The Sixth Race

Chapters

Chapter One
Chapter 2
Chapter Three
Chapter 4
Chapter Five
Author Note

Chapter One

The Sixth Race

In the depths of space a bluish light with a white center appeared, and streaking out of the light a ship of war came into being. The starship looked like a diamond with the last quarter of it cut off. On the bow was a symbol of a half sun and moon with dark green flames surrounding it, sitting on what looked to be two crossed arrows. It was a ship of the United Eponian Nations, the Ponyville.

___________-__

Captain Twilight Sparkle sighed as she made her way to the bridge, her hooves making a muffled clop-clap sound thanks to the rubber shoes that were standard issue to all the creatures that had hooves, from ponies to the changelings. She was mentally compiling a checklist of things that positively had to be done in the unexplored system her flagship jumped into.

‘Okay we have to do a complete sensor sweep for any hostiles or hazards, have Dash ready to launch to investigate if anything is picked up,’ thought Twilight as got on the turbolift to the bridge. ‘Then I need to write a report to Grand Admirals Luna and Nyx about anything of interest in this system. As Fluttershy would say, “Yay.”’

“Captain on deck,” bellowed an ensign as Twilight stepped out of the lift and onto the bridge.

“As you were,” she said as she made her way to her seat.

“Anything on the sensors, Rarity?”

“Negative, Captain,” the white coated unicorn with a purple mane and tail said.

“Good, let’s get the sentry satellite launched and on station so we can head home,” she said as several of the bridge crew looked at each other in silent celebration. It had been well over the usual six months since they left the star port ,and everypony was getting antsy to go home.

“Seven months since we left and a hundred years since the invention of the hyperdrive, and the only sentient life that we’ve seen is a bunch of bug-lizard like things that suck the life out of you, and then eat what’s left of the body, bones and all. Oh, and the fact that they also have spacefaring capabilities means that they could show up at Epona’s doorstep isn’t helpful either,” her Executive Officer (XO) Trixie complained with good reason, for the UEN was at war with the lizard-bugs known as the Senris, and some allies would be both useful and helpful.

“Which is why we’re out here planting these satellites. This system is one of the dozens of systems that the Senris have to stop in to recharge their shields if they want their attack to be anywhere close to successful, if they don’t want to be cut down by the defense platforms and the fleet in orbit. The satellites will give an advance warning to allow us enough time to call in reinforcements,” Twilight said as she called up the status of her ship and got ready to write her report. “Besides, they need the coordinates to the planet first, and with the Core Protocols in place, that isn’t happening.” The Core Protocols made it treason for an interstellar map to fall in Senris hooves and all ships and outposts were under orders to delete the coordinates to any major bases, Epona included.

“I’m sure we may find some friendly aliens sometime. Remember before the war started the exploration teams did find outposts on several planets with ring like devices that were made out an unknown material that’s virtually immune to all harm. Something had to have made those things,” a green unicorn said knowingly from the science station.

“And how old did those there teams say those things were again?” An orange earth pony said she waked onto the bridge wearing coveralls and a Stetson hat. “Several thousand, if not millions of years old. Ah don’t think that that race maybe alive anymore Lieutenant Lyra.”

“You may be right Applejack, but you never know. How’s the number two reactor coming along?”

“She’s comin’ along good, but she ain’t in specs yet,” replied Applejack.

“By specs do you mean the Navy’s specs or your OCD specs?” asked a white unicorn with a neon blue mane from the comms station.

“My specs! You know that that’s the reason why this ship out powers some of the battleships in the fleet. And this ain’t a cruiser mind you, and Ah don’t have OCD, Scratch”

“Easy there you two, or do I have to put you two into the brig again to cool down?” a griffin said from tactical.

“Gilda honey, just because you are the head of security doesn’t mean that you can put everypony into the brig as you feel like it,” Rarity said without looking up from the sensor scope.

“But I am going for the record!” the griffin shot back, “Only ones that I need are you, the XO, the pink thing, a couple of the changelings, and the captain, and I’ll beat the record.”

“AND THEN WE PARTY!” said a pink blur that was the morale officer, Pinkie Pie, as she popped up in-between the console and Gilda, who then picked her up and dropped the pink mare behind her. The rest of the bridge crew looked on in amusement at the mare’s antics before returning to work.

Meanwhile the Captain futilely tried and failed to wrap her head around her friend’s latest breaking of the laws of physics. ‘Dammit I thought I promised myself alooong time ago that I would not try to figure out how she does that. It leads to too much suffering,’ she thought as she tried to refocus on her report that she was writing for the admirals. ‘After all, it is just Pinkie being Pinkie.’

“Well you can start planning a party right now Miss Pie ‘cause we are done and officially able to head home once we check that the satellites are all working up to par.” Trixie said from the science station where she had moved to during the banter that happened.

“GREAT! Hey Trixie, do you want to do your magic show again?” Pinkie asked as the ships XO paled.

“I thought that I said that was a one-time deal,” Trixie said in a forced voice. “That Time,” as it was called by the ones who know what happened, was when Trixie had a little too much to drink and it consisted of lightning, a processed power cable (not live thankfully), her going on about the Great and Powerful Trixie, and a frighteningly realistic illusion of an Ursa Major.

That incident was why any being in the navy that can wield magic had to wait ten months, to the standard six months for everyone else, to drink. She was lucky that Twilight was Admiral Nyx’s person student and a good friend of Princess Celestia, and was able to pull some strings because the worst she got out of it with was the subtraction of several dozen promotion points. Though being Admiral Luna’s student probably helped too. She was slated for her own command, but that was pushed back by several years.

“Now, silly it wasn’t that...”

“INCOMING HYPERSPACE WINDOWS, AND THEY ARE NOT OURS.”

“Crap! Get the shields up! Have the fighters ready to launch! Lyra, I want the types and the number of ships! Gilda, I want options! Applejack, get your rear back in engineering and get the hyperdrive ready to jump! Scratch, contact Fleet Command; let them know what’s going! Move ponies!” Twilight barked out as her ship got ready for a fight.

“Captain! I’m reading two Baseships and four destroyers and they’re firing.” Rarity shouted this from her station.

‘Double crap.’ Twilight thought as the Ponyville shook as the shields took a couple milliseconds too long to come online. The Ponyville was a Guardian-class battle cruiser, the workhorse of the fleet. At a length of six hundred meters, she could easily handle the three hundred meter long destroyers with one of her two main magik cannons that focused energy into a tight beam of concussive force. Add the forty medium railguns, six energy torpedo launchers, two hunderd anti-starfighter missile launchers, forty fighters, and tough shields, and she was a force to be reckoned with. But the eight thousand meter long needle shaped baseships, with numerous energy weapons, were out of her league.

“Damage report,” Trixie ordered as the shields started taking the punishment the Senris ships dished out.

“The hyperdrive’s been damaged, and it’ll take about forty minutes to repair,” Applejack’s voice said from the speakers.

“We don’t have forty minutes AJ. We’ll last about fifteen minutes against those Baseships. Helm take evasive maneuvers and launch fighters,” Twilight ordered. The Ponyville had inert driven engines that allowed quick turns and high speed acceleration in any direction without the use of chemical fuels, freeing up space for more armaments or cargo. “Communications, please tell me you got through.”

“I think so Captain, but I’m not positive.”

“Keep transmitting hopefully somepony will pick it up,” Gilda said as she started to return fire with the ships weapons.

Little did she know that somepony didn’t pick it up but someone did.

Chapter 2

“Are we there yet?” Warrant Officer Eric Migzaiz asked with a yawn while looking at the blue ring form of hyperspace.

“At our current speed and course, about two more hours until we arrive at the Theta Site, Eric,” Max said.

“So that would be a no.”

“Affirmative.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?”

“Where is the fun in that?”

“You know even for an A.I. you have a weird sense of humor,” Eric said as he turned away from the view port thinking to himself how the hell he went from a lowly Specialist in the U.S. Army to a commander of a mobile Ancient defense platform. Oh, yeah, it is because I have an ATA gene about as strong as Colonel Sheppard’s, I so got sent to the Atlantis Expedition and had the BRIGHT idea to sit in the control chair of said the defense platform that my team found, thinking that the post was out of power. Which just so happened to be home to a clingy A.I. that hates the Wraith, which, as soon as that happened, decided to show up and attacks. When my team, who had left to get Rodney to shut off the force field that was keeping my rear in the chair, got back though the spacegate, the only thing they found was a bunch of debris that was what remained of the two Wraith Hives and four cruisers. They thought that I was dead, which to be fair I was thinking the same thing. But the Firestorm had jumped into hyperspace as per her last command, which I am glad that I was able to overrule.

Eric sighed and thought about all he had learned about the vessel he was once trapped on. It turned out that the platform’s name, when translated, was the Firestorm. It was semi-controlled by the onboard A.I. he called Max. She was built in the wearing days of the Ancient/Wraith war as the ultimate weapon against the Wraith. At three thousand meters long, she was built around the same particle weapon the Lagrangian Point satellites had, but it was far more powerful. She also had several smaller particle beam weapons with settings for both anti-ship and anti-fighter operations, with two drone weapon launchers to round out her armaments. She had the ability to build new drones to replace the ones used in battle, along with the ability to repair herself. In appearance, she looked like a more streamline version of Destiny, with wings added to the bow. They had just left the Sigma Site shipyards a few hours ago, which installed eight Asgard beam weapons, and Asgard beaming technologies technology. Even with three ZPMs and solar energy collected by diving into stars, she was still severely underpowered, so they also put in four naquadria enhanced Neutrino-ion generators to help with the power issues. For mobility she had a Stardrive similar to the type found on the Ancient city ships such as Atlantis. Also on board were special booths that looked like the transport booths on Atlantis, but really were synthesizers for food, clothing, and air; for more complicated things, there was a molecular construction device that was hooked up to the control chair on the bridge. While for defense purposes she had a shield similar to one on the Ancient city ships that took up most of the power.

Of the control systems, she was controlled by a control chair. Max had some control, but her programing limited her to self-defense and repair. When someone with the ATA gene was in the chair she could have complete control, but could be overruled by the user which she imprinted on, allowing only that person to gain control. She could overrule it to allow other people to use to chair, which is why he could be, and why he was in, command. Though she did say that she would allow Colonel Sheppard or General O’Neill to use the chair, but only in emergencies, because she trusted Eric not to lose his cool when she does, which sealed the deal in choosing a commander for the Firestorm, earning him a promotion to Warrant Officer from Sergeant, he was promoted at Atlantis shortly after he arrived.

That was very true fact about the soldier known as Eric Migzaiz. He had an extremely long fuse developed over time, caused by his speech impairment, his small size, five-six and one hundred and thirty pounds, and he was picked on mercilessly when he was younger. Add in the fact that he was in foster care since he was three and was adopted at ten; all this did not do him any favors in the social department. He had both brown hair and eyes, and he was the type of guy to disappear in large crowds only to show up when you least expected it. He joined the Army right out of high school as an artillery firefinding radar operator but was transfered to the Stargate program when his ATA gene was shown to be so strong. He was sent to Atlantis as a sensor operator and as a backup control chair operator. He occasionally went out on missions because staying on Atlantis with nothing to do got boring real fast. It was one of these missions that got him in the situation he found himself in.

He sighed again as he thought about the current situation on Earth. The entire planet was in a middle of a reformation caused by the Stargate being made public in the worst way possible, an attack on Earth itself. The Lucian Alliance decided that the best possible way to stop the Tau’ri from interfering with their plans was to attack at the heart of the matter, which was Earth. So with a fleet of twenty Ha’tak motherships and an Ori Mothership that they somehow got their hands on, they attacked. Which was a bad idea on their part for two reasons; very good reasons. The first reason was that the Firestorm had just made into the system after finally getting enough power to cross the galactic divide, and was able to help the newly repaired and upgraded Prometheus to defend Earth. The Prometheus was heavily damaged by the Ori weapon over the planet Tegalus and barely made it back to Earth. Her repairs were delayed by the urgent need for the more powerful Daedalus-class battlecruisers, but was fast tracked when the Wraith super Hive showed up in Earth orbit. She was upgraded with new beaming tech, new engines, two Asgard beam weapons on her wings, and the newly developed nuclear rail gun that shot a nuclear warhead at Mach two that replaced the missiles, though she still had several setup for anti-fighter operations. The NRG, as it was called, was developed in response to the ineffectiveness of the missile launcher systems caused by the missiles being shot out of the sky. The NRG also increased the number of nukes that the Prometheus could hold from twelve, to about a hundred. It proved to be very effect, for she destroyed four Goa’uld motherships with it alone out of the eight that she destroyed. After the show the Prometheus put on, more of her class was ordered with the upgrades. The Firestorm destroyed the Ori Mothership with her primary weapon and took out another eight Ha’taks before Atlantis got involved and destroyed the last four, but the battle was not without casualties.

The cities Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, New York, Moscow, D.C., Paris, and Berlin, to name a few, were heavily damage. Over ten million people were killed during the attack. A Ha’tak crashed into a small town thirty minutes east of St. Louis, which was Eric’s home town; his entire family was killed in the explosion. It took an entire day for Homeworld Command to get back in contact with him. After he stated who he was, he learned of what had happened. Every ship and all SG teams were ordered to return to Earth.

Earth’s allies also sent ships render aid and support. The Free Jaffa Nation sent six of their new redesigned Ha’taks with healers; the Travelers sent one of their Aurora class ships that they have recently found. Even the Wraith, at least those who been cured of their hunger by Todd, sent one of their hive ships to help. Thankfully for them they arrived last, about a week after it happened which gave Stargate Command enough time to explain that these Wraith were allies and not to be shot at. With that in mind though, they still kept a few ships between both the Firestorm and the Hive, just in case.

It was crazy down on the surface for weeks as the public panicked, but they soon realized that their governments had been doing this behind their backs for close to a decade and a half, and that this was the first in a long series of attempts to attack Earth that succeeded. After everything was said and done, the public wanted blood. Which lead to the Alliance’s second mistake, they united Earth. Originally it was a couple thousand Tau’ri fighting them. Now, now it was close to nine billion whom all wanted their heads on a gold with silver inlay platter. Once this happened and Earth’s allies realized that the Tau’ri had been fighting with a small fraction of their total strength, they went to a “safer” orbit… around Jupiter.

The first thing that happened was the creation of the Tau’ri Council, as it was called. It dealt with everything about the Stargate, the defense of Earth, dealing with their allies, basically anything to do with dealing with other planets. It was stationed on Atlantis which was moved with the gate from Cheyenne Mountain, to the Antarctica Ancient outpost which turned out to be a drone weapon factory power by geothermal energy. All the world's militaries retrained themselves to fight off world threats and several defense satellites were put in orbit, while shipyards were built in several countries to speed up production. The Lucian Alliance was about to figure out why the Tau’ri were named the Fifth Race by the Asgard.

During this time the Firestorm was moved to the Sigma Site to receive her upgrades. While that was happening, Eric was debriefed on what happened to him and what had happened while he was away. He was given his promotion to Warrant Officer so he was able to command the Firestorm without going to officer school for six months, but it was stretching the regulations a lot.

Now he was on his way to the Theta Site to pick up his new crew. He just knew that the majority of the crew would be scientists to study the Firestorm because what was the use of a crew on a ship that practically ran itself. That and the personnel files told him all he needed to know. So he had Max take the long way to the Site to delay the storm of questions that he barely survived the first time around, and was not looking forward to a second time. He knew most of them were going to be about the level of the telepathic link to Max enhance by a watch like device which was made to suit his unique brainwave pattern and to communicate on an instinctual level with him.

He then felt the deck give a small shudder as they dropped out of hyperspace. “Max, it’s been barely fifteen minutes since I asked how long it was to the Theta Site, let alone two hours. What’s up?” he asked as he made his way to the control chair just in case it was needed.

“Look outside,” was Max’s answer. He did and his jaw dropped.

“What is it?” he asked as the chair reclined to give him a better view of the hologram of the object that popped up. As he studied it, it reminded him of the Mass Effect Relays from the game Mass Effect. It was sitting in near orbit of a star.

“I don’t know.”

“Doing a deep scan of it should clear up some questions.”

“The rings in the middle have an amount of naquadah consistent with the Stargates,” Max said.

“Get closer and contact the Council, they’ll want to know about this,” Eric said as he tried to decipher what it was from the sensor readings.

As they got to within a few hundred meters of the device he noticed that it was roughly about a thousand meters long and a hundred meters tall and it was of Ancient make. Then he noticed something that shocked him. It was powering up, and fast.

“Max back us up. Whatever this thing is, it’s powering up and I don’t feel like being on the wrong end of an Ancient super weapon,” Eric ordered while he raised the shields, just in case.

As the Firestorm reversed course, the rings lit up and activated the same way as a standard Stargate. As soon as they did, a ripple in space appeared and started to pull the Firestorm to it at blinding speeds. Before he knew what happened, he blacked out.

Chapter Three

Ch 3

Eric’s return to consciousness was fast and painful, caused by an electric shock from the control chair he was in.

“Ow! What was that for and where are we?” Eric asked as he remembered what happened.

“You were out for four hours after that device sent us to another galaxy and I am picking up a distress signal in another language. Also, there is another one of those devices, but it is inactive.”

“And since you said it was a call for help you must have translated it. So since we’re stuck in this galaxy for the time being, and there is a standing order from all SGC for personal to find allies, I have two questions. Where and how long?”

“Fifty light years away and about a five second jump to hyperspace, shorter if we use the star to recharge first via a slingshot maneuver, for the origin is on the other side of this star. ”

“Do it,” Eric said as he restituted himself in the chair for the upcoming battle.

----------------Back at the Ponyville--------------------

“Shields are at twenty percent and dropping.” Gilda shouted as sparks flew around the bridge.

“Tell me some good news Applejack,” Twilight said as she used her magic to fix a busted pipe.

“Wish Ah could sugarcube, but Ah got none,” Applejack said over the radio.

“Hangar bay to bridge, the last fighter just punched its teleportation charge and the pilot is back O.K. in the bay. It’s Lt. Derby.”

“Roger that hangar bay. That is at least some good news,” Twilight said. She was thankful that the pony who invented the teleportation charge did, for what it did was basically teleport the pilot back to a predetermined location when the charge was activated.

“Captain I’m picking up a hyperspace window opening four hundred kilometers to the rear. The signature is... unknown,” Rarity said from her sensor station.

That one sentence got everyponies’ attention, for every hyperdrive had a unique subspace signature that could be used to identify the ship class before it appeared, so an unknown signature jumping into battle was a scary thing. It could be an ally come to the rescue or an enemy coming to wipe them out.

“Check it agai....” the order died in Twilight’s throat as the vessel came into view. As it flew over them and planted itself between the Ponyville and the baseships.

Even though it was half the size of a baseship it seemed to let off an aura that said fuck with me at your own risk. Add to that the massive power readings that they were getting from it made it that much more frightening.

The baseships, sensing a new threat, unleashed a withering barrage of weapons fire that would have destroyed any other ship, but which was stopped cold by a shield that sprang into existence a few seconds after it settled into position between the Ponyville and the baseships. It took the barrage from the baseships for a few minutes before returning the favor. It took its sweet time as it maneuvered its bow so that it was pointing straight at at the baseships. As soon as it was done with that, a green beam of energy shot out of the bow of the ship, slicing both baseships in half.

Twilight took a look at the sensor records to see if she could find out anything about their savoir. Her jaw dropped at what the sensors said about the shields. They didn’t drop in efficiency a bit while it was under fire, but she did note that the power levels dropped as the shields took hits. She was wondering what type of magic this could be when Trixie elbowed her in the ribs. When she looked up to see what she wanted, her jaw dropped for the second time that hour.

For a biped being was standing on the front of the bridge looking at them with a look she knew mirrored her own, a look of surprise and shock. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Gilda raise her pistol at the being. That shocked it back to reality.

“That weapon will have zero effect on me and might put a hole in your ship’s hull, because this is a hologram,” the being said in perfect Equestrian. “Besides, is that anyway to greet someone who just saved all your lives?”

“How do you know Equestrian, how are you doing this, and what are you?” Trixie asked suspiciously.

“Translation program, Tau'ri more commonly known as a human, and tech we got from some old allies, don’t ask how it works, cause I only use it,” the now identified Tau’ri answered.

“But humans are a myth! An old mares’ tale,” Lyra said in a disbelieving tone.

“Says the sea-green talking unicorn with a griffin standing beside you with a pistol thing still pointed at a harmless hologram,” the Tau’ri said with a mocking tone glaring at Gilda, who sheepishly lowered her pistol.

“Well this is going to to be one of the weirdest first contacts in the books,” the Tau’ri said in a barely audible voice. Twilight could have sworn that it was lower than Fluttershy’s. “Anyways, I am Chief Warrant Officer Two Eric Migzaiz, Commander of the mobile defense platform the Firestorm of the Tau’ri Fleet from another galaxy,” the Warrant Officer said in a louder voice. “My vessel was pulled from my home galaxy to this one by a device of Ancient origin and would like assistance in turn for powerful allies willing to help protect your worlds if need be.”

Twilight was, needless, taken back. Here was a race of beings far more advance than her own, apparently made up of creatures from age old myths, asking for help and willing to give help in return! “My name is Captain Twilight Sparkle of the United Eponian Nations ship Ponyville, thanks for the save. That request is unable to be accepted by me alone, only one of the Princesses can grant that. I do have a strong friendship with with them and I will put in a good word for you. Though I am wondering why you can’t just use the device that brought you here to return home?”

“That device appears to use a transmitter/receiver set up like the stargates and the transmitter on this end is nonfunctional, so I’m stuck here for the time being. Besides I picked up your distress call. That was enough for us to meet even if the transmitter was working. All ships, hell all personnel in the Tau’ri military, have standing orders to seek out new alli...” Eric stopped mid-sentence with a panicked look on his face. Taking a crystal like device of his chest, he said something in what was most likely his native language that sounded urgent. Twilight looked at Rarity first, who shook her head, answering the unasked question that there was nothing on sensors that could cause worry. A quick glance to Lyra showed that they were recording what he was saying for their own translation program spells, to well translate. Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, the Warrant Officer shoved the crystal device back on his chest.

“How resistant are your kind to radiation?” he asked in a panicked tone.

“Umm, probably about as good as you are, maybe a little better. Why?” Lyra asked as she searched for any radiation strong enough to pierce the Ponyville’s hull.

“I’m picking up a radiation spike in an area where I’m guessing is engineering. If these readings are right then a reactor has sprung a major leak,” he answered as he looked at something in the distance.

“Applejack report!” Twilight all but shouted into the comlink.

“Jezzz, Captain no need to shout, Ah’m in the middle of replacing several delicate crystals for the hyperdrive, as soon as Ah do we can head for a shipyard for a complete overhaul,”

“Applejack the commander of the ship that saved us says that the reactor is leaking radiation, can you confirm,”

“WHAT! Give me a second... Crap! The shielding on reactor two is shot to Tartarus and back! It’s leaking radiation at an increasing rate. EVERYPONY OUT NOW! That hit must of did more damage than Ah thought,” Applejack said as she locked down the only entrance to engineering to seal the radiation from the reactor in the room, since the engineering space was shielded for such an event. “When it rains it pours, cause reactor one was shut down for repairs to some damaged power couples that could of cause an overload, and number two will be shutting down in a minute as soon as the safety system reboots, but the reactor will still be putting out radiation at lethal levels even with the suits, and the drive isn’t fixed. Even if it was, we won’t have enough power to use it anyway.”

“So we’re basically dead in space. Scratch how are the comms?”

“Well our new two legged friend’s way of talking to us without using our equipment aside, we lost long range transmitters three seconds before his ship showed up. We don’t have anyway to get in touch with command.”

They heard someone clear their throat. “Maybe I could help with that. My ships has powerful communications gear. I’m positive that it should be more than powerful enough to get in contact with anyone you need to. Heck, when you do, I could tow you to where you need to go. Kill two birds with one stone,” Eric said as he pointed to his ship. It moved so that the the stern was pointed towards the Ponyville. “At full power the Firestorm’s hyperdrive is powerful enough to cross galaxies in minutes!” He said with pride in his ship. “Though towing other vessels does slow it down a bit... Oh now what,” he said as he looked at something almost as soon as alarms started to sound on the bridge.

“Containment failure! Heavy radiation detected on all levels, evacuate immediately!”

“How did that happen?! Everyone to the escape pods. Warrant Officer do you mind if we send our escape pods to your ship?”

“I can do one better. I can beam your entire crew onto my ship.”

“Uh... Beam?” Gilda asked confused.

“Ummm, Teleport.”

“That will be great,” Twilight said, slightly wondering how he could do that.

“Good. Tell your crew to quickly finish doing whatever they’re doing and prepare to teleport. See you in person in about ten minutes,” he said as the holograms disappeared.

“Hope this turns out okay,’ Twilight said as she got her ship ready for evacuation.

“Things are going to change aren’t they, Twilight?” Trixie asked.

“Yes they are Trixie, yes they are.”

“How many beings are there on that ship, Max? Eric asked as he checked a console making sure that the life-support was running at maximum efficiency.

“I’m detecting about seven hundred life signs. Are you sure that this is a good idea?” responded Max.

“For the last time, yes I am sure. We can’t leave them on that ship. Is the hangar bay clear?”

“Yes it is. So that is where we are sending them?”

“For the most part. Any wounded are going to medbay, while me and their commander are going to compare notes.”

“You do know that those creatures that they were fighting are a lot like the Wraith, heck accounting to the sensors they have a similar feeding organ.”

“I knew. That why I used the main weapon; it destroyed both of them so that they couldn’t get off a telepathic message to warn how powerful the new guy on the block is.”

“Point, and the ten minutes are about up,”

“Send them a warning and beam up the ones closest to the radiation first and work your way out. I’m heading down to the hangar bay to meet them.” As he got in the transporter booth it finally hit him.

‘Holy shit. I just was talking to a UNICORN who was a captain of a ship, whose crew include griffins that I’m beaming over. And apparently they know of humans too in the same way we of them, by myths. Why do I have a feeling that the Ancients had something to do with that?’
______---------_____

Twilight took a quick look around to reorient herself. She was in what she guessed was an empty hangar bay. She watched with a smile as the last of her crew showed up in flashes of light with a confused look on their faces. Her smile soon turned to a frown as she tried to sense the magic that caused it, only to find none. Then she realized that the entire ship was without magic at all. ‘Now how is that possible? A species that accomplished all of this without any magic? It shouldn’t be possible!’ Twilight was jolted out of her musings by a door opening to the right of her as Eric walked out.

“I’m the commander of this vessel. I’d like to welcome you all aboard the Firestorm. If anyone is hurt I’d like you to tell me so that I can have you beamed to the medbay for treatment. This ship is controlled by a very advanced A.I. that will answer most of your questions,” he said after he had everyponies’ attention.

Twilight got up from where she was sitting and walked over to him. “Chief Warrant Officer Migzaiz?” at his nod she continued, “I’m Captain Sparkle. I’d like to thank you for doing this. We’d probably have been stuck in this system for a while, if we weren’t destroyed by the Senris first.”

“The Senris, huh? From what I’ve seen of them, they kind of remind of the Wraith, a species that sucks the life out of you with the palm of their hand. Tough suckers to kill since they heal almost instantly every time you shoot them. If they feed recently it takes up to fifty plus rounds to kill them! We lost some battles, but are on our way to winning the war. Huh, I still can’t believe that I’m talking to a purple unicorn, though I really shouldn’t be surprised with all the weird stuff that happens in this job, no-offense meant.”

“None taken. To tell you the truth, I probably would have reacted the same way,” Twilight said as she got a good look at him. He was a good head taller than her. One of the things that she noticed was his lack of a tail. Most of the biped creatures that she had seen had a tail to help keep balance. Humans, it seemed, could walk just fine without one. She idly wondered what evolution path caused that. He was wearing a camouflage uniform that had a digital scheme to it. On his left shoulder was a patch that depicted a pegasus looking creature with symbols written over it while on the other side was a diamond shaped patch, with four ivy leaves at each corner with the stems leading to a circle in the middle. Above that patch was a flag with a blue square in the corner dotted with stars with the rest cover in red and white strips.

On his chest was a patch that had two black squares above each other. She could just make out a rectangle outline on it. On each side were two patches with writing on them with the crystal device under one of them. She made a note to ask about the meaning of those patches especially the one on his left shoulder. She then noticee that his eyes were jumping between her and her crew, ‘probably doing the same thing, scoping out the other beings and taking stock of what’s what and compiling questions for later,’ she thought. She then noticed that he was lingering on all the ponies’ cutie marks. She thought of way to start the conversation with a smile.

“You know humans are mythical creatures on my planet, and from what you said to Lyra and Gilda, my science officer and tactical officer respectfully, unicorns and griffins are in yours,” Twilight said. “Though that patch on your left shoulder says that your kind know about pegasi.”

“You’re right unicorns, griffins, and pegasi are considered mythical creatures on my planet.” Eric said shaking his head. “I know several people, me included, that would love to know how two cultures in two different galaxies knew of each other in such a way that one culture was the other’s myths. We should probably trade information on each other's histories. You never know, a useless piece of information to one person can be a key to someone else, and trust me that has saved several of our teams before. Also if it’s not some kind of taboo or something, what are those marks on all of beings that have your body type?”

Twilight smirked at the clever ploy to get information. While it was see through it was effective considering the logic behind it, both showing what each side knows, allowing trust to grow. It also served to show the kind of people you are dealing with. “I can do that, but our home world would be censored out,” she replied. “ And those marks are know as cutie marks. They represent our special talent, each one is linked to our soul and mind, making them unique to each pony. Though some look very similar, each one has minute differences in the fine details.”

“That’s agreeable, understandable, and interesting. Some things would be censored out on my side, too.”

All of a sudden, a disembodied voice spoke out, causing half of the rescued crew to jump. “Chief Migzaiz, I have several ships matching the profile of the two that we destroyed enroute on long range sensors,” it said.

“How many are there Max? That’s the A.I. that I was talking about earlier,” Eric said to a slightly confused Twilight.

“Four of the bigger ones and several smaller destroyer type vessels.”

“We can take them on easily, but your ship will most likely be destroyed in the process.” Eric said in thought. “And that is unacceptable. Is their ship in position?”

“Yes it is.”

“Good, jump to hyperspace on the course that we set earlier.”

She responded with the deck shuddering as they jumped to hyperspace with the Ponyville in tow.

“Thanks for that. The Ponyville is my first command with a hoof picked crew. I really didn’t feel like filling out all the forms that would come with her destruction,” Twilight said in relief. She liked paperwork, but even she had her limits.

“No problem. So about that data, I’ll take you to a station that you can use for the hour that we’re in hyperspace. Ain’t much else to do as this ship flies itself.” Eric said.

“Why will we be in hyperspace so long? You said that this ship is fast enough to cross the galaxy in minutes,” Twilight said slightly confused.

“I don’t like to push the hyperdrive hard when we’re towing something. So I had Max cut the speed to reduce the strain,” the Chief explained.

“Ah that makes sense. Lead the way. I have a data chip that has some of the more important events in our history that you can use. It’s not the whole thing, but it should fit your purpose just fine, my friend,” She said with a smile, as they walked off after they left Gilda in command and got Applejack to help with any compatibility issues.
------_____-----

“Well... that was more painful than I thought it would be.” Eric said to himself as he remembered the last fifty minutes. It consisted of a pink thing that calls itself Pinkie Pie. She had come to him asking a thousand and two questions about him, his kind, and, surprisingly, parties.

She pounced right when they finished coming up with a device to make pony tech, as he put it, compatible with Tau’ri (read Ancient, but he didn’t feel like letting them know that nugget of information yet) tech. It was surprisingly easy. He just needed to use the molecular constitution device to make a device to translate the weird energy that was used to power it. He chuckled as he remembered their faces when they saw the machine construct it atom by atom.

Right before the attack of the pink, as he started to call it, he had Max go through and mark anything of interest so he could get to the good parts fast.

‘That was a great idea in hindsight, cause with my speed reading skills, I can have at least have some idea what I’m getting into in advance,’ he thought with a smile as he sat down in the control chair.

“Eric, I think you should see this,” Max said before he even sat down, sounding unsure of herself and setting him on edge.

“What is it?” he asked worrying he had sided with a race that was a giant menace. Those worries were replaced with confusion as she showed him a picture of a younger Captain Twilight Sparkle and several of the ship’s command staff without their uniforms, standing outside of a rustic town.

“Yeah, I know that’s the captain of the ship that we saved with several of her crew. What about it?”

“This was taken about a thousand years ago.”

“So what? These are most likely their ancestors and they look like them. Hell one of my highschool friends said that when I’m wearing a German army helmet, I look like Heinrich Himmler!”

“I ran recognition tests on their cutie marks and the ones in this picture and several others. They came back a ninety-nine point nine nine percent match and they have the same names,” she said. “I found similar matches with other equine members of the crew with others of the same era. Same result for all Eric.” She then listed all the ones she could with a picture of then and now. Lyra, Trixie, Vinyl Scratch, Spitfire, Soarin, Derpy, Thunderlane, Colgate, and, of course, the main six, as it would seem they are. Each one with its accompanying pair of pictures hammer away any doubt of a trick or descendents.”

Eric’s mind went into overdrive as he thought this over. “...each one is linked to our soul and mind making them unique to each pony. Though some look very similar, each one has minute differences in the fine details.” went through his head as he thought about this new information.

“What happened to them?” he asked shakily as if he didn’t want to know.

Max responded with a newspaper article translated to english.

“Today the country of Equestria is in mourning. The Spirit of Chaos Discord has escaped and was taken over by the being known as Nightmare. The resenting being, Death, laid waste to the land,” Eric read aloud softly. “The Elements of Harmony along with Princesses Celestia and Luna, with help from an unidentified midnight black Alicorn with a shield cutie mark, attempted to subdue the monster. Their combined might managed to partly free Discord of the Nightmare corruption but not without deaths,” Eric swallowed hard at that sentence. “Horrified at what he caused, Discord sacrificed himself to destroy the Nightmare for good. Today is named The Day of Harmony in remembrance of the mares that gave their lives to save their friends. The Elements of Harmony, Fluttershy the Element of Kindness, Applejack the Element of Honesty, Pinkie Pie the Element of Laughter, Rarity thr Element of Generosity, Rainbow Dash the Element of Loyalty, and Twilight Sparkle the Element of Magic gave it all to stop Death. May their names never be forgotten.”

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

“They’re supposedly dead,” Eric said in disbelief. “Did they clone and paste their conscience in their new bodies like the Asgard did? Or is it a reincarnation thing? By die did they really mean they ascended and they decided to descend? Hell, I’ll believe that they could live that long if the newspaper article hadn’t said that they died. I know that the wraith can live longer than that. Todd said he’s been around since before the hundred year Ancient\Wraith war ten thousand years ago! Old mothersucker, he is. That could explain the others, but not main six in that picture who died! Huh, main six, mane six. Now this is going to drive me crazy trying to find out what is going on, not that I’m not already.”

“Well you're not crazy and you could always ask them.”

“There are two things wrong with that statement. One, I am crazy, I just don’t act like it, and two, how in the hell do you ask someone if they died before?”

“Just ask them,” Max said as if it was as simple as that.

“I just met them barely an hour ago,” Eric deadpanned. “That is something that you ask after you’ve known them for a while or after a couple drinks at a bar. I may be crazy, but even I know that that is not a good way to start a conversation with a maybe soon to be ally.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“That we wait and see. Watch for signs that they remember, look for slip ups, and see if there are any others like this. We keep this to ourselves, only tell command if we have to. We might be able to tell General O’Neill, members of SG-1, and AR-1 if needed. Those people are the only people that I’ll trust with something like this. Anyone else might try to use this to their advantage or make a fuss of it, gods know the IOA would,” Eric said after a thought, slightly wondering how that pain in the ass group stayed in operation. “As of now this information doesn’t leave this ship.”

“Understanded, just so you know in a minute we are exiting hyperspace.”

“Good. Let’s warn our guests about our exit and have Captain Twilight bring her communications officer up, so we can contact their command and let them know what's up,” Eric said as the the swirls of hyperspace changed to realspace. As the view cleared what only can be described as a fortress world replace the smoothing swirls.

“We may have problem,” Eric said as the sensor readings came and he paled at the numbers.
_________

To say that Admiral Nyx was worried was an understatement. The cruiser which was commanded by her student, that looked liked her mother’s time displaced twin, failed to check in on time. Normally that wasn’t much to worry about, as for the communication gear would occasionally develop glitches and need repair, if it was not for the fact that it had been a hour since the last check in point had passed, and before that they received a garbled transmission that they had no luck in clearing up. She sighed as she looked at the dark nebulae expanse that encircled Epona.

Epona was in a dark nebula that blocked most things from getting in or out. In times long past, Admiral then Princess Luna made small balls of magic energy to simulate stars in the night skies to make the night less drily. That fact she learned while she was forced into being Nightmare Moon when she was younger. She had forgotten about it when then Princess Luna took back what powers that were hers for her ‘punishment’. They kept them in place as for nostalgia and to help in the defense of Epona. Even with shields, something exploding with the force of a mini supernova near your ship will get your attention really fast. Only things that are able to get through the shell of the nebulae are ships flying through it in realspace or hyperspace, and subspace communications, everything else is blocked.

She smirked as she thought of her student. She seemed so much like her dead mother, heck she even had the same cutie mark! As she thought about it, how her mother died came into mind. Now that was a horrible day. She always knew that she would outlive Twilight, with her being an alicorn and alicorns being basically immortal, she knew that Twi wouldn’t be around, but to have her killed basically in front of her while her cutie mark meant that she will protect ponies... Well it was too much, as soon as Discord killed himself she broke down crying near Twilight’s burnt taire, the only thing left of her. Both Celestia and Luna let loose several tears for their dear friends. Spike took it the hardest of them all, the last anypony saw of him was at the funeral of the Elements. She spent years looking for him, in what she hoped was not in vain, with no luck. Shining and Cadence put themselves into their work to cope while the Sisters worked to find any hint of the Nightmare to kill. Thankfully there was none left.

She was startled out of her musings by a door opening behind her as an old snow white unicorn walked in.

“Any word in yet Admiral?” He asked.

“No, and I thought that I told you that you of all ponies didn’t have to call me that. You’re older than me for one, and two you’re are my Uncle Shiny,” Nyx said with smile.

“Thanks for making an old stallion feel older kid,” Shining Armor said with a chuckle.

“How are you holding up?”

“Better than I was, who knew that marrying an Alicorn grants eternal life if you ain’t killed.” Shining said with a forced smile.

“Do you think...” Nyx started.

“Hmmm... Nyx we been over this before, hell we all have. There is no way of knowing that Twilight would have been affected like I was. We could only have hoped,” Shining said sadly.

“I know, but...”

“But you can’t help but be upset knowing that she could be with you right now,” Shining Armor said. “Trust me, we all do kid. Though it would be awkward with your student having the same name and being a spitting image of her. If my mane wasn’t grey already it would because of those two, though you're helping with their experiments will cause it to turn white.”

“It wouldn’t be that bad. That is also why I took her on as my student. She reminds me of her,” Nyx said with a smile.

At this, Shining frowned. As he went to speak his mind an alarm sounded.

“Hyperspace window detected in sector six, level t-ten,” came the voice of a sensor officer over the comm net.

“Looks like they just had trouble with their communications equipment Nyx.”

“Maybe,” Nyx said as she used her magic to bring up the area in question on her armors built in data link. On it, it showed a ship that she had never seen before. It was three thousand meters long. It started out at a point which lead to a pair of half crescent shaped wings a quarter of the length from the bow, which then lead to the rear which was a full crescent. On the rear half was a pyramid shaped superstructure, dotting the hull were several barrel like turrets while at the end of the wings was a barely visible dish of some short, and at the end of the rear wings were two large iris type hatches for something. She immediately recognized it as a very powerful warship.

“That isn’t the her ship, heck it not even one of ours,” Nyx replied as she teleported out to the command center.

“Oh, lord,” Shining said as he sat back to watch the fireworks.
----------_____---------

“How the hell did we not pick this up! We can detect ships in hyperspace hundreds of lightyears away, but a short jump away we can’t see the most heavily protected planet we have seen yet?!” Eric shouted as he jumped into the control chair.

“For the same reason why we chose to come here, the dark nebulae nature blocks all sensors, the only sensor to work are the long range subspace sensors and those only work well to detect ships entering, in, and exiting in hyperspace. In hindsight, we should have expected them to have a base here,” Max said as she ran battle stimulations and power calculations of the force before them to figure out the best plan of attack.

As she was doing that, Eric looked at some of the ships to figure out their capabilities and weaknesses to target with the drone weapons. One of the designs immediately rang a bell.

“Max, this ship looks to be of the same class as the one we’re towing. This must be one of their major bases! Get the Captain up here NOW! Beam her here if you have to. I am raising shields, BUT KEEP THE WEAPONS UNPOWERED! Gods know that we scream warship, no need to add to their paranoia. Yes I can see all of the guns pointed in our direction, just look harmless or something,” Eric nearly shouted as he raised shields and put on the translation crystal.

There was the familiar flash of light of an Asgard beam teleporting someone onto the bridge. Twilight stumbled a bit as she got her legs back underneath her, for she was in mid stride when she was beamed.

“Captain, please tell me you have some way of contacting your people at solar system distances in a hurry.” Eric asked as so as she had her bearings.

“Why would you need that?” Twilight asked supposedly.

Eric answered by pointing out the view port, which caused her jaw to drop when she recognized where they were.

“HOW DID YOU FIND THIS PLANET!” she all but shouted at Eric.

After his ears stopped ringing and he made sure that the translator crystal wasn’t damaged, for it was surprisingly delicate, he answered her. “The sensors picked up hints of a dark nebula that I was planning on hiding in until we got in contact with your commanders, but, weelll...” Eric left off as he noticed a funky type of radiation coming from several ships and what he presumed to be defense stations around the planet. As he watched, it started to increase causing Eric to get a sinking feeling.

Which was all but confirmed when somewhere north, hundred beams of said radiation shot and impacted the shields, causing the entire vessel to shake. The shields were more than powerful enough to withstand the energy thrown at them, since the shields were the same type found on Atlantis and her sister cityships meaning that as long as they had power nothing could pierce the shield’s protective screen.

There are a couple things to know about shields to know what was happening. First is that shields are broken up into two types; barrier and capacitors shield. Both shields are made up of ions structured to build a barrier, but the differences are found in the way it uses power. A barrier type can stop tremendous amounts of fire as long as it has a sufficient amount of power fed into it without failing. If it loses power, the entire thing goes down. Only a sustained amount of energy such as what is found in beam weapons like the Asgard beams that Earth uses or the main weapon on the Firestorm can pierce it at a reliable rate. That is caused by the fluctuations from the energy beam straining one spot on the shield and that energy beam being higher than the energy threshold of the shield, which is dictated by the output of the power generators, causing a breach. It is believed that the Ori motherships used this type of shield. Because of the power requirements, it is rarely seen and used. The more common capacitor type shields use a certain amount of power at standby mode and as soon as it takes fire it immediately starts to draw power from a bank of capacitors. This type of shield slowly loses power and efficiency as the capacitors are drained of power. It is the more energy efficient of the two, and is not pierced by beam weapons like the barrier shields because it doesn’t suffer from the energy threshold weakness and the shields can be reinforced along the areas being stressed making it hard to cause fluctuations, but with enough fire they will drain causing a failure. The weapons on a Wraith ship can do this frighteningly fast. The best of this type are the Asgard shields used by Earth. The shields on a cityship and the Firestorm are a hybrid of the two combining the best of both types. There were two major flaws in the shield though. One, it guzzled energy at an insane rate when stressed, say by weapons fire, and two, the barrier that as the shield itself acted like a part of the hull, so while the impacts from weapons are absorbed harmlessly, the recoil of said impacts have been known to knock ships around if the inertial dampeners couldn’t handle the kinetic energy load. Atlantis was pushed out of orbit by this from the ZPM powered super hive over Earth.

Twilight soon got acquainted with that quirk of shields, as with everypony else who was not flying far enough away from the walls or not lying down, as she meet the floor finding out that it tasted a little like rubber. Even Eric who was in the control chair got jostled around a bit.

“What are those?” Eric asked as he brought up a holoscreen of the power levels.

“They are heavy magik cannons of the same type as the two on my ship. They basically take raw arcane energy from special storage devices, that can be filled by any magic user onboard, and focus it several times from a beam the size of what you are to one about the size of my hoof. It produces a very strong beam of concussive force that smashes anything in its path. I am surprised that your shield is taking it so well, any other ship would be destroyed by these blasts by now, especially since they are rotating the cannons out to keep up the pressure.” Twilight said the last part in awe of the strength of the shields used by the vessel they are on.

Eric decided to ask about the magic thing later and get things so they would stop being shot at. “Well they are the strongest in the know universe. Though they are very very power hungry when stressed, but we have enough power to last weeks if need be at this rate. We were roughly at eighty-five percent when we jumped in; the hyperdrive is a power hungry creature and towing a good size vessel didn’t help. But... I would very much like them to stop shooting at us for obvious reasons....” Eric started as the ship bucked causing him to fly out of the control chair into the roof of the bridge and flopping back down on floor.

“Oooww”

“And that would be one of several hundred dozen star mines. Most of which are likely headed our way,” Twilight said as she cast a diagnostic spell on him not knowing how effective it would be because of the lack of information on his species. She noted that it said that he was only dazed, bruised, and had one Tartarus of a headache.

Which he somewhat proved by getting up and saying, “Lets thind wour comms othicew to stop fvat throm happenin again,” He stopped and shook his head to reset several systems and began again. “Sorry my speech impediment came out strong there for a second. Now lets get your communications officer up here to keep that from happening again. Who is it?”

“She is Vinyl Scratch, a white unicorn with a two tone blue mane with a two bridge eighth note for a cutie mark.”

“Max?!”

In a flash of white light Vinyl appeared curled up in position that said she was holding on to something.

“Huh, wat?” she said, confused for she was hanging on for dear life as the ship shook and jerked around, and now she was on what she guessed was the bridge. She saw the Chief hanging on in a fancy looking chair while her captain stood in the middle with her horn glowing, probably powering some spell to keep her in one place.

“We need you to work your magic to get defence command to stop shooting at us.”

“By the way, not to add pressure, but that last blast knocked the shield emitters out of sync. So now there is a tenfold increase of power consumption on all five emitters, meaning we have thirty six hours before we lose hyperdrive capabilities and forty hours until the shields collapse from the lack of power. Another one of those blasts may cut that time in half if not more, so no pressure,” Eric frowned as he looked at a holoscreen showing the power levels that were dropping at a much faster rate. He then pointed to a console a few feet away, “Comm station,” was all he said.

Vinyl nodded and took that the crystal like pads seemed to be just the right size for her hoof. ‘That’s weird it seem to be designed for hoof and that thing that the Chief has at the end of his forleg to use,’ she thought as the device reformatted itself for better ease of use for her. After
taking a second to familiarize herself with its lay out, she noticed one major problem. She couldn’t read the labels on the keys.

“Captain, Chief, we have a little problem,” she said,

“Please don’t tell me the communication array got destroyed again, I just had that fixed,” Eric said, thinking of when he first found the Firestorm. The comms array had been destroyed by the wraith in a long ago engagement, so when he did get control he couldn’t contact Atlantis. It was fixed at the Sigma Shipyards as part of the overhaul that also installed the now redlining neutrino-ion reactors, that were now starting to worry him.

“No, I just can’t read your writing,” Vinyl replied.

“Should have seen that coming, since this program only works on speech. Any ideas? I’m up for flashing the hull lights if you think that will work.”

“Flashing lights. That’s it! Uhmm, I would cover your eyes if I was you,” she said as she snapped on a pair of violet colored sunglasses as her horn started to glow brighter.

“What do you... Oh,” was both Eric’s and Twilight response to as they realized what was happening, causing Twilight to drop to the deck close her eyes, cover them with her forelegs and face away from Vinyl, while Eric flipped in the chair so that he was on his stomach and proceeded to bury his face in the head rest while also closing and covering his eyes with his hands.

Later, when Eric would write his report, he would note that he had seen stars not as bright as the light that filled the bridge. After his sight returned a few minutes later, he noticed that the shuddering had stopped, causing him to take a look out the viewport and saw that the shield was slowly losing the orange hue it had taken while under fire.

“Huh, whatever you did worked, they’ve stopped shooting at us,” he said as he turned to look at the white unicorn. And proceeded to used up every ounce of self control not to laugh. For there was Vinyl Scratch with her glasses hanging half off her face while wall-eyed with a funny as hell look on her face.

“You’re alright?”

“That was awesome! Can we do that again?”

Eric then noticed that part of her mane was on fire. “No,” was his answer as he licked his hand and put out the flames.

“I agree with the Chief, lets focus on getting in contact with our command since he somehow managed to jump into our home system,” Twilight said with a slight glare in his direction.

“It is not like I knew that this was here! Wait! Did you say HOME SYSTEM!? “ Eric said in shock wondering how much of a fuck up that this was going to be in the eyes of their leaders.

Before anyone could answer there was a poof of indigo mist and a flash of light slightly brighter than an Asgard beam. As the light cleared a creature that Eric saw could only be described as full grown horse with a horn, wings, armour, and a dark purple flowing mane. He belatedly noticed that its horn was glowing and was pointed at him.

After seeing that, he did what any trained and unarmed soldier would do - throw up his hands and surrender. But it seemed that either started it to release the the built up energy or it took it as a threat. Either way he wound up flying halfway across bridge.

“Ow,” he muttered as his ears rang. He then noticed that Vinyl had came over to check to see if he was alright.

“Little help here,” he asked as he raised a hand. He was, needless to say, surprised that she looked at him as if he had spoken a different language, which he realized he did when she neighed, though the sound of it seemed familiar. But he didn’t think of that as he scrambled for the crystal on his chest. The crystal was roughly circular in shape with a blueish hue to it. As he brought it up to eye level, he noticed a large crack running from one end to another. He showed it to Scratch who looked at it for a moment confused before realizing that it was broken.

She then took it with her powers, he wasn’t ready to say magic for he was at Atlantis when Rodney was upgraded and saw him do the exact same thing with a donut though it was less flashy, and walked over to where Twilight and the what he was guessing was an Admiral or similar ranking horse were arguing. Or at he thought it was arguing since the only thing he was hearing was neighing, whimpering, and the odd snort. A part of his mind noticed that he could almost understand what was being said but he chalked it up to his imagination.

He then got back on his feet wincing at the pain that was going to be one hell of a bruise on both his chest and back. Then he went to a storage tray that held spare crystals in it. He then noticed that the bigger horse was coming closer to him, to which he raised his hand with the index finger pointing and he used the other hand to find the right crystal. As soon as he did, he slapped it on, wincing again at the now wrapped around bruise that he had irritated, before he turned his attention back to the armoured horse.

“Ok, who are you and how did you get on my ship with the shields up.”

“I should ask you the same thing,” she, it sounded like a she, said.

“I was planning on hiding in this dark nebula, so they,” he pointed at both Twilight and Vinyl, “could contact their command, of which I believe that you are of, so that we could hammer out the papers for first contact.”

“How do I know that you are not a plant for an invasion force, planning on betraying us the first chance you get?” she asked supposedly, though Eric could tell that she was slowly relaxing.

“That would be a very bad idea on my part, since I am probably the only one of my kind in this galaxy. Not to mention that that you are fighting an enemy that is scary like one of our own. Add to that fact that I have standing orders to find allies. You don’t have to think about how much that would be a bad idea on my part,” he shot back.

“Well I am Admiral Nyx of the Epona Defence Forces. And you are?” Nyx asked

“I am Chief Warrant Officer Two Eric Migzaiz of the Tau’ri Fleet, commander of the mobile defense platform Firestorm, call me Chief, Migzaiz, or Eric,” he replied back as he lowered the shields to conserve energy, noticing at the same time that the power reservoirs were at forty-five percent.

“My student tells my that you wish to seek an alliance with my ponies.”

“That is right, I am stuck in this galaxy for the time being and allies are good for getting the lay of the land as it were and resources. Plus your kind are the sixth race that the Tau’ri have met that are hyperspace capable and the third that is friendly.”

“I see. Well you will need to see Princesses Celestia and Cadence for talks about this you know.”

“Show me the way.”
____________-------------------_______________

“So it seems that the children have met the friends of the parents. This will begin a new era of prosperity, right old friend?

“Indeed it will Janus, indeed it will. But not until after several hard fought battles.”
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

This is the last chapter for a month, because in forty eight hours I am leaving for a month long in the field training course. I am in the Army and the location that I am going to has poor cell connection and I can not bring my laptop so no typing. See you soon.

Chapter Five

“So Rodney, what is that?” the newly promoted Colonel John Sheppard asked his more scientific friend Rodney McKay. He was referring to the device that sat in high orbit around the sun that the Daedalus was sitting a respectable distance away from. They, along with Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Dr. Carson Beckett, and Dr. Jennifer Keller, were chosen to investigate to find out what had happen to theFirestorm. It was well known that the Firestorm crew was going to be made majorly of scientists and though Eric didn’t mind that, he did mind, though, being considered nothing more than a science experiment. Which more than a few scientists did, much to his chagrin. Rodney was among this crew for about five minutes until John set him straight with his secret weapon, a lemon. So it came as no surprise when he was given several hours to get to the Theta Site, he decided to take the long way to stall. They immediately knew something was up, when halfway through his journey he contacted Atlantis with coordinates to a star system and sensor readings of an Ancient Device. He was streaming real time when he was cut off, but it was enough to see that he was pulled in violently when the Firestorm got too close. That was the reason why they were a good distance away; they couldn’t tell what had happen to the Firestorm or what the device did and were not about to lose two vessels over it.

“I think it’s some sort of long range transportation device. The raw data we got from the Firestorm's sensors along with the visuals show that that weird gate at the center of that thing when combined with the tuning like forks, cause a ripple in space-time, which caused the Firestorm to be pulled in the first place. This shouldn’t be possible! That stargate shouldn’t even be able to work!” the canadian scientist said typing irritably at his tablet.

“Apparently it is, because there isn’t speck of debris from the Firestorm to be found,” Colonel Caldwell said from his set in the command chair. “Besides this thing was made by the Ancients, who invented the stargate. They probably know a lot more about the inner workings of the gates than you do Doctor,” the Colonel said with a smirk hidden by the status report of the Deadalus that he was reading, earning a glare from the egoistic scientist.

“Anyway,” Teyla interrupted before an argument could breakout, “If it is like the gates, would it not go somewhere with another one on the other side? Wouldn’t Eric just use that to return from where he is?”

“Maybe the device that works as a DHD is damaged or he just doesn’t know how to work it?” John said hesitantly. “Or he could have gotten sidetracked.”

“We won’t know unless we follow him into the gap.”

Rodney made a face at that thought, “If this is like the gates, there could be hundreds of them. We could wind up in a completely different galaxy than him and have the same problem he’s having, not being able to communicate with Earth which he would have done as soon as he could.”

“That is an easy fix, just bring some of the communication stones. Those things have an unlimited range that we know of, use little power, and take up less room than a P90. Add to the fact that the Asgard beaming tech can be used to make anything we need so long as we have enough power to do it, we could easily last long enough to find him. We could also grab a gate to stay connected to Earth with, so if we do find the Firestorm you can easily hook it up to the ZPMs onboard and if we need more power we might be able to to route power to the gate with the solar dives to recharge like they try to do on the Destiney, but failed because of the the age of the thing,” John replied.

Rodney muttered something indecipherable before nodding in agreement that he had a point.

“Colonel Caldwell, contact Atlantis, let’s see if we can do some exploring.”
------Firestorm’s hangar bay_---_

“This is so not cool,” Rainbow Dash said as she did a lap of the bay for the hundred plus time. “I am so bored.”

“I don’t see why. The commander of this vessel gave us access to the ship’s database. Sure it’s only voice with pictures, but I still learned a lot about the Tau’ri,” Twilight said as she listened to a tablet.

“Really? Like what? Are they same sort of super ponies that can shoot lasers from their eyes or have super cool powers?” Dash asked as she tried to grab the tablet.

“Well, first they are related more to apes than equines. Two they don’t have ANY powers or magic whatsoever. Three, stop grabbing my tablet and I will tell you what they can do,” Twilight said as she pushed Dash away a bit. As the multicolored mare settled down, Twilight began anew.

“They are interesting to say the least. Accounting to this, though, they have only been in space for about twelve years and already have taken down three major galactic threats and are working on the fourth.” At this Dash raised an eyebrow.

“Twelve YEARS? And they have all this already?! Either their years are a lot longer than ours or someone is laying on the propaganda thick,” Dash said as she waved her hooves around in disbelief.

“The Chief said that we are going to be in hyperspace for about an hour and this says that a day is twenty-four hours long with three hundred and sixty five days in a year.”

“Same as ours?”

“Yes. Well this says seventy years ago they found an artifact. This artifact turned out to be a device that was determined to create one way wormholes to another device which they labeled as a stargate. They figured out how to work it about fifty years later, taking a team of military personnel and scientists to another planet. There, they found out that their galaxy, The Milky Way, was under control of an alien parasite called the Goa'uld. Which are snake like creatures that take control of a human for a host forcefully. After nearly having a bomb sent back through the gate, they decided to leave it alone until an attack came through the stargate forcing the country which had the stargate at the time to form Stargate Command to find a way to protect their planet with a secondary objective of getting rid of the Goa'uld System Lords. A few years later they managed to build their first starship, the Prometheus, by using reverse engineered Goa'uld ship tech.”

“Wait, wait, back up a bit. They were fighting a spacefaring race without SHIPS!” Dash said in utter disbelief. For a race to go up against a spacefaring race for any amount of time and not be blasted into oblivion from orbit is unbelieveable. “How?”

“Apparently they found allies. Their first ally was the Asgard who put their planet under their protection that kept the Goa'uld out of their system, while the stargate allowed them to strike without worry of their planet being attacked. The only reason why the Asgard didn’t take care of the Goa'uld themselves is because they were too busy with a threat in their galaxy, the Replicators.” At this Dash nodded in understanding. The Asgard was their shield and the Tau’ri became the Asgard’s sword.

“Another ally was the Tok’ra, a sect of Goa'uld that objected to the ways of the System Lords and only took hosts that volunteered, hurt or sick, and still the host still had a say in things. They had a massive network of spies and connections and made espionage into an art.

After the downfall of the Goa'uld was all but assured, the Tau’ri helped the Asgard against the Replicators. The Replicators were advanced robots capable of reproducing themselves indefinitely, consuming all available resources in an area to create more of themselves. They could absorbed energy from weapons fire and take over most technology. Turns out their low tech firearms were extremely effective against the block form Replicators compared to the energy weapons the Asgard used. There later came a form of Replicators that were made of nanite cells that was only able to be destroyed by the Replicator disruptor, built by the Asgard in conjunction with the Tau’ri, that rendered each block inert.”

“So they are fast when they fight and probably don’t pull any punches,” Dash said in thought. “That two threats. What’re numbers three and four? Oh and how many ships do they have and what’s their fighter specs, if you have it?” Dash said. She then raised an eyebrow, “They do have a fighter right?”

“They have seven ships counting this one. The others are theDaedalus, Apollo, Odyssey, Sun Tzu
, and George Hammond of the Daedalus class, and the Prometheus the lead ship of her class which just got reinstated for production. Their fighter is the F-302 space superiority fighter armed with two railguns and four missiles and, wow, we need to get this, is hyperspace capable, rated for intra-system travel.”

“Now that is cool! Hyperspace capable fighters! I wonder how they got the drive small enough to fit, cause I remember that AJ said a hyperdrive could only be so small before weird stuff starts happening,” Rainbow Dash said thinking of how that would open up new tactics and how to counter them.

“Well it said that it was for intra-system jumps only so it’s likely they drop range for size.”

“Well there is something that will be helpful to trade for, but for what?”

“That is above our pay grades, Dash.”

“True, now the other two threats”

“The Ori were ascended beings from another galaxy enforcing, quote ‘Follow my religion or die’ unquote. That’s all it says. I wonder why,” Twilight said as she fiddled with the screen.

“Probably something to do with what they did to defeat them. Maybe something that they are not proud of how they had to defeat them.”

“Maybe Dash, though I shudder to think of what would make them feel like that, since what history I have found show that on their own planet they had battles in wars that made the wars that we had on look like schoolyard scuffles. With deaths in the millions on ONE side.’”

“Yikes. I see why you feel that way and if that is true than I can somewhat believe that they could do that in roughly twelve years.”

“Chief Migzaiz told me about the Wraith. How I understand it is that the Wraith are to the humans as the Senris are to us.”

“That has to be a problem.”

“It would be if they were in the same galaxy and if they didn’t have an ally in a Wraith called Todd that didn’t make a serum that took away the need for them to feed on humans and let them eat regularly,”

“That is helpful,” Dash said surprise that such thing was possible.

“Indeed it is...”

“Twi what’s wrong?” Dash said as she saw her old friend had paled and felt her shock flow from her though their bond of the Elements.

“A-a year ago their homeworld was attacked, they still aren’t done counting the dead which, at last count, was over ten million. Also apparently that their government was hiding the stargate for all that time, so the attack and later disclosure of the stargate sent shockwaves through the population,” she said quietly thinking that sure they lost a lot more beings than that in all but never that much at once on the same planet in one day. “Dash these ponies are hurt and angry. If what this says is even half true than they’ve been fighting with not even a twentieth of their total potential, Dash. Just think what will happen if they go all out on something.”

Dash said nothing, but did shudder. Then jumped as the ship deck shuddered a couple of seconds later.

“Hmm, its seems that their hour and our hour is the same. So I guess he will be callin...” Twilight was cut off as she was surrounded by a flash of light.

“Or he will be teleporting you up there,” Dash said with a smirk as she imagined her friends face as she took off for another lap. Only to be hit by the wall as the vessel shook and shuddered as alarms went off.
__--__\

“You know the rules about interfering, Janus.”

“I didn’t interfere.”

“You did.”

“Really, tell me where it says in the “Rule of Ascended Beings Book” that I can’t descend to replace two crystals and do a little recalibration on something I barely finished making before I ascended. Because last time I checked we couldn’t use our powers on the lower planes which I didn’t. Especially since every other thing I made either went rogue or blew up specultaly.”

“...”

“Ha, you know I’m right, so you can do anything to me.”

“You are impossible.”

Author's Note

Here is chapter five, sorry about the wait. Hit a thick writers block and real life for both me and Lexicon my prereader has been hell, but here it is. Just so you know I am going off of the series with majority of it from Atlantis, I seen Sg-1 and Destiny crossovers but haven't seen an Atlantis one yet. Since no one every reads blog posts, I am putting this here. I need somehelp with names for ships and was wondering if you guys or gals could help out, their is more infor in the blog.
As for the now season most of the episodes fit in very well and the new one Keep Calm and Flutter On Actual makes my story a little more believe, since Discord is good now. Him killing the mane six will probably cause him to kill himself even if he was under control of a mind leach thing. As for the rumors about Twilght becaming an alicorn? Well lets just say if that does happen that is when this story will take a right turn off the tracks of canon.

Author Note

Hey I am planning on rewriting this story since I kind of hit roadblock/mess up big time. I screwed up the pacing of the story to them point of you could get to the Pegasus Galaxy faster by walking than this story getting to the action and the meat of it. I also wrote myself into a corner where I can’t write myself out of and I was going in the completely opposite direction from where I wanted it. So I am starting from the beginning and rewriting it from the top. I am also doing use the advice that you guys and/girls are giving me and changing some things up. Just so you believe me here is a snippet from the new Chapter One.
==-===-==

“Well this sucks,” Vinyl Scratch couldn’t help but think as she stare as the Heart of Ponyville was chase off by the Senris destroyers into hyperspace. The frigate was tough, but it just didn’t have the firepower to go toe to toe on its own against the two destroyers that jumped in on them. Captain Twilight known this and had tried to grabbed her but one of the destroyers had destroyed the satellite that she was working on throwing her off into space. She manage to right herself but it was too late, that shot had blown her out of range of the Ponyville transporter range and the Senris kept blocking any attempt for them to close the distance and pick her up. After several attempts, the Ponyville’s shields were near collapse and they had to pull out with a destroyer giving chase.
They had been sent out to do a quick systems check of one of the early warning satellites since it was sending weird readings and high command was worry of a system crash. If that would to happen a large blind spot in the early warning grid would open up and cause an unobserved route strait to Eponas to open. Now usually two other satellites would have this area of space covered by their sensors, but one was destroyed and the other was being replaced.
The reason why Vinyl was doing an a spacewalk in the first place was that for one she was behind on her time doing EVAs and was certified to repair any problems with the satellites’ commutations equipment, which turned out to be the problem.
She turned her attention from the closing hyperspace window to making herself as small as a target as possible. She know it was a fools quest since the needle shape destroy was turning towards her taking it’s sweet time. As the bow of the ship point right at her, almost as if to spear her right between the eyes, something mircarous happened.
A bright green beam came out of nowhere and cut right through the destroyer and cutting it in half. Vinyl stained her eyes to find the source of the beam in the black of space. As she searched two whitish-blue beams hit the two halves of the destroyer breaking them apart. As she trace the beams back to the source find it just in time to see two more spring into existence from a rapidly moving dark shape.
As she watch it, it zoomed in close to the wreckage with several smaller weapons opening up and taking out what was left, leaving nothing left bigger than her hoof. Around that time an alarmed opened sounded made a suit bleach know.

Taking one look at the mysterious ship and her quickly diminishing awareness she had one thought, ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained, I just hope that they just have a beef with the Senris and not just xenophobic.’
As she was thinking this she was building energy in her horn to light off a multi-spectrum flare that should get their attention. As she lost consciences she saw that the ship was heading her way.
‘Hope this works,” she said to herself as she passed out.
==++===++==

As you can see I change up a couple things so that I can move the plot along faster, I am hoping to combine basically the first three chapters in one, destroy the mother of all plot hole the translate the writing Eponian language thing, and just make it better. If you are wondering what took me so long to do this 1) I got deployed in February to Kuwait, 2) the internet here sucks and 3) I had a seventy pound metal box dropped on my right hand. Sorry for taking so long but I will finish this story if it is the last thing I do.