To the Stars, and Beyond

Chapter Six

Record did not find sleep that night. He stayed tossing and turning, for about five hours, before finally giving up and taking an energy shot that would last a while. He got back in the pilot seat and took off once more toward the faraway system of Capitol. He had to make multiple stops to refuel the ship, silently cursing himself for not removing the weapons to save weight and installing a bigger fuel cache. Better safe than sorry he supposed. At least the jump range of the ship was good. “4000 light years down, a shit-ton more to go.” he said to himself in an annoyed tone.

He continued on for an hour or two, and midway through one of the jumps, the dashboard suddenly glowed a deep red, showing multiple alerts and a tone talked into his ear along with a message on screen, “Alert! Interdiction detected! Align with escape vector!” He cursed loudly, he had heard of pirates gaining the use to interdiction technology. They would wait for some poor soul to travel by, and yank them out of lightspeed, catching them off guard and killing them and stealing whatever they had on board.

He yanked the stick hard to the right, and then up and over to the left, trying to fight the interdiction and keep with the escape vector. But try as he might, he simply could not keep with it, and was flung into empty space. He immediately flipped the switch on the weapons panel, and heard the plasma accelerator move into place along with the lasers in front of the cockpit. He snarled quickly swung the ship around and looked for the bastard who interfered with his mission. And there he was, a Cobra MK III, a well armoured ship, with one more medium sized gun than what Record had.

Record was outgunned, so he used the Eagle’s maneuverability to his advantage, quickly speeding past him before the pirate could get his guns on target. Record turned around to face him but the pirate was already speeding close to him, trying to pull the same move Record had done. He slipped out of Record’s vision and before he could turn the ship around, his shield was already taking hits from the pirate’s weapons! But Record managed to lock a few of his guns on target and quickly hit him with a few shots from the lasers, bringing the Cobra’s shield health down to fifty percent. Then as he sped away, he pulled a maneuver that Record had forgotten about. He turned off his flight assist and boosted while turning his ship, making it turn faster than normal.

Record shot another volley of laser shots at him, and grinned when he saw a majority of them connect with his shields, finally taking them down. He managed to lock on for a split second and fired a lucky shot from the plasma accelerator, which tore clean through the top of his ship to the bottom, leaving a gaping hole in the middle, effectively putting it and it’s pilot out of commision. No escape pod launched. Record’s breathing was ragged, he felt lightheaded and sick to his stomach. He hadn’t wanted to do that. Not in all his life. But as his father said, “We must carry on. Leave the past behind and live for the future.”

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

Meanwhile, aboard the Golden Oak...

“He can’t have gotten far, right?” Asked an exasperated Twilight, to a bored looking Lunar.

“You would be surprised how fast an Imperial Eagle goes, even with a rookie pilot such as him.”

“That’s what he’s in? Ugh! We’ll never reach him in time!” She gave a sigh before continuing, “Well, if you need me, I’ll be in my chambers, thinking of what to say to The Queen to get that Tiara back. Oh and Lunar,”

Lunar Looked up at Twilight, “Yes Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight straightened her posture and announced, “I hereby appoint you as my personal bodyguard. You have been relieved of all your other responsibilities. Your new uniform has been delivered to your quarters, which are now adjacent to mine. Good night.” she turned and walked out of the bridge, leaving Lunar with an open mouth, staring at where Twilight had once been.

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

Record had been attacked a few more times before arriving, though seemingly less and less as he got closer to Capitol, as his ship blended in better with all the other Imperial ships patrolling the area. The ship had taken a beating, but had held up surprisingly well.

He beamed into Capitol at long last, and only moments later was flanked by two other Imperial ships. He was hailed by one of them, “Greetings Commander Shatter, we are to escort you to the station closest to Nova Equiis.”

A little annoyed, he replied, “Yeah, I coulda’ used that a few systems ago!”

“Our deepest and deepest apologies Commander Shatter, but the Queen said she would not send anyone, despite our protests.”

He harrumphed and said, “Please just call me Record.

The pilot continued, “If you would please follow us in to the station, sir, we will get you the fastest transport possible to Nova Equiis.” Record complied with them and fell in line with the two Imperial Fighters heading towards the a coriolis port called Dolorem, The port orbiting Nova Equiis. He caught a quick glance of the planet before his view was obstructed by the starport. It was a landscape very similar to Equiis’ with various hills, lakes and deserts. The main feature was the large singular ocean, Tychonis Oceanus, which was filled with islands of various sizes.

They arrived and Record was quickly put into a vehicle to transport me to the other side of the station closest to the planet. It was an odd feeling to him, if he looked up he could see the tops of vehicles on the other side of the station on pathways like ours. They stopped and headed to the shuttle lobby, which made Record feel slightly embarrassed, as he was the only one being escorted by two burly batguards in front of all these everyday civilians, who gave him inquisitive looks for a few moments before going back to their business.

Eventually, a sleek looking private shuttle arrived in place of the normal civilian ones. When this happened Record was given a gentle nudge, by one of the guards to move forward.

“Wait, that’s what we’re going in?” he asked.

“Indeed.” Replied the guard on his left, “Is it not up to your standards sir?”

“N-no! It exceeds them, very much so even!” He just nodded and gestured me toward the terminal and stood where he was. He took this as a sign that he was to go alone, and cautiously walked into the terminal and onto the ship, where he was greeted by an empty passenger area, with a small seating area, a bed and a minibar. The door shut behind him and with military precision the ship left the station and was speeding toward Nova Equiis. Record pressed a button which flipped down a hidden television in the ceiling, already tuned to Galnet, The galaxy's own personal third party news network.

The anchor spoke, “And in breaking news, a large fleet of Federation ships led by the Prime Minister’s own personal ship, has been spotted heading toward Imperial space. We tried to get more info from the Federation, but they declined to comment. Stay tuned for more.”

Record whispered quietly to himself, “Oh, that can’t be good. She must have found out I took it.”

There was a loud ‘thud’ as the shuttle landed in what seemed to be a densely wooded forest, the only clearing being the one made for a landing pad which he landed at. The door on the side opened, and he stepped out into the and was greeted by another pair of batguards, this time both female.

“Greetings Commander, we are to escort you to Her Majesty's chambers.”

Record’s eyes went wide, and his knees began to tremble, “Oh, I am actually going to be meeting her?”

“She said She would be hurt if you didn’t see her.”

He gulped in fear, straightened his posture and stepped out the door.

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

“Well,” said Lunar in her cabin, “I certainly wasn’t expecting this to happen.” She got up from sitting on her bed, and walked in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror and examined herself in her new uniform. It was a black button up, with a deep purple collar and cuffs to match. Part of her wondered whether Twilight had made this specifically for her or not, for she had not seen any of her other personal guards wearing anything like this.

There was a small flash of purple light on the dresser nearby, startling Lunar. She walked over to the source slowly and found a two pieces of paper stapled together. She read the top one out loud.

Dear Lunar

Please come up to the bridge at your earliest convenience. We still have some small, albeit difficult matters to talk about. Preferably in the flesh, and alone.

Prime Minister, Twilight Sparkle

P.S. I apologize, but I did some digging on you. You were so cute back then!

“Digging? What does she mean by that?” She said flipping over the first note to reveal a picture of herself, back when she was in High School. Her hair was longer and messier, and the secondary purple color was a lot more prominent as well. Her signature bomber coat was still there, even if it was a lot less tattered. Next to her were some ponies of which she recognized very few.

She whistled, “We were a cool bunch of rebels, weren’t we? Damn, I looked good back then.” She thought a moment, walked back to the mirror and looked at herself. “Eh, I still don’t look that bad. Could use some work though.” She set the picture down, and smiled, before heading out the door, toward the lower decks away from the bridge.

“Twilight can wait a few minutes, can’t she? I mean, I need to look somewhat professional.” she thought to herself, before stepping into the barber’s.

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

It was a bit of a walk to get to the throne room, but there was lots to see on the way. Various exoitic wildlife, massive imported trees making up the vast forest and finally the massive light purple castle of the Imperial Family. The guards following Record took their posts at the silver colored main doors and left him to find his own way. He walked down the main hall towards the throne room where a deep blue and light pink thrones stood, both were unoccupied.

A guard posted near them spoke, “State your name please.” Record gave him his name and he just pointed down the left hall and said nothing more. Record walked down the dimly lit hall, not sure what to do. All the doors were unmarked as were the hallways leading off. Then he heard a voice, not speaking, but singing and humming. It was too far away for him to make out any of the words being spoken. He went to go investigate, following the beautiful voice through hallways, up staircases all through the maze that was this wing of the castle.

Then he came to a dead end, literally. The voice was coming from right in front of him, but only that couldn’t be possible, as the only thing in front of me was a solid wall. He could hear the ancient equestrian language clearly now. He stared in disbelief, wondering how this was possible. He went to put his head against the wall to think, but his head went through, and a hologram flickered around it. He recoiled back immediately before leaning down and picking up the clever hologram maker from the floor.

He went inside, but it felt as though he was stepping into a cold nighttime landscape. Then it hit him, this was the same place as the earlier dream. He took a step on the solid surface, and it looked like he was stepping on water, ripples coming from where his hoof made contact.

The singing stopped, “Ah, you have made it. I knew you would.” He recognized the voice as the Queen’s own, he stood at attention and stared forward, unblinking. She stepped out from a very cleverly designed curtain that blended in with the surrounding walls.

She turned to look at Record and giggled, “You can be at ease commander, come, take a seat, please.” she said, seemingly reclining in midair. He tentatively walked over to her, when a small table, a chair and a loveseat occupied by the monarch all seemed to distort the illusion. He took a seat in the chair and shifted around uncomfortably.

She made a small pouting face and asked, “You seem tense, would you like some refreshments? We have just about anything you could think of.”

“Water, please.” Record said nervously. She nodded her head and a glass appeared on the table in front of them.

“There you go. Now, I trust you have the item in question?” Record nodded, and floated the Crown Jewels out of his saddlebag and onto the table. Her eyes went wide, and she froze in place, staring at it. She shook her head and picked it up with her magic and started to examine it, muttering something about how it was remarkably intact.

“You have substantially exceeded my expectations,” she began, “Tell me, where did you find this?”

“It was back on Equiis, my uh, ‘superior’ took us walking in the Everfree. She ran off the path and when I found where she went she already had pulled it from the ground.”

“Who is your superior?”

“Lunar Sky. Why do you ask, your Highness?”

“I must check something, and just Luna is fine.” She closed her eyes and lit her horn. She looked deep in thought and stuck her tongue out in concentration.

“There is no ‘Lunar Sky’ in the dreamscape. How odd, wait! That can only mean…”

“Mean what Your ma- I mean Luna?”

“Her.”