//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Free Trade // by ZarPaulek //------------------------------// On the edge of what many like to call "civilized space" the endless path of a small green planet around its distant primary star was interrupted by an abrupt flash of light that vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving behind a minute (cosmologically speaking) speck that could easily be missed by anyone on the planet observing the phenomenon through one of their primitive optical telescopes. But then the small dot started to glow and moved, slowly at first but rapidly picking up speed, towards that verdant unspoiled world. Certain natives of the planet did indeed notice this bizarre new oddity, the greatest minds available calculated where it would come down and the ruler of the greatest nation on the world dispatched her most trusted agents to investigate. --- "Remind me why we have to walk all this way just to see some dumb meteor." Spike the baby dragon was complaining yet again as he, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity trudged across the plains outside Ponyville while Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew just overhead. More than a few of whom were currently rolling their eyes at him. "Because, for the tenth time," Twilight replied, quite visibly annoyed. "It is not a meteor, we initially thought it was when I first spotted it but it started slowing down as it approached. Then it just stopped about four miles above Ponyville." Then she glared at Spike for forgetting this most important bit, "it has to be some sort of giant airship, but we don't know who sent it and the Princess wants us to check it out." "Not to interrupt," Rainbow Dash interjected, "but something just flew out of that meteor or airship or whatever." She darted off into the distance before Twilight could tell her otherwise. --- Streaking away from the hovering starship was a small open-topped flyer suspended by an anti-gravity field and occupied by a motley bunch of human spaces. "Jarrek!" He yelled over the wind, "can't you fly a little slower, it's hard to spot anything at this speed!" The pilot glanced sideways at him and grabbed his shirt with his prosthetic right arm. "Chad, I'm the one here with experience dealing with uncontacted primitives, or have you forgotten how I got this shiny thing in the first place. I'm not letting any of the natives see us until we're ready." "Yes", a gruff voice retorted from behind them, "you have told us several times how some alien farmer amputated your arm with a farming implement. But you are right, the Imperial databases were astonishingly scarce on the topic of the quarantined border worlds, they might have a habit of eating visitors for all we know, hence my battle dress and plasgun." "Astor, why do you think I let that big clunky suit of yours strain the raft's grav units?" He moved both hands back to the steering assembly and eased off the throttle slightly. Then he noticed an odd rainbow-colored streak moving towards them at high speed. "Hey Chad, what do you make of..." He didn't get to finish his sentence before a four-foot tall blue quadruped landed on the hood of the air/raft. Jarrek noticed that it had a short mane running down its neck that was the same colors as the streak that he had just spotted, as well as the fact that it appeared to be covered with cyan fur everywhere except the pair of small wings attached to its shoulders, which had feathers. Reflexively the ex-marine in the back seat swung his Plasma Gun, Man Portable to bear against the newcomer. The alien creature stared at the 20 pound chunk of advanced military hardware then turned its head to look at the side, then it began producing a rapid series of high pitched sounds. LANGUAGE DETECTED, Jarrek saw the letter scroll across his field of vision as his neural comm picked up something in the creature's rapid chattering, TRANSLATION PROGRAM INITIATED, MORE INPUT REQUIRED. He held up a hand staying Astor's itchy trigger fingers, "hold up, my hardware thinks it's talking." Then a warning started to blare on the air/raft's control panel, their weight capacity, already strained by the heavily armored being in the back, was now exceeded and they would be unable to maintain altitude much longer. The alien turned towards the blinking red light too and started speaking again, the best the translator could come up with was "#### the #### is ####?" Frantically Jarrek tried to explain, "Too, heavy," he gestured downwards in an attempt to make it understand, "need to land." The alien said something along the lines of "Okay, see you ######, I ### ###### ########" and flew off. Jarrek took the raft further down towards the ground, expecting more of these bizarre creatures to arrive. --- Twilight and her friends raced towards the place where Rainbow Dash had said the newcomers would be landing. She found it hard to believe what the cyan pegasus had told her, giant hairless monkeys on a flying metal raft? Then again considering some of the other things they had seen in Equestria these newcomers weren't really that bizarre. What she was really interested in was where they had come from, and how they had been able to make something that big fly without a balloon. "There, just over that hill!" Rainbow Dash called flying above them. As the other ponies rounded the grassy knoll they finally caught sight of the strange visitors. "Oh, my," Rarity recoiled slightly at the sight of the scruffy aliens, "that armor is so ugly, however can he stand to wear it?" Twilight turned to face her, "How do you know he's actually wearing armor, he could be a golem, or a clockwork automaton, or even an elemental life form of steel?" Then the one who seemed to be the leader shouted something unintelligible to the armored being, in response the metal man unfastened his helmet one-handed and revealed plain old flesh underneath. "I should say that I have decorated enough suits of armor to recognize one when I see it." Twilight cautiously approached the strangers, Fluttershy sheepishly slunk lower to the ground, Rainbow Dash flew up and landed on the grounded craft, Applejack drew up closer to Twilight defensively, Rarity measured up the other two aliens, Pinkie Pie popped up in their faces and threw streamers and confetti. "Yaaayyy!" Pinkie yelled loudly, "We should have a 'Welcome-to-Equestria' party we need to get balloons, and hats, and cake, do you like cake? Of course you do, everybody likes cake I'll go and bake some." "PINKIE PIE!" Twilight screamed before the hyperactive pink pony could do anything else to make this first contact situation worse. "We don't know who these strangers are, I've never heard of creatures like them and according to Rainbow Dash they don't even speak Equine very well." She looked back at the aliens who were standing there flabbergasted all covered with party decorations, speaking slowly and clearly she addressed them, "I. Am. Sorry. About. Pinkie Pie. She is a little crazy at times. I am Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends Rainbow Dash, who I think you have already met, Applejack, Rarity, Spike, and back there is Fluttershy." She paused a second, unsure if they even understood what she was saying. The one with the gaunt black arm who had ordered the armored one to show he was like the rest of them was the first to speak, in a growling raspy voice that seemed somewhat unsure of his words, "I am Jarrek" He gestured with his right forelimb which Twilight noticed was covered in gleaming black metal, "these are Chad and Astor, we're humans." He thought for a second then added "Astor is a little crazy at times." Twilight could see that the large pony-like creature was visibly shaking, his fingers twitching around a small ring on the large blocky thing he was carrying in both arms, it looked a bit like a small cannon now that she got a good look at it. She also noticed that they hadn't used many words that she had not told them already. Perhaps they had some means of learning a language as they heard it, if so she needed to keep talking if they were to know much of anything about the travelers. "We saw your air-ship before," she pointed with one hoof in the general direction of the ship she had spotted earlier, "it looks like you came from another planet. Where did you come from and why did you travel so far?" Jarrek pulled a flat white rectangle out of his long coat and pressed a stud on one end. The side facing Twilight suddenly lit up showing a stylized yellow sun logo. With his flesh hand he drew a short stick out of the side of the device and tapped the sun with it, tracing a circle around the edge of the symbol. Immediately it changed to a picture of the ground below, then it started to zoom outwards showing the land around them getting smaller and smaller until the sphere of the planet was visible, then it kept going until the moon could be seen next to the planet, then it continued revealing the sun and didn't stop there. The device finally stopped when the sun was just one of several large dots in a cluster, then a green line inched from one of the nearest dots towards the dot that was Celestia's charge. "You are from one of the stars?!" Twilight Sparkle couldn't help herself. "That must mean Coponycus' theories were right and that Celestia's sun is just one star that happens to be closest to us. This is amazing, your very presence will shake the Equestrian scientific community..." "Hey cool, what else can that do?" Spike grabbed the tablet from the human's metallic claws and started to poke at it before the alien could do anything. "Spike! Give that back to him, it isn't yours." Twilight pulled the device from the baby dragon's claws with her telekinesis and floated it back towards Jarrek. "Sorry about that, it's just he's a baby dragon and has some trouble recognizing other pony's, I mean people's property." Jarrek visibly recoiled at the sight of his tablet floating in mid-air. "He can have it, I have others." As the tablet floated back to Spike he relaxed enough to ask "How did you do that?" "What, magic? Every unicorn can do that." She realized that many species didn't have magic, or used an altogether different form like pegasi and their flight abilities or Spike's dragon flame. "I mean, telekinesis that is, that's how I levitated the thing, all unicorns can do that but I can do a couple other things with magic." Suddenly she heard a loud popping sound and turned to see Spike, he had apparently punctured the tablet with his claw and now looked like he had been hit with a lightning spell. She groaned loudly and rolled her eyes at him, noting that the stick Jarrek had used to manipulate the device was still in his hand. Spike snapped out of it quickly and surveyed the damage. "Ah man," he sighed as he realized that he had already broken his new toy. "Hey, you said you have more of these right?" Jarrek pulled a red tablet out of his jacket, then put it back and closed the front of his coat before Spike could grab it. "Oh come on, I'll give you one of my gems for it." Spike pulled out a small finger-sized amethyst. The three aliens' eyes grew wide at the sight of the gemstone in the dragon's claw. Jarrek tapped Astor and Chad's shoulders and they turned around and said something in their own language. After about five minutes Jarrek faced Spike again, "I don't suppose you have anything bigger than that?" --- Six months later Things in Equestria had changed a lot in the past half a year. The rich and famous all had off-world artifacts, foals in some schools were taught that the stars were other suns ruled by the Third Imperium, which was mostly inhabited by hairless two-legged primates known as "Humaniti" but they shared space with many other species such as the lupine Vargr, equine K'kree, leonine Aslan, insectoid Droyne, and the Hivers, whom nopony seemed to have any idea of what to compare them to. There was no small bit of shock that Equestria wasn't the center of the universe, but after Princess Celestia pointed out that she had never claimed her sun to be the only one in existence all but the most stubborn ponies came to accept this newfound fact. The first time the traders had come they only brought a dozen handcomps like the one Spike had received, plus a few hundred flashlights, radios, power tools, and portable solar panels to power them. When they returned three months later they had brought thousands of manufactured and electronic goods to exchange for several tons of gemstones and a dozen jars of zap apple jam, many ponies were excited to see how many new wonders the free traders had this time. Still, some ponies had grown suspicious of the travelers' motives, and with good reason it would turn out. --- The interstellar trade ship Fortuitous Salvage was parked in a specially built airfield outside of Ponyville while the owners held an auction nearby for the crates of goods that the natives could not hope to produce for centuries to several of Equestria's richest merchants. Meanwhile the bearers of the Elements of Harmony were trotting closer to the ship itself, they wanted to have a chat with some of the aliens. One of them, the one known as Chad, was loading up a ground vehicle with agricultural equipment, the Apple family had requested some Imperium tech to help them produce more of the Zap Apple jam that the traders were so interested in, including a tractor that was being towed behind the Salvage's ATV. He looked up as the six mares approached, hurriedly he pulled out his commlink and said something in Galanglic, the Imperium's official language, which the comm's translation program converted to Equine in flat mechanical tones. "You here for the plows and the tractor? Relax, I will get it to your farm in a couple hours. We agreed on forty gallons of cider and two dozen jars of jam right?" "Well, yuh see, that's the problem," Applejack started, "mah brother Big Macintosh was thinking that y'all were trading us quite a bit of your fancy Imperial technology for so little. He did some of those fancy mathematics of his and told me that the gems and jam we gave y'all last time were worth less than our farm makes in a month. Whereas just a couple of those "handcomps" is worth enough to keep Sweet Apple Acres running for half a year." Chad looked stupefied at her for half a minute before finally coming up with a response, "Sorry, couldn't get all that, the translator has some trouble with your dialect." "She said she cannot see how you manage to make a profit." Twilight Sparkle interjected, speaking in plain Galanglic. Chad looked even more shocked at this, "did you just..." "Speak Galanglic, yes, a few of your handcomps had language tutors on them." "But those are supposed to take months to learn." "I'm a fast learner, now are you going to answer our question?" The human grimaced and started to look a bit flustered, "well, you see, sometimes a product or natural resource is more plentiful in one area than another, and is thus is considerably more expensive in the area without a lot of it. We free traders make a living buying from the areas where it is cheaper and sell where it is expensive." "Cheaper? You don't say." Rarity drew her own handcomp from her saddlebag and showed the backing to the alien merchant standing in front of her. Clearly visible in the lower left corner of the purple tablet was a white rectangular sticker, reading a barcode and the characters "Cr. 10." --- "Look, do you have any idea how much a starship costs these days?" Jarrek, Chad, and Astor had all been gathered into the Ponyville library that served as Twilight's house, being the closest place that they could all speak in private besides the ship. And the Bearers did not particularly trust these three in a place so unfamiliar to the six of them. Jarrek was attempting to explain to the now pissed off natives gathered before them why they had charged such exorbitant prices for what were apparently cheap trinkets. "We've gathered that the digital libraries we sold you gave you an approximation of how much the Imperial credit is worth, did they give you an idea how much our ship is worth?" Nopony gave an answer immediately, there had been little to no factual information in the handcomps about starships, all that they did know was that one credit was enough to cover the cost of transporting one tiny gram one jump, which certainly explained how they were able to profit off the thousands of credits worth of gems. Pinkie Pie started jumping up and down excitedly holding up her right forehoof. "Ooh, ooh, I think I have an idea!" Remembering how often Pinkie seemed to know obscure things for no apparent reason Twilight decided to let her speak her mind. "In Megacorp Tycoon a Jayhawk-class Far Trader like theirs costs 5000 kay-see-arr." Everypony and everyone else in the room groaned loudly, she was talking about one of the games that had been included with the computers. "They're called kilocredits not 'kay-see-arr' you silly pink pony." Chad spoke up finally. "As in one thousand credits. And actually it's only an order of magnitude off, our ship is worth about 51,000 kilocredits." "Fifty-one million credits!" Twilight had managed to learn the metric system of measurement used throughout the Imperium long before she had figured out the majority of their language. "That's enough to buy Ponyville, how in Tartarus did you manage to afford something that expensive?" "We took out a massive bank loan, that's how." Jarek answered rather emphatically. "Every month for the next 50 years we agreed to send the Crescent Planetary Bank 212,000 credits. Maintenance on a 200-ton ship and just keeping the crew fed adds about a couple dozen more kilocreds to the bill. You try making that much of a monthly profit hauling ore." "Oh yeah?" Rainbow Dash decided to chime in, "well I bet that we could do that. In fact I bet that we could make 20% more than you could without cheating." Chad snorted loudly, "dream on you pastel-colored pony. You're kind of stuck here on this rock while we're parsecs away." "Actually," Twilight had been waiting for this moment, "when we told Princess Celestia what you were up to she had this idea." Suddenly a loud crack was heard outside the library, followed by a crashing sound near the second floor balcony. The assorted ponies, humans, and dragon rushed upstairs to see what it was. There, standing daintily on the branches just next to the window, was a pure white mare as tall from forehoof to shoulder as one of the humans was foot to head (if they hadn't been bending down to stand in the pony-sized room), with wings the envy of any pegasus and a horn many times longer than most unicorns. Wearing a gold tiara and torc with matching amethysts. "Hello, my most faithful student," she said addressing Twilight Sparkle, "I thought that they might be more inclined to play along if I told them myself." She eyed the three humans trying to squeeze in among the six ponies on the balcony, seeing how crammed in they were she decided to lift them up with her telekinesis and set them down on the branches next to her. "Fight then, Jarek, Astor, Chad. Free traders of the Third Imperium of Humaniti. I, Princess Celestia, diarch of the sovereign kingdom of Equestria and Princess of the sun, find you guilty of ten thousand counts of price-gouging." When she saw the expression of shock on their faces she couldn't help but giggle a little, "got ya." She turned back to her more serious expression and continued, "that's not really a crime, but it got your attention, maybe I could enact some kind of tariff on off-world technology though, does half the contents of your ship sound good?" "Cut to the chase Princess," Astor surprised everypony present by shouting out to the near-deific alien ruler holding him suspended by her own telekinesis. "Your 'student' or whatever she is said you had an idea, you're just randomly spouting stuff you came up with on the spot." Celestia let him drop a couple meters before grabbing him again, she decided to leave him there floating helplessly just off the ground before answering. "Evidently the Imperial Marines aren't taught 'tact' in basic training." She faced the other two humans before her and stared down at them for several seconds, once they were unsettled to her liking she spoke again. "But yes he has a point, bluntly stated as it was, it occurs to me that we know practically nothing about the universe at large. Something that you three have chosen to take advantage of." Jarek and Chad nodded nervously as the big magic-using talking horse continued to stare at them accusingly. "To remedy this situation I have decided that you shall be taking some trusted representatives of mine with you when you return to the Imperium so that they may learn about interstellar society firsthoof. Specifically Twilight Sparkle and her friends here." "What?!" Jarrek, Astor, Chad, Spike and Pinkie Pie all exclaimed simultaneously. Everypony turned to stare at Spike and Pinkie, especially Pinkie as she'd already been told of the plan weeks ago. But they quickly decided to dismiss is as yet another of the cotton candy pink mare's eccentricities as Chad quickly spoke up again. "We can't bring them to Imperial space!" "Oh, and why not?" the princess seemed to be toying with them at this point. "After all those subjects of mine that you have allowed to visit your ship have told me you have enough staterooms on board that vessel of yours to carry all seven of them. It's not like the Imperium has laws against informing less advanced species of their society now do they?" He looked a bit flustered at that statement, like he couldn't tell what to say to that. He started to open his mouth but at a dirty look from his captain reconsidered. Jarrek answered for him, "magic, your highness. Some centuries ago the Imperium fought a war with a race that could do some things a bit like your horned subjects could and since then most Imperial citizens have been rather wary of anyone with that sort of ability." "The Frontier wars." Twilight recognized this from one of the history books stored on the handcomps she owned. "The Zhodani Consulate's Noble and Intendant castes have psionic abilities that resemble magic in some ways, namely telekinesis and teleportation. But they maintain their totalitarian rule using a power that allows them to read another's thoughts, we don't have any spells like that." "I'm sure my little ponies will be able to overcome any prejudices they might encounter in the galaxy at large." Celestia wasn't about to let these free traders maintain the upper hand they had over her kingdom simply by being the sole contact they had with an empire that dwarfed them a thousandfold. "You can take my student and her friends to the Imperium or I will inform everypony on the planet that you have been lying to us. You will never see another Equestrian jewel again in your short little lives." They realized they had no choice then, in the six months since they had first come to this planet they had cut two years worth of payments off their debt. "Fine, we leave tomorrow at noon, don't be late." --- Two hundred displaced tons of crystaliron soared across the skies of Equestria, on board were the first six ponies (and dragon) to go into space since Princess Luna had returned home a couple years ago. Despite the crew's attempts to quietly leave before anypony could notice, the seven had come five hours early with a crowd of journalists and well-wishers to see them off, they had no choice but to let them aboard. They were confined to their staterooms and the galley for most of the week-long trip to the nearest Imperium-controlled star, if it weren't for the captain's announcements they wouldn't have even noticed the transitions into and out of jump space. The ship docked at an asteroid colony in the system to refuel before jumping again. While their passengers stayed aboard at their recommendation that they'd attract too much attention at a crowded station like this, the crew went ashore to unwind a bit before figuring out how to deal with their unpleasant situation. --- "I can't believe we agreed to take them." Chad was on his third stiff drink by then at the starport cantina. "You know we're going to be caught now." "Don't worry about it." Jarrek was considerably less drunk than his co-pilot at the moment. "We just keep them locked up until we make it to Crescent, there's a lot of non-humans there they'll be lost in the crowds. We just need to keep them from blabbing to everyone that they're from a Red Zone and we can get them an apartment or something with net access. They can explore one of the most advanced planets in the sector on their own while we make plans to set up shop somewhere on the other side of charted space. And besides, the TL 5 rule is really more of a recommendation, the laws on first contact state that they just need to have a scientific worldview that allows for the possibility of life on other planets." "For crying out loud, they think that their sun is moved around by a big horse who has both wings and a horn!" Chad yelled drunkenly at his captain, knocking over his glass and spilling booze all over the table. "They've barely got steam power, that's what, TL 3? How could we possibly convince the IISS that we're innocent?" "Hey, seeing that Princess of theirs first hand, I'm half inclined to believe that magic horn of hers can move the sun too." Astor had only been half listening to his shipmates' conversation, too busy watching the doors. "Anyways it looks like we've got some company, a couple Scouts in flak jackets and four Ministry of Justice goons just came in. You want to bet they're here for us?" Jarrek and Chad turned to look at the Imperial Officials that had just walked through the double doors at the front, sure enough there were two men whose jackets bore the red sun of the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service along with a quartet of armored interstellar police carrying stunners. While these outposts attracted no shortage of criminal activity there wasn't much that could get the Scouts involved, the odds did not look good. "Any other exits?" Jarrek asked the ex-marine. "There's a back door by the 'freshers, we might be able to slip out quietly before they get to us." "Too risky, can we take them in a fight?" "Doubtful, without armor that gauss pistol of yours could probably take three of them while I could waste one or two with my revolver and Chad might stun someone but it looks like they came prepared." "Damnit, probably pulled my service record, they'd expect me to keep a memento or two from my time in the Scouts. Would also know that I have a history of trying this kind of crap with ignorant natives too." "You were in the Scouts Jarrek?" Chad blurted out while the other two had been whispering. The Scout standing nearest to their table started towards them. "He was," the Intelligence officer stated as he approached, "know how he lost that arm of his? He was trying to impress this six-armed dirt farmer with some pretty lights and the poor thing panicked and attacked him with a shovel." He stepped up to the table and leaned over it, looking straight into the ex-Scout's eyes. "Now tell me Jarrek Swardsleck, did you learn anything from the loss of your right arm and your commission, or did you get those jars of fruit jam that the best geneticists in 20 parsecs couldn't identify from someplace that you shouldn't have been? Wonder what else our team will find in that scrapheap of yours." There was a collective gasp of shock and horror around the table at that little bar on a backwater asteroid. Then they went for their side arms and all Tartarus broke loose. --- "Bored, so freaking bored here." Rainbow Dash was sprawled on the countertop of the passenger's common area of the Fortuitous Salvage while the others were all waiting for the three humans to return. "We're stuck in here a week and we finally get somewhere, now they tell us we have to stay in here a few days before another week in space?" "They said the people here might not like us." Fluttershy squeaked nervously. "I would rather not go out there if they don't want us out there." "Oh, puh-leeze. They've lied to us before." Rainbow Dash rolled over and stood up defiantly. "I'll bet they're out having fun while we sit here and be bored." "Fun, you mean they might be having a party without us?" Pinkie Pie looked up from the life-support algae and protein powder she and Applejack were trying to make into muffins. "We need to go out there and go to that party!" She exclaimed pointing emphatically towards the airlock's inner door. Twilight looked up from the computer terminal she was using to read the ship's technical manual. "We can't, the airlock has a biometric fingerprint and iris scanner. Only the crew can open that door." Suddenly a loud clanging sound emanated from the far side of the lock. "And I'm guessing that's them now anyways." All six ponies turned to look at the inner door but it did not open, instead there came a loud hissing sound followed by a crackling flame and possibly searing metal being split. "That don't sound like that door opening normally." Applejack chimed in. Suddenly the airlock swung open and two troopers in full combat armor burst in carrying shotguns. They looked around, saw the scared looking pastel ponies in front of them and lowered their weapons slightly. One of them raised a hand and spoke into his radio. "Breacher team to HQ, we've broken into the suspect ship and have found what appears to be some sort of exotic livestock in the passenger compartment." "Livestock?!" Rarity, one of the few who had achieved near-fluency in Anglic exclaimed loudly and disbelievingly. "You ruffians barge in here and dare to call us 'livestock'?" "Sorry," the embarrassed Ministry of Justice enforcement officer apologized quickly before turning back to his commlink. "HQ, make that six sophonts of unknown species."