The Insignium

The Captain trotted trough the hangar, with an uncomparable urgency in his step he walked to the lift and slammed the button to take him to the bridge but in the middle of the ride the voice of Citrus once more sounded in his earpiece:

“Sir we have another problem!”,

“What can be a problem when we battle against a superior force with shield crashing ships which essentially makes us rely on the reinforcements?”, the captain replied with worry in his voice,

“That’s the problem sir I tried to send an emergency call to the other fleets but something is jamming the broadcast on every emergency channel the only thing broadcasted is static”,

“Fuck…. Ok open communications to the rest of the fleet I want it running as soon as I arrive on the bridge!”, the captain answered with determination in his voice, he is not going to go quietly into the night. As soon as the captain arrived on the bridge he barked:

“Bullet fire canons and rockets, everything you got, try to keep most of the bastards under fire, comms start the broadcast with the rest, Citrus turn us with the side towards the enemy, Gearhead give the Weapons everything you got but keep up the maximal shield power!”,

“Affirmative!”, it sounded out of every corner of the ship,

“Where the fuck is my second in command?”, the captain shouted realizing the grey mare isn’t at her post,

“No idea she left a while ago.”, Gearhead shouted over the others barking commands at their respective soldiers.

“Sir, comms are open!”, came from another mare,

“Ok listen up this is Captain Spearhead from the Insignium this is the plan: The two carriers will line up at the back guiding their drones through the battles the 5 frigates will form a defense circle around the carriers and Equestria, the two warships will position outside this circle one at 7-5-0-1 and the other one at 5-9-8-1, the Insignium will position at 9-2-3-7 open fire on the enemy’s ships, FOR EQUESTRIA!”, Spearhead shouted into the integrated mic of his chair and with that he turned towards his soldiers: “Citrus you got the coordinates move us there as fast as possible”,

“Affirmative Sir”, Citrus answered and the Captain turned towards his tactical officer: “Bullet how are the canons and the missiles looking?”,

“Good the whole left side is firing away and the missiles are locking onto the enemy ships, Gearhead can you get the power from the right rows to the left ones?”,he answered turning to the red stallion,

“Yes but I gotta keep a bit of rest energy in there to prevent a shutdown ….. here … it… comes!”, the stallion answered.

“Sir we have another 20 or so enemy ships that just warped into the system!”, Citrus suddenly shouted,

“Crap! Let me guess we just got to know their flagship with escorts?”, the captain replied but the answer was replaced by the shout of a comm mare:

“Sir one of the enemy’s ships tries the make contact over the holocom!”, the captain didn’t need to think twice,

“Put them through!”, he ordered and the holocom showed the projection of a changeling in special armor,

“Ponies this is General Deadhit of the changeling vessel Interceptor surrender immediately or we will exterminate you”,

“Shove your surrender up your ass!”, the captain shot back and killed the broadcast. “Bullet redirect all your missiles towards the Interceptor!”, he ordered,

“Affirmative”,the Pegasus answered turning to his terminal, “Soldiers redirect every missile to 9-5-7-9!”, with that an army of missiles soared towards the Interceptor and started battling it´s shield. The battle raged on everywhere in Equestria´s orbit the ponies desperately trying to fight of the changeling invaders, canons on both sides blow against shields but not a single shield is down yet, but The Insignium and her fleet are helplessly outnumbered but still keeping up the fight for the future of Equestria.

“Sir we got the first enemy’s shield and about three other ones are very low but the shields of our guys are all down to under 50%”,

“That’s bad Comms what is with the emergency broadcast channels?”, the captain asked,

“Still only static but we have concluded that one of the enemy’s ships is carrying the disrupter most likely it´s on board of the Interceptor.”, one off the com stallions replied.

“Bullet aim 90% of the canons on the interceptor we have to get it down!”,

“Ok I´ll get right to it”, he answered turning back to his terminal.

” Sir….”, a stallion said,

“What is it……”, he started turning his eyes to where the stallion pointed and his anger erupted, “WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN YOU ARE MY BLOODY SECOND IN COMMAND YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE IN MY EARPIECE TELLING ME ABOUT THE CELESTIA DAMNED INVASION NOT CITRUS BUT SHE HAD ENOUGH FUCKING BRAIN LEFT TO TELL ME, WHAT WERE YOU DOING ALL THIS TIME?!”, only then he noticed the four other soldiers accompanying her and she said:

“Sir some of the soldiers, me included, found your overly aggressive behavior to be a problem for the wellbeing of the crew”,

“AND THAT’S WHY YOU LEAVE YOUR POST AND DISREGARD YOUR POSITION?!”; the captain shot back still furious,

“No but this is why you are being removed from your post”, she said pulling out a pistol with her magic and lifting it between the eyes of Spearhead,the bridge froze all starring at the gun, Spearhead didn’t flinch he thought a second then punched the mare with a hoof causing her to go unconcise, dropping the weapon which he catched with his mouth pointing it at the other ponies who had been part of this attempted mutiny, they threw their hooves up surrendering and Spearhead dropped the weapon to say:

“Put those traitors in the cells we´re dropping them off at the Station after this all is finished.”,

“Sir about that three of our ships have lost their shield and ours is at only 10%”, Gearhead interjected,

“We need to finish this quickly three canons are already dead 4 more nearly are”, The tactical officer with hat added ,

” Ok, I only see one possibility, Bullet is Project X ready?”, Spearhead asked,

“Yes but we still can’t control it remotely.”, the stallion answered,

“That’s good enough, Citrus you are the new second in command! Bullet keep the fire on the Interceptor up and destroy that shield, I’m going to deliver the package”, the captain explained,

“With all due respect Captain”, Citrus started, “have you gone mad?!You want to try to steer a drone loaded with a nuclear missile through this battlefield fire it at the enemy and get out again, I beg your pardon sir you can’t be serious that’s suicide!”,

“It´s our only option we can’t survive without the other fleets”, the captain simply replied, “Midnight send me some escort drones, Bullet get that shield down before I arrive, Gearhead what is the status of our fleet?”,

“2 frigates down all three battleships are down to 50% hull integrity and I just got in a destroyed carrier.”, the technician replied. With that the captain walked towards the lift and citrus took over and started barking: “Bullet keep up firing replace any canon that can’t shoot at the interceptor with one that fired on something else, Gearhead send one of your teams to the canons they have to try to get some firing again, Midnight send 3 squadrons to assist the captain!”,

“Yes, Sir!”,came back, the ponies planning to make their captains sacrifice count. The captain exited the lift and ran towards the drone known as Project X,

“Sir”, a surprised repair technician approached him, “shouldn’t you be on the bridge?”,

“I am where I should be, prepare Project X”, the captain answered full of determination, the other stallion just nodded. Few ponies know about the past of the captain one of the more commonly known facts is that he started out as a drone pilot back in the days when drones had to be flown manually and couldn’t be remote controlled and he was good at it.

The captain entered the cockpit of the drone and sat down starting it up, meanwhile the battle was full in favor of the changelings and general Deadhit was proud of his soldiers completely ignoring the blinking light indicating a low shield. The captain flew out of the hangar immediately getting escorted by no less than 15 drones, all remotely controlled,

“Captain can you hear me?”, the familiar voice of his new second in command sounded from his earpiece,

“Yes I can Citrus.”, he answered back,

“We got some drones accompanying you and Bullet nearly got the Interceptor´s shield down.”, the mare explained. The drone loaded with the missile raced through the battle guarded by first 15 then 12 then 10 and now only 5 other drones but the target is near, after they pass another warship firing at the 1. Equestrian Space Fleet they would be lined up with the Interceptor. The last 5 drones took all the fire directed towards Project X and as the last of them exploded Midnight shouted:

“Citrus the last escort drone exploded the captain is on his own!”. Spearhead lined up the missile to fire at the enemy’s flagship but quickly realized that the shield was still up and shouted into his earpiece:

“Bullet get that shield down know we only have one chance!”, his voice echoed out of the speakers on the bridge and the stallion with hat replied:

“Working on it, Sir but most of the canons are down!”. Then the next batch of missiles started towards the Interceptor. The captain now was about a kilometer way from the ship closing distance, he mumbled:

“1000, 900, 800, 700, 600”, suddenly a batch of missiles flew past him digging into the shield and at 500 meters distance the captain was met by the familiar look of a collapsing shield,

“Shield down captain, shoot and get clear!”, the voice of gearhead sounded from the captains earpiece, the captain slammed the red button on his console and the missile shot to it´s target, the drone turned racing back towards the Insignium as the missile hit and immediately the Interceptor erupted in a ball of radioactive fire.

“Helms, where is he?”, Citrus shouted at her soldiers,

“We are not sure ma’am we lost his radar contact as he got consumed by the Smoke of the explosion.”, a stallion answered, “It´s likely that he didn’t make It, Captain”.

Citrus flinched at the notion of her being the captain now and trotted towards the chair that is only used by the captain but refused to sit on it instead she stood infront of it and said full of sorrow:

“Today soldiers we have lost a captain not just any one he was a fighter and never hesitated to jump to the defense of those in need he-”, she was cut off by a voice sounding from the speakers:

“Seriously that’s the best you got for my funeral? Open up hangar 3 for me and get the guns back running it´s not over yet, comms send an emergency call to the other fleets!”. The bridge erupted in cheers and a huge smile formed on Citrus´ face as she announced:

“You heard the captain guys, get back to your jobs!”,

“Affirmative!”, the whole bridge cheered.

Citrus immediately left the bridge racing to meet Spearhead. As he stepped out of his drone he was met by the most breathtaking hug from Citrus and even if he had to shout at the mare for leaving her post he didn’t he enjoyed the embrace of the yellow mare, he had to admit that little notions of feeling for the mare he had were founded by something, she was sweet and caring and friendly and always with a smile on her face so he returned the hug both just sitting there hugging each other both unaware of what the other one thought about them but they didn’t care. Even as Bullet´s voice in his earpiece exclaimed gleefully:

“They are here, Sir the nineth the third and the tenth!”.

The captain just enjoyed the hug wishing it could last forever.