MLP 40K: For Celestia

Chapters

Wouldn't be 40K related without that certain opening
Chapter 1: Embarkation
Chapter 2: Under Way
Chapter 3: Wolves in sheep's clothing
Chapter 4: Dream a little dream of me
Chapter 5: Recovery
Chapter 6: On their own, but not alone
Chapter 7: Leg work

Wouldn't be 40K related without that certain opening

Author's Note

This is not a chapter so much as a universe primer, pretty much what Games Workshop does at the front of their 40K material. So consider this homage a basic universe primer for this particular MLP 40K setting.

Wouldn't be 40K related without that certain opening

The 40K Primer, Ponified

It is the 41st Millennium. For more than 10 millennia Celestia has sat immobile on the Royal Throne of Equestria. She is the master of Ponykind by the will of the Elements and master of countless worlds by the might of Her inexhaustible armies. She is an Alicorn Princess writhing invisibly with power from the Age of Harmony. She is the Canterlot Lord for whom a thousand foals are sacrificed every day, so that she may never truly die.

Yet even in Her deathless state, Celestia continues Her eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the hatred infested miasma of the Everfree, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Harmonican, the magical manifestation of Celestia's will. Vast armies give battle in Her name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst her soldiers are the Equestris Saddelus, the Space Mare-ines, bio-engineered super equines. Their comrades-in-hoof are legion: the Equestrian Guard and countless system defense forces, the ever vigilant Alicorn Inquisition, and the tech-ponies of the Equestris Techanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat to Ponykind from Bipeds, Hateraticks, Non-Pony Equines, and far, far worse.

To be a Pony in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in a regime that is at least 20% cooler than any other imaginable. These are the tales of these times. Forget the power of science and technology, for the tech ponies have forgotten so much, that it can never be re-learned. Forget the promises of peace and understanding, for in the Grim Darkness of the Grimdark, there is only Epic Pony War. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of (s)laughter, clopping, and the bonds of those who have discovered true friendship.

Chapter 1: Embarkation

Bashkir Secundus: High orbit

Sens

The charcoal pegasus stood before the airlock door with an air of impassiveness. With his short clipped red mane and piercing violet eyes, anypony could feel the authority practically radiating off of the Accord's executive officer. Commander Sens Chal's ears twitched as they picked up the faint clop-clank of hooves on the steel deck-plating as somepony approached him from behind.

Without turning he addressed the quite expected intruder with a brusque tone. "Mister Tar Mack. I trust you have a sufficiently good reason for being here after I dismissed both you and your loading crews?"

Sens had received the order earlier in the vessel's day cycle that a group of Inquisition agents would be boarding the vessel. Included with the orders were strict secrecy policies including one to minimize the number of ponies on-board who saw or interacted with the group. He should have known that the launch bay's load-master wasn't going to just sit back and be dismissed... Not from his own loading bay at any rate.

The clop-clanks continued until an unruly slate mane and silvery muzzle entered Sens' peripheral vision. Sens continued to look forward even as Mack's head turned to face him to try boring a hole in the side of his face with a stare from his golden eyes.

"With all due respect, Sir, while I get the need for all the sneakiness, I really need to be in there. You know you can't trust the servitors alone. They'll wreck my bay and do Celestia knows what to the visitor's ship.

Keeping his eyes forward, Sens mentally weighed his options. Option one: Order Mack back to his quarters till the visitors were squared away... And spend the rest of his tour of duty hearing about that one time his loading bay got "wrecked." Option 2: Let his best load-master in and pray that the Inquisitorial agents wouldn't shoot him as a "non-essential pony."

He decided. "Your funeral if they decide you look better floating in the void."

The golden eyes widened for a moment before becoming skeptical again. "Who are these ponies anyways? They couldn't... I mean they wouldn't..."

Sens figured he might as well tell the poor pegasus what he had just gotten himself into. "They're Inquisition. If they think you 'don't need to know' then who knows what they'll do."

Mack seemed to consider this for a second before turning his head back towards the door. Sens heard Mack swallowing quite loudly.

A harsh buzzer sounded and the amber light above the airlock door changed to an emerald green. With the whine of hydraulics and a sharp hiss of equalizing air pressure the heavy airlock door began to lift open. Sens felt the chilled air wash over his pasterns, then his fetlocks and cannons. The door's snail's pace might have been excruciating had Sens actually been looking forward to this meeting.

VIPs always wanted the impossible from him, to get a grand tour of the ship, demands to see the captain, suites that were better than the other passengers... And these were Inquisition agents, nopony knew what they would want. Everypony had heard stories about the Inquisition. Sens was pretty sure that most was just bridle gossip, but he also knew that most rumors had some grounding in truth. The question always came down to "how much?"

As the door raised passed his withers, Sens ducked his head and moved forward into the expansive launch bay. The servitor ponies had already been active for a few minutes and were in the process of attaching refueling lines to the aquila-class shuttle that had been clamped to a docking sled.

As Sens approached the boarding ramp of the shuttle he noticed that Mack had flown over to the servitors and had started barking out orders. Despite the unintelligible yelling and profanity Sens was able to figure out that the servitors had managed to tangle the fluid lines and were about to put the wrong liquids into the wrong tanks. Sens felt much better about allowing Mack into the bay now. The guests would have been... mildly upset if the fuel oxidizer had accidentally been added to the engine lubricant.

When Sens reached the base of the craft the boarding ramp had already lowered and the shuttle's inner airlock was opening. He had prepared a small welcoming blurb for the occupants. He had practiced it several times since he had received his orders earlier, including once while waiting for the loading bay to pressurize.

"Welcome esteemed Inq..." Was as far as Sens got before an animate cyan blur rocketed past him.

Sens' eyed widened as the blur continued around to the other side of the shuttle yelling "Get those things the Hay away from My Ship!"

Sens felt a chill run down the length of his spine as the sounds of metal on metal impacts and yelling erupted from where he now imagined Mack to be. He was about to run towards the commotion but stopped himself when he spotted movement at the top of the ramp. His ears picked up a faint sound that he could almost mistake for... His ears perked up again as the sound repeated itself, if he didn't know any better he would have sworn it sounded like a... chuckle?

Slowly walking down the boarding ramp was a bluish purple unicorn. He wore a dark grey cloak that would have covered him entirely had the hood not been down. Crimson eyes stared out from under a mane of raven black to meet Sens' own. As he reached the bottom of the ramp, one of the unicorn's ears swiveled in response to a loud clattering and renewed yelling from the far side of the shuttle. The unicorn's face took on a dour cast.

When he spoke, the tone was quite somber. "I will apologize now for your load master. It seems that my pilot has gotten ahold of him. She tends to get a little... murderous when anyone but her touches our... well Her ship."

Sens felt the color drain from him face. They wouldn't... just because... Sens almost jumped out of his skin when the unicorn suddenly leaned in towards him, stopping a mere hoof's length away. Sens had no idea what to do. There was no protocol for when things went this horribly wrong...

His attention was drawn by the sound of frantic galloping that began to work its way around the side of the shuttle. His mind worked overtime feeding him horrible images. He had seen plenty of boarding actions and seen the horrors of shipboard combat first-hoof. What he saw was so unexpected that he actually turned his head in disbelief. He stared, nonplussed, at the spectacle that presented itself before him.

His best load master was running at a full gallop, wide eyed and covered in hydraulic fluid. He was being chased by an angry cyan pegagus who was swinging around a length of rubber hydraulic tubing. Every swing sprayed the already soaked load-master with more of the tacky substance.

Sens felt his right eye begin to twitch. When he returned his gaze to the unicorn he saw the unicorn was no longer leaned in close and his face was all scrunched up. The look of barely contained mirth was unmistakable.

Sens' ears drooped and both his head and eyes fell to half mast as the unicorn sidled around him and tossed his left foreleg around Sens' shoulders.

When he opened his mouth to speak again, the gruffness had been replaced by a surprisingly normal albeit deep voice... Which was also interspersed with chuckles and downright laughter. "You... You might wanna give that poor... poor.... pony a double shower ration tonight, he's..."

He was laughing then, his foreleg clopping up against Sens' shoulder. Clopping... might as well be clopping right up against him for the level of discomfort Sens was feeling at the moment. Sens idly thought how if the unicorn had been physically assaulting him from the other side he would at least have been able to draw his sidearm and shoot... himself. As things were, he just released a weary sigh.

The unicorn detached himself and moved back to face Sen's front. He offered a purple hoof. Sens looked at it for a moment like it might suddenly bite him. He raised his own hoof and was thankful that there was only a single, normal shake.

"I'm Interrogator Tracks." The unicorn stated. "You must be Executive Officer Sens Chal."

Sens' mind continued to spin as Tracks talked. "Don't worry about the mess, Free Fall over there will clean it up once she cools down a bit. I wasn't lying when I said she got crazy over other ponies touching her ship... Hello?"

Sens realized that Tracks was waving a hoof in front of his face. This whole situation had Sens in some kind of shock. He realized that he just needed to grab the initiative in the conversation again.

"We have guest quarters..." He stopped and blinked his eyes. He saw Mack, who was chasing the now cyan and splotchy white pegasus. He was chasing her with a look of vengeance upon his features and a portable fire suppression unit. Mack depressed the trigger and blasted the hysterically laughing, Free Fall?, with the white powdery fire retardant. She was laughing like a crazy pony and his load master was laughing maniacally as well. As he continued to watch the back and forth he started giving serious thought as to how to properly word his report to the Accord's captain.

Chapter 2: Under Way

Bashkir System: En route to Everfree translation point

Tress

"They're insane." Captain Tress raised her eyebrows at Sens' comment. Her executive officer was usually harsh in judgement, especially of visitors to the Accord, but this statement passed his usual levels of ire.

Tress leaned forward and placed her hooves on the genuine wood table that was the centerpiece of her office. Her cobalt blue eyes looked at Sens and read his body language. Her overwhelming conclusion was that he was extremely perturbed by the Inquisitor's agents, maybe even frightened.

She ran a hoof through her white mane before speaking. "What makes you say that, Sens?"

Sens looked almost embarrassed as he unfolded a wing with a data slate held in it. The pause and Sens' demeanor immediately started her mind working. What could possibly have her executive officer in such a mental bind that he was reluctant to show her what the problem was? She extended her own wing and snatched the proffered device from her subordinate.

After placing the slate on the table Tress hoofed the playback feature. A few moments was all it took for a peculiar expression to cross her faded tan features. If she could see herself she would have registered a mixture of bafflement and regret.

"They've detained Tar Mack?" It was more a statement than a question.

"No." Sens' response drove a spike of ice into her heart as she considered the implications. Then she saw her load-master exchanging heated words with the cyan pegasus.

Her mind took the next step. Obviously Tar Mack was now decorating space. Great, the best load-master in ten years and the Inquisition kicked him out an airlock for Celestia knows what reason...

She realized Sens had been talking while her mind was conjuring horrors. "... and now Mack wants her to meet the rest of the load staff, says she's a real fun filly, once you get to know..."

"Mack's alive?" She interrupted.

"Of course he's alive! What have I just been saying?" Oddly enough, Sens was sincerely asking the question, as if even he did not believe what he was saying.

She wasn't sure either "They didn't vaporize him?"

"No."

"Void him to space?"

"No."

"She-" Tress was pointing at the powder covered pegasus. "didn't throttle him with that hose?"

"No."

Tress watched the rest of the footage with a mixture of disbelief and quite possibly abject horror.

"What in the 9 gates of Tartarus kind of Inquisition agents are these?" Tress' question hung in the air for a few moments.

"Well-" Sens spoke in a mildly rehearsed manner. "-I asked myself that one during my entire trip up here."

She tore her eyes away from the abominable data slate. "And?"

Sens' statement brought the conversation full circle. "They're insane."

Tracks

"Well, that could have gone better." Tracks glared at Devoid's comment. The jet black unicorn lazily returned the gaze with his cat-yellow eyes. Tracks broke eye contact first. A staring contest with Devoid always made his skin crawl.

The jet black unicorn didn't pounce on Track's momentary discomfort, he never did. Instead he muttered something under his breath regarding the Inquisition's reputation for random lethal violence being ruined. Tracks ignored that comment, there was work to be done.

The docking sled had moved their shuttle to one of the private hangars off of the main loading bay. Free Fall had spent the last half hour power washing all of the mess off of the bay deck plates with her new friend Tar Mack. Apparently they had bonded over that little exchange of hazardous chemicals. Track's skin itched just thinking about being covered in whatever it was they had been spraying each other with.

Devoid was busy doing whatever it was that he usually did, other than brooding and adding snarky comments at any rate. Tracks knew he was probably going over the equipment inventory, but he could have just as easily been busy reading his collection of lewd fiction.

Tracks settled himself in one of the seats in the shuttle's common area. The shuttle itself was customized for living in. Instead of the classic 6 standard passenger seats and the VIP ultra luxury accommodation, the interior had 6 sleeping bunks and a common area with 6 comfortable chairs and a small holo-projector.

Tracks hoofed the activation rune for the holo-projector and was rewarded with three flickering images, one red, one blue, and one green. Tracks gave the archaic device a hard hoof-smack and the image jumped into focus. The symbol for the Alicorn Inquisition, it was a stylized combination of the letters A and I, floated in the space above the device.

Tracks reached up to the neckline of his cloak and teased a necklace into his hoof. He pulled out a medallion that was in the shape of a stylized I. He looked at his badge of office with a mixture of pride and ambition. He looked forward to the day when his badge would have both letters. He removed the necklace and slotted the end into the holo-projector's data port.

The image of the Alicorn Inquisition dissolved and was replaced by the machine-spirit interface of the device. An automated voice that sounded like it was 50% pony, 50% static, and 50% grinding gears greeted him. "Hello Interrogator Tracks!" Oh, and 50% happy apparently.

Tracks looked at the flight plan that Sens had given to him before running away. It looked like it was going to be a two week trip to the edge of the Bashkir system, then two to six weeks in the Everfree, then another one to two weeks to get to Abyssinian Prime.

He didn't relish the thought of being cooped up on a naval frigate for one to two months, especially since he had managed to so thoroughly botch introductions. He wanted to blame Free Fall for that little bit, but he knew that it was his fault. He should have jammed the cockpit door when he heard her frothing at the bit about the servitors ponies. Or maybe you could have exerted some authority, mister wannabe Inquisitor.

"Shut up!" He told his inner voice. He knew he needed to work on those leadership skills if he wanted his promotion. But he didn't want to-

"Wow, Boss, I didn't even start talking yet." Devoid had somehow snuck into the common room without Tracks noticing. "Trying to preempt me from commenting on how we're prolly the laughing stock of the Accord's officers now?"

Tracks let out a sigh, he wasn't in the mood for this. "Don't you have something better to do?"

"Than bug you?" Devoid apparently caught the murderous look in Tracks' eyes because he turned around and exited the common room with surprising alacrity. Once Devoid's shock white tail was no longer visible, Tracks went back to the holo-projector and started going over the mission's destination. He let out a weary sigh. This was going to be a long trip.

Free

The view was extraordinary - Oh how Free Fall wished she could say that as she looked out of the view port. Instead all she could think of was how monotonous and boring space was. They had been moving to the translation point for two weeks now and any time now...

"Everfree translation in ten minutes." Drolled somepony who enjoyed their announcing duties as much as she enjoyed the view.

Tar Mack had offered to bring her up to the observation deck so she could enjoy the view. She wasn't quite sure why she had expected anything better than what her own personal experience told her. Space was called the void for a reason - there wasn't anything there to look at. The giant armored windows showed off the same great nothing that she experienced every time she had flown an orbital run.

Truth be told, she was far more interested in catching a glimpse of the Everfree before the protective shutters closed. She had heard somewhere that a pony could make a wish if they dared a glimpse upon first making translation. She had never traveled the Everfree before, she had always been content running cargo and VIPs to and from orbit. That all changed when she ended up transporting a VIP who just so happened to be an Inquisitor...

"Everfree translation in five minutes."

She wanted them to just get on with it. She hated waiting. Mack wasn't even trying to make small talk, he just stared into the nothingness with a look of contentment on his face. Ugh, he was enjoying the wait. She resigned herself to wait with him, she really didn't relish the idea of another of Tracks' hour long speeches on decorum. Thinking back to the hangar, she gave her coat and mane a quick look-see with her green eyes. The chemicals had bleached sections of her coat from cyan to a very faded blue in some spots, making her look like she had wisps of cloud attached to her. Her mane and tail had fared a little worse - the main color of sky blue was still visible in places but the spring green stripe that ran down the center had more or less been obliterated color wise. Maybe she would be lucky and everything would be grown back out by the time they reached their destination...

"Everfree translation in one minute."

Finally. She started a silent countdown in her head. She noticed movement at her side and she looked over to see Mack was offering her something. She saw that it was an airsickness bag. She gave him an incredulous look.

"Really?" She asked. "You know I'm used to pulling multiple Gs, right? I don't get airsick, ever."

He responded in a kind, knowing voice. "It don't matter. You said this was your first time, you've no idea how it'll hit ya."

"Pfeh." It was a sound. That she made. It was supposed to sound like contempt for the idea but it just sounded more like an odd nicker. "I'll be fine. Besides, how am I going to make my wish if I have my face planted in a hurl bag?"

"Everfree translation in 30 seconds."

"Trust me on this. Better to have and not need, right?" He sounded almost like he was pleading. She wouldn't have any of it though. She shifted so she was looking back at the viewing port.

"Everfree translation in... 10... 9... 8..."

Free Fall suddenly felt all of the hairs of her coat stand on end -

"7... 6... 5..."

followed by a sudden onset of dizziness -

"4... 3... 2..."

and a sensation of weightlessness and of moving without actually moving -

"1... Translation."

Her stomach lurched and her entire body screamed at her in mixtures of almost all imaginable sensations. Her eyes glimpsed a moment of the Everfree as the shutters slammed closed. She had completely forgotten about her previous wish. The only wish in her mind now was that she might stop vomiting before they reached the Abyssinian system.

Chapter 3: Wolves in sheep's clothing

Author's Note

Gasp! Could this chapter have action in it? Don't tell anyone! It's a secret!

Chapter 3: Wolves in sheep's clothing

Abyssinian System: Near Everfree translation point

Tracks

He wasn't sure when the last time was that he'd felt this miserable. After three weeks of practically no sleep, without Luna's divine influence everypony's sleep in the Everfree was always plagued by horrific nightmares, he was both physically and mentally drained. On top of that Free Fall had suffered from the worst case of Everfree sickness he had ever seen. She needed to remain sedated in the Accord's medical bay for the entire time they were Evereal. Even now, it was two days since the Accord had gone sidereal, she was in a med bed recovering. But that was only part of why Tracks wanted to prematurely terminate his own life force.

He was drenched in sweat. He hadn't been trying to push himself especially hard, but he had somehow managed to get a thick lather going on his coat. He could see the steam rising off of himself in the relatively cool space. He was breathing hard enough that his sides hurt from the effort. He even had a froth starting up at the corners of his mouth. Every muscle in his body was on fire, every joint ached. He didn't like to consider himself out of shape. If anything, he considered himself above average. That didn't matter much in this situation. He glanced at his nemesis, the pony that had put him in this uncomfortable state.

Devoid wasn't even breathing hard. Tracks had a few colorful metaphors to describe how he felt about that. The jet black unicorn stood almost a head taller than Tracks and was probably a whole stone lighter. He was all whipcord muscle and moved with a feline predatory grace. The yellow eyes completed the look, making him seem like a sleek predatory animal. Tracks had been practicing hoof-to-hoof combat with him for the last hour and he had been doing abysmally.

"Boss." Devoid had dropped out of his combat stance to address Tracks. Tracks realized that Devoid wasn't asking a question. This meant he was about to get a combat lecture.

"Yeah, Dev, what is it?" He tried to keep the exasperation from his voice but he knew that he had failed horribly.

"Are you even trying today?" Devoid sounded serious, not his usual deadpan.

Tracks tried to save a little face for his poor performance. "I am, but I just don't think my heart's in it today."

"Not in it today?" Tracks had never heard Devoid sound incredulous before. Tracks had never performed quite this poorly in their little training sessions either.

"Yeah, you know. I'm just-" Tracks paused for a second while he thought of a decent excuse. Thinking about the mission, worried about Free Fall, pulled a muscle, any decent excuse. "-not in the mood." Fail.

Devoid's response morphed from one of incredulity to one of venomous anger. "Not in the mood?" Epic Fail. Good job, Interrogator. "Do you honestly think the enemies of Equestria will wait for you to be-" Here Devoid's voice took on a mocking quality. "-In. The. Mood?"

Devoid threw his hooves into the air in a display of exasperation then he trotted over to the bench that held their gear. They had been practicing in the same private hangar that held their shuttle. They had converted the space into a impromptu barracks and training space. The "benches" were just pieces of modular shelving they had found in a maintenance closet and the mats they were training on were rolls of spare impact foam from the same closet. As Devoid started rummaging through his pile of gear, Tracks started towards his own gear, he was relieved that training would be done for the day.

Suddenly, Devoid was rocketing towards him. Tracks' felt his eyes go wide and he backpedaled onto the training mat. Adrenaline flowed pumped aggressively into Track's system. It wasn't the speed with which Devoid had come at him that had provoked his, now in overdrive, fear response, nor had it been the look that was in his eyes. It was the knife he was wielding in his mouth.

Tracks had no time for words and dove out of the way of a wild swing. He rolled, barely avoiding the blade and landing on his back. He saw movement behind him and he rolled to all fours in an attempt to escape the lunge. Tracks used the momentum from his roll to dodge the knife thrust and found himself floundering sideways in an attempt to get out of Devoid's swing radius. There was no respite however, he found himself desperately dodging swing after swing.

He didn't know what was going on, had Devoid snapped? He couldn't continue to think on this, all of his mental effort kept being wrenched back towards avoiding that blade. He knew he couldn't keep dodging forever, if Devoid was really trying to skewer him then he needed to get the knife away from him.

Tracks waited for the next swing and feigned a dodge to the right. Devoid swung in the intended direction and Tracks started to move to hoof the blade out of his mouth. Devoid had apparently seen through the feint and the swing was a misdirect of his own. Tracks found himself pivoting on his back hooves in a desperate attempt to wrench his entire body out of the way of the counter-attack. He landed facing away from devoid and he placed all his weight on his fore-hooves and bucked for all he was worth. He was rewarded with the dull thud of hoof connecting with meat and bone.

Tracks heard the skittering sound of metal on metal and turned to see that Devoid had been knocked back a body length, he wasn't knocked down though, and that the knife was sliding along the metal deck plating of the hangar. Tracks was tensed up, ready to go at it again if Devoid was going to come at him again.

"Finally!" Devoid was smiling as he spoke. Tracks noticed that There was a little more red in the smile than there should have been, Devoid's mouth was bleeding.

"What-" Tracks had to pause for a breath. "-What is WRONG with you?"

"Nothing wrong with me, Boss." Came the sardonic reply. "You're the one that's been going half speed all day. If I knew I had to pull a knife on you to get your one hundred percent, I'd have done it during our very first practice session!"

"You mean-" Tracks' mind was still riding adrenaline and not letting him think clearly. "You could have cut me! You nut job!"

"Could have nothing, check your cheek there Boss."

Lifting his right hoof to his face, Tracks was surprised to see it come away red. His right eye started to twitch and he felt anger replace the panic that he had been feeling before. "You. You. You!" Tracks was stuttering the word.

"C'mon Boss, I know you think it's all about me, me, me. But this session is about-"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" Tracks charged and tackled the sarcastic [insert colorful profanity laced pronoun here.] As he grabbed Devoid's neck and started slamming his back repeatedly into the mat, the white maned unicorn just started laughing hysterically. As his anger waned, Tracks knew that Devoid could have tossed him off at any time.

This was verified through Devoid's impact stuttered speech. "Best! Oof! Practice! Oof! Everrrr! Oof!"

Tress

From the raised dais her captain's chair sat upon, she could see the entirety of the Accord's command bridge. The dais itself was a sight to behold, chromed steel with silver and gold engravings which depicted various historical victories for the Equestrian navy. Her chair sported several monitors attached by long metal arms. The data they displayed mimicked the data displayed on the consoles of her bridge officers. Tress kept the arms out of her direct line of sight however, she trusted her officers with the jobs that she had assigned to them.

She looked down to see her various officers at work at their stations. Sens was walking around, his authoritative presence keeping everyone on task. His permanent scowl and violet gaze caused many a naval rating to quickly jump out of his path as he rounded the bridge. Everything was routine, just the way Tress liked it.

The white pegasus mare at the communications station suddenly swiveled around in her seat, this caused her blue mane to fall into her face. She blew the strands out of her equally blue eyes before addressing the captain. "Miss Tress?"

Tress Should have known better than to tempt fate like that. Her cutie mark was itching too, that meant the news couldn't be good. "What do you have, Air Wave?"

Air Wave's expression was one of concern. "I have a distress call on the vox. The message origin is about 500 million kilometers fore. The message decodes as coming from the Equestrian freighter Ovis Aries. She says that she strayed off course through the system's asteroid belt and took a severe impact. She's crippled and only has minimal power. They're worried that they'll run out of air before the system defense boats can get to them and evacuate the ship."

Tress felt her stomach sink. Crippled in space. The worst possible way to go. She felt her heart reach out to the poor ponies on that beleaguered vessel. "Vector, how much time will we lose if we detour to help the Ovis Aries?" If it was negligible she could just do it, but if it added time, the VIPs who had commandeered one of her launch bay hangars would likely demand an explanation.

"It'll take us almost a day out of our way, Captain." Replied the navy blue mare with the forest green mane.

"Ponyfeathers." She said before she had realized it. "Sens-" She said, looking at her XO. "-I need you to bring the leader of our guests up here. They'll be pretty angry if I don't explain this one in person, I'll wager."

Sens had gone white. He obviously didn't relish the idea of confronting what he considered to be a bunch of mentally unstable lunatics. Still he seemed to resign himself as he responded. "Immediately, Captain."

Tress did not like the idea of the Interrogator arguing over the course change. She motioned for Sens to come closer. "No." She whispered to him. "Wait a few hours Sens, we need to make sure they won't interfere. "

Sens

"Hold still! You're going to have a scar if you don't let me suture this thing properly!" The black unicorn was assaulting the blood streaked face of the Interrogator with a medical servo skull as Sens entered the hangar.

Both unicorns were not wearing anything except for metal gauntlets on their left forelegs. What popped out the most to him was the cutie marks. Interrogator Tracks had a mark that looked like a short rod with a circular piece of glass attached to one end, inside the glass, a pony's iris was visible. It looked similar to what the tech-ponies used to make things they were looking at appear larger. The other unicorn's, the jet black one with the white mane, cutie mark was something that Sens had seen plenty of times, though never on a pony's flank before. It was a solar eclipse during full occlusion by some other celestial body, usually a planet. But he noticed something mildly disturbing about the mark. There was no intervening body and the rays surrounding the blank circle seemed to be traveling towards the circle instead of away from it. Weird...

He swiftly reminded himself why he was there. "Interrogator?" He called out.

The reaction was... unfortunate. The purple unicorn whipped his head to the side to look directly at Sens. The motion ripped the stitches right out of his face and between the excessive vulgar profanity and the renewed bleeding Sens was pretty sure he had accidentally stepped over the pony-non-grata line. He watched with mounting trepidation as the dark unicorn started the stitching process again.

After about fifteen minutes of wincing to the high whining staccato of the micro-suturing skull at work, Tracks approached Sens with what could pass as a grimace on his face. Tracks' companion appeared to be completely impassive, but was watching with interest as the completely bedraggled Interrogator made his way to the nervous XO.

"Mister Chal, to what do I owe the honor of this unexpected visit?" The Interrogator was not slurring his speech, which could only mean that he had foregone the local anesthetic.

"The captain wanted to talk with you about something regarding our scheduled arrival time." Sens had tried to remain as vague as possible. No need to upset the Interrogator yet.

Interrogator Tracks responded in a rather weary voice. "She need me right away? Or can I wash the blood off?"

Sens was baffled that he had been given the choice. He had expected either the demand to go now or the demand to wait. These were turning out to be the strangest bunch of VIPs he had ever dealt with. He decided that bringing a bloody, reeking pony onto the bridge would be bad form, so he voiced his choice to allow the Interrogator a chance to wash up.

Thirty minutes later, and the Interrogator was cleaned up and back in the dark grey cloak he had arrived in. This time, he put the hood up, it was covering his horn and casting his face is shadow. The look was obviously designed to be sinister, and with the two crimson eyes staring out of the blackness. It was quite successful.

The illusion was shattered when the Interrogator spoke... Well, made an undulating moan at any rate... Sens turned to see that Tracks was also waving his hooves around in a pseudo spooky manner. Sens felt his eyes and ears drop to half mast. This was becoming a habit. At least he felt like he was being let in on the joke this time.

He led the now spookyfied Interrogator through the ship. The cloak was definitely doing it's job, everywhere they went the crew looked on with a mixture of fear and wonder. Sens began to realize that his fear of this particular Inquisitorial agent was quite unfounded. The pony he found himself escorting seemed neither cruel nor quick to perform random executions... But that didn't stop him from pretending that he was exactly like that was exactly what he was. Sens realized the ingenuity of it. Tracks just had to don a cloak and practically everypony was terrified of him. It just went to show what one could do with a reputation and a little effort towards exploiting it.

It only took ten minutes to get to the bridge, all of the bulkheads in the Accord were opened to allow for ease of crew access. Sens also noticed that a lot of the spare crew were running around, no doubt they were preparing for the rescue effort that was now under way. Sens found himself wondering how the Interrogator would take the news of the detour. He no longer found himself dreading the response. He was starting to have a strong suspicion that even if the Interrogator was against the mission, that he would do no more than voice their opinion to that effect.

Sens led the Interrogator onto the bridge and right to the base of the dais which held the Captain's chair. Sens announced the Interrogator's presence with a well rehearsed blurb that he used to introduce all VIPs to the Captain with.

"So,-" came the now gruff voice of the Interrogator from the depths of the cloak. "-to what do I owe the unexpected-" He paused. "pleasure of your company, dear Captain?"

Tress responded in an even tone. "We have had to divert course several hours ago to respond to a distress call. Unfortunately this has added about one day to our travel time."

The Interrogator paused for a moment before responding. "I have no issue pressing enough to warrant ignoring another vessel in need.-" Now Sens detected an actual harshness to the Interrogator's words. "-I would warn you though, you should have come to me first, just in case there was."

Tress opened her mouth to respond but the Interrogator cut her off. "What is the name of the unfortunate vessel, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

Tracks

"The Ovis Aries." Replied the captain. She was wearing an impassive face but Tracks' was able to pick up subtle cues and nervous ticks. The captain was worried. She should be! She decides on a major course correction and didn't even tell us until I was too late to do anything! Tracks quieted his inner voice. There was something about that name, something familiar.

He decided to stick around. "Do you mind if I stay here and observe the rescue operation?" He inflected the question in such a way that screamed that he would be staying regardless of her answer.

Her face scrunched up in agitation for a moment. Good, let her squirm! He fought the voice down again. He really needed to work on that, such thoughts weren't just unprofessional, they were inherently hatercy. Hate without reason, escalation of hatred without reason. He repeated the mantra of tolerance and understanding to himself. When he finished he caught he tail end of the captain's response.

"-ored by your presence." She finished

"Thank you, I am honored to be allowed to observe." He responded, sincerely hoping that she had actually said that he could. The captain didn't give any indication that he had just blatantly ignored her, so he gave a silent blessing to the six and started observing the controlled chaos of the bridge.

Something was bugging him though. That name, he'd heard I before, he knew he had. He tapped the comm bead in his left ear with his hoof and whispered. "Dev, need you to look something up for me."

"Sure thing, Boss." Came the static laden reply.

"I need you to look up anything the Inquisition database has on a ship called the Ovis Aries. Contact me when you get anything, k?"

"Sure thing boss, give me a few minutes." Devoid was usually pretty fast perusing the database, but a few minutes would likely become 30 or more, depending on the vagueness of the article in question.

"Captain.-" An orange pegasus mare sitting at the tactical station was speaking. "-I have solid contact on the debris field now, estimated time to intercept is fifteen minutes."

"Very good, Double Arc. Now find me a way in there so we can rescue that ship." Tracks took note of how well the captain commander her crew, even after being flustered by a confrontation with an Inquisition agent. He was truly impressed, and now he felt guilty about stressing her out in the middle of this already stressful situation.

He watched the giant tactical sphere which dominated the center of the bridge with no small amount of interest. A good portion of it was filled with contact icons for various pieces of the debris field. It was a mess. He realized just what a daunting task this was going to be.

Double Arc spun her head to look at the captain, the motion causing her yellow mane to fall in front of her scarlet eyes. "Captain, I've plotted a path, but it'll be tight."

"Very good, Double, send it over to Vector. Vector, plot us a course in there." Captain Tress sounded like she was beginning to get excited. Tracks couldn't blame her. The prospect of saving the lives of the thousands of ponies on a stricken vessel was indeed exciting.

Why then the itch in the back of his mind that wouldn't go away? He tried but couldn't put his hoof on it. He felt his level of tension rising as the minutes passed by.

"Entering debris field now." A navy blue pegasus mare reported from the navigation console.

"Steady as she goes, Vector." Came the steady reply. "Air Wave, do you have a fix on the distress signal?"

"Yes captain-" Stated a white pegasus mare. "-I'm feeding it to Double right now."

Double Arc piped up again. "The distress call is coming from a relatively open patch in the debris field. I estimate five minutes till we reach it."

"Excellent. Good job everypony." Tress hit another comm switch on her chair and spoke into it. "Rescue teams stand by."

Tracks didn't know why, but his mind was burning. What was he forgetting?

"Hey Boss?"

He hadn't realized how anxious he had been to hear from Devoid. "Thank Celestia. What do you have for me, Dev?"

"Well, I'm kinda curious here myself. What's got you interested in hulked freighters anyways?"

Tracks felt his blood turn to ice. "What do you mean hulked?"

Devoid started to explain. "I mean hulked, they found her drifting and stripped 6 months ago. So what's the-" Tracks hoofed the earbud off hard enough to leave his head ringing.

"I have solid contact on the opening, captain. I'm getting solid contact on a vessel in the open space." Double Arc said with excitement and anticipation evident in her voice.

"CAPTAIN!" Tracks yelled. He had utterly failed at maintaining his calm, cool exterior.

She looked toward him with an expression of bewilderment mixed with anger on it. "Wha-"

"You need to go to battle stations! Now!"

The confusion on her face was replaced by anger. Huzzah! The anger has been doubled! She spoke through gritted teeth. "You had better have a good reason for-"

"Captain?-" Double Arc's voice held notes of confusion and worry. "-the other ship has locked onto us with their auspex."

"Captain, the Ovis Aries was hulked over six months ago!" He wasn't sure if he was getting through to the captain, as confusion had crept back into her face.

Tress' expression slowly transitioned from one of angered confusion to one of complete, abject horror

Double Arc's voice had switched over to full fear mode as well. "Captain! Auspex is detecting multiple heat blooms on that vessel!"

Tress mashed her hoof onto the ship-wide comm system. "All Hooves! Brace for impact! I repeat. All-"

There wasn't so much a sound as a concussive wave of force. The deck beneath Tracks' hooves seemed to jump. He was airborne. If anypony could see inside the darkened hood they would have seen his eyes go wide. He came down hard, his right fore-hoof twisting wrong and going out from under him. His head ricocheted off of the captain's dais. His vision was blurry and his head felt like it held a large collection of sharp knives and razor blades. He saw a bluish purple leg in front of him that seemed twisted in an odd way. He rested his head on it and realized how comfortable it felt. He heard noises that were all around him and yet somehow seemed distant as he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Chapter 4: Dream a little dream of me

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 5: Recovery

Abyssinian System: En route to Abyssinian Prime

Free

She had been ejected from her medical bed three days ago. She agreed completely, somepony with flash burns over 80% of their body took serious priority over her recovery from Everfree sickness. Free Fall was even trying to lend a hoof in the med bay, when she wasn't violently emptying herself into a medical waste container. The medical staff didn't complain about her occasional eruptions, they needed all the help they could get.

The surprise attack had taken everypony by surprise. Injuries ranged all the way from burns to decompression sickness to injuries sustained when the emergency bulkheads had closed, they had come slamming down irregardless of whether ponies were in the way. Rumors were spreading through the ship like wildfire that Apparently things could have been significantly worse. The rumored reason the number of wounded wasn't double, or worse, was because an agent of the Alicorn Inquisition had predicted the attack and had informed the captain moments before they were fired upon.

She released a mournful sigh as she looked upon the unconscious form of the agent in question. The med techs said he had suffered severe cranial trauma and was in a coma. They didn't know when or even if he would wake up again. She had gotten to know Tracks quite well in the past year. Working together under Inquisitor Sophic Fortune they had completed dozens of hazardous missions successfully. For Tracks to be critically injured like this, in transit for a routine follow up mission, it just wasn't fair.

She had said as much to Devoid when he had come to visit. He had said something stupid about life not being fair. She had yelled at him, had said he was an uncaring monster and even almost hit him, but she had stopped when she had seen the pained expression in his eyes. She realized that Devoid had been working with Sophic for more years than Tracks And Free Fall combined and had probably seen very many ponies abruptly leave during his service. She felt extremely sad for him in that moment. He had quickly run off though so she hadn't had the chance to apologize. That had been two days ago. Now she just sat and watched Tracks while wallowing in her own guilt and sorrow.

She looked around at the med bay and took everything in. The stainless steel walls, the white sheets, the sounds of painful moans and groans, the overwhelming smell of disinfectant. She realized how much she hated the place. But still she found herself pushing trays filled with replacement bandages and equipment, talking with patients as they recovered- or didn't, and, always, when she was too tired to stand or felt another wave of irrepressible nausea approaching, she would find herself sitting across from his bed, waiting.

Her reverie was interrupted by a presence to her side. She looked over with a sluggishness, born of the fatigue which sleeping in a chair for three days can produce. Bloodshot eyes looked into hers. Apparently wherever Devoid had been getting his sleep hadn't been any more comfortable than the chair she had commandeered. She started to open her mouth, but was moved into silence when she saw that his hoof was extended towards her.

She looked into the hoof and gasped as what she saw. "Is. Is that?"

"Yes. My last piece. Now it's yours." His face was attempting something resembling a smile but, he was obviously out of practice, it resembled a sneer or wince more than anything. She held out her hoof, surprised by the gesture. Devoid never did anything like this, he was always too busy being edgy or snarky to try to apologize or make nice.

She took the proffered item, a piece of Grazerian chocolate in the shape of a feather. It wasn't just any chocolate. The master chocolatiers of the confectionary planet used some ridiculous number of secret ingredients and had pegasi air whip the resulting mixture until it was quite possibly the airiest, fluffiest, tastiest chocolate in the entire sector.

Eight months ago they had been given a small quantity of the highly expensive treat for their assistance in defending the planet from a parasprite invasion. Free Fall had never tasted anything as good in her entire life and had managed to go through her supply in only a few days. The others had mercilessly teased her in the following months, usually by slowly eating one of the chocolate feathers right in front of her.

"But-" She knew that, as much as she wanted to scarf the feather down right that instant, she was the one who owed him the apology. She started to try to apologize again but Devoid wasn't having any of it.

"Look, just eat it already. It's for all the times I teased you about it too, ok?" He wouldn't even look at her now. He was starting to get all edgy again.

"Dev?" She said it quietly.

"Yeah?" He said as he turned around.

She was already in the air before he could respond and she wrapped her hooves around him in a hug. His body went completely rigid for a moment before he too wrapped his hooves around her. "Thanks, Dev." She said.

"Well, what are friends for?" Was his response, which was perhaps the most sincere thing she had ever heard him say. They shared a quiet moment together, taking strength in each other's presence.

"I see how it is, no love for the injured."

Free Fall spun and saw Tracks, sitting up in bed, eyeing them with a look of cheer interlaced with sporadic shooting pain. She immediately released the embrace, feeling a hot flush creep into her cheeks. Even Devoid seemed to have turned a little red, although he seemed to be hiding the rest of his embarrassment rather well. "Oh, c'mon, don't stop on my account! Wait, why are you two looking at me like that?" He winced as she approached the side of his bed, most likely expecting a braining for the comments. He obviously couldn't see the mummified state his head was in.

She carefully wrapped her hooves around the reclining form of Tracks and gave him a tentative hug. When he didn't shriek out in pain, she tightened the embrace. Devoid had approached on the other side and, after looking around to ensure that all the other patients were unconscious or otherwise not paying attention, joined in on the group hug. "Don't scare us like that, Boss." She could barely hear Devoid's whisper.

As they pulled away she could see that Tracks was giving them both an odd look. "What's with all the mushiness, anyways? How long was I out for? Only a few hours, right?" His eyes went wide when Devoid stated in a matter-of-fact tone the amount of time that had passed. "Three days? Sweet Celestia, three whole days..." His voice trailed off. "What happened?"

The next few hours were spent describing both how he obtained the injury and the Accord's miraculous escape from the death trap set by the timber wolf class raider. For some unknown reason Tracks found that little factoid to be hilarious. He managed to laugh despite the pain it obviously put him in. The medical technician was not nearly as amused when he came in and saw that his patient was trying to be more active than what was medically advisable.

Double

The pain was intense. Ever since the moment she had woken up. She had broken a wing and suffered some serious burns when her console had detonated. Like an idiot, she'd refused the pain medications they had offered. She had her reasons, though she couldn't think what they possibly could have been as she blinked the tears from her eyes. She only knew her goal: To escape from the med bay. The doctors had refused first her requests and then her demands for release. Thankfully they hadn't decided to restrain her. Yet. Worse still, her compatriots were with the enemy, they had told her to listen to her doctor and get some bed rest. Traitors, they were all traitors.

So, she had waited until Sens had returned to the bridge and Air Wave had passed out until she made her move. She tried to ignore the sensation of her bandages pulling at her skin and coat as she slowly removed the sheets and carefully lowered herself off of the bed. She was gritting her teeth from the sensation of forcing the disuse from her muscles. Once she had successfully gotten to all fours, she started for the sheet that she was pretty sure marked the exit to the med bay.

When she pulled the drapery aside, she found himself looking at a gaggle of ponies in doctor coats sitting and sipping recaff. As a single entity, over a dozen pairs of eyes looked up at the new intruder - to the doctors' lounge. "Oh, for clop's sake." She muttered as at least two physicians she knew realized that they also knew her. She didn't give them the chance to stand up and bolted in the opposite direction. She heard the shouts behind her and knew she needed to find the way out before she got caught, and probably sedated and restrained. She would never live that one down.

As she continued moving through different partitions and dividers she heard the noises closing in on her. She wasn't going to win this race. She cursed her stiff joints and aching muscles. She cursed how she had never taken Vector up on her offer to exercise by running laps around the lower levels of the ship. She cursed doctors and medical bays and - suddenly she felt a hoof clamp across her muzzle and another around one of her forelegs. She was forcibly dragged past a hanging divider and into somepony's ad hoc room. A voice made a long drawn out hissing of a shush in her ear. A few moments passed and then so did the small throng of medical personnel that had decided to chase her.

Once the threat had passed, Double felt the hooves release her. She carefully turned around, she was curious to see who had "saved" her. The first thing that struck her about her savior was was a pair of cat-yellow eyes. Then she saw the horn and gasped. She knew the only unicorn on ship, the navigator, and this pony was not them. Nor was the second unicorn she spied in the recovery bed. The one who had grabbed her was a jet black, the one in the bed was a strangely familiar shade of purple, underneath the small sea of bandages at any rate. She barely registered the cyan pegasus in the chair at the bedside.

The unicorn in the bed was looking at her with a pair of crimson eyes that were filled with curiosity. She knew she had seen them before, but where? She gasped again as her mind caught up with her. "You!" Her statement caused the purplish unicorn's eyebrows to raise. "I know you!" She had no idea why she was accusing this strange pony of knowing her, it was almost a compulsion. "You were in my dream!"

At this comment, the unicorn's expression changed completely. He sat up in his bed despite the obvious pain it caused him. His eyes narrowed as he spoke. "That's impossible."

She continued to speak, undaunted by his declaration. "The cute little things, they almost ate us both!" With that statement his expression altered again, to one of confusion and disbelief. "And then... And then She was there!" At this, the unicorn held up his hoof in a motion for her to stop talking.

When he spoke again, it was with an air of command that he had seemingly conjured out of thin air. He commanded the two who had been with him, "Dev" and "Free" to find somewhere else to be. Then he introduced himself as "Tracks." He began to ask her all manner of questions regarding her life, and oddly enough, her dreams. She didn't know why but she felt compelled to answer all of his questions. At first she thought it was unicorn sorcery, but his horn wasn't glowing, and it looked like he was wearing a magical inhibitor on his left fore-leg.

She felt she needed to get a question of her own into the mix before he moved onto some embarrassing portion of her past. "Why are you interrogating me?" She blurted out after answering a question about her acquaintances from the officers' school she had attended. The serious look that had been affixed to his face since he had begun questioning her melted into a friendly smile.

"I'm an Interrogator. It's what I do." He said matter-of-factly. She was pretty sure she had blanched at the statement. He was one of the Inquisition agents. "I am very interested in you, Miss Double Arc." And he knew her name, even though she could not remember having mentioned it during the little interview he had just conducted. "How do you feel about the Inquisition, Miss Double Arc?"

If any color had remained in her face, she felt it leave at that moment. She immediately began to stutter out what the officers' academy had hammered into them about dealing with the Inquisition. "No, no, no, no!" Tracks wore a look of disappointment now. "If I wanted the textbook answer I'd have picked up a data slate." He leaned forwards with a sharp wince. "What do you think of the Inquisition? Be honest, I will not judge your opinions."

She thought for a moment. He sounded sincere, but she couldn't shake the feeling that a "wrong" answer would land her some kind of punishment. "You ensure stability of Equestria through fear of retribution." She started shakily. Now for the hard part. "I think that's wrong." If he were going to condemn her, it would be now.

Instead, he voiced another query. "Why is it wrong?"

Emboldened, she stated. "I've been in the navy for 5 years, and I have never seen fear of retribution put a threat down for good, only suppress it." She watched as the corners of Tracks' mouth curled back up into a smile again.

"Excellent." He seemed to suddenly be in extremely good cheer. "So, how would you like to become an agent of the Royal Sisters' most Holy Alicorn Inquisition?"

She felt her rump impact the floor. "What?" Was all she could manage.

Chapter 6: On their own, but not alone

Abyssinian Prime, high orbit

Tress

She was furious. What daring, what outrageousness, what insolence, what arrogance. "This is unacceptable, Interrogator." Her face was reminiscent of how it looked when he had demanded she take action on the bridge. She knew the effect was lessened by the fact that she was behind her expensive desk in her office instead of in her command chair on the bridge, most likely this was why the Interrogator had insisted they meet here. To mitigate the loss in height she had placed her hooves on the desk and was leaning over it while she hissed through gritted teeth. "I cannot spare any crew members, especially not my gunnery officer at this time."

Interrogator Tracks stood up from his seat with such speed that she reflexively fell back into her own chair, shocked. His voice boomed in the confined space. "Madam Captain. This is not a debate." His voice then lowered to something sounding more reasonable. "Besides, even if it were, your medical personnel have told me they will most likely not clear Miss Double Arc for over a month due to the broken wing and the other injuries. You and I both know you'll have those raiders smashed to pieces long before that."

Tress fumed in her chair. If she had been a unicorn, she was sure the room would have spontaneously combusted from the amount of frustration she was feeling. "You promise you'll give her back after we return?" Using her anger, she tried to keep the worry she felt out of her voice.

"You have my solemn vow." Tracks said before crossing his hoof in front of his chest then raising it to his eye.

Tress settled back into her chair, defeated. She didn't look forward to tracking the raiders without her gunner. It had been only three days and Double's replacement didn't even come close to her computation speed or accuracy. But the Interrogator was right. They'd destroy or be destroyed by the raiders before Double would be cleared for duty. Still, she hated this. He was stealing one of her crew. And he refused to say why. "If you don't return her in one piece, you'll get more than a cupcake in the eye." She doubted the veracity and wisdom of the threat they had just made, but the posturing put them more at ease.

The Interrogator have her a grim smile. "If anything happens, I'll let you do whatever you feel is necessary."

Small consolation, she thought as he left her office. When the door had closed, she brought her hoof down on the table hard, cracking the priceless finish. She hoofed the approval rune on the data slate which had the leave request for Double Arc.

Free

"Can you believe him?" She said as she lifted a piece of her luggage into the belly of the shuttle. It seemed like she had been saying it a lot today, this seemed like maybe the hundredth time she had mentioned it that day cycle. Devoid looked at her with that quizzical expression one normally reserves for bizarre looking insects. She slapped his shoulder with a hoof. "Don't look at me like that!" She paused then whacked him a few more times for good measure.

"Sorry, sorry." He said while shielding his head from her little assault. She turned away with a neigh and a harrumph. "I didn't know you were that attracted to the boss." She spun back and saw he was sporting a devilish grin. "Oops!" He said, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated manner while rearing up and preparing to gallop off.

"You. You. You!" She stuttered as her face turned red.

"I know, right? It's always about me!" The grinning stallion took off like a shot, running around the side of the atmospheric craft, with her in close, furious pursuit.

Tracks

He was trying to still his beating heart. The increase in blood pressure was causing spikes of pain to drive themselves through his recovering cranium. He knew the meeting would be uncomfortable but he had been pretty sure that at some point during the meeting that the captain was just going to reach into the desk, grab a las pistol, and shoot him on the spot. He knew that was supposed to be the Inquisition's thing, and that technically he couldn't be shot for any reason, but that didn't stop ponies from acting out in the moment. Sophic Fortune had regaled him a few times about some of her formally living colleagues whom had been killed by those whom they had pushed too far.

He truly regretted having to steal Double Arc, but a shared dream was not something he could just ignore. Especially since the Princess of the Night had apparently taken an interest in and directly intervened in this particular one. He shuddered at his recollection of the Royal Canterlot Voice. He needed to figure out what was going on and why it had happened. At least there was the consolation that Double Arc would be safer with him on an Equestrian hive world than she would be on a naval frigate that was busy playing cat-and-mouse with a raider ship.

He navigated the bland corridors of the Accord, slowly making his way to the private hangar. He was taking longer than normal due to his frequent stops to either catch his breath or to rub his temples in a vain attempt to turn off the pounding he felt. With any luck, Devoid and Free Fall would have used that extra time to make sure that everything was stowed in the shuttle. If they managed that they would be able to leave as soon as Double Arc arrived with her kitbag. As he walked in, he noticed that a good deal of their gear was still lying about. Not just that, some of it was knocked over.

He sighed in mild irritation. Free Fall was probably saying goodbye to the load crew and Devoid was probably... Tracks didn't want to think about that at the moment. He went to pick up one of the many cases he saw lying about when his ears twitched to a strange sound. He dropped the case and slowly walked around the side of the shuttle.

He face-hoofed. Which caused his headache to magnify a few million times. Free Fall was standing on Devoid's back while trying to garrote him with packing line. Devoid was making a noise that seemed halfway between choking and laughing. Free Fall looked furious, her face was a shade of red he didn't see very often on her.

He coughed loudly into his hoof. Two heads slowly rotated to face him. "Glad to see you waited until the shuttle was packed before you decided to do this." Devoid gave him the blank expression he was so adept at, and Free Fall somehow turned a darker shade of red. Tracks released another sigh. "C'mon, let's hoof it & get this sucker packed. We don't want our new temp to think we're a bunch of slackers, right? Dev, weren't you the one who said something about making first impressions when we came on board?"

With a little bit of grumbling the two separated themselves and, after brushing themselves off, started moving cases again. He was about to sigh yet again when he realized that they had just gone ahead and done what he had said on his first asking. He mentally gave himself a pat on the withers for a job well done.

Double

"Promise to be careful, will you?" The normally unflappable Captain seemed in danger of losing her composure. It was something Double Arc never thought she would see in her lifetime. Somehow this last minute trip to have the Captain hand her her leave orders and wish her luck on her trip had turned into something a little more. "I know they say and maybe they even think that you'll be safe with them Double. Never forget that they are Inquisitors. They attract trouble like moths to flame. Never. Never trust that you are safe with them."

Double Arc did the only thing she could think to do in response and nodded her head.

Then the Captain opened a desk drawer and carefully placed something from it onto a part of the desk that seemed to have an ugly crack marring the otherwise pristine surface. The loud thunk of metal on wood resonated oddly in the office. Double looked at the item, an antique las pistol of spectacular craftsponyship. "Take it."

Double looked at the artifact and shook her head side to side. "I couldn't." She racked her brain for a plausible reason to decline the fantastic offer but failed spectacularly. "I... just couldn't."

Tress looked at her and began to speak. "It belonged to the last Captain of this ship. He gave it to me when he was promoted to Admiral and I was promoted to Captain." She seemed lost in the memory as she continued. "He said that where this went, so went the very soul of the Accord. The weapon is at least as old as the ship itself, you see." She leveled her gaze at Double. "You are as much a part of this ship now as this gun. You will take it with you to protect you from whatever those Inquisitors get you in to."

So Double placed her own hoof carefully, respectfully, even reverently upon the ancient pistol and slid it into one of the saddlebags she had packed for her trip. "Thank you, Captain. I'll take good care of it."

"You had better." The Captain said, almost back to her normal demeanor. "You break it, you buy it. And it's worth more than you could ever make in your career." Yes, she was definitely back to her old self. "I will expect you to return it when you come back." Now the Captain smiled. "Good luck."

Animus

If pony emotions and words could be used to describe how he felt or what he was doing, it would come down to one phrase.

He seethed.

It was his lot in existence to hate, to despise. But now he had found a new focus for his rage. He had missed his chance, and he would be punished for it. He had failed to claim the unicorn as his master had instructed. It did not matter that there had been outside interference, it was his own fault for having used the dream-scape as his back door to the unicorn's mind. Now that avenue was closed to him and he would only be able to report failure. And his master did not tolerate failure. Oh, he was too valuable a tool to be discarded as so many of the others had been, but he knew that his punishment would be tortuous, even for a being such as himself.

So he observed the light in the darkness, the mote of being that marked the unicorn's presence in the magical realm of the Everfree. Oh he would have his vengeance on this puny thing, this mortal being, this, this, Tracks. He knew that before the end he would make this pitiful creature beg for him to take its life from it. And he would deny that request. Only when all it knew was in ruin and the creature had come to accept its new existence of suffering would he even consider letting it go. If he had a mouth he would have smiled at the thought.

Soon the thing and its companions would be leaving the soon-to-be metal tomb, approaching the planet where his master waited with the patience of one to whom the passage of time now seemed meaningless. Almost like himself, a being that knew what power hatred held. It was the only reason he was able to tolerate the humiliation of his servitude. Well, and he also knew that in the grand scheme of things even his master would have to face eternity eventually.

But not he. He always had been, always would be. His greatest consolation was that, in the end, he would eventually see them all fail. Horribly.

But for now, he seethed.

Chapter 7: Leg work

Abyssinian Prime, Hive Alveare

Tracks

He dropped the data slate onto the recaf table. He rubbed his eyes with his hooves but was unable dispel the endless lines of figures that had burned themselves into his retinas. Tracks got up from the sofa and started to walk around the hotel room they had rented for their stay on-planet. It was nice, but not luxurious. Tracks had been seriously tempted to hit up one of the five-star places but didn't want the first expense report he ever brought back to the Inquisition to show that he had used and abused his new-found credit limit.

Besides, he thought to himself as he walked around the suite's day-room / kitchenette, this place was perfect for all their needs. Everypony had their own room, the hotel had a gym for Double Arc, was within trotting distance of the hangar where the aquila was stored so Free Fall wouldn't go nutty, and free data net access for Devoid's... browsing habits. It even had a few spare rooms for equipment and this central room for group meetings and - apparently himself, as he seemed to be the only one using it.

They had landed two days ago and gotten right to work. Tracks had wanted to figure out what his dream connection with Double meant but his priority was still the mission he had actually been sent to accomplish. That meant going through billions of financial records to see if any met their search criteria. Pretending to be official Equestrian tithe auditors, Free Fall and Double Arc had gone to the Admanestratum central office and come back with mountains of data slates, filled with ridiculous amounts of financial figures.

He sighed as he came back to the table with a fresh cup of Earl Neigh tea. Two days and they had barely made a dent in the stack of information. He knew this was just a routine wrap-up job, making sure that all known aliases and accounts had been checked and double checked, but it was still important. Sophic had told him more times than he cared to remember than nine times out of ten, cases were solved by checking all the records. He hadn't mentioned the last time she had said it that she had a tech-pony capable of scrutinizing those documents at blazing speeds. Even with all four of them tearing through the figures, they were probably still only going a fraction of the speed as Sophic's medic/tech-pony Hypodermic.

Tracks sat on the day-room's couch, looked at the pile, picked up the data slate he had been working on, gave another weary sigh and went back to work.

Free Fall

Scroll scroll scroll. Sigh.

Tap tap tap. Sigh.

Scroll scroll scroll. Sigh.

Tap tap tap...

She threw the data slate at the wall. Hard. It rebounded with a satisfying crack. She rubbed her temples with her hooves. This record... whatevering was driving her crazy. She didn't know how the others did it. She really didn't. She looked at the curtains of her room. Maybe she could go for a quick fly, get her brain working again so she could take another look at the figures.

She moved over to the curtains and opened them. Her jaw fell as she saw that the view consisted of another window with similar curtains that was less than a full pony length away. "Wha..." Now she was angry. Devoid's room had a view of the hotel courtyard! Why didn't hers? How had she even missed this? She realized she had been so busy ferrying stacks of slates to and from the room that she hadn't even gotten a chance to see how lacking her room had been until this moment.

Well, she was going to fix that little problem. Right. Now. She stormed out of her room, making sure her hoof-falls were extra loud for the scene she planned on making. She pushed through her door and stomped her way towards the couch where Tracks was sitting. "You really need to tell me why-" her sentence cut itself off as she noticed the way Tracks was sitting. He was bolt upright, staring intensely at one of the numerous slates, and his jaw was hanging open.

"Tracks?" The mention of his name didn't seem to phase him at all. He sat there, glued to the flickering screen. "What is it Tracks?" The question seemed to finally shock him back to reality and he looked at her with a frantic, energetic look in his eyes.

He pointed a single purple hoof at the data slate. "He's here." Free Fall was getting concerned. Tracks' voice was actually shaking. What he said next sent a simultaneous thrill and chill through her. "Inquisitor Scisco. He's here. On Abyssinian Prime!"

Free Fall fell to a sitting position on the couch that flanked the table, her complaint about the view completely forgotten. She was speechless. She knew even Devoid would be unable to make a snide comment on this one. No one had figured that their investigations would turn up anything, especially not the Legendary Inquisitor Scisco. This discovery was amazing - and opened up a whole new world of questions. She felt like she needed to sit - but realized she already was as Tracks called everypony else into the room.

Excessive

The large chestnut colored stallion exited the interrogation room feeling very pleased with himself. The scumbag had thought he was tough. They all did. They all tried to act tough, pretend like they wouldn't tell him anything. That's why Excessive Force usually liked to get things started by showing the creeps who was really in charge. He usually started by breaking something of theirs. It worked so often that he rarely had to threaten them with the shotgun he had strapped to his right side.

Now he was surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the Alveare branch of the Equestris Arbites. Pony officers and deputies corralled criminals to and from interrogation rooms, holding cells, and the dreaded disposal chutes. He glanced at the clock that hung at end of the room. Still time to clear the paperwork off of his desk before he could go home and start sorting through all of the information he had gathered so far.

"Hey! E-F!" It was the section chief, Due Process. Excessive turned to face the greying stallion, who was regarding him with hazel eyes. "You get the information from the suspect before they expired this time?" Excessive almost ran his blood coated hoof through his yellow mane before he caught a glance at it and laughed. The section chief managed to look serious for almost a whole second before he joined in as well. "No, seriously-" He managed between chuckles. "-the district head thinks these scumbags have value or something."

"He's fine, D-P. He just misplaced some teeth in the interview table and developed a small bladder problem... well, large bladder problem. Tell the guys to bring a mop." Excessive straightened his black carapace barding and started to make his way to his office. He ignored the groaning of the deputies as they opened the interrogation room. He was going to crack this ring of corruption, no matter how many broken degenerates it took. Before he reached his office, he noticed that the door was open, despite him having closed it before the interview.

"Hey D-P?" He called across the busy room.

"Yeah?" Came the yelled reply.

"You let somepony into my office?" He was only mildly irritated that nopony had told him he should be expecting company. He hadn't even washed the blood off of his hooves yet.

"Yeah, some pony from the Admanestratum or something. Said he needed to ask you about something."

Now he didn't care about how he looked. Let the sniveling book-worm squirm at his appearance. He had no patience for the quill pushers of the bureaucracy. He was a field pony, a law pony, always would be.

When he stepped into his office, what he saw was not quite what he expected. His senses went into overdrive immediately as his instincts pulled in bits of information about who he now saw in front of him. His piercing green eyes ignored the obvious Admanestratum badge pinned to the stallion's front. What they did notice was the grey cloak concealing head and facial features, the weapon bulge - large one - on right side of the stallion's barrel, reinforced bracer on a purple left foreleg, and hoof spacing consistent with one trained in at least one of five hoof-to-hoof combat techniques he was familiar with. A hungry grin spread across his features. Somepony wasn't who they were pretending to be. And he was going to find out what they were hiding - find out big time.

Excessive kicked the door closed behind himself. The sounds of the rest of the station were suddenly cut off. He'd had this room soundproofed years ago just in case an emergency interrogation like this came up. The figured had jumped slightly at the sound of the door slamming. Good. Shaken up already. Even tensed up, the pony was a full head shorter than him. This was going to be easier than he thought. He kicked his right back leg up, which swung his over-under shotgun to point directly at the robed figure. "So, friend. Why are we impersonating the Admanestratum today?"

The purple pony stumbled backwards a few steps, he seemed to accidentally tangle his fore-hooves for a second before regaining his balance. Seemed. Tricky little guy. He probably did something with that gauntlet. The pony opened his mouth to speak but Excessive knew how to keep control of a situation. He cocked the shotgun's hammer.

"Shut yer trap, my little pony, unless you want it filled with scatter-shot." He gestured towards the metal cuff on the pony's foreleg. "Lift that up slowly, faced away from me. I know you did something with it, so I want to see it." The pony slowly lifted the foreleg until Excessive could see it. The device was well beyond his know-how, he'd have to have a techpony tear the thing apart to figure out how many ways it could have killed him. It had an indicator light that was glowing red though, the universal color of unit power failure or an empty clip. He felt emboldened. "Now, using that hoof, slowly pull back that hood, let's see yer pretty little face now."

The pony complied, very slowly moving his hoof up until it reached the hood. It then slowly began to draw the material back, revealing the features of the pony beneath. Muzzle, reddish eyes, black mane... Excessive's blood froze as he saw the glowing horn.

He moved with a speed borne of years of practice, pulling the trigger line to fire the gun at his side - but nothing happened. His eyes darted to see that the breach of the gun was open. The mechanism was surrounded in a red glow, the shells it had contained were suspended in mid air. He heard the distinctive click-whirr sound of an energy weapon powering up and looked back to see that the unicorn now had a hovering plasma pistol pointed at him.

"Witch!" He spat the accusation. "You may kill me, but the servants of Celestia will-" his tirade was cut short as a red glow surrounded his mouth and forcibly shut it.

When the unicorn spoke, it was calmly, it was as if he hadn't just been held at gunpoint. "Hold your horses there Arbiter. I'm not your enemy. I actually came here for your help." The force holding his mouth closed dissipated and he worked his jaw a moment before replying.

"If you think I'd ever work with a hateratick like you-" the unicorn clamped his mouth shut again with a sigh. Pity, he'd had a long string of profanity prepared too. The unicorn then reached into his cloak. Excessive prepared for the end. He wasn't scared. He had served Celestia faithfully for years. His would be a place of honor amongst-

He cut the thought short as he caught sight of the Inquisitorial rosette. The magical force released his mouth for a second time.

"OK-" The unicorn started. "Lets try this again."

Double

She wasn't quite sure how many ponies an Inquisitor was supposed to have under their command. At this rate, Tracks was going to have a small army by month's end. The Arbiter was massive, a full head over Tracks, half a head over Devoid, and completely dwarfing herself and Free Fall. At least Tracks had convinced the giant to remove his carapace barding. He was still frighteningly large, even without the added bulk, something closer now to the level of Sens for intimidation factor. The chestnut stallion's cutie mark was of the Arbiter scales of justice, with the scales blatantly tipped in favor of law. Once the brute had finished settling into one of the spare rooms, Tracks called everyone to the suite's day-room and began to explain what was going on in full detail.

He explained how, thirty years ago, the Legendary Inquisitor Scisco of the Ordos Hatericus had suddenly stopped reporting back to the Inquisitorial hub in the Bashkir system. Everypony believed him to have been killed during an investigation. After twenty years without contact the Ordo had declared him Perditus in Agro, or lost in the field. In an effort to reclaim all of the accounts and funds that Scisco had at his disposal, this was standard procedure in the case of an Inquisitor's death, the Inquisition tasked another Inquisitor, in this case it was Sophic Fortune, with tracking down and auditing every account with a connection to the deceased Inquisitor.

"But" - and here Tracks paused for obvious dramatic effect - "one of Scisco's secure accounts has been in use. In the last three months." He sat back with a smug look on his face.

"And?" Excessive's look and tone was far from impressed as he asked the question.

Tracks' face grew a frown as he leaned forwards again. "It means he's Alive! Alive and here on Abyssinian Prime! There haven't been any transport off of this rock in that time frame!" He was so full of enthusiasm he was almost shouting.

"Don't mean nuthin." Was Excessive's flat response. The bluntness caused Tracks' confused looking head to tilt to one side. "Somepony could have hijacked his account. Happens all the time." Excessive continued in a matter-of-fact tone.

Double wasn't really following any of the conversation after that point. She caught bits and pieces regarding Inquisition codes being impossible to break and something about amounts spent, and other accounting jargon she had never been interested in. She found her mind wandering upwards to the Accord and her shipmates. She wondered how they were doing, whether they had engaged the raiders yet.

She regained focus long enough to see that the argument had continued to escalate in her mental absence. Tracks and Excessive looked about ready to kill each other. Devoid and Free Fall were both watching the back and forth, their eyes springing from one debater to the other. Free Fall had a look of worry on her face. Devoid had that stupid bemused grin he liked to wear. She still had one question that was bugging her enough to risk sticking her hoof into this dog fight. She raised her hoof and coughed.

Tracks and Excessive stopped their bickering. They turned their heads towards her as she spoke. "Tracks, why did you go to the Arbites office?"

Strangely enough, Excessive was the one who answered. "He needed me to track the locations of the transactions using my credentials. If he used his, it'd be like waving a huge sign that screamed 'here comes he olde Inquisition!'" He punctuated the last statement with a flailing of his massive hooves.

"But. Who cares? Isn't he on our side? Who cares if he knows you found him?" It truly made no sense to her.

Tracks fielded the question this time. "Because he's either undercover, three decades undercover, OR" - here Tracks sent a small glare in Excessive's direction - "somepony with the ability to crack an Inquisition cipher has access to his accounts. Either way, we don't want to broadcast that the Inquisition is involved."

Double scratched her chin. It made sense. Sort of. She wasn't sure she was up for this sneaky stuff, it made her head hurt. She was used to a much more straightforward approach. See enemy, target enemy, fire thousands of tons of explosive ordinance at enemy. They were still looking at her so she asked the question she thought the meeting had been called to answer anyway. "So what do we do now?"

Tracks smiled. "Now is the fun part, we get to track down where these expenditures happened, and see if we can either find Scisco or whomever is using his access codes. Then we can try find out why he vanished thirty years ago."