FTL: The last great voyage of the Osprey

Reginald sat back in his captains chair. His name was Reginald but everyone on board the ship called him Ryan. At first this was just to get under his skin for being a pompous bastard, eventually though it became more of a thing they did as friends. Ryan commanded quite a ship. The Osprey. One of the greatest achievements since the stealth class light cruiser. The Osprey was an artillery class light cruiser. As such it was equipped with one of the greatest weapons in federation history. The Vindicator beam was an artillery weapon reserved for only the heaviest of cruisers. The beam could pierce the strongest of shields and slice the toughest of hulls. The downsides to this were that the beam had no connection to the targeting computer meaning it could not be aimed and due to the huge amount of power needed to fire the beam there was no possibility of the ship gaining a cloaking system. That was until the Lanius appeared.

The Lanius were thought to be nothing more than slobbering beasts who feast on metal but as it turns out these thoughts were wrong. They are sentient and despite their mantis like tendencies when it comes to war they can be reasoned with. If an alliance were to be made with these solitary aliens so much good could come of it and that is just what Ryan did. It happened in an abandoned sector of space a militia ship was bombarding a Lanius fighter with missile after missile; in an effort to eliminate them from the galaxy. Ryan, not favouring genocide quickly destroyed this militia's ship. Granted there were most likely more but these Lanius were safe. As thanks the Lanius offered to install a cloaking device. Ryan quickly told them it was impossible but they would not take no for an answer. Against all odds the cloaking device was up and running. One of the Lanius even offered to join the crew his name was "Horrigan". Before the exchange was over the Lanius delivered an uncharacteristically cryptic message "Do not deliver vindication in cowardice."

This was in the back of Ryan's mind as he watched the left side of the rebel flagship explode and crumble. "Ssssir! The flagship isss fleeing!" Kazaaakplethkilik's serpent like voice rung throughout the ship.

"After them!" Ryan replied prompting the familiar wail of the FTL drive to sound and the ship to jump to the next beacon.
The Osprey arrived face to face with the crippled cruiser. The Vindicator was glowing with a colour of pure hatred and was ready to fire any minute.

"Captain!" The melodious voice of Cronos the Zoltan sounded. "The rebels were ready I'm detecting a massive power surge from the ship!"

"Activate cloak!" Ryan yelled, afraid of what the rebels had planned.

"Yes sir!" A robotic voice belonging to Mallard the Engi replied.
The large frame of the Osprey began to fade until it had disappeared completely.

"Captain. The Vindicator is fully charged and about to fire" The voice of Lucy the Rock came over the intercom.

Do not deliver vindication in cowardice.

"NO! WAI-" Before Ryan could finish the ship shut down. Intercoms were dead, the sensors were offline, weapons had lost charge, Oxygen was dispersing and engines had shut off. The engines then burst into life with the loud wail of the FTL drive following them.
The Osprey had fled, it was gone all that was left was a partially damaged flagship and a federation about to fall.

The sky in Equestria was calm and quiet save for the occasional bird singing just like any other day. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun shone bright. This tranquillity was soon broken by none other than the Osprey appearing in the sky. The ship was not built for in atmosphere flight. The ship itself had to be constructed in space. Panels flew off of the hull. Cracks spread across the glass window in the bridge. Fires erupted from the engines which were clearly being overloaded.

Ryan struggled to maintain footing, the ship wide blackout had knocked out the artificial gravity. "All crew members gather in the bridge!" He then remembered Horrigan and he's species' traits. "And bring emergency breathing masks!"Horrigan was in the front of the ship managing the cloak when it happened. He hadn't managed to tell the captain not to cloak before it was too late. The system was beyond repair, wires were waving everywhere and the metal had gotten so hot in some places that it actually melted and solidified. He heard the words of the captain over the dying intercom "Gather.....bridge.....breathing" Was what the speakers spat throughout the ship.

The ship was beginning to speed towards the ground at an alarming rate. This caused the spine of the ship to become a near vertical wall instead of the hallway the crew knew it as. All of a sudden the engines flared into life causing the ship to level from its sheer plummet. The ship had managed to level out but was still losing altitude. The Osprey was beginning to awaken again, the artillery beam began it's auto charge and the remaining weapons moved into firing position however one of the engines that had just saved them died as quickly as it had come back to life. The loss of one engine caused the on board power manager to reroute the power to the other engine causing the ship to start spinning out of control. On top of this the ship was angling downwards and the spine was starting to bend.

Horrigan ran into the targeting room to find Kazaaakplethkilik pinned under some excess munitions. As fearsome as the Mantis are they are not the strongest species in the galaxy. "Metal murderer!" Kazaaak began with his less than creative and less than flattening nickname for the Lanius. "I require assisssssstance but please do hurry" Kazaaak finished, noting that the air was getting thinner.

Horrigan was quick in acting and rolled the missiles off of Kazaaak's abdomen "...........Hurry.......We will die." Were the few words Horrigan said.
Lucy was in the next room trying to open the doors. "It's no good! There's a hull breach in the next room and the blast doors have sealed!" Lucy yelled, punctuating her point by punching the reinforced door.

"We........are trapped." Horrigan solemnly spoke as he opened a hatch and threw two breathing masks to Kazaaak and Lucy.

"We can only hope the captain hasssssss a plan" Kazaaak mumbled.

Cronos calmly walked onto the bridge "Captain I am here as per your requests" The ever calm and soothing voice of the Zoltan helped ease the situation a bit.

Mallard soon arrived on the bridge spouting something about a less than 1% chance for survival.

"Alright that's you two accounted for but where are the othe-" A red light began flashing on the cracked control console

"Hu l B ch" Was the warning that flickered on and off.

"Hull breach! in the artillery corridor! quick send a dro-" Ryan couldn't seem to finish a sentence today as the ship began to split apart down the middle.

Everything seemed to slow down then. The bar next to the artillery icon was full and that meant the Vindicator was about to fire! From the bridge all that could be seen was the split hull followed by an explosion. The story was different in the other end of the ship though. Lucy was still trying to break down the door then the wall fell away to reveal the broken Vindicator pointing at them and ready to fire. Then it did, the beam shot forward and must of hit something in the targeting room because a violent explosion followed. The front end of the ship was sent spiralling away from the rest of the ship due to the explosion where was the back end was propelled backwards.

"Get back from the breach! We're gonna crash and by Granite I'm not letting you two die!" Lucy had to shout to be heard over the rush of air

"Maintain.......grip......falling....would be......lethal" Horrigan said as he retreated to the cloaking room.
Kazaaak only nodded. He had been in a similar situation before.

"I can't! move dammit! End me now ensign! I am not a worthy mantis to sssssssurvive when my crew has not!" Kazaaakplethkilik lied in a pool of his own murky blood. The great thief reduced to this. A broken piece of metal had speared him through the thorax and soon it would all end. The ensign he was talking to had succumbed to a fire in the room. It was over, he was left here to die. That was until a rocky hand reached out to him

Kazaaak was stirred from his thoughts by a loud crash followed by what felt like the ship segment slowing down. A statue then fell onto the ship, the horn of the statue very nearly stabbing Kazaaak's thorax when it pierced the hull.

"Captain. We have lost Lucy Kazaaakplethkilik and Horrigan." Cronos spoke in a tone that seemed to waiver.

Ryan was silent. Despite their current situation he still found time to mourn as the ship hurtled towards the ground.

"Captain. Readings show that engine number 2 is extremely unstable and could detonate at any moment I suggest we evacuate the ship. Provided we survive which is a 0.002% chance given our current circumstances." Mallard said coldly like any other Engi would.

"Noted." Ryan said with little sign of emotion.

The entire bridge shook as the ship made contact with something solid. The ship held despite it's damaged state.
As per the Engi's orders they immediately evacuated the ship.
Ryan noted they were in a building and had to make sure there was no one inside when the ship exploded. "Hello!? If there's anyone in here you need to get out now! It's not safe!" Ryan turned a corner to find a small-ish equine cowering against the wall. Upon seeing him the pony grabbed what appeared to a be a cat and ran out the door. The engine was now shaking violently "Oh no." Ryan darted out the door and met up with his crew. He noticed that the building was not a pile of embers "Well. That was dissapointi-"

The ship exploded.

"Nevermind."