Starside

by MidnightChaos

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Main 6, Princess Luna, Mystery, Princess Cadance, Science Fiction, Other, Adventure, Shining Armor
Length: 1440

When the planet of Equis faces her final hours, the technological feats of one princess push her to the stars and she flees, colonizing a small piece of space. Yet, some do not want to leave their electronic existance, and their Ark faces its doom.

The D.S.S Caelestis, a colony ship of untold technological advancements has ascended beyond her home planet, with its denizens in tow as electronic personalities in a limitless digital environment known as the A.R.K, or the Automated Restorative (K)Cortex. Designed to bring Equisian life to its new home(s) among the stars, the ship was designed for a mere maiden voyage. However, once the people expressed no will to leave, Princess Twilight Sparkle, the savior of her people, modifies the ship for a sustained multi-star orbital pattern.

It has been ages since the original colonists left to inhabit the new worlds of each system as they were found habitable and the citizens of the Caelestis face an oncoming disaster. A single vital material to the ship's reactor has finally seen its time end and now requires replacement. The Equis Council sends forth a group of its best operatives to gather the material with help from the colonists, but perhaps they will find something far more shocking than they believed they would in these boonies, as they once believed the colonies to be...

Published 2017-01-16 20:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2017-01-16 20:20:02 UTC

From Farthest Home

Monar System
Kelper Belt
Equis Time, 12:43:19, Afternoon

The ship, the ship known both as the Ark of Equis, and the D.S.S Caelestis, cruised into orbit past the massive debris field of the Kelper Belt. The inner planetary system, labeled on the onboard computer as CFX-TY-114, was home to two rocky planetary bodies and a shocking eight gas giant planets. The most important body of these, a startlingly blue moon around the second largest of the gas giants located in the exact position necessary for life, was affectionately dubbed Selene by its settling population. Her ruler, Princess Luna, held domain over the, rather shocking to the original settlers, ring system of the mother planet.

The rings, this day, were pulled skyward over the planet in celebration of the visiting delegation of the Caelestis. The colony ship was heralded as the parent of these worlds, but only in a way, quite possibly disappointing to its citizens, that a religious statue or text might be. The ship held no control over the peoples, it was merely symbolic. It made them remember their old home, and that they had been gifted a new one, but nothing quite beyond that.

The ship halted just beyond the first moon of the rocky ninth world. Her solar sails remained fully open to collect sunlight and power the onboard processors. On one of her primary servers a large castle had been rendered and two rather elegant ponies, the two Princesses of the Caelestis, sat upon their thrones and were speaking with one pony known as Rainbow Dash. Princess Twilight, often heralded as the proper savior of the world, stared down at the pegasus she had been close to.

“You believe yourself to be the proper choice for this mission?” the lavender alicorn almost seemed to sneer as she brushed her hooves across the administrative console before her eyes. Files appeared on screen and the princess seemed to only frown deeper. “Just a short time ago you filed to allow one pegasus, designation Alpha-008-K, to go to the same system you wish to approach.”

Rainbow’s face darkened, “Her name was Fluttershy, as you well know, Twilight.” The pegasus’s left wing twitched and her eyes intensified as she glared up at someone she had once called, and believed, her friend.

The room glitched, a section going momentarily dark before rendering once more. The alabaster princess stared at in silence. She seemed to be ignoring the situation at hand as the other princess waved over a guard, who quickly escorted Princess Celestia out of the room. “Yes. that was indeed the name she used publicly,” the lavender princess said, “However, as you are aware, she is on Selene. Unless you can promise your… relations, to her will not affect your mission, we will send another.”

Rainbow’s glare darkened again, “It will not affect my goal.”

“...Very well, if you feel it necessary to check in on her, you may indeed do so,” the lavender princess disappeared and the room de-rendered into a swirling vortex of colored code. Rainbow followed the white stream down and immediately began clacking away on her own user terminal.

On the outermost shell of the Caelestis, where she launches defensive protocols and mines asteroids for the fuel supposedly necessary for materializing bodies for worldly missions, a single ship had docked and was sitting at wait for the delegation of Caelestis to arrive. Her airlock had attached to the small room that allowed the agents of the Ark to safely, and quickly, accumulate to their changed bodies and equip space suits if necessary. It was in such room that Admiral Dash’s body formed and was soon followed by Private First Class Pie. The admiral’s groan was the opposite of the reaction of the Private.

The chipper jumping, followed by rapid sneezing of confetti, was the only noise aside from the hiss of the airlock. Rainbow moved her leg, feeling the cold hard metal of the small room on her hoof and the dusty taste of the stale air entering her mouth. Wiping her tongue on her fur and using her teeth to push it off, she spat. Finally, she got to her hooves and pushed the button on the edge of the green pit that had given them their bodies back. Her hoof met cold metal as she pushed the button. The side wall shifted its panels away, revealing a closet’s worth of suits. Shifting herself into the form fitting fabric, while sat coolly against her fur, she nodded at Pinkie.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go,” the cyan pegasus demanded, to which Pinkie responded a with simple hop as the airlock hissed loudly open to reveal a small room. A hiss of air as it vanished and the suits tightened against their fur, and the next set of doors unlocked, revealing yet another airlock room which quickly filled with air as the previous one finished closing.

The ship lurched, and through the airlock windows they watched the Caelestis disappear behind them as the spaceship they had entered left the large ship behind and passed the rocky planet. After a few more moments, the ship lurched again, activating its Twinkle-drive. The twinkling of the ship’s trail disappeared as the space around her blurred and Rainbow and Pinkie finally left the airlock, having been deemed safe by the crew.

“Welcome onboard, Admiral, Private,” the crew member answered, his voice muffled by the part of the suit over his face.

Rainbow nodded as Pinkie raced towards one of the windows and the soft clop of hooves against the metal flooring echoed through the docking bay. Rainbow shifted her wings in the constraints of her suit as she headed out the doorway and found Pinkie trotting alongside her cheerfully. Rolling her eyes, the cyan pegasus stopped a crew member. “Can you direct me to the captain?”

“Head down this hall and then use the lift to the next floor, the bridge is there,” the soldier said, quickly saluting, “Captain is usually there.” A nod of appreciation and the soldier quickly walked off and left the two ponies walking the metallic halls. The lights glowed brightly on the ceiling, far better than the ships that the two ponies remembered being used to evacuate residents two the moon for digitization. The metallic hoof clops resumed and Pinkie Pie seemed more interested in the ship than their task.

The lift doors opened as the approached and Rainbow pushed the up button with her hoof. The lift lurched slightly but began ascending a moment later, struggling slightly against the artificial gravity of the ship itself. When the lift finally halted, and the doors opened and revealed a great window spanning the entire front of the bridge. Ponies moved around the large area, and a few other species were helping, as the two ponies approached gaping at the sight before them. The ship had slowed to less extreme speeds and the sight that greeted them was one of the most spectacular they had seen, even amongst their digital home.

Wide rings arced across the face of the gas giant planet, and its moons speckled the sky like stars themselves. The ship passed a large moon, its surface a bright white, speckled with dots of black,while the crevices and mountains gave texture to the moon’s appearance. The ship turned past the moon and drifted towards the next one, rapidly growing larger in their sight. A striking blue greeted them, with massive seas reflecting the light as a crystal would, and the continents of this lunar world giving a much darker blue hue to it. The sun of these worlds shone bright and blue in the distance.

“That’s a lot of blue,” Rainbow muttered, “Like, a lot of blue.”

“It’s not nearly as bad moonside,” the captain said, approaching from the seat at the center of bridge and offering a hoof. Rainbow took it and shook, “Captain Aero Swipe, at your service.”

“Er… Admiral Rainbow Dash of the D.S.S Caelestis,” Rainbow said. The captain offered his hoof to Pinkie, who instead hugged. “That’s Private First Class Pinkamena Diane Pie.”

“I had already guessed as much,” the captain said nervously, “Does she always do this?”

“Pretty much,” Rainbow answered, staring back out towards the approaching moon. A small smile graced her face, “I can finally fly again…”

Author's Note

Short chapter, but I plan on revising it to make a it a tad longer at some point. Anyways, do please enjoy. If you have any questions, about the story, feel free to ask them below and I'll answer best I can.