Rainbow Dash - 6th of Solar Dusk, 1st year of Harmony
749,573.37
39 Zabiyaka Drive, Iv Damke - Chern, Noctae Sector
“That just might work,” Default mused as Rainbow finished explaining her plan.
Faust bit her lip as she ran a few quick calculations. “There is a chance, a small one at least.”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “Yeah, well, I mean, it’s the best I’ve got and you two sort of just want to charge in there.”
Default smiled and dipped his head towards Rainbow. "Well, I am a mechanic. Rigging in is my specialty."
“And I am a bioformer,” Faust added with a sheepish smile. “All AGI have a purpose. Lateral thinking isn’t our specialty. Our primary functions are.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. Are they telling me that humans kept themselves important in a world of super smart robots by making sure humans were the ones good at imagining things?
Rainbow tapped her chin with her hoof then smiled slowly. “That’s pretty smart, actually.”
"What is?" Faust asked with a curious frown.
Rainbow shook her head. “Nothing important. Just putting things together,” she said as she turned to look at the door. “I should tell them I’m going now. How much time do we have left? Coming up with that plan took uh, what… Ten minutes?”
Default pointed a hoof towards the bracelet on Rainbow’s pastern. “Try six seconds. That is letting you talk to us at the speed we talk to each other.”
Rainbow triple blinked and raised her leg to stare closely at the glowing bracelet. “Woah! What can’t this do?”
“Provide you with more than a small personal starship could,” Faust said with an irritated narrowing of her eyes. “I’ve explained its functions six times now.”
Rainbow smiled and nodded. “Heh, yeah, it’s just… This is a lot of power, you know?”
Default snorted and shook his head. “Not really. I’ve got shuttlecraft with more power than that thing.”
Rainbow looked blankly into Default’s holographic eyes. “I’m from a pre-space-flight civilization.”
“Yes,” Default said with a small nod. “One that evolved on the crew-deck of a Star Ship.”
Rainbow smirked at the term ‘starship’. “I just got the pun.”
Faust sighed. “You know they started making each settled star system into colossal vessels simply to make the joke a reality. Honestly, your ancestors were some of the weirdest people.”
Rainbow smiled, then sighed and looked to the door again. “Uh, how do I like, resume normal speed? Without hanging up. I’ll need one of you to talk me through how to fly with this thing.”
Default and Faust shared a glance, communicating silently with one another. After a moment Faust nodded and Default’s projection vanished.
“I’ll walk you through things. Default is going to take care of our half of the plan. He’s better armed anyways,” Faust said as she morphed from a hologram into a simple video window within Dash’s field of view. “You don't need to do anything special to resume normal speed. Your ship is all thought interfaced.”
Rainbow’s cheeks flushed slightly. “Sooo, the comm Penny gave me is a thought interface, but I need to give it specific commands.”
Faust sighed and shook her head slowly. "Poor little things… It's just like that silly Surf Drive," The AGI said before looking Rainbow in her eyes and smiling. "I mean your ship is like a body part. Because it is you. There are no commands. Just do it."
Rainbow frowned and turned, willing herself to stop speaking and thinking at a machine’s speed. The world returned in an instant and everything she hadn’t realized had been missing before rushed back in a wave.
The low hum of mechanical devices. A light buzzing hiss from the electric lights. Dull murmurs of conversations from other rooms.
Rainbow’s jaw dropped in recognition of what she had been doing. I just had a conversation faster than sound. She smiled. “Looks like I’m the fastest mare alive!”
Faust chuckled. “Perhaps… Please hurry. We are on a timetable.”
Rainbow nodded and trotted out into the hallway. She caught a flash of yellow ahead of her as Boris rounded the corner. Rainbow knew she needed to catch up quickly. If she had to explain herself in the kitchen, she’d need to explain everything to everyone and answer every last question.
Rainbow opened her wings, willing herself to fly up to Boris as fast as possible. Her bracelet flashed as it sensed her intentions and activated the transporter.
The world around Rainbow changed without any dramatic flair as if reality itself had been subject to a jumpcut. Her wings flared in alarm as Boris nearly tripped over her.
“Der'mo!” Boris yelped, backpedaling so much he nearly fell over. “I didn’t even feel the air— How did you do that?”
Rainbow shook herself to clear the shock out of her own head then timidly held up her leg to show off the bracelet. “Sooo, this is a First Race starship.”
Boris silently stared at the simple bracelet for several long seconds. “That… Is a ship? No wonder we never found personal transports!”
Rainbow cleared her throat. "Yeah so… Also, they can teleport. Which I think I just did by accident."
Boris nodded. “Da. That would explain the lack of wind.” He smiled and held out a fist for Rainbow to bump. “So! We should change our plans a little. First, we go to my lab and analyze the working First Race ship you can wear on your arm, then we go to the bar!”
Rainbow shook her head as her lips pulled into a slight frown. “Sorry, but… I can’t.”
Boris raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
Rainbow tapped her hoof against the floor as she tried to think of the best words to use. If I explain too much, he'll want to help and delay me. If that happens, we could lose everything. If I explain too little he'll think I'm a jerk and since I'm technically a part of his family now I don't want that.
“You know how there’s a bigger-than-a-planet huge starship out there?” Rainbow asked at last.
Boris groaned. “The Admin knows that bracelet-ship started.”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. It does. And it wants me to go to a place and do a thing for it. Sooo, I’m going to go do that.”
Boris nodded, his face softened with understanding. “Would you like me to get Penny, Pan, and Jo for you? So you can say goodbye?”
Rainbow felt her heart freeze for a moment. She couldn’t leave without saying goodbye, but things were time sensitive. Rainbow closed her eyes for a moment, willing herself to resume thinking at Faust’s speed.
“What do I do here?” She asked as she stared at the holographic alicorn’s window. “I mean, I can’t just leave them without saying anything.”
Faust nodded. “Of course not. Say goodbye, tell them you’ll be back soon, then teleport to orbit.”
Rainbow took a step backward, her wings twitching as she moved. “I can do that?!”
Faust sighed and shook her head. “Yes, Dash. You can do that.”
Rainbow opened her mouth but the AGI cut her off. “Before you ask, no you don't need to do anything special to survive in space. Life support is always on.”
Rainbow pushed her attention back to the world around her, looked up at Boris then nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
Boris nodded and stepped around Dash. “Don’t worry, they’ll understand… You’ll be coming back right?”
Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, I should be. It’s basically something I’ve done before.”
But on a way bigger scale…
Boris smiled. “I see. That’s the life of a hero, Blue. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t be proud of yourself this time. It’s not every day you get to help out The Admin.”
Rainbow nodded. Or the entity that created your species… Speaking of which!
Rainbow flipped her attention back to AGI speed. “Come to think of it, are you technically my god?”
Faust snorted and shook her head, her sides heaving as she held in as much of her laugh as she could. "Oh, goodness no! I'm more of a mother really. It's not like I control the rules by which living beings function."
Rainbow scratched the back of her head. “Heh… Sorry. It’s just there’s a religion back home with a goddess called Faust. My friend Lyra is a believer, so I know a lot of it.”
Faust blinked, her laugh stopping in its tracks. "Lyra? That is an odd name from what you've told me of your people's naming conventions, at least…" She hummed and closed her eyes her attention moving from Rainbow to her vast database of lifeforms.
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
"Lyra is an ancient human name. All non-Equestrian ponies have human names. I am checking to see if there are any Colonists known to be away from—" Faust smiled and pumped her hoof triumphantly. "AH HA! Is her last name Heartstrings?"
Rainbow groaned and facehooved, her wings flicking against her back. “Oh, my, Luna! Lyra is an alien mare! That explains everything!”
Faust laughed and shook her head. “Lyra Heartstrings, born… two hundred and eighty thousand years ago on Luxio. Ohhh, she’s a historian and an engineer. Interesting. I wonder how she knew Terra was out of stasis?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes and smirked. "Knowing her, she wanted to meet humans so bad she's the reason the time stop thing isn't—" Rainbow blinked. "Wait! Did you say she's hundreds of thousands of years old?!"
“Yes. Why is that so odd?”
“Because we live like, two maybe three hundred years tops!” Rainbow protested with a stamp of her hoof.
Faust gasped and put a hoof to her mouth. "Oh my gosh! You poor things!"
Rainbow’s ears fell back as she glared at Faust. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it, you’re a perfect immortal machine.”
“No!” Faust exclaimed with a genuine look of sorrow. “You’re not supposed to age past your prime. I designed you to be biologically immortal, just like humans. Something’s gone terribly wrong with gene 89-Omega. Let me just access your medical systems…”
Rainbow frowned. "Wait, access my— What are you do—"
Rainbow’s wings snapped open as she felt a tingle of energy race through her body from nose to tail. The sensation was so incredibly sexual that she dropped out of AGI speed with a yelp.
“There! All better,” Faust said with a happy smile.
“What did you do?!” Rainbow squeaked, her eyes shrinking to pinpricks.
“I turned the gene-expression back on. Epigenetics turned if off by default. Don’t worry I’ll swing by Equestria and fix everypony else too.”
“Y— You just made me immortal?!” Dash asked, her tail twitching uncertainty.
“No. I cured a minor health condition. Your arcane biology is doing all of the work. You’re not supposed to die unless you feel like you’ve lived long enough and would be happy to experience whatever lies beyond this world.”
Rainbow stared at Faust with such intensity she didn’t hear the sound of four people walking up behind her.
“What’s wrong, Dash?” Jo asked, her voice slightly more mechanical than usual thanks to a rather large amount of her ‘casing’ having been removed for upgrades.
Rainbow yelped in surprise and spun around, only to shrink back from the android's exposed internals. "AH! I— Sorry! Just… Sooo, this bracelet thing!"
Rainbow held up her leg and turned the bracelet for everyone to see.
Penny frowned. “Where did you get that?”
"Back in the big geode," Rainbow answered. "Long story short, it was on a Pony skeleton. Turns out that uh, my species is like, super old. We're not the first race but we lived with them—"
“Actually, you are. There’s no cultural distinction between AGI, Humans, and Ponies,” Faust said in Rainbow’s ear.
Rainbow back peddled immediately. "Oh, uh. We are. Sorry, I'm on the comm with one of them right now. See, this bracelet thing is actually one of their starships and because I put it on, it turned on, and because of that a really bad thing is going to happen unless I go stop it right now! And no, the SYS Admin can't stop it without help because he doesn't actually have the right permissions to do it."
Pan blinked. “What?”
Rainbow looked down at the video window floating in her vision. “Can I let them see your hologram somehow?”
“Yes,” Faust answered impatiently. “Again, just do it.”
“Cool,” Rainbow said as she willed Faust’s avatar to appear next to her.
The white alicorn shimmered into existence with a ripple of white light. Her projected form was slightly translucent, with small artifacts and polygon shapes made slightly more opaque to give her a more ‘holographic’ appearance than she had used when talking to Rainbow inside her head.
“Hello. I am Faust, I operate the ship which seeded this galaxy with life,” Faust said with a polite little bow.
Penny gasped. Jo’s fans sped up as she bowed low. Pan squeaked and did his best to not picture the Goddess his mother worshiped on a date with Princess Celestia… And failed utterly.
Boris simply smiled. This was a person who could answer a very important question.
Faust raised a hoof to her lips and cleared her throat. "It's a pleasure to meet Rainbow's friends," she continued. "Not just anyone could pass the Virtue Test to start one of our fighters. Unfortunately, the fact remains that Dash has started one of our war machines. Our people didn't vanish without reason.
"There was a war, it was ended with a treaty and a ceasefire. Dash accidentally violated that treaty so the war is back on. Fortunately, it seems as if our enemy has stopped caring so much over the eons and we do have a way to make sure everyone stays safe. However, it does mean I need to borrow Dash for a little while. Don't worry, once everything is over she'll be able to come right back."
Dash's friends starred in silent awe for several seconds. Pan was the first to break the silence. He turned to Dash with wide eyes and pointed a hoof at her. "What are you talking to us for?! GO do what God needs you to do!"
A look of distress flashed across Faust’s face. “I’m not actually a—”
Pan zipped over to the holographic alicorn’s hooves and bowed low. “I am super sorry! I never believed! My parents did, but I didn’t. I’m sorry! I—” His eyes narrowed angrily. “Wait a minute! How come you never answered Scoot’s prayers and fixed her wings?!”
Faust looked down at Pan with a blank expression, then pointed to herself. “Not a god. I don’t hear prayers unless you’re saying them into a QEC device. As for your sister, I’ll be fixing all birth defects, including aging, as soon as Dash can grant me docking permission for Sol. We have to go now, this is a very time critical operation.”
A determined glint sparkled within Rainbow’s eyes as she nodded. “Right! Lets—”
“Wait!” Boris shouted.
Faust sighed. “Is it important?”
The ex-stalker nodded. “Yes, to every last Chernin in the Galaxy. Where is our homeworld?”
Faust smiled. “Ah, yes. That is a little important,” the holographic alicorn turned to Penny and smiled. “Did you like Rainbow’s homeworld?”
Penny nodded. “Da. It was…” She trailed off her lips forming an ‘o’ as her mind began to put the clues together. “Nyet! It can't be—”
"It is," Faust confirmed. "The coordinates to your homeworld are in your ship's memory. Your people are descended from a pre-Terran Empire human nation. We thought you to be lost. If the treaty had allowed Default l and I to speak with you, I would have filled you in thousands of years ago."
Boris shook his head incredulously. “All these years, I’ve been insisting we’re not the First Race’s descendants…”
"You're not," Faust corrected with a friendly smile. "They are technically your descendants. You originated from an older form of humanity… Which unfortunately means you're not able to grant us permissions. However, Dash is not only descended from the First Race but is a resident of Sol. Which is all my programming requires since Sol's captain and crew are long dead. Now, we really must go. Unless you want our enemy to finish re-powering a battle station capable of destroying star systems."
The exposed tubing beneath Joe’s cheeks emptied, which would have made her cheeks grow pale had her face been attached. She knelt down to look Rainbow in her eyes. “Please go stop that.”
“I second that emotion,” Pan squeaked, his tail tucked firmly between his legs.
“Da! Go!” Penny added with an urgent wave of her hands.
Rainbow rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. "Yeah, we've got a kind along trip too. Even with the whole Jump Drive, which is a really fast thing," she turned to look up at Faust with an impish smile. "How do I go to space again?"
Faust took a deep breath. “You. Just. Do—”
Rainbow willed herself to enter orbit before Faust could finish explaining the bracelet's functions for the umpteenth time.
The world around her vanished in an instant, replaced by the blackness of space. Only then did Rainbow remember what space was like.
She screamed, thrashing her legs and wings this way and that as memories of dying within the uncaring void between stars flooded back to her. Dash’s screams echoed in her ears as she waited for her skin to begin boiling as it had before.
“Dash…” Faust said calmly.
Rainbow's chest heaved as she sucked in air and—
She blinked. I can breathe?
Rainbow inhaled again. Air filled her lungs. She looked at her leg, a dim shimmering rainbow colored field covered her body, protecting her from the void as well as the atmosphere of any planet.
"Dash, it's okay," Faust said with the same calm focus as before. "Here, let me just— Emergency Override: Gamma. Sigma. Three. Twelve. Read the operator's mental condition and act accordingly!"
The bracelet on Rainbow's leg shimmered as it obeyed the emergency command and quickly scanned Rainbow's mind. The arcane ship flashed red as it detected Rainbow's panic at being in the vacuum and activated it's hull generation system while making a note to automatically deploy the hull any time its new user entered space.
Space rippled and stretched around Rainbow as her bracelet unfolded into a seat built expressly for a pony. The seat expanded, stretching and growing more and more parts until a cockpit grew around her as a small star fighter's hull took shape.
Dash sighed in relief as the cool crystal, metal, and cloud ship cut her off from the void. She could feel every part of the elongated-teardrop/starburst shaped ship as if it were her wings, yet she didn’t feel as if she were outside. Though strange, the sensation pushed the fear out of her mind.
Buck it, rolling with it. Rainbow decided.
She took a deep breath to further calm her nerves and felt her ship's hull warp and shimmer as it recolored itself to match her fur colors, as well as place a rainbow-colored racing stripe along the ship's dorsal ridge, while placing her cutiemark on the wings.
Rainbow blinked once and opened her mouth but Faust’s giggle cut her off. “What? Everypony likes their things to match their colors.”
“This is true,” Rainbow said with a sheepish grin.
Rainbow looked around the newly generated cockpit. The panels around her were covered in various switches, dials, and buttons. Glowing lights flicked on and off from every angle. A flight-yolk rose up from the deck in front of her seat.
“Ummm, is it still thought controlled?” Rainbow asked sheepishly.
"It is. The cockpit will have been based on your subconscious expectations. I can't see it, unfortunately. You have privacy filters. What is it like?"
Rainbow hummed then smiled as it clicked. “It’s so Buck Spear it feels like somepony took it right out of the comics!”
Faust nodded and flicked her mane out of her eyes with a toss of her head. "That will have been you. Now, if you'll let me access your Jump Drive, I'll feed it the coordinates for Twilight Sparkle's vessel."
Rainbow willed her ship to allow Faust to set the course. A smile parted her lips. “Alright, Dash. Let’s go get the mares who can save the universe.”
“You already have one of them onboard,” Faust reminded as Dash’s ship began to hum as it charged it’s wormhole generator.
“Yep,” Rainbow agreed. “But I need the other five… And some very specific jewelry.”
Applejack - 6th of Solar Dusk, 1st year of Harmony
749,573.37
Malos Arena - Korvidia, Noctae Sector
Applejack grit her teeth as the hardlight manacles dug into the skin around her hooves. Her “owners” had switched from alloy restraints to the glowing blue energy fields after she’d broken free form four different sets.
The farmmare looked much the worse for wear as she was drug out into the arena. Her fur was ragged with patches missing here and there where it had been beaten or worn away. Her hooves were cracked from breaking cell walls and heads alike.
Her body was covered in many cuts and bruises. The worst of them was a rather grisly wound on the back of her head form when the earth pony had ripped the control implant out of her skull with her bare hooves. The surgeon in charge of the Black Talon’s slave pens assumed she would die after ripping a chunk of bone from her skull.
In his defense, he’d never met an Earth Pony. Much less a stubborn one.
Pain had not made Applejack comply with orders. Threats against her world and people had also failed. She’d found the idea of mere pirates able to fight an entire planet and win laughable, regardless of their technology. She’d gone as far as to inform her captors they had better kill her before she found a way to kill them.
So she was sent to where every uncooperative slave the Black Talon purchased. The arena.
Applejack was heaved onto the sand in one swift motion by the two robots which had been escorting her. Her ears twitched as the forcefield closed behind her with a crackle. The hardlight manacles around her legs fizzled away with a shower of sparks. She was free. At least, to a certain degree.
There was no way out of the hoofball-sized arena. Not until Applejack killed whoever else had angered the Talons enough to be tossed into the dome.
Applejack sighed and looked around the arena, ignoring the stadium full of bloodthirsty aliens around her. The only way she’d have a shot at fighting her captors was in the narrow window between when she ended her opponent and when they opened the forcefield to retrieve her. Her eyes briefly slipped over her opponent. A starved-thin alien which reminded her of a ferret, only taller.
Applejack's heart ached at the thought of having to kill another person. The pirates were not people. They were monsters. She felt nothing when she maimed or killed them. But the poor slave in front of her, that was another story entirely.
AJ closed her eyes for a moment, realizing this is what her captors meant by ‘We can still hurt you.'
At least it's a mercy… I’ve seen what they do with slaves who let them boss them around.
Applejack cleared her throat and looked into the alien’s gray eyes. “Is it okay if I put you out of your misery so I can try to fight more pirates?”
The alien shivered and nodded. He knew he had no chance. He’d been made to watch what had happened to the fully armed and armored people who had fought orange pony, and not just those who had fought her in the arena.
He nodded, his knees trembling. “Just crush my head like the last guy, please.”
The crowd booed. The sound of their displeasure echoed off the stadium walls making it seem as if the entire galaxy was furious at the fighters.
Applejack closed her eyes and nodded once. “I’ll make it quick. I promise.”
And I’ll make theirs slow, for you. I’m sorry.
The sun shimmered and burned, focused into the arena by the forcefield much like a Fresnel lens. The air around the two slaves felt like the air around a burning building. Applejack continued to look around the arena, her eyes scanning over the sand.
“So, uh… D— do you want me to come over there?” The furred alien asked.
“Nah,” Applejack said, doing her best to not think about him very much. “Just looking for a rock.”
“Oh. Like the power armor guy.”
“E’eyp.”
Applejack's eyes fell upon a hoof-sized lump of granite laying in the sand a few meters away. She sighed and began to trot over to the stone. This should let me break one of the robots. I reckon I can swing one of them like a mace if I put my back into it.
Applejack picked up the rock with her left hoof. A jolt of empathy shot through her, paralyzing her for a moment. It was one thing to kill people who were objectively evil. The random slave was another story entirely.
He's okay with it. He'll be better off dead anyway. The only way I can maybe free everyone here is to break out again. I have to do this…
Applejack opened her eyes and turned towards her opponent. The crowd continued to boo the two as if that would force them to fight to the death.
AJ grit her teeth, her ears lay back. Buck it all, I can’t! Celestia, please, help me figure a way to save this pon— uh…
Applejack looked up at the furred alien. "Hey, uh… I'm a pony. What are you? I mean, what do y'all call yourselves?"
He flinched. "Oh, uh… Toraxian. We're Toraxians. We don't have any death-rituals, or anything. If that's why your asking."
Applejack shook her head. “Nah, that ain’t it.”
You heard him, Celestia. Come on, there's got to be away… Maybe I can break this dome?
Applejack looked up towards the top of the forcefield. She knew the hardened light could break. She’d cracked her chains a few times. If the field had a weak spot, it would be at the very top. Or at least, it would be if it was anything like glass.
The reflected sunlight made looking up almost agonizing, but if anypony was more stubborn than a sun, it was this pony.
AJ's eyes found the very top of the dome. The pale glow of the field was almost entirely washed out by the sunlight, but Applejack could swear she could see less of the hardlight's own shimmer right at the apex of the dome.
“W— What is it?” the Toraxian asked timidly.
“Well, I reckon I just found a way out of here. Wanna come?” Applejack asked.
Her opponent laughed. "What, take down the field? They'll just shoot us. Super-strength won't stop lasers."
"Yeah, well," AJ reared up to throw her rock, twisting her shoulder to put as much energy as she could into the one shot. "I want to try anyway."
The Toraxian blinked as something dawned on him. "Wait, you said that out loud. It can't be your real plan… Okay, I'm with you!"
Applejack wanted to facehoof. You’re a dim bulb, ain’t chat? Figure someone has a secret plan and you just announce it for the world to hear… Good thing my plan is rocks fly they die.
AJ threw the rock. It streaked through the air like a bullet and smashed into the apex of the dome. The rock bounced off the hardlight shield with a quiet plink. The sound the rock made as it fell back to the sand almost perfectly mimicked the sound of a foolhardy attempt to beat some of the most advanced technology in the universe with a tiny lump of granite.
The Toraxian slave nervously twitched his forepaws in the sand. “S— So, that was a signal right?”
Applejack opened her mouth to say no. Then the world shook like the planet had suddenly entered a new gravity well.
Because it had.
An incomprehensibly massive spherical vessel came out of warp directly between Korvidia and its sun, creating a total eclipse. In addition to radically altering Korvidia's orbit, creating a planet-wide earthquake along with dozens of Tsunamis as the water covering the pirate haven jerked towards the massive vessel, as if reaching out for help getting up.
Many assumed the ship had come out of FTL a few hundred meters above them and was merely a few kilometers across. This idea was expelled when a comparatively small section of the ship's hull opened, revealing a belt of six small stars within the center of an elaborate series of orbiting platforms and stations. Or at least, it was when the massive vessel grabbed the planet with a tractor beam and pulled it, its moon, and the dozen fleets in orbit into its tertiary cargo bay.
In less verbose terms, the ship ate the planet.
This broke the minds of many poor souls who had been looking up at the time. It also plunged the whole of Korvidia into total chaos.
Applejack was only barely conscious of the arena crowd's screams and panicked attempts to flee from the confines of the arena.
The sky above the arena flashed and flickered as the vessel blasted the planet with enough energy to vaporize a small moon. It was not firing weapons. It was turning on holoprojectors to turn the entire sky into a giant screen. If the light pulses were not diffused across such a large area, Korvidia would have ended then and there.
The crackling energy in the sky flowed into symbols and sigils which tinted red as they formed letters.
Please standby for a message from your System Administrator…
Applejack's eyes shrank to pinpricks. A terrified shriek built up in her throat, but the sheer terror running through her body and soul pushed her clean past terrified to calm and collected.
“Uh,” she said slowly, unable to take her eyes off the apocalyptic message in the sky. “I guess it was.”
The message vanished, replaced instead by a giant video window full of static. A series of high-energy microwave pulses struck the planet's ionosphere, making the very air itself oscillate back and forth to function as one huge speaker.
The static cleared away, revealing a tall male alicorn. Or at least, the translucent projection of one. He stood on what was clearly the bridge of a starship, though no one was present at any of the controls. He wore a silver and near-black-blue uniform bearing a silver and platinum badge on the left breast which a few of the panicking people on Korvidia recognized as a First Race emblem.
The alicorn cleared its throat, and every living soul on Korvidia heard him speak.
“Hello. It’s come to my attention that your planetary leaders whom I believe are known colloquially as the Nova Wing and more formally as the Stellar Nova Imperial Navy’s Left Wing are in violation of the landlord-tenant agreement. You see, they came into our yard and decided it would be a good idea to kidnap a few young mares from a colony world of ours which backslid technologically a bit. I am certain you understand this is not acceptable nor forgivable. I’m afraid I have to evict you from our property.
"Applejack, as well as every other slave on this planet, please prepare for teleport. You will be moved to a medical facility, after which you will be transported back to your homeworlds with a number of credits of your choosing."
Applejack blinked and by the time her eyes opened, she found herself standing in the middle of the extremely dusty bridge. It hadn't been dusty on camera, but that had been a simulation. A backdrop. The real bridge was a mess.
It was dimly lit, the paint needed refreshing, and the nearly hoof-thick carpet of dust covering everything immediately began to make Applejack’s skin itch.
The maddening itching was of no concern to AJ at the moment. The terrified mare wheeled around, filling the bridge with distressed whinnies and a massive cloud of dust as she tried to figure out when she had been moved and how forgetting she'd heard the word ‘teleport' moments ago.
"What's happening?" Applejack demanded, her chest heaving in fright.
The alicorn stallion's voice came from a set of speakers in the ceiling. "Sorry. I forgot to clean the bridge… No one has been on board in a few million years."
Applejack turned to look for the speaker, only to find another video window open up, permitting the holo-alicorn to bow towards Applejack politely. “Hello! My name is Default. I’m the artificial general intelligence in command of the ship you are on, the SYS Admin. Your friend Rainbow sent me to pick you, Fluttershy, and Rarity up.”
Applejack blinked. "W— What? How the heck can Rainbow— But… But… This doesn't make a lick of sense!"
The holo-alicorn waved a hoof dismissively. “It makes perfect sense. My bestie Faust and I had no idea ponies existed outside of the shelter so we didn’t build any protection for your world. Some asshole pirates who keep breaking my stuff kidnap a few of you to get their rocks off or whatever. Rainbow hitchhikes her way after you, found one of our fighters, and had a chat with us on the radio. Now we’re picking you up so you six can do us a quick favor and then we’ll take you home.”
Applejack blinked, the fur on the back of her neck couldn't decide if it wanted to stand up or sit down. “Uh, what?”
Default frowned then fachooved. "Oh. Right… Long story short, you are descended from the species that ruled the whole galaxy a long time ago. There was a war. We lost. Most of us made it to shelters, your ancestors didn't. I'm programmed to help you, Rainbow, and everypony else because that's well, you're ponies. I help ponies. Specifically with building and repairing megastructures… Well, primarily. I can do a lot."
Applejack shook her head, then coughed as she inhaled a thick cloud of dust.
“Oh. Right. Dust. Let me just teleport that into space,” Default murmured before making the dust vanish with a flash of purple light.
"Ponies… Ponies used to rule the whole galaxy?" Applejack asked, still coughing on her lungful of dust.
Default hadn't wanted to risk accidentally teleporting parts of Applejack's lungs into space.
“Yes,” Default replied as he turned around towards a control panel on the simulated bridge. “Alongside humans, changelings, dragons, and a few other species humans made as companions. Hold on a sec, I need to evict these guys before we go get Fluttershy…”
"We can just go get Fluttershy? I mean, isn't space huge? How did you find her? How did you find me?" Applejack asked suspiciously.
"Faust did a subspace scan for all bioforms aboard the Milkyway. We pinpointed everypony biosignature and compared the heat map to find any ponies, not in the shelter. The only six dots not in the shelter or on Equestria were you guys. A quick visual check via Astrometrics let us visually identify each of you."
Applejack blinked. "Y'all just looked?"
“Yes. Now, what is worse in your opinion, fire or cold?” Default asked as he reached for the controls in front of him with a hoof.
“Why?” AJ asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
Default turned to face “So I can evict the monsters who forced you into a gladiatorial arena and sold Fluttershy to a sexual predator.”
Applejack thought for a moment. I’d rather he didn’t burn them all alive. They may be evil, but a slow death like that… No one deserves that. “Cold, I guess.”
“Cool,” Default turned and pressed a button on the console. A video window opened up on the simulated bridge showing Rainbow sitting in a small ship’s cockpit. “Hi Rainbow! AJ said cold too. Wanna push the button?”
Applejack felt her lips part in a smile as she saw Rainbow's face through the glass faceplate of the spacesuit she was wearing. "Y'all weren't pulling my leg! Rainbow! Thank you! Thank you so much. I can't tell you how much I owe—"
Rainbow shot Applejack a smile. "You don't owe me anything. I'm just doing my job. Uh, Default, this planet is Nova WIng's homeworld, right?"
“Yes,” Default nodded.
“You got all their slaves and kids off it right?”
“There were no children. Female slaves were sterilized. I just fixed that,” Default said proudly.
Rainbow and Applejack stared at Default for a long moment.
"Y'all mean they raped mares they caught for fun?" Applejack growled.
Default blinked. “Wait, you weren't?”
Applejack shook her head. “No… Oh. That’s what the first one was going to do to me,” Applejack grit her teeth in anger. “If I hadn’t kicked his face in— I…”
I wish every mare was as strong as me… Applejack growled and looked up at Rainbow. “Can I push the button?”
Rainbow didn’t even hesitate before nodding. “Do it.”
Default reached out of the video window with his right hoof and pointed at a console behind Applejack's left shoulder. “It’s over there. I’m highlighting it in blue.”
Applejack turned around and smacked the glowing button with her hoof.
The video window moved in the blink of an eye, showing Applejack a view of the planet inside the cargo bay. Applejack smirked as she heard Default give the pirate world one last message. “I wish you luck finding housing elsewhere.”
For the half second, Korvidia remained inside the SYS Admin. Then the ship hummed as its Jump Drive opened a wormhole in front of the planet.
Rainbow tilted her head. "Wait, what are you--"
The video window transitioned from the ship's local camera feed to the astrometric sensors, not that either pony noticed the transition. Then the SYS Admin’s tractor beams powered on and threw the planet along with everything in its orbit through the wormhole.
Korvidia spun like a rugby ball in flight through the wormhole and vanished into the void between galaxies.
“I’d like to see you break network relays out there, assholes!” Default said as the wormhole closed.
Rainbow and Applejack stared at the video window, jaws hanging open in disbelief.
“Did we just eject a planet from the bucking galaxy?!” Rainbow demanded incredulously.
“E’yup,” AJ said as she shook her head to clear it. “And good riddance…”
Rainbow’s wings twitched. “Okay. So. Never piss off Default. Got it. Uh, AJ, I’ll be talking to Twilight soon, so when you guys get Flutters and Rares tell them that we need to use the Elements to stop a thing I accidentally woke up when I turned on a starship. Okay?”
Applejack triple blinked. “Y’all did, what?!”
Rainbow groaned into her hoof, took a deep breath, and began to explain everything for the third time today.