ESD (Equestria Space Dock)
2489
All was relatively quiet on the fifty-first deck of the massive space station, much to the displeasure of a certain Commander Photon. This was the "night shift" on this part of the station. To the surprise of some of the newer crewmembers, even space has its day and night cycles. Not literally of course, however, studies long ago found that whether or not someone is present on a world with rotation that causes day and night, the subconscious remains insistent on sleeping during a certain portion of the day, and repeating the same schedule more or less every twenty-four hours. Therefore, this was one of those hours designated "night".
Photon yawned as he trotted over to the nearby window. Not a transparent aluminum viewport as some of the older vessels in the fleet used, this station was always up to date on technology. These were forcefields that stretched across nearly the entire wall. It unnerved the commander every now and then to think that all it would take was a very unfortunate power failure and that barrier would be gone, exposing the room to the vacuum of space. As he stopped and gazed out at the stars, the sun was in clear view. The space dock orbited Equestria at a rate of roughly five orbits a day, meaning that technically the scheduled night shift lasted about two and a half of the station's geological "days".
"Too long to make us sit around watching empty space on a bunch of quiet monitors," Photon muttered under his breath.
Only a couple of technicians were on this deck that he knew of, aside from himself. They were keeping themselves busy performing some kind of maintenance on a computer terminal across the room, and probably weren't paying any attention to him. They were most likely just trying to look busy until the morning shift arrived, and the commander couldn't blame them. Either way, they weren't exactly going to provide any conversation to pass the time, so as far as he was concerned, he was on his own up here.
Another couple of hours were spent alternating between pacing, glancing out at space and the planet below, and actually monitoring the screens he was here for in the first place, monitoring ship traffic in the area. It wouldn't be a problem that he wasn't watching them constantly, as an audible tone would be heard every time a new vessel entered or exited the sector. So far there had been an entire four beeps the whole night. While all ships and stations typically had day/night schedules that were similar to each other, this wouldn't affect the length of their missions or their arrival times. It was just luck that tonight's activity was this low. Finally, the commander decided he'd had enough of this monotony for now. He gave a quick glance to his surroundings, ensuring that there were no superiors nearby to berate him for walking away from his post.
Keeping his voice low, Photon spoke seemingly to no one in particular, "Computer, send any further notifications from terminal 'five alpha' to my communicator."
An electronic tone that came from nowhere in particular acknowledged the command, causing the commander to nod, satisfied that he wouldn't really be neglecting his work by stepping away for a moment. He cantered over to the nearby turbolift, slightly more full of energy than his pacing earlier had demonstrated. He was clearly eager to do whatever he was planning.
After a good twenty or thirty seconds aboard the turbolift, the hum of the lift's movement quickly died down and the door opened with a hissing sound. The commander stepped out and made his way down a series of corridors. He clearly knew exactly where he was going, and was looking forward to getting there. Moments later, he arrived in a wide-open room with a large viewing platform that opened up to a massive, empty, hollowed out section of the station. The chamber stretched nearly as far as the eye could see. The old tradition of measuring large things with a number of football fields being difficult to apply, as the count would be somewhere in the hundreds. This was the docking area of the station. Its emptiness was broken up by the occasional starship, each one massive in its own right, but each absolutely dwarfed by the structure they were resting in. The docks were almost as quiet as the interior decks at that hour. A few maintenance drones, commonly known as "worker bees", that were constantly darting around the various spacecraft were the only visible movement.
Despite the impressiveness of the spacedock itself, one particular vessel still managed to steal the show. She was the reason the commander had come down here. She was also one of the largest of the ships present, as well as being one of the closest to the viewing area, just around a hundred yards away.
Photon moved up to the window and stared with intensity at the object of his passion. The Celestia class cruiser was fresh out of the construction yards, and had yet to set out on her maiden voyage. The light grey hull plating was lit up from numerous angles by spotlights both emitted from the surrounding dock and the vessel itself, causing the ship to appear to glow. The ship's faster-than-light propulsion system made itself very apparent to onlookers by jutting outward and upward from either side of the ship on thin structural pylons, the propulsion system itself appearing as two long, horizontal beams called nacelles that ran horizontally to the ship.
Ahead of the nacelles and the main hull was the saucer section, an elongated circular shape that made up at least half the mass of the entire ship. On top of this, neatly centered and slightly to the aft, was the bridge. Dome shaped, small in relation to the rest of the saucer yet quite spacious, the bridge drew his stare most of all. That was where he wanted to be more than anywhere else, certainly more than where he was currently situated.
"One day," Photon thought silently to himself as his lustful gaze ran up and down the hull of the spacecraft. "One day I'll be a captain. Captain Photon. And one day, I will have a ship like you all of my own"
The ship had no reply, but that didn't matter. The commander knew that if she could answer, it would be with words of encouragement. Such a beautiful craft represented every one of his ambitions, how could she ever disagree?
She was the first in the new line of Celestia class vessels. An exploration ship by title, but like nearly all the ships in Starfleet, such a title was mainly a formality. She was as formidable in combat as anything Starfleet had. Her array of scientific instruments were rivaled only by the Federation's flagship, the USS Enterprise. If not for her esteemed captain, even Enterprise might in many ways have been outclassed by the ship resting in front of the commander.
The commander took a deep breath and slowly let it out, savoring the moment as long as he dared, then reluctantly turned and headed back to the turbolift. As much as he dreaded getting back to the night's routine, the break had revitalized him. For the rest of the night, he'd have the name of that spectacular work of art and engineering bouncing around in his head.
Andromeda.
Starfleet Academy
Graduation Day
"That was actually a pretty good little speech you gave there," said a light blue stallion with a black mane and tail, sounding quite cheerful. "At first you really had me convinced that it was going to be cringe-worthy!" The yellow stallion, walking alongside him through the academy grounds, looked at him with a smile that looked like it was trying to be modest, but was in fact betraying a significant amount of pride.
"I guess I'm glad it went as well as it did. Of course, I'm still pretty sure I should never attempt to do anything that involves public speaking again." Both stallions expressed amusement at the second part.
The blue stallion rolled his eyes as he chuckled. "Warp, I don't think a lot of jobs in Starfleet involve any public speaking, except, like, being a captain of a ship, and if you were ever to become a captain, I don't think public speaking would be what does you in."
Warp stopped in his tracks and turned his head fully toward his friend. His eyebrow was raised, provoking a look of innocence from his friend in return. "Yeah, uh.. mind sharing exactly what would 'do me in', in your 'professional opinion'?" He asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.
There were a couple of awkward seconds as the blue stallion looked around, avoiding eye contact as he tried to figure out the right way to answer this. "Wellll..." He finally looked at Warp. "Don't.. take this the wrong way or anything, but.. I mean.. you aren't exactly the quickest thinker I know." This was met by Warp with those half-open eyes that say "Really? You went there?" The blue stallion glanced upward. "Sorry, I mean.. You know. Needing so much help with your schoolwork and all that. I'm not saying you're slow, just... I don't know if you'd be captain material, that's all."
Warp sighed, lowering his head a little and rolling his eyes. He had always considered himself to be somewhat 'slow', but to hear someone else practically say it outright didn't help his own efforts to convince himself otherwise. Still, it was almost a relief to know that someone would at least be honest about it, rather than denying it and talking to others about it behind his back. Finding out that someone had done something like that would definitely be worse than simply realizing that you're autistic or something. He regained his composure after a minute or two, realizing that since he'd come this far despite possibly being a little slow, there was no reason he couldn't continue on just the same. "Yeah, no, I mean.. I know what you mean."
The two of them continued on silently for a short distance before the blue stallion spoke up again. "But hey, come on! You're a Starfleet officer now! This is awesome! Have they assigned you to a ship yet? You are being assigned a ship, right? They're not gonna stick you on a listening outpost or any crap like that, are they?"
Warp grinned. "Heh.. No, I don't think they usually send ponies to listening outposts unless they're being punished for something. I sure hope I haven't done anything that bad just yet!" He slowed down a little bit and grinned, the blue stallion could tell Warp was ridiculously giddy about whatever he was going to say next. "You'll never guess where my assignment is, though."
"Uhh..." The blue stallion spent a few seconds pondering, pressured into taking a guess by the yellow pony looking at him with way too much excitement on his face. Suddenly his eyes got a little bigger. "Don't tell me you're gonna be on the Enterprise?!"
Warp's face dropped a few excitement notches as he shot his friend another "Really?" face. "The Enterprise? No. Better than that."
"Better? What could possibly be better than getting assigned to THE Enterprise?"
Warp lifted his chin a little as he spoke with pride the name of his new assignment. "The Andromeda!"
The blue pony blinked, slightly confused. A few seconds of blank staring was followed with "Should I know that name or something?"
Right then, if the universe were anything like an anime, Warp would have performed a face fault. Instead, his mouth just hung open until he managed to spit out "Are you bucking kidding me? She's only the newest and most advanced ship in the entire fleet! All of the engineering magazines have been raving about it for months! She's the first in her class! All the latest developments in slipstream technology, bio-gel computer circuits, ship-wide holographic projection, inducted quantum shielding, micro-pulsed phaser banks, efficient core heat dispersal... And..." he stopped for a breath before returning to his previous state of elatedness. His friend was totally lost at this point, but remained quiet and let him continue. "...It's rumored that a few unspecified systems have incorporated recovered Borg tech."
At that, the blue stallion smiled knowingly. This would be the real reason Warp was so excited about this. He knew Warp had always had what would most likely be called an unhealthy obsession with the hostile race of cyborgs known as the Borg. As disinterested as he was in it, the blue stallion thought maybe maintaining this subject would make up for the remark he'd made about Warp being slow. Knowing the likely consequences, he asked, "Borg tech, huh? What are you hoping it is?"
Much to the blue stallion's not-surprise, this triggered Warp's fancolt. To say that someone was a 'fan' of a species as bent on destroying all civilization as the Borg was typically considered worrying, and to be honest, this stallion had doubts in the back of his mind about exactly who Warp would side with if it came down to an encounter with the sinister race of cybernetic creatures. One way or other, Warp wouldn't be shutting up about them for a while. That was a certainty.
A very decently long Borg-related spiel later, they finally arrived at Warp's living quarters, which they had been heading for so that Warp could get started on packing his things. Uncertain whether Warp would otherwise get a chance to pack anything at all, the blue stallion had to interrupt the rant on something about how ridiculous one of the fleet's plans of action were in the event of a Borg encounter. "Yeah, hey, I totally get what you're saying and all, but I better let you get ready. I know the shuttle leaves for the starbase in less than an hour. I'll see you soon, right?" He offered a hoof bump, which Warp happily returned.
Warp smiled warmly, knowing he probably wouldn't be seeing his friend again for many months, at least. "Yeah, sure thing," he replied, then with a slight smirk added, "See you around, Flutterbutt!"
USS Crystal
Deep Space
2489
Captain's log supplemental, stardate 2489.8
Captain Sam reporting.
We've been sitting just outside the Badlands for several days now. Honestly, I'm having my doubts that there was ever anything worth coming out here for. A small civilian craft recently reported numerous suspicious vessels entering and exiting this gaseous region of space, but the validity of these reports was never confirmed. I suppose this is why the Crystal was sent rather than a ship that the fleet might actually miss. I had my concerns about our effectiveness if there were in fact any confrontations to be had, but it seems by now that those fears have been put to-
*Interrupted by the concerned voice of the first officer, then log ends*
"Captain, something's come out of the gas cloud!"
The near panic in the voice of his first officer told the captain all he needed to know about the situation. There was probably a very large, very scary looking ship off the Crystal's bow right that minute. Without a word, the captain terminated his log entry and made his way hastily through the door and out onto the bridge.
"Report!"
All stations on the bridge were occupied by officers who were both very busy and very nervous. The operations officer near the back of the room answered the captain. "They came out of nowhere, sir! There was no warning, and no sensor readings from inside the cloud before they emerged! They probably already detected us before they appeared, they came out right at our coordinates." The captain looked up at the front of the bridge, and the officer added, "Sir! Raise shields?"
The captain pursed his lips and looked at the floor. "Have they raised shields?"
The operations officer looked back down at her screen. "I'm not.. detecting any, sir. No weapon signatures either. This is a very unusual ship though, I'm not sure whether I'd know what to look for."
Pondering this for only about a second, the captain nodded. "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Route auxillery power to shield capacitors though, just in case we need them, and show me who we're looking at."
Instantly, the large screen in the front of the room came to life, and a very large and intimidating form appeared on it. All eyes on the bridge quickly become transfixed on it. It looked to the captain like a gigantic collection of insect parts. It was as if there were crooked bug legs jutting out all over it, and alongside the hull seemed to be a pair of insect wings. The features were hard to make out, however, as the entire vessel was extremely dark, almost black. The Crystal was, by most standards, a small ship. She was merely a patrol craft, intended for small incidents involving civilians, or working together with other Starfleet ships. Captain Sam could tell that despite this, even the largest Starfleet cruisers would be like insects next to this thing. The irony of this fact not being lost on the captain.
Suddenly, the communications officer turned and spoke up. "Captain, we're being hailed!"
Sam relaxed a tiny amount. "Ah, good. They do want to communicate then." He put on his best friendly face to try to hide his anxiety, then said, "On screen."
The captain nearly choked on his own spit when the image popped up. He knew the face he saw from history recordings back at the academy, but he never expected to actually meet one of these. Instead of skin, this figure had chitin armor. It had two eyes, but they were compound eyes, like a fly's. Right above those was a horn, like a unicorn's, except this one was crooked and bent at sharp angles along its length. Further back, it had a set of translucent, tattered wings. If this was any more pony-like, the captain would have considered this an alicorn, however, it was nothing like any pony he'd ever encountered.
It said nothing, it just looked right at the captain and smiled maliciously.
Once Captain Sam broke free of his slack-jawed stupor, he shook his head and with wide eyes began to say, "But... But you're a..."
And then the creature made a hissing noise toward another of its kind behind it. With the USS Dauntless' shields still down, and armor not meant to withstand more than the smallest of ship based weaponry, the mysterious bug-ship fired, obliterating the Federation vessel.
ESD (Equestria Space Dock)
One Week Later
Warp could barely contain himself. Today was the big day. Sure, graduation and finding out your ship assignment was exciting, but this was it. He was on his way to stepping aboard the Andromeda for the first time, to participate in her maiden voyage. He had not yet been informed of exactly what her mission would be, but it hardly mattered. He had practically bounced everywhere he went all day. Most everyone he encountered could swear they even heard a "boing" sound every time his hooves touched the floor. He had been on board the station for a while now, long enough, at least, to want off of it badly. He'd have settled for returning to the surface of Equestria, but leaving on the starship of his dreams was immensely better. He bounded down the last corridor between himself and the transporter room.
The transporter room would be an interesting thing to experience, he was sure. Being that he had thus far spent his days either at home or at the academy, he had never used one of these devices before. He had seen one in operations as there was one present at the academy, but it was only intended to transport cargo. The thought of stepping onto the pad and being deconstructed at the atomic level to be reassembled at a programmed destination made him nervous and excited at the same time. The term "nervous-ited" popped into his head when he thought about that.
He arrived at his destination and saluted the commander standing by the transporter console, unable to keep a grin off his face. The commander returned the salute and chuckled. "First time, by the looks of it?"
Warp nodded, his attention more on the illuminated pad on the far end of the room than on the officer he was addressing. "Yes sir!"
"Well, this will be fun, then. Anyone ever tell you how this works?"
Walking over to the pad and studying it carefully, Warp shook his head. "No sir. I mean, I understand the mechanics of it, and what technically happens, but I've no idea what to expect."
The officer got a mischevious glint in his eye. "Well no worries, after the first time it doesn't hurt so much."
Warp froze. "You mean it... You can feel it?"
"Oh, oops! I wasn't supposed to tell you that. Yeah, you get used to it, but the very first time always hurts like hay. Just the one time, though!"
Now unable to bring himself to step onto the transporter pad, Warp simply stood there, staring at the platform with horror in his eyes. He'd heard all the stories. Rumors that the transport process always kills the pony that uses it, only to reconstruct a new one with all the same memories at the other end. How would anyone ever know the difference? He had also heard stories of malfunctions that either caused someone to fail to rematerialize, or come out the other end as a hideously disfigured monster, typically living no longer than a few agonizing seconds. He had convinced himself that he'd never have to worry about either of these things. The first option was painless, if he didn't make it to the other side, he wouldn't exactly know it. The second option was extremely unlikely. Transporter technology was old enough now for those kind of bugs to have been ironed out. One thing he had not considered, however, was that he might be able to feel it as all his molecules were ripped apart and put back together. He had never been around a lot of cadets that had any experience using a transporter, so he'd never had the chance to ask anyone who'd know.
The commander smiled pleasantly at Warp, beckoning for him to hop onto the platform. "Really, no worries! A few seconds and it'll all be over! Now off you go! Don't make me order you up there!"
Warp thought that could have been worded better, "it'll all be over", he was already terrified enough at this point. His sense of duty managed to override his fear though, he shakily stepped up onto the pad and turned around to face the commander. He'd felt pain before. He could endure it again, this once. He focused his thoughts on his long awaited destination. A second or two in this contraption and he'd finally be on the ship he'd been obsessing over for the last several months. He closed his eyes tightly and nodded at the officer.
The commander put a hoof on the activation lever and paused, almost as if he were enjoying dragging this ordeal out. "Say, don't think I got your name, young stallion."
With a frustrated sigh, just wanting to get this over with, Warp answered with a low, nervous voice, "Ensign Warp Plasma, sir. Reporting for engineering duty on the Andromeda."
"Gotcha. I'm Commander Nebula. Now, I'd brace myself if I were you!"
Warp clenched his teeth and awaited the inevitable as Commander Sam edged the lever forward, prompting a loud humming sound and a display of blue light all around Ensign Plasma as he gradually faded from view. The commander waited until Warp had completely disappeared, then instantly broke down into fits of laughter.
"Ensign? Ensign, are you alright?"
Warp had kept his eyes shut tight and teeth clenched for a good 15 seconds now, wondering when the commander would stop tormenting him and just activate the transporter already. Upon hearing an unfamiliar voice that seemed to be requesting information pertaining to his well-being, he hesitantly opened one eye. What greeted him was a shiny, polished starship interior with a commanding officer and a couple of others standing in the middle of it. He recognized an operations uniform on one. The other seemed to be medical.
Confused, he finally opened both eyes and took in his surroundings. After that, it quickly hit him. "Duh! This is the transporter room of the Andromeda!" he realized in his head.
The officer in the command uniform was giving him a funny look. "Ensign, is everything alright?"
Coming to his senses, Warp saluted. "Uh.. Yes! Yes, sir! Ensign Warp Plasma reporting for engineering duty, sir!"
"Let me guess, Sam gave you the impression that the trip would be less than pleasant."
Warp grimaced. "Er.. Yes, sir."
"Well, allow me to assure you that the transporter is completely harmless, and also be the first to welcome you aboard the USS Andromeda. I am Captain Star," he gestured toward the the one in the medical uniform, "My chief medical officer, Lieutenant Splint, and at the controls over there is my transporter chief, Commander Beam." Each officer nodded in greeting toward Warp as they were each introduced. Warp, though, was back in a trance upon realizing that he was being personally welcomed aboard by the ship's captain.
Upon realizing that the young ensign was once again incapacitated, Captain Star raised an eyebrow. "I hope this isn't going to be a regular thing with you..."
The disapproving tone snapped Warp out of it. He snapped to attention. "No, sir!"
Nodding, the captain continued. "Very good then. If you'll come with me, I'll show you to your station."
Warp had already fully memorized the layout of every deck of this ship, and become very familiar with the routes to and from every area he'd need to know. Most of all he'd memorized his duty station and quarters. He opted not to mention any of this, however, as he was perfectly fine with receiving this special attention from the single most important individual on the ship.
As they made their way down one corridor after another, they passed quite a few officers and crewmen busy with their own responsibilities, barely paying any attention to the two. A few were aware enough to at least walk a little straighter as they passed their ship's captain. Warp could tell that he was by far not one of the first of the ship's personel to board the ship.
Almost immediately after Warp noted this, the captain confirmed it. "Well, Ensign, with you here, I believe we're finally ready to get underway! We've got a full crew complement now. As soon as I deliver you to engineering, I'll be returning to the bridge for final launch preperations. Ready to be a part of history? You'll aid in the undocking of Starfleet's very first Celestia class vessel."
Barely able to stop himself from exploding into the essence of excitement itself, Warp's mouth was forming a grin so wide that it was mildly painful. "Definitely, sir! Never been so excited in my life, sir!"
Captain Star chuckled. As happy as he was himself for the event, the Ensign's foal-like eagerness was rather amusing. "Ensign Plasma, I think you're going to do just fine here on my ship."
After a few more hallways, a turbolift ride, and another hallway, they finally reached the large double doors of the engineering section. Currently these doors were almost constantly open due to busy-looking crew constantly streaming in and out, most of them looking at a datapad or scanning bulkheads with a tricorder or some variation of either. As they stepped inside, Warp's heart practically stopped. There, in front of him, was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen, with the possible exception of the ship itself.
What he beheld now was a towering structure, a long vertical column that extended far beyond the current deck, both above and below. It was made of a nearly transparent material, allowing the contents within to be seen. Inside was a brilliant blue glow that moved like a fluid, a substance Warp knew quite well, as it held the same name he did, warp plasma. Pulses of the plasma that glowed even brighter continuously ran along the column, from top to bottom, each accompanied with an increase in the volume of the deep humming sound that was constantly heard from the tower. Warp didn't know what was keeping him from passing out due to sheer joy at this sight. It was the very heart of the ship, maintaining this heart was his talent. It would be what he lived for. This was the starship's warp core. The moment couldn't last, of course.
"Ensign, you'd better wake up. I think you're needed at your station." Captain Star gestured toward the computer terminal that Warp knew would be his post on the ship for the forseeable future. More than the terminal, he was also referring to a mare standing next to it; a brown-haired lieutenant with a tan coat who looked ready to bite Warp's head off. Warp gulped, wondering what he could possibly have done wrong already without having even been aboard more than a few minutes. The captain took notice of both Warp and the lieutenant's faces and once again seemed quite amused. "That would be my chief engineer, Lieutenant Stellar." With a smile toward the newest engineering officer, the captain turned back to the door.
"Good luck!" he offered before stepping out and making his way presumably to the ship's bridge. Warp smiled back, though with nervousness instead, then looked back at the clearly very angry mare who would be telling him what to do for a while now.
He sighed. "This is going to be interesting."
"Ensign! You're late!" were the first words out of the Lieutenant's mouth as Warp hesitantly made his way toward her. "Do you know how much extra work you put on your shipmates when you don't show up to your station on time?!"
Warp was taken aback. He wasn't late! He arrived on the ship exactly when he was scheduled to, if not a minute or two sooner! "I was ordered to report for duty at 0900 hours, ma'am!"
The anger didn't reside in the slightest; in fact, it seemed to intensify. "0900 huh?! Oh, you were ordered to report at 0900! Well then!" Suddenly she was up in Warp's face screaming, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS NOW, ENSIGN?!"
Warp was starting to sweat. It wasn't that he'd never been yelled at before, the academy was full of yelling. The thought that he might actually be late, deserving to be reprimanded like this, was what was getting to him. "No, ma'am..."
"IT IS 0910, ENSIGN PLASMA!"
His heart sinking, Warp wondered how his little stroll with the captain could have possibly taken up that much time. "Ma'am, the captain-"
"DID I ASK YOU ABOUT THE CAPTAIN, ENSIGN?!"
"N-no ma'am!"
Lieutenant Stellar finally backed away from the terrified ensign slightly. "Well, fortunately for you, the longer we stand here, the longer we go without anyone maintaining the ship's matter to antimatter ratio. So get to it. I'll deal with you later."
Warp was quickly left alone with his new post aboard the Andromeda as the chief of engineering galloped off, probably to yell at someone else. Wondering if this would be how things worked all the time around here, or if they'd perhaps become a little more relaxed after the ship was underway, Warp turned toward his computer terminal. To the casual observer, the information on the screen probably wouldn't make a lot of sense. With his engineering training, and specialization in matter-antimatter regulators, Warp understood it completely. He made a few quick adjustments immediately, since up until now it was likely that this station had only been checked and updated once in a while. The intermix ratio was in fact slightly off.
A few minutes of going through and checking on the various screens of information before him and Warp was no longer sure what to do. He'd been trained in how to operate and comprehend nearly everything in this room, making his job at this one terminal suddenly seem a little mundane. He'd have to find other ways to keep himself busy when this didn't need his attention, he realized. Just as he started thinking of ideas on how to spend his time, his little break was cut short as the intercom came to life.
"Star to engineering, status!"
The mare that had been up in Warp's face just moments ago, the chief of engineering, responded, tapping the communicator badge, or "combadge", on her chest. "Captain, thrusters are fully operational. Give me just a few more minutes to verify the status of the impulse engines and warp drive."
"Understood, Lieutenant. Keep me advised."
With that, the intercom switched from a two-way between the bridge and the engine room to a ship-wide broadcast.
"Attention, all hands. This is your captain speaking." Instantly, everyone not performing a vital task stopped what they were doing and stood up straight, listening to the words of the ship's senior officer. "You are here from many parts of Equestria. Some of you are not even from Equestria."
Warp looked around. Since boarding, he had not seen any aliens. He knew quite well that the federation included multiple alien races, he had even known a Vulcan and seen a group of Tellarites at the academy. So far, he just hadn't seen any aboard this ship yet.
"No matter where you're from, you've come here with a common goal. You want to explore strange new worlds. You want to discover new life and new civilizations. You've come to boldly go where nopony has gone before. If exploring the final frontier is not your absolute passion, you are permitted by your captain to find the nearest transporter room and depart now." As Warp would have expected, nopony moved. They had all been through at least as much as he had to get here, none of them were going to throw that all away now. The captain waited a good several seconds before continuing, "Well! If you're still here... Welcome aboard the latest and greatest pride of Starfleet, the USS Andromeda! I am now able to inform you of the details of our first mission. A disturbance was reported near the Badlands region; a civilian vessel reported suspicious ships entering and exiting the gas cloud. Starfleet sent the USS Crystal to investigate. We have not heard from the Crystal for some time now. They have not responded to any of our subspace transmissions, and no distress signal was ever received. Starfleet has seen fit to send us to investigate. Our line-up of highly advanced sensor equipment will hopefully allow us to both discover what happened to the Crystal, and avoid sharing its fate."
There was a pause. Warp was feeling yet another rush, his very first mission involved a dangerous region of space and a missing ship! This would almost certainly be exciting! The captain continued, "I know I can count on each of you to perform above and beyond what is expected of you. For some of you, this will be your first time serving aboard a vessel of the fleet. If this is you, remember that this mission will be a measure of your skills, your courage, and your commitment. This mission may turn out to be routine, but it also may not. In the event that things get heated, I need all of you to fall back on your sense of duty and remain level-headed. We are likely to return to port in less than 24 hours from this sort of assignment. Once we do, I am certain you'll all have given me plenty of reason to be proud of you, and I look forward to becoming acquanted with as many of you as possible in the future. Captain Star, out." The intercom switched off with a 'blip' sound, and everyone in the room returned to their respective jobs. All of them working with a little more motivation than before.
Lieutenant Stellar tapped her combadge. "Engineering to bridge, everything looks good.
The captain responded with, "Thank you, Lieutenant. Prepare for impulse power on my mark."
There was a small lurch as the ship's chemical thrusters came to life. The thrusters were a ship's way of performing tight, but slow, maneuvers, such as navigating inside of a spacedock. They also came in handy as an emergency propulsion system, if there were no large distances to be covered. Then there were the impulse engines. These were the primary means of travel when there were non-interstellar distances to be covered, such as maneuvering from one planet to another, or simply reaching a safe distance from obstructions to engage the warp engines. The warp engines were, of course, the means of interstellar travel. Most anywhere in the galaxy could be reached via warp travel, although the most distant parts would still take decades. There were faster known means of travel, but the basic warp drive was still standard on most Federation ships. Possibly the fastest known means of travel was transwarp. Starfleet had experimented with transwarp travel in the past, but always unsuccessfully. It simply required too much energy, making it much more efficient to use a network of transwarp gates for such travel. So far, the only race that had the resources and technology to build such a transwarp network was the Borg.
The Andromeda, however, was different. It couldn't match the speed of a transwarp engine, but there were other advanced technologies to be utilized. One such technology had been discovered some time ago and recently been almost completely reverse engineered by Starfleet. It was called the slipstream drive. While Starfleet engineers hadn't quite managed to produce a fully operational slipstream drive that was safe and efficient for regular use, they had managed to incorporate some aspects of it into the standard warp drive, increasing its maximum output significantly at the cost of equally increased energy consumption. The first field test of this device would occur very soon, as it was the drive currently installed on the Andromeda.
Warp could no longer ignore his monitor. This was it, the ship was undocking at full operational capacity for the first time. Everyone needed to pay close attention to the status of every nanometer. If there were going to be any glitches or malfunctions on this trip, now would be the most likely time for them to pop up. Fine-tuning the antimatter ratio even more precisely than was really necessary, Warp forgot about any concerns he had gained in the minutes since he had arrived on the ship. This was a moment that would never come again. He was absolutely elated to be of part of this. The ship was currently in motion, and once it cleared spacedock, he knew that things were going to get even more interesting.
Little did Warp know, his captain had other ideas. Captain Star chose to indulge in a little bit of hero imitation. Kirk wouldn't have been so by-the-book about this, neither would he. The intercom blipped to life once again. "Engineering, get me impulse power up here."
Lieutenant Stellar raised an eyebrow, but opted not to question this order. The intercom disengaged and she positioned herself in front of the towering warp core, entering information into the control panel. She paused and gave an impatient glance behind her to Warp, who quickly caught himself and got busy with his own station. He adjusted various fields that would seem to be "techno babble" to anyone not familiar with them. As soon as the numbers from Warp's adjustments added up on the Lieutenant's screen, she tapped a final button. Within seconds, the hum of the engines reverbrating through the deck plating intensified. The bridge had taken advantage of the power that the engine room had just provided, and activated the impulse engines.
The room had become much busier than it was less than a minute ago. Orders and reports were being shouted back and forth, every terminal was staffed, and the traffic in and out of the room had decreased, with most of the important tasks now localized to the engineering sector. Warp didn't consider his task to be of particular importance, not even requiring him to update anything more than once every few minutes. Granted, leaving this station unchecked for too long could be devestating for the engine's power efficiency, but that would require some serious neglect.
"Equestria Spacedock Control, this is Andromeda. Clearing the doors."
The huge and sleek spacecraft slowly pushed itself through the even more gigantic docking bay doors of the station. As more and more of the ship emerged, it went from resting in the soft lighting of the spacedock's interior to being bathed in the much more brilliant rays of the sun. The sharp line of contrasted lighting on the ship smoothly moved its way backward, caressing the curved hull of Andromeda as it went. Once it reached the far aft tips of the shiny grey and blue nacelles and then disappeared altogether, leaving no part of the vessel untouched by the brighter light, Andromeda began a slow and graceful turn to port. Her impulse engines, situated on the center of the back end of the saucer, glowed a brighter red as the ship began to increase speed and pull away from the ridiculously massive space station.
"Andromeda, Spacedock Control. You are clear of control area. From all of us up here, good luck with your first mission."
"Thank you, Control. We'll be sure to tell you all about it when we return. Andromeda, out."
The glow of the impulse engines died to nearly nothing, and the ship slowed to a stop.
Warp was about to think "This is it!" again, before he stopped himself. He had been saying that to everything that happened all day. He was going to have to accept the fact that many of the things he'd do today would be things that he'd been eagerly anticipating for some time. He didn't have to treat each event like it had been the real focus all along.
It was hard not to feel that way though, especially with this one. Sure, he'd gotten on the ship. That was a big deal. He'd been walked to his station by none other than the ship's captain. That was pretty cool, too. Then they'd undocked and brought the impulse engines online. That was amazing. What he was about to take part in now, however, had to top all of those, he was certain. This wasn't just something he knew he would enjoy, it was part of who he was, just like the heart of the ship itself was a part of who he was. This was also right in his name. He was about to engage the warp drive.
Ok, not directly. He was going to counter-balance the core's reaction output, thus enabling another officer to open the regulator valves, thus supplying someone on the bridge with the ability to push a lever that would activate the drive. Still, he felt immense pride in his part of it.
Captain North Star swept his gaze across the bridge of his new command. The stallion chose not to fight his urge to smile; he loved every single part of this. The screen at the front of the bridge displaying a visual of the starry expanse ahead, the various officers around him either busy with calculations or free for the moment and enjoying this along with him.
The captain swiveled his chair slightly to his left to directly face the helmspony in the front. "Ensign Runabout, how do we look?"
The ensign in front looked over his screen, nodding. "All good, Captain! All systems show ready to jump."
"Good. Is our course laid in?"
"Navigation waypoint established within one million kilometers of the Badlands, sir!"
With an obvious thrill that was shared by everyone present, the captain gave the order, "Very well, Ensign. Let's forget about starting out easy... Bring us to warp eight..." He paused for dramatic effect. "...Engage!"
In main engineering, the atmosphere was equally giddy. Even Lieutenant Stellar couldn't resist cracking a smile every few moments when she thought about what they were doing.
"Bring up the integrity of the containment field! I don't want to risk a leak on her very first run! You! See what you can do about these vibrations, we're not going to want any inertial dampener trouble where we're going! Someone tell me why I smell coolant!" At each of the chief engineer's orders, somepony or other responded with a quick salute and a "Yes sir!" before rushing off to whatever task he or she had been assigned. The lieutenant hadn't asked to be called "ma'am", so most recruits would naturally assume that the default "sir" is a superior officer's preference.
Suddenly, the pulsing glow of the warp core quickened. Warp couldn't keep his eyes on the display screen in front of him, this was too much. The bridge must have just given the order to go to warp speed!
The deck creaked, likely whatever inertial dampener trouble the lieutenant had mentioned before. The glow of the towering warp core grew even brighter as the power output increased dramatically. It was now supplying the ship with enough energy to manipulate the very fabric of space, forming an invisible bubble around the ship. All it had to do was stretch out the part of the bubble behind the ship while compressing it in the front, and they would instantly accelerate to unfathomable speeds, relative to the rest of space. Technically speaking, the ship wouldn't be moving at all, only the bubble of space containing the ship would actually achieve such speed. It hardly mattered, though. The ship would reach its destination in a microscopic fraction of the time it would take a conventional engine, and without any inconvenient time dilation effects.
The glow of the warp core reached its peak.
As personel aboard Equestria Space Dock looked on, the USS Andromeda positioned itself so that it was pointed exactly in the direction it needed to go. Then, in the blink of an eye, it shot into the distance, far beyond visual range. A blurred after-image remained for a split second, stretched along the path the vessel had taken. Exactly at the spot where the ship had disappeared from view, there was a flash of white light. The fleet's first Celestia class cruiser had begun its maiden voyage.
