Homeworld Conflict

by Lily Lain

Kharak

Celestia stood right behind the door she was about to cross. She hesitated. The two guards that had led her here were now standing at either side of the door, gazing into the distance. The Mothership itself was a curious construct, a flying city, with restaurants, a shrine, many docking bays for ships, and far more rooms and barracks for the crew.

As the official who had led her here suggested, the ship didn’t have only the basic constructions. The Cloning Chambers and the Cryogenic Bays took up a great part of the ship’s space. She was only beginning to understand the significance of the latter to the Kushan people.

“Could you open the door?” Celestia asked.

The guard nearby nodded and clicked the unlocking button. After Celestia stepped in, the door closed behind her. She entered a room filled with dim light of... circuits? Or perhaps symbols? The most curious, though, was the device in the middle of it.

“Is this what you wished to show me, Fleet Command?”

“Among other things, yes.” The voice was everywhere at once.

It seemed to Celestia that the Kushan was speaking in her head. She moved toward the middle of the room. There was a circle on the floor, lit up brightly and connected with a cylinder on the ceiling by a beam of light. A steel torus about the beam of light seemed to keep it stable, it was also wired to the top cylinder.

And in the beam of light floated a Kushan female, wired to the upper cylinder.

“Is this you?”

“Yes. Karan S’jet– neuroscientist, Unbound, Fleet Command of the Kushan Fleet, born to Huur of the Kiith S’jet.”

“Have you chosen this fate for yourself?” Celestia asked quietly.

“Oh, this isn’t exactly a pitiful state. I can reach where others would never have been able to. I can sense the fabrics of hyperspace, hear its movements. Although I’m unable to shake your, well, hoof, I’ve only thought you’d rather talk to me eye-to-eye, as far as it’s possible.”

Celestia smiled. “I gladly accept the sentiment.” The situation was bizarre to say the least. The voice she had feared earlier today seemed calming and almost relaxing now.

The room dimmed, darkened into complete blackness. Behind Fleet Command, an enormous planet hanged on the wall, a world of arid deserts and treacherous sandstorms. Celestia stepped to Karan’s left to see better.

“You’ve told us of a world,” Celestia said quietly, as if any sound above whisper would destroy the display before her... “Is this Kharak?”

“This is Kharak. The world we had found ourselves on. Wars had raged upon its surface for years.”

There were scenes displayed all around Celestia. A group of Kushan running, one of them noticing something, shouting. Then an explosion in the middle of the group. Dust, smoke, shouts, blood.

Another group, bigger, this time each Kushan was pointing a gun at the other. The muzzles of their guns flashed, blood exploded from their chests, stomachs, heads. It all lasted mere seconds.

Then the battlefield afterward, bodies and blood carpeting its surface, foe and friend alike. Again war, more groups, this time with various ships, big and small, along with the ground troops, exploding, falling down on unsuspecting soldiers. The vulnerable Kushan torn apart and left in bloody heaps by the heavy ammunition.

“War of your own doesn’t repent your people, Karan. The thousands you’ve killed on the Griffin Islands can’t be brought back to life.” Celestia’s voice wasn’t accusatory, it merely stated a fact. Still, being the Hades’ advocate was a heavy weight upon her heart.

Karan remained silent. She changed the display back to show Kharak. “We fought for the most infantile of reasons. We couldn’t understand why we’ve been sent to such a world, where no life should’ve ever been.”

There was an artificial satellite, not resembling the modern Probes in shape, but of the same purpose. There was its temporary scaffold standing firmly on the face of Kharak. Then, at once, the scaffold moved away, engines of the satellite burnt and it was in the sky, then in space. What it saw would change the future of the Kushan race.

“Khar-Toba was found on that day. From its engines we devised the hyperspace drive. Within it rested a Guidestone with one word on it – Hiigara. Home.”

“It has led you here?” Celestia asked.

“It has.”

“There’s more to it, isn’t there?” Celestia’s voice was quiet, soft. She didn’t demand the answer, she merely asked.

The Scaffold, such was the name of the enormous space station tasked with the construction of the Mothership. Its corridors reached outward like hands, holding the unfinished ship as it grew in its womb, shaped more and more intricately.

“The first hyperdrive test was successful. We misjumped slightly, but moving through space at a faster-than-light pace was incredible. It still is. There was a price to our development, though.”

There was a feed directly from one of the satellites around Kharak. It recorded ships, endless fleet of brightly yellow Fighters, Corvettes, Frigates, Capital ships. From this distance, they looked like wasps swarming about a defenceless planet.

Kharak wasn’t defenceless, however. At once beams of light erupted from the surface of the planet. Missiles lit the skies with numerous explosions. For the moment, it the imposing fleet was but a swarm of fleas, but even as the fire purged the swarm away, some ships got through. A few small ships, what a silly joke, one might think. What could they do?

There were a few sparks above the surface of the planet. What was unusual about the sparks, though, was that they spread outward, outward, outward, until the flames covered the whole northern pole, then the northern hemisphere of the planet. Kharak was smouldering. Kharak was in ruins. Kharak was no more.

“Only the best of health and mind, young, but mature, hand-picked, were assigned to accompany us on the Journey. The chosen few. Very few. The rest: the elderly, the young, were to stay behind—” Karan’s voice broke.

“If you were to walk… through the Mothership...” Karan paused, her voice refusing to cooperate despite not using the vocal chords. “You’d find no children... There aren’t any. They’re all gone.” Her voice fell into a mere whisper, barely audible enough to reach Celestia’s ears.

The display faded into the soft glow of the circuits.

“You have nothing but the Journey. Nothing but the promise of Hiigara?” Celestia asked quietly.

“Nothing,” echoed Karan.

“It doesn’t justify what you’ve done, but,” Celestia took a deep sigh, her eyes closed, “I understand why, now. Thank you, Karan.” She looked at the body suspended in the light.

Finally, Celestia gave her verdict, “We’re not different. I can see it more clearly now.”

“But we...”

“I have hooves and I’m slightly bigger, that’s true. But we’re not very different.” Celestia smiled.

“But... I... thank you, Celestia.”

“Thank you too, Karan.”

“Everything we know, every piece of technology on health care, on energy and food production, we’ll deliver it all to you and the Griffins. To everyone. May those be the reparations we’ll pay.”

“Will we meet again though?” Celestia asked.

“Hopefully not. I don’t trust those who’ll come after me. I don’t trust myself.”

Celestia’s smile faded and she nodded. “Perhaps that’ll be better.”

Comments

[batran]

I wonder if this would help the ponies go within range of achieving space flight. Would be a comforting ending, where ponies and "Kushan" humans traveling and exploring space together within a hundred years or so.

But idk

[Advent Link]

Unfortunately, I think the very instinct of war is too far ingrained into the kuushan, after finding their hiiraga and if they haven't eachother off due to petty squabbles again, they would most likely spread to the stars and return to take to take everything after several generations. It happens often here, regardless of how noble the intentions of a starting or renewed country/government/tribe may be, all it takes is a new ambitious leader to change their course. If the ponies took to studying hyperspace tech, I beleive they would achieve their goals much faster than the kuushans due to their (the ponies) nature and proof of danger.

But even if the ponies don't acheive interstellar flight and all that fun stuff in this story, then atleast they can rule the Galaxy in stellaris, I already claimed a quarter of the Galaxy in the name of our glorious moonbutt.