Twilight decided to go over the numbers one more time. It would take about ten more minutes, but it would be well worth it if the spell worked. Long-distance teleportation was something that took a lot of energy, too much for any but the most powerful alicorns to use, but Twilight had decided to give it a try. It had been harder than she expected; she had wound up breaking down the teleportation spell she knew to its basic components, and re-built it from the ground up. The resulting spell was very specialized; unlike the teleportation spell she had come to know and love it only worked on the caster and due to the difference in scale it wouldn’t be able to transport her short distances. She wasn’t sure about its minimum range, but if she was correct (which was 98.23% likely, she had gone over the numbers five times) there would only be a small gap between the lower bounds of the long-distance teleport spell and upper bounds of the normal teleport spell.
Happy that the numbers still lined up (with the expected margin of error, of course) Twilight decided that the time had come for a test run. She carefully gathered the requisite magical energy, and tried to think of a destination. Perhaps… yes, this seemed like a good time to give her parents a surprise visit.
The feeling of teleportation was different this time, and the travel time was longer than Twilight was used to. There were almost ten seconds where Twilight was floating in some kind of limbo between locations, a not completely unfamiliar experience but one that she was not used to feeling for so long of a time.
Also, instead of in Canterlot, Twilight appeared to be in some kind of desert. Standing on top of a mesa, nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, the hot sun beating down on her back. That was most certainly wrong. Twilight pondered for a moment. It seemed like instead of heading north, to Canterlot, she headed south. In addition, she went further south than she should have north. The directional and magnitude aspects of the spell must have been mis-calculated then, some of her constants must have been off. Using her magic, she scratched part of the equations into the dirt at her feet, changing one of the negative constants to a positive, and tweaking the number of decimal places in the magnitude equation. Getting the math to line up again (but not as nicely, she admitted to herself) Twilight took another shot for Canterlot.
Twilight was greeted this time by horrible, biting cold. Her skin was in pain, as were her hooves, horn and eyes. Snow blew against her, driven by a strong wind, and the temperature was colder than Twilight had ever felt. Thinking fast, she charged the spell again, and after the next casting was met by burning. The burning against her skin was painful, and after a breath the inside of her lungs burned, as if something in the air was causing it. Pushing herself harder, Twilight cast the spell again. The end result was somewhere that, while uncomfortably muggy, was not actively painful to be in.
Twilight opened her eyes, and was greeted by a dark metal room, dimly lit from a few ceiling lights. A number of tall bipedal creatures were standing up suddenly, having apparently been seated at the large tables in the room, and many of them drew knives or odd tools that Twilight guessed were likely weapons. While the environment here was not hostile, there certainly seemed to be a good chance that the locals were! Focusing one last time, Twilight managed to teleport away before any of them got close to her.
This time, Twilight appeared in a forest. After a tense moment, Twilight concluded that neither the air nor the forest around her was trying to kill her, and let herself relax. After a moment, she felt her knees wobble, her wings droop, and a pounding magical exertion headache hit her as the adrenaline faded from her system.
Twilight wanted to fight to stay awake, but the sudden turn of events kept her from doing so. In a way, unconsciousness was nice: it provided a temporary reprieve from all the pains in her body at that moment.
“Captain’s Log: our survey of Autaurus 3 is nearing completion. While teeming with life in a variety of climates, all life on the planet is plant life. It is unknown if all plants on this planet are producers, or if some are in fact grazers that feed on other plants, or perhaps even predators of some sort, but this question is not ours to answer. I’m placing a recommendation for focus on this planet for any research team that might be stationed in the area, a planet with a completely plant-based biosphere may have many unique properties to discover. Apart from that, we should be leaving soon, and continuing with our scheduled duties.”
Captain Maximilian Dolen Looked at the very green planet. Usually planets this green were so green because of gas in their atmosphere, but this one was so green due to the abundance in plant life, even on the oceans, in the deserts, and approaching the poles. It was breathtaking, but trying to catalogue the life on the planet would take years of specialized study, something this ship was not made for.
“Captain.” The voice came from the science station, where his primary scientific officer was managing the scan of the planet, “There has been an anomaly.”
“Enlighten me,” The captain said. Anomalies were rarely good, even if they were not actively dangerous. Usually anomalies were obvious upon entering a system, small distortions in space or time that could be recorded, catalogued, and avoided. However, any wise captain was aware of the stories of the Enterprises; ever since the Enterprise first set out to ‘Boldly go where no man had gone before,’ the name seemed to have been blessed, or cursed, with the most interesting that the galaxy had to offer. Those stories were warnings to other captains, the galaxy was a very big place, full of terrifying and unusual creatures.
The answer from the science station wasted no words. “There was an energy fluctuation on the surface of an unknown type. During this fluctuation, a single animal life form appeared.”
“I see,” the captain said. He was quiet for a moment. Simply cataloguing it would suffice for the word of the mission, but… “Number one, gather a small away team and take it down. Take readings, and examine the animal life form. Call up with any important information.”
First Mate Rhealm Vihan straightened up as she materialized on the surface of the planet. Being well over two meters tall made human transporter pads a bit of a squeeze for her, but she was used to it by now. She looked around, quickly analyzing the immediate situation.
Plants. The immediate situation was plants. A thick green carpet of grass was under her feet, the trees were covered in moss (or perhaps were naturally covered in green follicles), and the leaves were thick above them. Some sunlight filtered down, showing green as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Kelov P’traal already had his tricorder out, and was scanning the area. “The life form is this way,” He said, turning in a specific direction. For a science officer, he had a tendency to be focused on one discovery at a time. Rhealm wondered if it was an Andorian tendency, or simply the way he was. The small landing party followed him, the five of them picking their way through the heavy greenery. Quickly enough, the creature came into sight. It stood out from the rest of the forest, being purple instead of green. It was quadrupedal, and would stand just over a meter tall from its feet to the top of its single horn. It was on the ground, apparently unconscious, possibly having collapsed there judging from its posture.
Kahkala Oannar, as the Chief Medical Officer and an exobiologist, immediately rushed to the creature’s side. She produced her medical tricorder and began to scan. “Mammalian,” she said as the reading came in, “Very near earth chemistry. Almost exactly earth chemistry, save for some notable differences in the neural structure. Brain structure implies sapience. Female, but infertile. Minimal skin damage caused by extreme cold, and a slight first-degree chemical burn over much of the body including inside the mouth and respiratory organs. I think she passed out from exhaustion. I could treat her right now, sir,” Oannar said, turning to the first officer, “Her biology is well within standard mammalian deviation, general treatments should work fine.”
Rhealm nodded. “Any evidence of natural weaponry?” she asked. The medical officer shook her head.
“Herbivore teeth,” Oannar replied, “The horn is hard cartilage, but too full of neurons to be used as a weapon. Hard hooves, dense muscle, and the flexibility of the joints might make martial arts an issue. Psychic abilities are possible, but given the neural abnormalities I can’t say for sure one way or the either.”
“That’s what I needed to know,” Rhealm said, before turning to the science officer. “Any observations to add, P’traal?”
The science officer frowned at his tricorder. “No evidence of the anomaly from before. This creature’s biology does not match the biology of the planet, more so than the normal variance between kingdoms. Furthermore, it is not in the galactic species database. I speculate that it is not a native to this planet. However, I have no explanation for its condition.”
Vihan nodded before tapping her commbadge. “Away team to ship.”
“Away team, this is the captain,” the captain’s voice replied, “Status.”
“Animal life form is quadrupedal, scans imply sapience. P’traal believes that the life form is not native to this planet, but cannot give an explanation. The life form appears to have gone through extreme cold and some kind of corrosive atmosphere in short order. Minor injuries as a result.”
“Any evidence of a society on this planet?”
“Not that we’ve seen, sir. I doubt that we’d be able to see one from here that we weren’t able to see from the ship.”
“Follow your best judgment, Number One. Keep in touch.”
Rhealm turned off her comm badge. “Security,” she said to the pair of security personnel that she had brought with her, “Secure this area. P’traal, do scans of the surrounding wildlife. While we’re here, we might as well make the best of it. Oannar, treat the life form’s burns. You seem to have a way with most carbon-based life forms, I want you to greet her when she wakes up.”
Oannar smiled. “Thanks, I guess. Are you sure it shouldn’t be you? The two of you share colors.”
Rhealm shook her head. “I think that a meter height difference might sour the initial contact. Do what you do best, Kahkala.”
Waking up was much more comfortable than Twilight was expecting it to be. The thick grass acted as a cushion, making the ground very comfortable. In addition, the pain she expected from the cold place (the arctic? Had she accidentally teleported up near the crystal empire?) and the place where the air burned (Twilight had no idea what to make of that) was gone. She still had slight headache, but she knew that would fade quickly as long as she didn’t use her magic.
Twilight opened her eyes, and was greeted by some kind of… thing. It took a moment, but Twilight puzzled out that it was bipedal, with a catlike face and cinnamon fur with white speckles in it. It was wearing clothes, mostly green-blue and black, and sitting with its legs crossed and folded in. Twilight remembered reading that Minotaurs often sat that way when sitting on a flat surface. She smiled at this new creature, straightened up into a sitting position, not wanting to give a poor impression, and said, “Hello.”
The creature responded in a language that Twilight could not understand. Twilight frowned at that. “I can’t understand you…” The creature said something else, equally indecipherable, “…and you can’t understand me either.”
The creature talked a bit more. Twilight wished she had learned a translation spell. It had always seemed like a good idea, but it had never been pressing enough for Twilight to really delve into. The theory was fascinating, but the spells themselves weren’t commonly used outside of a very few situations. Even in diplomacy, most of the foreign diplomats knew Equestrian. Given the kind of spell she had just cast, Twilight decided it was likely that she was deep in a foreign nation. As thus, it would be more prudent for her to learn the native language.
The next time the furry biped spoke, Twilight paid attention. She noticed the most important word in the sentence, and carefully repeated it back to the biped. That would likely communicate her desire to learn the language, and hopefully cement that she did not understand the language.
The biped shook its head, and said something else. Twilight frowned at that biped. She couldn’t learn without being taught. The biped was quiet for a minute, giving Twilight time to look around.
She noticed two other bipeds, both wearing clothes similar to the furry one but with different colors instead of blue. There was one in yellow that was looking out into the forest, and instead of being furry it had a kind of tan skin with only a mane in terms of hair. The other one, the one in red, was tall… very tall. Twilight estimated it over eight feet tall, most of which was legs. It had purple skin, with glossy hair of a different shade of purple. On top of its head were a pair of horns, wing-shaped and ornate. It was looking at Twilight, and though Twilight could see one eye the other appeared to be contained in (or perhaps replaced by?) some kind of metal cylinder coming out of its head. That creature was watching Twilight warily.
The first creature made a noise, requiring Twilight’s attention. It had procured a small notebook and something that Twilight assumed was a writing utensil from somewhere. On the notepad were a pair of stick figures, one of a quadruped (Twilight assumed this was her) and one biped with a large mane and a pair of triangles on its head. That one was likely the biped in front of her, as it had a large mane and a pair of catlike ears. Twilight nodded, believing that she understood the situation. The biped then added to the drawing, showing triangles coming out of the quadruped and squares from the biped.
Ah, these were likely different languages. Twilight placed one hoof to her mouth, and used the other the gesture at the biped’s. The biped nodded, and then pointed at something attached to her clothes. It was a pin or badge of some sort, looking like a stylized arrowhead superimposed over a yellow circle. The biped then drew this on a new page of the notebook. She drew the stick pony, again talking triangles, but this time to the badge. She then drew the badge saying, or perhaps thinking, a conversion (indicated by a two-headed arrow) between squares and triangles.
“A translator!” Twilight exclaimed, quickly coming to the correct conclusion. “But… then, why isn’t it working?”
The biped pointed at Twilight with a smile. She tapped the picture of the talking pony. Twilight looked at the picture closely. Slowly, realization dawned on her. She straightened her back, took a deep breath, and chose her favorite history lecture.
Rhealm smiled as the quadruped started talking as fast as she could. It almost sounded like she was reciting something, which would work well enough for the universal translator. Kahkala had come through again; the Catian seemed to be good with aliens, diplomats, civilians, superiors, students, children, pets, and most anything else that she could either talk to or snuggle. Truth be told, only her love for discovery of the new and her instance on being a doctor kept her out of the diplomatic core. That’s what Rhealm thought, anyway.
This new creature was more confusing. Instead of asking large amounts of questions, she instead worked toward facilitating communications herself, displaying a willingness to learn a new language. Her quick grasp on Oannar’s drawings implied above-average intelligence.
“-the Bearded began to work aside General Typhoon in an effort to drive off the lion, each side hoping to save as many of their soldiers as possible. According to the traditional texts, the two leaders did not communicate, but silently began to cooperate as each one made use of openings the others supplied. The turning point of the battle was when-”
“Okay! That’s enough!” Oannar said as she held up a hand, “The translator works now.”
“I was right!” the alien cried, jumping up to all four legs, “The translation spell needed a large enough sample of my language to properly translate it.”
“Basically, yes,” Oannar said, “Now we can have a proper introduction.” Oannar turned to Rhealm, and Rhealm gestured for her to start. Turning back to the alien, the medical officer introduced herself. “I’m Lieutenant Kahkala Oannar. She’s Commander Rhealm Vihan. Keeping watch over there is Ensign Josh Cooper. Ensign Fredric and Commander P’traal are around here somewhere, they’re looking at the plants in the area.”
“Well, there’s no lack of those,” Twilight said as she looked around. “I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
That got the first officer’s attention. She took a few long steps over to where Twilight was, and asked, “If I might, where are you a princess of?”
“Equestria,” Twilight said simply. “I’m the newest one, though, so I’m not surprised if you haven’t heard of me. In fact, it would likely be more surprising if you had.”
“I’ve never heard of ‘Equestria’,” Rhealm said carefully. She watched as the smile disappeared from Twilight’s face.
“That’s odd,” Twilight said to herself, “I understood that Equestria was the strongest nation on the planet. I would think that even small nations would know about it, even if they didn’t know much.”
“Do you know how you got here?” Rhealm asked. “It’s a very unusual place to be.”
“I bet,” Twilight said, looking around again. “I was trying a long-range teleportation spell and it went… wrong. I think I might have been working in the wrong magnitude in my calculations, which would be, well, embarrassing to say the least.”
Rhealm nodded. “I would like to ask you some very odd, but very important, questions. Do you know what stars are made of?”
Twilight blinked. “I don’t think anypony knows what stars are made of. According to Princess Luna they’re too far away, nopony could ever reach them.”
“Do you know the speed of light?” Rhealm asked.
“Approximately 186,282 miles per second,” Twilight recited.
Rhealm nodded. She didn’t know how exactly that translated into, but suspected that it was close to the truth. “Do you know anything faster than the speed of light?” She asked.
“The speed of dark is approximately 214,045 miles per second,” Twilight replied, “But that isn’t terribly important, due to the rarity of darkness particles. Apart from that, certain powerful teleportation spells can in theory exceed the speed of light, but the sheer magical energy required means that they’re never used.” Twilight shrugged. “There’s just no reason to go the speed of light unless you’re going to, say, the moon. And even if you’re going to the moon, light makes it in just over a second. Going at half the speed of light is much more energy efficient. It’s a nice mental exercise, though. I think that it is feasibly possible to go the speed of light, but it would require a self-feeding magical reaction.”
Rhealm nodded. “How many planets are you familiar with?”
This question confused Twilight. She blinked, before replying, “Just the one?”
Rhealm nodded. “Thank you. Now, I have to report in to my superior. Will you stay here, please?”
Twilight nodded, and Rhealm walked a good distance away before activating her comm badge. “Away team to ship.”
The response was immediate, the Captain’s voice responding. “Ship here. You have an update?”
“Life form seems to be unfamiliar with warp travel. She is familiar with the speed of light, but regards reaching or surpassing it as a primarily theoretical exercise. Shows only a primitive knowledge of stars, and no knowledge of other planets. I conclude that there is a large chance that we are in violation, or in borderline territory, of the prime directive.”
From the other side of the badge there was a sigh. “One individual does not make a society. Do you know how-”
There was a sudden crash from behind, and Rhealm spun around to see a surprised medical officer looking up at a hole in the canopy.
What is the connection between stars, planets, and the speed of light?
The questions seemed oddly unrelated, but when Rhealm used the word “planets” Twilight realized that something was off. Rhealm expected Twilight to know about more than one planet. That implied that there was more than one planet out there. But where would they be?
This line of thought had taken Twilight to a disturbing conclusion. Kahkala had said something else, but Twilight didn’t really register it. Her line of thought was much more interesting, and it needed to be proven or disproven. Fast. Saying a quick apology, Twilight beat her wings and forced herself up through the canopy above her, into the light of the sun.
It was rather orange, and rather large in the sky. A quick detection spell detected no alicorn magic in the sunlight, something that should have been there if Celestia was in control over the sun. In fact, there was no magic at all. Beating her wings again, Twilight dove back through the canopy, near Rhealm. Twilight placed her hooves on the tall biped’s shoulders, barely able to contain herself. “Stars are suns!” She almost shouted, “Suns that are so far away they look like tiny dots of light! They have their own planets, don’t they? Like this one! And they are so far away that in order to get to them within a reasonable timeframe you have to travel at-no, faster than the speed of light! THAT is why you don’t know about Equestria! I’m on a different planet, around a different sun! I made a spell that permits me to travel faster than light!”
Twilight took a few deep breaths, and then took her hooves off of Rhealm’s shoulders. “Sorry! Sorry, it’s just… I’m right, right? That… that must sound really silly if I’m wrong.”
“Number one?” The voice came from seemingly nowhere. Twilight looked around, but all she could see was a surprised and worried Kahkala, a very surprised… Josh Cooper, was it? And an angry Rhealm.
“If you will excuse me,” Rhealm said, keeping her voice even though she was obviously very upset at Twilight, “I’m talking to my superior.”
Twilight smiled sheepishly, and flew backwards a bit before landing. Rhealm turned around and walked away, but Twilight turned her ears toward the commander and listened hard.
“She must have figured it out from the questions-”
“YES! I was right!”
Captain Dolen pinched the bridge of his nose. They had scarcely been interacting with this life form for five minutes and it had already figured out stuff it wasn’t supposed to know. This might be a new record for a Prime Directive breach.
“I take responsibility, Captain,” His first officer’s voice came over the comm, “I didn’t think my questions through. I should have approached the issue by a more circuitous route.”
“This life form is obviously highly intelligent,” The captain replied, “What’s done is done, but try to prevent her from learning any more.”
“She’s regaling Lieutenant Oannar with questions as we speak, sir. She seems to be a curious one. She is displaying a capability for flight, too.”
“Rhealm, this is P’traav. True flight?”
“As far as I can tell, P’traav.”
“That shouldn’t be possible, the wings are too small. They should permit gliding at most.”
“There is a more pressing issue,” The captain interjected, “And that is what to do with the life form.”
“I propose we wait for a bit, Captain,” Rhealm said, “Proceed carefully, but try to understand this life form better without leaking more information to it. We should not make a decision about this creature’s fate without as much information as we can get.”
“This changes everything!” Twilight said as she jumped around a bit more. Kahkala was nearby, looking a bit bedraggled at trying to keep up with the pony. “There are other planets with life on them, at least one, and likely many more than one! This opens up new avenues for the future, imagine how much Equestria could learn from spacefaring cultures! It seems likely that these cultures are much more magically advanced than our own!”
“A peculiar word,” a voice from nearby came. Twilight turned around to see another biped, this one with blue skin and a silver mane. More peculiarly, there was a pair of antenna coming off of the top of its head. “I assume it’s a translation error. What do you mean, ‘magic’?”
Kahkala stepped forward, “Twilight Sparkle, this is Commander Kelov P’traal. He is a scientist.”
Twilight nodded. “Magic is a fundamental force utilized to a wide variety of effects, basically. The complete definition is more complex, and almost always under debate.”
Kelov nodded. “Definitely a translation error.” He pulled out a device, and opened it along a hinge at the top. It seemed to be made of some kind of plastic, and Kelov touched the open surface a few times. “Commander Rhealm said that you can fly. Could you demonstrate for me?”
“Sure,” Twilight said as she took off. She hovered in place, about five feet off of the ground. “I’m not very experienced at it, but I can do the basics.”
Kelov touched the thing a few more times, looking at it as well. “Interesting. Is this a product of the ‘magic’?”
“It is,” Twilight said, “Without magic there’s no way anything as heavy as a pony could fly, especially not with so small of wings.”
“Interesting,” Kelov said again. “Can you do more than fly with your magic?”
“Yep!” Twilight said, landing. She cast a simple light spell, making a ball of light appear. “Flight is a result of Pegasus magic, and spells like this one are Unicorn magic.” Kelov nodded in response, still working with the device. He was giving it more attention than he was giving Twilight. A lot more, in fact. Twilight turned to Kahkala. “Can I use your notebook for a second?”
Kahkala nodded, and offered her notebook and writing utensil to Twilight. “You can, but I don’t see how.”
“With another important part of unicorn magic, telekinesis.” As she said this, she used her telekinesis to grab the notebook and utensil. “Which permits us to easily manipulate small objects, in a manner similar to bipedal hands.”
Kahkala observed the floating items, wide-eyed. “How is that possible?”
“An application of acceleration via magic,” Twilight stated, “It’s natural to all Unicorns. Spells are less natural, but more varied, including light, heat, transformation, and countless other uses.”
“Interesting,” Kelov said for a third time. Still focused on that little device.
“It’s a scanner isn’t it?” Twilgiht asked him. Kelov looked up, his face hid surprise but the speed of the movement revealed it. Twilight smiled. “Very clever! Using an enchantment to detect and analyze magic so that the user doesn’t have to concentrate on a detection spell. What kind of parameters does it scan for?”
Kelov looked back down to the device, and simply said, “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Twilight’s smile faded for a moment, but only for a moment. “That’s alright. Any other questions?”
“Yes, how strong is your telekinesis?” Kelov asked, looking over the top of the device at Twiilight.
“Pretty strong, I’ve never actually tested for my maximum.” She turned toward a tree, and enveloped a branch in her telekinesis. She wiggled it up and down a bit, bending it for Kelov’s scanning device. “I could probably break this branch off if I really wanted to.”
Kelov nodded. “Very interesting.” Twilight resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She had been like that herself on occasion, but it was still annoying to be treated so impersonally.
Twilight distracted herself by getting back to the thrill of her discovery. “I’m sure that we could compare notes and find some very interesting things,” Twilight said, “I understand that you’re likely not diplomats, and therefore really aren’t in the kind of situation where you can guarantee anything, and truth be told neither am I, but we can all put our best hoof forward and-” Twilight came to a screeching halt. “Oh no.”
Kahkala walked over, recognizing something going wrong. “What is it, Twilight?”
“I don’t know how to get home,” Twilight replied. “The reason I’m here is that the spell doesn’t work right. As far as I can tell, it’s completely random. Even if it isn’t, I made three blind jumps to get away from dangerous situations. And if I did know where Equestria was from here, the spell isn’t reliable, so I don’t think I would be able to make it. I don’t have a way home.”
Kahkala was quiet. She didn’t know what to say about that. “Let’s not panic,” she started, “Tell me about your home. Maybe we’ve heard about it, or there’s something distinctive we can use. What can you tell me about your sun and moon?’
Sitting in a briefing room, Captain Dolen looked around. His senior staff was assembled, the ones that were still on the planet in contact by their communicators. “Ground team, are you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” The voice of his first mate came through. “Ensigns Cooper and Fredrick are currently watching Twilight Sparkle, and Lieutenant Commander Oannar estimates that we are out of her hearing range. Twilight has calmed down immensely, and has apologized for her brash actions earlier. When asked to give us some time to confer privately, she complied.”
“Very good,” the captain replied, “Science, report.”
“The planet seems to be overwhelmingly weighted toward producers. I did not locate any specimens using parasitic or-“
“On the animal life form, science. Your botanical report can wait.”
The captain heard P’traal sigh, before starting again. “The life form is suffused with some sort of energy. I believe that it is only visible to our sensors when in use. This energy is used to provide thrust when the creature is flying, and also seems to be used to produce a variety of effects, including telekinesis and light. This is also presumably the energy used to travel to this planet. The creature calls it magic, but this appears to be a translation failure.”
“Could this energy be harmful?” The captain asked.
“If directed to harm, yes, I think so,” P’traal replied, “But the energy itself is not harmful. There is slight radiation in the visual spectrum and some noise, but there is no risk of damage to personnel or systems due to second-hand exposure. That said, I do not doubt that it could be utilized in violent applications. If nothing else, she can use telekinesis that displays at least human strength and dexterity.”
“Understood. Medical, report.”
“She’s healthy as a horse,” Oannar replied. The captain ignored the pause for comedic effect, but thought he heard Rhealm sigh at what he assumed to be a bad joke. “There are no diseases in her that could cause trouble with the rest of the crew. Her physiology is strikingly similar to an earth equine,” There it was, the captain thought to himself, “I suspect that horse aliments are more likely to afflict her than any common ones on a federation ship. Her diet should be a flexible herbivorous one, similar to human ‘vegetarian’ diets. No hands, but the telekinesis that P’traal mentioned seems to compensate for that. A highly unusual nervous system, I’m not sure what to make of it. It appears to be connected to the ‘magic,’ given the neural activity when she uses it.”
“Interesting. Number One?”
“You skipped a step, sir.” Rhealm’s voice replied.
The captain raised an eyebrow at the comm. “Did I?”
“Psychological notes, sir.”
“Ah, yes,” the captain said with a nod. “Psychology report, medical.”
“Yes, sir,” Oannar’s voice replied again, “Sorry, sir, still getting used to my position as counselor. Mentally, I’d call her an ivy-league college student.”
The captain thought about that for a moment. “Explain.”
“She’s smart, sir, likely genius-level intelligence. She loves to learn, too. More generally, I asked about her planet and culture, and she made the situation out to be primarily pacifistic. I don’t think she was lying at any point, but there were a number of things mentioned which point to either severe self-delusion or a very unusual society. References to control of the weather and celestial bodies, but none to automobiles, elevators, or other much simpler devices. Computers are treated as fantastic and rare, sir. Permission to speak freely?”
“Granted.”
“It’s like a fairy tale, sir. The translator chose the words “Pegasus,” “Unicorn,” and “Earth Pony” to represent what I assume to be sub-species. She claims that Pegasi control the weather, the rulers of her nation controls the sun and moon, and as far as I can tell she believes it.”
The Captain was quiet for a minute. “Number One?”
“She’s a borderline violation of the prime directive, Captain. She was planning to go back to her home and tell everyone about other planets until she realized she had no way home. She’s attentive and intelligent, and the more of federation tech she sees the more she’ll know. She’s already figured out that comm-badges permit translation and communication over a distance, and decided that Tricorders were sensors while she was showing off for P’traal. If she comes up to the starship, she’ll learn a lot about us, fast.”
“You believe it better to leave her, then?”
“Not in the slightest, captain. My position is more, ‘Damned if we do, Damned if we don’t.’”
“Your control over human idioms is very nice, Number One,” the captain retorted with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “Explain.”
“Sir, put binarily, our choices are to either take her with us, exposing her to a veritable motherload of new information, or leave her on a planet that she does not understand, with plants that we hope are not dangerous, alone to the extreme as she’s the only animal on the planet. There is not even a chance of her getting, say, a pet. In addition, the prime directive applies to societies; if I am correct, as long as Twilight never returns home, there is no actual breach of the prime directive. However, Twilight wants to return home.”
“Understood, Number One.” The Captain looked up at the others in the room. His chief tactical officer, Commander Pallik Forpeg, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Give me this from a security angle,” the Captain ordered.
“I don’t like it,” Forpeg admitted, “too many variables. No way to know if she’s telling the truth, not really, and it sounds like we don’t know her full capabilities. While I have faith in the personality analysis of miss Oannar, I feel that if we go through with this we will need to take precautions.”
“Agreed,” The Captain said, before turning to the final SO. “Engineering?”
Chief engineer Jared Herod shrugged. “No professional thoughts on the matter, Captain.”
“Any personal ones?”
“I feel like we have to make the least bad choice, captain. If there’s a good choice here, I don’t see it.”
“Nor do I,” the Captain admitted.
“I’m going to push toward helping Twilight Sparkle,” Rhealm’s voice came, “I don’t like it any more than anyone else here, but is it better to risk a possible Prime Directive violation sometime in the future, or leave a civilian on an uncharted, unknown planet to eventually die alone due to forces outside of her knowledge and control?”
“I agree with Rhealm,” P’traal said, “and in addition to the ethical concerns I would like to voice scientific ones. The ‘magic’ seems to be more widely varied than any psionic abilities I’m familiar with, and she claims to have accomplished interstellar travel under her own power. That alone might make her the greatest scientific discovery of our age.”
Oannar spoke up again. “If we leave her here, sir, it’s tantamount to death by torture. I have read reports on research done on extreme isolation. If she does not die of the planet, she’ll likely either fall into suicidal depression or regress mentally into an animalistic state, if she does not suffer a more complicated breakdown. I would estimate her survival time between a few weeks and six months. And in this case, I would hope that she died quickly.”
There was a long pause. Dolen cleared his throat. “That’s rather morbid, lieutenant.”
“I’d love to hear a counter, Captain.”
Dolen nodded, and looked to the other senior staff members. After hearing the psychological and ethical impact of this decision, they could not vote to leave the life form on the planet in good conscience. Forpeg eventually spoke, “Sir… I am not happy saying this, but I feel it is my duty as security officer. This is an unknown life form, with unknown capabilities, and bringing it onto the ship might be, in fact, likely would be, a risk to both crew and ship. That’s my official thoughts on the matter.”
Jared spoke up next. “Sir, Forpeg is arguing that from the standpoint of the Vulcan saying, ‘the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.’ I’ll argue from the same standpoint, but in a different direction. As P’traal has pointed out, this life form has apparently traveled across interstellar distances without a ship. P’traal is right, that could re-define warp tech, or stellar travel, as we know it. Until we know that she is a threat, I think we owe it to both this creature, ethically, and the future, developmentally, to try.”
The captain nodded. The decision was his. The prime directive did rule that it is better to lose a life, or a ship, than affect a developing culture. However, this was not a culture. Not yet. This was one life form, far from home and left in an uncompromising situation. “I have come to a decision. As Captain, I will permit ‘Twilight Sparkle’ to come aboard, as a rescue of a maroonee from an unpopulated planet, but there is an important condition. Commander Rhealm Vihan, as long as Twilight Sparkle is a resident of this ship, she will be your responsibility. You will be expected to keep an eye on her, and keep her out of trouble. Got that?”
“Yes, Captain, understood. I accept this responsibility eagerly.”
“Good. Decide what preparations must be made for her arrival on this ship and make them. When you are ready to beam up, call ahead. I want to be in the transporter room when you arrive.”
The captain turned off the comm, and Forpeg stood up. “Are you sure, Captain?” he asked carefully.
The Captain stood up. “I can’t leave her here. The scientific promise aside, she’s no different from any other maroonee. As for my condition? Rhealm has been on this ship for less than a year, but her judgment is sound. In addition, you have doubtlessly noticed her tendency toward caution.”
“Caution is an understatement,” Forpeg said with a slight frown, “She took two security personnel down to that planet when only one would have sufficed. She frequently makes requests for type-3 phasers. She takes the security of this ship very seriously, and seems to have a very proactive attitude. I’m surprised she wants to let the creature onto the ship.”
“That’s because she doesn’t care about the ship,” The captain replied simply, “She doesn’t see the ship as an entity; she sees it as a vehicle full of people. It’s the people she wants to protect. That desire to protect people is why she’s so adamant to help Twilight Sparkle. And that’s why I know that she’ll do what see deems necessary to keep this life form in check. The second that this new life form is a threat, to our crew or to others, I know that Rhealm will stop it, even if she has to kill it.”
Twilight perked up as the group moved toward her. Rhealm spoke up soon after approaching. “The captain has decided to take you aboard. There are going to be rules and limitations, for both your safety and the safety of the crew, and we are not sure what we will be able to do to help you home, but for now the least we can do is help you to civilization.”
Twilight smiled, glad to hear that. “Thank you! This means a lot to me, I appreciate anything that you can do. How are we going to get to your ship?”
“We are going to teleport,” Rhealm stated simply. Although the process was actually called ‘transporting,’ Twilight seemed familiar with the idea of teleportation, so it was easier to call it that. “Just stay where you are, the ship will do all the work.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Kahkala said to Twilight, “We do it all the time.”
“I’m not worried,” Twilight replied, “I can teleport myself. I’m more excited to see how it’s done. Teleporting this many people any sort of distance would take a lot of energy and a very precise spell matrix.”
“Ready to beam up,” Rhealm said into the communicator. Twilight didn’t know what it really was, but it seemed to be a magical item with both a long-distance communication spell and a translation spell on it. A short wait later, someone from where the other end of the badge was called back and said they were ready and to stand by.
Twilight took a deep breath to calm herself and stood still. There was a moment of nothing, and then the six were enveloped by shimmering fields and Twilight found herself somewhere very different. Standing on a slightly raised stage in a metal room, she was more distracted by the method used. It had been smooth, if anything it had felt like time had stopped for a moment, and the old place faded out and the new place faded in.
“What was that?” she asked Kahkala, “what happened?”
“It feels a little weird, yes,” Kahkala said in a soothing tone of voice, “But you’ll get used to it-”
“Where was the magic? There wasn’t any magic in that at all! How is that possible?”
“Twilight,” Rhleam said, calling for the pony’s attention, “The Captain wants to speak to you.”
Twilight stepped forward, to the edge of the pad, to look at the captain. He had a darker tan skin, dark brown hair, and an immaculately-trimmed moustache. There was a lot of variance in these bipeds, maybe this was another species with different tribes? “I am Captain Maximillian Dolen, of the USS Burning Age,” he introduced himself.
Twilight nodded, taking a moment to compose herself. “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, but I recognize that my status as princess doesn’t really apply here.” Hopefully that will be accurate without making her seem to expect special treatment.
The Captain nodded. “Before you come aboard, there is something you must know. This is a military vessel, and as thus my rule here is law. There are regulations that must be followed, for the safety of this ship and its crew. Whenever there are civilians on this ship, they are expected to follow similar rules. Commander Rhealm will fill you in on them, but I want it to be clear that I will not tolerate breaking them. If you break rules, you will spend the rest of this voyage in the brig. Understand?”
Twilight nodded. “I will observe all rules and regulations. I will not interfere with this ship or its crew. Breaking these rules or interference will result in detainment. Understood.” The incarceration of prisoners on a sailing ship was something that Twilight had read about. She didn’t imagine that being held on a space ship would be any more comfortable.
“Commander Rhealm Vihan is in charge of you. You will answer to her. She is my first mate and a gifted security officer, and as a result I can guarantee that I will hear about it if you step out of line.”
Twilight nodded again, giving Rhealm a look. Rhealm did not return it, instead standing at attention.
“That is all, Twilight Sparkle,” the Captain said, “I hope that this warning was unneeded, but I felt it better to clarify the situation. Commander Rhealm will now give you the tour and explain the guidelines.”
Twilight nodded “Thank you, sir, for giving me this chance. I know that this is going out of the way for me.”
The Captain nodded back. “I’m happy I might be able to help.”
Twilight smiled, and took a step-wait, no, wait. Her hoof stopped in mid-air, and Twilight set it back down on the raised platform as she remembered something she read about Equestrian navy vessels. It likely wouldn’t be needed here, and in fact might just be confusing, but it was a gesture of respect. “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
Captain Dolen raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise, but smiled. “Permission granted. Welcome aboard the USS Burning Age.”
Twilight was torn between memorizing every word that Rhealm said, and looking at what all was around. The corridors were a gray color, oddly shaped with cross-braces along the walls at regular intervals. The doors and doorways all had the same shape, and poor Rhealm was constantly having to duck whenever she went through a door. The layout had a curve about it, Twilight quickly concluded that the ship was rounded in some way. The doors themselves were very flat, without a knob or handle. At first confused, after she saw a door open on its own to let someone into a room, Twilight concluded that they were enchanted to open automatically. Amazing!
Significantly more amazing was the variance of people around. Many sizes, shapes, and colors, but all were bipeds and none of the other people that Twilight saw were very much like Rhealm. Either this one species had a lot of tribes, or there were several species on this ship.
But more important than that was what Realm was saying. Every word that left her mouth was memorized on the spot, and Twilight always asked for clarification. The rules were simple, really. There were laws, which sounded similar to equestrian laws so they should be easy enough to follow. There were certain parts of the ship that she was allowed in, and although to someone else it would have seemed restrictive Twilight was a little surprised that she was given as much freedom as she was. An exercise room, a public cafeteria, there was even a lounge she was allowed in.
The lounge was more impressive, because out of it she could see a starfield and a green ball.
After a moment of confusion, Twilight realized what was going on. “Wait… we’re already in space? I didn’t feel the ship take off,” Twilight said.
“This ship does not land,” Rhealm explained, “We transported up to it.”
Twilight boggled. So, not only did they have teleportation without magic, they had very long-range teleportation without magic. Given the size of the planet below, assuming it’s about the same size as the planet that Twilight knew-
“Next, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying,” Rhealm said, guiding Twilight away from the lounge. Tallying quickly, Twilight came up with a distance well over 500 miles which was far beyond what she thought possible with magic. Of course, Twilight was certain that she had undershot.
And a ship that never lands, how did that work? How did they get resources onto it, like food and water? Wait, with the transporter, presumably. Was the transporter efficient enough to allow it to be used with such large amounts of matter?
Rhealm led Twilight to her room. It was small, Twilight decided, but not too small. It had a bed, a desk, and a chair, both of which were made for bipeds. The bed wouldn’t be an issue, if anything it was a little large, but the chair would practically have to be climbed onto, and the back might not cooperate with her tail and wings. There was also an attached small room with what a shower and a toilet (which Rhealm explained how to use in brief).
“Here,” Rhealm said, pointing to a place on the wall in the main room, “Is the food replicator. You ask the computer what food you want, and it will provide it for you. It’s been programmed to only give you things you can eat without trouble.”
“Where does the food come from?” Twilight asked. This seemed like a good time to quietly inquire about the logistical issues of the ship.
“It’s replicated. Here, come watch. What would you like?” Rhealm gestured for Twilight to come over.
As Twilight pondered that, Rhealm noted silently that they were quite a pair. A two and a half meter tall biped and a one meter tall quadruped trying to use a device made for two meter tall beings.
“How about a hard-boiled egg?” Twilight asked. She wasn’t really hungry, but she did want to see how the device works.
Rhealm leaned down, to the level of the replicator, and clearly said, “One hard boiled egg.” Almost immediately, there was a shimmer in the machine, and a hard-boiled egg on a plate with a fork appeared. Twilights eyes went wide. “It uses the same technology as the transporter,” Rhealm stated simply.
“Replicator,” Twilight mused, “It’s a conjuration device, isn’t it? It creates the items you request.”
“That’s correct,” Rhealm said with a nod. “Now, you will be allowed to move around the ship, but first I have to get something for you. I will ask you to stay in this room until then, likely not more than an hour. Is there anything you want to request for your room?”
Twilight pondered that for a minute. “Paper, please, a writing utensil, and a chalkboard with chalk.”
Rhealm nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. She then ducked out of the room.
Twilight, left alone, levitated the egg, plate, and fork to the desk. After a moment of pondering, Twilight headed back to the replicator, stood on her hind legs, and said to it, “Salt, please.” As requested, a shaker full of salt appeared in the device. Twilight giggled; she’d have to be careful to not spoil herself.
“Captain’s log: As I expected, Rhealm has devised an excellent plan for containing and watching Twilight Sparkle. I’m looking at her list of preparations now, and find no fault or lack. In fact, there is one item in particular that I believe is a wise decision on her part…”
“Let me be clear on this,” chief engineer Jared said, “You want me to make her a commbadge?”
“No,” Rhealm said simply, “A commbadge carries with it some of Starfleet’s authority. I want her to have a device with a locator, so that we can track where she is and lock onto her with the transporter easily. In addition, the device should have a universal translator, which will let her communicate with other members of the ship, and a comm function which can be used to contact her in case of emergency. I don’t intend to tell her about the comm function, or the tracking function unless she asks specifically. I’ll tell her she is required to wear it whenever she is not in her room, and as thus we can have instant knowledge if she enters a restricted area and a log of her location at any time. If possible, I would also like for the device to be remotely operated, which would permit me to eavesdrop on her if necessary. Finally, a badge wouldn’t work; her species doesn’t seem to have a nudity taboo, so something made to affix to cloth would be out of the question. I realize that it could affix to her fur coat, but that would likely be uncomfortable. A hair clip might be better.”
Jared Herod sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. Anything else you want for our guest?”
“Nothing I can’t use the replicator for,” Rhealm stated, “Just paper and a pen. And maybe a chalkboard, whatever that is.”
“Do you have a plan to keep her from learning about modern society, Vihan?” Jared asked, a little worried, “If she finds out about how warp drives, transporters, and phasers work, there’s no way command is going to let her go back to her own society. Even as is, it’s up in the air.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Rhealm replied, “the ship is instructed to give her minimal data, even less than what is publically available. What she learns about modern society, she’s going to have to learn from the people she talks with.”
“Which is why you sent out that all-crew bulletin about what not to talk about with her,” Jared finished, “You’re a tricky one, Rhealm. I’d hate to play you in chess.”
“I hate chess,” Rhealm replied with a frown. “Anyway, I am going to tell her about the prime directive. Hopefully an understanding of that will dissuade her from pushing to discover things.”
“And if command rules that she simply can’t return home?”
The first mate did not reply for a moment. “We’ll come to that if we need to,” she said carefully, “And only if we need to.”
As the door to Twilight’s room slid open, Rhealm looked in at the small pony. Twilight had been lying on the bed, and raised her head when the door opened. “You brought me paper!”
“Yes, and a few colors of pen.” Rhealm placed the paper and pens on the desk, and then pulled the device she had requested from engineering out of her pocket. “This is made to go into your hair. It contains a universal translator, similar to the one in my badge. Part of my requirements is for you to wear it whenever you’re out of your room. Understood?”
Twilight looked at the device. It was a hair clip, if a bit of a large one. White with a purple highlight. Twilight took it and put it in her hair, on the stripe of color on her bangs. It seemed odd to her that she was required to wear it, as opposed to it simply being an exceedingly good idea. Maybe it was some sort of test?
All the same, Twilight smiled and said, “Thank you. Were you able to get me a chalkboard?”
“I still have to find something that will work,” Rhealm explained, “I had to look in the historical files to find what a chalkboard was at all. Give me some time.”
Twilight nodded. “I really appreciate this. Give my thanks to the captain. Would you mind if I asked some questions?”
Rhealm took a deep breath. Here goes. “You can ask, Twilight, but I likely won’t be able to answer. Our organization has a rule, called the prime directive. It dictates that we must not interfere with developing cultures.”
“…cultures like mine?” Twilight guessed.
Rhealm nodded. “We couldn’t leave you behind on that planet, there was no one else there, but ideally after your home is found we will take you there.”
“But if I know too much, it would count as interference…”
“And you wouldn’t be allowed to return.”
The idea of this shocked Twilight. She… she didn’t understand it. She tried to imagine what it would be like to never go home, but she couldn’t. “Why would you have a rule for that?” She asked, trying to keep the trembling from her voice.
“Because, in the past, when we have interfered, it almost always ended in war. Wars that commonly destroyed entire civilizations, if not entire worlds. This doesn’t happen every time, but it does happen the vast majority of the time.”
Twilight blinked. “Wars dangerous enough to destroy entire worlds? How is that possible?”
“You’ve seen our transporter and replicator. Do you think that our weapons are any less amazing?” Rhealm countered, “And the firepower needed to wipe life off of a planet is available long before transporters are.”
Twilight suddenly straightened up. “Teleportation is something that ponies have! Not all of them, no, but we have it, and we don’t have the power to wipe life off of the planet.”
“Of course not. But if a group of ponies who could teleport turned their power to destruction, how much destruction could they wreak?”
Twilight’s attitude turned from indignation to realization, and then fear. “You have a good point,” Twilight said carefully. She closed her eyes, regaining her composure. “I like to think that ponies are better than waging war, but there have been wars in the past.”
Rhealm nodded. “And we are hoping to send you back, intact and safe,” She clarified, “In time, your culture will advance into space on its own. That’s how these things work.”
Twilight nodded. “Do you know where my planet is?”
“Not for sure,” Rhealm said, “but someone should be by soon to get information, to see if we can find it.”
“I… might like some time to myself,” Twilight admitted. “Just to think about things.”
“Of course,” Rhealm said before stepping back out. Standing in the hall was Lieutenant Oannar. The catian officer was looking concerned. Rhealm sighed, and then said, “Give her some time, and then please go in there and fix what I broke.” With that, Rhealm turned and headed back to the bridge.
Dear Princess Celestia,
I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, maybe I’ll be able to make a spell to send it to you in the future. I’m sure that by now someone has noticed I’m missing, and I want to tell you that I’m okay. I tried to cast a long-range teleportation spell, and it went wrong. I’m now on a space ship manned by odd bipeds, and will likely soon be travelling away from a completely different planet. They are showing a lot of care by letting me onto their ship, but this is a military ship, and as thus there are a lot of rules to follow. They’re not sure they’ll even find Equus, much less be able to take me back there. I’m trying to keep positive, though. I’ll write more when I know more.
Hope to see you soon,
Twilight Sparkle
Author's Note
USS Burning Age crew list, for reference:
CO: Capt. Maximilian Dolen (Human Male)
XO: Cmdr. Rhealm Vihan (Ylrodian Female)
(No, don't look that up on the Star Trek wiki, I made it up myself.)
Operations/Science: Cmdr. Kelov P’traal (Andorian Male)
Chief Engineer: LtC. Jared Herod (Human Male)
Tactical officer, #2: Cmdr. Pallik Forpeg (Saurian Male)
Medical Officer and Councilor: Lt. Kahkala Oannar (Catian Female)
Author's Note
Notable Crew of the USS Burning Age
CO: Capt. Maximilian Dolen (Human Male)
XO: Cmdr. Rhealm Vihan (Ylrodian Female)
Operations/Science: Cmdr. Kelov P’traal (Andorian Male)
Chief Engineer: LtC. Jared Herod (Human Male)
Tactical officer, #2: Cmdr. Pallik Forpeg (Saurian Male)
Medical Officer and Councilor: Lt. Kahkala Oannar (Catian Female)
New this chapter:
Engineer: LtC Pilah (Vulcan Female)
A Great Leap, Part 2
“Captain’s Log: After sending a notification to Starfleet about retrieving a maroonee from Autaurus 3, I have decided to continue on the ship’s scheduled route. Normally this would merit returning to starbase and leaving the refugee in Starfleet custody, but in this situation the Burning Age’s next three stops are important supply runs. Until otherwise commanded, I will complete these supply runs and then return to starbase, in about three months. In the meantime, Lieutenant Oannar is doing her best to make the guest feel at home, and trying to discover her original homeworld.”
Twilight groaned at the picture. “No, that’s wrong! Gah! I wish I had a reference book for this.” Twilight shook her head at the crude drawing, which to anyone else would look like a startlingly accurate sketch. “I wasn’t as big on astronomy as I was magic, so while I can provide rough sketches I can’t give you the kind of detail you actually need. Gah, I can’t even remember the basic latitude/longitude coordinates!” She shook her head strongly.
“It’s not so bad,” Kahkala offered, “Your information on the sun and moon will be helpful, for sure. It just means it’ll take longer to find it.”
“If you can find it at all,” Twilight said to herself. She pulled herself onto the large bed, lying down.
“You should be optimistic,” Kahkala said, “The federation is huge! It has information on millions of star systems, it’s very good at finding specific ones.”
“Rhealm sure didn’t seem to be optimistic,” Twilight said to herself, sadness clear in her voice.
Kahkala shook her head. “Vihan is a pessimistic person. She had a very competitive childhood, and it has had an effect on her.” Kahkala was quiet for a moment. “Did you have a competitive childhood, Twilight? Do you know what that feels like?”
“Yeah, I… no. Not really. Unless you count my own drive as competition?” Twilight asked with a half-smile.
Kahkala smiled back. “It can feel like it sometimes. I heard a saying once about racing your own shadow. It went something like, ‘your shadow is your worst enemy, because there is never a victory or a loss; only the infinite competition.’”
“That’s… kind of a weird saying,” Twilight admitted.
Kahkala laughed a little. It took Twilight a second to figure out what is was, though, since it was mixed in with a purr. “It’s from kind of a weird culture,” Kahkala said, “Really, most cultures are really weird. Especially when thought about from an outsider’s perspective.”
“Really?” Twilight asked.
“Mmhm!” the catlike biped said as she gathered up the papers. “Let’s take a break. I would like to take you to the medical bay real quick, get an in-depth scan of you. You’re a completely new race, and we’re all a little curious.”
Twilight nodded. “I understand that,” she said as she climbed down from the bed, “Truthfully, I’m very curious, too. I don’t even know how many races are on this ship. For all I know, there could be one race with a lot of tribes.”
“Tribes?” Kahkala was momentarily confused. “Oh! Subspecies? No, there’s a great many different species on this ship. Personally, I’m a Catian. Captain Dolen is Human. Commander Rhealm is a Ylrodian. Honestly, there’s a lot of variance on this ship for only having a crew of 26.”
The pair headed toward the medical bay, Kahkala casually listing some of the races as they passed. As they entered the medical bay, Twilight noticed an orange-skinned biped, wearing a yellow and black uniform. Kahkala waved to him. “Hello! Twilight, this is Commander Pallik Forpeg, our head of security. He’s a Saurian.”
“Hello!” Twilight said, “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and I… actually, if you’re the head of security, you likely already know why I’m here.”
Forpeg nodded. “I hope your stay with us will be short and will permit you to return to your planet soon. I just wanted to be here for the medical scan.”
“Okay,” Twilight said. “So, what do I do?”
“Over here,” Kahkala walked over to a tall bed that stood up off of the floor. “Just lie on here, and I’ll do the rest.”
Twilight got onto the bed with a small flap of her wings, and then lay down. Kahkala pulled something out of the wall, and then waved it over Twilight’s body. “There we go! Done just like that! How about you head back to your room while I go over the scan?”
“Okay,” Twilight said, getting off of the bed and heading back to the entry to the medical bay. There, before the door, she stopped. On a whim, she activated a magic detection spell as she approached the door. The door slid open automatically, just like it should but Twilight noticed something odd: there was no magic to be detected, just like there had been none in the transporter. Either the magic was all carefully hidden (which didn’t make a lot of sense to Twilight) or this was done without magic. As Twilight headed back to her room, she pondered how someone would be able to accomplish that without magic.
“So, Kahkala,” Forpeg said, “anything we should know about our guest?”
Kahkala handed Forpeg the PADD containing the results. “How about everything? She’s almost as strong as you are, and as far as I can tell she’s a scholar. Her neural system is entirely abnormal, highly redundant, and there’s a peculiar neural formation in her horn, wings, and hooves. The rest of it is within standard mammalian deviation, particularly robust. If she gets into a fistfight it will mainly be annoying, unless it’s with someone very strong.”
Forpeg didn’t understand the medical data, but nodded to Kahkala. “Hopefully that will never come up.”
Outside the ship, a red cloud floated in space. Suddenly, the Miranda-class starship ran into it. The cloud, scarcely larger than a large cat, hit the shields. Instead of being pushed out of the way, however, the cloud hung onto the ship, and slowly began to grow. Roiling, it seemed to move of its own accord.
“It was like kicking a dog. And not a normal dog, one of those little funny ones with the squished-up, wrinkly faces. And it knows you just kicked it, but it thinks it was an accident and holds no malice toward you whatsoever,” Rhealm Vihan said with a sigh. She was standing in the Captain’s office, giving a small report. “But I did it, and Twilight, though confused, accepted it.”
Captain Dolen nodded. “Hopefully, that won’t happen. It’d be a pity to rescue Twilight and be unable to return her without breaking the Prime Directive. Kahkala is an expert in both medicine and psychology, if we can find her planet we should be able to place her on it without incident. We can even wipe her memory if we have to.”
“Assuming we can. We should probably get an in-depth medical scan of her before trying that, especially considering that even the initial scan found something odd with her nervous system,” Rhealm said.
The Captain nodded. “Point. It’s unlikely that we would be doing the insertion, anyway. It’s far more likely that would fall to experts on the matter. In any case, after the supply runs we will be handing her off to a starbase, and from there she will go through the normal system.”
Rhealm nodded back. “Hopefully the system will be one made for returning her to her home, not for naturalization.”
“I will be expecting regular updates, number one,” the captain said, “that said, keep a clear head. You already have a job, you can’t afford to worry about one alien all the time.”
Almost subconsciously, the first mate straightened up. “Yes, sir.”
The captain nodded. “Good; dismissed, but one more thing.”
“Sir?”
“Pug,” the captain said casually, “The dog breed you were thinking of. I think they’re called pugs.”
There was a beep as someone paged the captain. “Captain, this is engineering, from the bridge. Something wrong with the shields; shield strength is wavering dangerously.”
“Drop out of warp immediately and do a diagnostic,” the Captain ordered, “I don’t need to tell you what will happen if our shields fall while in warp. I will be in presently.”
As the warp drive shut down, the captain stood and hurried onto the bridge, his first mate close behind him. The officer who had the bridge immediately stood up, and the captain sat down. “I don’t expect this to take long, just run the diagnostic, find out the trouble, and fix it so we can move on,” he said, “Send a message to the outpost saying we may be running a little behind. Rhealm, go to engineering and get a detailed report when possible.”
Rhealm left immediately, taking the turbolift down to the engineering deck. There, she immediately found Jared Herod. “Anything to report yet?”
“No sir,” Jared replied, “We’re not sure what’s going on. If anything, it’s gotten worse: there’s now errors coming in from the navigational deflector. We may have to shut down the shields altogether to diagnose.”
“Troubling. Do you at least know whether it’s hardware or software?” Rhealm asked hopefully.
Jared shook his head. “I’ll let you know as soon as we know anything.”
Computers had something to do with it; that was for sure. Twilight had messed around with them enough to know that they could do a lot with the proper prodding. The doors led obviously from there: There was some (nonmagical) thing that detected when someone was nearby, and then magnets in the walls activated and pulled the door apart. Except how would they detect someone’s presence without magic? Some kind of light detection... thingy? Or echolocation device?
“All these things that I never looked into,” Twilight said to herself, “And then, suddenly, here I am, wishing I had. If I had gone into translation magic, or deeper into computing, or astronomy, or-” the bing from the door made Twilight jump a little. “Uh, come in?”
The door opened, and a white chalkboard on wheels entered the room. It was pushed by someone that Twilight identified as human, albeit one with oddly shaped ears and eyebrows. Female? Twilight thought the human was female, but realized she hadn’t actually checked with Kahkala to be sure she knew how to tell the genders apart. She(?) was wearing a uniform, one of the yellow and black ones.
“Hello!” Twilight said, “My name is Twilight Sparkle. Who are you?”
“Lieutenant Commander Pilah,” she said, “I am a Vulcan. This is what we could make similar to the chalkboard you requested. These markers can be erased from the board easily, and will wash out from other surfaces easily. Do you have any questions?”
How does that work? Why weren’t you able to get a normal chalkboard? What’s the difference between Vulcans and Humans? How do the doors work? How does the teleporter work? Why does the sound the ship makes keep changing? How is faster than light travel possible? What’s the standard procedure for maroonees? Are you a boy or a girl? How can I tell? Would the federation really keep me from going home if I knew too much? How much is too much? Have they found where my planet is? Why is the ship named the Burning Age? What do the colors on the uniforms mean?
“Nothing important, thank you.”
Pilah nodded and left, leaving Twilight alone in the room. Twilight immediately chose a black marker and began to write equations on the board. If she couldn’t find out more about the ship, non-magic amazing items, or federation, she would simply work more on the spell that got her into this mess in the first place. She would take it apart, bit by bit, and figure out just what went wrong.
Twilight’s train of thought was interrupted by the light in her room flickering. Odd, she rather figured that the lights in the ship would be more reliable.
P’traal hmmed as a looked over the medical report. “Interesting. These neural pathways in particular. There’s nothing like them in any race I’m familiar with. The architecture overall is unique, even from races with very powerful psionics. This should be studied more in-depth, it could have applications in bio-neural technologies.”
Kahkala sighed. “One thing at a time, we should let her settle down a little first before we start poking her. That said, she does seem eager to help, so you may be in luck.”
P’traal nodded. “I’ll look over the results more in-depth when I have the time. Thank you for bringing this to me. Maybe together we will be able to publish a paper on this.”
Kahkala simply said “Maybe,” before leaving. She almost bumped into Pilah, who was scanning a bulkhead.
When the Vulcan noticed the medical officer, she said, “The whiteboard has been delivered to Twilight Sparkle, as requested.” As this was said, the lights in the hall flickered.
Kahkala looked around a bit, worried. “Any word on what’s wrong with the shield?”
“No,” Pilah said, before moving on.
Rhealm moved back into the bridge, walking over to the captain. “Things are getting worse, sir,” She said, “The shield is working again, but there are roving failures all over the ship. Engineering thinks it’s a software problem, but given the way that the failures seem to move, I suspect something more malign.”
Captain Dolen sighed. “Vihan, we haven’t been in contact with anything that could possibly be malign for days. This is a fairly new ship, and it’s no secret that sometimes-” the lights on the bridge flickered, distractingly. “-sometimes the designers don’t test everything as thoroughly as they should. This is practically a shakedown cruise, if not officially one.”
“Captain,” the helmsman spoke up, “My console is acting up.”
“Log it with engineering,” The captain ordered, “They need the information. If it persists, let me know.”
“Yes, captain,” The helmsman said. He frowned down at the console, and was about to stand up when he noticed something odd: a wisp of red coming out from a seam in the console. Acting like fog, it seeped out of the console, and onto his pants. “What is-”
There was barely a moment before red fog boiled out of the console, enveloping the helmsman. He screamed in pain as energy like lightning lanced over his body. Rhealm was quick to act, pulling out her phaser and aiming it at the cloud. It was all over too early for her to do any good, though: the cloud rolled back into the console with great speed, leaving a body, charred with energy burns.
“Red alert!” the captain called, “and get medical to the bridge. There’s a hostile on-board!”
The sudden blare of noise and change in lighting made Twilight jump a little. “Red alert,” A voice said, “all hands to duty stations. Intruder alert.” Twilight panicked a little. That sounded bad. What was she supposed to do? Just stay in her room?
Various surfaces around the room had red on them. The desk, a spot near the door, the computer near the food replicator, all were colored red. Twilight went over to the one near the door, but couldn’t read the symbols on it. However, the door didn’t open, so Twilight was locked in.
Well… hopefully that wouldn’t be an issue.
“Okay, captain,” Jared Herod said into the comm, “I think I’ve figured it out. Whatever it is drains energy from its surroundings, which is what is causing the issues. By mapping where the errors are in real-time, we can follow its movements. It frequents the navigational deflector and transporters, I suspect that it can feed more easily there since those are emission points. It also has begun to drain from the phaser banks since those have been powered on from the red alert. All the same, its movements are hard to predict.”
“I’m not complaining,” The captain said from the bridge, “But why hasn’t it gone for the warp core? That’s by far the most energy on the ship.”
“Looking at the logs, I think it’s tried,” the chief engineer replied, “But has been unable to. The containment field must be keeping it out.”
“That’s it, then!” the captain said, “We can use a containment field to trap it somewhere, to get it off of the ship. Photon torpedoes use antimatter containment fields when armed; if we can get it onto one of those then we could fire it off the ship.”
“How are we going to get it onto one?” Jerod asked, “What are we going to put into a photon torpedo that has enough energy to compare to the impulse drive or phaser banks?”
“An overloaded phaser rifle,” Rhealm Vihan stated.
The captain looked at her. “Many of your plans seem to involve phaser rifles, number one.”
“Captain, even type-2 phasers can be a threat to a ship when overloaded, the detonation can cause serious damage to smaller ships. If I were to set a type-3 phaser to overload, but limit the energy build up to before the detonation point, the amount of energy available would be considerable. We simply need to place it inside a gutted photon torpedo.”
“I think that would work, captain,” Jared said, “When we ‘armed’ the torpedo, the containment field would come on, and from there we could simply fire the torpedo. Vihan is an expert with phaser technology, I don’t doubt she could do it.”
The captain nodded. “Engineering, number one, make it happen.”
“Commander Forpeg,” Rhealm said, “We may need your expertise with the torpedoes.”
Pallik stood from his place at the security console. “Lead on.”
The torpedo bay was cramped, but workable. Pallik, standing over an open and gutted torpedo, straightened up as much as he could. He tapped his comm badge, “torpedo bay to Rhealm, come in. The torpedo is ready.”
“So am I,” Rhealm said as she entered the room, phaser rifle in hand. There was no way for her to stand up straight, but that didn’t phase her. “This rifle has been set up to do what we need, as soon as we’re ready it can start charging.”
“Hand it here,” Pallik said. He took the offered Phaser and fit it into the torpedo gingerly. “Torpedo bay to captain,” Pallik said, “We’re all set up.”
“Good,” the captain replied, “Continue at your own discretion. Arm and fire at will, everything is ready.”
Pallik reached down and activated the rifle. “Phaser charging,” He said as he shut the torpedo, “Let’s get to the fire control.”
The pair entered the fire control area of the torpedo bay, which looked into the ready area through a transperisteel window. Rhealm activated her comm badge. “Engineering, keep tabs on the entity for us. Let us know when it heads our way.”
“Will do,” Jared’s voice replied.
A few minutes passed before the chief engineer’s voice came again. “It’s headed your way.”
It was there quickly, a red fog that seeped out of the bulkheads and into the torpedo. As more and more fog seeped into the torpedo, the pair tensed. As Pallik examined the readouts, he frowned. “Phaser energy is dropping, soon there will be none left.”
“Load it,” Rhealm ordered. As an automated system loaded the torpedo into the tube, the fog seemed to follow it, chase after it. As the torpedo tube was sealed, the last of the fog disappeared. “Arm and fire!”
On the bridge, the captain let himself smile as a red dot streaked into space, far away from his ship. “Bridge to torpedo bay, I see a launch, I presume the effort was a success?”
“There was an energy spike a moment before launch,” Pallik’s voice replied, “But it seems to have-“
“Seems to have what? Torpedo bay?” the captain asked.
Pallik and Rhealm worked busily at their terminals. “It looks like the containment field failed momentarily,” Pallik said, “but the torpedo launched fine.”
“You did get that thing off the ship, right?” The captain asked.
A crackle of energy and a red glow surprised the pair in fire control. As they looked up, they saw red fog boiling out of the torpedo tube, laced with red energy, like lightning in a cloud during a violent storm. “No,” Rhealm said as she backed away from the console, “We just made it mad.”
Somewhere, far away, there was an explosion, and the ship seemed to shake a bit. Twilight frowned to herself. Now, she wasn’t a professional, but that struck her as a bad thing. She couldn’t leave her room, or ask what was going on, but there had to be a way for her to check what was going on.
Wait, there was. A scanning spell was made to detect magic, heat, or life, but if she cast all three at the same time, she could find all heat, life, and magic in the area. She closed her eyes and charged her horn. A bubble of awareness formed around her, finding her own life, heat, and magic. It extended outward, and found some heat in the walls. Further, further out, and the layout of the ship formed in her head. People were walking around, some things she didn’t recognize produced a lot of heat, and then she found another source of magic. It wasn’t alive, nor was it warm, and it didn’t have a solid shape.
As another explosion shook the ship, the captain winced. “Damage?”
“That was the second photon torpedo bay,” the report came in from engineering, “Whatever this thing is, it’s smart enough to cut off our options like that.”
“Rhealm to captain,” the first mate came in, “We escaped, I don’t think whatever it was could see us.”
“I think the energy spike was the entity breaching the containment field,” Pallik said over the comm, “which implies that it might be able to breach the field around the warp core as well, eventually.”
“Captain! There’s some kind of energy field covering the ship,” the sensor station reported, “It seems to be emanating from the crew deck... now it’s focusing on one spot in particular.”
“Captain, the energy field is focusing on the entity,” Jared Reported “It’s headed toward the crew deck now. It looks like the field is emanating from the room our guest is in.”
“I’m on my way,” Rhealm said, and took off down the halls. Pallik was left behind; Rhealm was far faster than he was. Rhealm found the room and opened the door. Twilight was standing in the middle of the room, her horn glowing brightly. “Twilight! What are you doing?” Rhealm asked urgently.
Twilight jumped a little. “I’m sorry, but I was worried, so I cast a detection spell and I found a-” As she spoke, an angry red cloud came out from the food dispenser, headed in Twilight’s direction. “-that!”
“Stop feeding it and get behind me!” Rhealm shouted, drawing and firing her phaser into the cloud. The beam dissipated in the cloud, utterly useless. Twilight, for her part, vanished from where she stood in a purple flash and reappeared behind Rhealm. The cloud advanced on the two, Rhealm backing up and firing more into the cloud. The pair began to back down the hallway, and the angry red cloud followed.
“Sir!” a pair of security personnel rounded the corner at the far end of the hall, seeing the first mate and pony through the red haze.
“Set phasers to kill and then fire into the cloud!” Rhealm shouted, and the pair of officers complied. Two phaser beams entered the cloud, and began to bellow after the security officers instead. “Now run!” Rhealm shouted.
One officer was not fast enough. He hesitated, firing another beam into the cloud, not realizing how fast it was moving. It washed over him, and as lightning coursed over his body he screamed. After a few agonizing moments, the officer fell to the ground, dead, and the cloud entered back into the walls of the ship.
“Medical to my location!” Rhealm cried, going over to the fallen crewman, and she quickly checked his vitals. “Cancel medical; he’s dead.”
“What was that thing?” Twilight said, shaking a little, “Why did it kill him?”
“As far as we can tell, it eats energy,” Rhealm said, “What were you doing?”
“But why kill him? It obviously expended energy to kill him, and he couldn’t hurt it, if anything he was-“
“Twilight!” Rhealm said, using the voice one only learns from years of being a commander in the military, “What were you doing?”
“Things were booming and shaking and everything was red!” Twilight sputtered out, “I wanted to know what was going on! I cast a detection spell and I found that thing! It’s the only other magic on the-“
“Listen to me,” Rhealm said simply, “We are in Red Alert. That means the ship is under attack. Go back into your room, stay there, and don’t cast anything. What happened will be explained later.”
“Rhealm!” the voice of Jared Herod came over her comm badge, “The thing has found the armory. The phasers are going to be a buffet for it; and it’s drawing more energy from the ship than it was before. I think you were right when you said that we made it angry.”
Rhealm tapped her comm badge and answered, “Reinforce the warp core, if you can, we’ll need some way to drive it back.”
“Engineering, you have permission to drain power from all non-essential systems to reinforce the warp core containment field. That thing must not get into the core!” The captain ordered. Twilight didn’t need another hint, she ran back into her room. She was not about to risk Rhealm’s ire if something so important was going on.
As the door shut behind her, Twilight couldn’t stop thinking about what she saw. The way that the lightning arced over the man’s form as he writhed in pain, the way his flesh was burned. But more than that, the fact that it happened at all. The thing didn’t need to kill him, and he couldn’t harm it, meaning that the thing didn’t kill in self-defense. It killed because it could, and that almost guaranteed that it would kill again.
The ring of the comm demanded the captain’s attention. “Bridge here,” he said tersely.
“Bridge, this is shuttle bay 1. It looks like the thing hitting the rest of the ship hit the shuttle, too.”
“Drained dry, I presume?” Dolen said with a frown.
“Worse: the type-15 shuttlecraft we have seems to have been sabotaged, every impulse engine is heavily burned. The escape pods are throwing errors, too, and when I tried calibrating them both immediately failed. It’s likely safe to assume those aren’t going to work.”
“Understood,” the Captain said, “Try to get them going. We may need them. Comms, I need a message sent to Starfleet.”
The comms officer looked up at captain dolen. “Of course, sir. What message?”
“I’ll be composing the actual body of the message presently, but attached to it must be all the information we have on this entity. Work with science on this. We need to get this to Starfleet, so that even if we die here, someone else may be able to develop a counter, so that a future ship will not suffer the same fate.”
“Sir, shouldn’t saving the ship be our first priority?” The comms officer asked, uncertainly.
“It is, but the two of us, we can’t do that. That’s up to science, engineering, and security. We’re stuck on this bridge, waiting for the people running around doing the work. The most we can do is try to equip others to better deal with this challenge in the future, better equipped than we are. Two men have died today, and 24 more may follow. We need to be sure that the deaths, both of those who have died and may yet die, are not in vain. If we can stop it today, all the better, but the threat it poses must be dealt with in some way. Get the information, and put it in a packet. I’ll compose a message to be sent with it.”
“Captain, shuttle bay again,” the same voice came over the com.
“Yes?” the captain asked, a little impatient.
“I’ve looked at the first escape pod. It’s literally fused into the bay; it’s not going to come out. We don’t have the means to repair that, and the other pod is giving the exact same errors so I assume it’s in the same state. It’s not professional sabotage, but it’s not easily done.”
“Are you saying that this… cloud is actively trying to keep us from escaping?”
“I think so, sir. Violently, too. You think there is any hope of communicating with it?”
The captain sighed. “I don’t think so. It has killed one man with no provocation, and that’s a rather straightforward greeting. Either it doesn’t consider us intelligent, or…”
“Or?”
“Or it is a murderer, and what appears to be an unrepentant one at that.”
As Rhealm entered the room with the warp core, she looked around. The area was bustling with activity, everyone was on-edge. She walked over to Jared Herod, and simply said, “Report.”
“We may have the most heavily-contained warp core in Starfleet right now,” Jared said, “I think our best bet is to wear the thing down. If we can force it to expend too much energy eating through the shielding, it may disperse.”
“Are you sure?” Rhealm asked.
“No, I’m guessing blindly, but it’s the only shot we have. Worst case scenario, we may be able to shut down the core and then wait for the thing to leave, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It’d likely eat the backup power, and then we’d be dead.”
“How much time do we have before it gets here?” Rhealm asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jared replied, “But likely not much.”
“Commander!” Someone called. The pair spun around to see the thick red cloud flowing down from the ceiling, covering the core.
Jared rushed to a console, as the entity began to crackle with internal lightning. “Looks like the field is holding,” he said, a moment before there was an audible thunderclap and the cloud completely lit up with lightning. “Still holding, but much worse off. If it has many more of those in it-” the engineer was cut off by two more surges of energy, close together. Alarms began to blare, and the crewmen in the room began to panic as readouts began to turn red. “No! Get it off of the core!”
Rhealm took aim and fired, the phaser energy disappearing into the cloud again. Again, the cloud bellowed toward the source of free energy, and as that happened Rhealm turned to run. As she continued firing, she sprinted for the door of the room, and the cloud was close behind her.
As Jared examined the readings, he pressed the call button. “Engineering to captain. Rhealm has the thing distracted, but I don’t think that’s going to last. If there was ever a time to abandon ship, it would be now.
“Every possible method to get off the ship is disabled,” the Captain replied, “The transporter could still work in theory, but with nowhere close enough to transport to, I’m afraid we either beat this thing… or we all die here.”
Rhealm moved slowly through the halls, checking each corner before she turned it. As she was about to round one corner, she saw the red cloud moving past a T-intersection. “Engineering,” she said, trying not to be too loud, “I think I have it turned around. It’s in the halls, looking for me, but it can’t find me.”
“Keep it distracted,” Jared said, “and try not to feed it too much. Containment field is at 48%, try to keep that thing away until it recovers more.”
“Will do,” Rhealm said. She moved down the corner, spotted the cloud, and fired her phaser at it. She then rushed back around the corner, and then took another sharp turn. A nearby door was to a storage bay. Rhealm quickly opened the door and made it stay open, ducking inside and off to one side. She saw the cloud float into the open door, and enter the room. She let herself smile; in the roomy storage bay, she could make better use of her agility.
She let the cloud float around a bit, and then she saw it head for a wall. She phasered it quickly, drawing it back into the room, and then began to circle the room.
“Containment field at 50%,” Jared said over the comm.
“What? Only two percent? Why so slow?” Rhealm almost hissed into the communicator.
“The emitters were slightly damaged,” Jared explained, “Nothing serious, but we’re feeling it in this situation.”
Rheam eyed the cloud, staying away from it as it swept the perimeter of the room. “Any way you can repair it?”
“No, not without a spacedock,” the answer came, “And even then there’s no promises.”
“…I can’t distract this thing for an hour,” Rhealm said, “We need a better solution.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, and, in theory, if we could catch it in a graviton shell, we could move it around easily.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Rhealm says, “How do we get a graviton shell inside the ship?”
“We can’t, the tractor beam only works outside the ship.”
Rhealm sighed, but then saw the cloud descend into the floor. She shot a beam at it… and it did not seem to care. “Engineering, I think it’s tired of my game.”
“Sorry, Commander. We’re only up to 51%, you’ll have to find a new game to play. I’m tracking it; it’s headed back for the hall.”
Rhealm rushed back toward the door, only for it to slam in her face. Sparks flew from the door mechanism, and then the red cloud covered the door. Lightning crackled inside of it, sparks flew from the door. Rhealm tried to shield her eyes as she backed away, but she could see the seam down the center of the door begin to glow.
“Commander, what’s going on? The door in that room stopped responding.”
“It locked me in,” Rhealm said, “I think it fused the door, now I can’t escape.” As she spoke, the red cloud vanished back into the floor. She backed away, keeping a watchful eye for even a single wisp of red gas.
“Commander, the thing is headed back toward the warp core!”
Oh no. Rhealm rushed forward, dialing the phaser up. She fired a burst at the door, disintegrating it. “I’m on my way!”
The cloud surrounded the warp core again, and after a painfully long moment there was another flash of lightning and roll of thunder, and the entire ship began to panic. “WARP CORE BREACH IMMANENT,” the computer said, “ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP.”
Jared, desperate, drew his own phaser and fired into the cloud.
“WARP CORE BREACH IMMENENT, the computer said again, “ALL HANDS ABANDON SHIP.” That was very bad. Twilight ran up to her door, but it didn’t open. How was she supposed to abandon ship when she was still locked in? She teleported to the other side of the door, and looked around. That still raised the question of how other people who were locked in were to abandon ship. And how people were supposed to abandon ship in general. She knew that she was told not to cast anything, but… she cast that detection spell again, because she didn’t know what to do. She found the herself, the ship, and then the magic cloud… and watched as it descended upon a person-shaped heat signature.
She teleported herself, and arrived just in time to see the cloud being shocking the poor man. He screamed, and writhed. It wasn’t as fast as the time in the hall, it was slower, and the poor man screamed and screamed. It was torturing him!
She fired a magic beam at it. She didn’t know what else to do, she had to stop it somehow. However, as her beam struck the cloud, it vanished into it, doing no more damage than the phasers had done. Twilight didn’t give up, though. She held the beam steady, even though she could feel the magic being unworked when it hit the mass, and watched with glee as the cloud lifted off of the man.
Glee changed to terror as the cloud bellowed toward her.
Thinking fast, Twilight changed the beam. Heat, no. Teleportation, no. Light, no. Electricity, no. Cold? It just fed on the magic sustaining the cold beam. Desperately, Twilight started to try something, anything, attempting to grab hold of the magic that she was losing into the cloud.
And then, a spot in the cloud turned purple.
That was it. She had it. She pressed the advantage, and the spot became a blotch, and the blotch itself began to absorb the rest of the cloud. The cloud thundered and shook, and then tried to get away. No you don’t, Twilight thought to herself, pressing the advantage. More and more purple overcame the red, until, with a last defiant rumble, the last of the red cloud vanished, leaving only a soft purple glow.
And there was only one place for all that to go. Twilight tugged on the cloud, drawing it into herself. She felt it move into her horn, and then into her. It was, ultimately, a lot of magic, but not more than Twilight could handle.
As the last of the purple glow vanished, Twilight was left in the room. Then, as the adrenaline began to subside, her knees became weak, her head pounded, and this time she simply let herself pass out.
As Twilight came to, she was greeted with the remnants of a magical exertion headache. As she quietly chastised herself for overexerting herself again, she opened her eyes and was greeted by Kahkala. The Catian smiled softly, and said, “Twilight, it’s good to see you awake. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Twilight lied with a sigh.
“Are you sure?” Kahkala asked, worry in her voice. “You passed out. We’re all very worried.”
“I’ll be fine, I just overexerted myself,” Twilight said, adding a quiet “Again.” after a moment. “Look, can we get on with it?” she asked, “Just send in Rhealm or the Captain or whoever is waiting to yell at me and send me to the brig. No point in putting it off.”
Kahkala frowned and glanced up. Twilight rolled over and looked at the other side of the bed, where Captain Dolen sat, a disapproving and disappointed gaze well punctuated by his moustache.
“Twilight Sparkle,” He said slowly, “Do you know what you’ve just done?”
Twilight sighed. “I broke rules. I left my room during red alert, I entered a forbidden area, and in so doing I have condemned myself to the brig for the rest of the voyage.”
“No. More than that. Twilight, do you know what you’ve done?” the captain asked, his voice heavy.
“…what have I done?” Twilight asked, afraid to know the answer.
“You just saved the lives of 23 men and women, and maybe even more. And for that, I thank you,” the captain said, his face softening. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“…is this a situation where I’m still going to the brig,” Twilight asked, “Or am I getting a pass due to heroism?”
Dolen laughed a little. “You showed respect for the rules, but when the need arose, you put yourself in danger to protect others. I think that, given that without your actions there wouldn’t be a brig left to put you in, I’ll forgive this. Just try not to make it a habit.”
Twilight smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
The captain stood up. “Recover well, Twilight, with luck the rest of your voyage will be less interesting.”
Twilight nodded, and laid her head back. Yeah, that was quite enough excitement for a while.
As the captain stepped back onto the bridge, he saw his first mate looking contemplative. As he took the command chair from her, he spoke up. “Is something bothering you, number one?”
“Twilight seemed to know something about the being,” Rhealm said, “when she was doing the scan. She said something about it being magic, but I didn’t take the time to stop and listen to her. If I had, we may have been able to save Jared’s life.”
“Would have, should have, could have,” the Captain said, “There’s no point pondering it. But, if so, maybe you should talk to her about it. It could be that her magic isn’t unique to her planet, but one of the many mysteries of the greater galaxy. We’ll see. For now, helm! Make way to that supply drop, and try to make up for lost time. Now we need supplies as much as they do.”
Dear Princess Celestia,
Twilight stared at the piece of paper for a long time. She started to write once or twice, but each time got no further than two words before striking them out. With a sigh, she gave up, and placed the paper aside. She laid her head back on the pillow, closed her eyes, and tried not to remember the way that the person writhed as electricity arced over his body.
