My Little Space Empire: Mechs are Magic

by Wheezyandbreezy

First Impressions

Twilight, despite being the protege of a Viceroy of an Intragalactic empire, was still mildly nervous. S.P.I.K.E. had to tell Twilight more than once not to fidget with her spiffy new uniform. It had been a whirlwind of activity since she'd requested the operatives for her strike team. The shiny new dreadnought Damocles had been crewed and commissioned to the four hundred and twentieth Canterlot hussars, and tasked with hunting pirates. She'd been knighted and given a commission. The motor pool had been stocked with anything and everything that would be needful to construct Twilight's squad's mech units. S.P.I.K.E. was upgraded and uploaded onto the Damocles' central computer, much to the captain's and crew's confusion. Twilight was by no means in charge of the Damocles, but she was given special permission to come and go as she saw fit, and was second only to the Viceroy herself.

They sat in lazy orbit around Terra until such time as Celestia deemed appropriate. The new strike team had been ordered to appear on the top landing deck of the Damocles. Twilight selectively slackened the mental discipline that allowed her to not hear the thoughts of everyone around her. She, as through a haze, saw the vague forms of three pilots through the bulkhead. That seemed ominous, there were supposed to be four. She summoned S.P.I.K.E. and confirmed with the ship's manifest that the fourth pilot had arrived.

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out. She opened the door with her mind and the bulkhead slipped quickly open with a hiss. When the door was opened she saw two of the women arm wrestling on a crate and a third woman standing on passively observing. One of the combatants was a rather tall woman with long blonde hair tied loosely at the end with a small red ribbon. Her aura oozed confidence tempered with typical ag world humility. Her face was red as she strove for dominance with the other woman. Twilight could feel a temper within her, but not necessarily a hasty or rash demeanor. Twilight decided she liked her.

Her thoughts turned to the woman keenly watching the contest. She had to agree with S.P.I.K.E. that she was pretty, though Twilight was a poor judge of beauty. She noticed the hue of her long curly hair and pondered for a moment about how natural selection had affected hair pigment. The woman's hair and eyebrows were both the same shade of deep shining violet, and her own hair was a dark navy blue with pinkish highlights. She made a mental note to discuss this with Celestia during her downtime. The pilot's uniform was proper and in order to the smallest detail. Twilight felt the archetypal perfectionist coming from the pilot and she felt a sort of kinship with her. Not to mention she was clearly a psychic. Twilight was satisfied with S.P.I.K.E.S. decision. She chuckled to herself about the A.I.'s reaction to the pilot.

Her attention then turned to the third woman and her eyebrow shot up on her forehead. If Twilight's and the other pilot's hair was less than typical, then this woman was positively unlikely. Her hair had seven distinct hues all coming from the same head. Twilight looked at her face and saw it was red with sweat and screwed up with determination. The attitude radiating from her was of arrogance and brash. Yet she felt a reserved respect for legitimate authority tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism. Twilight recalled her service record and remembered that she'd been locked up in the brig for defiance of orders several times, yet more often than not she was vindicated in her cause when under court marshall. Twilight nodded her head. She liked her.

As if to confirm her judgment of her character, the rainbow headed pilot happened to catch sight of her nominal superior out of the corner of her eye and sacrificed the arm wrestle to leap up and bark, "COMMANDER ON DECK!" Then the other two pilots scrambled into a single file and came to attention. Twilight nodded, everything was right and proper. Well the fourth pilot didn't seem to be here, but so far so good. She marched smartly, but not arrogantly, in front of the file. She stopped in front of the rainbow haired pilot. "Sound off." She said in a subdued voice.

"PETTY OFFICER THIRD CLASS RAINBOW DASH, FIFTY SECOND EQUESTRIAN MECHANIZED UNIT REPORTING AS ORDERED MA'AM!" she barked in her best parade ground voice.

Twilight gently rubbed her ringing ear. "Ms. Rainbow Dash, I am three feet away, you don't need to shout."

Twilight felt the desire to chuckle radiate from the three pilots but all maintained their military bearing. Rainbow Dash began to reflexatorily bark. "YE~" But she caught herself and Twilight felt her embarrassment radiating off of her as she said in a firm yet volume appropriate voice. "Yes Ma'am!"

Twilight turned on her heel and went to the second pilot. She spoke telepathically with the other psychic, much to her surprise. "Sound off," she heard gently inside her mind.

The pilot's eyes grew wide and it took every scrap of discipline not to break bearing. After an ungracefully long moment the pilot snapped off in her mind. "Umm, excuse me. First Leftenant Rarity, Seventy Fourth Equestrian Mechanized Unit Ma'am."

Twilight nodded and could hear the other two pilot's confusion at their nominal superior standing silently in front of the other woman. She turned smartly on her heel and stepped in front of the final pilot. "Sound off," she said almost uninterestedly.

The final pilot snapped off in her ag world drawl, thankfully in a tolerable volume. "Petty Officer Third Class Applejack Fifty Second Mechanized Unit Ma'am."

Twilight's eyes rolled internally. "Well some of these ag worlders have their own battle languages, at least I can understand her."

Rarity couldn't help but think,"Well that's not terribly polite."

Twilight's head snapped towards the other psychic. "Neither is it polite to spy on other people's thoughts!"

Rarity winced visibly. "I'm not Ma'am. You're broadcasting." She visibly ground her teeth. "And it's giving me a headache."

Twilight heard Rainbow Dash's voice in her head, once again at a volume too high for comfort. "SHE'S RIGHT MA'AM WE CAN ALL HEAR YOU."

"Don't you worry none Ma'am. Ain't nothin to be sorry fer." Applejack's voice gently echoed in Twilight's mind.

Twilight's face flushed deeply and she snapped her head back to stare at the woman who towered over her. Applejack winked to express her lack of offense and Twilight sheepishly reasserted the mental disciplines that sealed out her psychic spill over, and Rarity visibly relaxed. "Ahem. Very good. Yes." She turned away and cursed vehemently in her head at her faux pas. She took a few steps away and addressed all three. "Now before we begin, does anyone know where the fourth pilot is?" She looked at a holographic display. "One. . . Pinkie."

"HI THERE!" Twilight heard an inch from her right ear. She flinched bodily and raised an arm and a leg in defense. She screamed like a woman in an old cartoon seeing a mouse. It was the very first time that anyone. ANYONE. Had ever snuck up on her. She levitated herself away and stared at the slightly bouncing mass of pink curls. Twilight's face was twisted in residual terror and confusion. She regained an ounce of composure and glanced at her new subordinates. All three, thankfully, had maintained their composure, yet in their minds a very different impression was made.

Both Applejack and Rainbow Dash were laughing, and Rarity was cursing the childish antics of the pink pilot. "Terribly unprofessional!" Were the words she used.

Twilight turned back to the fresh hell she had made for herself and saw she was no longer there. She cast her head about and couldn't place the odd woman. "OH MY GOSH YOU CAN FLY?!!!" rang in her left ear. The pink haired pilot had scrambled up onto the rafters and was hanging by her boots from an I beam. Twilight screamed again and her focus on levitating herself failed. She began to drop like a stone. Luckily S.P.I.K.E. appeared from the ship's computer and used the cargo force fields to catch the plummeting psychic. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet and huffily straightened her uniform.

Pinkie Pie simply dropped down from the rafters and transitioned seamlessly into a tumble right up to the Holographic dragon. "OHMYGOSHAREUOUAHELPFULLSHIPGHOST?-GASP-ISTHISSHIPHAUNTED?!"

All three pilots broke bearing simultaneously to shout, "PINKIE!" Instantly the strange woman backflipped twice and somersaulted in air, then landed on her feet at attention directly to the left of Applejack. Twilight was left flabbergasted and silent. She stood crouched in fear and confusion. Her eyes darted from pilot to pilot. All stood silently at attention like proper little soldiers. The other three pilots thought that Pinkie's jokes always have the bad habit of being funny but going too far. She looked at the woman standing ram rod straight, eyes fixed, like any other soldier, yet her mass of pink curls on top of her head made a mockery of the rest of the facade.

Twilight unclenched and slowly, carefully, made her way toward the newcomer. She walked as if the mass of pink curls would suddenly spring up behind her again. She stopped one step in front of Pinkie, as the other pilot's had called her, and focused all of her mental energy on the pilot's mind. Twilight was stunned. She heard nothing. She strained hard and could only pick up disjointed scraps hardly heard, and what's more they all sounded like different voices. Twilight noticed out of the corner of her mind that Rarity was once again grimacing under the strain of Twilight's psychic spill over. She refocused and stared at the strange woman, but something was wrong. Twilight couldn't put her finger on it but something was ever so subtly wrong about the pilot's face. Finally she realized the issue.

She was crossing her eyes. This absolutely peculiar woman had very slowly moved both of her eyes towards her nose. The rest of the face was still at attention, still as stone, with no trace of a smile, yet her eyes were crossed. Then suddenly the left eye moved all the way to the left. Then her right eye moved all the way to the right so that she appeared to have a lazy eye. Then both seemed to bounce off of the sides to the middle and back again. Twilight stood still at absolute focus but completely confused, mouth agape.

Pinkie's eyes snapped back to focus and she lurched forward and whispered "boo!" Twilight flinched back. The force of her psychic focus was transferred from telepathic to telekinetic energy and she was thrown bodily backwards. S.P.I.K.E. once again manifested to catch her, but she was moving too fast. The ship's forcefields didn't slow her down fast enough, and she hit the wall with considerable force. Rarity hit the floor, the end of Twilight's psychic pressure left her sick and shaking.

Rainbow Dash sprinted over to Twilight and helped her up, putting one of her arms over her neck and helping her up to her shaking feet. Applejack slowly walked over carrying a limp Rarity in her arms. She laughed knowingly. "Yeah Best not to try and read Pinkie. It'll just give ya a headache." S.P.I.K.E. called for medical aid and the four women exited the flight deck.

"We've all served with her before. Don't worry ma'am, ya learn to love her." Rainbow Dash reassured her.

Pinkie was left all alone in the large room.

Feeling guilty.

Another one of her jokes had gone wrong.

After the fiasco at the orientation Rarity and Twilight were taken to the ship's med bay. Both were fine just with incapacitating headaches. Rarity decided to sleep it off and they left her alone. Twilight however was too furious to stay still, so she had S.P.I.K.E. and a corpsman help her to her quarters. Applejack chuckled to Rainbow Dash and smirked. "Helluva first day eh R.D.? Common." She grabbed Rainbow Dash's head under one arm. "I know you threw that last round. Let's find Pinkie to be our ref n we'll have a REAL match." Rainbow laughed and popped Applejack in the kidney until she let go.

The corpsman led a bleary eyed and nauseated Twilight to her quarters and asked if she needed anything but she dismissed him coldly. The second the sliding door closed she flew to the toilet and retched. She growled for S.P.I.K.E. to dim the lights and bring her the personnel files. She wanted to use as little of her aching mind as possible. "Who the." She retched again. "Fuck did I just recruit?!" From her perch in front of the toilet she glared at Pinkie's personnel file. Twilight's rage turned to disbelief then into exhausted dismay.

Twilight groaned wearily and shouted, "This is what happens when you don't do your DILIGENCE SPARKLE!" She regretted the volume and retched again.

S.P.I.K.E. looked at the file and said, "I dunno Twilight. You wanted a wild card" He laughed as he said. "And it doesn't get much wilder than THAT!" His holographic body shimmered as Twilight threw a roll of toilet paper at him. He frowned and manifested very small, standing on the toilet seat. "Come on Twilight. Her service record is pretty good." He glanced at it again and became less sure. "I mean. She's served a lot of places but her success record is pretty good." Twilight testily put S.P.I.K.E. into sleep mode and opened the file again. She noticed that Pinkie had served in several different locations and her longest stretch of service was no more than six Terran months.

Twilight's sickness had stabilized and she slowly moved from the bathroom to the bed. She looked at Pinkie's mission debriefs and was genuinely impressed at her performance. After a while something behind the holographic file crept into the front of her mind. She tried to ignore it but it forced its way into her mind. She closed the file, and on the small nightstand was a single vanilla cupcake with orange and yellow frosting piled high with a large plastic smiley face sticking out of it. Twilight stared at the out of place confectionary and couldn't process it mentally. She noticed a small hand written note written on a scrap of paper under it. She shakily levitated it to her and read the words, "Sorry I spookered you." Written on it.

Twilight's confusion grew by an order of magnitude. She actually had to look up the word "spookered." "S.P.I.K.E.!" She called softly. The hologram manifested beside her. She levitated the cupcake over to him. "Where. The fuck. Did this come from?" She asked grumpily. S.P.I.K.E. held the treat in his gentle forcefields and shrugged his shoulders.
Twilight looked at the note again and saw at the bottom the name Pinkie Pie. She leaned forward and stared at the note. "Where the fuck did she get a cupcake on an Imperial Battleship?" Twilight growled. She set the treat down on the nightstand and decided this was too much for one day. She ordered S.P.I.K.E. to tell her squad they were off duty until 0900 the next morning.

Twilight was going to fix this.

Author's Note:

Started writing next chapter and realized it fit better on this chapter. Sorry y'all.