LOCATION CLASSIFIED DATE CLASSIFIED SHIPIDENT CLASSIFIED
Stealth.
The art of not being seen; it is, on most battlefields, the key to staying alive. If you can't be seen, after all, your enemies don't know you're there to kill.
Most battlefields.
But in the depths of space, the rules change. Being seen is inevitable.
Even the dullest objects reflect light.
Even the coldest radiate heat.
Against the perfect black and absolute chill of the universe, everything is visible. Stealth, goes, as they say, out the airlock. Staying alive then becomes a game of distance, of being so far away that, by the time your image meets a waiting observer, you are no longer there.
But in an age of instant detection and an environment of permanent visibility, stealth loses its relevance.
Or does it?
Designed by minds that had dismissed it as impossible, constructed by hands that had laughed at the very idea, and launched by a people that had never seen the need, a new predator prowled the skies.
An impossibility born of necessity. Perfectly visible to even the most mundane of civilian sensors, against any enemy it would have been asked to face in the past, it would have been laughably visible.
Built as it were around stealth, its armaments were piteous, its defenses lackluster, and its engines were good for little beyond setting orbits.
Against the enemies it would have been asked to face in the past, it would have been dead in the blink of the metaphorical eye.
Against an enemy that tossed the laws of physics out the window, however, old ideas became new again. The impractical became feasible, and the impossible looked more likely by the second.
Enter the Trespasser heavy corvette Dusk.
Equipped with thermal/optic camouflage technology repurposed and scaled up from the technology employed by infantry special forces, it could appear to fade away against background, invisible save for the shimmer of refracted light.
Equipped with the most advanced cooling technologies its designers could procure, its hull could be chilled to near-absolute-zero. Coupled with dozens upon dozens of internal heat-sinks, it could maintain near-invisibility to infrared sensors.
With engines that could maneuver the craft without propellant, and a hull coating not too dissimilar to that on the outside of ancient stealth aircraft, it could fly, unseen, right next to, astronomically speaking, the enemy
It was hoped.
Like many before her, the mission set before the Dusk and her sister ships was one of exploration.
And also like so many before her, peace was the last thing on her crew’s minds.
It would be fitting that a craft that would have been at home in speculative fiction would be crafted to face another element of the same, one that had haunted her masters’ dreams, and their nightmares, for centuries.
Dusk, her sisters, and their crews, flung themselves into the night, searching.
Sol system, Equus high orbit July 23rd, 1173 a.n.m.
Dawn Wing sat. He’d been sitting for quite some time, and, the way he saw it, he’d be sitting for a good deal more. The room in which he had been consigned to languish was bare except for a table, a pair of chairs, and a tiny viewport; its walls, floor and ceiling were painted a warm beige. The viewport faced the planet below and provided a, assuming Dawn could dredge up the willpower to care, spectacular view of the mother world.
Just as the dull purple pegasus had decided that a nap would be the best use of his time, the door, a sliding automatic, hissed open, admitting a rather unassuming, at first glance, unicorn mare. That impression changed completely the moment she stepped in the room.
She wore a plain, dark blue jacket without insignia of any kind, save for the eclipsing sun and moon of the government, and carried in her aura a stack of files nearly as tall as she was. Her step was measured, confident, and every facet of her being radiated authority.
Dawn felt himself straightening reflexively, his Guard training kicking in. His prosthetic gave off a quiet whir as the servos within worked to adjust his posture.
The chair opposite his scraped, the door hissed and clanked, and Dawn suddenly found himself locked in a gaze that held no warmth.
A dull thump accompanied the files’ landing on the table.
“H-hi, I’m-”
“Staff Sergeant Dawn Wing of Their Majesties’ Royal Marines, yes, I know.”
Dawn managed not to flinch, barely.
“I’m here about your after-action report on the incident in the El-Vee two-eighteen system. Further investigation of the events have rendered it no longer as complete as we would like.” A file floated from the top of the stack and settled in front of the so-far-nameless mare. “We’d like you to elaborate on it.”
“Elaborate?”
The pony across from Dawn sighed in visible annoyance.
“Staff Sergeant Wing, you were involved in events of a magnitude matched only by our contact with the Changelings. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you how that went.
“This is something we need to understand very, very well before we can deal with it; and we can’t do that,” she tapped the file with a hoof, “with just a bunch of two-page reports. We need to know as much about what went on in that system as possibly can.
“So, please,” Dawn again found himself pinned by a glare, “elaborate on what you experienced in El-Vee two-eighteen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Glad we’ve come to an understanding.
“Now,” she glanced at the file, “it says here that you were part of the initial landing on the surface.” Dawn nodded. “Start from there, in as much detail as you can remember.”
“Well, uh, I don’t really know what happened star-side, but I guess you’ll talk to one of the ship-jockeys at some point,” Dawn started, falling into his training again as he recounted his experiences with growing confidence.
“My squad and I got the orders to gear up and report to the landers. It was pretty standard stuff; grab your gear, strap on your assault saddle, strap in, kiss your flank goodbye.
“From what I saw, it was a pretty textbook landing; a little turbulence from re-entry and then nothing until we hit dirt. It was actually kind of too quiet, almost, like something big was gearing up to wallop us, but it never came. Spooked me something fierce. I know that sounds kinda-”
“Just continue with your report, Staff Sergeant.”
“. . . Yes, ma’am.
“The place was barren, barely habitable. Gray gravel and dust everywhere, air like you gliding at high altitude, not a lick of life. Anywhere.”
Dawn Wing advanced across the plain, his weapon at the ready. Around him, he could hear the hoofsteps of his comrades as they moved with him, soft crunches emanating from the dusty gravel beneath their hooves. In the distance was a piercing howl, like the screech of some beast in Tartarus.
Above him, the dull throbbing growl of high-altitude aircraft maneuvering could barely be heard.
Beyond that was the sharp whistle of the wind as it raced through the thin atmosphere around them.
And then nothing. Maddening amounts of absolutely nothing.
Dawn shivered, the sheer nothingness around him pushing his paranoia into overdrive, and turned again to look at his squad-mates. They were just as spooked. Dawn’s pace slowed, the safety provided by the herd calling to him on an instinctual level, and he allowed his squadmates to catch up to him a bit more.
They were advancing in the direction of a pair of hills outside of the alien compound, which could be seen through the gap between them. What little of it he could see looked nothing like pony architecture. Squat, brick-shaped buildings in different shades of gray, with no softness and, like the terrain around them, no life.
They had a cold, efficient, vaguely threatening look to them. They also seemed to be the source of the unearthly howl.
As well as the flight of fighters that suddenly screamed over Dawn’s head before climbing to meet their equestrian counterparts.
“Describe the fighters, please, Staff Sergeant.”
“I counted four of them, but aside from them being huge and having even larger wings, I didn’t get a good look at them. They moved too fast, ma’am.”
“I see. Please continue.”
A pause.
“We were within a couple hundred bodylengths of the hills by then.”
More of the compound had become visible. A tarmac, black mottled with gray, surrounded the horrible brick-buildings, more of which, including what appeared to be absolutely massive hangars which must have housed the fighters Dawn had seen, had become visible.
Wait a second.
Something on the hills, so faint he’d he’d almost missed it. Blurs at the top of each hill, low and indistinct. Had he been a unicorn or earth pony, Dawn would likely have never seen them
“Hey, Dia-”
One of the lieutenants disintegrated; there one moment, and then a cloud of mist another.
BANG!!!
The sound reached them a split-second later, again and again. Officer after officer disappeared in puffs of red mist amidst the thunderstorm of noise.
In a matter seconds, before anypony had any idea what had happened, the company had been decapitated.
Dawn was the first to recover. The blurs on the hills and the sudden, devastating attack had to be connected.
“THE HILLS! THEY’RE ON THE HILLS!”
The mad dash began, weapons fire and magical blasts blanketing the two peaks as the surviving ponies scrambled to retaliate. The thunderstorm continued to rage at them all the while.
Dawn, meanwhile, had taken flight, as had the other pegasi in the unit.
He prepared to dive-bomb the blurs, to take their attention off of his ground-bound comrades, when his existence exploded in pain.
He never felt the impact with the ground.
“And the next thing I know, I’m in a hospital signing for a prosthetic and it’s been a month.” Dawn raised the robotic forelimb for emphasis, before nodding at the file, “I got my new leg attached, and dictated that as soon as I could.”
The stylus, which the still-unnamed mare had brought out when he’d begun, twitched and danced across the tablet for a moment more before laying itself to rest beside it.
“And you’re sure that’s everything?” Again with the stare.
“Yes, ma’m.”
She stared at him for a moment longer, her eyes darting across his face as though she were searching for something. A ghost of a smile appeared on her face for a second before the mask came back down, her face once more becoming perfectly neutral.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Staff Sergeant. I’ll make sure this information gets to the right ponies.”
Still nameless, the mare left as suddenly as she had entered, though the door stayed open this time, indicating Dawn was free to go. He caught a glimpse of the mystery mare’s mark just before she walked out of sight.
War is, as those who wage it soon learn, a cruelly fickle beast. The very same fortunes that can see a soldier home to her loved ones after a tour of duty can see whole armies obliterated in the blink of an eye.
While fate had seen fit to spare Equus from the fate that had befallen so many of her children, it had been a near thing.
Defended by a paltry sum of sensor platforms, littoral patrol ships, and one single destroyer that had happened to be in the right place at the right time, the world had been practically defenseless; a buffet to be pillaged and dined from at the Changelings’ leisure.
The fate that the mother world would have faced, had Princess Celestia’s battlegroup been any later in reinforcing the beleaguered Canis, was not something many ponies thought about if they had any choice, lest even Princess Luna find herself unable to aid them.
Though the attack had been repulsed, the writing was on the wall. Or, perhaps, ponykind had finally allowed themselves to read it.
The time for diplomacy had ended. There really was no chance for peace. It was something that everypony had known, deep down. But ponies are creatures of hope, and most had hoped, fervently, that they were wrong.
A hope that had finally been shattered, violently, by reality. Those in the Guard, who had been forced to accept this reality years ago, could only shake their heads in sorrow.
Friendship, the very foundation of Equestrian society, had, somehow, failed. It was them, or the Changelings.
While conflict was nothing new to ponykind, their culture’s very founding stemming from it, it was with heavy hearts that ponykind set about preparing.
For the first time since the Windigo Era, they would fight a war of aggression.
Patrols increased, in size and frequency. Never again would the Changelings be allowed to roam and sneak across Equestrian territory unchecked.
Industry revamped itself. The performance of the Canis in defense of Equus had vindicated the Everfree’s previously untested design, and had shown that the future of naval warfare lay in agility, the Canis having killed a craft at close range that in previous engagements had required a numerical superiority of two, or even three, to one to defeat even in ideal conditions.
While the juggernauts of the current fleet had their purpose, the doctrine of front-line combat had forever shifted, and ponykind’s factories adapted to accommodate this fact. The lessened cost the new fleet was just a bonus. Some called the changes crazy. Some called them crazy enough to work.
Garrisons grew, ships once flung into the depths of space now chained to the worlds that had built them. Never again would the worlds of ponykind, the mother world especially, be left undefended.
Scouts dove into the night, searching. Never again would the Changelings be allowed the element of surprise.
Invasion plans were drawn up. Never again would the Changelings be allowed the initiative in this war.
Saddened by the failure of peace, hurt by their losses, but confident in their course of action, ponykind prepared. They were ready, ponykind had decided, to do what needed doing.
But war is a fickle creature.
And it rarely leaves one unmolested for long.
Alpha Canter system, deep space May 28th, 1173 a.n.m. ESV Everfree - DDA - 001EVF
Alpha Canter had once been one of Equestria’s farthest colonies.
A pristine garden of a world orbiting an orange sun slightly dimmer than Equus’ own, it had once been home to millions. Once, even, it had served as the launch pad of expeditions into the Dark Arm.
The gateway to the galaxy.
Now it was a corpse; killed by the Changelings, drained of everything of value, and left to rot, its only inhabitants a hooffull of FTL beacons the bug-like aliens had seen fit to ignore.
This was the sight that greeted the Everfree as it exited FTL, shedding excess momentum in a nova-bright flash of radiation as it slowed once again to sublight speeds.
“Eff-Tee-El to Ess-Tee-El transition complete, captain. We’re about five thousand kilometers from beacon oh-one-oh. Holding position.”
Battlegroup Wonderbolt continued to transition around them. Composed of frigates and destroyers, and backed up by retrofitted cruisers, it was Equestria’s first experiment in the whimsically named Rainboom doctrine. As a test, the battlegroup had been sent out on patrol among the Dead Worlds, where encounters with the Changelings was all but guaranteed.
The crews of BG Wonderbolt spoiling for a fight as it was, nopony complained.
“Come to new heading. . .,” Captain Valencia Orange glanced at her command readout, checking the orders the Everfree had just received from the Lunar Light, the cruiser serving as Wonderbolt’s flagship, “ oh-two-five by negative oh-three-six. Make sure we intercept the Honeycrisp, Neighpon, and Diamond Dog.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
The earth pony sighed to herself as the ship around her gave a small shudder, turning to accelerate along its new course. Matter met antimatter with a dull rumble, and they were on their way.
So far, homecoming wasn’t the dramatic triumph Valencia had imagined it would be.
The destroyer and her frigate escorts accelerated away from the rest of Wonderbolt, on a course that would slingshot them around the former colony. If this system went the way that all the rest had, this would simply be first of several dull loops around an empty star, and then Wonderbolt would move on; bored out of its collective mind and that much more frustrated.
At the distances the universe seemed to prefer, nopony in Wonderbolt would know either way for several hours.
Captain Valencia Orange jerked awake at the sound of the chiming alarm coming from her desk console.
She had decided, an hour after the Briar Patch slingshot, that there were more productive things she could do with her time than stare at a starfield on a viewscreen or hover over her bridge crew, breathing down their necks as they worked, and retired to her cabin to catch up on the mountains of paperwork which captaining one of Their Majesties’ ships required. This had, as it generally did, yet again led to her falling asleep at her desk.
“Uhwuh?”
It was about the third chime that her brain had engaged enough for her recognize what was going on and paw at the console with a semi-responsive hoof. She was greeted by the monotonous voice of the Everfree’s AI.
“Captain Orange, you are requested on the bridge immediately.”
Some words had special meanings in the Guard.
“Immediately” was never uttered by anypony unless the situation was dire.
Valencia was on her hooves, her fatigue completely forgotten, and out the door before the desk chair had completed its flight across the room.
“Out of the way. OUT OF THE WAY!”
Valencia barreled through the destroyer’s corridors at a gallop, fully aware of the shudders of maneuvering thrusters around her as she raced towards her destination.
She hadn’t ordered any maneuvers, and they were still hours from their next burn.
Oh, horseapples.
She barely noticed the hiss of the door opening before her, so intent as she was on getting to her destination.
The bridge was chaos. Chaos with a purpose to be sure, the ponies around Valencia moved with intent and didn’t waste a second’s effort on panic, but Discord himself might have been hard-pressed to best the sight before her now.
“Sitrep, guys. What’s goin’ on?”
The navigator on duty, a unicorn mare by the name of Amethyst Flake, paused scrabbling at her control board just long enough to point at the viewscreen, though her eyes never left the board’s readouts.
Valencia’s heart leaped to her throat at what she saw. The chitinous armor. The organic shapes. The sickly green-black that everypony in the Guard quickly learned to recognize and hate. There, silhouetted against Alpha Canter herself, were Changeling ships.
All of them headed straight for the Everfree and her escorts.
Suddenly, Valencia decided she would have been perfectly fine with an empty system.
Moan later, Cia. Focus on the bugs right now.
She scrambled for the command chair, locking herself in as soon as her rump had touched the padding.
“This is Captain Orange to all hooves,” she said, cueing the AI to activate the ship-wide comms system, “as of right now, we are at combat stations. This is not a drill. I repeat, not a drill.” She knew without having to see that each and every pony under her command began to race to the positions where they would be able to help most during the coming brawl.
“We don’t have a lot a time, and I’ve never been all that good at speeches, so I’m just going to give it to you straight.
“We’re about to engage the Changelings.
“Odds are, a lot of us aren’t going to see tomorrow. But this is what we’ve trained for, and I know that you, of all ponies, are ready to weather the coming storm.
“We have the tools.
“We have the tactics.
“And we have the strength of will to prevail. And we WILL prevail. For our friends. For our families. For the lost. For Harmony.
“We. Will. Win.”
Her ears pressed themselves flat in embarrassment as she heard warcries echoing around the bridge.
“I thought you said no speeches, cap,” Valencia’s comms officer, Petal Song, snarked.
“Shut up,” - this earned her a smirk - “and do your job. Get a tight-beam back to the Light and kindly ask the Fleet Captain to get his and the rest of Wonderolt’s plots over here, asap.
“And while you’re at it, tell the frigates to get into a starburst, centered on us.” The stallion nodded and set to work.
It was then that Valencia finally got the chance to look at her command readout, its tactical display showing her everything the ship saw. It only confirmed her initial assessment of the situation.
It wasn’t good.
Nearly two-dozen craft, ranging from frigates to cruisers, were arrayed out before the Equestrian ships. Wonderbolt, at thirty strong, was just large enough that the fight the fight could, possibly, be considered ‘even’. If they could get there before the destroyer and company were vaporized.
Even a blind mare could see that the Everfree’s fight would be a delaying action at best.
“Cap, they’ve hailed us.”
As expected. Besides their monstrous disregard for life, the Changelings seemed to have an almost instinctual need for drama. Each fight always began with taunts, playing on Equestria’s desire for peace, and then smashing it to bits before rubbing the pieces in its collective face.
Not today. Not ever again.
“Ignore it, Song. I think we’ve all got a pretty good idea what they want to say.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
His console beeped again.
“Cap, the Light’s responded. They’re moving. Standard orders ‘till they get here; fight hard, die well, yadda, yadda.”
“And I’m guessing they forgot to give you an ee-tee-ay?”
The stallion’s look said it all.
Valencia considered her options, barely restraining an eyeroll. A minute out from contact, she had an incredibly small window to form some kind of plan. Then it hit her. She called up the specs on the frigates’ class.
The Timberwolf class ships were the result of Rainboom being taken to its logical extreme. Nearly as long as the Everfree, each ship was little more than a collection of fuel tanks, thruster assemblies and a reactor strapped to a battlecruiser-scale pulse battery, with enough of a pressure hull wedged in the middle to house just enough crew to run the insane contraption.
Each frigate actually had more delta-v than the destroyer they escorted.
And, in theory, at least, packed almost as punch.
Perfect.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”
“Song, tell the Neighpon, Honeycrisp, Diamond Dog to slave their targeting computers to ours. We’re gonna focus fire.
“Gunnery, I want you to start working on targeting solutions for every ship out there. Prioritize your targets by size, and then range. Get the little buckers up close first, then the big ones out back; if we’re going to live through this, we need to kill the ships that can actually catch us, and we need to do it quick-like.
“As soon you as you have those targeting solutions, send them off to the frigates.
“I want all ships ready to make evasive maneuvers at a moment’s notice. Shoot-n-scoot, guys.”
She glanced at the command readout. Ten seconds.
Seven.
Four.
“Frigates report ready, ma’am.”
One.
A predatory grin wormed its way onto her face in that final moment before contact. The bugs were in for a world of hurt.
“Squish ‘em.”
A brief flash appeared at the muzzle of the railgun as it fired, flinging the multi-ton slug forward at an appreciable fraction of lightspeed, joined nearly instantly by dozens of missiles, and the blood-red lances of fury that lashed out from the Everfree’s forward pulse batteries.
Around her, the frigates answered with their own silent volleys of hellish energy.
Seconds later, the alien frigate, subject to a barrage that would have given the Lunar Light’s armament a run for its money, shuddered, quaked, and finally cracked open before boiling away under the glares of the energy weapons.
The Changelings retaliated, particle beams and plasma warheads screaming out into the void, but to no avail; the Equestrian formation simply wasn’t there anymore. The initiative lost, the aliens nevertheless gave chase.
Valencia reveled in the kill. Part of her worried about that, but the rest simply didn’t care.
The next one wouldn’t be so easy, though. It was obvious that the Changelings hadn’t expected her to just ignore them and shoot first, and that had given her the element of surprise. But with that gone, and her quarry now chasing her down. . .
Things were about to get interesting.
“All ships,” the AI once again took its cue and broadcast her voice to the frigates, “prepare to turn and address. I want weapons locked on target eff and primed to fire. On my signal.”
She watched the tactical display, waiting for the Changeling frigate, which had grown bold and recklessly accelerated far past the point its fellows could support it, to enter the killing field she was setting up.
“Now!”
As one, the Equestrian formation silenced their engines, flipped end over end to bring their weapons to bear, and fired.
Like the first, the alien ship never stood a chance, simply vaporizing under the assault.
Nopony noticed one of the Changeling cruisers jump to FTL until it was too late.
Collision alarms squawked as the behemoth of a ship landed on top of the destroyer and unloaded everything it had on the quartet of ships.
The Everfree rocked as blow after blow landed, the shields straining under the assault before breaking completely.
“EVASIVE MANEUVERS!” Maybe Valencia could still save her ship.
Emergency thrusters detonated, throwing the ship to the side. It wasn’t enough.
Plasma ripped into the Everfree, slagging armor, cooking crewponies, and exposing the ship’s guts to space. Though not the killing blow it would have been, the destroyer was crippled, her left side reduced to a semi-molten mass of metal. Valencia didn’t need the AI rattling off damage reports to know she was in trouble.
She could worry about where that tactic had come from later. First, she had to deal with the results.
The one bright side to the situation was that her bridge crew hadn’t been tossed around. Much.
Amethyst rolled the ship, anticipating her captain’s order, to present the as-yet undamaged starboard side of the Everfree to the cruiser.
The frigates had fared better. Being far faster and more maneuverable than the destroyer, they had escaped the worst of the cruiser’s wrath by simply outrunning it, though the Diamond Dog and Neighpon had both been scorched by very close misses.
The frigates’ retaliation was swift. As the Everfree limped away, they turned and fired, pulse batteries lashing out at the cruiser, chewing at its armor. Missiles from the fleeing destroyer opened the gashes further, before a lucky shot from the Honeycrisp reached through and impacted on the cruiser’s reactor, damaging it. Not enough to destroy it, the alien ship was nonetheless crippled as it suddenly found itself without power as some safeguard or another went into action, shutting the reactor down.
Valencia sensed an opportunity.
She reached for it.
“Flechette,” she addressed the gunnery officer, “prime the rail gun again, and get ready to fire. Amethyst, flip us around.
“Try to line up the reactor on that ship.”
The wounded ship spun, turning to face her would-be-killer.
“Target locked in, ma’am; railgun crew standing by.”
“Fire.”
The great cannon barked again, sending another slug flying.
Impact. The slug had flown true, obliterating the heart of the juggernaut before them. There was no explosion, without an ongoing fusion reaction, that was impossible, but the spray of shrapnel left no doubt. The cruiser was dead.
They could celebrate later. Those frigates would be on them at any second.
“Helm, new course. Null by oh-two-five. Give me a sixty-second burn.
“Song, get the frigates back into formation.
“And keep those sensors peeled, guys. They pull that trick again and we’re dead.”
Nopony in their right mind would consider the Everfree combat-worthy anymore, but Valencia didn’t have the option of retreat. Not yet. With the rest of Wonderbolt still an unknown amount of time away, the Everfree comprised nearly a third of the Equestrian firepower in the battle, even if she was crippled.
They were forced to fight until either they were dead or help arrived.
And so the dead-ship-flying leaped along her new course with no hesitation, ready to continue her fight for the empty star.
Valencia looked at the tactical readout on her screen.
“All ships, lock up target dee and start looping around to line up a shot. Fire on my signal, and then come to new heading oh-eight-oh by negative one-one-oh.” She hoped she didn’t need to remind them to not stop moving. Learning that lesson had hurt.
Where had that FTL-jump tactic come from? Why had nopony seen it before?
She shoved those questions aside again as the group finished its loop, flying straight at the Changeling armada. Their target was part of the frigate screen that had formed at the front of the alien formation.
“Captain, something’s coming out of eff-tee-el.”
The quartet’s charge was interrupted by a nova-bright flash, revealing very familiar bulk coming out of FTL, an Equestrian cruiser. And then another flash. And another. Flash after flash of light.
Wonderbolt had arrived.
The Everfree and her escorts blew through the friendly fleet and continued on their course, unable to shed their momentum in time to fall in line. They were committed, and so they would finish their attack run.
Particle beam fire lanced out from the Changelings ships. . . and passed the destroyer and her escorts by completely. The quartet hurtled through the storm, too fast to hit, and too fast to dodge.
Missiles and pulse batteries flashed in answer, before the ships, their engines still at full thrust, turned to vector off of their course, away from the Changelings, diving into the particle beams.
The Neighpon took a hit, a beam bursting through its shield and savaging its armor, and then they were through.
Kill number four.
Behind them, Wonderbolt went to work. Rail guns barked, missiles raced out, and pulse batteries roared, tearing into the Changeling ships. The aliens’ response was just a brutal, plasma warheads and particle beams shattering the Equestrians’ shields and slagging armor.
True to Rainboom doctrine, none of the Equestrian ships stay still for long. The battlegroup scattered, ships accelerating in different directions, never staying on the same course for more than a few seconds, never giving the Changelings a chance to draw a bead on them.
They boxed the aliens in, dodging everything thrown at them and shrugging off what few hits landed. And then they picked the aliens apart.
Where her own fight had been a desperate dance to stay alive, where, in past battles, the forces before her would have been described as an ‘even match’, Valencia’s command screen showed a massacre.
Wonderbolt was eating the Changelings alive.
Correction. Had eaten.
It was beautiful.
Rainboom had been a gamble. A radical idea that had been based on the performance of one ship in one battle. A desperate measure for a desperate time.
And it had payed off better than anypony could imagine.
The battle was over. For the first time, ponykind had not only won, but had done so decisively.
There was still the matter of the FTL-jump tactic, the one that had nearly destroyed the Everfree and her escorts. Was that a fluke? A single flash of tactical brilliance by one captain? Or was it something more?
Valencia snorted.
Did she care? She knew to watch for it now, and once she filed her report, so would the rest of the Fleet. After that, it was in the spooks’ hooves.
“All hooves. . . stand down from combat stations. Good jobs guys, I knew you could do it.
“Cider’s on me when we get back to base.”
Valencia refused to think about how many she wouldn’t be buying drinks for.
Sol system, Equus high orbit July 30th, 1173 a.n.m.
She worked in her office, waiting. The mare had spent the last few days interviewing guardsponies, building a picture of what had happened in the star system that Equestrian cartographers had simply labeled “LV-218”.
Her cover demanded that she turn over her findings to the Equestrian diarchy, and so she had. The picture of events that those findings showed was important enough that somepony would question her if she didn’t, and she had worked far too hard to get where she was to risk it.
Luckily, copies were as easy as a button press.
And so she waited, keeping herself occupied with busywork while she did. There was something vaguely satisfying about paperwork anyway.
There. The communications window she’d been waiting for. She opened her desk and popped open a secret compartment within it. It was well hidden, but it always forced her to scrabble blindly for her target.
A transmitter, carefully disguised to resemble Equestrian technology. She plugged it into her computer terminal, making sure that the computer itself was isolated, and activated it.
A face appeared on the screen, cold and imperious.
“The ponies have stumbled across something that I think Her Highness will find quite interesting.” She transferred the file containing everything she knew about LV-218 over the link.
The face nodded, and the connection was severed.
She stowed the transmitter back in her desk, and resumed her paperwork.
Sol system, Lunar low orbit January 16th, 417 a.g.w.
Jarret Connor, despite having lived and worked in space for decades, never tired of the sights it offered him.
He stared out a window in the, rather luxurious, all things considered, room he’d been put in to wait until his interview. He’d rather put the whole reason he was here behind him, but when Federal Intelligence asked you for something, the only questions you asked were "when do you want it", "where do you want it", and "how do you want it"; even a civilian like him knew that.
Luna made up for it, though. Streaking by a few hundred kilometers below him, the sun glinted of the countless crater-lakes that dotted its lush surface. Earth, in the background, completed the scene; the mottled blue and brown and white marble that was mankind’s birthworld hung in the inky black.
He sighed and pushed off, letting himself drift in no particular direction, trusting that the padding on the walls would keep him from getting a serious bump. That was one reason he was thankful he was on a civilian station. If there was one thing ancient movies had gotten right, it was the military’s penchant for cold steel and sharp angles.
“Having fun?”
THUMP!
“SONUVA-!”
Padded did not mean soft. Jarret massaged his head, which had oh-so-helpfully informed him as to that fact by colliding with said padding, as he threw a glare at the man hanging in the door frame with an amused glint in his eye.
“Piss off,” he growled.
The other man just drifted into the room with that impish look still plastered on his face.
“After the interview,” he answered simply. It was at that point Jarret saw the ID badge on the man’s chest. The Federal Intelligence logo glared at him.
Now he’d cussed out an FI agent. Wonderful. He pushed off in the direction of the nullgrav table that had popped from what was now the ‘floor’ of the room with a sigh. That bump to the head was liable to be the highlight of the day.
The agent held out his hand while Jarret was slipping into a nullgrav “chair” that would keep him from drifting away unintentionally. Jarret stared at it a moment before shaking it.
“No one’s in trouble, mister Connor. Believe me, you wouldn’t have anything worry about even if that were the case.
“I’m Agent Ripley, by the way.”
“So, this is about Farpoint?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Why not ask your soldier boys about it?”
Agent Ripley gave a small smile at that. “We are. But we thought it best to interview everyone that was there. Sometimes, different perspectives see different things. I’m sure you’ve got an idea of how delicate a situation like this can be.”
“I guess. Alright, where do you want me to start?”
“What were you doing when the incident started?”
Jarret made a face. “Layman’s terms?”
“That might be best.”
Jarret sighed and pulled up the relevant files.
Gravel crunched under the rover’s tires as it rolled over the rugged terrain of 82 Eridani’s sole inhabited planet, the vehicle’s sole occupant bobbing his head absentmindedly to a pop song drifting out of the radio as he drove.
Jarret was having a good day. That wasn’t unusual for the atmospheric technician though; the man loved his job and the artist’s pride he took in his work generally had him in a good mood. His eyes wandered along Farpoint’s landscape, taking in a vista that had barely begun to soften, even after a decade’s work.
It was Jarret’s job to change that. He’d spent the last decade helping to build up the planet’s original atmosphere of carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and now, with the atmosphere finally thick enough to live in without a pressure suit, it was time to start making the dead rock actually livable.
He was on his way to check up on one of the automated regolith refineries that allowed that process to happen. He considered himself lucky that the refineries under his watch were close by. Much as he loved his job, Jarret did not envy his comrades that had to make those monthly suborbital hops.
[[Jarret.]]
He turned off the main road onto the path leading to Refinery 14. [[Yo, Andrew! I’m turning into fourteen now. You need something, boss?]]
Adrew hesitated. Something was up. Jarret turned off the radio. The silence around him became deafening.
[[I need you to finish up at fourteen and head back in.]] Now Andrew had Jarret’s full attention. The man didn’t believe in micromanaging, and he NEVER deviated from his schedules. Now he was doing both.
[[What’s up, boss?]]
Silence.
[[Boss?]]
More silence.
[[Dammit, man! Talk to me.]]
[[Lieutenant Coleman says that there’s unknowns on adar. He’s locking everything down for now.]]
Great. Just perfect.
[[Rats?]] Jarret questioned back. Pirates were a rare, but still serious, problem on the Fringe, and terraforming projects were favored targets; tiny security garrisons and warehouses just full of supplies and goods made them low-risk and high-reward. Perfect pirate bait.
[[Dunno. Maybe. Coleman thinks the numbers support that, though; more than one, but still single digits.
[[I want you back here asap, Connor.]]
[[Yeah, boss. On it.]]
Jarret turned the radio back on as the comms link faded out. The wind was creeping him out.
A shuttle, one of the CS-14 Swallows that Farpoint Station had on hand for intercontinental travel, if Jarret was any judge, was on final approach for the spaceport runway as he pulled into the vehicle depot. He watched it glide in as he parked the rover. Drogues parachutes deployed and retro thrusters at full blast, it was obvious the pilots were in hurry. It didn’t take an idiot to figure out why.
The shuttle overshot, sonic booms ringing out as it passed overhead. He could see the shuttle jettison the drogues as it began to turn in the distance; the parachutes would hamper it more than help by this point.
He stepped out of the rover and began to jog over to the command center. If he was going to get information, that was the place to be.
The squat collection of prefabricated modules that was the heart of Farpoint Station loomed ahead of him as he was silently debating the pros and cons of a prosthetic body with himself. He had decided one was in his best interests as the airlock cycled, and had started browsing the market by the time he walked into the command center proper. As expected, it was packed.
Nothing like the threat of attack to bring people together.
He shut off the web-page as he actually entered the room.
“Lance Held High, Farpoint Command; check in, over.”
There was a moment of static. “Farpoint Command, Lance Held High checking in, over.”
The Lance Held High was a Navy frigate assigned to 82 Eridani for security. If Jarret was right, they were probably on their way to investigate the adar contacts.
He settled next to Marc, another atmo-tech, who nodded in acknowledgement without taking her eyes off the displays.
“Lance Held High, Farpoint Command; requesting status, over.”
Another moment of static.
“Farpoint Command, Lance Held high. Situation is nominal; we are one-two-zero seconds from intercept, travelling decimal-two-five cee. Adar counts zero-five contacts, silhouettes do not match known craft; estiel sensors show radiation emissions consistent with manned spacecraft.
“Peterson, brings us down to ten, then drop us out within twenty thousand.”
Static returned. Another voice appeared on the channel.
“Disengaging ay-drive in five.
“Three.
“One.
“Range to targets now eighteen thousand, five hundred kilometers, approximate”
“Capello, hail them; all frequencies.”
“We’re. . . go, Commander”
“Unidentified craft, unidentified craft, this is Commander Hastings, See-Dee-Vee Lance Held High, Sol Confederacy Navy; heed and stand to.
“All craft receiving this transmission have entered restricted space and are hereby ordered to transmit identification immediately. Failure to do so within one-two-zero seconds will be interpreted as hostile action.
“I say again; squawk ident or we will kill you. Over.”
At a twentieth the distance between the Earth and its moon, the unknown ships were clearly visible to the Lance’s telescopes, and their images were displayed on various screens in the room. They were. . . graceful, each one built of curves that flowed from end to end.
He would have thought that they might have been Pavonan, their shipwrights preferred ‘artsy’ hulls like the ones on screen; this wasn’t like them, though. If these ships had belonged to the Order, Farpoint would have known about them a week before; even the Eridanus gave you the courtesy of a knock on the door.
Everyone waited, wondering what the strange ships would do.
“Sixty seconds.”
“Ready weapons.”
“Forty-five.”
"Unidentified craft, Lance Held High, you now have thirty, three-zero, seconds to comply. This is your final warning."
Jarret wasn’t sure if anyone around was breathing. The tension in the room grew as the seconds ticked down.
And then a loud thump rumbled out of the speakers.
The room exploded with action, and Jarret found himself being herded out.
”Weapons free; return fire! Peterson, yaw us ninety, and then bring us the hell back up to point-one!”
“Stations, people! Stations! Unless you have a reason to be in here, get out!
“Someone get on comms and tell Centcom we’re under attack.”
“ - knocked out, thrusters only.”
“Laser discharge in three - “
The door shut.
Lance Held High was dead. Farpoint’s defenses now consisted of exactly four aerospace fighters that couldn’t threaten a freighter and a small garrison of Marines.
With the unknown ships in orbit, the evacuation was in full force.
Jarret stared at the dots drifting above him with disgust, and more than a little fear, etched on his face; with the planet far from developed enough to justify orbital infrastructure, there was no doubt as to the identity of the “wandering stars” in the sky.
How many would be able to make it up to the Venus’ Light before the invaders forced the freighter to jump out? Would he be one of the lucky ones?
He sighed and flipped a finger up at the sky, an ancient gesture that was still quite insulting even in the modern day.
Fuck them, whoever they were up there.
“Evacuation group eight, report to the catapult. Group eight to the catapult, now.”
Time to head back coreward. Jarret could hear the distant bang of rifle fire.
He made sure to hustle.
“And they just let you go?”
“Let, nothing. They got that last shuttle docked up right before the Light had to hightail it the hell out.” Jarret chuckled. “That freighter danced for a good hour. We jumped out after that.”
“They still didn’t chase you out-system.”
“Beats me,” Jarret shrugged.
The intelligence agent sighed. “Well, mister Connor, if that’s all, then we’re done here. I’ll have to ask you to remain in-system for the time being but -”
“Wait.”
Ripley stopped at the threshold and turned back.
“I’ve heard rumors. . .”
“Which I can neither confirm, nor deny at this time, mister Connor.
“Good day, mister Connor.”
LOCATION CLASSIFIED DATE CLASSIFIED
“You know, my kids would kill to see this thing.”
“Do I have to remind you-”
“Just a thought, calm down.”
An eyeroll. “Has it done anything?”
“It eats, no meat. It sleeps. It mopes-”
“You’re assigning human emotion to that thing?”
“I call it like I see it. It’s acting like my cat when he gets in one of his moods.”
“You actually still have it.”
“The kids love him. You give me that look, but one day. One day.
“As I was saying, it eats, sleeps, mopes, and it sometimes sings to itself.”
A look. “You’re kidding.”
“I have the recordings. I can show you right now.”
“I have got to see this.”
A handwave. “This way.”
The two drifted down the hall, leaving the observation room behind.
Inside the impromptu cell, a horse-like creature floated near a corner.
The pegasus had lost track of exactly how long she’d been stuck in the gray, lifeless cube of a room. She hung in air near one of the edges of this cube with a hoof hooked around one of the strange industrial-yellow bars that subdivided the walls of the room. It could have been a week. It could have been a month. Her sense of time had been obliterated.
All she knew was that she was alone and at the mercy of alien creatures that she knew nothing about.
She had been stripped of everything; her armor, for all the good it had done, her uniform, her equipment, even her Harmony pendant. She’d gotten the necklace back and the clothing had been replaced, but only after a barrage of forceful and humiliating examinations, tests, and procedures that had left the mare feeling sullied afterward. It had been terrifying, being marehandled by faceless, inequine goons. The only comfort was that they hadn’t seemed to have gone out of their way to mistreat her.
She grit her teeth as her ruined hip ached again. Rose rubbed at it, hoping to massage the pain away. The aliens had been kind enough to put it back together, after a fashion, but they had also been the ones to destroy it. She wouldn’t complain, though. Considering the circumstances of her capture, she felt lucky to be alive at all.
She moved through corridors of the alien building. The distinctive clip-clop of hoof-on-stone met her ears, with with an occasional metallic clang whenever she stepped on one of the grates that were spaced intermittently along the concrete floor.
The maze-like layout of the structure had separated the marine from her squad and she felt every bit of the isolation. It didn’t help that interior of the structure was cavernous, dark, or sparsely lit from a variety of screens and harsh, blood-red lights. The sounds of combat, yelling, screams, spells, and weapon fire, echoed through the empty spaces, nearly driving Rose up the pipe-and-conduit-adorned walls with paranoia.
She was sure that something was following her, stalking her. The numerous rooms and side passages provided ample opportunity for ambush. Clearing them only wasted the mare’s time and degraded her sanity. As much as she loathed them, fighting the changelings was almost straightforward in comparison.
But her goal, Sergeant Rye’s locator beacon, goaded her into continuing. She was close, and it was a straight shot down the corridor.
She emerged from the maze into an even larger room, lined with monitors and filled with desks and computer consoles, many overturned or otherwise moved; most of those showed evidence of a firefight. The beacon was close, in the same room. Rose wound her way carefully through the mess, unsure of what she would find.
“Hello?” She queried, almost at a whisper. Nothing about the situation felt right in any way. She was within bodylengths of the beacon now. “It’s Corporal Bloom. Anypony there?” Silence was her only answer. She found out why when she reached the beacon.
There wasn’t enough left of anypony to answer her.
She ducked back before the sight of the mangled bodies made her sick. She had to get out. Back to other ponies. She -
BANG!
The impact threw Rose against the console with enough force to daze the pegasus. She slumped to the ground with a moan.
One fact made itself abundantly clear through the haze of pain. They were coming for her. If she didn’t get up now, she was going to die.
Rose struggled to her hooves. Or tried to. Shaking her head to clear her mind, she tried again. Left front, right front. Left rear. . .
Why won’t my leg work!?
Alien footsteps thundered in her direction. Fighting back panic, the mare reached back with a trembling hoof, only to draw it back, covered in blood. She twisted to look, straining against the bulk of the armor to look at her hip.
It was drenched in blood. The joint was a pulpy mess and the limb itself hung at an unnatural angle.
The footsteps drew closer. Rose stood shakily, overcome with fear and pain, and tried her best to hobble into cover. She heard the footsteps enter the room and instinctively turned to face the threat.
The massive armored frame vaulted over the obstacles in its path with an unnatural speed and grace, charging the pegasus at a breakneck pace. It was in the moment before contact that Rose finally got her first good look at the alien. It was bipedal, towering over her taller than even one of the Princesses, garbed in a bright-white suit of armor. There was no helmet, only a spherical metallic-orange faceplate where the head would be. One hand was empty, while the other reached for the handle of what could only be a knife.
Acting on instinct, the marine raised her rifle. The weapon chattered, bullets bouncing uselessly off of the creature’s armor. And then it was on her.
A scream of agony tore from her mouth as its weight slammed into her. It ripped her rifle away, taking part of the armor with it. Its hand was at her throat before she could breathe.
The knife at her eye cinched it. She was going to die. The life of Rose Blossom, daughter of Cherry Blossom, was about to end and there was nothing the pegasus mare could do about it. She gave up and let herself go limp, waiting for the end.
It never came. The knife never descended. The vice-grip on her throat never tightened. Instead, muffled barely-audible sounds came from the faceplate.
Rose simply laid where she was, too tired to really care anymore. She soon heard more footsteps, lighter and slower than the ones that had come from the behemoth that now had her pinned.
“Youto sad`chte vi zhouyo midik.” If she had the energy, Rose might have giggled at the absurdity. It sounded just like a pony stallion. The armored one responded, its words again muffled and quiet. “Dtha. . . whe nouzhyo nihsh nif.” The impossibly equine-sounding creature moved closer, and she saw it, out of the corner of her eye, kneel over her. And then it touched her. Instincts, this time much more primal, took over and she tried to buck, spasming painfully when the motion aggravated what was left of her hip.
“Jivehs yehsou!” The force of the command broke through pain and fear and shocked the marine into stillness; when it touched her again, she didn’t move except to shiver. “ Louzha.” The voice was gentler this time, and she felt a hand pat her barrel. “Poust`ta houshi” The hand on Rose’s throat let go, leaving her free to breathe once again, and moved to her shoulder. She coughed weakly.
With her energy gone, all she could do was lie still and wait to die.
The sound of tearing fabric met her ears and she could feel, barely, the back of the alien blade as the knife, which she now noticed was no longer pointed at her eye, sliced through the fabric of her uniform with ease. What was it-
She gasped as something metallic dug into her hip. The pain was intolerable, and she would have screamed if she had strength to do so. As it was, she could only whimper as the probe dug cruelly through the ruined flesh. The pain didn’t last long. Nearly as soon as it had entered, the tip of the probe exploded, releasing a wet-feeling substance that. . . that. . . numbed everything wonderfully. The pegasus sighed. Tension she had been long past feeling faded from her. All that was left was a bone-deep exhaustion. Maybe if she-
“He, he! Jivehs ton who!” Something snapped rapidly near her face, and the weary pegasus forced her eyes open and looked into the face of the other alien. Camera lenses stared back. The strange sight barely stirred her. “Jivehs proshni! Proshni! Whome nouzhyo veh`geht ta`veh`dtheh shatl!”
Immense hands lifted her up, surprisingly gentle in their touch. The armored one placed her on its shoulder as though she weighed nothing, and the world faded to black.
Aliens don’t take prisoners.
This was irrefutable fact. A lesson that Equestria had learned the hard way. Aliens are the enemy. Aliens will destroy you as soon as look at you. Aliens have no regard for other life. Everything she knew told Rose that she should be dead.
Every second that she continued to breathe, every movement of her repaired leg, said otherwise.
These aliens fed her, clothed her, had tended her wounds. She couldn’t understand it. The changelings would have turned her into so much meat long ago, if they even waited that long, and yet these aliens had not only kept her alive, but had saved her leg.
Why? She hadn’t been captured on a whim, she knew that. Looking back, it was obvious that her capture had been deliberate. But why?
What did they want with her?
Sol system, Luna, Federal Intelligence Bureau Headquarters January 14th, 417 a.g.w.
On dozens of screens within the darkened room, the final moments of the Lance Held High played out.
Lieutenant Coleman’s distress call had been troubling, but not unexpected. Pirates, after all, were not an uncommon occurrence on the Fringe, and were the reason that the lieutenant and his men had been stationed on Farpoint in the first place.
But when the contents of the frigate’s black box, which the agents of the Farpoint Task Force now viewed, had uploaded into the Navy’s servers over ansible, mere minutes later, the attention of the powers that be shifted to the frontier system post haste.
The loss of a capital ship, especially in a system facing away from any powers capable of mounting such an offensive, was no trivial matter.
When the Venus’ Light had showed up in the L372-58 system with nearly the entire population of Farpoint, and a very unexpected guest, it provided an explanation that no one had expected, and that many found disquieting in the extreme.
Mankind was not alone. Other life roamed the stars of the Milky Way galaxy. Humanity had neighbors.
And they weren’t friendly.
This revelation, arguably the most profound in human history, had led to the creation of the Task Force, and subsequently to Lazar Jenkins sitting in a room with dozens of other intelligence agents and experts, within and from outside of the Bureau, watching the deaths of fifty Confederate spacers.
Again.
Manipulating his console, the agent switched perspectives, from within the frigate’s service module to an external view of the same. The shadowed hull was lit only by the starship’s running lights and appeared as a dark blob at the bottom of the image. This blob was briefly illuminated by the light of the blood-red beam that suddenly bisected the screen before dissolving into static an instant later when the camera melted under the onslaught.
Whatever those weapons were, they had gone through the ship’s armor like it wasn’t even there. The video made it very clear exactly what eight-hundred years of human spaceflight research and development counted for.
“Eighty centimeters of unobtanium-composite armor. Might as well have been tin foil.” Jenkins looked up to see a similar clip playing on the main screen.
Absolutely nothing.
“You think that’s bad? Look at this.” Another agent flicked her hand as though tossing something and yet a third video clip appeared on the main screen a moment later. This one showed one of the alien ships, a destroyer-sized craft which had been designated a “frigate” due to its apparent role and relative size to its companions, as it appeared to the Lance’s telescopes. The elegant delta-shaped craft was maneuvering, presumably to bring a spine-mounted weapon to bear.
A barrage of the frigate’s anti-ship missiles streaked through the frame. Against a human-built craft of the aliens craft’s size, even a handful would equal a mission kill, if not the outright destruction of the target.
The alien “frigate” simply shrugged off the missiles that made it through its defense screen. But it wasn’t armor that they impacted.
A shimmering sphere snapped into place around the alien ship an instant before the projectiles hit.
Lazar could think of only one way to describe the sight of physics as humanity knew it being snapped in half.
“That’s not good.”
“Understatement is my schtick, Jenkins.” Lazar looked over to his right as his fellow agent spoke up. “It’s not entirely bad, though. Take a look at. . . this.” The agent popped up his own video clip. This one showed one of the alien “destroyers”. It also had one of the inexplicable spheres around it. The timestamp indicated the clip took place within seconds of the Lance’s destruction.
The alien craft vanished in a flash of light and shrapnel.
A Hyper-Velocity Impactor. The single-most powerful weapon in any nation’s arsenal. One, of sufficient caliber, was enough to level a continent. Enough of them could resurface a planet. They were, before now, the only weapons capable of cracking the armored shells that protected humanity’s capital ships.
They were the Alderson Drive taken to its logical extreme. The ultimate evolution of ballistic weapons. A guided projectile capable of “accelerations” upwards of ninety-percent of the speed of light, the HVI was the modern nuke.
It was with one of these weapons that the Lance Held High took of her foes with her into death.
“Enough chit-chat folks. This is all well and good, but save the analysis for the boffins,” Agent Crowe, the head of the Task Force, indicated half of the assembled group with a nod of her head. “The purpose of this little show was to impress upon you why, exactly, we’re here today.
“Make no mistake people. We’re looking at another first contact situation. Only this time, it’s not a couple squabbling colonies, and no one is going to step in and mediate like we did last century.
“This could be a horrible mistake.
“This could be how these things say hi.
“This could be a declaration of war.
“Our job is to learn everything we can from this farce so we can figure out which it is and advise the bigwigs in Parliament once the Navy gets done kicking Ee-Tee’s ass up and down the Farpoint system.” Crowe tapped a few points in thin air, causing files to appear in everyone’s inboxes.
“You have your assignments. Let’s get to work.”
Lazar opened his own inbox. I seem to get the interesting assignments.
He was going to help question their “guest”.
LV-218 system, Planet Five, Alien Compound June 7th, 1173 a.n.m.
“We think they’re terraformers.”
Mint Glimmer blinked. “What?” She and her first officer stood in a large room, mostly cleared of the debris of combat. What furniture was left had been repurposed, every available surface filled with charts, tablet computers, and various pieces of equipment. Mint took in these details, trying to parse what she had just been told. “What?”
“Captain, these machines,” her first officer highlighted the dozens of dots on the map representing the alien compounds, “are dumping oxygen into the atmosphere in absolutely massive quantities. As far as we can tell, this planet’s entire magnetic field seems to be artificial; one of the poles is about twenty miles west.
“There are other machines, here, here, and here,” the mare highlighted various sets of dots, “ that seem to be affecting the environment in other ways. Somehow; we haven’t been able to figure out what kind of spells they’re using or for what. The few computers we’ve been able to access, without being able to understand their language, are filled with what look like weather simulations and equipment manifests.
“We’ve found no cities, no shipyards, no armories. There are no tanks, no personnel carriers, we haven’t even found any guns bigger than the we-think-they’re-rifles we found on their soldiers.
“Captain, I think we’ve made a big mistake.”
The unicorn’s mind shut down. A mistake. They had made a mistake. She had attacked these people and Rose Quartz called it a mistake. Was her eye twitching?
No. No. She hadn’t attacked them. They started it and it got out of hoof. None of this would have happened if they hadn’t been so hostile and aggressive. This was their fault; they were to blame. She just did her job. And she was going to keep doing it.
“Finish your investigations and then get everypony back on the ships as soon as possible.” Equestria needed to know about these new aliens. This new threat. “We’re leaving.”
