Ponystar Equestria: The Last ponystar

by Commander Celestus

Chapter 10: Inauguration

Chapter 10
Inauguration

The large and elegant first class dining-room of the Starliner Element had been hastily pressed into service as a makeshift council chamber. The Captain wore his best uniform, military officers and civilian leaders were assembled there, all trying to look their best with what they had brought with them. Some had dress clothes, others just their everyday business attire or duty uniforms.

Moonlight, in her own uncomfortable dress uniform, stood nervously at the doorway, looking over at the various ponies of the press who were assembled there waiting to observe and record the swearing-in of the new President. It was funny, she thought, how thy were still doing their jobs even though the news outlets they represented had been destroyed; journalists without stations and papers still getting the story, though nopony remained to publish it. No doubt it was their way of coping with the tragedy, to keep on regardless, not thinking of the fact that they really no longer had jobs. For her part, she still felt like an unimportant scientist, even though she was in overall command of the whole fleet.

Father Macarius entered the dining-room first, a simple black stole added to his military chaplain’s attire. He was using his telekinesis to carry a simple wooden box that Moonlight knew contained his copy of the Sacred Scrolls. Cheerilynn followed him in, a serious expression on her face. The pair processed to the front of the room, where they mounted the stage that was used for entertainment in the evenings, and there the priest placed the scrolls on a small table. He and the earth-pony faced one another on the stage, a Colonial flag hung over the curtains behind them, a small podium bore the Colonial seal.

Father Macarius reverently opened his scroll-box, and he extracted one of the scrolls. Opening it, the priest turned to face the audience and began to speak solemnly.

“The Sacred Scrolls are the records of our people, they tell of how our forefathers travelled from the dying world of Olympia to establish our Colonies, how they were guided by a brilliant star across the waste wilderness of space. They tell of how the Lords guided our forefathers, and how the Lords still guide us day by day. Here is wisdom, here is light. It is by these Scrolls that our civilization was set up, and that civilization, that culture, still endures, even in this time of crisis unparalleled since the fall of Olympia.

“We are not perfect. We fail, we fall short. But we have a constitution that has served us well, and even with our worlds gone, our race lives on as it has lived on before. No new thing has happened to us; all this has happened before,” he turned to Cheerilynn, his preamble over. “Secretary Cheerilynn,” the priest said solemnly. “According to all evidence, we have ascertained that the Council of the Twelve are dead, that you are the last survivor of our civilian government. The presidency of our Colonies therefore devolves upon you; will you accept it?”

“The Lords helping me, I shall,” the mauve earth pony replied, her voice wavering.

“Raise your right front hoof and repeat after me the words of this oath of office, the oath sworn by each successive President of the Colonies since their establishment centuries ago: I, Cheerilynn…”

“I, Cheerilynn…” her voice shook with emotion as she raised her hoof and began to speak.

“Do solemnly swear by the Lords of Olympia…” the priest’s voice was level and calm as he read the words.

“Do solemnly swear by the Lords of Olympia…” a tear ran down her right cheek.

“That I take and shall perform the office of President of the Twelve Colonies of Olympia…”

“That I take and shall perform the office of President of the Twelve Colonies of Olympia…” her body shook too, but still she went on.

“And will protect the sovereignty of the Colonies…”

“And will protect the sovereignty of the Colonies…” there was a note of steely resolve in the words, despite her obvious emotion.

“With every fibre of my being, to the best of my abilities, as long as I shall hold the office…”

“With every fibre of my being, to the best of my abilities, as long as I shall hold the office…”

“…The Lords helping me.”

“…The Lords helping me.”

“So say we all,” the priest concluded. The crowd on the liner took up his words in an echo.

“Madam President,” Moonlight bowed in the formal gesture of deference, to Cheerilynn’s evident amusement.

“Iron Pen, Colonial News Network; may I have a few words?” a brown unicorn reporter pony asked the newly sworn-in president, who turned to address his microphone. She recognised the importance of routine to the surviving citizens of the Colonies, even if she did find the idea of reporters without papers or news networks a little amusing.

“Of course I’ll speak a few words, Mr. Pen. I expect that I’m pretty much an unknown to most of you; I’ve never been a career-builder, and I never wanted to climb the ladder to the top. I didn’t enter politics to become president, because that’s the best way to make sure you’ll never hold the office. A pony should go into politics because she believes in something so passionately she won’t ever let it go. As you know, I was a teacher on Aquaria for twenty years, a headteacher for another six. The President… late president,” she corrected herself, though it was hard to accept he was really gone. “Aquaria elected me as a Delegate to the Colonial Council because I’m a stubborn old pony who has her convictions and sticks to them, and it just happens that they agreed on those convictions. The late President selected me as Education Secretary because I’m actually passionate about education, not because I’m a politician, but because I was an expert. I turned a failing school around and made it one of the best in the Colonies.

“I have no illusions about what I’m being called to do; our Colonies have been destroyed, we are in all likelihood the last survivors of ponykind. If there are any survivors left behind on the Colonies, may the Lords have mercy on their souls, because I’m afraid we can’t go back for them. Our future doesn’t lie back on the Colonies; it lies out there, in space, somewhere far away. I don’t know where, I can’t promise anything, but I can promise you this; we will not let those Tin Cans win!

“Usually a new president would outline a policy, appoint a cabinet, but you’ll all agree that this is far too soon after the cataclysm that destroyed our colonies to do anything of the sort. We have to survive, and I will devote all of my energies, for the rest of my existence, to that goal, the survival of our race. So say we all.”

“So say we all,” the crowd echoed her words solemnly.

“Madam President,” a small pink female unicorn stepped forward. “Stella Glow, Caprican Evening Gazette, on behalf of the Gazette, let me wish you the very best for your term of office…”

“Why, thank you. Now, we have a race to save,” the new President trotted off before there could be any more questions.

It was not the time for long and elaborate speeches and besides, Cheerilynn did not like such speeches anyhow. It was time for action, to set a course away from the Colonies, towards safety, and so she scheduled a conference call with the pilots of the various ships.

---

Able at last to take a little rest at the President’s insistence, Moonlight moved through the liner, headed towards her seat, the seat she had vacated just a few hours before, though it felt like an age ago. Things had been so much simpler when she boarded the ship, she thought; she had just been an astrophysicist, on her way back from a conference, hardly a care in the world. Now she was commanding the whole fleet, and the burden weighed heavy on her. She was headed to find the one pony she had spoken to on the ship before the fall of the Colonies, a pony she knew would be deeply affected by what had happened. Even if they had only just met, they were sort of friends, and she needed a friend at that moment.

“Gloria?” she said carefully as she looked around the corner of the seats. All around ponies were crying and mourning, and she was sure that the elegant unicorn would be as overcome by grief as the others.

“Oh, Moonlight, you look a perfect fright!”

To the Major’s surprise, Gloria was sitting with a small orange Pegasus filly with a pink mane. The filly wore a simple grey dress and had obviously been crying. Moonlight, on the other hand, was bright as a button, a beaming smile on her face. It seemed that she had been busying herself looking after the little filly.

“Moonlight, dear, this is Serena, she’s lost her family; they were on Gemena when the Cyponians attacked. It was her first flight on her own, you know.”

“Is… is it true?” big tear-filled eyes looked up at Moonlight, tragic enough to melt the hardest of hearts. Moonlight wished that she could say no, that everything would be all right, but the fact was that the poor filly’s parents were almost certainly dead, and she did not think everything would be all right ever again.

“I’m sorry, Serena, but it is true. According to military command before it was cut off, the Cyponians destroyed every one of our cities with thermonuclear weapons. It’s true, the Colonies are gone, and we’re all the ponies there are left.”

All alone in a cold and dangerous universe, she thought. No place for a little filly like Serena, yet here she was, one of thousands of foals in the fleet, one of many, many foals who had lost everything, and everyone they loved. She had no family, no home but this ship. Personally she was a tragedy, and yet she was one of thousands of tragedies who would all merge together into a statistic.

Serena brought the reality of it all home to Moonlight. She saw in that filly’s innocent round eyes the eyes of a great multitude, she saw the loss of billions, not just billions as a statistic, but billions of fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Billions of individual ponies, each with his or her own life, each one with his or her own story, a story blotted out in an instant; and so many, so very many, would have nopony left to mourn for them.

“You… your parents were on Gemena?” she asked Serena. The filly looked back with her big, sorrowful eyes.

“My mother was; my father’s dead, he was a fighter pilot. I want to be a fighter pilot some day, just like him. Mother said that was wrong, that he was killed because he was a pilot. She says war’s wrong and bad.”

“Yes, she’s… was right,” Moonlight agreed. “War’s wrong and bad. It’s a horrible thing, and nopony should ever have to fight. But we were attacked; the Cyponians don’t care that war’s wrong. They… they killed your mother. They killed… killed billions of ponies… Sometimes there’s no choice, you have to fight back, or you’ll just be killed.”

It was then that, finally, Moonlight broke down into tears as the tragedy of it all overwhelmed her.

“Moonlight, darling!” Gloria exclaimed.

Moonlight tried to speak, but her tears got in the way.

Despite her privileged background and her elegant poise, Gloria was not an insensitive pony, and so she simply comforted her new friend, caring for her as best she could.

“I wanna be a pilot,” little Serena said firmly as grief gave way to anger. “I wanna find the Cyponians who killed my Mother and Dad, and blow them to bits!”

“We’ll see if we have any fighters, dear,” Gloria said sensibly. “Then we can see about you training to be a fighter pilot. I have no objection to Cyponians being blown to bits, none at all.”

---

Moonlight was still a little tearful when she trotted onto the bridge of the Element. It was her ship now, her flagship for the rag-tag fugitive fleet carrying the last remnants of Ponykind. The fleet was still stationary while ships crews took inventories, and Cheerilynn was monitoring everything from the Element’s bridge. She was throwing herself into her new role, taking her oath of office very seriously indeed.

The new President turned as Moonlight entered, and she smiled at the Major, who managed a tearful smile back.

“It gets to all of us, Major,” Cheerilynn told her warmly. “We’ve all lost so much, everypony has to break down and cry at some point, including me, even though you may find that hard to believe. Look at them,” she indicated the fleet with a hoof. “Out there we have somewhere over fifty thousand ponies, maybe as many as eighty thousand. There’s a prison barge and a ship transporting students from a couple of Caprica private schools who were on a field trip to Aquaria. It’s like a slice of our old Colonial society, ponies from every world, ships from every world; private transports, military vessels, and, thank the Lords, three full tankers of fuel. There’s certainly plenty of food out there as well, which is something; we won’t be starving to death any time soon. What’s just as important, we have plenty of water. Everypony is going to be on rations, of course, according to their need. It’s going to be tough, but we’ll survive.”

Moonlight nodded. The fleet was an awe-inspiring sight from here, she thought; the ships were indeed of all shapes and sizes, not to mention ages. Five or six looked like they should have been retired decades ago, and two of those were escort destroyers.

“I know, it’s quite a responsibility,” Cheerilynn said, still looking out at the fleet. “They all depend on us. One mistake and we could kill thousands. Just a few hours ago we were billions strong; now our civilization’s reduced to this, less than a hundred thousand ponies in a fleet of ships some of which should have been scrapped. Suddenly every pony’s precious, even the hardened criminals.”

“Major!” the co-pilot cried as his instrument panel flashed and bleeped a warning. “Energy spike, something’s jumping right on top of us!”

“Gods! Signal the fleet, spool up the FTL! Tell the destroyers…” Moonlight panicked, she was certain that this was the Cyponians again. “They’ve found us!”

The flash of the FTL jump temporarily blinded the ponies, but as it faded away Moonlight’s heart leaped with joy.

She saw, not the sinister double-saucer form of a Cyponian baseship, but the dependable, friendly, welcome long hull and flight pods of a Colonial ponystar. Written on the grey hull in white was the name Equestria.

“Major, it’s the Ponystar Equestria,” Marcus reported unnecessarily. “She’s signalling us.”

“Answer! Oh, Lords of Olympia, it’s a miracle!” Moonlight gasped happily. “A ponystar survived!” she could see the ship’s battle damage, but it was slight, they had a protector at last, something more than a few old destroyers.

“Colonial ships, this is Equestria Actual, Commander Celestus,” the Alicorn officer’s gravelly voice sounded over the Element’s speakers. “I am truly sorry that we were not able to save the Colonies. The ponystar fleet is gone, we are the last ponystar. The President is dead…”

“Equestria,” Moonlight signalled the huge warship. “This is Element Actual, Major Moonlight. I… I know I’m a scientist, but I’m the most senior officer in the fleet now. We… we know about the Colonies, we saw it… some of it…”

“Element,” she heard the smile in Celestus’ voice. “It’s a good name. So you’re in charge, Major?”

“No, sir, President Cheerilynn is. We didn’t know if any of the Council had survived…” she tailed off awkwardly, afraid that the surviving member of the Council of Twelve would be angry with her.

“I understand. Between you and me, Element, I’d rather not be President anyhow, it complicates things if the military are in charge. I never believed in military rule, and it’ll take more than the destruction of the Colonies to convince me it’s a good idea. Now, I need to meet with the president, but you can tell Madam President Cheerilynn that the Equestria will be glad to accept her leadership.”

“Commander,” Cheerilynn spoke into the microphone. “I’m a civilian, and in charge of civilian matters. The military have the better scientific instruments to lead our exodus. This is an emergency. Besides, I was Secretary of Education, there’s quite a difference between running schools and leading our people.”

“Not so much as you might think. Madam President, I presume?”

“You presume correctly, Commander. Major Moonlight and I will be headed over to meet you in my shuttle. We can’t stay still for long though; we’ve already had to escape from one Cyponian attack, and they’re bound to be continuing their search for us.”

“You’re quite right,” Celestus agreed. “I’ll meet you in the hangar bay. Equestria out.”

Moonlight remained motionless, looking up at the vast bulk of the Equestria above the fleet.

“Well, Major,” Cheerilynn smiled to the surprised unicorn. “How do you fancy being my aide? I need one, and I thing you’re the best pony for the job.”

Moonlight could only nod, overwhelmed by it all.