//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: The Singleship // by Driverless //------------------------------// Twilight and the princesses stepped out into the now rising sun to greet the delegation. Upon seeing the group of royals the scientists bowed before presumably their leader stepped up to introduce himself. "Your majesty, my name is Studious Script, these are my associates from the Canterlot Institute for Magitechnical Studies." He gestured back to the group of ponies. "If you don't mind explaining to us just what exactly we're dealing with here we'd like to get started as soon as possible." "That's certainly no problem, right this way." Said Celestia leading the party into the main tent. "Twilight, if you don't mind." She said. "Of course Princess." Twilight lit her horn, activating the set of runes carved into the center table as the group of scientists squeezed around a semi-transparent model of the wreck site appeared. "Approximately three and a half hours ago this object entered the airspace around Ponyville and impacted the ground at around three times the speed of sound." Twilight began, just then a hoof shot up. "Question?" Twlight asked. "Yes, do we know where it came from." One of the scientists asked. "As of right now we're almost certain it's extraterrestrial in nature." Twilight replied. This sent murmurs throughout the tent. "As I was saying," She continued. "Based on our preliminary examination and Princess Luna's explanation it seems to be a craft of some kind, designed to carry a single passenger, a passenger who was deceased when we found them, most likely killed on impact." Looking around Twilight saw the grim faces of everypony present, clearing her throat trying to clear the air she continued. "As far as the Princesses and I can tell most of the ship is made out of materials both unidentifiable and of quality and strength that we as a civilization are just unable to match. And the materials that we can identify are of a purity unmatched by what even the griffons can create." Zooming the model in on the two dark cones on each side of the ship Twilight went on. "These two cones are made of absolutely pure Tungsten, even when I dialed my examination spell up to the maximum I couldn't tell of any impurities in the metal, it also seems much heavier then Tungsten has any right to be even, even with the metals incredible density this is just off the charts, it also has a much higher tensile strength then normal Tungsten." Another scientist from the group raised his hoof and spoke up. "Is there any sign of it being magically compressed past it's normal properties?" "That's the thing." Twilight replied as she began pacing. "Even if it was compressed magically there's no way any amount of magic could compress it as much as it is, it defies everything we know about what's possible," Her pacing became faster. "That's the other thing, there is no magic of any kind coming from the ship!" "I can't find any source to the power it seems to be drawing from, it's possible we're dealing with a completely new kind of magic, or maybe something that isn't magic at all!" At this point Twilight has hyperventilating, Celestia came over to try and calm her down. While she was doing that Luna came over to take over discussion. "Regardless, you are all here because you represent the best in your respective fields, fields that we think will greatly help the investigation. Before you is a report penned by miss Sparkle going into more detail about what you can expect from the wreck site based on her own findings as well as testimony from myself, my sister, and various personnel around the site." The Princess continued on but I was far more interested in the stack of papers in front of me, I was a bit skeptical that the princess' personal student was made head of this project and dismissed as classic nepotism but skimming through the document she really does know her stuff. Still, I was a bit miffed I was selected to be the project head but seem to have been unknowingly demoted to a middle pony. Looking over to where she was still hyperventilating like a foal made me also aware of the fact that while she may be proficient with the material she still is probably not the best option for leading a team. By this time Luna had finished and was asking for final questions, everything seemed to be pretty clear but I just know that's not going to be the case once we all get down there, this was something no pony had ever dealt with before, and if what Twilight Sparkle says is correct this may be way out of our league here. "Alright, if there are no further questions we'll let you go and get to work" Luna said. I gathered up the report and set inside my saddlebag, I got the gist of it and could read the rest in greater detail later. Getting up a stepped out of the tent into the morning sun, trotting to catch up I settled in next to Aster Baneberry the resident biologist and a good friend. "Morning Aster, big day ahead of us" I greeted. "Maybe for the rest of you." She grumbled. "But I have almost nothing to go off of here, I mean have you seen the section on the remains?" To illustrate her point Aster magicked her copy of the report and shoved the relevant page in my muzzle, sure enough there was maybe a three paragraph write up and an illustration of the aforementioned pod. "It's quite literally a pool of goo and bits of bone. How am I supposed to study how this thing lived and worked? At best I can try determine characteristics from it's environment but that's it!" She continued her rant as we descended down into the crater, the guard having since erected a barrier around the rim and beyond to keep the public out. "Well I'm sure the Princesses asked you here for a reason, they must think you have something of value to bring to the table." I replied trying to reassure her. "I guess, but I'm probably going to be out there for like three days tops, when I was called down here I thought I was going to get a chance to study an entirely new form of life." I turned to her. "I mean you do, it's just a bit more compact then you were expecting." She gave me the most deadpan glare she could muster before smacking me upon the back of my head with a burst of magic. As we reached the craft I realized just how massive this thing is, the main body when in one piece could easily be close to 300 meters long. My heart quickened as is started to sink in, if what Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna said was true and this really did come from beyond the moon this could be the single most significant discovery for of life on the planet, and I got to be a part of it. Inside the middle section ponies were already setting up mobile lab equipment and everything we needed to take apart this thing one explainable piece at a time. I walked with Aster until we got to the pod that held the pilot and sure enough there were red smear all over it. Aster sighs, I patted her withers reassuringly. After bidding her goodbye for now I went to go find my group of researchers. Finding them next to some sort of glowing console. "Hey guys, you find anything out about how this thing is powered?" I ask. They have all sorts of runes setup on and around the consoles most likely running tests and subroutines. One of my graduate students looks up. "No professor, but we have ruled out any kind of known magic storage and generation, there's no gems, no runes, no arrays, we can't even detect any kind of magic running through the ship. Sir either we're dealing with a completely foreign form of magic or something that isn't magic at all." "Either of which makes our job exponentially more difficult." I sigh. "Okay, show me what you guys have collected so far and we can start trying to figure this out." The hours ticked by and we learned little in the way of how the power generation operates, we are however ruling out it being magical in nature for know, after endless tests we concluded that whatever energy powers the ship did not originate on any of the leylines that puncture reality, we can't rule out magic being a factor, especially if it's some new form as we just don't know what to look for but this way we have some ground to work with. We can't get the panel we're working at to do anything either, it definitely is used for something but we can't get it to respond, we tried touching it, using magic, voice activation, everything, but it won't budge. We were about to break for lunch when Stellar Bright a lab assistant managed to pry the wall plating under the panel off, inside were tubes, wires, and instruments of unknown design and function. The entire group cheered. "Hey now, settle down everypony, I'd like to think that this is progress and I'm as excited as you are but before you all work yourselves into a coma I'm calling a mandatory lunch break, now get out there before I kick you all out." There was much grumbling among the group but one by one they filed out. I collapsed onto my haunches, the last few hours had been nothing but dead ends and frayed nerves and I was loathed for a break. Looking over at the hatch that had been opened I got the feeling we may be in over our heads, this seems to be a rabbit hole that keeps unraveling itself the farther down we go. Celestia knows the kind of frustrations the others are going through now. As if reading my mind Aster approached our corner and sat down next to me. "Having fun?" She asked. "Oh yeah." I replied. "Real fun, in six hours we've found that it's not powered by magic and got this hatch open. Other then that, nothing. How about you? How goes your quest to extrapolate the lifestyle of a pile of goo?" Aster laughed. "You have no idea, by the size of the pod and volume of liquid it was tall, really tall, it probably would stand eye level with Princess Celestia. What we can't figure out is why there seems to be equipment and stations on the roof and ceiling as well. At first we assumed that the ship was just rolled but it's all over the in interior surface so we think this may have been a creature that could stick to surfaces." She looked at me wearily. "In all honesty there's probably not a whole lot more we can gleam from this about what it was, if it was a he or a she, or if it's species even had sexes, not unless something big is uncovered. Just them there was a scream, we looked at each other and scrambled up and ran over to see what the problem was. A lab tech was on the ground, terror was in her eyes. She looked to be one of Aster's assistants, Aster ran over to her. "Glow! What's the matter, is everything alright?" The tech, Glow it looks like her name was shakily raised a hoof, pointing at the pod. In the pod was something that shouldn't have been, no was impossible. Sticking out of the goo, the volume of which was noticeably lower then what it had been earlier that morning was what looked to be a pair of legs, the both of which were slowly stitching themselves back together, the smears of blood and viscera on the walls of the pod also seemed to be running down to join the pool. I turned to Aster and said "Well I guess you'll get the info you wanted after all."