It had been nearly a week since they had left the Capitol system and they had finally entered back into realspace. Twilight had spent most of the journey re-reading the books she had brought with her, though she eventually had to resort to reading books from Blueblood’s own archive. Thankfully it had been more than enough to keep herself distracted from the unknowable whispers that crept into the back of her mind, as they unfortunately tended to do when in warpspace.
The warp was a dangerous place for the unprepared, even looking at it was enough to drive anypony mad. Now that it was safe for the window shutters to open, she had returned to the large window at the front of the ship’s bridge to watch their approach to Everfree.
A faint pale green dot in the distance slowly grew to reveal Everfree’s verdant green surface. Most of the surface was covered in vivid green plant life, only a few scattered seas and mountains broke the monotony.
As the planet grew to fill the whole window a small flotilla of ships, clustered around a ramshackle station, came into view. Great chains ran between the ships, binding them to the station. The station itself sat in the centre of a massive lux net, which seemed to be providing power to much of the station.
A handful of military ships hovered nearby, though as they drew closer Twilight noticed that nearly every ship was damaged in some way. Some were only covered in scorch marks, others had dented frames. The broadside of one of the larger ships was nothing more than twisted metal and broken gun barrels.
“It looks a lot like home. Just smaller and more damaged,” Spike observed.
“This is probably what The Capitol looked like early in its lifespan.”
“Behold! The Splendour of the Blueblood house” Blueblood announced from where he was behind the ships wheel, grinning widely. He pulled out a vox, “This is Captain Blueblood to all vassal ships. Rotate your port side to face me.”
A crackling voice answered, “Acknowledged Golden Gryphon, moving now.” A pause, “It’s good to see you back Captain.”
Rarity shook her head and gave a faint smile. Twilight turned back to the window to watch the ships manoeuvre. To her surprise, despite the damage, the ship slowly rotated, showing the undamaged port side.
“There. can’t have these small details diminishing the grandeur of my arrival.”
“Now let’s see what we have here…” Blueblood pulled up a flickering hologram of Everfree. he tapped the coordinates of the landing area on a keypad and the image filled with a wall of annotated information. “I see it is nearly evening down there. I assume you would like to wait until morning?”
“Yes, of course. I don’t think there is too much of a rush.” Twilight paused for a moment. “I think.”
“Very well. I will be busy supervising the unloading of the cargo by that time, so I will be unable to join you. If I do not keep a close eye on things, cargo seems to become ‘missing’ a bit too frequently you see.”
“I suppose that means it falls to me to escort you to the surface, I will send a message to our pilot. But first,” Rarity pulled a small data chip out of a port in her cogitator. “Spike, was it? I have a little gift for you.” She held it out for him. “This should synchronise your chronometer with the local time.”
“Thank you.” Spike plugged it into himself, and a rapid series of chimes started playing. “OK, everything is synced. I really hope I don’t have to do that too often.”
“The meeting time is stored on there too. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get some rest. I will see you both tomorrow.” Rarity gave them a small bow and slipped inside the bedroom.
“I suppose I should do that too.” Twilight laughed nervously as Spike gave her a knowing look.
Blueblood returned to the wheel of the ship with a relaxed confidence. “Do not let me keep you. Although I would certainly like to hear if you find anything interesting.”
“Haven’t you explored it yet?”
“With all this travelling I’ve barely had the time! Not that its much of a loss, the planet is relatively barren, mineralogically speaking of course, there is no shortage of flora. As for relics and such, I hear the Mechanicus enclave may have sent a few ponies down, but I haven’t heard news of anything significant.”
“You should have plenty of time once I finish my work.”
“One can certainly hope.”
Twilight watched the surface of Everfree in silence for a few minutes then excused herself soon after.
The next morning Twilight and Spike had arrived at the landing bay five minutes early, ready to go. Twilight had been ready nearly an hour ago, but Spike had insisted arriving that early would be too weird.
In the corner they could see the same Alicorn lander they had arrived in. Twilight paced around it looking for an obvious entrance. “Spike, do you know how to open this?”
“Not really, but I can try communing with the machine spirit. That might work.”
Spike began tapping the keypad. He emitted a harsh metallic screeching, grating Twilight’s ears. Like many of the Mechanicus’s constructs Spike was capable of speaking binaric, though for anyone outside the organization it may well have been random, very unpleasant, noise.
The console beeped. He tapped the keypad a few more times but was only rewarded by a series of harsh beeps.
“Twilight, it’s mocking me,” Spike huffed.
Twilight briefly contemplated how she could scold a keypad, “It’s ok Spike, thanks for trying. We’ll just wait for Lady Rarity to arrive.”
“Where’s the pilot? Shouldn’t they be able to open it?”
“Rarity will probably get them when she’s finished. No harm in a little waiting, right?” Twilight sat herself down and idly cleaned her staff, making sure each purity seal was still legible.
Despite Twilight’s reassurance Spike soon got bored and flew around the lander looking for something interesting. After about a minute Spike few back into view.
“I found the pilot.”
“Oh, good, are they going to let us in?” Twilight gave the skull a quick pat.
“She is currently asleep in the cockpit.”
“Ah, maybe we should wake her up before Rarity arrives.” Twilight stood up and moved towards the cockpit.
As she made her way around the back of the lander, she suddenly got the feeling she was being watched. Before she had time to think the turbines roared into life, blasting a jet of high-speed air directly into her face. She was blown back, as she struggled to keep her balance. Thankfully the effect was mercifully short, and the engines slowed to idling.
Spike rushed out, but upon seeing that the only damage was a bad hairdo, relaxed and took a pict of her predicament instead. “I think the pilot is awake.” He said, before adding, “That look doesn’t suit you.”
Twilight glared at Spike, who despite lacking any way to outwardly emote, was almost certainly smugly smiling back at her.
The cockpit opened revealing a blue pegasus with short rainbow hair.
“Haha, I got you good there, if you didn’t have that cloak on, the look on your face would’ve been priceless.”
Twilight turned to face her, though her blindfold had fallen off, exposing her empty eye sockets.
The colour instantly drained from the pilot’s face, “Um… I…”
“Squadron Sergeant Rainbow Dash. What, in the name of the Empress, do you think you’re doing?!” Rarity exclaimed as she galloped across the landing bay. “I’m so sorry Lady Twilight, you must forgive the Sergeant, she normally reserves her little pranks for new recruits.”
“You didn’t say we were transporting some Empress forsaken w-” Rainbow caught herself and whispered to Rarity, “You didn’t say anything about a witch!”
Twilight could still hear what she was saying.
“I told you we were transporting somepony of high importance. Which, in case you forgot, means no pranks.”
“It’s fine.” Twilight tried to catch her breath. “Nopony was hurt. Let’s just get down to the planet so I can get to work.”
“An excellent idea. I assure you our pilot will receive a reminder of the proper conduct later,” Rarity all but dragged Rainbow back into the cockpit. “Now would you kindly take us to the base camp as fast as you can?”
Rainbow seemed to calm down, though her wings didn’t entirely relax. “You got it boss, I know a great shortcut!”
The lander shook as it descended into the atmosphere. Apparently Everfree had once been a barren desert. For whatever reason the terraforming equipment was abandoned, along with the rest of the system, leaving the flora to spiral out of control. Now the planet had become one massive forest, the poles were covered in dense woodlands and the equatorial lowlands were one, giant decaying swamp. The thicket had defied any major attempt to clear it.
Only small seas and vast river chains broke up the otherwise pure green surface, almost like the fractured surface of Old Equestria, except they were filled with water rather than lava, and they were curved rather than jagged. They were also much less distinct. They didn’t look that similar Twilight realised, but there had to be a reason to connect Nightmare Moon to here, so she had resorted to symbolism.
The lander weaved its way between mountaintops. In the valleys, the thick canopy was occasionally pierced by broken spires and ruined towers.
Something entered the peripheral of Twilight’s warp sight. She almost missed it over the cacophony of the lander, but something at the surface was radiating warp energy. She scanned the horizon to look for the source just in time to see something flash on the surface.
The interior was suddenly lit with a deep red glow followed by the sound of metal shearing. The lander lurched to the side and Twilight felt her stomach go light.
“Pilot, what’s happening?”
“The left wing’s been hit. I can land it, but it’s going to be a bit bumpy.” A soft chime sounded and a small symbol of a belt lit up. “Safety first,” Rainbow added, somewhat grimly.
Rarity briefly looked as if she was considering the benefits of a violent crash landing.
The canopy quickly approached.
The lander clipped a tree as they dipped below the treeline, twisting the lander so Twilight’s window was now facing forwards. It was lucky the lander didn’t rely on aerodynamics to stay airborne. With a roar, the landing thrusters activated as the ship touched down with an uncomfortably loud thud, sliding across the muddy ground.
Twilight carefully pulled herself back upright in her seat and collected her thoughts. She braced for something else to happen, for something to explode, or somepony to start shooting, but nothing did. The atmosphere outside was almost peaceful as the engines turned off. She even thought she could hear real birdsong.
They were stuck in the middle of an endless forest though.