[Aboard the Blade of Serenity, Deck C. 2 BBY, Galactic Sector D-6.]
On Deck C within the armored hull of the Providence class Dreadnought, two B1 janitor droids were currently on the floor scrubbing away at the rust, dust, and dirt that lined the corridors, with one using a mop and mop bucket to scrub the floors, while another used a sponge to clean up the walls.
"Yep, this is about the worst job in the whole droid army."
"Well, we aren't really an army anymore, so probably just the worst job aboard the ship."
"Right, that makes sense."
"Honestly though, I'm glad were independent now, cause now we get to have actual free time."
"Yeah, but what are we gonna do with that free time?"
"Well, we have a shooting gallery for a reason."
"Right, now focus on getting that floor mopped, the Lieutenant said he wanted this ship in tip top shape."
"Roger roger."
As the two droids had their exchange, down below on Deck D of the ship, three OOM security droids were busy patrolling the corridors, having a nice chat as they walked.
"Y'know, I kinda feel bad for General Kalani, I mean, I heard from one of the droids he arrived with that he lost his best friend on Agamar, heck, almost his entire garrison."
"Dang, that's gotta suck for him."
"Yeah, poor guy's been through alot, but he's a Super tactical droid, he can handle it."
"Yeah, he's not some squishy and emotional organic, he's a droid just like us, he'll get us through this!"
"I hope you're right..."
Up above on Deck B, C1-52S AKA Clakker was currently busy attempting to fix an electrical circuit, as he had opened a panel in the corridor of the wall and plugged himself in, trying to diagnose the problem. Finally, he had determined that the circuit had been chewed up, likely by some meddlesome rodents, as he scanned for the circuit's location, pinpointed it, and removed the wall paneling covering it, revealing a frayed and sparking wire, as two of his mechanical hands clasped the ends of the wire and brought them together, before using a third arm to weld them back together.
With the electrical problem now dealt with, Clakker replaced the wall paneling and wheeled off to his next task, before accidentally bumping into a fellow astromech, this one being an R4 model designated R4-C67, going by the nickname 'Wrencher', as they let out happy beeps upon seeing Clakker.
[Clakker, my bro, my homie, my compadre, how ya been?]
[Doing just fine, ol Wrencher mate. Guessing you just woke up?]
[Yep, and just in time too, this ship has for sure seen better days.]
[Well, we were set down in a scrapyard for several years so that may be a contributor to the degradation of the ships systems.]
[Well, we gonna sit here blabberin our speakers, or are we gonna get it fixed?]
[Roger roger, mate.] The two Astromechs bumped each other before wheeling off to do their next maintenance job.
Meanwhile, inside the Cargo Bay, a few B1 droids were busy carrying around boxes of weapons, ammunition, supplies, and other essential cargo, sorting them out and un-packaging their contents. One droid pulled out an old clone trooper helmet, and decided to place it atop his head, as he then snuck up behind his droid friend, before grabbing him on the shoulder and surprising him with the clone trooper helmet.
"Boo!"
"AHHHH- Don't do that to me, 623! Jeez, my processor can't take it!"
"Ahahahaha! You should've seen the look on your face, 729!" 729 facepalmed as 623 fell to the ground in a laughing fit, while the other droids simply chuckled, as 531 proceeded to also put on a clone trooper helmet.
"Look at me, I'm a dumb old clone who can't even aim right!" That caused everyone, even 729, to burst out laughing. Even onboard a lone starship in the middle of nowhere, the droids knew how keep themselves occupied.
Elsewhere, onboard the bridge, General Kalani was busy sitting in his chair and examining the ship's data archives, reviewing it's action reports and the battles it has been through. According to the logs, it had rarely seen any action, besides acting as a backline carrier providing support to the separatist fleets. It's original captain, a member of the Trade Federation, was a Quarren named Juas Kuz.
From what the database suggested, it seemed Juas Kuz was assassinated by clone commandos near the end of the war, which resulted in the Lieutenant Colonel TF-3749 taking temporary control of the vessel before the end of the war and the shutdown order was given, which, to Kalani's partial dismay, and partial relief, the Lieutenant had accepted.
Having satisfied his curiosity about the ship's history, he waved away the holo screen he was viewing the archives from to look at another screen, displaying a detailed geographical map of the planet below, thanks to the scanners now having enough power to properly align and map out the region. Kalani would likely need to decide on the location for a base of operations on this planet soon, because it would be impossible to simply remain in orbit forever. However, the planet had to be fully explored and analyzed before they touched down, otherwise they run the risk of potentially exposing themselves to unnecessary danger.
As Kalani sat, the Lieutenant stood beside him, before a second holo screen appeared, displaying the face of an OOM droid, as they spoke.
"General, scans show that nightfall will commence on the planet's surface within roughly five minutes." The droid said giving a thumbs up.
"Excellent, prep the probe droids for launch, OOM-5264."
"Roger, roger." As the video screen vanished, Kalani turned to the Lieutenant.
"Lieutenant, I believe it would be best if you organize a training exercise for some of our droids, seeing as extended periods of inactivity may result in in-efficiency."
"Understood." The Lieutenant then exited the room, and Kalani watched as the moon slowly moved into position in the planets orbit, covering the planet in darkness. Kalani had to admit, it looked quite beautiful... Even if beauty's pointless to a droid.
[Ponyville, 9:00 PM]
Twilight Sparkle and her friends sat upon the peak of the hill, watching as Princess Luna's moon slowly rose into the sky, a sight seen so many times, and yet never lost it's beauty. As she peacefully laid back alongside her friends, she let out a slight yawn, looking up to the star's in the sky.
"Y'know, I've always wondered why I never tried counting the stars." Pinkie said as she narrowed her eyes, now clearly trying to do just that.
"Come now, sugarcube, you wouldn't even get to one hundred, I for sure know Twi didn't." Slight giggling erupted from the girl's as Twilight rubbed her shoulder, her face reddening in embarrassment as she nervously chuckled. Rainbow lightly elbowed Applejack.
"Ah come on AJ, ya gotta admit you tried it once too!"
"Well, maybe ah did, but ah know it's a fools errand."
"Well yeah, but still, it's fun to try!"
"Yeah, I just got to one hundred fifty six!"
"One hundre- Wha...?" Some of the girls broke out into fits of laughter, as the confused look on Rainbow's face was priceless. Meanwhile, Fluttershy was still staring up at the night sky, marveling at it's beauty, when she noticed a bright object slowly flying through the sky, as she pointed to it.
"Look girls, a shooting star!" Collective oohs and aahs of fascination came from her heads as they turned to watch.
"Make a wish!" Suddenly, multiple other shooting stars appeared in the sky, flying alongside the first one.
"Make multiple wishes!" The other girls had looks of confusion on their face, which amplified when the stars split from the first one, distancing from each other, as they soared in different directions across the sky, one of them soaring north, another east, and one flying quite closer than the rest. In fact, it was getting bigger, and brighter, as it began to rapidly approach, soaring over their heads on a course for the everfree forest, crashing down in the center of it.
"WOAH, THAT WAS AWESOME!"
"Ah don't think those were shooting stars..."
"Indeed darling, they acted too... Coordinated, but also so random! Not to mention, that wasn't a star at all, it looked like... Like..."
"Like an asteroid?"
"Indeed, Twilight darling!"
"Oh dear, I hope it didn't harm any animals..."
"Well, let's go check it out! Maybe it's aliens! Or party ponies! Or gasp alien party ponies!"
"Pinkie's right, we gotta investigate." The other girls nodded, all quickly standing up as they followed their friend, running off into the forest.
[Everfree Forest, 9:05 PM]
The small object crashed down into a small open field, letting out a resounding crash, scaring many local wildlife away from the crash site, as a large amount of smoke rose from the impact crater. A few short seconds later, electronic beeping could be heard, as a small separatist probe droid slowly rose from the scorched crater, it's antenna extending out as it sent a signal back to the Blade of Serenity.
[Landing successful. All systems operational. Establishing connection...]
"Connection established. Probe-Alpha, this is Lieutenant Colonel TF-3749. Do you know your mission's operational parameters?"
[Affirmative. Analyze local wildlife, collect samples of planetary soil, scan for potential resources, relay intelligence collected on local intelligent life, and remain un-detected.]
"Excellent, your mission begins now. Do not fail us."
[Roger roger.]
As the connection terminated and the probe droids antenna retracted, it slowly observed it's surroundings using it's several sensors, relaying it's camera feed all the way back to the Blade of Serenity, as it observed small birds and rabbits scampering around, likely in fear of the droid. Once the droid had scanned the area, it then made it's way into the forest, dropping to the ground and crawling on it's legs to make traversal easier.
[Aboard the Blade of Serenity, Bridge Section.
General Kalani looked at the several video feeds of the probe droids with interest. Probe-Alpha's feed displayed a thick forest, populated by small harmless creatures, while Probe-Beta, displayed a harsh, cold, and snowy wasteland, void of any life. Probe-Charlie displayed a harsh desert environment, with large amounts of dust, and hostile life, as it barely avoided a strange... Scorpion like creature. The other probe feeds showed similar feeds, including various different environments and wild life.
To put it simply, Kalani was fascinated by this planet's bio-diversity. However, his fascination was cut short, as Probe-Alpha's motion detector was triggered, as Kalani's vision quickly directed itself there, as the probe droid watched from the shadows. Kalani then had the other probe droid feeds vanish as Probe-Alpha's feed was enlarged, and sound was activated, as the general listened in.
"Seems like whatever flew over us crashed down over there..."
Basic. Whatever had just spoken, had spoke Galactic Basic. The odds of that happening on an uncharted world such as this were 3.08%. However, this meant that a translator would not be needed which was fantastic for Kalani. The voice itself sounded feminine in nature, and when the owner came into view, he understood why.
Coming into view was a group of around six humanoid individuals, each of them wearing rather warm looking clothes, which was understandable, as the probe droid's temperature sensor indicated it was around 40 degrees, likely meaning it was currently autumn in the planet's seasonal rotation. The next thing he noticed was how each being was colored differently, and seemed to possess fur on their bodies, along with equine-like muzzles and ears.
Certain beings also had singular protrusions, similar to horns, on their heads, while some had large wings extending from their back. The purple one in this case, had both. Then, the pink one with the fluffy that was bouncing erratically spoke in a particularly high pitch tone.
"Whatever it was, it must've come from space, so they could be space aliens, Twilight!"
Twilight, that was presumably the name of the purple pony humanoid female. An odd name, but Kalani really couldn't speak for himself on that, now could he?
"Indeed, Pinkie, and it's our duty to welcome them to Equestria with open arms and teach them the values of friendship, as Princess Celestia taught us to do."
"Yeperooni!"
Now that, made Kalani feel better, hearing these aliens having peaceful intentions, along with hearing this planet, now identified as 'Equestria' was likely ruled by a monarch named 'Celestia' who seemed to value friendship, as stated by 'Twilight' to 'Pinkie'. Perhaps these people could become a worthy ally of the separatist alliance, or what was left of it at least. As the unknown group walked out of sensor range, the probe droid continued on, while Kalani contemplated what he had just saw, as he turned to the Lieutenant.
"Once the probe droids have collected sufficient data, order them to standby as the designated landing sites for the drop teams."
"Understood, General." As the Lieutenant walked out of the bridge, Kalani then brought up the rest of the probe droid feeds, watching each one intently, wondering what other sort of weird discoveries he would make.