A witch's Redemption.

Lucy laid on her bunk in her shared quarters, Solar Flare and Reppy were in engineering again observing how things worked while Applejack was asleep in the opposite bunk, the apple farmer was not use to having nothing to do and most of her time ether sleeping or helping out anyway she could around the ship.

Two weeks into their journey and they had already had to drop out of hyperspace to repair a malfunctioning component in the sensor's which had taken a few hours to do since it was out on the hull.

Lucy thought about the hellish red landscape that lay beyond armoured hull, she had heard that when the 'Foxfire' had first jumped into hyperspace they had gotten lost in the hellish landscape, this had lead to the discovery of the ancient beacon network that were essential for navigating the far reaches of hyperspace and making sure no ship got lost or strayed far off the beacon.

Once again Lucy found herself fiddling with the crimson rose, feeling the warm aura radiating from the rose gem, she closed her eyes and lay back onto her her bunk. Sometimes she could hear whispers when she did this, she was sure they came from the Crimson Rose since nobody else heard them, they had unnerved her at first but after a while they had become almost smoothing and dispute being too quite for her to understand, their tone was calm and understanding.

But right now they were sounding worried which worried her, there was a quick feeling of nausea that washed over her. The feeling roused Applejack from her slumber making her look around groaning and with unfocused eyes "Uhhh... Whass going on?"

"Don't know" Lucy replied as she heard rushing footsteps pass by their door "I think we just jumped to normal space" she got her her feet and pulled on her boots before helping Applejack to her hooves "Let's go find out what's going on"

As Lucy opened the door she saw crewmembers rush by in a hurry and it took awhile to flag one of them "What's going on?"

"yea what's got ya'll so rilled up?"

"We just revived a distress call from a nearby ship, the 'Foxfire'" the crew member said "she's under attack and we're the only one's in range to help" they let the crewman rush off to his station. Lucy turned to her blond friend "Lets get to the bridge" she said as she headed off down the corridor with the Apple farmer in tow.

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Alone the Hyperion class ship 'Foxfire' fought a losing battle against nine Ha'tak warships that surrounded it and constantly battered her dwindling shields, the Lucian alliance fleet's commander constantly sent messages demanding the human vessel's surrender, wanting it intact so they could steal the jump engine technology which proved faster then regular hyperspace engines.

With a flash of light a blue jump point opened and the 'Excalibur' surged forward out of the gateway, Once out Colonel Carter orders Starfury Squadron Alpha and Delta to deploy, both squadrons flew out the hanger in and orderly fashion and took formation on rather side of the Destroyer.
The Alliance Ha'taks noticed the new arrival and four moved to intercept the approaching ship and demanded their surrender expecting them to be easy prey like the 'Foxfire'.

Unknown to them that they were only able to get the upper hand over the small Hyperion cruiser due to having the element of surprise and the ship already being disabled by a freak power surge.

Neither of those were the case and 'Excalibur' had enough firepower to outmatch the entire battle group.
The first Ha'tak went up in flames from a direct hit from the Warlock's Partical beam cannons, mostly due to how low quality the goa'uld designed shields and the power of the weapons.

Another two were destroyed by the combined firepower of the 'Excalibur's' other weapons and Starfury squadrons, the other Ha'Taks surprised by this turn of events turned their attention to the Destroyer and fired all their staff cannons at the ship who's more powerful and higher quality shield just soaked up the fire with minimal damage and the Fury's extreme agility allowed them to dodge the cannon fire or intercept them with their own weapons.

The 'Excalibur' fired two of its smaller missiles and destroyed one Ha'tak outright and blew another in half, the remaining four Alliance ships started to pull back with two trying to at least destroy the 'Foxfire' before they retreated only to find the ship's weapons back to full strength and with a single shot from it's single partical beam cannon cut through the ones shields and punching a hole through the center, the 'Foxfire' finished off the doomed vessel with its 52mm pulse cannons.

The 'Excalibur' destroyed the second with the combine fire of it's Partical cannons and heavy railguns and damaged the fleeing Ha'taks before they escaped with through hyperspace windows.

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Lucy Applejack had watched the quick engagement from the corner of the bridge with unbelieving eyes, they had just watched the 'Excalibur' cut through 7 out of 9 ships in a matter of minutes. The 'Foxfire' looked a little worst for ware with a large blast mark on her port side just between its name and the number 3, marking it as the third ship of her class, the debris of the destroyed enemy ships floated by.

Carter was deep in discussion with the commander of the 'Foxfire'"-didn't see them untill they were on top of us, Colonel Harrison was killed before we could raise the shields"

Carter gave the other commander a sympathetic smile "I'm sorry for your loss Captain Naomi, Colonel Harrison was a good man" her expression hardend as she got down to business "I'm promoting you to the rank of Colonel in light of recent events, how is the 'Foxfire' holding up?"

The newly promoted Colonel looked back to her new first officer who quickly told her "We're in better shape then we thought, Weapons and jump engines' are back online including, shields are down to 40% and hull integrity at 87% and we can get about a 2/3 speed out of the engines. All in all we could be worse off"

Carter nodded "you should acompany us with our mission, we beat the Alliance now but I think they'll be back and in greater numbers"

"I think we will Colonel, we'll follow you... 'Foxfire' out" the screen went to black and Carter sighed as she turned to Lucy and Applejack "If it isn't enough that we may be facing a massive Vorsoth invasion we still have to contend with the Lucian Alliance" she shook her head "What do you think about the 'Excalibur' now?"

"it's a mighty powerful ship Y'all got yourselves here" Applejack said with a whistle "Those guys didn't stand a chance!"

"I think we should get out of here fast" Lucy said clutching the crimson rose with a feeling of dread "as you said, they'll be back before long". Carter nodded in agreement and turned to Major Franklin "Are we ready to jump?

"three minute untill the engine have sufficiently charged, the 'Foxfire's' will finish before ours d-"

There was loud beeping coming from the sensor station "Hyperspace windows opening out of range!"
The view port was filled with white as a large fleet of Ha'taks and Al'kesh appeared in front of the 'Excalibur' with the Destroyer between the Lucian Alliance ships and the 'Foxfire'.
"I'm seeing 27... No 35 Alliance Ha'Taks with a whole lot of Al'kesh" the sensor operator who Lucy had learned was called Liam Terrace, said "They'll be in firing range in two Minutes"

"Dam!" Carter cursed "Recall all fighters and move us away at top speed but keep us between them and the 'Foxfire'" she pointed at Terrace "Tell Engineering to transfer shield power to the aft and divert weapon power the the rear weapons"

With the last of the fighters aboard the two ship's Maneuvering thrusters fired and spun both ships away before speeding away, in normal occasions both ships could outrun the enemy but at the speed the 'Foxfire' Was stuck at and the 'Excalibur' having to keep at the sane speed to stay at the rear the first if the Alliance vessels would be in firing range just as the 'Excalibur' and the 'Foxfire's' Jump engine's were fully charged.

But the good news was that they would be in range of the 'Excalibur's' guns ling before that.

As the destroyer and her damaged cruiser companion fled the later years fired using a dispersal pattern to damage a few of the chasing ships in hopes of slowing them down just long enough for them to escape. This worked on the less Maneuverable Ha'taks and even destroyed one (which Lucy guesses was the one they had damaged earlier) and catching some of the Al'kesh but three managed to catch up.

The bridge shook violently as three Al'kesh preformed a bombing run along the length of the ship, the pulse cannons and turrets took out two while the 'Foxfire's' pulse cannons.

Then the heavier hit came, slamming into the shields but nit doing any damage due to all the power being fed to the shields.

Finally the call that they were all waiting for came "Jump engines fully charged!"

"Jump!" Carter orders without hesitation.

Two red jump points appeared in front of both ships who gladly apears through leaving their pursuers staring at empty space as the jump points closed just as the first Ha'tak reached them.

They had escaped.... For now.

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"How did you know they were coming?"

They were in the 'Excalibur's' Strategic planning room with Carter and her first officer, after making sure they were on corse for the station Carter had asked Lucy to join her in here so they could talk.

"I didn't" Lucy said unsurely reaching for the crimson rose "I've been having a bad feeling since we jumped into that fight, it subsided when we beat the Alliance but it came back just before that fleet jumped in"

"Maybe it's that thing trying to tell you something" Tyrone suggested as he pointed at the rose "We already know that It gives you those weird powers and princesses Luna and Celestia knew little about it, they didn't even know about the rose untill the shadow scythe changed into it for storage and it separated you and your sister"

"And it may had more ability then manipulating shadows" Carter finished, catching onto what her first officer was saying "We already know that it and you have something to do with all this and many ability's seem to be awakening in it the longer you have it"

Lucy looked down at the rose that was now in her grasp, it was true that the princesses had been surprise at some of the ability the rose and the Scythe within was giving Lucy. But if the Colonel was right then she was going to play bigger part in this then simply powering up an ancient station.

"How long untill we get to the station?" Lucy asked, if she was going to find any answers then she was sure that it would be there.

"With the 'Foxfire' having to go slow to repair their engine from the inside then another hour"

Lucy nodded and looked to the strategy table which was showing the damage done to the 'Foxfire' by a diagram "I think we should be prepared for another fight with the Alliance sooner of later..." Lucy said still clutching the rose.

"another feeling?" Carter asked.

"Yea... Another feeling..." she said distantly" a really bad one..."