The Station

by Corpse

First Sightings

"Look, it's too dangerous to send people to explore the outside, as far as we know there could be even more dangerous creatures on this very planet, than this entire galaxy!" I tried to make Cali understand.

"I know it's dangerous," that's putting it lightly "but think about what we could learn from this planet, I'm sure your security officers can handle these threats," She replied with the same answer, only slightly different.

"If you can get permission from the Captain, I'll consider it, ok? Now stop pestering me" I honestly hope the Captain refuses, the amount of things that could go wrong is absurd!

"What's this about permission and stuff? I hear our amazing Captain ask over the radio.

"Sir, if we are able to learn more about this planet, it could help humanity and the other races as a whole, we'd be considered heroes!" I hear her trying to convince the Cap.

"But sir, we need to focus on ourselves right now, we need to survive, and wait for reinforcements."

"Who could never come, we need to start living, not surviving, and in order to do that, we will need to explore this planet,"

"That has nothing to do with our current situation!" What kind of scientist can be so smart yet so dumb!

"Guys, calm down. Stress is getting to us all, I know, but we need to be civilized and smart if we want to survive on this planet," always perfect, has the answer to everything, just too good to be true.

"Let's put it to a vote, I'll gather the other Heads," Joseph answered. Well, I guess I can do nothing about this then.

"Alright Captain, that sounds fair enough to me," said Cali.

"I'm in, let's get this over with," there was no way she could get a majority vote.

"Captain, may I have a suggestion," said our female sounding AI, SYNC

"Go ahead,"

"Could I get a vote, as the AI it is my duty to protect you all, and I think having my voice heard will increase your percentage of success by 14%," explained SYNC

"Uh... sure?" Cap replies. Well, with the other heads that will bring it to 7 voters, sounds alright to me.

"When will we start the vote?" I ask.

"The earlier, the better, how about 16:00?" said Cali.

"Alright, I'll start informing the other Heads"

When we first read the letter, I had a very different view of how things would go.

I thought that we would run into a bandit tribe or something, instead, Sunny and I are just walking further and further away from the village.

The silence was absolutely deafening, so I decided to try start up a conversation.

"Sorry about earlier, you wouldn't wake up and i thought it would be funny and stuff..." I try and say, and immediately regret it after hearing how it turned out.

"Ah don't sweat it, I probably shouldn't have gotten so worked up over something so minor, just the lack of stuff we do sort of got to me, you know?" she said, well, at least i won't have to duck like last time.

"Nah, i understand you, but let me ask you something, what are your thoughts on all of this?" I asked, hopefully we won't lose the momentum we have.

"Personally, I don't think it's anything serious, maybe just a dangerous animal got a few towns ponies spooked," she says.

After giggling a bit, I reply with. "That is possible, but I think it will be like a bandit camp."

"Yeah, right, this deep in Equestrian borders? I don't buy it," she says with certainty.

Nodding my head, we still go ahead, searching for anything suspicious.

After a while of going through the plains, I start seeing a strange sight

"What in the world?" I mutter under my breath.

"What do you see?" she asks me, since Pegasi eyes where usually a lot more sharper than other ponies, it was understandable she couldn't see it.

I however, was too interested in what i was almost able to see than tell her. It looked like a giant... base? But it was hard to tell from this far away.

As i start going closer, Sunny quickly runs for me, trying to keep up.

"Hey! What's going on?" she whispers, caught off guard.

"It looks like a base, but not one we've ever seen before, it's not built by wood, it seems like it's made from stone," I explain.

"Stone? But that would take years to make, somepony would have to have seen it before, how could it be here?" she asks confusedly.

"I don't know, but we need to get closer to get a better view," I say, with a small bit of enthusiasm.

"Wait, I'll put an invisibility spell on the both of us, they could easily see our golden armor if we are not careful," Sunny says, I need to calm down.

"Right, sorry,"

After about a minute, she casts the spell on the both of us. Looking at myself, I could only see the grass folding where my hoof should be.

"Woah, that's amazing," I whisper, before we start getting close to the base.

"Captain, something has come up," It says after it makes a female hologram appear in my private quarters.

"Yes? What's wrong, did the clown and mime raid the kitchen?" I ask.

"No sir, my outside cameras on the towers have picked up two beings, but they are only visible in the infrared mode."

"Are you sure the camera's aren't malfunctioning?" a being that can only be seen in infrared? I have a hard time believing that.

"I checked multiple times Captain, I also had the same thoughts, but the camera is 100% functional sir," it explained.

"Can you define the shape of it?" I ask, a being that could only be seen in infrared? That would make the news, maybe even more than the Slime people.

"Their overall shape is similar to a horse from earth, but a lot smaller. They most likely hide by manipulating Bluespace, like the Wizard Federation," it answered.

"Those weirdos?" a group of fanatical people who think they can do magic, in reality most scientist think they just manipulate Bluespace.

"Captain, what should we do with these beings?" asked the AI, I was even able to tell a small amount of emotion was in it, mostly frustration.

"Bring up the camera footage on the screen. Let's wait a bit, see what they do," I reply.

"Are you sure they wont see us?" I ask, this was nerve wracking.

"Could you cut that out? For the fifth time, not unless they look directly at us, from 4 hoofs away, ok?" she replied.

"Sorry, this is just so crazy," I say as we start getting closer towards the base. This was really something, from here I could definitely tell it wasn't some sort of painted wood, but it also didn't seem to be stone. It was too smooth, maybe some strange marble?

But the main thing that confused him the most were the residence, I was unable to tell what they where, but from this distance, it seemed like they where a strange monkey like animal, the main thing that confused me were their face, it was completely hairless, and their body seemed to be made from leather? It was honestly hard to tell.

"What can you see, I can only see the base," she asks.

"They seem like a monkey and a colorful walrus decided it would be fun to roll in the hay," I try and explain.

"A what?" she asks, understandable reaction.

"I can't tell from this far, we should maybe get closer," I say. I probably shouldn't be doing this, but these creatures are so strange, I just couldn't head back now.

"Captain, they are getting too close for comfort," the AI replies.

"Ok, could you get a feel for how many volts it would take to knock one out, harmlessly?" I ask.

"I have a rough guess, I could inform the security members to incapacitate them," it explained

"Do that, we could just hall them off to some other far off place, they'll get spooked and run to their herd," I answer.

"Affirmative," it answers.

Something didn't feel right, the closer they got, the more it seemed like some of the creatures where looking around for something, they couldn't have seen them, right?

"Hey, are you sure your spell isn't malfunctioning or something?" I whisper.

For the first time, it seemed like Sunny was unsure of it.

"Let's head back, I don't want to be caught by these ponies," I whisper.

*I think they are over there, yeah, near the rock, the AI says they are right there.* One of the creatures made some strange noise, before pointing towards where we where hiding. They have got to have seen us.

"RUN!" I yell, totally ruining any possibility of escaping quietly.

As soon as our hooves start moving, the same creature yelled *Tazer them!*, when suddenly, my body went into a world of pain, my muscles spasming randomly as I fall on the dirt.

Barely able to keep awake, I see that Sunny is in the exact same position as me.

*Are they wearing armor?* was the last thing I heard, before blacking out.