Orion was among three other orbital security bases that guarded the Lunar Sector, in a geostationary orbit above the southwestern hemisphere of the Equestrian Moon. The purpose behind these stations was to guard the various settlements situated on the surface, as well as serve as a supplemental checkpoint to the defenses that surrounded the planet against hostile forces.

Several sections of the station were still under construction, as this particular orbital was still brand new among its counterparts. Space traffic was complete with civilian transports, security spacecraft, construction vehicles, and cargo ships to and from the orbital and both the Lunar and Equestrian surface.

Tensions were high among the inhabitants of this particular sector, as attacks had recently occurred by small CRAI units in the past months in an attempt to infiltrate Lunar space as a strategic location for following invasion forces. All were repelled by local security forces, but the threat was undoubtedly growing in some unknown corners of the system and only heightened the pressure it had on the people closest to the devastation.

Lacewing and Lemon Drop were two such unnerved ponies destined for Orion, being cargo shuttle pilots hired to deliver maintenance equipment and food storage to the incomplete orbital. Thoughts of the previous attacks overshadowed their assessment of the task at hand, with Lacewing staring worryingly out the viewport of the shuttle's cockpit.

"Lace?" Lemon Drop spoke softly to break Lacewing out of her trance, but not so much as to startle her.

She shifted her attention to her co-pilot, then back to the flight controls. "Sorry."

"We're approaching Orion, prepare docking sequence."

Lacewing punched appropriate commands into her console and opened a communication line to the Lunar orbital. "Orion Traffic Control, this is EA cargo vessel X-Ray Three-Seven-Zero heavy requesting permission to dock at Port One-Eight."

Two seconds later a response crackled on the communicator. "Roger, transport. Please upload latest security codes and stand by."

Lemon Drop entered codes written on a sticky note near a small viewscreen through her console and sent them to the security receivers on board the station. "Uploading now."


Infiltration of orbital stations by use of seemingly friendly cargo vessels was not uncommon among the recent attacks that Orion personnel had seen reported in the news. Most attempts were foiled due to possession of outdated security codes sent to the defense databases.

The human traffic controller stationed at Orion's STC was diligent in double-checking the mainframe's automated security systems to ensure that the incoming shuttle's codes were up to date and genuine, much to the infuriation of his assistant coordinator of equally human persuasion that voiced his impatience with a loud huff.

The space traffic control station was cramped with security and coordination hardware leaving barely room to move. The lights were dim in contrast to the viewscreens so as not to obstruct view from a single, polyglass viewport overlooking the Lunar horizon. Visual obstruction seemed unavoidable, however, as another traffic controller behind them succumbed to a moment of laziness, choosing to initiate his break here instead of a designated leisure area. His cigarette spread plumes of smoke swirling around the instrumentation, silhouetting even adjacent consoles in eerie backlight.

The traffic controller hard at work attempted to ignore the foul air and bitter taste as he swallowed hard, finishing his last check on the security codes sent by the "Iridani Princess," as the computer indicated that the shuttle's name was. What an unfittingly regal name for such an ugly utility craft. He proceeded to deactivate security systems to allow access to the ship's desired docking port. "The security codes check out, you're cleared to dock at Port One-Eight."

"Copy that, Orion," the shuttle responded, "Much thanks."

The controller stood at his station, his back aching from sitting in the uncomfortably small seat for so long, stretching out his sore muscles. He looked around the various monitors for other incoming traffic, but saw no more than the usual spacecraft moving about the station's exterior, with no indication of docking or landing. He saw this as an opportunity to join his fellow controller rearward, waving away his curtains of smoke to reach the nearby table.

"Slow day..." the other controller grunted through his teeth as he held his cigarette in place, reviewing some station documents on a tablet next to a tray of food.

"Eh, I've seen slower." He looked at the controller's choice of meal: soypro blocks of what was advertised as pork with beans and cheese. His nausia grew when he imagined the artificial flavors, having been living off such imitation junk ever since he transferred to Orion. It was a standard since equine were predominantly vegetarian and station reserves had to accommodate this strict diet, without sacrificing the preferences of human personnel. It was an aggravating compromise, but it was better than nothing.

"Umm..." The assistant coordinator verbalized with sudden apprehension, bolting forward to peer at a nearby CRT screen.

The controller stood back up and headed over to him. "What do you got?"

"There's two unidentified signatures approaching the station."

His heart sank as he heard the news, observing the two green blips closing in, but hoped for a false positive.

"I can't retrieve any identification from them. And they're moving fast."

Oh no. Our first intruders! He scrambled to his console and quickly opened a channel to the Iridani Princess. "X-Ray Three-Seven-Zero, this is Orion Traffic Control... be advised, two unidentified signatures are in your shadow! Check your right-rear quadrant!"


The traffic controller repeated the transmission, further anchoring the realization of the dire situation that the two ponies had found themselves in as they approached the docking port. Lemon Drop frantically checked her instrumentation and detection systems, but found nothing on the screens indicating any incoming spacecraft.

"I'm checking my scopes," She replied, "But I don't see anything!"

"Confirmed! Two fast-moving spacecraft closing in on your position! Abort, now!"

Lacewing patted her side, grabbing her attention. She was staring out the viewport with overwhelming intensity that forced her to follow her gaze, finding the source of her anguish.

Two small fighters approached the drifting spacecraft with aggressive speed, weapon stores activating and firing towards them. They watched helplessly as red tracers filled their field of view, hearing the impacts of armor-piercing bullets tearing through the civilian vessel's hull. Before any of them could react, the chemical rounds ignited the internal fuel reserves and reduced the ship to a mess of twisted metal fragments blown apart in a brief but powerful blast.

The two ships passed by the scattering remains of the Iridani Princess, proceeding towards vital locations on the orbital's structure. They were unusually small and agile craft, unlike any CRAI designs before it.

The traffic controller put aside his curiosity regarding the design and activated the stationwide emergency alert system. "This is an Orion Security Control... Battle stations! Battle stations! Two CRAI fighters are attacking the orbital! Battle stations! Battle stations!"

Space traffic around the station was already dissipating as ships hurried to docking ports and hangar bays or completely left the sector before they met the same fate as the unfortunate cargo vessel.

He could only hope that the station security personnel were able to dispatch the intruders before they did any more damage than they already were. Several locations on the station were already going down by the minute, blacking out on the mainframe faster than evacuation orders could be sent.


Alarms and warning lights accented the chaos of station personnel and utility vehicles rushing throughout the main hangar bay, many of which in a state of confusion as they incoherently followed others fleeing to safety or a designated task.

One cyan pony in particular broke through the crowds, heading straight for a small fighter hastily being prepped for battle. She climbed into the cockpit, tucking her flowing mane of multicolor hair into her flightsuit, proceeding to start up the ship's engines and other systems. System diagnostics... okay. Weapons... full capacity. Hull integrity... one hundred percent. Her spacecraft was ready for action. It was a Royal Aerospace Factory FB-82C lightweight fighter, a standard spacecraft for perimeter security forces, and a ship that she took pride in piloting whenever she had the chance. It made her feel empowered, unstoppable.

The canopy lowered and sealed the cockpit airtight, prompting her to activate the internal atmospherics. A knock on the hull grabbed her attention, as the human personnel signaled with a thumbs-up to indicate that she was ready to go. She responded with a salute before a final pre-flight check.

"Dash!" A voice called out on the communicator, "Ready to kick ass?"

She looked to her left to find her Griffon friend and wingperson Gilda occupying the companion fighter nearby, already in VTOL mode as it hovered in preparation to leave the hangar bay. "You know it!" She then switched to VTOL mode as well, raising her spacecraft to a steady hover next to Gilda. "Orion," She hailed to the STC, "Spectrum-Dash-Raven hot and ready to fly, over."

"Roger, pilots," They replied, "You're clear for take-off."

Gilda was first to flaunt her turbojets as she blasted away from the landing pads. "Haha! Slowpoke!"

Dash reacted to the audacious action and quickly engaged her own turbojets to follow her departure, sure to deactivate VTOL thrust as they arrived in the vacuum of space. They both rejoined after correcting their course back for Orion, scanning for the hostiles that threatened the station.

"Alright, Spectrum," Gilda started, "Remember the deal?"

She did as she smirked at her partner through the tinted polyglass. "Sure. Last one to down a CRAI buys tonight's round of cider. And we both know who that's gonna be!"

"Negative visual on our 'guests,' no sign of them on radar."

Dash blew a raspberry at the sharp change of subject and looked at her own instrumentation to locate the intruders. Two blips appeared at the bottom of her CRT display, with labels identifying the foreign serial codes that indicated their CRAI origin. "I got 'em. Two bandits hot and high, left rear and advancing."

"Confirmed, looks like they spotted us. Let's do this!"

"Reference three-sixty on my lead."

"Copy, three-six-zero!"

The pair of fighters banked around to face the incoming hostile craft emerging from the other side of the station, matching velocity and spreading into a fluid two formation with weapon stores exposed.

Dash flipped the safety catch off the weapon controls on her stick. "Alright, here they come. Roll eighty-two on my mark, we'll drop in behind once they correct their approach."

Gilda acknowledged with a hoot to assert her high spirit.

The two enemies converged into a loose echelon, firing their internal 25mm autocannons that showered their line of sight with red tracers. Dash and Gilda spun to avoid the frontal assault, buying them enough time for the ships to pass right between them in indistinct streaks across the darkness.

"Now!" Dash shouted, prompting the both of them to execute the maneuver that she had relayed to Gilda. They rolled and banked behind the hostile fighters, getting a close-up view of their engine outlets and unusual fuselage layout. The enemies attempted to split off in order to evade the pursuit. "Stay on them! Don't give 'em any breathing room!"

"I know!" Gilda responded, "I'm going left, you go right!"

"Good luck, Raven!"

The two fighters parted ways as they each chased the individual spacecraft towards Orion, both of which heightened their proximity to the hull of the orbital and its various structures to avoid their pursuers.

Dash struggled to acquire a lock on the ship as it dodged the targeting software, achieving maneuvers around several engineering structures and communication spires in such a way that seemed impossible to carry out by any normal human pilot, let alone CRAI. She was breaking out into a sweat as she closed in on the fighter, straining to maintain pursuit despite the erratic flight characteristics of her opponent.

The computer finally registered a lock onto the fuselage with a loud whine, with Dash quickly reacting with a squeeze of the autocannons. The pivoted wingtip rotary guns tracked the moving target and fired their 30mm explosive projectiles with bright blue tracers, engulfing the hostile spacecraft in a barrage of pyrotechnic discharge that resulted in its fuselage blasting apart in a violent yet soundless explosion.

She banked to avoid the splintering debris and shouted a cheer for her victory. "Target down! Target down!"

"Got a problem here, Spectrum!" Gilda shouted on the radio, "Need assistance, now!"

Dash located her position on the radar screen and looked out the window to confirm her bearings. To her panic, she spotted the second hostile chasing Gilda through the exposed substructures of the station, leaving little opportunity for her to break away. Red tracers swarmed her rear quadrant, with several impact points already visible on her lightly-armored hull.

"On my way!" Dash rolled and rushed to her aid, approaching the offending spacecraft.

"Get him off me! I can't shake him!"

"Hang on, I almost got him!" The computer registered a lock. She attacked with the rotary guns to no avail, as the maneuvers that she shadowed resulted in the fighter flying out of range of the tracking systems.

A panel on Gilda's fighter blasted away from the fuselage, nearly hitting Dash's window. She could hear the emergency alarm over the open comm. "I'm hit! I'm hit!"

"Almost got him!" Dash was desperate to attain a kill before the situation worsened, as she switched to the missile trigger on her flight controls.

"He's got a lock on me! Do something!"

The loud whine that she was anxious to hear finally came from her targeting computer. "I've got tone! I've got tone, firing!" With a tight grip of the trigger she launched a radar-guided SRVM. It propelled away like a shooting star, determined to strike its target before a volley of decoy flares deflected it into a structure on the nearby station. "Shit, I missed!"

She tried again, but it was a fruitless effort as she wasted her only other missile, forcing her to switch back to the previous stores. "I'm out of missiles, switching back to guns!"

Her chest tightened and time seemed to crawl as she watched a small short-range, vacuum-capable projectile launch from an underwing pylon on the enemy fighter, heading straight for Gilda.

"Bug in the vac!" She responded by deploying her own flares, resulting in the missile deflecting into empty space due to the confused guidance system. "Missile evaded... he's still got a lock on me, Spectrum!"

The hostile fighter launched another SRVM.

"Missile in the black! Out of flares! Ejecting!" Her action unfolded mid-sentence as she activated the emergency ejection system. In a split second, several explosive bolts popped and separated the fighter's canopy away from the rest of the fuselage with micro JATO engines, leaving the ship to drift aimlessly away from the individually-pressurized pod that was once the cockpit.

Dash and the enemy fighter banked to avoid the dead metal, which proceeded to drift towards Orion and crash into another engineering structure. As she was distracted by shifting her attention to the wellbeing of Gilda trapped in her escape pod, as well as the empty fuselage destroying more of the already severely-damaged orbital, the hostile spacecraft managed to turn the tables and pursue her from the rear.

Red tracers flew past the windows as she tried to break away, the fighter closing its distance and tracking her movements with its signature maneuverability. Another tone whined through her cockpit, but this one was the most unwelcome and dreaded for fighter pilots: the alarm indicating a radar lock from an enemy spacecraft.

"Alright, that's it!" She punched a large yellow button on the dashboard panel. Her external fuel reserves jettisoned from the underwing stores and drifted into the vacuum.

The hostile fighter was agile enough to avoid the first tank, but was somehow blindsided into impacting the second one, resulting in its inevitable and fiery demise.

"Wohoo! Tango delta!" Luck like that doesn't come easy...

"Dash, I'm still in trouble here!" Gilda's situation was indeed dire as indicated by her breaking communication standards by using her partner's real name rather than callsign. "I'm in a dead drift towards Orion!"

Dash could spot her moving at an alarmingly high velocity, heading towards a giant control spire atop the STC section of the station.

"My thrusters are tango uniform! I have no, repeat, no attitude control!"

"Hang on, I'm coming to you!" Dash boosted for the rogue pod to intercept it with her tractor beam, pulling it out of danger just a few meters away from contact with the station surface.

"Thanks, Dash." The relief in Gilda's voice was obvious.

"Heh, saved your flank again, 'ey G?"

"Oh, gimmie a break."