Captain's log, eleventh of spring, 1015 C.C. We're en-route to Little Roc colony in response to a distress call. All attempts at further communication with the colony have proven futile; our hope is that this does not indicate the loss of the colony. Ship and crew, however, are performing admirably under the circumstances.

"Anything on long range sensors yet?" Applejack asked with urgency in her voice. Nearly four hours at high warp, and not a peep, despite repeated hailing attempts. It had worn on her nerves more than she'd like to admit.

"I'm getting faint readings consistent with the discharge of energy weapons,” Twilight explained, her eyes to the eyepiece of the long range sensor interface. “I can't be more specific than that while we're at warp speed."

Applejack nodded, “We need more information and a plan before we warp in anyway. Miss Dash, drop us down to impulse. Miss Sparkle, try to get some better scans once we drop out of warp.”

"Aye, Captain. Dropping to impulse now," Dash answered as she throttled back the engines. The deck thrummed as the subspace field collapsed and the ship decelerated to sub-light speeds. The star lines on the viewscreen resolved into individual points of light.

"Captain, I'm detecting a ship in orbit over Little Roc, unknown energy signature. They're firing on the colony from orbit,” Twilight announced with a distressed tone, her ears flattened to her head. “I'm also picking up electromagnetic emissions consistent with communications jamming."

Applejack slammed her hoof down on the armrest of her chair, "Consarn it!" Her eyes were narrowed, her jaw clenched. 'Just shooting at civilians like that, how dare they?!' She took a deep breath, she had her own crew to look after too, she couldn't just rush in half cocked.

Twilight hesitated before adding, “There...seems to be some debris. I’m reading some plasma, but not enough to mean a lost ship. It looks like Little Roc tried to mount a defense, but…”

“Right.” Applejack nodded, “You said they’re firing, can you get a reading on their armaments? Are we going to be outclassed?”

"There’s some interference...I'm detecting emissions consistent with deflector shielding. The signature is similar to a ship encountered by the Enterprise in 2152, though further details are unavailable," Twilight explained as she filtered the readings through the main computer database.

"Noted, thank you Miss Sparkle. Keep me apprised of any changes," Applejack replied. 'So, deflector shielding...'

Still, time was of the essence. "Lieutenant Commander Armor, prepare a boarding party. If they won't listen to reason, we'll have to take the ship by force," Applejack ordered.

"Yes, Ma'am," He answered as he tapped on his console, "Shining Armor to security, prepare a boarding party, full loadout, phasers on stun."

"Alright," Applejack said as she stood from her chair, "Miss Dash, lay in an intercept course with the ship attacking Little Roc and take us back up to warp five." The deck thrummed as the ship accelerated back to warp speed. Applejack stayed on her hooves.

"Signal Red Alert. Miss Fluttershy, instruct damage control teams to stand by. Charge phase cannons and load all torpedo tubes. Polarize the hull plating," she ordered calmly as she stepped closer to the main viewscreen, "As soon as we drop out of warp, broadcast a cease and desist message on all frequencies. If they fail to respond or if they keep firing, target their weapons and engines and fire at will."

“Get those supplies to the shelter, now!” Praetor Gilda screeched at a group of militia members who were milling about, threatening to panic.

Another volley of incoming fire punctuated her command, slamming into the glowing white shield above. A few webs of fine cracks appeared here and there, but they quickly healed as a crew of pegasi shoved back against the wall of power, adding their own energy to that supplied by the emitter crystals.

The militia members--griffons and a few earth ponies--cowered for a moment, then began to gather up the sacks of food and boxes of medical supplies, and scurried away underground. Gilda shivered slightly, planning to stay out of that claustrophobic dungeon until the last possible moment.

A wing of heavy lifters swooped in, each with a (mildly terrified) unicorn clinging to their back--a crew of magickers from an outlying construction project.

“Good, go relieve the shield crew!” She gestured to the West, “We’ve got to keep the shields up for at least three more hours to have enough supplies stashed for the wait for Starfleet support!”

As the unicorns shakily trotted off, Gilda waved at the heavies. “You guys still good?” As she received nods, she grinned wickedly. “Great! We’re trying to move some heavy cannons into the side corridors in the shelter, give these dweebs a few surprises if they try to follow us.” She pointed towards the core colony supply depot, “Go get it done!”

The burly griffons saluted, and took wing to glide towards the depot, as another volley smacked into the shield. Gilda glared upwards, and prayed she was just imagining that the cracks took longer to seal up. 'What a mess...I just hope that distress call got through…'

"We've arrived in system. Putting the unknown ship on main viewer," Vinyl announced shortly before the image in the viewscreen changed. A marginally smaller ship appeared, the hull a faded, rusty brown. Most noticeable, however, were the weapons discharges aimed at the settlement below, and the flashes as they struck what appeared to be an energy shield over the core colony.

"Open a channel!" Applejack ordered as she launched herself onto her hooves. A beep confirmed the channel was open after a moment, "This is Captain Applejack of the Accord starship Trailblazer, stand down at once or we will open fire!"

The ship fired one more volley even as the Captain spoke, and the shield below flickered and died out.

"Captain, they're changing course to intercept...they're locking weapons on us!" Vinyl yelled as the ship on the screen rotated and began to accelerate.

"So much for diplomacy..." Applejack muttered under her breath. "Helm, take evasive action! Tactical, target their weapons array and fire the phase cannons!"

Twin beams of coherent light lanced out from the underside of the Trailblazer's saucer section, intersecting cleanly with the enemy ship. A bright blue spheroid flashed into existence around the outer hull of the other ship only meters before impact and seemed to absorb the beams.

"Captain, their shields seem to have absorbed the impact--reading a fifteen percent drop in energy emissions. They're returning fire!" Vinyl yelled as the enemy ship fired its plasma weapons. The ship lurched hard to the side and the bridge lights dimmed momentarily with the impact.

"Return fire with photonic torpedoes! Damage report?" Applejack commanded, as the ship shifted under her hooves, causing her to stumble.

"Hull plating is down to eighty percent. Minor hull breach on C deck, damage control teams are responding," Vinyl replied as her hooves slid across the control panel.

The Captain leaned back and braced herself against her chair, as the Trailblazer shuddered under the stress of a sharp bank, dodging a second burst of plasma shots. "Reroute auxiliary power to structural integrity."

“Aye, ma'am…torpedoes away!”

A dull thump reverberated through the ship as three points of red light shot from under the plane of the viewscreen. The torpedoes accelerated rapidly before impacting on the shields of the other ship. The alien ship's shields flared momentarily on the first impact before the second impact brought them down entirely. The third torpedo detonated against the hull directly.

All incoming fire stopped. "Report?" Applejack asked hesitantly. 'That was... too easy, is this a feint?'

"Sensors indicate their weapons array is damaged. Reading minor hull damage, and shield emissions have ceased," Twilight explained as she looked over her readouts, "wait, I’m picking up an energy spike--they're warping out!"

"Moving to intercept!" Dash yelled from the helm as the ship started to rotate about its axis. the viewscreen panned to the side as the ship changed course.

"Belay that, we're here to assist the colony, let them go," Applejack ordered.

Dash’s eye twitched at the order, but her hooves flowed over the controls, and the colony slowly came back into view.

Applejack returned to her seat, and sighed, "take us into low orbit over the colony and prepare the shuttle pods for launch. Let's see how bad it is down there."

"Did they get tired of shooting?" Gilda asked incredulously as the near constant bombardment stopped just as the shields gave up. She shook her head and turned to the stunned and idle militia members, "What are you standing around for? Keep working, they could start shooting again at an--"

"Praetor!" a scrawny griffon yelled as he ran out of a nearby shelter tunnel, "Praetor Gilda, our sensors just picked up a warp signature in orbit! It's an Accord ship--they fired on the enemy and drove them off!"

"Don't celebrate just yet, Reg...it could be a trap, we didn't even send that distress call twelve hours ago…there isn't a ship in the whole Accord Starfleet fast enough to be here already," Gilda explained, her eyes still locked on the sky, waiting for the bombardment to resume.

"Well..." Reg ventured, "it could be that ship. It was supposed to launch soon, if I... recall... correctly." He trailed off as his brain caught up with his beak and he remembered the Praetor's feelings on that particular ship and crew.

Gilda glared at him, and ground her beak for a moment. "Rrrr, if that's the case... I think I'd take the aliens over those ponies," Gilda muttered with disgust as she kicked the dirt and walked towards the shelter. "Don't think this means you can let up, keep working!"

Still… something was definitely making the feathers on the back of her neck stand up, and it wasn't just the thought of that starship.

Rarity rubbed at her eyes, the little bit of sleep she’d been able to get had done wonders for her, but it still wasn’t enough to make up for all she’d lost. “Any word from the Captain?” she asked as she leaned back in the captain’s chair.

“Nothing yet, the shuttlepod should be landing about now,” Fluttershy answered from the comms station.

Rarity nodded and turned back to the viewscreen. It was a waiting game, she was fine with that. Waiting for word from the Captain, waiting for the enemy ship to come back. She found herself staring blankly into the back of Ensign Vinyl’s head.

The unicorn had taken the helm after Applejack had requested Rainbow Dash to go down to the surface with her. Vinyl didn’t mind, however, as this meant she got to fly a starship, even if it was just a parking orbit.

Twilight felt her mind numbing as she reviewed the sensor logs from the battle, something had seemed off about the whole thing; just a gut feeling, but she’d learned to trust those since her brother’s wedding…

She blinked away her mental haze as an image flickered across the screen: a spectrographic energy-output analysis like many others, but there was an extra spike in the photonic torpedo sidebands. Rerunning the analysis with a few different parameters, the signature clarified...’is that...a transporter?’ She expanded the log around the event, and found it occurred right after the third torpedo--after the enemy’s shields went down, and right before the ship went to warp.

She turned to the internal sensors and ran a quick scan of the ship, no alien signatures detected, so the Trailblazer hadn’t been boarded. She turned on the long range sensors and focused them on the planet below. They returned the expected responses; equines, griffons, diamond dogs, livestock animals… and… other? She focused the sensors on the other signature and did a more in depth scan, it looked almost like… ’the proportions are right but the biology is wrong...’

“Commander,” Twilight said suddenly, “I think that right before the alien ship fled, a ground team beamed down to Little Roc colony. I’ve detected unrecognized biosigns on the surface and there was a transporter signal right before they warped out.”

Rarity paled and turned to Fluttershy, “Send a signal to the captain, apprise her of the situation and request orders.”

“I’m not getting a response, Commander. There’s a lot of interference,” Fluttershy explained as she tried again.

Twilight looked back to the scanners and turned them back towards space, “The jamming field is back up, I’m picking up a warp signature on the far side of the planet--it’s the enemy ship!”

Rarity stomped her hoof and grimaced, ’drat!’ “Red alert, polarize the hull plating! Ensign Scratch, take us into the atmosphere over the colony. If we can’t signal the captain we’ll have to give her a message she can’t miss!”

“Aye ma’am, beginning descent,” Vinyl answered as she pushed the controls forward, beginning the descent sequence.

“Twilight, have the Transporter Chief stand by to beam the Captain and the landing party out if necessary. Shining Armor, prepare the magnetic grappler and make sure the photonic torpedoes are ready to fire,” Rarity ordered as the deck started to shake as the ship shed speed through the atmosphere.

“Venting drive plasma, securing impulse engines. Thrusters at fifty percent,” Vinyl rattled off as she mentally went through her flight training. Normally reentry was done in a much smaller craft, but Trailblazer was capable of it. In theory.

Reg jogged around the corner of a large warehouse, heading for the main colony depot. ‘If this is a trick, we’ll need fresh relay crystals to get the shield back up.’

He slowed as he approached the sector control office across the way, then stopped outside, and glanced around. ’Nobody here? What gives?’ He ducked inside the open door, but saw nothing but a cooling cup of coffee.

Back outside, he sighed at the prospect of taking wing to find someone, flying not being his strong suit. Then his head snapped to the right as he heard a faint sound off in that direction. He listened for more, but when nothing further occurred, he headed off in that direction.

An Accord shuttle came to a soft landing in a large square, as a messenger griffon flew off.

As the door slid open, Captain Applejack found herself staring at several phase rifles. “Uh...hey y’all. We come in peace?”

Seeing the pony in an Accord uniform, the griffons lowered their weapons, and AJ and two crew members stepped out of the shuttle.

“We’re here to help. Who’s in charge?”

Just then, the messenger returned with a more heavily armored and decorated griffon in tow. “By the claws of my grandfeathers, what is going on here?” She came to a halt when she spotted Applejack. “You.”

The Captain gave her a confused look, then blinked, “Gilda?”

“That’s Praetor Gilda to you, Captain. I see the Fleet’s fancy new ship is up and running.”

Nodding, Applejack looked around, “We’re here to help. We brought down some medical supplies, but...it doesn’t look like you need ‘em. Those fancy shields of yours were pretty effective--how’d you get so many high-power unicorns to move out here to the boonies?”

Gilda smirked, her crest raising slightly. “You Equestrians don’t have a monopoly on creativity, ya know--you just saw the first field trial of a genuine Little Roc innovation! Our crystals emit shields as effective as any princess, but even a foal can contribute a little power to keep it up.”

“Huh,” AJ rubbed the back of her neck, “that’s pretty impressive. Don’t suppose you’ve got any extras lyin’ around…”

“HA!” Gilda’s grin became predatory. “Sure, we’ve been making a surplus...and once we put them on the market, Starfleet will be able to buy them at a fair price.”

Looking disgruntled, the Captain said, “Well I’m sure that’ll be a big hit, but we aren’t exactly planning to stick around, and-”

She was cut off by an explosive BOOM that echoed over the city, rattling the windows. Everybody in the square ducked, and looked around warily.

Rainbow Dash was the first to look upwards, and spot the oncoming silhouette. “Captain! It’s the Trailblazer!”

Everybody followed her gaze, and Gilda spat out, “What the squawk!?”

Applejack pulled a communicator from her uniform pocket, and activated it. “Applejack to Trailblazer; Commander Rarity, just what the hay are y’all doin’?” She paused. “This is the Captain, Rares, come in!” She shook her head and turned to to Gilda, “get your people ready--something’s up.”

The Praetor ground her beak, and turned to her people, as the Trailblazer came into position over the city, thrusters keeping it hovering overhead.

“Captain, what should we do?” Lieutenant Dash was nervously staring at the underside of the ship.

AJ looked uncertainly at her, then winced and glanced upwards, as the Trailblazer fired a photonic torpedo. She nodded at her crewmen, “Grab weapons and find some cover. This may get nasty.”

The sonic boom made Reg duck his head. He peered upwards, but couldn’t see much of the sky from within the canyon formed by the warehouse walls. He huffed quietly, then moved down a bit further, and peeked into one of the large structures, hearing movement.

He quickly moved forward into the building, then blinked, and ducked behind a pallet of hamdingers. He edged an eye around the side, looking incredulously at the bipedal creatures that were quietly stripping crates from a shelf 50 meters away. ‘Such ears. Wow.’ He considered simply confronting them, but then noticed what lay next to their pile of stolen goods.

Piled haphazardly on the floor were people of different species--several griffons and at least two ponies. He gaped for a moment, then noticed that he could see them still breathing--slowly, but noticeably. ’So they’re stunned and/or drugged.’

He kept the aliens in view, and reached into his peytral to grab his comm unit. He turned the receive volume way down, and had just turned it on when sound of heavy weapons fire from somewhere outside drew his attented back towards the door. Then he heard a sharp exclamation from the aliens, and realized their attention was probably in the same direction...and his fool head was still peeking out from behind his cover.

Pulling fully behind the hamdingers as some sort of beam weapon was fired at where his head had been, he screeched into his comm unit, “Central! This is Reg! The aliens landed and are gathering up supplies and people in Warehouse 13! Need a militia team, now!”

He tossed the communicator aside, and broke from cover as the aliens continued to fire at him. He dodged around a shelf, slunk under some loading machinery, and ran down a short throughway. Almost there… He was diving over a pile of pipes when they got a lucky shot in that winged him--literally.

He hit the floor, and rolled painfully across it. As he came to a stop, he tried to stand up, but found he couldn’t make the left side of his body obey him. He managed to turn his head, and stared blearily as one of the aliens came into view.

“Stoopeed greeffawn,” the figure muttered.

‘How could I understand that?’ Reg thought, as the alien fired its weapon again, and the world disappeared.

“Commander, the enemy ship is in range, approaching the colony at high speed. Their shields are down,” Twilight announced, as she cycled the viewscreen to display the other craft.

“Fire a warning shot across their bow with the phase cannons, try to warn them off,” Rarity ordered as she stepped towards the viewscreen.

“Belay that!” a new voice ordered, as the sound of hooves stampeding across the deck filled the bridge, “stand down phase cannons and fire a low-yield photonic torpedo--use proximity fusing.”

Rarity turned and found Pinkie leaning against the captain’s chair, panting heavily. She turned to face Shining Armor, and nodded, “go ahead Lieutenant Commander, but make the yield minimal--we cannot risk actually shooting them down over the city.”

She raised her eyebrow at Pinkie and calmly walked over to her, “what was that about?”

Pinkie shook her head, “You take the ship down into the atmosphere and you didn’t think you should tell me about it?! We’re flying on thrusters right now. The phase cannon recharge is tied into the impulse engines, but when they’re offline it’ll fall back onto the main EPS grid.”

“Pinkie, I’m not an engineer--” Rarity started to explain.

Pinkie grabbed onto her disheveled mane with both front hooves, “The thrusters are being fed by the main EPS grid, and if the phase cannons start recharging it causes a momentary energy drop, the thrusters lose power, and at this altitude, the ship crashes!”

“Commander, they ignored the torpedo. They’re continuing to advance on the colony--” Shining Armor reported.

“Detecting energy spike--they’re activating transporters! Shields are coming online…” Twilight announced, “detecting another power surge...plasma buildup?”

Pinkie rushed across the bridge and looked at the sensor readout on Twilight’s console. “They’re generating a warp field… they’re trying to go to warp in the atmosphere?!”

“How can they even--” Rarity got out before the ship on the view screen disappeared in a flash of light and an earth shattering bang, the deck tilted under her feet as several alarms began blaring throughout the bridge. “Report!” she ordered, as one of the bridge consoles flashed, and a shower of sparks flew from it.

“Intense atmospheric turbulence--attempting to compensate,” Vinyl answered as she fought with the controls, trying to maintain their position without overtaxing the already struggling thrusters.

“Jamming is gone, I’ve got the captain!” Fluttershy exclaimed as she put the signal through to the bridge speakers.

“Trailblazer, do you read--they’ve taken hostages!” Applejack had to howl at her comm badge, trying to be heard through the tornadic whirlwind the departing ship had kicked up.

Gilda was still staring at her comm unit, from which Reg’s panicked report had come.

Rainbow Dash was following the Trailblazer’s path across the sky as it twisted in the wind. She grimaced as the ship listed hard to port--going nearly vertical on its side as it descended precariously close to the ground--then sighed as a bright flare lit up the ground. The ship's lateral and ventral thrusters fired painfully bright bursts as it swept lazily over the colony in a wide arc before leveling out.

”We read you,” Rarity responded, ”We’re stabilized, and prepared beam you up at any time.”

“Alright, keep tracking them.” She looked over to Gilda, “Do you want to come with us?”

Gilda glanced around, then shook her head sharply, “That blast did a lot of damage. There are more people in this city that need me than on that ship.”

Nodding, the Captain went over to stand near Rainbow Dash. “I’ll leave my medics with you to help. Don’t worry, we’ll catch them.” She tapped her comm unit, “Trailblazer, start burning for orbit as soon as we’re onboard--two to beam up.”

AJ grit her teeth as the transport took hold, and the world hazed to a static-filled white. Then her view clarified, and faded in to reveal the Transporter Room, and Chief Petty Officer Lyra watching her pensively.

Applejack stumbled slightly on her hooves and shook her head. “Nnngh...always tastes like electricity,” she muttered, as she worked her mouth up and down, “Remind me not to do that again, if ya don’t mind.” She nodded at Lyra as she and Lt. Dash trotted out of the room and made their way to the Bridge.

“Welcome back, Captain,” Rarity greeted with strained smile.

Applejack nodded to her, and looked over at the helm and viewscreen, noticing that the ship was nearly out of the atmosphere.

With a grin, Rainbow Dash took the helm back from Vinyl Scratch, “Nice flying there, Ensign.” Vinyl just ducked her head.

“Report?” Applejack asked as she settled into her chair.

“Long range sensors show the ship departing at warp three, well within our ability to intercept,” Twilight answered with a smile, finally something at least was going their way.

”Warp power will be available in forty-five seconds.” Pinkie’s voice announced from the bridge speakers.

Rarity looked around as if to confirm Pinkie had left the bridge, as the pink mare’s departure had managed to escape her notice. She kept these thoughts to herself.

“Cutting over to impulse,” Rainbow Dash announced, as she pushed the sublight throttle assembly forward on her console. The dull thrumming of the impulse drive reverberated through the deckplates as the ship accelerated.

“I’ve got a lock on their vector,” Twilight announced, “sending data to the helm.”

“Laying in intercept course. Warp power is available. Captain?” Rainbow dash asked as she turned around in her chair.

“Let’s go get our people back,” Applejack said softly. “Engage.”