MLP 40K: Trial by Fire

They had been traveling for over a month now. The Accord's itinerary had been given to them by Commander Eschal before the charcoal stallion had valiantly run away. It had 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.

Tracks wasn't sure when the last time was that he'd felt this miserable. It didn't help that he had started the trip in the harrowing depths of tranquilizer withdrawal, or that he wasn't exactly a fan of space travel. The withdrawal insomnia was bad enough all on its own and, with the three extra weeks of practically no sleep, and what sleep there was being plagued by visions spawned by the nightmare fueling realm of the Everfree, he was both physically and mentally drained.

On top of everything else Free Fall had come down with the worst case of Everfree sickness he had ever seen. She needed to remain completely sedated in the Accord's medical bay for the entire time they were Evereal. Even now, two days since the Accord had gone sidereal, she was in a recovery bed.

But these things were only part of why Tracks wanted to prematurely terminate his own life force.

He was drenched in sweat and had managed to get a thick lather going on his coat. He could see the steam rising off of his own muzzle in the relatively cool space of the cargo bay. 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 felt like he had tried to outgallop a maglev train only to be run over by it. He didn't like to consider himself out of shape, but that didn't change the fact that he probably was.

Tracks glared at his nemesis, the pony that had put him in this uncomfortable state. He attempted to move into a defensive stance. He was too slow.

Able's hoof smashed into Tracks' muzzle, sending him sprawling across the floor for what seemed like, and possibly could have been, the dozenth time in the last half hour. After a few moments, and the upside-down view of Able, he realized that he was lying on his back. Again. With a loud, exaggerated, although perhaps not that exaggerated, groan he rolled to right himself. He shakily rose to his hooves and uttered some colorful profanity as his legs gave out again and he fell to the floor.

Able facehoofed. "You have got to be kidding me." Griped the cinnamon earth pony. "You've been working with Sophic for over ten years and you can't even -"

"Give him a break, Sergeant." Devoid cheerfully interjected. Tracks groaned internally as Devoid came to his defense. Having Devoid verbally defend him never worked out in his favor. "Tracks has always been pretty pathetic in hoof-to-hoof combat." Tracks felt the red creeping to his face as Devoid continued to defend him. "Took me ten years to get him this good." Continued the jet-black unicorn, willfully oblivious to Tracks' rising embarrassment.

Tracks laid his head on his hooves in an effort to slow his breathing and to try to tune out the others. He found himself ruminating on how his only consolation was that nopony from the ship's crew was present, since they had reserved and sealed the relatively open cargo space for this small exercise session.

Able had, earlier in the trip, somehow convinced him that they needed access to an exercise space on a daily basis. He had, at first, said that it was unnecessary. Shortly after was when he had started to feel the vibrations through the deck plating. Able, who was directly across the hall from him, said it was probably from her having to canter in place, although he did have a sneaking suspicion that she had actually been galloping back and forth right outside his door. It was starting to happen constantly and was interrupting his reading, researching and, most importantly, sleeping. It had started to drive him batty.

He had eventually contacted Commander Eschal and made the request for a private space. The Commander had been very accommodating, he even had asked if that was all Tracks had wanted, The Commander had seemed to be under the impression that he had wanted a tour or something equally crazy. As far as Tracks was concerned, if you'd seen the insides on one spaceship, you'd seen them all. They all smelled the same too, like stale recycled air, with a faint hint of latrines and cooking fires.

Tracks had declined Able's frequent requests for a sparring partner, his primary excuse had been that Free Fall had been available and was much more eager to fill that role. But, with Free Fall laid up in the Accord's med bay, Able's requests had become more and more insistent. He had held Able off with the promise that Free Fall would be ready again once they went sidereal. Except she hadn't been, the med techs had said Free Fall would be in recovery another week. So finally Tracks had finally given in. Now, drenched and feeling like his entire body was about to fall apart, he found that he was greatly regretting his choice to acquiesce to her training request.

"- tell ya right now, you're not gonna get him to fight like that." Tracks lifted his head from the floor as he heard what Devoid was saying. He'd heard this little speech before, and it always ended up with him being hurt.

Tracks spoke up, mustering the most authoritative tone he could between wheezes. "Devoid, whatever you are planning, I am, most certainly, not in the mood."

"Not in the mood?" Devoid mocked. Tracks suddenly felt a lot more uncomfortable, although he wasn't sure how that could possibly be. "Do you honestly think the enemies of Equestria will wait for you to be." Devoid paused and leveled a murderous glare in his direction. "In. The. Mood?" The look was withering, causing Tracks' spine to feel like ice water and his stomach to involuntarily cramp.

Suddenly, Devoid was rocketing towards him. Tracks' eyes widened and he felt adrenaline begin to pump aggressively into his system. He quickly stumbled to his hooves and backpedaled as quickly as he could. 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 glinting knife he was wielding in his mouth.

As Able watched on in what could only be described as utter shock, Tracks found himself diving out of the way of a wild swing. He rolled, barely avoiding the blade and landing on his back. Again. 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.

This was not the first time Devoid had decided to literally combat Tracks' lackadaisical approach to training. He would have thought more on how to convince Devoid to knock it off, but all of his mental effort was firmly focused towards avoiding that blade. He knew he couldn't keep dodging for too much longer, he was already exhausted. If Devoid was really trying to drive the "point" home by actually skewering 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 definitely anticipated the feint, the swing itself was a misdirect. 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. The blade passed so close to his face he could see his own frantic reflection in its highly polished surface. He landed facing away from Devoid, placed all his weight on his fore-hooves and bucked for all he was worth. He was rewarded with a dull thud of hoof connecting with flesh and bone

Tracks heard the skittering sound of metal on metal and turned to see that Devoid had sprung backwards a few body lengths, 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 got it into his psychopathic mind to come at him again.

He didn't. "See?" Devoid turned and deadpanned to Able, who was still frozen in shock. "Just got to give him incenti -"

"What -" Tracks had violently interrupted, then had to pause for a breath. "- What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing wrong with me." Came the sardonic reply. "You're the one that seriously neglects their physical and combat training."

Tracks' mind was still riding adrenaline and not letting him think clearly. "Why did you use a real knife? You could have cut me!"

That stupid grin never left Devoid's face as he spoke. "Could have nothing, check your cheek there."

Lifting his right hoof to his face, Tracks was surprised to see it come away red. He could now feel the blood dribbling down his muzzle and off of his chin. His right eye started to twitch and he felt anger welling up inside him. "You. You. You!" Tracks was stuttering the word.

The grin widened. "I know, you think it's all about me, me, me. But the real lesson here is about -"

"You know I only had to put up with this before." Tracks said icily. "If you keep this up, I'm going to have to let you go."

"Pfeh." Came the snorted response, accompanied by a dismissive hoof. "Don't tempt me, I was fine working with -"

"Out an airlock." Tracks finished, eyes narrowed.

Devoid cocked his head to the side, grin lessening slightly. "Fine." He turned and sauntered away. "You're no fun since the promotion, Tracks." He said as he exited the cargo bay.

Tracks put his hoof back to his wet right cheek, attempting to probe the edges of the cut. He winced from the resulting pain. It was going to need micro-sutures. He turned to Able in hopes that he might be able to convince her to see his face shut. Instead, he noticed that she was eying the knife on the floor with a contemplative expression on her face.

"Don't even think about it." He said to her.

*          *          *

The bridge of the Accord was a testament to naval efficiency. While it appeared to be a chaotic mass of ponies going every-which-way, there was an underlying order at work. Everypony knew their assigned tasks and nopony wasted time with idle chitchat, not while Commander Sen was on the bridge at any rate.

The room was set out in a semicircle formed of four consoles that overlooked the massive holo-globe that claimed center stage. Each console was ponied by a single Pegasus officer who Sen had personally assigned to the post. On the left side was Shellback and Vector at the engineering and navigation consoles, respectively. To the right of those, at the gunnery and augury consoles, sat Double Arc and Air Wave.

Behind the consoles and towering over everything else in the room, including the holo-sphere, was the Captains dais. A set of elaborate steps lead from the base of the platform all the way up to the captains chair which Captain Tress spent most of her time in. Sen, like a good executive officer, spent most of his time making sure that she never had a reason to leave the Captain's seat.

As Sen was making his quarter hourly circuit of the bridge, he noticed Air Wave was waving a white hoof at him. Sen sighed internally when he saw the sight. Air Wave looked like a schola filly who was desperately trying to get the attention of their teacher. The image wasn't helped by the fact that she was propping up her waving forehoof with the other. The "ooh, ooh"s definitely weren't helping.

"Yes, Miss Air Wave?" Sen asked.

"I'm detecting vox traffic in-system on emergency frequencies!" The pegasus said with far too much cheer for such dire news. After a few moments of staring expectantly into Air Wave's blue eyes, which matched her mane, Sen sighed again, this time out loud.

"And?" He asked, quite unnecessarily as far as he was concerned.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, turning to her console to refresh her short attention span plagued memory. "It's a distress call. The message origin is about five hundred million kilomares bearing three-twenty by one-four. The message decodes as coming from the civilian freighter 'Ovis Aries.' She says that she took a severe impact from a rogue asteroid. She's crippled and only has minimal power. They're worried that the life support systems will fail before the system defense boats can get to them and evacuate the ship."

Sen felt his brow furrow as he heard the report. It was every naval pony's worst fear to be stranded on a crippled ship, watching helplessly as the air and supplies diminished. "I'll inform the Captain." He said as he turned to trot towards the Captain's throne. He stopped for a moment and turned back towards the energetic mare. "Good job, Air Wave." He turned away just as her face scrunched into squeedom.

As he approached the elevated platform, the greying tan mare who sat upon it saluted him. Sen returned the salute crisply and waited for the Captain to drop her hoof before he dared to lower his own.

"Captain." He began, always a stickler for protocol.

"Yes, Commander?" She asked, her cobalt eyes sparkling inquisitively.

"Air Wave has detected a distress call, civilian freighter. She's five hundred million out, bearing is forty degrees off our course to Abyssinian Prime." Sen had made sure to do the math on his trot over.

Sen saw Captain Tress put a hoof to chin in thought. Her other hoof rattled on one of the foreleg panels on her chair, and one of the many attached display panels came to life, showing the readings from Air Wave's console.

"This will take us about a day out of our way." Tress stated, her eyes locking with Sen's. He knew she wouldn't leave the Ovis Aries to the void, she was just stating the facts for consideration.

"That is still well within our estimated arrival time." Sen responded.

"Yes. Yes it is." She stated before intensifying her gaze. "But somepony will have to inform the Inquisition of our course change."

Sen felt his heart jump into his throat. He swallowed it back down.

The Inquisition team had been relatively harmless since they had boarded. Aside from the request for access to an open space for their training and for a medical bed for the duration of their pilot's Everfree sickness they had asked for nothing the entire journey. They had yet to request something that he could not or would not provide, so he had no idea how they would react. Everypony expected delays due to Everfree travel, it was uncontrollable. But a purposeful delay? Even with the lives of thousands of space faring ponies in the balance, the Inquisitors could simply decide that their mission took precedence and make everypony's lives very difficult.

"I'll inform them" Sen said with as much conviction as he could muster. Tress gave him another salute. He returned it sharply and spun to leave. As he made his way from the bridge he could hear Tress giving orders to Vector to change the Accord's course.

Sen knew the ship very well. He had lead several counter-boarding actions in his day, which had lead to him knowing all kinds of hiding places and shortcuts throughout the Accord. He used his knowledge of the latter to reach the guest quarters in under a quarter of an hour. He hoofed the door chime rune for the Interrogator's room.

After a few minutes had passed, Sen decided to check out the cargo bay he had reserved for the Inquisition group. Another few short minutes of trotting through the Accord's corridors brought him to the bay door, which was locked. He entered his own access codes and was surprised to see that they were declined. The bay had been sealed with indigo level codes and only an Inquisition agent could unlock them again.

Sen had just decided to leave and try the Interrogator's chambers again when he suddenly felt all of the hairs on his neck rise. He quickly spun around, coming face to face with the grinning jet-black unicorn. His vision was filled with those cold, cat-yellow eyes.

"Can I assist you, Commander?" He said in what Sen could only interpret as a mocking voice.

Sen had prepared himself for this pony's antics and did not flinch. Instead he narrowed his eyes and spoke flatly. "I must speak with the Interrogator. It is a matter of great importance"

The unicorn's grin twisted into a kind of smirk. "Must be very important for a Commander to come down." He teased.

Sen came to the realization that he utterly despised this pony. He found himself thinking of ways to accidentally make sure somepony was on the wrong side of an opening airlock. He was pretty sure that he would have to try another tactic but, after a few moments of continuing the stare-down, the unicorn turned to the bay doors and quickly tapped his hoof against the runed keypad.

"Far be it from me to keep you from being able to execute your duties, Commander." The unicorn drawled.

Sen ignored the unicorn's taunts. He was getting what he wanted.

The metal door slid open on well oiled runners, exposing the relatively open space of the cargo hold. Sen noticed, as he entered the bay, the pony he had been seeking for the last half hour. The Interrogator was sitting on his haunches and an earth pony mare Sen did not recognize was standing next to him. He assumed, correctly, that it was the pony he had seen in the carapace barding before. She seemed to be doing something to his face with one of her hooves.

As he approached, he saw that the Interrogator was not wearing his cloak. Sen found himself curious as to what kind of cutie mark a prospective Inquisitor would have and caught a glimpse of something he couldn't really place. It appeared to be a circular lens with a grip attached to it. His thoughts on the matter were cut short when his attention was grabbed by the large amount of blood on the Interrogator's face. The mare had a medical device in hoof and was sealing a rather nasty gash on the Interrogator's cheek.

"Am I... Interrupting something?" Sen asked.

Interrogator Tracks jumped at the voice and there was a tearing sound as a series of stitches were forcibly removed from his face. Sen, an experienced naval officer, who had worked with naval ratings and even press ganged crews in the past,  was impressed by both the creativity and the vulgarity of the swearing that issued forth from the Interrogator's mouth. He held his hoof to his muzzle as fresh stream of blood cascaded down his face.

"Where? Why?" The Interrogator sputtered. "How did you get in here?" He finally managed to demand.

"I let him in." Sen jumped as the unicorn behind him spoke. He had completely forgotten he was behind him. He cursed himself, he knew his situational awareness was far better than this.

"Really, Devoid?" The Interrogator said, finally attaching a name to the jet-black pony in Sen's mind. "Wait, why are you here?"

"Well, I forgot my knife." Devoid said as he sauntered over to where the blade had fallen. He picked it up in his teeth and re-sheathed it. "And the Commander here said it was really important that he speak with you right away." He drawled while working his way back towards the cargo bay door.

The Interrogator's eyes narrowed at Devoid's retreating form. He then turned his attention back towards Sen. His face took on as affable an expression as his blood streaked face could manage. "Well, Commander, as long as you don't mind watching my face get stitched back together, you can tell me the important news right now, otherwise it'll be a few minutes."

Sen explained the reception of the distress signal and the Accord's change in course. As he spoke, the only noise other than his own voice was the humming of the medical device as it sealed the Interrogator's face. Tracks remained still and silent throughout Sen's report, the only change in his expression being the occasional wince when the suturing device pierced a nerve bundle. Sen finished talking about the same time that the cinnamon mare finished stitching.

Tracks looked Sen square in the eye. "You should have come to us first."

Sen felt his heart involuntarily constrict. "Well it is standard -" he stopped talking as the Interrogator raised a hoof.

"Commander..." The Interrogator paused and sighed. He closed his eyes and brought his hoof to the bridge of his muzzle. "Sen, can I call you Sen?" He said as he opened his Crimson eyes and looked into Sen's.

"Ok?" Sen said questioningly.

"Good, and you can call me Tracks." Sen wasn't sure where the Interrogator was going with this. "Sen, we need to trust each other a little better. Now, I trust you to run this ship and get me to where I need to go. I need to know that you actually trust me back. Trust me to not abandon thousands of stranded ponies unless hundreds of thousands or millions, even billions are at stake."

Sen was too old to be on the receiving end of a lecture. Especially about acceptable losses. Despite that, Sen saw the truth in the Interrogator's words. He grimaced. "I'll tell the Captain to set us back on course."

"What? Why?" The purple unicorn asked quizzically.

"You just said..." Sen paused as he went back over the conversation in his mind.

"I just said that you should have come to us first, just in case. If our mission was time sensitive and you tried to pull this try this 'we already changed course' nonsense, you could have found yourself in serious trouble." The Interogator paused for a long shuddering breath. Now that Sen had gotten a good long look at him he realized how terrible he looked, even accounting for the facial wound, more so than when he had first arrived.

"That being said," The Interrogator began. "I fully endorse the action to rescue the Ovis Aries. We at the Inquisition are all about saving the lives of loyal Equestrian citizens, regardless of the rumors."

Sen couldn't prevent the grin from coming to his face. He had thought that all Inquisition agents were like the ones he had met in the past, cruel, vindictive, single minded in the perception that their duties were more important than all others. Against all of his previous expectations, he found he was beginning to like Tracks.

*          *          *

The bridge was dimly lit, the only illumination came from the instrument panels. A rhythmic clacking could be heard from the shadows that enveloped the captain's throne. Two eyes, one gold, one green, glared with burning hatred down at the rest of the bridge.

"Captain?" The pony at the augur panel called to the throne.

The Captain pierced the pony with her eyes. The pony cowered back into his seat. The Captain smiled. She enjoyed making these ponies squirm. They weren't good for much else aside from eating.

The pathetic pony began to stammer in an attempt to justify his continued existence. "W-w-we j-j-just received a vox message from the Accord, My L-l-lord. T-t-they are en-en-en route to rescue us. Estimated t-t-time of arrival is thirty-one hours."

"Very good, pony." Came the screeching voice of the captain, which caused the pony to cringe. The plan had worked then. The communications array they had raided was working flawlessly and now they would be coming to her, like lambs to the slaughter. The Timber-Wolf class raider Tooth and Claw was hungry for combat since it had dispatched the Ovis Aries all those months ago. The Accord might be a better armed and armored equestrian naval frigate, but the Tooth and Claw would have surprise.

The Captain stood up from the chair, exposing the front half of her figure to what little light existed on the bridge. Red feathers and a black beak framed the mismatched eyes. Her forelegs were scaled and ended in wicked razor sharp talons. The fronts of a folded pain of wings could be seen trailing into the darkness surrounding the throne. With her back half remaining in shadow, the griffon captain began to screech orders at the bridge crew.

As the pitiful ponies ran around fearfully in front of her to carry out her orders, one stallion moved a little slower than the rest. Captain Rouge Claw's smile grew. She pounced on the poor pony, who released a terrified whinny. Her hind legs were lion paws that dug into the terrified stallion and pinned him in place. The pony let out a high pitched shriek that was cut short as she slashed at his throat with one of her foreclaws. The others watched in horrified, yet relieved, silence as she began to feed on the still struggling form.

The pony tasted like he looked, weak and malnourished. Still, she relished the flavor as she ate. She knew an Equestrian naval ship would hold much finer cuisine than this. As she chewed, she envisioned how the pathetic ponies of the Accord would drown in their own blood. She promised herself that she would eat the heart of their captain herself.

The struggles of the mortally wounded pony ended far too quickly for her liking. She never could stomach dead flesh. Unable to eat what remained of the body, she motioned for two ratings to drag the carcass away. The others quickly, wisely, returned to their tasks with renewed fervor. She climbed the dais to the captain's throne and submerged her gore soaked features in darkness. She absentmindedly read the chronometer on one of the panels. She was willing to wait thirty hours for her next meal.