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."