Small Spoiler Warning for for those who haven't read the ST: Destiny trilogy novels, but intend to.
Sunlight! I thought to myself, stopping for a moment after exiting the hospital. The weather outside was perfect and beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the temperature was more than comfortable.
"Beautiful day today, isn't it?" Twilight asked, turning to face me after she noticed I had lost pace with her.
"It's perfect," I told her, reaching up to rub my aching shoulder.
"I'll be sure to pass that along to the town's weather team, it'll mean something to them that a visitor appreciates their work."
"You have weather control technology?" I asked with surprise coming through in my voice then picking up my pace to catch up with her.
"No, all pegasi have an innate ability to manipulate clouds, allowing them to affect the weather." She told me in a matter-of-fact tone. Wow, she really is like my sister. "How does your society control the weather?"
"We didn't always have the ability to do so, so we were at the mercy of nature in that regard. A little over three hundred years ago we developed means to artificially manipulate weather patterns and were able to stabilize Earth's climate. It was a good thing we did too. At the time our species had started weaning ourselves off of our reliance on burning fossil fuels for energy, which produced a lot of pollution causing what we called the 'greenhouse effect', the pollution trapped the heat from our sun in the atmosphere and raised temperatures globally." I explained, having her undivided attention. "But don't ask me how it works, I'm not an engineer or a scientist."
We continued our pleasant walk towards the field where I had crashed when a thought dawned on me.
"How are you so calm?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"About all of this. You, and everyone else who knows about me, just found out that you're not alone in the universe. You're whole world view just changed." I told her. "I've been part of two first-contact situations before this, and both of them were with species who had no idea there was really alien life out in the cosmos. One of them couldn't handle it and to this day their government has taken a xenophobic isolationist stance and cut off all outside communications."
The winged unicorn next to me, who's head came up to my shoulders, just laughed. "Would you believe me if I told you that I've been through weirder things?" I met her gaze with my own that was laced with skepticism. "Two weeks ago I traveled through a mirror that links this dimension with another one where there are copies of everyone in this town, but they were human like you." She stopped in her tracks and looked up at me as I processed what she told me.
"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one, but you're going to have to tell me about that later. Next you're probably going to tell me that I wasn't hallucinating when I saw that small unicorn I met yesterday levitate something with her mind."
"No, you weren't, telekinesis is an easy magic spell to learn, even for a filly her age."
Don't say it. My brain told me. You get rude sometimes when you don't believe something.
"You're shitting me." Oh, here we go.
"All unicorns can use magic to varying degrees, even alicorns like myself can use magic; although we can perform it more powerfully." She told me without missing a beat. Everything about her voice, her mannerisms, the look on her face; it all told me that she was telling the truth. "In fact, all ponies have at least some magical affinity. It's how pegasi can manipulate clouds and control the weather. It's how earth ponies have a natural affinity for growing plants."
Then a mischievous smile crossed her face as her horn was bathed in a soft lavender glow and she literally blinked out of existence and appeared several feet away where she lapsed into a fit of giggles as she stared at my face that, embarrassingly, was left slack-jawed.
"What... How'd... What?.." I stammered. Feeling dizzy, my knees weakened. "I think I need to sit down." Twilight then, teleported I guess, back to my side and allowed me to place my hand on her withers and helped me sit on a nearby boulder.
"Now who's world-view just changed?" She asked, not even bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
"Well. That's a thing." I finally said after a long pause.
"Humans must have some magic as well," Twilight stated, sitting on her haunches next to me.
"I'm afraid we are somewhat lacking in that department."
"Every species in Equestria has some innate talent that's common to all its members, what's the one thing humans are known for?"
"Probably our curiosity. Discovering the unknown," I started explaining. "You know, it's funny, I joined Starfleet right after the Dominion War. It was a bloody conflict that waged for almost three years, just over a billion people lost their lives. There was a big push for new recruits after the war, recruiters were making bold promises of seeing the galaxy, exploring new worlds, and making first contact with unknown cultures." I continued, lightly elbowing the, She said she was an... Alicorn?, beside me.
"I was assigned to the USS Galatea, a dream posting for a new officer fresh from the Academy, it was everything I was promised when I signed up. The Galatea was sent into an unexplored region of space, I saw things that can only be seen to be believed." I paused for a moment, my expression became sullen, soliciting a concerned look from Twilight. "Then news came that the Borg, a cybernetic race who's sole goal was to assimilate or destroy other cultures in their pursuit of perfection, had begun invading the Federation. One of the first planets to fall was Ramatis III, they wiped everyone out, I lost my parents there.
"And here I was, onboard the Galatea, we were a month at maximum speed from Federation space. There was nothing we could do. A lot of the crew, myself included wanted to head back and join the fight anyways, but Captain Sigrengar told us that Starfleet had ordered us to stand by and wait for orders, so we listened to her."
"That's terrible." She told me. After a moment of silence, she began to speak again. "How bad was it?"
"They killed sixty-three billion," I told her flatly. "After that the Galatea was recalled and I requested a transfer to the Juno Beach and now here I am." Getting up, I straightened the front of my uniform and turned to Twilight. "Well, enough of this, we've got work to do."
It didn't take us long to get to where they were going, but the silence made it seem otherwise, and what I saw next didn't help either.
"Well, she'll never fly again," I said aloud.
"That thing could fly?" A scratchy voice said from above. "It doesn't even have wings!" a blue female pegasus with startling rainbow coloured hair said, landing on the ground in front of them.
"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight admonished.
"What?" Rainbow said, feigning innocence.
"No one's been inside?" I asked Twilight.
"The guards we passed on our way here have been keeping the towns ponies away, and I asked Rainbow Dash to keep an eye on it till we got here." She answered. "Dash, this is James.
"Nice to meet ya." Rainbow Dash greeted, extending a hoof towards me. I started to extend my arm to shake it, but before I could open my fist, she gave it a bump with her hoof. "So, what'ya got in there? Ray guns? Ohh! Lasers! Tell me you have lasers in there!"
"I have to have a look first to see what survived the crash," I told the eager pegasus. "I'll let you know when I'm done."
Stepping up to the aft of the shuttle, my nose was again assaulted by the acrid smell of burnt electronics. Despite the damaged appearance of the exterior, the cabin had faired remarkably well. It took a few tries testing every computer interface panel in the shuttle till I was able to find one that works next to the emergency transporter. The burnt hanging wires coming from the top of the transporter told me that it was most likely damaged beyond my ability to repair.
After working through a few subroutines and transferring what little emergency power remained, I was able to bring the main computer online.
"Computer, give me an assessment of functioning systems," I ordered, getting confused looks from Rainbow and Twilight
"Impulse reactor in standby mode, replicators offline but undamaged, short and long range sensors online." An omnipresent disembodied female voice responded, shocking both ponies.
"That's a short list," I remarked quietly. "Status of subspace communication systems."
"Destroyed."
The news hit me like a ton of bricks. Leaning back on the bulkhead, I slid down and sat on the deck. Twilight caught the look of despair in my eyes and walked over to my side. I looked up at her eyes which were full of concern. "Looks like I'm going to be here a while."