The thunder of cannon fire echoed off mountains in the distance. Twilight watched as avalanches raced down the peaks looming over the horizon. Every single seismic sensor was tripped, and she had to manually override each one. As the world around her finally settled back into silence, she reluctantly dropped her shield.
“Hostile turret emplacements are scattered across the surface of the planet.”
Twilight was struggling to catch her breath. One had ambushed her just moments ago. It burst from the thick snow and fired several shots at the alicorn before she could disable it. She had to cast a shield closer to herself than was comfortable, and was winded by the hypersonic impacts. A stray gust carried away a few lavender hairs, unfortunate victims that happened to be on the wrong side of her magic.
Another gust made Twilight regret forgoing her full space suit. She was so very excited when she learned that her current planet had a breathable atmosphere. But after several hours spent trekking across the windswept glaciers which dominated the surface, she began wondering whether the fresh air was actually worth it. Shivering, she reinforced a few heating spells and turned her attention back to her ambusher.
“Extreme caution is advised,” Twilight concluded, before turning off her recorder. She plucked the smoldering remains of the turret off the ground and levitated them closer for examination.
“That’s the third one so far. I wonder if there’s anything salvageable this time.”
Unlike the previous two, this one was still almost intact, even if somewhat flatter than the ideal. A quick scan found a pair of metallic rails designed solely to convert rudimentary magical energy into kinetic and deposit all of it into a ferrous projectile. It wasn’t as efficient as telekinesis, but it was creative, powerful, and dangerous.
Twilight tossed the former turret aside. While it was both a novelty and a significant threat, it was rather primitive in comparison to current Equestrian technology and would yield little scientific insight. She instead turned to the deep grooves that were blasted into the ice. They framed the dim red sun perfectly, as it perched on the horizon. It was a permanent fixture there, tidally locked, and would never come or go. This part of the world would see neither night nor day, neither dusk nor dawn.
“It will be bathed in eternal twilight, until the star itself dies of old age,” Twilight mused to herself while enjoying the ambiance.
“Not quite eternal, I guess.”
With a smile still on her face, Twilight stepped into the valley that the turret obligingly created. She began carving out large chunks of ice, which were then teleported away. The alicorn excavated the glacier with ease, using techniques practiced over the past few weeks. She dug quickly, and descended beneath the ice.
.
A large metallic mountain floated across the snow, lazily. It was surrounded by a diffuse magical glow, and dwarfed the alicorn that held it aloft. The lustrous metals caught the sunlight and rivaled its source in brightness, with glare from the snow further impeding visibility. Twilight grudgingly looked up at the sun, which beat down on her back and yet brought no warmth. She had come a long way via teleportation, but still had quite some distance to go. She missed her teleport, intentionally, out of fear of crushing her ship and facilities rather than any limitation on her abilities.
Twilight cast an appraising eye over the spoils of her mining expedition. She held a couple hundred million kilograms of native platinum, and that was only the icing on top of her incredibly valuable cake. In a single run, she found the minerals needed to do everything she ever desired: rheniite and laurite for engine upgrades, argutite for computers, even xenotime to build new fusion coils, and more of each than she could ever conceivably use. Twilight guessed that she was holding several trillion bits worth of rare metals, if she had any intention of returning to the Federation. She shook the thought from her head, and jealously levitated her haul closer.
“This must have been how Rarity felt the first time we faced Discord,” Twilight chuckled to herself in amusement, even though her rock was far more valuable.
A grin spread across her face, as she reflected on ancient memories. Twilight was able to recall every single one, from the most joyous to the most distressing, with perfect accuracy. Although perfect control of her memories was still beyond her capabilities, it seemed that her mind was blessed to grasp at only happy ones today.
Twilight’s smile barely even faltered as a familiar rumble rose from beneath the ice. The magical grip around her mountain cut out briefly, and the full million tons of it crashed into the ground. The sound produced could be more readily described as a wall of force rather than a noise but, thanks to her heightened senses and natural alicorn propensity for loudness, she was able to pick out a metallic crunch.
“Eight!” Twilight called out, cheerfully. She picked her improvised bludgeon back up, levitating it as gracefully as an oversized boulder could be. She walked past the wreckage in stride, and began humming as her foundry crested over the horizon.
.
“Chamber temperature, 4000K… check!”
“Inductively coupled plasma stream… check!”
Twilight stepped back for a moment to confirm that she was actually working on the right container this time. After accidentally trying to reduce her liquid oxygen canister, she quickly fell back into her old habit of making checklists. The satisfaction of being able to make checkmarks using physical pen and paper was worth the extra drain on her magic reserves, and served to distract her from the large crater in the middle of the room.
“Power levels are steady, all systems are optimal. Check, check, double check. Begin hydrogen injection!”
A bead of sweat rolled down the alicorn’s forehead as her horn glowed brighter. While the heat did annoy her, Twilight found out that she was actually immune to it a few centuries ago. She was on a test flight using new avionics, and a malfunction turned her solar gravitational assist into an atmospheric entry.
She found that the greatest difficulty was in keeping the foundry powered. Twilight enjoyed casting spells traditionally, but even she would have preferred to do it using magic from her ship’s reactor. Unfortunately, after her oxygen mishap, she would just barely have enough fuel to enter warp and couldn’t justify the expenditure.
“Vapor bleed off, check! Seal integrity, check! Flooding with argon gas… begin chamber cooling!”
Finally, Twilight’s struggles were paying off. She watched the glowing red liquid solidify into a silver-white metal, lustrous and pure. There were still a few steps to come before she could feed it into the atomic assembler, but the rest were foal’s play in comparison to this one. She sat down on her haunches and sighed in contentment.
“Germanium, 99.999999% purity, ready for crystal growth. Ten parts per billion… you’ve really outdone yourself this time, Dr. Sparkle.”
Twilight struggled to not laugh at her title. She had received hundreds of honorary doctorates over her lifetime, but didn’t have the time to actually earn one until just this past century, after civilization began reaching for her stars. She had difficulty finding the time for a dissertation on interstellar travel when she was busy pioneering the entire field.
But things have come a long way. Here she was, many thousands of light years from the farthest reaches of the Federation, and a hundred light years more from her home world. Twilight looked up at the ceiling of her foundry. It was opaque and in the wrong direction, but the sentiment was still there. This journey was the culmination of her life’s work, but no one could fault a mare for feeling a little homesick. She let out another sigh, wistfully, and laid her head down on her forelegs.
Taking a quick break from her forays into metallurgy, Twilight moved to her clean room and looked over all of her sensors and blueprints once more. She gutted her entire ship to salvage what little she could, and created a separate checklist of everything she couldn’t.
In the center of the building laid the pinnacle of Equestrian sensor technology. Twilight sent some magic toward the long range scanner, which absorbed it instantly. It was one of the few instruments from her ship that, thankfully, remained in perfect condition. It was capable of finding and analyzing any star in the galaxy, with the aid of Twilight’s unique magic. Unfortunately, it would only respond to her magic, and served as little more than a glorified telescope when wielded by any other.
It was one of the only two in existence, and would be impossible to replace without returning to her home world, Caballus. Twilight tried to picture herself returning to one of the numerous orbital stations that drifted about the capital of the Federation. She shook her head when she could only see the great golden spires of Canterlot. She thought back to the excited celebrations after her first interstellar flight, but could only hear the idyllic pastorale of Old Ponyville.
Twilight could see the flash of azure that heralded a pegasus impact. She smiled for a brief moment, before realizing that the light wasn’t from her imagination. She sprinted to the nearest window and strained her eyes to scan the sky. She was about to launch herself out the door, clean room protocols be damned, but her radio crackled to life before she could move another hoof.
“—day. Mayday. Echo-042 Delta, hull breach and engine failure. Hostile contacts, orbital defenses utilizing kinetic weaponry. Complete navigational loss, continuing on uncontrolled entry trajectory.”
“Repeat, this is call sign Echo-042 Delta, of the Royal Equestrian Fleet, with complete loss of all control systems and approaching planetary surface at over 19000 meters per— dear Celestia, is anypony out there? Please respond, anyone? Oh, by the stars, I hope I break up before I burn.”
“…Repeat, this is Echo-042… Look, I… Hey, honey? If you ever get this message, I’m sorry. I– I always thought I’d be able to see you again. Please, just… just tell our little girl that daddy loves her. Echo-042 Delta transmitting code black, do not approach. 042 Delta out.”
Twilight stared at her radio for a moment, just a single moment, and then flew over to respond. Logically, the alicorn knew that the pilot was hunting for her, but all that mattered now was that one of her little ponies was in distress – in mortal danger – and she had to help.
“Come in Echo-042 Delta, this is Outpost Amity, please enable a tracking beacon and transfer power to shields, over.”
The radio stayed dead silent as anxious seconds slowly ticked by. Twilight’s stomach dropped and her legs felt weak, as she realized that she was too slow. Her hind legs gave out, and she just barely avoided collapsing completely. And she just barely avoided tripping over herself as the radio buzzed again.
“Pr–princess Twilight Sparkle? Oh, dear C— Thank the stars, it’s good to hear your voice. Beacon is enabled, but primary power is zero all across the board. I’m just thankful there’s someone out there that’ll keep me company as I go.”
“If I have any say in this universe, you’ll be telling your little filly that you love her, face to face. Brace for deceleration, Amity out.”
Twilight sent a quick pulse of magic to her scanner, now even more grateful that it was fully operational. It resonated with her magic and guided it as she reached out. Through the scanner, she saw her stars perfectly. The falling ship was much dimmer in comparison, but was still visible with both the beacon and proximity working in her favor. Twilight reached out to it, and pulled with all her might. Some more chatter came in over the radio, but she couldn’t spare it any attention.
Between the telekinesis and shield spells Twilight had to cast around the ship, she was rapidly draining what was left of her magic. She would have to tap deep into the planet’s magical field to replenish, which might leave it depleted for years. But failure in either spell would doom the ship, and the pony within it, and the distance over which she had to cast them only compounded the difficulty.
The ship – shield, metal, and pony – slammed into the planet’s atmosphere and exploded into a ball of fire. Only centuries of discipline and training kept Twilight from recoiling, fatally, as she absorbed the sudden force. Her shield held strong, but she had to work harder if she wanted to bring more than a pile of ash to the surface.
“Outpost Amity speaking. Thermal check!”
She spared her radio an anxious glance. A reply came through, and that was all that mattered; Twilight redoubled her effort and threw herself back into her spells. After a few minutes of eternity, the fireball dissipated. In a few more grueling seconds, it roared overhead, surrounded by magenta magic all the while. It slammed into the ice and dug a furrow, long and deep. Using the very last ounce of her magic, Twilight teleported out to the end of the trench and stared at the ship, smoking but intact.
She ran along top of the ship, ignorant of the embers that caught at the leggings of her cleanroom suit. The metal of the fuselage was still hot to the touch, but rapidly cooling. The glass canopy rang out as Twilight’s front hooves landed on it. She reared up on her hind legs, reaching her full majestic height, before stomping down with all her might.
The glass, hardened against heat, cold, and meteoroid impacts, shattered nonetheless. Twilight dove into the ship, then shot back out with a pony balanced on her back. She broke into a mad dash to get indoors; while the cold was merely uncomfortable to the alicorn, it would kill a normal pony in minutes. As the heat of the foundry worked the chill out of her bones, Twilight slid her unconscious burden off her back, oh so gently. She drifted some short distance away before also succumbing to the sweet darkness.