> The Station
>  by Corpse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Incident (edited)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Words"
"Communication through an earpiece"
AI, Borgs and Robots
*Foreign*






Nanotrasen controlled space, Epsilon Eridani sector, NSS Cyberaid, 2562 8th of February 12:47


"Is the engine safe?" asked Captain Joseph Anderson, his slightly tan skin glistening with sweat under the bright artificial light of the station.

"Yeah, but the damn nut jobs tried to get in," came the chief engineer's response.

He silently sighed in relief, and cursed just how flawed the Nanotrasen job application system was, at least something was going alright. And to top it all off, none of the crew where harmed.

"Captain!"

"What is it?"

"The cultists are-!" then everything went black.






A few hours earlier


"Sir, it appears that Centcomm have sent a message to you."

Still reclining on his chair, he slowly got back up, popping a few places as he did so. "Could you read it out to me please." he asked, his gold colored ID card clipped onto his shirt.

"Ahem," came the slightly computerized vocals, being programmed to imitate a few human tendencies, so as to work better with the crewmembers... or at least that is what they said when he was first sent to work here, which was about a month ago, so he had no idea why he still remembered that.

"We here at NAS Trurl must commend you and your crews breakthroughs in recent times. While we would love to ask you how you can research so many things at the rate you are going, we must inform you of some rather concerning news. Our sensors have been able to detect abnormal amounts of Bluespace fluctuation, coming from YOUR station. We highly suggest you inform the Head of Security and inspect this, goodluck Captain."

Once the Artificial Intelligence finished, he sighed and hoped that it was nothing.






Equestria, Dodge junction, Shimmering Star's home, 1156 AC 20th of June 02:32


Tonight was truly something, the stars where absolutely beautiful, Princess Luna absolutely outdid herself today. Although the falling stars did confuse me for a bit, the Princess probably just wanted to surprise her little ponies.

Well, guess it's time for sleep... but, just a few more hours wouldn't hurt.






Unknown space, Unknown sector, Unknown planet, 2562 9th of February 01:25


There was only darkness.

Nothing happened for quite a bit.

Am I sleeping? But it hurts, you can't feel pain when sleeping... right?

Wait, I can open my eyes... AH! That is way too bright...

Everything is so white, even when my eyes finally adjusted to the brightness, along with a major headache, it did not feel great, plus being jostled around so much did not help... wait, is this a stretcher? Why would I be on a stretcher?

What the hell happened?

I can't really remember anything while being this tired... just need to close my eyes for a second... But I can't sleep now, I have to stay awake.

But, just a few minutes of sleep wouldn't hurt, right?


15:42


Oh man, my head hurts... what did I drink yesterday.

Beep... beep... beep

That beeping is gonna drive me nuts, what kind of moron uses that kind of ringtone anyway?

My eyelids where really heavy, so opening them was a lot harder than I thought.

What greeted me was NOT what I was expecting. Instead of the roof of my personal quarters, or even the bars iconic wooden ceiling, all there is are white tiles. After a second of staring, I tried turning to my side, only to be greeted by a monitor showing my heartbeat.

What in the world?

Trying to sit up hurt quite a bit, and in the end I regretted my decision.

I was covered in bandages, all the way from my chest to (presumably) my legs, since I had a blanket covering my bottom half. What happened?

Then it hit me like a runaway speeding truck, how could I have forgotten? Those fucking cultists... They posed as crewmen and tried to summon a 'god', even though there was no such thing, it was evident that they did have some kind of powers, the last thing he remembered was the A.I trying to tell him something, and now he's here.






 Barrett Grain (Chief Medical officer)


This was pretty nerve-wracking, the medical department was too understaffed. Even the medical cyborg couldn't keep up, it was evident that at least some of the crew wouldn't make it out without some rather serious injuries. And to make matters worse, the security officers couldn't find the cultists since the A.I was too damaged, and a few of the crewmembers where still missing.

Getting up from my chair, I saw my office was in shambles, the crash landing certainly did a number on things, it was a miracle I only got a few cuts.

Going outside, i saw the newly crimson colored hallway of medbay, most likely from the doctors running around like headless chickens, dragging their patients along with them

I wondered if the Captain is awake, time to go and check and make sure he's stable.

Walking through the corridor of the medical bay, I head towards the fifth patient room. As I peered through the window I saw  the face of a man around his late twenties with a pretty messy brown hair, staring at his bandaged body with a confused expression on his face.

Even after opening the airlock, he didn't seem to notice, or simply didn't care.





"Are you feeling alright, Captain?" asked Barrett, his calm voice betrayed by his slightly scrunched up face.

Slightly startled, Joseph jumped in bed, causing him to feel a bit of pain. "Ah fuck, that hurts... I'm pretty sore."

"I see, but anything else?"

"This doesn't really have anything to do with my physical injuries, but what happened? I can't remember what happened that well,"

After a bit of thinking, he replied "Well... it seems like the cultists where right about their god."

"Heh, nice one, but what really happened?" after a minute of waiting for a response, Joseph asked "Hey, that was just a joke to make me feel better right?" not ready to accept such a big revelation. But, judging by Barrett's face and the fact that he was well known for his somber mood, told him otherwise.

"I'm afraid not Captain," replied Barrett.

"But wait, if that's true, then why aren't we died?" asked Anderson. "From their crazy preaching it seemed like their so called 'god' was a genocidal maniac."

"That's the thing, after it was summoned, everyone, even the cyborgs lost consciousness or shut down, and when we came to, we were stranded on a completely unknown planet with no support, and currently all the departments are arguing with each other over what we should do," he explained.

After the initial shock passed, he said "Shit, this is bad... could you give me a status report?"

Barrett replied "Sure, I'll be right back with the report" before walking out the airlock.






15:58


After a bit of waiting, Barrett returned with some wrinkled paper and Josephs earpiece.

As soon as he handed the paper and earpiece to him he started walking away.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I'm going to help some of my doctors with the critically injured patients." he replied.

I nodded in understanding before looking towards the piece of paper. The amount of injured people there is was staggering, of course most of them where only slightly hurt, but still.

Out of the 75 man crew, 11 were critical, 30 were mildly battered, 3 were MIA and the rest only had small cuts and bruises.

And of the 8 cyborgs, 2 of them were mildly damaged, but it was nothing the roboticist couldn't fix.

Looking at my earpiece, i decided to stick it on my ear and turn it on, it was a bad idea.

"We need to be careful! We can NOT send an expedition! We should be making a base far away from the station, any kind of creature can come sniffing our station out, came the booming gruff but paranoid voice of the Head of Security, Geoffrey Conan.

"You misunderstood me, i just said we need samples of the local wildlife, of course we don't need to go out right now, but after more of the crew gets better, we'll need to understand our surroundings. This planet is amazing, the resemblance to Earth is uncanny, minus the lack of pollution even the atmosphere is similar to Earth!" came a slightly more cheerful feminine voice, belonging to the Research Director, Cali Wallick.

"We could simply use the station as a base as well, the walls can easily protect us against monsters, and the bigger ones can simply be killed by using our weapons," replied the more calmer voice of the Chief Engineer, Michael.

"Guys, after the Captain wakes up we should make him decide, in the mean time let's not fight each other" said the most inexperienced of them all, the Head of Personnel, Kevin.

Well, seems like it was time for me to make the big decision.

"Hey, are you guys ok?" I asked, trying to make the atmosphere less tense.

"Cap! Glad to finally hear from you," said Cali, her voice still cheerful.

"Sir, we have to create a plan for our survival," replied Conan, not nearly as happy as happy as she is.

"Well, I'll cut straight to the chase then. I think we should stay put on the station, as Mike said, the station walls should hold, but at the same time, i say we should make a perimeter around the station, it doesn't need to be high, just about height enough so that local life can't get in, and have Security officers on the wall take turns taking watch. After this is complete we'll start doing expeditions to better understand this world. How does that sound?" I said.

in response there was a chorus of "alright's" and "ok's".

"Then it's settled, go inform your respective departments on the plan's and start working," I ordered enthusiastically, things where finally looking up for the crew, and he was going to swear on his life, that he will protect every single man and woman on this ship to the best of his ability and return them home, he'll make sure of that.
> The Stars
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Equestria, Dodge junction, 1156 AC 20th of June 15:25


Today was rather quiet, most of the residence decided to stay in today. Understandable, considering how hot it is.

As I walked through the empty street, I could see multiple alleys filled with cats and other wild animals, after suppressing a shudder looking at a particularly dirty, filth covered cat, I decide to move more quickly. After making a turn, I finally see what I have been searching for, the grocery store.

While I started going through the aisles, I thought about yesterday night's shooting stars. They just felt... different.






Canterlot


Luna was not happy. Something had breached her skies, and it was big. The most annoying thing was that she is unable to tell where it fell, the only thing she is sure of is that it is in Equestria, which didn't help that much.

Right now, she was telling her sister about this peculiar event.

"What do you think it is?" asked Celestia. In all honesty, she had no idea what it could be.

"We- I mean, I haven't got a clue my dear sister," replied Luna, still getting used to the changes in todays language.

"Well, we can't simply launch a full scale search, many ponies will get suspicious and jump to conclusions. Rather, I say we send a few soldiers to scout around the area of major cities, and if we cannot find it, we'll search around the smaller, lesser known villages," explained Celestia. Personally, Luna wasn't that well versed with the political side of their kingdom, so she simply nodded along.

"Well, it's not as if there are creatures on it , I wouldn't be too worried," said Luna.

"I know sister, I'm just being safe," answered Celestia.

"Ok then, I will inform the Captain about this, goodbye sister, and have a great day," Luna replied, smiling at her sister before trotting away.






Unknown planet, NSS Cyberaid, 2562 9th of February 15:48 



Kevin, Head of Personnel


Suppressing a yawn, I continued on with the paperwork, while this situation was quite dire, someone had to keep track of all the supplies and materials they had on board. Since the Quartermaster is injured, it falls on him to distribute everything evenly depending on how important the tasks are.

But for some reason, he just couldn't stop thinking about everything that could go wrong. Every now and then the lights would flicker, as if to say that he was screwed.

Since they where stuck on a planet, the engineers need to make use of the outdated design's of coal and oil generators. But that would take a bit, so right now the power they where using could run out any day.

The thing he feared the most was the creatures inhabiting this world, what horrible creature that could simply wander onto us and rip through our defenses.






23:43


Finally, I'm finished, that took way too long. Time to get some sleep, or at least try to sleep. I probably should inform the other heads that I'm gonna have some rest.

"Hey, if it's aright with you all, I'm gonna get some sleep"

"Sure, go ahead, but wake up bright and early, ok?" said Captain Anderson.

"Yes sir," I confirmed

Well, I guess it's time to get to bed, I wonder if Ian will be happy to see me?

After getting up I had a bit of a stumble, and heading towards my bedroom, I see Ian sleeping on his little bed, not wanting to wake him up, I tiptoe towards the airlock. Wincing a bit when the airlock hissed open quite loudly, I glanced back to see him still asleep. As I get in bed, I slowly drift off to sleep.






Joseph Anderson, Captain


He should be sleeping right now, the security officers where taking watch, he had nothing to fear, yet he just couldn't bring himself to sleep.

He wondered if they can actually survive on this world, he wondered if they could actually make a base, he wondered if they could even get back home.

After a few more painful minutes of lying on my bed with eyes wide open, I decided to get up and get dressed. After heading out of my personal quarters, I decide to go towards the bridge.

The station was simulating night time by dimming the lights, so the hallways where pretty dark. While most would find this concerning, he grew quite fond of his station, and walked through the dim hallway with pride, while avoiding the places with broken glass.

After going for a few seconds, he reached the airlock, and showed it his ID, to which the airlock opened. Since the bridge had reinforced windows, there was only a few bits of glass from a few of the consoles.

Going inside, he saw a cyborg with the engineering module fixing the consoles, most of the crew did not like these things, me included. They where just creepy.

"Ah, hello Captain, how are you?" it said, the creepy thing was completely still. Even though it was half his size, he suppressed a shudder.

"Uh... fine, can you come back a bit later, right now I would like to be alone," I said, not wanting to deal with it.

"Is something bothering you Captain?" it asked

"Hey, you aren't a psychiatrist, so just go already," I said, losing my patience.

I'm terribly sorry for bothering you Captain" it said with a completely flat tone, before rolling out of the room.

I let out a sigh of relief. The AI just showed way more emotion than those freaks. Ok, what do I now? Guess I'll just take a seat. This will be a long night, I can tell already.






9:30



Golden Shield, Captain of the Royal Guard


Ever since being accepted into the Royal Guard , almost all the threats were always dealt by the Elements of Harmony, so when they actually got a mission from The Princess Celestia, he was ecstatic.

He quickly got his act together, and started sending messages to cities and villages all over Equestria, before finally sending the final message to Dodge Junction. He was unsure what could have landed in Equus, but he was confident that at least one of his soldiers will find it.

He will not fail the Princesses.
> The Punny Joke
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unknown planet, NSS Cyberaid, 2562 10th of February 12:42



Joseph Anderson, Captain


Ah... so tranquil, so peaceful. The wind on my face, the grass under my body, I just want to jump into the river, who needs clothes when you have the sun? I just want to stay here forever.

"Good morning crew, I hope you had a great nights sleep," said a rather robotic sounding lady... why is she here? Shouldn't she be on the station? As I stare into the sky, I see the sun slowly turn white, and more angular.

What in the world? Then, I realize I'm not lying on my back, when was I sitting upright? Slowly, I realize the beautiful green world around me was turning more and more grey.

And then finally, I woke up. After a bit of aimlessly looking around, I realize I was dreaming all of it. Boy does my back hurt, why did I sleep in the chair?

As I get up, I thought about what Cali said yesterday, apparently the atmosphere was similar to earth, so I decide to go outside, just for a little bit. While trying to open the airlock, I see that most of the crew appear to be awake.

Once I finally got my ID and show it to the Airlock, I try going towards one of the exits, keyword is 'try'. The moment I set foot outside the bridge, I feel my foot step on something soft, and then I slip.

And land on my back with a resounding 'smack'.

"You can peel it in your bones, eh Cap?" I hear the annoyingly high pitched voice of our resident clown, before he starts laughing like his life depended on it. I could even swear I heard a few other crewmembers giggling at my misfortune. I swear I am gonna kill that bloody clown.

But thankfully, his mirth doesn't last long until a blue blur raced down the hallway, smacking right into him before I could even say "Fuck you asshole."

"H-Hey! It was just a prank miss," said the still smiling clown.

"Can it, as a Blueshield Officer it is my job to protect Command and CentCom VIP's from threats, which means you are in trouble," I heard her triumphantly say. Deciding I had spent enough time as the new floor mat, I start getting up.

"Oh come on, how about I tell you a joke. A police officer blamed his poor choice on arrested development, but his superior said that excuse was a cop out," he said, giggling before he even finished the joke.

"Yeah yeah, tell that to the warden why don't you," she said before handcuffing him and walking away.

Why couldn't the doctors heal him last, or better yet just leave him in Cryosleep. And to make matters worse, the Warden had a strange soft spot for him, hopefully this time it can at least keep him away for a few hours.

Deciding to get on with the rest of my day, I start walking towards Arrivals. As I continue on my little adventure, I see the station was looking rather clean, only a few shards of glass every now and then. Most of the crew also seemed to be healed up, working on their respective jobs, almost everyone always running, never walking.

As I start nearing the exit, I see through the reinforced windows a beautiful green land, similar to my dream. Getting excited, I also start making a mad dash for it.

Once I reach the External airlock, I quickly slammed my ID into it. It opened painfully slow.

When it finally opened, I smelled the wonderful, clean air, not like the sterile air of the station, but one with a hint of rain.

After I had my time, I started looking at the perimeter the CE's engineers where setting up. It was a chain link fence , every now and then there where towers looking above the fence. Ah the power of Rapid Construction Devices.

Well, I am famished, I wonder what the cook is making.


Equestria, Dodge junction, 1156 AC 21th of June 13:13



Silver Sword


Sometimes, I regret joining the Royal Guard, I spent so much of my life training for aerial combat, only to never use it. Sure, many fillies and colts idolize them, but that doesn't beat the feeling of inadequacy.

Besides, most of the foals nowadays want to be like the 'Elements of Harmony', they are national heroes, sure, but some of the guards, including me, did envy them quite a bit.

I was thinking it will be just like an average day of waiting for nothing like usual, when suddenly someone knocked on the door to the guard house.

Thinking it was another old mare who lost her purse, I slowly start trotting towards the door. However, whoever they where, they where pretty impatient, as their knocking kept getting louder.

"I'm coming, calm down for celestia's sake!" I yell.

Once I open the door, I was about to yell at the pony responsible for it, until I see it was a pony wearing a distinct golden armor, a Royal Messenger. Slightly shocked, I just stood there, until he quickly gives me the scroll and said "This is coming directly from the Captain of the Royal Guard. Would it be alright if I stayed for a bit, the flight from Canterlot took almost 4 hours." He said, I simply nodded and let him in.

A scroll, straight from the Captain? This felt too good to be true. After he finally got ahold of himself, he decided to call the rest of the guards.

Since almost nothing ever happened, the six guards stationed here decided on a very effective plan. Out of the six of them, only one will be waiting near the door, while the rest slept, if a job that took more than only one guard has come up, then the someone else will be woken to keep watch while the required number of guards dealt with the problem.

So right now he had to wake up 5 different guards. Some of which become quite cranky when they lost their beauty sleep, great.


13:20


After one particular female guard just wouldn't wake up, I made a very bad choice, and decided to pour water on her... Well, good thing our armor is enchanted.

Once I finally managed to gather all the guards positioned here, I started to fill them in on what happened.

"So, you're telling me that, the Captain of the Royal guard, sent us a letter... lowly grunts who are stationed on such a small town that some maps don't even have it on them?" asked the same mare who almost made me griffin food.

"Yes," I sighed. "look, the messenger has shown me his insignia, it's all real," I tried to tell her.

"What happened to the messenger?" Hammer asked.

"He left after he regained his strength, said he had more jobs back at Canterlot" I explained

"Well, instead of just arguing, lets read the contents then," said the new recruit, Shiny Spear.

"Fine fine, I'll believe you, just read the scroll already," said the forever sour Sunny Skies.

Clearing my voice a bit, I started reading it out loud. "I, Captain of the Royal Guard, Golden Shield, hereby order the guards of Dodge Junction, to scout the nearby area for any unusual activity, if any activity is detected, the you will report at the soonest possible convenience to inform me. After that you will keep an eye on said object and send daily reports straight to me."

After I finished, we all just sorta stared at it.

"Well, that was vague as tartarus," said Sharp Skewer.

"Couldn't agree more Skew," Sharp's brother, Glaive spoke.

"Well, I guess we should start getting ready for our search huh," Shiny said with his voice full of enthusiasm.

"How about we split into groups of two?" I said, it was probably the best option we had at finding anything fast.

"We got nothing better to do, I guess," Sunny replied, actually looking happy for once.

Once we agreed to start our search at 14:00, we got straight to getting into our uniforms.

After some waiting, we where all ready to go. I wonder what we will find?
> First Sightings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unknown planet, NSS Cyberaid, 2562 10th of February 15:10



Geoffrey Conan, Head of Security


"Look, it's too dangerous to send people to explore the outside, as far as we know there could be even more dangerous creatures on this very planet, than this entire galaxy!" I tried to make Cali understand.

"I know it's dangerous," that's putting it lightly "but think about what we could learn from this planet, I'm sure your security officers can handle these threats," She replied with the same answer, only slightly different.

"If you can get permission from the Captain, I'll consider it, ok? Now stop pestering me" I honestly hope the Captain refuses, the amount of things that could go wrong is absurd!

"What's this about permission and stuff? I hear our amazing Captain ask over the radio.

"Sir, if we are able to learn more about this planet, it could help humanity and the other races as a whole, we'd be considered heroes!" I hear her trying to convince the Cap.

"But sir, we need to focus on ourselves right now, we need to survive, and wait for reinforcements."

"Who could never come, we need to start living, not surviving, and in order to do that, we will need to explore this planet,"

"That has nothing to do with our current situation!" What kind of scientist can be so smart yet so dumb!

"Guys, calm down. Stress is getting to us all, I know, but we need to be civilized and smart if we want to survive on this planet," always perfect, has the answer to everything, just too good to be true.

"Let's put it to a vote, I'll gather the other Heads," Joseph answered. Well, I guess I can do nothing about this then.

"Alright Captain, that sounds fair enough to me," said Cali.

"I'm in, let's get this over with," there was no way she could get a majority vote.

"Captain, may I have a suggestion," said our female sounding AI, SYNC

"Go ahead,"

"Could I get a vote, as the AI it is my duty to protect you all, and I think having my voice heard will increase your percentage of success by 14%," explained SYNC

"Uh... sure?" Cap replies. Well, with the other heads that will bring it to 7 voters, sounds alright to me.

"When will we start the vote?" I ask.

"The earlier, the better, how about 16:00?" said Cali.

"Alright, I'll start informing the other Heads"






Equestria, The Far, Far Outskirts of Dodge junction, 1156 AC 21th of June 15:42



Silver Sword


When we first read the letter, I had a very different view of how things would go.

I thought that we would run into a bandit tribe or something, instead, Sunny and I are just walking further and further away from the village.

The silence was absolutely deafening, so I decided to try start up a conversation.

"Sorry about earlier, you wouldn't wake up and i thought it would be funny and stuff..." I try and say, and immediately regret it after hearing how it turned out.

"Ah don't sweat it, I probably shouldn't have gotten so worked up over something so minor, just the lack of stuff we do sort of got to me, you know?" she said, well, at least i won't have to duck like last time.

"Nah, i understand you, but let me ask you something, what are your thoughts on all of this?" I asked, hopefully we won't lose the momentum we have.

"Personally, I don't think it's anything serious, maybe just a dangerous animal got a few towns ponies spooked," she says.

After giggling a bit, I reply with. "That is possible, but I think it will be like a bandit camp."

"Yeah, right, this deep in Equestrian borders? I don't buy it," she says with certainty.

Nodding my head, we still go ahead, searching for anything suspicious.

After a while of going through the plains, I start seeing a strange sight

"What in the world?" I mutter under my breath.

"What do you see?" she asks me, since Pegasi eyes where usually a lot more sharper than other ponies, it was understandable she couldn't see it.

I however, was too interested in what i was almost able to see than tell her. It looked like a giant... base? But it was hard to tell from this far away.

As i start going closer, Sunny quickly runs for me, trying to keep up.

"Hey! What's going on?" she whispers, caught off guard.

"It looks like a base, but not one we've ever seen before, it's not built by wood, it seems like it's made from stone," I explain.

"Stone? But that would take years to make, somepony would have to have seen it before, how could it be here?" she asks confusedly.

"I don't know, but we need to get closer to get a better view," I say, with a small bit of enthusiasm.

"Wait, I'll put an invisibility spell on the both of us, they could easily see our golden armor if we are not careful," Sunny says, I need to calm down.

"Right, sorry,"

After about a minute, she casts the spell on the both of us. Looking at myself, I could only see the grass folding where my hoof should be.

"Woah, that's amazing," I whisper, before we start getting close to the base.






Unknown Planet, NSS Cyberaid, 15:50



Joseph Anderson, Captain


"Captain, something has come up," It says after it makes a female hologram appear in my private quarters.

"Yes? What's wrong, did the clown and mime raid the kitchen?" I ask.

"No sir, my outside cameras on the towers have picked up two beings, but they are only visible in the infrared mode."

"Are you sure the camera's aren't malfunctioning?" a being that can only be seen in infrared? I have a hard time believing that.

"I checked multiple times Captain, I also had the same thoughts, but the camera is 100% functional sir," it explained.

"Can you define the shape of it?" I ask, a being that could only be seen in infrared? That would make the news,  maybe even more than the Slime people.

"Their overall shape is similar to a horse from earth, but a lot smaller. They most likely hide by manipulating Bluespace, like the Wizard Federation," it answered.

"Those weirdos?" a group of fanatical people who think they can do magic, in reality most scientist think they just manipulate Bluespace.

"Captain, what should we do with these beings?" asked the AI, I was even able to tell a small amount of emotion was in it, mostly frustration.

"Bring up the camera footage on the screen. Let's wait a bit, see what they do," I reply.






15:53


"Are you sure they wont see us?" I ask, this was nerve wracking.

"Could you cut that out? For the fifth time, not unless they look directly at us, from 4 hoofs away, ok?" she replied.

"Sorry, this is just so crazy," I say as we start getting closer towards the base. This was really something, from here I could definitely tell it wasn't some sort of painted wood, but it also didn't seem to be stone. It was too smooth, maybe some strange marble?

But the main thing that confused him the most were the residence, I was unable to tell what they where, but from this distance, it seemed like they where a strange monkey like animal, the main thing that confused me were their face, it was completely hairless, and their body seemed to be made from leather? It was honestly hard to tell.

"What can you see, I can only see the base," she asks.

"They seem like a monkey and a colorful walrus decided it would be fun to roll in the hay," I try and explain.

"A what?" she asks, understandable reaction.

"I can't tell from this far, we should maybe get closer," I say. I probably shouldn't be doing this, but these creatures are so strange, I just couldn't head back now.





"Captain, they are getting too close for comfort," the AI replies.

"Ok, could you get a feel for how many volts it would take to knock one out, harmlessly?" I ask.

"I have a rough guess, I could inform the security members to incapacitate them," it explained

"Do that, we could just hall them off to some other far off place, they'll get spooked and run to their herd," I answer.

"Affirmative," it answers.





Something didn't feel right, the closer they got, the more it seemed like some of the creatures where looking around for something, they couldn't have seen them, right?

"Hey, are you sure your spell isn't malfunctioning or something?" I whisper.

For the first time, it seemed like Sunny was unsure of it.

"Let's head back, I don't want to be caught by these ponies," I whisper.

*I think they are over there, yeah, near the rock, the AI says they are right there.* One of the creatures made some strange noise, before pointing towards where we where hiding. They have got to have seen us.

"RUN!" I yell, totally ruining any possibility of escaping quietly.

As soon as our hooves start moving, the same creature yelled *Tazer them!*, when suddenly, my body went into a world of pain, my muscles spasming randomly as I fall on the dirt.

Barely able to keep awake, I see that Sunny is in the exact same position as me.

*Are they wearing armor?* was the last thing I heard, before blacking out.
> The Plans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unknown planet (Terra?), NSS Cyberaid, 2562 10th of February 15:55


"Sir, we may face a problem with the earlier creatures," it said, with it's synthetic female voice.

"What happened?" I ask. They couldn't have escaped, right?

"The creatures appear to be wearing armor," it answered, with a slightly distressed tone.

"... Seriously?" I whisper. What the fuck, why did this planet need sentient life!

"Yes, there is a 99.9% chance the creatures we caught, is part of a local, sentient species," it answered. Making me dread my earlier decision to taze them.

"Fuck, gather the other Heads! We need to discuss it as quickly as we can," I yelled, this is gonna be a lot harder than we thought.






Equestria, Far, far outskirts of Dodge Junction, 16:10



Sharp Spear


"Do you think the others found anything?" I ask Hammer.

"Maybe, maybe not, we don't even know what we are looking for," He answers with a stoic expression.

"Well, we should probably go back more quickly. Wonder if they got back already," I said, while I still wished we had found something, I was also thankful we didn't.

As we went trotting towards the village, I was thinking about what my friend talked to me about before, apparently he saw a few shooting stars. While I didn't care about it, he said it was pretty strange, since Princess Luna had a strict schedule for everything. Maybe this had something to do with this search?

Once we finally got to the village, we went straight towards the guardhouse, nothing we could do anywhere else.

When we got in, we saw both Glaive and Skewer waiting.

"Did Sunny and Silver come yet?" Hammer asked.

"Not yet, and we also didn't see anything that warrant's suspicion, how about you?" Glaive said, he seemed worried, although we had nothing to worry about.

"We also didn't see anything," Hammer said, while he was a stoic pony, he also talked quite a bit when he was asked.

"Well, does anyone want some food? I'm hungry," Skewer asked us, even though she was a Pegasus, her appetite would make even the most hungry earth pony embarrassed.

"Where to?" I asked, guess we'll just wait till the other two come.






Barrett Grain, Chief Medical Officer


Something was up, that much was clear. At first it just seemed like it was gonna be an everyday fighting fest, or in other words, voting. But the Captain was looking very nervous, and the vote still hasn't started yet.

"Alright, you guys are probably wondering what happened in the last hour. Well, I guess I have no other way of saying this... but we aren't alone on this planet," Anderson said with a slightly grave tone, did he mean the Syndicate?

"Could you elaborate on that?" Geoffrey asked with a gruff, annoyed tone.

"Well, at 15:50 today, the AI informed me of two strange beings, only visible in the infrared mode of it's cameras. After they got dangerously close to the base, I decided to order the guards to taze them, when they finally did, said beings became visible to the naked eye, and appears that they where wearing armor, and also had short swords in sheaths." Anderson said.

"Really? Where are they now?" I asked.

"In the brig, I have no idea what to do, I'm not a diplomat, so I needed to get your opinions on this matter," he explains.

"We can't simply kill them, they would get suspicious and send more to look for their warriors, but we can't set them free, they would lead more to us. We could try gaining their trust, but it could take too long and more could come searching for them," Cali keeps muttering, most likely going through hundreds of ideas.

"Maybe we send them back with a few gifts, try and explain that we mean no harm?" Kevin says, not entirely sure it will work, personally I think we should send in a diplomat group, but nobody listens to the doctors.

"Maybe we should send in a diplomat group?" said Micheal. Wow.

"Good idea, all in favor of this course of action?" asked Joseph.

Almost all of the Heads raised their hands, everyone except me, since in my mind, this was all going to go horribly wrong, like everything else we did.

"Alright, I want you all to set up a group of individuals who you can trust to get this done," He said.

"What do we do with the ones we have now?" I asked.

"We'll keep them with us until we are able to explain the situation to their leaders, for now let's try to make their time here as painless as possible," Cali said. This felt so wrong, we shouldn't be doing this, hopefully nothing goes awry.






16:20



Silver Sword


Ow, my head hurts, what happened? As I try to get on my hooves, I look around myself and saw a strange, room of sorts, but instead of walls, it was surrounded by really tinted glass. It had a bed in one corner, but nothing else

What kind of room is this? Also, why am I inside this room?

The last thing I remember is us finding a base, we got closer and then... I felt a bunch of pain, and then fell unconscious.

Are we captured? That's the only thing that makes sense.

"Sunny?" I asked, as I start waking up, I realize I don't see her anywhere.

Silence, this is bad, this room is so weird, I can't hear anything from in here, it's driving me mad!

"Let me out of here! Please, I don't want to deal with this, we did nothing wrong!" I yelled, those creatures aren't monsters right?

After yelling for a bit more, I start calming down, those creatures probably won't hear me, won't even understand me most likely.

Celestia, please protect us.






Geoffrey Conan, Head of Security


"I feel sorta bad for the thing, it looks pretty distressed," a security officer says, while I agreed, we still couldn't release them right now.

"Did the other one wake up yet?" I asked.

"Not yet, but I think it will in about an hour," he replies.

This was crazy, he studied ancient human mythology when he was little, and to see a Pegasus and Unicorn in real life was so, I don't even know what to say, although admittedly their proportions where way off.

"Notify me when the other one wakes up," I said, before going towards the armory. It always helped to be prepared I guess.






16:50



Sunny Skies


I am absolutely miserable, my everything hurts, plus I'm really tired...

But when I start looking around myself more clearly, I remember what happened to me and Silver.

Those creatures attacked us, they're dangerous! We need to inform the others. I could send a message to them through magic, but I will most likely fall unconscious. Nothing better to do now, I guess.

As I start preparing, I hear a hissing sound, and one of the glass walls just slides sideways, revealing one of the creatures that attacked me and Silver Sword. I won't let you stop me from doing my duty!





"Sir! The horned one is doing something, come quic-AAAAH!" yelled the security officer watching over them.

My blood froze, after recovering from that blood curling scream, I run towards the brig with all my strength.

As I run past all my fellow crewmen, it seems a few of them heard the scream, and where looking towards the general direction of security, guess they couldn't hold the secret for long.

After I finally reach it, I slammed my ID against the Airlock, and ran inside, only to see one of my subordinates covered in blood on the floor, with the Unicorn unconscious.

I ran towards the security officer.

After chocking a bit, the security officer said "Don't worry sir, I'm way more robust than you might think," before falling unconscious.

As I start treating him, I turn around to see the blanket missing from the things cell. Where the hell is it?






Sharp Spear


It was getting pretty late, so we where debating whether to go search for them right now, or still wait.

"Look, have some faith in them, they can handle themsel-" Hammer was cut off, by a sudden blinding light, once I recover, I looked at the source, it appeared to be a blanket, but with some kind of message burned on it.

Once I gather enough strength to go near it, I slowly picked it up and I started reading the message out loud.

"This is Sunny, we have been captured, there are creatures who made a base, we are in a cell, it's east of the village, be careful, they are bipedal and have a very powerful magic," I said.

After I finished, most of us didn't know what to do, a few seconds later Hammer seemed to mentally prepared himself.

"Get the scroll, the princesses need to know," Hammer said.
> The Teams
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unknown Planet (Terra), NSS Cyberaid, Holodeck, 2562 11th of February, 9:04



Kenny, Scientist


As I charged for the hit, my opponent dodged, making me lose balance. After a moment of confusion, I got my balance back and searched for my enemy, when I saw a shadow coming up from behind me, I turned around to face them head on.

But as soon as I did I felt something swipe my feet from under me, the knight armor crashing into the reinforced floor, after I opened my eyes, I saw her pointing her sword directly at my face, shit.

"Why do you keep asking for a rematch? You always lose," Jess said, not breaking a sweat. Her Blueshield uniform looking pristine under the armor.

"Well, one of these days, I could get lucky." I said, the armor and swords disintegrating into nothing. As I tried to get up, she offers me her hand, which I gladly took. Most of the crew where surprised that someone who looked so nice was also the one who could dish out a drop kick like nothing.

When I first started working on the station, I developed a crush for her. It didn't last long when I actually befriended her in a sparring match, she just wasn't my type I guess.

"Well, do you have any duties now?" I asked. Being stuck on this planet was the worst, while the Research Director was absolutely crazed about the planet and many of my coworkers kept going outside to get samples. I absolutely despises it, I could easily have joined a planetary research station leagues beyond anywhere else, but chose NSS Cyberaid since I could just stay in space, only with my research and experiments.

"Well, considering the amount of security members that are patrolling the station, I think the Heads are protected enough for me to take a day off," she answered.

Trying to think about a conversation topic, I thought about the most biggest rumor circling around the station members.

"Did you hear about yesterday? A lot of people heard a scream coming from the brig and then saw the Head of Security run towards it, many think the Heads are hiding something, something big, can you tell me anything?" I asked.

"Hey, you know I'm not allowed to talk about this stuff," she replied. That's strange, would have thought she knew something about it.

"Well, what do you want to talk about?" I asked.

"I only heard this from the roboticist, but apparently your Head has a pet facehugger, is that actually true?" she asked. I would have thought most of the crew knew this, but I guess since we only worked with each other for about 1 month, some could not know.

"She had it's teeth and egg removed, so it's harmless. Although she loves to throw it at you, it's pretty cute once you get used to it," I said, I will never tell her about my first encounter with it.






Cali Wallick, Research Director


While I did not like Geoffrey and his goons, I still felt bad for the poor soul who got hurt. Barrett said that he would make it, so there was that at least.

As I went over the members in my department, I thought about who could join the team, as I was searching, I heard a loud smack against glass, startling me and making me drop one of the worker bio's. Once I looked at what made that noise, it was just Lamarr getting annoyed, staying inside his cage for so long.

I'll take him on a walk later, right now, I needed to get that paper before it got dirty. As I reached down to grab it, I saw who's it was, Kevin Heart, age 25. He was a rather hard working individual, some would even say he worked too hard. He seemed like a competent worker, maybe I should pick him?

Guess it's decided then.






Michael, Chief Engineer


While the rest of the departments just do what they always do, the Engineering department had it's hand full. They had to convince the Miners from Cargo to start mining resources, fix all the damage inside and outside the station, start building an outside base of sorts and try to find old coal and oil generator blueprints and build them.

So he really did not want to send anyone on this diplomatic envoy, why did they need an engineer anyway? We needed every help we could get.

Although the mechanic didn't have any use on the station. Actually, right now the team actually could use the mechanic, both for his pod and piloting skills. Yeah, I'll just send him in. Now i just have to hide it before Poly finds it and steals it.






Joseph Anderson, Captain



10:03


Thankfully, it seems the team is coming together, there was 1 doctor, 2 security officers, a mechanic and his pod, a scientist and a cyborg for deciphering their language. While he still didn't like those wierdos, they where rather helpful.

The Diplomat would be the scientist, while he didn't have any experience, the cyborg will help him out while we gave instructions through his earpiece. I was also considering sending the Blueshield Officer to protect the diplomat, and after a bit more considoration, I decided on yes.

Renault seemed rather annoyed that i have been ignoring him for the last few days, so i decide to indulge my foxy friend.

They would get briefed today, and head out tomorrow. Hopefully, nothing goes bad.






Equestria, Canterlot Castle, 1156 AC 22nd of June, 11:20



Celestia


I was always an early bird, unlike my sister. As I was trotting towards the dining room, I thought about what kind of cake my cook has prepared today.

After opening the large doors and walking through the maze like hallways of my castle, I finally made it to the Dining room. After taking a seat, a waiter came with a rather big chocolate cake. It looked absolutely wonderful, I would definitely savor this one.

But as soon as I took my first bite, a Royal Messenger barged into the room with a scroll in his saddle bag.

"Princess, urgent news from Dodge Junction!" the Messenger yelled, before giving me the scroll by magic.

After taking the scroll with my own magic, I quickly opened it and started reading.

The more I read, the more I started worrying.

"Get my sister, I need to discuss this with her immediately," I ordered, as I waited for her to enter.

After a few minutes passed, I heard a knock on the door, I said towards the individual with a "Come in".

"Tia? Is this to do with your cake? I didn't eat it," she replied rather suspiciously.

"No, it's much worse, read this," I said, before giving her the scroll when she came in.

After a minute, she yelled "This is horrible! We must send in the Royal Guard immediately, they can not get away with this!".

"Calm down sister, we need to think about this, the guards they captured are still ok, we could make a deal with them," I said, not wanting to launch an attack so quickly.

"But we can't just stand idly by, they could be planning an invasion, like the Changelings," she replied.

"These are an entirely knew species, sister, it could have been a misunderstanding," I answered, trying to reason with her.

"Maybe how about we have the elements stand by? In the village, Dodge Junction, was it?" She said.

"I don't know, I'm not comfortable putting them so close to these creatures," I said with uncertainty.

"Have some faith in her, sister, she was your student, and has saved Equestria multiple times, and also has been studying diplomacy, correct?" Luna said, confident in her ability. I, on the other hoof, still wasn't completely convinced.

"Fine, I'll send her a letter," I exasperatedly said. Just in case, I'll also send in a few more guards to protect them and the town if thing go bad.


Equestria, Ponyville, 1156 AC 22nd of June, 11:30



Twilight Sparkle


"Twilight! Are you ok? You were sleeping but I had to give you a scroll and then you started mumbling and crying and I didn't know what to do and-" Spike was cut off when Twilight simply hugged him, trying to calm him and stop his babbling.

"Shhh, It's ok Spike, it was just a dream," I said, and it was true, I don't remember it, anything really, the one thing I do remember is a lot of books burning.

"Ok... well, the reason why I came here was because the Prince- er, Celestia sent you a letter," he said, before handing me the scroll he was clutching tightly in his claws.

I gladly took it and started reading.

"Twilight Sparkle

Hello, while I would love for this to simply be a greetings from a friend, it appears the situation is much more dire than that. Yesterday at 17:00, news had come that two guards sent to patrol the far outskirts of Dodge Junction had been captured by an entirely new, unknown bipedal species. Right now, I want you to go towards Dodge Junction with your friends and meet the Captain of the Royal Guard, Golden Shield, and try a diplomatic approach to all of this, and if all else fails, to use the Magic of Friendship to deal with them. Goodluck.

Your friend, Celestia."

What? An entirely knew species? Where they in hiding this whole time? Maybe they are like the Changelings.

"Spike, could you gather the others?" I asked.

"Ok, I'll go to the Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie should be there," he said.

"And I'll go find Rainbow Dash, she'll make it to Applejack and Fluttershy pretty quickly," I said, already formulating a plan to get them the quickest.

As soon as we left the castle, I thought about what I just read, these beings seem dangerous, and she would not let her subjects get hurt by these beings. But first, she needed to find a drifting cloud.
> The Journey
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Equestria, Ponyville, 1156 AC 22nd of June, 12:00



Twilight Sparkle


"Uh, Twilight? While I do like a get together between friends, this seems a bit... extreme" Rarity said, a few bits of hair sticking out from her usually pristine hair.

"Sorry girls, but it's a direct order from the Princess. She ordered us to go towards Dodge Junction," I answered.

"Aaaand, why?" Rainbow asked. Stifling a yawn from escaping.

"According to the scroll, 2 guards where captured by a bipedal species. I'm meant to try to convince them to let them go," I explained.

"What if they attack?" Rarity said.

"Then we'll whoop their flanks!" Rainbow Dash said.

"Y-yes, actually," I said, caught off guard by her correct assessment.

"See, I'm smart," she replied.

"Or just lucky," Applejack said.

"Calm down girls. We're all tired,  let's play nice for now," I said. Pinkie and Fluttershy seem to be the only ones that got enough sleep.

"Can you tell us when we'll be leaving? If it's alright with you," Fluttershy said, while she had become a lot more assertive than her old self, she still was pretty shy.

"The earliest train will go 30 minutes from now, I already got the tickets for that train," I said.

"What do you think these creatures are like?" Rarity asked, nopony said anything, but after a while, I decided to say something.

"Don't know, but we will probably find out," I said.






Unknown Planet (Terra), NSS Cyberaid, Bridge, 2562 11th of February, 12:00



Kenny, Scientist


"A whole new species?  When did this happen?" I asked,

"Yesterday actually," Anderson said, his pet fox running between our legs.

"Could you tell us more?" asked the doctor.

"Well, they can manipulate Bluespace, and they look like ponies, that's the extent of it," he said, it sounded like he was hiding something, but honestly, I didn't care.

"Where are we supposed to go?" I asked.

"Since we got the AI online, it was able to detect multiple of the same species about 4 Kilometers to the west of here, I think it would be safe to assume that place is a village of sorts," he explained.

"Who will be the diplomat?" the same guy asked.

"It will be Kenny. This was a completely random choice, since none of us on board have any experience," the captain said.

"What! I can't do that, I don't know how to do anything diplomatic," I said, trying to make him reconsider.

"Don't worry, these first few days, we only need you to draw a few pictures on the ground, if they seem confused, make them understand. I'm sure this is more than possible for you, and, after that the AI will start teaching you or, if you don't want to, someone else diplomacy, although, if you do become a diplomat, you will be considered a hero," Joseph said

After a moment of consideration, I finally accepted it. But, I will need to let him know of something. "If I die, please don't tell my family, they get really emotional about these kind of stuff," I said, at first I wanted to say I would haunt him forever, but it's probably best if I didn't piss off the captain.

"Don't worry, Jess will look after you, and these two sec officers will protect all of you, it'll be fine," he tried to soothe our worry, which failed quite a bit, considering they where a completely unknown, new species.

"When will we depart sir?" asked the mechanic guy. His hair and clothes looked to be stained by a lot of oil, most likely from the mines.

"As soon as you are, although it would be best if you went early," he said.






12:30



Twilight Sparkle


"All aboard!" yelled the conductor.

"Finally, that took forever," Rainbow said, still looking pretty sleepy.

"Don't worry Dashy, I'll throw a party! That will cheer you up!" Pinkie yelled. Still full of enthusiasm.

After we sat on our seats, we felt the familiar chugging of the train.

"I even brought a few board games," Pinkie said, although it seemed they where pretty old, they would still be as fun.

"So Twilight dear, how long will this take us?" Rarity asked.

"It would probably be best for you girls to get some sleep, it will take about 4 hours," I explained, getting comfortable, this will take a while.






14:04



Kenny, Scientist


"Could you hurry up?" I said, with a lot of frustration behind it.

"I need to fix this up, alright? Changing an engine is a lot harder than you apparently think," the mechanic shot back.

After we got briefed, the (horribly slow) mechanic needed to change the engine of his pod. And so, being stuck in a very small workplace with 5 other people for 2 hours while the guy you are waiting on is standing in a nice, big open space with the cyborg, really pisses me off. Especially after he denied for us to go near his pod, saying it was 'Too dangerous', as if.

"... Done!" he yelled, startling me a bit.

After finally getting out of that cramped space, we got into another, cramped space.

But when the mechanic turned the engine on, I would almost say it was worth it, the flickering of all the lights and buttons, the big screen turning on, it was almost beautiful.

"So, I'm guessing you know where to go?" Jess asked the mechanic.

"It's on the screen, don't worry," He answered.

"How about we all get introduced to each other?" the doctor said.

Of course, everybody ignored him.

After a few more minutes of silence, I decided to break the ice.

"So, do you guys spar?" I asked.

"No, but I do watch a few matches, today you got beaten to a pulp by her, right?" the mechanic asked while pointing at Jess. I bit my tongue before I started insulting him.

Before I could start defending myself however, one of the security guys said "Yeah, we have to have a basic knowledge of hand to hand combat if we want to join Security, usually to robust someone, although we are also taught how to restrain a person".

"Of course, because of the Hippocratic oath, I have no use for combat training, so I don't spar," the doctor answered.

"I spar, obviously, Blueshield officers have to have an advanced knowledge of combat, both armed and unarmed," Jess said.

This was sorta nice, people talking, traveling through the open fields, it was very relaxing.

A few minutes ago, the usual green grass started appearing less and less, and it was looking like a barren wasteland.

"Ok guys, we are nearing the town now, so be careful," said the asshole, also known as the mechanic.

"Hey, there are structures over there," the mechanic pointed towards the screen.

"Those buildings look like it's from one of those backwater colonies," said the shorter one of the security guys, because of their helmets,  the only way to differentiate them was by voice and body.

"Ok, let's park the pod far away from here," I said, at this point I was the unofficial leader of this team.

"Sir, we have sightings of their village," said the shorter security officer.

"Roger that, you have full control team leader, do what you think is best," came the response from Anderson.

"Ok, let's start learning more about them, we need to get a feel for their culture, even a little bit before we start diplomacy," I said.
> Second Contact
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Equestria, Dodge Junction, 1156 AC 22nd of June, 16:34



Twilight Sparkle


For the most part, being a Princess taught me one of the most important aspect of life, patience. Luna always said "The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience". And becoming a princess showed me this, after me and my friends got the castle, we had to patiently deal with ponies and their friendship problems.

So waiting to reach the train station wasn't as troublesome as somepony might think, and gave me a lot of time to think.

While I every now and then played a board game with my friends, I mostly just thought about what to do when we got there, what kind of things to say, they might not even speak Equus, so I had to prepare for a lot of things.

"I think we're getting close, I see a few buildings," Applejack said.

"Ok, let's pack our stuff up girls, we are almost there," I said, mentally preparing myself for this.

"We have reached Dodge Junction!" yelled the conductor, with only a few ponies leaving beside us.

As we got off and started looking around, we saw a lot of heavily armed guards, about 10 from my count.

"Isn't this a bit overkill?" Rainbow said.

"It's only for protection, and after we are done we'll go back to Canterlot," came a voice from beside us. We were startled, but after recovering, it just appeared to be a guard, until the type of armor he was wearing made me think of Shiny.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Golden Shield," I said, while I never personally knew him, I did attended his promotion ceremony after my brother resigned.

"It is an honor to finally meet the Elements of Harmony, please, follow me," he said. Rarity seemed to be very pleased with how much of a gentlecolt he was, while Dash and Applejack didn't seem impressed. Poor Fluttershy seemed to be afraid of the number of guards while Pinkie was oblivious as ever.






Unknown Planet (Terra), Unknown Village, Pod, 2562 11th of February, 16:35



Kenny, Scientist (Diplomat)


After we had spotted the village and parked the pod, we just spied on them. We would have gone to start the diplomatic mission with them, but the number of soldiers there are have us rather worried, their armor and numbers could not have been made from this place, so it was pretty safe to assume they are not a garrison.

"Hey, look at this," the mechanic said, pointing at the corner of his screen, where a number of the native soldiers were moving in a formation.

"What ever is going on?" I mumbled, these creatures are so inconsistent, they had trains with steam yet only used spears and swords.

"Look at that, it's a crown," said the cyborg who joined us, as we looked it did appear to be a crown, and the pony wearing it looked to have a lavender coat, and a few more ponies surrounding her beside the soldiers.

There was a multitude of questions running through my mind, like why only the soldiers seemed to be white, why their Queen appeared to have both the horn and wings, maybe it was a caste system?

"Why would royalty go to this place?" I asked, at the very least we know the guards are here to protect her.

"Do they know of our presence?" the doctor asked.

For some reason, the security members seemed a bit uneasy, but we had more important things to attend to.

"Ok, this might be our chance, we could meet them here, but you did bring weapons, right?" I asked.

"Yes we did, we brought Riot Shotguns, but they are filled with Rubbershot, if thing get bad we also brought a Laser Rifle," the shorter one said, finally taking a look at his ID, it said Ken

"But you should wear this Ablative armor, it will protect against energy attacks," the taller one said, his name being Fred. Curious names for security officers.

"They use lasers?" I asked, getting a nod from Fred, this is becoming more and more suspicious as time goes on.

After a moment of fiddling with the harness, I was finally able to get it on.

"Ok, the mechanic and the doctor will stay here, everyone else will go with me, if things go sour start up the engine and wait for us as long as you can, ok?" I said. Hopefully that won't happen.

"Got it, goodluck," said the mechanic. After ignoring him, I started exiting the pod.

"Captain, what should we draw for them?" I asked.

"A date. Tomorrow, maybe 14:00, and also write the alphabet, try to make them write theirs, if they have one, and take a picture of whatever they wrote," Joseph said, but near the end it was starting to get more and more fuzzy, until I was only barely able to make it out. No more radio I guess.

"Ok, let's go," I said, preparing myself to make history.






Twilight Sparkle


After we had met Golden Shield, he led us to the towns guard garrison, with a few tents pitched outside the building.

"What's with the tents?" Rainbow asked.

"The guard house can only fit about 5 ponies, so we had to set up tents for the other 7 guards," Shield said, not as many guards as I thought there was.

"Follow me, we will discuss the plan from inside," he said.

As we went inside, the inside was rather cozy, with a small fireplace and a wooden floor, but in the middle was a table with a magic map, these needed a lot of magic to be continuously fed into it to be maintained, so most unicorn engineers simply used crystals with a spell matrix inside it.

"Wow, that's like the Friendship map," Pinkie said.

"Now, from what we can tell, we can safely assume these creatures are around here, but we don't know their exact location," Gold said, pointing to a large patch of green grass.

"If the guards who are captured are the ones who found them, how did you ponies find it?" Applejack asked. It was pretty weird.

"They were able to send us a message, it was presumably wrote on a blanket," he explained, in a pretty professional manner.

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"We need to first find their main ba-"he started talking, when suddenly, somepony started knocking on the door.

"Captain! We have visitors, they seem to be bipedal, like the creatures!" a voice said from behind the door.

After we all had a moment to absorb the information, we ran outside to meet these creatures.

A few guards seem to be surrounding something, with spears and swords drawn.

"Stand down! I repeat, stand down!" Shield barked.

Once the guards made some room, what appeared was not what we were expecting. Instead of something similar to Diamond Dogs, they had some strange, dark skin, but some of their faces seemed to be either pink or yellowish.

On second glance, it didn't look like skin, but more like clothes, and judging by its face, it seemed like it only had fur on top of its head. Two of them seemed like guards, by the way they were standing, another one looked way more lax in comparison, wearing some strange white clothes, reminiscent of something a pony scientist like to wear, although he did have some sort of armor on top of it, but it only protected his middle, and eft his head and other parts exposed. Another one was radically different, it had 3 legs, and seemed bulky and made of a grey metal, was it a golem? Those took large amounts of magic, so only the rich could afford them as servants. And the last one seemed calm, but had two bumps on it's chest, what is that?

"What on earth are they wearing? It looks so dull," Rarity said.

"This isn't some kind of fashion show, Rarity," Applejack reminded her.

"Interesting," I mumbled, the two guards seemed to be holding some kind of club, but it looked much more sleeker and fragile than one, while the one wearing its white clothing was holding a stick, and the one in blue was unarmed.

*So, let's start I guess,* the one wearing the white clothes made some sort of noise, reminding me a bit, before suddenly it started drawing on the ground, at first it was hard to determine what it was.

"Wait, the village... the sun, it's some kind of time!" I yelled excitedly, which was a bad idea since the two guards suddenly got really tense. *Calm down guys, it just seems happy,* the white one said something, with some strange motion, After the other two calmed down, it continued drawing.

It made an arrow and drew another, identical picture, and then drew ponies and the creatures together.

"It seems like they want to meet us tomorrow," I said, completely lost in the drawing. After it was finished, it started drawing multiple symbols.

"Quick! Somepony start copying the symbols," Shield said.

After it was finished, it started pointing towards the symbols one by one, *a, b, c...* it started.

"These glyphs, I wonder... somepony give me a stick," I said.

After waiting a short while, one of the guards came back with a stick.

As I started writing our alphabet, I heard the one in blue 'say' *It's actually working,*, in a surprised manner, and I silently cheered at their presumed delight.

There was so much to learn, so much to talk about. If only I brought Spike.
> The Dissection
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unknown Planet (Terra), Unknown Village, 2562 11th of February, 16:40



Ken, Security Officer


"So, what now?" Jess asked.

"Well, we finished what we were told to do, now we can leave right?" I asked. Honestly, being surrounded by the natives like this was pretty intimidating, even when they are this ridiculous looking.

"They might not let us leave," Fred said, it was a possibility, and I tightened my grip on the riot shotgun. Never can be too careful.

But, the thing that really made me worry was what the natives drew next. Right beside their alphabet, their queen drew two ponies, both bound by something like a rope, after it was done, it looked at us and pointed it's hoof towards us.

"What?" Kenny asked, completely confused. This is bad, they were supposed to talk about this tomorrow, trying to explain it to him while in front of the natives? That will not go well.

"Hey, how about I try to talk to them?" Fred said, thankfully he seemed to also know how bad that would be. The Blueshield officer either knew or didn't know, but because of her job she must be loyal to command so she won't question anything, thankfully.

"Yeah, I need to talk to you about something, just for a bit," I said, trying to be as little threatening as possible.

He didn't buy it, "Hey, what are you hiding?" he asked.

"Now is not the best time to start talking about this, the natives might get the wrong idea," I said.

"I'm the diplomat, I should be filled in on everything that has to do with this mission, right?" he said.

"They'll get the wrong idea, just please wait until we are alone," I countered.

"Sir, please keep your voice down, the natives are right here," Fred came to the rescue.

"Just, can we talk about this later, we will explain everything, just let him do all the talking," I said.

His face was unreadable, but after a few seconds he nodded.

After I returned my attention back to Fred, I saw him drawing the two ponies, not tied up. After he was finished he also drew a new line to the previous image of tomorrow's meeting. If they understood it right they will think that we will give them back their ponies.






Twilight Sparkle


"So, these really are the creatures, huh," Rainbow presumed. At this point, it was the only plausible explanation. But why did they capture them? And why do they seem to be arguing with each other? While they didn't attack yet we needed to be very careful.

As I thought about all of this, the new creature in red was waving at us. What could it mean? Does it mean they are happy? Maybe it's a declaration of war? Or maybe it-"Oh, they're about to leave" Fluttershy said.

"Huh? Are you sure about that?" I asked, how did she know that?

"Body language, they're very similar to a now extinct species, and they might be related to them, so I can tell what they want, although it isn't very accurate," Fluttershy explained.

Apparently from Flutter's examination, the creature who I think is their leader, seems to be rather upset. The blue one keeps avoiding their leaders gaze. Why are they all so tense?

But after a bit, they started heading back where they presumably came from.

"I want two pegasi to follow them, don't be seen, no matter what, and don't lose them," Gold said.

"Hey! That's isn't very kind, they were nice," Pinkie uttered.

"I'm sorry, but they still have 2 guards captured, and we also need to know where their main base is, it's for the safety of all ponies in Equestria," Gold said, defending his order.

"Girl's, while it does seem nasty, these creatures are still dangerous, so we need to be careful," I informed them, it was most likely the best course of action anyway.






Terra, NSS Cyberaid, 2562 11th of February 16:50



Joseph Anderson


"Can you send the Xenobiologist to the bridge?" I asked the HoP.

"Alright, Informed him on his PDA, he says he'll be there," he replied.

"Thanks," I said, now it's time to wait I guess.

After about a minute of waiting, I heard someone knocking on the reinforced window's, "Hey, S.I.G.N.A.L , could you open the airlock," I heard him ask. And I swear I almost heard a synthetic sigh, before the iconic hiss of the airlock filled the dull rumbling of the ventilation.

"Sir? You asked to meet me?" He asked.

"Yes, I wanted to know about how much we learned about their biology," I asked.

"Well, we were able to use the medical scanner on them, but we still haven't gotten them into the advanced body scanner, especially after you denied the sleep darts, the one with the horn is too aggressive and the one with wings is too scared," he said, with a few bits of slime on his clothes, he most likely spent some time with his 'darlings' or whatever he calls them.

"I would say, please remove those unsightly pieces of those poor blokes you murdered," my temporary secretary insulted, S.I.G.N.A.L kept pestering me with getting a secretary, and in the end I caved in. Cyborgs are horrible, and I was still on the fence about IPC's, but honestly, it was better than to hear the same thing for every 3 minutes.

"Hey! I was called by you while I was working, not my problem," he countered.

"Lance, please calm down, and don't insult the xenobiologist, and I'm sorry for that," I said, hopefully he won't hold any resentment.

After a short glaring contest, "Well, please keep this robotic asshole away from me, a dumbass who sold his body for something metallic, means nothing to me," he accused. Shit.

"Woah woah woah, calm down, he didn't mean it, honestly, let's just get back on topic guys," I said, holding the Cyborg back, god, I hope the AI didn't hear that.

"Alright, well, while we don't have an advanced scan on them, from the medical scanner, we can tell a multitude of interesting things. The one with the horn is strictly a herbivore, but the one with the wings seems to be an omnivore, but once we showed him meat, he seemed really hesitant, and didn't seem comfortable," he described, while pointing to several low resolution images of the creatures and their body.

"This might mean that while they do have the capacity to eat meat, it must be a cultural taboo," he explained.

"So, it's male? I'm guessing gender works the same as Earth horses?" I asked.

"Yes, but an even more interesting thing is their powers, the pony with wings, as of now dubbed a Pegasus, has been seen to be able to fly, even though it's wings are simply too small to generate enough lift, the other one, referred to as a unicorn, seems to have endless amount of power, but suddenly it just stopped, it seems like it is tired, but it has had no physical exhaustion," he said.

"After the engineers set up the dorms, we have allocated them two, rather big rooms, and while the Pegasus has been a lot relaxed, the unicorn is still bitter, but has had been a lot less tense than usual," he explained. Thankfully the engineers had finished  after they finished the fence, and had been turning the station into an actual planetary base.

"Well do we have surveillance?" I asked, of course we did but I was rather interested on seeing them.

"Of course, I have a shortcut on my laptop," he spoke, showing me an image of our esteemed guests.
> The Footage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


NSS Cyberaid, 2562 12th of February 12:00


It was a rather quiet morning on the station, it's continuous humming filling the mostly quiet corridors with a never ending static.

The once mighty creation lying on it's bottom, it's scars messily filled in with different types of metals and glass. One who looked at it from above could only assume it was a monster, but the truth was much more interesting.

As time went on, creatures that looked like a strange combination of a minotaur and a baby dragon with no scales, as well as a few bipedal, fish like creatures were seen exiting the behemoth. The surrounding area started to be filled with the noise of multiple construction equipment and machines working, as the planetary base become more and more functional every minute.






Bridge



Joseph Anderson


The poor security officer who was injured is making a speedy recovery, while the creature did a number on him, there wasn't any critical damage, the one thing that really worried him was how the other Security department members would take it.

But other than that, the base construction was going well, and the miners from Cargo has struck a decent size of coal and oil, so power wasn't going to be an issue. Or at least, we think so.

Right now I was in the bridge with my fellow heads, discussing what to do.

"Sync, could you please bring up the first contact video," I asked, wanting to catch all of us up.

Without a second to waste, the room's lighting was dimmed and the reinforced glass was blocked off by shutters with a large whiteboard descending down from the roof. When the crew first arrived here, this didn't exist, but since being stuck in space for a month with nothing to do other than play in a small arcade room was a rather boring way to pass time, I was able to convince Michael to build one of those indoor movie theater like things in the Bridge, I'd say it was totally worth the materials.

Finally, the projector turned on and showed the first contact team, from the perspective of the diplomat, Ken I think. But the only thing we saw them doing was them speeding along in their little pod. After the Science department had assured the rest of them that alien bacteria could most likely  do nothing to our bodies, the team members just wore their own respective department uniforms.

"Sync, please skip to the contact footage," I asked, not willing to sit through the slog of having to watch the full video.

A dull, "yes sir," answered my request with the same amount of enthusiasm our resident AI was well known for. Although thankfully spending some time with the crew has made it a bit more friendly, in terms of tone atleast.

As the video sped through their travels, the console showed the ground slowly turning from the lush greens to a slight brown, until finally turning into a rather bland yellow-ish orange sand.

At last, the video stopped being fast forwarded once the team left the pod.

While they traveled to their destination, their target became more clear, and a few buildings started becoming visible.

"What the hell? Those looks like something from Earth, why are the buildings like that?" said Cali, mostly to herself than anyone else. And to make matters stranger, while most of the town seemed pretty empty, a few of the locals also seemed to wear things uncomfortably close to what cowboys used to wear in the wild west.

Everything had a rather old western feel to it, until their (presumably) soldiers came from a large number of tents. "SYNC, please inform us on what kind of armor those resemble, I think I saw it before in a history book," I asked.

"It resembles roman armor around 160 BCE, but the materials used for it seems to be gold, and thus drastically reducing it's efficiency, so it poses no problem to kinetic based weaponry, although it can reflect energy weaponry," replied SYNC.

After a few uncomfortable seconds, more soldiers came along, and they all seemed to have white coat's and blue manes, but they came with a lot more colorful friends as well.

There were six colorful ones, and another soldier, although this one had a few medals pinned to his armor and seemed to command a bit more respect from the others than a typical soldier.

A purple one was wearing a crown and it's height was also a bit taller than the rest while a yellow one wore a cowboy hat like those found in a movies around the 21st century, but there was no other kinds of clothing on the rest.

What followed next was a pretty common interactions between two different intelligent species, one draws a few pictures and the other follows. The one problem they had was the fact that we had 2 of their own in the brig.


A few minutes later


"So, that's it, we just give them those two back, right?" Asked Kevin.

"We could, but we will have to be careful not to let them know of our position, if they do, then we are fucked," Said Geoffrey, wearing his usual armored trenchcoat.

"I agree with the HoS, I can not allow humans to get hurt, and having them know of our base of operations will be a very huge risk I am not willing to make," S.Y.N.C replied.

"Security members are patrolling the fences, right? We have nothing to worry about," I said, this seemed to ease the fears of most of the Heads.






Yesterday


While the diplomatic team arrived from their mission, the members were rather tired, so it was no wonder they completely missed the two unusually fast rain clouds trailing them.

Once the pod reached the Base, the clouds quickly retreated back to where they came from.






Two Hours Later



Silver Sword


"My my, aren't you a handsome stallion," Said the gorgeous, slim mare. I just dumbly stared, unable to believe my luck.

"Uh... hi?" I said, immediately cursing my brain.

The mares eyes slowly started looking down, and my face started heating up. Once her eyes finally came back up to face me, she opened her mouth, and I braced myself for what she would say. "Wake up."

"Huh? What do you mean?" I asked, only to get a hoof to the face.





"Ow!" I yelped, as I sprang up from my bed. Once my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I saw Sunny, hiding her smile with her hoof.

"Sorry, sorry, it was just too good to pass up," She said, failing to muffle her laughter. I will so get her back for that, but after I was able to get over the betrayal. As I began to wake up I started looking at the room we were in.

This place looked a lot better than the one I was in before, the walls were clean and when I looked at the bed I laid in it was almost as white as Princess Celestia's fur, which was saying something. The room had a square shape, and had multiple beds next to each other. There was also a few different types of fruits on a table in the middle of the room.

"Where are we?" I asked, once Sunny finally calmed down enough.

"Don't know, I just woke up a few minutes earlier," She said, still in high spirits.

One of the most interesting thing about this room was the door I saw, I think it was a door, but it had no handle to grab.

"Hey, come over here, look at this, what do you think it is?" I asked, pointing towards the door. Sunny looked at it, and seemed to be in deep thought. After a few seconds, she touched the middle. This seemed to do something right, and the door opened with a hiss.

"... well, I guess we should explore?"
> The Captives
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unknown, Temporary emergency planetary base



S.Y.N.C


Well, interestingly, the local lifeforms are rather 'adorable' according to the crewmembers. I can understand the reason why, with their giant eyes and big heads on top their relatively small bodies, I would say they were almost specifically designed for humans to find them cute. Currently they were wandering the empty base, most of the crewmembers had been told to wait inside the station. Apparently this was a test to see how these creatures behaved. I have also sent my security borg over to talk with it, since they probably don't have the best view of humans, and because they can seriously injure humans, despite what their appearance suggests.

While it is on its way, I was studying the natives, Yellow (pending official name), had a rather large, creamy yellow protrusion on their head, which seems to be the source of its powers. Thankfully, it has not shown any more of its abilities, since it has also been shown to be very exhausted ever since the incident, it may have drained it's powers, it is unclear whether she will regain her capabilities. From how it reacted to the security officer, any further confrontation with this native must be dealt with extreme caution. Its body fur is white and its 'mane' and 'tail' is colored yellow.

It would have been classified as 'dangerous, lethal force authorized', but the Captain has disallowed any form of lethality unless it was self-defence.

The other one, Silver (pending official name), had wings on its back, but the wing span seems too small to be used for flight. It also seems a lot more agreeable than its compatriot. This ones 'mane' and tail' both were white while its body fur was completely grey.

Due to their similarities to Earth equines, we will use equine physiology from now on.

The armor they wore when we captured them appears to be made of iron, but it has also shown to be way more durable than what normal iron should be like, however due to the armors bright coloring, it can be very easily spotted if you look closely enough.






Silver Sword


"This is so boring," I grumbled. Sunny only nodded. Sunny and I have been exploring this place for a good 30 minutes and we still haven't found anything of use. "Would have thought we would come across something interesting."

Now, you may be wondering why I hadn't tried to fly away and warn everyone else, but there was a problem with that... My wings were cuffed, now, we were taught how to get out of cuffs, but they actually bound my wings with metal shackles, and if we tried to get it off without the proper equipment, then this place will probably be filled with a lot more bloody feathers than it was right now.

But while I was musing to myself, we snuck past another closed building and we looked at a giant... I don't even know what it's supposed to be. It seemed to be what I saw from before, and at the time I thought it was a base, but looking at it from this close, it looked way stranger than I thought (which was saying something). It was giant, and the outside seemed to be made of some sort of metal, every now and then there were some bits of glass, but it seemed like they closed those parts off with more of that metal.

It seems like it crashed into the earth, judging by the unnatural scars and dead plants the area surrounding it had. How the buck did they manage to get it high enough to get craters like these? I had no idea. Hoping to learn more, we tried going inside, but the strange red doors on the outside didn't open up, only blinking red and beeping, made me think of a toy robot I used to play with back when I was a colt.

This entire place seemed way too realized to be new, but that made me question how the buck they managed to be here without being detected for so long. While we went away from the strange structure, we came across a rather large hole with a building next to it, this might be were they were getting their materials.

"Well, what now? We went everywhere we could around here," I whispered, hoping she had a plan. She only furrowed her brows and looked at the ground intensely in response.

clink clink clink

But while she was thinking up a plan, I started musing on our situation. For the most part, I had no idea what these beings were thinking, leaving us basically completely unguarded, and why this place seemed so empty, and that honestly scared me more than any amount of these creatures.

clink clink clink

But while she was thinking up a plan and I was musing on our situation, I started hearing something, and that something sounded like someone was tapping the ground with a metal pole repeatedly, and it was getting louder. Sunny also seemed to hear it, judging by her expression. We looked at each other, and nodded, before going as fast and quietly as we could to some sort of cover or anything really. In the end, we ducked behind some sort of crate.

clink

It stopped, and if my ears were correct, then it was right behind this crate, which made me turn to stone due to what this could mean for me and Sunny.

We were hiding in the vein hope that it still didn't know where we were. *Come out, no harm shall come to you* it said something, its voice having an echo that sounded unlike anything I heard before.

There was nothing else here other than us two, which means that it knew we are here, but we still hid in the vein hope that it would somehow go away. After a few minutes past by, I slowly started getting up, there really wasn't way we could get out of this one without being caught. While Sunny seemed pretty annoyed, she joined me.

What was standing there made me thing of a very deformed giant spider. It had four legs, but the legs had red cables connecting it to the rest of its body. The main body was colored red while its middle was mostly grey, to its sides there were two strange u shaped things with a glow within them, and finally, on top of its body, its head was in the shape of a pill. And the whole body, from its legs to its head, seemed to be covered in some sort of metal, which I assume to be some sort of armor.

It made me think of those experimental golems that were headlining the news lately, which made me all the more confused as to how they got this thing.






Security Cyborg-339


"S.Y.N.C, I have found the natives, awaiting further instructions," I signaled.

"Good, don't threaten them, try and act as non-threatening as possible, we need to be able to make them trust us if we want to get on good terms with them," S.Y.N.C ordered. I added the task to my already extensive list and gave it a rather high priority.

Using my built in tasers, I pointed to myself.

"Greetings, I am 339."

They seemed confused, before Yellow suddenly seemed to understand what I was trying to do. It cautiously pointed to itself and then to its friend and said. *I'm Sunny Skies, this is Silver Sword*

I moved my head up and down, trying to emulate humans. This might go better than predicted.

While I definitely disagreed with how quickly we were gonna release them, it wasn't my place to judge the AI and especially the Heads decision.





Whatever it was, it didn't seem like it wanted to fight us. But we couldn't let our guards down, no matter what.

I looked over to Silver and motioned towards the thing. "What do you think it is?" I whispered, while it most likely couldn't understand what we were saying, it still felt more secure this way.

"Don't know."

But while we were still debating on what it was and what it wanted, it took the initiative and started drawing on the floor with one of its legs. After a few minutes, it finally finished. What it drew gave me a invigorated sense of hope. There were two stick ponies, then the two stick ponies were surrounded by multiple other ponies, and between the two scenes was an arrow, pointing left to right, and above it was the sun, but at an angle.
> Sorry, Princesses orders
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Equestria, Canterlot, 1156 AC 22nd of June, 17:00



Celestria, Princess


Day court, one of the few ways she could understand how things in her kingdom were going, and also a way to get a feel for the general publics feelings on her most recent decisions. And she liked to believe she had gained quite the patience in dealing with some of her more... special little ponies, but even she had her limits.

Currently, there was a noble trying to convince her to place a ban on griffins, because one of the mail griffins lost his package of 'important' perfume. Of course, she could have easily just sent him on his way without having to wait for his full life story on why he needs perfume, but the media loved to make things look much worse than it actually was. So here she was, forced to just sit here, waiting till he finished.

But praise be whatever god that ruled this realm, since just before he went into another tangent, a royal messenger galloped into the throne room.

"My apologies for the intrusion, your Highness," He bowed, "but this is urgent," He said, hoofing me the scroll he kept inside his saddle bag.

"Oh my, while I would love to help you as best as I could, Gold Coin, there are matters that need my immediate attention, Day court, adjourned."

"But Princess-" however, before he could finish, I quickly walked out the back door. After sighing in relief, I glanced at the scroll.

I looked over to the royal messenger who was walking alongside me. "Can you please go inform Princess Luna to meet at my study room?"

"Right away, you highness," he said with quite a bit of conviction, before galloping off, and almost trampling a poor maid, to which I silently chuckled.






A few minutes later


"Tia? Are thou here?" Luna asked, creeping into the dark study room.

"We- I was told to meet you here, what is the matter?" she looked around, searching for any sign of her sister.

The room was rather large, the walls being completely filled with bookshelves, all holding about a thousand different books the owner found interesting or just plain out enjoyable, with a small little section dedicated to a certain Lavender alicorn and her friendship reports.

While she was looking for her, she came across her desk, or more importantly, the scroll on top of the desk itself. However, before she got the chance to read it, there was a sudden creak of the door opening, and when she turned to look, in came Celestia holding a half eaten cupcake.

"Oh, Luna, sorry about the delay, I was waiting for you, but you took a while, so I went to get something to eat."

"Apologies, I was in quite a deep sleep, and I wasn't expecting one of your Day guard to barge into my bedroom," Luna flushed, slightly embarrassed. Although deep inside she was a bit proud and happy that her personal guards had been able to takedown her sisters guard without any trouble.

"Well, now that we have both arrived, I guess I should inform you on why I awoken you." She said. "Remember when I informed you about the two guards who got captured?"

"Yes, those creatures shall regret their transgressions against us," Luna declared, head held high.

"But thankfully, it seems that Twilight and her friends, along with their security detail, have ran into said creatures, and it appears they sent a diplomatic team. No real progress had been made, but we have confirmation of them returning. They have also discovered their base of operations, and worryingly, it is quite close to a little town called Dodge Junction." Celestia sighed.

Lunas eyes suddenly expanded at the last bit of information.

Celestia noticed Lunas reaction. "Are you alright sister?" Celestia looked with worry towards Luna.

She shook her head a bit, before looking right at her sister. "Tell me where, exactly."






Equestria, Dodge Junction, Temporary Royal Guard camp


"Princess Twilight Sparkle, please understand, this is simply too dangerous for you and your friends." said the diplomat once again.

"And as I said before, we were sent here by Celestia herself, I think we can handle ourselves, especially with all these guards to protect us."

It looked as if the diplomat was going to continue arguing, but in the end, she simply sighed. Currently, it would only be a few hours before the creatures would return, so the camp was busy preparing everything for the meeting.

Guards ran to and fro, either making defenses, more tents for the newly arrived diplomats or patrolling the camp.





Far far away, five griffins were flying in a formation, with grim determination in their eyes. Whatever happened, they had to be prepared, for if their intelligence was correct, then the equestrians were planning something, something big. They had been flying for a good few days, so the fatigue was getting to them, but they were close.

They had cameras, notes and ink, all ready to report anything they saw, straight to the king.

But on their way to the Pony village called Dodge junction, one of their own spotted a strange large dark grey structure, with other smaller buildings surrounding it. Their leader, quickly yelled for them to land.






Unknown, Temporary Planetary Base


The red cyborg simply sat still, looking behind the fenced wall with a robotic coldness. After a bit, it noticed something flying in the distance, but after a bit of scrutinizing, it simply decided it was a flock of birds flying by.

Behind it, there were multiple humans in the usual engineering uniform hard at work, making the different departments their own buildings.

One of the main problems they were facing was power, they had decided to use old school coal and oil power generators, but this wouldn't be able to fully sustain a base for multiple years, or even months, so they were still trying to come up with a way to fix it.

Inside a dorm room, two peculiar beings were in very good spirits. But there was still one question inside their minds.

"Why?"

"What do you mean?" Silver asked.

"I attacked one of them, yet they are going out of their way to have us be comfortable. This bed is almost as big as the Princesses, and probably just as soft, these fruits are the most tasty ones I ever ate, it could even give the Apples a run for their money."

Silver rubbed his chin. "Maybe they regret their decision? It could be an apology."

"Hmm, maybe," She said.

"Well, until we get sent back, want to go explore?"

"They probably won't allow it. I think last time was a fluke"

"Or they could have been trying to get our trust."

"You're way too trusting, you know that?"

"Hey, isn't that what friendship is all about," He said, trying to imitate the newest Princess.

Sunny simply rolled her eyes, not amused with her friends antics.
> The interview
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sol Gov Controlled Space, Epsilon Eridani sector, NAS Trurl


The airlock near the back end of a brightly lit room opened with a hiss, revealing a man in a yellow coverall, wearing dirty gloves and a yellow satchel. There was also a ID card clipped onto his shirt, reading "Occupation: Miner, Assignment: NSS Cyberaid". Once the man entered the room, he noticed another man, with a slight stubble under his chin, wearing a business suit, shades and holding a notebook in one hand, resting on a comfy looking chair. "Hey, sorry for the wait." He sheepishly said.

The man with shades simply shook his head. "Oh it's fine, please, have a seat." He gestured towards a metal stool.

While the miner made his way towards the seat, he looked around the room a bit. It was quite a modest room, with only a few potted plants, a metal table and two seats, with a giant mirror in the back, although he wasn't expecting much from an interrogation room.

Once he finally sat down, the other man extended his arm. "Hello, I'm agent Alfred."

"Hi, I'm Jack," He shook Alfred's arm.

"Now Jack, I will be asking you a series of questions regarding the disappearance of NSS Cyberaid."

"Ok," He nodded.

"First off, where were you during the incident?"

"I was inside the mining outpost."

Agent Alfred nodded, before looking towards the notebook he was holding. "Do you know what was happening before you lost contact with the station?"

"The only thing we got was some scrambled messages from the captain. From what we could decipher, he told not to use the shuttle, no matter what."

"I see," He said. "And then?"

"Nothing."

"No radio messages?"

"I mean literally nothing. There was a loud boom, and then nothing. When we came to, my buddy decided to check up on the station, but there was nothing outside the shuttle when he got there, not even debris."

"..." Alfred's looked into Jacks eyes, searching for an ounce of deceit, but nodded in satisfaction soon after. "Thank you for your time, you may go, we will have a shuttle ready to send you to the nearest research station."

He looked like he wanted to ask something, but decided against it and went away. Alfred turned towards the mirror in the back of the room. "So, what do you think, doc?"

"Vatever it vas, it vas poverful enough to destroy several of our bluespace disturbance detection machines, as well as knockout people from a few hundred kilometres avay, vith a shockvave that moved through space." Came a voice from his earpiece.

"So, it's strong."

"That vould be quite ze understatement, mine friend."






Equestria, Dodge Junction


Shield watched several guards making wooden defenses with interest. The camp was looking more and more like an actual base of operations, which would hopefully send the message "Don't mess with us" towards the creatures.

Farther along, he could see the diplomats, linguists along with the elements discussing something that would hopefully fix this whole mess.

But unbeknownst to him or any other pony, there was a group of five feathery griffons hiding on top a cloud, taking as many pictures and notes as they could without drawing attention to themselves.






A few hours earlier


"Look there, that ones holding something in its paws." The only female of their group pointed towards one of the bipeds. Unlike the rest of the bipeds, this one was red, and the fact that it almost looked like it was standing at attention reminded her of a griffin warrior.

"Seems they have a few lookouts, be careful, we can't get caught, no matter what." Their captain informed everygriffin once again. "We should get a move on, the Equestrians are still up to something, somegriff make a note about their base and location."

Once they made a note of where they were, they started making their way towards Dodge Junction. However, so as to not get caught, they were forced to go on claw for the rest of the journey, at least until they got far enough away from the bipeds.






Unknown, Temporary Planetary Base


Kevin was not having the best day as of now. Almost everyone excluding that damned clown was doing double time to get the base up and running. Things were going well, he guessed, they managed to hit a large coal vein, so power wasn't gonna be an issue, they also managed to finish most of the department specific buildings, and they all had air conditioning! Although, there was never the good without the bad.

For instance, once they managed to dig out the pile of rubble blocking the Research section of Science, they found out that most of their advanced research had been lost in the crash, meaning they had to re-research them, which was a pain in the ass. And a few of the outside reinforced gas chambers had been busted open, thankfully the Plasma canister was still relatively unscathed.

While he was musing at the misfortune of this situation, he noticed Jess approaching him.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Just got the captives on the pod, just waiting on you now." Jess informed him.

"Right, I'll be there in a bit."






Equestria, Dodge Junction


"Princess Twilight Sparkle, are you sure you don't need any guards around to protect you?"

"It shouldn't be me you're worried for, look after the citizens in their houses, my friends and I can handle ourselves." She said, getting slightly annoyed with the constant pampering she was getting.

The guard looked as though he wanted to protest, but one final sharp look from Twilight stopped him from continuing.

This brief exchange was suddenly derailed by an abnoxiously loud yawn. "Hey, I know this is important and all, but is there even a reason for me to be here? It just seems like we have to knock some sense into these deformed diamond dogs, and go on our way." Rainbow remarked.

"Ugh, could you at least show some manners in public."

"What? I can't help it if the only thing we've been doing is just standing here."

"Well, to answer your question Rainbow, these so called 'deformed diamond dogs' appear to be a whole new species, and judging by their weird clothing, they have a thriving civilization as well, it's imperative we be here to show them that we take them seriously."

"Still, couldn't Luna or someone else do this instead?"

"Luna and Celestia are too busy dealing with the courts, and Cadence is getting ready for her anniversary."

"I don't mind being here, if it means the towns ponies feel a bit safer." Fluttershy admitted.

"Fine fine, whatever, I'll be in the tent." Rainbow mumbled, clearly irritated.





Surprisingly, it was quite spacey within the pod, even with the two equines.

Silver was however, feeling quite claustrophobic from being trapped in this enclosed space with multiple of the creatures. Sunny however was only glaring at them, daring them to make a move they would regret, even if she was suffering from magic exhaustion, she could still fight... if they weren't tied up.

"You know, if we get lucky, maybe the others could find our bodies once we kick the bucket." Sunny muttered darkly, already imagining what they were planning to do.

"You don't have to drag me down too, you know..." Silver sadly mumbled.