Location: Ponyville
Local Date: 12/18/3
Galactic Standard Date: 28:4:2
Local Time: 11:07
Coruscant Standard Time: 23:06
“That will be twenty-three bits, sir.”
Lieutenant CL-7382 couldn’t keep the glare off his face as he dug a fistful of chips worth seventy-four credits out of his uniform’s pocket and slapped them down on the café table. It was nothing short of robbery. On the galactic market, credits would be worth so much more than bits it wouldn’t be funny. The gold that bits were forged from might be immensely valuable on a pre-spaceflight world, but for a galactic civilization that regularly strip-mined entire planets and worked on an aurodium standard, gold was only important and because it was used in computer parts and could be made into fairly nice jewelry and sculptures. It was easy to get by grinding up a few asteroids – scarcity wasn’t a problem. Here, however, things were just the opposite – aurodium was a pretty but otherwise useless bauble, whereas gold was the most expensive material around.
It gave him some small consolation to know that the waiter was just as displeased with having to take Imperial credits as the Imperials were with having to pay such absurd prices. The ponies didn’t seem to get the concept of money that wasn’t made of a precious metal. While they had agreed to the exchange rate, they considered the credits essentially worthless.
CL-7382 slowly started eating his meal as he surveyed the square. Salad wasn’t much of a main course, and he didn’t particularly like it, anyways. He wouldn’t have been here at all if he wasn’t supposed to be meeting with the informant. The commanders had encouraged some of the more moderate troops – not hardliners who wouldn’t be able to hide their disgust for nonhumans, but also not softies who might become attached to the aliens and defect if war broke out – to become “friends” with ponies, so he was able to meet openly with the informant without drawing too much attention. While occasional pieces of useful information could be gleaned from those other “friendships,” most of what those ponies talked about was gossip and rumors. Conversely, the informant seemed to have taken on the role of self-appointed guide to Equestria and apparently had some very good connections and access to government information. So he had to keep coming to this madcap village. Ah. There.
He waved to the informant, who came and sat down on the pile of hay opposite him – another thing he hated about this place. No chairs. “Hi, Colicoid!” the alien greeted him cheerily, using the nickname he had introduced himself with. He didn’t think the creature would understand that clones had designations, not names.
“Hello, ____. How’re things going?”
The informant sighed. “Oh, alright, I guess. My best friend’s been getting all up on my flank about our conversations. She thinks I shouldn’t talk to you, that you humans are dangerous.”
“She’s perfectly justified in thinking that. We didn’t exactly have a smooth first contact.” He grinned. “And is that the only reason she’s been ‘getting all up on your flank’?” Ugh. Making dirty jokes about alien mating habits to break the ice. Why did I have to be the one to meet this creature?
The informant laughed, not the least bit ashamed or uncomfortable. Of course, the aliens did walk around totally naked all the time, so they clearly had little to no sense of modesty. “Don’t you think that’s something of a… private matter?”
Somebody please blast me.
He opened his mouth to make another “witty” reply when the informant’s ears twitched and the alien turned to look down the street, huge eyes lighting up with glee. All around them, the other aliens did the same. He followed the informant’s gaze and struggled to pick up whatever the creature was listening to. After a moment, he heard, faintly –
“Come on everypony, smile, smile, smile! Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine!”
Oh, by the Emperor, no.
He ducked beneath the table as the aliens rushed off to join the parade. These things seemed to happen almost every day. If the ponies hadn’t been so consistently uncomprehending of the reactions humans had to them – ranging from blank stares, to running as fast as they could, jeers and curses, and, once, slugging the offending pony in the face – he would have suspected that they did it just to annoy the Empire into leaving.
When the ridiculous display finally ended, the aliens went back to their business as if nothing had happened. He extracted himself from under the table and sat back down on his pile of hay as the informant returned. The creature gave him a confused, and somewhat sad, expression. “Why don’t you humans ever join in on the fun?”
“Humans don’t break into random song and dance routines. In the Empire, that wouldn’t be called ‘fun.’ It would be called ‘disturbing the peace’ and would earn you a hefty fine and a few days to weeks in prison, depending on how big the disturbance was, your role in it, and how the judge was feeling that day.” He sighed. “I’m just glad most of you are most subdued than Miss Pie.”
The informant chuckled. “Yeah, Pinkie can get a bit wild at times. Just be glad you weren’t here for the Mirror Pool incident.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, yeah! I never told you about that, did I? A while ago, Pinkie wanted to hang out with everypony at the same time, so she made a bunch of copies of herself at the Mirror Pool, out somewhere in the Everfree Forest. But they started causing all sorts of trouble, so Twilight rounded ’em all up and sent the fake Pinkies back to the pool. Celestia, was that a crazy day.”
Copies. Fake. He felt a cold hardness settle into the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t had much of an appetite before, but it was totally gone now. “What do you mean, ‘sent them back to the pool’?”
The informant waved a forelimb dismissively. “Oh, I don’t know. Just that, really. Twilight cast some spell at them, and they exploded into magic and flew off to the pool. Why?”
He stood up, his meal forgotten. It didn’t take much to make him violently angry – he was nicknamed “Colicoid” for a reason, after all – but he was sure his brothers would have the exact same reaction he did to this news. “I have to go.”
He ignored the informant’s questioning calls as he marched towards the Everfree. There would be bloody, well-deserved retribution today.
The Castle of Friendship
1:13 P.M.
At first, Twilight had hoped that she was just hallucinating from the lack of rest she had gotten from her nightmare-riddled sleep. But the scene playing out before her was all too real. Hundreds of stormtroopers were marching purposefully towards her castle, roughly shoving aside anypony who got in their way and waving their blasters around threateningly. She backed away from balcony as they reached her doorstep. The one in front banged on her door.
“Twilight Sparkle! Come on out, or we’re coming in after you!”
She hurried over to Spike. “Send a letter to Princess Celestia,” she whispered. “I think we’re going to need all the help we can get.”