///LOCATION - NLTT-512-3A/EQUESTRIA/82KM NW OF CAMP EBONY///TIME - 08:13 LMT///DATE - 20-05-2232///

2nd Lieutenant Jaakko Palander looked at Dr. Märtha Löfgren with an understanding look. "Trust me, it's not your fault. It's the fault of GBT. They were the ones that sent you here, and they were the reason someone else crashed here too, and because of that, almost the entire UEN is now here. There's just one thing I need to know."

"Ask away." said Märtha, who had calmed down from her small panic-attack. She had a good reason to be confused and upset. She had just learned that, because of her action, many lives were lost. She had accidently started a war with the largest nation on the planet, and she didn't even know it. For months, she had thought that she was on good terms with the populace, but instead, she was killing them.

"Why didn't anyone inform the authorities when you didn't come back?"

"I don't really know. I don't really have that many close friends, and I don't really communicate with my family anymore, so maybe there was simply nobody to miss me."

"I might have just met you a few minutes ago, but I already know that that couldn't be true. You are a great person, ofcourse people would begin to miss you if you were gone for that long! I wouldn't be surprised if GBT was somehow involved in that too. Don't worry about that company though, they have been placed under investigation, and all of their bussines is seized for now."

"Why?"

"Remember how they said that they were sending someone to pick you up? Well, apparantly, the person that they sent wasn't actually told that that was his mission. He was told to investigate a nebula, but his Drive malfunctioned, and brought him here. Or, that was what we thought had happened. They are still looking into it."

"Oh god... I don't know what to do... Will people still accept me, even with how I look?"

"Ofcourse they will! Trust me, most people at Camp Ebony have seen a lot worse! They would be glad to help, and maybe even find a way to stop the clones. Who knows? I bet they will even be able to find a way to turn you back to normal, and if they can't we will send you on an express-flight towards the best medical centre in the known galaxy!" Jaakko assured Märtha.

"You... You really think that?"

"Ofcourse I do! Wouldn't be saying it if I didn't think it was possible, would I?"

"I don't know, I just met you." Märtha said with a small smile.

"That's the spirit! Now, let's go outside. Your clones are fine with the disease when going outside, and so should you."

"Okay, I'll try it, but if I feel like anything is wrong, I will get the hell back into my lab, understood?" Märtha said with a stern tone.

"Sure, I understand."

After agreeing on their plans, they went trough the hallway to the airlock, which would lead them outside. In all honesty, the airlock wasn't actually required, but Dr. Märtha didn't know that when she had it constructed by her ship's MOCS (Modular Outpost Construction System). The door to the outside opened, revealing a vast mountainrange to the two people, or rather one person and a horse. Jaakko lifted his arm, activating his VisionARM once more, this time receiving a strong enough signal to send a distress-call to the Camp.

"Ebony Command, Ebony Command, this is 2nd Lieutenant Palander, come in Ebony Command, over."

Nothing...

"Ebony Command, this is 2nd Lieutenant Palander. Does anyone read me, over?"

"Lieutenant Palander, this is Ebony Command. We hear you loud and clear Lieutenant."

The Communications-Officer in Camp Ebony could hear cheers and laughter coming from the other end of the line.

"This is 2nd Lieutenant Jaakko Palander. Myself and 2 others were abducted during the recent attack on the Camp. All 3 of us are okay, and we found someone else here aswell, along with an explanation for the attack, over."

"Uhmm... Understood Lieutenant. Please transmit your current position at frequency 117.85 and squawk 1700. How copy, over?"

"Understood, transmitting location on 117.85, squawk 1700, over."

"Coördinates received. Sending an H250D now, ETA is 25 Mikes, over."

"Understood Ebony Command. Palander out."

The H-250D Dagger Dropship sent out to retrieve 2nd Lieutenant Jaakko Palander and the others, designation DS-095, received absolute priority over all other traffic in the area, including the incoming ship with the Admiral onboard. When the pilot of the Admiral's ship, AS-158 received word that they would have to hold for a few more minutes while DS-095 was starting up and taking off, he immediatly informed the Admiral.

"Sir, I just received word that we will have to hold here for a few more minutes."

"How come? We have sent in a flight-plan before departing, right?"

"We did sir, but Ebony Command just received information that the missing soldiers have been found, and they are sending a dropship to pick them up."

"WHAT?! Join up with that dropship, I want to have a word with my men as soon as possible!"

"I'm sorry sir, but I'm afraid I can't do that. We have a flight-plan, and protocol says that I can't deviate from that without permission from the air-control. No exceptions."

"I admire the fact that you take protocol so seriously, but what you seemingly still have to learn, is that the safety of others takes priority over protocol. No exceptions."

"But-"

"Don't worry about it. If your crew-chief gives you shit about it, send him to me. I'll handle it. Now get me to my troops!"

"Uhh... Oh, to hell with it! Understood Admiral, setting course for DS-095!"

"A dropship is on its way to pick us up. Should we get back inside before we become popsicles?" Jaakko asked to Märtha.

"Yeah, sounds good." Märtha responded. "Oh, that reminds me, I still have two of your comrades in storage!"

"What?!"

"Yeah, you know those pods, like the one you somehow awoke from and destroyed? Well, they are a kind of cryo-pod I created. I won't go into too much detail about their inner-workings, but we should probably begin unfreezing them, aswell as the two locals I still have."

"Wait, what do you mean 'locals'? Other humans?" Jaakko asked, taken off-topic from his frozen friends.

"No, I'm talking about the ponies. You guys probably met them, right?"

"Uhm..." The only meeting the UEN had ever had with the 'ponies', was the one where they tried to destroy the Camp, and kill everyone inside of it. Not exactly a good encounter, though thinking about it, those weren't the ponies. Those were the clones. Were they clones of the locals? "I don't think we have... Aside from that time they attacked our Camp."

"May I ask what they looked like?" Märtha asked.

"Well, thinking about it, they all looked the same. In fact, they looked scarily similiar to each other. Perfect copies, like clones... Oh wait, that's probably because they are, right?"

"Yeah, they are, but WHAT did they look like then?" Märtha repeated.

"If I remember correctly, they were all white, with horns. Pretty small too, not bigger than a small horse. About half my size, I'd guess."

"But that's impossible..."

"What do you mean?"

"The most recent clones I made were clones of a white pony with a horn. But after I infected them with the disease, they transformed into a similiar form as me, though still small. There's no way they could have... Or maybe they could..."

"What? What is it?!" Jaakko asked.

"This is just an assumption, but... Okay, you know how I told you that I mutated into what I am now? Well, I'm not sure how, but I think that the clones somehow managed to find a way to transform into their original form. Again, I have no idea how this would be possible. It shouldn't be, but there are things in this world... Things that cannot be explained trough science..."

"Like what?"

"Like... Magic..." Märtha responded.

"Magic? What the hell are you talking about? Magic is a thing from fantasies, not reality!" Jaakko said, realizing he was becoming more and more confused.

"Like I said, I can't explain it! But I can show you what I mean!" After finishing her sentence, she aims her horn at Jaakko's holster, and she pulls his pistol out of it, levitating it in front of the confused Lieutenant's face. "See?! Tell me you can explain this with science! Come on, do it!"

"What... How... But you..." Jaakko had lost all ability of speech. Completely baffled, he had nothing else to say, but "I... can't..."

"Exactly." Märtha lowered the sidearm, levitating it over to Jaakko's hand. He took the gun, and put it back in the holster. He still didn't understand what he just saw. With the room completely silent, they could hear the sound of two vessels approaching, the roar of the engines getting louder and louder, until it was loud enough to damage unprotected ears.

"I'll go out and greet them. You stay here. It's gonna take me a while to explain the situation, but it's for the best if I explain everything to them before they see you, otherwise they might shoot you." Jaakko explained, turning around to walk back outside.

"You mean like how you tried to shoot me?" Märtha said with a grin.

"Yeah, kinda like that!"

"Explain why you are here!"

Eric had no idea what was going on. One moment he was having a nice conversation about space-borne hydroponics with the Professor, the next moment he was being forced into a truck by ponies and driven to an impressive palace, where he was now standing, surrounded by a large semi-circle, with important-looking ponies on both sides, and two larger ones directly in the middle, the tallest white one asking him the reason why he arrived there.

"If I'm not mistaken, your soldiers dragged me here. In a truck, if I remember correctly. I'd be carefull with those things by the way, the carbon-footprint is insane. If you want to keep your ozon-layer you-"

"SILENCE! I don't doubt you know what my question meant. Stop fooling around." The large white pony, which looked more like a horse with wings and a horn, who had introduced herself as Princess Celestia earlier, was now getting very frustrated. Eric was not playing along, which ticked her off quite a lot. She wasn't used to ponies or people not taking her seriously. At her side sat her younger sister, Princess Luna. The semi-circle was taken up by the six ministers of Equestria:

Twilight Sparkle, Minister of Science and Education.

Applejack, Minister of Industry and Agriculture.

Fluttershy, Minister of International Affairs.

Rarity, Minister of Finance and Trade.

Rainbow Dash, Minister of Defence.

Pinkie Pie, Minister of Safety and Inspection.

To Eric, they didn't look quite as menacing as they tried to look. It might have been because they were just half their size, aside from the Princesses, who were roughly the same height as him. Like all other ponies, they were all different colours. Purple, orange, yellow, white, blue and pink, and even more colours in their hair. Or, what did the Professor call it? The mane and tail? Yeah, that's it. As he was thinking about all those colours, the Princess spoke again.

"As you should be aware of, I was reffering to how you arrived on our world. You are clearly not from around here, nor are you from any other nation. Trust me, we checked. No other government knew about your species. Therefore, we believe it is reasonable to conclude that you are from another world, unbeknownst to us. The large formation of metal objects in the sky backs up our suspiscioun."

'So they know about the fleet. Thinking back, I remember seeing just how many ships there were when they dragged me outside. I'm pretty sure that they sent the majority of humanity to find me! I'm flattered.' Eric thought. It occured to him that he probably had Michelle to thank for that. 'Knowing her, she probably gave another one of her infamous speaches. God bless the poor souls that had to listen to her!'

"I'll ask once more." said the Princess, this time seemingly more angry than the last time. "Where. Are. You. From."

Eric knew he had the upper-hand, and he decided to use it to his advantage. For know though, he chose to play around with these 'Princesses' a bit more. If he was going to tell them anything about his world and civilization, then he expected them to do the same. "Fine, I'll tell you. But I want to know more about you too."

"That seems reasonable. For every question asked, you may ask a question of your own in return, though do keep in mind that we won't be able to share certain details."

"Happy to be doing bussines with you, 'Princess'!" He was going to exploit this situation to the best of his ability. If they wanted to know more about him, then he was sure as hell going to give it to them. After all, someone had to keep them busy until the fleet arrived.

And he might as well have some fun, right?

Author's Note

Equestria finally has ministers! It's about time they do, and now I finally have a place for the mane 6. They basically grew up more, as this story supposedly takes place about 15 years after season 6/7, where technology has advanced reasonably fast, atleast by human standards.