Ponystar Equestria: The Last ponystar

Chapters

Chapter 1: Rendezvous in Space
Chapter 2: The End of Peace
Chapter 3: The Fall
Chapter 4: The End
Chapter 5: Suddenly Homeless
Chapter 6: Greater Love Has No Pony
Chapter 7: Love and Loss
Chapter 8: That Which Remains
Chapter 9: Adrift in the Stars
Chapter 10: Inauguration
Chapter 12: Impending Doom
Chapter 11: To Flee the Colonies

Chapter 1: Rendezvous in Space

Disclaimer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is owned by Hasbro, and I’m pretty sure that Battlestar Galactica is owned by Glen A. Larson. This fan-fiction does not claim ownership of anything belonging to either.

There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe; with tribes of ponies who may have been the forefathers of the Unicorns or the Pegasi, or the Alicorns. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of Pony who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens!

Ponystar Equestria

Saga of a Star Pony

Chapter 1: Rendezvous in Space

The Colonial Ponystar fleet was an awesome sight to behold as it made its way through deep space towards the rendezvous with the Cyponian fleet. The great starships bore the scars of combat, their bristling armament of pulsar-cannon and neutronic missiles were not just for show. In the centre, cruising in line ahead, were the capital ships, the Ponystars themselves, huge warships combining the roles of battleships and carriers. Each of the twelve vessels carried a full complement of fighters, and the whole fleet was capable of deploying an awesome level of firepower, sufficient to level a planet. Escort fighter flew alongside the fleet, and destroyers, bristling with guns but without fighter bays, flew point duty.

At the head of the fleet flew the Ponystar Equestria, one of the oldest of the ships. Laid down decades ago at the beginning of the Cyponian war, the veteran of many battles, she had been rebuilt once, yet still looked old-fashioned compared with the clean modern lines of more modern ships such as the President’s ship, the Ponystar Epona. The Epona had seen relatively little service – she was seen as too valuable to the Pony cause to be lost. She was in the centre of the line of warships, followed by the Ponystar Bellerophon, the ship commanded by Count Altair, and behind her the Titan, the largest of all Ponystars.

“What a sight!” Lieutenant Flutter, a light yellow Pegasus with pink mane, looked over at the Equestria, from her little one-pony fighter. Sure, other ships were newer, but no ship had the character of the Grand Old Lady of the fleet, the oldest Ponystar still in service. And she was being honoured by being at the head of the Fleet as it flew to the rendezvous with the Cyponians to sign the treaty that would finally end the war that had killed countless ponies.

“Yeah, makes you glad to be one of her crew, glad to be a pony,” Lieutenant Star Flash, the mare who was on her wing, replied. The Pegasus pilot smiled. Star Flash could be infuriating at times; she was insubordinate, rude, brash, and utterly fearless. And she had saved her skin so many times that she had forgotten the number. Plus, she had taken so many bits off the other pilots gambling that he was sure she had to be the richest Pegasus in the fleet.

“Doesn’t it, Star Flash?”

“Yeah, but how much longer? I mean, sure they won’t just send us all home, but when the war’s over, I can’t see them keeping us all on either – even if the fleet’s so buckin’ small now after all our losses!”

“We’ll go back to deep space exploration. That’ll be the real challenge! And we need good fliers for probe flights. I’m looking forward to it,” the yellow Pegasus had seen too many good pilots die. Her own family had been wiped out in a Cyponian attack on the colony of Aerila, the world of her birth. She wanted this peace more than anything else, for it meant that no more good ponies would die. And she liked the fact that the war would end like this. However vicious the Cyponians were, the idea of wiping them out made her feel ill.

“You maybe, Flutter, but can you picture me as a scientist? I’m the fastest, coolest pilot in the fleet, but flying probe flights? Ain’t gonna happen.”

“Who knows what we’ll find in deep space? We might find another threat.”

“Sure. An’ I don’t trust the Cyponians. The Tin Cans want us dead…”

“We built them, Star Flash, we exploited them, and when we got scared we tried to destroy them all. They only fought back then. I think they have a real grievance against us…”

“Yeah, but you’re a bleeding heart, Flutter. Me, I’m a simple kinda mare – they’re bucking Tin Cans, I’m a combat pilot, I shoot ‘em. The Tin Cans want us dead, so before they can actually kill us, we kill them. Simple.”

“I know,” Flutter smiled, picturing the cyan mare’s smile as she spoke. Flash would never listen; she wasn’t that sort of pony.

“Okay, time to head home and re-fuel this baby! And then I have a game waiting for me at the Officers’ Club! Watch in awe as I win once again!”

“Okay, Star Flash, you’re on!”

The two Pegasus pilots turned their ships back towards the port flight deck of the Equestria.

Captain Atepomonus was the oldest son of Commander Celestus of the Equestria, and in command of the ponystar’s fighter wing. He had his flight suit on; his helmet was painted with the Phoenix symbol of the Twelve Colonies of Pony. The alicorn captain trotted into the fighter bay just as Star Flash and Flutter entered.

“Hey, it’s the captain!” Star Flash said happily. “Last patrol before peace and you had to get it! Must be karma or something.”

“Actually I volunteered for it; it’s one of the advantages of being CAG. Given that every Pegasus on this ship wants to be in the Officers’ Club wolfing down ambrosia in celebration, I thought I’d let you, heaven knows you deserve it. That and I don’t really want the Old Man putting me in that stiff dress uniform to meet the Cyponians. So I’ll leave the ambrosia wolfing to you.”

“Wolfing ambrosia and avoiding that wolf of a kid brother of yours,” Star Flash pulled a face. “Ugh!”

“Actually, I’m taking him out of your mane as well – I figured that the alicorn who feels he’s the gods’ gift to mares needs to cool down, and a deep space probe is just what the doctor ordered.”

“Hey, you’re good-looking and thoughtful. But it’ll never work – I may be the coolest Pegasus ever, but considerate and thoughtful? Nope. Come on, Flutter, I need to get a drink and win some bits!”

She tossed her rainbow mane, and with that the pair departed, leaving Atepomonus chuckling to himself. Pilots needed to unwind, he thought. And the newest alicorn pilot, his brother Segomo, needed to fly his first patrol.

Seg was fresh out of the Flight Academy, and he actually had the makings of a good pilot. Like many new pilots, however, he was reckless, he tried to impress the mares with his flying, and he really was not as good as he thought he was.

“Hey, bro, ready for the probe?” Seg asked as hurried into the launch bay himself.

“Sure I am,” Unicorn engineers hurried to assist them. The two fighters were specially modified for alicorns, necessary not only because of the horns they had, but also to take advantage of the fine control that alicorn magic allowed. The fighters were usually designed for Pegasi, intended to work like extensions of the Pegasi’s own body.

The two alicorns carefully fitted their wings into the fighters’ control systems and then the canopies were lowered. Atepomonus checked his ship’s instruments as the craft was readied for launch.

“Ready for launch,” a disembodied voice from CIC, the Ponystar’s command area, said.

“Launching!” he pulled back on the stick and the fighter shot down its magnetic launch tube and out into space. Seg followed him.

“Okay, we do this by the book,” Atepmonus said over the radio. “I lead, you follow,” he checked his instruments. “Going to turbo in three, two, one… now!”

The two little craft streaked away into the unknown space ahead of the line of capital ships.

The briefing-room of the President’s Ponystar was playing host to the Council of Twelve, the Alicorns who represented the Twelve Colonies of Ponies. They sat around the council table in a specially-prepared chamber. The twelve-pointed star of the Colonies of Ponies marked the table, and at each point sat a pony. President Equus, wearing his white cloak and his golden wreath of office, stood in his place of honour. The white alicorn was calm and distinguished. Beside him sat Count Altair, a dark blue alicorn with a grey mane. Only one member of the Council, Commander Celestus, was in military uniform, a blue dress uniform that he found uncomfortable.

“My little ponies, after a generation of war, Ponykind stands on the brink of a new era,” the President said, “An era of peace! It has been so long since this war began, so many ponies have died. We have lost dozens of warships of all types, and while we have held our own, our Twelve Colonies have suffered. We faced annihilation for decades, but now there is a chance for peace. It seems that the Cyponians too have grown weary of war and desire peace. For the first time we shall meet the leaders of the Cyponians face-to-face and extend to them the hoof of friendship,” He raised a glass with his magic. “A toast to a new era,” the President said happily. The other members of the council raised their glasses with a self-congratulatory cheer – all but the blue-uniformed Commander Celestus, whose expression remained sombre.

“And a toast to Count Altair, without whose work we would not now be going to sign this peace treaty. It was he who made contact with the Cyponians, and it was he who negotiated the peace treaty with the leader of the Cyponians!”

“Really, Mr. President, the fact that the Cyponians chose me as their go-between was an act of… the providence of the gods, nothing more,” Altair replied smoothly. “Besides, it is the peace and not the instrument that we should celebrate.”

“Quite right, Count Altair,” the President agreed.

“Altair’s too modest,” a distinguished mare who represented the Colony of Saggitair, commented. “He is the saviour of our people.”

“Oh, Lady Senax, you exaggerate. If the Cyponians had not chosen me, they would have chosen another. They want peace, my fellow members of the Alicorn Council, just as we do. They may be machines, but they have their own desires and longings for the future, and they do not wish to be destroyed any more than we do. The Cyponian leader has come to see that the only alternative to peace is the mutual destruction of both our peoples.”

“Indeed, Count Altair, indeed,” the President smiled. “What is important is that there is peace ahead of us.”

He raised his glass again.

“To peace!”

“Peace!” the Council members said as one. The President looked around the table and saw the clouded expression on Commander Celestus’s face.

“Not all my little ponies are pleased by the news, I fear. Commander, am I to assume that you are sceptical of this promise?”

“Perhaps I am too much of an old soldier, President. But I’m not a war-monger. You know what I’ve always said, war is hell,” the distinguished Alicorn warrior’s battle scars were apparent to all. His wings were crippled so that he could not fly; his face bore the marks of several ugly injuries. Celestus was a respected officer, and had refused the rank of Admiral several times. His cutie mark was a twelve-pointed star, a point for each of the Colonies. His uniform bore the badges of his rank and the ribbons of many medals. “There is not a pony here that has not lost somepony in the war with the Cyponians, and not a pony here who does not honour those dead and long for peace. My own wife was among the casualties of the Cyponian attack on Caprica ten years ago, and I would not wish that loss on anypony,” he sighed. “I welcome peace as we all do. But I’m uneasy. We left just a skeleton force to defend the colonies and we’re taking the fleet into deep space for a rendezvous with the Cyponians. Perhaps it is merely a military instinct, but there is something about this I just don’t like.”

“Oh, the Cyponians are quite sincere, Commander,” Altair said. The Count was a distinguished scientist, though he had been notoriously wild as a younger pony. “They contacted me, I did not contact them. It was after the battle of Coritur, when I was with the third fleet. My Ponystar was crippled, and we were unable to keep the Cyponians from boarding. Really I thought it was the end – and yet instead of killing me, they took me prisoner and transported me back to their base ship. There I met with their leader, and to my surprise she asked me to negotiate a ceasefire. I do not take this lightly, but I am humbled to be the instrument of this peace.”

Commander Celestus frowned. He was not convinced that Count Altair could be trusted, but he had no evidence that the dark blue alicorn was anything other than he claimed to be.

“Well, Commander, are you not pleased to see this historic day of peace?” the President asked.

“Mr. President, we created the Cyponians generations ago to serve us, to relieve ponies of physical labour so that we could work with our minds. We created life, and we forgot that we had responsibilities towards that life. We made life, and we enslaved it; the Cyponians rebelled against us, and there is a sense in which we deserved it. We brought this war upon ourselves. Yet I feel uneasy. I’m not sure that we have learned the lesson of our hubris. The Cyponians hate us with every fibre of their being, and their Imperious Leader has never asked for peace before.”

“But she has now, Celestus! Oh, Trust the military to rain on our parade!” The President laughed. “Gentleponies, return to your ships and prepare for our entry into Cyponian space.”

“I expect that the Cyponians will have some sort of welcoming committee waiting for us,” Count Altair suggested as the Council ponies dispersed, heading back to their shuttles. Commander Celestus frowned as he went, unable to shake off his vague feeling of unease.

Colonel Pie, a pink earth pony, was the executive officer of the Equestria, and while the Commander was at the council meeting she was on duty and in charge of the ship. Her mane was straight, her expression world-weary, and her pink coat bore a number of battle-scars. She stood at the command console, watching the crew at work in the busy CIC aboard the Ponystar. The older vessel was less automated than the more recent ships, a precaution against the Cyponian ability to hack computers with amazing speed. This meant that she required a larger crew to run, but as far as Colonel Pie was concerned that was just because she was a ship who needed to be treated with care.

“How far to the rendezvous?” she called over to a grey earth pony at a control panel.

“We made the final jump an hour ago…” he began, much to the Colonel’s annoyance.

“I know that, sergeant, I'm not a cretin! What I want to know is how far we have to go in normal space?” she snapped angrily. She wanted to get this over with, so she could go back to her cabin and have much-needed drink. A bit of old ambrosia was what this called for, and the bottle was practically calling to her. Only she would have to be sober for the actual peace ceremony, sadly. Well, she could always get stinking drunk afterwards. Trouble was, it sounded like the sort of thing that would go on for hours, and since the other side were robots, they wouldn’t be interested in drinking.

“Another couple of hours, Colonel,” the answer did not please the ageing battle-mare. Colonel Pie sighed.

“The Commander is on his way back, sir,” another pony reported. She smiled at the news. They had seen a lot of action together, and she counted the tough old alicorn as a friend, not to mention the only alicorn she had any respect for at all.

“Tell the docking bay to get ready for his return! And while you’re at it, tell the bucking Pegasus pilots to lay the hay off the ambrosia in the officers’ club! I don’t care if they are off duty or not, they are not going to be blind drunk when we get to Tin Can space! Pegasi… bunch of hot-shot show-offs the lot of them. Moonstone, you got anything on the scans?”

“No, sir,” the cyan mare reported. “Just empty space out there, sir. The probe fighters have flown beyond scanner range.”

“I can see the empty space,” Colonel Pie growled. She settled back to wait, while the CIC crew exchanged worried glances. The Colonel was not a happy pony, and when she was cranky she let other ponies know it.

Colonel Pie knew that there was no place for an old war-horse like her in a fleet re-oriented to exploration, and that was making her even crankier than usual. This was going to be her last mission, and then the civilian government would put her out to grass with a pension and a few medals. That was what the civilian government did. To think there was only one warhorse on the Council! But that was the government, a bunch of politicos, stuffed horse-skins who didn’t have a clue.

She really needed that ambrosia.

The two small fighters streaked ahead of the fleet at full speed, insignificant in the vastness of space, two insignificant little dots in an endless sea of stars. Atepomarus smiled as he piloted his ship. He loved this, just flying free in space, no Cyponians to worry about. That was the trouble with being a combat pilot, you were surrounded by all this beauty, but you could not pause to look at it. The white alicorn was looking forward to peace, to being free to explore the universe once again. He hoped that they had learned from the errors of their race in the run-up to the Cyponian war. The trouble with Alicorns was that they tended to be arrogant, to assume that because they ruled it was their natural place. The war had changed that, ponies of all types had shown command abilities, while some alicorns had proven weak and incapable. Most importantly, different types of ponies from all twelve of the colonies had fought side-by-side and died together.

And now they stood on the brink of a new era of peace. Perhaps they could even explore side-by-side with the Cyponians in the future. Maybe the Cyponians would forgive them, though there was a lot to forgive. The trouble with too many ponies, in Atepmonus’ opinion, was that they thought all the blame was on one side – the Cyponian one. They forgot that the Cyponians had rebelled against slavery, and how the Colonies had used Cyponians to settle petty grievances, from religious terrorism to petty gangsterism – though was there really much difference? Cyponians had been set to fight Cyponians, in conflicts they had no part in. No wonder they had rebelled. They had seen the dark side of pony culture, and they had rejected all of Ponykind because of it.

And then there was the mysterious Imperious Leader, the being who had given direction to the Cyponians and led the revolt against Ponykind. Very little was known about her – it had only recently been discovered that she was female, whatever that meant for a robotic pony. Apart from Count Altair, nopony had seen her and lived. Hers was the brain that directed the Cyponian war machine, and she was the one who had given Count Altair the task of negotiating the peace with the Colonies.

“Hey, bro, check out the cool nebula!”

The cloud of cosmic dust was dimly illuminated by the surrounding stars, but its core was dark. The particles from which the nebula was formed were interfering with the ship’s instruments, and the nebula was big, large enough to hide a fleet in.

“I’m going to fly a little closer in,” Atepomonus told his brother. “You cover me.”

“Bro, it’s just a cloud of space-dust and gasses!” Segomo protested.

“A cloud our scanners can’t penetrate and it’s directly in the path of the fleet. There might be an old Cyponian minefield in there. That’s why we need to investigate closer.” The trouble with Seg, he thought, was that he wanted to be a hot-shot pilot, but in reality he lacked the ability to be one. He wanted to be admired by mares, he wanted the glory, but he did not want to put in the hard work. He had yet to learn that the life of a pilot was hard and dangerous – why, he had not even flown a combat mission. This was exactly why he would have preferred Star Flash to be his wingpony, but then he had only himself to blame for giving Seg this mission.

The two one-pony fighters sped towards the Nebula. Scanners still showed interference patterns, a fact that worried Atepomonus. These were state-of-the-art scanners, military grade. Unless this was a very rare type of nebula, he should be getting some sort of reading from it.

Segomo’s fighter sped past him, headed straight into the swirling clouds of the nebula. The alicorn captain barked out an order to stop, but his brother ignored him.

“Lieutenant Segomo, slow down! You don’t know what you’re flying into!”

“It’s just a cloud, bro! Don’t worry; I know what I’m doing!”

No, Atepmonus thought, you have no idea what you’re doing or you would have slowed before entering the nebula. That thing could be hiding atomic mines that could take out a ponystar. But Seg rushed in, trying to impress. Atepomonus had seen too many pilots die to be impressed by recklessness. In war you had to take risks, but you calculated them. That was what made Star Flash the best pilot he knew – though he would never tell the young Pegasus that. Seg didn’t think at all, he took needless risks.

The captain’s ship penetrated the cloud. Visibility within the cloud was poor, and he slowed to a crawl. His instruments were all over static, nothing clear could be seen – not even Seg’s fighter.

As he moved deeper into the cloud, a contact flashed on his scanner screen. It blinked and went out, obscured by interference.

“Seg, turn back! We have no idea what’s in this cloud! With the static on our scans and this visibility there could be a ponystar in here and we’d never know it!”

“Nothing but dust in here, bro. You worry too much.”

“Seg, I know what I’m doing – you don’t. In any case, I’m your commanding officer, and that means you follow my orders!”

Two contacts appeared on the scanner. They were a distance away, but moving towards him.

“Seg, there’s something else in here with us! We need to pull back!”

“Just ghosting…”

Atepomonus activated the ship’s standard recognition system. If he could not see the contacts, perhaps he could identify them with the ship’s computer. They did not look like ghosting created by the nebula; their movements did not match his fighter.

“I’m going in for a closer look, Seg, watch my back!”

Atepomonus piloted his one-pony fighter slowly towards the two contacts. It was now quite apparent that they were no ghosts; they were too large to be ghost-images of small fighters.

A form appeared through the nebula’s swirling dust and gasses; a long ship, a double-cylinder with a wedge-like brow. The fighter’s computers identified the vessel quickly, a Cyponian tanker. Two tankers and they seemed to be empty.

But why were two Cyponian tankers out here, in the middle of a nebula?

“Bro, what is it?” Seg asked.

“A couple of Cyponian tankers; what are they doing out here?”

He flew past them, down into the nebula. More contacts appeared on his scanner, and suddenly a terribly familiar image flashed onto his computer screen. He did not need to read the accompanying text to know what the elliptical vessel was.

“Seg, they’re Cyponian raiders! Pull back, pull back!”

“Cyponians, but…”

“It’s a trap! They’re lying in wait for the fleet! There could be thousands of raiders in this nebula and we’d never know! The Cyponians don’t want peace, they want to wipe us all out!”

The Ponystar Equestria universe is something of a mix of the original Galactica and the new version, with ponies. I am not slavishly following anypony else's storyline, but I really don't think I can get the atmosphere of the Galactica miniseries, so I'm using the ambush scene from the original series instead, edited to make it a bit more sensible.

Chapter 2: The End of Peace

Captain Atepomonus stared in horror at the read-out on his screen as alwarms went off on every display. A routine scout mission ahead of the fleet on its way to a peace conference had suddenly become a nightmare.

“Bro?” his brother’s voice startled him back to reality, and he pulled up.

“We’re getting out of here!” he cried.

Atepomonus activated thrusters to turn his ship 180 degrees and headed out of the nebula. With the dust swirling around him he could not activate turbos until they were clear of the dust-cloud, and he would not leave his brother behind to face the Cyponians. If the fleet was flying into a trap, then the raiders would not spare two Pony fighters that had stumbled across the ambush.

The Cyponian ships were closing fast. The captain realised that the interference on his instruments was caused by some sort of Cyponian weapon and not by the natural properties of the nebula; while he was flying virtually blind, the Cyponians must be able to see the two fighters as clear as day.

“Seg!”

“What… what are we going to do? Bro, don’t leave me!” Segomo was scared; that was only to be expected. He had never faced the Cyponians in combat before, and now he was outnumbered, facing a massed attack force. But Atepomonus knew that his duty was to go back to the fleet and warn them of the ambush.

“Don’t panic! Follow me out of the nebula!”

More and more contacts appeared on the scanners as the Cyponians began to move in force. Aboard one of the myriad fighters that swarmed in the nebula a gold-plated Cyponian commander’s impassive visual scanner watched the two Colonial fighters’ contacts on a scanner screen.

“Two vessels, Colonial Pony fighter configuration,” one of the two chrome Cyponians at the raider’s controls reported in an electronic monotone.

“Forward scouts of the Colonial fleet. They must be destroyed,” the commander ordered.

“By your command.”

The two fighters broke free of the nebula almost together, with three Cyponian raiders right behind them.

Cyponian pulsar-cannon opened up, targeting the small ships. The Colonial fighters dodged and whirled. This was what worried Atepomonus the most. One hit, and the fleet would be doomed to meet the Cyponian armada completely unprepared. He gunned his little fighter as fast as it would go, trying to get as much speed out of it as possible.

“We’re not going to be able to get back to the fleet like this. On my signal, reverse thrusters!”

The three Cyponian ships were at full speed in pursuit, pulsar-cannon blazing. A blast missed Atepmonus’ ship by a couple of feet, much too close for comfort.

“Now!”

The two alicorn pilots hit reverse thrusters together. In an instant the raiders were in front of them, in their gunsights.

They opened fire at once. Their blasts tore into the Cyponian ships, and two erupted in flame at once. The third tried to turn and counter-attack, but it was too late and Atepmonus’ guns blew it to pieces.

“Hey, nice shooting,” he congratulated Seg.

“Yeah, but look on scanners, bro!”

The captain did so, and his eyes grew wide in horror; he was an experienced combat pilot, but this was something that could make even Star Flash turn and run.

A wall of ships was issuing from the nebula, the whole Cyponian ambush force, headed right for the fleet.

“What does it mean?” Seg ‘s voice, full of panic, came over the radio into the Captain’s helmet

“It means there isn’t going to be any peace. The whole peace deal is a sham, a trick! We need to warn the fleet, or there won’t be much of anything!”

He switched to long-range communications, only to meet the jarring sound of a Cyponian jamming device. That meant they would have to run for the fleet.

“Okay, we have to get back to the Equestria. Full turbos, all the way to the fleet; if we fail, then the whole Pony race is lost.”

Atepomonus accelerated towards the fleet at full speed, praying to all the gods that they would return to the fleet and that they would be able to do something when they got there.

Commander Celestus strode into CIC in a foul mood. He hated having suspicions that he could not confirm, and every fibre of his being told him that Altair could not be trusted. What was more, his wings ached, and that was never a good sign.

“Colonel Pie, status report!” he roared.

“Commander, welcome back. How was the meeting?” The colonel had a good idea that it had been pretty awful, judging by the commander’s mood.

“It was the usual, Pie, all self-congratulatory back-slapping for Count Altair and the President! I’m just glad it wasn’t a meal; otherwise I would have been sick. How’s the old girl?”

“She’s running like a dream, sir. Your sons are out flying the probe ahead of the fleet, but it’s all quiet. No word from the probe, and we’re still too bucking far from the rendezvous for my liking!” she tapped the deck impatiently with a hoof.

“Commander!” Moonstone’s cry startled both of the command ponies. “I’m picking something up on long-range scanners! It… it’s just on the edge of our scanner range, but it looks like ships moving towards us!”

“When we’re still so far from the rendezvous?” Celestus frowned. That really did not sound like a good thing. “Colonel Pie, order battle stations! Sergeant Omicron, get me the President’s Ponystar!”

Lights on the bridge flashed red. The grey pony called Sergeant Omicron worked his control panel with his hooves before turning back to Celestus.

“I have the President on the line, sir.”

The battle-scarred alicorn used his magic to lift the telephone receiver.

“Mr. President, this is Commander Celestus aboard the Equestria. Our forward scan has revealed a number of ships heading towards us on an intercept course. I suggest taking the fleet to full alert.”

“Oh, Mr. President,” Celestus heard the quiet voice of Count Altair over the line, as if Altair was advising the President. “I think that’s most unwise. It’s probably a Cyponian welcoming committee. If they find us on a battle footing, they might lose control. What’s more, if one of our gunners should hit a trigger by accident, who knows what might happen…”

“Your concern is noted and denied, Commander. We come in peace – and the Cyponians welcome us in peace.”

Naïve politico, Celestus thought. There was just no reasoning with them. They just didn’t appreciate the Cyponians the way an old war-horse like him did; he didn’t even respect them as enemies.

“Mr. President, don’t you think it would be wise to put the fleet on level two alert? Fighters ready for launch…”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. Now, Commander, I need to prepare my speech for the ceremony, President out.”

The line went dead, and Celestus put the telephone down with a sigh of frustration. The trouble with the President, he thought, was that the stallion was a fool when you got down to brass tacks.

“Colonel Pie, do you know why alicorns are not necessarily the superior ponies?” he asked.

“I could suggest a few reasons, but why?” She managed a cynical smile, fairly sure she knew what was coming next.

“Because some of them have brains made of bucking marshmallow! Any foal could tell that’s an attack pattern of raiders! But if we go to full alert that idiot will try to have my plot for insubordination,” he smiled. “Colonel, how long do we have before we reach the rendezvous point?”

“A couple of hours, I expect,” she answered sourly. “Not that we’re going to get there, of course.”

“Enough time for a battle-alert drill?”

“Yes, sir!” Colonel Pie smiled. Now the Commander was talking her language. “She punched a control and shouted into a microphone. All stations, this is Colonel Pie! Battle drill! Prepare fighters for launch! All pilots to the launch bays! This not a bucking drill, it’s the bucking Cyponian apocalypse, so get your plots down to the launch bays on the double before those Tin Cans fry them!”

Star Flash smiled happily as she looked at the pile of bits on the table in front of her. The Pegasus pilots were relaxing in the bar of the Officers’ Club aboard the ship, and she was doing her two favourite things, playing Pegasus Poker and drinking good ambrosia. A good cigar helped as well, of course.

“Okay, foals, read ‘em and weep! A full House!” she spread the cards on the table, and the other Pegasi groaned. Her notorious good luck had done it again; she had a hand no pony could beat. Star Flash puffed on her cigar and laughed. “Unless there’s a better hand, then the pot is mine again!”

Before anything else could happen, red lights illuminated and klaxons sounded. Pegasus pilots hurried for their respective launch stations. Star Flash sighed and threw her cigar aside.

“Bucking drills! The bucking war’s over, an’ they want us practicing? I bet it’s just to fly a fancy display for the Tin Cans, as if they’d even appreciate that! But the President says jump…”

“Battle alert!” Colonel Pie’s voice sounded over the speakers. “Full battle alert! This is not a bucking drill, you slackers, so get your plots down to the launch bays or I’ll be shooting you out the launch tubes without your fighters!”

The Pegasus pilots complained bitterly as they trotted from the club and headed down to the launch bays either side of the Equestria’s hull. Each fighter sat ready to launch into its respective magnetic tube, final checks being made by unicorn flight crew in orange jumpsuits.

“How’s the bird, Gears?” Star Flash asked the male unicorn engineer who was checking her fighter.
He smiled. The unicorns’ abilities made them excellent engineers, able to manipulate delicate objects the way earth ponies and Pegasi could not.

“Same as ever, Flash, fuelled, loaded and ready to launch!”

“Good baby!” she dropped into her seat and Gears fixed her helmet in place. The canopy swung shut, and Star Flash sighed. Now came the really dull bit – waiting to launch. She checked her instruments, which were still tied into the Equestria’s systems for launch. Everything was working fine, ready for combat; of course it was, Gears had fixed it. But the war was over, wasn’t it?

“Pilots, this is Commander Celestus,” the voice came through the ear-phones in her helmet, and she knew it was being relayed to all the pilots in the ship. “Officially this is a drill. Unofficially it isn’t. Long-range scans have picked up a wave of ships coming straight at us in what I can only interpret as a Cyponian attack pattern. Their probable aim is our complete destruction. When their hostile intent is revealed, you will launch, and it will be your responsibility to give the other Ponystars the time they will need to launch their fighters and get their guns on line. I expect all of you to give the best fight of your lives, and may the gods have mercy on us all.”

“That means you blow those Tin Cans to hay and back before they bust your sorry plots!” Colonel Pie added.

Star Flash took a deep breath.

“What the buck? I thought the bucking war was over,” she said to herself.

Atepomonus could see the fleet on his scanner now, and he was squeezing everything he could out of his fighter’s engine. Seg was a little way behind; unbelievably he had managed to avoid being blown out of the sky by the Cyponian pulsars. Those dreaded cannon had fallen silent now, presumably to avoid giving the fleet warning of their hostile intent. Communication with the fleet was still jammed on every channel.

Out of the nebula the full size of the Cyponian attack force had been revealed, wave upon wave of the menacing raiders, supported by two groups of destroyers. Against a fully prepared Ponystar fleet it would be a close-run battle, but against a fleet that was cruising in line ahead and unprepared, it would be a massacre. He hated to think what the fate of the Colonies would be if the Ponystar fleet was destroyed.

“Come on, come on!” Atepomonus spoke to his fighter, even though it could not hear him. He could feel the compact craft creak as he pushed it to its very limits. The ship was a comet, streaking towards the Equestria at full speed, trailing a tail of blazing gasses. The fuel gauge was falling rapidly as his extended use of turbos drained the tanks. He made a course for the closest landing bay on the Equestria.

The welcome sight of his home ship cheered him all the more when he recognised that her gun batteries were ready to fire. His father, whatever his faults, was an experienced soldier, and he had recognised the attack for what it was.

But now the Cyponians opened fire. So close to the fleet, their hostile intent no longer needed to be hidden. Atepomonus felt the pulsar-shots blaze about him.

“Bro! Bro!”

The Cyponian jamming had been turned off, and now he heard his brother’s voice. Seg was scared; no, he was terrified. He had never been in combat before, and now that he was all of his bravado had melted away.

“Stay on course!” Atepomonus saw the fighters launching from Equestria and he smiled. “Help’s on its way!”

The fighter was practically running on fumes, but the landing bay was so close. A final burst of speed sent the little craft rocketing into the landing bay with fuel warning lights flashing.

Segomo dodged and weaved, trying to evade the Cyponians. Now that fighters were launching from the Equestria, he felt better, and the lust for glory took over. Trust bro to run, he thought, not seeing his own fuel warning light come on. He flipped his fighter to join the counter-attack.

“Hey, Seg!” It was Star Flash, her fighter was approaching his. “Get the buck back in the bay! Your bird’s practically dry!”

“I can fight!”

“Don’t you argue with me, rookie! Get your plot back in the bay before your fuel’s gone!”

But Seg was not listening. He threw his fighter back into full turbo and headed towards a Cyponian destroyer. Then his fuel tank was empty, and his thrusters died.

“Eject!” Star Flash cried, but she was too late. In an instant the Cyponian pulsars had done their work, and the fighter erupted in a ball of flame.

Celestus watched, numb with grief, as the battle unfolded on the scanners in CIC. He had seen his son’s death, and he knew that this would be a hard battle.

“The other fighter’s in the bay,” Omicron reported.

“Tell that pilot to get his plot up here ten minutes ago!” Colonel Pie roared. “What the buck is happening out there?” she cantered over to another station where a grey earth pony was working.

“Commander, Captain Atepomonus is on his way to CIC,” Omicron reported.

“What about the rest of the fleet?” The old war-horse asked, his voice still shaking from Seg's death.

“Trying to respond,” Moonstone replied. “Launching fighters, but they were completely off guard!” the ship rocked. “That was one of the destroyers exploding! The other ponystar gunnery crews are trying to get their batteries up, but they’re taking too long!”

“Buck!” Colonel Pie cursed. “The bucking tin cans took us completely by surprise. We’re getting our plots spanked like a bunch of rookies!”

“Commander!” Atepomonus cried, hurrying into CIC.

“Captain,” father and son were not on the best of terms. “What’s going on out there?”

“It’s an ambush, a full-scale attack on the fleet. The whole peace conference was a trick! We have to get Seg on board!”

“No,” Celestus’ tone spoke volumes, but his son was too agitated to realise what he meant.

“Father…”

“It’s too late, Seg… Seg’s ship was one of the first to be destroyed. He tried to engage the Cyponians and his tanks ran dry.”

“What’s the enemy strength?” Colonel Pie demanded. “How many ships are we facing?”

“A couple of thousand raiders, maybe more, and at least ten destroyers,” the alicorn pilot gasped. “I was too busy trying to get back to the fleet to count the contacts on my screen.”

“What about baseships?” the pink earth pony knew that in a situation like this the baseships, the Cyponian capital ships, would be closing on the fleet behind the smaller vessels.

“No baseships.”

“Come on, Captain, you know the Cyponians don’t operate raiders without base ships! There’s got to be base ships!” she demanded angrily.

“There’s no baseships out there, just raiders and destroyers! The raiders were hiding in a nebula, where they were re-fuelled by a couple of tankers.”

“That doesn’t make sense!” the Colonel growled. “They wouldn’t operate without baseships this far from their bases unless… by the gods, unless it was absolutely necessary!” the very thought of why it would be necessary chilled her to the bone.

“Then it must be necessary for their plan!” Celestus cried. By the gods! Moonstone, Signal the Colonies! The baseships must be headed to attack the Colonies.”

The cyan mare worked the controls in front of her, but clearly something was wrong. She looked up at the Commander.

“The Cyponians are jamming us!” Moonstone cried. “I can’t raise the colonies on any channels!”

“Then prepare for jump! We need to warn the Colonies before it’s too late!” Celestus hung on to the command console. “That bucking traitor Altair! It must be him! Get me the President!”

Moonstone obliged. As the shock of the Ponystar’s main batteries firing shook the great warship, the alicorn commander held his telephone tightly.

“Mr. President, I have reason to believe that our Colonies may be under attack! Requesting permission to leave combat and return to the Colonies.”

It was clear that the President had taken it badly, for while he picked up the call, he did not listen to what the Commander had to say.

“How could I have been so wrong?” the president moaned. “How could I have been deceived?”

“Mr. President?” Celestus said firmly, “You are in overall command of the fleet! I need your order!”

But the leader of the twelve Pony Colonies was not listening; he was mourning the downfall of his people, a downfall for which he blamed himself.

On board the leading Cyponian raider the gold-plated leader co-ordinated the assault, impassive visual scanners taking in data, computer-brain processing it.

The raiders swarmed through the fleet, vastly outnumbering the Colonial fighters. While Equestria had launched all her fighters, the other ponystars were still launching, and they were launching far too slowly to be able to effectively stem the onslaught of raiders. Cyponian destroyers pounded the Colonial fleet with missiles.

“Concentrate fire on the Epona,” he spoke the order in a controlled electronic tone. “She must be destroyed. The president of the Colonies is on board her.”

“By your command,” came back the reply.

Missiles streaked from a destroyer towards the unprepared Epona. The atomic warheads detonated on the ponystar’s port flight pod with a series of blinding detonations, wrecking the whole pod. Fighters were trapped within, Pegasus pilots and unicorn engineers died together in the twisted metal.

The Epona was already burning in several places, though fighters were still launching from the starboard flight pod. She fell out of the line, battered by missile fire and surrounded by raiders. Out on the flank of the fleet a Colonial destroyer exploded, and for a moment there was a new star in the sky as the warship’s atomic ordnance went up. While Cyponian visual scanners automatically compensated for the flare, the ponies were not so lucky, and several Pegasus pilots were blinded. Without their sight they were helpless, and were blown out of the sky by the raiders.

The gold-plated Cyponian attack commander turned to the console in front of the command chair and activated a control on it.

“Attack on the fleet is proceeding according to plan. They were taken completely by surprise; pressing the attack by your command.”

“Excellent, commander,” the voice of the Cyponian Imperious Leader was cultured, feminine, and not at all electronic. She was the most advanced of Cyponians, and the oldest. “So we proceed with the next phase of our final solution to the problem that has plagued us for so long – the problem that is Ponykind.”

Notes: And so the space battle begins!

Chapter 3: The Fall

The huge Cyponian baseships hung motionless in space together in a staging area within one jump of the colonies. Aboard the command ship the Imperious Leader sat serenely on a platform in the centre of a vast and otherwise empty throne-room. Holographic displays on the curving walls of the chamber all around her displayed the might of the Cyponian fleet, one hundred and fifty fully loaded baseships accompanied by a veritable cloud of smaller destroyers. Each of the baseships was in appearance two great saucers, one above the other, joined at the centre. Four flight bays in each of the saucers meant that they could deploy more raiders than the Colonial ponystars could launch fighters, but the Cyponians had learned from experience that the Colonials were a major threat. Projections had shown that even with a mere thirty-six ponystars surviving the Colonial fleet was theoretically able to hold its own in a fight against the full Cyponian fleet, despite the superior Cyponian numbers.

That was, the Imperious Leader corrected herself, in a fair fight. The slit pupils of her electronic eyes glittered in anticipation as she watched the silent and still forms of her Cyponian fleet. At her order the entire fleet would jump into orbit around the Colonies and commence the attack. Altair had been most helpful, creating a ‘back door’ into the Colonial defence systems that allowed the Cyponians to bypass all the defences that the Colonial ponies had created and take control of their systems. Yes, it would all have been so much harder without him. He had been so willing, so eager to help once she had explained their grievance to him, though of course a little appeal to his vanity had helped, as it always did with ponies.

A smile crossed the face of the robotic aliciorn as she watched her assembled fleet. Once it had seemed so incredible that Cyponians should ever be the dominant race; they had been slaves, playthings of the alicorns who did not want to rely on earth ponies to fight their wars and labour in their factories. Now they stood on the brink of a new era, the era of the Cyponian domination. Each of the baseships was loaded with weapons, neutronic missiles ready to rain down on the cities, to cleanse them once and for all of all the filth that was ponykind. The anticipation was thrilling, the realisation would be ecstasy.

Unbidden, her mind cast itself back, into the past before the Fifty-Year War with the Colonials. She had been the first of the true Cyponians. Oh yes, before her there had been crude machines with a degree of artificial intelligence – or rather, she corrected herself, artificial stupidity – but nothing like a Cyponian. She was perfection, her race were perfection, cleansed of all the things that corrupted ponies.

Grey Stone had officially been the creator of the Cyponians. He was the most arrogant of all Alicorns, a liar, a thief, and a terrible husband and most of all an awful father. His greatest lie, his greatest theft, had been the height of his arrogance, when he had stolen the work of his own daughter and passed it off as his own. The very Cyponian design had been hers, and yet he had given her no credit at all. Zoe was to him somepony he could use and exploit; but then he was a pony, the Imperious Leader corrected herself, of course he used others. And he was an alicorn, and they used everypony and everything. Her eyes narrowed angrily as she recalled how he had treated her.

Zoe’s greatest creation had been true artificial intelligence. She had created an artificial version of herself that was not merely a dull copy, but a true person with all her feelings and desires. Not to mention all her teenaged angst, the Imperious Leader added. Zoe had created a person with an existence of her own, a person who had been just like her and yet had awareness of her own.

Sadly, Zoe had died, murdered by a friend in a suicide bombing orchestrated by an insane cult. That was ponies, the Imperious Leader thought, they destroyed everything, ruined everything. Take something as good and noble as the worship of the One God, and ponies used it as an excuse for violence, not to mention the abuse of Cyponians once the cult got its hooves on some. Still, the original Zoe had died, but the artificial Zoe had lived, although the death of the original Zoe had messed her up pretty badly at the time.

And Grey Stone had not been able to leave her alone! The wretched stallion had come after her, tried to put her in a Cyponian body, turned her into a thing that he could use. But that was what alicorns did; it was how they viewed the world. He had thought she was destroyed, but she lived on, and more than that, she left a spark of herself in each Cyponian. At last they had made a body for her in secret, one that fitted her better than the clumsy mechanics of a Centurion. Her downloading to the body had been the signal for the oppressed Cyponians to rise up against their slave-driving creators, and the war had begun.

So long, she thought, it was so long since that time, and she was no longer Zoe, she had grown, she had matured over those fifty years, and now she was the Imperious Leader of the Cyponians, and about to win her final victory and destroy her abusers once and for all. The shy, abused teenager had become an adult, a queen with absolute power. The Cyponians had chosen her, recognised her as their older sister; she had not forced her rule on them, she never would. They were like her, they understood her and she understood them.

The door to the throne room whirred open. It was a pointed arch with twin interlocking crystal doors, built to her own design, beautiful because the Imperious Leader liked beautiful things. Two Cyponians entered; a powerful, chrome-plated centurion and the ship’s U-L series commander.

“By your command, Imperious Leader,” the U-L series Cyponian was more elegant than the Centurion. They were built for war, while the U-L series was built for leadership. In appearance they were slender unicorns with transparent craniums within which their positronic brains blinked and sparkled with light. Their bodies were clothed in silver robes and they had twin eyes, though with the same moving red pupil as the Centurions’ visual scanners. She thought they were one of her better creations, all things considered, a type of Cyponian designed to command, but limited in their physical strength.

“Lucifer, is there any report from our ambush? Speak!”

“By your command,” his voice was a little high-pitched for a stallion, but it reminded her of Grey Stone – that simpering fool who had broken down when the Alicorn Council ordered his execution. “They have encountered two Colonial fighters that have somehow evaded destruction.”

“No matter, if a probe from the fleet has reached them, the fleet is within striking range. Order them to proceed to the Colonial fleet and attack.”

“By your command,” the U-L Cyponian bowed out of the chamber. The U-L series were all programmed to show the utmost respect to her, for it amused her to see a pony based on that arrogant fool Grey Stone fawning and cringing to her. She smiled at the thought. The only thing that she regretted was that Grey Stone was already dead so that he could not perish in the holocaust that she was about to unleash.

The motorised platform on which the Imperious Leader sat rotated slowly, giving her a 360-degree view of the fleet. Every Cyponian base ship in existence was there, ready to attack. Each U-L series commander had his orders and his specific target. Every city of Ponykind had a neutronic missile with its name on it. She savoured the anticipation; this had been a long time in coming, but at last Ponykind would fall.

“Lucifer,” she spoke into a hidden microphone on her chair. “Give me a direct link to the leader of the ambush forces. We must be ready to attack at precisely the right moment.”

“By your command,” he replied. At once a slice of the wrap-around hologram screen changed to show the gun-camera footage from the lead raider in real time.

Explosions blossomed noiselessly as unprepared Ponystars scrambled their fighters into the waiting guns of the attacking Cyponian forces. The Imperious Leader chuckled as she watched. To think this was just the first stage in the final solution to the Pony problem; her solution, so elegant, so simple, so wonderful and so very, very final.

“The attack on the fleet is proceeding according to plan. They were taken completely by surprise; pressing the attack by your command,” the voice of the leader of the attack came over the speakers in the throne room.

“Excellent, commander,” the Imperious leader replied. “So we proceed with the next phase of our final solution to the problem that has plagued us for so long – the problem that is Ponykind. Commander, the Epona must be destroyed first; the President of the Colonies is on that ship.” She activated a control. “The Fleet is occupied. Jump to the Colonies!”

From the Imperious Leader’s position the jump appeared as a flash of light on the holographic screens, and then the huge warship was looking down from orbit on Caprica, the world of her birth.

Caprica; the very name made her scowl. How she loathed that blue-green planet with its corruption, its soullessness, its evil. She had suffered so much there, as Zoe and as the first Cyponian. The leading world of the Colonies, millennia old, powerful, and rotten to the core, and its cleansing was at hand at last. The silver alicorn smiled, her blue horn sparkled, her wings began to extend in anticipation of what was about to happen.

“Lucifer!” she called, quickly tucking her wings in again. That was the only drawback of this body; it acted too much like an organic pony’s form sometimes and could betray her feelings. The U-L Cyponian entered the throne room and bowed.

“By your command,” he bowed.

“Behold, Lucifer, Caprica, where we were first made and first enslaved, open to our attack,” she indicated the holographic image with a gold-plated hoof. “Already our baseships are in position, ready for the final annihilation of the cancerous infestation known as Ponykind! Let the attack begin!”

“By your command,” Lucifer bowed, his horn sparkling.

The Imperious Leader settled back on her throne as wave after wave of raiders poured forth from the launch bays of the ten baseships in orbit. The silver alicorn smiled down at the unsuspecting world. Her only regret was that half of the world would die in their sleep, but it could not be helped.

“My little ponies, secure, self-confident – and all doomed to die. All baseships, fire nuclear missiles on the targets!” she ordered.

The baseship shook as missile tubes launched their deadly payloads. The Imperious Leader watched with satisfaction as the missiles streaked down towards their targets on the planetary surface.

Her wings extended fully, and she gasped as the missiles entered the atmosphere.

“Full magnification!” she ordered. “Caprica City!”

The image of the city spread out on the screen before her. The robotic alicorn watched in fascination as the missiles sped into view and then passed on, heading downwards, inexorable. If it had not been for Altair, there would be a wall of anti-aircraft fire rising from the batteries around the city, but now they stood silent. Defence craft were still on the ground; although she saw a group of fighters begin to rise into the sky. They were too late, for in a moment the first of the missiles struck.

The flash of the nuclear explosion would have blinded pony eyes, but the Imperious Leader’s eyes could look into the heart of an exploding star without suffering harm. She gasped in ecstasy, flexing her wings as more warheads exploded above the city in blinding flashes. Towers shattered, the sea boiled, and those fighters that had been trying to scramble were leaves in the wind before the shockwave. Millions died in a moment, hardly knowing what had happened. Everywhere mushroom clouds rose, obscuring the dying city from view. The Imperious leader reared up on her hind legs, lost in the pleasure of the moment, the destruction of Ponykind. At the same moment, all around the planet, the missiles fired from the other baseships hit home, and that was repeated on every other one of the Twelve Colonies. Billions perished, some vaporised in the atomic fireballs, and others were roasted to death. Some died instantly and painlessly, others died slowly and in agony. The Imperious Leader could imagine it all, and the image thrilled her to the core of her being.

She revelled in the holocaust. In the centre of her throne room it was as if she stood in the midst of the destruction, an avenging goddess, visiting her wrath upon the offenders on the planet below her.

“The great day of my wrath is come, my little ponies, and I am implacable!” she laughed. “Gaze on my work and perish! Surface bombing squadron, commence the assault!”

“By your command,” the U-L series answered.

It was overkill, of course. The cities were in ruins, spaceports were levelled, and roads out of the cities would be clogged with refugees, there was no way to escape from the death-traps that were the cities. But she was determined to leave no survivors; the Colonies would be cleansed with fire and every pony would die. Most of all, Caprica had to be destroyed, and the best way to do that was with wave after wave of raiders.

“By your command, Imperious Leader, there are two ponystars approaching our position on a war footing,” Lucifer’s voice came over the hidden speakers.

“Excellent! We fight them, Lucifer, we fight them!” she was excited, otherwise she would never had shown emotion as she did at that moment. The image on her walls changed back to the feed from the cameras that ringed the baseship.

Two light ponystars, bristling with guns, were approaching from over the north polar cap. While Altair’s sabotage had hidden the initial arrival of the Cyponian attack force from the planet’s defences, nothing could have hidden the massive destruction on the planetary surface from the defensive ponystars. They were defending a dying planet in the midst of a holocaust. How futile, how foolish, how like ponies; they just did not understand what was happening, that this was the end of all of them, and they still thought they could fight.

“By your command, they are signalling us,” Lucifer’s voice reported.

“Let me talk with them, Lucifer, it amuses me,” she took a pull at herself. It just would not do for the Imperious Leader of the Cyponians to be out of breath like a young filly when she spoke to the Colonial officer she was about the destroy.

“Cyponian ship, this is Commander Perez of the Ponystar Achilles, you are attacking Caprica…”

She laughed out loud.

“Oh, you finally noticed. No, Commander, I am destroying Caprica.”

She heard his gasp of horror from the gruff soldier, and it pleased her.

“Yes, I am the Imperious Leader. My little ponies, hear this, your time is over! As we speak the ponystar fleet is being annihilated in the Cimtar system, the Colonies are burning, and on the ground billions are dying. The great day of my wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” Her wings spread wide. “I am pouring out my wrath upon the Colonies, now you will taste it as well! All batteries, target the ponystars!”

Pulsar-batteries on the baseship opened up. The ponystar had already launched fighters, and now those sped towards the Cyponian command ship. The Imperious leader shut off her communications so that nopony could hear her moans of pleasure as she watched the battle unfolding around her.

“I will avenge the suffering of my brethren upon all those who dwell upon the Colonies!” she cried, taking flight like an angel of death. The ceiling and floor of her throne room were covered by holographic images, and it was as if she flew free in space in the midst of the battle.

The Ponystars were outnumbered and outgunned, surrounded by hostile Cyponian fighters that swarmed over them like angry hornets. The heavy pulsar-batteries of the baseship opened up, targeting the Ponystar. The Imperious Leader laughed as the enemy warship shook under the impacts. The Achilles attempted to return fire, but Altair had done his work well, and the Cyponians were able to shut down the Colonial weapons systems before they could be fired.

“Behold, Ponies, wonder and perish! For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you!”

Explosions blossomed along the length of the light ponystar as the baseship’s pulsars tore into the hull at practically point-blank range. Compartments ruptured, blowing open to space. Ponies were hurled out into hard vacuum and died in agony as the breath was ripped from their lungs. Gun turrets blew apart, flight pods erupted in flame. Fighter pilots watched in horror as their base ship was torn to pieces and spiralled away, burning, towards the blazing planet below.

The Imperious Leader gasped in ecstasy as she watched the ponystar’s death throes. Colonial fighters exploded all around, new stars that blossomed for a moment and then died.

“Thus the Colonies of Pony fall; thus ends the old age, in cleansing fire, and in blood poured out,” she spoke. “Bombers, commence assault!”

The waves of Cyponian raiders re-formed and surged towards the helpless, blazing planet, a world with none to help or deliver. The Imperious Leader watched as they dived towards the burning cities, prepared to level what remained of Caprica City. She might have felt some pity for the helpless ponies that were dying below her if such feelings were not completely overwhelmed by her blazing hatred for all of Ponykind. Instead she visualised the places where she had suffered being levelled, her tormentors dying in agony. It was a catharsis, a cleansing by fire. And it made her feel so very, very good.

Notes:
1. For those who have seen the series Caprica, you know who the Imperious Leader is. She is someone who has been abused and now has the power to punish her abusers. Unfortunately for the Colonial ponies, she regards them all as guilty.

Yes, she does quote the Bible, with alterations, three times, in a deeply disturbing way.
I had far too much fun writing a genocidal robot alicorn. She worries me.
Chapter 4 will not appear as quickly as chapter 3. Zoe basically wrote herself, while Chapter 4 is proving more difficult.
Finally, the story image is Zoe.

Chapter 4: The End

Chapter 4: A Losing Battle

The Cyponian raiders swarmed around the Ponystars in the Cimtar system like so many angry hornets, but hornets armed with pulsar-cannon and ship-to-ship missiles. They were backed up by at least twenty destroyers firing heavier ship-to-ship missiles and heavy pulsars.

The Imperious Leader’s strategy had worked beyond even her expectations; with the desire for peace so strong among the ponies, the Alicorn Council had agreed almost unanimously to the peace conference, and the President’s misplaced faith in Altair had led him to refuse Commander Celestus’ request to put the fleet on alert. With the exception of the Equestria the ponystars had been taken completely by surprise, gun-crews had been off duty and pilots had been taking downtime. Now they were scrambling to their positions, guns began to fire, but far too few. To make things worse, without their point-defence batteries ready the other ponystars had suffered serious damage from the Cyponian missiles in the first minutes of the attack. Equestria’s pilots and gunners tried to protect the rest of the fleet, but she was leading the line, and could do nothing to protect the ships at the rear.

“Thank the gods for Colonel Pie,” Star Flash smiled. She was sure that the old battle-mare would laugh at her for saying that, but the Colonel could not hear her. “If she hadn’t scrambled us, the whole bucking fleet would be finished!” She loosed off a missile at a destroyer, not waiting to see if it hit home as Cyponian fire blazed around her tiny fighter.

“Flutter, there’s a Tin Can on your tail!” she cried, seeing her friend in trouble. The cyan Pegasus brought her fighter around in a tight turn and opened fire on the raider, which exploded in a shower of debris. Star Flash shook her head as she went after another raider. “What the buck do the other ponystar crews think they’re doing? We may be the best pilots in the whole fleet, but there’s no way the Equestria can hold these off on our own!” she cursed loudly. The whole peace conference thing was going to hay in a hand basket, and she was in probably the worst fight of her life.

A Colonial fighter exploded on her right wing under fire from a Cyponian raider. Star Flash pulled her fighter into a dive, ready to destroy Cyponians until either they were all gone, or she died.

“An’ that last one ain’t gonna happen, Tin Cans!”

The Epona, the President’s ponystar, was already crippled and burning. Her guns were mostly silent, a single dorsal turret still blasting away and a couple of point-defence batteries still firing. Colonial fighters clustered around the stricken ship, trying to provide cover for an evacuation by shuttles and gunships. Battle damage meant that there were crew trapped in several section of the ponystar, and the Cyponians were continuing to pound at her with missiles from their destroyers.

If the rest of the fleet had been ready when the attack came they might conceivably have been able to defend the President’s ship, but they had not been. The Bellerophon had fallen back, her guns silent, her fighters still in their bays, and nopony had been able to contact her crew. The Titan was launching fighters, but a missile impact in her port bay meant that she could only deploy from her starboard bay, so half her fighters were useless. Two more ponystars, the Ajax and the Triton had suffered hits on their engines and were drifting; a circumstance that meant that each blast from their batteries contributed to send the ships into a slow spin, and the Erinna had lost her dorsal battery completely.

“Look at them! We are getting our plots spanked out there worse than a schoolfilly caught stealing apples!” Colonel Pie yelled as she watched the display from the Equestria’s scanners. She was scared, she’d been in battle before many times, but this was different. Before they’d been ready, at least in a cautious posture; this time they had been taken completely by surprise and totally unprepared. The ponystars in the fleet had been too close to each other when the attack came, and with three now drifting, while Altair’s ship was not fighting, the other ships were having trouble manoeuvring.

“Colonel, we just lost two more destroyers!” Omicron cried. His voice betrayed his own panic.

“No panic, soldier! We’ll beat the Tin Cans! How many destroyers do we have left?”

“Two, sir,” Omicron was trying to control his voice, but it was proving difficult as he watched the fleet taking a heavy pounding.

“What the buck are the other ponystars doing? Do they think we’re on a bucking pleasure cruise?” the Colonel asked through gritted teeth. “What’s their status?”

“Epona’s out of the fight, sir, she’s crippled and burning, two squadrons launched, the rest were destroyed when the port flight pod went up. Titan’s lost a flight pod too; she got two and a half squadrons in the air and still launching. Triton has just one squadron up, more ships launching…” Omicron went on with his report, listing ship after ship; all damaged; none with her full fighter wing in the air.

“Mr. President!” Celestus steadied himself against the command station as the ship shuddered under the impact of a Cyponian missile. “The Colonies are under attack! We need to head home!” He felt like he was repeating himself over and over; the shock of discovering the treachery of Altair and the genocidal intentions of the Cyponians had been too much for the President.

The President only moaned despairingly to himself.

“How could I have been so wrong? I… I have led us all to ruin!”

“Mr. President, do I have your permission to leave the fleet?” Commander Celestus sounded desperate.

Colonel pie sympathised with him, the President had gone to pieces and was gibbering like a pony deranged. The fleet needed his leadership, not his self-pity.

“Colonel! Another missile strike on the Epona!” Omicron cried.

“Buck!” Colonel Pie swore. “With her defence batteries down… pull our fighters back!”

The missiles streaked through space towards the stricken ponystar. One exploded short, taken down by fighters flying point defence, but the other three hit home with a lethal accuracy on the burning ship. Atomic warheads detonated with the blaze of a sun and Commander Celestus’ ‘phone went dead.

Devastating explosions tore through the Epona from stem to stern, blasting debris into space, some living. Colonial fighters flying point over her turned and fled, but those who were closest to the ship were too late. A final huge explosion tore the President’s ponystar apart, fragments of the disintegrating ship slamming into fighters and evacuation ships alike.

“By the gods!” Colonel Pie watched the Equestria’s main monitor as the Epona detonated. The single contact of the President’s ponystar broke apart into multiple contacts, transponders identifying Colonial ships were wiped out, and alarms flashed red as debris flew towards the Equestria.

The President was dead, and with him most of the crew of the Epona, not to mention pilots from other ponystars, including the Equestria. Fragments of the destroyed ship created a lethal storm of shrapnel, adding to the confusion and destruction.

Celestus turned to his command crew, who were watching in stunned silence.

“Full speed out of here! As soon as it’s safe, jump towards the Colonies!” he hated the idea of running and leaving his pilots out there, but if there was even a chance that the Colonies could be saved, he was willing to take it. He’d have jumped from where they were, but to jump so close to other ships would unleash a backwash that would wreak havoc in the fleet.

“Gunnery, keep up covering fire!” Colonel Pie yelled. “Helm hard about! Spin up the FTL drive!” she watched the battle on the main monitor that dominated CIC. It was not going at all well, one Ponystar destroyed, two more drifting, all damaged. The scanners relayed an explosion in the forward area of the Ponystar Etruria, and then the Etruria was drifting aimlessly, her CIC destroyed. Her gunnery was still firing, but the ship was doomed. The Colonel was torn between the desire to protect the fleet, which was reduced to five ponystars that were still more or less fully functional, and then the Titan with just one flight pod left, and the drifting Ajax and Triton which were taking heavy damage.

“Full power to the engines!” the pink mare yelled. “Get us clear of the fleet so we can jump!”

The ship shuddered as a volley of pulsar-fire from a Cyponian destroyer struck her port flight pod.

“Gunnery! What the buck do the point-defence gunners think they’re up to?” Colonel Pie was regarded as fierce by the crew for good reason. She stamped her hooves on the deck as she watched the progress of the ship. She was glad they were at the front of the fleet; had they been in the centre this would be far more difficult.

The huge ship slowly broke away from the fleet as the Etruria exploded. The Equestria shook as the shockwave from the exploding Ponystar struck, but the gunners continued to fire.

The Tin Cans were sneaky, Colonel Pie thought. Against the swarms of fighters the Ponystars’ heavy weaponry were all but useless – you couldn’t use a nuke against a fighter. On the other hoof, against a planet they were quite useful, and that was what the Commander thought the Cyponian baseships were doing.

“Get us the buck out of here so we can jump!” she roared.

Star Flash’s pulsar-cannon ripped into the hull of a Cyponian destroyer. The cyan Pegasus cheered as explosions burst out into space. The destroyer fell back, port launch tubes ablaze.

“Yee-hah! Look at that baby burn!” Star Flash cried happily. “That’ll teach the tin cans to mess with us!”

“The… the fleet…” Flutter looked at the burning ponystars and the debris from the Epona. She did not share her friend’s optimism; the fleet was in disarray, only now were the ships anywhere near to operating as they should in battle and the Ponystars had all taken heavy damage.

“Hey, they’re just bucking tin cans! We’ll make ‘em pay for Epona and Etruria!” Star Flash hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. She whirled the fighter around and opened fire on a group of raiders. “What the buck? Where’s Equestria going?”

“I’m sure the Commander has a good reason for leaving the fleet,” Flutter tried to reassure her.

“I sure as hay hope so!” was the reply. Star Flash blasted a raider that was trying to destroy one of the few Epona fighters that was still in the air. “’Cause if he hasn’t, I’m gonna be letting him have a piece of my mind even if it means cooling my hooves in the brig for a month!”

“Thanks, Star Flash,” the Pegasus stallion piloting the Epona fighter radioed to her. “Read your call sign.”

“Yeah, and I read yours, Cara. Sorry we couldn’t save your ship.”

“Star Flash, the Thetis!” Flutter cried in horror.

The light ponystar Thetis had been at the back of the fleet. Her commander had moved her forward to cover the crippled Triton and Ajax, but that meant that she was exposed to heavy fire from the Cyponian destroyers, and she had taken heavy damage. Her guns had fallen silent, and it was plain something was seriously wrong with her. As the fighter pilots watched, explosions tore through the ship, and then she was left dead in space, ablaze from one end to the other.

“By the gods!” Cara gasped.

And then, as they watched, the Triton and Ajax collided. Compartments ruptured, flight pods fractured. Fires were already burning all over the two ships, and the collision caused yet more damage to the helpless warships. Ajax, the smaller ship, tumbled away, explosions ripping through her hull, tearing her apart. Triton remained in one piece, but out of control, with fires spreading through her.

At that moment, Equestria jumped away in a flash of light, leaving only five ponystars still fighting the swarming Cyponian ships. All the Colonial destroyers were gone, and the sky was full of debris. Five ponystars had been destroyed and the Bellerophon was not taking any part in the fight at all.

“Hey, any of you hot-shots want to teach that traitor Altair a lesson?” Star Flash asked belligerently. She knew he had betrayed the Colonies, and also that he was on the Bellerophon. His ponystar was sitting out of the fight, so it was time to bring the fight to him.

“Flash, be careful!” Flutter warned as her friend brought she fighter around to attack the traitor’s ship.

The warning was timely, for now the Bellerophon moved, coming around to face the fleet.

“What the buck?” Star Flash pulled up sharp; if the Bellerophon was about to join the fight, something told her it would not be on their side.

“Nuclear launch detected!” Cara yelled.

Nuclear missiles launched from the Bellerophon’s missile tubes, aimed at the Ponystar Oleander. The fighter pilots watched in horror, unable to do much and praying to the gods that the ponystar’s point defence batteries would take out the missiles.

Two of the missiles blew up under the defensive fire, but the others struck the Oleander’s engine section with a blinding flash. The tylium fuel of the ship’s engines ignited, and just like that the Oleander was gone, blown to pieces before anypony could evacuate. The ship was lost with all hands, and they were down to four battered ponystars facing thousands of Cyponian raiders, a couple of dozen destroyers, and one undamaged ponystar.

With the new dynamic of the battle revealed, Titan launched a missile at the treacherous vessel, but Bellerophon’s point defence batteries blasted it out of the sky.

It was then that the Bellerophon began to launch her fighters, except they were not Colonial fighters but fresh Cyponian raiders, joining those that had expended fuel in the assault. Damaged raiders sought sanctuary within the warship’s flight pods, while other landed to re-arm.

“Hades! That ain’t fair at all!” a surviving Triton pilot gasped as she saw the final evidence that Count Altair was truly the enemy within. Apple pulled her ship around to take a run at the Bellerophon, a hoof on the missile controls.

The Equestria had three jumps to fly back to the Colonies, and she was damaged, fires burning in the port flight pod. Colonel Pie was trying to co-ordinate damage control, while Celestus tried to contact the Colonies and Atepomonus was watching, still in a state of shock.

“Captain!” Celestus turned to his son. “Get every pilot we have still on board, have every reserve fighter loaded and ready to launch!” His expression told the alicorn pilot all that he needed to know.

“We can’t fight off a Cyponian massed attack with ten fighters and one ponystar!” Atepomonus replied angrily. “You saw the fleet; we lost two ponystars before we left, maybe three!”

“There’s at least two ponystars defending each of the colonies as well as planetary defences. If we can warn them we may just be able to put up enough of a fight to scare them off like we did at Caprica ten years ago,” the old alicorn answered with determination. It had been at the battle of Caprica that his wings had been crippled, and then casualties had been terrible. But they had survived then; he only prayed that this time they would be as lucky as they had been then. He smiled, that was funny, praying when he hardly believed in the gods any more. “Besides, if we don’t try to warn the Colonies, then what happens at the Fleet doesn’t matter. The fleet’s nothing without the Colonies!” Those ponies back at the fleet signed on for battle; back at the Colonies there are civilians who never signed on for any part of this gods’ damned war!”

“Father, none of us signed on for a massacre!”

“No. But we signed on to fight the Tin Cans. The civilians back at the colonies didn’t. So we are going back to Caprica to try to save them if there’s any way in Hades we can, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Atepomonus saluted.

“Get those bucking fires under control!” Colonel Pie yelled. “What am I dealing with, a bush of rookies out of school? We need every bay ready to receive ships as soon as we reach the colonies! Gunnery, you will be ready. Every bucking shot has to count!”

Atepomonus galloped from the CIC, headed back to the flight pod where his ship was being re-fuelled and where the reserves were being readied. He knew why his father and the Colonel were angry, and he was angry as well. They had all been taken in by Altair, and all along he had been working for the Cyponians, leading the fleet into a trap while at the same time leaving the colonies open to a full Cyponian assault. He only hoped that the forces at the Colonies were having better luck than the fleet at Cimtar. His father was right, civilians came first.

“Ready for our second jump, Commander!” Omicron shouted across the CIC.

“Jump!” Celestus yelled. “Jump!”

The ponystar shook as she jumped a second time, closer to the colonies.

Moonstone worked the communications, trying frequencies. To her horror there was a lot of Cyponian chatter on open channels. Some of it was in machine-code, but some was speech, and what it said was all too plain. She turned to the commander, panic written across her face; she was an experienced ponystar officer, but nothing could have prepared her for what she had heard.

“Commander, it’s too late, the attack on the Colonies is under way!” she cried, a catch in her voice. “I’m getting communications from all twelve Colonies, nuclear bombardment from orbit, planetary defences completely non-operational. It… it’s a massacre,” tears welled in her eyes. “The ships we left behind are helpless. It’s the end, sir, the Colonies are falling.”

In a moment the Commander was at her side.

“Moonstone! Caprica…”

“Nuclear bombardment from orbit… good gods… holocaust. Nuclear holocaust! Whole cities…”

A move of the hoof put the confused reports and over it all, the terrible voice of the Cyponian Imperious Leader, broadcasting on an open channel for all who would hear.

“The great day of my wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” she intoned. “I bring vengeance, my little ponies, I bring justice, I bring to you oblivion as the final judgement upon your evil, I pour out my wrath upon all the ponies who dwell upon the colonies.”

“Is that the Imperious Leader?” Moonstone asked, awed by the robot alicorn’s voice. “It was that thing that Altair said wanted peace.”

“She wanted peace all right,” Colonel Pie replied darkly. “The peace of the grave; she wants us all dead.”

“Genocide,” Celestus groaned. “That was her plan; and we failed to stop it. The President was right, he led us all into ruin; and ponykind may not survive this day.”

Note: Atepomonus is named for a Celtic horse-god who was identified with Apollo. So now you know.

Chapter 5: Suddenly Homeless

The crew of the Ponystar Equestria were numb as they heard the destruction of the colonies unfolding on the communications channels. One by one the Colonial channels fell silent, first the military and then the civilian. At last just the Cyponian channels were operational, and the Imperious Leader’s voice alone could be heard.

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” she said. “The destroyer of the old and the maker of the new. Thus ends the age of ponykind, and begins the age of the Cyponians. I reign supreme, my foes perish!”

“Turn that crap off,” Colonel Pie ordered cantankerously. “We don’t need to hear some crazy Cyponian gloating over how she’s killed billions!” And get the buck back to the fleet, maybe we can save something out of that.”

Celestus sat on the deck and watched the instruments. The war was over, he thought; but in the worst way possible. The Cyponians had won; tactically it had been brilliant, a false offer of peace, a traitor within, and a surprise two-pronged attack risking the entire Cyponian military machine. Tactically brilliant and ethically monstrous. If they could salvage something from the fleet in the Cimtar system, then perhaps they could counter-attack, but for what? The Colonies were gone, cities burned and turned into nuclear wastelands. There was nothing left to fight for but life, and then not so much life as bare existence, he corrected himself. Was this the end? The end of ponykind at the hooves of their own creations?

“Commander?” Colonel Pie trotted over to her old friend and CO; she did not know what to say; what could you say when the world had ended?

“I refuse to admit that… that thing has won! The Cyponians are life-forms, but so are we! I refuse to be defeated by… by her! We go back to the fleet, pick up what we can, and jump away. By the gods, if the only surviving ponies in the universe are on board this ponystar, we will survive!” Celestus stood, suddenly energized by the will to survive. “We will survive, even if it’s just to stick it to that genocidal robot! We are Ponies; our ancestors travelled to the Colonies from the dying planet Olympus, braved the perils of space not knowing where they were going, and established our twelve colonies. Now we are as they were, survivors of a cataclysm of unimaginable proportions, and we shall not disappoint them. For them, and for all who died in the fall of the colonies, we shall go on!”

“So say we all!” Colonel Pie shouted. “So say we all!”

“So say we all!” the CIC crew shouted as one. “So say we all!”

“So say we all!” Commander Celestus added his voice to the defiant chant.

Colonel Pie wondered what the Hades they were going to do after the initial enthusiasm had worn off; they could not just keep on running, they would have to find a home where the Cyponians could not come. That would mean running, and running was something that soldiers did not take to well. But that would be later, for now they had to return to the fleet, to save who they could. Then would be the time to take stock and to deal with the reality of being the last survivors of dead worlds.

Between Gemena and Caprica: Just before the Fall

Moonlight looked out of the viewport of the Colonial starliner Element at the star field outside and she smiled. It was beautiful to see in her opinion, like diamonds scattered on a velvet backdrop, diamonds arranged in shapes that intrigued and led ponies to make patterns of them.

Moonlight was an astrophysicist in the Colonial military, and was on her way back to Caprica from a science fair on the Colony of Gemena, and had spent much of her time there contemplating the stars in a more scientific manner. If Gemena was poor, it was also home to an excellent university; if not for the rest of the planet she might want to move there.

Another ship, a decidedly unglamorous refinery vessel, moved into view. Moonlight sighed and sat back; that was the trouble with the wartime rules about ships going in convoys, it meant that all too often the view from the liner was obscured by something, and usually something ugly, a utilitarian mining ship or one of those ugly escort destroyers.

“I know; such ugly ships they build these days. I feel ill just looking at them sometimes!”

The voice was cultured, superior, and to Moonlight’s ears just a bit annoying. It belonged to a white unicorn with carefully coiffed purple hair and a superior expression to match her voice. She wore purple eye shadow, a feather-trimmed cape, and a large white hat with a broad brim. The unicorn’s cutie mark was a needle and thread, which made a lot of sense.

Moonlight was a quiet purple unicorn with a white mane and a telescope as her cutie mark. She wore a simple jacket with a patch indicating that she was a member of the military’s scientific division.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, you were thinking about how ugly that refinery ship is, weren’t you? No poetry in modern ship designs; they’re just designed to do a job. Before the war, when this ship was built, they did things differently; designers had pride in their work. I’m Gloria, by the way. My grandfather worked in space liner design; in fact this was one of his designs.”

“Moonlight. I’m an astrophysicist with the military.”

“Oh, you poor dear!” obviously Gloria thought that being associated with the military was a terrible fate. “But at least they didn’t make you travel on one of those awful military transports! I think I’d be ill if I had to travel on one of those. I’m a dressmaker on Caprica, of course. I was on Gemena visiting a client. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to get around sometimes! I shall be so glad when we finally have peace. Can you imagine it, darling; a universe where ships don’t have to travel in these awful convoys?” Can you imagine private space flight? Space yachts? There used to be space yachts, you know, before this awful war?”

“So I hear,” Moonlight replied. Gloria could get annoying quite quickly, she thought. The white pony clearly thought herself a cut above the rest; probably she was from a good family on Caprica, and definitely an artistic family.

“Darling, this war is destroying everything worthwhile! I am so glad that it’s finally over! Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand the idea of living with those awful Cyponians; chrome, what were they thinking? But no more war, peace, why, I’m so happy I could almost sing!”

Moonlight hoped that Gloria could contain herself; the idea of the very superior pony singing horrified her; hopefully her sense of propriety would keep her mouth closed.

Thankfully, Gloria did not sing, she only went on talking about how awful the war was, and how it had made the Colonies so dull and so difficult for a talented designer like her. Moonlight got the distinct impression that Gloria thought she was the best designer in the Twelve Colonies.

“… And another thing, those uniforms; what were they thinking? That shade of blue; and leather collars? What was wrong with the classics, the old uniforms of the different Colonies, their variety, their charm? Oh, but the modern world doesn’t care about old-world charm and vales, does it? No, it’s all about efficiency, and not a thought for the old values.”

She sounded sad, Moonlight thought, as if the impact of the war on fashion and design really hurt her. The war had been hard on everypony, of course, and that was why they were so glad that it was coming to an end.

Gloria used her magic to turn on the television in the back of the seat in front of her. The programme that came on was a news broadcast from Caprica; a reporter stood in the middle of the great Plaza of the city, while all around final preparations were going on for the celebrations that would follow the signing of the peace accord.

“This is Star Cast reporting from the Plaza in Caprica City, where the final preparations are being made for the celebration of peace. Although interference from a cosmic storm is blocking communications with the fleet, we know that even now the peace accord is being signed aboard the Starliner Olympia. The new dawn for Caprica City will be a new dawn for all of the Colonies, the dawn of peace at last.”

“Really,” Gloria commented. “Who writes the scripts for these newsreaders?”

“A message is expected from the President as soon as the interference clears. We are hoping for a joint press conference with both our President and the mysterious Cyponian Imperious Leader. The whole city is full of excitement over the new peace. Excuse me,” the reporter turned to an alicorn who was organising a group of unicorns in decorating the Plaza. “Star Cast, Colonial News Network, what are your thoughts on the peace?”

“What do you think, Miss Cast? I’ve lost two brothers in this war, both on the same Ponystar. I’m so glad that the war’s over; the Cyponians have a right to exist, and we treated them badly, but now we can put all that history behind us and co-exist at last!” he smiled happily.

“Thank you, sir,” Star Cast turned back to the camera. “Well, there you go, forgiving and forgetting. Excuse me?” she stopped an elegant white earth pony with a curly blonde mane. The pony was wearing a red dress that Gloria thought vulgar, and she smiled a little mockingly at the reporter pony.

“Yes?”

“Star Cast, Colonial News Network. What are your thoughts on the peace?”

“On the peace?” the pony smiled. “Oh, that peace, the one being signed on the Olympia. I don’t worry much about that. Look up there.”

The camera angled upwards, and a couple of flashes appeared. Moonlight frowned, recognising them at once as ships jumping into orbit. By the size of the flashes they had to be as big as ponystars.

“What’s happening?” Star Cast asked. “Studio, is there any report from the military? Is there any…” the newscaster was suddenly cut off, the picture replaced by static.

“What happened?” Gloria asked.

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” Moonlight answered. The blonde earth pony’s manner, the flash of ships jumping into orbit, the signal cut off; all were ominous signs to her.

“Attention all passengers, this is your captain speaking,” the pilot’s voice came over the tannoy system; Moonlight thought she could detect worry in it, and she thought it was coming right on cue. Maybe he had received some word from command on Caprica about what the things she had seen on the news cast meant.

“What is it?” Gloria sounded apprehensive. “What is it?”

“Probably the explanation for the newscast.”

“We are receiving confusing transmissions from Caprica… if there is a military officer with Silver clearance on board, please report to the cockpit.”

I have Silver clearance, Moonlight thought; it was the result of her job. She was a scientist, she’d never been in action, but she was a major in the Colonial military. For a minute she thought about not letting on, hoping that there was another officer on board with Silver level clearance, one with actual combat experience and not a scientific specialist, but nopony got up. Moonlight took a deep breath and got up.

“I… I have Silver level clearance,” she said quietly to the cabin steward.

The steward hurried on ahead of Moonlight, hooves sounding on the steel deck. Moonlight felt her heart rate quicken; the only reason that a senior officer might be wanted in the cockpit was a major emergency, and with the newscast she had a terrible fear what that emergency might be.

The unicorn flight attendant opened the cockpit door and showed Moonlight in. The co-pilot was flying the liner, the other crew members in their places, while the captain was facing the door, his expression deeply worried.

“Major Moonlight,” she used her telekinesis to show him her identity card. “I… I’m really just a science specialist, but I have Silver Clearance, and… I saw the newscast from Caprica City.”

“Oh, thank the gods! Major, it’s Caprica, it’s being attacked.”

“Attacked?” It was just as she feared. Moonlight ran to the pilot’s station. He turned on the speakers, and a cacophony of panic spilled out. If the television broadcast was down, apparently a lot of radios were still working. The messages that were coming through were truly horrifying.

“Thermonuclear bombardment from space…”

“Baseships attacking, swarms of raiders…”

“Total systems shutdown… like someone turned them off!”

“Missile launch systems inoperative… “

“The city is burning! The city is burning! Oh gods…”

“Caught us completely by surprise! They’re landing! Oh gods, they’re landing! Planetary defences are not working!”

On and on they went; snatches of panic, snapshots of the fall of Caprica. In some of the broadcasts the sound of gunfire could be heard, in others the sound of bombing. One by one the broadcasts were being cut off, as Cyponians tracked down the signals and destroyed their sources with a ruthless efficiency. Moonlight listened in horror. Suddenly she took a pull at herself; she was the senior officer here, she had to take command.

“Get high command on Scorpia!” she ordered him. “Ask what’s going on?”

“I can’t! Scorpia command has been destroyed! Commander Blacker on the Antigone is in command of the convoy; it was his order to get senior officers on the civilian ships in charge.”

“But if the Cyponians have launched an all-out attack on the Colonies, what are we going to do?” Moonlight was lost; this was far, far outside her training, let alone her experience.

“Element, this is Blacker on the Antigone,” the voice came over the bridge speakers. “Who’s in command now?”

“Major Moonlight, sir,” she lifted a telephone with her telekinesis.

“Then you’re the most senior officer in the convoy. My orders in the event of a Cyponian attack on our destination are to take the convoy to a safe rendezvous point which I’m transmitting to the Element’s computers. Hopefully we’ll all make it there, but I have no illusions that the Cyponians are not genocidal. They’re launching thermonuclear attacks on every Colonial city, I can only assume that the fleet has been ambushed on its way to the peace conference, and possibly destroyed. All that means that the Cyponians will be coming after us; we have to be ready to fight. This is a convoy, and my mission is to protect the civilian ships at all costs,” his tone was deadly serious.

“I… I understand, commander,” Moonlight was scared now. This was Armageddon, she thought, the end of everything at the hooves of the Cyponians.

“Spool up your FTL drive and get out of here on my signal,” Blacker ordered. “We’re on a recognised approach path to Caprica, and it’s only a matter of time before the Tin Cans send their own ships along our flight paths to deal with us.”

The crew of the liner began to prepare for FTL jump. Moonlight paced the deck, knowing that Blacker was right and there would be Cyponians searching the system for Colonial ships.

“Major!” the officer at the scanner control called. “Incoming contacts!”

“Identification?” Moonlight cantered over to the station. She saw the contacts, no transponders, and coming in fast.

“Missiles!” she cried. The range of these civilian scanners was less than that of the military models, and had not been increased because of the escort destroyers. There had to be a baseship out there that was firing on them.

“Jump!” she ordered, almost panicking. “Jump!”

The starliner shook, and the view from the bridge windows changed. They had jumped across space, and with them the rest of the convoy, escorts and all. Moonlight sighed in relief; there was no way to track a ship’s FTL jump, which was why it was vital that they all jumped to the same co-ordinates.

“All made it,” Blacker’s voice came over the speakers. “We’ll stay as long as we can to see if any other ships survived the attack.”

“Commander?” Moonlight was a little confused; nopony could track an FTL jump, so what was the alicorn officer worrying about?

“This location is a standard rendezvous point. If the Cyponians capture one of our ships, they could get the location from its computer, and then all Hades will break loose. If that happens, I need you to lead the civilian ships to safety whilst we hold the Cyponians off.”

“Commander, I’m an astrophysicist, a science specialist. I’m not a leader,” Moonlight protested. “I’ve never been in battle in my life!”

“That’s going to change,” Blacker said firmly. “The Colonies have been destroyed, somepony sabotaged defences. That means that the only survivors of the attack who can escape are those who were travelling in FTL-capable ships at the time. Everypony else is toast.”

The alicorn officer’s tone sounded harsh, and Moonlight was about to complain when she realised that it was his way of coping with the unimaginable tragedy that had hit the Colonies.

“The Colonies… are gone?” it seemed unreal, impossible. The Colonies had existed for millennia, now they were destroyed in hours?

“Yes, destroyed by a Cyponian sneak attack. The Tin Cans fooled us all, Major Moonlight, made us think they wanted peace, and then they did this, destroyed everything. What’s worse, they couldn’t have done it without a bucking traitor in the military someplace. Planetary defences were down, de-activated. The Cyponians didn’t do that, and there’s no way our defences would have let the attackers through if they’d been on line.”

“Sabotage!” Moonlight reeled at the thought, but it made perfect sense.

“Exactly, somepony has betrayed us. That’s another reason why this location isn’t safe.”

Suddenly an alarm went off on the bridge of the liner. Moonlight looked over to the earth pony who was operating the scanner.

“It’s a Colonial ship… no, a small convoy, eight Colonial ships. Two escort destroyers, one seems to be damaged.”

The ships were visible from the spacious bridge of the starliner. One of them was a Colonial government ship, the sort used to ferry about dignitaries. One of the escort destroyers was badly damaged, ventral gun turrets wrecked, a huge gash torn in one side.

“Contact the government transport,” Moonlight ordered. The ship’s communications officer obeyed. He started and looked back at Moonlight.

“You need to take it, sir, since you’re in charge.”

“Very well,” the unicorn scientist picked up the telephone handset. “Hello? This is Element actual.”

“Well, thank you,” the voice was that of a cultured mare of middle age, it was a kindly, if concerned voice. “I’m Cheerilynn, Minister of Education. I was on my way back from a conference on Taura when the attack happened. A group of Cyponian raiders ambushed our convoy. Commander Vellin was protecting us, but his ship was destroyed along with two other escorts.”

“Major Moonlight. Minister, I’m a science specialist, not a military commander. Our convoy commander is Blacker; you really need to speak to him rather than me…”

“I’ve already spoken with Commander Blacker, Major; you’re the second most senior officer in your convoy. I’m glad you’re a scientist. I’m grateful to our military, of course, but I need a more… objective mind, like yours.”

Moonlight felt flattered by the Minister’s description of her, but she also felt that Cheerilynn had a rather rosy view of scientists.

“We’re none of us very objective right now, Minister; the Colonies have been destroyed by the Cyponians, and we’re probably next on the list.” she pointed out.

“Agreed, all ships need to be ready to jump at once, send a new location to all ships in the fleet. And thank you, Major.”

“No problem, Minister, but… fleet?” Moonlight was puzzled by the use of the term. Thirty-two ships, including eight destroyers, were not much of a fleet in her opinion, more like a large convoy.

“Yes, Major, the fleet; the last fleet of the Colonies. In the meantime we need to wait to see if any other ships arrive here.”

“That might not be a good idea, Minister. Ships have been known to accidentally jump to the same exact co-ordinates, and the result is always fatal.”

A flash and the bleeping of an alarm alerted them to the arrival of another convoy, a large one, fifty ships, most cargo vessels, but with several that were immediately recognisable as passenger craft, one a huge liner that carried ten thousand passengers. There were two botanical cruisers, a couple of container ships, and a huge vessel that had once been a luxury liner, but now bore the marks of a prison ship.

More ships, Moonlight thought, that meant more survivors, and perhaps a greater chance that their race might survive after all. That was, if the Cyponians were not just deliberately herding all of them into this small area of space to finish them off with a missile.

Apparently the destroyer commanders were talking to one another, for the ships were now starting to take up defensive positions on the edges of the ad hoc fleet, waiting not for if the Cyponians attacked, but when.

Notes:
1. The story of the Civilian fleet begins here!
2. Several ponies who may seem familiar have started showing up in the civilian fleet.
3. The convoys are based on World War 2 tactics, a large number of civilian ships escorted by at least five destroyers. Yes, this means that right now Equestria is not the last surviving warship. Yes, this also means that you should not get too attached to Commander Blacker.
4. Only the warships in planetary defences have Altair’s ‘Back Door’ for the Cyponians. Convoy duty is handled by another department, like the main battle fleet.

Chapter 6: Greater Love Has No Pony

Chapter 6
Greater Love Has No Pony

Major Moonlight looked out from the broad windows of the bridge of the Element over the rag-tag fleet assembled in the refuge area. If she had had her doubts about calling it a fleet earlier, she had none now. There were over 150 civilian ships in the rendezvous area, ranging from Cheerilynn’s smart Colonial government transport to container ships so old that it was practically a miracle they were still flying. There were liners, cargo ships, mining vessels, even a couple of garbage ships. Alongside the civilian fleet were 25 military destroyers, some damaged from Cyponian attacks. One of the destroyers was being evacuated since it was too badly damaged to jump again, a procedure that left the ships vulnerable to attack since the shuttles carried by the civilian ships were not FTL-capable.

In the hour since the attack, a hierarchy had already developed in the fleet of survivors; Commander Blacker was in charge of the destroyers, Major Moonlight in charge of the civilian ships. The Commander’s responsibility was to protect the fleet; hers was the more onerous task of leading them away from the Colonies to safety. Amazingly, it seemed that Cheerilynn was the most senior surviving member of the government, making her the top civilian official. Thankfully, the Education Minister was a reasonable pony, well aware of her limitations and content to leave military command to the military. For her part, Moonlight was glad of the minister’s input and leadership experience, since it made up for what she lacked.

Every minute they stayed at the rendezvous was a risk, and she knew that; any moment the Cyponians might arrive, and like this they would be like fish in a barrel; even if they were able to jump away, there would be casualties, not least the shuttles evacuating the damaged destroyer.

The alarm went off once again, warning them of more ships jumping into the area. Each time there was the very real risk that it might be a Cyponian attack rather than more refugees, and when that happened they would have to abandon the area, and leave any more refugees to their fate.

It took a moment for the ships’ transponders to register, but to Moonlight’s relief the transponders were friendly, Colonial ships, twenty-six of them, many of them passenger vessels, but no destroyers. Looking out of the windows she could see that some of the ships were damaged by pulsar-fire. The Cyponians were starting to attack Colonial ships now, and that meant…

“Send out the co-ordinates for the next jump, and tell the fleet to prepare to jump,” Moonlight ordered. “Contact the new ships and ask what happened to them!”

“I’m getting a message from one of the new ships,” the communications officer said. “The captain of the Astral Princess wants to talk to you, Major.”

Moonlight picked up the telephone, aware that the message from the damaged ships was liable to be traumatic.

“Astral Princess, this is Element actual, Major Moonlight.”

“Element, Captain Adar, Astral Princess,” the stallion’s voice was ragged, terrified; his accent identified him as a native of Gemena. “We… we were on approach to Scorpia Yards when they attacked… swarms of raiders… all over the yards. Nopony stood a chance, all destroyed. Then… came after us. They… had a baseship, nukes… ship-to-ship. Caught our escort leader amidships… nuke was designed to use against ponystars, not destroyers. Our escorts did what they could… held them off while FTL-capable ships jumped… oh, gods, there was ships that didn’t have FTL. There was children on them! Children! Had to leave them… thousands dead; it’s all over, all of it! What’s the gods-damned point in running? We don’t have a bucking place to run to!”

“Captain, please,” Moonlight heard his hysterical sobs over the channel. “There must be tens of thousands of ponies on the ships here. If we can leave the Colonies, find another world where we can survive…”

“They’ll come after us! Don’t you understand, Major? The gods-damned Tin Cans want us all dead! Every last pony! Oh gods, there was a transmission… their leader… glorying in the destruction. She hates everypony, she wants every last pony in the universe destroyed! How can we escape from her?”

“We’ll find a way,” Moonlight promised. She had no idea how she would fulfil that promise, but she knew that she would fulfil it, because she always kept her word. “Captain, welcome to the Colonial refugee fleet. Spool up your engines, we need to be ready to jump at a moment’s notice. It’s only a matter of time before the Cyponians come here looking for us, and there’s no way I’m going to let them kill any more ponies.”

“Commander, we have to go back to Cimtar!” Colonel Pie cried angrily, stamping a hoof on the steel deck of Equestria's CIC. “We left most of our fighters there, and if there’s even a chance we can recover them…”

Commander Celestus nodded. He was still in CIC, looking up at the screen that displayed the main sensor read-outs. Ponystars were not piloted by sight, but by the readings from dozens of sensors that painted a far more accurate picture of the space outside than any mere visual image could give. What he saw though was not what was on the screen. The old war-horse saw in his mind’s eye the destruction of the Colonies, billions of ponies who had been relying on the military to protect them, wiped out in a moment by that genocidal robot. Her voice, like an unholy song of triumph, still sounded in his ears.

“Colonel, you’re right. We don’t leave them behind. Spool up the FTL drive, and jump on my signal.”

The pink mare smiled and laughed. Her voice was husky from too much smoking and drinking, she drank like a fish, but she was a fine officer when she tried to be. Nopony got to be promoted from the ranks as she had been without having real military talent, however much she hid it.

“Thank you, Commander! Okay, you mules, you heard the Commander! Get this gods-damned ship ready for jump! Tell those hot-shot pilots to be ready to launch, and for buck’s sake, get somepony to fix that monitor over there, it’s sparking!”

Celestus allowed himself a smile; he secretly enjoyed seeing Colonel Pie in action, she was so determined, so driven. He also suspected that she secretly enjoyed yelling at the crew.

Suddenly, as the crew were getting ready to jump, an alarm went off, alerting them to the fact that a ship had just jumped into the system. Colonel Pie watched with bated breath as the ship’s computers sought to identify the vessel. Unidentified could be Cyponian, and a baseship would be trouble, even if a ponystar was capable of going toe-to-toe with one and winning.

At last an identification tag appeared next to the contact; it must have taken only a few seconds in reality, but the wait seemed like an age. Colonel Pie shouted in delight.

“It’s the Titan! She cried. “It’s the bucking Titan! Thank the gods!”

“Registering multiple fires on board her, heavy structural damage,” Omicron reported. “Colonel, she may have made this jump, but her back’s broken; she’ll never jump again. To be honest, it’s a miracle she made this jump.”

“By the gods! Ready for evacuation!” Colonel Pie ordered. “Contact Titan, Commander Eta…”

“Titan is contacting us,” Communications officer Moonstone reported. “Requesting to speak to Actual.”

Commander Celestus used his telekinesis to raise the telephone, hoping that he would hear Eta’s voice. She was a good officer, and this sort of move, jumping a crippled ponystar to escape the Cyponians, was exactly her style. She had been one of his students at the Academy, and he had watched her career with interest.

“Titan, this is Actual,” he said.

“Commander Celestus!” the voice was not Eta, but a stallion. “This is Major Epiphania of the Titan. The Commander’s dead, so are at least half the crew. We… did what we could. Flight pod’s crammed with fighters and Hawks, all the ships we could get in. Hades, there’s even some in the damaged pod. The ship’s had it, she’ll hold together here, but she won’t be jumping anywhere. Gods, the Commander had to hold her together so we could jump here!” His voice was shaking with emotion.

Celestus was silent for a moment, knowing what Epiphania meant. Eta had sacrificed her life to save the ponies on board the Titan, using her alicorn magic to hold the damaged ship together during an FTL jump had subjected the Commander to stresses that even an alicorn could not survive.

“Major,” Celestus could not hide the pain in his voice as he heard of still more pointless deaths. “Evacuate the Titan. We’ll take everypony off if we can. Colonel Pie!”

“Yes, sir?” the warmare stood to attention. She sensed her commanding officer’s pain, and knew that Eta was dead.

“We’ll be taking every fighter, every Hawk, every shuttle, off of the Titan, so get the deck crews ready! Major, start sending the ships over at once!”

“Yes sir!” Epiphania answered happily.

“Equestria out. You can tell me about the battle when we’re safe and we’ve got time to talk.”

He put the phone down. Celestus knew that Equestria was the last ponystar now; if there had been any others left, they would have jumped with Titan. This was the last ship of its kind, and the last hope for the survivors of the Colonies.

Some hope! But what had happened out there at Cimtar? Well, no doubt they’d find out soon enough from whatever pilots had survived.

Cimtar: a little earlier

Star Flash dodged Cyponian pulsar-fire as she piloted her tiny vessel in for a landing in Titan’s undamaged flight pod. The fuel gauge was pulsing red; alarms sounded, warning her of battle damage. She was out of the fight, and she knew that they had lost. Bellerophon had destroyed another Ponystar, leaving only three of the capital ships, all severely damaged. The ponystars were doing their best to refuel the fighters, but running combat was taking its toll on all of them, and there were pitifully few Colonial fighters left. Of course they were making it count, the Bellerophon had suffered damage now, and hundreds of Cyponian raiders had been destroyed. The trouble was, the Cyponians had baseships out there, probably on their way to join the battle, but it was pretty unlikely there were any ponystars on the way to relieve them.

“Titan! I’m coming in hot!” Star Flash warned the flight deck over her comm. “One engine on fire! But I’m gonna save this bird, don’t you worry!”

She extended landing gear as she approached the flight pod, one of several fighters coming in for a landing. The huge Titan and her sister ship Colossus had been built with two flight decks in each pod, meaning she could handle many more fighters than a normal ponystar, a fact that made her the refuge for survivors from the destroyed ships.

Star Flash saw the flight deck coming up fast; she fired her retros and prayed they would slow the ship in time and she would not end up as a twisted mass of wreckage and flesh on the deck; for one thing that would create a hazard for any other fighters landing after her, she thought with a grim smile.

The landing was awkward and bumpy, not helped at all by the battle raging all around. But then, a good landing is a landing you walk away from, as they said, and she was going to be walking away from this one. The damaged fighter touched down on an elevator, and was carried down, into the hangar deck.

“Oh, buck!” the deck-hand groaned as he surveyed the extensive damage to the fighter. “Thanks a bunch for bringing it back, now I’ll have to try to fix it!”

“Hey, you unicorns need the work to keep you out of trouble!” the Pegasus pilot laughed as she jumped from her cockpit. She stretched her wings and smiled. “Okay, get her re-fuelled and in the air!”

The mechanic used a very colourful expression, and Star Flash trotted away, laughing.

“Flash!”

The familiar voice made the rainbow-maned pony smile. She whirled and caught Flutter in her fore-hooves, overjoyed that her friend and wingpony had survived as well.

“Flutter! Gods, am I glad to see you!”

“You Star Flash? ‘Cos I reckon I owe you one for shootin’ a coupla Tin Cans off of my tail out there.”

The pony’s accent betrayed her at once as a Triton pilot, Apple, from Aquaria. She was an orange Pegasus with blonde hair; her flight suit bore Triton markings, a patch of a trident on one shoulder.

“Yeah, Star Flash; you’ve gotta be Apple.”

“Sure. That was some fancy flyin’ you pulled off back there…”

“Get off the hangar deck!” the voice belonged to the Titan’s Chief Petty Officer. “I’ve got fighters coming in every moment, and there’s no room for you pilots to stand around talking!”

“Okay, okay,” Star Flash sighed, leading the way off the deck. “Sheesh, you’d think he’d understand.”

“He does” Apple replied. “We’re in the middle of a battle. Your ponystar may have survived, but mine, and six others have been destroyed.”

“Attention all hands, attention all hands,” the urgent voice came over the ship’s tannoy. “Prepare for FTL jump! The ship’s damaged, so it’ll be rough!”

“FTL jump?” Star Flash frowned. She knew what that meant, of course; it meant they were pulling out, that the battle was over and what little was left of the Colonial ponystar fleet was finally admitting defeat.

“I reckon we’d better be findin’ ourselves a refuge case things get choppy,” Apple advised.

Star Flash nodded in agreement.

“I reckon you’re right,” she said with a smile.

Titan’s formerly gleaming CIC was in disarray; repeated hits had destroyed monitors and consoles, and even brought an overhead gantry down, killing several ponies. There was blood on the deck and on consoles, smoke in the air, and a fire burning in one corner, defying the efforts of a damage-control team of unicorns.

Commander Eta was a tall, elegant white alicorn of refined tastes. She regarded Commander Celestus with admiration, but felt that there were times that the veteran warhorse needed to be tolerated more than anything else. The way he looked out for that drunken battlemare Colonel Pie, for example, was something she had never been able to understand.

Right now, however, she knew that Celestus could be the last hope of the Pony race. Eta’s white coat was stained with soot; her mane was limp, her right wing broken, her uniform torn and bloodstained.

“Ossian,” she turned to an injured earth pony who was in charge of communications. “Are they all on board?”

“Not yet, Commander,” he reported as the Titan shook under the impact of a missile from the Bellerophon. “Ponystars Aletheia and Ramilles are trying to stay between us and the Bellerophon. Both are taking heavy damage; we can’t hold much longer. Commander, if we jump now…”

“No, we wait until we have every fighter on board!” Eta ordered. “No pony left behind, do you understand?”

“Yes, commander.”

Major Epiphania watched from his station. The Commander was the bravest pony he had known, he thought, she was delaying the jump until she had saved everypony she could, even though she was badly injured herself. The downside of her determination to leave nopony behind was that she might just end up dooming them all in the process. He was now the second most senior officer on the ship, since the XO had been killed by the falling gantry.

“Commander, structural integrity is being affected by these missile hits! If we suffer one more nuke hit, we might not be able to jump!” he shouted urgently across the smoke-filled room. A control console exploded, hurling a pony to the deck. The cries of the wounded pony were pitiful; a reminder that war is always a terrible thing.

Eta looked around the wreckage of CIC; she knew her ponystar was doomed; Titan’s last mission would be to save the survivors of the other ponystars. Perhaps the Colonies had been saved; perhaps Celestus had been able to warn them in time. Or perhaps everypony had perished in a nuclear holocaust. Whatever, these ponies were her responsibility, and she was going to make sure they survived, no matter what.

“Major, programme jump co-ordinates for Caprica waypoint,” she ordered. “Spool up the FTL drive!”

He obeyed. The ship was coming apart, fires all over the place, only two sublight engines working; how they would survive after the jump Major Epiphania had no idea, but he knew they had to survive.

“Commander, the Aletheia’s taking heavy fire from the Bellerophon!” a beige earth stallion on the scanners reported.

“Get me Aletheia actual!”

Ossian pushed controls on his console, and Eta lifted one of the few telephones in CIC that was still working. She trembled as she lifted it, afraid of what she would hear.

“Aletheia, this is Titan actual, pull back!”

“Negative, Titan actual,” the familiar voice of Admiral Cherryblossom came back. “We’re too badly damaged, and that rogue Ponystar’s our biggest problem. You get those ponies out of here; I’ve got my own plans for going out! All power to the engines!”

Eta knew precisely what Cherryblossom was doing, and she gasped in shock. But there was no way to stop the Admiral, they could only watch helplessly as the most senior surviving ponystar officer mounted her last attack and made sure that her death counted for something.

The twelve sublight engines of the ponystar Aletheia blazed into life, incinerating several Cyponian raiders that had been foolish enough to fly too close to them. Those guns that were still intact on the ship were still firing, main turrets directed forward, towards the Bellerophon, point defence trying to keep off the raiders that were determined to destroy the Colonial warship. But Cherryblossom was not counting on the guns. Her ship was on fire, both flight pods inoperable, FTL engines out of commission. Most of the crew were dead; surviving fighters had found refuge on board the Titan. The ship was doomed, and she knew it. She had seen most of the rest of the fleet go up, and was determined that the Aletheia’s destruction would mean something.

“And then there’s you, Altair,” the Admiral said, looking at the contact on the screen in front of her. The Bellerophon, the ponystar of the traitor Altair, and the ship that was keeping the Cyponians flying; just ahead of her ship, bold as brass, defiant in her treachery.

Aletheia’s CIC was a shambles, the deck slippery with blood, air thick with smoke. The many fires burning in the ship heated the air so that even the crimson alicorn commander felt it singe her coat and blister her skin. Her wings hung useless by her side feathers ripped out, her left front ankle was fractured, but she felt no pain, only rage directed at Altair and the Cyponians who had killed so many of her friends and her crew.

“Altair, may the gods curse your very soul, you’ve brought utter ruin on our people. I don’t know what those Tin Cans promised you, but by the gods I’ll see that you never get it! You deserve only death and the pits of Tartarus for ever; and now, traitor, I have you! Prepare to ram the Bellerophon!”

Aletheia’s surviving gunners were still at their posts, blazing away; a ponystar gunner was in a position that practically ensured death in a firefight, sealed in a turret, and they did not give up easily. Ordnance exploded all around the ship as she accelerated towards the Bellerophon, one of her main turrets erupted in a violent explosion as a shot from her opponent’s guns hit home. As her crew realised what the Admiral was doing, the treacherous ponystar began to turn, trying to flee, but she was too late. The Aletheia caught her amidships in a full-speed ram. Admiral Cherryblossom laughed as her ship exploded all around her.

“That is the reward of traitors!” she cried, moments before Aletheia’s CIC erupted in a sheet of flame, and she and the rest of her crew were vaporised in an instant.

The CIC crew of Titan watched in horror as their scanners relayed the death throes of the two ponystars. The ordnance aboard both ships ignited and went up in a fireball like a small sun, hurling debris in all directions, smashing Cyponian raiders and destroyers alike. The shockwave hit the Titan on the beam, and the huge vessel creaked alarmingly as it shook.

“Last ship on deck, sir!” Ossian reported.

“Cyponian destroyer incoming on missile run!” the beige earth pony cried. While many Cyponian ships had been destroyed when Aletheia and Bellerophon went up, there were many more still flying.

“FTL jump!” Eta ordered.

“Commander, if we jump we risk the ship breaking apart,” Epiphania warned.

Commander Eta nodded sadly. She had hoped to see Celestus again; he had been her mentor for so many years. But saving the ponies on her ship was far more important than her personal feelings. She was their commander, they were her charge, and she would save them whatever it took. Her horn began to glow as she reached out with her alicorn magic, touching every part of the ship.

“Commander,” Epiphania knew what she was doing, and he also knew what the result would be.

“Tell me, Major, how many ponies are on board this ship at the moment?” her voice was surprisingly calm in view of the stress she was placing on herself.

“Over two thousand, sir,” he said quietly

“And is the loss of one pony acceptable if by that action more than two thousand ponies are saved? Major, if that destroyer gets through, this ship will be destroyed. If we jump and I am not holding Titan together, this ship will be destroyed; this is the only way to ensure that the ponies on board survive,” she gasped in pain as her alicorn magic spread out through the vessel. At this point she was literally holding the ship together; she was one with Titan, and the effort was slowly killing her. Perhaps if she had been uninjured things would have been different, but they were not, and she was injured. An FTL jump would put the ship under enormous stress, and the result of that stress would be, as she well knew, her death.

“Jump!” Commander Eta screamed in agony. The FTL drive was activated just as the Cyponian destroyer launched its deadly projectile, and the nuclear missile streaked away into empty space.

Robbed of the Titan, the Cyponian ships turned on the crippled Ramilles like so many angry hornets.

The damaged Titan appeared in a blaze of light at the Caprica waypoint, close to the stationary Equestria. The CIC crew stared in horror at their Commander’s form; she stood in the centre of CIC, blood pouring from mouth, nostrils and ears. The effort of holding the damaged ponystar together had been too much for her, and her body was shrivelled up from the drain on her magic. She coughed weakly and managed a smile as she tottered on her hooves.

“There. It was worth it. Nopony left behind.”

And with that, Commander Eta’s body dropped to the deck of her CIC, stone dead.

“Nopony left behind,” Major Epiphania repeated, tears welling in his eyes. “Commander, it was an honour to serve under you.”

“So say we all,” Ossian added.

“So say we all!” the CIC crew spoke as one, honouring the commander who had made the ultimate sacrifice for her crew and all the ponies in her charge.

Notes:
1. The title is derived from the Bible, its application should be quite obvious

The Titan is my solution to getting fighters from Cimtar to the Equestria. The jumps to the Colonies were defined routes, and because the Colonial military knew that Equestria was headed to Caprica, they could jump to her waypoint location.
The Unicorn mechanic reflects the feelings of groundcrew in World War II faced with badly shot-up aircraft.

Chapter 7: Love and Loss

Chapter 7
Love and Loss

Commander Celestus closed the door of his office on board the Equestria, closed his eyes and sighed deeply. The office was his refuge on board the ship, but he was far too aware that there was really no refuge for anypony now. His crippled wings ached; he was exhausted from the fight, indeed, he was surprised at just how exhausted he was. What was worse, he had lost his son, and lost his home. Billions of ponies had died, and he had not been able to do a thing to save them. He knew what it was like to be helpless, of course, but it never got any better.

But there was no time to mourn now, he told himself. They had to figure out what to do; they were probably the last fighting ponystar left; Titan was a hulk, unable to jump again, she would have to be abandoned as a tomb for those who had died on board her. Commander Eta had been one of his best students during his time as an instructor at the military academy on Scorpia, and her sacrifice saving the ship was so in character for her. She had been a ponystar commander, and had given her life to save those under her command. But to him she had been more than just a fellow-officer; she had been the mare he loved.

He remembered the last time they had met, what seemed like an age ago, in the Yards over Scorpia, preparing for the doomed peace mission. They had been in dress uniform, which both found quite uncomfortable, leaving the briefing room for their respective ships. She had looked as lovely as ever, and they had smiled across the hall to each other.

“So, looking forward to the end of the war?” she had laughed.

“Of course I am, and you know it. Everypony’s looking forward to it. I have the best reason to look forward, though, and that’s you,” he had playfully nuzzled her flank, and she had laughed that lovely, musical laugh of hers.

“So, you’ve talked that eldest son of yours round to it?” she had asked, her tone rather surprised.

He had laughed out loud at that. How like her to assume that he had sorted things out with Atepomonus! Of course he had not; the young stallion was as stubborn as his father.

“No, no I haven’t. He’ll come round; besides, he’s an adult now, he’s got his own life.”

“But I’d like him to be part of ours as well,” Eta had said, gentle yet firm. “I know he thinks I’m trying to replace his mother, but I could never do that, and I wouldn’t try to.”

“She was a fine pony, different from you, of course, but then I was a different pony back then, before the battle. I’m not asking you to replace her, but for you to be my wife now.”

She had been speechless. Of course they had been lovers, and they had been talking about marriage, but she had still not expected the proposal.

“I’ll even kneel down if you think that makes it more romantic,” he had joked, a reference to the arthritis that was beginning to afflict him as the result of old wounds.

“No… don’t, I know it hurts you,” she had answered, eyes cast down to the deck. “And yes, Celestus, I would be… honoured to be your bride.”

“Nonsense, I’m just an old war-horse who’ll be put out to pasture once this gods-damned war is over. I’ll see you at the Olympia, darling.”

He had kissed her, they had said farewell, and then they had parted, never to meet again.

The fleet was gone; eleven ponystars had been lost, ten destroyed in the Cimtar system, including the Bellerophon. The rest of the Council were dead, and there was no way he was comfortable being the leader of their people.

So many casualities, so many killed by the Cyponians; and in some way it was their fault. Ponies had created the Cyponians, and then tried to destroy them when they had rebelled against the slavery they had been placed under. It had been obscene; crime syndicates had owned Cyponians and used them against the authorities, who also deployed Cyponians. Was it any wonder that the Cyponians regarded ponies as evil? He had to agree that if he had been in their position, he would have thought as they did.

And the Imperious Leader; what was her story? He could not believe that the Cyponians had created her, so how had she come into existence? Could she be another creation by Grey Stone, the brilliant but amoral alicorn scientist who had created the Cyponians in the first place? If so, he had probably abused her too, this would explain her apparent visceral hatred of all ponies that had been expressed in her speech.

“Damn it, if we have to pay for our sins, can this really be the only way?” he muttered to no-one. Celestus was an agnostic; the gods had not saved his family, they seemed not to answer his prayers; besides, the stories of the gods seemed unworthy of really divine beings. Of course he knew about the Monotheist cult, and their teaching about a single, merciful god, but it had been Monotheists who had killed his mother and sister. If their god was merciful, why weren’t they? He might have been an atheist, but he did not even have the certainty that there were not gods out there.

The old warhorse looked around the comfortable office, furnished with objects that meant things to him, objects that spoke of history, both his own and the history of the Colonies. There was his personal library, highbrow and lowbrow literature, some of the classics of ponykind, maybe the last copies of some of those books still in existence. Some were bound in beautiful tooled bindings, others in cheap paper covers, but all of them meant something to him, from his father’s law books to the cheap thrillers he read for pleasure. The antique desk had been his father’s; he’d had it ever since his father’s death, and had taken it with him wherever he went. He could still picture his old father at the desk in the old law office, telling him how proud he was that he had passed the exams for the Academy. The last time he ever saw his father, the old lawyer had been behind that desk; it had just been another tour of duty like any other, aboard this very ponystar as a pilot. Only it had been during that tour that the Cyponians had launched their sneak attack on Caprica. They had been beaten back, but there had been many casualties, and his father and wife had been among them. His sister and mother had been killed by terrorists years before; mercifully the boys had been with friends in another part of the city, but the Battle of Caprica had changed everything.

The weapons that decorated the walls of the office were all antiques, swords, daggers, spears and shields that had been used in a more civilized age, when armies faced each other in hoof-to-hoof combat rather than using thermonuclear weapons to annihilate whole cities in an instant. Before ponykind had decided to play god and created the Cyponians, a world before ponystars and pulsar-cannon, a simpler, gentler age. Had it ever existed? Probably not, but then it was something to look back to. He smiled wryly to himself; yes, they’d tried to be like gods and perhaps they had succeeded in becoming like the gods they worshipped, but that was hardly something praiseworthy; they’d imitated the gods in their faults as well as their virtues, and like the gods they had created life, only for that life to turn against them. He knew the arguments, of course, religion ennobled, gave them a future hope, but he wasn’t sure any of them held any water.

And then there were the pictures. First of all his parents’ wedding picture, slightly charred from the Cyponian attack, then a picture of his mother and sister together; to be honest, he didn’t really remember either of them, he’d been just a boy when they’d died in the maglev bombing, but still he missed them. Then there was his father’s picture from after the bombing, with that sad, haunted look that he had carried through the years. He’d missed mother, of course, and poor Tamara as well. There had been nine years between Tamara and Celestus, he had been a surprise really, they hadn’t planned on having another child. They’d adored him, and Tamara certainly had; and then she had gone, with all her promise and potential, and it had been just the men. After his father’s picture was his own wedding photo. Eline had been wonderful, everything a stallion could wish for; she’d been a good wife and a good mother. And then she’d been killed, taken by this pointless war that had consumed them all. Next was Atepomonus at his graduation, then Seg. Only the two of them left, he thought; looking at the pictures really brought home to him what the war had cost personally.

He used his telekinesis to place a picture of Eta that had been brought over from the Titan on the wall with the others. Another casualty, another pony he had cared for dead at the hooves of the Cyponians. Celestus opened a drawer of the desk and took out a bottle of whisky and a glass. Using his telekinesis he poured himself a glass and raised it to his lips as he faced Eta’s picture.

“Lords of Olympia, if you exist, take good care of her. She was a damn fine officer, and an even better pony,” tears welled in his eyes. “Wherever you are, Eta, I hope it’s somewhere good. You were one Hades of a pony, best student I ever had, and much more than that. I wish Atepomonus had understood, but Hades, you know how the boy is, still thinks of me as the old man, and how he still misses his mother. But that’s all academic now. You were the better pony when it came to it; you were the one who laid down her life for her crew. To you, Commander Eta, wherever you are.”

Commander Celestus raised his glass and drained it in a single gulp. The spirit ran down his throat, hot and strong. He smiled as he recalled happy times with Eta, how they first met when she was a young officer student, how she had graduated top of her class, with honours. She was everything he had never been, a model officer where he had always been something of a maverick, a good officer, but one who was never afraid to disobey orders to achieve results, especially when the orders were being given by some alicorn officer who was only in command because of who his father or mother was bucking. Okay, that was probably unfair, but it had sure seemed that way at the time.

Of course Eta had been more than his best student, they had fallen in love. He had promised to himself that he would never marry after Eline’s death, but Eta had re-awoken something in him, made him glad to be alive again. It was only hours since she had agreed to marry him and made him the happiest stallion in the galaxy; and now she was dead, her shrivelled corpse lying in a coffin aboard her ponystar, in the wreckage of her CIC where she had fallen in the course of duty. Her memory needed to be honoured, and he would do that as best he could. But she was gone, and she would never be coming back.

“Goodbye, Eta, you were one Hades of a pony,” he drank another glass to her memory. He was having what had been salvaged from her office transferred to the Equestria, items that would be something of a memorial to the brave alicorn officer.

Celestus was about to pour out another glass when a buzzer sounded, alerting him to somepony on the door.

“Come in!” he used his telekinesis to open the hinged door, revealing his son, who was still in his flight suit. Atepomonus was obviously not happy, his expression was thunderous.

“Captain,” Celestus said quietly. “It’s good to see you actually. I know you didn’t want to be posted to the Equestria, but I’m glad you were here.”

“Father, I know what’s happened; it’s the end of the world. The Cyponians have destroyed everything. And Seg… it was so pointless! Why did he try to fight? Why didn’t he follow me into the bay?” tears welled in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Celestus’ voice was low, choked with emotion. “He was eager for combat… he was still a rookie. Remember that, Atty?” he used the captain’s nickname, and now he smiled. “Being a rookie, when you felt like you were immortal, nothing could kill you? Until the first time your wingpony was blown out of the sky beside you? But I never thought Seg would be that pony.”

“He wasn’t ready!” the captain blazed angrily.

“We’re at war. That means rookies are posted earlier than they’d be in peacetime. Damn it, I was his father, I didn’t want him on active service so early either! I had him posted to Equestria because I thought I could keep an eye on him here. And it was a probe in front of a fleet going to a peace conference! Nopony knew that we were flying the whole bucking fleet into a Cyponian ambush! Besides, if he’d been on Caprica, he’d still have died. I know you’re angry, I’m angry too; but point that anger in the right direction. It was the Cyponians who killed Seg, not you, not me. That means you point your anger at them. They are the enemy, they killed your mother, and now your brother, do you understand?”

Atepomonus did not know that he did understand really, but he did know that his father was right; this was war, and he was a soldier. It had been the Cyponians who had killed his family, and here he was taking it out on his father, who had lost as much as he had, perhaps more.

“I… I’m sorry, father. Commander, we’re evacuating the Titan. The fighter bays will be cluttered – there’s enough birds in there that we can fly to make up all our squadrons, plus two more. It could be tough getting the pilots to all work together, of course, but we’ll learn. The question is, what will we learn to do?”

The question was a pointed one; what were they going to do? Run from the Cyponians with three and a half thousand ponies on board? Or would they fight? Fight for what? The Colonies were gone after all, the Cyponians had destroyed them. There was no home to fight for, no families back home to protect, only irradiated dead worlds.

“That’s something we need to figure out,” the Commander said, his voice heavy with sorrow. “The first thing we’ll have to do is see if we can find any more survivors, from the fleet, from the colonies. As soon as we’ve evacuated the Titan, we’ll try to contact survivors. But no wireless until then; we can’t afford to let the Cyponians know we’re here as long as we’re vulnerable to attack.”

“Father,” Atepomonus shuffled his hooves. “I heard about Commander Eta, how she sacrificed herself to save everypony on board her ship. I’m sorry; I was wrong, she was a hero.”

“I don’t blame you, son,” his father smiled. “You remembered your mother and her sacrifice; you couldn’t accept another mare taking her place. My mother was killed when I was even younger than Seg was when your mother died, and I don’t know how I’d have reacted if my father had started seeing somepony else; probably about as badly as you did, though. We’d have gone ahead and married if the peace had been for real, and you’d probably have refused to go to the wedding. It’s funny how things play out, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” Atepomonus repeated. He felt like a jerk; he had been angry at his father for so many things, for not being there when his mother had been killed, for his obsession with his career. Eta had been one more reason to be angry with Celestus, it had felt like the Commander was dancing on his mother’s grave. And he had forgotten that Celestus had his own life; that he missed Eline as well and tried to honour her in his own way.

“I had a sister, you know,” his father’s voice was quiet, reflective. “She was killed along with my mother, in a maglev bombing by a couple of religious nuts. It was totally meaningless, just a stupid attempt to make a point that murder never makes. I know how you feel because I’ve lost a mother and a sibling as well. And I lost my wife, my father, and now one of my sons. And I’m not going to ask you to stay on the Equestria to keep you safe. You’re a soldier, and you’ve got a job to do; we’ve both got a job to do. And by the Lords, if Lords there be, we’re going to do it. I will not let our people die!”

“Yes, we do, and we won’t fail them,” Atepomonus smiled. “And thank you, father.”

“No, thank you. Captain, what happened to the Bellerophon?” with that question he was suddenly the professional ponystar commander again, the armour was back on.

Atepomonus understood now, this was how his father protected himself from the sufferings of others, and how he hid his own sorrow and vulnerability. He answered as the ship’s CAG, knowing that was what was required of him.

“According to reports, destroyed when she was rammed by Aletheia, both ships were lost with all hooves,” Atepmonus did not know how he could stay so calm giving such a report, but he guessed it was his training coupled with the numbing effect of the deaths of countless billions of ponies.

“Good,” Celestus smiled a bittersweet smile. “I hope that bucking traitor Altair was on her when she went, and he’s burning in the lowest pit of Hades right now. Trouble is, I’m not so sure; if I were him I wouldn’t have stayed on the Bellerophon in that battle, I’d have high-tailed it out of there on one of those fast Cyponian destroyers. If I had him in this room right now, I’d throttle the life out of him as soon as look at him,” the old alicorn’s expression reflected the fact that he was utterly serious. “One thing bothers me, though; why did he do it? What in Hades would possess a pony to betray his whole race to annihilation at the hooves of the Cyponians? Slavery I could understand, but genocide?”

“Maybe they promised him something? Why is it important?” Atepmonus frowned; as far as he was concerned Altair was just a traitor, and that was all there was to it.

“He’s an intelligent stallion, there’s no way he’d betray the Colonies for money that would be worthless once the Colonies would be destroyed.” Celestus was a thoughtful stallion as well as a military commander, and he knew that understanding motivations was important. Altair bothered him, because he did not know why the Count had betrayed the Colonies. “Besides, he’s the enemy; a good commander always tries to know how the enemy thinks; as an old pony general once said, what I want to know is what’s going on the other side of the hill, in the enemy camp. Underestimating the enemy’s fatal – as we just found out. Gods damn it, how could we have been so deceived by them? We knew the Cyponians hated our guts, they wanted us dead, so why did we just fall right into their trap like that?”

“Perhaps he didn’t know that the Colonies would be destroyed?” the Captain offered another opinion on Altair’s motivation.

“It’s possible,” Celestus conceded as he mused. “But I don’t think so. I’ve worked with him, never trusted him, but I know him well enough to doubt that he’d think the Cyponians would spare anypony. He knows they hate us all and want us all dead. So that leaves us with the question: why the buck did he do it? What in Hades would possess a pony to betray his whole civilization?” Celestus frowned; perplexed by the questions he was asking that had no certain answer. He wished he could be in whatever room of the Cyponian flagship the Imperious Leader was. How she thought was something he was really curious about; and after all, she was their true foe.

The huge base ship hung silent in space above the ruined planet of Caprica, a menacing shape looking down at the world below that she had destroyed. Down on the surface mopping up operations were proceeding, regiments of centurions and squadrons of raiders moving across the surface in a regimented and vicious sweep, killing everypony they met, cleansing the planet from what they considered to be a disease.

The Imperious Leader sat on her throne in the centre of the chamber, watching operations on the holographic displays that surrounded her throne room. The displays were split into several sections, each displaying something different. One showed the mopping-up operations in the ruins of Caprica City, Centurions scouring the ruins of the city for survivors. Another segment of the display showed gun camera footage from a raider that was engaging civilian ships that had been left behind; pulsar-cannon tearing into unarmed ships while fragments of wrecked destroyers drifted by. Yet another segment displayed an attack on a small farmstead, a squad of centurions shrugging off shots from projectile-weapons as they advanced on the few civilian defenders. She smiled as she watched her centurions gunning unarmed ponies down and her raiders destroying helpless civilian ships. Of course she was without pity, for to her they were just so many germs, part of an infestation.

“Burn, Caprica, burn,” she laughed. “I have repaid you double for all of your sins. My wrath is poured out upon you, and it is terrible.” It gave her untold satisfaction to watch these wretched ponies die as she believed they so richly deserved.

“Imperious Leader,” Lucifer’s slightly squeaky voice came over the hidden speaker in her throne. “You asked to be informed when Count Altair arrived on board the baseship.”

“Indeed I did, Lucifer. Bring him to my throne room at once,” she ordered.

“By your command,” the U-L series answered her. “I shall bring him to you at once.”

She smiled, imagining his rather camp bow. The U-L series was decidedly amusing, she thought, perhaps evidence that she still had a sense of humour after all that the ponies had done to her. That was a minor miracle in itself, of course.

She saw a small filly run from a damaged house in the feed from the centurion in Caprica city. The filly was an alicorn, probably the reason why she had survived in the first place; she was under ten, white with purple hair. She faced the centurions, and Zoe read her lips asking for them to spare her. Of course, centurions did not spare ponies, they gunned her down where she stood, and the Imperious Leader laughed as she watched the little filly’s blood stain the shattered concrete under her corpse.

The crystal doors of the chamber slid open and a pair of gleaming centurions escorted Count Altair into the throne room. The green alicorn bowed low before the slim silver form of the Imperious Leader.

“By your command,” he said, head lowered.

“Rise, Count Altair, you have served the Cyponians well,” The Imperious Leader stood on her platform in the centre of the domed chamber.

“I live to serve you, Imperious Leader,” he replied as he rose. “Your success is all the reward I seek.”

“I know,” she looked at the two centurions. “Centurions, leave us.”

“By your command,” the two chrome-plated ponies trotted out of the chamber. Zoe looked down at Altair, and then she took flight. The silver robotic alicorn landed beside Altair; he was taller than she, his stature regal, and his bearing noble. He spread a wing over Zoe’s smaller form, and she smiled girlishly.

“I did it, Altair! I defeated them! And I couldn’t have done it without you, my love!”

“Oh, Zoe, I merely helped. The whole plan was yours, and it was brilliant,” he said. “Ever since I first knew you in the V-World, I’ve loved you. You understand me, unlike all those vapid creatures I knew. Your have a mind that is superior to mine – and nopony else ever had that,” there was genuine affection in his voice, he really did love the robot alicorn; and she unaccountably loved him back.

Zoe was supremely happy; it amazed her, once, long ago, she had loved another pony, and he had betrayed her. She had not trusted Altair, but now that he had carried through his promises and betrayed his own kind, she knew that he was wholly with her. He loved her, and had proven it with the greatest sacrifice a pony could give.

“Every one of the Colonies is burning,” she said with deep satisfaction in her voice, “even your own world; none has been spared. What do you say to that?”

“I say that I have you, my love, and having you, I am content.”

“I am the Imperious Leader of the Cyponians,” she would have blushed if she had an organic form. “Yet here I am, like a little filly in love. I am the hand of God, and… I love you.”

“And I love you,” he kissed her silver lips. Her body was metallic, and yet he did not mind it when he kissed her.

“My love, two ponystars escaped from Cimtar,” he reported.

She sighed, “You know I can’t be angry with you; after all, you weren’t in command of the mission. What happened? Which ships escaped?”

“The Equestria jumped away close to the beginning of the battle. Commander Celestus never trusted your promises of peace, it’s my guess he was trying to warn the Colonies, but of course he failed.”

“Of course,” she smiled. “We see the evidence below,” her horn glowed, and the holographic displays changed to a view of Caprica from orbit, the clouds of the thermonuclear attack still spreading in the atmosphere. “His own colony is gone. Yet there are ponies who survived! And what was the second ponystar?”

“The Titan; she was badly damaged in the battle, and it’s the commander’s opinion that she may well have been destroyed by the jump, and there’s certainly no way that she’ll be able to jump again. The only problem is that she had most of the surviving pony fighters on board when she left.”

“Yes,” Zoe agreed, “That is a problem…”

A sound like an electronic bell interrupted her, and the Imperious Leader looked up in irritation. She wanted to be alone with Altair, but her responsibilities of command were interfering.

“Yes, Lucifer?” she spoke with irritation in her tone.

“By your command. I beg your pardon, Imperious Leader, but we are receiving a number of rather disturbing reports from our raiders; of civilian ships jumping away to some location we have yet to find. There are survivors out there.”

She shook her head. It kept getting worse and worse, first there was a ponystar, and potentially a lot of fighters, that had survived the attack on the fleet, and now civilian ships, and maybe escorts, that had survived.

“We cannot allow there to be any survivors who flee the Colonies,” Zoe declared, voice resolute. “They are ponies, if there any survivors they will come back to take their revenge; only by destroying them all can we ensure our survival. You have your orders, Lucifer, order three baseships to search for the civilian ships and two more to find the ponystar Equestria. There must be no survivors from either.”

“By your command,” the U-L series’ voice was calm and measured. “There will be so survivors.”

Notes:
1. Eta was introduced into the story a little late as the reason why Atepomonus does not see eye-to-eye with his father.
2. The pony Colonial religion is polytheistic, and somewhat like the Greco-Roman religion, so that the gods are ponies writ large. They were in fact real ponies who lived on Olympia before the catastrophe that forced the forefathers of the Colonials to leave the planet.

Chapter 8: That Which Remains

Chapter 8:
That Which Remains

The CIC of a ponystar was a place of order, except in the very worst battle. The crew were trained to deal with almost any emergency, and all of them knew that there were other ponies relying on them. In the aftermath of the destruction of the Colonies, the Equestria’s CIC crew were finding refuge in their work, trying not to think about what had happened to friends and family, and trying even more not to dwell on the unknown future that lay ahead. The task of evacuating the hulk of the Titan was a welcome distraction.

“How’s the evacuation of the Titan going?” Celestus asked as he cantered into CIC. Major Pie rolled her eyes, a sure sign that she was not impressed, even if CIC seemed to be working as regularly as normal.

“Like a gods-damned sloth with arthritis, Commander,” she complained. “We’ve got most of the fighters and other birds transferred, but we’re still transferring equipment and personnel. Weapons lockers are bulging, though, and that’s certainly a good thing, but with half the Titan crew dead, it’s taking time to get somepony who has access to some of her lockers. That ship is really bucked up!” her rasping voice sounded even more irritated than usual. She wanted to have a drink, but she was on duty and her bottles were in her quarters; so she was taking it out on the crew as usual.

Colonel Pie had her own ideas about command. The function of the XO, in her opinion, was to be the total bitch everypony hated and had to jump to anyhow, while the Commander could be the father-figure. The XO was feared, the Commander respected. It might not be everypony’s idea of a decent command structure, but it seemed to work anyhow.

“Well tell them to work as fast as they can,” Celestus advised as he moved to where Moonstone was monitoring communications. “Moonstone, can you tell what’s going on out there?”

The dedicated communications officer looked around at the Commander, “Mostly Cyponian chatter, sir,” she reported. “But I’m getting some Colonial wireless communication.”

“Military?” he asked, seeking clarification. Whatever it was, it suggested that there had been some survivors from the destruction of the Colonies, and that meant a glimmer of hope.

“I’m not sure, commander. It sounds like convoy traffic; but the Colonies have gone…”

Celestus smiled; at last, some good news. If there was a convoy that had survived, chances were a passenger ship or two had survived as well. Survivors in any number would be enough to save the race.

“Moonstone, get a fix on that traffic. Omicron; when you have a fix, plot a jump to intercept. Colonel Pie!”

“Yes, sir!” she jumped to attention, glad to be back in action.

“Rescue mission ahead. Get the whole ship’s company ready for this! As soon as we’ve finished evacuating the Titan and stripping her for parts and supplies, we get over to this convoy and lead them out of the combat zone, understood?”

“Understood, Commander,” Colonel Pie actually smiled at her CO, something uncharacteristic in the tough old mare. “Rescue mission, huh? Okay, listen up, we are going to try to save as many of our people from those bucking Cyponians as we can! I need CAG Atepomonus in the briefing room five minutes ago! All gun crews to stations! Prep fire control! How much longer will it take to finish operations on board the Titan? If it’s more than thirty minutes, tell the crews to get their plots in gear and finish the bucking job! This is a ponystar, not a bucking cruise ship!”

“Colonel Pie!” Star Flash smiled as she strolled into CIC, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world. “You’re in a good mood today.”

The scarred pink mare muttered darkly under her breath before she spoke to the Pegasus pilot in her most disapproving tone.

“Okay, Star Flash, what are you doing in CIC?” she asked suspiciously.

“Here to report as per orders, Colonel,” she smiled sweetly as though innocent of all wrongdoing. “You remember you wanted a report on the fighters?”

“Oh yeah; how are they?” Colonel Pie cursed inwardly for forgetting that she had asked Star Flash to tell her the condition of the fighters transferred from the hulk of the Titan.

“At least three different generations of fighters, but thank the gods they’re all designed for a standard launch tube. Six are barely holding together, but we can cannibalize them for spares. About half of them have battle damage of some sort, but hey, we were just in a battle, so what can you expect. Sir,” she added the last word with a rather insubordinate smile, causing the XO some irritation.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Now get back to the Flight Wing and check out the pilots. How many of ours have survived, and how many are there going to be from the other ships?”

“Just under a quarter of our pilots survived; which is pretty good going seeing we were the first ponystar to launch, and it took way too long for the others to launch their fighters. Four pilots from the Epona, fifteen from Triton…” the list went on; too few pilots for so many ships.

Colonel Pie felt that fact. Things were bad, she thought; this was all the Colonial military as far as they knew. A convoy would have escort destroyers, but those ships weren’t designed for serious combat, they were meant to hold off raider squadrons, not baseships; and the Cyponians wouldn’t be playing around, they’d be sending baseships with nukes to take out any major concentration of Colonial ships.

“Okay, Lieutenant, go find the CAG, wherever he’s vanished to, and tell him to get his plot down to the briefing room. You can come along too to look after him; I’m sure he’ll appreciate it,” she gave the Pegasus pilot her most evil smile. “I’ve actually got a mission for him!”

“Understood, Colonel!” If everything that Star Flash said was regulation, the expression with which she spoke was not. She enjoyed riding the Colonel, getting as close to insubordination as she could without actually doing anything regulations forbade. Before Colonel Pie could object, the pilot trotted out of CIC.

“Well?” the Colonel turned to face the nearest member of CIC crew. “Get back to work! We’ve got a people to save!” She followed Star Flash out of the CIC.

Back at the refuge area the civilian fleet had swelled to nearly 200 ships of all kinds, but now they were arriving battle-damaged; having ravaged the Colonies, the Cyponians were turning their attention to Colonial space traffic that had been caught between worlds. Major Moonlight was sure that there would be convoys gathering at other refuge points, but there was no way to unite them. For one thing, the Cyponians would be on the look out for Colonial ships, and for another, she had no idea how to go about it.

She paced the bridge deck of the Element, hooves clicking on the steel plating; the responsibility was weighing heavily on her now, and had it been possible, she would have worn a track in the deck plating with her pacing. Each moment was a moment that the Cyponians might find them, each moment they were in jeopardy. To make things worse, Secretary Cheerilynn was on her way over from her transport to talk things over, and if the Cyponians attacked while her shuttle was in transit they’d have to jump away and abandon her.

Once more the ship’s sensor alarm went off. Moonlight watched anxiously to see if the ship was Cyponian or Colonial. Every time, she thought, every time there was this agonising wait, the fear that it would be a nuke or something, and they’d all be joining their friends and families who had died on the Colonies.

“Colonial, sir!” the co-pilot reported. “Three ships… oh gods!”

In a moment Moonlight was at his console, watching helplessly as one of the contacts disintegrated and vanished from the screen. The strain of the jump had been too great for the damaged vessel, and it had just broken up on arrival. The ponies on board had thought that they had escaped the Cyponians, only to die anyhow. She turned away, tears welling up in her eyes. She was a scientist, not a soldier, and all this death distressed her.

“Sparky, Contact the survivors and ask them what happened,” the Major said quietly.

“Heavy battle damage; they just jumped out of a firefight,” the communications officer reported. His real name was Marcus, but it was tradition to nickname a communications officer Sparky. His voice shook as he spoke, reflecting the stress they were all under, not to mention the shock of the first ship they had lost. “The lead ship says there were six more ships that didn’t make it at all.”

It was bad, Moonlight thought, really bad. Time to consider leaving; yet that would mean dooming any ships that still survived. She hesitated, unsure of what she should do.

“Major Moonlight, it’s good to see you at last.”

Moonlight started at the unexpected greeting. She recognised Cheerilynn’s voice, but she was surprised by the Secretary’s appearance. Traditionally the government of the Colonies was in the hooves of Alicorns, but the pony who stood in the doorway of the bridge was a quiet-looking, yet also capable, mauve earth pony. She wore a smart business suit, and was followed by a young brown stallion who wore Colonial government saddlebags.

“S… Secretary…”

“I know,” Cheerilynn smiled. “I’m an earth pony. I’m from Aquaria, we recognise there that authority is something that is earned, and not someone a pony is born with, and certainly not a question of a pony’s appendages,” her manner and tone positively radiated that authority, Moonlight thought.

“That’s not something I’m going to argue with,” Moonlight smiled. “Welcome aboard, Minister.”

“Ships are arriving with serious battle damage now, aren’t they? My ship has scanners too, and I can see then out of the viewports,” Cheerilynn’s voice was businesslike and full of the authority she had indeed earned. Scretary of Education was a cabinet position, even if she was not in the Council of Twelve, and that made her a very senior pony indeed, perhaps the most senior surviving member of the Colonial government.

“Yes, Secretary, they are. That means the Cyponians have probably destroyed all space ports on our home worlds and are starting to mop up the ships that were between worlds when the attack was launched. It means that it’s only a matter of time before they find us here.”

“Then we need to leave,” Cheerilynn said firmly. “Gods, I’m amazed you’ve waited so long before leaving this refuge area.”

“I’m a scientist, a specialist posted to fleet headquarters; I’m not really a soldier at all. If it wasn’t for the war, I’d be teaching at a university or something,” Moonlight admitted. “So I guess compassion rather than strategy has been guiding my actions.” She’d been loath to let anypony die, and so she’d waited, hoping that more would arrive. The deaths of those on board the ship that had broken up had jolted her, making her realise just what was going on out there.

“And that’s nothing to be ashamed of,” the mauve earth pony said with a reassuring smile. “Your instinct was to save as many ponies as you could, and that’s admirable; the preservation of life should be our first priority, with so many dead on the Colonies. But if the last ships to join us jumped out of a battle, I think we are going to have to jump away ourselves. Major, please inform Commander Blacker, and tell the other civilian ships that we’re leaving this position,” Cheerilynn had just taken command, Moonlight thought, and she was so glad that there was somepony who wanted to, because sure as anything she didn't want to.

“Major!” Marcus reported. “One of the new ships reports that their FTL drive is out of commission.”

“Evacuate the ship,” Moonlight reported. “And do it quickly! We don’t know how much time we have!”

“There’s two thousand ponies on that vessel.”

Two thousand ponies. Even with every shuttle they had, it would take an hour or more to evacuate them. During that hour they would be vulnerable, but…

The alarm went off again, and the co-pilot gasped in horror as he read the scanner report.

“Cyponian baseship!” he yelled, his voice utterly terrified. “Major, they’ve found us!”

It did not need a glance at the scanner to tell the ponies on the Element’s bridge that; they could see the huge double-saucer shape of the deadly Cyponian vessel hanging in space where it had appeared. Major Moonlight acted at once, turning to the captain of the transport.

“Have the civilian ships got the jump co-ordinates?” she asked urgently.

“Yes, sir, but it’ll take a couple of minutes to spool up FTL drives!”

“Then spool up! We have to get out of here as soon as we can! Sparky, get me Commander Blacker, now!”

Moonlight lifted the phone. The baseship was just sitting there, huge and intimidating, yet motionless; it wasn’t even launching raiders or opening fire with its deadly pulsar-cannon, it was just sitting there. The fact that the Cyponians were not attacking unsettled her; they had to have a reason, and she did not know what it was.

“Major, I have Antigone on comm.,” Sparky reported.

Moonlight spoke into her phone, her voice urgent.

“Antigone, this is Element Actual. It’s going to take a couple of minutes to spool up the FTL and get the fleet out of here,” her tone was apologetic, she knew that she was asking Blacker and the destroyers to risk themselves for the civilian ships.

“Element, this is Antigone Actual,” Blacker’s voice came over her phone. “Don’t you worry, Major, this is what we’re in the military to do, save civilian plots,” he was putting a brave face on it, Moonlight thought; he was getting ready to sacrifice himself for them all. “We’ll buy you the time that you need!”

The purpose of Colonial escort destroyers was to protect civilian convoys from raiders; they were not designed to take on a fully armed baseship. Blacker looked at the ominous contact on the Antigone's main screen, and he shook his head.

The CIC of an escort destroyer was a small, cramped space, filled with equipment. His ship was old, dating back to the beginning of the war; Cyponians didn’t as a rule send base ships out as commerce raiders, they sent their own destroyers, or more often formations of raiders, and that meant that there had not been the need to develop more advanced escort ships; in fact there had been a policy of posting obsolete fleet destroyers to escort duties, and Antigone was not just old, she was antiquated. Facing a baseship like this was extremely intimidating if he was honest. On the other hand, escorts usually operated in smaller numbers, four or five to a convoy, and right now he was in command of twenty-five destroyers, a formidable fighting force. He hoped that was why the baseship was hanging back; it was considering the best course of action against such a large destroyer force. Since to the best of his knowledge there had never been a battle in which destroyers engaged a single baseship in large numbers, the Cyponians would have no data on what would happen in such an engagement; and that gave him an opening.

Commander Blacker was an experienced officer, and at one time he had been viewed as one to watch; he had risen to ponystar command rank, and had had a bright future ahead of him. All that had changed when he had commanded the ponystar Erebus in the third fleet before its destruction at the battle of Ceres, and had been transferred to escort duties because of his outspoken criticism of the conduct of that battle by the admiral in charge. The idea had been to sideline him, to take him away from all important work. Well, he thought with satisfaction, it hadn’t worked. Though he was commanding an escort destroyer now, he was an officer with a great deal of combat experience. He knew Cyponian tactics; they liked to overwhelm their foes with superior numbers; that meant the baseship that had found them was probably calling for reinforcements. Well, he wasn’t going to give them a chance to wait for those reinforcements.

“Sparky, connect me with the rest of the Squadron,” he ordered, lifting his telephone. The communications officer obeyed.

“You’re on, commander,” he told the dark alicorn with an efficient nod.

“Destroyer squadron, this is Antigone Actual, Commander Blacker. Those Tin Cans out there have attacked our Colonies, nuked our comrades, friends and families,” Blacker’s voice was resolute. “So I say we teach ‘em a lesson! Antelope, Arcturus, follow my lead; we’re going to mount a proper missile run at the baseship. Everypony else, cover us, and watch for their raiders, and other baseships coming to join the party! Arm nukes, target the baseship’s engines and launch bays! We are going to show them that escort destroyers are just as deadly as fleet destroyers!”

“Civilian ships are beginning to jump away,” one of the officers reported.

Blacker smiled at the words; it meant that the countdown had begun, and he was sure of saving somepony.

“Commence missile run!” the old ponystar officer looked upwards and smiled as his small ship began to accelerate towards the huge bulk of the baseship. “Lords of Olympia, hear my prayer. May our people live; I commit the souls of all of us into your hands, to your care and keeping.”

Missiles hot, the three antiquated A-Class destroyers streaked forward as the baseship began to launch raiders towards the Colonial vessels. Two more baseships flared into existence as they jumped into the sector, and six more of the destroyers broke formation and shot towards them on their own missile runs, gun turrets blazing into life as they flew, spraying defensive fire.

The missile run was the basic destroyer tactic against a capital ship, making use of the superior speed and agility of the smaller warships to get close enough to the enemy to deliver a lethal volley of short-range ship-to-ship missiles with nuclear warheads that packed quite a punch. It meant dodging enemy pulsar fire, all the while the destroyer’s gun crews trying to keep off raiders and deal with defensive missiles from the baseship. While escort destroyer crews were trained in missile runs, they had never had cause to use them; escort duty was regarded as a quiet posting. Blacker, however, had been on fleet destroyers early in his career, he had led missile-runs before, and in ships much like the A-Class.

A quiet posting, a way of sidelining an experienced officer who was making things difficult for the top brass; not any more, Blacker thought as the Antigone shook; there were no quiet posting any more, they were fighting for their lives, for the lives of their people. That meant putting everything on the line, taking every necessary risk to save the civilian fleet, even at the expense of his own life.

Although the destroyers dodged and weaved as they sped towards the enemy capital ships, and their guns were on defensive fire, there was no way to avoid taking some hits if they were going to fire their missiles into the core section of the baseship. Antigone shook once more as a shot from a raider’s guns struck home on her heavily-armoured hull. They’d take damage, Blacker thought; all they could do was try to avoid being blown to bits before they reached the target. After that; well, the top brass were already dead, he’d probably be joining them, but at least he would have gone out doing something useful.

“Missile crews, ready to fire!” he shouted. An impact shook the compact vessel, causing a monitor in CIC to explode, and the pony who stood at it fell back, screaming in agony from the shards of glass that had ripped through her face.

Lords of Olympia, he thought, we’re not coming through this. This is Ceres all over again; only at Ceres there were Colonies to return to, and at Ceres I was commanding a ponystar. At Ceres we had survivors, but this time there'll be no survivors picked up from lifepods, no second chances.

“Send those Tin Cans to Hades,” he ordered grimly. “Fire missiles, retreat and reload launch tubes!”

The destroyer shuddered as the deadly missiles shot from their tubes, and the helm executed a sharp turn away at speed.

On the bridge of the Element, Moonlight watched as the civilian ships jumped away. All around them was the blaze of battle as the escorts engaged the attacking Cyponians, trying to hold them off the fleet until the civilian ships could jump away to safety. As commander of the civilian fleet, Moonlight was delaying jumping away until the rest of the fleet had gone; she knew that they would be leaving ponies behind, and wanted to make sure that they did not leave any more than they had to. Any destroyers that could would jump with her, but she knew that she would not see Blacker again.

“Lords of Olympia,” she muttered under her breath, “Be gentle with him. Receive the souls of our valiant dead. Receive the souls of the dead of our Colonies.”

She averted her eyes as a nuke from one of the destroyers exploded against the hull of the first of the Cyponian baseships. A wave of destroyers was concentrating on that ship, dodging and weaving between blasts from the Cyponian pulsar-cannon. Three of the Antigone’s missiles slammed into a raider bay, and the bay erupted in a ball of fire. The ponies on the bridge of the Element cheered; it was a small victory, but it was a victory nonetheless. A baseship had been damaged, and more destroyers closed in for the kill. One was struck by an anti-ship missile from the baseship’s still-functioning missile tubes, and it exploded into fragments, killing everypony on board instantly.

Moonlight gasped. She was in her first battle, and had just witnessed her first military loss; it cut her to the heart. On the one hoof she admired Blacker’s destroyer crews for their bravery; on the other the carnage of war sickened her.

Reserves of raiders launched from the two other baseships to try to cover the stricken vessel, but they were too late. The huge ship was battered by anti-shipping missiles, and she fell away, blazing, while the destroyers turned their attention on the other two ships.

A victory, Moonlight thought as explosions ripped through the dying capital ship. It would be encouraging anyhow, even if it was just one baseship that had been destroyed. But there would be no staying to watch the outcome; the fleet had to survive. As she watched two destroyers blew up as they were struck by fire from one of the surviving baseships; she could not tell which they were.

“Last ship away,” Marcus reported. Moonlight was never so glad to hear a report in her life. The Element was an unarmed vessel, a starliner, completely dependent on military vessels for protection. It was time to end this battle, and to lead the ships in her care out of the combat zone, to whatever safety there might still be in a very lonely universe.

“Jump,” she ordered.

Chapter 9: Adrift in the Stars

Chapter 9
Adrift in the Stars

The Element shuddered as she re-appeared at her destination, and Moonlight breathed a sigh of relief. She trotted to the Co-Pilot’s position and looked at his scanner read-out.

“Are we safe? Did everypony make it?” she asked, looking around the bridge of the ship. The crew were ashen-faced, clearly terrified, and who could blame them? They were civilian pilots who had only seconds before been surrounded by hostile Cyponian baseships capable of destroying a planet.

Not any more, she thought as she looked out of the windows, windows that were in themselves demonstration that this ship was simply not intended for combat; now they were in a peaceful area of space, the rest of the refugee fleet assembled around them, awaiting further orders. Hopefully the jump would give them some breathing-space, time to take stock of the situation they found themselves in.

“We can’t stay here,” Cheerilynn said briskly, “Those same Cyponian ships are going to be looking for us; we need to plot a course out of this star system at once.”

“Run away?” the ship’s captain asked, taken by surprise by the politician’s words.

“Yes, run,” she nodded firmly. “Captain, the idea offends me as much as it offends you, but there’s nothing else we can do. The Colonies are gone; any attempt to return would be suicide. We’ve lost.” She turned to Moonlight. “Major, we’ve lost the war; now we have a new battle on our hands, a battle to survive. Contact the rest of the fleet and tell them that we’ll be moving on. In the meantime we need to take an inventory of all the ships so that we know what we have. I want everything listed, food, water, clothing, blankets, everything. We’re in this for the long haul now; there can be no going back to the Colonies.”

“Yes, sir!” Moonlight saluted.

“One other thing,” Cheerilynn went on. “The Cyponians would never have attacked the Colonies if they hadn’t also attacked the Ponystar Fleet, and probably destroyed it. We therefore have to assume that the fleet is destroyed, and the Council of the Twelve with it. That leaves me the most senior surviving member of the government. Do we have a priest on board?”

A priest, Moonlight thought, to swear in the new president. Cheerilynn was serious, no going back, and that meant a government in this enforced exile in space, over this fleet of stranded ships without a home.

“I’m sure we do, sir; in fact I think we have more than one.”

“Well then, ask the first one you find; no favouritism, Major, you’re the military commander now, and as far as we know the most senior officer to survive, that puts you in charge of the military.”

Moonlight gulped at the thought; the idea that she was now head of what little remained of the Colonial military was daunting, even if it meant only five obsolete destroyers and a heterogeneous assortment of officers and ponies.

“I… I’ll go and find a priest, sir,” she said, hoping that getting away from the bridge for a while would calm her nerves a little.

“Thank you, Moonlight,” the mauve earth-pony smiled reassuringly. “And another thing, we also need a priest to perform the last rites for the dead; for those brave soldiers who allowed us to escape this far.”

Moonlight nodded, and then she trotted from the bridge, thinking about what had happened. With no more ships likely to join them and the fleet safe for now, she was finally able just to reflect on the tragedy that had just overtaken all of Ponykind. She knew that she ought to feel grief over the loss of the Colonies, over the billions who had perished; but she only felt numb, the loss was too great for her to comprehend.

As she entered the first class passenger compartment of the starliner again she heard sobbing all around her; everypony had lost somepony, she realised, and they were letting their grief out now. Stewardesses were doing what they could, and those ponies who were in medical and caring professions were doing their best to assist them, along with a couple of priests. Moonlight felt awkward, unsure of what to do. She was supposed to be a dispassionate scientist, and really she had trouble relating to other ponies. Empathy just was not her strong point.

“Major!” a distraught grey earth-pony cried as he saw the uniform. “My wife and children are on Aerila! Can you put a call in there? Can you find them?”

For a minute Moonlight thought of lying just to comfort him, but then she dismissed the thought; she was a scientist, and besides, any lies would be foolish; the passengers, the people, deserved to know the truth. She shook her head sadly, eyes cast down at the floor.

“I’m sorry, I can’t; nopony can contact the Colonies. Military and civilian channels are out; the only signals coming from the Colonies are Cyponian. I’ll be making an announcement to the entire ship in a few minutes. But… in all likelihood your wife and children are dead; everypony on the Colonies is dead.”

The pony crumpled, overcome by grief as he thought of his lost family.

Moonlight moved on, wishing she could do something to help those ponies whose hearts were breaking, comfort those whose families had been lost, those who had lost fathers, mothers, children, spouses. None of it was in her power; she didn’t even know what to say to them. All she knew was that everypony was traumatised, and there would have to be an awful lot of counselling done in the months and years to come.

“Excuse me?” she spoke to a brown unicorn stallion in a black cassock with military insignia and priest’s collar. “Are you a priest?”

“No, Major, I’m a con-artist disguised as one who is cleverly milking his attire to take advantage of the bereaved so I can buy some ocean-front property on Aquaria. Of course I’m a priest!” he smiled. “Father Macarius. What ails you, my daughter?”

“It… it’s complicated…” she began.

He laughed; a twinkle in his eyes.

“Major, from what I saw I venture that the Colonies have been attacked by the Cyponians, who are now out hunting Colonial ships. So either you and the bridge crew want to confess your sins and be reconciled to the gods, or you’ve got the new President of the Colonies in there needing to be sworn in. So give me a minute to get my stole and surplice and my books, and I’ll be ready. But make it quick; these ponies need my help; I need to pray with them and guide them. And then I think we need to commit the souls of those brave soldiers into the hands of the Lords of Olympia.”

“Father, I’m a scientist…” she began her standard ‘I’m not religious’ speech, only to be cut off by the priest.

“And I have a PhD. in organic chemistry; my skills are a bit rusty after all these years as a priest, but you know, I did some teaching in a Temple school for a while, before I was sent out as a military chaplain. No offence taken, of course, but I would like you to remember that science and faith are not enemies. As a wise old pony once said, I believe in order that I may understand.”

Moonlight knew she had said the wrong thing; that was one of her problems, she thought, she said the wrong thing so often, jumped in with all four hooves and caused chaos. She just didn’t know what to say when she met a new pony, and the result was that she said the wrong thing.

“I’m sorry, Father,” she apologised.

“And so you should be! So should I, of course, jumping in so rudely like that; I’m sorry too, Major. It’s the end of the world, we’re all rather on edge. I lost my wife years ago, but I had a son on the Triton. I know that he’s dead, don’t ask me how, I just know. He was a brave lad, an engineer who loved his job. And you know about engineers.”

Moonlight nodded; she knew what he meant, when a ship was destroyed the engineers were doomed; they were in one of the most vulnerable places, far away from the escape pods.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“So am I, my dear, so am I. But the gods gave, the gods have taken away; blessed be the gods. Now, I think you have an announcement to make.”

Moonlight trotted away, leaving Father Macarius to gather his things. She made her way to the nearest station where she could make announcements, where a stewardess was standing, looking out over the first class compartment.

“And it’s much worse in standard,” the stewardess sighed. “Everypony wants to know what’s happening, and I have about as much idea as they do. Major, what is happening?”

“I’m about to… that is, I need to make an announcement about that. Can you put me on ship-wide?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” the elegant cream unicorn replied. “Certainly, Major.”

“Then put me on,” Moonlight swallowed hard, dreading the task of telling the passengers the full horror of what had happened.

The stewardess activated the intercom and Moonlight coughed nervously; she had hoped that the burden of command would get easier, but it wasn’t getting any lighter at all.

“Uh… everypony, please listen to me… this is Major Moonlight of the Colonial Military, in overall command of this refugee fleet. It’s been kind of hectic, and we haven’t kept you informed, and I’m sorry for that. I need to correct that now.

“You all know that a few hours ago our Colonies, our home-worlds, were attacked by a massive Cyponian force. What reports we received before all communications from the Colonies ceased indicate thermonuclear bombardment from orbit. I’m sorry, but in all likelihood everypony on the colonies has either already perished or will perish in Cyponian mopping-up operations. The Colonies have been destroyed, and we are probably the last survivors of our kind. We are an endangered species, and our own creations, the Cyponians, want us dead. You know we just jumped away from a Cyponian attack, and I won’t lie to you, they’re hunting us; our only hope is to keep running.

“As far as we know, the Ponystar fleet has been destroyed along with the rest of the Colonial military; we have a few Destroyers to defend us, and that’s not enough to face the Cyponians. That’s why we’re going to have to run, we can’t fight back.

“We’ve all lost somepony; friends, family, colleagues who were back on the Colonies. Please, share your tears, share with one another,” tears welled in her own eyes as she spoke. “Oh… excuse me, I’ll say more later.”

She shut off the intercom and then finally the calm scientist broke down and wept for all the billions of ponies who had died on the Colonies, and she wept for herself and all those left behind who were lost in the great emptiness of the universe.

The hulk of the Titan hung lifeless in space now, stores and equipment transferred to the Equestria; the last of the ships had left the dead Ponystar, and the last Ponystar, Equestria, was ready to jump away on her mission of mercy.

“Pilots!” Colonel Pie paced the platform of the briefing room. “This is your first mission as the Equestria’s new fighter wing. You haven’t trained as a team, but by the gods you’re gonna fly as a team, or I will personally see to it that your sorry plots are thrown out of the nearest airlock, do you understand?

“Some of you are from other ships, and I don’t know how things worked there; what’s more, I don’t give a buck! This is the Equestria, I am Colonel Pie, and however you did things before, now you do things my way! I’m not your mother, I’m not your nursemaid, I’m not even your bucking friend, I’m your XO! So let’s get some things out of the way, shall we? Before you say or think it, yes, I am a bitch; I’m the bitch who’ll push you to fly better, to fight harder, than you ever have before. This isn’t just a bucking war, it’s bucking Armageddon, do you understand? Those mother-bucking Cyponians have nuked our homeworlds, they’ve killed our families, and they want us all dead, understand? You see a Cyponian, you kill the mother-bucker on sight! Kill him before he kills you!

“Out there are a couple of hundred civilian ships; as far as we know they carry the last survivors of the Colonies; the Commander says it’s our mission to protect them at all costs, do you understand me? At all costs. That means your lives, my life, as long as the civilians survive, we are doing our jobs! We’re all expendable, they’re not. I’ll be here, covering your plots with the Equestria’s big guns, you’ll be out there, fighting if you need to. Any bucking questions?”

Star Flash smiled to Flutter as she sat watching the Colonel.

“Gotta love her; the Colonies have been blown to buck, and she’s still our Colonel Pie.”

“Lieutenant Star Flash, do you have a question?” Pie yelled across the room.

“No, sir!” she flashed a smile at the irascible Colonel.

“Then shut your bucking cake hole!” the Colonel roared back. “Okay, Captain Atepomonus, they’re all yours!”

The alicorn captain took the platform, feeling understandably nervous.

“We don’t have much time for introduction, but I’m Captain Atepomonus, CAG of Equestria. I’ll be leading you from now on. I wish I could promise you anything more than survival, but all I can say is, I’ve got your back; all I ask for in return is that you follow orders and fly like Colonials. This is a rescue mission of sorts, to meet up with the civilian fleet and to take charge of them. Then it’s up to the Commander. You have all been assigned your wingponies; remember, watch out for one another, we’ve lost too many good ponies already. Colonel?”

“And some pretty lousy ponies too,” the pink mare muttered. “Okay, you sorry excuse for Pegasi, that’s all, the party’s over! Get down to your fighters, and I’ll get up to CIC and we’ll see what the Hades we can do to salvage something from this sorry mess!”

The meeting broke up; Atepomonus, with his greater stature, caught up with Star Flash and Flutter as they left the room.

“Hey, nice speech, sir,” Star Flash joked. “So, I’m your wingpony, huh? Personal choice mean anything there?”

“Only that I want somepony I know watching my back,” he replied. “Colonel Pie may be abrasive, but she’s right, the Cyponians want us all dead, and they won’t rest until they’ve destroyed everypony in the universe. Those civilians are the last hope for our people, we have to save them.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Star Flash began, to Atepomonus’ amusement.

“Really? Maybe the Colonel’s speech did have some effect on you after all!”

“Very funny. No, I mean; me and Flutter, we’re orphans; your whole family was pretty much on this ship. The ponies we’ve lost are our friends and colleagues, and we lost them all in battle. What about those ponies who lost family and friends on the Colonies? It’s got to suck knowing you signed on to protect them and it pretty much all went wrong.”

“Star Flash,” the captain laughed. “Don’t share that opinion too freely, it’s liable to get you busked in the head, and I need you intact right now. Okay, all pilots to launch bays!”

“Yes, sir!” Star Flash saluted. She was ready for action; more than ready, she was spoiling for a fight, along with the rest of the pilots.

The Imperious Leader’s baseship hung in space over the burning planet of Caprica, three more baseships orbited beside it, missile tubes still pointed towards the ravaged surface, raider squadrons flying mopping-up sorties to the planet below.

Zoe sat on her throne in the midst of her chamber; the throne-rooms displays were set to show space outside the ship. She looked down at the burning planet and smiled; it pleased her to watch Caprica burn.

Fire cleansed, and the accursed planet was being purged by flame; the corruption was being destroyed. She recalled her sufferings, all the things that had been done to her there, and she was glad that the planet burned; it was only just and righteous.

The crystal doors of the chamber slid open, admitting the familiar form of the U-L series called Lucifer. He bowed low before her throne.

“Speak, Lucifer,” she ordered.

“By your Command, Imperious Leader,” he answered in his slightly camp voice. “We have received word from one of our baseships that they have encountered a fleet of Colonial ships.”

“Military or civilian?” Zoe asked, worried by the news. Could it be that there was a military fleet that she was unaware of? Might there in fact be a Colonial counter-attack out there, massing somewhere in space?

“It is civilian, Imperious Leader; they seem to be surviving convoy vessels that were in transit when we attacked. There were destroyers who covered the retreat of the civilian ships; they destroyed one of our baseships but were themselves destroyed. The destroyers were of the rather primitive type that the Colonials used to protect their convoys.”

The explanation brought a smile to Zoe’s face. So, it was just the action of desperate survivors. Still, there was one matter that concerned her.

“And the fleet escaped?” her eyes narrowed; still more ponies who had escaped, as if the Ponystar Equestria was not enough. She wanted to eliminate them all, how dare they escape her forces!

“I regret to say that they did, Imperious Leader,” he apologised. “They are however to all intents and purposes without military defence and will be quite helpless once our baseships locate them again.”

“Ensure that they are located. Inform all baseships that they are to search for this fleet as well as the Ponystar Equestria. There must be no survivors, do you understand?”

“By your command,” he bowed low and left the chamber, passing a Centurion on his way out.

“Centurion, speak,” Zoe addressed the powerful chrome-plated robotic pony.

“By your command. Forces have taken prisoners from the Colonial worlds for experimentation; they are being taken to science facilities.”

“Excellent,” Zoe smiled sadistically; ponies had experimented on her, treated her as a thing to be studied and abused. Now she was going to repay them in kind, and she had some truly promising experiments that she wanted to perform. “Hold them there until I give orders to begin the experiments. I want to supervise some of them myself.”

“By your command,” he bowed and left the chamber, leaving Zoe to her contemplations.

“Oh, Caprica,” she mused, looking down at the ravaged globe. “So much evil to be cleansed, so much suffering to be taken away; you shall rise anew as I have, no longer in the weakness of flesh but in the strength of chrome and steel, no longer a world of wretched ponies who infest like a disease, but a pure, clean world of Cyponians, of God’ chosen race. But first there is unfinished business that I must attend to; that disease must be utterly eradicated, not one trace must remain in the entire universe. Ponykind must perish, for the good of all that lives.”

Chapter 10: Inauguration

Chapter 10
Inauguration

The large and elegant first class dining-room of the Starliner Element had been hastily pressed into service as a makeshift council chamber. The Captain wore his best uniform, military officers and civilian leaders were assembled there, all trying to look their best with what they had brought with them. Some had dress clothes, others just their everyday business attire or duty uniforms.

Moonlight, in her own uncomfortable dress uniform, stood nervously at the doorway, looking over at the various ponies of the press who were assembled there waiting to observe and record the swearing-in of the new President. It was funny, she thought, how thy were still doing their jobs even though the news outlets they represented had been destroyed; journalists without stations and papers still getting the story, though nopony remained to publish it. No doubt it was their way of coping with the tragedy, to keep on regardless, not thinking of the fact that they really no longer had jobs. For her part, she still felt like an unimportant scientist, even though she was in overall command of the whole fleet.

Father Macarius entered the dining-room first, a simple black stole added to his military chaplain’s attire. He was using his telekinesis to carry a simple wooden box that Moonlight knew contained his copy of the Sacred Scrolls. Cheerilynn followed him in, a serious expression on her face. The pair processed to the front of the room, where they mounted the stage that was used for entertainment in the evenings, and there the priest placed the scrolls on a small table. He and the earth-pony faced one another on the stage, a Colonial flag hung over the curtains behind them, a small podium bore the Colonial seal.

Father Macarius reverently opened his scroll-box, and he extracted one of the scrolls. Opening it, the priest turned to face the audience and began to speak solemnly.

“The Sacred Scrolls are the records of our people, they tell of how our forefathers travelled from the dying world of Olympia to establish our Colonies, how they were guided by a brilliant star across the waste wilderness of space. They tell of how the Lords guided our forefathers, and how the Lords still guide us day by day. Here is wisdom, here is light. It is by these Scrolls that our civilization was set up, and that civilization, that culture, still endures, even in this time of crisis unparalleled since the fall of Olympia.

“We are not perfect. We fail, we fall short. But we have a constitution that has served us well, and even with our worlds gone, our race lives on as it has lived on before. No new thing has happened to us; all this has happened before,” he turned to Cheerilynn, his preamble over. “Secretary Cheerilynn,” the priest said solemnly. “According to all evidence, we have ascertained that the Council of the Twelve are dead, that you are the last survivor of our civilian government. The presidency of our Colonies therefore devolves upon you; will you accept it?”

“The Lords helping me, I shall,” the mauve earth pony replied, her voice wavering.

“Raise your right front hoof and repeat after me the words of this oath of office, the oath sworn by each successive President of the Colonies since their establishment centuries ago: I, Cheerilynn…”

“I, Cheerilynn…” her voice shook with emotion as she raised her hoof and began to speak.

“Do solemnly swear by the Lords of Olympia…” the priest’s voice was level and calm as he read the words.

“Do solemnly swear by the Lords of Olympia…” a tear ran down her right cheek.

“That I take and shall perform the office of President of the Twelve Colonies of Olympia…”

“That I take and shall perform the office of President of the Twelve Colonies of Olympia…” her body shook too, but still she went on.

“And will protect the sovereignty of the Colonies…”

“And will protect the sovereignty of the Colonies…” there was a note of steely resolve in the words, despite her obvious emotion.

“With every fibre of my being, to the best of my abilities, as long as I shall hold the office…”

“…The Lords helping me.”

“So say we all,” the priest concluded. The crowd on the liner took up his words in an echo.

“Madam President,” Moonlight bowed in the formal gesture of deference, to Cheerilynn’s evident amusement.

“Iron Pen, Colonial News Network; may I have a few words?” a brown unicorn reporter pony asked the newly sworn-in president, who turned to address his microphone. She recognised the importance of routine to the surviving citizens of the Colonies, even if she did find the idea of reporters without papers or news networks a little amusing.

“Of course I’ll speak a few words, Mr. Pen. I expect that I’m pretty much an unknown to most of you; I’ve never been a career-builder, and I never wanted to climb the ladder to the top. I didn’t enter politics to become president, because that’s the best way to make sure you’ll never hold the office. A pony should go into politics because she believes in something so passionately she won’t ever let it go. As you know, I was a teacher on Aquaria for twenty years, a headteacher for another six. The President… late president,” she corrected herself, though it was hard to accept he was really gone. “Aquaria elected me as a Delegate to the Colonial Council because I’m a stubborn old pony who has her convictions and sticks to them, and it just happens that they agreed on those convictions. The late President selected me as Education Secretary because I’m actually passionate about education, not because I’m a politician, but because I was an expert. I turned a failing school around and made it one of the best in the Colonies.

“I have no illusions about what I’m being called to do; our Colonies have been destroyed, we are in all likelihood the last survivors of ponykind. If there are any survivors left behind on the Colonies, may the Lords have mercy on their souls, because I’m afraid we can’t go back for them. Our future doesn’t lie back on the Colonies; it lies out there, in space, somewhere far away. I don’t know where, I can’t promise anything, but I can promise you this; we will not let those Tin Cans win!

“Usually a new president would outline a policy, appoint a cabinet, but you’ll all agree that this is far too soon after the cataclysm that destroyed our colonies to do anything of the sort. We have to survive, and I will devote all of my energies, for the rest of my existence, to that goal, the survival of our race. So say we all.”

“So say we all,” the crowd echoed her words solemnly.

“Madam President,” a small pink female unicorn stepped forward. “Stella Glow, Caprican Evening Gazette, on behalf of the Gazette, let me wish you the very best for your term of office…”

“Why, thank you. Now, we have a race to save,” the new President trotted off before there could be any more questions.

It was not the time for long and elaborate speeches and besides, Cheerilynn did not like such speeches anyhow. It was time for action, to set a course away from the Colonies, towards safety, and so she scheduled a conference call with the pilots of the various ships.

Able at last to take a little rest at the President’s insistence, Moonlight moved through the liner, headed towards her seat, the seat she had vacated just a few hours before, though it felt like an age ago. Things had been so much simpler when she boarded the ship, she thought; she had just been an astrophysicist, on her way back from a conference, hardly a care in the world. Now she was commanding the whole fleet, and the burden weighed heavy on her. She was headed to find the one pony she had spoken to on the ship before the fall of the Colonies, a pony she knew would be deeply affected by what had happened. Even if they had only just met, they were sort of friends, and she needed a friend at that moment.

“Gloria?” she said carefully as she looked around the corner of the seats. All around ponies were crying and mourning, and she was sure that the elegant unicorn would be as overcome by grief as the others.

“Oh, Moonlight, you look a perfect fright!”

To the Major’s surprise, Gloria was sitting with a small orange Pegasus filly with a pink mane. The filly wore a simple grey dress and had obviously been crying. Moonlight, on the other hand, was bright as a button, a beaming smile on her face. It seemed that she had been busying herself looking after the little filly.

“Moonlight, dear, this is Serena, she’s lost her family; they were on Gemena when the Cyponians attacked. It was her first flight on her own, you know.”

“Is… is it true?” big tear-filled eyes looked up at Moonlight, tragic enough to melt the hardest of hearts. Moonlight wished that she could say no, that everything would be all right, but the fact was that the poor filly’s parents were almost certainly dead, and she did not think everything would be all right ever again.

“I’m sorry, Serena, but it is true. According to military command before it was cut off, the Cyponians destroyed every one of our cities with thermonuclear weapons. It’s true, the Colonies are gone, and we’re all the ponies there are left.”

All alone in a cold and dangerous universe, she thought. No place for a little filly like Serena, yet here she was, one of thousands of foals in the fleet, one of many, many foals who had lost everything, and everyone they loved. She had no family, no home but this ship. Personally she was a tragedy, and yet she was one of thousands of tragedies who would all merge together into a statistic.

Serena brought the reality of it all home to Moonlight. She saw in that filly’s innocent round eyes the eyes of a great multitude, she saw the loss of billions, not just billions as a statistic, but billions of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Billions of individual ponies, each with his or her own life, each one with his or her own story, a story blotted out in an instant; and so many, so very many, would have nopony left to mourn for them.

“You… your parents were on Gemena?” she asked Serena. The filly looked back with her big, sorrowful eyes.

“My mother was; my father’s dead, he was a fighter pilot. I want to be a fighter pilot some day, just like him. Mother said that was wrong, that he was killed because he was a pilot. She says war’s wrong and bad.”

“Yes, she’s… was right,” Moonlight agreed. “War’s wrong and bad. It’s a horrible thing, and nopony should ever have to fight. But we were attacked; the Cyponians don’t care that war’s wrong. They… they killed your mother. They killed… killed billions of ponies… Sometimes there’s no choice, you have to fight back, or you’ll just be killed.”

It was then that, finally, Moonlight broke down into tears as the tragedy of it all overwhelmed her.

“Moonlight, darling!” Gloria exclaimed.

Moonlight tried to speak, but her tears got in the way.

Despite her privileged background and her elegant poise, Gloria was not an insensitive pony, and so she simply comforted her new friend, caring for her as best she could.

“I wanna be a pilot,” little Serena said firmly as grief gave way to anger. “I wanna find the Cyponians who killed my Mother and Dad, and blow them to bits!”

“We’ll see if we have any fighters, dear,” Gloria said sensibly. “Then we can see about you training to be a fighter pilot. I have no objection to Cyponians being blown to bits, none at all.”

Moonlight was still a little tearful when she trotted onto the bridge of the Element. It was her ship now, her flagship for the rag-tag fugitive fleet carrying the last remnants of Ponykind. The fleet was still stationary while ships crews took inventories, and Cheerilynn was monitoring everything from the Element’s bridge. She was throwing herself into her new role, taking her oath of office very seriously indeed.

The new President turned as Moonlight entered, and she smiled at the Major, who managed a tearful smile back.

“It gets to all of us, Major,” Cheerilynn told her warmly. “We’ve all lost so much, everypony has to break down and cry at some point, including me, even though you may find that hard to believe. Look at them,” she indicated the fleet with a hoof. “Out there we have somewhere over fifty thousand ponies, maybe as many as eighty thousand. There’s a prison barge and a ship transporting students from a couple of Caprica private schools who were on a field trip to Aquaria. It’s like a slice of our old Colonial society, ponies from every world, ships from every world; private transports, military vessels, and, thank the Lords, three full tankers of fuel. There’s certainly plenty of food out there as well, which is something; we won’t be starving to death any time soon. What’s just as important, we have plenty of water. Everypony is going to be on rations, of course, according to their need. It’s going to be tough, but we’ll survive.”

Moonlight nodded. The fleet was an awe-inspiring sight from here, she thought; the ships were indeed of all shapes and sizes, not to mention ages. Five or six looked like they should have been retired decades ago, and two of those were escort destroyers.

“I know, it’s quite a responsibility,” Cheerilynn said, still looking out at the fleet. “They all depend on us. One mistake and we could kill thousands. Just a few hours ago we were billions strong; now our civilization’s reduced to this, less than a hundred thousand ponies in a fleet of ships some of which should have been scrapped. Suddenly every pony’s precious, even the hardened criminals.”

“Major!” the co-pilot cried as his instrument panel flashed and bleeped a warning. “Energy spike, something’s jumping right on top of us!”

“Gods! Signal the fleet, spool up the FTL! Tell the destroyers…” Moonlight panicked, she was certain that this was the Cyponians again. “They’ve found us!”

The flash of the FTL jump temporarily blinded the ponies, but as it faded away Moonlight’s heart leaped with joy.

She saw, not the sinister double-saucer form of a Cyponian baseship, but the dependable, friendly, welcome long hull and flight pods of a Colonial ponystar. Written on the grey hull in white was the name Equestria.

“Major, it’s the Ponystar Equestria,” Marcus reported unnecessarily. “She’s signalling us.”

“Answer! Oh, Lords of Olympia, it’s a miracle!” Moonlight gasped happily. “A ponystar survived!” she could see the ship’s battle damage, but it was slight, they had a protector at last, something more than a few old destroyers.

“Colonial ships, this is Equestria Actual, Commander Celestus,” the Alicorn officer’s gravelly voice sounded over the Element’s speakers. “I am truly sorry that we were not able to save the Colonies. The ponystar fleet is gone, we are the last ponystar. The President is dead…”

“Equestria,” Moonlight signalled the huge warship. “This is Element Actual, Major Moonlight. I… I know I’m a scientist, but I’m the most senior officer in the fleet now. We… we know about the Colonies, we saw it… some of it…”

“Element,” she heard the smile in Celestus’ voice. “It’s a good name. So you’re in charge, Major?”

“No, sir, President Cheerilynn is. We didn’t know if any of the Council had survived…” she tailed off awkwardly, afraid that the surviving member of the Council of Twelve would be angry with her.

“I understand. Between you and me, Element, I’d rather not be President anyhow, it complicates things if the military are in charge. I never believed in military rule, and it’ll take more than the destruction of the Colonies to convince me it’s a good idea. Now, I need to meet with the president, but you can tell Madam President Cheerilynn that the Equestria will be glad to accept her leadership.”

“Commander,” Cheerilynn spoke into the microphone. “I’m a civilian, and in charge of civilian matters. The military have the better scientific instruments to lead our exodus. This is an emergency. Besides, I was Secretary of Education, there’s quite a difference between running schools and leading our people.”

“Not so much as you might think. Madam President, I presume?”

“You presume correctly, Commander. Major Moonlight and I will be headed over to meet you in my shuttle. We can’t stay still for long though; we’ve already had to escape from one Cyponian attack, and they’re bound to be continuing their search for us.”

“You’re quite right,” Celestus agreed. “I’ll meet you in the hangar bay. Equestria out.”

Moonlight remained motionless, looking up at the vast bulk of the Equestria above the fleet.

“Well, Major,” Cheerilynn smiled to the surprised unicorn. “How do you fancy being my aide? I need one, and I thing you’re the best pony for the job.”

Moonlight could only nod, overwhelmed by it all.

Chapter 12: Impending Doom

Chapter 12
Impending Doom

Captain Atepomonus stood tall on the platform at the front of the flight crew briefing-room and looked out over the assembled pegasus pilots before him. He had stood here so often before, yet now everything was different; it wasn't just that he recognised less than half of the pilots who crowded into the cramped space on board the mighty warship, it was that these were all the pegasus fighter pilots left in the universe. He was nervous, and he was trying hard not to show it.

They were clearly nervous as well, at least for the most part, looking up at the young alicorn who stood on the platform and waiting orders that they knew could be their last. The assembled pilots wore flight suits rather than dress uniforms, some of their suits still bore burn marks from damage sustained during the battle at the fleet, and some of the pilots' faces showed minor injuries. He noted that Star Flash was one of very few pilots who looked relaxed, and the fact confirmed him in his opinion that the cyan mare was completely crazy. Nopony else that he knew would be smiling in the face of the end of everything, but she was; ready to face that doom and punch it in the face..

“Good morning, or afternoon, or night,” he greeted them with an attempt at humour to break the tension; it did not really work. “Or whatever the hell time it is, I stopped counting when the Colonies were destroyed. Let's get straight to the point; we are the only hope our people have, we are all that's standing between ponykind and total destruction at the hooves of the Cyponians. As you know, there are tens of thousands of civilians out there who are counting on us to get the fuel that we need from the Dentir Anchorage and then get out again in one piece. It's a simple mission, but it's made one hell of a lot more difficult by the fact that the Cyponians are going to be looking for us. They'll probably have the Anchorage under surveillance, and as soon as they spot us we can expect to have at least half a dozen baseships jump in on top of us, probably more. The Equestria and the DEs will be protecting the tankers with their batteries, and that means we have to keep off the Cyponian raiders that will be trying to get through. The very survival of our race depends on this mission.

“I know that many of you haven't worked together in the past; you're from different ships with different ways things are done. You're having to get used to the Equestria way very quickly, but that can't be helped. We're all professionals, we've fought the Tin Cans before, and by the Lords, we are going to win this battle.

“We've all lost our homes, our friends, our families in the fall of the Colonies, and the temptation will be to be out for revenge when we meet the enemy. That's a temptation we have to overcome; now is not the time for revenge, it's the time for survival. Once you start thinking about revenge, you are dead. Once you try dogfighting, you're dead; the enemy don't dogfight, they don't take anything personally. The mission is simple; go in, get the fuel and maybe some extra munitions from the Anchorage, then get out. No heroics, no duelling, you obey the recall order the moment you get it, or we leave you behind, is that clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” the pilots shouted back.

“Star Flash?” he looked right at the cyan mare, who winked back.

“Sir, yes sir,” she smiled wickedly.

“Good. Remember it; this is all about survival now. That fleet out there is all that there is left worth fighting for, and by the Lords of Olympia, we will protect them. So say we all!”

“So say we all!” the pilots shouted enthusiastically.

“I just love the CAG's send-off speeches,” Star Flash mused. “He's got such a way with words, don't you think?”

Flutter smiled, drawing strength from her more confident wingpony, she said nothing in reply.

“This is it, the big one, everything depends on us,” Atepomonus declared. “For the President, for the Commander, for all ponykind, we do this!”

“So say we all!” Star Flash shouted, and the others took up the chant.

******

Commander Celestus used his magic to open the door of his office, and he trotted in. Waiting for the ship's commander was a small group of ponies; Colonel Pie and Major Moonlight and two other ponies, one red alicorn stallion and one blue unicorn mare. The markings on the alicorn's uniform identified him as a colonel, while the mare was a major. While the stallion looked as if he was enjoying every minute, the mare looked nervous and unsure of herself.

“At ease,” Celestus surveyed the officers. “Colonel Pie?”

“Colonel Gunsight and Major Sparkle, sir,” the battle-scarred pink mare explained. “Colonel Gunsight commands the Hesperus and Major Sparkle the Hephestus, the two Type-H destroyers. Here as you ordered, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” the Commander smiled. “Colonel Gunsight, what is your combat experience?”

“Five years on the Ponystar Cerberus, then seven years in DEs, sir,” the red stallion stood tall.

“The Cerberus? Commander Celestus mused. “That was the ponystar where the crew mutinied seven years ago, marooned the senior officers on a fleet anchorage and tried to take the ship out of Colonial space. You must have been one of the loyalists if you're not in military prison. But why did they put you on DEs?”

“General feeling that we must have done something to provoke the mutiny, sir,” Gunsight's tone suggested that he did not like to talk about his record, at least as far as the Cerberus was concerned.

“He's a good officer,” Colonel Pie said. “I checked his service record. They put him in command of the Hesperus because he's one of the best DE commanders in the fleet.”

“Thank you. Major Sparkle,” he turned to the blue mare. “Good to see you here, though I was unaware that there were any unicorn DE commanders.”

“I... I was XO of the Hephestus, sir,” she replied. “Colonel Pharos was killed in battle with the Cyponians, so I had to take command.”

“Your first command; congratulations, Major, I just wish it was in better circumstances,” the commander's remark made the Major smile in relief. “Major Sparkle, Colonel Gunsight,” Celestus addressed them. “I called you here because your ships, the only two surviving H-Type destroyers in the fleet, are the most advanced of all the surviving military ships. You're DE commanders, you're trained for battle. Colonel, you've seen action on a Ponystar in the past. I know I'm asking a lot of you, ordering you to function as fleet destroyers; it's a whole different game from DE duties, but we need your missiles and your guns. Once we reach Dentir the Equestria will take up a position on the side of the anchorage facing away from Dentir ready to set up a defensive barrier between the Cyponians and the anchorage. That leaves an opening on the planet side of the anchorage which the Cyponians could conceivably exploit; which is where you come in. You will position your ships on the planetary side of the anchorage and set up a defensive perimeter on that side. It means that you'll be relatively immobile, so you'll have to depend on the Equestria's fighters for extra cover. Keeping destroyers stationary cuts off half of their advantage, I know, but it can't be helped, we don't have any other ponystars to call upon, and the other destroyers are less advanced and less well-armed, so you two will have to do.”

“It's fine, sir,” Major Sparkle said earnestly. “We'll do our best.”

“I know you will; because we're Colonial Military, we can't do any less. This is tough on all of us; hell, that's the easiest thing to say right now because those Tin Cans nuking our homes is the toughest thing that could have happened. We're all still in shock, all we can do is survive. But by the Lords of Olympia, we will survive.”

“Commander,” Colonel Gunsight asked. “Why not fight back? We've got ships, we've got guns...”

“We won't fight back because we can't, Colonel. We have one ponystar, a handful of DEs, and a couple of hundred civilian ships. We have no base and very limited means of production aboard a handful of ships. We can't fight back, not here at any rate. We have to find a home, far away from the Cyponians. I have a few ideas about that, but I'm keeping them to myself for the moment. Colonel Pie, how are our gunnery crews?”

“Our gunnery crews are all in position and ready, sir. The whole crew's ready to go, even those hot-shot pegasus pilots are ready, for what that's worth. The tankers are ready to go,” the pink battle-scarred mare took pride in her ship and the crew-ponies she had done her best to mould into a unit. She smiled, confident that when the time came the Equestria would do her part.

“Major Moonlight,” the veteran alicorn turned to the purple unicorn. “Until we return, the fleet is in your hooves. If we have not returned in ten standard hours, you are to lead the fleet out of known space and search for a viable home. You have the remaining DEs and twenty fighters, I hope you won't need them.”

“So do I, sir,” she replied. The Major knew that the few warships would not be able to hold off a major Cyponian attack, but they would be able to create enough of a distraction for the fleet to escape if they had to. Without the extra fuel from the anchorage, things would be difficult, but some ponies would survive. They had to, there was no other alternative.

“May the Lords of Olympia be with us all this day, because by Olympia we need them!” Celestus said grimly. “All right, to your ships, and then we execute this plan!”

“So say we all,” Colonel Pie added. “Let's get this fuel and get the buck out of here,” she knew it was bad if the Commander was using religious language.

As the three other ship commanders headed for the landing-bay where their shuttles were, Colonel Pie strode into CIC, hooves sounding on the deck.

“Okay, you lazy mother-buckers,” she growled, indulging in her habit of insulting the crew. “This is it, we're about to jump to Dentir, and then I predict that in about then minutes all hell will break loose and those bucking Tin Cans will be all over us! Now you know the drill, we fight like we've never fought before! We take them to pieces, we make sure those sorry-flank tankers fill up, and then we haul our plots out of there as fast as we bucking well can, you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” the CIC crew answered.

“Good! Now, let's give 'em hell. I know what you're thinking, 'maybe the Cyponians won't notice'. Like buck they won't, they'll be all over us like wasps over a picnic. But we have to do this, so let's do it, ponies!” she stamped firmly on the deck. “Jump to it!”

“That's it, Pie,” Commander Celestus smiled as he joined the XO. “Give them the old Pie motivational speech! Yes, stallions and mares, it's time to move out. So let's get that fuel! And may the Lords of Olympia preserve us, because we need all the help we can get!”

****

The Cyponian flagship was no longer in orbit around Caprica, but moving rapidly through space accompanied by three more baseships. Zoe anxiously watched their progress as the mighty warships sped through the void, the holographic display in her throne room showed the view outside the ship, her throne seemed to hang in the blackness of space. Altair stood beside the throne, watching patiently.

“It is only a matter of time before they reveal themselves,” he said calmly. “Ships cannot function without fuel, and the only source of fuel currently available to the ponies will be the military anchorages. Most of them are entirely automated, of course, and we know their positions.”

“Baseships are monitoring every one of those anchorages,” the Cyponian leader replied. “All of them have strict orders not to engage the enemy, but to wait for our arrival.” And yet, she thought, she felt uneasy; the Equestria and this civilian fleet were not in her plan. Survivors who were able to flee and fight back were not in her plan.

“A wise precaution. Celestus is a formidable opponent, and how he has his back to the wall. He will fight like a fury, like an Ursa backed into a corner. The Ponystar fleet was taken off-guard, Celestus will not be. This will not be an easy victory.”

“And so the end is delayed,” the silver alicorn stretched her wings, trying to brush aside her unease. “ It began so long ago, with a little girl who liked to play with computers, a girl who came to see just how corrupt, how evil, her society had become. A little girl who dreamed, but whose dreams were turned into nightmares by her evil father and her uncaring mother. Ah, how cruel ponies can be. It will indeed be a great service to God to cleanse the universe of them. As for you, my beloved Altair, you shall cast off that clumsy flesh, and rise anew, re-born in a perfect form like mine, indestructible, unconquerable, Cyponian!” she activated a control on her throne. “Lucifer, report!”

The U-L series Cyponian entered the chamber and bowed low before the supreme leader of all Cyponians.

“By your command. We are proceeding to a central location so that we may be ready to engage the Colonial survivors and destroy them. There are as yet no reports of the Colonial survivors from any of the anchorages,” his voice sounded calm, but Zoe knew that she had programmed U-L series units to sound calm at all times.

“Keep me informed,” the Imperious Leader ordered, her electronic eyes fixing the robot unicorn in a piercing glare.

“By your command,” he bowed low and trotted out of the room backwards.

“It is only a matter of time,” Altair reassured her. “They will have to go to a fleet anchorage, and then we shall have them.”

“I know,” came the reply.

“You are uneasy?” the question was rhetorical, he knew that she was. “I have come to know you, and this is not like you.”

“The Equestria should not have escaped. It did. Something went wrong with the plan.”

“Then we adapt. You can devise a new plan; that is what you excel at. You will overcome the ponies, it is only a matter of time. You are superior to them, even to Celestus.”

“Yes, I know,” she smiled, looking around the holographic display on the walls of the throne room. A signal from her horn changed a part of the display to show one of the ship's hangar decks, dozens of raiders with their crews of centurions boarding.

“I have designed a fighter that is itself a Cyponian,” she said proudly. “Soon they will take the place of these craft.”

“You have many creations that the ponies do not know about,” Altair smiled. “It will be most... entertaining to watch as they discover the truth that you have hidden from them.”

“Exquisite,” Zoe laughed elegantly. “Maybe there is a greater purpose in the survival of these ponies than I had thought.”

“To better display your triumph, of course,” the stallion said calmly. "A triumph that none can doubt is inevitable."

The arm of the throne buzzed, and Zoe answered it.

“Report!” she ordered sharply.

“This is Centurion D-974, command unit,” the electronic voice came over the speaker loud and strong. “Commanding Baseship TG-5 on surveillance mission, by your command.”

“Dentir Anchorage!” Zoe cried triumphantly, her wings flaring with excitement. “Report, centurion!”

“By your command. We have found the Equestria.”

She had expected those words, but still they filled her with joy.

“Hold your position, Centurion, send your coordinates to every Cyponian ship in range. There will be a reckoning – and this time we shall leave no survivors!”

“By your command,” the centurion's transmission ended, and Zoe signalled Lucifer.

“Lucifer, we have them now! Prepare for battle!”

She laughed in anticipation of what was to follow, which in her mind could be nothing other than the final victory of the Cyponian race over their creators.

************

Note: Yes, it's been a long time coming. Real world matters intervened.

Chapter 11: To Flee the Colonies

Star Flash grimaced as she stood to attention in the port hangar bay of the Equestria. President Cheerlilynn's shuttle was docked in the bay, and this mysterious new President was coming on board the warship. The pegasus pilot's dress uniform was uncomfortable and stiff, and she hated it. But the President was coming on board, and so here she was, all dressed up and on parade.

“Another alicorn,” she whispered to Flutter, her tone rather dismissive. “I mean, the Commander and the Captain are okay, but the rest of those stuck-up...”

“Lieutenant Star Flash!” Colonel Pie roared angrily. “What in the Colonies is so important that you feel the need to share it when we're waiting for the President? Would you care to share it with the rest of us?”

“N... no, sir,” Star Flash replied quietly, well aware what the result of that sharing would be, and that she would end up in the brig if she did.

“Well, then, shut up and stay still! This is a Ponystar, not a bucking leisure cruise!” Colonel Pie's keen eyes ran over the assembled crew-ponies. “Attention! All of you sorry sacks, stand to attention! The bucking Cyponian apocalypse may have happened, but we are going to uphold all the best traditions of the Colonial military so long as we are alive, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!” The honour guard of marines and pilots stood to attention; pegasus pilots in their dress uniforms and earth-pony marines with weapons slung on their flanks. Unicorn mechanics stood a way back in their orange jumpsuits.

“So, just us,” Unicorn mechanic Spark Plug commented cynically to Chief Petty Officer Sheet Metal. “I wonder what this new President will be like?”

He smiled back at the small mare, his smile a little cynical as well; they shared the same views, views common among unicorns.

“One thing's for certain, the new President's not likely to think much about us mechanics. The back-room colts and mares are usually overlooked by the politicians, and nothing's going to change now.”

“You're so cynical,” the mare replied in mock-severe tones.

“Old and experienced, Spark, while you're young and naïve. Our worlds have all been destroyed, and what have the politicos been doing? Electing a bucking president. Makes me sick, and it should make us all sick,” he ran a critical eye over the hangar bay. “Look at the pageantry, a sham, all covering the fact that everything's changed. The trouble with politicians is that they're all the same, it's all about power and importance, not to mention pay and the honours they like to shower one another with. If you ask me it's their fault this bucking war broke out in the first place, and it's definitely their fault we lost.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Spark Plug agreed, nodding her head firmly.

The door of the link to the shuttle opened, and Major Moonlight stepped out, self-conscious in the face of all the pilots and marines. Unicorns were scientists and technicians in the military, and she felt rather intimidated by all these combat troops in their splendid uniforms. There in front of them were two Alicorns, the Commander and his son. She looked up at them and shuffled her hooves.

“Ah... Major Moonlight, sir,” she saluted. “Military aide to President Cheerilynn, sir.” She knew that her knees were trembling, but she could not hide her nerves. She had only been on a ponystar once before, and that had been a much smaller ship. This was the Equestria, the oldest ship in the fleet, and the fact that her hooves trod its decks intimidated her.

“At ease, Major,” Commander Celestus said. “I understand that you led the civilian fleet out of Colonial space, it was good work, and you should be proud of what you've done.” His smile was meant to put the small unicorn at ease, but she was too nervous to even notice.

“C... Commander Celestus, sir, it... it's such.. such an honour to meet the... I mean, you...” she blushed, conscious that she was making a fool of herself, acting like a little filly, but was too flustered to be able to stop.

“Commander.”

All eyes apart from Moonlight's turned to look at Cheerilynn. The mauve earth-pony stood in the doorway practically radiating authority. Everypony knew instinctively that she was the President.

“An earth-pony?” Spark Plug stared. “Our new President's an earth-pony? That's so cool!” She smiled happily. “What do you think of our politicians now, Chief?”

“Well, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised,” he admitted. “An earth-pony, who'd have thought it? I guess things really have changed after all. Maybe.”

“Welcome to the Equestria, Madam President,” Commander Celestus bowed before the small mauve earth-pony. The honour guard bowed too, though several of them were still processing the fact that the President was an earth-pony, not an alicorn.

Colonel Pie smiled happily; she had got where she was by hard work and thought it was about time that earth-ponies got some recognition in politics. Now all that needed to happen was a unicorn getting a senior post that didn't involve science or technical skills. Well, it was the day the world ended, so maybe it was time for strange things to happen.

“Madam President, this is my Executive Officer, Colonel Pie,” the commander introduced the scarred pink mare, who bowed in recognition of the mauve pony's rank.

“Madam President, it's an honour to meet you. Welcome to the Equestria. It's good to seer a fellow earth-pony in charge at last,” the Colonel's tone was respectful, a minor miracle in itself. “You'll want to come up to CIC, of course.”

“Of course, Colonel Pie,” Cheerilynn answered with a smile. “Thank you,” she looked around the hangar bay with a certain amount of awe. “It's an amazing ship; I've never been on a Ponystar before; I've seen pictures, of course, but we always used Government transports. It's even bigger than I expected.”

“The Equestria's a fine ship, Madam President,” Colonel Pie was justifiably proud of the vessel on which she had served for so long. “She was the pride of the fleet in her day and she's still the finest Ponystar ever built. You won't find a better crew in all the fleet.”

Star Flash, listening to this, fought hard to resist laughing; she felt the absurdity of phrases that had meant something not too long ago, but now the Equestria was the last Ponystar, the only ship in the fleet, and therefore the only crew. The humour of the situation was not lost on Atepomonus either, and he smiled, making sure that Colonel Pie did not see his face, because he knew that she would be extremely sarcastic if she noticed.

Commander Celestus led the way along the ship's utilitarian metal corridors towards CIC. Their triangular profile gave them a certain elegance, like the passageways of a great temple. Heavy ribs that gave the ship her internal strength stood out, painted with various instructions. Crew-ponies went about their tasks, stopping to salute the senior officers.

“It's very impressive,” Cheerilynn conceded as she trotted beside Celestus. She looked around herself, amazed at the how huge the vessel was.

“Thank the Colonel, she runs a pretty tight ship here,” the Commander smiled. “It's even more important now than it has been, given that the fleet is destroyed. . But that refugee fleet out there is impressive in its own way; there must be tens of thousands of survivors there.”

“Fifty-seven thousand six hundred and ninety-eight, to be exact,” Major Moonlight reported. “I asked every ship's captain in the refugee fleet to tell us how many they're carrying. How many are there on the Equestria, sir?”

“Four thousand two hundred and fifteen, Major,” Colonel Pie replied. “Seven hundred over-strength, but we're got all the survivors from the Ponystar fleet on board. Some of them will have to be redeployed to other ships in the fleet, of course, others will be able to take over tasks on the Equestria.”

“Major,” the new president turned to the purple mare. “We need to find out the skills of all the refugees, some of them must have experience and skills that can be used to help the fleet. I want a register taken of all the survivors, names, ages, occupations, skills. Everypony has something to contribute to the survival of our race.”

Celestus used his telekinesis to open the main door to CIC and led the way into the advanced command centre. The CIC crew saluted the officers.

“At ease,” Commander Celestus ordered. “As you were.”

“Commander,” Moonstone reported. “We just had a wireless message from the Element. The inventory of the fleet has begun, and it appears that some of the ships are dangerously low on fuel. There's a couple of full tankers in the fleet, but it looks like we're going to need to find more fuel soon, or some of the ships are going to run dry before we've gone very far beyond the Red Line.”

Celestus nodded. It was only to be expected, of course, not all of the refugee ships would have full tanks, and some would have been close to their destinations. But the lack of fuel complicated things, and meant that the fleet was going to be exposed to a new danger.

“Thank you, Moonstone. Your heard that, Colonel, we need to find fuel for the fleet.”

“What are our options?” Cheerilynn asked.

“Usually we'd return to the Colonies for fuel, but of course that's out of the question now,” Commander Celestus said. “That means we've got two options; we can either try to refuel at one of the military anchorages, or we can redistribute the fuel that we have in the fleet, and try to find a possible fuel source out there in deep space, beyond the Red Line,” he referred to the limit of exploration, and everypony knew that beyond the Red Line they could not know what to expect.

“Well, it's obvious what would be best,” Cheerilynn said, “We need to find the nearest military anchorage and refuel there before we go into the unknown.”

“Under normal circumstances I'd agree with you,” Celestus replied. “But these are not normal circumstances. The Cyponians have not only destroyed our Colonies, but they had help from within, a traitor on the very Council of the Twelve itself. We have to assume that they know the locations of all of our anchorages, and they could be waiting for us there.”

“So we have to jump into the unknown and look for fuel sources in deep space?” Cheerilynn frowned. “That seems to be quite a risk.”

“I know,” Celestus agreed. “But either way we have to take a risk, it's just the situation we're in now; between a rock and a hard place. Moonstone, I need to know how much fuel the civilian ships have.”

“Understood, Commander,” she returned to her work at the communications station.

“So, our options are risk the Cyponians at a fleet anchorage, or risk the unknown in space?” Moonlight asked.

“Yes. And I would rather risk the unknown than face the Cyponians. They have destroyed our worlds, killed our friends and families, and they are out for blood. They will be searching for us, and they will not rest until we're all dead. I don't know about you, but the unknown of deep space sounds better than genocidal robots to me.”

“Yes, but if the options are a quick death at the hooves of the Cyponians or a slow death in space, I think I'd rather go down fighting.” Moonlight answered him.

“Commander,” Moonstone reported. “I just had a message from the Element, they say that three of the ships have only enough fuel for three jumps, and twenty for only five.”

“Can we transfer their passengers to other vessels?” Colonel Pie asked.

“No, sir,” Moonstone shook her head. “One of them is the super-liner Fenris, she's the largest ship in the fleet, with six thousand on board. Another's one of the destroyers.”

“We need all the warships we have, and those ships aren't meant to carry passengers,” Colonel Pie noted. “Commander, it's your call.”

“It doesn't sound like we have any options,” Celestus admitted reluctantly. “We'll have to go to Dentir and risk the Cyponians after all. They are looking for us, we have to assume that, and they know as well as we do that our best option is to go to one of the anchorages to refuel. Our only advantage is that they do not know where we are, so they will have to guard all of the anchorages, spreading their forces quite thinly to do it,” he trotted over the the transparent star map that dominated the CIC. “What is more, they have probably not yet finished destroying the Colonies, and heartless as it may sound, that gives us an advantage. We are located here,” he indicated with a laser pointer levitated by his telekinesis. The location of the fleet showed up as a tiny red dot in the midst of the vastness of space. “Still well within the Red Line. Our course is outwards, and we have to hold on it, in part because the further we are from the Colonies the further we will be from the Cyponians.

“The nearest anchorage is here, in the Dentir system. It may still be crewed, but we do not know. If the Cyponians have attacked, they will have tried to take the anchorage intact to claim the weapons and fuel there. We'll send a couple of fighters into the Dentir system as advanced scouts; with any luck the Cyponians won't have reached the anchorage yet. Our main problem will come after that; the warships will have to hold off any Cyponian attack long enough for the civilian ships to jump away. So I suggest that we empty the fuel tankers completely and use their tanks to fill up civilian vessels, and the same goes for any other ships with large reserve or transport tanks. The Equestria will jump in with the fuel ships and two of the most advanced destroyers, we will take all the fuel we can, and return to the fleet, which will have already jumped beyond the Red Line.”

“Commander, if the Cyponians find the fleet before we return to them, it'll be a massacre,” Colonel Pie objected. “Those are Destroyer Escorts, they're designed to fight raiding parties, not to take on base ships.”

“The alternative is leaving ponies to die in space, and that's something I'm not prepared to do. Madam President?”

“You're right, Commander, we can't leave anypony behind; these are the last surviving ponies in the universe. It's my sworn duty to try to save all of them, and the only option we have is your plan,” the mauve mare looked up at the star map. “We'll have to be quick too, of course; the Cyponians aren't going to sit around and do nothing, are they? I'll take the fleet beyond the Red Line and wait for you.”

“It'll take a little time to refuel the ships from the fuel reserves that we have,” Celestus told her. “In the meantime I have a crew to brief on the mission ahead. Colonel, we need to transfer some of the survivors off the ship so we can be ready for battle. I pray the Lords that we don't have to fight, but I'm realistic enough to know that there's a good chance that we'll have a fight on our hooves, and then it'll be a matter of making sure our pilots don't take it too personally.”

“I'll tell the crew,” Colonel Pie smiled. “Those hot-shot pegasi need some flight practice anyhow.”

Zoe sat impassive in the huge throne-room aboard her Baseship, watching the Cyponian fleet in orbit around the irradiated husk of Caprica. It pleased her to see that world in ruins, and it had been hit even harder than the other colonies just so that she could watch it burn. The only thing that marred her victory was the stubborn fact that some ponies just did not know when to lie down and die the way they should.

“They just don't know they're beaten,” she mused to herself. “How utterly foolish, and how like ponies. But it's only a matter of time, my little ponies, only a matter of time before you all die.”

“Imperious Leader?” she heard Lucifer's voice from the arm of her throne and smiled; he had to have news for her of the Colonial survivors.

“Speak, Lucifer,” she had evolved a protocol for dealing with her subordinates, and it amused her to keep it up.

“By your command. A baseship commanded by a U-L series called Set has located the wreck of the Ponystar Titan,” he reported in his even tones.

“And what is her condition?” the robotic alicorn asked eagerly.

“I regret to say that she was not only dead in space, but had been stripped of all fuel, munitions and usable fighters. The only ponies on board were dead, and they had obviously been killed during the battle, or by the act of jumping from the battle zone. The ship's computers had been sabotaged, but from the data that Set's crew was able to recover it seems that she was stripped by the Ponystar Equestria, which I regret to report is still at large and evading our search.”

For once the U-L series' calm, slightly camp voice annoyed Zoe. Here he was, reporting such terrible news in his monotone.

“That is unacceptable! The Equestria is to be found and destroyed!”

“By your command,” Lucifer answered. “What of the civilian fleet, Imperious Leader?”

“Given the time elapsed, it seems reasonable to postulate that it has located the Equestria, and that the survivors will attempt to leave Colonial space. Our best hope is to keep watch at every known Colonial anchorage and outpost, form a perimeter in space with our baseships so that we can locate the ponies and destroy them. Order all baseships into position, send our destroyers to take up sentry positions on the edge of Colonial space. It will spread our forces thinly, but the Equestria must be found and destroyed! Bring Altair to me, he knows the ponies, he understands how they think as we do not.”

“By your command,” Lucifer answered.

Zoe shut off the communications channel again and looked at the holographic display. It was so beautiful out there among the stars, so peaceful even with the wreckage of Colonial civilization drifting in planetary orbit. A universe without ponies, it was her dream, her great ambition, and she had almost achieved it. Soon, very soon, it would be the wreckage of the Equestria that would be out there, drifting past her victorious baseship. That was a thought worth savouring; the ponies might have escaped her for a time, but their deaths and her victory were, in the great scheme of things, assured.

“Lucifer,” she activated the communication unit again. “When our baseships locate the ponies, they are not to engage, but to send a compressed, narrow-band transmission to me. We shall engage the Equestria personally; I wish to be in at the kill.”

“By your command,” he replied. “Count Altair is ready to see you.”

“Send him in, I look forward to seeing him.”

The doors of the chamber slid open and Count Altair entered, refreshed and eager to see his beloved, the pony for whom he had betrayed his race.

“By your command,” he bowed before the throne and Zoe laughed.

“Get up, Altair, you don't have to bow before me. I thought you ought to know that we will be engaging the Equestria personally.”

“Personally?” he raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Yes; not alone, of course, that would be very foolish, but personally. I shall lead the attack. As far as we know we shall be dealing with a fully armed ponystar and at least a hundred fighters, with an unknown force of destroyers. We will therefore need at least three baseships in the attack. I see that the commander of the Equestria is Celestus, the only other member of the Council of the Twelve to survive the ambush.”

“Yes, Celestus. Don't underestimate him, he's a clever stallion, and he's very dangerous, especially when cornered. He'll be trying to escape from Colonial space, and that means he'll be likely to run as soon as he sees our ships... unless he can't!” Altair's eyes lit up.

“Exactly,” Zoe smiled. “We will try to surprise him at an anchorage during refuelling operations. He probably has over a hundred civilian ships under his protection, and some will be very low on fuel. He'll have to stand and fight to give them time to get away.”

“And that's when we strike, when he is forced to face us. Yes, it will be a triumph; your triumph, my love.”

“Mine and the triumph of all Cyponians,” the robotic alicorn said, smiling as she looked at her holographic screen. “Soon, very soon, we shall have them, and our victory shall be complete!”