//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: What could possibly go wrong? // Story: Through The Starry Sky // by Valtyra //------------------------------// Celestia spun around in he specifically made space suit. It had been created out of the lightest, but most secure materials that ponies could engineer. She looked herself over and grinned. "This is so cool!" Celestia lifter her wings and could barely believe how light and flexible the material was on her body. The suit started on her hooves as carbon fibre horseshoes that sectioned off into panels, making their way up her legs and ending under her chest. It then curved and was supported by rows of mithril plates that attached to her underside and wrapped around her body, keeping that section together. After that, the wings. The wing sections attached to the body using a sealed lock that could freeze the limbs if the user so desired. The length of the wings were wrapped in a case of clear crystal and were heat and kinetic resistant. The edge of the wings had a row of metal keeping the crystal shell in place. Taylor nodded, "It's very nice, ma'am." The Princess looked back at her after inspecting the underside of her wings, "Where's your suit?" "I won't be needing one, I'm not going into what might be an alien craft." "But, I hoof picked you to come with me." The Princess frowned, "Should I get somepony else?" "Of course not, Princess," Taylor replied, wandering over to the small shuttle that had been laid out for the group. She walked up the steps and turned back, her hooves already in the ship, "I doubt either of you can fly one of these though..." The Princess blinked, said, "Oh yeah," and face-hoofed herself. The door opened and Spike walked into the room. "Let's go, we're wasting time," he said, throwing Celestia's helmet over to her. She caught it in her magic and gave him a glare. "Thank you, but we were waiting for you." "I had things to do," he replied, walking over to his own suit and slipping it on. His suit was much more streamlined. It was plain black and skin-tight. He retracted the claws on his hands and feet and buckled up the suit, making it air-tight. Slapping the last buckle into place, he walked into the shuttle and sat down, pulling the belt around himself. Celestia joined him after and sat down. She fiddled with her belt for a couple of minutes, having some trouble before Spike sighed and helped her. "Thank you," she mumbled. The next few minutes were silence, save for Taylor clicking and pushing buttons on the control dashboard. She raised the door and it sealed with a hiss, blowing warm air into Celestia's face. Taylor placed a headset onto her head and pressed another button on the console, magically sealing the front of the ship from the back. "HMS Twilight, this is meet and greet, we are on our way to the party." The sound of de-pressurisation could be heard as the hanger vacuumed the air out into the rest of the ship. Once the sound died down, the bulkheads slowly opened with small lights flashing to signal the event. Taylor pulled up on the controls and the shuttle rumbled as the engines roared to life. Celestia held onto her belt as hard as she could while the craft lifted of the pad. Taylor jerked the controls back and the shuttle slowly moved backwards out of the hanger and into the void of space. Everyone shivered as they passed through the magical shield around the ship. Celestia let her grip go and found herself gently lifting off of her seat. She looked over to Spike and found him floating in the same position, slightly above his seat. Celestia rolled her eyes and nudged him with a bit of magic. He turned back, "Yes?" "Did you forget to have fun while in that forest?" Spike glared and faced the front, "I had no contact with any pony for over three hundred years, what do you think?" He clenched his hands and hopped she would be quiet for the rest of the journey; no such luck. "I heard how Luna got you on board..." Celestia teased. "Oh yeah, what did she lie about this time?" Celestia blinked before smirking, "She said you are going in a date with her." she leaned over and tried peering around the chair in front of her, but couldn't and fell back into her own seat. "I'll have words with her when we get back." The way Spike said those words made Celestia shudder. She didn't know if he would actually be angry with her, but seeing their history, it wouldn't be surprising and it would end up bloody. "If she's lying, she only meant it as a joke..." Spike kept quiet as the ship floated forwards, powered only by the momentum that it generated earlier. Throughout the flight Taylor could hear everything that had transpired, yet didn't show it. "We're nearing the field of debris," She said, tilting the screen slightly to adjust for the glare bouncing off the crystals. "I will sit tight after I drop you in the main craft. I want you to come back if anything happens, okay?" "Yes, ma'am," Spike said as he gripped the handles above him and moved himself over to the door. Celestia decided to stay in her seat as moving around would be too disastrous with hooves. The shuttle entered the field of debris and Taylor tinted the screen and turned off all lights and communication. "Just in case," she said, seeing Celestia give her a questioning look. "We don't know if anything is what we'd consider alive." Celestia nodded and looked out of the one tiny hole that the shuttle could call a window and gasped. She saw their own shuttle reflect off a nearby crystal millions of times as it was refracted and bounced off of other crystals nearby. The shuttle passed by one massive crystal that easily dwarfed Canterlot with room to spare then passed into open space again. Celestia watched as all the far off crystal ships reflected the light, making them look like glittering stars, encircling the alien ship. "Beautiful..." Celestia mumbled, pressing her face closer to the small hole, trying to get a better view. Gradually the ship slowed to a stop, docking alongside the alien vessel. Taylor spun her chair around and took off the headset, "This is where it gets tricky. We couldn't see any discernable docking hatch or hanger bay, so... I had to stop beside an exposed section of the interior." Celestia nodded, "Alright. How much air do we have?" "You should have about five hours each, the magic enchanted in your suits will convert the carbon dioxide back into breathable oxygen." Taylor motioned to her head, "If you press there, you will be able to talk to me. You'll talk to each other by default." The two nodded and Taylor swirled the chair back around, "Put on your helmets." Spike and Celestia did that and both of their suits hissed as they were sealed. Celestia's helmet came up with a large number of displays of maps and sensor readings, while keeping her general line of sight unobstructed. Spike's displayed his and Celestia's health vitals and numerous readings about emotional state and their environment. The door to the shuttle hissed and the air was sucked out of the compartment and back into a different section of the ship. The door opened and the two were greeted with a mass of destroyed compartments that looked bare, by pony standards. "Remember, come back if anything happens!" Taylor said over the intercom. Celestia unbundled her belt and slowly drifted over to Spike who caught her and gently put her down. "Got it," she replied, nodding. "Let's go," Spike said, stretching his body as if uncomfortable. He stepped forwards and placed his boot on the crystalline surface of the alien craft, not noticing anything strange. Spike waved Celestia over and felt her weight push him as she jumped over. "It's too clean..." Spike said breathlessly as he checked the visors displays. "No fluids of any kind... Strange." He thought as he looked over to the Princess who was panting, "Are you okay?" He checked Celestia's health on his screen: Heart-rate: elevated. She nodded, "Yeah, this magic is extremely thick though." Celestia used her magic to bring a small three dimensional map of the area onto both of their displays. "We should follow this line if we want to get to the centre of the ship," Celestia said, a small holographic line appearing on the floor. "I'll take point, don't wander off." "Wouldn't dream of it," she mumbled, keeping close to Spike as the two walked through the corridors. Each corridor seemed exactly like any other and Celestia was sure that if they didn't have the map they wouldn't find their way out. They passed by several walls that had alien inscriptions on them that looked like hieroglyphs from pre-Equestria. The two of them stopped and Celestia ran her hoof over the pictures with amazement, "This is amazing, real images of aliens!" She used her magic and let it wash over the pictures, capturing them in a magical photograph. She squinted at the first proper section, "This is some sort of... it looks like you, Spike!" She saw Spike's blip on the map next to hers stop and carried on. "It stands upright and looks to be opening something, a box maybe?" The Princess pointed towards the box, which was intricately carved, more so than the entire wall and it was obvious that an extreme amount of care was taken in creating this. Her eyes widened, "This must be something akin to their religion or..." Celestia held her excitement in as her eyes travelled to the next section. "This part, the box is open and a stream of something is floating out." Her breath sped up in anticipation for the last part but was stopped by Spike. He placed his hand on her shoulder and said, "The centre is close, we should go." Celestia looked at Spike and back at the wall, "Now." The Princess rolled her eyes and nodded, "Fine, I'll look at it later." Spike took point again and they made their way ever forwards towards the centre of the ship. They passed a few more walls, which seemed to increase in variety, the closer they got. Each time a new one popped up, Celestia would take a snapshot of it and carry on. Eventually the pair reached the only thing that resembled a door on the ship; the only thing to try and restrict their movement. It was a different color than the rest of the ship; a pale gold that contrasted with the deep purple that the rest of the ship was made of. Spike walked up to it and pushed, receiving a forceful blast backwards and landing on his back. Celestia rushed over and helped him up, checking his suit for any damage. He shook her off after a quick diagnostic test and looked the door over. He glared at the display and saw it wasn't registering on any of the normal readouts and the ones that it was, we're barely able to sense it. After a tense few minutes, he stepped back and said, "I'm stumped, you can try." Celestia shook her head and paced forwards, looking the door over. Around the edges were some sort of glyphs; tiny etchings that anyone not skilled in the art of magic would miss. "No wonder Spike missed them..." she thought with a small smirk, before leaning in to read them. The impact that aliens, outer-space aliens used the same language for magic wasn't lost on her, but she decided to push that to the back of her mind for now, seeing as they were ever so slowly running out of air and worrying about it wouldn't help. Celestia read along the side of the door and put the pieces together. She turned and looked at Spike, "It's a sealing spell and probably the cause for the magic our ship sensed." She frowned and looked back at the door, "But, this is the biggest one I've ever seen. If it's around this section, then it's either stopping something getting out, or stopping a whole load of things from getting in." Her voice grew deep and she looked around at the destruction that had made its way through to the centre of the ship, "It would take several armies to break through this..." "We don't have several armies; even on Equis." Spike remarked. "No, but you have me. Back up and around the corner." Spike frowned, "Did you really compare yourself to several armies?" Celestia turned her head and gave him a glare, making him back up. She lit her horn and channelled all of her magic into a dispel spell. She had only done this spell once before, when Twilight had made the entire population of Ponyville enamoured with her doll using an extremely strong mental shift spell. This brought back memories of her and Celestia felt the twinge in her heart; setting off alarms in Spike's suit. Celestia: Emotional distress. Spike read the words and blinked through the tear inducing light to see Celestia, head down and eyes shut. He looked away, his thoughts and emotions muddled themselves up. Celestia screamed as she discharged her spell at the door, the magic being absorbed by the unknown substance. The princess fell to her knees and gasped for breath as a pair of arms wrapped around her barrel and gently kept her from hitting the deck. Spike looked at the door with amazement and then anger, "What the hell!" He placed Celestia down and walked up to it, "We came all this way and it doesn't even open!" Balling his fist, Spike reared back and punched the door leaving a large dent in it. He blinked and looked at his fist then back at the door. Slowly he pressed his palm up to the door and smiled when he wasn't blasted back. "Spike, help me up..." Celestia croaked from behind. Trying and failing to get to her hooves. Wordlessly, he walked over and helped her to her hooves. He looked away as she groaned and charged her horn, launching white hot magic at the door. The metal glowed and sizzled away before exploding outwards as a rush of air made its way past the pair. Spike gripped the Princess with one hand around her barrel and held onto a pillar with the other. He gripped tighter as the air flow increased and ripped chunks of metal way and blew holes in the side of the ship. "What's going on?!" Taylor screamed at them over the intercom. "I have pieces of the ship flying out everywhere!" "Settle down, we opened an air-tight section of the ship," Spike replied, double pressing his helmet. "We're fine, by the way." Taylor blushed, "Good. I take it you're carrying on?" "Yeah," Spike confirmed as he placed Celestia down. "We're in the central part now." "Alright, I'll message the ship and tell them we won't be much longer, Taylor out." Spike heard a click and glanced at Celestia who seemed fine with what happened. She returned the look and said, "Thank you." "Don't mention it." The pair walked through the hole and into a whole different world. The floor was made of tiled marble of different shades, the walls were wallpapered with stars and planets and several granite pillars held the ceiling up. All in all, it looked like something out of roam. In the middle of the room stood a large box, not unlike the one Celestia saw on the hieroglyphs and two small glowing cubes next to it. Spike noticed that they were more weighted here and didn't feel the need to waste their power using the magical boots and horseshoes to stick to the floor. Celestia ruffled her wings as she looked at the small cubes laying next to the box. She walked over and inspected them. There were a number of glyphs around them as well, but these ones she couldn't make out and instead turned her attention to the box. Looking it over, she couldn't see any discernable glyphs or traps, but she hadn’t had to deal with any in some time. She used her magic and poked the box, expecting something to happen. When nothing did, she raised an eyebrow, "Must be a normal box..." "Are you sure?" Spike asked as he moved closer, an eye on the door and his map. "Make this quick, we only have twenty minutes of air left." Celestia nodded, then decided the best course of action would be to open it and find out what was in the box; if it was dangerous she would leave it and if it was anything else, she would take it with her. Lifting a hoof up, she placed it under the rim on the box and grunted as she lifted, finding it surprisingly heavy for something so small. As the top came up, a golden glow emanated from within, causing Celestia to squint and then close her eyes altogether. A series of high pitched alarms rang on Spikes suit and he spun around to see Celestia suspended in some sort of golden glow. He read the alarms and saw: Celestia: Mental Trauma, Celestia: Imminent death. Running forwards he hit into a force field stopping him, "Celestia!" Spike screamed as he smashed the force field with enough strength to crush boulders, being rewarded with a series of ripples passing over the force field. The glow brightened as Spike's suit blared out the final warning, Celestia: Deceased.