Chapters Equestria That Was
Chapter One: On a Wing and a Prayer
The depths of space were a calm, beautiful darkness shot through with hard points of light from distant stars. Hanging in the void was a swirling blue-green orb, basking in the light of the system's primary, a tranquil and serene sight.
A serenity disturbed by the roar of starship hull aerobraking, the red hot glow of plasma forming as friction heated ceramic tiling. Retro burn added a dull thrumming in the deck-plates as the ship slowed and descended through the atmosphere.
"Ground side in twenty five-" the pink pilot started as a loud bang echoed throughout the ship, "make that five minutes. Captain to the bridge!" The deck jumped and the pony felt the bottom fall out from under her as the ship entered ballistic freefall. Her hooves danced across the control boards as the ship entered a lazy roll, the ship's drive pods sputtered and then went silent. The humming in the deck stopped abruptly as the drive system finally failed completely.
"Pinkie, darling, are you crashing my ship?" asked a white unicorn as she stepped onto the deck plating. Her eyes widened slightly as she looked through the windscreen and saw far more ground and far less sky than she'd typically have liked.
"I'm not crashing the ship," Pinkie declared with a nod of her head as a faint rumble thrummed through the deck-plates and the ship started to nose up, before another loud bang echoed through the ship and it pitched forward again. "The ship is crashing itself!"
The ship's captain rubbed at her temple; she could feel the migraine forming. "And why might the ship be crashing itself, Pinkie dear?" she asked the pilot as she braced herself against the bulkhead.
"What's this about crashin'?" a new, accented voice asked, its owner introduced by the clip-clop of hooves on metal decking. The orange mare stared passively out the windscreen, "That ain't right..."
"Pinkie was just about to explain that very thing, weren't you dear?" the captain interjected with a severe look at the pilot.
"Applejack? The engines are down, thrusters, control surfaces, everything!" the pink one exclaimed with mounting panic as she twisted control knobs and pulled on the control yoke, to no avail.
"Ah... I'll go... deal with that... then." the accented mare answered as she turned and retreated through the hatch she'd entered from. Her hooves clunked heavily on the deck as she sprinted through the corridor. She stumbled when the ship lurched, the hum of the engines trying to start and then shutting down again did little to distract her sprint.
A feathered head popped out of a side hatch at the end of the dimly lit corridor and turned to face the sprinting mare, "Hey, AJ, are we crashing? Cause don't wanna crash."
"Ya could always get out and push, Gilda!" the mare yelled over her shoulder as she sprinted past and jumped over the hatch-lip into the galley, she sidestepped the table and launched herself down a curving staircase. Her hooves slid down the railings at the edge of the steps before she kicked off and jumped through the door to the engine room.
She heard the sound of tools being used and muttered cursing as she slid to a stop just short of the engine reactor. "Applebloom, ship's crashin ya know."
"I know about it, workin' on it," the young mare said as she strained against a wrench, "aw come on now!"
"Pinkie's mighty upset about it, Cap'n Rarity didn't look too pleased either," Applejack continued as she knelt to look under the reactor at her sister.
"Almost there sis, just gimmie... a couple seconds, and it should work... probably," the slightly smaller yellow pony answered from the maintenance crawlspace, "or we might just explode... but it'll probably work!"
Applejack pressed her forehoof against the intercom switch on the wall, "Cap, Applebloom says she's got somethin, might work, like to save us if it does."
"Only might work? That doesn't sound very promising, Applejack," the captain's tinny voice echoed from the speaker grill.
"Well, if it don't work... well you have been saying you wanted to get away from it all, cap'n, think of this as your chance," the orange mare said with a smirk, "Tell pinkie it's just bout ready."
"I hear ya AJ, hit it!"
~~
"I am a leaf... on the wind..." Pinkie said softly as she closed her eyes, she rested her hooves on the controls and gently, precisely, turned the dials. Suddenly, the deck started to vibrate, and then hum. Quiet at first, a slow rumbling low frequency groan that rapidly grew to a soft but powerful thrumming.
"Pinkie?" Rarity asked hesitantly as the ship continued to fall through the sky, despite the soothing hum of the engines.
"Hold to something, I'm going to save the day." Pinkie said quietly before her eyes snapped open. The mare firmly grasped the thruster pod control levers and pulled them back, reorienting the pods before she shoved the engine throttles to the locks. The roar of the thruster pods at full burn drowned out all other sounds on the flight deck.
The entire ship jolted as the abrupt thrust altered its trajectory, turned her ballistic descent into an arcing glide-slope. Rarity felt as though her bones were trying to come out through her hooves as the g-forces shoved her down towards the decking.
As abruptly as it had begun, the strain relented and the roar of the engines died down. Rarity opened her eyes, unsure of when she'd closed them, and turned to face the pink pilot, "Pinkie... how close was that?"
The mare grinned back sheepishly, "You... probably don't wanna know." She turned her head back to the windscreen and keyed up the radio, "Roan control, this is Heathspike -class transport Harmony , requesting berthing at Wit's End."
Rarity snorted, "Wit's End, I can relate..."
~~
Far away and on the ground, the lavender mare stood on the rough dirt road, staring at the cargo ship flying in the distance. It was headed towards the docks that she herself was heading for. She'd been watching it since shortly after re-entry, watched it nearly fall to the ground.
She watched it recover at the last possible moment, as if by pure dumb chance. Luck, she decided, was something to be sought after all. She smiled as she lifted her bag, "Alright Twilight, whoever is flying that ship is one lucky pony, and Celestia knows I could use some of that right about now."
She eyed the grungy buildings, run down shacks that had no former glory. She'd taken refuge in a hovel, not the safest neighborhood by far but what was unsafe was also unlikely to get her caught. Still, it was time to leave and as she walked towards that ship she felt no regret at what little she was leaving behind.
Equestria That Was
Chapter Two: To the Black
The ship was quiet, the excitement of the near crash had finally dulled to a managable level as the crew prepared to disembark.
"Like I was sayin', we woulda been fine if ya let me buy new parts 'stead of used ones!" Applebloom yelled from the catwalk at the back of Rarity's head.
The ship was almost quiet.
"Applebloom, please, I've told you time and again, we can't just spend money all willy nilly on things!" Rarity shot back as she turned to face the young mechanic.
"Willy nilly!? We coulda died! I-" she started as she caught the look her older sister was giving her.
"Applebloom, I'll take care of it, you go finish workin' on that engine," Applejack said calmly from the deck below, "We're gonna go into town, tell Gilda and Pinkie to be ready to take on passengers, need ta make up the money we're spendin' on parts."
"Alright, fine. Hurry up an get that ramp down so's I can shut the power off, I'll be in the engine room," the yellow pony said with a sigh as she turned and trudged towards the flight deck. She shuffled her hooves against the deck, grating them in a way that she knew irritated the captain as it echoed through the ship.
The little mare heard the door drop as she crossed into the galley on the upper deck. She heard the distant complaining of her captain, likely a result of her hoof dragging, and grinned privately. It was a small victory, but a victory nevertheless.
"Pinkie!" the pony yelled as she walked up the hallway towards the flight deck, "Cap'n wants you to go solicit passengers, the payin' kind!"
~~
"So, why do they call it 'Wit's End' anyway?" Rarity asked the clerk as she waited for her order to come up.
The clerk, an older earth pony stallion, grinned, "Ol' Wit was a hero round here, after the war. Come back from fightin for the browncoats, set up a homestead outside Palomina. Well, couple seasons go by, buncha ex-alliance raiders decide they felt mighty entitled to what was on Wit's land."
Rarity nodded as the story brought up some of her own memories of the war, "Go on."
The stallion nodded and leaned across the counter, "Well, Wit figured he'd had enough of gettin pushed around in the war, figured he'd take care of the raiders 'for they made life hard on everyone else, so he took a stand right here where we're talkin, took on six of em before the rest tried to make a run on him with their gunship. He brought that thing right down on top of himself, took out the raiders but ol Laconic Wit met his end right here."
"Wit's End, poetic," Rarity commented dryly.
"Exactly! Not a whole lot a unicorns fought for the browncoats, most round here wouldn't go out of their way to help one after the war anyway, least not before Wit did what he did, figured namin this 'port after him was as good a way as any to honor his memory," the stallion finished as the parts conveyor delivered a large wooden crate to the front counter.
"Applejack, if you would be a dear..." Rarity said with a smirk.
"Absolutely cap'n, make the earth pony do it," her second replied with a laugh as she hefted the box onto her back and made for the exit.
"And than you so very much for giving us such a good deal on those parts, you are a true gentlecolt," the white mare said with a smile and a bat of her eyelashes.
"Well thank ya kindly ma'am, truth is we don't get much call for parts for them old Heathspike ships, truly just thankful somepony had a use for them," the older stallion replied with a slight blush and a forehoof rubbing at the back of his head.
The bell rang when the door shut, Applejack turned to see Rarity had joined her outside, "Ya know, I seem to remember another unicorn who used to like to wear a coat, real nice shade of brown if my recollection is correct."
Rarity frowned, "Well, some things don't always work out the way we would like them to. We should get back to the ship."
~~
A lavender mare walked along the dusty, spiraling path through the dockyards. Her eyes flicked between the hulls of the ships. Some were shiny, new, their names printed in clear and precise lettering. The names conveyed such ideals as 'Blue Comet' and 'Unification' but still, none called out to her, not like that one she'd seen land.
She strode on, past the new, clean, sleek ships, to the older, dirtier, more used but obviously well cared for ships. These ships looked like they predated the war, older designs, Heathspike transports, Constellation passenger liners, she even saw one Celestian class luxury liner, though it had seen better days.
'Something is missing, she thought privately, 'something sp-'
"Hey!" an energetic and friendly voice shattered her concentration in an instant.
Her head turned slowly towards the source of the perky voice, she locked eyes with a poofy-maned pink pony perched on a particularly pristine folding chair; it was a sharp contrast to the ship behind her.
"Hi there! You're looking to book passage on a ship right? Well, none better than this I'll tell ya right now!" the pink mare advertised, not dissuaded by the lavender mare's confused expression, "I saw you looking at the ships and Harmony is the best, so the way I figure it, you only have one choice, go with the best ship and best pilot you can!"
The lavender pony blinked, then smiled and chuckled, "Best ship huh? I guess I could go with that. Who's this 'best pilot' though?"
"Me of course, the one and only Pinkie Pie!" The pilot pony proclaimed with a flourish and a grin.
"But you're an earth pony!" The lavender unicorn blurted out, only aware of how racist it had sounded after the fact. She blushed in belated embarrassment, "I mean you don't see a lot of earth ponies piloting spaceships after all..."
Pinkie rubbed her hoof on her forehead, as if looking for something, then she turned her head and stared at her back, again as if looking for something. "Huh, I guess I am, never been a problem before though!" she laughed. "So what's your name?"
The unicorn laughed at the pink pony's antics while secretly thankful she hadn't reacted poorly to her accidental racism. She extended her hoof, "Twilight. Twilight Sparkle."
"Well, Twilight-Twilight Sparkle, I'm Pinkie Pie and like I said this ship is the very best so if you need a ride off world then look no further!" the bright mare said while making a grand gesture towards the ship with her forehoof. "You ah... You can pay right?" she added.
Twilight laughed, "yes, I can pay, Pinkie Pie." She flipped a bag of bits out of her saddlebag towards the other mare.
Pinkie grabbed the bag in her forehooves and looked inside, "Well... In that case welcome aboard!" The pilot waved her hoof at the unicorn to follow her, "I'll show you where you'll be staying," She paused as she crossed the threshold of the cargo bay, and turned her head up and to the right, "Gilda, go watch for passengers, I'm showing Miss Sparkle her room!"
"Fine, whatever," the gruff female voice responded as, to Twilight's great surprise, a gryphon dropped down from the catwalk and sauntered down the boarding ramp as if such a thing were completely normal. "I ain't goin out of my way to draw anyone in, Pinkie," she grunted in passing.
Gilda sighed as the two ponies disappeared into the ship, she claimed the chair Pinkie had been sitting in and leaned back. "I'm a merc not a damn concierge..." she grumbled as she closed her eyes. 'Just lay here and take a nap 'till captain gets back...'
"Excuse me."
Gilda cracked an eye open and looked down her beak. 'Pony... ugh.' She closed her eye and pretended not to notice the mare standing in front of her.
"Excuse me, miss," the voice repeated.
Gilda groaned and sat up in the chair, "Okay, what?"
The mare recoiled slightly as the gryphon stared at her, the yellow pony hid behind her own mane, "Well, you see I'm a doctor and there isn't much work on Roan, so I was hoping to sign with a ship-"
"And every other ship in port told ya no, right?" Gilda probed, "Well, ain't my call, figure you'll want to talk to cap'n or AJ about it-"
"Ask the Captain or Applejack about what, precisely?" Rarity interrupted as she stepped up next to the yellow mare, "Pardon me darling, I don't usually leave Gilda in charge of... this kind of thing, we're a bit... short hooved at the moment as you can see and... well I'm rambling on! So, what can we do for you miss..?"
"F-fluttershy," the mare answered, "I was hoping to sign with a crew since there's not a lot of work for a new doctor on Roan... and none of the other ships needed a doctor either and I'd like to try to sign on with your ship... I mean, if that's okay."
"Well... we have been needing a doctor since we lost Sawbones..." Rarity mused aloud, "I'll make you a deal, our next stop is Whitetail, we shall see how things go, and if they don't work out... well, I'm sure you'll find another ship there."
Fluttershy noded and smiled, "Thank you, I promise I'll do my best not to disappoint you!"
"I don't doubt that you will, dear. Let me show you to the medical bay and get you set up," Rarity said as she nodded for the other pony to follow her and trotted up the boarding ramp.
Applejack broke the resulting silence when she shifted the box from her back onto the ground and turned to Gilda, "Take this to Applebloom, I'll take care of passengers."
Gilda grumbled as she picked up the box and trudged into the ship, "actin like I'm some kind of pack mule..."
"Beg pardon!?" Applejack yelled after the retreating gryphon.
"I said we've got plenty of fuel!"
~~
"Alright Mares.... and Gilda, heating up the engines now, we'll be lifting off in two minutes, so please put your tray-tables and seat-backs in their upright and locked positions, stow your bags in the overhead compartments, and strap in!" Pinkie chirped cheerfully into the shipwide address system as she added throttle to the engines.
The deck hummed soothingly the ship's power levels rose. Through the flight deck windows the sunset bathed the deck in a soft orange glow. The track lighting along the walls lit up in sequence as the ship's generators came up to full power. The instrument readouts slowly rose towards the green part of the arc.
Pinkie tapped her hoof delicately against the throttle levers and with a soft tump the ship lifted off of the landing pad and into the twilight sky. The ship continued upwards in a lazy arc as the pilot rotated the engines forward and brought the nose up, clawing towards the black.
"Wonderful flying, as always, Pinkie," Rarity commented appreciatively as she stepped onto the decking. "I'd like you to stay up here on the trip to Whitetail, it's not a long trip and... I'm not too sure about our new passengers, something seems a touch off about Miss Sparkle. I want to be ready for anything, this job can't go wrong."
"It's no problem at all Rare, I'll just count the stars if it gets too boring up here."
~~
"Commander, I've got a visual on the ship we think she's on, I'm going to follow in their blind spot. I'll keep you updated," the feminine voice said into her headset as she pushed forward on her control stick. The small one pony ship accelerated forward with a practiced ease as it slid into position behind Harmony.
"I don't know what they want with you, Sparkle, but you're not getting away from me."
Equestria That Was
Chapter Three:Run
Fifteen years prior.
"Incoming!" The yell was frantic, piercing. Hooves sprung into action to the whistling of inbound artillery shells.
"I've got it!" The white unicorn yelled as she ran towards the incoming fire, her horn shone with an electric white aura as a bubble rapidly expanded away from her, the translucent white barrier covered the small outcropping that she and her unit were defending.
Her hooves sunk into the ground as sweat rolled off her brow, the whistling became louder. In an instant the world turned white with a flash of light, the shells exploded against the barrier and it winked out of existence, overwhelmed by the volume of fire.
"I got ya!" another voice yelled as she staggered under the strain of magical exhaustion.
"Applejack, you get her out of here!" the voice yelled again, "we're on our own now, our support got turned back at-"
The voice was cut off, the white mare looked up and saw what was left-
~~
Rarity sat upright in her bed, the sound of the ship's engine reverberated through the deck. She was on Harmony . "That dream, again..." she lamented as she rolled out of bed and onto her hooves, the clink she made against the metal decking reassured her.
"Captain to the bridge," she heard over the intercom.
Pinkie was being calm and professional, 'That's never a good sign...' Rarity thought with growing dread as she climbed the stairs out of her cabin. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes as she entered the bridge
"What's going on Pinkie?" Rarity asked as she wiped the sleep from her eyes with her forehoof, awkwardly shambling the rest of the way onto the deck on three legs.
Pinkie looked fearfully at her captain and then back to the canopy. "Passenger liner, reactor is running dangerously hot. The Celes ," she explained.
Rarity's hoof dropped to the decking as wakefulness hit her in full force, "Tainted?"
Pinkie nodded, "They haven't made any moves on us yet, but if they do..."
"If they do we'd be better off taking ourselves out first... Can we make it if we run?" She asked finally.
Pinkie shook her head slowly and slumped in her chair, "I'm... not that good."
The ship continued to drift almost lazily through the black above them, running lights illuminated great rips in the hull and other far less savory things; bones and blood, flesh and hide, lashed across the hull like a grotesque coat of arms. Rarity stared, unwilling to see, but unable to look away.
She shook in place as the fear settled into her bones, the fear of prey staring at a predator that it knows is looking back. The ship above them suddenly started to slow and rotate around its axis towards them. Ports opened up on the hull of the other ship as it drew closer.
"Pinkie, dear... get us out of here!" Rarity yelled as she ran through the hatch and barreled down the hall. Her hooves clattered along the decking as she felt the ship surge forward under hard acceleration, nearly losing her footing.
Her hooves crashed frantically into the hatch on Gilda's bunk. "Gilda, wake up now!" she yelled as she continued to beat on the metal hatch. The hatch suddenly and violently snapped upwards and she fell to her haunches.
"What in all creation are you yelling for!" Gilda roared as her head poked out of the hatch, her eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep, "Is the ship on fire? If the ship isn't on fire I don't want to be woken up I don't care how much you're-"
"Gilda, there are Tainted chasing the ship!" Rarity yelled, "Get your gun and get to the airlock! "
And then she turned back as Gilda scrambled out of her bunk, her own hooves carried her back onto the flight deck in a staggering rush fueled by desperate panic. The starfield was spinning and twirling in the windows as the ship pitched and rolled in desperate attempt to evade her pursuit.
Rarity glanced over at Pinkie as she strapped herself into the co-pilot's seat and saw the other mare's face twisted up in concentration as her hooves danced across the controls. She held her hoof over her mouth as she held back her stomach, fighting off the vertigo.
"Pinkie, can you get us clear?" She finally asked as powered up the co-pilot's console, adding her own attention to the radar screen.
"On any other day, I would say probably not. I would say the same thing today," Pinkie attempted to joke as she hauled the ship through another corkscrew, dodging the grappling hooks from the larger ship. "We'd need some kind of mirac--"
Rarity's eyes snapped over to the pilot as she abruptly went silent, she saw a shiver run up the other pony's entire body before she shoved the controls forward and dove the ship away from the hostile vessel. She looked up through the bridge windows above her and saw the ship, hanging in space above her.
And then she saw the swam of missiles impact the hull of the other ship, watched flames lick across her hull as armor plating was blown free. "What in the world..." she trailed off, staring open mouthed at the conflagration.
She caught a drive flare burning towards the larger ship. A small craft, she guessed it was no bigger than a two-seater, was burning towards the Tainted ship, was firing on it with mass drivers. She looked down at her sensor screen, her horn lit up as she re calibrated the direction and gain.
"Its a dragonfly ? Pinkie, get us out of here while they are both distracted, that ship is Alliance dark ops, I don't want any part of it!" Rarity yelled in alarm, "must have been following in our blind spot since we pushed off!"
Pinkie's hair seemed to expand slightly as she grinned. She snatched the microphone boom with her hoof as she dialed in the controls, "All passengers and crew, this is your one and only Pinkie Pie-lot speaking, please brace for hard acceleration. Thank you for flying Harmony Air. Applebloom, give me everything she's got!"
A row of red lights on Pinkie's panel flashed to orange, and then green. A pink hoof forced the ship's throttle to the locks and a loud whirring sound filled the cockpit and the deck started to vibrate. Various screws and pins started to rattle out of their sockets.
The ship lurched forward, riding on a pillar of light as the main drive kicked over. The vibrations stopped with a loud bang as Harmony tore away from the hostile ship at a speed few would easily match.
~~
Sweat pooled on a cyan forehead, matted rainbow colored bangs stuck to underlying fur. Proximity alerts blared through the cockpit as the pegasus pilot pulled her craft into a tight corkscrew around the bulk of the Tainted craft.
Atmosphere vented from the gaping wounds she'd put in the other ship, but it seemed to be of little consequence as the return fire continued unabated, tracers lanced out towards her craft as she tightened the spiral.
A loud thunk echoed though the cockpit and another shrill alarm joined the rest as the ship started to shake. The pilot keyed up her communicator as she throttled up in preparation for another pass, "Commander, This is Delta-Two-Zero, have engaged Tainted-converted Passenger ship, Harmony has cleared the area, last vector has them headed for Whitetail!" She yelled as another shot struck her ship.
The small fighter was shaking as it came about, but her pilot was calm, the next few seconds would end this fight one way or another. Her hoof slammed down on the throttle and the wounded craft lurched forward, on a direct vector for the engine nozzles.
"What?! Why did you eng--" the voice on the other end of her radio screamed back as the connection failed.
"Arial must have been hit..." She muttered under her breath as a long flat tone filled the cockpit; she had a positive lock. She pressed the firing studs and her craft's entire complement of missiles erupted from their launch tubes.
Gritting her teeth, the pilot pulled back on her controls and pulled her craft away from a collision with the larger ship as the missiles detonated. The fighter lurched forward despite that it's engines were already at full throttle as the blast hit.
Alarms were continued to blare in the cockpit and only now could the pilot take the time to pay attention to what it was that they indicated. "Hull breech, knew that... radio is out..." she listed off as she read down the damage report.
The ship shuddered as the navigation computer redirected the fighter on its original course towards Whitetail. "Weapons depleted... reactor coolant leak. Oh dang."
~~
"Alright, I think we're okay." Pinkie said after a long pause. Her eyes were still glued to the scanner display, had been for the ten minutes since the Tainted ship fell off their scopes. She'd caught the secondary detonation right at the edge of scanning range five minutes later.
She pulled her hoof away from the range adjuster and flipped the flight controls over to fine RCS and rotated the ship perpendicular to their direction of travel. "I trust my eyes more than I trust the sensors," she explained to the captain's questioning look.
Rarity blinked and nodded, "By all means, Pinkie. I understand your nervousness, I think we'll all feel a lot better once we get out hooves down on Whitetail." She rubbed the base of her horn with her hoof, the fatigue was still there. "I'll be in my quarters, please inform Applejack of the situation and... try not to disturb me for the next few hours."
"Aye Cap'n" Pinkie answered with a mock salute before she turned back to her controls and grabbed the intercom, "Applejack to the bridge."
~~
"Commander Shining Armor, Sir. The long range sensor reports match our initial speculation, Agent Dash's Dragonfly was last recorded on a vector for Whitetail when contact was lost, readings indicate reactor containment failure. No distress beacon was detected." The beige pony reported as he stood at attention in the small office.
Shining Armor let out a sigh as he grabbed the report in his magic and looked over the document. "What was she thinking..." He wondered aloud as he flipped to the next page.
"It doesn't look good, Sir. Should I dispatch a salvage craft?" the adjutant offered.
Shining wasn't listening as he read through the sensor logs, he was looking for... something, though he wasn't sure what. Dash was smarter than that, she'd have known it was coming, and she'd have done something to save herself, the fact that there was no beacon had to mean something.
"Ensign, what is this object here?" Shining asked as he passed the report back to the other pony.
"That looks like debris sir," he replied with a confused look on his face.
"Is it? Yes, send out that salvage ship, but I imagine you won't be recovering Agent Dash's body after all."
