HMS Endeavor, Mission Clock at 0:10
Archer

Outside the view screens, the changing colors had long given way to massive orbs of various colors. Even the dots only resembled stars… They were other kinds of massive glowing orbs. “What are those things?” I wondered aloud as I ran my gloved fingers along my helmet.

The holotank flashed, and Grey’s own spherical avatar appeared. “Those are other universes, Archer,” the AI replied. “In fact, we are presently on a direct course to what Amore’s map has marked as Dusk’s location, and should be there moment-” Grey stopped. “We have a problem.”

“What sort of problem?” Amore asked from her seat at the helm next to Blueblood.

Greyscale’s avatar disappeared and was replaced by a chart with a red curve. “I’ve been running calculations based off of the drive system’s performance, and I’ve discovered that the drive is still active and is building up energy.”

I studied the chart for a moment before I cocked an eyebrow. “Then what’s the problem? It looks like the energy level will taper off.”

“The problem is this”, Grey said as a blue dot started blinking towards the bottom of the curve. “That point is the critical mass for the slipspace drive. If we reach that -”

“Then the drive will explode”, Amore said, cutting off the AI.

The graph disappeared and was replaced by Grey’s sphere. “Indeed. We must jump out of the void and to our destination now. Otherwise this mission is doomed to failure.”

“How long do you need?” Blueblood asked as he turned around.

“Stand by…” Grey replied. “Jumping in three… Two…”

“Warning, collision imminent!” An automated alarm exclaimed, just before the deck shook violently.

Outside the view screens, light flashed bright white before dying down. Off in the distance was an honest to goodness star. “Helm is dead and it looks like we’re drifting…” Blueblood pointed out. “Did we really just hit something?”

Amore started pouring over status reports coming in from automated systems across Endeavor. “I don’t know… I don’t see any signs of damage.”

“But we’re not at our destination”, Grey said. “According to the navigation system, we’re on the outskirts of a star system and destination is in the inner rim. Hmm… I wonder…”

“Wonder what?” I asked.

“That’s it!” Greyscale exclaimed. “We dragged something along with us in the transit!”

“Then what tagged along?” Amore asked.

As I turned to look out the front viewscreen, something blocked out light coming from the distant star. “Is that it?” I asked, pointing at the object.

Both Amore and Blueblood turned to look at what I was pointing at, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say that Blueblood’s jaw came unhinged. “Is that another ship?” Amore wondered aloud.

“As a matter of fact it is”, Grey replied, his avatar being replaced by a translucent image of the other vessel. It was a long, slender shape reminiscent of a spear that widened as the distance from the tip grew. At the end, the ship spread out into a pair of inverted ‘wings’, with a large pyramid-like superstructure growing upwards from the rest of the craft. “It comes in at 747 meters long, 518 meters at its widest point… And, well, it certainly looks rather rough. There are a number of compartments that appear to have lost pressure, and I’m seeing a few different hull breaches. Certainly, it’s a smaller ship, but its power reserves greatly outstrip our own reactors… I wonder how it got into the void?”

“Well, it obviously got out of a universe somehow”, Amore observed. “Greyscale, just how old is that ship?”

“Unknown”, The AI replied. “Although the inhabitants might have some answers…”

“Inhabitants? There’s life on that ship?” I exclaimed.

The visual representation of the ship shrunk to make room for Grey’s avatar. “Indeed. I’m reading a mass of human life signs consistent with those in cryogenic stasis.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s humans on that thing?” Blueblood said.

“It appears so.”

“Then just how are we going to get aboard that thing?” Blueblood asked. “From the sounds of it no one is awake to open the front door.”

“Like I said there are a few hull breaches…” It didn’t take much for me to realize where the AI was going with his thought. “Archer? Prepare for extra vehicular activity.”

***

Thunk!

“All right Grey, I’m in”, I said over the comms, having just dropped through a shielded hull breach in what I would call ‘the roof’.

“Copy that Archer. Keep us in the loop”, the AI said over the radio.

I started walking towards the marker that Grey had programmed into the compass on my helmet. After a few moments, valanced lights in the walls started lighting up, one after the other, until the entire corridor was fully lit. As I continued on, I noticed some vents emitting rapidly-dissipating fog. “Likely just condensation…” I muttered. After about five more minutes of walking through what seemed to be an endless hallway, I came across a door. A quick glance at the compass showed that the humans were likely on the other side. I looked off to my right and saw a panel with a yellow light on it that topped off an even larger button. I didn’t even think as I slapped the button, and was immediately rewarded by the whirring of gears before the door in front of me opened. Lining the walls of the room were a series of pods, and as I walked up to one I realized that I had found what I had come here for. “Grey, I’ve found some of the cryo pods. They’re still active from the looks of things.”

“Then see if you can deactivate one. Maybe we can get a better idea of what happened to their ship if we talk to one of them.”

I stepped up to one of the pods and looked down at the control panel, quickly realizing that we had a problem. “Grey, I can’t read any of this. If these symbols are supposed to be some sort of language, I don’t even know where to start. And what if these humans don’t speak Equish?”

“Well, then you’ll just have to make due. You’re essentially in a first contact scenario, assuming that you can open the pods, of course… Might I suggest the tried and true method of pressing buttons to see what happens?”

At least the AI wasn’t plugged into my suit, otherwise he’d tell that I rolled my eyes rather quickly. “Well, in that case…” I looked down at the panel, picked a random button, and pressed it. The pod immediately started making noise before the blue sheen that the pod cast over its occupant dissolved, and the hatch slid upward into the ceiling. “Looks like I got it on the first go.”

The human occupant, a younger man with greasy black hair, stirred to consciousness quickly and immediately realized that I was standing in front of him. “Oh shit”, he muttered.

While he was obviously scared to an extent, I felt a bit relieved. “Wow, you actually do speak Equish!”

The human’s fear immediately disappeared and was replaced with an expression I’d ascribe to confusion. “You can speak English?”

For a moment I didn’t know what the human was referring to, but once I thought back to Dusk’s story about the first encounter of the crew of the HMS Paris I realized what was going on. “Right… To be honest with you, I don’t think we’re the first two having a conversation like this, and I doubt we’ll be the last.”

“What?”

“You know what, hold on a second.” Like I’d done hundreds, if not thousands, of times before, I reached up and slid my helmet off. Judging by the human’s look changing to that of shock, I could safely say that he wasn’t expecting a face quite like mine.

“You’re a… You’re a horse?” He asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Pony is more like it, but I can see why you would think so”, I said as I stepped out of the human’s way. “Now do you want to stretch your legs a bit or not?”

I didn’t even have to ask, as the human rocketed away from his pod and stopped at a console next to the door. “You just let me out, right?”

I nodded. “Honestly I just hit a random button on the pod and it shut down.”

“Well that’s a problem…” He muttered as he tapped away at the console. “The release should’ve kicked in by now.”

“What release?” I asked.

“There was a program set in the computer to deactivate all of the pods after three years”, The human explained. “But I can’t even find a trace of it. It’s almost like it was deleted.”

I shrugged as if on reflex. “Well, I don’t know how anything on this tub works, and the only other thing I touched was the door panel out in the hall. And that’s discounting the fact that I can’t read your language.”

“Well, it isn’t our language”, The human replied. “It’s Ancient… Literally, that’s our translation for what they were called. I don’t even have a full grasp of it, just enough to know how to find or work stuff.”

“Sounds like an interesting problem.”

The human nodded, pressed one of the keys next to the display, and the other pods in the room started making noise before they shut down. “It can be… But I think you’ll have to talk to more than just me at this point.”

***

Twenty Minutes Later…

It took five minutes for the humans to get themselves situated, and another five for this ‘Eli’ character to lead me to the bridge. Once we were there some armed soldiers arrived with the group’s leader, Colonel Young, who demanded to know who I was and what I was doing on his ship. Admittedly, I was a bit shocked at first, but after Eli said that the past few encounters with aliens didn’t go so well, I couldn’t rightly blame any of these people. So in the span of ten minutes, I told Young and those on the bridge who I was, why the large ship outside was there, and what we were up to. I even explained how we dragged their ship along with us when we jumped from the void into the universe proper. At first no one wanted to believe what I had said, but when a scientist named Rush pulled up the ship’s sensor logs and saw that there was a massive amount of data, including a point from where the ship passed through the barrier that separated the universe from the void, what I had said became accepted as truth.

“So do we know where we are?” Young finally asked.

“The best I can tell you is that we’re at edge of the star system where our map took us”, I said. “I know that we’re headed for a planet in the inner rim, and we’re on the outskirts of the system.”

“Well, I believe I can help answer that question”, Grey’s voice said over the speakers embedded in my armor. “Based off of my readings, I can say two things with the utmost certainty. First I can say that this is the universe that this ‘Destiny’ originated in, I just don’t know how long they were drifting in the void for. Second, we are in the Sol system.”

“And who was that?” Young asked.

“My name is Greyscale. I’m the AI aboard the Endeavor.”

“So you said that we’re in the Sol System…” Young muttered.

“But that means we’re home”, Eli pointed out. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No-one said that it was a bad thing, Eli”, Rush replied. “But we don’t know how long we were actually gone… And so far, I can’t seem to find any timestamps in Destiny’s systems. There’s entries, sure, but no discernable dates to go with them. It’s almost as if Destiny wasn’t tracking time.”

“The systems aboard your vessel may not have been able to”, Grey stated. “From our brief transit, my own data seem to indicate that time and the laws of physics don’t fully apply in the void, and when they do seem to take effect, they aren’t consistent.”

“Then it’s likely a characteristic of the environment”, Rush admitted as he went back to his console. “Is it just me or does it look like there’s some sort of subspace interference?”

Eli punched a few of the keys and nodded. “It almost looks like a jamming signal.”

“Destiny, this is Amore on the Endeavor. We’re seeing it over here too. Give us a moment and we’ll see about cutting through… Oh no.”

“What’s the ‘oh no’ for?” I asked.

“Stand by Destiny, I’m linking a transmission into Endeavor’s comms.”

The speakers went silent for a moment before they screeched to life again. “I repeat. Daedalus and Hammond, if you can hear this, return to Earth immediately. We’re under attack!”

“Those are ships, aren’t they?” I asked.

Young nodded. “Two of our cruisers. But if they aren’t receiving a message, they’ll likely keep doing what they’re doing unless they realize that something is wrong.”

“Then we need to get in there”, Rush stated. “If Earth is under attack and the orders aren’t getting out, then we’re the only ship capable of responding.”

“How long will take us to get there?” Young asked.

Rush shrugged and tapped away at his console. “At sublight… We’re looking at an eight hour trip. FTL is out the question unless we want one of the drive cores to blow.”

“Destiny, we might have a solution”, Amore said over the radio as a slipspace portal opened in front of the ship.

“That’s a hyperspace window…” Young muttered. “Rush, can we do it?”

“I don’t see why not”, The scientist replied.

“Then make it happen”, Young ordered as he hit a button on the arm of his chair. “This is Colonel Young to all personnel… Prepare for battle.”

***

Earth, The Pentagon
Dusk

“Walter, do you have anything yet?” O’Neill yelled over the dull roar that occupied the control room.

“Still nothing on subspace”, The bald man replied. “Sir, the Lucian Alliance must be jamming us. It’s the only other thing that makes sense.”

O’Neill shook his head in disbelief. “Then keep trying!” He stepped away from his spot in front of a row of monitors. “What do we have on that Ha’tak over New York Harbor?”

“It still isn’t firing, but those gliders are keeping the airports locked down”, One of the female technicians replied.

“What about orbital sensors, are those still down?” O’Neill asked.

“From the looks of it, they are”, Walter called out from his station.

I finally walked over to where O’Neill had been standing and stared at a screen labeled ‘New York’. It was a radar scan of the city, with the large Ha’tak floating over the harbor blinking red. But as soon as I blinked it disappeared. “General, I think that your radar broke. The ship over New York isn’t there anymore.”

“What?” O’Neill said as he turned to the monitor. “That can’t be right. Walter, what’s wrong with my monitor?”

The bald human typed in some commands to his computer and shrugged. “Uh… Nothing sir. I’m not seeing it here either.”

“Could they be jamming the radar?” I asked.

“If they were we wouldn’t see anything up there.” Walter replied before pressing something on his earpiece. “General, NYPD is reporting that the ‘alien ship’ has been shot down.”

“By what?” O’Neill exclaimed. “We don’t even-”

“This is Colonel Young calling Homeworld Command. Can anyone hear me?”

I looked over at the General, who now looked incredibly perplexed at the sudden burst from the speakers. “Walter…” He groaned.

“Homeworld Command, this is the Destiny. Please respond.”

“It’s definitely real, sir, and it’s coming on Ancient subspace frequencies.”

O’Neil’s facial expression took a one-eighty at what felt like the speed of light. No longer did he look worried, but he actually looked like a child opening a present on Hearth’s Warming Eve. “Son of a bitch… Walter, put him on the screen.”

Before me on the monitors, the image changed, replacing the radar with the video feed of an older, somewhat ragged looking man. “General O’Neil, glad to see you’re still there.”

“And you’re not on the other side of the universe anymore, Young.” O’Neil replied. “You know, a phone call wouldn’t have hurt.”

“Sorry about that, General. We didn’t exactly have the time.”

O’Neill nodded. “So then, I take it that we can thank you for the assistance in New York?”

This ‘Young’ shook his head. “It wasn’t us sir. We come with some new friends.”

He stepped out of the way and I thought that my eyes would bulge right out of my head. Standing behind Young was a pony in black and yellow power armor, specifically the spare set that Osman had brought before Kovac’s attack on Canterlot. But the mare wasn’t wearing a helmet, and her brown hair had been let down from it’s usual ponytail. “Archer?”

“I guess Amore wasn’t totally crazy after all… Glad to see you’re still alive Dusk.”

“So you did get the augmentations…” I muttered. “Did you at least get the training I asked Osman to set up?”

Archer nodded. “Spent three months with Fireteam Osiris and I’ve kept myself sharp working with Dad in the two months since I came home.”

“General, I’ve got orbital sensors back.” Walter called out. “I’ve got one Ancient starship… And an even larger one of unknown classification.”

The video feed shrunk, and a scan of a large cruiser was placed on it. “That’s a Halcyon”, I said. “It’s a light cruiser that the humans back home designed.”

“If that’s a light cruiser, I’d love to see your definition of a battleship”, O’Neill muttered.

The image of the cruiser disappeared, and was replaced with another video feed, this one from the bridge of the same ship that showed a pink unicorn standing there. “Amore… I take it that if Destiny didn’t do anything, your MAC must be in working order?”

The former princess nodded. “You can thank us later. The four other sensor contacts over the ocean east of New York appear to have jumped to slipspace.”

“So then they’ll be back…” O’Neil stated.

“I don’t know for certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised-”

Suddenly the feed from both ships in orbit cut out, and the screen returned to the radar readout of New York. “Walter, what just happened?”

As all eyes turned to the bald man, the best he could do was shrug. “Honestly, sir? I’ve got no idea.”

Author's Note

Hey, will you look at that? The crew found Dusk! WOO! And next up is some space battles! There's still a lot of writing that's been done already (in honesty I'm already in the fifteenth chapter), but I want someone to look them over before I hit the publish button.

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-Striker