The center console in the Newmoon spacecraft suddenly sprung to life as the ship drifted lifelessly through space, smoothly continuing on it's endless journey through the cosmos. It's twenty cryogenic-stasis-induced occupants unable to hear the transmission as it was just barely was caught within the ship's communication range.
"ffffffffffff- I- fffffsssssffff- an- sffss- ypon- ffsss- out the- sffffsfsssss-", The trasnmission was completely drowned out in static and the console went dark.
A few minutes later, another transmission was made, this one relatively clearer and it's male occupant huffed as if out of breath, "Please, Luna dammit! Please! If anyone can here this! This is Titan, I am a lieutenant from the third legion of the Lunar Armada! Please Respond!"
The voice was interrupted by the sound of laser fire and a loud explosion, the soldier on the radio cried out before returning to the communicator, "Repeat- Augh!- Is anypony out there! RESPO- ACK!", The voice jerked to a stop and somepony started yelling in the static-y background.
Once again the transmission was drowned out be static until the connection cut out. It never came back online.
A pod hissed opened and it's steel door slid off, the cold air from inside forming misty clouds that revealed the form of a dark blue pegasus mare, frost covering her already silvery mane and tail. She blinked her eyes open and struggled into a sitting position, she yawned, her mind groggy and unclear due to about a hundred years in stasis. Then with one swift movement she bounded out of the pod, hooves rattling loudly on the metal floor of the ship. She shook the last remaining bits of frost from her mane and began to trot down the hall, trying to remember what she had ever done on the ship besides sleep.
The Newmoon, was an exploration vessel. Originally used for exploring the far reaches of space, designed so that even without a pilot, the ship would still function. It had been drifting for approximately seven hundred and twenty three years, it's twenty pony and griffon crew woken up individually every hundred years or so to do an equipment check. Starlight was heading towards the bridge, her jumpsuit was embroidered with a black 2 on each shoulder and was a slightly lighter shade of blue than her coat. Her cutie mark, a swirling galaxy, was printed on the fabric over one of her flanks. She stretched her wings for what seemed like the thirtieth time since waking as she walked through the doors to the rather large and spacious bridge.
The bridge was actually designed for multiple personnel to use at once. Vaguely shaped like a half-moon, about ten seats ringed around a raised central console. Each seat had it's own monitor and control panel for when things got difficult (which they rarely ever did). Magic-enhanced industrial glass wrapped around the semi-circle command hub. Starlight trotted in and immediately began a system check at one of the far right consoles when she noticed a flashing yellow light on the central console. Something she hadn't seen in a long time. The light meant that the ship had picked up a radio transmission.
Quickly trotting over to another console, Starlight looked over the neat grid-work of buttons, each small red square labeled with a specific number. She looked until she found the right one, the one marked with a large bold '1' and tapped her hoof to the red tile.
Soon a hiss from the doors behind her announced the arrival of another crew-member. Forge, one of the Newmoon's many mechanics and unofficial leading officer (He had always acted like he knew what he was doing so the crew thought it best just to listen to him), stopped in front of her, looking annoyed.
His horn glowed a light green color along with his mane and tail, while his coat was a dark chocolate brown. He carried a toolbox behind him, floating it in the aura of his magic. "What happened? Why are we both awake?", Starlight just waved him over with a wing and let him follow her to the main console
"I... I think someone, or something tried to contact us", her words made Forge stiffen, his toolbox slowly and steadily lowered itself to the ground as he walked quickly up to the console, finally landing on the floor with an unceremonious clank.
"Are you messin with me Star? Cause I'm pretty sure-", then he saw the light, a yellow square blinking from it's place on the grey metal plating, "By Celestia's light", he nudged Starlight out of the way and started pushing buttons rapidly with his hooves, causing portions of the electronic interface in the bridge to light up, the systems giving numerous low hums as they were turned on. He pushed one last button and the recording burst into a violent mix of laser fire and explosions.
"Please, Luna dammit! Please...
Skyler was in trouble, The invaders had cut them off yet again. All that now consisted of her squad was, a unicorn mare named Fox, a mechanic from the fallen colony out fitted with a breathing mask to cope with the semi-terraformed atmosphere, and George, squad 13's earth-pony weapons specialists who had mounted a gattling gun to the right shoulder pad of his armor, the magic-infused Equestrian tech weighing little to nothing. They panted heavily in their helmets as they continued to gallop across the sandy red shrub-covered surface of Saram, the planet that he had helped to capture not seven weeks ago. Now, their Squad leader, Titan, was dead and they were on the run, again. The invaders, some called them Humans, were always right on their tails, never letting them rest. Sometimes they would stop somewhere that looked to be safe only to find that the entrance was littered with so many mines that to touch even one of them was instant incineration, that's how they lost Claud, poor kid.
George stopped suddenly and waved his hoof, his multi-barreled gun swiveling to the sky, "get down, incoming raptor", a deep voice whispered into Skyler's helmet radio channel.
The large earth-pony crouched down low and Skyler hoped that the human star-fighter wouldn't notice the four light grey spots crouching in the dead brush below them. Skyler watched as a blue and white triangle-shaped spacecraft streak by, leaving a white jet-stream in it's wake.
After about thirty seconds, Skyler put her hoof to the side of her helmet, opening the communications channel to her companions, "Head count. This is Sky checking in", she listened to the different voices respond to his command.
"This is Fox, checking in".
"George, is here"
Skyler looked to her right to find the mechanic staring at the sky in the direction of the human raptor, "Oh! I- I- I'm h- here", the mechanic stuttered from his place in the bushes.
With a quick check for any casualties, they all got up and continued on their way in the same direction that they had been going for days,
forward.
"Cover Me!!!", Skyler screamed into her helmet as she jumped their cover and ran towards the squad of humans.
They wore white-ish armor plating that covered their entire body and a single wide visor covered their faces. behind them was a Chimera-class battletank, its chunky structure gliding about two feet above the ground.
"I've got you Sky!", George said as the large stallion stood up from behind his cover and began to open fire with his minigun, the almost white magic-coated projectiles streaking towards the group of alien soldiers. Now, with the humans running for cover, Sky continued to gallop towards the tank. Just before she ran into it, the smaller pony fell on her side and slid the rest of the way beneath the behemoth of a war machine.
None of the humans noticed her quickly slap a magi-charge to the belly of the tank before darting out and away from the group.
Instead, they laughed as they watched the ponies ran, mockingly shooting at them while purposefully missing their target.
"Yeah! Run you motherfu-"
Then suddenly their tank burst open and erupted into flames, sending them into a disarray and flinging them in all directions. The next thing the bipeds saw was the form of the largest pony returning to gallop back at them, the multi-barreled gattling gun on its back beginning to rotate as its projectiles were magically teleported directly from the pony's saddlebags, and into the weapon itself.
It was also the last thing they saw.
Thwack!
"NOT SO TALKATIVE NOW ARE YA?!"
Thwack!
"HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW?!"
Thwack! Thwack!
"I SAID-", Skyler's "interrogation" was finally stopped by Fox, the red-orange unicorn mare had caught her hoof and was slowly shaking her head as she looked back at their captive.
The new prisoner was a human, specifically the one that yelled taunts at them during the ambush with the Chimera. His face was black and blue with bruises and his nose was bleeding, there was a tired, glazed over look in his eyes. "I think you should give it a rest", Fox said sternly,"If you kill it, we won't get any information whatsoever".
The human captive only groaned in response.
Skyler grumbled as she glared at the human before yanking her bloodied hoof back out of Fox's grasp, "Fine, I'll go take watch at the entrance", she said through her teeth before turning and stomping away, grabbing up her rifle on her way.
The ponies had temporarily set up camp in a nearby cave, its red sandstone walls giving them shelter from the harsh sandstorms of the partially habitable surface of Mars, as the humans called it. The human that they caught was actually a technician, he had just lifted the opening at the front of the tank and was the one yelling insults before bailing when he heard the soft ping of the charge being set by Skyler.
Fox watched Skyler leave, her emerald eyes squinted at the mare's backside in annoyance.
"Don't be too hard on her Fox", rumbled George off to the side, his hooves busy rubbing a stained rag up and down the many barrels of his minigun. "You know as well as I do that she was close to Titan before he... Passed", he paused for a moment before lifting his gaze to the mare in front of him, "Sky'll get better once we get rid of the human, don't worry", the large earthpony then returned to his weapon, scrubbing at it to rid the mechanisms of as much dust and grime as he could.
Fox sighed heavily before casting a glance at the cave entrance, looking at the shadowy silhouette of Skyler against the darkening night sky,"I hope your right G", she said, silently wondering if Titan's transmission, his last words, had reached their destination, and that this nightmare of a life would soon come to an end.
"So what should we do?", one said.
"Should we send a reply?", asked another
"How do we know its not a trap?", inquired a third
"HEY!", a single voice rang out over the others, causing a silence to drift over the group of ponies now gathered in the bridge of the Newmoon. Forge and Starlight stood on the raised platform that surrounded the central console, breathing heavily as he looked around at his crew-mates. "One. At. A. Time. Please! I don't know about you guys but, my post-stasis head is NOT happy with more than one conversation", He once again scanned the small crowd, making sure he had their attention before continuing,"You've probably already heard about the transmission that Starlight here came across while doing her shift here in the bridge. For the few of you who haven't however, here's the jist' of it. The transmission we found is a distress signal, apparently from a soldier of the Lunar Armada itself. The guy didn't say much, but it was made pretty clear that they were desperate to get out of there, seemingly by any means necessary", the unicorn stallion paused for a moment, letting a soft chattering to fill the room as the crew worked out their options. Soon, Forge cleared his throat letting the room fall silent again before continuing, "Our options are quite obvious. We could simply ignore it. Erase the message from the ship's memory and go back to the pods to forget it ever happened", he paused for a bit to let it sink in, "Or... We could go to help. We've managed to trace the signal to the planet Saram, which happens to look uninhabited according to the ships archives. This planet is actually not far from our current location as it is now in the nexe sector over in the Sol system", he looked around at the crew once more, staring deeply into the eyes of each and every member onboard, "However we must act quickly. We will be closest to the planet in only a few more hours, so if we decide to go and give them what help we can, we must start the journey soon..."
