New Equestria: The Harmony Age

by Roguewire

Chapter 4

Twilight Sparkle sat at her place at the head of the conference table. The table itself was made of mahogany from the home worlds of the Amarr Empire, and it was worth over a hundred thousand bits due to its size and embellishments; it was one hundred thousand bits earned from hard work and good fortune, not the work and fortune of others.

When the six of them founded Harmony, their "conference room" had been a small storage room on an obscure level of the space station. Now, they were holding a corporate meeting in one of the most well-decorated conference rooms in the station.

The decorations of the table were simple by comparison to what was spent on a conference room in one of the "Big Eight," the elite corporations of Caldari leadership, but the decorations themselves were finely crafted right into the mahogany of the table. They were inlays of fine crystal mined from various locations in New Equestria, and some of the crystals were mined by Twilight and her friends themselves. Each of the executive founders had their own places at the conference table, decorated with a crystal formation of their own cutie marks. The other positions at the table were decorated with the insignia of Harmony, also arranged with crystals.

Twilight sat at her place at the head of the table. A holographic screen hovered in front of her, and various data sheets rested neatly in front of her on the table. She took in corporate data and information pertaining to both Harmony and the station itself with ease and clarity.

Beside her sat her faithful assistant, a young purple and green dragon named Spike. Spike sat at a small terminal next to Twilight, typing away at a holographic display. He was her assistant and would perform his tasks dutifully for her. Fortunately, she never asked him to do anything unreasonable. Right now he was compiling information regarding Harmony into a more digestible format which could be read by the common pony. Even though the six ponies before him were anything but common, reading all of the information gathered about the corporation was very time-consuming and confusing. Even though Twilight Sparkle was a logistical genius, even she needed an assistant, and Spike was the perfect companion for her.

Rainbow Dash sat at her place, a hoof to her ear and conversing to a pony who was not present. She got good use out of her subcutaneous phone, and would commonly use that instead of most other forms of personal communication. Today she had grown bored while waiting for everyone to show up, and had called a fellow pilot for a time-killing chat. Rainbow Dash was responsible for maintaining the combat readiness of the pilots of Harmony. Her Caldari Navy training had been harsh but highly constructive, and used similar training methods on her fellow pilots to teach them to succeed in combat; so far, her methods were working. She was also responsible for coordinating low-security space operations with corporations who were friendly to Harmony, and many times these operations went well, even when Twilight was not their fleet commander. She may have been an easily bored and occasionally lazy pony, but she was still a hard-working Pegasus, and deserved whatever downtime she could get her hooves on.

Pinkie Pie sat quietly across from Rainbow Dash, staring into space with her characteristic smile. A neural viewer rested on her head, a popular Gallentean accessory which transmitted information directly into the hearing and visual centers of the brain. This innovation bypassed the use of heads-up displays and listening devices, allowing for a far clearer image and sound resolution. Pinkie Pie was the reconnaissance and surveillance expert of Harmony. She would normally fly a Buzzard-class covert operations frigate fitted with cutting-edge scan probes, which could be used to search for anomalous signatures in a star system. Being Pinkie Pie, she could find anything and usually everything within a given system. She also had uncanny alacrity when it came to current events in New Equestria.

Rarity was chatting with Fluttershy, who was humbly listening to her speak. Despite losing an eye to an assassination attempt, Rarity was an avid cosmopolitan and fashionista. She wore her hair across the right side of her face, a style she had maintained for a month or so. The dress that she had chosen for today was stitched together with an assortment of blues and an accent of smoke grey, and it was the fitting image of a corporate executive. She wore an eyepatch which sported a bit-sized sapphire set in a ring of titanium. Fortunately, her disfigurement had no effect on her work as the industrial director of both Harmony and the assembly plant of Uesuro V, Moon 15. It did, however, interfere greatly with her depth perception, and as such she had taken a rest from crafting any of the dresses she made and sold. Doubtlessly there would be some unhappy customers, but it was not something that Rarity would kill herself over. Not that she could with any meaningful result.

Fluttershy sat across from her at the table, listening humbly to Rarity as she talked. Her mane was worn in her typical style, which today included a hair clip of Harmony's insignia set in semiprecious stones. She wore a uniform similar to those worn by the aid workers of the Sisters of FAUST, the most prominent humanitarian organization in New Equestria, but her outfit was a light pastel green with a pink butterfly sewn into the lapel and embroidered onto the outfit’s flanks instead of the bleached white of typical medical uniforms. Fluttershy was a capsuleer who preferred to help and protect ponies and other creatures of New Equestria instead of destroy things. This typically placed her into a support role when the six of them went out in their ships, such as an electronic warfare ship. However, she excelled at the use of logistics ships, and she could repair ships better than most logistics pilots who had been repairing armor and replenishing shields for years.

Applejack had just trotted into the conference room. She was wearing an overshirt that an asteroid miner would wear for the job, with her sleeves rolled up and a bandanna around her neck. A cowboy hat was on her head, something of a trademark item she wore when out of the pod. While she may have had other hats, she only wore the original at this particular station. Applejack was the director of, as Twilight put it, "resource procurement." This typically meant managing resources collected by structures on the surfaces of planets, buying raw materials on the market, and most importantly, mining. She was also in charge of managing the mining activities and similar operations of Harmony. Given that there were quite a number of ponies, zebras and griffons in Harmony alongside the six executives who occupied the room, mining activities were happening around the clock.

Applejack took her seat next to Rarity. While they had narrowly avoided being blasted apart by a Hurricane earlier that day, it did nothing to prevent them from being themselves. They were a strange bunch compared to the rest of New Equestria—the galaxy was fraught with peril, but the six of them never lost their hearts, which kept them their friendly selves even in the face of danger. At least, that is what they hoped for.

Slowly their side conversations died down, and Twilight readied her notes and documents for their meeting. She brushed aside her holographic display with a hoof and levitated her datasheets as she arranged them on the table in a way that would be easier for her to conduct the meeting.

"So yeah, Goldie, I'll meet with you later about a roam into Villasen next time. Got to go now, bye," Rainbow Dash spoke as she ended her phone call with another pilot. Twilight's "tell" was that telltale shifting of papers before a meeting, a way of organizing the flow of the conversation. Rarity's conversation with Fluttershy quieted in readiness for their corporate meeting.

"So, now that everypony is here, we can begin our monthly meeting. On time, I might add," spoke Twilight. The six of them were chronically late in organizing these meetings. Last month, their meeting was a week late; the month before that, two weeks late; and they almost missed their meeting entirely the month before that one. It was refreshing for her to have an organized meeting on time; capsuleers were notorious for either razor-precision or complete unreliability.

"I can say for certain that, with the exception of recent events, Harmony has been operating quite smoothly for this month. So, let's start with you, Applejack. How has mining been this month?" Twilight asked.

"Well," Applejack spoke as she removed several data sheets from her saddlebags, "our asteroid minin' groups have been pullin' up a hundred thousand cubic meters of asteroid ore, each, per day." She looked back to her data sheets on the table as she read from them. "With support from the Orca, an' mah mind-link," she tapped her head with a hoof, "the ore that we can pull up from minin' is nearly triple that. Ponies like minin' with the Orca 'cause it assists with the process, so they'll stay out longer. Ice minin' is going strong as well. The pilots we have pullin' in ice are a real different set 'a miners, 'cause ah catch 'em out there minin' ice all day long." She added heavy emphasis to the last three words. "The four of 'em sit there an' harvest ice every day for eight hours a day. They reel in a hundred and fifty blocks of ice, each, a day, which adds up to nineteen thousand ice blocks they harvested." Applejack's tabulation of the quantity of ice harvested surprised the ponies. It was an absolutely astounding quantity of ice harvested, and it would possibly take almost as long as it took to harvest it all to transport it back to their station. Mining the massive ice asteroids which were scattered around New Equestria was the easiest way of attaining very valuable compounds required to power orbital control towers for private outposts, as well as other pieces of hardware.

"Now normally ah would be movin' all of this ice from Oishami to here, but Rarity, Rainbow Dash an' ah were stuck in Nonni for the past few days waitin' for the pirate blockades to move on. Sometime after we're done here ah'm gonna go dust off mah Obelisk." Applejack sounded annoyed by the prospect of having to move the quantity of ice which had built up over time. A freighter-class starship could carry tremendous volumes of cargo, but blocks of ice were outrageously large, and there would still be a lot of trips back and forth to transport all of it.

"How long would it take you to move all of that ice?" Twilight asked,

"Well, all that ice is gonna take at least three weeks of non-stop haulin'," Applejack replied, an annoyed determination in her voice.

"Applejack," Rarity interjected, "I can help you move those blocks of ice."

"That's nice, Rarity, but-"

"No, Applejack, I won't take no for an answer. You perform great quantities of work for this corporation, and I will not allow you to be burdened with all of the strain required to maintain our presence. When we are finished here, I will undock my Charon and I will assist you in relocating the ice." Rarity spoke with a conviction which surfaced when her friends needed her help. "Besides, I did mine some of that ice as well, so I should be helping you."

"That's mighty thoughtful a' ya, Rarity. Ah will be movin' it all later, if that ain't a problem for ya."

"That is quite considerate of you, Rarity," Twilight spoke. "Is there anything else you need, Applejack?"

"Yeah, we need more Hedbergite crystals. Pinkie Pie found a belt loaded with Hedbergite, but we ran outta' crystals."

"Need more crystals..." Spike spoke to himself quietly as he typed notes for later. "How do you spell 'Hedbergite?'"

"H-e-d-b-e-r-g-i-t-e" Applejack spelled out. "Other than those crystals, ah think ah'm good for now."

"Alright then, let's move on to you, Rainbow Dash. Can you give us the score for our latest low-sec activity with SilentStorm?" "Low-sec activity" was Twilight's way of describing a roam into low-security space. Occasionally, capsuleers would become bored and leave their stations and outposts to look for a fight. This was the sort of action which CONCORD, Consolidated Cooperation and Relations Command, which acted as a police element for capsuleers, was founded to combat. However, CONCORD's long arm of the law did not reach into low-security space, and those areas were battlegrounds for pirates and pilots looking to cause trouble or settle their problems the old-fashioned way. Their ally corporation, SilentStorm, was one such group of rabble-rousers who hunted ships in low-security space for sport. Harmony and SilentStorm were on good terms, however, and had agreed to stay their lasers and high-velocity missiles when encountering each other.

"No problem, Twilight!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed enthusiastically, producing a datapad from one of her jacket's pockets.

"We managed to blow up a dozen ships last roam. Mostly frigates and a few cruisers. Then we found the battleship," she spoke, a grin slowly forming on her face.

"Yeah, that Dominix," Twilight spoke with a falling tone. The Dragoon-class destroyer which Twilight had piloted on the roam had been obliterated by a well-placed strike from the blaster cannons of a Dominix-class battleship.

"Twilight, I'm so sorry about your Dragoon. I was trying as hard as I could to repair your ship, but that Dominix was causing too much damage," Fluttershy said apologetically. Fluttershy was a skilled logistics pilot and flew ships capable of repairing her friends' ships, but there was not much that could be done between a destroyer and a battleship.

Twilight had a thing against losing ships in combat, not because they were expensive to replace or because losing ships tarnished a pilot's combat record. She hated losing ships because she preferred to fly her ships manned with living, breathing ponies. Every time she went into combat, she put the lives of other living beings at stake. Losing any of her ships would be a tragedy.

"It's ok, Twilight. At least this time you chose to fly an unmanned ship," Rainbow Dash said encouragingly. She plugged her datapad into a slot in her terminal, and a holographic display came to life above the table. It was a side-by-side comparison of the kill data of both Twilight's ship and that of the Dominix. Her name was highlighted on the Dominix's kill information.

"Besides," Rainbow Dash said proudly, "Duster may have gotten the final strike on the Dominix, but you were dealing the most damage to it! No wonder it was in such a hurry to blow you up!"

Sure enough, under the "Most Damage Dealt" superlative, there was Twilight's name and capsuleer portrait. The statistic read "64.3%"

"Out of more than a dozen ships, I dealt sixty-four percent of the total damage?" Twilight asked incredulously.

"You betcha! The colts at SilentStorm also want to tell you that they were really impressed with how you did, and they wanted us to fly with them again on more roams they planned for next month. We also got thirty million credits each for the loot that we were able to secure from the roam, but they decided to give you an extra twenty for that Dominix."

Rainbow Dash raised her hooves above her head. "Girls," she exclaimed triumphantly, "we are officially awesome!"

Twilight's friends cheered for her with the exception of Pinkie Pie, who kept a happy yet blank stare directly forward.

"Pinkie Pie? You ok there?" Applejack asked.

"Oh yeah, I'm totally fine. I've just been watching the meeting from every possible angle!" she replied cheerfully.

"Every possible angle?" Twilight asked quizically.

"Well, yeah!" she said as her own holographic display appeared over the table, displaying a video feed coming from across the table’s far side. "I've been watching from here," she said before swiping a hoof across the image to scroll to another angle; "here," she changed the angle, again and again, "and finally here!"

As she changed to the last angle, Rainbow Dash saw that she was looking at herself from the front. She quickly realized that the last angle was being streamed directly from Pinkie Pie's eyes. It was certainly random, and random was Pinkie Pie. She was unable to contain her surprise, however, and the other four of them could not help but giggle a little.

"Okay Pinkie Pie," Twilignt asked after a refreshing round of silliness, "have you found anything interesting in the constellation?"

"Well, of course! We've got small pockets of rogue drones in a bunch of systems, and a pretty big group showed up in a low-security system. I found some rare asteroids, and it is also better that we brought Applejack's cargo through Aunenen instead of the Kinakka System because the Kinakka System is camped up the flank! There was no way we would have been able to get her through that, ever! Then there's the Isie system..."

Pinkie Pie's account of the goings on in the Malariya constellation and its neighboring systems in the Black Rise region lasted for a full half-hour. While everyone was thoroughly tired of the vast minutiae of her report, Spike was still taking notes. This information would still be useful for later, and the rest of Harmony's miners would want to take a look at the asteroid belts she uncovered.

Suddenly Pinkie Pie fell silent, and her friends wondered if she had actually run out of things to say.

"Is that everything, Pinkie Pie?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, I just remembered!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed. She swiped a hoof across her display, and the image changed to an asteroid belt, filled with very large asteroids.

"Well I'll be," Applejack spoke, "that there is an Arkonor belt. How and where did ya find this? Actually ya don't have to say how, 'yer just that good at it." Pinkie Pie was uncannily proficient at finding things, and because she was so good at that and at surveillance she was made the corporation's premier explorer.

"Thanks, Applejack. I found this in the Ohbochi system. I know it is low-security space, but we just have to mine it! I'm not sure how long we have because those things get tossed around and scattered from gravity and solar wind and other stuff so can we mine it? Can we? Can we? Please please please?" Pinkie Pie was hopping in place as she asked. She was very excited to mine them with her friends, and Arkonor was a very rare asteroid ore, with very rare minerals within as well. If they did not refine it for its minerals, they could sell it for a hefty sum.

They looked to Twilight to make the decision. They were all friends, but they had all chosen her to be the CEO of Harmony, and through that their leader.

"I guess it would not hurt to have a small mining group for those asteroids." Twilight's reply was returned with a happy smile from Pinkie Pie. "Applejack, do you think you can have a small fleet of Retrievers set up for us soon?"

"Yeah, ah think ah can have 'em fitted and ready within an hour," she replied.

"Ok, we will mine those asteroids right after we are done here," Twilight announced. "Rarity, do you have anything to share with us? I hear you got some nice and expensive things."

"Why, that I do, and expensive they were. Whether or not they were nice depends on the pony," Rarity spoke and levitated a parcel, neatly wrapped in white cloth, from her embroidered saddlebags. "And again, Applejack, I'm sorry for leaving you back there when that Hurricane accosted us."

"It's nothin' much ta worry about, Rarity. Mah Iteron would've done just as much against it as yer shuttle," Applejack replied. "Now what've ya got there now?"

Rarity placed the parcel on the table and unwrapped it, revealing a number of data disks. The budding industrialist in Twilight recognized them immediately for what they were.

"These blueprint copies were not the cheapest, and not the easiest to acquire, either. You would not know just how easy it is to get caught in a scam when you are shopping through the commerce capital of New Equestria," Rarity spoke with a measure of pride.

Twilight levitated some of the blueprints to herself. One was an Archon-class carrier, and another was an Apocalypse-class battleship.

"I attained the Archon blueprint because we have the resources to build capital ship components, but we cannot just drop Celestia-knows how many credits for an original blueprint. It would cost a fore and hind leg to get one. As for the smaller ships, we should be able to build them with the resources we have now. You should also be happy to know that I also acquired a number of newer implants in case we need to install them in new clones."

"It is always good to plan ahead," Twilight spoke. "With that, all that is left is you, Fluttershy."

Fluttershy rose up slightly, startled out of a bashful reverie. The five if them looked to her for her part of the meeting, except for Pinkie Pie, who watched the meeting from one of many angles.

"Um, well," Fluttershy started slowly, "I was not able to find out anything about the Hurricane that attacked us when we came into Aunenen earlier. We didn't know who they are or who they worked for, if they were not alone," she spoke meekly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't you worry a thing now, sugar cube," Applejack said to her, "If it weren't for you we would’ve been smoked, an' half of us would be resuscitatin' instead of sitting here now."

"And you rescued one of my Firbolg pilots!" Pinkie Pie chimed. "You still owe us a Fluttershy-rescued-someone-who-could-have-died-in-a-fireball party!"

"We will be sure to have a party later. For now, we should focus on keeping everything together, which also means tightening up. Karita is coming tomorrow, so let's make sure that everything is in order," spoke Twilight.

Pinkie Pie almost choked on a soft drink which she had produced from nowhere a few seconds before.

"Karita? As in the Karita, representative of the Executive Board of Lai Dai?" Pinkie Pie questioned, a panic slowly becoming apparent in her voice.

Her five friends nodded in unison.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed, "that ruins all of my plans for a party! We have to think of something else!"

"Pinkie Pie, it's only Karita," Twilight attempted to reassure Pinkie Pie. "She only wants to inspect the station. We are the ones managing it, not them. Besides, what is stopping you from throwing her a party?"

"Twilight," Pinkie Pie protested, a small scowl forming, "the last time I threw a party for her, she threatened to rip me apart and eat me. She tried to throw me out the station's airlocks, and threatened to light me on fire too! There isn't a single fun bone in her body!"

"Well Pinkie Pie, you did throw her a surprise party which was completely unexpected," spoke Rainbow Dash, "and I think the dancing MTAC walker went over the top."

"Although, in your defense," spoke Rarity, "how were you to know that she hated the color red?"

"Don't worry," Twilight spoke reassuringly, "we can think of a plan for a party while we mine today."

"Yeah, you're right. Maybe I can try blue this time! That's Lai Dai's color anyway!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed as her fun-loving, party-minded attitude instantly rematerialized.

"That's a good idea! Alright, let's conclude this meeting. Applejack, try to have those Retrievers ready to go as soon as you can. I will be ready in about an hour. Let's all fly safe today," Twilight spoke as she focused back to her data sheets as she levitated them in front of her, and several holographic displays came to life in mid-air.

"Spike, please compile a summary of our meeting and forward it to everyone in the corporation."

•••

Rarity exited the elevator and trotted into the hallways of a more private area of the station. This was a section of the residential area of the station reserved for higher-ranking executives of Lai Dai Protection Services, and Rarity had a set of quarters all to herself. While she did live in an area mostly populated by corporate royalty, this was purely by choice; she had no problems with her friends living among other pilots and less wealthy ponies.

This hallway was lavishly decorated with various scenes from Caldari history. Some scenes depicted great cities and economic splendor, while other scenes were of conflict and battles against ponies; those scenes Rarity found less than savory for her tastes. As a Gallentean, Rarity was out of place on a Caldari space station, but as a well-known executive she was treated with cordial respect by all.

It was an odd trait of the Caldari griffons which became more apparent as one climbed the corporate ladder; while they turned their beaks and scoffed at the Gallenteans as they blamed them for their social and economic problems, they were trading with them extensively and making high-return economic deals with them at the same time, often behind the backs of every pony and griffon they fed their anti-Gallente rhetoric.

Rarity reached a highly decorated door, which was encrusted with a synthetic crystal formation of her own cutie mark. A small pad of the approximate shape and size of a hoof was built into the wall beside the door. Four small dots of yellow light were above the hoof-shaped depression.

She pressed her hoof into the depression and the four yellow lights turned green in succession. These lights flashed blue as the door hissed open for her. Biometric locks grew more and more expensive as their complexity increased, but this one was cheap compared to what lay on the other side of the doors.

To describe Rarity's lodgings as "lavish" would be an understatement. Rarity lived at the height of luxury, enough so as to cause Amarrian nobility to turn heads and give pause. The floor was arranged in patterns of the Harmony insignia, the Protection Services logo, and her own cutie mark, each a hand-made mosaic of multi-colored stones. Tapestries hung from some of the walls, depicting scenes of wealth, beauty and virtuous glory; one scene was a depiction of the ancient Equestrian city of Canterlot. Another was of a beautiful scene in space, in particular a nebula far off in the cosmos. A third tapestry was a stylized depiction of an Earth Pony, resting in a cloud and reaching a hoof to the extended hoof of the head of the Amarr Empire and religious figure, Princess Celestia.

There were yet more pieces of extravagance in her quarters; a grand window gave her a luxurious and breathtaking view of the fifteenth moon of Uesuro V as well as the System's star, polarized by the window to prevent damage of the eyes while preserving the view of the moon; a huge wine rack held bottles of exotic wines worth thousands of bits each; plush velvet couches arranged in a circle around a flower arrangement surrounded the technological wonder of the room, a sphere of water held aloft by tractor beams and antigravity generators, within which several very expensive and colorful koi swam idly.

Rarity took the bits and credits which she made from hard work and converted them into luxury life. While her friends certainly had the capacity to live as luxuriously as she did, she was the one who did.

There was one thing in her lodgings that was worth more than anything else in her possession, and it was running to her with exited glee.

"Rarity!" Sweetie Belle shouted with happiness as she hugged her sister.

"Sweetie Belle, I missed you so much," she said as she returned her hug. "How have you and your friends been?"

"We were getting really bored waiting for you all to come back. There is not much to do here, and I know that Fluttershy was trying really hard to keep us occupied."

Rarity had to give credit to Fluttershy, Sweetie Belle and her friends were real handfuls, and they could easily get into serious trouble if they were not close watched.

"Rarity, I was working on some new songs when you were away. Would you like to hear them?" asked Sweetie Belle. She had been writing songs for a while now as a hobby, and she also had a pretty singing voice. There were talks about singing being her special talent, the kind of talent that earns a pony his or her cutie mark.

Rarity had already promised her friends that she would mine with them shortly. However, this was her sister, and her sister meant a lot to her.

She weighed her options. She could tell her sister that she could not and that her friends were waiting for her help. Or, she thought, she could stay and listen to her sister's songs and be late to their mining session. She did want to help her sister's potential musical career flourish.

She made her decision, and smiled to her sister.

"Sweetie Belle, I have not seen you in days, and I would love to hear your new musical works."

Sweetie Belle excitedly ran to get her music player.

Author's Note:

I apologize for the long delay between chapters; the "end of the month" which I promised to have this chapter up by was finals week, so I almost forgot.

Here we have summed up the various roles that each of the Mane Six have in their corporation. They are by far not the only ponies in the corp, but they are the six founders. While this chapter was far more relaxed than the prior three, there is more to capsuleer life than pirates and poddings. THAT will be served in the coming chapters in spades. I hope everypony enjoyed the fourth chapter and my fanfic thus far, even if progress is slow.

Comments

[Roguewire]

Fifth chapter has been delivered. I'm sorry it took so long to get up here, but I hope you enjoy what I have so far! I will also try to add more author's notes to the existing and future chapters to help understand what is going on, in case the readers are non-capsuleers. Enjoy!

[Mlp_BladeDancer]

You get a like for that awesome description i can tell this will be a good read