The Mountain Among the Stars

by Johnjohns

I: Change

Chapter 1: Change

---

Twilight Sparkle’s Residence, Ponyville, Equestria

“Hold it up straight, Spike.”

The sun stood high, and proud in the sky, keeping the Equestrian landscape warm but not unbearably hot. It was the early afternoon, and the townsfolk walked to and fro on the streets. Vendors who had just finished setting up their stands, were now open for business, and ponies gathered around to browse their wares. The sweet melody of the spring songbirds was carried along on a light breeze, providing coolness for the body, and pleasant sound for the ears.

Twilight stood, looking through an optical surveyor’s scope, mounted on a tripod. She was in her backyard, positioned in the center of a large, square, wooden template on the ground. The layer of grass on the ground within the template had been removed, and sat in a brown and green pile off to the side. Each side of the wooden form was about four meters long. Spike stood at one corner, holding up a tall meter stick. She had aligned the optical device up with the meter stick, and was taking measurements in her head. Twilight had been hoping for some time now that she would be able to put a patio in her backyard. It would be made up of a concrete base, with ceramic tile flooring. Once the base was set up, she planned to have a gazebo built on top of it, with a cast-iron picnic table, and chairs inside.

“Steady, steady,” she said while squinting with one eye through the the lense. “Alright, we have one meter and a quarter on that corner. Move halfway to your left please.”

The young dragon silently obliged, and re-positioned himself at the halfway point. He leaned up against the steel measuring stick. Twilight could tell that he was bored out of his mind.

“Spike,” she said, slightly frustrated. “Can you please not lean on it, and just hold it up straight?”

He groaned, but changed his posture so that he stood up straight, becoming parallel to the stick.

Don’t worry, Spike. I won’t torture you for too much longer.

She once again aligned the sight with the measuring stick. She didn’t state her measurements out loud this time. One meter and twenty-six centimeters.

Close, but not close enough.

"Okay, Spike can you go the the far corner just one more time, please?" she asked.

"Fine," he replied.

Twilight recorded the final measurement in her head. All in all, she was rather proud of the work that they had done. The wooden template only needed to be adjusted slightly, and soon enough it would be ready for concrete to be poured.

"Okay, thanks for the help, Spike," she said. "You are done for now. Why don't you go inside, and get some lunch. I'll be inside in a few minutes."

“Are you sure?” Spike said. “Because I am perfectly fine with...”

Spike was clearly trying his best to pretend that he wasn’t bored out of his mind.

“No no no, I’m fine,” she replied. “I’m wrapping this up for now. I just need to do a few quick things, and then I’ll be right inside.”

“Well... okay,” he said. “Just call if you need anything.”

“I will.” she assured him.

As soon as Spike had disappeared around the front of the library, Twilight levitated the meter stick into an upright position, and began to check the measurements once more, on her own. She didn’t necessarily need Spike’s help, she could easily have gotten the job done twice as fast without him. Twilight only thought that Spike might have been interested, and wanted to help. This was obviously not the case.

Twilight checked all of the height measurements two more times. Whenever she noticed that a measurement was slightly off, she would materialize or dematerialize additional layers of soil underneath the framework, as need be. Five minutes later, the square template made out of two by fours, was almost perfectly level, with less than one millimeter of error.

“That’s much better,” she said out loud.

Feeling rather proud of herself, Twilight lifted up four, one meter lengths of steel rebar. Using her telekinetic powers, she drove each of the four stakes into the ground at each corner. She then wrapped caution tape all the way around the perimeter.

This should deter ponies from damaging my work.

Twilight picked up the surveying equipment as well as a few miscellaneous tools, wrapped them in a purple, magical sphere of energy, and proceeded to walk towards the front door. She turned around one last time to admire her handiwork, before before retiring into her home for lunch.

---

UNSC Everest, Slipstream Space

“Status report!” demanded Cole.

“We have received no significant damage from the Covenant fleet,” Maya said. “All systems are online and operational. However, our Slipspace Drive is running hot at over fifty percent higher temperatures than what is safe. The in-atmosphere jump really put a lot of strain on the drive. I estimate that we will only be able to remain in the Slipstream for a few hours before we need to transition into real space to give her a chance to cool down. The good news is, that if everything went as planned, we will have destroyed over five hundred Covenant ships, our forces will have escaped beyond the system, and the UNSC will think that you died a hero.”

“Not to mention being the first person to ever pull of an atmospheric slipspace transition!” Lieutenant McMahon, the navigational officer, added. “Oh, I can’t wait to see the look on their faces when we get home.”

Cole sat in his captain’s chair silently. On a monitor in front of him, the names of all of the destroyed UNSC vessels, as well as the thousands of men and women who gave their lives in the battle, silently scrolled down the screen.

“Not the first,” Cole whispered to himself.

The joy was practically dripping from the faces of the Everest’s bridge crew. All around Cole, men and women hugged one another, and patted each other on the back. Cole assumed that everyone else in the other parts of the ship were celebrating as well.

Cole tapped a button to activate the Everest’s PA system.

“At this time,” Preston said quietly. “I would like to request a moment of silence for the brave men and women who gave their lives today, so that humanity can live on.”

The entire ship fell into silence. The cheering ceased, and no one moved a muscle. Most of the crew had their heads bowed, and their eyes closed in solemn remembrance. The only audible sound was that of the cruiser’s engines, which reverberated throughout the bridge with a low hum.

They are the true heros. What kind of hero am I? One that runs away from a force that threatens to wipe out our entire race. One that, after years of non stop war, and non stop bloodshed, became wary of it all, and just wanted to get away from the fighting. One that dwells in self-pity. Thats the kind of hero I am. All of the battles that I have won makes me no better a hero than the thousands of soldiers whom I have sacrificed to achieve my victories. They are the true heros. How can I compare myself to them?

Everything was quiet for a full five minutes, before Cole broke the silence.

“Thank you,” he said.

The crew members did not return to celebrating. Instead, everyone simply found their ways back to their posts, sat down quietly, and got back to work. Cole stared off into space, lost in thought.

“You did a great thing back there.” Maya appeared as a smaller version of her avatar on Cole’s console. “You achieved your goal, and got your crew out in one piece. Why do you torture yourself?”

“Because whenever I think about how lucky I have been, my thoughts drift to the billions of innocent people who have died solely for the reason of being people," he said. "No one deserves that kind of fate. No one deserved to have their homes, and families burned by an enemy which we still don’t fully understand. My personal achievements cannot compare to the heavy losses we have had over the course of past eighteen years.”

“But you have done so much f-”

“No,” he said, slamming his fist upon the armrest. “A man’s deeds can only go as far as his loyalty. Something which I clearly lack. Tell me where we are going right now.”

“My calculations predict that we will transition back within the unexplored Mu Arae system.”

“Exactly. We could be heading back to FLEETCOM right now, but instead we are leaving everything behind.”

“We can easily just cool down, and then turn right back around and go back.”

“I know we can. Thats the issue. Everyone thinks that we are dead right now. The remnants of Battle Group India are going to go home, and tell tales of ‘Vice Admiral Preston J. Cole’s final stand’. ONI will want it to have happened that way. I am dead. The crew is dead. That is what’s going to be put in the history textbooks. This was the battle that young military cadets will learn about. I could have chosen to let us die back there, but instead I chose the option that would at least keep my crew alive. It may not seem like a selfish decision to you, but it does to me.”

Maya said nothing, and appeared to have a sad expression on her face. Her hologram looked down at the floor. Cole looked over his shoulder. Everyone had turned away from their posts and was staring at him. Cole gave one of the life-support technicians a glance that had, “What are you looking at?” written all over it. Everyone turned back around to face their stations, muttering to each other in low voices inaudible to Cole, but most likely audible to Maya. Cole considered asking Maya what they had said, but he thought better of it.

“My old self would have wanted me to make this decision. I never wanted to be a fleet admiral for my entire life. I wanted to do things. I used to want to become a farmer. I wanted my life to have a meaning beyond the spilling of blood. Perhaps I still want some of these things.”

I used to have a love as well.

“Maybe someday we will go back home.” Cole sighed. “But we can’t right now. Not yet. I need some time to think, and this is the first time in God knows how long that I actually have that chance.”

Maya’s avatar gave a quick nod, and blinked out of existence. Cole remained sitting for a few minutes before deciding to get up and fetch a cup of Coffee, instead of having it delivered to him. Cole figured that getting out of the bridge for a few minutes could do him some good.

The Everest continued to tunnel its way through the fabric of space and time, soon to emerge in a never-explored region of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Comments

[Bronzer]

I just realized, couldn't the Spirit of Fire also make an appearance? Timeline-wise, I mean.