//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: First Contact // Story: STAR WARS / FiM: Realms of the Heavens // by Tathem_Relag //------------------------------// Ponyville Outskirts, Equestria 3:27 A.M. Rainbow Dash laughed as she flew circles around the dragon that had so foolishly decided to threaten Equestria. No creature would ever hurt anypony while she, the captain of the Wonderbolts and the fastest pegasus – no, fastest anything – ever, was protecting the kingdom! She ended the hilariously one-sided battle with a sonic rainboom-powered stomp to the top of the gigantic reptile’s head, sending it to the ground in a daze. Landing on top of it, she posed for the dozens of cameras flashing, and accepted the praise of her crowd of loyal admirers with exceptional humility. “Yeah, I know. I’m awesome. It’s nothing, really. I was just born like this.” She smiled as she spotted Princess Celestia flying towards her, no doubt with yet another medal. At this rate, they were going to have to start inventing new awards to give to Equestria’s greatest hero before the end of the year. The princess opened her mouth, but to Rainbow’s shock, the sound that came out was not words of congratulation, but instead a horrifying shrieking noise. As the pegasus mare recoiled, an indistinct shadow almost as big as the dragon passed by her, accompanied by a powerful wind. And suddenly, she was falling. She awoke to find herself knocked out of bed onto the floor of her Cloudominium, which was shaking in the slipstream of a close miss by a massive object moving at high speeds. Flying out her window, she was able to make out the rapidly receding object by the stars it hid. She didn’t have any idea what sort of creature it was, but there was no way she was just going to let it buzz her home and then fly off without a confrontation. By Celestia, it was moving fast. Not as fast as she could fly, even without going to rainboom speeds, but there were very few other things that actually made her have to push herself in order to catch up to them. It was a weird creature, she saw as she closed the distance. Its body was composed of a large, gray sphere, and its black wings – or at least, what she assumed were wings – were several times the size of its body and seemed fixed in place. Try as she might, she could come up with no idea how it was staying in the air, much less moving so quickly. I guess I could ask Twilight. I bet she could figure it out… No, bad idea. The egghead would probably get this crazy look in her eyes, pull out a chalkboard covered in math and weird symbols, and go on forever about Sir Isaac Neighton or something. She finally managed to pull up alongside it, and saw that its skin was made out of a hard, metal-looking material. “Hey, you… you… whatever you are!” she yelled at it. “That was my house you just flew by! I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but here it’s quite rude to… Are you listening to me?!” She cut herself off as the creature continued to make its deafening noise. She reached out to jab its wing with her hoof, then pulled back at the coldness of it. This thing didn’t just look like it was made of metal, it actually was! She gulped, but, gathering her courage, she flew to the front of the thing, ready to confront whatever snarling, robotic visage it might have. What she was not ready to find was a window, looking in on a creature that looked sort of like a smaller, hornless version of a minotaur, or Twilight’s description of the humans that lived on the other side of the Crystal Mirror. The creature was almost entirely black, even what looked like its eyes. The only exceptions were some white symbols on either side of a ridge on its head, and blue rectangles on a box on its chest. The box was attached to two tubes that stretched up to the bottom the creature’s face, where its mouth should have been. The creature was clearly just as surprised to see her as she was to see it, jerking back in its seat and simultaneously pulling on a device in its hands. Seeming to respond to the creature’s actions, the object, which Rainbow Dash realized had to be some strange sort of vehicle, also pulled away. She indulged in a short laugh. Did that thing really think it could get away that easily? When she caught back up to it, she landed on the top of the sphere and climbed over so she could stick her head down in front of the window. “I’m baaa-aack!” she taunted with a grin, then stuck her tongue out at the creature, who visibly jumped in its seat. She started laughing, then yelped and grabbed onto a ridge on the sphere as hard as she could as the creature yanked the device in its hands in all directions, sending the vehicle into a dizzying set of maneuvers that would have made anypony except a skilled stunt flier like Rainbow Dash empty the contents of her stomach. Suddenly, the creature seemed to figure out that its current tactics weren’t working, and it angled its vehicle straight up into the sky. They quickly passed beyond the highest point Rainbow had ever flown to, and kept going. As she started to find it impossible to breathe, she realized: It’s going all the way into space! Even this revelation wasn’t enough to make her let go of her own free will, but she could feel her grasp slipping as her vision grayed at the edges. The last things she saw before she passed out were the creature making some weird gesture at her with two of the fingers on its right hand raised, and twelve strangely shaped mountains floating above her. Rainbow Dash regained consciousness with a bump, not with the splat that would be expected of an organic being hitting the ground after falling all the way from the upper atmosphere. With a groan, she managed to force her eyes halfway open, allowing her to see a blurry lavender blob carrying her across the sky. “Twi… Twilight?” she managed to say. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. Just rest.” “How’d you find me?” “When I saw that… thing… headed toward your house, I just knew you wouldn’t avoid confronting it, even if – no, especially if it seemed dangerous.” “Well, duh. Danger is my middle name, after all.” Twilight chuckled. “I know, Rainbow Dash. I know. Now rest. I’ve got to get you over to Ponyville Hospital so they can make sure you’re not hurt.” The pegasus started to comply, then remembered something important. “Hey, egghead?” Another chuckle. “Yes, Rainbow?” “Please, please don’t tell Scootaloo about this.” System: E-9015 (TEMPORARY: AWAITING OFFICIAL DESIGNATION) Coruscant Standard Time: 16:07 Admiral Gavrisom suppressed a sigh as he reviewed the report from the last TIE pilot to check in. He had hoped to settle this without any bloodshed. Spacing a member of the native species and leaving its body to fall through the atmosphere and splatter on the ground as an unidentifiable mess of charred flesh and bone was not going to make diplomacy any easier – if it was even possible to begin with, considering the freakish assortment of non-humanoids the planet seemed to hold. Well, that wasn’t the entire picture – there were two humanoid species on the planet, but one looked like the offspring of Mandallian Giants and nerfs, the other looked like large, bat-winged Svivreni, and their small populations made it quite evident that somehow, they weren’t the dominant species. No, that position was taken by a species of diminutive equines – not equinoids, just equines. They seemed to be divided into three subspecies: one that appeared fairly similar to the horses of Dathomir, albeit scaled down to an average of only about one and four-tenths meters; another that took the same shape and added some strangely small wings, which nonetheless seemed to allow for quite remarkable flight capacities; and a third with the same base shape that instead had a single horn on their foreheads, likely a tool for self-defense. And they all came in a headache-inducing variety of pastel colours. When Gavrisom got the first report back, his initial assumption was that the pilot had been indulging in spice use before going out, but all later reports had given the same description. He didn’t know how a species that lacked a grasping appendage had achieved sapience, but that would be something for the scientists to bicker over later. He turned his attention back to the holotable in his command room. Captain Cortess was standing beside him, and along his side of the table were holograms of the other three Captains of the Line in charge of sections of his squadron. Across the table were holograms of their counterparts in the Imperial Army line corps assigned to their force: four High Colonels and Major General Davar Aerin. “So, gentlemen,” Gavrisom began, “all of our fighters have returned safe, if not necessarily sound, and I believe we have all of the intelligence that we’re going to get. Let’s review. We appear to have identified this planet’s dominant species as a form of small equines. We don’t know how they managed to build anything without hands of some sort, but I doubt we’ll figure it out from orbit. Their technology level appears to be just before achieving space travel, though many inland locations seem to be lagging far behind the steel and glass construction we see in their coastal cities, and we have yet to see any signs of active, large-scale industry. It appears that at least some of their electricity comes from hydroelectric plants, though we have only seen one dam, and it couldn’t possibly provide all the electricity that’s being used. “We have determined two probable locations for their capital, based on the apparent wealth they possess and the decorative nature of their architecture. One is an entire city made out of some sort of crystalline substance. Judging by the massive tower in its center, it is clearly the wealthier of the two locations, but it’s located in the middle of an arctic wasteland in the planet’s far north. Somehow, they’ve managed to keep the city and its immediate surroundings temperate, but none of our instruments are able to detect any environmental manipulation technology. The other possible location, further to the south, is smaller and mostly constructed from ordinary stone. However, while it is slightly less grandiose, it’s still clearly a center of wealth, being full of overly-elaborate architecture and covered in gold embellishments. It, too, is in a somewhat inaccessible location, as it is partially built out of the side of a mountain. The environment there is naturally temperate, though, so it’s a bit more habitable.” General Aerin bent forward, resting his hands on the table he was transmitting from. “We have more than enough forces to make an adequate display of strength at both locations. I shall take a line regiment and half of our stormtrooper battalion to the southern location, while Colonel Alder will take an armor regiment and the other half of our stormtroopers to the northern location.” He looked around at the other officers with his one good eye, looking for any dissent. Some of the less courageous among them looked away, though Gavrisom wasn’t sure whether they were more intimidated by the burn scars that covered the right half of the General’s face, or the look of utter loathing he had adopted at the prospect of dealing with non-humans. When nobody voiced any complaints, he pulled back from the table with a smile of grim satisfaction. “It’s decided, then. “Let the conquest begin.”