Princess Twilight Sparkle’s Personal Log Supplemental, December 24th, 3382 AD.

This might be my final log. The pieces are set on the board, and now we prepare for the first move. Just in case, we are planning to release a probe in the direction of Equestria that the gaecha will hopefully overlook during our fight. Should we perish, one day our people will receive all the data we have collected combined with the logs of the entire crew. They will know our story, and that the crew of the ES Harmony fought valiant until the very end.

They will know that we explored those strange new worlds; that we sought out those new lifeforms and civilisations.

They will know that we went where no one had gone before.

And if this is to be my final log, I have some things to say. I don’t regret a moment, Celestia. Not one second of one day. We all came out here with a combined dream, and we saw it through to the bitter end. And I am sorry, but never blame yourself.

This is Princess Twilight Sparkle and the crew of the ES Harmony, signing off.

ES Harmony

Twilight checked over her suit one last time to make sure it was all sealed up as it should, that oxygen systems were working along with all other miscellanies functions. Confident that everything was in order, she picked up her helmet in her own magical aura and examined that too. The entire suit had been specially made for her, the helmet both having a small crown like feature to it just behind the hold in which her horn would pass through. The suit was also coloured after her own natural coat colours, and the flank had her cutie mark emblazoned proudly upon it. The horn was the only part of her that was to be exposed to space, even her wings were covered in a special material that would allow their full functionality. The helmet included a full heads-up-display and on top of that the gauntlets on her two forelegs each held an inbuilt phaser each, though magic remained the Princess’ preferred weapon of choice.

The Princess was standing with Xal and Iynx at one of the ship’s airlocks, the ES Harmony itself having just arrived within the pinpointed asteroid field. Now all they had to do was wait and prepare for the gaecha’s next move.

“Are you sure about this?” Xal asked. “Any number of the crew could accompany you, we still have plenty of suits to go around.”

“I’ll be fine,” Princess Twilight Sparkle assured. “The Harmony needs all of you at your stations. I need to be out there, I’m the only one who stands a fighting chance outside of a starship.”

“We’ll try to draw as much fire as we can away from you,” Commander Iynx assured. “Not that we won’t be their main target anyway. And that’s if they have any weapons after our surprise.”

“Don’t tempt fate,” Twilight warned. “I’ll move into position by the asteroid, and you move the Harmony into a dense area of the asteroid field, safely if you can. It might be able to hide you briefly, give you more of an advantage to start with.”

“We’ll take everything we can get,” the griffon responded. “Hey Princess, we can handle ourselves back here. Don’t go getting yourself killed for us.”

“I have no intention of dying,” Twilight retorted with a light chuckle. “And I know you can all handle yourselves without me. You’re a fine crew, and I think you’ll make a fine captain of this ship, Iynx.”

“Thanks for the confidence, though I won’t lie and say it’s not daunting. Not how I thought my first time in the chair would go.”

“You’ll do fine,” the Princess encouraged. “How many griffons would kill to command such a vessel?”

“I know,” she responded. “Never prepares you for the real thing. I mean, this was Captain Star Gazer’s job. His ship.”

“And he would tell you the same thing I am, you know that.”

Iynx took a deep breath in, and then nodded. “Yeah. But you really need to go, I don’t think the gaecha will wait for our heart-to-heart to finish.”

Twilight smiled. “No, I suppose not.”

The alicorn expertly placed the helmet upon her head, it slide down her horn and clicked into place seamlessly. The heads-up-display lit up and the systems activated, showing oxygen was at full capacity and all systems were green across the board. A push of a button allowed the inner airlock door to open up, revealing the decompression chamber within. Then, she entered.

“I wish you peace and long life, Twilight Sparkle,” Xal stated, bidding farewell to the alicorn.

“And to you, my friend,” Twilight said back, nodding to both Xal and Iynx as she closed the airlock up again.

Iynx nudged the sharin beside her. “Peace and long life? Xal, I think you just summed her up.”

Within the airlock, Twilight looked out the small window into the empty space outside. Floating brown rocks could be seen a short distance away, and within those laid her objective. With that, she began the cycle of decompression and all oxygen was quickly sucked out of the airlock and into the tanks. All Twilight could now hear was her own breathing inside her helmet, there being no sound within a vacuum. With the cycle completed, the outside airlock door was ready to be opened, and swiftly the Princess of Friendship emerged from the ship and let herself drift into space. She brought the suit’s thrusters online for back-up, but didn’t need to rely on them. She cast a spell around her body, and then with an experimental flap of her wings was able to move around as swiftly as she could within a planet’s atmosphere, the magical output in her wings now far beyond their normality.

With another flap, she moved herself further away from the ship. She moved above the upper hull, the bridge dome being clearly visible and the upper nacelle sitting lifelessly behind it at the back of the saucer. The ship still looked beaten, and yet the name of the ship remained displayed as proudly as ever atop the hull in front of the bridge.

Smiling to herself, she turned away from the starship she designed and launched further into the asteroid field. Dodging and weaving through the desolate rocks, she didn’t have to look long to find what she was looking for. One gigantic asteroid among the rest, many blue pulsating crystals sticking haphazardly out all along its surface. A light blue aura twinkled magnificently around the asteroid, its magic potential being staggering. Such a fantastic phenomenon like that, Twilight would have loved nothing more than to stay a while and research it to her scholarly heart’s content. Unfortunately, for them to live it had to be destroyed.

That said, as she began interfacing with the asteroid’s magic and prepared the spell necessary, it didn‘t stop her making more than a few scientific observations in her suit’s recorder.

Meanwhile, back on the ES Harmony, Xal and Iynx had just returned to the bridge. All eyes turned to meet them, and a nod from Iynx told them that the plan was in motion. Xal took his place at the tactical console, and Nimble Star turned from his place at the helm and motioned Iynx towards the central chair.

The griffon looked towards that seat, approaching it gingerly. She placed her talons on the backrest as she considered it, running that claw down to the armrest and finally to the seat itself. Then, perking herself up, she finally took her place within the captain’s chair.

“Your order, Captain?” Nimble enquired, if only a little playfully.

Iynx raised an eyebrow at him, but responded professionally. “Battle Stations.”

The Asteroid Field

Four gaecha warships cautiously approached the asteroid field at the edge of the system. Their prey had failed to show up where they had expected, rather heading into that very asteroid field. At some point their sensors began to experience difficulties detecting them among the space debris, and so they began to move in. They had grown tired of waiting for hours on end, and now it was time to destroy the ones who had insulted them by denying the gaecha a kill that was rightfully theirs. Something they would now rectify.

It was four pristine warships against one primitive vessel, a vessel already damaged to the brink of destruction from their first encounter. The gaecha had no doubt it would be an easy battle. If anything, they only thing they had to worry about was being boarded, but they were prepared to fight should it come to it. And if nothing else, there was little chance any boarders would have a ship to return to.

The captain of the lead warship looked over the asteroid field on the viewscreen. The bridge had no command chair, but was split into two levels. The upper lever was where many of the command consoles were located, and where the Captain was leaning against the railing. The lower level was where the helm was located.

“Captain,” one of the reptilian aliens spoke up. “We are on final approach to their last known position.”

“Very good,” the Captain said with a fang filled grin. “Bring weapons online. Find them.”

In formation, the four ships began moving into the field, destroying any stray rock in their way. It was then their sensors spotted something most interesting.

“Captain, we’re reading a single lifesign,” one of the bridge officers reported. “It’s coming from a large asteroid, and it’s giving off readings not dissimilar from the abilities the aliens have shown utilising.”

“What? Order all ships to come to a full stop!” the Captain ordered. “Bring that one onto the viewscreen, now!”

The image of an asteroid pulsating with energies a mix between light blue and a foreign lavender came onto the screen. Standing on top of the asteroid was the individual the gaecha recognised as the alien’s leader, and as if she knew they were looking at her she… winked at them.

“What…?”

Then with a flap of her mighty wings, the Princess launched above the asteroid with her horn ablaze, launching a thunderous beam of raw magic down onto the asteroid. The blue hue turned completely lavender, and large glowing fissures began to rapidly form and consume the asteroid.

Sensing danger, the Captain’s eye widened in alarm. “Full reverse!”

Too late.

The asteroid completely shattered, a blinding pulse of magic erupting out like the flames of an enraged dragon unleashed upon some unsuspecting victim. All the gaecha could do was brace as the pulse of magic began consuming the entire asteroid field. The blinding and heavily rampant energies soon began their assault on the four unprepared starships, completely overwhelming their shields and causing untold chaos to emerge throughout all the ships. Fires erupted, consoles exploded and gaecha died as systems all around their ships began to completely overload on contact with the sheer power of the magical force, the magic heavily amplified by that of an alicorn princess who finally avenged her many fallen subjects. Just from the feel of the magic every single gaecha could feel the unleashed pain and rage, the pain and rage they themselves had inflicted. And for a moment, just for a moment, the Captain swore he caught a glimpse of a dark purple mare with an even darker shadowy mane mixed in lighter shades of purple and pink, her eyes bright blue with dark purple slits staring angrily on as her jagged horn’s glow moved to bring their deaths.

It was just for a moment, but the image would be burned into the Captain’s mind for what remained of his life.

But finally, the pulse began to fade as the magic burnt itself out. But their trouble was not yet done. The asteroid had been mostly vaporised, but scattered remains were sent flying in every possible direction. Dozens of pieces of rock rained down on the four now unshielded vessels, creating multiple hull breaches across all four ships as gaecha were vented into space. One particularly large remnant crashed into the rear ship’s left nacelle, creating a remarkable explosion that ripped the nacelle completely from its pylon.

And finally, calm.

“S-status!?” the shaken Captain barked out to the remaining bridge crew.

“The rear vessel has been crippled, they’ve lost a nacelle,” one of them reported back. “We have multiple hull breaches. Shields and multiple other systems are gone, including warp.”

“What about weapons and impulse power!?”

“Re-routing auxiliary power now, weapons are at fifty two percent capability while I can get us one quarter impulse power at best. The others are reporting the same thing.”

The Captain gave a loud, albeit still fearful, shout of rage. “Target that female! KILL HER! KILL HER NOW!”

The command spread, and all four vessels began giving as much power into weapons as they can, all of them targeted towards the alicorn opposing them.

“Sir!” a gaecha reported. “We’re detecting a ship! It's the Harmony!"

Asteroids began to part and shatter against fully operational shields as a large round object began to emerge out of them. A nacelle appeared first, and then slowly the large hulking figure of the ESP starship ES Harmony arose from the rock and dust to the right of the four gaecha warships. All available phasers had risen from their ports, and all photon torpedo tubes were primed and ready. The ship seemed to almost glow with power, the magic pulse having had the complete opposite effect on the Harmony than it had the enemy warships. The girl had never looked more alive.

On the bridge, the griffon sitting proudly in the captain’s chair looked on at their hunters with a victorious smirk on her face.

“Mr Xal,” the griffon spoke up. “Fire.”

The forwards phasers charged up and then unleashed devastating red beams streaming towards the rear gaecha starship. The ship had gauges ripped through the hull, and it began to bank as power began to go out all across the ship. The Harmony then charged forwards, continuing to fire weapons at that ship. A couple of rear phasers turned and fired at the other three as they scattered to avoid the incoming fire. They were mostly successful, but the fourth wasn’t going anywhere. The Harmony passed over it, and then unleashed a volley of four torpedoes out of the aft launchers towards the ship. All four impacted from stem to stern, and more explosions cascaded throughout the ships as all systems overloaded and the warp core finally breached. In moment, the ships was reduced to nothing more than scraps of hull fragments.

The two ships that had been flanking the lead vessel turned and fired weapons at the Harmony, the blue beams striking off the Harmony’s shields with much less force than they had during their first battle. The lead ship however began heading directly towards Princess Twilight Sparkle herself.

As the ship-to-ship battle continued, Twilight saw her adversary approaching. Where once she had written off boarding as she had no idea how shields would affect teleportation, she no longer had that issue.

But then again, she had a better idea.

Twilight charged straight at the starship, avoiding gigantic beams of energy as they shot forwards towards her, but she was a very small target. She danced majestically around until she grew close, enough to just see in through some of the larger windows.

It was then one lucky beam found its mark.

The weapon’s energy fired towards the Princess, and instinctively she channelled all her magic into one powerful shield that covered her whole body. The beam impacted violently, Twilight grunted in severe concentration with sweat running down her brow as blue energies ate away at her lavender shield. Finally, the beam subsided and Twilight was left panting with a heavily cracked but still functional shield around her. Had their weapons been at full power, rather than in the sorry state they were currently in, that may have been her death. But alas, it was not to be.

Twilight released the shield, and before they could fire again she made a quick long range teleport to bridge the final gap between herself and the ship. Quickly scanning the power conduits with her horn, she tracked where the flow of power led to, and that were quickly located where their warp core was hidden away.

Charging her horn again, Twilight shot directly downwards and formed a barrier of energy around herself. She then rammed into the hull, the metal giving way around her as she barged directly down into the ship’s main engineering. About half a dozen gaecha were vented from engineering and out of the hole Twilight had just made before emergency forcefields came online. The remaining gaecha present gave a shout of alarm as they drew their weapons and opened fire on the Princess, their weapons set to maximum setting.

The Princess dodged the first few and then had her shield absorb the rest. Then, channelling the experience of the wars fought in days one past, she formed two swords made up of pure magic. One by one, the Princess cut through every single gaecha present. They tried to stop her, a security team led by one who seemed to be the captain of the ship even entering engineering to combat the intruder, but all quickly found out just how outmatched they were compared to the alicorn. They could have looked over J’Poc’s logs as many times as they wanted, but nothing could have prepared them for the reality.

She left the Captain for last, and the last thing he saw was the Princess’ eyes looking furiously into his own.

Soon, all the gaecha laid dead at the Princess’ hooves. Then, she disengaged her two blades and channelled their magic into her horn once more. She stood before the pulsating warp core, and unleashed the gathered energy in one single bolt of energy. Alarms blared out as the warp core sparked, its containment cracking as countermeasures attempted to compensate. Twilight reignited one of her swords and swiped it through consoles, tubes and anything important to the core’s function. Very quickly the countermeasures failed, and the core began an unstoppable breach. The ship began to lose power, including the emergency forcefield above.

With no desire to go down with the ship, Twilight bolted upwards and shot out of the starship. She flew as fast as she could possibly manage, teleporting one last sizable distance as the core finally detonated. Not completely out of range, Twilight turned and ignited her shield as the shockwave rushed towards her, ready to ride out the very edge of the trail of destruction she had wrought.

As this occurred, the Harmony’s starboard shields began to buckle. The gaecha concentrated their fire on this singular section, attempting to punch a hole through. Within the ship, Silver Wrench was attempting to reroute remaining power to reinforce those shields while Geneser remained in sick bay, dealing with the incoming casualties. On the bridge things were getting rather manic.

“Starboard shielding is at twenty percent!” Xal reported to Iynx. “They are collapsing.”

“Ensign!” Iynx shouted as Nimble. “Initiate evasive pattern delta!”

“Aye ma’am!”

The Harmony banked to the side, moving under a cluster of asteroid before rising out of it, doing the same to another cluster between them and the gaecha. The gaecha followed, but were split up as they each took a different direction around the cluster. While one of the ships remained on the Harmony’s tail, one of suddenly found the Harmony swinging round one cluster of asteroid to meet them face-to-face.

The Harmony fired several photon torpedoes directly into the front of the gaecha ship, taking a sizable chunk out and likely obliterating their bridge. Xal then targeted the ship with phasers and a few barrages and an asteroid collision finished the vessel off.

With only one vessel left, they resorted to desperate measures.

“Commander, the last remaining vessel has set a collision course!” Xal reported in alarm. “It’s ramming speed!”

Iynx’s stomach clenched in slight panic. “Nimble, evade them!”

“I’m trying!” Nimble shouted back, giving the controls everything he had.

The gaecha ship was closing the gap fast, intending their final act to be taking their hated enemy with them to whatever afterlife may or may not await them. Try as Nimble Star might, the gaecha were very determined.

Only for a destructive beam of lavender magic to trail across their impulse engines and almost completely tear them from the ship.

The gaecha ship veered off course with fire trailing behind it, Commander Iynx looking on from the viewscreen where a lavender alicorn emerged victoriously.

“That you, Princess?” Iynx enquired as they opened a channel.

“It is,” Twilight confirmed. “How’s the ship?”

“As good as she can be,” Iynx responded.

“Good to hear,” the Princess stated in relief. “Ready to finish this, Captain?”

“You got it,” Iynx confirmed, ready to put all their strife to a final end. “Xal, fire everything we got!”

“Yes sir!”

All weapons trained in on the remaining warship, phasers and torpedoes alike bursting forth towards the starship. Even Princess Twilight joined in, charging the biggest beam of magic she could muster and launching alongside the Harmony’s phasers. Each one found their mark, and the warship was completely ripped apart. Panels exploded, decks vented, and the structure of the starship shattered like glass. Fire spread throughout the wreckage, and by the end there was little left remaining of the vaporised vessel.

With that, the Harmony turned away from the scene and headed directly for one of the inner planets in the system. On the way, Twilight rendezvoused with the ship and entered into an airlock. They headed towards that planet, located the gaecha’s device on sensors and fired a full barrage of phaser fire directly down onto it. With the device neutralised, the Harmony turned away from the planet as the working nacelle glowed with power. The warp field formed, and the ship jumped out of the system.

They left behind the smouldering wreckage of four warships. Four warships who had thought themselves untouchable, who had destroyed many ships and many lives over many long years. Their demise showed the galaxy that while the people of Equus pursued peace, harmony and friendship above all else, they would fight to the last if they had no other choice. And that they were anything but defenceless. It is the same thing the monsters of Equestria’s past had learnt, and the monsters of the wide universe would come to learn.

But none of that mattered then and there to the crew of the ES Harmony. Their hunters were no more, nothing else stood between them and their destination.

Home. Even if it had been the long way round.

Author's Notes:

And so our journey is soon to come to its conclusion, only one more chapter and the reunion shall at long last occur. And you know what?

The gaecha were never even close to prepared for her...

Twilight never actually turned into Midnight, but all of her anger at the gaecha was fed into the explosion, and the gaecha saw images of Midnight in their minds.

And as a wise person once said, it's at the moment they knew they'd done fucked up...