Beyond Forsaken Skies

by Shadow Watcher

First published 2nd of December, 2018

One pony alone against a galaxy.

Awaking from a crash, a lone pony must face the consequences of choices. Some are her own. Most are thrust upon her. Alone, she must find the strength to right her wrongs and find her heart’s desire.

Log 1

Beyond Forsaken Skies 1

Log 1

Blinking away the kiss of sleep, she slowly came awake. A hoof reached up and slapped the console, the annoying beeping stopping. Across her screens several things blinked red. Red wasn’t good.

She yawned and rolled her shoulders, feeling and hearing the pops from being strapped in this position. Ah, green. Green was much better than red. But what was...ah, her environment suit. Even better.

She blinked a few more times before focusing on the screen in front of her. Landing gear was in the clear. Thrusters and warp drive were offline, both blinking red. Ship weapons also offline.

She took a breath before yawning again. Leaning back, she stared up into the sky above her. This ship wasn’t going anywhere, for now. Thoughts ran through her head: the scanners were functioning, use them to find the resources needed to repair the ship. Once it was repaired, she’d be able to take-off. And then she’d be able to continue.

She lifted her right forehoof, examining it with her scanner. <i><b>Mining laser functional.<i><b> Good, she would need its use in procuring resources. Hopefully she wouldn’t need to travel too far.

Looking over the error reports, she quickly made a note of each damaged component and the resources necessary to repair them. One final suit check later, she took a breath and punched a button.

The hatch sprung open, and she quickly followed after. Summersaulting two times, two small thrusters on her back ignited, letting her perform a control touch down. Nodding to herself in self-satisfaction, she took a breath and looked back.

Her face contorted into a grimace beneath her faceplate. There was no denying the ship had seen far better days. Smoke curled from the thrusters. Sparks were spat out of various places. And scorch marks covered a good further portion. However, it was her ship. The scans showed it was repairable. But it was definitely going to take some hard work.

Good thing she was no stranger to it.

************

Frustration. That’s what plagued her now. For two hours, she’d trudged along, scanning every mineral she could find, sending out pulses every now and then, and when something finally blips on her map, it has to be beneath her.

But it seemed there was no choice for it. Not with the charge on her life support system gradually ticking down.

She shot her laser a glare. Too weak to cut through the rock. A quick look through her menus revealed a couple blueprints to juice it up, but even then it wouldn’t be strong enough. If she ever got off this world, maybe she could find an upgrade. For she knew, there could be a cache of some kind on this planet, but the odds of her finding it made her shove those thoughts aside.

There was only so much rambling could done before procrastination became undeniable.

Then again, there’s also only so much searching before it became perfectly clear she would not be getting anywhere with this pocket.

With a final glare downward, she marked the coordinates with her visor and marched on.

***********

Two hours. Three hours. She’d combed a good portion of the area with her scanner, and her search had born a bit of fruit. It hadn’t been much, but she had found a small bit of a resource she needed.

Not to mention the bit of mineral she needed to power her suits life support systems. That one seemed to be a bit more abundant, so that was a plus.

Still, her initial assessment had been proven correct. This world was almost barren. Just a hair’s breath away from lifelessness.

She walked off her disappointment. On the other hand, that meant little in the way of distraction. At least until she did find something. Life, any kind of life, was fascinating. No matter how horrifying it could be.

She sat and watched the new day dawn from a steep hill. A dawn produced from the slow rotation of the planet beneath her hooves. Out there, beyond this sky, everything was moving. Hurtling, really. All to some unknown end.

She sighed and turned away from the light. Her frown deepened. Curious, she stood and walked fifty paces to her right. There was a gouge. Quickly, she turned her head, trying to follow the path. There! About a kilometer ahead. She used her jet pack to drop from the hill, rushing as fast as her suit would allow.

Cresting the next hill, which turned out to have quite a large drop off, she stopped. A starship. A rather bulky design, probably a shuttle. Even if it were in worse shape than her fighter, spare parts!

She did a little dance where she stood, then looked over the small cliff-face. Too steep to climb, but the drop wasn’t too bad.

She took a few steadying breaths and stepped out into empty space. A short countdown and...thrusters! Her hooves gently touched down onto the barren dirt and rock once more.

The ship was definitely a shuttle. A small one at that. Remarkable intact, at least on the outside. Only a couple dents and scratches from its crash.

She walked around to the front, but hesitated. After a minute, she reached forward and tap the cockpit control. Empty.

A quick look around revealed no bodies either. Had the owner gone out to scavenge? Had they been rescued? She hopped into the seat; she started when it automatically molded to her shape. Sitting snug and comfy, she brought up the ship controls. Only a few red errors popped up. Fewer than her ships.

Ah. The shuttle must’ve crashed a long time ago. Every starship had a registry, linked to the owner. If a ship became unregistered...the pilot must’ve gone out to get materials for repairs. And never came back.

She leaned back. It wouldn’t take nearly as much resources to repair the shuttle. In fact, she’s found several pockets of what she would need about a mile back the way she’d come.

She tapped a hoof, weighing the pros and cons.

Log 2

Beyond Forsaken Skies 2

Log 2
It had been far easier to repair the shuttle’s ignition thrusters than she’d anticipated. Flying it to where her fighter had crashed had been another matter.

The controls were sluggish from lack of use, not to mention the system parts that needed repairing. She quickly found it tended to list to the right.

But after an hour of careful flying, she made it back to her crash site.
And currently had both ships gutted. The technologies were slightly different, but it really wasn’t too hard to get them to play nice. The only thing that stunk was the no choice of an easy fix on the warp drive. She hadn’t found any of the rare minerals she needed for it, and she doubted there were any on this barren rock. Hopefully there were other worlds in this system.

As far as she could tell, it had to be an uninhabited system. If there had been a station or settlement, someone would have come check on her crash. But if the shuttle had been here as long as she thought....odds were slim anyone else with spaceflight was around.

She made a few more adjustments, turned, and kicked the final hatch closed, just barely hearing a thing in the thin atmosphere.

Moment of truth.

There was a faint hiss as the hatch sealed her in.

The seat molded itself around her body, letting her sit in some comfort.

She tapped out a few commands, and the ship jolted as it launched. She performed s few simple turns and maneuvers, found the controls much better than before, then turned her sights upward.

The ship burst forward and upward as she ignited the boosters. The atmosphere thinned out completely in just a few seconds giving way to the full vacuum of space.

Letting the boosters go idle, she slowly eased the engines back until the ship was just floating.

No warnings popped up, all systems were green (the ones that mattered most anyway). After some final checks, she leaned back to see just what kind of system she had woken up in.

She stared.

She didn’t know for how long, but she sat in that cockpit, staring. Drifting.

She was fortunate. The planet now below her was not the only one of this system. There were two others. Well. One and a half.

The next planet in line was intact, but scans showed signs of turmoil. She would need to investigate further. But the planet farthest off....

The planet was in...tatters. A good chunk, almost half by the looks, had been blown out, creating a huge field of debris. And while she was too far to be sure...she swore she could see a few hulls floating listlessly amongst it.

She looked away with a heavy sigh. So. This was the result, was it? Certainly explained why she had crashed. But looking at the carnage before her gave her no indication of how long she had been out.

It wasn’t that she had no memories. She remembered plenty. Equestria. An apple orchard. Pink, purple, cyan, white, yellow. And it all meant so much to her.

But her memories of just before waking up in that cockpit? Hazy. Blurry. A blinding light. Panic. And that was all. There wasn’t anything else.

But reminiscing could wait; she still had one planet to exploit (which she didn’t feel too bad about, since scans showed it was another near-lifeless world) some very much needed minerals and other resources.

Maybe then she could bring herself to see the carnage up close.

She tore her gaze back onto her controls and screens. If she’d done her math right, she should just have enough impulse fuel to get her to the closer planet. And if not...at least it wouldn’t take her nearly as long at regular propulsion. Without impulse, if she started now she’d get there in three days. Impulse could get her there in less than ten minutes. Even a small amount of impulse would give her a powerful burst of propulsion. Propulsion was everything out here.

That was how space was: once you got going, you only stopped by manually slowing your vessel, hitting an object, or by a strong gravitational pull. Though that last one really only affected trajectory. Even then, it had to be a very strong gravitational force (such as a star or large enough planetoids). All of which was also moving.

The area between seemed pretty clear, but it was best to use some caution. She reignited her thrusters, getting the shuttle up to speed with the boosters, then she pushed and held the impulse ignition. Watching the small countdown, she felt her seat slide down a bit, slight bracing her.

No leaning forward. Sluggish movement. Held in place from the sheer g-forces holding her down.
Fuel gauge was good, steadily going down, but at this rate, she’d be dropping out with some fuel to spare.

A blip on her radar caught her eye, and she braced just in time as the ship dropped from impulse. She grabbed the controls, barely veering off and slowing to avoid the massive object quickly approaching ahead. She pulled the ship back.

A derelict freighter, the hull heavily damaged in places, drifted quietly in her path. Light still shone from the hangars; perhaps someone was still alive?

She idly tapped a hoof on the armrest. She still had plenty of fuel for the impulse engine. And there was a good chance she could find more aboard. Plus whatever cargo had survived.

The pros easily won out. She pulled her shuttle around, making a slow, cautious approach, feeling the slight jolt as the controls were taken from her by the auto-docking system.