The shiny blue marble of Equus hung behind the conical stern of the Yamato in the depths of space. For a second time, Equestria’s first Spacecraft left what was its ‘home’.
Now that all of the crew had been through launch before, and knew what to do, and what not to expect from the ship, far more of them took the time to look out the craft’s windows.
The stars didn’t twinkle. That was probably the most jarring difference. They just sort of... sat there and shone, like a really dim candle. The other off-putting trait of the darkness of space was it was so quiet.
Obviously, the ponies within the ship couldn’t actually tell that over the gentle purr of the engine, but they could sense it. It was uncanny, sitting there in their miniscule can, not knowing what lay beyond the light.
Some ponies felt fear. Others felt alone. Others didn’t have time to be looking out the windows as Celestia was being particularly demanding.
“All X.O to the Tactical Command Room,” the captain's voice called over the P.A.
‘That’s a new one,’ Rainbow Dash thought to herself as she galloped through the ship. Celestia had been commanding the Officers since the launch and even the athletic mare was beginning to feel the burn from running from one end of the ship to the other.
So far, all tactical decisions had been made fairly casually in the bridge. Now, however, they were going to use the room actually designed for such things.
Shrugging off her current task of ‘Making sure Pinkie Pie didn’t eat all the biscuits’ as unimportant, Rainbow veered into a branching hallway.
In the six weeks between the last flight, Dash, as well as everypony else had been rigorously trained in their roles. Infinitely more in depth than Apollo’s personalized crash course, the training actually made time to teach crew the innards of the ship.
By the time training was over, Dash could navigate the ship backwards with a blindfold. Which she had done, after one too many ciders and a round of Truth or Dare with Applejack.
Annoyingly the pegasus was forbidden from flying within the ship's corridors. While there was a gym complete with a small track where she could fly, it irritated her greatly that she couldn’t at least glide from point A to B.
Still, she did outrank most other ponies on the Yamato, and she knew this full well.
Rounding a bend, she saw a rather spindly looking colt with a snot green coat and a huge pair of dork glasses. The young stallion seemed to be paused in the center of the hall, picking up a stack of papers that he had managed to drop.
Not wanted to be blasted by the captain for being late, she neglected to stop and help the colt, and instead took a running leap over him.
The colt seemed shocked, in both being nearly tackled and that a pretty mare was so close to him. He promptly hit the deck, as she sailed overhead, using her wings to extend her glide.
“Sorry!” she called back.
The geeky colt, seemed entranced for a moment that a mare (an element of Harmony no less!) had actually spoken to him, He was so mesmerized that the failed to notice the hoof of his superior come down on the back of his skull.
“Kerbal! Quit gawking and get those papers to accounting! We can’t get any more mops without them!”
Dash snickered to herself as she flew away from the scene. She was so preoccupied looking back at the poor colt that she failed to notice the body of Apollo emerge from a side room and collided with the unsuspecting stallion.
“Oof!,” Apollo grunted as he suddenly found himself going sideways.
“Ow,” Dash grumbled, rubbing the spot on her head she had collided with him at.
“You’ve got a hard shoulder ya know!” Rainbow chastised as if it was his fault.
Apollo picked himself up of the polished steel floor before turning to her.
“Hello to you, too,” he smirked, before lifting himself off the ground into a low hover.
Dash gasped, “You’re not allowed to fly!”
“You’re right, but who's gonna stop the First Officer?” He chuckled.
Dash couldn’t help but let an unbelieving smile cross her face, at Apollo literally flying in the face of the rules he had a part in installing.
“You’re weird,” Dash said, flying up to join him.
“I’ve been told,” Apollo chuckled as he made his way to the T.C.R.
“Coming?”
“Thank you all for coming so promptly,” Celestia said with a smile at the ponies gathered in the large room deep in the armoured core of the ship, “We’ve recently managed to ascertain the function of this room as a form of strategy center, where the senior crew can plan their next move for military operations.”
Twilight looked around the dark room curiously. “I don’t see any maps or charts here, Admiral.”
Celestia smiled. “Doctor.”
“Voila!” The Doctor stated with a flourish of his hoof as the floor suddenly illuminated and displayed the Equus System.
“Amazing people, the creators of this vessel, it uses no magic but highly advanced technology, centuries if not millennia ahead of ours, to control light!” He moved through a floating image of the ship orbiting the planet, causing it to warp slightly before resuming its normal state.
“We’ve found some remote controls that can allow the user to supply the appropriate information, but lacking certain physical compatibilities...” He waved his hoof again, “We’ve had to get creative.”
He raised his hoof and indicated a brace on it. “First off, any non-unicorn will need these in order to carry them. I’ve had several made, and they’re in my pack.” He shrugged off the bag in questioned and opened it to reveal more of the braces. “One each please, no pushing, there’s plenty for everyone.”
Once everypony without a horn had strapped a brace to a forehoof, the Doctor continued, “With this, we can hold the devices since they were clearly made for beings with graspers much like Minotaurs or Griffons. Now then...”
He pulled out one of the devices from a pocket on his vest, placed it in a holder on the brace and demonstrated that it was securely held in place.
“As you can see, moving your hoof around will not dislodge it. You will need to firmly take hold of it with your other hoof to pry it off. Don’t worry, you won’t break it,”
Taking the statement as a challenge, Dash, promptly began to violently shake her hoof in an effort to prove the Doctor’s claims wrong. With the rapid flailing of her hoof doing little to shift the device, all she got was some strange looks.
“Rainbow, stop playing with that,” Twilight said under her breath to the mare next to her. With a huff, Rainbow Dash stopped flailing around before she blushed slightly at all the stares.
With a polite cough, Celestia regained control of the discussion, “Thank you Doctor, once again you have made our jobs in operating this vessel a little easier.” She turned her attention to the screen. “As the good Doctor mentioned before, this is advanced technology, but that is not why you are all here.”
Her horn glowed, causing another device to glow as well before the image before them zoomed out to display a simple diagram showing three large dots; two of them orbiting around the central one, and a small ship icon barely an inch from the middle dot.
It was obvious that the central dot was Equus, and the other two represented both the sun and the moon respectively, yet that was not what Celestia wished to show.
The display zoomed out again, much further this time, until it displayed only a single dot and the ship icon was indicated by a small annotation.
Celestia indicated with a wing, “That is why you are all here.”
There on the display, far from their home planet, was a single white ring with a large dot orbiting along it as Celestia began speaking, “One of the Yamato’s critical systems is something that the databases call the Warp Drive, an engine system that allows this vessel to cross vast stellar distances in the space of seconds. Today, we are going to test the drive by going to that planet.”
Twilight approached the dot with a quizzical expression. “What planet is this Admiral?” she asked, eyeballing the animated dot curiously.
Celestia smiled slightly. “That is the Dark Star.”
Everyone save for the Doctor and Celestia stared in shock at the dot as she started speaking again.
“Of course it isn’t really a star, it is a planet much the same as Equus. They only called it one because they couldn’t tell what it actually was,” Celestia admitted sheepishly, remembering she had disagreed to rename it when Starswirl had discovered it was actually a planet.
“Uh, Captain, not to be a pain, but haven’t you heard the stories about that place?” one of the crew spoke up.
“Of course, but they are just that. Stories.” She smiled, before her expression became more serious. “But they are stories that are found in all civilisations, ours and others, all myths and legend have the Dark Star in one form or another.”
She indicated the dot again. “We know that it is real, but the distance from Equus is so vast that we would ruin our world and our magic simply trying to reach the halfway point. We need to travel so fast that light cannot match us if we are to find out the truth about this world.”
“The Warp Drive...” Twilight spoke out loud in realisation, prompting another smile from Celestia as she continued, “You want to use the Warp Drive to reach and study the Dark Star.”
“Exactly,” Celestia confirmed. “Starswirl the Bearded and many other mages of renown all put forward a theory that the magical leylines on Equus are fed by the Dark Star. While they have never been able to prove it in their lifetimes, this mission should prove or disprove their theories once and for all.”
“Moreover...” Her horn glowed and the display changed to a detailed image of the Yamato’s interior. “The Warp Drive is a key element to this ship’s systems, connected to a single, massive component of unknown purpose. We have already activated the Wave Motion Engine in order to supply it power,” she continued, looking over the both Twilight and Dash.
“With this mission we will know if the Warp Drive is operational, as the operations manual data indicates that automatic cut-offs were designed to prevent the Warp Drive engaging if parts were damaged or missing,” Celestia stated, before indicating with a wing towards the bow of the ship.
“After that, there will only be a device the logs called the Wave Motion Gun.” A small portion of the imagine blinked, indicating the area she spoke of.
“Only when all three are operational will this ship be ready to truly explore the stars.”
Dash smirked as she remembered this tidbit. She had felt privileged that she had been told of its function before the others, after all it fell under her jurisdiction.
“But that is for another time.” Celestia’s words snapped Dash out of her daydream. “All command crew are to ensure that their respective areas of authority are prepared for the Warp Drive test. I want all crew in their EVA suits in case of hull breach or other emergency, and I want full preparedness drills done; fire, hull breach, ammunition explosions, even boarding attempts. I want all crew ready in six hours.”
“Aye, Aye Admiral!” They chorused in reply, before filing out to begin their tasks.
Twilight turned to leave with them, but not before taking one last glance back to the projection, which had switched back to the map, complete with a timer counting down to warp.
A sense of trepidation and dread crawled into her stomach as she looked back at their destination. An annotation had been attached to the dot. Displaying, rather ominously; DARK STAR.
Somehow, she felt as if this was not going to end well.
“For the last time, Pinkie! These have to last us for the entire journey. I don’t care how desperately you need them!” the guard wrestling with the pink menace growled.
“But how am i gonna throw parties without cake! Or sweets! Or, or any food!” Pinkie cried.
“Simple. You won’t!” he barked.
“Whaaaat!” Pinkie gasped comically, backpedaling away from the stallion as if he were radioactive.
“N-no parties?” she whimpered as if it what she had just said was blasphemy.
“No, Pinkie. No parties.”
A telltale lip wobble indicated the coming torrents of salty tears.
“Oh for... Give me strength, Luna,” The guard mumbled under his breath. He didn’t know which one he disliked more. The crying or the over-the-top bubble headed obliviance.
Growling to himself, he began dragging Pinkie Pie away from the Supply Room, “Come on you, if you won’t stay away from the supplies, you can stay in the brig until you calm down.”
With that said, the guard dragged the pony away as other crew members moved out of the way, some sympathetic, but most with the same exasperated annoyance in their eyes at the pink pony’s antics.
“It’s weird isn’t it?” A technician pony spoke to his partner.
“Huh?” The mare responded. Pulling her head from an open panel in the side of a fighter, a wrench in her jaws muffling her speech.
The two aeronautical technicians had been tasked with making sure each and every fighter was in functioning condition. The job was complicated and boring, but getting to do it while floating around in zero-gravity made it worth it.
“Well I mean neither of us are pegasus, yet we’re the best qualified to fix these things,” the stallion said, tapping his hoof against the small ship.
“I find it strange that these things exist at all,” the mare responded, taking the wrench from her mouth.
“I mean, these things are alien, and we’re disgracing them by rubbing our grubby hooves all over them.”
The stallion rolled his eyes. He’d forgotten that his partner thought so very highly of the species that built the Yamato.
“I find it amazing that some creature out there managed to get something this big and cumbersome to fly,” her eyes seemed to twinkle as she said this.
“Can you imagine what it was like for them? Seeing a creation of their own soar through the air? It’s like if you or me managed to get our living room couch to fly. I would love to have seen how they got this far.”
“What do you mean by that?” the stallion asked.
“Well they couldn’t have gone straight from ground pounding to spaceship could they?” she deadpanned.
“We did,” he replied smugly.
“What I mean is that; how long do you think it took them to go from their first flight to space travel?”
“I dunno. Sixty years?” he offered.
“Sixty! That’s your guess? Only sixty years?” The mare cried crawling over the fighter to look him in the eye.
The stallion gave her a strange look. “You’re weird, Lyra. You know that right?”
Six hours later, the X.O had done as they had been requested. Each pony under their respective station was suited up and bracing. The Doctor stood in the small observation room that hung above the engine, eyeing the machine critically.
‘Please work,’ he thought to himself.
The bridge crew sat in their seats within the control center of the ship. Heavy straps anchored them to the high-tech chairs, each of them were intently focused on the readout in front of them.
Nopony spoke a word, all intently waiting on the timer, displayed on the screen on the ceiling to reach zero. Being part of the weapons systems, Rainbow Dash really had nothing to do other than watch the clock.
Tearing her eyes from the screen above her, her attention shifted to the display before her. It irked her that she had no opportunity to test her division’s functions yet. After all, what was a weapons officer without weapons?
Watching the boring, predictable read out from the screens had become a decent enough way to calm herself before the warp. The endless scrolling of the same message;
‘-ERROR- NO CHARGE- WEAPONS-’
Rainbow rolled her eyes. Of course the weapons had no charge, they had been offline since launch. Yet the computer faithfully scanned the systems and displayed the same message.
That was until something changed.
‘-ERROR- NO CHA@&##$R^RAI##INB=)OWDDDA*%%SH-’ The machine garbled.
“What the?” Dash recoiled, in shock. She was certain the random mash of code had just spelled out her name.
The monitor had gone back to displaying its previous message, the system seemingly unaware of the small hiccup.
Rainbow desperately began to scroll back up, trying to find the message. But the influx of the same boring message began to mount to quickly for her to pinpoint just the one.
“Prepare for warp. T-minus thirty seconds,” the P.A blared, accompanied by a blaring siren.
Dash’s eyes shot back up to the huge screen above her. Sure enough, the display read only a few scant moments left.
Frantically, Dash readjusted herself in her seat, making sure the straps were taut and her helmet was tightly secured.
“T-minus twenty seconds.”
The ship began to rumble around them as the Wave Motion Engine began to pick up. The two flywheels spun faster and faster, drowning the engine room in a noisy haze.
“T-minus ten seconds.”
A light shined brightly out in the reaches of space directly ahead of the Yamato’s bow. The shaking intensified, causing loose items to jiggle around. Dash lifted an enclosed hoof to shield her eyes from the pinpoint of light that was growing off the bow.
“T-minus, five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
“Warp!” Twilight shouted as the ship chimed to the timer. The throttle was jammed into full and the engine responded by roaring angrily.
The flywheels spun faster than ever before, buffering the air around them. A glow emanated from between them and their mountings blinding those inside the bay.
The normal, orange cone of flame, turned into a vicious tail of blue and white power. Three pretty trails of sparks outskirts around the flame adding to the brilliance of the volcanic thrust coming from the massive thrusters at the rear of the ship.
Finally, The bow collided hard into the wall of white light. Time seemed to slow as the light engulfed the ship with a strange, alien roar, before the light finally engulfed the ship completely.
The light wall shrunk, swallowing the Yamato, until there was nothing left except a small spear of light that quickly dissipated.
Time slowed to a crawl, and though the other ponies onboard the vessel could not perceive the experience, Celestia could perceive it, and in that moment she saw something.
Figures, faded and similar in shape to the few intact pictures that had been found of the crew, moved about the bridge. Some were seated where Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and the other bridge crew were seated, operating consoles with considerable ease, while some moved about, turning to her position.
It was then that Celestia felt something, a presence, and she turned her head slightly to see...
Time resumed its flow in a flash of light as the Yamato exited Warp Space, ice peeling off the ship in a glittering cloud, and Celestia blinked.
“Admiral?” Celestia’s head jerked to stare at Apollo, who regarded her with a cautiously neutral expression. “Are you alright?”
“I...” Celestia shook her head, “I’m fine, First Officer, the jump just interacted strangely with my magic, that is all.”
Apollo nodded and turned back to his console, apparently satisfied, while Celestia smiled reassuringly at Twilight’s worried stare.
Even so, her gaze flicked ever so slightly to her left, as if trying to see something in the edge of her vision, before she turned to the task at hand, “Status Report!” she barked.
“Engineering reports all green. No anomalies to report in the Wave Motion Engine, and the Warp Drive performed perfectly!” came the report from the pony at the Engineering console, “We did it Captain! We have arrived exactly two hours away from the Dark Star!”
Celestia’s smile this time was genuine and proud, “Well done, my little ponies. Twilight, set course for the Dark Star’s orbit.”
Twilight Sparkle nodded, pitching the Yamato toward the strange, black planet, resuming its travel.
She couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of dread well within the pit of her stomach as the smoky world filled the Yamato’s window.