Author's Note

Disclaimer: I don't own MLP or anything by Hasbro and I make no money off of this.

This is an idea I've had floating for awhile, just wanted to see who might enjoy this kind of story. Also sorry for any grammar or spelling errors, I got no editor and I try my best to catch them all before posting. So if you enjoy it, please leave a like and comment below.

Chapter 1: Exploration

Pathfinder 5

Chapter 1: Exploration

Current Location: Sector 5

System: Currently unnamed classified as system 21B, 5th Planet

Earth Year: 2258

On an unnamed planet a lone human was conducting a survey of the world although it wasn’t a particularly nice world. Mainly because the air was so full of sulfur and other toxins that taking one breath would nearly kill you, and the second breath would finish the job. The place was hot as hell to the point you would boil without protection which is why he was currently wearing a heavy suit for.

The Mark IV hazardous environmental suit was designed to withstand some of the harshest of environments, an enclosed suit that the first layer was a graphne web, a synthetic carbon material that was thin and yet as hard as diamond. It was also expensive to make, this was coupled with a powered exo-skeleton that gave increased strength and speed to the user, and this was needed to move around given all the weight.

It was all topped off with a hard shell top that made him look like some kind of futuristic knight and as the moment he was thankful for every dollar and piece of equipment that went into this.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUUCKK!” This brave explorer was David Miller who was currently running for his life across a red rock plane of escaping gasses and rivers of magma. He was also being chased by a living tank of a creature that looked like a beetle from hell about the size of a house and faster than something that large had every right to be.

“AVI start up the Sparrow II for emergency take off!” David yelled over his com line, his breath nearly fogging the clear visor in front of him the HUD showing him various data that at the moment he really didn’t care about.

“Pre-flight check sequence started.” Came a synthetic female voice of his computer on the ship.

“Skip that damn pre-flight and start up, this is an emergency override for all safety protocols!”

“That is not advised.”

“Command override Alpha-One-Gold!” He commanded.

“Accepted, starting up now.”

“Begin calculations to get back the Pathfinder and launch when I get on!” David pulled his weapon on his hip. A small grey gun looking device that lit up green on the side with a small hum. He pointed it back at the ‘Hell Beetle’ as he was going to name it and fired. Green plasma energy shot out hitting the creature. The green energy hit against the tough armor without any effect.

“Of course, this damn thing came out of magma like it was water so of course this wouldn’t do crap.” He groaned as he pushed himself on. The suit was giving him the ability to keep ahead of the creature but the problem was that if this thing attacked his ship he would be stuck on this hellish rock. The only reason he was even down here was because of the high mineral contents that he found from his scans.

The creature roared at him.

“Yeah shut up! I know you want to eat me but you’ll have to catch me first!” He yelled back knowing it wouldn’t be able to hear him or understand him even if it could, it just made him feel a bit better. He had to think, he had to think of something that could slow this thing down. He started up the HUD on the screen of his helmet looking for anything that could help.

The only thing were gases and magma under him, wait...gases.

It would be hard and could literally blow up in his face but death was right behind him anyway. He aimed his pistol where his scanner was telling him a large pocket of gases was in front of him. He had to time this just right, he waited until he was nearly on top of it before firing at the thinnest part of the ground and jumped as far ahead as he could with the help of the exoskeleton.

The plasma opened up a vein of gas as it erupted right behind him, the beetle creature ran right into it lifting it off the ground and slamming onto its back.

“Yeah! Sucks to be you!” He yelled back as he saw his ship. It wasn’t much special it was basically a large heavily fortified flying arrowhead. “Open the hatch!”

The side hatch opened up for him as he jumped into it. The door closed behind him as he found himself in a small narrow corridor, normally this would go through a decontamination process but he overrode that protocol. The door on the open end slid open as he raced to the cockpit. He could feel the hum of the engines as he quickly sat in the pilot seat and strapped in.

“Go, go, go,go!” He told AVI.

The ion engines kicked in as the craft started to lift vertically as suddenly it lurched to the side as an impact hit the ship. He quickly grabbed the controls getting the craft level as it slowly climbed up.

“The hell was that?” He asked.

“Slight damage to wing from local life form, no hull breach detected, structural integrity still within safety limits.”

“Like I would stay here even if it wasn’t,” he muttered to himself as he kicked in the thrusters as he jumped forward and started a climb up into space. The screen in front of him showed him his optimal flight path as he started the climb.

“Fuck this planet,” He told himself as he felt the pressure on him. After what seemed to take forever he was finally free of the gravity of that world and then he finally felt himself calm down. He took a moment to take some breaths and just relaxed.

“What a day.” He sighed.

It took fifteen minutes after his small break to fly back to Pathfinder 5. The large vessel was in view, it was a long ship with thick armor platting on it, it was a designed to take a beating given you never knew what the hell you were going to run into or have run into you. If that did happen, you were too far away from anyone to help you out. There were solar panels that helped keep the batteries charged since it was nice to have another power source other than the fusion generator to rely on all the time.

The ship was grey with only a few windows on it, again just in case something slammed into it but the designers knew that the human pilot might like to look out sometime, so a few were put in place.

The large engines made up the rear of the ship as the middle of the ship was a cylinder that slowly spun around. Humans hadn’t cracked artificial gravity just yet, there was some promising research being done but it was still a few years off before being put into the testing phase unfortunately. The front of the ship was where the hangers and bridge were located. A domed smooth top with a boxy bottom at the front of the ship was where he was headed. Making a slow arc around front he could see the Pathfinder 5 logo on the front of the ship as he smiled aiming the ship to the hanger.

There were three separate hangers, one for each Sparrow. The first was an all around ship for normal planets, Sparrow II which he was piloting was heavier and more for more extreme surfaces like the planet below. The last held Sparrow III and IV, these were a more unique pair as Sparrow III was designed to land and float on water while Sparrow IV was a small submarine held inside that was used to explore the deep sea.

He actually found a world that had been mostly water so he had managed to break in both of those last two Sparrows on that world.

After the landing he got up and got to the door after shutting down the systems but found the door locked.

“AVI, what the hell?” He asked the computer.

“You came into the ship without decontamination, now the entire ship and hangar must be sterilized and quarantine procedures must be implemented.”

David knew that his override would let him get away with a lot but this was one thing that it wouldn’t let him get away with. “How long?”

“Estimated time, 4 hours.”

“Fuck,” he hissed out, well he could get started on his report at least, although he hated typing with his suit on, the gloves made it really slow.

Many hours later, after he got through the procedures and had the suit thoroughly cleaned he was in the lounge area of the ship, the more residential areas of the ship were of course in the center of the ship. He was in a clean and clear white room (like most of the ship unfortunately) as he was in just a pair of sweat pants and tank top. Lounging in a black comfy chair leaning back as music was playing looking over his report on a thin piece of plastic that had all the information on it.

The PADD (Personal Access Data Device) was based on old tech like the iPadd only this was more powerful, sturdy and well it could do things those old devices couldn’t. He dragged his hand over the surface looking over the pages that appeared.

He was the only person on this ship, that was because that was the point of the Pathfinder missions. When Earth had discovered that you could actually make a warp drive (although much different from the ancient sci-fi series that spawned the idea apparently) they at first started off with colony ships. This led to a lot of problems, mainly some systems weren’t habitable when they got there. Some of the older ships didn’t have the energy to get back and by the time a resupply ship showed up, some of the ships were more flying coffins.

There were a few accidents such as warping out into a system within an asteroid belt, one ship the engines just exploded for reasons people still didn’t know to this day. So the Pathfinder mission was created, one single ship, one pilot to map the galaxy and find safe paths and find systems worth exploring, colonizing and even mining for materials.

The galaxy was split up into eight sectors and a Pathfinder was designed for each one. After ten years the program had done very well, of course there were a few problems. The last pilot for Pathfinder 4 had warped out into the path of a comet, the ship survived thanks to the armor but the damage had been major. He had managed to jury rig the small warp drives of the probes together for one single warp back to a deep space station. He had retired after that but it was a story all the pilots still told about given the same thing could happen to any of them.

Space was a dangerous and unpredictable place and it could and would kill you any way it could if you weren’t careful. Out here in the unknown regions there was no backup and no one to help you out in time. Humanity hadn’t figured out faster than light communications so probes with a warp drive good for one use travel were used as mail couriers for the Pathfinders. They would make report on a system, download it all to one of the probes and launch it back with their next trip location back home.

The deep space stations and outposts were their only link back to Earth as warping all the way back to the home system in one go was just beyond their capabilities with how much fuel they carried. David had been a Pathfinder for the last six months and had explored five systems, a total of forty-two worlds, two dwarf planets and seven moons large enough to land on, three of which had atmospheres on them.

He loved his job, exploring space and seeing things that no other human had ever seen was more amazing than what he could put into words, despite the dangers out here. He had seen nebulas that drew his breath away, worlds where the sky was a rainbow of colors, valleys filled with large shimmering crystals as big as trees, creatures that were similar and also unlike anything he had ever seen before. Space was dangerous but it was also beautiful and full of surprises.

David looked at the PADD with a smile, even things like what happened on that world just now he could enjoy after the fact. He paused looking at the file name.

“Damn what to call that world...AVI is planet Hell taken?”

“Pathfinder 2 in the Golem system.”

“Damn it...Okay how about Inferno?”

“Pathfinder 6.”

“Bug World?”

“Pathfinder 7.”

“Seriously!?” He couldn’t believe that one had been taken already he would have to read up on that report later. “How about Tartarus?”

“That has not been used.”

“Great I’m using it now,” He typed in the name to finish his report with one last video report. “Okay on the planet I’ve designated Tartarus as stated there are some really nice mineral finds, if Earth is going to set up a mining operation it will have to be a Level 5 hazard set up, nothing below that, in fact I would go all out just in case because of how toxic the planet it.”

“On a side note for security, the local wild life is nasty, I’ve sent pictures and video of what I term the ‘Hell Beetle’, I highly recommend that you use heavy weapons to take this on. It is very territorial and hostile. Stay far away from these things because just one of these could take out a whole mining operation.”

“Personally there are other options in the system and I would save this world for last for any kind of mining.”

He finished up his report and downloaded it all to the probe ready to be sent off. Although the Pathfinders could name world’s and systems, Earth had the final say in things. Mainly because some of the Pathfinders pilots had a unique sense of humor so when worlds like Kirk’s World, the TARDIS System, planet Minas Tirith started showing up. Well some oversight was needed, although most seemed not to mind most of the names but when some tried to slip things like ‘Ass Crack Canyon’...yeah oversight was needed.

“So where to next AVI?”

“Given current fuel sources we have three more warps within range before we have to return to refuel.”

David nodded his head, “How are supplies looking?”

“At the current rate, we have enough supplies for four more months of food and water. All other supplies are within safety margins.”

David did some math in his head and he might only have enough supplies to get one more trip in and then spend the time getting back. Unless he could find local food stores to eat that is but he had to be very careful about that for obvious reasons as eating something that could kill you would suck, especially if he got some kind of nasty parasite from the local water or food if he didn’t scan it first.

So he had at least one more system to try out, “bring up the three systems.”

A small table in front of him with a round plastic surface glowed as a holographic image showed the three systems. “Anything interesting that the deep space telescopes picked up?”

That was another thing the program had, each deep space station or outpost had large space telescopes to help figure out what was out there for the Pathfinders to explore. I was based on the original Hubble Space Telescope program but these were several generations more advanced.

One of the systems enlarged on the table.

“This system had odd gravitation patterns found.”

“Odd in what way?” David learned forward.

“Unknown, observations proved inconclusive, possible error from the telescope.”

“Huh...well it has happened before,” He muttered. Personally he was hoping for something really great to stake his name to. The current pilot of Pathfinder 1, Kamala Kahn had the record for most habitable planets discovered. Frede Ulric of Pathfinder 7 had found a new rare element in one system. David wanted something big, maybe the largest planet ever seen, or some strange new stellar phenomenon. Hell every Pathfinder dreamed of finding either signs or actual intelligent life but so far humans were the only species found.

“Well let’s go then, start the calculations and put it on the list for my next spot in my report and then send out the probe.”

“Yes Commander.”

-Equestria, Ponyville-

Sitting on her small balcony with her telescope was one unicorn mare named Twilight Sparkle, she was currently looking at the stars with Spike her young dragon assistant behind her.

“It sure is a wonderful night,” She smiled looking at the different constellations.

“Looks okay to me,” Spike shrugged. “Although I thought you knew the constellations by heart.”

“Oh I do but after Princess Luna’s visit to Nightmare Night I wanted to take some time now and again to really appreciate it more,” Twilight explained to him. “I know that ponies enjoy the night more these days then back in her time but I’m not sure how much she knows about that now.”

Cities like Manehatten, Las Pegasus, Baltimare and others had a night life of their own. Ponies were up all night having fun or working and some even slept all through the day. She wondered if maybe she could make a report on the night life of Equestria and send it to Princess Luna? Well that was an idea for later, first she wanted to enjoy the night a bit more before bed.

Spike looked up at the stars, “Hey Twilight you ever wonder what’s up there?”

“I think everypony has at one point,” Twilight smiled at him looking up herself. “The universe is so vast, we have no idea how large it is and what’s out there.”

“You think one day we’ll have spaceships and stuff like in those sci-fi books?” He asked eagerly.

“Hopefully one day,” She smiled at him again. “Although I’m pretty sure that’s a long way off.”

“Yeah,” He sighed. “Still it would be cool, plus I wonder if aliens also exist.”

“Well if they did they would most likely be nothing like us.” Twilight thought about it, she saw a lot of books and some of the comics Spike read with pony-like aliens with things like just a third eye or very elongated body parts. “Unlike in popular fiction, any alien world would be totally different environment. So evolution would take on a totally different approach to how it took here.”

“So...what? Like some kind of blob creature?”

“I...guess?” She blinked at that thinking about it. “Although I’m not sure how a blob monster could build an advanced society unless they had magic like unicorns that is.”

“Or maybe something like in those H.P. Horsecraft stories.” Spike shivered.

“Spike I told you to stop reading those things, they give you nightmares,” She chided him.

“Hey they do the same to you too.” He fired back at her, he knew that after he read them and got nightmares she tried it. She hadn’t slept at all that night after she woke him up in the middle of the night crying out about large tentacles. Unfortunately this had been before Princess Luna’s return, back when they lived in Canterlot so there was no guardian for pony’s dreams like now.

“Well let’s just hope no aliens are like that,” Twilight looked back trying to avoid the small embarrassed blush on her face about that incident being seen. Looking up at the stars she wondered if there was life out there. The math said that the possibility was good but the odds of ever seeing one in her lifetime she knew was pretty much zero. Still it would be nice to dream, all the new knowledge and friendships you could have from meeting somepony new from beyond the stars.

Well it would be amazing.

Twilight sighed a little, too bad that was all fantasy.

Next up Chapter 2: One Unusual Planet