To Boldly Hoof It Ch 9. Capture
Ch 8. Capture
After several hours of traveling through hyperspace, they were finally almost at Saturn's moon, Titan, and the plot hole. Blueblood had gathered everyone on the bridge to go over their plan for when they arrived.Blueblood sat in his command seat, waiting impatiently for the last crew member to arrive on the bridge. Surprise."Where the heck is Surprise?" Blueblood said in aggravation. "I told everypony to get to the bridge fifteen minutes ago!"Everyone simply shrugged."Have you noticed Surprise has been acting a bit... odd lately?" said Trixie.Everyone looked at Trixie in confusion."Odd how?" asked Blueblood."Trixie isn't sure," said Trixie. "She just... doesn't seem to be acting like her usual self."Blueblood thought for a moment, but then shook his head. "No. I haven't noticed anything."Everyone else all shook their heads as well.Then Dumbbell grinned and spoke up. "Maybe it's just her time of the season," he said to Trixie, giving her a dismissive wave of his hoof like she should just forget about it. "I wouldn't worry about it."Trixie wasn't so sure, but she decided to let it go for now."Well, anyway," said Blueblood, "I'm just making sure we all know what the plan is for when we get to the plot hole?""Yeah," said Score. "Get to Titan, figure out a way to stop the plot hole, then stop the plot hole and save the universe, and then have a sexy dance party."Blueblood raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't recall anything about a dance party.""Are you saying we shouldn't have a sexy dance party?" asked Score."Well, I'm not saying that."Suddenly, they heard the sound of hoof beats outside of the room in the hallway, and a second later Surprise galloped into the room. "Sorry," she said hastily. "I was... busy.""What the heck took you so long?" demanded an irritated Blueblood. "You know how much I hate to be kept waiting!""I was... brushing my fur!" the blond pegasus said. "Normal ponies brush their fur, right?"Blueblood looked over at Trixie. "You see? She doesn't seem to be acting unusual to me."Trixie rolled her eyes.Suddenly, Sunset Shimmer made a "Ahem" noise. Blueblood looked over at her and saw her glaring at him, tapping her hoof like she was waiting for something. Then he remembered."Oh, and Sunse... I mean, WINRY told me she has something she wants to show us all," he said, remembering Sunset thought she was someone named Winry, who apparently was good with machines.Sunset smiled and walked out to where all of them could see her. Her horn glowed and she levitated some football sized object out from behind her and levitated it in front of her for all of them to see. It was a round metal device of some kind."I have an invention!" she said proudly. "I call it an Alchemy Bomb! It works by fusing matter and antimatter to release massive amounts of energy when detonated. If you'd like a demonstration, I could...""Um, I'd hate to interrupt you," Flam interrupted Sunset, "but we're about to reach Titan.""Finally!" exclaimed Gilda."Everyone to your stations!" Blueblood ordered."DARN IT!" they heard Sunset yell in disappointment as everyone got to their computer stations, and those without a station just stood out of the way.Flim spoke. "I'm turning off the hyper drive in three... two... one..."The ship lurched forward as they came out of hyperspace. On the view screen, directly ahead of them was a gigantic sphere with rings around it.Blueblood leaned forward in his seat. "There it is!" he said. "Titan!"Trixie looked over at him from her computer screen. "Actually, that's Saturn, the planet Titan orbits. Titan doesn't have rings like that, Saturn does. You did go to school, didn't you?""Even I knew that," Hoops said.Blueblood glared at Trixie in annoyance. "Then where is Titan? And the plot hole?""According to radar, they're on the other side of Saturn," said Jet Set."Then get us there!" said Blueblood impatiently, slumping back against his seat."Okay. I'm going to slingshot us around Saturn," said Dumbbell. He began working the piloting controls in front of him.They flew at sublight speed around the giant planet Saturn to the other side. During this time, some of them took the time to admire Saturn's beauty on the view screen."My gosh, look at those rings!" exclaimed a star struck Upper Crust. "Absolutely beautiful!""What are they made of?" asked Hoops.Everyone in the room shrugged at that question. They were sure some more nerdy pony back home knew, but none of them were that into space to know the answer to that.Finally, they spotted the yellow moon Titan come into view over Saturn's horizon, and shortly after, a swirling vortex of light right near the yellow orb also came into view. They all gasped when they got their first actual look at the plot hole."Sweat Celestia!" exclaimed Flim.There it is, Blueblood thought to himself. The thing that's going to destroy everything unless we find a way to stop it. He pointed at the viewscreen with his hoof. "Okay, there's the plot hole! Head straight for it.""Would you look at the size of that thing!" said Dumbbell. "It's even bigger then that moon now!"It was true. The plot hole had grown so big; it was even bigger than the size of Titan.They flew towards the plot hole. As they got closer, and the swirling vortex became bigger and more visible, Blueblood remembered his dream.Could it actually mean something? Could my destiny really be inside the plot hole, and I have to go inside it?"Hey! What's that?"Blueblood was woken from his thoughts by Trixie speaking up. He looked over at her. She was pointing at the view screen. Blueblood turned his head to look at it.On it, he could see some object floating in space near the plot hole. He squinted to try to see it better. It was dull white in color, and appeared to be shaped like a heart. Not the kind of heart that's in your body, but the symbol for love kind of heart. And it was massive! This thing dwarfed even that humongous ship they had encountered before that had Rarity and Shining Armor on it. Of course, it wasn't nearly as big as the plot hole."I don't know," said Jet Set. "It's shaped like a... heart.""Maybe it's an asteroid or something," said Blueblood dismissively. He wanted to just ignore what ever it was and focus on the plot hole.As they got closer to it, they were able to get a better look at it. They could make out that it wasn't just a rock. Its surface was too smooth. It looked metallic... and artificial."That's no asteroid," said Hoops. "It's a space station!""A space what?" said Lightning Dust.Lightning Dust's question went unanswered. Verbally, anyway. Her question was answered visually as they got a bit closer to the plot hole and were able to see that Hoops was right. Just like with the ship they had encountered back when they had first left Earth, they could begin to see tiny windows on the heart shaped object the closer they got to it. It really was a space station!"Oh my gosh! You're right!" said Upper Crust just as shocked as the rest of them."A space station shaped like a giant heart?" said Trixie with a raised eyebrow."I think a better question is why the heck is there a buckin' space station out here? And who the heck does it belong to?" said Gilda.Oh, great. What fresh new horror have we come across now? Blueblood thought to himself with alarm.Trixie, however, was putting two and two together in her head, and what had just occurred to her made her even more concerned. "Everypony, what if this space station is connected to that other ship we saw, and Celestia?"They all looked at each other, a look of mutual dread on their faces. Now that they thought of it, it was very likely Celestia had something to do with this, what with the space ship Rarity and Shining Armor had been on, and them saying they didn't want the plot hole stopped, and now a heart shaped space station right next to the plot hole that was even the same color as that other space ship. None of them wanted to risk getting caught by her, especially when they still didn't know why Celestia and Rarity and Shining Armor, and probably the rest of the Element Bearers too, were even doing the things they were doing."What do we do now?" asked Score."I think we should get out of here," said Trixie."Yeah. I think your right," said Blueblood, in complete agreement with her, even though leaving the plot hole right when they had finally gotten to it disappointed him. "Dumbbell, get us out of here!""You got it," the brown pegasus replied. He began working the controls in front of him to turn the ship away from the plot hole and the space station. However, much to his confusion, and dismay, the ship didn't turn. Instead, the ship started to shake and rattle slightly. That, and it kept moving forward like it had been, towards the space station."What's going on!?" Upper Crust squeaked fearfully."Dumbbell, what's going on?!" A very anxious Blueblood repeated Upper Crust's question. "Why are we still heading towards that thing?""I don't know!" Dumbbell answered honestly, still trying to get the ship to turn away from their current course, but remaining unsuccessful. "I'm trying, but the ship isn't turning!""Why is it shaking?" asked Jet Set as his wife wrapped her forelegs around him."I don't know!" Dumbbell shouted. Then he looked at Hoops beside him, who looked just as worried as he felt. "Hoops, did you do anything?"Hoops looked at his friend with indignation. "Hey, don't look at me!" the orange pegasus said, throwing both his hooves into the air above his head to emphasis."Oh no!" Flam suddenly spoke up from where he and his brother stood at a computer screen at the back of the room. "We're caught in some kind of tractor beam! That space station is pulling us towards it!"Everyone's eyes widened in terror at that piece of information."Is there anyway to get us out of it?" asked Blueblood in desperation.Flim and Flam both shrugged, an expression of helplessness on their faces.Blueblood looked over at Sunset, who was staring at the viewscreen, looking just as afraid as the rest of them. "Sun- I mean Winry, do you have any ideas?"Sunset looked at him and shook her head with the same helpless expression that Flim and Flam had.Blueblood looked back at the viewscreen. They were getting closer and closer to the heart shaped space station. They were now so close to it that its surface was starting to look flat and stretched out forever in all directions, despite the fact that they knew it was rounded. That's how big the space station was!They could all see row of a rectangle shaped openings going around the side of the space station that they were being pulled towards.Blueblood could feel his heart pounding in his chest. "Isn't there anything we can do?!" he shouted."You can't win," said Surprise suddenly from the back of the room. "But there are alternatives to fighting."Lightning Dust looked over at the white pegasus, confused. "Like what?"Surprise turned to face her. "Like magically taking the form of your enemy so that you can hide right amongst them without them ever knowing."Lightning Dust scowled at her. "Well, we're not changelings, so we can't do that.""What a pity," said Surprise.They all watched the viewscreen helplessly as it showed them slowly getting pulled into one of the giant rectangular shaped openings on the side of the space station. Inside the opening, it looked like they were being pulled into some sort of massive hangar bay. Standing or marching around on the floor of the hangar bay were dozens of Princess Celestia's royal guards. That at least answered their question as to who this space station belonged to."What are we going to do?" said Upper Crust, still clutching her husband. "They're going to break in here and capture us!""We could put the force field up around the ship!" suggested Score.Blueblood at first felt hopeful, but then remembered why that wouldn't work and shook his head. "No. They will get through that eventually."Score hung his head."Well what else can we do?" argued Gilda. "There are way to many solders down their for us to fight, even for me and Lightning Dust, not to mention who knows how many more guards are in this giant place.Sunset Shimmer spoke up. "I've got a few crazy idea's that just might work!" she said, her tone actually sounding confident. "But we need a place to hide first!""What is it?" asked Trixie.Suddenly they felt a big thump through the floor, and the ship's shaking stopped. It also looked like they had stopped moving. They all realized their ship had landed inside the hangar bay."There's no time to explain now!" said Sunset urgently. "We have to hide NOW!"Just then Blueblood had an idea. "I know a place we can hide!" he said. "Follow me."Without question, they all got to their hooves and followed Blueblood as he led them out of the bridge and upstairs to his bedroom. He hurried over to a set of double doors in the room and through them open with his magic, revealing a large, walk in closet. In it were fancy horseshoes, collars, suits, jackets, ties, and even, oddly enough, pants."Inside!" Blueblood stated.They all rushed hid inside, and Blueblood used his magic to close and lock the closet doors. It was a tight fit for all of them. Their hides were all pressed up against each other, much to the annoyance of most of them."Well this is cozy," grunted Flim sarcastically as he was squished between his brother and Gilda."Get off of me!" Gilda growled at Flim, trying to shove him away from her."I can't! There's no room!""HEY, SOMEPONY'S TOUCHING ME!" squealed Upper Crust."WHO'S TOUCHING MY WIFE!" Jet Set shouted angrily."Everyone is touching everyone!" said Sunset as she was accidentally shoved into a wall by Lightning Dust. "There's nothing we can do about it!"Trixie grunted as she was squished between Blueblood and Surprise. "What good is this going to do?" she said in irritation as she shoved Blueblood way from her against the closet doors, earning an "Ow!" from him. "They're going to find us eventually!""Don't worry. I have a plan B just in case," grunted Sunset.Trixie was about to object when they heard the sound of the front doors bursting open downstairs, and the sound of pony guard's hoof steps as they entered the house."Everyone stay quiet!" Sunset hissed.They all did their best to keep quiet and not move as they listened to the sound of the guards hurrying around inside the house, running through the halls and up the stares, shouting to each other, and opening doors.They all cringed when they heard hoof steps coming into the room. They all cringed again when they heard the knob of the closet doors they were in being messed with. Jet Set had to put his hoof over Upper Crust's mouth to keep her from screaming.After a few seconds, the noise of the knob outside being messed with stopped and they heard a stallion's voice speak. "This door's locked. Move onto the next.""But what if they're behind this door?" said another stallion's voice."I just said it's locked," said the first stallion again."Well, couldn't we knock to be sure?""Hey, that's a good idea! You must be one of those idea ponies.""Why thank you.""Oh, for crying out loud!" Gilda couldn't help but whisper. Trixie quickly grabbed the griffon's beak in her magic and clamped it shut, but it was too late."Did you just hear something?" they heard the second stallion say."I heard a voice, but I don't hear it anymore, so I'm going to assume there's no pony behind the door," said the first stallion.Then they heard another set of hooves enter the room. "Hey, I just heard something coming from behind that door," a mare's voice suddenly said."We heard a voice," said the first stallion, "but the door's locked.""Well why don't we break it down just to be sure?" said the mare."Okay. I suppose it's worth a shot.""Darn it!" Sunset Shimmer whispered to all of them. "Time for Plan B. Open the doors and grab them!"They all looked at Sunset in surprise."What?" said Blueblood.But the next thing they knew, Sunset's horn glowed, and the two closet doors suddenly swung open, revealing the behinds of three royal guards, a unicorn stallion, a pegasus stallion, and a pegasus mare, who were about to buck the closet doors down with their hind legs."Grab 'em!" Sunset repeated, this time as an order.Without question, and without much else they could do now, they all reached out of the closet and grabbed the three surprised guards by their hind legs and pulled them into the closet with them. Sunset reclosed the closet doors with her magic while the rest of them all gagged the three struggling guards to keep them from shouting and then knocked them out with a few swift blows to their heads."Now what do we do?" said Trixie to Sunset. "They're going to notice a few of their guards are missing.""Okay! Here's the plan," said Sunset as they tie up the three unconscious guards with some of the clothes in the closet. "Three of us will put on their armor and disguise as guards, and then go out there and tell the rest of the guards that there's no one on board. Then, once they're convinced, get back on the ship and we'll take off as fast as we can.""What are we supposed to tell them happened to us?" said Trixie. "They probably know someone had to be on the ship! What should we tell them happened to all of us?"Sunset thought for a moment. "Um... tell them the crew got off the ship in an escape pod!""But we don't have any escape pods!" said Blueblood."They don't know that!" said Sunset."Oh. Right.""Escape pods would have been a good idea to have before leaving Earth though," said Flim.Blueblood considered the plan for a moment. It actually did sound like it might work, as long as they didn't get caught. "Alright. Lets do it!"Sunset grinned proudly. "You're welcome."Suddenly Flam spoke up. "Wait! This plan won't work! If we try to take off, they'll just get us with their tractor beam again!"Everyone's spirits fell at that. They should have known it wouldn't be that simple."He's right," said Flim."Darn it!" Gilda growled. "What do we do now?"Sunset thought for a second. "I have an idea." She looked up at them. "Whoever's going is going to also have to find a way to disable the tractor beam, so that we can get out of here without a problem. I'd go myself, but we only have one set of unicorn armor, and its too big for me." She pointed at Blueblood. "You are the only unicorn here big enough to wear the unicorn armor."Blueblood frowned. He looked around him at everyone else in the room, but could see she was right. He let out a sigh. "Lucky me," he groaned. He took the unicorn guard's helmet off and put it on himself. "This is going to completely mess up my mane," he complained.In addition to Blueblood, it was decided that Dumbbell would wear the pegasus stallion's armor, and Lightning Dust would wear the pegasus mare's armor. "How do we look?" asked Lightning Dust after the three of them were fully dressed in the armor."Like royal guards," said Trixie."Perfect!"Blueblood, however, was still worried about something. "Promise you wont take off without us?" he asked the rest of them nervously."Why would we do that?" said Flim. "We're all friends! Don't you trust us?""And Trixie is your marefriend!" stated Trixie, getting right in Blueblood's face. "Do you honestly think she would leave without her coltfriend?""I'm sorry," said Blueblood, lowering his ears against his head. "I'm still getting used to the whole 'friendship' thing. Its still rather difficult for me to trust others, especially in life threatening situations like this.""Look at it this way," said Flam. "How will we know the tractor beam is disabled unless you three get back here and tell us?"Blueblood thought for a moment. "Hmm. Good point.""Okay, lets go!" said Lightning Dust, a confident expression on her face.Blueblood was about to follow, but then he turned back to Trixie really quick."Can I have a kiss before I go," he asked her, giving her a sheepish smile.Trixie kissed him on the lips, and then she grabbed his head in her fore hooves and looked him right in the eyes. "Don't screw this up, and you'll get more than just a kiss when you get back."Yay! Blueblood thought to himself. "Yes, m'lady," he said with a grin, and then turned and followed Lighting Dust and Dumbbell out the closet doors.Lightning Dust turned to look at Dumbbell and Blueblood. "Okay, you two, just follow my lead. I have experience with military. Just stand up straight, keep a serious look on your faces, and don't talk unless spoken to. Oh, and be sure to salute you superior officer! Now lets go!"As they were walking out of Blueblood's bedroom into the hallway, Dumbbell muttered over to Blueblood, "Dude, your marefriend has you totally whipped."Blueblood glared at the snickering pegasus jock walking beside him. "At least I have a marefriend," he said.At that, Dumbbell stopped snickering hung his head. "Darn it."Lightning Dust glared back at the two stallions in annoyance. "Hey, would you two shut up!" she hissed. "We're trying to act like guards!"Dumbbell and Blueblood were brought back to reality and stood up straight and shut their mouths, and continued to follow Lightning Dust through the hallway.They quickly found a group of guards heading towards the stare case. They nonchalantly sidled up behind the guards and joined them as they headed down the stares to the first floor. Once there, they met up with another group of guards waiting in the foyer. One of them stepped forward, a light gray unicorn stallion, and the guards Lightning, Dumbbell, and Blueblood were with all put their hooves to their foreheads in salute. Lightning, Dumbbell, and Blueblood quickly followed suit and saluted him as well."At ease," the unicorn guard said in a gruff voice. "Did you find anything?"One of the guards in front of Lightning, Dumbbell, and Blueblood, a pegasus stallion, shook his head. "No, sir. The entire ship's deserted."The other guard, who was apparently the superior, raised his eye brow. "How can that be? Where could they have gone?""I don't know, sir."Lightning Dust decided to risk it and spoke up. "Permission to speak, sir?"Everyone turned to look at her. She hoped she hadn't just made a huge mistake."What is it, solder?" asked the superior guard.Lightning gulped nervously. "I believe the crew may have gotten off the ship in an escape pod, sir!"The gruff voiced superior guard walked up in front of her. "What makes you say that?" he asked."Err, um," Lightning Dust struggled to come up with an answer as quickly as she could, "we searched the ship from top to bottom, sir, and found no sign of them. It's the only logical explanation, sir. Also, we found no escape pod on board, so the crew must have taken it, because only complete morons would have flown off into space without an escape pod, sir."The guard stared at Lightning Dust for a few moments, and then to their surprise and relief, he let out a chuckle."You have a good point there, solder," he said. Then he got serious again. "Very well. All of you return to your posts.""Yes, sir!" all the guards said, saluting him, and then proceeded to march out the front doors of the house. Lightning, Dumbbell, and Blueblood followed suit with them, all three of them breathing a sigh of relief that that had worked.As they walked out into the large, brightly lit hangar bay, they couldn't help but look around them at the place in awe. It was enormous! Then again, it had to be in order to fit an entire space ship inside it, but still it was quite a sight to see. They looked over at the large opening their ship had come in through, and gaped in amazement. The only thing separating them from the deadly vacuum of space was a thin, light pink, magical force field stretching across the opening.Lightning Dust spotted a doorway at the back of the hangar bay and motioned to Dumbbell and Blueblood to follow her. They broke away from the rest of the solders, while still acting like guards and keeping up the appearance that they were supposed to be there, and marched back to the doorway, trying to bring as little attention to themselves as possible.They entered through the doorway and found themselves in a white and brightly lit corridor. Seeing that it seemed to be deserted, they broke out of character and let out a sigh of relief that they had managed to get this far."This place must be huge!" groaned Lightning as she looked from left to right down the corridor. "How the heck are we supposed to know where the tractor beam power source or controls are?""Hey, there's a map!" said Dumbbell suddenly. He pointed over to a large, square sign on the wall of the corridor. To their joy, it actually was a map of the inside of the space station. "Maybe we can get our bearings on that."They walk over to the map on the wall and began looking at it. There was a lot to look at. The map had to be divided into each floor of the space station, and there were a lot of floors."Okay, so we're here..." Dumbbell pointed to a little red dot on the map that read 'You are here'."Okay, and it looks like there are four different tractor beam machines here, here, here, and here." Lightning Dust pointed to four areas on the map with her hoof.Blueblood groaned. "And we have to go around to each one?! That will take forever!""Maybe not," said Lightning Dust. "Maybe we could just take out the one on our side of the station." She pointed to it with her hoof. "That's the one they'll probably try to get us with when we take off, after all. And while they're wondering why it isn't working, we can make our get away!"Blueblood looked at Lightning Dust. "You better be right about this.""Whoa! Look at this!" Dumbbell suddenly spoke up, getting Lightning and Blueblood's attention. He pointed to a spot on the map. "This says Princess Luna's room here!"Blueblood and Lightning Dust took a closer look at where Dumbbell was pointing. Indeed, one of the rooms was labeled 'Princess Luna's Quarters'."Auntie Luna?! She's here?!" exclaimed Blueblood excitedly."Apparently," said Dumbbell.Blueblood thought back to Doctor Whooves words. "The Doctor said we needed Princess Luna," he said to Lightning Dust and Dumbbell. "That she knows something important, but she can't remember it, or something. We should get her and take her with us."Lightning Dust wasn't so sure. "Are you sure?" she said to Blueblood. "She's probably in better hooves here! After all, last time I saw her, she was in a coma."Blueblood sighed. He honestly wasn't sure, but... "We have to take her with us! If she knows something that could help us, then we need her. After all, the universe is going to be destroyed unless we can stop it! She may be our only hope!"Lightning Dust was silent for a moment, but then she nodded. "Okay, but you better be right about this.""Fine," said Blueblood."Okay," said Lightning Dust. "So you two go kidnap the princess, and I'll go take care of the tractor beam thing."Blueblood glared at Lightning Dust. "We're not kidnapping her!" he said indignantly. "If anything, we're rescuing her!"Lightning Dust rolled her eyes. "Whatever! We'll all meet back here, right?"Dumbbell and Blueblood nodded. "Right!" they both said."Alright! Good luck!" said Lightning Dust as she turned and flapped her wings, taking flight down the corridor.Blueblood and Dumbbell turned and trotted off down the opposite direction.