Starstruck

“There! TIMM! I see some sort of village or something! Land near there! I’ll get changed real quick. These uncomfortable space clothes have got to go for good.”

“Alright, you got it, Cap,” TIMM said as he lowered the altitude of the ship even more. “Descending to twelve hundred meters.” I felt the ship jerk slightly as I attempted to throw on my padded skinnies. I threw my belt on it, tossed on my blue shirt, my boots. People around Home Base thought I was strange for wearing those clothes rather than the plain white garbage that they wear. People back in the day used to wear these kinda clothes all the time, so why not?

“What’s our ETA? Over,” I asked over the intercom.

“Eight point seven minutes. Over.”

“Aight. I’m ready for this. Over.”

“I know you are. Over.”

Suddenly a warning siren blared. Engine 2 was damaged somehow. Seems like some debris got jammed inside.

“Soren, we lost Engine 2. Get up here. Over,” TIMM said in an uneasy voice. I instantly jumped into the pilot seat and tried to carry the weight of the ship manually, but she was a heavy one. It was never designed to land on Earth. Hell, it rarely left space. It usually sat in a space hangar.

SHHHHHHBLAAM

That didn’t sound good.

“Soren! Engine 2 is GONE.”

“Old news, TIMM. I’m working on it!” The ship started to spin uncontrollably, throwing me against the windshield.

“NO! It’s GONE!”

“...Shit” was all I could say when I looked out the window to see a whole lot of nothing where Engine 2 should have been. With the lack of balance, the ship would be basically impossible to land normally. Wait… I had an idea.

“Soren! We’re losing altitude! We’re at eight thousand meters!”

“TIMM! I have an idea! How much monopropellant do we have left?

“Absolutely none, Soren. I used it to get out of orbit.”

“Crap. Come on, what else do we have?”

“We have half a tank of rocket fuel,” he said as he yanked the control stick as hard as he could in the opposite direction of the spinning to try to even out the spin a bit.

“Okay, perfect. Can we blast rocket fuel out of the monopropellant ports?” I asked as I was thrown right back in my seat.

“We can, but the only oxidation we have is the oxygen in the cabin since we can’t flow our oxidizer through with the fuel.”

“Shit, okay. What if we get low enough to equalize pressure, and then blow cabin pressure to cancel the spin the best we can?” It took TIMM a second to calculate.

“That… that could work… FOUR THOUSAND METERS!”

“And then once we stop spinning, we blast our landing thrusters to slow down the best we can.” I said as I strapped into my chair. The G-forces were starting to get to me, but I trained for this.

“Ready, Soren?” TIMM asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do this shit.”

“3”

“2”

“1”

Twilight and Spike watched in horror as the strange object grew closer and closer, and then suddenly a blast of fire slowed it down greatly down a few miles out from Ponyville.Then it fell out of sight under the treeline. Seconds later, it crashed through the trees with the sound of a massive metallic crunch and left a trail of thrown-up sod behind it. It made a monstrous roar as the smoke continued to pour out. Part of the object was on fire. The strange object was silent for a little, but then released a loud hiss of steam from multiple places.

“Spike, go get Rainbow Dash and tell her to get the rest of the girls. Now.”

“On it!” he said. He flung open the balcony door, yelling, “Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash!” It didn’t take too long for Rainbow Dash to get up on the balcony with Spike gripping her leg.

“Huh? What is it, Twi-i-W-WHAT IS THAT?” she exclaimed, pointing at the strange metallic monster.

“I don’t know, but it looks like trouble. Get the rest of the girls here as fast as possible. I’m going to write the princess about this and try to come up with some sort of plan.” She opened the door to go find some paper and a quill.

“What kind of plan?” Rainbow asked.

“I don’t know. Just go get the girls. Come on, Spike.” Spike followed Twilight back into the library and shut the door, leaving Rainbow Dash on the balcony.

“This is fishy. I’ve never seen Twilight so scared before. Could it be that she didn’t know how to handle this situation?” Rainbow laughed that off. “What am I saying? It’s Twilight. She’ll figure something out.” Rainbow spread her wings to take off. She hopped up onto the railing and looked back at the door. “I hope.”

“Landing somewhat successful, Soren.”

“WE’RE ALIVE! HELL YEAH!”

TIMM chuckled.“Never change, Soren. Please.”

I needed a few minutes to recover. That landing took everything out of me. The ship was totally destroyed and basically guaranteed to never fly again. It’d had a good life. Lots of fantastic memories made on here. We sat in silence for a few minutes before I needed to get the hell out.

“Woo baby, I’m getting all excited,” I sang as I ripped off my safety belt. “I’m ready to get offa this dump. I haven’t had a cigarette in a while. TIMM, can you go get me a pack or two from storage?” We weren’t allowed to have cigarettes while on duty or on ship for obvious reasons. We had inspections every once in awhile, but I’d never gotten caught with them.

“Here ya go, Soren. You know it’s unhealthy for you, right?”

“Yeah, but every time I sleep, I get healed up. It’s amazing how the human body works.”

“Your death wish.”

“Shaddap.”

TIMM and I had built this ship from scratch and from pulling parts off of destroyed and discarded ships in junkyards and stuff. It was mostly TIMM who put it together, but I made the plans for it. Multiple times. The first three times, it wouldn’t lift any more than ten feet of of the ground. The next couple made it spin uncontrollably. The eighth had hull integrity issues, but here we were with my beloved MARK X. I’ll admit, the hull integrity issues were just me trying to add hidden cigarette compartments.

I’d finally managed to get MARK IX working with my design, but then the engine had exploded. Luckily, MARK X had no issues, and I’d used it for many, many years without issues.

“What’s the oxygen content outside right now, TIMM?” I asked as I looked around for an oxygen mask.

“Twenty-two percent.”

“Alright, so I don’t need any mask. Any dangerous gasses?”

“None traceable.”

“Pollution?”

“Next to nothing.”

“Huh, they did a pretty good job of cleaning this place up, eh?”

“Yep.”

“Temperature?”

“Seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit and twenty-two point two degrees Celsius.”

“Hmm. What’s the ship’s usual temperature?”

“Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit and twenty degrees Celsius, but right now it’s on fire, sooo...”

“Perfect, eh?”

“If you consider being on fire is normal, yes.”

“Oh, you smartass.”

“You asked for it.”

“Enough talking. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Soren! Wait!”

The six ponies and dragon slowly approached the strange metal object. The hair on the back of all their necks stood up as they took step after step. The grass nearby was torn up; drier patches even had small fires going. The girls carefully avoided the flaming spots and got within a few meters

“Hello?” Twilight called out to the metal monster. When there was no response, she motioned for Fluttershy, the shy yellow pegasus, to try to talk to it.

“Um. Hello, Mister Monster, sir. I’d like to ask what you’re doing here,” she said behind her own long hair. Her question was greeted by a loud hissing sound as more hot steam was released from a different part of the ship. Fluttershy jumped back behind her friends as Rainbow Dash lifted up into the air.

“Okay, ya big metal jerk! Ya can’t scare MY friends like that,”  Rainbow Dash yelled as she flew at it. She knocked herself out as soon as she hit it.

“…”

There was a sound of steam releasing and metal groaning, but nopony noticed.

“…”

“Rainbow Dash!”

CLUNK

“What the hell was that?”

“I dunno. Hail, maybe?”

“Whatever. I’m opening the hatch in three, two, ONE!” I smacked the button, and the door slowly opened, letting me feel sunshine again. I was hit with an enormous amount of information at once. I smelt fresh oxygen and took my first couple breaths on Earth. My eyes were shut because I wanted to take everything one step at a time.

Next it was my ears. I heard birds and natural wind. On Mars, they had wind generators. Fake wind to replicate the real thing as best as possible. This was so much better.

“Yrafan Pror!”

“What the hell?” I thought. It must’ve just been the broken computer, or some other species of bird that I never knew existed. Quite honestly, I couldn't give less of a shit. It was time to open my eyes now.

In front of me, I could see grass. Real grass. Real flowers, even! On Mars, the plants were kept in locked greenhouses to make sure they stayed as safe as possible, so no one really ever saw them other than whoever worked there and my mother. Before she left with my father, she gave me a flower that she had stolen from the greenhouse.

“To remember me by,” she said as she put it into my hands. It was purple with yellow outlines on the petals. I couldn’t say anything, so she just shed a tear and hugged me. Then I watched as she took her bag and boarded the massive ship that would take her to Andromeda.

I still kept it in a preservation chamber to this day. It’s technically in its own cryosleep right now… on the burning ship. Damn it. Oh well, I couldn’t worry about that right now.

I hungrily looked around. What else was there to see?

“What the hell?” I looked over to see a bunch of… I don’t even know. I’d never seen an animal like that before. They resembled a horse of some kind, but was much smaller. Some had a natural-ish color, and some sported unnatural colors of fur like purple, blue and pink. I felt a bit of a twinge in my gut. Something wasn’t sitting right with me, but I temporarily pushed these thoughts away and continued to look around. There seemed to be a town not too far away. Not too far of a walk. I decided to make my way over there, until I saw it.

They were talking to each other.

Not English. Definitely NOT English. It just sounded like gibberish to me. Upon closer examination, there were six of them and… two of them had horns. Unicorns. What? This was fairytale stuff. Probably just some rich kid’s toys or something. Something DEFINITELY feels wrong here.

I disregarded it and stepped out of the ship and onto the ground. I fell to my knees and put my hand on the floor. I felt the natural texture of the slightly moist dirt and the grass around it. The dirt slipped under my fingernails as I took a scoop of dirt in my hand. I took my time looking around like a kid in a candy shop. I laughed to myself before dropping the dirt back to the ground.

“Hey TIMM! Get out here!”

“Rainbow Dash!”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just knocked myself out for a second.” She rubbed her head before she saw it. The hatch on the side of the metal monster was open, and there was something in there.

“Twilight, l-look.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“There! Look! There’s something there!”

“Yeah, I know, Rainbow. That thing is the entire reason we came out here.”

“No, Look! It’s open!” she said, not bothering to hide the fear in her voice.

“Huh?” Twilight turned to look, and there it was. Her eyes opened fully when she saw the bright light coming from a rectangular hole in the creature. In the center of it, a figure. It was impossible to tell what it was, but it stood in the rectangular hole looking out towards them. It just looked like a shadow from the lighting, but it wasn’t.

“What in tarnation is that?” called Applejack from behind Rarity, who had taken her large hat and hidden her face behind it.

It looked around and then looked straight at Twilight. She was frozen in fear. Then it just shook its head, stepped out of the metal monster and fell to the ground. Nopony dared to move. Spike had lodged himself onto Twilight’s leg and wouldn’t let go.

They all watched it take the the dirt in its paw and pick a flower from the floor. They heard some sort of laugh from it, then it looked back into the hole and called in some strange language.

“Rath Ha! Webb Oeu Yee!”

“It’s o-obviously intelligent,” Twilight said, still frozen in place.

“What do we do?” Rainbow whispered.

“I-I don’t know. I guess it’d be best to wait for Princess Celestia to reply to my letter. Let’s all just go back to the library and try to figure something out.”

Twilight moved quickly, but quietly. She led the rest of the group back towards the library as fast as she could.

The library door slammed shut as soon as every pony and dragon were inside. Twilight’s mind raced, so she didn’t process the fifteen or so questions thrown her way.

“So, it seemed intelligent...” she said into the air to nopony in particular. She stood pondering for a moment before she realized she had never written the latter to the Princess.

“Okay, Spike, take a letter,” she said, taking a seat on the floor. This was so much to process. Seemingly out of nowhere, intelligent life had landed in the same town as her. Wait… what if they had malicious intent? She had just left it in the middle of the woods!

“Okay, Twilight. I’m ready,” Spike chimed.

“Just say that something incredibly important has come up and she needs to come down to Ponyville as soon as possible. I have to go and make sure that the situation doesn’t spread and get worse.”

“Um okay?” Spike quickly scribbled down exactly what Twilight had said because he had no idea how to elaborate on that. As soon as he finished writing, he rolled it up and blew on it, causing the paper to vanish.

I guess I spooked them when I yelled out for TIMM, because they instantly turned tail and ran away. Fantastic hospitality, I’d say, but right now, I just want to take in all of this. I took a deep breath again and really tried my hardest to smell the smells. There was a tinge of lilac all around. It was barely noticeable, but it was there along with some other smells. Of course I had only ever smelled artificial flowers, but it seemed fairly close.

TIMM emerged from the ship carrying a few crates that had survived the landing. I looked over and counted them in my head. There were about thirteen yellow ration boxes and nine orange emergency supply boxes. Ah! All three of my personal boxes survived! That’s like almost sixty cases of pure martian cigarettes each. Nice!

“Hey Soren,” TIMM called. “Looks like we have almost two months worth of supplies if we really stretch it out and ration the food.”

“How do you know? You didn’t even open the cases?” I asked.

“I took inventory before we left from the station. I knew that you’d forget to.”

“Ouch, taking shots are we?”

“Yep, but seriously. You need to be a little bit more responsible since we’re on our own now.”

“Does that mean I can claim land here?” I asked, getting a little excited.

“...Yes, you can claim land.”

“YES BABY!” I yelled. TIMM chuckled at me. I shape my hands in a binocular form like a kid would and scoped out the area. “I choose that spot right there to be MINE!” I said as I pointed to a cozy looking spot past the thick trees and out into the open grass field.

“Alright, alright. Settle down, Magellan. Let’s get a shelter set up and look for outside resources. We don’t want to start digging a big hole in our emergency rations just yet.”

“Um, okay. I’m assuming that we have tools in one of the supply boxes, so let’s go ahead and search the Archive on how to build a shelter.

If I ever wanted to look anything up, I could use TIMM’s internal database that I called “The Archive”, which was basically something like the Library of Babel, but in a more understandable format. Another way to explain it is that it’s like the golden age of the internet before it started to get regulated heavily by local governments. It’s a pool of all the information I could ever need. Of course, this “internet encyclopedia” is really lonely because it was officially cut from public use and was basically frozen in time about three decades before I was born. Any users of a website or questions asked in a forum have been that way for years.

That wasn’t the big issue though. I had all the information I need to build something, but would I have the proper resources? I’m fairly fit, so I can do the work, but Would I have everything that I need?

“Oh and Soren, I heard weird noises earlier. Was that you?” TIMM inquired as he arranged the supplies in the most efficient way possible.

“Actually, it was some other type of animal.” I said, helping TIMM pull out the tools from the supply box.

“Other animal? What do you mean? I haven’t heard of any sounds like the ones from a few minutes ago.”

“It was some type of horse, I think. There were what? Like eight of them? Or was it seven? I don’t know. They were all really bizarre colors like pink and blue and purple.”

“Interesting… And they were the ones who made these noises?”

“Yes! It seemed like they were communicating with each other through speech.”

“Like some sort of intelligent being?”

“I don’t want to believe that, but I suppose.”

“This might get complicated. If they are in fact intelligent, that would mean the probability of hostility might be fairly high.”

“Why do you assume that?” I asked.

“Because the most intelligent creatures that you and I know are Human Beings.”

“Eh… Good point. Even if we’re wrong, we might as well be on the safe side.”

“Come on, let’s get this shelter built before it gets dark. We would exposed to anything that this place has to offer. Especially those “intelligent” horses you mentioned earlier.” TIMM said a bit quieter, even though there was seemingly nothing else but trees around.

“Alright, whatever you say. OH! By the way, I’m calling this land “Damery Pass””

“Why that specific name?”

“It sounds pretty cool, and it reminds me of when I used to pretend to be a knight in shining armor with my friends in primary school.”

“Never change, Soren.”

“Stop saying that!” I said as we started dragging the supply crates towards my newly claimed land.