Twilight jolted as the shock of electricity went through her chest and her heart beat again for the first time in longer than she cared to think at the moment.
She inhaled her first breath of clean, purified air instinctively before she began to become aware. She felt vertigo as she was lifted slightly from the bedding she was on and a voice spoke to her. “Princess Twilight Sparkle? How are you feeling?”
Twilight took in the soft voice of the female and inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly and smiling as she opened her eyes and looked into a holographic projection of Fluttershy, her friend from so long ago.
“I’m well,” she said weakly as her bedding, made of foam and plastics, lifted into the air and hovered into a corridor while advanced medical scanners covered her body with lights that danced and arced from her horn to her tail.
“That’s very nice to hear, Princess Twilight Sparkle. I’m glad you had a good hypersleep, and it looks like you’re as healthy as a horse,” the voice giggled softly while the face tried to match the sound, “as it were. You’ve been asleep for a long time, as you know,” Fluttershy said calmly, “and we are nearly two weeks from Calandar Point, the fourth planet of the Song system. Are you ready to walk?”
Twilight flexed her muscles and moved her legs as she yawned slightly. “Yes, I believe I am.”
“Then please wait until we’ve reached the end of the hall and all scans of your being have been completed before you disembark to your quarters. Thank you for listening to me, it means ever so much,” Fluttershy said as the hologram dissipated and Twilight was left alone on a hovering medical bed.
***
She walked slowly and marveled at the solidity of the floor, yet it’s apparent inability to create the clippity clop sounds hooves made. She chalked it up to more advanced human technology she just couldn’t wait to explore when she got to the new planet and began oversight of the new colonies. She smiled softly to herself as she followed a path of lights on the floor and ignored the lights that lit up and dimmed as she passed them.
It was outer space, after all, and saving power at any reasonable cost was expected, even if the power never seemed to run out. She made her way to her cabin and raised her left hoof to a scanner by the door that was chest level to her. She patiently waited as it scanned a bracelet she was wearing before a soft note chimed and the door slid open into the wall.
She walked in and looked around her quarters. It was very small, unitarian, and basic. Exactly what she’d requested. She went to the bed and lay on her side as the wall came to life and Fluttershy stood meekly, hiding her eyes slightly behind her mane as she spoke. “Welcome to your quarters. Please, make yourself as comfortable as possible.
“If you need something, please don’t hesitate to ask and, if it’s possible, we’ll do it for you. You are registered as a Bronze member of the crew, so please stay out of restricted areas without guidance. If, at any time, you wish to eat; the dining hall is always open. There are several recreational areas that are open to the public during day hours and, for a fee, you may access private recreational areas during evening hours.
“Being a Bronze member of the crew you are also entitled to discounted healthcare and one purchase in the clothing department, as well as free non-alcoholic beverages for the duration of your stay onboard. Um, thank you for listening to me and if you wouldn’t mind, could you scan your ID once more, just so we can give you access to your personal belongings? Thank you.”
Twilight inhaled deeply and stared at the image of her friend and felt a twinge of ache in her heart as she rolled to her hooves and swiped her hoof through the holographic image of a panel. The room brightened slightly and a portion of the wall behind the hologram slid open. “Goodbye for now, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and enjoy your day.”
The image fizzled away and Twilight was alone with her thoughts, looking at a collection of tablets that held the majority of all the collective knowledge of the Royal Canterlot Library and Archives. There were two classic books she felt she needed to have with her as well, and the magic book she and Sunset Shimmer had used to nearly full, so many ages ago.
She took the magic tome and hugged it to her chest, remembering the life she started with so long ago before replacing the book and turning to the plastic cup sitting, wrapped, by a spigot in the wall. She unwrapped the cup and promptly filled it with a light yellow drink that reminded her of urine but, thankfully, didn’t taste of it.
“Ah,” she sighed after downing the cup full, “gotta stay hydrated while waking up,” she used her magic to refill the cup twice more and nearly crumpled the cup out of habit before she remembered that waste wasn’t really an option on this mission and she wasn’t going to let the new world turn into what Manehattan had before she’d left.
She turned the cup upside down and placed it where it had come from before she’d unwrapped it and went back to bed to collect her thoughts. She had two weeks before she would be the co-leader of a planet populated by humans, minotaurs, equines, ten dragons, and critters that would be needed to help maintain homeostasis with the various species.
She fell asleep without noticing and woke up softly in her bed with a refreshed feeling.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked aloud.
The disembodied voice soothed Twilight, somewhat. “Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle?”
“What do I do first?”
“The orientation will be held, when you arrive, in conference hall C.”
Twilight smiled and nodded. “Thanks, I’ll get ready then.” She listened but only silence replied to her as she lay her head down and took in the sounds of distant machinery working. She rolled to her hooves and went to the wall that was open and pulled a garment bag out, the only other thing left besides the tablets was her obvious crown.
She opened the garment bag and smiled at the dress held within. One of Rarity’s best dresses that Twilight had sworn her old friend she’d wear on only the most special of occasions. This seemed to be fitting, so she slipped the black dress with white opals over her figure and took careful time to fit her wings through the slits before she nodded in approval.
“Always the minimalist,” she said to herself as she took the crown and placed it on her head, adjusting it slightly before looking into the mirror that was behind the bathroom door. “Yes, this will do,” she smiled and turned to the door. She exited and made her way to the conference hall lost in thought about what the new world was going to be like.
Waterfalls that dwarfed Canterlot Mountain. Fertile plains that would make enough food to feed all the races for ages to come. Lakes and rivers crisscrossing the entire planet with fresh water and not an ocean to be had. A blank slate that all the races could start over with and not make the same messy mistakes of the past.
She swiped her hoof by habit and walked into the conference room, found a padded cushion near the back and sat down as regally as she had been taught by Princess Celestia: and the room dimmed to blackness. In her youth she would have been startled by it, at least, but she was far more learned now, and waited for the show to start.
A human man and a mare pony appeared side by side at the far side of the room and began talking about the specifics of the new world they were to inhabit. Twilight kept her gaze ahead while she kept thinking about how to maintain peace between the races and tribes she’d be traveling with. Economics would have to be established that used the resources of the new world. Settlements would have to be spaced apart yet be close enough to maintain peaceful communications.
‘So much to ponder’, Twilight hummed to herself and was shushed by the hologram.
“Please keep all question and comments until the end of the orientation,” the man said.
“Yes, I under… stand?” she looked around the room as the hologram resumed orientation and noticed, finally, that she was the only one in the room. “Excuse me,” he raised a hoof and was hushed again. “Where is everyone?”
“Please keep all question and comments until the end of the orientation,” the man said as he resumed his lecture. Twilight huffed and stood, calling magic into her horn, brightening the room, and spoke calmly.
“As a future leader of the world we are about to inhabit, I would like to know why I’m alone.”
The man and mare looked in Twilight’s direction. “You are not alone. We are all in this,” they both gestured through the empty room, “together.”
“I understand that, but where is everyone else?” Twilight asked as she moved closer to the holograms.
“Please keep all question and comments until the end of the orientation,” the man said.
***
“Hello?!” Twilight shouted as she entered the main concourse from an elevator and blinked as dozens of shops blinked to life, electricity and magic funneling through their many power conduits for the first time since leaving her home and quiet advertisements whispered from inside the shops as her ears fell and for the first time in over a century she felt panic in her chest.
She was awake and alone on a starship that was launched third in a series of eight over the course of as many years. She couldn’t teleport that far, for certain. She needed to know where she was so she galloped to one of many observation rooms, this one in the concourse. She stopped to gawk at the true beauty of space and the vastness of it.
Stars shone brightly without the telltale twinkling she’d always known; and the darkness of space was even blacker than she’d imagined it being. Without an atmosphere to scatter the light from the sun, space was just… blackness between stars.
“Where am I?” she called to the room.
Her brow furrowed slightly as a familiar voice filled the room. “You’re in observation room 6B.”
She groaned. “I know that, Luna! Where am I in the trip? I’m not two weeks away, I can feel it.” She waited as the computer calculated and the room filled with a holographic display of the galaxy and a purple line shone from her homeworld to their destination several solar systems away. Several ships appeared on the line with hers being shown larger than the rest to indicate its significance in the apparent train of ships.
She gawked at the position of the ships in space and where they lay on the line. “We are currently forty-six percent complete with our journey.”
“Sweet Celestia,” she whispered as she looked at the distance left to travel. “That means-”
“We will arrive at our destination in 136 years, 2 weeks-”
“And three days,” she said at the same time as the computer. She kept her calm and turned to the doorway and crossed the hall to an assistant terminal. “I need to send a message home.”
“The communications array is powered down at the moment. If you wish to send a message you will need to visit the kiosk to record your message, it will be delivered during the next transfer.”
“Okay, where is the kiosk?” Twilight asked. A beep sounded from her right and she looked to a small table with a transparent glass wall and rolled her eyes. “How’d I not know that?” she said as she trotted quickly over to her own invention that was made with the best human technology available at the time.
She sat in the provided cushioned bench and waved her hoof over the pad. The device came to life and she tapped a few keys. “Hello, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle on board the starship Rea on my way to Calandar Point, I’ve woken up early and I think I’m the only one here so, anyone else awake or back home, can you get in touch with me and we can figure this out?”
She tapped a few keys with her magic and then send.
"The communications array will power on in two years and two weeks, three days to send your message-” Twilight frowned and waved her wrist over the console.
“Command override. Princess Twilight Sparkle, code Harmonic 6. Activate the array and send the message now.”
The computer was silent for two seconds, the longest two seconds she could think of, before it beeped. “Command authorized. Sending message,” she sighed in relief, “message will be delivered in seventeen years, two months, one day and thirteen hours, estimated reply will be in thirty four years, two months, three days. Thank you for using AT&T.”
Twilight yelled and slammed a hoof on the console as an image of her ship sending an envelope back to Ponyville Castle and returning displayed itself. “Darn it! What they hay is going on here? Relay my message to the other ships!”
“Message relayed. Soonest reply is expected in 136 years, three days.”
“WHAT, why?!”
“All passengers are in hypersleep until two weeks before arrival as per Twilight Space Code 16678.32 subsection 322a: In the safety of all passengers’-”
“I know the code!” she shouted in a volume she wasn’t used to. She waited as her echo quieted and stopped reverberating through the empty concourse. “Okay, Computer,” she asked with a shaking voice, regality gone, “what do I do? How can I go back into hypersleep? I wasn’t part of that team, that was minotaur technology… proprietary technology,” she said in a deeper voice.
“Waking early from hypersleep is not possible-”
“Give me the specs!” Twilight shouted again.
“Hypersleep technology is unavailable to unauthorized personnel. I can offer some hypothetical research provided-”
“I don’t need hypotheticals, I need to not be alone on a ship for a century and a half!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
“Darn human technology! Why do you have to be so logical?” she cursed as she got up from the booth and cantered quickly to an elevator. “To the command decks,” she said as she sat at a booth designed for ponies and buckled herself in. She waited as the elevator gave a safety brief about staying seated and buckled through the journey across the ship while she focused her gaze outside the windows that faced open space.
She stared out the window long after having reached her requested deck and felt like a lone star, thousands of lightyears from another of its kind. Alone, yet surrounded by it’s kind… just out of reach.
She began trotting down the command hall and liked how she’d helped design the command deck into a ring. It was more efficient than having a flat bridge alone, she had the entire command staff here and if she could get one of them awake she could have them help her get back to sleep before she went crazy.
She’d have to wake a minotaur, though. They were the engineers and while most were in engineering, the senior ones were the most capable and knowing of their own technology. She reached the command pod and waved her hoof by a small console.
“Command quarters are restricted to entry without proper authorization.”
“Command override. Princess Twilight Sparkle, code Harmonic 6. Open the door.”
“Command not authorized. Command quarters are restricted to entry without proper authorization.”
“What?!” she shouted as she waved her hoof by the console again and again. Each time receiving the same message. She looked into the pod room and focused her magic into a teleportation spell and released it. She shouted as magical feedback sent her flying into the wall behind her with enough force to push the air from her lungs.
She coughed as she stood again and tried to cast the spell again, only to be thrown back into the wall, softer this time. “What the hay? Computer, why can’t I teleport in?”
“The command ring is secured from damage and sabotage by order-”
“I know the orders!” she shouted. “Open the doors,” she yelled channeling a rare spell she hadn’t used since fighting a ferocious beast long, long ago. The spell focused into a splitting beam that would have sliced through a mountain with ease… only to fizzle out of existence millimeters from the surface of the door itself.
“Please! Open the door!”
“The command ring is secured from damage and sabotage by order-” Twilight choked on her sobs and ignored the lecture as she fell to her knees and let her body shake as she was, for the first time in a long time, lost without help.
Composing herself quickly she took several calming breaths and stood up, locking her sadness away and went to the elevator. “A pony must eat, lest she lose who she is,” she said from rote memory, “and I cannot lose myself, I’ll figure this out soon and this’ll be little more than another inconvenience, like giving birth or commanding an army.”
She chuckled to herself, having never commanded an army. “Well, if I had, I’m certain the battles would have been the most efficient in history.”