Story ideas and snippets

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth as she 'flips' her Raider around to line up her twin KE cannons on her more agile, crescent-shaped opponent, 'walking' her shots across the central body until the rounds chews through the thin armor and caused it to explode satisfactorily.

Eliminating that one brought some brief reprieve, until a proximity alert sounded and a staccato of impacts on her hull quickly brought her back. Fortunately, the rounds merely dented her Raider's comparatively thicker armor and didn't punch through. Sighting the perpetrator behind her through her monitors, it suddenly went up in a burst of flame and shrapnel as her wingpony swoops in and destroys it before it can take another burst of potshots at her.

Sighing in relieve, she signaled her thanks before wheeling her Raider around, intending to seek out new targets. Unfortunately, there's a lot of them. As she maneuvers to aid the rest of her numerically inferior forces, she caught sight of her mothership and internally winced. The StarBlazer, the independent, semi-civilian self sufficient Explorer-type ship was frantically defending itself against the missile barrages from the two six-armed, starfish-like Basestars, but she can tell some are getting through. Even as she watched, three missiles had snuck through the ECM, the Helldart interceptors and the Phalanx point defense batteries. Two impacted against the glowing discs of the pin-point defense barrier system, but one was missed and...

BOOM!

Twilight Sparkle stumbled as the missile impacted the hull and detonated, causing the ship to shudder. Even as she recovers and gets back onto her hooves, ponies all around her in the ship's bridge were already reporting the damages, and sending what damage control teams could be spared to the impact site. The teams are stretched thin, battling fires and carrying the wounded to the ship's med facilities. She felt a pang of pity at the thought of the workload on Fluttershy and her fellow medical personnel.

As she processed the most recent damage report, Lyra the communication officer calls out. "Ma'am. Applejack from Engineering. " At Twilight's nod, the pale-green pony patched Applejack through.

Immediately, her friend's voice came in, "Twi. We can't take much more of this! The ship is going to be scrap metal at this rate! The reactors are strained, and the superstructure is getting warped. Rare's just told me that the missile stocks and ammunition stores are running low, we're losing more and more defense projectors and the ECM is getting less effective by the minute!"

Twilight urgently combed her mind for a solution, but nothing suitable comes to mind. Their previous attempts to escape didn't work and these Cylons are not interested in getting them to surrender. She was at her wit's end, until her friend, Pinkie Pie's words suddenly drifted through her thoughts, "Sometimes, you just have to be unpredictable and do the unexpected! It's more fun that way!" The unexpected...

Her mind quickly put together a plan and she snapped out, "Applejack, how's the FTL drive?"

Applejack paused at the query, before answering, "The drive's still spooling up, but we've nearly ready for another jump."

Twilight nodded, "Good. I want you to release the safety limiters and wire around the failsafes. We've going to do a super-long distance jump, and we need as much as power to the drives as possible."

"Release the... But Twi-" Applejack exclaimed, taken back by the drastic order.

"Just do it! I'll handle the rest." Twilight snapped at her.

"...Yes, Ma'am." With that, Applejack signed off.

Burying the slight pang of guilt, she barked out at the communication officer. "Recall our fighters. We're jumping."

"All friendly Raiders and recovery pods are in the hangar."

"Twi, The drive is ready, but if we don't jump soon, they'll tear themselves apart."

"More missiles incoming!"

"Alright. Coordinates are set. Get ready for FTL jump on my mark."

"Ma'am! These coordinates! They'll put us in-"

"3. 2. 1. Jump!"

"We're where!?"

The cry of shock from the ponies before her were loud, but the feelings behind them were understandable, considering their own past and where they are now.

"We're currently deep on the Colonial side of the Red Line." Twilight Sparkle semi-calmly repeated, internally bracing herself for the potential incoming storm.

"Why did we jump here?! Wouldn't it be better if we just head back to Equestrian space?" Rainbow Dash demanded.

"I'll get to that in a moment. AJ, how's the ship?" Twilight asked.

Applejack stared at her for a moment, before sighing, "Well, Twi. The ship has taken a lot of pounding, but with the ongoing repairs, we're good as long as we don't get ourselves into another fight anytime soon. We've taken hits in the cargo and lab sections, so we lost some supplies and equipment there. But we've good in terms of food and spare parts. The mini-factory is churning out replacement parts and resupplying the ammunition and interceptor missile stocks, so we might be a tad low on the fabber stocks later. We've lost the stellar observation sensor array, whatever's in the secondary hangar and the large starboard cannon though. As for the drive, well..."

She winced, before continuing, "The drive's toast. Half of it had melted into a solid lump, and the other half had nearly torqued itself apart before we shut it down. There's no way to repair it, and we don't have the replacement parts nor the raw materials. We ain't going anywhere fast unless we replace it completely."

There was a brief silence as the present gathering of ponies processed the information, before Rarity cleared her throat and asked, "Twilight dear. Not to rush you, as Rainbow Dash had earlier asked, why exactly did we jump to Colonial space?"

Twilight sighed, before answering, "I've jumped us here because it's the safest place we can go."

At the puzzled silence, she continued, "I think they have a way of tracking us somehow. Maybe they planted a beacon on us somehow or they got lucky with their Raider patrols. But those basestars somehow followed us through two consecutive FTL jumps. I'm wanted to jump us back to Equestrian space, but I can't take the risk of accidentally leading those ships back to Equestria. Especially when you consider our mutual history. Jumping here is the best option I can think of."

There was another bout of silence, before Applejack spoke up, "Are sure about this, Twi? I mean, with the Cimtar Accords and all..."

"I know, AJ." Twilight interrupted, "I know the consequences of breaking those. I was hoping that since we looked so different since the Armistice, the Colonials might not realized about our own origins and give us some help. Maybe even a replacement FTL drive..."

"Them?" Rainbow Dash snorted. "What can they do? Think they'll help us out of the goodness of their hearts?" she said, voicing the general opinion most Equestrians have towards the Colonials: Low.

"Well... why not? Maybe they've changed a lot since then. We haven't had any contact with them ever since the Schism. Who knows what changes they had went through. Besides, it couldn't hurt to try." Twilight optimistically answered, a part of her eager to find out.

There were some skepticism, but eventually the rest agreed to Twilight's plan.

"I hope this works out..." Applejack muttered as she disconnects from the virtual conference.

Notes: The time is roughly about 38 years after the conclusion of the Cylon War