//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - Any Landing You Can Walk Away From... // Story: Star Trek: You Can't Go Home Again // by Aceman67 //------------------------------// Personal Log, Stardate 62261.9 I'm a couple hours into my four day journey to visit my sister on Trill. I haven't seen Melanie since I was promoted last year, and I intend to surprise her on her birthday by showing up on her front door. As much as I love what I do, I mean really, who wouldn't like driving three million metric ton starship for a living?; I do miss being able to just drop everything and go visit family. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't give up my commission on a whim, I'm proud to be in Starfleet, I just miss my family sometimes. There has been a number of times in the past few years where things had gotten down right dangerous and actually made me think about resigning and moving to Trill to work for her husband's shipping company; Deep Space Nine being destroyed, the Assassination of President Bacco; to name a few. Those really gave me pause. Given the current political situation, I.E, our de-facto cold war with the Typhon Pact powers, was I really doing the right thing putting this uniform on? Could I be doing something else to help others? It's been six years since the Borg invasion and we're still picking up the pieces, and the cargo runs my brother-in-law does with his company is doing a lot to alleviate that suffering. I don't know; just food for thought I guess. End Log. I stretched and relaxed in the pilot's seat. Closing my eyes, I listened only to the sound of the shuttle Nichola Goddard around me. The soft, steady thrumming of the warp core, the almost inaudible pulse of the torque sensors, and the ever present sound of flowing air from the environmental systems. All of it was soothing and peaceful, and any deviation from that sound meant something was amiss. Living aboard a starship did take getting used too. Some of my classmates had spent a few sleepless nights on their first academy cruise, unable to rest because of the 'buzz' the ship made, but not me, I slept like a baby. Born on a tramp freighter between Andor and Tellar, I spent the majority of my life in space and ironically found it harder to sleep in my 'quiet' dorm at the academy, much to the annoyance of my roommate. Grabbing the PADD I left for a moment on the top of the pilots console, I resumed reading the twenty-first century novel my Captain had recommended. Authored by a guy named Stephen King, it was an intriguing story about a High School English teacher who uses a portal through time in the basement of a local diner to travel back to stop the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. When Captian Rosenthal suggested the book to me, I chuckled at the premise, but a few chapters in after a slow dry start, I was hooked. A soft notification from the navigational computer annoyingly dragged my attention away from the book. A quarter light-year away, an ion storm was picking up in intensity and the shuttle's course went right through the middle of it. "Well, you don't look too friendly, lets just leave you be, shall we?" I said to no one, entering the commands needed to plot a new course around the storm. Satisfied with the correction and only adding forty minutes to the journey, I filed a notification of the course change and new time of arrival to the Starbase on Trill, set the shuttle to auto-pilot, grabbed my book and went into the aft cabin to see a pillow about some sleep. My eyes flung open as an odd sensation washed over me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The sound of the shuttle, while to an untrained ear was normal, to me, something was off. There was a soft buzzing vibration in the air. Making my way to the cockpit, the deck under me bucked, sending me flying at the bulkhead. Unable to get my arms up to brace myself, my head met metal and I saw stars. It took me several minutes to recover. The ringing in my ears was unbearable, but that was nothing compared to the cacophony of alarms sounding from every direction. Taking in my surroundings, I found the cockpit filled with smoke from burnt out consoles, the smokes acrid smell burning my nose. "Computer, Report!" I managed to croak through the smoke. "Impulse propulsion offline; Warp-Core has been ejected due to containment failure. Structural Damage to port nacelle, uncontrolled venting of drive plasma in progress. Port Anti-Matter containment pod ejected due to containment failure. Navigational Deflector damaged, operating at twenty-two percent efficiency. Shields offline. Communications Offline. Environmental Systems damaged, operating at sixty-three percent efficiency." "Well, what is functioning? What isn't damaged?" "Reaction Control System Thrusters, inertial dampeners, replicators..." "Oh, shit." I exclaimed, looking over the navigational data before me. The shuttle had been thrown off course by... something; and was headed right into the heart of the ion storm, and I had less than twenty minutes to figure something out or I would be literally toast, fried by the storms ionizing radiation. I had two options: try and get impulse drive back online and hope I can get around the storm in time, or attempt to get shields functioning and try and ride the storm out. I was no engineer, but I knew my way around an engine better than I knew the shield systems, so I set to work on the impulse drive. "Computer, launch the distress beacon." I ordered, opening the access hatch in the center of the deck near the aft hatch. "Unable to comply, beacon launch assembly damaged, beacon destroyed." Lovely. Grabbing the tools I needed started replacing burnt out components with spares and bypassing damaged conduits in an attempt to jerry-rig the non-functioning machinery back to life. Placing the final spare component needed, the impulse drive thrummed to life, and along with it the ambient light of the cabin noticeably brightened. Running to the cockpit and jumping into the pilot's seat, I quickly took control of the small vessel and started to pull away from the edge of the ion storm. It was going to be close, only grazing the outer-most edge of the deadly storm. Or so I thought. A surge of energy flashed towards the string of plasma venting from the shuttle's port side, its light overwhelming the shuttle viewport's ability to filter ultra bright light, leaving me temporarily blinded. Then everything, every part of me, felt like I was electrically charged and my head started to spin from intense vertigo. Drawing from my pilot training, I clenched my jaw and focused on a single point on the console in front of me, easing some of the dizziness, but that too was short lived, as I was nearly thrown from my chair as the shuttle's inertial dampeners were suddenly overwhelmed, triggering the activation of the chairs automatic restraints. Through the viewport I saw a tumbling star-field, and only briefly catching a glimpse of what could be a planet. "Computer, Scan the planet!" I Scream, straining my arms forward to activate the RCS thrusters to get the shuttle's tumble under control. "Class-M, gravity zero point nine gee, atmospheric pressure zero point zero five percent above earth sea-level." "Well, seems I don't have much choice..." I told no one, as I brought the nose of the shuttle up and in line with the planet. Picking the center of the main continent that seemed to have plenty of grasslands, I began my atmospheric decent, praying that the battered shuttle would hold up in such a damaged state. "Come on, Scootaloo, it's getting late! I'm tired." Sweetie Belle said in protest to her fellow crusader. Lit by a single candle, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were laying in a circle in their clubhouse in sleeping bags. Scootaloo had her face close to the flame to add intensity to the horror story she was telling, or at least she was attempting to tell, judging by the fact that neither Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle were impressed. "Come on! It can't be that bad." Scootaloo said in resignation. "It's al'rite Scootaloo, I guess we aren't good story teller's-" Apple Bloom began to say as a rumbling that started to shake the clubhouse interrupted her. Jumping out of bed, the three fillies crowded the window and stared out at the sky. Above them, a fiery ball streaked across the sky, and when it passed, a loud sonic boom exploded in the air, its shockwave rocked the tree that held the clubhouse and rustled the leaves of every tree in all of Sweet Apple Acres. The pattering of apples falling from trees could be heard for several seconds afterward. It was soon followed by a low crash in the distance with a flash of light on the horizon. "What in Tar-nation was that?" Apple Bloom exclaimed "It looks like it fell near Fluttershy's place!" Scootaloo yelled, making her way to the clubhouse exit. "Where're ya going Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom asked. "Where do you think!" she responded. "I'm checking that out, it'll be so AWESOME!" she said, imitating Rainbow Dash. "I want to see it too," Sweetie Belle said meekly, but with enthusiasm in her voice as she followed Scootaloo out of the door. Reluctantly, Apple Bloom followed her friend and jumped into the back of the wagon they had attached to Scootaloo's scooter just as the young pegasus took them on their way. Arriving at where they thought the thing they saw landed, they found a long and wide divot in the ground leading up to what looked like a large silver colored box with smoke rising all around it. Curiosity got the better of the three fillies as they made their way towards the large object. On the back of it there appeared to be a large door with what looked to be a doorbell beside it. In an uncharacteristic act of courage, Sweetie Belle touched the doorbell with her hoof, causing the back hatch of the shuttle to open. Smoke billowed out, revealing the darkened interior, briefly lit by the flashing overhead lighting. "Hello?" Sweetie Belle called out, slowly taking tentative steps inside, her fellow crusaders following behind. "Is anypony in here?" Making their way to the front of the shuttle, all three of them jumped back in fear as a pained groan emanated from something in one of the two chairs in front of them. It had weird bare pinkish skin with brown hair on its head, and it wore black and gray clothing with a red collar that had two gold dots affixed to it. Its eyes fluttered open. It appeared to look around then winced in pain as it tried to lift both arms to its chest to undo the chairs restraints. Only one arm was able to accomplish the task. Now free of the chair, it fell to the ground, letting out a cry of pain, causing the crusaders to take another step back. The creature before them rolled over and its eyes met theirs. "Lani ist," it said, making no sense at all to the three fillies, their confusion showing on their faces. "Lani ist, biten tir eri-tac." It said, pointing at the bulkhead behind them. Getting more confused looks, he rolled his eyes and reached for the gold and silver broach on his chest, which was visibly broken. After pulling himself up to a sitting position, he took his working arm and used two of the... claws? Talons? None of the crusaders had seen anything like it before, it looked like a minotaur's hand but smaller; on his hoof and pointed at his eyes, then theirs. Sweetie Belle seemed to understand what the creature was trying to convey, stepping forward. It smiled and pointed again at the bulkhead behind them. Looking to where he was pointing, Sweetie Belle saw a gray box with a red cross on it. "A First Aid Kit!" She cried out. Grabbing the med-kit off the wall with her magic, she levitated it over to the creature before him, who looked on in wide-eyed wonder, but his amazement didn't last long as he quickly opened it and grabbed a cylindrical device from it, put a small tube in it and pressed it to his neck with a small hiss, causing his shoulders to visibly relax, the tension on his face melting away. Pulling another device from the kit, he opened it, turning on all sorts of lights and sounds. Pressing a few buttons he started to pass the front of the device in front of himself then turning it to look at its front, causing the look of tension to reappear. Pressing a few more buttons, he pointed the device at the three fillies. "Ras lytegnpbvz." it said, pointing at his mouth then at us. "Are you ok?" Apple Bloom said. Getting an encouraging look from the creature and more motions directed at us. "We can't understand you." Scootaloo said. This time the device gave off a positive sounding chime and a smile returned to the creatures face. "Oh, thank god, the universal translator works," the creature said, surprising all three ponies. Turning to the three of them, he began to speak. "I'm hurt really bad, I need help."