Alone?by Duct Tape MasterChaptersDepartureThe E.S.S. SelenaMission GlitchUnidentifiedContact (story rewrite starts after this chapter)DepartureI felt a shudder up my spine as I boarded the capsule of the massive rocket before me, I practiced the breathing exercises I was taught one last time, I looked ahead at the sky and prepared for the jolt of the launch. I heard Mission control over the radio. "Canterlot to Tranquility 7 do you copy?" the comms crackled a bit as I heard the voice of none other than Princess Twilight Sparkle "Canterlot, this is Tranquility 7, I hear you loud and clear" I responded as per protocol, even though I felt like jumping out of my skin, I checked my suit mic and closed the visor. "60 seconds to launch, final checks complete," I tightened my seat harness and braced myself for the gee forces, I was more than exited to be going up to space again, I'd been retrained to pilot a new ship, the second successful interstellar ship, The E.S.S. Selena, I heard the comm in my helmet as they counted off the seconds. "50 seconds to launch, pad is clear, all systems nominal." I looked over my controls, the monitors displayed all of the ship's readouts, I pressed a button on one of the monitors causing it to swap to an external camera facing behind the craft. I looked at the grond for the last time before I would be separated from it for a whole 4 years. I looked at the cloudless blue sky again, well mostly cloudless, I turned and looked through the side window, in the distance I could see the crowds, mainly the massive cloud bleachers containing hundreds of lets, from my point of view they were a menagerie of colorful dots on a white blob. Even though there was less than a minute left, it felt like an eternity, I watched the clock on the instrument panel silently count off the seconds, it was agonising to watch the seconds crawl by. "40 seconds, hey Dusk, anything you want to say to the media before you go?" is earned the nickname Dusk because I was infamous for pulling all-nighters to look into space, going from dusk till dawn simply watching the starry blackness. The nickname immediately stuck and I've went my it ever since I was 12. "Well, I'm gonna miss Equus, but I'll be sure to send ya a postcard from the starswirled cluster!" I knew it was cheesy but the media oughtta like it. I checked all of my suit's seals and all of my life support tubing and waited. "30 seconds, walkway retracting, all systems are still nominal" I started to feel nervous, as anyone probably would, after all sitting on top of a huge pillar of explosive fuel was not a very comforting thought, I looked over all of my gauges once again and tried to calm myself down a little bit. "20 seconds, all systems go for launch, still alright in there?" "Everything's a-ok in here, now let's light this candle!" "15.... 14.... 13.... 12.... 11.... 10.... 9..... 8.... 7.....6..... 5....4 .....3, main engine start...2, booster ignition.....1,liftoff! we have liftoff of the Tranquility 7 spacecraft, ferrying the Cerberus utility craft and one brave astronaut, to the E.S.S Selena, which will begin her 4 year journey to seek out other life in our galaxy," I felt rocket lurch as it's engines fired, then the 3 SRB's attached to the lower stage, the clamps released and I was pushed hard into the seat, I watched the altitude climb. The assent program kicked in and the rocket rolled over to begin it's gravity turn, the nav-ball rotated and held steady on the 30 degree mark heading east. I felt the SRB's eject, I checked the rear camera to make sure, I saw the 3 massive pillars flying off behind me as I shot forward into the inky blackness above, the sky turned from bright blue to indigo to black, then I felt the stages separate, I was jerked forward into the harness, then slammed back against the seat as the last stage of the massive sapphire launch booster ignited. I watched the speed climb and the angle flatten out as the rocket made it's way out of the atmosphere, I looked at the trajectory computer readout as the engine cut off, the apogee was on target and I would reach it and simultaneously perform a circularization burn in about 90 minutes, I relaxed and caught my breath again, no one could get used to a rocket launch. Looking out the window, I saw the planet below, the cities were invisible from here, I could only see mountains and green, but yet I felt as if I was home, I'd been to space before, but never alone with my thoughts, I could just sit and watch the world spin past below. I heard the beep of the 5 minute warning to execute a maneuver, at this point it was still automated, but I still had to check in to notify everyone of this honestly boring event. I pressed the radio button. "Tranquility 7 to Canterlot, do you copy?" "This is Canterlot, we copy" "Circularization burn in 4 minutes 45 seconds," "Acknowledged, all systems remain nominal," I watched the straps and hoses in the cabin float in the low gravity, it was mildly fascinating to observe them gently swaying. When the clock got to 20 seconds it beeped again and I called mission control again. "Tranquility 7 to Canterlot," "This is Canterlot, you are confirmed for circularization burn," "Burn comencing in T minus 15 seconds, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, burn confirmed, burn ceasing in T minus five, four, three, two, one, engine cut, trajectory stable, and am I glad that's over," "Confirmed, orbit stable, final stage ejection in 10 seconds," I checked cabin pressure, it read normal, I opened my visor, I heard a slight hissing as the pressure equalized, I felt the ship jerk as the last of the assent rocket ejected, I saw the faring covering the aft section eject as well, the trapezoidal pieces of metal spinning off into space, I looked at the rear camera, the engine I just ejected spin itself around to retrograde and shot off into the distance. I pressed a small button on my chair's armrest causing it to gently rotate aft, I looked around the tiny space, only a few cubic meters, I unlatched my 5 point harness and floated out of the seat, and began the awkward process of removing my orange space suit, once I had removed the bulky thing I streched out my wings, i could only extend one at a time in the tiny pod but it would do until I got to the low orbit research station where the Selena was docked. I looked myself over, my coat was a bit matted from the suit, other than that, I looked fine, no cuts or chafing, I looked at my tail, it was still there, although far shorter than it had been a few hours ago, I felt my face, I couldn't feel any liquid from my nose, my short sort of grayish beard was still present, all in all I was still here. I flipped myself around, got back in my chair, and swapped control to manual. In the distance I could see the station's massive solar panels glinting in the sunlight, I swapped my instrument panels to docking and swung the craft around so my stern was to the station, once in range I fired the thrusters and equalized speed with the station. I used the maneuvering jets to nudge myself to look at the magnificence of the ESS Selena, it was huge, 100 meters long, and equipped with a prototype Sparkle Space Warping Drive, I flew myself under the ship and aligned myself with the docking boom that was extended from the bottom of the ship, I carefully aligned myself and heard a metallic clunk as the ships docked, As the craft was brought in I could sit back and relax, another successful docking procedure. "Argus Station to Commnder Silent Swift, Welcome aboard," "Thanks guys, oh and call me Dusk, I'll be at the airlock in a couple minutes" I replied into the mic on my blue jumpsuit, I unhooked myself and floated to the hatch on the little craft, I gave the lever on the door a firm pull and I heard the deadbolts retract, I tugged the hatch open and pushed myself into the tube above me. I followed it up until I got to a hallway leading towards the front of the ship, I floated myself forward until I got to the docking port connecting the Selena to the Argus Station. I heard a clunk rattle through the door, I opened my side and saw the current Argus crew all waiting in the entry way. "Commander Silent Swift requesting permission to come aboard." I waited for their response. "Welcome aboard Argus Station, I'm Commander Starry Night, those are lieutennants Windy Plains, and Sasha Peaks. She pointed with her teal hand to the green stallion and the griffin respectively. I looked about the tiny station, the majority of its bulk was Scientific equipment and scanners. The Argus had no magically generated gravity, unlike the other bigger stations, and it only required a crew of 3 to operate. "Thank you," I shook hands with everyone as I entered, I was one of about 3 pegasi that were astronauts, most of them would turn away after hearing about the lack of wingroom, I looked myself over again, my grayish blue coat and gray hands were covered in little beads of sweat, I wiped it off and everyone made their way to the kitchen. "So the first pegasus to fly a warp ship, how'd he score that?" starry said, seemingly impressed. " I can stay sane alone longer than the other astronauts who applied" I said at her with a completely serious face. "Really? No it's gotta be something else, come on the truth," she said obviously not impressed. "I'm serious, the tiebreaker was the solitary confinement test, I stayed rational longer, it's really is that simple" in said with a shrug. "Why are you flying that thing solo?" I heard Windy pipe up from across the small room. "Its an experiment mostly but it also allows me to travel for longer without need for resupply, the Selena is just a bit smaller than the ESS Dawn, but it has enough space for 4 crew, so when fitted for 1 it has plenty more space for supplies." I stated with a bit of a know it all attitude. "Where are you going, I read the news post but I wanna know what the real purpose is..." Sasha looked at me with a scrutinizing gaze. "I was given a list of systems to visit and study, but I've got nothing concrete as to what's there" I was handed a bag of chili and a plastic spoon, "Thanks. Enough about my shit, what are you all doing?" I said with some hope that I wouldn't have to answer more of the same dumb questions I'd been getting over the last 2 months. "Well... Princess Twilight is keeping us buisy with stuff to do up here, you probably know the feeling...." the commander said with a face of boredom "I know, she's relentless, ya screw up, do it again, ya write your report the wrong way or misspell anything, the same shit, and don't get me started on her schedules, I'm just glad I'll only have to deal with her bullshit once a week," I said with a knowing look to the room. " she's probably butthurt she can't be here, so she takes it out on us," Windy finished then returned to his food packet. "Ya got that right," I finished my chili and went to go grab my luggage, it was mostly personal stuff, It was sent up with the last supply run from the ground. "Well, it was nice meeting ya, and I'd love to stay for awhile, but unfortunately I've gotta go. I'm scheduled to undock in 10 minutes, so I'll see ya later....hopefully," I waved and pushed my bag towards the exit, I followed it along and gave it another nudge through the airlock, I floated in and closed the door on my side, I waved through the tiny window and made my way to the bridge. Author's Note New Story, hope ya like, Live long and prosper. The E.S.S. SelenaAs I made my way to the bridge I looked back on Equus far below, I would miss it, but not that much. I looked ahead of me again and noticed the warning sign that meant I'd be entering a portion of the ship with magic gravity, I adjusted my stance and walked past the gravity gradient. The ship was only partially outfitted with gravity plating to save power and to reduce cost, the gradient zones were only low gravity to allow one to walk between the zero gee and 1 gee zones without being violently slammed into the floor. I walked into the bridge proper, it sat on top of the ship and offset to the left, just behind me were 2 of the 3 SSWD nacelles, the third was on the bottom of the ship, each was about one third of the ship's length, to my right was the massive antenna cluster, ahead was the majority of the ship's livable space and aft was the fuel and main thrusters, all of it in could see out of the massive panoramic window of the bridge. I sat down in the pilot's seat and ran through the startup procedure; I activated the main magic fusion reactor and waited for it to spool up, watched the readout of the reactor until it displayed ready, retracted the solar panels that provided standby power and turned the rest of the ship's systems on, I heard whirring, clicking, and the sound of magic charging as the ship came to life with lights and sounds. I checked everything over, it all seemed normal so I started the undocking procedure. On the news feed they were transmitting to me I could see the ship from a station camera as I pulsed the RCS to move away from the station, on the news I saw none other than Princess Luna standing on a podium giving a quick speech about how the ship was revolutionary, among other things, and a video feed of the ship, the crowd was smaller than the official launch of the Dawn, but it was still pretty large, I watched Luna do her thing for a couple seconds before I saw that the ship had gotten to a safe distance, I muted the news broadcast and activated the 3 plasma engines on the aft of the ship, i looked aft just in time to see the bright red glow of the engines running, I deployed the radiators soon after, they swung open and started to glow a deep red, I gave the ship more throttle and I saw the station move away as I accelerated. Once I was clear of the station I throttled back and left the seat so I could get settled into the ship, I only had 4 hours to get used to the ship and get settled in before I would have to depart, from then on I would he free, due to the constraints on law enforcement, I was given the opportunity to govern myself in terms of how I do things, the only caveat was that I still had a mission to fufill. I walked to the back of the bridge toward a small door, behind it was the ship's android, it would as a helper and companion to me on my voyage, the Dawn had one made to look like Celestia installed a few weeks ago, the Selena had one that resembled Luna, each Android was an amalgam of golem magic and technology, it produced a suprisingly lifelike result, so much so, that any outside observer would probably not recognise it as a machine at first glance, the android also had an artificial conciousness, it was magically created and given a personality after the pilot was chosen, this allowed them to make the android's personality compatible with my own to improve efficiency, it essentially was the heart and soul of the ship, It had been programmed to respond to the name Selena or Luna. I looked through the little window inset into the door, I saw an indigo face silently sleeping behind it, I would activate it once I was under way. I walked back into the zero gee zone and went down to the main portion of the ship via minimallistic elevator, aka a plate to put one hoof on and a handle to hold, once at the bottom I looked for my room, once I found it at the end of the hall I entered and strapped my sleeping bag to the wall, the room had gravity plating but it wasn't on, I left my room again and flapped down the hall toward the kitchen, Using wings in spacewas more or less like swimming. I got to the kitchen and grabbed a granola bar for later, I shoved off back down the hall to the lab med bay combo. Once there I oriented to the gravity and looked over all of the supplies, everything seemed to be fine, I went into the med bay and checked one last time, after I'd satisfied myself with the visual inspection I went back to my room for a quick video chat with a school in Ponyville, then I'd be off into the vast inky darkness ahead. I swung around the door frame and floated myself in front of a computer velcroed to the desk, I opened the program and waited for the connection to patch in. "Hello down there!" I said with a cheesy grin as I saw the class appear on the screen. "Hello Commander, I am Miss Cheerilee and this is my class, we just wanted to ask you some questions and wish you a safe journey," "Ok, what questions can I answer for ya? Ask away," I immediately saw the entire class raise their hands. "Uhh, ok, umm yyou....the orange one with the pink hair, what's your name?" "I'm scootaloo, and I'd like to ask how fast your spaceship goes!, Is it faster than Rainbow Dash?" she jumped up and down while I thought it over. "Uhhm, I'm not sure how to explain how fast it is... , umm let me put it into perspective for you, if you shine a light at something it seems to instantly get illuminated, that's because light travels at some odd three hundred thousand kilometers per SECOND, so fast that we can't tell if it's instant or not, so now imagine the light and how fast it can go, my spaceship can go thousands of times faster by litterally bending the fabric of spacetime and riding it like a wave in an ocean, pretty crazy right?" "Woooooow," the class said in in unison as the hands went up again "Uhh you, the yellow one, you look like you're gonna have a heart attack?" "Whut's yer cutie mark?" she asked in her honestly adorable country accent. "Uhhh, kind of an odd question but I'll roll with it, Its a satellite-ish thing in space, here's a picture of it," I pointed to a patch on my jumpsuit and put it a bit closer to the camera." "Waauuuu," she sat down again and I called on the next one. "The brown and white one, what'cha askin?" "How do you become an astronaut?" simple enough. "Yep, kinda expected that, I ain't gonna sugar coat it and say that ya just have to believe in yourself to do it and bla bla bla, No, I busted my butt off, it ain't easy, and requires some blood sweat and tears, but I think it's worth it, so if ya want to do it then go for it, just don't say I didn't warn ya," "Thank you sir!" he had a thick trottingham accent that was pretty damn cute. "Anything else?, uhh you, white and pink" "How do you get by without anyone else?" "Well it's just a matter of accepting it I guess, Its also part of an experiment on extreme isolation." I looked at my watch, "Sorry but I've got to go, I need to get this thing on its way out there, anyway, see ya later!" "Goodbye Commander!" they all said it in unison as school fillies and Colts do. I shut off the laptop and headed to the bridge. I strapped in and activated the interstellar guidance systems and input the parameters for the trajectory and distance, the ship swung itself around and carefully aligned on some unseen line to the target, in this case the edge of the system. I pressed comms and stated my intentions, "This is the ESS Selena, I am departing, confirm?" "Selena this is Canterlot, you are clear, safe travels commander." "Copy, I'll see ya in a few years!" I pushed the drive arming button and pushed the throttle forward to one of the lower settings, I was the nacelles light up a bright swirling blue and white, the space around the ship distorted and I flashed to warp, the images of things outside the ship had little rainbow trails from the distorting light, I watched my home recede behind me as I barreled along at 10 Times the speed of light out of the solar system. Author's Note The first few chapters are done-ish, they will be posted soon enough. Mission Glitch" That's one hour, so far so good I guess," i said to nobody as I watched the ship's clock, I began the deceleration process and waited for space outside to appear normal. Once the engines had stopped I would have to inspect the core and driver coils to ensure they were in optimal condition. I decided that I would also activate the onboard android once I was done, I unhooked my harness and began my little excursion to the drive section, it sat between the living area and main thrusters, it was rare that I would ever have to go there other than routine maintenance and inspections, once I got to the bulkhead door I donned a protective suit to make sure I wouldn't get killed by magic radiation, I opened the outer door and waited for the cycling sequence, I stepped into the reactor room once the inner door opened, in the center was the massive cylindrical reactor casing surrounded with many tubes and cables that interconnected it to the whole ship. I went to a control panel nearby and started a diagnostic sequence, and began the long and boring job of inspecting the driver coils, each nacell has 12 coils and each coil is very complex and requires much scrutiny to inspect, making the inspection of 36 coils a nightmare, I wa happy that I'd only have to do it once myself, the android could handle it once the initial report was filed. 3 hours later I dragged myself into the decontamination room/airlock to scrub myself of radiation, after the door latched I watched the magic beam wave over me rapidly as it neutralized any harmful substances, I removed the suit once it was done and walked back out of the ship's reactor room, I floated back to the bridge and was about to strap in when I remembered the android, I got back out of my chair and walked to the storage unit for the android. "Alright let's get you working," I pressed the activate button in the wall and watched he door unlock and fold away into the walls and floor. I saw the lifelike automaton's eyes light up a pale blue and heard the boot up noise, then it ran it's test program, all of the limbs actuated a bit and it spoke a test phrase, which was also manufacturer's information. "Archmagic android model B, Name: Selena, created on the 25th day of the autumn harvest, created by Canterlot magic design." Even its voice was very lifelike, albeit it did have a slight metallic twinge to it but it was far better than any robot or magic golem I'd ever seen. "Hello Commander Dusk, I am ready to fufill any duties required of me, please state a request," Selena spoke her boot up phrase, after which in could request an one of 4 modes to use, maintain, normal, defend, or system check, maintain was a maintenance protocol in which she would make repairs, defend made her act like a guard, system check made her run a diagnostic on herself, and normal activated her personality and she would act like a relatively normal mare. "Normal mode," I spoke to the machine and it got up out of its container and walked up to me "Hello Commander!" she spoke in a happy tone and waved a bit. I got a better look at her, she was well proportioned and her coat was a similar color to that of Luna after she returned from the moon, her hair was a slightly shiny indigo her hair went just past her shoulder blades, had cutie Mark was supposedly an image of the ship and she wore a skin tight jumpsuit, on her back I saw sockets for her wings and on her forehead was a horn, it was longer than that of most unicorns and had little patches of metal and a small antenna sticking off of it. She was pretty well endowed, not so much to make things dificult but enough to make her lifelike, I forgot what she could actually do, but at least I had somepony to talk to. "Hello Selena, how are you," "Running at full efficiency," she said in her odd voice, it had a similar tone to Luna but she didn't use the old style of speaking. "Good, I'll call you if I need help with something," I didn't really know what to ask her to do so I would just let her do whatever until she had something to do. "I'll just stay here, I like watching the stars," I found it somewhat eerie that a machine had feelings but it was also pretty cool. "I need to fill out a quick report then I'm going to warp," "Okay, I'll keep an eye on the readouts," her mind was linked with the ship, she could control everything onboard, I was pretty glad she had an emergency off switch. "30 minutes later I'd finished the report and sent it off. "Alright strap yourself in, I'm activating the drive once it's charged enough which is about uhh now?" all of the displays went dead, only the analog instruments still did anything. "I'm detecting a malfunction in the main computer core, let me rectify it, done!" " okay lets get underway then, it also looks like we found this mission's glitch," Less than an hour later it happened again, triggering an emergency stop. "Uhh it happened again, anything you can see that's causing it?" " I can't detect why, it's just happening, it feels like I'm being probed by something, but I can't tell what," "Can you pull up security camera feeds? I want to make sure we don't have a hitchhiker," "Here you go," her horn lit up and a flat hologram appeared in front of her face, it had one of the many security cameras open, this one was in the processor room of the main computer. "Cycle through them....No....no ....no.....no.....no......wait, hold on, what's that?" I pointed to a bluish blob on the screen,"zoom in on it......is it moving?" " yes it is, very peculiar, I've taken several pictures at various zoom levels, I am also recording video" I looked at the blobby shape on screen, it was attached to the underside of the ship near the scanner array, I ran a sensor pulse, then I saw the object detach and fly away from the ship at alarming speed. "The fuck was it? Is my question, but I suppose we've answered the question: are we alone, the answer is a resounding no." "We may never know, but we might be under surveillance, I will work on analysing the data and sending it home," "Good idea, I'm gonna go check the hull, little bastard better not have done anything shifty," I walked to the back of the bridge and went down to the bottom of the ship, and entered the vehicle bay. In the bay there was a small planetary shuttle, it looked like a futuristic fighter plane with stubby wings although it only had a tiny magic cannon as defense, there was another shuttle-ish thing, this one was a rover, it's back lower portion would do the flying and the upper part with the cabin was a streamlined and surprisingly fast rover, the utility ship was a bullet shaped ship with a retractable arm and only very small thrusters. I boarded the utility ship and launched it, a magic forcefield was used to ensure the hangar wouldn't depressurize, once the bay doors acordion folded off to the sides I gently eased out the ship and flew along the bottom to the massive sensor bar, I inspected the place where it supposedly was and found nothing, I felt extremely unnerved by this fact. Once I completed checking it several more times and still finding nothing, I went back inside with some minor paranoia. At around dinner time I made my way to the kitchen and used the food synthesizer to make a veggie sandwich, I also had MRE's but they were for emergencies, Selena was also there, once I'd gotten back in I'd noticed she seemed to stay relatively close by unless I told her to do something, currently she had her forearm removed and she was using magic to maintenance it. "Hey, Selena, ya think you could answer some questions for me?" "Yes you may," "Can you leave the ship or survive without the main computer?" "Yes but why do you ask?" " hypothetical but relevant information, I guess, and I was bored," "Can I ask you a question commander?" " Sure, ask away," " why did you sign up for this mission?" "Wanted to see space, and maybe find aliens, and because I thought it would be fun" "Thank you, I was never told why you picked this mission." "You're welcome, I need to go get the ship going again, I want to get to our first destination in a somewhat timely manner. Author's Note I know I'm bad at grammar, I'll fix it at some point, and the plot is gonna be slow for the first few chapters. Unidentified"What the fuck was it?" I couldn't help but ask myself over and over, the weird craft had been on my mind a lot for the last 2 days,I was beginning to become paranoid at minor things that were usual for the ship, on the first day I woouldnt flinch at a creak or random shudder, now? I was jittery and would almost always jump at the random noises, and when Selena walked around a corner and I didn't expect it? I jumped back and hit a bulkhead. I was currently about three quarters of the way to the nearest star of the starswirld cluster, it would only be a few more hours until I could stop and rest. I looked at the instrument panel and looked at the almost unwavering readouts, then I saw something shiny in the edge of my vision, but it flashed away before I could get a good look at it, I couldn't tell if it was my imagination but it still startled me. I watched the star loom closer off of the bow, I couldn't scan it until I dropped from warp so I didn't know what to expect other than one large planet and a blue star. 3 hours later i shut off the warp engine and activated the antimatter-uranium engine, it dropped the ship into a high orbit pretty quick, unlike the Dawn the Selena was constructed by a team of primarily pegasi and earth ponies, only a fifth of the workers were unicorns, and because of the lack of unicorns the ship didn't have to rely on magic as much, the Selena was mostly electronic or analog, only a few systems used magic, hence the non magic thrusters, In my opinion it was better because I didn't have to be a wizard to fly this thing. Once I'd confirmed a stable orbit I began a sensor sweep of the area, the computer did most of the cataloguing, since there was only one living crewmember and an android, most of the ship was at least partially automated, I got up and saw Selena right behind my chair, standing perfectly silent. "Woah,.... Don't sneak up on me like that, ya nearly scared me to death," "Noted, and continued life is detected, no need for defibrillation." "Uhh cool, aaaannnnyway were here at the star TS-11q3 how's the data collection going?" "No issues detected, all systems nominal" "You okay? Your personality thing doesn't seem to be working," "Gotcha! The calendar said that it was appropriate to play jokes," " Well it was convincing , especially because I'm becoming more and more paranoid after that thing on the hull, it just gives me a bad feeling when I think about why it was here." "My medical software states that you should rest, you're showing the symptoms of exhaustion and lack of sleep, if you cannot sleep there are medications in the medical bay, I will handle the ship for now," "Thanks Selena, just wake me at 4 ish, Twilight wanted to check in, see ya in a few hours..." maybe she was right and this was just a matter of lost sleep, I hadn't slept much in the past few days, hopefully this BS is all in my head. **** crew quarters 4:18 pm "Hello Commander, how's the mission coming along?" The purple princess sat there waiting for my response, "You've got the report, it's fine for the most part, the glitches for this mission were several instrument malfunctions after the UFO left." "Anything else you'd like to report?" "I've said what's needed to be said," I was wondering why she even bothered to ask, she could have gotten someone else to do it. "I'm going to swap you over to Princess Celestia, she was curious about the mission so I decided to let you tell her. may your voyage be successful, bye now," "Hello Commander Swift, I trust that the mission is going well?" "Hello Princess, I can't really show the proper respect cuz zero gee, sorry bout that," " No need my little pony, I simply wanted to check in, after all I helped fund your ship," "Anything you want to know? Other than what the report said preferably," "I wish to know what you are most missing about Equus, and what you're glad to leave behind," "Kinda odd, but alright. I guess what I miss most is normal food, out here I have to eat sticky or crumb free food to reduce the chance that crumbs will screw something up. I am happy to be off of Equus for a few reasons, it's really pretty out here, I'm making history every meter I go, and I don't have to deal with heat season....." "All valid points, although I expected you to say ponies for your first answer, why is that?" "Eh, always been kind of a loner, I have friends but it ain't a big deal whether I'm around ponies or not," "You have read the event calendar I've given you right? I'm just making double sure you'll be able to have that meeting with my school for gifted unicorns, and the scheduled calls with your family," "I wouldn't miss it if I could help it, I've gotta go now, 'need to start cataloging the planets in this system, see ya." it felt good to talk to Celestia that way, because she couldn't do shit to stop me. *** "All planets cataloged, No signs of advanced life, shall we move on?" "Sure, set sights on the next system on the list, L-23j I think, I'll take it from here," "Yes commander, I will be in engineering," she walked off of the bridge and closed the door. I set the course and activated the drive, I saw space outside bend then the ship took off deeper into the starswirld cluster. Author's Note It should get more exiting soon enough. Contact (story rewrite starts after this chapter)As the ship hurtled itself farther from home I looked out the windows of the bridge, the stars and bits of dust passing by faster than I could blink, it was serene and beautiful. I saw something flash behind me, it was far bigger than everything else, it flashed in and out of view before I could really see it, I dismissed it as my stupid brain's paranoia but then I heard the proximity alarm to off, I looked to my side and saw a massive spacecraft staring me down, it was indigo and silver and it was easily the size of a container ship I stared in awe as the ship's cameras drank in the somewhat terrifying image, it was very smooth and bulbous in construction, I saw all of the readout screens onboard flash to a picture of a strangely equine-ish face, it was a deep bluish like it's ship, it had crazy looking eyes and stared with cold determination at the screen, much like a judge to a criminal, then it spoke. "Attention unidentified vessel... You have trespassed in territory belonging to the Kioshin empire, this is your last warning, you have sixty of your seconds to reverse course, or you will be terminated." "Wait...WHAT THE FUCK!...oh shit shit shit shit shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt," I yelled to myself as I initiated an emergency shutdown of the SSWD and heard an alarm sound as well as an audio warning, " WARNING, EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED, DAMAGE IMMINENT, PLEASE CONFIRM" I pressed confirm, "CONFIRMED, PLEASE PREPARE FOR TURBULENCE, SHUTDOWN IN 5..... 4.... 3... 2.. 1. ENGINE SHUTDOWN. I felt the ship groan and shudder violently in protest as I held on for dear life. I saw the armored shielding flip down across the Windows as the ship finally dropped to sublight speeds and The computer display flashed red as it showed what went wrong. Then I looked to The screen still displying the alien somehow, it had a timer that just reached zero. Then The alien spoke again, this time with far more intensity. "You have failed to reverse course, firing comensing" the screen went black and I smacked the 'red alert' button as the ship's defenses activated, a magic shield engulfed the ship and it's very minimal weaponry deployed, before it could do anything a bright white beam slashed across the stern of my ship and more alarms started sounding off. I heard an explosion below me as the last of the shit hit the fan; the ship outside positioned itself above me. "Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!" I yelled as the massive ship flew above me and opened a door on its underside, I felt my mind go numb. As if someone flipped a switch I fought to stay concious, my vision tunneled and I blacked out. Author's Note The aliens in this chapter were borrowed with permission from Noravoracious on Deviantart, due to the nature of the content I cannot put a link because of the site rules. After this point the story is being rewritten, so expect anything after this to be completely different.
DepartureI felt a shudder up my spine as I boarded the capsule of the massive rocket before me, I practiced the breathing exercises I was taught one last time, I looked ahead at the sky and prepared for the jolt of the launch. I heard Mission control over the radio. "Canterlot to Tranquility 7 do you copy?" the comms crackled a bit as I heard the voice of none other than Princess Twilight Sparkle "Canterlot, this is Tranquility 7, I hear you loud and clear" I responded as per protocol, even though I felt like jumping out of my skin, I checked my suit mic and closed the visor. "60 seconds to launch, final checks complete," I tightened my seat harness and braced myself for the gee forces, I was more than exited to be going up to space again, I'd been retrained to pilot a new ship, the second successful interstellar ship, The E.S.S. Selena, I heard the comm in my helmet as they counted off the seconds. "50 seconds to launch, pad is clear, all systems nominal." I looked over my controls, the monitors displayed all of the ship's readouts, I pressed a button on one of the monitors causing it to swap to an external camera facing behind the craft. I looked at the grond for the last time before I would be separated from it for a whole 4 years. I looked at the cloudless blue sky again, well mostly cloudless, I turned and looked through the side window, in the distance I could see the crowds, mainly the massive cloud bleachers containing hundreds of lets, from my point of view they were a menagerie of colorful dots on a white blob. Even though there was less than a minute left, it felt like an eternity, I watched the clock on the instrument panel silently count off the seconds, it was agonising to watch the seconds crawl by. "40 seconds, hey Dusk, anything you want to say to the media before you go?" is earned the nickname Dusk because I was infamous for pulling all-nighters to look into space, going from dusk till dawn simply watching the starry blackness. The nickname immediately stuck and I've went my it ever since I was 12. "Well, I'm gonna miss Equus, but I'll be sure to send ya a postcard from the starswirled cluster!" I knew it was cheesy but the media oughtta like it. I checked all of my suit's seals and all of my life support tubing and waited. "30 seconds, walkway retracting, all systems are still nominal" I started to feel nervous, as anyone probably would, after all sitting on top of a huge pillar of explosive fuel was not a very comforting thought, I looked over all of my gauges once again and tried to calm myself down a little bit. "20 seconds, all systems go for launch, still alright in there?" "Everything's a-ok in here, now let's light this candle!" "15.... 14.... 13.... 12.... 11.... 10.... 9..... 8.... 7.....6..... 5....4 .....3, main engine start...2, booster ignition.....1,liftoff! we have liftoff of the Tranquility 7 spacecraft, ferrying the Cerberus utility craft and one brave astronaut, to the E.S.S Selena, which will begin her 4 year journey to seek out other life in our galaxy," I felt rocket lurch as it's engines fired, then the 3 SRB's attached to the lower stage, the clamps released and I was pushed hard into the seat, I watched the altitude climb. The assent program kicked in and the rocket rolled over to begin it's gravity turn, the nav-ball rotated and held steady on the 30 degree mark heading east. I felt the SRB's eject, I checked the rear camera to make sure, I saw the 3 massive pillars flying off behind me as I shot forward into the inky blackness above, the sky turned from bright blue to indigo to black, then I felt the stages separate, I was jerked forward into the harness, then slammed back against the seat as the last stage of the massive sapphire launch booster ignited. I watched the speed climb and the angle flatten out as the rocket made it's way out of the atmosphere, I looked at the trajectory computer readout as the engine cut off, the apogee was on target and I would reach it and simultaneously perform a circularization burn in about 90 minutes, I relaxed and caught my breath again, no one could get used to a rocket launch. Looking out the window, I saw the planet below, the cities were invisible from here, I could only see mountains and green, but yet I felt as if I was home, I'd been to space before, but never alone with my thoughts, I could just sit and watch the world spin past below. I heard the beep of the 5 minute warning to execute a maneuver, at this point it was still automated, but I still had to check in to notify everyone of this honestly boring event. I pressed the radio button. "Tranquility 7 to Canterlot, do you copy?" "This is Canterlot, we copy" "Circularization burn in 4 minutes 45 seconds," "Acknowledged, all systems remain nominal," I watched the straps and hoses in the cabin float in the low gravity, it was mildly fascinating to observe them gently swaying. When the clock got to 20 seconds it beeped again and I called mission control again. "Tranquility 7 to Canterlot," "This is Canterlot, you are confirmed for circularization burn," "Burn comencing in T minus 15 seconds, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, burn confirmed, burn ceasing in T minus five, four, three, two, one, engine cut, trajectory stable, and am I glad that's over," "Confirmed, orbit stable, final stage ejection in 10 seconds," I checked cabin pressure, it read normal, I opened my visor, I heard a slight hissing as the pressure equalized, I felt the ship jerk as the last of the assent rocket ejected, I saw the faring covering the aft section eject as well, the trapezoidal pieces of metal spinning off into space, I looked at the rear camera, the engine I just ejected spin itself around to retrograde and shot off into the distance. I pressed a small button on my chair's armrest causing it to gently rotate aft, I looked around the tiny space, only a few cubic meters, I unlatched my 5 point harness and floated out of the seat, and began the awkward process of removing my orange space suit, once I had removed the bulky thing I streched out my wings, i could only extend one at a time in the tiny pod but it would do until I got to the low orbit research station where the Selena was docked. I looked myself over, my coat was a bit matted from the suit, other than that, I looked fine, no cuts or chafing, I looked at my tail, it was still there, although far shorter than it had been a few hours ago, I felt my face, I couldn't feel any liquid from my nose, my short sort of grayish beard was still present, all in all I was still here. I flipped myself around, got back in my chair, and swapped control to manual. In the distance I could see the station's massive solar panels glinting in the sunlight, I swapped my instrument panels to docking and swung the craft around so my stern was to the station, once in range I fired the thrusters and equalized speed with the station. I used the maneuvering jets to nudge myself to look at the magnificence of the ESS Selena, it was huge, 100 meters long, and equipped with a prototype Sparkle Space Warping Drive, I flew myself under the ship and aligned myself with the docking boom that was extended from the bottom of the ship, I carefully aligned myself and heard a metallic clunk as the ships docked, As the craft was brought in I could sit back and relax, another successful docking procedure. "Argus Station to Commnder Silent Swift, Welcome aboard," "Thanks guys, oh and call me Dusk, I'll be at the airlock in a couple minutes" I replied into the mic on my blue jumpsuit, I unhooked myself and floated to the hatch on the little craft, I gave the lever on the door a firm pull and I heard the deadbolts retract, I tugged the hatch open and pushed myself into the tube above me. I followed it up until I got to a hallway leading towards the front of the ship, I floated myself forward until I got to the docking port connecting the Selena to the Argus Station. I heard a clunk rattle through the door, I opened my side and saw the current Argus crew all waiting in the entry way. "Commander Silent Swift requesting permission to come aboard." I waited for their response. "Welcome aboard Argus Station, I'm Commander Starry Night, those are lieutennants Windy Plains, and Sasha Peaks. She pointed with her teal hand to the green stallion and the griffin respectively. I looked about the tiny station, the majority of its bulk was Scientific equipment and scanners. The Argus had no magically generated gravity, unlike the other bigger stations, and it only required a crew of 3 to operate. "Thank you," I shook hands with everyone as I entered, I was one of about 3 pegasi that were astronauts, most of them would turn away after hearing about the lack of wingroom, I looked myself over again, my grayish blue coat and gray hands were covered in little beads of sweat, I wiped it off and everyone made their way to the kitchen. "So the first pegasus to fly a warp ship, how'd he score that?" starry said, seemingly impressed. " I can stay sane alone longer than the other astronauts who applied" I said at her with a completely serious face. "Really? No it's gotta be something else, come on the truth," she said obviously not impressed. "I'm serious, the tiebreaker was the solitary confinement test, I stayed rational longer, it's really is that simple" in said with a shrug. "Why are you flying that thing solo?" I heard Windy pipe up from across the small room. "Its an experiment mostly but it also allows me to travel for longer without need for resupply, the Selena is just a bit smaller than the ESS Dawn, but it has enough space for 4 crew, so when fitted for 1 it has plenty more space for supplies." I stated with a bit of a know it all attitude. "Where are you going, I read the news post but I wanna know what the real purpose is..." Sasha looked at me with a scrutinizing gaze. "I was given a list of systems to visit and study, but I've got nothing concrete as to what's there" I was handed a bag of chili and a plastic spoon, "Thanks. Enough about my shit, what are you all doing?" I said with some hope that I wouldn't have to answer more of the same dumb questions I'd been getting over the last 2 months. "Well... Princess Twilight is keeping us buisy with stuff to do up here, you probably know the feeling...." the commander said with a face of boredom "I know, she's relentless, ya screw up, do it again, ya write your report the wrong way or misspell anything, the same shit, and don't get me started on her schedules, I'm just glad I'll only have to deal with her bullshit once a week," I said with a knowing look to the room. " she's probably butthurt she can't be here, so she takes it out on us," Windy finished then returned to his food packet. "Ya got that right," I finished my chili and went to go grab my luggage, it was mostly personal stuff, It was sent up with the last supply run from the ground. "Well, it was nice meeting ya, and I'd love to stay for awhile, but unfortunately I've gotta go. I'm scheduled to undock in 10 minutes, so I'll see ya later....hopefully," I waved and pushed my bag towards the exit, I followed it along and gave it another nudge through the airlock, I floated in and closed the door on my side, I waved through the tiny window and made my way to the bridge. Author's Note New Story, hope ya like, Live long and prosper.
The E.S.S. SelenaAs I made my way to the bridge I looked back on Equus far below, I would miss it, but not that much. I looked ahead of me again and noticed the warning sign that meant I'd be entering a portion of the ship with magic gravity, I adjusted my stance and walked past the gravity gradient. The ship was only partially outfitted with gravity plating to save power and to reduce cost, the gradient zones were only low gravity to allow one to walk between the zero gee and 1 gee zones without being violently slammed into the floor. I walked into the bridge proper, it sat on top of the ship and offset to the left, just behind me were 2 of the 3 SSWD nacelles, the third was on the bottom of the ship, each was about one third of the ship's length, to my right was the massive antenna cluster, ahead was the majority of the ship's livable space and aft was the fuel and main thrusters, all of it in could see out of the massive panoramic window of the bridge. I sat down in the pilot's seat and ran through the startup procedure; I activated the main magic fusion reactor and waited for it to spool up, watched the readout of the reactor until it displayed ready, retracted the solar panels that provided standby power and turned the rest of the ship's systems on, I heard whirring, clicking, and the sound of magic charging as the ship came to life with lights and sounds. I checked everything over, it all seemed normal so I started the undocking procedure. On the news feed they were transmitting to me I could see the ship from a station camera as I pulsed the RCS to move away from the station, on the news I saw none other than Princess Luna standing on a podium giving a quick speech about how the ship was revolutionary, among other things, and a video feed of the ship, the crowd was smaller than the official launch of the Dawn, but it was still pretty large, I watched Luna do her thing for a couple seconds before I saw that the ship had gotten to a safe distance, I muted the news broadcast and activated the 3 plasma engines on the aft of the ship, i looked aft just in time to see the bright red glow of the engines running, I deployed the radiators soon after, they swung open and started to glow a deep red, I gave the ship more throttle and I saw the station move away as I accelerated. Once I was clear of the station I throttled back and left the seat so I could get settled into the ship, I only had 4 hours to get used to the ship and get settled in before I would have to depart, from then on I would he free, due to the constraints on law enforcement, I was given the opportunity to govern myself in terms of how I do things, the only caveat was that I still had a mission to fufill. I walked to the back of the bridge toward a small door, behind it was the ship's android, it would as a helper and companion to me on my voyage, the Dawn had one made to look like Celestia installed a few weeks ago, the Selena had one that resembled Luna, each Android was an amalgam of golem magic and technology, it produced a suprisingly lifelike result, so much so, that any outside observer would probably not recognise it as a machine at first glance, the android also had an artificial conciousness, it was magically created and given a personality after the pilot was chosen, this allowed them to make the android's personality compatible with my own to improve efficiency, it essentially was the heart and soul of the ship, It had been programmed to respond to the name Selena or Luna. I looked through the little window inset into the door, I saw an indigo face silently sleeping behind it, I would activate it once I was under way. I walked back into the zero gee zone and went down to the main portion of the ship via minimallistic elevator, aka a plate to put one hoof on and a handle to hold, once at the bottom I looked for my room, once I found it at the end of the hall I entered and strapped my sleeping bag to the wall, the room had gravity plating but it wasn't on, I left my room again and flapped down the hall toward the kitchen, Using wings in spacewas more or less like swimming. I got to the kitchen and grabbed a granola bar for later, I shoved off back down the hall to the lab med bay combo. Once there I oriented to the gravity and looked over all of the supplies, everything seemed to be fine, I went into the med bay and checked one last time, after I'd satisfied myself with the visual inspection I went back to my room for a quick video chat with a school in Ponyville, then I'd be off into the vast inky darkness ahead. I swung around the door frame and floated myself in front of a computer velcroed to the desk, I opened the program and waited for the connection to patch in. "Hello down there!" I said with a cheesy grin as I saw the class appear on the screen. "Hello Commander, I am Miss Cheerilee and this is my class, we just wanted to ask you some questions and wish you a safe journey," "Ok, what questions can I answer for ya? Ask away," I immediately saw the entire class raise their hands. "Uhh, ok, umm yyou....the orange one with the pink hair, what's your name?" "I'm scootaloo, and I'd like to ask how fast your spaceship goes!, Is it faster than Rainbow Dash?" she jumped up and down while I thought it over. "Uhhm, I'm not sure how to explain how fast it is... , umm let me put it into perspective for you, if you shine a light at something it seems to instantly get illuminated, that's because light travels at some odd three hundred thousand kilometers per SECOND, so fast that we can't tell if it's instant or not, so now imagine the light and how fast it can go, my spaceship can go thousands of times faster by litterally bending the fabric of spacetime and riding it like a wave in an ocean, pretty crazy right?" "Woooooow," the class said in in unison as the hands went up again "Uhh you, the yellow one, you look like you're gonna have a heart attack?" "Whut's yer cutie mark?" she asked in her honestly adorable country accent. "Uhhh, kind of an odd question but I'll roll with it, Its a satellite-ish thing in space, here's a picture of it," I pointed to a patch on my jumpsuit and put it a bit closer to the camera." "Waauuuu," she sat down again and I called on the next one. "The brown and white one, what'cha askin?" "How do you become an astronaut?" simple enough. "Yep, kinda expected that, I ain't gonna sugar coat it and say that ya just have to believe in yourself to do it and bla bla bla, No, I busted my butt off, it ain't easy, and requires some blood sweat and tears, but I think it's worth it, so if ya want to do it then go for it, just don't say I didn't warn ya," "Thank you sir!" he had a thick trottingham accent that was pretty damn cute. "Anything else?, uhh you, white and pink" "How do you get by without anyone else?" "Well it's just a matter of accepting it I guess, Its also part of an experiment on extreme isolation." I looked at my watch, "Sorry but I've got to go, I need to get this thing on its way out there, anyway, see ya later!" "Goodbye Commander!" they all said it in unison as school fillies and Colts do. I shut off the laptop and headed to the bridge. I strapped in and activated the interstellar guidance systems and input the parameters for the trajectory and distance, the ship swung itself around and carefully aligned on some unseen line to the target, in this case the edge of the system. I pressed comms and stated my intentions, "This is the ESS Selena, I am departing, confirm?" "Selena this is Canterlot, you are clear, safe travels commander." "Copy, I'll see ya in a few years!" I pushed the drive arming button and pushed the throttle forward to one of the lower settings, I was the nacelles light up a bright swirling blue and white, the space around the ship distorted and I flashed to warp, the images of things outside the ship had little rainbow trails from the distorting light, I watched my home recede behind me as I barreled along at 10 Times the speed of light out of the solar system. Author's Note The first few chapters are done-ish, they will be posted soon enough.
Mission Glitch" That's one hour, so far so good I guess," i said to nobody as I watched the ship's clock, I began the deceleration process and waited for space outside to appear normal. Once the engines had stopped I would have to inspect the core and driver coils to ensure they were in optimal condition. I decided that I would also activate the onboard android once I was done, I unhooked my harness and began my little excursion to the drive section, it sat between the living area and main thrusters, it was rare that I would ever have to go there other than routine maintenance and inspections, once I got to the bulkhead door I donned a protective suit to make sure I wouldn't get killed by magic radiation, I opened the outer door and waited for the cycling sequence, I stepped into the reactor room once the inner door opened, in the center was the massive cylindrical reactor casing surrounded with many tubes and cables that interconnected it to the whole ship. I went to a control panel nearby and started a diagnostic sequence, and began the long and boring job of inspecting the driver coils, each nacell has 12 coils and each coil is very complex and requires much scrutiny to inspect, making the inspection of 36 coils a nightmare, I wa happy that I'd only have to do it once myself, the android could handle it once the initial report was filed. 3 hours later I dragged myself into the decontamination room/airlock to scrub myself of radiation, after the door latched I watched the magic beam wave over me rapidly as it neutralized any harmful substances, I removed the suit once it was done and walked back out of the ship's reactor room, I floated back to the bridge and was about to strap in when I remembered the android, I got back out of my chair and walked to the storage unit for the android. "Alright let's get you working," I pressed the activate button in the wall and watched he door unlock and fold away into the walls and floor. I saw the lifelike automaton's eyes light up a pale blue and heard the boot up noise, then it ran it's test program, all of the limbs actuated a bit and it spoke a test phrase, which was also manufacturer's information. "Archmagic android model B, Name: Selena, created on the 25th day of the autumn harvest, created by Canterlot magic design." Even its voice was very lifelike, albeit it did have a slight metallic twinge to it but it was far better than any robot or magic golem I'd ever seen. "Hello Commander Dusk, I am ready to fufill any duties required of me, please state a request," Selena spoke her boot up phrase, after which in could request an one of 4 modes to use, maintain, normal, defend, or system check, maintain was a maintenance protocol in which she would make repairs, defend made her act like a guard, system check made her run a diagnostic on herself, and normal activated her personality and she would act like a relatively normal mare. "Normal mode," I spoke to the machine and it got up out of its container and walked up to me "Hello Commander!" she spoke in a happy tone and waved a bit. I got a better look at her, she was well proportioned and her coat was a similar color to that of Luna after she returned from the moon, her hair was a slightly shiny indigo her hair went just past her shoulder blades, had cutie Mark was supposedly an image of the ship and she wore a skin tight jumpsuit, on her back I saw sockets for her wings and on her forehead was a horn, it was longer than that of most unicorns and had little patches of metal and a small antenna sticking off of it. She was pretty well endowed, not so much to make things dificult but enough to make her lifelike, I forgot what she could actually do, but at least I had somepony to talk to. "Hello Selena, how are you," "Running at full efficiency," she said in her odd voice, it had a similar tone to Luna but she didn't use the old style of speaking. "Good, I'll call you if I need help with something," I didn't really know what to ask her to do so I would just let her do whatever until she had something to do. "I'll just stay here, I like watching the stars," I found it somewhat eerie that a machine had feelings but it was also pretty cool. "I need to fill out a quick report then I'm going to warp," "Okay, I'll keep an eye on the readouts," her mind was linked with the ship, she could control everything onboard, I was pretty glad she had an emergency off switch. "30 minutes later I'd finished the report and sent it off. "Alright strap yourself in, I'm activating the drive once it's charged enough which is about uhh now?" all of the displays went dead, only the analog instruments still did anything. "I'm detecting a malfunction in the main computer core, let me rectify it, done!" " okay lets get underway then, it also looks like we found this mission's glitch," Less than an hour later it happened again, triggering an emergency stop. "Uhh it happened again, anything you can see that's causing it?" " I can't detect why, it's just happening, it feels like I'm being probed by something, but I can't tell what," "Can you pull up security camera feeds? I want to make sure we don't have a hitchhiker," "Here you go," her horn lit up and a flat hologram appeared in front of her face, it had one of the many security cameras open, this one was in the processor room of the main computer. "Cycle through them....No....no ....no.....no.....no......wait, hold on, what's that?" I pointed to a bluish blob on the screen,"zoom in on it......is it moving?" " yes it is, very peculiar, I've taken several pictures at various zoom levels, I am also recording video" I looked at the blobby shape on screen, it was attached to the underside of the ship near the scanner array, I ran a sensor pulse, then I saw the object detach and fly away from the ship at alarming speed. "The fuck was it? Is my question, but I suppose we've answered the question: are we alone, the answer is a resounding no." "We may never know, but we might be under surveillance, I will work on analysing the data and sending it home," "Good idea, I'm gonna go check the hull, little bastard better not have done anything shifty," I walked to the back of the bridge and went down to the bottom of the ship, and entered the vehicle bay. In the bay there was a small planetary shuttle, it looked like a futuristic fighter plane with stubby wings although it only had a tiny magic cannon as defense, there was another shuttle-ish thing, this one was a rover, it's back lower portion would do the flying and the upper part with the cabin was a streamlined and surprisingly fast rover, the utility ship was a bullet shaped ship with a retractable arm and only very small thrusters. I boarded the utility ship and launched it, a magic forcefield was used to ensure the hangar wouldn't depressurize, once the bay doors acordion folded off to the sides I gently eased out the ship and flew along the bottom to the massive sensor bar, I inspected the place where it supposedly was and found nothing, I felt extremely unnerved by this fact. Once I completed checking it several more times and still finding nothing, I went back inside with some minor paranoia. At around dinner time I made my way to the kitchen and used the food synthesizer to make a veggie sandwich, I also had MRE's but they were for emergencies, Selena was also there, once I'd gotten back in I'd noticed she seemed to stay relatively close by unless I told her to do something, currently she had her forearm removed and she was using magic to maintenance it. "Hey, Selena, ya think you could answer some questions for me?" "Yes you may," "Can you leave the ship or survive without the main computer?" "Yes but why do you ask?" " hypothetical but relevant information, I guess, and I was bored," "Can I ask you a question commander?" " Sure, ask away," " why did you sign up for this mission?" "Wanted to see space, and maybe find aliens, and because I thought it would be fun" "Thank you, I was never told why you picked this mission." "You're welcome, I need to go get the ship going again, I want to get to our first destination in a somewhat timely manner. Author's Note I know I'm bad at grammar, I'll fix it at some point, and the plot is gonna be slow for the first few chapters.
Unidentified"What the fuck was it?" I couldn't help but ask myself over and over, the weird craft had been on my mind a lot for the last 2 days,I was beginning to become paranoid at minor things that were usual for the ship, on the first day I woouldnt flinch at a creak or random shudder, now? I was jittery and would almost always jump at the random noises, and when Selena walked around a corner and I didn't expect it? I jumped back and hit a bulkhead. I was currently about three quarters of the way to the nearest star of the starswirld cluster, it would only be a few more hours until I could stop and rest. I looked at the instrument panel and looked at the almost unwavering readouts, then I saw something shiny in the edge of my vision, but it flashed away before I could get a good look at it, I couldn't tell if it was my imagination but it still startled me. I watched the star loom closer off of the bow, I couldn't scan it until I dropped from warp so I didn't know what to expect other than one large planet and a blue star. 3 hours later i shut off the warp engine and activated the antimatter-uranium engine, it dropped the ship into a high orbit pretty quick, unlike the Dawn the Selena was constructed by a team of primarily pegasi and earth ponies, only a fifth of the workers were unicorns, and because of the lack of unicorns the ship didn't have to rely on magic as much, the Selena was mostly electronic or analog, only a few systems used magic, hence the non magic thrusters, In my opinion it was better because I didn't have to be a wizard to fly this thing. Once I'd confirmed a stable orbit I began a sensor sweep of the area, the computer did most of the cataloguing, since there was only one living crewmember and an android, most of the ship was at least partially automated, I got up and saw Selena right behind my chair, standing perfectly silent. "Woah,.... Don't sneak up on me like that, ya nearly scared me to death," "Noted, and continued life is detected, no need for defibrillation." "Uhh cool, aaaannnnyway were here at the star TS-11q3 how's the data collection going?" "No issues detected, all systems nominal" "You okay? Your personality thing doesn't seem to be working," "Gotcha! The calendar said that it was appropriate to play jokes," " Well it was convincing , especially because I'm becoming more and more paranoid after that thing on the hull, it just gives me a bad feeling when I think about why it was here." "My medical software states that you should rest, you're showing the symptoms of exhaustion and lack of sleep, if you cannot sleep there are medications in the medical bay, I will handle the ship for now," "Thanks Selena, just wake me at 4 ish, Twilight wanted to check in, see ya in a few hours..." maybe she was right and this was just a matter of lost sleep, I hadn't slept much in the past few days, hopefully this BS is all in my head. **** crew quarters 4:18 pm "Hello Commander, how's the mission coming along?" The purple princess sat there waiting for my response, "You've got the report, it's fine for the most part, the glitches for this mission were several instrument malfunctions after the UFO left." "Anything else you'd like to report?" "I've said what's needed to be said," I was wondering why she even bothered to ask, she could have gotten someone else to do it. "I'm going to swap you over to Princess Celestia, she was curious about the mission so I decided to let you tell her. may your voyage be successful, bye now," "Hello Commander Swift, I trust that the mission is going well?" "Hello Princess, I can't really show the proper respect cuz zero gee, sorry bout that," " No need my little pony, I simply wanted to check in, after all I helped fund your ship," "Anything you want to know? Other than what the report said preferably," "I wish to know what you are most missing about Equus, and what you're glad to leave behind," "Kinda odd, but alright. I guess what I miss most is normal food, out here I have to eat sticky or crumb free food to reduce the chance that crumbs will screw something up. I am happy to be off of Equus for a few reasons, it's really pretty out here, I'm making history every meter I go, and I don't have to deal with heat season....." "All valid points, although I expected you to say ponies for your first answer, why is that?" "Eh, always been kind of a loner, I have friends but it ain't a big deal whether I'm around ponies or not," "You have read the event calendar I've given you right? I'm just making double sure you'll be able to have that meeting with my school for gifted unicorns, and the scheduled calls with your family," "I wouldn't miss it if I could help it, I've gotta go now, 'need to start cataloging the planets in this system, see ya." it felt good to talk to Celestia that way, because she couldn't do shit to stop me. *** "All planets cataloged, No signs of advanced life, shall we move on?" "Sure, set sights on the next system on the list, L-23j I think, I'll take it from here," "Yes commander, I will be in engineering," she walked off of the bridge and closed the door. I set the course and activated the drive, I saw space outside bend then the ship took off deeper into the starswirld cluster. Author's Note It should get more exiting soon enough.
Contact (story rewrite starts after this chapter)As the ship hurtled itself farther from home I looked out the windows of the bridge, the stars and bits of dust passing by faster than I could blink, it was serene and beautiful. I saw something flash behind me, it was far bigger than everything else, it flashed in and out of view before I could really see it, I dismissed it as my stupid brain's paranoia but then I heard the proximity alarm to off, I looked to my side and saw a massive spacecraft staring me down, it was indigo and silver and it was easily the size of a container ship I stared in awe as the ship's cameras drank in the somewhat terrifying image, it was very smooth and bulbous in construction, I saw all of the readout screens onboard flash to a picture of a strangely equine-ish face, it was a deep bluish like it's ship, it had crazy looking eyes and stared with cold determination at the screen, much like a judge to a criminal, then it spoke. "Attention unidentified vessel... You have trespassed in territory belonging to the Kioshin empire, this is your last warning, you have sixty of your seconds to reverse course, or you will be terminated." "Wait...WHAT THE FUCK!...oh shit shit shit shit shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttt," I yelled to myself as I initiated an emergency shutdown of the SSWD and heard an alarm sound as well as an audio warning, " WARNING, EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN INITIATED, DAMAGE IMMINENT, PLEASE CONFIRM" I pressed confirm, "CONFIRMED, PLEASE PREPARE FOR TURBULENCE, SHUTDOWN IN 5..... 4.... 3... 2.. 1. ENGINE SHUTDOWN. I felt the ship groan and shudder violently in protest as I held on for dear life. I saw the armored shielding flip down across the Windows as the ship finally dropped to sublight speeds and The computer display flashed red as it showed what went wrong. Then I looked to The screen still displying the alien somehow, it had a timer that just reached zero. Then The alien spoke again, this time with far more intensity. "You have failed to reverse course, firing comensing" the screen went black and I smacked the 'red alert' button as the ship's defenses activated, a magic shield engulfed the ship and it's very minimal weaponry deployed, before it could do anything a bright white beam slashed across the stern of my ship and more alarms started sounding off. I heard an explosion below me as the last of the shit hit the fan; the ship outside positioned itself above me. "Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!" I yelled as the massive ship flew above me and opened a door on its underside, I felt my mind go numb. As if someone flipped a switch I fought to stay concious, my vision tunneled and I blacked out. Author's Note The aliens in this chapter were borrowed with permission from Noravoracious on Deviantart, due to the nature of the content I cannot put a link because of the site rules. After this point the story is being rewritten, so expect anything after this to be completely different.
