Equestria, Planet Equis

Ponyville, Castle of Friendship

Twilight Sparkle turned a page in an impossibly large catalog of star-charts as she mounted her telescope on her desk. The night sky was clear as could be, and free of any obstructions that would hide the stars above from her eyes.

As she used her magic to write in a propped-up notebook lying beside her, her tail swished from side to side, as it often did when she was concentrating hard on something.

"And we move the Axis 23.6 degrees to the north..." she murmured, adjusting her telescope accordingly. "Found it."

The object in her telescope's lens was a planet far from Equestria, that had dubbed "Olympia". The planet itself had a unique feature that had Twilight and even some of the best astronomers intrigued.

A massive crater that spanned nearly one half of the world's upper atmosphere had appeared three weeks ago, and before that the planet's moon had been shattered overnight. The Royal Astrologers had initially believed a meteor had struck the planet and the moon once they saw it, but Twilight thought differently. The force required to destroy a planet's moon and inflict that much damage to the planet itself in one go was astronomically large, larger than Twilight wanted to admit.

However, Twilight had noticed something strange three weeks ago, about three day's time before the crater appeared. Small objects had appeared in the orbit of Olympia only to start falling to the surface like a ship torn under in a storm.

Twilight had kept this knowledge to herself because this suggested aliens existed or something similar, and everypony in the scientific community knew that the existence of aliens was improbable or impossible.

She had played along with this idea for a while, but one day she stumbled upon something fascinating in her new Castle's library, a voluminous book titled "The Human Race and theories regarding it", by Professor Crossroads.

The book had taken Twilight three days to read and analyze, and it stated some interesting facts.

One, the mythical human race existed in the stars above Equestria.

Two, they were far more or drastically more advanced than the Equestrians, due to their use of technology over magic.

And three, they rode on the shoulders of giants, a bond established between them.

That last statement had mistified Twilight. The book itself was fascinating, but Twilight had stopped when she had read it the first time. Humans, a mythical race, riding on the shoulders of giant beasts?

Yeah, not going to happen in Equestria anytime soon.

As Twilight returned to her astronomy work, she thought on that statement for quite some time afterward, even past when she retired to bed for the night.

====
Planet Harmony, Frontier Militia Space

Militia Fleet Primary Shipyard, Bridge

"Commander Briggs?"

A stern-looking woman of her thirties, wearing blue clothing with combat gear and a bandanna around her forehead, turned to see a soldier approach with a datapad.

"Admiral Graves has a new briefing ready for you."

"Thank you, soldier." Sarah Briggs replied. "Dismissed."

As Briggs looked over the datapad, she let a small smile fly across her face. It had been three weeks since the Militia victory at Typhon and the destruction of the IMC Fold Weapon, and the Militia was celebrating.

However, Briggs knew it was only a matter of time before the IMC would return with some new weapon that would exceed the Fold Weapon's capabilities. Until then, the Militia would rest and recover from the battle. They had lost the entirety of the Seventh Fleet at the initial space battle at Typhon, and it was still rebuilding its strength at Harmony's Shipyard.

Briggs scrolled through the data displayed on the tablet, until she suddenly stopped and zoomed in on a particular section of the report.

"Mysterious inbound signal?" she spoke under her breath. "Not IMC in origin? Source unknown?"

As Briggs walked out of the ship's bridge and headed for the officer's barracks, she continued to read the report with her eyebrows raised.

At the same time the Seventh Fleet headed to Typhon, a signal was blasted past Harmony, consisting of an unknown energy signature. The blast hadn't directly harmed the Militia or Planet Harmony, but it had spooked the Militia Command enough to warrant an investigation, albeit a brief one.

The Militia Leadership's investigation had determined that a pulse of radiation had occured on a planet close to Harmony, and they had received some of the remains of it.

Briggs didn't buy it, however. The blast's destructive energy was predicted to be larger than a nuclear bomb, and they had been outlawed long before the IMC even existed, like other pre-Frontier Age WMDs such as poison gas.

To have such a harmless blast occur and hit Harmony just didn't sit right with Briggs. As she sat down in her office and called Vice Admiral Marcus Graves, she wiped the sweat from her brow.

"Commander." Graves spoke as his image appeared. "How's the R-and-R going for the Seventh Fleet?"

"It's going well, Admiral." Briggs said. "We've managed to rebuild the ships we lost in record time, but they're not combat ready yet. Also, I noticed a report about an energy pulse hitting Harmony included in the briefing?"

"It is." Graves said. "Whatever caused that blast is still unknown, but many of the lower staff think it's nothing to worry about, that we need to focus on the IMC."

"What do you think?" Briggs asked.

Graves gave a sigh of deep thought before speaking.

"I think we should investigate." he said. "If the IMC discovered something that could output more energy than a nuclear bomb, and turned it against us, we'd have another Operation Broadsword all over again."

"So what can we do?" Briggs asked.

"We've recently christened a new Supercarrier, the MacAllan II." Graves said, showing Briggs the schematics on the holoscreen. "It's combat ready and fully staffed. I want you to take what's left of the Seventh Fleet plus the MacAllan II and head to the source of the blast. I've sent the coordinates to the MacAllan II already. This is a high-risk mission, Commander, so be careful."

"I understand." Briggs said. "When do we leave?"

"I suggest you leave ASAP." Graves smiled. "I've also requisitioned a team of seven Pilots from the MCS Baron to support you. These pilots are led by Captain Daniel McKenna, a veteran Pilot and one of our best. I've already sent you their files. Once you're all set, you have the green light."

"Roger that, Admiral." Briggs said. "Briggs out."

As Briggs headed out of her office and towards the dormitories, she began to look over the files of each Pilot on her datapad with a smile forming on her lips.

Author's Note

Yeah, this will hpeefully be the last Titanfall 2 fanfic I write, since I deleted all the other ones. This one's staying for good.

Next time-The Militia leave for Equestria, and Twilight consults with Celestia about her discoveries.