//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Waking Up // Story: Strange New Worlds // by Blue Fire //------------------------------// What happened? Where am I? Why is my body hurting that much? I must be in Sickbay.. "Computer, activate EMH." "Computer?" Janeway overcame her tiredness and opened her eyes. Instead of being in sickbay as she expected she was in a dark room. After adjusting to the light level she realized that she was in the Delta Flyer, or what was left of it. All consoles were destroyed, flames were blazing out of the transporter. Great, the new Delta Flyer wasn't even three months on duty and now it's nothing more than a pile of scrap. What for? I gave rushed orders, that's the reason. I tried to make friends and risked the life of my crew. Why am I making the wrong decisions all the time? Since we were thrown to the Delta Quadrant I made only a handful right decisions, but countless wrong ones. Hell, we should have used the Caretaker's array and destroyed it with a delay detonator in the Tricobalt device. Why didn't I think about it before blowing up the entire Phalanx? My wrong decision caused the death of dozens of crewmen. How many? I... I am not even sure, just too many! She looked over to Seven and Tom, who were unconscious and laying at the rest of their stations. The front window was splintered but not broken, showing a green hill and some horses. After turning away to grab a fire extinguisher the Captain of the Voyager paused. Were these horses pink and blue? She went back to the cracked windshield and took a closer look at the strangely colored equines. Is the one in the middle wearing a crown? Wait, it has wings, and a horn. What's going on? Am I dead? The smell of smoke turned her attention back to the transporter. Using two extinguishers she stopped the fire. The noise she made in the process woke up the others. Besides her messy hair, Seven looked like freshly out of her alcove while the pilot had a bleeding nose and his uniform was burned, just as his hair. "Captain, did you see this?" Tom asked and pointed out of the window. "Yes Mr. Paris. I’m glad I am not the only one able to see them." "Why were you concerned about it Captain?" "Because Unicorns and Pegasi are just fairy tales you tell six year old children, Seven. Or at least I thought so until now." "It seems that your bedtime stories have their real counterpart in the Delta Quadrant." "But the sensors showed Tetryon emissions and massive gravimetric anomalies. Creating them is far beyond our capabilities..." "Captain, I don't want to interrupt you, but the EPS-conduits are leaking. We have to get out of here, NOW!" "Can't we seal it somehow?" Kathryn asked desperately. "Not without an EV-suit and there is a plasma leak between us and the suits." To underline his words blue smoke streamed out of the rear section of the shuttlecraft. "Do we have any Phasers here?" "No Captain, but I doubt that we will need them. If they wanted to kill us they would have done it already" Seven of Nine replied.  Hopefully this won't be another wrong decision. "Alright, let's get out of here" Reluctantly she grabbed a first-aid kit and turned around. "Ahm, Mr. Paris, how are we supposed to get out of here?" "While building the second Flyer I added several extras, like an emergency exit. Wait a second..." The Lieutenant arched over his console, grabbed two levers at the lower edge of the windscreen and slid them towards the middle of it. With a clicking the black pane unfastened from its frame. Tom kicked the window out of it completely. "After you Captain." Captain Kathryn Janeway crawled out of the silver starship and stood up from the muddy ground. She realized that she was standing on an acre, surrounded by dozens of horses in all colors. They were smaller than the horses she had back home in Bloomington and had larger eyes. "Computer, end program" she mumbled but nothing happened besides Tom and Seven crawling out of the wreckage and looking around. One horse was eye-catching. It was larger than Janeway and nearly had the size of a Hirogen. It was a pegasus-unicorn-hybrid, having both, a horn and wings. It was white-coated with a mane going from green to violet, which seemed to be flowing in a permanent breeze. As it noticed Janeway's attention it stepped out of the crowd surrounding the impact site and said something. Sadly the universal translator in her communicator wasn't as good like the one aboard Voyager, so it took a few sentences until Kathryn was able to understand it. "... do you even speak our language?" a feminine voice finished. "No, but I have a device allowing me to speak with you. My name is Kathryn Janeway and this are Lieutenant Tom Paris and Seven of Nine." "I am Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria. I welcome you in the name of our nation and in the name of my sister, Princess Luna." Seven was right, they show no hostility. Relax Kathryn, it's nothing more than a normal first contact "I am very sorry for crashing on your planet. After receiving your transmission I decided that it would be the best to check if everything is alright. We were caught in an anomaly and lost control." "I saw what happened to you and I am the one who must apologize. My sister didn't intend to take your ship down as she raised the Moon" What? Raise the moon? Most likely a wrong translation. "I am sorry but my translator is not working correctly. Could you please repeat your last sentence, Princess?" "I said that I am the one who is sorry. My sister didn't know that your ship was out there as she raised the Moon." "What do you mean by raising the Moon?" "My sister and I are not only the sovereigns of Equestria, we are also caretakers. We use our Alicorn Magic to guide the Sun and the Moon." Caretakers, as in 'The Caretaker'? Could this be real? Wait, Magic? What is that supposed to mean? "What exactly is your Alicorn Magic, Princess?" The confused Captain of the U.S.S. Voyager asked. "I am able to influence the trajectory of the Sun while my sister, Princess Luna, is able to do the same with the Moon" "But how do you manage to move them? What is your Magic?" "Is there no Magic on your planet, Captain?" Celestia asked. I must be dreaming. "No. My species has encountered thousands of other sapient species, but none of them used Magic. Back on my home planet magic is nothing more than a myth." Kathryn realized that every pair of eyes from the entire crowd was locked on her. All these pink, blue, green, yellow and brown ponies staring at her made the Starfleet captain feel like being an attraction in a circus. None of them had seen a human before, but this didn't cheer Janeway up. "I think we should continue our conversation with a little more privacy." Celesia suggested as if she could read her mind. "I have nothing to object." "Now since you are not familiar with Magic, I will show you something" These were the last words the humans heard before being covered in a golden light.