Equestrian Odyssey: Rise of the Sleepers

by Dracofalcon

Chapter 1

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The wormhole flashed a few times and a Proteus, a Manticore, and a Hurricane flashed into existence.

"All clear!" Shouted Drake over the fleet coms from his Proteus.

"Alright, I'm coming through," The coms marked the gruff voice as belonging to Flint, seconds later the wormhole flashed again and an Iteron-class cargo hauling ship flashed in.

This small fleet belonged to a small wormhole based capsuleer corporation. Drake was the fleet commander and CEO of the corporation, he piloted a Proteus, a ship designed to outperform and outgun everything. Cinder was piloting a Manticore, it was smaller than Drake's Proteus but could cloak and fired battleship-grade torpedoes. Teyreon piloted the Hurricane, he had recently joined the corporation and was a somewhat new capsuleer, having only just recently graduating from an academy and joining the immortal pilots. With Flint in the Iterons rigged drop bay was Jack.

Jack was a ground based merc-for-hire. It had recently been discovered that the ancient sleeper race had colonized planets, as well as space, and left many valuable relics and technologies on them, the same technologies that Drake's ship had been reversed engineered from. He and Drake were one of the few capsuleers to have modified neural interfaces that allowed them to pilot ships and the new versions of the already terrifyingly powerful mercenary drop suits.

Normally Drake would raid the sleeper complexes on the ground and in the air but he had recently been shot in the leg by a sleeper drone that he had let get too close, instead of choosing to wake up in a new clone or let a medical bot repair his leg he had decided to let it heal naturally, a reminder to do better he said.

"I'll check that exit wormhole into null sec for you guys," Cinder's ship suddenly vanished and seconds later a very dim warp drive signature flashed off of the fleet's scanners. A short time later there was a reply through coms "Apocalypse class battleship at the wormhole, he looks like he's all alone," Cinder said in a voice much too happy for any normal person that was suggesting murder.

"He might be bigger than us but with this many ships this should be an easy kill. Who's up for a bit of fun?" Drake asked after thinking a few seconds.

"Hell yeah!" Replied Teyreon, his ship spinning around to align for a warp, as the rest of the ships followed suit except for Flint's, which wasn't equipped for combat and probably would've been sliced to pieces by the battleship's giant lasers in mere seconds.

Teyreon's Hurricane pops in and targets the giant ship, "I've got tackle!" He shouts as his ship begins to activate particle modules that slowed the battleship and kept it from warping away.

"I'm uncloaking," Cinder announced as 3 giant torpedoes sped by Drake's ship as it appeared from warp, instantly firing upon the battleship. Slowly the lumbering battleship turned about, so that its side faced Teyreon and began firing off multiple lasers, inflicting tons of damage upon the Hurricane, but under the combined fire of the three ships its not long before Drake announced,

"Apocalypse at fifty percent armor. Flint, align your Iteron to me and have the salvage drones prepped!"

"We may have a problem," said Teyreon, "my armor just failed and my structure is taking damage. I may be rejoining you guys shortly in a capsule here soon," There was not a hint of fear in his voice, as if death was a thing he went through everyday. The group knew that if he did die he'd simply wake up in a new clone, ready to kill again.

"Don't worry about it," Drake replied "We'll get this bastard for you," Seconds later a large flash fills Drake's peripheral vision as the Hurricane explodes and Teyreon's pod jumped off through the wormhole. Even after Teyreon had been removed from battle the Apocalypse didn't turn to target Drake and instead turned towards the wormhole, with smoke pouring out of its sides where barrages of missiles, bullets, and hybrid charges had hit.

"He's getting away!" Cinder yells as she switches her Manticore to full throttle towards the Apocalypse. Drake's Proteus releases volley after volley of void charges, impacting the sides of the Apocalypse.

“His structure is at thirty percent!” Drake shouts, the crippled battleship slowly getting closer to the wormhole.

“Only two more volleys of torpedoes left before the ten second reload,” Cinder says over coms, “Its going to be close!” As soon as she says it Flints Iteron pops into view.

“Shit!” Flint yells as he slowly turns his ship back around, attempting to align to a planet in the wormhole system, “I figured you guys would be done by now based on that info on structure,”

“You don't have to go anywhere,” Cinder replied cockily as the last salvo of torpedoes fires off towards the battleship, now right at the wormhole. Drake's ship turns about, only ten meters from the battleship, to fire its last few charges. The battleship entered the wormhole as Cinder's missiles streak by Drake, slamming into the Apocalypse which was half-in, half-out, of the wormhole. Suddenly, in a bright cascade of blue light the battleship exploded as Drake's last volley suddenly hit the cargo section of the Apocalypse, which was located right inside the wormhole, existing in multiple places at once due to wormhole distortion. Suddenly a giant multicolored light filled the area surrounding the wormhole, an explosion of epic proportions, battering the Proteus down through parts of its armor, and tearing through the Iterons structure, leaving the ship in several pieces.

“What the hell was that!” Cinder demanded, continuing her flight towards Drake and gunning it towards the expanding wormhole.

“I have no idea!” replied Drake with panic in his voice “the wormhole is pulling me in and my engines are out! I'm not getting any readings from Flint or Jack.”

“I'm headed towards the wreck!” called Cinder, her small Manticore going at full speed towards Drake's ship.

“Wait! I-” Drakes voice was cut off as a third explosion went off inside the wormhole as it expanded out and sucked the wrecks of the Iteron and Apocalypse through, followed by Drake's battered ship. Cinder gave the neural commands for the Manticore's engines to stop, but it kept hurtling forward. The ships electronics were knocked offline when the shockwave hit. Cinders vision started to fade, and she could barely see the now sickly colored wormhole, pulling her in. Suddenly she felt the ship shudder, realizing that no electronics meant no shield, the ships primary means of defense. She blacked out as soon as her ship crossed the event horizon, while somewhere in Equestria a certain princess of the moon noticed something off about her night sky, but soon forgot about it to continue on with the Nightmare Night celebrations that were taking place, oblivious to a new threat more dangerous to Equestria than a few capsuleers, one that she would soon have to face.


Author's Note

So here it is! Chapter one, i plan on introducing characters a bit more in the next chapter and bringing in ponies which i'm pretty sure is what most of you came here for, so you might as well have it :P Also, i still need a prereader to catch me on little flaws and to help keep me from going overboard with certain elements.

ReWrite: Not much changed here, just a bit of cleaning up and some extra flavor.

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