Breaking Dawn

       "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. Do you require any assistance?"

       The captain was very formal, but it looked as if several of the rest of the crew were struggling to keep a straight face.

       Twilight looked very surprised, but adopted a similar protocol. She was good at that.

       "This is Princess Twilight Sparkle of the ESS Night. No. Why do you ask?"

       "It seems that your warp field collapsed as you approached this system. Are you having any problems?"

       Twilight looked uncertainly at the ceiling, which I had gotten used to as her way of getting my attention.

       I almost laughed as I appeared on the back wall to address the Captain.

       "No, there isn't any problems. We just deactivated it. But I do understand your confusion. I can see your warp drive, and I can't imagine what you're using to power it with. Apparently, though, it can't just be turned off."

       "Yes, you're correct. But I have to ask, how can you "see" our warp drive? Do you mean that you see it on your scans?"

       "Well, sort of. I see with the ship's sensors. Technically, you could say that I am the ship."

       "I see. Now that I know that you aren't in danger, I would like to make first contact."

       "What do you mean by first contact?" asked Twilight with curiosity.

       "First contact between species. Now that you have developed warp technology, we can get to know each other."

       "That would be great!" said Pinkie Pie. Ever since the video screen had first come on, she was positively beaming.

       "Yes, that would be good," said Twilight thoughtfully. "But it is hard to get to know each other over a video screen. We could teleport aboard with your permission, but then we would have to leave Star behind, and I know he wouldn't like that."

       "Why not?" asked Rainbow, confused.

       "Because it would take about an hour to get him detached. Besides, that would leave the ship with no power."

       And by now, the looks of confusion were clearly visible on the faces of the aliens, despite their effort to suppress them.

       Picard spoke again, halting the discussion. "We could come aboard your ship, if you allow it."

       Twilight sighed. "That makes things a lot easier. Thank you. Whenever you're ready is fine with me."

       The video signal ended, so I put the view of their ship back on the screen.

       A few minutes later, a beam shone from the ship, and led directly into the control room, where three...people materialized: the Captain, and two others I recognised from their ship. I almost blocked the beam in my panic, but I recognized the life in the beam, and I trusted these people now. I did not believe them to be aggressive.

       I made my image appear on the wall.

       "I'm sorry that I can't be here, physically. It would take an unwieldy amount of time to get here, and I don't want to keep you waiting."

       "That is understandable. I do not mean to offend, but are you a person or a machine?"

       "I am sentient, if that is what you mean. I'm just the same as these other ponies."

       "Shall we introduce ourselves?" Picard asked, turning back to Twilight.

       "Of course. We both know each other's names, but this is Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and this is Prince Starry Night, if we're still being formal."

       "This is Commander Troi and Lt. Commander Data."

       Both of them were strange. Data was a machine, a very complex one. Troi seemed to have a different sort of magic. One that I hadn't seen before.

       "What species are each of you?" I asked.

       "What do you mean?" Twilight asked me, annoyed. "Of course they're the same."

       "They are different." I whispered back. Kind of hard to do with a speaker.

       Picard smiled. "I am a human, Commander Troi is a Betazoid, and Lt. Commander Data is an android."

       "Thanks," I said, making a log of what the scans looked like for each of them.

       Rainbow Dash looked distinctly uncomfortable after the mention of android.

       "It's fine," I said. "I'm sure Data is quite safe. And none of the others have shown the slightest sign of anger."

       She relaxed visibly.

       Twilight spoke again. "We are ponies, from the planet that we call Equus, which is only about six hours away from here. We are on a scientific mission of exploration."

       Troi whispered something into the Captain's ear. He nodded, then continued.

       "We are explorers as well. It is not often that we come across others with a like mind." He smiled.

       Then, I noticed something. The strange sort of magic that Troi had was being used constantly, and it was directed towards every one of us. I had a pretty good guess what it was.

       "There is a secondary objective that they should know as well," I said. "I don't want to keep any secrets."

       Twilight looked at me strangely, but I continued.

       "There is a being that is quite dangerous to us. Our main mission is to explore, but we are also pursuing it. I know that it will not rest until it gains control of our world. We did not want you to get involved, hence the secrecy. But I can tell that you have an empath here. I do not want you to think we have bad intentions."

       "I understand. I do wonder, however, how you power your warp drive. It appears that you only have partial computer systems, and you have no power source powerful enough to generate a warp field."

       "Oh, that would be me."

       "What do you mean?"

       "I interface with all of the separate computer systems. And I power the warp drive."

       "You can power the warp drive?!" For the first time, Picard lost his professional expression.

       "Yes. Twilight can, too, of course, but I'm a bit better at it. More practice."

       Twilight stepped in. "Alicorns, like Starry Night and myself, have significantly more power than the average pony. Other than us, there are only three more on our planet. When we discovered that only power of that magnitude would fuel a faster-than-light engine, he volunteered, since he headed the project, anyway."

       "How exactly does he power the ship?"

       I cut in before Twilight mentioned "magic". I knew that they didn't have any, and probably didn't know what it was. "All ponies have...innate abilities...that they can use. We call these abilities magic."

       "I see."

       "What sort of abilities do you have?" asked Data with something resembling curiosity.

       Twilight answered him. "It varies according to a pony's race. Unicorns have the most obvious traits. Telekinesis is usually the first to be learned, and talented unicorns will learn abilities such as a shield spell or teleportation. Pegasi have flight despite their lack of wingspan or aerodynamics, and Earth ponies have varied abilities that are often the hardest to study. It is an oversimplification, but I hope it will do for now. Whole fields of study are devoted to the study of it."

       All three of them looked satisfied with the explanation, so I decided to change the direction a bit. "Would you like to see the rest of the ship? Compared to yours, the the tour won't take long at all." I smiled.

       "That would be great," Commander Troi replied.

       "Right now, you're in the control room. Each station has a different purpose, and controls a different computer system. You appear to have a similar setup on your ship. Since we are the only crew on the ship, there is no crew rotation. Therefore, this also doubles as the recreation room."

       "What do you do for fun?" Troi asked again, looking around.

       I smiled again. "Mostly board games. I confess that recreation was somewhat overlooked in our design. I was quite bored for the hours that the rest of the crew were asleep. I ended up playing Tetris with the Science console."

       "Tetris?" Data asked.

       "It's a very simple video game. I got a bit nostalgic."

       "Yes, I know. It was a video game on Earth as well, created in the 1980s. It is very strange that it should have the same name to you."

       Meanwhile, Twilight was glaring at me. I decided to move on quickly.

       "These are the sleeping quarters, pretty basic."

       "These are the kitchens, and also Spike's living quarters. He's probably still asleep. How he can sleep with those blaring alarms is beyond me."

       "Through here is, well, a farm. Perhaps it could be smaller if we used hydroponics, but Applejack wouldn't have any of that."

       "And finally, engineering. It's mostly just the computers, and me."

       Commander Troi gasped at the sight of me hooked up to the machines.

       "I know, it looks absolutely terrible. I would come out, but it takes an hour to get back in here, and---"

       Pinkie interrupted me. "Silly, it only takes that long to get the wires on. It only takes a few seconds to get them off." She started pulling them off at random.

       "See?"

       Now completely disconnected, I turned back to face Pinkie. "And now the ship's dead. Sure it has emergency power, but really? Now if anything happens, we'll have about an hour-long response time. And the orbit always seems to need minor corrections. And I doubt the Enterprise has docking ports that are compatible."

       "Well, maybe they have some sort of beam that can move us remotely, so we can land in their shuttle bay."

       "That's ridiculous, Pinkie. That's even if they have a shuttle bay. And while I can move the ship like that, I doubt they can. Remember, they don't have magic."

       "Actually, she's right."

       "What?"

       "We have a tractor beam that can move you into our shuttle bay. Your ship is small enough for it to work."

       I turned towards Pinkie. "How did you know that?"

       "Just a hunch."

       I sighed. You are so random.