I was awoken by the high pitched beeeeep that always preceded anyone using the intercom outside my door, the whine frustratingly annoying despite my body already reacting to its activation.
“Ma’am, we’ve arrived in the system. We’ll be docking with the Retribution shortly. I’d suggest you make yourself presentable.”
The voice spoke all around me, the built in speakers doing their job in relaying the message the woman outside had made, my face scrunching as I realized the time for sleep was definitely over.
I rolled over in bed, wincing slightly as one of my wings bore the full weight of my body before relaxing as I righted myself. A yawn escaped me involuntarily as I stretched my wings till their full length; my primaries twitching erratically as my lush covers easily fell away to the sides of my rather wide mattress.
Ah. The comforts of an auditor were certainly nice.
Blowing a strand of errant mane out of my face, my hoof tried desperately to rub away the blurriness before me, finally gaining some headway as my eyes slowly began to work from their sleep addled state.
A casual look over to my left revealed my data pad sitting on my nightstand, the light blue holo-screen shining brightly in the dim light of my room, forcing me to wince and move my head away as the brightness assaulted my vision.
Again having to rub some spots out of my eyes, I stretched over my bed to run a hoof over its almost intangible surface, flicking a few screens away as I grimaced at the battery life.
Six percent. That certainly wasn’t good.
I left it on all night.
‘Ugh. Stupid Flurry, Stupid.’ I mentally chastised myself, shaking my head in irritation as I closed the device, the grey metal projections at its base and tip snapping together with a click as the screen disappeared. Groaning, my horn ignited in a soft yellow light as the drawer to my nightstand opened and the sounds of rummaging commenced as I leaned over to search for my target. Finding it after a few moments, I pulled out the small cylindrical tube, its size no longer than a thumb and no wider than a pen.
Popping the old battery coil out of my pad, its telltale dim golden glow a sign of near depletion, I popped in the fresh unit with ease, making a note to recharge the poor little guy later. With a hum and a ding, the small metal lines curved into the data pad’s metal pulsed softly with a strong golden light before transitioning to a bright green, a smile breaking across my face as the pad’s computer registered the fresh battery.
Placing it carefully back on my nightstand and storing the old battery in my drawer for later, I closed everything with a soft click, my horn dimming as my magic cut off, returning my room to near darkness save for the soft ambient light of my ceiling.
My left wing briefly began to extend to activate the wall mounted dial in its usual routine before a sudden, happy thought struck me. I admittedly giggled happily and had to resist the urge to clap my hooves in sudden jubilee.
Instead, my magic activated the intercom to my guards, my voice practically betraying my smile.
“Eva, how’s it looking out there?” I asked over the comm, a moment of silence following my words before a strong feminine voice responded. You could taste the amusement in her tone.
“Why don’t you take a look yourself?”
Taking that as a go, I excitedly hopped off my bed finally, my hooves clacking against the metal floor as I trotted over to the left wall of my room that was entirely dominated by a seemingly uninteresting piece of glass, barely stretching an inch out from the wall and showcasing the grayish, light-blue metal of the bulkhead behind it.
That however, wasn’t at all what I was interested in. I approached a small sliver of wall that wasn’t encompassed by the slightly curved glass panel, stepping up to the control panel indented in the wall.
Its slate black screen hummed to life as I placed my light magenta hoof on its surface, an orange glow rapidly taking the screen in color. While waiting for the machine to recognize my hoof print, I went about inspecting the hair along my fetlock, noting with slight disapproval that it was becoming just a tad overgrown for regulations.
After another soft beep, I removed my hoof for the moment as the orange on the screen disappeared back to black before a small swirl of blue squares appeared out of the right corner of the monitor, moving in a dance across its smooth surface before coiling together in the center of the screen. They merged in an instant, twisting and merging into another shape that spread out in a distinct path, forming an image that brought a smile to my face.
In an instant, the insignia of The Sovereignty was displayed proudly across the small console’s surface. In the foreground of the image, a stylized form that of a featureless human male was pointing outward with one hand toward the top left of the screen while his other hand which was held slightly away from his body had a nameless planet hovering just above the palm.
In the background, against rays of blue light that appeared behind the human, the combined species in the Sovereignty’s forces were all represented with their own figure, each mirroring the human in pointing upwards with their own forelimbs. I couldn’t help but notice with no small amount of pride that an alicorn now stood among the ranks, our recent addition into the coalition of people’s having created a buzz across the controlled territories that was still active even to this very day.
I couldn’t help but stand a little straighter and feel my chest puff out as a sense of honor flooded me, my hoof rising to my horn in a quick salute even after the icon disappeared in favor of bringing up the standard holo-screen menu.
While our race was still in its infancy compared to the utter powerhouse the human’s had pioneered on their own, it was still both humbling and unbelievably exciting to be apart of something so much bigger than oneself.
And coming from a military family too, dad’s sense of duty no doubt transferred to me as well.
With a smile on my face, I absentmindedly flicked the screen a few times with my hoof before selecting the appropriate function, the glass suddenly becoming alive with activity as it revealed itself as a projection screen.
Within moments, it brought me the view I had been waiting weeks for, and I actually took a step back as the view the screen provided stunned me into submission, my mouth moving in an unspoken ‘wow’.
Even with it being an image and my eyes not seeing the actual sight, I was still taken breathless at the true beauty the camera feed provided, and I took some happiness in noting this was right outside the hull of my cabin.
The bright yellow light of Centurion-III flooded my room with daylight as the distant star was still a magnificent orange orb in the vastness of open space, other far-away suns twinkling in the background.
The main feature however, was not the sun, but rather the large planet that loomed across much of the screen, its rich blues’ and greens’ interlaced with patches of clouds making it look almost picturesque. The planet of Pioneer four or as the native people called it, shaka-shaque-
‘C’mon Flurry, you’ve been practicing for two weeks!’
-Shaquestatu.
Yikes.
It was always a mouthful of a word and my brain seemed to endlessly struggle trying to pronounce the foreign name correctly with my tongue.
That’s why most just called it Pioneer four. It certainly made things simple, if not a little degrading to the inhabitants.
But still, what really stole the show were the countless amounts of massive metal ships, the tip of the spear for The Sovereignty’s expansion, the royal navy itself.
My eyes nearly bulged as I giddily zoned in on the dozens of orbiting ships, my eyes tracking from one to another.
‘Corvette-Cruiser, Light Munitions Barge, Executive Class Strike Frigate…’
I was probably smiling stupidly the whole time as I looked out at our fleet’s vast number of ships, hovering over the planet like a guardian much like they once did to my own peoples’, a symbol of protection and peace.
My eyes searched from ship to ship, my mind causally listing off the memorized payloads of a dozen vessels as I went.
‘-Heavy Strike Cruiser. ARC-class shield generator. Ten STS cannons, eight topside, two underbelly. Two broadside SPECTR missile launch tubes. Sixteen AF turrets-‘
Even then, I knew I was searching for a few in particular, the two ships that had become ingrained almost in my very being, the ships that were the first to free my planet and give us our first glimpse at Humanity.
The ships that had brought the first troops that freed our planet from the invader’s that had descended upon it. Those ships, those ships had a special place in my heart, and even as a filly I was always struck silent by the looming metal behemoths that wordlessly protected my home.
I was always jealous of dad, being the first to ever set hoof on both, being the first pony to actually have diplomacy with the human’s that had so selflessly sacrificed themselves for another people.
His common joking phrase for The Sovereignty rings in the back of my head, but it’s almost simultaneously shut out as my eyes finally meet their targets.
I step forward to the monitor to take an even closer look at the looming shapes on the horizon, even so small at the distance were still undoubtedly recognizable due to their shape.
Victory-class carriers floated off in the distance, their flattened out turtle shell form making them easily distinguishable-
‘ARC-class shield generator. Eight heavy STS cannons, six topside, two underbelly. Twenty six STS cannons, twenty topside, six underbelly. Twelve broadside SMAC missile launch tubes. Fifty six AF turrets, though does vary on the model. Fighter bay capable of holding two hundred and ten fighters or sixty-seven bombers, though varies again by model. Docking bay for Escort-class and below scout ships. And capable of carrying one Excelsior walker.’
-and next to them were without any doubt the usual escorts for the massive space hulks, the slimmer Liberation-class destroyers that accompanied the larger vessels wherever they went notable by the large outcropping along their noses.
‘ARC-class shield generator. Eight heavy STS cannons, four topside, four underbelly. Thirty STS cannons, twenty-five topside, five underbelly. Fourteen broadside SMAC missile launch tubes. Only twenty AF turrets. And the true power of the Liberator, the single, gigantic, ship mounted railgun.’
To be honest, the ship’s design hadn’t been a railgun built around a ship but rather a ship built around a railgun, and while I’ve never actually seen one being fired in the flesh, I had witnessed dozens of times back in the academy recordings of them being used both in space combat and in firing on targets inside a planet’s atmosphere.
In both cases, the railgun’s range was just massive, and easily tore through any enemy ship shielding or no, be they in orbit or planetside. They were occasionally referred to back in academy as Mjölnirs, a joke I never really did get...
It was these two types of ships that had freed Albion and my people from certain destruction. We wouldn’t have stood a chance if the humans hadn’t intervened. Fuck,-I know mom tells me not to swear, but still- we hadn’t even discovered the rocket yet, and an alien race decides it wants to conquer our planet!
I think that’s why my generation sees humanity in such a light. They were our saviors! Our protectors! While some parents may have been startled and fearful at the sudden new creatures with strange powers and weapons, to us fillies and colts, they were our heroes.
They used their big machines to push away the bad monsters that attacked us, and used their knowledge and ability to help heal and rebuild.
It was the main reason I was here, now. Where my path in life has brought me. In all truth, if those aliens had never invaded, I probably would have been put on an entirely different path all my own, but yet, here I am.
I’m Flurry Heart. Auditor and proud officer in the royal navy of the multi-species coalition known as The Sovereignty. I’m an alicorn, a pony, and above all, a person first.
I’m-
“Ma’am, we’ll be docking with the Retribution in two minutes. I hope you have your face on.” My intercom buzzed again, slapping me out of my reprieve.
…I’m fucking late.
Author's Note
flurry heart in space yo
