Star Trek: Phoenix

by Dewdrops on the Grass

Season 3 Episode 7: "Under the Sea"

STAR TREK: PHOENIX

S03E07

“Under the Sea”

The screams of ponies reverberated through my ears, barely audible over the gusting of the wind and the hammering of rain. “Come on!” I cried, using magic to enhance my voice as I directed a seemingly endless stream of panicked civilians into the concrete bunker behind me. “Keep moving! Don’t look back!”

I should have taken my own advice, because what I saw when I glanced back to the east terrified me like little else ever had.

A gargantuan wall of cumulonimbus clouds stretched across the horizon, pounding Baltimare's central marina area with a storm so fierce it almost defied description. Lightning screamed through the air, setting some structures ablaze despite the howling winds and torrential rain. My eyes had become more accustomed to low-light since my ascension, but even I could barely see more than a few meters in front of me.

“Lieutenant!” Pog shouted through my comm badge, his voice patchy with static. “Pog has sealed up the other bunkers. Yours is the only one left!”

“We’re still—” I cut myself off briefly, switching off the magic so I didn’t explode his ears. “We’re still getting civilians inside! There were a lot more tourists than we expected!”

“Pog doesn’t think you have much time. The storm surge is less than two kilometers out; it’s going to flood your bunker unless you get the forcefield up!”

“I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant. I’m keeping it open till the last minute!”

As I spoke, the stream of civilians into the bunker continued, guided by Vohrn and Blackford, who were as soaked and miserable as the evacuees despite their Starfleet issued rain ponchos.

To say this storm caught local officials and residents alike by surprise would be a massive understatement. Hurricanes rarely occured at all in Equestria. Teams of pegasi managed the weather patterns coming in off the eastern and southern coasts, unknowingly working together with the solar satellite to keep everything manageable. On the occasion that a more serious storm popped up, these teams whittled it down to little more than strong thunderstorms. It was a tricky but well-honed balance, allowing the region to support both healthy agriculture and a bustling tourism trade, with Baltimare's iconic cobblestone, salt-washed streets at its center, and Equestria’s meager navy protecting its shores.

What no creature could have possibly taken into account though was the inconsistent operation of the solar satellite. The see-sawing temperature fluctuations had already thrown the offshore atmospheric flows into chaos, resulting in stronger and more frequent weather fronts. But uneven heating over the surface of the planet as well as the occasional bursts of extra energy from the satellite overcompensating for its growing failure had sent global weather patterns into a tailspin almost overnight. In a way, it was similar to the rapid heating cycle that Earth experienced as it industrialized in the 20th and 21st centuries, only exponentially faster and more concentrated.

So when this hurricane spun up, it did so out of a massive storm front that popped up out of nowhere, and intensified so rapidly the weather teams were helpless to contain it. Evacuating a city the size of Baltimare in less than two days was clearly impossible, so we raced to construct shelters and bunkers whereever we could. They had little more than beds, rations, and Class Two forcefield generators for protection, but there was literally no time to do anything more.

At least it wasn’t a tsunami.

I ducked inside the shelter briefly to do a headcount. Vohrn, Blackford… where was Ayhan? “Ayhan, report,” I said, trying my combadge, but there was no response.

Rushing back outside, I bellowed in a magic enhanced voice, “Ayhan, report!”

Ayhan emerged through the curtain of solid sheets of rain pelting us, carrying a crying pegasus foal no more than five years old in her hands. The panicked parents of said foal stood next to her, looking around in fear. “Lieutenant, this is the last group I was able to locate. If there are any others, there is nothing more we can do for them.”

I nodded. “Alright, let’s get inside! Vohrn, Blackford, move it! I’ll set up the forcefield.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the two chorused, and accompanied by Ayhan and the civilians, they shut the door to the bunker.

I glanced back at the ocean, and cursed under my breath as I saw the storm surge washing over the shoreline.

Hastily I turned back to the bunker and began futzing with the forcefield controls. We didn't have the time to set up a proper infrastructure for the wiring and power, so both the forcefield generator and its control module had to be placed outside each bunker, protected only by the forcefield itself. The technology was pretty waterproof, but if the shield went down...

“Work, damn it!” I screamed at it as the system chugged, its cheery startup tones seeming to make a mockery of the current situation.

I could hear the surge washing over and through buildings behind me, approaching with a rapidity that made me shiver from more than just the rain-soaked cold.

Pog’s voice thrummed through the open comm channel. “Lieutenant, get it online! NOW!”

I slammed my hoof into the console. “Damn it, you stupid piece of shit, work!”

The forcefield began to sputter to life, but it wasn’t going to stabilize quickly enough, I could see it already. Horrific images flashed in my mind. The generator dying out, water bursting into the bunker and turning what should be a shelter into a watery grave for so many. But not today. Not on my watch.

I stood back from the console and my horn ignited, suffusing the generator with a huge burst of energy. "Turn on damn you!"

A breath later, the forcefield sprang to life.

"Yes—"

The water hit me like a battering ram, hurling me toward the sizzling forcefield. I closed my eyes, ready to be splattered into pieces.

And my world dissolved.

The next thing I knew I fell onto the hard deck of the Calypso like a sack of potatoes, along with a ball of sea water that promptly fell right on top of my head like a huge water balloon.

"We got her!" I vaguely heard Pog shout from somewhere in front of me.

I looked up and opened my mouth to speak, only to immediately begin spitting up water and coughing like crazy. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Doctor May kneel down next to me.

“Thank heavens you made it back,” she said as she flipped open her tricorder and began scanning. “I see some bruising, and a few strained muscles from that impact. But nothing serious.”

I felt her put a hypospray up to my neck and activate it. “Here, this should help dull the muscle aches for a bit. But you need some rest, Lieutenant.”

I sighed in relief. “U-Understood, Doctor.” She helped me slowly get back up to my hooves.

“Next time,” I groused to Pog, who was standing there smirking at me, “Try not to cut it so close.”

---

After the storm passed, we spent the next two days setting up temporary housing, distributing relief supplies, and helping the local hospitals with triage. Finally, out of supplies and running on fumes, we re-boarded Calypso and returned to Equestria Base. It was rare that we had to move the ship rather than take a shuttlecraft, but the need over Baltimare had been too great.

Baltimare's mayor lauded us all for our efforts that saved thousands of lives, but all I could focus on were the hundreds more whom we couldn't save, or the thousands more who were injured along the way. And beyond that, the city itself lay in ruin. Billions of bits worth of damage that would take years and years to fix.

What grated at me the most though was the lack of progress as of late. It had been over two months since our excursion to Yakyakistan, and in that time, we’d spent more time evacuating residents and building emergency shelters than we had on solving the damn problem in the first place. We had only vague clues where the next piece of this puzzle even was, and still no idea where the main computer hub was located.

Meanwhile, all of Equestria was, if not quite in a panic, then steadily approaching that point. Protests had sprung up in various cities, demanding that Princess Celestia do more to combat the failing of the sun, while a few others had begun to take advantage of the situation in a far more worrisome way, using radio broadcasts and print media to further fan the flames of fear and terror.

I listened to one such broadcast while doing some paperwork, in order to keep abreast of the situation.

“My fellow ponies, do not be deceived,” echoed the charismatic voice of a stallion from a pirate radio tower somewhere in rural Equestria. “The ancient crone that has lied to us for so long, presenting a false image of youth and tranquility while hiding her true nature, would have you believe that the encroachers from the stars are here to help us. She would have you believe that all this began before they appeared, that they are here not as conquerors, not as invaders or occupiers, but as friends. I say that is folly!

“Every single of those so-called visitors are here for one thing and one thing only, my fellow ponies, and that is to use us! To destroy us, and our way of life! Make no mistake, they are not to be trusted. Consider the recent hurricane in Baltimare, a cataclysmic storm unlike any our weather teams have ever seen! Or the blizzards in Manehattan and Vanhoover, the freezing of the Rainbow Falls, and so much more! This is a prelude to invasion, mares and gentlecolts. These aliens mean to weaken us today so they can conquer us tomorrow! Our way of life will be destroyed, I tell you! Destroyed!

“Oh, the fools out there would have you believe these events are out of the control of these aliens, that they’re trying to help save lives. But isn’t it convenient how every time they act, it results in destruction, in displacement, in more and more of our fellow ponies being subject to their desires and their whims? It is no coincidence, my friends, but deliberate design! After all, the proof is right there, in their leadership! Two ponies, seemingly vanished like ghosts, return with wings, claiming to be alicorns themselves?

“Why this could well be a plot cooked up by that decrepit hag Celestia herself! Keeping these other alicorns, these false idols, in the wings, so she can use them to crush us under her gilded hooves. But that's not all. No no! Anonymous sources from inside Canterlot tell me this could be traced back not to Celestia but her secretive little sister Luna! How convenient that she leaves Equus just before all this calamity starts, hmm? Why, I'd say that sounds like a plot a Nightmare would cook up, don't—”

The radio broadcast ceased playing as a hand moved to tap a control on my console. “Sorry, ma’am, but there’s only so much of that complete bullshit I can take,” Blackford said.

I hadn’t even noticed him coming in, and said as much. “It’s not easy to listen to,” I admitted. “But it’s important to know what they’re saying.”

“Oh I know, trust me. If this was any other planet, there’d be riots going on, and people like this idiot,” he jerked a thumb towards the console, “would be leading those riots, or worse, leading terrorist groups.”

“Not ponies,” I objected. “Ponies wouldn’t go that far.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t have before they witnessed their Princess age a hundred years right in front of them, but…” he sighed and sagged against my desk. “I hate to say this, but I’m going to recommend we all start carrying phasers wherever we go. Ma’am.”

A whickering sigh escaped my lips as I all but folded over the desk. “I know… you’re right, I know. But they should be kept inside their kit, not worn openly. I don't want to give any more fodder to fraudsters like that guy.”

“Neither do I, ma’am.”

“I know, you're just doing your job. And thank you for that.” I forced myself to sit back up. “So, did you come in here just to mute my radio, or was there something else on your mind?”

He brought out a PADD he’d been keeping tucked under his arm, and handed it to me. “Actually, it's more like a bit of good news for once. As you’re aware, we’ve been keeping in communication with the various other nations on Equus since we found the Helm of Yskler in Yakyakistan, via proxies in the Equestrian government. Negotiations especially with Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs have been progressing for some time now, and our ambassador has finally received a response from the Queen herself.”

Curious now, I took the PADD and hit play on the video file brought up, revealing Queen Novo in her land-based Hippogriff form, staring rather curiously into the camera. “Greetings, Twilight Sparkle and the visitors from the stars. I was told that if I speak into this device you would see this message from me.”

A voice off-screen interjected, “That’s correct, your highness. Treat it like you would any missive.”

Queen Novo nodded to whoever spoke. “Thank you. Now, we here among the hippogriffs have seen many issues arise since the sun began to falter. In Seaquestria, unusually cold water has depleted food stocks and driven some out of the water entirely for their safety. Meanwhile, heavy, unseasonable snow continues to fall on Mount Aris and the Harmonizing Heights, disrupting commerce, food supply, and everything in between. All across the kingdom my subjects fear for the future, and rightly so. However, given the prior injustices my people have suffered, especially due to the Storm King, I was reluctant to trust that you visitors were benign. But, I have been convinced otherwise. I therefore invite you to come visit me here.

There are many things we need to discuss, some of which I hope will aid you in your task. I will enclose with this message several fragments of the Pearl of Transformation, imbued with the knowledge needed to allow some of you to visit Seaquestria in comfort. I look forward to your visit.”

Queen Novo then looked over to the side. “So how do I stop it? Do I just— “ the video file cut to a blank screen as it ended.

I whistled under my breath. “Wow. I’m surprised that Queen Novo would be so willing to let us visit. I was under the impression that she was fairly xenophobic, though she can’t really be blamed for it.”

“She mentioned a Storm King?” Blackford said. “That’s the Yeti who invaded much of this world before our arrival, right?”

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “It was only a few months before the Phoenix crashed that he assaulted Canterlot and nearly conquered Equestria. And prior to that, he drove the Hippogriffs from their mountain home and into the ocean to hide. They’ve since begun to reoccupy Mount Aris, but while they were willing to let one of their number volunteer to serve aboard the Phoenix, letting us come visit them was another matter entirely.”

“What did she mean by ‘visit in comfort?’”

A mischievous smile spread across my muzzle. “Well, she does prefer to live in the ocean.” I reached up and tapped my horn.

He went slack-jawed. “You’re not serious.”

“I am serious. Besides, we have no diving equipment or anything else we could use, and while a shuttle could act as a submersible, we’d be extremely limited. And if anything went wrong, we’d have a hell of a time fixing it too.”

“Are you certain this pearl thing would even function for us?” he asked. “I was under the impression that the reason we couldn’t use healing magic on our injured was that we lacked mana cores, or something like that. Wouldn’t that prevent transformation magic too?”

“Normally, yes, but that’s because a typical transformation spell would use your own mana to aid in the transformation. But the Pearl works differently. All of the magic is within it, acting like a forcefield to affect everything within its range.”

His chest rumbled with laughter. “Well. I’ll let Ayhan and Vohrn know we’re going to be turning into mermaids. Life is so weird sometimes.”

“We’re Starfleet officers,” I said, grinning. “Weird is part of the job.”

---

I was busy sorting through paperwork on my terminal in my ready room when the door chime sounded. “Come in,” I called.

The doors swished open, revealing Adagio Dazzle, carting something I couldn’t quite identify at first glance, but which had isolinear chips sticking out one side and a couple of lit up LCARS buttons on another. She slid it onto my desk, beaming in apparent triumph. “I’ve done it, Sunset.”

Peering at the device, I raised a single eyebrow. “Done what?”

She dropped into the seat like a falling bomb. “Why, successfully fused magic with Federation technology, that's what. You do remember we had been working on doing just that, right?”

I looked back at the device, spotting what appeared to be a type-one pocket phaser fused into one side, with only the emitter node poking out of the other side of the box-shaped device. “Yes, of course. I had meant for us to pick that back up once we got the ship mostly repaired, but well,” I threw up my hooves a bit as if gesturing to the entire universe at once, “you see how things have gone so far out here.”

“Understandable though,” Adagio nodded. “Anyway, my sisters and I picked up some mana gems of our own while we were on Equus, and we've been tinkering with them a lot in our down time. And we finally have something to show for it.”

My ears perked up in excitement. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What is it?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a portable mana battery, a relatively rare piece of Equestrian tech that was much harder for us to get compared to their larger-sized cousins. I watched her quickly adjust the phaser's emitter node, then step over to the replicator. “Raktajino, iced.”

Setting the freshly replicated beverage down on the other end of the desk, she pointed to it and said, “Shimmer, use one of your shield spells to protect the cup.”

I frowned as my horn activated. “Okay, but where exactly are you going with this?”

“Just watch, and keep that shield up.” She then tapped a button atop her device.

Instantly a phaser beam lanced out at the shield, albeit one tuned to an unusual color, like a shimmering ocean blue instead of the usual orange. I was about to ask Adagio what I should be looking for when I felt a pull on my horn. Not a physical pull though; more like from the inside out, like it was pulling on my magic instead. I saw the shield flicker a bit, like it was weakening. “Huh?” On reflex I channeled more power into the spell, but rather than strengthen the shield, the pull on my horn got significantly stronger instead. “W-What the—” I tried it again, and again, until I was hunched over my desk, straining to keep the shield up at all. “What... how in the hec— aaah!”

The shield finally collapsed with an audible pop, and I recoiled back into my chair. Fortunately, the phaser beam seemed to do little more than warm the outside of the cup for a few seconds before Adagio cut it off. “So, what do you think?” she said, smirking with obvious glee.

I gripped the edge of my desk with both hooves for a moment, struggling to slow my racing heart. I glowered at Adagio, suddenly feeling a bit of rage burning within me. I wanted to scream at her, to curse her out for doing whatever it was she just did to me, but just as quickly as it appeared, the rage disappeared, leaving me a sweaty, fatigued mess.

The sensation of mana drain is unnerving for any unicorn. It's like having your blood drawn at the doctor's office, only the blood is your magic, and it's being drawn right through your horn. That feeling lasted but a few seconds just now, but I felt on the verge of passing out. My skin was all clammy, and for a moment everything seemed to float a bit.

“That was… ouch,” I weakly muttered. “That hurt. What was that?”

Adagio let out a purring snicker, her voice dropping to that low octave that sent shivers up the spine. “What do you think it was, Captain?” She flashed me a toothy grin. “You’re a smart cookie. You can work it out.”

My body trembled from the combination of mixed signals and the sudden drain on my mana, forcing me to shake my head to clear my thoughts and focus. I glanced at her, then back at the device, as well as the cup of raktajino. “First, coffee.”

Using as little magic as possible, I slowly floated the cup over and took a few long sips. The splash of cold, sugary goodness did wonders for my head after a minute. “You drained the shield with the phaser beam,” I finally answered after replaying it all again in my head. “The more I tried to strengthen it, the more it drained. And I felt angry afterwards, as if…”

Realization struck me as I faced her once again. “As if you were feeding on my emotions.”

“Bingo,” she said. “That’s precisely it. It’s just a proof of concept, but it works.”

“What does it do with the drained energy?”

She picked up the device and turned it over, then undid a little hatch, revealing another mana battery, though this one was only partially glowing. “For now, it dumps it into this gem, which is functioning like a capacitor here. There's a different capacitor for almost any type of forcefield or shield of course, but the basic idea is to capture the energy feeding the shield and send it back to us instead.”

I was midway through another sip of raktajino when the lightbulb finally went off in my head. “Ohh, I see now! So we drain their shields to power our own. That's brilliant, Adagio! And absolutely perfect for our current situation. Well done!”

Adagio preened under the praise. “It is brilliant, isn't it though?” She slinked back into the chair opposite me and played at buffing her nails on her blouse's collar. “Though it does risk overloading the phaser if pushed too far. I've solved that for now by reducing the phaser's power level, but that results in it doing no effective damage either.”

I couldn't help but smile and chuckle at Adagio. She could give my foalhood self a run for her bits in the self-praise department. But, she did make a good point nonetheless. “A smart adjustment, though not a surprising one. Phaser coils weren't exactly designed with this in mind. They're meant to send energy out, not absorb it back in. So if we scale this up, we'll probably only be able to use it in short bursts.” A slight frown creased my muzzle. “Does it usually have the emotional effects as well?”

Adagio shrugged. “No idea. That might’ve only been because you were powering the shield. It’s not as if you can make a ship angry.”

“You’d be surprised,” I quipped. “Still, I want to test this out on a smaller scale first, like with a pair of shuttlecraft, before we scale it up to any shipwide systems.” I tapped my badge. “Shimmer to Wattson.”

“Here, ma’am.”

“Amelia, Adagio just showed me a fascinating new piece of magical technology she and her sisters have been working on. It's a device that can drain a target's shields and, if I'm understanding things correctly, recharge our own shields in turn.”

I heard Wattson snort in disbelief. “Really? Wow, now that’s a new one even to me.”

I nodded on reflex. “I’m going to approve small scale testing with a pair of shuttlecraft, as I’m concerned about possible side effects related to her Siren abilities. If we can prove it doesn’t have those side effects, or find a way to mitigate them otherwise, I’ll approve larger scale tests.”

“Understood. I’ll put together a team to work with her. Please have her come see me whenever she’s ready to get started.”

“Good. Shimmer out.” I turned back to Adagio. “Well, congratulations. I’m genuinely impressed.”

“As you should be,” she said as she tucked the device under one arm. “I’ll get to it right away.”

As she turned to leave, I coughed for attention. “One more thing, Adagio.”

“Hmm?” Her expression veered into contrition. “Ah, right. I just barged in without asking. Sorry– er, I mean sorry, Captain.”

I smiled at her, friendly and genuine. “It’s not that. I just want you to know that I appreciate everything you and your sisters do for us and for the ship, even when you don't have to. You've more than proven how wrong Starswirl was to treat you the way he did, and you can bet I'll make sure Celestia hears that too.” I stood from my chair. “I know I speak for us all when I say we're glad to have you with us.”

Adagio looked at me for a second, then smiled in return. “Thank you, and... likewise.” She turned and left without another word, leaving me to finish my raktajino in peace.

“Zhidar to Shimmer.”

Or not. “Go ahead.”

“Captain, we’ve been tracking a Talarian cargo vessel on a similar course to ours, less than two light-years away, traveling at low warp. They appear to be developing a radiation issue with their engines.”

“Talarians,” I murmured, racking my brain. “They’re one of those patriarchal species.”

“Correct. But their technology is inferior to ours. They may not be aware of the leak. We might be able to assist them.”

“I’m on my way.” I closed the channel, took one last good sip from th coffee, and left the ready room, and made my way back onto the bridge. “Miss Maia, contact the Talarian ship,” I said as I approached my chair, which Zhidar swiftly vacated.

“Aye, ma’am,” she said. After a moment of tapping, she added, “Channel open.”

“Talarian vessel, this is Captain Sunset Shimmer of the Federation starship Phoenix. We’ve detected what appears to be a radiation leak in your engines. We’re standing by to assist.”

After a moment, a Talarian face appeared on screen. Like a lot of humanoids, the basic appearance was human-like, but with a distinct cranial ridge that split his forehead almost like a fleur de lis, rising up to occupy a substantial portion of his cranium, making him look half bald despite his well-maintained beard and hair. He sneered at me, his face rising to stick his nose in the air in a manner that wouldn’t be totally out of place in some sections of Canterlot. “What is this? I’ve never seen your species before, woman.” He said the word like it was slimy and foul, spat out in disgust. “What would you know about engines?”

My eye twitched as I attempted to respond politely, “A great deal, given I was an engineer before I assumed command. More to the point, if you require proof, we can send over our sensor data. The leak has only just started, so it may not be detectable yet on your end. But like I said, we're happy to assist with repairs, and the faster we can fix the leak, the less risk your crew will be in.”

His sneer intensified. “What makes you think we want your help?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Zhidar, if you would please explain to this kind gentleman why he needs his engines fixed before it becomes a problem.”

Zhidar’s toothy grin took the Talarian commander aback. “Assuming the engine leak doesn’t destroy your ship outright,” he rumbled, injecting a substantial amount of humor into the words, “Any cargo you have will be tainted with radiation and therefore useless, and if left unchecked, will kill your crew one by one due to radiation poisoning, horrific burns, or—”

“I am well aware of the effects of radiation poisoning!” The Talarian captain interrupted, his fist clenching at his side. “Do you think me a fool?”

“Of course not, sir,” I replied congenially, suppressing a smirk. “We’re simply doing our due diligence as Starfleet officers in rendering assistance to our stellar neighbors.”

“Captain,” Danielle added, briefly turning to me. “The radiation leak in their engines is intensifying.” The sound of an explosion in the background of the Talarian captain accompanied a shower of sparks. “Rapidly.”

The Talarian captain made a chopping motion over his neck with his hand. “He muted the transmission, ma’am,” Maia helpfully said, as the captain began shouting soundlessly at crew members behind him.

“Well, Commander, it seems you are not the only one who is having the charm and wit of a Spanish boar,” Rodriguez quipped.

Zhidar’s only response to that was a sinister chuckle.

After a few moments the Talarian unmuted his hail. “Very well, Captain Shimmer,” he snapped. “We will allow your engineering staff to assist us with repairs, as it seems your Federation sensors were correct.” His sneer transformed into a grimace. “We would appreciate your prompt assistance.”

“Certainly, Captain. I will have my chief engineer transport a team over at once.”

“Err, ma’am,” Danielle interrupted. “I recommend not using the transporter. The radiation will introduce increasing interference. Getting a solid lock will become quite difficult.”

A slight shrug of my wings accompanied my response. “A shuttle, then.”

“We will await it,” he snapped before ending the transmission altogether, leaving us with a view of his ship floating in space. One of the nacelles appeared to be outgassing plasma.

“Bridge to engineering. Wattson, apologies for adding to your workload, but we’ve just met a Talarian ship that needs assistance with repairs. Assemble a repair team and have them take a shuttle over ASAP. And please, make sure someone male is leading the team if you can.”

“Talarians, huh? I’ll send some of the Equus volunteers. They’ll enjoy the challenge.”

“Works for me. Bridge out.”

---

Personal log, supplemental. We’re about to embark on our mission to the hippogriffs, and I admit I’m… uneasy. These past few months have been so difficult, and despite what Cadance told me, and my own words to Preta, I haven’t been giving her the attention she deserves. It isn’t that I don’t want to. Goodness knows I do. But… sometimes, it’s just…

Just so difficult. I still feel uncertain in my new body, despite having had wings for months now. And while I’ve developed a taste for a lot of new foods thanks to my, err, dietary changes, it still feels strange to willingly put a piece of replicated steak in my mouth.

Still won’t eat hotdogs though.

What’s more, I think sometimes my mind still hasn’t fully grasped the reality of living on Equus again after so many years on Earth and aboard starships. Like my biological family. I thought when I saw my parents again, my brother again, I’d feel happy, content, like a hole in my heart had been filled. Instead… I feel cold uncertainty.

Are they truly my family anymore?

But then I look at pictures of Mother and Mom and Sunset and myself, and I feel just as cold and uncertain. Two sets of parents, two families, yet I feel so little attachment to either of them. I'm not sure if I should be scared, ashamed, or both.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when this all ends, if it ever does. Do I stay here? Do I go back to Starfleet?

The fact that this whole time I’m having to work my Starfleet job while living on Equus just makes it all the more surreal. Not to mention all these disasters and just…

It’s like my life isn’t even real anymore. Like I’m trapped inside the galaxy's worst holonovel, with no idea who I am or what my goals even are, yet the stakes get higher with every step I take.

But there’s one thing I am certain about. I won’t let my world die. Even if I’m not sure if it’s where I belong anymore, Equus is still the place I came from. And I will not let it die. I’ll do anything to protect it, to save it.

Anything.

End log.

---

As the shuttlecraft flew south, I sat in the copilot seat next to Preta. “I’m sorry you can’t go with us to Seaquestria,” I said as I extended a wing to briefly hug her shoulder. “We only have enough Pearl fragments for four of us, unfortunately.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, smiling at the touch. “It’s just as well. Cats and water don’t mix, you know.”

“Aren’t there catfish on Earth, though?” Vohrn quipped from his seat in the back. “At least, that’s what my roommate at the academy said. Always tried to feed me catfish sandwiches; they were revolting.”

Preta rolled her eyes. “Not the same thing and you know it.” Her hands moved across the console as she adjusted our heading. “Besides, you’re not going either.”

“Well, someone has to investigate topside while the rest of you go swimming,” he replied as he tapped at his breathing apparatus. “And I'd rather not have this thing malfunction again without warning.”

“True,” I added. “There's no real way to know how the magic will interact with your breathing device, and I don't want to take unnecessary risks with anyone's health.”

So while the rest of us investigated Seaquestria, Vohrn would be taking a couple of Pog’s engineers with him to wander the mountainside, accompanied by Princess Skystar, Queen Novo’s daughter, who, upon our first meeting when she visited Canterlot Castle as part of a delegation, performed a kind of puppet show using different color shells as characters.

I did not envy Vohrn in the least.

But it also meant we’d need someone else to accompany us beneath the waves. I went to speak with Belle, but she declined, not being a fan of swimming. Though at least she had improved somewhat from how she was when we first crashed, and was spending more time exploring Ponyville and the surrounding areas. Not for the first time I found myself wishing I had more free time to go speak with her and see her.

Instead, I was left with a different choice.

“Pog is grateful because it gives him a chance to experience the oceans of this world without the risk of drowning. For once.”

“Do you even know how to swim?” Vohrn asked.

“Of course!” Pog jabbed a thumb into his chest. “Pog grew up not far from Lake Miracht on Tellar. He went swimming all the time.”

“That’s funny,” Blackford said with a big grin on his face. “I seem to recall you sinking like a stone on the holodeck whenever we tried boating off the coast of California.”

“That was different! Pog is certain the simulation was misprogrammed to make Pog look bad.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“Alright, settle down you two,” I grumbled, feeling not unlike a parent on a family road trip. “Mount Aris is just ahead.”

We sank back through the clouds as we began our approach, and Mount Aris finally came into view.

“Wow…” everyone seemed to mutter at once, including myself. Until now I had only seen Mount Aris through pictures in a travel book. The singular peak dominated the skyline above smaller, broader hills that formed the central part of a fairly large island. Towns and villages came into view as we descended, as well as what I presumed to be a capital city cut into the mountainside on all sides. The architecture was beautiful in its own way, though I spotted many areas that seemed to be under reconstruction of some kind. More worrisome though was the snow covered roofs and cliffs, despite it being in the middle of the spring season here.

“Pog is curious about one thing,” he said as we swung to the right towards a predetermined landing spot on the beaches. Or, they would be beaches if they weren't currently covered in a blanket of snow. “Why is the undersea kingdom called Seaquestria?”

I resisted the urge to snort. “Translation quirk. The actual name in Ponish is very similar to Equestria, so the translator turned it into another pun.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d swear half the things on this planet were named to appeal to little girls,” Vohrn muttered.

“Says the guy from a planet full of volcanoes,” I grunted, turning to playfully glare at him for a moment before turning my attention back to the view. “There, that’s our landing site.”

Preta brought the shuttle to a halt, landing on the beach with a distinct crunch of snow underneath. “Good luck, Twilight.”

While the rest disembarked, I hung back for a moment so I was the last to leave, giving me the opportunity to give Preta a brief hug. The appreciation brimming in her eyes made it worthwhile, which made it all the harder for me to let her go and join the others outside.

Pog and Ayhan immediately brought out tricorders to scan the area. “It appears we will be limited in our scanning range,” Ayhan commented as she calibrated the tricorder. “The concentration of ambient magic is markedly higher here than we have observed elsewhere. The tricorder is having difficulty filtering it out.”

“Not surprising, given how every citizen around here is wearing a sliver of an artifact,” I said as I stepped towards the ocean, looking over the waves.

As the shuttlecraft took off again, heading for the peak, I saw a hippogriff emerge from the ocean, triggering his transformation back to his land-based form. “Lieutenant Sparkle?” he said, giving me a polite nod. “I am General Seaspray. Queen Novo asked me to escort you and your party to Seaquestria.”

“General,” I greeted, gesturing to my crew. “These are Lieutenants Ayhan, Blackford, and Pog.”

He nodded briefly to them, his eyes narrowing as he took in our equipment. “Pardon me for asking but, are you certain your devices will work underwater?”

“Our tricorders are waterproof and able to withstand the depths we will be experiencing,” Ayhan answered. “They will be necessary for us to gather data as well.”

“Very well.” He gestured to the ocean with a claw. “Please, step into the water. Your Pearl fragments should trigger with a simple exercising of your will.”

“Oooh, damn it’s cold,” Blackford muttered as the four of us ventured into the water, a bitter cold penetrating almost immediately into my bones, and I only just managed not to yelp from the shock of it. I did not want to spend more time in this water than I had to!

“You will adjust,” Seaspray replied. “Though I will admit it has become much less comfortable underwater as of late. Ready?” He tapped his Pearl with a claw, and with a flash of magic his form shifted to that of a seapony before he dove into the waves.

I glanced back at the others. “G-go first, I’ll w-watch,” I said, despite shaking worse than a jello mold in an earthquake from how much the cold was affecting me. Preta was right. She would not like this at all.

“Oh this is so weird,” Blackford muttered as he held a hand to his Pearl fragment and squeezed his eyes shut, along with the other two.

Ayhan was the first to transform, which didn’t surprise me, given the fact that Vulcan touch telepathy made it easier for her to focus. As the magic engulfed her, I witnessed her shifting take hold, her upper body remaining the same, including her uniform, while her legs melded together, and formed into a porpoise-like tail, with scales scintillating in Starfleet blue and grey. Pog soon followed, his form more resembling that of a shark, with rugged, brown scales and more prominent tusks.

Blackford finally shifted as well, and his tail, much more dolphin-like than the other two, shone even more so than Ayhan’s, in brilliant scales of Starfleet yellow.

The three of them took a moment to paddle and get their bearings. “This is most unusual,” Ayhan said, having to shout over the sound of the waves.

“Pog likes it, hahaha! Pog can swim better than ever!” Pog demonstrated this by diving underneath and leaping out of the water, catching the sunlight before splashing back down.

“Well, at least it isn’t as cold,” Blackford said as he felt his tail with his hands. “It’s incredible.”

Satisfied they had it under control, I swiftly went to transform myself. To my frustration, my uniform, unlike the others, mostly disappeared, save for a single collar around my neck with my pips on it in Starfleet grey, while the rest of the transformation manifested in shaping fins out of my wings and tail in scales. It was absolutely beautiful though. It was like I was wearing a bit of the famed auroras that shone so often over the Crystal Empire.

And I felt naked, even though there was nothing exposed.

“Curious. I wonder why your uniform did not remain,” Ayhan said as she swam over to me. She briefly scanned me with her tricorder, as if that was going to tell her anything.

“Who knows,” I muttered.

General Seaspray chose that moment to crest the waves. His mouth opened to speak, but he paused, surveying us momentarily. “Ah, you are different than I expected. I have never seen such a variety in forms before.” He cleared his throat. “Please, follow me underneath. And do not worry, you will be able to breathe just fine.” He dove back beneath.

It took me a moment to muster the courage to follow, but eventually I braced myself for the cold and dove in. Instinct had me trying to hold my breath and keep my eyes closed, but as my prior research indicated, the transformation magic took care of all of that too. Gills circulated water and oxygen without effort, and a nictitating membrane gave my eyes the shielding needed to be able to see clearly beneath the waves.

“Testing, testing,” said Pog, glancing between us. “Can you hear Pog?”

“Reading you just fine,” Blackford said, blinking in confusion. “How I’m doing that though, I’m not sure. I can barely tell we’re underwater!”

“Most fascinating,” Ayhan said, her tricorder continuously scanning. “It appears the transformation is allowing us to perceive sound waves in a manner identical to the surface, despite the difference in medium. I am uncertain as to the mechanism.”

“Don’t worry about it right now,” I said. “We can figure that out later. For now, concentrate your scans on locating the terminal.”

“Is it even likely to be underwater, though?” Blackford wondered.

“If by terminal you mean the ancient device you are searching for,” Seaspray interrupted, “then it is quite possible. The hippogriffs have had a long tradition of going to the sea well before the Storm King forced us under.”

“Indeed?” Blackford swished his tail, rocketting forward almost past the general before he corrected his momentum. “So the Pearl has been in your possession for generations, then?”

“Going back centuries, yes,” Seaspray answered. “The Queen would be able to tell you far more. Please, save your questions for her.”

“Is it just Pog, or does the water feel colder than it should?” Pog said as we swam on, going deeper underwater. Despite the depths, we were able to see just fine, as our eyes adjusted to the lower light levels. There were a substantial number of bioluminescent fungi and other such sea life floating or attached to structures, lending a cheery, if dim, atmosphere to the whole area. We also passed by a number of seaponies, all of whom watched us with great curiosity, especially as we began to pass through the actual city portion of Seaquestria.

“Curious,” Ayhan commented. Her swimming was far more elegant and masterful than I would’ve expected from a Vulcan, given that world’s dearth of surface water relative to most class-M planets. That she managed it with a tricorder in her hand only added to the impression. “I am experiencing a similar sensation.”

“It’s definitely colder,” Seaspray confirmed. “While we’re used to colder temperatures throughout the darker seasons, we should already be in the midst of spring warmth, and yet it still feels like the depths of winter. The icebergs in the oceans to our south have failed to melt, and if anything are growing in size.”

“Well, we are much closer to the planet’s southern pole,” Blackford said as he darted past a family of seaponies who watched him in utter fascination. “So it’s not that surprising you’re seeing some pretty hefty effects from the lowered intensity of the solar satellite.”

Seaspray paused to peer at him, his expression sour as spoiled milk. “I still do not properly understand this concept, even though it has been explained to me several times by the ambassador from Equestria. That what we see in the sky is mere illusion and trickery, and in reality is a construct orbiting our planet much closer than any moon… it is difficult for me to grasp.”

“It’s been difficult for us all, believe me,” I said as we passed by an increasing number of homes built into the reefs around like they were grown out of coral. Cavern walls began to appear on either side as we swam into a series of caves underneath Mount Aris, which I couldn’t tell if they were natural formations or purpose built through magic. “Where is the ambassador? I expected them to meet us.”

“They are on the surface above,” Seaspray answered. “They will be helping Princess Skystar escort your other officers, as they expressed a dislike for being in the water.”

“Understandable,” Ayhan said. She raised her tricorder to scan some of the surrounding sea formations and plants. “Lieutenant, I believe the rock formations around us are not as natural as they appear.”

Score one for magic then. “Take as many readings as you can. This could be another case like the diamond dogs.”

Other hippogriff guards began to dot the area around us, each one armed with a vicious looking spear. I didn't need a tricorder to guess that the glowing mana gems attached to them were enchanted with all manner of combat-specific spells too. I made eye contact with a few guards, and they just stared at me like I was dinner. One of them even ran his fins over the tip of his spear, as if he was just looking for an excuse to attack.

As we passed by another family, I heard the small child among them murmur, “Mommy, who are those strange looking seaponies?” Only for the father of the group to rush in front of them, pushing them back and away from us.

“It would appear that the hippogriffs are not keen on our presence,” Ayhan said.

“Pog can’t blame them,” Pog replied. “Not if they were as insular as Pog has heard.”

General Seaspray coughed in disapproval. “My people are not insular. But we have been hurt before, especially by the Storm King, and there are a great many of us unhappy with the fact that we allowed one of our number to go aboard your spaceship.”

Ahead of us the undersea palace began to loom, hanging down from the underside of a cavern as if Canterlot Castle had been turned upside down. The entire structure was massive by any definition, with smaller towers leading the eye toward the immensely tall tower in the center. Crafted entirely out of stone and coral, marked with more intricate filigrees than I'd ever seen before, and all backlit by more bioluminescence, it was simply breathtaking. The general kindly let us pause for a moment and just take it all in.

I was very glad Ayhan was scanning away with her tricorder, because my inner filly was completely geeking out at what I was seeing. I never thought I'd have a chance to visit Mount Aris at all, much less this. It reminded me again how beautiful and amazing this planet could be – and why it needed to be saved.

“That is incredible,” Blackford murmured. “Simply gorgeous architecture. And this was present before the Storm King invaded?”

“Indeed, though it had not been used for some time,” Seaspray said. He gestured with a fin. “Come. Queen Novo awaits.”

The inside of the palace was, if anything, even more impressive than the outside, with long streamers of jellyfish like luminescent life adding to the magical lanterns hanging from the ceilings, giving the entire space a sense of serene beauty that arguably eclipsed Canterlot itself. Countless types of sea life, from sponges to sea cucumbers and everything in between, dotted about like brilliant decorations, with corridors being more like suggestions than fact, everything made of stone and coral, just like the exterior, as if the entire place had been carved out of the ocean floor itself.

Yet even here the cold in the water could be felt, despite the presence of enchanted glass spheres that were, upon closer inspection, meant to act as heaters.

As we passed through, the waters converged on a central chamber, where there was a great circular floor lined with arrangements of intricate arches around a central hole that descended somewhere out of sight. Steps of elegantly arranged stones leading up to a throne that spread out like a carved clamshell with arms and positions for fins to lay. Above the throne was a larger jelly-fish like creature that left my teeth itching with magic. No doubt the Pearl of Transformation was stored there, and those tendrils… I had the suspicion they were like a security device.

I discreetly pulled out my tricorder to scan it closely, just in case.

Sitting on the throne, flanked by guards, was a larger seapony than the rest, and she looked every bit as regal as her title implied. Brilliant shades of amethyst marked her mane and fins alike, each glowing like stars against her pearly white body. A golden crown sat upon her head, its elegant form marked by a trio of glowing cyan gems that, as I got closer, were arranged in such a way to match the swept-back feathers I remembered seeing on her hippogriff form.

“Presenting her royal majesty, Queen Novo of Seaquestria and Hippogriffia,” General Seaspray said with a bow, prompting us to do the same. “Your majesty, may I present to you Lieutenant Twilight Sparkle, of Starfleet, and her officers, Pog, Ayhan, and Blackford.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, your majesty,” I said as I kept my head bowed.

She gestured for us to rise. “The pleasure is mine, Lieutenant Sparkle,” she said, her voice richer and more delightful to the ear than I had realized from the recording we were sent. As she spoke she rose from her throne and swam up to us, before briefly breaking into peals of not-so-royal laughter.

I blinked, having not quite expected that. “Your majesty…?”

She gave us a wide smile. “I’ll be honest, it’s hilarious seeing the way you all look under the effects of the Pearl. It’s pretty ridiculous.”

“Err, yes, well, it was hard to predict what the effects might be on humanoids. I wasn't even sure what to expect for myself, for that matter, since the transformation affects every pony differently.”

She waved it off. “Honey, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad to finally see some of you face to face. I sent my niece on your ship, after all. I should’ve insisted on a face to face meeting then.”

“Your niece?” Blackford said.

“I was unaware the hippogriff volunteer was your niece, your majesty,” I added.

“Of course you were. Silverstream never brags about her connection to me. She’s smart enough to keep it quiet, which you wouldn’t think if you knew her. Honestly, the way she never shuts up…” Novo shook her head and tutted. “Anyway, that’s not why you’re here. You’re here because you think we might have something you’re looking for.”

“That’s right,” I said with a nod. “Specifically we’re looking for an ancient device, a piece of technology with, we hope, a leftover message on it.”

“That computer thingamajig your ambassador was yapping on about,” Novo concluded. She waved a fin dismissively. “Yes, well, I’m fairly sure I already know where that might be.”

“Wait, you do?” Blackford said, surprise written all over his face. “How long have you known about its existence?”

“For as long as I have been queen, though the knowledge was passed to me by my predecessors, who received it from their elders.” She nodded at Blackford. “There is much I feel I must tell you; secrets our kingdom has kept for centuries. But I fear these things can be secret no longer if we wish to have any hope of alleviating our suffering. But first, I’m sure you have some questions of your own.”

“We do.” I gestured to my officers. “With your permission, may my officers use our tricorders to scan the area while we talk?”

“So long as your… tricorder… doesn’t do any harm,” Novo said, narrowing her eyes.

Ayhan gave the queen an impassive look. “You may be assured, your majesty, that they are harmless.” She held up hers to show the queen.

“I see. Go ahead, then.” She turned her attention back to me. “Now, ask your questions.”

While Pog and Ayhan swam about the chamber, scanning the walls and sealife alike, Blackford remained by my side. “First of all, your highness,” he said, “Do you know how old your kingdom is?”

“Really?” Novo’s eyebrows rose. “Hippogriffia and Seaquestria have been around for well over a thousand years, though I confess that the exact year of our kingdom’s founding is unknown even to me. Prior to that, we don’t have many records, though we do have stories going back many centuries further. And, of course, we have this.”

She rose from her throne up to the jelly-fish like thing hanging above her, and reached into it with her fins, emerging with a glowing pearl, which to my surprise showed no sign of fragments cut from it, despite knowing there were a great many. “The Pearl of Transformation is sacred to us. We know that in the past it was frequently used to allow us to live both on Mount Aris and here in the sea as well, but about a century ago, we abandoned Seaquestria altogether. At least, until the Storm King forced us back under.”

“That explains what General Seaspray said about the place being abandoned,” I murmured. “Do you know why your people left Seaquestria?”

Queen Novo’s expression drew in on itself. “We trusted too much.”

“I beg your pardon?” Blackford questioned.

Novo let out a long-suffering sigh. “My people have always been a kingdom apart from others. We didn’t need much in the way of trade, and the Pearl allowed us to swim the waters as easily as we soared the skies. The only ones close to us, besides the older Yeti kingdoms, were the Abyssinians. And they are very outgoing, gregarious types, eager to trade with others, and frequently at odds with our isolationist approach. Eventually they persuaded us to open our borders, and for a time, we subsisted more on trade than our own resources.”

She swam around her throne before resting her fins on it, holding the Pearl under her chin. “But then that trade dried up a few years ago, along with nearly all communication with the Abyssians. We had no idea why until the Storm King’s vanguard assaulted Mount Aris. That’s when I made the decision to abandon the mountain in favor of Seaquestria once more. Now that we’re straddling both again, I don’t see us abandoning either anytime soon. At least, I hadn’t, until it stayed colder well past the point it should.”

Her eyes fell upon me, and for just a moment I could see them brim with a deep, frustrated rage. “I must be clear with you, Twilight Sparkle. Inviting you here, while solely my right to do as Queen, was not without controversy. There are those among my court, including some of my most trusted advisors, who tell me that this ongoing calamity is your fault.” She gently set the pearl down on the throne and swam closer to us.

“Some say that starship of yours brought with it evil magics that cursed the land and sea alike. Still others claim you and your compatriots are doing this on purpose in an attempt to drive us out of the ocean. They would have me imprison you, interrogate you for your secrets, and hold you for ransom. And frankly? If I hadn’t seen the newspapers and heard the radio reports of things like that hurricane in Baltimare? I’d be listening to them right now.”

I found myself reflexively reaching for a phaser that was currently not by my side. “There are those in Equestria who feel similarly,” Blackford said. “Lieutenant Sparkle and I have heard the same broadcasts you have. I can assure you, on behalf of all of us, that we did not cause any of this, nor do we have any intention to do anything of the sort. We only wish to help, your majesty.”

She swam up to him, her face centimeters from his. “You really want to help? Find a way to keep the oceans from freezing. If this continues, the sea ice will eventually encircle this island and trap us underwater, assuming it doesn't freeze below the surface as well.”

“We’re working on that, your majesty,” he said, refusing to budge. “That’s why we’re here.”

She sneered at him for a moment before swimming away, picking up the Pearl once more. “I know, which is why I allowed you to come here to begin with. But I’m watching you closely. If you even begin to abuse my trust, you won’t be leaving these oceans for a long, long time. Am I clear?”

“Crystal, your majesty,” I said, trying not to sneer in turn. Damn it, I wasn’t a diplomat, this was exactly the sort of thing Sunset ought to be managing, not me. She’d know how to handle this better.

“Lieutenant,” Ayhan called. She swam over to me, holding up her tricorder. “Pog and I have concluded our scans of this area. I believe I can safely conclude the caverns are not natural formations. The walls of stone appear to only be a few thousand years old, too recent to be formed by natural processes.”

“Is the age comparable to that of the diamond dog caverns?”

“No, these are more recent, by at least half a millennia.”

Queen Novo gave me a quizzical look. “What exactly do diamond dogs have to do with this?”

I weighed my next words carefully. “In addition to the messages that we previously discussed, we’ve also found evidence to suggest that many, if not all, of the civilizations on this planet have regressed technologically over time, and may not in fact be native to Equus at all.”

“Regressed technologically?” Her mouth worked over the words as if she didn’t quite grasp them, before her expression dipped into suspicion. “And what exactly does that mean?”

“We still don’t know, your majesty,” Blackford added. “We can’t conclusively say either way yet.”

She snorted, bubbles wafting from her nose. “Of course not.” She glanced at her guards, then gestured to most of them. “Out.”

“But, your majesty,” one objected. “For your safety—”

“I said out. General Seaspray is more than enough to defend me against these incompetent swimmers.”

The guards all bowed to her, and swam out of the throne room, leaving us alone with the Queen and the general. To my surprise, Queen Novo’s body language shifted, becoming more relaxed. “Well, now I can speak my mind more.”

I felt my face twist in confusion. “Your Highness?”

She waved a fin dismissively in the direction the guards swam out of the room from. “Oh, just… most of my subjects are so skeptical of you all that I had to take a hard line initially, at least in public.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “That said, I still share some of their skepticism. Some. Not all. Now, what I have to say next is a closely guarded secret, one my royal line has kept hidden to all but our own descendents and our most trusted servants.”

“I promise not to abuse this privilege, your majesty,” I answered.

She lifted the Pearl back into the embrace of the jellyfish-like entity, then swirled around to the back of her throne and began to press at it in several different places, followed by whispering a word that the universal translator failed to convey. All of a sudden, a section of ceiling directly above the throne seemed to depress inwards, then slid out of the way with a muffled grinding noise. A few seconds later a smaller tile slid out from the dais supporting the throne, and a huge, utterly majestic trident rose into view. It was larger in every way from the ones carried by the guards, and was made not with gold but with an iridescent, glowing material similar to the Pearl. I watched Novo grab it with one fin and give it a few short spins, displaying absolute mastery of its movement.

“My Queen, are you certain?” Seaspray questioned. “We’ve never once allowed outsiders into the Chamber.”

“I am well aware, General. But, our waters only grow colder. We must act.” Novo gestured to the opening. “Come.”

I briefly glanced at the others, then followed her and the general up into the hole in the ceiling. It was lit by more magical lanterns, but otherwise was like a tunnel, only a few meters across, heading straight up before curling around in many different directions. After a while, we emerged into a far larger cavern, and surfaced. The cavern was so dimly lit we could hardly make out anything beyond a few meters, save for a rocky outcropping directly ahead.

The Queen showed no hesitation in swimming over to the outcropping, hopping up, and with a touch of her Pearl fragment transforming back into her hippogriff form. “This Chamber can only be accessed via Seaquestria, but it rests within the depths of Mount Aris.”

The rest of us slipped onto the stone, and one by one we shifted back into our usual forms. I was more than grateful to see my Starfleet uniform return unharmed. Pog shivered and shook out his limbs, splashing a bit of leftover water from his fur. “Pog enjoyed the swimming, but he is glad to be standing on his feet again.”

“I dunno, I kinda miss the tailfin,” Blackford said as he adjusted his pants.

General Seaspray cautiously moved between Queen Novo and my officers. “Don’t let them get too close, your majesty,” he whispered to her, too quiet for any to hear save me.

“Lieutenant, there is a dampening field in place within this cavern,” Ayhan said as she shook the last of the water off of her tricorder screen. “I am unable to detect anything beyond its walls.”

I brought out my own tricorder. “Confirm for me, I’m reading signs of the same sort of magical EPS conduits that we detected with the dragons and the diamond dogs.”

“Confirmed,” Blackford answered.

“Pog also confirms it.” Pog grinned toothily. “He cannot wait to examine this tech first hand.”

I turned back to the Queen. “Your majesty, what exactly is this place?”

“The Chamber of our Ancestors,” she answered. Before I could respond, she took the trident and plunged it into a receptacle on the floor and murmured a few phrases in a dialect that might’ve been ancient Hippogriffish but again left the universal translator stumped. She paused for a split second before yelling out a single word. “Awaken!”

We all squinted as bright and very harsh artificial lights sprung to life all along the ceiling and down the walls, revealing a chamber far larger than I would have guessed initially. A quick scan told me the space was well over a hundred meters across, and at least twenty meters tall. All around us I could see metallic walkways heading off in numerous directions, but what drew my eye, and really all our eyes, were the objects between the walkways.

Row after row of seemingly tomb-like structures, each one shaped like a slightly rounded rectangle and painted to resemble marble, or quartz.

“What in the world?” I muttered.

I took a few tentative steps down the nearest walkway, being careful not to even look like I was about to touch something. As I got closer, I noticed that each object had a single door carved into it, with a small window near the top. A plaque fixed to a post above the structure had a single string of characters etched into it that were wholly unfamiliar to me.

My eyes followed the row of objects to its end, then across the room to a large platform that seemed to loom over the rest of the chamber. A wide set of stairs led to what looked to be a terrace of some kind, a large plaque with more of that unrecognizable script on it hanging above the entrance.

I stepped up to one of the structures and peered inside, then breathed a soft, “Holy shit!” under my breath.

Inside, with her forelegs crossed and her eyes closed, lay a single hippogriff, upright inside a tube of some transparent material.

Queen Novo wasn't lying. This was indeed a chamber. A stasis chamber.

---

“Oh wow, these engines are so cool! Look at how they function, Gallus. It’s like those old models Twilight showed us in training, but set up all weird!”

“I know, Silverstream, I can see that. Stop fiddling with that, you’re going to break it.”

Shaky camera footage from the viewpoint of the team leader Gallus accompanied the banter on the Talarian ship, giving Wattson and me a grainy, occasionally staticy picture of their work. As they spoke, the camera shifted to focus on a pair of horizontally mounted bars with red lights blinking inside them.

“But what’s this for? It doesn’t seem to be a readout. I don’t get it.”

“What, those? Okay, one second, let me scan it then… huh. It… It doesn’t seem to do anything. Maybe it’s decorative?”

A gruff Talarian voice intruded from off-screen. “I do not understand why they sent us beasts to work on our engines.”

“Hey, we’re not beasts! I’m a hippogriff and he’s a griffin.”

“Bah! You all look like animals to me.”

“That’s just rude.”

“Not the best of diplomats, this Gallus,” I quipped as I stood with Wattson near the warp core.

“I know,” she groaned. “But you told me to send Equus volunteers, and while I could have sent Braeburn instead, I need him working on Adagio's experiment right now. But Gallus knows what he's doing too. They'll be fine.”

“Ouch! Who the hay made these thresholds so high anyway?”

“Probably.”

“True enough.” I watched the camera footage jerk around. “You know, Jacqueline would get a huge kick out of this if she could see it.”

Wattson smiled briefly. “Yeah, she would. Damn, I hope she’s okay.”

“You and me both.”

“Hey, watch out!”

There was a burst of steam and the sound of a plasma fire igniting, followed by alarms. “Aaah heck, get the masks on.”

“How do I put this on again?”

“You incompetent fools, you’re going to break our ship!”

“Technically, your ship was already half-broken.”

Wattson let out another groan and tapped her badge. “Wattson to Gallus. Knock down that plasma fire now, or else you’re going to take a huge dose of radiation.”

“Working on it, ma’am.”

On the screen, another Equus native stepped into view, the one medical assistant we’d sent over, instantly recognizable by her stripes and the fascinating gold rings she wore about her neck. She lifted up a hypospray presumably loaded with hyronalin. “Do not worry. I will inoculate you in a hurry.”

My eyes narrowed as I took her in. “That’s… Zecora, right? The one who works the opposite of Selar’s shift?”

“Yeah,” Wattson said. “She volunteered to go along with them in case there were injuries to either crew.”

“Good call.” I turned away from the screen to call up a different report. “Looks like they’re about to test Adagio’s modified phaser in the Main Shuttlebay. That was fast.”

“Braeburn is a whiz with the phaser coils. Managed to get the design hooked in a lot faster than I would’ve been able to do myself,” Wattson said. “Honestly, more than a few of these volunteers would be shoo-ins at the Academy, seriously.”

“Don't say that too loud, Amelia,” I chuckled. “You might make some of the original crew jealous.”

Wattson laughed along with me for a moment. “There were a few bruised egos at first, I gotta admit. But really, the extra help has been a godsend, especially down here. I'm really proud of how both crews have performed under the circumstances.”

“Heehee, that tickles!”

“It will protect you from the radiation, but please try not to test the limits of the inoculation.”

I glanced back at the screen when I heard the sound of something exploding in the background. “Uh-oh.”

“Well, we got the plasma fire solved, but…”

The camera swirled around, briefly filled by an angry Talarian face before said Talarian was pushed aside by the blue feathered wing of Gallus. “Look, we got this, okay? Stop getting in our way and we might be able to fix this before your whole ship explodes.”

“You had better, you big ball of bird feathers.”

There was the sound of an impact and the camera feed abruptly cut out. “Wattson to Gallus, give me a status report.”

“Plasma fire is contained, but their dilithium chamber took some minor damage. It’s going to take us another few hours to repair and re-align it. And, uh, the camera got smacked with a hyperspanner.”

I tried not to snigger in amusement at Wattson taking a deep breath and visibly counting to five on her fingers before she replied, “Alright, just, take it easy over there. The Talarians are counting on us.”

“Yes, ma’am.” There was the sound of a small explosion in the background. “Oh ponyfeathers, gotta go!” The channel closed.

Wattson drooped against the railing around the warp core. “I swear, Sunset, if they weren’t so brilliant…”

“I know, I know. They don’t exactly have the best discipline.” I glanced back down at my own console. “Hmm, looks like they’ve got the first test results coming in… no sign of emotional side effects or power surges. I’ll have them run the tests a few more times to be safe, but it’s looking like we can safely hook the device into the ship’s main phaser array.”

Wattson came up behind me and began reading over my shoulder. “Hmm, looks like it, if this initial data bears out. But it’ll take a few hours at least to get it all hooked up, Sunset.”

“I’m aware. Just let me know once it’s done, so I can explain to the Talarians why we’ll be shooting at a shuttlecraft.” I rolled my eyes. “Last thing I need is them trying to do something stupid.”

---

Pog rushed to my side in an instant, his tricorder out and scanning. “Pog is certain. It is a stasis chamber. From what Pog can tell, this technology is several thousands of years old.”

I looked up at Novo, who stood proud, a clearly amused smirk on her face. “How long have your people been keeping this a secret?”

“For as long as we have history.” She gestured to the stasis pods with a claw. “We revere them and guard them, for it has been passed down that one day they will awaken to guide us once more.”

“So that’s why you brought us here,” Blackford posited. “because these chambers are the message?”

“It is a logical presumption, given the technology is unfamiliar to us,” Ayhan added.

Novo shook her head. “Not the chambers themselves, no. But I believe a message is indeed here.” She gestured to the platform at the end of the cavern, “Up there, you’ll find what I think you’ve been looking for.”

I gave her a polite nod. “Thank you for allowing us to examine things here, your majesty.” With another nod to my crew, we approached the central building.

I paused outside it to examine the plaque over the door. “Blackford, is there any chance of translating this text?”

“It’s going to take some time,” he said, standing up on his toes to more closely peer at the plaque. “These characters don’t look like anything we’ve seen in other writing samples on this planet.” He pointed his tricorder at the plaque only for it to emit an error beep. “Yup, at some point they must’ve changed languages, or lost writing entirely.” He glanced back at the queen. “Your majesty, do you have any other information on this place?”

She shook her head. “Only that we have been protecting it for a very long time.”

My brow creased as a frown worked its way onto my muzzle. “And there’s no records about when this kingdom was founded, or any old stories or legends?”

Novo eyed Seaspray, who spoke up, “There is one, actually. It's a story that adults tell to their children, and has been passed down from generation to generation as long as we can remember. I will summarize.” He cleared his throat, then began.

“Once upon a time, there was nothing living upon Mount Aris, or in the sea. The two were empty, cold, and alone, left only with each other. And while their company subsisted for a time, they ached for a people to care for, life to nurture and grow and protect. They looked up at the stars and asked for them to send them children.

“And so they did. One night, a shooting star came down from the heavens. As it blazed through the sky, it split in two, with one half landing on the mountain, and the other in the sea. From these blessed stellar remnants came the first hippogriff and the first seapony, from whom we are all descended.”

“Now that’s an interesting creation myth if I’ve ever heard one,” Blackford said. He glanced my way. “A crashed ship, maybe?”

“Maybe.” I rubbed my chin with a wing. “But that wouldn’t explain the artificial caverns or the layout here. Unless… Ayhan, the substance that these stasis pods are constructed from, have you identified it yet?”

Ayhan peered at her tricorder. “Uncertain, Lieutenant, however it does appear to have a biological component similar to bone.”

“Coral,” Blackford said, snapping his fingers. “You’re suggesting their tech is like coral.”

“It would make sense,” I said as I held up my tricorder, checking the previous readings. “Calcium carbonate is everywhere in the rocks around here.”

“Pog is good with biotech, he thinks he can probably figure out how these—”

All of a sudden the lights began to blink in an unruly pattern, and a deep klaxon thrummed through the chamber almost like the cry of a whale. “What is that?!” I shouted.

“I don’t know, I’ve never heard that before!” Queen Novo cried out in turn.

“Lieutenant, there appears to be a major power surge, emanating from the stasis pod on the platform behind us,” Ayhan said. “And I am detecting a life-sign, growing stronger.”

Immediately I rushed up to the stasis pod on the platform, only for it to open before I got there, emitting a massive quantity of white smoke-like fog, forcing me to shield my face with a wing and peer through the gaps. Then a figure fell out of the open pod, convulsing as wretched coughs wracked their body, spittle and other liquids flying out of their beak.

I barely caught the falling hippogriff with my forelegs without falling down myself. “Easy, easy, you’re going to be okay.” I found my balance again and gently laid them down on the ground. Or her, rather, as she appeared to be female. “Blackford, get the medical kit!”

As Blackford fumbled with our equipment, I heard Ayhan attempt several times to contact the shuttlecraft, only to fail to receive a response. “There is too much interference.”

“What have you done?!” General Seaspray demanded as he raced over, brandishing his own trident, a look of sheer murderous rage on his face. “How dare you awaken one of the ancestors?”

Novo swiftly swooped in front of him and grabbed the trident, halting his momentum. “Stand down, General. This wasn’t their fault.”

“But, your majesty…”

The coughing of the ancestor hippogriff intensified briefly as the hippogriff attempted to raise one paw for attention. She spoke, but all that emerged from her mouth was more of the same language that Queen Novo had used earlier. “I’m sorry, I don't understand you,” I said to the hippogriff, who shuddered with a few more coughs. “Queen Novo, can you understand what she is saying?”

Novo was by my side in a heartbeat, leaning down. “She’s asking why she was awoken improperly… if the system malfunctioned.”

“Judging by the power surges Pog is detecting, he is certain it did,” Pog said. He brought out a few tools from his engineering kit and went up onto the larger platform to examine the mechanisms of the stasis pod more closely.

The ancient hippogriff clung tighter to me and moaned a few words. “Cold,” Novo repeated. “She’s so cold…”

“It is quite chilly in here,” Seaspray growled.

Queen Novo’s answering reply failed to translate as she spoke in the ancient dialect, but her body language evoked an image of a parent cradling a hurt child.

“Hey,” I said gently to the ancient hippogriff, even though I knew she couldn’t understand me. “It’s alright. We’re going to help you.” I looked up at Blackford. “Right?”

He had the medical tricorder in his hands, frantically tapping at it before hesitantly reaching for a hypospray. “I don’t think there’s much we can do with just a medkit. The stasis pod malfunction appears to have done some serious damage to her vital organs.” He adjusted the contents, then pressed it to the ancient hippogriff’s neck, injecting it with a hiss. “Maybe if we had Doctor May and the Phoenix’s sickbay, but without either… all we can do is give her something for the pain.”

“But she is one of our Ancestors,” Seaspray howled, thrusting himself into Blackford’s face. “You can’t just let her die!”

“...s-stop… shouting… young one…”

We all looked back with a start at the ancient hippogriff. “The universal translator just kicked in,” I murmured. “Blackford, quick, your tricorder, so they can hear it too.”

“Done.”

“...it is not… their fault…”

Seaspray, now just as humbled as the rest of us, knelt down to hear her words. “But, Ancestor…”

The ancient hippogriff looked up at me, her eyes blinking desperately as if trying to banish the cloudiness visible there. “You are… a pony.” She then took in Blackford with great interest. “But… your species… I do not recognize it. You are not of the Saviors…”

The Saviors. That word again, the same one the Diamond Dogs had used. “No, I’m not,” he confirmed. “I’m a human. We also have a Tellarite and a Vulcan with us.”

“Those names are… unfamiliar to me… but you, I recognize… a night-born alicorn.”

“Night-born?” I whispered, before shaking my head. Not important right now. “We don't know why you woke up like this, why the system malfunctioned. We never intended to wake you.”

“The cold,” the hippogriff said with a creaking nod. “It is too cold… why is it so cold?”

“There’s a malfunction in the solar satellite,” I answered, hoping that this hippogriff would understand what that meant. “We don’t know what’s causing it. We’re trying to gain access so we can attempt to fix it.”

“Then… you will need our key… where is the Pearl?”

“If you mean the Pearl of Transformation,” Novo spoke up, “it’s being kept in my throne room.”

The ancient hippogriff blinked, looking up at her. “You… are the current queen?” She let out a raspy chuckle. “Then from one monarch to another, you should… give it to them.”

“One monarch—” Novo gasped. “Queen Cano? Is that you?” At the ancient hippogriff’s nod, she added, “But that Pearl is our most sacred artifact.”

“To give it away to outsiders, especially these, these aliens,” Seaspray added with a hateful hiss. “It would be unthinkable.”

“Aliens? These ones? Have we fallen so far… as to let insularity and hatred cloud our minds?” The ancient hippogriff closed her eyes for a long moment, and when they opened again, there were tears. “I see now, how foolish you’ve become. You do not understand anymore... how this technology functions. You... you no longer travel the stars as we did.”

“Travel the stars?” Novo whispered. “We did that once?”

“We did… for so many years… until the Destroyers came. They killed so many of our people. Whole worlds slaughtered… ruined by their hatreds...” She looked squarely at me. “I… am dying, aren’t I?”

I let out a sigh and nodded. “If we had more time, our sickbay, maybe...”

She reached up with her paw and touched my head behind my ear, like a grandmother might do to their grandfoal. “I do not blame you… the Saviors warned us that this world could not hold us forever. That one day it might… falter. That you are here, and that you have the understanding means there is still hope. I only ask that you please save my family, and the others in stasis… if my people are to ever recover their lost legacy, they will need leaders with the knowledge to do so.”

Nodding, I bit at my lip before replying, “We have so many questions, so many things we don’t know, I don’t know where to begin.”

Another raspy chuckle escaped her beak. “Oh, young one, I have faith that you will… see things through.”

“But, you don’t even know who I am.”

She pressed her other claw to my breast, and her eyes began to glow. At the same time, I felt the distinct sensation of a touch on my mind, hauntingly similar to Mother’s calm, but different in some inscrutable fashion. “I see you, young Twilight. Child of the Night. Your fiery sister, born of the Day. I see this... Federation. So many creatures working in Harmony. Those who raised you as their own while you searched for home. Only together can you... you...”

The magic faded from her eyes as she let out a huge set of wracking coughs, far stronger than the ones she’d endured before. “My time grows short… the Pearl, you must take the Pearl! Take it, and the other keys… to… to…”

She took one more gasping breath, and the light faded from her eyes. Blackford sighed and closed his tricorder. “She’s gone.”

I gently let her body fall to the stone, and closed her eyes. “Rest in peace.”

Before I could get up, Novo’s paw snaked out to grab my foreleg. “Sparkle. Don’t you dare allow anymore of my people to die. Do you hear me? Do whatever it takes.”

“I promise, we’ll do all we can to save them.”

She stared at me for a moment more, then released me. “Then do it.”

I rose in an instant, and grabbed up my toolkit. “Pog, what can you tell me?”

“Pog is a genius but even Pog needs more time to study this technology,” he said as he made a rude hand gesture towards the stasis pod’s innards.

“Ayhan?”

“There are more power surges… I am attempting to isolate the source.”

“Lieutenant, this pod over here!” Blackford said, standing at one not far away. “It’s showing the same sort of mechanical issues the first one was showing.”

“Pog!” I shouted as I rushed over to it. “We need to stop it before it tries to wake up its occupant!”

Pog waddled over, fiddling with a hyperspanner. “Pog can only do so much… no, wait… there!” Pog grabbed another tool and jammed it into the machine, switching it on. “Lieutenant, Pog needs your help. He has figured out how to reset the system but we need to hurry.”

“Show me.”

He nodded to my tricorder. “Put it in mode Delta four.”

I did so, and immediately saw what he meant. “I see them… looks like a whole string of code, a lot of red, blue, and purple lights.”

“Pog thinks we need to shift the blue ones to purple here, here, and here. But we need to do it simultaneously.”

Nodding, I began inputting commands into the tricorder in combination with another one of the many tools in the engineering kit. “On three. One, two, three.” The tricorder emitted a series of beeps, and the readings appeared to normalize.

“Looks like that did it,” Blackford said after a moment. “No more power surges in this one.”

“But there are more forming elsewhere in other pods,” Ayhan said. “It would appear the failure of this first pod triggered a negative reaction in whatever the main power source is, destabilizing the whole system as a result.”

Pog spat a string of Tellarite curses that I was very glad the Queen could not understand. “If we do not find the reactor, the failures will cascade until there are too many to deal with.”

“Ayhan, you and Pog try to locate the reactor. Blackford and I will keep stabilizing the pods. Hurry!”

We burst into a flurry of activity, and soon my world was little more than numbers and those bits of code. I didn’t fully understand what I was looking at on my tricorder, but I didn’t need to. So long as we arranged each set in the same way, it seemed to fix the issue, and keep the hippogriff inside in stasis. As I sprinted back and forth, I caught glimpses of the general watching us like a hawk, while the queen fretted and paced.

The number of cascading failures was growing at an alarming rate, however. “Pog, where is that reactor?” I shouted as Blackford and I stabilized another pod.

“We have located it, Lieutenant,” Ayhan shouted back. “It appears to be underneath the primary stasis pod. Most probably why that one malfunctioned first.”

“Can you access it?”

“We’re attempting to locate a means.”

Queen Novo suddenly turned on her heels. “You mean access the computer thing? That I can help with.” She took flight and swooped over to the larger pod.

“Pog isn’t sure how you could, but sure, try it.”

While Blackford and I worked to stabilize another pod, my tricorder let out a warning message. “Pog! We’re starting to see more pods destabilizing than we can keep up with!”

“Pog is aware of this, it… there, your majesty.”

Queen Novo let out a triumphant laugh as she pressed her paw to some part of the back of the stasis pod, and a door, previously hidden, opened up to reveal some buzzing machinery throwing out sparks. The sound attracted my attention, making me briefly pause to watch. “The reactor, I presume?”

“Yes!” Pog rushed to examine it, fiddling with his instruments.

“Can you stabilize it?”

“Working on it.” As he spoke, more whale-like alarms went off all throughout the cavern.

“Well work faster!” I ordered while Blackford and I stabilized two more pods. “This is getting out of hoof.”

“Lieutenant, I don’t know if we can keep up,” Blackford said, sweat staining his uniform despite the chill in the air. “The pods are starting to fail all at once.”

“Confirmed, a total cascade failure is imminent,” Ayhan said.

“No, Pog has this, trust him!”

Blackford and I kept moving, but there was almost no point. I braced myself to watch the pods open one by one and spit out these poor hippogriffs that had been frozen for millennia only to die within minutes.

There was a series of massive mechanical groans from the stasis pods, the whale-like klaxon rose to a fever pitch, then all the lights went out.

And then, after a heart-stopping moment that had me ready to scream, the lights came back on, and the pods… stabilized.

“You did it!” I cheered as I examined pod after pod, finding them all stable. “They're all reading normal, like nothing ever happened. What did you do?”

“Pog is a genius,” Pog said with a shrug. “But Pog is unsure how sustainable this is. He can preserve the system for a while, but… we may have to wake them up eventually.” He glared at the reactor assembly. “Pog also recommends we bring in a secondary power supply. This biosystem isn’t nearly as reliable as it should be.”

“It is logical to presume it was not designed to last as long as it has, especially under the colder conditions the planet is suffering from,” Ayhan said as she closed her tricorder. “Now that we have isolated the power system, I believe I may be able to contact the shuttlecraft.” She tapped her badge. “Ayhan to Re’l.”

“Re’l – barely hear – where – you?”

“We are in a cavern deep inside the mountain, where we have located the ancient technology we sought.”

I tapped my badge to chime in. “Preta, get Vohrn back aboard the shuttle, and contact Equestria Base. Let them know we’re going to need some additional power systems and other equipment here.”

“Underst – get Vohrn – meet you soon – Re’l out.”

Sighing, I turned to Pog. “Please tell me you can locate some means of leaving this cavern other than through swimming.”

He shook his head. “No. Pog has accessed the limited computer system and there is no way out.”

“Hmm, in that case, with the reactor isolated, could we beam out?”

“Lieutenant, I recommend against that course of action,” Ayhan immediately said. “The local geology presents too much interference.”

“We’re not finished yet anyhow,” Queen Novo interrupted. She gave me an unreadable look, then her expression relaxed. “Thank you for saving the rest of the Ancestors.”

“I don’t understand how you can thank them, your majesty,” Seaspray said, scowling at us, “When they clearly were responsible to begin with. One of our Ancestors has died!”

“And you heard what she was saying!”

“Through their machinery. How do we know it was not a trick?”

Novo slapped a forepaw to her face and dragged it down over her beak. “Oh Seaspray, you are my most trusted general, but sometimes you can be so thick. I was able to understand her words without their technology. I can confirm everything she said. Whoever put this technology here, it was not them.” She turned to me. “I will put my faith in the words of Queen Cano... and entrust the Pearl to Twilight and her team.”

“Your majesty!”

“Seaspray, that’s enough!” Novo roared. “I am the Queen and I have made my decision.” She rested a paw on my shoulder. “And that decision is to trust them. If our Ancestors trusted them, then so do I.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” I said, giving her a brief bow. “We will keep it safe, and we will return it as soon as it is no longer needed.”

“You’d better,” she said with a chuckle.

---

The Talarian captain sneered at me over the viewscreen. “You intend to do what?”

“It’s a simple weapons test. We’ll be firing our phasers a few times at one of our shuttlecraft to test out some new… tweaks to the system. But I wanted to alert you so that you didn’t misinterpret it as an attempt to attack you.”

“As if your ship of womenfolk could actually destroy us.”

My eye twitched as my smile became strained. “My tactical officer is a bit overdue for her ship to ship combat requalification, but if you'd like to put her to the test...”

He grimaced, though from his expression he seemed torn between scorn and laughter at the suggestion. “Do as you will. And instruct your engineers to hurry up. I am wasting valuable time sitting here with my cargo not at its destination.”

As the screen switched back to a view of the Talarian ship, I let out a sigh and fell back into my chair. “Danielle, please tell me there’s some good news with the repair team.”

“Checking, ma’am… yes, it looks like they’re reporting they’re nearly complete. Should be done in about fifteen minutes.”

“Good. Bridge to Engineering. Status report on the phaser adjustments.”

“We’re just about good to go down here, bridge,” Wattson answered. “I recommend keeping the phasers at no more than thirty percent though, since we had to jury rig a few of the phaser coils. We can make a better patch for combat, but this will do for now.”

“Understood. Bridge to Main Shuttlebay. Braeburn, Adagio, how’re things looking for the shuttle?”

“Ah’ve got us all ready to go, soon as you give the word, ma’am.”

“For the record, I could’ve flown the shuttle on my own.”

“I know, but I wanted an engineer with you, and Braeburn was the one we had available.” I nodded to Danielle. “Go for shuttle launch.”

“Main Shuttlebay, you are authorized for launch,” Danielle said. After a moment, she added, “Launch underway. Shuttlecraft Katherine Johnson moving to test location.”

The viewscreen shifted away from the Talarian ship to show the shuttlecraft flying through space to approximately five hundred kilometers off the starboard bow. “Shuttlecraft reports shields up and ready for testing.”

“Alright, let’s initiate test one. Shields up. Bring the dorsal saucer phasers online. Watch the powerflow. Keep it at twenty percent, Maia.”

Maia’s hands flew over the controls. “Aye, ma’am. Phasers and shields at twenty percent. Shuttlecraft target locked.”

I nodded. “Fire.”

The hum of the phasers charging preceded the beam emanating from the ship. As before with the test phaser, the beam was a shimmering ocean blue instead of the usual orange-white. “Direct hit. Shuttle shields down to ninety percent… and our own shields have risen to twenty-one percent.”

“Ten to one ratio,” Zhidar commented with a frown. “Not the most efficient.”

“It’s still a prototype, Zhidar,” I chided gently. Personally I was ecstatic. The math Adagio showed me suggested we could maybe get a five to one at max, but seeing ten to one already was impressive. “Alright, test number two. Have the shuttle begin evasive maneuvers.”

“Confirmed,” Danielle reported, as the shuttle visibly began to bob and weave. “Evasive pattern alpha.”

“Ready target lock… and fire.”

The phasers easily struck the target, reacting just as they would under normal circumstances. “Direct hit. Shuttle shields down to eighty percent. Our shields… at twenty-four percent.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Maia, did you increase the power to phasers?”

“No, ma’am, but… wait a minute.” Maia studied her controls. “Phaser power is increasing on its own.”

“Engineering to bridge. Captain, I said to keep it under thirty percent. You’re almost at that maximum already.”

“It’s not us, Wattson. The phasers keep drawing more power on their own.”

“Adagio to Phoenix. I was afraid of this. Something similar happened in my initial tests, a problem I thought I had worked out. The phaser is probably getting feedback from the effect itself… powering itself up. But it’s a feedback loop, meaning—“

The phasers lanced out once more, raking the shuttlecraft. “—okay, that one shook us up a bit.”

“What the hell? I did not give the order to fire!” I shouted, standing up from my seat.

“Sorry, Captain, the phasers are beginning to discharge on their own,” Maia said, her hands moving rapidly over her console. “I’m trying to shut them down, but—”

The phasers fired again, this time briefly penetrating the shuttle’s shields, damaging one of its engine pods. “Uh, ma’am, Ah don’t mean to alarm you, but Ah think we’d both appreciate if y’all could stop firin’ at us.”

“We’re trying, Braeburn. Get away from the ship. Rodriguez, take us away from both the shuttle and the Talarians, one quarter impulse. And adjust our attitude to orient us out of the dorsal firing arc.”

“One quarter with attitude adjustment, aye.”

“Captain!” Maia shouted. “Phasers are not responding to shut down commands. They’re at fifty percent strength and rising.”

Once again, phaser fire lanced out, though this time it only brushed the shuttlecraft.

“This is ridiculous. Engineering, cut the power manually if you have to!”

“I can’t do that without risking blowing out half a deck!”

“Then at least stop them from auto-discharging.”

“I’ll do it, but we’re risking an overload.”

I worked my jaw in frustration. “How bad?”

“...with the shape the EPS taps are in right now? It'd take a miracle not to blow us all to hell.”

I snapped up to look at the viewscreen. “Danielle, hail the Talarians. Tell them to get their shields up, now.”

The viewscreen shifted to show the Talarian captain, sniggering at me. “Technology not listening to a woman's commands again, Captain? How predictable.”

“Captain, we don’t have time for banter. You need to raise your shields to maximum right away.”

He flashed me a simpering smile. “Why bother?”

“Because we need to discharge those phasers if we want to avert an overload that’ll take out both ships. Your ship is tough, right? Surely you can take a single hit at max shields, even from our superior tech.”

His nose wrinkled. “Well… I suppose I can help out another woman in distress.” He held up a finger. “But no tricks. If this is an attempt to take over my ship—”

“Captain, please!”

Wattson’s voice rang over the comms, “We need to fire in the next twenty seconds or we’re all dead!”

The Talarian captain looked behind him. “Raise shields to maximum!”

“Maia, target them and fire!”

Maia’s hands danced over the controls. “Controls not responding, the phasers are refusing to target!”

Zhidar stood up next to me. “We need to fire, Captain.”

I nodded to him, then glanced at Rodriguez. “But is the shuttlecraft out of our firing arc yet?”

“Not entirely, Captain,” Rodriguez replied with a frustrated grimace. “Helm controls, they are being sluggish at the moment.”

“Wait, Captain!” Maia interrupted. “The phasers are re-targeting by themselves!”

I jumped out of my seat. “FIRE!”

The phasers screamed through space, the ocean-blue blasting the Talarian ship hard enough to drain most of their shields. At the same time, the entire ship was rocked by a secondary explosion somewhere in the saucer. “Phasers just overloaded!” Danielle reported. “Hull breach on Deck Six.”

My heart stopped in my chest. “Was anyone hurt?” I said, my voice so quiet it was almost a whisper.

“...no, ma’am. No injuries reported. Forcefields are in place and holding.”

“Oh thank goodness,” I groaned. “Engineering, please tell me the phasers are offline.”

“They’re offline alright. And like I said, we lost the coils. We’ve got our aft secondary phasers and the strips on the nacelles, but both the dorsal and ventral saucer phasers are kaput unless we can find some kind of replacement parts.”

“I don’t suppose those parts are something the Talarians might have?” I wondered.

“Maybe? It’d be subpar at best, but it might work. Worth a try. Assuming they even want to talk to us at this point.”

“Yeah, I know. You worry about the phasers, I'll worry about these... charming fellows. Bridge out. Danielle, contact the Katherine Johnson, have them come back aboard.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

I rounded the bridge till I was face to face with Maia. “I’ll want a full report on what went wrong, soon as you can,” I told her. “And… good work. You did your best.”

“If you say so,” she grunted.

“I do say so,” I said with a small grin. “Just take a breath, alright?” Then I returned to my chair. “Hail the Talarians.”

Almost immediately the Talarian captain’s face leered at me. “Now that your out of control ship has drained most of my shields, are there any other mistakes I can correct for you, Captain?”

I tried not to bristle at his tone. Tried being the operative word. “Thank you, but no. Everything is under control here. Was anyone injured aboard your ship? Given the circumstances, our medical team is at your disposal of course.”

He waved it off. “Minor injuries. A few bumps and bruises. One of your bird officers took a larger blow to the head than any of mine.”

My spine stiffened. “Are they alright?”

“They’ll live. Now, about firing on my ship…”

“I assure you, Captain, that was an unanticipated consequence of the test.”

He grinned toothily. “Oh, I believe you. But I think you can forget about most of the compensation I was willing to negotiate for when it comes to our repairs. I’m sure you understand.”

It took an effort of will not to bare my teeth at him. “Of course. But I was hoping we could still trade for something. A replacement for our destroyed phaser coil, specifically.”

Ugly laughter spilled out of him like refuse from a torn garbage bag. “I thought our technology was too primitive.”

“Technology need not be cutting edge for it to be useful. And as I'm sure you've seen, we have quite the talented engineering team. I know this is an odd request considering what just happened, but we're far from home, and with enemies chasing us too. From one captain to another, surely you understand the imperative to not leave your ship defenseless.”

“You’ve yet to convince me I should care.”

“You…” I bit off my next words, considered carefully, and then smiled in a much more ingratiating manner. “You know, you’re right. I mean, truth be told, it was my incompetence that caused a malfunction which damaged my own ship and yours. So maybe, just maybe, out of the goodness of your heart, you’d deign to assist a lowly ship run by mere beasts in their time of need. Were something like that to show up in your next report, surely your superiors would heap accolades upon you for your brave deeds this day.”

He snorted. “Oh, very well. Have your engineers look over our manifest before they leave our ship. If you can find something you can use, you may have it. But nothing else!” He slapped his console. “And don’t expect us to come running to defend you if you encounter this ‘enemy’ of yours.”

A strained smile split my muzzle. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He ended the transmission after one more disgustingly grating laugh at my expense. “Zhidar,” I groaned. “Next time I get the idea in my head to help a bunch of Talarians, please relieve me of command.”

He chuckled. “As you wish, Captain.”

The turbolift doors parted, Adagio stepping out. I hopped out of my chair immediately to meet her. She hung her head in shame. “Sunset, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

A frown creased my muzzle. “We should discuss this in the ready room—”

“No.” She fixed her eyes on me. “I want the others to hear.”

“Adagio, it’s not your fault,” I said reassuringly. “You said it yourself, you thought you had the problem worked out, and we didn’t see it in any of the small-scale tests. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine for proceeding without running more simulations first.”

“Still…” Her face worked through a myriad of expressions before settling on a sour bitterness. “It was my bright idea, and now it's endangered us all. Even more than we were before.”

I shook my head. “No way. Is this a setback? Yes. But it's a solid concept, and I'm sure we can work through whatever the problem is and get it fully operational. And you'll still have our support too, because we're going to need that bright idea of yours working before we run into Dessan again. And believe me, we will.”

She worked her jaw for a moment before replying, “Alright. I’ll work on a report of what went wrong. “You know,” she added after a moment, “even while I was testing it, I never saw it go completely out of control like it did just now. That part still doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Me either. I don’t understand how or why that could happen, unless…” My brow furrowed. “Could it have been driven by the spell? It’s based on emotions, right? Is it possible it, I dunno, picked up on our fear or anxiety and self-fed off of that?”

“No, that’s not possible.” She shifted on her hip. “Then again, with the previous tests, it was powered through a mana gem, not the ship’s converter.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not suggesting that the Phoenix was somehow anxious about the test.”

“Of course I’m not,” she groused. “But there’s always a chance that running it through the converter altered the spell matrix. I never bothered to test that part of it because I assumed it would function just like a really big mana gem.”

“...maybe we need to rebuild our converter again with some of the mana gems we took from Equus, then,” I mused. “It’s worth looking into. I’ll trust you to investigate this, Adagio. I hope you can get this device working properly, and I mean that. We learned a lot from this failure, and most importantly, no one was hurt.”

“This time,” she muttered. She let out a sigh. “Still… Thank you, Sunset. She looked past me to the other bridge officers. “Thank you all. You’re kinder to me than I deserve.”

“Nonsense.” I gave her an encouraging smile. “I consider you a valued member of this crew and, if I may say so… a friend. You deserve every bit of kindness we can offer and then some.”

That got her smirking again. “A friend, huh? …Yeah, alright. Friends.” She started to hold out a hand to me, hesitated, then stuck it out, and allowed me to shake it before drawing back. “I’ll get a report on your desk by 2100.”

“Make it 2200. I’m treating you to lunch. Zhidar, you have the bridge.”

As we stepped into the turbolift, I felt a particular sense of glee at seeing a particularly rare sight in any galaxy – a genuinely happy smile on Adagio's face.

---

Personal log, Preta Re’l, Stardate… oh, computer, just display the stardate as a timestamp. It’s not important.

What matters is Twilight. I’m worried about her, a lot worried. We just got back from dealing with the hippogriffs, and the experience should’ve been a fantastic, fun adventure. I mean, she and the rest of the science team literally turned into mermaids and swam under the ocean! How cool is that?

But… mrrr, it was lost on Twilight. I wasn’t there to witness it, but I saw her expression after the fact. We found the artifact we were looking for, and so much more besides. The massive chamber, the stasis pods... despite a tragic loss when a pod malfunctioned, they got a hugely important glimpse into the hippogriffs' history, and where this alien technology may have come from. But to see Twilight's reaction, you'd think they came away empty-pawed from the whole ordeal. I'm just glad Queen Novo agreed to all this. Because if she hadn't, Twilight said to me, she had been working out a way for us to beam the artifact right out from beneath them. I mean, what the hell kind of idea is that? We're Starfleet, not Orions!

She’s been distant, and not just lately, but nearly all the time. It was especially bad the first month after the Phoenix left, but while she’s made an effort to spend time with me since, it hasn’t changed the sorrow she exudes every time I see her. It hasn’t made a difference in her levels of happiness. I care for her and love her, but… but I’m afraid I’m beginning to lose her.

Not in the sense of our relationship falling apart. I know she loves me dearly. She shows it every time she holds me, runs her hoof through my hair, presses those pony lips of hers to mine. And she’s a hell of a kisser too.

No, it’s not that. It’s… I’m afraid she won’t stay in Starfleet.

I know it’s a question that’s been on her mind this entire time. We’ve been on Equus for nearly six months now; three since the ship left. In that time, I’ve seen so many wondrous things, so much magic. It’s ever-present in this world, in a way that Twilight and Sunset had always told me, but that I never truly believed till I saw it. I’ve had flights of pegasi race my shuttlecraft, walked in a cloud city – a cloud city – held up only by the spell imbued in an amulet around my neck. I’ve seen the results of a Vulcan outdrinking a yak three times her size, witnessed the very weather be shaped not through technology, but by a team of pegasi literally kicking apart clouds.

And I’ve seen other things too, stuff right out of fantasy holonovels or ancient myths and legends. Hell, most of the sapient creatures here on this planet are in myths, and not just on Earth. It’s just another mystery in a long line of mysteries.

This is the world that Twilight came from. That she was supposed to grow up in, to affect, to change. I sometimes wonder, and I know it’s not just me… if she hadn’t been drawn through the portal to Earth, would she be in Starlight Glimmer’s place, the so-called Element of Magic? Would she be the one who assembled an unlikely group of ponies together to battle forces of evil?

I still can’t believe I even said that just now, but it’s true. The sorts of things these ponies do on this world defies belief. And don’t even get me started on their bizarre combination of technologies. I’m sure a xeno-historian or xeno-anthropologist would be losing their minds trying to study it all and figure out how the same race that has plastics for bottles is still using coal-fired locomotives, or why skyscrapers dominate a city less than a few hundred kilometers away from villages with thatched roofs and a town market straight out of Earth’s medieval period.

Starfleet offers so much more than this, but in a way, it all feels so mundane compared to this place. It's an incredible draw for me, and I'm not from this planet at all. But Twilight is.

I’m scared that she’ll decide at the end of this year, when the Phoenix hopefully returns, that it’s time for her to stay.

And if she does that... then that means... that means I'll have to make a choice of my own. To stay with her or not.

I don’t want to have to have to make that choice. I don’t want to give up the stars. But I didn’t join Starfleet with the purpose of finding my homeworld. She did, and she succeeded.

And really, what could Starfleet give her next that could beat staying here? Why risk more unknowns, more dangers, possibly more wars, when you can stay here on a world seemingly made of rainbows and happiness, where the locals will want to make you a princess besides?

How... how could I ever compete with that anyway?

Please, Twilight.

Please don’t force me to choose.

Please.

…computer, end log.

Author's Note:

Thank you once more my lovely readers for enjoying Phoenix this year. This will be our last update for the year, due to the holiday season, so all of us here wish you a merry holiday and a happy new year!

As for the chapter itself, I hope it was as exciting to read as it was to write. We had fun with this one, I can assure you.

The Talarians appeared on TNG in the episode "Suddenly Human" and I thought would be an amusing foil for Sunset to deal with:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Talarian

Comments

[DreadedCandiru2]

Why did I hear Ken Jeong talking when that good started spouting crap?

[zimmerwald1915]

11775933
Because the man is well and truly typecast.

[DreadedCandiru2]

11775938
Don't I know it. He'll be Senor Chang again soon....,,

[Misdirection]

Wonderful chapter as usual! I like that while work on the magitech is progressing, it's not just jamming an Equestrian mana battery into a power cell slot. Though I'll be honest, if or when, and it is finally looking more like when, we can expect to see a magical friendship cannon blasting rainbows up Jem'hadar ass, I'll be excited to see it. I wonder who the next race we'll see planet side is though. I hope the Kirin make an appearance. They're adorable and were definitely under utilized in the show. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

[Night_Moon60606]

11775933
funny, i heard Matt Walsh or someone equally as stupid...

[Dagon M Dragoon]

An early Christmas present, just finished my first read through yesterday and a new chapter pops up today. Anyway have a happy holidays and safe travels.

[Doge of Venucci]

Love to see update from your story.

[The Voice in the Water]

urchins to sea cucumbers and everything in between

Both are echinoderms, so that doesn't leave much taxonomic variance.

[Vic Fontaine]

11776045
Dang it, Jim, I'm an writer, not a marine biologist!

I honestly did not realize that they were that closely related, so my apologies for the error there. We'll get that fixed up. Thanks for pointing it out though. I appreciate it. :)

[Numinos]

So many questions about the ancient past of that weird planet...

[The Voice in the Water]

11776069
Luckily, I am [a biologist]. If you want to capture the breadth of kingdom Animalia, just change urchins to sponges, and you're good.

[Dewdrops on the Grass]

11776222
Done. You might have to hard refresh to see the change but it has been made. Thanks for the assist.

[Booster Spice]

I still can’t believe I even said that just now, but it’s true. The sorts of things these ponies do on this world defies belief. And don’t even get me started on their bizarre combination of technologies. I’m sure a xeno-historian or xeno-anthropologist would be losing their minds trying to study it all and figure out how the same race that has plastics for bottles is still using coal-fired locomotives, or why skyscrapers dominate a city less than a few hundred kilometers away from villages with thatched roofs and a town market straight out of Earth’s medieval period.

Always puzzled me when peoples have these given the population ratio tha dont live in single cities and never watch news, TV travel documentaries of other places round the world etc.

As for the loss of stasis chamber, its a pity that Twilight nothaving been on Equestria hadnt learnt all her advanced magical spells in this time, like the manipulation of the teleportation spell that creates a stasis field ?

Hope in the rest of the chambers theres a maintenance crew that can help, even if medical and exo assist is needed?

[Vic Fontaine]

11776222
Ah, I see! Thank you for the assist there.

[The Voice in the Water]

11776228 11776260
Happy to oblige.

[Astorius]

I am a total fan of Javik from Masse Effect 3 so I really would have enjoyed it if an "ancestor" could have joined our crew :D

[Thyrrnatf]

great chapter

glad to see Sunnet and Adagio becoming so close, for Sunnet is gonna need that shoulder

[zimmerwald1915]

11775975
Today's youth will never know the bloviation of Rush Limbaugh.

This is a good thing.

[SuperSonicHeroes]

I like it when Hippogriffs get focus, and I also enjoy when Twilight and Novo have a better relationship than what we saw in the film. I think the idea that the Hippogriffs once traveled the stars is amazing.

[zimmerwald1915]

11776547
Not focusing an episode on Twilight and Novo reconciling (or hell, *failing* to do so having made the attempt - some friendships aren't meant to be) was something of a missed opportunity.

[cogwheelbrain]

Short version: I !ove this fic. Each chapter is a wonderful adventure.

[MariusIoannesP]

I was still waiting for one of my other favorite fanfics to update, and then I got the notification for this update yesterday. So that was great regardless.

“She mentioned a Storm King?” Blackford said. “That’s the Yeti who invaded much of this world before our arrival, right?”

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “It was only a few months before the Phoenix crashed that he assaulted Canterlot and nearly conquered Equestria.

This would indicate that this is set after the events of My Little Pony the Movie and before Season 8, but a reply to my comment on the last chapter said this doesn't necessarily line up with the timeline of the canon. So I guess this is just moot.

“We’re Starfleet officers,” I said, grinning. “Weird is part of the job.”

Yeah that tracks.

“… It’s not as if you can make a ship angry.”

“You’d be surprised,” I quipped.

Why do I think is something that happened in an episode of TNG that I've never seen? 🤔

Like I’m trapped inside the galaxy's worst holonovel…

Or perhaps a fanfiction 😏

“If I didn’t know better I’d swear half the things on this planet were named to appeal to little girls,” Vohrn muttered.

And an assortment of grown men for some reason 😏

Above the throne was a larger jelly-fish like creature that left my teeth itching with magic. No doubt the Pearl of Transformation was stored there, and those tendrils… I had the suspicion they were like a security device.

Twilight found out about that first hand in the movie

I'm just glad Queen Novo agreed to all this. Because if she hadn't, Twilight said to me, she had been working out a way for us to beam the artifact right out from beneath them. I mean, what the hell kind of idea is that?

Pretty much like in the movie

I sometimes wonder, and I know it’s not just me… if she hadn’t been drawn through the portal to Earth, would she be in Starlight Glimmer’s place, the so-called Element of Magic? Would she be the one who assembled an unlikely group of ponies together to battle forces of evil?

Yes indeed. I do appreciate these references to the canon timeline.

Why do I suspect that the pony on the radio was Chancellor Neighsay? 🤔

Ending the chapter with Preta's personal log was a good choice. I do appreciate the effort to work in other characters' perspectives into this.

It's quite a twist that the Hippogriffs were once a spacefaring civilization. All these Hippogriffs in stasis potentially have firsthand info on these keys and how to fix the malfunctioning solar satellite.

This was a great update to end the year with. Merry Christmas! 🎄Happy New Year! Looking forward to the next installment in the new year. As always, keep up the great work!

[Vic Fontaine]

11776733
thanks for your continued support! :)

[Dewdrops on the Grass]

11776733
Always love to see your comments. And yes, the timeline is a little bit shaky, but that's FIM for you. It never had a solid timeline to begin with.

[harts fire]

wow there is so much going on in this chapter. so much information to think about, loads of good and a few tears at one point.

a awesome chapter for a amazing story.

[Paaaad]

11776733
Well, I’ve never actually seen TNG, but I know the Farpoint creatures had Starship forms, and there’s also Gomtuu. And of course nobody these days would really know what happened with Discovery after the Sphere data was transferred to it… And the Sphere itself obviously. There was one incident in TAS… Plus other incidents I don’t remember off hand.

[RyanW]

11776733
I'm pretty sure there was an episode where the Enterprise-D computer was temporarily made sapient. And then there's the TOS M-5 test that gave the original Enterprise paranoid delusions.

[MrZoat]

This is a pretense to invasion, mares and gentlecolts.

That should probably be 'prelude'. Otherwise they're using it to pretend to invade.

[Lex the Pikachu]

A great chapter. I look forward to what next year brings.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Tensions are understandable as the world accelerates towards disaster and sapients want to feel like they have some kind of control over the situation. Of course, condemning the only people who can even attempt to help is less than ideal, and I can’t imagine Starfleet made many friends among the hippogriffs today.

Also, I can appreciate Sunset continuing the time-honored Starfleet tradition of ill-advised prototype system testing, but maybe not also while running a rescue mission? In any case, the Phoenix may be more aware than anyone on board realizes. In any case, this may have been enlightening, but at great cost.

Both sisters are in unenviable positions. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

[Dewdrops on the Grass]

11777745
Got it fixed, thanks for pointing out the typo.

[Vic Fontaine]

11777745
Ah. Apologies for that but thanks for flagging. It's been fixed.

[Kittamaru]

I just binge re-read this entire story in two days........ I have a problem don't I lol!

Eagerly awaiting more, you all certainly have me hooked!

[Paaaad]

Hey, wait a second. So the Pearl of Transformation, a magical artifact of great significance to a particular species, is some sort of key? That should make two now, together with the Helm of Yksler, given that’s the other item we’ve seen that fits that description. But what’s the Diamond Dogs key then? I doubt it was those tablets…

Edit: The Dragons have the Bloodstone Scepter obviously.

[SaishoVibes]

dang this was good, stayed up until 4 am to read. Hope for the rest of the story soon!

er well season

[Inucroft1]

I've been enjoying reading the past few weeks on my daily commute.

I look forward to when you and your team are able to resume writing this

[Vic Fontaine]

11869592
Story editor here to say Welcome Aboard! :)

I like to think we've struck a nice balance of leaning into the lore/'verse of Trek while still keeping it approachable to a non-Trekkie reader. But if you get stumped by something, feel free to comment away here. Either us or other readers can help you out. :)

[CommanderApplejack]

Ahhh, already reached the end! Have been loving this so far so I hope you feel well enough soon to resume!