A Forgotten Trooper

Strider didn't know how much ground he'd covered, but he was sure that if any of those droids had managed to escape, they wouldn't be reaching him before getting shut down by the snowstorm.

Strider slowed the speeder bike down, before stopping it in front of the landed carriage of Princess Luna. He cut the power from the vehicle and hopped off it, his white boots crunching the snow below.

Princess Luna had also exited her carriage, hooves pushing large clumps of snow out of the way. The two met in the middle between where the two modes of transportation had stopped, both having several thoughts flowing through their minds.

"We believe that proper introductions art in order." Princess Luna exclaimed.

Strider reached up to his helmet, taking it off to expose his face to the Alicorn. "Yeah, i've got a few questions."

"We do as well. Please enlighten us as to what we have just escaped from?"

"I think we just escaped an ancient Sith bunker, the droids models and weaponry seem to suggest that." Strider stated.

"And what is this... Sith you speak of?"

"The Sith, or the Sith Order, is an old religious order who are force users. They seek to destroy the Grand Army of the Republic and conquer the galaxy." Strider claimed.

Princess Luna glanced back in the direction they had come from, any sort of structure would of been impossible to see through the snowstorm.

"Ar't there more of these so called bunkers?" Princess Luna inquired.

Strider reached into a compartment on his utility belt and retrieved the holoprojector. He activated it, allowing the blue hologram of the base to come into existence. He pressed one of the three switches on the side of the holoprojector, making the image change into a hologram of Equestria.

"Any red dot is the location of a possible base that could of been built. I can't be completely sure due to the lack of equipment, but since their was at least one base here, there are most likely others." Strider exclaimed.

Princess Luna eyed the transparent map, noting the half a dozen red dots which were scattered across the country. She motioned for one of her guards to approach, which they did while holding a map of Equestria in one of their wings.

"Mark down all these red dots on this here image to our map." Princess Luna stated.

The guard quickly got to work marking down the red dots onto the paper map, making sure to not leave any out. While they did this, Strider stared at Princess Luna.

"Now, I have one serious question. That device you were using in that base was a lightsaber, weapon of the Jedi Order. Where in this world did you find it?"

Even though the trooper had just saved her guards and had guided her out of that death trap base, she still didn't like the bluntness and demand in Strider's tone. She was the princess of the night, co-ruler of Equestria! Not a cooped up researcher who was only good for learning information.

Still, if this trooper knew what this so called lightsaber was meant to do, then it would probably be best to tell him at least some of the truth.

"It was recovered by us from the royal archives, passed down throughout our history." Princess Luna exclaimed, using what she had learned in her studies as to who had originally been on Equestrian soil before she or her sister were even born.

Strider debated on what to say next. Being a soldier for the G.A.R. meant that if he found property that belonged to the Republic, he would have to make sure that it was licensed and not stolen. However, this planet wasn't on any sort of map that he was aware of, and the fact that the Lightsaber was mainly property of the Jedi Order and apparently was found in an archives of some sort. So he was stuck in between two decisions, take the Lightsaber, or let one of the rulers of Equestria hang onto it and not end up on her bad side.

A part of his brain was stating that this was against protocol, the worst thing a trooper could do, but Strider just ignored it. If he was going to be stuck on this planet, then he should at least stay on their leaders good sides.

The weather was beginning to worsen, snow slamming into Strider's armor. It was starting to get difficult to see through the snow, and both Strider and Princess Luna knew this.

"Strider, we shall have to take this another time, we shal't inform our sister of thou's discovery and send word to you when needed." Princess Luna proclaimed, trotting back into her carriage, the marked map in her magical grasp.

The carriage quickly took off, trying to fly above the storm, leaving Strider to get back onto the captured speeder bike. He restarted the engine and guided the speeder bike through the snowy tundra the best he could.

Back in Ponyville, pegasi were setting up several clumps of clouds that were loaded with snowflakes, ready to be unloaded at the drop of a hat. Derpy Hooves had just finished placing a cloud over Sweet Apple Acres and was about to take off, only for her tail to bump the cloud a little.

"Oops. My bad!" Derpy exclaimed out loud incase anypony had seen what she had accidentally done.

Derpy put the cloud back into position and took off, flying back towards where she normally worked, the post office. If she had stuck around a little longer, she might of been able to catch a single snowflake that had broken free of its restraints in the cloud, slowly drifting towards the ground.

On the snowflakes journey, it fluttered past a closed window, where it was spotted by Apple Bloom. The young filly watched the snowflake drift through the air, dancing around the window before vanishing from sight.

Apple Bloom let out a quiet sigh, before trotting over to the window and gazed out of it at the orchard. She had messed up horribly, destroying Strider's ship that he had worked to hard on, being careless trying to repair it, and hurting Twilight in the crossfire.

Apple Bloom wanted to make this right, she knew that her friends did too. But what could she do?

The filly wondered this for awhile, before her gaze drifted back into her room and onto a small desk that had become hers after finding it abandoned in the attic. An idea began to form in Apple Bloom's mind, making her spring from her position next to the window and over to the desk.

Apple Bloom took out a piece of paper from a drawer and a pencil from her school supplies, setting both down on the desk. Apple Bloom began writing, doing the best she could to make something that could at least show how sorry she and her friends are.

Apple Bloom didn't know how long she had been writing, but once she was done, she put the letter into an envelope and took off out of her room and down the hallway towards the front door.

"Go'n ta Fluttershy's!" Apple Bloom called out, hoping one of her siblings or granny had heard her as she opened the front door and galloped in the direction of the cottage.

It didn't take to long before Apple Bloom arrived at her destination, knocking on the cottages front door. She waited a bit, hearing hoofsteps approaching from the other side of the wood.

The door creaked open, exposing Fluttershy, who smiled when she spotted the filly.

"Heya Fluttershy! Is Strider here?" Apple Bloom questioned.

Fluttershy's smile faded a little, the pegasus glancing out a window, giving her a view of the remains from the gunship.

"Sorry Apple Bloom, but Strider left a while ago. I'm not sure when he's gonna come back." Fluttershy responded.

"Oh... well, once he gets back, can ya give him this?" Apple Bloom asked, giving the pegasus the envelope.

"I will," Fluttershy claimed. "do you want to stay for some tea?"

Apple Bloom pondered this for a few seconds, before nodding. Fluttershy stepped aside, letting the filly enter before she shut the cottage door.