Heart of Courage

Gauge led the way back to their ship with Twilight Sparkle following him. She held her new weapon with magic while the others carried Socket and her team. Trotting as quietly as possible, the group moved from shadow to shadow in order to avoid drawing any more cygnul. Navigating a maze of corridors and rooms, Twilight quickly lost her sense of direction, but Gauge must have had a map in his helmet because he took every turn without hesitation.

Twilight nervously surveyed the area around her as they traveled. Dark hallways pulled at her vision and she flinched at every strange sound. She wore no protective armor like the rest of the ponies, which left her feeling much more vulnerable. Her arcane bout with the two cygs earlier sapped a generous portion of her strength, leaving her with a massive headache.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, the unicorn thought. But at least we haven’t seen any more of those monsters. As the group opened a door into a medical bay of some sort, Twilight realized she spoke too soon. Two cygnul stood in the room near the opposite door, and both let out a screech as they raised their weapons.

Time seemed to slow as Twilight’s throat seized up and adrenaline flooded her body. Blocking his line of sight, Gauge yelled out. “Shoot, Twilight! Shoot!” She lowered the floating pistol until she could look down the sights. Lining up on the chest of the left creature, Twilight pulled the trigger with her telekinesis.

An ear-splitting BOOM filled the air, and the hand cannon almost went flying out of Twilight’s magical grip. Collecting herself, she tried shaking her head but it did nothing to quell the high pitched ringing in her ears. Staring forward again, she watched the cygnul fall to its knees with a gaping hole where much of its chest used to be. Black blood poured onto the metal floor as it finally slumped over. The cygnul’s partner began scuttling sideways while shooting towards the group.

Luckily, in its haste to avoid meeting the same fate of its partner, the cygnul’s first shot went high, missing them completely. Acting on instincts, Twilight quickly brought her gun to bear and rapidly pulled the trigger as she held on with her magic.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The sound nearly deafened her ears. Her first shots missed, but the last two hit the cyg, sending it tumbling into the wall. Its right leg, only partially attached, dangled uselessly and most of its upper left chest was a plastered smear across the bulkhead. Twilight’s heart and lungs raced out of control, but a pat on her shoulder from Gauge brought her back to her senses. “Good shooting, Twilight.” Because of the sharp ringing in her ears, his voice sounded muffled, as if she was listening underwater.

“Thanks!” Twilight yelled much louder than necessary, causing Gauge to cringe. Grimacing, the mare forced herself to apologize a little quieter, “Sorry!” The earth pony smiled and nodded at her before making his way through the room.

When the group passed the bodies, Twilight took note of her work. Even in death, both of the cygnul’s faces conveyed nothing but fiery anger and spite. As their glowing turquoise eyes dimmed, they stabbed at Twilight. Carefully, she walked by them, watching the light slowly go out in both monsters’ eyes, leaving blackness. Who or what could create such evil creatures, and why?

For the rest of the trip, they made good time and encountered no more resistance before meeting a group of marines guarding the airlock. Dead cyg bodies scattered in the last hallway signified that the vile creatures had attempted to capture the ship. The marines quickly grabbed Socket and rushed her onto the Rainbow Dash, towards the medical bay. The dead were quietly carried off towards another part of the ship.

By the time they returned to the frigate, most of Twilight’s hearing had recovered. Even with a slight ringing tone in the background, she had no trouble hearing the yelling that assailed her ears when she stepped onboard. “What the hell were you thinking, Twilight? You could have gotten yourself killed!” Twilight turned to see James walking up to her. He snatched the pistol from her telekinetic grasp and gave it to another marine. “That was a stupid decision,” he continued, “you are so lucky that the cygnul didn’t reach you. They would have ripped your heart out and showed it to you!”

Moisture collected in her eyes while her legs wobbled from her diminishing adrenaline high. “I’m sorry! I was worried about Socket Wrench!”

James’ face expressed anger, but his eyes betrayed a hint of fear and also understanding. The human wasn’t about to let her off easy though. “Never do that again! Hear me? Your group was the last one to return. If you took a little longer, we could have all been killed!”

Twilight’s ears drooped in shame and tears slid down her cheeks. She looked back up to see the anger in James’ face, replaced with confusion. “Where is Azure? She was supposed to be with you.”

Twilight dried her eyes on a sleeve before answering. “Oh, she had a plan to buy us time. She said not to worry though and that it has something to do with the word Samar. Does that mean anything?”

James leaned his head back as he closed his eyes before quietly muttering. “Azure, what are you doing?”

“What are you talking about, James?”

“Follow me.” He turned and made for the bridge with Twilight in tow. “The Samar is a famous ship. She actually is a patrol frigate like the Rainbow Dash, but she is much older. Several years ago, she was overseeing a colony evacuation to avoid a volcanic eruption when a lucky cygnul raiding force attacked.”

James took a deep breath before continuing. “Outgunned and outnumbered, a group of volunteers snuck aboard one of the cygnul ships and overload its reactor. The resulting explosion either destroyed or severely damaged the remaining cygnul ships, and the Samar was then able to move in and finish off the rest, allowing the civilian ships to escape.”

Twilight’s eyes widened at the realization. “Oh, Celestia! She is going to try to blow up the fortress with…with her still inside, isn’t she?”

“I think so.” He said as they turned through the door to the bridge. James took his seat and Twilight climbed into hers. She caught sight of Isamu shooting her a scolding look before turning back to his screen.

“Alice, try to punch through their jammers to reach Azure. Also, send out a message probe towards friendly space to tell them what happened. There should be a quantum communications buoy in the Serana system nearby.” James spoke to his computer.

Alice’s voice came through the speakers. “I have been trying to do that since the station came online, but I have had no luck. The cygs are easily overpowering my hailing attempts. I did get a probe out, though I doubt that there are any UEN ships nearby. The closest outpost is a mere automated space weather station and communications relay.”

“James!” Isamu called out. “Several anti-ship missile silos are powering up and more are coming online every second! We need to leave now!”

James leaned forward in thought. “Dammit. Azure will just have to wait for us to pick her up. If one of those missiles even detonates close by, we are in for a world of hurt.” He then sat back in his seat and started giving orders. “Disengage from the fortress Zhang; let’s widen the distance between us. Alert the crew of the impending acceleration. Our inertial dampers won’t be able to bleed all of it off.”

Twilight watched as the Dash pulled away from the active cygnul fortress. The formerly dead station now had more lights than the Canterlot Winter Festival. A deep rumble grew in intensity and Twilight felt herself being pushed into the back of her seat. Hull cameras showed twin dazzling blue contrails stretching behind the ship from Rainbow Dash’s engines, and the fortress quickly became a tiny pinprick of light on the backdrop of stars.

“Sir!” Zhang yelled out from his station. “I’m detecting a lot of missile launches and they all seem to be targeting us. James, they’re coming up fast!”

“Alice, take us down into Charybdis!”

“We will bleed off too much acceleration, Captain. I don’t recommend that course of action.”

“You’re right, but this gas giant’s hyper-active magnetic field and thick atmosphere will help hide us from the missiles. Our odds are much better down there than up here.” James yelled. “Take control of the five inch guns and the forty millimeter batteries. When they get in range, I want sand rounds and point defense fire protecting our tail!”

“Yes, Captain. Please brace yourselves; we are now entering the planet’s upper atmosphere. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”

The Rainbow Dash dove through yellow brownish clouds of ammonia and methane. Charybdis’ thin atmosphere normally would have offered little resistance, but the frigate shot through the sky fast enough to create a bow wake that flared brightly on her leading edges. The ship left a burning trail of superheated gas as she flew across the heavens, making her easily visible to the naked eye, but to the seeker heads in the anti-ship missiles, the electromagnetic interference from the planet made it harder to discern their target.

Twilight’s eyes opened wide with amazement at the scene around them. Even with the rough turbulence shaking the ship and its occupants, the beauty outside fully captured the small pony’s attention. The frigate’s nose burned with a flame that seemed to be as hot as Celestia’s sun itself, yet it still refused to melt. On either side, huge colorful cloud banks spanned the horizon as far as the eye could see. Earthy Browns, bright yellows, and fiery oranges painted quite an incredible backdrop.

Alice noticed Twilight admiring the view and the miniature holographic avatar of the earth pony popped up on the armrest of her chair. “Charybdis is a gas giant planet over one hundred times the mass of Harmony. It’s composed mainly of hydrogen and helium but the color of the clouds comes from trace amounts of ammonia and methane. Charybdis also has an unusually powerful magnetic field that interferes with the cyg missiles tracking us. Outside, the flames you see are from the intense heat generated from the ionized atmosphere due to the shockwave created by our high velocity.”

On Twilight’s computer, a small speed readout popped up that showed a number too large for her to fully comprehend. Alice then continued. “Rainbow Dash is currently flying several orders of magnitude faster than her namesake ever could. We don’t melt or implode, because her armor protects us from the heat and pressure. As long as we don’t descend too low, Dash will be able to withstand Charybdis’ denser atmosphere.”

“This is unbelievable. It’s a lot to take in.” Twilight muttered to the A.I. “Back in my time period, I rarely left the borders of Equestria. Now I’m in a space ship that is soaring through the clouds of an entirely different type of planet in an entirely different solar system!”

“The universe is a big place Twilight. It’s full of both terrifying and wonderful things.” The tiny pony gave Twilight a quick smile before blinking out. Rainbow Dash continued her dive, deep into the swirling Charybdis veil. As she began to taper her decent, a particularly large cloud bank blocked the way, but the frigate showed no hesitation as she fought against the raging wind currents and punched through to the other side.

Suddenly, the turbulence subsided as the ship entered a calm region of sorts. All of the shaking and jolting had stopped and from the exterior cameras, Twilight observed a wall of dark clouds circling an immeasurably large area. The opposite side was obscured not by haze, but by sheer distance. She used the hull-mounted cameras to take a full look around. Above shone the brilliant sky of stars she saw before. I think Princess Luna would have enjoyed this view.

The mare wore a half smile as she took in the scenery; the missiles on their tail forgotten in all the excitement of this new atmospheric phenomena. But, when Twilight looked under the ship, her heart leapt in her throat and she found it difficult to breathe. Clouds corkscrewed around in a massive spiral, dropping down into the largest vortex she had ever seen. Its depth stretched unfathomably far below. The churning atmosphere swallowed everything that fell into its gargantuan, gluttonous maw.

Without warning, the holographic earth pony reappeared on Twilight’s chair. “This is one of those frighteningly powerful things in our universe. In these gas giants, sometimes the weather does crazy things like this. The vortex you see is only slightly smaller than the diameter of Harmony and the winds are spinning at thousands of miles per hour. Oh, and Twilight…” the lavender unicorn looked at the A.I., “this isn’t even the scariest or most dangerous thing in the universe; it’s nowhere close.”

“What could possibly be worse than this?” Twilight slowly asked with a nervous voice. She almost didn’t want to know the answer to such a question, but as usual, her curiosity got the best of her.

“Well, there are neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, hypernovae, singularities…” Alice froze mid-sentence. The holographic pony tilted her head and looked to the side as if she was thinking about something. Then her eyes widened as she blinked out of existence.

Twilight was extremely confused until Alice reappeared an instant later on James’ chair. “Captain, we didn’t lose all of the missiles!”

“What!” He shouted as Alice pulled up a view from the stern of the ship. The storm they had just passed through took up the entire screen as a wall of orange and brown, with flashes of light giving away the impact points of cloud-to-cloud lighting. After a dozen seconds or so, missiles began punching out of the cumulonimbus wall. Alice marked each with a red icon to make them easier to see. Very quickly, the screen became crowded with icons.

“Dammit, the planet should have hid us!” James struck his armrest in frustration.

Zhang calmly called back. “It did, Captain. They launched a lot more missiles at us than what I see here. This is only a tiny fraction of what the cygs threw our way.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” James snapped.

“You shouldn’t blame yourself, Captain. Your course of action was the best option possible.”

“Well it makes me feel better.” Dmitri spoke up from his chair, only to quiet down when both Isamu and James gave him a steely look.

Twilight asked James. “What are we going to do? Can you make a shield around us or something?”

Alice shook her head. “Rainbow does have her own shields but they can’t withstand the destructive yield from one of those anti-ship missiles. I have to shoot them down with our defense system. Unfortunately, its range is very limited inside of an atmosphere.”

“Good hunting, Alice.” Isamu said. The A.I. nodded towards him then vanished again.

Her voice then came over the speakers once more. “Missiles are now entering my range envelope. I am opening fire.” The ship began shuddering again like it did during the assault on the fortress, but now, between each heavy shake, a staccato of vibrations broke the silence. Twilight pulled up the camera mounts on the rear of a ship to get a better view of what was happening.

Rainbow Dash continued her flight across the maw swirling below. She kept a level and straight heading, trying to pass over the maelstrom as quick as possible. Dotted along her surface, squat double barreled turrets pointed towards her stern and fired continuously behind the frigate. Their shells detonated with puffs of dark smoke among the oncoming missiles while flashes and sparkles lit up the horizon, marking the deaths of the cygnul weapons.

Not visible before, Twilight noticed that several dozen smaller gun emplacements had folded out of hidden recesses in the hull. These single barreled guns fired a lot faster than the larger double barreled weapons did. They swiveled around quickly as they tracked their prey across the swirling sky.

Even though Alice devastated the incoming swarm, it didn’t take long for the cygnul missiles to close in with the patrol frigate. Dash had knocked most of them out of the air, but the few left were getting very close. In a last ditch attempt to avoid the remaining ship killing weapons, Alice brought the ship in a series of tight turns. It worked for a moment as two missiles flew overhead and were easily shot down. But the turns bled off too much speed and a lone missile slipped past Alice’s defensive screen.

To Twilight, time began to crawl. She watched the lightning fast streak as it seemed to dance through the interlocking curtain of gunfire. At the last second, it pulled slightly upwards before diving into the hull above the starboard engine. A blinding flash of light flared for a split second before all of the camera feeds on the topside of the frigate cut out.

The detonation hit the Dash like a sledgehammer. Her bow shot up as the expanding cloud of superheated gas forced her stern downwards. The impact pushed Twilight so hard into the seat of her chair that she nearly blacked out. Luckily she had strapped herself in as did most of the crew, but the few who hadn’t were trying to recover after being tossed like ragdolls.

As Twilight Sparkle blinked away stars, she saw Isamu already working frantically at his station. Next to her, James continued to shake his head, trying to collect his thoughts. Dmitri lay sprawled on the ground, holding a hoof against one of his eyes. He must not have buckled up, Twilight thought, concerned for the rambunctious pony. Red lights flashed, casting dark shadows and an alarm klaxon blared from the back somewhere. Twilight rubbed her hurting hears with her hooves, when she realized Alice was shouting at James.

“Captain, we’ve lost engine number one! I had to eject the reactor; its shielding was cracked and it was about to blow!” Suddenly a loud boom reverberated through the ship from a nearby explosion. “We had a major power surge and engine number two is dying! The artificial gravity and life support suite are still working but not much else is!”

Still groggy, James had a hand on his forehead. “Alice, what’s happening?” He asked the tiny holographic earth pony on his chair.

“James, we are falling!” She yelled at him, stamping a hoof in frustration. “I’m doing all I can, but I can’t stop our descent!”

Twilight’s eyes grew impossibly large. She felt her stomach clench as the nose of the Rainbow Dash finally lost its upward momentum, and quickly swung towards the center of the planet. The hungry mouth of the twelve thousand kilometer wide vortex filled up the entire forward view screen. With no engine power, the frigate fell and rapidly gained speed, shaking from the thickening turbulent atmosphere.

“Alice! Can you jumpstart the port reactor?” James began pulling windows across his holographic screen as he looked for any way to save his ship.

“I can’t from here. It would require manual reactivation, but all of the mechanics are sealing off the starboard engine. Maybe we could….” Alice trailed off for a second before she jumped with surprise. “James, someone else is in the engine compartment.” A camera screen popped up to show a heavily bandaged pegasus working on a keyboard of sorts before limping over to tighten a pipe fitting.

James leaned forward, narrowing his eyes for a second before shooting back against his seat. “What the hell is Socket doing down there?”

Twilight watched the butterscotch pegasus as she tried to force various machinery to restart. Even through the camera feed, her grimace of pain was hard to miss. Alice began rapidly talking again. “Captain, I can’t reach her! The speakers in the area must be down! I’m also detecting extremely high temperatures, meaning the coolant system isn’t working!”

Socket tried to tighten a large pipe fitting that had a column of steam emitting from the coupling. Her body shook with strain as she pulled the wrench down to the ground. Sweat dripped from her brow and sizzled on the metal floor plates.

“She is going to die if she doesn’t get out of there!” James yelled as he jumped up. The captain stared at the feed showing the pegasus fighting to save his ship. Shaking his head, he turned towards the purple unicorn with pleading eyes. “Twilight, I don’t want to put anymore strain on you. You’ve been through a lot recently, but please help me save Socket. Teleport me to the engine room with her. Can you do that?”

Twilight quickly assessed the situation. My teleportation spell only works if I take someone with me. He must not know that or else he wouldn’t have asked. She stole a quick glance at the video feed from the engine room. I didn’t save her in that fortress just to watch her die now. Ugh, James won’t be happy with me for this.

The mare trotted over to James and put a hoof into his open hand. “Okay,” she fought to steady her tone, “I’ll teleport you to Socket.” Twilight moved to stare at the far wall to focus on charging the spell. Even though the battle on the station had taken a lot out of her, she had enough strength to perform this one task. On the other hoof, it still sent a sharp pain through her head, bringing a grimace of pain to her face.

Isamu must have sensed something in her tone or seen something on her face, because as the spell reached fruition, he jumped up and yelled out, “No!” but both Twilight and James had already vanished in a blaze of pinkish light. The comfortable and well-lit bridge of the frigate flashed away, to be replaced with darkness and a wash of sweltering hot air.

Stifling and unbearable heat assaulted Twilight’s senses. Like a smothering weighted blanket, the temperature sapped away at the unicorn pony’s strength and it did not take long for her purple coat quickly became drenched with sweat. The spell had also put a great deal of strain on her horn, manifesting itself as a painful headache pinpointed at the spot where her horn met her forehead. I will need to take it easy after we get through this… if we get through this. She scanned her surroundings and spotted Socket still wrestling with the pipe. The metal floor burned her hooves but she forced herself to walk forward.

Next to her, James finally noticed that he had not teleported alone. “What the hell, Twilight! You were only supposed to send me!” Beads of sweat ran down his face and quickly soaked into his clothes.

“I’m sorry, James. I could not have left Socket here anymore than you could.” She then turned and trotted over to the wounded pegasus as the human shook his head in frustration before joining the two ponies.

Socket’s eyes widened in surprise at first at the sight of the new company, but she quickly refocused on the task at hand. “James, if I can tighten this pipe, the coolant system will activate and we can restart the reactor.

“Okay, got it. Twilight, since you’re here, give us a hoof.” James then grabbed part of the wrench and began straining to pull it down. His muscles bulged and the veins in his arms nearly jumped out of his skin. Perspiration poured off of him as his body fought to maintain a stable temperature in the incredible heat.

Twilight joined them and began to help. She clenched her teeth and ignored the scalding metal burning her hooves. Her muscles strained for all their worth, but it felt like the pipe fitting would not move even a hair. Almost shaking with fatigue, she didn’t think she could continue pulling when a high pitched screech sounded. The wrench finally began twisting.

The three of them slowly brought the pipe wrench downward and sealed off the leak. Once the steam jet had stopped, an alert sounded from a console high up on the wall, but the metal scaffolding that led up there had partially collapsed from the impact with the missile. Socket turned to Twilight. “Can you levitate me up there? I still can’t fly yet.”

“Sure,” replied the unicorn, even though she did not feel convinced her tired body could manage it smoothly. Twilight took in a deep steadying breath, trying to clear her mind before powering up a simple levitation spell. A purplish nimbus of magic encased Socket Wrench, and she floated to the remaining platform with only a few jerks here and there as Twilight’s concentration and strength wavered.

Landing safely, the pegasus limped over to the console and immediately went to work as James and Twilight watched. “Hurry up, Socket! I don’t know how much longer we have before the Dash falls below the minimum safe depth. After that, it won’t matter if the engine works because Charybdis’ pressure will crush us.” James called up at her.

“I’m going to restart the reactor now.” She called down before pressing something on the console’s touch screen. A high pitched whine began to sound before cutting off. Socket’s ears swiveled quizzically before she ducked down and tore off the front panel on the engine controls. “The power overload must have blown something. I have to short circuit the emergency ignition.”

James pondered for a second before his eyes grew large. “Socket!” He yelled. “There are a couple hundred thousand volts in that circuit!”

The pegasus pulled out two thick cables with frayed ends. “I know James.” She had a sad look of determination on her face, “I have to save the crew, no matter the cost. It’s been an honor serving you, Captain.” She flashed a quick, sad smile before forcing the two cables together.

“Socket!” Twilight cried out as a bright blue flash blinded her and a loud buzz filled the air. After it subsided, the high pitched whine came back but this time it continued to grow in pitch before a rumbling shook through the floor. For a moment, it felt like the deck had rotated upwards, pulling her along with it.

Compensating for the errant shifting gravity, Twilight took a wider stance while she blinked away the blue spots in her vision. Able to see again, she looked up to where Socket lay unmoving, next to the cables and console. The unicorn mare ignored her aches and pains and quickly grabbed the pegasus with her telekinesis, gently lowering her to the floor. James rushed around Twilight and grabbed Socket, protectively holding her close.

“Twilight, teleport us to the medical bay now!” he yelled as he reached out to grab Twilight’s mane.

She quickly pictured the room and forced all of her remaining magical energy into the image. I’m going to have a horrible migraine later. She thought as the three of them popped out of the engine room and reappeared in a busy medical bay. Injured ponies and humans filled most of the beds as Victoria and other doctors worked quickly. James quickly put Socket onto an unoccupied gurney. “Victoria, get over here now! She isn’t breathing!”

The blond-maned human rushed to the group and placed her glowing arm-mounted scanner over Socket’s body. “How did she sneak out of here?” she asked no one in particular. After a few seconds in silence, Victoria held up her left hand which had some sort of mechanical looking glove and gauntlet. “Her heart has an arrhythmia. I’m going to shock her.” Then she fiddled with the computer on her forearm before placing her hand on Socket’s chest. A zap sounded and the pegasus involuntarily seized up before relaxing limply on the table. Victoria counted to three and shocked Socket again, trying to reset her heart.

Twilight hardly breathed as she watched Victoria work to bring Socket back. It took four shocks before the pony finally drew in a shuddering breath. Victoria then strapped her down and placed her hand on various points of her body while the computer beeped periodically. “She should make it, James. Now go get us the hell out of here!” The human shot Fletcher and Twilight a smile before returning to work.

“Come on, Twilight!” James said as he turned and began sprinting back to the bridge. She had to gallop to keep up with him but it didn’t take too long to travel through the ship. Every time her hooves hit the ground, a wave of pain rushed through her head, but she continued to push through.

As they bolted into the control room, James called out. “Alice, give me an update!”

Breathing heavily, Twilight made her way to her chair when she noticed that on the front screen, she saw a black night full of stars rather than the hungry vortex from before. I’ve never been so happy to see stars before.

The holographic pony reappeared on the captain’s chair. “You restarted that engine just in time. Any lower, and Rainbow Dash would have been crushed. We are almost into orbit, but with only one reactor, it will take some time to jump. We also still haven’t heard from Azure yet.”

Dmitri huffed and looked over at James with one good eye. The other had swelled up enough to render it unusable for the foreseeable future. “Well, at least we aren’t being shot at anymore.”

Just as the earth pony finished speaking, a red alert popped up on Isamu Zhang’s computer. He leaned forward to scan the data scrolling up on his screen “Sir, I’m detecting several subspace jumps nearby. Our gravimeter is reading two frigates and four corvettes, and they just turned towards us.” He quickly spun around to face Twilight and Fletcher. “James, they are cygnul!”

Before anyone could react, Alice’s voice filled the room. “Enemy ships are opening fire!”

“All hands brace for impact!” James Fletcher yelled out on the intercom a second before the ship shuttered under the first of many hammer-like blows. “Alice, return fire now!”

“Many of our secondary weapons were damaged by the missile strike but I am firing back with what we have. Shields have dropped to ten percent.” A few recognizable thuds sounded between the cygnul strikes as Rainbow Dash tried to defend herself.

“Then charge up the jump drive! Get us out of here!”

“I’m putting all of our spare power into the shields. It would take a minimum of five minutes just to jump a short distance away. The cygnul haven’t opened up with main guns, just secondary. It looks like they want to capture us.”

James sat in silence for a second as he thought over the multitude of possible scenarios that could play out from this situation. Then he spoke calmly. “We can’t let them capture us or the ship. Alice, at the last second, when there’s no chance of escape, overload the reactor. Maybe we can take a few of the bastards with us.”

Twilight’s mouth hung agape as she froze in pure shock. Except for the sounds from the raging battle, no one in the control room moved or spoke. Even the usually boisterous Dmitri sat still, staring at his hooves. After a long moment, Twilight finally broke the silence. “So, is this it?”

“I’m sorry, Twilight.” James took his time answering. “There is no chance of rescue if we are captured. We all would be tortured to death and I won’t let that happen... I’m sorry about everything you’ve had to go through.” James then smiled at her. “You would have made a hell of a soldier though. Princess Celestia would have been proud.”

A small beep on Isamu’s computer caught his attention. Discerning its cause, the human quietly spoke up. “At this point, I don’t think it matters anymore, but our gravimeter just picked up a cruiser jumping in. Probably their fleet’s flagship. This… will be over quickly.” He then let out a heavy sigh. “At least it will be painless.”