The Crystal Empire is abuzz with talk and laughter. It's late afternoon, and the day of school and work has ended for most ponies. Most ponies. Prince Shining Armor is stuck in another meeting with the Crystal Palace's guards, discussing the recent burglaries that have been on the rise in the empire. Princess Cadance's situation is no more pleasant; listening to the increasingly ridiculous appeals of snobby nobles can break somepony. Cadance herself sometimes wonders how she retains her sanity.
After several grueling hours of duties, the royal couple finally acquire some free time. Cadance finds herself napping in the room she and her husband share after a long day of bullshit. Shining Armor is headed in the same direction.
Shining Armor walks into their chambers, quickly noticing his wife asleep. He throws himself onto their couch, turns on his radio to a low volume, and listens to music quietly as he relaxes. After a long work day, he deserves it. However, his relaxation is cut short.
The sound of a loud, steady roar fills the air as Shining Armor jolts up and scrambles to turn his radio off. Realizing that it isn't the source of the sound, he peers outside the chamber's windows, prepared to silence the peasant who's making such noise. Shining Armor can see the residents of the Crystal Empire peering into the sky, mouths agape. He lifts his head and follows suit, his mouth reaching the floor at what he sees.
"Sweet Celestia..." he mutters as he watches the metal leviathan in the sky. The loud metal bird lands in a stretch of grass just outside the Crystal Palace.
"What in Equestria is going on?" a feminine voice says behind him. Princess Cadance, rudely awoken from her sleep, waits for an answer. After receiving none, she stomps up to Shining Armor and shakes him, trying to get his attention. "Hello? Anyone ther-"
Her phrase is cut short as she turns her head and sees what her husband sees.
"I'm going to gather some guards and get down there," he says before he hurriedly bursts out of the chambers. Cadance doesn't speak.
Inside the cockpit of the EBR-002, all is silent as the pilots peer out of the tinted windows of the shuttle. They feel the gaze of the dozens of equine creatures watching them. A voice in the cabin speaks up,
"Why the fuck would you land so close to one of their cities?!" Esther exclaims. "We don't even know what these things are, or what they're capable of! We could be seen as a threat!"
"Quiet down," Roan calls back, "they look harmless. I think they're as afraid of us as we are of them."
The co-pilot, Din, shakes his head and says, "I wouldn't say that. Look,"
Both pilots stare into the crowd and see a small group of the... horses, armored up and charging for the ship.
Roan's eyes widen and he calls back to the cabin, "Fuck! Nevermind! Stormtroopers, grab your rifles and head outside to meet them! They've got a military of their own headed our way!"
Esther and Galen lock eyes for a brief second before quickly unbuckling from their seats and grabbing their standard issue blasters. They load them and knock twice on the cabin's roof, and the pilots lower the ramp for them. The two Stormtroopers dash out and around to the front of the ship. All the while, screams can be heard in the crowd of crystalline animals as they back away in fear. The troopers both take crouching positions in front of the cockpit and aim at the band of armored responders, who are at the front of the crowd and locking their gazes at the troopers' helmets. The stalemate lasts for a solid minute before an authoritative figure - Shining Armor - emerges from the group, and begins to speak in a shakey voice;
"Alien species, if you can understand us, lay down your arms in the name of the Royal Sisters and come quietly. You are trespassing on Equestrian soil."
What the fuck? Esther thinks to himself when the pony is done speaking. He activates his helmet comms. "Galen, you got all that, right? That thing was speaking Basic!"
Galen replies, "I got it, I got it. Command, are you getting this? This species, they're equine in nature, and they're speaking Basic. We've touched down in a complex city of their's. They've told us to lay down our arms in the name of some royal sisters and that we're trespassing on Equestrian soil. What's our course of action here?"
In the space above the planet, the command deck of the Executor-class is abuzz with voices. A mixture of excitement and uncertainty create an interesting cauldron of attitudes in the room. The Grand Moff on board, Tarkin, discussed what they had just heard with the other officers on the deck. With command brainstorming a solution, the troopers on the ground were sweating in their helmets as they remained unmoving, with the “main pony” growing restless.
“I’ll repeat this once more - lay down your arms, and come quietly.” Shining Armor made motions with his hooves, attempting to match what he was saying.
“Okay, okay,” the troopers heard in their comms. “you cannot give up your firearms or ‘come quietly.’ You need to refuse the request, and tell them to talk on your own terms. State your intentions, greet them properly and tell them why we’re here.”
“Are you fucking serious? I’m not going to do that,” Esther spoke directly to Galen. The latter sighed heavily as he rose and lowered his blaster. Esther followed and stood straight.
“I’ll do it...” Galen said, switching his helmet to speak aloud.
“We will not relinquish our firearms or surrender unto you. We are here on an exploration trip to your fair planet. We apologize for trespassing. The Galactic Empire formally greets your species, with us as its ambassadors, and we wish to speak to you - on our own terms. We do not pose a threat as of now, as we wish you can say the same.” Galen held his breath as all of the creatures eyes widened even more and the armored ponies mouths hung open, struggling to compose themselves.
“They can talk?!” a guardpony said.
“If they have a magical sky ship like that, I’m sure they’re intelligent, but... they speak Equestrian!” another guard said back.
“Sir, what do we do?” All of the guards looked at Shining Armor for guidance, but even he was unsure.
“We can’t let them keep those weapons, who knows what these aliens could do?” a guard said. “We need to disarm them.” Shining Armor couldn’t help but agree. No matter what they say, this was their planet, and they needed to play this as safely as possible. Shining Armor drew his sword with his magic and began to approach the troopers, and the other guards all followed his lead.
“Uhh, shit, command? I think Galen nailed it, but the aliens aren’t getting any less hostile. They’ve got swords and they’re approaching us... what do we do?” Esther spoke into his mic, but before he could get a response, Galen spoke up.
“I know what to do.”
Galen rose his rifle and aimed it at the horses, and they visibly flinched and stopped their advance. “Sheathe your weapons and don’t take a step further.” Galen said aloud to the creatures. The crowd surrounding the area had all but dispersed at this point, as the situation was visibly heating up.
“I understand your concern, aliens, but this is our kingdom, and you need to come with us. Believe us, we only want to talk as well. We can get things sorted out later...” Shining Armor began to speak shakily as he saw his wife looking on with concern from the balcony of the Crystal Palace. He needs to be careful.
The guards cornered the troopers against their ship, all with concerned looks on their faces. As the troopers backs touched the cockpit, Galen suddenly rose his rifle into the air and fired off three shots, shouting, “Stay back and sheathe your weapons!”
The ponies were all visibly stunned as nearby archers drew their bows and held the arrows in place fiercly. Both sides were about to burst.
As the situation on the surface heated up, command could tell that the operation was about to go awry. EBR-001 had landed at what was now known to be the city of Canterlot, and the scientists and troopers were making conversation with the country’s leaders. On the flip side, they had lost contact with EBR-003 after they had said “winged equine bugs” were bringing down the shuttle while flying over the southern part of the land, and the situation developing in the northern province with EBR-002 was sounding increasingly worse.
After the troopers’ outburst, a pony archer shouted, “That thing’s a weapon! Bring them down before they can use it!”
Shining Armor’s eyes widened and he shouted back, “What? No! Don’t do anything!”
It was too late.
The rooftop archer let go of the arrow that was being held in his telekinetic grip. It whistled through the air before firmly implanting itself in Esther’s leg, causing him to collapse to the ground.
Esther rolled over, clutching his knee and shouted, "Fuck! They got me!" Galen crouched next to his fallen comrade and stared up at the archer who had fired the arrow and cocked his rifle.
The ramp of the shuttle lowered and the two pilots ran around the front to Esther’s side to get him back to the cabin. As they helped Esther to his feet, Galen opened fire with is rifle, first hitting the archer pony and obliterating his skull, before turning his gaze to the group of guards staring at him with wide eyes. Shining Armor cast a small, pink shield around the group as Galen opened fire, but the magic shield shattered under the laser fire. Shining Armor turned and ran away from the trooper quickly. The remaining guards tried to follow him, but many of them were torn apart by Galen’s barrage of lasers.
Back in the shuttle cabin, Din was began taking Esther’s leg armor off to patch him up, while Roan contacted command amidst the confused scientists asking what had happened. “Command, this is EBR-002, consider the aliens hostile! An archer attacked one of our troopers, and the other gunned down the aliens. Can confirm their armor doesn’t shield them against lasers. We’re pulling out now.”
The command deck was full of activity as the crew accommodated a hanger bay for EBR-002’s return, as well as a search party to look for EBR-003. “Copy that, EBR-002, we’re awaiting your return,” was all a disappointed Imperial officer could say. The Grand Moff wouldn’t be happy to hear about this. It was possible the forces responsible for bringing down EBR-003 were not affiliated with the country now known to be Equestria, but the Crystal Empire was definitely part of it. While the situation in the north was developing, a lot had been learned from EBR-001’s visit in Canterlot. One of the things they learned was that the captain of their guard, Shining Armor, was not only one of the co-rulers of the Crystal Empire, but also the brother of one of the nation’s princesses. Command was fairly positive that Shining Armor was present for the massacre EBR-002 had just pulled off, and whether or not he was still alive, news of that event was going to spread fast, and everyone on board the Executor-class vessel was unsure of how this would effect the negotiations in Canterlot.
Back on the surface, the crew of EBR-001 were being treated to a nice chat with the two co-rulers of Equestria. They were unaware of what happened to EBR-003 or what was happening with EBR-002, and were actively conversing with the co-rulers of Equestria, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, while simultaneously reporting what they’ve learned back to command. Suddenly, the door to the throne room burst open and a royal guard came speeding in, breathing heavily.
He bowed and spoke, “P-princesses... there’s news from the north... something terrible has happened...” He handed a scroll to Princess Celestia with his telekinesis before making eye contact with the Imperials in the throne room. His eyes widened and he shouted, “T-that’s them!”
The troopers and scientists looked at eachother and Celestia said, “What are you talking about?” before unwrapping the scroll and reading its contents.
After a few minutes, her face began to contort ever so slightly, although she seemingly kept her trademark calm posture. Celestia slowly said, "Take them into custody."
Royal guards from the corners of the throne room moved in quickly and knocked the humans off of their seats and held them down with magic as they subdued their limbs. After an hour, the Imperials were stripped of their equipment and held in a small castle cell, awaiting questioning. The Canterlot royalty had to get to the bottom of this.
After officially losing contact with EBR-001, command assumed that everything had went wrong. A series of misunderstandings - and maybe a bad decision on Galen's part - had led to a botched operation that left the Imperial brass with few options. EBR-002 had returned to the star dreadnought safely, and Esther was treated quickly with the use of bacta. The command deck had come to a conclusion: after all that had happened, it was determined that this species would be left alone. The planet would be charted from space, and perhaps in time, this civilization of equine creatures would be ready to make contact with the rest of the galaxy. Officially calling the operation off, they were almost ready to pull out. The command deck was still divided between opinions of leaving this primitive species alone, and discovering the secrets of their celestial magic and introducing another sentient species to the existing network of intergalactic communities. Unfortunately, not much could be done for the officers who still longed for the planet's secrets. The Grand Moff himself had decided to leave this planet behind.
However, Imperial business with this Equestria wasn't over yet. The crew aboard EBR-001 were still being held captive while the planet's government were making heads and tails of what had happened on their land. After the incident in the Crystal Empire, maybe they were considered prisoners of war. With the decision made to leave this planet behind, the Imperial navy was prepared to do whatever it took to get their troops back. After the planet's government reacted like it did, negotiations were out of the question. Grand Moff Tarkin was a sadistic individual, and instead of threatening them with the sheer force of their intergalactic military, he was going to show them firsthand what it means to take Imperials hostage. As a handful of the Imperial-II class star destroyers in the fleet began to file away from the star system, the Executor-class vessel prepped one last hanger for a flight. A Sentinel-class shuttle began accommodating for one last combat crew - phase three Dark Troopers.
Rays of sunlight illuminate the deck of an Executor-class super star destroyer as it floats silently in space. A fleet of Imperial II-class star destroyers escort it in strict formation. Ahead of the plethora of metal giants is a beautiful planet, its surface calming hues of green and blue, blanketed in a thick layer of clouds. This planet in particular was one of many uncharted systems in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy, and this fleet was on its way to explore and formally chart it - and perhaps greet a new sentient species. This planet was the only one in its star system, and it was wildly peculiar in that the sun seemed to revolve around it. Imperial scientists were baffled, and while studying the star system from afar, energies reminiscent of the Force were being used to manipulate its sun. To say this piqued the interests of the Empire was an understatement, and it was determined that a sentient species inhabiting the planet were responsible. However, no known species was able to use the Force - or whatever it was - to manipulate entire stars. A fleet of some of the Empire's best were arranged quickly and dispatched to get to the bottom of this mystery.
The planet drew closer.
Imperial officers were checking up with the dedicated exploration teams one last time before they began their journey. In the vast hangers of the Executor-class dreadnought, Lambda-class shuttles were being loaded with Stormtroopers and scientists, specifically prepared to encounter a possibly hostile sentient species. The hanger bays were filled with crew members fueling up the shuttles and loading equipment into cargo holds. Soon, the hangers grew empty as the shuttles were readying for liftoff. As the command deck began radioing the pilots final instructions, the crew aboard the shuttle so eloquently named EBR-002 began to make conversation.
"What do you think we'll find down there?" The crew rose their heads as someone broke the silence. It was Esther, a Stormtrooper dedicated to protecting the scientists should something go wrong.
"We're going to find out soon enough," one of the pilots, Roan, called back to the crew cabin. "Rumors are, though, that it's some lost branch of ancient Sith lords operating out here, holding untold power to be able to control their star system..."
Galen, the other combat infantry, shakes his head. Before he can retort, the shuttle shakes and the thrusters roar as the other pilot speaks up:
"Here we go."
