The Pillar of Celestia

"All I'm asking from you, Luna, is did we lose them?"

Captain Rarity Keyes sighed as she surveyed the bridge of her ship, the ENSC Pillar of Celestia. She was terribly worried that their barbaric pursuers, an empire compiled of different alien races known only as the Covenant, would appear any second now and ambush the ship.

Those ruffians, Rarity thought.

Rarity trotted to the front of the bridge where several crewponies saluted her.

"Ma'am! Engines one and three are non-functioning, and Engine two has taken damage," reported Doctor Whooves, who happened to be the most skilled technician on the ship, and had attained the rank of Major.

Rarity nodded, and sent the Doctor to repair the damaged engines.

Rarity sighed, and questioned 'Luna' (again) "All I am saying, dear, is, did we lose them?"

A hologram of one of the Royal Sisters, Princess Luna, flickered to life, and answered, "I think we both know the answer to that, Captain Rarity."

"How is it possible that they g--" Rarity asked, before she was cut off by Luna.

"Got here before us? The Covenant's slipspace drives have always been faster. My other guess? They followed us through lightspeed," Luna said.

All of a sudden, Luna got a confused expression on her "face".

"What is it?" Rarity barked.

"I'm detecting a radar echo on the far side of Threshold and its' moon, Basis," Luna shot back.

But before anypony could say anything else, an absolutely enormous ring slowly spun out of the shadow of Basis.

The bridge crew stood in shock and awe, as the ring spun to reveal a large hurricane forming above an ocean.

Rarity was the first to speak. "Luna.... what is that?"

Luna replied, "Unknown. But whatever it is, it's clearly not natural. Someone built this... this ring, and it wasn't the Covenant."

"Then who in the name of Equestria made it?!" a crewpony asked.

"I don't know...." Rarity whispered.

Suddenly, alarms began blaring all over the ship, throwing everypony into complete chaos and confusion.

"Status report! On the double!" Rarity ordered.

"Covenant ships incoming! Two frigates, with boarding craft leading the charge!" Luna reported.

Rarity sighed, then said, "Alright, I'm going to put the ship on combat alert. Get everypony out of their beauty sleep and in their stations."

Crewponies ran about as the ship prepared for battle. “Let’s go! The Captain needs us at our stations, and we need to be ready to fight, too!” shouted a crewpony.

The crewponies in the area followed his orders, not wanting to invoke his wrath.

The ENSC hurried to ready up their vehicles and aircraft as the ship prepared to be boarded by enemy forces.

Pelicans hovered through the hangar, ready to evacuate troops and crewponies if needed, while the mighty Longsword Starfighters flew into space, ready to engage the Covenant when encountered.

In the vehicle bay, dozens of slow-but-deadly Scorpion tanks rolled on their treads towards the vehicle transport to be connected by heavy-duty chains to a Pelican to drop onto land.

Warthogs and Mongooses were driven towards another vehicle transport, their drivers ready to fight, and their gunners checking their weapons.

One such Warthog rolled over a small bump on the floor and stopped, allowing an orange, battle-weary (but battle-hardened) mare to get out.

Suddenly, a voice the mare recognized as Princess Luna's rang out from the speakers.

"Alert. Covenant boarders incoming. Prepare for boarding. This is not a drill."

The mare, hearing Luna's warning, shouted to the marines running about and taking stock of ammo.

"Ya'll heard the mare!

The marines stopped what they were doing, grabbed their weapons, then galloped over to their sergeant major, forming a line.

The mare, whose name was Applejack, turned away from the marines and began a speech to the ponies.

"Ya'll, we all led these varmints out to the middle of nowhere to keep 'em from gettin' their dirty claws on Equestria. But we all stumbled onta somethin' they all are so eager for, that they all are scramblin' over one another jus' to get to it. Well, ah' don't care if it's Celestia's own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine, or a giant lasso or whatnot, we all ain't gonna let 'em get it! What we all are gonna let 'em have... is a belly full 'o lead, an' a pool 'o their own blood to drown in!"

Spinning back around, Applejack roared, AM I RIGHT MARINES!?"

The marines answered with a resounding, "YES, MA'AM!", from which the soundwave hit her hat with enough force to shift it around on her head.

Satisfied that the marines would be okay, Applejack said, "Darn right 'ah am. Now move 'em out! Double time!"

As the now-enthusiastic ponies trotted out of the vehicle bay, weapons in hoof, Applejack walked out with them, saying, "All 'o ya 'greenhorns' who wanted to see the Covenant up close...."

Chuckling, she finished, "This is gonna be ya'lls lucky day..."

Luna raised an eyebrow. ”Everypony?"

Rarity nodded. "And Luna?"

"Yes?"

"Let's give Dashie a warm welcome."

Author's Note

And so, it begins...

Everyone, I want to thank you for your support. It's been a long road so far, and this author's note was made JULY 30TH, RIGHT BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY! (YAY!)
I'm going to post more author's notes on every chapter now.