Twilight moved through the ship rapidly. Moving quickly was something she had become adept at; at one time, it had been critical. The ponies alongside her were far taller than she was, meaning that their stride was much longer. In more recent evolution, though, their speed had become slower and their motions more delicate. Their gate was beautiful in an aesthetic sense, but gravely worrying to one who understood the cause for the change in pace as Twilight did.
The pony that moved beside her, though, did not take steps as she moved through the high white halls, passing the occasional crewmembers as they worked. Twilight walked alongside the captain, who represented herself as a floating, translucent hologram. Though her actual body was capable of motion through the ship, she had grown to prefer this method.
“Goddess,” said the captain, her translucent and hovering body floating ahead with her limbs oddly still. “I have to insist.”
“No,” repeated Twilight, sternly. She was beginning to become annoyed. “Absolutely not. We cannot risk exposing the environment to the Mortality Virus. Even the slightest release would doom everything we came here to accomplish, especially since there is an ecosystem down there.”
“That very ecosystem you are so insistent on protecting is part of the problem. The planet is already toxic, but it would appear that the life that remained behind has adapted in ways that ponies could not.”
“I already told you,” snapped Twilight, “that does not change the mission parameters.”
The captain moved her hologram in front of Twilight. “It does not change the mission goal, but the parameters are completely different. We have no idea what is down there.”
“Which is exactly why I have to go alone. Even in a containment suit, one scratch and the planet is contaminated. Did you even stop to wonder why I’m here? The Tribunal is immune to the Mortality Virus. I’m the only one who can go down there without risking infecting the planet.” She stepped forward, phasing through the captain’s hologram. “Besides. I’ve done the math. Equestria’s gravity would be fatal to any modern pony.”
“Except for you, no doubt.” She turned to face Twilight, and then raised her voice slightly. “But I still cannot allow this.”
“You would stop me?” said Twilight, slowing and looking over her shoulder. “You would defy the will of a god?”
“If it means protecting my lord from harm, yes. Twilight Sparkle, you are not immortal, but not immune to harm.”
“I already told you- -”
“That you cannot take a living pony alongside you. I know. I may be young in comparison to you, but I am not a fool. You will be assigned a remnus.”
As she said it, the morphiplasm of the ship shifted, creating a tall arching door. A pony stepped through, and phased through the captain’s hologram, for a moment meshing with the image of the captain’s face and neck.
The pony- -although the term was only used loosely- -was in proportions not unlike the others that crewed the vessel, although she was visibly taller, if only slightly. Her body was just as tall ans slender, and her hooves came to graceful points. At the same time, though, she lacked wings, a horn, or any sort of mane. Her unblinking eyes were not black, but white with blue pinpricks for pupils, and her body was pure white. On close inspection, though, it was apparent that she had no coat, and that there were thin black lines where the hard surface of the plates in her carapace met.
Twilight nearly burst out laughing. “A remnus? Captain, I’m not going down there to repair a starship reactor!” She lost control of her laughter and snorted loudly. “Now you’re just being ridiculous! I’m a pure alicorn, a living god! And this thing is supposed to protect me? HA!”
Twilight’s indignant mirth was immediately quelled when the captain’s hologram suddenly shot forward, moving her face low to meet Twilight’s. It was quite apparent that she was not amused.
She spoke with a stern voice. “As I said. I am not a fool. Your physical protection is a grave concern, but not my primary issue.”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Then what is, captain?”
“For the sake of honesty: I am concerned about the state of your mental health.”
The sound of Twilight’s jaw clenching was almost audible. “You are going to want to choose your next words very, VERY carefully, captain.”
“That planet down there. Equestria. We understand its weight, in an academic sense. The origin of all ponies. But to us, it’s just another planet. Plants, rocks, snow, oceans. The meaning has grown distant in the intervening hundreds of millennia. But not for you.”
“You have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Yes, I do. Because I’ve already experienced it. Have you ever heart of Arc Platform A6?”
“I can’t be expected to know every ship in the armada.”
“Of course. There is no need for you to bother. But for the sake of my argument, it was my home. I was one of the last three children born there.”
“The last? Then it was in decline.”
“As are most, as you well know. But I grew up there. I played in its gardens, wandered its systems, watched our star, fell in love…I spent my first fifty seven years- -my childhood- -on that ship.”
“So what?”
“And then I came back. One thousand years later, just after my commissioning surgery. I was in charge of the salvage operation.”
Twilight said nothing. She was not sure what to say, and although she refused to admit it, she knew where the captain’s line of reasoning was headed.
The captain continued. “Do you know what it was like? That ship, empty…every friend I had, every family member, dead, in some cases with no pony left to bury them. The halls I played in as a child rotting and decayed, the gardens I loved so dearly nothing but dry sticks and dead trees, the systems I had spent my childhood hearing having ground to a halt with nopony maintaining them.”
“And every second you hold me here with this meaningless drivel, more of our armada continues to decline. That is the reason we are here.” Twilight began to turn away.
“Goddess,” said the captain, sharply, “you spent much, much longer than one and a half centuries on Equestria. I know you understand, even if you refuse to admit it. Do you really want to be down there, all alone, perhaps for years or even decades with nothing but your own thoughts?”
Twilight stopped, but did not turn immediately. She wished she could tell the captain that she had already spent far longer than that with her own thoughts and the weight of an immortal life worth of regret and hard choices. She did not let her professionalism falter, though, even if she knew that the captain was right.
Then she reversed, and stepped toward the remnus, which had been waiting patiently.
“Name?” demanded Twilight Sparkle.
“Silken Dream,” replied the remnus, her tone pleasant and mildly cheerful with the exact tone and inflection that all of her kind seemed to have. “Gender female.”
“Your organic persistence rating?”
“Point zero one six.”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Point zero one six? What’s your sterility duration?”
“One hundred and eighty seven.”
Twilight paused for a moment, somewhat taken aback. “That is a very high number.”
“I would assume,” said Silken, “that a higher number would be more idea for this application, no?”
“I chose this one for a reason,” said the captain. “I have had my technicians check her in triplicate. She is not infected, not even in the slightest. There is no risk of her disrupting the native ecosystem.”
Twilight inspected the machine. She did not seem enthused, because she was not. She had been anticipating that she would perform the surface work alone, and carrying another being with her- -even a remnus- -was not something she wanted to have to deal with.
The captain seemed to notice her hesitation. “I suppose I cannot force you,” said the captain, “but your safety is my own personal concern. But my professional dedication is toward the completion of this mission. And to be blunt: if you go alone, you are risking our success just as much as you would be if you brought down one of us.”
With a long sigh, Twilight acquiesced. “Fine,” she growled. “I could use some on-ground scanning equipment.”
Silken smiled, but the captain did not. She rarely if ever did. “Good,” she said. “Take any equipment you need.”
Twilight began walking. Silken followed at an appropriate distance. “I was already going to anyway.”
d