...Seriously, what is taking so long?" Arizona complained...again.

"I already told you, the Gateway is-" "More of a slingshot then a tellyporter, I get it." Arizona interrupted, blissfully unaware of Bright's building annoyance.

"But how much longer are we gonna be shooting through nothing before we see this new galaxy? Our own engines would've been faster than that gate." Bright considered ignoring the Minotaur, but then realized that if could bore her, she might leave him alone.

"As a matter of fact, no. They would not. Our engines are only capable of traveling 1,000 light years per hour. Satellite images have confirmed that the galaxy in question is 100,000 light years in diameter, meaning it would take over 4 days to travel from end to end. Opposed to that, the average distance between galaxies is 9,900,000 light years long, which would take us 4 years to cross. Luckily, the Gateway will see us to our destination in less than an hour." Brighter Tomorrow looked to see that, surprisingly, Arizona was still next to him and still awake.

"Okay, but...ain't it been an hour already?" On that note, Brighter Tomorrow snapped.

IT'S BEEN TWELVE MINUTES!!!

Ari was somehow shocked by the outburst, as if she genuinely had no idea how badly she was getting on Bright's nerves. "...Ooookaaay. Well, if you're not gonna need me for awhile, I'm gonna make sure my gear's all workin right. No sense gettin into a firefight with faulty guns after all."

Bright breathed a sight of relief when she was out of earshot, one that he immediately felt guilty for.

Looking back, he wondered how she really annoyed him and how much of that came from him assuming that she was going to annoy him. She may have been a bit on the ditsy side, but as far as Minotaurs go, she was...nice.

Hoping to find some good points about her, he went over her file again. He had initially dismissed the need after learning she was a Minotaur. But now, he was hoping to find something that would make him feel less, or more, like a jerk.

Sub-Commander Arizona

Age: 23

Experience: 4 years

Missions: 34

Highest Honor: Wings of Mercy

That got his attention, the Wings of Mercy was a medal given to soldiers that had convinced their enemies turn from the path of evil and join in the galaxy's unity.

Scrolling down for the details, Bright discovered that Ari had been deployed in battle against the forces of the Diamond Dog warlord Cujo.

Diamond Dogs turning to villainy wasn't anything new, but it was a known fact that the majority of their followers followed out of fear rather than greed.

Further examination revealed that Arizona's commanding officer, a Minotaur named Montana had been abusing his prisoners, beating on them while other Minotaurs restrained them.

Ari learned of this and fought Montana. Breaking off one of his horns, and reporting him to his superiors.

Arizona was quoted as saying. "Everycritter has certain rights that you just don't mess with. If you're fighten someone, and they give up, that's it. Fight's over. Anything more is just bullyin."

Below the quote was picture of the Minotaur. She wasn't much different. Save for the rank on her shoulder, the two combat shoutguns she held(two?), and her mammaries were a cup smaller...and a long cut from a knife halved one of the white spots on her arm, but she still wore that careless smile she had when they first met.

Bright breathed an exhausted sigh. Now he needed to apologize. He activated the ship wide comms. "Sub-Commander Arizona, please report to the bridge."

Bright began to formulate the apology in his mind...before realizing that there was something on the horizon.

The other galaxy!? But it's only been ten more minutes. Bright thought to himself, fearing that his apology would have to wait as the light of a million suns rapidly grew.

Ari took five minutes to return. In that time, the galaxy grew close enough for the crew to make out individual stars.

Bright glanced at Ari. Thinking to make his apology while they still had time, when an alarm went off. "Our speed is beginning to decrease sir. ETA is three minutes."

"As soon as we stop, I want to examine which part of the galaxy we've arrived in vs where The Envoy was last reported." Bright asked the Hippogriff that had spoken up.

She nodded while Arizona spoke up. "Wait, we ain't gonna end up where The Envoy is?"

"The Gateway is an extension of the Spirit of Harmony. If we end up where The Envoy is, then our only job is to figure out what happened, rescue any survivors, and get out. But if we end up somewhere else, it probably means the Spirit of Harmony wants us to do more than just help our own."

"Well in that case, we might wanna start preppin weapons. Odds are we're gonna be savin someone from a fight." Ari adviced.

"That's fair. Load up the missile ports, but don't arm them. We don't want to appear as a threat." Bright ordered.

"We'll be entering the galaxy in 3...2...1." Declared an Ensign.

Stars began to streak by them as they entered the edge of a tendril of the galaxy. It was over as soon as it began as they left one tendril and sped to the next.

"Ensign, what's our speed?" Brighter Tomorrow asked. Realizing that they were traveling much slower than their top speed.

"200 light years per hour and dropping." The Hippogriff replied. Looking to Bright for further orders.

"Let's see where we end up. I trust the Spirit with my soul." Bright stated.

Some of the crew traded looks at that, but didn't say anything. Bright made a mental note to keep his faith to himself from now on.

The Liberator finally dropped below lightspeed between galatic tendrils where there were only 5 stars within 100 light years...and Bright immediately saw their mission.

A fleet of ships, the largest of which was a half kilometer longer than The Liberator but only a third as wide, was under attack by swarm of smaller vessels.

The larger vessels were fighting for their lives, grouping together to try and cover each other's gaps while the smaller vessels picked apart those too slow to join the main group like wolves hunting deer.

Fighters poured forth from the wolves to slip into the gaps of the herd while the larger vessels appeared to be receiving boarding craft from the stragglers that now floated like dead fish.

"Uh...s-sir?" Asked a very shocked ensign.

"Scan them, try to hack into their communications. We need to find out what's going on." Bright ordered.

"What's going on!? They're critters in trouble! That's what's going on!!" Arizona shouted.

"We don't know who's fighting for what. The attacking ships could be a resistance movement striking back against the area's lording tyrants. We can't start a war based on an assumption." Brighter Tomorrow reasoned.

Ari was about to argue when the ensign spoke up. "Sir! I'm detecting three different species amongst those vessels. It looks the attacking ships have taken prisoners from the crippled ships. They're...they're suffering."

That was all Bright needed. "Even if they're fighting for vengeance, we can't allow them to be cruel. Sub-Commander Arizona. Put together rescue teams. We'll break their shields and get you aboard."

"Yes sir!" Ari shouted with a salute before dashing off to get ready.

"Ensign! Prep the Worldbreaker's railgun. I want those shields down now." Bright ordered.

The White Maw

Bail Sharr grit his teeth so hard that his gums bled. He had only just concluded the latest Red Tithe when these thrice damned xenos sprang from the void in a manner similar to his own chapter.

Yet, the Reaper Prime could no longer see the Drukhari Raiders as a primary threat even as they tore the White Maw's escort ships apart. No, his scowl was directed at a new threat.

The alien vessel continue to observe the desperate fight, every shot fired in their struggle to survive adding to the invaders knowledge of how humanity fights while every fatal blow dealt by the Dark Eldar exposed their weaknesses.

The ship was built like a Battleship, though only the size of Sharr's own Tyrant-Class Cruiser, but the Reaper Prime could only believe it to be a scout ship...why else would it not have an escort.

"They are not our concern." Sharr did nothing to inform Khauri that he had heard him, yet the Librarian knew. "I sense a great deal of concern and curiosity from that vessel. Whatever foul creatures look upon us, they would be easy prey but for our current predicament...which is what should occupy your thoughts."

Sharr continued scowling at the alien ship. "It is in the mortals' hands whether or not if the Xenos get aboard our ship. Until then, there is nothing we ca-"

The Reaper Prime stopped short as the massive cannon atop the alien craft moved to aim at one of the Drukhari vessels. The secondary gun fired a solid projectile towards the ship. It crashed into it's void shield...and absorbed it.

The two Astartes continued to observe as what appeared to be boarding pods sped towards the vulnerable ship as other raiding crafts broke off to engage a new foe. Now it was their turn to observe strengths and weaknesses.

The Liberator

Non-magical teleportation was a tricky thing. It was easy for something to go wrong and have your molecules scattered to the winds.

For a long time, everycreature preferred dropships for their statistically superior performance. You were less likely to get shot down by anti aircraft fire than you were to get killed by a malfunctioning teleporter.

All this changed when a Hippogriff scientist named Stargate came up with the idea to use a medium. At first, using a teleporter that could only teleport you through a stationary gateway was seen as redundant. But then, after proving that using a medium all but wiped out the likelihood of a malfunction, Stargate convinced a group of volunteers to use his gate while launching receivers for the teleportation device at flak cannons.

The majority of the receivers were destroyed...but nobody died because the receivers only activated once they had landed, teleporting the volunteers from the ship in orbit to the ground in an instant without any danger.

The only issue...was the waiting.

Ari and her Minotaur squad groaned in annoyance as the receiver they were waiting on was blown out of the sky...again.

That was four times her team had been forced to wait for their teleporter to lock on to another receiver's signal so they could wait for that one to land. Meanwhile, the telltale zapping noise of other teams being teleported in just served to remind Ari that she was missing the action.

They better leave some for me. She thought to herself as she looked her team over again. There were two Griffins with her, and the other seven were all Minotaurs.

The Griffins would go first because they each wore standard issue Alliance armor with personal shield generators that could shield each other as well as themselves, in case they had to protect someone without a shield.

They also carried Cloudsdale made Lightning Rifles which, being Pony made, only had a stun setting...unless you shot'em twice.

Ari didn't like hiding behind shields and armor. No Minotaur did. That's why she and the others of her kind either wore a tank top under their ammo belts of shotgun shells, or just the fur they were born with.

The other Minotaurs all carried Assault Auto 6 gauge combat shotguns with Frag-6 explosive shells, while Ari favored her daddy's twin slamfires. One loaded with buckshot, another with slugs.

She had finished her inspection, for the fifth time, when the teleporter finally opened up a wormhole.

She was right behind the Griffins with her slug loaded slamfire over their heads. The minute the world, or actually her body, finished putting itself back together, she saw a whole squad of scrawny spiky critters shooting what looked like shards of glowing glass at the Griffins.

She fired a slug into the first one's chest, and then racked the slide and shot another one in the head.

The thing about shotgun slugs is even though they can't penetrate armor like a rifle bullet, they hit like a hammer. Which left the first hostile on his knees trying to stop coughing, and the second taking a nap.

Ari was genuinely impressed that form fitting armor held up against an inch of lead 23 millimeters in diameter, but they were aliens after all.

The Griffins weapons worked out just as well, balls of concentrated lightning smashed into the targets and sent them crumbling to the ground. The Minotaurs behind them didn't even fire a shot.

The team moved forward, their objective clear. Find the prisoners and get them out. The teleporter receivers were all aimed near where the life signs of the other aliens were located, so they shouldn't be too far away.

Ari pulled two more slugs from an ammo belt slung across her chest as she moved, certain that she'd need to fire more than eight shots.

Gunfire followed by screaming was heard up ahead. Another team was in trouble.

Ari's team sped towards the sight...and what they saw unnerved them.

A team of Diamond Dogs laid dying with vicious flesh wounds and hamstringing cuts into their muscles beside the dead Hippogriffs that served as their shieldbearers.

The culprits were different from the soldiers that Ari had fought earlier. They appeared to be female and seemed to share the Minotaurs opinion on armor.

But that wasn't what bothered Ari and her team, it was the fact they were deliberately striking to maim and torture...and they were enjoying it.

The creatures noticed them and sprang forward with unnatural speed. The Griffins were reeling in shock, and Ari didn't have time to switch to buckshot. Luckily, the other Minotaurs had more than just slack jawed faces of horror to express their disgust.

Ari still slamfired her slug rounds just on principle while the unarmored saditsts were blasted to pulp by Frag-6s.

"Arizona, we are sustaining heavy fire from the enemy fleet. How should we respond." Brighter Tomorrow's voice came from the Minotaur's Comm-link.

"With deadly force sir. These things are monsters and they love it." Ari said as she pressed on.

The Liberator

"With deadly force sir. These things are monsters and they love it." Bright noted the disgust in Ari's voice and became concerned for the prisoners.

"Switch to warheads and prep the Worldbreaker." Bright commanded. The Liberator had been defending itself with EMP missiles up to this point, but in the next minute, the enemy ships would start to pay for their cruelty with more than just inconvenience.

In the time since the rescue operation began, the ships with prisoners had fled barring the one with the rescue team, which had been immobilized via tractor beam and EMPs.

Meanwhile half of the enemy, which Bright now considered to be slavers, had continued their assault on the other faction, and the largest ship from the prisoner-seeking faction had been attempting to break the defending fleet's formation to attack it's flagship. Bright could only assume that there was a large number of creatures on that vessel, and these villains wanted them for prisoners.

If Bright didn't do something, the enemy was going to take it's prize, and they were too far to prevent the ship from fleeing once it claimed it's prisoners.

Bright refused to let it get that far. "As soon as the Worldbreaker has a clear shot, take out the enemy's flagship."

"Affirmative." Replied the Ensign who aimed the massive gun accordingly.

Unfortunately, the enemy ship caught wind of their intentions and gunned it's engines forward surrounding itself with the defending fleet's escort.

"Sir, the Worldbreaker is primed and ready. How do we proceed?" Asked the Ensign.

"Contact the other fleet and try to get them to move their ships out of-" Bright broke off when he noticed one of the defending escort ships repositioning itself.

The ship in question was badly damaged, and smaller slaver ships were already launching boarding craft at it. But unbeknownst to the Equestrian onlookers, the ship's Captain had decided to die in service to his Emperor and not the amusement of deranged torturers.

Bright let his jaw fall slack as the injured ship gunned it's engines and launched itself like a spear into the large slaver vessel. Destroying itself on the enemy's shields, but pushing out of the way of it's allies.

"F-FIRE!!!" Bright shouted in spite of his shock, determined to make the sacrifice count for more than just defiance in the face of despair.

Another lump of stone flew from the railgun a split second before the Worldbreaker roared. A massive beam of plasma 100 meters in diameter lighting it's way through the darkness to pierce evil's heart.

The energy sapping rock struck the slaver ship's shield and absorbed it. It was then disintegrated along a large portion of the ship, including it's power source.

Both the ship's power source and the stone that consumed the energy of it's shields proved themselves volatile and exploded, creating a chain reaction that reduced the large into floating scrap.

Upon seeing this, the slaver fleet fled. Abandoning those ships too damaged to keep up and thus, dissuading any doubt left that they weren't the bad guys.

Bright contacted Ari. "Sub-Commander Arizona, the enemy fleet has fled. How goes the rescue op?"

"...We...we got'em sir...we saved what's left." Ari's voice more than made up for her lack of words. Bright had braced for a Minotaur's ego to accent her victory, but her usual pep was gone. She sounded...haunted.

"Are there any POWs coming with you?" Bright asked.

"No sir! Not a damn one of 'em." The statement by what Bright mistook for static, but then realized that Ari had spat in disgust.

The White Maw

Sharr continued to look upon the destruction of the Drukhari Cruiser that had sought to claim the Tithe for itself. As much as it disgusted him, he was to acknowledge that it would've to keep the Tithe, or even survive, without the intervention of this new threat...but what was their purpose here?

He received when a burst of static violated the white noise of his ship's bridge. The static was followed by words of an Alien tongue before a robotic voice translated them into Imperial Gothic.

"This is Captain Brighter Tomorrow of the EFA Battleship Liberator to unidentified alien fleet. We have rescued a number of prisoners from the enemy ship and wish return them to you. Please respond."

Sharr said nothing as Khauri once more joined him. "There was no attempt at deception, and I do not sense any form of malice from them. It is possible that they are simply that foolish."

Sharr closed his eyes in silent contemplation before opening them into the same scowl. "If that is true, then they will not live to learn from their mistakes."

Author's Note

White Maw is the flagship of the 3rd Company, which is the company responsible for gathering new serfs and Aspirants via the Red Tithes.

In both books, Red Tithe and Outer Dark, the 3rd Company is only comprised of 73 Astartes, two predators, three Dreadnoughts, 4 Scouts and 4 Terminators. They are not meant to be on the front lines of larger conflicts, and are usually sent away to ensure that a small portion of the Chapter survives in the event that the rest are wiped out.

Just making sure no one jumps down my throat for a single Tyrant-Class Cruiser and a couple of Escorts being caught by themselves. Don't worry...the bigger ships are coming.

And just to give everyone a feel for how powerful a Space Marine is here, I am following the canon of the two Carcharodon books. In the first one, an Adeptus Arbites unloads her Vox Legi pump action shotgun into a Night Lord who stands there and tanks it for a laugh...it left visible dents.

In the second book, a Genestealer Cult ambushes Khauri and some Carcharodon red shirts with autoguns and a single split a Marine's helmet open...I'm not going that far because even I know that's bullshit, but I am saying that a Minotaur's 6 gauge shotgun will leave large dents in their armor, and break their helmets in one shot.

Also, a lightning rifle will conduct from the armor to the Marine's nervous system, just saying it now. Space Marines are still better fighters however, and advanced weapons only make up for so much.