//------------------------------// // Station Ready // Story: Starshot: Star Speaker // by Tums Festival //------------------------------// The next week was as long as it was strenuous.  Though Luna initially hoped to pace out their studies, her crew had unfortunately determined that, even with strict rationing, they only had enough food for two months. To make matters worse, they found it was goings no to take slightly longer than that to grow anything in the ship’s overgrown greenhouse. While there were a variety of alien crops that had since made the facility their home, nopony was keen on finding out if they were edible. Because of that, they became worth little more than weeds. It took nearly two days to clear them out and plant anything from Equestria, mainly using the recycled seeds from their stored food. This all meant her slapped together bridge crew were trying to learn their new crafts as quickly as possible. However, even with the fairly comprehensive training programs and the computer’s (limited) assistance, it was slow-going. It seemed like every half-hour, someone (save for Ocellus) had to stop and ask Doctor Whooves questions to gain context on what they were currently learning.  For instance, Spike was perplexed when the former’s training program brought up ‘gravity wells’. Even with his Space Trek knowledge, he couldn’t recall exactly what that was supposed to be. “Alright, so space-time is like… a sheet stretching across space, right?” Spike had blinked. “And heavy objects make a dent in it?”  “Somewhat,” Doctor Whooves nodded. “But how can you have a sheet do that if space is three-dimensional?” Spike asked. “Is it like… a bunch of sheets stacked on top of each other?”  “Let’s…” Doctor Whooves coughed. “Let’s start over.” Pharynx, too, was having issues, particularly regarding the idea of ‘remote controlled’ weapons. Though they had learned every single gun the ship had available could be operated manually on an individual basis, standard procedure for the aliens was to have one crewmember operate them all from the bridge, that being the tactical officer. “This just seems inefficient,” he had grumbled. “Weapons belong in the hooves of your warriors, not in the grip of a bunch of gears and clanks. Even if I do have direct control over all of them, it’s like trying to wield ten spears at once.” He then sighed. “I take back what I said about you ponies. These aliens are the weird ones.” Luna was having the most difficult time of all. While there was a training program for captaining, it was very limited. Despite the aliens’ propensity for bringing new blood up to speed quickly, captaining was the exception. Just like with navies back on Equis, it seemed no ET was given such a responsibility until they had cycles of experience under their belts, including in regards to the stations under them. This led Luna to conclude she would have to learn a bit about everypony else’s stations on top of her own.  And this meant her brains were mashed potatoes by the end of each day. Still, at least she didn’t have to worry about anypony’s dreams at the moment. Ever since she was booted out of the dream realm by what she assumed were the strange… somethings she had encountered there, she was having difficulty staying within it for more than a few seconds. Every time she tried to enter, the distant, ‘shadowy’ dream showed another nightmare-like green eye, and she found herself again in the waking world.  To make matters worse, casting the spell to enter, and casting spells in general, was beginning to get harder and harder. It wasn’t just her noticing this, either: all the magic users aboard were having difficulty. It wasn’t hard to figure out why: they were simply running low on mana reserves. That, however, was quite unusual. On Equestria, magic was everywhere. It flowed through the skies and soil in cascading rivers, replenishing any creature’s mana almost constantly, most of the time without them even knowing it. Without it, they had to channel it through other sources, something none of them were used to. Luna, fortunately, was having luck with using her own body’s energies. Though that came at a cost… “Grubber, more grub, please!” Luna called, sitting at a cafeteria table next to what was nicknamed ‘The Grub Hub’, his kitchen.  “Uh, captain, this is like your third helping,” Grubber said nervously. “Don’t you think you should…” Luna shot him a warning look.  “It isn’t personal!” he said defensively. “Just you unicorns are eating more than I do lately, and that’s concerning!” Luna’s warning look… intensified. He shot his hands up in defeat. “Fine, whatever, you’re the boss. Another chef’s salad comin’ right up. Just don’t blame me when the scale starts disagreeing with you.” Unfortunately, using your body's energies to create mana meant you had to create more energy… and that required more and more food, a now limited resource.  ‘If only we could figure out more about the aliens who built this,’ Luna thought. ‘If what Derpy said was true - that they might be similar to us - perhaps we could simply eat their food.’ Unfortunately, just like with the dream entities, the nature of the aliens who built this ship continued to elude them. The training programs never showed what they looked like, even when there was a visual aid, nor did it even give a name for their species or the government (assuming they had one) they represented. At the end of the week, they didn’t know any more about them than they did on the first day: that they appeared to be cold, pragmatic, and revered individuals called ‘The Deep Ones’.  “Are they like some sort of hardcore philosophers?” Spike half-joked, training on the bridge. “Like, everything they say is just so deep that they’re just straight-up called ‘The Deep Ones?’” “Bleh, then they’d be like my brother on poetry night,” Pharynx grumbled. “Always trying to ‘blow our minds’ with some new insight. Yes, Thorax, if a tree falls in a forest, it has indeed fallen. We can gauge that after the fact. Trees don’t just grow horizontally.” “I-I dunno,” Ocellus squeaked. “I t-think Uncle Thorax’s poems are pretty interesting. What if reality really is merely a construct of our collective minds?” “This is why you need to stick with me, kid,” he said. “Don’t waste time pondering the true nature of reality. Instead, find ways to bend it to your will.”  “Okay,” Spike sighed. “I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have said anything.” The Doctor was as frustrated at the mystery as Luna, it seemed, as the first chance he got he had attempted to repair the computer’s memory banks. Despite undoubtedly being the most technologically proficient pony among them, he had absolutely no luck. “All I can say is they don’t appear to be damaged,” Doctor Whooves told Luna. “Whatever the problem is, it appears to be internal.” This was assuming that the computer wasn’t just messing with them. For all they knew, this whole adventure might be its idea of a practical joke. After all, if it was sapient, who could possibly tell what its motivations were? A biological lifeform you might be able to predict, but a machine? At the very least, Luna suspected it knew more than it let on. However, since it was helpful for the most part, she refrained from confronting it directly. Tempest Shadow, on the other hand, wasn’t giving her the same courtesy. Every day, she politely asked Luna if there was anything she needed help with, and every day Luna had to turn her down. Luna knew why Tempest was so go-getting, too: she wasn’t happy sitting on the sidelines. This was a feeling Luna knew all too well. The worst thing was she did have something Tempest could take a look at, too: figuring out how the alien hand weapons sitting in what the computer called ‘the armory’ worked. However, the fact that it was Tempest’s idea threw up a red flag in Luna’s mind. “I promise, I’ll be as careful as possible,” Tempest had argued.. “I’m just worried about what will happen if we’re boarded. It’s quite common in airship combat back on Equis. For all we know, it could be common in space as well. Those alien weapons might be our best shot at defending ourselves in that scenario. Not to mention, there’s always the chance we may run into something exploring another planet, too.” “You raise good points,” Luna said. “However, I believe they’re just too dangerous.” “Why is that?” Tempest asked stubbornly. “Because, er…” Luna said, looking for a lie. “The hull! We don’t want to cause a hull breach. The last thing I’d want is for you or anypony else to be jettisoned into space because of some sort of weapons misfire.” It was a lie, of course. Luna had no idea if the weapons could do that or not. Honestly, this combined with another reason made her feel a bit guilty about turning her down. That being she didn’t exactly have a good reason to mistrust her, just a gut feeling and the same reason she hadn’t initially trusted any of Equestria’s other reformed villains. “Discord and Starlight,” Celestia once said nearly a decade ago now. “You don’t trust them because you still don’t completely trust yourself. Am I right?”  She was. -- Yet despite all the difficulties and all the stress, it was worth it. After having gotten a good night’s rest, Captain Luna, First Officer Spike, Tactical Officer Pharynx, Navigator Ocellus, Science Officer Doctor Whooves, and SO Assistant Derpy stood proudly on the bridge. They were ready to unfurl the sails of their ship, their newfound knowledge being the winds that would carry them forth. “Okay, so what now?” Spike asked bluntly. Well, sort of. Luna had barely formulated a plan on what to do next. “Well, we need to…” Luna started, sitting cross-legged on her beautiful (by the aliens’ standards), obsidian rock captain’s chair. “We should… um...” “Might I recommend we begin by scanning the planets of this system?” Doctor Whooves suggested. “Our sensors should be calibrated to pick up signs of Solarium.” “Right!” Luna said, gazing at him thankfully. “Go ahead and do that.” … The bridge crew looked at her blankly.  “Captain,” Ocellus said quietly, eagerly holding a hoof over her console. “We need to get pretty close to anything we want to scan.” “Um, yes,” Luna coughed, quickly looking at the monitor attached to the armrest of her chair. “And to do that, we need to plot a course, I believe…” “Just tell me where to go and I’ll get us there!” Ocellus beamed proudly. "Thank you, young one, I shall," Luna nodded, desperately fiddling with her small console's controls. “You okay, captain?” Spike asked.  “She’s overwhelmed,” Pharynx sighed.  “Would you not be the same in my position?!” Luna suddenly snapped.  Pharynx glared in response. “I suggested that we take a few more days to train and you said no.”  “He… does kind of have a point,” Ocellus squeaked. Luna took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. “Very well, I apologize. Just give me a second here, okay?”  “Okay, second’s passed!” Derpy joked, earning a look from Spike. “Sorry, couldn’t help it.” “Let’s try this...” Luna continued, dragging two hooves across her console’s screen. This tilted a three-dimensional map of the current solar system on it to show it from an ‘above’ view. Eight planets orbited their parent, red dwarf star. All were currently colored grey, indicating they currently had no detailed information on them.  Luna studied it for a moment, before finally nodding to herself. “Okay. The computer said Solarium is most likely to be found on planets closer to their stars, so let’s try… ah, here we go. Do you need exact coordinates or…” “Just a general location is fine,” Ocellus said sweetly.   Luna smiled. “Okay, bring us to the closest planet to the star, maximum thrust.” “Yes, maximum thrust!” Spike called, flinging a flaw forward dramatically.  Luna raised her eyebrows at him.  “What? It sounds cool,” he said.  “Wait!” Doctor Whooves said, just as Ocellus was about to touch her console.  The crew turned to him.  “Oh no,” Derpy sighed. “Oh yes!” Doctor Whooves grinned. “She has to say it.” “Say what?” Luna said, tilting her head slightly.  “For the love of the hive!” Pharynx cried. “Are we seriously doing this?!” “Oh yes we are,” Doctor Whooves smiled. “You gotta say the Captain Quick Card thing.” “Oh!” Luna said, suddenly realizing what he wanted. “What was it again…? Um… engage?”  “Engage!” Spike mimed dramatically.  “Ennnngaging!” Occelus cheered, tapping her console a few times before dragging a hoof across it. “Yes! Allons-y!”  A terrific hum echoed through the ship, the sign of power being transferred from one system to another.  “Oh, shoot!” Luna cried. “I forgot! Computer, broadcast my voice across the ship, please.” “Okay.”  “All hands,” Luna said, her voice echoing across the intercom. “We’re about to move at maximum thrust. Brace--” Before she could finish, the ship lurched forward… and nopony felt a thing.  “Um, captain, the ship has built in inertial dampeners,” Doctor Whooves explained. “You don’t really need to say that.” “I uh,” Luna said, chuckling nervously. “I knew that.” Naturally, the intercom picked up her saying that, too. "I uh, I knew that," were broadcast throughout the ship. “Computer, disengage my broadcast please,” Luna nearly sobbed. ‘How could I mess this up so badly!?’ She honestly felt like she was about to completely lose her composure before she felt a gentle claw on her back. “Ease it up, captain,” Spike said. “You’re giving yourself too much grief. You have the hardest job of all of us and it’s your first time doing this. Nopony expects you to be perfect.” He then laughed. “Don’t become Twilight 2.0.” Luna took a deep breath, before throwing him a thankful smile. “You’re right, Spike. I expect too much from myself sometimes. Thank you.” “That’s what First Officers are for, right?” Spike smiled back.  As they spoke, the viewscreen began to show a marvelous sight. The red planet they had arrived next to slowly drifted to the left then disappeared, leaving only an increasingly brighter red dwarf star as the only visible object. They were truly soaring through this distant solar system. “Don’t get too close, Star Speaker,” that familiar voice suddenly whispered, a far cry from its booming presence in the dream realm. Surprising even Luna herself, its sudden entry didn’t fry her nerves. In fact, with the shock of it wearing down, it was now almost soothing, especially given the almost parental tone it was taking. Understanding that it did seem to be real and that she wasn’t just going crazy helped, too. “Too close to what?” Luna quietly asked. “The light.” Luna’s eyes widened. After thinking about the encounter for the last week, she was beginning to suspect something about the origin of the voice. However, this pretty much confirmed it to her. As fantastical as it seemed, was this--? “Woah, check it out!” Spike called, pointing to the screen and cutting off her thoughts. What was a small dot of light in the distance was now growing into a majestic, large planet.  It was nothing they had ever dreamed of, either: a virtual ying-yang. One side which faced the star appeared to be a smoldering, bright desert. The other facing away from it, however, was a vast, barren icescape. The Frozen North minus a few more degrees. “Great wickering stallions!” Doctor Whooves called excitedly. “This may be premature, but I believe that this world is tidally locked!”  “Tidally locked?” Spike asked.  “One side always faces the star, the other side always faces away from it,” Luna explained, gaining an impressed look from Doctor Whooves. “So like what Equis would be if you and Celestia slacked off?” Spike joked.  “Fortunately, she is more than capable of performing my duties in my absence,” Luna said, a hint of bitterness in her tone. “However, you speak the truth. This is a planet of extremes.” “So you were right then, Doc,” Derpy asked Doctor Whooves. “Planets near dwarf stars are always tidally locked?” “Only ones in the star’s habitable zone, my friend,” Doctor Whooves explained. “A shame, really. They're supposedly one of the more common stars in the universe, but any world close enough to support life might always end up like this. Theoretically speaking, of course. And about that…” He began operating his consoles. From the viewscreen, they could see a large dish attached a little ways from the bridge begin to rotate, pointing towards the planet.  “Ah, marvelous!” he grinned. “The scanner works just like it did in the simulation. Getting readings now!” “So, what does it say?” Spike asked excitedly. “Can we land on it?” “Is there any Solarium?” Pharynx asked, more to the point. “Interesting, interesting,” Doctor Whooves mused, his eyes still glued to his monitor. “1.05k m-bars average...” “Atmospheric pressure,” Derpy explained, apparently noting their confused expressions. “Quite,” Doctor Whooves said. “It fluctuates wildly depending on the area of the planet, but running across the…” He thought for a second. “The longitudinal line where night and day meet - theoretically, the most habitable place on a tidally locked world - there appears to be a zone only slightly denser than back home. Plenty survivable if...” “If what?” Ocellus asked. “Hmmm,” Doctor Whooves puzzled. “Composition is a bit… different.” “What the atmosphere is made of,” Derpy explained.  “Hey, I knew that one!” Spike pouted. “I didn’t,” Luna said. “Thank you, Derpy.” “No problem!”  “So, how is the atmosphere different?” Ocellus asked.  “Well, there are no magical energies for one thing,” Doctor Whooves said, earning a surprised look from Derpy. “What?” “Just… wasn’t expecting you to care about that,” Derpy said. “You’ve never wanted anything to do with magic.” “For the most part,” Doctor Whooves said. “Though magic is a chaotic force that seems to actively defy ways to study it directly, Starswirl the Bearded very recently came up with a way to gain vague measurements of it.  He grinned widely. “That piqued my interest. It seems the aliens went down a similar path, though their scanners are, surprisingly, no better than Starswirl’s instruments when it comes to specific measurements. However, like Starswirl’s, they can give you a definite answer as to whether magic is present in a given area of space or not, and in this case, that’s a no.” “Do you…” Spike blinked. “Do you ever take breaths, dude?” “When I remember,” Doctor Whooves shrugged as he took a deep one. “Though yes, speaking of breathing, aside from having no magical energies present, the atmosphere has less oxygen and more nitrogen than our own. CO2 levels are about even.” “That’ll still make it pretty difficult,” Derpy said.  “Difficult, though not impossible,” Doctor Whooves. “Fortunately, the composition doesn’t contain anything poisonous - at least not in a large enough quantity to be dangerous. All we’ll need to do is take deeper breaths. Treat the planet as we would a mountain peak back home.” Pharynx sighed. “Doctor, none of this matters if there’s no Solarium for us down there. There’s no point in visiting otherwise.” “Ah,” Doctor Whooves blushed. “Suppose I should have checked that first, shouldn’t have I?”  “Come on, Pharynx,” Spike grumbled, giving him a ‘for real?’ look. “We’re right next door to a completely alien planet!” “So?” He smirked sarcastically. “Look, I’m not that much of a science geek - fantasy roleplaying is more my jam - but even I think that’s kind of cool. Let the Doc have some fun.” “This isn’t a pleasure cruise, dragon,” Pharynx groaned. “This is still an emergency situation. Or have you forgotten the details of our predicament?” “Shhh, quit squabbling,” Derpy said. “The Doc found something.” Doctor Whooves cleared his throat, turning away from the console. “Sensors are detecting a minor bit of Solarium present.” The bridge crew looked to each other, their faces becoming filled with elation. It didn’t take long for cheers to break out. “Seriously? Success on the first try? That’s awesome!”  “Equis, here we come!”  “Well done, Doctor Whooves!”  “Not bad... for a pony.” “Ahem!” the doctor coughed. “As much as I love a good pat on the back, this Solarium doesn’t appear to be in a natural deposit. Makes sense, given it’s only supposed to be found around dying stars.” “What are you saying, doctor?” Luna asked. Doctor Whooves’s expression turned somewhat grim. “That the Solarium down there is already being used… or was, that is. It’s leaking out of another starship.” He furrowed his brow. “A crashed starship.”