The silence of space.

Not a single sound could be heard, not even the subtle flapping of wings, despite the creature flying nearby.

A weird device covered her snout, supplying the oxygen she needed to stay awake. Flying all the way out here had become sort of a habit for her, a guilty pleasure. Her sister didn't know, and it probably wouldn't matter if she ever learned.

With a small smile, the immortal being turned her eyes away from the cosmos and focused her attention on the floating object nearby. The object was shaped like a large circular prism with several layers, but also had glass-like panels jutting out on the top and bottom. The panels were slowly swiveling to point directly at the sun, although the sun wasn't really moving very much. The object was also covered in glass windows, although nothing could be seen through them - or maybe she just wasn't close enough.

It probably didn't matter very much right now, although she would love to find a way to get inside of the object. Surely the inside would be filled with all sorts of interesting things!

But there was no time for that now. The night would surely be coming to an end soon, and that meant it was nearly time to sleep.

With the tiniest amount of regret gnawing at her heart, Luna turned away from the object and flew back down to her planet.

"Captain Darkwood?"

Captain Joss Darkwood's eyes slowly opened.

She yawned, sitting up. It struck her as odd that she wasn't annoyed over being awoken. Did I actually get a decent night's sleep, for once? She thought to herself, before noticing her alarm clock. Damnit. Guess not.

"Captain Darkwood? Are you awake?"

Joss rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'm up. No need to pester me."

"I was simply following my programming."

She sighed, pushing the blanket off of her and climbing out of bed.

"How are you feeling, Captain?"

"Like shit," Joss replied, stretching. "But that's normal for me. Don't worry, I'm fine."

"Would you like me to wake up your sister?"

Joss shrugged. "Nah. Let her sleep for a few more hours."

"Understood."

"Thanks, Amber."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

"What am I supposed to call you? Ship AI?"

"General Processing and Ship Control Module."

"GPSCM? GPaSCM? Sorry, that just doesn't sound as good. I'll keep calling you Amber."

"Very well."

With a small yawn, Joss opened her dresser and changed out of her pajamas, throwing on some normal clothes, before thinking of something. "Amber, can you activate the automatic coffee brewer?"

"Sure. You'll have your usual?"

"Yup." After a slight moment of hesitation, she replied, "Thank you."

"I'm not sure if I can do this anymore."

Joss looked around, sighing. "We've been out here for well over a year by now. There doesn't appear to be much of anything out here. Not even a sun. We might have to deactivate parts of the ship just to stay afloat. Of course, the first place to go would be the cryopods...not looking forward to having to clean those out. Maybe we could detach them from the ship?"

She rubbed her eyes, yawning. "I haven't gotten any sleep in...what, two days? I'm not sure if it's worth continuing. Earth is already lost, and the colonies on Mars and the Moon haven't responded to our attempts to communicate, so they've likely ended up the same.

"The other ships haven't had any luck either. One reported that they thought they had found somewhere inhabitable, but we've lost contact with them. I'm trying to stay hopeful, but chances are that they were probably killed by the planet's natives. Or it's climate."

Twilight Sparkle waved a hoof, pausing the recording. "This is amazing! It obviously doesn't use magic, yet the image is floating and moving! And the motion sensing - how did they do that?"

Rainbow Dash cracked a small smile. "I don't know about that, Twilight. I'm not an egghead like you."

"If this is purely technology, this could be some kind of breakthrough!" Twilight held the object above her as her eyes scanned it. "If only we could find a way to break it down."

"So, what do you make of it?" Even if she didn't like admitting it, Dash was a little curious about the device herself. "It just fell out of the sky while I was flying."

"Well, I'm not quite sure. And before you say it, this is not proof of aliens. It could just be a very well-hidden magical device."

"It's proof of aliens. Check the first recording - that was the only one I managed to play before coming here."

With a small sigh, Twilight used a swiping motion to change the recording several times until a holographic screen showed that it was the first one. She waved a hoof to start it.

"Um, I'm not sure if this thing is on..."

"The recording feature is on, Captain Darkwood."

"Oh! Thank you, Amber." Joss looked towards the camera. "Alright, alright... don't chicken out now..."

She took a deep breath before starting to speak again. "Um, to whoever is possibly seeing this, hello! I am Captain Joss Darkwood, the Captain of the Founder spaceship."

She looked away, letting out a sigh. "I'm going to have to assume that you don't know what a spaceship is, aren't I? Damnit, this is probably useless."

She then shook her head, looking back towards the camera. "Alright. Um... my species is known as humanity. My sister and I are, quite possibly, the last two members of our kind, although we'll probably die soon, and then humanity will be extinct. I'm recording this in hopes that someone will see this before that happens, and be technologically advanced enough to be able to search for us. Technologically, is that even a real world? Ah, whatever, I don't give a fuck anymore. Uh, included with this message is a collection of ship logs from the year after we left our planet.

"Back then, we were just one in a fleet of twelve ships, all trying to find another inhabitable planet that the remnants of humanity could live on, but by now, we've lost all contact with the other eleven ships of our fleet. We are assuming that the Founder is the last ship left from the fleet, which means that we're humanity's last hope. What a fucking lame excuse for something's last hope. A ship with two humans on it and several cryogenically frozen humans that probably won't ever get to wake up.

"The drive this is included on has been selected because, just in case this ends up on a world that isn't technologically advanced enough to help, it's near impenetrable and cannot be used to reverse-engineer the technology used to make it. The drive has been outfitted with a portable holographic display, so you don't need the device nearby to show the videos to someone. Um, sorry for the exposition dump - ha! That's a small writing reference for you. You probably don't care or get it, do you? Damnit... - but that's all I have to say now. End recording."

The holographic screen went black, before starting another video that Twilight quickly paused.

Dash had a smug smirk on her face. "So, what do you have to say now?"

"...Spike, start a letter to Princess Celestia."

Joss hummed to herself as she typed away on her computer.

Anyone watching would be able to tell she was in a happy mood today, unlike most days. Even if she didn't get much sleep, she obviously got enough for her mood to remain stable.

After she punched a few keys on the keyboard, a screen showed up and she froze. Someone had found it. Somebody found the drive!

"Amber!" She called. "Somebody found it!"

"Can you please elaborate?"

"Somebody found the drive! The videos are being played!"

"Oh? That's good, but may I bring attention to something unrelated?"

"Yes?"

"We are too close to the nearby planet. A sound-speed missile could hit us from the planet's surface."

"Oh! That's-"

An explosion was heard from the bottom area of the ship, and red flashing lights immediately turned on throughout the ship.

"Engine damage detected! The damage appears to have been caused by supersonic winds. How they penetrated the outer walls of this ship is unclear."

"What a coincidence." Joss mumbled to herself, scrambling out of her chair and running towards the elevator.

Rainbow Dash landed, looking up at her handiwork. Above her, a bright rainbow had appeared.

"It gets easier every time." She said to herself, a smug grin on her face. "At least nopony is nearby to be bothered by the winds."

Wait a minute.

Near the highest point of the rainbow... was that object there before?

And was it just her imagination, or was it falling?

Her eyes grew wide. "Uh oh."

Dash took off running.

Author's Note

Hey!
This is actually the first story I've written about MLP. Well, first actual story. I've practiced writing some of the characters a few times, but I'll certainly need more practice.
This first chapter is kind of a pilot - along with the next two chapters which should (hopefully) be added next week and the week after - to see if anyone likes this concept, and hopefully to get some feedback on how terrible my writing is - atleast, feedback on how terrible I am at writing characters...well, in-character. Not saying my writing skill isn't extremely low, just that I feel like my skill at writing existing characters correctly is worse.
Anyways, I'll leave you for now. Hope you enjoyed this first chapter!

-J