FIRST LIGHT, MARE COGNITUM, THE MOON
September 23, 2194
“That has got to be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen,” a researcher commented. He was looking out the transparent aluminum windows of First Light, the research facility built by Lunar Industries, and right now he was staring at the rock outcropping in the distance, where a midnight blue alicorn seemed to be screaming her lungs out in the near-vacuum that was the Moon’s atmosphere.
“Hey, lay off her, okay?” another woman said. “I just heard her husband died a couple of days ago, and if she needs to blow off some steam, she’s allowed, okay? Besides, if it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t have a job, since she had this station built.”
The man shrugged. “Hey, I don’t pay attention to the news, okay? Some guy kicked the bucket after fucking a pony, that’s his business. Some guys just are into that shi––”
The sound of a slap suddenly rang through the air. The man’s hand instinctively went to where his cheek stung, as he looked down in shock at another woman, practically half his age, dressed in a spacesuit. She had long blonde hair and green eyes that made him wish he was a couple of decades younger. And right now she was very, very mad at him.
“Well, hello, Dr. Holliday,” the woman to her side said with a smirk. Hearing the girl’s name floored the man. This was Dr. Tracy Holliday, the Director of First Light and one of the youngest astrophysicists in the world. Even at the age of twenty-five, she had Nobel and Night Light prizes for her work in the sciences.
“Hi, Janet,” Dr. Holliday said to the other woman without so much as taking her eyes off the man in front of her. She then focused her full attention on him and he suddenly wished she hadn’t. “Insult my grandmother one more time, and you won’t have to worry about what happens when you piss off a national treasure like Princess Luna.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Wait – that’s Princess Luna?” Then it hit him. “Your grandmother?”
“Yes. She and my grandfather adopted Dad when they found out she couldn't have kids, even if she lived in a human form. For the record, my grandfather just passed away a few days back and right now you want to make beastiality jokes about my grandmother?”
“I … uh….”
“Save it – I don’t want to hear your excuses. But if I ever hear you insult anyone ever again, you won’t have to worry about what an immortal, all-powerful pony goddess can do to you. I’ll just toss you out an airlock, got that?” She looked at the tag on his suit and said, “I have my eye on you, Mr. Jameson Bray. And that is not a good thing.” Turning away from him she went over to pick up her spacesuit’s helmet on the way to the airlock.
“You know, there are easier ways to commit suicide,” Janet told Bray.
“Oh, shut it,” he snapped at her.
Meanwhile, Tracy got onto one of the moon rovers and drove to the hill where Luna sat. Once there, she activated the magical commlink that would make sure the alicorn would hear her. “Hi, Grandma."
"Hello, Tracy,” Luna replied, briefly favoring her granddaughter with a smile. At the moment, she’d stopped screaming and was just content to lie there, looking at Earth. “Jameson Bray is brash and crass, but he’s a brilliant man, one of the best in his field. It’s why we hired him for this assignment.”
“I'm sure there were people just as qualified,” Tracy insisted.
“There were, but none of them speak Chinese and have a pilot's license,” Luna told her, “and with Aeronautics of China building a rail launcher for the Mars and Venus colonization efforts, we could use all the help we can get.”
“If you say so,” was the reply. “How are you holding up?”
Despite her sorrow, a smile came to Luna’s muzzle. “Despite being immortal and able to survive in a vacuum without a spacesuit?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I knew what you meant.” Luna continued to Earthgaze for a few more minutes before she spoke again. “You know, I was just thinking about the time I was trapped on my moon for a thousand years. I was in the wrong back then, and my sister had no choice but to banish me. My actions back then could have killed millions, and the war I started resulted in the deaths of thousands of ponies.
“And now, the situation is reversed and the stakes are higher. And Nightmare Star is far more of a butcher and monster than Nightmare Moon – than I – was ever capable of. And while we drove her back once, I know my sister to be far more powerful and cunning than I ever was, and I wonder if it's only a matter of time before she escapes the black hole we threw her in.
“I worry about a lot of things: that EarthGov isn't ready for her return. That my children, their children and their children's children are in danger. That the ponies that follow me as their princess and goddess aren't ready to see me fail.” She then looked at Tracy again, and her eyes were wet with moisture, though the tears quickly faded away in the airless surroundings. “But most of all, I'm afraid of living without your grandfather for another day. I watched him age from a vibrant man into an old, infirm soul, and yet I still live.”
Despite the bulk of the suit, Tracy hugged her grandmother. “Everything will be fine, Grandma. I just know it will – You're the world’s hero, after all.”
A thought came to Luna. “Tracy, take off your suit.” When the girl looked at her oddly, the lunar alicorn smiled. “Trust me, dear.” As Tracy disengaged the suit’s safety locks, Luna threw a protective barrier around her.
“Wow,” Tracy said, breathless as she realized she was the first person to actually experience raw space.
Luna changed back to her human form and hugged her granddaughter. “Welcome to my world,” she said as she began to cry.