[Forlorn Ascension]|[Rites of Dominion]

by Desrium

Deviation

Hovering over the shuttle, a white ring dotted with lights and lined with intricate glowing patterns created a cyan glow around the ship. Inside the light, the engineers grappled onto the ship’s hull, working with the floating parts and equipment suspended in the magical field. By now, the damaged wing had been repaired, the synthesized plating matching the rest of the shuttle’s hull precisely. The current task for the four crewmembers was fitting the replacement engine on the end of it. They were strapped by their suits to the wing and floated weightlessly with the engine, which was much larger than all of them combined. Two of them held onto the engine from the front and back while the remaining two guided it from the side, easing it onto the waiting connection port built into the wing itself. Slowly, with gentle nudges from their reaction control packs integrated into the hardsuits, the engineers connected the engine to the shuttle.

“We have confirmed lock, time to secure connections and link it all up to the control system,” one of the engineers said.

“Copy that. Let’s get this over with quick. I don’t quite like working with obsolete tech, much less being asked to make it compatible with what we have now…” another griped.

“You’d best start smiling and do your job as best as you can, lest you want an angry pony coming after you,” the first engineer said warningly.

“Yeah, yeah…” the unhappy engineer grumbled. It reeled in the grappling cables and pulled itself from the engine and onto the wing.

***

Phineas marched down the hallways of the station with stoic dedication. He looked straight ahead as he walked and any who happened to be in his way quickly stepped aside whether or not they recognized his Federation barding. A few would watch him as he went on his way, annoyed but keeping their remarks to themselves while others would shout things at the stallion with no response at all.

He didn’t have time to waste on such trivial things. He didn’t pay them any mind walking down those winding passageways because he was too busy thinking about the coming wave of enemies. When the warnings reached the G.S.O, the news was quick to spread. Phineas was just wandering the station, lost and downtrodden by his talk with Uolix when the stark reminder of his cause came in the form of anxious whispers and grave tidings to brace for something big. It was then that he knew he couldn’t dwell on the matter and that he had to speak with Uolix again. He just hoped she would give him the time of day after his disgraceful exit from her chamber.

”There is no way that we will be able to hold this outpost,” he thought, ”we barely defeated the first wave. We’ve lost too many of our forces, and the forces we still have are still undergoing repairs.”

He reached the doors to the observation chamber some time later. The doors parted and he stormed though. He briskly moved across the platform, reared up when he came to the railing and then swung his body over with his front hooves. His jets deployed split-seconds after he started to fall, firing up and taking him across the chamber, descending steadily as he went. He dropped down to the floor in front of the waiting Commander and the boosters folded away into his utility pack.

“It is a wonder why we even bothered installing elevators if everyone is going to just throw themselves off of the upper levels,” Uolix commented somewhat listlessly.

“We’ve got more important things to worry about,” the stallion replied curtly.

Uolix simply nodded. “I was notified by my communications officers of the incoming threat and I have been deliberating on our next course of action.”

“Then it’s a good thing I got here when I did,” Phineas said. “So what is it? We don’t have much time to get the word out and get everyone where they need to be.”

“You say that as if you expect me to rally the troops,” Uolix replied.

“You did say you were planning to hold a defensive-“

The Shu’badi waved one of her mechanical arms dismissively and Phineas cocked his head.

“I have taken your report into serious consideration, Startrot,” Uolix said. “If the involvement of the Star Terrors extends well beyond what we commonly believed before then we cannot afford to lose any more lives. My orders to bring the Harmony out of hiding was a mistake, a horrific one at that.”

“Not necessarily. If you hadn’t made yourself known then we would not have had that conversation, you would not have known any of the things you know now,” the silver stallion argued.

“As true as that may be, it is overwhelmingly obvious that meeting this enemy in battle is the wrong thing to do. At least, as long as they have the power that the Star Terrors grant them,” Uolix responded. “So retreat is our only option. Retreat, converge and survive to finish the fight.”

Phineas nodded in understanding. “So what are you going to do?”

“I will issue another Trans-Warp order to every surviving stronghold to shake the enemy fleets hunting them down,” the Commander replied. “But the true question here is: what are you going to do, space pony?”

“You already know what I want to do,” Phineas answered.

“Then you need to do it,” Uolix said, her voice suddenly steely and serious. Phineas was taken aback by her straightforwardness. He simply stared at her and she continued to speak.

“Their power trumps ours. If their leader is not eliminated, if their connection to their ‘gods’ is not severed, we will all suffer. If the Hoof-Talons are an example to judge from, the undead will not kill us all. They might have made this galaxy hostile towards all life, but they will not kill us. They will let us live on the brink of extinction for the centuries to come, unable to fight back, unable to resist the plans that the Star Terrors have devised for us all.”

“Unless I act,” Phineas stated plainly.

“And act soon,” Uolix added. Her voice carried an extra weight along with the pressing urgency. “I am sorry that it has to be this way, but if there is anyone alive right now who has any chance of succeeding against these impossible odds…”

“I’m Phineas. Phineas Startrot. I have a knack when it comes to doing the impossible, remember?” the silver stallion replied in a bid to sound reassuring, though he himself doubted his chances. There wasn’t anything different now from before. He still had no idea how he was going to find the undead’s leading figure, much less how he was going to fight them. But time was running out. It felt as if a noose was tightening around the entire galaxy, strangling all the joy and hope that came about after the Hoof-Talons’ defeat and replacing it with the same bleakness that their horrendous dominion enforced for hundreds of years.

“Phineas… I want you to leave this station knowing that you aren’t on some suicide mission. It is… unbelievably dangerous… but know that I believe that you can do it. You will find a way, I’m certain of it,” said the Commander.

The armored pony bowed his head. “I appreciate the sentiment-“

“And know that when the time comes, the rest of the galaxy will jump at the opportunity you have presented us with,” Uolix pledged.

Phineas smiled a small smile underneath his helmet. His raised a hoof to the side of it, disengaged its seals and pulled it off of his head so that the Shu’badi could see his face one more time before he set off on his mission. He was not going to let her last memory of it be of him crying, that was for damn sure.

“I believe that wholeheartedly, Uolix.”

With that, he put his helmet back on, the locks clicking when it was firmly back in place, the air rushing back into it and the HUD reappearing in the stallion’s vision. He turned away from the Commander, walked down the aisle of terminals and actually stepped onto the lift this time to depart the chamber. He typed in the order and waited until it reached the entrance level, where he stepped through the gate and made his way for the door.

His pace upon leaving the chamber gradually sped up. It started as a normal walk that sped up into a trot down the hallway, a simple jogging pace which increased to a canter before breaking out into an all-out gallop. He sprinted down the hall, weaving in between everyone that stood in his way before leaping into the air and activating his jetpack. He roared down the hallways of the G.S.O, reminded of his first encounter with a Draconix aboard the Desolus.

Station crew and refugees alike gave the gray blur odd looks as he shot through the air, but he didn’t pay them any mind. That is, until a voice he recognized pierced the muddled blend of sound that his surroundings drowned in.

The stallion reared in the air, thrusters angling to kill his velocity before adjusting to maintain a hover. Phineas turned around and scanned the small group a few feet behind him. At first he was puzzled, wondering if the voice was just something he thought he heard, but then the small figure came forward.

“Phineas?” Elysia asked again, after shouting the stallion’s name, “what’s wrong?”

“A lot of things,” Phineas replied matter of factly. “But I’m going to do something about it all.”

“What are you talking about? And where are you off to in such a hurry?”

“I’m going to try my best to bring this to an end before the really bad things can begin,” Phineas said, avoiding the question.

“Have you lost your mind?” Elysia inquired.

Phineas paused to give the question a moment of serious thought. ”Possibly.

“What happened to ‘not being able to do this alone’?” the small ranger asked. She did not seem to pay the others watching her and the Federation pony any attention.

“You don’t know what it is I’m about to do. I can’t risk anyone else’s life. I’ve got to do this alone, because I’ve got no choice.”

Elysia crossed her arms. “Since when did this become a matter of your choice?” she asked. “Seems like you’ve gotten lost in your own glory.”

“Elysia, please… I’ve got no time to argue about this,” Phineas said. With that, he twisted about in the air and shot off, rounding around a corner and disappearing from sight.

Elysia scoffed and pressed a finger to the side of her helmet. A HUD interface appeared in front of her eyes and after cycling through various menus, came to a list of fellow Space Rangers in the sector. The list was quite small, and after feeling a pang of disappointment at that, Elysia selected the name of the tall ranger.

“Alikir? I need you to meet me below decks at the ship bay. Our Federation pony needs a bit of help…”

***
Phineas sped down the walkway. At the end of it was his shuttle, looking far better than it did last time he saw it. The darkened hull shone under the lights that hit it, almost gleaming. The engineers appeared to be putting in the final touches on it, working far apart from each other and dealing with the internal workings underneath exterior hull plates.

“Oi, what’s the rush!?” one of them called out to him when they saw him nearing.

”Do they really want the answer to that question? Phineas asked himself. He decided it would have been easier to evade the question again. “There’s no time to explain.”

“What are you on about?”

”By Luna’s crown, they don’t make getting along with them easy.” Phineas sat and raised his PDA. He opened the shuttle’s canopy and extended its boarding ladder.

“What do you think you’re doing!?” an engineer exclaimed as Phineas climbed into his ship.

“Thanks for the repair job, I really appreciate it,” the stallion said to himself when he was strapped into his seat, “but when I say ‘there is no time to explain’, I mean just that!”

He put his forelegs in the neuro-link sleeves, retracted the ladder and had the screen flip back down over the cockpit. He initiated the Spell-core drive, his terminals and displays lighting up one by one. The engineers scrambled off of the ship, still rendered weightless by their containment field and forced to use their R.C.S to put distance between them and the shuttle.

“Uolix, I need a launch window,” Phineas messaged the Commander.

“Grant that request for launch,” Uolix said to her officers.

The docking clamps moved the shuttle away from the holding cage before lowering it into another set of mechanical graspers that were waiting for it. The exchange went off with a loud hum and the release of vapor before the upper arms rose and the lower ones moved the shuttle along horizontally underneath the bulk of the hangar’s hold.

From the cockpit, Phineas saw his shuttle get loaded into what he recognized as a gigantic launch chute in the wall of the hangar. A blast door slid shut after the vessel entered and the arms reoriented the shuttle so that it was facing downwards along the shaft and they started guiding it along the passage slowly. In the far off distance, Phineas saw light flooding into the dark metal tunnel and the guiding arms picked up speed. They accelerated gradually until they were pulling the shuttle along at rocket speed. They disengaged just before reaching the end of the chute and the black and white ship was flung off into space from underneath the G.S.O.

The thrusters fired up, bright purple streaks trailing the shuttle as it pitched up and hurtled away from the station, leaving it and the molten world it orbited behind as it prepared for warp.

Uolix watched the single blue blip on its way to leaving the station in the super projector’s hologram. With a heavy heart, she said, “Good luck, Startrot.”

“Commander, we have another ship asking for express launch permission,” one of her officers said from behind.

The Shu’badi turned her head, perplexed. “Who is the pilot?”

“This is Space Ranger Elysia-Ryagna,” the ranger’s voice said from the officer’s console. “With me is Space Ranger Alikir. Permission to retrieve the Federation pony, ma’am?”

“Denied,” Uolix replied promptly.

“But-“

"But," the Commander interjected, “I have another objective to give you two…”