Solar nightmare

January 1, 2030, 13:35. Location “The Atlas”

Sam’s POV

As we all piled into the kitchen, some thoughts raced through my head like I had just called the princess of this nation a “Big fucking pony” or maybe the fact that I was in the same room as a pega-corn princess in the first place. Regardless, we were walking over to the kitchen when the two previously forgotten humans came into the room.

“Ahh, this must be the rest of your crew, yes?” Celestia asked, a bit surprised at their sudden appearance

“Yes princess this is my crew. The tall one is Zander and the slightly shorter one is Sasha. Sasha, Zander meet princess Celestia of Equestria.” I said. Sasha bowed but Zander just stood there like a jackass, just taking in the talking horses. I really hadn’t noticed at this point but I was the shortest one there. Well at least by normal pony standards I’m relatively tall. The princess is about a head taller than me and Zecora comes to about my chest so I didn’t let it bother me.

“ Wow Sam, you’ve already made more friends here than back on earth.” Sasha quipped causing a swift glare of annoyance from me.

“Well why don’t we get the serious things out of the way first so we can move on to happier topics.” Celestia said getting everyone’s attentions and lead us over to the table.

“I’ll go get the chair from the lounge and some drinks, what would everyone like?” I asked getting a mixed response of coffee and tea. 2 coffees and 2 teas for those picky bastards out there. I myself preferred tea so once I got the extra chair and brewed the refreshments we all sat down at the table, Sasha, Zecora, Zander and I in the dinning room chairs while Celestia took the recliner, being bigger than everyone there, with the exception of Zander.

“So” Celestia started “I believe that we should start with your planet, if it’s not too much trouble of course.”

“Well what about it?” I asked a bit harshly.

“I just want to know if you know anything about what happened to it.” Celestia said.

“I’m sorry princess, but at the moment I only have speculation on what could have happened if you would like to hear that?” I asked. She nodded so I continued. “I believe that somehow, within the mantle of the Earths core, nuclear fusion began, oh lets say 500 years ago. Between that time the earth was expanding and getting hotter. We blamed the rise in heat on our own stupidity and use of greenhouse gasses. But we could not have been more wrong. Just two days ago the heat had become unbearable in places so we were sent to space to see if the heat spikes were coming from there, but one in our trek, we watched as the mantle consumed everything we loved” I along with my crew were openly crying at this point. Even Zecora and Celestia had a few tear coming down their cheeks.

“That is quite the story Samuel, and you did answer a couple more of my questions, but now I need to gauge if you or your team are a threat.” Celestia said getting a cold glare on her face.

“Princess I can assure you-“ Zecora tried to say before being cut off by the white mare.

“I wish to see for myself. Now Samuel, I have more questions for you and your team to answer. First I would like to know if you have anything on this craft that could be used as a weapon and if so would any of you wish to use them against me or my little ponies?” Celetsia asked with the scariest look I have ever seen on a horse.

We all did have our own weapons because we were all allowed one personal item as long as it could fit through the door.

I responded with “Yes, we all have one weapon we were allowed to take with us and no we would never want to harm anyone unless they tried to harm us first.”

“Please, retrieve them.” She said and without a second thought we got up and got our ‘things’.

Zander had brought the biggest fucking meatal stick I have ever seen. It was taller than him if that means anything. It had a spiral design on it and looked heavier than the owner, but only weighed 7 pounds somehow. Sasha had brought a pair of brass knuckles. They had love and hate written across the knuckles. I had cheated a bit. The only thing the records that are now a fine ash showed I brought was a great sword that was an inch shorter than me, but being the sneaky little snake I am, I snuck two assassin daggers in my boots. The great sword was comparable to a big scimitar with a longer hilt and an extra handle half way up. The daggers were a different story. They were small, about 10 inches in length each. The only difference is one had a straight double-edged blade while the other had a single serrated edge.

Celestia looked in shock at the items placed on the table. She picked up Zanders bo staff with her magic and examined it. Zander looked at it in a similar state of shock.

“What are you doing?” Zander shouted which was the first time he had spoken. Its funny because I was usually the quiet one

“Oh right you must not know about magic. I won’t get to far into detail but just know that unicorns and alicorns can use magic for a multitude of tasks while earth ponies and pegasi use it passively to fly and control weather, and to grow crops and abnormal strength respectively.”

Zander looked around I disbelief before raising his hands in a sign of defeat grabbing his staff from the table, he walked back to the ‘man cave’ before shutting the door.

“Zander, get back here.” I hissed trying to get his attenition.

“This is too weird for me, I’ll come out later.” He said from the other side. I silently cursed to myself before looking back to the princess.

“Yeah sorry about him, he doesn’t like things he can’t understand.” I apologized she nodded and I sat back down.

“Now, I would like to get on a less grim topic, such as what you did for work before your arrival.” Celestia mentioned and Sasha instantly perked.

“I was an astro, civic and bio engineer, having PhDs in each field.” Sasha said proudly. Celestia looked impressed. She then looked to me. I took that as my queue.

“I was an astro-engineer and theoretical physicist and Zander was the solar navigator of our happy little crew.” I said

The rest of us waited for Celestia to say something then she spoke. “I have one final question; what will you do now.” The question surprised me a little, but not as much as the answer I gave.

“I don’t know.” Three words, fairly simple but carried with them realization. I don’t have a clue what to do next. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Then I thought a little on the matter. “I think for now we will just try to survive, maybe sate some curiosity by studying the surrounding phenomenon and magic if we can.” Celestia looked happy with that answer. Then suddenly a scroll popped out of thin air and landed on the table. She picked it up studying it for about seven seconds before she stood.

“I’m sorry everypony, but I am need elsewhere is there anything you need to know before I go?” she said sounding rushed. We shook our heads and she went towards the air-lock.

“It was nice to meet you Princess.” I said. She looked back and smirked slightly.

“Please, refer to me as if I were your friend.” She said shocking me a bit, but I nodded and then she was out the door. I just stood there for a minute.

“Well, Sasha, let’s go check and see if we need to move the ship we can.” I said. She nodded and we headed to the front, Zecora following, picking up Zander on the way.

January 1, 2030, 19:13. Location: The Atlas

Sam’s POV

We had checked all the systems and they seemed to be running properly. Then fuel was at around fifty percent, but that was fine. We had extra and the Atlas was outfitted with three types of engines, one of which is a biomass engine. Why? Because I designed it and I am one paranoid mother fucker, as I have said before.

I looked at the clock. Wow, had we talked for that long or had we been checking the systems for longer than I thought. Zecora had asked us questions and she sat near me. Well I think the questions were directed to me but the others answered most of them. It was getting a bit late so I asked Zecora to stay for dinner. She nodded and we headed off to the kitchen once again.

Remembering how upset she got when I mentioned her eating me, I retrieved the dried and dehydrated packets of fruits and vegetables. “Say, Zecora what do you want to drink?” I asked as I put the plate of powder in front of her and poring some water on it. She gave me a strange look until she saw it change. I love this new age food.

“Water will be fine.” She responded to my earlier question.

So we ate and chatted a bit about various things. After we all finished eating we bid Zecora a farewell.

It was about 20:00 at this point so we all decided to go on to sleep. As I slipped into my bed, I thought of everything that lead me to this point. My last thought before drifting off was of my family and my friends I left behind. Then sleep took me.