I was beset on all sides by an endless expanse of sand with Celestia's merciless sun beating down upon me causing thick beads of sweat to roll down my brow. The air was hot and dry, stealing the moisture straight from my mouth, leaving it barren and cracked. Around me the tops of what was once an old city stabbed through the sand like the hooves of the undead bursting from their grave.

You always had to be careful when traveling through buried cities such as this one. Many unkind creatures and individuals would create a vast tunnel network connecting all of the ruined buildings into a massive underground hive or village, depending on what was camped out within. But I knew these particular remains were safe, I've traveled through them many, many times delivering all sorts of packages for the paying customer.

I was currently delivering some packages right now in fact, to a coastal village named Caperport. It was some very basic supplies, food, water, spare parts, and the ever-important Aether, the fuel source for our steam engines that replaced coal after the world ran out of that resource. If only we discovered the wonders of Aether before the war then maybe we could have avoided the fallout. But there's no point in reminiscing about what could have been, best to live in the present and not let yourself get caught up in the past.

looking out over the vast stretch of sand I sighed in content. It was at moments like these when I felt most at peace. Out over the open sands with the wind wiping past my ears and my bright red scarf snapping in the wind, there was nothing else quite like it.

My glider, informally named the Lonestar, began to leave the thicker parts of the city. The few buildings tall enough to remain visible had begun to diminish as I sped away from the metropolis. Ahead of me, a massive dune started rapidly approaching, or rather, I was rapidly approaching it. Shifting my weight with practiced ease, I braced myself for the incoming crash

The Lonestar smashed through the dune with its impressive ram. As a result a massive explosion of sand blotted out the sun, giving me respite from the unrelenting heat for a moment. I turned my head away from the wave of sand while raising a leg to cover my face. The sand on this glassed planet was razor-sharp and if you had the misfortune of getting any of it in your clothes then it would start the long and painful process of flaying your hide.

The shower of sand rained down upon me, a vast majority of the grain failed to find any openings in my clothes. But as misfortune would have it enough of it found its way into my barding to start skinning my hide. I winced in pain as I shifted my weight, the grains digging in even deeper as I rubbed them against my coat. I need to get inside and get these grains out and fast before they do any permanent damage.

Turning from the stretch of sand I made my way over to a door set up a flight of stairs that led into the bridge of the ship, wincing every couple steps. Reaching the heavy set steel door I propped up against it and gripped the wheel with my hooves. Turning it the door rolled off to the side, the resonance of gears accompanying it.

I stepped into the bland dirty airlock, the sounds of the lights flickering to life and the heavy door rolling back into place with a heavy clunk filling the room. "Hey, Eddy," I called out to seemingly nothing, taking my hood off in the process, my red mane falling down around my shoulders. The sound of speakers flaring to life graced my ears "Heya captain! How can I help you?" A chipper digitized voice called out, responding to me.

"Prep the medbay for me will ya? Got some sand in my barding and can't say it's agreeing with my hide." I said wincing as the cuts choose that moment to flare up in pain.

"Ouch, that's no good! I'll get it ready right away captain!" Eddy responded, and with that, the hum of the speakers cut out leaving me to silence, well as silent as the interior of a steam powered sand-glider can be.

Taking off the rest of my barding revealed my tan sweat-stained hide underneath, littered with many scars and fresh cuts, some of them looking to be worryingly deep. I put my barding on a hook attached to the wall, giving it a few shakes to try and knock off any loose sand. Moving to leave the small metal room I opened up the second door of the airlock, it rolling to the side with the same grind of gears as before.

I stepped into the bridge of the Lonestar, a room filled with a vast array of buttons, levers, and switches all set in front of a pair of pilot seats. On the left side of the control center sat the cameras, showing a nearly full 360 of the glider. The control to the main cannon sat nestled on that same side. On the right, one would sit to actually control the Lonestar, though I rarely manually operated the thing. I trusted the piloting to the AI.

Though I didn't pay any mind to it, instead quickly moving towards a door set in the back of the bridge that led deeper into the belly of the glider. I opened the door with a pressure plate built into the floor for ease of use, the door shooting up into the ceiling with a hiss.

I entered a long metal hallway, the walls lined with electric lamps softly illuminating it. The floor was a grille showing off an amalgamation of pipes and gears arrayed in a puzzle that only the mechanically educated could understand. I moved towards a staircase at the end of the long hallway, my steps measured and slow as to not aggravate my cuts any further, the clip-clop of my hooves echoing off the walls as I walked.

I reached the staircase before long, stepping down at the same slow pace, taking my time. Reaching the bottom of the stairs I walked into another long metal hallway, the same as before. making my way down the corridor I stopped at the second door on my left.

Opening the door, using the same pressure plate system that has been installed into every door of this ship, revealed the pristine white walls of the medbay, the sides of the room lined with similarly sterilized white-topped counters, above them sat rows of cabinets. But the main spectacle sat in the middle of the room. There lay a large mechanical chair, with many arms jutting off of the back all curled up like a dead spider. hanging off each of the arms was anything ranging from a buzz-saw to a syringe filled with sedatives.

laying on a counter on the right side of the room sat everything I needed to patch myself up; a bandage, a minor healing potion, and some salt water to clean out my cuts.

"Thanks, Eddy," I called out as I walked over to the items.

"It was my pleasure *bzzt* mY PrEci-, Captain." The AI responded in his signature chipper tone.

Reaching my destination I got straight to work cleaning out my cuts with the salty water, hissing in pain when a particular cut would sting with intensity. My wounds now properly sanitized and less prone to an infection I took a long swig on the healing potion, my face adopting a sour look. "Celestia, these things taste disgusting," I grumbled to myself. But despite my discomfort, I drank the potion anyway. I can't afford to be picky about these types of things. And despite their terrible taste they certainly did their job, my shallower cuts sealing up right before my eyes. Putting the now half full potion back down on the counter I grabbed the bandages and got to work wrapping up my deeper cuts. The potion was unable to completely seal them but it did unquestionably help in speeding up the process of recovery.

My wounds now cleaned and wrapped I left the room, the lights flickering off behind me. I went back the way I came, up the stairs and back down the hallway. My gait a little bit less measured now that most of my cuts have all but healed.

Finding myself back in the bridge of the ship I made my way over towards the navigation console. propping my hooves upon the device I looked down into its glass case of moving gears and figurines. It showed my position from a birds-eye view as a little red arrow. flicking some switches and turning a few knobs shifted the image to that of Caperport, the console safely releasing steam within its casing, the heat washing over my hooves.

"Should be there by day's end," I mumbled to myself looking over the machine. Most other gliders wouldn't have been able to make this trip in such a short amount of time, but thanks to experimental tech that has been installed onto this thing, a giant metal blade that cuts through the sand, the Lonestar is able to move nearly three times as fast as any normal glider.

The speed of the glider also helped me in securing some jobs as a delivery pony for hire, additionally, it helped me charge a higher price than most other delivery ponies. Not as much as an airship delivery but more than a normal sail glider delivery. The jobs brought in a good amount of money but too bad nearly all of it went to keeping this ship in one piece and ammunition for the ludicrously big cannon installed on top. I rarely got any personal spending money.

I laid down in one of the pilot chairs, spending a few moments to get comfy. One of the most boring parts of these jobs is the amount of waiting that would go into each one. With the AI handling all the piloting I only had to do something when anything exciting happened or when something broke, and neither happened often. So I just settled into pilot chair attempting to get comfortable, no small task due to both my newfound cuts and the unpleasantness of the chair itself. Sighing in boredom I kept my eyes on the horizon, waiting for Caperport to come into view.

Author's Note

And the first chapter of our journey has been dropped! I do really hope you enjoyed that short little read. Any and all criticism would be greatly appreciated, one cant improve if they don't know what to improve on!

More in the future! Hopefully! Probably! Certainly!