TS-01

TS-01. Twilight Sparkle was sitting on a chair in the main room of the ship. She was looking at a screen, which was showing three ponies wearing spacesuits exploring the grounds of the planet.

"We're returning to the spaceship, miss Sparkle." said one of the ponies. "Permission to board with samples?"

Twilight smiled and approached her mouth to a microphone, then pressed a button and spoke:

"Permission granted. Good work, gentlecolts!"

The first pony nodded to the two other ponies and they slowly walked back to the spaceship due to the lower gravity of the planet. They were carrying two plastic recipients, one containing a sample of the soil and the other containing samples of rocks. Once inside the ship, they went straight to the research room.

"Might as well go join--" Twilight's sentence was interrupted by a certain demanding pony entering the room.

"Ugh! How long are we going to stay in this stupid rock?" Prince Blueblood asked. "We've been away from home for far too long. I need my daily sunbath. My coat is losing its shine and I need a proper bath!"

Twilight sighed. "It was you who decided to come along, Prince Blueblood."

"I'm starting to regret my decision."

"I already regretted it the moment Princess Celestia told me you were going to be our sponsor." she muttered under her breath.

"Did you say something, miss Sparkle?" he asked, glaring at her.

"No, nothing!" she laughed nervously. "Smile, Twilight, smile." she thought. "If you offend him we'll be without sponsors and the whole project is doomed!"

The Prince huffed and stroked his mane. "Besides, what would the Planet Blueblood be without the great Prince Blueblood himself?"

"A much better place, I'm sure of that..."

Blueblood then walked toward the door. "And now, with your permission, I'm going back to my bechamber. The only refined place in this filthy spaceship!"

"And where you spent over 25% of our budget, so please stay there until we're finished and ready to go back home!"

* * *

Twilight slowly woke up. Both her head and her empty eye socket were hurting. She got up with difficult.

"Need to work on the fixation spell." she said, rubbing her forehead. "Bless Celestia for the shield spell. Now, where am I?" she had no chance to take a look around, for she heard the sound of hoofsteps coming from her hallway. The only nearby hiding spot was under a luxurious bed.

The automatic door opened and a white stallion with golden mane and tail, his Cutie Mark a compass rose walked in. Twilight felt both joy and disgust for seeing him one more time.

"That Twilight Sparkle is truly an uncouth ruffian." he said to himself after lying on his bed. The hiding Twilight frowned. "She thinks I didn't heard that? Well, I can't wait for us to go back home, so I can give my auntie a list of one thousand reasons of why the project can't go on anymore. The days of your little project are numbered, Twilight Sparkle!"

"I never liked you too, Blueblood." Future Twilight Sparkle thought, rolling her eyes. "Now, how am I going to get out of here? I can't let this moron spot me, otherwise he will think I'm the other Twilight and bomb me with questions about why I'm here!" she quietly sighed. "So much for saving Equestria..."

* * *

A young, dark purple earth pony mare with a long blue mane and wearing a lab coat walked in the research room.

"Impressive..." said the earth pony stallion, Dr. Greenhoof, looking at a sample of soil through a microscope.

"What did you discovered?" she asked, approaching him.

He moved away from the microscope. "The soil itself isn't fertile as the robot explorers first analyzed. From all the experiments we conducted so far, the only results we got were that the soil is as dead and dry as the bones of a traveler who got lost in the desert!"

"Does that mean the robots were defected?"

"Wait, that's not all! We split one of the rocks in half and it was stuffed with some kind of... Dust or sand we've never seen before. And here it's where the best part starts: it's alive!"

"Alive?"

"Yes! The material it's full of microorganisms that move on their own. We believe they are what keep the soil fertile, for the inside of the rock was more fertile than any orchard in Equestria I've studied! Of course, we still have to confirm if they're really the cause, but this can wait. Dr. Eclipse, we have officially confirmed the existence of life outside Gaia!"

"This... This is wonderful!" the mare, Dr. Eclipse said, her eyes glowing with excitement behind the lenses of her glasses.

"Please, can you inform miss Sparkle of our discovery, Dr. Eclipse? We still need to conduct a few more experiments."

The delight in Eclipse's eyes immediately faded. She nodded. "As you wish, Dr. Greenhoof." she then left the room. Even after the door automatically closed, she could still hear Dr. Greenhoof repeating the word "impressive".

Still in the research room, Dr. Cyclone, a scientist pegasus stallion, was studying another sample of thee "living dust"; he wasn't able to keep his wings from flapping in bliss. This caused a gust of wind that sent the material flying all over the room.

"DR. CYCLONE!" shouted Greenhoof when he noticed what was causing the breeze that blew his sample away. "Can't you keep your wings under control? At least this time?"

The pegasus stallion gave the unicorn a crooked smile and blushed in shame.

"Ow, it got in my eye!" said a pegasus mare before starting to rub her left eye with a forehoof. Greenhoof sighed.

"For the thousandth time, Dr. Starry Skies, you're supposed to use goggles when studying something like that." he pointed his hoof at an unicorn stallion. "Dr. Goldmine, can you please help Dr. Skies wash her? And make sure to examine her thoroughly afterwards. Who knows what those beautiful little creatures can do to a pony?"

The unicorn saluted Greenhoof and guided Starry Skies, who was still rubbing her eyes, to the toilet right outside the room.

"You should really stop rubbing it!" Goldmine said.

"But it hurts!" Skies replied in a whiny tone.

* * *

"They never let me research with them." Eclipse thought while climbing a steel ladder. "Is it because I'm the youngest and they think I will mess everything up? Well, I'm far more careful then many ponies with many more years of experience than me. Specially Dr. Cyclone!" once she finished climbing the ladder, she took a deep breath. "Since they won't let me do anything, miss Twilight could at least turn off the artificial gravity and let me have some fun."

The automatic door leading to the main room opened and Eclipse walked in.

"Yes, Dr. Eclipse?" Twilight asked, looking away from the screen, which was showing a pictures of the planet taken by the robot explorer.

"Dr. Greehoof sent me. He wanted me to tell you that living microorganisms were found in the samples."

Twilight fell off her chair.

"A-Are you being serious?!"

She nodded. "We still need to investigate a little more, but we can almost say for sure that they are also the reason the soil is so fertile."

"This... This is incredible! I need to see it with my own eyes."

Twilight dashed past Eclipse and climbed down the ladder. Eclipse followed her.

"Life outside Gaia? This is the greatest scientific discovery of the century-- No, of the millennium!"

For a second, the lights of the whole spaceship flickered. Twilight and Eclipse stopped.

"What... What just happened?" Eclipse asked.

"I... I don't know! But we can check this later. We have something far more inportant on our hooves."

Twilight and Eclipse stood in front of the automatic door, but nothing happened.

"That's weird." Eclipse said "This door was working five minutes ago!"

"Twilight." called a third voice coming from behind them.

Twilight and Eclipse immediately turned their heards and gasped. Standing there, in front of a removed panel on the wall with cut wires, was a purple unicorn mare wearing a black suit, an eyepatch and with a white cloth with a red stain on it wrapped around her head.

"It's... It's you.." Twilight said at the mare that looked exactly like her.

"We need to talk."