Delta is for Dashie

Rainbow Dash shrugged into her uniform and gave her barrel a wiggle to settle it. "I can't believe we have to wear this stuff all the time," she grumbled. By most humanoid standards she was still naked, wearing little more than her saddlebags and a red silk sash, sewn through with sparkling crystal threads. The sash, she had to admit, was made of awesome, because it had a little SLF in it and sped up a lot of the eggheady side of the job. It also had her rank insignia sewn into it, up at her shoulder. Commander. Ironic the twists destiny throws at a pony. Thirty years ago, she was sure she'd be a Captain of the Wonderbolts in under ten years. Now her rank was lower and her authority so much bigger. And her responsibilities.

When the hay had she gotten all mature and introspective? Ugh, she promised herself to Rainboom her way to the elevator just to make sure she kept her daredevil license. She reviewed her route in her head. Home to starport, more specifically the space elevator, to a shuttle to the Harmony, currently in spacedock over the Crystal Empire. Easy.

Rainbow took one last look around her house. Tank was already waiting for her in her quarters on ship, probably watching over Sera again. The old tortise had a soft spot in his shell for Angel's granddaughter. All she had left to do was lock up. "Don't drift away on me, okay?" she asked the cloud home.

A lavender flash to her right startled her out of her revere. "Twilight?" she asked, turning. "What are you do...wait. What's with the getup?" Princess Twilight Sparkle stood next to Rainbow Dash, her wings fully extended and wearing her full regalia, which Rainbow knew Twilight hated to wear.

"Rainbow," Twilight said, "I need you to listen to me very carefully. I don't have a lot of time."

"Oh ponyfeathers, did I miss a ceremony?" Rainbow complained. "Give me a minute to find, I mean put on, a dress and I'll be over in ten mmff mmff."

Twilight removed her hoof from Rainbow's muzzle. "I'm from the future, featherbrain."

Rainbow blinked once and sighed. "I am not disaster proofing the Harmony. Or Ponyville. Or Equestria."

Twilight applied hoof to forehead with considerable force. "That only happened once."

"Or twice, depending on your perspective," Rainbow snarked.

Twilight dragged her hoof over her face. "Urgh. Just listen. Things are going to get crazy out there. This ancient race called the Iconians is-"

Rainbow snorted. "Iconians? What do they do, draw little pictures on computer screens? Jeeze, Twilight, when are you going to learn to pull a decent prank?"

Twilight smiled brightly and reared on her back legs so she could gesture with her forehooves. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."

Rainbow's grin died instantly. Not a prank. Not a prank. "Oh buck me. Iconians, you say?"

"Long story, historical archives, just tell me to look them up. Oh, and take this." Twilight levitated a small disk over to Rainbow. "This device has the location of every bit of Iconian tech or intelligence we didn't think to grab the first time around. Don't worry, you'll go to all these places anyway. It's going to be a bit of a wild pony ride."

"I bet," Rainbow said, hoofing the device into her saddlebag. "Just one question. If you came back to tell me to warn you, why didn't you just warn you?"

Twilight glanced away. "Oh, timelines, causality, paradoxes."

Rainbow grinned. "Disaster proofing Equestria?"

Twilight looked at her gold-shod forehoof. "OhlookatthetimeIreallyshouldnotbeherenowwhenIcouldbethenBYE!" And she vanished in a purple-scented BANG.

Rainbow shook her head and chuckled. "Egghead." A sigh. "What the hay kind of madness are we in for?"

The ESS Harmony was not the most impressive ship Rainbow had served on. The Belfast was hard to top, by the daredevil's standards. In comparison to the Defiant-class escort, the Harmony was slow, underarmed, bloated, and clunky. Most of her internal hull space was so much empty bulkheads. Still, she was Twilight's baby. Rainbow looked out the shuttle's forward window and studied the ship, mostly to keep her mind off the pegasus at the shuttle's helm. Not flying herself made her wings itch.

The crystal ponies of the Crystal Empire had proven themselves exceptionally well-suited to starship construction. Their crystal buildings were exceptionally strong for their weight, and the ponies were capable of growing single crystals into large, complex shapes. The most successful Equestrian starship design, meaning the only one that had seen a production run beyond a single prototype vessel, was the Centipede-class freighter, more commonly called "rib-ships." The ships consisted of an arrowhead bridge and living space with a long spine leading to an engine cluster. About a dozen curving legs or ribs extended from the spine section, which could grapple interchangeable modules. Those modules would make up the bulk of the ship's mass -- most were little more than cargo bays or specialized storage modules, but most ships carried a passenger module and some carried scientific equipment. Crystal structures formed the spine, ribs, and engine housing, but the rest of the ship's structural components were fabricated by and purchased from the Federation or Ferengi.

The Harmony was built entirely from Equestrian materials, but the design descended from the successful freighter. Almost every component was designed around the idea of universal connections, modular capacity, and replaceable parts. The Star Fleet influence was strong as well, with clearly defined primary and secondary hull sections. The ship was 300 meters long by human reckoning, capable of limited atmospheric flight and landing in up to 1.1G gravity.

The primary hull, what would be a saucer on most Star Fleet designs, was an elongated starburst on the Harmony, modeled after the large decoration of Twilight's castle in Ponyville. (Princess Twilight attempted several times to appeal the decision to incorporate her cutie mark into the design. She failed spectacularly.) The starburst was laid out level to the starship's internal gravity, again the same as a Federation craft, and was terraced such that the center of the starburst hosted more decks than the outer body. The spars themselves were not living spaces but rather instrumentation, sensors, and sadly weapon stations.

The secondary hull followed Starfleet standard design of attaching below the primary hull and extending backwards. It possessed an elliptical cross-section that tapered to a rounded aft and carried the primary deflector array forward. The aft of the secondary hull included space for two Centipede-compatible modules. The warp engines used a four-nacelle array, trickier than the typical two-nacelle design but more effective at converting power into speed. It was an expensive shortcut, but a necessary one. The nacelles were slung under the hull in pairs, one just behind the deflector and the other before the Centipede-type struts. The nacelles and supporting structure were carefully engineered to be able to hold the weight of the ship, plus a healthy margin of error, to double as landing struts at need. The secondary hull carried a small shuttlebay roughly at the join between the secondary and primary hulls, protected by the rearmost spar of the primary hull.

Rainbow felt a small tingle as the shuttle passed the magic barrier that held atmosphere and heat in the pressurized shuttlebay. She exhaled carefully as weatherpony instincts roared at her to fix the strange boundary of heat and pressure just at the edge of her senses. A quarter-century in the space program had made the sensation familiar, but nothing could ever make it feel okay. She glanced at the pilot. "You didn't even twitch," she said. "Good job, kid. How long have you been piloting?"

The pegasus saluted as he coaxed the shuttle to the floor below. "Thank you, ma'am. I was on the DS16 run for three years." He shuddered slightly. "Those force fields of theirs are rough."

The shuttle drifted a foot starboard and Rainbow frowned. "Mind on the task," she snapped. "Piloting isn't flying."

"Sorry," the pilot yelped. He put his hoof back down and looked back at his instruments. The shuttle corrected its drift and settled gently on the flight deck.

Rainbow nodded to herself. "Good recovery," she muttered. She looked over the pilot. He had an orange coat and yellow mane, his cutie mark was a sky blue flame. He wore a red sash with a lieutenant's rank insignia. When the hum of the engines stopped, she raised her voice. "What's your name?"

"Skyburn, ma'am," the pegasus replied. He stepped back from the helm, leaving the SLF platform.

"You're the pilot for beta shift," Rainbow said. The Harmony adopted a four shift rotation; beta shift was on duty from noon to 1800, ship's time (which was synchronized with Canterlot). It was also the shift she was assigned to command. "You ready to fly this cloud?"

Skyburn swallowed loudly. "Well, the Harmony has a full mark three SLF helm, right?" he asked. "That makes it easy."

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Who tested the SLF3?" she asked.

"Um, you did, ma'am."

"Good. Then listen to me when I tell you it won't do your job for you. If you want to be my pilot, you're going to have to be as awesome as I want you to be, got it?"

"Ye-yes ma'am," Skyburn stammered.

Rainbow nodded once and turned to the shuttle's hatch. "One last thing, Skyburn. Rarity is ma'am. My name is Rainbow Dash. Call me ma'am again and I'll make sure you can never confuse us again."

Skyburn had no idea what that promise was supposed to mean, but he was sure he never wanted to find out. "I'll keep that in mind, Miss Dash."

Rainbow facehoofed. "We'll work on that." She walked outside and casually swiped her hoof over her sash. "Locate Twilight Sparkle," she said.

Her sash chirped once and a synthetic mare's voice sounded from it. "Princess Twilight is on the bridge."

Rainbow nodded and trotted to the closest turbolift. She put a hoof on an activator panel inside the car. "Bridge," she ordered.

The bridge of the Harmony was, like a Starfleet bridge, located at the apex of the primary hull. It was also a reflection of the egghead that designed the whole thing. The bridge had no exterior windows and was ringed by conference rooms and offices, as well as Twilight's private quarters. The bridge itself was two decks tall, with a mezzanine on the rear half of the bridge. Three turbolifts serviced the bridge and the mezzanine, although for practicality's sake the latter was the preferred posting for pegasi on the bridge.

The reason for the large interior space was the sheer number of terminals and consoles in the rear half of the bridge. The rear wall of the bridge had several, then a line of several more cut off the back third of the bridge, like bookcase stacks in a library. Easily a dozen ponies could turn the bridge into a massive research study cram session without even being seen from the command throne. The consoles could be turned to shipboard tasks, of course, but the ship didn't have enough systems needing constant monitoring for more than a third of them to be usefully occupied like that, even if all engineering functions were routed to the bridge. Because they didn't actually deal with ship operations, the consoles were often called the "stacks" as a separate location from the "bridge."

Forward of the stacks was the throne. Originally, it was slated to be a command chair. Some enterprising young engineer decided that Princess Twilight Sparkle deserved a seat appropriate to her rank, and now it was a near-duplicate of her castle's throne, complete with cutie mark. To either side were smaller, unadorned thrones for the first officer and an observer. All three were equipped with small, personal displays and SLF interfaces. In front of the throne, the bridge pushed forward in a long spar consisting of four primary bridge stations and a large crystal display that functioned as a main viewscreen. The four bridge stations were the principal tactical officer, scrying augur, operations pony, and helmspony.

Rainbow trotted out of the turbolift. She took in the bridge, both its construction and the ponies who crewed it. The ship was still in spacedock, so actual ship operations were nonexistent. The primary stations were vacant and the stacks were filled with lavender-sashed eggheads. She almost missed the Belfast.

But her quarry was there, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, Captain of the Harmony, second in command of the Royal Equestrian Star Navy, Envoy of Equestria, Mistress of the Burning Sky...Rainbow forgot the rest of her titles. There were a few PhDs in there. She was talking to the most unusual member of the crew, and the only one without hooves. Commander Lorian of Vulcan was the Starfleet observer assigned to the Harmony.

When Lorian had been an ensign, he had the bad fortune to be assigned to the research outpost at Ponyville. First Contact with the Federation came about when Pinkie Pie had thrown him a surprise birthday party, a historical footnote that had him pulling more and more assignments in Equestrian space. The Harmony would be flying deeper into Federation space than any Equestrian ship had ever flown. That was their right, per treaties, but the Federation was rather keen on making sure they didn't fly blind. The Federals were never too quiet about how quickly Equestria was advancing, how much it scared them. You'd think more kids would be named "Prime Directive" for all they seemed to love repeating the phrase.

Lorian was part guide and part spy, as far as Rainbow was concerned. He knew the space they were flying into, the places they could dock for repairs, the best places to stock up on hay, alfalfa, or cookies. He was also going to pay close attention to how the Harmony operated. The hybridized systems were unique, crystal magic and Federation technology interwoven in a way Rainbow suspected only one pony fully understood.

Twilight noticed Rainbow approaching and smiled. Her sash was a lavender that matched her cutie mark, and she didn't wear saddlebags. "Rainbow! I had heard you were aboard."

Rainbow frowned. "Twi, I need to talk to you. Now. In private."

Twilight blinked. "Rainbow," she started to object.

Rainbow raised a hoof to cut her off. "Please, Twi. This is really important."

Twilight shut her muzzle and gave Rainbow a measuring look. "My ready room," she said finally. "Commander, please excuse me."

"Of course," Lorian said. "Princess. Commander."

As they walked off the bridge, Rainbow noticed he sat down in the lefthoof chair to Twilight's throne.

Twilight's ready room was made of wood. Rainbow knew it was only a thin shell on the walls, but the floor was thick enough that their hooves made a pleasant, and familiar, clop. The walls had only a few bookshelves, and the computer terminal built into one wall was certainly a modern touch, but the overall impression was homey. Twilight walked around a low desk and lowered herself on a cushion. Rainbow stayed standing and reached behind her wings to get at her saddlebags.

"Well, Rainbow?" Twilight asked.

Rainbow clamped her teeth on the disk Future Twilight had given her. She pulled it out of her bag and spat it onto Twilight's desk. "Future Twilight gave me that," she said.

Twilight raised a silent, disbelieving eyebrow.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and told the story of her encounter with Future Twilight. Twilight's skepticism vanished when Rainbow got to the Pinkie Promise -- nopony mucks around with those. Twilight stared at the disk and quietly levitated it into a reader built into her desk. Rainbow walked around to Twilight's side so she could see the screen.

"Not a lot of information," Twilight said after a moment. "We probably don't have any records of these Iconians, but I can pull it from Federation records...when we visit Hobus?"

"Isn't Hobus the thing that wiped out the Rumuluns?" Rainbow asked. "Why would we go there?"

"Romulans, and I have no idea," Twilight answered. "But there's a bit of data here. The Iconians were thought extinct...two hundred thousand years ago? They controlled an empire that spanned the known galaxy and used advanced teleportation technology that could cross the galaxy in seconds."

"I'm guessing they're back," Rainbow observed. "Or somepony found these 'gateways.'"

"According to this, the Iconians have been back for a while. They've been using agents to wreck everything. The wars, the Hobus supernova, apparently Future Twilight thinks the Iconians are responsible for the damage to harmony of the past thirty years or more."

"Yikes," Rainbow said grimly. "Okay, so we'll hunt them down and buck 'em."

"Future Twilight didn't tell us enough to do that," Twilight said grimly. "All we have is...hmm. Computer." The ship chirped its attention. "Access secure data storage device and incorporate Chekhov-Delta-One into your primary cognizance node. Authorization Princess-Sparkle-Encode."

"Working," the ship responded.

"What'd you do?" Rainbow asked.

"Future Twilight programmed the Harmony to tell us when we need to act on this information. It was her way of making sure we didn't break time any worse than we have to."

"Program complete," the computer announced. Twilight's screen flickered and much of the information on it vanished.

Rainbow frowned. "What happened to all that stuff?" she asked.

The computer answered, "Access to requested datafiles has been restricted by program Chekhov-Delta-One."

Rainbow facehoofed. "Twilight, are you sure that was necessary?" she asked.

"Disaster proofing Equestria," Twilight deadpanned. "Sometimes it's better not to know. I'm going to trust my judgement." She smiled. "For now, I was about to tour the ship with Lorian. Why don't you come with us? You haven't seen all the decks yourself, have you?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Pass. I'll head to my quarters, then hit deck six to stretch my wings until we're ready to get out of here."

"Don't forget your paperwork, Commander!" Twilight shouted at her retreating friend.

"Yeah yeah," Rainbow called back.

A few hours later, Rainbow was settled comfortably into Twilight's right hoof throne. She planted her forehooves carefully on the slight indentations of the SLF built into the seat and turned her attention to her screens. "All departments checking in, Twilight." Like Star Fleet, the Equestrian Navy had chosen to divide crewponies into divisions for organization. They did it a bit differently, though. Each division was noted by the color of the sash that was a crewpony's or officer's uniform.

"Kindness is ready," Rainbow said. The pink-sashed medics were few in number. Even with their leader's legendary timidness, they were going to answer first.

"Generosity is ready," Rainbow said, going down the list as reports came in. Rarity's purple-sashed civilians didn't operate much more than the kitchens and parts of the arboretum.

"Honesty is green." Quite literally, with their sashes and duties. Applejack was in charge of the second largest division, and she had a hoof in near everything that kept the ship running. Supplies, crew assignments, noncritical maintenance, but for all her responsibilities her first love was the apple trees that provided a surprising chunk of the crew's diet.

"Laughter is," Rainbow stopped and sighed. "Pinkie's hacked the computer again. I'm not saying that." The blue-sashed reality warpers kept the ship in one piece, so everypony put up with their leader's antics. Who would have guessed that crystal ponies could be almost as crazy as Pinkie Pie? Well, maybe that's why she came from a rock farm...Rainbow shook her head to clear it. Thirty years and she still didn't understand Pinkie. Or know better than to try, apparently. Moving on.

"Loyalty is awesome," Rainbow said proudly. Her own red-sashed crew was the largest chunk of the ship...which was kinda terrible. They were the soldiers, the guardsponies, the marines. The ones that knew how to turn Harmony into a warship the moment Twilight called an alert.

"And Magic says go," Rainbow finished. The lavender-sashed eggheads handled the most sensitive equipment, but most of them were there for pure research.

Twilight tapped her hooves gleefully for a long moment. "Rainbow, the honor is yours."

Rainbow grinned and hopped off her throne. She trotted up to the helm station, the pony there giving way before her. The helm, like the other three primary bridge stations, was slightly recessed with a glowing, multicolored crystal grid underhoof that looked a bit like the galaxy's most sadistic DDR platform, surrounded on three sides by wither-high screens. The crystals created a full-body reactive SLF type field, allowing the terminal to take input from all of a pony's magic and gestures. That was an SLF2, designed for tasks where a single hoof just didn't have the range of input necessary. The helm, though, was SLF3. The field was interactive.

Rainbow shivered as the magic of the ship touched her own. She felt something around her, like if she extended her wings she'd brush against something hard. The air in front of her was clear, though. "Impellers online," she announced. "Forward velocity, twenty meters per second." She unfurled her wings slightly and focused on the feeling, on the readouts around her. The confining sensation slipped backwards. "We are clear of spacedock," she reported once the feeling had slipped off her rump. She flicked her tail reflexively.

"Bring us up to one half impulse and set course for the edge of the system," Twilight ordered.

Rainbow unfurled her wings fully. "Main engines coming online, speed one half impulse."

The Harmony responded smoothly and banked away from the planet. Deep Space 16 swung into the main viewscreen briefly, the typical mushroom-shaped space station hanging over Canterlot.

"Transmission from DS16," the pony at ops called. "Commander Jackson says 'Godspeed.'"

"Let's put that to the test," Twilight said. "Set course 263 mark 97, out of the Night Sky." What the Federation named the Hromi Cluster was a dense collection of stars that all but drowned out further lights from appearing to the naked eye, so ponies called the cluster the Night Sky. "Maximum warp."

Rainbow grinned. "Get ready for pure awesome," she called back. Her wings narrowed over her back. Twilight knew from long study that her pegasus friend was instinctively putting out a magical barrier that streamlined her profile and gave her a kind of tailwind. The SLF3 picked up on that barrier and interpreted it as a command to accelerate to warp velocity.

Lorian glanced at his screen. The vulcan was sitting at Twilight's lefthoof, and he had a large padd hooked up to his terminal, allowing him to use a standard LCARS layout instead of bemoaning his lack of hooves. "I read our speed steady at warp 5.002. Impressive."

"Returning helm to assisted navigation," Rainbow announced. She stamped a hoof and took the system out of manual control. She then left the helm to return to her posting as first officer, the regular helmspony silently retaking his post behind her. "Thanks, Twi."

"You earned it," Twilight said honestly. "Commander Lorian, once we leave the cluster I intend to set course for sector 001. Do you have any objections?"

"That is a logical destination," Lorian declared. "That region will be far safer for you to conduct your 'shakedown cruise' in."

"Perfect," Twilight said.

A few hours later the Harmony was holding up perfectly under protracted warp travel. "We're passing starbase 24," Lorian announced. "On course for Earth. We'll skim the Vulcan system in the next hour."

"Princess," the operations pony called, "we are receiving a transmission."

"From whom?" Twilight asked. Rainbow brought up the raw transmission to her own screen.

"I don't know," the ops pony admitted. "It looks like some kind of general broadcast over a bunch of frequencies."

"It's a distress call," Rainbow said grimly. "Those are all Federation channels, including the emergency channel."

"Let's hear it," Twilight ordered.

"This is Captain Brek of the Fast Money. We have a complete warp drive failure. We are adrift and in distress. Message repeats, this is Captain Brek..."

Lorian looked up from his screen. "Princess, you are not obligated to render aid. The Fast Money is two light years off our current course."

"How close is the nearest Federation ship?" Rainbow asked.

"I cannot find any within sensor range," Lorian said. "However, with your sensor range, it is possible that the Fast Money has already been detected and a Star Fleet vessel is en route."

"We can't risk it," Twilight said, shaking her head. "Ops, transfer the signal's origin to the helm. Helm, give her everything she's got."

"Augur," Rainbow added, "get as much detail on the Fast Money as you can."

"Adjusting course," the helmspony answered.

The augur consulted her station. "The Fast Money is a Ferengi transport, Commander. Her starboard engines are offline and leaking warp plasma."

"Cause?" Rainbow asked.

The augur was silent for several seconds. "Unknown."

Twilight frowned. They were further out than any pony ship had gone before, even though they had extremely detailed maps of the territory thanks to the Federation. Still, that simple statement spoke volumes about their inexperience with space matters. "Commander Lorian, analysis?"

The vulcan was quiet several seconds. "The logical course of action is to hail the ship and ask them about the nature of their distress."

"So be it," Twilight ordered.

The ops pony worked her console. "They're replying...they say the starboard warp coils overloaded due to incompetent maintenance."

"Such a breach should have caused a significant explosion," Lorian noted. "Sensors, are you picking up elevated tachyon emissions?"

The augur took a moment to realize she was "sensors" and worked the array for a moment. "No sir, I'm just reading the escaping plasma against normal background."

Lorian frowned. "Logic suggests the Ferengi are lying. But why?"

"We'll be on top of them in less than a minute," Rainbow said. "We need to figure this out fast."

"What else could open up a warp engine like that?" Twilight asked. "Plasma pressure? Misalignment? Defective paneling?"

"Dropping out of warp," the helm announced.

"All stop," Rainbow ordered. "Augur, more scans."

"I'm picking up a sudden energy surge," the augur said with confusion. "It's not from...klingon ship decloaking!"

"Shields!" Twilight snapped.

"They're firing!"

The ship shuddered under a pair of hammer blows from the klingon's disruptors. Something exploded back in the stacks, but the ponies stayed on their hooves easily.

"Evasive maneuvers," Rainbow snapped.

"Medical team to the bridge," Twilight ordered. "Sound general quarters."

"Bring the weapon spars online," Rainbow added.

"Target the klingon vessel," Twilight said.

Rainbow turned to tactical but didn't have time to say anything before another hammer blow shook the ship. "Shields are offline," the tactical officer said grimly. "Rerouting power."

"Detecting multiple transporter signals," the augur said. "We're being boarded."

"Vessel identified as a bird of prey. Crew compliment, maybe forty warriors," Lorian said. "Boarding us was an illogical act. We have numerical superiority."

"This isn't a warship," Twilight snapped.

"Intruder alert," Rainbow declared. "All guardponies to post."

"Internal scrying picking up disruptor fire in the garden and engineering," the augur reported.

"Reports of loyalty detachments engaging klingons hoof to hoof," ops added. "The infirmary is ready for casualties."

"Klingon ship recloaking!" tactical shouted. "Weapons are online but I do not have a target."

Rainbow glanced at Twilight and saw her wings half-extended, her eyes glazed over. "Continue evasive maneuvers," Rainbow ordered. "Auxiliary power to shields. Augur, get tactical a target." She glanced at Twilight again and dropped her voice to a whisper. "We need an awesome checklist, Twi."

"Prepare to reduce shields to 24.3% power along the dorsal edge," Twilight said instantly, "on my order only. Augur, bring the lateral scrying array online. Rainbow, report to deck six. Repel the boarders and secure the Elements."

Rainbow didn't hesitate and ran for the turbolifts.