Chapter 189

Engagement

An audio alert could be heard on the bridge of the Vindica as its hold doors slammed shut, Deakur laying down on the doors after they locked themselves shut. Fluttershy, meanwhile, had retreated back to the Vindica's bridge where Luna and her staff were busily preparing to depart the system for Equis.

"You are sure it is right to leave these ponies unprotected here?" Fluttershy asked, stepping up the command platform to join Luna.

"They are far away from the rest of the galaxy, they are not in as urgent a threat as we are," Luna sighed, shaking her head. "Are we to survive this ordeal in any semblance of intactness then we may consider returning to reestablish contact."

Fluttershy grimaced but Luna was right. For now this place would be safe from the reapers as they would need to travel here without relays, which would take a good while if they even decided to spend the effort while they were still at war with the galaxy as a whole.

"Drive capacitors fully charged, captain!" Rarity reported from her station before issueing a subsequent warning. "I feel compelled to inform you that if we jump in that we will not be able to do another jump for quite a while."

"Noted," Luna simply responded before looking over at Applejack. "Weapons status?"

"Bit low on torpedos but all capacitors are charged an' ready, Princess," Applejack announced, glancing over to the edge of the room where Garrus was leaning against the wall. "Ah had some help tuning the guns though so they'll pack a mite more punch than before."

"Good to hear, lieutenant," Luna nodded before addressing the entire bridge staff. "As you all know we have lost our communication with home, now as we retrun we shall be ready for anything. Crew to battlestations, staff into battle emersion. Helm... jump us home."

Fluttershy watched on as she saw the bridge crew connect to their respecive systems, the connection accelarating their ability to process the information thrown at them. Luna also looked to be partially emersed but she, unlike a few others wasn't unable to communicate outside of the trance induced by the imersion.

A hologram sprung alive in the command centre, showing Equis' system as the vindica translated back to its home. Dots started appearing around the system, though mostly clustered around Equis' itself.

"Contacts identified as Quarian and Geth," A report came thorogh the speakers as it was made by the officer in the battlespace. The hologram zoomed in on Equis as the crew attention was focussed on it, the dots that sat around the planet resoving into actual models, holograms of the vessels showing their size and heading relative to one another. Although the main bodies of the two fleets were still keeping their distance, only skirmishes happening between the two parties inside the gravity well of the planet.

Oh no...

Fluttershy shivered as she could see vast parts of the planetary shield out of operation, the south eastern coast all the way down to the dragon lands completely exposed... And there were fires. The area around Griffonstone in particular seemed to have extensive damage doen to it, fires clearly visible on scans spread around the mountinous region.

Wait, which one of the two factions has fired on Equis itself?

The answer to her question didn't take long to come as an engagement happened in real time. A geth vessel was engaged by two smaller quarian ones, the bout of violence didn't last long but it didn't need to. The geth ship was cut in half by a blast, only a few fighters escaping and racing down to the surface only to be cut down and sent to the ground as flaming wrecks. Another quarian vessel opened fire on a target down on the surface, the impacts glowing on the holographic globe.

An animalistic growl came from Luna, the hologram zooming out and a course appearing that would eventually bring them into the planet's gravity well. “Comms, find out what's the quarian flagship and get me its captain.”

“What are you going to do?” Fluttershy asked, the room's temperature had dropped and Luna's hair had turned pitch black, all stars having disappeared from it. The alicorn's aura had darkened to such a degree it made Fluttershy's skin crawl. The hologram of the planet was swapped out for a lone quarian, standing in front of a command chair of sorts.

"Quarian, you are to cease your fire on my planet, withdraw any surface presence, and leave this system. Failure to do so immediately will be seen as an act of war on the peoples of Equis and I will act accordingly." Luna demanded coldly from the quarian.

"I cannot allow a Geth force to remain behind in this system, and I cannot allow the planetary defences to interfere in this engagement," the Quarian replied in turn, not even shifting a little. "And in the end, you are merely a single vessel. We are fighting a war, captain, after we win, we will talk again."

The hologram cut off, being replaced by the planetary hologram again. Luna didn't speak but she really didn't have to to make her position very clear.

The hologram shifted. Three Quarian Battleships with their escorts were marked on the hologram.

"Helm, adjust course, flank speed. Weapons, charge capacitors. Shields, be ready to receive blowback," Luna snapped, hair which normally flowed gently was whipping around as if in a storm.

"Princess, are you sure there is no other option we can take?" Fluttershy asked carefully. She was angry at the Quarian too but in the back of her mind there was the possibility of Rainbow or Tali being among these vessels' crew. Luna's head shifted a little and slitted eyes looked down on her. to the pegasus' credit she didn't flinch at the sight.

"Captain, I can spare the power for the teleportarium." Rarity met Fluttershy's eyes first before looking over to Luna, undoubtedly understanding where Fluttershy was coming from. The princess slowly nodded as she went over the implied idea in her mind before looking back at the hologram.

"Identify the Quarian flagship."

It took seconds before the princess had her reply. "The transmission we received came from the battleship Neewa."

"Understood." Luna now fully looked down towards Fluttershy. "We can teleport a force onto their ship, but after that it will be up to you. If it is an inevitability, I can accept a fleet engagement over the planet, but I cannot accept direct fire onto the surface. Force or convince them, I do not care how you do it, but if you haven't finished when we get into weapons range I will commence my attack."

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes ma'am."

Author's Note

Will be in Normandy this week, going to be awesome!