Stardate 3198.4-3201.7
Braddock Star System
USS Venture

The astroship slid through the black blanket of stars, searching ahead for the coordinates they’d been ordered to. All to receive a particular transmission from Astroforce Command, one supposedly of the utmost urgency and secrecy. But while Captain Cheerilee Berk, pegasus of great courage and renown, may have had her cautious side, she trusted her crew and knew that orders were orders. And so, the USS Venture slid into position in the empty Braddock system, prepared to receive and decode this transmission.

It was her Science Officer that decoded the message. Where Cheerilee was brave and bold and ready to give any enemy of the Alliance of Sovereign Worlds a black eye, Varrick the star dragon was reserved, logical and always analyzing the situation with a cool, calm head. The only alien on board the mostly Faustian-crewed vessel, Varrick never let his foreign nature affect his work, and to their credit her crew of crack professionals gave the native of Cthonia all due respect.

Varrick rose from the seat, sliding over the safety rail with his dark green serpentine body (that Cheerilee had more than once fantasized about wrapping around her own body) before taking position next to the command chair.

“Captain,” he said in a level tone, presenting her a datachip reader. “I have that transmission decoded for you. Highest priority, from Astroforce Command.”

“Excellent!” Captain Berk proclaimed, springing from her seat to take the reader. “Mister Sootu, you have the conn!”

“Aye, Captain,” said the strong, confident tone of the kirin officer. “I have the conn.”

Cheerilee proceeded to take exactly three steps away from her command chair with Varrick, his blue Science Division uniform clashing with her own golden Command Division uniform, though neither gave much thought to fashion at this pivotal moment. The captain examined the message with a serious candor, shifting her position every few seconds.

“It’s as we’ve feared,” she said. “Peace talks with the Terran Empire have broken down. The chances of war are...rising every hour. Great Trot! And after we’d...just settled things down with the...Changeling Imperium!”

“Grave news,” said Varrick stoically, seemingly immune to his captain’s ever shifting waves of emotions. “What are your orders, Captain?”

“Our orders are; to proceed to Braddock Prime and...keep the Terrans from claiming it...as a forward staging ground.” Cheerilee’s face hardened as she struck a determined pose. “For the sake of peace, we’ll have to go straight into harm’s way! Mister Sootu!”

“Aye Captain!”

“Plot a course for Braddock Prime, maximum rainboom speed!”

“Aye Captain!”

Cheerilee returned to her command chair, Varrick back to his science station as Sootu proceeded to press the same six buttons in alternating patterns. The rest of the crew continued with their work in the background, never changing despite the new orders, their voices barely above a murmur. Finally, the kirin looked back.

“Course laid in, Captain.”

“Venture, onwards!” Captain Cheerilee Berk declared, one hoof thrust forwards towards the viewscreen. In an instant, all the stars disappeared as the multi-colored effect of their rainboom drives took them to faster than lightning speed, soaring away to cross the system.

But their trip was not to go smoothly, for as soon as they dropped back into normal space and the ship stopped shaking, the vessel abruptly rocked under impact.

“Captain!” cried her Communications Officer Zuhura (who for some reason hadn’t been the one to decode the transmission). The Operations Division red-clad zebra leaned over from her communications station, holding a hoof up to the grossly oversized earpiece clad to her head. “We’re receiving a transmission from a Terran battlecruiser! It’s hailing us!”

“Red alert!” Cheerilee hollered. “Beamers to full power! Call down to Engineering, tell Tonto to give me...full arcane shields! Then signal Medical and...tell Mackerel to expect wounded!”

The crew leapt to her commands, even as the ship rocked once more under assault. A random panel exploded in a shower of sparks and a pony vaulted over a railing, though no one was injured. But Captain Berk wasn’t worried. Her buffalo chief engineer and hippogriff chief medical officer were both the best Astrofleet Command had to offer. And, as she had come to expect from her elite crew, the Venture stabilized and ceased shaking and the alarms went silent, though the red lights kept flashing. Satisfied, Cheerilee pointed a hoof at the viewscreen.

“Bring up the...Terran ship.”

It was an ugly thing, a hammerhead shaped hulk with bulging engine pods and big, bulky plating, built only for the purpose of destruction. It didn’t even use crystal weapons, but big solid slug cannons like archaic artillery. Horrendous to the astroship’s hull without their arcane barriers up, but unable to penetrate now they were raised. Cheerilee sneered at the ugly monstrosity in front of her.

“Zuhura! Put their hail...through on screen!”

And sure enough, on screen appeared the Terrans. They stood upright all the time, their pale hairless faces and squinting eyes causing her to flinch. Their commander had some fur on top of his head, but otherwise he was quite bare. His bridge was dark, tinged in red light. Across his chest was a bandolier of solid slug rounds and a massive knife, and the icon of the Terran Empire embossed proudly onto his breastplate. She knew this Terran, they had met before.

“Overlord Axel Schmidt!” she snarled.

“Captain Cheerilee Berk, we meet again!” the Terran crowed, lifting a claw (no, she reminded herself. A hand, they were called, like minotaurs had) and brandishing a slugthrower. “I should have known you would be here! The Empire’s spies informed me of your orders before you even knew them!”

“I am here on the business...of the Alliance of Sovereign Worlds, Overlord!” Cheerilee hissed back with vigor. Behind her, the crew had all paused in their duties to stare at the viewscreen as well, motionless. “I will not allow the...Empire to seize another world with their vicious aggression!”

”Then you shall have to defeat me to stop me, Captain!” the Terran thundered. ”In glorious battle! Come, we shall have our epic fight to the death at last for the fate of-”

“Coolie?”

September 12th, 1037
Gulf Studio HQ, Prancisco, Coltfoalnia
Republic of Equestria

“Coolie!”

Screenwriter Coolie Jeepers (former Royal Marine, radio newscaster and pharmacist) jumped in his chair, spinning his head around to spot the head of one of the most important ponies in his life poking into his office. A smile split his muzzle as he willed his startled heart to settle down from his frantic gallop, gesturing as he did so.

“Berry! Come on in! Ah golly, ya caught me off-guard!”

He set the stapled bundle that was his script draft down on the desk, gesturing to his friend and executive producer. Berry Gelato (former RAF combat pilot, commercial aviator, policemare, freelance writer and now successful showrunner) did so, closing it behind her as she came in. She frowned, the worried expression tugging at her brow. She could have been pretty if she’d given much care to her appearance, her tawny coat a little unkempt and somewhat shaggy in a few areas, mane starting to go a bit gray at the roots (though Coolie was pretty sure his was getting that way too), but she always seemed to leap to her next project instead of really taking time to take care of herself. Still, one could hardly argue with the results.

“Is this a bad time?” she asked, sounding worried as her horn glowed, her golden magic aura tucking some of her errant locks behind an ear. But Coolie waved a hoof.

“Never. Pull up a chair, sit and jaw a spell. I was just re-reading my script draft. I don’t know how, but I always find something to go back and fix every time.”

“Actually, that’s just what I wanted to come talk to you about,” Berry said, tugging the chair out as she took the offered seat, her rumpled suit getting a bit more unorderly. “I just went over your draft for the episode and, well, I have some concerns.”

“Oh yeah? What kind?” Coolie replied offhoofedly, his mind already turning to the paper book on his desk and the typewriter behind him. He already had a few more ideas of what to fix.

“Coolie, did you talk with Deecee Foaledo? I just had a chat with her and she-”

“Ah, who cares what Deecee says? We’ve already done Space Changelings in that rip off of ‘Enemy Below’, it’s time to shake things up a little!” Coolie remarked, his tone still jovial but with a little edge in his voice. He had indeed already spoken to Deecee about his creation before Berry got a look at the script, but this wasn’t the first time he and the story editor had come to harsh words about a script before.

“Coolie, we have to care what Deecee says, she’s part of the team. You remember what teamwork is, right?”

“Alright, alright Berry. Fine. What was your concern?”

“Concerns,” the mare corrected. “As in multiple. Not problems, mind you. I just have a few things to point out.”

“Shoot, go for it,” Coolie said, flipping open the script to follow along.

“So, these…Terrans things.”

“Pretty cool, right? Did a lot of research for those.”

“Did you, Coolie? According to your notes, they’re hairless apes with a thirst for war and come from a militaristic Empire. First of all, what are these things anyway? This description makes it sound like you want us to hire and shave a bunch of yeti actors. Are you serious?”

“What? How many homes in the Storm Kingdom do we broadcast to?”

Berry sighed in aggravation.

“None of any consequence, but that’s not my point. We have to do some snap auditions, and get some new makeup artists in. Also, that name. Terrans?”

“Yeah,” Coolie said, feeling his excitement spike again. “Remember that one stallion you were pals with back in the LPPD? Prickly Thorn?”

Berry blinked, clearly not understanding his point. Coolie, his excitement still alive and flickering, energetically urged her on.

“I designed the name after him! Thorn! Tha-orn. Teh-arhn. Ter-rahn. Terran!”

“Coolie, the world ‘terra’ also means ‘dirt.’”

“Ah, c’mon!” the stallion objected, flipping forward in his script. “Their word for it is ‘Earth!’ Sounds a lot more dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Also, an aggressive Empire? Coolie, it’s one thing to phrase the changelings as bad guys in space, but do we really want to piss off half the Griffonian continent too?”

“There’s been evil empires other than them,” Coolie objected, standing strong in the face of Berry’s own tired but obstinate glare. “Besides, what do we care about making the Empire mad? First yetis, now griffons. Are you gonna be afraid of making the goats of Azir angry now? Or the commies?”

“Coolie, this isn’t supposed to be accusatory.” Berry sighed, closing her copy of the script up again. “‘Astroship’ is supposed to be all about the unifying spirit of exploring the stars, of answering the question of what’s out there. The Empire, in its wisdom, could easily shut down our studio in Skyfall, and then that’s it. No more broadcasts in Griffonia. That’s gotta be more important than poking at the Empire or the Storm Kingdom.”

Coolie sighed, rubbing a hoof over his eyes. He hated it when Berry got like this, all ideological crusader on him. Not because he thought she was nagging him or because he disagreed, but because he had a hard time disagreeing with her and tended to go back and change things after he had come round on whatever it was they were talking about.

Sensing the need to change topics, Berry returned to her notes, leafing through the papers to find something else to talk about. Coolie felt his heart drop at the same time his temper flared. Did she really have that many problems with the script? For Celestia’s sake, why had she had him write the thing if she was going to just poke holes in it? Finally, however, she stopped on the third page as something appeared to stick out to her.

“And another thing; do we really need the sexual tension between Birk and Varrick? It feels kind of forced.”

Coolie groaned.

“Aw, c’mon Berry! Sex sells, so why not? It’s not the 20s anymore, we can talk about that stuff on air again! You watch all the romance stuff that’s in pictures these days, there’s no heat, no passion. It’s just a mare falling all over the stallion while he stoically stares off into the distance!”

“And I don’t want us getting shut down for public indecency!” Berry retorted. “We’re already pushing it with some of these other pairings Birk gets into. I’m all for her being a mare of the world, but-”

Coolie snickered, caught off-guard by the phrase.

“Mare of the world? Is that what we’re calling her?”

“Focus, please!” Berry snapped, her exhaustion and irritation merging together for a moment before she settled back down again, flipping through her pages again before sighing. “Look, maybe just take some of these suggestions to heart? I think we can get something great with this episode, and I don’t want it getting strangled by some amateur mistake.”

“Okay, fine,” Coolie grunted, waving a hoof to appease her. “I’ll see what I can do with it. Maybe go talk to Deecee again. When do you need the next draft?”

“By Friday, if possible,” Berry said, standing and tucking the pad away again. “I don’t want to pressure you, but we do need to get started on the sets and auditions as soon as you’re done.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Coolie dejectedly muttered, flipping the script open as he started reading it again from the beginning, trying to see what could be done to get the desired effect. He’d have to go find Deecee, have another argument with her. This was starting to look like yet another night with him, Mrs. Coffee and Mr. Typewriter until the unholy hours.

He heard the door open again, and part of his mind waited for its closing. But several seconds passed by, and he heard nothing. Glancing up, he wondered if Berry had left the door ajar. But no, the mare still stood there, watching him with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher. Frowning, he set the script down.

“You okay, Berry?”

She started, as if caught off guard (most likely deep in thought) before surprising him with a tired but genuine smile.

“Look…it’s already really good. Don’t go crazy with the edits. I just…it’s really good, and I think we can make it even better. You’re doing great, Coolie. Honest.”

And with that, she stepped out at last, the door swinging shut behind her. A bit confused, Coolie glanced down at the script again, pausing in his corrections. A smile flickered over his muzzle once more, and with renewed motivation, he began digging into the script once more.

It turned out, Berry was right. When the episode finally aired, it was possibly the best one they’d have for years.

Author's Note

So, this was written primarily for the 2024 contest, and is absolutely non-canon to any other stories I have in place already. It goes without saying that, while character inspirations are obvious, I have only used them for inspiration, and I am not trying to make a direct 1:1 or slander anyone in real life at all. Boilerplate warning out of the way, I hope you all at least had a bit of a chuckle over it, as I certainly did in writing it.