• Published 22nd Sep 2016
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My Little Engineer - Soren Mercer



A space explorer, crossing the known spances of the universe comes across an unregistered planet out in deep space. What happens when he's forced to co-operate with a new species to not only save his life, but the entire species?

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Empty Spaces


Date: 02/04/2406 07:00


Stepping out of her home, Luna yawned and wiped the sleep from her eyes with her wing in order to lower the moon while her sister raised the sun for the new day. She still hadn’t forgotten the words of defeat she’d heard and succumbed to yesterday and had seriously contemplated leaving the skies dark for another hour of mourning once she’d announced to the world their inevitable demise.

The stampede of ponies flocking towards the destroyed mine had Luna curious at what the commotion was all about at such a time of day, considering that most ponies had only just woken up.

“He’s gone! It’s gone! He’s left us to die!” a pony exclaimed from the crowd, unidentifiable by the throngs of ponies rushing past her highness. “We’re doomed, doomed!”

“What in the world is going on?” Luna demanded, magically stopping a pony’s advance towards the mountain. “Why the rush?”

“Your highness: that building the suit had built, the craft he flies around in, all of it except the bare processing equipment. It’s all gone!” the stallion announced before wriggling free to continue the sprint towards the mountain. “He’s left us to die!”

“He did no such thing!” Luna screamed back, resorting to her Royal Voice accidentally. Taking wing, Luna shot forward over the heads of ponies and over the other pegasi flying low to the ground, flying as quickly as she could till she came in at a sliding halt at the massive hole in the mountain that had contained the Suit and his living space the night before.

“Where’d he go! Did anypony see anything last night?” Luna searched the faces of ponies around her, noticing the faces of confusion, surrender and fury at the Pilot who’d deserted them and up and left.

“No Princess, nopony knows where he’s gone! We can’t find any trace of him and with that aircraft of his, he could already be across the globe!” A female pegasus reported sorrowfully.

“He said it’s capable of reaching orbit, he could have left the planet entirely!” another pony, a teal green unicorn added to the sorrow of the small village.

Luna approached the hole in the wall and stepped into the mountain itself, passing by the hole that had been the suit’s room but now was just a fairly large indentation next to the processing equipment hole. Luna noted, however, that all the important parts like the refinery assembler and cargo pod had all been left behind. If the suit had truly intended to leave the planet and doom it’s occupants, he probably would’ve taken the resources from those facilities since they had so many of them.

Unless he didn’t have the room for those parts, or was leaving them some kind of thin thread of a life line.

Stepping into the bedroom hole itself, Luna looked around at the mild grey stone walls that, in the dark, looked dull and uninviting. Inhospitable like nothing had spent the last four or so months here. Turning to leave from the hole in the wall, Luna noticed a leaf of white gently flapping in the cold air of the hole pinned to the wall with a spike of metal.

Luna, Luna had to stop and try to remember the translated alphabet since she no longer had to read the Basic Galactic English and translate it into Equestrian. Sorry I didn’t say anything about me leaving, sorry I couldn’t even say goodbye so let me amend that.

I’m leaving, good-bye.

“I’m gonna kick his flanks when I see him.” Luna growled and crumpled the paper in her magic then tossed the wad deeper into the hole as she turned to the exit and left. She stepped into a semi-circle of ponies, all looking to her for answers.

“Princess, what happened? Where’s he gone?” A white unicorn demanded hopefully, looking for refuge in Luna’s words.

“Are we going to be able to continue the projects to leave the planet? Are we going to die?” And there was the million bit question, provided by a tan brown earth pony with a fedora.

Luna closed her eyes and dropped her head as she tried to imagine what she was going to say next. Raising her head, she addressed the ponies.

“It is with a heavy heart that I announce that our saviour has left us. It seems he’s taken his technology with him and has disappeared.” rippling murmurs and cries of disappointment and terror echoed through the crowd. “He has left us basic mining facilities, however. I believe he has intended that we continue on our mining project on our own and build our own ships and technology ourselves. I do have one of his welders, so I can build new machines myself, but it’s going to be slow going.”

“What hope do we have then? We can’t mine because the mountain’s unstable and we still have yet to dig out the trapped miners!”

“Since the suit has taken his dwelling with him, I am announcing that we will start digging through the walls in the remaining hole to rescue our ponies. After that, we will continue to mine as safely as we can while reinforcing whatever safety devices still remain.” Luna explained as her head swivelled to look at as many ponies as she could, trying to calm them. “We will not go quietly into the night! We will live on, we will survive!”

“Because today, is our Independence Day!” A random pony shouted from the middle of the crowd, silencing everypony around him and turning all eyes towards him in curiosity. Luna stared at the stallion as well, confused where that came from.

“What?” Luna looked out at the stallion in confusion before he shrunk back from where he stood with a sheepish grin. “Okay, sure.”

“Alright you ponies, all the miners, grab your equipment and report for duty! We’ve got ponies to save and ore to dig up!” the mining superintendent announced as he turned from near the front of the conglomeration to address his workforce. “Everyone who isn’t a miner, start setting up recovery! There may be ponies in there who’re injured and we need to get them into care! Pegasi, we’re going to be relying heavily on you all to fly in and rescue the ponies; they said that there are massive crevasses in there now so we need you all to carry them out! Unicorns…” Luna tuned out the rest and turned from the massive assembly to return to her home and deal with the thoughts in her mind.

Once she was walking alone, Luna let her mind wander to the fact that one of her best friends had deserted them without a word. She felt empty without him around, nearby. She missed the presence of his suit, his mere calming aura when he was working with her at building something entirely new. While she could never understand him when he himself spoke, Luna always found his natural voice soothing and warm. Low enough that the bass of his voice gently rumbled in her chest, but high enough that it wouldn’t have been called sensual in nature.

With a huff, Luna stepped into her home and locked the door. Turning left into her living room, she collapsed down on the couch and stared off into oblivion. Clutching a pillow close to her body with her hooves, Luna remembered how he’d felt without the suit. His skin was soft to the touch, almost as soft as her fur which she cared for meticulously and almost religiously.

Somehow he always smelled nice, of some kind of exotic spices blended together despite that the entire time she’d been in his bunker, she’d never seen any kind of bathing facilities in the place. She had noticed a tall box thing in the corner of his room which he used for washroom facilities, but it didn’t look like he’d been able to bathe in it.

He was hardworking, always looking for some way to improve the situations of him and the ponies who were relying on him. He fought through an entire griffon air force with one ship in order to rescue Princess Twilight, but had spared the largest portion of the griffon race despite that the ambassador had held Twilight hostage. For him to suddenly declare that everything was hopeless, that the planet and it’s inhabitants were doomed to extinction, Luna couldn’t believe that he’d just up and leave without a fight.

Luna had to admit it -never out loud or in public- but she felt empty without him, like a part of her was now missing without him. Luna curled up to herself but decided that the couch wasn’t the best spot nor was it the most comfortable no matter how inviting it looked and felt when she sat down on it.

Standing, she entered into the kitchen towards the back of the house and rounded past the center island to the fridge/freezer that the suit had provided. Granted, most of the creature comforts in her home -her home included- was provided by his designs and the technology they’d already had, like refrigeration and freezers and basic electricity, had been condensed into singular upright silvery boxes.

Pulling open the top door, Luna pulled out a carton of her favourite ice cream and a spoon from the cabinet drawer nearby before turning to the large mahogany dining table off the end of the kitchen and opposite the back door that lead outside. Taking a seat at the head of the table, Luna let her mane solidify and fall to her shoulders while she tore the lid from the carton off and scraped the edge of the spoon along the top of the ice cream.

Luna knew that this was ridiculous. She was acting like she’d suffered through a breakup with a stallion and was in remission now, but she felt like this was all she wanted to do at the moment.

Half-way through the carton, keeping in mind that it was full when she started, someone began to knock at Luna’s door. With a sigh, Luna set the carton next to her in her magical grip while the spoon hung out from between her lips as she traversed the hallway to the door where a certain mane of green, pink and blue waited for her.

“Sister,” Luna muttered unhappily once she’d opened the door with her magic and stepped back to let Celestia into her abode. “What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to come by and spend time with my younger sister, is that wrong?” Celestia replied, looking completely normal as she stepped around her sister to enter into the dining room at the end of the hall.

“And this has nothing to do with the Pilot’s disappearance?” Luna raised an eyebrow curiously as she scraped off another spoonful of chocolate chip and stuck to her tongue to begin melting it with her body heat and suck off whatever melted.

“None whatsoever. I was aware that he’d left, yes, but my visit is purely to spend time with you, Luna.” Celestia replied as she dove into her sister’s fridge to pull out something to drink. “Can I get you something to drink as well?”

“Nope, I’ve got my ice cream.” Luna replied defiantly and with the spoon still stuck out from between her lips, turning her head away to make her point. Luna knew that someone had asked Celestia to visit her and wasn’t going to have any of it.

“Suit yourself.” Celestia shrugged back and poured herself a glass of grape juice before letting her mane solidify as well. Her light pink mane flowed down past her shoulders, covering up the sun emblem on her collar. Luna’s mane, when solid, had always been shorter than her sisters so it only fell to her shoulders, never reaching her collar or chest. “So, how’ve you been?”

“Please, Tia, cut the chatter. I know somepony sent you here to try and cheer me up. It’ll not work.” Luna huffed with a cheek puffed out and she pulled the steel utensil from her lips to jab it into the ice cream for temporary storage. She did, however, follow her elder into the living room and even sat down in a couch opposite from Celestia. While Celestia curled up on the couch with her drink, Luna flopped backwards onto her rump and back, sitting like the human would -or that mint green unicorn, now that Luna thought about it.

“I promise you, Lulu, that i’m only here to spend time with you. I have nothing quite as nefarious as what you’ve envisioned planned, I assure you.” Celestia grinned back and took a sip of her beverage. “I sincerely wish to know how you’re doing today.”

“Well, if you must know,” Luna sighed in defeat and set the carton down on the couch next to her before going limp where she sat. “I feel foalish for acting like I am now. I feel like i’ve just been released from a relationship I was never a part of. I am aggravated that the Pilot left so suddenly, taking his home and the Wyvern with him and without a word beyond a small slip of paper I think he left as a last thought.”

“You miss him already?” Celestia concluded curiously. “I suppose that makes sense. You and him have spent quite a bit of time together these last few months, almost never leaving his side whenever possible. It’s entirely plausible that you may have developed feelings for him.”

“You think?” Luna rolled her eyes at her sister and pulled another mouthful of ice cream into her mouth as a show of point. “I must ask, however: is it normal for all males to remain so oblivious to my feelings? This is just like Starswirl all over again.”

“It would seem so, I’m afraid.” Celestia chuckled in response and shifted where she laid. “May I suggest that when you next see him, you make your intentions known to him?”

“What, you want me to be forthcoming about how I feel about him? Are you serious?” Luna smirked for once and set the spoon back into the carton. “What kind of mare are you?”

“Perhaps one who’s seen you go through this before and doesn’t want to see you go through it again. We both know that males are stubborn and cannot see a mare’s feelings when they’re directed at them. If this was a situation where you were directing your feelings towards another, I’m sure the Pilot would have noticed immediately.” Celestia replied with a sigh. Luna had to give it to her sister, she had a point.

“But, I don’t know if I can; especially since we don’t know if he’s ever coming back or not, or even where he’s gone.” Luna groaned in angsty disappointment, knowing she may have lost her only chance at true happiness.

“Well, while I certainly don’t condone these actions, why not search for him in the Dreamscape when next we sleep? See if he’s within reach to find and poke around, see if you can get a clue about his whereabouts from his dreams?” Celestia suggested slowly at first, unsure if she should actually be giving this idea.

“He’s never let me into his dreams before, he’s somehow capable of near-lucid dream states all on his own.” Luna shook her head and frowned, drooping her head in defeat.

“What do you mean by ‘near-lucid’?” Celestia perked her head up in confusion at this information.

“I mean, he’s never truly lucid when he’s dreaming, but he always remembers everything in perfect detail. He’s always compared them to playing a lead role in a movie in his mind at night. Somehow his sub-conscious doesn’t let me into his dreams as if he was lucid.” Luna explained and took another bite of ice cream.

“So you have no idea what he dreams about?”

“No idea.”

“Can’t even tell if he’s dreaming about you?”

“Nope.”

“What if, because you can’t enter his dream, it’s because he’s already dreaming about you?”

Luna chuckled at this thought for a moment. “I could only wish that were true.”

“‘Well, when we next see him, and I do get the feeling that you will see him again, why don’t you sit him down and talk about it?” Celestia offered hopefully and with a thin smile.

“You’ll not let me let this go, will you?” Luna mumbled and received a confirming nod from her elder. “Fine, when I next see him, I’ll sit him down and we’ll talk about things.”

“Excellent, then let’s go visit him.” Celestia concluded and sat her empty cup down to stand. Luna frowned in confusion, watching her sister for the punchline. “Well, come on now!”

“You know where he is?” Luna demanded and flipped herself onto her hooves. Retrieving her ice cream and spoon, she hurriedly replaced them in their appropriate storages in the kitchen before joining her sister at the front door.

“Of course, I met him on the way down here.” Celestia announced, confusing Luna greatly as both mares stepped through the door so that Luna could lock it. “Come on, time to find your love.”

“Please don’t call him that…” Luna grumbled but took off after her sister, aiming upwards into the sky above.