Aftermath
Aftermath
“History books often gloss over the realities of engaging in warfare. In the case of Equestria’s military history, one will often read books that coldly describe the tactics used and who the most prominent leaders and strategists were. They’ll talk about weapons used in each battle, vehicles that charged over land and sea and air, and the innovations that granted the finest of edges to one side that led to victory. Commander Hurricane, of Hearth’s Warming Pageant fame, is often cited as one of history’s greatest military minds. His campaigns against the Gryphon Kingdom are of particular note, as they were the clout he’d used to gain the Pegasi Praetor’s permission to represent his nation in the negotiations with the Unicorns and Earth Ponies. As accomplished as he was though, I am now curious about how many hidden scars he had which he carried to his grave.”
-Twilight Sparkle, On Extra-Galactic Voyages, p. 455
Above the emerald surface of Endor, Rainbow Dash guided her A-wing starfighter around the wreckage of the intense battle that had been waged to win freedom for the galaxy. She deftly maneuvered the nimble little craft around a large chunk from a Nebulon-B frigate’s spindly midsection. Shaking her head, Rainbow wondered how that ship design had ever made sense to any engineer. She imagined the conversation went something like:
“Are you sure this design is what you want?”
“Yes, because it will save our company millions of credits if we only have to design the front and back ends of the ship.”
“Hot damn, you’re right! You get a promotion, Jones!”
Currently, Dash was flying CAP – Combat Aerospace Patrol – around a certain area of space. In lieu of displaying targeting data, the CMD was now showing her a 3D representation of her sector of the battle zone where she was expected to fly around and look for survivors. Her A-wing had some of the best sensors in the fleet, as befitted a starfighter meant for scout operations in addition to its role as an interceptor. But even so, her computer was having a hard time picking out survivors amidst the wreckage of starfighters, cruisers, and battleships, and so she was taking it slow and easy to be sure she didn’t miss anyone.
Having to fly this slowly was making her antsy. Even if she wasn’t craving speed like the daredevil she was, she was anxious to finish her CAP in order to get back to the hangar bay of Home One and see if Fluttershy was alright. They likely had already towed her shuttle back to the hangar by now, and she needed to see if her friend had made it out okay. Her thoughts were drawn back to her cockpit as she heard a tone sound from the main console. The CMD had switched over to a wireframe representation of a humanoid form, with a distance and coordinate displayed under it as well as information on the health of the individual. The wireframe had a helmet on its head, with a light blue glow around the front indicating a depleting atmosphere containment field. “Green Four to Lead, I have another pilot on my scope. I’m sending you his location now for extraction.” She took a hoof off the control column and hit a series of buttons on the comms unit to transmit the information to her flight leader.
“Copy that, Four. Marking location for SAR,” came the reply from…
She realized at that moment that she didn’t actually know who the flight leader was. In the confusion of battle, she had forgotten just who had taken position as lead after Arvel Crynyd gave his life to take out the Executor.
It bothered her somewhat that she couldn’t place the voice. But she had a job to do. She’d figure out the new duty roster when she got back to the pilot’s quarters.
After she confirmed the data had been received by her lead, she brought the CMD back to the search grid and continued following the flightpath laid out by her guidance computer. A few moments later, the cockpit went dark as something big blotted out the sun. She looked up.
A building-sized section of starship floated above her in the vacuum of space, tumbling slowly end over end. It was hard not to recognize it as the bridge tower of an Imperial Star Destroyer. The portholes were dark, and its neck terminated a few dozen meters below the bottom of the trapezoidal structure. A tangle of conduits and shattered structural members poked out from below the twisted metal armor surrounding it, and the overall shape of the module seemed to be slightly warped as a result of being shorn off the hull.
Slowing her craft even further to get a good look at the thing, Rainbow sighed. The sheer bulk of the ship boggled her mind. It made even less sense to her than the Nebulon-B frigate. According to her ship recognition holos, the Impstar Deuce was 1,606 meters long. It massed out at a dry weight of over 40 million metric tons. It had a crew complement of over 36,000 officers and men, as well as a contingent of almost 10,000 Stormtroopers. It housed an entire squadron of 72 fighters and bombers, as well as a host of shuttles, transports, and landing craft. Its weapons consisted of over 60 turbolaser batteries, 60 ion cannons, and eight octuple heavy turbolaser barbettes.
All that, and a handful of fighters could wipe it out with a few well-placed torpedo strikes with some assistance from capital ships.
She chuckled bitterly at the fact that this particular Star Destroyer had been beheaded, with its command center severed and leaving the rest of the ship to drift without its command staff, assuming it was still in one piece and this wasn’t just the largest surviving section of the massive cruiser. The bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer, like most Kuat Drive Yards designs, was hanging in the breeze, sticking out on top of the ship on a relatively thin stalk of a neck, as though it were daring a Rebel bomber squadron to give it their best shot. And judging by the tumbling bulwark above her, the Rebels indeed gave it their best shot and then some.
It really seemed to encompass all that was wrong with the Empire, when she thought about it. Its arrogance. Its reliance on fear and intimidation, not to mention overwhelming firepower. Most of all, it indicated the pervasive, languid wastefulness.
Rainbow nudged the throttle back up to where it had been and continued her search for more survivors, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how even against a fleet of Star Destroyers as well as a Death Star, the Rebels still managed to pull off a victory. This would be one for the history books.
-----
The rainbow-striped green A-wing rocketed into the main fighter hangar of Home One, its landing gear already extended. Hitting the repulsors and arresting her speed, Rainbow slammed her fighter onto a free spot on the deck, causing several technicians to dive for cover or sprint out of her way. She popped the canopy as soon as the red “touchdown” sensors were all lit. Bursting from the fighter like a firework, her wings popping open and flapping like crazy, she surveyed the status of the hangar.
It was pandemonium. Crews were rushing left, right, forward, and back with various tools and boxes of equipment as fighters were brought into the hangar in various stages of damage. Rainbow felt lucky looking at them. Her own fighter barely had any carbon scoring on it aside from the fresh burns on her concussion missile launchers and laser cannons and a couple of near-misses. In contrast, she could see an A-wing from Red Squadron with almost an entire engine blown off only a few meters away. An X-wing from a squadron she couldn’t identify was being towed in on a repulsor sled due to damaged aft landing gear and engine nacelles. She ducked instinctively as a B-wing flew overhead, seemingly out of control and definitely on fire internally, and it was only due to the hangar’s tractor beam that it managed to land safely and not careen into the wall at the back of the massive hangar.
She searched the hangar, buzzing back and forth between the ships parked on the deck and trying to find out where the rescue shuttle was. It seemed like the deck was plastered in starfighters, but no shuttles. With a growl, she dropped to the deck and grabbed the nearest mechanic. “Where’s the rescue shuttles? I need to find my friend, Fluttershy!”
He responded with a gruff, “Get your hoof off me!” as he yanked his arm out from her grasp. “Hangar Three! Other side of the ship!”
Rainbow gave a quick, “Thanks!” and was off to the turbolift. The motorized car was quicker than any elevator she’d ever ridden in Equestria, but even so it felt agonizingly slow to get from one side of the massive ship to the other. As soon as the car docked and the door opened, she burst out, flying past two Sullustan mechanics discussing a problem with a CR-90 corvette’s hyperdrive. “Sorry!” she shouted behind her as the two men picked up their caps and shouted curses at her.
This hangar was not quite as jam-packed and seemed a little more organized, with the rescue shuttles roughly lining up in a grid formation on the hangar deck. A semi-organized flow of medical traffic was ferrying the wounded and dead from the small ships. She couldn’t tell which shuttle was carrying Fluttershy at first, but then a boxy craft cleared the magnetic containment shield around the hangar aperture and glided past her. She flapped her wings to match speed with it and peered into the windows, surprising everyone in the main cabin within as her large magenta eyes popped up in every porthole. “Fluttershy?!” she shouted through the transparisteel. “Are you in there?!”
She finally spotted Fluttershy on a floating repulsor gurney, a breath mask over her muzzle and several bags of bacta wrapping around her torso and legs. “Fluttershy!” shouted Rainbow as she flew next to the shuttle. It found its way to a clear spot on the deck, hampered somewhat by Rainbow flitting up in front of the cockpit canopy and shouting, “Can’t you land this thing any faster?!” But as soon as the ship touched down on the deck and the ramp extended, Rainbow flew into the main compartment so quickly she left a rainbow-colored trail behind her. She zoomed over to Fluttershy and hovered above her as she said, “Fluttershy! Fluttershy, speak to me!”
Fluttershy weakly tugged the oxygen mask down and said, “H-hello, Rainbow.”
As the medical team started to push the gurney and filed in behind the other wounded combatants, Rainbow kept pace with it and hovered next to her friend. “How did you survive the Death Star? I saw that thing blow up your ship!”
“Oh…,” croaked Fluttershy. Her voice was barely above a scratchy whisper as she struggled to get air into her damaged lungs. “…felt useless in the medical bay… had to… do something… joined the rescue crew, right before we were hit… had to… do… someth…” She passed out mid-sentence, prompting one of the medical crew to replace her oxygen mask.
Rainbow hovered at the airlock and watched them push the gurney across the deck toward the medcenter on Home One, her face a mask of anguish. Even though Fluttershy survived, she was still badly wounded. Rainbow didn’t know whether she would make a full recovery, but she sighed in relief that her friend was still alive.
A glint of white, contrasting with the dark gray of the Alliance rescue craft, appeared in Rainbow’s peripheral vision. She turned her head to see a graceful Lambda-class shuttle alight on a free spot on the deck. She was confused. Wasn’t this hangar supposed to be reserved for rescue ships? Then the boarding ramp lowered and she could see why this ship was parking here.
Slowly coming down the ramp and favoring her injured legs, Twilight Sparkle held her head up with dignity. Rainbow’s chest tightened and she forced herself to swallow down a lump of anxiety as she saw that her body was crisscrossed with black scorching and blistered, bare skin. She was followed by Princess Celestia, who was similarly injured and covered in burn marks. The crowd around them hushed, with one of them whispering about “the creatures that blew up a Star Destroyer with one shot from their horns”. Rainbow swooped up and landed next to Twilight, then gave her a timid hug. She responded anyway with a yelp in spite of Rainbow’s careful embrace. “Heheh,” chuckled Rainbow sheepishly. “Sorry!”
“It’s okay, Rainbow. Let’s just get to a bacta tank, okay?” Twilight smiled at her friend and leaned against her for support. Rainbow was all too happy to oblige, taking as much weight as Twilight needed her to. As they walked away from the shuttle, a collective gasp emerged from the crowd. Rainbow turned her head to see what they were gasping at and immediately her eyes laid on a familiar cyborg in black armor and a skull-like mask. “What the hay… what is he doing here?”
Celestia looked at Rainbow and said, “He helped us to escape the Emperor’s wrath. He is turning himself over willingly to the Rebel Alliance for interrogation.” As she said this, a dozen Alliance marines ran up in formation and surrounded Darth Vader. They all drew their blaster carbines. The sounds of multiple weapons being cocked at once caused the medical staff that were transporting patients to pause momentarily in their duties and watch the spectacle. One of the troopers holstered his weapon and brought out a pair of magnacuffs, then after opening them he forced Vader’s wrists into the locks and bound them. The entire time, Vader was completely still and silent, save for his mechanical breather.
Rainbow watched as the marines led Vader toward the turbolift cluster. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth drew to a grim line. That guy was trouble, she just knew it. Vader’s evil was something she’d heard discussed multiple times during R&R in the pilot’s lounge, and she wanted to end him personally for all he’d done to the people of the galaxy.
The doors closed around the group of marines, and she growled as she, Twilight, and Celestia boarded their own turbolift car. Just once, she hoped that this would be a villain they didn’t end up reforming.
-----
A whiff of seawater and earthiness hit Twilight as she walked closer and closer to one of the central features of Home One. The ship was a battleship and the Alliance’s flagship, so when she initially arrived on the ship and learned that the heart of the vessel housed a massive lagoon surrounded on all sides by vegetation and stocked with a variety of exotic fish, she had been rather shocked. She’d made a mental note to eventually visit the lush location and lounge near its waters, after she found some free time. Working for the Alliance hadn’t left her with very much of it before the battle to destroy the Death Star, so she was very much looking forward to having some time to relax on the beach.
At least, she hoped she’d be able to relax. Her muscles still had occasional spasms, leftovers from the barrage of lightning the Emperor had unleashed on her body. Even after a couple of days in a bacta tank, she hadn’t completely gotten rid of them. The medical droid on staff had told her he was unsure why the treatment didn’t work to cure her spasms, but in her heart she knew why.
It was the Dark Side.
She was sure that the Emperor’s wrath was so powerful and vengeful that even now, when his body was reduced to atoms and he was no longer a threat, he was still able to cause some form of harm to her. She found herself completely unsurprised that the Emperor would be able to hurt people, even from beyond the grave.
Twilight passed around a bend in the corridor, and then she stopped in her tracks. Her vision was dominated by a huge, placid lake, ringed on all sides by pristine white sand and trees that looked similar to palm trees from Equestria. The water of the lake was tinged a deep blue-green and she could see fish swimming in it under the surface. A salty breeze washed over her, carrying the scent of the ocean. Even the roof had been equipped with a holoprojector to create a simulacrum of an open, clear sky with a single blazing sun overhead that seemed to produce real heat. Her heart swelled as she felt for the first time like she was truly back on her home planet. Moisture gathered in her eyes as homesickness she’d felt but had precious little time to properly express suddenly overwhelmed her, and she sniffled.
“You alright, hun?” said a familiar voice behind her.
“AJ!” said Twilight as she turned around to give her friend a hug, her emotions allowing her to push back the muscle aches caused by embracing her friend. “I’m fine. I’m just really, really happy that we’re so close to returning home.”
Applejack chuckled as Twilight released her. “I hear ya. I’ve been trying to ignore it for months now, that feeling of homesickness. But the Empire’s gone, and we’re about to go home! I’m gonna see my family again! I bet they’ve been worried sick about me!”
Nodding, Twilight said, “I bet they have, though Princess Celestia and I think we might be able to return to the moment in time we left Equestria!”
This broadened Applejack’s smile. “Really?! That’s great! Do you know when we’ll be headin’ back?”
“No, not yet,” said Twilight. “But rest assured, Applejack, we’re going home!”
Applejack reared back on her hooves and shouted, “Yee-haw!” as loud as she could, then galloped out of the corridor onto the beach. Her tail whipped in the air as she bucked and jumped, happiness bursting from her in an explosion of glee that rivaled the destruction of the Death Star.
Twilight joined her a few minutes later, wincing as another spasm of pain shot through her back legs. “Urgh…” she muttered, the remnants of the Emperor’s barrage of lightning ruining the perfection of her mood. The feeling didn’t last long, however, as her hooves hit the sand. It felt warm and soft, and pushed back the negative feelings in a wave of euphoria.
As she got closer to the beach, she saw Leia Organa and Han Solo walking hand in hand together on the edge of the water. Their mouths were curled up in a smile, and even somepony as socially stunted as Twilight could tell the two were deeply in love with each other.
She heard somepony walk up beside her. Turning, she saw Rarity, a similarly dreamy look on her face. “Ah me…” she breathed. “It is so wonderful to see love blossoming. I do hope they get married before I have to go back home. I would adore the opportunity to design Princess Leia’s wedding dress! I’ve never worked with humans before! It would be so exciting!”
“I bet you’d do an amazing job, Rarity!” said Twilight.
“Thank you, Twilight! But where are my manners? How have you been? You were in quite a bit of pain after the Emperor did…” Rarity struggled a moment to find the right words as she glanced over the still blackened fur all over Twilight’s body. “…whatever it is he did to you.”
“I’m alright,” said Twilight, who winced as another shot of pain rippled through her back. “Just wish these spasms would stop.”
“Have you talked to a doctor about it?”
Sighing, Twilight replied, “Yes, but that droid has no idea what could be causing it. Maybe I should find a flesh and blood doctor to ask.” She chose not to reveal her suspicions about the effects of Force lightning, out of concern for making Rarity worry too much about her.
“Perhaps that would be better, dear,” said Rarity.
As they walked along the sand and enjoyed the feeling of their hooves sinking into it, they saw two more of their friends on the beach. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were walking slowly up to them. As they got closer, Rainbow said, “See? I told you they’d be here!”
Fluttershy looked puzzled. “Didn’t the protocol droid we passed in the hallway tell us they were here?”
“I already knew, I was just getting confirmation!” said Rainbow in a tone Twilight found less than convincing in its sincerity.
“Ladies!” said Rarity as she trotted up to them.
“Hey y’all!” said Applejack, who had finished frolicking in the sand and was trotting up to meet them. “Fluttershy! I didn’t expect you to be out of bed this soon!” She walked up to Fluttershy and looked her up and down. “Whew! You look just dandy! How’d you get well this quickly?”
She smiled with a blush and said, “I just remember being lowered into a bacta tank and then pulled out a while later feeling just fine, with only a few scars here and there that it didn’t heal.” With a snort, she added, “I really wish I could get the smell of it out of the back of my nose.”
“It sure seems like a miracle drug,” said Twilight. “I was pretty banged up from being assaulted by the Emperor, but after the bacta dip I feel great!”
“That’s awesome!” said Rainbow. She grinned, and Twilight enjoyed seeing her cocky expression. “Man, I am so glad I got to fly in that battle! I shot down so many fighters they’re not gonna have enough room on my A-wing to fit all the kill marks!”
“Yeah?” said Applejack. “Well, I’m gonna have to get a jacket made so I can put a patch on it with all the Imperial walkers I tripped up during the forest battle!” She gave a few mock bucks. “Those Imps never saw me coming!”
“Well,” said Rainbow with a touch of defensiveness in her voice, “I didn’t just take down fighters! Me and my flight leader managed to nab a Star Destroyer! And not just any Star Destroyer, either. It was Darth Vader’s command ship, the Executor herself!”
“You’re kiddin’!” said Applejack. “You mean to tell me you in your little A-wing fighter managed to take out a ship the size of Manehatten?!”
Rainbow beamed at this, shooting up into the air and flipping around in a loop. “Yeah! It was awesome, like taking out a dragon!”
As her smile threatened to split her head in two, a human man walked up to them on the beach in Alliance pilot fatigues. He smiled up at Rainbow Dash and said, “You sure pulled some fancy flying out there today.”
The sight of the man caused Rainbow to gasp and then alight next to him. “Captain Antilles! Thank you, sir!” She saluted him and he returned the salute. “But I can’t take all the credit. My squadron really did most of the heavy lifting, and my flight leader was…” The gusto seemed to leave her as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He was a great man, sir. Best in the fighter corps. He took out the Super Star Destroyer’s bridge, sir. Gave his life doing it.”
Nodding solemnly, Wedge Antilles said, “I knew Captain Crynyd, and he was a good pilot, and a good friend. Rest assured, he will be remembered with honors.”
“Good. And sir? It was an honor to fly with you, sir.”
“Likewise,” he said. “You flew like you had the Force on your side today, Rainbow. You had one of the highest kill ratios in the fleet!”
“Well,” said Rainbow with a blush, “I had great motivation.” She glanced at Fluttershy with a smile, who also blushed as she looked away with a grin.
The moment was burst like a balloon as Pinkie Pie bounced up to the group and shoved a branch full of little white, poofy cylinders nestled between its leaves toward them. “Check it out, you guys! They have plants on this ship that totally grow marshmallows!”
Applejack gave them a sniff and recoiled a bit. “Pinkie, are you sure them are safe to eat?”
“Of course, silly!” said Pinkie. “I mean, look at them! They look just like marshmallows!” She opened her mouth wide and chomped down on a cluster of the fruits. “Mmmmm, see? They’re… uh…” Her eyes went wide, her throat emitted a muted gagging noise, and then she bent forward and spewed masticated white mush from her mouth. She held her tongue with one hoof and scraped the surface with the other, not seeming to care that there was still sand stuck to it. “Gaaaggghhh! Ay’ ’aste ’ike ’oap! An’ ’and!”
She ran off gagging as the rest of her friends shared a collective laugh at her expense. Twilight watched her run off to wash her mouth out with fresh water from a refreshment station set into the wall of the massive chamber. Then she noticed Princess Celestia laying on the sand a few dozen meters away, a serene expression on her face as she stared out at the surface of the lake. Eager to spend some time relaxing with her teacher, Twilight trotted along the sandy beach toward Celestia with a grin.
“Princess Celestia!” she said as she approached the alicorn. Celestia turned her head and smiled at Twilight as she sidled up and laid down next to her.
“Twilight Sparkle,” said Celestia as she draped a wing over Twilight, “my most faithful student. How are you feeling?”
Stretching her neck a bit to head off another muscle spasm she’d felt coming on, Twilight said, “About as good as can be expected. I hope these spasms go away eventually, though.”
“I hope so as well,” said Celestia, nuzzling her student momentarily before going back to gazing at the water before them. The two of them stared at the water, and as they did Twilight found her thoughts slowly being pulled from the beauty of the artificial lagoon in front of her toward her home. She began to think about the heat of the sun, the now-parched landscape, and the chaos that would likely ensue from that. It briefly crossed her mind that Discord would have been reveling in the destruction caused by the lack of magic rotating the planet, and she was thankful she and her friends were able to use the Elements of Harmony to imprison him in stone once again.
She sighed heavily as she thought about the task laid out before her. The galaxy was massive, and while she knew of a few planets that she thought likely to be a place the Emperor would store his secrets, they were still planets. Any one of them would have hundreds of millions of square kilometers of surface area – assuming they were roughly the size of Equii – which would take decades to search even given the best possible advantages. She felt her heart begin to sink, which was when Celestia nuzzled her and said, “Twilight, what’s wrong?” Her tone sounded as though it were meant to convey comfort, but Twilight was anything but receptive to being comforted right now.
“The Emperor brought us here, Princess,” said Twilight. “But he didn’t tell us anything about how he did that. It could have been some kind of machine, but it could have easily been a spell he himself created that only he could cast. It’s…” She sighed heavily. “It’s a big problem that we need a solution for, and I’m not even sure there is a solution to be found.”
Nodding, Celestia said, “I understand how you feel, Twilight. There have been many challenges throughout my life that I felt were impossible to solve, even if I had all eternity to solve them.” She chuckled sadly. “Many of them revolved around my sister. Luna was such a little prankster. She would often pull tricks on me or the castle staff, just because she could. It took many moons to figure out how to explain to her why she couldn’t just transform the lavatories into monsters that swallowed ponies, even if it just ended up transporting them to the castle sewage system instead of actually eating them.”
Twilight looked up at Celestia with equal parts amusement and disgust. “She did what?!”
Laughing again, Celestia said, “She was quite the little rapscallion, as I said.” The grin faded from her mouth as she echoed Twilight’s sigh from a few moments ago. “I find my thoughts occupied by her safety. I only just got her back, Twilight. I don’t want to lose her again.” Her features hardened into resolve.
“We’ll get them both back,” said Twilight. “Luna and Spike. I know the Emperor said they were beyond help, but I can still feel them.” She suppressed a wave of emotion, a crest from a vast reservoir of pain that had been slowly growing ever since she had first been separated from Spike.
“I can as well. They must still be alive, somehow. Their bodies are consumed by the energies of the Dark Side of the Force, but I know Luna and Spike are still clinging to consciousness, somehow.” She frowned. “I don’t know how. But I know they are still there.”
“Do you think it’s because Luna is able to resist the Emperor’s power? She was once a victim of the Nightmare Forces. Perhaps her experience with that is helping her drive off the Dark Side magic and keep Spike from falling victim.”
Celestia appeared to consider Twilight’s words. “It’s possible. It’s also possible that the Emperor merely slowed the growth of their technobeast form in a ploy to lure us both to the Death Star in order to either force us to join him or die. Or perhaps he thought they would be so broken mentally by this process that they would be willing to join him in order to get the entechment reversed.
Twilight nodded, then she stood up slowly, a groan rumbling out of her throat at her leg joints protested being forced to deal with standing her up and putting up with the remains of the Force lightning barrage simultaneously. “I think I’d better stretch my legs a bit. Maybe if I get some exercise these spasms will stop pestering me.”
Celestia smiled and said, “If you find a solution to that, Twilight, please inform me at your earliest convenience. You’re not the only one suffering from the ill effects of the Emperor’s wrath.” As if to punctuate the sentence, her muscles writhed under the surface of her skin, and she stretched in order to ward off the worst of them. “And perhaps you might visit the ship’s library again soon. There may be clues as to where the Emperor is hiding the device he used to abduct us.”
With a quiet gasp of realization, Twilight said, “I think I know who I can talk to about how the Emperor transported us here! If you’ll excuse me, Princess?” She gave her body a shake to get rid of the sand as Princess Celestia nodded her assent, and then she started to trot toward the entrance to the lagoon. Annoyingly, not all of the sand had come off her coat, and she could feel it in crevices she really wished it hadn’t gotten into. It really gets absolutely everywhere…
She explored the maze-like corridors of the ship, grateful the Mon Calamari had a sense of ergonomics with the gracefully curved features in the walls and gentle slopes of the deck. It helped her to deal with the aching she still felt, both from the lightning barrage and her lingering homesickness. She meandered along the never-ending avenues of the ship and tried to figure out where the brig was located. But eventually she gave up trying to find her way around and hailed the nearest service droid.
The barrel-shaped robot rolled up to her and bleeped and booped in what sounded an awful lot to Twilight like it was annoyed at her. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to know if you could point me in the direction of the brig?”
Another series of electronic noises emitted from a grille in front of the droid’s casing, and it sounded both shocked and inquisitive.
Using her best guess as to what the droid had said, Twilight responded, “I wish to talk to a prisoner we just took into custody. I have the necessary clearance.” In truth, she didn’t rightfully know if her status as ‘rebel hero’ was enough rank to gain access to Vader, but this robot didn’t need to know that.
Hooting in an unsure tone, the droid hesitantly rolled around and began to trundle down the corridor toward a cluster of turbolifts. Twilight smiled and said, “Thank you!”
The little unit blurbled in a rude sounding tone, but Twilight decided discretion was the better part of valor in this case. Besides, even if these machines were intelligent, she still felt awkward at the idea of getting into an argument with a maintenance droid.
-----
As the door to the brig hissed open, Twilight was struck by how clean and, frankly, luxurious the brig looked. Even if the cells themselves were small, every surface of the brig was adorned with curved corners and polished white paint. She looked down at the maintenance droid and said, “Thank you, sir!”
Blurbing another rude remark, likely a complaint about being diverted from its programmed tasks, the little droid sped off down the corridor seemingly in an effort to get as far from the annoying purple quadruped as possible. Twilight rolled her eyes and then walked up to the security console in front of her, smiling up at the armored alien standing on the elevated platform behind it as she did so. Twilight wasn’t sure what species he was, but he had a round, wrinkled head and an entirely unreadable expression on his face. “Hello! I’m Twilight Sparkle, and I was hoping I might have a word with Darth Vader.”
The guard looked down at her, his prune-like expression not changing. “I’m sorry, but that prisoner is extremely dangerous. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to visit him without an armed escort.”
This annoyed Twilight. She was the one who brought him in, for pony’s sake! “Listen, I know he’s dangerous, but Princess Celestia and I were instrumental in his capture. In fact, he went with us willingly. I assure you, there is no danger in allowing me to have a few words with him.” This was true not just because he’d gone with them of his own accord, but she also gambled that being reintroduced to the Light Side of the Force would be more than enough to prevent any sort of treachery on his part.
Appearing to consider this for a few minutes, the prune-faced guard said, “Alright. But I’ll be right here. Just call out if you sense for even a moment that you’re in danger. We have stun cuffs on him, and the room can be filled with nerve gas to stun the both of you if it comes to that.”
She nodded, then after being told which cell he was in, she thanked the guard and began walking down the corridor of cube-shaped rooms. She eventually came to the one Darth Vader was in.
She frowned. No… not Darth Vader. He’s Anakin. Anakin Skywalker. Even if he still looks like an evil Sith Lord, he is no longer a Sith, and should not bear the name of one. Nodding to herself and then taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she hit the illuminated blue square on the control panel that was labeled as the force field control. The white lights surrounding the cell suddenly dimmed and the humming emanating from it died. Then she stepped through the entrance and into the cramped room within, where Anakin sat on a cot which seemed entirely too narrow for his great size.
“Um… Anakin?” she said as she walked up in front of him.
He didn’t seem to notice her at first, his black mask seeming to be focused on a spot on the floor in front of him. After several seconds, he muttered, “Is there something you wish to say?”
“No,” said Twilight. She lowered her rump to the floor and said in a casual manner, “I just wanted to talk and see how you’re doing.”
Anakin’s shoulders momentarily lifted in a quiet chuckle. “You address the dead and ask how they’re doing,” he said quietly. “As I told my son, Anakin is no more. He died when I killed him all those years ago, and I cannot bring him back.”
“That’s not what Luke tells me,” said Twilight.
“Then he is –” began Anakin, but he cut off what he was about to say and lowered the volume of his voice. “Luke is mistaken. I am Darth Vader.”
Twilight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. This man was even more stubborn than Rainbow Dash. “Well, I’m going to call you Anakin since that is your true name. And I don’t care if you like it or not! You’re Anakin Skywalker, father of Luke Skywalker, and you can tell me you’re Darth Vader till you’re blue in the, er, helmet, but I’m going to call you Anakin. Alright?”
The mask turned up from the spot on the floor it had been pointed at and then looked in Twilight’s eyes. “You are quite a stubborn Jedi.”
“I get it from my brother,” said Twilight.
Sighing, Anakin growled, “Well, call me whatever you wish. It no longer matters. My life has been forfeit ever since I was first seduced to the Dark Side by Palpatine. I have done so much evil in the name of furthering my power in the Force that I have no more good left in me. It would have been preferable for you to have left me on the Death Star so I may die where the last remnants of the Dark Side died.”
“That’s not true!” said Twilight. She suddenly put her forelegs on Anakin’s knees and leaned forward to look directly at his helmet. “You’ve got a second chance now! Your son rescued you and broke the Emperor’s yoke from your neck! Even if the galaxy doesn’t believe that you’re different, Luke knows that you are, and so do I!” Her voice slipped into a pleading tone, now no longer caring about interrogating him for information and just focused on helping him discover a modicum of self-worth. “I know you hate the things you did as Darth Vader, but you’re no longer that person! You’re Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight!”
For a few long moments the only sound in the tiny cubicle was the whirring of the air conditioner and the mechanical breathing of Anakin’s helmet. Then he said, “You have a good heart, Twilight Sparkle. But your confidence in me is misplaced. I am not the good person you think I am. Please, just leave me alone.”
Twilight opened her mouth again, preparing to berate him for being so stubborn, but then she closed it and said, “Fine. But I know the truth, and I hope you’ll eventually let me show it to you.”
With that, she took her hooves off his knees and stood up, then she exited the cell and activated the forcefield on the way out. As she walked back toward the lagoon, she passed Luke Skywalker in the corridor, apparently on his way toward the brig to talk with his father. “Hi, Luke,” she said. She felt like she had to drag the greeting from her throat, as though the emotional outpouring she just gave to Anakin drained her of every last ounce of energy.
He looked at her with concern. “Are you okay?”
“Well, if you must know, I just had a talk with the most stubborn man in the galaxy,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm from slipping into her tone. “But other than that, I’m just peachy!” She exhaled forcefully and quietly said, “I hope you can convince him that he’s no longer Darth Vader. He’s practically suicidal.”
Luke said, “I’ll try, but he was one of the most powerful Jedi of the Clone Wars, and part of that was the fact that he was too stubborn and single-minded to ever give up once he set his mind to something. At least, that’s how Obi-Wan put it.” He chuckled lightly at that.
Twilight just lowered her head a tad with a sigh and said, “I’m going back to the lagoon to relax. Maybe the waves will calm my nerves.” As Luke bade her farewell and resumed his trek to the brig, she walked down the corridor toward the hallway that led back to the turbolift alcove and hoped she’d find a more agreeable droid to guide her this time.
-----
As the six ponies and Celestia disembarked the turbolift, they gasped at the beauty of the blue-green marble of Endor floating in space outside the hangar of Home One. “Whoa,” said Rainbow Dash. “Y’know, even though I was flying out there during the battle, it’s still really cool to see that moon hanging out there in space.”
“It really is lovely,” said Fluttershy as they walked along the metal deck plating toward a sleek-looking blue-striped craft parked in the middle of the hangar. Something about the ship seemed vaguely reminiscent of both a fox and a bird of prey at the same time, and Twilight found the design quite pleasing to the eye.
Applejack smiled and said, “It’s really a shame that we have to say goodbye to him, isn’t it? I mean, he saved our flanks a hundred times on the way to the Rebellion.”
The six ponies said, “Mmhmm!” in unison as they approached the birdlike spacecraft. Then Pinkie Pie said, “Wait… we are talking about Junas, right?”
“Yes, Pinkie, we’re talking about Junas,” replied Applejack with an annoyed tone.
As they approached Junas’ vessel, he appeared from behind the radiator fins at the back and said, “Oh, hey fillies. Come to see me off?”
“Of course!” said Twilight. She ran up to him and wrapped her hooves around him in a hug. The other ponies soon followed suit, and all of them began to nuzzle him. Even Celestia joined in, wrapping her massive wings around them all. “We owe you so much!” said Twilight, “And we might not ever see you again!”
He chuckled, and Twilight thought she could hear him holding back emotion in his voice. “Shoot, girls… I don’t know what to say.”
“Just shut up and take the group hug,” said Rainbow with a grin. They all snuggled him hard, and he returned the hug. None of them broke the embrace for several moments.
Finally, Pinkie Pie said, “Wait! I have something for you!” From out of nowhere she produced a large cake with writing on it. “It says, ‘Farewell from your Ponyville friends and I hope you never, ever, ever, ever, forget about us and that you find a way to come visit us someday’!”
Twilight squinted as she looked at the hot pink icing. It had apparently started out with words, but eventually it ended up being scrunched up into a jumbled mess that continued down the side of the cake. “It does?”
“I, uh, kinda ran out of room,” said Pinkie with a blush. “But it tastes good, at least!” Then she unhinged her jaw and took a massive bite from the side of the cake. “Mmmmm!” she said as she chomped the bite she took.
The rest of the group laughed at her antics, and then Junas said, “I think I’ll pass. I had a big lunch.” Then he let them all go and said, “Okay, well, I hate to cut this goodbye short, but I have a launch deadline to meet.” He took a small datapad out from his utility belt and waved it at them. “There’s some activity near the Unknown Regions that I gotta go check out.”
With a smile, Twilight said, “Thank you so much, Junas. We’d never have been able to make it without you. We owe you our lives. And I hope we can see you again someday.”
“I hope so too, girls,” he said, then he added softly, “And I hope you can find a way to restore Spike. He doesn’t deserve what he got from that black hearted monster.”
Twilight felt a pang of emotion as he said this, then swallowed the lump in her throat and said, “I promise, we will do everything we can.”
He gave her one last hug, and then turned around and walked up to the back of the ship’s beak. He reached up and pulled open the hatch, then extended a set of footpegs to climb into the cramped interior of the ship. “Better stand back,” he said from the entry port. “These HWK-290s pack quite a punch.”
The ponies all took a few steps back as Junas closed the hatch and retracted the footpegs. Moments later, from inside the HWK’s aft section, a hissing sound gave way to a loud whine, followed by even more mechanical noises in an orchestrated cacophony. A turquoise glow then bloomed from the engine nozzles as plasma flooded the manifolds, and then the ship floated gracefully off the deck and folded its landing gear up into their housings. Slowly the ship rotated till it faced the hangar aperture.
“Huh,” said Rainbow. “Doesn’t seem like it’s got that much of a – ”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence as the ship’s engines flared to life, sending a wave of hot gasses and ozone blasting past them. It quickly shrank to a glowing blue dot banking away from Endor, leaving them all braced against the deck with their manes blown back by the force from the ion drives.
With a cough, Rainbow squeaked, “Okay, I need one of those ships!”
Rarity growled as she maneuvered her hooves under her barrel and righted herself, then brusquely whipped her mane away from her face. “He… did that… on purpose.”
“Wait, where’s Celestia?” said Twilight. The alicorn had disappeared, and the ponies all looked around but didn’t see her anywhere.
“Maybe she went to the infirmary,” said Applejack. “Even a princess needs treatment from time to time, and she did get into a mighty big tussle with the Emperor. And as I recall, so did you, Twilight.” She looked at Twilight with a smile and put a hoof on her withers. “Why don’t you go join her? You’ve been actin’ like you got ants crawlin’ up and down your legs all day. Maybe the doctors can do something about it.”
Twilight thought about objecting, but as soon as she opened her mouth to do so, her legs locked up in another spasm. After fighting it off and brushing aside concern from her friends, she said, “Yeah, I think I’d better go see if they can do something about this.” She knew they didn’t really know what was causing it, but maybe the doctors had some kind of numbing salve that she could use to suppress the worst of it. “Thanks, Applejack.”
“No problem, Twilight.” Applejack smiled and nuzzled her friend.
After returning the nuzzle, Twilight headed back toward the turbolifts. She sighed to herself as she opened up the door leading to the car, hoping that Junas would be alright. She knew they had little chance of really seeing him again, but a part of her still thought maybe someday they’d meet again. She punched in a command to take her to the nearest medical bay, then plopped her rump on the floor as the door closed and the car shot off into the bowels of the ship.
As she rode the turbolift, she leaned against the inner wall and allowed her mind to wander. Fragments of memory floated in her mind like leaves on the wind, and she didn’t seem to have the energy to form more concrete thoughts than that. Eventually, her mind slowed down and things coalesced to thoughts of Spike, and how he had been corrupted and mutilated by Palpatine. She tried to push those thoughts away, but only succeeded in leaving room for thoughts of how the baby dragon had been entrusted to her by Celestia, and how he had grown to be more than just an assistant. He was her best friend.
He was her little brother.
Then her mind drifted to how she had been unable to save him from the clutches of the Emperor. Her mind’s eye unwillingly showed her the memory of hearing him cry out as they were running to flee Nar Shaddaa. She replayed turning her head and seeing him grabbed and taken by the Empire’s thugs. She saw his face, contorted to unimaginable fear as he was separated from the pony who had raised him. She could feel Junas holding her back and forcing her to abandon him. She couldn’t stop the feeling of failing her little brother, the baby dragon who was entrusted to her protection. And now he was in a cage, encrusted with Sith technology, and she didn’t even know if it was possible to bring him back. Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of emotion, she slammed her hoof on the stop button, and then slumped to the floor as she wept loudly and uncontrollably.
-----
The Mon Calamari ship, Princess Celestia found, was an agreeable design. Compared to the tramp freighters they’d spent a majority of their time in, the Mon Cala designers seemed to spare no expense in luxury. She was aware that these ships had started life as star cruisers, flying along the spaceways as exploration vessels, which accounted for most of their interior design, but she suspected even if that wasn’t the case that the Mon Calamari would still try to incorporate beauty and curves into their designs.
Thus, she was a bit surprised at the fact that the cargo bay was so utilitarian. Even if the landing bay was a blocky, bare-bones affair, she had assumed all areas of the interior were white and rounded, not at all like the slab-sided room before her that seemingly housed hundreds of thousands of containers and barrels. It was eerily quiet, with the night workers all on their mid-shift meal break, and she could hear her golden accouterments clacking noisily against the deck as she walked purposefully toward an area near the back of the compartment.
The tall stacks of boxes that formed a narrow corridor soon parted to reveal an area that was clear save for two black, spherical cages. Their jagged edges made the constructs seem less manmade and more like something pulled from the bowels of a swamp. The interior of the cages glowed with a faint ethereal light, a manifestation of the forcefields that served to contain the creatures within them.
The sight caused Celestia’s heart to break. Luna and Spike – or what was left of their bodies – were huddled up inside the cages as though they were asleep. But Celestia knew better. She could see the muscles under the cybernetic attachments go tense, and as she approached closer the two creatures suddenly unfolded themselves into a pair of snarling whirlwinds of raw, animalistic rage. They threw themselves at the bars of their cages, the faint glow suddenly flaring to white-hot brilliance as the forcefields released the energies contained in their capacitors.
Celestia instinctively put up a wing, but as the light from the fields died back to a faint glow once more, she sighed and folded it back against her body “I am so sorry, Luna,” she said as she approached her sister’s cage. The creature inside it paced back and forth like a hungry lion.
The sight of the blue alicorn princess encrusted by cybernetic devices was sickening to Celestia. Luna’s once brilliant blue left eye was smothered beneath black metal, with some kind of sensor that glowed a dull red dominating the center of the device and surrounded by ugly, sharp antennas. Wires trailed off it and were haphazardly stapled down the side of her head and neck. Her wings were augmented with technology that Celestia couldn’t deduce the purpose of, with wires and cables on it flopping around with each movement of her lithe body. Celestia could see hard edges poking up under her skin, in some cases causing bruising to appear under the fur and in other cases outright erupting from the surface of her skin. She swallowed a lump forming in her throat, and wiped away moisture which was quickly collecting in her eyes.
“My sister…” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry. I wish I’d been stronger. I could have saved you if I’d been stronger than the Emperor and his minions.”
She put a hoof up on the cage, causing Luna to snarl and snap at her. “I promise, I’ll find a way to restore you and Spike. I will not rest until you are both your former selves.”
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A bittersweet farewell to the first Rebel they met, as Junas takes his leave, and a new challenge of restoring Spike and Luna arises!
As for Vader, who knows?
Only time will tell for both.
Thank you for the update, I greatly enjoy crossovers. Especially this one, the emperor was an evil the likes of which Equestria never had to deal with before
Still don’t think Vader deserves redemption.
11603267 Redemption is not a thing that can be earned or deserved.
Redemption is a form of mercy, and as such, it is always a gift.
11603361
…..Ok?
11603361
Is this the same guy who murdered children who couldn’t have a hope of defending themselves?
Does he REALLY need the gift of mercy?
Really, dude?
11603556 He certainly doesn't think so, in this story.
But, again, you're putting it in terms of "earn" and "deserve".
Look at it from another point of view: whether or not Darth Vader 'needs' redemption, doesn't Luke Skywalker 'need' to offer it to his father?
11603701
Why are we having this conversation again?
11603701
Do not message me again. I didn’t ask for your opinion and to be bluntly honest, you put it in a very know it all way.
I don’t like Vader because he’s a hypocrite and an emotionally damaged war criminal. He DOES NOT deserve redemption for all the families and people he’s destroyed.
Now leave me alone.