When Stars Come Out to Play

by Chicago Ted

Chapter 8 - Deep-Space DJ!

“It’s taking a while to get there,” Twilight told Milky Way. “Are we there yet?”

“The next planet out here has a ton of rings around it,” the Sun explained. “We can’t possibly miss it, honey.” She checked behind the group. “Gotta keep up, Venus,” she said. “You wouldn’t want to miss out on helping us, would you?”

“No, I suppose not,” Venus replied, though she still sounded unsure of herself. “I never have any idea how to dance properly in her club.”

“That’s the beauty of it!” Mars said. “There is no right or wrong way to do it – when you’re in the mosh pit, you just do you!”

Venus sighed. “Of course the artistic type would say that.” Finally, she caught up with the other girls. “But fine. As long as we make this quick, I could tolerate her, ahem, style.”

As the girls skated along, Twilight thought she could feel some vibrations in her hooves. Unlike with Jupiter’s planet’s red storm, it wasn’t random, disordered – no, this time there was a steady rhythm to it. Is it affecting my heartbeat? she asked herself. “Milky Way,” she asked aloud, “do you feel that too?”

“Yeah,” she said, “and so can the rest of us, I’ll bet.”

“Is it also affecting your heart?” Twilight followed up.

“Not really,” Jupiter responded. “If it did, some of Saturn’s faster beats would not exactly be good for you. You’re just not feeling your own pulse right now, that’s all.”

“We’re getting closer,” the Sun said. “And I’ll bet we’ll find Mercury lost in the excitement.”

“We should keep focus,” the Moon reminded the others, “lest we also find ourselves distracted by the heavy bass.”

And lo, there it was – a great ringed world. “That must be it!” Twilight declared. “Straight up ahead!” I guess the Sun was right after all – hard to miss a ring system as dense as this.

“Admittedly,” Venus said, “this music is more tolerable for me.” She sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”

And in the rings, they all looked, countless aliens were dancing to the music the DJ was outputting. This one’s beat they could hear even before they could arrive, as Twilight figured. Say, she wondered, aren’t these the same aliens that were watching the Sun sing? She looked to the Sun – guess she either doesn’t mind the competition, or she’s too preoccupied with our quest.

“Later, girls!” Mars quickly darted off to join her alien brethren in the mosh pit. As the girls watched, it turned out the crowd was actually revolving around the planet – meaning the rings were, too.

Which explained why they hadn’t seen Mercury until now. Once she revolved back into view, she called out to the girls, but the music drowned out her voice.

“Say that again!?” the Sun shouted back.

Mercury waited until she rotated closer to them. “I said, ‘You gonna join me or what!?’” she called out.

“Maybe later!” Milky Way shouted. “Right now, we have a job to do – where do we begin?”

“Is it likely it’s in the planet itself?” Twilight asked Milky Way. Gah, gotta raise my voice now. “No luck with Jupiter’s, but you never know.”

“Do you need Ganymede’s help?” Even Jupiter, ever the peaceful one, had to raise her voice here.

“No, I think I’ve got the hang of it!” Twilight hopped down. “Besides, this one’s a lot smaller than last time.” She cast a teleportation spell, to avoid disturbing the crowd – not that they noticed the girls – and reappeared at the base of the planet.Huh, it’s actually a lot quieter down here, she thought – though she still noted a heavy bass. She kept her horn lit, and with her magic, started combing through the clouds. Okay, here’s the core, just gotta work my way outwards – better be careful not to bother Saturn.

If anything, it turned out, Saturn may have been bothering her instead – the vibrations were dampened by the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere of the planet, so while it was no issue looking in the southern hemisphere, the northern was far too turbulent for her to find anything conclusive. Guess I don’t have the hang of it after all. Twilight gestured Jupiter to come closer, with her pets.

“Change your mind?” Jupiter asked.

“Yeah, could I borrow Ganymede again?” Twilight indicated the northern hemisphere with her hoof. “The vibrations from her music are so strong, I can’t get a good read on the upper half of the planet. Can he manage it?”

Jupiter chuckled. “It’s nothing he’s never handled,” she said, “if my Great Red Spot has anything to say.” She whistled – somehow not getting anyone else’s attention – and Ganymede came jetting right up, chittering at Twilight. “He said he’s willing to help,” Jupiter translated.

Well, that’s good to know, I suppose. “Can you handle the northern half?” Twilight asked him. “I’ll do the southern half. Try not to bother Saturn, if you can avoid it.”

Ganymede gave a mock salute, and dove right into the clouds. Twilight lit her horn and resumed her search – this time, I can fully concentrate on one part. Twilight, though she didn’t realize it, was keeping pace almost perfectly with Ganymede’s efforts. Within five minutes – my, time does fly here, Twilight thought – Ganymede popped his helmeted head out the equator, with a shrug. Empty-pawed, I guess. “I don’t have anything, either,” she told him. “Now what?”

“Guess we’ll have to get down and dirty with the dance club,” Jupiter suggested, as the three went back to rejoin the group.

Twilight noted a rather large satellite orbiting some distance away from the planet. “Any luck over there?” Twilight asked.

“Venus already borrowed Europa to help check it out,” Jupiter told her. “They did find a probe all the way out here, but otherwise, no dice.”

Hmm. . . not the planet, not the satellite. . . . Her eyes glanced over to the alien-swarmed rings of the planet – and a dread set over her. “You think it might be on the rings?” she asked aloud.

“Reckon that might be the case,” the Sun said. “Soon as we get Mercury’s and Mars’s attention, we can start looking.”

“To speak of which – ” the Moon pointed – “here comes the speedster.”

“Hey! Mercury!” Twilight shouted out. “Over here! We need you!” Please hear me, please hear me, please hear me. . . .

Mercury turned her head and looked straight at the unicorn. Phew! Twilight motioned Mercury to get off the dance floor, which she did, albeit with some reluctance. “Got a lead on the next piece of the puzzle?” she asked.

“I think so,” said Twilight. “Already tried the planet, and Europa already looked through that one satellite – ” she pointed at it with her hoof – “so that just leaves the rings. Which is also why I pulled you off the dance floor – I’m pretty sure you might break it by stepping on it.”

“Speaking of breaking fragments – there’s Mars!” Without warning, Mercury dashed over to where she was, and yanked her right off the rings. “Hey!” she protested. “What gives?”

“Gotta pull yourself together, Mars,” Mercury said. “Twilight here says the fragment might be on the rings – and if we’re really lucky, neither of us will have broken it already.”

“Hey!” she said. “No need to remind me of that.”

“Alright, I’m sorry.” Mercury cleared her throat. “So you ready to have a look around?”

Mars sighed. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. Where do we start?”

Milky Way spoke up. “I’m thinking we’d better split ourselves up on the rings, and look in a small area. Should save us some time and go a lot faster than if only one or two of us did it. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me!” said Mercury. Mars simply nodded next to her.

Nobody else seemed to object – certainly not Venus, surprisingly. Twilight leapt up onto Milky Way’s shoulder to get a head count of the group. “Let’s see, counting me, and Jupiter’s pets separately, there are twelve of us.” She pointed to the rings. “I can space us out more or less evenly across the surface of the rings, and we’ll spend, let’s call it, five minutes picking through it.” She sighed. “I have a feeling it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but right now it’s the best chance we’ve got. Let’s begin.”

With a bit of magic, Twilight put up twelve hovering dots, equidistant from each other, around the rings, almost like a clock – Actually, do they have clocks? Do they even know what a clock is? – then leapt down from Milky Way and took the spot immediately in front of the DJ – where, unfortunately, the music’s volume seemed to be the strongest. Milky Way went to her immediate left, and Callisto to her right.

“Excuse me! Coming through! Sorry!” she kept saying as she landed firmly on the rings. But the aliens never minded her presence – or they did, but let her pass with such smoothness that they were almost like a liquid. She found she stood much taller than these aliens – unlike Mars, who towered over her, these only came up to her barrel.Right, this should be interesting.

But right away, Twilight ran into a problem. The aliens’ dancing was so chaotic, it essentially masked anything beneath it. No matter how slowly she combed through the rings, she seemed to lose track quickly of where she looked before. Out of curiosity, Twilight lifted a hoof up, noted the particular pattern in which the fur around her fetlocks grew, then gently set it back down into the crowd. Her eyes widened as she realized she couldn’t even see her hoof anymore.

She was starting to realize her task was hopeless. What chance did she have of finding the fragment itself here? And to add insult to injury, the aliens only gave her just enough space for her to set her hooves down on the rings – and worse, the music’s beat was changing unpredictably, and with it the aliens’ dancing. I wonder how Milky Way and the others are doing. . . .

“Can you hear me!?” Speaking of which. . . . Milky Way appeared to be shouting to Twilight’s left. She wasn’t hard to find, considering she stood head, shoulders, and knees above the alien crowd, but even then Twilight had trouble hearing her over the music. This is partly why I don’t like parties. . . .

“Barely!” Twilight shouted back. “Any luck!?”

“I’m not finding anything here!” Milky Way shouted. “It’s way too dense for me to see!”

“I’m having trouble too!” Twilight said. “And I’m a lot closer to the ground!” Was that the right word? she pondered. Whatever, she got what I meant. “We’d better pull out here, all of us!” She motioned Callisto to come along, then with a bit of force, tried to lift herself off the surface of the rings – only to come back down. I guess gravity applies here. So with Milky Way’s help, she managed to break free from the rings’ gravity and regroup some distance away. One by one, the other girls and animals gave up and reconvened.

Venus was idle, trying to get her hearing back. Mars’s antennae were still shaking a bit – is that from the music? Or her excitement? Mercury was a bit reluctant to stop looking, but gave up last of all when she realized everyone else did as well. Jupiter was busy comforting Io, which apparently did not take well to one track in particular. The other pets seemed unfazed. The Sun seemed to have shouted herself almost hoarse, and the Moon seemed too embarrassed to show her face, at least for the time being.

“Okay,” Twilight said, “I’ll be the one to say it – that was a bad idea, worse than we thought.”

“Hey,” Mercury said, “we didn’t know the crowd would be this dense – or this dense.”

Mars rolled her eyes. “It’s in our nature to dance close together. Don’t blame me for it.”

“Was that why I caught you getting sidetracked?” the Sun asked her.

Mars blushed. “. . . maybe?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter now. We need to take another avenue of attack if we’re going to make any progress here. Any ideas?”

“Why not the obvious?” Venus finally spoke. “We ask the DJ herself – if only to turn the music down so I – we can finally concentrate.”

Twilight rolled her eyes at Venus, then looked up at Saturn, the DJ in question – it was even emblazoned on the front of her turntables – mixing the music at her place on the north pole of the planet. Even she had to admit, such skill she had! She knew what music worked together, switched between them flawlessly, and never once let a lull appear. And all the while, the alien crowd were dancing tirelessly. So why does Venus go on about her music? she wondered. Other than the volume, there’s nothing really wrong with it here.

And not only that, the unicorn noticed – she had on several rings, including those through piercings in her body. Her ears and wrists were obvious enough choices, but as she squinted, she could see her nose was, too. Fitting for a ringed world, she thought. But just how far did she go with this?

Twilight looked up at Milky Way. “Think we’ll have any luck asking her?” she suggested.

Milky Way shrugged. “It’s worth a shot, if you ask me. Anyone else?” she asked the others. “Any other ideas?”

Silence from the other girls. Even the animals didn’t object.

“Alright, let’s have a talk with her.” Once Twilight climbed back onto Milky Way’s shoulder, and Jupiter told her pets to stay put, the girls all took off back to the planet, past the rings – I wonder how they could resist its gravity, and I couldn’t – and landed on top of the planet proper, behind the amplifiers. Almost at once, Twilight’s very core was hit with the heavy bass of the amplifiers. At least it’s not as loud here. . . .

Milky tapped Saturn’s shoulder. Saturn stopped mixing for a moment, turned around to face them, and lifted one ear of her headphones free.

“You think you could help us with something?” she asked Saturn – not nearly as loudly as before, though she still had to strain herself.

Saturn raised an eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t say anything. Amazing she can still hear us, Twilight thought. But for how much longer at this volume? The she looked around, and saw six more girls facing her. Her reaction was like a needle scratch on a record – complete with the actual thing.

“We’re looking for this fragment of a planetoid, and we think it might be somewhere in the mosh pit.” Twilight pointed down to where the aliens were still dancing, tirelessly, ceaselessly, unperturbed by what was happening.

“We’re trying to stop someone who broke free from a planetoid and is now planning on collapsing the universe back into a singularity, and we need your help finding a fragment,” the Sun further explained. “Could you clear the rings so we can find it, sugar? We won’t be long, we promise!”

Saturn looked to where Twilight pointed. Then she looked back to the others and, with a smile that bled confidence, grabbed a record. She slotted it onto a turntable, started playing it, and turned the already loud volume up even louder. Hey, wait a second, Twilight wondered. Isn’t this one of the Sun’s songs? The Sun’s sudden urge to dance confirmed it for her.

As though on cue, the aliens started parting away in a gap in front of the DJ, finally allowing them to get a good look at the unobstructed rings. Mercury slid down the planet to investigate.

Nothing.

Before anyone else could object, Saturn was already changing music again. As before, the aliens cleared a new spot, this time to their left. No dice here either, as Mars could see.

Saturn was already changing the music – apparently even she understood the gravity of the situation – and this time the aliens were clearing several spots around the rings. The girls all split up again, each one looking here and there. Even despite this, everyone both came up with nothing.

But Saturn was not one to give up that easily. Seemingly with the skills of an eternity of practice, she grabbed up two new records, and changed out both turntables so smoothly Twilight at first thought it was still the same tune.

By all means it should have been cacophony – and yet Saturn made it work all the same, changing tracks with such frequency and dexterity as to make an ad-hoc beat. The aliens somehow interpreted this as to get into more or less a single column in front of the turntables – and as they did so, they exposed enough of the rings that finding the fragment was a cinch.

Everyone was astounded at how Saturn was able to wrangle the crowd into such a neat tower. But then she started urgently pointing down at the rings, her eyes widened, as if to say, “I can’t hold them like this forever, you’ve got to hurry!”

I wonder if she’s a mute, Twilight thought. Oh well, time for me to pull my weight. She lit her horn, and went over the rings in a band of magic, from one end of the tower. About two-thirds of the way around, she felt a familiar jagged edge. Bingo! She snatched it up in her telekinetic grip and brought it up to her. “We’ve got it!” she announced.

Saturn took this cue and settled into a slow, lo-fi beat – a lull, by her apparent standards – and let the stacked-up aliens fall back down and spread themselves across the rings. Once the other girls reconvened by Saturn, they all breathed a sigh of relief. “That. . . was. . . exhausting,” the Sun said between breaths.

“I’m not even winded!” Mercury bragged. But even she had to sit down for once. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“I must say,” Venus eventually admitted, “I could find myself enjoying this music more often. . . Even if I cannot dance in such a state. Zut alors!”

Finally, the Moon spoke up for the first time in a while. “Of all the trials we have faced,” she said, “this may have been the hardest. What say you?”

Jupiter’s pets made their way back to their master. “I dunno, Moon,” Jupiter said, as she stroke Callisto. “Searching the Belt really wore me out.”

“Regardless, we found the next fragment,” Mars quipped. “And if you ask me, we had fun doing it, too!”

Saturn had gotten up from the turntables and joined them. As the aliens were dancing, she pulled out a small slab, adorned with what looked like buttons – something Twilight had never seen before, and doubted she would since – and pressed one of them. “You should’ve said something sooner if you needed my help!” it said.

Guess I was right, Twilight assessed – she is a mute. Nothing I can’t work with. “Sorry,” she said. “We saw you were deep in concentration, and we didn’t want to bother you – at least, I didn’t want to.”

“I’m willing to stop mixing for the time being if it’s that serious,” Saturn said through her apparatus. “In the meantime, can I ask who you are? Never seen a unicorn in my life.”

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “This is Milky Way – she’s also from out of town.” Milky Way just waved. “The others you probably already know from around the system.”

“Yeah, and each of them has their own taste in music,” Saturn said. “Venus, for one, is kinda picky – doesn’t like the faster upbeat mixes.” She noted Twilight’s fixation on the apparatus. “Oh, you’re probably wondering about this.” She tapped on it. “This is my cell phone. I use it mainly for talking to the other girls, whenever I don’t let my mixing talk for me.”

Cell. . . phone? Twilight pondered. This universe is indeed full of wonders. Better not get sucked into another lecture, and waste even more time. “Something wrong with your voice?” Twilight asked.

“Can’t really talk no more.” She waved her hand. “It’s a long story. But as long as I have this with me, it’s no big deal.” She turned to Milky Way. “Milky Way, was it? Tell me more about this Black Hole friend of yours.”

“He’s not exactly my friend,” Milky Way explained. “Nor is he yours. He’s trying to compress the universe into a black hole, and if we don’t stop him in time, well. . . none of us would have a system to come back home to.”

“Oh yeah, that guy,” Saturn said. “Heard rumors about him on some of my tours. Thought he was sealed away for good. So what gives?”

“Me,” Milky Way confessed. “I accidentally touched the planetoid he was held in, and set him loose.”

Saturn stood back up. “Then what are we waiting for? The longer we wait, the closer Black Hole will get to his goal.” She made her way through the alien crowd – which for once parted like the Red Sea to let her through. “I think it’s time we blow this scene,” she said. “You dig?”

Twilight looked over to Milky Way. “Any more planets in this system?” Please tell me this is the last one. . . .

“We’ve got three left,” the Sun replied.

Twilight groaned. “Alright, let’s just get them over with.” I swear, if it’s another gas giant. . . .

Once Jupiter called her pets back, the entire group went on their merry way – with Mercury taking the lead as usual.