No Pony's Sky

A blinding light filled the cockpit and the universe at large flashed back into existence. Twilight blinked away the stars dancing across her vision as she took in the new solar system, never before visited by her kind. A healthy blue star lay nestled at its heart many millions of miles away. By the passive sensor readings she could pick up, the massive solar furnace pumped out enough energy to host life on half a dozen planets and moons.

Too bad I don’t have time to catalog everything. The mare thought with some indignation. I don’t know how long I have until my pursuers show up. They should be right on my tail.

Twilight had bypassed the last fifteen or so stars she had encountered, attempting to widen the gap between her and the ships chasing her. This put a serious drain on her stored resources and her ship was flying with a nearly empty cargo hold now. Even though her destination lay only two or three more jumps away, she would have to restock somewhere in this system if she wanted to continue her journey.

“Okay,” she spoke to herself as she checked on her inventories, “I need carbon… that’s easy to find…. I have plenty of plutonium left…. My heridium stores are a little low and I definitely need zinc…. And finally, I have plenty of thamium.” Twilight nodded to herself for work well done now that she had a plan.

The alicorn mare fiddled with her ship’s controls and she initiated an active system-wide scan. Her ship’s computer buzzed as it processed the data and several points of interest appeared overlaying on her canopy window. Red icons with a long thin line connecting to whatever planet or moon they were located on all vied for her attention.

Twilight then lifted a hoof up and flicked on a switch in the top left console to begin recording. “This is Twilight Sparkle. It is day two hundred and sixty on my journey and I am currently orbiting a class O blue giant star. There are four planets and two moons, and after a cursory scan, I have discovered several notable points of interest.”

She cleared her throat before continuing. “There is an abandoned building on one of the moons, a transmission tower on the other, and I think I may have found a monument on the planet my warp drive dropped me off next to. Unfortunately, I am only here for resources before I must continue on. If somepony ever visits here again, I hope they can use this information to give them a head start on exploration. This is Twilight Sparkle, signing off.”

A quick command on her main console, and the recording, along with any information she had gathered since her last data drop all uploaded into a small canister and shot off into space. It sped away on a specific flight path to make any pursuing ship think she had launched it from the farthest world from the sun. A beacon on its side strobed every few seconds, ensuring it would be easily seen by her pursuers. Even though she knew they were trying to catch up to her, she trusted that they would make sure it would be sent back home.

Satisfied that her findings would not go to waste, Twilight looked over the star system around her and worked on deciding her next course of action. She only had time to visit one world, so it better have the resources she needed. The three that her scanner failed to pick up anything would be a gamble to explore, and they might be lacking in one or more of the things she needed. That left the remaining two moons and the large planet in front of her.

Twilight looked at the abandoned building icon and suppressed a shiver. She had already seen plenty of those structures on her journey to the galaxy’s center and she felt no inclination to see another one ever again. Whatever monster created the life forms within haunted her dreams on more than one occasion. I don’t want to wake up screaming in the middle of the night ever again.

She then glanced at the monument situated on the planet below her. Ancient stone data banks constructed during a time before life crawled out of the primordial seas of Equestria’s shores. They held stories and memories of species long gone; legions of ghosts that refused to go quietly into the night. Their downfalls and triumphs plastered all over the minds of anypony unfortunate enough to trigger them. I can’t stand living through another hundred lives, not when I have no power to help them in any way.

Finally she looked at the transmission signal. Its moon seemed promising, sharing a location not too far or too close to the system’s sun. By her estimates, it lay in a perfect position for unintelligent life to flourish until the super massive star burned up its fuel in the next hundred million years or so. That being said, she knew what tended to accompany such active towers. Finding a crashed starship and the remains of a fellow traveler always weighed heavily on her heart. It reminds me how fragile my life can be.

In the end, her conscious overruled her. It is the right thing to lay them to rest. It is what I would want.

Steeling herself, Twilight brought her ship around to orient on one of the larger moons she had ever seen. Depressing the acceleration bars of her control yoke, her vessel’s pulse drive kicked on and forced her into the soft padded seat of her nimble exploration craft. She dashed forward several times the speed of light, safely encased in a light warping bubble. Her ship shuddered as it made the journey, forcing her to bite down, lest her teeth rattle together.

The moon grew rapidly larger until it filled her entire canopy. Aqua seas intermixed with grey mountain ranges and fiery red forests formed a pallet of beauty in front of her. A rumble sounded and the proximity sensors on her ship automatically cut off her pulse drive. Twilight took over the controls and she brought the craft in for a gentle decent into the moon’s atmosphere on its sunward facing side.

She angled in for the transmission tower and accelerated forward. Hills whizzed by underneath her and she easily spotted several of the glossy pillars common on so many planets she had visited. At least I know one element I won’t struggle to find.

The seconds trickled down until she spotted a small cluster of buildings on a raised plateau. Skillfully, she brought her ship in and landed close by the entrance of a larger habitat. Twilight hopped out and ignored the twin smaller shelters nearby, as they held nothing of importance to her. Various crates and boxes seemed haphazardly placed in a disorganized fashion across the flattened mesa. Obviously no one had been here in a long time.

It was a simple task to boot up the facility’s computer and solve its encryption key. As the system rebooted and powered up, she glanced around the room that had apparently lay empty for quite some time. Unattended scanner tool upgrades she already knew, alien stock transfer funds that meant nothing to her, and several dead potted plants whose lack of care drew her ire attention. If someone had been properly monitoring this transmission station, maybe the distress signal would have been heard in time.

Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat and she fell back into her natural analytical routine to sidetrack her wandering mind. The tower finally displayed a message that had remained hidden for many years. Her suit analyzed it and quickly determined the location of its source.

A chittering alien language came over her helmet’s speakers mixed in with an alarm in the background. It continued speaking, trying to be heard over the incessant wailing when until an explosion drowned out the creature’s voice for a moment. As it cleared she could pick up on the sounds of a starship engine tearing itself apart, and the pilot’s pleas for help turning into uncontrolled screaming that ended abruptly with a crackling hiss of static.

She closed her eyes and turned her head away. I only hope that it felt no pain.

Her suit zeroed in on its location, and Twilight closed the transmission computer before leaving the uninhabited building at a brisk trot. After listening to the alien traveler’s last moments, dark thoughts muddled her mind, but as soon as the felt the sun grace her face once more, the alicorn mare slowed to a walk and she worked to focus on other things. While she made her way back to her ship, she took a look around and spotted the crashed ship an hour’s walk away.

The estimated time of arrival dwindled to a hoofful of seconds once she had brought her ship online and a short hop over the nearby mountains allowed her to see the crash with her own eyes. A small single-seat cargo hauler had slammed into an open plain. From this distance, she could pick out a few intermittent sparks arching between various pieces of broken technology tough enough to survive the test of time.

Twilight had little trouble removing the broken pilot’s body from the crash and burying it before setting a small marker on its grave. The ship itself held no bounty for her, as her current craft outclassed it in every way. Even so, she felt a fleeting, yet no less satisfying, sensation of peace take hold over her. Though it lasted for no longer than a heartbeat at most, the alicorn princess treasured that moment more than all the gold in the universe.

Pleased with her lonely memorial, Twilight left the burnt out husk of a ship and worked on restoring her mineral supplies from nearby resource caches. A cluster of thick crimson crystals projecting into the toxic air caught her eye immediately. Wasting no time, she drew her compact multi-tool from its holster in a violet aura, and proceeded to mine all before her.

Next to the plutonium reserves, she turned her attention to a grove of alien trees. Brilliant red leaves flourished on their many branches. Twilight scanned and analyzed the species before she used her mining beam to harvest its pure carbon. Her blank stare faded into a frown as she did so. Such beautiful trees. I am so sorry I have to do this.

Her heart ached as each tree burned up into a burst of elemental carbon, which her suit gobbled up to be stored back on her ship. So focused on what was before her, she failed to notice an angry buzzing behind her until the first kinetic shots rebounded off her passive shield. Staggering forward, Twilight spun around in time to watch two sentinel drones converging on her, opening fire on her position.

Present on nearly every single world she had visited, Twilight learned early on to avoid sentinel drones whenever she could. Though they were not much smaller than her, they could fly and their twin cannons could dish out some serious harm. The robotic machines patrolled endlessly, searching for anything not native on the many planets of the galaxy, and they had just found a little pony interfering with the natural way of things.

Outnumbered, she took off running, and the sentinels gave chase. Twilight angled towards her ship but she had wandered far during her resource hunt. As she ran, the alicorn fired her multi-tool behind her in attempt to keep her attackers at bay, but if her suit’s readings were correct, they were already calling in backup.

Twilight dug her hooves into the soft topsoil around another grove of trees, neatly avoiding the next salvo of sentinel fire. Her ship’s distance now measured in mere seconds and she tried to kick it up another notch. Galloping for all her worth, the lavender pony did not notice the electronic crescendo of a heavy laser powering up until her world turned to red.