Departure
The time to the launch date seemed to Twilight to last forever. She felt like she was running just as fast as she could but still staying in one place. The time stretched, every day generating a dozen more tasks to be done, all of them urgent, and there just weren’t enough hours.
Finally, though, finally, it was time. Twilight had to fight the urge to dance with excitement as she walked up the rear boarding ramp of the big, rugged Kestrel-class shuttle, banners fluttering in the breeze all around, bearing the flag of the World Nation. Behind her, on a great podium surrounded by flying lenseyes, stood the Princesses, watching regally along with the Griffon Hetman and the current chief of the Zebra State Council. Spike, her ever-faithful assistant, now well into late adolescence and somewhat gawky with his newly-grown wings, stood next to the podium, watching anxiously as she boarded. The decision to leave him behind had been one of the hardest ones she’d ever made, but the Bureau of Technology needed someone at the helm who was intimately familiar with what Twilight had been doing, and Spike was the only one who fit that bill. He’d helped her since the Bureau’s founding, and had become a more and more integral part of it as he’d grown older.
Twilight sincerely wished her friends were walking alongside her into the shuttle. She’d argued for that very thing during the planning stages of this ceremony, insisting that that sense of togetherness was what Equestria was all about; that the mission was being undertaken by a group of friends, dedicated to going where nopony had ever been before and finding out where the attacking alien ship had come from. Pinkie and Fluttershy had finally convinced her otherwise. The other members of the World Nation didn’t operate on the same system that Equestria did, and they felt more comfortable knowing that a strong leader was in charge. Convincing them was important, Twilight’s friends argued, for the other nations were all still decades away from mounting an expedition like this, and one thing the World Nation didn’t need was tensions between its members. So no matter how much Twilight’s friends wanted to walk up that ramp alongside her, she would be doing it alone. As long as the griffons and zebras were persuaded that Equestria had the mission well in hoof, they wouldn’t be agitating for their own people to be included, something that would delay the voyage even further.
The media event and celebration Pinkie had organized for the formal launch of the Dauntless mission had gone flawlessly. The speeches by the Princesses and the visiting heads of state had been profound, inspiring, and Twilight had felt her heart swelling with the knowledge that her entire world was watching. She’d given her own speech, (which Pinkie had reviewed beforehoof and had helped her cut down dramatically) finishing up to thunderous applause of stomping hooves that echoed off of Canterlot Castle, hugged Spike, and started walking down the cleared space to the landing pad where the Kestrel waited, a silent, looming gray bulk that would carry her beyond the sky.
Twilight’s hoof rang on the metal boarding ramp, between the two Wardens who stood to proud attention on either side, looming huge in their fully-enclosed battle armor as they waited for her. It was probably nerves that made the two armored earth ponies look so enormous in their suits. Twilight felt a momentary chill, the Wardens’ presence reminding her of why they were coming along. Whoever had sent the ship that Rainbow’s ponies had driven off was still out there. Equestria had no idea who they were, where they were, or how strong they might be. Part of her mission was to find allies, but she had no idea whether there were any to find. She paused, turning, taking in the sight of the joyous crowd, the glorious splendor of Canterlot Castle festooned with flags and banners, the pride in Celestia and Luna’s faces. She felt a sudden pang, wishing that her parents, or the other friends she’d known when she was younger, could have lived to see this day. She hoped to see Canterlot again, to return in triumph, having learned so much about the universe that it would take her another eight decades to decode it all, but at the same time she knew that this mission could potentially end very badly indeed.
But that was for later, and today was exciting. Twilight quickly made her way to one of the padded takeoff seats, pushing herself against the backrest and swiftly fastening the restraints with quick telekinetic flicks. The two armored Wardens did likewise, securing themselves in the wall-clamps provided for battle-armored ponies with quick, efficient motions. Twilight could pick up faint magical traces flicking between them as they spoke between themselves, their suit systems evidently set for arcane rather than radio communications.
“Thank you both for volunteering,” Twilight said to the two Wardens, breaking the silence in the huge, mostly empty hold. “I know Rainbow and Applejack picked their detachment very carefully, and I want you both to know that I have complete faith in everyone on this mission.” She couldn’t restrain her happy grin.
There was a click from the suit on the right, and a calm female voice emerged from the intimidating metal suit. “Thank you, ma’am. We’re all honored to be along. Would you mind if I conveyed your regards to the rest of the detachment?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind at all!” Twilight said, “I’ll be making an announcement to that effect once we get on board, but if you want to send that along ahead, that would be wonderful!” The armored mare nodded, but further attempts at conversation were cut off by the pilot’s voice from the nose of the Kestrel.
“Ten seconds to takeoff. Everyone brace.” Twilight busied herself double-checking the safety restraints. As a dramatic gesture, Pinkie had suggested a hard takeoff, which Rainbow had enthusiastically endorsed. That meant those restraints were absolutely necessary.
Twilight felt her stomach lurch as the levitation systems kicked in just before the gravity generators. The shuttle lifted grandly from the pad, rotating to point its nose upward, and then the thrust units kicked in. The mild oscillations that made it through the gravity field shoved Twilight back against her seat and made the Wardens’ armor rattle against the powerful clamps that held them in place, while the shuttle rocketed upward, nose beginning to glow as the atmosphere attempted to slow its meteoric ascent.
The thrust eased back suddenly to a comfortable level. They’d only needed to impress the crowd, after all, leaving a trail of ionized air and a shocked audience in the wake of their sudden and dramatic departure. It was a good thing, Twilight reflected, that they’d found the Tethinar Imperium’s linear force generators so easy to duplicate; trying that stunt with a Library Core fusion engine’s white-hot exhaust cone would have killed thousands in the tightly-packed crowd.
The rest of the trip up to orbit was much more sedate, and Twilight took the opportunity to interface with the shuttle’s sensor systems. An illusory screen flicked to life in front of her as she cast the minor spell, the vehicle’s data feeds resolving into a display. She watched in a quiet awe that she never quite lost as the sky in front of her faded to a deep blue, and finally to black, the stars burning in brilliant pinpoints of light. She sat there quietly, drinking in the beauty of it. Luna had once told her that up on the moon, it always looked like this without air to get in the way, and that the gem-studded beauty of the night sky had given her solace during her long imprisonment inside the Nightmare entity. It was a cruel solace, the Night Princess had confided, for it was the desire, the compulsion to share this beauty with everypony that had led to her imprisonment in the first place. Up here, amidst those endless pinpoints of light, it was easy to see how it could have driven Luna to such extremes in an effort to share it.
One moving spark against the vastness of the starfield caught Twilight’s eye. A quick thought magnified that part of the view, and Twilight found herself looking at Equestria’s main orbital shipyard, rendered tiny by distance. She had the magnification just high enough that she could see the shape of the Dauntless nestled within the ragged shell of its construction scaffold. It might be far and away the largest, most powerful space vessel Equestria had ever constructed, but from this view it looked small, like a toy. The Warden construction cradles next to it were all occupied, by vessels much larger than the cutters that were currently the Wardens' entire navy; Applejack had recently been focusing a large portion of her budget (supplemented by the Crowns') on expanding the Wardens’ space presence, in order to better safeguard ponykind’s off-planet industry. Farther down the shipyard, a ways away from the Warden slips, Twilight could also just barely make out the shape of the first zebra space vessel; a mining ship, intended to prospect out in the Oort cloud. It made her chest surge with pride with the reminder that Equestria was sharing the gifts Duran and the Library Core had given them, giving their neighbors a leg up in reaching the same level. The technology-sharing program had been Fluttershy’s idea, but Twilight had thrown her own support behind it enthusiastically, and she was so delighted to see it panning out so well.
The Dauntless loomed huge in her illusionary window as the shuttle approached the shipyard. It soon filled the entire screen, even after she’d dropped the magnification back to zero. At almost three kilometers long (using the metric system Equestria had adopted from the Library Core) the exploration cruiser utterly dwarfed any of Equestria’s previous space vehicles. The Warden cutters that had driven off the intruder were only a hundred and thirty meters long, and the new class that Applejack had laid down just after the Interloper incident was only a hundred and sixty; midgets compared to the bulk of the Dauntless but also far quicker to build. They were a stopgap, intended to be built quickly to serve as an interim navy while the larger destroyer-class vessels were being constructed. As the shuttle approached the docking port on Dauntless’s starboard side, the ship became a single vast stretch of smoothly-curving metal, studded with antennae and the blisters of her point-defense emplacements. The Kestrel slid smoothly through the door and was gripped by the docking cradle, which moved it smoothly and easily into its storage cocoon along the wall of the docking bay. Twilight shook her head in mild bemusement as she unfastened her restraints. That they could launch a shuttle from the courtyard at Canterlot and fly it thousands of kilometers into the sky, meet up with the shipyard in geosynchronous orbit around the equator, and hit a target barely wider than the shuttle’s wing without so much as a bump never, ever failed to leave her slightly in awe of the accomplishments of the last few decades. And all the younger ponies just took it all for granted!
The two Wardens disengaged from their armor cradles, and she motioned for them to precede her. Now that they were aboard ship, among the crew that would be making the historic voyage together, there was no need for the extra ceremony. They stepped out with polite bows, undoubtedly heading off to get out of their armor. Twilight had heard from Applejack that Warden battle armor was fairly uncomfortable, especially the earth pony suits that these two were wearing. Unicorn armor was more responsive, since it incorporated magic-based control mechanisms, but the earth pony suits still used the feedback systems originally adapted from Library Core designs, since most earth ponies couldn’t interface with arcane controls. The pegasus suits were much rarer, since like the unicorn suits they also relied on arcane controls in order to reduce weight, and thus required all of their wearers to have interface implants. While pegasi and earth ponies with interface implants were far from rare in the Wardens (there were many, many Warden pegasi that strove to emulate Commander Rainbow Dash, despite the danger the implants posed) they were still definitely not a majority, and the pegasus battle suits were therefore given lower production priority. There were plenty of them on this trip though; Rainbow had made certain that every Warden trooper on this mission was battle armor certified, and since the heavy tanks hadn’t panned out there was plenty of spare mass for the detachment to be equipped with the powered armor suits.
Stepping off of the ramp, Twilight felt a warm virtual presence hovering next to her. She’d had her holodaemon transfer itself into the Dauntless’s data network just before heading out to the departure ceremony. Its presence was a welcome one; over the years, the expert program had molded itself until it was almost an extension of her own mind. The holodaemon pulsed a status update to her, the information racing into her brain and merging with her memories. That sensation was one that had long ago become a familiar one; Twilight could learn far more via the usage of the holodaemon than she ever could have on her own. She knew now, seconds after stepping onto the ship, that every system on board was running at optimal levels, though the engineer was a bit concerned about the Gate drive, that the navigator had received clearance for departure from the shipyard, that the Warden cutters Thunder, Lightning, and the newly commissioned Storm and Tempest were waiting to escort them outsystem, (a further update indicated that the other six Warden cutters were patrolling the outer system in pairs) and that the ship’s stores were full and the crew all onboard, all without a word being spoken. Modern technomancy; it was a wonderful thing.
Twilight’s friends were waiting for her on the bridge, and she didn’t want to keep them waiting. Twilight trotted briskly through the ship's corridors, nodding in greeting to crewponies as she passed. She made a point to notice the bands each one wore around his or her right foreleg, the color of the cloth band indicating the pony's role and specialty and the emblem indicating rank. It was a short trip to the inter-deck lift that took her “up” to the core deck, (the gravity fields pushed outward from the ship's core, making the core decks the subjective “top” of the vessel) and from there it was a brisk trot to the bridge. Dauntless’s control center was buried at the very heart of the ship, just forward of the main engineering spaces, which Twilight had considered delightful symbology when she was working on the plans for the great starship.
Twilight had to restrain herself from galloping down the bridge access corridor. Impatience was clawing at every nerve, and she was ready to go. Her friends were all waiting on the bridge, and greeted her warmly. Rainbow Dash, grinning and fidgeting with the same impatience Twilight felt, Pinkie Pie, bouncing in place with excitement, a lenseye hovering above her with the monocle that controlled it sitting on her right eye, as she’d promised to make a personal record of the trip. Fluttershy and Rarity, talking quietly off in a corner, though they both broke off their conversation when Twilight entered. Rarity was still wearing the servo-harness on her neck that she used for delicate work, though it had been tastefully inlaid with gold and silver, and with the arms laying against the collar it looked rather like a piece of elaborate jewelry instead of the tool it actually was, which fit Rarity’s personality perfectly. Applejack, lounging against the back of a control panel; the orange mare nodded amiably at the unicorn and then went back to what she’d been doing when Twilight had come in, which involved staring off into space and clearly thinking about something. She was wearing her customary brown hat, and Twilight wondered momentarily if it was the same one she’d worn in her youth. Surely not. That hat would have to be almost a hundred years old at this point! It does look awfully similar, though…
She brushed the irrelevant thought aside. The entire bridge crew and all of her friends were looking at her expectantly. She drew a deep breath, horn glowing as she pinged her holodaemon to retrieve her speech. It responded instantly, as it always did, and she felt it feeding the words to her.
Twilight couldn’t bring herself to focus on the speech she was giving. Yes, it was important, historical, all that, and yes, she’d spent hours with Pinkie and Rarity writing it and getting it just perfect, but her thoughts were three steps ahead, anticipating the moment when they would leave Equestria’s star system behind and strike out for new places.
This speech wasn’t a long one. “…and I know that you, all of you, new friends and old alike, will be giving your all. I promise to do the same! Now, my friends, let us reach out, and marvel at what we might find!” Twilight grinned brightly, an expression that was returned by all of her friends, as the sound of applause and cheers resounded through the hull of the Dauntless. “Captain Stars!” Twilight had to shout over the applause to catch the attention of Silver Stars, her second-in-command, “Take us out of the dock!”
“Aye-aye, Commander!” The ice-blue mare barked, her red eyes gleaming. “Helmsmare! Thrusters back!” The cheering gradually tapered off, the crew moving purposefully to their stations. Under the crisp directions of Silver Stars, the Dauntless eased her way carefully away from the shipyard that had birthed her, finally free and flying under her own power.
“We’re clear, ma’am!” Silver Stars announced crisply, to another round of cheers. “Quiet there!” she barked, and the cheers subsided, a more professional murmur taking their place as the crew took up their duties. “Shipyard sends their congratulations, Commander.”
Twilight beamed. “Well, it’s early yet. Get us on course for the system edge, and have everypony running the shakedown tests.”
“Yes ma’am!” Stars saluted and began barking orders at the bridge crew. Twilight turned to her friends. All of them were smiling widely, and for the moment there wasn't even any hint of tension between Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.
“Well, darling, it looks like we’re on our way.” Rarity observed, her eyes twinkling.
“Yep.” Applejack drawled. She glanced at the other Bearers of the Elements. “And I gotta say it’ll be nice to be with the rest of y’all again. Been too long.” The others nodded, making various sounds of assent. Even Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash agreed, though they traded a brief, uneasy look. Twilight hoped, deep down, that she’d somehow be able to heal the rift between the two pegasi during this voyage. The long-standing feud between the two had been a source of anxiety and sadness for the lavender unicorn for decades now.
Twilight’s thoughts were interrupted by a subtle vibration as the exploration cruiser’s drives engaged, accelerating the big ship smoothly. The gravity generators prevented any of the acceleration from reaching the crew, but the drives’ action still sent a gentle hum thrumming through the vast structure. Twilight glanced at the monitor, noting the position indicators for the four Warden cutters falling into escort positions around the Dauntless closeby, about eighty kilometers away. She caught Rainbow looking at the main display as well.
The cybernetic pegasus chuckled. “Hey, Commander, wanna see if those little things can keep up with us?”
Twilight traded a grin with her friend. “Well, we do need to test the engines…” She glanced over at Stars. “Captain, be ready for a full-power run.”
Silver Stars grinned. “Yes, ma’am!”
Twilight brought up an illusory screen in front of her, connecting to the engineering deck. A brown-coated unicorn mare with a red mane even messier than Rainbow Dash’s appeared on the other end. “Engineering, Monkeywrench here.” Twilight recognized the younger mare; she’d graduated with honors as the youngest graduate of the BoT Engineering Academy since its founding. No surprise at all to find her on the Dauntless; they’d gone looking for the best, and the engineer certainly fit that bill.
“Monkeywrench, how soon can we be ready for full power?”
“Right now.” The chief engineer responded promptly. “We’ve got the power cores at full capacity, and the engines are purring like griffon pups. You thinking of a stress test, Commander?”
Twilight nodded. “That and seeing if our escorts can keep up.”
Monkeywrench laughed. “They’re welcome to try!” She exclaimed proudly. “Dauntless’ll leave ‘em in the dust.”
Twilight turned to Captain Stars. “Well, Captain, let the escort know what we’re doing, and then take her up to full power. Right next to the shipyard seems like a good place to stress-test!”
“We’ll do you proud, Commander!” Monkeywrench’s voice came from Twilight’s virtual screen, just before the other mare disconnected.
Silver Stars nodded a salute, turning to her control board. “Ready when you are, Commander.”
Twilight tried to suppress the thrill she felt for a moment, then decided not to bother. A grin spread across her face, and she uttered the words that would start their voyage. “Make it so.” It felt curiously right to say.
Silver Stars grinned in return, her eyes assuming the glassy look of somepony in partial immersion. Twilight felt commands flicking through the ship’s datanet, and felt the Dauntless’s systems surging eagerly in response. A brief communication flicked outward, addressed to the Warden cutters escorting them, and Twilight’s command authority let her read the short message. She stifled a giggle at its contents, just two words.
Race you.
Good heavens, Rainbow Dash really has left an impression on her ponies, Twilight thought. Dauntless’s mighty engines pulled energy from her power core, turning it into linear acceleration at a prodigious rate. The gigantic cruiser leapt ahead of her escorts, proving Monkeywrench absolutely right as the Warden cutters struggled to keep pace only to fall further and further behind.
Twilight’s eyebrows lifted as the ship maintained the high-power drive without flinching. She’d known Dauntless was a more solid design than Equestria’s previous ships, but having it demonstrated like this was reassuring.
Finally, Silver Stars ordered her pilot to take the acceleration back down. Dauntless complied smoothly with her helmsmare’s directives, dropping to twenty percent acceleration to give her escorts a chance to catch up without blowing out their own engines. The captain turned to Twilight with a huge grin. “Satisfied, ma’am?”
“I am, indeed. She’s everything I designed her to be.” Twilight called up a graph of the ship’s performance and power consumption, and nodded in satisfaction. Dauntless had done a five-minute run at maximum power without a flicker.
Silver Stars was ginning in absolute delight, her crimson eyes sparkling. “Well, then, Commander, allow me to congratulate the Bureau of Technology, and thank you for providing me with such a beautiful ship to play with!”
Twilight laughed. “You’re quite welcome, Captain.” She turned to her friends. “Well, ladies, it looks like we’re on our way.”
Rarity nodded, speaking first. “Unfortunately, dear, I think that means we all have things to do. I, for one, need to get down to Engineering.”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash traded regretful looks. “Yeah, I oughta make the rounds, check on the rest of the Wardens,” Rainbow said.
“Yep, and I need to check in with the quartermaster again, see about maintenance schedules an' such.” Applejack sighed, adjusting her hat. “Been good seeing y’all again, catch up at the end of the first shift?” Everypony nodded agreement, though Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy traded another uneasy look. Before Twilight could speak up, the two Wardens and Rarity had already trotted off the bridge.
Twilight watched them go, sadly, though her hopes were high that they’d be able to catch up again at dinner. Fluttershy stepped toward the door once it closed, pausing to turn toward Twilight and Pinkie. “Oh, I’m sorry, I need to go talk to my ponies, too. I’ve got my linguists, and my diplomats, and my psychologists… oh, I’m just positive that if we meet up with aliens again there won’t be a fight. I’m so excited, and happy, and this time we’ll get a chance to talk!” The yellow-coated pegasus beamed with a tiny little squeaking sound before trotting out the door, a bounce in her step.
That left Pinkie, who was adjusting her camera and recording equipment via an illusory display projected by the camera itself. She closed it down and bounced in place. “Oo! Oo! There’s so many stories on this ship! Right now it’s all the ponies and their lives and their hopes, and the ship going off into space and that’s so exciting, but later it’ll be even better! Aliens and planets and exploring, oh wow!” She paused in her bouncing, looking excitedly around the bridge and its displays before turning back to Twilight. “Twilight, I’m so, so sorry to just leave you here, but there’s a million-zillion stories already! I really really really need to get as many as I can before the great big huge stories start piling up! Would you ever, ever forgive me for starting right now?”
The unicorn chuckled. “It’s okay, Pinkie. Everypony… everyone back home is going to want to know all about what we do. I’m not upset if you want to get started right away.” She flashed her hyperactive friend a smile. “Just remember, stay out of the main duty areas; stick to the rec rooms and mess halls as much as you can, okay? And don’t forget to meet up with the rest of us for dinner!”
“Okey-dokey-loki, I’ll be talking to ponies! I’ll stay out from underhoof as much as I can, but I’m just super curious about how things on the ship work, and I’m sure everyone back home will be too!” She rubbed her chin with a forehoof, thinking. “Hey, if I could convince somepony who’s off-shift to tell me what’s going on in the duty areas, would that be okay, as long as we stayed out of the way?”
Twilight pondered for a moment before she nodded. That did sound like a good idea. “That sounds fine, Pinkie. Just remember to get out of the way if the alert siren sounds.”
“Oh, you are the bestest best friend ever, Twilight! I’ve got so much to do… see ya at dinner!” The pink pony bounced happily out of the bridge. Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle again; of all of them, the years had marked Pinkie the least. She was only a tiny bit more sober than she’d been back when Twilight had met her in Ponyville, and even the fact that she, like the other Bearers, was now over a hundred years old hadn’t reduced the bounce in her step one bit.
Reaching the system edge took several hours, during which Twilight ran dozens of system stress tests and diagnostics. The shipyard had done a fantastic job of turning the BoT’s plans and blueprints into a working starship, forging the parts and pieces into a unified whole that meshed everything together. As well as admiring the ship itself, Twilight was deeply impressed by the expertise of the crew that would be serving under her; all of them knew their jobs and were expert in their roles. From the ship’s captain, Silver Stars, down to the most junior tech in the engineering department, they virtually oozed calm competence and professionalism. If Rainbow and Applejack’s Wardens and Fluttershy’s diplomats were up to this level (and Twilight was certain they were) then this mission should be a cinch.
The unicorn pulled herself out of full immersion, rubbing her eyes wearily. For whatever reason, she’d always been able to handle the direct arcane interface better than anyone else she’d ever tested; the marathon of tests she’d just run would have outright killed many unicorns, but she didn’t even have a headache, only a bit of fatigue. She blinked, having to readjust to taking in information solely through her eyes and ears; it was always a little disorienting to go from having dozens and dozens of input channels that reacted at the speed of thought down to having only a few that sometimes seemed frustratingly sluggish.
“You okay, Commander?” Silver Stars’ rough voice sounded concerned. She probably hadn’t been briefed on Twilight’s abilities; the head of the BoT reflected that she’d probably be concerned if she’d just watched somepony do what she’d done.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you, Captain.” Twilight rubbed her eyes again. “My immersion tolerance is extremely high. I’m sorry, I thought you were aware.”
“I’d been told that, yes, ma’am. But my immersion tolerance is high, and my brain would have been running out my ears an hour ago if I tried to stay under that long. Yours is closer to mythical, if you don’t mind me saying.” Silver Stars’ voice was frank, and Twilight could see the other bridge crew looking at her in awe. The blue-coated mare wasn’t speaking metaphorically, either: the Bureau of Technology had discovered that really excessive levels of immersion strain could cause neurophysical disruption. Thinking about that horrible accident, even forty years later, made Twilight a little sad.
Twilight waved a hoof modestly. “It’s nothing special. It’s not even me, really, the tests I’ve run suggests it has something to do with the Elements of Harmony. Rarity’s tolerance is almost as high as mine, and so is Rainbow Dash’s, especially after the latest update of the interface implants. We have no idea what causes it.”
“Still sounds remarkable to me, Commander.” Silver Stars glanced aside at her displays. “Actually, ma’am, you may want to go back in if you can. We’re coming up on the system edge.”
“We are?” Twilight blinked. Somehow, even with the perfect awareness of time that interfacing with the datanet provided, she’d somehow managed to overlook that fact. Ordered Numbers would be rolling on the floor laughing. Well, he'd crack a smile, possibly even grin, which for him equated to being breathless with laughter. She pulled up an information screen, projecting the feed in front of her eyes. The arcane interference generated by the sun was indeed almost down to the minimum levels to allow the Gate drive to function and let the Dauntless jump to its next destination. They’d be able to make Equestria’s first major leap outward in the next few minutes. “Oh, my, I’m not certain how I missed that! Oh, this is so exciting!” Twilight could feel the thrill running up and down her body, making her have to fight to keep from dancing in place.
A chuckle ran through the bridge crew, and Silver Stars spoke for all of them. “Yes, ma’am, it is. But we’re ready for it.”
The next few minutes were spent in a rush of final systems checks. The Gate drive had been tested extensively, first as small prototypes that weren’t supposed to come back to make sure the entry phase was working, then with automated probes that only jumped a very short distance. The sun’s interference induced difficulty, but short hops by small objects were possible, and the probes had all been recovered by the early-model space ships, flying slowly out to where the test units were supposed to be. The final stage had been jumping a small, crewed ship to the edge of the system and back, an exhilarating test that had gone off flawlessly. Still, the Dauntless was the largest thing Equestria had ever sent through the portals created by the Gate drive, outmassing the crewed test capsule by five orders of magnitude. Twilight didn’t think there would be any problems; they’d made huge strides in understanding the prototype drive that had been the last project Duran completed, but she made sure the crew double- and triplechecked every system pertaining to it.
Finally, though, they were ready. “All right, everypony. Everything checks out green, so I think it’s about time we were on our way, don’t you?”
Another wave of chuckles ran through the bridge. “Yes, Ma’am!” It was the ship’s pilot that spoke, a black-coated pegasus mare with a short, bright white mane. Twilight could see the silver of her interface implant glittering at the back of her skull. “More than time!”
Twilight grinned. “Well, then. We all know what we need to do. Alert stations!”
The lavender unicorn felt that thrill run through her again as the siren sounded three times, and her horn glowed with the light of the interface spell. She dropped into immersion along with everypony else on the bridge.
Twilight hadn’t felt excitement like this pulsing through a datanet since the very first trials of the network system. It was often possible to feel an echo of other users’ emotions in full immersion, but it was generally just a nagging feeling at the back of one’s mind. In this case, nearly everypony linked to the network was feeling some of the same emotion, and Twilight could detect it sparkling in the network, strong enough that the automatic safeguards were kicking in to mute it, preventing a runaway feedback reaction. That excitement was well-deserved, at least in Twilight's opinion.
She’d already run all the tests she needed to, so she was able to “watch” as the other crewmembers carried out their tasks. The captain sent out the orders for jump, the comm officer forwarding the information to the escorting cutters and sending both that and a more to-the-point message to the homeworld.
We are proceeding. Expect us when you see us. Short and to the point. Silver Stars was something of a pragmatist.
The reply from the cutters was equally brief. We will wait for your return, friends. Good luck, and may you bring back much to teach us all.
Twilight felt tears prickle in her eyes. She could hear her mentor’s influence in the message.
The navigator pulled up the coordinates for their destination from the painstakingly-assembled stellar database; this would be a relatively short hop to the nearest star, a small, rather cool star about five and a half light-years away. The navigator then sent the information to both the pilot and the chief engineer, and the latter prepared the Gate drive and the power core for the jump.
The pilot absorbed the information sent to her by the navigator in an instant, and started spinning together the calculations to make the Gate drive function. Twilight was astonished to realize that the pegasus in the pilot’s seat had to have been fully educated in several extremely complex arcane theories, since Gate travel involved something closer to spellcasting than the normal movement of a ship through space. The pilot, whose identity tag in thoughtspace labeled “Night Breeze,” wove together the equations and models with a deft, delicate touch that most unicorns couldn’t have managed, her thoughts utterly focused on the awesomely complex systems of the Gate drive. Standard protocol actually called for two pilots to manage the two separate drives, but this remarkable mare could clearly handle both. Goodness, she was Warden-trained, too! Well, the Dauntless project had been looking for the best ponies in the world…
Twilight shepherded her thoughts away from the detour, but she still couldn’t help but marvel at the pilot’s skill.
The Gate drive responded.
A phenomenal construction, leaps and bounds beyond the relatively crude arcane focus that Twilight had used to anchor the spell that had sent her and Rainbow careening through reality to the world they came to know as Hell’s Reach, the drive channeled incredible arcane power with the utmost control. The intricate construction of the drive, made of crystals, gems, wires, and strands of solidified energy, filled a significant amount of the huge exploration cruiser and with sufficiently accurate charts, the drive could move the massive vessel to a position with a margin of error of less than her own length. Ponykind didn’t have those charts yet, not outside of the home system, but they’d spent decades peering at the nearby stars through telescopes, exploring long-distance, and Equestrian stellar cartographers had built an accurate map of the local neighborhood. At least, accurate enough for the Dauntless to jump to any of them, from any of the others.
Twilight felt a chill shudder through her, a reaction to the invisible energy racing through the structure of the exploration cruiser. Every unicorn on board felt it at the same time, as did every pegasus and earth pony who bore an interface implant. The cold feeling built, and Twilight shuddered, even though she knew it was an illusion, her body telling her that the energy was leaking from her as a reaction to the massive oversaturation of magic all around her. She could feel the bridge crew shivering as well through the thoughtspace of the bridge net, even Night Breeze and the assistant gunner, Wingblade, for whom the sensation of cold would be odd and alien. Pegasi were ordinarily largely immune to chill, but this was no mere physical feeling.
Twilight had to strangle a flash of memory. Every time she’d experimented with Gate spells or spell-engines that replicated them, even when the spell in question didn’t produce the classic disc-gate, she saw the fractured results of her first attempt. That disc of lightning-shot nothing had imprinted itself indelibly on her mind’s eye, so vivid and clear that she suspected she’d never be rid of it. Eighty-nine years (or to be more precise, eighty-nine years, three months, and eight days since the day she opened that first portal, as the datanet helpfully told her) had done nothing to dim the image.
The power raging soundlessly through the Dauntless bent reality around the vast ship, making here into there for a brief, unsustainable instant.
The power drained away, the drive falling quiet again, and suddenly they were somewhere else.
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And so it begins!
Fluttershy you fool. They did try to talk last time!
The aliens just like to talk with missiles.
and now the fun begins
Make it so.
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1498774
First she takes his villains, then his lines! Poor Picard!
1498774
Damn, you brought it up before I could. Ah well, I didn't think of using a meme-generator. (Also, please update with Twilight rather than Tiwlight)
You are awesome, since this was the only thing that I noticed while reading that made me stop for a bit.
Also, I like how you mostly sidestepped the whole Equus/Celestia centric debate by not talking about, although the way the rest of the system was described, it seems the Celestia/Sol centric model is the one you went with. Do you go into more detail in a later chapter, or can I get some background/worldbuilding knowledge?
Fridge horror: Big Mac and the CMCs are all very, very dead.
¡In only 3 generations, the ponies went from nothing to ships twice the length of Imperator-Class StarDestroyers!
4461190
Actually after ~80-100 years; Big Mac & Apple Bloom are just very old though not as old as Granny Smith circa seasons 1 to 4.
Sweetie Bell may be dead of old age or just exceptionally old as non-earth ponies are implied to not live as long as earth ponies.
Birth defects such as stunted limbs usually go hand in hand (or wing in wing) with other lifespan shortening health conditions so Scootaloo is almost certainly a corpse.
This speculation does not of course take into account the likelihood that the increased tech base has included lifespan enhancing medical breakthroughs.
Maybe all ponies are immortal-ish now.
The BoT looked for the best and the brightest, consummate professionals.
I have just one question. Is she related to Rainbow Dash? Because she sounds like it.
It wasn't until this sentence that it really sank in: you're hybridizing BattleTech, Warhammer 40k tech, and pony magic. That's terrifying. And awesome.
i just finished chapter three, and from what i have read so far from the previous story and this one, they are amazing and tell an amazing story with very deep and well thought out worlds and descriptions. reading this story though i have noticed a few things that feel inspired from david webbers honor harrington series <333
That's definitely not going to show up later on in the story, no sir!
Why not bring a specialist or two from other races? As numerous stories have taught us, all zebras are ninjas. Space ninjas are useful.
Only one way to describe these sentences. utter. blood-chilling. NERDGASM!
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The Dauntless' and its drive system reminds me a lot of the Navigator Guild ships from Dune.
Not gonna lie, I expected sabotage in the drive system or something. Really glad to see that didn't happen.
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Those were just mundane hyperdrives. Problem was that Jihad law forbade manufacturing of complex computing systems, so ships had to have a biological Navigator on board to perform the jump, a hyperspatial savant, very specialized analog of mentats.
If I recall right, even pocket calculators of certain complexity were outlawed
This went surprisingly well with the chapter: