Harmonia Confederation? 71%
“I’m sorry if it might sound stupid, but what’s the Harmonia Confederation?” Fluttershy asked looking in wonder at the hologram, not necessarily because of the fact she was talking to an AI but more because of the form it had taken.
“Not at all, I understand that things have… changed. I will do my best to provide information, praeliator,” Fidelis said in understanding. “The Confederation was an agreement between the original inhabitants of the three star-systems of the home cluster of us ponies. Those being us equines, griffins, and dragons.”
“Wait, griffins and dragons came from different planets?!” Dash exclaimed in shock.
“Correct. The agreement was made after ponies achieved interstellar flight, made first contact with the griffins, and saved the dragons from their dying planet.” Fidelis manifested another hologram that showed a planet that seemed to be cracking. All three ponies looked at the image in front of them in horror. “The surviving dragons were relocated to our homeworld until a new world could be found for them, the griffons were uplifted soon after.”
“That’s… wow,” Shining could not find the words.
“Eventually it was settled that staying in our home cluster would eventually mean that either resources would run out, or our worlds would suffer the same fate as the dragon’s. Development of long-range interstellar jumpdrive was started soon after to escape the local cluster.”
“How long was this ago?” Fluttershy asked the AI.
“Approximately a hundred and eight thousand cycles ago or fifty-four thousand galactic standard years as they are observed in the current time,” Fidelis immediately replied. “The captain has informed me of what you presume to have happened to the Galax-”
The AI disappeared abruptly, leaving the ponies in a bit of confusion before they heard the doors behind them open. “I know you couldn’t stop yourself from looking, but couldn’t you at least give me a shout next time?” Garrus grumbled as he walked up to the table and took a seat, Fluttershy giving him a sheepish smile.
“Sorry, force of habit.” Garrus smiled and rolled his eyes, looking at Shining after.
“You good, captain?” the turian asked of the unicorn.
“Better,” Shining simply answered and glanced at Fluttershy.
“He’s good, captain. Fidelis, you can come out again,” the yellow pegasus chuckled, the AI manifested itself back onto the holographic display on Shining’s omni-tool. “Garrus, this is Fidelis. Fidelis, this is Garrus, my coltfriend.”
The turian meanwhile was looking wide-eyed at the hologram. “Where did that come from?!”
“From his omni-tool, obviously,” Rainbow smirked, Garrus glared at the pegasus as she snickered.
“You know what I meant,” he growled, looking at the AI who seemed to be trying to back off from the alien. “So, little gal, where did you come from?”
“Research outpost Gamma One, Bahak system,” Fidelis replied, “Though I’m pretty confident in saying I won’t be going back there.”
“Bahak? Yeah, that’s not going to happen any time soon, no.” Garus grimaced as he took a chair to join at the table. “I’m sure these guys have already asked but do you know where their planet is?” The three ponies looked at each other, red coloring their faces. “Oh for… Seriously you three?”
“Hey, we just discovered our race used to be space travelers. Give us a break,” Shining exclaimed while Fidelis nervously fiddled with her large wings. “But... you’re right. Fidelis? ”
The AI looked at the others looking slightly afraid. “Well… you see… I don’t know...” The AI looked as if she wanted to get as far away from the other ponies as possible. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Mad? It isn’t your fault that you don’t know, right?” Fluttershy questioned, the others agreeing but that didn’t seem to reinsure the blue AI.
“I may have... I lost a massive amount of knowledge when I disconnected from my database...” Fidelis softly whimpered, covering her head with her wings.
“That’s unfortunate, yes, but none of us blame you for that, right guys?” Shining asked, the others shaking their heads. “See? It’s not like I gave you much time to prepare before leaving and destroying your base.”
“A-Alright… I might have some information on the planet that acted as my main supply base though...” Fidelis hesitated momentarily as the interest of the ponies piqued. The AI once again brought up a hologram of a planet. Garrus was the first of the bunch to have his jaw drop as he recognized the planet instantly.
“I’ll be damned, that’s Earth.”
An alert suddenly beeped on all of the omni-tools present, a C-Sec warning flashing on the holo interface.
Presidium relay re-activated, remain inside until further notice from Citadel Security.
The ponies shot off immediately in a mad scramble to reach the small relay, the pegasi jumping off of the balcony while the unicorn ran out through the door leaving Garrus sitting at the table. “Oh, this day just gets better and better,” he grumbled before getting up to chase the others before they inevitably got into trouble.
Equestria, hours prior
Ponies casually trotted along over the snowy streets of Manehattan, carts rushing by in haste while pegasi flew overhead. Some of them were hasty while others were walking along at a more relaxed rate. Among all of this traffic, there was another pony, a unicorn, dressed in a hoodie walking while reading a book and making notes as she weaved through the crowd. Eventually, this pony found its way to a little bookshop tucked away between the many stores of the large Equestrian city. Ignoring the books around her, the unicorn pulled back the hood of the piece of clothing she was wearing and proceeded to the area out back. Her messy, purple mane tied back into a ponytail. In the area behind the little shop were multiple rooms along with access to a staircase that lead to the roof but the unicorn only had an interest in the first room.
“Did you confirm its location?” The white-coated unicorn stallion who was sitting at a desk in the room asked, not looking away from all of the papers he’d lined out.
“Yes. I also took a peek in some of the warehouse’s manifests. All of our machines are there for the moment, but they’re going to split up all of our hardware by the end of the week.”
This did make the stallion look up from his work. “That’s... We can’t get it back to work and there’s no way in Tartarus that we can rebuild those machines, Twilight.”
The purple unicorn huffed as she pulled off the hoodie and got some food from a cupboard. “I know, that’s why we’re going to accelerate our schedule to tonight.”
This really got Particle Bit’s attention as his mouth fell open and tried sputtering a reply, “T-That’s impossible! We don’t even have a set of griffin claws to get the particle separator running for the fuel!”
“I found a particularly helpful one, she’ll meet us at the corner of the warehouse district tonight.” Twilight put a hoof on the stallion’s shoulder. “We’ve gone over this procedure hundreds of times over the last year, Particle, we can do it another time under the pressure of being discovered by the guard.”
The male unicorn slowly nodded. “Alright, we’re doing this. You remember our agreement, right?”
Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled. “Of course. You’re coming with me to wherever we’re going.” Levitating a new set of clothing towards herself along with a set of filled saddlebags. “Get to preparing, we only have one shot at this.”