The Equestrian Starliner

by computerneek

Chapter 15

Simulation terminated. New data available on pony physiology; second planetary settlement located. Notable lack of Unknown Energy One.

Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43917: Travel to Civilization.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43918: Planetary Lingual Analysis Test… Success; lingual penetration took 0.037 seconds, on 4.319 seconds of sensor data.

Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43919: Travel to Civilization with Electronics.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43920: Digital Penetration Test… In progress.

Planetary language matches language at the source of Unknown Energy One; analyzing recorded data… Done. Unknown Energy One confirmed Thaumic Energy, frequently termed ‘Magic’. Note: Local planetary population reliant upon Hoof-Attached Natural Digit Systems for object manipulation; local planetary population appears to be in search of the thaumic source.

System Alert- Foreign vessel detected at close proximity; stealth is engaged.

Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 disallows movement of this vessel.

Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 disallows disengagement of stealth systems or violation of emission control protocol.

Solution discovered. Penetrating foreign vessel electronics… Done. Placing false detection in foreign vessel’s sensors… Done.

Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 complete.

Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43921: Data Insertion Test: Already Completed.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43922: Travel to Wormhole.

Wormhole detected in-system. Performing warp jump… Done.

Foreign vessel has successfully avoided impact. Note: Thaumic energy penetration detected on foreign vessel.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43923: Wormhole Drive Test… In Progress; Wormhole Drive powering up.

Partial blueprint detected on planetary systems… Match confirmed: Distortion Drive Type I, Version 2. Searching for blueprint on foreign vessel… Found, no difference. Note: Discovered additional files aboard foreign vessel.

Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43923 disallows investigation of anomalous discoveries.

Launching navigation beacon… Done.

Wormhole Drive online, engaging… Done.

Connections to planetary systems and foreign vessel lost.

---

“I don’t like that look,” he comments, looking up from behind his desk.

Admiral Wolf, the head of the Space Police, chuckles darkly. “Smith’s case is closed,” he states. “The United Space Administration has been fully acquitted; the driver was convicted of speeding, and Smith was convicted of launching a spacecraft illegally.”

Space Lord Matthews raises his eyebrow. “Ahh... So, what’s bothering you this time?”

“Skyla.”

His expression darkens considerably. “What about her?”

“Well… Personnel has thrown her around again, but you probably already know about that?”

He shakes his head. “You know she doesn’t like using my station to further her career. She usually doesn’t even tell me what happens, because she knows I’ll blow it. I believe they dumped her into your department last year?”

Nod, and sigh. “Yep. One of the best Captains I’ve ever had- and now, they’ve thrown her at the Commissions Department.”

He winces. “Will she be okay?”

He shrugs. “You know, I’d say you know her better than I do, but it might just be the other way around this time. Her police training paid off already; she hit them like a ton of bricks, immediately calling them out on violation of protocol and demanding the appropriate training for the job.”

“And she got it?”

He lets out a brief chuckle. “Yep. She had to take it to court- and they appealed it so many times I had to lay down the law on that case.”

He raises his eyebrow. “Really? They’re trying to screw her over.”

He sighs. “That’s the annoying part- I can’t prove it, so I can’t nail them. And neither can she, aside from as far as she’s already pounding. What’s more, Commissions is chronically understaffed, so it made sense for them to want to get her in as quickly as possible. Especially with her Navy and Police background.”

He tilts his head. “Especially? Wouldn’t it hurt?”

Chuckle. “Nah. She’s got practical experience in both the regulations concerning the spacecraft- from my department- and the day-to-day use and compliance with those same regulations, from the Navy. Hers is a unique and very useful skillset for the Commissions Department, though I still think she was doing more good- overall- chasing down shiploads of contraband.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. No clue what she was doing out there, really- but whatever else it was, it was effective. From the moment I gave her her own ship to the day they pulled her for Commissions, not a single day passed when she didn’t fly her ship back by herself, brig stuffed full of brigands… and the rest of her crew scattered across a half-dozen freighters of contraband she’d seized.”

He blinks. “... Oh.”

“Yep. She’s single-handedly caught more Black Fang members than the rest of the force combined- made me wonder if she was working on insider information. I asked once, and she pointed to all the signs she’d seen that everyone else missed, and…” He sighs. “She was right- they were obvious. And I still have trouble finding them before she points them out.”

---

Her shuttle drifts closer to the stupendous bulk of her first assignment. She’d gotten them to give her her training- not that it amounted to much; it took her all of three hours to complete. It had, however, contained job-critical information.

Then they’d promptly given her the one ship all the other commissioners are avoiding like the plague: The one with no owner to consult, no blueprints to look up, no nothing… despite being the biggest ship in space.

If nothing else, at least she won’t have to deal with that bunch of starry-eyed strung-up-

She stops that thought right there. Other people use curse words around her all the time, but she refuses to even think them without reason. They’re tools for the weak, and she most certainly is not reliant upon such tools.

She’s alone in this dinky little shuttle, so small it doesn’t even have an airlock. As a matter of fact, she knows at least a few airlocks that are bigger than the shuttle! Fortunately, though, she shouldn’t have to rely on its thirty-hour single-occupant life support endurance much. It takes less than an hour to get up to her assignment from the surface, wherever it happens to be in its orbit; it’ll be fresh each morning.

Of course, she’s already looked this ship up on the computer. She was given a registration ID to start with; her job is to commission it into naval service. A lot of other commissioners would have simply commissioned it straight away, without even coming aboard; something of this size simply has to have all the facilities it needs.

But there are procedures in place, and one never knows what’s actually aboard any given vessel. It doesn’t exactly help that this one is refusing any and all requests for information; she’d tried looking it up, but the only thing she’d found that she didn’t know already was its name: Athena. She’d gotten curious, and looked up the name in a dictionary; turns out the ship shares its name with the ancient greek goddess of wisdom in battle.

Whatever. She drifts a little closer, shining a searchlight across the hull in search of an airlock. The thing just… appeared in orbit a couple days back, if her new boss is telling the truth. Complete with a valid registration and Traffic Control-issued orbital designation… even though it’s demonstrated no more computer support than the bricks in the wall of her home back on the surface, and has been unmanned ever since it appeared. Nevermind that no one ever headed down from it, or that Traffic Control has no record of when the orbit was issued or who issued it, only that it was issued.

She lets out a sigh, then spots a glint in the corner of her eye, and turns to look.

Well, she supposes, it’s about time it accepted her digital request to dock. The light ring around an airlock has lit up, designed to lead incoming craft to the lock- and also indicating that the thing is ready for docking operations. A quick glance at her instrument panel verifies that no one else is anywhere near close enough to be coming for that lock, so she sends her shuttle skittering forwards to the massive airlock.

Like with anything else it does, her shuttle takes forever to lock onto the airlock properly.

However, almost as soon as the seal comes up green, a second light comes up green as well- indicating good pressure outside the lock.

She raises an eyebrow, and closes her helmet anyways, before very slowly opening the door.

On the other side, the massive ship’s airlock stands waiting, doors wide open… and the indicators were right, for once; there was no escape of air.

… The massive ship’s massive airlock, perhaps one of the biggest she’s ever seen. She proceeds through it, the doors cycling shut behind her, and uses her suit sensors to check atmospheric composition before she opens her helmet.

“Welcome aboard, Captain.” The voice echoes slightly, coming from the walls, she thinks. She doesn’t see anyone anywhere.

“Thanks?” she responds, as she starts off down the passage. “Do you happen to know where I can find a floor plan or blueprint?”

“The requested information can be displayed on any display.”

“Alright. Where’s the biggest such display?”

“On the Observation Deck.”

“Which…” She looks in the direction of the hull feature she’d thought looked like an observation deck. “Which is a long ways away.”

“This vessel is equipped with an expansive system of interconnected lifts to assist in traveling long distances.”

“Roger. Um…” She looks up and down the passage, then reaches in intersection- and promptly locates one of the said lifts. “Oh, that’s easy. Thank you.”

She walks towards the lift, intending to push the summon key- but the door slides open before she reaches it, revealing an empty lift car waiting for her. She smiles, entering… and turning to the control panel to find the destination is already selected on the touchscreen: The Observation Deck. She smiles, and touches the door close button.
Less than a minute later, she steps back out that door, not having felt any motion at all, to find herself in a very different passage. The door to the Observation Deck is just across the passage from the lift, though- and like the lift, it opens as she approaches.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

All the previous transformation was in a simulation run to see how Unknown Energy One would react with return to Earth space?

[computerneek]

9473165
Yep! Not to mention, remember that her builder died before she left- so the computer was likely aware of that fact, and may have been running simulation after simulation to decide on what course of action to take once it got back.

[Booster Spice]

9468884

There are several possibilities including the Wiki article, but for simplified example, this seems to be decent.

Tao Intent 2006

[LostArchivist]

Have you, by chance, been watching Inception?

But it really explains a lot. Also, did I read correctly that the ship accidentally introduced magic to the second planet's worth of equines they ran into in the other story?

[computerneek]

9473748
Yes, you did read correctly.

And yes, I have seen Inception... a long time ago. I wasn't thinking of it when I wrote this, though.

[LostArchivist]

9473760
Huh, that's cool to know. I wouldn't mind an interlude where it talks about the utter upheaval resulting from the abrupt return of magic. I wonder what they come up with after the third time someone tries moving the sun like a three-year-old discovering a lightswitch. (See Starswirl's Annals of raising infantile deities, vol. 7 for more details.)

That of course assumes that it's mostly just a hidden shoutout and they won't show up again in this story. If they DO show up, it might be more amusing to hear it firsthoof.

[ssokolow]

OK. Definitely not going on my recommendations list and I'm seeing a worrying pattern.

This story refuses to commit to a sequence of events after getting the readers invested in it.

Just Like Magic of Old throws out the feeling it put so much work into hooking people on by time-skipping ahead. (And wastes the opportunity it implicitly promised to show a proper first contact.)

The Gate was cancelled and redone as On the Implications of Parallel Worlds.

You have the skill to write interesting concepts and, in the case of Just Like Magic of Old, you managed to build a sci-fi atmosphere I rarely feel in fanfiction, but you keep squandering what you build.

[computerneek]

10376894
Just Like Magic of Oid.... by timeskipping? Where?

[Kentavritsa]

10377040
why isn't this marked Prequel to the story?

[computerneek]

11632156
Because there is no sequel/prequel relationship between the two stories; they're separate, even though one spawned the other.