- Location: Close to the Edge of the Thanos System
Loki was transporting cargo from Thanos III all the way across the galaxy to the Atreides system where he would drop off the cargo at the edge of the system, receive his payment, and go. The cargo itself was quite possibly the most valuable thing he had ever had within his possession, including his ship. Contained within his cargo hold was a thick grey goop that would seem unremarkable until examined under high magnification. In reality the grey goop was a batch of self-replicating nanites. The nanites were considerably slower at building than the previous generation but being able to build more of themselves easily made up for that.
It was 4 minutes until Loki would be able to initiate an FTL window, 4 minutes until he was far enough away from a gravity well that the FTL window would stabilize, when alarms began to flash in the cockpit.
"WARNING: PIRATES DETECTED,” alerted the shipboard A.I.
Loki quickly flicked a switch to bring his shields up as the cockpit’s windows closed, indicating the ship was entering battle mode. “Damnit”, he thought, “should’ve put weapons on this boat back at the station. But no, I was too greedy.” At the current moment the ship was completely unarmed as Loki had removed them to get the maximum cargo space to transport his rather valuable goods. It would appear that raising the shields were a good idea as these pirates were not even attempting to negotiate as a blue light flashed when a railgun round impacted the ships shields.
“Eve, what is the shield at?” he asked the A.I.
“Shields are holding at 81%,” the ship flashed again as it was impacted by another blast from the railgun, “make that 67%, we will not make it to the edge of the system before the shields fail, at that time making entering slipspace will tear the ship apart.”
“Damn,” he repeated, “what about making an in-system window?”
“If we make an in-system window, it will not stabilize and we only have a 32% chance of survival.”
“And chances of survival otherwise?” he asked.
“10%,” the A.I responded.
It did not require much thinking to come to a conclusion as he ordered the ship to make a jump. He felt a vibration as the FTL drives ripped a hole in space, something that he was told looked rather similar to the Aurora back on Earth. His ship passed through the hole and he felt a great deal of pain before he passed out.
{------X------S.U.I------X------}
- Location: Unknown
Loki awoke when he heard the telltale tearing noise of his ship exiting slipspace. Sitting up in hischair he was greeted with a wonderfully painful headache and the smell of rotten eggs. The headache indicated that he had hit his head and the sulfuric scent indicated that the FTL drives had failed.
“Wonderful,” he muttered then raised hus voice to speak to the ship’s A.I, “Eve, what is the damage?”
“FTL drives have failed, engines are offline, shields at 10%, and structural integrity is at 90%.”
“Even better,” he replied sarcastically, sinking back into his seat, “what are the chances of repairing the engines before life support fails?”
“It should be possible to get the engines repaired many weeks before life support fails; however, you will fall out of orbit and hit the surface of the planet below far before this happens.”
He instantly bolted up straight at this new information and soon assumed an annoyed expression at the A.I. “And you didn’t think to tell me this sooner?”
“No,” the A.I replied, “it was not a portion of the damage.”
“Friggin’ A.I,” he muttered and then raised his voice to a normal tone, “okay, what happens if our orbit degrades to that point?”
“Assuming you spend the time before atmospheric entry repairing the shield,” Eve paused, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was an A.I, Loki would have thought she was doing it for dramatic effect instead of merely calculating odds, “then you have a 98% chance of survival.”
“Wow,” he said, actually impressed, “that’s better than usual. Well then, better get to work. What tools do we have onboard to repair the shields?”
“Only one sir, and you’re not going to like it.”
{------X------S.U.I------X------}
- Location: Orbit Above an Unknown Planet
She was right of course, he most definitely did not like it. He was now out 40K credits for breaking containment on his cargo. The only tool they had on board had of course been the nanites stored in the cargo hold. The nanites were currently busy cannibalizing their former containment and converting into parts to repair the shields.
Upon reaching 3 minutes until he would enter the atmosphere, Loki buckled up into his seat in the cockpit, powering down non-essential systems and using the spare power for the shields, bringing it up to 76%, hopefully enough to survive his soon to occur crash landing.
“Please note that knew calculations have been made regarding the probability of either of us surviving the crash and the odds have been lowered to 92% for you and have remained at 98.7% for me.”
“Thanks Eve,” he replied sarcastically,” I really needed to hear that.”
“You are welcome Loki,” the A.I said without the slightest trace that she had heard his sarcasm.
Soon the cockpit was enveloped in a reddish glow as flames began to appear on the outside, contrasting with the blue glow as the shields were activated from the heat. Sadly, even grade A shielding technology could not protect an individual against the intense heat of atmospheric entry and the cabin soon began to grow swelteringly hot. Soon the heat faded though and the ground below began to grow green as they broke through the cloud layer. As they were nearing the ground Loki looked over to a nearby mountain and thought, “Hey isn’t that a castle,” and then the world went black.
{------X------S.U.I------X------}
- Location: Unknown Planet
Loki slowly reentered the land of the conscious with a groan. All over his body were aches and more aches, the space between filled with sharp pains. Loki opened his eyes and was given yet another pain as he managed to open his eyes to a point in the sky near to where the sun was. He winced and closed his eyes, once again he attempted to open them and was given significantly more success as he had realized looking at a bright celestial object was not a good idea. Loki’s eyes eventually adjusted to the new influx of light and he was able to survey his surroundings. It appeared that he had crashed in a forest of some type, the trees around bearing remarkable similarities to those back on Earth. He quickly realized that the nigh indestructible glass of his cockpit had somehow been broken by a tree limb upon his crash. He had also had his breathing mask separated from his face at some point. “Damn,” he thought, looking at the atmospheric readings with a great deal of relief and joy, “it’s a good thing this planet has a breathable atmosphere otherwise I would be long dead.”
“Eve,” he spoke in a rather hoarse voice, “you alive?”
“I am most definitely intact,” spoke the construct, causing a sigh of relief to escape Loki’s lips, “though as to whether I am alive or not is something that-“
“Okay,” Loki interrupted with a tone of annoyance in his voice, “I get it. What is the status of the ship?”
“The ship is nigh obliterated,” Eve replied, getting another groan from Loki as he removed his chair’s straps and stood up, “though there are a few systems online including main power, kitchen equipment, my main processors, and heat and humidity control.”
The conversation went on for a great deal regarding how badly damaged each system was, yielding the fact that many of them were completely unrepairable. Loki did a scan of his environment and found the atmosphere to be remarkably close to Earth-normal though with a lower amount of carbon dioxide and a slightly higher amount of argon. Scans of the local flora and fauna revealed that the native inhabitants were carbon based, something that was not at all surprising, and that the genetic structure of the plant life was incredibly close to that of Earth, so close in fact that you could create this stuff with mere artificial selection back on Earth given a few decades. This was most definitely good news as it meant there was a high likelihood of him finding some edible food. Edible food was going to be a big priority given the current state of his ship, a quick look over indicating that he was going to be stuck here for quite a large period of time.
His FTL drive was currently missing its casing and most of its internal components, something that was common when they malfunctioned as most things tended not to survive contact with a hole in reality. His main engine was currently out of fuel, his ship using the nice safe Uranium-235 instead of anti-matter, something he was grateful for as synthesizing anti-matter on an unknown planet would not be a fun activity. The rest of his ship had basic elements like iron and silicon that would be fairly easy to replenish so he wasn’t too worried upon those fronts.
After getting out of his seat, Loki had made his way to the back of his ship, about 45 meters back. At the back was a small opaque tube, Loki typed in a code upon the keypad beside the tube and caused it to open up. Contained inside the tube was an armored environmental suit along with a practical arsenal of weapons, ranging from a small stun pistol all the way up to a plasma launcher. Loki decided to go for a reasonable array of weapons, a hunting knife, a stun pistol, and a laser rifle. After sealing up his suit and strapping his weapons to his thighs and back, Loki ordered Eve to have the nanites begin making repairs to the hull of the ship first, and then begin looking for resources to repair the rest.
Soon after his preparations were made, Loki climbed out through the hole in his cockpit and took his first proper view at the damage of his ship. The 50 meter long ship had been broken in two near the center, the walkway between the portions still intact but the walls ripped apart as the halves of the ship sat at two different angles. The main thrusters in back were still mostly attached but the once sharp features had turned into a melted slag. The rest of the ship was equally damaged, whether by melting from reentry or the previous ship battle, or by damage upon impact. In addition there were parts, like the communication dish, that were missing entirely, ripped off by the winds as the ship was travelling at intense speeds towards the surface. Loki adopted a look of concern as he wondered if the nanites would ever be able to fix the ship but then he saw a large hole in the hull be covered in a gray goo and then disappear entirely. With a look of satisfaction, Loki looked away and began to make a journey to find himself some food.
- Location: Unknown Planet, Around 500 Meters Away From the Ship
Loki had only made his way a half of a kilometer away from the ship and already his pack was bulging with potential edibles. It would be impossible for him to determine whether or not they were poisonous until he got back to the ship and got Eve to give them a full analysis. Due to the fact that the pack was full, Loki would not be able to carry anymore and started to make his way back. Upon the way he encountered his first glimpse of the local wildlife, something that was stunning for him. It wasn’t that there was wildlife, no that was expected. Nor was it that the wildlife was particularly odd, in fact it was quite the opposite. The animal that he had encountered was a simple squirrel. As in, the type of squirrel that one would find in northern forests on Earth. As in, something that should never be seen on a planet other than those colonized by humans. This would have been all quite distressing to Loki if it wasn’t for the fact that this possible distress took the form of a wonderful source of protein. One stun and quick slit of a knife later and the squirrel was his. After another half of an hour of walking, Loki found himself once again at the site of the crash.
The ship was looking to be in much better condition with the entirety of the outside of the hull fixed and realigned. Sadly, in order to make the repairs the slagged engines had to be completely broken down in order to use the materials but still, no engines looked a lot better than melted ones. Loki entered the ship through a recently fixed side hatch and placed his food upon a scanning table to have Eve go through it and determine what among the items was edible. A quick scan later and it returned that about 90% of the plants were edible along with the squirrel. Happy with this information, Loki made his way to near the middle of the ship where he made himself a nice mix of the veggies and meat, according to the nutritional information he had gotten from Eve.
Sadly, Loki’s stove was one of the things that did not survive impact and therefore he was forced to create a fire. Creating a fire inside would not have been the brightest of ideas so he gathered up some tinder and lit it with a medium intensity blast from his laser rifle. Atop the fire he set a small cooking pot filled up with his food and suspended by a tripod and let it cook while he sat back and gazed upon the stars. Soon after he had set the blaze, he decided the stew had cooked enough and took it off of the flame. The meal was a lot better than he was expecting and certainly better than the protein paste contained within his rations on the ship, he would save those until he was starving. About halfway through his meal, Loki had a red alert pop up in the corner of his HUD.
[CAUTION: PROXIMITIY ALARM ACTIVATED]
Loki hastily laid his stew upon the ground and ran towards his ship. Once inside, Loki put on his suit and grabbed the weapons from the rack he had laid them upon. Now prepared for most possible assailants, Loki called up a direct video feed from outside and was stunned at what he found. Outside the ship were six equine creatures, the size indicating earth ponies. This alone was not too surprising as he had expected more earth-like creatures after encountering the squirrel. What was rather odd was what separated them from the equines of Earth. The first difference one would notice was the impressive array of colors that their coats displayed. The more interesting difference was the anatomical one, the fact that two of them possessed horns and two had wings. The one leading the group was a lavender mare with a dark purple mane and a strand of pink running through it. The leader was one of the ones that possessed a horn. “A unicorn,” Loki realized, “and the ones with wings are pegasi.” The five mares following her were equally odd, the two pegasi being a cyan mare with a mane that included all of the colors of the rainbow and a butter yellow mare with a cotton candy pink mane. The other unicorn of the group was as white as snow and had a deep purple mane, similar to the leader. Finally were two ordinary ponies one having an orange coat and a blonde mane and the other one, the one bouncing along, had a hot pink coat and a darker pink mane.
Loki realized that although they were ponies, one of the cutest races of all time, they would serve a grand purpose as a rather large supply of meat for him. Loki opened up on of his portholes and leaned the laser rifle out, a camera on the front linking up with his HUD. He lined up he shot and was about to fire at the lead one when something even stranger happened, the orange one spoke.
“What do you reckon that thing is Twi?” the equine asked of the lead one.
“I don’t know,” replied the mare, “but whatever it is definitely isn’t a meteor.”
“Naw, you think?” Loki thought and then the reality of what he was seeing hit him, “crap, crap, what do I do?” Loki decided to voice his questions aloud, “Eve, what are the first contact protocols with what is likely a pre-industrial race?”
“Protocol dictates that under these circumstances you have four options, suicidal self-destruct, appearing to be a god, meeting the locals but not teaching them, or elevating them to higher levels of technology. I recommend option 3 and perhaps option 4 in the future.”
“Okay,” Loki answered after a moment of thinking, “I’ll go with your suggestion.”
Loki opened up the door closest to the approaching ponies and walked out, all of his suit’s lights on. He began to walk towards the group and was about to open dialogue when the rainbow haired pegasus began to fly towards him aggressively and with great speed. Loki’s internal computers instantly switched into combat mode, slowing down the world around him while he figured out the best way to take care of the pegasus. The cyborg sped up the world around him slightly and stepped to the side. He saw a look of confusion begin to appear on the face of his aggressor as he returned time to normal and the pegasus sped past and crashed into the hull of his ship. “Ouch,” he though, visibly wincing as he saw the dent that the mare put in the side of the hull, “that’s gotta hurt.” Loki braced for another fight as he saw the other pegasus fly towards him but his concerns were unfounded when he saw that the mare flew by and began to help her friend.
“Why did you hurt her?” asked the mare very sternly.
“To be fair, it wasn’t my fault, she attacked me and I simply avoided,” he retorted. As I said this the jaws of the ponies dropped to the point where I’m pretty sure they had dislocated them. “What,” he asked, genuinely surprised, “you expected the interstellar alien to be incapable of speech or complex thought?” At his question the group, excluding the unconscious pegasus, adopted rather shameful looks upon their face but he, in his infinite lack of sympathy (come on, he was just attacked by one of them), decided to further press them. “Well,” he said with a slight questioning tone, “I’m waiting.”
The ponies looked to the horned leader and she took the cue to speak for them. “Well…,” she said, looking for words, “we didn’t actually, that was entirely her, the rest of us were kind of hoping for peace. Please don’t eat us.”
The mares’ last plea got a chuckle out of him which caused the mares to relax. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t eat you, your friend on the other hand, well, not if she apologizes.” The equines appeared to take this as a joke, not realizing his seriousness, this gave him a moment of realizing his stupidity. “Dumbass,” he realized, “they’re herbivores.” It probably would not be a good idea to rectify their misconception until they had gotten to know him a little bit better. In order to do so he sat down and gestured for the other mares to join him, his back upon the two pegasi, indicating that the other four had his complete attention.
As we were sitting down he decided on a few ways to make this situation easier, the first of which being changing the settings of Eve so that she would be able to send messages directly to his brain and vice-versa. He didn’t tend to use this function often as it was odd having another mind inside your own skull. The other decision was for how this first meeting was going to go, at least by his standards.
“Okay,” he said after they had all sat down in a semicircle facing me, “ I have an idea for how this is going to work,” he paused, wanting to see their reactions which were rather curious, “you each ask me a question and then he ask four questions for all of you to answer. Sound good?”
His suggestion was met with nods and looks of agreement. He looked to the leader, expecting her to ask the first question and was not proven wrong.
“Okay,” she said, clearly nervous though filled with inquisitiveness, “what’s your name?”
“Good, an easy one,” he thought. “My name is Hector Atrunis, though you can call me Loki.” His answer brought a smile to the faces of the mares, and they responded with their names, Pinkie Pie for the pink one (makes sense), Rarity for the pale unicorn, Twilight for the lavender mare, and Applejack for the orange and blonde pony. They also informed him of the names of the other two, Fluttershy for the butter yellow one that had gone to help her friend and Rainbow Dash for the brash aggressor. After this Pinkie adopted a rather serious and frightening face (the range of emotions displayed on their faces was impressive) and walked up to him. She placed her hooves on his shoulders and got her face really close to mine and looked him in the eyes.
“Do you like cupcakes?” she asked, giving the impression that the wrong answer would have very unfortunate consequences.
“Yes,” he squeaked, causing the a smile to appear on the mare’s face as she took her hooves off of his shoulder and went back to sit down. The rest of the questions proceeded well, the questions from Twilight being rather in-depth and requiring long answers, requiring him to institute a rule about no asking about the technology as he simply couldn’t answer most of them as he either didn’t know the answer or it was classified. The rest of them had fairly simple questions such as “What type of animals do you have” or “Do you all wear that hideous clothing” (He got pretty defensive over the last one.)
He was in the middle of giving an explanation as to why his clothing was the way it was when a groan signaled that Rainbow was awakening. He looked over and got up as Rainbow stirred. Fluttershy slowly coaxed her out of her rest but jumped back when Rainbow jumped to her feet and prepared to attack him again. Mid-flight, time slowed down again as he decided he would restrain her so as to prevent the situation from becoming a loop of him dodging and he running into solid objects. As he prepared to do such a thing, a purple aura surrounded his assailant and she stopped mid-air.
“What the heck Twi?” she asked, looking towards Twilight. This action got a bit of confusion out of him until he noticed that a similar to the one currently entrapping Rainbow was surrounding Twilight’s horn.
“He’s a friendly pony,” replied the lavender unicorn, “he hasn’t hurt us while you were busy sleeping so he’s not going to hurt us now, understand?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Rainbow replied in a mumble, she then turned to him and raised her voice a considerable amount, “but I’m keeping an eye on you.”
This got a chuckle out of him and Twilight informed him that they would be heading back to their home to get her head checked out. They promised to return tomorrow at noon and departed. After they had disappeared from his vision he turned back and grabbed his stew again. He reheated it by placing it atop the main power cell. He ate it slowly, thinking about the place he was in. He had been told that there had been no war here in centuries. “Would this be such a bad place to live,” he wondered. He reclined his chair and laid back in it, watching the stars through his window. Soon he felt drowsy and let sleep take him away.
