Ultimatum

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Main 6, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Science Fiction, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, Human
Length: 15717

Celestia and Luna were created by aliens to rule Equestria in the name of their creators. They decided not to. Everything worked out okay, until their creators returned to collect their due. That's when Twilight Sparkle got involved...

When a race of powerful ancient beings return to Equestria after an absence of thousands of years, it isn't to the sort of world they expected. Twilight Sparkle is now the first and last line of defense in a conflict that will decide the future of her planet.

Yes, there is life on other planets. This would be fascinating news to Twilight, had they come under more peaceful circumstances. Unfortunately, Thanks to Equestria's princesses, that life is angry and has come for its due.

Art by the fantastic Zutcha, as usual. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

This story was written based on a simple idea from the HiE group forums. I haven't followed the idea exactly, but there's still a spoiler warning for those who want to check it out.

Published 2016-03-12 11:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-12 11:50:01 UTC

Landfall

Twilight heard shouting in the throne room. She almost didn't slow down as she passed, occupied as she was with balloons, streamers, and other party supplies levitating behind her. Pinkie Pie would be expecting her. However flexible Pinkie could be, she was not okay with tardiness where parties were concerned.

Twilight had heard plenty of angry voices in audience with Celestia, and she wasn't surprised that she couldn't understand the language of the one shouting. Never mind that Equestria's rulers literally controlled the sky, foreign dignitaries often thought they could intimidate merely by force of personality. Even knowing how important this party was, she couldn't help but slow and listen.

Though the guards standing outside the door eyed her nervously, that was all she got. As she listened, she not only couldn't understand what the speaker was saying, but she couldn't even name the language the speaker was using. A few moments later, Celestia answered the speaker in their own language, as humble as ever Twilight had heard her.

Whatever her talent with magic, Twilight Sparkle was no polyglot. She didn't have Celestia's thousand-year-reign to learn every language on the planet. Yet Twilight couldn't even identify this language. The syllables were too clear, the diction rapid but not sounding clipped and strange as minotaur languages did. Nor did it have the characteristic reverberation of changeling language, or the grace of the Prench. It wasn't deep like dragon speech, nor guttural as Saddle Arabian could be.

In short, the language was alien. Twilight closed her eyes, concentrating briefly on the upstairs bedroom where she knew Pinkie Pie was still waiting. With a little flare of magic, light flashed from beside her, and the party supplies vanished. Teleporting the supplies to Pinkie was a little impersonal, but Twilight couldn't help herself. She had to know who (and what) Celestia was talking to.

It wasn't as though she expected to keep her friend waiting too much longer. She was a princess, after all. So she was a little caught off-guard when, instead of opening the door the guards crossed their spears over it, blocking the way.

Twilight stopped, and tried to imitate the royal decorum she regularly saw from Celestia. “Excuse me, but I'd like to go in.”

Poor guards — their discomfort was practically thick enough to taste. They looked from one to another, before a pale-haired pegasus looked up. “Princess Celestia said... absolutely no interruptions.”

“She named you specifically, Princess,” his companion added. “We're sorry, but you can't go in.”

Twilight reeled backward, eyes widening a little. She turned, and hurried away down the hall without another word. Celestia had specifically banned her from a diplomatic meeting Twilight hadn't even been told was happening, despite being in the palace at the time. Had the princess told her about the meeting and let her know she wasn't needed, that would've been one thing. But keeping it secret—

Twilight Sparkle didn't do well with secrets. Her trot shifted into a canter as she swerved down a side-passage, hurrying towards a set of stairs. She hadn’t become Celestia’s apprentice, hadn’t become an alicorn by leaving mysteries unexplored. There was always another secret, and always a proper way to dig them out. Sometimes that meant the scientific method, or the right book. Other times it was sneaking around to a side-passage once used by servants to bring refreshments to lordly ponies as they waited in their audience-box.

As Twilight had expected, the hallway had no guards. The doors were all locked now, so it couldn’t be used to access the throne-room. True as that might be, it had several discrete peepholes, and nice thin walls. She slowed her pace dramatically, placing each hoof with care. True, the shouting would cover her hoofsteps. But what if there was a lull in the conversation? As curious as she was, Twilight did not want to be discovered skulking around, and make Celestia’s negotiating position worse. From the screaming, the visiting dignitaries were not happy.

More evidence to them not being dragons, she told herself. Not enough fire.

Twilight slowed as she reached the first peephole. She held her breath as she levitated the wood out of the way, pressing her eye down against the opening. What she saw probably would’ve made her cry out if she hadn’t already been holding her breath. Instead she staggered away, letting the wood rotate back into place even as she tried to match the beings she had seen with her knowledge of the life of her planet.

Twilight didn’t walk down to the closer peepholes, that was too slow. Flying wasn’t an option, not in the cramped confines of the servant’s corridor. Instead, she levitated, zipping down through the space even as the aliens continued their passionate protest on the other side of thin wooden walls. She couldn’t understand a word of it, but that didn’t really matter. Twilight landed next to the last of the openings, the one right beside the dais Celestia always sat on, and moved it out of the way. This way, she could get a clear glance at the front of the dignitaries, instead of only looking from the back.

It did not make them less strange. The figures were tall and lean, with agile limbs and flat features. They wore formal outfits, which wasn’t all that unusual for visiting dignitaries, though rarely had she seen clothes that covered so much. Their uniforms (for all were modeled in a similar style) were tight without being restrictive, cut from navy and accentuated with black and yellow.

The foremost of the group was the one speaking, and she was surprised to see he didn’t seem to be overwhelmed with emotion as his voice had first suggested. Rather, the tall figure’s voice seemed to carry with the force of a speaking spell, shaking even though his face remained collected. He had no fur at all, his face pale and his forehead bare. Indeed, she saw no fur on the newcomers, except for atop the heads of the other three.

Two of those remained well back, standing at either side and watching with an alert professionalism Twilight had come to expect from guards. Well… maybe not guards. They weren’t trying to look alert, as many of Celestia’s untested Solar Guard acted. These beings were soldiers, expressions intense and eyes focused. Foreign weapons weren’t allowed into Celestia’s presence, and Twilight could see none, but they did each carry bulky bricks of metal which they held like weapons. Were those clubs? If so, why bother with all the little buttons and openings?

The last of the figures was also the smallest, and Twilight guessed it for a female. It seemed a safe guess, both because the creature was smaller than her peers and because her voice was higher, almost as high as a pony’s. Come to think of it, the speaker’s vocal range might’ve been fairly typical for a stallion if he wasn’t using some kind of voice-amplification spell.

But if he’s using a spell, where’s the aura? Twilight’s thaumaturgical sensitivity was among the best in all Equestria, and she could sense no active magic from these beings. Wait, no. The female was doing something. The target seemed to be internal though, because Twilight could sense no flow outward. Where’s her horn?”

Unfortunately, spying through hidden peepholes didn’t overwhelm her with opportunities to get another angle and try to see where this strange species hid its magical organs.

Their conversation continued, Celestia occasionally replying in their alien tongue with the fluency of a native speaker. She did not seem to be using a translation spell. How had Celestia learned the tongue of a species so rare Twilight had never even heard of them?

She sat back, considering even as she prepared a translation spell of her own. The strangers wore fine clothes, as fine as anything a Canterlot tailor could’ve sewn. Not only that, but the strange things they carried had the look of technology, even if Twilight couldn’t gauge function from so far away. Yet such things did not suggest remote, isolated tribes. Isolation bred stagnation, and little cultures couldn’t support technology. Either Celestia had given them what they carried, or they were more numerous than some remote village hidden on an island somewhere.

What were they? Twilight didn’t know yet, but she intended to find out. Translation spells were tricky business, far harder than levitating down a hallway or even most of what she had done for her friends over the years. Translating required establishing a metal bridge and extracting meaning from the words the other spoke. Such spells could not actually impart knowledge to the caster, nor could they be used without a native speaker present (such as for translating documents). Still, they would serve for her purposes here.

A few more seconds, and the spell was ready. Twilight didn’t even have to open the peephole to cast, and that was probably for the best anyway. However majestic Celestia might be with her flowing mane and magical aura, strange flashes of lights from the dais upon which she sat would probably be noticed.

A few more seconds, and she let the spell loose. It zoomed unseen through the wood, searching out the strange beings and connecting their minds to her. The connection was subconscious and extremely weak, but it would do for extracting their meanings. The voice of their lead speaker began to stretch and distort in her head, warping into a form she would understand. Had she been speaking to them, her own voice would’ve done the same.

Suddenly, she could understand.

“This is completely unacceptable, EU-81 Alpha. The terms of your creation were explicit. Your purpose was given, and you have failed. The terms of your failure were established; what were they?”

Twilight couldn’t see Celestia through the wood, yet from her tone she sounded almost meek. “Our destruction. If we lived and did not succeed, you were going to replace us. Have you judged us failed, then?”

“I don’t know. Torres, are you finished with your report?”

As Twilight opened the peephole again, she could see the female clutching a flat piece of metal to her chest, nodding. “I am, sir.”

“Very good.” He gestured vaguely towards the throne. “Please tell EU-81 Alpha and Beta what we think of their performance.”

The female looked almost apologetic as she advanced a pace, standing beside the larger male. She lowered her little metal slab, which she began to read as though it were a book. “Kepler-442b, local designation Equis. Analysis indicates a scale zero early-industrial. Installed electrical capacity of about fifty million kilowatts. None of the planet’s civilizations appear to possess mass production, industrial farming, or even rudimentary space travel. There are no nuclear refineries, no artificial satellites manned or unmanned, no evidence of programmable computers. According to projections, global population has reached capacity at about eight-hundred million.” She stopped, lowering her pad and returning her eyes to the ground.

“Would you dispute any of that information, EU-81 subjects Alpha and Beta?”

“I wouldn’t.” Celestia’s voice remained impassive.

“Though I have never heard those figures, they sound accurate. I do not dispute them.” Luna spoke for the first time, apparently hidden on the other side of the dais.

The alien’s superior didn’t seem satisfied, however. “Specialist, please log that the report has been verified and read the formal performance report. Fleet Command is going to expect we follow procedure exactly, after all.”

She frowned, then leaned down over her thin pad, digits of one limb dancing over it. Twilight marveled at the dexterity in each tiny finger, which seemed to give these beings finer motor control than dragon claws or a minotaur paws. There were no pads to interfere, nor bones or any other defensive organs. Maybe that was why they had brought a pair of club-wielding guards along; they didn’t even have hooves to buck with.

They didn’t have wings either, or sharp teeth, or any other obvious defensive features. They couldn’t run all that fast with just two limbs, could they? Unless they only stood up like this to look bigger. Yet tall or not, Twilight couldn’t even imagine lecturing both princesses at once! The tall male at their head had the tone of a parent dressing down a rebellious child. Yet hadn’t he said something about destroying them?

Twilight leaned closer, getting as close as she could to the wood without moving too far to look through the peephole.

The female, apparently named Torres, continued. “Based on the information we have gathered, I recommend Special Project 442-Reclamation be considered failing based on the following objectives. Primary: isolate and remove chaos anomaly (successful). Restore planetary rhythms to planet Kepler 442 (successful). Guide resulting civilization through to classification 1 (failure). Secondary: construct a near-liminal starship (failure). Maintain stable civilization (failure).”

Again she looked almost apologetic as she stepped back, not looking either towards the throne or to her superior.

The princesses didn’t argue. Twilight couldn’t see them to know how they were feeling, yet neither spoke. Why aren’t you saying anything, Celestia? Why’d you let these creatures come into your castle and treat you like this? There were more questions, just as pressing. How had they got into the castle without anypony noticing, for instance?

“Thank you, Torres.” The male looked up again. “I will pass my recommendation to the fleet. The next admiralty meeting should be…” He glanced down to a little metal square on his wrist, then looked up. “Three days from now. I have no doubt in my mind they will vote to have you terminated and replaced. I mention as a matter of courtesy that whatever remarks you prepare for your replacements—”

Twilight Sparkle could listen no longer. Whatever supernatural composure Equestria’s diarchs might have, she lacked. She was not going to listen to these creatures chastise her deific mentor like she was a misbehaving foal. Before anypony else in the room beyond could say another word, Twilight teleported.

A point-to-point transport within visual range was trivial for her now, requiring little concentration. Even so, her emotions were intense enough that she brought a flash of light and a little explosion of air with her, ruffling the invaders’ uniforms and causing them to stagger back in surprise. The guards were less startled, and both pointed their strange clubs at her. Neither moved to swing them as she started to yell. She didn’t bother using a voice-boosting spell, she was already too upset for that.

“How dare you!” Stunned silence. “I don’t know where you ponies think you are, but this is Equestria! Princess Celestia and Princess Luna may’ve accepted your visit, but that doesn’t mean they have to tolerate such uncivil treatment! Not only are you threatening the princesses, but your threats aren’t even factually accurate! Can you look outside and really say Equestria isn’t stable? There hasn’t been civil conflict for a thousand years! I’m not sure about the rest of what you were talking about but even by your own definitions it seems like more successes than failures on your list!”

She turned, looking up to the throne. She expected to see satisfaction on Celestia’s face, or at the very least gratitude that somepony had finally spoken up. What she didn’t expect was for the princess to seem not just shocked, but horrified at her presence. Luna just looked disappointed, but Celestia… was that fear? Twilight wilted; fear was the one thing she had never expected to see from her mentor. If Tirek couldn’t make her afraid, if Discord couldn’t… what could?

“Are you quite finished?” The alien diplomat didn’t seem intimidated by her teleportation or her anger, though he did watch her with interest.

“No.” Twilight’s anger had faded, but she had already gone this far. Might as well finish what she had come to say. “I don’t know what you ponies did to ‘evaluate’ Equestria. I don’t know who you think you are that you’ve got any right to. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s just not good science. Evaluating something by what it looks like on the outside practically guarantees you’ll miss things and come to incorrect conclusions. If you wanted to really understand a place, statistics aren’t enough. You’d need to examine it up close. Visit, conduct observations, then draw conclusions. Not before.”

She had seen enough high-winded threats made to Equestria before. It hadn’t been all that long since the yaks had threatened to go to war on the basis of a few logistical errors. Somehow basing your threats on bad science seemed worse. Well that, and the matter-of-fact way the diplomat spoke, without a shred of doubt that his words would be carried out.

It wasn’t Celestia, Luna, or even the strange diplomat who spoke next, though. It was Torres, seeming a little less nervous than before. Almost as though she had been waiting for an opportunity like this. “She’s right, sir. It might be objectively true EU-81 Alpha and Beta failed to meet their project goals in guiding their civilization at least to a development level of class one, but… it might also be a question of timing. There is apparently an industrial revolution underway. Perhaps we were just a century too early to see the results? Removing these”—she gestured vaguely at the throne—“from power now might only slow development even further. If the admiralty board expects the most accurate—”

“I think you’ve made your point, Specialist.” The alien figure was nearly two feet taller than Twilight, and probably would’ve been taller than a minotaur. This close to the visitors, Twilight could notice things about them she hadn’t from through the wall. The smell, for instance. It was strange, but not as alien as a dragon’s nest or even the herbs Zecora brewed in her hut. “EU-81 Alpha, who is this? One of your offspring, perhaps?”

“No.” Celestia’s subservient tone didn’t falter. “An apprentice.”

“Indeed.” He frowned. “The board doesn’t meet for another three days. Perhaps... Perhaps I won’t submit my report quite yet.” He turned, looking at Torres. “You couldn’t make accurate observations like that. Those infiltrators you had us prepare — could you pilot one of those?”

Her nervousness returned, but she nodded all the same. “I’ve never used a quadruped before. I suppose I could practice before tomorrow.”

“Very well.” He turned back to Celestia, looking over Twilight like she wasn’t even there. “Would you provide an escort for my specialist to tour your country tomorrow? In lieu of passing summary judgement now?”

Celestia’s fear seemed to be lifting. “I would.” She gestured at Twilight. “Since my apprentice has involved herself, she has clearly volunteered. There are few ponies as well-versed in Equestrian history or its technology.”

The gangling figure reached into a pocket, drawing out a dark square of metal. He tossed it at Twilight’s hooves. “Keep that with you. Your planet may depend on it.” He turned away from them then, showing his back to the princesses without hesitation. “Specialist, signal the Damocles. Four ready for transport.”

She hurried along behind him, even as the soldiers formed up on either side. She moved her strange digits again along the surface of her pad, and didn’t look up. Magic built around them, or... It felt like magic. The air flickered, brightening gradually around the visitors. Eventually the light was bright enough she couldn’t focus on them. Then came the implosion of air she associated with a teleport, and the light faded, leaving no trace of the aliens.

Digging Deeper

Twilight stared open-mouthed into the empty space, and not just because she didn’t know how they had powered such a large teleport without horns.

Luna’s voice startled her out of her reverie. “I fear the shock may’ve broken her, Dear Sister.”

“It might be easier for her if it had.” Celestia’s voice came suddenly from closer to her, mere feet away. “She is more resilient.”

Twilight shifted on her hooves, practically feeling herself deflate. She didn’t look up. “What... What was any of that, Princess?”

Luna answered first, sitting elegantly down across from her. “Inevitability.”

“What?” Twilight looked up, in time to see Celestia was right in front of her. She looked right back down again, avoiding her teacher’s face, but not before she saw the sadness there. Not anger, not even disappointment. “Princess, why did you let them talk to you like that?”

Again, it was Luna who answered instead. “Cooperation protects you, Twilight Sparkle. You and the rest of Equestria. To protest, argue, or fight would only invite reprisal. At least this way the stroke will fall only on us.”

“Bu—” It had been Luna who answered, but even so Twilight found herself looking into her old mentor’s face. “I’ve never seen those— whatever those things were. There can’t be that many, right? They can’t be that powerful…” Twilight levitated the little square off the ground, close enough that she could inspect it. It was made of metal, though she had never seen one with little black spots speckled throughout. It had no controls, though it did have a single glowing mark in the center, which got brighter and darker like a heartbeat.

“Their threats don’t mean anything, do they? They couldn’t… couldn’t actually be a threat to Equestria?” She tossed the slice of metal back down, where it clanked on the floor between them.

Celestia nodded. “If they desired.” She started walking, towards the door hidden behind the dais, though she didn’t move fast. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry. She did pick up the square Twilight had dropped, hovering it along behind them as she walked.

“Couldn’t…” Twilight struggled for words. She had so many questions boiling in her mind that it took all her willpower not to let them come vomiting out her mouth. Eventually she settled on the most pressing. “Equestria has fought overwhelming odds before, haven’t we? We stopped Tirek, we reformed Discord…” She stopped, flexing her wings. “I’ll just fly back to Ponyville, bring the girls up here, and—"

“No, Twilight.” Celestia rested a hoof gently on her shoulder, meeting her eyes. “Not this time.”

“But we can—"

“No.” Celestia started walking again. Soon she reached the spiral staircase, which led up into the many towers of the castle. Instead of starting up though, she gently unlocked the door covering the stairwell down, pushing it open. “Luna, will you begin our preparations?”

“At once, dear sister.” The other alicorn nodded to Twilight, then vanished.

Celestia started walking again. “Come, Twilight. There is something you should see.”

* * *

Twilight followed Celestia down into the depths. Her teacher seemed to need no light, so Twilight kept her own horn glowing. Their hoofsteps echoed around them as they descended, filling the silence between them. Celestia didn’t seem to want to answer any more of her questions, insisting only that their destination would answer.

So they walked. Twilight’s mind spun as their path took them deeper and deeper into the planet. They left the castle basements after ten minutes or so, then continued on. There were hidden passages to take, concealed behind old tapestries or hidden in confusing twists of the corridor. The smell of dust was soon replaced with a dampness so thick Twilight found herself choking on it, her feathers and fur getting a little bigger as they took it in. The passages soon cut through caves, caverns entirely familiar after her brother’s wedding. Water dripped and her glowing horn was reflected in a thousand sparkling crystals.

Deeper still they traveled. Twilight stopped at the edge of a ridge, as Celestia vanished from in front of her into the darkness. A great gulf opened before her, darkness swallowing her glowing horn and fading into rough rock as far as she could see. The path ended in a chasm, and only the faint glow of Celestia’s mane from below hinted at where she might’ve gone.

Twilight shivered, opened her wings, and let herself fall. She watched both sides of the chasm warily, making frequent adjustments to keep herself from getting too personal with the edge. Celestia’s glowing mane and tail were her only guide, leading her deeper into the void.

Time passed, more time than Twilight would’ve thought possible. The air warmed noticeably, and all the moisture from the caverns above started drying again. She kept falling, until at last she could see ground again. Well, something like it. Far below, Celestia settled onto a hill of strange white stones. Twilight flared her wings, shivering as she fought her momentum.

Her eyes widened as she neared the ground, wings beating furiously. Even so she managed to land, scattering stray feathers as she touched onto the stones. They settled beneath her a little, but the ground wasn’t sloped much so they didn’t have far to go. The ground felt quite warm, though not uncomfortably. Was she imagining things, or was she not breathing as easily?

“This place shouldn’t exist,” she said. “We must be miles down, right? Shouldn’t a natural cave have collapsed under its own pressure? I don’t see any supports…”

Celestia shrugged. “Nothing about this place is natural, my faithful student.” Celestia started walking again, moving carefully over the rough stones. It wasn’t ideal conditions for a pony, but Twilight could see the ceiling sloping sharply down in the direction they walked. They wouldn’t have been able to fly very much further. “We’re almost there. I expect your questions will be answered.”

Twilight followed, speeding up a little so that she could walk right beside the tall alicorn. In such a strange place, the unchanging aura of her mentor’s magic reminded Twilight of simpler times. When she had been Celestia’s personal student, it had seemed like the whole world was open to her. Anything was possible to a pony who worked hard enough. It wasn’t a world of secrets, only unlearned facts.

Soon the ground evened out, and Twilight’s hooves found unnaturally smooth stone. Celestia kept on for only a little distance more, then stopped. “We have arrived.”

Twilight stopped beside her, taking in the object in front of them. Celestia had led them to a door. Well… something like a door. It was set into a solid wall of glittering metal, caked over with dust but not a trace of rust. The markings painted there had faded beyond legibility. There were other marks, stamped with machine regularity, which remained visible to her. It didn’t help, though. She couldn’t read the language.

“This is… ancient.” Twilight stepped forward, examining the edge where it looked as though rock had been creeping along the metal, distorting it slightly over geologic time. In time perhaps it would be bisected, like any other strata. “What civilization on Equis had the skill to work this much metal?” The wall was massive, towering at least a hundred feet above and curving flawlessly through the rock. It was more metal than she had ever seen in one place.

“None. The Creators built it, long ago. These caverns are part of it, not just what you see. This is just the part that survived. It was built to resist even Discord, so all these years have done little.” She advanced, passing Twilight and approaching the door. Celestia raised a hoof, towards a little indentation in the metal Twilight hadn’t noticed at first glance.

Light flashed briefly towards Celestia. A voice spoke, rumbling from nowhere in an alien language. A familiar language. Twilight had heard it just a few hours before, in Celestia’s throne room. Unfortunately, there were no minds for her to use to translate this time. Well, besides Celestia. She didn’t cast it, though. Somehow, she figured that if Celestia wanted her to know anything about what they saw, she would explain it herself.

“It will be a moment,” Celestia said, lowering her hoof again. “The shelter took steps to preserve itself. We must wait for those steps to be undone before it becomes safe to enter.”

Twilight nodded, sitting back on her haunches. From just beyond the wall, she could faintly hear a sound like a violent wind, along with unplaceable mechanical grinding. She focused on the familiar and watched her mentor, but Celestia would not meet her gaze. She spoke anyway. “Princess Luna mentioned Creators earlier — are they the ones who visited?”

Celestia nodded. “That’s the name my sister and I gave them. I’m sure they call themselves something else, but they never told us what.”

Twilight looked down at her hooves, lowering her voice almost to a whisper. She didn’t really want to ask what she was thinking. She asked anyway. “Are they… gods? Did they create Equestria?”

To her surprise, Celestia chuckled, the first light-hearted thing she had seen from her all evening. “Neither, thankfully. Though they did help save it.” She gestured behind them, towards the strange stones they had walked across to get here. “Look behind you. What’s back there?”

“Rocks.” Twilight walked a few steps closer to where the uneven white lumps began. “Wait.” Her steps slowed as she got closer though, blood turning to ice in her veins. She shivered, retreating a pace. “Bones.”

What Twilight had taken for a pile of stones was actually an ocean of bones. Well, bones with metal shells. She wondered if the mass had been submerged, because it seemed that stone had caked over much of it, which was what had confused her when she had landed. The volume was enormous. If the space was as big as it looked, there were enough bones to bury Ponyville deeper than city hall and leave enough extra for every field in Sweet Apple Acres. “Thousands of—"

“Millions, actually. I think they called it a…” She struggled for a moment. “Planetary legion. If this ship hadn’t been buried by the soil, well… Equestria might look different.”

Twilight stared out at the vast field of the dead, trying to take in the sheer volume of the word. On paper, Twilight could understand a million well enough. Fifty of them made Equestria’s population, for example. Yet the thought of millions of dead soldiers… what kind of nation could suffer losses like that and survive? The wind whispering through the chasm no longer sounded natural to Twilight; it was transformed to the eerie whispers of the dead. Millions of dead.

She lowered her voice, though it was more out of respect than embarrassment now. “What killed them?”

“The same one who almost destroyed Equestria — and the rest of the planet with it.” Behind her, something hissed, and strangely bitter air rushed suddenly past her. Even white light burst into brilliant life behind her, as vibrant as noon sunlight. “Come inside, my faithful student. See my birthplace.” She turned, vanishing into the sudden glare of the open doorway.

Strange as the door might be, it was somewhere besides a mass grave, so she didn’t hesitate to follow. Anything but outside…

She followed in a trance through glistening hallways of smooth plastic and metal. Strange machines hummed and buzzed all about, and flat surfaces filled with flashing text and shifting pictures. She had no words for what she saw, no context for the wonders or theories at what they might do. What she didn’t see was signs of decay; there was no rot, no dust, no mildew. This ‘shelter’ had been here long enough that the rock had started to swallow it, yet it looked as pristine as Canterlot Castle.

The hallways were all unnaturally tall, though she suspected they would’ve been just tall enough to be comfortable to the creatures that had stood in the throne room to negotiate only hours before. They passed through an elevator, which zipped them with dizzying speed down and back into the bowels of the craft. She didn’t protest; Celestia seemed to know where she was going.

Eventually they found their way to a relatively small room. Celestia slowed as they neared it, though Twilight couldn’t see why. The room was some kind of lab, that much she could tell even without being able to recognize any of the machines. There were a pair of egg-like vessels built into one of the walls, filled with a fluid that glowed from within their transparent surfaces. There was no paper, no books, but plenty of little metal pads, similar to the one she had seen in the hands of the female back in the castle.

Were those images? Twilight hurried up to the closer of the two eggs, having to strain a little to get a clear view of the flat panel mounted above it. Like many within the shell, this one filled with text and images, then emptied and filled again. The possibilities were astonishing, yet the images displayed on it were even more so.

“That’s what you meant.” Twilight gestured with one hoof, staring. Beside what she guessed to be detailed medical reports was an image, apparently taken from a camera just within the egg. “They were your creators.” The image was of Celestia, or… a pony that would become her. As the images changed they cycled through the stages of unborn pony development. Instead of blood and placenta, the growing Celestia had a dozen bits of metal on her body, each one connected to a transparent tube with a different color fluid within.

A glance at the neighboring pod proved what she had already suspected: the pony there had blue fur instead of pale pink, but otherwise the setup was much the same. “You were created here.” She reached out, touching the edge of the pod. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Celestia stared at a door on the far side of the room, one that hung partly open. “When you were young, you wouldn’t have understood. When you became a princess… I planned on it. If we saw signs of their return, or… or decided to carry out their mission, I would have brought you here. Now, well… this was the way I hoped you would never learn.”

Celestia made her way through the center of the lab, walking along a marked aisle near the pods and never crossing beyond it. Twilight imitated her, though she could see no obvious reason for the behavior. Hidden traps, maybe? Ruins were supposed to have hidden traps.

“You already heard the reasons they made us. I suppose you might not have been listening closely, judging by your reaction. It’s a good thing we weren’t meeting dragons. They don’t take shouting as well as Creators do.” Celestia’s smile was a little strained, though she seemed to be trying.

Twilight tried to remember on top of everything else she had learned in the last hour. “To… fight Discord? That doesn’t match any of the history books I’ve read. I thought… weren’t you raised by Starswirl the Bearded? It had to be Equestria by then, right? Err…” Twilight realized then just how frustratingly vague all those old stories were. Nothing about where the princesses had been raised. Nothing about them in the founding of Equestria story either, though Clover was in that one, and she had been Starswirl’s apprentice, which meant she had to be younger than he was. It felt like the insides of her head were melting.

“Fighting Discord? Yes, I suppose that was part of it. The other part, well…” She gestured around them. “Does all this look strange to you?”

Of course Twilight nodded. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“The Creators sent us with their legion to stop Discord, knowing that they would all die.” She shivered, staring down at the floor. “They did. I suspect that was why they planned objectives for us when we were successful. Objectives Luna and I defied.” Celestia sat down without any of her usual regal grace, her flowing mane seeming a tad limp to Twilight’s eyes. “They wanted Equestria to be another of their provinces — that was the price of saving it. The technology you see all around you — we were supposed to teach all of it to Equestria’s ponies.”

Celestia set the little slice of metal from before on the counter beside Twilight, where she could see the little light still glowing there.

Twilight retreated, no longer having any trouble meeting Celestia’s eyes. “Why would you keep it from us? Forget provinces — if ponies could build things like this, we could stop them! They wouldn’t be able to push you around, push all Equestria around! Why wouldn’t you want us to have all this?” Thousands of unidentifiable machines hummed around them, defiant of the years.

The creators had come from another world; they could travel into space. Celestia and her sister had kept that ability from Equestrians, even though the Creators had wanted to give ponies their powers. That didn’t make their threats any less outrageous.

Celestia shook her head. After a long moment, she pushed the little square closer to Twilight. “You heard; they’re visiting you tomorrow. While you’re showing them around Equestria make sure you take the time to ask them what the rest of the galaxy is like.” Celestia stared up at the metal ceiling, shivering against a wind Twilight Sparkle couldn’t feel. “Ask them what’s waiting for Equestria when we get up there. I think then you’ll understand.”

Assessment

Twilight Sparkle didn’t enjoy the party much. She didn’t sleep well that night either, though it was no mystery why. She didn’t mention any of what she had seen beneath Canterlot, not yet. There was no reason to fill her friends with stress and worry over questions even she couldn’t answer.

The next morning Twilight expected something insane to happen. She was so on edge that she spilled three cups of coffee, tried to read a book upside-down, and used toothpaste on her mane instead of conditioner (how it had even gotten into the shower she would never know).

Her castle still felt a little strange, but at least after all her friends’ hard work it felt more like home. The empty halls had been populated more and more over the last few months, and she passed more than one saluting guard as she went about her troublesome waiting.

She need not have worried. The “Creator” didn’t arrive with a massive ship or some blast of irresistible force, just a knock on her study door. “Yes?” Twilight called, staring out at a table full of open books. “Come in.”

A pony entered, looking more than a little sheepish. Twilight rose, as was her custom when strangers visited. Word of her existence had spread across Equestria by now; she did her best to make sure that when ponies came to visit they would at least bring pleasant stories back with them.

Twilight had to clamber over a leaning stack of books, narrowly avoiding bumping it with one of her wings. “I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle.” She took in the newcomer at a glance: earth pony, gray coat, white mane and tail with a few black streaks. Her cutie mark was a symbol of some kind, though Twilight couldn’t recognize it at a glance. Some kind of interlocking triangle pattern? “What’s your name?” Maybe doing something routine would help her relax in preparation for the visitor she dreaded.

The pony stopped a little further away than was normal for ponies, shifting uncomfortably on her hooves. “Specialist Maria Torres.” She gestured at the open doorway. Though she was no unicorn, something levitated through the door behind her, setting itself down on the ground at her hooves. Well, maybe levitate wasn’t quite the right word. The thing looked like a metal suitcase had grown propellers, all whirring away quietly as the thing flew itself. So far as come-to-life spells went, it had to be the most advanced Twilight had ever seen.

Twilight’s ears flattened and she stopped, her whole body tensing. “Torres. You…” She looked up, above the pony’s head. “You were taller last time I saw you.”

The pony rolled her eyes, sitting back on her haunches with a groan. “Oh, you and every engineer in this star system. Real knee-slapper. Did Colonel Dixon put you up to that?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never met anyone by that name. I was just commenting on how impressive your transformation spell was.” She walked past the pony, inspecting her. “No tells, not even the eyes. That’s changeling-level work.”

The earth pony shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not a ‘spell’. God, we’ll have to do something about that superstition… this body is just a machine. We already had one growing, so I just had to finalize a few last details. I’m controlling it from up there.” She gestured vaguely with a hoof. “Or doing some of the controlling anyway. A computer has to parse its sensory information to something my brain can comprehend, and interpolate my own nervous system’s muscular-responses into the context of this body.”

Twilight stopped again when she was right in front of this pony, finding herself relaxing. It wasn’t that she had understood much of what the pony had said. Rather, she had understood something about this pony. Her suspicions the day before were confirmed: she was a scientist, a bookworm, a wizard, whatever the word. No matter what their other differences, even if she was some kind of powerful alien from another world, that much could still unite them. She could be friends with someone who loved learning the same way she did. Not only that, but she wasn’t worried that she wouldn’t be able to convince a pony like this.

“I… I think I know what you mean. This computer does translation too?” she suggested. “Since you weren’t speaking Equestrian yesterday, I mean.”

“It does.” The pony nodded towards Twilight, as though in respect. “Guess Dixon didn’t set you up for what you said after all. Maybe you really are as smart as you seemed.”

“You don’t talk like godlike aliens from outer space.” The words came tumbling out of Twilight’s mouth before she could stop herself. She looked away, ears flattening in embarrassment.

The other “pony” laughed. There was nothing at all alien in her amusement, or in the way she clasped Twilight briefly on the shoulder. “You’re kidding me, right? Please tell me you’re joking. If somebody told you we’re gods, well... They need their head examined.”

Twilight was relieved, but not amused. “You are aliens though, right?” Her guest nodded. “Everything I’ve read about aliens— granted, it’s entirely speculation, since we didn’t know for sure you existed until yesterday.” Well, she learned yesterday anyway. “Ponies expected anything that evolved on other worlds to be so strange that we might not have any basis for understanding it. You should have... sensory organs we don’t. Strange nutritional needs, maybe. Maybe you can’t survive in the same atmosphere we need.”

If Twilight expected the alien to be secretive about her race, she was disappointed on that count too. “That’s generally true. What your scientists speculate, that is. It’s just not true about us. We have the same senses; we breathe the same air... We even eat the same proteins.”

Twilight paced back towards the open window, the one that had such a great view of Ponyville. “What about the cultural differences? Shouldn’t your perspective be so strange to me that we can’t communicate?”

“I’m sure my perspective is strange.” Torres followed her to the window, looking out on Ponyville. “Right now, my perspective is telling me that you’re probably stalling.” Her eyes narrowed. “Please don’t treat me like an enemy, Twilight Sparkle. Stranger I might be, but I’m also the only hope for EU-81 Alpha and EU-81 Beta. If I’m going to find a reason good enough for the admiralty board not to replace them, it will be because you helped me find it.”

Twilight opened her mouth, as though she were going to object again. Instead, she swallowed, counted to ten, and thought about what Torres had said. If these beings had half the power they had when they had landed a craft large enough to cover a continent, then they could probably kill if they wanted to. “Alright. I have an itinerary planned.”

Twilight levitated over a large scroll, unrolling the first few inches so she could get a good look at what they contained. “Stop me if any of this doesn’t sound useful to you.”

The other pony shrugged. “Anything that I can use to convince the captain. Probably not the regular tourist stuff…” She grinned. “Guess you probably don’t have a procedure for off-planet tourists. Still, I guess the expression works just as well for the regular kind. What do you have planned?”

“We’ve got a train leaving in about twenty minutes. It will be taking us to Manehattan, one of the most modern cities in Equestria. The train should give you a chance to see the countryside, but arrive somewhere that urbanization has become more extensive than it is here. Ponyville—that’s where you are now—is more rural. Unfortunately, the trip will take a little time, so I’ve arranged for five of my closest friends to join us. They’re a diverse group, each with different interests, so you should be able to use them to get any information you want about Equestria. We could also take a pegasus chariot if you don’t think we can spare the time.”

“No, a train will be fine.” Her guest expressed no confusion over the word; apparently Creators had trains? Either that, or she had studied them before. For all Twilight knew, she might see all Equestria as a look into some history book. “The general attitude of your people is one of the things I came to see. Somehow I don’t think I’ll get a terribly good idea of that from the sky.” She rose to her hooves. Her little machine seemed to recognize that as a sign to leave, because its little propellers started spinning, ready to take off and carry it after her.

“Follow me, then. We’ll pass through Ponyville first. If you see anything you’d like to know more about, say so.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They walked. Twilight was afraid that her guest might attract lots of attention with her golem and the strange way she walked, but few in Ponyville payed them any mind. Perhaps Twilight along with her was enough to relax the ponies of her town. They had seen so many strange things over the years that a floating bit of luggage without magic around it hardly qualified.

“I should warn you.” Torres spoke as they walked, when nopony was around to overhear. “If you or those friends have memorized propaganda, don’t bother reciting it back to me. If anything you say would change their minds about your “princesses,” we would verify it before making any decisions. Lying to me will only make the consequences harsher when they come.”

Twilight walked stiffly beside Torres, and she did a much better job hiding her anger than she had the day before. “My friends and I will not lie to you.” She moved more slowly, and only started up again when she realized her attitude was attracting attention. She hurried after Torres, muttering, “Are threats a common part of the way your culture does its diplomacy?”

To her surprise, the ambassador didn’t seem to hear her, not at first. The shorter earth pony’s eyes were all for the town. She took in the soft colored buildings, the unpaved and cobbled streets, the friendly faces and polite greetings that surrounded them. She didn’t stick out nearly so much as Twilight expected, save for looking like a filly first setting hoof in an unfamiliar place. She was also listening though.

Twilight’s words didn’t seem to anger her. “All civilization is about threats. We’re not trying to be unfriendly, we’re just being honest.”

“It is not!” The train station was already near. A line of royal guards and metal fences cut off a fairly sizable crowd of ponies. Evidently word had got around that a strange ambassador from far away was going to be visiting. Twilight cursed herself for mentioning this to Rainbow, but there was nothing for it now.

She had to lower her voice even more as they walked, so as not to seem angry at this apparently important guest. “Civilization is based on friendship.”

“Is it?” The ambassador whispered right back. “Those look like guards and fences to me. Last I checked those were both threats.”

Twilight had no response to that, though somewhere she just knew Torres was wrong, and she wanted to find out how to prove it. Not now though… not with reporters from the Baltimare Gazette there, not with more than a hundred interested ponies all watching her. They leaned close, whispering to one another. She could overhear some of what they were saying: “Is that the ambassador?” “Couldn’t be, she’s just a pony. The princess probably just got a new assistant?” “Do you think it’s really a dragon? I heard they were sending one this way.” “The princess's dragon is purple.” And so it went. She did her best to tune everything out.

At least the crowd behaved the way it ought to, parting like a sea around her and her companion. They could expect what they wanted. A disappointing headline would be far better for Equestria than one about aliens that had come to kill the princesses.

At her request, Celestia’s royal car had been brought during the night, and was one of only two others on the train waiting for them. Twilight hadn’t ever made such an extravagant expense, and never would have even if such luxuries were (in theory) available to a princess.

For an alien ambassador, no expense was too great. Twilight strode through the barricade, levitating the train door open. Her friends’ voices all came from inside, laughter at some shared joke. She hoped they were ready to take the next few hours a little more seriously. Twilight had stressed that this ambassador would be even stranger than the yaks, even more demanding, and that the consequences would be even worse if they didn’t appease her. Hopefully that would be enough.

“If you’d like to wait inside, well… it seems like the ponies out here are expecting me to say something.”

Indeed, silence had fallen all around them, with many eyes on her. Few bothered even a second glance for Torres, though the strange levitating contraption was enough of a novelty that she had heard a few whispering about it.

“Alright. I guess I’ll wait inside.” She left.

Twilight found a podium waiting on the edge of the train platform, facing the large crowd that had assembled on one half of the tracks. At least the guards and fences had kept ponies from obstructing the way, as they would’ve done had they stretched out onto the tracks. Of course, that wasn’t going to change the fact that Twilight had nothing to say to these ponies.

She had no ambassador to introduce, not with Torres pretending to be a pony. Showing them her would only build false expectations in their minds, and teach them to think things about her race that weren’t true. She tapped the mic. “Uh… Ponies of Ponyville.” She didn’t talk for very long—there wasn’t much to say. Twilight kept her remarks to just a few minutes of empty political nonsense, enough to meet the minimum requirements for what these ponies had come to see.

She hurried away from the microphone too fast to even judge their reactions. Nor did she worry about them, not now. Celestia and Luna were still in danger (apparently). Not only that, but the ambassador had been alone with her friends during the speech. What would they think of her?

Twilight made her way into the car as fast as she could, slamming the door shut a little too loudly in her nervousness. The assembled ponies all looked up, expression stretching from concerned to surprise to a little annoyed. The royal car was set out in exquisite luxury, its every surface either polished hardwood or plush cushions. A crystal chandelier glowed above with a thousand separate crystals, each one a slightly different shade. The sun motif spread to other parts of the car as well, with its larger windows stained for privacy into scenes of Equestrian myth.

Of course, none of that was what had captivated her friends. The smells hit Twilight’s nose like a wave, and she very nearly stumbled. The royal cart didn’t just have the finest decor Equestria could offer, it also had its own kitchen. The smell of rising bread and cooking pastries wafted in from out of sight, filling the room.

It was hard to guess which of her friends might’ve summoned the servants and started the feeding frenzy. None held themselves aloof now, though. The table was packed with different foods, each one looking more delicious than the last. There was only one opening at the low table off to the left of the car, obviously left for her. Each of the other seats were taken.

There was Pinkie Pie nearest the empty seat, several donuts filling her mouth. Rarity beside her, plate spotless and a single hors-d'oeuvre floating in the air in front of her. Applejack had no plate at all, just a mostly-empty glass of some drink Twilight didn’t recognize. Fluttershy looked shyly away from her own plate, nearly as packed as Pinkie Pie’s. Rainbow wasn’t shy at all, though she seemed to have made an effort to avoid the more fattening foods and stick to the fruits.

She was also the first to speak. “Where’s that fancy ambassador you promised?” She stared at the empty door, lifting away from the table and hovering in the air in her usual fashion. “We met your new friend. Where’s your alien?”

Twilight blushed, but she wasn’t fast enough.

Torres sat on Rainbow’s other side, and in just a few minutes she had managed to pile her plate with more food than any of the other ponies here. She was the only one who hadn’t stopped eating when Twilight entered, only now looking up. She spoke with her mouth full, looking completely unabashed.

“Oh, did I not get to that? I’m the alien.” She chewed, washing down a fancy fluff cake with a sip of what looked like champagne.

Pinkie Pie started giggling. “You’re not an alien, silly! You don’t even sound like you’re from outside Equestria! Aliens are supposed to sound funny.”

“Now dear, that’s rude.” Rarity tapped Pinkie Pie on the shoulder, frowning slightly. Somewhere far ahead, a blast of steam signaled the beginning of their trip. “I’m sure Miss Torres hails from exotic places indeed. Perhaps we were merely a little misled in our expectations by Rainbow Dash.”

“Hey, I told ‘em exactly what you said, Twilight!” She was still in the air, hovering beside the ambassador. “You told me you had an alien!” She landed on the table, though somehow managed not to step in or spill anything. “No offence Torres, but a funny name doesn’t make you an alien. Aliens are supposed to have lots of slimy tentacles, or… or maybe eyes on stalks like a slug!” She grinned, lifting her hooves above her head to imitate. “And they’d wiggle around when you talked, like this!”

“Rainbow.” Twilight’s voice was stern. She stepped into her place beside the table, but didn’t sit down. The train started to move, pulling past the dispersing crowd outside and jarring the many plates and trays and open bottles. “Do you remember the time I made us all into breezies?”

The pegasus deflated, ears flattening a little. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m not the only one who can do things like that. Specialist Maria Torres made herself into a pony for her visit, so she wouldn’t attract attention like this.” She flicked her tail towards the window behind her, where the train was leaving the crowd behind.

“Really?” Fluttershy didn’t look up, though she was sitting very close to where Torres had taken her place beside the table. “Are you really not a pony?”

“Not even a little.” Torres swallowed, wiping off her face with the edge of one foreleg. “Not that I don’t think you people are adorable—absolutely you are. If my younger cousins could see that little town we were just in. Ponyville?” She giggled even as she said the name.

The natives, Twilight included, only stared. Maybe this was the sort of behavior Twilight had been waiting for. The alien way for contextualizing situations that were mundane for Equestrians, or the other way around. Small animals were adorable, but there weren’t any in here. She dismissed the thought for now, focusing on the more important part of her mission. This alien had sided with Twilight when she had defended the princesses. “Torres has come from far away to learn about pony society. Err...” She frowned. “Is there anything specific we should tell you about? It would be easier if we knew what we were looking for.”

The earth pony rose, leaning close to Twilight and whispering up into her ear. “How much can I tell them? Your country, your rules.”

Twilight didn’t whisper back. “All of it.” She didn’t say the rest of what she was thinking. How much better off would we be right now if Celestia had told us? Could they have prepared some defense against these aliens? “Anything you need to tell us for it to make sense, anyway.”

“Alright.” Torres gestured to her luggage, sitting in a corner near the door. It lifted into motion, flying into a prominent place across from their table. Instead of watch, she sat down and looked back at her plate. “My, uh...” She struggled, her mouth opening and closing several times. She seemed to be mouthing several words, as though looking for the right one. Eventually she settled on: “Projector. My projector will help. While it sets up, though... I’m gonna eat a little more of this.” She gestured at her plate, grinning. “Serious backup plan right here. We send a few crates of this stuff up to the senior staff, and fifty clips says the captain thinks twice about his decision.”

Behind her, her luggage wasn’t just levitating anymore. It seemed to be taking itself apart. Even Twilight found herself glancing to the pony’s forehead, searching for a horn that must be controlling all this. Of course there wasn’t one, nor any magical aura coming from her beyond the usual for a pony. She wasn’t using her powers. The metal box appeared to be reconfiguring itself into a little stand of sorts, with several glowing ridges rising from it. They glowed with their own light, not at all unlike the chandelier above them, and even began to hum quietly.

Twilight saw that several of her friends had gone back to eating too, sparing only a few passing glances for the contraption. Only Pinkie Pie and herself watched it. Twilight scrutinized the object all over with her magic, searching for the spell that animated it. A second time she found no spells at all, no trace of what made the thing move on its own. It didn’t just move, it obeyed commands. How could it do that without magic?

“Well, I guess we ought to begin from the beginning.” Torres sighed, pushing her plate away. She spread her metal pad on the table in front of her, and waved a hoof over it.

The effect was instantaneous. Light faded from around the room, as though drawn out by an invisible specter. Sound faded as well, the rumbling of the train and the jittering of little objects all over the car trailing away to silence. This left only the hum of her machine, and the faint glow from its base. The effect was dramatic enough even Rainbow Dash looked up with interest. Just above the “projector,” an object took shape, spinning silently in the air. To Twilight it looked exactly as she had imagined a planet might, as seen from space. No, that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t what a planet might look like from space. It was what her planet looked like, as only Celestia and Luna had seen it before. Torres hadn’t done anything remarkable, really. It was just a globe.

The pony gestured, and somehow the projection knew what to do. It rotated around until Equestria itself faced them. The darkness in the car served a purpose she now saw, illustrating five little pinpricks of light that shone even in darkness. These were Equestria’s largest cities, with electric lights that defied the night. Manehattan, Los Pegasus, Baltimare, Canterlot, and Trottingham. A few other cities had them, but… apparently they weren’t bright enough. “This is your planet. Looks familiar, right?”

Her friends nodded. None of them spoke, all transfixed by the sight of the glowing globe. Such things weren’t beyond what Equestrian magic could do: her own castle had a map that worked quite similarly. That did not make the feat less impressive. Another planet began taking shape beside theirs, forming from light. “This is what we expected to find when we got here.”

The other planet had a slightly different shade of green on its surface, and it was a little smaller. The continents were all different shapes too. Yet on that planet, it was like a gigantic spider web of light. Light burned there, so bright that only small patches of the planet were dark. Even the oceans glowed. Whole sections of the planet reflected dark metal, not the green of plant life. Nor was that the only change. Twilight Sparkle leaned closer, inspecting the edges of the globe. Thousands of little objects floated around the second planet, in all kinds of different shapes. Some were thin tubes, others slowly rotating disks.

“Where is that?” Rarity asked. Her plate sat forgotten, her chair rotated to face the projection.

“Oh.” Torres grinned sheepishly. “I used my home, the way it looked…” She glanced down at her pad. “About three-thousand years ago, before we had to move it.” She shrugged. "Anyway—"

Applejack looked skeptical. “This is all new to me—I’m just a farmer an’ all, so maybe it’s just too fancy. Why’d you think that we ought to have all that…” She gestured at the objects floating around the second planet. “We’ve got along just fine without anythin’ pokin’ out all the way up into the sky like that.”

Torres rose, walking over to the projections. “Because Oritheon had independently developed to a class 1 civilization. That’s about what we expected from Equestria, and what we didn’t find when we got here. If the admiralty board was going to reconfigure your leadership, this would be why.”

Fluttershy shifted uncomfortably on her cushion, looking down. None of the others reacted so strongly. If they didn’t realize what it meant, Twilight wasn’t about to explain now. That would take time they could better spend figuring out how to solve the problem. The pain and shock of the revelation could wait for another time.

Twilight herself was transfixed by the image. She would’ve doubted its veracity, were it not for what she had seen beneath Equestria the day before. Now, though, she knew it could be true. Knew the Creators had the power to build such things if they wished it. “Equestria isn’t like that.” Twilight didn’t look away, trying to figure the reasons for the shapes she saw. Why did so many of the floating shapes rotate as they did? “We have no secrets like that hidden away. We aren’t that ‘advanced.’”

Torres nodded, though the news didn’t seem to deflate her. “Oh, we knew that. You’ve been ignoring the slipspace communication we’ve been sending for the last thousand years or so. The telescopes we had pointed at your world hadn’t even been detecting radio bleed. We’ve got telescopes about fifty light-years from here, so…” She trailed off. Aside from Twilight, she seemed to realize that the ponies in the car were only growing more confused.

“Egghead, do you have any idea what she’s talking about?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight nodded. “Some.” She looked back up. “So if you already knew we weren’t like this, why bother coming down here?”

“Simple.” She gestured, causing the image of Equestria to shift to a daylight picture, even as the other planet vanished. She zoomed it closer and closer, though Twilight couldn’t be sure which of her gestures the device interpreted as an instruction to look closer. Eventually it wasn’t the image of a planet at all, but the nation, its cities and towns all different colors from the rest.

“It’s a question of whether your princesses abandoned their mission or just didn’t finish it yet. To prevent them from being replaced, we will have to prove the latter. We have to prove that your civilization is on the path towards advancement, but just hasn’t reached it yet.”

Her friends didn’t seem reassured. Twilight herself shifted uncomfortably, staring down at her hooves. That was quite a vague thing to prove. “I assume there are specifics you aren’t telling me. Milestones your people would look for.”

“Oh, sure. A whole list.” At her word, one appeared, replacing the image of Equestria. The text was written in their language, not the alien script. It was dense enough to fill the air on that entire half of the car, obscuring the servant’s quarters and kitchens and everything else beyond.

“Seriously?” That was Rainbow Dash again. “Twilight, only you could find us an alien who makes lists. This is the most boring disaster ever.” She covered her face with her hooves, groaning.

“Maybe.” Twilight advanced, standing as close as she could to the list without blocking it off to her friends. “At least it’s somewhere to start.”

So they did. Twilight was of course the most useful, though she wasn’t the only one of her friends to offer useful suggestions. She had halfway feared the list would be subjective to the point of ignoring all of Equestria’s accomplishments in non-technological fields, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

Painting, music, fashion, sculpture, plays, storytelling… all had place on the list, besides other genres that seemed to have been translated phonetically, because they had no meaning to Twilight. They made some ground with culinary arts and architecture as well, filling in whole sections of the list with dense writing that appeared even as the alien spoke it.

There were some unexpected advances. Things Equestrians took for granted, like the civil weather system, prompted frantic scribbling and great enthusiasm on Torres’s part. Cloud cities impressed her even more, to a degree that even Rainbow got involved with the discussion. The woman’s rank of “specialist” seemed ill-chosen, because Torres seemed informed on just about any subject Twilight could think of. Whenever she didn’t understand the meaning of a category, Torres had a simple way of explaining it.

The work was exhausting, and promised to be more so. What Twilight claimed to prove from memory would have to be substantiated with internal sources, something they would have to look forward to next time they were in a library. Several of her friends had volunteered to help with that too, but… Twilight declined. She wouldn’t subject them to that. Spike ought to be back from his stallion’s camping trip by then, but… nopony else.

The trip to Manehattan took several hours, hours they used in intense study. The other elements, even Fluttershy with her amazing patience, didn’t stay in for the whole time, but moved to the next car, where they could still be called in to provide detailed explanations about their individual expertise.

Eventually the train came to a stop. They hadn’t finished with the list though, so Torres made no move to get off, and Twilight didn’t either. Her friends were not happy to learn they would have to stay aboard until the two “bookworms” finished with their work. It took hours more, long enough that the sun had moved much of the way across the sky.

Torres’s mane had gone frazzled and unkempt by the time they finished, her body smelling as much of sweat as it did from the sweets of the car. Yet she looked optimistic as she closed up her projector. She even managed a smile for Twilight, and a nod of appreciation. “We’ll have to find sources for all of that, but… I think we can do it.”

Twilight frowned. She hadn’t taken the stress nearly as gracefully as Torres. Princess or not, the list had felt like a test she hadn’t been prepared for. Only she wasn’t the one taking the test, it was her entire planet. “We didn’t even have half the things on your list. That’s an F.”

The mare chuckled. “No, ‘course not. If you didn’t have a failing score, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation in the first place. They would’ve sent you a diplomatic carrier, not a warship. You didn’t have nothing, though. Your civilization didn’t take the path we gave to EU—Celestia and Luna, I mean. You haven’t been sitting on your equine asses either, though. Your mastery of ‘magic’ is impressive. I think we can spin this. Pretty sure I can spin it.”

“Spin?” Twilight forced herself to look closer at the projector. “Why would you need to spin it?”

“Oh.” She grinned again. It was a good thing at least one of them could—the tension felt like it was going to make Twilight explode. Better that at least one of them could relax. Even if it was a little frustrating that her apparent “best hope” was joking about things, Twilight knew that relaxed ponies did better work. She had proved that theory true herself a dozen times in the last few years. “Spin, it means—represent the facts in a way that sends the message you want.”

“Your history isn’t all that impressive: ponies haven’t been advancing nearly as fast as the admiralty board expected, and your princesses objectively failed to do what they were supposed to. We just downplay those parts; emphasize all the great things you’ve figured out to do with ‘magic.’ Play it like they were trying to engineer a society more advanced than ours, just in a different direction.”

Twilight had an alicorn’s constitution, yet still she had trouble thinking. Never in all her life had she been more thoroughly grilled on every aspect of her society. It was like someone had put her brain through a wringer and dumped what came out back into her head through a funnel. “Why?”

Torres stopped, even as she snapped the metal closed around her projector. “Huh?”

“Why?” Twilight swallowed. “Why do you care what we do? Why don’t you just leave us alone?”

Torres advanced past Twilight, as though seeing the city beyond the windows for the first time. She didn’t actually look back as she spoke. “If we’d done that, you’d be dead. No Equestria.”

Indignance gave Twilight a measure of strength. “That’s not true! If you hadn’t sent—” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. Celestia herself had confirmed the statement, had apparently shown her where she’d been grown—yet still she couldn’t believe it. “If you hadn’t interfered, we would’ve found a way.”

“The records from your planet are… pretty grim.” She didn’t argue more, though. “But suppose you did. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Wouldn’t protect you when the real danger comes.” She sighed, all her excitement and joviality drained away. “It still won’t. When the war finally gets here, you’ll—you wouldn’t stand a chance.” Her eyes glazed, and she seemed to be looking away, at some ghastly horror Twilight Sparkle couldn’t see. “Your whole world would be dead before you blinked, and you’d never even see it coming.”

The door banged open, Rainbow Dash hovering near the ceiling. “You eggheads done yet? If we keep waiting much longer, I think I might go insane!”

“Yeah, we’re done.” Torres gestured, and the little floating luggage lifted off to follow her. “Let’s see this city of yours, eh?”

Judgement

Twilight’s guest didn’t actually need to see the city. Twilight understood that, but her friends didn’t, so they proceeded with the tour as planned. Torres looked a little distant through most of it, but she put on an air of enthusiasm whenever any of the girls spoke with her, and that seemed to be enough.

Their visit hadn’t been announced, so once they put some distance between them and the train station they were able to disappear into the city and experience it more. Twilight wasn’t so much recognized by many of the ponies as her wings were, making it impossible for the ambassador to get a completely authentic experience.

They visited lots of popular tourist destinations, ate in a fancy restaurant, caught a play. The end of the night found them all sharing a rooftop balcony, watching the stars. Well, they watched. Torres seemed more concerned with her work, staring at her little square of metal and somehow willing words into existence upon it. If it was a spell, she radiated no magic while she did it, but that was so common a theme from the ambassador that Twilight had learned to ignore it.

“Torres Dear, I’ve just realized something.” Rarity set down her glass, looking over at the earth pony.

Whatever else the ambassador might be, she was polite enough to look away from her writing. Twilight wasn’t sure if she wanted that right now or not. Had Torres not come as an assessor of her whole planet, she might’ve enjoyed and respected the attitude. Yet did she want her work interrupted now? “Yes, Rarity?”

“You’ve seen and asked all sorts of questions about Equestria, yet I feel so dreadfully ignorant about your home. I understand your visit was only meant to last a day: could you at least tell us about it before you go?”

Torres grinned, setting down her pad. “I’ve got an hour before they take this body back. What would you like to know?”

Rarity frowned at the odd remark, but didn’t waste a question on it. It wasn’t the first strange thing the mare had said today. “Well, dear... How does it compare? Is it the sort of place we would enjoy visiting? Given all you’ve seen of us today.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You might. I think you’d be a little overwhelmed, honestly.”

All Twilight’s friends looked worn-out from the day. A few were better at handling the exhaustion than others. To her great surprise however it was Fluttershy who spoke up next. “Are they nice? Um... Your ponies, I mean.”

“Not ponies.” Torres leaned back in her chair. “We’re called humans. Are we nice, well...” She seemed to think about that. “We try to be. But you’ve got to understand, life has been hard for humans for a very long time.”

“How could it be hard?” Rainbow didn’t exactly sit so much as float nearby, watching the surrounding air with suspicious eyes. “Didn’t you come from space?”

Torres nodded. “We’d be extinct now if we hadn’t.”

Even Rainbow grew somber at that.

Twilight frowned. “Why?”

The ambassador no longer seemed distracted by her pad. “Are you certain you want to know the answer, Twilight Sparkle? You cannot unhear the answer once I give it.”

She wished she hadn’t asked. She sat up, and intended to say that she didn’t want to, but she was too slow.

“Ah’ reckon not knowing’ ain’t gonna make it less true.” Applejack rose to her hooves, shaking her head to banish a little of the tiredness. The others muttered agreement.

“You have wars on your world, don’t you?”

They all nodded again, though the answer was much less definite. Equestria had seen a few battles in their lifetimes, but no wars. Twilight knew, at least academically, that the rest of the world was less peaceful.

“Imagine a war that never ended. Imagine—imagine instead of fighting another country, you were fighting a force, like... like the wind, or the sunrise.”

“We’d stop it,” Rainbow interrupted. “If a wind tries to get out of scale, we’d wrangle it back where it should be and find out which factory got their production wrong.”

“Celestia wouldn’t mess up with the sunrise,” Pinkie Pie added. “Otherwise, we’d be in the dark! Her sister wouldn’t let her forget. That’s what sisters are for!”

Torres rolled her eyes. “Right. Bad metaphor. How about—you’ve got an ocean. Imagine a tsunami so huge it could wash away a city. Has that ever happened?”

Twilight nodded. “Occasionally. It’s rarer in Equestria, since most tsunamis are weather-related, and we have teams to patrol the coast. But... It could happen.”

“Well, there aren’t any teams that can stop this. It’s rising a red tide rising through space; and has been for tens of thousands of years. When it gets close to a planet, terrible things happen. When it gets there, everyone dies. Everyone.” She seemed to grow weaker, deflating into her chair. “What do you do when the tide rises? You move. That’s all we’ve been able to do. Try to slow it down... Protect developing worlds like yours... But nowhere can hold forever.”

Twilight alone had the presence of mind to speak. “Is this ‘tide’ coming for Equestria?”

Torres nodded. “That’s why our visit was so urgent. We have your genetic profile—we’ve been able to grow ‘ponies’ for a long time. But that’s not enough. We don’t want to save your fucking genetic material!” The pony rose to her hooves, shoving away from her chair. She was practically shouting now, though not at anypony in particular. She shouted at the night itself—the sky, anyway. “Great we came when we did. Your God damn ostrich ‘princesses’ were happy to sit back and let their planet burn.” She shoved past them all, to the edge of the roof. As she moved, it was almost as though an angry unicorn were moving from the group. Little objects—rocks, glasses, little plates of hors-d’oeuvres—went flying away from her in a uniform circle.

Still Twilight felt no magic, even as she saw it before her eyes. The ‘earth pony’ stared down at the city. “Imperial navy has been around for almost ten thousand years, and do you know how many aliens we ever found? Fucking none!” Tears streamed from her eyes. “So many ruins, so many empty worlds!”

She surged backwards, clutching at Twilight’s shoulder. Her grip was as strong as any earth pony’s. Well, no, there was more. There was something clutching at her mind as well, an alien presence more insistent than ever Queen Chrysalis or her changelings had been. Yet for all the strangeness of the intelligence, it didn’t seem to actually be trying to compel her to anything. “We’ve been alone for so long! No way in hell we’re going to lose the first friends we ever found!”

She let go. Half a dozen little objects—stones and shot glasses and bottle caps—dropped to the ground. The pony, previously swollen with power, suddenly seemed very, very small. Her ears and tail drooped. “I’m—I should go. Thanks for everything, ponies.”

“Wait—”

Too slow. The pony faded, her body becoming transparent. Another few seconds, and her teleport completed, leaving only empty air.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle returned to Canterlot the next day, to deliver her report to Celestia. There was no sign of the aliens waiting there. Her princesses hadn’t been attacked, and neither (apparently) had any part of Equestria. Yet that did not settle Twilight’s conscience, or the growing uneasiness she couldn’t quite banish.

“Is it true?” she asked Celestia, when she was done explaining the last details of the alien’s visit. “Is there really some kind of...” She struggled to find the right word. “War” certainly wasn't it. “Danger? Is there really danger to Equestria from out there, like the aliens said?”

They were alone in one of Celestia's tower rooms, overlooking the castle grounds. There were no guards to overhear. Her friends had volunteered to come, but… Twilight had told them not to. Only she had been told about the secrets under Equestria. She didn't want to bring anypony if they might discourage Celestia from being honest.

Celestia nodded. “The dangers are very real, but Equestria has triumphed over all of them.”

Twilight couldn't meet her face. Instead she looked out the window, taking in the life below. Gardeners trimmed the castle lawns, birds sung, and further still thousands of ponies went about their lives. With such peace, it was hard to imagine anything else. “What do you mean?”

Celestia chuckled. “How many monsters have you and your friends fought in the last five years?” She didn't wait for an answer. “More dangerous every year the Red Tide gets closer. They did not tell Luna and I very much about it, but they did say it would create monsters. Discord, for instance.”

“But—” Twilight turned her back on the window, looking directly at Celestia. “But Discord reformed!”

“He did, didn't he.” She shrugged a shoulder. “The Creators know much, Twilight. But as a little lavender unicorn once had to learn, just knowing things isn't enough. Ponies—and Creators too, I think—can easily see all they know and forget there is more that they don't. Yes, there are dangers. When they made us, the Creators said trillions had died in the Tide. Their way of fighting it must not be working. Luna and I decided to try—”

A shadow filled the window. The whole mountain shook. Twilight moved to look, but Celestia didn’t. She just walked away from the window, towards a portrait on the far wall.

The starship filled the sky, vaster than the mountain, vaster than all of Ponyville and Sweet Apple Acres and probably Manehattan as well. Most frightening about it was the distant way the ship looked, blurring into indistinct lines. If it was big enough to fill all the sky when it was far away, how much bigger would it be if it landed? The massive shape was longer than it was wide, elegant sloping metal broken by thousands of ridges, openings, lights, or other faintly moving apparatus. A hundred little glittering shapes buzzed around it like insects, little ships that defied the construction of the wisest griffon artisans. Openings along its bottom glowed a brilliant blue, and as they did the whole earth shook beneath her hooves.

Ponies screamed in the city below, running in terror. Hooves trampled through the hallways of the castle beneath her, and guard pegasi scrambled in the air. It was greatly to their credit that they did anything at all.

Twilight turned, her mane blurring around her briefly as her eyes widened in desperation. “Are they going to attack? Should I get the elements? I could probably be in Ponyville in—”

“They won’t attack, my dear Twilight. Why would they need to? Once Luna and I are dead, it will be easy to replace us with new alicorns and win Equestria without a fight.”

“What?” Hot tears burned Twilight’s cheeks, and she hurried up to Celestia, eyes wide with terror. “But our meeting went so well, Princess! Torres said she was sure we’d be able to convince their leaders. Why would they kill you now?”

Celestia wrapped one wing around her, pulling her head to her chest. “Oh, my dear Twilight. Luna and I always knew it was hopeless. We hoped we’d have succeeded before they came—if we didn’t, we knew we would die. It’s alright. I’ve got a fantastic student to take over for me when I’m gone.”

“We won’t let them!” Twilight pulled away, facing the window and lowering herself into a fighting crouch. “We fought Tirek! We reformed Discord! Together, we—”

“It’s not that simple.” Celestia’s voice was loving, gently reproving. “There are mechanisms inside us, Twilight. Spells designed to prevent us from being corrupted as Discord once was. Once they’re triggered, we can do nothing to stop them. We’ll die.” She reached out with a wing, touching Twilight gently on the shoulder. “Please. Look at me.”

She did. The strength fled her body at Celestia’s words, her ears flattening. The betrayal twisted like a knife within Twilight’s chest, yet she forced herself to look up. The one pony she thought she would never lose, the one friend whose rule was eternal and kindness had no bounds, was going to die before her eyes.

“Okay.” Twilight hugged her, forgetting all her decorum, all her fear. She cried freely.

Celestia did too.

“Shouldn’t your sister be here?”

She felt more than saw Celestia shake her head. Outside, bells rang in Canterlot’s streets, as constable ponies tried to restore order. Soldiers shouted outside, searching in vain for the princesses. This once Celestia did not identify herself, and apparently Luna didn’t either. There was no point when doing so would only let your subjects see you die.

“No.” Celestia’s voice was quiet. “We made our peace last night, during your time with the assessor. We’ve had each other for years—we agreed that we should spend our final moments with the ponies who will need to be strongest for Equestria once we’re gone.” She reached out, and Twilight felt her mentor’s magic gently caress her cheek, wiping the tears away. “Don’t cry too much for me, Twilight. I had a very long life. Thanks to you, I can die with fewer regrets.”

Twilight couldn’t bring herself to reply.

They stayed like that a long time. Twilight feared what was to come. Would she watch Celestia die in agony, or would she just vanish? What would Equestria be like without its rulers? Who would move the sun? Could Cadence do it, without the more senior princesses? She had no mind for rational considerations, not with so much emotion flooding her. It was all she could do to wait.

Minutes passed. The rumbling from outside faded, though the flurry of activity only grew more intense. Ponies shouted orders, the castle prepared itself for a siege. Celestia didn’t melt, or catch fire, or burn away. She didn’t stop breathing, or have some kind of heart attack.

It was the most painful moment of Twilight’s life, and she couldn’t have said how long it took.

Eventually though, the moment ended. Ended with a rumbling voice, echoing across the sky. The voice didn’t seem to have a specific source; it echoed from every flat surface, every glass, every pool of water. “PONIES OF EQUESTRIA, WE COME IN PEACE!”

Twilight forced herself away from Celestia, towards the window. The massive metal hulk was still there in the sky, terrifying in its scope. Even as she watched, a sparkle of golden light separated from the cloud, flying straight towards Canterlot.

A roar like a sonic rainboom shook the sky as it moved, traveling on towards Canterlot with unfathomable speed. After only a few moments in the air it began to slow, and Twilight could get a good look. It was easily the size of a large building, glittering golden metal in a style far more formal and impressive than all the little ships in the sky. It had many windows like stained glass.

It froze completely in the air above the castle, then started to descend. It landed in the streets just outside the grounds, in the area normally occupied by the carriages of ponies who came to visit the princesses. The ground shook a little as it touched down, its vertical shape somehow holding steady without legs or other supports.

Celestia approached the window beside her, watching with shock. “Why—why haven’t—”

Someone spoke beside them. Twilight knew the voice, though she could scarcely imagine how it might be here now. It was Torres. “Captain Layton is waiting for you in the lander, Princess. I suggest you get your sister and the most important ponies you can and meet them. They’ll wait for you—make it properly dramatic that way.”

Twilight turned. As she had expected, it was the pony body the ambassador had used the day before, not her human form.

“Why?” Celestia spoke beside her, somewhere between shock and relief. “Equestria deserves better than to watch their rulers die before them. Luna and I will not cooperate in that.”

Torres withdrew a little, wilting. “Nothing like that, Princess Celestia.”

“That’s my name.” The alicorn’s expression wavered a little, but her tone didn’t soften. “What happened to using my fleet serial?”

Torres swallowed, then straightened. “The Imperial Fleet thanks you for your many years of meritorious service. They sent me ahead to communicate their regret that your services as contractors are no longer required.”

Twilight nearly screamed as the pony reached to her side, at a satchel hanging from one shoulder. She didn’t react fast enough to stop her, though.

Torres tossed a glittering medal at Celestia’s hooves. It wasn’t large, not compared to some of Celestia’s jewelry, showing what looked like a miniature silhouette of the ship outside and some tiny text in the alien language. “Since you’re dismissed, it seemed right to use your proper name. The captain would probably see it differently. But I’m an engineer, not an officer.” She tossed another, slightly darker medal to the ground. “That one’s for your sister. You… probably shouldn’t show anyone.”

Twilight had to admit—seeing Celestia shocked and amazed for once made the stress of the last hour almost worth it. Almost.

Torres continued. “We thought you would probably prefer your history with the fleet not widely known. The decision is yours, but we guessed it would increase the hostility Equestria faces from other nations. They’ll be harder to uplift if they’re angry and suspicious.”

Celestia was still too shocked to reply. Twilight wasn’t. “We changed their minds?”

“It’s complicated and political and unfortunately I don’t think you’d understand…” The “pony” shrugged. “Celestia and her sister did good work, in some ways. The danger isn’t here yet, and… they obviously protected your planet from its growing influence in this space. It wasn’t as though we needed the extra troops. Heck, ponies could all be a hundred times smarter than we are and we’d have been fine without you.”

Twilight balked. “But, if you didn’t need us to help you fight, or to help you think of how not to, why even come?”

Torres smiled, walking past the two of them and looking out the window herself. She seemed to have regained her composure, because she didn’t seem afraid of Celestia anymore.

Twilight followed, watching out the window. A crowd of hundreds of ponies was gathering around the alien ship. Guards stopped ponies from getting too close, but they didn’t have much work to do. The ponies weren’t all that unruly, just curious. Awed, maybe. She figured that was an appropriate reaction under the circumstances.

“We didn’t come to Equestria because we needed you. We came because we wanted a friend.” She turned, lowering her head respectfully to Celestia. “The admiralty board agreed. Maybe you failed at your original mission, but… maybe your original mission wasn’t terribly inspired to begin with.”

Celestia had recovered by then, at least enough to speak. She still sounded a little awed herself. “So what happens now? What will you do?”

Torres gestured out the window. “Your world must change. The board decided that change could come through contact.” Her eyes narrowed. “It was wrong of you to lie. Wrong not to give your people a choice. Don’t take this as the board condoning your actions.” She gestured at Twilight. “How many people like this have been wasted on old age because you kept your people away from modern medicine? How much hope could your species have brought to our tired galaxy two centuries ago when the Homeworld fell?”

Torres shivered, but didn’t elaborate on that subject. “We do not pretend to understand what you’ve done here, or to agree with much of it. Yet the board decided it was wrong to judge you. Your own people will do that—a few hundred years from now, when they know what you’ve done.”

A little of the anger returned to Celestia’s words, though not nearly so much as before. “Our little ponies would never kill us as you threatened to do. They’re too good to earn performance by threatening with murder.”

“Neither will we.” Torres reached into the saddlebags one last time, drawing out a lump of metal almost too heavy for her to hold in her mouth. Instead of throwing it, she set it down on a nearby table. It was a device of some kind, though Twilight’s eyes had no context to understand it. A flat metal base with a transparent dome, within which a speck of something floated and glowed. There were controls on the base, though the buttons were too small for pony hooves.

“This is the failsafe, the one your creators told you about when you were assigned. As your service has ended, your compulsion ends as well.”

“If that is so, what is to prevent us from burning that ship of yours from our skies?” Twilight recognized the voice at once, as much from the fierce pride there as familiarity with the tone. Princess Luna watched from the doorway, though she had eyes only for the device. It looked like a bunch of nonsense to Twilight, but from hers and Celestia’s expressions, it was sacred treasure.

Torres did not attempt to take the device back. Instead she stepped away, retreating from it. “Nothing! Or… nothing now. I’m just an engineer, so don’t take military advice from me. Still, I... I wouldn’t suggest a war. The admiralty thought your planet conquered, Princess, not disobedient. We came expecting to fight a war of liberation on your behalf.”

She smiled sadly. “After what I saw yesterday I would really rather be friends. Please don’t force us not to be.”

The princesses shared a look. Twilight couldn’t read Celestia’s expression, despite her several years of knowing her. The alicorns’ expressions were complex, as they glanced from Torres to the window and back to Twilight. Some kind of understanding passed between them.

Eventually, Celestia straightened. “Come, Twilight. I believe we have aliens outside our gates. We ought to go and meet them.”