My Little Space Empire: Mechs are Magic

by Wheezyandbreezy

Always Take Your Keys

Rainbow Dash stumbled back to her quarters in a drunken haze. Pinkie Pie had, as was her way, initiated an impromptu celebration and the Damocles had several watering holes to choose from ranging from holes in the walls to officer's lounges. As usual, a drinking contest with Applejack had ensued, which Rainbow Dash, as usual, won. Not necessarily because she drank more, but because someone inevitably tried to hit on her, and Applejack had to slug them. Rainbow slumped down beside her bed chuckling at the evening she'd had. Her and Applejack had sang karaoke. Pinkie had made Twilight's face go beet red with embarrassment as she tried to find her someone to dance with. Rarity had even started a brawl when she beat someone at darts by a hilarious margin and he responded with rude words.

She thought back to the simulation and how she'd scored points with her superior officer. Maybe this time she wouldn't get locked up every time she disagreed with every stupid order. She liked Twilight. She, unlike the usual class of aristocratic brats, actually trained shoulder to shoulder with her soldiers. She listened to input, and worked with her subordinates' specialties instead of trying to bend them to their will. She chuckled about using her shield as a battering ram and just speed running the course.

Her mood, as drunk moods usually do, turned suddenly when she recalled Twilight's reaction to her bragging. She remembered the images beamed into her mind of pirates being executed. That meant that Twilight knew. She'd worked her ass off to put that behind her. Applejack had risked everything to make sure that part of her history wasn't in her file. It was always Applejack saving her it seemed like. Just like back then. She pulled her legs in close to herself as the memories came drifting slowly into focus.

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A much younger Rainbow Dash sat poised in her cockpit of her looted Imperial Javelin class mech suit. The second fastest model in the entire Imperial Navy. Her captain had said this convoy was guarded so there would be a fight, but the prize was an entire cargo ships' worth of grain. Enough to feed them for years! No more having to hunt rats in the cargo bays for food. No more having to win her meals in the pit. She was ready. No one else in her weight class could take her in her own crew, and these guards would probably just roll over without a fight since it was just a grain vessel instead of precious metals or nobles. She wasn't nervous, she was just excited. Or at least that's what she kept telling herself, perched as she was behind an asteroid. She'd never taken on a convoy this large, but she was ready.

The signal came through and she darted, full engine towards her target. She blew right past two patrol ships and started laying down fire at the coupler cables tethering the large tanker to it's hauler ship. This was an age old tactic, put yourself right next to the valuables so that guards would be reluctant to shoot. A scratchy voice came over the radio "RUNT CHANGE A PLANS WE'RE TAKING THE WHOLE CONVOY! GET TO THE FRONT SHIP NOW!"

Rainbow dodged and circled away from the two interceptor class mechs that were trying to detach her from the tanker and responded, "But I'm almost through the coupling!"

The sound of an airlock depressurizing was heard through the radio as her captain barked, "NOW RUNT! WE'RE GETTING HIT HARD!"

Rainbow cursed and left a farewell present for her pursuers. They disappeared in a burst of blue plasma. She made her way dodging and weaving through various skirmishes and wrecks of ships. She made her way to the landing pad of the lead vessel and saw a unique opportunity. Her crew was on the opposite side of the landing bay taking fire from the ship's security detail. They were completely focused on her crew so she could mow them down with impunity from behind. She sprayed in a wide arc and suddenly the flight deck was completely in their hands.

She landed and exited her mech. "AH YEAH! AM I GOOD OR WHAT?"

"GET THE FUCK BACK IN YOUR SUIT AND MAKE SURE WERE NOT FOLLOWED." The captain snapped, and with that the entire landing party was gone. Rainbow was left alone in a landing bay full of smoldering corpses. She had single handedly delivered them from being cut off and killed, and not even a word of thanks.

She dropped off of her mech and kicked a shell casing petulantly and growled, "gEt ThE fUcK bAcK In YoUr ShIp!" She sighed hard and looked across the landing bay and noticed that her captain had left his cockpit open. A mischievous idea entered her mind. If she could take her captain's mech, she could just scuttle this ship with him and his whole circle jerk of lackeys. Then she could take the grain tanker, "LIKE THE ORIGINAL PLAN FUCKING WAS." she growled. Then start her own crew. After all she would be the best fighter left, with the best mech, and would have the food.

She looked over at the door her crew had left through and decided to go for it. She sprinted to her captain's mech and scrambled up it's ladder and into the cockpit. She attempted to start up the machine but realized it had been completely deactivated. "WHO TAKES THEIR KEYS WITH THEM DURING BOARDING ACTIONS?!" Rainbow screamed at the lifeless display. She slammed her hands on the dashboard in futile rage, then immediately regretted it as the mech's anti theft measures activated, locking her inside. She gritted her teeth as she kicked at the canopy. "Who. The. Fuck. Puts. An. Alarm. In. THEIR. MECH!!!"

She groaned loudly and let her head fall heavily into her hands. Tears of frustration began to well up in her eyes. She had a moment to think as she sat in the hermetically sealed silence. She thought about just how hungry she was. She thought about how her face was still sore from the last round in the pit. She thought about how she was as good as dead when her captain got back and saw her in his cockpit. She thought maybe the captain was right about security measures because there was someone scrambling into her mech.

She lurched forward and stared in horror as some security detail they had missed was now in her own suit and was starting to move towards her. Rainbow desperately hit every button on the dashboard trying to get a response from the cage she had just locked herself in. She saw her own mech's boosters throw her mech against the wall. She screamed "STOP FUCKING UP MY SUIT!!!" in a mix of terror and impotent rage.

She regretted the order she'd given, as the suit began to jerkily stomp towards her. Rainbow waited with held breath for her gatling guns to open up on her. Her blood ran cold as her own suit bore down on her. The other suit wasn't going to shoot her. She was going to kill her manually. She pulled on the escape pod handle just to see if it would work but it gave no response. She pressed herself away from the canopy as her suit began to smash it's arms against the armored cover. Rainbow's tomb slowly shrank as the canopy began to crunch in towards her.

After several crunches the smashing suddenly stopped. Rainbow held her breath and listened carefully, trying to figure out why it stopped. She figured it out and immediately regretted it, as the front of the canopy began to crunch outward and slowly open like a giant clam. She scrambled away from the front of the cockpit as slowly, interminably, the opened in a tear of screaming metal and shattering hydraulics. Rainbow stared in impotent rage at her own cockpit. In her last moments she wasn't afraid, she was pissed. She felt so small and helpless. She wished with everything she had that she could just get a fair fight with the bastard that had stolen her suit. One round in the pit, that's all she needed.

With one final burst, her suit tore the canopy straight off of the mech. She saw the mech raise one of its arms. It was going to smash her. Her own suit was going to crush her like a bug, and there was nothing she could do about it. She flinched as the giant mechanical hand flew at her. After an eternity of tension Rainbow Dash eventually released the breath she'd been holding. She cracked open an eye and saw the giant mechanical hand mere inches from her face. The suit had stopped. She stared in confusion at her unmoving suit. Had something gone wrong? Why had the other pilot stopped?

She was thrown out of her reflections and out of her cockpit respectively by an explosion that knocked the suit straight off of its legs and deafened Rainbow Dash. She looked and saw her own crew pointing their weapons at her. She saw a shit eating grin on her captain's face as he began to load another rocket into the shoulder mounted launcher. The captain never got another shot off as Rainbow's mech snatched him off of the flight deck with one hand, and with the other hand pinched his head off.

The other members of Rainbow's crew scrambled in terror away from the suit. They'd all believed Rainbow had used her own suit to wreck their captain's suit then sat in the cockpit to play big girl. They didn't labour under that delusion long, as Rainbow's suit proceeded to grab any crew member within reach and pop them like water balloons filled with wine. The suit stomped about and crushed the rest of her crew. The last pirate impotently emptied her gun as the suit snatched her off of the deck and smashed her against the deck until the hand holding her was a wrecked metal stump.

The suit turned slowly where Rainbow Dash was still laying, her hearing slowly returning. The mech stomped slowly towards her and stopped several yards in front of her prone form. She rose slowly and stared in a mix of awe and confusion. After several tense seconds the cockpit opened and Rainbow Dash was astounded to see a woman younger than her stand up. The woman was much taller than her and her long blonde hair was matted with blood. She realized suddenly that the other woman was wounded in the side.

As if a switch had been flipped the tall blonde woman dropped limply out of the cockpit and dropped heavily to the flight deck. For reasons she didn't understand, Rainbow Dash immediately put one of the woman's arms over her shoulders and started dragging her slowly towards the interior of the ship. Rainbow's head was spinning. Why hadn't this woman squished her like she did the rest of her crew? Why hadn't she just gotten in her mech and fucked off after this heavy bitch had gotten out? "Where the fuck is the med bay on this fucking ship?"

After an eternity of trudging heavily down corridors Rainbow finally found a scrambling group of medical officers trying to sort out the casualties of the raid. Rainbow Dash's voice cut through the hectic air as she barked, "HEY! THIS BITCH NEEDS HELP!" After the shock of the volume of the command wore off two nurses brought a gurney and the three of them strained under the weight of the woman. Rainbow's shoulder was rudely pulled to the side and she was staring up into the grimacing face of a security officer, his rifle still hanging from his shoulder. "Who are you? What's your serial number?" He barked before Rainbow could answer either question. He grabbed her wrist and pulled out a pair of restraints when he suddenly gave a sharp yelp.

The woman on the gurney had grabbed his wrist with a grip like a vice and was staring daggers at him. "She was a slave of the raiders and is seeking asylum," she weakly growled. The two stared agape at the woman, then Rainbow Dash burst out, "Yeah, yeah that." The security officer decided not to argue with the very scary woman on the gurney and put away the restraints. The woman dropped straight off then from blood loss.

The triage doctors came and went. The wound wasn't dangerous, she just needed a blood transfusion. Rainbow stayed beside the woman the entire time she was out. Rainbow stared in a mix of awe and hate. She couldn't understand why this woman had spared her, not to mention saved her from the guard. Why had she stayed to help? Why was she waiting for the woman to wake up?

The woman eventually shook her head and opened her eyes. She leaned heavily forward and held the side of her head, her long blonde hair spilling through her fingers. Rainbow saw her chance and shouted, "WHY DID YOU SAVE ME?" The woman on the bed groaned something Rainbow couldn't hear. "HUH?" she barked.

The woman glared with her big green eyes and growled, "You're loud." Rainbow was taken aback. She felt herself starting to chuckle and she plopped down heavily into her chair. The blonde woman glared at the volume but eventually couldn't help weakly chuckling. Eventually she swung her legs out of the bed, painfully yanked the I.V. out of her arm and stepped heavily over to the pirate. She held out a large hand and warmly said. "Ahm Applejack."

The pirate wasn't sure but after a moment's hesitation stood up and grabbed Applejack's wrist. "Rainbow Dash."

Comments

[Frazikar]

Hmmm, double exposure ...

[Wheezyandbreezy]

10816256
?

[Danish477]

10816323
The entire chapter repeats itself.

[Wheezyandbreezy]

10816371
Oh! Oh shit. Yes. Yes it does. Thank you for telling me. I will fix that presently.