Ciedan: one of the last great cloud-cities. It gleamed like a shiny silver coin in the sun, and was a hub for, well, everything you could imagine.
Except for one thing. And it wasn’t a big deal really, unless perhaps, you were interested in leaving this forsaken planet. You see, not everypony got the chance to live above the ever-present clouds on my home planet of Peylow. Only royalty and those related to royals got the chance to see the sun’s rays. And for the rest of us? Well, we get about ten minutes a day right as the sun rises and just before it sets again.
Anyhow, back to the subject at hoof.
Ciedan: the place to go if you’ve got nowhere else to go (at least in terms of ideas and selling things). However, one does not simply walk into this “hallowed city”. Oh no, that would be too easy. There’s around the clock surveillance of all entrances and exits, air coverage from a two-mile-high energy field, and the clouds that made up the city’s foundation were reinforced with some pretty tough magic and steel.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, why don’t you just fly over? Or perhaps get permission?
I would, honestly, I would before I even thought about breaking a law. Sadly, living in a city where all the important ponies are kept in a relatively small area, and you happen to be a member of a species that may or may not have been involved in taking over a pony capital some point in the past few hundred years has had a slight impact on my chances of getting a permit. There are other ways in, if you can get to them.
To name one, there was the massive hole above the city, but you need a sub-orbital spaceship, or a full on hyperspace-ready craft. Next, there was through the floor, and for that you either need an extremely potent acid (some calculated it to be about a trillion times stronger than battery acid), or an extremely powerful unicorn, of which none lived beneath the clouds.
Getting a spaceship was surprisingly easy, all you needed was a nice smile, a charming attitude, and a really, really scary-looking hoof-mounted gun to get it. Now, I’m not saying stealing things is wrong, but I’m saying sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. Anyhow, nopony cares about these nitty-gritty details, really you can gloss over them.
The ship I was in possession of was—I don’t even know where to start with it. Well, it was manufactured in the year 3344 as a joint project between Gutamaya and Core Dynamics. Two very different companies. Core Dynamics was known for their relatively simple, yet aggressive exteriors, their maneuverability, and compact size. Gutamaya, on the other hoof, was where the royals went for their flashy, luxurious space yachts and supercruisers. All of Gutamaya’s ships had shields that were nigh-unbreakable, and some models were the fastest in the galaxy.
Luckily for me, I had one of those fast models: the Imperial Eagle. Also in my favor was the fact that the aftermarket parts for this gem were never further than around the corner, because although not everyone had the Imperial variant, most had the standard CD Eagle, which was for planetary flight only. And before you ask, no, you can’t put a FSD into a CD ship: there’s not room.
In the Imperial Eagle, though, there is an FSD, and that means I can finally get off this trice-damned hell hole.
There are no words to describe how ready I am for this.
I’d be the first to do a lot of things if my little plan worked: I’d be the first changeling in Ciedan, in sub-orbital flight, probably space, and the fastest. I don’t even know the maximum speed on this Eagle. I know the standard ones can get up around… two hundred meters a second, so I’d say mine can do four hundred…ish. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
The next morning, I woke to that perpetual overcast sky and the sound of armored hooves clanking down the cobbled street.
And they were getting louder.
And louder.
Oh fuck.
I leapt out of my bed in a whirl, grabbed my flight suit, and galloped as fast as I could to the shed where I stashed the Imperial Eagle. I was in the process of spooling up the two gigantic drives, when an entire squad of guards burst out the back door of my apartment and stopped. I would say out of awe and shock that I had a fifteen-meter-long spaceship in front of them, but it’s because this fifteen-meter spaceship had two plasma accelerators pointed right at them.
Not wanting to wait around any longer than I had to, I slammed both throttles to their stops and slalomed through streets towards the main waterways.
I’m just going to say one thing: I underestimated the power of this ship by a long shot. Even at half throttle, I was flying by the CD Eagles with ease. On the downside, I didn’t have any chance of hiding this bright white arrow. Oh well. I wouldn’t have to worry about that for long. As soon as I was above that cloud layer, I was in the green.
One more turn, and then it was a straight shot to Ciedan. Buildings blurred past the cockpit canopy as my speedometer showed speeds that were frankly unheard of. With all the adrenaline flowing in my system right now, I had to try and keep my speed at a reasonable level, so I didn’t crash and burn.
And of course just as I ease off the throttle, a bullet pinged off the cockpit.
I hate the police.
I doubt they’ll catch up to me now.
I dumped the throttles and was pushed back in the chair. What was a few meters behind me mere seconds ago was now kilometers behind me. I could’ve sworn I saw a four-digit number on the heads-up display.