Rainbow Dash: Space Rogue
Sweat clung to Rainbow Dash’s brow as she clutched the pilot’s stick for dear life, pulling back on it with all her might. She was pressed forcefully into her chair as the G-force mounted. It pinned her in place like some invisible but omnipresent hand.
One, two, three times-Equestrian gravity bore down upon her. It threatened to crush her like litter tossed into a ravenous gas giant.
“TWI hit me with the juice!” she growled.
Four times gravity.
Suddenly needles extended from the seat and pricked into her hide, injecting her with a cool solution. And just like that, as the G-force hit its fifth iteration, and Rainbow’s spleen tried to escape her body, she found that she didn’t give a flying fuck about her impending mortality.
God weren’t narcotics magical.
She lurched the stick to the side and the ship careened out of the way. Sirens started to blare and she clenched her teeth tight. They vibrated at an eerie frequency as the G-force pushed into six or seven territory. It was hard to tell as her vision darkened to mere pinpricks of light, making the monitors around her unreadable.
Even with the juice flowing through her veins this was getting a bit ridiculous.
The screen next to her optics sprung to life and the animated face of a purple alicorn looked at her, emotionless.
“Still think that Caballeron didn’t notice you stealing the Star Core?” TWI asked.
Rainbow grunted, feeling her vocals strain for some form of rebuttal. They didn’t prove especially cooperative as her internal organs laboured to support a mare who was now seven-and-a-half times heavier than usual.
“Flares!” she barked, though it came out as more of a desperate wheeze.
TWI nodded and the ship shuddered. A moment passed, then two, and finally the sirens cut out.
“Missile detonated about six kilometres away,” TWI said. “That was a close one, even by your standards. There’s a good chance that they’ll think you’re dead.”
Rainbow evened out on the ship and cut back on the thrust, gasping for breath as a very literal weight was lifted off of her chest.
“Fuck me,” Rainbow groaned.
TWI smirked. “You’re not my type.”
“And you’re a little bigger than what I usually go for,” Rainbow grumbled, panting for breath and rubbing at a sore muscle in her shoulder. It was only one of many.
She unbuckled herself from her seat and pressed a hoof against the console. Without thrust, the situation had reversed as she was now essentially weightless. It was a nice sensation after feeling her skeleton weigh about a ton and a half, mere moments ago.
Rainbow floated over to a neighbouring panel, touching a hoof to the screen. A logo flashed, stating that the ship was operating with a Trot-Wok Intelligence operating system before booting to a sketch of her ship.
Everything showed yellow which was what it usually showed up as. About as annoying as a check engine light but it wasn’t going to kill her in the next thirty seconds so it could wait until she got to safer shores.
What she was going to do though was take care of that strike craft that had been following her ass since she’d left Magnus a week ago.
“Do you have eyes on that piece of garbage,” Rainbow asked. “Not letting that thing get away. No one attacks Rainbow Dash this close to home.”
“I lack eyes but I do have a radar signature on the object,” TWI stated. “Should I prime the weapon systems?”
Rainbow chuckled and pushed herself out of the cockpit, floating towards the midsection of her ship. “You know me so well.”
“You have a very predictable conflict resolution strategy,” TWI said. “Though if they think you’re dead maybe the wiser option would be…”
“Not going to happen,” Rainbow cut in.
She bounced off of a nearby wall, floating down yet another same-ish corridor. If she didn’t know this ship like the back of her hoof it would’ve been so easy to get lost.
She shrugged as she floated along. “I mean my strategy works! If you turn them into scrap, then nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine times out of a thousand they aren’t coming after you again.”
“And the other one in a thousand?” TWI asked.
“We don’t talk about the one in a thousand, babe,” Rainbow said, shuddering. “Turns out ponies get pretty spiteful if you leave them for dead.”
There was a silence, a break in the conversation.
“Did you just call me babe?” TWI asked.
Rainbow nodded. “I mean I feel like we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well.” She flashed a cheeky grin at one of the interior cameras. “How about you and I go on a date once we drop off this stupid rock to Yearling. I’ll treat you right. Take you to a primo mechanic. Get you that five-star uranium I know you’ve been wanting for awhile now. I know just the place when we get back home.”
“You know how to treat a war machine right,” TWI murmured.
“Is that a blush I hear?” Rainbow asked, flashing a knowing smile.
She slid into a new compartment which had a chair in the centre of a sea of monitors.
TWI snorted. “How do you hear a blush?”
“Turn on your little display animation, I bet your cheeks are bright red,” Rainbow teased.
She buckled into the new seat and pushed a button on the stick. All at once the displays sprung to life, showing off the vastness of space. In that sea there was a faint object in the distance, outlined with a vibrant red.
“Gods I’m so glad I shelled out for the good AI,” Rainbow said, shaking her head. “Old one couldn’t spot shit unless it was right on top of you.”
“This partnership has been pretty beneficial,” TWI said.
Her cute little pixelated face sprung to life on the monitor. And just as Dash thought there was a very pronounced red to her cybernetic complexion.
Rainbow really did have a way with the mares.
She brought the crosshairs of her weapon system in line with the little red dot. Then she moved it a few degrees to the side, lining up her shot with where it would be when her payload landed a hundred or so kilometres away.
“And just about…” She stuck the tip of her tongue between her lips.
TWI cocked a brow. “You know I could just calculate the trajectory for you, right?”
“Yeah but I’m trying to impress a filly,” Rainbow teased.
Her crosshairs landed where she wanted them to, so she pressed the trigger.
The ship shuddered and two slugs of tungsten, that were about the size of a sofa, went careening through the heavens.
Besides for the creaking of the ship it was largely silent. No explosion, no matter how cool, made sound in space. TWI had said something about how the vacuum sucked up all the sound or something like that.
Rainbow leaned back and placed her hooves behind her head.
“Any second now,” she muttered, throwing TWI a cocky smile. “Are you impressed?”
The red dot suddenly dipped.
“You missed,” TWI said, throwing back an equally coy smile.
Rainbow grabbed the controls again and quickly tried to readjust her aim. “Well I didn’t expect the dude to dodge!”
“Want me to man the ship?” TWI asked.
Rainbow nodded. “Just don’t get too crazy.”
“And try and show you up?” TWI snickered. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Gravity returned to Rainbow Dash as she was forced back into the plush and comfortable seat of her turret. She lined up her next shot and started to fire off round after round as quickly as the turret’s autoloader would allow.
More silence greeted her from the vacuum as two more rounds went flying. They also missed by a wide margin.
Well… let the vacuum be damned.
“Pew pew,” Rainbow whispered under her breath as she let off shot number five and six. They flew swiftly through the vastness of space.
And promptly missed by at least a quarter of a mile, if not more.
Was she getting rusty?
A bead of sweat formed upon her brow. “Pew pew…”
Another miss.
The bead started to trail down her complexion. “Pew pew.”
“It’s getting closer,” TWI said.
“I’m well aware of that!” Rainbow called back. “Just hold the ship steady, would you?”
“Way ahead of you, babe,” TWI replied.
“Pew P-pew?” Rainbow asked, a nervous quiver entering her voice.
Another miss, though narrowly so.
Rainbow did everything in her power not to read the ship’s radar, feeling rather nervous as the kilometres melted away with alarming swiftness. If it got even half a click closer its next missile barrage would not be avoidable.
A fresh bead of sweat licked at Rainbow’s brow as she narrowed her gaze. She drew in a deep breath, lining up her target and throwing a prayer to Celestia, just for good measure.
“PEW PEW!” she screamed.
And the tungsten flew true. It plowed through the little attack craft’s thin carbon nanite material, turning all those newtons of deadly energy into a shower of equally lethal shrapnel. Though thankfully it was a wall of shrapnel that was heading away from her, far off course.
Hopefully that wouldn’t be an issue for someone else a couple centuries down the road.
“Were the pews really necessary?” TWI asked.
Rainbow nodded. “How can you have a cool space battle if you can’t even have awesome sound effects?”
“You know I could just… add them in, right?” TWI asked.
Rainbow blinked. “Wait really?”
“Yeah I’d just need to play an audio file whenever you pull the trigger.” Her artificial eyes flashed a solid white and a quick upload bar appeared on the screen, rapidly climbing to one hundred percent. When it was finished, her pupils returned, focused on Rainbow Dash. “Try it now.”
Rainbow looked at the controls and pushed the button. And as the tungsten flew free, a very authentic pew pew sound punctuated their trajectory.
“That’s so awesome,” Rainbow whispered.
TWI grinned. “I thought you might like it.” A hint of red entered her cheeks. “So, tell me more about this five-star mechanic you’re going to take me too?”
“The one back home?” Rainbow asked.
TWI nodded.
“Oh, you’re going to love her,” Rainbow said. “She’s a bit of the hoity-toity type but that mare knows her way around an engine. And with the money Yearling is giving us I can even splurge on the premium oil. Would you like that?”
“Lubricant is very important,” TWI said before burning an impossible shade of red. “VERY important for the maintenance of a ship! It is very important for…” She sighed. “You know what, never mind.”
Rainbow grinned a shit eating grin. “Oh no no no, you dug this hole, TWI. I want to hear all about how important lubricant is.”
“You’re a dirty mare, Rainbow Dash,” TWI muttered.
“Hey I’m not the one who brought up lubrication. That was all on you, TWI.” Rainbow suddenly grimaced, feeling a sharp and electric pain course through her whole body. “Fuck.”
It turned out organic bodies were not especially thrilled about experiencing eight gravities of force and also getting filled full of adrenaline and whatever other juices came from those needles embedded in her pilot’s seat.
“Withdrawal?” TWI asked.
Rainbow nodded. “Starting to lose the ‘yippie I’m not going to be crushed to death’ high and starting on that not so great ‘oh shit that’s a lot of adrenaline being purged from my system’ low.”
TWI pursed her lips and nodded, waiting a moment before responding. “I just prepared you a mug of herbal tea in the cafeteria. Along with a bowl of Space Loops with oat milk.”
“You’re the best, TWI,” Rainbow grumbled, groaning as she peeled herself away from the seat. “Do you mind taking over for a little while? I think I should probably take a nap or something. Shouldn’t be too hard, were only a couple days away from Yearling’s Lunar Lagrange station.” She sighed and murmured under her breath. “Almost home.”
“Not at all,” TWI said. “You deserve a rest after making a shot like that.”
Rainbow paused for a moment, looking back at the monitor. There was a very guilty looking expression on TWI’s face as she was watching her leave.
Rainbow sighed, knowing exactly what was going on here.
“You totally helped me, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Help you?” TWI replied, looking away. “What do you mean?”
“With the shot?” Rainbow responded, lifting her brow.
“Oh? With the shot?” TWI bit her virtual lip. “Maybeeeee.”
Rainbow snorted and pushed her way out of the cabin. “Thanks for not letting us die, babe.”
“It was still a very heroic thing for you to attempt!” TWI called after her. “I just prefer living is all!”
Author's Note
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