Breaking Dawn

       It was March 12, 1103 A.D, at 1:45 PM

       It should have been 2:00, but Rainbow Dash was impatient.

       So with clearance from ground control, we took off from the moon.

       Normal engines at first, of course. Although, they were officially called "impulse" engines, nopony really used that term. Except maybe Twilight, who used the official term for everything.

       Once we were in orbit, Twilight gave the order to go into warp.

       I convinced Rainbow Dash that Warp 2 was good enough, and trying to max out the speed would tire me out too much for continual use.

       She reluctantly agreed.

       We aimed in the general direction of where I had last seen the Nightmare.

       Once we were past the warp barrier, it was a lot easier to see. Just like when I crossed the sound barrier, I could see more clearly.

       While I could not see her magic directly, I could see a faint trail of magic in the places it had travelled before.

       We stopped at Selene, the old Equestrian moon. Under my direction, nopony had explored it, and so I owed it to them to come back with at least some data.

       We scanned it from orbit, then Twilight and Applejack teleported down to the surface for soil samples. Applejack was the expert on soil, after all.

       It was a quick trip, since the soil could be analysed easily on board. At least, that's what Twilight said. Personally, I think it was mostly because of Applejack.

       The soil on the surface was completely devoid of life.

       Applejack must have felt very strange. Luna's moon was designed to have fertile soil. Selene's soil was composed of minerals that could not support life.

       All of us felt that it was not worth a landing. It would take far too much time, and we wanted to get to far more interesting things.

       While I didn't want to lose the trail, I also wanted to visit other star systems.

       Getting readings from an active star was my next goal. Perhaps other planets.

       Maybe there were other planets that supported life. It was worth a try.

       We set off again, this time for a much longer trip. The trip to Selene took less than a second. The trip to the nearest star would take over six hours.

       I was very glad that the warp drive was improved. It would have taken ten times as long otherwise.

       We played board games to pass the time. The chairs in the main control room swivelled, and a central working table was designed for a similar purpose.

       It was only awkward for me. I could project myself onto any wall, and a magical node in the room allowed me to move pieces, but it wasn't quite the same. It took a while for everypony to get used to.

       But still, I kept half of my attention on the surroundings. I served as the autopilot, and I always had to monitor things. It's a good thing I don't have to do thing like sleep.

       Speaking of that, we arrived in the middle of the night, and the night was very boring. Of course, it looked the same as daytime, but there was a ship's clock, and it showed the equivalent Equestrian day and night cycle. Everypony was asleep.

       While I was waiting for them to wake up, I amused myself by scanning the solar system, collecting data, scanning the rest of space, then in a fit of boredom, played Tetris with the lights on some random control panel. I could have just used images on the wall, which acted as a screen, but this had a more retro feel.

       I really had to find a better way to spend time.

       I knew full well that I couldn't go to sleep.

       Well, I could, but it would be a very bad idea. We were in a completely unknown star system. The existence of "aliens" was highly unlikely, but all sorts of things could go wrong. A solar flare, if not detected beforehand, could wipe out crucial equipment. Random glitches in the automatic systems (that were actually automatic and not controlled by me) could cause all sorts of problems, possibly fatal ones.

       Just then, I saw something new. A faint spot appeared on my vision. I could detect its raw power, just like a star, but this was moving.

       I checked the sensors. Nothing showed up, but I wasn't surprised. The only thing that could sense that far away was my own sight. The other sensors were constricted by the speed of light. They only worked close-range.

       As it got closer, I realised it was coming right for us.

       And it was traveling much faster than the speed of light.

       I put the ship on alert, and woke the six up.

       I tried waking them up personally. This worked up until Rainbow Dash. Then I put on the ship's alarms. The loud ones.

       I received a few glares in the direction of the ceiling, but I showed them what I was seeing on the front screen.

       Twilight immediately took charge, making sure everypony was at their station.

       "Night, how long until it arrives?"

       "About a minute. And please, could you just call me Star? It's hard enough that I don't have a body right now."

       "But the ponies at E.S.A told me--"

       "I don't care what they chose to call me in the ship's manual. Call me Star."

       "Fine."

       The ship arrived. It was obviously a ship. And it was gigantic. Its shape was a cylinder with a saucer attached to the front. Two branches at the back of the cylinder led to two objects that looked quite a lot like our warp nacelles. The strange part was that I could detect no magic anywhere on the ship. I could detect life. Lots of life. And I could detect power. Immense power, as well as power flowing through the ship, indicating electronic activity.

       "Twilight, we are receiving some sort of high-frequency signal from the ship. It appears to be some sort of video and audio. Just give me a few seconds to decode it."

       "Can we respond in kind?"

       "Yes, I believe so. I am ready to open communications."

       "Ready."

       I displayed the incoming message on the screen, sending back the video feed from the control room along the same path. Noticing the different language, I cast a translation spell on all of the crew.

       "Channel open."

       The voice came from the other ship.

       The screen showed another room, a bit bigger than our ship's control room, and a bit neater, too.

       But it wasn't the room that was interesting. It was the ponies. Not ponies, though. Beings. People.

       Aliens.