Star Trek Online: A Larger World

by Admiral Wyatt Stone

Chapter VIII: An On-Time Rescue

Annorax Cargo Bay 2

The Annorax's cargo rooms were what almost every ship had for a cargo bay, the room was nothing but boxes of rations and goods left unguarded. No noise except for a low humming from inside the walls emitted within the room until several small fields of energy appeared in a clear spot around the cargo boxes, each revealing a humanoid being before disappearing seconds later, leaving a total of 11 beings in the room with the cargo. Twilight took a good look around the room to check for any security systems checking for intruders, when none were spotted, she looked to her crewmates. "Looks like we're clear, get your stealth gear ready and set up defenses, me, Flash, and the Doctor'll make our way to Sunset's brig and bust her out while Dash, Bon Bon, and Lyra plant some bombs on nearby key sections of the ship, about two at the least, once both of our groups get back here, well call our ship and beam off and find out where Noye's going."

"You remember where her brig's at, right?" Twilight nodded to Dash before she finished.

"Alright, try to be quick and not trip any alarms, let's go!" The group then split into three other groups, Dash's group activated their stealth modules and quickly made their way to their first target to bomb, while Twilight's activated theirs and made their way out and raced to the brig, leaving the remaining members of the last group to guard their beam-out zone. Twilight and her two friends jogged quietly towards Sunset's brig, very few officers ventured this section, making it easy to get to the next room without any trouble.

They'd passed about seven other doors before reaching their target, 'DECK 11 - BRIG' was printed on the sign near the door, and the group started to reach the door, but Twilight then stopped her friends and spoke to them, "Wait, we can't just go in there and expect the guards to think it was some kind of ghost, we'll need a distraction." The Princess then looked around the hallway to find a good place to attract the guards for some time. "There!" She saw a section on one of the walls of the hallway, it was opened up for engineering officers to repair, but for the moment it exposed several cables and wires that kept the ship working. Twilight then grabbed a photon grenade, activated it, and placed it into the field of wires, the metal ball appearing after she let go of it before she ran from the explosion and told her friends to get clear. A second passed before the bomb exploded, causing fire, smoke, and electricity to emit from the blast before a voice sounded over the intercoms seconds later.

"FIRE TEAMS TO DECK 11! FIRE ALERT! FIRE TEAMS REPORT TO DECK 11!" Shortly after the voice spoke up, the doors to the brig opened and released a pair of guards from the room, the two of them fleeing from the nearby blaze for safety. Twilight then motioned her friends into the brig before stepping inside herself, she saw several other rooms with force fields blocking their openings.

"Twilight, right here!" Twilight heard Flash say before they deactivated their stealth modules and the Princess made her way to Sunset's room.

"Sunset, you're okay!" Twilight said to her imprisoned friend, she was looking at her three friends with a smile before Flash deactivated the force field, allowing the schoolgirl out of her prison. "Let's get out of here, the guards won't be distracted for long!" Twilight said to Sunset before she responded.

"Wait, please tell me you have some gear to spare, there's a friend in that cell next to mine and I'm breaking her out too."

"You mean this filly?" Flash said before the others stood by him to see Sunset's new friend, it was a dark filly with an appearance similar to Applebloom looking at them with worry.

"The name's Applebloom, but since ya have an Applebloom Ah want to go by Creepybloom, y'all can laugh at meh later." While the name was a bit humorous to the group, they didn't chuckle but kept their smiles as they deactivated the force field, allowing the filly out of her dismay.

"Come on, put this gear on and follow us, they can't see us with the stealth modules activated." Twilight said to the two before they quickly put their new equipment on and activated it before they followed behind the three officers. They'd fortunately not been caught as the smoke from the fire blotted the hallway, preventing anyone on the other side from seeing the door open.

On the other side of the deck, Dash and her team had already found an area worth bombing; the shield generator. When they saw the door, Dash pulled out a pair of plasma grenades and, upon getting near the doors enough for them to open, threw them into the room. The bombs exploded before several of the officers began to fall over from plasma poisoning, leaving about two resilient officers left to deal with. Entering the room, Dash grabbed her phaser pistol and fired both her weapons out into the room, killing the remaining guards, allowing Lyra and Bon Bon to place their bombs onto the consoles and the generator itself while Dash kept a lookout for the guards. After a few moments, the two friends came up to Dash and nodded to her before they continued on to the next critical system. "I've taken another scan, there's a power control room nearby, hitting that should make this ship have a sick stomach!" Dash nodded to the spy before they raced to their target. They immediately stopped to see several Krenim officers making their way to the shield generator room, after they'd passed, Dash lifted her arm up and kept her finger over a button on her arm. A few seconds after the officers entered the room, she pressed the button and detonated the bomb in the nearby room, the three girls then raced to the control room.

They'd ran for some time through about two corridors before they'd reached the control room, apparently the Krenim didn't think that it was an attack happening on their ship, as the doors to the control room remained open. The group stepped back before more officers came out of the control room and raced to the shield generator room, leaving the three girls to step inside.

"Cool, the room's empty, be quick, Bon Bon, they'll be back to check on this place eventually!"

"Let's just hope we have enough time!" Bon Bon replied before she and Lyra began setting up the bombs on several power conduits in the room, some small, others large. About a minute passed before the two friends came back, Dash acknowledging them before the trio left the room and raced to the beam out point.

"Dash to Sparkle, we've taken out the shields and a power junction on this deck, we're heading back now!" Dash said before Twilight replied.

"Good, hurry up, though, they'll find out what caused all the ruckus soon!"

"Got it, Dash out!" The three ladies then raced past the previous rooms they'd bombed moments ago unnoticed as they kept their eyes out for any attention being drawn towards them.

In the cargo bay, Twilight, Sunset, and the others entered the room and quickly hid behind a large stack of cargo boxes, which hid their beam-out point. Pinkie Pie grew ecstatic upon seeing the new face in the group. "I see you've all made a new friend, guys!"

"Yeah, she's actually Applebloom's mirror counterpart, she and I bonded in the brig before our rescuers came." Sunset said to the party girl.

"By the way, call meh Creepybloom." The dark filly said to Pinkie before she responded.

"Sure! You look scarier than a pack of timberwolves! No offense." Pinkie stated before Creepybloom smiled happily at the compliment.

A noise sounded from the room entrance before the group looked to see Dash, Lyra, and Bon Bon entering the room, taking cover as Twilight's group did a moment ago.

"I think we're good to go, Twi, we've taken out the shields and we're ready to ge-" She was interrupted when shaking started up in the room and a beeping noise sounded from Twilight's combadge before she tapped it.

"Twilight, bad news, the Annorax is exiting the portal and... ....you better get back to the ship quick, it's not good." Moon Dancer said to Twilight before she replied.

"No problem, we've got another friend coming along as well, get a lock on us and beam us out before the guards arrive!"

"Understood, Equestria out." The signal cut out and about a second later several fields of energy encompassed the group, their bodies disappearing before the transporter beams did, leaving only the cargo boxes in the room.

~U.S.S. Equestria~

The bridge was full of noises from consoles and low chatter from the crewmen in the room, their eyes focused on the viewscreen before all three turbolifts opened, several officers entering the room before Moon Dancer looked to see Twilight leading the group on her right. Twilight stopped in her tracks when she saw what was on the viewscreen, a large, spherical structure similar to the one they'd seen five months ago was sitting in space, which contained no stars, only darkness with a few blue colored surges of energy appearing now and then.

Twilight and her friends stared at the sight in front of them, the Princess left wide-eyed before Moon Dancer spoke to her. "It looks like Noye found a way here, his ship is sending out a signal to a TLF fleet."

"He must've found a way to gain the data on where this place is, and how to get to it." Twilight said before Minuette spoke up as well.

"Yeah, and since he's found a way here, he'll most likely try to gain the data needed for accessing the other universes this can lead him to, and if he does that... we're screwed."

"We..... we can't let him get the data on the other universes, who knows what he'll do to the beings within them!" Twilight said as she went up to her command chair and tapped a button on the comms panel. "Sparkle to Stone, do you read me?"

"Loud and clear, Twilight, we can see it too, we're detecting a transporter signature coming from the Annorax, and Noye's life signs aren't on the ship anymore!" Wyatt said as Twilight replied.

"I'm sending an away team down there, can you help us out?"

"No problem, I'll be down there shortly!"

"Understood, Sparkle out!" Twilight tapped the comms panel and looked to her friends before the turbolift opened to reveal Applejack, Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle exiting out of the lift before the doors shut behind them.

"Applejack, you're okay!" Pinkie Pie said to the farm girl.

"Yeah, I've taken a minor scratch on my stomach, but I'll manage." Applejack said before Applebloom noticed a new face on the bridge.

"What the? Who in the hay is this? She looks a lot like me." Applebloom said to the group before the dark filly responded.

"Your mirror counterpart is who you're lookin' at, but ya can call meh Creepybloom." The group almost looked as if they wanted to laugh, but kept their focus on the task at hand as Twilight spoke up.

"Alright, now we need to get onto that sphere and stop Noye from tampering with the other realms it leads to, Flash, Applejack, Pinkie, Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Applebloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Thorax, Starlight, Trixie, you're all with me, the rest of you maintain the ship until we come back." The crew nodded before the group made their way to the turbolifts, the doors shutting in front of them upon stepping in.

Starlight looked to Trixie as they waited for the lift to stop and asked her, "I hope we can snap some sense into Noye, I don't want to have to fight him."

"Neither do I, Starlight, he's causing too much trouble already, let's just hope he doesn't try to harm us or anyone else while we try to stop him." Trixie said to her best friend as the eight friends stood in the turbolift, a slight movement happening every now and then as they were taken to their destination.

~The Sphere Archive~

The archive was expected to be swarmed by Krenim soldiers within minutes, but instead, only a few guards took their positions on the balcony, Noye being the only one on the main platform. He and his men had beamed into the archive moments ago, eliminating the guards near the archive and avoiding many more of them at distant areas, and now they were about to access the archive and get the data they needed to infiltrate the other realms that this sphere provided access to. Noye himself didn't waste no time in walking to the archive, pulling out a data chip and inserting it into the main computer upon reaching it. He looked at the screen on the console in front of the archive with high anticipation. "Soon, the Alliance will pay for their crimes against the timeline, and they'll hear it from our soon-to-be friends too when we meet them."

"Noye!" A male voice called out to him, forcing the traitorous scientist to turn around and see about fifthteen humanoid officers and three equines standing on one of the platforms that was connected by a pathway to the archive. The group gave varying expressions as they looked at Noye, some of them angry and others looking remorseful to him, Noye, however, only gave a sadistic grin as he responded to the Admiral's call.

"Ah, and I thought you were already washed out by my friends back there.... and it seems you've made a prison break for your friend. Well, at least you can watch while we gather some much desired assistance."

"You're already causing too much of a ruckus, Noye. Please, stand down and we can just go home, we don't need to fight about this." Wyatt said to his old friend before he retorted.

"Me, causing a ruckus? I'm trying to clean up a mess that you and your lackeys have made to the timestream, and soon you'll learn what happens when you try to control the way others live!" Noye said before Twilight spoke up to him as well.

"Noye, if the Alliance wanted to control others, do you think I'd be in this uniform right now? Do you think I'd have my own ship if we were truly puppets to the Alliance?"

"Of course, a puppet would wear such a barbaric uniform, your friends have ended millions of lives with their attempts at 'saving the galaxy' as you say, well you're about to see the error of your ways, Princess!" He was about to focus on his console once again before another voice spoke to him.

"No, you are the one who must see yours!" He looked back to see a pony with a similar fur color to Twilight's along with a mane and tail of purple and streaks of green within them walking out from the group, looking at him with a disappointed look on her face before she continued. "Changing the course of history is only going to lead to worse things happening, the galaxy could fall to the Borg, the Dominion, or even the race that forced you to make a mistake that you personally regret the most and blame us for." She stopped for a second before continuing again. "I don't want to have to fight you Noye, NONE of us do, and if you think I'm just another one of Wyatt's friends trying to butcher you and your friends, I once made a mistake like yours, one that threatened my friends and the land of Equestria when I went with it, and I regret doing such a thing every day even though Twilight and I fixed it in the end." She kept her eyes focused on Noye, keeping herself steady as she explained to Noye of her story.

"Before I befriended Twilight, I had become distant from everyone around me when I was a filly, it was all because of a cutie mark." She looked to her flank before she looked back and continued. "A friend of mine had gotten his before me and we became distant afterwards. I had felt so infuriated over that incident, even when I got my own cutie mark, I'd eventually went to a town and gained a powerful device which allowed me to take away everyone's cutie mark, while I lived a lie of a life trying to appear like everypony else in the town. When Twilight and her friends had arrived and I tried to make them join the town, they ended up freeing the town of the curse-like situation I'd put them in. And I was so angry with her after that, I wanted to get revenge on her by stealing a powerful scroll which helped me use a spell that allowed me to travel into the past and prevent Twilight and her friends from ever coming together. What was the price? King Sombra at war with Equestria, Chrysalis having taken over Canterlot and the remainder of Ponyville being led by a friend of ours named Zecora, Nightmare Moon bringing eternal night to Equestria, so many terrible outcomes came out of my actions, and I didn't even realize what I'd done until Twilight showed me the right of way. You don't have to be like me, Noye, don't do this. Let's just put our guns down, and go home... please."

The two looked at each other for a long moment, their eyes seemed to look into each other's minds, seeming like they both realized they shared the same pain. Starlight then extended a hoof out to Noye, offering herself to be his friend. Noye stood for a moment in front of the mare, looking down at her hoof as he pondered in his thoughts. He started to extend his hand out, looking as if he understood Starlight, before a blade immediately appeared out of his wrist armor. Upon his arm thrusting into Starlight, the blade impaled her through her chest, dark blood squirting out and more of it dripping out of her new wound as she yelped in pain.

"STARLIGHT!!!" Trixie screamed in horror at the sight of her close friend being attacked by the mad scientist as her friends next to her gasped in terror and shock at Noye's sudden action at Starlight, who grunted in pain as she looked to Noye as he spoke.

"You think that a simple cutie mark as you call it is something to destroy your home for? THEY murdered billions of innocent lives because they wanted to eliminate a race that wanted to take over the galaxy! Is that a good move to make, ending an entire world just to save the rest of the galaxy?! And you say WE, THE TWO OF US, ARE ALIKE!" Noye said to the injured mare before he pulled the blade out of the mare's chest, blood spirting out and dripping on Starlight as she stood, shaking slightly with shrunk pupils. Starlight started to feel dizzy as she stood, her legs feeling weaker every second before she lost her footing and fell to the ground, her body lying on the ground, almost unmoving.

Twilight started to tear up at the sight of her student on the pathway, she'd been forced to watched her friend suffer at the hands of an old friend right in front of her eyes, and everyone else. Not even friendship could get to Noye, this time, the only way to get his attention was bloodshed, and Starlight was another one of his examples. Trixie, however, was enraged at the sight seconds later, as she let out a vicious cry of anger and hatred before grabbing her pistol from her leg holster with her magic and firing at Noye. The shot hit him in the shoulder, he yelped in pain and growled upon being hit. The guards above the group then began to fire on the group, the two away teams setting up several shield barricades around them before they heard Noye speak again.

"Take care of them, I need to get the data for the portals!" Wyatt took a peek around the shield he was behind to see Noye focusing on the console as he tried to get the required data needed for transport to the other realms. Wyatt then looked up to the soldiers shooting at his friends around him before he pulled out his Phaser pistol and fired, a blue beam shot out from the small weapon before it hit one of the soldiers, turning him bright blue before he disappeared.

Twilight then formed up with Flash behind his shield and the two fired on several guards on the left flank, hitting each one with several shots until about seven of them were down. The two then took cover as another officer fired his weapon at the Princess and the guard, hitting the shield as they kept behind the shield.

Thorax took a careful look at the console Noye was attempting to access and, using his horn, charged up a powerful bolt of magic and fired at the console, which exploded in fire and smoke upon impact. Noye, however, didn't seem to change much, other than a frown and what looked to be mumbling to Thorax, he looked to the guards on the balconies and ordered, "Cover me, I've got enough for us to use on the enemy fleet!" Noye made his way towards another nearby platform as the soldiers above kept their focus on the group below.

"Take out the guards, Noye already has some of the data! We'll stop him once we get back to the ship!" Twilight said before she pulled out a photon grenade and threw it at a large group of TLF soldiers, all of them being shot against the wall within the balcony as the device exploded. Flash then grabbed his pistol and shot a good six soldiers as he dual-wielded his two weapons, then taking cover as another officer shot at him and missed as he crouched behind the shield.

Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle kept their focus on the right wing of the balcony, firing their weapons at the remaining 8 soldiers behind the railings as they took cover several times to keep safe from the enemy's shots. Applebloom then looked to her two friends as she spoke to them. "Ahright, I think if I can use these plasma grenades well enough, we can wipe that wing clean of soldiers! Cover me!" The two fillies kept themselves as the focus for the right wing's attackers while Applebloom stood and threw a total of four grenades into the balcony, releasing toxic plasma gas as they exploded. With the troopers stunned by the plasma radiation, the three fillies altogether fired their weapons at as many of the guards as they could, eventually leaving not a single trooper left in the right section of the balcony.

Wyatt looked to both balconies to see that the left wing had only three troops left at the moment, before looking to Noye to see that he had now arrived at the other platform, he tapped his wrist comms and spoke into it. Though Wyatt couldn't hear what Noye was saying, he could tell that he was making a run for it as a field of energy surrounded Noye before it disappeared along with Noye himself. He then looked to the left balcony to see that the other troopers had ceased fire, forcing the group to take a look and see that the remaining soldiers were tapping on their wrist comms as well before they too were surrounded by transporter beams and vanished.

"Cowards!" Dash yelled out before the troopers completely disappeared, leaving the group to take control of the room. After double-checking the room for enemy troops and seeing that there were none, Twilight looked to the pathway to see Starlight, lying on the ground in a recent pool of blood. Scared for their friend, Twilight and her friends ran over to Starlight to check on her injuries, because of the bloodbath they had after she'd been struck, she was left to bleed out from her wound, even if she wanted to, she couldn't get up.

Trixie sounded as if she was living out the end of the world as she sputtered to her friend. "S-Starlight, don't c-close your eyes, s-stay awake!" She then turned and spoke to Fluttershy, who was attending to Starlight at the moment. "Fluttershy, p-please tell me you can save her! I-I don't know if I can take this!"

Fluttershy was taking her scan of Starlight as Trixie stuttered to her, and the answer came when she finally finished her scans, which forced a solemn expression on her face as she answered. "S-....She's lost too much blood, we won't be able to get her to the ship in time." Fluttershy looked like she was tearing up as Trixie tried to speak.

"...N-no... No! Starlight, don't you dare fail on me now! Please!" Trixie begged her best friend before she faintly began to speak, grunting a few times as she tried to breathe.

"T-Trixie...I'm....sorry if.... we didn't get muc-UUGGH... time together...... ..... don't.... wo-worry about....me.... just-NGGHH.......stop....N-Noye...... please." Starlight managed to say before she started to grow weaker, her breathing slowly stopping and her hooves losing their grip, before Starlight fell to the ground for good, her eyes closed and her wound still bleeding before Trixie started to stutter again.

"No, no, NO! Starlight! DON'T GO! PLEASE!!! STARLIGHT!!!" At that statement, Trixie had lost control of her emotions as she buried her face into Starlight's chest, crying rivers of tears as she struggled to face the reality of the situation, Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy started to crack as well, tears welling in their eyes before the three of them began holding each other in a sorrowful embrace, Sweetie Belle. Dash and Applejack were tearing up as well, but the farm girl rather closed her eyes and took her hat off in sorrow while Dash looked away from Starlight's body as she tried to hold back the tears. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were tearing up too, Applebloom stood strongest out of the trio while Sweetie Belle bawled into Applebloom's shoulder and Scootaloo let her tears run free as she held her friend's other shoulder. Twilight, however, looked like she lost a child, Starlight was her student ever since the day she'd proved that she can make friends no matter what past anyone had, and now, she was dead, murdered right in front of her eyes by Noye, one who once served alongside them all in battle. She was about to burst when Flash came up to her and comforted her as she mourned her dead student. Wyatt, while he did seem to shed a tear, began to hang his head down as the rest of the crew did before Kapor looked to Wyatt, both of them understanding the Klingon way of mourning, they both lifted their heads up to the ceiling of the room and cried out a battle roar like most Klingons would do when their brethren had fallen, nearly scaring the bejesus out of Rarity and Fluttershy before they continued sobbing.

Twilight let some of her tears fall for a long moment before she wiped away the rest and tapped on her combadge. "...Sparkle to Equestria, a-are you there?"

The voice of Spike sounded from the console upon her words. "Spike here, Twi, has Noye been taken care of?"

"...No, he's gotten back to his ship and is getting ready t-to invade the other realms, we're beaming back immediately..... and.... get sickbay ready.... we have wounded down here."

"Got it. ......Twilight, you OK?" The dragon asked her friend before she answered him.

The Princess sniffed a little before trying to resist the urge to cry. "....No, it's bad, just beam us up."

"No problem, Spike out!" As soon as the signal cut out, Wyatt walked over to Twilight and spoke to her.

"I'm sorry Twilight, Noye'll get what's coming to him very soon." Wyatt said with a mournful expression as Twilight replied.

"I'm sure he will, Admiral." The rest of Twilight's friends tried to stop crying as they got ready to head back to the ship, they didn't want to be seen broken by what'd happened here. A moment after things had grown almost completely silent, several fields of energy surrounded each officer in the large group, their bodies vanishing before the fields did. Starlight would have to be mourned later, as they had a big mess to clean up, and they had to hurry before it got bigger.

Author's Note:

Hi everyone, I hope the story is still turning out good for you all, and I won't say much, but the next chapter is where the multiverse part is going to get juicy. Also, I apologize if I angered anyone who's a fan of Starlight Glimmer, how the story here played out to me felt like it just fit, and I actually spent all of last night deciding on which way I should play it. Besides, if you've played STO, then I'd hope you've played the two missions, "Temporal Reckoning" and "Ragnarok" in the "Future Proof" story arc, and if you haven't, then I'll say this spoiler BUT if you prefer not, then don't read the blurred bit: In the "Temporal Reckoning mission, Agent Daniels is killed halfway through the mission by Noye as he announces his plans for Procyon V, and later in the mission "Ragnarok", he is brought back to life after Noye's arrest since stopping Noye fixed the timeline in several ways. So I hope that gives you a bit of hope for Starlight possibly returning to the story in a sequel. Anyways, thanks for reading and have a good day, I'll try to get the next chapter ready soon. :)