Prologue
Starship Magic Data Log: 1009 ANMM
--Large mass detected 3.45556 miles from ship.
--Scanning...
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--Mass identified as Starship-*Bzzt-crackle-zzzz*
--Starship*Zzz-crack-bzz* has targeted us with plasma cannons and electrode blasters.
-
-*Bzzzzt-crackle*
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--This ship has received heavy damage. The motherboard calculates 29.22386% of the ship irreparable.
--The enemy ship's plasma cannons have been locked onto the motherboard system.
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--*Crash-bzzzzzzzzzzzz*
-
--CRITICAL ERROR
***
“By the stars...” cried Co-Captain Luna as she surveyed the damage. Looking out of the huge plasma-glass viewport separating her from deep space, the Co-Captain put a hoof to her mouth as tears began to slide down her cheeks. The remains of Starship Magic were scattered among clouds of hydrogen and smoke, floating aimlessly among the stars.
Starship Harmony was too late. The Magic had been destroyed... and Captain Sparkle had been aboard.
Luna stood, staring at the wide expanse of space in front of her. A large curved control board wrapped halfway around the high command platform of Starship Harmony, offering a large array of holographic touch screens. These were the main controls of the whole ship. Luna’s bluish horn lit up, wrapped in the embrace of magic. She manipulated the screens with it, pushing a few buttons and vocally commanding the ship to do what she willed it to. A small screen in the right corner of the command panel recited a plethora of words and numbers in the form of a graph. Luna was about to glance at it when a pair of doors slid open at the back of the command center.
Co-Captain Celestia strode into the room, suddenly halting as she gazed out at what was left of Starship Magic.
“No!” she cried, once again resuming her journey to the high command platform, this time at a breakneck pace. “What has happened? Where is Starship Magic?! Captain Sparkle sent out a distress call!”
“We are too late, my sister,” answered Co-Captain Luna, lowering her head and closing her eyes in sadness. “The Magic has been destroyed.”
Celestia’s chest heaved, her breath quickening. “Do a scan for any lifeforms!” she barked at an earth pony sitting at a computer on the lower command deck. He nodded and pressed a few large buttons with his hooves. A minute later, a holographic screen appeared in front of the viewport, showing the results of the scan.
No lifeforms detected.
Celestia stared at the screen, refusing to believe her eyes. Her student... was gone, and it had happened so quickly... so suddenly.
Luna tapped her sister with her hoof. Celestia looked at the Alicorn, deep sorrow in her eyes.
“There is still hope,” said Luna, “I performed a scan for stray exhaust trails, and my results are in.” Luna walked over to the right corner screen, and read the grand consensus aloud.
“There was an extremely large starship here along with The Magic,” she revealed, “It left a huge exhaust trail. Perhaps it was the one that did battle with Starship Magic. And when a ship executes a battle, they usually take prisoners.”
Celestia looked down at the graph. “Twilight and some of her crew may still be alive.”
“Correct,” Luna stated, reading out more information. “It also seems that there are multiple tiny trails spreading outward from where The Magic was. They may have come from escape pods.”
Celestia, though still worried, took a relieved breath. “Thank the suns,” she said quietly, gazing back out at Starship Magic’s remains. If Twilight was out there somewhere, than somepony needed to rescue her.
Or perhaps, someponies...
Chapter One: Starship Loyalty
"Oy! Scoots! What did I tell you about messing with the ammunition?" Captain Rainbow Dash growled as she looked at readings of Starship Loyalty's stats. "Our firepower is 20% lower than accepted standards!"
"I've channelled the extra laser cannon energy into the rocket boosters, ma'am. This will give us extra speed with which to reach the Harmony before the other starships. We are a greater distance away from the ship then they are," First Mate Scootaloo replied, looking up from a control terminal below.
"Ah, excellent," said the Captain, proudly looking through the viewport of her vessel. Starship Loyalty was the fastest ship in the galaxy. She couldn't let her reputation crumble by letting the other starships arrive before she did.
Captain Celestia herself, Supreme General and Commander of all seven Equestrian starships along with her sister Luna was expecting The Loyalty. She had contacted Rainbow herself via holographic instantaneous communication, (or HIC for short). The Captain had told Dash to meet her and the other Equestrian starship captains for a terribly important council meeting. Dash had no idea what the conference would be about, but from the look on the Supreme General's transparent face, she could tell something serious was going on.
Captain Dash snapped her wings open, pushing them downward against the recycled air of the Starship, launching her upward. She twisted her body around and flew full-speed out of the command center. She had to inform her soldiers of the upcoming travel destination, and the reasons for flying there.
Beyond the center’s large double-doors, a cavernous room filled with ponies took up a large portion of the ship. This was the Training Grounds.
Dash grinned as she gazed upon the huge enclosure. Clouds of various shapes and sizes filled the upper portion, pegasi busting through them as fast as their wings could beat. In the middle section, pegasi trained with laser blasters, hitting targets hundreds of meters away. In the lower section, a minority of unicorns and earth ponies as well a plethora of pegasi leaped into the cockpits of starfighters, learning the inner workings of every button and gear that made up the fighters. They would usually have blasted off into space to fly them around Starship Loyalty, but the ship was moving at high speeds, and the starfighters would never have been able to re-dock.
Various other training exercises were being performed by the hundreds of ponies in the training center, but the aforementioned ones were the most popular and frequently practiced.
A loud bell-like sound echoed through the chamber, and as soon as everypony heard it, they dropped what they were doing and faced Captain Dash. They lined up in rows, stiffly standing or flying in place for their leader.
A large holo-screen above Dash lit up, a live hologram of the pegasus Captain appearing. Dash pressed a button on a small control bracelet on her foreleg. The speakers around the cavern had been activated.
“My loyal soldiers!” her voice boomed, reverberating in every nook and cranny of the chamber thanks to the speakers. “Captain Celestia, the Supreme General and Commander of all seven Equestrian starships, has requested the presence of The Loyalty at a meeting of all the Equestrian Captains. The designated meeting place is planet #109... Cloudsdale.”
The plethora of ponies stayed quiet and stoic, as they were trained to. But Dash could see a glint of joy in each one of their eyes. Every pegasus in The Loyalty had been born and bred in Cloudsdale. When they had come of age, they were tested, and if they passed the test, they were recruited aboard Starship Loyalty, to serve in the Galactic Royal Guard. There they would train under the wing of Captain Rainbow Dash.
Now the pegasi were going home, if only for a day.
Captain Dash smiled. “At ease, my soldiers. You may discuss this new mission with one another as much as you want. But once the bell rings, you need to start training again,” she ordered. “I expect to see some results! Slack off for one day and who knows what Galactic menace will try to slip past us! Kapeesh?”
Everypony barked a simultaneous “Yes, ma’am!” and stood still until Captain Dash flew back into the command center. Then, all at once, they began to smile and laugh as they excitedly conversed with each other.
They were going home.
***
The pegasus captain sat in her command chair, guiding her ship through the stars. The command deck on which she drove the ship was a large, circular, cerulean blue platform directly behind the viewport, with a control panel spanning around most of the edge. The deck below the platform held all other smaller command modules, controlled by the deck crew, including First Mate Scootaloo.
All of the other Equestrian starships had command centers almost exactly like this, the only exception being Starship Harmony, whose command center was much more massive.
Rainbow glanced at the ceiling and walls of the place. They were covered with murals depicting the rich history of the starship. She remembered painting them alongside her mother.
A scene just above the viewport depicted the landscape of a city in Cloudsdale, waterfalls of beautiful liquid rainbows sliding off of the white clouds and falling into the void of air. Strong columns shone in the painted sunlight, holding up the massive cloud buildings and homes.
And then there were the pegasi. The small, painted, winged ponies. Each one had been given its own name and personality by the small child Dash was when she and her mother had painted the scene. Three particular pegasi had been painted with more detail than the rest. They sat on golden-lined clouds, the two larger pegasi holding the smaller one in an everlasting embrace.
“You were born with the gift of color,” her mother had always said. “You express yourself by letting your inner spectrum shine through. Remember to keep your Rainbow, my little Dashie. Always and forever...”
***
Rainbow Dash tore her gaze from the murals. A security camera video had popped up on one of the holographic command screens. It depicted the center of the ship, where the Element was kept.
“What is it now...?” the Captain grumbled as she looked at it. Then her mouth opened in surprise.
“Scoots! Take the controls!” cried Dash. She pressed a few lettered buttons, and automatically switched the main command holograms to the First Mate’s control board.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Scootaloo, setting her hooves on the main steering console.
Nodding, Dash quickly zoomed out of the room, going through various flying speedways and passages to get to the very core of Starship Loyalty. After a few tense-filled minutes, she reached a large pair of doors, engraved with pictures of the sun and moon. Two pegasus guards flanked the sides. The Captain nodded to them, and they let her pass.
Vocally reciting a long command, Dash furrowed her brow as the doors automatically opened to the sound of her voice. Scarlet light shined through the crack between the doors, growing brighter the more they opened.
Rainbow Dash stepped into the heart of Starship Loyalty.
She covered her eyes with her foreleg, waiting for them to adjust to the crimson light. Once they had, she gazed at the source of it.
A large ruby, almost the size of Rainbow’s head, floated just above a golden pedestal. The jewel was in the shape of a lightning bolt, and within it burned a red flame, the light from it peircing every nook and cranny of the room.
This was the Element of Loyalty. It was the source of all power within the starship. It was a part of Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow was a part of it. As long as she stayed alive, the power of the Element would burn on.
Once her mother had been connected to it. She had been the Captain of Starship Loyalty. But when she had died, she had passed on her flame of Loyalty to Rainbow. Her heir.
Rainbow instinctively knew whenever something was up with the Element. And right at that moment, something was definitely up with it.
The ruby glowed much brighter than it usually did. It spun in mid-air, turning round and round like a planet in orbit. It seemed to be gaining power... but how?
“Captain,” a voice crackled over Rainbow’s earpiece. It was First-Mate Scootaloo. “We have arrived at Cloudsdale, and are currently in orbit... you might want to see this, ma’am.”
Cocking her head, Dash replied to Scoots, telling her she would be there soon. Still gazing back at the spinning Element, Dash trotted out of the room, the massive doors closing behind her.
Arriving at the command center in a short amount of time, Dash set herself down on the main control platform. She looked out of the viewport in wonder.
The most massive Equestrian starship in existence was in Cloudsdale’s orbit, waiting for them.
Starship Harmony.
