The large oval shaped room was fairly quiet. The long thin windows stretching around the edge had little to offer but a pitch black void so empty even the stars were absent. The only hint there was anything else out there were the odd flickers of colour as exotic particles bounced off the radiation shields much like the Aurora Borealis back on Earth. While pretty, they were mere wisps in comparison and not very entertaining to look at after the hours, even days that were spent looking at them.
Despite the almost literal sense of nothing happening due to the nature of Slipstream Space, the truly alien plain of existence that allowed the speed of light to be bypassed, the human Captain Laurence Rose-well watched over the sterile, utilitarian bridge of his assault frigate diligently, hunched over the large tactical display table with a stereotypical cup of cold coffee not far away. The quite, almost sombre, mood was a fairly common one for the long dregs of time spent in Slip-Space transit. The bridge crew was sparse at the moment, less than half of the few dozen work stations and only two of the six direct interface floor alcoves were occupied.
The ship ‘UTGS First Step’ was ill-suited to the task at hand. Assault frigates and others in their class were heavily armoured, designed to bombard and then smash their way through planetary defences, sometimes literally with its armoured shark-like head, to deploy beach head forces to the surface. The design was also tough enough to survive heavy fire from enemies making it competent in defensive situations or surprise attacks. Combined with powerful engines it was fast, if not too manoeuvrable.
However hunting down Karak slavers who had snuck out of the demilitarised zone set up by the United Orion Alliance was a job for smaller, faster types of frigate with better sensors or ideally a carrier with slip space capable fighters. Not a strike group of the overweight assault series ships. Unfortunately this was the far side of the demilitarised zone where forces were spread thin. Considering this had happened a dozen times before he thought Terran fleet command or their allies in the UOA would have sent better equipped ships to garrison the area but no. The politicians were too busy parading their bigger ships in front of their rivals in the Council of Races. Laurence had to settle for a few quick upgrades to their sensor suites and extra batch of recon probes form the local fleet base.
“We’ll be emerging into real space in twenty minutes.” Announced his navigation officer, bringing the captain back into reality.
“Hm? Good.” Acknowledging the report half-heartedly. “Camilla!” He called.
A translucent figure of a dark skinned woman in tribal garb appeared beside him. “Usual drill Captain?” Camilla the AI construct in charge in charge of the ship’s systems responded dutifully, avatar courtesy of a small array of sealing mounted projectors the tactical display table was also tied into.
“Yes, usual drill. Everyone on duty to their stations and everyone else on alert. Have our fighters and drones ready to form a CAP. Also, tell gunnery control to load those probes into our mag-launch tubes. I want us ready to deploy as soon as we’re in system.” He taped the controls of the tack-table bringing up the readouts for ‘First Step’ attached to a wire frame model of the ship itself.
It began with its sharpened shark-like head, four symmetrically placed channels marking its main missile magnetic launch tubes and the thin line of windows half way up its nose where the bridge was located. After that a thinner neck segment connected it to the main body where the broadside plasma and neutron laser batteries were. It finished with three fission-torch engines and four banks of ion engines mounted on individual armatures for manoeuvring.
“Aye, aye sir! Preparing probes to be wasted on human paranoia sir. Consider it done.” She winked out of existence before he could scold her.
As the ships AI she could, if she chose, hear anything said across the ship outside of crew quarters and was constantly mongering critical systems and locations so he could still reprimand her but they had been through the conversation before.
After the Karak force had jumped the border into uncharted space to the galactic east they dispersed. As usual. Now he was following the trajectory of one of their slip space entry scars to the nearest star system along its path. It was some distance but the chances of finding them after the first jump were small. Chances were by the time they got there the ship they were tracking had already jumped to another system leaving only another slip scar to follow. These chases could last for months and only ever stopped when the Karak either found something of interest to plunder usually resulting in a last stand against pursuing UOA forces or they were lucky enough to drop out near a gas giant and use the atmosphere to hide their next slip scar, losing the pursing force.
“Emergence in five minutes!”
The remaining stations on the bridge had been filled to full capacity. Each crewman was snug in their crash seats, secured by the fixtures on their pressure suit uniforms.
“Ensure all our gun batteries are charging, remove missile rack safeties and prep close in weapon systems. I don’t want to be caught with our pants down.” Laurence knew his crew were good enough to do things by themselves but it never hurt to reinforce their training. After all, emerging from slip-space they would be blind to whatever was out there.
The ship shuddered with the disturbance in space time they were creating. Then, for a brief moment every man, woman and other living being on the ship felt that tingle of wrongness that came with passing through a hole in the fabric of the universe. Then, as if there was some significance beyond the symbolic the bridge crew sprung to life in a chorus of status reports.
“Emergence complete, we are now in real space.”
“All crew stations report ready and waiting…”
“All ship systems read nominal…”
“Beginning sensor sweeps…”
“Fighters and drones report successful launches…”
“Missile launch control awaiting your orders to launch probes…”
“No ships detected…”
“Star charts show we have arrived without mishap…”
He took a moment to think. “Hold on those launches, wait to see if anything else turns up.” Camilla had a point after all, why waste good probes?
“Hmm… you might want to retract that order.”
Laurence turned to see the image of the AI staring out at the system they had emerged into, seemingly in thought. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
She shrugged. “What our dear sensor officer Dave is no doubt about to report.”
He started to realise the mutterings of the Transhumants manning their floor alcoves, directly interfacing to the ship through their many implants, eyes covered with their interface visors and submerged in conductive coolant gel. They were responsible for all their electronic warfare efforts, helping prioritise targets and help add an intuitive edge to sifting through all the terabytes of data that had to pass through the ships computers every second. Sure, computers could do most of these tasks but that creative spark of sentient, when well trained, got it done in a manor all the more seamless and fitting.
“Well Ensign? What haven’t you told me yet?” He asked expectedly, moving to the large array of displays his station entailed.
“Uh, a whole lot of stuff sir. Freaky stuff too.” He certainly looked awkward as he searched for the right words. “First we have one habitable planet, or at least it looks habitable from here. Has a single moon. Estimate… eleven thousand kilometres in diameter and four and a half thousand respectively.”
Now that was surprising. Natural garden words were rare at the best of times while most of the United Terran Government’s worlds were terra-formed, boasting only a fraction of the ecology. It was one of those interesting things the Karak were willing to stop running for. “Had better launch those probes. Those dam zealots will fight to the death to claim a garden world. Best get our possession out to the rest of the fleet as well. The Vallarie better get their battle ship out here stat.”
“Aye sir, probes away and spreading out for best coverage.”
“Aye, reporting tire four asset to the fleet sir.”
Dave politely coughed; he still had more to add. “This is where things start getting strange sir. The sun’s a yellow dwarf like we guessed and, I don’t quite believe this myself, but it’s moving. Moving fast. If the numbers I’m crunching are correct the sun is going around the planet! On a twenty four hour time scale as well. Huh, moon to if the numbers are right,” he rattled off at an excited pace.
Naturally, one of the first conclusions Laurence jumped to was an ill-timed joke over this monstrosity of a flaw in the laws of physics but the screens clearly displayed the same thing the Ensign was talking about.
“Have you run a diagnostic?” It was almost as unpleasant a prospect as the joke, if such a severe error in their computer systems was detected before his ship left the docks of their resupply station protocol would have kept them in dry dock until it was corrected.
“Yes sir, twice since we took the initial sensor sweep. No errors that could have caused a miss read on this scale.”
The air was beginning to get restless. If the crew weren’t busy making sure the ship was running as per their training the scuttlebutt would already be on the move. Such a blatant violation of the laws of physics was mind bending.
“Camilla, can you confirm this?”
“Yes Captain, I can.” She replied immediately. “And since I took the liberty of personally guiding one of the probes into orbit I can also confirm that the Karak are defiantly still in system, though, out of sight for the moment.” A flick of her finger and a 2D image was conjured up above the display table.
The image sent Laurence’s blood running cold.
“I need a priority communique to command now! We have a tire TWO asset, Fara’glee protocol.” He demanded, his usually calm demeanour turning half panicky.
The order was one that gave pause to every crew member on the bridge, even the Transhumants submersed in the ships systems tensed up acknowledging the emotional impact of the orders while in their odd state. Each crewman turned to see the same image electing excitement and curiosity but always overshadowed by that same shade of fear as their captain.
“Camilla, I want a ship wide channel open,” he demanded, the AI simply nodding and faded out. “As per protocol this ship and any other UOA vessel entering this system is to escalate to Combat Readiness Condition two. All personnel at their stations! All shifts to axillary positions! All combat personnel ready to deploy to surface ops or rappel borders! We are at ‘local war’ people, Fara’glee protocol has been implemented, I repeat, Fara’glee protocol is in effect.” His own words echoed back to him a split second later through the ship wide announcement system and no doubt reverberating through every Terran on bored. “You all know what that means, what is at stake. I trust I will see only your best from here on in, captain out. Helmsman! Full speed into orbit.”
“Aye, aye sir!” he acknowledged excitedly.
Laurence merely glared out into space, focusing on the pale blue dot they were steadily approaching. He retook his position at the display table staring hard at the image before him. It was an image taken from orbit, a costal region of a large continent on the northern hemisphere. However the defining aspect of the image was the two clusters of yellowish lights distinct to sodium based filament lighting. Each cluster carefully arranged into crisscrossing grids of lines. The distinct give away of a city wide power grid.
“There’s a civilisation down there, and I’ll be damned if I let some Karak slaver band raise it to the ground…” His resolve quickened in that moment. It was over a century ago but the events still hung heavy in the minds of every being in the United Orion Alliance. “…I will not let another Fara’glee happen, never again. Never.”
Rainbow Dash found herself in an unusual predicament, though to be honest these days that was hardly unusual itself. What most certainly was unusual was the experience of being both excited and calm at the same time. It made her feel antsy inside, as much of a contradiction that was. Her task was one of patience and intellect; something most would consider surprising much to Rainbow’s chagrin. She was Mare enough to admit to herself she was brash and quick to act, even a braggart at times but what annoyed her the most was when ponies assumed that made her stupid.
She was not stupid. Maybe not sensible but defiantly not an outright idiot. What gave that impression was when ponies over complicated what they were saying with long, fancy words that more often than not had more syllables then the half a dozen every day words that could be used instead. If they needed proof otherwise all she needed to do was show them her school maths certificates.
Maths was logical. Logic was straight forward. Strait forward was easy. Half the time she forgot the names that went with the methods but all it was, was a problem laid out with simple values. It surprised her that few others in her classes could actually keep up with her. Well, as much as usual anyway; she was the fastest pony in Equestria. When she completed a problem for her egg head friend Twilight she had to go and dig up her old certificates to prove it wasn’t a prank. Twilight was nearly catatonic after reading through the straight A* maths grades about a dozen times looking for any evidence of forgery. She had even bought Applejack into it.
It was Rainbow’s hope that her current activity would change those rather insulting assumptions about her IQ count. So she steeled herself for the task at hand and paid close attention with her sharp, well-honed eyes as she looked up at the sky. A hardened expression on her face, determined not to cave into her itching need to get up, move around and ignore the rapidly listed off instructions for the telescope in front of her provided by her good willed but overly complicating friend. Naturally it was wearing her patience thin. Still, a deal was a deal and since Twilight was now taking daily morning jogs with herself and occasionally Applejack, Rainbow Dash had to buy into one of Twilight’s ‘nerdy’ activities in return.
They made an odd pair of friends at the best of times; Rainbow Dash the usually brash, athletic rainbow manned Pegasus, weather manager of the Ponyville region and Twilight Sparkle the slightly neurotic but intelligent and well-meaning lavender coated unicorn that ran the local library diligently. However as the years they had spent together wore on they found they could complement each other quite nicely.
“So, if we increase the angle of right-ascension by five degrees and turn to three hours five minutes meridian we should be able to see the constellation of ‘Celestia’s horny’. Wait, what…!?” The text book Twilight was reading from was a recent publication written by Princess Luna herself, a gift for Twilight’s birth day. “It must be a misprint, or something.” The lavender mare was now blushing furiously. She looked to her friend slightly bug eyed, hoping her friend didn’t pick up on the embarrassing sentence.
Fat chance of that.
Said friend was doing her best to contain a smirk and act natural but was failing almost impressively so. Nothing new there. Rainbow felt it was less a misprint and more Luna poking fun at her sister. Rainbow Dash didn’t know Luna that well but after Nightmare Night and talking with her at the wedding she knew there was a prankster hidden under that stern visage of the Night Princess. It took one to know one after all.
Newspaper clippings of her leaning her head out a high speed steam train cabin covered in soot reinforced that fact a week later. Rainbow was sure she did it just make Rarity faint.
Still, it was best not to comment on the book as such would invite unwanted attention and a stern talking to considering the content of the joke. Instead Rainbow simply got on with twiddling the dials on the telescope to bring it into position and focus.
However as Twilight began rambling on about the constellation’s history and story of origin, which due to the book in front of her was considerably different from what she learnt in school from Celestia, Rainbow noticed something strange. It was there only for a moment but long enough for her to know it was not some trick of the light. She had seen a brief streak of bright green light. Squinting into the lens and keeping a rose maroon eye pealed she waited patiently. Another! This time however it was followed by a cluster of fast moving burning blue dots. Carefully adjusting the telescope she followed the lights, which were now appearing in a near constant stream, to its source; a silvery blob. Looking up from the telescope she could just about see it with the naked eye.
“Twi’?” She called but no response came from Twilight who was caught up arguing with the book over the differences between what it said and what she had learnt from Celestia. It wasn’t the first time this particular book had caused a problem.
Refocusing the lens to get a clearer image the shiny thing it now appeared much sharper and rigid. Suddenly a jet of fire burst from it and it began to elongate. It took her a moment to realise it wasn’t getting larger but turning and moving. Indeed the object began turn and accelerate in the direction it was sending out the green beams and blue pulses.
“Twilight…” Still no reply, Twilight was now getting infuriated about the lack of references to sources in the book.
Staring at the thing in the sky she now noticed small yellow flashes along its body, each time one hit it seemed to shudder slightly. The strange beams and pulses reminded her of casting magic so she deduced that whatever it was must have been casting spells on something so she followed them to their destination and was rewarded with a great big grey blob.
Trying to get an idea on what was going on she fiddled with telescope to get a wider view. It turned out the green beams and blue pulses, that she assumed were some form of magic, were traveling from the long silvery fish like thing, minus the fins, to the bulkier thing. In addition she noticed several small flashes from the rocky thing that seemed to consign with the flashes and shudders on the first one. Suddenly a large chunk of the rocky one fell away as one of the green beams dragged across it and suddenly it dawned on her.
They were fighting. Her heart rate rose and a small dose of adrenalin dropped into her blood stream.
“Twilight!” She found herself practically shouting.
The mare abruptly stopped her rambling about lack of appropriate editing to look at her. She suddenly found herself growing unsure at the uncertain fear in her friend’s eyes. “Yes Dash, what is it?”
“I really, really really think you should come and have a look at this… Right Now.” She explained unsteadily.
Twilight raised a sceptical eyebrow but trotted over to the telescope, ready to put her friend’s fears to rest and peered through it. “What in the world?” She exclaimed at the sight of the silvery fish like thing and the larger stockier thing Rainbow had been watching for the past minuet. A pair of bright flashes later from the rocky thing and the silvery one was rocked backwards by the resulting force. Then several small flames appeared near the silver one and began accelerating towards the rocky one. When they hit Twilight had to recoil away from the telescope the light was so bright. “By Celestia!”
A sudden gasp from Rainbow confirmed it was visible to her to. “Wh-what happened!? Did they just explode? Are they still there?”
Peeking back into the telescope she saw the rocky thing was now drifting apart, occasional explosions making the remaining parts change cores further. Then a number of flames like the ones before appeared but these were different; they were larger, slower, more of them and most importantly they were heading down. Towards her.
She turned towards her friend, stoic expression adorning her face. “Dash, I need you to go wake up Spike Right Now. The princesses need to hear about this… whatever this is.”
Dash nodded dutifully, still somewhat shocked, before galloping off and gliding down the stairs with her wings.
Twilight had told Rainbow not to fly inside the Library a dozen times already but it seemed they had more important things to worry about at the moment. She turned back to the telescope and began to track the downwards traveling flames. Fortunately they didn’t seem to be landing anywhere near Ponyville and Canterlot but she would need a map to find out where about they did eventually land. Somewhere out to the west that was for sure.
Turning her attention back to the sky above she noticed the silver one hadn’t quite given up life and its green and blue attack spells, or what she assumed were spells, had started firing at the chunks of the bigger one though at a far slower rate than before. It was now she realised that a group of the chunks were traveling downwards, a different direction to the outwards scattering pattern they were before. Looking closely she saw bursts of the same flames along their top edge. It didn’t take the mare a moment longer to realise the flame were some sort of propulsion, though how fire caused acceleration escaped her.
Then it hit her, almost as hard as her own hoof to her forehead. “Fire works! There using rockets… or something like rockets to move around!”
A moment later Spike came trudging up the stairs, a glum expression on his face and followed by an excited Rainbow Dash just about holding a quill, ink pot and peace of parchment in the crook of her wings.
The tired dragon gave a dejected sigh. “What is it Twi? All Dash said was something about metal fish fighting in space.” The incredulous look he had would probably cause one of the princesses to second guess themselves. “You were reading comic books behind Twilight’s back again weren’t you?”
Dash scowled at the smaller, scalier figure. “I did not…! Was not. I said one of them looked like a shark! A bit. Sort of.” Her temper flared for a moment, giving one of her challenging stares to the tired dragon.
“This is no time for arguing! Now Spike; I need you to take a letter and Dash; I need you to fetch me a map of Equestria, a copy I can write on.” Twilight ordered. “There should be spear copies in my supplies draws underneath ‘Cartography’. There should also be a bunch of tools in one of the smaller ones, get me, uh… just get me one of each for now.” Twilight asked, realising Rainbow wouldn’t know the names and describing them would just take too long.
“Yes Ma’am!” Dash replied, giving a salute before once again gliding down the stairs. Twilight made a note to mention that later. She had only recently managed to reinforce the point that having her crash through one of the widows on a weekly basis was not the appropriate way to treat a library.
She turned back to the waiting dragon. “Okay, Spike. Ready to begin?”
“Yup! All set to go.” He responded, quill in claw and ready to write.
“Good. Now; Dear Princess Luna and Celestia…” Twilight began.
“What! Oh pony feathers…” The young dragon cursed before discarding the parchment and grabbing another sheet to start anew. “The one time she doesn’t start with Celestia.” He let out a board sigh. “Why do I get the feeling this is going to be an all-nighter?”
Twilight could only roll her eyes, already exasperated from her row with the seemingly consciously offensive astronomy book. Spike was right; it was indeed going to be one of those nights.