Termination Shock

Pony Scifi

For the past thousand years, the mountainside on which Canterlot stood had been slowly disappearing from view. It was something only the immortal would even have noticed. For those brief flickers of light and love that were the majority of the pony race recalled nothing but their achingly transient snapshots of the now-sprawling metropolis and nothing more. They might go about their entire lives thinking Canterlot had always been that way. Princess Twilight Sparkle knew different. In her mind she could, with the eidetic ease of an ancient intelligence, recall the construction of every apartment block, factory, boutique chain, ice-cream parlour and a myriad more beside. She could roll it all back to that time when Ponyville wasn't just a trendy Canterlot suburb, but its own thriving township, with twee little thatched-roof cottages, and where the largest construct for miles around was the town hall.

Now that honor fell to the Spire of Harmony, a great silver strand standing rigid up out of the top of the mountain and into the heavens, an elevator bridging the gap to Equestrian geosync. Gondolas the size of passenger aircraft slid up and down it in a never-ending cascade, shipping ponies and material between the surface and places beyond. There was usually far more occupying the upward gondolas than the downward ones. It was a boom time for the high frontier. Unexpectedly, the Princess found herself longing for when the heated west had been the most daring locale ponykind occupied.

At least Canterlot Castle, seat of power for millennia, had remained mostly the same. It was one of the few things that seemed truly immutable. Of course, it now sang with electronics and other modern conveniences, but here it was all hidden away behind the immaculately maintained façade. The gentle hiss of the door mechanism activating at the other end of the throne room interrupted her nostalgic reverie. She turned to see Rainbow Dash glide in, manner filled with urgent purpose. Immediately Twilight knew something was up. The Lord High Admiral never lost her confident, professional demeanour these days. She rarely flew under her own power either, so it was doubly concerning.

“Your Highness-” she began, but Twilight interrupted her with a dismissive gesture. “Please. 'Your Highness' was Celestia. You of all ponies should remember that.” It was a harsh put down, but it paid to remind the supreme commander of the price of failure. She had, after all, been in charge of the ill-fated mission that brought about the ultimate end of the Celestian Ascendency. Rainbow Dash frowned and pointedly skipped the usual reverent kowtow. “Of course. Twilight.” She paused, as though the name itself was some strange new word that didn't quite belong to the language. “The Faithful Student just came out of Transition.”

“Oh? Did they find Luna?”

“That's the thing. They're not responding to our hails and have made no attempts at contact, or at deceleration into orbit. They've been burning their fusion drives white hot for the last twelve minutes. They're putting on 6g and climbing, headed right at us!”

Twilight thought for a moment, carefully adjusting the soft silk blouse she was wearing, picked to understate the elegant and regal appearance of her frame. As she did, she began to lift up several holographic projection spheres, using her magic to pry them from their cradles around the throne. They responded automatically to her phantom touch, displaying reams of neatly organised data. She carefully manipulated invisible grids of keys and dials, calling up the aggregated feeds of a thousand satellites. Little camera windows blossomed rapidly, each showing a different perspective, or section of the electromagnetic spectrum. Surely enough, the ungainly-looking black wedge shape of the ultra-long range scout ship Faithful Student was vectoring in toward Equestria, rapidly approaching the orbit of its single moon and closing still. A surge of adrenaline raced up her spine.

Rainbow Dash gestured, and the optically sensitive linings of the throne room picked it up, translating the slight motion into a zoom command. As she did, dozens of green triangles appeared, clustered in orbit around the top of the Spire of Harmony. Each bore a name, and a brief overview of information such as speed, acceleration, mass and, worryingly enough, weapons information. “I've parked two divisions of Fast Fleet Harriers here,” she said, resolutely. Usually the elements of Dash's military cadres never ventured so close. The larger ones would now be visible from the ground. There would certainly be political ramifications for her actions later, not to mention the riot when the news networks got hold of the story, but with the unfolding crisis it hardly mattered. “We're ready to work the interception if it comes to it.” Twilight stared down at the commander, taking her eyes off the holographic swarm that floated in the air between them. “You're not seriously suggesting firing on Fluttershy and Rarity are you? Not to mention the two thousand ponies on their crew.” Dash stamped her hoof against the marble floor. “At that velocity, and with their enhanced defensive capabilities, they're going to hit this planet with enough energy to briefly outshine an exploding star. I cannot allow that.”

“And I will not allow you to harm our friends!”

“They're going to die anyway! And there are two billion ponies in the kill zone. We're in the kill zone.”

“I'll use the long range amplifier again. Magical braking. Put them on a stable track.”

“There's not enough space to do it safely. I already thought of that.” Rainbow dash sighed with near exasperation. “And before you say it, she's too big and too fast for matter transmission or a physical rendezvous. I had the Palace computer run the numbers on the way over. Check it for yourself.”

The Princess was busy doing just that. The idea of losing any of her closest friends, bearers of the Elements, was unthinkable. The death of a third of the groundsider population was equally so. And it would only end the same way. Rainbow Dash was right. The realization hurt. She manually recomputed all the data anyway. Maybe something would show itself. Spiraling patterns and vector lines replaced the tactical view. Within the ebb and flow of numbers and symbols, something began to take shape. Moving as quickly as her thoughts would allow, she sequestrated half the connected processing power in Equestria, tying their functions into the central Palace computer. “Please, Twilight, give the order, we're running out of time.”

The Princess didn't hear her. Shining like a star in the eyes of those that could understand it, an equation appeared. It was genius. Dazzling. Insane. And all of the borrowed runtime in the land had just shown her that it would work. “Dash, how long can we wait?” she asked, voice dreamy and distracted, still staring at the equation. It was making her giddy, banishing the nervous adrenaline shakes. “Forty-seven minutes, absolute maximum. Why?” Princess Twilight Sparkle smiled at her friend, now all calm smiles, something she'd picked up from Celestia. “Good. Get back to your flagship. I think I've found a way to save everypony.”