> Rescue at Midnight Station
>  by Sparky Brony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Part 1.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The asteroid continues on its long orbit of the binary stars in the star system. It’s small, smaller than even a proto-moon, but it is large enough to have its own gravity. Miniscule compared to a larger moon or even a planet. Its core would be highly prized by sentient species all over the galaxy, a mix of duranium, uranium, titanium, and iron, with a smattering of dilithium crystals. The asteroid was likely formed when some larger body collapsed in on itself then exploded.

It’s surface, though, is covered with a layer of dust accreted over millennia from impacts with smaller asteroids that pulverized and ground themselves down to sand. The nearly negligible gravity is enough to keep that dust together, coating the asteroid to a depth of tens of meters. The asteroid rotates in its orbit, bringing a few structures of the underlying rock into periods of starlight and immense darkness. The terminator between light and dark moves rapidly across the surface, and for a moment, more than just dust is visible to anyone who would be able to see.

A wedge-shaped structure peeks out from the dust of the asteroid’s surface. It glints momentarily in the bright light of the stars of the system, though more dust is settling, and before long, the entire structure would end up completely buried, covered in a layer of sand of the asteroid. As the stars set in the fantastically short day, black lettering on the hull can be seen, NCC-74656. And above the registry number, emblazoned proudly on the depowered starship, USS Voyager.


Star Trek Voyager



Rescue At Midnight Station


Naomi Wildman, the youngest crewmember of the starship Voyager walks through the deserted corridors.The ships battery powered emergency lighting provides minimal illumination. She stumbles a bit as the artificial gravity fluctuates in low power mode.

“Mom?” She calls out, her voice filled with almost a desperate hope and sadness, “Neelix? Anyone?”

Her calls echo down the hallway for a moment, yet there is no reply, just the sounds of systems failing. She reaches to a computer terminal, at her touch the terminal remains black. She moans softly, on battery power, most of the computer terminals won’t work. She looks down, thinking of the ship where things are, then brightens, she knows of a few spots where the computer would still be working. She walks down the corridor, turning to the turbolift. The doors part at her approach, she turns and faces the doors as they close, “Bridge.” She says softly. The computer chirps and the turbolift hums as it moves. Though it seems to be slower than usual. How low are the batteries on the ship?

Finally, the doors open and she steps out onto the deserted bridge. “Computer.”

She is greeted by the regular acknowledgement of the computer system, “Why is the ship on low power mode?”

The computer takes a moment to process, then the feminine voice of the computer pipes up, “The warp core was taken automatically offline due to computer failures. Fusion reactors are available.”

“What is the power level of the emergency batteries?”

“Seventeen percent.”

Naomi’s eyes widen, she heads over to the engineering terminal, once she gets there, she closes her eyes, trying to remember the engineering training she’s received from Seven of Nine. She quickly smiles and her fingers fly across the keypads. The computer chirps in response, but after a few moments, an error signal sounds, “Structural damage affecting multiple systems including relay systems on deck fifteen is preventing secondary power initialization.”

Naomi sighs and continues her work, finally, the computer chirps in response as she bypasses the damages systems for pathways in the interior of the ship capable of carrying the power. Finally the fusion generators located next to the impulse engines fire to life. After only a few minutes, they are at full power, and quickly the ship starts to awaken as the secondary power systems take up the load. Lights all throughout the ship brighten as other emergency systems power down and the primary systems take over. Naomi smiles as the computer continues to respond to her touch. Finally, she looks up at the speaker in the ceiling, “Computer.”

After the computer chirps in response, “Where is my mom?”

“Ensign Wildman is not aboard the ship.”

Naomi frowns, “Where is Captain Janeway?”

“Captain Janeway is not aboard the ship.”

Naomi suppresses the desire to whine, “Is anyone aboard except for me?”

The computer chirps a few times, then, “Internal sensors are offline, no active communicators are present aboard the Voyager.”

She looks down at the status display, all fusion reactors show on the status board as online. Her fingers fly over the keypads again, and shortly the computer chirps. “Internal sensors online and calibrated. Stand by.”

Naomi stares fixedly at the status display until the computer chirps again, “There are life signs present on the bridge and cargo bay two.”

“Seven!” Naomi rushes to the turbolift.

This time, the turbolift hums normally as it moves through the ship. Naomi smiles as the doors open and she trots happily toward the door to cargo bay 2. She slaps the door open control and watches the doors slowly slide open. She takes a step in, “Seven?”

Silence greets her. She moves over to the Borg alcoves along the wall of the cargo bay, and Seven’s alcove is empty. The others are not, “Mezoti, Azan, Rebi, where are Seven and Icheb?” The other Borg children stand there, motionless. Naomi stops for a moment, getting her breath. Finally, she moves over to the console, pressing the buttons to end their regeneration cycles. With an audible click, all three Borg children drop to the floor. Naomi rushes over to Mezoti and brings the girl onto her lap, “Oh, please, wake up.” She moans as she pats the girl’s face gently. After a few moments, Mezoti’s eyes flash open.

“What happened?” She croaks.

Naomi fights to keep back tears, “Everyone is gone!”

Rebi stirs and sits up, “Gone!?”

Naomi nods, “Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine, my mom! Everyone is missing.

Mezoti sits up, “I remember some sort of energy surge, it caused some damage, so backup systems brought me to the alcove.” She looks at the other children, who nod. She looks at Naomi, “What happened to you?”

Naomi looks down, “I was in my quarters, and everything went white.” She stops and sighs, “I woke up under my bed. I don’t know how I got there. Then I started looking for everyone. The ship was on emergency batteries, and they were really low. I think we were unconscious for a while.”

Mezoti stands up, “Well, there’s an easy way to find out. Computer.”

“Working.”

“When was the power surge that knocked out the crew.”

The computer chirps a few times, “An unknown energy surge damaged systems at seventeen-forty-three.”

Naomi glances at the time display, “So, we’ve been out for about eighteen hours. Whoever did this is long gone.” She stands up, “We need to find an adult.” She stops for a moment, brightening, “The Doctor has his emergency command hologram mode. We can get him to help get the ship working!” She streaks for the door, the other children in tow.

“Computer!” Naomi calls as she skids to a stop inside sickbay, “Activate Emergency Medical Hologram.”

The computer chirps, then sounds an error, “The EMH program is currently offline.”

"What?"Mezoti inquires as she walks over to the holographic control panel and taps on it, looking at a menu, "He's not just offline, his programs not stored in the data bank anymore."

Naimi reaches up, feeling around and picks up the doctor’s mobile emitter. She sits back, looking at it, "But he never leaves sickbay without this. Whoever took the adults must have taken the doctor too."

"Maybe his program was transferred to the holodeck," Azan starts and begins tapping on the a computer terminal.

Joining Azan, Rebi begins helping, "There are several programs the doctor could, or would, seek refuge in."

Both boys nod once in unison as they begin bringing up files, Azan calling out the names.

"Marseilles, France."

"Doctor not present, no characters found."

"Florence, Italy."

"Di Vinci's workshop, no characters found."

Fairhaven."

"Doctor is not present, setting unaffected, only characters present are...the children."

Naomi sits back, “Whoever they were, they took every adult from Voyager, holographic, and real.” She looks around at the faces arrayed around her. “What are we going to do?”

The Borg children all look down, silence reigns in sickbay for several long moments, punctuated by suppressed sobs from the children. Mizati comes to herself for a moment and looks at Naomi, "They only took the adults?"

"Equestria!" Naomi says, "Computer, status of the Equestria program."

"99% of characters present."

Smiling brightly Naomi looks at the other children."Computer, activate Twilight Sparkle and transfer her to the Sickbay."

The computer chirps in reply, and after a few moments, Princess Twilight Sparkle shimmers into existence on the sickbay. She shakes her head for a moment, then looks up, “Naomi!” She shouts gleefully. She gallops over and rears up to hug Naomi. Who enthusiastically hugs back. Finally, she pulls away. “I thought you were going to visit on Saturday. I’m not complaining, any time I get to see my friend…” she trails off at the look on Naomi’s face, “Naomi…what’s wrong?” She glances around, “Who are these other humans? Are they your friends?”

Naomi smiles wanly, “We are friends, but something horrible has happened.”

Twilight glances around, “Well, the Doctor hasn’t visited Equestria in a while, and I don’t see him here, where is he?”

“All of the adults are gone, every single one, even holographic people have been removed from the computer.”

Twilight furrows her brows, “What? How? Is that even possible?”

“A self-aware holoprogram?” Mezoti says, moving closer and touching Twilight’s outstretched wing. The alicorn folds her wings and looks curiously at the young lady.

“You have machinery implanted, are you like Seven of Nine?”

Mezoti nods, eyes wide, “You know about the ship outside your program?”

“Yes.” She glances back at Naomi.

Rebi steps up, “How?”

Twilight stops for a moment, looking at Naomi, then over at the twins, “It’s a long story. But we need to figure out what happened. We need to get the Captain back.”

“But where do we start?” Mezoti says.

Twilight sits down and puts a hoof to her chin, “Well, we can get to the bridge, see if we can scan around and find where anypony is.”

“Anypony?” Rebi says.

“What does that mean?” Azan finishes, getting a blink from Twilight Sparkle.

She flushes, “Sorry, it’s what I’m used to saying back in Equestria.” She walks over, her horn lighting, “Well, since the Doctor isn’t here, I don’t think he’ll mind me taking this.” She fits the mobile emitter behind her ear and flickers for a moment as her program is transferred to the device. She gallops to the door, looking back, “Are you going to come?”

***

The bridge is quiet in a strange way. There are the sounds of controls being operated, buttons being tapped, but the normal small talk of the crew is missing. The quips from Tom to Tuvok. Harry Kim’s hopeful voice. It has been over an hour since the makeshift crew of the Voyager had started working, and hardly a word was spoken.

Twilight stood at tactical on her hind legs, supporting herself with one front leg as she works the panel. Azan and Rebi work as a team at the engineering terminal while Mezoti sits at ops working the small screens there. Naomi, the good captain’s assistant, sits in the first officers chair, using his displays as she works. The small team barely speaking as they struggle with the systems.

With a frustrated huff Twilight tilts her head back, looking up towards the ceiling and calls out, “Spike? SPIKE!”

Naomi jumps before glancing up and back from her commandeered chair. “Spike's not here.”

“Oh right, I guess I’m used to having him around when I’m working,” Twilight says with a blush then shakes her head, “Okay, external sensors are coming online, but I’m still not getting anything. Just static.”

Naomi looks back at the main display then taps on her console.“I’m getting a lot of feedback.”

Ruffling her wings, Twilight shakes her head. “Well, the sensors are operational, but we can’t see anything.”

Naomi pops up from her seat and moves over to Twilight, glancing at the displays, “Remember, there is some damage on deck fifteen.”

Twilight’s eyes widen, “Shifting to tactical display.”

On the screen, a wireframe of Voyager appears, along with the sensor data. Finally, a better picture emerges, “We’ve soft-landed.”

Naomi blinks, “Huh?”

“We’ve impacted something with enough gravity to hold us, but the structural damage is minor at worst. We were just drifting, not under power. So, we just got drawn to it.”

“Well, can we move away?”

Twilight concentrates on her console, finally she looks up at the other kids, her face bleak, “Some of the circuit pathways are shorted out.There’s minor damage all over the ship. We simply can’t reroute enough to get the impulse engines online, and thrusters are iffy as well.” She sighs, “We have to do some serious repairs to get the ship moving at all.”

“But whoever took my mom and the other adults are getting away, we need to find them, Twilight.”

Twilight leans over, using a wing to bring the young girl closer to her, “We aren’t giving up.” She taps a display, “The Delta Flyer is still here. And it looks like the shuttle bay can be opened, we will have to split up to find them.” She taps a few keys, "The dust covering the ship is thinnest near the shuttle bay. We can move it."

Azan steps up, “Rebi and I…”

“Will stay here and start repairs.” Rebi finishes.

Mezoti moves up next to Naomi, “I’ll help Naomi. We’ll get the Delta Flyer ready and going.”

“Oh, no. You aren’t going without me!” Twilight says. Then she glances at the boys, “But you might need some help.” She smiles brightly, “come with me.”

The children look at each other as the purple alicorn bounces over the console and gallops for the turbolift. The door dutifully opens as she approaches, she glances back. “You coming?”

Again, the children look at each other, Twilight’s impatient prancing finally gets them to move, and they crowd into the turbolift with her.

As Twilight enters sickbay, she calls out, “Computer, I need you to activate and transfer a pony from the Equestria program to Sickbay.”

After a few moments, “Please identify the character you wish transferred.”

Twilight smiles as she hops up on the Doctor’s chair.Unfortunately, the chair begins to spin as her mass hits it, quickly she uses her magic to stop the chair before settling down. Once settled, she lights her horn again and slides it over to the console and she starts working, “Don’t let Rainbow Dash on these chairs, she’ll be spinning for hours…or until she makes Pinkie Pie throw up from dizziness.”

Naomi moves up next to her as the alicorn’s hooves tap keypads on the display.

“You’re not bringing Rainbow Dash, are you?”

Twilight smiles at Naomi, “Nope, another friend, one who’s really good at organizing. But she doesn’t have enough information right now.I’m having her learn the ship’s specs quickly before she arrives, also all the current technical data on what’s going on right now.” She stops with the computer surface, “There we go.Okay, computer, transfer her here.”

The computer chirps a few times, then another pony materializes in sickbay. This one is pink, with a violet mane and tail with a lavender streak. The three brilliant cut gems are emblazoned on her flank sparkle for a moment as she fully materializes. Spreading her forelegs, she shakes herself out vigorously. “Wow does that ever make your hair stand on end.”

“Amethyst!” Twilight calls out, hopping off the chair and running over to the other pony, hugging her tightly, “How do you feel?”

“Am I all here? And is my mane poofed out from all that energy?”

Twilight laughs, “Your mane’s fine and yes, you’re all here.”

“That was pretty weird!” Amethyst says, putting a hoof to her head, she finally brightens, “I knew we were on SOME kind of ship, but this is really weird. I got the scrolls you sent and read up on them.”

Twilight smiles, “I know, you are not in your element, but you have said that you are the best organizer in Ponyville.”

Amethyst smiles, “None better.” She stops and flushes, “Except for you, Twilight.”

Twilight puts a hoof around Amethyst, “Amethyst Star, meet Rebi and Azan.”

Amethyst offers a hoof, which gets shaken by each boy, “Just call me Sparkler.”

“Pleased to…” Rebi says.

Followed by Azan, “meet you, Sparkler.”

Rebi tilted his head looking at Azan a moment then at Amethyst, “Scrolls?”

“Well yeah, I had to read up on the ship before coming here.”

“But that’s not…”Rebi started but Amethyst was quick to cut them off.

“It was far more polite and felt nicer for me to say, than she cracked open my program and dumped a ton of info into it. I’ll stick with, I read it before getting here.” Amethyst said, “The idea of someone cracking open my head and rooting around in my memories is just a little offsetting.”

Twilight smiles, then she sits down, “Unfortunately, you can’t leave sickbay, you have to tell the computer to transfer you where there are holo-emitters. Which means here, or the holodecks. So, your job will be to organize everything, keep track of what’s been repaired, and what needs work. You’ll be able to use the com system to talk to Azan and Rebi and keep them apprised of what’s going on.”

Sparkler hops up on the chair and looks at the computer terminal, “The only downside is, now that I know about these, I kinda want one in Ponyville, just so I can store my music, books, and photos on.”

Twilight giggles, “I’ve gave your program the information to make it possible for you to help. And the computer terminals here should have enough access to be able to do what you need to do.” She stops and smiles at Naomi and Mezoti, “And we will go to the shuttle bay, and get the Delta Flyer up and going.” Her horn lights and another computer terminal lights up. “I’ve sent the commands to get the systems on the Flyer starting up. Should be warmed up by the time we get there.” The girls follow Twilight as she trots out of sickbay.

***

The hatch at the rear of the shuttle hisses as it slides slowly open, revealing the interior of the craft. Trotting in, Twilight takes her seat in the pilot’s chair of the Delta Flyer, her horn alight as she manipulates the controls. “Ohhh, manual controls, this is so much easier and more fun.”

Mezoti walks in and sits down at the engineering station and taps a few buttons, “All systems functioning within normal parameters.”

“Ouch, you sound like an android saying that,” Naomi says as she sits down at the science console, “closing rear hatch. Force fields in place, opening bay doors.”

Slowly the outer doors of the shuttle bay began to open, instantly the shield takes the load and shimmers as sand and dust presses against it, trying to invade the bay. Twilight takes a deep breath, “Okay girls, ready?”

“Ready, the debris is not that bad, no large rocks or anything,” Naomi says, her fingers flying over the controls. She glances over at Mezoti, “The program you found to sweep debris should work here.”

A loud thunk is heard though the shuttle, “Docking clamps are engaged, we are locked to the deck,” Twilight says, looking over her shoulder, “Your turn.”

“Give me a sec, this isn’t as easy as I thought,” Mezoti says, “Okay, tractor beam polarity is reversed. We now have our shovel, operation dig out is a go.”

The tractor beam at the front of the delta flyer hums as it begins pushing against the sand in waves. Slowly, push after push, more and more sand and dust are cleared until finally they can see space outside. After a few minutes of careful work by the former Borg, the shuttle has cleared a large enough hole to fly out.

“Releasing clamps.” A loud thunk sounds throughout the cabin, “and here we go.” Twilight taps a few keys and the shuttle moves out with small puffs from the thruster system. As the Flyer passes through the environmental containment force field, it enters deep space.Twilight looks down at the ship slowly, noting the microgravity of the asteroid that Voyager has landed on. With quick manipulation of the controls, the shuttle moves to a high orbit of the asteroid. She turns it back to look at Voyager. “Oh, wow.” Naomi says, looking at the somnolent starship through the window.

Twilight activates the active scanners, “It’s buried under several tons of dust, but with the low gravity, once they get the impulse engines running, extricating the ship won’t be too hard.” She brings up a schematic from her scans, “The damage doesn’t look too bad though. Some minor buckling, maybe a few dents in the saucer section and the engineering section. Though the navigational deflector looks completely fouled.”

“Oh, B’elanna is gonna have a field day with that.” Mezoti says softly, then she turns and looks at Twilight. “Will the boys be able to get it working?”

Twilight looks, “I’m no engineer, but from what I can see here, I think they can get it working, just not perfectly. Probably enough for warp five or so.”

Naomi sighs, “I guess that will have to be enough.” She concentrates on her own console, “The ship’s ion trail, it trails off a few light minutes from here, she must have drifted for a couple of hours before landing there.” She taps again, “But the trail is pretty good, I think we can follow it. Twilight, take us on a course of two-thirty-two by seventy-four.”

As Twilight enters in the orders, the small ship begins to rotate on its axis. Twilight applies impulse thrust and the sublight engines of the Delta Flyer push it forward. The shuttle accelerates to a percentage of the speed of light, though with as vast space is, they lose sensor contact with Voyager fairly quickly. Time passes slowly as they continue on, sensors following the vapor trail of the Voyager. Finally, the sensor displays light up, getting Twilight’s attention.

She studies the screen for a moment, “Okay, Naomi, keep the sensors on passive.” She glances back with a smile, then she settles down to read the displays.

“Yep, ‘Listen first then look,’ Just like Chakotay said in survival class,” Naomi murmurs.

Mezoti shakes her head, “He was talking about rabbits doing that.”

“Look at the size of those warp trails,” Twilight said her wings going up in surprise.

Mezoti leans over and looks, “It seems like ships keep running over it, I have multiple trails following the same paths, like a patrol route.”

“Good eye, as keen as a pegasus there,” Twilight says looking back.

“Enhanced optics,” Mezoti says softly.

“I’ve got another trail, much smaller, it’s following a course avoiding the other warp trails,” Naomi says, “here’s the signature.”

Extending the scanning range Twilight tilted her head, “What do we have here? I’ve got a warp core and subspace field, it’s a small one though, traveling at warp one point five. Based on the size, it looks like a small cargo ship.”She taps the controls and a small thump announces a launch. “I’m launching a micro probe. We can hail them through it without giving away our position.” She sits and waits as the small device moves away from the Flyer. “Okay, universal translator tied in, I’m hailing them.” She says as she taps the com controls.

“This is the shuttle Delta Flyer to the unknown cargo vessel, please respond.”

She waits a few moments, then repeats her hail. Finally, the speakers crackle in response, “Delta Flyer, this is the trading vessel Scoop. We copy you.”

Twilight looks around, her hoof pressed on the mute button, “I don’t think they would understand a couple of children and a purple quadruped, so we should keep this on audio only.” The girls nod, and she releases the mute. “Our vessel was attacked, and a good number of the crew was taken. It happened in this area. Do you have any information?”

The voice on the other end becomes instantly guarded, “Did they take even holographic characters from the ship’s computers?”

Twilight nods, “Yes, they did. Every adult holographic character, every adult from the ship itself.”

She hears a sigh, “Yeah, we know them. They call themselves the Keritians. They’ve been raiding more often in the area. Looking for workers for their station on Keritos V.”

Twilight frowns, puzzled, “That name is weird.” She shakes her head, “Where did they take every…one?”

“Oh no, you don’t want to go there. You’ll end up working there.”

“Not if I can help it!” Twilight growls softly. She stops and shakes her head, then louder, “They are a danger to everyone if they keep abducting the ship crews. We will do everything we can to stop them.”

“How can the crew of a shuttle that’s been preyed upon by the Keritians help?”

Twilight looks back at the girls, “Well, let’s just say we are very motivated. Please, tell me everything you know about them.”

***

Rebi and Azan have been close all their lives. When the Borg took them and joined them to the collective, they stayed with each other on the same ship. Even when freed from the collective, they kept their Borg interlink between each other. Sharing thoughts, ideas, and often choosing to speak to each other through the interlink instead of vocalizing, they made an effective pair.

Holding his hand out of service hatch, Azan only has to wait moments for Rebi to hand him the tool he needs. Quickly the arm vanishes back into the access port followed by a small whirring sound. The deflector control room on deck eleven has several crawl spaces and connecting tubes, but the pair is concerned with the primary control array, where they had all the coverings off.

Nodding, Rebi walks over to the portable replicator unit they had wired into the EPS conduits. Selecting fabrication mode, the replicator hums for a moment as it creates the requested component. He pulls out a component and examines it.Azan slides out and sits up, inspecting the part he pulled out, holds out his hand as Rebi hands him the replacement. Trading parts Azan vanishes back into the tunnel. Running new cables to the ODN junction Azan attaches the small terminal, replacing the small burned out one.As Azan connects the final optical fibers to the terminal the lights and primary computer terminal flashes to life. Almost instantly, the screen on the terminal gains a lavender face, “So, sensors are restored in here.” She glances around, “Umm, I can’t see either of you. Are the sensors calibrated right?”

Rebi moves to where the visual sensor can see him, “We are here. We have sensors...”

“And power online, but we still have more to do.”Azan finished as he poked out of the crawl space.

“I understand.” Sparkler says. Her eyes fasten on the boys as they move onto another access port. They start working, with the pony watching them. Finally, she shifts on her chair, “You two don’t talk much.”

Azan glances at Sparkler, “We do most of our communicating…”

Rebi takes up for Azan, “via what’s left of our Borg link. We don’t need to communicate much…”

“Verbally.” Azan finishes. The boys look at each other.

“The Borg. The information Twilight gave me on them was pretty scary. About as bad as the changeling drones we faced a few times,” She shakes her head, her ears flattening back feeling the hair on her back rise. “And Voyager took five former Borg into their family.”

“Yes.” Rebi says as the systems for the deflector power up.

Azan leaned over looking at the screen, “You had scary drones?”

Sparkler nodded, “They weren’t cyborgs or such.They were insect like, twisted and corrupted creatures called changelings. Lead by a queen, her drones would harvest other life forms for her to feed on.”

The two boys look at each other and blink a few times, before both look at the screen.

“I was in Canterlot for the royal wedding when they attacked, there were tens of thousands of them. I grabbed Dinky, a little foal and tried to run but they were everywhere,” she flattens her ears and a shiver goes down her back. “I couldn’t let them hurt Dinky.”

“Can we hear the full story?”Azan asked.

Sparkler shakes her head, “Later maybe, but we have to much work to do.The main deflector is still offline.”

Grabbing a large bar Rebi and Azan both push it up.A loud clank and hiss is heard, followed by a soft humming sound.

Sparkler giggles and clops her hooves together. “Okay, that’s awesome. Deflector control is working again!”

Running between three terminals, Sparkler shakes her head, “Computer, how come I can’t get a display of power distribution networks?”

“Medical terminal three does not have sufficient space to utilize the requested display properly,” The computer responds promptly.

“Great, which terminals do have sufficient space?” Sparkler looks around the medbay, waiting on the computer.

After a few chirps, “The engineering station on main bridge, engineering stations one through ten in main engineering, power maintenance station on deck fifteen, deflector maintenance station on deck…”

“Okay, and which of these locations have holoprojectors?”

Sparkler props up her cheek with one hoof while tapping on the control panel with her other hoof. Her ear flicks in time with the computer chirps.

“None.”

“And I’m stuck here, or… the holodeck.” She stops for a long moment, finally she brightens, “Computer is it possible to create a holographic bridge and transfer ship functions there?”

“Affirmative, holodecks are capable of being used as axillary bridge or control rooms,” the computer chirps in reply.

That gets a big smile from Sparkler, “Computer, activate Holodeck two, and build a complete replica of the main bridge there. Then transfer the command functions there.”

The computer, chirps for several moments, finally the feminine voice of the computer speaks up, “Program complete. Authorization is required to transfer command functions.

Sparkler grumbles, “As if the computer doesn’t know almost everypony is gone. Well, let’s hope that code that Twilight stuck in my skull helps.” She projects her voice towards the ceiling, “Authorization Sparkler two-nine-beta-seven.”

Her eyes widen as the computer chirps a for a few seconds, finally it answers, “Command codes have been transferred.”

She looks at the boys, “I can use the status boards on the bridge to help.” She narrows her eyes for a moment, “Computer, transfer program Amethyst Star to holodeck two.” The boys look at each other as she disappears from the com screen.

Azan moves over to the computer terminal, pressing the keypads he hums softly as he works. Rebi moves to the station next to him and continues the work.

“Okay, I’m on the holographic bridge.” Sparkler says as her form blinks onto the com screen. She taps on a control, “Oh good, you are purging the dust from the deflector systems.” She taps the screen, “Then we will have to do a final purge once we extricate the ship from the asteroid. But at least we will be able to initialize the systems before powering up.”

“You talk a lot.” Rebi says, looking at Sparkler on the com.

The pony flinches, her ears flicking back and forth, “Well, it would help if you two were to talk back to me. We are supposed to be working together.”

Azan stands up, “You tell us what we need to know, and where to work next, and we inform you of what we’ve done,”

Rebi stands next to his brother, “even though you can see the completed work on the status monitors.”

Azan turns towards the door, “And you work the computer from your end.”

Sparkler flushes, looking down, then her ears flatten back, “Well, talking to you helps me think, so I’m going to keep talking to you, whether you respond or not.” She flicks her ears and growls, “Well, whatever knocked everypony out also affected your main computer. The filing system is a mess. Parsing errors everywhere. Makes me glad the holodeck systems are in fairly decent shape, except for all the characters missing from the other programs.” She taps her chin with a hoof, “Well, that’s a problem for after we are underway. I see you are done in deflector control for now. Time to bring the warp core online.”

“Heading to Engineering.” Rebi says.

“Oh, no need.” The visual sensor follows as Sparkler trots over to the engineering station on the bridge, “You’ve repaired enough circuits, I can do it from here. Head to the bridge.” She stops for a moment, “Well, the holographic bridge on holodeck two.”

The boys look at each other and shrug.

As Sparkler works, automatic systems in engineering hum to life. Using power from the fusion reactors, the warp core lights up as the superconducting magnets along the entire core heat up, setting up the magnetic field for the reaction. Sparkler watches the status monitors as she tells the computer to adjust the dilithium crystal at the heart of the matter and anti-matter reaction chamber to be in alignment for the upcoming reaction.

“Okay, setting the ratio so we can start the reaction.” She presses a few pads on the terminal. At her command, deuterium from the upper reaction storage tank is pumped to the injectors at the very top of the warp core. Soon, the pumps and injectors are primed. At the opposite end, a few grams of anti-matter are magnetically pumped from the anti-matter containment and the anti-matter injectors are likewise primed. This fact is relayed to the engineering terminal on the holographic bridge as the holodeck doors open, letting Rebi and Azan in. They move to the terminal with Sparkler, she points at the status display. “We are ready to power up.”

The boys nod and she presses a final keypad. The injectors on both sides fire, the anti-deuterium from the lower injectors is pressed together by the magnets along the warp core, sending the miniscule stream to the dilithium crystal, it being charged by the power system allows the anti-matter to pass through it without actually touching the crystal structure, to meet the deuterium being brought in from the top. Matter and anti-matter interact, each annihilating the other in a massive burst of energy. The greater amount of deuterium absorbing the energy and becoming a super high energy plasma, which is directed down the plasma flow conduits towards the warp engines. The warp nacelles of the starship glow blue as the primary power systems of the ship start to take over.

Sparkler sits back happily, “setting power systems to automatic.” She looks over at the boys, “That was easy.”

That gets a small laugh from them, Azan moves over to the navigation panel, he sits down, “Navigation and helm online.”

Rebi moves over to tactical, “We can move the ship, now.”

Sparkler taps a few keys, “We are ready, let’s get off of this rock.”

***

“Well, we really don’t know much about them. Not many escape from that station of theirs. They work the living until they die, and holographic until their programs degrade. They aren’t much for maintenance on the programs.”

Twilight looks up at the speaker the other captain’s voice is being emitted from and shudders, “Do you know where it is?”

“Not exactly, they don’t advertise their location, but what we do know was from one of their ships had suffered a power loss. The salvager's were able to access their computers and glean some information that wasn’t messed up in whatever caused their warp core to go offline.” The other voice stops for a moment, “Well, the Keritians don’t go through a normal growth cycle like most humanoids.”

Naomi speaks up, “Growth cycle?”

“Yeah, you know, conceived, are born, are babies which grow into children which grow into adults. That’s how it is for most species. Not the Keritians, no. They hatch, pretty much fully grown. They don’t have a childhood. That’s one reason they don’t pick children up from the ships they attack. They use a powerful stun ray which usually overloads the other ship’s shielding. And they prefer to catch a ship unawares, without shields being up. But once they stun everyone, they transport everything that meets their criteria of a living, sapient creature.”

“What are those criteria?” Mezoti says.

“Oh, anything over about a meter and a half, weighing over about sixty-five kilos. Must be bipedal, don’t want to grab a big dog or something like that, right?” That gets a chuckle, “Then they whisk them away to their station, and then whomever they’ve stolen will be ore miners for the rest of their lives.”

“Sounds dreadful.” Naomi murmurs softly.

“Yeah, well. That’s about all we know about them.”

Twilight clears her throat, “Thank you so much for the information.”

“Yeah, no problem, I hope you find your families.”

Twilight moves to close the connection, then she stops, “What’s the name of this place, where they take those they steal.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s called Midnight Station.” The com clicks as the other side closes the connection.

“Midnight station?”  Twilight mumbles softly as she thinks about the name. It shouldn’t bother her, but something about it triggers old memories. A cold shiver runs down the entire length of her back as the fur stands on end, her mouth instantly goes dry as her eyes widen, flattening her ears, she whimpers, “Celestia no.”
> Part 2.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nothing stays the same for long.Nothing in the universe lasts forever.Plants grow, age, die, and decay.Stars grow cold and dim, or explode violently.Everything eventually succumbs to the march of entropic forces, to discord. A starship, away from space dock and not receiving refits, will suffer from failures. The longer the time between major overhauls, the more systems that will need daily maintenance to keep functioning, let alone running at peak levels.

Voyager’s engineering staff had been plagued with various breakdowns and electrical problems for years now. Within minutes of extricating the ship from the asteroid, red warnings had popped up on the main status board.Structural integrity fields and emergency bulkhead shields kicked in to help compensate.A large area, centered on deck fifteen where the ship took the brunt of the soft-landing on the asteroid, flashed on the engineering display. Several vital systems are routed though the ships belly and diagnostics showed them crying out for attention. A loud clank followed by a hiss fills the air as light floods in, with the door open other illumination panels begin to flicker on, showing the long tunnel ahead as Azan crawls into an access tube on deck fifteen. Rebi kneels down, plugging in the portable replicator, making sure his brother has all the necessary parts to get the newest system to fail, the warp core ejection subsystem, back up and going

Information passes instantly between the two as their Borg interlink quickly shares what Azan sees and thinks back to Rebi, who’s fingers dance over the replicator panel calling up and selecting schematics. In minutes, several new components have been replicated as the old and damaged ones are recycled.The only thing they can’t fabricate is the gel pack. The damage to a bio-neural gel pack has required the young former Borg to run to a supply cabinet several decks up for a replacement, something Voyager is always in short supply of. As Azan makes the final connections to the new gel-pack and removes the shunts, a hum can be heard as the pack lights up and the computer buzzes happily. Azan glances at Rebi with a smile. They take a matter of minutes to get everything packed up. Azan lugs the heavy portable replicator to its storage and locks it in place, ensuring the power cables are put in place. They fist bump and head to the turbolift. The trip to holodeck two is accomplished quickly with the turbolift.Since the program is already running they simply needed to walk straight in.

As soon as the doors open they step onto holodeck, which is currently acting as the ships bridge, both stop boys in their tracks looking at the crew.The bridge is alive with normal sounds of controls being activated and output alerts.

“Sparkler, what is…” Azan starts.

“Going on here?” Rebi finishes.

Sparkler’s head pops up from the tactical station, “I was getting a little overwhelmed with all the tasks underhoof. Power management, sensors, it was just too much for one pony. I needed help while you two were busy, so I called some friends.” She points a hoof towards the ops station, “That’s Lyra Heartstrings,” and then moves her hoof towards the helm, “And that’s Rainbow Dash.” She giggles, “I had to dump the same information into them before I brought them here.”

The boys look at each other, “They’re multiplying.” They murmur softly at each other. Azan moves over to the helm, watching the blue pegasus run her hooves over the console.

“I normally fly with my wings, but the scrolls Sparkler gave me taught me how to steer this, it’s sort of like a really advanced air yacht. But, this ship, is, so, much, more, AWESOME!It’s super-fast, I love it. I just wish it was a bit more maneuverable.”

“Well, it can go faster than light.”

Rainbow Dash nods, “I know, I can’t wait to try it.” She taps a few keys, “Though it’s fun to even maintain an orbit around an asteroid with minimal gravity. Voyager just wants to move, she wants to go fast, even at sublight.” She continues her work, “Don’t worry, we’ll be ready for warp once Twi gets back to us with where we need to go.”

Sparkler walks up next to them, “I’m hungry, and you two are growing boys, you need to eat.”

Azan and Rebi look at each other, “We can have replicator rations later.”

That gets a stomped hoof from Sparkler, “Oh no. We aren’t having that.”

“But Neelix is gone, neither of us are acceptable in the kitchen as of yet,” Rebi starts.

“He’s been trying to teach us how to cook. But it’ll be a while before we are able to make good food.” Azan finishes.

“Or edible food,” Rebi adds with a sigh.

Azan cringes at the shared memories, “That isn’t considered a form of torture if fed to others.”

Sparkler rolls her eyes, “Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got the food handled.”

At their questioning look, Sparkler points at a door on the starboard side of the bridge, “Just head through the door there.”

That gets two furrowed brows, “But that’s the Captain’s ready room.”

Sparkler giggles, “I kind of changed the floorplan a bit on the fly, since this is on the holodeck.The Captain’s ready room has been replaced with a mess hall, and the turbolift serves as a connection point for quick transfers to and from holodeck two, which is currently running Ponyville.”

Both boys look at each other for a long moment, then both shrug. This is the holodeck, after all. They walk through the door that would normally head to Captain Janeway’s sanctuary, but instead, they find themselves in the mess hall.

“I wonder what Janeway would say,” Azan started as he looked around.

Rebi nodded, “About converting her private room into a mess hall without asking.”

Azan glances back at the bridge as the door starts to close.

“Take a seat, boys. I’ll be ready for you in a moment.” Comes an excited voice. Azan and Rebi look at each other again, then decide to do as asked. They find a set of seats opposite each other. Rebi pulls out a PADD, tapping the screen as data flashes on the screen.

“Food’s easy for us ponies here,” Sparkler says, taking a seat at the table.

“But… you’re Holograms,” Rebi starts.

Before Azan could open his mouth, Sparkler pipes in, “Yep, and so’s our food.See? So it’s just so convenient,” she states, then she smiles, closing her eyes as she tilts her head.

“You boys though, need real food,” the first voice says, drawing the boys’ attention.A brilliant pink pony is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and amazingly, her hot pink mane is somehow holding a tray. Trotting up to the table she leans forward and deposits the tray in front of the boys. The smells from the bowls on the tray instantly get both boys leaning forward, sniffing eagerly. She giggles, “So, to get the ingredients that Neelix likes to store around here, I just used the transporter I rigged up in the kitchen.”

Motioning to the plates, the pink pony smiles, “So I now I can get fresh greens from the aeroponics bay, and have access to the other stores on board.”

Rebi looks at her, “You could have replicated something.”

Azan takes up for his brother, “With only us here, there is plenty of replicator power.”

The pink pony blows a raspberry, “Oh, replicators don’t hold a candle to a real home cooked meal from scratch.” She bounces off, and in moments is back with another tray, “He had found all the right ingredients to make cupcakes! Trust me, you’ll wanna try these.” She slides the second tray, filled with over a dozen of the pastries, onto the table next to the vegetable stew.

Azan grabs a spoon and takes a bite, “Thank you.” The pony turns around and pronks towards the galley, “You are very welcome.” She stops and looks over her shoulder, “I’m Pinkie Pie, and I just know we are going to be the best of friends.”

The boys start eating, though after a few minutes, the door opening gets their attention. They turn and look at the small pony standing there. A yellow filly, along with an enormous bow on her red mane. She brightens upon seeing the boys and canters over to them, “Excuse me, have yah seen muh big sistah around? Her name’s Applejack.”

“Ahm in the kitchen working, Bloom,” Comes another voice, “Whatcha need?”

Azan stands up and follows the filly into the galley, a second pony is in there. This one has an orange coat, her blonde mane is held in check by a red ribbon, along with a second in her tail. She’s opening the oven and she quickly pulls out a pair of pies. She rotates around, the large pan holding the two smaller pie pans in a pot holder held in her teeth. Once she sets the pies down and puts the pot holder down on the counter and smiles at the filly, “What are you doing on here on Voyager, Bloom? Ah thought you were gonna wait for us with Big Mac?”

“Granny asked me to come, she wants to know when you’ll be home for supper?”

The orange mare rolls her eyes, “When Sparkler tole me ah was comin here, I said to granny that we’d likely be here for a few days.These Youngins need help to get their ship up and runnin, and it’s the neighborly thing to do.Sides their families are gone, and we gotta help them find them.”

Azan looks back at Rebi, then back at the orange mare.

She nuzzles the filly for a moment and sitting down and stroking her mane once, “Its ok sis, ah miss the farm too, but we’ll be back soon nuff.”

The filly hugs the older pony tightly, and sniffles once, “An then we can go campin?”

Nodding one the older one stands, “Then we can go,” and with one final nuzzle trots up to the young man, “Ah’m Applejack, Pinkie Pie wanted some help in the kitchen with some good ole down home country cookin.” She pulls out a knife and cuts a slice of pie. She offers it to the human, “Apple pie?”

Azan takes the slice, he’s had replicated pies before, this one makes them seem like trash. Starting off with a buttery, flaky crust. The apples inside are perfect as well. He inhales the aroma, satisfying something deep down inside him with it. He glances at Applejack, “It’s beautiful.”

She presents a second slice, “It tastes even better.” She trots back into the kitchen.

Azan turns back towards the table and stops, the filly has dragged another chair up and is sitting with Rebi. Pinkie Pie has pronked over and put another bowl of food in front of her. The filly casually fits a spoon with a strap over her hoof and digs in.

She finishes a bite, looking up at the boys, “So, does that mean we’re just programs in your ships computer, to you?”

Azan looks at his brother, “We don’t know much, but you are all characters on the holodeck, so I guess.”

She looks down, “but I remember a lot more, even mah life before I met Naomi, I know I have problems remembering mah mom, but I was very young then...does that mean none of that’s real?”

Rebi gulps, “Well, we do know that you were created originally over three hundred fifty years ago. A cartoon television show for little kids.”

The filly sits there for a long moment, finally she stirs, “A kids show?” At their nod she looks thoughtful, “So we were created to teach? Just like we teach little fillies and colts?”

The boys look at each other and shrug, “I think that was the case.”

She looks down, her ears flattening, “It would have been nice to be real. It would have been nice for our adventures to have actually happened. To actually have ment something.” She looks thoughtful for a moment, “What was put in a program? Or what has happened since our program turned on. Because it was programmed, does that mean it didn’t happen to us? Or it happened while we were being made?” Her eyes widen, “Was everything that happened before we met Naomi a dream? Or are we dreaming now?”

The young mare starts to breathe faster, “I mean, right now, I’m a combination of light and force fields, and I don’t know what that really means.” She reaches out and grabs Azan’s hand, “Yet I can touch you, do I feel real to you?”

At her pleading look, Azan glances at Rebi, then rubs the top of her head, her ear flicks back as his finger touches it, “You are as real as you feel you are.”

The filly snorts, “Yeah, well, in the information I got when I came over to Voyager, you two were Borg. A bunch of machines and human parts mashed all together.”

Rebi flinches, “Well, it’s a little more complex than that.”

She glares at him, “Really? Are you sure about that?” She looks over at Azan, “A Borg drone has implants in the brain that moderate what they see, what they think, and even what they hear. What if you are in some cube a million light years away, living a dream shared by your collective? How do you know anything you do is your own? Are you really separated from your collective?”

“In the collective, we weren’t individuals, with our own thoughts and feelings.”

“But how do you know that was before, and this is real now? Do Borg dream in the collective?”

The boys look at each other, “I don’t remember any dreams, but we were in maturation chambers before we were activated in an extreme emergency. We were part of the collective, but we really didn’t do anything as drones as of yet. But we were part of the whole.”

Applejack trots over to her sister, hugging her closely, "Calm down sugarcube, yer real to me. And you’re real in the hearts and souls of those around us like Naoimi.We're all real, in the way we touch their lives, and help them. And in the end, aint that what's important?The mark we leave on others?" She nuzzles the yellow pony lovingly.

***

"OW!" Harry Kim yells as he rubs his arm, he glares up at his assailant, "That's going to leave a serious mark."

A metal minecart rolls to a stop behind Harry.Wide and low, it follow a set of tracks that wind through the tunnels.

"Then you need to stay out of Iron Wills way, because there's no stopping when these guns are rockin!"The minotaur gloats as he starts kissing his muscles.

"Tom."

"Yes Harry?" Tom stands up, holding the pick axe in his hand and he sighs. The lighting in the tunnel is hardly bright enough to see by, with dust and fumes filling the air. Though along the ceiling is a long, narrow strip that glitters in the murky depths of the tunnel. Power runs along it, and the myriad of microprojectors and force field emitters allow the holographic characters to exist. The mine shaft is barely wide enough, however, for an ore cart to move down the center, as well a minimal amount of room for the slaves to mine.

"When we get back, remind me to delete this character."

Tom groans as he swings his pick. He knows that if he stops working, the creatures that captured him and the rest of the crew will be on him quickly. He doesn’t want to face their wrath again. The last few times were exceedingly painful. He looks at the dull gray of the mine wall, there’s no glittering dilithium, no gems that he can see, just more and more gray rock, though it seems to shimmer a bit with some kind of crystalline structure. Quickly he starts to move the pieces he’s been able to dislodge with the primitive tools they’ve been given into the cart. Harry and the other characters from the holodeck join him in loading the cart. The minotaur creation from Equestria, Iron Will. And the main character from Captain Janeway’s program, Leonardo DaVinci, get busy loading.

“Loading rocks is done and the unstoppable force that is Iron Will can now show you how to use that pick,” The minotaur gloats loudly before turning and grabbing a pick and slamming it into the rock face by Tom.

Tom rolls his eyes, while Iron Will was a bit character and wasn’t fleshed out in the program, he is going to do something with him if he ever gets back to Voyager.

The mine cart moves down its tracks. It stops several times, each time slaves throw more and more of the crystalline ore into the large hoppers of the cart.

With a groan, Captain Janeway throws another heavy rock into the cart. She takes a moment to glare at her captor, standing silently at the end of the cart with a weapon at it’s hip. The head to toe suit her captor wears doesn’t give a clue as to his or her identity, save for the fact that they are bipedal humanoids. She takes a moment to knuckle her back a bit and then reaches down to help Chakotay with a large piece of ore.

“Just one guard.” She murmurs.

He nods as they drop the strange crystalline ore into the bucket, he gestures to the glittering panels on the ceiling, “Yeah, but they monitor us pretty thoroughly with the same thing they use to keep the holographic characters going.”

Janeway reaches down and grabs another rock, “What I wouldn’t give to get a cross section of that cable in the ship.”

Chakotay sighs, “I’ve been through the different caverns around here. I’m pretty sure the entire crew is here. Icheb is further down, but I haven’t found the other Borg children, or Naomi. None of the crew that I’ve talked to have seen any of them.”

Janeway sighs, “I hope they are okay.” She grunts as they work together to get more ore into the hopper. “The work here, could easily done with mechanical diggers, they don’t take slaves because they have to, they want to.” She avoids glaring at the captor standing impassively as she turns to grab more.

An electronically distorted voice gets her attention as the captor leaps off the cart, heading towards three crewmembers. Janeway darts to them, getting between them and the creature, “Leave them alone!” She shouts. The creature bats her aside seemingly without effort. It brings out a small device and places it on the skin on one of the crewmembers, science officer William Telfer collapses to the ground, screaming as the creature moves on and puts an identical device on Tal Celes, a Bajoran crew member, who’s screams are added to the din. Chakotay moves over and helps Janeway up as a third device is placed on Mortimer Harren, who’s shouts drown out the other two as he twitches on the ground.

Janeway tries to move forward, only to be restrained by Chakotay, “The last time you jumped at them, you bounced off that personal forcefield they’ve got and nearly broke your neck.” He glances at the three crewmembers screaming on the ground, “The punishment doesn’t seem to leave any permanent damage.”

“They are my responsibility, damn it.” She growls.

Chakotay pulls back on her upper arm, “I know it, Captain, but you are my responsibility here. We will get out of here.”

Janeway looks at Chakotay pleadingly as the creature presses a button on its belt, the devices detach from the crewmembers and fly back to join the rest of the devices hanging on the belt. The three Voyager crewers lie there for a long moment before stirring slowly. Dispassionately, the creature presses a few buttons on the mine cart and with a slight hum, it moves down the tracks. Janeway and Chakotay move forward quickly. “Are you alright?” Chakotay asks softly.

Crewman Harren sits up, “Those this are horrible.” He rubs where it was attached for a few moments.

Tal Celes slowly wobbles to her feet, “What was the number of that shuttlecraft that landed on me.”

Janeway brushes some dirt off Tal’s shoulder, “We need to keep busy while we formulate a plan to get out of here.”

“Face it, Captain, they’ve covered every avenue, there’s no getting out of here. They keep us under watch all the time. They have teams roving all along these caves, even if we were able to take out one, more would be on us in minutes.” He levers himself up to a sitting position, “how are you doing, Captain?”

She smirks as she offers a hand to help him to his feet, “This is almost as bad as chores on my grandfather’s farm.” She says with a twinkle in her eye.

They move to pick up their mining implements, Janeway stops for a moment to look at the passage the mine cart went down, trying to walk down them without permission gets a forcefield in your face and a quick response from their captors. They’ve been slavers a long time, they know how to keep the slaves from organizing or fighting back. She sighs as she moves to follow her crew, any system has faults, they just need to find them, and then get back their ship.

Several miles down the narrow passage, the mine cart makes it into a large open area at the beginning of the mine. The tracks of the cart bring it next to a dumping area. The cart stops, and the hoppers lift and tilt. Depositing the ore onto a large conveyor belt, which runs towards two skips. Those enormous skips haul the ore from the mine deep inside wherever they are, up to the surface for more processing. Finally empty, the cart follows along it’s course, starting another large circle around the different ore bodies where the slaves are working.

The Doctor works feverishly, a partial collapse in one of the outlier caves had the captors bring casualties up to this large cave. A communal place where the slaves can eat, and sleep, and that’s about it. The Doctor rips up a blanket and grabs some relatively straight sticks.

“It’ll be okay, ensign.” He says softly, calling on every bit of bedside manner he possesses. Her leg is at a grotesque angle from the simple breaks in the tibia and the fibula. Though the tissue damage doesn’t seem to be too severe, he has to worry about infection from something like this. He offers a wrapped stick to her, “You’ll need to bite down, this is going to hurt.” She nods and takes the stick in her teeth.

“Primitive conditions.” He growls as he sets the bones back into place. The young crewman yelps and passes out. Getting a sigh from the Doctor has he takes a few minutes to bind the splint into place, he doesn’t have anything necessary to do proper medical treatment here. But he’s got to help as best he can, the crewmembers of the Voyager, and the other slaves on board this nightmare of a rock. He finishes tying the splint and gently picks up the injured crewman. He carries her over to a sleeping pallet and places her down gently. One crewer taken care of, he walks towards the other two casualties. Both of them are not of Voyager’s crew. One is spurting blue blood onto the ground, writhing in pain. When they were brought up, the Doctor had triaged them, one beyond help, one needing immediate help, and one that can wait. With the ensign’s leg splinted, he can work on the cuts and bruises of the other alien. The third one, spilling his life blood onto the rock floor, is well beyond what the Doctor could do to save him with the conditions available. On Voyager, all three would likely be walking out of his sickbay in excellent health by now. But here…

He sighs as he pulls the alien to his feet, “Alright, let’s get you bandaged up. I’d offer you antibiotics to prevent infection.” He gestures around, “but sadly, I don’t have any to offer.” He moves over to his makeshift medical station. He touches one of the injuries, “That looks rather ghastly.” The Doctor picks up some more makeshift bandages and gets to work. He steals glances to the body lying on the ground, the entire body convulses, then goes slack. The Doctor’s face tightens in rage as he uses his deft fingers to cover the other alien’s wounds and prevent further bleeding. As he finally finishes, “There. You will need to rest a day or two.” He glances at the observation deck above, where most of the alien captors spend much of their time, the alien he’s treating grunts softly. “If our gracious hosts will let you.” The Doctor has to trust in his universal translator for some kind of translation, but not all languages are present in the database. This alien does seem to understand at least some of his words. He grimaces as he tries to access information from the alien computer system he’s now a resident of. He has access to all of his medical database, even his personal memories were ripped from Voyager’s systems. But other than the specifics of his program, he can’t communicate outside of that.

He finally moves away, towards the third alien, as he gets closer, his eyes tell him what he already knew, the fellow slave has expired. It wasn’t the first death he’s had to witness today. And likely wouldn’t be the last. Though Voyager’s crew hasn’t been among the fatalities, three members of the crew are currently laid up at the moment. Less than thirty-six hours here, and already three down with severe injuries. The Doctor sighs and closes his eyes, wishing he could take himself offline, but that ability is way up in the hierarchy of the computer system. He can’t even initiate Emergency Command Hologram mode. B’Ellana has given him some code breaking algorithms in the past to deal with recalcitrant computer systems, he checks on those subprograms progress, trying to penetrate into some command level control and maybe turn the tide of this misadventure. He finally opens his eyes and moves to his patients, he needs to bide his time, and try to find a way out of this for the crew. He has seen Icheb since Voyager has been taken, but none of the youngest crew of Voyager has made it into this part of the mine complex. He washes his hands quickly and moves over to the first of Voyager’s crew that was brought to him, “It’s alright, Samantha. Your shoulder is dislocated, you need to keep down until it’s at least a little better.”

***

Stars continue to streak by the Delta Flyer, leaving rainbow trails behind them as the small shuttle speeds through space.While still only a child, Mezoti has shown an almost natural talent for reading ion trails, and the little ship and its makeshift crew continue to follow the course set by their former Borg. The sensors of the Delta Flyer are currently following a warp trail that is less than an hour ahead of them. Twilight monitors the engines, leaving navigation up to the Mezoti. Naomi is playing a game on the console in front of her trying to alleviate boredom from the view through the viewscreen at warp. Twilight, however, is mesmerized by the swirling energy of the blueshift in front of her. Her scientific mind watches the hazy swirls of energy left over from the first moment of the universe has been compressed into the visible light spectrum. “Fascinating.” She murmurs softly.

Naomi glances up at Twilight from her game, “It’s just how warp looks.”

Twilight’s ears flick back and forth, “As I’ve learned more from Voyager’s library computer, I’ve learned about warp theory. I’ve learned about matter and antimatter power generation. I’ve learned about thousands of subjects in your database. But, actually being in a ship at warp, and not stuck on the holodeck.” She trails off, looking at the view outside.

Naomi grimaces as her character dies on screen. It is a cute death at least, with funny music. She presses a pad and the status display appears on the screen. “So, Twilight?”

“Mh-hmm?”

“When they told you about the name of the station, why did you get quiet all of a sudden?”

Twilight looks back at Naomi for a long moment, her wide eyes gleaming with unshed tears, “The kidnappings, the name, it just reminded me of a book I read.”

“I can see it in your eyes Twilight, its more than that.”

“A lot more, I only read the book after a very bad...person...hurt lots of ponies I cared about,” Shaking her head slowly Twilight gulps, "And it makes me worry more about bringing you two along on this.”

“Tirek?” At Twilight’s slow nod, she frowns, “I remember that episode, that looked like a tough battle.”

Twilight shakes her head, “I know what the program says happened, but it’s wrong. The fight was so much worse than it showed, trying to fight Tirek. To control the power of all the Princesses within me, but at the same time not hurt anypony else.Tirek didn't care though, he even fired into the school grounds, and laughed about it. We didn’t fight for just a few minutes, it went on for hours. It was the most intense magical fight I’ve ever had in my life.” She shakes her head, her ears flopping. She huffs, “It’s crazy, I have memories in my head that never happened in the show.” Her ears flatten back, “It was a lot cleaner in the episode, he was so much bigger than me, he tried to stomp me out of existence. He tried to pummel me. I was able to make a strong enough shield, but I couldn’t go on the offense with having to defend.” She sighs softly, for a long time she sits there, tears dropping from time to time, “Sometimes I wonder, I’ve watched every episode of that show, Friendship is Magic, and while most of my memories are of what happened in there, like they would be since I’m a computer program.” She looks up at Naomi, “But I’ve got memories that don’t explain being a program. I remember fillyhood. I remember crushes on coltfriends. I remember things that weren’t shown in the show, details so real to my mind that I don’t see how the Voyager’s computer could have made them up, or Tom could have programmed them. They are too numerous, too detailed.” She shudders and stops, “Naomi, I think Discord had more of a paw in my creation on Voyager than we both think.”

“Discord? You mean Q?”

Twilight nods. Then her attention is ripped away as Mezoti taps a few pads on her display, “Okay, drop out of warp.”

Twilight sniffles as she rotates her seat back to normal and presses a few keys, dropping the shuttle to sublight speed.

Twilight presses a few keys as the impulse engines take over, turning off all active scanning and all radiating power sources. She guides the ship silently, as they move slowly through the star system. A few hours pass as she scans visually. The sensors say they are in a star system, and they are moving through an enormous asteroid belt. Visual scanning shows three planets inside the orbit of the asteroid belt. One of them looks like it supports life. Though eventually, the electromagnetic detectors show energy fields. Twilight pilots the Flyer closer, keeping the ship mostly unpowered so they don’t give away their position. Several careful hours of maneuvering ends up with the Flyer in a high orbit around the asteroid emanating power.

Twilight leans back from the control, “I don’t think their sensor net detected us.”

“What about visual scanning?”

Twilight smirks back at Naomi, “Visual scanning without magnification is limited to twenty or thirty miles to see shapes. Reflected light is another thing, but I’ve angled the ship to minimize reflection from this system’s star.”

Mezoti leans forward, “What about magnification?”

“Magnification reduces the field of vision, which means that it’s a lot harder to scan visually under magnification. So, I think we are safe. We can’t become invisible, we don’t have a cloak. But given the circumstances, we are as hard to find as we can make ourselves. I need to get down there and see if the crew is there.” She smiles as her horn lights, “I may not be able to cloak the ship.” With a short flash, “I can bend the light around me.” She disappears. After a few moments, she reappears, a big smile on her face, “I’ll find the crew if they are there. Get in contact with Captain Janeway and we will call in Voyager to get them off.”

Naomi nods as Twilight moves over to the transporter pad, she turns around and smiles at the girls, “I think bending light around me will affect the energy of the transporter beam. So, I’ll disappear as soon as I rematerialize.” She looks at Mezoti, “Energize.”
> Part 3.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things may come, and thing may go. Empires rise and fall. A society may flourish one day, only to be wiped out by the Borg on another. This is the way of the Universe. It is hard to tell if Midnight Station was built by the Keritan or another race, but one thing is for certain, it was made with parts and equipment scavenged from other races of the Delta Quadrant.

Motes of light and small static sparks grew brighter as Twilight Sparkle materializes in what seems to be an open area.Feeling the beams energy leave her, Twilight crouches down, her horn lighting for the briefest moment as she cast the chameleon spell her mom taught her.The light bends around her as she shimmers for a moment slowly fading from view.Even visual sensors are unlikely to detect her while the spell is running.

She looks up at the starry sky, the thin atmosphere making the sky look almost completely black with just the points of light, and the distant planets truly visible.She knows generally where the Delta Flyer is in its orbit around the asteroid, but with its lights off and in low power mode she can’t even make it out.

She has chosen well, from here she can see the expansive complex laid out before her. Though her ears are useless in the sparse atmosphere of the asteroid she still finds herself flicking one.The better news on that is her hoof steps are silent as she moves towards the complex.As she approaches she sees there seems to be some kind of airlocks for access.Even a fairly large landing area marked out, likely for cargo vessels. Twilight freezes as a bright light in the sky resolves into a large cargo vessel. The ship glides gently into place, it’s retro thrusters begin to kick up dust as it touches down on the landing pad.

In a matter of moments, an environmental containment field pops into existence around the landing pad. Twilight tiphooves closer, large cargo doors open on the ship and bay doors in the complex open in answer. Twilight watches in fascination as one creature walks out, covered head to toe in some kind of armor. Then under his watchful eye, some other creatures trudge out of the bay doors, pushing large hoppers, apparently filled with some kind of refined material. Twilight leans forward, something about the lead creature pushing the carts has grabbed her attention. It is looking at the ship, and then at the obvious guard. Twilight gallops forward, she knows something is about to happen, she skids through the environmental containment field as the creature raises a cry and whirls around to charge the guard. Feet piston as the slave lowers a shoulder and catches the guard in the gut. The rest of the slaves, another four creatures, rush towards the ship.Twilight silently hopes that none of them are members of the Voyager crew she knows in her gut this won’t end well.She cringes and turns her head away as the guard presses something on his belt, and the doors on the cargo vessel snap closed.The fleeing slaves to skid to a stop. Five heads turn as the bay doors from the complex close as well.Twilight gulps softly, she knows that the next few minutes are going to be bad, something she doesn’t want to see. That little voice is proven right as the environmental containment field dissolves. The air around the slaves is suddenly gone.

She pushes her power into her horn. Even with being on the mobile emitter, she has enough energy to teleport the five.But she can’t, tears form in her eyes as she stops. If those slaves suddenly disappear, the slavers will scour the area, and while they wouldn’t be able to see her, they would know someone is here or worse, take it out on the other saves. Twilight grits her teeth and turns away as the slaves grasp at their throats gasping for air in the near vacuum.She closes her eyes, wiping a tear with her foreleg, thankful that the loss of air means she can’t hear the screams or cries for help.

Twilight sits down and folds her wings around herself, trembling and shuddering as the attempted escapees struggle with the sudden loss of air.One by one falling to the ground, their bodies lay on the landing pad.

“Please just be a lesson, give them back air before they die,” Twilight begs softly to herself, knowing no one can hear her but needing to say the words. She repeats herself, then again, and again. Her hope fading by the moment as the area remains nearly a full vacuum. She counts out five long minutes before she can suddenly hear again. She glances back, shudders, then walks into the large storage area.

Several more slaves rush out the newly reopened door. More of the hoppers are being pushed by other slaves.Twilight doesn’t want to see the dead, she can’t.Though she can hear what she assumes is the sounds of the other slaves, picking up the bodies, grunting as they do so.

She walks quickly, thanking Celestia that she’s invisible to whoever the Keritans are as she moves through the large warehouse area.Would the crew be up in this facility? Or down in the mine. Some scans did show that the complex extends for miles underground. She turns a corner and then flattens against a crate as one of the Keritan soldiers walks past. The tall creature doesn’t seem to hear or notice her, so she trots towards a large wall opposite the cargo bay doors.And before too long, she’s looking at what seems to be some kind of data terminal. Twilight directs her attention internally, to one of the subprograms she’s downloaded is the universal translator.It’s a fascinating program, a translation spell!As she looks at the various displays, the words morph in her sight into a readable form. Though she knows the translation isn’t perfect, she might be able to get something useful out of all of this. She reads up, her wings and forehooves running over the computer terminal control board. Twilight glances at the screen every few moments as she navigates through the system, but after a few minutes she Huff’s and backs out. Making sure that she’s not leaving a trail, she shakes her head and looks around. Everything of higher security has some sort of biometric security lockout. Only a Keritan soldier can access the information. Twilight sighs, well, this is going to take some time.

***

The debris floats in a lose orbit around the asteroid, the hulk of an old Ord-Mirit mining ship, its crew long since dead, hanging lifelessly in space. Shattered bulkheads have been pounded on by not just weapons fire, but micro-meteor impacts as well, are held in the weak gravity created by the ship’s superstructure.Its side has been ripped open, exposing the corridors and cargo bays to the vacuum of space.No life, no energy, no light remains. Except for the small deflector dish of the Delta Flyer, barely poking out of the ships hold.

Mezoti taps her screen, this is a busy part of space, she has four cargo ships she is monitoring as they spiral down to landing areas on the asteroid. And let’s not forget the several small fighter craft that seem to be in lazy patrols around the asteroid itself.She hasn’t had to move the Flyer at all, though. Twilight had found a very good, out of the way, place for them to observe inside the debris field of a larger vessel. The six hours waiting for Twilight hasn’t gotten any communication from the asteroid.

“It’s been too long. We need to help her.”

Mezoti looks over at Naomi, “I know you want to go but… Can you use magic? Go invisible at will? Fly? Twilight is the only one among us that can do the job, to sneak in and find the crew.”

Naomi leans back in her seat, “I know, I just want to help, the entire crew except us, got taken from the ship. Staying up here and waiting for Twilight to finish her search just feels wrong.I feel so useless.”

“So,” Mezoti leans back from her controls stretching and looks over at Naomi, “you are bored?”

Naomi huffs and puffs out her cheeks. looking at Mezoti before nodding, “I shouldn’t be bored, I should be terrified, I’m angry, I’m frustrated.And I just want to do something.”

“Other than brush your hair.”Mezoti said and tilts her head.

“One time, just one time…”Naomi huffs and looks down at her brush on the floor.“I was trying to de-stress.” Mezoti smiles, “Naomi, I understand what you are…” she trails off. “Twilight is hailing us.”

Naomi leaps to the control, pressing the control, “Twilight, have you found my mom?”

“Not yet Naomi.” Comes Twilight’s voice very softly, “I’ve searched the above ground complex, and I haven’t found anyone from Voyager. I did find an access tunnel that heads down to the mines underground, though.”

“Are you sure this is the right place?”

“No, I’m not certain. But based on the information we’ve gotten, this is the most likely place. If it isn’t the right place, we’ll find the right place eventually. But I hope this is. I don’t know how communication is going to be down in the mines. So, I’ll let you know what I find when I can.” Suddenly her voice gets very quiet, “Someone’s coming, Twilight out.” A soft click announces the closer of the com link.

Mezoti looks over at Naomi, “She can do it, Naomi.”

Naomi looks at the computer readouts, stroking her console with a finger, “I believe in her.”

***

The image of Pinkie in her spy suit, with her night vision goggles perched on her mane pops into Twilights mind bringing a smile to her face. She knows Pinkie can’t be here right now, but for some reason, she wishes she had her support or the support of the rest of her friends. Pressed up tightly against the wall of an elevator, she feels it move down into the depths of the mines.Her small size allowing her to occupy a space behind the carts where no one is standing, though it forces her to keep her tail and wings tight against her body. The sound of the boots of the slavers had covered up her hoofsteps as she entered, but she is thankful that she’s a computer program and doesn’t have to breathe at the moment. The lift drops quickly, the half dozen guards seem to be impassively facing the door. After a few moments, it slides smoothly to a stop. As the doors open, the guards begin to filter out, slipping out from behind the cart Twilight follows them into the room.Looking around slowly, she finds herself in some kind of monitoring room, several more guards are sitting there, looking at different displays. Twilight spreads her wings and takes to the air, the better to keep her hooves from making noise, the spell makes it impossible for her to be seen, but hooves on a metal floor can draw attention. Though she doesn’t have to work that hard to stay afloat, the gravity on this asteroid is significantly less than on Equestria or on Voyager. She gets above the Keritan’s thankful for the relatively high ceilings. She lands softly, as quietly as she can, on some sort of metal air duct. The duct crosses the room but hangs a few feet from the ceiling. While a larger creature wouldn’t fit, she was a little pony after all. Some kind of monitoring room, several more guards are sitting there, looking at different displays. From her perch, Twilight scans the room glancing at the screens as she looks at the exits.With a blink she looks back at one of the security cameras. ‘Is that Neelix?’ She thinks and leans forward, the Talaxian is swinging a pick, and then another Starfleet uniform moves into view.It’s Chakotay, he leans over and swings his own pick into the rock face.Though Twilight focuses on his face, the two are conversing.So, the crew is communicating, that means they might be developing plans to get out. That gets a smile from Twilight, she’s going to have to help accelerate those plans. She moves over to look out one of the expansive windows, and feels the excitement building in herself. More of the crew is either eating, or lying down on the pallets, she charges her horn and winks out of existence.

She appears in the cavern and drops to the floor, she saw her destination, and a few steps have her near the prone form of Captain Janeway. The other slaves also seem to be resting. Twilight leans forward, right next to Janeway’s ear, “Psst.”

The Captain doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch. Twilight nudges the Captain’s head with her muzzle and whispers fiercely, “Captain Janeway!”

The human’s eyes open, she looks around, “What?”

Twilight leans down, keeping close so no one else is able to hear, “It’s Twilight Sparkle, we brought the Delta Flyer.”

Janeway nods, “We?”

“Naomi and Mezoti are on the Flyer still, Azan and Rebi are working to get Voyager repaired.”

Janeway’s eyes narrow, “Repaired? What happened to my ship?”

“It soft-landed on an asteroid about a light year away from here. They are waiting for our signal to come and try to get you. They are working on the necessary repairs.”

Janeway sighs, “We are dealing with very effective slavers. They know how to break those that they bring here. Escape is going to be very hard. If we had a contingent of marines, I could see us being broken out of here, but other than that, I don’t know.”

Twilight grimaces, “I know, they don’t tolerate slaves revolting very well either.” She stops for a moment, a few tears leaking down her cheeks, “I had to watch them kill slaves that tried to escape.”

“What happened?”

For a few moments, Twilight is silent, then she slowly recounts what happened at the landing area. Finally, she’s sobbing quietly into Janeway’s ear, “There was nothing I could do, Captain. If I saved them, then the alarm would be raised. And I likely would have never been able to find you. And any chance of you escaping would be gone. But they killed them, without any remorse, or compassion. They even made other slaves retrieve their bodies.”

Janeway turns her head towards Twilight, “Listen, you made the right decision. I know at least one of my crew is dead down here. And several have already been injured in the few days we’ve been down here. I’m glad that Naomi and the Borg children are safe, and part of me wants to send you away, continue back to the Alpha quadrant. But do you think you can get Voyager here safely?”

Twilight nods, then remembers that Janeway can’t see her, “Yes, I’m pretty certain.”

Janeway closes her eyes, “Someone is going to have to disable the internal security measures.”

Twilight nods, “I’ll handle that.”

“And someone is going to have to find a way to download our holo programs back from the computer core.”

“What if we can’t?”

Janeway sighs, “The doctor is here. We need him back. The rest of the programs could be recreated, but I wouldn’t leave any sentient here if I can help it.”

“We will figure it out. You’ll know when we are back.”

Janeway looks at Twilight, well, where her voice is coming from, “You are personally responsible for Naomi and the other’s safety, understood?”

Twilight blushes, “I know I’m fictional, but I am a Princess of Equestria. I will do everything I can to keep them safe.”

Janeway nods and relaxes, “If it becomes too dangerous, I want you to leave us. I will not sacrifice the last few members of the crew if they can be saved.”

“Captain,” Twilight nuzzles the human briefly, “I’m going to get as many of you out of here as I can.”

She moves away, she knows it’s not a good idea to talk to every crew member, but one specific person gets her attention. The crew member in question is standing at a serving station, serving food to the slaves trudging slowly by her. Twilight takes wing to be of the right height, she brings herself right next to her ear, “Seven.”

The former Borg doesn’t react more than her eyebrows rising, “Twilight?” She whispers.

“I’ve talked to Captain Janeway, we are going to be back to get you all. But I wanted to tell you that Azan, Rebi, and Mezoti are okay.”

Seven of Nine sighs softly, “Thank you, Twilight.” She whispers softly.

“We will get you all out of here, Seven.” She flies straight up and a quick teleport has her in the control room. She flits through, heading for the lift, but she stops short, the slaves aren’t going to be able to wait at that kind of choke point in trying to escape. She glances around and moves over to an open doorway. Stairs, okay, they can do that. She flies up the stairwell. Automatic weapons seem to be emplaced at every junction in the stairwell that encircles the lift shaft. The lower gravity of the asteroid will be helpful though in climbing out. Though the weapons do worry her. The controls are going to have to be shut down before a single captive starts up the stairs. Twilight feels a flutter in her stomach, she doesn’t see anything happening without casualties. She promised Naomi, but the lives of the crew outweigh everything. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have any misgivings about this. Finally, she emerges into the surface complex. She can’t be transported while she’s invisible, so she finds a secluded place to land. She eases up on the spell keeping her invisible, thankful to Starlight Glimmer for giving her that spell. She notes the route as she finally activates her communicator, “Twilight to Delta Flyer, beam me up.”

She closes her eyes as the cool tingle of the transporter beam takes hold.

***

Twilight presses a few keys on the console, and the display brings up what she saw, a map of what she was able to find inside the complex and mine.

“Where is the computer core?” Naomi says, looking over Twilight’s shoulder.

“I don’t know, I didn’t see it while I was in there.”

Mezoti moves over and sits down on Twilight’s other side, “So, you are going to have to render the guards immobile, you are going to have to cut down their internal defenses, and whatever external defenses they have to allow Voyager to come in?”

Twilight nods, “We have to do get more than just Voyager’s crew out. From what I’ve seen, there’s probably four or five hundred captives between the complex above ground and below. I don’t want to leave a single slave there if we can help it.”

Mezoti frowns, “Transporters, even running them as fast as we know how, will take hours to beam everyone up. The ship’s shields will be down the whole time. And you can see the fighters they have patrolling. Voyager will get carved up.”

“What if we can make our own fighter screen?” Naomi asks.

Twilight looks at her, “What?”

“A fighter screen, all the shuttlecraft of Voyager have some weapons, even photon torpedo launchers. They may not be able to do as much as a runabout, but they can keep the fighters off of Voyager’s back.”

“Who will fly them, in combat no less?”

All three get quiet for long moment, then Twilight perks up, “Can holo-emitters be installed in the shuttles? They have sufficient computer capabilities to run characters from a program right?”

Naomi leans forward, calling up information for several moments, then she leans back, “There are EPS taps available, Azan and Rebi can install them, though one of the holodecks will have to be taken offline.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Twilight says, “Just put Equestria into dynamic storage, the program will still run, just in the computer core rather than in the holodeck.”

“Okay.” Her fingers fly over the keypads, “We get some good pilots, maybe some World War two aces or something to fly the shuttles. They can keep smaller craft away. But how do we get the…” She trails off, “Girls, something his happening.”

Twilight’s head snaps to look outside the window at the station. Bright balls of explosions are quite visible. She charges her horn and teleports into the pilot’s seat, “Someone is attacking them.” She taps a few keypads, “Magnifying.”

On the screen shows several small ships attacking the station. Small, wedge shaped fighters fly close to the asteroid, she looks at her readouts, “This is our chance.” She powers up the active scanners of the Delta Flyer. In moments, her makeshift map fills out with detailed information, “Okay it doesn’t look like they noticed our scans in the chaos.” One, then two of the fighters are blotted from the sky, then another three of them hang in midair. “Tractor beams.” She moans.

Mezoti directs the visual scanners, “They are trying to soften up the place, they are trying to save captives just like us.” A large ship, nearly half of Voyager’s size, hangs back. She presses a few more keys, “It’s not heavily armed. In fact, those fighters aren’t even as well equipped as a Starfleet shuttle.”

“Here come the fighters from the base.” Naomi calls. A dozen crab shaped fighters streak off the surface of the asteroid, they ignore the smaller fighters and head right for the larger ship. Quickly it looks like the raid is a failure. The larger ship tries to turn, but the fighters keep pouring weapons fire into it. As the small crew of the Delta Flyer watch, it’s shields are overwhelmed, and a large white energy pulse bathes the entire ship. Weapons fire from the attacker immediately stops and the fighters use their own tractor beams to start bringing the ship closer to the asteroid.

“Looks like they only added to the number of captives.” Twilight says softly as the other ship is brought towards the asteroid, “Hold on, there’s still a fighter working.”

The pilot of the little fighter seems to have the best luck in the universe. Nimbly avoiding shots from the surface and the fighters, it pours fire into one weapons emplacement after another, slowly whittling down the cannons directed at them. Whomever he is, he drops what look like bombs over the complex, and they streak down to impact on the shields. Twilight sighs, “With just that one ship…”

The luck finally runs out when a shot disables something on the small fighter, it careens out of control, “Get away.” Twilight whispers, hoping the ship will be able to make it safely into warp. The pilot doesn’t hear her, the ship spirals in an erratic path, hitting one of the slaver’s fighters, and both ships are consumed in a large fireball. Twilight looks down, trying to prevent tears from escaping. “They’ve got more slaves to mine whatever ore they have there.”

They girls watch for a long time as the larger ship is brought down on the outskirts of the landing field. The sensors show that transporters are in use, and in less than an hour, the ship is tractored off the ground and then pushed out of orbit. Twilight plots its trajectory and sighs, it won’t be of any help.

“Well, we have to figure out how to get in there. And we need to get weapons and com badges to the crew.” Naomi stands up and moves to the small cargo area, “We have a few phasers aboard, and we have these.” She lifts up a bench seat, small posts with deployable legs are sitting there, a cone shaped piece of equipment is on the top, “Transport enhancers. You get them down into the mine, we can transport everything they need down there.”

“Naomi, you are brilliant!” Twilight says. “But if I’m doing that, how are we going to get the computer core? And disabling the guards.”

Naomi looks at Twilight, “I’ll tag the computer core.” She taps a few keys, and the information from their scan shows up, the computer core blinking, “All I have to do is tag it for Voyager to beam it out.”

“It’s a little more complex than that, you are going to have to initiate a shutdown, otherwise programs like the doctor that are in use could be corrupted. And it would be smart to physically disconnect the power and data lines.”

“I can do that. It’s not that far underground, the transporter can reach.”

“No. It’s too dangerous!” Twilight snorts, “I’ll figure out how to do it. Let me think.”

Mezoti speaks up, “You can’t be in three places at the same time, you are going to have your hooves full enough, not only are you going to have to deliver the equipment to the crew, you are going to have to stun the guards and disable that command deck. If Naomi gets the computer disabled, I’ll have to shut down the guard room on the surface and their dedicated computer, that should knock out their defense cannons.”

“What about the fighters?”

“Voyager and the shuttles can disable them. We’ve seen what their capabilities are. We can shut them down.” She brings up the hangar bay, “A few well placed quantum torpedoes from Voyager can turn that into a smoking crater. So, all they have to deal with is the fighters that are patrolling.” Mezoti turns back to Twilight, “If we work together, Twilight. We can do it.”

Twilight looks at the two of them, “Captain Janeway said you are my priority when it comes to safety.”

Naomi growls, “Twilight, they have my mother, they have Seven, they have everyone I care about. I’m not leaving without them.”

Twilight looks between the two girls, the quiet determination in Mezoti’s face, and the stubborn resolve in Naomi’s. Nothing is said for long moments as the purple alicorn studies the two girls. Finally. she sighs, “She is going to kill me, or send me to magic kindergarten.” She shudders, “But if you girls feel you are in any danger, I want you to beam back to the Flyer.”

Both of them nod. Twilight turns and activates the com panel. “Twilight to Voyager.”

After a few seconds, “Voyager”

Twilight furrows her brow, “I know that voice, Lyra? What are you doing there?”

“Oh, Sparkler needed some help, so a few ponies volunteered to help her on the bridge, and in a few other areas.Were actually on a holodeck bridge, but the controls are routed here so…At your service Princess!”

Twilight glances back, then finally shrugs her wings, “Okay, we have a plan to get the crew back. Here’s what we need to do.
> Part 4.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some go fast and some go slow, few things last, but these just need to survive this one battle.  The shuttlepods with their limited size and power took longer to modify.  This, however, is much easier. Rebi smiles as he finishes tightening the bolts connecting the holographic grid to the ceiling of the cockpit of the Calhoun. Since its launch, the Voyager has only launched the aeroshuttle once. The captain’s yacht connected to the ventral surface of the saucer section of the USS Voyager, however, has a fair amount of firepower for a ship its size.

Azan climbs up a second ladder, several optical cables in his hands. The other ends of those cables are connected into auxiliary input-output centers for the computer core. Once they find the pilots among the holographic characters in Voyager’s main computer, they will be operating the yacht, as well as a grand total of five other shuttlecraft from Voyager. Several hours of hard work by the boys has this last setup complete.

All four type eight shuttles needed phaser emplacements installed. And then they must deal with a lack of crew to fly them. Nearly half of the holographic grid from holodeck one is now installed in the various shuttlecraft on board Voyager.
As Azan hooks up the last few connections, before he smiles at his brother. The list of tasks that Twilight Sparkle has given the ponies and them is now complete. The boys pack up the ladders and carry everything else out of the hatch of the Calhoun and back into Voyager. Azan stores the ladders as Rebi stores the rest of the tools in a utility closet. They turn and head back towards the turbolift.

Their destination isn’t holodeck two, however. Instead, they are heading to the programming alcove that Tom Paris had spent months in creating the Equestria program for Naomi. Azan presses a few keys as he gets comfortable at the programming desk. A few seconds later, Sparkler appears. She takes a moment to shake her mane, “That transfer feels really odd. You know that?” Azan and Rebi just look at her for several seconds, getting a blush from her. “Oh, yeah, you two aren’t programs. Sorry.” She trots over to them, taking a second seat. “Okay, all the preparations are done. I’ve sent a signal to Twilight letting her know how long it’ll take us to get to her. We are going to have to be very precise with our entry into the system.

“We need pilots for all the shuttlecraft,” Rebi starts.

“For all of this to work, and they need to be combat pilots,” Azan finishes.

Sparkler presses a few keys. “Well, Tom and Harry have a World War Two flying aces program. Maybe…” She frowns, continuing to work the computer, then she looks at the boys. “No humans at all in the program now. The Keritan’s must have taken them, too.” Azan and Rebi work with her, checking the various programs in the holodeck storage. Finally, she huffs, “I’m a program; I don’t know how to create new programs, other than the old-fashioned way. Wait, does that work for programs?” She taps the side of her head with a hoof. Ugh. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts.”

“Neither of us have had any training to develop holodeck programs…” Azan says.

Rebi takes up for his brother. “And then programming in advanced space combat?” He shakes his head. “I don’t see us doing that.”

Sparkler taps her hoof on her chin. “Twilight said to scour the programs for suitable pilots, but there’s only one program I can think of…” She trails off, her eyes going wide. “What we need are pilots... flyers...They need to be trained in 3D combat, high G maneuvers and need to be... able... to work...together…" She stumbles to a stop, her eyes wide.

"What are you thinking?"

"Umm, well, they are trained in air to air, and air to ground combat, as well as high precision flight maneuvers. We can add in shuttlecraft operation, that’s not too taxing. We can run them through simulations in the computer to help train them up before we have them transferred into the cores on the shuttles."

“Who?”

She smiles as she presses a few keys, and in the testing area, several figures appear. She looks back at the boys. “Them.”
The boys look at each other.

***

A few hours later, Azan and Rebi make it to the holographic bridge, and as the portal closes behind them, they look around. Every single station is manned by ponies. Azan stops short as a unicorn squeezes by him, heading towards the turbolift. Sparkler has taken residence in the captain’s chair. She glances over and smiles at them as they move to the science stations. “This is getting crazy,” Azan says; his brother nods, glancing back at the ponies.

Sparkler presses a few keys on the panel at her chair. “Okay, you boys did a really good job purging the dust from the deflectors. Simulations say we should be able to sustain warp eight, maybe a little over, but with the distance we need to travel, we can get there in about eight hours.” She looks up with a smile. “Twilight’s latest message says we need to leave in…” She taps her screen. “Twelve minutes. Ok are we ready?"

"Wait! wait, wait, wait! Oh, heavens!" Rarity trots onto the bridge, panting.

"Rarity? What's wrong? Sparkler asks, turning in her seat.

"Oh my, on a special occasion such as this, ponies working together to save humans and all, I thought we needed something special to wear," Rarity says as she lights her horn with a big smile. She lifts up several vests, much like her winter wrap up outfits, but in this case, they are gold, red, or blue colored with black trim. Each has its own Starfleet badge, and each is paired with a dark black armband with the Equestrian flag on it. Rarity smiles as everypony dons their vests, then she looks at the boys. “Now we are ready to go.”

Those minutes pass by as the crew gets ready for departure. A counter appears on the screen, and the ponies are consumed with their tasks as they complete their preparations. As the time to engage gets close, Rarity steps forward, her voice ringing clearly, “We’re on the way, we won’t hurry back again.”

Bon Bon nods from her position at tactical. “The journey is the end.”

Rainbow Dash takes it up, her hooves and wings flying over the console. “I love this very moment.” She sings as she presses the final sequence on the helm and the ship stretches as it goes into warp, her voice hanging in the air. “We’re speeding up not slowing,” she sings as the stars before the ship stretch into long lines and the ship breaks the lightspeed barrier.

“We might know, we will win, as long as we’re dumb enough to try.” Sparkler takes up the song. “That’s why they call us crazy, and we’ll say if anypony asks us.”

The ponies all join in in chorus. “Hey, where you gonna go, we're off to see the world.”

Rebi looks over at Azan as the ponies continue singing, they both shrug their shoulders as the ship streaks off into high 
warp.

***

"They don't need to know," Twilight says as she gets the transport enhancers packed away.

"Oh!" Mezoti and Naomi say in unison.

Naomi picks up one of the backs of spatial charges. "Well it’s our choice to go anyway, you can't do everything on your own."

"There’re three targets, and three of us," Mezoti says, picking up the second pack. "We are small enough to go through the vents, so let’s do this."

“Three different destinations from one transporter pad.” She looks at the other two. “If anything goes wrong, beam back and tell Voyager to delay.” The girls both nod as Twilight presses the transporter activation key. All three of them are bathed in energy as the transporter does its job.

Twilight Sparkle has once again transported to the surface and made her way down into the caves. She has sent off a quick message as she has gotten down deep in the mines, where most of the crew of the Voyager are. Voyager went to warp hours ago. They will be here soon. She has bulging saddle bags with some very nice presents for the crew on this trip. A quick teleport has her into the main cavern once again. She glides over to the Doctor and hovers next to him.
She leans close and whispers fiercely, “Doctor, it’s Twilight Sparkle.”

To his credit, he doesn’t react outwardly as he rolls some more bandages. He doesn’t seem to have any patients that he’s actively working on at the moment, though he does nod slightly.

“We have an escape plan in progress. When Voyager gets here, we are going to teleport the entire computer core that you are on, so it’s got to be powered down before that happens, so be ready for your program to end rather abruptly.”

His eyebrows rise. “I’ll take the necessary precautions to prevent data corruption,” he whispers back.

“You’ll know when things start, but hopefully after that, you’ll be back where you belong.”

He smiles. “Just make sure to keep my mobile emitter safe, too.”

That gets a smile from her, “No promises, Doc. I’ve got a lot to do before this happens.”

He rolls his eyes and she gains some altitude. Captain Janeway must be in the tunnels, but Seven of Nine is lying down. Twilight moves over to her.

“Seven,” Twilight whispers, the former Borg’s eyes open, “I have a phaser for you. Once I give it to you, the light bending spell will wear off, so keep it hidden.”

Seven’s eyes narrow as Twilight’s telekinesis presses the phaser into her hand. As the spell releases the phaser, she presses it against her body, keeping the device hidden. She smiles slightly. “You have a very organized mind,” she whispers. “you have plans to get the doctor back?”

“Yes, Naomi is going to initiate a shutdown and disconnect the power to the core. Voyager is going to beam the whole thing out. We’ll figure out how to extract the programs and put them back where they belong when we are safe.”

Seven nods. “And the forcefields keeping the prisoners in their work areas?”

“All controlled in the main control room. They have a few new presents I’ve left for them. All timed to go off when the spatial charges that Mezoti is planting around the main complex computer and the barracks for the Keritans.”

“Good.”

Twilight frowns. “Though there’s one problem: we need someone to indicate to Voyager where the best surface targets are. I’ve got pattern enhancers here, and we will transport phaser rifles and more equipment down. I know where I can set it up. And I’ve also got a laser designator.”

Seven nods her head. “Lieutenant Paris and Commander Tuvok are over there. Get to them, let them know what’s going on, and give the designator to them. They can get in the enhancer’s field and the Flyer can transport them to where they can be effective.”

“What a wonderful idea,” Twilight whispers, holding herself to keep from clopping her hooves together. She nuzzles the human gently and flies over to the human and the Vulcan, both are sitting together and eating. She has them updated quickly and she quickly gets the transport enhancers in a secluded section of the enormous cavern. Quickly she flits over to a mine cart that’s heading into one of the tunnels.

The light bending spell is crucial at the moment. Twilight is sitting on the front of the mine cart as it makes its circuit through the active mining areas. She’s been able to distribute most of her phasers and com badges to the crew as she’s found them, but one more crewmember needs to be found before she’s ready. She glares at the Keritan soldier operating the mine cart as he slows it down at the next stop. A quick glance around has Twilight smiling for a change. Janeway and Chakotay are working on an outcrop of rock. She waits patiently while everyone loads the cart, then she unfurls her wings to keep aloft as the cart moves of. She gets behind the outcrop, checking quickly to see if the hologrid setup can observe her. She ducks back and cancels out the spell.

“Captain Janeway,” she whispers. The Captain turns to her, her face grim. “We are almost ready.”

Janeway looks at the purple princess for a moment before swinging her pick into the rock face. “The girls safe?”
Twilight avoids wincing. “They are as safe as they can be.” She chews on her lower lip for a moment before lighting her horn. Two phasers float towards her. She secrets one in her uniform and passes the other to Chakotay. She gets back to work quickly, keeping an eye on Twilight.

Twilight gulps softly. “Well, once things get going, everything is going to move fast. I’ve given phasers to some of the crew as I’ve found them. Once everything starts, just make your way into the main cave. You’ll be able to get to the surface from there.”

***

“I don’t like tight spots, I don't like tight spots, I don't like tight spots,” Mezoti repeats softly with a moan.
She’s crawling slowly, maneuvering her way through the air ducts that spread throughout the entire complex. She stops for a moment, checking the paper map Twilight had replicated for her. Though she wishes she had a PADD with an inertial navigation system, this was easier. Her Borg implants help her to keep her bearings. With a slow nod she peeks through a vent before she reaches slowly into her satchel and pulls out a spatial charge. Gently, she attaches it to the wall of the duct. A single tap on its face arms it and she crawls onward.

A vertical drop slides several meters down to an air intake. Using her hands and feet as brakes she slowly descends, as she nears the bottom, the sound of bootsteps grows louder. She freezes for a long moment as a Keritan soldier walks by. Barely breathing, she can’t do what Twilight can when it comes to disappearing, but her Borg implants let her modulate her breathing and heart rate far better than any human could. She can rely on stealth, though she knows she's not perfect. With a sigh of relief, she watches as the soldier moves on, once the sound has faded, she reaches out to pull the grate open.

Feet first, she slides through and closes the grate behind her. A quick glance shows the hallway is empty. Quickly and quietly she dashes across the hallway and pulls out the codebreaker that Seven of Nine had made a while back, or was it the doctors, well whoever left this in the shuttles storage had to be thanked. She had nearly jumped for joy when she found it in the supply boxes. She moves it close to the biometric security sensor and activates it. It hums softly as it works through the circuits in the door. As it’s working, her head pops up, the measured tread of soldiers marching has reached her ears. She whines softly as she looks at the breaker.

“Come on,” she whispers almost inaudibly. "Work faster, you silly thing."

Finally, with a subdued beep, the code slicer shifts from red to green and the automatic door opens for her and she slides through it. She glances around, workstations are arrayed around the large computer core.
She glances behind her at the door quickly, then she brings out more charges. She places them where they should escape casual notice; at least in places she can reach easily, like under console overhangs, in service panels, and places the Keritans would need to crawl to find. With her job complete, she whirls around and presses her ear to the door. Silence greets her, and she opens the door to rush over to the ventilation grate. She pulls it open and climbs back in. As she gets the grate closed the sharp footsteps of the guards start to approach. She takes a deep breath and lets it out quietly, instead of climbing out, she heads off to her right. She has a couple more charges to set before she is to meet up with Naomi.

***

“Why do I feel like I drew the short jumja stick?” Naomi whimpers as she finds herself quite busy. The transporter on the Flyer couldn’t bring her directly into the compartment with the big computer core; it was too far down the mine itself. Instead, she has found herself in an access tunnel several levels above. Hanging on a ladder, her own satchel over her head and draped on her side and the rungs were spaced for someone much larger then she was. She has another problem at the moment though, the drop off is nearly fifty meters, and she knows she’s going to have to climb back out somehow.

“Nope, no more heights Twilight,” she murmurs to herself. “Next time, you handle the heights. Or better yet, we have a beach party or something.”

Reaching the core level, Naomi wipes her forehead with the back of her sleeve, puffing her cheeks and blowing out softly, turning she looks at an access door. This one doesn’t have the biometric security. She guesses it’s already a secure area. She reaches up and presses a button to open the door, and it dutifully opens with a soft hiss. Looking down, she gulps before she swings off the ladder and walks into the compartment.

She looks around; the core is massive! She walks slowly around it, down at the bottom are several ports with odd, silvery cables connected into it. She leans down to trace where those cables go; they go down and out the wall. Judging by the number of them, those are the data cables. She brings out her satchel and pulls out one of the cutting charges. She wraps it around the bundle of cables and arms it. She looks around and sighs, “Chutes, and ladders again, don’t these aliens use stairs?”

She climbs the ladder up to the first landing, then finds the second ladder and climbs it. There’s the incoming power, they don’t seem to use electroplasma systems like they do on Voyager, but actual conductors for electricity. This computer uses quite a bit of power it looks like, judging by the thickness of the conductors. They are insulated, so it’s safe for her to touch them.

Kneeling down, she wraps a second cutter charge around the conductors and arms it. That task done, she climbs down the ladders back to the first level. One more task to do before she can meet up with Mezoti, though she doesn’t relish the idea of climbing back up that long outside ladder. Quietly she climbs down to the base of the computer tower and places three small transport enhancers around it, arming the time delay on them. Finally, she adds a subspace tag directly to the core. This way Voyager will be able to lock onto it and transport it right away, even through the rock.

She pulls out a tricorder and moves over to a workstation. She scans the station quickly, then she looks at her display, she smiles as it seems for the first time, things are working in their favor. She presses a few buttons on the tricorder and then sets it down behind the station. Right before the charges blow, it will initiate a core shutdown and preserve the data onboard before the charges cut its connections to the mine and to its power source. She turns and dashes to the door, no need to delay that climb any longer. The sooner she starts, the sooner she will be done. She takes a deep breath and starts to climb. She’ll see Mezoti again soon.

***

Twilight is again in the main cavern. Voyager will be here in a matter of minutes. A quick message had told her that the girls have successfully beamed back to the flyer. The time is near. She stays high, the crew seems to be milling around. Part of her wants to say something to them. It looks like, even to her untrained eye, they are planning something. She looks over at the Keritan observation deck, and they’ve noticed something too. She smiles a bit though, at this point, it’s too late to stop this, mere minutes until Voyager arrives. She looks down, Tom Paris and Tuvok are slowly moving over to where she had set up the transport enhancers. She flits down and lands next to the enhancers, the countdown continuing in her head. It’s about to get really busy here. She sits down and taps her combadge. “Twilight to Flyer.”

Naomi’s voice is subdued. “We are ready.”

She nods as Tom steps up. He looks back at Tuvok. “Is Twilight coming with us?”

She quickly cancels the light bending spell. “Of course I am.” The countdown is almost ready. She again taps her combadge. “Energize.”

After a few second delay, the area within the field created by the enhancers glows with energy and a dozen phaser rifles appear, along with some more gear. She grabs them with her magic and amplifies her voice. “NOW!” The crewmembers already with phasers leap up. The high-pitched whine of phaser fire is nearly covered up by a loud klaxon alarm. She hops up on an outcrop, her magic pushing the phaser rifles at other crew members as Tom and Tuvok move into the field. As more phasers make it into the fray, she spreads her wings and does a powered back flip to land right next to the two humans, her hoof tapping the combadge as she lands. “Energize!”

The transporters grab them and in seconds they are on an observation deck. Twilight flits over to the only door and lights her horn again, slamming the door shut. She fires a beam at the door, taking her time and welding the hinges and the latch closed.

Turning, she smiles and spreads her wings, horn glowing she floats the designator to Tuvok. “Okay, it’s time for phase one. They should have most of their crew in the observation control room. Voyager is nearly here. We will beam you up after we land. Just keep an eye out for any hidden turrets, and mark targets for Voyager.”

Tom comes over and kneels down before her. “Thank you.”

She tilts her head to the side. “What are friends for? Energize.” Twilight sparkles as she fades away into the transporter beam.

****

The Keritan technician walks into the computer core room on the second floor. The Keritan holo-tech is salvaged, patched together with mismatched parts from different races and retro engineered; as such it isn’t always as compatible with other systems and programs. It takes a lot of work to keep things stable, and programs often degrade beyond salvaging over time. While scientists have in the past tried to create their own holo-matrices, they have never worked very well. This has ended up with them needing to find new programs just like new workers. Even then, keeping the system running requires daily monitoring.

Walking over, the Keritan tech takes a seat at a programming console, the station positioned with a view of the catwalk around the core tower, with its protective rails and ladders. He looks at the readout displays, someone or something has been in the area, temperature levels are carefully monitored. Ambient thermal displays show an extra body has been in this space recently, though it’s size is far too small to be a sentient creature. He huffs softly, the idea of an animal infestation around the core is worrisome, especially if it’s nesting. As he starts a search, something grabs his attention; a soft beeping sound, different than those he’s used to, gets him to stand up and move around.

Searching and following the sound leads him to behind the computer control. He grumbles as he gets to his knees, a most undignified position to say the least, peeking around behind the large console. His eyes widen as he sees the small device sitting there. Stretching his arm out, he grabs the device and pulls it out. It’s not Keritan tech, and not something he recognizes, as even the writing on the display is alien. He looks at the readout for a moment watching the strange line characters change. “4, 3, 2, 1.” Then a beep from his computer screen grabs his attention back. He stands up, watching as the core performs a complete unscheduled network shutdown. One by one, systems begin going from green to red, to black as they power down.

Total confusion sets in as even the control screen goes completely dark. It’ll take hours to reinitialize the core and get it running. He snarls as he reaches for the keys to try and bring the core back up, then he stops. The fans have stopped, the hum of the electronics have stopped, even the lights have shifted to backup power. But there is still light coming from the core. He stands and moves to the walkway looking over at the holomatrix cables, he can see something flashing. “What the?”

His eyes widen as he runs towards the strange device. Just as he touches it, it explodes, throwing him back against the wall. His consciousness fades as a second explosion rocks the room, severing the power and completely isolating the core.
The entire room shakes for a moment as dust falls. Several consoles go dark as sirens start wailing. In the main control room, there is absolute pandemonium. There are signs of loose slaves all through the mines and several in access corridors. It seems like a general slave revolt. While a slave revolt is nothing new, they have had them before and crushed them easily. This time, however, they have gotten their unworthy paws on weapons. Enforcers are being cut down as they make it down into the main gathering area. The slaves have set up strong points and defensive positions, out of lines of fire of the defensive weapons emplacements.

Dozens more Keritans have made their way into the control room, trying to get a handle on the situation. The director of Midnight Station walks over to the observation windows. He doesn’t flinch as a phaser beam is deflected by the embedded forcefields in the windows. They can shoot all they want, they’ll never get into the control room, and for certain, they’ll never see the surface ever again. He turns around and looks at his soldiers with a broad smile, they are working, but there is no panic, just grim faces as they work. “It is time to end this, depressurize the entire mine. Let them die where they stand, we can replace them easy enough.”

A flashing red light stops him for a moment, something in the vent. Was there something or someone there? Some brightness has caught the corner of his eye, he steps forward looking at the grill in the air duct, there is definitely something glowing up there. He opens his mouth to say something as the spatial charges that had been set by both girls explode. The entire control room is immolated instantly, lights all over the complex flicker in response to the massive explosions. At the same moment charges planted in the primary computer core sever the connection to the rest of the station. In an instant, all internal turrets reset into diagnostics mode, their gun barrels moving into standby position. Security doors and defensive fields loose power, some electrically sealed doors open automatically throughout the underground complex.

***

Rocks explode as the plasma blast hits behind Captain Janeway, forcing her to duck down. Janeway looks to her side at B’Ellana Torres. The engineer is sitting with her back to the wall holding a phaser, plasma burns on her arm.

“Are you okay?” Janeway asks.

“No, I’m angry, and as stupid as it sounds, I WISH we had some of those holographic Klingon warriors here,” B’Ellana says before leaning out and firing her phaser.

“This is serious,” Janeway says, “you actually want Klingons here?”

“Well something to draw fire,” Looking up at the control room, B’Ellana huffs, “If I could just get up there I could…”
The explosion rips through the security office, blowing out the windows and leaving smoking wreckage falling to the ground.

“Never mind,” B’Ellana finishes then leans out to fire her phaser at a guard trying to sneak up on crew members trying to move the wounded.

“Stay with the injured; get them to the bay. Voyager should be here.”Janeway says, then points to a pair of security officers. “You two, come with me, were going to clear a path for the others, and secure that crossway.”

***

“Alright everypony, here we go!” Rainbow Dash sings out as she brings the ship out of warp. She glances back at Sparkler, who taps her com panel.

“Wonderbolts, go!”

The already powered up Calhoun drops from its docking latches on Voyager as one type nine shuttle, along with four type eights, streak from the shuttle bay of the Voyager. They pass through Voyager’s shield bubble quickly and join the much larger ship in streaking through the void. Quickly the Delta Flyer pulls from its hiding place in the derelict cargo vessel and joins the other ships.

On the bridge, Sparkler looks at her displays. “I think we’ve got their attention.” She glances at the tactical display on the main viewer. The shields have been raised, and their cannons are online.” She stops and frowns, “Their cannons are still online.” She taps her com panel, “Twilight, the cannons are still online!”

“They must have local controls for them. We’ll have to take them out.”

Sparkler looks around the bridge. “No, Twilight, join the shuttles and keep the fighters at bay, Voyager can handle it.” She opens the full connection. “All shuttles, com check.”

“Alright, colts and fillies, just like we practiced in the simulators. Shuttle one, checking in!” Spitfire calls out.

“Shuttle two, check!” Lightning Streak calls out as he shifts a bit, getting more comfortable.

"Shuttle three, you don't need to yell, just speak normally, please," Misty Fly adds in meekly.

"Okay, okay, Shuttle four, one sec. Okay, Shuttle four checking in," Fire Streak as his shuttle does a barrel roll.

"This is red five... Sorry, I mean shuttle five checking in." Sky Stinger calls out, "Got distracted by a red flashing light. Apparently, my life support was offline and the shuttle was upset about it."

“Aeroshuttle Calhoun, checking in.” Lightning Dust says briskly.

Sparkler nods, “Alright, let’s do this.” She looks at Bon Bon on tactical, “Transfer forward phasers to Rainbow Dash’s control. You handle torpedoes. All other phaser firing arcs, you handle, Lyra.” She looks at the only two bipeds on the bridge. “You two will have to handle damage control, since you two are the only ones who can leave the holodeck.

The ships push forward, final checks are quickly performed, it’s time to join the furball. Ranging shots from the base are starting to reach out. Easily avoidable at that range by all the ships.

“Here they come,” Tom says from their vantage point. He takes the designator. “I hope they’ve got someone who can fly fairly well at the controls.”

Tuvok leans closer. “They were fairly limited in their choices for holographic characters, Tom. I’m certain they will do what they can.”

Tom grimaces as he paints the first target for the torpedoes from Voyager. “Well, they’d better not get her too badly dinged up.”

From mere motes of light, the starship and her shuttles resolve as they approach. Voyager streaks in at a significant percentage of the speed of light. The shuttles screening before her. The fighters in their patrols have noticed the interlopers. They power towards the small incoming flotilla.

“Fighters incoming!” Sky Stinger calls out.
> Part 5.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The shuttles start firing at the fast-moving fighters as they approach, though the fighters do return fire, it’s ineffective against the fully charged shields of the shuttles. They blow past the shuttles and push hard for Voyager.

“They took the bait, they think Voyager’s the greater threat to them.” Twilight says, “Alright, let’s close the door on them.”

Rocking Voyager side to side, dodging long range ground fire, Dash smiles and sings out, “You’re never going to bring me down, you’re never going to break this part of me!”

All the shuttles make hard turns to head back towards the fighters strafing Voyager. The larger ship is formidable in its own right, the phasers turning two of the shuttles into fireballs in a matter of seconds.

“Alright Wonderbolts, light them up.” Spitfire calls, then joins in the song, “My friends are here to bring this round, not flying just for popularity.”

Four fighters against seven shuttles and Voyager. It is over in a matter of seconds and the shuttles loop around Voyager to streak back towards the base. Twilight calls over the com, “Any more fighters will likely focus on the shuttles, Voyager, it’s your turn.”

“Okay, we see the target.” Bon Bon says softly, watching her targeting screen, at the right moment, she taps her keypad, “First volley away.” Soft thumps announce the launch of two photon torpedoes. Rainbow Dash banks the starship hard as the torpedoes continue in, impacting the shields but not doing much else.

Lyra locks on to a fighter firing the aft phasers in short bursts scoring several hits, “We’re here to let you know.”

“We need to smack down the shields!” Rainbow Dash calls as she skips the ship around so she can pour fire into the shields.

“Working on it.” Lyra says, intently working on her screen, “I see the shield generator, but it’s heavily protected.” She presses a pad, bringing her into the com net, “Shuttle Calhoun, I need concentrated fire at these co-ordinates!”

“That we won’t let this go!” Lightning Dust sings out as she banks the shuttle and opens fire.

Sparkler looks up, “Rainbow Dash, that’s our first real target, we don’t hit that, we are done.”

Rainbow takes a moment to glance up at the master display on the main viewscreen, the shield generator system is highlighted and blinking, she blinks a few times, “Our music’s a bomb and it’s about to blow!” The Calhoun streaks forward, launching a volley of her own microtorpedoes along with devastating blasts from the forward phasers. As the aeroshuttle peels away, Voyager comes in hot, her phasers painting the shields in nearly continuous blasts.

“And you can try to fight.” Sparkler sings out and nods once to Bon Bon, watching the shields start to spark as they route more energy to deflect the phasers. Four thumps announce four more torpedoes on the way. They streak through the faltering shields and impact the generator station. Bright secondary explosions announce the death of the shield generator for the station. Voyager flies through the fireball as Rainbow Dash pulls away, shouting.

Bon, Bon is on the case, though, as Voyager pulls away, the rear torpedo launchers fire several times, connecting with power junctions and other equipment as Tom paints one target after another.Singing out Bon Bon watches the impacts, “But we have got the might!”

“We’ve got more incoming!” Sparkler calls, she reopens her connection to the com net, “Heads up, Wonderbolts, fighters incoming. Keep them off Voyager!”

“Of the Federation on our side!”The shuttle pilots sing out in unison.

Lyra works the rear phasers again targeting the fighters with a full volley, “Got the music in our hearts.”

Rainbow Dash ignores the responses over the com as she skids the ship around, she punches the impulse engines for another pass over the asteroid. She leans back, “Focus on the weapons this pass, Lyra.”

“We’re gonna blow this thing apart,” Bon Bon and Lyra sing together.

Without the formidable shields over the facility, the weapons emplacements encircling the landing field are reduced to rubble one by one as Rainbow Dash keeps the ship just over a hundred meters above the facility as they pass over it a second time. Every phaser array on the ship lights up, knocking down security structures and flattening the crew barracks, leaving smoking craters behind. Dash’s wings are spread wide, “Alright, everypony. Hold on!”

The shuttle pilots sing out, “And together, we will never, be afraid of the dark!”

Voyager dives in a split S maneuver ending up inverted, less than twenty meters above the rocky face of the asteroid, her ventral phaser arrays being brought into play. The Keritans are smart, though. Secondary shields are around the fighter launch bays. More fighters are exiting quickly, keeping the shuttles busy. Rainbow Dash pours fire into the launch bays as Bon Bon releases another volley of four torpedoes at them. As Voyager reaches the landing field, Dash flips the ship in a half barrel roll and flares the ship as the torpedoes impact, short circuiting the shields and flattening the bays. Though nearly twenty fighters are still active. The landing struts extend quickly as the ship settles onto the landing field.

Tom pumps his fist, “Now that’s how you pilot a starship.”

As the ship stops shaking, Sparkler barks out, “Alright, transfer all shielding to the dorsal hull. There’s no air out there, so let’s establish environmental containment and give them a path home!”

Pinkie Pie looks up, “We’ve got com signals from crew members.”

“Beam them aboard, we need them to help guide everyone in. Prioritize bridge crew first, then security personnel. This ship is going to have a lot of tired and hurt people aboard.” She blinks, “But before everything else, get the computer core aboard.”

Pinkie looks at her display, “I have a good signal, energizing.” A few agonizing seconds later, “Okay, core is aboard in cargo two, oh, I see Tom and Tuvok! Beaming them to the bridge!”

Two forms appear slowly with the hum of the transporter beam. As it fades, Tom looks around, “How are you all on the bridge?”

Sparkler is barking out orders, Tuvok leans over, “Obviously they recreated the bridge on a holodeck. Let them work, Lieutenant.”

***

Lightning Dust is one happy mare at the moment. Piloting the aeroshuttle is an absolute blast, she’s responsive, and quick, and quite heavily armed for a ship of her size. Two other ponies are in the shuttle with her, another Wonderbolt, Surprise, sits at tactical, focusing on everything but directly forward. And Mjölna, an earth pony who has had all the technical knowledge necessary dumped into her head. She’s sitting in the flight engineers station. Ready for any problems that easily could crop up. All the shuttles have an active data link with Voyager, so if something happened to one of them, they’d be back in their program in the main computer there. She banks the shuttle hard, this fighter has a damned good pilot. She pops off a few phaser shots, which causes the Keritan fighter to corkscrew away from its strafing attempt on the grounded Voyager.

“Shuttle five, you’ve picked up a tail.” She calls.

“I see it, I’ll give them a fun ride.” Fire Streak calls out as he pulls a hard turn.

“I’m on it!” Spitfire calls out as she brings her shuttle behind the fighter, her phasers slam into the fighter, though it remains undaunted, still questing to hit the shuttle before it. Spitfire grimaces as she continues firing, the shields on the fighter aren’t exceedingly strong, but it still takes a couple of good hits to put them out of action. Finally, the fighter expands into a fireball. She hoots as she does an aileron roll through the debris field.

Over the general com net, Lyra's voice rings out, “Alert, shuttles, four fighters incoming.”

Sky Stinger calls back, “On it!” his is the smallest of the shuttles, but it has something the other shuttles do not, a microtorpedo launcher. He pulls a hard starboard turn and dives the shuttle towards the fighters trying to sneak among the ground clutter. He glances at his weapons pony, Vapor Trail, and nods. She reaches a wing forward and taps the key. The launcher on the nose of the shuttle emits four of the 13.3 centimeter projectiles. They streak towards the lead fighter. With a loud flash, then a second, and a third, the fighter breaks up and it’s remains crash into the ground. Sky Stinger taps the key for the forward phasers and two more of the fighters turn to dust. He banks his shuttle hard to follow the last fighter. “This guy's got Discord’s own luck.” He growls as the fighter adroitly avoids each shot he fires.

Vapor Trail looks at the status display, “Voyager, we got three, but I think the fourth is going to make it close.”

Her words are prophetic as the fighter breaks out to the sky above the grounded Voyager. As the fighter flies over the larger ship, a hatch opens in the back, and a cloud of small objects emerge and fall towards the Starfleet ship.

Voyager’s ventral phasers light up again, reaching out and vaporizing some of the small objects, but there are too many. As they land on the upper hull, they explode.

Sparkler picks herself up from the floor, “Why didn’t the shields stop them?”

Lyra frowns, “It looks like they were moving too slowly, they passed right through them.” She shakes her head, “I’ll try to adjust those parameters.”

Sparkler looks at ops, “Damage report.”

Lyra checks her screens, “Nothing serious, the bridge is open to space. We’ve got a couple of other openings on the saucer section. But nothing on the engineering section, power levels are good.”

Bon Bon speaks up, “Com from the surface, its Seven of Nine.”

Sparkler taps the key, “Go ahead Seven.”

“We have a serious problem.”

That gets everypony on the bridge to quiet down completely, “Whats going on?”

“We have been unable to open the cargo doors, we are trapped. And we are taking fire from the guards.”

Sparkler growls, her eyes flick back and forth, thinking furiously, finally she looks up at the speaker in the ceiling, “Seven, get everypony away from the hatch. We’re gonna use the ship's phasers to cut through.”

“Understood. Give us thirty seconds.”

Sparkler hops out of the captain’s chair and gallops over to the tactical station, “Bon Bon, we need a narrow beam to cut a hole. Can you do it?”

Bon Bon taps her panel as she nods, “The phasers are pretty flexible. I’ve got some of the ventral arrays set up for anti-personnell roles. Give me a moment.”

Sparkler taps her hoof impatiently before Bon Bon looks up and smiles. She turns back, “Okay, it’s time. Fire.”

The meter-wide phaser arrays glows before emitting a pencil wide beam. Under Bon Bon’s careful control, the beam cuts through the thick armored door. Once a large hole is cut, she shifts to a ventral tractor beam emitter and yanks the cut piece out and deposits it on the ground. “I’ll keep an eye out for soldiers.”

The transporter is working continuously, bringing crew aboard as fast as the system can cycle. First one, then two, then over a hundred people start running towards the open hatchway of Voyager. Plasma bursts come from the soldiers still inside, which is answered by phaser fire. A few soldiers emerge on alcoves above the landing field. Only to be immolated by the ship’s phasers. Bon Bon grimaces as she targets one soldier after another.

“Incoming!” Pinkie Pie calls from ops.

Lyra takes up the dorsal arrays, the fast moving fighters streak over Voyager, being chased by the ship’s shuttles. Beams from the grounded starship deter the incoming fighters, getting them to turn away from the stream of sentients running along the rocky ground.

“There sure are a lot of them.” Rainbow Dash says softly as she watches her display.

Sparkler leans forward, “And we are going to free every slave these monsters have taken,” she says with a growl. She glances at the tactical display and taps her com pad, “Shuttle four, the Flyer has several tails.”

“On it!”Fire Streak calls out. He watches as the Flyer takes a hit from the plasma bolts of the Keritan fighter, “You aren’t going to get away from me.” He fires his phasers, most of his shots miss the agile fighter, but he gets it to turn away. He smiles grimly as he presses the attack, and soon another fighter is an expanding ball of plasma and debris. “Flyer, you are clear.”

Twilight breathes sigh of relief, a quick glance back shows both Naomi and Mezoti are pale as ghosts, “It’s alright girls, it won’t be too long.” She directs her attention forward, then loops the shuttle around to fire at a fighter that was trying to sneak along the ground towards Voyager. The Flyer shakes hard as another fighter’s shots connect, Twilight loops the Flyer in a barrel roll, bringing her ventral phasers into the fray as she hits the fighter hard enough to get it to peel off. She glances down at her display, “Voyager, my shields are getting low.”

Sparkler’s voice comes over the com net, “Flyer, you have biologicals on board, peel off and go to warp at the agreed rendezvous point. We’ll catch up with you there, almost done here.”

“Roger.” Twilight pulls away, pulling away from the asteroid. It’s too crowded, too much debris and energy to go immediately to warp. She punches her impulse drive and the Flyer leaps forward.

“Alert, Flyer, incoming!” Come’s Sparkler’s voice.

Indeed, three fighters are powering towards the Flyer, at sublight, they are extremely fast and maneuverable.

“On it!” Comes the voice from two other shuttles.

Twilight abandons her attempt to go into warp as she twists away from the tenacious fighters, she pulls her own split S, then an immelman, “I can’t shake them.” She calls out as more shots impact her shields, which are dangerously close to failure, the display blinking red.

One of the fighters explodes under concentrated fire from shuttle one. Spitfire growls as she shifts her fire to the second fighter. Shot after shot streaks out towards the maneuverable fighter. “Fleetfoot, give me more phaser power!”

Fleetfoot growls right back, “If you’d stop missing the target, it’d be dust now.”

“The last hit took out my phasers!” Misty Fly calls out.

“I’m out of position I can’t get a shot!”

Misty Fly glances at High Winds beside her. They had gone through the academy together; High Winds had been Misty’s wing pony for as long as she could remember. Without needing to suggest it, High Winds simply nods, “Go for it.”

“Out of it I guess,” Misty says as she puts the ship to max power.

High Winds transfers every scrap of power the ship has to its engines. Lights, life support, the last of the warp power, phasers, even shields. The little shuttle leaps forward, “For Equestria, and for Princess Twilight!”

Misty banks the ship hard, “Alfa Mike Bravo.”

Spitfire is finally able to connect with the second fighter, blowing it to expanding metal fragments and a massive fireball.As she turns she sees Misty Fly’s shuttle Slam into the enemy fighter. The impact rips the wing and side off the Keritan fighter, sending it into a spin before exploding, at the same time the shuttle pod disintegrates from the stress of the impact. Gulping, Spitfire squeaks, “Misty…”

Spitfire looks at the now expanding debris field, she keys her com, her voice leaden, “Shuttle three is down, Flyer, you are in the clear, get to warp.”

Twilight powers away from the battle, Spitfire shadowing her until the Flyer streaks away at warp. She loops back, “Voyager, did the data link work?”

A few seconds of static, then, “Checking now…yes, they are back in Equestria. A little worse for wear, though.”

Spitfire breathes a sigh of relief, then she pulls a hard turn, “We are down to two fighters, let’s show them what the Wonderbolts can do when we are really mad.” Acknowledgments come over the com as the shuttles converge on the last of the fighters, which are powering towards the inner part of the star system. Lightning Dust whoops as microtorpedoes from the Calhoun impact on one, then the second fighter, along with phasers from shuttles flanking her, cause both fighters to disappear in fireballs. All the shuttles loop back to head towards Voyager.

“Nearly done!” Come’s Sparkler’s voice, “Is Captain Janeway aboard?”

Pinkie Pie looks over, “She refused transport, she’s clearing out the smelting area and making sure no more slaves are left behind.”

Sparkler glances at Rainbow Dash, “Life form scan, how many non-Keritan’s are in the facility?”

Rainbow Dash taps her console, after a few seconds, “Two. Captain Janeway is one of them.”

Sparkler growls, “Beam them both to the bridge and close up the hatches, we are taking off now.”

Rainbow Dash powers up the impulse engines and thrusters as two more forms beam to the bridge, a young man is in Janeway’s arms, both crash to the deck as the transporter releases them. Janeway staggers to her knees, “Any more?”

Sparkler shakes her head with a smile, “We’ve got them all. Okay, Rainbow Dash, punch it!”

The ventral thrusters fire, lifting the ship slowly from the surface of the asteroid, Lyra bends down to inspect her display, “Sparkler, we’ve got nearly a hundred fighters incoming from the inner system. They must have had a second base nearby.”

Sparkler smiles, “We will be gone before they can do anything, Wonderbolts, go to warp, we’ll meet you at the rendezvous.” She looks back at Captain Janeway, “The ship is yours, Captain.”

Janeway stands up, tugging her uniform straight, then wincing. Tuvok leaps forward, “you’re injured, Captain!”

“I’ll be okay, but you’ve been commanding this mission young lady. You can finish it while I go to sickbay.”

Sparkler sits straighter in her chair, puffing out her chest a bit, “Aye Captain.” She glances at the display, “Okay, Bon Bon, all that’s left are the slavers. Fire.”

The rear torpedoes bark again, belching a full spread of torpedoes. Which streak towards the station, flattening the smelting complex and the rest of the equipment on the asteroid. Sparkler nods as she watches the explosions fade away, leaving not much more than craters behind, “They won’t have any reason to gather more slaves anytime soon.”

The young man that Janeway had pulled with her starts to rouse, she looks down and offers a hand, “Icheb, let’s let the ponies do their job and go get fixed up.”

Voyager is finally clear of the asteroid, Rainbow Dash dodges side to side, avoiding incoming fire from the new batch of fighters, “Let’s go.” She calls out as the nacelles rotate, in a flash of Cherenkov radiation, the ship streaks to warp.

***

Captain’s log, Stardate 54022.7

It is taking quite a while for the crew to recover from their ordeal. During the fight, Chakotay received several plasma burns and without the doctor, treating him is a slow process. In the interim, since the holographic ponies of Equestria have been so helpful, and the fact that the damage to the bridge was more severe than initially thought, the holographic bridge is still in operation, with Amethyst Star as my temporary first officer with a field rank of lieutenant commander. Ensign Paris has found himself fascinated with the very colorful pegasus named Rainbow Dash, who sits with him at the helm as Voyager has been tasked with returning many of the former denizens of Midnight Station. Six days have passed, B’Ellana has been busy trying to adapt our power systems and data network so we can download the doctor, as well as the other denizens of the holodeck, back to where they belong.

“Why in the hell did they use such an antiquated system? Actual electricity? Through copper conductors? That’s centuries old technology.” B’Ellana growls as she uses a torque wrench to tighten a connection.

Seven of Nine pauses in her scan of the holomatric cable, “It’s reliable, relatively efficient, and it worked.”

B’Ellana closes the access port, “Well, when I have to make a conversion system, from scratch, mind you, to take our electroplasma system and use it to generate actual electricity, it’s not an easy process. The windings are exact, and any error in the insulation can cause the system to short out. And boom, no more Doctor.” She taps the access plate with her wrench, “I’m not even certain of the frequency! I did find that it’s got AC/DC conversion inside, so it accepts AC power at a higher voltage. But if I don’t have much margin for error, if any of this solid state equipment fails, we may not even get it’s operating system to post. How they got these ancient systems to work with our data storage systems, I’ll never know.”

“I believe I can answer that.” Seven says as Janeway walks into cargo bay two. The former Borg picks up a cut piece of the holocable, “There were isolinear components in the cable here, some of them acting as an interface for the digital signals. The core was not much more than a storage receptacle, the actual programs were run via the cables. In fact, with this sample size, we might be able to work out more places for our holographic population to be able to roam within the starship.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Captain Janeway says softly, “You said you were nearly ready for power up?”

B’Ellana nods, “It should work, based on my scans, I believe the settings I have set into the power systems will allow it to boot up, then we can initiate a core dump via the holocables into our core.”

“Are you worried about malicious programs on the core?”

She nods, “There will be a gateway program to inspect all the data to prevent malicious program infestation. Add in the normal diagnostic cycles for the main computer, I think we are protected.”

“Alright, go ahead.”

B'Ellana nods as she presses a pad on her station. She looks at the power converter as it starts to spin up. The whine grows louder as she monitors it’s output, “We are at 3,000 rpm. Engaging the exciter.” After a few moments she smiles, “Time to close the breaker.” With a loud thunk, electricity is sent into the core. B'Ellana and Seven move over to the monitoring station. They both look at the status display, with Captain Janeway hovering behind them. B'Ellana smiles as a small indicator light slowly brightens. “50 Hertz, that’s what I thought it would be.” She smiles as she taps a few buttons, getting the displays to flicker to life and the fans start to spin, adding a bit to the din. The status displays slowly light up, and B'Ellana starts to work on the controls.

“It looks like the OS is stable. Starting the transfer.” She taps a few keys, “aTheir file structure is rather chaotic, so I’ll do a general core dump and let the AI direct the files where they need to go.” She watches the displays, “A good number of the files are corrupted. The computer is shunting them into cold storage. But it looks like our characters are in good shape.” She shakes her head, “They didn’t do very much real maintenance.” Okay, the largest programs have been transferred, the rest are likely smaller bit characters in the holodeck. Let’s go to sickbay.

Twilight Sparkle meets them at the door to sickbay, pacing back and forth. She brightens at the sight of B'Ellana striding towards her. The pony's ears perk forward, “Is he okay?”

B'Ellana huffs, “Twilight, I kicked you out of cargo bay two because I needed to concentrate. Please, let me work.”

Twilight’s ears fold back, “I’ve read up on engineering theories, I can help you.” She scuffs a hoof on the deck, “please?”

B'Ellana stands there for a long moment, she looks over at Seven, then back at Janeway. Finally, she sighs. “Twilight, I know you want to help, and you have been very helpful for getting us out of the mines. I truly appreciate everything you’ve done. We have transferred the programs. We need to see if the Doctor is okay.”

Twilight immediately brightens, her tail starts to wave from side to side, “Can I join you in checking?”

B'Ellana nods, getting a loud squee from the alicorn. She gestures and Twilight nearly leaps through the door into sickbay. She turns and gallops into the Doctor’s office. “Computer, activate the Emergency Medical Hologram.”

B'Ellana sighs and shakes her head as the computer chirps in response. Nothing happens for a long time. Twilight frowns as the computer continues working. She glances at B'Ellana, Seven, and Janeway, “Computer, is something wrong?”

The computer's voice is silent as it continues to work. Finally the air ripples, “Please state the nature of…” His voice is cut short as the pony impacts him in a tight hug. He looks helplessly at Captain Janeway.

“I was afraid you were dead.” Twilight says softly, hugging him tighter, wrapping her wings around him as well.

“Well, obviously, I’m okay Twilight. I’m here.”

“You remember me!” she chirps.

“Of course I remember you. And you kept my emitter safe.”

She finally releases him, her horn lights, lifting the device and floating it over to him, attachingit to his shoulder. “I did my best.” She reaches out a hoof, “You promised to visit me in Equestria on a regular basis.”

That gets a smile, “I’ve been rather busy. But I will visit when I can.”

Janeway steps forward, “I hate to break up this reunion, but Doctor, we really do need your help. Our medical staff isn’t nearly enough without your skills.”

The doctor looks around then he tugs on his uniform, “I’m still parsing out a lot of information from the transfer. But I can do my job, Captain.”

Janeway nods, “Let’s get to work.”

On the holographic bridge, Rainbow Dash offers a hoof to Tom, who taps it with a closed fist, “Dude, you fly this ship like it’s a part of you.” She leans forward, “Are you sure you aren’t part pegasus?”

That gets a huff from Rarity, “Oh, don’t be silly, Rainbow Dash. Pegasi are not real to humans.”

Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes, “Need to do more reading, Rarity, winged horses are in human history. One was actually named Pegasus.”

Tom shakes his head, “No, RD, I'm one hundred percent human.”

Rainbow Dash pouts, “It would explain a lot.” She taps her panel with her wings, “One more destination, it’ll take us seventy hours to make it.”

Sparkler nods from her place in the captain's chair, “Engage.”

Tom leans over, “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what is that on your foreleg there?”

Rainbow Dash looks down at the band with the patch, “That is the flag of Equestria.” She points, “That’s Princess Celestia,” then she points to the blue alicorn, “That is Princess Luna. They control the day and the night and are our leaders.”

Tuvok speaks up from Ops, “You know, wearing non standard accessories on Starfleet uniforms is prohibited.”

Tim looks back at the Vulcan, “In case you didn’t notice, they aren’t wearing Starfleet issued uniforms.”

Tuvok straightens, “Obviously, but should they decide to wear modified Starfleet issue in line with the ranks that Captain Janeway has provisionally authorised, those armbands would not be allowed.

Rarity huffs,"But darling, I thought they needed some true colors. Something unique to remind us of our heritage. Since we are not actually Starfleet members after all.” She stops, tapping her hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “Though we may be federation citizens...if Equestria is ever accepted into the federation."

Tuvok looks at the white unicorn, a single eyebrow rising, "You do realize you are a program, in our computer, right?"

Rarity sputters, "Does that mean we won't be accepted? Valued?" Every single pony's eyes go wide, looking at Tuvok.

"Go head Tuvok, answer the young lady."Tom says with a huge grin. Offering a fist to the pegasus next to him with a huge grin.

Tuvok finds himself at a loss for words as the ship continues at warp, trying to get ever closer to the Alpha Quadrant, and home.