///LOCATION - UNKNOWN///TIME - 14:22 LMT///DATE - 13-05-2232///

“Alone.”

“I’m all alone.”

“Nobody knows where I am.”

The thought rang throughout Eric’s head. He was alone, all by himself, nobody within range of his radio. The same radio that he used to report that he was charging his Hammer Propulsion MK-VI Warp-Drive to jump to the next system along his route. The same MK-VI Warp-Drive as usual, making the same sound as usual, placed in the same Horizon ShipWorks H2215EX Divertia as usual, charging up the same as usual, but malfunctioning in a rather unusual way. The same unusual way that most of the other systems inside the ship malfunctioned. Without reason. Without warning. Without solution. No way back.

“Why did those Genesis people send me on this damn trip to this godforsaken place?!” he desperately shouted, knowing in the back of his head that there would be no answer.

“Ok Eric, no time to panic, get it together!” He tried motivating himself to stay focused, but doing so seemed more and more fruitless the more he thought about it.

“I’m stuck here.” he said, “Nobody is going to look for me.”

“I have no way of contacting the UENRS.” He tried activating the diagnostics program, but it merely confirmed his growing suspicion:

[CATASTROPHIC FAILURE]

“Thanks, that really helps!” he sarcastically said.

Hoping to find a suitable place to land, Eric decided to activate his Stellar Body Scanner, one of the few systems in his ship that was still functional and available for him to use. A projection to his left showed the control-panel for the scanner. With a slight hint of doubt, Eric reluctantly activated the procedure. These scans draw massive amounts of power from the FluxCo XR-2A Reactor, power which would normally be used for other systems, such as life support. Much to the annoyance of Eric, the oxygen-levels started to drop, whilst the carbon dioxide-levels kept rising, continually forcing Eric to invest more energy and focus in order to maintain proper personal health. After the initial ranging-ping was successfully performed, the projection displaying the scan-results showed a small window, giving an estimate time until the scans were completed:

[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL COMPLETION – 03H:48M:32S]

[ATTENTION - PLANETARY LIFE-FORMS DETECTED]

Ofcourse, Eric didn't notice that last message, as he was already too low on oxygen to focus on such things. With nothing left to do, and without knowing that he was being watched by those sentient quadrupeds, Eric attempted to catch his breath as he tried to remember how this dreadful adventure to the edge of known space started;

///LOCATION - NUAKEA/OBLIVION/GENESIS BIOTECH///TIME - 13:37 LMT///DATE - 11-05-2232///

“Commander Callaghan?” the receptionist asked, looking for the pilot who applied to chart the recently discovered Sagittarius Nebula.

Eric was pleasantly surprised to hear his name being paired with the official title he received from the Federal Pilots Association, which was often neglected by others. Throughout the years, Eric had gathered a certain reputation with the people of Oblivion Station, and it was not the type of reputation that anyone would brag about at the local bar. He tried to remember how he ended up here, at the Freelance-Department of the Genesis BioTech Bureau at Oblivion, his homestead, orbiting somewhere within the Nuakea System. The same place where he had spent most of his adult life, or at least the part of it after the accident. Up to this point, his day had been the same as every other boring day:

///LOCATION - NUAKEA/OBLIVION/APPARTMENT A289///TIME - 08:00 LMT///DATE - 11-05-2232///

‘BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BE-’ “Hrmpf, I get it, I get it!” ‘EP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP’

With a loud bang, the alarm-clock was turned off by the grumpy freelance pilot. Half awake, and whilst rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Eric looked up through his rooftop-window, catching a glimpse into the docking bays. He liked his home, but the locations proximity to landing pad 14 made the mundane task of getting enough sleep quite a challenge sometimes. Then again, would anyone be able to sleep while a giant freighter is igniting it’s gigantic thrusters above their bedroom? Luckily, Oblivion was the furthest station in the Nuakea System, meaning that it was more efficient for large freighters to dock at the much closer Admiral Thirsk. Because of this, ships larger than an H2188 Adder were a rare sight.

Still half asleep, Eric tried to get out of bed. This was usually the most time-consuming part of his daily routine, and today was no exception. As he was stumbling around, his home-management system went online to tell him about all the events around the galaxy. Hoping to find some kind of work, he asked the computer to tell him all the available jobs. As usual, there were none.

“Great, now I’ll have to work at that damned restaurant again!”

He was hoping to finally have a reason to leave this station with his Divertia, built by Horizon ShipWorks. This ship was his life, his ticket to infinity. At least, that’s what he thought when he bought it from the local shipyard. When he bought it, Eric hadn’t realised that running a ship requires more credits than just those for the initial purchase. After he saved up enough money for the ship, he finally got a grasp on the cost of interplanetary travel. This also made him understand the reason as to why there was always a large security-presence around the landing pads and the fuel storage yards, all coordinated by the security department of Olympus. Before that, Eric used to believe that the security was there to protect citizens from OPA-attacks. When he realised that the guards weren’t protecting civilians, he immediately lost all respect for them.

Suddenly, Eric’s phone started ringing. He clumsily tried to answer the call, and after some time, he was finally able to press the button on his screen.

“Who’s there?” he said with obvious annoyance in his voice.

He was in turn greeted with a joyful one, a voice he could not get out of his head:

“Good morning Eric, are you awake?”

At the sound of this voice, Eric got slightly happier. Of course, he still wasn’t enjoying waking up so early.

“Of course I’m awake Michelle, that damn alarm-clock made sure of it!” he said “Why, is there something important?”

Michelle responded: “Actually, there is! I remember you telling me that you wanted to get a job, right?”

“Yeah, as long as it’s a one-time job. I hate being stuck to a single thing! I want to see more of the universe, explore the wonders of-”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it! Don’t worry, it’s a single task. Complete it, and you get a decent amount of credits!”

Eric liked the sound of that: “Sounds good, but can you give me more details?”

“Well, I don’t know much about the job, as I just overheard it at the bar.” Michelle explained “But what I do know, is that the reward is somewhere around half a million credits, and all the costs are covered by the contractor!”

Hearing this, Eric got extremely excited. The mere thought of not having to worry about money for at least a year was something Eric had only dreamt of.

“Count me in!” he said “Where can I sign up?”

“I knew you’d be interested, so I already took the liberty of uploading the location to your VisionAR.”

Lifting his arm to activate the wrist-mounted device, Eric noticed that he had indeed received the location.

"Will I be seeing you there?" he asked.

"No, sorry, I already have another job. I told you, working at the Star-Bar was a great place for employment!"

"Yeah yeah, you don't need to remind me everytime." Eric was about to hang up, until Michelle interrupted him:

"Hey, Eric. Good luck!"

///LOCATION - NLTT-512-3A/EQUESTRIA/CANTERLOT///TIME - 14:13 LMT///DATE - 13-05-2232///

It was a night like every other at the royal castle. Princess Celestia was vast sleep after another long day of royal duties, whilst her sister Luna guarded and admired her moon. Shining Armour, Captain of the Royal Guard, was staying in Canterlot for the week to discuss the new security-measures that were to be put in place to defend against the changeling-attacks, which were steadily growing in size.

Downstairs, most of the guards that were off-duty were asleep, except for a small group who were playing poker and were having a beer or two. Since the changelings appeared to have suspended their attacks for a while, the guards thought that it would be okay for them to relax as well. One of the off-duty guards was Solar Streak, a pegasus colt with a dark-blue coat and an orange mane and tail and a meteor cutie-mark, who had an interest in the galaxy ever since he saw a falling star when he was little.

Whilst the others were downstairs playing games, Solar Streak was busy with something else. He had snuck into the royal observatory, where the best telescope in the kingdom was located. This marvel of technology was most commonly used by princess Celestia’s pupil, princess Twilight Sparkle, but ever since she moved to Ponyville, the device has been left unused. Not that it made a difference to Solar. He would have asked the princess if he could have used the machine, but he was usually quite shy. Hence, he thought that this would be the perfect opportunity.

When he was finally done with the calibration, Solar Streak looked through the scope of the device. Everything was the same as usual up there. He wished he could go there, to the stars, and explore those other planets he got a glimpse of every now and then, but even for a pegasus, these were still way too far away. That wouldn’t stop him from dreaming though.

Solar Streak was about to return to his post, as it was almost time for his shift, when he noticed a flash in the corner of his scope. He tried finding the origin with the telescope, until he eventually found what appeared to be a storm cloud of sorts, but way out in the darkness of space, far beyond what any pegasus could reach. Out of the storm cloud appeared a dark object, too far away to be distinguishable. The only thing that remained visible after the storm cloud had disappeared, was a pulsating red light.

Author's Note

Please keep in mind that this is my first time writing a story. Because of this, the reading experience might differ from stories written by more skilled writers. Names, locations, ships, technologies and events are inspired by various sources, including: Games - Elite: Dangerous, Star Citizen | TV - MLP:FiM, The Expanse

If you want your character to be featured as a human soldier, pilot, politician or civilian, or a pony civilian, politician or royal guard, please send me a message with the character's name, looks, characteristics, and role if you have any preference. All featured characters will be credited.