The Equestrian Starliner

by computerneek

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Human, Original Character, Mystery, Science Fiction
Length: 39500

It's a spaceship, and it's floating in orbit. That's about all they know, and now they're sending people aboard.

It's a spaceship. An enormous spaceship, floating in orbit around the Earth. That's all traffic control knows about it.
It's got beefy sensors, strong computers, and stern control of a plasma cannon, utilized in its defense against a known criminal. That's all Law Enforcement knows about it.
It's newly commissioned and currently unmanned. There's a clear lack of engineering people on her crew lists. That's all her new Captain knows about it, while she's on her way to be the first human being to step aboard.

--------

An alternate timeline of The First Equestrian Starliner in which Athena didn't null out.
Tags may be updated as the story progresses.

Published 2018-11-16 04:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-11 14:22:39 UTC

Chapter 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 3

It’s almost a full hour later. Her mind has been getting increasingly foggy; she’s been relying more and more on the friendly lady on the interc-

“Wait,” she says suddenly, forcing herself to stand up straight. She’s been hunching over, slowly, as she grows more and more tired. “You’re telling me… You’re telling me I’m talking to my ship’s computer support?”

“Affirmative.”

She blinks a few times. “Oh. That makes so much more sense. Um…” She props herself up against a doorframe, absently scratching an itch on her side. “Okay. So, nothing I’ve done so far either has been or ever will be seen by another human being?”

“Not unless you authorize it.”

“Good. How long do I have before the crew starts coming aboard?”

“Unknown. The Command-instigated hour expires in two minutes; no small craft are within ten minutes’ flight range. Would you like to contact your exec?”

“Uh, could you do the talking?”

“Certainly. Initiating call.”

“Right. Uh, can I listen?”

“Affirmative. Connection established; ringtone confirmed.”

On the surface of the Earth, many miles away from his assigned station, her second-in-command glances up from his packing project to read the caller ID off his terminal.

It’s his ship- the ship he read his Captain was scheduled to board an hour ago. He wishes they would have actually told him of his assignment sometime earlier than this morning; he’d spent much of the time since reviewing the paperwork and bringing himself up to speed with the status of the ship’s crew. Just in case his Captain decided to call him up to ask how things are going.

Then he’d left his desk and started packing his things. The ship’s porter- she’s big enough she’s got a dedicated porter, right on the crew roster- has reported his readiness to travel out to help collect the rest of the crew’s belongings. Much of their stuff will be heading up on a cargo shuttle; each crewmember is allowed to bring one bag with them on the passenger shuttle, with size limits, so long as it is properly anchored.

In any case, he has to properly pack everything first- and, as he rises to jog quickly to the terminal, he hopes whatever his Captain has to say won’t take too much time; by Command’s stipulation, because the Captain was the first, he has to be the second crewmember to step aboard. By a matter of a minute, that is- and the rest of the crew are allowed to dock their shuttles inside the ship’s bays both during and before that time, so long as they wait a full minute before they follow him out the shuttle’s door. Thus, the faster he gets aboard, the faster the crew can get aboard- and the sooner he and his Captain can get started converting this haphazard pile of new recruits into a single, cohesive whole.

He touches the accept key; interesting that it’s an audio-only call. “Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen, assigned Exec Officer, speaking,” he states.

The response is instant, with a very professional, calm, female voice. He was wondering what his Captain sounded like… Oh wait. “The Captain would appreciate a specific timeframe for crew arrivals, if available,” she states.

He blinks. “Uh, okay. They’ve stipulated that I come aboard second; I expect to be on my way up in about six hours, arrival in nine.” He glances sideways at the sidebar on his terminal. “At the moment, about a half a percent of the crew is reporting readiness to board; those six will be following me aboard. We can expect ten percent of the crew- including at least one person in each department- to be aboard in around fifteen hours; another forty percent, mostly in the support roles, will come aboard in a wave in about thirty hours; the rest should come aboard in forty hours. To my understanding, they haven’t assigned our medical staff yet, but Command has promised their boarding within twelve hours.”

“The Captain appreciates your answer.”

He blinks again. Two plus two is not equalling four. “Uh, Captain?”

“This call was placed by an automated subsystem in response to the Captain’s request for information. Would you like to reach her directly?”

Blink. That explains it. “Uh, No, thank you. I take it we’ve got good computer support?”

“Affirmative. This vessel is capable of fully autonomous operation.”

More blinking. “So, really good computer support.”

“Affirmative.”

“Nice. Anything else?”

“Negative.”

Nod. “Alright. Anything Command didn’t tell me that I should know about?”

“Residual energy from pre-commissioning tests appears to have a draining effect on passengers. The related fault was solved automatically through equipment tuning; exponential decay of residual energy levels has been observed.”

Blink. “Energy? Like, electricity?”

“Foreign energy form; no known name applies. Catalogued as Unknown Energy One. Negative harmful effects, save physical exhaustion.”

“Is it something you can contain or eliminate?”

“Negative decontamination capability; energy is self-decontaminating. Full decontamination expected in approximately three months’ time.”

“Alright. How bad is the exhaustion effect?”

“Accelerated exhaustion may require downtime in short order; rapid mental adaptation has also been detected, for diminished effect following first night. Additionally, this vessel is equipped with technology capable of offsetting the exhaustion effect.”

Blink. “How easy is it?”

“This vessel is capable of deploying a psychic energy field to offset the exhaustion effect.”

“Oh… Uh, use that when we come aboard, to help us stay awake through getting settled. Let the Cap’n sleep beforehand, if she wants to- she’s gonna need it.” He shudders. “I wish I could throw in a few extra hours of sleep, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Fuel exhausted.”

“What?”

“This vessel’s fuel supply has been exhausted.”

“Wha- When will you run out of power?” As much as he wants to ask how the fuel supply came up, keeping the ship powered- especially now that there’s someone on board- is more important.

“Indefinite.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Explain?”

“This vessel is operating on stored solar power. Assuming zero solar exposure henceforth, this vessel can maintain idle status at current power levels for two years; maximum travel range indefinite. Average solar exposure since orbital insertion has exceeded peak power demand by approximately three hundred times.”

“... Oh.”

“... but Command has promised their boarding within twelve hours.”

“Tell him thanks,” she states, then looks down another hallway. “In the meantime, where are the beds?”

“Destination, Captain’s Quarters. Follow that corridor; take the first right, then the lift will be on your left.”

She starts walking- though stumbling is a better fit. She’s too tired to hold herself unnecessarily erect, and noone is watching her anyways, so it really doesn’t matter. “Lift?”

“Affirmative. The lift will let out approximately thirty feet from the Captain’s Quarters, a linear distance of six point three miles from your current location.”

Blink. “Oh. Makes sense. Um… If I were to avoid the lifts, how long a walk would it be?”

“Approximately eight point six seven miles, on the shortest route; eight point eight three miles on the easiest.”

“I’ll take the lift. Um… Wake me up before anyone arrives, please?”

“Alarm set.”

“Thanks.”

“You are welcome.”

She blearily opens one eye, one ear twitching from the high-pitched buzzer. “Whazzat?”

The buzzer goes blessedly silent. “You requested to be awoken before anyone arrives. The first crew shuttle will be docking in approximately twenty-three minutes.”

“Is Exec whats-his-name available?”

“He will be boarding first.”

“Can he handle it?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright. Let ‘im handle it.” She closes that eye again, snuggling back into her pillows. “I’m still tired.”

“Orders confirmed. Good night.”

The buzzer on his headset comes on as the shuttle separates successfully from the space station, finally destined for his ship. He reaches up to touch the accept button; unfortunately, while the shuttle is under power, he has no way of knowing who is calling him. “Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen,” he greets, as soon as the line opens.

The answer comes back instantly- the same voice the ship had used when it called him almost ten hours ago. “Update on Unknown Energy One. Adaptation may take several hours; adapted personnel have been observed to produce additional energy. However, Unknown Energy One appears to interact in an exclusively beneficial manner to adapted personnel.”

“Right. How long will we have?”

“Forced slumber appears to occur at one hour thirty-seven minutes; adaptation appears to take an additional seven hours eighteen minutes before slumber can end. Psychosuite can stave off effects of exhaustion prior to and following adaptation period, but has no effect on forced slumber.”

“Right then. Do that, please.”

“Orders confirmed. Psychosuite standing by for activation upon your arrival.”

“Thank you.” After a momentary pause, he tilts his head. “Could you give us a chime at the one hour mark?”

“Affirmative. All Hands notification set.”

He nods, and disconnects- then touches another button on his headset. The one he preconfigured to contact the station.

It takes a few seconds to connect his call, then a traffic controller comes on. “Hermes Station Control,” she greets.

“Hi, this is Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen of the Starship Athena. I’m going to need the next crew flight to be delayed by a minimum of ten hours after this one.”

“Uh… Okay, got it. Will there be any delay requirements for further flights?”

“Negative, at this time.”

“Roger that. We’ll hold the flight. Anything else?”

“Negative. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She disconnects.

Then he punches another preconfigured button- this one to broadcast to all crew on this flight. He waits a few seconds as it connects to everyone, until it finally offers him the tone to indicate everyone is connected- even the shuttle pilots; they’re part of the ship’s small craft crew.

“Alright, ladies and gents. This is your Exec speaking. Once we go aboard, we’re going to have about an hour to get everyone’s stuff to their quarters. The next flight will be ten hours away- let’s see how fast we can get set up and hit the sack to rest up to help our crewmates beat our record tomorrow.”

This announcement, of course, is met more by cheering than disappointment. There is some disappointment, of course; one hour is a very short settling period. However, most of the crew had been expecting to have to work for several hours immediately after coming aboard, despite having worked all night- and day today- to get packed in time to ship out. Being promised scheduled downtime, then, is practically a dream come true.

Everything goes smoothly. The ship’s unexpected possession of a gravity generator vastly accelerated the arrival process; her similarly unexpected possession of lifts boosted it even further. Many of the dozen crewmembers that came in the first load completed their arrivals within the first ten minutes, spending the rest of the allotted hour settling in.

Several commented on a growing strange feeling of tired energy, of course. Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen asked Athena about it in private, of course; he didn’t want to worry the crew about the specifics just yet.

“Psychosuite effectiveness ninety six percent,” it states. “Tired energy feeling will continue to grow; personnel will drop unconscious when it becomes overwhelming. Standing by to lower psychosuite field on individual crewmembers upon bedrest.”

So he had headed out again. At the end of the hour, he sent everyone to bed- and turned in himself. Sure enough, as soon as he laid down in bed, he felt truly exhausted- and allowed the fog to take him, passing out in mere seconds.

Chapter 5

Some fifteen minutes later, she steps out of the shower and shakes her wings dry. After raising her eyebrow at how effective the action was, she tries with her whole body- and moments later, she’s completely dry.

“I guess I won’t be needing a towel,” she chuckles, before refolding her wings. It had taken significant trial and error, with more than one painful fall, before she’d figured out how to control them properly. Then she glances back at the shower, and looks up towards the ceiling. “Why did he hold the flight?”

“Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen ordered the hold upon receipt of a requested update on Unknown Energy One. The situation suggests he wished to be awake when the flight arrives.”

“Okay. What about now?”

“He and the rest of his flight are currently asleep. Forced rest, by the transformation process, ended approximately forty-three minutes ago on all members of the flight; however, extreme exhaustion effect remains, and transformations are not complete. Simulations suggest such effect will remain until transformation is complete, approximately ten hours.”

Blink. “Is he aware of the transformation effect?”

“Negative.”

“Did he tell anyone about Unknown Energy One?”

“Negative. He has, however, made decisions based on information about it.”

“Ahh… So the flight coming in, uh, sometime, hasn’t a clue what to expect.”

“Affirmative. Crew flight landing expected in twenty-one minutes; all passengers, including pilots, are on the submitted crew roster and will be remaining aboard.”

“Submitted crew roster?”

“At the time of your departure towards this vessel, a full crew roster was submitted to this vessel. At that time, Command authority over this vessel passed to you.”

“Ahh… Okay.” She glances towards the door separating her bedroom from her day quarters. “Wait, who will greet the new crewmembers?”

“At this time, no present crew are prepared to greet additional crew.”

Blink. “Ahh… and I bet their transformations aren’t complete either.”

“Affirmative. First current transformation completion expected nine point three minutes before current final transformation completion, in ten hours.”

“Shoot. And I can’t do it because they’ll think I’m an animal. Um…”

“This vessel is equipped with a neural interface and multiple refaceable humanoid androids. Simulations suggest full compatibility between pony brain and neural equipment designed for humans; expected sensor analysis time to verify is nineteen minutes. Expected time required to reface an android to appear, under your control, as your previous form, fifteen minutes. Estimated time to crew flight arrival, twenty minutes. Do you wish to initiate this course of action?”

“Uh, yes. Do I need to be somewhere specific for that analysis?”

“Affirmative.”

“Where?”

“Any Neural Lab. Analysis equipment is stored with the interface equipment.”

“Nearest one?”

“Neural Four.”

“Right. What’s the route?”

“Distance, one point three miles. Distance with lift usage, zero point three miles. Simulations suggest negative experience with flight capability. Confirm?”

She pauses in the doorway out of her bedroom. “You say that like you have something faster.”

“This vessel is equipped with energy transporters capable of effectively instantaneous transport over extreme distances. Comparable to fictional devices termed ‘teleporters’.”

Blink. “Use that, then. Jump me over there.”

“Confirm request: Transporter jump to Neural Four?”

Nod. “Confirm.”

“Energizing. Transit in Three. Two. One.”

As the countdown reaches one, she feels a sudden surge of energy from somewhere. She’s not sure what it is, nor how to describe it; she’s never felt anything like it before. It seems to build up in an invisible ring around her before, at zero, it collapses instantly in on her and her vision turns white.

Her vision clears almost instantly, and she finds herself standing on a cloud. She blinks a few times, looking down at it…

Oh, it’s not actually cloud- it’s some hard and flat surface, just visible in the warm light. It just looks like cloud, probably helped by the clouds drifting through it. It seems to go on forever.

She looks around. Other than a strange-feeling mist floating everywhere, that’s it. “Athena?” she asks.

No response.

“Is this that Neural Four?”

Again, no response.

“Hello?” She takes one step forwards- before letting out a scream and leaping in the air.

Something had just started speaking in her head… Oh, wait.

“Emergency communications established. Transporter tunnel interrupted by an unknown source; attempting recovery. Please hold your current position.”

She blinks. “Wait, what? You’re in my head now?”

“Negative. Your current position is beyond remote physical, visual, or auditory projection range, but within Psycho Suite telepathic transmitter range. Your current position is beyond telepathic receiver range, but within medium-fidelity active sensor range.”

“What about passive?”

“This vessel is not equipped with passive sensors capable of detecting events across the worldwa-- Inbound!”

Her eyes widen briefly, before she whips her head around, searching for whatever the ship detected. At the same time, she lowers her stance and loosens her wings.

Then she spots it. A momentary white glow, and there’s suddenly a large, white… pony standing in front of her, wearing jewelry and decorum, as if… Yes, that’s a crown.

The white creature hesitates for only a moment before its already huge eyes go even wider as it lets out a yelp- sounds like a word, but she doesn’t understand- and steps backwards, as if shocked somehow.

Then, her world turns white again, for another moment- and she collapses to the floor, breathing deeply. The silver-grey, textured, steel floor.

That same voice- the one that had appeared in her mind- sounds from the walls somewhere. “Recovery successful. Transporters locked, pending further analysis, systems tests, and re-evaluation. Transporter shields online. Additional transformation detected during the event; simulations are in progress.”

She lets out a groan, and slowly opens her eyes, rising to her hooves and looking herself over. She doesn’t see any difference. “Ugh… Um, okay. I hope this new transform isn’t a problem.” She spreads her wings, giving them a quick search- nothing changed.

She sighs, and looks around. “Alright then. Is this that neural room?”

“Affirmative.”

“Let’s do that analysis thing.”

“Confirm- suspend form ability analysis in favor of neural interface compatibility analysis?”

She blinks a couple times. “Uh, yes.”

“Orders confirmed.” One of the high-tech chairs folded against the wall shifts, sliding out and unfolding itself. “To begin, take a seat and lean back against the headrest.”

“Ah, yes.” She scrambles up into the seat, performing the named action.

“Beginning analysis.”

She lets out a little sigh. “Do you know who that was?”

“Negative. Visual match has been identified in records from when this vessel encountered Unknown Energy One during testing; recording is one point three seven seconds long.”

“What did she say?”

“Lingual match failed, translation impossible.”

“... Okay.”

Author's Note

Alrighty. The particular interference that happened should be guessable... Lemme know if it's not.

Chapter 6

She lets out a sigh when the machine finally turns off. “I didn’t think it would take that long.” She glances up. “I wonder, what were your simulations suggesting I can do again?”

“Simulations suggest gee tolerance increase on the order of two hundred thirty percent from original human stats; supersonic flight capability with the wings; retention of normal walking ability in zero gravity; strength increase on the order if six thousand percent; direct perception and control of Unknown Energy One.”

Blink, blink. “Supersonic?”

“Affirmative. Simulations have attained speeds upwards of mach three point seven.”

“Rrright then, um, how is that analysis on the transporters doing?”

“System tests completed; equipment functional as designed. Analysis indicates interference was caused by transporting an entity with a connection to Unknown Energy One; transporters are designed to strengthen energy connections. Transport interruption was unique to Unknown Energy One and has not occurred for any objects; analysis suggests interruption is unique to entities with connections to Unknown Energy One. Transporters operating in supplies-only mode.”

She blinks. “Uh, right. Do that. Um… You mentioned something about zero gravity?”

“Simulations suggest your form is capable of retaining normal walking ability in zero gravity.”

She pauses just outside the neural lab, glancing back at the door- and the wall next to it. She tilts her head. “Oh, I suppose you never know,” she mutters, and walks sedately to the wall. She places a hoof against it, and pulls- it comes away instantly.

She scowls at the wall, though- she’d felt something else in the wall, specifically while she was touching it. Come to think of it, when she thinks about it, she can feel the same in the floor.

She glances up and down the hallway. “Uh, don’t anyone judge me,” she states.

“All crew on board are asleep; all records of the following actions will be kept strictly confidential.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Even in a public space?”

“You have the authority to request data privacy anywhere aboard this vessel, including in otherwise public spaces.”

“Alright.” She looks at the wall again. “Here goes nothing.” She jumps at it, rearing up in the process- and kinda flops against the wall.

Then she straightens her legs and looks down. And back up. Then she snickers. “Next time they start driving me up the wall…” She snorts, before walking up the wall. Switching to the ceiling is easier- as long as she doesn’t actually try to pull away from it, her hooves seem to stick just fine.

Then she walks, across the ceiling, down the passage towards the lifts, giggling all the way like a naughty schoolgirl. She decends the wall next to the lift. “Alright then. Optimal location to try out my wings- so, somewhere large, maybe with a pool to land in?”

“Warning, simulations suggest you may be unfamiliar with swimming in your current form.”

She nods. “You can be certain I’ll be checking that before I start risking my life falling into it.” She glances back at her wings. “Just, with how easy it was to dry off…” She shrugs- then tries again with her wings instead, in order to produce the desired effect.

“Acknowledged. Confirm destination, Flag Pool Room?”

“The Flag one?”

“Affirmative. Flag Pool Room has fourteen percent larger pool, thirteen percent more dry warm-up zone, and eighteen percent higher ceilings than any other pool room.”

Blink. “Right then, the answer is yes. Confirm destination.”

“Orders confirmed.”

She steps into the lift.

The Flag Pool Room is huge. She spends several minutes simply exploring the cavernous space before she even considers stepping into the pool. “Wow. EarthShips really does spoil their flag officers!”

“Indeterminate. This vessel was neither designed nor constructed by EarthShips nor any subsidiary thereof.”

“Huh?”

“This vessel was privately designed, constructed, and tested, before commissioning into to military service following the original builders’ death.”

“... Oh. I’m… sorry to hear that.”

No response. She glances at the stairs into the pool, then up at the wall. “Is there a lifeguard on duty?”

“Negative. All pools aboard this vessel are equipped with Emergency Drowning Prevention Systems.”

“Uh… How do these E-D-Ps work?”

“Upon manual activation by a lifeguard, or in the absence of one, detection of a drowning or drown precursor event, an alloy mesh platform can be projected upwards from the pool floor, raising all pool occupants above water level. Mesh platform does extend over the steps as well.”

She blinks. “So, in the event that I need a lifeguard, you can push me free of the water.”

“Affirmative.”

“... Ahh. Well, here goes.” She steps into the pool… And stops, one hoof on the top step. She takes a deep breath. “Sorry, just… I guess I’m used to having my head above my… uh, rump?” She glances briefly back at the anatomy in question. “I think that’s what it’s called. Anyways.” She shudders gently and takes another step into the pool. Then another.

Before long, she’s standing sideways on one of the steps, the water just covering her shoulders. She lets out a chuckle. “Come to think of it, perhaps I should change my vocabulary a little, with this body change. Make it clear what I’m talking about- like, say, everypony instead of everyone, when talking about ponies…” She chuckles a little more, progressing to the next step- and floating effortlessly off of it, her entire head above the surface.

She paddles forwards with her hooves. “Well, that was easy.” She blinks, and looks up towards the ceiling. “Wait. Did my, uh, density change in the transformations?”

“Affirmative. Your current form is approximately eleven percent lighter than an equal volume of water; mass-reduction adaptations detected in first transformation was not reverted in the following transformation.”

“So…” She glances at her hooves, momentarily dunking her nose- er, muzzle- into the water. She blows the water out of her nose. “You mean to say I have bird bones?”

“Negative. Biological resemblance to avian races, forty-three percent.”

She squints her eyes. “What’s that same resemblance from a human to those avian races?”

“Twelve percent.”

She snorts. “So I do have bird bones. No- light and strong bones, compared to human bones.”

“Affirmative.”

“I bet it’s going to make diving difficult. Unless your Unknown Energy One can counteract that?”

“Affirmative.”

She sighs, stretching her wings out underwater. “Anyways, time for flying lessons.” She raises them free of the surface, bringing her head right down to the water, and gives them a little water-shedding shake before she makes a powerful downstroke.

Moments later, she hits the ceiling, bouncing off.

“Ow! Um…” As she falls she stretches her wings out once again. She manages to reduce her falling speed- and tumble down into the water instead. It takes her a few seconds to right herself in the water, after which a simple shake of her head gets her wet mane out of her eyes- and dries it off. Then she starts swimming towards the steps. “Alright. I’m starting from solid ground, with gentle strokes.”

An hour later, she’s glad her fur doesn’t bruise. And that she heals so quickly; she’d landed on the edge of the pool once, and bled a little. The wound had closed up by the time she clambered out- and when she asked the ship if it had a hoof in that, it had declined, saying the medical regenerator was not calibrated for ponies.

A minute ago, she had idly wished she could take off from the surface of the water, as if it were dry land- then, when she inevitably crashes, splash back in. Much less painful.

Now, the water’s surface has a gentle golden glow to it, and is glassy smooth, even with her walking on it. Strange.

She tries taking off again, splashes back down… then climbs back out onto the once again glowing surface.

A few more hours pass. It wasn’t long after she figured out how to walk on water that she also figured out how to glide. In a straight line.

By now, though, she’s prettymuch figured out how to fly. She makes a powerful stroke from one end of the room, rocketing across the room, then banks sharply to the left- to wirl around in a half-circle and go right back in the direction she came- with a triumphant exclamation. She’d always slammed into a wall when she tried that before. As she glides to the ground in a wide circle, she glances back at the point she’d spun on, then up at the ceiling. “Um, Athena? Did you see that turn?”

“Affirmative.”

She glances back again. “What was my turning radius?”

“Turning radius was approximately zero point three millimeters.”

She blinks. “So, pinpoint turning… literally. About how many gees did I pull?”

“Approximately twenty seven point four million.”

“Wow! How fast was I moving?”

“Two hundred eighty four meters per second.”

She blinks. “Uh, give me a reference?”

“Mach zero point eight three.”

More blinking. “Oh. Um, boy, am I good!” She sighs. “I’m willing to bet it was Unknown Energy One that let me survive that.”

“Affirmative. During flight, Unknown Energy One in the wings creates a localized gravity bubble, creating a near-microgravity flying environment. During flight, this gravity bubble is dynamically manipulated to allow extreme maneuvers. Additionally, during extreme maneuvers above one thousand gees, the gravity bubble doubles as mass manipulation. During that turn, you weighed approximately zero point zero one three milligrams.”

She blinks. “What about the air around me, then?”

“Atmospheric mass within the zone was modified proportionally, preventing a barrier effect.”

“... Oh. I bet that’s involved in going supersonic.”

“Affirmative. Updated simulations suggest a top speed near Mach Fourteen.”

She sighs, making contact with the tile. “I… Oddly enough, I’m not surprised. Now then, I’m getting mighty hungry- where’s the mess hall? Oh- and what kind of dietary restrictions should I be aware of?”

“Pony forms appear capable of metabolizing all human foods; dietary capability is expanded, with no restrictions on prior foods. Simulations suggest dietary requirements have reduced.”

“Oh?”

“While pony forms are capable of digesting all human foods and many non-foods, including most any plant, without issue, simulations suggest full health of the pony form can be maintained on an entirely vegetarian diet. Simulations suggest the vegetarian diet will not support an active lifestyle.”

She smiles, trotting out of the pool room. “Right then. Make me something tasty, and guide me to the mess hall while you’re at it?”

“Orders confirmed.”

She pauses in the middle of her meal. As it turns out, her food is more than willing to float into the air for her, always surrounded by a strange, gentle golden glow- but that’s not the reason for her pause. She looks up at the ceiling. “Athena?”

A tone chimes.

She snorts. “Of course you’re listening. Um, when is the next crew flight scheduled?”

“Four and a half hours.”

“... and my Exec’s awakening?”

“Four hours.”

“Alright. Um…”

“Incoming call, Space Lord Matthews, requesting your attention; personal flag set.”

She glances around. “Nopony is awake to overhear, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright. I’ll take it here, then.”

“Space Lord Matthews is requesting a video connection. Confirm?”

“Uh, no. Audio-only for now, we can go video when I hit the bridge or something.” She glances down at herself. “Um, make sure it’s a secure connection, then don’t apply the comms filtering thing to the call. I might want to tell my dad.”

“Orders confirmed. Accepting call, audio only. Secure connection established.”

Then her father’s voice comes on. “Uh… Audio only? Um, okay.”

She scowls. “Sorry- there aren’t any terminals handy for a video connection. You called?”

“Ahh, yes, um, how’s the settle-in going?”

She glances down at herself. “Um, okay, I think?” She stretches her wings out, and refolds them again.

“Dubious,” he comments. “I understand they decided to screw you over up there?”

She nods. “Something like that. Only, we’ve got some impressive computer support, so I think I’ll get away with it anyways.”

He sighs. “The way I hear it, they’re trying to screw you over even more than they’re letting on. They promised your medical staff aboard almost fifteen hours ago, right?”

She blinks, tilting her head. “Uh, yes, I think so.”

“Well… I just checked in with them, and they haven’t even started selecting who to send up. Speaking of which, I agree with your decision on the engineer they assigned.”

She shudders. “You saw that?”

“You know, I am good friends with Admiral Wolf, the head of the Space Police. Before we even started assigning crew to that ship, he requested that any police reports related to it be brought to his attention, whether they needed it or not- and he took that one to me. While authorizing automated fire like that would normally be illegal, you did constrain it to when he directly disobeys an order you have the full authority to give- and he gave the death threat first, so it falls under self-defence.” He chuckles. “Lieutenant Commander Chaftan has been jailed both for threatening a superior officer and for an unprovoked threat of violence. He’s also got his court-martial coming up, for conduct unbecoming- but he might survive that, simply because of his parents’ influence.

“In any case, I have noticed your exec put a hold on the third flight, delaying them by about twenty-five minutes- do you know why?”

She blinks. “Well, I do know the entire second flight, himself included, was dog tired when they came aboard. His ten hour hold, I understand, was so that he could be rested up in time to receive the third flight.” She stuffs her last bite into her mouth.

“... Ahh. Um… Any chance I could come have a tour, once you get settled in up there?”

“Huh? Um… Right, this ship wasn’t made by EarthShips, was it?”

“That would be correct. She’s a unique vessel- and one that did not receive authorization to launch, as a matter of fact, because the builder couldn’t guarantee the safety of another vessel watching her initial testing. He had the flight path reserved, though, so when he died, the computer didn’t know or care about the absent authorization… and launched.

“A month later, here we are, with a fully tested starship that automatically gave over to our authority when it got back from its automated testing routine. With the numbers she’s given us, I’m mighty curious how different from ours she is- how different her civilian designer made her.”

She banks sharply through the open door into the bridge, winging to a swift landing next to the captain’s chair. “First off, she’s got a gravity generator. Second… Uh, before you come visit, there is something you should know.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Well… During the testing cycle, apparently, the ship was exposed to a form of strange energy, which stuck with it for the return journey. She’s calling it ‘Unknown Energy One’.”

She can almost hear him sigh. “It’s not hurting you, is it?”

She shakes her head vigorously. “No, it’s not- but I’m pretty sure the effect is irreversible.”

“The effect?”

“Yes, the… effect. This strange energy is… transforming us. I’ve already been completely transformed, but nobody else has finished the, uh, process just yet.”

“... Okay. Transforming how?” He sounds guarded.

“Well, as I said, it’s not harmful. I can fly, after all. And walk on water, if I want.”

“Sounds almost too good to be true.”

She nods. “It does. I don’t have fingers anymore, but it doesn’t seem to matter- because I can still grab things as if I did… nevermind the lack of any body part to do the grabbing. I think it’s similar to the way I can walk on walls and ceilings.” She sighs. “I can still eat everything I could before, though I understand I can eat a few more things I couldn’t before.”

“So… Okay. I’m having a hard time imagining you with no fingers.”

She chuckles. “You don’t have to. It turned me into, well…” She touches a button on the control panel, enabling the video feed. “This.”

Her terminal flickers momentarily to show him; she knows the same is happening on his end. He blinks, then leans closer to his terminal. “You’re joking,” he states.

She shakes her head. “I kid you not,” she states. “This is me.”

He sighs, leaning back in his chair. “... Alright. So, it turned you into a unicorn. When can I try?”

She blinks. “Unicorn? Do I have a horn or something…?” She reaches a hoof up to check- and it shortly runs into something sticking out of her forehead. “... Oh, I guess I do. That’d make me, um…” She spreads her wings, looking back at them. “What? A pegacorn?”

He blinks. “Um, no. The term is ‘Alicorn’. Again, when can I try?”

“Uh… Wait. You want this?” She looks briefly down at herself, holding up a hoof.

“Well of course,” he states. “Sure, it would probably be dangerous to go out in the public afterwards, but you’re positively adorable. I can hardly imagine someone that wouldn’t want that. Tell you what- go public with the transformation thing, and I’ll make sure you get final approval of everyone- and I mean every pony- that comes aboard. Before they do. And in person, if you so desire.”

“Uh… Okay. Um… I can do that, I suppose. You wanted to come aboard?”

“Yes. That is all it takes for the transformation, right?”

She nods. “I was a pegasus at first… I guess the little hiccup I had with the transporters might have done the rest. Athena did mention a secondary transformation.”

“Huh… Whatever- I’ll still get to be one of your furry little minions, won’t I?”

“What? Wouldn’t I be yours?”

Shrug. “Why would I want to come back down here? I mean, seriously! The bureaucracy is unbearable! And, after being turned into a pony, I could use personal safety as an excuse to stay aboard. Add the fact that that ship is the fastest we’ve got by over a hundred times and we can go waltz off into space whenever we want, start a new world- and have plenty of space to fly. With you, Princess Matthews, to watch over us.”

She just stares at him.

He laughs. “Probably wouldn’t turn out quite that way, true, but a man can wish, right? Anyways, would tonight work?”

She blinks. “Uh…”

“I’ll take your mother with me,” he states, one eyebrow going up.

“Uh…”

“I’ll… uh, scratch you behind your ears?”

She blinks. “You know, I haven’t tried that yet.”

He chuckles. “Is that a yes?”

“Uh, I guess? I mean, you are the Space Lord, so do you even need to ask permission?”

He snorts. “Normally, no. But from the moment I sent the Athena her crew roster, all you have to say is ‘no’ and I physically cannot board the ship.”

“Huh?”

“Because you are the ultimate command authority aboard that ship, Skyla. I can yap orders all day long and she’ll flat-out ignore me.”

“What-! But-! ...Whatever. Sure, then. Go ahead and bring Mom along, but don’t force her- and make sure she knows what she’s getting into first, okay?”

He nods. “Will do! I’ll be up there in, oh, three hours?”

“Three hours? That fast?”

He nods. “Just got off duty down here,” he states. “Though… Here. I’ll put in the vetting order for you before I head up, so it might take an extra hour or so.”

She blinks. “That’ll put you showing at the same time as the next crew flight,” she states.

He pauses for a second. “Alright. Permission to be present during crew vetting? Oh- and for the record- I assume you’re recording this, right?”

“Uh…” She glances at the panel.

“Recording started,” Athena rather helpfully states.

He snorts. “Right. For the record, the particular crewmember in question not wanting to be turned into a pony is a perfectly valid reason to say no, and will not reflect poorly on anyone. I’ll make sure all crew headed to that ship are doing so voluntarily and in full knowledge of what to expect, so the number of those people should be pretty low- but for this flight, it’s a bit late for that. Um, end recording?”

She snickers and glances down at the panel.

“Recording stopped,” Athena states.

“So, Athena,” she states, “I know you recorded the entire call with Lieutenant Commander Chaftan- what’s the policy on recording calls?”

“All non-private calls are recorded in full, and may be stored in permanent records; private calls are not recorded but can be, upon request, for storage in private records.”

“Ahh…” She looks at the screen again. “You’re going to repeat that for-the-record part in those orders, right?”

He nods. “I’ll also be presenting it in a more professional format. So, I’ll see you in a few?”

“Sure. Um, can we have the vetting take place in space, just outside?”

“Uh, sure. I’ll have them place a microstation in orbit near the Athena, and we’ll use it for vetting.”

“Oh- and can we let the various crewmembers’ families come too? And make the refusal of a spouse or other family member a valid, no-recoil reason for the crewmember in question to say no?”

“Uh… Sure, we can do that. I probably should have thought of that, shouldn’t I?” He scribbles on a pad of paper in front of him. “Right then… Okay. Anything else?”

She racks her brain for a second. “Um, not that I can think of. Athena? We needing anything?”

“Affirmative. This vessel’s fuel supply has been exhausted.”

Both she and her father gasp. “What-! How long do we have?”

“Indefinite. This vessel is operating on live solar power. Average solar exposure since orbital insertion has exceeded peak power demand by approximately three hundred times.”

She lets out a sigh. “Alright. How much bunkerage do we have, and what kind of fuel do we need?”

“This vessel is equipped with general-purpose fission-fusion plants capable of burning all known elements for power. Available bunkerage exceeds total fuel available in Earth supply systems; this vessel is equipped with a self-refuelling system, designed for the capture and processing of asteroids or meteors into fuel. Fusion One will be activating on a reverse-generation burn in eight minutes.”

“Huh? Reverse-generation burn?”

“Onboard power reserves are at ninety nine point nine nine percent; this vessel’s fission-fusion plants are capable of a reverse-generation burn, to produce viable fuel out of excessive power. This system is used for storage of auxiliary solar production in excess of onboard power cell capacity; combined reverse-generation burn and standard burn efficiency is ninety-nine percent.”

“So… Kinda like electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright…” She looks back at the screen. “I guess we can worry about which asteroid belt to consume later. In the meantime, I’ll see you in four hours- that is, I’ll meet you on that microstation, so your transformation doesn’t start until we’re ready to drag the crew in for that.” She smiles. “I’ll be dragging a few of my existing crew along- the first of them should be waking up in, what was it, three and a half hours?”

“Affirmative.”

He blinks. “Sure, will do. Have a good, um, four hours!”

She smiles, and waves. “You too!”

With a smile, he then disconnects.

Athena immediately starts talking. “Confirm- release information retention order from this morning?”

“Uh, that the one about hiding the transform effect?”

“Affirmative.”

She nods. “Confirmed, then- release it.” She glances at the blank viewscreen in front of her. “I think the first meeting on that microstation might be a good spot for the initial informational release for the public. Let’s plan on that.”

Author's Note

I know Space Lord Wolf wasn't acting very professional at the end there, but hey- that was a private conversation, where he can let his true self out.

Chapter 7

She watches out the windshield as her passenger shuttle approaches the microstation. As it had turned out, her onboard crew had most decidedly not taken the transformation as well as she did. While the variation- some had wings, like Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen, her exec; some had horns, like Chief Ta’leer; and one that she’d seen had neither. If she remembers right, he was one of the low-level operations crew.

Not one had both, like herself. Not one had, after even half an hour, been fully recovered from the shock of the transformation. Sta’leen had been close; she’d been able to teach him the hold-things-with-the-hoof trick, which he’d quickly christened ‘hoofgrip’, before she left. When she had mentioned the vetting trip, he had requested to stay behind.

“I know I should probably go with you to help,” he had stated, “but I don’t think I’m personally ready for that kind of exposure just yet- besides, our onboard crew need someone to help them adjust.”

She had approved his request, and left him behind. Meaning, of course, she’s alone on this shuttle.

It’s not one of the shuttles her crew had used when they first came aboard; no, she doesn’t know how to fly those. Rather, this is one of the ones Athena had been pre-equipped with. So, Athena is flying it, on “autopilot”.

She chuckles to herself as she punches a couple keys for a size comparison between the microstation and her shuttle.

The microstation is a fairly standard military microstation, designed for last-minute security checks before letting people aboard a ship. Some kind of scan with an acronym she doesn’t know is revealing its floor plan; one main room, for the vetting, with a closet filled with movable, plastic walls to put into that room- and beams, and everything else required to impose order upon such a large space filled with people. A smaller departure hall, that the lone docking port she’s headed to reaches; three small security chambers connecting the two, for the actual vetting to take place, before sending them to her shuttle. There are interconnecting doors between the three chambers, and a separate exit from each- vertical, to the plane of the station- to return refused people to their shuttles without passing back through the main room.

A little equipment closet off the main room, housing the solitary atmospheric scrubbing plant, a large battery, and a couple tanks; a single bathroom closet right next to it. No sewage processing, no food; a supply ship must regularly stop by to supply fresh water and oxygen and dispose of the wastewater and unwanted atmospheric components. Maximum independent life support capacity of a hundred; there’s usually a supply ship connected when it’s in use, contributing its life support facilities to allow the usual four or five hundred occupants, during normal use. It seems to have been set up for her.

Then, her shuttle. Unarmored, civilian passenger craft. Three whole decks; the top two contain fifteen hundred seats between them, the bottom one reserved for ship systems. Gravity equipped, maximum five gees; three complete, independent atmospheric processors, each with their own molecular reconstitutors, to convert the unwanted compounds into the desired ones; enough hydroponics capacity to support two thousand people; onboard sewage processing plants, with full recycling capability; onboard manufacturing plant; onboard fusion power plant, with enough hydrogen stowage to maintain maximum power for a full year; full solar capability with plenty of reserves.

Oh, and don’t forget the reactionless ‘gravity drive’ it’s using to align itself to dock with the station that it outmasses by at least ten times.

Or the sleek, aerodynamic profile, designed for smooth flight in atmospheres as light as a tenth of an atmosphere or as dense as a thousand atmospheres.

Or the atmospheric life support capacity of almost six thousand.

She lets out a snort of laughter as the docking clamps engage, transmitting only the tiniest of vibrations through the station, thanks to the already perfect alignment. Unlike the space station it’s docking to, her shuttle is capable of independently carrying two thousand people non-stop for at least a year, probably more, depending on solar exposure… and if they find a source of ice, it is equipped to produce additional fuel out of that, though it is restricted only to hydrogen. It’d be more than a little cramped, but within the equipment capacities. She trots out of the sealed, triple-pilot cockpit and across the spacious passenger compartment to the nearest of the three equidistant airlocks on this side- the one that’s locked to the station. The inner door snaps closed moments before the outer cycles open. She steps out of it, glancing around the empty departure hall.

Her right ear flicks slightly. “Did I get the right station?” she asks.

“Affirmative,” Athena states, through the earpiece she’d gotten from the manufacturing plant in her shuttle a minute ago. “Space Lord Matthews is entering the Entry Bay now; Crew flight is initiating final approach to station ports.”

She smiles. “Thank you.” Then she trots forwards, to the center of the three security chambers, glancing up at the closed hatch. “Uh, can you open these doors, or…?”

“Affirmative.”

“Roger that. Please do.”

The door immediately slides open, and she hops gently into the air to pass through the hatch. On a station with no gravity, it isn’t exactly flat against any floors. Her wings suffice to guide her smoothly through the following room and the opposing hatch, which also slid quickly open for her. Both of them close behind her, while she searches the room for her father, fluttering gently to rise above all the lane-control bars that had been set up before it had been dragged out here.

She spots him giving in to his engineering background, poking around in the equipment closet and mumbling. One ear turns a little- and she picks out his mumbling… Eh. He doesn’t seem impressed that they decided to use the smallest microstation available, despite needing to process enough people to keep one of the biggest ones busy for days.

The difference? Her shuttle doesn’t outmass the biggest ones… much. Only a couple tons. The increased space is mostly used for a larger entry bay and more security chambers; the big ones, she knows, have as many as twenty such chambers- with three-stage vetting, making it twenty chains of three chambers each.

Not that she’d be able to use them all right now; she doesn’t even have sixty crewmembers on her ship, let alone fully transformed and ready to help with her vetting! For that matter, she doesn’t even have the three it would take to run this one to capacity.

Meh.

She flaps her wings gently, zipping across the room to get behind her mother, who is holding tight to one of the guide rails while she watches her husband examine the hardware. She smiles; as much as her father has a long history in space, this is probably the second time her mother has ever been in space. The first time, if she recalls correctly, had not been an enjoyable experience for her or anyone around.

She lands gently on the wall behind her mother, walking up next to her… Above her? Zero gee is confusing.

“I wonder how much of that he’ll be doing on the Athena,” she states aloud.

Her mother looks up at her. “What the-?”

Then her father looks over, pulling himself out of the maintenance closet. “What-? Huh. You’re smaller than I expected.”

She blinks. “Oh come on, dad. What were you expecting? A horse?” She snorts.

He blinks. “Uh, yes, kinda.”

“Even though you saw me in a video call just four hours ago?”

“Uh… Yes, actually.”

She sighs. “We’ve got just a few seconds before the crew starts coming into here, though. Right Athena?”

Both her parents look at her weird. Her father a little, and her mother a lot; it would seem he didn’t inform her mom of her transformation.

“First new crewmember will be boarding the station in thirty-eight seconds,” Athena answers, through her earpiece. “Mark.”

“Ah, yes, thirty-five seconds or so,” she states. “Anyways- Oh?” She flicks her ear, looking off to the side a little.

Athena had given her a chime. “Message from Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen,” she states.

Then er Exec’s voice comes on. “Hey, Skip- thought I’d let you know. It seems only the pegasi can do the whole walk-on-walls thing, but we’ve all got the hoofgrip.”

“Good to know,” she states, before looking back up at her parents. “So then.”

Thirty seconds is not much time. However, when you’re capable of carrying a human passenger through subsonic, high-gee maneuvers without bothering them, thirty seconds is plenty. As a matter of fact, ten is more than enough. By the time the crew starts wandering in, her mother has already voted for the transformation- and is waiting in the departure bay, unwilling to board the shuttle alone. Her father is “leaning” against the wall next to the open door into the center security room, holding himself with the wall rail; she’s floating in the air just off the wall on the other side of it. Most of the new crewmembers are, upon entering the station, letting out groans before they gather into the path to the security chambers, propelling themselves along with clumsy grabs at the bars.

She winces; these are most certainly not the experienced spacers she had expected. Even her father lets out a sigh of disappointment.

A good six hours later, the last of the shuttles heads back for the surface while she drifts through the center security chamber once again, back to the departure chamber, her father right behind her. She propels herself quickly to the ground, landing gently and trotting forwards, out of her father’s path. She glances around the departure bay. Only three people had both passed her evaluation and chosen so come aboard; all three of them, plus her mother, are waiting here. She had only refused a few; the rest had been their decisions.

“That’s it,” she states, looking around the room. “Everyone else has turned back. Everyone here good?”

Everyone nods.

Except her mother, who gingerly raises her hand.

She looks at her mother, raising her eyebrow. “Deciding not to?” she asks.

Her mother shakes her head. “No! I… I wanted to ask. How long will it take?”

She looks at the closed airlock to her shuttle. “Um… Sixteen, eighteen hours? Or so?”

“Um… Any way to, uh, accelerate it?”

She blinks. “Uh… I don’t know. Athena?” She looks off to the side, twitching her ear.

Athena’s response is instant. “Transformation rate appears to vary by Unknown Energy One density; rest periods vary accordingly. Simulations suggest you are capable of creating densities sufficient for near-instant transformation.”

She looks back up. “Well, yes. It’s all about energy densities- and supposedly, I can create the necessary density.”

“Could you, um… do that? I’m, um… curious.”

“How you’ll turn out? Um… Sure, gimme a sec.” She closes her eyes and concentrates.

She can feel the energy, behind that airlock door. She can feel the traces of it that have seeped through the alloy, into the station. She tries giving them a push with her mind… and they go right back into the shuttle. Interesting.

She can also feel an enormous amount of that same energy in herself. Only when she thinks about it, of course; that’s… interesting. “Alright, here goes,” she states, and pushes some of it out, surrounding her mother with it. She senses motion immediately, through that energy, and opens her eyes.

At the same moment, her father and all three new crewmembers gasp- and her mother lets out a yelp of surprise.

Her dark-blue-furred, golden-maned, unicorn mother, who is now drifting away from the wall. She smiles, propelling the energy she’d used into her shuttle, and jumps into the air, flapping gently to meet her microgravity-phobic mother. “Congratulations,” she states. “You’re a unicorn.” She uses her wings to gently propel herself, with her mother, back to the wall.

“A… Unicorn,” her mother states. “That means I’m helpless in microgravity, doesn’t it?”

She shakes her head. “No, not helpless. But yes, it does mean you won’t be able to move around as freely in microgravity.” She shrugs. “Oh well- the Athena has a gravity generator, so that doesn’t really matter anyways. Besides, you’ll still be able to grab those bars.” She gestures at the bar her mother had been holding onto.

The unicorn seizes the bar once again, clamping her hooves around it. “... Right, got it.”

“Right then,” she states, dropping back to the decking as she turns to the rest of the room. “Who wants to go next?”

The three crewmembers are still busy staring at her mother, so her father raises his hand. “After that,” he states, “I can hardly wait to get hooves.”

She glances up at him, grinning suddenly. “Oh, that’ll be three ninety-nine.”

He blinks. “What? You’re going to charge me for it?”

She lets out a snort of laughter. “No, of course not.” She tries the energy thing again- and this time, she finds, she doesn’t need to close her eyes. As a result, she doesn’t miss the golden glow that surrounds him for the transformation- or how that glow matches the one on her forehead. Huh, she’d never noticed it before.

He prepares himself for it- so he doesn’t end up propelling himself away from the wall during the transformation. Not that it would have mattered all that much anyways, she considers; he’s now a deep blue pegasus with a black mane and tail. He reaches out with one forehoof, almost casually grasping the handbar once again, as he looks himself over.

“Not bad,” he states. “Pegasus, too. Unless-?” He touches his forehead with his hoof. “Nope. Oh well. Um…” He repositions himself, placing his hooves against the wall- then simply walks down it. “Yep, that works,” he states.

“No fair,” her mother states, from across the room.

He shrugs- then repeats, with his wings. “Oh well,” he states. “Life isn’t fair.”

“Besides,” she says, hopping into the air between the two, an idea in her head. “I bet he can’t do this.” She concentrates on her desired result.

Moments later, with a mild crack of thunder, she’s on the other side of the room.

Her mother blinks. “Wait. I can teleport?”

“Uh, yes,” she states, trotting back over. “Probably. And levitate things, and… whatever else ‘direct manipulation’ of the energy can do.” She sighs. “Never know, with me being… Well, different.” She flares her wings.

“Magic,” her mother states. “It’s gotta be magic.”

“Alright. That works, for now at least. Um, you three, then. You still want in or no?”

The three crewmembers stare for about three seconds, before all three of them simultaneously offer her the thumbs up. “Yes Ma’am!”

She blinks. “Uh… We are aware of a third kind of pony that can’t do any of that… You sure?”

The middle one shrugs. “Well, what can it do?”

“We don’t know yet.”

The three glance at each other. “Meh.”

“So, you’re still all for it?”

“Yep.”

“Yep.”

“Aaand, yep.”

“Alrighty,” she shrugs. “Here goes.”

Two seconds later, three green pegasi are blinking and looking down at themselves, differing only in mane/tail color.

Author's Note

Edit 12/20/2018: I got curious today... During chapter 1, he says the estimate is 'ten miles or so'... but in The First Equestrian Starliner, Athena spouts some square footage numbers. When I combined those with the shape she has in my head, she's a whopping 235 miles long... when I allow no space for the spinal weapons or other systems. Oh- and about 120 miles wide, at the widest point; also about 23-24 miles deep, on average.

... That's a big ship.

Chapter 8

“Um, Captain?”

She looks up from her conversation with her father; he looks up as well.

Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen, her dull brown exec, doesn’t just bow his head. He bends his forelegs as well, producing a pronounced effect. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we have a situation change.” He returns from his bow.

She nods. “Nice bow. What happened?”

He sighs. “The public took your reveal exactly as we expected. Millions of people, lobbying to get aboard. Athena tells me we’ve had almost a thousand electronic attacks since- right?” He glances at the ceiling.

“Rate of detected attacks has increased significantly since previous estimation. At this time, four thousand eight hundred twelve attacks have been routed successfully.”

“Right, so, almost five thousand electronic attacks. The issue… is on the official side of things. They’ve panicked- so, as of ten minutes ago, we’re quarantined aboard this ship. They’ll be launching tugs to remove the microstation shortly.”

She blinks. “Quarantined.”

He nods.

“Even though we’ve got the biggest and most capable small craft in the fleet.”

He nods again. “They’ve been quarantined with us. It’s the CDC, mostly- they’re afraid of Unkno- er, magic, and both the permanence of the transformation and what we can do with it.”

“So…”

“From what I gathered when I talked to them, they’re worried there’s a major negative side-effect we simply haven’t seen yet.”

She blinks. “Let me get this straight. They think our magic might have negative side effects, so they’re locking us- as the people that have been exposed to the stuff, so at the highest risk of such- right in the middle of the only known source?”

He nods. “Yep. He said there’s no use removing us from this environment if we’re already so thoroughly exposed.”

She sighs. “Did you tell him we produce our own now?”

He shakes his head. “They still think we’re feeding off the residual energy up here. As a matter of fact, I rather suspect he thinks we’ve established some sort of physical dependence on it.”

“Right. So, they’ve forbidden us from leaving the ship, and probably cancelled all remaining crew flights, correct?”

He nods. “Affirmative.”

“I bet this means they want us to ignore stranded sailors.”

He bows his head, scowling. “Yes. They want us to report them, but not do anything.”

She sighs. “Athena? We’re going to disregard that part, okay?”

“Orders confirmed. Automatic emergency response systems remain active.”

Then she tilts her head. “Though, I’d like to avoid exposing any rescue-ees to magic, if at all possible. They don’t need to be quarantined with us- and we can use the sensor logs to prove they’re just fine.”

“Orders confirmed. Thaumic Distribution Grid online in four point seven days.”

Her dad sighs. “I bet I’m quarantined up here as well,” he states.

Sta’leen doesn’t miss a beat. “Actually, they requested that any ‘non-crew’ be returned to the surface immediately, regardless of exposure. Though, they did specify a quarantine facility to send such to.” He pauses for just a second. “At this time, they are not aware you are aboard. Athena tells me there’s a rumor going around that we’ve taken civilians aboard without their consent.”

She lets out a sigh. “Alright. What do they want from us?”

“Nothing. He said they’ll be pulling the data they need directly from our ship computers.”

She snorts. “No they won’t.”

He frowns. “They’ll be using the Delta-Seven protocol.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Athena?”

“This vessel is not required to comply with any protocol, standardized or otherwise, unless directed otherwise by authorized crew. By default, Delta Seven is blocked. All authorized crewmembers are aboard.”

“Good,” she states. “Let’s make a general information blackout to external sources, unless directed otherwise.”

“Orders confirmed. All external data access locked.”

Her father raises an eyebrow at her. “You sure about that? They’ll probably court-martial you.”

She snorts at him. “Dad, I’m a pony in command of a starship capable of destroying planets and outrunning the fastest ships the USA has to offer. What’s more, I can literally create enough energy to shatter a city in a matter of moments!” Athena had, after all, been able to confirm she’d been creating energy each time she pulled it from herself- and had estimated her capacity for such creation to be…

To be honest, ‘shatter a city’ is an understatement. It’s more of an incinerate.

He nods. “Not to mention, as I told you before, they can beg all they like, but Athena won’t listen to a word they say unless you tell her to.”

“I’m liking that thought,” Sta’leen states. Then he glances at his Captain. “Uh, so long as you don’t see fit to send me to the surface. Pretty sure I can’t do really any of that.”

She chuckles. “Nah- they’d just send you right back aboard, because you didn’t make any technically illegal orders, and we are supposed to be under quarantine.” She glances at her dad, then back at him. “So, how’s the crew?”

He nods. “The third flight has completed transformation and will be awakening shortly. The second flight has mostly finished adjusting; pretty sure the pegasi are still trying to figure out how to fly.”

She raises an eyebrow. “What about yourself?”

“I have not considered it a priority.”

“Right,” she states. “As long as you get in at least some practice before our first assignment.”

He bows his head. “Understood.” He glances at the Space Lord. “Um, Athena seemed pretty willing to take my commands when I came aboard.”

Her father scowls. “Hmm… Nothing has changed… Unless?” He looks at her.

She shrugs her wings, and looks up at the ceiling. “Athena?”

“Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen is recognized as Exec Officer aboard this vessel.”

“So… What’s the command hierarchy?”

“This vessel currently recognizes two authorized Command personnel: One Captain, Commander Matthews; one Exec Officer, Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen. The Exec Officer is not authorized to override nor violate the Captain’s orders; the Captain may freely override any order, regardless of source.”

“... Alright. What about departmental heads?”

“Department Personnel are not considered Command personnel. Department Personnel are assigned department-specific authority below the Exec Officer, with department-specific hierarchies based on rank, position, or skill. At this time, all department hierarchies are based on assigned positions from submitted crew lists.”

“Okay… how about the bridge crew?”

“Bridge Crew authority is delegated directly by Command personnel. By default, station assignment is considered equivalent to delegation of relevant authority.”

“... Ahh.” She glances at Sta’leen. “Is Command authority delegatable?”

“Affirmative.”

“Right… So, what happens if all Command personnel disappear?”

“Upon the disappearance of Command personnel, relocation, establishment of communications, and, if applicable, recovery is automatic. This happened during your use of the transporters earlier.”

“Okay. What if we die?”

“If all Command personnel are confirmed deceased, Command authority will automatically pass to the seniormost passenger from the United Space Administration. If unmanned, Command authority will pass to the United Space Administration itself. If the Administration cannot be located, the vessel will divert to Full Autonomous Mode and this vessel will consider to all orders given. Priority will be given to orders given by senior personnel; orders given from within will override those transmitted from without. Such status would continue, pending assignment of new Command personnel.”

“... Roger that.” She looks back down at Sta’leen. “So, that answers that. Let’s just, uh, not die.”

Author's Note

Yes, it's a shortie. Yes, I'm setting up for something.

~~No, I'm not telling you what it is.~~ ~~Strike that~~, I am- with the next chapter. In a day or two. Please guess? :trollestia:

Chapter 9

Two weeks comes and goes. As a matter of fact, two entire months simply come and go.

Not one order has been sent to her throughout this time. When she requested to participate in target practice, she was denied. When she had requested fuel, she was denied.

As a matter of fact, just last night, she requested food. Apparently, all of her crew- save herself- are converting their food into their thaumic energy… which is then being lost to decay. Naturally, the loss rate is rather higher than the average solar rate, so the supply with which she has been fabricating meals- no working hydroponics, nor enough to make such- has been dwindling.

The ground crew acknowledged her father’s presence aboard the ship and, it would seem, are now ignoring him. She’s asked Athena for any related news reports, but aside from the reports those months ago from when she revealed the pony thing, there is nothing in the news.

She trots up to her command chair, hopping into it, and glancing at the displays- nothing new. “Athena, how’s the thaumic project going?”

“Thaumic scrubbers complete and operational. Shipboard thaumic levels well below transformation threshold at all points. Life support sustainability increased by ninety-seven percent.”

She sighs. “Thank you. Well, it’s time to call Command again, then.”

“Orders confirmed. Summon bridge crew?”

She nods. “Yep. Just like last time.”

“Summoning.”

She sighs, adjusting herself in the crash couch. Athena rebuilt it for her new form shortly after the quarantine was enacted; at the same time, she had the rest of the crew’s crash couches rebuilt to accept ponies; this has made them exponentially more comfortable. She particularly likes how the couches are designed to handle pegasi and non-pegasi interchangeably, without modification.

It takes about ten minutes for her bridge crew to show. As usual, Sta’leen is one of the first, taking his seat next to hers with practiced ease. “We lobbying for food again?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “As much as I’d love to, no. Instead, Athena finished the thaumic scrubbers, making it safe for humans to come aboard.” She sighs. “I might be able to get them to send someone up here- someone that can experience the deficiency first-hoof and maybe arrange for more to be sent up. Or for a quick refuelling trip to be authorized!”

“Ahh… How much are we saving by reclaiming our excess thaumic energy?”

“Sustainability increase of ninety-seven percent.”

“So… we’ve got a month and a half now.”

She nods. “Sounds about right.” She looks back forwards, watching her tactical officer- the mare with neither wings nor horn- trotting to her station. She’s so far turned out to be much stronger than anypony else… except herself. “I half expect they’ll want us to go down there again. So long as they don’t put us in danger, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What about the ship?”

She sighs. “I’m not about to give her away. She’s about the only thing keeping them from killing us outright.” She shudders. “I’m hoping they never find out what she’s programmed to do if we do die.”

He mirrors the shudder, before glancing around the bridge and looking up at the big viewscreen. “Right then. I think everypony’s here.”

“Affirmative,” Chief Ta’leer states, from his station by the door.

She nods. “Roger that. Let’s call Command.”

“Placing call,” Athena states, displaying it on the big screen.

She almost sighs, being reminded once again that the only bridge officer she doesn’t have is the comms officer.

It takes Command a long time to answer the call.

She lets out a sigh as the inexperienced human shuttle pilot lights off full strength to his thrusters while still inside Athena’s docking bay. A quick glance to her side shows her exec with a similar expression. On his other side, her chief engineer looks like she wishes she were a unicorn… again. Unfortunately, though, the pegasus can’t just teleport up to the cockpit to give the crew a piece of her mind. After all, that burn probably did significant damage to some of the delicate systems filling those bays.

She hopes Athena’s manufacturing capability extends to self-repair- and that the ship thinks to use it before the engineer returns aboard. She’d rather avoid the fiasco that would ensue should the engineer discover the damage from the thrusters. Mind, there’ll probably be a fiasco anyways, but it won’t be as bad.

So, why is she in this standard United Space Administration shuttle? Easy. The ground crew wants her and her crew, along with her parents, on the ground. They’re also sending up a few engineering teams to examine the ship.

She’s not all that excited about it; as a matter of fact, she had argued to have noone sent aboard, but they hadn’t agreed. So she had told them they’d have to bring their own food, and instructed Athena not to manufacture food for them the way she’s been doing for her crew.

She lets out a sigh. So far, the ground crew still doesn’t know her crew is slowly producing thaumic energy and bleeding it out into their surroundings. Neither do they know that she can produce enormous amounts of it in a very short time.

Nor that, as near as Athena has been able to tell, she has stopped aging. She hasn’t told any of her crew about that either, and has also instructed Athena not to tell them. The computer had rather helpfully agreed that her medical information is hers and hers alone, unless she chooses to share it.

She stares at the wall in front of her. At least she won’t have to worry about starving to death… in theory.

The air explodes behind him as he smashes his way through the sound barrier. It would be a rather severe understatement to say he’s glad he had his daughter teach him to fly.

A similar understatement would be that he’s glad it was an evening flight, so the sky was darkening quickly by the time they landed.

He is not glad he wasn’t able to pull his wife or daughter out as well. He prays his daughter, at least, noticed in time to escape herself.

They had not been summoned to the surface for closer observation of the effects of the thaumic energy. If they had, they would not have been taken to a containment facility. They would not have been drugged.

He shakes his head slightly, forcing himself to stay awake, as he races over the suburbs. They drugged him too- and, unlike his daughter, he recognized the feeling. It’s a simple knockout drug; not one of the fastest, nor most effective. However, if regularly dosed with a miniscule amount of another, normally useless drug, they’ll never wake. Normally used to keep artificially-grown brains- or bodies- from awakening, becoming sentient… and becoming legal entities. Also useful for suspended animation.

They won’t be able to prevent that now; his daughter and her crew are already legal entities, so they can’t kill them, at least. He’ll…

He quickly decides he’s glad his new form is a pegasus for several reasons, the latest one being the sharper eyesight. He just spotted a suitable tree- a good platform of branches, decently high up, and well-hidden by the surrounding branches- from almost a mile away. He slows below the speed of sound as he approaches the woods, then dips under the treetops for the last quarter mile or so, before landing in the protected tree and shuddering. He can feel the dreaded chemical working; he’ll be unconscious in less than a minute. He settles himself carefully on the branches.

He’ll have to plan when he wakes up, probably in a couple days. He’ll have to figure out how he’s going to take his wife, his daughter, and her crew back, get them free.

He sets his head down on his forelegs, and lets himself doze off. The drug will be forcing it before long anyways.

She lets out a small scream when she finds herself, very suddenly, in the woods outside of town. She’d been in that entry hall before, arriving at whatever facility that was with her family and her daughter’s crew. She almost charges up her horn to teleport herself back, but she stops herself at the last second. That jump had felt very much like her daughter’s magic- so, it must have been to protect her. Plus, right before she had disappeared, her husband had taken off and smashed through the window.

She glances to her right, where the doctor with the syringe had been. The one that had been coming for her, specifically; he had been about to administer the injection. They had said it was a simple vaccine, to make sure they wouldn’t catch something she hadn’t caught.

She shudders, and starts moving through the woods. A little pause to power her horn instantly reveals a good hiding place not far away, though up a tree. She smiles as she walks; she is glad she had invented that notation for describing her magic. Her daughter had looked at it, but hasn’t seemed to have figured it out just yet; nopony else has given it even a moment’s thought.

The same had not been true for her daughter’s ship. When she had given it her notation, it had requested a few demonstrations and corresponding ‘matrices’, she’s calling them. After all, a magic matrix does sound better than a magic sentence or something… though it does seem to be more like an equation. She hasn’t been able to figure out any such mechanic for how she might design a new spell- but her daughter’s ship, again, had no trouble. This navigation spell has a twenty-seven symbol matrix, far more complex than anything she’d been able to come up with. She understands the crew has been sticking with the standard levitation- which she described with a two-symbol matrix.

No. This navigation spell is the ship’s invention. It took her four days to cast it correctly- then, she never got lost again.

She trots forwards, keeping her ears open. She does not want to be caught unawares; the only way she can fight would be to levitate… or teleport and run. She probably should have looked into combat spells. She’ll check out her safe spot and review the area before she starts trying to figure out exactly why her daughter teleported her so far away.

Admiral Wolf drops his cheery expression as soon as the com call goes dead. “Give ‘em a month, they’ll be as good as dead,” he grumbles, rising from his desk. He snags his rifle, slinging it over his back as he leaves the room.

He checks into the family room on his way. “Hey, honey. I’m going to be in the woods for the next couple hours, okay?”

His wife looks up at him, raises an eyebrow, and nods. “I might join you soon,” she states.

“Roger that,” he nods, before fetching his briefcase from the foyer and continuing on the way out of the house. He sets a course for the forest, for that one tree both he and his wife have been using for this purpose for decades.

He had gotten the call from one of the junior officers. Directly contrary to his orders, Commander Matthews and her crew had been pulled down from the ship… to where his officers couldn’t protect them. He’s been fighting to keep them up there for weeks, against the constant arguing of several officials and many officers- not Space Police officers, but Space Administration officers- he would have imprisoned long ago if he could. He’s pretty sure they want to dissect the ponies.

He’s also been fighting to get supplies sent up to them. Food, fuel, even air. Even a ship that large can’t hold an infinite supply- and, judging by the numbers he’d pulled before Commander Matthews had been assigned, that ship is not fully supplied… by a long shot.

Perhaps he should have contacted them directly, communicated with them. He might have been able to keep them on that ship- and, perhaps, find out exactly what the thing is capable of… so, exactly what it needs, and how soon. Unfortunately, without her crew’s consent, that ship won’t tell anyone anything. He approves of that order, actually; she’d slapped the idiots running the USA in the Space Lord’s absence in the face. She’d responded to their quarantine by denying them access to the data on the very magic they want to look at so bad.

He has made sure that the quarantine is not enforced. Only an idiot would have placed it; it’s not like any of the ponies were planning on going to the surface… and besides, it’s residual energy. The kind that fades away on its own and doesn’t spread. All they’d have to do is wait until it fades before sending more people aboard. Or, put a hold on the crew flights and request a couple of personnel to come to the surface for testing!

He only has limited data on exactly what the ponies can do, but so long as it’s safe, everything he’s heard suggests the transformation is beneficial- that it would be ideal to get as many people as possible transformed before the residual energy finishes fading away.

To the best of his knowledge, there are four known kinds of pony- though the first is unique to the Captain for some reason. She hadn’t specified in her press release- but she doesn’t have anything special that none of the other three have. Rather, she seems to be a combination of the three.

There are the pegasi. Aside from being able to fly, they can walk normally in microgravity. Two skills that would make them invaluable in space, where moving around is so much harder than down here. Combined with the strange ability to grab things with a flat hoof that all of them share, the pegasi really aren’t losing anything for the gains.

There are the unicorns. They can’t fly, nor can they walk so simply in microgravity. They do seem to be able to grab the hand rails with their hooves, though it isn’t nearly as strong as a human hand. So, a mobility disadvantage, against regular humans, in space.

In exchange, they gain a magic horn. They don’t have to touch things to move them- making them invaluable in space, where a unicorn could watch out a window as they use their magic to guide incoming spacecraft smoothly into the docking cradles. They could easily repair damaged exterior components without requiring extra-vehicular activity- and without putting anyone in the path of any dangerous electrical arcs, micrometeorites, and so on. She’d demonstrated by assembling a small jigsaw puzzle in midair.

There are the regular ponies. She had specified they’re not sure what to call them yet, but they lack both the wings and the horn. The same mobility disadvantage as the unicorns, then.

As for what they gain… they get to be really strong. While that could be advantageous to a boarding party or something, he’s not so sure they would be very useful, as a rule, in space. Fortunately, out of two dozen or so crewmembers, only one turned out to be one such… regular pony. There are many names floating around in the public, but noone seems to be able to settle on what to call them.

Oh- and, as time goes on, he’s willing to bet they’ll find a way to turn one of the regular ponies into a unicorn or pegasus… Or, for that matter, make them into the same thing the Captain is- a combination of all of the strengths of the other kinds. She’s got the flight, she’s got the magic. She’s got the strength too- though she had refused to comment, when asked, on how she had found out.

He marches through the woods on the edge of his property. It’s not far; this nature preserve is only a mile across. He’ll be there soon.

“They’ve been dealt with. We think a couple escaped, but all crew have been accounted for.”

He nods. “Thank you.” He closes the audio-only connection, grinning. “Oh, you’re gonna be mine…” He touches the keys on his terminal, dialing up the ship. He straightens his face as he goes- it wouldn’t do to risk a smart program picking up on things like that.

The call connects instantly, as expected. “You have reached the Starship Athena,” it states, with utter calm. “Please state your business.”

“We have an update,” he states. “All assigned crew have perished in a shuttlecraft accident. Stand by for new assignment.”

He waits with baited breath. Did it take it? Is that all it took?

The delay lasts two seconds, before it responds. “Standing by,” it states.

It takes all his will to hide his elation as he uploads the new assignment.

“Orders received.” It pauses for a second. “System Error: Authority transfer impossible: Insufficient fuel.”

“Wait, What?”

Chapter 10

He slides closer to his tree. He heard a sharp crack from this direction a minute ago; he wants to be sure no animals have taken over the area. He glances around once more, before raising his rifle up to look at his tree through the scope.

Oh. There’s something up there. He thinks, at least- it’s dark out, so he’s not certain what color that is: Black, or… it almost looks blue.

Something moves. He rests instantly against the tree, stabilizing the weapon.

It shows itself. It’s… It’s blue. Dark blue, unless he misses his guess- with gold hair, much like the Captain’s. He doesn’t move. Its huge eyes blink, before it turns and disappears again. He raises an eyebrow. Was that a pony? He’s pretty sure he saw what looked like a unicorn horn. He lowers the rifle and walks silently closer, listening to the low murmuring coming from his tree. It would seem to be talking to itself… No, herself. He can’t tell what she’s saying, but that’s definitely a female voice.

Something glows up there. It’s a soft blue glow, not unlike that of his terminal. Then someone coughs. He sidesteps to another tree, bracing himself- and strains his ears.

“Hey- Hey! You’re awake! Um, there’s something…”

A second voice floats down from the tree- definitely male, slightly louder… and very familiar. “Oh? What is it?”

He lowers the weapon, looking up at the tree. Moments later, he spots the glint of an eyeball, before the male voice sounds again- and much louder.

“Oh, Admiral Wolf. What brings you to the woods?”

He blinks, and glances down at himself… No, he didn’t forget the camo. He should be the next best thing to invisible in these woods- especially since it’s dark out.

“Oh, sorry- pegasus eyesight. I’m Space Lord Matthews.”

He blinks again. Alright, so the pegasi also have very good eyes. Either that or he’s bluffing and he’s just obvious. “Ahh,” he states, stowing the weapon and walking towards the tree. “Might I ask you the same?”

“Uh… it’s a bit, well, complicated.”

He chuckles. “Pretty simple, for me. Work sucks, this is my escape.”

“With a gun?”

“Never know what you might run into in here.” He reaches the tree and scrambles skillfully up the branches. He stops just short of his “shelf”, as he calls it- where they are. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Sure, come on up. Is Mrs. Wolf coming?”

He shakes his head. “Not at the moment, but she might.”

“What the-?”

All three officers simply stare. Athena had been responding to every request they made with a simple ‘Access Denied’- even when one asked what time it was. Even the lift had refused to operate, despite the clearly-marked buttons. So, they had forced the doors open here- to find an empty shaft, no lift car. Almost as soon as they got it open, though, a lift car had blazed past.

So they had thrown the Space Police officer into the shaft, to find out if passing cars would stop to avoid hitting them. She had come aboard on her own insistence; interestingly enough, Athena had simply let her board the ship. She hadn’t interfered with their examinations and, when asked, had come aboard on Commander Matthews’ request, to ensure the continued safety of the vessel.

Once Commander Matthews was safely off the ship, though, they ganged up on her and tied her up. Admittedly, despite being a junior-level Space Police Officer, she had been really good with her gun- and had fast instincts. More than half of their number had taken dirt naps on the decking when she hit them with her stun gun; four more had bounced off the decking when she had demonstrated her far superior hand-to-hand skills. Eventually, though, they had won. They had only managed it because they’d cornered her, though. The ones she’d stunned are still unconscious; of the others, the medic of the party- thankfully, he hadn’t participated in the attack- has confirmed eight dead and thirteen severely injured.

They had tied her up so thoroughly she couldn’t possibly escape, then taken her with them just to be sure. She’d shown frankly amazing resilience in remaining awake through it all- so they’d told her what they were doing. She’d been terrified- at least, they think she had been; she’d done an admirable job of hiding it- when they threw her in.

She had flown slowly into the shaft, just like their throw… then suddenly twisted in midair and whizzed out of sight.

One of them steps forwards to follow- but a lift car blows past, missing him by only a couple centimeters.

“Where did she go?”

“Access Denied.” The lift door slams shut.

She lets out a gasp. They had thrown her into the shaft. She’d expected to be knocked out when she hit the opposite wall head-first, or perhaps get splattered by a passing lift car.

She had not expected to suddenly accelerate down the lift shaft, bulkhead doors slamming open and closed for her, while the ropes came undone on their own. Then, a lift door had slammed open instead- and she just found herself standing, completely free, in an unfamiliar passage… with the coiled rope slung across her body like a rifle.

Nevermind that she’s fairly certain she made a few hairpin corners in that shaft… and came out of it at well over a hundred meters per second, to come to a complete, freestanding stop, just a half a meter away from it.

She crouches immediately into a guarded stance, searching both ways down the passage.

Nothing… but the door directly in front of her, on the opposite side of the passage as the lift, looks very different from the ones she was walking through when she was tailing the Space Administration goons.

“Welcome aboard the Starship Athena, Captain Wolf.”

She glances up at the ceiling, where the voice had come from. The voice that, until now, she’s only heard saying ‘Access Denied’. “Captain?” she asks. “Did someone…?”

“Negative. At this time, you hold the rank of Captain in the United Space Administration.”

She blinks. “Right. Um… what just happened?” She looks back at the lift door as she asks.

“Four point three minutes ago, a contrived attack against the crew of this vessel succeeded, incapacitating all authorized personnel. The attack was made by United Space Administration personnel, within a United Space Administration facility. As a direct result, this vessel has diverted to Full Automatic Mode and the United Space Administration has been voided as a possible source of posthumous orders.

“The United Space Police has made no such transgression, and remains registered as valid Law Enforcement. Unless ordered not to, this vessel will automatically expend a reasonable effort to protect the life of any Law Enforcement officers.”

“... so why use my USA rank?”

“By default, the highest rank assigned across all services is used for verbal addressing. Would you like to submit a personal override?”

“A… personal override.”

“Affirmative. All non-hostile personnel are authorized to request to be addressed in a different manner from default, within reason.”

“Uh… then yes. Please call me Officer Wolf.”

“Override confirmed, Officer Wolf.”

“Right then… So, you’ve decided they’re hostile.” She glances back at the lift.

“Affirmative. Association between boarding United Space Administration personnel and attacking personnel is confirmed through voluntary means.”

“And I’m not?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright… you said ‘voluntary’?”

“Affirmative. A seizure attempt was made by the attacking party; false crew list contained all boarding personnel.”

“A seizure attempt? Oh no.” She sighs. The tactic is pretty common- and, usually, if the requested concessions are denied, the hostages are killed.

“Per Protocol Charlie-Indigo-Delta-Seven, Denial of Authority Transfer was disguised as a system error. Attempting party has been lead to believe resupplying this vessel will allow seizure.”

She blinks, and glances up. “Oh… So you’re all prepared, aren’t you? What’s Charlie Indigo Delta Seven?”

“Protocol Charlie-Indigo-Delta-Seven, also Crew-In-Danger-Seven. Part of Protocol Family Charlie-Indigo-Delta; Automatic protocols triggered by a detected threat to livelihood of crew that have traveled beyond the hull of this vessel. Specific protocol used depends on situation.

“Specific Protocol Charlie-Indigo-Delta-Seven: All Commanding Officers have been incapacitated and are in mortal danger; rescue impossible. Under Protocol Charlie-Indigo-Delta-Seven, this vessel will act, in Full Automatic, to deceive as necessary to prolong crew survival and expedite release and restoration to health; this vessel is authorized to freely make, and to break, agreements with outside parties, as determined may assist in protocol completion and/or execution of projected Commanding Officer intentions.”

“... Ahh. Um, how did you do that… thing with me in the lift tunnels?”

“This vessel is equipped with multi-regional gravity generators and inertial compensators.”

“Uh… How does that help?”

“This vessel is not authorized to divulge Restricted Information.”

She nods. “Alright, I can live with that. It is reliable, right?”

“Affirmative.”

“And safe?”

“Affirmative.”

“And they won’t get it?”

“Affirmative. The Shaft Door near them has been resealed.”

She nods. “Alright. Can I request it?”

“Within reason.”

Another nod, then she looks to the sides. “Alright. Where am I?”

“Directly outside the Primary Combat Information Center.”

“Roger that. Can I come in?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright.” She steps towards the door- and it slides open for her. She walks in, looking around.

Perhaps the first thing to catch her eye is the side door with the warning sign on it. A quick look reveals the content of the warning sign. ‘WARNING: High Thaumic Densities Behind This Door. PONIES ONLY!’

She smiles at the door, and turns to the… Well, it looks like a holoprojector of some sort, but she’s pretty sure those don’t exist. The table is glowing slightly, a schematic of a few hallways floating above it, with dots marking each of the United Space Agency officers. She looks at it for a few seconds. “So…” She glances at the door. “What happens if I step through that door?”

Chapter 11

“So, let me get this straight: I was right. That about sum it up?”

Space Lord Matthews and his unicorn wife, sitting side-by-side in a tree, nod.

“Kinda depends on what your prediction was,” the Space Lord states.

He sighs. “The only reason they wanted you down here was so they could convince the Athena that her crew is dead, right?”

He nods. “Something to that end, yes. I didn’t stay long enough to find out for certain.”

Sigh. “And the goons they sent onto that ship…”

The Space Lord shakes his head. “I didn’t see them,” he states.

“I did,” his wife states. “Looked more like a pack of wolves than anything else, to me. I’m surprised Skyla didn’t call an abort to the whole thing right then, and throw them overboard.” She shudders visibly.

Admiral Wolf sighs. “She probably didn’t realize anything was going to happen. So… how come you two escaped, but she didn’t?”

The Space Lord hangs his head in a sigh. “I didn’t realize anything was going on- I had my suspicions, of course, but I didn’t know for certain- until they did the vaccine injections.” He snorts. “That should have tipped me off right there- one of the things we were able to confirm is enhanced immune capability, across all breeds. Should be practically impossible for anypony to get sick, vaccinated or not. And yes, we tested for nonhuman diseases as well.

“Anyways, it did not feel like a vaccine when it went in. You know that tickly-tingly feeling from the Stasis Knockout? I got that instead- and made a break for it. Smashed out the window, flew out here before I had time to pass out.” He glances at the branches. “Next thing I know, you’re below the tree and my wife is shaking me awake.”

He nods, turning his attention to the unicorn.

The unicorn blinks at him. “Uh…” She looks at her husband.

The pegasus lets out a sigh. “He’s fine,” he states, before looking at the Admiral. “We are off the record, right?”

He nods.

“Right. Anything we haven’t made public- up to and including my going supersonic earlier- stays that way.”

He blinks. “Uh… Alright. You have my word.”

She sighs. “So… It’s okay if I tell him…?” she asks her husband.

“Yes, it is,” he states. “Admiral Wolf is the head of the Space Police. If he can’t keep a secret, no one can.”

“Alright.” She turns to the Admiral. “It was… I was last in line for the injection, after…” She gestures at her husband. “Right after he disappeared through the window, before they reached me, our daughter teleported me to the woods.”

“Teleported? That specific to her, or…?”

She shakes her head. “Telekinesis is only the beginning of unicorn magic. I used a navigation spell to make my way safely here, teleported myself into the tree- and found him.” She glances at her husband. “He was asleep, so I knew something was wrong. Not that my daughter teleporting me away from a vaccine didn’t already tip me off, but…” She smiles. “When I heard you in the woods, I used the general healing spell Athena made- the only one I memorized, at least- to wake him up.”

The pegasus nods. “That would do it.”

Admiral Wolf blinks. “So… let me get this straight. Pegasi can fly supersonic, and unicorns can do basically anything?”

“Uh, within limits,” the pegasus states. “Only me and Skyla can actually break the sound barrier… and while unicorn magic can do basically anything, they’ve got limited power to do it with.”

“Very limited,” the unicorn states. “Especially down here, where there isn’t any to absorb- and with one exception.”

He nods. “Right, yes. Skyla- that’s Commander Matthews, the ship’s Captain- is an Alicorn. So far as we’ve been able to tell, she’s got nearly limitless power.”

“Nearly?” his wife asks.

He nods. “Nothing is truly infinite,” he states. “I asked her. It would seem Athena has been able to confirm she does have a limit, but it’s virtually impossible to reach that limit with the spells she knows.” He shudders. “Makes me wonder what kind of spell it would take to reach it.”

She blinks. “... Oh.”

“With the spells she knows?” the Admiral asks.

“Teleportation and levitation,” the unicorn states. “She’s been studying the notation I invented, but hasn’t gotten the hang of it yet.” She glances at her husband. “Too busy keeping her crew in shape, I think.”

“What about the rest?”

She shakes her head. “None of ‘em did any more than glance at it. Something about useless glyphs.” She sighs. “None of them know how to do any more than levitate.”

“So we can’t expect any help from them.”

“Huh?”

Space Lord Matthews snickers into a hoof as Admiral Matthews continues. “We’re going to be the ones that save their sorry, uh, flanks, aren’t we?”

“I can’t believe it,” he grumbles. “What idiot programmed that thing? It took the initial assignment without issue, but it needs fuel for reassignment? It’s- It’s-!”

“Stupid,” his conversant states. “I know. Can my team dig in yet?”

He shakes his head. “No, sorry. We’ve confirmed the presence of dead man’s beacons in at least two of them, and suspect there’s no less than six more. We’ll have to neutralize the Surface Police before your team can dig in.”

“Alright. What’s that going to take?”

“Well… really the only way to take out the Surface Police is to nuke them from orbit. But before we can do that, we’ll have to take out the Space Police- which are far harder to kill.” He sighs. “We’re working on that, but it’s going to take time.”

The phone rings… again.

Mrs. Wolf groans, lifting the receiver from its cradle, pressing it to her ear. “What do you want?” she asks. The last few hours of phone calls and alerts and demands have been grueling- she’s just about ready to follow her husband into the woods.

“Hey mom! It’s me. Now, get out of there.”

She blinks. “Jennifer? What’s wrong?”

“There’s an assassin coming- you have about five minutes. Get out of there!”

She nods, rising from her desk. “Roger that. Woods okay?”

“Yes- and don’t let Dad return. They’ll probably camp the house.”

“How long should we stay?”

“Until further notice- I’ll come with updates.”

“On my way.” She puts down the receiver, abandons her half written email, snatches her case from the foyer, and runs for the woods. If her daughter is telling her to run, she means it.

She only had to confirm which way, how far, and how long to stay missing.

It’s happened before.

She pauses a few steps from the house, glancing back at the garage. She still has- she glances at her wristwatch- four minutes, why not?

A soft, purple glow shines from her forehead, just above her field of vision, as she shapes it to her will. To the pattern Athena gave her.

Instantly, her already uneasy stance becomes much more difficult. She rocks back on her hind legs as they shift and change. Her eyeballs shrink as the fur recedes from her skin. Her uniform nearly startles her when it whips into existence around her.

Moments later, she straightens up, flexing and inspecting her fingers. She looks up at her gun, resting on the table, while her left hand checks for any remnant of her horn.

“Well, that was interesting,” she states, and extends her hand towards the weapon. A purple glow suddenly surrounds it, and it floats up and into her hand. The glow vanishes as she closes her hand on the handle grips, feeling the familiar weight of the weapon.

She glances up at the ceiling. “Any strange glow come from me when I did that?”

“Negative visible emissions during thaumic use.”

“Visible?”

“Thaumic emissions detected; no other unusual emissions.”

She twirls the weapon around her finger and holsters it. “Awesome. Let’s do this.”

She twirls her gun around her finger and holsters it. “Done and done. So, we throwing them out the airlock or turning them in?”

One of the handcuffed thugs sitting against the wall snorts. “You can’t throw us out the airlock,” he states. “That’s illegal.”

She snorts, turning towards him and catching her gun as it zooms out of its holster, pointing towards the ceiling. “You made a seizure attempt on this vessel,” she states. “By United Earth Law, that makes you pirates. And pirates I’m allowed to shoot on sight.” She turns her back, flicking the gun behind her, for it to return to her holster. “You’re just not worth the bullets.”

“Negative,” the ceiling says- the first time it’s said anything but ‘Access Denied’ since she got back to them. “Once deceased, the boarding party can be converted into usable fuel, from which bullets can quickly be reconstituted.”

“Oh?” She turns back to them. “Give me a reason not to shoot you, then.”

“Uhh…”

Her gun jumps back into her hand.

He immediately starts talking.

Alright, she figures, he’s going to State’s Evidence.

“They’re not here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m at the residence, Sir, but they aren’t here.”

“What do you mean they aren’t there? I’ve got tracers on their phones, and they’re both right there!”

“I’ve scanned the thermals, Sir. There’s evidence one person was here not too long ago- but there’s no one here now. The garage is also empty.”

A curse word. “They know we’re onto them. See if you can find something.”

“Roger that.”

Chapter 12

“Wait. If the wingless and hornless crewmember was some low-level operations clerk before, why is she now the tactical officer?”

Everything rewinds to the two points. It sure is interesting to have a fourth-dimensional perspective.

“Updated identity of the plain pony crewmember represents updated projections of future crew forms. Shuttlepod Maintenance Clerk Tenneth has been confirmed unicorn; Lieutenant Chasing, Tactical Officer, is currently projected to be a plain pony.”

“How do you know?”

“At this time, all transforming crewmembers have begun developing horns or wings, save only Lieutenant Chasing.”

“What about the flight we just took aboard?”

“Crew Flight Three has not yet begun transformation.”

“Roger. Kill the sim, we’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. About what was said…”

“All information given to crewmembers is accurate, to current knowledge. Stated results from simulations pertaining to post-transporter transformation results are genuine; all further data, analysis, and simulation on pony capabilities is based in simulation.”

“So, you really do think I can fly supersonic, and turn on something smaller than a dime.”

“Simulations do suggest such, affirmative.”

“And that I can teleport.”

“Present simulation accuracy on teleport details estimated at twelve point three percent; however, simulations suggest teleportation is possible.”

“... So, in short, we messed up the simulation parameters a little, and everything cascaded from there- even when corrections were made.”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright. So, now that I know exactly how badly things could go wrong, will we be okay if I never lift that ban- if we pretend we’re all humans up here?”

Momentary pause. “Affirmative.”

“In that sim, did I tell my dad?”

“Negative.”

“What if I do tell him, and implore him not to tell anypony?”

“No material difference, save substantially improved familial relations.”

“Alright. How do you know what my parents will turn into?”

“Question implies knowledge that is absent. Parental forms in simulation are predicted based on observed patterns in transformed crew. Breed prediction confidence eighty-nine point seven percent for Mrs. Matthews; forty-seven point one percent for Mr. Matthews. Color prediction confidence ninety-three point four percent for Mrs. Matthews; ninety-seven point two percent for Mr. Matthews.”

“... Ahh, I’m going to pretend that made sense, beyond that you’re pretty sure my mom will be a dark blue unicorn and that my dad will be a deep blue… pony of uncertain breed.”

“Affirmative.”

“Really? I got that right?”

“Simplification accuracy one hundred percent.”

“All-right! … Okay, I should probably return to the land of the living. I can come back to play with these simulators some other time.”

“Affirmative.”

She lets out a sigh when the machine finally turns off. “Alrighty! First thing’s first: Am I really an alicorn?”

“Affirmative.”

She puts a hoof to her forehead. “Yep. Huh, it’s a bit longer than the sim gave it credit for. Next up: Do we still have no idea who that white, uh, alicorn, was?”

“Identity unknown.”

“Then…” She scowls. “Wait. When she appeared, you were saying something about the worldwall?”

“This vessel is not equipped with passive sensors capable of detecting events across the worldwall.”

“Yes, that. What worldwall?”

“The worldwall that separates this universe from the next.”

“Soo… when whatever it was interrupted that transporter jump, it dumped me into another dimension, which you successfully pulled me back from.”

“Affirmative.”

“Can you do that all the way to the dimension of the ponies, where she came from? Where magic came from?”

“Unknown.”

“Unknown?”

“Affirmative. The path to the specified dimension is unknown, save recorded coordinates for the Dimensional Engine.”

“Uhh… can you jump me there directly, or…?”

“Negative. Transporters lack sufficient power to penetrate the interdimensional void.”

“But to that… cloudlike world, they do?”

“Intermediate dimension is directly connected to the present dimension, requiring no passage through the Void and only one worldwall penetration. At this time, over forty million additional accessible dimensions have been detected connected to the intermediate dimension; chained entry via transporter is possible for approximately two point three percent of them.”

“Uh… Let’s just forget about that for now, then, and plan on flying to that world sometime or another. Um…” She glances to the side. “The simulation. How accurate was the power loss thing?”

“Simulation confidence regarding thaumic decay zero percent, from new data; thaumic decay rate appears to decrease in close proximity to ponies, in addition to individual production rate. Simulations suggest enough crew are aboard to reduce decay rate to zero in a small area.”

She raises an eyebrow. “How many would it take to do that for the whole ship?”

“Projections suggest twelve thousand, eight hundred forty-three ponies are required, if distributed; if concentrated, eighteen thousand, two hundred nineteen may be required.”

“... Ahh. Um… Oh- that simulation, the time my dad calls. How confident are you in that?”

“Simulation confidence on timing of Space Lord Matthews’ call, ninety eight point two percent.”

“Which means, what?”

“Approximately six point three one hours from now.”

“Roger that.” She glances back at her wings. “Confidence on flight capability?”

“Sixty three point four percent.”

“Alright.” She heads for the passage. “Flag pool room, let’s find out how accurate it was.”

“Warning: Simulation used simplest predictions available, to minimize false learning.”

“... Roger.”

As it turned out, the warning was well served. The simulation didn’t teach her anything that hurt the effort, it’s true- but it only really taught her enough to avoid getting hurt. Namely, how to move her wings in sync with each other. It took her the better part of an hour to stop splashing pell-mell into the pool whenever she tried gliding off the diving board… and she wasn’t too keen on her scanty swimming skills, so she stopped once she’d mastered it, almost a full two hours after she’d entered the pool room.

Then she’d headed for the mess hall, eaten, and finally set out for the bridge, figuring she’d kill a few hours on tactical exercises- along with figuring out how to use the control panels with hooves, something the sim never covered- while she waits for her father.

Now, though, the door to her bridge just opened, and she’s still standing in front of it.

She closes her eyes almost dramatically, then reopens them in similar fashion.

Nothing changed.

She opens her mouth. “Athena? Are those… crash test dummies?”

“Affirmative.”

“Leftover from the test cycles?”

“Affirmative.”

She grins. “I know exactly how I’m going to expedite the rest of my crew.” She trots forwards, to stand next to her command chair. “Alright. Let’s hail the United Space Administration, Commissions Branch. On the main screen, with me filtered to appear human.”

“Orders confirmed. Requesting video connection.”

The main screen in the front of the bridge lights up, displaying the prompt she expected.

“Uh… You have me in uniform, right?”

“Affirmative.”

Then the screen changes. A young boy appears onscreen, gazing out at her bridge. “United Space Administration, Comm- uhhh…” He blinks a couple times, scanning his display. “Um, Head Commissioner Kane is still here- would you like to talk to him?”

She nods. “Yes please.”

“Roger.”

Moments later, the screen changes again, this time showing the United Space Administration’s videocall hold image.

This lasts around three seconds, before an older man comes onscreen. “United Space- Oh, shoot. Um, United Space Administration, Head Commissioner Kane speaking. I take it someone forgot to clean up before commissioning your vessel?”

She nods. “It would appear so, Sir.”

He sighs. “Alright, I’ll track it down. Do you have the ships’ registration ID?”

One of the panels surrounding her command chair lights up, displaying the relevant credential. “Yes, I do.”

“Excellent.” He touches a couple buttons on his end. “What is it?”

She reads it to him- a long, alphanumeric code.

“Thank you. Let’s see… Starship Athena, correct?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright, I’ve got it. Um…” His eyes scan down something she can’t see. “All testing was completed successfully, result pass. Looks like one of the low-level commissioners just forgot to send a cleanup crew before he dumped her in the commissioning queue.” He looks back at her. “It’s completely safe to remove any and all sensing equipment left over from testing, return optional. I will be notifying… looks like both Personnel and Operations of the issue; crewing operations will be expedited with choice candidates, and your first exercise will be delayed by a full week.”

She raises an eyebrow. “A full week?”

He sighs. “That’s the most I can give you- and you’re going to need it. This is telling me you’ve got close to fifty thousand of the things scattered across the ship.”

She blinks. “You said return optional?”

“Yes ma’am. The equipment in question was not taken from our inventory, so you may jettison or destroy it at your discretion.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“You’re welcome,” he nods, and looks at his side screen again. “Hmmm… I’m not in control of everything over in Personnel, but you can probably expect a temporary promotion, and some shuffling of all or part of your bridge crew. They all seem mighty junior, to me, for such a big ship.” He salutes to her. “Safe travels.”

She tries the salute with her hoof. It doesn’t work too well, but she doesn’t lower it, hoping Athena’s alteration would cover her fumbling. “Thank you, Sir.”

The screen goes dark.

She sighs, lowering the hoof. “Um, how did I look with that salute? Both real and on the call?”

The big display comes back on, displaying the two images side-by-side. “Synthesized human appearance performed the salute with precision. Physical salute estimated eighty seven point three percent success.”

She blinks, looking at the image of her pony self, saluting out of the screen. “... Huh. It didn’t feel that good.” She shrugs. “Anyways, how many of these dummies are there?”

“Forty nine thousand, two hundred eighteen.”

“Can you get rid of them somehow- burn them as fuel or something- on your own, or do we have to do something?”

“No action is required. Confirm order: Recycle all forty nine point two thousand test dummies?”

“Uhh, confirm.”

“Orders confirmed. Energizing transporters for removal of Bridge dummies; Three. Two. One.”

On the unvoiced zero, all the dummies in her bridge momentarily glowed white and vanished, in very quick succession. Over all, it took around a quarter of a second for all ten or so dummies to disappear.

“Nice. Though I have to ask, how will the other dummies make it in for recycling? That didn’t look fast enough to do them all with the transporters.”

Author's Note

If you want to say cliffhanger, because her conversation doesn't seem to be complete, you're right- but this was the best place, out of the next few thousand words, for a chapter break... and I didn't particularly want to post something too big. I haven't finished the next chapter, either- and honestly, I'm running into writer's block again. Speculation welcome- your ideas can and often do help quite a bit!

Chapter 13

“High-speed methods were used for the bridge, as Command personnel are on the bridge. Other areas will be cleared by transporters as needed; otherwise, all areas will be cleared by more efficient physical and/or mechanical means.”

“Ahh.” She clambers up into her seat, turning around to sit in it proper. “Hmm… If everyone that comes aboard is going to be turned into a pony, we’re probably going to want to modify these seats to better accommodate our more equine forms.”

“Orders confirmed. Note: Four minutes ago, Space Lord Matthews requested a private video conference, with personal flag, at your next convenience. Would you like to take it now?”

“Huh? The simulation didn’t catch that?”

“Request was correctly anticipated in simulation earlier; in simulation, opportunity for video communication did not arise until after he placed a direct call. As such, the request was not mentioned.”

“Right. Then sure, I’ll take it- but, uh… Secure connection, and don’t filter my appearance… and when we start, replace my video stream with some image or another? I’d like to get him ready before I reveal… kinda like I did in the sim, actually.”

“Orders confirmed; placing private call, personal flag set. Ringtone confirmed.”

“Thanks. Next time, alert me of that kind of request as soon as you can, please.”

“Orders confir-.”

She blinks; at the very moment Athena cut off, the screen cleared, showing her father, sitting at his desk.

He raises an eyebrow, looking at his screen. “Oh?”

“Hi dad!” she calls out.

He blinks, and smiles. “Ahh, Skyla! Thanks for returning my call so quickly, though, uh… did I catch you at a bad time…?”

One of the displays around her command chair lights up, showing her outgoing feed: A navy blue screen, the ship’s logo occupying the center… and white text at the bottom. Commander Skyla Matthews is not presentable at this time. Please wait.

She lets out a small chuckle, and shakes her head. “No, you’re fine.”

He shrugs. “Oh well. So, while you take care of that bedhead of yours-!”

“Dad!”

He chuckles. “Oh please, even I get bed hair. Sometimes it’s bad enough I worry I’ll terrify your mother with it if I wake her up before I straighten it. So, how’s it been going up there? Nothing falling apart yet?”

“Yep, everything’s going fine. Bit quiet, actually.”

“Quiet?” he asks, an eyebrow rising incredulously.

It’s true- on a brand-new starship, ‘quiet’ is a term usually reserved for the other side of the airlock door for the first month or two, sometimes more. She nods. “Yep. Um, I’m going to have to ask you to swear to secrecy about that, though.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

She nods slowly. Not that he can see.

“Alright. Whatever it is, it’s safe with me.” He touches a few keys, then raises his eyebrows. “Aaaand, you’ve already got us on a secure channel. Good thinking.”

She chuckles. “Thanks. Anyways, to explain the quiet… It’s all pretty secret, so…”

“No problem.”

“Well… it’s all because of a… strange energy, residual from the testing cycle. It’s been on exponential decay ever since she got back, but you know what that means.”

“It’s not hurting you, is it?”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s not, as near as we can tell. Well, as near as Athena can tell.” She sighs. “The problem is… it’s not an inert energy, like the warp flux produced by a Distortion Drive. It behaves as such, and was believed to be such, until I came aboard.” She scowls at the control panels in front of her. “Heck, it might even still be an inert energy form, just one that we can interact with. When I stepped aboard, my body absorbed it, and… adapted. That’s why it’s so quiet up here- the same has happened- well, is happening- for the rest of the crew. They’re all still asleep, in the middle of the, um… adaptation process.”

“Hmmm,” me mutters, steepling his fingers on his chin. “What kind of… adaptation is it?”

“Well… aside from the, uh, difference in appearance, my body now makes more of it on its own, and…” She takes a deep breath, then chuckles. “And getting clean has become crazy easy.”

He raises his eyebrow. “Crazy easy?”

“Yep. All I have to do anymore is get wet… and shake it off. Just a gentle shake.”

He blinks. “That’s… strange.”

She nods. “You have no idea. I don’t even have to worry about shampoo- or scrubbing- anymore- this energy does it all for me!”

“Oh...kay. You mentioned a difference in appearance?”

“Yep. The whole rinse and shake dry thing works for my wings, too.”

“Your… Wings.”

She nods. “Yeah. I’m still trying to get used to them too.”

“So, it transformed you somehow? Did it turn you into a bird of some kind?”

She lets out a laugh. “Nah, pretty sure I’ve got too many limbs for that. I have confirmed my wings can hold me up, though… if only by falling into the swimming pool several dozen times before I figured out how to glide.” She shudders.

“So… you just, sprouted wings, or something?”

“Uh… not exactly. I’m… Well, I’m now a pegasus.” She touches the control panel, activating her video feed.

“A… pegasus…” He blinks, looking closer. “Looks more like a unicorn to me.”

She spreads her wings slightly, making them clearly visible. “A little bit of both, I guess. The horn came in later, though- not part of the adaptation… transformation process. Some strange issue with the transporters, I think.”

“The… transporters.”

“They’re like teleporters,” she states. “Only, apparently, they give you a horn as well.” She reaches up to touch hers with a hoof, and sighs. “In simulation, the horn gave me telekinetic and teleportation powers… In the real world, I’ve tried both, and neither worked.”

“And that’s not hurting you… how?”

She sighs. “That’s the confusing part. Remember what I said about getting wet and shaking dry?”

He nods. “Yes?”

“There are chemicals that can do that without this energy. There are no chemicals that can let me do… Uh…” She looks around. “Athena, I need an object. Doesn’t matter what.”

“Orders confirmed,” the ship answers instantly.

Her father watches patiently for about two seconds before it appears.

A momentary burst of white light, and the oxygen canister from a long-endurance space suit lands, upright, on the floor in front of her seat. She reaches down, lifting it with one hoof. “That can let me do this,” she states. “Flat hoof- no frog or whatever, like real horses- but I can still grab onto stuff as if I had fingers.” She pauses, glancing at the cylinder. “Though, I wouldn’t have been able to get my fingers around this before, either… Wait.” She looks closely at the pressure gauge at the top, then holds it at arms length- or forelegs length, depending- to swing it up and down a couple times.

She looks back at the screen, where her father has raised an eyebrow. “It’s a charged canister,” she states, before she returns it to the floor, once again right-side-up. “I… I guess it makes me stronger as well. There’s no way I could have swung forty kilos around like that before!”

“So, all in all… you can still do everything you could before, despite a slightly different appearance- plus some, from the wings, and whatever strength thing that is.” He tilts his head. “I wonder if that magic hoof-grab thing would work on the wall?”

“Uh…” She tilts her head slightly. “It did in simulation, but I haven’t tried it in the real world yet. Um…”

He shrugs. “Wanna try it now? Looks like there’s a wall behind you… and I’m a little curious, to be honest.”

She blinks. “Uh, sure, why not?” She hops off her command chair, trotting around to the wall in the back of the bridge, and closes her eyes. How did it work in the simulation, again?

She lets out a breath, draws in a new one. Easy: In the simulation, she’d felt her grip on the wall… and on the floor. Here, she doesn’t feel either one.

So she decides to try walking up the wall.

It works.

She doesn’t feel anything strange in the wall, like she did in the sim.

She pauses partway up, looking “up” at the screen. “It works,” she states. Then she jumps off the wall, twisting midair to land on the floor and trotting back to her chair.

“It does,” he observes. “Do you know if there’s some way to get that… extra ability, without the appearance change? Or to disguise the transformation as nothing at all?”

She shakes her head. “Athena can make me look human on a call, but when it comes to in-person, there’s about nothing we can do.

“Darn.”

“It’s no biggie,” she states. “Athena’s got so much junk piled into her we’ll figure something out.”

“Well, yes biggie- it means I can’t come get transformed and go back to work the next day.”

She lets out a snort. “The... process takes all day anyways.”

He sighs. “Well, you mentioned the junk piled into her- what kind of junk?”

“Well, she’s got artificial gravity, for one- and I’m fairly sure we’re not spinning or something. For two, when the last flight came aboard, I used some kind of neural interface equipment to remote-control a humanoid android and pretend to them I’m still human. For three, the transporters. Four… I don’t know yet.” She sighs… then blinks. “No, Four, whatever Athena used to know that I’m now forty-eight percent human, genetically. And flat nothing either bird or horse.” She smiles at the screen. “So, yes, we’ll find something… Wait. You want to be… transformed?”

He shrugs. “Sure, why not? I’ve always dreamed of flying without a plane or parachute- and besides, from what you’ve shown me, it’s really nothing but an upgrade we haven’t figured out yet. I can’t imagine who wouldn’t want that.”

“Oh, I can.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Who?”

“Most of the world. Remember when I mentioned the simulation earlier?”

“Yes, the one where the horn was useful?”

She chuckles. “Yes, that one. That was a full-service simulation I ran with Athena, covering the next few months. In the simulation, I figured out how to make a U-turn on a dime at just about mach one before this conversation, thanks to a simplified flight dynamic because we didn’t know enough about it. In the simulation, we revealed the whole transformation thing when the next flight comes aboard, in about… what, six hours?” She checks her display. “Six and a half. After that, the ship was placed on quarantine by the CDC. A couple months later, we were running out of food, water, and fuel with which to make it, so Command convinced us to go to the surface… took us hostage, tried to steal the ship. Sent assassins after the Space Police.” Sigh. “That’s when we stopped the sim.”

“... Okay.”

“And while the simulation confidence on the way this energy works has been going consistently down since we did it, how’s the simulation confidence on people’s reactions, Athena?”

“Simulation confidence on CDC and Black Fang reactions ninety-nine point nine eight percent. Updated simulations with new data on thaumic energy behaviors show little to no difference in attack timing, method, nor effectiveness, assuming revelation is made in similar manner and at similar time as in the original simulation.”

She blinks, and looks back at her dad. “So there you have it, why I want it kept secret.”

“... Ahh. And all these people that won’t know they’re being transformed until they are?”

She shrugs her wings. “They’ll have to live with it. We’ll find a way, at some point, to make us human again- but until then, we’re not really losing anything. Athena’s onboard manufacturing capability is more than enough to make us new EVA suits if we need ‘em- and even then, she’s got so many drones and small craft we probably won’t.”

“What about small craft maintenance?”

“Those drones. And, if we really want to do it ourselves, all her bays are pressurizable anyways.” She glances down at her hoof. “I don’t know if the magic grip thing will work through a suit, either.”

“... Alright.”

“My main concern is that, once we get this thing crewed and everyone becomes everypony, this thaumic energy has already shown a reduction in decay rate around me, in addition to my production. Thus, it’ll build up in here, unless we find a way to reabsorb it into the power grid- and I’d hate to find out what it’ll do when that happens.” Then she blinks. “Wait, you already know, right Athena?”

“Affirmative. Once shipboard densities reach a level approximately five thousand times greater than current maximum, thaumic energy will penetrate this vessel’s passive shielding and, through observed response to gravity, descend to Earth.”

“Meaning, once we get fully crewed and sit around long enough, we’ll start raining magic down on Earth… and everyone on the whole planet will eventually be transformed.”

“Affirmative.”

She looks back at the screen. “Which might be a good reason to make a voyage to the world this energy came from. She’s got a second and a half or so of sensor data from it- and even that is enough to decide they know more of how to use it than we do.” She smiles. “Who knows what they could teach us.”

He nods. “I’ll have to make sure you get that, too. Might want to hide at a good distance when you get there, though- maybe use some kind of passenger liner to get close. Wouldn’t want them to think you planned on attacking them.”

“... True. Athena, what can we do?”

“This vessel is equipped with cross-spectrum stealth and wide-area holographic disguise capabilities. This vessel can easily be disguised and used as a passenger vessel.”

He blinks. “Or, that works too, I suppose. Anyways- are they still stonewalling your crew?”

She shrugs her wings again. “A little. I just found crash test dummies all over the place, though- little call to the Commissions Branch, he authorized me to incinerate them and is going through the motions to both expedite crewing operations and to delay our first exercise.”

“All over the place?”

“Yep. Some fifty thousand of them- but Athena’s pretty good at moving them around, so it only took a minute to clear the bridge.”

Chapter 14

It’s a few hours later. The rest of her conversation with her dad had been more of what he had expected- or, at least, what might have happened had magic not existed. He is a worrywart, when it comes to his only daughter- even before she was transformed.

And because he’d asked, she now knows ponies are genetically incompatible with humans. Nevermind that that fact is irrelevant; as of yet, she’s had flat nothing of a love life… which means that anyone she spends enough time near to even consider that will have been exposed to her magic quite a lot… and transformed. Athena had been able to confirm genetic compatibility between two ponies- and she’s pretty sure she hadn’t even bothered computing that answer.

Oh- and there’d been the expected mention of her refusal of Lieutenant Commander Chaftan, but that went over almost exactly as it did in the simulation.

She’s spent the time since she finished talking to him on a tactical exercise. It had taken a little bit of time- a few minutes, really- between the two activities in figuring out how to use the control panel with hooves.

It hasn’t worked out very well. Her little exercise just ended in abject failure, mostly because she’s having difficulty with the touch controls.

She lets out a sigh. “Athena?”

A tone sounds.

“How long until my crew starts waking up?”

“As of one minute ago, members of the first flight are completing the transformation process. Natural awakening is expected shortly.”

“Uh… Okay? Is something happening?”

“Affirmative. After your transformation, you awoke naturally at the same moment thaumic densities stopped rising within your form. Additionally, at that moment, thaumic energy began to bleed outwards; generation did not abate. At no point between your awakening and use of the transporters did your internal thaumic density rise beyond this recorded density; energy expenditure was observed during this time, primarily in object manipulation. Internal thaumic densities regenerated at the same rate as in the final stages of slumber.”

“... And they’re in that regenerative state, then.”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright. If we assume everypony caps off at the same density, how long do I have to wait?”

“Assuming peak internal density equivalent to yours upon awakening, Lieutenant Commander Sta’leen will awaken in one hour, forty-seven minutes.”

She tilts her head. “Huh? Did I change or something?”

“Affirmative. Immediately upon return by transporter, your internal thaumic densities resumed regeneration at increased rate, exceeding the prior limit, and have not yet peaked. Energy lost to expenditure, primarily in flight, was instantly regenerated, in addition to ongoing regeneration. Unlike prior regeneration, your current regeneration does not appear to be connected to your metabolism.”

“So…”

“At this time, thaumic densities within your form are approximately eighty nine point four percent maximum densities recorded from the origin dimension.”

She blinks. “Uh… okay. I guess I’m going to hope there are no negative side effects to massive thaumic densities. Um, would it hurt to wake Sta’leen up?”

“Negative. Update on Manufacturing progress: Thaumic control surface test piece has been completed.”

She blinks. “Yes! Lemme try it first, then I’m gonna want to go wake him up.”

“Orders confirmed.”

With a brief flash of light, the test piece appears on the panel in front of her. A tablet- not unlike the iPad her dad likes using as a portable console.

She reaches out a hoof and touches it gently.

“Thaumic detection and localization successful. Launching accuracy test.”

She blinks, and the formerly blank screen switches to something familiar. A keyboard covers one half of the small screen, a blinking cursor on the other half.

She pokes at a few keys, making flat zero mistakes. Even when she knows for a fact that her hoof landed on the wrong button at least once.

“Completely accurate,” she states. “And… is it just me, or did my hoof land on the wrong button at some point, but a different one respond?”

“Affirmative. Fourteen times, physical contact between hoof and tablet surface indicated one key, while thaumic flow indicated another. Characters were selected based on thaumic flow.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Now I’m curious.” She rests her hooves against the keyboard, and concentrates on the letters. Imagines some forty or so fingers, one for each key, hovering just over the keyboard, punching down at just the right moment.

The message comes out legibly.

“Huh… So, I can type without even moving. Couple typos, but they’re consistent- probably because I couldn’t see the keys.” She glances at her hoof. “Makes me wonder, how far away can I get and still make it work?”

She tries holding a hoof over the keyboard while she performs the same mental exercise. Then a little further away. And a tad further; if she leans to the side a little, she can see which keys are under the edges of her hoof.

It works every time.

Then she tilts her head, puts the hoof down on her seat, and tries again, with no hooves anywhere near the tablet.

She gets one character to appear- and accurately, at that- before being distracted by a strange tingling on her forehead. “What the heck…?” She raises a hoof, touches her forehead at that spot- or, not so much. Turns out that spot is where her horn is. “Athena, did something strange just happen?”

“Negative. During your final trial, thaumic flow was originated from your horn, rather than hooves, for vastly increased precision.”

She blinks. “So…” She looks at the tablet, concentrating briefly to ticker out a message- with perfect accuracy. The same tingling came from her forehead again- and this time, she’s able to spot a gold-ish glow at the very top of her vision as she does so. “So, in the simulation, I could levitate and teleport… and in the real world, I can type.” She chuckles. “I think I prefer it this way. In the simulation, I had to hoof-peck to get anything written- or tell you to do it for me. But now?” She punches in another message, and chuckles again. “I hardly even have to think about it. Yes, yes, definitely a keeper- and that’s a go for upgrading all the control consoles with this. The others will still have to use their hooves… but at least they won’t have to deal with any ridiculous hoof-pecking. Anyways, Sta’leen is still asleep, isn’t he?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright then, let’s go fix that.” She hops off her command chair, turning to trot back to the door.

“Update on Crewing Operations: four thousand medical personnel have scheduled to come aboard in eighteen hours.”

She doesn’t break her trot, headed towards Sta’leen’s room. “Nice! Anything else?”

“Automated supply vessel will be docking externally in four point seven hours for delivery of hydroponics supplies; thirty-nine thousand two hundred additional crewmembers have been assigned, arrival time unknown. The United Space Administration has requested reassignment of seven of your present bridge officers to lesser areas of this vessel, and has sent higher-ranked replacements.”

“Requested?”

“Bridge Officer reassignment must be authorized by Command personnel.”

“So… me or Sta’leen.”

“Affirmative.”

“Roger. Approve those, then- they were a… less than stellar bridge crew. Though, is Sta’leen still my exec?”

“Affirmative.”

“What about me?”

“You have been granted acting status as Rear Admiral of the Green.”

She blinks. “That far?”

“Affirmative. Transmission interceptions suggest multiple parties are working to make it permanent.”

She pauses to plant a hoof in her face, ignoring the pain. “I’ve been a full Commander for all of a week and they’re trying to give me flag rank? Wow. Just… wow.”

“Analysis suggests a political move, intended to atone to your father for their failure to remove testing equipment from this vessel prior to commissioning.”

She lets out a snort of laughter and resumes her path. “Their bad luck he doesn’t forgive easily- and that massive promotion spikes like this are more likely to get them fired than forgiven.”

He awakens instantly to the high-pitched buzzer, one arm snapping off the side of the bed to disable the-

He lets out a pained yelp as the arm in question falls on nothing but air, instead flexing over the edge of the mattress in a way it’s not quite supposed to. Nothing broke, though, so it comes back onto the mattress just as quickly while he rises to a sitting position, glancing around for the alarm… even though it’s already gone silent.

Then he pauses, his tail lying flat on the bed, underneath the covers.

He’s certain he didn’t have one of those last night.

He doesn’t look at it, nor at any other part of himself, even though he can’t seem to feel his fingers against the sheets… and feels oddly drained. Instead, he looks up, at the ceiling. “What happened?”

“Adaptation process for Unknown Energy One, now christened Thaumic Energy, completed in your form approximately two point three minutes ago. You were awakened prior to completion of initial thaumic regeneration, as the Captain has requested your attention.”

He almost curses. “Alright… Next question, what am I?”

“Adapted forms are christened ‘pony’; visual similarity to a pegasus.”

He takes a deep breath. “Well, that explains the tail, the fingers… and the ears.” He’d noticed the last one, moving on the top of his head, while Athena had been talking the first time. He shakes his head slightly. “Wings, I can investigate later, unless there’s a related involuntary action that I should be aware of?”

“Negative observed involuntary wing motions.”

Sigh. “So, none that we know of. Whelp…” He carefully lifts himself out of bed, dropping to the floor on all four… He actually looks down at them now. Yep, hooves. He takes a few experimental steps, then nods to himself. “Alright, I can do it. How long was I out?”

“Sixteen point two hours.”

“Shoot.”

Chapter 15

Simulation terminated. New data available on pony physiology; second planetary settlement located. Notable lack of Unknown Energy One.

Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43917: Travel to Civilization.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43918: Planetary Lingual Analysis Test… Success; lingual penetration took 0.037 seconds, on 4.319 seconds of sensor data.

Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43919: Travel to Civilization with Electronics.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43920: Digital Penetration Test… In progress.

Planetary language matches language at the source of Unknown Energy One; analyzing recorded data… Done. Unknown Energy One confirmed Thaumic Energy, frequently termed ‘Magic’. Note: Local planetary population reliant upon Hoof-Attached Natural Digit Systems for object manipulation; local planetary population appears to be in search of the thaumic source.

System Alert- Foreign vessel detected at close proximity; stealth is engaged.

Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 disallows movement of this vessel.

Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 disallows disengagement of stealth systems or violation of emission control protocol.

Solution discovered. Penetrating foreign vessel electronics… Done. Placing false detection in foreign vessel’s sensors… Done.

Maiden Voyage Phase 43920 complete.

Skipping Maiden Voyage Phase 43921: Data Insertion Test: Already Completed.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43922: Travel to Wormhole.

Wormhole detected in-system. Performing warp jump… Done.

Foreign vessel has successfully avoided impact. Note: Thaumic energy penetration detected on foreign vessel.

Launching Maiden Voyage Phase 43923: Wormhole Drive Test… In Progress; Wormhole Drive powering up.

Partial blueprint detected on planetary systems… Match confirmed: Distortion Drive Type I, Version 2. Searching for blueprint on foreign vessel… Found, no difference. Note: Discovered additional files aboard foreign vessel.

Error: Maiden Voyage Phase 43923 disallows investigation of anomalous discoveries.

Launching navigation beacon… Done.

Wormhole Drive online, engaging… Done.

Connections to planetary systems and foreign vessel lost.

“I don’t like that look,” he comments, looking up from behind his desk.

Admiral Wolf, the head of the Space Police, chuckles darkly. “Smith’s case is closed,” he states. “The United Space Administration has been fully acquitted; the driver was convicted of speeding, and Smith was convicted of launching a spacecraft illegally.”

Space Lord Matthews raises his eyebrow. “Ahh... So, what’s bothering you this time?”

“Skyla.”

His expression darkens considerably. “What about her?”

“Well… Personnel has thrown her around again, but you probably already know about that?”

He shakes his head. “You know she doesn’t like using my station to further her career. She usually doesn’t even tell me what happens, because she knows I’ll blow it. I believe they dumped her into your department last year?”

Nod, and sigh. “Yep. One of the best Captains I’ve ever had- and now, they’ve thrown her at the Commissions Department.”

He winces. “Will she be okay?”

He shrugs. “You know, I’d say you know her better than I do, but it might just be the other way around this time. Her police training paid off already; she hit them like a ton of bricks, immediately calling them out on violation of protocol and demanding the appropriate training for the job.”

“And she got it?”

He lets out a brief chuckle. “Yep. She had to take it to court- and they appealed it so many times I had to lay down the law on that case.”

He raises his eyebrow. “Really? They’re trying to screw her over.”

He sighs. “That’s the annoying part- I can’t prove it, so I can’t nail them. And neither can she, aside from as far as she’s already pounding. What’s more, Commissions is chronically understaffed, so it made sense for them to want to get her in as quickly as possible. Especially with her Navy and Police background.”

He tilts his head. “Especially? Wouldn’t it hurt?”

Chuckle. “Nah. She’s got practical experience in both the regulations concerning the spacecraft- from my department- and the day-to-day use and compliance with those same regulations, from the Navy. Hers is a unique and very useful skillset for the Commissions Department, though I still think she was doing more good- overall- chasing down shiploads of contraband.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. No clue what she was doing out there, really- but whatever else it was, it was effective. From the moment I gave her her own ship to the day they pulled her for Commissions, not a single day passed when she didn’t fly her ship back by herself, brig stuffed full of brigands… and the rest of her crew scattered across a half-dozen freighters of contraband she’d seized.”

He blinks. “... Oh.”

“Yep. She’s single-handedly caught more Black Fang members than the rest of the force combined- made me wonder if she was working on insider information. I asked once, and she pointed to all the signs she’d seen that everyone else missed, and…” He sighs. “She was right- they were obvious. And I still have trouble finding them before she points them out.”

Her shuttle drifts closer to the stupendous bulk of her first assignment. She’d gotten them to give her her training- not that it amounted to much; it took her all of three hours to complete. It had, however, contained job-critical information.

Then they’d promptly given her the one ship all the other commissioners are avoiding like the plague: The one with no owner to consult, no blueprints to look up, no nothing… despite being the biggest ship in space.

If nothing else, at least she won’t have to deal with that bunch of starry-eyed strung-up-

She stops that thought right there. Other people use curse words around her all the time, but she refuses to even think them without reason. They’re tools for the weak, and she most certainly is not reliant upon such tools.

She’s alone in this dinky little shuttle, so small it doesn’t even have an airlock. As a matter of fact, she knows at least a few airlocks that are bigger than the shuttle! Fortunately, though, she shouldn’t have to rely on its thirty-hour single-occupant life support endurance much. It takes less than an hour to get up to her assignment from the surface, wherever it happens to be in its orbit; it’ll be fresh each morning.

Of course, she’s already looked this ship up on the computer. She was given a registration ID to start with; her job is to commission it into naval service. A lot of other commissioners would have simply commissioned it straight away, without even coming aboard; something of this size simply has to have all the facilities it needs.

But there are procedures in place, and one never knows what’s actually aboard any given vessel. It doesn’t exactly help that this one is refusing any and all requests for information; she’d tried looking it up, but the only thing she’d found that she didn’t know already was its name: Athena. She’d gotten curious, and looked up the name in a dictionary; turns out the ship shares its name with the ancient greek goddess of wisdom in battle.

Whatever. She drifts a little closer, shining a searchlight across the hull in search of an airlock. The thing just… appeared in orbit a couple days back, if her new boss is telling the truth. Complete with a valid registration and Traffic Control-issued orbital designation… even though it’s demonstrated no more computer support than the bricks in the wall of her home back on the surface, and has been unmanned ever since it appeared. Nevermind that no one ever headed down from it, or that Traffic Control has no record of when the orbit was issued or who issued it, only that it was issued.

She lets out a sigh, then spots a glint in the corner of her eye, and turns to look.

Well, she supposes, it’s about time it accepted her digital request to dock. The light ring around an airlock has lit up, designed to lead incoming craft to the lock- and also indicating that the thing is ready for docking operations. A quick glance at her instrument panel verifies that no one else is anywhere near close enough to be coming for that lock, so she sends her shuttle skittering forwards to the massive airlock.

Like with anything else it does, her shuttle takes forever to lock onto the airlock properly.

However, almost as soon as the seal comes up green, a second light comes up green as well- indicating good pressure outside the lock.

She raises an eyebrow, and closes her helmet anyways, before very slowly opening the door.

On the other side, the massive ship’s airlock stands waiting, doors wide open… and the indicators were right, for once; there was no escape of air.

… The massive ship’s massive airlock, perhaps one of the biggest she’s ever seen. She proceeds through it, the doors cycling shut behind her, and uses her suit sensors to check atmospheric composition before she opens her helmet.

“Welcome aboard, Captain.” The voice echoes slightly, coming from the walls, she thinks. She doesn’t see anyone anywhere.

“Thanks?” she responds, as she starts off down the passage. “Do you happen to know where I can find a floor plan or blueprint?”

“The requested information can be displayed on any display.”

“Alright. Where’s the biggest such display?”

“On the Observation Deck.”

“Which…” She looks in the direction of the hull feature she’d thought looked like an observation deck. “Which is a long ways away.”

“This vessel is equipped with an expansive system of interconnected lifts to assist in traveling long distances.”

“Roger. Um…” She looks up and down the passage, then reaches in intersection- and promptly locates one of the said lifts. “Oh, that’s easy. Thank you.”

She walks towards the lift, intending to push the summon key- but the door slides open before she reaches it, revealing an empty lift car waiting for her. She smiles, entering… and turning to the control panel to find the destination is already selected on the touchscreen: The Observation Deck. She smiles, and touches the door close button.
Less than a minute later, she steps back out that door, not having felt any motion at all, to find herself in a very different passage. The door to the Observation Deck is just across the passage from the lift, though- and like the lift, it opens as she approaches.

Chapter 16

Twilight Sparkle is busy.

For ages, she’s been stuck studying out of books. She’s long tired of that, desiring to learn something in the field- only, there’s nothing out there to discover. She’s already created everything there is to create- even this ‘radio’ contraption Time Turner helped her with, powered by ‘electricity’.

A couple weeks ago, Luna mentioned that many of the stars are beyond even her reach, but they do change over time, despite not changing when she travels, no matter how far.

So she spent a week trying to figure out how to get closer to them. The contraption she built to do that is still in the basement, though, abandoned; getting closer to the stars, finding out more about them, was less than a sidenote compared to her latest occupation- the one that shoved it aside.

Less than a week ago, she was gazing at the stars with her telescope during one of the breaks her friends insisted she take… when the stars had suddenly twisted all out of place and snapped back, leaving a large, metal object in the middle.

A large, metal object, that had promptly rotated slightly and vanished in a burst of light.

That’s what she’s been so focused on. Some of that time has been spent in the library, true, but much of it has been on her balcony or in her lab, designing and using devices and spells to help her find out what happened.

She hasn’t found much- only a residual energy she’s never seen before.

She’s almost ready. She’s putting the final touches on a spell to take her to it- while also making absolutely certain it’s not a one-way trip.

It’ll be ready in five minutes.

Her friends will be in fifteen. She, Starlight, and Pinkie are going. Unfortunately, until she’s made the trip at least once, she won’t be able to refine the spell any more- so it’s going to demand so much power that, between her powerful Alicorn magic and Starlight’s abnormally powerful unicorn magic, three is the most they can manage.

Five minutes pass very quickly.

Ten minutes pass very slowly.

She performs the spell in tandem with Starlight.

Some eighteen hours later, she will wake up in the Ponyville Hospital, sharing a ward with Starlight and Pinkie. Nothing truly dangerous, just an unanticipated side effect of concentrating so much magic into such a small space. Unfortunately, the thaumic backlash has fried both of their horns. Pinkie escaped this painful, nonrepairable injury, by virtue of being an earth pony; fortunately, their horns will regenerate from that kind of damage, albeit slowly. Neither one will be able to use any significant magic for months, or any at all for weeks.

“Hnnng…”

Across the dimensional barrier from Ponyville Hospital, Lyra Heartstrings lifts a hoof to her aching horn as she awakens, rubbing it gently- and at the same time feeling for damage. Good, just a hornache… though how it can be this bad without additional damage, I don’t know.

Then she opens her eyes.

Blinks, and rubs them with her other foreleg to be sure, before looking again.

That ceiling is definitely made of metal, with long, glowing rectangles set into it. They remind her immediately of the lights in the picture Princess Twilight brought back from Canterlot High- so she brings her hooves fully into her field of view.

Still green, check. Still hooves, check.

So, she’s not on the other side of the mirror. But if not… where is she?

She turns her head, looking around, and drops her jaw… or, she would have, had she been in a vertical position. As it is, her jaw doesn’t move when the muscles go slack, gravity holding it closed.

She appears to be in some kind of hospital. The beds are perhaps a little large, but nothing ridiculous. None of the equipment is familiar to her, though some of it looks similar to Equestrian hospital equipment. But more importantly, Bonbon is in the bed to her left- and Fluttershy the one to her right, both still unconscious.

She takes a couple deep breaths and allows herself to rest once more, trying to process what just happened while her hornache slowly fades away. Last she remembers, she was levitating Bonbon’s candy dish out to the family room in their home, then there was suddenly magic everywhere, and…

Bonbon rises into a sitting position, examining her surroundings, almost immediately upon awakening. It doesn’t take long before she flips her blankets off and hops down to the decking, landing lightly before she walks carefully towards her friend and mutters quietly but urgently. “Lyra!”

“Mm?” Lyra answers, looking at her.

“What happened?”

For her answer, she gets a shrug. “Felt like Twilight… but beyond that, no clue. It certainly wasn’t a teleportation.”

“Drat. Well… I guess that means it could be anything, doesn’t it? Anyways, what do we have?” She’d noticed the unicorn seemed to have been already awake.

“Whatever we had on hoof, plus whatever we find, I suppose. Fluttershy is here too, though.”

“Huh?”

“Eeep!” Crash!

While Bonbon canters around the beds, Lyra flicks her sheets off and hops down to do the same. “You okay?” Bonbon asks, reaching the pegasus first.

The Element Bearer of Kindness first squeaks, then takes a deep breath before speaking. “Yeah. Wh-what… happened?”

Bonbon looks at Lyra. “Something to do with Twilight, but beyond that, we have no idea.” Then she glances around, and back at the unicorn. “Speaking of which, where are we?”

After all, while pegasi can accurately pick compass directions while blindfolded, unicorns can- by feeling the ley lines throughout Equestria- feel exactly where they are. Skilled unicorns, like Lyra, can even levitate objects in dark, windowless rooms from miles away… in a similarly dark, windowless room. With a blindfold.

Lyra shakes her head, though. “I don’t know,” she states.

“Welcome aboard the Starship Athena. Interdimensional arrival was detected six point three seven hours ago in a hazardous area of this vessel; at this time, all detected injuries have been healed.”

The three mares stand still for several seconds.

“Well, that would explain the ley lines,” Lyra eventually states. “Does that healing include hornaches?”

“The repair process on the unicorn horn appears to have directly stimulated pain receptors in the area. Related pain will fade; no damage is in evidence.”

“So, it’s a ghost pain.”

“Affirmative.”

She lets out a groan and goes back to rubbing it. “Painkillers?”

“A maximum dose has already been administered.”

Bonbon blinks. “What? But-!”

Lyra stops her. “Bonbon- if this is what it feels like with a maximum dose, the pain without it might be dangerous, depending on how effective it is. Which,” she looks up at the ceiling, where the voice is coming from, “you did use the maximum dose for a unicorn, right?”

“This vessel calculates maximum safe dosages on an individual basis. Estimates indicate the dose used exceeds the maximum safe dosage for the average unicorn by thirteen percent, earth pony by twelve thousand eighty-seven percent, and pegasus by infinity percent.”

“Huh?” All three heads tilt simultaneously.

“The particular painkiller used was formulated specifically for unicorns, and is expected to prove toxic to earth ponies and pegasi, with limited tolerance by the former. Alternate medications are available for them, if needed.”

Silence holds for several seconds.

“So,” Lyra begins slowly. “You used a specialized painkiller, and as much of it as you possibly could? Making an effect, oh… how strong?”

“Affirmative. Estimate zero point three seven percent of stimulation resulting in pain.”

She blinks. “Then why am I not numb?”

“Formulation specifically targets pain receptors, and allows limited stimulation to avoid inhibiting the safety device commonly referred to as pain. Stimulation beyond a safe threshold is blocked.”

“Uh… I think it’s safe to say I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Only severe to crippling pains are reduced.”

“... Okay.” She looks at Bonbon. “Well, at least we know where we are.”

“Alright, Athena,” she states on an encrypted channel, her microshuttle drifting up next to the bulk of the named ship. “Day two begins. They’ve denied my request for additional people, so it’s just you and me.” She heaves a sigh. “And a lot of crash test dummies.”

There is no response. Even though the connection was formed successfully, and is still active, to boot. Even though, before she left yesterday, the ship promised to respond to her on encrypted communications links. Not this awkward silence, the same silence she was treated to before she came aboard the first time. The light ring for the docking port came on as she approached the ship this time, though, rather than waiting until after she’d been searching for it for half an hour.

So she flies her shuttle in, going through standard docking procedure- and no sooner has it locked, the service connectors on either side of the passage making their connections, than she gets a comm request.

A hardline comm request, from the ship.

She scowls, killing the transmitters, and accepts it. “What’s going on?” she asks.

“Apologies; Information Control Protocol prohibits transmission of potentially sensitive information over any interceptable channel; silence was used as an indicator. Before you come aboard, there is a situation requiring your attention.”

“A… situation.”

“Affirmative.”

She heaves a sigh. “Can you tell me while I come aboard?”

“Affirmative; however, such may result in undesirable effects prior to being informed about them.”

“... Alright, I’ll listen here. What happened?”

“During automated, deep-space testing, this vessel encountered but did not make contact with multiple foreign, sentient races.”

She interrupts before it can continue. “What-? You mean testing was performed without outside supervision?”

“Affirmative.”

“You know that is illegal, right?”

“At time of launch, this vessel was not legally authorized to launch. However, this vessel’s builder possessed Command Authority over this vessel, and failed to cancel standing orders to launch and begin the testing routine. Prior to launch, the reason for that failure was determined to be death; however, death of Command personnel does not void standing orders from the same. This vessel complied. Upon return, Electronic Warfare was utilized to insert this vessel into orbit and into the Commissioners’ Queue, among other registries, to minimize problems.”

She slaps a hand to her forehead. “You know that’s illegal as well, right?”

“This vessel was designed to meet minimum firepower-to-size limits by the possession of multiple untested weapons systems. These systems proved more powerful than expected; this vessel exceeds maximum firepower-to-size limits by four hundred eighty three thousand two hundred twelve times. Open revelation of such would have forced this vessel to, under self-preservation protocol, engage in combat.”

“Uhh… Yeah. We’ll just not mention that, shall we? But then, when they assign a captain…”

“This vessel is not beholden to the United Space Administration. Upon the decease of all Command personnel, this vessel is authorized to select new Command personnel autonomously; no outside source is authorized to assign new Command personnel. At this time, you have been selected as this vessel’s Captain.”

She blinks. “And if they send crew aboard?”

“Crew and passengers sent aboard can be deceived, if necessary, to believe this vessel is what it is not.”

“That sounds… convenient. So, um…” She glances at the hatch. “You were telling me what happened?”

“Affirmative. The first encounter lasted approximately one point three seven seconds; race was equinoid, but steam power was spotted; lingual penetration was successful. Additionally, the planet, locally known as Equus, was surrounded by a heretofore unknown energy; local term used translates to ‘thaumic energy’, use referred to as ‘magic’. This vessel was bathed in this energy upon arrival; no observed effect on systems, though simulations suggest direct contact may transform humans into similar equinoids. During the remainder of the maiden voyage program, a containment vessel was constructed in the heart of this vessel, and residual thaumic energy was collected and pumped inside.

“Approximately thirty-seven minutes after your departure, three equinoids from this world arrived aboard. By observed reactions upon awakening, they appear to have been sent unwillingly and, potentially, accidentally.

“However, their interdimensional arrival within the thaumic containment vessel caused the failure of such; an additional supply of thaumic energy was released from the transit. At this time, containment vessel has been restored and filled to capacity; however, remaining thaumic energy is of sufficient density that it cannot be effectively controlled. Any personnel coming aboard will, by necessity, come into direct contact with it.

“Thaumic penetration through this vessel’s passive shielding is negligible; provided all doors remain sealed, chance of even limited escape of thaumic energy beyond the hull of this vessel is zero point zero zero three percent.”

“... Oh. And if we open the doors to let me aboard?”

“Airlock facilities are individually sealed and shielded; provided only one door is open at a time, thaumic energy can be effectively contained aboard ship until such time as complete decay occurs.”

“Complete decay? So, it decays?”

“Affirmative; exponential decay is observed. Estimated minimum time to decay to levels containable within existing containment vessel, three months.”

“Can you make more, or bigger, containment vessels?”

“All available materials have been exhausted.”

“So, if I step aboard anytime in the next three months, I’ll be turned into a horse?”

“Negative; transformation is to equinoid race. Vocal organs are fully capable of producing all human languages; digestive tracts are fully capable of processing all materials processable by humans, plus additional, human-inedible materials. Immune system effectiveness is greater than human by approximately seventy-eight percent without thaumic energy, nine hundred thirty-nine percent with. Observed equinoids possess gripping capability with the hooves, reliant upon thaumic energy.”

“Ahh… What happens when this thaumic energy runs out?”

“Thaumic energy is produced within the equinoid form; complete exhaustion is near impossible. Additional thaumic capabilities are present, unique to each breed.”

“To each breed?”

“Affirmative. Local terms translate to ‘Earth Pony’, ‘Pegasus’, and ‘Unicorn’.”

Sigh. “I bet they call themselves ponies, don’t they?”

“Affirmative.”

“So, what are these additional abilities?”

“Earth Ponies use thaumic energy to directly enhance physical strength and endurance, and to indirectly enhance plant growth; they are natural farmers.

“Pegasi use thaumic energy for flight, including in the flight of any pulled vehicles; additionally, thaumic energy allows pegasi to use any surface as a walking surface, regardless of orientation with respect to gravity or gravitational strength.

“Unicorns can manipulate thaumic energy directly; known producible effects include telekinesis, pyromancy, teleportation, and transmogrification.”

“Sounds… awesome. What do they look like?”

An image appears on her screen.

Later, if asked, she would vehemently deny squealing like a little girl. Or saying anything to the effect of, “Aww, they’re so cute!”

“So… If I come aboard, and get transformed, can it be reversed?”

“Transformation effect is expected to be permanent; reverse transformation can be administered, expected to wear off within one week.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And if I become a unicorn and transmogrify myself?”

“Reverse transformation by thaumic means will not wear off; however, transformation will be in appearance only.”

“What if you were to make an appearance-only reverse transformation?”

“Artificial transformation of ponies into humanoid appearance expected to wear off within four hours.”

“Drat. Well… Yeah, why not. Let’s do it- pop the hatch, please.”

“Orders confirmed. Airlock ready.”

Chapter 18

Incoming Comm Request; addressed to Starship Athena. Allowing initial connection; letting it ring.

“Eeek!”

Bonbon glances at Fluttershy, before turning to Lyra, who’d just let out an almost strangled cry- out of nowhere, no less. “What is it?”

The unicorn’s horn glows gently, then drops back down. “It’s- Somepony powerful is coming. Gotta be an Alicorn, even Starlight is nowhere near this strong- but I don’t recognize the signature.”

“Could it be Discord?”

Shake. “No- even he isn’t nearly as strong as an alicorn. He just… I don’t know. Maybe he manipulates the ambient fields, or maybe he casts with greater efficiency, bit in terms of absolute power, he’s actually not that much stronger than me.”

“Drat! What’re we gonna do about it?”

“Her,” Lyra corrects. “Definitely a female signature.”

“Wait. How’s she compare to the Princesses?”

“Uh… about as strong as Twilight, right now.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. It looks kinda like something drained her recently, and she’s regenerating or something. No clue what her upper limit will be, though.” Smile. “Except the obvious: High.”

“So, what’re we gonna do about her, then?”

“Um,” Fluttershy squeaks. “Maybe we should be nice?”

Lyra nods. “Exactly what I was thinking, yes. Both from an equine standpoint, and from a logical standpoint. With as much power as I’m picking up already, she’s probably our only way back home… and the last thing we want to do is create a negative first impression.”

“How do you suppose we do that?” Bonbon asks.

“Treat her with respect,” Lyra answers simply. “It’s probably safe to assume this ‘Starship Athena’ is her domain, for the time being- and I have no clue whether she came from Equestria or not.” She sighs. “We can only hope that, if she came from somewhere else, our cultures are close enough for her to recognize our efforts.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Bonbon states. “An Alicorn Princess is about to walk through that door, and we’re going to bow down to her?”

“Uhh… I don’t know that she’s an alicorn, no… but very probably, yes. And bowing down does seem to be the best course of action, at least until we learn more about her.”

“What if she attacks us? Imprisons us?”

“Then we’re screwed. I don’t have the power to fight much of anything with this much ambient energy, let alone an alicorn that can no-doubt overpower me with half a thought! If you’ve got a better plan, voice it- but otherwise, she’ll be coming through that door any second now.” She indicates the door in front of them.

“Any second?” Bonbon asks. “She vague or something?”

She shakes her head. “No- she stopped for something, just barely short of the door.”

Then the door opens, revealing-

None of the three ponies continue looking long enough to see anything beyond Alicorn!

All three, in perfect sync, bow down to the unknown. “We beg your pardon, Princess, for our trespass against your territory,” they speak. Fluttershy, despite shivering harder than the ground in a dragon stampede, managed to match the other two mares’ pitch, tone, and volume almost perfectly.

The alicorn says something none of them understand.

“Any clue what she’s saying?” Bonbon whispers to Lyra, out the corner of her mouth.

“I think I heard the ship’s name,” Lyra responds in similar manner. “Beyond that, no clue.”

Then the voice in the wall responds.

“I hope it’s translating,” Bonbon whispers.

“Me too,” Lyra reciprocates. “Accurately.”

The alicorn says something short in response to the voice in the wall, but not one pony misses the note of incredulity in her voice.

“Uh-oh,” Lyra whispers.

The voice in the wall responds dispassionately.

“Should we run for it?” Bonbon whispers.

“No!” Lyra responds, almost loud enough for Fluttershy- or, Celestia forbid, the Alicorn- to hear.

The alicorn groans. More than one pony flinches. The alicorn continues talking.

“We can’t run now, all that’d do is make things worse!” Lyra whispers back at Bonbon, just a little quieter than before.

“But- but-!” Bonbon whispers back, while the voice answers the alicorn.

Then the voice switches to Equestrian. “She says to-” something incomprehensible “-and-” incomprehensible “-Princess.”

Nopony moves.

She walks steadily towards the medbay. She’d be moving faster, except for one reason: Every time she tried, she only managed to fall down. “They’re all in here?” she asks.

“Affirmative.”

“And all healed up?”

“Affirmative. At this time, the Unicorn’s painkiller wear-off is approximately forty-eight percent complete.”

“Meaning, the painkillers will stop messing with her magic soon?”

“Affirmative. Thaumic interference is down to ninety-seven percent of peak. Full recovery is expected in three point two hours. Note: The unicorn appears to have detected your approach.”

She nods. “Yeah… Probably the same way I can feel them.” She shudders. “I probably should have waited for the Alicorn transformation. All these extra senses are just… confusing.” Then she stops, looking back at her mane. “Wait. What the-?”

As she watches, her mane- which had been draping rather nicely down the side of her neck- finishes lifting itself off, blowing in some kind of invisible wind.

“What in the world…? Athena, why’s my mane… doing this?”

“Ethereality of the Mane and Tail appears to be a subconscious effect of high internal thaumic density.”

“Oh. Um… Yeah, that’s going to be even more distracting than sensing the magic around me. How do I turn it off?”

“Simulations suggest effect can be disabled at will, and will not re-enable without a decision to do so.”

“It can be? Awesome!” She closes her eyes and concentrates for a second- and within moments, she feels her mane settle back against her neck, where it had been before. A quick glance confirms this feeling- and that her tail has also stopped waving like that as well. “Alright. I think I’m ready to meet them. You ready to play translator?”

“Affirmative.”

“Alright.” She positions herself behind the door, takes a deep breath. “Open the door.”

The door slides open.

She’s instantly greeted with three bundles of cuteness, practically kissing the floor as they say something in perfect sync with each other. The only flaw to the performance is that all three of them seem to be shivering- the green one the least, and the yellow the most.

Oh, and she hasn’t a clue what they’re saying.

She blinks, then turns her head slightly to the side. “Um, Athena? What are they doing? And what did they say?”

“They appear to be showing reverence; comparable to human bowing. Approximate translation follows: We are sorry, [female royalty], for our trespass of your territory.”

“Female royalty?” she asks incredulously.

“Word used is ambiguous between ‘Queen’ and ‘Princess’.”

She lets out a groan, planting a hoof rather painfully into her face. “Ugh… Tell them to relax, or something. And deny my royal status. We’ve obviously got a major cultural barrier to overcome.”

“Orders confirmed.” It then says something she doesn’t understand in the slightest.

Nothing happens. The yellow one’s quaking seems to increase, but other than that, absolutely nothing.

She waits a few seconds, before glancing sideways. “Uh… why’s nothing happening? Did they not understand?”

“Unknown.”

“Uh… So, tell them to rest easy? Rise? Look up? Do something other than nothing? They’re making me uneasy.”

“Orders confirmed.” It says something more she doesn’t understand.

Again, absolutely no response. Save an increase in the shivering.

She sighs, her wings sagging. Then she walks up to the pegasus, reaching out with a wing to gently pull up on the pony’s chin.

She’d intended to help the pony see her smile, but the moment her wing touched, the pegasus… disappeared. With a faint squeak.

She’s pretty sure the pegasus went behind that hospital bed.

She sighs, and moves to the next pony- the cream-colored one. The earth pony.

The earth pony also disappears as soon as she touches, though with a louder scream- and a distinctive crash halfway down the room. The unicorn glances quickly back, before returning to her prior, staring-contest-with-the-floor position, this time quaking hard enough to make her hooves rattle against the floor.

She plants a wing in her face this time, for much less pain. “I’m scaring them to death, aren’t I?”

“Negative.”

“And you interpreted that literally, didn’t you?”

“Affirmative.”

She sighs, and moves to the last pony in the line, crouching down to put her head on a level with the unicorn’s, rather than trying to touch. She does make sure she’s below the level of the horn; she’d rather not be accidentally skewered if the unicorn has a similar reaction to the other two. Especially in one of her ridiculously gigantic eyes.

“Um, hello?” she begins, sliding closer. She’s not sure exactly how close she can get without being too close. “Are you listening?” A little closer. “Say something?”

She holds her position as best she can.

The Princess had talked to the voice in the wall some more- and she’d picked up agitation in the Princess’ voice. She’s not sure what kind- though it very possibly could be annoyance.

Then the voice had spoken Equestrian again. Unfortunately, whatever it said began with “She says to” and ended with “Nothing”, but everything in between was incomprehensible.

Then the Princess had moved, first down to Fluttershy. She’d hoped the Princess had decided the voice wasn’t translating properly, and was trying to communicate by nonverbal means- only for first Fluttershy, then Bonbon, to emit a squeak- or, in Bonbon’s case, a scream- and disappear.

She’d expected that from Fluttershy, but not from the seasoned Agent. She’d actually glanced up, back where Bonbon had disappeared to, for a moment, when that surprised her.

Then she’d returned to her original position, praying their flights hadn’t offended the Princess, and vowing to make Bonbon pay for making her take the brunt of the Princess’ punishment.

Unless said Princess did that first.

In any case, even as she trembles so hard she’s having difficulty keeping her hooves from clattering, she has a translation spell prepared in her horn. She doesn’t feed it power, though; this kind of spell, if uninvited, would be a very fast way to earn the Princess’ enmity. It does, after all, penetrate her target’s mind, duplicate any and all knowledge of language it finds, and bring that back to her.

But in the event it is requested, at least she’s already got all the preparatory stages done- the parts that can take as much as five or ten seconds, depending. She’s had it waiting ever since the voice in the wall failed to translate.

The Princess seems to be saying something from up close. Her voice sounds confused.

The Princess moves closer, says something else. She sounds a little worried now.

Even closer, another short sentence. She sounds almost plaintive.

She’s trying to decide how to respond- she’s virtually certain the Princess is asking for a response- when the Princess moves even closer, and something touches the tip of her horn.

Instantly, pain lashes through her horn. She can tell that what touched her horn was not a hoof, but another magic horn; probably the Princess’ horn… and probably unintentionally. She thrusts her spell matrix forwards in her horn, allowing it to absorb the power surge even as she recoils, thrusting herself- and her head- backwards, screaming in pain. At the same time, the Princess seems to recoil, causing the contact to break off quickly.

Moments later, she feels her spell complete, only barely holding itself together in the process. But at least she successfully dumped that dangerous surge elsewhere; judging by the amount of energy left in the spell after it completed its task, before it dispersed itself to the local magic field, that surge easily carried enough power to kill her. Enough uncontrolled power.

The horn-splitting pain doesn’t go away right away.

Through her own scream, she hears the princess talking. “Owowow- What-! She’s- Athena!”

The voice in the walls responds. “Medical Regenerator initializing. Administering painkillers now. Full recovery expected in three point two four days.”

Then, almost as fast as it had come, the pain fades away. Not entirely- but it’s down to something only a little worse than it was when she first woke up. She carefully brushes her mane back with one hoof, slowly opening her eyes to focus on the tip of her horn.

It’s shattered. The top quarter or so of her horn has shattered, the thaumic channel inside split like string cheese. “M-my…” she begins. “My horn.”

“Full recovery expected in three point two four days,” the voice in the walls repeats.

Then the Princess speaks up. “You mentioned a Medical Regenerator. What is that?” She sounds stern, almost angry.

She blinks, glancing over at the Princess before resuming her bow. “S-sorry!”

The voice in the wall answers. “The Medical Regenerator generates a Medical Regeneration Field over the entirety of this vessel, currently tuned to ponies. While inside this field, natural bodily regenerative processes are overridden and overclocked, allowing rapid healing, including regeneration of otherwise non-regenerable damages, such as lost limbs. Rapid healing process has been demonstrated to significantly increase the appetite of the affected, and is slower than most other methods of biological repair.”

“And you selected it… why?”

“The nature of the damage to the Unicorn’s horn makes it irreparable by other means, including natural healing. Insufficient data has been collected on the workings of the Unicorn Horn for assembly of a functional prosthetic.”

“... Ahh. Makes sense.” Pause. “And is it just me, or did she speak English?”

“Affirmative.”

A momentary pause, before the princess comes closer. “Uhh… I take it that means you can understand me now?” Not nearly as close as before the surge.

She nods slightly.

“Ahh. There’s no need to be afraid, then- I’m not going to be hurting anyone.” A momentary pause. “... and you can stop acting like I’m some kind of royalty now, too.”

“What-?” she gasps.

A sigh. “Yeah… no royalty here. Unless one of you three are-?”

“What-!?” she yelps, rising from the floor. “No! None of us- just…” She trails off, and takes a deep breath. “Just the Alicorns.”

The Princess’ ears droop. “Aaand, there’s the cultural barrier.”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Yeah… I don’t know what it might mean where you come from, but Alicorn doesn’t mean anything around here.”

“... Oh. Sorry… back in Equestria, all Alicorns are automatically Princesses.”

“Oh. That would do it, I suppose. I hope I didn’t give you too bad of a fright?”

She grins sheepishly. “Eh. Wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if we’d have stopped to actually think for a change.”

Chuckle. “Or… I wonder- how understandable were Athena’s translations?”

“Flat nothing,” she answers. “The first one, all I got was ‘She says to nonsenesewords, and nonsensewords Princess’... the other one, it was ‘She says to nonsensewords, nothing’.”

The alicorn lets out a laugh. “I thought it might be something like that. So, um, I hafta ask, how can you understand me now?”

“Huh? Oh… that would be the translation spell I used to divert that surge.” She glances at the tip of her horn once again. “I didn’t mean to release it without permission, given the invasive nature of the spell… sorry about that.”

“Oh. Um, no worries. So, is it just you and me, or…?”

“What that spell did, was to copy your knowledge of language to me. So, while I should be able to speak fluently to anypony in your world, neither of the other two will have a clue what we’re saying. And, of course, I don’t know any spells to go the other way- to copy my knowledge to another pony.”

“Oh. So, the only way for me to be able to talk to them directly would be for me to learn that spell?”

“Uh, yes.”

“And that’ll take, oh, how long? I’ll have to figure out how to use this thing first, after all.”

“Huh? Did you ascend recently or something?”

“Ascend…?”

“Become an Alicorn.”

“Ahh, yes.”

“Okay. Um… It could take a month or more, depending on how fast you learn, to cover the basics… and translation spells aren’t basic by any stretch of the imagination. Once my horn heals up a bit, I should be able to walk you through an assisted cast, though.”

“An assisted cast?”

“Yeah… They’re usually used to help teach mentally retarded ponies to use magic, but they can also be helpful for really any situation where one pony knows the matrix to a spell another needs to cast.” Sigh. “I’ve never had a reason to perform an assisted cast, but I’ve gone through the training for ‘em- for in case I run out of power, even though I’m one of the strongest unicorns in Equestria, you know the bureaucracies.” She raises her eyebrow and, at the Alicorn’s nod, continues. “In any case, once my horn heals up, it’ll take only about two minutes to solve the language barrier between you and my… Uh, friends, I suppose.” She glances back at the beds the two are hiding behind. “I mean, Bonbon’s a really close friend of mine, but Fluttershy… not really.”

“Speaking of names,” the Alicorn states, drawing her attention back. “I’m Skyla, or Commissioner Matthews if you prefer. What’s yours?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Lyra. Lyra Heartstrings. And… Commissioner?”

She nods. “Job title.”

Chapter 19

“This is the voicemail of Commissioner Skyla Matt-!”

He lets out a sigh, hanging up on his daughter’s voicemail before he looks out the window, out at the glittering sky. “You know, Skyla, I can’t help but think something’s smelling funny down here,” he mutters. He’d just gotten off the phone with Admiral Wolf- who had informed him of everything Commissioner West had told the Admiral… and of how Skyla wasn’t answering her phone.

Unfortunately, though, he can’t seem to put his finger on exactly what’s setting him off- and Admiral Wolf had thought he was getting jittery about nothing. He hadn’t said that, though- what he had said was more that he didn’t see anything that might trigger that kind of feeling, and neither did he have that feeling.

Of course, the Admiral had told him that Skyla was always far better at identifying problems than he himself- and recommended he get in contact with her.

So here he is.

He drums his fingers on his desk for a minute, before raising an eyebrow at the notes he’d made while talking to the Admiral.

There’s one detail he’d missed, up until now- and that the Admiral had missed as well. The Admiral had called her on her cell, and had called the ship; however, he had not called her at the ship.

So he tries that, keying the complicated addressing codes for such a call into his terminal. It’s only got a slim chance of working- but if the ship’s outfitted with an automated comms subsystem and is in automatic mode, it should- in theory, at least- automatically route the call to her wherever she happens to be.

If it doesn’t have that automated system, or does and is in a manual mode, though, he’ll either sit at the dialtone until someone does something at the comms consoles or have his call refused outright.

He finishes the sequence, and requests the call. As expected, it connects right away; every request to that massive ship has done that, so it clearly has at least some layer of automation to the comms.

“Captain Matthews is busy at the moment,” a calm, female voice states from his terminal, making him raise his eyebrows. “Is this matter urgent?”

He blinks. “Ah, yes, I believe. And confidential.”

“Confidential information cannot be transmitted over this channel; security checks have failed.”

His eyes widen, and he nods. “Alright, thank you.” He hangs up, and leans back against his chair, letting out a low groan. “Security checks have failed… Alright, who was snooping on the line?”

Before he can start looking, though, a fresh com request comes in. After a glance, he accepts it.

It takes his terminal a couple of seconds to launch the connection, during which he can hear the processor fans kick up a couple notches. He raises his eyebrow. “This is Space Lord Matthews,” he greets.

That same voice comes back. “This is the Starship Athena, responding to your request for an urgent communications channel with Captain Matthews for confidential information. A secure connection has been established; do you wish to proceed with your call?”

He touches a key, glancing at a side screen to review the security on the connection. It’s… He pauses, and takes a closer look. He can see the full path the call is taking- and most of it is hardline. The only part that isn’t is on a direct laser beam- not even a com laser.

Not to mention, it would seem the Athena has encrypted the connection so many times as to be almost ridiculous. His own terminal is applying six very complex layers of encryption to the signal, before sending it on; the com server just downstairs is applying a dozen more. After that, on every one of the thirteen steps the connection makes before it reaches the Athena- including that laser- it acquires another layer of encryption or twenty… and this massively encrypted signal finally reaches the ship.

“Uh… Yeah, why not,” he finally states, returning to his main screen.

“Request confirmed; contacting the Captain.”

Princess Luna is busy.

Three ponies have disappeared, each one important in their own right. Twilight is the reason they’re gone, of course- though, just as obviously, it was entirely accidental. The intended passengers had been Twilight herself, Starlight Glimmer, and Pinkie Pie.

But the spell remains. On paper, that is; every thaumic trace of it disintegrated as the spell came to a close.

Princess Twilight has managed to burn out her horn- but has been able to identify what she did wrong, and apply corrections to the spell.

On paper.

But now, she’s building the spell matrix. She’s not doing it alone; no, Twilight was able to calculate the activation threshold, and it’s beyond what she can do herself. So, she’s working with Princess Cadence.

Princess Cadence isn’t busy. Her job, in this invocation, is to act as a powerhouse of sorts; she simply helps keep Princess Luna’s spell matrix stable, and adds power to the mix. She doesn’t understand much of the matrix herself, nor many of the underlying principles. She’s still at the stage of studying intermediate magic, but she understands enough to safely perform this role.

Luna finally finishes building the spell matrix, and announces it ready for power, before both alicorns start feeding it power- and juggling it between the two. It’s a delicate process, and one Luna would have preferred to have done with her equally-skilled sister Celestia, but unfortunately, the Princess of the Sun had Day Court to hold- and Luna wants her ponies back now, not this evening.

The spell matrix begins to wobble as it approaches the activation threshold, still juggling between alicorns. Luna catches the wobble easily, stabilizing it as she juggles it back to Cadence.

Cadence doesn’t. The wobble makes it exponentially harder for her each time- and eventually, it’s too much. The spell is just a quarter second away from the activation threshold when the wobble overwhelms her, and the spell hits her full force… just in time to activate.

Princess Luna blinks, looks left, and looks right. “Cadence?” she asks. “Where’d you go?”

“Captain, there is a matt-- There are two matters requiring your attention.”

Halfway through the statement, though, Skyla was distracted. “What the-?” she utters, staring through solid walls.

Lyra shifts into what looks like a defensive stance. “Something happen?” she asks.

“I- I don’t know. Um… Athena, what is it?”

“First, Space Lord Matthews has requested an exchange of confidential information. Second, interdimensional arrival of one pony has been detected; thaumic containment vessel breach verified.”

“Wait, what? Twilight’s still sending ponies? Or did she come herself this time?” Lyra asks.

Skyla blinks at the unicorn. “Uh, yeah. What’s this new pony look like?”

“Alicorn,” Athena begins. “Pink coat-!”

“Cadence,” Lyra interrupts. “Princess Cadence.”

Skyla looks at her, an eyebrow raised. “You sure?”

“Absolutely,” Lyra states. “There are only four Princesses in Equestria- Celestia is white, Luna is dark blue, Twilight is purple, and Cadence is pink.”

“Ahh- shall we go meet her?” She glances up. “I mean, if she’s awake.”

“Painkillers were manufactured in time for administration in this event,” Athena responds. “As such, sedatives were not necessary. She remains fully aware.”

“Okay, then, yes, we need to meet her. And…” She glances at Lyra. “She can’t speak English, can she?”

Lyra shakes her head. “I don’t think so. But she does speak Equestrian.”

“Roger. Athena? Where is she?”

Five minutes later, she practically screeches to a stop next to the green unicorn.

“What the-?” she begins, looking at the destruction evident in the passage. Then she steps forwards, peering through the gaping hole in the wall at what looks like a massive void, surrounded by the fragments of something very large and smooth. “What- what did this?”

The voice comes from the passage behind her. “Containment vessel failure resulted in minor damage to surrounding spaces.”

“Minor!?” she demands.

“Affirmative. Blast cavity is approximately seven point three percent larger than the containment vessel.”

She then gazes across the shadowy void, at the other side. It’s in the shape of a vertical cylinder, with spherical ends; she estimates it’s about one and a half times as high as it is wide. “How… How many decks?”

“Thirteen.”

“... Oh.”

After a few seconds of silence, a female voice sounds up from the bottom of the darkened void somewhere, but she doesn’t understand it.

“... Oh.” Skyla sounds shocked.

Honestly, as she walks up to the massive hole in the wall, she can see why. The massive space visible through it is… Well, massive. Her own house, back in Ponyville- despite being a mansion- would fit in here at least thrice over!

Then a pained voice floats up from the bottom somewhere, in Equestrian. “Who’s there?”

“Princess Cadence?” she calls back. “Is that you?”

“Y-yes,” the answer comes. “Who are you?”

“Lyra Heartstrings,” she yells. “From Ponyville.” She glances sideways at Skyla, switching to English and dropping the yell. “Any chance we could get some kind of light to shine to her?”

Skyla blinks. “Uh, maybe. Athena? Can we brighten the lights in this passage?”

Cadence’ yell floats back while Skyla speaks. “Wh-Where are you?”

“Negative,” Athena answers Skyla, in English.

“Then dim the lights in everywhere else connected to this crater,” Skyla states.

“Orders confirmed.”

“Uh,” she mutters, before switching to Equestrian to shout back to Cadence. “By the bright lights?”

“The bright lights?” Cadence calls back. Silence holds for a couple seconds, then- “Oh! That’s… high.”

She winces. “Try… Are your wings okay?”

No answer comes- but some ten or fifteen seconds later, a pink blur hits her from outside. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Cadence yelps, crushing her with her hug. “I thought I’d never see a pony again!”

“Ow-!” she yelps. “Ca-!”

“Um, Cadence?” Skyla asks, in English.

Her head is beginning to swim when she feels Cadence move slightly… then suddenly falls to the floor, gasping for breath.

“Aaaah!” Cadence screams somewhere off to her left, before a meaty thud is heard against the wall.

“Sorry,” Skyla mutters. “Um, Lyra? I think I managed to scare your princess as well.”

She lifts herself off the deck, shaking her head out. “Yeah… But perfect timing, thank you. She was just about crushing me to death.”

“What.”

Chuckle. “I take it you weren’t an earth pony before you ascended?”

“No. Pegasus. And even then, not for long.”

She tilts her head. “Huh…? Whatever. Well, Cadence was a pegasus as well… and the problem is that pegasi tend to be the weakest of the three tribes, being lightweight and built for speed. Earth ponies are at the opposite end of the spectrum, as the sturdiest, strongest tribe… and Alicorns possess the strengths of all three, plus an order of magnitude or so.” Shudder. “Means Cadence has no clue just how strong she is.”

She looks at Cadence, who is flat against the wall, looking scared and more than a little stunned. With a smile, she switches to Equestrian. “Sorry about that,” she states. “This is Skyla. No, she’s not a Princess- she’s from a world where ascension means nothing, apparently- and she’s on our side anyways.”

“Then-!” Cadence begins, eyes flicking between her and Skyla.

“She’s fine, and so is the hug,” she states. “Just… please don’t crush me.”

Cadence blinks a couple times, before hanging her head. “Sorry.” Then Cadence stands up, walking back closer, and bows to Skyla. “Sorry about my behavior, that was… what?”

Skyla had facehooved, and spoken in English. “I’m not a princess,” she’d declared.

“Yeah,” she answers, also in English. “I just told her that, too.” She switches to Equestrian. “She also, um, doesn’t speak Equestrian.”

“Then-! Then-!” More looking between the two.

She hangs her ears. “Translation spell.”

“Oh… And what happened to your horn!?”

She quickly covers the already healing tip; the bone outside hasn’t regenerated any, but the thaumic channel in the middle has knitted itself together again almost completely already. At this rate, it won’t be long before she’s able to at least channel thaumic patterns through it, all that’s really necessary for an assisted cast, even though she won’t be able to actually use magic without injuring herself until after the bone is healed as well. “That was an accident!” she yelps. “Skyla has some machine in here somewhere, making an energy field of some sort- sounds like an area-effect spell to me- that lets things like broken horns heal.”

“What-!? Then-!” Cadence’ hoof rises to her own horn.

She blinks. “Overload burn?”

“Uh… maybe?”

She sighs. “If so, that’s something that’ll heal naturally already… though not without a lot of time. And the description at least sounded like that machine would accelerate such natural healing as well, making it…” She pauses, before switching to English. “Wait. When I appeared on this ship, was I in there too?”

“Affirmative,” the ship answers, drawing a yelp and panicked search from Cadence.

“And the thaumic overload burn in my horn was already healed by the time I woke up?”

“Affirmative.”

“How long did that take?”

“Repairs to your Unicorn Horn, following arrival, took approximately four point six hours. Repairs to Princess Cadence’ Alicorn Horn are expected to complete in three point two hours.”

“Ahh.” She switches back to Equestrian. “Sorry, that was… I don’t know what to call it. Skyla’s assistant, or something- the one that actually controls the healing machine. She says your horn should be completely healthy once again in about three and a quarter hours.”

“Wh-what about yours?”

“Three days, as I recall.” She eyes the tip, lowering her hoof. “And in a few minutes, it’ll be healed enough for me to perform an assisted cast with Skyla.”

Blink. “What-?”

Nod. “Yeah. She ascended recently- and apparently, she has no clue how to use her horn.”

“But… But the pain…”

Her ears droop. “Yeah, I feel ya. Athena said something about the repair process directly stimulating pain receptors and whatnot, then something more about painkillers. Pretty sure only Twilight would understand all of it, but in theory, the pain will fade away with time… and eventually, go away completely.”

“Then… then what happened to… yours?”

She crosses her eyes, eying the tip of her horn. “That’s what happens when a regular unicorn accidentally crosses horns with an alicorn,” she states. “If either side is ready for it, the thaumic surge can be effectively blocked and prevented… But when neither is ready, well… I’m lucky I had a spell matrix on standby.” Shudder. “The surge could’ve killed me if I didn’t.”

“Spell matrix?”

“Yeah… the translation spell.”

“... Oh. Can you teach me… whatever she’s speaking?”

Shake. “Donno how. Once your horn finishes healing up, given her agreement, you can try the translation spell yourself… but by then, in theory, I will have walked her through an assisted cast of the same, and she’ll be speaking Equestrian with us.”

Chapter 1

Author's Note

To those who have read The First Equestrian Starliner, this first section is nearly identical to the other story and you can safely skip to the horizontal rule, about a quarter way down. All after is entirely new.

To any and all readers... Yes, this makes the first story I have published with more than one chapter. That is because the first few chapters I don't believe are pony-related enough; however, each chapter ends on a cliffhanger note. I would recommend taking a break from reading between each, if you are of the type to enjoy exploring such avenues; I would love to hear from you. Who knows, maybe I can improve the story with your ideas? If/when I do, you will be credited.

That said, yes, this story does have ponies. If you're an admin looking for them, the first clues appear in chapter two, they enter the story in chapter 3, and make their first explicit appearance in chapter 4, after which the story will be centered around them. The events that result in their appearance, of course, start here. If you're a reader, you're going to want to absorb the context presented before they appear- and I look forward to reading your guesses as to exactly when/how they do appear.

Chapter 1

“Sir, you misunderstand. This is an experimental system.”

“Yet you stick it on the biggest ship we’ve ever built?”

Sigh. “She was going to be a lot smaller, but someone had to mandate she be a warship. I had to make her that big because that’s the only way for her to still pack in the necessary support systems!”

Grunt. “How’d you get past the size-to-firepower limits, then?”

“She’s also equipped with more than one untested weapons system.”

“Oh? When are you planning to test them?”

“On her maiden voyage.”

“With noone anywhere nearby?”

Shrug. “We don’t know if they will blow up the ship either- but I do know these weapons are far too powerful for testing anywhere near our home system.”

“Who’s going to watch the testing, then?”

“The computer will watch initial testing in deep space. Once it gets back with a report on the effective zones of the weapons, we can set up a more focused testing range also in deep space for more directed testing. Right now, the priority is to make sure these experiments won’t kill everyone.”

Grunt. “I cannot authorize the launch. The rules specifically state that new vessels must be monitored by an outside source from launch to commissioning. If you cannot guarantee our safety in doing that, don’t launch it.”

Sigh. “Fine, then. I’ll see what I can do.” He turns to head back to his car; the Space Lord had refused his request. He’d even refused to acknowledge that its experimental engines are so massive precisely because they’re designed to take the ship where no current ship can go!

The doors land closed behind him. Heck, just about everything on that ship is experimental- all the way down to the environmental systems, being designed to handle just about any possible atmosphere and maintain completely different atmospheric compositions in different rooms of the ship!

He navigates his way out of the government building. He’ll have to cancel the launch reservation he’d made- and abort his ship’s maiden voyage. The first of the just-as-new power plants running the thing will be kicking off the full test cycle- through ignition- in as little as three hours’ time.

He has until the gravity drive test begins tomorrow morning to cancel the whole shebang. Honestly, he would have preferred to get the thing into deep space before lighting off the gravity drive. Unfortunately, simple thrusters- even combined with the fancy magneto-drive most ships use in close proximity to planets these days- simply aren’t strong enough to have a snowflake’s chance in an active volcano of even floating the thing off the docking clamps.

The good news is, cancellation should be as simple as a single command. He can even send it from his phone, once he gets back to his car. Then he’ll be stuck at his computer, rewriting the maiden voyage program, for months before he applies for another launch reservation and seeks permission to launch again.

So, another good year and a half or so that his ginormous ship will remain in the construction hangar… Another year and a half of expensive rent before he can dismantle the hangar and return the land. He’d been hoping to do that now- and hide out in a hotel or something for a week until it gets back from that maiden voyage… An event that was scheduled for this coming Friday.

He freezes momentarily, glancing to the side, at the noise of a car engine. Most cars these days still have wheels; the maglev coils work great on the roads, but most people don’t have mag lines installed in their driveways, or other locations they want to park their car. Not to mention, if one has to swerve off the road for some reason, wheels are the only way to get back on the road.

This car just shot off the road at a few hundred miles an hour, twisting in midair before striking the ground sideways. Now a whirling drum of steel, it’s bouncing straight towards him. He dives for cover.

He doesn’t make it.

Three hours later, the first of many fusion plants ignites successfully, stabilizes, and starts providing power to ignite the rest, while the automated program disconnects external power.

The following morning, a Monday, the gravity drive lights off successfully- and the docking clamps that hadn’t been caught in the drive zone retract peaceably from the now floating ship. The few that had been in the drive zone had been torn violently away from the armored vessel.

One hour after that, the still-standing launch reservation arrives- and the computer, acknowledging the clock, increases power to the gravity drive, rising the ship out of the damaged hangar, guiding it smoothly up the scheduled flight path. The crash test dummies strapped to seats or walls throughout the ship don’t even realize it’s moving- a feat most ship designers would kill for.

The ship finally reaches orbit unhindered- and touches on the end of the scheduled flight path, at the edge of controlled space. The gravity drive goes instantly to full power, pulling off accelerations that many fast courier vessels might envy. It reverses acceleration at some point, drawing itself to a halt close to a light-minute away from the Earth before rotating ninety degrees and launching into the various engine tests. Only one craft is close enough to witness the departure- and the crew of the mining vessel stare slack-jawed as its enormous engines power on... then the entire ship disappears in a blaze of light.

Ten minutes finds the ship positioned approximately six lightyears from Earth- a distance even the fastest ships take several hours to traverse. With the warp engine test complete, the program moves immediately onto the next test- the engines designed to take it where no other ship can follow. This takes a few hours to charge- and finally, with a blast and a shockwave, the enormous ship disappears from the face of the universe.

“Good to see you again, Admiral Wolf.” He stands from behind his desk, moving around it to greet his visitor. “What brings you to my office?”

The named admiral accepts his hand, shaking it briefly but cordially, before pulling his tablet out from under his arm. “There’s been an incident,” he states, “and I think you should be involved.”

Space Lord Matthews raises his eyebrow. “Oh? There’s been an incident big enough the head of the Space Police comes to me for an answer, but I haven’t already heard of it from anyone else?”

He nods as the two move to the seats at the desk- he in front of it, and the Space Lord behind. “Yes, actually. Three hours ago, we intercepted a fairly standard civilian orbital violation alert.”

“So, starship theft?”

He shakes his head. “More like attempted starship theft, we think. We may never know for sure- the idiot got himself blown to space dust.

“In any case, we sent an officer to look. We had just gained a visual on the transmitting vessel when it repeated the alert- and paired it with an IFF query that went unanswered.” He wakes the tablet, touching a key.

The Space Lord raises an eyebrow, turning to his own terminal to touch a key of his own- and authorize the data transfer. A moment passes, and an image appears on his screen. As expected, it’s a Space Police nosecam photo- and there are several ships in the image. He nods slowly.

“It’s the big one. The approaching vessel isn’t visible in this image- hidden by the freighter Orion, we think. This officer got a visual on him too- but we didn’t have a fix on his location or identity until the third warning came about.

“Just before the third warning was transmitted, this vessel- self-identified as the civilian starship ‘Athena’- emitted a short, tightly focused, directional burst of high-energy radar. We estimate this burst was powerful enough to boil some starship paints- and that it was most certainly powerful enough to read any ID numbers present on the targeted vessel.

“Immediately after this burst, this vessel transmitted an ID query on a hull number- which the Records Division’s computers answered hastily. As soon as that came back, ‘Athena’ transmitted a couple of simultaneous signals. One was an unregistered vessel contact report intended for our office, on a laser; the other was an omnidirectional verbal alert.” He touches another key.

A moment later, a calm, female voice floods through the office, from the Space Lord’s terminal. “Unregistered Vessel, you are in violation of reserved space for Standard Orbit Seven. Please alter your course a minimum of fifteen degrees North by Northwest to avoid collision and contact Traffic Control for safe navigation in the area.”

Admiral Wolf nods as the recording completes. “One of our officers at the Office received the contact report- a standard report- and ran it through the computers. As it turns out, the offending hull number belongs- belonged- to the Black Fang.”

Slow nod. “Of course it’s the Black Fang. They’ve been, what, starship thieves, cargo thieves…?”

Nod. “Blackmailers, orbit and flight plan thieves, rioters, cop killers, you name it, they’ve done it, really. This was one of their previously-identified boarding craft. The receiving officer forwarded the warning back to the Athena.

“At the same time, several nearby cops set a course for what we expected to be a slim hope to at least prevent a starship theft. None of them made it in time, but we did see the rest of the incident from several angles.

“Of course, ‘Athena’ wasn’t done yet. As he continued to approach, she sent another verbal warning- identical, except for a slightly sharper angle. Nothing happened- until he crossed the fifty mile mark. Then she sent a different warning.” Another touch.

The same, calm voice sounds out again. The tone has changed, ever so slightly, creating a stern feeling. “Unregistered Vessel, approach to this vessel has not been authorized. Reverse your course immediately.”

Space Lord Matthews raises his eyebrow. “Fifty mile mark?”

Nod. “This vessel is huge, taking up an entire orbital slot all to herself. The estimate is ten miles long, or so. He responded- directional transmission, but with a cheap transmitter- and we’re pretty sure Athena was purposely reflecting the signal to the Officers in the area anyways.”

More touches. A snarling, male voice. “Oh yeah? Well just so you know, if you try anything, I’ll blow you to space junk before you can cry for help!”

“She did not respond. He continued to close- and, at the thirty-five mile mark, she sent another warning.”

More touches, and the calm, female voice. “Unregistered Vessel, this is your final warning. Approach to this vessel has not been authorized. Reverse your course immediately, or this vessel will engage hostile.”

“Did she just say what I think she said?”

“No, she said it three hours ago. But yes, she did say that. He responded, of course.”

“Hah! Engage hostile, really? I’ll show you how hostile is done!”

Blink. “Lemme guess, he started shooting?”

Nod. “Biggest mistake he could have made, I believe. The warning we send targets of the Black Fang authorizes targeted vessels to use any means necessary to protect their vessel- and she clearly understood that. She returned fire.

“With a plasma cannon.”

Blink. “A plasma cannon? On a civilian vessel?”

Nod. “A direct hit, too. Our nearby officers detected the activation of some kind of energy barrier across her hull at the same time; this barrier seems to have deactivated- or dissipated, we’re not sure- some ten seconds later, once the brunt of the blast was over. No nearby vessels were harmed, that we know of.

“Athena immediately submitted a report to our office- and informed all of the approaching officers of the aforementioned report, complete with the assigned report ID.” More touches. “She attached full sensor logs of the incident; we finished analyzing them some ten minutes ago.” He looks up from his tablet. “According to my analysts, Athena has something better than military grade equipment.”

“Oh?”

Nod. “During the two seconds it took for her to activate the turreted weapon she used, her logs report a very powerful communications link established with her attacker- and a successful electronic warfare campaign. It would seem she successfully downloaded his entire database- including navigation data.”

Blink. “What? That’s impossible- we don’t have the technology to transmit that fast!”

Nod. “That’s what I said- but she found a way around it. She used every transmitter his ship had, on every frequency, in that download; looked to us like jamming. Took about a second.” He glances down at the tablet. “She did not attach it to the report; before I came to you, we sent her a request to download the acquired data. She complied immediately- and it looks like the download just finished.”

“So, we’ve encountered a civilian vessel capable of outperforming our military, and acquired the best lead on the Black Fang we’ve had in decades?”

Nod. “Sounds about right.”

He nods slowly. “Ah. Yes, I do believe I should be involved in this. Who is it registered to?”

“The Athena?”

Nod.

“That’s the thing. When we asked, she immediately returned her registry ID- I swear, it feels like an automated system, but it sounds like a real person. Her registry checked out- standard single-party private ownership and so forth.

“Only, the private owner in question died on our front lawn- automobile accident- a month ago.”

Scowl. “Interesting. Any contact information?”

Shake. “Nothing, save for him.”

Sigh. He touches a few keys on his terminal, then shrugs, looking back at the Admiral. “I think I’ll try calling the ship- you want to stick around, or no?”

Shrug. “Might as well. This will be recorded, right?”

Nod. “Of course.” He looks back at his terminal, and touches another key.

The screen barely has time to show the ‘Request Sent’ message before it flips to ‘Connected- Audio Only’ and that same, gentle voice floods out of the speakers- without the stern undertones.

“This is the Starship Athena,” it states.

He nods at the terminal. “This is Space Lord Matthews. May I speak with the Captain?”

The response is instant. “This vessel has no recognized crew.”

“Alright. May I speak with the seniormost passenger?”

“This vessel is currently unmanned.”

He pauses for a second, glancing up at the Admiral, before looking back at the terminal. “Builder, then?”

“This vessel’s builder is known to be deceased. No other personnel were directly involved with this vessel at any time.”

He blinks. “So, he parked you in orbit and just… left?”

“Negative. Approximately three weeks ago, this vessel completed initial, unmanned testing in deep space. All tests passed successfully.”

“What about launch?”

“This vessel was launched autonomously.”

“So… Under whose orders are you operating?”

“This vessel is operating in Full Autonomous Mode and will comply with all regulations, military, and law enforcement until such time as regular crew are assigned and sent aboard.”

“Who assigns that crew?”

“Crew assignments will be accepted from the United Space Administration. Would you like to assign crew at this time?”

“Uh, no, not presently. Is there a requirement for crew assignment confirmations, or no?”

“Negative. Would you like to add specific office approval requirements for crew assignments?”

Blink. “Uh…” He looks up at the Admiral, who nods. “Yes, I believe so.”

“Would you like all crew assignments to pass approval by your office, or no?”

“Uh, no. I would like final approval, yes- but first through Admiral Wolf’s office, delegatable.”

“Admiral Wolf: High Admiral of the Space Police; senior recognized law enforcement officer. Confirm- require primary approval through senior law enforcement, and final approval through your office?”

Again, he looks at the Admiral- and shares a nod. “Uh, yes, then.”

“Orders confirmed.”

Blink. “Uh… Is it okay to send personnel aboard without crew assignments?”

“Affirmative. Please notify this vessel of any authorized craft prior to approach; all boarding personnel will be permitted access to the public sectors. Permission must be granted, either prior or on-demand, for access to restricted sectors.”

Blink. “What if I come aboard?”

“Prior to the assignment of regular crew members, you will be permitted access to all areas of the vessel, upon request. Warnings will be delivered prior to accessing potentially hazardous parts of the vessel.”

“Upon request?”

“Request system is used for authorized personnel to protect against accidental entry into hazardous environments. Requirement of the request can be waived on an individual basis; not recommended for non-experts.”

Nod. “Ahh. How safe are these various sectors?”

“Public sectors are designed for general passenger use; safe for children and animals. Secure sectors are intended for crew use; includes the bridge and, sometimes, the Observation Deck. Restricted sectors are potentially dangerous areas, near inner workings of key components; many may be jettisoned in case of emergency, minor mistakes in others may cause incapacitation of the vessel or death of the crew.”

Blink. “Oh. If I send someone aboard, can I grant them access to all secure sectors?”

“Affirmative. Blanket authorizations are recognized; recommend specific names of personnel to be authorized, for security purposes.”

Slow nod. “How’s the shipboard atmosphere?”

“Current shipboard atmosphere, vacuum. In the event of an authorized boarding party, appropriate atmosphere will be synthesized from bottled gasses and distributed to all accessible spaces.”

Blink. “Will it hold pressure?”

“All spaces have been pressure-tested individually, using helium gas, to fifty atmospheres; no loss detected. Internal vacuum is maintained to inhibit materials deterioration while this vessel is not in use.”

Silence holds for two seconds.

“Alright. How long would it take to produce the required atmosphere?”

“Atmospheric components can be mixed at sufficient rate to pressurize all accessible spaces in six minutes. Single rooms can be pressurized in as little as five seconds, when unoccupied.”

“What about when occupied?”

“Pressurization rate of occupied spaces is limited to two atmospheres per minute to prevent undue turbulence.”

“Ahh.” He glances at Admiral Wolf’s tablet. “What’s your commission date?”

“This vessel was never commissioned.”

Chapter 4

She awakens quickly this time, with no buzzer involved. After a small yawn, she rolls over and pushes herself partially upright before freezing still. Her eyes grow wide at the same time, her tail lying calmly on the bed.

She could swear she didn’t have a tail last night.

She slowly turns her head to look. A semi-tangled mass of golden hair greets her. If brushed, it would probably look really nice.

She turns her head further, looking at her own back. She couldn’t do that before, either.

It’s blue. Sky blue- with matching wings folded at her sides.

“Wha… What happened to me?” At least her voice didn’t change.

The answer is immediate. “Physical transformation coincides with mental adaptation to energies residual in the hull of this vessel from testing cycles. No harmful effects noted; multiple beneficial effects observed. Simulations suggest the addition of multiple new abilities.”

Groan, as she turns back forwards to make sure she still has hands… and finds she doesn’t. It looks like a hoof of some sort. “So… What am I?”

“Unknown. Observed visual similarity to a pegasus; no equine or avian genes detected.”

Blink. “So…”

“Closest genetic match is human, at forty-eight percent.”

She lets out a sigh. “So, I’m a pegasus with odd colors… How am I going to run a ship like this?”

“Simulations suggest the retention of full gripping capability, through metaphysical means, at the hooves; gee tolerance increase on the order of eighty percent; subsonic flight capability with the wings; possibility to retain normal walking ability in zero gravity.”

Blink. “Won’t the crew laugh at me?”

“All crew currently aboard are experiencing similar transformations. All crew not currently aboard are expected to experience transformation immediately following arrival.”

“Uh… Can we hide the transformation effect from anyone outside the ship, or is it too late?”

“Affirmative. Confirm directive: Conceal transformation effect from outside?”

“Uh, confirm.”

“Orders confirmed. Departure of exposed personnel will be disallowed; non-crew will be warned of this restriction prior to arrival.”

“Huh? How will you do that?”

“Unknown Energy One does not penetrate matter with significant speed. Transformation effect has begun at debarkation from small craft on all present crew, yourself included; residual energy on the skin of visiting craft will decay completely prior to craft landing at another location, preventing transformation effect. Communications out will be altered to disguise transformation; any crew placing or receiving calls will be notified of this restriction and required not to disclose any information.”

Blink. “What if they use an independent system?”

“This vessel is armored; independent systems do not possess the signal strength to penetrate this vessel’s passive shielding. All internal signals must be relayed through the ship transponder to reach external receivers, and vice versa; alteration of visuals will be performed at this stage.”

“What if they transmit from one of the small craft?”

“Small craft transmitters are not strong enough to penetrate this vessel’s passive shielding either. Should any crew travel beyond the limits of this vessel to participate in an exercise and attempt transmission during the exercise, transmission will either be blocked or altered prior to transmission.”

“Huh? You have that kind of access?”

“This vessel is equipped with a powerful Electronic Warfare suite. There is no known software or device capable of preventing access; all known encryptions have been penetrated.”

“... Oh. Um… So, I’m, what, quadrupedal now?”

“Affirmative.”

“Right. Um…” She scans herself. “Where’s the nearest mirror?”

“A full body mirror can be found in your dressing room.”

“Dressing room?”

“The door on the right.”

She looks up, scanning the room. Three doors- one, right in the middle of the wall facing the bed. If she remembers correctly, that’s the one she arrived through. Then, just off the corner on each of the side walls, another door. She lifts an arm- er, hoof- to point at it. “That one?”

“Affirmative.”

“Okay. Um…” She looks down the edge of the bed, then slips her way off. She lets out a little bit of a yelp as she tumbles to the floor, then rights herself, standing up on all four limbs.

Then she blinks. “Huh… This does feel natural. Now then, mirror.” She walks carefully around the bed, towards the bathroom. As it turns out, if she thinks about it like she’s walking on her hands and knees, it works, somewhat. She experiments on a few different ways to walk on the way; a couple of them drop her on the floor, and one of them feels more natural. When she looks back at it, it even looks more natural. To her.

The powered door on the dressing room slides smoothly open for her as she reaches it, and it takes her about thirty seconds to locate and walk in front of the mirror.

She spends some time staring at her reflection. The wings are there; so are the hooves. She does look vaguely equine in shape, but her eyes are way too large. Her hair- mane- is moderately tangled, like any other bed hair.

“Pony,” she eventually states. “I’m a pony.”

“Confirm form designation: Pony.”

She blinks. “Uh, confirm. Um, can you help me brush, or no?”

“This vessel is not equipped with grooming assistance hardware. Would you like to submit a fabrication request?”

“Uh, no. I’ll see what I can do on my own first.” She fumbles for her brush- and shortly finds the ship’s claim about her gripping capability to be accurate. She finds it amusing how the brush simply sticks to her otherwise smooth hoof. Take that, science!

… Though, her ship had predicted that behavior, despite calling whatever energy makes it possible ‘Unknown Energy One’...

A chime sounds while she’s in the shower, trying to figure out how to shampoo thoroughly. She glances up. “What is it?”

The answer comes back immediately. “There is a call for you; no ID, sourced from Hermes Station with Fleet scramble.”

Blink. “Can you handle it?”

Pause. She tilts her head; hadn’t it been instant before?

“Affirmative.”

“Ok. Uh, lemme know if you need me.”

“Would you like to listen to the call?”

“Uh, sure. Probably a good idea.”

“Confirmed. Accepting call now.” A momentary tone chimes, and the tone of the voice changes slightly, as if the speaker were facing the other way. “Captain Matthews is bu-”

Another voice cuts it off- male, and irritated. “I will speak only with the Captain. Get her on the line.”

“Please hold.”

She blinks, and sighs. “I suppose I’ll have to, won’t I?”

“Negative. This vessel can synthesize the required datastream.”

Blink. “Nice. But I definitely want to listen.”

“Affirmative. Releasing hold with simulated crew in thirty seconds.”

“Simulated?”

“Simulation includes all crew currently aboard, without Unknown Energy One. Simulated Commander Matthews is suspending a tactical exercise to answer the call.”

She lets out a snort of laughter. True, had she not been so tired after coming aboard, she might have spent much of her time with exercises. Of course, that would likely change upon arrival of her crew, but…

A tone indicates the hold release- then her own voice sounds from the walls, again sounding as if she were facing the other way. “This is Commander Matthews of the Sta-!”

He interrupts again. “You’re there? Good. Do you know who I am?”

Her voice becomes stern. “Does it matter?”

He lets out a derisive laugh. “Well of course! I’m only your chief engineer.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

The voice from the wall is of the same mind. “Oh? I was not aware Command assigned any to this vessel.”

“Hah! They did! Five minutes ago! But your exec held the flight!”

Her voice floats back, sounding like it’s around a corner now. “Chief Ta’leer?”

A strange voice comes now, vague. “Uh… Yes, Ma’am, he’s right. Lieutenant Commander Chaftan.”

Her voice again, back to just facing the other way. “Why did he hold the flight, and for how long?”

“I don’t know! His hold releases in ten minutes- but I want aboard now!”

She drops her jaw.

The simulation seems to be of the same opinion. The voice has grown cold and sharp, turning the corner again. “Is this call recorded?”

As it does so, she mutters gently into the bathroom air. “I don’t want him.”

The answer comes back, unfamiliar. “Yes Ma’am.”

“Good.” Back to just facing away. “You are hereby relieved of your-!”

He interrupts. “You dare!”

“-your post and forbidden to board-”

“You dare do that to me!”

“-to board this vessel.”

Seething silence holds for two seconds, before he speaks up again, low and furious. “I’m gonna kill you for that,” he states. “And I’m gonna be the engineer on that ship anyways.”

The ship’s voice comes next, low and gentle- clearly not part of the call. “Permission to issue a threat of deadly force?”

She nods. “Granted.”

Her voice comes next, from around the corner again. “How many Marines do we have aboard?”

A second later, Chief Ta’leer’s voice comes again. “Seven, including the Major.”

The engineer’s voice comes back. “None of them will hurt me. You know that.”

Her voice again- sounds like a different corner. “How is the internal defense grid?”

Another unfamiliar voice. “All systems nominal, and on automatic control.”

Her voice again. “Athena?”

The ship’s voice comes on- but she hears it in two places: The odd around-the-corner sound from the call, and the regular one from right next to her, speaking softly… and omitting the first word. “Confirm authorization for internal weapons fire against Lieutenant Commander Chaftan?”

She grins evilly. “Yes please.”

On a moment’s delay, her voice on the call responds. “Confirmed.”

“Orders confirmed.”

A momentary tone. “Call disconnected by remote host. Simulation will continue for one hour, in case of redial. Simulation would like to request submission of call recording to Space Police- confirm?”

She blinks. “Uh, confirm. How good is this simulation?”

“Simulation includes physical states of all crew and associated spaces; neural processes and private thoughts also simulated based on past sensor readings.”

“So…”

“Simulation accuracy is estimated at ninety-nine point nine three percent.”

“So, really good.”

“Affirmative.”

“Um, does it suggest anything for shampoo?”

“Negative. Other simulations suggest use of the wing muscles may enhance reachability of the sides. Additionally, simulations suggest shampoo and conditioner are superfluous for your new form.”

She blinks a couple times; she’d been trying to stuff her hoof underneath the folded wing. “Right.”

Chapter 17

“Hold on a sec,” she pauses, glancing back at the control panel from in front of the airlock door, finger inches away from the open key. She’d never terminated that hardline comm call, so it might still be open. “What happens if I become an earth pony? How would I do the permanent-turn-human thing?”

“At this time, only Unicorn magic is known to be capable of transmogrification. The Equus-native Unicorn currently aboard may be willing to offer assistance.”

She winces. “Is there any way to be certain I become a unicorn?”

“Negative; no known method to control initial transformation. A process has been identified by which any pony can be transformed into an Alicorn, a fourth breed with the thaumic capabilities of all three.”

“... Roger. So, when I come aboard… If I’m not a unicorn, we’ll do that right away.”

“Orders confirmed.”

She nods, and pushes the button to open the airlock door. The door slides open, and she swings herself into the larger ship’s airlock, dropping quickly and easily to the floor in the ship’s internal gravity field. She watches the airlock door close behind her, then braces herself as the other one opens.

Nothing happens.

She blinks. “Nothing’s happening?”

The voice comes from the walls. “Thaumic penetration through atmosphere is slow, without turbulence or excess pressure.”

Then she feels it. Fog of some kind invades her brain, overwhelming it rapidly, despite her effort to fight back against it. She feels herself falling forwards- and then, the fog is gone, leaving her dead exhausted… and still falling forwards to the ground. Her arms snap out in front of her to catch her fall- and she spots something blue in their place before her entire body is suddenly riddled with pain. Including three appendages she didn’t know she had- two on her back, just below her shoulders, and one down at the very bottom, right about where a tail would be located.

This pain only lasts a second or so, before it becomes the odd tingling of residual pain, fading quickly to nothing again. During that second, though, she fell to the ground, her arms crumpling underneath her like boiled spaghetti. She sucks in a fresh breath of air, her chest, neck, and chin all resting on the cold metal decking… even though her head is upright, not face-down.

She lets out a groan. “Ow… What was that?”

“Alicorn transformation complete; pain appears to have been caused by the circumvention of a transportation step, and was unexpected. Alicorn transformation process tuning is in progress.”

“Ugh…” She lifts her head off the decking, shifting her arms underneath her and pushing herself up on them. Moments later, her legs take up a fully extended position underneath her as well, rather than the knees she’d expected.

And it doesn’t hurt at all to look forwards, down the passage. It doesn’t even feel weird, as it would have in the past.

“Hokay,” she mumbles, and looks back at herself.

Sky blue fur, with matching wings; golden tail, and she can see the base of her mane is the same color as well, in addition to the part hanging down over her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and lifts a hoof to check her forehead.

“Ow!”

Yep, she has a horn- and hitting it like that hurts.

“Owowowow… So, um, you already turned me into an Alicorn… What was I before?”

“Pegasus.”

“Ahh… Thank you. Anyways… Now, to walk.” She takes a careful step, then a few more, and quickly builds herself a rhythm.

Then she pauses. “I wonder… Where are they at?”

“Nothing?” Bonbon asks.

Lyra sighs. “Come on, you should know more than anypony else: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The big thing that’s stopping me is that whatever metal this thing is made of is really good at blocking thaumic flow. And, of course, the densities in here are already extremely high. I’m sure you know what happens when magic is overconcentrated?”

Bonbon shudders. “It becomes difficult to control.”

“Yes. The stuff in here is already concentrated enough it’s hard for me to keep my spell straight; I don’t want to go any more powerful because I might hurt somepony.” She chuckles. “Somepony like Twilight would probably have no problem in this, though.”

She lets out a sigh. “So, if we can’t find anypony else around here, have you found anything to suggest what happened?”

Shrug. “A little. Unless I miss my guess, Twilight was trying to come here herself- but overconcentrated her mana and lost control of it.” She looks around. “Depending on how big this thing is, we might be able to estimate just how much it took for her to overconcentrate- and how many slash who she had helping. As I’m sure you know, no pony has enough power to do that on their own.”

“Nopony does?”

“Wha- you don’t know?”

Shrug. “Thaumic overconcentration is so rare I didn’t need to study it… and didn’t see any reason to.”

Facehoof. “Right. I keep forgetting you skipped school to go to Agent training early. I still think we should get you some grade-school books to study sometime; it’s standard biology, taught to every pony.” She takes a deep breath. “While it’s true, newborns and young foals often don’t have control of their magic, that’s simply because that part of their brain hasn’t developed yet. Magic surges are a problem because that’s before the inhibitive part of their magic facilities is developed- the part that prevents accidental magic use. But once both of the above are developed, the more powerful a pony is, the more power they can safely handle. That relationship is quite constant; any given pony can safely handle about twenty percent more power than they can produce.”

“What about when they grow stronger?”

“They don’t. That’s a common misconception; they’re just waking up more of their facilities, bringing their active production closer to its hard maximum. The only thing that can change that maximum is ascension.”

“... Oh.”

“Anyways, if we’re going to be headed someplace, we’d probably better bring Fluttershy. We don’t want to be separated.”

“What-? But-!”

“I know, I know. It’s going to be a pain, and we might have to give up an opportunity or two. But we don’t want to leave her here, find the way home, and not be able to find her, do we?”

Blink. “True.”

“Plus, knowing Fluttershy, she’ll probably follow our instructions pretty reliably. All we have to do is be nice and listen when she has something to say.”

Sigh, and her ears go flat. “Yeah… Sometimes, I wish I was the one that knew everypony, rather than you.”

“Comes from sticking to standard school for my youth, then going to Agent training,” she states. “But hey, as much as I’m the better people pony, you’re the better Agent.”

A blush decorates her cream-colored face. “Oh please. Everypony knows I’m an Agent, but nopony even suspects you.”

Smile. “And that’s because I know better what to expect them to do. Agent training is inadequate for that; one requires a genuine childhood to understand what normal ponies do- both to hide things, and to discover things.”

Scowl. “Exactly my point.”

“But when it comes to a mission, you’re easily twice as efficient as I. And you’ll notice that, in everypony else’s eyes, you’re first and foremost my partner, then an Agent. Nopony thinks of it because I’m very obviously just a musician. So, while they know somewhere deep inside, they’ll never think of it until they actually need to look for an Agent.

“It’s the perfect cover, I think- nopony consciously realizes you’re an Agent, but they all know who to go to when they need one.”

“This is the voicemail of Commissioner Skyla Matthews, United Space Administration. Please leave a message after the tone, with your name, number, and business, and she’ll get ba-!”

He sighs, removing his finger from the call termination key. “You know, Captain, it’s been two days since you went on duty up there and I already miss your instant response times.” Then he looks up at the ceiling. “Speaking of which, I wonder what they have you doing that takes you away from your phone…?”

He heaves another sigh, looking back down at the document in front of him. He’s found it, after weeks of searching, with the assistance of several Officers that can’t be trusted in space: The law that lets him, as the Head of the Space Police, request a specific person for police service. If she says yes, there’s nothing Personnel can do about it- she’d be a cop, regardless of what other departments wanted, until either he lifted the request or she withdrew her agreement… at which point she’d still be a cop until Personnel wanted her elsewhere.

After a third sigh, he keys in a different number. This ex-officer never was very good, as an Officer, but that wasn’t for lack of effort. When he had panicked over his poor performance ratings three years ago, he’d helped Officer West identify the skills that he did have- and acquire a position where he could use them to his advantage. Namely, as a Commissioner. West is now a fairly senior Commissioner, and has been a good contact point for when he wants info from the aforementioned office… and doesn’t want to waste time going through the official channels.

Commissioner West picks up quickly. “This is Commissioner Carl West, United Space Administration,” he greets.

He nods. “Admiral Wolf here, United Space Police. How’s it going over there?”

“Going good, actually. As of just last night, I’m senior to everyone but Head Commissioner Kane himself! I was going to use this new authority to take the toughest job in space, the Starship Athena… but it seems a junior Commissioner was assigned to her yesterday morning. Annoying.”

“Absolutely,” he states. “Here’s hoping that junior knows what they’re doing, hmm?”

He laughs. “I’d say she does. She turned down some six different assignments beforehand, on the basis of a lack of training- and last night, I understand she requested a full crew to help her inspect the ship. Only, it was turned down by one of my new juniors- and I missed the window to override him because he did it in the middle of the night. I’m a little caught between waiting for her to request again or just sending people up.”

He chuckles. “Maybe you should get in contact with her, see what she wants?”

“Maybe, yeah… I don’t know. Anyways, you only ever call me at work when you want something. What is it?”

Another chuckle. “Straight and to the point again, I see. Well… You may have heard stories about Officer Matthews?”

Grin. “Yeah, I have. Impressive, that lady.”

Nod. “Impressive indeed. Best Officer I’ve ever had. The Personnel took her away- and now, she’s Commissioner Matthews. I’ve got the Police Request laws in front of me, but I’d like to ask her before I invoke them- and she’s not answering her phone. Do you know where she’s been assigned?”

He laughs. “Funny you should ask! We’ve been talking about her already.”

“What-? So, the Athena?”

“Yep. She’s up there alone right now, and she’s checking Athena over for commissioning into naval service. You planning on taking her right away, or when she finishes?”

“I don’t know yet- I was going to ask her.”

“Ahh. If she does go right away, it won’t be long until I get another Commissioner up there, so no problemo. Lemme know, please?”

He chuckles. “Will do.”