Star Trot

Chapter 4 - Boarding Parties

Listen to Danger is Near to enhance the experience of reading the first chapter.

Deck 4, Corridor outside of Sickbay, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0205, Shipboard Time.

Silence had fallen over the dark corridors of the Equestallation, the only sounds being the alarm beeps at three second intervals, these echoing against the walls. Aside from medical staff and their patients, everypony had been evacuated to other decks.

“Intruder alert on Decks 4, 5 and 12!” Sounded through the announcement system, followed by a change in the alarm tones: Instead of beeping, there was now more of a whooping noise. Not long after, security teams mobilised on all of those decks, armed with sparklers and scanners to find and apprehend the intruders. All of them except for the unicorns were walking on their hind legs – a skill required for all Federation officers to be able to hold weaponry, since shooting a laser with the mouth lacks hygiene, subtlety and could be dangerous. Plus, it would be really hard to operate small buttons with their tongues… In the words of the ship’s chief of Operations, it would be “Irresponsible and quite frankly, unladylike.”

About 5 minutes later, the door to Sickbay opened with its usual whooshing sound and commander Rainbow Dash stepped out, carrying a hoofheld sparkler with a flashlight attached to it, shedding light into the dark corridor. She quickly and frantically looked over her surroundings, eyes darting over the corridor’s many wall panels. She looked to her left and then to her right, only to find out that everything was clear with nothing moving in sight. “The coast is clear, Captain.” She hissed over her shoulder with a hushed voice, relaxing the tiniest bit due to the lack of aliens.

Almost immediately after those words left Rainbow’s mouth, Twilight Sparkle came trotting out of the door with a sparkler in a saddle holster and magically levitated scanner next to her head. The red light flashes made her look the tiniest bit intimidating, but Rainbow Dash wasn’t impressed. After all, she was Rainbow Dash; The fastest pony in the Equestrian Federation who wasn’t scared of anything.

They had plundered Sickbay’s emergency cabinets after the intruder alert was sounded, retrieving the sparklers, a scanning device and belts to hold said equipment in case they needed their hooves(or horn) free. The scanner was set to only pick up the life signs of intruders matching the one in sickbay, in order to avoid accidentally shooting a crewmember or civilian.

Twilight looked at the scanning device, not seeing anything on its small display that would imply intruders being near. “This corridor is empty.” She whispered towards Rainbow Dash.

The Commander nodded sharply, and replied “Good, let’s go.” She motioned her hoof up the dark hallway, making clear that she wanted to go.

They started walking down the corridor, keeping a slow and cautious pace. Rainbow walked a bit clumsily, having some trouble balancing on her hind legs, but she managed. She nearly tripped a few times but always managed to recover quickly, hoping that Twilight didn’t notice.

At each intersection they paused for a moment, Twilight checking for life signs or traces of it, but so far they had picked up nothing.

Suddenly, the scanner made a few short beeps. Twilight quickly looked down at it, seeing a newly appeared red blip moving in their direction. “I think we got something… Fifty metres ahead.” She muttered. “It’s coming at us fast…”

The alien that the scanner had picked up came galloping towards them, illuminated spookily by the red flashes of emergency lighting. Rainbow Dash took aim and fired at the creature to no avail, again, and again. At each hit it growled angrily, looking at the two ponies in what can only be described as pure rage. It looked as if it was going to pounce, it jumped and- A flash, accompanied to the loud, rather high-pitched noise of a Cardapony handcannon. The alien fell to the ground, apparently knocked out. The source of the noise and flash(In other words, blast) was standing a few metres behind where the alien crashed down onto the floor. It was a grey-scaled Cardapony. Cardaponies were militaristic race who usually avoided Equestrians, and the Equestrian Federation in general. This one, however, was wearing the clothes of a tailor and judging by his badge he was a Federation Civilian.

“Now now, Commander. You should really be more careful, otherwise you might not survive this mission… Or you could just turn that sparkler up a few levels.” The Cardapony said, shaking his head and trotting over to the Captain and the Commander.

Rainbow glared at the figure angrily and Twilight said “Thank you, mister…”

“Radon Gaze, the ship’s manedresser.” The Cardapony replied casually.

“Thank you, mister Gaze, but wh-“

“Oh, just Radon, Madam. Plain, simple Radon.” Radon interrupted, smiling in an overly friendly and slightly unnerving way.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow, looking at the newcomer with some caution. “Riiight… Well… Mister Gaze, we need to get going. You should return to your quarters.”

“Oh, but I was hoping I might assist you in your search,” Radon said, keeping the creepy smile on his face. “As you just noticed, a third person might come in handy, and really, where is the fun in staying inside while all the excitement is out here?”

Twilight stared at the Cardapony for a few moments. On one side of her brain, little voices were screaming that it wasn’t a really good idea to take a civilian with them, and that there was actually a regulation saying that it wasn’t allowed unless required. On the other hoof however, the voices were saying that Radon was right, and that he might indeed come in handy.

Eventually she reluctantly nodded and said “Fine then. You may follow us for now.”

Meanwhile, in another area of Deck 4…

Darkii Wings had been patrolling deck 4 during the attacks on the Equestallation. Only so many ponies could man sparkler batteries, and patrolling was basically everything security officers could do when there was an emergency situation. She had only come into real action when enemy boarding parties had come aboard, and now she was quietly looking for the team she had been assigned to, in which she would search for the invaders.

She was actually quite optimistic towards her task. This wasn’t due to arrogance; quite the contrary, she didn’t think she would be able to handle a single alien hoof-to-hoof, and she wasn’t even sure if she could with a sparkler. No, this optimism was because, for the first time during this mission, the talents which made her choose for the security department when choosing her career came into use.

Chiropterans are creatures of the night; anyone meeting one would see that right away, sometimes them even being mistaken for Lunar ponies. Usually, this wasn’t useful at all, especially not when working with lots of others as they might be afraid of bats. But since the corridors were dark, she could easily see without a flashlight, keeping her position  unknown to everyone.

“Unless the aliens have night vision as well…”

That thought made Darkii shudder slightly, but she shook her head and moved on, tightening her grip on the sparkler she was carrying. She walked in silence for a few minutes, slowly keeping balance on her hind hooves, until she suddenly heard hoofsteps a few metres ahead. She quickly ran around a corridor junction’s corner to hide, her breathing becoming erratic immediately. For this she scolded herself – she was trained to be calm in situations like this.

She calmed herself down a bit, not sure if the incoming people were crewmembers or not… Trembling slightly as the steps came closer and closer, she armed her sparkler and got ready to jump out of hiding…

Meanwhile, at the other three’s group…

Commander Rainbow Dash was leading on yet again, with Radon Gaze gently trotting behind her left side, and Captain Sparkle behind her on the right side. Rainbow stumbled as she almost tripped over her own hooves. She regained her posture quickly, leaning against a wall with a hoof for support for a moment. Just when Radon smirked and opened his mouth to make a cutting remark on Dash’s clumsy walking skills, a figure jumped out from behind a corner.

Rainbow instantly reacted by standing up straight, aiming her sparkler and shouting “Stay where you are!”   Radon took aim as well while Twilight just took a step backwards, looking at her scanner in confusion; it didn’t display any enemy lifesigns.

Immediately after hearing Rainbow’s warning, Darkii Wings(who had been the one jumping) dropped her rifle and threw her hooves in the air. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaimed with both fear and apology, her eyes darting from pony to pony.

Upon seeing that the pony speaking was indeed on their side, Twilight walked up next to Rainbow Dash and put her hoof on the sparkler, forcing it down a bit(getting a glare from Dash). Right after that, she looked back at Darkii and asked with the friendliest tone she could manage “What are you doing here on your own, crewman?”

Rainbow spoke after the Captain. “Yeah, we could have shot you! Why were you so reckless?” After saying this, she got an annoyed look from Twilight who was clearly disagreeing with the Commander’s behaviour.

Darkii put herself down on all fours, relaxing a bit as the sparkler wasn’t aiming at her anymore. She still warily eyed Radon’s weapon for a moment, unsure of the Cardapony’s plans. After a second, though, she focused on Twilight and replied “I was looking for my team, Captain… I was on this deck when we were attacked, and I haven’t been able to find them.” Her voice crackled a bit, clearly still a bit startled.

“Which team were you on?” Rainbow asked, this trying to be a little bit more polite, her expression softened as well.

“Lambda Five, Ma’am.”

Twilight nodded. “Mhm, well you can stick with us until we meet them, then.”

Rainbow glared at Twilight’s suggestion, saying “But captain, we’re already with thre-“

This wasn’t exactly what Captain Sparkle wanted to hear… This was what, the third time Rainbow pulled something like this on her today? “Commander.” She replied, giving Dash a reprimanding look.

“Bu-“

Twilight’s look became a very, very disapproving glare. If Rainbow was going to say one more thing, she’d probably grab her sparkler and stun her.

“…Fine, let’s get moving.” The Commander replied, a bit anxious due to the look Twilight gave her. If looks could kill…

Deck 1, Bridge, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0209, Shipboard Time.

There wasn’t much to do on the bridge for neither Cadet Spike or Ensign Rarity. Even though Spike could be searching for the aliens, it was more strategic for him to coordinate all the security squads using the comm system from the bridge. Most of the time there wasn’t anything to coordinate though; the squads were all ordered to report in every ten minutes or when they found something, and they weren’t finding anything. Besides that, he was also supposed to manoeuver the ship away from attacks, but for some reason the aliens hadn’t fired anything at them since the aliens boarded. Therefore, he was sitting back, relaxing for the first time in hours and looking up at Rarity every now and again.

Rarity was monitoring the sensors on rather faintly lit screens, tapping her hoof on a panel in boredom. The internal sensors were working at an absolute minimum due to damage in the attacks, and there wasn’t much on external besides background radiation and the big alien ship. She had seen a blip on the internal sensor’s display earlier, as if someone was communicating from inside the ship, but it was most likely a bug and not worth investigating. I

Spike eventually spoke up, first clearing his throat nervously to attract the Ensign’s attention. “So uh, Rarity… Are you doing anything tomorrow evening?”

“Tomorrow evening? Well, of course I am doing something. The ship is wrecked, and I would not be surprised if my entire quarters is an entire MESS! I will have to clean all of that up, and not the mention all the logs and information that needs to be analyzed. It is simply CRAMPED with assignments!” Rarity replied, mostly oblivious to Spike’s true intention.

The baby dragon facepalmed, and opened his mouth to speak just when Rarity continued.

“And besides that, I am in a great need of a hooficure and my coiffure is a total disaster! Certainly my beautiful appearance has been rattled to bits! I believe I even felt an eyelash breaking! And on top of THA-“ Rarity suddenly shut her mouth, and looked at Spike in a moment of a realization, this dawning on her face as well. “Aah, you were implying… Oh, but Spike, that is hardly appropriate! You are baby dragon after all, not to mention all the regulations an-“

This time Rarity stopped talking due to a bleep originating from one of  her computer consoles and something lighting up. By the time she had looked down at it, though, it had already disappeared again. “Huh… That is certainly peculiar…” She muttered, but turned back to Spike a second afterwards.

“But as I was saying, there are also hordes of regulations, both official and unofficial to discourage such a thing! Of course it’s allowed, but the federation doesn’t appreciate it all that much either!” Rarity finished, looking down at Spike with a mix of compassion and confusion.

“A-alright…” Spike just replied, gulping sadly and turning back to his console. In the awkward silence that followed, he took note of the fact that multiple ponies on the bridge had been staring at him and Rarity for a moment, in either surprise or amusement. He blushed and     pretended to be checking something on the navigation consoles to make it look like as if he was back to work again. Soon enough, the others on the bridge resumed their tasks as well.

He sat back a little, sighing in self-pity deeply but softly. If only he were a few years older and not on a spaceship… He’d  had more chances with Rarity…

Like that he sat there for a minute or two, hands folded over his belly and staring at his computer consoles for any updates on the ship’s situation, sinking away into a daydream about how things could be.

Then suddenly, he was awoken from this daydream by a short, sharp and loud noise, signalling an emergency communication. He sat up and looked over his security terminals after he had realised that this sound didn’t originate from Rarity or her consoles but his own. Just as the transmission started playing automatically due to its importance, he saw on his terminal that it originated from Sickbay.

At first it seemed like it might be a false alarm, or at least, no-one was saying anything. Spike turned up the receiving volume and listened carefully, silence falling on the bridge. He heard soft, careful hoofsteps, the sound of a maintenance tube opening and closing and then BANG. The door to sickbay was being rammed.

Spike jumped slightly, startled by the sudden loud noise. BANG. It happened again. Then one more time, this time much, much louder and the doors could be heard being thrown out of their frames.

He immediately called up another comm line, this one to the Captain. “Captain Sparkle, we’ve got intruders in sickbay, as far as I know they just kicked the door.”

There was a moment of silence before Twilight(who was down on Deck 4) replied. “Understood Cadet, we’ll be on our way there. Notify another one of your security teams to meet us there.”

“Aye captain.” Spike said and he closed the transmission. He then opened yet another communications channel, this time to one of his squads and started giving them orders.

Deck 4, Corridor outside of Sickbay, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of unidentified alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0215, Shipboard Time.

Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Radon Gaze and Darkii Wings were all galloping through Deck 4’s corridors, back to where the first two had come from: Main sickbay. Upon receiving the emergency transmission from Spike, they had immediately set off, worried for the life of Fluttershy and afraid of losing their alien captive.

They ran past the final corner and came to skidding halt at the sickbay doors. The three federation officers were doing well, but Radon, who hadn’t received the training the others had, was breathing rather heavily. “I… I should really exercise more often…” he mumbled exasperatedly in between his short breaths.

Rainbow motioned him to be quiet with one of her hooves while Twilight and Darkii(and soon after them, Rainbow and Radon) lined up next to the door. The other security team which Spike had called hadn’t arrived yet, but they didn’t have the time to wait.

Twilight whispered “Move in at the count of three. One… Two… THREE!”

All of them charged in at once, sparklers aimed in a sweeping movement to cover the entire room, only to find it empty, unless you counted the room’s equipment.

“What the hay...” Rainbow Dash mumbled in confusion… lowering her sparkler and clumsily walking around the room, checking behind corners and beds within her line of sight.

Darkii Wings looked around the room in confusing, asking “Where are the aliens?” quietly and warily, her sparkler still high and eyes darting around.

“Gone no-“ Twilight was halfway done with her reply when they heard sounds at the other side of the room. She and the others hastily turned to face the source of the noise – the half-open entrance hatch to a maintenance tube. “Show yourself!” she shouted.

There was a soft, slightly muffled squeak in response, and a terrified canary yellow pegasus stumbled out. “I’msorryIdidn’tdoanythingwrong!” Fluttershy said, covering her head with her hooves, shaking uncontrollably.

Everypony lowered their weaponry as soon in relief as they noticed that it was indeed Fluttershy who had disturbed them, and Twilight gently spoke. “Where are the aliens, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy laid on the floor shaking for a few more seconds before completely calming down and slowly getting up. “Uhm... They took our.. Prisoner and then teleported away again…” She gulped. “They didn’t look for me at all…”

“They were only here to recover their crewmember, then.” Twilight stated, looking back at Rainbow. “But now they’ve got him back, what will they do?”

Just then, the other security team that was assigned to go to sickbay stormed in, sparklers high until they saw the scene inside. The leader of the three asked “Is everything under control now, ma’am?”

“Yes it is. I do ask you to stay here to guard sickbay, though, as the aliens could come back for some reason.” Twilight replied before turning to Rainbow Dash. “Do you have any idea what they could do now?”

“I dunno Captain, I guess they’ll resume their attacks…” Rainbow said. “We need to act fast, whatever we do.” She added with a note of worry.

The captain nodded in agreement, replying “Indeed we should. Call an emergency senior staff meeting in thirty minutes, we need everyone there.” Rainbow gave a confirming nod, and Twilight turned to Darkii Wings. “Would you mind making sure mister Radon there gets to his quarters?” she said, nodding towards Radon in the progress.

“Y-yes, Captain.” The Chiropteran replied, saluting weakly and walking over to Radon. Soon after, Twilight walked out of sickbay, marching towards the elevator to get to the staff meeting room at a steady pace.

Deck 1, Staff Meeting Room, PSS Equestallation

Deep Space, in front of alien ship,

Stardate 64429, 0200, Shipboard Time.

All of the senior staff had gathered in the meeting room, Twilight Sparkle at the head of the table and all the others in other seats in a random order. Everypony’s manes were looking rather messy and there was an air of fatigue throughout the room. At the command of Rainbow Dash, all of them had gathered everything they knew about the aliens and their vessel, from clues on how their bodies worked to the energy matrix of their engine core. Anything that could help then get an edge in this rather grim situation.

Clearing her throat to attract everypony’s attention, Twilight stood up and spoke. “Alright everypony. We need a plan to either escape as soon as we can or to find a way to disable the alien ship.” She paused for a moment to let the information she gave sink in before continuing. “Who has found anything?”

Rarity was the first to raise her hoof(in an utterly ladylike fashion, of course), followed by Fluttershy, whose hoof was barely raised half the height of Rarity’s. Pinkie Pie silently bounced in her seat, hoof high in the air and grinning widely.

Ignoring Pinkie for the time being, Twilight turned to the Chief of Operations. “What have you found out, Rarity?”

Rarity sat up slightly, clearing her throat before and shaking her mane out of her eyes while speaking. “Two things, Captain. Firstly, it may be possible to get through the alien ship’s shields with a shuttle.”

That immediately got Twilight and Rainbow’s attention. The latter asked “How do you think that’s possible? We shot at least three torpedoes at them and their shields didn’t even take a dent.”

“Quite simple, my dear. Our scans indicate that their vessel actually has easy-to-circumvent shields. Even though they may seem indestructible from our point of view, a ship like a shuttle should be able to pass through it by simply reversing the polarity of the neutron flow of the vessel’s engine.”

Rainbow blinked, more or less zoning out during Rarity’s explanation, and then replied “…then why can’t we use that technique for torpedoes?”

Sighing with a tinge of exasperation, Rarity continued. “Because these shields are set to deflect any energy that could damage the vessel. The energy would be deflected immediately, and besides that it doesn’t have a large enough engine to deliver the power required to reverse the polarity.”

“Never mind, that seems legit enough.” Dash said as she sat back, clearly not having understood much of the clarification. It sounded techy, and that was good enough for her.

The Captain looked at Rarity expectantly and with satisfaction. “Very good. And secondly?”

“I was just about to get to that.” Rarity said patiently. “While the aliens were aboard, I also picked up multiple very short transmissions going in and out of the ship. We can only assume it was them communicating with their leader outside.”

Twilight nodded, and after a second she replied. “Well, that might be useful later, but I don’t think it’s important for now.” She looked at Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, who still had their hooves up(and Pinkie Pie was still bouncing). Giving Pinkie a rather tired look, she said “Councillor… What have you found?”

Almost exploding at the chance to talk, Pinkie immediately bursted out in a cheerful babble. “They absolutely HATE high-pitched sounds! I set off a party cannon when they were being all mean around my quarters, and they ran away when it made its squeaky sound! I was all like ‘COME ON’, because who DOESN’T like party cannons?! You HAVE to be some boring meany-pants not to like parties!”

Fluttershy, who  had let out a high-pitched “Eep!” and jumped under the table at Pinkie’s sudden explosion of words appeared from her hiding spot, trembling slightly. “…Uhm… That’s right, I found out that they are very sensitive to sound when scanning the alien we had captured before they.. well… got him back.”

“Mhm… That might be useful against them at some point. Have you found out anything else, Fluttershy?” Twilight replied with some interest.

Fluttershy shook her head quietly, sitting down again.

“Alright, I take that’s all everypony found out?” Twilight asked, and she was met with nods. “Okay… Applejack, if we would take a shuttle to board their ship, how long would it take to make the engine adjustments?”

“I dunno, reversing the polarity of the engines ain’t something you do every day, but I’d say around half an hour, give or take a few. “ Applejack replied, rubbing her chin with a hoof in thought while speaking. “But our engines will probably be back online in ‘round the same time, Cap’n. Might be smarter ta just leg it for now.”

“Agreed, that would be a much more favourable idea Captain. We need to return with more ships in order to stop the aliens from reaching Derppoint Colony.” Rarity added.

The captain thought for a minute, the entire crew waiting in silence. She was tempted to board the alien vessel and find out more about them, but it would be safer for everyone to retreat and wait for reinforcements. Eventually, she decided to take the safe route: This was no time for rash and reckless acts. “We’ll retreat and return with reinforcements. It’s too big of a risk to continue on our own.”

Everypony except for Rainbow Dash nodded in approval, and Twilight added “Applejack, get those engines back online and Spike, lay in a course to the nearest Federation outpost. Dismissed.”

The entire crew besides Twilight and Rainbow Dash stood up and trotted out, each at their own pace. When the doors had closed behind them, Rainbow spoke up. “Captain, are you sure about retreating? The aliens might do something that could give us an even bigger disadvantage, and we’d be missing out on a chance to hit them hard now!”

Twilight looked up at Dash, glaring. “Commander, in case you forgot, we have civilians on board and we are heavily damaged. I am not willing to put the lives of our entire crew at risk in order to gain an advantage that probably won’t make a difference anyhow and if you have a problem with that, you should transfer to a warship.” By the end of her final sentence, she was almost shouting at a scolding tone.

Surprised and taken aback by the Captain’s sudden outburst, Rainbow slowly stood up. “Alright, alright! I didn’t mean anything by it…” She shook her head as she walked out of the door, mood quite clearly deteriorated.

Twilight sighed tiredly, staring out one of the room’s large, panoramic windows in thought.