Star's Trek: The search for Luna

by The-rogue-shadow

Chapter 3

The first impact rocked the Twilight just as both shuttles were secured in the launch bay. Tapping the button on her comm, Star Shot called for an emergency medical team, hoping to get the Pintos into the safety of the med bay as soon as possible as she and Swift galloped to the turbo lift. It only took about ten seconds for them to reach the bridge. Star stumbled as another impact hit them, sending her colliding with a wall.

“PrimProse, hail them,” she said through gritted teeth. “Charge up the hull plating.” PrimProse proceeded to press buttons in a panicked fashion, the kind that Star had seen with many new officers during their first space battle. A moment later, the main screen lit up, revealing the grey fur and the deep red irises of a Taurian. The top half of his left horn had apparently been broken off, which only served to increase his visage of terror.

“Prepare to surrender your vessel,” he growled in a deep voice. Everyone else on the bridge turned to look at Star, who was panting heavily as she thought of a way out of the situation.
“I’m Star Shot, captain of the Equestrian Starship Twilight, what can we do for you?” she asked, splaying her wings to show that she was angry. The Taurian smirked at her display.

“Ah, a bold Equestrian, you’re a rare breed indeed. But it matters not. I want the Pinto’s you captured from the ship,” he explained as he reached a clawed hand up and scratched at the broken part of his horn.
“They are not our prisoners, they asked for our help and we helped. It’s as simple as that,” Star replied, surprised that he would think that the Pinto’s were on her ship under duress.

“And that’s all I need to know about your weakness. Prepare to be destroyed,” said the Taurian flatly, before the screen blackened out. Star lowered her wings, sighing as she heard PrimProse let out a worried squeak.
“Swift, deploy the Mage cannons and load the Draconic torpedos,” she said, her voice going serious. Making her way over to Sweetie Belle, Star leant in close and gave the young unicorn a wink. “Sweetie, do you remember that move you showed me in the simulator back at the institute?”

“You mean ‘The Belle Curve?’” asked Sweetie, giving Star a large grin. “I think I can do that, might be hard on the impulse engines and thrusters though, it wasn’t meant to be done with such a large ship.”
“Just do your best. Swift, lock weapons and prepare to fire. We are going to try a rather unorthodox move, so be ready,” she told them, sitting back down on the captain’s chair as a bolt from a Taurian disruptor hit their bow. “Sweetie, engage!”

***

The Belle Curve, the very move that earned Sweetie both her mentor and her position on the Twilight. On a simulator or in a shuttle, The Belle Curve was designed to be a defensive strategy when the pony was outgunned. The difficulty with it was keeping weapons consistently locked onto the target, as well as the g-force strain that was put on the ship.

The Taurians fired again, but Sweetie was ready for them. Her hooves became a blur as she inputted commands and calculations into the console. The green disrupter bolt flew toward the Twilight and just as it was about to hit, the port side thrusters activated and the ship barrel rolled, narrowly avoiding the bolt. She kept flipping over and over, while at the same time moving forward in such a way that the Twilight went underneath the Taurian ship, with the bow pointing directly at the underside of the ship.

“Fire everything!” Star exclaimed, smiling smugly as twin beams of red energy shot out from the cannons beneath the bow, along with two bright green flashes of light that impacted the Taurian ship and detonated in huge explosions.
“That last shot took out their shield generator, they’re a sitting duck,” Swift informed her.
“Target their weapons. Draconic torpedoes, full spread,” she ordered and two more green balls of light rocketed toward the vessel as they continued to spin around it. The torpedoes exploded near the bow, which was now on the fair side of the ship from the Twilight. Star paused, waiting for the Taurians to respond in some way. When nothing came and the ship did not go to warp, Star had PrimProse open a channel.

“This is the Twilight, are you ready to break off your attack?” she asked and when the screen lit up, she had to supress a smile at the angry yet defeated expression on the face of the Taurian Captain.
“You will get no information from me pony,” he snapped and Star saw Swift chuckle out of the corner of her eye. She held up her hoof to stop the Taurian as he continued to complain and tell her that he would never be a slave to her pathetic race.
“That’s fine with me. I have other places to be. I wish you luck with repairing your ship,” she said smugly, pleased that the Twilight had trounced the Taurians so well. The Captain roared, slamming his fists onto the console in front of him and prompting a burst of sparks as the glass top shattered.

“You have made a powerful enemy today Equestrian. I will not let my honour be tarnished by your filth. I will have my revenge,” he screamed.
“Okay… enjoy the rest of your day,” Star replied, pointing to Sweetie Belle, who then engaged the impulse drive and turned the ship to face Aquestria and with a cheerful smile, Star turned off the screen. “Warp four Sweetie.”

***

Star sat with Swift, Heartstrings and Time Turner in the mess hall, taking in her first meal in two days. It wasn’t because she was sick or worried about what the Taurian said, it was because she had joined Rarity in repairing the impulse drive and the thrusters that had been damaged by ‘The Belle Curve.’ She was however, thinking about the Taurian’s promise. She had embarrassed him, tarnished his honour, which for a Taurian is the major part of their life. There was a good chance that if he were to return home, that he would be executed for his failure, or at the very least banished.

‘If he does manage to find me again, I can count on the fight not being as easy as that one. But I suppose I’ll have to deal with that when the time comes,’ she thought, her trance interrupted by Heartstrings waving her hoof in front of her.

“Star, are you alright?” she asked, giving her a concerned look. Star smiled, nodding to indicate she was but saying nothing.
“I have to say, you handled that Taurian very well Star,” said Time Turner as he shovelled mashed potato into his mouth.
“Thanks, but I am kind of concerned that we haven’t seen the last of him,” she told them, making them all go quiet.

The silence was broken by the sound of a chair scraping across the ground as it was pulled away from the table. Star looked up to find Tashin, the light blue Pinto that they had rescued from the ship. Star always thought that Pinto coats looked like a patchwork of colours. Tashin’s was mostly light blue, but it was so pale that the white parts kind of blended into them. One of the other Pintos on the ship had a deep maroon colour mixed with the white. None of them had cutie marks; instead, they had the symbol of their family on their neck. Tashin’s was an open book with binary code filling the exposed pages.

“Greetings Captain, might I sit?” she asked in her flighty, emotionless voice, cocking her head to the side. Star nodded, giving her a warm smile. She sat down and stared at the assembled group. “Please, do not let me interrupt, continue your conversation.”
“Okay… So Heartstrings, how are you acclimatising to the new med bay?” Time Turner asked and Heartstrings’ face immediately lit up.
“Oh it’s great! There is so much new equipment that I’d only read about in magazines as being the next big thing in medicine,” she told them excitedly.
“Did you have any trouble learning how to use them?” Tashin asked.
“Not really.”
“That is good to hear. I have heard many stories about the difficulties your species has with adapting to new technology,” she said and in the awkward silence that followed, a cup was brought over to her by another Pinto.

“So… Tashin, I’ve been meaning to ask; how come you guys were so close to the edge of Taurian space?” asked Star, noticing that Heartstrings was glaring at Tashin angrily. The Pinto noticeably hesitated, stopping the cup halfway through a sip.
“This is not the place to talk about such things Captain,” she replied after a moment.
“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad,” Time Turner interjected, his voice muffled by the large lollipop in his mouth. Tashin sighed, setting the cup down on the table and looking around at the group with what could only be described as nervousness, or at least the Pinto approximation of nervousness.

“Very well, I suppose you deserve to know the truth since you came to the aid of me and my compatriots,” she said and Star smiled, while at the same time becoming concerned by the way that Tashin was fiddling with her front hooves. “Well we were near the borderlands on a scouting mission to find suitable planetoids for terraforming.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, why would your government want a colony on the Taurian border?” asked Star. She could tell that Tashin was lying, simply by the nervous twitches all over her body. Star recalled reading something at the Luna institute that stated that even though Pintos rejected emotion for the sake of logic, younger members of the society often had trouble keeping them in check during times of great stress.

“I was just doing as the high command requested, whether or not you believe me is irrelevant,” she replied, her voice instantly changing back to its previous cold and distant manner. She suddenly rose from her chair and proceeded to trot out of the mess hall. Swift let out an amused snort, only to be elbowed in the side by his wife.
“She’s lying,” said Star, still watching the door.
“How can you tell?” asked Heartstrings.
“You can’t?”

“Good point,” she chuckled. “But what can you do? You more than anypony else know how Pintos can be Star.” She was right, even before the incident with her appointment on the Twilight; Star had been at odds with Pintos. As part of her training in stellar cartography, Star had served on a Pinto vessel for six months, and it had been one of the loneliest times of her life. The other members of the crew had shunned her, simply because of the reason that she was Equestrian and in their mind, it made her inferior. At the beginning of the trip, she had tried to make friends with them, but whenever she tried to introduce herself, the Pintos just looked at her like she had the plague.

***

“What in the t’aal shalik was that?” K’avir shouted, spraying water all over Star. He had called her down to her quarters under the premise of having some updated information on the coordinates of the area he needed to be dropped off, but he had instead started to abuse her for risking his life in what he called a futile endeavour. The last five minutes had just been K’avir shouting at the captain. To her credit, Star had waited patiently for him to finish, despite the choice words that had found their way onto her tongue.

“I apologise ambassador, I was unaware that the Taurians were the ones responsible for the attack on the Pintos, nor the fact that they were on their way back to finish the job,” she explained calmly, which seemed to placate the scaly pony. He snorted, diving under the water to take in a deep breath.

“Well at the very least, tell me that we are headed home,” he grumbled once he had resurfaced.
“We are indeed, and it shouldn’t take too much longer, I promise. In the meantime, might I invite you to dine at the captain’s table tonight? The ship’s cook is well versed in Aquestrian cuisine,” she offered, partly to be polite, as it was common custom on Aquestria to recompense somepony you have wronged by providing them with a feast. But the main reason was that she wanted the chance to prove to K’avir that she was the right pony for the job, that she was dedicated to The Luna Institute and to her ship. He accepted, his previous issues with her forgotten with the promise of a good meal.

Star left the cargo bay and headed straight for her quarters, looking to catch a few hours’ sleep. Along the way, it seemed as though she was stopped by the head of every single department, from xeno-biology to sanitation, all looking to get her approval on an upgrade or modification. When she did finally arrive, she collapsed onto her bed, looking up at the ceiling with exhausted eyes.

When she crawled under the covers, Star retrieved the book she had been reading since they left spacedock. It was a history of her family, as compiled by her great-great-grandmother; Dinky, who had lived through the third great griffin war and the resurgence of Discord. Since that time, members of her family had added to it, leading all the way to Star and her younger brother, an Earth pony named Cheshire.

Star had read the book before, and for whatever reason, continually found herself drawn to the entries the involved Dinky’s own mother; a Pegasus mare by the name of Derpy Hooves. She saw a lot of herself in Derpy, the way that the mare had never had anypony believe in her because of her disability. It was only when Derpy had met Dinky’s father, a stallion who referred to himself as ‘The Doctor’ that her life had changed. Derpy had become a well-known member of Ponyville, somepony that could be trusted with anything, and who never turned down a pony in need. It was Derpy that Star had always tried to emulate during her time at The Luna Institute, and even influenced the kind of captain she wanted to be; kind, compassionate, but respected all the same.

‘I just don’t know what’s going wrong,’ she thought, feeling the pressures of the last two days collapse on her shoulders.

Comments

[Jirodyne]

Sometimes, a captain just needs to smack the guests around. Cause that is what they are. GUESTS. She could easily just decide to kick them out into the void

[Blue Fire]

Well, this was interesting. Keep up the good work

[The-rogue-shadow]

2186807
I agree, but don't forget, he is a dignitary for a very powerful planet.

[The-rogue-shadow]

2186947
Thank you, I will.

[Jirodyne]

2198872 That needs water to live... While Unicorns have magic that can boil said water.