In a desperate attempt to protect the last of the Old Magic, Starlight Glimmer embarks on a journey to safeguard it in the last place her adversaries would expect—the lost planet of Equus.
Thousands of years into the future, the Empire of Equestria is in shambles, its ponies left to waste away in space colonies or dying terraformed planets without a strong leader to guide them.
With the Empire fragmented mercenaries like Grogar have risen to power and attacked it head-on with only one goal in mind: to get their hooves on the Stone of Harmony, the last vestige of the old magic left in the universe.
In a desperate ploy to protect the stone, Starlight Glimmer embarks on a journey to safeguard it in the last place her adversaries would anticipate—the lost planet of Equus...if she finds it first.
Her old friend Sunburst might have some answers, but in a galaxy where everyone only looks after themselves, Starlight's misplaced trust might not only cost her her life but the future of the Empire as a whole.
Written for the Science Fiction Contest III Rated T for sci-fi violence, some swearing, minor character death, and a dash of awkward romance, but nothing too severe.
Growing up, Starlight had heard stories of Equus, the home planet of her teacher, Twilight Sparkle.
She heard all about the glowing blue marble that sat in the heart of the universe, the centerpiece of all creation, at least in her teacher’s eyes. She recalled the fondness in which she spoke of the jungles, the beaches, and the valleys, the way Twilight would describe them made the hologram stills that Starlight owned look like the scribbles of a foal. The stories and the adventures she would tell between lessons stirred in Starlight such excitement that she almost wished she could see it with her own eyes someday.
It was hard to recall that feeling now, the reality of it all was almost too much to process.
Her hooves sank deeply into the soft, moist earth below her as the larger planet’s gravity pulled her down. Back in the Ark, she was as weightless as a feather—Equus made her feel heavy and grounded, even the dark blue sky felt cold and suffocating, like a thick blanket she could not shake off. The computer’s reading informed her that the planet's oxygen was safe to breathe, and she gladly ripped off her broken helmet and tossed it recklessly to the side. Starlight coughed and gagged as the world rushed in, overloading her senses. In the Ark, the atmosphere was thin and still, the air here shifted and blew past, unrelenting and space-cold, her thick space suit felt like gossamer flapping wildly in the throes of the Equus breeze.
Somehow she managed to stumble away from the wreckage, not because she recalled her teacher’s warnings about the dangers of fire and explosions, but simply because the smell of smoke and burning metal was too unpleasant to be around, the heat on her back intolerable as the cold that pushed her back.
She walked until the fire was just a pleasant, orange glow in the corner of her eye, and the ground under her hooves gave way for something more pleasant, something softer and sweeter that put something in the back of Starlight’s mind at ease. Her head throbbed, something moist and warm flowed down her forehead over her right eye, making it hard to see the way forward in the darkness. Pain shoot up her back left leg, forcing her to limp through this…this…forest! Yes, she remembered, a place filled with “flowers” and “trees”, she wished she could see them, but it was so dark, and her head was killing her.
Wait, she thinks she sees one, tickling her nose, it was small and so very pretty. Her leg didn’t hurt anymore, and it was much more comfortable to lay on the ground, but the throbbing in her head wouldn’t stop, it hadn’t stopped since she broke through the planet’s atmosphere, it had shaken her ship violently and ripped her from her seat like a rag doll, she hadn’t had the time to strap in. Grogar’s forces had seized the Ark, there had been no time to prepare, Twilight had to drag her away, shield her from the screams and the smell of burned ozone, there had been no time to ask questions as Twilight slipped something over her neck and shoved her unceremoniously into the ship.
There had been no time to say goodbye.
A sound between a scream and a sob shook her shoulders. She rolled over onto her back, taking in deep breaths. The oxygen on this planet was so abundant that it filled her lungs to their maximum capacity, and for a moment she feared that they might burst from the pressure, but they resisted and the air rushed out of them with each painful sob that left her. Lying on the ground made the trees appear impossibly large, she had no idea that they could grow so tall, hiding her home and the stars from her view.
Her hoof went to her neck, clutching something hard and warm, the last gift of her teacher. If it was what she thought it was…
“Help me…someone, anyone, please…” she mumbled, closing her eyes and pouring her magic into the dormant stone.
The stone responded almost immediately, pulsing against her chest like a hummingbird’s heartbeat, filling her with hope and light that displaced the night for a brief second—but it was gone before she could revel in it.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness to the point she wasn’t sure if what she saw when she opened her eyes was real or not.
She thought she saw ponies gathering around her, but she blinked and it was only the shadows of the trees, she blinked again and the ponies moved frantically around her. But there was one vision that refused to leave her, his hair was like fire and his face, golden and wrinkled with worry, filled her vision as he cradled her body, lifting her from the cold hard ground.
“By that stars, Starlight Glimmer!? It’s you, right? Starlight? Starlight!”
The voice was unfamiliar and sounded very far away, but those eyes…she recognized those eyes anywhere.
Sunburst—?
Usually, a hug from her best friend was enough to calm her down, but Starlight’s crying echoed loudly inside her bedroom, loud enough to cover Sunburst’s weeping. She clung to his thin frame for dear life and he hugged her back just as fiercely, aware that this could very much be the last time they would hold each other. After what felt like hours, Starlight’s cries lessened, even though grief was still a heavy lump in her throat she could not swallow. The two young ponies broke from the hug, but Starlight caught his hoof in both of hers as if that would prevent him from running, and she smiled a little when he squeezed her hoof back.
“I just don’t understand,” Starlight mumbled, voice hoarse from crying. “Why would Twilight do this? You’re so much smarter than me, if anything, I should be the one she sends away.”
“It’s not about that,” Sunburst answered, pushing his glasses aside so he could wipe his eyes.
“Then what is it?!” Starlight snapped, tired of the excuses that ponies had thrown at her ever since it was announced that the Zeniths would be leaving. It wasn’t unheard of but it was rare for ponies to leave the Ark, it hadn’t happened in Starlight’s lifetime though, and for it to be her best friend…
Sunburst hesitated with a well-practiced lie on his lips but softened when caught under the full force of her teary gaze. He could never tell her no—especially now. He scooched closer, looking around the empty room as if spies were hidden under Starlight's sleeping pod or listening in through her window as the Ark made its way through the galaxy, stars drifting in the endless void of space. Draping his foreleg over her shoulder, he pulled her close, in the way he had done many times to share the stories he heard the adults tell that weren’t meant for young ears such as theirs. “It’s something important that only my family can do.”
He cupped his hooves over her ear and whispered in such a low voice that even Starlight was straining to hear. Her face wrinkled with confusion, then her eyes widened and she gasped.
“It’s real?!”
“Shh! Not so loud!”
“Sorry,” Starlight said, dropping her voice low as well, “but I thought that was a fairy tale that Twilight made up!”
“It’s very real,” Sunburst said with a grin. “Mom and Dad have a pretty good idea of where it is, we are going to go see if they’re right, and then—“
“You’ll come back!” For the first time since she heard the horrible news, she felt hope blooming in her chest. “Your parents are the smartest ponies on board, of course they’re right! You and Sunset won’t be gone forever! This is great!”
Sunburst didn’t return her enthusiasm, and she felt her heart sink again.
“It’s not that simple,” he said, looking down at the space between them and the wrinkled gray sheets of Starlight’s bed. “If they are wrong, we have to keep looking…we can’t come back until we find it.”
The silence that followed was louder than her crying, and Starlight could feel the tears gathering in the back of her eyes once again, but she bit her lip, looking down at their joined hooves.
There weren’t that many foals aboard the Ark, so it was natural that they became such close friends, but as they grew older and games became less frequent, she grew to appreciate him for who he was: honest. Her father loved her, but his coddling was suffocating, and Twilight was wise and a wonderful teacher, but often spoke in riddles and circles. They always kept secrets, they could never be straightforward with her, and the older she got, the more frustrating the grownups' evasiveness was. Sunburst’s honesty was a gift she never took for granted. If he didn’t know, he would say so, if he did, he would explain with great detail everything that he knew. She was usually careful with this aspect of her friend, for his honesty never took into consideration her feelings—which had caused more than one fight between them—but still, Starlight took the chance to ask, for her grieving heart scrambled for anything to hold on to:
“…but once you find it, you will come back, right?”
Sunburst smiled in the low light of the drifting stars, giving her hoof a reassuring squeeze. “Yes, I promise.”
Starlight woke up to the worst pain she’d ever been in her life without the luxury of forgetting the events of the night before.
Her head throbbed dully and pricks of pain shot up Starlight’s leg with every twitch of her muscles, but a sense of urgency and duty cut through the fog of grogginess that wrapped around her brain. Twilight had trusted her—saved her—and Celestia only knows what happened after that, but the worst-case scenario could very well be true. Starlight gritted her teeth and sat on the bed, fighting against the dizziness that threatened to push her down. She would not let Twilight’s sacrifice be in vain.
“Wow, hey, you can’t move yet!”
A pair of hooves pushed her down and Starlight was embarrassed by the little strength this pony needed to do so, still, she fought, waving her hooves about to get this pony off her. “Ma’am! I’m trying to help you—ouch! How can you be so strong!? I put enough morphine in you to sedate a galactic elephant!”
Starlight blinked and her vision finally focused on the room around her, and the unicorn mare glaring daggers at her. What she first noticed was her thick glasses, hastily taped together and with one of the lenses cracked, over sharp purple eyes that looked down at her unflinchingly. Her coat was a soft cream color and with her red hair gathered messily in a bun at the top of her head, there was an intellectual air about her, but Starlight was sure that she was no doctor or healer, judging by her bedside manners.
“Is this how ponies of the colonies greet each other?” The mare huffed, her horn glowing as she picked up a basket of supplies from the floor.
“Where am I?” Starlight asked, her voice hoarse and tongue dry.
“At the hospital,” the mare answered curtly, with her back to her as she messed with something on one of the many shelves that lined the wall. “You got a private room and everything, only the best for her Highness after all!”
Starlight’s eyes drifted from the mare’s back to the room around her. Just by the number of unopened crates, boxes, and bags that littered the floor around her, the room looked more like a storage closet than anything else. Rusty walls had lost their metal shine decades ago, along with the glass on the two windows of the room. One was above her bed, boarded up with just enough gaps between the planks to let the sun stream in and shine a spotlight on the dust particles in front of her, and the other by the door, also boarded up with scrap wood and tattered curtains for “privacy.” There was a plastic cup with a straw to her right, set up over a metal crate as a makeshift nightstand, Starlight reached for it with her magic and took a cautious sip of it, then drank more fully when she realized that it was plain water, downing the liquid in just a few gulps.
“Excuse me, huh…”
“Moondancer.”
“Moondancer, where am I, is this Equus?”
“Oh my Luna, you really are messed up in the head!” The mare laughed hard enough that she had to grab onto the shelf for support, once she got a hold of herself she continued. “Unfortunately, this is Trojan L5, the only populated planet of this sector of the galaxy…yeah, I would make that face too if I found out I landed here.”
There was heavy thumping coming from the hallway that grew louder until the door to the room opened with a hiss and a metallic moan that startled Starlight. A pony stumbled in, his metallic hooves heavy against the stone floor, and he looked at her with one organic eye and one synthetic, both of them wide open as his jaw slackened in an expression that mirrored hers. Over the years she had imagined this reunion to the point of rumination, she pictured fanfare and celebration, a happily ever after like the stories Twilight would tell her, all that crashed and burned inside her mind, leaving her feeling cheated, sitting on the uncomfortable thin mattress as she stared at her long lost friend. Or what was left of him.
Moondancer cleared her throat. “Hey, I got like a million things I need to do, so…”
“Huh, yeah, thanks, I, I’ll take over from here.” Sunburst stuttered.
Moondancer shrugged and headed for the door. “By the way, you might want to double-check her, she woke up asking if she was in Equus.” She said with a giggle before closing the door behind her.
Unpleasant as the mare was, Starlight almost wished she stayed, being alone with Sunburst now was its own kind of unpleasantness. She tried to get out of bed and instantly regretted it as a flare of pain shot that idea down. Sunburst was instantly by her side, moving faster than a normal pony should, especially one that she recalled beating in various races growing up.
“Here, let me just—”
“No, don’t touch it, I don’t want—” Starlight swatted his hooves away from the morphine drip, their hooves made contact and the sound of flesh and bone against metal rang like a hollow bell. Starlight flinched, and Sunburst jumped back as if burned.
She rubbed her hoof, her eyes wide and curious as she stared at her old friend. She was surprised she recognized him at all, the last time she saw him he had been only a colt of twelve, tall for his age, but scrawny and awkward in his growing body. She remembered his youthful features and the way he put on a brave face as he, his parents, and his sister boarded the ship that would take them across the galaxy and away from the Ark. The image of him waving at her until the doors of the ship sealed shut had been burned to her memory for fifteen years.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Sunburst said hastily, pulling a small bag from his cloak and handing it to her. “It’s not much, but it’s nutritious and should help you feel better.” He saw her empty cup and snatch it, pulling out a canteen and filling it up with a dark red liquid. “This will also help.”
His hair was still the same shade of red she remembered, but it was longer and hung over his left eye—the synthetic one—as he dipped his head to fill her cup. His yellow coat was duller than the colt in her memories and he had grown a beard, thick and red, that hid most of his features from her gaze. His cloak also did a good job of hiding the extent of his new mechanical modifications, but as far as she could tell, all four of his limbs had been replaced.
He placed the cup on the nightstand and Starlight looked away, opening the bag and pulling out objects that looked like food. She started with a red glossy sphere and after a momentary hesitation, took a cautious bite of it. The skin broke with a satisfying crunch and a sweet fluid leaked down her chin, catching Starlight by surprise. It kicked started her hunger and she ate ravenously, finishing the sweet treat in only a few bites. She would have eaten the rest of the food in the same manner, had she not caught Sunburst staring at her with an amused expression.
Starlight blushed. “It’s rude to stare.”
“Sorry,” Sunburst said with a chuckle. “I forgotten how difficult it is to have fresh fruit in the Ark, you probably never had an apple before.”
“There were talks about creating an orchard but—” Starlight froze, the memories of screaming, explosions, and the image of the slumped bodies of those she called family made it hard to breathe, much less talk. “But now…”
Sunburst grabbed the nearest empty crate and used it as a makeshift chair, taking a seat next to her, he spoke in a very gentle voice. “Starlight, what happened?”
She swallowed thickly and, somehow, managed to speak around the lump of grief in her throat without choking. She told him about her last day at the Ark, how she woke up and had her usual breakfast of protein porridge and vitamin juice (it was incredibly bland when compared to the food Sunburst brought her), how she helped her father with his research (he was getting on in years, his arthritis was starting to bother him), how she met up with Minuet and Harper for some gossip (that’s where she heard about the upcoming orchard), followed by her training with Twilight.
It had been so normal, so mundane, that when the Ark shook and the lights flickered, she didn’t think much of it—the Ark was old, something was always breaking, malfunctioning, or leaking—but then the sirens wailed, heralding the end of her life as she knew it.
But worse than the sirens was the change in Twilight’s expression. Her teacher was as old as the Ark, if not older, it seemed nothing bothered her or worried her, but Starlight saw, for the briefest second, a look of genuine fear on the alicorn’s features before her expression hardened and she told Starlight to run, ignoring her protests and questions.
After that, it was all a blur. Grogar’s forces had siege the starship and laid waste to its interior. Starlight heard the screams, witnessed ponies running for safety only to be shot down by a barrage of lasers and gunpowder, and saw the mercenaries blocking the path ahead only to be swept away by Twilight’s magic. The way their bodies had crumpled with just a wave of Twilight’s horn would be forever etched in her nightmares.
And then, just as it seemed that the worst was over, he appeared.
“You saw Grogar?” Sunburst asked, surprised and a little frightened. “He never leaves his battleship, some don’t even believe he’s real…”
“Well, it looked like him, or as the rumors describe him at least.”
Some twenty years ago, around the time she was born, the rumors of a small mercenary group had reached the Ark, and when Starlight turned five years old, the gossip turned into fearful murmurs as this group gain more and more power over the galaxy, turning into a genuine threat that Twilight took seriously. The leader of this group was described as a “ram”, an ancient creature that once lived in the mountains of the fabled Equus, a race many had thought extinct, for no one had seen one in a thousand years.
She shuddered as she recalled just the amount of raw magic that emanated from the curl of his horns, his glowing red eyes that barely acknowledged her as he stalked towards Twilight, who had spread her wings in defiance and warning, shielding Starlight from his sight. The amount of magic they displayed was suffocating and she had never felt so helpless and small, like a drifting asteroid caught between two black holes, threatening to pulverize her if she made the wrong move.
Starlight took a sip of the red liquid Sunburst offered her and grimaced. Ugh, medicine, just as she suspected. “Twilight flew into a rage when she saw him, so whoever he was, he was important.”
Sunburst nodded, putting a hoof to his beard, stroking it pensively. “What happened after that? How did you escape?”
“We managed to escape him and then we went to the hangar,” Starlight looked down at her cup, trying not to cry. “I thought Twilight would be coming with me, but when I boarded the ship she…” Starlight reached for her chest with a tinge of panic, only to sigh quietly when she felt the stone underneath her robe. “She stayed behind, to stop Grogar, I think, next thing I know I landed here and you know the rest,” she shifted in her bed to face him, noticing with some relief that the pain in her leg had lessened considerably. “How long was I sleeping? Did you find any other survivors?”
“You have been unconscious for two days,” Sunburst nodded towards her forehead, which was covered in bandages, “you had a pretty bad concussion, but luckily the beacon you used helped us find you in time, as for survivors…I’m sorry, we haven’t found any pony else.”
“Oh…”
He put a hoof on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “But that doesn’t mean that no one else escaped, have a little fate.”
For a moment, it felt like they were back in the Ark, with him comforting her after a long day of magic lessons that she failed horribly. Starlight smiled covering his hoof with her own. His metal hoof was warm and smooth to the touch, shimmering in the sunlight. She could feel every scratch and dent on it, some she assumed were earned by everyday use, others, like the long scratch that had been welded together crudely, concerned her greatly.
“Sunburst, what about you? What happened after you left?”
She regretted her words as soon as Sunburst pulled his hoof away. His smile faded and he looked away, examining his mechanical hooves as an excuse to avoid her eyes. “A lot…”
The awkwardness returned, filled with a thousand unanswered questions that made the silence all the worse. Even if he had been open to her questions she wouldn’t even know where to start, or if she even wanted answers. After everything she saw in the Ark, it wasn’t hard to believe that the worst had befallen him and his family, with only Sunburst alive to tell the tale.
The sound of the door opening startled them both and Sunburst jumped to his hooves. “Shining, wait! She needs more time!”
“Sorry, it’s out of my hooves.” The stallion said. He was tall, muscular, and would have been considered handsome if not for the bags under his eyes and his dirty blue mane and tail, which were in desperate need of a wash. He was dressed from head to hoof in dark armor, with a shiny blaster gun that was just as big as her strapped to his side, which Starlight eyed nervously.
Shining and Sunburst escorted her room and down a long hall, unremarkable and old as the room she woke up in, flanking her on both sides as she limped after them. The medicine had worked and her leg was practically healed, but the pain lingered and slowed her down. The only one who seemed openly bothered by this was Shining, who was always a couple of steps ahead of them, his lips twisted in an impatient pout as he held open doors or waited for them at the bottom of the stairs.
Sunburst stuck to her side like glue and matched her pace, waiting to catch her in case the uneven floors of the building betrayed her, or at least she thought that was his intention, it wasn’t until Shining went ahead and disappeared behind the corner that Sunburst leaned in whispered in her ear.
“Don’t tell them you’re Queen Twilight’s student.”
Starlight stopped abruptly and his hoof shot out to catch her, thinking she had tripped. “What? Why?”
“It’s not safe,” Sunburst shook his head. “In fact, don’t tell anyone who you are or where you come from, especially Neighsay.”
“Who's Neighsay?”
“He's the owner of all this,” he motioned to the building and the city outside the window. “He's as slimy and greedy as they come, but luckily he only cares about himself, so as long as you don't interest him you are safe, but whatever you do, just don’t tell him the truth, the less he knows the better.”
“How can you work for somepony you can’t trust?”
Sunburst sighed. “When it comes to mercenaries offering work for drifters like myself, he’s one of the few that pay fairly, but that’s not saying much.” When Starlight gave him a strange look, he just shook his head in an exasperated manner. “Just…just do as I say, not as I do!”
She glared at him, but Sunburst ushered her towards the door and into a crowded room before she could argue.
Besides the great number of ponies of all shapes and sizes, each one fiercer and more intimidating than the last, there were dragons, griffons, yaks, and even changelings, in the midst. Starlight had never seen so many different creatures gathered around like this, hadn’t it been for Sunburst and Shining herding her further in, she would have probably stood by the entrance, frozen and mouth agape.
She was forced to make her way into the crowd, bumping into creatures and tables alike despite her best efforts to avoid them. Not many paid attention to her, except for the occasional curious glance as she accidentally bumped into them, she tried to put on her friendliest smile when she did so, remembering her teacher’s lessons about friendship and kindness, but her attempts were met with blank stares or raised eyebrows, if they even acknowledge her at all. Many paid attention to Sunburst and Shining though, especially the latter.
“Yo! Shining! Hitting the shooting range later?”
“You bet! Gotta test this baby after all!” He pulled out his weapon by bucking his hips upward, letting it twirl in the air for a few seconds before catching it and blasting a section of the ceiling to smithereens.
Starlight nearly jumped out of her skin and would have run out of the room had Sunburst not caught her and forced her to stay put, but everyone else thought it was hilarious, laughing as they brushed the debris from their heads. “Fucker! I’ll get you for that!”
“Remember that when I’m screwing you over in the locker room!” He made a few suggestive hip thrusts that made a yak snort his drink out of his nose with laughter before moving along.
Sunburst pulled her to her hooves and got her walking again, though shakily. She gave him a questioning look, but he only shook his head. Property damage seem to be the norm here, judging by the broken furniture, the worn walls riddled with holes, and the amount of rubbish Starlight had to step over made her want to gag. She kept looking down so as not to trip or step over a piece of glass, and in doing so, bumped into another creature—a dragon. He was by far the largest creature in the room, sitting lazily on a love couch that had seen better days with an electric cigar dangling from his claws. His body was covered with scars, gray scales shining dully in the light of the canteen, just as dull as his beady yellow eyes that looked down at her with a little too much interest for her comfort.
“Hmm, pretty little thing you got there, Sunburst,” the dragon said, taking a long drag of his electric cigar. “How much?”
Starlight spluttered. “Excuse me!?”
“She’s not for sale,” Sunburst said hastily. “Is Neighsay in?”
“Does he ever leave his hole?” The dragon huffed and nodded to the other side of the room, towards a set of double doors guarded by two mean-looking diamond dogs that Shining was already talking to. “You’re in luck, he just got a new cargo today, so he’s in a good mood.”
"Thanks, Steele,” Sunburst said and dragged Starlight along before she could give him a piece of her mind.
“If you change your mind you know where to find me!” Steele called out after them. “She would catch a pretty bit in the market, not that many purebred unicorns these days!”
Starlight ripped her hoof from his grip, staring at him incredulously. “You traffic ponies for a living!?”
“For Luna’s sake, no!” Sunburst ushered her past a brawl between a griffon and a changeling, raising his voice to be heard above the din of cheering voices. “I just talk to him sometimes, if I give him anything is scrapped guns and jewelry for him to snack on! But forget about that, listen,” he put his hooves on her shoulders. “I wanted to help you come up with an alibi, but we don’t have time for that, we will go with whatever story you can come up with and I’ll vouch for you, as long as you don’t mention the Ark or Queen Twilight.”
“Ok, lying by omission, I can do that better than improv.” She said with a roll of her eyes.
He gave her an apologetic smile. “I know this is very confusing for you, but no matter what happens, I promise that I have your back.”
For a moment, she was touched by his kindness. They hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years and yet he was willing to put so much on the line and look after an almost stranger, she didn’t think she could ever pay him back…if they succeeded first, that is.
The time to argue and plan past them by as they made their way through the crowd and soon the diamond dogs let them through the double doors, following them inside as they closed them behind them.
Neighsay’s office looked like someone had taken a museum's warehouse, shaken its contents, and left it as is. Ancient artifacts littered the floors and walls, clumped together in random piles like a dragon’s hoard, still images hung on the walls with no rhyme or reason, depicting strange scenes that Starlight couldn’t understand, and in the center of it all, sitting behind a large desk and plush velvet chair, was a unicorn that smiled pleasantly at them as they entered.
“Ah, Shining, Sunburst, just the ponies I wanted to see!”
Neighsay stood up and walked around the desk, his long red robes dragging across the floor. He was tall and incredibly thin, which made him look sickly when paired with his dull white coat and dark yellow eyes. He had a full head of hair though, jet black and long, brushed back to reveal a sharp face unaccustomed to smiling. “I see that your friend has finally recovered, Moondancer came to tell me all about it.”
Moondancer waved at them from the top of a mountain of cushions before going back to reading her book.
Sunburst stepped forward. “She still needs to rest.”
“Didn’t realize you were a medical expert.”
“A crash like that is no laughing manner, it’s a miracle she survived.”
Neighsay hummed, pretending to be deep in thought before turning to Shining. “What do you think?”
“Whatever you say goes, boss.” Shining took a seat on a golden chair, taking the corner of the silk sheet draped over it to clean his blaster.
He turned to her and paused, giving her a once-over. Starlight tried not to fidget, but he gave her the same stare that Steele had given her earlier—he was deciding her worth, running numbers in his head, and concluded that she must be something worthwhile. For her part, Starlight concluded that it was in her best interest to be out of his radar as soon as possible.
“What work can you do?”
Starlight blinked. “Work?”
“If you want to stay, you have to work,” Neighsay said, gesturing to the room. “Depending on your talents, something can be…arranged.”
“Oh, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think that will be necessary,” Starlight said quickly, feeling on edge by his tone. “I just need to get to the nearest starport and I’ll be out of your mane in no time!”
“And do you have enough funds for that?”
Starlight hesitated. She had no idea how much a ticket would cost and even if she did, any money she had was left in the Ark, which now probably lined the pockets of the mercenaries that took over her home, a home that no longer exists. A place she could no longer return.
Neighsay smiled as Starlight’s expression fell. “I really do feel for your plight but we don’t run a charity here. The treatment you received, plus the damages that your forceful landing has caused on my lands, and the time these ponies here spent taking care of you, that adds up.”
“I told you I would pay for her medicine,” Sunburst intervened.
“I’m charging her for the room and the bed.”
“For that closet and cot?” He scoffed, “I’ll pay for that too.”
Neighsay’s expression soured. “I don’t think your friends would appreciate the lost wages.”
“We don’t mind; we use those days as PTO!” Shining called out from his chair and Moondancer agreed with a shrug without taking her eyes from her book.
Relief washed over her as the list went down. Starlight didn’t trust him one bit. It wasn’t simply because of the way he leered at her earlier or his lack of compassion, there was just something about him that set off alarm bells in her mind. Twilight had always praised her for her intuition and she realized that she would have to rely on it more heavily from now on.
“There’s still the manner of the ruined landscape.”
“What about the ship? The price of the scrap metal offsets the cost of a few burned trees.”
“That hunk of junk? It was burnt and ruined by the time the metal workers got to it, hardly anything worth salvaging.”
They stared down at each other for a few seconds before Sunburst conceded. Satisfied, Neighsay turned to Starlight with a smile as genuine as a kick in the teeth. “Well, you certainly got yourself a fine negotiator, Miss…?”
“Starlight Glimmer.” She answered without thinking, it wasn’t until Sunburst gave her a pointed look that she realized her mistake. But to be fair, he only forbade the mentioning of Twilight’s name.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful mare,” he winked at her and hid her shudder behind a forced giggle. “Let’s see…do you have any cooking experience? I hate sending a sweet thing like you back there, but the head chef is always complaining about being short-staffed, so it would help us out if you could go in there and shut him up with your cooking skills.”
Starlight pondered on this. She had some cooking experience, and everyone on the Ark did since chores would always be rotated, but she was only used to feeding a couple of dozen ponies once a month, not feeding hundreds of bloodthirsty mongrels daily. Besides, cooking was her least favorite chore.
“How much does it pay?”
“Ninety bits a day,” the greedy unicorn said. “I will be keeping fifty percent of your paycheck, of course, to pay for the damages your crash landing cost me, but after that, that money is all yours.”
Starlight gawked. “You haven’t told me how much I owe you.”
“It’s a hefty amount, but nothing you can’t pay off with a little time and determination…unless you want to work as one of my mercenaries instead, like your friends here.”
She could feel Sunburst giving her another look, but Starlight ignored him in favor of her curiosity. “How much does that pay?”
“Depending on your talents, I’m willing to pay anything from twenty thousand to fifty thousand bits per mission,” Neighsay took a seat in his chair, extending his hooves in a wide shrug. “I only hire the best of the best after all, for the work that needs to get done is dangerous and highly specialized, but if you prove yourself then I will look out for you like a father does to his darling girl, how does that sound Miss Glimmer? Do you have any talents like that you would be willing to share?”
Even if Sunburst hadn’t warned her, she wouldn’t take anything that he was offering, tempting as that amount of money was. She wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave as fast as her hooves could carry her, briefly, she wondered if this is how a mouse felt when it’s been cornered by a snake.
“No, sir, there’s nothing special about me,” Starlight said, with the Stone of Harmony lying quietly against her breastbone. “I’ll take the job in the kitchens.”
“Perfect!” Neighsay produced a hologram contract from his desk, along with a digital pen, sending both items floating toward her. “Just sign here and we are all set.”
Starlight sighed and wrote her name on the dotted line.
Some days she regretted listening to Sunburst, for the kitchen work was grueling.
The kitchen was always hot, muggy, and crowded, filled with angry creatures yelling at each other all day and night. She was assigned dishwashing duty and the tower of plates around her never shrunk no matter how hard and fast she scrubbed. The kitchen was run by a one-eyed griffon everyone called “Chief”, who was old, grouchy, and for some strange reason seemed to have a bone to pick with Starlight, maybe because she was new and always messing up. She couldn’t help it, the technology in this place was different than what she was used to. There seemed to be a button for everything and Starlight had the unfortunate talent of always picking the wrong one, causing more than one explosion, which was why she was relegated to doing dishes the old-fashioned way, the way she was used to.
The work was mind-numbing and exhausting, something she was grateful for at night since it guaranteed her a few hours of sleep before the nightmares took hold.
She shared a small two-bedroom apartment with Sunburst, Moondancer, and Shining Armor, in a city that was chaotic, ancient, and modern all at once. Contemporary architecture was built on top of ruins of ancient stone constructions, haphazardly and with little regard for beauty or safety, creating tight, narrow roads below that were always brimming with pedestrians no matter the time of day. The males shared a room while she ended up bunking with Moondancer, who only gave her the cold shoulder ever since Sunburst and Shining had hastily set up a bunk bed for them the night she arrived.
Starlight did her best to keep out of Moondancer’s way and be a good roommate, but her nightmares would make her scream and cry in the middle of the night, waking everyone along with her. But if they were annoyed with her, they never mentioned it. Shining would act like nothing was wrong, cracking jokes throughout the day to cheer her up, while Moondancer cooked meals for all of them without complaint. Starlight would laugh politely at his jokes, since most of them were very bad, and made sure to finish every meal Moondancer prepared, even if the food wasn’t very good, and gave her wicked stomach aches.
She couldn’t stop the nightmares, not without some serious and costly medication that Sunburst suggested she tried, so her solution was to wait for everyone to fall asleep, climb down off her bunk bed, and sneak out into the city. Sometimes she would wander all night, sometimes she would fall asleep in a park bench or a dark corner somewhere, where no one would care for a strange mare losing her mind in the streets.
It was a good solution until Sunburst found out.
He was there waiting for her when she exited her room, sitting alone on the ragged couch and dressed in a thick blue cloak despite being a humid night. Starlight sighed and headed for the door with him on her heels, but besides that, she didn’t protest or try to stop him like she did at first, she didn’t want to pick a fight tonight, in fact, she was glad for his company.
They went down a few flights of stairs—because the elevator had been broken for months and the landlord didn’t care to fix it—to the lobby and out into the street. When she got here she remembered thinking that there was some kind of party or festival going on, and when she asked Shining about it one day, he laughed.
“It’s always a party here at night,” he answered with a chuckle, “because the daily lives of some ponies are so dull it drives them insane.”
Her senses were immediately assaulted by the noise and the lights of the street. Rivers of creatures walked passed her, some in silence, but the majority were singing and dancing, laughing or crying, sometimes all at once, and if she didn’t have a specific destination in mind it would have been all too easy to be swept away by the crowd. They turned right and headed north, with the light of the neon signs and of the three moons shining down on them in between the narrow spaces between buildings.
Starlight stopped at a liquor store first and came out with enough cheap booze and snacks for two.
At Sunburst’s confused look, she said. “We need to talk.”
“About?”
“Everything.” She said and gestured towards the street with her head. “Let’s go to the park.”
She didn’t wait for his answer before she took off, confident that Sunburst would follow, which he did but not without dragging his mechanical hooves on the crack pavement.
The park was nothing more than a group of empty lots with half-finished constructions that were discarded long ago, taken over in part by the populace of this planet for recreational activities—some more wholesome than others—and the rest by nature. Starlight liked it because it was quiet, and the feeling of grass under hooves and the whisper of the trees in the wind soothed her, especially when she leaned against Sunburst’s shoulder to sleep.
They headed to an abandoned shed with a tree growing on its side like a tumor and went inside. The door had disintegrated decades ago, so they made do with a sheet of rusty metal, not that there was anything inside worth taking, just a couple of empty crates and a dirty carpet Starlight had dragged in for them to sit on. Sunburst pulled out a lamp and lit up the room with a push of a button while Starlight set up their midnight snack, placing the food and the drinks in the center of the worn-out rug.
Starlight took a big sip of her beer, grimacing at the taste, and waited for the alcohol to enter her veins to give her a false sense of courage before she spoke.
“Remember when Twilight told us about tree houses?”
Sunburst paused mid-chew and smiled. “Yeah, I think she said that tree houses were made on top of trees, not underneath them,” he gestured to the roots of the tree breaking through the walls, becoming one with the structure and eroding the concrete away. “Remember when we built one in the hangar?”
Starlight laughed. “I still don’t know how we managed to climb so high.”
“My mom was furious.”
“I thought my dad would have a stroke.”
“He nearly did when you slipped.”
“Oh, yeah, it would have been bad if you hadn’t caught me with your magic.” Starlight took a sip of her beer before mumbling quietly. “You saved my life twice already.”
“True, but who’s keeping score?” He chuckled when Starlight lightheartedly punched him on the shoulder, which emitted a hollow sound.
“Remember when we said we would build one when we find Equus?”
His smile faded and he looked away, but Starlight persisted. “Sunburst, what happened?”
She hated this, she never wanted to pry, not after everything he had done for her, but she was fed up by his aloofness and secrecy. She couldn’t stand it, especially coming from the only friend she had in this forsaken place, how could she depend on him when he kept so many secrets from her? The fear of truly trusting him kept her up at night just as badly as the nightmares did, the Stone of Harmony a heavy weight on her chest she couldn’t part with. Twilight had given it to her for a reason, she only wished she had more time to explain what the reason was, all she knew was that she had to keep it safe until she saw Twilight again and that she couldn’t stay on this planet forever.
It felt like eons had passed in silence, which ended when Sunburst mumbled. “They found the astrolabe.”
“A what?”
“An astrolabe, a star chart depicting an unknown galaxy, my parents believed that it was the galaxy where Equus is located, but before they could contact Twilight about their findings,” Sunburst sighed and took a swig of his drink. “We were attacked by slave traffickers.”
Starlight felt her heart sink to her stomach but kept quiet as he continued. “They took everything, even the astrolabe, but it wasn’t enough. They wanted me and Sunset as well, my parents tried to stop them, but they were outnumbered and outgunned…”
“Were they…?”
“Sunset wouldn’t let me see, all I heard was the shots.” His expression was stony and blank, but the hoof holding his drink was shaking. “We were sold to work in the mines of Ceres, digging up crystals to make more guns and lasers like the ones that killed my parents. We only lived there for a month before we were rescued by the Everfree Rebels, but I lost my leg as we escaped, if it weren’t for the rebels and Sunset I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Just one leg?”
He gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “How I lost the others is a story for another time.”
He tugged on his cloak, revealing his left back leg. The prosthetic went all the way to his hip, his cutie mark engraved in the metal where it once was on his skin, he pointed at the bottom of his hoof, where another symbol had been engraved: a cluster of swirling stars. “Professor Starswirl made this one and the first one, but he taught me how to make and repair them when I started to outgrow them and get into too many accidents. We lived with him and the rest of the Everfrees until we were old enough to decide what we wanted to do, Sunset wanted us to join them but I wanted to continue our parents' mission. We argued and went our separate ways.”
“That sounds like Sunset,” Starlight said with some fondness in her tone, Sunburst’s rebellious sister couldn’t stand injustice and called it out when she saw it, even back in the peaceful days when they all lived aboard the Ark. “Have you found anything, about Equus?”
“Not really,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve been looking for clues for nine years, all while trying to strike it out on my own—searching for a lost planet it’s not easy or cheap, you know.”
His somber look told her there was more to the story than he was sharing, and she wanted nothing more than to hear all he had to say, but she figured that it was enough for tonight. She moved closer to him until they sat side by side, and she put a foreleg around his withers to pull him into a hug.
“Thanks for telling me.”
He tensed for a moment, but relaxed, leaning into her. “I’m sorry, we should have talked sooner, but these past few weeks have been crazy.”
Starlight nodded. “Hey, when you get a new lead, would you take me with you? I want to help.”
“Sure,” he said, and this time his smile reached his eyes. “It would be nice to work with someone who understands.”
She wondered if it was Professor Starswirl or Sunburst who created his synthetic eye. In the low light, it looked almost natural, perfectly matching the dark aquamarine of his real eye and the soft way he looked at her. She never had the chance to look at it this closely, there was always something in the way, something to do, something to worry about, but none of that mattered now, not with him so close and caught under the gentle glow of his eyes. He leaned in slowly, hesitant, almost waiting for her to reject him. She proved him wrong by meeting him halfway. His lips were warm, soft, and a little chapped, and her heart did somersaults inside her rib cage, and she couldn't stop giggling, probably ruining the moment somewhat. He put his metallic hoof over her cheek and she winced at the cold metal over her warm—much too warm—skin.
He broke the kiss, looking startled. “I-I’m so sorry!”
“No! No, it’s okay!” Starlight reassured him before he could run away. “It was nice! I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“Ok,” he paused. “…just nice?”
“Nice enough to make me want to do it again.”
She couldn’t help it, his grin was so cute and goofy that she had to kiss it. Again and again, until they were both out of breath and red-faced. After a while, they broke apart but kept close by pressing their foreheads gently together, waiting for their hearts to settle.
“I need to step out for a bit.” She said after a few minutes of silence and stood up, heading for the door.
Sunburst watched her go with a gentle expression. “Sure, don’t take too long.”
The night air was several degrees cooler than inside the shed and she shivered as she went to a densely forest area to take care of business. She felt like gravity had released her, her body jittery with nervous energy that made her want to jump, dance, and run all at the same time. One of her oldest, dearest wishes had come true, even if it wasn’t exactly how she envisioned it, but if she learned anything from living here, it was that happiness was fleeting and that she had to savor the good times as they came because it was hard to tell when they would come back, if at all.
Even now she could feel it fading, the fire inside her turning to cinders as her mind cleared. Happiness was fleeting here in Trojan L5 and creatures would do anything for it, even taking it by force. Working in the kitchens she had witnessed such things, but what came to mind wasn’t the stealing and the fighting, it was something more intimate that was hidden behind sleazy smiles and fluttering eyelashes that culminated in muffled groans from inside the janitor’s closet. Her blood ran cold when she realized she might not be the only mare he kissed in that shed. Once he got what he wanted, would he go to his buddies later and brag all about it? How he seduce the little dishwasher mare with pretty lies? How easy it was because she was naive and stuck up and—?
Starlight shook her head. No, the Sunburst she knew was not like that…but that Sunburst had been a colt, the stallion waiting for her in the shed was a different pony. Even if he told her a little about what happened to him during all these years, who knows what else had changed, besides his exterior.
Once she did her business in the bushes, she marched back up the hill with determination. She would not get anywhere by ruminating on this, she had to talk to him and figure out where he stood. She only prayed for two things: to be smart enough to see through his lies, and for him to be kind enough to be honest with her.
A cloud passed and covered the three moons just as the shed came into view. She stopped when she saw a figure standing in the way, she thought it was Sunburst at first but the shape was wrong, they were too short to be him, their long mane and tail swaying in the breeze. The wind picked up and pulled the clouds away, letting the moonlight shine on the clearing.
“Moondancer?”
The mare didn’t answer, just watched as a pair of diamond dogs jumped from the shadows and took Starlight down before she could scream.
The floor was colder than ice, stealing what little warmth she had and she shivered as she opened her eyes.
Her body felt heavy and slow, her mind even more so, and it took her a minute to remember how to use her limbs, once she did she still had to lean against the wall for support. Sadly, there was nothing to see once her eyes focused. The room outside her cell was plain, except for an old wooden table that was held together by tape and good luck, where two diamond dogs were playing a card game sitting on mismatched chairs.
One of them looked up from his cards at her when she stumbled into sight, he blinked slowly at her, sniffed, and went back to the game.
She recognized them as Neighsay’s guards, meaning that he was nearby. Maybe Chief had enough of her breaking the dishwashers and rat her out, still, did they have to drag her like this on her night off?
A door opened on the far side of the room that was outside of Starlight’s view, so she heard them first before she saw them. Neighsay didn’t surprise her, but seeing Steele and Moondancer as well confused her.
“…look, all that matters is that the ship is here, so stop complaining, and let’s get down to business.”
Steele sighed and looked at Starlight with a frown. “Why’s she here and why is she awake?”
“It wasn’t easy to lure her away from her guards,” Moondacer said, “and she seems to have a natural resistance against sedatives and other drugs, so keep that in mind when you sell her off.”
“What are you talking about?” Starlight said, gripping the bars of her cell with shaky hooves. “C’mon, Moondancer, I’m sorry if my nightmares keep you up at night, but this is taking it too far!”
She thought she saw a flash of guilt in her eyes before it was covered with indifference. “Nothing personal, Starlight, I would have sold you off sooner, but no matter what drugs I tried you wouldn’t go down long enough to bring you here.”
“Wait,” Starlight said, remembering all the times she’d run to the toilet after a meal. “You were poising me!?”
“I was trying to sedate you,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “And when that didn’t work I had to lure you here somehow, which was hard when Shining and Sunburst started guarding you.” She turned to the dragon with a glare. “And you made it worse by announcing her reward to the others, I thought we had a deal.”
“You were taking too long, I thought a little competition would either get your ass into gear or make Sunburst realize what he was missing,” Steele said with a shrug. “I kept raising the bounty to see if he would bite, but he refused, poor fellow, those morals of his will get him killed one day.”
“If you cared about him so much why didn’t you give him the money instead?” Starlight accused, kicking the bars in frustration.
“Because this is not a charity, miss,” Neighsay answered, taking a seat as he pulled out a computer, “we are a business trying to stay afloat in these trying times. With the Empire in shambles, that lunatic Grogar on the loose, and those Everfree scum doing as they please, we are all doing what we can to survive.”
They all gathered around him—to discuss more business, she assumed—and ignored her completely as she raged and kicked at the bars of her prison. The bars were thick, made of shiny new metal design to hold in even a raging Yak, a scared unicorn had no chance. After a while she fell to her knees, still gripping the bars as she panted. She could feel that the cell was magically reinforced, there wasn’t even a lock to pick, and five out of the six walls around her were made of thick sheets of metal that she had no hope of breaking through. She reached for the stone, wishing that Twilight were—
Her neck was bare.
Starlight jumped to her hooves, looking around her cell, then running back to the bars to look at the room. Her eyes landed on Moondancer, who flicked her mane back, and the Stone of Harmony winked at her under the white halogen lights.
“No!” Starlight screeched, repeatedly throwing herself against the bars. “Give it back!”
“You won’t be needing it where you are going,” Moondancer said over her shoulder.
“You don’t understand, that’s not a trinket, that’s—!”
A low hum was her only warning before an electric discharge flung her back. Her spine met the wall of her cell and she fell to the floor with a loud thud, her vision swam and her body twitched with the aftershocks, but she gritted her teeth and she got to her hooves shakily, approached the bars again, refraining from touching them, and glared at her captors instead.
“Couldn't you have done that sooner?”
“She has a lovely voice, especially when she’s desperate,” Neighsay chuckled, looking at what Moondancer had that caused such a fuss. He blinked, eyes narrowing before they grew wide with disbelief, and without warning snatched the necklace from her neck hard enough to break the humble string.
“Hey!”
He tossed the stone to his guard dogs. “Fetch!”
One of the diamond dogs caught it and gave it a sniff. He growled, his hackles rising as he tossed it to his companion who had had a similar reaction.
“Old Magic.”
Neighsay jumped from his chair like a giddy colt on his birthday.“Bring the trunk! Now! Quickly! Quickly!”
The diamond dogs ran to the other side of the room where Starlight couldn't see and came back dragging a huge crate that took the both of them to even lift from the ground. Moondancer and Steele shared a confused look, and it was the latter that finally spoke up, once Neighsay’s minions dropped the trunk at his hooves.
“Neighsay, what—?”
“Shut up!” He snapped, pressing buttons on the top panel of the trunk. “This is more important than some slave trafficking. This…This is history in the making!”
The group had their backs to Starlight, she couldn’t see what they were looking at, so all she heard was the lid popping open with a hiss, followed by Moondancer’s yelp.“What the hay is that?!”
When Neighsay turned around the stone glowed and floated on its own accord by his side like a miniature star, following him as he moved. His eyes never left the stone as he spoke with a maniacal grin. “I knew you were something special Miss, but to hide such a gift from me, no, the universe! It’s unforgivable!”
“Because that’s not a toy,” she was careful not to mention what it was. “Put it down before you hurt yourself.”
“She’s right,” Steele said, stepping up. “There’s a reason why the Old Magic was sealed away, my ma’ still remembers when it ran rampant and brought nothing but trouble—”
There was a flash and Steele fell backward. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
“What have you done?!”
Neighsay smiled, the stone’s glow receding. “I didn’t even have to do much!” He cooed over the stone. “What other secrets are you keeping, little one?”
Moondancer stood there in shock, looking at the body and the pool of blood collecting underneath, then the fluid touched her hoof and she gagged, running out of the room never to be seen again. Neighsay didn’t even notice her leave and motioned to his guard dogs, they handed over a strange object that looked like an old-fashioned clock to Starlight, but it was small and kind of flat, made of a golden metal engraved with lines and strange symbols that she couldn’t read.
“This astrolabe was made during Queen Celestia’s reign, I thought that with our current technology, I could unlock the map it has hidden inside, but I was wrong, what I needed was magic!”
He put the stone in the center and the astrolabe came to life. The symbols glowed and the machine fell apart, only to rearrange and spin around the stone like the rings of a planet, they continued to spin until they were just a blur. Light flooded the room, bright enough that Starlight had to look away, and when it dimmed the bare room was covered in stars and swirling galaxies.
“Incredible!” Neighsay laughed, walking around the projected universe, he reached out to touch a star and it zoomed in on it, displaying all kinds of information written in ancient ponish. “And to think that each explorer had one of these in their pocket, nothing more than a trinket, now there are only a dozen left in the universe, and I have the oldest one discovered!”
Starlight glanced at the astrolabe, spinning above them, it seemed stable but for how much longer? “Ok, that’s nice, but you should turn it off now.”
“Turn it off? No dear, we are just getting started,” he made a motion with his hoof and the universe moved, galaxies and stars flying by. The astrolabe trembled but did as commanded, spinning even faster to project billions upon billions of stars speedily.
“Slow down! You’re demanding too much from it!”
“Shut up! I have been studying ancient technology for longer than you have been alive!” Neighsay grew impatient, scrolling faster and faster, tapping on the occasional star that caught his attention before dismissing it. “No, no, no! Where is it?”
The spinning astrolabe became more unsteady, but Starlight knew that it was not the artifact’s fault, it was the Stone. It was a powerful but unstable source of magic, Twilight had never let her use it, and she only did so sparely and with caution, the only time Starlight used it was out of desperation and panic. However, Neighsay was using it without care, demanding more of it without knowing its limits. Starlight looked at the astrolabe nervously and the bright unsteady light that surrounded it.
“You need to stop!” Starlight pleaded. “It’s unsafe!”
He ignored her, gritting his teeth as the stars flew past him, waving galaxies and planets aside like they were annoyances. The astrolabe continued to spin and shake above them, the projection of the star map around them distorting and taking longer to appear, until…
“There!” Neighsay stopped, his hoof hovering over a small galaxy. “This is it!”
He tapped it and the galaxy grew larger and larger until it took the whole room. He zoned in on a large blue planet with swirling white clouds and blue oceans with a singular satellite, a small moon with the face of a mare carved into it.
Equus. It said above in ancient ponish, one of the few words Starlight learned to read in that language.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Neighsay said, walking around the projection of the planet with a wide smile. “This is our home, the place our forefathers and mothers left behind in their quest to conquer the stars. It was only thanks to their magic that they managed to get this far, and for the Queen to take that all away and run, what a selfish creature is that Twilight Sparkle!”
Starlight looked up. Pieces of the astrolabe started to fall, but Neighsay didn’t notice, he only had eyes for Equus.
He continued, too caught up in his monologue. “No matter, she can keep that magic, because the fool left behind the most powerful of them all: the Elements of Harmony, and once I have the coordinates I can sell that information to the highest bidder and…” he paused, then his smile widened. “Why sell it? I should keep it, gather all the horsepower I can, and take them for myself!”
The astrolabe fell into pieces and Starlight ran to the back of her cell, even so, she felt the heat of the explosion singe her tail and the force of the shock wave rattled her cage like it was cardboard caught in a solar flare. She closed her eyes and threw her forelegs over her head as she tumbled, her world reduced to nothing but light, shadow, and chaos for a few eternal seconds. The world stopped spinning once the cage hit the wall, but the explosions continued, along with the screams and the destruction outside of her view, and as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there—curled in a ball waiting for her eyes to focus and for her ears to stop ringing—but she only came to when she heard someone screaming her name.
“O-Over here!” she yelled, coughing as the pain in her ribs gripped her lungs. “Help!”
The explosion had left her cell facing upwards, towards the burned ceiling that lit up with a few flickering lights. She saw Sunburst peering over the edge for a few seconds before he disappeared and her cell started tilting forward slowly. With her cage facing the right way, she stood up, clutching her sore ribs as she approached the cell bars. Sunburst wasted no time in using his robotic strength to bend the bars aside wide enough for him to slip through and rush to her side.
He hugged her, tightly, and Starlight yelped in pain.
“I’m sorry!” He said, letting her go hastily but still hovering close by. “I looked everywhere for you, I had no idea that Moondancer would be capable of this, I gave her a piece of my mind when she told us what happened, but I came as soon as I knew and this is all my fault and I’m so, so sorry I should have been more careful and warned you when Steele started with this bounty nonsense and—hmph!”
She gripped his cape with her hoof and yanked him down in a desperate kiss. He responded quickly to her demands, only letting go when they both ran out of breath.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” Starlight said, before breaking into sobs and hiding her bruised face in his chest.
He hugged her, gently, burying his snout in her dirty mane. “I thought I lost you.”
Starlight didn’t want this hug to end, she didn’t want to move or see what happened next. She wished that the world would end right then and there in his embrace, but she knew that she wasn’t so lucky. It didn’t matter how much she wanted to give up, she couldn't, as long as the Stone of Harmony was hers she had to keep moving, no matter how painful it was, she just had to.
“Ahem.”
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of Sunburst's comforting scent before backing away. Shining Armor was there at the exit, looking amused. “Look, I’m all for romance, but we got to go before we get caught in the manure storm that’s about to break once they find what’s left of Neighsay.”
Sunburst nodded, offering his foreleg for Starlight to lean on.
“Wait, I need to get…something,” she said, her eyes flickering to Shining. After the Moondancer fiasco, she didn’t have it in her to trust any pony right now. “Sunburst, Neighsay has…had the astrolabe.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think it survived the explosion.”
“It’s worth a look.”
They exited her cell and Starlight hardly recognized the place. The walls were charred black and some were practically melting in some places, she dared not to look at the black lumps on the far side of the room too closely, keeping her eyes on the ground as she looked for the stone. Luckily, she found it not too far in the center of the room where the heart of the explosion occurred, the force of the blast had formed a crater where the stone and the astrolabe lay side by side, intact.
Starlight took the stone, examining it, but it was perfectly fine, if a little weakened from overuse, the only thing missing was the string she used as a makeshift necklace, and she handed the astrolabe to Sunburst.
His face was unreadable as he examined the treasure that his parents sacrificed their lives for, but he accepted it all the same and put the astrolabe in his pocket before they all left the room.
No one followed the trio to the starport, but they all moved as if that was the case.
The ship they took was nothing special, just a normal cargo starship used to ferry goods between colonies, no one stopped them or questioned them as they broke through the atmosphere and headed into open space. Sunburst herded her to a spare room so she could rest, and she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Lulled by the sounds of engines, she slept like she hadn’t slept since the day she left the Ark. Strange dreams accosted her but they were so confusing and nonsensical that they weren’t worth the effort of remembering, all they did was leave her with a feeling of discomfort, but at least she felt rested and like herself again.
She left her room and ventured out into the hallway, the ship was so small that she found Sunburst and Shining in only a few minutes, hunching over a small table in the small kitchen/break room and eating rations.
Sunburst smiled and moved aside as an invitation to join them. She did and smiled when he draped his foreleg over her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Feeling better?”
“Yes,” she nodded, taking a bite of the dehydrated protein bars he offered her. “How long was I sleeping?”
“Like twenty hours, but we figured you need it after all you went through.”
She felt like she could have slept through another twenty hours, but said nothing as she chewed on her food. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, she asked:
“What happens now?”
“We were waiting for you to discuss that,” Shining said, prodding at a bracelet on his hoof to display a hologram of the latest news. “The death of Neighsay and Steele has produced a vacuum of power in Trojan L5, so they will all be too busy biting their tails and fighting among themselves to even notice we are missing, much left come after us, so we are clear in that regard.”
Starlight glanced at him briefly before going back to eat in sullen silence.
His expression softened, sensing her discomfort. “My apologies probably mean nothing to you but I’ll offer it anyway: I am terribly sorry for what Moony put you through, I was the one who brought her into the group after all so blame me all you want, believe me, had I known that her side gig was pony trafficking I would have kick her out myself.” Sensing that she was still not convinced, he exchanged glances with Sunburst before continuing. “Sunburst has filled me in about, well, everything. The Ark, Queen Twilight, Equus.”
Starlight gasped and glared at Sunburst. “You told him!?”
“We would have been dead twice over without his help,” Sunburst said hastily. “Besides, it was a long time coming.”
“Yeah, no shit!” Shining said with a roll of his eyes. “I don’t care where you come from, but after ten years of knowing each other you would think this would have come up sooner, honestly—you were my best pony at my wedding and the godfather to my child.”
“You’re married?” Starlight asked, skeptical, remembering all the times he flirted with other mares during lunch breaks.
“Yep, to the most beautiful mare in the universe,” he tapped his bracelet and the hologram changed to display the picture of a beautiful pegasus mare holding a baby in her hooves. “That’s my Cadance and little Flurry Heart, I think I’m going home for a while and watch my baby grow, I had enough adventures for a while. What about you two? Going on a honeymoon?”
This set off Sunburst into a rant that Shining was all too eager to goad along, Starlight just watched them, amused but a little jealous of their bond. The ponies she had shared such bonds with were long gone, along with her home, she had nowhere to return to and no one waiting for her. She looked down at the stone and the crude necklace she made to keep it together, it was all she had to her name that was worth protecting, but was that really what she was meant to do? Was she supposed to wander the universe and avoid capture until the day she died? What would happen then? The stone would still be around even if she perished, she would just be delaying the inevitable.
It was such a small thing, barely the size of her hoof, but it was a heavy burden she could not share with anyone.
Sunburst brought her out of her dark thoughts by gently lifting her chin to face him. “Starlight, whatever you think it’s best we will do it.”
Starlight smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “That’s the thing, I don’t know what to do, much less if it’s the right thing,” she sighed, hiding her face in her hooves. “I wished Twilight was here…”
“You know, Grogar has been strangely quiet ever since you landed on Trojan,” Shining said, crossing his forelegs in a pensive manner. “No attacks, no looting, no killings, no nada! Besides, if he had defeated Queen Twilight you would think he would be bragging about it or something.”
“Twilight would not go down that easily,” Sunburst agreed. “But even if she were alive, where would she go? Half of the known universe is in Grogar’s pocket, the rest is just plain inhospitable.”
The group went quiet until Starlight spoke up.
“Home,” Starlight said. “To Equus.”
“It doesn’t matter where she is, but let’s operate under the belief that she made it out of the Ark somehow,” Shining said, pointing at the two of them. “Either way, you are in no condition to go looking for her, you have no ship, no money, and no crew to make the journey.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Sunburst answered with a roll of his eyes. “That’s what I have been trying to do all this time! But it’s not easy to gather a crew to go after what many believe to be a fairy tale.”
“What about Sunset?” Starlight turned to him. “She’s with the rebels, right? Surely some ponys still believe in the Equestria of old.”
Sunburst groaned, rubbing his forehead with a grimace, and Shining looked at her with an amused expression. “You know, that sounds crazy enough to work.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Why not? No one’s crazier than the Everfrees!”
“We need experts! Not con artists and wannabe survivalists!”
“No, what you need is a good ship and enough horsepower to run it, doesn’t mean they all have to be the best, they just have to be willing to work.” Shining tapped something on his bracelet, scrolling to screens until he pulled out a picture of a red-haired mare that had Wanted written on the top, and a bounty with so many zeros that Starlight couldn’t count with a glance. “She might be able to give you that.”
Sunburst shook his head. “No, no way, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing in this universe that will make me contact my lunatic sister—!”
He made the mistake of glancing at Starlight, who gave him a pleading look, and he folded like a house of cards.
Shining grinned. “I’ll set course to the next starport.”
She liked this planet better than Trojan L5. It was greener, cleaner, and the ponies there a little friendlier, but she could sense that their kindness was conditional, and…there was just something in the gravity here that set her on edge, similar to the atmosphere in Trojan, that made her want to take off as soon as possible. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was because she had been born in space and wasn’t used to the feeling of a planet’s gravity pulling her down, either way, she was all too eager to finish her errands and take off.
When she returned to the ship, she was surprised by the quantity of supplies that Sunburst had purchased. “Can we afford all this?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sunburst said as he started loading the boxes into the ship. “The next starport is far from here, so I rather we be prepared.”
Starlight put her things to the side and started helping. “Any luck with Sunset?”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding almost regretful. “I know where she is.”
“Do you think she will help us?”
“I don’t know, but Shining was right, we are out of options.”
She turned to the starport, looking at the hundreds of ponies mingling about and the hundreds of ships docked alongside them. Their little cargo ship looked like a toy alongside the bigger and slicker models. “I’m going to miss him.”
They dropped Shining off when they landed here earlier this morning, insistent that he needed to go back home and watch over his family, but before he did so he left them a considerable sum of money, stating that it was the money owned for the time and work they did in Trojan, plus some extra for their “honeymoon.”
“We’ll see him again, believe me, he has the talent of appearing when you need him the most.” His confident smile dimmed before he continued. “Starlight, we don’t have to do this—”
“No, don’t start with that nonsense.” Starlight snapped. “The Stone of Harmony, I’ll guard it with my life if I have to, but I get the feeling that it’s not my destiny for it to be in my possession forever, I don’t know how to explain it, what I do know is that Twilight has the answers—in fact, she has a lot of explaining to do.”
Neighsay’s words echoed in her mind relentlessly, intermingled with the memories of her teacher, the image of regality and serenity tainted by the truth of the universe around her. If it was true that she had taken the magic of her subjects and left them to fend for themselves, then why? Why had she secluded herself in the Ark all these years? Why had she let Equestria crumble in this manner? They needed to find her and set things right, no matter the cost.
“We can’t run away from this.”
Sunburst didn’t look convinced, his mouth pressed into a thin line to keep himself from arguing. He let it go with a sigh, continuing with his task. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“Yeah,” Starlight said, picking up where she left off. “Me too.”
With their supplies restocked, their tanks full, and their engines running, there were no longer any excuses to keep them here. Starlight sat on the copilot seat and strapped on before Sunburst had even made it through the door, he took the pilot seat and did the initial engine checks, all that was left to do was wait for clearance to take off.
“You’re ready?”
Starlight nodded, despite the gargantuan task ahead of them, she was eager to be back in space.
The engines roared to life and Sunburst took them into the sky, across the stars, and through the galaxies.
