Twilight was surprised with her friend's reactions, they tried to stop her at first but they quickly stopped trying to change her mind, but rather than settling with this they decided to actually help her.
First to help her, of course, was Rainbow, even after the bomb Twilight dropped she was still eager to test Twilight's power armor. After few tests and crashes, Rainbow Dash was able to do some amazing tricks at speeds which easily surpassed even wildest estimates Twilight made. If this wasn’t enough, Rainbow even helped her with recruiting pilots by giving her an idea:
“so Princess Egghead where are you going to find ponies to flight those, those are cool and all but all the good flyers were taken by Wonderbolts,” Rainbow Dash said while floating next to Twilight, her suit’s helmet open.
“There some truth in that...” Twilight said while thinking “Wait for a second what did you said!” she turned to her friend
“all the good flyers were taken by the Wonderbolts?” Rainbow said not sure what twilight meant.
“No, what you said earlier!” twilight almost shouted walking back and forth across the room
“Princess egg-” Rainbow stopped as she was grabbed by the princess
“Rainbow, You are a genius. I’m a PRINCES!” Twilight shouted “I can do, almost, everything I what,”
Then she started writing a simple letter to the equestrian ministry of Army with a simple message with could be summarized as Create a new branch of the army. This marked the day of creation of the Equestrian Space Navy.
Next was Rarity, who came up with few designs ideas for the uniforms. Which included:
skin tight Latex, which got a simple “no” from Twilight.
Differently colored cotton uniforms with red being for the fighters, again twilight rejected the idea but this time with some explanation ”Rarity we are not filming a space opera and nobody is going to take us seriously with those on”
Next were clothes from ancient Pegasys imperium, which get the next no with “and we are not pulling of Crystal Spires and Togas"
But finally with a sight Rarity said
“you are no fun darling but ok I have got something timider” with this she showed her, militaristic looking uniforms, with holes for cutie marks and shoulder plates with various symbols of different functions. Twilight was about to say no when she stopped
“wait... Those actually look good”
after this, they debated about the color palette which would be painted on the spaceships, which took them few hours, but they finally decided on six differently colored stripes on normally white ships.
After some time they all meet again. It was just a month before the first FTL capable ship would be built and everybody was silent about what will happen then.
“Girls-” Twilight tried to say
“No darling, we understand... a bit” Rarity said as everybody but Twilight nodded agreeing with her
“Well, could we just spend the most of what we got?” Twilight looked at everybody, drops of sweet on her forehead, after few seconds everybody smiled
“Of course sugarcube, what were you thinking, we would never stop you from archiving your dreams... even if we think they are wierd ” after Applejack this the conversation started.
During this month they would spend most of their time together, doing all kinds of activities which included even solving an friendship problem, like in the old times.
Everything was ready.
Workers of the docks were at their homes drinking with friends or were about to open their champagnes for the work welldone toast, every white-collar who worked at the station was there to look at the greatest piece of equestrian engineering and the station was soo full of tourists that few ships were denied access because the air decarbonizers couldn’t support soo many ponies.
You could say it was a celebration there.
Twilight was standing in front of everybody, just a meter behind her was the magic-enhanced metal beast, her beast.
She was standing proudly in front of her crew about 2000 ponies willing to work and participate in her dream, some were curious, some wanted the money and fame and others where just simply bored of the ’normality” of Equestria.
Next to them stood countless civilians: Ponies, Griphones, Hippogryphs, Dragons and other countless races of the planet below.
Twilight sighed, she looked at the ten ponies, and a dragon, who stood next to her, she smiled as her previous teacher looked at her seeing bouth the little filly that treated her like a mother and at a Princess and a great inventor, as a tear ran down her cheek she handed Twilight a bottle of champagne, one from a 1000 years ago made just after fall of discord, as Twilight piked it up with her magic she looked again at her friend and familli, she could fell wet stems run on her cheaks as she used the cantelot voice for the first time.
“Today marks a great day, but not just for Equestria and everybody on it. No! Today marks a most important point of history not just for us but for everypony in our universe! let's remember this day as a day Equestrians reached outside their small cradle to the universe outside, Today I present to you the ship that will let us do this, I present to you The Stella Discipulus!” as she finished her statement she hit the ship with the bottle, it exploded as it was thrown with powerful magic.
Within seconds the crowd started screaming in enthusiasm.
The doors to the ship opened as every single crew member marched inside.
Twilight turned to her friends as they threw themselves at her starting a group hug, as even Celestia and Luna joined Twilight wiped few tears from her face.
“Thank you...” it was all she could say as she walked to the same door as every one of her crew walked through.
she started to walk backward screaming with even more tears dropping from her face. She wasn’t sure why she was sad, she is going to see them in like a month, but still, there was something that made her sad, as these thoughts came to her the doors she walked thought closed shut.
Twilight was sitting in the middle of the room, the control center, as her hooves rested on the arms of the chair, she looked around the room, everything was as she imagined, her eyes turned towards the windows in front of her, space...
“Move out of the hangar, just don’t scratch the paint job,” as Twilight commended the pony that stood next to the navigation console quickly started pressing different buttons and pulling leavers, as the ship sluggishly started to move
“activate mana detectors” with a new command on hand the control room sprung to life. Everypony was doing something, power control was trying to balance the energy usage, engineering officer was commanding his subordinates so they may keep everything working, the science officer was actively collecting data.
Twilight watched as everything was working clockwork, well not counting that there were apparently four different songs all around the ship, including one about how the turrets can’t wait to shot at something, but that beside the point.
As the ship flew out of the dock sensors control said
“we are detecting a heavy magical leak” When Twilight heard that she instantly shouted
“You all know where are we going boys!” with this navigation immediately turned off the main thrusters as the ship slowly started to turn towards the new target. When the ship was facing its target Twilight shouted
“full thrust!” with a quick pull of a leaver Stella Discipulus started to charge towards the leak approaching the escape velocity1within a few seconds. When the trajectory of the ship collided with the target the navigation officer quickly turned off the engines.
After few minutes ship started to decelerate, when they reached the leak Twilight gave a single node to the jump control with a few button presses the spectacle started.
As the hatch on the tip of the ship four arms extended towards the magical mist in front of them, their tips touching as they reached the cloud.
Then they lit up, with great feats of magic the reality itself was torn apart as the arms spread slowly opening the rift to the realm of magic.
Just from being next to this magical rift Twilight could feel all the magic trapped inside, just begging to be used to create, destroy and change while at the same time waiting for somebody just able to survive those amounts of magic.
“activate magic inhibitors” as Twilight commanded, the crew on the deck adjusted everything preparing for the first usage of the FTL engine.
The ship slowly started to approach the liquid-like surface of the rift. As Twilight pressed a button on her hoofchair a helmet lovered from the ceiling of the deck, as it settled on her head she could fell all the magic that flowed inside the ship. She closed her eyes she waited for the surge that awaited her.
When she thought she was ready a lightning struck her, or it just felt like this, as the impossible amounts of magic tried to get absorbed by the ponies in the ship just to be transferred into a single alicorn.
As Twilight felt this unbearable pain she quickly looked at the rift, not even pain could distract her from the sight Before her.
She could see every star in the universe, she could also see the little specs of light, every other universe. But still, next surge of agonizing pain was enough to snap her out, she looked again at the mass of stars as she saw her target, the closest O class Hypergiant, the only star with enough mass and energy output to have an opportunity for an inter-dimensional rift.
She looked at her target and imagined herself traveling there, her horn glowed with a powerful light nearly blinding everybody in the room as she used the teleportation spell.
As the magic trapped inside of her finally released she felt the pain only comparable with somepony trying to tear out her horn, as the spell finished her head fell limb while she passed out.
Twilight slowly opened her eyes, she felt like she was on a hangover after the drinking contest that she had with luna a few years ago and she remembered that she drunk soo much that she was drunk for two days after the incident.
Thankfully the pain disappeared after a few seconds, with her nearly returned strength she opened her eyes and what she saw was something to behold, in front of the ship was the star, Twilight knew it’s size before but even in her wildest imaginations, it wasn’t that big.
She looked around the deck she saw that even when everypony was amazed equally as she was they kept working as she trained them to be, still few of them gave a sigh of relief as they saw that their princess woke up.
“Status report,” Twilight said as she looked at a young unicorn mare that she appointed as the science officer and her first officer.
“Hull integrity- 100%, armor integrity- 100%, shields are off but we have minimal damage around 2%, repair teams were already dispatched, Mana batteries at 10%, Mana collectors at full power with full support from electricity based siphons,” the mare read from the datapad that she held in her magic.
“Good job Solar inkwell, now could you give the datapad to me,” as Twilight said those words the light gray unicorn gave to her the requested item.
Twilight knew that she needed to trust her crew for this operation to succeed but she still needed to check everything that Inkwell said and apparently, everything was good, Twilight gave the datapad back.
“Sensors full power I want to know where is the closest leak” Twilight said as she adjusted her position.
After few minutes of scanning the area, a leak has been detected.
"Activate communication systems, I want to give a report to Celestia" Twilight said this as she studied the data collected by the aperture all around the ship. After about a minute a stable link was made with the communication center in equestrian.
"One... Two... Three... Do you hear us?" a voice spoke through the intercom
"Here's Princess Twilight, Equestria do you hear us?"
"Yes, Princes what do you require" Twilight started reciting a report to the pony, after few minutes the connection was terminated.
“Inkwell could you take over until the next jump?” Twilight asked yawning. The called unicorn instantly gave twilight a salute saying
“Yes, Princes! Can I do anything else for you!” Twilight smiled she thought of the time she was sent to ponyville and how she would stress out over every week to give her teacher a friendship report
“Just take care and call me when the batteries fill up” as she said this she jumped down from her seat and walked slowly towards her room while entering the code to block necessary equipment for jumping.
Twilight opened the door to her cabin, after walking in she threw herself on the bed. Twilight closed her eyes waiting for the relief of sleep.
Void she watched
It licked its lips
The Light she watched
It Smiled
The Darkness she watched
It bowed
Stars she saw
They stared back
Chaos she watched
It slapped her
“TWILIGHT” Chaos screamed at her.
“w... what?... DISCORD WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Twilight screamed at the ruffian, who was holding her while slapping her
beautiful and delicate muzzle.
“I ask YOU what you were doing there, of all places you SHOULD NOT go THERE,” Chaos said as he lowered Twilight to the ground.
“Discord could you explain what happened?” Twilight flew out of his hands.
“Even if I told you it would be impossible for you to understand,” He said as He was about to snap his talons and go away as He usually does.
“No Don’t you da-”w At this moment with a quick snap He broke all carefully crafted laws of the universe”-re” Twilight finished as she watched her, now, empty room.
Twilight looked at the clock, just before she could read the number a weak voice called her
“Princess Twilight jump opportunity in t minus 10 minutes,” Twilight sighed, She had more important things to do rather that Chaoses antics, which I approve.
Twilight sat in her hoofchair summoning her helmet again ”ok Twilight, breath in, breath out, This time slower but steadier magic, you have to learn to control it. She watched as the arms of the ship close to the leak, Twilight gulped as she felt the gigantic amounts of magic slip through the fabric of space.
As the arms of the ship finished their job the liquid like the surface of the rift waited for her.
“You know what to do,” Twilight said as the magic inhibitors where activated and turned up to the double of their normal power.
Stella Discipulus closed to the rift, Twilight focused knowing what to expect from the student power surge. When it finally hits her she quickly blocks the feral magic from escaping.
The magic inside of her started to build up, it almost instantly reached the levels of power she had inside while holding the power of the three other princesses. She could feel the magic slowly make her body heat up as it tried to escape.
“Entering the rift” as one of the crew members said this Twilight realized how much magic o pony can hold. Her body heat up to dangerous levels as the nearest crew member made a step back while protecting his eyes with a hoof.
Twilight needed to act quickly she scanned the beautiful image in front of her, and she saw it, fro this distance it looked like a small cluster of stars at the edge of the universe but Twilight knew it was in a totally different one.
Twilight focused all of her wills on the small light in front of her, she released all of her magic in one powerful teleportation-like spell. When Twilight finished her cast, she felt all of the magic that cramped inside of her leave her, at first it was a weak tingling sensation on the tip of her horn but it quickly grew into a pain and the agony as all of her magic tried to escape at all cost.
Twilight saw as the space between dimensions flew past them at an impossible speed, before Twilight could fully analyze the space around the ship she felt the last burst of magic escape her with a pain comparable with something piercing her skull.
But then she felt it all stop, all magic in her body escaped just to come back in more natural rate. As Twilight felt the blissful feeling of her natural magic return the ship entered the new universe.
Twilight quickly regained composure as she ordered.
“Full power to scanners there could be anything here” As Twilight said this the communication officer responded
“We probably won’t need those...” as he said this he liked the image from the camera on the side of the ship to the widows of the deck which doubled as screens.
“...Wow...” Twilight said stunned as she saw the perfect cube which was about three kilometers in length.
“Princes we are detecting some sort of electromagnetic radiation in a sub-dimension, from what I understand they are trying to communicate” Twilight smiled like a little filly.
“Frist encounter just after the second jump! and then aliens who don’t what us dead the second they see us!” Twilight smile grew wider adding to the confusion of the other crew members.
“Try to intercept those signal and use a universal translating spell on them” with the new job the communication officer started decrypting the message.
At the same time, several spherical objects emerged from the cube, with them emerged a few slicker and much smaller weasels.
“Princes we have contact, opening channel” as the officer finished speaking a smaller screen emerged from Twilight’s seat, on the display was a simple line symbolizing the frequency with a small text reading “unown intelligent species alpha”.
After few seconds a robotic voice said.
“We are the borg” the text quickly updated “lower your shields and surrender your ships we will add your technological and biological distinctiveness to our own, your culture will adapt to service us, Resistance is futile” with those words all the smiles in the room turned upside down.