4 - Cheeki Breeki
Rainbow Dash - 8th of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
One Hour Ago
749556.5 A.H.
Rainbow was always up for pushing herself. She couldn’t help it: she was a born flier and had been naturally good at it long before she decided to train to become great at it. As she flew over the forest below her, Rainbow decided to pass the time by trying to break her old speed record, Mach 1.1.
Rainbow knew that was probably impossible. She’d broken the sound barrier as a filly, and everypony knew little fillies had a much better thrust-to-weight ratio than fully grown mares. She tried anyways.
Rainbow’s goggles dug into the fur around her eyes, pushed roughly into her flesh by the compressed air trying to rush around her head. If not for the goggles, her eyes would be forced shut or stretched painfully wide. She could feel her feathers being pulled and twisted by drag forces, and the thousand little needles pricking her wings blocked out the muscle burn.
Rainbow glanced at the magical speedometer built into her goggles. Mach 0.83. She was close!
Transonic flight, an achievement on its own! Not sonic, or supersonic flight, but still quite good. Especially for a pegasus on her own.
Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped this year’s Young Flier’s Contest. I might have been able to take home an award for speed.
Ponies had their flying machines like any other people. After all, ground-bound ponies needed to visit pegasi towns sometimes. Pegasi themselves used flying machines, too. What pegasus wants to hoof carry a literal ton of food from an earthy pony farm up to the clouds?
The first pony to fly at supersonic speeds had been Commander Typhoon. He had achieved his flight using a rocket assisted autogyro. It took earth pony scientists and unicorn mages six years to design, five more to build, and then six months to teach the pilot how to fly the darn thing.
Rainbow had been training as a flier for a mere eight years, and she had a lower crash record than Commander Typhoon. As well as more common sense than the engineer who chose an autogyro as the basis for supersonic flight.
Rainbow smiled, and the wind pulled her mouth open painfully wide, forcing her to close her lips as tightly a she could.
I should buy a face-mask. Rainbow chuckled to herself. I wonder if I’m the first pegasus to fly this fast on her own? Eh, probably not.
Rainbow tucked her forelegs more tightly against her sides, trying to become just that much more aerodynamic. She could feel the drag on her tail slowing her down, and with a little scrunching up, could maybe overcome the—
In the clear blue skies over Equestria came a roar and thunder ponies had never heard: the screaming sound of an almost literal brick burning through the atmosphere.
Rainbow’s eyes shot open wide. Hundreds of images flashed through her mind, each one depicting the horrors wrought by minotaur weapons or pony-made megaspells.
Rainbow rolled over onto her back to look behind her. She saw nothing. No rising plume of flame-filled smoke. No growing ball of arcane energy scorching the earth. Rainbow frowned. She had definitely heard something, and it had to be loud to get through the wind rushing in her ears.
Her eyes focused in on a small orange dot as it burst through the clouds. An object, falling very fast. So fast it was on fire. Its angle suggested it had to have come from extremely high in the sky.
“Oh cool! A meteor!” Dash shouted, grinning like a dork for the two seconds it took her to realize the space-rock was on a collision course with Canterlot.
Dash gasped and started to twist, flaring her wings to slow down. She could make it back in time to help survivors if she gave it everything she had. Rainbow had to believe that, even if it wasn’t true.
Rainbow began to pull herself into an immelman turn. The meteor suddenly pulled up, its course changing to one which would bring it close to Rainbow’s position in a few seconds.
She frowned and let herself enter a backwards glide while she watched the meteor change direction. Perhaps Princess Celestia had deflected the space rock, or—
“That’s not slowing down like it should,” Rainbow said.
The space rock continued to burn through the sky, the flames slowly fading away, and the rock maintained a level trajectory rather than being pulled inexorably towards the ground.
“That’s an aircraft!”
She couldn’t help it. Nopony else was within earshot, and someone had to help her work her way through watching some sort of super-advanced aircraft just burn through the sky like it shouldn’t be in some super-classified warehouse under five invisibility spells and surrounded by angry bees.
Rainbow tracked the craft, wondering if she could identify it. It would fly past her soon. If it looked like a minotaur ship, she should report it to Princess Luna as soon as possible.
Nodding to herself, Rainbow rolled back over and resumed her original course. The strain would have given a lesser pony a heart attack, but Rainbow pushed through the pain, moving back to her original Mach .83 velocity.
The approaching aircraft’s engines screeching slowly faded into Rainbow’s hearing. Softly at first, then more and more loudly. She could also hear the wind rushing past the craft and swore it sounded just like an irritatingly loud bassline as laid down by DJ-Pon3 at 3 am on a Moonsday.
The craft began to slow, and drew up alongside Rainbow. It didn’t merely sound like an irritatingly loud bassline as laid down by DJ-Pon3 at 3 am on a Moonsday. It was playing a song featuring an irritatingly loud bassline as laid down by DJ-Pon3 at 3 am on a Moonsday.
That alone would have been enough of a surprise for Rainbow to drop out of the sky, but that wasn’t all.
Rainbow pushed her goggles up onto her forehead in disbelief.
The craft was an actual brick. It looked like one of the moving vans earth ponies in cities would use, only somepony had welded some sort of turbofan-fed rocket engines to the front and back to make a wingless quad-jet. That same pony had then painted their van a bright yellow, like a banana dipped in enough gloss to become grossly incandescent.
As a finishing touch, they had put three narrow black stripes down the van’s dorsal ridge. It reminded Rainbow vaguely of a sports equipment brand, but she couldn’t remember which one.
As if the impossibility of a near-supersonic aircraft made from an old flat-nosed van and some jet engines looted from a junkyard wasn’t enough, Rainbow could see into the cabin. The pilot was not a pony. The pilot wasn’t even Equusian.
The pilot was bipedal, possessed hands, and furless. They were covered in a ghostly-white skin which reminded Rainbow of the last wisp of candle smoke. They had a flat face with a small mouth, little eyes, and a slightly protruding nose, but no muzzle. A decidedly weird look for any intelligent life form, but the long, wide, pink and darker pink mane made up for it. The pilot’s turquoise-framed cat-eye glasses also helped make her look less alien. So did her pink eyes; they reminded Rainbow of her own, only smaller.
At least, Rainbow assumed they were female. The long eyelashes were her only real clue because the rest of the pilot was covered by what Rainbow was confident could only be described as a walking tank.
Assuming the pilot’s head wasn’t tiny compared to her body, the tank she was treating like a suit of armor had to be over twice her size, and yet it moved as gracefully as Rarity while the alien inside adjusted her craft’s controls.
The alien turned, looked out the side window, and saw her. Rainbow’s eyes dilated down to practically nothing.
Holy bucking horseapples, Lyra was right! I should have listened to her ranting! Rainbow’s ears slowly drooped down as she realized something else. Luna was wrong. It was aliens. They’re in space...
The alien looked back at Rainbow for a second then smiled. Rainbow felt her brain melt a little as she understood that an alien was smiling. Deep down she felt that an aliens’ expressions should be impossible to read, and yet here she was. Fully understanding that an alien found her awesome.
The pilot said something and flashed Rainbow an enthusiastic gesture. Rainbow blinked and waved back out of pure reflex.
An alien thinks I’m cool… That’s awesome, but how do I know that’s what she means?
The pilot glanced down for a moment then looked back up to Rainbow and smirked before tipping her head forwards. Rainbow frowned, not at all understanding the nonverbal communication. The pilot turned back to her controls, gripped a lever on the console and pulled it back slightly.
The shuttle’s engines roared loudly, pushing the ship slightly ahead of Rainbow before the pilot throttled down. Rainbow raised an eyebrow. The pilot revved her craft’s engines a few more times then looked back to Rainbow with a hopeful smile.
Rainbow tilted her head. “You… Want to race?”
The pilot reved her shuttle’s engines again. Rainbow’s eyes narrowed as she realized exactly what was going on.
This was Penny. Pandora hadn’t been roleplaying. He was about to leave Equus. If Rainbow lost this shuttle, she’d lose her only chance to rescue her friends. Her friends who absolutely had been abducted by space pirates.
“Oh, it! Is! On!” Rainbow declared as she slipped her goggles over her eyes.
Penny smiled through the window and gestured at Rainbow, making a fist with her thumb extended upwards. Rainbow had no idea what that meant, but she understood what the alien meant when her armor rotated a plate down in front of her face.
It was on.
Rainbow drew on her deepest reserves of energy and pushed against the air with her wings. She began to inch forwards, accelerating past her already pushed limits.
Penny opened the Hoatzin’s throttle as wide as she’d go. The shuttle rocketed forwards amid a mechanical screech of ‘why user?! WHY!!!??’
Rainbow winced as the shriek rattled her teeth more than the dull thumping music the shuttle still blared. She pushed harder. Her shoulders burned. Her wings blazed. The air felt almost solid in front of her.
The Hoatzin began to pass Rainbow completely, the hot gasses coming out of the ramjets blasted across her side. She winced, closing her right eye by reflex.
Rainbow clenched her teeth and stretched her hind legs out behind her as far as she could, even bending her hooves up to hold the end of her tail. She couldn't afford an ounce of drag.
Her effort paid off immediately. The Hoatzin’s side window grew closer and closer until Rainbow was once again alongside the shuttle.
Penny’s 360 sensors informed her that the pony had caught up. She glanced down at her controls. The shuttle was flying at 0.92 Mach. She could feel the hull shaking and jolting, and the shield generator was too fried from reentry to properly compensate for the aerodynamic profile of a brick. If the system was stressed much more, something could explode.
But the pony was going to win! No adorably-huggable organic was a match for mighty Chernin engineering!
Penny reached over and flipped on the afterburners. The boxy shuttle pulled ahead of Rainbow once more, green flames pouring from its boosters as they gave everything they had.
A wave of heat blasted out from the engines. Rainbow was forced to roll to her left and put distance between her and the shuttle as it took off like an arrow from a bow.
Rainbow grit her teeth. The shuttle was getting away. Her only chance to save her friends was getting away!
Rainbow flew faster now than she ever had as an adult. She felt the wall in front of her, the barrier every athlete finds when their body has hit its limits. This was it. This was all she had.
The shuttle shook visibly, rocking in the air as its mach cone burst. Rainbow’s eyes narrowed angrily as the sonic boom blasted through her. Flying this fast was ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will, five percent pleasure, and fifty percent pain.
As she thought about never seeing her friends again, Rainbow found more will. Twenty percent more.
Everything Rainbow had went into her wings. All the energy her body could provide, all the focus her mind could muster, all the magic in her bones. The pressure wave in front of Rainbow warped and twisted, distorting as her flight magic began to force it aside.
The shuttle began to slow from Rainbow’s perspective. If she could just get a little more speed she could catch up, grab on, and hitch a ride to its final destination.
Rainbow clenched her teeth harder. Her mach cone started to spark, bolts of white lighting flashing around the edges. Dash didn’t notice them; her eyes were on the shuttle’s ramp, and the handles bolted onto it. If she could just reach the—
The air around Rrainbow exploded in a thunderclap as she broke the sound barrier. The pegasus magic once contained in her mach cone radiated outwards, creating a shimmering display of light behind her as she vanished into a prismatic blur, blasting across the sky in an instant.
Rainbow passed the shuttle in front of her like it was standing still.
Penny Hawking - 749556.5 A.H.
One Hour Ago
Ursa's Lair Campground - Whitetails Woods, Equestria, Equus
Penny yelped in alarm as a blazing bolt of prismatic light shot past her window at hypersonic speeds. The young woman stared out the window, slack-jawed as the Hoatzin’s cabin shimmered under the rainbow-light left behind by the passing object.
“The blin was that?!” Penny demanded as she stared wide-eyed at her helmet’s display.
Refusing to believe the sensors, Penny opened her helmet. Her jaw dropped as she realized the sensors had been right.
The shuttle’s targeting computer chirped, finally getting a lock on what it assumed was a surface-to-air missile. Penny glanced at the display in stunned disbelief before her lips slowly pulled apart into a toothy grin. She jumped up from her seat, her armor releasing maglocks seamlessly and the shuttle lurching under the weight of her movement.
“Opa!” Penny cheered. “Carry on, you magical air-pony! Ohhh, my queendom for filming rights in this sector. That clip would have made billions!”
Penny sighed happily and slumped down in her seat again, the mag locks engaging with a ka-chunk as soon as she sat down. She directed her armor to open a call to Pan. “Pan? It’s Penny. I’m planetside. Did you see the pegasus go hypersonic? Why didn’t you tell me you had hyperjets on those things?”
Her radio crackled after a few moments. “I’m so happy you’re alive! Uh… No I didn’t see any— WOAH! Um, okay, yeah I saw it!”
“Isn’t that cool?!” Penny grinned ear to ear. “It’s a shame you want to leave this place, Pan. I could vaporize your bullies from orbit instead, then we could do a whole series of videos on this planet. Hypersonic pegasi, stone crocodiles, bears made from acid. Ohhh, your world sounds wonderful, Pan.”
Pan was quiet for several long moments. “Well… It’s just not my world, you know? It does have its cool places though.”
Penny nodded to herself. “I understand. I have my own problems fitting in back home too.”
It was true. Penny didn’t fit in with her brothers and sisters. While she was a completely typical example of her particular race’s culture, Penny had a tiny disability which made interacting with her own people very difficult: she couldn’t understand her own species’ body language.
“That face thing you mentioned?” Pan asked with a frown.
“Da. It’s easier for me to be with you aliens.”
“But… You’re the alien?”
Penny grinned. “Nyet, you are!”
Penny heard the sound of a hoof meeting face over the radio. “Right! Perspective. I’m dumb.”
“You’re not dumb. You’re just not used to the galaxy yet,” Penny squinted at the horizon, and a small tower built atop an exceedingly large tree caught her eye. “I see you. Is there a place to land up there?”
“Yeah, there’s a landing platform,” Pan said with a smile. “Pegasi need to deliver mail, you know.”
Penny’s mind conjured up the image of a large steel platform supported by duracrete, complete with fuel trucks, boarding ramps, and landing lights. “Good! I was worried I’d need to set eighteen tons down on a tree branch.”
Pan looked out his window at the landing platform. It looked pretty sturdy. The deck was made from 2x4s and supported by 4x4s and angle iron. “I think it can handle that.”
Penny steered towards the tower and pulled back on the throttle, slowing down on a carefully plotted course. As she drew up alongside the tower, the shuttle was moving at a safe speed for her to engage the hover mode. The Hoatzin’s engines rotated ninety degrees, directing their thrust downwards and shaking the leaves from the treetops as Penny looked at the landing camera’s display and sighed.
“Pan, that’s not a landing platform. Its kindling. The engines will light that all on fire.”
Pan looked up at the shuttle above him. It was big, square, yellow, and looked distinctly like something that shouldn’t be flying. He gulped and nodded in agreement. “Um, yeah… Can we like, push my stuff inside while you hover next to the tower?”
Penny checked the shuttle’s fuel gauge. Her little race had burned more fuel than she’d wanted. “Nyet. I don’t have the fuel to hover for more than five minutes. Unless you want to stay on this planet.”
Pan nodded to himself and puffed out his cheeks as he thought about how they could pull this off. “Um, there’s a campground not to far from here with a big clearing. You can land there. I’ll lower stuff down with the winch and meet you there in a few minutes. If you help carry things, we can be out of here real quick. I know you’re worried about the pirates.”
“Good thinking. Which way to I go?”
“North by northeast. You can't miss it from the air, it’s huge and the only big gap in the treetops.”
“Got it. I’ll meet you back at your tree.”
Penny twisted the shuttle’s joystick and redirected herself towards the clearing. The trip took mere seconds to complete, and within a minute the shuttle was slowly floating towards the ground. The shuttle slowly and gently set down, almost sighing in what felt like relief as its landing legs touched sweet ground.
Penny pat the console gently. “Resy easy, comrade. We will be in space once again soon.”
The shuttle groaned under the weight of Penny’s armor as she stood up. It almost seemed like a response to its mistress’s words.
Penny crossed the deck to the shuttle’s ramp and put a finger on the ramp’s switch, but didn’t press it. Pan had told her that their planet had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, and the Dawn had registered the same via astrometrics, but remote scans and word of mouth wasn’t quite enough for her to step out of her shuttle onto an alien world.
Penny glanced at the environmental scanner and winced. The local atmosphere had a rather high concentration of radon. The radiation was nothing for Penny. She’d been grown on Chern, a planet better known as the Empire of Atomicbombia. The tiny amount of rads the gas put out was literally nothing to her.
But no one wants to go to a doc to have them vacuum uranium and lead dust out of their lungs.
Penny deployed her armor’s helmet and sealed it with a hiss. Her finger flipped the hazardous environment switch, and a forcefield sprang up over the doorway before the ramp lowered. The field wasn’t remotely powerful. It would keep the atmosphere from leaking out, or in. That was it.
The ramp lowered to the ground with an ear splitting screech and a few sparks. Penny winced and set her armor to remind her to give the Hoatzin some TLC once it was secured back on the Dawn. Clearly an old-school reentry was about all the old girl could take.
The lowering ramp revealed something the young woman had not expected. The little blue pegasus was sitting behind her shuttle. Penny studied her armor’s displays as the lowering ramp revealed more and more of the pony. It was the first time she’d seen a member of Pan’s species and there was something she needed to verify.
One of the odder facts of galactic travel most people don’t want to talk about is Cross-Species Orientation. The great variety of species among the stars means everyone will eventually find another species they personally find attractive. That alone wouldn’t bother anyone. The problem is many people’s sense of self is shaken when they find a specific sex within a species to which they are attracted to, and it isn’t a sex they normally like.
Nearly half of all spacers encountered that situation in their lives. For many people, the shock to their self-identity could cause major issues and needed a therapist to resolve. Penny always looked forward to the dice roll. It spiced things up.
Penny took in Rainbow’s slender frame, athletically toned muscles, silky fur, huge eyes, cute little wings, and multi-hued mane. She nodded to herself, the gesture hidden by her helmet. Yep. They’re sexy.
The ramp hit the ground. Rainbows eyes widened as she tipped her head back, and back, then back some more to take in Penny’s sheer size. Seeing the Chernin through a window hadn’t provided a real sense of scale. Rainbow’s head came up to Penny’s armored knee. Rainbow could comfortably fit in her boot.
The poor pegasus’s heart began to beat faster and faster as she realized what she was face to camera-covered helmet with. The alien really was in a walking tank, and could crush her like a bug if she wanted to.
Penny bent her knees to lower herself into a squatting position. The act took her down from four times a pony’s height to merely twice that. Rainbow gulped nervously.
“I— I uh—”
Penny smiled behind her helmet and held out her first towards Rainbow. Rainbow eeped and winced at the sound of EM servos moving nearly a ton of steel.
“Ey, little poni! Put her there. You won fair and square. Good job!”
Rainbow blinked once, frowned, and nervously held out her hoof for the alien to bump. “Please don't shatter every bone in my leg…”
Penny snorted and bumped Rainbow’s hoof with her middle finger knuckle. Rainbow flinched away, only to freeze. The bump had been surprisingly delicate.
“Don’t be afraid. I don’t want to hurt you. You’re smol, and blue! Two of my favorite things,” Penny crossed her arms in front of herself for stability. “This might be a weird question, but are you a male or a female? Or do you not have those? Some races don’t have those.”
Rainbow snorted, her ears flicking in surprise and annoyance. “I’m a mare! Obviously. Sheesh, you work out just a bit and suddenly people—” Rainbow’s mouth froze mid-word. A sheepish smile overtook her. “Uh, heh heh… I uh… Yeah, you’re an alien! You actually might not know anything about uh, yeah....”
Penny rocked forwards slightly to simulate a nod. “Da. Thank you, Blue. Did you want something? Or did you get mad poor Hoatzin couldn’t keep up with your awesome?”
Rainbow smirked as her flying skill was called something so crude, yet flattering. “I have something important to ask,” she said as she looked towards the spot she believed Penny’s head to be under all that armor. “I want to go to space. Those pirates you saw took my friends. I’m going to find them.”
Penny frowned and reached up to her faceplate, stroking it slowly. Dash winced at the sound of metal shrieking against metal. “Well, Blue, Pan and I are going to do everything we can to help. See, I think it’s our fault they were taken. Nova Wing always used their old trick of monitoring transmissions to find good prey. They probably didn’t even hear what we talked about, but they would have seen a call going to your planet and gotten curious.
“There’s a lot of good reasons to investigate signals coming from your sector… Blin, I would have tracked one down myself. Uh, the point is that I feel responsible for your loss. I will do everything I can to ensure they are found. I could take you with Pan and I, but we have problem.”
Rainbow frowned and tilted her head. “What problem?”
Penny stood up and pointed up to the sky. “Up there is the Wild Core, Blue. You live in what we call the K3 Sector. It’s a no-fly zone for governments. We were asked very nicely by very powerful people to keep out. So we do… Mostly. I’m not a government agent, and my ship is privately owned. I can come in. I can take you around this sector, anywhere you want to go… But if we want to track down Nova Wing, we need to leave this sector. I’m not allowed to take primitives out of their home sector without written or recorded permission from a ranking member of their government, military, or other recognised national figure.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Then how will you go flying around with Pan? Or is he not leaving this ‘sector’?”
Penny smiled and winked at Rainbow. “Pan has the signatures of several national heroes. On blank pages.”
“You mean you’ll forge him papers, but not me?”
“Da.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “That seems pretty hypocritical.”
The mare smirked, instantly making Penny believe she was holding onto something critical. “My people are called the Chernin. We are born spacers, we travel the stars in search of our ancestors. It is of our firmly held belief that the Federated Republic doesn't have the authority to tell people where they can and cannot go.
“I can forge Pan immigration papers, but doing so will consume those signatures. The paper they are written on, the ink, it will all be molecularly rearranged and fuzed into one sheet of paper so the pen strokes are all in the… It’s a complex process. All you need know is the physical signatures will be consumed to minimize the risk of the forgery being detected.”
Rainbow nodded twice. A mischievous look in her eyes indicated she trusted Penny was telling the truth, but still knew something she did not. “Okay… Thing is, one of those signatures is mine.”
Penny raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Which?”
“I’m Rainbow Dash.”
Penny chuckled. “Well, well, national hero… I’m not sure you can sign your own papers. But let’s say you can. There is other problem too.”
Rainbow frowned. “Yeah so, when you said ‘do anything’ that excludes ‘help me’, right?”
Penny shook her head. “Nyet! How are you with not having a bedroom?”
Rainbow blinked. “Huh?”
“My ship has two bedrooms. One is mine. One will be Pan’s. You would have to sleep in a sofa.”
Rainbow’s frown deepened. “Um, you mean on a sofa.”
“Is it on? Sorry. Still learning Equish.”
Rainbow pursed her lips and looked up at Penny. “You don’t have some awesome space translator?”
“I do, but it’s only so good. A good spacer learns the languages they use the most. Uh, if they can speak them. Blin… You should hear Falaxian and try to say even a single word! Stupid four larynxed space elves and their thirty-two syllable words for basic shit…” Penny grumbled muttering to herself.
Rainbow closed her eyes for a moment, then stood up and gave Penny the most determined look Rainbow had ever given anyone in her entire life. Penny bit her tongue to keep for squeeing at the adorable little thing trying to look all tough. Oi, Blin! Their girls are adorable. I’d get into so much trouble here if I could stay a while.
“I don't care what I’ll be sleeping on. I want to rescue my friends. Sure, maybe they can escape without me, but… I need to help them if I can, and I can!” Rainbow stamped a hoof against the ground to punctuate her claim.
Penny squatted down for Rainbow again. “Hokay. Then you can come with us. If you can sign your own papers. Let me look it up.”
Penny closed her eyes for a moment to access her armor’s database and call up a legal text. No spacer left home without a full copy of the current galactic law. She began to page through the volume, searching indexes for laws relating to Spacefaring-Planetbound interactions.
Penny found one option and giggled. “Ey? Huh… As a captain, I could marry you to Pan, and then you could come with us no problem!”
Rainbow snorted. “Pass!”
Penny gave Rainbow a playful glare, and wished her helmet was translucent. “Oi? What’s wrong with him?”
Rainbow bit her lip. “Uh, well… Personally, I like my stallions to look like stallions. He looks like a mare who's a bit butch. You know?”
Penny nodded and smiled internally. It’s a trap, eh? Good. I like their mares, so I should like him. Maybe Blue can have her own room after all…
“So he looks a little girly. So what? My last partner was a squid-person from an ocean world. Looks aren't that important.”
“Yeah, well, he’s also a bit too into sex, and a bit of a misanthrope.”
Rainbow eeped as she heard somepony clear their throat behind her. She turned around to find Pan standing a few meters behind her.
The little stallion was carrying a large pair of saddlebags, and dressed in a black hoodie with pink socks covering his hind legs from hoof to mid-thigh, just below his cutie mark.
Penny looked up from her documents and smiled behind her helmet. So that’s what he looks like? He’s more adorable than Blue. Hokay penny, you’re bi when it comes to Equestrians, who are adorable. Kush!
Penny waved to her friend, and hoped he would find her attractive as well. It would be nice to have a romantic partner again. “Opa! Pan! Come over here, you can ride on my shoulder.”
Pan gave Penny a shaky smile. “Uhhhh… One sec, okay?”
Penny nodded. “Okay.”
Pan stepped forwards and looked at Rainbow, rubbing the back of his head. “Um, so… I’m not a misanthrope. I don’t hate everything and everyone. This place just isn’t for me is all. I thought that talking to you would be the last thing I ever did with another pony and I wanted to get some stuff off my chest.”
Rainbow raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You spent like, ten minutes ranting about how guys dont get to look cute because ponies are jerks.”
Pan rolled his eyes and gestured to his socks. “You know full well a lot of stallions would slap me for liking to wear these.”
Rainbow coughed into her hoof. “Uh, okay. Yeah… But just as many would want to mount you for it.”
Pan’s cheeks flushed bright pink. “Yeah, but I’m straight. I like mares. I like to look cute, because then mares find me approachable, hang out with me as friends, and don’t get weirded out by me ‘suddenly’ liking the occasional girly thing. They expect it. Because I like socks, and hoodies, and looking cute. Can we not do this again? Please?”
Rainbow pursed her lips then nodded sharply. “Sure. I’m willing to give you a second chance, but uh, that was a pretty bad first impression. All I know about you is that you’re a girly stallion who likes to draw porn and hates how you’re judged for it.”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Oi, blin. You had one conversation and brought up his you-know-what,” Penny looked at Rainbow and tapped her helmets forehead. “If someone cut off your wings, and someone brought that up, would you be in a good mood and talk about things that make you happy?”
Rainbow shook her head. “No! He brought that up. I was just upset because I thought he drew porn of me.”
Penny turned to face Pan. The stallion nodded and chuckled. “Yeah, I did it that time. Rainbow, seriously, I’m sorry I came off like that. I’m not normally like that. I just wanted to complain to someone before never coming back here again. Also you kinda started us on a topic that guaranteed we wouldn’t have a normal conversation.”
Rainbow raised her hoof to protest, then lowered it. It’s true. If you start a conversation with porn as the topic it will bring out the weirdest parts of people. “Fair enough. Let’s start from scratch then. Hi, I’m Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow held out her hoof and Pan gently shook it. “My name is Pandora. Nice to meet you, Rainbow.”
Pan let go of Rainbow’s hoof and looked up at Penny. “Now for you!” He said, his eyes narrowing angrily, “You told me you were a mare, but you’re a giant robot!”
Penny snorted and laughed, falling over backwards onto the Hoatzin’s ramp. “Xaxaxax! Eto dospekhi, ty derpy poni!”
The two ponies looked at each other for a moment. Rainbow spoke first. “So uh… Why does an alien language sound a lot like Griffonese?”
Pan shrugged. “I don’t know. Coincidence? The words aren't the same, just the sound. I checked,” he said before turning back to glare at Penny. “What’s so funny?!”
“I said this is armor, you derp!” Penny said as she sat up, wiping her faceplate as if to remove tears from her eyes.
Pan’s eyes narrowed even further. “Ponyfeathers! That is a giant robot! I know giant robots when I see them.”
Rainbow cleared her throat. “Uh, it really is armor. I saw her face when she was flying. That big middle smooth slab-thing is some kind of helmet. It was down.”
Pan tilted his head. “Really?”
“Da,” Penny said with a smile.
“Yep,” Dash snickered. “You do look like a robot in that, though.”
“Is okay, I’m a cyborg. This armor is technically a bodypart,” Penny chuckled. “It comes off. There’s a fully-normal squishy-person in here who can come out. I’d show you now, Pan, but you’ve got a lot of radon here. I don't want that in my lungs; it turns to lead.”
Rainbow bit her lip and snickered. “Your Equuish is terrible. I uh, I’ll help you while we're in space.”
Pan tilted his head. “Wait, what do you mean by body part? Can you feel things through that?”
Penny nodded, remembered her helmet was fixed, and flashed pan a thumbs up. “Da! It responds to my thoughts too. We can talk about my T-34 later. We need to get back into space and find out if Rainbow can come with us.”
Pan tilted his head and turned towards Rainbow. “Okay, I missed something. You’re going with us?”
“Of course I am. You’re the only way of getting off world and my friends are rotting in a space pirate’s brig!”
Penny winced, internally debating if she should say what was most likely happening to them right now. She decided to be honest. Penny cleared her throat. “Nyet. They are most likely in stasis tanks, or on medical tables. New species, new bio.”
Rainbow’s ears lay back flat against her head. “So yeah, I’m going with you. Especially because your pirates won't even use bioscanners or whatever other future tech you have.”
Penny raised an eyebrow. “You need baseline data for a bioscanner to work. First few organisms need to be dissected.”
Rainbow’s eyes widened, she sniffled, her head hanging from her neck limply. “So… It’s too late?”
Penny frowned. “Ey?”
Pan closed his eyes tightly. “You just said they’ll be dissected. As in, cut apart for study. You don’t survive that.”
Penny blinked several times. “Blin… Your doctors SUCK! Nyet, they’ll survive, but the Wing won't care to use painkillers on slaves. I imagine they’ll clear up the scarring though.”
Rainbow’s head snapped back up. “We can still save them?!”
“Da,” Penny resumed flipping through the legal documents on her display.
Rainbow turned to Pan. “Da is her word for yes, right?”
Pan nodded. “Mhm. She refuses to say it most of the time.”
Rainbow’s face scrunched up on her as she processed that. “She KNOWS the word, wants to speak Equuish, but wont use it?”
Penny smiled. “Opa! We have solution. Rainbow can come with us for up to 48 standard hours as an ambassador!” Her smile faded. “Oh… She’d have to stay at an embassy for everything but travel time.”
Rainbow’s eyes closed. She sighed in irritation and rustled her wings. “Can you wait here for a little bit? I can fly back to Canterlot and—”
Rainbow winced as her wings sent burning pan into her shoulders, almost as if mentioning flying again so soon after breaking through the wall made them panic. “OW! Buck… That stings… Okay, never mind, muscle burn just kicked in.”
Pan’s ears drooped down. He set down his bag and began digging through it for a first aid kit. “How bad is it? I remember when I stressed my hips out it felt like they were like, detaching. I have painkillers I can give you.”
Rainbow shook her head. “No! No drugs. They interfere with the muscle growth process.”
Pan looked up, raising and eyebrow at her remark. “Um, no they don’t?”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her head and smiled sheepishly. “Uh, not to sound like a big jerk but, at your level it makes no difference. I’m training to be an elite athlete. Where I am right now it’s hard to gain anything at all, so the tiny little bit of interference a painkiller will cause actually will negatively impact me.”
Penny tilted her head. “Really? That’s a bit of odd biology. Do they slow down your protein synthesis?”
Rainbow nodded a smile spreading across her lips. “Yeah! How do you know that, do you work out?”
“Nyet. Real Chernin build muscles,” Penny said with a savage grin. “I’m a mechanic.”
Rainbow puckered her lips. “Okay, that’s related to biology stuff… How?”
“Biomechanics are also mechanics,” Penny said as she closed her legal briefings. “I do hardware, software, firmware, and wetware. Bodies are machines too, you know.”
Pan flicked his tail for a few moments while staring awkwardly at the ground. “We don’t have the fuel to fly her to Canterlot, do we?”
Penny sighed. “Nyet. I drained some of the fule to make entry easier. Less mass, less energy to bleed. We could go to orbit, check to see if they are reacting to me, refuel, then go.”
Rainbow’s ears drooped. “What if they are there?”
“We’d cheeze it for Tavros. The Wing doesn't like witnesses.”
“They’re probably up there still, aren't they?” Rainbow asked as she turned her head to look up at the sky.
“Da,” Penny sighed.
Pan bit his lip. “This isn’t fair! She deserved to help. There has to be some kind of emergency clause in the law.”
Penny shrugged. “There is, but I’m not a Star League officer. I’m a Net-Persona. I can’t film in the K3 Sector, it’s forbidden. It’s not like I can stir up a frenzied crowd to demand a special permit.”
Rainbow smiled slowly. “Net-Persona?”
“Da. I make videos for people. Edutainment, mostly.”
Rainbow’s eyes shone with a mischievous light as Penny’s words confirmed her suspicions. “What if you use Pan outside of this sector? He can be all ‘I have a friend, please help her!’ That works ALL THE TIME for us here.”
Pan hummed and flashed Penny a smile. “I’d be completely fine with that! You know, you never told me how popular you are. Could we get a few thousand people angry at xenos?”
Penny snorted. “Thousand? Blin… It’s cute how you think that’s a lot of people. I’m pretty popular, but is smol problem. It took me a year to save up for the extra fuel to come get you. It would take a year of working to get Rainbow on the hunt. The trail would be cold.”
Penny could cancel some of her charitable donations or investment funds and be able to pay for the fuel in a video or two at the most. That is, if she could back out of contracts with various banks. Which she could not. Wildlife Conservation organizations get especially antsy about your donations when you provide a majority of their funding.
Penny hummed and stroked her chin. “I could maybe ask babushka for help. I haven't asked her for anything yet this century. Ey, would take a while too… Trail would probably be cooling by the time she helped us.”
Rainbow growled and punched the ground with her hoof hard enough to leave a dent. “BUCK! I hate this! Laws are horseapples!”
“Not when you are the one writing them,” a mare’s voice called from the trees.
“Blyat!” Penny jumped bolt upright, her armor’s quiet hum transitioning to a loud rumble as it clocked up for combat
Penny’s hand flew to the blade stored on her back and seized the hilt tightly. Her eyes scanned her display, doing their best to take in the 360 display and quickly locate the newcomer who had identified as a Fed. If only Pan had believed he could get them to actually sign an immigration form, we wouldn’t be committing a crime right now and—
A tall white-furred alicorn mare stepped out from the shadows. She was massive, compared to the other ponies. Easily twice their size, if not three times. Her multi-colored cerulean, turquoise, cobalt, and pink mane and tail flowed in an ethereal breeze. Her magenta eyes held an unnatural kindness to them. You could get lost in her eyes, in those pools of comfort, caring, and understanding.
Pan and Rainbow immediately dropped into a bow, murmuring greetings Penny didn’t quite catch.
Princess Celestia offered Penny a small, polite bow. “I mean you no harm, star citizen.”
Penny let go of her sword, leaving it in its storage compartment. Despite the unnatural aura of friendliness the alicorn radiated, the snark was strong with Penny. There was but a single way she could reply. “I haven’t backed that project. I’m not into contemporary fiction, and it’s still in alpha.”
Princess Celestia blinked in confusion. “Is that not a polite way to greet someone from another world?”
Penny shook her head. “No, not really. It’s not rude though. One minute…” Penny took one step and crossed the two meters between her and Pan. She crouched down and put one of her suit’s cameras directly in his face. “You told me you were an adult.”
Pan blinked. “Um, I am.”
Rainbow stood up and bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. “So am I. Princesses are just really, really tall.”
Pan nodded. “Yeah! All alicorns are tall.”
Penny turned towards Celestia, seeking confirmation. The alicorn smiled. “It is true. They are my little ponies.”
Penny’s mind connected two dots which most people would not have even thought about the next day. “Then… Alicorns rule your people because they are alicorns, and alicorns are the tallest ponies?”
Pan nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”
Penny inhaled, turned to face Celestia, then stood up and snapped into a salute. “Privetstvuyu, moy samyy vysokiy!”
Princess Celestia tilted her head to one side as her translation spell processed the alien language with ease. “Did you refer to me as ‘my tallest’?”
Penny sputtered, her cheeks turning a bright blue as she blushed. “How do you speak Chernin?”
Celestia smiled and focused her magic to allow her to speak in the tongue she had just heard. “YA - voploshcheniye solntsa. Moy magicheskiy potentsial vykhodit za ramki ponimaniya bol'shinstva lyudey.”
Penny nodded to herself and nervously shuffled her feet. “Ah. Super-psyker. Got it. So uh… What do you want, moy samyy vysokiy?”
The Princess’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Are you going to keep calling me that?”
“Da. I can’t help it,” Penny admitted, blushing again.
“Why?”
“Well, there’s old First Race media stored on the ODIN network and— Ey, long story. The cartoons they pump into your growth tank stick with you,” Penny admitted, grateful for her helmet hiding the sheepish grin on her face.
Celestia’s eyes softened. She’d overheard Penny’s mention of not having asked her grandmother for anything in a century. If there was one thing Celestia understood perfectly, it was how dear something very old could become to you. “I understand. As for my wishes, at first I wished to learn why a meteor changed direction. It is intriguing to know my people may have indeed been visited by otherworldly visitors in the past, and most humbling to meet one in pony.”
Penny immediately suppressed the urge to facepalm. Blin… Let’s hope the Mina didn’t find these poor ponies and do their normal abduct for “medical” experiments thing. I can’t believe I ever dated one of them.
The Princess continued. “Though I do wonder why my little ponies reported seeing flying saucers when your ship is a box. Are there many space vessel designs?”
Penny closed her eyes tightly. Cuka blyat! They did… “Yes, every race has their own. Saucer shapes are prefered by the Mina. They are harmless. You don’t need to worry about them. They don’t colonize, make war or anything. They are explorers. Just uh, don’t fall for their advances. Also, if any of your people reported they took them for medical experiments, it’s fine. Mina don’t hurt anyone, and—”
Celestia cleared her throat. “Are you certain? Because a particular mare has been writing me every month for ten years asking if we are starting a space program yet and volunteering as an astronaut, so she can see her doctor for a checkup.”
Penny facepalmed. Rainbow snickered. “Oh, my, Luna! It’s Lyra, isn’t it?”
It was.
“At least they found someone into it…” Penny muttered to herself. “She’s fine. Trust me. They like roleplay. No real medical procedures were performed. They also don’t contribute to galactic mapping or encyclopedias. So only I, a fleet of pirates, and their race knows of your world right now.”
Pan’s cheeks turned bright pink. “Wait, so there’s a species of uh, ‘weird’ people?”
“Da…” Penny grumbled. “Not all of them but—” Penny sighed and raised her hands. “Moy samyy vysokiy, we have a very short escape window. Pan wants to leave, and I have agreed to take him. If that is not okay by you, I will leave. I do not have time for a long conversation. Pirates in your system may be trying to board my ship. It’s automated defences are only so good.”
Princess Celestia smiled softly. “Yes, I am aware. I am also aware of your dilemma. I am here to make a bargain.”
Penny nodded. “Okay.”
“I will overlook your intention to forge documents, and provide you with my permission to take Rainbow and your friend to the stars, if you do everything in your power to assist Rainbow in her quest.”
Penny blinked. “Ey? Just like that?”
Rainbow frowned. “Quest? You mean you’re going to make this a formal mission?”
Celestia nodded and closed her eyes. “Rainbow Dash, I, Princess Celestia, command you to venture to the stars and retrieve the Elements of Harmony. You have no deadline, but you must be quick. We are on the brink of war with the minotaurs. I have avoided it for now, but this peace cannot hold. There will be a war within five years unless we have the Elements here as protection.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed with determination and raised a hoof in salute. “You can count on me, Princess.”
Penny linked to her armor’s systems and deployed one of her camera drones. The small orb robot popped free from its storage slot on Penny’s back, deployed its teal hardlight wings and hovered into position to put Princess Celestia in view.
The white alicorn frowned. “What is that?”
“It’s a camera. I’m not supposed to record video here, but audio-visual recordings are prefered over paper. I think I’ll be okay if I film you granting permission. Is that alright?”
Celestia nodded. “It is.”
Penny ordered her drone to record as Celestia began speaking. “Okay, repeat after me: I, Princess your name, grant the right of interstellar travel to my citizens, Pandora and Blue.”
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “My name is Rainbow.”
Penny winked. “Da, Blue Fast.”
“That’s not my name.”
“I think remember the name of best poni.” Penny said, writing the nickname in stone.
Rainbow facehooved. “I’m not the best pony! What kind of statement even is that?”
Penny rolled her eyes. “You hit hypersonic with your own wings. You’re clearly the best poni. Unless someone can move your moon or something equally cool.”
Princess Celestia smiled and elected to not tell the alien about her sister. Pan’s ears drooped as he feared competition.
The Princess cleared her throat. “I, Princess Celestia Solaris Invictus, grant the right of interstellar travel to my citizens, Rainbow Dash of Cloudsdale, and Pandora of Canterlot.”
The drone chirped as it finished recording. Pan wheeled around to face the princess. “Wait, you KNOW me?!”
Celestia nodded, a frown pulling at her lips. “Not quite. Long ago I invented a spell which tells me the full name of anypony I look at.”
Penny hummed as her drone returned to its storage rack. “Does it work on me?”
Celestia nodded. “It does. It takes the knowledge of the name from the mind of the person attached to it. You are Captain Penni Hawking Junior of Hawking Industries.”
Penny frowned behind her helmet. The psi-resistant lining I bought was a scam. Good to know.
The young woman crouched down to get onto Celestia’s eye level. “You know I never agreed to your terms, and you gave me what I want, da?”
Celestia smiled softly and held out her right hoof. “I believe you’re an honorable person, Captain. A hoofshake will be enough.”
“I don’t have hooves.”
Celestia rolled her eyes and wiggled her extended hoof. “A forelimb-terminator-appendage shake will be enough.”
Penny nodded and formed a fist, pressed it against Celestia’s hoof and awkwardly moved her arm up and down. It took every ounce of Celestia’s diplomatic training and experience to not snicker at the way Penny chose to replicate her gesture.
“We have deal,” Penny said with a smile, before turning to look at her shuttle. “Okay, we have what we need. Rainbow, you’re sore from flight. Get into a seat. Pan and I will get his things and then we get out of here.”
Celestia smiled. “I understand the need for haste. Please, allow me.” The Princess’s horn shimmered, lighting up bright gold until it became a miniature sun.
The built up magic seemed to burn the air around her horn before vanishing in a flash of light. The Hoatzin groaned as a few hundred pounds of personal belongings suddenly appeared within its cargo area.
Penny looked at the packed items which had simply appeared as if out of thin air. She turned to look at the alicorn. Then back to the boxes. Then back to the alicorn. Back at the boxes, then back to the alicorn.
Penny’s gaze suddenly turned to Pan. “Can you do that?”
Pan shook his head and offered Penny an apologetic smile. “Sadly, I’m not a princess…”
Rainbow walked over to the boxes and began to look through them. Pan tilted his head and coughed into his hoof. “Uh, Dash? That’s not yours…”
“I know,” Rainbow said as she opened a box to check its contents. “But I remembered your radio can call Penny’s ship. We should give it to Celestia so I can report back to her.”
Penny nodded, thoroughly impressed. “Good idea, Blue. Is that okay with you, Pan?”
Pan nodded and walked up to a wooden case in the shuttle. The case was bright green and nearly as large as two ponies. It had to be to contain the rather powerful radio setup in its entirety. “Now that she explained it, yeah. It’s in this case, by the way, Rainbow. Please stop looking through my stuff.”
Rainbow blushed apologetically. “Sorry. It’s just, you know…”
Pan nodded and pulled his radio in its case over to Celestia, presenting it to her with a bow. “Here you are, your highness.”
Celestia accepted the radio graciously. A slight blush formed on her cheeks as she decided Pan was perhaps just a little over the top with his presentation. “Thank you, Pandora. I will return this to you after Rainbow’s mission is complete.”
Penny paused for a moment and stepped over to Celestia. “If you don’t mind, may I look at the modulation crystal Pan was using? I’ve always wanted to inspect it. Not just anything can be used to call a starship.”
Celestia nodded. “By all means, as long as it still works.”
Penny turned to face Pan. “Could you show me the crystal?”
Pan nodded and opened the case. The radio was packed inside using dedicated cutouts in foam blocks. It was a matter of seconds for Pan to remove the signal modulator from its compartment and open the case. He pointed to a small red crystal with a hoof, a necessary gesture as the rado contained six separate crystals for various purposes.
“It’s this one.”
Penny leaned over the crystal and activated her suit’s scanner. A few pale beams of blue light washed over the crystal as her suit took its readings. The crystal glowed in response to the probing, shining a dim red light into the opened modulator.
The data scrolled across Penny’s display. “I thought so,” she said her lips pursing. “This is the transceiver from a Miniac bioship. It can contact my ship because it's the last ‘number’ this crystal was in contact with. The last call was five hundred years ago. Makes sense. My father still owned the Dawn back then. He did a lot of business with the Minia.”
Pan blinked. “Really? My dad said he found it at a dig sight. He would have mentioned finding a starship.”
Penny smiled and resisted the urge to ruffle Pan’s mane. “Bioship, not starship. Minia use organic starships.”
Rainbow frowned and turned around to join the conversation. “Wait, like, their ships are living beings? How does that work? Isn’t space like, super deadly?”
Penny sighed. “I don’t have the degrees to tell you how it works. It just does. They are bioengineers, good ones. Almost everything they make is a purpose grown cybernetic organism.
“They are weird like that. The ship would have died on impact, or starved to death over time, then rotted away. Only a few crystals, and maybe some personal items, and parts of the ship’s skeleton would be left by now.”
Celestia hummed, her ears perking. “We have been visited for at least five hundred years? Interesting. I will see what I can learn here.” She turned her attention to Rainbow. “Rainbow, please bring them back safely.”
Rainbow nodded. “I will. I promise.”
Penny’s armor chirped an alarm. A warning popped up on her display. The Dawn Of Destiny had detected a Nova Wing ship in Lunar orbit when the hostile ship began scanning the Dawn for lifesigns.
“Blyat! We’re out of time,” Penny swore as she pointed to the shuttle. “We need to go.”
Everypony rushed aboard. As soon as the ramp closed Penny fired up the Hoatzin’s gravity engine. The shuttle rose into the sky, its conventional thrusters burning hot.
Celestia watched it rise, and smiled as the ship’s gravity engine finished spooling up, making the ship seem to fall into orbit in the blink of an eye. “Good luck, Rainbow. I know I can count on you.”
Rainbow Dash - 10th of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
The Present
Medical bay, Dawn of Destiny, Lunar Orbit - Equus, K3 Sector
Rainbow felt like she was dead. Everything hurt, but the pain was fuzzy, distant, almost alien. She could feel things poking into her skin, and even a few tubes slid into her natural openings, but again it was all distant.
Her right eye saw a blurry shape in front of her. The room’s light was bright, making it hard to see what it was. Her left eye saw nothing at all.
Rainbow’s oxygen-starved brain did its best, eventually determining the blurry thing was a drill. Rainbow gurgled in fright and began to squirm in place. The medical bed she laid on began to beep in protest as its patient moved.
Rainbow saw a small, white and pink object move into view. It took her a moment to understand that it was Penny. The Chernin had slipped out of her armor to do what needed to be done here.
Penny gently put a hand on Rainbow’s barrel. “Is okay. I’m fixing you. Relax, I’m a mechanic.”
Rainbow gurgled, barely managing to speak around the tube in her throat. “I can’t see.”
“Da. Your eyes burst. It’s okay. I fixed the right one. I’m putting the left one together right now.”
“It’s blurry…”
“We can fine tune once you’re not dying.” Penny reached over to a control panel and tapped its touch screen. “I’m giving you more anesthetic. You’ll go back to sleep. Don’t struggle. It will be okay.”
Rainbow blinked her working eye as she realized something. “There is a tube in my butt.”
“Nyet.”
Dash’s eye narrowed skeptically. “I can feel it.”
Penny pursed her lips as she debated telling Rainbow how badly she’d gotten hurt. In the end, there was only one right choice.
“You pushed out some intestine in vacuum. I think poni insides are under more pressure than normal. Pan did the same thing. The thing you feel is a medical tool called a speculum, it is holding your guts in place while nanites glue them back in so they don't glew your ass shut.”
Rainbow’s eyes shot open wide as that one fact clarified just how messed up she’d gotten from being spaced. If not for the drugs being pumped into her, she wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep for the rest of that day, let alone then and there.
Fortunately for Rainbow, basic medical procedures were a part of a mechanic’s training. They had to know how to install biomods after all.
“It’s okay, Blue. You’ll make a full recovery. This isn’t the worst I’ve patched up,” Penny lied soothingly as Rainbow passed out.
The Chernin elected to not tell Rainbow she’d had to flash-clone her new eyes twice. Or that she’d been in a coma for two days, when a real doctor would have had her back on her hooves in an hour. Even without good bio-data to work from.
“It’s a good thing you’re near-humans despite being quadrupeds… I don’t know what I’d do if your biology was totally alien,” Penny muttered to herself as she resumed extracting the ruined left eye from Rainbow’s socket.
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Very interesting chapter flash cloning. I debate about a real doctor moving that fast especially with an unknown species
9051086 Unknown, yes. But ponies fall into the Near-Human category. A very very common class of sapient lifeforms which share certain biological commonalities. It would make the fix quick and easy. Especially since all proper doctors are AIs.
I truly hope that no one is surprised to see one of the princesses showing up here. Princess Luna may still be busy with that Minotaur airship, but Penny's shuttle came down directly over Canterlot. Every guard on duty and any citizen that looked up curiously at the sound would have seen it clearly as it slowed enough to lose the fireball. And even those guards that were inside, and possibly Tia as well since she may have been in Day Court, would have known what direction it went because of the contrail as well as Rainbow's coruscating rainboom pointing the way.
I'm also very glad that Tia did show up personally instead of just sending some soldiers. It gives Rainbow a lot more legitimacy in her quest, so she doesn't have to worry about having abandoned anything, and it also solves what could have been a very sticky problem for all three of them once outside of the K3 sector.
Nothing like starting to lose to a flying brick to make a speedster get mad enough to break the sound barrier
The amount of Slav in Penny is through the roof. I approve!
Now I read Penny with a thick Russian accent. She's now 20% funnier.
Bonus points for the most Slav thing ever (this chapter): a T-34 personal mech that can squat.
Oh Gods Meeps, MY SIDES!!!
Suddenly princess. I wonder if she was surprised to see Blue Fast going after the shuttle. Or finding that the shuttle is a brick. Her wings must feel insulted.
Oh Lyra, that makes just so much sense
The sci nerd in me wanted to say "eyes don't blow up in space!!" But, well, ours don't. Maybe pony ones do. Fortunately the lack of oxygen allowed then not to feel it, because ouch
I wonder, can Penny restore Pan's horn? Can a good standard AI doctor do it? Let's hope so
Five bucks says they end up doing that anyway at some point.
Yeah, porn's funny like that.
There was plenty more little moments like that I could comment on, but let's not be here all day, shall we?
Maybe Pan doesn't mean to be a misanthrope, and I get the way he looks at things the way he does on this subject, but I kinda have to side with Rainbow on this, he does come across as a bit of one at first glance.
The recap's over, now on into the action! Looking forward to it!
Huh, given Dash's internal monologue, is this a 'no rainbooms' setting?
Plenty of aliens think you are cool, Dash.
And then they accidentally burn Dash up in the exhaust.
Oh, I see, this is where we are going to get a rainboom.
I find it just a little hard to believe that Dash's percentage example here as up to 100.
Wait, never mind, there's the joke.
Meep! I would be mildly appalled if you weren't the one writing this.
Hopefully the vivisections will be gentle.
Hey hey, Celestia here to hopefully handle the red tape.
Hah!
I was thinking this felt just a little bit 40k. Or maybe 30k since the shit apparently hasn't hit all of the fans simultaneously.
That's hard to argue with.
Nice.
That's a good plan.
That explains a few things.
Celestia might be able to figure out quite a bit about past visitations now that she knows to go looking.
Good thing everyone more or less survived the decompression.
Hmn, that suggests something.
9051517
I pritty much imagine her as this guy's sister.
Hilariously enough, I've thus far found world building ways to justify every Slav thing they do. In this case, your soldiers will need to eat and getting into and out of their armor to do that is a pain, especially because you dont wear clothing in those things (swimsuits would be okay if not for the waste disposal system). This means your troops will need to eat in their armor. Now they could just stand and eat, but that might expose them to enemy fire if in a siege or lengthy battle, it also can make base design inconvenient for people not in the same armor class (They use smaller suits too). Therefore the T-34 has to be able to sit. Except engineering a chair that can handle that weight while being portable is a fool's errand. SO what do you do? You engineer it to squat. Besides, that helps with it's target profile while defending too! Squat down behind cover, squat behind shield. Squat behind your comrade who burnt last night's plov whom you are using as a shield. It's actually a good tactical option to have in your mech.
Poor choice of words. I meant "pop" as in "rupture" not "explode". I looked into what happens to the exposed eye in space and it turns out that human eyes swell and the layers separate. Pony eyes are clearly bigger than human eyes, more surface area, more liquid, more swelling... They would almost certainly experience something like when you squeeze an orange really hard and it rips open.
9051530
That's the idea ;) He's ment to be that weirdo most people would void based on their first impressions, whose actually an adorable little thing whose just socially deficient.
9052231It's been a while since you left a comment this long :3 I'm glad to have captivated you once more!
Many of them are creepy. Do not google yourself. That said, many of them agree you should be with Twilight. Maybe google yourself and her?
May I ask why? (I'm serious. I've puzzled over what could be bad here for 10 minutes. I would like to know so I dont upset people.)
Since MLP has magic, it would be very bizarre if other species in their universe didn't have it too. Psionics is generally what people call space magic, so I'm going with that. Howeaver, ponies are the only species where EVERYONE has magic.
As for 40K Kaily and I were talking the other day. THere's a supprizing amount of parallels between MLP and 40K. ESPECIALLY with Celestia. As an example, they both have major impacts on the settings lore but do little if anything in the actual media (Tia just gives advice, Emps is just holding a portal closed like a fancy lock), and spend most of their time sitting on golden thrones lined with red velvet that rest atop a large golden dais accessed via a staircase. We're told they are absurdly powerful, but never see them USE any of that power. Emps has six loyal sons with one major character attribute each who are absurdly powerful and the focus of a lot of the story and are superhuman, Celestia has six champions with one major character attribute each who are absurdly powerful and the focus of a lot of the story and are superhuman. Emps basic normal mortal soldiers are 100% useless (Imp Guard SUUUUUUCKS), Celestia's basic normal mortal soldiers are 100% useless (The Royal Guard never help with anything ever).
What's really fun is the Primarchs personalities and even likes/dislikes align with the M6 pretty well. Magnus is Sunset, Guilliman is Applejack, Jakati Kahn is Rainbow, and so on.
Yeah :3 IRL several astronauts and cosmonauts have survived 30 seconds in vacuum. The most notable case being a Russian engineer who's suit experienced a catastrophic decompression when a seam ripped out. He's why we know what happens to a human body in space, and he lived through it. Made a mostly full recovery, with some permanent brain damage thanks to oxygen in his brain going nuts.
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I have been told that trap is a slur for transgender, though it seems to get a lot of use regardless. It falls in the category of something I myself would never say out of concern for that.
9052469 Some people use it that way, yes. But that's not what it means. The word trap was coined as "A man who dresses like a woman and is somewhat feminine in appearance and could mistaken for a woman." It's eccentrically a term for effeminate male crossdressers which some people also apply to transgender women who have yet to have bottom surgery. While it has been used derogatorily, in recent years the LGBT community has been working to do to it what we did to queer. IE, take it and own it.
I first heard the term being used affectionately in 2010, and it's stuck with me in that fashion. I apologize to anyone who was offended, and to anyone who will be offended, because I will not be changing my language use in this instance. If I do, the bullies win. (Besides, Penny is clearly using it affectionately.)
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...I just thought it was an Admiral Akbar reference pointing out Pan could confuse some guys into "making a move" and not realizing the package they were getting.
Kind of like that commercial where the guy grabs a couple champaigne flutes at a party and starts walking for what looks like the back view of a blonde's head, only it turns out to be a very fancily brushed yellow dog with its back to him on a seat.
That kind of "It's a trap!"
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That's how we're using it XD Just as a fun kinda thing.
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pre00.deviantart.net/d8b8/th/pre/f/2012/259/c/5/it__s_a_trap___by_otakun6990-d5eyrth.jpg
Eugh, that pressure difference damage.
I haven't read this yet but i like the concept. I think making a work unrelated to the others is good, that universe was getting a little stale. Thanks for the effort in these stories, it really is appreciated even if many people don't comment about it.
9053581 Yeah it was getting a bit stale :3 I hope you get to this soon. FYI the description is as bad as I usually am with them. It's not wrong, but there's also a space-mystery to work out, and also how Equestria responds to "BTW, Aliens are a thing." I plan on keeping characters in this setting lower powered too, with their abilities mostly coming from gadgets.
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Joke's on Fishcommander; I don't care what's between the legs. What's between the ears is adorable!
This was good. I really love the lore you've put into that one. Atomicbombia.
Wonder what the radon's from?
Ouch. That needs a bit of surgery indeed!
I'm surprised no one's commented on humanity being the First Race, and apparently way more advanced than any Civ still active in the galaxy. They also seem to have a lot of still living sub-species, if near-human is a common classification. How far into the future are we, anyway, at least 10,000 years? Probably more.
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I know! Humans are the precursors is a rare thing in fiction too!
They should be, the premise here is humanity spread out across the stars and found nothing but empty star system after empty star system untill each and every last planet had been combed through. After learning there was still a hundred million years till the first other lifeform would most likly evolve, humans, being very lonely, decided "Fuck it! We'll seed life across this fucker!" SO we did. We took human DNA, created organic Nantes to carry it, and used panspermia methods to seed life across the Galaxy, setting everything up so they could grow up as species in a Galaxy teaming with life. You can get some more detail on how powerful humans are via the setting guide. (Hint, they altered the Milky Way's angle relative to other galaxies for astronomy reasons.)
~253 million years.
9086676 So I was off by about four orders of magnitude. I'm surprised humanity is still active after all that time, assuming they are even recognizable as human anymore. Maybe they went into stasis and let their A.I. run everything for them?
9086692 Stick around, maybe you'll find out.
Mach 1.1.
I see you reject that video where the mach cone calculations say she can go mach 15.
typo I think you meant earth pony not earthy pony.
9096477 Not entirely. I do think that she can hit hypersonic speeds if she really tries... LATER in her career. This is kinda early on in the show's timeline. That said, her sonic boom is almost assuredly just artistic flair on the part of the animators.
ROFL
Rainboom 2.0
Fun but of dialogue fro m Sun butt there, also "no time crunch" but 5 years, pony do you not comprehend how big space is?
Ah Lyra, never change. Also she is going to be mad when Dash gets back and they left her.
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Me? Fuck no. I'm a mortal with a mortal mind. I'd burn in the Total Perspective Vortex. So would you, so would Tia.
Lyra, "Nah, it's cool. I got my own ride."
meant
fuel
And can I just say that this scene is still one of the best in the story?
fuel
Terrible bedside manner there. :P
I think you meant "glue" though.
Both of the typos are still there from last time.
I was rereading this and only now caught what that reference was from. I like Fort Minor; I just wish my library stocked it...
God this is like reading 4 different sci-fi technical manuals all of which were google translated from different languages