No Pony's Sky

Princess Twilight Sparkle stared at the six-legged crab spider through her helmet’s scanner. It flashed once before the analyzing bar appeared and began to fill up, accompanied by the crackling and hissing of her processing computer. A quiet chime sounded and the creature’s characteristics popped up in the lower left of her visor.

Perfectious Totalis, the lavender alicorn mused. Aggressive, carnivore, nothing I don’t already know. She clouded up the front of her helmet with a snort for only a moment before her suit’s defogger kicked in. I could have told anypony that. Her lips curled up in an amused smirk as she watched the knee-high predator circling the rock she was perched on.

She had been mining out a cavern full of plutonium crystals when the thing had snuck up on her and tried to take a bite of her leg. Luckily she heard its skittering legs at the last second and she was able to throw up a personal shield in time. Rather than kill it, she chose to fly out of the cave to a nearby outcropping in order to study the brave little creature.

“You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”

The spider-like creature paused its circling to stare up at her. Its claws clicked angrily and she could see it working the razor sharp mandibles in its mouth. Twin beady black eyes met hers before it hissed and resumed its patrol around her rock.

“You aren’t afraid of anything, I bet.” Twilight smiled sadly at the predator. “I wish I could be like you.”

The alicorn mare pulled her gaze from the crab-spider and eyed her ship, located only thirty three seconds of travel time away according to her helmet’s heads-up-display. Spreading her wings, she took off and gently flew over to the weathered vessel that had been her home for many moons. Behind her, an almost wailing screech echoed after her as the alien predator’s meal slipped out of its grasp.

Twilight performed a pre-flight check of her vehicle. The first thing she did was take a step back to take in her entire ship. The craft had a bulbous cockpit sitting on top of six spindly legs. With a long fuselage stretching behind, and twin panels full of various scanning tools on either side, it more closely resembled a gangly insect rather than a spacecraft capable of faster than light travel.

The alicorn mare tenderly placed a hoof on its side, feeling its pitted surface. Portions of the leading edges of the craft had been polished all the way down to its hardened titanium skin. After weathering the light of a hundred suns, the deep purple paint on its exterior had almost faded to pink.

Pink. The color brought a whirlwind of images and sounds to her mind. A bubbly earth pony singing out loud at a huge party. Their last party. All of Ponyville came out to celebrate the triumph of a year of research and studies. Seven multi-colored ponies all danced and laughed around her. Then I saw the fire….

Twilight snapped back to reality, shaking her head once and resuming her inspection. I will need to perform some much needed maintenance soon or else my ship might start falling apart around me. That would be most unfortunate.

A loud cry somewhere behind her reminded her that this planet still had a population of predators that might try to take another bite out of her. Whether or not her different body chemistry might render her poisonous to them did not seem to bother these alien predators in the slightest. They may be unintelligent now, but who knows what will happen in a million years.

Twilight Sparkle took one last look at the unfamiliar sky of muted yellow clouds. Off in the distance, a cluster of towering heridium pillars broke up the horizon. The dark metallic crystals stuck up out of the ground in a seemingly random pattern. The sun would set soon, and this planet’s nighttime temperatures were far too cold for her. Unless I want to tax my life support system, I will be better off in my ship making for orbit.

She had no reason to stay on this planet anymore. All she needed was some fuel to get her to the next system. Her little detour with the carnivorous alien broke up her monotonous schedule; it was nice to do something different for a change. The last dozen or so systems she had visited held nothing of value or interest.

A quick handshake of her suit’s computer with the one on her ship opened the cockpit so that she could climb in. As the purple pony settled in the padded pilot’s seat, the canopy swung down and locked with a pneumatic hiss as the airtight seal pressurized. Ventilation fans quickly expelled the poisonous air from the planet and replaced it with a fresh mix of oxygen and nitrogen matching her homeworld’s atmosphere. Twilight pulled her helmet off and took in a deep breath, letting it out with a verbal whew.

The mare deftly worked her ship’s controls, repeating the same procedure she had done a thousand times or more. By now, every vibration and sound the ship made could tell her exactly what was working correctly, or what might need some tweaking. Today seemed to be going well for her, as no changes in the craft’s tune indicated anything bad happening.

Twilight’s head nodded slightly as a high pitched blast of her landing thrusters threw her ship in the air. Before gravity could take hold, the gangly craft’s engines lit up and she started gliding forward. One hoof pulled back on the control yoke, and the other feathered the throttle. A pulsing mechanical whine spooled up before the ship shot into the sky.

Pushed into the back of her seat, Twilight let the light g-forces on her body help stretch out her tired back muscles. Clouds zipped by in colorful blurs and the sky slowly grew darker until the pinpricks of stars became visible. She studied them for any patterns, but the constellations she loved looking at as a little filly did not exist this far away from home. A pang of remorse threatened to bring up old memories when a ping on her ship’s computer distracted her at the last second.

Seven ships exiting warp space. Twilight read off the data scrolling on her onboard computer system. They are running rather late. Grinning despite herself, she couldn’t help but activate her communications suite and hail them. Even though these ships were at best, thirty light minutes away, the specialized equipment she had let them talk as if they were flying alongside one another.

“I am not very impressed. You and your squadron are slacking, Captain.”

“Yeah, yeah, Princess,” the annoyed voice of a stallion answered, “I had a burnt out pulse drive that needed repairs. I got here as soon as I could.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Twilight quipped, not missing the fact that she sounded very much like a teacher admonishing a pupil. “I expect to see better progress in the next system. You are cutting it pretty close. There are not many jumps left.”

“I promise I will impress you next time, Princess.” The voice boasted back, yet she could still hear something else underneath what she thought was forced bravado. Regret maybe?

“Anyway,” Twilight decided to file that thought away to think about later, “I am transmitting my latest batch of findings. Would you be so kind to send it back to Canterlot to be studied?”

A long sigh preceded a few unintelligible grumbles. “Fine, Princess, I will do that for you. Send it over.”

Twilight keyed the correct buttons and her log beamed itself to the other pony’s ship. He remained quiet for several minutes, and she used the time to line up the next system to travel to. Picking out a gentle red dwarf star, she primed her warp drive to make the several thousand light year jump. Before completing the procedure, she waited a bit longer, partially from the fact that it was nice to finally have somepony to talk to; especially one that knew her so well.

“Wow, that thing looks hideous!” His voice came in over the communicator. “Did you see that? It tried to take a chunk out of you!”

Twilight giggled at his reservations about the alien she cataloged down below. “He was just a little thing. There is no way he would have hurt me.”

“Well, I cannot promise that I would have reacted as calmly as you did, Princess. I can only imagine a lot of flailing and screaming had I been in your shoes.”

She couldn’t help but burst into a gut wrenching fit of laughter. Twilight slapped a hoof on the top of her console, and tears trickled from her eyes. As she tried to calm down, all she had to do was picture him tearing out of that cave, wide eyed and screaming, with a swarm of the little spider-crabs chasing him, and the laughing started all over again.

It took her several minutes to finally calm down, and she gulped down long draughts of air as she recovered. “Oh, I haven’t laughed that hard in months.”

She didn’t get an answer immediately. At first, Twilight wondered if it might be her ship’s systems when he finally replied. “Twilight, please come home.”

Her hoof hovered over the final activation switch for her warp drive. She fought to slam it down, but part of her wouldn’t allow her to do so. “You know I can’t.” Her voice was barely above a murmur.

“It wasn’t your f…” His voice cut out when her hoof connected and the universe exploded into color as she entered warp space.