To the Stars, and Beyond

Chapter Five

Record woke up to water from the river being splashed on his face.

“Huh? Where am I” he asked.

A concerned yet calm voice that he did not recognize came from behind him. It was a soothing, almost motherly tone that seemed to flow like silk, and made him feel like everything was going to be okay. “Please do not scare me like that again, Record.” This was followed by a small gasp and a small flash from the voices owner.

“W-who’s that?” he turned to look back at the source of the voice, only to find Lunar looking at him in a quite flustered way.

“You know who this is, you’re next to the river we passed earlier, and it’s been about 10 minutes since you scared the livin’ daylights outta me. It wasn’t fun dragging your fat carcass over here, let me tell ya.”

“Was there someone else here? I heard another voice, I think.” This seemed to catch Lunar off guard a small bit as her pupils dilated a small bit.

“No, you must still be in shock, it’s just me here.” she said with a small forced smile.

“Huh, I coulda’ sworn, wait, did you call me fat?!”

She smirked and said, “We should be getting back soon. The shuttles don’t go forever.”

Record glared at her for a moment before he got to his hooves and suddenly remembered the reason why he passed out in the first place.

“Do you still have… it?” he asked hesitantly

“No, but you do.” she said, confusing him before there was a sudden weight upon his head that he did not feel before.
He grabbed the object with his magic, and brought it into his vision, confirming that he had indeed worn the Crown of
Celestia for a few moments. It almost felt like a sin, wearing the crown of the former ruler of this land. It made him feel uneasy.

“Yeah, we should go. But wait, shouldn’t we bring this to someone, you know, immediately?”

“Yeah, that’s why we’re going now, silly.” She said, ruffling his mane. He slipped the crown back into her saddlebags she had brought with and they started making their way to the entrance of the forest, arriving at the shuttleport shortly afterward. Making their way to their seats, Record started to feel nauseous, as if he had caught a fever.

Lunar noticed this, “Hey, you doing okay?

“Y-yeah, must’ve just caught something. Should be gone soon enough.”

“You should just get some rest, I’ll wake you when we get to the station.”

He gave her his thanks and proceeded to doze off.

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

It was a blizzard, his visibility of the area was severely limited. He looked around, and he could not see himself. But very faintly in the distance he could tell that he was surrounded by trees, a forest, like the one he had just been in. He called out, but all that replied to him was the wind in the willows. Breathing could be heard, breathing that was not his own. A tall figure, an alicorn, was approaching, running at full speed and looking behind itself, like it was being chased. It tripped in front of him, landing with a thud. It lifted it head, to reveal the face of the Princess of the Sun. Her magenta eyes seemed to look right at Record, as if searching for something she could not find. His vision was slowly clouded by the blizzard.

Vision returned to him some time later, this time with his body visible. An inky blackness surrounded him, with a deep purple sky above and the moon of Equiis shining down upon him. He took a hesitant step, The feeling of stepping on marble greeted his hoof, but when he looked down, small ripples appeared where he had stepped. When he looked back up, His pupils shrunk to the size of pinheads. There before him was the reigning monarch of the Imperial Family, Queen Luna. Record fell to a bow, but a gentle hoof under his chin brought him back to his hooves. She looked down at him with a warming smile and said, “What you have found, bring to me.” He nodded his compliance, before she giggled and dissipated before his eyes.

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

Record awoke and sat bolt upright scaring Lunar.

“Gah! You ok Record?”

He replied in what seemed to be a rehearsed, almost automated manner, “We need to go to Nova Equiis.”

“Wha- why!? Don’t you know thats the capital of the Empire?” She asked a little too loudly, earning a glare from some of the fellow passengers.

“We’ll discuss this later.” He stated.

She opened her mouth to protest but quickly shut it after a firm glare from Record that even he didn’t know he could produce. They rode out the rest of the shuttle ride in silence, with Lunar occasionally looking over at him, giving a glare or look of concern. Upon arriving back at The Orchard Record immediately set off on a brisk pace toward the hangar area where the ship was, with Lunar trying to keep up.

“Hey, wait up!” She called after him, making him slow his pace a small amount so she could talk to him. “Alright, now will you tell me why we have to Nova Equiis?”

“After I dozed off,” he began, “I started having visions, Queen Luna came to me, and asked me to bring the tiara to her. Sounds crazy, I know, but if you’ve heard stories about her, then you’d know that she can enter the dreams of anypony at will.”

“Yes, I am aware she can walk the dreamscape but-” she was cut off by a beeping noise coming from inside her bomber coat. She took out a small device with a monitor and speaker and pressed a button.

“Commander Lunar Sky speaking.” She said in a low flat tone

An familiar sounding mare’s voice came from the device. “Yes, uh, hello Commander. I trust you know who this is, yes?”

If Lunar’s eyes could have gotten any wider, they would have at that moment. “O-of course Prime Minister! To what do I owe the pleasure of this call, if I may ask?”

“I am calling you because I would like to seek an audience with you, i-if that’s alright with you, of course.” Record couldn’t believe what he was hearing. First the Prime Minister of the Federation personally called Lunar, second she seemed almost frightened when speaking with her!

“It would be an honor, Prime Minister Sparkle.”

“Perfect! It seems you are already in Sol, I will have a ship sent out to retrieve you shortly. Toodles.” She hung up before Lunar could reply.

“She makes house calls?” Record jokingly asked

“I wonder what she wants with me.” Lunar said softly to herself, still seemingly in shock.

“I couldn’t tell you. But you better get going, that ship won’t take long to arrive.”

“Wait, you’re not coming with me?”

“No ma’am, she asked specifically for you, not your lacky. I’ve got to keep making bits anyway, maybe when you’re done with that meeting I’ll have a bigger ship!”

“Y-yeah, where are we going to meet up next?”

“You have those Federation tracking skills, you’ll find me.”

“Right, well, I’ll catch you later Record.” She said almost solemnly, turning and walking away toward the flight bay of the station. After she took a few steps, Record carefully lit his horn and levitated the tiara out of her bag and trotted briskly over to the ship, making sure nopony got a good glimpse of him or the precious cargo he was carrying.

Record thought to himself that this was going to be a long journey, made even longer by the fact that he was once again, traveling on his own. Though he did not to dwell on it too much and made his way into the ship, covering the crown jewels with some spare blankets he had lying in the back, making sure it would not be damaged during transit. There came a noise from outside the station, a low tone that droned on for a few moments.

“That must be a capital ship, nothing else sounds like that in the galaxy.” he stated to himself. Excited that he got to see his first capital ship, he got into the pilot seat and quickly pressed the button to move the ship into the main flight area. Then it came into view, a dark moving mass was blocking the view out of the mailslot. It eventually slipped out of view around the right side of the station. Record powered on the engines and zoomed after it, keeping a safe distance away. The ship was MASSIVE! The battlecruiser spanned at least half of the station’s length and was as wide as the main flight area was. And then it dawned on him that this was no normal battlecruiser. This was the Prime Minister herselves personal one, the name Golden Oak written on either side of the top of the ship.

“Is Sparkle really getting Lunar in that thing?” Record wondered to himself. He decided not to linger any longer and set off to get away from the stations gravity and started plotting a course to Nova Equiis.

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

Lunar sat and grinned at the sight of the massive ship docking with the spaceport. She grinned even wider at some of the ponies staring and murmuring to themselves. A unicorn guard came into the lobby floating a sign with her name on it. She trotted over with a smile on her face as he escorted her to the airlock.

“Take a seat Commander, Prime minister Sparkle will call you in when she is ready.”

Lunar obliged him and sat in a rather childish, but oh so comfy bean bag chair that was in the vestibule outside of Twilight’s personal office aboard the ship.

It seemed like Lunar was waiting forever. She had already looked at every nook and cranny of the room. Twice. She was half tempted to look through the keyhole of the office doors to see what was taking Twilight so long. But as soon as she stood up, she heard Twilight call out in a sweet voice, “You may come in now!”

Lunar straightened out her form, and gathered all the courage she could muster and strode into the office with military precision. There she stood in front of a very normal looking Twilight pacing around the room, with a few stray locks of hair sticking out here and there. She thought back to the first time she had spoken to Twilight. They were were under less than ideal circumstances, with Twilight almost being assassinated by a small group of anti-alicorn fanatics. Perhaps that was why Twilight was so hesitant during her call, any other sane pony would be too after seeing what Lunar did to those would be assassins.

Twilight finally took a seat and smiled at Lunar before saying, “At ease Commander, no need to be so rigid around me.”

Lunar relaxed herself, “Thank you, Prime Minister.”

Twilight shook her head, “Just Twilight, please. Even being called princess back then was to much of a mouthful for me, let alone making people call me prime minister. Just think of us as equals, you and I.”

“Of course, my apologies, Twilight.”

“Now you are probably wondering why I ‘personally’ came to get you, right?” Lunar nodded her head. “Well, I simply
could not wait to speak with you about a certain, uh, matters.”

“Matters such as?”

“Well, it involves your recent trip to Equiis…” Twilight said uneasily. Lunar gave her an unamused look. Twilight continued, “Right, I shouldn’t beat around the bush with you, sorry. You Found something on Equiis. Something powerful. You know what I’m talking about?”

Lunar went wide eyed. “How did you kn-”

She was cut off by Twilight who spoke in a serious tone, “It doesn’t matter how I know you got it, what matters is that you hand it over to me immediately, It contains more power than one can imagine. You have it on you, correct?”

Lunar nodded with a frightened expression. She looked into her saddlebag and started rooting around it frantically, before looking up, anger clear on her face.

“Record!”

“Something wrong Lunar?”

“It’s not here.”

Twilight’s stoic face faltered. “What! Where is it then!?”

“My traveling partner has it.”

“Do you know where he is going?”

“Capitol. More specifically Nova Equiis.”

“Y-you’re kidding right? You’re kidding!”

“I’m dead serious.”

Twilight froze for a moment, her eye twitching, before getting up and walking through a door labeled ‘Freakout Room.’ Muffled screaming could be heard for a few minutes while Lunar stood outside. Twilight came back out eventually, looking a lot more exhausted than normal. She pressed a button on her desk and spoke into an accompanying microphone, “Set course for Capitol. Full speed.” Almost instantaneously the ship jerked away from the starport and began rotating.

Twilight looked at Lunar, and gave a weary smile, “Would you like to see the bridge?”

~<>~~<{}>~~<>~

Later, 4,000 LY away from Sol

Record reclined in his bunk, and sighed. He could not find sleep at the moment, so he was content with thinking to himself for the time being. He thought about all the sights he had seen and the ponies he had met on the way to this specific outpost where he decided to rest before continuing to the Capitol system. He felt uneasy as he thought about Lunar, and how he had deceived her. He slowly sat up on the bunk and levitated the tiara from it’s resting place to his bare hooves. He held it there, staring into the light purple jewel in the center.

“What secrets do you hold?” He asked the object aloud, “What stories could you tell?”

Silence, and the gentle hum of the station was all that responded to Record. he floated it back over to it’s previous perch gingerly and laid back down. It was all quite calm, despite the storm that was about to unfold.