Timelapse

by Stik

Chapter 15

Twilight waited until she heard his footsteps retreating out of the door and Derpy hurrying after him before she fell back down onto the bed and sobbed loudly. She couldn’t remember feeling so miserable before, the world had lost its colour and if her heart were to simply stop at that very moment she fancied she could not care less.

Rarity’s hooves came thumping up the stairs and her forelegs were immediately around Twilight, hugging her close and stroking her back. Twilight bawled loudly and unashamedly.

“What a monster,” Rarity was saying, shaking her head angrily. “Unimaginable!”

Twilight gasped for breath, having to fight hard for every word she said. “He said he would. It’s my own fault. I should have listened. I shouldn’t have tried. I’m so pathetic.”

“That’s no excuse, darling!” Rarity exclaimed, squeezing her tightly. “He’s a conniving rascal, and good riddance to him. How could he sink so low!”

Twilight just cried more, it was unstoppable, a vast reservoir of tears she didn’t know she had. Rarity continued making soothing noises, and while she was very glad of her friend’s company and comfort it wasn’t really making a dip in the ocean of despair she currently felt.

She finally calmed enough to wipe her eyes and snout, sitting up but letting Rarity keep her tight embrace. “I feel such a fool,” she sniffed.

“Hush, darling,” Rarity said. “You are nopony’s fool. How were we to know how manipulative they could be, hmm? But it’s over now, they’re gone.”

She gave a short, humourless laugh. “I’ll still miss him. Even when he’s gone he’s still going to haunt my heart, I can tell. And we could have learnt so much from one another.”

She noticed the little envelope he had left, and bitter curiosity drew her to it. She opened it carefully with her magic, and Rarity watched suspiciously, ready to snatch it away if it threatened her in any way.

Inside were a couple of small photographs, each about the size of her hoof, printed onto glossy pieces of card. One was of the four of them, Rainbow Dash grinning triumphantly as she pushed Applejack’s hat over her eyes, Riley grinning at her antics. The other was just her and Riley, that first moment when they had gotten a bit tangled in one another, both looking a little abashed. The image was so clear, so perfect, it brought the memory rushing straight back. He’d left her shortly after that, and she knew now that it was intentional. He had been trying to distance himself from her, trying to avoid getting into the kind of dire situation she was now suffering from. He knew, she realised, he knew that something like this would happen, but she’d forced it ahead anyhow.

She dropped the photographs on the bed and burst into tears again. Her chest hurt as if she were being crushed in a vice. Rarity tutted and swiped the photos away out of sight, massaging her back lovingly again.

“It will always hurt to lose a friend,” she said sagely, nodding.

“I think I was falling in love with him,” she sobbed hysterically.

Rarity drew a small hissed breath and her ministrations paused very briefly, and Twilight felt even more wretched.

“I’m so pathetic,” she wailed again and Rarity just patted her back wordlessly.

She was dimly aware of the soft patter of hooves on the stairs, and through blurry eyes she could see Derpy standing sheepishly on the threshold to the room and looking deeply unsure. “Umm, miss Sparkle, there’s a lot of ponies outside who want to come in. Is the library open? Shall I tell them to go away until tomorrow?”

Twilight sat up and sniffed back her tears, no doubt they wanted her to do something about the ring of monsters surrounding the town, to save the day, like she always did.

Only, this time, it would be different. She was sure the moment she stepped outside Discord would appear to mock her some more and demand her answer. To fight, or to be banished. If she fought then they were certain to be crushed, the town was exhausted, damaged and demoralised, they couldn’t hope to prevail against his assembled might.

If she surrendered then Equestria would be left without a strong ruler, Celestia had admitted that she could no longer protect the lands. Could the two princesses repel Discord in their weakened state? Could Luna even rule on her own, assuming they did win the fight? And for how long? There were too many questions and unknowns.

What was clear to her, however, was that she needed to get over what had happened and be strong for the ponies that looked to her. Even if it looked like all paths lead to failure she had to do something.

“If only we had the Elements of Harmony,” she said with a sigh. “But we never worked out where they were. I don’t know where to start.”

“Mister Riley has got them,” Derpy said casually, preening her wings.

“What?” she snapped, looking up sharply.

“The six pretty crystal thingies that you used to wear? Discord gave them to him as a present.”

“What?” Twilight shouted again, standing up sharply. She spluttered and tried to think straight. “By the stars above, I understand!”

“What?” Rarity echoed, wide eyed and alarmed. Twilight was practically vibrating with energy, hopping up and down in place on the bed. She had brought it with her from Canterlot, there was nothing quite like your own bed, after all, but the old springs were complaining bitterly. She wasn’t as light as she used to be as a filly when she had last jumped up and down on it.

“Don’t you see? He’s removing everything that can oppose him. He wants me banished, but if that doesn’t work then he wants the Elements removed. He can’t destroy them, so he’s given them to the humans, to take away forever. That’s why he’s let them go, why he encouraged it! He’s done everything they asked for, just to get them to leave. They can’t ever return here, so the Elements would be lost to us for all time.

“Oh this is very, very, very, extremely bad. We have to get them back!”

“Twilight,” Rarity began, but whatever she was going to say was lost as Twilight hopped across the town in a series of rapid teleports.

She came to stand right before Riley’s space-ship, blinking away the remains of the headache she had. There were more important things at hoof now. She could see him up in the big window across the front, and he looked down at her, surprise written on his face. The frightful racket the ship was making abruptly lessened and she shouted at him, demanding he come out and face her.

He blinked at her, uncomprehending, and she strode forwards until she was as close to him as she could get. The ship quietened down, the engines shutting off completely with a low crackling whine that tailed off. Suddenly he was moving, and a few moments later the big door at the back of the ship opened up and he fell out on the ground in a heap.

She cantered towards him beneath the belly of the metal beast and cowered slightly as it roared again, the ground shaking and the air vibrating with the intensity of it. Riley spotted her and before she knew what was happening he had picked her up in his strong arms and was running. She flailed and tried to get free but he was much stronger than she.

She flattened her ears against her skull in an attempt to cut out the painfully loud noise all around, but nothing helped, the sound was felt through her bones now, not her ears. Suddenly Riley fell and they landed heavily on the ground, his body covering hers as an intense heat licked at the ground around them, dirt and leaves whipping past them so hard they stung.

When the sound died away she realised he had saved her life, in her haste to get to him she had failed to think through what was about to happen. The captive inferno the ships seemed to contain had left a scorched, smoking crater in the lawn, a testament to their other-worldly power.

“What in God’s name were you doing?” he yelled, and she could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears, despite his face being only inches from hers. He sat up, releasing her roughly, and the sound from the ship was already dying away as it ascended rapidly into the lightening sky. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! You nearly got cooked alive.”

She found her wits at last. “The Elements of Harmony!” she cried back. Her own voice sounded strange to her numb hearing, thin and distant, like hearing somepony else through a door. “Where are they?”

He looked at her in confusion and her temper flared irrationally. “What?”

She poked a hoof in his chest and he took a step back, holding his arms out to the side. “The crystals that Discord gave you. Where are they?”

Riley pointed up at the departing spacecraft, and Twilight screamed a wordless howl of frustration. Of course they were up there, where else would he have put them. He must have intended to keep them from her, after all. What better place away from the mare who was afraid of heights. No, that was ridiculous…

Focus, Twilight.

“You have to get them back,” she snapped, advancing on him again. “They are the most powerful artefacts on this planet. They weren’t his to give and they are certainly not yours to take!”

This time he stood his ground. “What are they?”

She stamped at the ground in impotent frustration and forced her breathing to calm, getting worked up wasn’t helping matters. She spoke quickly, but didn’t care, he could keep up. “They’re a… a weapon, I suppose. They’re the only thing capable of stopping Discord. He means to rule Equestria. With those out of the way there’s nothing to stop him. This world is doomed without them. He’ll rule for a thousand years of chaos and strife. It’ll be the end of everything ponykind has built over the last millennia. We need them!”

Riley searched her face, looking for any hint of treachery. She glared back, she would not sink to lies. “And it will all be your fault. If there’s any noble spirit left in your soul then, by Celestia, you will help us for once.”

There was a pause during which they just glared at one another, and she was preparing to leap at him and knock him down, having to glare up at him all the time made her angry, too. She was sure he did that purposefully, too, grew so tall just to spite her.

Eventually he nodded and pressed a hidden button on his jacket collar, activating some sort of radio, and Twilight watched anxiously as he apparently spoke to the thin air in his own language. She didn’t understand it but there were a few choice words she was starting to recognise, and he began to use them more and more as his expression turned sour.

“I’m sorry. They won’t give them back, Twilight,” he said with a sigh, dropping his arm to his side again, and Twilight glared at him even more fiercely. It was very frustrating to not know what he had said. Had he even tried? Or was it just a ruse to placate her?

“They’ve already investigated them. The admiral won’t give them up lightly. Besides, even if they wanted to they’re already on their way, they can’t turn back now and risk losing their window.”

She narrowed her eyes and leaned forwards threateningly, horn tingling pre-emptively. “Did you tell them how important they are?”

He shot her a withering look. “Of course, but that won’t make a difference. Look, I know how these people work, Twilight. They won’t give them up, not if they’ve worked out how valuable they could be.”

“But we’re doomed without them!” she wailed, loosing control of her voice again. Her wings flared of their own accord. “Doomed!”

“Well then I’m doomed with you, I suppose.” She looked up at him sharply and he had a silly, cheerful grin on his face. Considering the circumstances it was too cheerful to be sincere. She looked around and realised that with his ship all the humans had finally gone, the only ships remaining were the derelict ones.

The hustle and bustle of the past week had died away, too, no more aliens standing around chattering in their odd language, no more guns, no more exciting machinery. Even the air seemed thinner, quieter and emptier, the odd but somehow familiar smells of oil and humans missing now.

“Oh,” she said, realising what had happened. He had marooned himself, all because she had nearly killed herself by standing under his spaceship. “Oh dear. Oh Riley, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… You’re trapped here, because of me, aren’t you?”

There was a flash of something on his face, but she couldn’t read it. “It’s okay,” he said, kneeling down next to her. She looked doubtful, suddenly feeling a lot less incensed, all the righteous fury had evaporated in the blink of an eye. “Really, it is. I feel… strangely free.”

“I don’t think that’s going to last for very long,” she said glumly. “If I don’t do what he wants he’ll take everypony here. He’ll burn everything, or worse.”

Riley held her gaze firmly and she felt that little flutter that she remembered from before. No amount of anger or betrayal could dull that. “If we could get them back, are you certain you can stop him?”

“Yes. We’ve done it before, we can do it again,” she told him confidently.

“Then there is one way, maybe,” he said, very hesitantly. “I really, really don’t want to go back there. But I’ll do it, if it’ll give you a chance.”

She looked up hopefully, willing to clutch at any straw, no matter how thin and dry it might be. “They’re going to need at least another twelve hours before they can safely enter hyperspace. If I can get up there in time, maybe I can dock with them before they realise what’s happening and get them back. I know exactly where they’ll be in the hold.”

Twilight looked upwards sceptically. The little pinpricks of light that represented the human fleet were just bright stars now, moving imperceptibly against the lightening sky. It didn’t look hopeful. “I don’t think even Rainbow Dash can fly that high up.”

“There’s one more ship,” he said. “I hope. The one I went to get the warp core from. The command module can be detached, it’ll get us up there, if we can power it, but we need to get to it first. It’s risky, there’s a limited chance of success. Also, there’s… things… around there, creatures I’d rather not meet again.”

Twilight hummed thoughtfully, it wasn’t much, but it sounded like the only plan they had.

“Spike is here,” she said, turning to look in the direction of her former assistant. “He can take you there.”

“Twilight!” came the voice of Rainbow Dash, and they both looked up to see her flying straight for them. She tackled Twilight in a flying hug, knocking them both to the ground, and Twilight laughed in joy, it was a relief to see the pegasus again. Applejack galloped up moments later.

“Thank Celestia you’re okay, hun!” she said, taking her hat off. “We were so worried about you.”

She nodded to Riley and he nodded back.

“Hey, big guy,” Rainbow said with a grin, stepping aside and letting her friend back up. “Thanks for looking after our girl, here.”

He nodded again, hesitantly, not daring to say a word. Twilight forced herself to look calm, the others didn’t need to know what was happening, not yet, at least. It was, however, a gentle reminder that things were not as cheerful as they seemed, and she sighed.

Spike was resting over in a clearing, he had said he wasn’t comfortable trying to land next to the library, there wasn’t a lot of space as the townsfolk had already made a start on repairing the town, industriously setting up scaffolds and cutting wood. There was nowhere for a dragon of his size to settle without getting in the way and squashing things, not to mention the distraction he caused.

“But I’m tired, Twilight,” he whined quietly when she approached him. “It was a hard flight from Canterlot, we rushed here. I have to sleep a lot these days.”

“You always had to sleep a lot,” she said fondly, forgetting for a moment that he was three hundred years old. He gave her a silly grin, sharp teeth glinting in the morning light.

He had gathered quite a crowd of ponies all around. They had been afraid of him at first, but once he settled down and spoke to them they had grown more confident and were coming closer, forming an inquisitive ring. A few foals were playing around the end of his spiked tail, daring each other to touch it. None of them believed him, when he told them he was the little dragon who used to help in the town’s library, Twilight’s number one assistant.

“It’s important, we’ve found the Elements, but we need you to help fetch them. One last flight, I promise.”

He reluctantly agreed in the end, after much cajoling from the ponies. “If I must.”

Riley told her that he needed some parts from the remains of the downed spacecraft first, and despite her displeasure with him she followed anyhow, curious to find out more about their technology. She was trying hard to remain angry with him, or at least keep her distance, but he seemed genuinely sorry and there was no denying he was stuck here now. That had to count for something, she decided, he had no reason to follow some hidden agenda now.

Or did he? Twilight realised that he was proposing flying up to join his fellow humans in orbit. Would he just stay there? She growled in the back of her throat, angry at whatever fate had brought her here. Everything seemed so conflicted, her heart was torn in two directions, half wanting to hate him for putting their whole world in danger, and the other half wanting things back like they had been, wanting to trust him again, against her own better judgement.

Rarity finally caught up with her as she followed him, and Twilight hastily explained what was going on before she could accost him. She looked about ready to give him a piece of her mind, glaring at his back unflinchingly. Twilight suddenly felt a lot sorrier for him. If he didn’t pull through with the Elements then she suspected Discord was going to be the least of his problems.

Twilight was easily distracted, and when Riley began poking around in the remains of the downed ships she quickly put her differences aside and joined him in his prodding. This time he didn’t tell her to stop, at least not until she stuck her snout in a little too far and got in his way, then he bopped her on the nose with an oily finger.

The human technology was so intricate. Everything was made up of other smaller pieces, and as he dismantled them they had even tinier components inside. She gave up trying to work out what everything did, and he didn’t seem to be in the mood to explain as he was going, partly due to a lack of words in her own language and party because of time constraints. Rarity had backed off to a safe distance – grime covered everything – and at one point when he disconnected some tubing a burst of slimy blue fluid sprayed across the room, only just missing her. She left quickly after that.

Half an hour later they emerged, Riley completely covered in dark smudges and Twilight with her own share of mysterious smelling dirt. At least Riley would be able to change his clothes, she could hardly shave all her fur off. Poking at it just smudged it deeper into her coat. Rarity would surely know what to do, right?

“That thing powers the whole craft?” she asked, looking at the relatively small device he was wheeling on a trolley. It was about the size of a pony, a peculiar contraption surrounded by metal tubing and dangling cables.

“No, this is just a backup supply for life support functions. We stripped out the main generators. They’re much bigger. This will provide enough power to get the command module airborne if we overdrive it. It’s only got to last an hour.”

“How does it work?”

“Induced atomic fission, it forces the decay of a specific isotope of radium and heats a nano-fluid to drive a few billion very small heat engines. They’re pretty reliable, and the fuel source lasts for a couple of thousand years if left dormant.”

It didn’t mean a whole lot to Twilight, particularly as he resorted to using the human words for a few things, but then she realised with a guilty thrill that he was going to be stuck with them for the foreseeable future, and she would have plenty of time to get him to explain everything he knew. It could be the beginning of a whole new era of science, she thought eagerly.

“Can he carry this safely?” Riley asked, looking at Spike’s formidable claws. Twilight had wrapped it up in many layers of blankets and tied some ropes around it to hold the package together, but she could see his reason for concern.

“I can pretend it’s an egg, if you want,” Spike said, picking it up delicately between two claws. He lifted if effortlessly off the trolley as if it were a leaf and Twilight fancied she saw Riley swallow nervously.

“It’s our only chance of getting your crystals back,” Riley said loudly. “Just, be careful, please. It’ll be a lot messier than an egg if you drop it, as well. We’re talking a crater the size of this town.”

This time it was Twilight’s turn to gulp nervously, and she kept a careful eye on it as they sailed through the air, high above Ponyville. Discord had sent some winged beasts after them, but a few rounds from Riley’s rifle had scattered them and Spike could fly very quickly in short bursts when he wanted to, darting one way then another with stomach churning drops and banks.

“I’m coming with you,” Twilight said firmly, repeating herself for the third time. Riley was arguing with her again, he thought she should have stayed behind. She told him that she didn’t trust him, and he seemed willing to accept that. Secretly, she just wanted some time to talk to him, and that wasn’t going to happen back at Ponyville with Rarity hovering around angrily.

“I’m not leaving, you know,” he said after a long moment of relative silence, only the rush of wind in their ears.

“I never thought you would,” she lied, avoiding looking at him. The scenery far below was interesting, after all. Even if it was a long way down. A very long way down.

He continued, “They wouldn’t let me back in, anyhow, not after that. Williams doesn’t forgive easily, I’d be punished severely when we returned. Probably wouldn’t be allowed to stay in the fleet anymore.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“I guess I deserved it.”

She looked up at him at last, he looked upset, more so than she had seen him before. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I hope so. I’m a bit worried. Even if we do win your fight, what then? Where will I go? I haven’t got a future here.”

“You can stay here, of course,” she said, inching closer to him on Spike’s scaled back. His impressively large spines were between them, forming a large green wall. She saw that Riley was clinging onto one of them like a frightened child clinging to its mother. Off to the other side Spike’s wings moved up and down with slow, powerful strokes. Underneath that, nothing, just a few clouds. The air was chill and whipped past them.

“Can you forgive me?” He paused.

“If you stay true to your word, perhaps,” she said, wishing she didn’t have to shout over the wind noise. She had neglected to account for that when she had imagined them having some time to themselves. She was pretty sure Spike could hear them as well, they had to talk so loudly.

“I promise. But I don’t think I could stay here, if you didn’t. The things I said just sort of slipped out. I was under orders to do whatever was necessary to succeed, and I know that’s not an excuse, and there were probably better ways to achieve my goal, but I wasn’t feeling my best at the time. I am truly sorry.”

“I wish you had told me about the ponies your admiral captured. They were my people.”

“They are still your people,” he said. “They’ve taken them for study, not to be executed. Things will be different for them, of course, and they may well be unhappy, but they will still have a life, which may be more than we can say for ourselves if this plan doesn’t work.

“I promise, I haven’t lied or intentionally misled you about anything else. I tried my hardest to be transparent with you in everything. You must know that, to the best of my abilities. I honestly do care about you, and your people.”

“I know,” she replied, looking down to hide a small smile. He looked relieved, and she felt another burst of warmth in her heart. It was going to be okay, finally. Maybe their friendship would always be a little tarnished, but it might fade, given time, the scars would become hidden under better times.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do here,” he continued. “I mean, basic logistics aside, I’m the only one of my kind on the entire planet. I can’t fly, I’ve got no magic, I can’t eat grass and flowers. I just don’t fit in here, Twilight. What if I get ill?”

“We’ll worry about that after we’ve solved the current problem,” she told him firmly.

Riley remained unconvinced, staring thoughtfully into the distant clouds, squinting against the wind that blew. The sun wasn’t visible yet, but they could tell it wasn’t very far away from the intensity of the glow spilling up from the horizon.

“There was always a plan before. I knew where my life was heading, I knew what I was doing every step of the way. There was always a way out. Now there’s just… nothing.”

Twilight tried to imagine herself in his position, marooned on a world full of humans. The prospect didn’t seem that bad, she decided, there would never be a dull moment, that was for sure.

“I’ve never felt so alone,” he finally said, closing his eyes.

“You’re not alone!” she exclaimed, leaning between Spike’s spines. “Maybe we don’t look like you, but that’s not what’s important. It’s what’s inside that matters, and we’re all the same there. You’ll never be alone, Riley.”

He thanked her softly, but she felt like he didn’t really believe her, and her chest hurt. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about a shortage of things to keep you busy, either. We’ve got three centuries of chaos to clear up. You’ll have plenty to do, I promise. And if you get ill, well, we’ll just have to manage. At least you probably can’t catch many of our coughs and colds.”

“I feel like I’m going to, it’s freezing up here.” She forced a bright laugh, hoping to bring some warmth back into their conversation. The thin air wasn’t the only thing that felt cold.

Spike began their descent under Riley’s guidance, dropping down through the clouds gently. The mist formed tiny droplets all over Twilight’s coat, changing her colour temporarily silver and making her shiver. It was an unpleasant experience, lost in the mist for what felt like an eternity. Down became very subjective, and she could easily convince herself they weren’t flying straight.

She knew she could put her trust in Spike, however, and sure enough the clouds began to thin until they were flying just below, skimming the underside and almost close enough to touch, or so it seemed. Riley was looking less morose now, alert and confident, like the man she remembered. He was peering cautiously over Spike’s sides, scanning the thick trees below. Twilight did the same on her side, swallowing the terror in her gut. Although she wasn’t sure what she was looking for Riley assured her she’d know it when she saw it.

“I see something,” Spike called back, arching his long neck to turn one glittering eye on them. They both squinted into the distance, trying to make out detail. There was something in the trees, a smudge of darkness amongst the green tops. Riley agreed and Spike surged forward with a burst of speed.

“Wow,” Twilight breathed as they dropped lower and closer to the crash site. There were two furrows, dark and shadowed. One was long, suggesting an oblique impact as the craft crashed through the trees, uprooting and snapping them. The other was much shorter but appeared to have been on fire at some point. As they drew near she could see the twinkling of artificial lights surrounding a dark wreck.

“Can we circle it a few times?”

Spike did as Riley asked and Twilight watched his face as he peered anxiously into the clearing, searching the trees for the imps he had told her about in hushed, frightened tones. She was sure she hadn’t heard of anything like them before, but Spike had told her about them from books he had read, and she could see how afraid Riley was. It was unusual to see him terrified, he never seemed afraid of anything, even when the lights went out and the water rushed in he had seemed calm and collected, unconcerned by it all. To see him so afraid of something else was deeply unnerving.

“I want you two to stay out of the way,” he announced as Spike circled downwards, almost brushing the tree-tops with his long wings. “Let me down, and then fly away.”

“I’m coming with you,” Twilight told him immediately, holding her head high.

His voice was firm, a short scowl on his face. “No, you’re not.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, I can do that myself.”

“If anything so much as twitches while I’m down there then I’m going to shoot it,” he said, patting the rifle slung around his shoulder. “I don’t want you anywhere near me. The most likely thing I’ll see is you. That’s exactly how they got me last time.”

“Last time?”

Spike turned his head back again, eye glittering in the dim light. “They prey on your loved ones, those closest to your heart, or your deepest fears. That’s how they lead you away into the light. I’ve read all about them. They can’t affect me, though. I’m far too big.”

Twilight watched Riley with new insight, he had seen her, of all ponies? The thought warmed her soul, as much as she wished it didn’t. She had already had her hooves burned once after she let herself become too close.

“Are you completely sure of that?” Riley asked, hesitating to turn and look at them both. “I’ll admit I’m terrified, particularly of going down there on my own. But I’m equally afraid I’ll hurt one of you. I’ve seen what these things can do. They took my whole team out.”

Spike nodded. “You and Twilight do what you have to do, I’ll stand watch. I don’t think they’ll approach with me here, even if they are still around. Hopefully the Discord has rounded them up already, anyway.”

Riley looked extremely unsure, and even Twilight couldn’t suppress the dread weight that started to form in her stomach. Spike was making his final approach by now, crashing down through the small trees that had avoided the fires. The forest around looked extremely dark and foreboding, the twisted branches above their heads in stark contrast to the dimly lit sky beyond. With a gulp she spotted a few darker patches on the ground, stained with old blood. The area was generally a mess, broken pieces of human technology scattered everywhere and shattered, burned trees ready to injure an unwary hoof.

She heard Riley adjust his weapon and in one fluid movement he had slid down from Spike’s back, the rifle held up high as he pressed himself against the dragon’s flank, scanning the trees intently through the little scope mounted on the top. Twilight slithered down after him, heart pounding hard. His nervous energy was infectious. Without a word he gestured for her to follow him and began hurrying in a crouch towards the stricken ship. Spike had delicately placed the carefully wrapped bundle beside it and was carefully cutting the cords with his sharp claws.

“Stay here,” he commanded her while hopping up into the great tear down the side of the ship. Twilight turned her back to the hole and watched Spike. He was alert, his great head swinging back and forth, scales gleaming dully in the bright artificial light. There was no sign of movement, although the seeds of fear Riley had planted were quickly growing into small jungles and everywhere she looked she convinced herself she could see shadows.

Spike shuffled closer, his body forming a protective wall around her and the entrance to the ship. He growled softly, although for a creature his size that was still a deeply resonant sound that shook the ground beneath her hooves. She peered over his tail curiously.

“Celestia!” she cried, relieved to see the elegant, bright form of her mentor. She had escaped from the underworld at last, and come to find her. The alicorn’s coat glowed like the morning sun itself, radiant and strong, illuminating the gloomy clearing and bringing warmth and light and hope into her heart.

“Stay there, Twilight,” Spike growled, voice low. “Whatever you can see’s an apparition, and you well know it.”

“But it’s her,” she said happily, spreading her wings and preparing to leap over his tail. There was no question about it. Celestia had never looked so beautiful before. Spike raised his tail, blocking her path, and she batted it with her hooves, annoyed with him.

The sharp sound of Riley’s gun nearly made her jump out of her skin as bullets hurtled over her head. Celestia’s brilliant white fur was abruptly stained red and she fell to the floor in a heap, much smaller all of a sudden. Twilight screamed in horror, but before she could properly react Riley had jumped down behind her and grabbed her. He pulled her roughly back with him and into the dark interior of the ship.

Twilight scrabbled to get away but his grip was firm and unrelenting, fierce to the point of hurting. Everything seemed dreamlike, he had just shot Celestia! She turned, about to unleash her righteous fury on him.

“Focus, Twilight,” he was shouting at her. “This is what they do. Whatever you saw, it wasn’t real. It was one of them. I warned you this would happen, don’t make me regret allowing you with me. Now come, we have work to do.”

She blinked hard and shook her head, everything felt so confusing. She tried to remember why she had even come on this trip, it seemed like madness now. What if he was wrong? Celestia hadn’t looked like a trick of the mind. She had helped get Twilight out of the underworld, shooting at her was very unfriendly.

“Focus!” he shouted, shaking her roughly, and she finally snapped out of it.

He had her help him manoeuvre the delicate and weighty power module up into the dark innards of the frigate. The floor and walls were at a very awkward angle which made everything twice as difficult as it should be and Riley swore in his own tongue several times as he banged his head and back on things. For her part she concentrated on the task at hand, trying not to thing about the things outside, whatever they were. Even inside she could hear Spike’s angry growls, keeping them at bay.

Riley seemed to take an age to install the machine. Twilight wished she was able to assist better, but she felt like a hindrance more than a help. Whenever he asked her to help hold something in place she felt as if she was letting him down when it wasn’t quite steady enough or in exactly the correct position. He didn’t smile once.

When he finally emerged from the small hole he had crawled into he was scratched and smudged with grease, but he nodded to her and announced they were good to go. He moved further into the front of the ship and she followed. They appeared to be in the very tip of it, looking out through a wide, narrow window, scratched and pitted after years of service. Twilight ducked under a console and peered into the gloom with interest. There were four reclined seats, festooned with levers and switches, and every available surface in the compact space was covered in displays and buttons.

With a sudden whirr and a flash of light the entire room lit up like a Hearthswarming decoration, tiny little lights everywhere in a multitude of different colours, although the predominant shade was red. Many small screens had lit up with small shimering diagrams and text was scrolling quickly across them. Riley was busy flicking switches and tapping at keyboards, evidently intimately familiar with matters.

“Can you hold Discord off for a few more hours?” he asked as he worked. Somewhere underneath her hooves the deck of the ship shuddered and a few loud clunks could be felt. She looked around, realising he meant to try and leave her behind again. She wasn’t about to let him out of her sight, she had decided. This was also the only opportunity she was going to get to have a ride in their marvellous space-ships as well, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her.

She hopped up on one of the reclined chairs and sat awkwardly, head bowed to one side to avoid hitting it on the console above. “I’m coming with you, of course.”

He turned and looked like he was going to argue, but in the end simply sighed and turned back to fiddling with controls. “It’s going to be difficult, uncomfortable and there’s a pretty limited chance of success.”

“Then you’ll need all the help you can get,” she said stubbornly. “You promised me a ride in your spaceship, too.”

“I said no such thing,” he exclaimed indignantly. “You promised yourself a ride. I really think you’d be better off staying here.”

She shook her head resolutely and twisted to lie on her side, watching him defiantly. He sighed again and stood up to slide the door closed. It locked shut with a clang. Some more bangs and clanking noises came from underneath her, felt through the chair, hidden machinery twisting and turning with intriguing noises.

“At least strap yourself in properly,” he said, pushing her onto her back gently. He rummaged underneath her, pulling out some straps with buckles and clips on it, and a little awkwardly he helped attach her to the seat. She questioned if it was really necessary. It was certainly uncomfortable, her physiology was quite dissimilar to the humans, and while her joints would bend that far it was an unpleasant position to be strapped in. The bands he clipped around her chest were very tight and the pockets her hindlegs were in crushed her almost painfully tightly.

“Absolutely necessary. Without the rest of the ship to drag around this’ll pull thirty gees. We won’t hit anywhere near that, but if you even remain conscious during the initial burn I’ll be impressed. I know I didn’t used to on my rookie flights.”

He gave one last tug on everything and then patted her on the shoulder with a grim smile. “Welcome to flight camp.”

“Rainbow Dash is always threatening me with that,” she said glumly. “Maybe I should have taken her up on the offer.”

“Oh, trust me,” he said with a more honest grin. She was suddenly a bit worried that he seemed to be enjoying this. “Whatever she does to you will be nothing in comparison to this.”

She tried to pay attention to the buttons he was pressing but quickly realised she hadn’t a chance of guessing what any of them did. Somehow in her mind she had imagined there would just be a big lever for forwards and maybe something to steer it with. This was far more complicated.

“One final thing, under absolutely no circumstances must you use your magic. I’ve experienced first hand what it does to the electronics in my head, if it has anything like the same effect on the computers that stabilise this craft then we’ll be dead in the air, or worse. Understand?”

She nodded mutely. The temptation to use her magic to try and loosen the straps had almost won. He had strapped himself into his own seat in seconds and then thumbed another control. “Spike, can you hear us?”

“Very loudly!” came Spike’s deafening voice from outside, heard clearly through the thick walls of the ship.

“Would you mind detaching us from the main body? Carefully!”

With a lurch and a shudder they suddenly moved, and Twilight swallowed a nervous squeak as Spike put them down on the floor of the clearing with a jolt. Riley instructed him to stand back and with a deafening roar the craft rose shakily into the air.

Twilight felt exceptionally nervous all of a sudden, everything around them was shaking and the noise was filling her entire head with its constant howl. She felt trapped, the belts around her chest and legs were too tight, forcing the blood into her head so that her pulse throbbed in her temples and horn. She squeezed her eyes shut, cutting off the view of the swaying treetops outside. She felt a gentle pressure on her foreleg and opened her eyes again to see Riley watching her with concern, his hand squeezing her gently.

“Are you sure about this?”

She swallowed her fear and nodded, giving him a weak smile. She had wanted this, after all, and there was no way she was letting him get away without her now.

He returned her nod and gave his attention back to the consoles and displays. She watched as he pushed a lever forwards, causing the pitch of the pervasive sound to change to a much higher tone. They lurched forwards as though somepony had kicked them from behind, and she was forced back into the seat, harder and harder with every passing second.

Riley glanced at her again, also forced back in his seat. The muscles in his neck were corded tightly and he had a silly grin on his face. She was barely able to turn her head. Outside the trees and meadows were a solid green blur underneath them, and the hills in the distance were approaching faster than should be possible. They banked gently, the crushing forces tailing off as Riley brought them to cruising speed.

Not more than a few minutes had passed when Twilight realised with a shock that they were no longer over land. In such a short period of time they had travelled to the coast and beyond. Riley was grinning at her, clearly enjoying her astonishment. “We’re moving at five times the speed of sound,” he told her smugly.

Twilight shook her head in disbelief, it was a meaningless number. “I think Rainbow Dash would kill to experience this,” she said, a little breathlessly.

“Well, if we survive this, maybe I’ll give all you guys rides when we get back. But for now, we need to punch out of your atmosphere and transfer to a lunar orbit as soon as possible, there’s not a lot of time left, solar radiation is already starting to rise dangerously. Try to tense all your muscles as hard as you can. It’ll help you stay awake. And remember – no magic.”

Suddenly the view outside shifted as they turned to point straight upwards. Twilight was glad she hadn’t eaten recently as she fought the urge to be sick. Riley began tapping at different consoles and pulling on different levers, and with a whine from the engines the same unpleasant forces returned, crushing her back into the chair with even more ferocity than before. The colour seemed to leech from the world, fading darker and darker until she finally gave up and passed out.

When she came to again she felt as groggy as if she had just woken from a deep sleep. The accelerative forces had gone, and so had the brightness from outside. Now there was just blackness. As she looked closer, however, she could see it wasn’t completely black, there were a million uncountable stars out there too. The view was limited through the small window, but it was still breathtaking.

“Welcome back,” Riley said softly. The sound had gone, everything was quiet now, the roar of the machinery blessedly absent apart from small electronic bleeps and ticking sounds. He had unclipped himself and leant over to loosen her own belts. She felt very peculiar, and realised now that it wasn’t just disorientation and sickness from the takeoff experience. Her nose felt stuffy and all the blood seemed to be in her head.

“We’re weightless,” she said in awe, watching her tail floating between her legs. It was mesmerising.

Riley nodded, turning sideways to hover beside her. “How do you feel? You’re the first pony to visit space.”

“Like I’ve got a cold,” she said. Her voice sounded strange in her own head, loud and nasal.

“No gravity to drain your sinuses,” he said. “You get used to it.”

“How long was I unconscious?”

“About fifteen minutes. It’s quite normal, everybody does it the first few times. Look,” he said, turning to thumb a control. The stars outside panned across the viewport and the moon burst into view, strangely large and very, very bright. She gasped.

“Can we see our planet, too?”

“Not as well, we have to stay within the…” he lapsed off into a human word again, and shrugged. “There’s a protective boundary your planet creates that shields us from the sun. We have to stay within it, which means keeping to the dark side.”

The ship rotated again, almost ponderously. The moon slid out of view and the stars skimmed by until the sun shone in on them, an unbearably bright light. She held a hoof up to her eyes to shield them, but without the familiar pull of gravity she overshot and hit herself on the forehead. To her dismay Riley had seen it and was chewing his lip, clearly trying not to laugh.

“There she is,” he said. “We named your planet Sleipnir, after a horse-god from our mythology.”

The window had become slightly tinted now, and the glare from the sun was less severe. She squinted into the darkness and realised that they were looking right at it, a huge slender crescent of blue light in the darkness. The atmosphere reflected the sunlight brightly.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, leaning forwards. Riley had wisely left her partially strapped in, and so she didn’t go careening wildly into the window.

“When we get back I’ll show you some photos of my own world, seen from further away. Yours will look almost identical.”

“I would like that,” she murmured. It was hard to pay attention to him when there was so much to look at from outside. Many ponies had theorised on what the planet would look like from space, and there had been some misguided attempts to launch magical rockets in the past, but nothing had been particularly successful. Seeing it in person was an almost mystical experience.

“Soon we’re going to have to shut off most of our electrical systems,” he warned, turning back to various consoles. “We’ll be leaving the protection of the magnetic field. Until we get into orbit around the moon. Once we’re on the far side we will come back online. We can’t risk damaging the generator.”

“Is that safe?”

“Not really, no,” he said reluctantly. “But it’s the best we can do. We should have about thirty minutes of air without the scrubbers. Plenty of time.”

They spent a frightful half hour floating through the void of space, and while Riley told her they were moving at a ridiculous speed without any nearby frame of reference it was impossible to really feel it. The ship was deathly quiet, only the gentle hiss of their breathing and the occasional ping of cooling metal broke the silence. Riley had told her to stay quiet and to relax, they needed to conserve what air they had. Twilight found her thoughts wandering wildly, running back through all the things that had happened in the last week. It seemed so much more than their usual adventures, none of those had involved three centuries and alien races. It also gave her time to dwell on the facts at hoof, that she was floating in a small metal box an unthinkable distance from home, breathing a small bubble of air that was running out. It was getting uncomfortably hot in the small cockpit, the cooling systems were also offline.

“I think we’re good,” Riley announced softly, leaning forward to work the controls again. With a gentle whine the cockpit lit up once more, the lights and controls twinkling all around again. Twilight hadn’t realised how much she could miss the sound of the machinery. A soft and thankfully cool breeze flowed again, wafting her mane around her face in the weightless environment.

“There they are,” he said some time later. She squinted out of the viewport again, but there was nothing visible, just the great bulk of the moon off to one side, impossibly large.

“We’ll be there in four minutes,” he said. “We’re going to have to fly in silently or they’ll spot us. I still have override access to their systems, once we’re closer I can lock off the cargo bay and we should be able to dock safely.”

Twilight nodded. “What should I do?”

“Stay here,” he said firmly. “You’ve had your joyride, now I need to do what I came for. It won’t take…”

Riley trailed off. Twilight stretched her neck, trying to see what he was looking at on the screens. The diagrams and human words were meaningless, but there certainly were a lot of them.

“What is it?”

“Thala,” he said, with dread. “Evidently they’ve followed us after all. The fleet’s engaged them. My god, it’s a warzone…”

Twilight’s heart skipped a beat. “I thought you said they couldn’t follow you?”

“We didn’t think they had. They must have been delayed, it can happen, unbounded warp travel is an unpredictable thing, the trails we leave are very twisted.”

Riley had a deep frown on his face, but it wasn’t fear this time, she was glad to see. “We’re all in a lot of trouble,” he said glumly. “If they’ve found out where you are…”

Twilight swallowed nervously. She remembered the long, winding tale that they had listened to at that first formal meeting. Riley didn’t need to finish his sentence.

“What do we do?”

“Carry on,” he said. “I think the fleet is still trying to enter subspace. If my predictions are correct then they’ll be ready very soon, if the Thala don’t get them first. I’m trying to scan the inter-fleet communications to work out what’s going on. I don’t think there’s a lot of them, so they might be able to fight back. If they can drive them off then there’s no danger to your planet, they won’t know where they are any more than we do.”

“But damn.” He swore in his own tongue again and slammed his fist against the arm of his chair angrily. “As if this wasn’t already difficult enough.”

She was about to try and say something optimistic, but an alarm rang out loudly in the cockpit, startling them both. Riley swore again and leapt back onto his seat.

“Tighten your straps,” he barked. “They’ve spotted us.”

Some computerised voice was speaking to him, but she couldn’t understand a word. It sounded urgent. She tried her best to tighten the belts around her chest but without magic it was tricky, most unicorns used their magic almost exclusively for fiddly things, having to resort to hooves was frustrating.

She barely had time to brace herself before they lurched to one side, the howl of the engines back again. Something bright flashed by overhead, disappearing off into the distance rapidly, then several more. Riley threw the ship into another steep curve, diving fast towards the surface of the moon that loomed before them.

Suddenly there was another vessel outside, much larger and dark black. Twilight hadn’t seen a lot of human technology, but even to her it was obvious that this was a different type of construction entirely, long and thin with organic looking projections all across it. It banked hard to try and match them but the nimble command pod could easily out-turn it.

Riley was speaking urgently in his own language, and from a speaker somewhere she could hear another human answering back. They twisted and turned hard and she fought to stay awake this time. She was afraid that if she passed out she would never wake again.

“Brace,” Riley yelled, and a split second later her world was in turmoil as something crashed into the vessel from behind. They were sent tumbling and spinning wildly, the moon disappearing from view almost as soon as it appeared. Riley managed to get the craft under control again and they skimmed across the surface of the moon, so close she imagined they could touch it.

The scene outside passed in a blur for the next few minutes while Riley danced with their attackers, trying to make their way toward the human fleet. When they were finally close enough the other human ships started to take notice and their return fire gave them a brief respite as the Thala ship took its turn to dodge and weave.

They were decelerating hard and Twilight was straining against the restraints, trying hard not to be sick. She imagined that would be quite unpleasant without gravity, not to mention the constant twists and turns.

As they got closer she could finally see the other ships, arranged at all angles in the sky. Several were trailing smoke and fire into the void, and all were firing constant volleys into the darkness as their enemies flitted around.

Riley was still speaking to the humans on the other end of the radio, and their tone of voice had turned angry while Riley was clearly trying to keep his calm and formal. They were drifting closer and closer to the bulk of the ship in front of them, and on the back was an illuminated aperture with flashing lights strobing around it.

With a crash they connected with the larger ship and Riley was out of his seat as soon as it had stopped shaking. He hastily undid Twilight’s bonds and helped her out of the chair, keeping a firm hold on her as she scrabbled against the floor, unable to move without gravity.

“It’s too dangerous to stay here,” he explained. “Our ship isn’t fully inside Alpha One’s shields. You’re going to have to come with me.”

When the door opened there was a sudden rush of warm, humid air from the ship, smelling strongly of oil and machinery and humans. Riley pulled her after him, and she found herself floating sideways and unable to correct. Every time her hooves touched a surface she would scrabble for purchase and only succeed in knocking herself at a new angle. She found her wings helped a little, more as drag anchors than anything. She felt very sick and was finally coming to regret insisting on following him up here.

The frigate rocked beneath them and Riley stumbled, losing his grip as well. She found herself tumbling wildly, very disorientated. The thunderous sound of the guns echoed through the metal around them. Finally Riley stabilised himself and caught her, pulling her closer. They floated through into the cargo hold, a large, open space braced with metalwork and lined with palettes of boxes and crates strapped to all surfaces. There was a rack of shelves full of weapons and other miscellaneous containers that he seemed to be making for.

“Hold on,” he told her, pushing her against a support strut. She clung to it with both forelimbs, wings splayed for balance. Riley pushed away from her and sailed across the space, twirling in place to land his feet against a crate. She watched him as he pulled himself deftly across to a storage unit and began rummaging.

“Here,” he called to her, tossing something at her. She resisted the urge to catch it in her magic, instead reaching out with a hoof. They looked like a pair of human boots, but oddly bulky. “They’re magnetic boots, they’ll help you stay on the ground. See if you can wear them somehow.”

She tried poking her rear hooves into them, and while they fitted into the ankles the human boots were not really designed for her. She fumbled with the catches on them, trying to tighten them so they would stay put. Experimentally she placed them against the metal floor, and with a clang they attached themselves. Some clever technology understood when she was trying to prise them up again and deactivated the magnets inside. It felt very strange, particularly as her front hooves didn’t have them, but at least she could stay orientated in the same axis now.

The cargo bay echoed with the sounds of the battle outside, and also with the loud voice of a human talking to them.

---

“Open the door or we’ll cut through it,” came William’s furious voice. Riley tried to ignore him. “You’re in enough trouble as it is, Collins. Don’t give them reason to hang you for this.”

He ignored the voice, focusing on his task. “God-dammit, man, we can do without fighting you too…”

A sudden explosion cut off anything more the admiral was trying to say and the deck beneath him shifted suddenly, throwing him off balance again. If he was going to be stuck on their planet for the rest of his life then he wanted to at least have a few necessities and he continued his hunt for equipment, shoving medical supplies and clothes into his backpack with renewed urgency. The crash had sounded very much like another craft locking onto theirs.

The Thala tactics were well understood after so many years of fighting them. They would often ram another ship in an effort to damage it and latch onto its hull. They could form a seal and would then break an ugly tear in the armour, gaining entry that way. They didn’t have long, if that was the case. He could only hope they would be able to get away before it happened.

Fate was not on their side today, though, it would seem. Another explosion shook the ship as Twilight came clomping over to him, ungainly in the magboots. They were usually given to passengers that were unfamiliar with spaceflight, to stop them injuring themselves or others. Most humans didn’t look much better, he knew.

The lights flickered and dimmed. An enormous bang came from the sealed cargo bay doors, leading back into the ship. Riley heard the ominious sound of Thala voices behind it, sharp and clicking. He was familiar with their language but the muffled sounds prevented him from understanding. The banging came again and the door warped and shook. He could hear gunfire from behind.

Riley grabbed a couple of the assault rifles from behind him and thrust one at Twilight. She looked at it in alarm, backing away slightly. “Point it at whatever comes through that door, and squeeze the trigger,” he told her. “We just have to hope there’s not too many of them. They can’t see well in the dark, so keep to the shadows.”

They tried to get back to the docking port, but before they could take more than a few paces the door was knocked out of its frame with a squeal of twisting metal and the chitinous carapace of the aliens behind came rushing forward. Riley was in familiar territory again, and squeezed the trigger, falling back on old training.

There were five of them, and two fell as they rushed towards the pair, their curved heads and glittering fangs gleaming in the flickering lights. Running on two slender legs they were very fast and closed the gap in little time. Riley brought down another before they were on top of him. Twilight had dropped the rifle and had backed away behind him, quite sensibly, he observed.

He swung the rifle in a wide arc, ducking as a curved blade hissed overhead. The butt of the rifle caught the drone across the jaw, knocking it to the side with an inhuman squeal of rage. The second one knocked him to the ground, jaws snapping at his face and neck in the gloom. He wrestled with it, trying to knock it away from him as they sailed through the air. Eventually they collided with the ceiling and he kicked out with a leg, pushing them both in another direction.

The drone had one of its powerful, spindly hands wrapped around his upper arm, and was resolutely refusing to let go, he punched at it again and again, hurting his hand on the hard armoured surface of what passed for a face. The multiple beady eyes shone brightly and it retaliated, swiping at him and tearing at his legs with its clawed feet. He saw his chance as a support strut came rushing towards them, behind the Thala’s view. He timed his thrust and at the last moment grabbed it by the neck and pushed backwards with all his might.

Its head impacted with the hard metal edge, and there was an audible crunch as the carapace crumpled. The thing howled in pain and anger, thrashing wildly at him and finally releasing its deathgrip on his arm. He kicked back and was finally able to turn his weapon on it, shooting it between the eyes.

He turned, panting for breath, just in time to see Twilight unleashing a bolt of white-hot light at the last drone that was creeping towards her, unsure of what she was. The Thala had never met the inhabitants of this planet before. All the lights went out, but the creature dodged the crackling ball of energy which went sailing by to impact with a container behind, sending its contents spinning. The alarm had stopped, the ship’s electronics overloaded by the magical spell. Fortunately in the near perfect dark the creature was at a severe disadvantage, the insect-like race’s eyes were adapted for the bright sun of their arid home world.

Riley pushed off the wall with his legs, speeding across the open space. The remains of Twilight’s spell faded away, the last source of light. Some feeble emergency beacons were flickering to life nearby, and it gave him a little bit of a view. He daren’t use his rifle in the shifting gloom for fear of hitting Twilight.

Another burst of light let him fix their position more clearly and he collided with the floor nearby, hooking his fingers around the edge of a floor panel to avoid bouncing off. The Thala spotted him and hesitated, suddenly presented with two targets, one of which was new. It was well known that the drones were of limited intelligence, relying on their hive-mind to direct them, and this one was struggling.

Twilight apparently saw her opportunity and kicked out at the creature with her powerful hind legs, the metal boots adding some force to the kick. The Thala swung around to defend but was a little to slow and it went skittering backwards through the air, trying to find some purchase. A sharp report of gunfire put an end to its life and Riley looked up to see four marines pulling themselves through the doorway, powerful torches lighting the hold.

He briefly considered fighting, the adrenaline fuelling his bravado, but his mind could see the inevitable outcome of that. He thrust the weapon to the side, letting it float out of range. The marines made their way over to them, grabbing him roughly by the arms and pulling him with them. Another had a gun pointed at Twilight, and Riley resisted the urge to punch him. Twilight gave him a helpless look and he whispered to her to just play along for now.

They were taken back through the frigate, up to one of the briefing rooms where Williams was waiting for them. As they passed he could see the signs of the battle, dead Thala drones were scattered in the hallways, blood and burn marks splattered liberally around the surfaces. It looked as though the humans had just managed to repel the boarding attempt.

Williams was floating with his hands folded behind his back, a very stern look on his face. A couple of the other marines from the squad hovered nearby, stun rifles ready in their hands. Riley swallowed guiltily, he recognised them personally, and he was sure Williams would have painted him in the light of a traitor.

“I could have done with your help when we initially ran into the Thala,” he said, looking a little remorseful. “They were completely unexpected, waiting for us behind the moon.”

“How did they follow us?”

“We don’t know. Probably were on our tail all along, but you know what warp travel’s like, sometimes we come out weeks apart.”

“Did we lose many? What’s the situation?”

“We,” and he stressed the word, as if to infer that it didn’t apply to him, “lost one frigate and a cargo hauler, eighty-five men in total. The threat has been neutralised, although they appear to be building a beacon some way off.”

Riley choked, eyes wide. “What? Here? Have you engaged?”

“Yes, one craft broke formation, we cannot spare the resources to continue, however.”

“If they finish that then this planet is doomed,” he cried, suddenly short of breath. “They’ll annihilate the place. There’ll be nothing left.”

“If they choose to pursue this race, maybe. They’ve shown limited interest in the other planetbound races, hopefully they’ll do the same here. It’s not our problem.”

“If they’re putting the resources into a beacon then they mean to colonise,” he spat. His heart rate had increased dramatically, the new information spelled nearly certain doom for the peaceful pony race. They wouldn’t stand a chance against the scourge that would flood in soon.

“You don’t know that. We’ll inform the council of this, of course, they will no doubt wish to make contact, and if there is a way we can help then a squadron will be posted here, to protect the natives.”

Riley growled angrily. “Like they’ll be able to spare a single ship. We have to stop them!”

“I think once they see the treasures we bring back then it’ll be in their interest to post more than just one ship here, Collins,” he said, gesturing to the marine who was holding his pack. He handed it to the admiral who began hunting through it.

“In all honesty, if I was you, I would have stayed behind,” he said at last. Riley held his gaze, refusing to back down. The admiral retrieved the small ornate wooden box, tossing his pack back to the marine. “You know what awaits you back at home. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t overlook this. The best you can hope for is dishonourable discharge and a life behind bars.”

“I don’t want to return home,” he said, following the pack with his eyes. “Let us go, we’ll be gone in minutes, never to bother you again.”

Williams sighed and turned away, staring out of the virtual window on the wall. It showed a peaceful view of the stars and the fleet outsides. “You really have gone native, haven’t you? You know I can’t do that. You are a criminal, you have to face justice. What is unfortunate is that you’ve chosen to condemn one of them, as well.” He nodded to Twilight, who watched in uncomprehending silence. Her gaze was fixed firmly on the wooden box.

“At least let her go, then,” he pleaded. He wasn’t sure if she would be able to pilot the ship back on her own, but he could probably get some sort of automatic course programmed in that might give her a chance. More than she’d have if she was forced to return with them to Earth, at any rate. There was little waiting for her there except a life of study and tests.

“Negative,” Williams said, turning back to him. “She is an accomplice.”

“You bastard,” he snarled, stepping forwards angrily. One of the marines intercepted him and he pushed him roughly out of the way to get to Williams. There had been a time when the marine wouldn’t have opposed him, but now he was an enemy things were different. The marine punched him hard in the gut and he doubled over in pain.

The situation seemed dire, and the burst of pain jolted him into action. With a grunt he swung his fist back up, slugging the marine hard across the jaw and knocking him to the side. He lunged at Williams but another guard intercepted, punching him hard in return. He fell to the floor, nose bleeding freely. This time when he tried to get back up there were two men holding him to the ground, putting severe pressure on his chest and legs. He struggled uselessly against them.

“That’s just another thing you’re going to regret. Just stop it, you’re not doing yourself any favours,” the admiral was saying, but Riley was struggling to hear him through the pounding fury in his ears. His vision seemed clouded, his thinking simple. They just had to get away, and if that meant fighting past every one of them then that was what he would do.

“For someone so clever you’ve made a lot of very poor decisions,” the admiral was saying in the background. Twilight’s voice cut through it like a knife, attracting his full attention immediately.

“Riley…”

He looked up, searching for her. His fevered pulse slowed slightly as he saw her, cowering as two marines held her to the ground. She looked afraid and defeated, and his stomach knotted uncomfortably. This was his fault, he knew. He had set in motion the course of events that had ultimately brought her here and doomed her to her fate.

“Magic,” he whispered to her in Equestrian. He braced himself for the shock to his cybernetics, shutting down as much as he was able. His body had developed a bit of a resistance to the effects after so much time around Twilight, but it was still difficult. “Cast a spell. Anything.”

She nodded at him, understanding at once. With a flash of light her horn was aglow, and in a moment a crackling bolt of electricity shot to the ceiling, crackling along the false plastic walls and following the path of the metallic structures underneath. The lights went out immediately and the sound of the ship’s mechanics died away soon after with a baleful whine. The room was lit by the fitful flickering of the discharge, a disorientating flashing like lightning.

Williams was shouting orders and marines were reaching for their torches. Riley twisted around, ducking out of his guard’s hold and elbowing him in the stomach. The man doubled over in the darkness and Riley made a run for it, grabbing his pack on the way. Twilight had pushed her guards off, helped by the lack of gravity and Riley led her out through the hatchway and into the flickering corridor beyond.

She hesitated, resisting him. “We need the box.”

“Leave it, trust me,” he said, pulling her forwards. Two soldiers were pulling themselves down the corridor toward them, hand over hand along the supports set into the walls for such a purpose. Riley leapt for them with a feral yell, but Twilight’s magic got there first. The lights in the corridor went out completely this time.

They fled through the ship, hurrying back down to the storage hold. There was little resistance, Riley could hear over the communication network that they had largely given up on them, the priority now was to get the ship’s systems back online, evidently Alpha Three was in final prep for subspace entry and they risked being left behind if they couldn’t link up in the next few minutes.

Riley worked as they fled, establishing a remote link to the command module and preparing it for launch. Fortunately it was far enough from Twilight’s initial blasts at the time to avoid much damage to its computers and bringing it back online proved mercifully trouble-free.

There wasn’t a lot of time to help Twilight strap herself in properly this time and he had to hope she wouldn’t hurt herself. Outside the battle had mostly come to an end, the Thala had been defeated. It looked as though their attack force had been small, whether some of them had become lost in hyperspace or if they had only sent a small scouting party was unknown.

“We made it,” Twilight said a few minutes later as they floated through the blackness of space, out of sight and out of range of the fleet at last. Riley had relaxed a little, feeling the exhaustion catch up with him at last as the adrenaline drained away. He turned to see her grinning widely, and she gave a little laugh of joy, bright and childlike.

“Here,” he said, tossing a small bag to her. It clinked promisingly. “I hid them in the hold before they caught us.”

She caught the bag, fumbling with the clips to open it. He smiled as she breathed a sigh of relief, visibly relaxing in her seat. “I thought we’d lost them for good. You could have told me, I was worried sick!”

He shrugged, there had been no time.

“How long until we get back? With these we can lock Discord away again. There’s not a moment to lose!”

Riley stared out of the window, frowning deeply.

Twilight put her element back into the bag, holding them against her chest. “What’s the matter?”

“We’ve got a bigger problem than Discord,” he sighed. His fingers flicked over a keyboard and a wireframe model of another Thala ship appeared on the window, projected from below somewhere. “That is a beacon, the Thala have brought it with them. When it’s finished it’ll let them find you. Planets like yours and mine are very rare, and very valuable. You won’t stand a chance. They’ll tear your people to pieces, and this will become another homeworld for them.”

He watched her, trying to see if she understood. She looked back in dismay. “We have to stop them.”

“What about Discord?” she asked.

“Whatever mischief he makes will be pleasant compared to the storm that’s coming, Twilight. You really have no idea, trust me on this. We can worry about Discord later.”

She nodded, accepting his words. “What can we do?”

“I’ve studied their beacon ships in some detail, it was the subject of my first doctorate, in fact. They have weaknesses, if I can gain entry, and somehow survive the hordes inside. There’s a good chance they’ll be running on a minimum tech crew, the fighter drones will have been part of the offensive that my fleet destroyed. Might stand a chance.”

“I don’t think I can, Riley,” she said weakly. She looked small and afraid, slumped in the co-pilot’s chair, mane and tail frazzled and floating about her like a halo. “This has all been too much. I’m not like you, I can’t keep fighting and running.”

He ran a hand through his hair, it felt sticky and greasy from so long without a proper shower. “I’m sorry that you’ve had to go through this, all of you for that matter. But if we turn back now you’ll have about half a year before they start to send scouting parties, then they’ll take a few of you to begin with, a city here, a few towns elsewhere.

“You’ll fight back, of course, but you’ll do nothing to stop them, it’ll be like trying to stop that squid-monster by spitting at it. There’s so many of them, for every ten you kill another ten thousand wait in the shadows. After a year they’ll have taken a whole continent, the planet will be surrounded by their warships and carriers, half your population will be dead or missing.

“In another year there’ll be nothing left, your entire civilisation will be gone, the surface of your world will be covered with Thala, every square mile.”

Twilight shuddered.

“You don’t need to come,” he said softly. “And I won’t make you. If I can get inside then you can return home, I can set the autopilot to guide you back”

She looked hopeful, and more than a little conflicted at the same time. “How will you get home?”

“I’ll figure something out,” he said with what he hoped was a casual tone.

She narrowed her eyes at him and sat up. “You’re not planning on coming back, are you? You’d be stranded without this space-ship.”

“There’ll be Thala ships, I think.”

“Can you fly those?” He shook his head. “Riley, I thought we’d been through this before.”

“Look, what does it matter? I’ve got no future anyhow, there’s nothing left, everybody I knew is about to leave, forever. And I’m okay with that, really, I am. I can do this, I can save your people.”

“I’m not leaving you to die!”

“And I appreciate that. But there’s very little chance of this working whether you’re with me or not. It’s better for you to leave. Your own people need you.”

“Okay,” she said after a long, heavy pause. He swallowed a lump in his throat and she continued, a deep frown on her pretty face. “I feel so drained, and so afraid. I’m like a leaf in a hurricane, blown from place to place with no control. It’s horrible.”

He nodded, gazing back out through the window thoughtfully, imagining he could see their target. “Just one last push. Then we’ll get you home.”

The fleet’s scanners had shown that the beacon was undefended now, alone apart from its formidable armour. They’d destroyed them before, they were fairly easy to crack open, but that was with an entire fleet of warships and powerful weaponry. Doing so with one engineer was going to be different.

“It looks like we might be in luck,” he said, indicating a grainy image on another monitor. A small glimmer of hope and excitement caught in his chest, the first bit of good news they’d had in a long time.

The image of the alien ship was hard to make out, but there was a haze around it and something definitely looked wrong. “There’s the frigate that attacked it. I think it’s smashed into it somehow. This might work in my favour, with any luck they’ll be weakened.”

Author's Note:

(Minor edit of chapter to fix some formatting errors)