Chapter II: The Emerald Path

The next day passed with little incident.  Morning Sky spent most of the time on the bridge, yet with their ship on course, there was little need, beyond the occasional adjustment to make sure they stayed within the current that Nova Light set them on.  On the viewscreen, one could even make out the slight distortion in the space around them that marked the arcane current’s passage through the cosmos, a river that was almost imperceptible without magic.

The storytellers would say that, long ago, space was quieter.  The Astral Plane was comparatively still, like a pond on a clear day, and didn’t spill over into the Materium with the strength it did now.  In the time of the Fall, though, the still pond turned into an ocean of crashing waves, that the barrier between the two could not keep out.  The stars were filled with bursts, rivers and waves of raw magical energy that rocked the heavens.  Some would say it lasted days, others would say it lasted months.  A few bold ones would claim it lasted years.  Morning Sky had always hoped they were simply exaggerating, but looking up at the stars, she wondered in silence.

In a sense, the storm still continued today, seven hundred years later; the effects could still be felt, when magical energy leaked over into the physical world and rippled across the stars.  Without this, in fact, society might not have been able to rebuild, for the same currents aided those crossing the void who had the means to leverage them.  Though the freighter’s specially-enchanted sails were out of sight from where she sat on the bridge, she could tell by the ship’s speed that they were doing their job, catching the arcane currents so they could push the craft onwards.

“Anything on the Scryer, Nova?” Morning Sky finally said aloud, “a ship?  A void swimmer?  A particularly interesting piece of rock?”  Three hours of pure silence was finally starting to get to the mare.

“I’ve got nothing,” Nova Light called back, still staring absently at the crystal ball to one side of his station.  He looked half asleep, and for once she didn’t even blame him.  These long stretches of inactivity were the one part of the job no one looked forward to.  Even Moon Crystal had run out of idle conversation about an hour ago.  There was nothing left to do but keep within the flow until they reached the Emerald Current.

“Moon Crystal, remind Silver Song that her shift’s in fifteen minutes, I suppose,” Morning Sky said, managing to keep her tone professional despite her mounting boredom.  “Anything from Engineering?” she added.

“Comet Trail reported in, to let us know he’s checked the Engines, the Drive Core and the Starbright Core again, as well as the interfacing,” Moon Crystal replied.

“That’s the fifth time he’s done that today,” Copper Sand remarked.

“I know,” Moon Crystal answered.  “Honestly, it almost sounded like something is eating at him, though I guess he could just have nothing to do.”

“Well, whatever’s eating him should stop, that’s not a terribly nice thing to do,” Nova Light said aloud.  He gazed about the room awkwardly as he felt every last eye in the room slowly bore into his skull; except for Moon Crystal, who quietly facehoofed.  “Because, well, you know… it’s eating him…”  The blank stares intensified.  Silence reigned.  “Eheh…  I guess that one was funnier in my head,” Nova Light finally said aloud.

Morning Sky sighed, resting her head on her hoof.  “Don’t worry; considering you’re being paid to plot courses and not standup routines, I don’t have cause to dump you off in the nearest port we find.  Yet.”  It was hard to tell whether the young mare was being serious or joking, going by her tone.

“And that’s a good thing!  I think,” Nova Light replied.  Well, ultimately, it definitely was a good thing, considering he hadn’t the slightest clue where else he’d find a job.

The small talk and occasional light jabs persisted for several more minutes.  Morning Sky, for her own part, remained distant from it.  She was the Captain; she needed to remain professional, even despite her own crew’s quirks.  She watched the viewscreen, occasionally rolling around an orb on her chair’s right arm to turn the view to the ship’s side, or rear, or above or below, before giving up and quietly pressing a trigger to the orb’s right to return the screen to a forward view.

Eventually, Silver Song arrived for her shift, and Nova Light took his leave, heading off the bridge and likely to the Mess.  More hours passed, and after the fourth, Morning Sky started watching the starry beyond a bit anxiously.  She was about to call Nova back up when a sight far in the distance finally put her mind at ease.

It was just starting to grow distinct, hampered by the forward screen that blocked cosmic dust and aether from impacting the ship, and obscured by the arcane stream they were already in, but ahead space seemed to turn a distinct, green color.  The vague, greenish tint in the void ahead finally started to come into focus.  The rest of the bridge was more overtly enthusiastic, cheering in triumph and no small amount of relief.  Minutes later, Morning Sky could already make out eddies and flows in the long, nebula-like expanse they were fast approaching.

From a distance, the Emerald Current looked almost like a green river, snaking its way through the vastness of space.  But no water flowed through its boundaries.  The Current was one of the three greatest, continuous flows of energy from the Astral Plane in the entirety of known space.  Where most registered as a vague distortion of the light that passed through the flow, the magic here was so strong anypony could see it.  As they drew closer, the green began to appear all the more vibrant, glimmering in the vastness of space.

Morning Sky watched it in silence, and for once, it wasn’t the fear of seeming unprofessional in front of her crew which kept her quiet.  She’d seen the Current many times before; any traveler in this part of the Expanse knew of it, but the sight still filled her with awe every time.  Waves and streams of magic dashed and swirled through the flow, stretching from right to left as far as the eye could see.  They were hours from its borders, yet it already shined with a supernatural glow, curling and weaving through the aether.  Looking into the streams, Morning Flare could almost swear each wave was made of the very gemstones it was named for.

Morning Sky sat in silence a moment longer, taking in a deep breath.  Many ponies that traveled this area recounted how they felt all the more alive after leaving, as if the verdant flow of magic carried some restorative property.  Reality itself felt almost… strange, for lack of a better term.  Perhaps that should be expected, considering the sight before her did, technically, find its source somewhere in a crack between the material and immaterial.  The Current had its own ghost stories, tales told by superstitious sailors to pass the hour.  Some claimed to even hear voices if they traveled too close.  Few ever actually went into the Current itself; traveling along its borders was easily enough to push even the heaviest craft to breakneck speeds.

To her right, she could hear Moon Crystal clearing her throat, snapping her out of her reverie.  Morning Flare’s face flushed with embarrassment, although Moon Crystal offered an assuring smile in return.  “Captain,” she finally spoke up, “it should be approximately three hours yet, until we reach the border.  Should I put all hands on alert?”

Morning Sky looked towards the cosmic river in the distance.  “Give the crew another hour and a half, I suppose.  Let them know that we’re in the home stretch.  I guess we’ll make it after all.”

                                                                           ***************

“How could our kinsmen not have found anything yet?  That ship should have been dead in the water with a faulty drive core for days.  That’s assuming her sabotage didn’t blow the freighter up outright!  That unicorn was certain of it!”

“Be that as it may, Captain, it would seem our target is still at large.  Even assuming Sunrise Flare’s part of the plan failed to work, we would still appear to have a contract to fulfill.”

“A contract for an employer who can’t even fulfill her part of the plan; this is ridiculous.”

“If we fail now, though, or give up the chase, you know who they’ll blame for this.  They certainly aren’t going to find fault with one of their precious battlemages.”

Captain Albrecht grunted with annoyance, scanning the bridge for any officer who gave him an excuse to vent his mounting bad temper on them.  Finding none for the time being, he turned towards his first officer.  “We will have to resort to our backup plan, Eugen.  Have our ships set a course for the Current.  It is the most likely route they will take to reach the Harbor.  Have our kinsmen keep an eye for any wake in the aether.”

Eugen offered a salute with a clawed hand, leftover habit from his military days, before heading over to the comm. station to make it so.  Albrecht went back to staring at the viewscreen in front of him with irritation.  Reiner was no fool; if there had been any trace of the freighter, he would have found it, even wreckage.  They even knew the route it would likely take.  That they hadn’t found it already was unbelievable.  Albrecht idly looked down to his claws, making sure they were sharp, and took a moment to preen his feathers.  Hopefully they’d get a chance to board the craft.  He was looking forward to venting some of his frustration, for such a simple ship that’d eluded them for days.

The griffon captain’s head snapped to the side as Eugen came back towards his seat.  “The Warscreech and Hell Talon are ready to move out, Captain,” Eugen calmly reported.  “We await your orders.”

“You don’t have to wait for me,” he grumbled.  He turned towards the front of the bridge, calling out as though he hoped the other two vessels would hear him, “all ships, move out!”

                                                                           ***************

The next two and a half hours had passed uneventfully on the Wandering Star’s bridge, little changing beyond the slight sense of relief, that the run was nearly over.  Silver Song wrapped up her shift in the Navigator’s chair and trotted down towards the Mess Hall to grab dinner, and Nova Light even showed up to take over for her on time.

With the bulk of the trip over, even Morning Sky was showing signs of relaxing.  She sat a bit more calmly in the Captain’s chair now, taking in the scene around her and occasionally issuing instructions.  With a satisfied look, she turned back towards the viewscreen to take in their destination.  In a way, it was a shame they couldn’t simply look out the window once in a while.  The vastness of space was a bit lost when viewed through a magically summoned screen, like the one at the front of the bridge.  In truth, most freighters simply had their bridge on the top observation deck, like the sailing ships in the legends surrounding ancient Equus.

The Wandering Star, though, was different.  Her father had relocated the bridge deeper within the ship’s hull during a refit, before she was even born.  Most freighters didn’t bother with such safety measures.  The cost of connecting a bridge well inside the hull to the outside world was impractical if it wasn’t strictly necessary.  Since freighters in civilized space were never expected to see combat, it was rarely worthwhile.

But the Star traveled further afield, surviving by taking jobs few freighters would, and windows were structural weaknesses.  Travelers in wild space did not use them.  Morning Sky inwardly grimaced as she recalled the stories of freighters that lost their bridge crew in a single shot, when an enterprising pirate made an easy target of that exposed design.  Perhaps not appreciating the view before her in all its glory was a small price after all.

The thought prompted her to turn towards Nova Light as he got back to the business of observing his Scryer orb.  “Nova,” she called out, “have we still not detected any other ships out here?  The Current is usually a little busier than this.  I would’ve expected to see at least another freighter or two passing through by now.”

“I’ve got nothing,” Nova Light replied.  “I can try widening the search, but there’s only so much I can do.”  In truth, the orb at his station was already a grand triumph of Unicorn magical engineering prowess.  To detect objects fifty kilometers away with an array that could be easily mounted on a ship would have stunned the archmagi of the early days.  It was a pity most ships could cross that in a minute.

“Do what you can,” Morning Sky called out, and went back to looking at the viewscreen.  As the vast, green river drew close, the young mare left the Captain’s Chair and took a step forward; it was time for her to take the helm again.  Steadying herself on her hind legs, she rested her front hooves on the steering wheel, deciding to wait a minute longer before disabling the lock that kept it in place.  The Current took up the entire viewscreen by now.  Morning knew it was many kilometers wide, although the vast distance it covered made it seem thin from afar.

“Two minutes from the border, Captain,” Copper Sand called out.  “We should align our course with the Current soon.”

“Understood, First Mate,” Morning Sky replied, unlocking the wheel.  The first, minor waves started to push the ship.  Morning resisted the first few, correcting their course, but soon simply allowed the waves of magic to push them towards port, going with the flow.  For the last minute, the ship cut an angle of about forty-five degrees; up until the waves were so close the ship looked like it might crash into them.  Morning steeled herself, watching.  When they were about to dive straight into the river of magic she gave the helm a steady turn, bringing the freighter hard to port.  Everypony on the ship could feel the slight turbulence as the freighter skimmed just along the outer edge of the waves.

Perfect, Morning Sky thought to herself, finally allowing a satisfied smile.  She held her position; from here until the Harbor, she would have to remain at the helm, to make sure they remained just on the constantly shifting boundary of the Emerald Current.  The outside changed little, with nothing to provide a point of reference, but her instruments told Morning what she already knew from experience.  Their speed had quadrupled in the half minute they’d been inside the Current, their sails catching the unstoppable flood of magic and propelling them along far faster than they could achieve under their own power.

“Captain,” Moon Crystal called out, “I’m picking up a signal from an Aquarian beacon, public frequency, standard travel safety advisory.  Bursts have appeared here and there near the Current the last few days; nothing unusual, just have to stay alert.”

“Understood,” Morning Sky replied, keeping her eyes forward.  That wasn’t much cause for alarm, really.  The area was known to get Spellbursts once in a while – plumes of magic flooding into the material world.  They reacted unpredictably when they hit the Current, but almost always they could be moved around with ease.  It was unlikely to delay them at all-

“Captain?”  Nova Light’s voice was halting.

“…Yeah, Nova?”

“I finally picked up something on the Scryer.  I think it was a ship, but it turned around, slipped back out of the edge of my field before I could see clearly.”

The bridge crew went silent.  Beforehand, Morning Sky was hoping to hear there were other freighters out here; it’d assure her that everything was normal.  Why did they turn away, though?  Morning’s eyes narrowed.  Another freighter or a patrol craft would have maintained course once in the Current.  Moving against it was counterproductive, even dangerous, sometimes.  She hated how it sounded, but something wasn’t right.

As soon as the flow was on a straight path for a bit, Morning Sky pulled a small switch to her right up, overriding the viewscreen control back on her chair.  At her side, an orb just like it held on a stand lit up, and Morning immediately started running her hoof over it.  The view rotated to show her port, then to starboard, then astern, moving from left to right in hopes of seeing something.  They were purchasing a secondary viewscreen as soon as they had gold again.  Stopping the visual at about thirty degrees starboard from the stern, Morning Sky stopped for a moment.

Aft of the ship, she could see the Great Bloom, far in the distance.  One of a few magical phenomena to outshine the Current’s fame, it glowed magnificently.  For a moment, it pulsed, as if it had a life of its own; the massive, endless bloom of magic seemed like a flower, its light filtering through the emerald energy before it.  Morning Sky shook her head, like she was trying to get the cobwebs out of her skull.  It was beautiful, of course, but this was no time to be sightseeing.  She needed to find… something.  For a moment, it was hard to concentrate, and all she could do right now was to stare at the sight.

She didn’t hear Copper Sand try to get her attention, or Moon Crystal call out, her voice obviously tinged with concern.  Later, she’d recall feeling like something was scratching in her mind; uncomfortable, though not really painful.  She’d remember it lasting until she could hear two words, clear as day:

Behind you!

Morning Sky’s eyes went wide.  Her hoof slid along the orb at her side, and the screen ahead of her swerved to look astern of the ship.  She looked into the current, the display panning and shifting about frantically.

“Captain!  Morning Sky!”

Sand’s words finally snapped her back to reality.  She tapped the orb hard, snapping back to the forward view, relieved to see they still had a minute before they’d need to adjust course again, and looked around at her crew.  Everpony on the bridge, Copper Sand, Moon Crystal, and Nova Light, watched her with obvious concern.

“Captain, should we send out a hail, see if anyone responds?”  Moon Crystal had never taken her eyes off the filly in front of her for a moment.  She tried to keep her face unreadable as Morning Sky turned back towards her.

“Leave them be,” Morning Sky replied.  “If someone sends out a signal, respond in kind, otherwise we’ll just leave them alone.”

“Yes, Captain.”  Moon Crystal turned back to her station to receive a message from the lower decks, while Copper Sand moved from Morning Sky’s side to the console at her left.  Save the occasional status report, they continued the journey in silence.

                                                                           ***************

“Captain, Reiner has just reported in.  They’ve found the ship, it reached the Emerald Current two and a half hours upstream of our position, approximately ten minutes ago.”

“Finally,” Albrecht grumbled, his previous anger dying down to its usual low simmer.  “Were they detected?”

“No, sir, Reiner reports they remained well outside the range of the Scryer for a ship that class.”

“Good.  Let them know they are to maintain a safe following distance at all times.  We will stop them here; they are to close the trap if necessary.  With any luck, we’ll convince them to stand down and permit our boarding action without a chase.”

Eugen cocked his head to the side, tilting it quizzically at his captain.  “Sunrise Flare made it very clear that we are not supposed to take chances with this ship.  We’ve been told to blow it out of the stars as soon as it crosses into our sights.  That was the deal.”

“I know what the deal says!” Albrecht snapped back.  “I also know Sunrise isn’t paying us nearly enough for the trouble we’ve already gone through for her.  She wants that ship destroyed, badly.  That means that whatever is on it is valuable.  So long as she has no reason to believe we did otherwise, I am not following some Unicorn’s orders to the letter just to make her happy.  We will board the ship, and strip it of anything worth a copper piece.  Once we are done, we kill the crew and scuttle the ship.  Sunrise does not even have to know.”

Albrecht’s eyes narrowed at his First Mate, as if to reinforce that last point.  Eugen straightened out quietly, ruffled his feathers, and gave Albrecht a silent nod.

“Hail the Warscreech and Hell Talon,” Albrecht instructed.  “Inform them of our plans.  They will lie in wait.  We will flush the prey out.”

                                                                           ***************

They had traveled along the current for four hours now, and already the freighter had crossed more distance than it had since it left Greyrock.  Morning Sky kept her eyes forward, carefully keeping their ship just at the point where the Current started to appear solid.  A careful adjustment of their side thrusters to rotate the ship clockwise placed their topside sails just on its edge.  Holding the sails so close to a magic current too long for too often could wear them down, but right now, they needed every minute.  At current speed they would reach their destination with an hour to spare, but they would still need to handle docking, unloading and all the other hassles that came after a trip.

And even though Morning Sky kept her face stoic, the sooner they reached the safety of the Harbor, the better she would feel.  The young mare kept her eyes forward still, watching the viewscreen in front of her, one hoof constantly on the lever steering the freighter up and down against the side of the current.  Everypony on the bridge was still ever so slightly on edge since Nova Light’s warning four hours ago.  The tension was palpable.  But Morning still did not say a word.  A Captain wasn’t supposed to be scared.  It’d do her and her crew no good for them to see her scared.

Nova Light had gone back to paying rapt attention to his Scryer, unusually quiet as he stared into the crystal globe.  Moon Crystal seemed the calmest pony on the bridge, or at least the best at hiding her unease.  Copper Sand remained at the station to her left, rather than return to her side.  He was trying to busy himself with whatever he could, it seemed.

“Comet reports that all systems down in engineering are operating at peak efficiency again,” Moon Crystal called out.  She was silent again for a while, before her eyes narrowed.  “He says he wants to talk to you as soon as possible, though.  He says it’s a matter of great urgency.”

“We’re within an hour of the Harbor, I can speak to him as soon as we exit the Current,” Morning Sky replied.  “Golden Light hasn’t said much today, she’s still at her post?”

Silence ensued as Moon Crystal relayed the Captain’s messages.  “Golden Light is still on her deck, says she’s been calibrating the TACs,” Crystal finally replied.  “Also, Comet Trail is insisting he needs to talk to you at once; it can’t wait.”

Morning Sky frowned at that.  “What could be so important it can’t wait forty-five minutes?  Why can’t he simply relay it to the bridge if it’s so urgent?”

Silence again.  “He says he has to talk in private, and to get down there,” Moon Crystal finally replied.

“If he thinks it’s that big a deal, Comet should be taken at his word,” Copper Sand remarked, quickly noticing the look of irritation in Morning Sky’s eyes, which grew now that her First Mate took the side of the engineer trying to give an order to his Captain.  “Don’t worry, Captain, I can take care of the helm while you—“

“Captain?” Nova Light suddenly interjected.

The discussion cut off for a second while every eye in the room snapped over to the unicorn, who shrank back a little, involuntarily.  “I, er, I just noticed something unusual, maybe it’s just something wrong with the Scryer.”

Copper Sand was up out of his seat before Nova Light even finished his sentence.  He’d crossed the bridge to Nova Light’s desk just as he finished, and promptly stared into the Scryer.  His eyes narrowed as he tried to make out just what it was Nova Light noticed.

“Here, sir.”  Nova Light zoomed in on a part of the Current’s border, where the ethereal winds began to tint the dark with their emerald light.  “The flow of the Current looks normal for the most part, but I think I noticed an anomaly of sorts.  Look at that trail right there.”

Copper Sand stared into the Scryer further.  The winds of magic became all the more visible as the magical device attuned his eyes to see the energy.  It was like a hundred rivers, all headed in one direction, uniting in a great flood.  There were slight twists and turns here and there, yet all maintained the same general heading.  All save for one trail, veering off in a wide arc towards the other end of the Current, where it was eventually lost.

“The path is a bit peculiar,” Nova Light remarked, trying not to appear nervous as he looked between Copper Sand and Morning Sky.  “I guess it isn’t really a big deal, but, well, perhaps one of the research institutes back at the Harbor would find it interesting?  I’ve rarely seen a weave like that; maybe they’d like to have the data.”

Copper Sand didn’t seem to be paying Nova Light any attention by now.  Meanwhile, Morning Sky kept her eyes forward, eyeing the viewscreen tensely.  She tried to draw no attention to it as she silently touched an activation rune to her left, causing a magically projected simulation of the Scryer’s most important data to light up at her side.  It was a simple display, a hollow sphere composed of white dots, showing the Scryer’s range, a white dot in the center to mark the location of their ship, and lines showing the orientation and heading.  Blue dots swam alongside them, showing the strong concentration of energy in the Current.  She saw nothing else yet, but that uncomfortable feeling from before was back, now stronger than before.

Copper Sand, meanwhile, stared deep into the Scryer while Nova Light continued talking.  The First Mate only half heard him as he stared at the unusual trail.  Nova Light went on about the curve and direction, but the taciturn Earth Pony was focused only on one point, exactly where the curve began in the once largely straight trail.  He seemed almost transfixed as he studied where the trail bent, so suddenly, like he could almost make out the point where it began to turn…

“…Really unusual, like I was saying; it could almost be the path of a ship—“

Copper Sand leapt back from the Scryer, cutting Nova Light off and nearly knocking him out of his chair in the process, as he bounded back towards his station.  Morning Sky’s eyes went wide as saucers before he was even halfway there, and her hooves flew back to the controls, turning them hard away from the Current and on a sudden climb.

“Sand,” she shouted, “shields!  NOW!”

The First Mate threw a switch the instant he reached his station.  The Forcefield Generator he’d set to power up before checking on Nova Light came alive in seconds.  He ran a hoof along a circle of runes right by the switch, sweeping over the right and bottom runes, allocating most of the energy to their starboard and aft.  The crystal lighting up above the switch told him the shield was up.

A sudden impact rocked the ship not a second later.  It jolted Morning Sky, but the mare managed to keep her hooves steady as she gave the helm another sharp turn to port, trying to take evasive action.

“Captain!” Moon Crystal called out, “I’ve put the crew on an emergency alert and sent out a distress call, but it’ll still take several minutes for it to reach the Harbor, and longer for them to arrive.”

“Tell Sun Strike and Silver Vein to join Golden Light on the tacs, they’re the best shots on the ship besides her.”  She wasn’t sure that was saying much, but Morning Flare would take what she could get.  “Tell everypony to brace themselves!”

“Nova, do we have a visual on our attacker?”  Sand’s voice was uncharacteristically calm.

“The Scryer’s traced the path of that last shot,” he replied.  “I have visual, putting it up now.”

Everypony’s eyes turned towards the screen for the briefest of moments as the view changed.  It was definitely not a pony ship.  Most equine vessels still resembled the sailing ships of antiquity in some way, thanks to the overpowering inertia of tradition.  This one, it had a roughly wedge-shaped center, almost a bit beak-like.  It had two wings, shaped like V’s, the bottom tip at the bow and the two upper tips at the stern.  It had two wide sails, one dorsal and one ventral.  And it looked old, battered.

Moon Crystal’s eyes narrowed.  “I know that ship design.  That’s griffon.”

“Surplus military,” Copper Sand remarked.  “That model fell out of use ten years ago; lots were ‘misplaced.’”  He went silent a moment, and the next word out of his mouth was full of venom.  “Pirates.  Your orders, Captain?”

“We have a lead on them, we can still outmaneuver them.  Keep our shields up!”

                                                                           ***************

“This is ridiculous!”

Albrecht shot the bridge crew a murderous look.  “It’s a freighter, not a fighter!  How many times have those idiots missed?  I’ll tear their gizzards out with my bare claws!”  His eyes were like pinpricks in a field of white as he stabbed his sword into the deck’s floor for emphasis.  Eugen winced at his side.  At least the Captain wasn’t trying to stab him, anyway.

“Their pilot is either quite skilled, or completely insane,” Eugen remarked, watching their path.  “Even when taking evasive action, they are traveling dangerously close to the heart of the Current.  A wrong turn could see them dive in and be largely at its mercy.  We should modify our firing solution accordingly, and try to pen them in, or force them into it.”

“We’re not letting them dive in to be wrecked,” Albrecht snarled.  “I’ve gone through enough trouble already; we are getting something out of this.”  Part of Eugen’s mind wanted to point out how much wasted effort and increased risk they were dealing with in hopes of that payoff, but he knew better than to contest his Captain right now.  Instead, he cleared his throat after another shot narrowly missed.

“We are closing in on the Warscreech and Hell Talon, Captain,” he reasoned.  “Perhaps it is time for us to hail them, and convince them to surrender.”

Albrecht glared daggers at his First Mate for a few seconds.  Eugen tensed as he wondered what Albrecht would object to now.  “Very well,” Albrecht finally replied.  “Open a channel, now!” he called out, glancing to the gryphon to his left.  The young officer worked frantically to turn on a complex device, pillaged in one of their past raids.  It took some time for it to work; with no similar communicator on their target, theirs was forced to override the freighter’s primary viewscreen so Albrecht could address his prey in person.

It took a moment for the projection to resolve itself.  And when it did he saw that the Captain’s chair was empty.  Just four ponies manned the bridge around it.  Directly ahead of him, an Earth Pony filly with a shock of bright red and orange hair and a sky blue coat glared furiously at him.  Albrecht looked down at her with a calm annoyance.

“Where is your Captain, filly?  I won’t speak with some lowly crewman.”

“I am the Captain,” was her only reply before going back to glowering silently.

Albrecht looked down at her with an expression that jumped from surprise, to annoyance, to barely restrained fury, before finally settling down to a frustrated irritation.  “Well, little girl, you’ve run a good race for long enough now, but you can’t evade us forever.  You’re outgunned, we can outrun you, and you’re far from home.  I wouldn’t like to do anything too drastic to you or your crew… but if you don’t surrender, now, I will.”  He pulled his sword out of the deck and hefted it menacingly.

“We seem to be doing fine so far,” the filly remarked.  “Anything else I should know before we leave you in the dust, or are you just here to trade insults?”

It was at that moment the Warscreech and Hell Talon came into view, screaming out from behind the far side of the Current.  Albrecht’s furious expression twisted into a cruel smile.

“I should add that you are outnumbered, too,” he added casually.  “You cannot evade all three of us forever.  I will repeat my offer.  If you surrender, we will only take your cargo.  If you continue to defy us, I promise your ship and crew will not survive.”

Silence reigned over the four bridge crew.  The two older ones, both Earth Ponies, were unreadable, looking back at him with hateful expressions but no movement, save the dull red-orange one tapping his hoof against his desk.  The youngish unicorn was the only one who seemed truly terrified.  The filly Captain, meanwhile, was dead silent for what felt like an eternity.  Albrecht was ready to order a warning shot when she finally spoke up.

“Very well,” she grumbled.  “We will come to a full stop, and permit your boarding action.”