Celestial Battles: Episode IV

In the vastness of space, a lonely yellow dot sat, suspended around a pair of stars. The barren desert planet, lacking a proper name, known only as the Badlands, was home to no more than a few thousand ponies—though millions of other deadly life forms roamed its uninhabited areas.

Drifting past, hundreds of thousands of miles above the planet’s surface, powered by massive, mana-burning hyperdrives, a starship, small only in comparison to the massive Conqueror-class vessel trailing it, bolts of shimmering blue light firing from its many mana cannons.

An explosion rocked the small ship as one of the bolts hits home, only the latest of a series of direct hits. The ship was going down.

“Oh, we are dead for sure! This is madness…” a prim and proper synthetic voice spoke, the platinum-bodied quadrupedal droid trotting briskly down a gleaming, pristine white hallway. RAR-80, a protocol droid serving under her majesty Princess Cadence of Crystalla, was trying to carry on her job, having been in the middle of a message delivery when the Kingdom’s forces arrived at their flanks.

A series of beeps followed the shimmering droid as another trundled along behind her, this one distinctly non-equinoid. A small, tripedal dustbin of a droid, designation SP1-K, followed close behind, having engaged his emergency orders thanks to the attack: Find Princess Cadence, retrieve the stolen plans, and get to an escape pod, touching down safely on the nearby planet.

Outside, in the dead silence of space, the Conqueror encroached on the smaller ship, a hatch opening up in its underside. A blue shimmer surrounded the vessel, and it was slowly pulled inside the confines of the Kingdom starship.

Rebel warriors, shoulder-mounted blasters charged and ready to fire, stood ready for combat in another hallway. Waiting with bated breath, their hearts pounding in their ears, they eyed the doorway.

A doorway which crashed open, shimmering blue bolts of mana firing off from the cloud of smoke which drifted inside, concealing the Kingdom soldiers charging into the small ship. Within seconds, every last soldier was dead, charred marks on their armour, shimmering with residual mana.

As the smoke cloud dissipated, the Kingdom’s troops trod out. Every inch of their bodies was concealed in pristine white armour, a sinister, frowning mug of a helmet adorning their heads. And at the center of it all, she trotted in.

The Walking Nightmare herself. Luna.

A tall, slender alicorn, clad in black armour all over her body, a flowing cape falling along her back, her sharp, magnificent horn poking a hole through the hood covering her head, her wings sheathed at her sides.

“Where are the plans.”

Her voice was booming, echoing off the walls of the ship. Her question remained unanswered.

Trotting closer to the only remaining soldier, a pale-looking pony who had retreated around a corner, hiding back and shaking in his armour, she repeated the question.

“Where are the plans?”

Her question was answered not by the Rebel pony, but by one of her own soldiers. “They’re not in the ship’s main computer.”

The alicorn gave a frustrated scowl, deciding to force an answer out of the terrified pony. A shimmering field of magic enveloped the soldier’s throat, and she lifted him off the floor. His eyes went wide, his forehooves clawing at his throat, the pony gasping for air.

“You received a transmission containing confidential plans,” she said, a terrifying calmness in her voice, a glare coming from under her hood, visible only to the pony she was asking. “What did you do with them?”

“W-we did nothing of the sort,” he forces out, struggling for breath. “Th-this is a d-diplomatic mission!”

“If this is a diplomatic mission,” Luna asks, “where is the Ambassador?”

“Sh-she’s…” was all he managed to get out, before the lack of air got to his brain. His eyes roll back, the pony giving a final wheeze before losing consciousness. Throwing his limp body aside, the dark Queen called out to her troops.

“Search the ship. Find me those plans,” she ordered. “And bring me the princess. Alive, if you please.”

With shouts of “Yes, ma’am,” the soldiers trotted off, splitting up to search the small vessel for the stolen data they needed so desperately. The Queen, meanwhile, stood back, trusting her soldiers to do their jobs.

“We are doomed, SP. Doomed!” RAR-80 said worriedly, having given up on following her orders, now desperately trying to find an escape pod and leave the ship.

SP1-K, however, was not following her. Hiding away in a small storage space along with a pink-coated mare, the droid beeped curiously at his captor.

“Oh, be quiet, you mobile trash can,” she hissed, inserting a small, transparent card into a slot on the droid’s side. “Just get this message and the plans away safely!”

Pushing him out of the cupboard, the droid trundled along behind RAR-80, who had successfully located an escape pod. Pressing a button on the side of the door, it opened, and she trotted into the small vessel, a spherical ship barely big enough for one pony, never mind two.

“Come along, get inside,” she said. “We're getting out of this place.”

With a beep, SP1-K followed her inside.

The escape pod detached.

“Got an escape pod trying to leave, sir. Requesting orders.”

A response hissed through the communication link. “Shoot it down. We can never be too careful.”

A bolt of blue mana fired out, and the escape pod spiralled out of control, caught in the nearby planet's gravity.

Back on the ship, the pink-coated mare trotted calmly out, towards the soldiers. The only option was to get captured, and take that option she shall. “Take me to your leader.”

A blaster bolt fired out, and the mare fell to the floor.

The princess, taken.

The plans, destroyed.

The Rebellion, extinguished.

And yet, the brave little droid aboard the escape pod survived…