Aces In Exile

Chapter One:

It was supposed to be a milk run

"This is blue flight calling pride tower, patrol complete, requesting clearance for landing over." Alzack sighed, so far, mostly everything had gone according to schedule on their very first mission. That was until one of the convoy freighter's tachyon FTL drives decided to crap out, and nearby to a dying star no less. Now the engineers were hurriedly trying to fix it asap before the thing decided to blow and turn them all into dust.

"Just another day on the job eh lieutenant?" Alzack heard from his number two, a young lady also in her early twenties with short red hair and green eyes. "Stow it, we don't really have the time for jokes Lynn."

"Roger that sir." Just as their little exchange had finished, Pride flight control crackled in on the radio, "Blue flight this is tower, you are cleared, bring em home."

"Roger that tower, blue flight coming in" Setting their four fighters down, each atop one of the retrieval elevators on top of the Pride, they began their slow decent back inside the ship.

Meanwhile, inside the command deck, commander Artemis looks over the stars current readings with a grim face.

"How much longer till their drive core is fixed?" He asked his second in command. "Half an hour sir, we'll be cutting it close, but we should be out of here before the star goes critical." Was her reply. Standing back up from looking over the console he walked back to his command chair and sat down. "should be? I don't want this left to chance captain, I want to be long gone before that happens, understood?"

"Yes sir! I'll have the engineers move as fast as they can sir!" The captain replied as she saluted and got about to trying to hurry things along.

Easing back into his chair, Artemis glanced over at the current object of his ire and frowned. 'I don't like this one bit.' Was his only thought.

Equestria, roughly the same time:

"Come oooon Spike! We're going to be late if you don't hurry, this meteor shower only happens once every hundred years!" Called a young purple alicorn. "I'm coming, give me a break Twilight, this stuff is heavy you know!" Replied Spike as he finally managed to get out of the palace doors carrying both Twilight's telescope and his new radio, closing the doors behind himself. Twilight sighed as they were finally making their way to the small hill were she, spike and their friends would be watching the once in a lifetime event. "Sorry spike, but I'm just really excited for this, it's supposed to be one of the most beautiful astral phenomenon known to pony kind, and we get to see it first hand!"

Shaking his head and sighing, the small drake knew he wouldn't be able to persuade his friend and caretaker to relax. "Alright i'm going as fast as I can, we'll be there with plenty of time." Giving a triumphant nod and smile, Twilight and Spike hurry along to the meeting place.

Back aboard the Flaming Pride:

"Sir! The engineers have finished repair but we have a problem!" Came the call from captain Leona to her superior, this of course did not help the commanders mood. "Report captain." Came his only reply.

"The star's deteriorating at an accelerated level, we need to leave now or we're going to be vaporized." "Damn it! This is exactly what I didn't need. Get the freighter out of here and the engineers back aboard as fast as possible then make preparations for an emergency jump now!"

The commanders orders were clear and they caused a flurry of activity on the bridge. "Aye sir!" Replied the XO as she hurriedly got to her duties, which was followed shortly by the flash of the freighter they were assisting making it's FTL jump to rejoin with the convoy in the next system.

Blue flight had just finished their debriefing as alarms began to sound all around the ship and an announcement from the XO came over the intercoms. "All hands, prepare for emergency jump, secure all bulkheads and craft. All non-essential personnel to emergency jump stations immediately!" Alzack and the rest of his wing-mates didn't need to be told twice, they all ran as fast as they could back to their quarters and secured themselves with harnesses that were attached to the walls. "Looks like things are finally about to get interesting!" Called the second pairs leader, a young man in his late twenties to early thirties with medium length dark brown hair with dark brown eyes and the beginnings of a five o'clock shadow on his face.

"Yeah, about time we got a little excitement." Came the call of his wing man, a young man of his very early twenties with short brown hair and who also had brown eyes.

"Can it you two, this is serious." Replied lieutenant Alzack. "Look on the bright side sir, you always wanted to go out with a bang!" Called Lynne from her position. Alzack just sighed as the final announcements came over the intercom to sound all stations were ready.

"Sir! All stations have reported in, we're ready to go!" Called out captain Leona from her ready position.

"Finally! Commence jump! get us out of here!" commander Artemis all but shouted, but just as the FTL drives were warmed up and the jump initiated, the dying star finally let loose it's deadly inferno of solar radiation as it exploded. The energy created causing the tachyon drive cores to overload and put an incredibly increased amount of power into the jump as they flashed away, into the unknown.

Equestria, same time:

"I say darling, this meteor shower is simply spectacular, it gives me so many wondrous ideas for designs I would simply love to try!" Exclaimed Rarity, her love of fashion taking in the inspiration from the natural wonder of the event.

"I gotta say Twi, this is real nice, glad y'all invited us to come watch it with ya." Said Applejack, who was also captivated by the sight.

"Thanks girls, i'm just glad that we could make it on time to see it." Answered Twilight, while Spike sat nearby, listening to music on the new radio that he had been saving up to buy. The music was very relaxing and had been picked by the radio host specifically for those watching the event.

Finally the shower was finishing up and just a few meteors were going by, every now and then. "well looks like that's it girls, we should probably get going now, it's getting late and i'm sure it's past somepony's bedtime." Said Twilight as she looked over to Spike as he rubbed his tired eyes.

"Yeah." Yawned Rainbow Dash. "I've got weather duty in the morning so i'll... see... you...later?" Rainbow started to say until a bright flash in the sky caught her attention which didn't go unnoticed by the others either. "Umm twilight, what was that?" Asked Dash.

"I don't know Rainbow..." Was Twilight's reply. Suddenly all eyes were on Spike's radio as the music went to static and was replaced with a broadcast of a different nature.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is the UCFS Flaming Pride broadcasting on all channels to any vessels in the area, our tachyon drive cores are down, requesting assistance from any friendly ships in the area, currently in orbit above an unknown planet, This message will repeat at one hour intervals, UCFS Flaming Pride out."

Nopony moved an inch, they all just stared at the radio as it cut back to the host apologizing for the interruption and wishing everyone a good night.

"Umm, T-Twilight?" Came the quiet voice of Fluttershy as she hid behind her hair.

"SPIKE!" Shouted Twilight, she knew what needed to be done, she had an emergency letter to write to her mentor.