, “We will do what we can to help the other one when we can help the other one, but we cannot do anything without endangering it first. Once we’re on the ground, we can figure out what happened and what we can do. Now come quickly, the Captain has entrusted me with your safety, and we’ve had enough failures today.”

Turning the corner, the black droid made sure everyone was still with him and reached for the closest controls for the pod bay. It was only after it was unresponsive for several seconds that he looked down to see the readout on the display.

All empty.

Calculating a new plan, the black droid looked out the viewport that had once shown the inside of a rugged space capsule, through which he could now only see the darkness of space.

Until a familiar orange glow began to peek in from outside.

Grumbling slightly to himself, the Colonel looked back at the assembled droids and aliens in the corridor.

“This is unfortunate…”

***

Laugher was, for once in recent memory, actually laughing. As he tied the cream-colored alien down in one of the two seats, Rabid piloting the craft from the other, he took a moment to take off his helmet and chuckle, placing a hand on the other clone’s shoulder.

“Lookit that, your plan actually worked. And here I was thinking we were gonna die at every point during the execution of it.” Leaning back against the door to the main cabin of the shuttle, the clone private looked out the viewport.

“Looks like they’re not even trying to shoot us down. I have to hand it to you, I thought they wouldn’t care about the alien.”

“Well,” Rabid replied calmly as he steered the small ship away from the deteriorating warship and back out into open space. “it might also be the fact that we crippled the ship, and they’re a bit more concerned about it than they are about us.”

“I can believe that.” Tilting his head to the alien sitting bound to the only other chair in the cockpit, Laugher raised an eyebrow as it began to whimper and mutter to itself in some language he’d never heard before.

“So, what even is this? I’ve never seen any anyone or anything like it. Hey,” he said, leaning closer to the alien, which shied away immediately, “you speak Basic?”

The being did nothing but continue to try to sink into the seat it was tied to, making high-pitched whining noises as it did so, adamantly refusing to make eye contact with the clone.

“Huh, no wonder the clankers had a protocol droid with them whenever these guys were nearby. I don’t think any of them speak Basic.”

“Well,” Rabid countered, “This planet might have been taken over by the Separatists by force. They do that a lot with primitive worlds, and I didn’t see a single one of these aliens with a datapad or a commlink on them.”

“Maybe you’re right. Damn, that makes me feel bad about being so rough on this one now. The planet’s not gonna be very happy to join the empire after what we pulled, even if the Separatists forced them to join their side too.”

Laugher sighed and looked back out the viewport, where the last of the telltale flames around the craft that betrayed the presence of air died away. Once again leaning back against the door separating the cockpit from the cabin, the clone private noticed the ear of the alien twitching, while it turned its head over so slightly.

It was the only warning he got.

The door behind him suddenly whizzed open and he fell through, hitting his head on the metal floor. Seeing stars, he tried to shake his head to clear his vision, but before he could make out just what had happened, something large and heavy pinned him down. He opened his eyes just in time to see what looked like a large black blade whistling down towards his neck, and then a sudden numbness overtook his whole body.

The whole scene took less than two seconds, and Rabid, who was trying to figure out what happened, undid his crash harness and craned his head to look behind him, reaching for the blaster clipped to his belt. Unfortunately, something prevented him from moving.

He heard a loud crack and suddenly felt an enormous pressure on his chest and back, like someone was squeezing him in a hydraulic press.

Fumbling down towards the seat in order to undo the crash harness, Rabid looked down and saw it was already off, and that what appeared to be a long, serrated blade was sticking out from the middle of his chest, and was pinning him to the chair from behind.

Turning his head towards the alien in the seat beside him, he drew a ragged gasp of breath and noted with peculiar interest, how large and innocent the eyes of the alien were, as it too stared at the grievous wound.

Then the blade drew back through Rabid’s back and out through the chair; with nothing holding him up, the clone corporal slumped forward and was no more.

In the next chair, Fluttershy stared on in horror at their attacker as it came forward and levelled its red-eyed gaze at her, knowing she was powerless against it.

Author's Note:

Will the ponies make it off the dying ship in time? Will Fluttershy be whisked off among the stars? Will our intrepid Captain survive the trip to the planet below?
None of these questions are going to be answered in the next chapter, so you'll have to wait even longer to find out! (Yes I'm evil like that)

On a more serious note, I apologize for taking so long to get this chapter and the next one out. I'd been sitting on them for about two months (Again, I'm sorry) but I had to wait for my editor and proofreader to be finished with the stress of school so they could sit down and properly iron out any mistakes with me, as I didn't want to release anything but the best I can.

Comments

[Bronycommander]

Nice Work! And you're Lucky, all proofreaders/Editors i had quited fast, so i Work Without one

[Nightflight406]

Maul??????

[Charles Farrow]

Sherlock Bones and the case of the thieving clones.

[Black--Soul]

Saved from the empire by a assasination droid, i love it!

Fluttershy is save and the Empire will not make a early entrance, awesome chapter!