Chapter 27
By the time Princess Flight opened the massive boarding door- for some reason, it had a really big door into the main passenger bay, which suggested to Flight it could do double duty as a light cargo hauler- the external sensors, accessed via just about any control panel she could find, indicated that ponies were gathering in front of the ship, staring at it. The massive engines hadn’t yet finished spinning down; they had much heavier flywheels than the turbines on her ship, and lacked the electric regenerative braking that hers had.
The massive, bottom-hinged and hydraulically operated door finally touched down on the grass. Flight grinned at the long row of staring ponies, and paced forwards, Twilight next to her. “Guess what,” she called. “We found out what Twilight’s been researching!” She pointed up at it with a wing.
A cream-colored earth mare- no, that was Bonbon, Lyra’s marefriend that Flight had only met once- stepped forward from the crowd. “Princesses Flight,” she greeted, “Twilight. Welcome back.”
Then a cloaked pony trotted past the row, apparently not in awe at the ship. “Nice entrance.” Flight immediately recognized Night Skies’ voice.
Twilight flinched, wings spreading slightly as her stance changed. “Who are you?”
“She’s my first officer,” Flight answered amusedly, before turning to Skies. “Where’re the rest?”
“The troopers are taking the shuttle back to the ship right now. Which, by the way, that town is called Southstock.”
She blinked. “Right, we did get that stealth shuttle before we left, didn’t we?” Then she tilted her head. “And that would’ve been nice to know. About how long of a train ride is it?”
“It’d be about a two day journey, including overnight. Mighty expensive, to boot.”
She sighed. “So, ponies still scream in fright when they see you, do they?”
Skies shook her head. “No, actually- the ponies of Ponyville are very… accepting. We’ve gotten some strange looks, but that’s about it. Your poster probably helped with that.”
“... Ahh. So why the hood?”
“To avoid offending the local Night Princess over there,” she answered, gesturing to where Princesses Celestia and Luna were reaching the back of the gathered crowd, both with expressions of curiosity. “We had a… performance with her in Canterlot just last week.”
Flight looked over at Princess Luna, then back at Skies. “She captured and tortured me all day long,” she stated. “Then I escaped while she did her thing with the Moon, and it took three days to get away to somewhere I wouldn’t be dragged back. She can deal.”
Skies shrugged. “Alright then.” She lifted one hoof, and flicked the hood back.
Princess Luna let out an echoing scream, then vanished with a puff of dust. Princess Celestia startled, jumping away from her sister, then looking wildly between where Luna had gone, and towards the ship, as if trying to understand.
Flight blinked. “... Wow. I take it she didn’t want to talk?”
“Yeah. She did not want to talk. Star made some pretty good enchantments that subjugated her in her own bedroom, and only Astral Eye appeared to her. Used the Official Equineothame High-Stakes Interrogation Device as intended, and it still took her three hours to crack.”
Flight winced; the ‘interrogation’ device named had been produced at her father’s orders, and was more of a torture device. After about half an hour, its intended use case reached lethal torture, that could kill out of pure pain overload. “She stood up to it pretty well.”
“She looked like most ponies do after twenty minutes on the thing from the moment we activated the first step, so…” She shrugged. “We think she’s not used to pain- and that her magic protected her from the overload.”
“Ahh. So… one thing I’ve been wondering about. What’s my local age?”
“That? Oh.” Skies grinned. “Turns out Equestrian years are almost exactly twice as long as Equineothame years, with a proportionately hotter star. So, in Equestrian years, tomorrow’s your fifth birthday.”
She blinked. “Really?” Then she rubbed her chin with one hoof. “Does Pinkie Pie know?”
The mare in question stuck her head out from under the massive boarding ramp. “Do I know what?”
“... I guess not. Thought you might like to know that tomorrow is apparently my birthday.”
Pinkie vanished with a trail of “Yesyesyesyesyes…” fading into the distance.
“Are you sure you wanted to tell her that?” Skies asked.
She shrugged. “What? I’m sure her parties are fun. I couldn’t really participate in the first one she threw for me, because I was still recovering from starvation.” She glanced back up into the ship. “Hmm… Is Blacklight available?”
“Ahh, yes, she should be.”
“Think we can turn her loose on the computers on this thing?” she asked, gesturing back towards it. “It was in storage under a few layers of ice, with a preservation spell.”
Skies nodded. “Making it an ancient relic, and a clue to the ancient history of both our civilizations. Yep.” She glanced back towards where she’d come, where a row of cloaked ponies stood. “Blacklight, you’re up,” she announced. “And we’re okay to lose the hoods.”
Blacklight flicked her hood back, and trotted forwards, removing something- Flight recognized it as a portable control conduit, probably tied to the First Light’s Electronic Warfare suite- from a saddlebag. “Alright, ancient history, here I come,” she stated.
Twilight gasped, staring at Blacklight’s mane. “What- Wow. That’s… a very unusual mane color.”
Blacklight laughed. “Oh, you have no idea.”
“Oh?” Flight asked.
Blacklight paused at the bottom of the ramp, grinning. “It’s bioluminescent,” she stated simply. “Ultraviolet. And I can control it.”
She blinked. “Meaning, your mane literally is a blacklight.”
She nodded. “Which is my name, too. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Very interesting, yeah. Anyways, you were going to see what you can learn from this thing, right?”
Another nod. “I figure I’ll start by downloading the database, then go about setting something up to give the common Equestrian access to the information, not just us.”
“Just don’t break anything. This thing is a museum piece.”
“Nice. What’s the power source?”
“Nuclear. Just one reactor, outputs about six times that of NuCoils’ latest, but it’s also some thirty times the size. And, it’s not capable of a passive start, and lacks automatic power adjustment.” She glanced in. “It’d be about the only thing I left on.”
“What’s the fuel state?” It was Cold Coils, trotting up. She was wearing a cloak as well- and had her hood down all along.
“Pretty good, actually- was showing ninety-five percent, once I turned it on. Probably the cold shutdown and preservation spells that let it last so long.”
“Nice,” Coils nodded. “You know how much it needed?”
She shrugged her wings. “I ran it at about thirty percent to make the heat necessary to defrost the thing in minus a hundred degree stormy weather,” she answered. “But to actually power the thing, the computer told me it only needed to run at about ten percent to sustain atmospheric operations, including V-TOL. It’d have to go up to about ninety-five, according to the same computers, to operate the Distortion Drive.”
“What? This has one too?”
She nodded. “Yep. Tops out at a hundred cee, though.” She glanced at Twilight. “Meaning, it’d be about a five month round trip to Equineothame. My ship can do that in two weeks.”
“Distortion?” Star asked, also walking up, though slower. “Does it have suborbital?”
Flight shrugged her wings again. “Yeah, it does. But it’s all out of hydrazine.”
“H-HYDRAZINE?” Star yelled, in shock. Then he flinched. “S-Sorry.”
She waved it off; the last time any hydrazine-based liquid-fueled engine had been used anywhere near Equineothame, or any other planet in that system, had been well over a hundred years ago. Hydrogen hadn’t been nearly as efficient as the ones Equineothame had produced since, but it had still been the go-to fuel for generations. “That’s about what my first reaction was when it said it had hydrazine tanks too,” Flight answered. “I looked for hydrogen tanks, but it doesn’t have any. And at least they’re empty. Same for the dinitrogen tetroxide tanks.”
“What’s… hydrazine?” Twilight asked.
“A very, very dangerous fuel,” Flight answered promptly. “It’s incredibly toxic, very messy, and pollutes the air like crazy. About the only benefit it has is that it will ignite on contact with its oxidizer, making engine design simpler… which, in practice, means hydrazine-fueled ships explode more often.” She took a deep breath. “Just about every ship built in the last two hundred years or so has burned hydrogen fuel instead- much, much safer, and the exhaust is pure water, so it’s much less harmful when we burn it in the atmosphere. It’s also lighter, and more efficient.”
“And that… dinitrig- dinitoug-”
“Dinitrogen tetroxide. That’s its oxidizer, which is similarly toxic and messy.” She glanced back at it. “This thing is never going to orbit again, until and unless I get some engineers in here to convert it to hydrogen.” She shrugged. “Hydrogen’s easier to make anyways.”
“Wouldn’t be very long-ranged on thrusters,” Skies mused. “It’d probably have to refuel every other time it was deorbited, or so. Then again, it’s probably not worth the refit- be easier to just build a new one.”
“Sooo,” Princess Celestia muttered uncertainly, looking between Flight and Skies. Flight had just introduced her crew to the Equestrian Diarch. “Is there… any particular reason why my sister, ahh…” She looked up towards the distant city on the mountainside, and her horn glowed slightly, before she let out a light, amused chuckle. “Why my sister is hiding under the bed right now?” She turned back to Flight.
Flight blinked. “Wow. That’s… She must be quite used to feeling in control or something.”
Celestia’s expression hardened. “What happened?”
“Well…” Flight looked at Skies, then back at Celestia. “How about we start at the beginning, then?” Celestia nodded stiffly, but Flight saw the signs of annoyed royalty. “Which would be… when your sister attacked my crew, throwing them overseas unprotected and with excessive force, then promptly foalnapped and attacked me.”
“And?” Celestia asked- demanded, more like.
She shrugged her wings. “Well, as the reigning Royal Princess of Equineothame,” she began, watching the look of horror crossing Celestia’s face, “I’d be willing to forgive that particular act of war, if you’re willing to, in turn, forgive any and all actions taken by my crew in their effort to locate and rescue me.” She looked at Skies. “I mean, you didn’t hurt anypony, right?”
Skies shook her head. “No, Princess. Princess Luna was the only one we had to use force with- the rest either cowered in fear after a glimpse- mostly the guards, that was disturbing- or thought we were guards, and so complied unquestioningly. The palace chef was a notable exception- he commented on not seeing our kind before, and asked if we had any specific dietary requirements he should know about. We’re pretty sure he thought we were palace guests.
“Anyways. In regards to what you’d be forgiving…” She tilted her head, looking up into the sky. “There’s the obvious, interrogating your sister with force- no lasting harm done, we were able to confirm. And we would have used a less painful interrogation method, but after she incinerated- and pranced on- the cardboard cutouts of us that we put in random hallways…” She shrugged her wings. “We didn’t see any other choice.”
“So that’s where those piles of ash came from,” Celestia muttered.
“Then there’s about a dozen counts of impersonating the Royal Guard and entering the Castle without permission, if the latter is against your laws.” She scowled. “Not that anypony even tried to stop us, so you might want to have a look at your guards, but still. Anyways, your Guard Captain is at least better than the rest. We didn’t show ourselves to him in the flesh- considered it too much of a risk, as he was the only one that responded to the cutouts with suspicion rather than fear or ignorance. Fortunately, he was pretty easy to avoid, once we acquired the Guard schedules- and actually delayed our interrogation by an entire day, by staying a bit late that day.”
“Anyways,” Flight interrupted. “Do we have an agreement?”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, yes, I believe we do. Your people’s trespass will be forgiven in full.” She sighed. “Not that anypony knew it’d ever happened, but still.”
“Very well,” Flight nodded. “I’ll forgive her trespass as well. So then, that means…” She trailed off, looking across her crew. “... Yeah. That means we’re once again the peaceful visitors from outer space that we meant to be from the beginning.” She shrugged her wings. “So, um…” She scowled. “How would a member of royalty from a heretofore unheard-of nation initiate diplomatic contact?”
“You don’t know…?” Celestia blinked.
She rolled her eyes. “And I’m apparently turning five tomorrow, in your years. Honestly, I haven’t really gone through any of the ‘how to Diplomat’ lessons. I mean, that’s what we have diplomats for.” She shrugged. “Speaking of which, if you want to send some back to Equineothame with me, I’ve got the space on my ship to carry a couple hundred of ‘em.”
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Should I be thinking of Equineothame years or Equestrian years as closer to our own years?
10366116
Good question.
... Probably Equineothame years, for actual duration, but Equestrian years, for pony maturity.
I view this as... not okay. But since both Equestrian and Equinothamian culture differ from ours, I wonder what typical ponies would think.
If I had to guess, I'd think that ponies from Equinothame would see torture as more acceptable than I do, whereas Equestrians would find the concept unthinkable. I imagine that Celestia didn't really understand what was meant by "interrogating your sister with force".
In any case, it was quite shocking to see the protagonists use torture. And I foresee future problems; this didn't exactly help on the "Luna mistook the thestrals for terrible monsters" front.
10366176
Remember, this device was made by the order of Flight's evil Unicorn-supremacist parents... Probably didn't see much use, at all. And Skies did say they would have gone for a more peaceful interrogation method, had they reason to believe it would have worked... and that they wouldn't have been killed in the attempt, after Luna cheerfully incinerated every image of them that she crossed paths with. (Those cardboard cutouts were quite something, weren't they? They must have been showing off at least a little bit there...)
And yes, that's going to cause some problems down the road.
... Not problems that can't be solved, but problems, definitely. Especially if Luna is to have an effective Night Guard...
10366194
In my opinion, even taking this in to account, it still isn't okay. But I respect that the Equinothamian ponies might not agree.
10366149
Disturbing thought: There are probably parents on Equinothame who are younger than the CMC.
10366559
Of course it's not okay. They only did it because they saw no other option.
Depending on how old the CMC are in your headcanon... Yes, there very well could be.
Actually, almost certainly.
You have Equinothame ponies dying at maturity, basically. That means children raising children. That means, after a few dozen generations, a faster adulthood, combined with a shorter year -- so a 10 year old Equinothame is almost an adult, and an 18 year old Equinothame is probably sexually active and compares to a 9 year old Equestrian.
Basically, the loss of magic and the resultant shorter lifespan on Equinothame could have destroyed their civilization. It didn't because they were still barely able to have children -- and then it's a biological race to have children younger and more often.
So, children raising children, just like Elf Quest.
*Laughs awkwardly* Well, it has been longer than I expected before I got back here...
Aren't there only one of them?
I feel bad for Luna. Admittedly we don't really know if she had a justification for everything (and in Flight's case, she is a baby alicorn), but then again it at least tightened up the guard rotation (once they hear about it, anyway)...?
I kinda wish there were hypergolic fuels that weren't wildly toxic to all life, but chemistry is not something that responds to my wishes. As are most things, sadly. At least we can laugh about such things as long as they never come near us.
I liked the negotiation bit at the end, if such it can be called. It was a bit civil and terse for most such examples.
10430096
She was acknowledging that Twilight's a princess too, whether she knows it or not. They'd learned about that Equestrian law during the interim.
... And yes, it's a bit civil & terse for negotiation. She wanted to make it quick, avoid a war, and deal with the actual negotiation of important matters later.