In an era where a pony’s Cutie Mark means nothing other than a sign of age, ponykind has settled amongst the stars and stretched almost across the entire galaxy, learning new things, forming new cultures and a few religions in the start. Although most ponies these days don’t follow any faith, a long forgotten cult returns in force to bring the galaxy under the laws of the holy star, even if they must cleanse it of heretics first.
"Almost 2632 years ago ponykind built their first interplanetary ship capable of carrying a crew of 15 and up to 50 passengers from on colony to another. Built in orbit of our homeworld Equus, it used an advanced sunlight engine system and took a a year to reach the edge of our system. Only 75 years later we managed to create our first faster than light capable starship called the "ESC Jumper" which due to a still unknown accident instead of jumping to the next system over it vanished. Assumed destroyed everypony was in awe when it turned up 10 years later, a third of the crew dead and the remainder raving about "The Holy Star". supposedly they had jumped to the central cluster of the galaxy. There was extensive damage to the ship and that's how some crew died and yet they claimed to have been saved by some sentient star that they saw as a god, that was the formation of the first space related religion however its widely believed that it died out along with the crew when they returned to that location"
Suddenly lights brightly illuminated a large room full of ponys and a stage with a single one on it bowing as the crowd erupted into applause, "Thank you, thank you" the lone pony said "Now if you follow your guides out the doors on the left and please enjoy the rest of out orbital museum of history" pony after pony drained out of the room and into hallways full of replicas of ships and engines going from the first Luna landers to the current concept designs for the next line of military and exploration vessels.
The orbital museum was one of many space stations around Equus, hundreds of ponys from colony's through out the galaxy came to the station to learn about the history of the current era most came from the planet, not surprising considering the difference in price between orbital transport and interstellar transport. along with the museum there where habitation, shopping and transport stations not to mention the absurd amount of military platforms through out the system.
That where are story is focused really, on board a state of the art 85th generation Rainbow class frigate sitting in dry dock waiting to be launched for its maiden voyage. The 'Equees Naval Vessel Dash' with a crew of 25 ranging from pony, griffin and dragon a like making it the most racial divers ship in the hole of all the pony fleets across the galaxy. The 'ENV Dash' would be joining the Luna fleet; a forward exploration fleet consisting of one 68th gen princess class carrier, two 67th gen Faustian class light cruisers and an escort of four 68th gen armour class frigates.
The 'ENV Dash' was to depart from the dry dock, jump to the edge of the system and preform basic system test and then jump to a point to meet up with the Luna fleet at the Intal sector in the far rim, once there it would commence with the fleets mission. So how about i go back to telling you about the 'Dash'; she is the latest generation starship, with state of the art weapons and engine systems. her weapons consisted of an array of forward mounted missile tubes, ten twin barrelled rail gun turrets on her sides and one top deck gun, a heavy gauss turret which is meant to be capable of punching a hole in a cruisers hull and it better be powerful as it took up the hole upper deck for its systems. She has a rear assembly of powerful thrusters and on either side of the rear of her hull nacelles of thrusters like small wings on a pegasus flying through space. Her main hull was a similar shape to a crossbow bolt except she had a large stern where her main engines lay. And of course she was in the Equees naval colours of black with a royal blue along the centre of both sides.
Her captain was a fine pony by the name of 'Pike Fishing' who had until recently captained the forma flagship the dreadnought 'ENV Faust' which was recently retired after its long service, the master gunner was a dragon by the name of 'Striker' like most of the crew he was fresh from the academy along with the pony coms specialist 'Tick Tack' the helmsmen a griffin know as 'Barrington' the chief engineer a pony called 'Snowfell' and the second in command 'Blue Sight'.
"All right then you shines" Captain Fishing said as he got himself comfortable "Lets get ourselves under way, nice to have leather seat. Engineering hows it looking down there?"
A slight crackling came from the intercom as a reply came "lieutenant commander Snowfell here, all systems nominal captain"
"All right lets get those docking clamps off and flare the sublights lieutenant Barrington" the captain said with a hint of excite in his voice.
The lieutenant started tapping coloured shapes on the screen in front of him, a shudder and a large clunking echoed throughout the ships corridors as she started to thrust slowly out of dry dock. As she cleared the station her main engines began to lightly glow purple propelling her forward slowly before she sped of as they emitted a harsh light blue glare she they flared up.
"Nice one Lieutenant" the captain complemented as he stood and tapped a hoof on his back "Now i want all batteries to have their training slugs removed, load with standard rounds and started to charge before we begin jump prep. You okay with that Striker?" he looked towards the weapons system check screen to his left.
"Under way sir! Though i believe the main gun will only be at 40% charge by scheduled jump time"
"make it 60% before the jump point Striker." He said sparsely before relaxing "I want to see if a dragon gunnery crew can out do a pony one"
Striker bite back through the intercom "WE WILL HAVE IT DONE BETTER THAN ANY PONY TEAM WONT WE!" a collective roar followed the comment as the captain sat back down with a smirk on his face.
the dragons down in the weapons decks worked hardly to eject the large ammo crates from all the racking systems and installing the next ammo crate types while others where working on the capacitor systems and activating generators to begin the charging of the rail gun systems. On the top deck a group of dragons where furiously getting the loading system to load a set of rounds into the gauss cannon while another worked on regulating the power flow to its capacitors getting it ready for firing, on their monitors while numbers scrolled in the corners a large black bar slowly began filling from the left with green while above it a percentage counter ticked up with it.
back on the bridge captain Fishing looking at the weapons screen seeing ten green bars all saying 100% and one large black and green bar saying 28% "Well glad to know who to get him working" he chuckled to himself as he watched the bar charge up faster and faster, 35%, 37%, 40%, 44%, 49%
"Okay everyone strap in and lock down" the captain when back to his seat flicked a black switch on the right arm of his chain and a belt system shot around him and and the chair shot rods into the floor to prevent any movement, the rest of the bridge crew did the same in their positions and the coms specialist sent a ship wide hail for jump preparations. He looked back over to the weapons screen seeing the bar at 62% he turned to the front and spoke up "Nice one Striker, i want that same effort every time." He held down a small button at the front of his chairs left arm opening ship wide coms "All hands prepare for jump drive activation"
The Dash began to slow as sparks began to lunge of her hull, he engines seemed to stop as they went dark before a large bolt of white light seemed to come from them and the Dash was gone, leaving only a short after image for any on lookers.
At the edge of the Equees system far from even the most outer orbiting planet where a large asteroid belt marking the border between the system and the large open empty void between the next. Asteroids drift aimlessly, silent as all space is but out her it seemed that there was just nothing other than the void facing outwards.
A sudden large flash of light as the Dash appears, her engines go back to the blue shine they had before they cooled off and retro thrusters on the front of the ship slowing all forward momentum while inside the crew began to unclamp their chairs across all decks while on the bridge the captain looked back towards the weapons system monitor seeing the main battery at 85% and reading this he sits up in his chair and specks to the coms specialist "Okay bring us up to yellow alert and prepare for firing" The lights switched to a yellow and all the rails along the sides of the rooms and corridors turned yellow. "Striker you ready yet?"
across the intercom came a reply "yes sir! Se have all batteries primed and missile tubes open just waiting for targets and firing solution"
"Okay striker i want a full missile spread ahead and then use the rail guns to take out any asteroids they miss or fail to take out" The captain gestured towards the belt ahead as he spoke "Lets test the firing speed of those batteries and i cant wait to see the power of that gauss cannon" He sat back as in the main firing room on the top deck Striker watched screens in front of him flashed through with windows of lettering and numbers ran past before they all switched to read 'SOLUTION ARMED, FIRE WHEN READY' he flung his arm in the air before swinging it to one side of the room where a group of dragons initiated the missiles firing from the prow tubes. An array of missiles seemed to slide out of the tubes before their thrusters engaged and sent them flying towards the asteroids.
Some hitting and blowing the smaller ones to pieces while blowing chunks off of larger ones and as the last few missiles flew out through the belt the rail guns began to target them quickly and as they fired they sent rounds flying out their barrels with a blue flash before they impacted the stray flyers and taking them out. All ten rail guns began firing at the asteroids that the missiles failed to destroy but as each battery fired the rounds ripped them to pieces leaving a large dust cloud in the belt.
As the weapons systems stopped firing the captain stood up and shouted "DAMN THAT WAS GOOD!" he sat back down before he spoke again "okay lets find a big one to test the main battery against"
The ship turned and moved off towards a large asteroid almost the same size as her. The gauss cannon adjusted to aim for its centre before several rings along the barrel light up with a green light from the base to the Muze brake before a round was fired from it leaving a slight green trail behind it before entering the asteroid blowing a massive hole in its face before exploding entirely throwing fragments everywhere. the hole bridge crew silently stared at the main monitor in awe from the mass amount of destruction a weapon fired from a frigate caused to a large asteroid.
"well... i think they were right about the power of it" the captain spoke up before looking at the weapons monitor to see that it was already charging for the next shot "Striker get everything charged before we begin our jump to meet up with the Luna fleet. Oh and I'd say that was a successful test" he sat back as everypony went back to what they where doing, and down on the gunnery decks the dragons where sorting out all the ammo racks and preping the firing systems.
A short time later all systems ready for FTL jump eveypony on board was secured and preped. On the bridge captain Fishing gave the signal, helmsmen Barrington began the initiation sequence, the engines went dark, Barrington threw the slides on his console and... "Um captain Fishing" a quiet voice came over the intercom "Lieutenant Commander Snow fell her..."
"Is there a problem Lieutenant Commander" the captain replied slightly irritated.
"Um well sir... we seemed to of..." she stuttered
"Spit it out Snow!" the captain snipped at her
"WE BURNT OUT THE CAPACITORS THAT FEED INTO THE JUMP DRIVE SIR!" she squealed out with shock in her voice "um... so we cant jump till there fixed sir as without them we cant pump the charge into the jump drive so we cant jump"
The captain cut her off "okay okay so how long will it take to repair and how on Equees did we manage to burn them out after one jump?"
"Sorry sir I tend to start going on like that when i start talking about anything like that and i just keep going and going and" the captain cleared his throat. "Oh sorry sir, well it shouldn't take too long we just have to replace them and we have plenty in stock but as for how we did it I think we didn't leave enough time for them to discharge"
"Okay Lieutenant Commander get it done quick and lets try not to do it again Lieutenant Barrington" Fishing sat down in a humph. down in the engineering deck Snow fell was helping to pry the burnt out capacitors from there emplacements around the drive system. She wasn't the type of pony you'd expect to find in engineering let alone as the chief, she was a unicorn with a pale blue and white coat with a light blue long flowing main which she had pinned up behind her head so for it not to get caught in anything while she worked and her eyes where of pure white, as she was helping the other pony's and gryphon's they where quickly getting through the job of replacing the equipment. "Okay sir we have replaced them all and power is flowing well again we can jump soon as there charged and I'm sorry it happened in the"
Cutting her off again "Good work Snow now get your lot ready to jump. okay Barrington lets start that all again" all the bridge crew secured themselves, the chairs shot the rods into the floor, crew where reporting in with their stations readiness, Barrington vigorously hitting the lights on his console before the sliders appeared again. He hesitated before looking back as the Captain who gave him the signal, he threw the sliders to full, the ship shuddered, the engines went dark and... the Dash vanished with a bright flash of white light!
A hulking mass of dark metal floating through space seemingly inert, strange chunks off the sides, long rods coming from its nose. A sudden rumbling throughout the hulking mass as small lights across it illuminating the metal outer showing its shape much clearer, a large rectangle like main hull with an indented front containing the main hanger,k the strange chunks on its sides where large nacelles, the rods at its prow where the barrels of large gun turrets and as the hull light up, along the prow the words 'ENV Luna'.
The princess class carrier, the flagship of the Luna forward exploration fleet, she had an large amount of missile turrets, rail guns and prow mounted accelerator cannons. Following shortly behind two Faustian class light cruisers both in the shape of a Bowie knifes blade but covered in serrations with a large cube to the rear where the bridge and other core decks and systems where housed, they had two nacelles coming from those cubes with red scrolls on them, they where armed with 35 rail gun turrets, two missile turrets on the top deck and a prow mounted accelerator cannon. the light cruisers 'ENV Webster' and 'ENV Daniel' where only just about the size of the Luna's nacelles where as the four armour class frigates were only half that size, 'ENV Churchill' 'ENV Cromwell' 'ENV Matilda' 'ENV Vicars' two on either sides trailing the cruisers.
The frigates hull was in a long rectangular shape with bulges at the rear, centre and front along with four small nacelles two on each side near the rear, on them there was a green tank like shape on them. they had ten light accelerator cannon turrets on each along with a large amount of missile tubes on its flat front and like the rest of the fleet they were black with a royal blue line down the centre of the sides, the standard fleet colours for any Equees naval vessel. These ships had been patrolling the outer most reaches of the Equeesiean Empire since their construction, although some ships had been changed out or replaced along with the crews ever so often, these had been out here for a rather long time and it would be doubtful that the ships at least would ever see their home port again.
The fleet had seen plenty of things from migrating interstellar fungal beings, hostile intelligence, ship bound nomads drifting through the cosmos and even the odd ancient abandoned space craft, being part of the Luna fleet was definitely an interesting assignment but not too popular among crews of the Empire, most go for border or orbital duties leave the few fleets like the Luna to be rather old vessels hence the addition of the ENV Dash to this long serving and rather out dated fleet. The ENV Luna was one of the first carriers to be out fitted for long term voyages or conflicts although they get resupplied as often as they can as its never had to be too far from a populated system. Though that is to change soon seeing as a certain ship is bring new orders from the Equeesian hierarchy, for a new objective deep within unexplored and unresearched space.
On board the carrier there's a crew of 200, 50 crewmen operating the ship, most in engineering and weapons decks and the other 150 where pilots for the fighter and bomber wings stored on board. The fighters used two wing mounted twin linked rail guns and a single nose missile tube, while the bomber had a single nose mounted rail gun, four wing mounted missile tubes, and rail gun turret behind the cockpit. These where as old as the ship itself but their missile types were the newer kinetic entry vehicle with a mid body quartit explosive.
All the ships in the fleet where drifting along through the Joroth sector awaiting the Dash when off the port side of the fleet an orb of sparks started forming before small bolts stared to jump from it and a large white flash of light filled the area as the ENV Dash jumped in, slowing herself with her retro thrusters before hailing the ENV Luna. *The bridge of the Dash* The forward monitor light up with the old scared face of a dragon who was the in charge of the Luna and her fleet, 'Admiral Drogon' "Captain Pike Fishing reporting for duty sir"
"Calm down the formalities Fishing, I haven't seen you since the last engagement against the Claytonieans back when you still captained the ENV Faust" The admiral responded
"Yes sir... Drogon, she was a mighty fine ship"
"Yes she was, too bad she was marked as out dated, i reckon my Luna will be soon enough especial when the rest of the 85th gens star coming out of production"
"Well that wont be for quite a while so you've got a few more years with your old girl"
"Thanks Fishing, now how about we get to those new orders"
On bored the ENV Luna within her thick hulled body the captain's of the fleet sat within the briefing room as captain Pike Fishing stood up and slowly trotted to the front of the room, the lights dimmed as they all drew their attention to the screen as it lights up showing a very distorted image oh a large hulking mass resembling and early 2nd gen Equees naval vessel but horriblely damaged and reconstructed many many times.
Captain Fishing spoke up "This image was taken by a civilian cargo freighter in the opscurase sector after this ship jumped almost into them and proceeded to open fire on all its key systems, once the freighter was disabled the ship requested they 'denounce their sins and give them selves over to the Great Holy Star' and when the freighter refused and asked for the reason for their attack the ship opened fire once again in an attempt to destroy the freighter"
Captain Grosessco of the Webster interrupted "If the freighter was under attack then why did it not send off a distress signal, this sounds like a stupid joke by some civis"
Captain William of the Vicars joined in "If it was a prank then why did Fishing come all the way out here with the newest ship type you fool"
Captain Evans of the Daniel raised "dont call him a fool you lowly frigate captain! this could just be a warning of such pranks"
Captain Drogon slammed is thick scaled fist onto the table "maybe if all you FOOLS shut up then Pike could finish and we can get back to not arguing about damn ships classes" The other captains fell silent "carry on Pike"
"Thank you Sir... well the freighter did send off a distress signal with this image attached unfortunately this is all that made it before it was destroyed and as far as our annalists can tell the distortion of the image was caused by amens radiation and they believe the ship is emitting it at high and deadly levels witch is a shock to think that there is even a living crew on the ship another shock is that our annalists think they have found a part of the hull of the mystery ship with a registration on it" The image enlarges on a single point of the front of the hull of the ship and as the image is cleared up it has the words 'ENV Salvatore' and the captains seem to gasp in unison "As we all know the Salvatore a 2nd generation dreadnought was lost in the inner rim wars along with 200 other ships back in the era of the 'Goshling wars' and now we're seeing it here patched up and attacking our own ships"
Drogon speaks up "So let me guess the hierarchy want us to investigate and if it turns out to be that old ship and it attacks they know we should have enough fire power to blow it back into a floating debris cloud"
Fishing sitting back down as the screen goes off and the lights come back on "Yes Sir, we're to jump to the sight of the attack and hopefully find something to track it by and investigate and if necessary engage and terminate the ship"
Drogon stands and opens the doors to the bridge "Well we better get to work".
All the captains get up and begin to funnel out and return to their own ships. all the ships crews get to readying their weapons for firing , the fleets charged and loaded their weapons and jump drives while the Dash began charging its gauss cannon and other systems for the jump. all the ships preped and ready to jump locked the coordinates to the opscurase sector. Their engines dulled, sparks jumped from the hulls, some arcing from ship to ship and all the ships vanished with a blinding amount of light as one after the other jumped out of the system.
In the opscurase sector a load of small little lightning strikes start emanating in space and then the Luna and her fleet jump into the system, nacelles turned around and firing at full to stop the mass amount of momentum from the jump and then they turn back to the rear. all the ships initiate a high scale local scan trying to find some way of tracking the Salvatore. one of the armour class reported that there was still a residual signature of the radiation the ship was said to produce and that there was a large amount of it going off deeper into the sector. The fleet began tracking the radiation signature for the next few hours stumbling across the debris of what seemed to be another civilian ship.
A group comlink was opened between the fleets bridges and Captain Daniel started talking "The debris match the hull type of a civilian system to system transport but the weapon signatures dont match anything we have on record even from any enemy craft known, its like they used some sort of energy weapons"
a midshipman on the Dash spoke up "actually sir it seems as though the weapon signature doesn't match any know weapons but it does match a signature on record"
"Well what is it midshipman" Captain Pike encouraged him
"well the signature is the same as an experimental plasma thruster developed for rapid ground attack trooper capsules"
Captain Drogon spoke up "Are you saying they used modified thrusters as weapons crewman"
"No sir more like they used a directed ignited plasma stream weapon" The midshipman replied hesitantly to the dragon.
Fishing thanked the midshipman before talking "so their using plasma weapons that's definitely worrying to know but does explain how they can total these civilian ships so quickly"
"Agreed" Drogon replied quietly "more so has anyone else noticed the radiation stops here?"
At that moment a large amount of light came from across the debris field and all the ships started picking up high readings of everything on every monitor a sudden message appeared with both audio and text "DENOUNCE YOUR SINS AND GIVE YOURSELVES OVER TO THE GREAT HOLY STAR!" And a large ship speared from the light thrusting towards the fleet at full speed "ALL HANDS BATTLE STATIONS AND EVASIVE ACTIONS!" was said on all ships as they tried to move out of the way of the ship. on bored the Dash a crewmen confirmed that the ship was the Salvatore and it was charging weapons so the captain announced "POLARIZE THE HULL PLATING" the ships hull seemed to spark as though it was going to jump but then gained a slight blue glow to it.
Drogon yelled over all coms "OPEN FIRE ON THAT SHIPS WEAPONS NOW!" as the Lunas missile turrets adjusted to face the Salvatore and began launching missiles, as the missiles got close the the Salvatore a hole opened on its side and a turreted weapon on some kind emerged before firing a bright yellow stream of light towards the missiles obliterating them and then hitting the Luna carving a line into its hull.
The Luna came to a stop as it turned its prow towards the ship and the Armour class formed a defensive pattern in front of her before the large blocks on their hulls folded out for form three layers of armour shielding as they opened fire with their missile tubes and accelerator cannons with an almost constant barge of shells from the four ships firing one after the other, some hit the Salvatore only seeming to brake off chunks of metal from it outer hull and again its turret unleashed a beam of yellow light this time hitting one of the shield structured on the Churchill seemingly stopping the blast at first before burning through it and the other structures and ending.
The light cruisers begin firing their railguns rapidly at the Salvatore's engines firing a load of of shells at them on luckily connecting and quickly tearing them to pieces but only to have several more of the strange weapons come out off the hull and firing a spiral around the light cruisers. The Webster took a direct shot to its left nacelle cutting right through it while the Daniel took a direct shot to the bridge killing all in there as the two ships slowly drifted to a stop the Luna fires a storm of shells from its Prow cannons decimating the left side of the Salvatore and then releasing a barrage of missiles once again at it while the cannons charge, the frigates still firing their cannons and launching missiles while the Webster fires what guns it can towards the ship.
The Salvatore after receiving the massive amount of damage from the ships releases more of its turrets from its hull and begins releasing beams of yellow light towards the incoming missiles as well as damaging more of the ships as a large green bolt seems to penetrates its right side and then blows a chunk of its hull patching off as the Dash flies upside down over the Salvatore releasing a massive volley from her rail guns as the gauss cannon charges itself back to firing power. damaging the weapons on the top of the hull, as the turrets begin to re-target the Dash a load of missiles hit the hole caused by the gauss cannon further damaging the ship. As the Salvatore is focused on the Dash the Luna fires another round of shots from its prow ripping the rear of the ship apart but the Salvatore makes one last strike as it fires it remaining beams at the Dash heavily damaging the frigate causing explosions through out the ship killing a few of the crew including captain Fishing.
Seeing this Drogon orders a full weapons fire from all functioning ships. All the functioning ships fire their missiles and shells which all devastate the outer hull of the ship quickly ripping piece by piece from the ship totalling it and leaving nothing alive within the wreckage.
The Salvatore now a large cloud of debris, both light cruisers heavily damaged, two of the armour class missing chunks of their shield structures and one disabled completely, the Luna only left with carvings on her hull after the intense ship to ship combat leaving the dash floating heavily damage only using RTS to keep herself steady and near the fleet many crew dead and the captain now dead as well leaving her first fight both a failure but yet at least a survival one even if just barely.
A few hours after the battle with the Salvatore that left the fleet disabled or heavily damaged by its strange weapons, most of the ships damages have been fixed or plated over allowing them to limp back to a near by starbase for a mass of repairs to all the ships and their systems and to have their wounded cared for and to say goodbye to their fallen as their uniforms are sent home while their bodies are given to the stars to forever explore.
on bored the medical section of the starebase lay members of the crews from all the Luna fleet and unfortunately one pony who received both a devastating injury along with a swift promotion from commander to captain, Blue Sight lay in a white sheeted bed, as white as the bandages over his face and torso, the recently changed bandages as the set and the sets before had been soiled by his blood, the red staining from his blood had caused the nurses to repetitively change his bandaging to prevent infection as unfortunately the stallion had been court by a power conduit blast the same blast that unfortunately court the captain Pike Fishing, although Blue Sight had been badly burnt on the left side of his face and his right front leg had been burnt almost down to the bone meaning they had to remove the hole thing, right to the shoulder. the poor stallion had yet woken from the surgery where they removed his leg and fitted a replacement shoulder mounting wired into his nervous system and plated over the damaged part of his head. The technical team on bored had already put together a bionic leg for him, but where waiting for him to wake up so they could fit it to him.
as for other members of the fleet, the entire bridge crew of the Daniel died when it was hit by one of the Salvatore's plasma streams, the Webster lost a few engineers when trying to make a battle field repair to the damaged nacelle, the Matilda lost a large portion of its crew from the sheer amount of hits it took from the plasma streams while the others lost none, the Dash lost its captain, a few midshipmen and some of its lieutenants in its gun decks and finally the Luna lost a few midshipmen along with some pilots that where in the wrong hull sections at the wrong time. luckily most of the damage to the Luna was superficial however the other ships weren't nearly as lucky, the Churchill and the Cromwell had their shield structures replaced, the Matilda had its entire front and rear ends replaced along with two of its nacelles and four of its accelerator cannons, the Webster had its nacelle replaced, the Daniel had a new bridge fitted along with a large amount of crew replacements and promotions, the Luna got some new pilots and outer hull replacements and the Dash had her left nacelle, three railguns, top decking around the gauss cannon and a portion of her engineering deck replaced after taking several direct shots from the plasma.
"INCOMING! Captain overloads on several decks. WEAPONS SYSTEMS DISABLED! Polarization..." many familiar voices being thrown around as a explosion silences them. The darkness lifts to see the bridge burning and many pony on the floor, the griffin Barrington laying on his now smashed console and the captain running towards the engineering monitor as it starts smoking and it does to static, a blue leg stretches out in front towards him as the power conduit behind explodes engulfing the captain. The leg reaches closer to where he was standing as it too is engulfed by the blast and all colour goes yellow before going black again as a voice yells out "CAPTAIN!" as it rings into silence.
Blue sight startles awake yelling for the captain over and over again trying to reach out with both legs, looking down to his left to see why his leg isn't raising he screams again but in pain and fear as he stares thrashing as he looks for his missing limb as some of the stations nurses rush over to stop him from hurting himself. "Sir! Sir! I need you to calm don, you where injured and we had to remove your leg, Sir i need you to calm down!" on of the nurses raises as he trys calling a doctor to come help. meanwhile of the command deck of the station the fleet captains where meeting to discus the events of the attack, slamming his hoof on the table captain Grosessco infuriated spoke "WHAT THE HELL DID THAT IDIOT OF A FRIGATE CAPTAIN GET US INTO AND WHY THE HELL ISN'T FISHING IN THIS MEETING!"
Captain William responded "will you calm down, we all took damage and most of us took losses because of that damn ship but we where following orders just like Fishing was and if it wasn't for his ships gauss cannon we would have never been able to punch through that things hull"
"If it wasn't for him we wouldn't of lost an entire ships bridge crew and my friend!" Grosessco continued "And even now he doesn't have the courage to face us as he knows it was all his fa..." A scaled fist struck across his face sending him too the floor.
"THAT FRIGATE 'CAPTAIN' AS YOU KEEP CALLING HIM IS DEAD!" Captain Drogon interrupted "HE DIED ON HIS SHOP AFTER IT TOOK A MASSIVE BARRAGE OF FIRE FROM THAT THING AND HE WAS A HELL OF A BETTER CAPTAIN THAN YOU WHO BASES HIS SKILL ON THE TONNAGE OF HIS SHIP" i have half a mind to re-leave of of your command and let you stay in this stations brig to rot. he sent his ship right up to that thing and dealt it a massive blow while you just sat taking pot shots while you drifted missing a single nacelle in your light cruiser now shut up and wait for his replacement to give us the rest of his briefing" Drogon sat down shaking off his hand after that punch he gave and Grosessco climbed back to his.
shortly after the door opened and Blue sight walked in limping slightly with his newly fitted leg and face plate, the room fell silent as he walked towards the table, his bionic leg shifting with each step as it adjusted to his weight, some blue lights around the joints glinted off the rest of its shining silver metal the servos letting out a gentle whine with each movement, as he sat looking down at his leg he began the briefing. "Hello I am Blue sight the new captain of the ENV Dash... I will be taking over for the late captain Pike Fishing. Now we have been sent word that more ships like the Salvatore have been spotted jumping into our space although they are no longer going after single civilian ships but engaging fleets on our outer territories"
Captain Eli the new captain of the Daniel raised his hand before asking a question "why are we being told? surely if our fleet can take out one then the others should be able to."
"That is a good point but they are attacking with multiple ships and the other fleets are struggling to hold their ground against the amount of fire coming from them" A screen lit up as Blue sight continued showing images of similar ships to the Salvatore "As you can see they stay in tight formations and lay down overlapping streams of plasma which makes it almost impossible to get any missiles through to them and their armour appears to be designed as layer over layers so they just shed the damaged layers as some sort of shielding. The first fleet is being sent out to protect key point within the territories while we are being sent to do hit and run attacks on outlying groups, the hope is that the frigates and light cruisers can engage and distract them while the carriers bomber and fighter wings can get behind and do precision strikes on their weapon in-placements allowing the Luna to move in and decimate the ships with its missile turrets. hopefully this tactic will let us inflict massive damage with minimal losses... everyone clear? okay lets get to our first target!"
All the captains left to their ships and ready their weapons systems. the frigates and light cruisers formed a line in front of the Luna before they all readied to jump, the spars began to ark, the engines all went dark and the white light filled the area as they jumped out.
On bored a large holy ship of the great star waiting with three other holy ships a young colt in black robs covering him entirely trots quickly in to a dark room with a single black armoured stallion stands surrounded by light candles on top a stairwell, as the colt reaches the first step he puts a hoof covered in burns out to the step before pulling it back and looking up towards the stallion.
"Farther... The seer says there is a heretic group on their way, one is the first bleeder..."
"Come child, we shale make this first bleeder and its followers the light that the holy star has given us to bring about the cleaning and the healing of our holy galaxy" The stallion gestured away back to the corridor the colt came from
"Yes farther, the stars be praised" He began to walk off back down too where he came
"Yes... may they be praised" The stallion turned to the corridor, his face covered in burns and scares, smirking as he began to step down from his candle light stand
"I think that boy will make a good priest... either that or he'll make a wonderful addition to my collection" He began laughing loudly as if to mock his own words as he kicks a small skull aside from the path into full side isles of other young skulls.
Black burnt walls of the of the holy ships bridge, candles along the sides of the walkways and around all the crew positions, two ponies on either side in black cloaks and black full head helmets formed to their faces operating weapons consoles, two ponies sat at the front of the long black room operating the flight controls, the centre of the room had a golden statue of a cross being melted by a star and around the edges of the room where young colts and fillies all in full black robs, standing perfectly still.
The black armoured stallion walked up to the statue before raising his hoof to place it upon the statue and praying "May the great star guide our streams and help us cleans these sins of the heretics" all the other crew on the bridge bowed their heads and mumbled the same, before getting back to their work on what was mostly cracked or chard monitors. the young pony at the sides of the room stood silence as though they were afraid to do anything otherwise as the black armoured stallion walked back and forth around the statue, and spoke again "Great seer what can you tell me about the approaching ships?"
A failing computerized voice replied "There are eight ships jumping to our current lo c c c c c ction. One is is is a large carrier type vessel, two are most likely c c c cruisers of some sort and finally there are five sm a a a a a all escort types possibly frigates of destroyers although one resembles the signature of the vessel members of this crew have named the 'First Bleeder' this name co o o o on..."
quickly interrupting it the armoured stallion talks towards the rest of the bridge crew "Thank you seer, YOU HEAR THAT? THE FIRST BLEEDER IS COMING FOR US! LETS SEND IT TO JOIN MANY OF ITS FALLEN SINNERS AS WE CLEANS IT WITH THE WEAPONS THE HOLY STAR HAS PROVIDED!" The crew including the young ones cheered in response "LET THEM PAY FOR THEIR SINS AS WE CLEAR THEM FROM THE GALAXY!" Again the crew cheered loudly "THE HOLY STAR DEMANDS IT OF US SO WE SHALE PROVIDE!" The crew cheering louder throwing their hooves in the air "LET OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS KNOW WE CHARGE OUR WEAPONS AND LETS GET READY TO PURGE OUR GUESTS!" Cheering at their loudest they began to charge up their weapons systems and exposing the turrets on the outer hull of their blackened burnt ship the other three smaller ships did the same as they moved closer together, turrets protruding from their hulls.
As a large amount of blue lightning started to form around small points beyond the bow of the holy ships the armoured stallion raised his hoof and held it aloft, the lightning became more intense as the four armour class frigates jumped into the system aiming their accelerator cannons and protruding their shield structures holding fire as the light cruisers jumped in behind them the frigates began to fire shots towards the smaller holy ships that where simulate in size to the Salvatore as the cruisers began firing towards the larger centre holy ship. Flakes of armour where flying off the holy ships as they where pummelled by shots, non really making any impact. The armoured stallion kept his hands raised in anticipation waiting for the last ship to clear the blue lightning still arcing behind the other ships, as the lighting began to become its most charged a ship jumped in and the stallion stamped his hoof to the ground and yelled "CLEANS THEM!" As all the holy ships fired on the ship jumping in.
the other ships polarized their hull giving them all a light blue glow along the seems of their hull plaiting as the freshly warped in ship decelerated to a focused visual state it was clear that it was the ENV Luna that had jumped in and was now firing volleys at the smaller holy ships, taking large chunks of hull plating from them, as the plasma streams fired from the holy ships hitting the ship and almost entirely being absorbed and just leaving behind black scorching one the hulls lessening the plaiting glow slightly with each shot the armoured stallion confused to the whereabouts of the 'First Bleeder' he questioned the seer "SEER WHERE IS THE FIRST BLEEDER?"
The failing computer responded "The 'First Bleeder' did not jump into the same area as the other enemy ships. however it did jump into the system along with a group of previously undetected small craft that are all approaching from our rear."
With fear in his throat "ALL SHIPS THEIR IS A SECOND ATTACH COMING FROM BEHIND! DIVERT GUNS TO INTERCEPT!" As he finished a large explosion from one of the smaller ships being destroyed threw him off his hoofs and into one of the navigators pits as a number of smaller explosions followed across the ship as bombers dropped their payloads onto the weapons turrets. the armoured stallion getting back to his position called for an open channel to the Luna "Your tactic was very cleaver heretic, next time my Sovereign will destroy your ships and the first bleeder" As the transmission cut off the large ship seemed to just vanish leaving behind the other two smaller ship to be quickly taken down by missile barrages from all the Luna fleet.
The captains of the Luna fleet again on bored her in the briefing room sat at the table with the newly promoted captain Blue sight going through recent information that had been sent to the fleet. He stood next to the illuminated screen showing an image of three different sized ships
Blue sight stood up as the rooms lights dimmed and began "So we have been sent this information from what other fleets and ourselves have gathered, the smallest ship that we have come across has been labelled the 'Skylance class' and is of a similar size to one of our destroyers. The 'Skylance class' is equipped with four of those strange plasma batteries and a single prow mounted plasma lance, the ship isn't a large threat however all ships are advised to avoid coming into targeting range of the prow plasma lance as it can be remarkable devastating. the second and third classes we know well they have been named the 'Salvatore class' which is similar in size to one of our cruisers named after of course the Salvatore that we destroyed, the third is being called the 'Sovereign class' after the large ship we encountered in our last engagement and its captain informed use of the ships name, this ship class is about the size of our heavy cruisers. It a pears that these two ship types make up the bulk of the enemies fleet power." The screen flicked to show two much larger ships and below them an image of a much smaller ship. "These two ship types have been seen by several fleets in larger fights and they a pear to be carrier types, the left one is similar size to the Luna and has next to no weapon emplacements however is able to carry and launch an outstanding amount of smaller ships and has been named the 'Cloud class' for the cloud of ships it releases while the other is a smaller variant with a large amount of plasma turrets and much fewer launch bays, making this more of an attack carrier and has been named the 'S'jet class'. both these carriers launch these gunboat sized ships which are armed with a single plasma turret but have a short closing distance and can almost match our fighters manoeuvrability. Now this last ship type all ships have been given orders to retreat from" The screen flicked to an image of a massively sized hulk "This... Is the 'Temple class spacehulk' its about twice the size of any of our dreadnoughts... We have only two sightings of this class and one was from the Wonder bolt attack fleet..."
Captain Grosessco interrupted "HA so they managed to take down one of those behemoths!" he sat chuckling with pride tapping his hoof on the table.
Blue sight responded slowly "No... the Wonder bolt fleet was completely destroyed..." Grosessco fell silent as his hoof slammed to the table "according to several black box recordings recovered from the fleets wrecks they encountered the spacehulk shortly after jumping into the system after a small fleet of Skylances from their previous engagement. As soon as they where in range the hulk opened fire before the fleet could get a target lock, it only took 5 minutes for the hole fleet to be wiped out."
Admiral Drogon spoke in shock "But the Wonder bolt attack fleet contained 2 dreadnoughts, 4 battleships, 4 battle cruisers, 10 heavy cruisers, 10 cruisers, 15 light cruisers, over 50 frigates and destroyers and a princes class carrier. It was one of our strongest fleets... please tell me the other fleet that encountered one of these faired better"
Blue sight sat down resting his bionic leg as the screen went ark and the rooms lighting came back on "Yes the other sighting was from the First fleet who took losses but managed to retreat before loosing any of their major fire power, however even the 85th gen cruisers that where in the fleet where unable to inflict any significant damage to the spacehulk with their gauss cannons. after the encounter of these hulks most large attack fleets have been sent back to the Equees system to form a blockade around the home world and allow the production of the rest of the 85th gen ships to be completed, the 'Twilight class battleship' is hoped to have enough power to at least cause these ships to withdraw but its uncertain."
The admiral spoke up again "If most of our main attack fleets have been withdrawn what our we and the other smaller fleets meant to do?"
"Well we have been told to remain at ready and continue along our patrol rout and take out as many ships as we can however we are not to engage any large enemy fleets and the hierarchy would like use to try and bored and capture a small ship for study and higher up crew members for questioning" Blue sight responded
"Well" Admiral Drogon stood up "I guess we better carry out our orders, We should head for Tootront orbital platform to see if we can acquire some bording craft and a platoon of marines. All right all captains too your ships and prep for the jump to Tootront" The admiral left the briefing room and the rest of the captains funnelled out. As he walked back onto the bridge and sat at his station he brought up the image of the Temple class spacehulk up on his chairs monitor and staired at its features with both fear and curiosity.
"Fa... Farther may i aproatch?" a small frightened voice falls from the darkness.
A large golden room surounds the small dark halway the voice emerged, the room filled with giant candles gimering their light around from surface to surface, candle wax dripping to the floor from wall mounted holders. In the centre of the room an empty set of golden plate armour stands, the hoof plates fin sheets with large claw like shapes protruding, the chest plate thick chunks ofoverlaping one enouther down to were a tail would be simulare to house tiles or dragon scales but with thick ridges running all over the plates as runes or rivers long a mountan range, finaly the helm in an almost ponyhead like shape with no visale seams or ports for vision or sound, a large mane of gold running from the crown to the neck covered with black lines seeming to be outlineing individual strands of hair in the golden main. Sudenely wax covered glass sheets on parts of the rooms walls ignight with a deep purple light as a voice fills the room "There is no Farther here young one!" the lit sheets on the wall pulsate to blue with each word.
"Sorry High farther... i am new to the truth and meant no offence." The frightened voice trembles at its mistake.
"No worried my child" the sheets of light continue to change colour as each word bellows through the room, as the wax melts from the sheets "ofcourse you meant nothing of it, i shall send a preacher to complete your education of the truth now tell me why you come to converse"
A dragon missing scales accross her her legs as she slowely and shakely steps into the roomwearing a long black rob covering her body with the hood covering the face "I was told to come inform you of both good and some alarming news about the crusade High Farther" the dragon falls to her knees in a loss of strength before reagusting into a prair position "much heracy has been purged from the outer systems with little resistance and many seeing the truth like myself"
"This is good news to hear young one, how is the state of the centrle push going?" the voice echos as the lights flicker.
"Well that is the issue" the dragon responded as the glass sheets changed to a deep red and the black lines on the manes armour also began to glow red causing her to shuder and quickely jerk her head towards the floor "We have encountered heavy resistance from the heratical ones refusing to abandon their wrong doings and we have lost many congragation fleets to this..."
The room falls sighlent as the sheets and armour loose their red coulering and return to their previouse states before the voice returns "well then it apers that heracy runs deeper withing the galaxy than the greate star had belived." for a moment the room was siolent again before the light changed to a green as the rooms candles went out and large lights on the celing iluminated "I guess we will just have to awaken the rest of the faith, see how well heracy holds out against the full amount of greate holy stars followers instead of the small portion we awoke to deal with them".
The dragon looked up at the lights as they shone down onto her almost untouched face while the rest of her body was missing scales or at somepoints even missing chunks of flesh as congeld blood lay around the wounds. a suden large hiss from the farside of the room gained her attention as the golden walls parted sliding to the sides like pannels revealing large glass pain facing towards hundereds of seemingly deralict ships and debrie as many began to ingnight their engines, reactivate their hull plating as chunks from the debrie rushed towards them and slamed against them fixing any damage or even constructing entire sections of hull. As the walls finished moveing hunderds apon hunderds of ships were awakening the screens on the now obviousely screens on the walls now showing even more ships returing to life with the hords of wrecks. The armour in the centre of the room began to move its plating as its wearer where streching as golden light began to eminate from the chestpiece conecting to the other pieces forming the shape of wearer and the ridges alonge the chest peice and the black lines alone the main lit up with a green glow and two lines of red light shone from the eye sculptings as they seemed to open up to form large red eyelike orbs and laughter filled the room, booming from the armour. "NOW THOSE HERATICS WILL SEE THE FULL MIGHT OF THE TRUTH WITCH THEY REFUSE!"
Dark corridors of burnt hull walls lined with glass like tubes, as a pale light beginning to rise up from the bottom in sequence down each corridor, the tubes covered in a layer of frost so thick it barely allowed the light to permeate through. As the light brightens and intensify the frost began to fin allowing the light to form silhouettes of ponies standing upright, each tube filled with a pony, each corridor filled with hundreds of tubes, each set of corridors leading off of a large central chamber with five sides.
large ceiling lights blast on with large booming noises ignites the space with a piercing white glow revealing the poor and heavily damaged scared hull of the ship and that many of the tubes occupants are nothing but shriveled husks of ancient ponies eyes boiled away, sheets of skin and muscle tissue loosely hanging from the pail chalk like bones while overs seem to have perfectly preserved crew members all clad in scorched black armor many of witch have systems activating with coloured lights running through crevasses all over the armor plates. As the frost clears from the glass the tubes seem to melt back to the sides causing the ponies to fall back onto all fours seeming to awake with no hesitation standing to attention ignoring their unfortunate brethren who's remains and decayed armor flood out of into the walkways. Each member raising their heads in unison and turning towards the central chamber filling it with countless souls but able to fit countless more as dust fires from the edges of the floor as it begins to slowly lift before screeching upwards as sparks fly into the center landing of the ponies skin and armor burning in slightly before cooling, not phasing a single one as many of their helms form barriers across their eyes in the same colour that runs through their armor. The lift grinds to a halt as they flood off into different sectors of the ship seeming to wake up as the move into them, a large portion heading to the rear their armor light with a blood red while ones with a pale green head towards the sides and those with a deep purple head towards the front soon reaching a large bridge were another tube but of solid purple stands in the center, the bridge crew march to their positions as the systems activate and they begin to attend their duties the ship coming to life, screens coming online showing the other parts of the ship, the pale green crew working on weapon and engine systems that are massive in scale with chunks of rust cracking and falling away from the moving parts, a few crew getting crushed without even a blink from the others, and in a giant hanger bay the red crewmen climb pillars activating and boarding fighter and bomber craft alike all covered in thick layers of dust which fills the room as they activate thousands of them.
The central tube on the bridge melts away to the deck as a golden armor held in place by golden long fin metal clamps lowering it into a standing position as a deep purple light filled the crevasses forming intricate markings with the light before the armor pieces connected themselves with the light as the clamps released and it began to move looking around the bridge before lifting a hoof plate and the bridges forward walls polarized revealing them to be view screens among the dark void the ship along with many others orbiting a blue giant star. The other ships began to wake, all of a similar design, the size of major effort colony ships re-purposed with bolted on weapons long pot bellied looking hunks of hull with large cube like engines igniting and throwing the vessels from orbit before they begin emitting bolts of energy and then vanishing completely.
The mass of ships going through FTL in formation. On bored the lead ships bridge the deep purple hololight golden armor stands proud in the center looking down on the bridge crew "STATUS UP DATE ON WAKE UP!" the light emitted from its armor fluttered with each word booming seemingly from nowhere. Three of the officers stepped forwards with the one on the far right spoke first "We have 82% command crew survived extended hype ." The central one then spoke up "56% of engineering crew survived however unforeseen incidences with the lack of engine maintenance lead to only 53% still surviving." The final one stepped forth "91% of flight crew ready to convert!" "GOOD! GOOD! AND THE FLEETS STATUS?" The two on the sides went back to their duties as the center one replied "all but two ships awoke and are following with similar crew status although the two we left behind failed to start their awakening we believe they were too damaged." "UNFORTUNATE." the hololight armor turned to the rest of the bridge crew "WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN WORD FINALLY THAT IT IS TIME TO CLEANS THE GALAXY OF ALL WHO REFUSE THE GREAT STARS LIGHT!!!" its voice boomed through the hole ship ship and across the fleet followed by a mass oh raws, cheers and hoof stomping.
On the outskirts of a system laying in the remains of Equeesian Empire far territory where a battle group around two defensive stations managing to successfully fend off a small fleet of holy ships, being destroyed by a wall of railgun, massdriver and gauss rounds fired from the ships and stations. The high velocity rounds tearing through the hull of the hole holy fleet bar one massive Tempest class spacehulk that just plowed through wrecks of fallen allies just seeming to take the fire into its mass and the occasional chunk blown off, the two defensive stations were equipped with large prototype gauss cannons that had finally charged the rings on the barrels lighting up green before a large round was fired at both streaming across space as green streaks before vanishing as they impacted the hulks forward bow. The massive hulks engines burnt out as small explosions erupted from them and the rounds inside detonated in the drive core blowing a hole in the rear of its hull were the engines once resided, The holy fleet almost decimated and the Imperial fleet erupting in celebration at the sight of a Tempest going down through the awe was short lived as bright lights started apearing from behind the Imperial and the newly awakened ships jumped into the system one after another, a single ship dwarfing the sized of the tempest, a few of the more heavily damaged ships began emergence jumps as the awakened began firing emiting a blinding amount of light which lasted only a few moments before the hole battle group was chunks of hull surrounding the remains of the stations.