No Pony's Sky

Princess Twilight Sparkle stood her ground against impossible odds. As fast as it could recharge, phase beam after phase beam stabbed into the pirate fleet harassing her for her cargo hold’s valuable stores. Her ship shuddered and shook from repeated hits; the sharper ones indicating direct impacts on its reinforced hull. Armored for extended deep space travel, it had never been designed to shrug off starship-grade weaponry.

Brilliant red motes danced across her vision, yet she continued forward. One, two, three explosions felled a trio of attackers. Almost as soon as it had begun, her battered starship burst out of the engagement zone and into empty space. The science-oriented vessel had suffered heavily from the onslaught, and Twilight could feel it fighting her commands.

The moment the wave of pirates had passed, her eyes shot down to evaluate the damage done to her ship. Shields offline… hull integrity falling… not enough raw oxide elements in my cargo hold to recharge my shielding systems.

A lump grew in Twilight’s throat. Only four enemy ships eliminated and there were thirteen left. After the damage she had sustained, it only meant that the odds against her had grown worse. Almost depressingly, she began to accept that she lived on borrowed time. I have no other choice.

She brought her ship around in a sharp turn to try and force her hunters to react individually before they could consolidate and overwhelm her with their superior numbers. They dispersed, as she suspected, but then something else happened that she had not been expecting. A flurry of light blue specks danced over her cockpit towards the lagging bandit vessels which had lingered too close in their arrogance of her lonely starship. Overconfidence proved to be their demise as they broke apart in a fiery finale.

A grey hulled starship screamed overhead, thrusters firing as it slowed down to come alongside her vessel. Twilight Sparkle’s fears about this stranger vanished the instant she spotted the Equestrian standard underneath the newcomer’s canopy. “Princess Twilight,” a familiar voice sounded over her communicator, “the cavalry is here. We’ve got your back.”

Twilight choked back a sob. Blinking away the tears that had distorted her vision, she spotted the pony who had followed her all the way from home. Even through her blurry eyes, she could see him waving at her. Keying her radio, she collected herself before sending a short reply. “You have no idea how good it is to see you again.”

“Then let’s do this together. All fighters, form up on the Princess’ ship; standard triad formation.” On either side of her vessel, Twilight spotted the rest of his squadron match her speed and vector. The more nimble Equestrian fighters had been designed for ship to ship combat, and that was a role they were more than willing to fill if it meant defending a Princess of Equestria.

“Alright, follow me, Miss Sparkle, and stay behind my ship. We will engage the remaining pirates while covering you.” The Captain called over her radio again. “Stay close and we will get through this. Ready yourself!”

The Equestrian fighter surged forward to take up a position in front of her own vessel. Then he banked left to initiate a gentle roundabout turn, one that she easily copied even with the sluggishness she felt from the controls. Her flight path continuously wobbled, but it was nothing she couldn’t adjust on her own. Twilight’s gangly starship had taken quite a beating, but it still trudged on.

Slowly, the Equestrian ships came about to face the hostile alien squadron. After losing four of their own to a single science vessel, they came in for blood. The flare from their engines running at full burn was easily visible to the naked eye. A swarm of angry red projectiles came flying across the void, yet they dissipated and cooled off completely as they opened fire well before they had gotten in range.

“Engage on my command!” The Captain’s voice filled her helmet. Twilight felt a cold sweat dampen her coat despite the best efforts of her life support systems. Trembling hooves gripped the control stick in front of her but she held her ship as steady as she could. Angled slightly off to one side of the fighter in front of her, it gave her a small window to still utilize her ship’s weapon systems. I may be damaged, but I am not out of this fight.

The two fleets closed the distance rapidly. Now, Twilight could even make out the seemingly random assortment of ship designs used by the bandits. No two pirates shared the same likeness. The incoming barrage grew nearer and nearer to the point where she could see the plasma globules evaporate into expanding gas clouds. Having reached the end of their short energetic lives, the Equestrians passed harmlessly through what was now just a thin vaporous fog.

Twilight Sparkle grew antsy in her seat, wondering when the command to open fire would be given. Being outnumbered, she understood that they had to wait for the perfect moment to maximize the efficiency of their retaliatory strike. Opening fire too soon would waste precious time by prematurely taxing their weapon’s heat dissipation systems, and opening fire too late obviously allowed the larger pirate fleet to engage them first. It had to be perfect.

It came down to the wire, and Twilight had just reached the limits of her patience when the call came over her helmet’s radio. “Fire at will!”

No sooner had he given the order when every Equestrian ship opened fire as one. Twilight’s phase beam struck out at the aggressor fleet, slicing cleanly through one of the attacking ships just ahead of the flurry of slower cerulean photon projectiles. No less deadly in their own regard, brilliant flashes indicated direct hits of the Equestrian weapons on the enemy.

The pirates did not go down quietly, and now that they were in range of their prey, it also meant that Twilight and the other ponies were in range of the aliens as well. Hellish lights danced by her cockpit and out of the corner of her eye, she saw several of them slam into her fellow ponies’ shields. Twilight gasped as the Captain’s vessel in front of her bore the brunt of the incoming barrage.

Twilight fired as fast as she could but she began to question how much longer they could hold up against the barrage when one by one, the pirate’s guns went quiet. At first, it stunned her since the closing formations had yet to pass one another, but she soon realized what had happened. Their weapons overheated!

It was an opening that the Captain of the Equestrian squadron had apparently been waiting for. “Alright, time to break formation! Stick close to your wingponies! I will stay with the Princess!”

The triangular formation peeled open as the Equestrian fighters split off in pairs to chase down the pirates before their guns could cool down. In their panic, several aliens lost all semblance of proficiency or skill and they tried fleeing on their own. In the end, however, this only made them easier to hunt down and destroy.

Not all of the aggressors turned tail and ran, and Twilight’s helmet soon filled with a babble of several different ponies all reading their statuses back to their squadron leader. Her ears twitched as she tried to focus on the updates pouring over her speakers, but the distraction nearly proved to be her undoing. A brutal impact on her starboard side knocked her hard against her restraints. Twilight quickly recovered and looked out the side of her canopy to see one of the larger pirate vessels bearing down on her ship.

The pilot inside had apparently not been sidetracked by the other Equestrian fighters and it had its sights set on Twilight’s weakened ship. Its photon cannons had cooled off by now, and another series of glowing shells raced across space to connect against her hull. Alarms and flashing lights filled the cockpit and warning popups jostled for her attention, none of them bearing good news.

Twilight Sparkle yanked the struggling science craft around and fired at the pirate as soon as it entered her targeting envelope. The powerful laser could break down the toughest asteroids in a single shot, yet this enemy proved to be more resilient. Her ship-borne weapon set the incoming vessel on fire, but it still accelerated towards her.

She futilely tried to continue the sharp banking maneuver, but she knew it was too late. Twilight Sparkle braced for the devastating impact soon to occur when a nearly blinding light came around from her left. The alicorn mare blinked the spots from her vision in time to witness a familiar grey-hulled starship fly in on a column of blue fire before it pulled in front of the oncoming pirate.

“No!” Twilight screamed as the two vessels connected. In the blink of an eye, the heavier alien craft punched through the smaller Equestrian fighter just behind the cockpit. The impact caused enough damage to force the burning attacker to veer off and miss her own starship by no more than a dozen feet.

Twilight’s eyes didn’t even follow the pirate ship as it passed by close enough to almost touch. All she could do was stare forward at the expanding cloud of debris that was once an Equestrian fighter. One that was piloted by a friend.

Her eyes blinked once, and she collected herself. Quickly accelerating forward, she slid the harness off of her shoulders and double checked her suit’s integrity. I don’t have much time, but there is still a chance… Twilight’s thoughts trailed off as she dumped all of the air in her cabin and pressed the override to open her canopy. In the middle of a pitched space battle, the little pony stepped clear of her spacecraft and leapt into the void.