Steel & Stone

by Ineptus Astartes

Ferrus Animus

Cryogenic suspension is a marvel brought to creaturekind by the vernid. It consists of an incredibly complicated procedure of stimulating the brain with waves of energy and electrical pulses to slow it down to the point of being nearly dead. The body is asleep at this point, and experiences things astoundingly slow, even dreams. Which can seem like a lifetime in seconds. Each thought takes hours to travel around the brain. The process involves a single needle, punched into an area in the human or Kug spine, though the Vernid link directly to the brain, as do the Vurkuristar. Ice wraiths, by comparison, stay fully aware the entire time, and as biologically immortal beings, simply freeze themselves into a solid block of ice and ‘meditate’

The needle penetrates the spine, injecting micro-machines into the spinal fluid, these minuscule machines slip through bones and spaces that require intense magnification for the human eye. They are slightly smaller than cells.

In any case, these marvels of engineering make the journey through the center of the spine and into the braincase, where they enter hibernation and begin their building process. A fluid known as ‘Zexon’ in the vernid tongue and ‘ synthetic Element Five (SE5) in Galactic, is manufactured out of the nanobots themselves. They completely marinate the brain in SE5, slowing thought, preventing decay and slowing the effects of time.

Of course, it’s actually a chemical reaction that is incredibly lethal is taken in the wrong dosage and an overdose is often considered a method of humane execution by many governments. Nevertheless, in the proper amount, it negates the effects of existence on the brain. There are side effects, drowsiness and a slowed thought process are common.

There are many other fluids and chemicals that keep the rest of the body functional. For instance one fluid locks cells in a constant position until they are fully unfrozen to prevent them from bursting in the icy temperatures. Another keeps organs constantly sedated. All in all, much of the body in cryogenic suspension is biologically dead save the brain.

The unfreezing process constitutes a simple reactivation of the nanobots in the braincase, these machines then redirect the fluid to areas where it can be expelled form. The mouth, mainly. They then exit via the way they came and self-destruct once they have left the body. The body is unfrozen, this process only takes hours, rather than minutes. Then the body awakens and becomes aware again.

UISV Starry Ice: Equestrian Oort cloud.

Trooper Sharn awoke to a mouth that felt like it was filled with distilled numb, skin that felt like it was so dry it could crackle and a cold like he was immersed in an arctic ocean without the dampness.

He was vaguely aware of the cryo-coffin’s defroster warming him up, and tried to straighten. His back screamed in pain and gunshot like pops echoed in the confined metal box, the first sound his ears had heard in decades. They clanged in protest and so he lay there. Feeling returned to his limbs slowly as small tubes pressed against his skin injected him with nutrients and stimulators. The rest of his joints popped as the chamber vibrated and the chemicals unclenched his muscles for the first time in nearly fifty years. He could feel strange fluids exiting his body and tried to spit up whatever was making his mouth so numb but his lips couldn’t move. There was no feeling in his tongue. It took him a moment to realize he hadn’t opened his eyes.
Sharn opened his eyes laboriously, the lids felt like they had been weighed down with anvils. Sharn felt something wash over his face and realized that there had been some sort of liquid film over his eyeballs. He blinked and took in the cryo-coffin.
He was laying down in a rectangular box-like space, tiny metal arms were removing varied injectors form his flesh and he saw that a wide tube led from the ceiling to a mask over his face.

Two little red lights opened up above him and scanned his eyes. The tube snaking down his throat hissed and sharn felt something move around inside of him. Nanofibers retracted form his heart, liver and stomach as the nutrient injectors and the tubelike breathing assistant unplugged from his innards.

His recently un-marinated brain told him that this thing had been plugged into him for decades, and he could feel tiny nanofibers retracting from the insides of his lungs. With an obscene slurping noise the tubes withdrew from his lungs and stomach up through throat out of his mouth and into the mask over his nose and mouth. The mask lifted off of his mouth and nose and he let out a gagging, bubbling stream of green fluid. The same stuff, he realized, that had been his brain’s salad dressing for…what? Twenty years? It felt like more and less at the same time. He finished throwing up the last of the SE5 and gagged. He still couldn’t form coherent words and was perfectly content to lie there for hours while his body was brought up to speed. He wondered if this is what druggies on a high must feel like. It wasn’t boring, it was just…there. After several decades at least of ‘sleeping’ in this coffin-machine he let five hours drift by while he regained lucidity.

After five hours passed, Sharn opened his mouth and spoke for the first time in ages. “Thrrruuuuugggghhh…throughgggh….i’mmm…thrrrrooough wiiiith…thiiith…thiiit…” he managed to slur in his numbed state.

His eyes, now wakened flickered to the display, Haddon was only twenty years away so it should only show twenty years in-what? The timer showed ’50 Yrs in suspended animation: GUI-O/R Sharn’

He disliked the frigid cold of space on principle; it was an unpleasant sensation to wake up to.

But waking up to discover that you were thirty years overdue? Quite a lot worse. Thoughts ran through his mind. Had the ship been derelict for all this time? Was he the only survivor? Was it a malfunction? Did they overshoot Haddon?

He saw a light at the edge of his vision, then realized his cryo-coffin was opening. It slid out into a long, thin hallway, where maybe half a dozen others had already done the same.

This cryo-bay was unimpressive. One of a hundred . One might mistake it for a locker room. A simple long hallway with what looked like large, man-sized drawers set one every ten feet on both sides of the hall for five hundred feet. A fairly low ceiling illuminated with glowing white tube lights running down the hall and a rectangular green light set into the center of each ‘drawer.’ Each drawer contained one human being, the green light showed that the creature inside was alive and awakening slowly. Blue meant whoever was inside was in deep suspended animation, yellow meant that whoever was inside was entering animation and red meant dead. There was no red. Through a few showed no color at all. These were empty. Whoever had been in them was now wandering the ship.

Sharn heard a hiss and the thumping of treads. a medical servant-droid rolled up to him and moved to his securing straps.
'Hadn't noticed those before' he thought. It quickly undid his straps an patiently whirred away to itself as it waited for him to get up.

He gave it a once-over. Shaped like a rolling dustbin, it had two thin arms with ten fingers and two thumbs on the end of each ‘hand’ It was all shiny metal and a single short tube emerged from the center of it’s ‘head’ the round dome at the top of the betreaded android, ending in a plunger-like eye.

He stared at it awkwardly. His face was reflected in its surface.
Sharn could see he really hadn’t changed much over apparently fifty years. His head was still shaved down to the skin, which, he noticed, hadn't gotten unnaturally pale in his time in the cryo-coffin, still a bit darker than Caucasian, but not dark enough to be black. He couldn't recall if he was born with or had obtained it. His entire life before joining the GUI-O/R was a complete blank, memories had been ripped form his brain by the ungentle touch of psych-assisted-machines, though he knew his entry had been voluntary. His face was obviously slightly reconstructed, with a skin-patcher scar around his left eye and a few unremarkable shallow scars over the rest of his face. Though he wouldn't describe himself as chiseled, his face was obviously that of a soldier, and he recalled being told once or twice that he was ‘handsome,’ he hadn’t given it much thought. Mainly because people didn't pay as much attention to your skin tone or your supposedly comely features when you towered over them like a giant. Sharn was a very large man. In this it was painfully obvious that he had been augmented, both muscularly and skeletally. Luckily his work was ‘up close and personal ’meaning he was one of the go-to operatives for GUI in the fleet. GUI, or Galactic Union Intelligence maintained operatives like him, who had marketable skills and were fairy independent in the field. His team was not special forces, and not agents either. They were what the grunts called ‘Operators’ or ‘Rangers’ not an actual military unit they were not within the regular chain of command and even had vetoe power over some officers, as he was granted the authority of any agent of the GU government.

The Galactic union itself was based mostly on the Vernid culture, the mantids had been traveling the stars centuries before humanity had landed on the moon and as such were the ‘majority race’ within the government. The government itself was a decentralized mesh of Human democracy, Kug Republic and Vernid Oligarchy. The capital of the Union was the moonlit desert world of vernox, where the heads of the union made their seats of power, the Lords and the councilors particularly.
Each sector was represented by a lord of who each had sovereignty over a sector of union space, they relayed their high-priority orders to system governors, who each ruled over a solar system. The Galactic Union Intelligence concerned itself with the intricacies of state. Assassinations, blackmailing, rooting out Scourge sleepers or Biomancy agents, first contact, establishing beachheads and speaking with the voice of the Union itself.

In any case. Currently Sharn realized that he was going over an internal monologue in front of a patiently waiting machine.
“Er…hello.” He said. Giving it a small wave as he tried to get up. The robot helpfully helped him up.

‘Hello!” IT said in a synthetic voice. “this is Artificial Intelligence Unit forty seven of the Starry Ice.” Sharn sat up and massaged his shorn head. It sounded like two people talking at once.

‘Nice to meet you, Forty Seven,” He said. This robot was probably not truly aware but did have an animal-like intelligence on the level of something rather smart like a dog or a Plaavaan. It probably came of having a vat-grown living brain in that mass of circuitry and wires.

“You are trooper Sharn Space correct?” It asked. In its ‘two-people talking’ voice with an overdone gleeful tone.

Sharn stopped massaging his head and swung his legs over the side of the coffin. “Sharn space?”

“You have no last name listed.” Said Forty-Seven.

“I’m aware of that, thanks, that’s no need to go making me sound like a children’s book character.”

“Apologies, I was dictating the fact that there was a space in place for your last name.’ bubbled the happy-sounding robot.

“Just call me Sharn,” He said. “Without a last name.”

It’s plunger-eyepiece turned up to track his face as he stood, all seven feet of him. He shuffled uneasily.
“ Forty-seven?” He asked, teeth chattering slight. By the stars, it was cold.

“Yes, Sharn-Without-a-last-name?”

“Do you know where I can find some clothes? Because it’s pretty damn cold and…and I’m kind of…” He trailed off and looked down.

“Yes?”

“…Hanging.” He finished lamely

The robot stretched one ten-fingered claw over to the handle above his cryocoffin and pointed. “Fatigues are stored in the overhead containers.” It said. ‘Is there anything else you need?”

“No, thank you.” He said, opening the cupboared.

“Very well.” Said Forty-Seven, and rolled off to meet the next waking sleeper.

Sharn inspected his standard-issue noncombat kit.

One pair of underpants went on first, then a pair of thick woolen socks, then a pair of laughably-fascist jackboots, followed by the pants, the undershirt and the main shirt.

The pants were a stark grey camo color, square patterns of varying sizes in fifty shades of gray comprised the fatigues. He searched the pockets to see if there was a map or anything and did not find anything. The undershirt was boring white, and was comically small, though even in his ‘extra-large’ size, the over shirt fit fairly well, as these things were adjustable. It looked pretty much like the pants only it had buttons and two sleeves. Searching further, he found a plain brown faux-leather belt a communicator pad, which clipped onto his belt and a hat. He picked up the hat and something clinked inside. Removing the offending object, he realized it was his most important bit of gear on the ship, this was his very personality.

He clipped the GUI badge/ID to his belt as well and walked out of the cry-storage room and into the main hall of the cryo-chambers. A hundred other halls branched off from here, and most of them still had their doors closed and locked down. A dozen were open and vacant and ten more were being exited at the moment. Sharn took stock of the room.

Two dozen beings milled around the large, grand-central station sized room, all dressed in BDUs like him and exited out of the large open blast doors. Sharn noticed a holographic map to the various quarters of the ship and set off to his designated area.
Sharn made his way down the halls and passed holo-displays that showed the outside and a few huge open doors where workers were starting the factories. As he boarded the main tram, Sharn tapped a Kostag on the shoulder. Kostag were colonies of hundreds of bivalves that together made up a single sentient being. It looked like a humanoid shape made of mussels and clams and oysters.

“Yurs?” It bubbled through its various waterlogged passageways.

“My cryocofin’s year counter said that I’ve been in hibernation for fifty years, you know anything about that?”

“Nur. Myne surd furvtee yurres ash wuurl.”

“Your counter said fifty years as well?”

“Thurrrs Wurrt ouy surrrd.” It gurgled at him.

“Yeah, that is what you said,” Said Sharn. The tram slowed down. “This is my stop.”

“hurrrv uy nissss deeee.” It sloshed.

“You too.”

Sharn approached his team’s assigned barracks, there was a dispenser rack set in front of it. Sharn grimaced and selected a Styrofoam cup and held it under the dispenser, which let a semi-solid green slush flow into his cup. It looked like the primordial soup. This nutrient paste would have to make up for his fifty year fast by starting him on a liquid diet for several weeks.
“Ech. Down the hatch.” He muttered, and downed the nutrient paste. He nearly let it all back up again, it tasted like pure disgust in liquid form but forced it down and shuddered. It had to compensate for all that time in cryo after all.

The door to the barracks was the same gunmetal grey as everything else, and hissed open when he tapped the pad set into the wall.

The room was walled on four, boring sides gray like everything else on the vessel, each wall displayed a holographic window that displayed space and one wall had a computer terminal set in its side. Eight small cells for varying creatures were set into the walls. A pad inside changed the cell to suit whichever creatures inhabited it. Four beings were in the room, the most noticeable being Urak, the bull of the squad. He sat on a gray metal bench next to the wall.

Urak was a Vurkuristar, one of the gigantic ‘homo locustae’ bipedal lobster-men of Vurka. He and his kind stood at a man and a half high, as bulky as a big tree, powerful as a tank, sturdy as a boulder and covered in black chitin/scales. A vurkuristar filled no earth-familiar classification, much like most species. They as a race were ‘kind of mammal, kind of lizard, kind of crab, kind of lobster, kind of fish and kind of bug.’ Their huge hands had four, plated and clawed flexible digits, each hand was connected to a lobster-like giant forearm, with enough strength to rip a light tank in two and their massive legs held their hulking bodies upright, their heads were almost helm-like, with four arachnoid pedipalps forming their armored mouth, four eyes, two pairs stacked on either side of their hair-thin scent-feelers glowing a cold blue.

The Vurkuristar had been sitting on a bench set into the wall, watching as Sharn opened the door, after a moment of looking his squadmate over, Urak gave a clack of recognition and turned back to his work, painstakingly cleaning his beloved axe. Sharn could see that the Vurkuristar’s cell was heated, humid and had its bed folded out to ‘extra large’ to make the jungle-dwelling alien more at home, though a poor mockery of his homeworld.

Next to the hulking alien’s cell was another containing a snoring human, evidently their medic, James Malicant had been brought out of cryo-storage a few hours ago and was deciding to catch even more sleep. His cell was stark and bare, without any regulators on.

Two others stood in the center of the room, discussing something, one was a human female, Haley Karras, who was currently gesturing animatedly to her ‘rival’ Trizar, the human and the Kug had always had a friendly sort of competition going. Haley, had her blonde hair cut short, though the cryo-tubes had not been kind to it, sticking it out in every direction. This was one of the reasons Sharn always shaved his head, less fuss.

Trizar was standing with his thorny arms folded over his white underbelly and chest area. His face was not a forgettable one, beady eyes, a long hooked nose, a thin, cruel mouth filled with razor teeth, all set into an alien absolutely festooned with black, bony spikes. His tail swished slowly behind him as he gave Haley an ‘unimpressed’ look.

The sixth member of their squad was evidently in his own cell, judging by the fact that the steel door was closed and the window was showing only swirling fog. Sharn could see that ice had formed on the outside of the door. The sixth team member was known as Frost , though that name had been foisted upon it by the human members of the team, it’s real name was something that only it’s kind could produce. They always assumed it was a ‘he’ because it’s personality seemed more masculine, though as far as they knew the alien race known as Ice Wraiths had no names or genders. They required refrigeration suits, and no one even knew what they looked like under there. Some speculated that they were incorporeal and others speculated that they were carbon-based.

Sharn took all this in as he found himself a cell on the right wall, Haley and Trizar greeted him.

“So,” He said. “What’s the deal? according to the star charts,” He jerked his thumb at the far wall, where a holographic map was displaying the milky way, with a superimposed ‘not mapped’ over the map. “We’re certainly not where we should be.”

Haley sat down next to Urak and leaned against the alien’s chitinous arm, with muscles as big as her torso. The Vurkuristar grunted at the invasion of his personal space but did not move. Haley paid his noise no mind. “According to the computer, we’ve been traveling for twenty more years than we should have been.”

Urak spoke up, smashing his pedipalps together and grinding his barbed tongue over his inner mouthparts and thrumming vocal cords. “We seem to be lost.” He growled.

“Well done, Urak, Trizar is thankful you have told him.” Hissed Trizar in his reptile voice. Kugs always spoke in third person. It colored their sarcasm, unfortunately for Trizar, who found the concept amusing and indulged in it whenever he could.

“You’re welcome, spikeback.” Grated Urak, bringing his huge axe up to his left eyes to inspect the edge. “So, Sharn, did you see Vaanse on your way here?

“No, I was wondering the same thing, I guess she isn’t out of cryo yet,” Shrugged Sharn, referring to the final member of the squad.

Urak set down his weapon, seemingly satisfied that it had been cleaned of anything that had accumuled on the blade and unscrewed the handle from the blade. “Maybe vernid take longer to wake up,” he boomed as he inserted a plasma battery into the axe’s handle.

Haley stopped leaning on the Vurkuristar and got up and sat down at a terminal. “I’ll see if I can find anything about where we are, it’s really bugging me.” She said.

There was a loud, clear hiss, and a humanoid figure stepped from Frost’s foggy cell, the room temperature dropped slightly as Frost stepped out. The Wraith stood on two articulated legs, part bulletproof fabric and part adamantium, he was roughly six feet tall, the arms of his refrigeration unit were long and tubelike, bending at an elbow joint and terminating in three spindly fingers and two thumbs, everything was encased in adamantium, and lights blinked form a panel in the suit’s arm. The head was roughly humanoid, with a circular shape and a protruding grillplate, which emitted a few whisps of frozen air every time the Wraith exhaled, other than that, the faceplate had no features.

“I have consulted with the Artificial intelligence of this vessel.” It said. “We are off course due to a malfunction in the system that had not been discovered until the crew awoke form cryogenic hibernation approximately ten years previous. We have been zeroing in on a random star to get our bearings. We are separated form the Galactic Union.” It spoke in a synthesized and bass voice.

“Alright…”Said Haley, standing up. “So, Frost, why’re you out and about?” She asked.
“We are to report to briefing on deck S within the hour. Captain Xarxes wishes to speak with us” It said.

Canterlot: Equestria

Celestia, goddess of the sun, empress of Equestria gazed pensively at the sky.

She recalled something about moving stars. Something her father had once said his father had witnessed. Of course, that was nearly two thousand years ago. Nevertheless, she did wonder.

She knew she could move equestria’s star. But not from its path. That would be devastating.

Alicorns had always had special connections with the Equestrian sun and moon. She had never told her little ponies about the truth, how each star out there was probably bigger than the sun and how she could not control them. She had never lied; of course, she simply hadn't disproved the existing theories. Publicly.

And now, some stars where coming to her. Twilight was brilliant, but fettered by society, she tended to learn from books, rather than go and look for evidence herself, and so she believed that, at most, the new star could cause a forest fire if it hit the planet and a hot summer if it missed. She also assumed Celestia could do something about it.

Lifting the sun was a horribly stressful tasks, originally done by, she had heard, hundreds of alicorns, but they had all eventually died out or vanished, she assumed that they were exploring other stars. Once in blue moon, someone with a powerful telescope would notice a slight shift in some stars, or notice several coming into being for a few decades then vanishing. She took this as evidence that somewhere out there, the rest of her kind were regulating their own worlds.

She never dreamed that these were, in fact, giant metal hulks plying space lanes for decades at a time and transporting commodities, but more often carrying vast armies fit to drown entire worlds in wars of bloody attrition against nightmarish foes and that each of those wars were fought on a mind-numbing scale. Billions of soldiers thrown into the meatgrinder of battle. Each one proud to die for their nation and their people.

She never dreamed of the foes these billions of martyrs faced. She never knew of their epics, their conquests, their great tales of heroism. She had never heard of the famous Battle of Aphranti nor the Treaty of Forez, the epic battles of each race. Stalingrad, Kurgain, Vennehurm, Monah’vun. World Wars and Tribal conflicts.

She never knew. She simply looked at the sky. Perhaps, she thought to herself. Perhaps these moving stars were Alicorns returning from space.

She searched the nighttime sky until she found them. The other night, Twilight sparkle had given her its location. It was indeed moving across the sky.

Celestia heard the clatter of hooves behind her. “Luna,” she said, without turning. Do you have any thoughts on what these might be?”

“Truly? You ask me?” Said Luna, coming over to stand next to her. “You are the sun goddess. Are not stars suns?”
“I just want your opinion, Luna.”

“Fine, have you considered that they are just very large comets a very long way away?”

Celestia nodded. “They would have to be the size of Equestria though, to be seen form here. Still deadly.”

“Perhaps, sister,” Said Luna. “We are meant to die? Perhaps it is the end times, we are the last Alicorns, after all, when we die…so too shall equestria.”

Celestia shook her head. “Luna. Equestria would endure. But it’s soul would be gone. In any case, this thing seems more likely to smash the world than just us.”

Luna nodded. “I am sorry for my pessimism. There’s been quite a lot on my mind as of late. I’ll fly up into space tomorrow night and arrange some asteroids out past the moon, that will slow whatever it is down, at least.”

She turned to leave, but Celestia stopped her. “Luna, what’s weighing on your mind?”

“How do you know something is?” She asked.

“You just said it was.”

“Oh, yes…I’m sorry, I was down by the gardens and I noticed that…” She bit her lip like an uncertain foal.

“It’s Discord, isn’t it?” Asked Celestia.

“Yes. I had a dream the other night.” She said. “About Him.”

“And?” Asked Celestia. “What was he doing?”

“He was…laughing..and he said something to me.”

“what did he say?”

“He said…he said…I see your dinner guests have arrived. Anyone’s guess what he meant by that.”

“Lulu,” Admonished Celestia. “It was just a dream.”

“Yes, but…he kept making food-related jokes all through the dream.”

“Like what?”

“Well, he…he went on at length about flour and bread and tomato pudding.”

“Tomato-”

“-Pudding, yes.” Said Luna. I know all his stuff about how great tomato pudding was and how he was happy at how his signature dish turned out was all hooey but the rest felt…real.”

“Luna, these dreams mean nothing. I once could have sworn he reached out from his statue nearly fifty years ago, before Twilight sparkle was even born and did something huge, but nothing happened. Relax.”

Luna pointed a hoof up at the sky.”Relax? I thought I was going to help with the giant flaming ball of possible fiery death.”

“Of course, Luna.”

Ponyville: Equestria

“Twilight! Twilight!” a bouncy voice intruded upon a frantically searching unicorn’s nervous breakdown.

Twilight Sparkle looked up from her book ‘A study of stars’ and spoke up. “Sorry Pinkie, I really can’t talk right now, I’m researching something BIG.”

The door flew open regardless and an exited pink pony burst into the library. “BIG? As in party BIG? Or just celebration big? Or, Ooh! Ooh! Superduperfatastical BIIIIG?”

Twilight didn’t turn around to look at Pinkie, instead she continued speed-reading her book. When she spoke, her voice was slightly impatient. “Pinkie Pie, not everything has to involve parties or candy or big explosions.”

Pinkie snorted. “Silly Twilight! EVERYTHING’s a cause for at least a get-together! In fact, I might just throw a party in honor of parties existing!”

Twilight sighed and closed her book with a snap. The magical aura surrounding it disappeared and she began to search the shelves anew. “Pinkie, you’re more excited than normal, and I can’t deal with that right now, what did you want?”

“Weee-eeel.” Said the ecstatic earth pony. “Since Rainbow Dash and fluttershy are going to Cloudsdale to look at that new flight museum, I wanted to know if you wanted to help me and Applejack look after fluttershy’s animals!”

Twilight selected a book and finally turned to regard pinkie Pie. “Sorry, I really can’t I’m trying to find something really important.”

Pinkie trotted over to twilight and looked over her shoulder at the new book she had selected. “A guide to celestial bodies. Huh. I thought she was just like us, only…bigger.”

“Excuse me?” Asked twilight.

“I mean,” continued the party pony, “she IS a goddess and all but I didn't really think she’s so different she needs her own guide…oh! Maybe there’s a hair-moving organ! Y’know since it’s all wavy.”

“Pinkie Pie, what are you going on about?” demanded Twilight.
“Your anatomy guide to royalty book!”

“Huh?...Oh...No,” Groaned twilight, exasperated. “It is NOT a book about princess celestia’s anatomy.”

“But it says ‘A guide to Celestia’s Body’ If it’s not anatomy, what is it? A naughty book?”

“No. No!” Twilight showed her the title again “Celestial bodies means a heavenly body, as in a star or a sun or the moon, that’s how the princess got her name.”

Now it was Pinkie’s turn to be confused. “Why are you studying stars? And why was the Princess named that?”

Twilight thought about telling her the truth about the moving star, if she did, it would likely mean that half of ponyville would know it by tomorrow and predictably overreact. “Er…a star’s moving across the sky. I can see it at night but it’s a lot slower than a shooting star.”

Pinkie looked sympathetic. “Aww, that poor star, he must feel left out, we should throw him a par-OUUUT!” Twilight interrupted her with an exasperated scream “I can’t concentrate with all this blather!” She magick’ed the pink pony towards the door.

“But Twilight, what about Fluttershy’s animals?” asked pinkie as the door closed on her.

“Fine, fine, I’ll come over tonight.” Twilight growled as she closed the door.

She waited for a few moments after the door was closed, then sighed and trotted back to the shelves.“Ah, finally, I can get to researching without any-”

“Hey Twiligh-” started Spike, entering the room with a truly venerable book in his hands. Twilight interrupted him with an anguished wail of “INTERRUPTIONS!” Knocking the infant dragon onto his back.

Spike picked himself up and gave twilight a Look. “I was about to say I found something about moving stars,” he grumbled.
“What?!” Asked Twilight. “What’s it say?!”

Spike held up the book “The Deific Wars,” read the title. Twilight frowned. “Spike, this says ‘wars’ there haven’t been any wars in Equestria for nearly a hundred years.”

“Yeah, this is about some war before even the princesses were around. It mentions, ahem,” Spike cleared his throat. “And We didst behold an awesome spectacle, the very stars themselves where moving and it was seen as a sign that the doom of the land had come and -” Spike trialed off. “Dang.” He said. “The rest of the pages are too rotted until page four hundred, where it talks about the first time Celestia and Luna imprisoned Discord.”

Twilight sighed. “Everypony knows that. That’s how Luna got possessed by Nightmare moon. It was one of Discord’s ‘tricks’ If I recall my history classes correctly”

“So the book wasn’t any help?”

“No, sorry spike. Listen, I’m going over to Fluttershy’s cottage with Pinkie and Applejack tonight, can you get my Smartypants doll from Rarity’s by yourself?”

“Sure thing, twilight!” said Spike.

“Good, now…wait…what time is it?”

“One in the afternoon.”

‘I stayed up all night looking for books?”

“…Yeah.”

“I’d better get some sleep before I head over.”

Several hours of sleep later, Twilight wandered along the road to Fluttershy’s cottage, her saddlebags were full of her overnight things and a small telescope.

When she got there, the Cottage was where it always was, sitting on the edge of the everfree forest like a small hillock. Pinkie and Applejack were outside, the party pony bouncing around, getting acquainted with all the animals, and Applejack actually doing the work and feeding them. She looked up as she saw her unicorn friend approach. “Well howdy Twilight, how yall doin?”

“Just fine, Applejack. How are you?”

“Jus’ fine, though a mite confused, y’wonder how Fluttershy can feed all these here animals and still afford food fer herself.”

“I think she has an arraignment with the Helping Hooves society.”

“Well that would explain it, hey, what’s that scroll?”

“Scroll?” Asked Twilight. “Oh, this? I brought a letter from the princesses.”

“Really? What’s it about?”

“Oh, just a topic I've been working on, I discovered something possibly harmful and princess Luna is going to go sort it out tonight.’

“Mighty decent of her. Nice to know we won’t have to go on some quest to save Equestria again.”

Special thanks to:

Carnelian: For the cover art and useful advice.

Everyone who participated in my home-devised strategy game: Venture Command: For inspiring this fic and setting the background

Captain Sigma: For useful criticism. I promise not to make this cliche, captain.

Ircriket: here is more, hope you enjoyed.

Bronybro: Here you go, I hope it lived up to your expectations.

Karikamiya: Ta-daa! I'll try to get one up every week at least. though little problems might make me a bit late with that, y'know, little things like internet cut-offs, insurgents making good on their 'we'll go back into the jungle and keep fighting' threats, car bombings, falling off a mountain, ect. *third world problems*

Everyone who viewed the story, 'specially those of you you who thumbed it up, got me to get out this chapter sooner. never thought five out of six people would like this fic. Makes me happy.

As always, please do leave a comment! any type is welcome.

Comments

[master109]

cant wait until twilight and the others find out its not a star thats going to smash into there planet but a space ship full of aliens

[SC1-Firebat]

I see...
I do like the fact that unlike most si if stories you don't just straight up give them FTL (faster than light) travel and instead go the long term sub light suspended animation route as a means of travel. While neither are bad choices I see why many more people (including myslef) go the FTL route rather than yours. The reason bieng that if an entire spacecraft were to be suspended for an extensive amount of time the worlds that they are traveling between still operate at normal time. So when the crew reach their destination much time has past and I can't feel that whatever they had traveled for would still be relevant. The sublight suspended animation method is good for things where there is only a single species trying to reach a distant target and current events between other worlds are not an issue.
Though it doesn't seem to be too much of a problem here, that was just my preference more or less.

But enough of me babbling what did I think of this chapter.
Well, ponies are in character, thats always good.
The multi species is working out nice.
"The pants were a stark grey camo color, square patterns of varying sizes in fifty shades of gray"
Why man? just why?
One question why are the transitions in setting separated by about 50 spaces? is there something wrong with your word processor?

[Ineptus Astartes]

i though 50 shades of said color was just a saying meaning there were a lot of variants of it.

You made me look it up. *shudder* I suppose that's what I get for using a term without really knowing it's meaning.

Back to the story. The cryo thing was to set the scene but I see how it could break the flow. Maybe I'll blog stuff about the galaxy instead.

The FTL thing is kind of inspired by the Colonial Era. Where vessels would take years to get places. I've always liked 'hard sci fi' and the planets themselves change but a war for an entire planet, for instance, would likely be waged over centuries at least.

I'll check out your story.

[karikamiya]

As much as I don't want to be a reposter, MOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR

nice job with this one. :D

[Ineptus Astartes]

To my readers, sorry for the slow going, I'm having internet outages and what have you. I'm finalizing the third chapter, should be up tomorrow night or the next.

[Ineptus Astartes]

Aaarg...

Yeah, I'm pushing the deadline back another day, I originally was just going to copy edit and such but decided a 3,000 word chapter isn't really a chapter and added another 5,000 words.

the good news is that they finally land on Equestria but the bad news is I'll be up all night copy-editing and rewriting the chapter (8,000 words.) because I can never quite get that 'perfect' feel until I've rewritten the bloody thing five times. And even then...

Ah well.

In any case, the new chapter should be up within the next couple of days, heck, maybe even today.