The New Lunar Republic: Leviathan

Chapters

Prologue: A Night To Remember
Chapter 1: The Foehammer Protocol
Chapter 2: Unsavory Elements
Chapter 3: Long Road Home
Chapter 4: The Republic's Finest
Chapter 5: Throne of Night
Chapter 6: Creature of the Deep
Chapter 7: Echoes
Chapter 8: Relics
Chapter 9: The Legion

Prologue: A Night To Remember

In the darkness of the void, the stars and planets of the Solar Empire hung like gossamer jewels. The planet Aquarion was one such gem, named so for its bountiful blue oceans and cyan sun. The greatest city of Aquarion was the bustling metropolis of Sunspire. It was located on the great ice-covered northern continent, its towering solar arrays shined like a beacon across the expansive tundra. Snow drifted lazily, unhurriedly upon the city streets as ponies of every stripe and color went about their daily business. And upon one such street a young unicorn colt and one shy filly pegasus walked.

The unicorn wore a serious expression and walked with purpose, his newly obtained cutie mark shining on his flank. The pegasus trotted behind him meekly, eyes downcast. Winter Reverie stopped dead, causing the trailing pegasus to bump her head into his flank. She looked at him in surprise and shivered in the cold. His head swiveled round to stare straight into her eyes, his own seemingly carved of blue ice against his white coat and deep cobalt streaked mane.

“Are you going to keep following me?” She flinched back, ears flattening against her scalp. She looked down and twirled the tip of her hoof through the frozen drifts then glanced up and nodded. He kept looking at her for a few seconds longer and sighed, tilting his head back to gaze into the overcast sky.

“Fine.” He began walking again. “My name is Winter Reverie, what’s yours?” Silence greeted him.

“Well?” He waited a while longer before he heard a faint squeak. Winter stopped and turned around again. The pale unicorn glared daggers at the younger winged pony. She practically cowered and opened her mouth but no words came. Instead, she unfurled her wings and began to move them in a deliberate, non flapping manner. He recognized it immediately.

“Wing Sign? So you can’t talk huh.” She nodded. “Take it slow, I’m rusty.” A fearful glance and a faint, equally fearful smile flashed his way before she started to move her wings through the different positions of Wing Sign, the language of pegasus ponies who could not speak.

“Cr-y-stal Fl-our-ish. Crystal Flourish huh? Well alright then Crystal, how far are you willing to follow me?” She signed carefully, her fuchsia feathers swishing the delicate water crystals.

“All the way, if it means leaving this place.” He repeated her words. “I suppose that’s good enough.” Reverie began walking down the street again, the mute pegasus filly in tow. The adult citizens of Sunspire paid no attention to the two young ponies. They were just more motes of life, swept along with the flow of the boulevard.

“I’m going to the docks to see if I can’t get hired on as help on one of the ships. We don’t have money so that’ll be the best way to get off world besides stowing away, which would be stupid anyway.” Sirens grew in the distance and a bright red fire wagon blared past. Winter Reverie caught a snippet of conversation floating along the crowd.

“Did you hear? They say Celestia's School For Gifted Youth caught fire!” He glanced back at Crystal and jerked his head to make her hurry. The quickest way to the orbital dockyards took the two ponies through one of the many city squares, full of citizens of every hue and stripe of life. Business ponies, lawyers, wagon drivers, executives, carpenters, spacers, pilots, and everything above and below. It was into one of these open areas that Winter and his companion sought to cut through.

A loud, but pleasant chime sounded through the air and all the massive screens that had once been scrolling pertinent news bulletins and various advertisements went black. An urgent notice flashed twice followed by a shot of a crème colored mare seated behind a news desk. She cleared her throat and spoke in a rehearsed calm.

“Attention citizens, this is an urgent announcement. I repeat, this is an urgent announcement by our lady, Princess Luna.” Nearly everypony in the square had stopped to stare. Winter Reverie and Crystal Flourish no exception. The screens all faded to black once again and then were replaced with the most regal pony Winter had ever seen. While he had seen the image of Empress Celestia poised with all her authority and ruling grace, she was different from her sister.

Luna’s beauty was subtle, unquestionable, and breathtaking. A cerulean crown rested among her flowing star field mane. Her gentle eyes seemed to be looking directly at him. The camera was focused on her from the middle up. Worry creased her brow and determination set her jawline tight. She began to speak and Winter Reverie felt himself sink into the velvety sound even as the snow piled on his back.

“My little ponies, I returned to you many years ago as nightmare moon, a terrible creature that was defeated thanks to the brave efforts of six courageous souls. Words cannot express my joy at my own defeat and my return to you, to everypony that was abandoned in my exile. Only love and unconditional acceptance has greeted me. And for that, thank you! Thank you all!” She proclaimed this loudly and everypony cheered their hearts joy. Princess Luna let happiness curl the corners of her mouth before it fell back into a frown.

“But the things I have seen in my return have… disturbed me. I watched the Solar Empire of my dear sister flourish from my own star bound prison, marveling at it. In the recent years however, I have seen the cancer that has festered in its heart.” Whispers started to float through the still air.

“I cannot ignore what this kingdom has become. I tell you now that this empire is corrupt!” Ponies gasped all around but none could tear away from the Alicorn’s speech. “I can no longer turn a blind eye to what has happened and is happening even now. I come before you to say that my sister, whom we all love, has become a tyrant!” She stamped a hoof and several ponies jumped.

“I come before you now to tell you I shall do what should have been done a thousand years ago! But I shall not do it out of bitterness, out of a desire to rule. I do it for all my little ponies who now suffer in this Solar Empire! I remember when everypony was free! Free from the horrors and cruelties all of you face! And it is with a heavy, but resolute heart that I declare my withdrawal from my sister’s empire. And I declare the founding of a new state.” Winter could have sworn he could hear the very snowflakes cracking against the ground in the silence.

“By the powers vested in my, I secede from the Solar Empire and raise the flag of the New Lunar Republic!” Her voice reached a crescendo, the camera view zoomed back and a banner was unfurled behind her, a crescent moon, backed by a pair of wings on a lavender field.

“In this New Republic all shall be free! All shall live by the ancient amendments laid down at the very founding of the Equestrian kingdom. This Republic shall stand against the Empire and the horrific ideals it has come to uphold. All ponies are welcome. Any planets who swear themselves to us shall be given protection, every citizen offered asylum.” The camera zoomed out further to reveal serried ranks of earth and unicorn soldiers as pegasi zoomed overhead. It was an awesome display of martial might. And before it all stood Princess Luna, clad in purple metal embossed with winged moons.

“In this new unity lies strength! The strength needed to overthrow tyranny! Out of our scattered dreams we shall forge a new destiny among the stars! And know that I shall watch over you. From this day forward, let it be said that freedom lives once again, and that she shall never be silenced.” The next words shook every pony to their core.

“For the New Lunar Republic!” She cried, and from behind her, the answering call of over ten-thousand voices took up the rallying phrase. The volume of it vibrated the air.

“For the New Lunar Republic!”

The video feed cut to a static image of the flag that had been shown. For a time no pony dared move, frozen in the snow by what they had heard. Soon though, individuals started to move, realizing the implications, the chaos civil war would bring and the preparations that needed to be made. Soon everypony was running or hurrying in one direction or another.

Winter Reverie slowly felt a smile creep onto his face.

“I think I know our destination. Still need to sign on to a ship though. And I think I know just the one. You still coming with me crystal?” She signed back unflinchingly.

‘All the way.’

Author's notes: Alright, this little teaser I whipped up a little while ago because there is no decent (That I've found) pony fiction set in space, or at least of a New Lunar Republic nature. This fic shall have a bastardized amalgamation of various space combat mechanics that I feel fit to throw at the wall to see what sticks. Why? Because I love epic space combat, huge guns, futuristic cannons, and the thought of planetary bombardment makes me giddy. Oh, and ponies, love them ponies too.

So, if this little prologue (And maybe first chapter) get enough positive attention I'll see about putting time into this little tale. To everyone who's reading Fire Ghost, don't worry, it's still my number one priority at the moment.

Chapter 1: The Foehammer Protocol

The Foehammer Protocol

During the Exile of Nightmare Moon, known as the Second age, a breakthrough in Arcano-mechanical engineering yielded the first faster-than-light drive system. Ponykind reached to the stars. Colonies were established, grew, thrived, and became bastions for further expansion. The Solar Empire was born.

Equestria became the heart of the Empire, a shining beacon of progress and civilized ponydom. Other races soon followed, staking out their own claims in the great void. Griffins, Zebras, Diamond Dogs, Minotaurs and more reached to the heavens. None could compare to the glory of the Empire.

Everypony forgot about the old legends. They forgot about the Mare in the Moon. The lifeless body hung over Equestria, waiting.

Until the prophecy of old came to fruition and Nightmare Moon returned and exiled the Empress, locking her in sacred Sol, usurping the throne. Then six brave ponies rose up and harnessed the power of the Elements of Harmony to defeat Nightmare Moon. In the aftermath, Princess Luna took her rightful place by her sister’s side once more to rule in peace and tranquility. The third age had begun.

But it was not the end of the story.

Only a short time passed until Princess Luna betrayed her sister once again. History in its timeless crawl, repeated. The Solar Empire was split in two. Half stayed loyal to the Empire, stable, pure, and noble. While the other half defected to the New Lunar Republic, free, righteous, and filled with conviction.

Twenty long years have passed, and the war between the sisters has engulfed not just a single world or a single nation. This time their conflict has set the stars themselves aflame.

***

The Sierra Sapphire coasted through a backwater system. She was a merchant vessel, old, and sturdy, having sailed the trade lanes between settled systems for many decades. Roughly three hundred meters stem to stern, many scars marked her hull. Meteorites, cannon fire, and other signs of the danger of the void. She bore them proudly, defiant in the face of the harshest environment in the entire universe.

Deal Breaker was a blue earth pony with a trio of coins for a cutie mark. He commanded his small crew from the bridge of the Sierra Sapphire, as his father Smooth Hoof had before him, and his father before him. Ponies sat at work stations around the semi-circular bridge, monitoring the output of the generator, engines, and the space surrounding the ship. Deal Breaker had chosen a slightly unorthodox route to their destination and he was on high alert.

It was slightly risky, there being no Empire traffic controller on standby to ward off potential threats. For that reason though there was little chance of encountering anypony at all way out there. Nefarious or otherwise. Pirates flocked around the busier routes, hoping to get lucky off a fat luxury vessel straying too far from the herd.

“Magnometric and Ladar sensors report all clean. Gravimetric shows some debris off starboard, range eight thousand.” Called a watchpony.

“Let’s steer clear of that, the sooner we’re out of this system, the better.” It wasn’t the route that was making Deal Breaker nervous; it was a piece of his freight. At the conclusion of his normal drop off point in the Novus constellation a very professional looking pony had approached him on the docks. He had asked Deal to transport a small stasis crate in addition to his regular cargo.

That in itself wasn’t at all unusual. Such requests came often while the Sierra was berthed if no courier ship was present and the sender didn’t care too much about when the package arrived so long as it did so safely. No, it was the pony’s smile, the smile that didn’t reach his dead eyes.

The captain shook his head to dispel the nasty aftereffects of the meeting. His run was nearly done and he wouldn’t have to worry about it, and would indeed make a nice profit from the time he had shaved off by choosing the road less traveled. A few more jumps, and he could enjoy a well-earned day or two of relaxation. Maybe find a good looking mare and have a night out. He had heard some of his crew talk about a new restaurant opening at Trihaven Station.

Any further daydreaming was forestalled when an ensign called out from her console.

“Contact! I have a contact, starboard, closing at four thousand!” The ponies of the Sierra were veteran spacers and did not panic. They had fended off a raiding vessel more than once.

“Pirates,” Sneered the merchant. “Voids up, bare the fangs.” The Sapphire’s twin heat lance turrets emerged from their housing and swiveled to lock on her opponent.

“Incoming. Five torpedoes, unknown payload. Impact in ten. Target is Assault Cruiser, determining model now.”

“Where are my Celestia damned Void shields?” Demanded the captain. The vessel shivered as her turrets opened fire, lighting the space between with flashing death.

“Voids up sir! Impact in four.”

“All hooves brace for impact!” Two sleek, deadly spines of self-propelled penetrated the merchant’s shields and evaded the meager point-defense fire thrown at them. Each of the twenty meter long torpedoes sank through the hull of the Sierra Sapphire like porcupine quills.

“Damages?”

“Very little, sir. Breaches on decks five and eight, atmospheric integrity holding. No explosions detected. Pirate vessel has retreated out of range, no more incoming fire.” The captain wasn’t sure what to make of the news. He suspected that their defenses and armaments were being tested, like a shark taking an experimental bite out of its prey. A few tense minutes passed but nothing else happened.

Perhaps they could stave off the star bound predator long enough to reach the next jump point.

“Intruders! We have intruders in sections two and six!”

“That’s impossible. Those weren’t boarding pods!” Cried Deal Breaker.

“We’ve lost contact with engineering. Hostiles moving through the ship, sir!” Readouts showing different compartments of the ship turned red one by one.

“They’re at the bulkhead!” Cried a mare in hysterics. The situation was spiraling out of control. Dumbfounded, the blue stallion turned to stare at the metal door separating the bridge from the rest of the ship. He was thrown backwards as four carefully placed charges cut through the composite steel like butter and a section fell in.

A few of the crew fired wildly through the gap with personal sidearms. Three sleek black and purple edged power armored ponies waded through the fire like it was chaff. A pegasus flew through first, knocking over resistance with kicks and hoof strikes. Next came a huge earth pony with a massive cannon strapped to his back that swiveled to point at whatever his helmet fixed on. And last, a unicorn, floating a large rifle attached by a pair of ammunition belts.

Power armor users were only effectively able to be countered by other power armor equipped individuals. It was vacuum sealed, and virtually impervious to small arms fire, ideal for the close action required of boarding ships. It enhanced the wearer’s strength, speed, contained targeting and sensor suites of varying calibers, and very few, rare suits even enhanced magical power.

In a few moments the crew were all disarmed and herded into the far end of the bridge. The unicorn spoke, his voice distorted through external speakers.

“Attention, this ship, and all its cargo is now the property of the Lunar Republic. You will comply.” The tone of the voice brooked no argument. The captain, huffing in indignation pushed forward and pressed his nose against the expressionless helmet of the unicorn.

“Republic scum! This ship and her crew belong to the Solar Empire. Leave now lest you incite the wrath of Celestia and Her navy!” In response, the unicorn head butted the captain, knocking him out. A few of the crew fearfully dragged their unconscious captain out of harm’s way.

“Anypony else?” The crew was quiet. “Cooperate, and you will not be harmed.” His wingmates began shepherding the Sapphire’s team into the emergency lifeboats. The unicorn leader switched to internal communication.

“Bridge is secure, what’s your status, Thorn?”

“Generator clean, cargo safe, putting the crew into escape pods now. Can’t wait to see what we got this time.” The mare was clearly enthusiastic.

“Contact the Omen, let’s not linger.”

“Aye, sir.” Said Rosethorn.

A young ensign suddenly leapt out of line, past the hovering pegasus to a nearby terminal. He began rapidly tapping at a series of commands and shouted.

“Burn in Celestia’s fire you bas-“ His speech was cut off by a 20mm shell rocketing through his torso. Against a soft target, the massive round was beyond excessive. Blood ejected explosively from the exit wound and the terminal died with a spark as the shell continued on its path. The colt was dead before he hit the deck plating. Every crewmember flinched at the sound in the tight confines of the bridge.

The unicorn lowered the smoking barrel of his rifle in a glowing grip. One shot, one kill. The foalish pony had tried to initiate emergency core venting procedures. It would have filled the inside of the Sierra Sapphire with plasma after which the generator would consequently suffer catastrophic failure.

After seeing the brutal death of their fellow, the rest of the ponies filed out silently.

“There’s always one who tries to be a hero,” muttered the hulking earth pony.

“More like another one brainwashed by Imperial propaganda that we’re boogyponies here to rape and eat their children.” Responded the pegasus, ratcheting her foreleg mounted combat shotguns to make a trailing unicorn think twice about repeating his fellow’s martyrdom.

“There will always be ponies willing to blindly follow a tyrant. We must show them no mercy, yet not become the same in the process.” Bitterness soured the unicorn’s tone. The colt would have killed them and his fellow crewmembers. He had had no choice. That didn’t mean he liked it.

“Yes, commander,” said Acrylic in his deep bass.

“Yes, commander,” acknowledged Nightingale. A moment of silence passed between the three. When the last of the crew were loaded into lifeboats, the pegasus hit the eject switch and flippantly waved goodbye.

“Thorn wishes Aegis.” The commander’s attentions immediately turned to his other team leader at her having used their urgent need code.

“Aegis here, what is it Thorn?”

“I think you’d better see this for yourself, commander. Cargo bay three.” With curt gestures to his subordinates, the unicorn exited the now abandoned bridge and headed down through the ship’s corridors. The Sierra was as quiet inside as the void was outside, save for the armored hooves beating a steady rhythm through her halls.

The commander met his secondary team leader outside the wide metal jaws of the Sapphire’s generous cargo compartments. Rosethorn fidgeted in her mark three armor. She preferred the more lightweight alloys and additional thrusters located along strategic points of her suit. The less dense metals meant reduced protection but allowed a considerable sub-generator to be integrated in a special housing unit between her wings.

As with all of the boarding squad, each had personalized his or her power armor with many black market modifications and personalized components. Working on the fringes of controlled space had its benefits. Not least of which was enjoying the spoils of a fine catch.

“This way,” Rosethorn walked quickly, clearly agitated about something. “Circuit Board spotted it. He should be close to cracking it by now.” The commander’s interest was piqued as the pegasus led him to where a small unicorn colt tapped at the keys of his portable Ice-Breaker. The chords of which were slotted into a seemingly innocuous metal block.

“Almost… there! I don’t know who puts military encryption on a civilian schematics key, but they forgot about the manufacturer’s design flaws. Not the programing ones, but the physical imperfections in the crystal memory unit. I’ll bring it up.” The younger pony twisted a few settings and a holographic display lit up from the top of the cube.

Bright green technical specifications and various mechanical components rendered in cross-sections hovered in the open space of the cargo hold. A more moderately sized earth pony by the name of Viola poked a floating mathematical formula with a hoof.

“What is it?” She asked her commander. He examined it carefully, his eyes widening, then narrowing.

“Circuit, pack it up and make sure that thing’s secured.” The schematics flickered once and vanished. “The rest of you find grab anything useful or sellable that we can take with us. You have five minutes. Circuit Board, once you’re done set the core overload timer to one hour. Meet me at Pylon Five. Move like you got a purpose ponies.” With a chorus of salutes the soldiers of the Republic hurried to their tasks.

Five minutes later they rendezvoused at one of the torpedoes punctured through the hull of the Sierra Sapphire. They were all loaded down with everything valuable they could carry.

“I hate this part,” grumbled Acrylic.

“Beats hoofin’ it through vacuum,” said Rosethorn. With no further ado, the commander’s horn started to glow. Quickly the white magic blazed, igniting the barbed torpedo with an identical glow. In a massive flash, the six ponies vanished and reappeared in a special compartment aboard the Vengeful Omen.

Arcane sigils adorned the walls, ceiling, and were painted in a wide circle in the middle of which the boarding party appeared. Several ponies of the Omen stood ready to assist the team out of their armor or provide medical assistance while others gathered up the looted supplies. The commanding unicorn waved away the yellow pegasus who stepped forward to help him out of his gear and teleported straight to the bridge of his vessel.

He did not even bother to drop off his weapon in the armory, not wanting to delay his vital duty any more than was necessary.

The Vengeful Omen was a sleek and deadly hunter. She was heavily armed, and wickedly fast. As expected from her status as an Assault Cruiser, she traded hull strength for speed and additional weapon ports. Banks of missile and torpedo bays, beam turrets, point defense lasers, and more traditional kinetic weapons dotted the surface of the ship. It also hosted a compliment of five Corsair fighter bombers.

Only close inspection and a trained eye would reveal the truer state of the ship. When one looked past the military coat of paint, there was only so much standard hardware left. Many armor plates were mismatched in size or off color. Some of the weapons while still menacing, were indeed nonfunctional. And if one were to look into the Omen’s stockpiles and magazines, it would be obvious they were nearly empty. Of the Corsairs, only two were void worthy. The attack on the Sierra had used the last of the Pylon torpedoes as well.

She had sailed on the edge for a long time and in near desperate need of refit and rearmament.

On the command deck of the Omen, nestled safely in the heart of the vessel, the commander appeared in a flash of crackling light. Well used to such an entrance, the ponies were unperturbed and continued with the task of running a naval warship. He surveyed them for a moment and announced to the crew his orders.

“Get me a link to high command, level indigo.”

“Right away, sir,” answered a communications pony. Through the miracle of quantum fluid router technology, faster-than-light messages were possible. After a few minutes the crewmember gave the go ahead gesture and a display with the insignia of the Republic hovered before the commander with a ‘Voice Only’ tag.

“This is Admiral Blueberry, what could possibly be so important way out there that could warrant an indigo?” Of course command had been given tags about the ship’s location and designation.

“Admiral, I have a Foehammer.” The unicorn kept his voice neutral.

“This had better not be another damned message tube with some vague reference to an Imperial secret project! I demoted the last pony who wasted this navy’s time like that.

“I have a full schematic.”

The other end of the line was silent for a time.

“Are you sure?”

“Beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“Very well then, the Foehammer protocol is now in effect. Prepare your ship for immediate transit coreward. New orders will be transmitted at point marked alpha. Escorts should arrive on standby by the time you get there but do not wait for them, is that understood?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

“Very well then, and may the stars have mercy on our souls.”

The bridge lead and second in command aboard the Vengeful Omen was a purple pegasus. She moved her feathers in a series of poses.

Winter Reverie took off his helmet and sighed.

“Yes, Crystal, back to civilization. Back to the lights and the noise and the cities full of mechanical hearts, spilling oil from all their parts.”

(Author’s notes: Okay, I know it’s rather short, but I mostly wanted to gauge people’s reaction to the setting I’m uh… setting here. Also so the prologue isn’t sitting nebulously in cyber space. I left a lot of it rather purposefully vague so you get the general feel and so I could reveal it to be Winter at the end because I’m a bastard like that. So, ponies and interstellar warships, tell me what you think!)

Chapter 2: Unsavory Elements

Unsavory Elements

Winter Reverie, standing helmetless on the command deck of his ship, contemplated the wisest course of action to take and kept coming to the same conclusion.

The unicorn had aged much since the day he had gotten his cutie mark, the same day which the conflict had started. He found a certain irony in that, and often said that he had been fighting in the war since he had gotten the sign of his talent. The title he had earned as Commander marked him as a unique creature in the navies of the Republic. While in the navy officially he held the equivalent rank of captain, his numerous boarding actions and propensity for ground and direct combat had gained him the authority comparative to a colonel in the standing army.

While his status and numerous decorations allowed him to command battleships or perhaps even a dreadnought if he really decided to pursue an agenda as a political officer, Winter Reverie had always had a distaste for the squabbling that the upper echelons of power held as ‘tactical debate’. It did allow him certain flexibility in terms of operation so long as he occupied the Assault Cruiser, the bridge between cruiser and full sized battleship.

As colonel he could hoof pick specialists and other unique talent. And as captain he could requisition supplies from naval depots and authorized him interactions with private contractors for refit. A useful tool for prolonged operations beyond friendly territory.

After several months of service as a commerce raiding ship, the Vengeful Omen had found herself on the opposite side of the border. The actual dividing line between the two warring nations was a rather ambiguous one, the space between sometimes forming obvious choke points and other places spreading across many stars.

Generally, when you saw more gold hull than purple, you were in Empire territory. And Reverie had had his fill of golden ships. At times, preying on cargo runners and occasional navy convoys gave him a sadistic thrill of pleasure, imagining the shock and fear generated by his appearance. Especially when they were able to use the Pylons.

He couldn’t shake the feeling though that his crew had been away for too long, been adrift in lawless space one too many weeks. Surely though, the living stars had a greater plan for the Vengeful Omen and its commander. Finding such conclusive evidence of a Foehammer…

In a way, Winter felt relieved. Just as he had begun to worry about the proper timing for making their way back to rejoin the Republic Navy proper, something had fallen into his hooves that had made the choice for him. Making transmissions such as he had to Admiral Blueberry were risky for ships and crews on commerce raiding duties. It was usually left to the discretion of the captain when to make the call that as much damage as could be done safely had been inflicted.

It was always a fine line because you never knew when the next merchant ship has escorts waiting just around the bend.

The unicorn pushed a stray piece of turquoise hair back into his dominantly deep ocean blue mane and called up a map to plot a path. The rally point for the Vengeful Omen to meet up with its navy escorts to transit further coreward was many systems away. There were many notes tagged to various solar systems along his projected paths, warnings about enemy movement, engagement history, orbital bodies, average traffic, and availability of jump points. Personal annotations were marked out in purple where Crystal Flourish had dutifully taken down his thoughts and experience at each star.

After some deliberation, he decided on a path that would be very direct save for a few known Imperial strongholds, wagering on haste over caution. There was one stop that would have to be made though, one that he had been planning on making anyway. After one more careful round of scrutiny he ran it by Crystal. The mute pegasus gave it a critical assessment, altered one or two points and nodded.

When she spotted his marked waypoint though, her eyes narrowed at him. Well used to her subtle mood cues, Winter Reverie gave the mare a reassuring smile and spoke softly, his words meant solely for her.

“I know, I know, but we need to get a few things and the stuff in our hold doesn’t do us much good unless we want to chuck it at the next warship that passes our way.” Crystal turned her nose up as if smelling something foul. “Well, you don’t have to get off. There’s plenty of work that’ll need doing double time.” He tapped the ‘approve’ icon for the plotted vector, then raised his voice so the rest of his bridge team could hear.

“We’ve been ordered to meet escorts at the transmitted destination. We are carrying vital intelligence regarding the enemy and are to avoid any hostile contact if possible. Stand down from high combat alert but stay vigilant. I’d also like to congratulate you all on a job well done. You’ve all been steadfast in your duty and to our mission of disrupting Imperial trade. Now it’s time to head home.” There was a general cheer and light stomping of hooves at the news. Winter waited a moment before continuing. “Before we go all the way to our rendezvous however, there’s going to be a brief stop in the Hel system. We’re going to Tartarus Station to refit and rearm prior to the main leg of our journey.”

The Commander saluted his bridge with a hoof to his breast. “Glory to our Princess.”

“Glory to the New Lunar Republic!” Responded the crew with pride. Winter Reverie lowered his hoof and trotted out of the command bridge. Crystal Flourish followed close behind, tapping away silently on her personal connection to the Omen’s data systems that floated beside her.

Many of the crew often joked that their commander had a second shadow in the form of the purple pegasus wearing an indigo navy uniform. Through the years, Crystal had become indispensable to Winter Reverie, her acuity for supply, be it food or ammunition was second to none. Where she really shined though was her capacity for void warfare. No pony Winter had ever met had her ability for maneuvering warships or anticipating enemy movements. Among the stars she was as graceful as a ballet dancer, or rather a fencing champion.

Reverie’s expertise in the weapons of warships and their capabilities complimented her navigational aptitudes. Having spent so long together they could anticipate each other. And while because of her muteness, many thought the genius resided solely in Commander Reverie and Crystal Flourish liked it that way and often cleverly pointed the spotlight away from herself.

As they walked down the gunmetal corridors of the Vengeful Omen, they passed a maintenance hatch from which issued soft moans. Winter Reverie stopped, rolled his eyes and called down into the shaft.

“Rosethorn, Viola, get up here.” There was a soft gasp then a moment of silence. Winter patiently waited, tapping his hoof to make sure they knew he wasn’t going away. Sheepishly, a sweating soft red pegasus and equally disheveled nut brown earth pony climbed up and stood naked before their superior officer. Crystal shook her head and went back to her calculations.

“What have I told you two before?” His voice was stern.

“If we have to… do it, do it in private.” Said Rosethorn. Both mares looked at him with wide puppy dog looks.

“Don’t let me catch you two again or I’ll pull the video log and upload it to the ship net for everypony to enjoy.” Aghast, their eyes widened in horror. “Now shoo, the both of you.” The two scurried off quickly. Likely to one of their rooms thought Reverie.

‘Would you really do that?’ Crystal signed to him.

“As amusing as it would be, I think poor Acrylic would have a heart attack over the sight of his sister so scandalously entwined.” With a sigh, Winter resumed his walk, Flourish in tow.

He knew he needed to be stricter with the pair, but all his power armor team had their own way of relieving the tension after a mission. Sex was Viola and Thorn’s way of dealing with it. Without outlets, they would crack under the pressure eventually. Acrylic had his painting, and his sister, when not between Winter’s second in command’s legs, played her namesake. On long intervals between actions Reverie would occasionally have the musical filly play for the crew in the mess hall.

Circuit Board spent a lot of his free time perusing the ship’s data network or trying to hack passing Imperial communication nodes. It was surprising the amount of information the small unicorn could sift through. Nightingale oftentimes indulged her propensity for explosives, either devising clever new ways for breaching ship hulls or talking shop with the Omen’s gunnery ponies. It had been her who had helped perfect the shield and armor penetration qualities of Winter’s Teleportation Pylons.

And of course, the Commander had his own way of relieving the pent up violence after combat.

The stallion, still clad in his wargear and fully armed, stepped into the armory. It was a simple, but well-stocked arming chamber. Firearms, both magical and kinetic lined the walls. Rifles, cannons, launchers, energy casters, close combat weapons, different ammunition and more exotics armaments beside could be found. Power armor from his boarding team was put up neatly in personal cubicles where a pony could be armored and kept their preferred weapons.

The Vengeful Omen’s armory was much larger than the average ship-of-the-line, needing to be prepared at all times to both launch and repel invasions because of its intimate role in void warfare. Winter strode across the training mats and other exercise areas over to the firing range. The compartment was mostly empty except for Nightingale performing a few adjustments to her armor post-op.

She gave him a salute, which he returned, and smiled at Crystal before turning back to her work. Winter Reverie took his place on the firing step and called up a few metal targets from the control panel beside him. His pegasus shadow stepped back out of the way and stuck the tips of her wings into her ears. Live ammo use wasn’t a concern because of a cleverly designed shield that allowed ordinance to travel downrange and prevented any shrapnel from endangering anypony practicing.

With a snarl, Winter floated his 20mm cannon in a magic grip and opened up on fully automatic. The long barrel of his weapon bucked and kicked in fury, spitting explosive death at two hundred rounds a minute. He hosed down one pony sized target after the next, the metal cutouts consumed in fireballs as each shell detonated. The unicorn screamed a warcry that was lost in the thunder. All his anger and rage was poured into destroying imaginary enemies, visualizing hated imperial soldiers torn apart by the barrage of his spite.

Hard munitions were his choice when going into battle. He felt the impact better, was comforted by the solid weight of the bullets, the shells, the grenades. The kinetic impact of physical objects moving at supersonic speeds was comparable to the shock and awe offered by more modern magically charged plasma or nova weapons.

Ammo was loaded smoothly to his gun from the feed connected to his armor. With a telekinetic flick, the warrior pulled a different trigger. The underslung magnetically accelerated attachment was a custom touch to the rifle. The secondary armament fired unique, harpoon like projectiles that started in a compressed state and expanded in flight into meter long spears. The shafts penetrated nearly anything with ease and could be amplified with numerous effects.

Reverie triggered them in burst mode, and fired seven near simultaneously with loud bangs as the smooth metal hastened at Mach ten. He raged and pulled the trigger again and again, until the face of the young ensign was wiped from his mind, until his voice was hoarse and his horn ached from the magic strain. The targets were perforated and blackened from his habitual abuse. This was his way of dealing with things, of blowing off steam. Either with guns or hooves against dummy targets, he expended himself to the point of exhaustion.

It actually served many purposes. The constant practice had honed his skills and set an example to the rest of his ponies as an unspoken expectation for them. They could not see him being weak, in crying or worse, breaking down. So he funneled his leftover aggression into something that contained his destructive drive and served his authority.

With a deep breath, he eased up and holstered his rifle. The cacophony died away and Winter centered himself. Tempting though it was, he did not practice with his pistol. That was reserved for special occasions.

‘You done?’ flapped Crystal. Her commander nodded.

“What do you do to relax after combat, Flourish?” He wondered.

‘Watching you destroy stuff is usually pretty therapeutic.’ She tittered, softly as rustling feathers.

“Let me know when we jump safely, I’ll be in my stateroom.” Crystal Flourish saluted. Nightingale gave him a cheerful wave as he exited the armory and made his way to his private quarters. Being commander afforded him a private, and in terms of warship housing, luxurious compartment.

His stateroom probably would have been a complete, disorganized mess given how much time he spent there if he had had enough personal possessions to leave laying around. There was only a simple bed, a desk with control interface built in, and a rack for his weapons and armors. The unicorn owned only three outfits, his power armor, his ‘casual’ combat armor, and a neatly folded and pressed dress coat that hadn’t seen use in over a year.

Gifted with a horn, he was able to divest himself of his powered suit without assistance. He didn't like anypony, even Flourish to see his front legs, or his many scars. The events had been taxing, and with a contented ‘omph’ Winter Reverie threw himself onto his bed and fell almost straight to sleep.

***

As with all societies there were certain shady elements that abounded in the Solar Empire who of course blamed such miscreants on the Lunar Republic who in turn pointed the hoof back at the Empire. Pirates, smugglers, black market stations, and the like encrusted civilized space like barnacles. No matter how much traffic controllers and various police task forces would like, such activities and groups simply came with the territory.

It did not matter how many resources were devoted to the task, ponies and members of other species would always find a way to live and thrive outside the boundaries of law and authority. Some did it because they were born to it, some because they liked it, others did it in order to make a quick bit, and certain individuals did it because they were just good at it.

More often than not the New Lunar Republic found its ideals aligned with the privateers and the lawless, if for no other reason than they saw Luna as a pony fighting the oppressive iron hoof of her sister. Although on the surface, officials of the NLR denied any dealings with pirates or their ilk, many backroom deals had been perpetrated. After all, if military intelligence just happened to be leaked regarding Empire patrol routes who would know?

Winter Reverie sat in his command throne, clad in his ‘casual’ armored suit, an intricate series of purple trimmed armor plates overlaid on a ballistic cloth bodysuit. He preferred to observe the final approaches to stations, but left all the maneuvering to his crew. There were commanders that would just sit in their staterooms, never actually bothering to make an appearance, or worse, micromanaging everything their ponies did.

“Tartarus Station Control, this is the Vengeful Omen requesting permission to dock,” Said a pony into their headset.

“This Control, you are cleared for pier seven; guide lights are lit, welcome to Tartarus.”

“Pleasure is ours Control.” This was not the first time the Omen had docked at Tartarus, and her commander was known for being generous with trade. Smoothly, the warship skimmed to a stately halt in one of the massive hanger bays of the rogue station, passing through the shimmering magic membrane that kept the hanger pressurized. The immense space was carved out of a small planetoid that floated just a little too far from the Hel system’s sun.

The whole station was embedded in the rock formation’s broken pieces, large metal tubes connecting the various pressurized spaces. At one point it had been a promising mining colony before the corporation funding the venture had decided to invest its assets elsewhere. It was a common story. Because the atmospheric processors and other large scale equipment necessary to set up such a colony were more expensive to disassemble and relocate than to replace, the facility became a rogue station. It wasn’t officially recognized except on trade routes and pirate maps.

“Get everything we’ve got unloaded. Let’s not hold anything back for later trade. This is going to be a long trip and I want us as stuffed as we can be.” Crystal Flourish nodded and tapped out the appropriate orders to begin emptying the Omen’s cargo holds. With things well in hoof, Winter Reverie made his way to one of the external airlocks, his pegasus assistant close behind.

He tried to relax as the massive doors went through their equalization cycle and felt a moment of vertigo as the ship’s gravity shifted to the half normal of Tartarus. At the bottom of the ramp the massive pier was bustling with activity. The Vengeful Omen wasn’t the only ship moored at the moment and there were ponies of various trade and occupation making their way between cargo containers and ramps to other ships, large and small. At the bottom of the ramp waited exactly the pony Winter wanted to see.

She was an earth pony by the name of Consortium. She was wearing a formal, but simple dress of orange and red.

“Ah! My dear Commander, how good to see you again. And may I say what a pleasure it is for your ship to grace my humble pier once again.” The butter yellow mare practically draped herself over the ship captain. “Mm, is that a heavy weapon in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Oh, hello Crystal dear.” She said casually.

Crystal Flourish’s left eye twitched in slightly murderous intent.

Well used to Consortium’s forwardness, Winter Reverie politely pushed the mare off him and got down to business. The earth pony owned this particular dock of the station, controlling tariffs, fees, and generally orchestrated all trade that went through it. They had discussed most of the transaction prior to the Omen docking and the majority of the order was ready in crates on the dock but the details still had to be finalized.

“I wish we had some time to catch up C, I really do, but I’m on a timetable. I need quite a few things and I need them fast. Expendables, gemstones, food, a water cycling would be nice, and a few special things besides.” The yellow earth pony smiled, instantly shifting from coy to bartering.

“Let’s go up to my office and we can talk bits.” With a flick of her tail and a twirl of her dress she led the way up to her perch. The office in question was situated high up in the hanger with sweeping windows to look down upon the ships below. Consortium sat herself on a luxurious couch and gestured for the pair to take seats opposite her.

Crystal Flourish tapped a few control keys and a digital listing of required materials floated between them.

“When you said you needed things you weren’t kidding. Your magazines must be empty to need all this. Where are you heading? You’ve never needed this much before.”

“Can’t tell you that C, Republic business. I just need to get my ship coreward and I don’t want to be flying half-full.” He used his magic to highlight a few things on the floating shopping list. “I need expendables most of all. Slugs for my big guns, grapeshot canisters, then torpedoes and missiles, and preferably spare parts for my Corsairs as well. I’ve still got a fair bit of replacement fuel cells, the old girl’s not gluttonous but I don’t want to run dry in any case.”

“Oh, please? I’ll offer you a discount.” She said playfully. When he didn’t take the bait she got back on topic. “Hmm, I can offer you a deal on a big stock of munitions I just got in. I swear, these merchants are getting more and more trigger happy. And I think I may have just kinetic rounds to top off your bunkers, but grapeshot canisters are out of the question. I know you need the shield breakers, but that’s just military specialist hardware I don’t have. The fuel cells, food, water, and other basics are no problem.”

“What about the Corsairs? Also, have you gotten in that special order I placed last time?” She started ticking off quantities on the list and quoting prices with waves of a mouth held control wand.

“The fighters are going to be a premium as I’ve only got two Fireflies left you could use for parts and I’ve got others bidding on them already. As for the special materials you asked for, you should know just how hard it was to come by the amount I got for you last time. I managed to get ahold of half that, and it’s going to be costly.” Winter Reverie felt angry for a moment at the hikes in pricing, but quashed it quickly. He could tell that Consortium was looking rather frayed compared to last time they had met now that her initial pleasure at seeing him had worn off.

Times were hard.

The war was dragging on. Every day resources were becoming scarcer, devoted to making bigger and bigger warships and fleets to throw into the grinder. Countless planets were being swept up into military drafting as the tolls of total war took effect. New recruits hardly had time now to get proper training before they were billeted to positions to make up for the staggering losses incurred by both sides.

In the early battles, there had been fewer ships, and leaders were more likely to retreat and consolidate rather than simply brawl. Soon though, warships got bigger, their guns deadlier, their engines faster, pushing the limit of void warfare after every conflict. Many of the border worlds, many verdant temperate planets had been scoured into glass as endless legions of troopers contested over continents while the fleets high above shattered each other again and again.

Old ways of fighting, of clever tactics and outmaneuvering ones opponent gave way to sheer bloody-minded carnage. The ponies of the Lunar Republic were growing tired and gloomy as they watched their fillies and colts march off and letters for next of kin to return. The change had come when the Empire had invaded a border system by the name of Yurren. The battle was brief; the small Republic force stationed there was defeated in the face of a far superior fleet.

It was what came next that had shocked Winter to the core when he had heard of it. The Imperial force had not asked for planetary surrender in the face of orbital superiority. They issued no warning or demands. Instead, they burned the planet to a cinder.

Every living soul, young and old, all of the half-billion inhabitants of Alpha Yurren were slaughtered. It was genocide on an unheard of scale. Soon after, the new Dreadnought class of ship was unveiled and the war took on a different tone. It was win or die for the ponies of the New Lunar Republic. Instead of crushing morale as Imperial strategists had assumed, it had galvanized the citizens to resist Celestia’s iron hoof to the end.

Back and forth Winter haggled with the yellow mare while below the crew of the Omen went about their tasks of directing cargo, stowing fresh munitions, and making repairs they couldn’t perform out in space. Winter wished that he could have given his ponies more time to relax, but the Foehammer Protocol dictated imminent haste.

The final numbers were quite staggering, and the transaction goods equally so, but the commerce raiding had been fruitful for the Vengeful Omen. Business completed, Consortium offered her guests refreshments which were politely declined. They made their formal goodbyes and just as Winter was about to leave, a rushed looking unicorn in a dock worker’s outfit burst in.

“Boss! We’ve got serious trouble.” He said, addressing Consortium. “There’s an Imperial task force heading this way. They say they’ve got a Wonderbolt with ‘em.” Whatever else the stallion was about to say was cut off as his head exploded. In stomped a large unicorn with a smoking, leg mounted gun. The yellow mare screamed briefly, and then fixed the bastard with a glare of pure hate.

“By order of Her Majesty, Empress Celestia and by Her Authority, surrender yourselves imme-“ Much as the Imperial soldier had ended the words of the unfortunate dock worker, so too did Winter Reverie end the pony’s life. One of his rules was to never go unarmed or unarmored anywhere, even in friendly stations.

Winter’s sidearm was deceivingly simple looking pistol. Clip fed, standard grip and trigger, and old fashioned semi-automatic slide that ejected the spent casings. It was as close to a magic weapon he owned for instead of traditional ammunition, it fired a special round. The slug was large and seemed like an ordinary bullet, except that it was not lead, or even tungsten, but rather a miniature sabot holding a long-rod-penetrator that upon impact would trigger the release of the containment field.

The unicorn was torn into pieces as the tiny bit of antimatter in the bullet was released, causing a cataclysmic reaction with the particles making up his body.

“Still using that old thing I see. I can get you a better one you know?” Said Consortium, ever the business pony. Crystal Flourish had drawn her own weapon hidden in her purple uniform, taking after her commander and his tendencies.

“Omen, Omen, this is Aegis, we have Imperial soldiers confirmed in Tartarus. Repeat, confirmed hostiles, put everypony on combat alert. I want armed escorts for the rest of the supplies. Bring them in double time. Call back all repair work, it’ll have to wait.” He spoke into the comm unit in his armored collar. Crystal checked the corridor outside and waved all clear before shutting the door.

“Confirmed Commander, hostiles on Tartarus, pulling in repair groups, rolling out the red carpet.”

“This is Thorn, you need more backup?”

“Get Acrylic to oversee the security detail on the stuff we need. There’s no time to go looking for trouble so make preparations for a quick exit. And have Circuit Board see if he can’t find any Imperial chatter. I want to know who followed us and how. Wonderbolts don’t just show up at stations like this without reason.” Winter Reverie gritted his teeth in a mix of frustration and suspicion.

Wonderbolts… whispers of them were what nightmares were made of, stories of torture in dark rooms and limitless authority to do as they saw fit in the persecution of the Solar Empire’s enemies.

“Yes, sir. Thorn, out.” That taken care of he trotted over to the still somewhat stunned Consortium. He poured her a generous glass of colorful liquor and floated it to the shaking mare.

“Sorry about all this, C. Seems like it was a bad idea to come here.”

“Not your fault.” She mumbled, gazing down at her dead employee and knocked back the drink in a single swallow. Then she made eye contact. “Just make those bastards pay. I’ve never had a particular love for the Republic, but you’re an honest pony, so good luck.” He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Once we leave, they should follow us, but lock the door just in case.” The mare nodded and began speaking quickly into her own communication device, organizing Tartarus security to begin locking down the station. Without preamble, Winter stepped close to Crystal and his horn began to blaze. In a flash, they teleported down to the pier where ponies were now running in every direction as klaxons began to wail.

Fortunately, Consortium was ever a beacon of efficiency and had already transferred most of the bartered goods to the Omen in the time it had taken them to finalize the deal. The Commander nodded to Acrylic who stood at the base of the ramp directing armed crew to cover their fellows hauling in the last of the crates. Shots were fired, and the few still left on the pier scattered into whatever cover they could find.

Ponies of the Vengeful Omen returned fire from cover, keeping the small squad of Imperial troopers pinned down. Winter fired his pistol again, obliterating a gold helmeted head that presented itself. Things were getting heavy and being bogged down in a protracted firefight with large explosive warheads nearby did not seem like a good idea.

“Forget the rest, everypony fall back to the Omen; we’re getting the hell out of here.” In a disciplined pattern of cover and retreat, the remaining crew galloped up the ramp and piled into the airlock. Winter and Acrylic were the last ones up. Just ahead, a sailor cried out as enemy fire clipped him. Without stopping, the Commander heaved the stricken onto his back and kept running. The airlock closed with the three still outside.

Acrylic fell back to shield them with his armored bulk. The large earth pony had been holding his fire until that point. The cannon on his back boomed and a good chunk of causeway broke and fell, carrying several golden bodies with it.

Winter Reverie teleported himself, the sailor and his heavy weapon specialist instead of waiting for the airlock to cycle.

Crystal Flourish was already waiting on the bridge, making preparations for emergency launch. Even though they had been forced to leave behind some of their supplies the Omen was nearly full. The extent of the missing freight would have to be tallied later. Speed was of the essence as there was nothing more vulnerable than a docked ship. Acrylic took the injured pony and excused himself to bring the wounded to medical.

Maneuvering jets fired in short bursts as the quickest course was calculated out of the large hanger. Soon the ship was clear, accelerating among a flock of other escaping vessels.

“Downtrim fifteen degrees, starboard thirty, max burn. I want us clear of the station five minutes ago.” Winter clearly commanded.

“Aye sir, down fifteen, starboard thirty, max burn.” Reverie’s personal comm unit crackled as the force of the engines pushing the ship forward exerted itself.

“Circuit here, I’m picking up encoded chatter. It’s got Solar tags. Registering at least three signatures.”

“Aegis acknowledges, keep your ears open.” He responded before addressing his crew once more. “Likely three hostile boats. Continue on current heading and load all torpedo tubes. Get gravimetric and ladar up and display current grid.” There was a tense moment as the bridge scrambled to bring the ship up to full combat readiness, sensors quickly coming alive and the Vengeful Omen’s position was displayed by a triangular icon oriented in a vast three dimensional cube.

“Registering three Imperial Navy ships on gravimetric, range twenty thousand and closing. Two cruisers, one destroyer.” The appropriate red indicators appeared on the display, quickly closing the gap between them and the lone purple marker. “Destroyer is a Quicksilver, cruisers are both Thunderheads.”

“I don’t like this Crystal, something feels off. If a Wonderbolt is in command, where are they?” Reverie mused darkly to the pegasus. The smaller destroyer wasn’t much of a threat. All five of the Corsair fighter bombers could have taken it on with ease. It was mostly there to provide close support for the two cruisers it was escorting. The Thunderheads could be troublesome however. While not known for their speed or weaponry, the thick, rather inelegant utilitarian design was very hardy and could absorb a lot of punishment without being knocked out of the fight.

As an Assault Cruiser, the Vengeful Omen wasn’t actually a regularly patterned Republic navy vessel, the design having been deemed not cost effective enough for mass production on the levels necessary for the continued prosecution of the war. It was one of the last of a dying breed.

The enemy ships weren’t too far away to be outrun but it would be a close thing. They had attacked his ship while it was docked, and not just his ship, but his crew as well, and Winter Reverie had already made his decision.

“Fire torpedoes, full spread. Primary is Thunderhead alpha. Let’s see if we can knock out their shields. On my mark, execute a full reverse turn and bring us about for a firing pass.”

“Launch tubes eight and fifteen report loading mechanism failure, they got jammed during the fight in the hanger.”

“Launch whatever ones are ready.” Orders raced to and fro through the mighty warship as the sailors of the Lunar Republic executed their duties with finesse and discipline.

“Sir, incoming enemy torpedoes!” Tiny dots separated themselves from the enemy and sped towards the Omen.

“Ready interceptor missiles and point defense cannons.” Reverie stated sharply.

“Aye, interceptors loaded and ready.”

“Full reverse… Mark!” Cried the Commander. Crystal Flourish had been waiting and ready for his word and blitzed a customized preset string of instructions for the navigation processor to execute faster than pony hooves could hope to emulate. The Vengeful Omen was a regal ship, aged and refined. In her long service, she had been outfitted with several post production modifications. Expensive low-friction nozzle joints for the many maneuvering jets, upgraded inertial stabilizers and compensators, as well as specialized engine housing.

All of this added up to the ability to make turns and accelerate like ships of comparable size could only dream of making. Turning, end over end, the Omen flipped and its engines turned to point in the direction of its previous motion. The superstructure of the vessel groaned in protest under the immense strain as forces that would liquefy unprotected biological matter assailed the Republic ship.

Meanwhile, torpedoes from both sides passed one another in space. Small rockets, designed to bring down such guided warheads streaked from large honeycomb like protrusions from the Assault Cruiser. They struck the incoming ordinance, detonating many prematurely while the point defense cannons soon took over, spitting out streams of rapid fire ballistics or pinpoint beams of destructive magic. A few made it through the Omen’s defensive grid and impacted her shields.

“Confirmed incurred hits, Voids at eighty five and holding.” The Assault Cruiser rapidly picked up speed once more, soon coasting at shocking velocity.

“Ready broadside, all weapons free. Primary is Thunderhead alpha, secondary is the Quicksilver.” In a fine example of void warfare, the ship turned on a vector that would position the targeted Thunderhead between the Omen and the other cruiser, fouling its aim for fear of hitting its fellow.

The torpedoes launched impacted the Imperial vessel a few moments before the Assault Cruiser tore past. Banks of gun batteries raked like claws across the Voids of the Thunderhead, and punctured them in the wake of the vicious bombardment. A few of the batteries scored hits on the armor but it was the Hell Lances that really did damage.

The gunners of the mighty turrets had timed their shots coyly, waiting for the shields to drop to fire. Four beams of incandescent destruction, harnessing cutting edge magical technology to send spears hotter than suns piercing armor and hull of the unfortunate Thunderhead. Winter ordered more torpedoes launched to cripple the engines of the stunned Solar warship. A few retaliation strikes found their mark on the Vengeful Omen, but nothing her shields couldn’t cope with.

It all happened in the span of a few breaths, a few nerve frying, heart-stopping breaths.

“Corsair One here, Four and I are ready to kick some Imperial teeth in.”

“Sorry One, we don’t have time to play. Precious cargo, remember? Save that spirit for next time.” Winter denied the fighter pilot’s eager desire to join the fray. He could understand the enthusiasm and as much joy it brought him to destroy things belonging to the Solar Empire, there were more important things at the moment. He motioned for Crystal to punch in commands for another pass.

The three Imperial warships had been left in confused disarray by the Vengeful Omen’s blistering attack, and were caught in its deadly fields of fire once again. A few torpedoes knocked out the destroyer, ripping the smaller ship into pieces and a full salute of cannon batteries popped the other Thunderhead’s Voids like a soap bubble. Winter Reverie made a mental note to personally commend his Hell Lance crews as the crimson energy beams punctured something vital that tore a gaping hole into the cruiser amidships as something, probably an internal magazine, exploded.

“Our work is done here, take us to jump point Hyperion.” The Assault Cruiser left the one, partly functional ship in its wake as it headed out-system. Before they exited the system however, one of the crew occupying a sensor relay station spoke up.

“Battlegroup sighted. Composition: one battleship, five cruisers, and seven destroyers.”

“There he is.” Winter Reverie said to himself as the image of a large golden hulled ship with a massive painted blue streak resolved itself at extreme range. The small force made no move to pursue the Assault Cruiser, their ranking officer likely deducing that there was no way for them to catch up to the lone Republic boat.

“Commence jump.” And the Vengeful Omen winked out of sight.

(Author Notes: Okay, this chapter ended up being much longer than I originally intended but I just had waaaaay too much fun with that final space battle. I couldn’t deny giving you guys at least a small taste of what is to come after all. Please let me know what you think! There are plans but I would really appreciate some feedback on the directions Leviathan is taking so far. Oh, and to the Fire Ghost readers don’t worry! I planned on having the latest chapter out yesterday but ran into minor difficulties. Rest assured it should be up in the next two days.)

(Red is the endless war torn Winter sky. That is all.)

Chapter 3: Long Road Home

Long Road Home

In the stillness of jump space, full of its strange lights that belied understanding despite untold years of study, the mind tended to wander into strange places. Figments of past exploits and phantoms of days long gone. Perhaps it was the very nature of jump space, the solemnity, the solitude that drove any sentient creature to seek the refuge of their own minds.

Winter Reverie had stayed on the bridge, making sure that the supplies and refits were all organized and under way. Soon though, he found himself dozing in his command chair. Confident that Crystal Flourish could handle the rest, however not yet ready to retire, he let himself relax in the throne. It wasn’t the most comfortable of places, nor the quietest, but years of endless combat alerts had trained him to get what sleep he could.

Beat the drums of War!

He started awake as a part of his heart wrenched in remembered pain. The lilac pegasus turned to him in concern and signed.

‘Bad dreams?’ Reverie rubbed his eyes and exhaled.

“It’s been a long time since those days at the school, huh?” Twenty years in fact. Twenty long years of conflict.

‘You know it never really goes away. What they did, what they made us do.’ She fluttered.

“I know, I know. We burned it to the ground and still that wasn’t enough. If I close my eyes for too long it’s like I’m back in the games or one of the quiet rooms.” He shuddered. “I don’t know, maybe there was another way, a better way.”

‘We’ve been over this, you know what happened wasn’t your fault. None of it was. You didn’t make all those horrible things happen. You stopped them from happening any further. On the eve of the Republic’s rise, you set the both of us free. Down with Celestia, remember?’

“Yeah, down with Celestia.” Winter looked around and saw the rest of the bridge crew pointedly not paying attention to the half audible conversation. It was something learned early in any ensign’s career to be aware of your commanding officer’s mood.

“Down with Celestia!” He shouted to those who hadn’t already retired since he had cancelled full combat stations.

“Ave Nox!” They answered. Hail to the night.

“It’s just, if I had been paired with you from the beginning then maybe…” They had been down this path before, playing out all possibilities over and over between them. It was something they shared, something that bound them inextricably together.

‘Yes, but I was put in your army eventually, and that’s what mattered.’

“I know, I know, you can play the ‘what if’ game forever. It doesn’t do any good now to dwell on what we may have done differently. Hindsight being clearer and all that. So, how are we doing?” His thoughts were leading him down an uncomfortable avenue and there was still work that needed to be done.

‘Minor injuries from shifting cargo during our rather abrupt departure, nothing serious. It’s going to take a little work to get those jammed torpedo tubes functional again. The loading crews did the best they could with the time they had. Hell Lance turret two reports they need to recalibrate their whole focusing line, Circuit is already on it. And the Void generators could use a few fresh circuits after our brief skirmish. Those two outdated Fireflies we got should be enough spare parts to get the other three Corsairs working again.’ Her display flashed in a rapid series of updates.

‘Acrylic says that a lot of the munitions are a little scrambled and that it’ll take about a day to get the magazines sorted out. So far it looks like we’ve at least gotten the basics out of the way, slugs, missiles, torpedoes, focusing crystals for the Hell Lances and point defense cannons. Sadly Consortium didn’t have any grapeshot, those shield breakers would have been nice.’

“Can’t have everything. Did we have enough time to get that water cycling done?” Although the ship’s onboard recycling systems could theoretically operate with ninety-nine percent efficiency for several years, some undefinable characteristic made water go stale after so long with microscopic electron shifting despite filtering.

‘About half-way. We’ve still got plenty of fresh fuel cells which is one thing we did not successfully restock on. Ah yes, Nightingale just sent that she should be able to get about eleven Pylons out of the special material.’ Creating the highly advanced arcane teleportation focuses required certain rare trace elements and also a special blend of gemstones that were hard to come by. The Vengeful Omen was equipped with a moderately sized machine shop for the Corsairs and for limited self-manufacturing of expendable weaponry so the Pylons were easy to produce so long as they had the necessary components.

“Damn, last time we were able to get enough for over forty. I assume most of our munitions are standard fare?”

‘There I do have good news. While most of the hard ammo is your average mix of lead and tungsten, Consortium did include a few dozen high explosive torpedoes and those interceptor missiles are very state-of-the-art. The rest are what you would find typical, smart targeting but nothing exceptional about the payload. There’s a fair bit that still needs doing but most of the heavy work should be done before we exit into Hyperion.’

There was nothing that could harm the ship in jump space, and they would be in transit for at least six days until they reached Hyperion. From there they would continue coreward to the muster point in the Rakus system, and from there to the heart of the Lunar Republic.

“Detail the appropriate work teams if you please, I’m going to go check with Rosethorn and see what all we managed to take aboard and what we left behind.” Crystal nodded her soft lilac head and quickly typed out his orders and sent them to the appropriate officers throughout the ship. Commander Reverie was confident in the abilities of his crew and the capabilities of his ship and knew that things were well in hoof.

With a groan and a stretch followed by a chain of popping joints, Winter heaved himself out of his command throne stiffly. Although the temptation to put more comfortable cushions on the chair was enticing, he knew that it would make falling asleep on the bridge too easy a thing when he needed to get real rest and be sharp for combat. His team was likely assisting in their areas of expertise around the Omen, so the Commander decided to pay Rosethorn a visit.

Although he knew that the ship’s systems would have been updated soon with a list of the supplies they had taken on, he had always preferred to see everything with his own eyes. Space-faring ran deeply in the unicorn’s blood, and often a personal look gave greater insight, greater estimation of what they really had available to them. It was also good for the crew to see him calm after a battle. It tended to soothe the general mood and post-skirmish nerves.

He knew Rosethorn would be directing the efforts of stowing and cataloguing their intake of goods because that’s what he would have been doing if the mantle of command had been on her shoulders instead of his. Well, she may have had one ulterior motive. Over the years he had learned what made an effective power armor squad, what personalities were volatile together and what meshed. Carefully designed exercises and drills established strong bonds between the members of the squad.

It was essential for the effective and efficient function of such a unit. Operating power armor for all three branches of ponykind required intensive training and an immense skill-set. Oftentimes exceptional individuals came with rather eccentric personalities that if a superior officer was not careful rubbed the wrong way. Every member of a power armor squad had to work together like well-oiled cogs.

When they were able to respond without thinking to each other’s cues and motions, they came together as a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Winter Reverie had served briefly in a squad that did not mesh together, that did not trust or anticipate the actions of the rest. While as fearsome as half a dozen ponies with the armor plating of mobile weapon platforms were, mistakes were made, mistakes that cost lives.

Members of a power armor squad had to drill together, live together, eat, breathe, joke, and know each other more intimately than their own mothers. Of course sometimes this worked a little too well and relationships between ponies sprang up. And while not strictly against regulations within equal rank, it was generally looked down upon.

While a navy captain may look at Winter and see him too strict or perhaps too familiar, an army colonel would call him lax and remiss in his duties. As Commander, that strange double-headed hydra, he had to be flexible, familiar, and temper himself with a hard will. He had to have certain boundaries, lines he could not cross. His squad and his crew needed to understand that first and foremost, when under fire from the enemy, orders were orders and were to be executed without hesitation.

That was his expectation, and his conduct reflected that.

A pair of crewponies carrying crates stopped to salute him. He returned it and kept walking down the darkened halls. Though it wasn’t standard, some Lunar Republic navy warships tended to keep their lighting on a lower key. It calmed strung-out combat troops, and made it harder for enemy boarding parties to see. Though in many ways the perpetual twilight was a sign of respect to their beloved princess. This was Winter Reverie’s preference and any crew that had an issue with it soon found themselves transferred to other ships.

Luna was sacred to the Commander and many who served under him. It was an open secret that he and all the members of his power armor team had well-read copies of the Divinus Noctis, or the Divine Night. It deified the princess of the moon, exonerated her many aspects as the keeper of dreams and sacred lady of the living stars. It also denounced her sister as the betrayer. Even Nightmare Moon and her shattered dream of eternal night are touched on in poetic verse and elegantly written prose.

The New Lunar Republic was a free nation, and such beliefs were allowed much to Princess Luna’s embarrassment and public denouncement of such a religion. Ever since the Divinus Noctis had surfaced, it had rapidly propagated the many interstellar networks. Although many Republic officials would never admit it, the immigration rate from the Solar Empire nearly tripled after the book crossed the lines. Many Imperial propaganda specialists had tried unsuccessfully over the years to either quash or put out their own book on the divine nature of Empress Celestia.

It was part of Luna’s very nature that engendered a sense of mystery, an allure to those who looked up at the skies and saw the great void and the beauty it held. The Divinus Noctis simply gave voice in written word to those feelings. Winter Reverie was very protective and secretive about his faith for many reasons. He feared the judgment of others, of their rejection. Yet, if faced with hostility, he would lash back with a zeal that was almost frightening to behold.

The unicorn often filled the interminable wait during jumps between star systems with study and meditation. Whenever he thought of Celestia the tyrant and her atrocities, a deep abiding rage was kindled in his heart. Reading from the Divinus Noctis soothed his burning blood and calmed his boiling mind. Obviously, attending one of Celestia’s obedience schools had not had the desired effect.

Nothing gave him greater pride and joy as when ponies came to him with questions about the text or dilemmas of faith. It warmed his soul to provide guidance and assuage worries that he too had felt. For others, Reverie was a stalwart steward, always patient and willing to listen to anypony. As Commander he could be trusted with their confidence and already was a figure to which bring matters of military importance. The extra duties it often entailed more work, but the morale of his ship and her crew was something he extended the same diligence with which he did everything else.

Striding down the corridors of the Vengeful Omen, he returned every smile and every salute.

When not between Viola’s legs or in combat, Rosethorn spent a fair amount of her time in or about the ship’s galley and storerooms. Sweetness was one of her biggest vices. She could not resist anything sugary, confectionery, or syrupy. Of all of them she had likely been the most excited of all to have docked at Tartarus Station and restock her reservoir of cakes and candy. Acrylic and Nightingale would often tease by calling her ‘Icing Rose’. It just so happened that taking stock of their intake also coincided with seeing what new goodies had been brought on board.

The red pegasus was joyfully breaking open a large container when Winter walked into the storeroom. It would take quite a bit of work to have the whole ship organized again. The rushed nature of their departure from the station had insured that everything not bolted down was flung all about. Due to the fact that most of the items traded were in the process of being loaded, virtually everything was scattered about. The room was fair sized but crammed wall to wall with shelves and mounted containers.

Winter Reverie climbed over a pile of ration bars to help his second with the crowbar she was fighting with. Other ponies in their royal purple uniforms were working on other crates or sorting the spilled contents of ones that had broken open. She gave him muffled thanks as her mouth was preoccupied with the metal bar. With a little telekinetic assistance the top of the crate opened with a metallic groan and a pop.

Rosethorn let out a squeal of delight and practically dove into the open shipping crate. She came back out with a wrapped slice of cake and gobbled down the whole thing in three swift bites, moaning in pleasure at her icing topped delight. He smiled at her antics and forgot his worry in the merriment of the moment.

***

“Jump exit successful, scanners clear of immediate threat. Friendly battlegroup detected Five AU starward. Composition: Battleship, two heavy cruisers, five hunter-killers,” Called the watch-stander.

Winter Reverie smiled at the mighty Lunar Republic ships.

Battleships were the powerhouse, the backbone of any major fleet. Only the mammoth dreadnought class could claim greater tonnage but they numbered very few. Although somewhat slow in terms of mass-to-thrust, nearly nothing else sailed the stars that could match a battleship’s armor and guns. It was their duty to use their powerful shields to screen the smaller, weaker vessels; absorbing punishment and dishing it back out with serried banks of heavy gun batteries. In a stand up one-on-one fight, little could stand in their way save for other battleships.

The heavy cruisers were slightly thicker and blunter compared to the Vengeful Omen’s sleek Assault Cruiser chassis. Their role was long-range fire support with their flexible banks of turreted guns and prodigious torpedo stores. Although faster than a battleship, the Omen could still leave them behind in a heartbeat. They traded speed for armor, shields, and range. Enough heavy cruisers could carve a destructive swathe through enemy lines while incurring little damage of their own.

The battleship Winter respected for its power, the cruisers for their punch, but it was the hunter-killers that the Commander felt the most kinship with. The hunter-killer chassis was a unique staple of the Lunar Navy, bridging a unique gap between destroyer and normal cruiser and providing screening for larger vessels that only they could. Despite years of attempted espionage and explored wrecks the Solar Empire had yet to come up with an adequate response to the shark-like predations of the HuKs. Too often, Empire ship captains dismissed the smaller ships as simply beefed up destroyers. They rarely lived to see the error of their ways.

The design had been unveiled at the start of the war in Luna’s surprise offensive to devastating effect. Like a school of piranha, Huks could coordinate to rip apart much larger prey or slice apart ships of equal tonnage with ease. Early in the war the Republic had not nearly had the shipyard capacity as the Empire did, so being able to produce such ships with low cost and short construction time had been essential.

There were three key points that made the hunter-killer such an effective tool of war. They in fact had no individual jump drive installed. Instead they relied on larger vessels to piggyback themselves across the void. Once in system, their battle rider clamps disengaged and allowed them free roaming. This lowered their weight and their cost of production while significantly raising their mass-to-thrust ratio and number of weapon hardpoints. It had been a huge innovation in terms of ship design. That was not all the secrets the deceptive ships had however.

Being so light and maneuverable had simultaneously allowed and required a different kind of structure to allow the ship to function both under stress from riding a fellow ship and fighting with the armor of a light cruiser. The solution was to use a heavier allow and unique skeletal framework for the ship. It was built around a heavy spinal section running the whole length of the vessel and multiple ‘ribs’ holding together the body made of extremely flexible alloy. In a ship with normal drives, being weighed down like that would make a battleship or cruiser extremely sluggish and virtually a sitting duck in void combat.

What it meant was that they could go on fighting even after suffering damage that would have been catastrophic to its Solar Empire counterparts. There were past instances where hunter-killers had been stripped of nearly eighty percent of their armor, their guts open to the void, and still gone on fighting. It was an honorable position among the Republic forces however most regular naval personnel saw the crews of the HuKs as just a little crazy.

During one of the first engagements in the war, a HuK with a large compliment of Shadowbolts actually used its battle rider clamps to latch onto an enemy battleship and board it, cutting through the enemy hull with shaped explosives. The Shadowbolts had stormed the ship and turned the whole thing into a mobile weapons platform and at the conclusion of the battle had taken the intact ship back to Republic lines and had it refitted for their own navy to use. From that point on, part of the training of crew for a Republic hunter-killer included all aspects of boarding and ship takeover.

Riding on the success of the HuK design, the Assault Cruiser had been drafted as a complimentary ship to the close range strafing and boarding of the smaller destroyer-cruiser hybrid. Sadly, the design had been effective, but not cost efficient enough due to the high amount of expensive materials and necessary to adequately crew it. So while the several dozen produced were not decommissioned, no more were built. A full power armor squad was simply too much to have on such a small ship, most users being delegated to dreadnoughts for protection detail from enemy power armor squads. The massive fortresses were just too valuable to risk otherwise.

There had been many times when Winter had wished he had started his career in the Lunar Navy aboard a HuK, but would not have traded his own first experiences for anything. Catching himself reminiscing, Reverie cleared his mind and focused.

Hyperion was the designated system where the Vengeful Omen was to link up with sister ships of the republic before heading to the military mustering point in the Rakus system. Rakus was a primary rallying point on the Lunar Republic lines and once they reached there they would have officially crossed the border. From there it was a relatively easy path to the throne world.

Hyperion was a sparsely populated system, having been a battlefield for some time, the small colony on the lone habitable world having suffered repeated invasion and bombardment from both sides. The small orange sun weakly cast its life giving radiation on the small, nearly frozen sphere. Mostly just skirmishes and patrol clashed occurred from time to time but larger scale conflicts were known to transpire with the proximity of Rakus.

As the Vengeful Omen coasted serenely from natural formed gravity well of the system’s jump point her commander’s hoof was inches from tapping his communication tab when the incoming indicator flashed. That was fast. He tapped the ‘accept’ icon.

“This is the battleship Indomitable accompanying heavy cruisers Spirited and Solitaire. Transmit recognition codes and confirm identity.” Reverie snorted quietly in derision of the transmitter’s haughty tone and sent his own reply. At least they were to the point.

“Commander Reverie aboard the Vengeful Omen here, sending codes for virtual conference.”

“Codes received, preparing.” Winter always hated this part. He marched out of his bridge into the adjoining virtual conference room down the hall. It was a simple compartment with a table large enough to seat six actual ponies but the whole space could expand exponentially with digitally represented images of assembling soldiers on other ships. He called up the interface imbedded in the table and fiddled with a few personal settings before sitting back to wait.

First to show up was a large blue unicorn stallion in a perfectly starched and pressed dress uniform that looked like it had been laundered only moments before. Only a few moments later two others, a soft pink mare and a rather young looking charcoal stallion appeared as well. The conference software extended the table as the hunter-Killer commanders appeared as well. Like Winter Reverie most HuK commanders were split rank, holding standing both in the navy and the army. Many either stayed aboard their cruisers and retained their second class rank or advanced into the navy proper and relinquished their military titles in lieu of more prestigious commands. Leadership of a HuK was considered by many to be a test of mettle for captaincy, so many young officers started there.

The software automatically organized them by rank and seniority and the stallion was right up front, followed by the heavy cruiser captains, then the HuK commanders further back.

“It’s about damn time you showed up. What kind of ship are you running, Commander Reverie? There are indications of non-regulation modifications to your vessel and your hull looks like it was knitted by my grandmother.” The Commander fixed the battleship captain with a level stare. Sensing the direction of his gaze, the conference program automatically called up a brief summary of the pony’s rank, seniority, ship specifications, and notable citations.

Winter Reverie focused on two details, that of the date of his current issued rank and the certificate of graduation from a highly accredited naval academy. Clearly, this stallion was from a noble family, having circumvented the normal rise through the ranks by attending a high class school, netting him a high station right out through family connections and political clout. Often this made such purebreds sticklers for regulations and rules.

The Commander of the Vengeful Omen did have one very special ace up his armored sleeve however.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of serving with you before, captain. You are?” The pearly white stallion drew himself up and puffed out his chest.

“I am Pertinent Pedigree the third, captain of the battleship Indomitable. I have served in her majesty’s navy for nigh on a decade now and senior member of this battlegroup.” All of this information was of course visible to Winter Reverie who had learned after many years of wheeling and dealing with such types to handle such encounters swiftly and resolutely. He also noted the scathing glares the two heavy cruiser captains gave him.

“Have you been apprised of the situation by Admiral Blueberry?” Winter kept his tone neutral.

“Of course, we are to meet up with you here and await further instruction.” Pedigree stated smugly, assuming he was still in control.

“Assembled member of the Republic, what I am about to tell you is not to leave this conference. Do you understand?”

“And who are you to give us orders such as that?” Challenged the battleship captain. He had the same access to information that Reverie did and still he insisted on this. The stallion had simply assumed that he was the ranking officer through dint of his status as a noble. Granted, his title as a commander was slightly misleading.

“Captain Pedigree, I am now the senior officer in this system. If I am not mistaken you records state you holding your rank for five years, am I correct? I have held equivalency as Colonel-Captain for eight.” Whatever outraged response the unicorn was about to spout died in his throat.

“Colonel-Captain? Eight years?” He sputtered. The other assembled officers either carefully schooled their expressions or were quietly smirking to themselves. Reverie took a moment to savor the look on the noble’s face before continuing.

“As I was saying, what I am about to tell you is considered of vital importance to the safety of the Republic. While operating behind enemy lines disrupting commerce and intercepting trade, my crew and I came across a disturbing piece of information regarding enemy research and development.” He paused to make sure they were all paying attention while Pedigree subsided to simply glaring at him.

“We found empirical evidence of a Foehammer.” Winter Reverie gave them a moment to let that information sink in. “The Foehammer Protocol is now in effect. This battlegroup will make its way first to the Rakus system where we will transit further coreward. The information is stored solely aboard the Vengeful Omen and will stay there until safe dissemination and debrief can occur.”

“How sure are we that it’s a genuine Foehammer?” asked the soft pink captain of the Spirited.

“Yes, Captain Tulip, I was part of the boarding team that discovered it. I can confirm its veracity as the genuine article. My tech specialist decrypted it and he agrees with my conclusion. We used the emergency relay nodes to contact command immediately.”

“So that means they probably know we have it.” Added the charcoal stallion. Winter Reverie nodded.

“Correct, Captain Shield. We took a quick detour through the Hel system and stopped at Tartarus station to restock on ammunition and essential supplies. While docked we were attacked by Imperial troopers. There were a few ships waiting for us, but nothing major. However, prior to leaving the system, we sighted a small battlegroup led by a Wonderbolt battleship.” A ripple went through the assembled naval ponies.

“That only confirms it then.” Said the captain of the Solitaire.

“Ha! Then we wait here and strike the bastards when they least expect it.” Added Pedigree. With the prospect of battle, the unicorn’s demeanor changed. Winter could respect that much at least.

“As much as I would love too, the Foehammer takes precedence. The Admiral ordered us to make best possible speed coreward and that’s what we’re going to do. This information has to reach our side.” He gazed one by one at the officers, meeting each of their stares. “This is bigger than all of us. More important than a kill, even a Wonderbolt. Believe me, as much as I would love to send the bastard on our tails straight into this sun, every citizen of the Republic is now counting on us to get this home.” Perhaps because he had seen it with his own eyes that imbued a certain sense of urgency to his tone. Those gathered around the virtual table all nodded in understanding.

“Set course for the Rakus jump point at best possible speed. The Vengeful Omen will catch up roughly two AUs from the jump point. The enemy battlegroup was a good distance behind us when we jumped and I’d like to keep it that way. Dismissed.” They all saluted (pedigree grudgingly so) and their images winked out of existence as they exited the program.

Winter Reverie sighed in relief, grateful for there only being one noble pony among the battlegroup. He made his way back to the bridge and sat back down in his command throne.

‘Everything go alright?’ Asked Crystal.

“As well as could be hoped. Full burn towards the Rakus jump point, please. We’ll join up with the rest of them along the way. We’re faster after all.”

***

After an interminable wait of several days, the Vengeful Omen was among her sister naval ships and the enemy battleship and escorts flashed into existence. The Wonderbolt lead formation seemed content to follow the Omen at a stately pace. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry to catch up, content simply to wait and watch.

That made Winter Reverie worry more than anything, their cool doggedness, their lack of haste. Did they not care that the Republic was about to unlock a terrible secret? Or had the leader only been informed that it was sensitive intelligence and not the actual content? Did they not know? Or did they simply know something the Republic soldiers didn’t?

Either way, Commander Reverie felt great relief when he ordered his ship and those of the battlegroup to jump.

(Author’s notes: Okay guys, a good half of this was written in a Monster induced spree of writing split between studying for my finals so I apologize if any of it is not up to standards. Don’t worry, much space combat coming in next chapter! Also, because I enjoy these things, at the end of various chapters I’ll pose questions either pertaining to Sci-fi lore or possible secrets. The reward for which will be the appearance of you or your OC as the captain of a ship of your choice and name featured in the story! So, it will be revealed soon, but what is the Foehammer? The first one to guess correctly gets the reward! I’ll also pose this as a blog tagged to the story so look for stuff there too!)

(I’m also really wishing that FimF carried over italics right now. Please let me know if there are any glaring errors!)

Chapter 4: The Republic's Finest

The Republic’s Finest

Winter Reverie made a quiet promise to himself to personally find the scientist who had discovered the arcano-tech that allowed ships in jump space to communicate with one another, and strangle them.

“Yes, Captain Pertinent, I am well aware of the gold patterns on my hull. As I’ve stated previously, the Vengeful Omen has had to make due with jury-rigged refits barring docking with a proper naval repair station. I appreciate the concern for proper hull coloration protocol.”

“Well, in addendum section five of the-“ started the aristocratic naval officer.

“I am quite conscious of the proper naval guidelines citation, Captain; you’ve quoted it to me several times. I assure you I’m very capable of locating the proper paragraph and addendum myself.” Before the stallion could respond with some other bureaucratic bylaw or consideration, Winter hastily cut the connection. “Thank you, that will be all for now.” The Commander let out a sigh of relief and quietly asked Luna for the patience to deal with such subordinates.

While limited conferencing was possible between ships in relative jump position to one another, the capability of interfacing with the outside communications network had yet to be found. Liquid crystal routing did allow faster-than-light communication through the extensive communications networks found in orbiting satellites and planets, so oftentimes fleets would jump to the assistance of nearby systems only to find the battles already over or drastically changed by unexpected developments while reinforcements were in transit. For that reason it was standard procedure to perform jump exit at full combat readiness.

Winter Reverie and his combat team were already shrouded in their power armor. More than a few times the Vengeful Omen had taken lax merchant vessels by total surprise, lying in wait within striking distance of the jump point. Minefields were another concern, so hopefully the Rakus defense force had not decided to lay one down prior to the battlegroup’s departure.

One of the watch-standers counted down their time until jump exit. There was a slight lurch that could be felt in the pit of one’s stomach at the transition between jump space and real space when a ship became once more governed by traditional physical law. Commander Reverie waited anxiously as the first sensor scans were announced.

“Communicating with local traffic control buoy. Control buoy has been destroyed.”

“Enemy forces engaging system defenders.” Winter felt his jaw tighten in anxious anticipation.

“Distance and composition?” He asked.

“Hostile flotilla is currently chasing friendly forces around the fifth planet. Signs of recent battle indicate heavy losses for both sides, Commander. Composition still being determined.” A few basic geometric shapes popped up on his display, showing where the two fleets were engaged around the uninhabited fifth planet of the system. A few smaller flags tagged what the system resolved to be ship wrecks still floating through space and tinnier pings of escape pods among the debris.

“Enemy fleet pinged, eight battleships, seven battlecruisers, five cruisers, twenty destroyers.” As the small battlegroup’s sensors and internal processers calculated and analysed the data the image became clearer and clearer, slowing resolving the smaller details. In a few minutes, a vast wealth of information had been collected and was available for Winter’s purview. The display slowly added minutiae such as ships class, projected torpedo paths, and individual fighters among immense spatial field.

“Republic forces are four heavy cruisers, five HuKs, and… one dreadnought! Reading one Republic dreadnought in the flotilla!” Winter Reverie’s eyes snapped to his display in shock.

“Get me confirmation on that now! Transmit emergency handshake protocols with that ship.” He commanded, fighting to keep the frenzy out of his voice.

“Yessir! Confirmed, it’s the Deimos.” Winter Reverie had served in the Lunar Navy for a long time, had battled alongside many of its finest commanders, but had never personally fought alongside the Deimos before. The grand ship was in a bad way however, having had most of its escorts stripped away by the merciless assault of the Imperial flotilla.

However mighty, however powerful, a single large ship on its own could be brought down without smaller ships for protection. Like a pack of wolves bringing down larger prey.

The New Lunar Republic dreadnought was an engine of destruction, a living avatar of war crafted of metal plates and weapons that could raze cities. Over six kilometers long, it dwarfed everything other than another ship of the same class. The supercapitals were of such megalithic proportions that they were easily visible planet side when in close orbit. In large scale fleet engagements they were the unstoppable force behind any charge and could soak up enough punishment to shield an entire flotilla with their bulk.

The Imperial’s had taken severe losses of their own, battering away at the massively outnumbered Lunar forces in a grueling slugging match. Based on the harrying, almost taunting manner the Deimos and her escorts were maneuvering it was clear they were trying to bait the golden ships away from the inhabited second planet. Such a prize was irresistible to the Imperial commander and they foolishly followed every bank and turn. It seemed to only be delaying the inevitable however.

Even as Commander Reverie watched, two more of the heavy cruisers fell away, unable to keep up due to engine damage and propulsion loss. The ships in his battlegroup were already accelerating at maximum to try and avert the fates of their comrades. Winter Reverie punched the command to accept the signal from the Deimos with great relief and trepidation.

A rather haggard looking purple pegasus with a bright red mane appeared in a window.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, sailor. This is captain Dream Breeze, and we could sure use a helping hoof here.” Reverie responded with a quick, smart salute. While she technically held the same rank, an unspoken level of respect was given to captains of dreadnoughts.

“You appear to have a bit of an Imperial problem ma’am.” She smiled weakly.

“Aye, been on our tails for some time now.” Her face fell and tone took a more serious turn. “They were on us with barely a whisper of warning. The Deimos was here to escort the relief force for this system. It would have been a slaughter if we hadn’t been here. What you’re looking at now is a fraction of the attacking fleet.”

Captain Dream Breeze had done an incredible job of whittling away the vastly numerically superior Imperial forces. Not without grievous loses of her own though. A lesser commander would have cut and run, trying to save as much of the fleet at the expense of the orbital instillations and the inhabited planet to punitive bombardment by the enemy.

“We’re happy to help, Captain.” Winter Reverie said with a nod. “I must warn you though, we’ve got some company on our own tails. And there’s something else. The purpose of this battlegroup’s mission is the Foehammer Protocol.” Dream Breeze’s eyes widened.

“I had heard the call for a Foehammer had gone out. That’s what you’re carrying? Do you think the Imperials could have gotten word of your path and sent this force to intercept you?”

“It’s entirely possible. There’s a Wonderbolt in pursuit of us. Perhaps that’s why he’s held off on engaging us, rather waiting for us to fall into the trap and pick through the pieces afterwards.”

“Then it’s of even greater importance that you do not stop and help us. You must carry this onward. The princess must be told.” Winter Reverie paused, recalling hearing once that Dream Breeze’s mother was a personal aide to the princess. He remembered because there had been rumors of favoritism. The Commander was not envious of Dream’s position, having to defend herself externally from the Imperials, and internally at those seeking to undermine her reputation.

He could see the logic in her argument, but his honor demanded he stay and help.

“I can see your point, but what’s to stop the Wonderbolt from ordering that force in direct pursuit of us once he enters the system? Or that they don’t already have orders to destroy this battlegroup at all costs? I think it would be a wiser decision to merge our forces and crush the Imperial flotilla currently in this system. The Wonderbolt only has his battleship and escorts, hardly a threat if we destroy what’s here before he arrives.”

The Vengeful Omen and her sister ships were of course already accelerating at maximum on a course for the beleaguered republic naval forces, but could just as easily turn away from their present course towards the next jump point. It would take them within easy intercept range of the Imperial forces however.

Dream Breeze seemed momentarily torn in her duty. She understood the importance of the Foehammer and what it implied for the entire Republic, and it warred with her dedication to the defense of the system and its pony inhabitants. She could find no fault in Winter Reverie’s logic and conceded with a nod.

“Very well Commander, I’m altering my course for fastest possible unification of our forces. Make ready.” Bloodlust at the prospect of the coming battle shined in Winter Reverie’s eyes.

“I’m always ready, Captain Breeze. For the Republic.” Not quite sure what to make of the snow-white unicorn, the pegasus saluted with a wing.

“For the Republic.” She said, finishing the formal reply, and broke the link. Shifting slightly in his command throne, Winter turned to Crystal Flourish, waiting diligently but politely pretending to be out of range of the conversation.

“Assessment, how are we looking if we join up with the Deimos?” The pegasus ruffled her feathers in thought before replying.

‘It would go a little ways towards evening the odds, but those ships are pretty torn up already. I’m not sure how much offensive capability the Deimos still has. It’s a dreadnought, but it still has limits. Are you sure it wouldn’t be a better idea to just cut and run?’

“I know the Foehammer is bigger than all the ships in that fleet, even all the ponies on that world, but I think it’s our best bet of getting it out of this system in one piece. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that the Wonderbolt would have sent word ahead for that fleet to cut us off. It may have already been nearby, but it getting here before us like that is too much to be a coincidence. Too convenient.”

‘Well, then as long as their engines hold out, and we hold present course, we should meet up with them in about fourteen hours. We’ll see what happens then.’

“Very well, that’ll have to do.” The bane of all commanders who sailed the abyss lay ahead of the massively armored unicorn. Torturously awaiting the arrival of battle was an unfortunate reality of void warfare.

Despite countless years of research and power core advancement, there was no way to break the light barrier while subject to the gravity well of a star. And so the incomprehensible gulfs between solar bodies had to be bridged with traditional thrust and acceleration. Fleets could see each other, race towards one another, and still be forced to wait for days before actually engaging.

It took years of mental conditioning and an indomitable will to ease down from the adrenaline rush of combat and get the rest the mind needed with a deadly foe in the scopes. Winter Reverie managed by snoozing in his command throne. It was much easier than many ponies took it to be. Being in full body joint cushioning powered armor helped. He practically lived in the suit, and had long ago adapted to spending weeks if need be in it.

And so he closed his eyes, and let his waking mind become unanchored.

***

Fourteen hours, and several million kilometers later, Winter Reverie’s battlegroup was about to link up with the besieged Republic fleet. The pursuing Solar Empire forces had poured on as much speed as they could without breaking up their formation, but could not prevent their enemy’s consolidation. The enemy flotilla had formed up into a box and had made a few probing motions to try and exploit the Republic ships as they came together.

Dream Breeze and Winter Reverie had put together a basic plan to try applying the concentrated force of their guns against the smallest point possible of the Imperial formation. The Deimos would feign engine damage in her turn, which was only half true, while the smaller ships would form in front as a screen. Then, when the time was right, the escorts would break and reform beside the dreadnought to focus their firepower.

That was the plan anyway.

“The Deimos is beginning her turn. Simulating engine difficulty.” The massive ship was already ponderous in its turn, but as the behemoth vessel cut the output of her port thrusters, the arc widened, prolonging the predictability of the path of her broadsides. The Vengeful Omen and the remaining handful of ships acted as if they were surprised by the loss of maneuverability and messily reformed in a protective screen.

The Imperial flotilla took the bait, lunging forward with the scent of blood in the water. The box formation was a simple one. Battleships anchored each corner and formed a solid core along with the battlecruisers while the smaller ships formed up around them. It was designed to minimize the chances of the Republic fleets evading fire, guiding them to be within range of at least three quarters of their capital ships no matter which way they turned.

It would have decimated the republic forces had the two fleets met in such a manner. But, at the last moment, the Deimos kicked its thrusters into overdrive, turning the superstructure of the massive prow in a desperate arc.

“Incoming torpedoes.” Cried the watch-stander. The wave of munitions passed through the position the Republic ships were supposed to have occupied and passed harmlessly to the starward side. The Vengeful Omen and all her fellow ships responded with a volley of their own torpedoes. They held nothing back, because it was uncertain if they would get another such chance. Using their one opportunity for surprise, the Republic ships rocketed past the upper left corner of the Imperial formation.

Every passing warship poured their fire on the ships anchoring that corner of the box. The Vengeful Omen poured out its prodigious fire, loosing a full broadside into every target of opportunity, smashing smaller destroyers and lashing energy beams against the shields of the larger ships. The Heavy Cruisers and Hunter-Killers added the fury of their weapons as well. Vengeance for their fallen comrades. The Indomitable focused fire on the enemy battleships in that corner, hurling its own weight into the fight.

It was the Deimos though, that truly made its presence known. It unleashed enough energy in its attack to decimate a continent. Cannons the size of frigates shattered smaller ships and punched through the weakened shields of the capital ships. Hell lance turrets seared the void with their superheated spears of magical energy. The ship was a veritable wave of rolling death, shattering space the silent roar of its anger, in retribution for her wounds.

As the Republic formation swept by, one of the battleships suffered a complete core overload, leaving nothing but an expanding ball of debris while another floated, all systems dead. The battlecruiser was a smashed wreck, and nothing but wreckage remained of the smaller cruisers or destroyers. Local superiority had allowed the Republic ships to even the odds somewhat.

They did not emerge unscathed however. One of the system defense HuK, already badly damaged, finally fell to the enemy fire. Another of the system’s Heavy Cruisers was barely able to keep up, and had only a few functioning weapons left. The Deimos had done as best it could to shield her fellows with her shields, but they had still incurred damage.

The ships in the Vengeful Omen’s battlegroup were fresher, and had only taken hits they could easily absorb with their renewed shields.

“Minor damage, two Void circuits blown.” Winter Reverie nodded.

“Make ready for another pass. Turn us about,” His horn glowing, the Commander tapped a few keys with his magic to pass on orders to bring the entire formation around. For the Deimos it was more of a suggestion, but the mighty ship followed through with the turn. It was a difficult thing to manage, so many ships moving on so many different arcing paths with variable engine outputs. The internal navigational processors were able to handle the minute details, but the major paths still had to be drawn out in a three dimensional imaging display.

That was what made the purple pegasus by Winter Reverie’s side so deadly. Crystal Flourish was a master of fleet maneuvers and the artful use of the path mapping tools. Once, during one of their longer jumps, Winter had compiled data taken from the Omen’s flight and combat recorders and compared them to a stored database of fleet statistics and had conclusively decided that Crystal was born to fly starships.

The Deimos had the tonnage of many battleships, and was only slightly less agile. It swam the stars with the heavy elegance of a deep ocean whale. The formation swung wide while the Imperial formation tried to compensate for the ragged chunk the Republic forces had torn out of it. Winter knew they needed to use the time to weigh the odds further in their favor before things got close, brutal, and dissolved into the inevitable slug match larger fleet engagements became.

There were only so many passes two large formations could make before one tackled the other, mashing into the enemy ships, necessitating all involved to slow their movement to avoid collision. That’s when the single fighters came out, and the void became a local area of death. Boarding actions occurred in droves, the crews and their ships drawing blood and melting steel. A battlefield where up and down didn’t matter; only where the enemy was, and how many guns he had.

At the last moment, the republic ships accelerated at maximum, once more throwing off the aim of the guided munitions. Once more they aimed for a corner of the box in a loose wedge with the Deimos at the center. The principle of maximizing local superiority once again served the beleaguered forces of the Lunar Republic.

The wrath of their guns once again leaped with deadly intent across the void, the space between the many ships filled with crisscrossing magical beams, hard slugs, and torpedoes. Shields lit up and failed as accelerated metal and energy splashed against them. The Imperials were not silent, and repaid the casualties inflicted upon them thus far. Two more Hunter-Killers were knocked out of the fight, and the Indomitable took a serious pounding, but endured it with the stubbornness of its namesake. The dreadnought at the formation heart took yet more damage, more layers of its Voids being peeled back and failing in spots.

Another Imperial battleship, battlecruiser, and a handful of destroyers were taken out of the battle, floating dead in space. A few other ships were nicked by opportunistic fire, but it was mostly superficial. The Vengeful Omen was struck by its fair share of fire, a lucky torpedo strike impacting a spot failure in her shielding. The Commander felt the blow shuddering through his ship’s superstructure and frowned in quiet anger.

There wasn’t time or room for another such pass, as they had already bled off too much speed from their rapid acceleration and deceleration to properly engage. The Imperial commander was no fool, and launched his ships forward, the box with its now ragged corners coming to full contact with the Republic wedge. Combat in space was long periods of waiting interspaced with moments of nerve-shattering intensity.

The moment was at hand, and the Republic’s finest showed their mettle.

The two formations collided and the space around them all became filled with death and doom. The Republic ships kept their formation tight so as better to support each other from the marauding Imperials. Broadsides opened up on both sides of every royal purple hulled ship. There was no shortage of targets.

“This is Corsair One through five requesting permission to launch.” The familiar voice of the Vengeful Omen’s fighter lead spoke into Winter’s ear.

“Permission granted Corsair One, you have permission. Priority is protecting the Deimos, engage targets of opportunity.” Five points of light raced from the Omen, each a tiny spark of deadly might, each a guided missile with guns and a mind. Clusters of other lights launched from both the Republic and Imperial ships, forming a morass of friend and enemy signatures on every scanner in the system.

“Enemy torpedoes incoming five o clock low, ten o clock high, eight o clock left, interceptors launched, estimated impacts across shielding five-“

“Void circuits eight through twelve are blown-“

“Hostile battleship directing fire towards-“

Crystal Flourish worked rapidly, tagging enemy vessels for priority fire based on strength, threat, position, and firing envelopes. As quickly as she tagged, her Commander approved them and sent the firing solutions to the other ships as well. The Vengeful Omen’s guns worked in a tireless stream, churning through mountains of ammunition and charging crystals. Her gun crews worked like oiled cogs, feeding her the munitions she craved, clearing spent shells, and guiding fresh torpedoes into her tubes.

“Enemy destroyer neutralized, all systems dead in the water-“

“Friendly HuK taking heavy fire!”

“Solitaire reports stern explosions, eighty percent loss of propulsion-“

Anti-torpedo chaff, interceptor missiles, and point defense turrets sliced thickly enough to make the space strobe with lights and explosions. Deadlier still than all this, were the assault pods streaking across the void. The Republic conserved its boarding ships, waiting to receive the assault from their numerically superior foes.

“Imperal boarding forces heading towards the Deimos! Contact in sixty seconds. Second team inco- scratch that third… wait… reading five waves of assault boats heading towards her!” It made sense, the dreadnought was at that moment the only thing keeping the Republic ships from being annihilated by the firepower pouring out of the Imperial ships. If they could take such a vessel out of the equation then the battle was over.

The massive ship was a rock in the storm of battle, dealing out retribution threefold for any strike against it. Gun batteries the size of building complexes hurled destruction in all directions. Her shields flared and rippled. She already bore scars in her plating that a frigate could sail through, and still she soldiered on.

“Get me a line through to the Deimos now!” Winter Reverie shouted through the din of inflicted and incurred damage reports. Once again Dream Breeze appeared before him, looking even more stressed as she waged the battle around them.

“I’m a little busy here, Commander.” She said rather crossly.

“Well you’re about to have some unwelcome company. You have half a minute before Imperial boarding parties hit your deck galloping. Is your power armor team prepared?” Her attention turned fully to Winter for a sad second.

“We don’t have a power armor team. They were stripped for frontline duty. We were here on route patrol, and then we were going to go back for a new team.” Winter Reverie processed this information in an instant and became aware of his own armor encasing his body.

“Do you have a teleport chamber?” The pegasus mare raised her brow in question.

“What? Of course not. Do you know how expensive those are?” The Commander felt a facial muscle give an involuntary twitch in anger. With the exorbitant price of constructing a dreadnought, the manufacturers had to find ways to cut corners any way they could. And why add something only a third of the race could use?

“Very well, using the Omen’s battle rider clamps will take too long, so I’m going to launch a torpedo at you. Lower the transmitted portion of your shield long enough for it to get through.” He punched a series of commands and transmitted the plan to Dream Breeze.

“That’s ridiculous, there’s no way that’ll be faster than…” She began, but it was at that moment the first wave of Imperial boarding pods slammed into her ship. “Do what you must, Commander.” And she cut the transmission to deal with the defense of her bridge. The armored unicorn nodded to his second and punched the approve command the moment Crystal sent the plan to his display.

He waited with baited breath as his own pair of Pylon torpedoes raced against the other waves of boarding parties for a point near the prow of the Deimos. When the warheads had successfully latched onto their target, Winter magically shifted himself to the teleport chamber aboard the Omen. His team was already waiting for him, kitted out and ready to go.

“Alright, when we get aboard, we’re splitting into three teams of two. Acrylic, I want you and Viola to get to the bridge as fast as you can and defend it. Not one Imperial is to so much as stick his nose past that threshold do you understand me?” The two nodded.

“Nightingale, you’re with Rosethorn, cover each other’s backs. You’re our rapid response pair. If something goes wrong or someone needs backup, I want you two there.” The Commander turned to the smallest of his team, and the youngest. “Circuit, you’re with me. I need you patched into the Deimos’ systems running every search subroutine you’ve got.” The diminutive tech specialist nodded his understanding.

Without any further delay, Winter Reverie closed his eyes and fell into his magic. His horn began to glow, enveloping him and his team in its phosphorescence. With a crack, they shifted through space and appeared with a flash in a hall near the outside of the dreadnought they had teleported into. Well-drilled, and disciplined, they broke into pairs and headed to do their duty.

The Commander and Circuit Board waited a moment while the tech’s special search programs routed through the dreadnought’s systems, picking through different data inputs to determine enemy locations throughout the ship. Red dots began to propagate Winter’s internal map of the Deimos. He checked Acrylic and his sister’s progress towards the bridge, made sure that the two pegasi were on their way to an internal distress call, and nodded to the younger unicorn next to him. They went straight to the closest breach.

Three red dots resolved themselves to be Imperial shock troopers in gold combat armor. 20mm high yield cannon shells exploded in three quick bursts, shredding the hapless ponies where they stood. Winter’s gun beat a rhythm that was as familiar to him as his own heart. It was a throaty boom, and a solid reassurance.

Right behind the trio, another pair emerged from the hole in the hull their breaching charge had carved. Bright green energy beams sliced them apart. Circuit Board’s weapon of choice was almost a Hell Lance in miniature, utilizing the same mechanics of magically supercharged energy particles. The young unicorn wielded the complex weapon with ease, the long prongs that contained the energy discharge floated in his telekinesis and thick cables connected the focusing chamber to his armor’s internal reactor.

Together, the unicorns advanced, covering each other as more and more troopers came out of the assault boat. A few even managed to return fire, but the bullets reflected harmlessly from the plating of the juggernauts bearing down on them. In only a few moments, Winter Reverie stood before the mouth of the pod and hosed the interior with explosive death. The rest of the Imperials died clustered near the entrance. Their taste for Republic blood would go unfulfilled.

The Commander had no remorse for his killing. He was a soldier, and it was his duty to defend this ship. He did not relish it, knowing all too well the tactics of the Solar Empire to instill fanaticism in its soldiers.

“Clear!” he called to Circuit. The other unicorn nodded his helmeted head and checked the progress of his other programs.

“Sir, I’m reading major hostile elements heading for the bridge from all directions. The Deimos is just too big. It takes three full power armor squads to cover a ship this big, there’s no way we can be everywhere at once.” The Commander considered Circuit’s assessment and could find no flaw in his argument.

“Yes, we’ll have to go help Acrylic and Viola defend the bridge, but we need to keep them from reaching the reactors as well.” He switched comm channels. “Rosethorn this is Aegis, head to the reactors. Can’t help a ship that’s gone bang.”

“Rosethorn acknowledges.” That taken care of, Winter nodded to his subordinate and they set off at a gallop towards the bridge of the Deimos. The smaller pony was able to keep up without difficulty, the artificial muscle bundles threaded through his armor providing the usual boost to strength and speed.

It never ceased to amaze Winter how various the users of power armor ended up being. Physical power alone or even natural athleticism was enough to manage the advanced suits. He had seen many meatheads think that all it took was a strong back and stubborn legs to manage. In fact, the opposite was true, one had to relax their body and have immense fine motor control and self-awareness. A pony had to be in peak physical and mental condition to manage all the different aspects of its use. Training in boarding actions, zero gravity, even combat in the vacuum was part of the regimen.

They were thrust into the most mentally demanding situations and roles on the battlefield. A power armor user had to be intelligent enough to use the suit to its full capabilities, but also disciplined enough to not think about all the horrible things that could occur to them in all possibilities of catastrophic failure of one or more systems. The void was the most hostile environment in the universe and offered some of the most horrific manners of death as well.

The unicorns galloped to the main corridor linking to the entrance of the bridge, the emergency bulkhead already in place. Imperial troopers were already assaulting the crew that were entrenched behind hastily pulled together metal debris. Acrylic and Viola stood before the ponies in the purple uniforms of the Deimos, shielding them with their armored bulk. Viola hefted her weapon of choice; a belt fed rotary machine gun. The hum of her gun sent over a thousand rounds a minute in a bright stream of tungsten. Imperial troopers were literally cut in half under the metal rain. The musician worked her instrument with finesse and poise in spite of its weight, guiding the purring gun in steady back and forth streams.

Winter and Circuit came at the flanks of a squad of gold clad ponies and felled them with quick controlled shots before moving into the main chamber proper. The Deimos was a massive ship, and had been designed with something resembling thought of enemy boarding parties. The huge bulkhead separated the bridge from a large intersection of hallways that opened into a rather large area that could be very easily turned into a killing ground by defending crew.

The two unicorns formed up next to the earth pony siblings and added the weight of their guns to the fusillade holding the tide of gold at bay. Even in the face of certain death, the Imperials came heedlessly on. Some ponies, even after they were filled with holes still came on, their wide eyes and distended, foaming jaws showing clear signs of combat drugs, custom tailored to whip a pony into a frenzy.

One stallion charged straight at Winter, his gun chattering. Bullets pinged off the power armor like drops of rain, and the Commander’s gun responded, striking the stampeding of his hooves. Even bleeding out his life, the crazed pony tried to raise his gun again. Without shifting his autocannon off the hallway full of yet more emerging targets, Winter Reverie floated out his sidearm and but one anti-matter charged shell into the stallion’s head.

From the purr of Viola’s machine gun, the heavy boom and ka-chunk of her brother’s cannon, the fizzle cracks of Circuit’s energy weapon, and Reverie’s steady autocannon, the four of them put up a wall that no Imperial could breach. Their aim was true, drilled to perfection in so many other battles just like this one. They covered each other, bringing down ten times their number in that many volleys.

Outside the hull of the dreadnought, the Lunar Republic fleet was doing much the same.

After an hour of unceasing carnage, the metal floor was littered with torn bodies and spent shells. The last echoes of gunfire died away, leaving only the moans of the wounded. The four power armor soldiers of the Republic stood defiant, their armor scored and blackened, but unharmed. Behind them, the regular crew of the Deimos stared in awe.

The ship had stopped shuddering a few minutes ago.

“Rosethorn, status?” Winter Reverie questioned.

“All good here, Commander. A few squads came this way, but most of ‘em headed to you. Are we clear?” Circuit Board gave him a nod. “Aye, we’re all clear.” Then he connected to the Vengeful Omen.

“Crystal, how we doing?” The pegasus responded with text that scrolled across his helmet’s internal display.

‘I’m glad we didn’t get that paint job. Would have been ruined already.’ Winter chuckled. ‘All Imperial ships are disabled or destroyed, our HuKs are doing mop up now. Spirited, Solitaire, and the Indomitable report serious damage. They’re still going, but need a good long dock in a proper shipyard. Only the heavy cruiser and the Deimos are left of the local forces, and two of our HuKs were knocked out too. The Omen is pretty good all things considered. There were bigger targets to shoot at in this engagement. Going to need quite a few replacement Void shield crystals and we made a serious dent in our ammo bunkers. We lost Corsair two, four, and five. They successfully ejected, but we’re still three fighters short.’

“No helping it. Like you said, things could have been a lot worse all things considered. Has the Wonderbolt shown up yet?”

‘No, still no sign. He’s likely waiting at the jump point on word of how this fleet did.’

“That’s what I would have done. It makes sense. Then he doesn’t have to get his hooves dirty. I have a feeling that we’re going to be continuing on our own. We can’t leave this system in such a state. Alert the planetary government to get as many tugs, repair, and salvage vessels up here.”

‘On it. You sure it’s wise to go on alone?’

“The Deimos isn’t going anywhere for a long time. You don’t want to see the inside.”

‘You don’t want to see the outside.’

“Alright, I’m going to talk with Dream Breeze about our next move.” Winter Reverie sighed deeply in relief. The Republic forces had driven nearly to the edge of destruction, but he supposed they could call it victory. He had a quiet conversation with a rather shell-shocked chief petty officer and the emergency blast bulkhead was raised.

Winter Reverie walked firmly across the threshold, leaving his team to do what they could to help the wounded and take care of the casualties. The bridge of the Deimos was in a rather frantic state, with ponies running to and fro, trying desperately to take stock of all the damages the mighty ship had incurred. Dream Breeze alternated between shouting orders and flicking things across her console.

The Commander waited patiently for a lull and tapped the haggard pegasus on the shoulder.

“What?!” She whipped around to stare into a blank visor. “Oh, it’s you, Commander. You’re tracking blood on my bridge.” A slightly smeared set of ruddy hoof prints tracked all the way back to the door.

“I’ll be expecting the bill later. How’s the Deimos?” Dream Breeze sagged back into her command throne, looking like she had lived in the same uniform for a week.

“The old girl’s taken a helluva pounding, but she should pull through with a little TLC. We’re gonna be camped out here until a major relief force comes.”

“The Omen is going to continue on.”

“I figured as much. No sense sticking around here. You should be safe the rest of the way. The Foehammer takes priority. Even over all this. Make sure it gets there.”

“It was a pleasure, Captain Breeze.”

“Hey, Reverie,” The unicorn turned back for a moment as he made to leave. “Next time, the party’s on your boat.”

(Whew! Long time no see guys and gals! Tell me what you think! The next chapter should be up... possibly today!!!)

Chapter 5: Throne of Night

Throne of Night

“At last, we’re here.”

The Vengeful Omen coasted smoothly back to realspace, into the capital system of the New Lunar Republic. It had taken a fair few jumps since the engagement in the Rakus system, their precious message too sensitive to be copied or transmitted in any way.

Horizon was the jewel of the Republic. It was the richest, most prosperous star in the entire cluster. It had no less than three comfortably habitable worlds, multiple asteroid belts with generous mineral deposits, and several other non-habitable planets with mining and production colonies. Megalithic construction frames and platforms orbited the primary world’s moons.

The feature that truly made this home for the New Lunar Republic was the celestial anomaly that hugged the sun. Forces of the universe had come together in this system to form a sparse dark nebula running through Horizon. Its tendrils of gas and matter obscured much of the light from the star, casting its shadow over the orbiting planets, shrouding them in perpetual twilight.

It had earned its name from the original explorers of the region. The captain of the surveying vessel said upon viewing the star and its planets ‘If darkness had a horizon, this place would lie upon its edge.’ And the term had stuck.

It was the crown of the system, the throne world, Obsidia that Princess Luna called home. The temperate orb was a dark ornament, hanging in the abyss, caressed gently by the radiation of its large yellow sun. Obsidia had gotten its name from the first settlers who had come, seeing the massive mountain ranges made of volcanic glass and its fertile volcanic soil. The world was close enough in the habitable zone of the star that in spite of the solar energy lost from the nebula, it still had four comfortable seasons and permanent ice caps.

Aside from its size, the main reason for Princess Luna’s choice was the eight moons that girdled the planet like foals around their mother. Two even had atmospheres and respectable gravity. They all housed their own populations, each serving as sources of rare minerals, military training, low gravity dockyards, and each was reinforced with enough defensive infrastructures to shame all but the mightiest of flotillas.

It was a cruel irony in a way, that Nightmare Moon could have had her paradise if she had only waited. It was indeed a planet of eternal night, in its own way.

“Transmit follow up identification codes and set course for Obsidia.” Winter Reverie instructed his bridge team.

“Incoming message from the Maelstrom,” Announced a watch-stander. An older, rather swarthy bluish-grey earth pony with an ageing black mane was on the other end of the line. The Maelstrom was one of three dreadnoughts on permanent rotation around the Horizon system, keeping a perpetual vigil around their princess.

“This is Captain Gale aboard the dreadnought Maelstrom contacting Commander Reverie aboard the Vengeful Omen. Admiral Blueberry has ordered me to escort you to orbital dock ring two two alpha. Foehammer, right?”

“That’s correct. We’ll follow you in.” Captains and commanders tended to swap stories and collected at officer’s lounges together, the barrier of rank keeping them from mingling with the majority of ponies enlisted in the service. Gale had long earned the right to retire, but his duty to the Republic had kept him on the Maelstrom.

Normally time in realspace dragged even more slowly than jump space, but before the Commander knew it, his ship was docking at one of the many military stations orbiting Obsidia and bidding farewell to Captain Gale and the Maelstrom. He teleported himself to his stateroom to get ready.

As he peeled off his armor and opened the trunk beside his bed, he tried to recall the last time he had worn his formal dress uniform. It was a thick material, heavily starched. A deep indigo dye colored it and was in keeping with most Republic standards. A polished silver brocade adorned the shoulders and a pair of thin silver ropes crossed the chest like a bandolier tastefully. He double checked to make sure that all the rank insignia and various honors he had earned were properly displayed. It was required of every officer to wear all decoration to which they were entitled.

The Commander frowned, trying to think of an excuse to wear his sidearm, but could find no decent reason beside his own obsession. He had gone too long from civilized lands and circles. Without a weapon, he felt well and truly naked.

The unicorn walked out of his stateroom and was surprised to find Nightingale waiting for him.

“Oh! Commander, I figured you could use a little something to take with you.” She held out a ceremonial sabre in a black lacquered sheathe chased with platinum. The hilt was simple but elegant with a perfectly rounded blue sapphire set in the pommel. Winter pulled the blade out a few inches, admiring the laser sharpened steel.

“That gem there isn’t all that it appears to be.” Nightingale pressed a hoof to the stone and gave a careful push. There was a slight click and a faint hum as a glow infused the blade.

“Ah, a power field. Very clever.” Suddenly, he didn’t feel so naked. Nothing like a weapon that could part most known materials to put the mind at ease. He looped the strap for the blade over his shoulder. It rested neatly at his side, seeming like nothing more than a ritualistic addition.

“When you’re in the Lady’s presence, think of us okay? That way we’re there a little bit too.” Winter Reverie nodded. He would be carrying the will of all the faithful aboard the Vengeful Omen.

***

The shuttle ride down was uneventful. It gave Winter time to go over all that had transpired as he turned the data block end over end in his telekinesis. The royal palace on Obsidia was a beautiful place, carved of huge blocks of the obsidian mountain ranges. After numerous security checkpoints, the unicorn came to wait in a large room before the main audience chamber. A pegasus mare that looked strikingly familiar was checking in with the various ponies waiting to be seen by the princess.

“Excuse me miss.” The mare looked up from her clipboard, happily distracted from a nagging aristocratic pony. Winter Reverie was slightly surprised that the mare actually still used pen and paper for her record keeping.

“Yes, may I help you?” She hovered over, leaving the rather portly looking earth pony much put out.

“Does your name happen to be Dusk Breeze?” The pegasus mare had a surprised look.

“Why yes, have I met you before? Do forgive me, I see so many…”

“Is your daughter Dream Breeze?”

“Oh Luna, she isn’t hurt is she?” Winter Reverie gave a reassuring smile.

“No, no, I recently fought alongside your daughter. She’s a fine soldier. It was an honor and she acquitted herself and her crew admirably. I was just curious to see the mother that could raise such a foal.” Dusk Breeze tittered in relief and shortly stopped, looking at her clipboard.

“Sweet goodness, are you Commander Winter Reverie?”

“Yes I am.”

“I’m terribly sorry for the delay; you’ve been given top priority. This way please.” She showed him to the final hall before the audience chamber and said a quick goodbye. He strode down the long carpet leading to a large set of doors and was stopped by a unicorn in purple armor. He was not one of the famed bat-winged guards, but still carried great responsibility.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Great, just what Winter Reverie needed: an overzealous guard. He could quite understand the need for intensive security around the Lady of the Night, so he did not begrudge the stallion any hard feelings.

“I’m sorry but it’s classified, for Her Majesty’s ears only.”

“Uh-huh” The guard said skeptically, his fellow on the other side of the door seemingly oblivious to the argument going on next to him. “I still need to see what’s in it.”

“No, actually you don’t. I have orders from Admiral Blueberry himself to waste no time bringing it straight to Princess Luna.” Reverie could sympathize with the royal guardspony’s position, but that didn’t stop him from getting annoyed.

“Not if I say you can’t. And another thing, you can’t bring a weapon into the audience chamber. Even if it’s ceremonial or whatever. Honestly, you nobles.” Winter Reverie bristled at the last comment. Comparing him to an aristocratic snob was an affront to his honor, which he would not stand for. Just as a scathing retort rose in his throat, a strong female voice rang out in the hall.

“Hold it there; I can vouch for this guy.” Winter turned to see a cyan pegasus wearing a uniform studded with medals and awards.

“Sky Marshal Rainbow Dash, ma’am!” The obstinate guard suddenly stood quite a bit straighter and saluted sharply.

“Yeah, yeah, marshal smarshal.” She sauntered up to Winter Reverie and her face broke into a wide grin. “Heya Winter, long time no see. How you holdin’ up?” The Commander felt a relieved smile creep onto his muzzle.

“RD! I suppose I can’t complain. What about you? I hear they’ve got you stuck behind a desk now.” The element bearer snorted.

“Pff, the day I get stuck behind a desk’ll be the day I officially retire.” The sky blue pegasus was getting on in years, but not so old that settling down and starting a family was out of the question. Both her and Winter Reverie had fought alongside each other in battles past, one of his old power armor squads having been assigned detail aboard her ship through a few of the nastier engagements of the war gone by.

“Those tin legs still holdin’ up, Winter?”

It was one of the many reasons the Commander hardly went anywhere without his combat armor. His front right leg was cybernetic from the shoulder down, and his left front leg from the knee down. The right he had lost in one of their mutual battles. It had earned him one of the larger medals on his coat. She had been the one to first pin it there. Rainbow Dash was a rather informal commander of her troops, brash, brazen, and unshaking in the face of danger, and was hard on herself for every loss of life or limb under her authority.

No pony alive could match her skill in an atmospheric fighter.

“About as well as can be expected. I’d love to catch up, RD, I really would, but I gotta get in and see Princess Luna.”

“Say no more.” She flapped her wings and hovered at eye level with the guard who had gone still as stone. The supreme commander of the spaceborne forces of the New Lunar Republic held there for just a moment and set back down on the polished volcanic glass floor. She turned to him with a smile. “Go right on ahead.”

With a grateful nod, the unicorn walked through into the audience chamber of Princess Luna.

The ruler of the night sat in regal perfection upon a throne of glossy black stone, polished and carved from a single piece of crystal. A stylized moon sat in glittering blue diamonds on the top of the royal perch. Rounded steps formed a slightly raised ziggurat, flanked by small pools of flowing water with glowing moon lilies. Royal guards stood arrayed behind the throne and along the walls as various ponies brought in a continuous stream of missives, messages, and battle reports.

Winter caught himself gaping at the threshold and quickly composed himself and spoke with a herald who asked his name and his business.

“Foehammer.” Was all the unicorn said. The herald nodded and turned smartly on his hooves.

“My Lady, may I introduce Commander Winter Reverie of the Assault Cruiser the Vengeful Omen. Bearing the urgent matter of which Admiral Blueberry and Sky Marshal Rainbow Dash spoke of.” Luna’s piercing eyes sharply focused on Winter Reverie. The stallion found himself unable to meet the gaze of his goddess and looked away.

“Everypony, leave us. This is matter vital to the security of the Republic, and secrecy is of the essence.” Her voice rang clear as a bell, and everyone, even the guards bowed respectfully, and exited. A few moments later it was just Winter, and Luna. The snow white unicorn walked before the throne and abased himself, bowing as low as his body could. He could find no words, his mind unable to summon the will to think as he basked in the radiance of Princess Luna’s presence.

Only once before had he had the pleasure of basking in the aura of the alicorn’s power during a group ceremony where she gave out various awards and posed for news cameras. Even with past exposure, his senses still felt close to overload. There was no preparing for being in the same room as divinity.

“Rise, Winter Reverie, I must hear and see this Foehammer you bring. Time may already be of the essence.” The soldier did so, but kept his eyes lowered, satisfied with her in his peripheral vision, feeling unworthy of truly drinking in the image of her grace. He opened his mouth to begin when motion made his warrior’s instincts look up and sharply to the left of the throne.

A pegasus in a servant’s livery was creeping towards the flank of the seat of power. Aside from the young colt’s clear violation of Luna’s order to vacate the audience chamber, was the glint of steel extending from under the sleeve of his left leg. At that moment, the yellow colt launched himself into the air straight for the Princess who was too distracted with Reverie to notice until the pony let loose a blood-curdling cry as he flew.

“For Celestia!”

“Princess Luna!” The Commander shouted. The alicorn mare turned in surprise to see her assassin. Mid-way through the killer’s leap, Winter Reverie appeared in a flash on the top step between his goddess and the Imperial agent. The yellow pegasus raised his hoof to strike with his hidden blade, and met the point of a sabre. The sword pierced the feathered colt through the sternum, not stopping until it emerged partway down his back, buried from tip to hilt.

Winter Reverie teleported again, taking the assassin with him to thrash and bleed out a safe distance from the throne just in case he had some other trap rigged to a dead switch. The Republic Soldier gripped the humming blade tightly in his magic, pinning the colt to the floor like a butterfly specimen. The crimson pool spread out around the pony and his thrashing grew weak. When he was almost still, Winter pulled the blade from its fleshy sheathe. The last of the blood flowed even faster from the fatal wounds.

The energizing field that empowered the sabre to slice through even metal with ease vaporized the leftover blood and the Commander replaced his clean blade. He stared down at the dying pony, caught between pity and scorn.

A soft sound broke Reverie out of his combat trance.

Princess Luna had descended from her throne, her elegant shoes clacking on the hard floor as she approached. To his shock, the Lady of the Night knelt beside the bleeding pegasus and bowed her head, tears shimmering at the corner of her eyes.

“Oh my wayward child,” she spoke softly. “I am sorry. You did not deserve such an end. This war between sisters should have been settled between sisters long ago. Be at peace, weary soul, and know that I bear you no ill will. Pass beyond without regret, and sleep.” Luna place a hoof gently on the shoulder of the prone colt as his last breath whispered from his lips.

The scene only further cemented Winter’s belief in Luna’s divinity and he found himself bowing low in obeisance.

“My lady, I’m sorry, but he was going to-“ Luna stood and interrupted him.

“No, Winter Reverie, no, the blame of this needless death lies upon my shoulders. This war has gone on too long, and now you bring me tidings of a Foehammer. It is a sign I think, that perhaps the end is in sight, one way or another. Please, come with me. Let us hold our conversation elsewhere. The scent of blood is now too thick in these halls. I shall have the captain of my guard address this breach in security.” Her tone carried a terrible burden of sadness, undercut by an edge of steel.

The unicorn followed his princess obediently through the hallways of her palace. They walked in silence, and soon Winter Reverie was quite lost past all the twists and turns of the long corridors. Artistic works of great magnificence lined many of the passages, statues, tapestries, and paintings of different scenes and important looking ponies. They came to a rather innocuous chamber, a circular turret with a ceiling that reached a hundred feet into the air at least. Solar maps of all kinds lay scattered about in shelves or spread out on tables.

A large holographic representation of the stars of all known settled space rotated serenely above a center console. This was clearly Luna’s private observatory, where the Princess of the Night might relax among the constellations picked out in jewels along the walls. The soldier waited patiently for his princess to gather her thoughts.

“Let me tell you something, Commander Reverie, there is another secret that only a hoof-full outside this room know of.” She paced a few regal steps towards the floating map.

“The Lunar Republic is losing this war.”

Reverie had had fears, with his own experience and the tales of other battles across the lines with the Empire. But to have his concerns validated, his suspicions proven true… and by Princess Luna of all ponies! It was one thing to think it, and another for it to be spoken aloud.

“I mustered our forces as best I could at the beginning of the war, hoping to topple my sister with the element of surprise and superior numbers. Only after the first attacks did we learn she had been secretly stockpiling weapons, ships, and covertly training soldiers for as long as we had been. In her decreasingly unstable state, her paranoia had pushed her to prepare for impending invasions from imaginary threats. Unfortunately my attack only served to agitate her suspicions and fears.

“We do not have the Solar Empire’s capability of absorbing such grievous losses. Her totalitarian rule enforces stricter requisition and recruitment practices. Not that my subjects are wanting in conviction, it’s just a matter of numbers. Celestia controls the oldest worlds, with huge population bases to draw from. They simply have more soldiers, more workers, and more resources available.

“We’ve kept them stalemated by staying ahead of the technological curve, faster drives, better weapons, and more advanced troop tactics. Our guns, our ships are better, but there simply aren’t enough of them.” Luna continued her pacing. “Our spy networks report serious discontentment throughout the Empire despite the network censorship and news blackouts. They predict total planetary uprising if the war continues as it has or if they are given the right push. By the time we reach that point however, the Lunar Republic will have been conquered. It is simply a matter of time.”

Winter Reverie could stay silent no longer.

“My lady, please, is there nothing we can do? You speak as if there is no hope.” She gave him a reassuring smile that made his heart soar.

“There is always hope, my little pony. First though, I must see the Foehammer you bring.” Winter floated out the tiny data receptacle and dutifully floated it over to Luna. The alicorn took it and slotted it into the center console. The floating moats of light were replaced with the schematic specifications entombed within the innocent looking data brick.

Luna took her time, examining the aspects of the equations, measurements, and sparse material listing. She would zoom into one particular piece, rotating it this way and that, and then retracting back to piece it back into the whole. The white unicorn stood by silently, part of him hoping that he was wrong, that it would turn out to be some new corporate mining laser, or perhaps plans for a luxury yacht.

“This is… real.” Princess Luna unplugged the data brick. “This will have to be analyzed further, but in my mind there is no doubt. How awful that we have come to this point.” Her gaze fixed on Winter, and once more he had to avert his own. “The Foehammer Protocol was put in place in case any evidence was found to suggest the Solar Empire was developing a superweapon. You have fulfilled your duty to the letter, Commander Reverie. I only wish that it hadn’t been necessary.

“Both the NLR and the Solar Empire are close to collapse. My sister is blinded by her rage, her paranoia; she will try to grasp at anything she can, even if it means this horror. The reason the Foehammer Protocol was established was for just such an emergency, in case she really had gone over the edge and decided to make something like this.”

“There is a secret however, guarded even more tightly than that of the state of this war. For you see, my little pony, the Republic has its own Foehammer.” Winter Reverie’s thoughts came to a crashing halt and he looked up at his goddess.

“What… how? It’s not a weapon, is it?”

“Yes, and no. It is a culmination of nearly twenty years of effort. I helped drafted some of the design myself.” She said with pride. “It will however, end the war. Of that I guarantee.”

“How familiar are you with the legend of the Leviathan?” Winter Reverie shook his head.

“Not much your majesty. It’s a creation story isn’t it?” She smiled and he launched into what of the story he knew.

“Before the worlds and stars, there was only the Leviathan. It swam the dark emptiness alone, searching for other life. But it could find none, and finding itself gripped by grief at being so alone, it gave up looking and drank up even the void. In consuming the void however, it swallowed something even greater than itself and burst into infinite pieces, for the Leviathan itself was greater than all. Its many scales scattered, creating the stars. Its right and left eyes became the sun and moon. While the body of the Leviathan became the world of Equestria and life grew from its bones.” Winter felt embarrassed, afraid that he had gotten it wrong.

“It’s a story of how the Leviathan was a creature of such titanic proportions that the whole of the universe was simply the leftovers of its death after it consumed the nothingness around it.” Luna smiled. “That’s the basic idea, I think. It’s a popular story among sailors.” The mare gazed upward to the many wonderful vistas of the sky.

“There is a task I would ask of you, Winter Reverie. Something I’d like for you to do.”

“You need but ask, and it shall be done, your majesty.”

“I do not believe there are gods in this universe, but I do believe that the living energy of the stars shape the lives we lead. That you brought this Foehammer from so far away, that you saw what you have, that you stopped the assassin when you did. All is connected. I know some ponies believe I can see the future. I cannot.

“I can however, see when a conflux, a chain of events all link to each other. And I know, to the core of my being, you have a further part to play.”

(Okay, two updates so close together! Oh the joys! I love writing this story because its everything I ever wanted to see in a space combat drama thing. Ohhh how I'm rubbing my maniacal hooves together! Leviathan is coming. And don't worry, I have plans for nearly all the characters in the show. Element bearers, CmC, and others besides! But, their roles shall be revealed as they come.)

Chapter 6: Creature of the Deep

Creature of the Deep

The Imperial ensign approached the golden command throne and the pegasus, clad in polished sapphire blue armor that sat upon it. The colt’s eyes fearfully darted to the lightning bolt symbol emblazoned across the shoulders and the mantle of rich, golden cloth.

“Sir, our remote sensors report that the Republic Assault Cruiser we were pursuing has departed towards the galactic east. Towards the…” He gulped.

“Signal the Righteous Blade.” The Wonderbolt rumbled.

“Sir, are you sure? So soon…” Whatever else the ensign might have said perished as the armored visor turned in his direction.

“Aye sir, at once.”

***

“Sensors clean, no hostiles detected near jump point. Slight interference on gravimetric, resolving now. Accurate resolution limited to fifteen AU.”

“Stay sharp, we’re here to find something and I’d rather us find it before it finds us.” Ordered Winter Reverie as his ship once more transitioned back into normal space.

‘You don’t think it could be dangerous?’ Signed Crystal.

“This whole system makes me nervous. I’d rather be safe than sorry.” The other sailors aboard the Vengeful Omen were nervous as well, and the tension was almost palpable on the bridge. There was a reason the XK4-7 stellar system was uninhabited.

It played host to a class five cataclysmic variable. It was a unique, naturally occurring relationship between two component stars which were so close to each other that the gravity of the one distorted the other, forming an accretion disk of hydrogen. Huge outbursts of radiation and solar wind occurred when a portion of the disk material fell onto the inner star, igniting nuclear fusion reactions which rapidly converted the layer of hydrogen to helium. The light output of the stars rose and fell as they went in and out of active states caused by the gravity ballet.

The Vengeful Omen’s Void shields were more than enough protection, but sailors tended to be superstitious about anything that wasn’t a normal star.

As if that wasn’t enough, the system was within only a few light years from a cluster of pulsar stars in the process of coming together into a black hole, throwing off massive electromagnetic interference in waves. There were only three planets, little more than barren hunks of rock, stripped of anything resembling an atmosphere by the cataclysmic variable. What XK4-7 lacked in colonizing allure, it made up for in incredibly rare minerals formed from its unique environment.

It would be quite a while though before pony space expanded enough to make mining lucrative. Several decades at least. As it stood the system was much too far from any trade route. It simply wasn’t cost effective to range this far from settled space.

“Uh, Commander, I’ve got an incoming message from an unknown source.”

“Where in Luna’s name is it coming from? We’re the only ones here aren’t we?” Now Winter Reverie felt his hide crawling a bit.

“Unknown sir, it reads at range five thousand to our starward, seven thousand above us, and eighteen thousand about ten degrees down.” With a gut full of trepidation, Winter accepted the link. Instead of some ghoulish half message or static, he was greeted with the visage of a plum colored unicorn mare with glasses and a white coat.

“Ah, Commander Reverie, right on time. I’m glad you made it here safely. My name is Abacus. Welcome to XK4-7.” Well, this was definitely the scientist Princess Luna had sent Winter to meet with.

“Yes, thank you. Why are we here? And where are you transmitting from?” His tone was a little edgy, but he felt justified in this situation. Abacus only smiled wryly behind her glasses.

“Princess Luna has chosen you of course. And here, I’ll disable my ship’s cloaking field.”

“Sir! Ship signature detected ranging thirty-two degrees to port. Confirm stealth frigate.”

“By the living stars.” He had heard stories about the secret ships piloted by the clandestine operations units of the Shadowbolts, but had never seen one for himself. They were sleek, dart-like craft, every meter of them crammed with state of the art covert systems.

“Please follow the course plotting I’m sending you. You’ll see why you’re here.” Winter Reverie nodded to Crystal Flourish to execute the path set through the system. It took them on a slightly curved but fairly direct route to the second planet.

In the intervening time, his ship gliding on its plasma tail, Winter contemplated the words of his princess. She had told him to take his ship to this strange, isolated star system and await a pony scientist by the name of Abacus. He had done so without question, knowing that surely she had her reasons. The intervening time had allowed doubt to creep into his thoughts. He watched his ship’s progress on a system map as it coasted deeper into the cataclysmic variable’s gravity well.

“What is that?” Asked Winter Reverie to no pony in particular. He called up Abacus. “In Luna’s name, what in the hells am I looking at?”

“That, Commander, is what we call The Cradle.” Nestled in orbit around the second planet, hidden away from normal sensors by the various forces colliding in the star system, was a superstructure of titanic proportions. It was a framework, a great metal scaffolding similar to the shipyards of the Republic, but infinitely larger. Winter Reverie tried to understand the monumental amount of labor that went into constructing something so large it was nearly visible to the naked eye even at their current distance.

His awe at The Cradle lasted until he saw the thing to which it was attached.

“And that is the Leviathan.”

“It must be over twelve kilometers at least!” Winter gasped. It was shaped in the method of all Republic ships, long and sleek, their streamlined hulls giving them the impression of deadly oceanic creatures. The Leviathan was aptly named.

“Fourteen point five two to be precise,” said Abacus. Republic dreadnoughts were only three and a half kilometers. “Please dock with The Cradle. We’ll talk more face to face.” Reverie could only nod. The rest of his crew was in equal shock.

Not only had such a ship been constructed, it had been done in utter secrecy. The only one who seemed to have known about it was Princess Luna herself. His thoughts tried to wrap around the scale of the vessel, and failed.

***

Winter Reverie stood on the observation deck above the main control room for The Cradle, gazing out at the many construction arms that were even now busily scurrying across the shimmering violet surface of the Leviathan. He had been surprised to find only the barest handful of crew aboard directing the efforts of the construction drones. The Cradle was nearly entirely automated, its thousands of scarab-like robotic units working tirelessly and long industrial arms that trailed off like a sea anemone, constantly flowing.

The soldier, clad in his power armor, turned at the sound of hoofsteps. With her soft blue mane tucked back, Abacus walked to stand beside Winter in gazing out at the Leviathan. He noticed the half dozen or so tiny metal spiders scurrying about her hooves. One even jumped out of her coat pockets to hurry off to some task or another. The mare paid them no mind.

“Magnificent, isn’t it. Twenty years of work have gone into this ship, Commander. You have no idea how many new technologies had to be found before we could even begin construction. Princess Luna had it built after the first attack was stalled.” The purple unicorn had to look up, Winter being considerably taller. “I’m sure you have questions, Commander. I’m the lead on this project and am happy to help you in any way I can.”

“Why am I here?” He demanded.

“You and your crew have been selected to help pilot the Leviathan and guide it to where the rest of its personal are waiting in the Var system. From there we shall launch an attack that will end the war. That is what this ship has been built for.” Winter felt his head starting to pulse from taking in so much at once.

“Okay, how is it supposed to do that? No disrespect doctor, it is a fine… looking ship, but fusion drives can’t possibly output enough energy to move that thing faster than a crawl. It’s unfeasible in the extreme.”

“I’m glad you’re so familiar with physics, Commander, many in your position only know enough to get by. Although, I should expect no less from one who has the expertise to wear power armor.” She gazed at him curiously, like he was a specimen under a microscope. Winter suppressed the urge to fidget under her unblinking gaze and almost jumped back in surprise when one of Abacus’s mechanical spiders popped out of her mane and skittered up onto her horn to also look at him with its own tiny eyes.

“Oh my, is that a mark twelve you’re wearing?” She grabbed the tiny bug-bot in her telekinesis and placed it on Winter’s back. He canted nervously around. “Oh don’t fuss, he won’t hurt you.” Somehow the Commander wasn’t at all reassured as the mechanical thing scurried around his torso and down his front leg, narrowly avoiding his vengeful hoof stomp. It scuttled over to its fellows and spoke in a tiny chitter of machine code. Together they projected a holographic display for Abacus’s perusal. She let out a little squeal of delight.

“It is, it is! However did you come by such a marvelous piece of technology? I’ve only read about the mark twelve series! It was said to enhance and channel magical energy, but then after only a few dozen runs, the blueprint went missing and the creator followed shortly after. Standard artificial fiber bundle muscles, assisted servo actuators in the joints, slightly thicker plating around the chest, back, and legs for slightly decreased mobility. Extensive plating around head and horn area for added protection and of course, the sub-layering of liquid conductive crystal, a magically sensitive material that is thought to help channel and direct energy. Woven of course into nano-fibers that forms the mesh around the whole body.”

“Excuse me, back to my earlier question…”

“And extensive…” She looked up at him. “Reconstructive surgery of the right lung, multiple ribs, the entire right leg and most of the left.” The scientist had a look of pity in her eyes, and Winter Reverie would not be pitied, nor one whose privacy was to be invaded.

“Miss. Will that damn thing even fly?” His voice carried a frosty note that chilled to the bone.

“Right… propulsion… the Leviathan does not use a fusion core.”

“Then what does it use?”

“Anti-matter, of course. Locked in continuous creation-destruction cycle we harness the output energy from the anti-matter’s…”

“Interaction with regular matter. Yes, I know how anti-matter works too. What a shock, a grunt that can think.”

“I meant no disrespect, Commander.” Winter Reverie’s patience was at its limit.

“If I do not understand something I will ask for it to be explained. Am I clear Miss Abacus?” The mare lowered her sight and nodded, even her spiders cowering behind her hooves. “So you use anti-matter instead of fusion. What’s its mass to thrust ratio?”

“The Leviathan’s tonnage is around two billion kilograms. With engines at full output she can comfortably match speeds with any dreadnought in the fleet. In theory, more power can be coaxed from them based on what field testing we’ve managed to do.” Her voice slowly perked up again as she talked of things dear to her.

“Before you go any further, tell me how you paid for all this. How much good could all this funding have done the fleet? You could have built six dreadnoughts with the resources you’ve poured into this little project. Whose coffers did you extort this from?” He accused scornfully.

“What? No! Nothing of the sort. Princess Luna herself has provided every bit. After a thousand years exiled you’d have quite a lot of money put away too.” That stopped Winter’s rant for a moment, but it did not quell his anger.

“Summarize the modifications you’ve made then please. Is this ship anything other than an overstuffed dreadnought?” Abacus shot him a dirty look but subsided with a sigh.

“It’s not just a big dreadnought. It’s a revolution from the ground up, so to speak. Everything about this ship is like nothing you’ve ever seen. Like I said, we’ve had to find new technologies just to start building the Leviathan. Do you know how inadequate mining techniques were before I found a new way of processing the ore? Or before I created the Republic’s latest mining barge? But even that wasn’t enough because I had to construct this ship in secret.

“This system was chosen because of its remoteness and rich asteroid belts. Nearly everything about this place is autonomous, requiring minimal pony direction. My building techniques increased every Republic shipyard’s output by eighty-fiver percent! Hmph.

“Did you know the ancient griffin war smiths developed a metal that actually healed? A living metal as it were? I found the secret and have blended the living metal composite with magnoceramics, kinetic resonators, and adamantite! To a limited degree, the Leviathan will regenerate its wounds.” Abacus grew more passionate as she spoke. The mare had clearly been lacking in intellectual stimulation in her isolation.

“The entire hull has an ablative coating. A percentage of all energy from magically directed weapons will reflect harmlessly from the coating. It also has stealth paneling like my frigate, impairing enemy systems from getting a solid lock.

“The anti-matter doesn’t just have propulsion applications, but weapon applications too. We’ve improved upon the Hell Lance design by adding in meson particles. Increased range and of course destructive reaction with regular matter. You’ll find they recharge faster too. Her shields are backed by massive sinks of quantum capacitors, effectively doubling her Void capability on top of the huge number of circuit slots available.” It had long been the dream of many Republic sailors to harness the power of such destructive forces towards the annihilation of the Imperial fleets, but the fusion cores simply didn’t generate enough magical current to power them.

“Scanners, sensor suites, the entire fire control system has been revised from the core programming up. A fighter bay with full production capacity. It has mining capability of its own to manufacture and replenish expendable munitions. Torpedoes can easily be fitted with anti-matter warheads, again increasing their effective range and explosive payload. Its defensive grid of point turrets is powerful enough that no biological life form can pilot through it.

“And don’t get me started on the new invasion gunboats! Those are masterpieces of planetary conquest, each capable of delivering and supporting two hundred and fifty infantry plus vehicles. The battle rider technology that allows Hunter-Killers their effectiveness? Well, I’ve increased that. There are six completed battleship sized ships that act like super-sized HuKs, increasing their power almost ten-fold with anti-matter cores of their own.” Winter Reverie looked out at the ship shaped barnacles attached to the underbelly of the Leviathan with new understanding.

“You will find no better ship has ever sailed these stars.” Abacus proclaimed vehemently.

“All that pales in comparison to the ship’s real secret. The one makes this the war winner it is. The Leviathan has a normal jump drive, oh yes, but it also has another drive. It has what I call, a Leyline drive.”

“Leylines, as in the invisible threads of energy that bind the universe together?” Winter said skeptically.

“It functions in similar principle to a normal jump drive, allowing a ship to breach the barrier of realspace and sail along the pathways that form between the gravity wells of stars. I’m talking about something much larger than that, something that spans gaps many stars wide. The Diamond Dogs have their Rip drives that create artificial pathways, or the griffins with their Flock drives. This is the fastest interstellar drive to date.

“I discovered it myself.” She waggled her flank, smugly displaying the supernova cutie mark she had, representing energies of the stars. “The Leviathan is going to be the first warship to ever use a Leyline drive.”

“Is it safe?” He queried, the thought of sailing along strange energy fields not too appealing.

“Of course it’s safe. It just takes special isotopes that are rather hard to come by for fuel. We’re going to jump straight from here to Var. Then from there, to the Equestrian star system. This ship will conquer the defenses there and take Empress Celestia hostage before any reinforcements can come. The war will be over.”

Whatever fickle powers ruled the greater part of the universe could not let such words go unanswered and the klaxons aboard The Cradle began to wail.

“Wh-what’s going on?!” Abacus cried.

“Crystal, status?” The Commander demanded across his comm link.

Only three words answered him: ‘They are here.’

“Abacus, the Solar Empire is here, is the Leviathan ready to go? Will she sail?” The bespectacled mare stuttered and mumbled incoherently. Winter shook her shoulders vigorously.

“Yes! Yes, but, it’ll take time to get it uncoupled from The Cradle, and your crew hasn’t been fully trained on how to pilot it. There’s the engine firing, the weapons diagnostics, loading the supplies we have, and the Leyline drive can’t be activated so close to a major gravity well.”

"It’s either now or never. At this moment it’s floating scrap metal unless we get it unmoored and away from here.”

“No, there’s still so much to do! It’ll take hours to get everything ready for departure!”

“Do what you have to, Abacus.” The mare nodded and hurriedly departed. The Commander followed after her slowly, tapping into his communication channels. “Rosethorn, give me facts. I need details. How much time do we have, and what kind of forces are we looking at?” The voice of his second had a twinge of worry. That alone was enough to hint that their circumstances were dire.

“Sensors only picked them up recently due to the variable. Damn radiation interference. They’re really coming at us full tilt. They’ll be on us in less than an hour if their engines don’t explode first. Which I somehow doubt. We’re looking at two Imperial dreadnoughts, eighteen battleships, twenty battle cruisers, thirty cruisers, and fifty destroyers. They clearly knew what they were coming to destroy. How’s the behemoth thing coming along? Will we be able to save it?”

“Unknown as of yet. We were sent here to be a skeleton crew and use a new kind of interstellar drive to go straight to the Var system. The Leviathan is currently docked with the giant framework called The Cradle. So far there appears to be no real military personnel or serious defenses around. They’ve been relying on utter secrecy to keep them safe. There is no victory against a force of this size with nothing but a dry-docked hunk of metal and one Assault Cruiser.”

“It is a damn big ship. You sure we can’t use it?”

“Right now, it’s a nice idea, but the idea of food never filled anypony’s belly. Get over to the Leviathan, get it sorted. As much as I hate to say it, we were sent here to make sure that ship flies, and I’ll be damned if I see it destroyed before it brings the fight to the Imperials. Make sure all the civies are aboard and then use the battlerider clamps to attach the Omen.”

“Aye sir. There’re about a thousand of them, and they need to get moving now.”

“I’ll see what I can do about lighting a fire under their hooves.” Winter Reverie trotted down to the command level of The Cradle where the scene was absolute chaos. Ponies were running to and fro in panic. Some were hastily retrieving and deleting data files while others were scrambling to enact the emergency decoupling protocols of the Leviathan. Others still were simply going about in blind uncertainty.

Abacus was in the center of all of it, desperately trying to direct the efforts of the many scientists and engineers towards preservation of their work. Winter Reverie upped the volume of his external speakers and his voice broke through the mad swirl of activity.

“Fillies and gentlecolts if I may have your attention.” Everypony halted to stare at the power armored figure. They all stood, frozen in whatever activity they had been in the middle of. “As some or all of you may be aware, there is an Imperial flotilla of great size and strength bearing down on us even now. This position is untenable and we must evacuate immediately. Please, take only what is essential and make your way to the Leviathan. Make ready the ship for undocking. We have to leave now, or we will all perish.

“I ask you this now in the name of Luna. Be swift in your duties.” A few of the more senior members of the Leviathan construction crew began shepherding their fellows towards the doors and the docking tubes to the massive ship. Winter helped in the effort until only he and Abacus remained, the latter furiously tacking away at a computer console, the reflection of twenty years’ worth of accumulated data reflected in her glasses. Her spiders were likewise occupied with data ports.

“Miss Abacus-“

“Doctor Abacus, thank you.” She corrected him sharply.

“Doctor Abacus, it’s time to go.”

“This work may mean nothing to you other than a pretty new toy of war, Commander Reverie, but to me and my ponies it represents more than half a lifetime of work. Something not so easily thrown away, even in the face of death. Even if we managed to get the Leviathan away from The Cradle in time, I’ve been working on a way to get the Leyline drive to function regardless of the gravity well of the planet and the stars we’re orbiting.”

“What data you can’t retrieve must be deleted.” She didn’t even bother with a disdainful glance.

“Of course, I know that. There are shaped electromagnetic charges set in all of our server stacks set to detonate in about fifteen minutes.” Although he would not admit it, Winter was quietly impressed. Though as a soldier, he could only look down upon her courage, he could not fault her devotion to the task set to her.

The first ranging torpedoes impacted The Cradle’s superstructure. Shuddering vibrations and sound travelled along the skeletal metal struts.

“Then we’d best away.” Abacus tapped a few final keys and stepped away from the console with a sigh, her mechanical arachnids obediently attending their mistress. More explosions rocked The Cradle as the Imperial ships drew closer, the tide of their hate threatening to wash them away like a flood. Winter urged the mare into a gallop as they raced across the boarding tube that suddenly seemed a little too long.

As they ran, quickly catching up to the last of the evacuating noncombatants as they all tried to funnel through the narrow opening, a torpedo struck the tube.

The explosion severed the umbilical between The Cradle and the Leviathan as a doctor would for a newborn. Winter Reverie saw the air begin to rush out of the ragged end even as the artificial gravity failed. It was the dread of all sailors, of sudden decompression. As a veteran of void war, the Commander was well familiar with its horrors. While he was protected by his armor, the knot of civilians trapped in the passage as the emergency hatch slammed shut, were open to the vacuum.

Winter had less than a second to take in all the horrified faces of the ponies before him. Abacus was closest, and his reflexes were honed enough that even before all the remaining air was sucked out, he latched onto her with his front hooves and teleported past the sealed bulkhead. In a flash of magic he disappeared…

…and reappeared just inside the Leviathan.

Abacus gasped for breath, fearfully holding her hooves to her throat as her mind tried to reconcile the change from life to death and back to life again. Her lungs burned at the force being unwillingly emptied by the depressurization. The mechanical spiders clung to her mane like broaches, narrowly avoiding the vacuum themselves.

The soldier gently set her against the bulkhead door and checked the traumatized mare for any other injury. The purple filly rose shakily to her hooves and beat them against the door that had sealed the fate of many.

“By the living stars, all those ponies. I knew them. I knew them all, knew their families. What am I going to tell them all?” She sank to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Tears gushed from her eyes as her ducts worked overdrive.

“That they’re sacrifice was not in vain. I can’t get the rest to safety without your help Abacus. I need to use that new drive if we’re to get out of here.” She nodded, not trusting her ragged throat at the moment and tried to stand. Her legs were jelly, and refused to work properly. Winter wasted no time and simply slung the other unicorn over his back. With the boosted strength of his armor, she was as light as a feather.

By the time they made it to the bridge of the Leviathan, the Imperials had closed in further, their assault increasing. The small elements, the destroyers and the cruisers were already in Hell Lance range, lashing out with impunity. His own bridge crew and power armor team were already at the unfamiliar consoles of the grand Republic ship. Crystal Flourish was there, trying to configure some of the defensive grids of the ship. A large central display showed the Leviathan and its surroundings. However huge it was, an unmoving target in space was one that could be struck by the mightiest of blows.

Even in the midst of the unfamiliar environment, one of his watch-standers called out like they were still aboard the Vengeful Omen, now attached to one of the Leviathan’s many unused battle rider clamps.

“Commander, incoming transmission from the leading Imperial ship.” Reverie gave Abacus to Viola and seated himself in the command throne. The bridge of the Leviathan was proportionately larger than his Assault Cruiser and only a fraction of the consoles were filled. Before he accepted the transmission he gave out orders to his team.

“Rosethorn, weapons, Acrylic, help her. Viola, try to get our good doctor back on her hooves.” Viola was in fact, a trained medic. Some pony on their squad had to be. “Circuit, I want Voids ten minutes ago. Nightingale, get our engines running. Whatever it takes.” He seamlessly shifted into a relaxed pose and accepted the link.

The leader of the Imperial fleet was a much older green unicorn stallion with numerous epaulets and accolades adorning his white and gold naval uniform. He wore the hat of an admiral.

“This is Admiral Cavalcade aboard the Righteous Blade. By order of Her Majesty, Empress Celestia, I order all Republic soldiers in this system to disarm and surrender. That ship is now property of the Imperial Navy and shall be destroyed for the abomination it is.”

“Greetings Admiral, I am Commander Winter Reverie, aboard this ‘abomination’ and have no intention of disarming or surrendering. Rethink your course of action Admiral Cavalcade, and perhaps some of your ponies will be spared.” Winter knew his bluff had no real chance of succeeding, but maybe it would buy them some time.

Cavalcade’s face contorted in rage.

“You have no idea the-“ Winter muted him mid tirade. He was sure that whatever the Admiral had to say was very offensive and meant to inflame him, but he had more important things to deal with.

“Nightingale, how are we doing on the engine front?”

“Reactors are hot, Commander, and the engines are slowly getting up to speed but we’re too attached to that big dry dock thing. There are huge support struts that’re still connected. We need them decoupled somehow. As it stands we’re just dragging the whole damn thing through space.”

“Roger that, coax as much power out of them as you can.” He switched to a different channel. More impacts rocked the Leviathan as the cruisers got into Hell Lance range. It wouldn’t be long before the battlecruisers and battleships found solid targets among the interference of the system. Then it would be down to the dreadnoughts and it would be too late to get away.

“Rosethorn, Acrylic, a little firepower on our side would be much appreciated.”

“We’ve got some working. There’s just so many. Only energy weapons though. None of the hard slugs are loaded and I have no idea how to get the ammo bunkers moving.” Said Rosethorn.

“That would be if the ammo bunkers had anything in them,” added Acrylic.

“We need everything firing at the connections still coupling the Leviathan to The Cradle. It’s holding us back from escaping and the Imperials’ big guns are closing in quick.”

“Aye Commander.” They said in chorus.

The pair were quick in their duty and soon a smattering of the Leviathan’s weapons were shooting at the connections still binding the mighty ship to the superstructure. The Cradle blocked the majority of the assault against the Leviathan, guarding the creation it had birthed. As the battleships approached within proper broadside range, the huge vessel finally started pulling away from the zero gravity dock.

“Commander,” Circuit board called. “I’ve got Voids online. There’s more power in these things than you would believe! There are enough conduits here to shame a Republic battle station. Active magic routing enhances the power of the shields at the point of impact, virtually eliminating spot failures.”

“Good news, Circuit. Keep on it.”

Nearby, Abacus was being attended to by the last of Winter’s power armor team. She watched the valiant efforts of the ponies around her. They fought for her ship, not because they believed in the salvation it offered, but because it was their duty.

Winter Reverie unmuted the Admiral.

“-Or face the wrath of the Empress!”

“Yes, yes, that’s all well and good. Unfortunately I will be unable to oblige your request today.”

“Insolence! You dare defy the edict of the Empress? Her will is absolute and you will tremble before the power of her navies!” Winter expected more poise from an Imperial so obviously seasoned and stated as much to the fuming Admiral.

“Fuck your Empress.”

New forces of destructive energy lashed against the Leviathan as the battleships and dreadnoughts began their broadsides. The Commander was about to continue when Abacus reached over and ended the link.

“I think I’ve come up with a solution to the drive problem. It’ll use up all our isotope fuel and I’m not entirely sure if we’ll end up where we want too…”

“Right now, anything is better than here.”

“Collision warning! Dreadnought identified as the Righteous Blade is on a collision course! Impact in thirty seconds!” Cried a pony at a console. Sirens began to wail. Abacus hurried over to another terminal and rapidly put in course correction adjustments and equation variables. The mass of a dreadnought was enough to break through their voids and shatter the spine of the Leviathan.

“Ten seconds!” Data flashed in Abacus’s spectacles.

“Five!”

At the two second mark, Abacus activated the ship’s special drive system.

The energy wake from the Leviathan breaching the Leyline annihilated many of the smaller ships that had strayed too close and tore the Righteous Blade in half.

Error!

Energy flux detected!

Purging…

Purging…

Purging Failed.

Initiating emergency core dump, brace for immediate subspace exit…

Energy dump successful.

Auxiliary output at 7%...

Reboot…

Reboot…

Rebooting failed.

Beginning at /stage five/ reset…

Reboot…

Reboot…

Calamitous vortex core system destabilization detected…

Beginning at /stage four/ reset…

Error!

Core control command system data corrupted.

Beginning at /stage three/ reset…

Compiling system engineering data…

Error!

Data unrecoverable.

Beginning at /stage two/ reset…

Base level memory control systems diagnostics…

Error!

Manual recompilation is required.

A certified technician had been notified.

Beginning at /stage one/ reset…

Core functions impaired, detecting corruption in 95% of data protocols.

Recompiling source…

Recompiling control systems…

Recompiling data protocols and subroutines…

Beginning memory recovery and corruption resolution…

Beginning /stage two/ reset upon stage one completion…

Estimated recovery time until /stage one/ reset is complete: 42 hours…

41 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds…

41 hours, 59 minutes, 58 seconds…

41 hours, 59 minutes, 57 seconds…

41 hours, 59 minutes, 56 seconds…

41 hours, 59 minutes, 55 seconds…

Chapter 7: Echoes

Echoes

The sudden transition into the Leyline while under attack was enough to rock the massive ship with forces greater than the inertial compensators could fully handle. Metal and alloy groaned under the stress. After only a few moments the Leviathan’s systems performed an emergency exit that dumped them back into physical reality. The force of their exit catapulted Winter Reverie from the command throne across the deck of the bridge. It was as though the whole ship had suddenly hit a wall. Which in a way, was accurate.

The Commander groaned slightly as his body ached from the different pressures that had been exerted upon it even through his power armor. Several others joined in a chorus of pain and he was sure there would be numerous other injuries throughout the ship. He grudgingly pushed himself to his hooves and helped up a few others before returning to his station.

“I need updates. Damages, injuries, assessments. I want everything on this ship counted and calculated. And where in the hells are we?” Around him, others of his crew called up what few systems were still functional. It was Abacus who spoke up first, having managed to hang on to her console like a life raft.

“Well, unless someone wants to get out and push, we’re dead in the water. That jump took a lot out of us and crashed pretty much every system that was running. I’m seeing data corruption and subroutine failure across the board. It looks like our reactors were about to go critical so the excess energy was vented off which dragged us out of the Leyline we were on. The good news is that we’re in a star system and not lost beyond the galactic edge, the bad news is I have no idea which one.”

“First priority is getting the reactors back online. After that, Voids and sensors.” He switched to his squad’s general channel. “Aegis wishes Rosethorn. Everypony alive?”

“Shit that was some ride.” Said Rosethorn.

“Anyone mind telling me what the hell just happened?” Piped in Acrylic.

“Everyone gather in conference room…” Winter paused for a moment, going over the list of several dozen meeting rooms. “Just meet me at marked location in about an hour.” He pinged a rally point in one of the large virtual conference rooms amidships. A chorus of responses flowed in. It was tempting to hold it aboard the Omen, but that would take too long. He sent Viola to go see what she could do about the civilians who were certainly wounded.

The Commander got off his throne and walked over to where Abacus was glued to her console. He got to her side in time for her to scream in frustration and rip the bottom panel off the holographic interface. The unicorn thought it best to give the scientist a few moments as she muttered angrily to herself. She tore out a clump of wires and sent her mechanical spiders into the mess, accessing the Leviathan’s systems through them.

“Doctor Abacus, how soon can we expect to have power again?” He asked.

“The reactors are in a dormant state right now for safety reasons. The protocol for reviving them has been corrupted and has to be recompiled from the backup drives. That’ll take about forty hours. There’s only so much I can do at this point. The systems need time to cool off after being strained like that. And only after the stage one reset is done can I run the diagnostic routines and find out what else was damaged in our emergency drive activation.” said Abacus as she busied herself with working through the horrific knot of tangled data clusters.

“Will it do this every time we try to use the Leyline drives?” Winter’s note of skepticism was obvious.

“Of course not. Need I remind you that this is entirely new technology and has never been tested on something so large. We’re lucky our molecular bonds are still intact or that we aren’t fused with a wall or something. And, that my calculations for using the drives under such conditions were rather hasty given that we were under the immediate threat of destruction so under the circumstances I’d say we got off rather easy rather than spending the remainder of our lives making large rocks into smaller rocks in some Imperial work camp.”

“Do what you can then.” He turned to Crystal Flourish. “Please take care of things while I’m away. See if you can’t boost our auxiliary power enough to run a sensor scan of some kind. At least enough to try and figure out where we ended up.” The purple pegasus nodded. Winter Reverie walked off the bridge after doing what he could. There wasn’t really much he could do under the circumstances.

He walked down the empty halls of the Leviathan, letting events wash over him. He had to use the schematic that had been downloaded into his tactical data in order to not get lost in the many passages that wound through the Leviathan. The conference room was over a kilometer away. While Winter could have simply teleported there, being one of the few unicorns who could perform such a complicated spell with such precision, the stallion wanted to trod the untouched halls himself.

It was haunting in a way, that no living soul had actually set hoof in the areas through which he now travelled, only machines. The Commander did not feel unwelcome, the hull had had no time to obtain the lived in feeling his own Assault Cruiser had. It had no real feeling at all without ponies to crew it. The Leviathan had been built to be a warship, but had yet to be truly fielded in battle.

Winter Reverie was the first to arrive. The conference room he had chosen was huge; a long executive table stretched the length of the room, capable of seating at least a hundred ponies on either side. The flawlessly smooth black surface was so polished, Winter could see his reflection. He walked to the end of the table and took a seat on one of the simple but tasteful floor cushions designed for pony comfort. Lastly, he took off his helmet and set it in front of him, shaking out his two-tone blue mane with relief. The smell that filled his nose was not too dissimilar to a new car, or a freshly machined suit of armor.

The other members of his power armor team arrived all together. Rosethorn and Viola took the seats to Winter’s right, while Nightingale, Acrylic, and Circuit seated themselves to his left. The others followed his example and set all their helmets in front of them, forming a neat circle of six. Rose and Viola wasted no time in entwining their bodies. They sat comfortably nuzzled together, even in their armor.

Nightingale laughed as Acrylic turned a different color and looked away. She fell back and kicked her rear legs up onto the table, crossing her limbs in relaxation with a happy sigh. For Circuit it was just business as usual as he worked from his own uplink to the Leviathan.

“Welcome to the Leviathan.” Winter Reverie started off. “Our current situation necessitates a steady approach. At this point we do not know where we are. That means we also don’t know how far away home is. During our escape there were some civilian casualties. Were there any injuries for our crew?”

“The worst of it was just some broken bones.” answered Viola. “Oh, and one of the older stallions in the civ crew had a heart attack. Other than that just some bumps and some indigestion from the sudden spatial shift.” Winter nodded.

“We got off lucky. It remains to be seen if that luck will hold.” The Commander said.

“Luck is all well and good, but what we need is a trained crew of several thousand.” added in Acrylic. “For all their talk of preparation, they clearly weren’t ready to be attacked with their asses hanging in the void. There’re no expendable munitions of any kind in any of the bunkers. I found some dummy shells for testing the firing mechanisms of some of the big guns but all we have right now for defenses are the magical weapons.”

“Granted, that’s enough beam weaponry alone to outgun a dread.” Nightingale countered from her lounging pose. “Although, even if we had our bunkers topped off we still wouldn’t have enough hooves to crew every gun on this giant boat. Kinda makes me tingly down south to think about a fire control system that can handle all that bang bang.”

“No wonder you can never find a good stallion, Night, you’re too busy molesting the guns you gun-phile.” Teased Rosethorn.

“Guilty as charged.” agreed Nightingale with a raise of her legs. Circuit spoke up next.

“Actually, if you take into account the advances they’ve made in automated loading and central computerization it would be possible for such a small crew to use all the weapons on the Leviathan. It would be somewhat limited because you still need ponies on station to monitor all the nuances. Heat buildup and lens integrity for the Hell Lances, barrel alignment and cycling for the cannons, and last minute course adjustment for the torpedoes.”

“So we can use most of the weapons, just not very well. Show us the Void shield apparatuses please.” Instructed Winter.

“Of course, Commander.” With a flick of his telekinesis, Circuit Board shifted the information he was looking at onto the table top. “Sacred Luna I love these data conductive surfaces.” The three dimensional representation of a Void projector matrix floated above the conference table. It was a deceptively simple looking piece of tech. An artificial diamond was grown around a micro framework that embedded transistors to allow it to function as a focused plasma emitter with the proper energy current. And, if too much kinetic energy was absorbed the fuse would be overloaded and burn out.

“This is a standard Void shield focusing device. The ones onboard the Leviathan are pretty much the same, slightly more efficient transistor layout. I’d say these are able to absorb about two percent more punishment before burning out. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you take into account that there are several thousand more slots than any dreadnought, that two percent multiplies itself really fast.” The young unicorn fiddled with his controls and the image changed to the spinal configuration of the ship’s shields.

“Right now we’re operating at about a third of our Void capability. Only some of the slots were filled for stress testing. I’m guessing the reason we don’t have full Voids is the same reason we don’t have any ammunition. The civs were pouring everything they had into finishing the ship. Every bit of their mining effort was focused purely on getting the materials they needed for making components, not ammo or expendable shield parts.”

“Hold on a second.” Rosethorn held up a hoof. “Isn’t anypony else wondering how in Luna’s name we got here so fast? Is this Leyline drive really that powerful?”

“Doctor Abacus can probably answer that better than I can, but I believe I can explain it somewhat.” answered Winter Reverie. “From what I gathered from her explanation of it, Leylines are similar to the naturally forming jump pathways between the gravity wells of stars. They’re like rail lines that ship jump drives travel along. She said that using the Leyline requires a special isotope to fuel the drive system so it must require an exponentially larger amount of energy to breach the gap between normal space and the Leyline.”

“Ah, and from that we can infer that with a greater energy requirement comes a greater cumulative speed.” finished Acrylic.

“And that’s just from normal use. We were extremely deep in the cataclysmic variable’s gravity well and required that much more power and fuel to activate the drive, sending us farther, and getting us there faster.” Viola added to her brother’s assessment. Winter Reverie nodded once again.

“I suspect that the only reason we stopped is because we ran out of isotope. Abacus did make her calculations under rather stressful conditions. That also means we’re limited to normal jump drives until we get more of that isotope. At least they had the foresight to include normal jump capability.”

“Speaking of the civies, what’re we going to do about them?” Questioned Nightingale from the floor.

“Depending on-“ Winter started, but stopped when Crystal Flourish sent him a message. He put his helmet back on long enough to read what she had sent. With a perturbed ‘Mmm’ he removed his head piece again. “Well, I was going to say it would depend on where we are, but it seems Crystal managed to do an isolated star recognition through the Vengeful Omen. Ninety-nine percent probability that we’re in the system designated Z-765.

“We’re three jumps away from the nearest settled star system. That’s the good news. The bad news is we ended up on the opposite side of Solar Empire space.” There was a chorus of angry sounds and grimaces all around. “As I said, we were lucky we ran out of fuel when we did, or else we would have ended up even further away. There’s little choice now in regards to the civilians we have aboard.

“If we’d somehow been lucky enough to exit close to Republic space we could have just babysat them, or maybe have a few of the engineers help us with repairs and calibrations. Now though, we’re going to have to draft as many of them as are willing. Really, right now they’re all in shock at what happened, but soon that shock will wear off and depression will set in if we don’t set many of them to work.”

“Commander, if Abacus is on board with us, the rest of them should follow. Under such exigent circumstances the civies will follow her lead.” suggested his second.

“I’m sure the concept of combat pay will appeal to them. I’ll bring it up when we’ve got the ship working again.”

***

Abacus replaced the panel on the console and recalled her spider helpers. There was a small cheer as the Leviathan’s anti-matter engines reignited. The lighting switched from the angry red of emergency backup to full illumination. She stood up, stretching her legs after six hours crouched on the floor, her knees and neck joints cracking as her cartilage shifted.

The mare had reduced the Leviathan’s stage one reset to only six hours, restoring enough systems to restart one of the reactors. Abacus had built the control routines herself and knew enough backdoors and command shortcuts that through her guidance the stage two reset was already started. Really, it was just a waiting game. One reactor was just enough to power all the essential systems and take stress off the emergency generators.

In a very detached way she left the bridge and wandered the halls. Abacus hardly noticed the look the pegasus standing near the command throne was giving her. Crystal Flourish was a much lighter purple than Abacus, the scientist a deep indigo with an even deeper fuchsia streaked mane.

Her long tail and the edges of her white coat dragged dejectedly along the floor. She was exhausted down to her bones. Breaking down that much coding so quickly had given her a splitting headache that throbbed with every step. Her body still ached from the tension caused by her near-death experience.

A corner of Abacus’s mind was actually grateful for the exhaustion and the pain. It staved off the sorrow, the emotional trauma of seeing so many of her colleagues being swept away into nothingness. She had been prepared to finish her work on the Leviathan, bear witness to its first jump back into Republic space, and watch safely from a station window as it headed off to end the war.

She was not a soldier, and was not conditioned to deal with the realities of combat, the harsh, unforgiving hand of fate and random variable of battle. Now she and all of her science and engineering teams were trapped aboard their creation, lost on the opposite end of Imperial space, and so far from home it seemed an impossible distance. For a while the mare simply walked, unable to do anything else.

Abacus walked because she didn’t want to stand still, didn’t want to stop and think. Soon though, the weight in her heart outweighed the will to put one hoof in front of the other. She had pushed her grief, her trauma to the back of her mind through the need of self-preservation. Now that the unicorn was out of immediate danger, and so alone in the Leviathan, her walk faltered.

Not a single other living soul had passed by her, most of the civilians having stayed near their boarding point, unsure of what to do, while the few actual Republic service ponies had too much to do and were all busy in essential parts of the ship. So she felt no shame in crawling into an engineering nook, replete with a console and access to power conduits, and breaking down weeping. At first she sat on her haunches and cried into her hooves. Soon the sorrow was too much and she simply laid on her side and let the tears flow in the artificial gravity.

The mechanical spiders that followed her obediently were confused and lost with their mistress in such a state. The tiny AIs scurried about her in worry, reading the fluctuating biological readings from the mare. They sensed her body temperature, heart rate, and other vitals, seeing the enormous stress her whole body was suffering. A few waved their tiny legs and clambered over each other to try and get her attention. The largest, a Tarantula model tried to carefully wipe away the tears to little success. Another pair was sending tiny electrical shocks into her leg muscles to relax them and ease her suffering.

All of their ministrations were to little avail, and they eventually came together to try and come up with a solution together. One of them, a Black Widow prototype proposed the model of the partially mechanical pony it had examined earlier, the others recalling the smooth cybernetic components and the power armor. Finding such a pony agreeable to seek for assistance, they tapped into the Leviathan’s working systems to locate him.

After a few micro cycles of processing, the group of artificial arachnids found his suit’s signature and the Black Widow volunteered to go retrieve him while the others continued to attend to their mistress.

***

Winter Reverie reviewed the information on the table before him. He had stayed in the conference room after the others of his power armor team had left, content to work in the peace and quiet afforded by the isolation in the sparsely populated ship. He bounced messages back and forth with Crystal Flourish occasionally, coordinating with her and the others of his team to situate his crew in their new tasks. It also gave him time to come up with a plan regarding what their new course should be.

While he didn’t necessarily like the Leviathan, preferring the familiar comfort of his own Assault Cruiser, he understood that it was a powerful weapon indeed capable of performing the balance tipping that had been promised. His mission was now to get it and the ponies aboard it home to Republic space safely. He plotted various courses through the star map and pushed it aside in frustration.

A straight shot would take them through so many Imperial systems they would run the gauntlet of over half of the Solar fleets along the way. Avoiding all the enemy occupied stars was next to impossible without lengthening their journey by hundreds of light years through either unsettled, unknown space, or through space belonging to other races among the stars. They would have to come to terms with the nomadic Zebras, the Griffin Kingdom, and even deal with the Diamond Dogs and their territories. Those were the big three powers besides the ponies, who dominated known space. They had stayed out of the war for the most part, avoiding backlash if the side they supported lost.

Food was going to be a concern soon as well. With so many additional passengers and only the Vengeful Omen’s supply to draw on, their rations would be consumed very quickly. Being forced to abandon The Cradle had meant leaving behind the resources still not aboard the Leviathan. Time was a factor in many ways. The Republic had been counting on the Leviathan ending the war quickly, every battle becoming more and more of a gamble against the Solar Empire’s size and fleets.

They would have to make all possible haste, hopefully gathering perhaps enough of the isotope to use the Leyline drives again. Winter Reverie was impressed though as he read through the Leviathan’s mining and production capabilities. The ship’s onboard manufacturing bays had access to numerous blueprints and connected to resource bunkers that could be easily filled by a suite of mining bays, drones, and even a few gravity tethers the ship had to crack open the rich metals and minerals found in asteroids. Virtually everything they needed in a non-organic sense could be obtained or built.

The Lunar Republic did employ mobile repair and production ships for large fleets on the move, but the Leviathan put them all to shame. He could even go down a list of the blueprints and prioritize what was most important and the systems would automatically generate necessary material listings for the ship’s scanners to locate in any asteroid belt or gaseous formation in proximity. Winter was so caught up in learning everything he could about the Leviathan, lost in all its potential, that he almost didn’t notice the door to the conference room opening a crack.

The Commander looked up curiously, expecting to see perhaps a civilian pony who had lost their way. Instead he saw nothing, raising a brow at the phantom intruder. Then his expression changed one to even greater incredulity as one of Abacus’s spider bots climbed up onto the extremely long table. Winter was at the far end, so it had a long way to scuttle. Tirelessly though, it worked its eight legs forward, soon enough resting just beyond the digital windows the Commander had open.

“Yes? What is it?” He asked the mechanical arachnid, closing what he had been working on, mentally bookmarking his place in the information. When the spider only raised its front two legs and waved them emphatically he found a bit of irritation creeping in. Winter examined the thing closely, expecting perhaps the scientist had attached a message to her little helper. Begrudgingly he admitted that it was a fine piece of technology, the shiny black outer coating hiding an immensely powerful microprocessor. He wondered though at the significance of the crimson hourglass on its abdomen, not being very familiar with terrestrial creatures.

The Black Widow jumped twice, the tips of its legs clacking softly on the smooth finish of the table.

“What do you want Abacus? We actually need to talk, you know. Are you there?” Winter had expected the spiders to be installed with some kind of receiving and transmitting device, but it only hopped again, its shining ruby eyes staring at him intently. It scuttled once back towards the door, pointing with one of its legs towards it and turning back towards the soldier. He only raised a brow in question. The spider raced forwards and gave his armored hoof resting on the tabletop a desperate pull.

“You want me to follow you? Are you serious?” The Black Widow was very serious and bobbed the front of its body in its best approximation of a nod. With a rather annoyed groan, Winter stood and followed the spider as it skittered joyously in front of him.

***

When Abacus could cry no more, when the wretchedness had wrung her dejected body like a sponge, the desire to find a bed and sleep wormed its way into her. She rose to her hooves, her mind and body placid in the numbness of her passing hopelessness. Having built a good deal of the Leviathan, she knew its halls and corridors with the intimacy of a lover. The mare had spent so many hours designing and crafting, the map she had in her head even had exact measurements. Three hundred meters to the right, another one hundred and seventy-five up, and a final twenty to the right would take her to the nearest stateroom.

There she could slumber in guaranteed solitude and let her mind drift. Along the way she nearly succumbed to another fit of weeping, but the promise of rest carried her on. Her entourage crawled quietly behind her, sending updated coordinates to their fellow spider that was afield.

After a small eternity of miserable trudging, Abacus opened the door to the stateroom, locked it behind her, and fell onto the bed. Her horn gave off a feeble bluish glow that levitated her glasses to the bedside table and rolled more on top of the covers, comfortable enough in her lab coat. The room was fairly simple, with a bed, an empty dresser, a small private bathroom with a shower, and a personal terminal and meeting table for four.

She knew all this without even looking; she had designed it after all. Her spiders sat together on the edge of the bed in a worried huddle, unsure if they could assist their mistress in any way.

Even as she lay there, exhausted and to some extent comfortable on the soft mattress, sleep still eluded the mare. Her mind was a jumble of the code she had been sifting through for the past few hours, the haunting look of the ponies that had died in front of her and various concerns regarding the present situation the Leviathan was in. Soon she was tossing and turning, trying to find the perfect position of comfort that would at last allow her to drift off. Frustrated, she rolled onto her back in a spread eagle pose.

Oddly enough, a word of advice from one of her mare colleagues came unbidden to her mind. This wasn’t the first time Abacus had had an intensely stressful day and difficulty sleeping afterwards. Her friend had suggested a rather natural way to relieve tension and get to sleep. The unicorn blushed and found herself tingling slightly between her spread legs.

She let out a coo as she reached down to gently grind herself against a hoof, however her muscles were sore and the discomfort offset the good feelings to an unacceptable degree. Although it made her blush intensify, she reached out with her magic and wrapped up one of her spiders. Abacus brought it to her lips and whispered softly to it. A tiny hum filled the air as it obediently began to pulsate.

The mare let out a whimpering cry of desire as she pushed the vibrating abdomen of the tiny bot against her hidden pleasure button.

***

Winter Reverie followed the Black Widow for quite a while, winding a confusing path through many side passages or engineering corridors. They were in fact making good time, the mechanical spider just able to keep ahead of the power armored pony’s walk. Reverie kept his mind occupied with what he would propose to the mare. He knew that he been rather rude to Abacus up until that point and needed to be more cordial if they were going to be stuck on the same ship.

Her skill was undeniable, and she had saved the ship with her quick thinking, so she deserved his respect. He was wording out the most polite ways of speaking and decided it would be best to just get straight to the point. The unicorn kept his helmet off, thinking it would be better to speak face to face.

After a considerable distance of trekking, they came to a wing of the Leviathan where several staterooms lined the hall. The Black Widow scuttled over to the nearest one and climbed straight up the vertical surface, clinging to it with micro static charges. It ran in a circle once and looked up expectantly at Winter.

The Commander walked to the door and knocked a few times, however the door was too thick for such a vibration to carry through it, armored as it was against decompression. Next he tried the chime, but it was not one of the designated essential systems restored by the one working reactor. The spider jumped from the door onto Winter’s back, silently urging him on. When Abacus didn’t answer the non-functional chime or his unheard knocks he simply teleported past the door.

Reverie’s eyes adjusted almost instantly to the darkness and spotted the mare enjoying her personal time. His mind screeching to a halt as he got one good look at her in the midst of her activity.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” She cried nearing her climax, which turned into a scream of fright as she saw Winter Reverie appear in a teleportation flash.

“OhdearsweetLuna.” He sputtered and immediately teleported back to the other side of the door. It had all transpired over the course of three point two seconds according to the Black Widow’s internal clock, which was now quite confused as to why the cybernetic pony had teleported in only to come right back out. Winter Reverie stood frozen in place as his mind struggle to resume normal function.

She’s cute without her glasses. Was the one coherent thought he could manage.

Abacus meanwhile immediately jumped up from her bed, quickly turning off the oscillation and wiped her fluids off the lightly glistening spider. In perfect, abject horror, she hastily straightened her white coat and took a few deep breaths before unlocking and opening the door. Winter Reverie stood with an equally schooled expression and acted as a gentlecolt and pretended not to have seen anything.

“Forgive my intrusion, doctor Abacus, your little friend here wouldn’t say why it wanted me to come and I must profess I was slightly worried when you didn’t answer.” He said formally, indicating the Black Widow on his back and unable to quash the mental picture of Abacus furiously servicing herself. The mechanical spider was filled with a sense of pride that it had succeeded in its mission and joined its fellows as they chattered together excitedly.

“Oh my… yes, please… do come in,” Responded the scientist, unable to look at anything other than his hooves as her cheeks blazed. She trod back and sat at the table in the stateroom, pointedly not looking at him. Winter Reverie took a few steps in and felt stirrings within him as the mare’s scent suffused the air strongly, invading his nostrils. He took a few deep breaths of his own and only succeeded in sampling the fragrance further.

Stiffly, he sat across from the mare as she intently studied the table between them. For a hair’s breadth of a moment, she considered how much better it would be if she had a partner to help her ‘relax’.

“So, I… uh, need to speak with you about… y’know, the other civilians.” He started falteringly, but gained confidence as he spoke. “We’re a far way from home and it’s almost certain we’ll be faced with combat situations. Now, I know you’re civilians but we need everypony working together if we want a chance at survival. You’re sort of the leader of the civilians. You lead the construction of the Leviathan so they’ll follow you in whatever you decide.”

“Yes, umm… I know we’re in a bad way. We burned through about five years of collected isotope with that jump. We’re out. There’s more stockpiled in the Var system, so we just need to find enough to make that far of a jump. The cataclysmic variable was one of the best sources, but it doesn’t have many uses so there’s no real demand for it.” She found the conversation distracting from the frustration in her nethers.

“There’s plenty of work to do now so let’s focus on getting the rest of the reactors back online so we can start making our way towards the nearest jump point. There are only two in this system and only one will take us back towards Republic space. We’re going to have to go through at least some Imperial systems if we want to get there without going light years out of our way. We’ll have to gather resources as we go.”

“Yes, the Leviathan isn’t in great shape. I’m sure that most of The Cradle team will agree to help as best they can. I’ll see to it when we get home that they receive combat pay. I’m sure that will please most of them. It’s not like we have much choice in the matter…” She said, the tingly feeling smoldering to ashes in her loins at the thought of their predicament.

Winter’s suit chimed.

“Excuse me just a moment.” He donned his helmet once again to read Crystal’s mute communication, part of him grateful that it shielded him from the arousing perfume still lingering.

‘Get to the bridge now. There’s something you have to see.’

He pulled off his head gear, concern clearly written across his features. Abacus forgot the awkwardness between them.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Winter put on a false smile.

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, but I need to get to the bridge. We’ll talk later.” The Commander wasted no time and teleported straight to the main deck. He met Crystal Flourish’s gaze and she indicated him to take the throne. She called up an image onto his console that was identical to the one on the main screen. They were the only ones on the bridge, the rest of his crew either sleeping or busy helping get the rest of the Leviathan in working order. After all, the only working sensors were aboard the Vengeful Omen, so that’s where the standing bridge compliment was at the moment.

Crystal had managed to piggyback some of the Leviathan’s sensors off the Omen’s power supply and was running thorough sweeps of the system they were in. The display was focused on one particular region of space surrounding the jump point they were hoping to go to. Winter Reverie examined it carefully, trying to sift through the different readings.

“Are those… ships?” Asked Abacus, having easily guessed where Winter Reverie had gone, and teleporting behind him. She once again had her glasses on and her spiders nestled in her mane, back, or her coat pockets.

“Yes, it’s a graveyard. And if we want to get to that jump point, we’ll have to go through it.”

(Author’s notes: I hope everyone enjoyed the rather ‘softcore’ scene of Abacus having fun, it was fun to write, and interestingly enough slightly more difficult than full on erotica, straddling that edge and all… Anywho. Hope you enjoyed this latest chapter! Don’t worry about Fire Ghost! I’m just… busy, and NLR is easier to write at the moment. Don’t ask me why.)

Chapter 8: Relics

Relics

Commander Winter Reverie galloped down the haunted halls, fleeing the demons snapping at his heels. His breathing sounded heavy and labored in his helmet. The unicorn was alone in facing the darkness that dwelled in the heart of the vessel, running with all his might and augmented strength towards the blight that had rooted itself in a place it did not belong. His squad was lost.

The roars that followed him were not meant for fleshy throats to utter. As he went deeper, the tableau of horror, of otherworldliness only escalated. The very hull of the ship began to twist and convolute, metal taking on a more pliable form. Energy reactors that were hundreds of years old sputtered infectiously as strange forces disrupted their internal reactions.

Bones crunched noisily underhoof. The halls were carpeted with them. A howling sound chased him even though he knew there was too little atmosphere for sound to carry properly, let alone through his armor. Up ahead a small light grew in strength, opening into a wide chamber that was the finest of all the sweet delights of madness.

Several decks had been ripped open to form a large cavern in the mash of ships. A great obelisk stood in the center. It was in the shape of a double helix, spiraling up to twin points. Red glyphs pulsed with ruddy light. The throbbing in Winter’s head grew worse, pulsing in time with the slowly throbbing light. The structure looked as if it had not been constructed, but rather grown. It was too perfect for even the finest of machine lasers to cut into such a natural, yet alien formation.

The deck around the base of the pillar was melted and smoothed like hot candle wax. Bodies, some decayed, some fresh, some dust surrounded the obelisk. Many were frozen in their last act of worship to the sacrilegious icon. Others were locked in struggle with others, killing each other over some underlying will of the icon, or perhaps over possession of the metal prongs glowing with crimson fervor.

Howling, roaring, screaming, the things, the shadows that had been chasing Winter could not advance into the chamber and thrashed impotently at the threshold. Whispers from the obelisk courted his mind, promising all manner of riches and rewards in exchange for obedience.

“Though the evils of the dark shall beckon, I shall not heed their words, for the true Lady of the Night is with me. Her sacred name lends me strength for she is the Goddess, sitting upon her Throne of Dark.” Why fight, asked the power lurking beyond the veil of reality. Why pray to a Goddess who is merely flesh?

“Blessed Luna, grant me strength. Mighty Luna, I walk into darkness now and ask for your clarity, your sight, your benevolent presence to walk at my side as the evil gnaws at me. My faith in you is absolute, my shield, my sword.” Winter Reverie advanced, step by step into the maelstrom, into the maw as the presence yawed before him, waiting with baited jaws ready to snap closed and devour.

What can you do, little morsel? What powers have you besides spouting your impotent scripture? Girded with such a flimsy ward of empty words, what can you possibly do to a real god?

“I can do this.” Winter Reverie widened his stance, locked his armor joints, flicked the firing setting on his twenty millimeter auto cannon to full auto, and pulled the trigger.

He did not stop until his ammo reserves clicked on empty.

***

“You can’t be serious about heading into that thing.” Abacus challenged. Together, Winter and Crystal had scanned the field of derelict ships to locate a megalithic conglomeration of fused structures near its heart. Gravitational and other, stranger forces had forced together a cluster of dozens of ships into one gargantuan hulk. He and Crystal were discussing how best to approach the stellar mess when the scientist had made her defiance known.

Commander Reverie sighed.

“If we want to use the jump point out of this system, we’re going to have to. In the middle of that chaos is something that is projecting what we call a Dead Field. It emanates cancellation wavelengths to disrupt the natural gravitational forces of the jump point as well as immeasurable electro-magnetic variables that are death to ships systems and even dangerous to unshielded power cores.” Abacus’ brow knitted together in fierce academic refusal.

“Impossible, Dead Fields are just superstitious nonsense. There’s no force in the known universe that can actually remotely ‘jam’ a jump point.” Winter Reverie spun his command throne around and addressed the mare respectfully. He had had similar reservations many years ago.

“Early in my career one of the first power armor squads I was assigned to was on an Assault Cruiser that was tasked with heading to an outer rim system where a colonization expedition had gone missing. They were worried that there might be an Imperial flotilla there that was trying to sneak around. We got through the jump point and a powerful EMP pulse had us floating dead before we knew it.

“Then the crew started going insane.” Abacus still looked dubious, but her expression slowly shifted to horror as Winter’s tale unfolded. “Mass suicide, murders left and right. Voices drove many mad. Of the original crew of six hundred, only a third made it back. Crystal figured out that the field was emanating from a formation like the one you see now.

“We tried just blasting it, but every time we tried, something would go wrong. Targeting systems went haywire, any missiles or torpedoes veered wildly off target or worse, exploded in their tubes. Even lining it up visually and doing it on paper, our shots never landed. I finally had to take my power armor squad and hop from derelict to derelict to get to the source. We went in and destroyed it ourselves with direct firepower. I was the only one who made it back out.” Winter Reverie indicated where the anomaly was on their sensors.

“What you're seeing there is not its actual location. Even at this distance the field's effect is enough to make it impossible to hit with any of our guns. After the field was gone, we still weren't out of the woods. Our reactor was toast. It took two solid weeks to scavenge a half way working one. Enough to jump back and send out a distress signal.”

“But, what could have created this? What did the admiralty have to say about your report? Didn't you tell them what happened?” Abacus stated with scientific skepticism.

The Commander laughed cynically. It was the nihilistic amusement only experienced naval personnel could muster.

“Because all our sensors and recorders were wiped, and because we didn't bring back any evidence of the artifact itself, it was chalked up to acute jump space dementia. The jump point was flagged as dangerous, we all got a lot of psychological evaluation, our ship was scrubbed then scrapped, and the crew was broken up. That was the end of it.”

“You're kidding.” The mare stated flatly. There were many stories, substantiated and not of the effects of prolonged time spent in jump space. An indescribably stretching of the being that had been attributed to suicide, dementia, even psychosis.

“Didn't you ever figure out what it was though?” Her professional curiosity needed to be assuaged.

“Crystal traced it back by matching our deaths and reports against others going all the way back to the original colonization efforts made at the beginning of the Solar Empire. There haven't been many cases like ours because usually the ships just disappear.” The pegasus fluffed her feathers proudly. “She pieced together the patterns going across centuries.” Winter's muzzle split into an affectionate smile.

The truth is that some of the first jump drives really weren't infallible. They pretty much are now, because of our improved monitoring systems for them. It was possible for an underlying wave current to build up in the drive, and if the current wasn't purged and the drive was used there was a chance the point of jump space breach would collapse in on itself. Instead of accelerating through the medium at the normal speed, the breach collapse would annihilate all their forward momentum.

“And if they had no speed, and no way to accelerate...”

“Then instead of days or weeks, they'd spend years in jump space.” Abacus finished. Winter nodded gravely.

“Not just years. Hundreds. Thousands of years could pass before they reemerged. And yet, the wave form breach still maintained their estimated jump time before the collapse so they would arrive on time. On the ship though, time would have passed infinitely faster. I do not claim to know what really happens in that intervening period to create the anomaly that emerges and generates the Dead Field, just the conditions that facilitate it.”

“So, when will we start to feel the psychological effects of the field?” Winter dialed back the display to view more of the system.

“We're about eighteen AU from the jump point and the graveyard. Honestly, I have no idea what kinds of effects we'll feel at this range. Remember, there is no actual recorded happenstance of what we're seeing. There's no way of knowing. Or for that matter if any two fields share comparable properties. Crystal and I were plopped into the middle of it, not stuck half a star system away.

“If given the choice, I'd have us take a different jump point, preferably in the opposite direction and loop the long way around. We do not have that option. Last tally, even on half rations we have nowhere near enough food to make such a long trip, not to mention that every day this ship is away from Republic space is a day the Solar Empire grinds closer to home. So, I'm going to take my team in on the Vengeful Omen and destroy the source. Since our first encounter I've made sure to proof the Omen's power core against such interference.”

Abacus tried to think of an alternative.

“Why not just take the Leviathan through the field and straight to the jump point? Just bypass it entirely.”

“And what if when it enters the field, the anti-matter reactors don't overload in some way we can't understand? Remember, this power has never been quantified, and does not belong in the regular universe. Better we do what we know works than try something that just endangers more.”

It was hard for Abacus to think up an argument to his logic. This was something that he had experience with that she did not. Still, she could hardly believe in such a gross oversight of the navy in terms of what had happened to Commander Reverie's old crew.

“This does present a unique opportunity. You see all those ships?” Winter had a small gleam in his eyes when he swept a hoof to encompass all the derelicts of the graveyard. “What do you see, Doctor Abacus?”

“Ships. What about them? Do you think there will be any supplies on board them we can use? I suppose if they lost integrity that anything void frozen would have been preserved.” Her mind quickly calculated the possible salvage.

“The ships are the supplies. You said that the Leviathan has mining capabilities. What about salvage tech? Why bother mining asteroids when we have processed metal by the shipload just floating in orbit around that jump point?” Abacus had never thought of derelict ships as a resource because she had never considered running into such a find. She found herself smiling at all the things she could build with that much metal. And ship metal of all things! Preprocessed, and even aged! It was purely an aesthetic, but Abacus was picky about such things.

“While I'm on that derelict, I need you to be ready for the field to go down and strip that field bare. I know that this ship isn't fully finished.” Part of Abacus' soul, the part she had dedicated to birthing the Leviathan, twinged. “We can use everything we can get. Ammo, weapons, even new corsairs.”

Then, another part of Abacus, the part that created, that reveled in seeing her creations brought to life swelled in joy.

“Corsairs? Wait until you see my Serpents.”

***

“So, you want us to march into that death trap?” Nightingale asked incredulously. They were suiting up and readying their weapons in the Omen's armory as it made its way towards the Death Field.

“Pretty much.” Winter replied. He had just finished explaining the horrors he had faced the first time. “It's not just for us. No one deserves the kind of fate getting caught in that field means.” Although he would never say it, there was an element of revenge motivating the Commander. Vengeance motivated many of his actions, but an opportunity to again destroy the force that had claimed some of his first power armor team.

Trepidation filled his heart at bringing his team, the one he had formed over many years, his family into the hell that he knew awaited.

“I want everypony to pack extra ammo, and a melee weapon. We're going to be dealing with tight quarters and guns aren't guaranteed to work. Breaching charges too. Lots of 'em. No telling how many walls we're gonna have to go through to get at the source.” Winter opened a fresh crate of shaped explosives. He floated out a dozen of the small discs and attached them to his armor. Each was composed of powerful magnetic clamps and a powerful thermal payload. Similar tech was employed on the connection points of the battlerider clamps to bore through hull and board enemy ships.

A dozen were a little excessive, but the unicorn remembered wishing for such tools during his other escapade. The others made similar preparations, and distributed the rest of the explosives crate. They all looked up as the ship switched over to emergency lighting. The special core shielding absorbed the attack of the first EMP pulse, but many systems still suffered failure.

The field was not in itself very large, but disturbingly fierce and concentrated in its efforts to disable the fresh prey vessel caught within the web. Even with special protection, Commander Reverie didn't want to risk the Omen to prolonged exposure. His team made their way to an external air lock and readied themselves.

Winter Reverie quietly thanked Luna and the universe at large for the smaller mercies. The field only affected power cores of a certain size, leaving the power matrixes of their power armor unaffected. A Corsair would make things easier, yet even those fighters were subject to disruption in the Death Field.

With the help of the auxiliary thrusters on the armor of Rosethorn and Nightingale, they launched themselves towards the nearest derelict hull. Internal crystal filters kept their air supplies limited only by their reactors. There was a certain serenity in sailing through the space bound graveyard of ships. Silently the vessels orbited the huge hulk in their midst. Many were broken or shattered from collisions suffered over the years from space debris or other ships.

Crystal took the Omen back out of range of the field to await the success of her Commander. She had no doubt that he would succeed. Her faith in him was unyielding as adamantite alloy. He had faced such a threat before and emerged triumphant. The mare remembered the horror they had faced last time. She had been on their old Assault Cruiser, early in their career in the navy together. The voices scratching at the inside of her skull, the insane breakdowns of the ponies around her, all of it came back to her as she passed through the field.

Flourish prayed to Luna for strength, and for her to watch over Winter Reverie.

***

Back on the Leviathan, Abacus tried to track the movements of the Commander and his squad as they hopped across the gaps between the derelicts. It was in vain. Every sensor sweep, no matter what kind, all came back either scrambled, or nonsensical. Even the direct armor feed through the Omen was just static.

***

After several hours of leaping, flying, and teleporting through the void, they alighted their metal clad hooves on the surface of the source of the anomaly. They found a working airlock that Circuit Board could access. The six of them piled inside and closed the door behind them. The entire formation was composed of approximately thirty vessels into a distorted ball roughly five kilometers at its widest point.

They followed Winter's lead as he trekked firmly forward. He knew it would be at the center of all this. Cabling and power conduits spilled from the tilted ceiling like spilled entrails. They trekked through the decaying guts of the ship as unwanted guests. They had barely traveled two dozen meters into when the first trap was sprung.

“This place gives me the heeby fucking jeebies.” Nightingale voiced quietly over the comm. Acrylic, trailing behind stepped on the wrong section of decking. Whether some ancient booby trap, or some pent up power surge waiting for the right pressure, a chain of detonations could be felt climbing to escape. A hole was punched clean through to space with enough force to catapult the heavily armored stallion straight out.

“Acrylic!” Viola shouted in fear for her brother even as she was thrown against the wall by the backlash of the decompression. There was silence for a moment before a stream of the foulest curses flowed back through their helmets.

“Scared the crap outta me, but I'm good. Kinda launched through space here, but, y'know, I'm okay.” Getting over his initial surprise, the heavy weapons trooper was more irritated than anything.

“Do you need us to come get you?” Asked Rosethorn. She flexed her flight stabilizers in readyness.

“Going too fast. I'll probably be out of the field before you take it down. I'll pop a beacon and have Crystal pick me up. You gonna be able to finish this thing without me, Commander?”

“Just try not to bash into any space junk, trooper. Luna protects.”

“Aye, sir, Luna protects.”

Winter gestured for his team to continue. Deeper and deeper into the twisting passages, the soldiers marched. The other members of the squad might have wavered, might have given in to the fear creeping into their hearts without the steel of their leader. He showed no hesitation, not a single one of his steps faltered.

“I am a servant of Luna, and I know no fear. Though the shadow of death closes around me, I shall snuff out that darkness with the purifying presence of she who sits on the Throne of Night.” Winter Reverie guarded not only his team's bodies, but their souls as well.

Two more ships in they found a junction and the first of what now crawled through the cursed halls. Their trek had for the most part been silent save for the Commander reciting uplifting rhetoric. A scratching, scuttling noise could be heard far into the twisted beyond. In smooth unison, the five power armored ponies readied their weapons.

For what seemed like a small eternity, they waited. The sounds drew closer, louder, seeming to approach within meters of their position. Then all was quiet.

And still they waited, ready.

The enemy dropped from vents, crawled from holes in the floor, poured out of the walls and flooded towards them from every direction. They were once ponies, and other strange aliens besides. They were the undead, animated by the unholy energies of the field that had consumed so many.

“Open fire.” Winter Reverie ordered. Firepower from five walking tactical assault, self-powered suits of armor scythed in five different directions. This team, even down a member, was a well-oiled machine. The sound of their guns wove a symphony of destruction.

Like a maestro, Winter's autocannon set the beat with twenty millimeter explosive time. Then there was the double bass staccato of Nightingale's shotguns. Followed closely by the high-pitched burn of Circuit's lances of magical fire. Viola had her tactical railgun, firing shaped metal slugs at such speed they ripped apart any organic matter they touched with kinetic backlash. The mare was as much an artist with the precision weapon as she was with her instrument, carving through bodies with grace.

Rosethorn completed the orchestra with her own weapon: An eight barreled Avenger minigun. It did not kill, it shredded with explosive tipped rounds. It did not shout nor thunder, it purred. She was second in command for more than just her acuity in battle. The mare was easily one of the deadliest soldiers Winter had ever met in his years of service.

Within seconds the halls were choked with the dismembered corpses of the undead of their symphony. In such numbers were their foes though, that the still moving pushed through the walls of the fallen relentlessly. Bit by bit, meter by meter, the abominations bought the distance with the bodies of their fellows. They closed the distance until the muzzle flashes lit the contorted faces of the monsters.

Many of the monsters sported mutations brought on by the strange forces at work. Some had grown extra limbs tipped with spears of bone, or rending claws and fanged mouths. All were bent on killing, on adding the intruders to their ranks, no matter how many of their own might fall.

A former unicorn with its mouth open battered past the end of Winter's gun, aiming to lock its jaws around his armored throat. The Commander rammed the barrel of his pistol down its gullet and fired twice. He shot both of his guns until his pistol was empty, the anti-matter disintegrating several unarmored bodies.

“Swords! Draw swords!” A powered sabre was not an uncommon addition to an armor user's arsenal, and Winter made sure that all of his team were versed in its use. After that the fight was not something neat, it was butcher work. Hacking, carving, and blasting their way clear of the waves of flesh and coagulated blood.

Although the undead threw themselves ceaselessly at the five, they did not fall. A full suit of powered armor weighed more than two thousand pounds. A single kick from a pony equipped thusly can dent ship hull. Against completely unarmored targets, it was like throwing wet paper against stone. Winter Reverie knew though, that eventually they might find a seam or joint with their claws and splintered bone.

“Forward, forward sons and daughters of the Republic! Nightingale, you're on demolition duty. Make sure our way is clear.” The pegasus was only able to grunt in acknowledgment before flying ahead to set a breaching charge. The three ponies bound to the ground marched forward through the press, stepping up onto the carpet of bodies while Rosethorn gave them covering fire.

“By the living stars, there's no end to them.” Grunted Circuit board as he swept his sabre in a telekinetic arc, decapitating two and slicing off grasping limbs.

“There must be a colony ship in among this mess. Thousands of colonists, all subsumed. Let us free their souls from these hellish prisons. Purge the unclean!” Viscera and chunks of torn bodies squelched under their hooves. It was slow, brutal work. They chopped, stabbed, and blew holes big enough to walk through.

There was a bright flash as Nightingale ignited her set of the breaching disks and melted a four meter wide hole through two dozen meters of hull. The mare rejoined them, and together the wedge made their way to the path forged through heat and fire. There was a steep drop, and they landed heavily into a great hall.

“I think we found the colony ship you were talking about, Commander.” Noted Viola as they gazed at the slaughterhouse around them.

The walls were lined with hundreds, thousands of tubes. It was a method of colonization ancient beyond reckoning. Nearly a thousand years at least, back when jump space was only slightly faster than the speed of light and any soul wanting to see other worlds had to be put into suspended animation if they didn't want to be a hundred years old.

Nearly all of them were broken, their contents plundered. The inhabitants awoken only to face the nightmare their ship had become. There was a moment of respite for the squad as the undead were left behind for the moment. Winter Reverie heard screaming from the inside of his mind and knew that they didn't have much longer before the maddening effects of the field would start to affect him and his team.

“Give me all the rest of your charges, everyone. I'm going straight down.” They all looked at him like he was crazy.

“Commander, what...” Rosethorn challenged.

“Do as I say, Rosethorn. None of you have faced this thing before. I need all of you to keep this rabble off my back long enough to kill what's animating them.” They knew better than to question him. They trusted him because he had proved himself time and time again, on countless battlefields, in innumerable boarding actions, he had lead them true.

Winter grabbed the bandoliers of munitions and set a trio of the magnetic disks on the nearest wall. The others got to work creating a barricade, ripping entire pods off their housing to stack them up. He went straight through and deployed the next set of charges. The soldier just kept going. He walked slowly, unerringly towards the source of the corruption tainting even the air. The melded hulls were meant to be a maze, a labyrinth designed to entrap any intruder in its twists and turns.

Reverie was never one to follow the path laid out for him.

He burned through the walls of the maze, and damn the road. There was a sort of buffer zone as Winter galloped to the festering heart. Across bones he trod, while screams and howls chased his passage. Near the core, he passed along the painted hull of a ship called the Absolution and took a moment to read the name painted in faded gold lettering along the wall of the consumed vessel.

Into the abyss he ventured, until he stood before the source, the black stone, the red glow.

With faith in his goddess, he brought down the unholy icon, animating the flesh of those who had died under its influence. With cannon and his last two breaching charges, the soldier destroyed the obelisk and everything around it. As it was destroyed, a tearing sound could be heard as whatever energies were anchored by the artifact were released.

Silence, sweet, relieving silence fell in the hulk as the remaining undead fell apart, dissolving into a biological soup.

“Aegis wishes Rosethorn.” He finally said.

“This is Rosethorn, you take care of our problem, sir? The creepers all kind of... went to pieces.”

“Aye, the Death Field should be down. Have Circuit find an intact power core and set up a remote overload trigger. This metal still bears the signature of the field. I don't want any of that on the Leviathan, or making up any of our repairs. Before we jump out we'll put these lost souls to rest.”

“Sir, some of the civilians might need convincing to abandon so much metal. Should we really give 'em the temptation?” Asked Rosethorn.

“Good point, let's see if we can't get a few of the engines going and blow it before we let the Leviathan get too close. The sooner we're done with this, the better.” The unicorn felt tired, but could not allow himself to relax, even if the danger seemed to have passed. Not until the task was done.

Slowly, the interference from the residual field faded and the Vengeful Omen was able to close in and assist in locating exterior engines on the conglomeration and started it on its way. Roughly an hour later, Winter Reverie was standing on the bridge of the Omen when the planned overload of five cruiser grade power cores still active in the hulk went critical, breaking the entire structure down to its constituent molecules. The decontamination magic of the Assault Cruiser purged any lingering foreign matter from the team, wiping away every last trace.

***

The Leviathan was a voracious vessel, and eagerly consumed the pieces of hacked apart hulls, and even swallowed some of the smaller ships whole to be taken apart later. The crew found many bones and preserved bodies. All were respectfully put into caskets and sent towards the sun for proper burial. It was a common tradition of many cultures that achieved space travel because out of a supernova walked all life. All planets formed from stardust and from those planets bloomed the civilizations, so back into the stars the bodies were returned, to one day be cycled by the universe into new planets, and new life.

In the Leviathan's station sized docking and construction bay, the ponies of the Vengeful Omen and the Cradle were frantically busy organizing and separating the salvaged scrap. Teams worked to cut the huge slabs into more manageable pieces using huge industrial cutters. It was dangerous, often backbreaking work.

It was also a lot of fun.

For the former raiding duty crew of the Omen, laying into ship hull was a very special joy all its own. Looting is its own reward after all. The civilian workers had never experienced such excitement. For the civilians there was a certain rebellious thrill in breaking things. It was insane frenetic activity compared to their usual work stuck behind terminals.

The pilot of Corsair One, an enthusiastic thundercloud colored pegasus stallion was busy directing an incredibly heavy welding beam through the bow of a frigate when a blue earth pony bounded past him and paused long enough to shout over the crashing, sizzling cacophony around them.

“This is so exciting! I mean, with all the ships and how the Commander went into that scary thing and ooh!” She giggled joyously and scampered off. He turned to the mare hovering next to him with a bemused look. Corsair Two shrugged her shoulders.

“Civies.” He muttered to himself.

The Leviathan and its skeleton crew salvaged the entire graveyard with such alacrity, they would have put the entire repair core of the Republic to shame.

***

“Three cheers for the Commander!” The dining hall echoed with over three hundred voices. “Here's to the pony who laughs in the face of death!” Acrylic raised a mug full of plundered wine. In among a merchant ship there had been a container with a few dozen casks of airlessly preserved spirits. The large earth pony had only seen the tail end of the action, but the cleanup and and the rest of the experience had been relayed to him through the others.

Him and the rest of the power armor team were in the Leviathan's main dining hall, still armored, but helmet-less. A good portion of the Omen's crew and a fair few civilians were in attendance, clamoring to get a real life view of powered armor. Even packed with so many, only a fraction of the seats were taken up. The orating earth pony leaped atop one of the long metal tables and continued, Viola accompanied his telling with her instrument. Music drifted through the crowd of excitedly talking ponies. Above it all, Acrylic continued with his tale.

“There were monsters infesting the ships, all ground together, dead and grotesque!” He lunged forward with a ghastly visage and several onlookers reeled back, smiling in fright. “Brought back to life by the infestation leaking through from the other side of warp space. The stuff nightmares are made of, up and walking around, stalking those cold halls, waiting for fresh victims.” His voice had lowered steadily, making the crowd hush and clamor in close to hear him better.

“And then came Winter Reverie!” The stallion crowed. “He knew no fear as he marched into the unknown! Our Commander faced horrors no mortal has laid eyes on and did not balk. He cut through zombies like they were stalks of grain. Without a moment of hesitation he fought to the heart and burned out the infection.” He raised his glass high, splashing a little out of the mug. Nightingale, Rosethorn, and Circuit were closest and touched their mugs to his while Viola continued her accompaniment.

“To Commander Reverie, slayer of the dead!”

***

Winter was not at his own party because he was in his stateroom trying to pry the armor off his cybernetic leg. He was not a glory hound by nature. Praise kindled a warm fire under his ego, but undo adoration such as what was happening in the mess hall just made him uncomfortable. The unicorn had just fought through quite a traumatizing affair and needed some time for personal reflection to come to terms with his ordeal.

It wasn't something that could be washed away with a little target practice. Besides, he didn't drink on principle, finding alcohol to be a crutch for lesser minds.

He had left instructions with Crystal to take the Leviathan through the jump point as soon as they reached it, staying on the bridge long enough to make sure the salvage effort of the derelict ships was well in hoof. The juddering transition happened during his ritual of disarming, bringing him some small comfort that they were safely away and heading from the former site of the dead field at extreme speed.

His efforts at becoming disrobed of metal and servos was being hampered however by the heavy plates around his artificial limb. While treading through the carpet of dead and dying monsters, one had gotten its jaws around him long enough to bend the alloy together. After wrestling with it for quite some time, doing nothing but wrenching the leg around in its sophisticated shoulder socket, he contemplated teleporting to the machine shop aboard the Omen.

Just as the unicorn was considering the cuts he would have to make and the subsequent repairs to his armor, the door chime tinkled melodically. Enough of the anti-matter reactors were online to allow jump drive activation, resulting in restoration of most of the Leviathan's systems. Winter hobbled over and saw through the security screen that it was Abacus looking rather unsure of herself.

Surprised, he hit the door release. The mare jumped a little in shock.

“Can I help you, doctor?” He asked neutrally. She stared at his armored form for a moment. The Commander did not wear his helmet, so at least she could look him in the eye.

“Ah, well, you know um, I was, um, wondering if you wanted to know what we salvaged from the field.” She stuttered, then rambled, staring intently at the hull beneath his hooves. The mare rubbed her front legs together and glanced up.

“Of course, please come in.” He stepped back and gestured. Normally he would not be so forthcoming, but the frantic energy of fighting and the aftermath lingered. So long as he kept busy, the nervous shakes were kept at bay. Distraction was ideal. As much as he would have liked, he couldn't let himself become insular to personal contact, especially with civilians now that there were so many aboard.

Abacus hurried inside and stood just past the doorway uncertainly as Winter moved with a stiff-legged gait back to his armor rack. He gave the stubbornly pinched greave a few more tugs before huffing in frustration. The stallion seated himself at the table and waved for her to proceed. She stared for a moment at his damaged leg, imagining the force needed to compress the alloy.

“Oh, yes, the uh, report. Well,” she set one of her spiders on the table, popped a holographic display and scanned down the initial findings. “We've gotten a fair amount of food that was preserved when whatever ship lost life support, but a lot was spoiled as well. No real munitions as most of the vessels were just exploratory or expeditionary. There was a trio of ancient Empire frigates and a cruiser but their stuff is so outdated all we can do is melt it down and remake it.

“We've got a lot of materials for hard slugs and enough to maybe make a few more Void circuits. Construction has already started on a few Serpents. Really, there's enough metal to last us weeks of building, but not the special rounds for our big guns or many torpedoes. All the reactors should be live and kicking by the time we exit jump space, so all our energy weapons will be good to go. The railguns too, as long as we keep the composition of the slugs simple.

“And do you want me to do something about that?” She broke off her summary as Winter continued to fidget and fuss with his armor.

“What? Oh, yes I suppose.” He lifted his leg up onto the table and a cadre of the scientist's spiders used tiny precision cuts to separate the pieces of damaged equipment from between his ankle and knee. It took a few minutes, still being a section of the most advanced personal protection known to ponies. The two halves were excised with metallic pops and Reverie sighed in relief. Not in any physical discomfort, rather just annoyance. The outer casing on his leg was pitted a little, but designed for worse.

Artificial nerve bundles gave him rudimentary sensation through the limb as well as control. Having lived with it for so long, the nerves had fused quite completely with his own and through biofeedback was as responsive as his original limb. Abacus watched him move it with something akin to awe. Often even with advanced medical and magical treatment, such dexterity that Winter casually displayed was hard to come by.

"Can I ask you something, Commander Reverie?" For a moment, Winter's eyes narrowed in minor annoyance.

"If it's how I lost this leg, then no, you may not ask it." The mare shook her head.

"No, no, I just was wondering about your vitals they're... strange. It almost looks like you're going into cardiac arrest." Winter Reverie considered whether to answer her question. Looking at the scientist, then to his now freed leg, he decided it wouldn't hurt.

"I understand why you may be confused. I have extensive internal cybernetic reconstruction as well and..." Suddenly he found it hard to speak, unexpectedly choked at saying out loud what was in his breast. It wasn't something he talked about, or really thought about. He blinked and looked at the table, playing with one of the spiders with one hoof while unconsciously rubbing his chest with another.

"I have two hearts."

Author's Note

Question of the chapter! In the hulk thing, Winter runs across a ship fused to the mass named the Absolution. Guess which Absolution I'm referencing and get your OC in! I think this winner will be a planetary governor if that interests you.

(Also, the updates have been doubled!)

Chapter 9: The Legion

The Legion

“Warp bubble collapse in five minutes. Engines two through four showing nominal charge. Engines one and eight holding steady at point two seven bellow one hundred.”

***

Winter Reverie remembered the first time he had seen a true ship of war. He had been very young, and the cruiser seemed huge. It was an edifice of awe in engineering even to adults, and to a child it was positively mythical. And of all the luck, he was going to ride in it. He stood looking out a window as the grav-train he traveled in hummed along magnetic rails toward the spaceport.

“You ready to go, cadet?” Asked the big unicorn standing next to him. Little Winter turned and saluted with a hoof.

“Yes sir, Mister Shining Armor!” The imperial pony smiled warmly at the eager youth. Though the colt could not tell, the stallion’s smile was distracted. Something nagged on the edge of the unicorn’s mind. Something of disturbing implication.

Days earlier, Winter had been pretending to study in his room when one of his family’s servants came to fetch him.

It was late, and the many simulated gas lamps were lit. The inside of the great manor was furnished in a tastefully classical style. The subtle decadence of the dark paneled walls and gilded columns was meant to impress any important visitors. It was an abode that could humble royalty. Situated on a thousand acres of ancient pine forest, it was almost a small town unto itself. Hundreds of servants and groundskeepers were employed to maintain the homestead.

Winter’s family had several lodges across the sector, but his parents preferred this one to conduct most of their affairs, being so close to Equestria.

The colt had to walk for quite a while to the main study to which he had been summoned. He was a child of noble rearing, and waited politely at the threshold until called. The servant who had escorted him got the nod of approval from another and gave Winter a little nudge.

Being called to see his parents always filled his heart with a little trepidation, never quite knowing what they wanted him for. He always tried his best to do well in school and not cause trouble so they would be happy with him. For the most part they left him to his own devices, and the size of the manor usually meant he could roam free or go play in the woods. The blank-flank stallion would of course be dragged to the occasional family dinner or be primped and primed to make a good impression on some important client.

Winter Reverie liked it that way. He preferred the time to himself, being master of his own activities and choices. His older brother had never really played with him much, Spring Sun being several years older. Most of the expectations had been laid on the scion of the house. It left the second child free to spend his time exploring, in no real hurry to find his special talent.

A fire was lit in the hearth, spreading shifting shadows over the study. His father, Blue Summers was talking rather animatedly with a crimson mare with a strange cutie mark. Autumn Gale, Winter’s mother, was likewise engrossed in conversation with a very large stallion standing before the fireplace.

***

“Warp emergence in four minutes. Preparing inertial compensators for reality breach shock. All Battle Rider clamps showing green for integrity.”

***

Something about the scene before him stuck out to the unicorn. A worry, a fear, took root. It was irrational, and he tried to quash the feeling, but it stayed with him. Winter would look back on it later and understand that something was trying to tell him to run away as fast as he could. Some preeminent sense spoke to him, urging him away, to turn and exit the room while there was still time.

Unfortunately for him, these things only become truly clear in retrospect. Although butterflies flitted madly in his guts, the young colt moved into the study and became known. The greasy smile the red mare gave him did nothing to assuage the sensation of being assessed like prey. Blue Summers spoke first.

“Winter! Good of you to join us. We were just talking about you son. This lovely mare here has come a long way to meet you.” The pegasus in question only smiled more greedily and addressed him next.

“Hello, my name is Azure Prancer, I’m the head of a special school. Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. We’ve seen your latest test scores and think you’d be a perfect candidate. We’re a very prestigious establishment with many schools across the galaxy. It is a great honor to be selected as one of Celestia’s finest. We’re dedicated to teaching the best and brightest, to bring them to their full potential.”

“The closest school is on Aquarion! Oh, such a beautiful planet. I know you’ll have lots of fun. Such an opportunity, to be invited to one of Celestia’s schools!” Autumn cried with joy. Of course, any parent would say that.

That was the beauty of the scheme. What parent wouldn’t want their child to attend an institution of the Empress? Of course, the sales pitch was tailored to each of the chosen candidates. For unicorns, it was a school for the magically inclined or gifted. For pegasi, it was a flight school for promising Wonderbolts or space cadets. Every envoy was equipped with baits to up the bid for a filly or colt’s attendance.

Even financial compensation was available to lower class citizens. In essence, it meant they were selling their offspring to the Solar Empire. There was always a nice looking brochure and a well-dressed representative to smooth over every possible concern. With Celestia’s name on it, there was no question of success.

No pony had ever refused.

***

“Warp emergence in two minutes.”

Winter Reverie already felt like the command throne of the Leviathan had become his new permanent emplacement. Having spent nearly twenty hours a day ensconced in the cushioned embrace of the throne, his mind had taken to wandering during the quieter moments. Too long in jump space played all kinds of psychological havoc with sentient beings. Strange dreams compounded by physical exhaustion drove Winter’s mind to even stranger places.

Like remembering the first time he had ridden in a ship of war…

***

“Prince Shining Armor here will escort you on his ship.” Those had been the last words spoken to him by his mother and father before being rushed off to pack his things. It was happening so quickly all he could think about was taking to the stars. He had never been off-world, his parents usually just leaving him at the estate whenever they went abroad. Now it was his turn.

Riding the tram to the golden ship he had asked the big unicorn all kinds of questions, about the ship and about the path that they would be taking through the sky. To a colt his age, just the acreage around his home was an infinitely vast world of imaginary adventure and stick forts. Space was an incomprehensibly vast stretch. He had not the tools to come to grips with the billions of kilometers involved.

Shining Armor was very kind, answering all the eager youth’s questions with a smile. He too recalled what it was like to be overwhelmed by starships. His own dream as a younger stallion had been to sail as a captain of one of Celestia’s own royal vessels.

The school representative traveled closely with them with her continuously greasy smile. Even her unnerving presence was not enough to dampen Winter’s boundless spirit. The sight of the metallic hued hull was more than enough to even dispel feelings of homesickness and grief at his parent’s easy dismissal.

Once aboard Winter was introduced to the others who were going to be attending Celestia’s school. The small gaggle of candidates were not just unicorns, which briefly confused the young noble pony. He brushed it off though, not understanding and so not really inquiring either. Winter Reverie stuck close by Shining Armor, even following him onto the bridge to watch the launch.

The colt’s heart leapt when the engines roared, feeling the vibrations through the deck beneath his hooves. For hours he stayed, watching his home world recede into nothing but a speck. He questioned nearly everything, to the specifics of the ship’s tonnage and engines, even to its weapons. Shining Armor answered all of his inquiries with patience.

He had been such an innocent soul. Who is to say what he may have become had events unfolded differently. Winter Reverie remembered it as a cusp, standing along the edge of the abyss. There was such a thin barrier in his recollections at the time.

These flashbulb moments came back to him many times in moments of reflection. Time did not allow him sufficient pause to dwell, for reality as it so often does, asserted itself with no heed for the desires of mortals.

***

“Jump successful, calibrating sensors.”

Alarms began to sound.

“Contact! Lots of contact! Reading at least three battleship sized ships at extreme torpedo range. Target list still propagating. Unknown enemy. Whoever they are, they’re not Imperial.”

“Red shift in enemy vessels, reading weapon activation. Fighter craft detected. Fifteen. Twenty…”

“Eighteen destroyers closing with fighter wave.”

“Hostile missiles inbound, activating countermeasures.”

“Sacred Luna, there’s a whole fleet of ‘em.”

“Steady!” Winter’s voice thundered through the massive bridge. The unicorn rarely raised his voice, yet was capable of great bravado and projection. His words quelled the rising panic in the crew. “We are soldiers of the Republic. Ready all available weapons. We shall show them what it means to face the wrath of Luna’s own navy. Downtrim fifty degrees, and raise the Voids.”

Next to where Winter sat, Crystal typed up a short message and sent it over to his console.

‘Aren’t you going to say the prayer? I’ve attached the ship-wide announcement circuit.’ He nodded his thanks and activated the command, standing as he did so.

“One minute fifteen seconds to contact.” Announced one of the watch-standers. Tension was high enough that it could be played like a musical instrument.

“May the living stars bless this vessel and her guns. Protect the Republic’s daughters and sons. Guide her shots forever straight and true. May we who are graced with her operation, not be found too few. We pray now, to the spirit of this ship, the Leviathan, to awaken. Let the enemy tremble at your name, like sailors before the kraken.

“As your living heart beats, ours beat with you.” All of those who occupied the bridge except for Doctor Abacus were from the Vengeful Omen, and so knew to echo the words. Winter continued to tolerate the civilian’s presence because of a growing respect for her knowledge.

“As your living heart beats, ours beat with you.” The chorus was chilling, spoken together with wrath and growing conviction.

“We offer sacrifice, to baptize your armaments in blood. May these who wish our death drown in the flood. Let your shells and missiles always strike true! May they always strike with furious intent. Until their shields are shattered, and their hulls rent. Let no stray shot harm an innocent. Your sights, forever vigilant. Let them never seize up, jam or misfire. Nor in any way fail in whatever’s required.

“We do not kill with our hooves,” Winter began.

“We kill with our guns!” The crew answered.

It was an ancient ritual, to bless the guns of a ship before they were first fired. In many ways it was rooted in superstition, that if the blessing was neglected, the ship was cursed. Everypony on the Leviathan paused in what they had been doing to listen to Winter Reverie’s sermon. The bridge chorus that answered him reverberated through the many kilometers of hallways.

“Contact in ten seconds!” The Commander had been working up a firing algorithm for all the weapons that registered as ready while he recited the blessing. The words had been well and truly ingrained in him that he did not need to think about them. He spent five seconds to review it and let Crystal Flourish provide any input. She nodded her confidence.

Enemy fire sheeted against the Voids of the Leviathan like rain. It was a relatively small, however still deadly fleet arrayed against them and was not to be scoffed at. A full complement of battleships, cruisers, and destroyers were disposed counter to them. Plasma fire rippled over the roiling surface of the Voids. A small sun was briefly born as a swathe of space caught flame.

Missiles and torpedoes also closed in, internal guidance programs making them dodge to and fro. Stealth systems decreased the effective signature radius to make their target points smaller for countermeasure targeting systems. Never the less, nearly every point of light failed short of its mark. Flak canisters with hundreds of kinetic ball bearings exploded among the encroaching wave. Pinpoint beam struck others, blowing warheads prematurely.

“Shield integrity down from thirty to twenty-nine.” Winter felt his breath come up a little short. Even he had underestimated the Leviathan, and his blood felt electrified at the thought of seeing it strike back. Because of its revolutionary construction, the Leviathan’s overall weapon hardpoint and hardware tonnage allotment was extraordinary to say the least.

The Leviathan had weapon clusters bigger than most cruisers. Only a fraction of which were functional because of crew restraints and simply because they hadn’t yet had time to be primed and armed. First to fire, were the Hell Lances. A magically contained spear of high density energy, the Hell Lance was such a universal weapon of space warfare that it was often the bread and butter of fleet engagements.

The medium sized prongs belied the destructive output of the Lance. Blood, in the form of anti-matter charge coursed through the Leviathan from its surging reactors. Capillaries of cabling and arterial pathways had to be redesigned from the beginning to allow flow of the energy. Befitting the New Lunar Republic, anti-matter energy showed up as a deep purple in the visible spectrum.

Five battleships, three heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, eighteen destroyers, and fighter squadrons numbering over sixty all converged on the Leviathan. That was the equivalent classification the sensor systems assigned to the attacking ships. Hell Lance batteries were aimed, and unleashed.

Ten of the destroyers practically melted, their shields ripped asunder like gossamer. Anti-matter charged Lance beams achieved full penetration, impaling the black ships on columns of light. Three light cruisers and one of the heavies fared no better, essential systems rupturing under the assault. Yet that was only the beginning.

Energy cannons were next loosed, casting shaped anti- matter charges like arrows. Along with them spoke the hard munitions. Railguns catapulted chunks of high-density metal, while other cannons used more traditional propellant. It was prudent for ships to have both energy and kinetic weapons because of combined weight and energy restrictions. Solid shot weapons could keep firing even if the core was knocked out, and magic weapons could go on if the ship ran out of kinetics and missiles.

Even constrained as it was, the Leviathan was more than capable of mustering the equivalent bite of a dreadnought. A dreadnought retrofitted with guns to level star systems. The Leviathan did not make a torrent, it created a torrential downpour. Sheeting waves of energy and death filled the vacuum. Many of the opposing fighters drowned in the tide, blown away by the density of the hail.

The remaining destroyers fell under the onslaught, along with several of the light cruisers. One of the battleships took a particularly hard hit and was knocked off course, shields flickering and armor plates buckled. What few torpedoes the Leviathan had been able to manufacture were launched next as well. It might have been overkill, but Winter Reverie would take no chances. He would not tolerate being stopped so far from home with barely more than a whimper to show for it.

More destruction broke against the Leviathan’s shielding as it continued its stately downward curve. The enemy ships strove on, heedless against the futility of their assault. None of the giant vessel’s super-heavy weapons were online, otherwise the battle would have been over in the opening salvos. As it stood, the Republic ship simply had to weather the ever decreasing stream of munitions.

More ships were knocked out of the fight, either so pounded into scrap all their systems were dead, or their cores overloaded and annihilated in balls of expanding plasma. The strange, unknown ships reeled and shrieked without voice into the dark. The Leviathan was implacable, unwavering. Some of her crew cowered in fear, the battle beyond the safety of the walls was more than they could handle. They were sheltered in her halls and corridors, the horrors kept at bay.

The bridge was a study in coolness under fire. Commander Reverie answered each concern steadily, directing the flow of effort from shielding to target prioritization. The command and control layout of the consoles was still somewhat new to him, and delayed his reactions by fractions. Battles were rarely so intense for so long. The final four battleships were tough, and it took over twenty minutes of furious exchange to bring them down.

The Vengeful Omen contributed what shots it could with the small crew left aboard, but was limited, being locked in Battle Rider position. Winter received word from his Corsair pilots that they were ready to go. He held them back because there were still too many unknowns about the enemy capabilities.

Magazines and ammo hoppers quickly ran dry. Even at full output, the internal fabrication areas of the mighty ship had not had enough time to manufacture a respectable arsenal. All the torpedoes and railgun projectiles had been used in the first salvos. Directed energy weapons alone brought down the last two foes.

Wreckage littered the space around the jump point the Leviathan had emerged from. Shattered armor girdled the gravity anomaly in an arc extending out from the Republic ship. She had suffered little real damage. Her Voids had started off low but only suffered a few spot failures and some blown out circuits. What shots had penetrated had been deflected or absorbed by the thick armor plating. Not a single deck had been breached.

Winter Reverie read down the list of expendables used and mentally sighed. Surprised to say the least, the Commander was astonished by how little damage they had sustained. Had he been over the Vengeful Omen solely, he would have simply turned and ran back to the jump point. More pressing though, was identifying their attackers.

“I need a fine grain analysis on the ships not blown to scrap. Tell me what these things were.” He was already examining the energy output and weapons readings recorded during the engagement. Now that he thought back on it, they had been very slow, rather ungainly vessels and wondered who they belonged to.

“We can confirm them not to be in any of our databases, sir. So, not zebra, griffin, or diamond dog. Hold on… Sir, one more ship detected in orbit around the fifth planet out, ten light minutes away. It’s huge.” Winter used his executive access to pull up the sensor data the crew member had been looking at. Sure enough, it was huge. The main body of the ship was about the size of a cruiser. What was odd were the large tether arms that held an energy net of titanic proportions.

“Fatal collapse detected in the energy field.” Winter watched the ship explode as its power core went critical, tearing off an edge of the contained net which collapsed shortly after. Reverie’s was forced to look away, his eyes watering as reality rejected the violation and corrected itself.

Abacus had stayed silent through most of the battle, feeling very much like just an observer. The mare had used the time to get a head start analyzing the collected data. At this latest development, she called up the sensors and played the recording back, watching space fold and bend.

“Living stars,” She breathed in equal parts reverence and not a little terror. “I think I know what that ship was. What all of these were.” Abacus spoke aloud to nopony in particular. Her next address was aimed squarely at Winter. “Did we detect any escape pods leaving the other ships?” Commander Reverie consulted with his display and shook his head.

Studying the playbacks intently for a few moments before comparing them with the analysis, the scientist reached a disturbing conclusion. “I thought they were only a myth. Why? Why are they here?”

“What do you mean?” Winter inquired.

“Get us close enough to one of those wrecks and I’ll show you.”

***

“What are we looking at here, doctor?” Winter Reverie and his team stood in the observation area of a medical suite that was now an autopsy chamber. The thing on the table was pony shaped, and that was where the similarity ended. The black thing was insectoid in appearance and similar in biology. A sleek and shiny carapace covered the whole exterior. Thin blue bug-like wings protruded from its back. The eyes had no visible pupil or cornea. A horn and fangs adorned the chitinous head.

They had pulled the corpse from one of the destroyed ships and brought it back in a containment casket. Inside the changeling ship had been… disturbing. The whole vessel had been organic, the insides dry and cracked from exposure to vacuum. There was some metallic structure that seemed to serve only as something for the strange material to grow around.

“That,” Abacus gestured at the body. “Is a changeling. Thought to have originated from Equestria thousands of years ago. It is said that they feed off the emotions of others, that they would use their power to change into someone you love, then gain sustenance from the substitution.”

“How do you know about them?” Asked Rosethorn.

“I had a long discussion with Princess Cadence on the matter. I had the privilege of meeting her briefly on her honeymoon.” Abacus smiled at the memory.

“So then what was that energy net they destroyed? Or for that matter, why weren’t there any escape pods on the changeling ships?” Circuit board was the next to ask what they were all yearning to know.

“I… Can only speculate, but based on the fact that none of the intact vessels seem to have any form of FTL engines, it seems it was a gate.” One of her spiders rotated the appropriate imaging capture, detailing the quantum state collapse of the net.

“A gate to what?” The unicorn asked, Circuit’s technical mind racing with the makeup of such a construction.

“Other gates. They likely have a network set up in whatever system they actually reside in. Everything else is unknown. What the gate capacity for transport is, how fast it is, whether they can use it for communication or how many of these gates there are. The Changeling Legion, as they’ve been called by some theoretical scholars, is ruled over by a queen with a very hive-like mentality.

“Which brings me to their ships. It makes sense that they would have had to find some other way to sustain themselves other than the emotion of sentient creatures. We would have noticed the mass disappearances accompanied by their apparent population. Such numbers of captives would be needed to sustain such a large infestation, even if this small force we fought was their entire populace.

“From the penetrating scans of the husks we can deduce that they are at least eighty percent pure organic. There is evidence of a large decentralized nervous system woven through the structures, and large solar wings that can be deployed. Several of my colleagues are secondary experts in the field of biology and xeno-biology and will take a further look into matters. If they find what I think they will, it will mean that although the changeling physiology requires organic nourishment, their main source of nutrition will actually come from the living ships they pilot.

“Hence why we found no living specimens. Because they feed off the unconscious ebbs and emotions of the nervous system, they are inextricably tied to it. Kill the ship, and the shock is enough to kill all the changelings bound to it. They probably blew up the gate ship for security reasons, to keep anyone from going through it or analyzing it without their permission.”

“That’s a lot of conjecture. How about them waiting for us at the jump point?” Winter queried this time. “I can think of two possibilities. One, being coincidence, which is about as likely as me sprouting wings. Or that they knew we were coming, probably from some kind of advanced tunneling sensor that could travel along the jump path.” Abacus nodded.

“Exactly so. We’ve towed in one of the ‘destroyers’ that wasn’t totally annihilated. We’ll know more once we’ve taken it apart. Salvage is pretty much out of the question unless we want to recycle the proteins into rations.” By the look of disgust on all their faces, that was a big hell no.

***

Other than a rather eventful emergence, there was nothing else of any real note in the system. There had been no real developments for colonization in this galactic direction because of the dead zone that ate ships the next jump over. According to the old records, the only other jump point led to a small frontier system maintained by the Empire.

Beyond that they had more options. They could continue to skirt the borders, or venture inward towards more populous worlds. There was risk either way, from destruction at the hooves of the Solar fleets or a slow, lingering death of starvation in unknown space.

Winter Reverie had his hooves under his chin in a contemplative pose. Once again his team was assembled in the conference room with the long black table. This time, Crystal Flourish had joined them, as well as Corsair pilots One and Two. Everypony was deep in their own thoughts about the aliens they had fought. The fact that there was an entire space-faring race unknown to them was slightly upsetting.

In pony history, there had never been a sentient xeno race encountered. All the races had started on the same planet. Supposedly, these changelings had come from old Equestria. Their appearances made that fact hard to reconcile.

“We’re currently operating at less than eighteen percent overall military effectiveness. Damn good work, everypony. We were not lucky this time around. There was no warning that they were waiting for us, and the crew has made excellent strides in getting our guns working. There is still a lot of work to be done, not just on the Leviathan, but on the civies as well. We’ve talked about courses of action and so far they’ve all worked pretty much nonstop because their lives are on the line. How many are really ready for active duty?” The Commander broached the hanging silence.

Viola gave her assessment.

“They were rotated out more often than you might think. A good deal of the civies working at The Cradle were pretty young. I suppose they’d have to be to be on the cutting edge of their disciplines. Most of them have been triple checked by medical as being fit and healthy. They’re not exactly prime naval stock, however pretty much all of them either have PhDs or could take apart a Hell Lance blindfolded.”

“Adept, yet inexperienced. I think we can work with that. For now, everypony is working to get everything on the Leviathan working. There’s at least four days transit time to the next jump point and over a week and a half in jump space from there. So long as nothing is waiting-“ Winter Reverie caught himself and made a warning sign against ill-fortune.

“The frontier system shouldn’t offer anything unexpected, Luna willing. We’ll cruise through there and pick up or take what supplies we can. A rogue station would be nice, and I won’t hold my breath on that one. By that time we’ll all be exhausted and should have most of the Leviathan’s weapons in working order. I’m confident we can make it home so long as we’re careful and smart.” Nightingale waved her hoof to get attention.

“Excuse me, but nopony seems to be addressing the elephant in the room.” Winter Reverie raised his right eyebrow in anticipation of his weapon specialist’s impending outburst. “What about the six freaking Battle Rider battleships hangin’ off this big momma? I want one. Each has a super-heavy! Only dreadnoughts get supers!”

“You want one of the battleships?” The Commander asked the mare. She practically vibrated in excitement as she nodded ferociously. “Okay, pick one.” Nightingale practically orgasmed in her armor.

Acrylic laughed in his bombastic way. “Now Nightingale, a battleship is a big responsibility, you have to take care of it and change its fuel cells and make sure its Battle Rider clamps are good and oiled.”

“Ooh!” She squealed. “Oh I’m already thinking of what to name it! Maybe… Vengeful Omen Junior? No, no. The Vengeful Omen is too small to have a baby that big.”

“Hey!” Rosethorn took on an offended look. “The Vengeful Omen may be ladylike and dainty, but man has she got some fine hips. Who says she can’t have a big, healthy, battleship baby? Right Commander?” Winter smiled.

“I’ll leave the debates on starship reproduction to you, fillies. Nightingale, pick out three dozen from the Omen, and some of the tech civies you want to take along with you. You’ve got one week to make one of those things fly. Crystal figures that we can operate about three of them without making crew levels any more critical than they already are.”

“Aye, sir,” She saluted with crispness even with the wish-come-true grin.

“Once the Leviathan is a little more combat capable, we can break up the civilians into squads overseen by Omen crew. That should keep them focused. Then we can start weapons and physical training. Remember, these are citizens of the Republic, not soldiers. We can’t push them too hard or they might break.”

Acrylic blanched in realization. “Oh please don’t tell me we’re going to do that again.” Circuit Board snorted a little at the big earth pony’s expense.

“Training day, Commander?” The technically inclined unicorn asked.

“Oh yes, training day.” Reverie confirmed. Even the two pilots groaned a little.

“I couldn’t walk straight for a week after the last one. I thought you said we weren’t going to push the eggheads too hard?” The grey pegasus griped.

“We need to watch our food consumption so it won’t be as intense as last time. Don’t think you’re weaseling out of it, One.” Many fighter pilots in the Republic navy were an incredibly superstitious bunch, even by the standards of other soldiers. Bonding with their single operator crafts was so important; they preferred to be referred to by their wing position designation, believing it brought them closer to their metallic bodily extensions.

“You’ve given the schematics for these ‘Serpents’ a thorough review I trust?”

“Aye, Commander, they’re things o’beauty to be sure. Two are nearly fit and ready to be tested. They should be done in about sixteen hours last I checked. Me and Corsair Two were going to give ‘em a spin with your permission.”

“Granted. What can you tell us about their specs? How do they measure against the Corsairs?”

“Almost feels like I’m cheatin’ on a girl by talkin’ about ‘em. Yeah, they’re everything promised and more. The Serpent is less of a fighter and more of a one pony Hunter-Killer. Ninety meters stem to stern.” Nightingale gave an appreciative whistle. “Anti-matter drive, those meson-infused Hell Lances, it’s got everything. Even rated for atmospheric work so the design is sleek as a mare’s-“ He looked around. “Ahem.” The stallion shifted a little. Winter steered the discussion once more.

“With our engineering bays working on full around the clock we’ve still got enough raw material to continue at this pace for about another month before we need refilling. We took in a lot, and most of it was already processed but what we need now are some of the rarer elements for fuel cells and I’d like a few Pylons ready for use. We’ll focus on filling up the ammo bunkers first. Missiles and torpedoes next, then more fighter craft. After that we can worry about getting the super-heavy guns up and running.”

“And more of that isotope,” added Rosethorn. “If we can find a good stash of that, we can just skip the jump points altogether. Head straight to Var from wherever a leyline is. There’s got to be a university or… some institution experimenting with the stuff.” Acrylic had his input next.

“Somehow, I doubt we’ll get the opportunity. We should work off of the assumption that normal jumps are our only way back. The leyline drive is the only technology we know of that even uses the isotope, and the star formation necessary for its natural occurrence also makes the system planets uninhabitable.”

“I agree. We work with what we have. I’ll decide on training day soon. Until then, dismissed.” Everypony except Crystal Flourish stood and saluted.

The pegasus mare waited until they had all left to begin typing. The words appeared in the table next to his helmet.

‘There is still the issue of the traitor among us. I am surprised you did not bring it up.’

“There’s not much we can do right now. Not unless we want to put every civilian through an interrogation chamber. Somehow I doubt they’ll find that idea appealing.”

‘Are you so sure it was not from the Omen? Or maybe a pony from Luna’s office?’

“We were given the coordinates at the last possible moment. There was not nearly enough time for that Imperial fleet to get there. Something tells me they wanted the Leviathan intact. The only reason they would want that is if there was an inside leak. They were informed of the new drive system and the war-changing implications of it.”

‘That one captain seemed pretty bent on destroying the Leviathan. Then again, you did insult his empress.’ Crystal tittered softly at the thought. ‘So we have to wait until they make another move to reveal themselves. I do not like sitting around for something to go catastrophically wrong.’

“If we’re lucky, the agent didn’t make it off the Cradle, or they’ve jumped ship already. They want ship intact, so that’s something.”

They talked for a while after that about the problems facing them and their mission and about the Changeling Legion. Most of their time was spent working on personnel files, trying to get the civilians sorted into good groups and deciding who should oversee them. After a while Crystal bid Winter a good night and left him with his thoughts.

The scarred stallion resumed a pensive posture and sat for some time. Unsurprisingly, one of Abacus’s spiders appeared. With its sleek black and red carapace gleaming, the Black Widow scuttled across the table. To Winter’s surprise it made no motion to tug him along or pop open a message from the scientist. It merely clattered over, spent a moment examining his helmet, hooves, and settled itself within easy reach on the reactive tabletop.

After a while, Reverie was once again lost in thought, letting his mind unwind.

***

The journey to Aquarion seemed both long, and entirely too short.

Azure Prancer took particularly keen interest in all of the fillies and colts she was bringing with her, saying that she was eagerly looking forward to teaching them lots of new things. Many of the children became friends and played games through the gold vessel. Winter felt rather shy around so many strangers and used the travel time to explore the miracle of pony engineering.

During that journey, he fell in love with ships. Many a nights had the colt spent with nothing but the glow of a computer to light his room. He was fascinated by them, by the functions of jump engines to composite metallurgy and everything in-between.

Soon enough though, the journey was at an end, and he bid Shining Armor goodbye. Azure Prancer guided them all to a waiting bus where their luggage was ready and loaded. It wasn’t too far of a distance between the main spaceport and where the school was. An excited buzz filled the bus and Azure even led the group in a few well-known children’s songs.

Winter Reverie remembered the cold and reveling in it. For a time, the strange foreboding was banished by the fine weather. It was his favorite season in addition to being his name. Aquarion was famous for being an arctic world that boasted tourism because of how beautiful the season was on the planet. The world straddled the border between arctic and ocean, its equatorial regions boasting many luxurious resorts.

The school grounds were nice as well, occupying a large plot of land near the heart of the world’s capital. Such a large estate was odd nestled among the large buildings all around. All the young souls were awed by the weight the structure seemed to convey. Old style windows and old Equestrian construction gave it the weight of centuries.

They were led inside and lined up in the grand foyer. Azure Prancer walked in front of them wearing her biggest grin yet.

“Welcome to Celestia’s School of Obedience. Here you will learn-“

“I thought this was for gifted unicorns? I don’t need to go to obedience school!” interrupted a short, snobbish colt. The crimson mare whipped out a long thin rod with her teeth and struck the unicorn across the face with an audible electrical crackle. With barely a murmur, the colt dropped and curled up on the floor clutching his muzzle and twitched.

The foals together reeled in horror and fright. A few of the fillies screamed and some tried to run out the doors only to find them shut and barred.

“You all belong to Celestia now. And believe me, you will learn obedience.”

Winter Reverie was one of those who stood rooted. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was like to be afraid.

“Class is now in session.”

***

He absently trailed the tip of an artificial hoof over the surface of the conference table, watching the reactive play of color follow the trail of his path as his memories followed the dark trail of old. The Widow took immediate interest and chased the aurora trail. This amused Winter to no end and sent the color moving in random directions to watch the spider skitter madly trying to catch the digital display.

Unexpectedly, the door to the conference room shot open and a pony neither from Winter’s team nor the Omen walked in. Rather, it was a civilian. The pure white unicorn caught sight of the Commander and smiled in what was supposed to be a friendly way. Winter stopped creating the color on the table. The Widow was momentarily confused before becoming aware of the new stallion. Frightened, it scuttled up Reverie’s shoulder and hid in his mane.

Somewhat discomforted, the stallion suppressed the urge to shudder.

“Commander Winter Reverie! I was told I could find you here.” The unicorn announced as he made the trek down the long conference room. “My name is Prince Doublet.” He tossed his silver mane, perfectly styled, leading Winter to wonder when the price had had time to prim himself. The royal pony also wore what looked to be a freshly laundered vest of deep blue.

Luna preserve me, a prince. Why did there have to be a prince aboard? So help me if I get my hooves on the pony who told him where to find me.

“You’ve done a bang up job so I’ll keep you as my second, but right now we need to properly observe decorum here. As prince, appointed by Luna to help with the Leviathan, I will now be taking captaincy of this ship.” Doublet smiled again, in what he probably assumed would smooth over any hard feelings. Winter kept his expression blank.

“No, actually you won’t. I have direct orders from Luna herself to take command of the Leviathan until such time as it reaches the star system Var, there to be relieved of command by nopony other than Admiral Blueberry.” The noble unicorn’s face did a strange flip from happy and confident to confused, then back again. This was not an individual used to being told no.

“Come now old sport, right now these ponies need leadership! They’ll be looking to us to provide it.”

“Let me be perfectly clear, prince, I have no intention of relinquishing the Leviathan to you, or anypony else for that matter. You are in no position to give orders and you will obey the ones I give or I will have you thrown in the brig for insubordination.” Winter Reverie’s temper was short when it came to idiocy. He could not stand nobles, and did not take kindly to blatant overtures of hostility or coercion. The prince was doing a good job of treading on all of them.

“This doesn’t have to get ugly. You already have your little cruiser, there’s no need for us to quarrel when I am clearly justified. You do not have the pedigree of leadership to handle this situation. I’m sure that the others will see things my way.” Doublet made it sound like the most reasonable thing. Commander Reverie was not one to be swayed by honey-coated words and fixed the other unicorn with a dead level stare.

After several seconds, Doublet’s smile slowly faded into anger.

“Fine! If you will not listen to reason, I have no other choice than to petition my fellow patriots into ousting you. Justice will prevail, of that I have no doubt. Good day!” Doublet turned smartly and made to march away. Before he took two steps Winter spoke again.

“Doublet,” The prince paused. “You have permission to leave.” In a pique of rage, Doublet did not notice Abacus teleport only a few feet behind him.

“If Princess Luna were here, she would know I was in the right. Do not think I will forgive this affront you dishonorable brute!” Again he turned to go and froze at the sight of Abacus. With a huff, the prince practically galloped out of the room. After the door shut behind him, the mare shot Winter a questioning glance.

The Black Widow emerged from the Commander’s dark blue mane and ran eagerly to its mistress.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.” She scooped up the little robot in her magic and placed it on her back with its fellows. The mare took a seat at the table next to Winter. “So I see you’ve met Prince Doublet. Such a charming fellow, isn’t he?”

“You could call him that. He seems convinced that inherited title confers some kind of necessary loyalty. As I told him, Princess Luna gave me this command, and nopony but the goddess herself has the authority to dissuade me from my duty.” Suddenly rather uncomfortable, Abacus looked down at the conference table.

“I never realized you were a pony of… faith. I’m honestly rather surprised you are. That weapon prayer though, was rather stirring.” Winter smiled.

“And I’m surprised you are not a pony of faith, doctor.” She looked up at him in astonishment.

“Why do you say that? I am a pony of science and reason, not faith and superstition.”

“Because you’ve said you’ve worked closely with the princess. I can’t imagine anypony being that close to divinity and not acknowledging her as a goddess. Science and reason has nothing to do with what a mortal feels in the presence of an immortal.”

“B-but, Luna says that she’s not. She’s very adamant about it.”

“Of course she does. It’s a bit of a paradox really. If she did accept it and outright say that she was, that would mean she was false.” Reverie felt his mood ease discussing his beliefs. Thoughts of the Lady always calmed him. “Is there something you needed, Abacus? I don’t want to put you off with theological debate. I can see it’s making you uncomfortable.” She blushed a little behind her glasses.

“No! No not at all. I was just looking for this little guy.” She floated out the Widow and placed it in her hooves. “He seems to have taken a liking to you. Though Prince Doublet seems not to have.” Winter snorted in derision.

“I could care less what that pompous fool thinks of me.” The scarred stallion spoke an edge of venom.

“I wouldn’t dismiss him so lightly. I had to deal with him for two years as a political favor to his family. He has some technical skill, but not much beyond that.”

Together they talked for a while more about the annoyances of noble families, of the Leviathan and quantum jump space mechanics. Each found the other’s input stimulating and spoke for many hours at length, leaving behind the worries outside the walls of the great ship.

Author's Note

Woo! Alright, finally got this one done. There were some sticky points let me assure you. More of Winter's mysterious past and the changelings! Tell me what you folks think!

I have grand plans for the Obedience school make no mistake. It will probably consume a few chapters before things move in an even more momentous direction. No trivia question this time around, I'll get a few for the next chapter.

Don't worry, Fire Ghost readers! The next installment with Ghost and his companions is well on its way to completion.

Until then, I'll leave with this thought:

You stand before a demon, guarding a gateway that you must pass.You need only answer his riddle and you may continue, answer wrong, and face death.

"Feathers? Or Lead?"