//------------------------------//
// Chapter Three: Shaking it Up 
// Story: Starcrash 
// by Blarghalt 
//------------------------------//

With the entire base too busy trying to put out the fires, none of the pegasus guards gave chase. Dash followed behind their rescuers, coming behind the dragon in the air to talk to Far Out.

"These the people you were talking about?"

"Yeah, man! Gotta say, we cut it pretty close back there!"

"Uh huh."

Dash didn't see him as having any more useful information, and glided forward to the dragon with Starcrash under his scaly limb.

"Thanks for the help back there."

The dragon kept its eyes on the sky as it flew. "Talk when we land. Not now."

She anticipated similar responses from the griffon and pegasus, and instead turned her head to Starcrash herself, now fully awake with one hand resting on the cheek of her helmet. She looked over to Dash, then motioned across the assembled air corps that had pulled them from the fire.

Dash shrugged. "Yeah, I don't know these guys either."

Starcrash tossed her hands up in exasperation, resigned to be ferried into the sky.





General Watcher sifted through the ashes of his former FOB, pushing apart burnt fabric and soot. All around him, soldiers ran every which way attempting to control the remaining fires, but it was rather pointless now; the entire tent was gone.

Still, it could've been worse. He still had the ship. He still had the artifacts. And now? He had the intruder's weapon. With that in mind, he turned and walked over to a temporary lab set up among the ruins of the base, where two of the scientist unicorns with gas masks were busy prodding the recovered spellbook where Watcher had stomped it down.

He worked a growl into his question. "So. What is it?"

One of the unicorns kept concentrating on the tome, speaking as he probed it with magic. "As it looks, sir. It's a spellbook."

"I figured out that much."

"Specifically a grimoire. It's not just a catalog of spells, the book itself is magical. An object of magical focus, but far more advanced than anything I've ever seen."

"Any of the spells in this thing look familiar?"

"Sir, we've never seen this language before, or anything like it. It'll take years for us to translate it."

The general raised his nuzzle towards the sky, just looking at the stars for the first time in ages. "Luckily, I think we know someone who can help with that. In the meantime, this book and everything else needs more security. We're taking this stuff to Stable Zero."

One of the unicorns tried to lift the book with his own magic. He managed to get it two inches off the ground before an arch of sparks flashed danced between the horns of both unicorns and the book, causing them to become engulfed in red energy. Both scientists screamed, disappeared into a flash, and were gone.

A moment later they were deposited out of another flash of energy a few feet off the ground. Wobbling, they weakly brought themselves up, clutching their heads. When they noticed the general staring at them in disbelief, they looked to each other, seeing grey snouts with black lines. They'd been turned into zebras.

The scientists panicked together. Observing them lose their minds for a moment, General Watcher then looked over his shoulder and snarled an order.

"Medic!" 






Las Pegasus loomed ever closer in the sky. Dash had asked where in the city they were going, but again was rebuffed by a promise that they'd only talk once they'd landed.

Starcrash hadn't said anything since losing her book, stoically waiting out the airlift with cross arms. When they were close enough to the cloud city, they suddenly whipped around to under the main cloud foundation, rising from below. The pegasus traced the underside of the cloud with her hoof, falling on a section at the northeast end. With a confident nod, she led the way, the others right behind her. They all flew up through the bottom of the cloud, rising up into the suburbs of Las Pegasus, far from the main hub of hotels and arcades that made up the city's center.

Dash was the first to land, and out spilled the questions.

"Alright, who are all of you?"

The dragon dropped Far Out from his grip. The unicorn landed on his back, his horn glowing as the cloud-walking spell kicked in. "My name's Far Out, ma-"

"I know who you are! Who are the rest of you?"

The other two touched down as well, giving Dash her first good look at them as they shed their clothes. 

The pegasus was female, silver fur and black hair with green highlights, a cutie mark of a censored file with a magnifying glass over it on her flank. The bat pony, also female, was a dark member of her species with a purple mane and an eclipse cutie mark, watching Dash with half-lidded crimson eyes.

Whatever their relation to Far Out was, they seemed much more serious and, well, competent.

That left the dragon: a green, lithe, clearly male one with black membranes for his wings and the spikes that ran down his back. His horns, white as ivory, swept back from where his spines began and curved downwards in a spiral. After he pulled off his ninja suit and Far Out's tin foil, Dash realized the hunch on the dragon's back wasn't a deformity at all; instead, it was a large radio, tied around his waist, cord and headphones dangling on the side.  He balled all the disguises into a ball, tossing it forwards. The wad bounced off a building and into a trash bin, the lid shutting down behind it. 

"First thing's first," the pegasus announced. "Far Out! Do the spell."

Far Out imitated a very bad salute. "Yeah, man!"

Getting up, he pointed his horn at Starcrash. She recoiled, throwing her arms up defensively. When no attack came, she slowly lowered them to see that instead of getting ready to blast her, Far Out had just held his horn toward her, his horn glowing green as a similar aura covered her. The unicorn ceased his spell, and the aura around Starcrash faded until it disappeared.

The dragon placed Starcrash down, much more politely than Far Out. Once firmly settled on the cloud, she bounced on the heels of her boots a few times, testing the give of the surface. Somewhat certain she wouldn't immediately fall through her doom, Starcrash pointed to the pegasus, then held out her palm face-up.

"Yes, I suppose we owe you that much," the pegasus answered. She pointed to herself. "My name is Truth Seeker. My changeling friend here is Reduviidae-"  

"Red," the bat pony corrected.

"Wait, changeling?" Dash asked. 

Red lifted a leg, seeing grey fur. "Oh. Right."

In a green flash of light, the bat pony disappeared, replaced by a female changeling with greyish green chitin, a grey thorax, black wings, and glossy crimson eyes. Starcrash backed up a bit from the transformation, but relaxed when the insect didn't seem ready to attack her or anyone else.

"And our friendly dragon companion here is Scourge."

Starcrash barely reacted to Truth Seeker's introductions and turned to Rainbow Dash expectantly.

"Yeah," Dash started, "I don't think she can actually understand any of us, at all."

Truth Seeker's eyes widened in surprise. "Really? Far Out kept going on about all the secrets to the universe she shared with him."

"And you believed him?"

The pegasus and changeling looked at each other.

"She's got us there, Truth," Red stated.

Truth Seeker agreed with a nod. She ignored Far Out's hurt "harsh, man..." in the background, instead walking up Starcrash and producing a magnifying glass out of nowhere, touching her eyeball to it and bringing it upon Starcrash for scrutiny. Her attention first wandered to Starcrash's damaged chest plate, now sporting a small hole at the point of impact, with a network of cracks radiating outward along with black scorch marks.

"Hm. Converged magic bolt strike. Should have sent you out for a few weeks, at least. But here you're standing." She turned to Rainbow Dash. "When did this happen?"

"Right before you guys showed up."

"High-grade magic-resistant armor. Notable rune-setting all over. Integrated communications array on arm, obviously damaged."

Her magnified eye turned upward, examining Starcrash's helmet.

"Reflective visor, material unknown...antenna...speaker system..."

She put her magnifying glass away, then closed her eyes, sucking up a long gulp of air.

What came next was a delighted squee, the pegasus dancing on the tips of her hooves.

"I can't believe it! Far Out wasn't wrong! An actual visitor! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

She picked up Red, twirling her around. "At long last! Contact!"

Far Out jumped at them, expecting Truth Seeker to pick him up in the tornado of affection. Instead, she batted him as soon as he drew near, continuing to spin with her changeling friend.

It took her a minute to calm down, letting Red go and flying up to Starcrash's visor, giddy.

"I have so many questions! Where are you from? What's your government called? Is it a federation? Why did you crash? Did you crash on purpose? How much of the galaxy's energy output are you able to harvest for your civilization? Does your FTL work by creating wormholes in spacetime? Does-"

Starcrash brought a flat palm to her neck, swinging it from side to side.

The pegasus pony's eyes went wide and she swiftly sank to the ground, hooves covering her mouth. "Oh. Right. Language barrier. But wouldn't someone like you have a Universal Translator?"

Red put a hoof to her face. "Truth, we've been over this. There's no way a practical universal translator could exist for something on the scale of galactic civilization. She probably-"

Dash interrupted. "I think she had one, but it broke."

"Oh."

The dragon finally spoke. Harsh, and low. "Are we gonna stay out here forever?"

Truth Seeker rolled her eyes. "Right. Guess we should head back to the headquarters, at least. But first..."

Dash saw the pegasus give a curt nod to someone behind her. Her vision went black as a black sack was thrown over her head.





The hood came off. Dash's vision returned to reveal a soda shop, the blinds on the windows closed and empty save the crew from earlier sitting at one of the booths with Starcrash. Except the dragon, right behind her with the black hood clutched in his claws.

"Wait, what?" Dash questioned. To her, almost no time had passed. "Wasn't I just...?"

She decided to drop it and walk over to the booth.

Despite her size, the alien was still able to sit upright on the seat meant for ponies, her helmet off and placed to the side of the table. On her side of the booth was Red and Truth Seeker, watching her closely while Far Out had the other side to himself, also paying attention, but doing poorly at it. She was busy balancing spoons with her magic, both her hands raised and delicately controlling the magical aura around the utensils, with beads of sweat rolling down the side of her face.

Best be upfront, Dash thought. "Your headquarters is your soda shop?"

Far Out turned to her, one of his arms resting on the booth. "Hey, man, we put up the 'closed' sign."

"And what is she doing?" Dash asked, pointing to Starcrash.

Truth Seeker raised a hoof. "First off, this isn't my soda shop. It's my mom's. She's on vacation. Second...Starcrash, you've been calling her? Just started doing this on her own."

"We think it's some summoning ritual," Red deduced. 

"Or," Dash countered, "she's trying her magic without her book."

Truth Seeker produced the magnifying glass again, inspecting the spoons. "A book you say?"

"Yeah. I think she dropped it when you guys rescued us. She was using it like some kind of, I dunno. Thing you use to make magic more..." she trailed off, twirling her hoof in the air as she struggled to find the word. "Magic-y?"

The pegasus brought the magnifying glass to bear on Starcrash, who noticed her inspection and leaned back slightly.

"Hm. Yes. Quite. Interesting. Elementary. Indubitably."

Scourge grunted. "Quit stalling."

"Right! It makes sense that she would have some kind of mobile tool, for focus and direction. But at the same time, not totally reliant on it. I believe I mentioned this in our meeting about possible scouting techniques an interstellar-"

Red raised her hoof. "Look, we only know what Far Out has told us. That is, we know nothing. Rainbow Dash has apparently been around her the longest. Dash, what do you know about our guest here?"

Dash scratched the back of her head. "Ehh, not much. I saw her ship crash."

"So did half the city. Then they just said it was a special kind of firework and everyone bought it, except us."

"And I was the one who pulled her out. I think she was the only one inside."

"Single person crew. Okay."

"And she pretty much fixed her ship using magic. Then we got jumped."

"Autonomous field repair. That's something."

"Aaaaand I heard the general say he wants to dissect Starcrash."

"Ugh!" Truth Seeker uttered. "General Watcher! He's been around here for years, always mooching off the city to blow on military stuff. Sometimes he comes here too, and doesn't tip."

"Anything else?" Red asked.

"I think that's everything."

"So you're saying," Far Out tried to reason, "Starcrash is from the Galactic Commune? And here to bring about world peace? Bring Equestria into a golden age? And hook me up with some groovy alien pony chicks with antennae?"

Red kept her deadpan expression. "No. No. No. Extremely No."

"Aww..."

"Anyway!" Truth Seeker declared, stomping one hoof on the table.

The pyramid of spoons Starcrash had worked so hard to build came crashing down. She dropped her face against the table.

"We call ourselves the Star Society! We are brave investigators, finding out what the government doesn't want you to know about outer space!"

Red shrugged. "We mostly just sit at this booth and talk about science fiction."

"Semantics!" Truth Seeker retorted, "Las Pegasus has been a hub of UFO activity for years! We knew, eventually, this day would come! And when Far Out woke us all up in the middle of the night and once we figured he wasn't making it up, we knew we had to help!"

Dash prodded their plan. "So you decided to rescue us, and then...?"

"Hide here," Red admitted. "We also have the War Room in the back, for forming strategies," she added, pointing to a sketchy-looking door in the back that had a piece of paper labeled 'STAR SOCIETY ONLY' taped to it.

"You have to have a better plan than that!"

"We had plans," Red explained, "but all the ones I drew up involved how to prepare against orbital bombardment by a Type 2-minimum civilization with complete space superiority."

Truth Seeker spread her wings with pride. "And all the ones I came up with were how to spread the news of the truth once visitors touched down in Canterlot and announced their peaceful intentions!"

Rainbow Dash beckoned at Starcrash, now involving herself bending the spoons with her arcane might. "I don't think that's the case here! We need to get her home!"

The pegasus jumped into the air. "A plan will be drafted! To the War Room!"

Scourge finally joined the conversation, his massive girth passing the lot of them as he moved towards the labeled door. "I'll go set up the equipment."

Truth Seeker kept working herself up. "And while he does that? And while he prepares us for our greatest undertaking ever?!"

She suddenly sat down and pulled Starcrash and Red into a group hug. "I'll make some shakes. You like cherry?"





The only sounds in the darkness were the hum of a cheap air conditioner and Starcrash slurping down the remains of her cherry shake with a straw.

Truth Seeker stumbled around in the pitch black, mumbling something about the switch moving. After some struggling and what sounded like a bucket being knocked over, Truth Seeker cried out "aha!" and flicked something, bringing light.

Covering the walls, floors, ceiling, and the door they'd just entered, was a map of the stars. This was even beyond any star chart Rainbow Dash had seen in Twilight's possession, meticulously pasted together from photographs and old book clippings to give a nearly 360-degree panorama of the heavens around Equestria's planet.

Besides the room's background, there was also a large round table sitting in the middle, the center of the flat surface dominated by a large mound of delicate electronic equipment and a large radio, hissing on a dead channel. A small workbench also sat to the side of the room, with various gadgets of dubious practicality lying in a half-finished state on the surface.

"This is the War Room, huh?" Dash asked, floating towards the center, her eyes fixed on the paper stars. Starcrash was similarly amazed, but unlike Rainbow Dash's casual gaping, her eyes fixed on a line of stars on the ceiling and followed them, going around the table (setting her helmet down on it as she passed), down the wall, and then crouched down near the bottom right corner of the room. The others looked over her shoulder.

Red pointed at the photo of the constellation, labeled 'Truth Seeker's Ladle'. "Is that where you're from?"

Starcrash looked behind her to see the entire gang staring at her expectantly. She took her thumb and traced an oval around the constellation, and several outlying stars, before bringing it back and placing her index finger on a single star, a dim point of light just barely visible on the map.

Truth Seeker prodded Red with a hoof. "Ha! My constellation was closest! You owe me a shake!"

"We get them for free here anyway."

"You still owe me one!"

"Guys," the dragon interjected, "we need to talk about what we're doing next."

"Fine," Truth Seeker pouted.

They all left Starcrash to continue tracing out the star map as they filed onto their chairs. Once settled, Scourge ducked under the table, ruffling through some junk before springing back up, a remote in his claws. He pushed the big red button and the lights dimmed, a projector screen slowly drifting down from the ceiling at the far end of the room. 

When it had unfurled completely, Scourge punched out a hole in the mountain of electronics in the middle of the table. Somewhere within the mound, a projector began to play, its beam of light casting a map of Equestria on the screen.

Truth Seeker got up, flying over to a map. She smacked an abstract drawing of Las Pegasus. "We're here."

She moved over a bit to the right, her hoof landing on a small patch of forest. "Starcrash, well, crashed here: Sweethollow Woods."

Scourge leaned forward, turning a crank on the projector. The map zoomed out, showing a much larger portion of the land.

Truth Seeker motioned a wide circle around Las Pegasus "Based on my expert research, I have reason to believe that the legendary 'Stable Zero' is buried somewhere within this radius of Las Pegasus, and the general's probably already started moving everything there."

Dash had never heard of that. "Stable Zero?"

"Top secret research facility. Alien artifacts. Really weird magic. Things so secret, even the princesses don't know about them."

"About that," Dash brought up, "Why don't I just fly back to Canterlot and tell Celestia about this? She'll take my word over that nutcase's any day."

Truth Seeker put both her hooves on her hips. "No offense, but when was the last time she actually saved the day?" 

Rainbow Dash quickly raised a hoof in protest, then slowly put it back down, unable to articulate a response. She looked over to Starcrash, now watching their presentation intently. 

Truth Seeker saw the alien watching as well, and rather clearly nudged in her direction, asking Dash to explain all this to her.

Dash tried, flying up to the map while facing Starcrash. "YOUR. SHIP. GO. SECRET. PLACE."

Starcrash rolled her eyes, insulted.

Attempting to salvage her explanation, she flew over to the pile of junk, throwing bits aside until she finally located a red marker. She went back to the map, drawing a circle and crude drawing of her crashed spaceship around Sweethollow Woods. She pointed at Starcrash.

"This is where you crashed!"

Then drew an arrow to the circle, along with adding a few question marks.

"This is...where they took it?"

Starcrash thoughtfully scratched her chin.

Truth Seeker smiled. "I think she gets it."

Dash threw the marker away. "Now what?"

Truth Seeker hurled herself into the air and landed on top of the electronic hill, striking a pose. "We, the Star Society, will find Stable Zero and return Starcrash home! Isn't that right, Starcrash?"

Silence.

"Isn't that right, Starcrash?"

Dim flashes of light and the sound of crackling metal answered them. They all looked over to see Starcrash hunched over the workbench, her helmet on as a makeshift welding mask while she tinkered with something on the bench.

It was at that point Scourge realized the alien had absconded with quite a few of his radios and other appliances from the middle of the table. Most of them were already torn open, wires and vacuum tubes covering the table.

The dragon immediately pushed back his seat and stomped over to the working alien. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"

Starcrash looked over her shoulder to see the husky dragon on the warpath, and snapped back to her task, working even faster. Just as he grabbed her shoulder to spin her around, she twisted and held her project up high, producing a small metal box crudely welded and covered in wiring. Dash noticed the forearm she'd been typing on before was also torn up; did she salvage it for parts?

Upon seeing the mysterious gizmo Starcrash had created, Scourge took a step back.

"What...is that?" he questioned, then leaned in. "How did you...?"

Starcrash seemed to notice one last thing that needed fixing, leaning her head in for a better look. She then brought two of her fingers against the wayward wire, her arms shaking with strain as the tips of her fingers were shrouded in blue mist. A bright, white arc flared from her fingers, followed by the sizzle of copper upon metal.

She checked for any more faults, holding it at every angle. After passing inspection, she walked over to the table and plopped the box on the table, clicking over the three switches on the front. Despite its size, it crackled with power as the battery filled the machine with life, then fell quiet.

Quiet.

A soft, sharp noise emanated from the box. The tiny light bulb mounted on the top pulsed with light with every time it beeped, building with radiance and then a fading to darkly glowing lead, repeating the cycle with every new tone.

Dash began to ask what it was, but Starcrash stopped her, holding up a hand and pointed to the map on the wall.

She held the device out in front of her, walking about the room. When she turned towards the door of the War Room, the beeping became one long time. Subtle, but noticeable. She walked closer to it, pointing the box around like a divining rod until the beeping became a single long tone, the light shining without interruption. After holding in position for a moment, she looked over to the rest of the room, watching her in confusion. 

She tapped her device with a finger, then brought a palm above her eyes, as if looking for something. Lastly, she brought her hand low, raising it towards the ceiling while making the sound of a rocket taking off. 

"Wait," Scourge muttered, looking over to the mutilated electronics on the workbench. His toothy jaw went slack.

"It's a homing beacon." 

"And since Sweethollow Woods is that way," Red reasoned, pointing to the opposite end of the room, "then that must mean..." 

"They've already moved the ship!" Dash finished, "To that Stable Zero place! We just gotta follow the noisy box!" 

Dash went up to Starcrash, pointing at her invention and then to herself, smiling. 

Starcrash looked up to see the rest with eager, helpful smiles. She considered the help at her disposal, then flipped a switch on the side of the gizmo, turned it off, and gave a thumbs up. 

The Star Society cheered.

"Red!" Truth Seeker dictated, "fetch the finest sleeping bags!"

"The ones under the cash register?"

"The very same! Tomorrow, Operation: Space Rush begins!" 





Starcrash slowly stirred awake. Her blue eyes drifted open, and she sat up, rubbing her the bandaged part of her noggin. She grumbled, grasping at the gauze and pulling it off, freeing her blonde hair. Smacking her lips a few times, she looked around to see the stars of the War Room, and empty sleeping bags covering the floor. The dragon, the bug, and the two horses were nowhere to be seen, but she heard whinnies from outside the door and had a pretty good guess where they were.

She reached over on the table, grabbing her helmet and snapping it into place. The inside of the visor flared to life, its welcome HUD booting up and bringing high-definition readouts to her field of vision.

With that, she hopped off the table, grabbed her beacon, opened the door, and readied herself to face a new day on the strange world she found herself marooned on.