What Lurks Below

Lyra Heartstrings looked down at the display in front of her, a sleek white frame surrounding a screen showing a modeled view of the entire star system. After a few seconds studying the orbits and the paths of the planets, she put a hoof on the screen and quickly zoomed in on the innermost planet; the one closest to the blue-white star. She didn't waste much time admiring it, there wasn't a lot to see. She tapped the screen, and some limited data about the planet came up.

Planet Name: Pongamus I

Planet Diameter: 4,391 Km

Planet Core type: Solid Inner Core: Rock

Planet Average Surface Temperature: 628 Celsius

Planet Native Life: None

Atmosphere Pressure: 0.049 Bar

Atmosphere Composition: 46% Gaseous Mercury, 33% Gaseous Phosphorus, 12% Gaseous Chlorine, 9% Mixed Trace Elements

Precipitation: None

Magnetic Field: None

Thaumic Field: None

Satellites: None

Lyra scanned the information quickly, she had seen it all before, but she knew her friend Vinyl Scratch would quiz her on the information when they hung out later, and she wanted to get most, if not all, of the questions right. She zoomed back out on the display and slid over to the next planet, which was many times further away from the star. She smiled and nodded briskly; this was the planet most of the Pony race now called home. She had heard the stories of Equis since she was a little filly, and to be honest, she didn't think Pongamus II sounded anywhere as nice, but it was good enough; it was home. She tapped the display again, bringing this planet into focus and displaying the same information as last time.

Planet Name: Pongamus II, New Equis

Planet Diameter: 14,630 Km

Planet Core type: Liquid Outer Core: Iron/Rock, Solid Inner Core: Crystalline Carbon/Zirconium

Planet Average Surface Temperature: 36 Celsius

Planet Native Life: Flora: Photosynthesizing, Woody, Fauna: Insectoid, Limited.

Atmosphere Pressure: 0.967 Bar

Atmosphere Composition: 52% Nitrogen, 26% Oxygen, 13% Carbon Dioxide, 7% Hydrogen, 2% Mixed Trace Elements

Precipitation: Liquid Water

Magnetic Field: Weak, Equatorial

Thaumic Field: Strong, Up To Alpha++

Satellites: Pongamus II-A, Lunite, Pongamus II-B, Cratori

After a quick scan through the information now displayed in front of her, Lyra selected Lunite and brought that into view. This inner moon was where the Lunar College, the main secondary education center for the system, resided. It was the college that she, along with her friends, had spent over half a decade at, learning everything possible about their fields of study. To her, it was distant and alien, she had always preferred her family's home on New Equis, but the college was massive and several sectors would be dangerous to have in a population dense area, so it had been built on a cold and barren rock in the sky instead. It also had a medium level Thaumic Field, which made experiments using magic slightly easier.

Cratori, the outer moon, was actually technically a dwarf planet, and a very strange one. It had an atmosphere so thick it almost qualified as a gas planet, and a super-dense core. It hurtled around New Equestria and incredible speeds, orbiting its mother planet five times per day on that planet. Constant electrical storms caused it to sparkle and glow visibly, even during mid-day on New Equestria. When ponies first arrived, they attempted to use these storms to generate power, but they immediately discovered the moon's biggest secret: Inside its gargantuan clouds of dense, toxic gases, a midst the almost constant lightning, was life. Delicate creatures of the sky, unlike anything ponies had ever seen. They were white, or would be if their bodies were opaque. They had long, round bodies focused to a point on the back, and four long fins on their fronts sweeping back and trailing off behind the creature. Their bodies had random patterns of bio-electric lights that blinked and flashed occasionally. Relying on the electricity to sustain their bodies, they migrated the sky slowly, seemingly without purpose. The very presence of ponies had caused them to start dropping out of the sky, and an executive decision was made to quarantine the moon, to keep any more of the creatures from dying. Lyra had seen holograms of the creatures, and there were no words to describe them.

She finally scrolled over to the next planet, a large grey ball of, well, boring. It was much like Pongamus I, except for colder, bigger, and less toxic. She pressed on the display, and it zoomed in on the planet and showed the planet information.

Planet Name: Pongamus III

Planet Diameter: 25,648 Km

Planet Core type: Liquid Outer Core: Iron/Zinc, Solid Inner Core: Rock

Planet Average Surface Temperature: 2 Celsius

Planet Native Life: None

Atmosphere Pressure: 0.627 Bar

Atmosphere Composition: 74% Nitrogen, 12% Neon, 7% Helium, 4% Oxygen, 3% Mixed Trace Elements

Precipitation: None

Magnetic Field: Strong, Polar

Thaumic Field: None

Satellites: None

Lyra scanned the list of data quickly, not spending much time on the third planet in the system; she knew the most interesting planet was yet to come. She finished her reading and scrolled on in anticipation. It didn't look like much, but the giant world of ice had a secret inside, one she had spent her life chasing.

Planet Name: Pongamus IV

Planet Diameter: 32,859 Km

Planet Core type: Liquid Outer Core: Iron/Palladium, Solid Inner Core: Uranium/Iridum

Planet Average Surface Temperature: -43 Celsius

Planet Native Life: None

Atmosphere Pressure: 0.19 Bar

Atmosphere Composition: 67% Nitrogen, 18% Oxygen, 12% Hydrogen, 3% Mixed Trace Elements

Precipitation: Solid Water

Magnetic Field: Strong, Chaotic

Thaumic Field: none

Satellites: None

This was the planet she longed to study on. Under a fairly thin sheet of only about two kilometers of ice, warmed by the radioactive decay of the planet's core, was an ocean, the likes of which had never been seen before. Near the surface, the water was very, very cold, and barely kept from freezing. However, the deeper you traveled, the warmer the water got, and if it weren't for the pressure the water near the core would boil instantly. This battle of forces increased the size of the living zone for aquatic creatures, and some had even adapted to be able to live in the hottest zones, while others preferred the surface and the cold. It was the biggest ecosystem ponies had ever even dreamed of, and it was working perfectly.

Since animal life was first introduced, the had been an immeasurable amount of adaptation and mutation, resulting in every swimming creature imaginable. The only major environmental challenge to overcome was the pressure and random magnetic spikes, but after kilometers of super-compressed high-carbon steel beams were dropped into the ocean and attached to the crust of the planet, a city had formed in an area where the average water temperature was about 50 degrees Celsius, at a distance of about 2,000 Kilometers from the crust. Getting all of the iron for the pillars had required strip-mining much of Pongamus III and siphoning almost 7% of its liquid outer core away, but they had finally finished it.

The city had since grown to house about 10,000 ponies year-round, and Lyra dreamed of being one of them. She had been studying biology, particularly marine biology, since she could first choose what to study for herself. She hoped that she would someday in the next four years of her education get to move there and study, but until that day came, she was limited to looking at pictures, holograms, and dreaming. Her heard an impatient pounding on the door, and with a groan she turned to face the door.

"Come in, Vinyl." She said, rolling her eyes. The door disappeared and revealed the form of a white unicorn with cyan mane and tail, and her favorite pair of purple shades.

"I swear, Vinyl, you're the only one on Lunite, probably in the whole Pongamus system, who knocks anymore. You know you can just hit the call button next to the door and it'll let me know you're here, right?" She glared at her friend; they went through this at least once a week.

"Ya, but this way you know it's me even with your eyes closed. Come on, silly! Your roomie's already waiting for us at the bar." Vinyl said, rapidly shifting from one hoof to the other like she was about to run a race.

"Only if you're ready to get your plot hoofed to you at trivia. I've been studying." Lyra said as she walked to the door, closing it behind the two of them, and turned down the hall in the direction that would eventually get them to the bar. She sighed, knowing that no matter how hard she studied, she would never beat Vinyl. Is this what my life has come to? Work all day, drink myself silly, lose some game related to random factual knowledge, get home smashed, and wake up super early with a hangover just so I can suffer through more studying? Is this really what I wanted from college, and from life?