Unwitting Pioneer

Chapters

1 - Critical Failure
2 - Damage Analysis
3 - Course of Action

1 - Critical Failure

“Fillies and Gentelcolts, today we usher in a new era of scientific discovery for all of Equus! With the TunnelDrive, we will be able to explore the beauty of Princess Luna’s night sky as far as the eye can see!” - Spectral Dissociation at the unveiling of TunnelDrive technology, 1084

Astral Sights groaned as the world slowly faded into existence, finding herself cocooned in the pleasantly warm acceleration seat on the ship's flight deck. She must have dozed off while waiting for the system to finish its pre-landing diagnostics, but she was confident that her co-pilot, Night Glow could handle things from here and wake her when they were close enough to their destination.

Besides, it wasn’t every day that she managed to find a spot in the otherwise uncomfortable chair good enough for her to sleep in without feeling that the feathers in her wings were being slowly ground into bits by the hard foam backing. She just needed to find some way to stop that annoying trilling noise in the background and everything would be perfect to continue her nap. She stirred in the seat, trying to find that sweet spot to drift off again.

Something poked her rudely in the ribs, causing her to hiss in discontent. The mare tried to roll over to her sides away from the offender, only to find herself being stopped by the stupid safety harness holding her tightly to the chair. Figures. Just when I finally discover the optimal position for napping that I'd be disturbed. Oh well, I could alway-

“ASTRAL, IN THE NAME OF LUNA STOP BEING USELESS. GET OUT OF THERE BEFORE YOU ROAST TO DEATH!” A hellish sounding voice screamed into her ear, jolting the half asleep mare awake with a surprised sounding squeak. This time, Astral did open her eyes. She let out a choked yelp of surprise as a bright, hungry looking tendril of flame licked the air dangerously close to her face, the intense light and heat radiating from it bringing back unpleasant memories of having her fur singed in the Saddle Arabian desert. Her heart started racing in her chest as the fire inched closer, realising that she had nowhere to retreat to but further into her seat.

“W-what the hell is going on?!” The pegasi asked in confusion as she fumbled with the safety restraints, fiddling with the cover for the release button on the hoof rest. The plastic easily yielded as she yanked it free, slamming the home with a crunching sound.

The thumping of her heartbeat almost deafened the painful screeching from the overheating servos. The locking mechanism protested loudly from the strain, the motors cycling through usually instantaneous sequence with agonizing slowness, only to suddenly fizzle out with a pathetic sounding pop.

"Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!" Astral yelped as she punched the button in rapid succession, some part of her mind irrationality hoping that hammering it hard enough would solve the issue. The flames were growing closer to her now and despite wearing what she vaguely remembered was an ES-103 - a changeling developed environmental suit purported to weather 'the hazards of space and more'- she swore she wasn't imagining white hot pain starting to creep into her hind legs as the fire licked at her hooves.

Astral wasn’t particularly eager to test if the ‘and more’ part involved slowly roasting a pony with fire. She hammered at the shoulder bars, straining and ignoring the stars creeping into her blackening vision until the rational part of her mind finally forced her to stop wasting whatever precious energy she had left in the useless endeavour.

Astral had aced the mandatory physical tests required for all pilots. Even then, the standards for Pegasi were generously lax when compared to Earth ponies given that they were built for speed and not strength. Even the strongest Pegasus lacked the muscles needed for heavy lifting which in this case, it meant that she was going to roast to death in her chair if she didn’t find another way to free herself soon - all thanks to years of evolution.

“Hey! Some help over here?!” Astral screamed at the batpony dancing with the fires as flames engulfed her legs, the all-too-familiar feeling of tightness from flying too high beginning to grow in her chest as air took on an acidic tang.

She wasn’t ready to die just yet, especially not like a roasted turkey at some crummy slapdash URSA spacedock - speaking of which, where was the crash team? They should have responded by now in their shiny rescue gear, ready to save their flanks from this mess. That’s why they had to pay those absurd service taxes right?

“Idiot! Use the emergency release!” Night Glow shouted back, her voice slightly muffled by the breathing mask she was wearing. The batpony let out a screech, cursing up a storm in some other language as the console she was working on spluttered and threw a shower of sparks into her face. She drowned it with a blast of white gas from a fire extinguisher, creating a pretty cloud that quickly disappeared in the now hellish looking room. “I’d love to help, but I’m a little busy over here too!”

The memory of that particular button had somehow eluded her mind until now, despite being helpfully marked out as such in orange and black. Astral squawked in relief as the damned shoulder bars dropped onto the ground and scrambled out of the seat as fast as she could. She collapsed into a heap onto the rubberized flooring as her quivering hooves gave out from underneath her body and watched in horror as the seat become immediately consumed by the inferno.

Maybe it was the shock of it all that made her falter momentarily, or maybe some part of her brain still kept the training she did back in the Lunar Fleet ingrained inside that made her stop to assess what to do. She forced herself to look at the scene around the flight deck, the pit in her stomach growing deeper as her world slowly melted away.

The ship that she had spent the majority of her savings and the last two years on was burning all around her - from the rickety trademark construction style of hastily clobbered together consoles made with wood and copper during the early years of tunneldrive-led exploration to the hoofful of mismatched, carefully machined quality equipment that she had scrimped up for, they were all engulfed in the hungry fires, casting eerie shadows on the walls against the glow from the emergency biofluorescent lights installed in the ceiling. Spiderwebs of cracks ran through the self-dimming viewport; buried behind a layer of soot so thick that she couldn’t tell what was going on outside.

She felt numb as her home melted down around her in a shower of sparks, the pit in her stomach growing rapidly as she realized that she couldn’t even remember how they even got into this situation in the first place. Maybe this is how I go. Down in a blaze of fire and being remembered as another useless spacer.

Astral shook her head, catching herself wandering in her thoughts. The burning materials all around were probably sucking up what precious oxygen was left in the room. She blinked, clearing her mind of the mental fog and numbly stumbling to the spare fire extinguisher near the door. The pegasi cursed as her shaking hooves almost dropped the canister in their grip and hugged the metal cylinder tighter as if her life depended on it. Which it did.

The fires seemed to be dying down by now, and her internal clock said that starport response should be forcing their way through the doors anytime now but they wouldn’t be in the clear until the doors actually opened. Until then, they - no, she - was sealed in here with a rapidly dwindling air supply, courtesy of URSA’s Standard Starship Safety Regulations that was followed to a fault by the ship’s main computer.

The air was starting to leave a metallic aftertaste in her mouth which no amount of swallowing could get rid of. She looked forlornly at the compartment’s empty breath mask storage, then back at the black and red extinguisher in her hooves, silently debating if she really wanted to use it right now.

On a Lunar Fleet ship, the answer to that question would have been a no-brainer. Princess Luna and her endless supply of royal bits made sure that each vessel was fully equipped to deal with situations like these, but here on an obsolete freighter like hers, there was barely enough money to maintain carbon-dioxide extinguishers, let alone the fancy foam ones. Astral shook off her indecision - she’d rather die peacefully, unconscious and choking to death than be painfully roasted alive like some turkey.

The pegasi took in a deep breath of the sour-smelling air, gagging slightly as she ripped the safety pin off. She carefully stepped forward to douse the hungry flames on a nearby console that now looked like charred and melted ice-cream. She blinked madly, her eyes watering from the sharp, unpleasant concoction of burning metal and crystal as she got to work.

She understood why Night Glow was so desperate now as she watched the flames struggle under clouds of sub-zero gas. Fighting the crystal fire was like trying to slay a hydra; for every flame reduced to smouldering embers, another would leap up almost immediately to take its place.

She kept this battle up for what seemed like an eternity, the air growing thinner and darker from the ashes of burning materials. It wasn’t long before Astral found herself fighting for each breath of air and longing for rest. It would be so simple for her to just give up and curl up in a ball on the ground. Fighting fires was the rescue team’s job anyway, not the task of some crummy freighter captain. The mare bit her lip at this thought, gagging at the unpleasant taste of soot on her tongue.

Pegasi physiology meant that she was supposed to be able to survive in much more punishing conditions than her ground-bound kin, but even biology had its limits. Astral let out a scream of frustration as the fire continued robbing her of her livelihood. Her entire body ached for rest and to be free from the now unpleasant and claustrophobic garment meant to protect her from the worst of the heat, but she wasn’t ready to die like this just yet. Especially not by being trapped in her own stupid secondhoof ship. The mare ignored the sweat stinging her eyes as she moved to another burning console, vaguely aware of the needle gauge on the fire extinguisher dropping at an alarming pace as she aimed for its base.
And then, just as suddenly as her ordeal began, it was over.

Astral knew that as soon as she looked around to fight the next smouldering wreck, only to find nothing but the smouldering remnants of her life savings. There was no way a pony could haul something across the vast expanse of space itself to earn a living, and that meant she just lost the only lifeline keeping her from bankruptcy and being forced back to some menial nine to five job back home.

Thinking about it made her head hurt and conjured up unpleasant memories of sneering superiors that she tried to banish from her memory ever since resigning from the Fleet. Two years she’d worked her flank off to scrape together a living and now fate had somehow decided that all that effort was for naught.

She gnashed her teeth at that thought, suddenly finding the strength within her to send the nearly empty fire extinguisher flying into the broken viewport with a howl of rage that made Night Glow freeze on the spot. It bounced off the reinforced glass with a hollow sounding thunk and disappeared in the charred husk of the dashboard.

The floor came rushing to greet Astral as her overstrained legs finally gave up from beneath her, no longer able to depend on adrenaline no longer in her veins for strength. Breaking her fall was too much effort in her exhausted state so she whined painfully as her snout crunched into the sooty ground, working more grime into her already filthy coat.

A pair of hooves rolled her over to a more comfortable position and worked more ash into her mane and neck as the ceiling and a pair of silted eyes came into view. She blinked wearily as the batpony shook her, frowning as Night Glow started blabbering something incomprehensible through that fanged mouth of hers.

Part of her knew that she should have been grateful to Night Glow for the concern, but all the batpony was doing right now was making her more irate when she just wanted some alone time to think. “Buck off and let me sleep for once.” Astral growled softly, squeezing her eyes shut and refusing to pay her friend any heed.

The mare realized too late that all that reply did was make Night even more concerned. She weakly tried to wave away the sweaty mask being forced onto her face, fighting the batpony’s every move with her heavy limbs in a losing battle as the seal around her face became airtight. Clean, cool air flowed into her lungs and stung her skin as the batpony stroked her mane, cooing softly. Whatever she did wasn’t helping to ease her mind. Running the numbers in her head only made Astral slowly begin to realize just how royally screwed they were.

The mare didn’t care about what Night or the rescue team would think of her anymore as she let out a raspy choked laugh. She looked into the batpony’s strange, silted eyes for any sign of contempt at what an absolute failure she was for the past two years, only to find none except the reflection of her pathetic looking self.

She looked like a homeless pony, with her sooty mane and singed fur. Without a ship to live in or to work with, she was basically no different than the beggars swept away in the back alleys of Canterlot. “It’s over Night. T-the ship’s gone. Y-you can go home now. I’m fucked. ” She said, running a gloved hoof through the remains of her hard work. Nothing but a fine layer of ash and the occasional lump of misshapen metal remained for her to hold.

More cooing and patting followed, but to Astral it was starting to feel more and more like a halfhearted attempt at consoling her. Just like when they finally got rid of her from the Lunar Fleet. “I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON!” She screamed through the mask in a vain attempt to rip herself from the batpony’s arms, only to find that she couldn’t even muster the strength to try and pry herself from Night Glow’s grip.

Night Glow let out a sympathetic sounding sigh as she hugged the mare tightly, running her hoof through her friend’s frizzled mane as she tried to think of something to say. Most of her knowledge on social norms in Equestria came from shows watched on the dinky little television back home, but the way Astral was acting didn’t seem like anything she had ever seen from a show.

“Ssh, just focus on breathing.” She said as she patted the mare on the head, vaguely recalling seeing some doctor doing the same on an equally hysterical mare. Dens back home were usually crowded affairs, but everypony usually kept to themselves. Night couldn’t remember the last time her mother had done the same, yet alone hug her but if Astral was going to pull through whatever they had to face, that depended on her sticking by her side.

“We’re not at a docking berth. Nearest one is… I don’t know how far away it is.” She finally said as the familiar hum of life support kicked in, bracing herself in case the mare freaked out again. Nothing. “You’ve found the first… livable planet near Equestria.” Night Glow continued, letting out a breath that she didn’t even know that she was holding in as she examined the mare’s expression.

“F-found? Were we out exploring? Where are we? Did I manage to pay off the banks after all?”

“You don’t remember?”

Astral shook her head in response. Her memory was fuzzy and she wanted nothing more than to lie in bed for the rest of the day - her hygiene could wait until tomorrow. Now that the fire was gone, the ship should have reconnected power back to the blast doors leading to their quarters. She wanted to get up and leave right then and curl up in her bunk to sleep everything off, but Night Glow seemed intent on bringing her up to speed.

“Well, we were supposed to be delivering some urgent data to the research outpost in Mintaka when the ship found some... gravimetric anomaly? In hyper space. You got all excited and insisted we drop out to investigate for a bit.” She said, pausing to let the groggy mare take in what was being said.

“We found this planet that looked nothing like the lifeless balls of rock that URSA’s been discovering. The ship managed to establish that there was plant life; and an atmosphere awfully close to Equus: 22% oxygen, 77% nitrogen before something knocked out our thrusters and started pulling us out of the sky. Apparently being possibly rich made you forget to engage your restraints until we hit the atmosphere pretty hard, and that was about when you passed out. I was going to let you come to on your own, but I think something broke in the cockpit. I think a thaumic line might have ruptured and then everything started exploding all around, bringing us to about now. That’s the short version.” Night Glow continued slowly, trying to ease the pegasi into drawing her own conclusions.

“So we’re stuck here on an expensive planet.” Astral repeated as she slowly clambered into a more dignified sitting position.

“Correct.”

She pried off the gross respirator, wiping the sweat and grime off her face to the sounds of the batpony’s squeaks of protest. Astral rubbed her throbbing head with a hoof. The air still reeked of burnt wood and metals but it was bearable enough for her that her lungs no longer felt that they were tingling all over. She hastily stripped off the once orange environmental suit, giving her cramped wings some breathing space.

“Great, does URSA know that we’re here?” She asked as she tossed the sooty garment over her shoulder, vaguely aware of the batpony looking away uncomfortably from her body.

“I don’t know. The ship launched the emergency beacon as soon as the thrusters went out but at our speed… well, I skipped the lessons on orbital mechanics so I’m not sure if it’s still up there,” the midnight blue batpony said, pointing a hoof at the sky. “Or somewhere on the planet. We’re at least two days awa-”

Astral held out a hoof to silence the batpony as the pounding in her head intensified. She knew that it was rather rude of her to cut off another pony when they were talking, but she really wasn’t in the mood to do the whole survival planning thing today.

Maybe a Lunar Fleet captain could muster the discipline to plan a course of action and devise some clever way to signal for help with nothing but a few wires and some spell capacitors but she wasn’t in the fleet. Not anymore. All she wanted was a bath and to crawl into her bed right about now.

“Alright, look. We’re either going to die, or we’re not. And I’d since I almost died today, can we save this for tomorrow instead?” she said in irritation as she made her way to the door.

“But-”

“NO.” Astral said as she slammed a hoof onto the door controls, causing the hydraulics protest loudly as they dragged the bulkhead along the tracks. The service corridor leading to their quarters and the rest of the ship was bathed in the same ghostly red glow of the emergency lights but from what little she could tell, the rest of the ship seemed unscathed. Maybe they would find some other gaping problem tomorrow, but the secondhoof Shulker class freighter she owned had a reputation of being notoriously hard to disable.

“Look Night. It’s been a long day, and I’m sure you could use the rest too.” She said, turning back to look at the wide mouthed mare standing in the doorway. “I’m going to take a bath, and then I’m going to sleep. I don’t care how much water we have left or how much food we’re going to eat but based on what you said about this planet’s biosphere, odds are that there’s going to be a water source somewhere near us. Worst case scenario is that we’d need to fly a bit to get enough clouds so I guess it’s a good thing that we have wings eh?” She continued, waving her rather frayed looking wings in the air.

“What about rescue? The contract we took gave us only a week to complete!” The batpony protested, baring her fangs at Astral as she followed the irate mare down the passageway. “Do you even remember how high the penalty was for failure? You’d barely have enough bits to buy back your ship!”

“Honestly? I. Don’t. Care.” Astral snapped, punching the button leading into her quarters. The door whooshed open, leading to her retreat from the rest of the galaxy. Well, it was her retreat. The various broken furniture and oddities she had once decorated the room with now lay strewn across the floor, making the place look more like a garbage dump than somepony’s quarters. “Look Night, we’re either going to be rich, or we’re going to die. URSA major might be run by insufferable snobs, but I’m sure that even they would let it slide considering that we just made Equestrian history!”

“And what if they don’t?” Night Glow shot back as she bit down on a lip. Seriously? We’re going to die and all she wants is to sleep and shower?

“And if they don’t, I could always write a book or something about this. Look. If ‘My Life Among the Yaks’ could make Three Pence rich enough to get their own mansion and a lifetime of interviews, I’m pretty sure I could write something that’ll get us enough money to buy a bucking ship with a solid gold engine assembly or something.” She retorted as she kicked open a path through the various smashed up items lying on the carpeted floor.

Astral sighed as she inspected the mess, silently grateful that Night Glow at least had the courtesy to stay behind the door. She wasn’t sure what she would have said to make the batpony leave her alone. Probably something harsh. “L-look Night,” the pegasi said, her voice quavering as she stared at their sooty reflections through the wall mounted mirror she had in lieu of a window that somehow managing to be the only unbroken item in her room. “I’m sorry. I just… need some time alone alright? We’ll sort out whatever you think needs to be done tomorrow okay? Until then, feel free to do whatever you want. I just want to be by myself for now.” Astral repeated as she looked at the failure of a mare staring back at her.

Night Glow didn’t protest this time. Her posture did deflate a little as she nodded, shutting the door to her room and finally leaving Astral alone with her thoughts.

The pegasi groaned as the annoyance was finally dealt with, tossing the grubby environment suit onto the wall mounted table and made her way to the cramped shower cubicle set in a little recess near the door. True, their ship might have been ancient, but their quarters had private toilets unlike the later models with communal ones for space efficiency.

Astral carefully stepped around the hoofful of bottles of soap and wingcare products on the metal flooring that had come dislodged from the impact, not bothering to pick them up as she set the temperature to maximum. She closed her eyes, letting her body become doused with warm, steamy water and banished anything related to their present situation from her mind.

Astral watched with morbid interest as the water pooling around her hooves started turning black from all the grime in her fur, silently amazed with how much soot she had in her mane. She grabbed a bottle of shampoo at random, squeezing a generous helping of the fruity gel and started got to working on something that really mattered. No way in Tartarus was she going to bed with a mane as nasty as that.

Buck the water reserves. We’ll sort out whatever supplies we have tomorrow. She thought as she let the water run. For now, she was perfectly content to watch the unappealing slurry of soot and dirt get sucked into oblivion.

Author's Note

I'd like to thank those who went through this chapter countless of times in order to weed out any mistakes I've made, and for showing faith in this project that I'm endeavoring upon. Hopefully, I'll finish it in a way that doesn't disappoint!

2 - Damage Analysis

The Pathfinder will spend the next five years in deep space charting the stars around Equus and pushing the boundaries of astronomy. Jointly built by four nations, she is packed with the latest in technology, with the most notable being the largest TunnelDrive built to date. This brings her top speed to almost .75light years per day... - Extract of a news report on the starship Pathfinder, 1086, prior to her loss at space three years later.

"Well, buck." Astral muttered, looking down ruefully at the smouldering wreck that was supposed to be her ship. There was no way her insurance agent would process a claim with those two words under 'extent of damage', but she could think of nothing else to describe the scene beneath her.

Frankly, it was overly generous to even call the crumpled hunk of metal and crystal a ship. Not Enough Storage Space was split cleanly in half; the reactor was powering the ship through strands of cable that looked like they were on the verge of snapping. This, combined with the smoke wafting out from the still smoldering flight deck and the still blinking navigation lights, made it look more like an abstract sculpture that was ripped straight out of a madpony’s dream, than a spacecraft built within the constraints of physics and magic.

The impact had dug an ugly brown gash in the otherwise pristine greenery, leaving behind a trail of pulverized trees and detritus in its wake that could have stretched on for kilometers, but she wasn’t high enough in the air to tell for sure. The atmosphere here was far thinner than Equus - Astral had barely hit a quarter of the distance to Cloudsdale before running out of air to work with, and even holding her current altitude much closer to the ground was starting to wear her out.

She shivered, catching sight of the snow-white puffs of her breath shimmering in the sunlight. There was an oddness to the sensation, given that it should have been scorching hot up here. And yet, despite all that pegasi hardiness she had for living high in the sky, her lungs were practically burning from the cold. It was an interesting oddity, and one that she dearly wanted to investigate, but Astral forced herself to shelve that thought. She could always warm herself up later and besides, there were more pressing issues to attend to.

Finding a solution to replace their pancaked communications array was one. As over-engineered as the second generations of spaceships were, no amount of cross-bracing could withstand the wrath of physics itself. The impact had completely flattened the sensor radome beneath the flight deck, rendering them invisible to any help that might come. The lone distress beacon hopefully still floating in space would clue in ships to their location when their warp trail dissipated - that was good and all, but without a way to send messages, whoever responded would probably see the wreckage up high and figure that it was too much trouble to land for a corpse. That or set down somewhere far away and claim the incentives for themselves when they reached a URSA dock. She should know, she would have done in their shoes too. Being a freelancer meant that they were constantly pressed for time and either way, URSA didn't specify if they would ever evoke the finder's fees if there were two claimants involved. If they were lucky, whoever did that would at least have the courtesy to relay their coordinates to a rescue team.

On the other hoof, that would give them ample time to document the alien life while waiting. Astral wasn’t a certified xeno-whatchamacallit but she’d skimmed enough papers during her downtime to have a basic understanding of the subject - she just needed to package her findings into something scientific sounding enough for URSA to accept. A book like an 'Analysis on the tastes and textures of local flora' would give her a juicy little bargaining chip to use if push came to shove, and even that was optional: she could have written down everything in crayon and URSA would still be legally bound to compensate her, as long as it wasn't filled with nonsense.

The radio on her waist harness chirped, stealing her attention to Night Glow's tinny sounding voice warbling out of the speaker. The bat had insisted that they check that tanks were still intact, a useless task, if Astral might add, but Night Glow was persistent. The bat practically walked off on her out of fear of dying to a black hole. "It smells like a refuse cavern in here, but I think we've lucked out." The radio chirped again. "No leaks in hydrogen tanks. TunnelDrive’s safeties kicked in and the spell matrix's fused as designed. I think we're good for now, no dying to explosions or magical voids for the time being."

"Right. If you're finally convinced that we're not going to end up as teeny little bits scattered across space as I've been saying for the past three hours, you can come out as soon as you get your fill of the caves." Astral cut off the radio, smirking at having proven herself right. Her faith in her ship wasn't misplaced. If anything, Astral thought, landing softly with a few beats of her wings, I bet Night Glow’s trying to skimp on pulling her weight.

Truth be told, the bat was starting to irritate her, with her incessant nagging this morning about how "the sun was going to set if she didn’t leave her room soon" or she "shouldn’t have bathed to conserve water" rather than helping with things that actually mattered, like hauling what remained of their supplies. She had half a mind to punch Night Glow in the face when she started going on and on about how she should inspect the tanks alone because bats could see better in the dark.

And the gall of her to chalk their situation to luck! It wasn't luck that got her enough bits to buy the freighter. She had worked her flank off, begging for every contract that the bat pricks in the Lunar Fleet dangled in front of her muzzle, turned her life into an endless cycle of shuttling from hangars and into space just to earn enough to stay afloat and what did Night Glow do? She was probably sipping on grape juice and fraternizing with those same assholes who handed her the same forms with overly generous payouts like nopony's business. Astral wasn't exactly the brightest pony around town, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what was going on. Fair employment practices her flank.

Astral hissed, kicking a pebble hard enough to send it vanishing into the distant greenery, sinking to the earth as her anger fizzled away. She sighed, looking glumly at the blades of not-quite grass swaying lazily in the breeze. She shouldn't be getting angry - anger was for little fillies who didn't know what to do, and screaming into the void for too long wouldn't help their situation. But still, part of her couldn't help but feel that the universe was being unfair to her.

She had to admit though; it was pleasant to be out in the elements again and soaking up the sun's rays, instead of languishing under the dim glow of lighting crystals. Astral inhaled, letting the crisp, cool air of the planet fill her lungs and held it in. Last week's recycled air couldn't hold a candle to the fresh air of mother nature herself. It didn't matter how expensive the life support systems were. No amount of magic could stop air from becoming damp and musty after one too many cycles in the system. Out here, with the plants and its multicoloured greenery, the inside of her ship seemed depressingly bland in comparison.

Astral exhaled, scanning the cloudless sky that hung over her head as her muscles relaxed. Maybe she was being a little unfair to Night Glow. The bat probably didn't mean whatever she said and besides, Lady Luck did provide her some reprieve in the form of the rather sizable pile of supplies she had managed to scrounge up from the nearly totalled cargo hold. Other than looking a little worse for wear, the boxes of food and drink gave them nearly... three months worth of provisions, and enough variation to maintain a healthy range of food choices. Shelter was easily solved by staying in ship, making their basic needs more or less covered. That gave them more than enough spare time to focus on her, no, their long term goals. The transmitter was still going to be a priority, but they could add a few more activities to their to do list. The mare closed her eyes, letting her limbs sink into the warm dirt as she ran through her plans.

If they ever got bored, she could always drag Night Glow along on a safari of sorts. It would be fun trying to spot animals from afar, and the batpony would probably appreciate being given the chance to name some never before seen beast. Plants like the multicoloured flower things and the oversized pine cone treed peppered around the crash site were interesting enough for now, but if they really wanted to cement their greatness in history, she was going to have to name at least one beast before going home. Preferably one that didn't eat ponies and looked like a fuzzy ball to get their hearts melting. Then everypony wound respect her.

The glow of the afternoon sun on her eyelids grew several shades darker and stayed that way. Astral's ears twitched, her body growing stiff at the growing sensation that there was a presence towering over her. She frowned. Something was definitelybreathing right above her. Her eyes snapped open, her heart leaping into her mouth as she found a pair fangs bearing down on her face. Astral screeched as she scrambled to her hooves, the thoughts of having a 'fun' safari vanishing and replaced with images of herself being eaten alive, only to find herself face to face with her batpony companion.

Astral stuttered, an angry squeaking sound escaping from her throat as the words she wanted to say stumbled over each other in her mouth. That only made the batpony snigger, licking her fangs as she threw her head back in a terrible imitation of some nightmare night vampire. "Did I scare you? Boo! Scary bat of badness is here to suck your blood!"

"No!" Astral screamed, smacking Night Glow's snout with a wing hard enough to send tufts of down fluttering into the air. She wanted to strangle the mare for even thinking of pulling such a prank on her, especially after incidents best left forgotten. "Are you insane? I almost punched you in the face again like last time!"

"I was trying to cheer you up!" Night Glow eeped, batting at her muzzle with a hoof in an attempt to wipe off her oil and down from her snout.

"Yeah, right." Astral rolled her eyes, gladly planting her flank on the ground. Night Glow didn't need to know just how downright terrifying that prank was, lest she do it again.

"Anyway, did you find anything useful while I was in there? The damage cannot have been that bad, right?" Night asked, shrugging off her gear with a grunt. She had probably meant it as a joke, but that remark struck Astral like an irritating pebble wedged in a boot. The mare frowned, grinding her teeth as she regarded the mare again.

"Oh, it's not that bad. Only that the entire ship is trashed and I'll probably have to find some other job for Celestia knows how long." Astral forced herself to smile at the mare, keeping kept her wings firmly pinned by her sides. "Besides, it's not as if I don't have anything to fall back on. I mean it's no big deal right? We're stuck here on the greatest find in the history of science and-"

"Astral-"

"WHAT?!” Astral snapped, bringing herself eye to eye with the much taller pony with a flap of her wings. She inhaled, puffing out her chest. “Right." Exhale. "Sorry about that, you wanted to know about useful things. Well... I found food?” She pointed at the pile of haphazardly stacked containers.

"I see… Look, it's starting to get late." Night Glow winced, shifting her gaze to the sun and the pile of supplies. She backed away slowly from Astral, moving casually as if nothing had happened. “You want anything to eat? Those potato chips you had for lunch couldn't have been filling.”

The mare shrugged, watching as the batpony ripped open a box seemingly at random. Lunch was hours ago, and just thinking about it made her painfully aware of the emptiness gnawing away at her stomach. Night Glow was right, as always. It had been hours since she last ate and right now, she wanted nothing more than to dig into a nice juicy hayburger - preferably with extra fries. Astral wiped her muzzle at the thought. Hopefully, Night Glow didn't catch her drooling.

"Here." The violet mare tossed a silvery packet of something her way. The pegasi caught it with a hoof, raising an eyebrow at how squishy it felt in her grip. She ignored the rather serious looking label plastered on it which promised all sorts of legal retribution for misappropriating fleet property, greedily tearing the seal open with her mouth instead.

The scent of something sweet and savory hit her like a train. If she wasn't hungry before, she sure as heck was now. She had expected to find the same bland, textureless trash that they had been living off on from surplus stores, but what she got were peaches. Fresh, juicy peaches that practically oozed with flavor and didn't feel like mystery paste. The mare gave in to her hunger, shoving her muzzle directly into the pouch. She didn't care if she looked like some uncivilized filly. After all, it wasn't as if there was anypony else to judge her.

Astral watched in fascination as the alien sun sunk behind the horizon, turning the sky into an unfamiliar shade of pink as the day drew to an end. Although science has long proven that Equus was the exception, not the norm where celestial bodies were involved, the concept that the sun rose and set because of the planet's spin was still hard to comprehend. Harmony had kept the sun and moon in check around Equus, not gravity. Harmony made sure that both day and night were in balance with each other and the sun and the moon stayed around Equus.

And yet, it was only Equus that worked this way. From the first science outpost in the Amicitia system to their original destination in Mintaka, it was because of the planet's rotation that made the sun set. Astral had spent many evenings watching sunsets from inside a biodome, only that now she was no longer disconnected from the universe by a sheet of glass.

It had never come to her mind during her travels hopping from one star to another, but watching the sun lower made her aware just how insignificant ponies were in the grand scheme of things. Nopony else in the galaxy would notice if Equus just disappeared one day. Sure, she might notice, but science has proven that Equus was no longer the centre of the universe. The stars would keep on shining, and the planets would continue moving by themselves even if ponykind ceased to exist. No creature would mourn them.

Space was big.

"So…" Astral blinked, switching her gaze to Night Glow, now drinking from a juice carton presumably fished from the innards of a hastily ripped up box. "You've got that look on your face again. Got any plans for us?"

Astral shrugged, scrunching her trash into a neat little ball and adding it to the empty carton that Night was using for waste. They might be stuck here for the time being, but that didn’t mean that they could start treating the planet as if it was Equus and start dumping their trash everywhere.

"Well…" Astral flicked her tail, grinning sheepishly at the bat. "Since you asked, I was thinking of maybe going into the forest? I mean, the sun did set awfully early, so I won't be falling asleep anytime soon. And if it gets too dark, I'll just follow your lead. Our environmental suits should protect us from anything too nasty."

"No." The batpony's expression was stoic. Nevertheless, Astral swore that she saw Night Glow's eyes twitch a little at the suggestion. "We don't even know what lurks there and you want to barge in? That sounds like a good way to get us killed." Night Glow replied, taking a long sip of her drink.

Of course, she did have a point. If the trees on this place didn't look like anything back home, then they had to assume that the wildlife also followed the same convention. That still didn’t stop Astral from stomping her hoof into the ground and making the bat jump in her seat. “Yeah, well, if you didn’t spend the whole afternoon checking on that stupid reactor of yours then we would have had more than enough time to go and chart the place out!”

Night Glow’s brow furrowed, pursing her lips and giving Astral a glimpse of the mare’s fangs. The pegasi gulped, flinching as the mare just stared at her and let an uncomfortable cloud of silence hang over them. From all their time together, Astral had learnt the hard way that showing fang was never a good sign. “You know what? You’re right.” Night Glow said, letting out a sigh that Astral hoped wasn't irritation. “Maybe it was selfish of me to leave you alone out here, but what’s done is done. I just assumed that you would be okay with me inspecting the tanks instead of asking you what you wanted. I apologize.”

“W-what?” Astral blinked. She had expected to be shouted at, maybe even rebuffed, but this? It was as if Night Glow poked a needle into the balloon of anger inside of her, deflating it with all the finesse of a skydancer. Astral nodded. “You know what? You have a point too. We need to get the transmitter up and working again as soon as possible if we want to get off this place anytime soon. Ships aren’t just going to land on a planet out of the good of their hearts after all.” Astral continued, stealing a glance at the wreck. “It’s crushed at the moment, but it would be great if you gave it a look. Might even speed things up if rescue ever comes.”

The batpony shrugged, adding the now empty carton to their pile of garbage. “Sure. I was about done with dinner anyway. Tell me what needs to be done.” She said, stretching lazily. “You know, if they don’t give us that finder’s fee thing, how about asking them for a few pallets the food instead? It’s way better than the freeze-dried things that you keep feeding us with.”

Astral rolled her eyes, paying no heed to the mare’s poor attempt at a joke. She would wipe that grin off her muzzle soon enough. “Just get the transmitter fixed Night.” She groaned, pointing to the task that lay ahead. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

“How in the name of the Denmother am I supposed to fix this?” Night Glow squeaked. She knew just as well as Astral that there was no repairing the transmitter when said transmitter in question was in little bits and pieces. “There’s nothing left! Absolutely nothing Astral!”

Astral shrugged nonchalantly, feigning a yawn. “Think of something. I just need a way to signal to anypony that comes that we’re still alive. It shouldn’t be that hard right? I mean, you did manage to get us back to a spaceport with a roll of duct tape once. That was nothing short of a miracle, if I may say so myself, so this shouldn’t be that hard.” She said, dusting herself off the ground with a flap of her wings.

“That was different! I had something to work with! You’re asking me to fix something that doesn’t exist anymore! How in the bloody hell am I supposed to fix nothing?” Night squeaked numbly, her hooves flapping at the wreckage like a fish out of water.

“You’re the engineer, so do your engineering magic! I don’t care what you do. As long as you don’t trash the supplies, just come up with a way to let somepony in orbit know that we’re still alive!” Astral shouted from the doorway of the emergency exit, faking a yawn. It might have been mean of her to ditch the bat, but if Night Glow wormed her way out of work in the afternoon, then it was only fair for her to do the same now. Besides, if she knew any better, Night probably wouldn’t be actually working on anything tonight - she’d do that brainstorming thing of hers first before starting on whatever idea she came up with the next day.

“Oh, and please! Do remember to keep an eye out for any animals! It might help when we finally start venturing into the forest. Just don’t get eaten or anything!” Astral shouted, raising her voice loud enough for the bat to hear from the outside. It would be a shame if Night missed any critters while she was outside.

Hopefully, if Night Glow didn’t manage to think of a solution for their signalling problem, she would at least spot an alien bear with that superior ‘bat vision’ of hers by the time she woke up tomorrow. That would make up for her trying skimp off work earlier. Almost.

3 - Course of Action

Bringing Equus closer to the stars - URSA Motto.

Astral blinked, staring at the featureless grey roof that had been looming over her for the past few hours. She should have been up and about hours ago, but the day was still young. Not to mention the fact that the will needed to pry herself from her mattress eluded her.

Plink!

“Dammit!” The mare buried her face deeper into the pillow in an attempt at blocking out the ticking of the ship’s hull. It worked in reducing the sound to an irritating thumping in the background, but it still wasn’t enough. She rose unhappily from her bunk, defeated by the laws of thermodynamics.

The night had not been kind to her appearance, and the reflection in the mirror made her look like a zombie from a low-budget Nightmare Night costume store, complete with eyebags and bedraggled mane. Merely running a hoof through her clumped together hair managed to free a rather sizeable amount of down.

Still, the comforts provided by her ridiculously soft mattress proved hard to resist and she soon found herself rummaging through the bin she had kept under her bed for days like these. If sleeping in wasn’t possible, then she was going to have breakfast in bed.

Her parents would have been horrified to learn how much of their daughter’s diet consisted of junk food. But today the universe had other plans, and this time Astral wouldn’t be clogging up her arteries with whatever she dug up. Not when several minutes of lazily rummaging about yielded nothing but the crinkling of empty wrappers.

“Great.“ The bin rattled angrily in protest as Astral shoved it back to its spot. “I’m stuck on this planet, I don’t have a way of getting home, and I can’t even have something as trivial as a breakfast go to plan?”

The walls didn’t reply.

Well, at least I'm not going insane. Astral huffed to herself, slipping into her freshly cleaned boots. The shoes would protect her hooves from getting stubbed by anything to nasty, while still remaining thin enough for her to manipulate controls without using her mouth.

She couldn't help but shiver as the changeling made gear shifted around her, moulding itself to a protective outer skin as she walked down the dimly lit corridor. The mare soon found herself fidgeting impatiently at the bulkhead while the overworked door mechanism screeched and strained as it manhandled the heavy slab of metal out of the way.

To say that she was shocked at the sight that greeted her would have been an understatement. The flight deck was gutted clean, with chunks of titanium alloy panels ripped cleanly off the structure and leaving behind the exposed bone-like frames. Strands of gutted wiring laid in the open spaces, the natural lighting making the burnt out insulation look like strands of tentacles dangling haphazardly in the air.

“Great.” Astral groaned. The last thing she was looking forward to was more damage to the hull. There were only two possibilities, and animal attack wasn't even remotely plausible unless there were timberwolves on this planet.

With all her luck thus far, she wouldn’t be surprised if the insurance company ended up using whatever the heck Night Glow did as an excuse to weasel out of paying. It took all her willpower to safely tuck the anger into a deeper part of her brain.

Whatever issues she had with Night Glow could wait. Screaming had never solved any problems in the real world anyway. If they were to pull out of this alive, she had to focus on the long term.

Speaking of the long term, Astral was starving. The mare spread her wings and dropped off the ledge, letting the cool air of the planet catch her mid-fall and glide safely to the ground. It wasn't that much of a problem for the mare to trace the route she had used the day before. Astral would have made a beeline to their stockpile, were it not for the glint of something shiny in the distant grass catching her eye.

The mare frowned. There wasn’t anything shiny that she could remember from yesterday, and whatever it was seemed unnaturally bright. But instead of chancing upon some alien creature, the only thing she found was Night Glow snoozing away beside what she could only describe as a pile of reflective junk.

Night was wrapped in the same kind of reflective material that the remainder of her ship’s skeleton was covered in. It had the appearance of aluminium foil, but thinner. Space blankets? Where the heck did she find those?

The sheets crinkled loudly as the batpony stirred, blinking and stretching lazily in the warmth of the morning sun. “Oh, hello Astral.” Night Glow yawned, pushing away the obnoxiously loud blanket away with a wingtip. “Grass? I guess I must have dozed off back here.”

“Yeah, you dozed off alright." Astral huffed, sweeping a wing at the sight before her. "Care to explain what made you drill holes into my ship and build a junkyard?" She asked, pointing at the panels laid out in the dirt with a wing.

“Huh, that?” The batpony sat up straighter, running a hoof through her mane. “Well, that’s kind of a surprise of sorts.” She said, stretching her membranous wings to the sound of several pops.

The mare fought the urge to facehoof, keeping her legs planted on the ground and scanned Night’s face for any sign that this was all some elaborate prank to keep their spirits high. Nothing. Night Glow’s face was as serious as it could be. “Seriously Night? I’m in no mood for surprises right now. Just what in the name of Celestia is this supposed to be?”

Night shrugged indifferently. “Look, Astral. I literally worked all night on this to solve your radio problem. You think whoever’s up there,” she said, pointing to the heavens with a wing. “is going to have me by their side explaining what this is supposed to be?”

Astral raised an eyebrow - if whatever Night Glow cooked up was supposed to get them off this planet and back to civilization, then she was more than willing to entertain her antics. She wouldn’t have given that much leeway to somepony else, but experience had taught her not to question whatever Night Glow suggested.

Unfortunately, taking to the skies still didn’t give her a better idea of whatever purpose Night Glow’s contraption was supposed to be. It was bright, and she had to shield her eyes with a hoof or risk being blinded by the object reflecting every lumen of the sun directly into her eyes. It kind of resembled those solar cooker experiments schoolfillies sometimes assembled for their science project.

In short, there was no way that this contraption was supposed to be the radio that she had wanted. It certainly didn’t look like one; she knew how machines were supposed to work. There was a reason why high power radio arrays were usually attached to the outside of a ship. They generated enough energy over the course of their operation that it would be cheaper to radiate everything directly into space and take advantage of the ship’s shielding.

She was seeing nothing of the sort. As far as Astral could tell, the panels were not even connected to one another to make a sizable transmitter. Whatever this was supposed to be simply eluded her.

“So... what do you think?” Night Glow asked, hovering silently beside the mare.

“Well, you tell me what I’m supposed to think, because I think that if I stared at this any longer I think my eyeballs are going to melt.” the pegasus replied, not even bothering to hide the irritation from her voice. “Is this supposed to be an art project of some kind? It better not be, because I am not in the mood for this.”

The batpony huffed, throwing her arms up in protest. “It’s not an art project!” she said, her silt like eyes narrowing in the sunlight. “You told me to find a way to get a signal up into space, so here it is!”

“And your solution involves creating some kind of sculpture in the open? Are you sure that’s what I wanted?” Astral shot back, crossing her hooves in irritation.

Night Glow looked unfazed. “Alright, look. You didn’t exactly give me much to work with considering how anything useful was either fried, ground to a fine dust or burnt to ash in the fire. I had to make do with whatever we had!” She said, pointing to the still smouldering remains of the engine section. “It took me almost all night before I came up with this, so you know, a word of thanks would be nice.”

Is she serious? Astral clenched her jaw. “Ohh, thanks for tearing down my ship Night Glow.” She deadpanned, using the same sickly sweet voice she normally reserved when bargaining with a stallion. “I really appreciate you turning it into scrap metal. Now please, explain to me how this is going to get us off the planet.”

“Aww, no problem!” Night squeaked. Evidently, the concept of sarcasm was lost on the thestral or her face would not have been widening into a grin. “Well, you see, I decided to improvise since I’m missing quite a few components to build a working radio.”

Night Glow let off another yawn as she started rattling off again. “So naturally, I decided to put myself in the shoes of somepony searching for us instead! You know what’s the one thing that will let them know that we are still alive?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe a working radio? Are you telling me that this,” Astral gestured at the eye melter resting on the ground. “is supposed to send a radio signal? Because I don’t think I’ve went for the engineering class that taught that.”

Night batted a hoof. “Oh, don’t be stupid, I came up with a really simple solution that doesn’t need a radio!” She beamed, running a hoof through her neatly bunned mane. “Remember The Maretian? More specifically, the part where they figured out that the main character wasn’t dead because they saw all this junk being moved around from orbit? ”

Astral nodded blankly; she was the one who introduced Night to the movie in the first place, and Night had become obsessed with it ever since. Still, she didn’t see how the correlation between the two.

“I figured that if we made something like that and made it super visible from space, then anypony trying to find us will arrive to the same conclusion! And then bam! Rescue!” Night exclaimed, clapping her hooves together.

The pegasus had to make a conscious effort to keep her jaw shut. Like most of the solutions the batpony had devised during their time together, Night’s idea was outright insane and most probably destined to fail. But the universe had a strange sense of humor and she had her fair share of near-catastrophic breakdowns that were magically solved by Night Glow with nothing more than some grease and a wad of used gum. That alone was enough for her to give Night’s proposition some leeway. Still, there was that one part of her brain insisting that Night’s solution was not only absurd, but also a total waste of their time.

“So you’re telling me that you ripped off something you saw on television.” Astral blinked in disbelief, groaning audibly as the batpony nodded proudly. “Damnit Night! You know just as well that movies are fiction. What in Celestia’s mind made you think that it would work?”

Night shrugged. “Well, the science holds up. Besides, don’t you think that whoever’s coming for us is going to notice a great big patch of reflective metal on the surface? I’d notice it for sure.”

It was no use. Astral threw her hooves in the air in defeat. “You know what? I’m not even going to argue with you anymore. We’ll wait and see if this stupid mirror idea of yours works.” She huffed, flicking sweat off her brow and settled back down on the ground. “I’ve got more important things to deal with than your glorified solar cooker anyway.”

Which was true. There wasn’t a cloud in sight over the past few days, and she was starting to have doubts about them being a stable source of water. Whether clouds could even form naturally was another question in itself, since nopony really knew how the weather was supposed to function without supervision.

Hopefully, this planet’s version of a weather factory didn’t mind them snagging a few clouds for themselves. If not, then they would have to act fast. They could survive on their stockpile of water for the next few weeks, but she didn’t like leaving something so basic to their survival to chance. It could be months before the Lunar Fleet decided it was worth sending a ship to look for them at this rate. Until then, they were on their own.

“Hey, Night, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” Astral coughed, keeping her ears pinned to the back of her head. “I was wondering… just randomly thinking about how long it would take for rescue to come and I thought to check if you’re comfortable with the stockpile that we have right now.”

Night blinked, her eyes darting to the pile of provisions Astral had scrooged up, sheltered from sunlight under the ship as per the instructions. “I think we have enough to last until rescue comes. Why?”

Astral dug a hoof into the dirt, tracing circles in the ground. “Well.. I just don’t like the idea of putting all our eggs in one basket. It’s true that we probably have more than enough supplies until rescue comes to fetch us.” She said, flicking the mud off her hoof. "But what if something happened to us? This survival guide thing I’ve been reading kept emphasizing how we need to focus on our immediate needs, and apparently water was pretty high on the list. I think… it’s time we considered going into the forest?”

Night Glow shrugged. “I don’t know Astral. I said it yesterday, and I’ll say it again. What you’re suggesting sounds like an awfully big risk to take, considering that we don’t know anything about the environment here.”

Astral groaned. “Yes, yes. That is a good point, but hear me out!” Astral said, pointing at the sky in exasperation. “There hasn’t been a cloud in the sky for the past two days, and that’s gotten me slightly worried. What if there’s another fire that eats up our water supply, or if our stockpile starts to go bad? It’s not as if I could conjure a cloud out of thin air. It’ll be safer if we at least try to find another source of water.”

“I still don’t see how that is more urgent than learning what we are going to be facing against.” Night retorted, her silky smooth voice starting to fracture from constantly repeating herself. “I don’t fault you wanting to prepare for the long term, but shouldn’t we be moving whatever we have to higher ground first? We won’t have any food left to worry about if the animals got to it first.”

Yeah, easy for you to say. Astral dug her hoof deeper into the dirt, pulling out clumps of organic detritus as Night’s words sunk in. At least she wasn’t the one who tried to pass off a slapdash art project as a viable solution for the transmitter.

She didn’t see any reason for them to dally around any longer. Waiting around if their ship was disabled in space would have made sense, since it meant less resources being burnt, but they were on a planet with a biosphere that they had no idea of how it worked. The only way to safeguard themselves against whatever calamity that might hit them out of the blue was to ensure that they had something to fall back on.

Besides, she was fairly confident that there wasn’t going to be some big scary monster waiting to gobble them up in the forest. If the predators here were anything like the ones back on Equus, then they would have been attacked the moment they crashed.

If there was anything that she had picked up from her time with the batponies in the Lunar Fleet, it was that being loud and noisy was a surefire way to drive off anything that might have been worth looking. Astral didn’t have any practical knowledge about hunting, but she liked to think that she knew more than the average pony after sitting through more conversations about stalking technique than she would have liked.

‘Loud and noisy’ was exactly what the crash site was right now. No animals were going to cozy up to some foreign object from space overnight. If Night wanted to get a grasp of what dangers awaited them in the wilderness, then they would have to venture into the forest.

Astral sighed. She wasn’t particularly keen to debate with Night on animal behaviour, but the batpony wasn’t giving her any leeway either. “Alright, fine. How about this, we wait for three days. No more, no less. If nothing shows up after three days, we’re going in there, like it or not.”

“Well… that would give us time to move whatever we need to a safer location in the meantime. What do you think about moving it up to the flight deck? We could cover it up with the leftover survival blankets,” Night Glow said, stifling another yawn. “I’d help you but I think I’ll get some rest first.”

Great, more work. Astral stomped her hoof deeper into the ground. Still, that wasn’t a no. She could always guilt trip Night into tagging along after her deadline after they were done with whatever trivialities that arose.

She forced her muzzle into the most genuine looking grin she could. “Sounds great! I’ll get to work after lunch.” That shouldn’t be too hard. She just needed to pretend to agree with whatever Night said for the next three days and keep the batpony happy.

Author's Note

Man, I really need to work on these updates harder huh? I'm 45 days behind my schedule.