FTL: Faster Than Luna

It worked.

A week of obsessive research, skipping meals, and even dodging her duties as a princess hadn’t been in vain.

Up, down, and all around the stars glistened and shined. The universe around her was something of her own creation, and with help from additional magic spells it could be randomly generated into something different every time she slept.

Countless fauna and flora lived in this dream universe, all products of her imagination and countless hours of reading novels in the royal library. Even the hollowed out asteroid fortress her ship was docked at, named Luna XI, was something woven together by her mastery of dream magic. What had been a small idea one afternoon was quickly becoming a second reality all unto itself.

Soon, her dreams would be an endless adventure that would last as long as her will to continue them.

Engines? Check. Door control? Check.

Reaching out with a hoof, Luna toggled a switch and saw the lights on her command display change.

Shields? Check. Weapons? Check.

She continued to rapidly push buttons and pull levers, with expert knowledge gained from hours of experience. Lights toggled on and off, as she diverted power from the ship's supply all around to different stations. Behind her she could hear the wonderful mechanical hymns of her different subsystems powering on and off.

Oxygen generator? Check. Medical bay? Check.

Finalizing her checklist, she clapped her hooves together with glee. Soon, an adventure of beyond epic proportions would begin! But what would she do first? Fight pirates? Discover a new world? Navigate through an asteroid field? There were so many possibilities! But first, was there something she had to do where she was docked? Maybe she was already in the middle of some incredibly top secret mission!

Hesitantly, Luna picked up the radio communicator attached to her pilot's seat. Adjusting some dials with her magic, she tuned the transmitter to match the base's receiver frequency.

“Command? This is Captain Luna of the Kestrel. Requesting permission to launch?”

She resisted the urge to power up her ship's engines and simply fly out into the vacuum of space right in front of her. The bays of the asteroid fortress glowed with an unusual aura, forming an air tight seal with magic or some technology foreign to her. She could barely contain her excitement, waiting for somepony to pick up on the other end and answer her.

“Negative, Captain. Port Authority is still inspecting a crystal pony frigate in the fourth dock. We'll radio you when they're ready for you, over.”

“...Understood, over.” Luna slumped back into her seat dejectedly, feeling her enthusiasm draining from her. Even if her dreams, there was bureaucratic processes stalling her work! It was no different from her night court, where hours were burnt every single night delegating responsibilities to the civil service that her older sister had created.

Refusing to be let down by a minor setback, she scanned the interior of her ship's cockpit. Finding nothing of interest other than the controls of her own ships, she crossed her forelegs and huffed with an adorable pout.

How utterly frustrating. Here we are, docked in an asteroid base in space! There must be something for us to do!

Looking outside her ship at the loading bay filled with activity, she could see all kinds of creatures unknown to her running about working to maintain the small fleet the asteroid base could house. From her cockpit she could see large diamond dogs in uniforms hauling even larger boxes on their shoulders, while unicorns performed delicate work on the hulls of ships. Trolleys stacked high with cargo zipped back and forth on futuristic hover propulsion, with no end in sight. Watching everything going on around her, she wondered curiously if the world around her was still centered around her.

No. How ridiculous of us. This world is ours to play in! We should enjoy ourselves, not rush in haste.

Continuing to look around, her eyes drifted to a group of ponies in uniform standing out of the way of the docks. They were lined up together in matching uniforms, and were being lectured by another pony in a uniform of a different ranking.

“The instrument panel is practically a decoration to let you know whether you're vaguely on target. The only thing you can really count on is your eyes! And they're useless unless you use your brains! Understand!? God help you space cadets if you ever get into real combat!”

Spittle flew from the Federation officer's mouth as he thundered at the five pony cadets standing at attention in front of him. Luna watched with a dull interest, silently guessing that their inattentive looks were from empty stomachs making as much noise as their trainer.

Note to thy self: test the weapon targeting system at first chance. We must test what the limits of this dream are.

The idea of being able to manipulate a dream with magic to replicate the story world of one of her favorite games had been only a vague interest two weeks ago. In her enthusiasm to test her results, she hadn't bothered with any more elaborate research into replicating the physical laws of the real world too. Dreams were powerful realms unto themselves, and often they reflected the dreamer's own beliefs and understandings. Did that mean that it would be possible to meet a fate worse than imprisonment out in space? Or would she simply wake up, as if she were having a nightmare?

Luna sat back in her seat, finding the combination of padding and cushions to be to her liking. It unnerved her a little, to think that she could be on a dangerous threshold without realizing it. Many studies in magic pertaining to her particular talents had been discontinued over centuries by her older sister, out of a mixture of respect and regret over her banishment a millennia ago. Was it possible that she was on the edge of a major development? Or could it become a spiraling chain of disasters?

Our magical prowess is indeed powerful. Perhaps we should see if we can mold this world from within.

Searching around on her command console once more, her eyes scanned over the multiple utility features the onboard computer to her ship held. Spotting one that looked like it would suit her needs, she picked up the recording transceiver and spoke as if she were narrating a story.

"Captain's log number one. When a inservice vessel enters a garrisoned spaceport, Federation cadets are required to stand at the dock and observe the warship as it takes off and lands. Mainly because there isn't much else to do on a Federation outpost located so far away from any major civilization. But more importantly, it could give them a chance to familiarize themselves with what vessels are still in service with the Federation navy. That service list is a very long roster of different ships, engineered and crewed by an equal number of different races that make up the core of the intergalactic Federation space forces."

Luna watched the group of cadets follow their instructor to another ship, and as if guided by her statement the instructor begin pointing out the different aspects of the new ship to them. Pleased by the results, she stopped the recording device and started it again to leave another entry.

"Captain's log number two. The cozy base where my Kestrel had been docked was nicer than some outpost in the middle of a changeling nebula, but it was so far from the fighting that weapon supplies have stopped entirely. With so many problems in the galaxy, tis hard for any red-blooded skipper to sit idle and accept waiting for orders that may never come. We have heard rumors of the power of Rebel Fleet ships, but we think that they are mostly empty boasts. Nothing in the galaxy can't be sorted out by a few volleys of missiles and burst lasers, especially from a ship as fine as our own."

“But in our humble opinion, the Federation doth worry too much,” Luna said and laughed, ending the recording by putting the transceiver back down on its resting place. Standing up on her hind legs, she spread her wings gracefully and held a foreleg raised in the air. “Enemies of peace in the galaxy have no place to run or hide! We, the brave soldiers of the Federation, shall never give into--”

“Captain!”

Luna nearly fell out of her chair when somepony on her ship's intercom system interrupted her monologue. Picking herself up off of the floor in a disheveled mess of feathers and fur, she adjusted her tiara on her head before picking up the transceiver once more.

"...This is Captain Luna of the Kestrel, over."

“Port authority just radioed back, ma'am. They said that they'll start loading your issued supplies as soon as they've off loaded your cargo, over.”

“Understood. We would like to request a map of the local star systems to plan our return trip out ahead of time, over.”

“Yes ma'am. I'll ask again when they come back with the parts to install your new scrap arm into the ship's hull, over.”

Scrap arm? Luna grunted in acknowledgement and hummed to herself in thought. A special augment to her ship for no cost? She could certainly stand waiting a little longer for that. In her game there were many special augments and devices her ship could be outfitted with. But there was always a cost in the end, which had to be divided between other things to keep the ship running smoothly.

Looking out the cockpit window and through the glowing forcefields that kept the artificial environment of the asteroid base sealed tight, she tried to observe the panorama of stars outside. Perhaps she should have requested that her map be unlabeled, so as to allow her to craft each world individually. Maybe some inspiration could be found for her own night sky in the real world, after a little further exploration.

“Magic scope!”

At her voice command, one of the monitors on her pilot's console displayed an image from the central computer system of the asteroid station. It showed the space around the Kestrel, identifying and displaying information about everything incoming and outgoing its detection range. She knew that the image itself was not a true depiction of reality, but a series of inference and extrapolation techniques by a computer somewhere to output a detailed graphic image for her to view.

Since the computer system was limited by what specific information was loaded into it, it could only display a silhouette of what unidentified objects looked like. In this case, there were several objects similar to asteroids hurdling at high speeds toward the asteroid spaceport. Knowing that the fortress' shields would absorb the impact without a problem, she shut off the link to the laser oscillation tower with a sigh.

Tis an unexpectedly slow start. Where is the action we crave? The adventure! The excitement!

Luna paused, as if waiting for a sign or signal to show that her thoughts were being answered. Suddenly without warning, the radio in her cockpit crackled and buzzed on its own.

"Captain Luna? We may have a problem. Can your ship launch ahead of schedule, over?"

"That depends. What's seems to be the problem, over?" she asked, trying to hide her joy at the thought of doing anything but waiting around in the safe shelter of the asteroid base.

"We're still trying to confirm that. We believe there is a hostile automated attack drone surveying this base, where the incoming asteroids have originated from. Command is requesting you launch the Kestrel and take it out, over."

An attack drone? Luna thought, remembering the wraith-like machines from her game notable for their equipment of cloaking devices to make themselves invisible and impossible to attack. They were not a foe to be taken lightly, and could harass and terrorize smaller facilities by avoiding the automated defenses of the base.

"Do we have a readout of the drone? What it is armed with, over?" she asked, trying to judge her own chances of success and failure from so many different factors unknown to her. The drones she had encountered had varied in difficulty depending on her advances in the game world. Would it be the same for her dream? Disregarding her foe, could her ship be entirely controlled from her cockpit? Or did it need more crew members like the video game her dream world was mimicking? There were too many open factors to take in all at once!

"Negative, captain. It's possible that it was damaged by the asteroids it was hiding around, but we can't confirm that at this time. Over."

Luna crossed her forelegs again, weighing the options in her mind. On one hoof the adventure she had sought out from the start had just caught up to her, but it was before she had gotten a chance to experiment with more controlled variables. Even if she was known as the Mistress of Dreams for her mastery over the dream world, would she be able to call on her experience and knowledge to help herself?

No! Fortune favors the bold! We have lived far too long to cower in the face of adversity!

"Alright! The Kestrel will launch, with its target being the hostile automated drone ship outside of this base's perimeter defenses!"