You will never guess what happens to Equestria! Story One.

Chapters

Chapter One: Luna’s Space Blimp.
Chapter Two: A Crowded Sky.
Chapter Three: Awkward Meeting.
Chapter Four: A Great Show
Chapter Five: Drop the Base

Chapter One: Luna’s Space Blimp.

Location: Luna’s tower, Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria.

Luna sat on her balcony and stared at the night sky, like she did every night. If it wasn’t this it was watching over little fillies and colts as they dreamed, which with the exception of the occasional nightmare was rather boring.

3 years after her return things were pretty much back to normal for her. Nopony mistook her for Nightmare Moon, nopony feared her, in fact everypony loved her and she them. Her habit of using the Royal Canterlot Voice was pretty much gone, and she was getting use to everyday life in the Royal Canterlot Court.

All that changed about a year ago. Well, for her at least, everypony else didn’t noticed the difference, of course they didn’t, they didn’t stare at the night sky as intently as she did. Nopony noticed anything odd about the strange object floating in the night sky. One night it wasn’t there, the next it was. It wasn’t a natural object, meteors and shooting stars didn’t just sit idly and stars didn’t just appear out of nowhere, she kept track of all of them.

She went to her telescope to get a better view of the thing. After some adjustment it was in her sight. The thing must of been huge, at least as large as Canterlot Castle, if not larger. It was also pretty ugly, it was a drab gray cylinder. Some called it a Space Blimp as it looked similar to the blimps used in Equestria by wealthy or adventurous ponies. To be honest it looked like the most depressing vibrator ever. Luna blushed and tried to forget the filthy analogy, which succeeded in failing.

But seriously, when it first appeared it caused quite a stir when she informed Tia about it. Eventually word got around and everypony was staying up late to catch a glimpse of the thing. Ponies all across Equestria began to wonder what it was and what its arrival meant. Celestia and Luna were clueless, sure they had some influence on the sun and the moon, but that didn’t mean they controlled every object in space. After a couple weeks when nothing else happened everypony grew bored and went back to do whatever it is they did late at night.

And it had been like that for nearly a year. Luna wondered why anypony, or anything would think it was a good idea to come to another planet and just sit there in orbit. She had been watching the thing every night and never saw it change. She figured it would move around, or something... She tried to remember what she read in those Daring Do books about aliens from outer space.. oh right, they kidnapped poor innocent mares to run devious experiments on and enslaved brave stallions to labor in their crystal mines, at least until Daring Do showed up and kicked the flanks of everything in sight.

Luna didn’t give the pulp novel much weight, it was probably written to get old mares hot and bothered. Aliens which were wise enough to move across the stars had better things to do than menace ponies... But what were those better things? She figured they were watching the planet, and her ponies, but for what reason?

“Lulu?” The familiar voice came from the balcony door.

Luna turned around to see her coming up to sit beside her.

“Oh, hey Tia. What are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep, and the there wasn’t any leftover cake in the Kitchens,” Celestia said as she leaned over to look into Luna’s telescope.

“Oh how ever will you maintain your plump physique,” Luna said as Celestia’s butt came within Luna’s personal space.

“Very funny, Lulu,” Celestia said as she gave Luna a disapproving look. “So anything new with our visitor?”

Both turned their heads up to gaze at the thing.

“Nope, it just sitting up there, doing nothing.”

“Well, it has to be doing something, otherwise why would it be here?”

“It’s not doing anything that I’ve noticed.”

“It’s probably just watching us.”

Luna turned to her sister, “Funny, I was having the same thought. You think it might have some nefarious plans?”

“Lulu, you need to take a break from all those Daring Do stories, I know you picked them up because Twilight raves about them, but don’t forget they are just works of-”

Luna cut her off. “Sister I know, I’m not a little filly anymore. I was just wonder what your thoughts were.”

“Hmm” Celestia considered this. “I think they are watching us and trying to figure out what to do next.”

“What to do next? They?” Luna asked. Luna suspected it had to have been a ship of some kind, but never thought that any other pony considered that possibility.
“Yeah, It came here for a reason. I do not know what that is, but I don’t think they were expecting to find us here.”

“Which may be why it’s been sitting here for a year.. doing nothing.”

“Oh they are doing something, they are trying to figure out what to do next.”
Celestia then gave a long deep yawn. “Well sis, I think I’ve finally exhausted myself. I’m going back to bed.”

“Alright, Good Night, Tia” Luna said as Celestia was going back inside.

“Night, Lulu”

Luna turned back to the sky and gave the Space Blimp a long hard look.

“What are you going to do, when you finally figure that out?”

The Space Blimp replied, a strange blue glow emanated from one end and grew brighter. It then began to stretch from the other end. Luna was awestruck, she had to check herself to make sure she wasn’t asleep and dreaming herself. It stretched further and further to the light of one of the gas giants in the Sun’s outer orbit, then suddenly in a beam of brilliant blue it vanished.

Chapter Two: A Crowded Sky.

Location: Luna’s tower, Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria.

Luna wasn’t sure what to think, the Space Blimp simply.. left. No warning, no announcement, nothing. What in all of Tartarus was that about? She was confused at what happened, angry at the nerve of it to just leave, and sad. In the year that it was orbiting a stable mark in the sky, almost to the point of being ignorable she started to view it has one of her stars, something to watch over, something to care about and just like when one of her stars committed suicide in the conflagration of a supernova she missed them.

She realized she was very tired, while the sun hadn’t rose over the horizon yet, the sky was starting to lighten. She decided to leave a note with her sister’s personal guard and went to her chambers for some rest.

Later that day Luna awoke of her own accord, apparently Celestia didn’t see the news of the Space Blimp’s departure to be important enough to wake her. She went to her washroom and washed the sleep out of her eyes, brushed her hair and put on her royal accoutrements. In the old days servant ponies would be helping her do this, but in the past millennia Celestia had deemed servantry to be demeaning to ponies and abolished the practice. Luna didn’t mind, she actually prefered the privacy, being of royalty and being an introvert made these moments special.

She went down to the dining and found her sister having dinner, and wait staff setting up breakfast for her. Once they were done she sat down at her place across from Celestia, when not entertaining guests she preferred to sit in a normal spot instead of at the head of the massive table, Luna was happy at it meant she could see and speak with her sister directly.

“So, sweet dreams?” Celestia asked.

“Not really, I spend so much time minding over the dreams of other ponies I rarely have time for my own.”

“How was your day, Celestia?”

“The usual, aside from seeing off the Diplomats from Saddle Arabia.”

“Did you see my note?”

“Yes, what do you make of this development?”

“I don’t know, why would anypony, or anything just sit around a planet for a year to just up and leave?”

“Well I am no expert into the minds of beings from outer space but I would venture a guess that whatever reason they came here was complete, and with that there was no reason to stay.”

“I think you’re right.” Luna sighed.

“Are you okay, Luna? You look sad”

“I’m fine.. it’s just that well I.. miss it.”

Celestia smiled warmly “Don’t worry, in a couple days you’ll forget all about it, if anything this will make and interesting paragraph in some history book that I am sure Twilight Sparkle will memorize.”

Luna giggled, it wasn’t absolutely true of Celestia’s brightest and most promising student.

They finished their meals and went about their days. Celestia wrapping up any business that needed tending to. Luna catching up on the news of the day and heading up to her tower for a night of stargazing and dream walking.

Several Months Later...

Sure enough, Celestia was right. The Space Blimp quickly exited Luna’s mind and things returned to normal. The Summer Sun Celebration came and went, Shining Armor and Princess Cadence came down from the Crystal Empire to visit the castle and see Celestia, Luna, and Twilight and Friends, and now Luna was looking forward to her favorite holiday, Nightmare Night.

After the usual routine of Dinner/Breakfast with her sister, catching up on the news, she headed up to her tower for the usual night of stargazing and night walking. A couple weeks earlier she had an interesting adventure helping the little pegasus Scootaloo get over her nightmares, she always felt good to actually exercise her responsibility of protecting fillies and colts while they dreamt.

Upon reaching the top of her tower she looked up at the Moon and saw something that stopped her dead in her tracks. After a moment’s pause she rushed over to her telescope and quickly focused in on the space around the Moon, which confirmed watch she saw.

Numerous ships, or Space Blimps, dozens of them were now orbiting Equestria. She tried to count them all but in her excited lost count at 52, they nearly matched the stars in number.

They must of come during the day, when they wouldn’t be seen. She needed to tell Celestia, now. She couldn’t wait for a message to be sent, she couldn’t even wait to walk or run down. She leaped off her tower and flew down to Celestia’s bedroom balcony. Ignoring all formality and courtesy she called for her sister and walked in.

“Celestia! You need to come with me! It.. they are OH SWEET MERCY CELESTIA!”

Even for nearly immortal royalty, there are certain needs that need to be.. relieved. Celestia, panting and blushing removed her hooves from there and quickly covered herself in a sheet.

Celestia’s guardpony came barging in through the door, prepared to fight whatever menace was threatening his princess.

“What is going on in here!” He shouted.

Upon seeing Luna he calmed down, then seeing Celestia still red faced and sweaty quickly apologized and left the bed chambers, red faced himself.

Celestia turned to her sister, both annoyed and angry.

“Luna, you can’t just barge into other pony’s bedrooms like that!”

“I’m sorry, Celestia. It’s just that.. that.”

Celestia saw the fear and excitement in Luna’s eyes and calmed down.

“It’s ok, Lulu. What did you see? You said something about they?”

Luna quickly returned to why she came down.

“They have returned, the Space Blimp, but this time there are many! Please you need to come with me and see for yourself.”

“Alright Luna, just please wait for me outside, I’ll be out in a moment.”

Luna went out on the balcony and Celestia come out a minute later, looking as regal as ever. They both flew up to Luna’s Tower. Luna adjusted the telescope and it’s height so Celestia could easily reach the eyepiece.

Celestia looking for a few moments scanning the sky and simply said “Oh my.”

“What could they want now?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like this.” Celestia replied.
After a moment Celestia said, “We need to gather all the town leaders from across Equestria, also we need to bring Twilight and her friends up here, we need to have a meeting.”

“To discuss what?” Luna asked.

“A place of action, for something I hope does not happen”

“You mean...” Luna started to say, not wanting to finish that line. “Yes, we have to prepare.”

Letters were immediately sent to every city in Equestria along with one sent to Twilight Sparkle.

The one to Twilight included a special instruction, asking her to count the number of ships see saw. Luna likewise calmly counted the number of ships see could see.

Obviously it took time for everyone to show up. The Mayor of Cloudsdale arrived immediately that morning, Mayor Mare along with Twilight and her friends showed up shortly after lunch, followed by the Head Council Pony of Manehatten, along with the one from Baltimare, they trickled in throughout the day, towards the end of the day the Sheriff of Appleloosa and the Mayor of Las Pegasus finally came in on special express trains authorized by Celestia herself.

As night fell Coffee and Caffeinated Soda was served to help awaken the tired politicians and the meeting has quickly started.

Celestia started “As I am sure you all have found out. Our planet has seen the arrival of nearly 100 ships of similar shape to the Space Blimp that was orbiting us earlier this year.”

“I know you all want to know why they are here, and honestly I do not know. Even Princess Luna, who has been the most acquainted by the Space Blimp as no idea why it has returned and in even greater number.”

Applejack raised her hoof and Celestia nodded for her to speak. “If yah don’t mind me askin’. How do you know if these ships are even from the same... things that sent the Space Blimp?”

“We don’t” Said Luna. “Even our best telescopes cannot give us the kind of detail we need to make a firm observation, but from their silhouettes they are nearly identical to the Space Blimp.”

Twilight spoke up “I don’t think 2 different races would use the same kind of ship. I mean just look at our different we are from the Zebras or Griffins. I think they are the same as the Space Blimp.”

“But why would they come back with so many ships? You wouldn’t do that unless you were looking for a fight.” Rainbow Dash said.

The room erupted in argument and Celestia quickly brought her hoof down to quell the noise.

“I don’t want us to jump to conclusions, but that possibility should not be ruled out. We have 3 possibilities, one is that they have decided to intensify their observation of us and sent a large fleet of ship to better fulfilled that, in which case we probably do not have anything to worry about.”

“The second possibility is that they wish to make contact with us, and have nearly 100 ships is a normal greeting party for them. Now the third...”

“Oooo, Oooo! Should I plan a party? What kind of cake to aliens like? Chocolate? Strawberry? Do you think they would like party poppers?” said Pinkie Pie excitedly.

Celestia cleared her throat “As I was about to say, the third possibility and the one I fear the most is that they are here to.. invade.”

An anxious murmur spread throughout the meeting.

“Even though I hope that is not the outcome of this situation. It would be extremely stupid of us to ignore it.” Celestia said.

“What can we do? What kind of power could somepony have if they can travel the stars?” said the Mayor from Manehatten.

“They would have to be very powerful, but I also hope that if they are wise enough to not have ill intent” said Luna. “Even so we must plan for the worst.”

And so the meeting continued. It was decided that a mandatory curfew would be implemented across Equestria with Royal Guards stationed in every city to maintain order. Also a baby dragon would baby stationed at all the observatories in equestria, which would monitor the night skies and report of any strange activity. Each of the city leaders would return to their respective cities and develop evacuation plan appropriate for their cities. Finally, messages would be sent to all the other states of Equestria and they would be given all information about the ships and guidance as how to prepare for the worst.

The meeting adjourned with everypony very very tired. Everypony retired to either their bed chambers or guest quarters. The next morning Celestia saw all the ponies to their respective trains. She asked that Twilight and her friends remain behind.

“You wanted to see us, Princess Celestia?”

“Yes Twilight.”

Celestia continued “If the worst comes, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor and Myself will do everything we can to defend Equestria. However we may need more”

“The Elements of Harmony?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yes, you all may be called upon to unite and defend Equestria if these ships have hostile intent.”

“You have our promise your Majesty, we won’t let you down!” Applejack said, the other agreed.

Celestia smiled “I know you won’t.”

“Now then you six need to get back to Ponyville, the Mayor is going to need your help in getting everything set up. We can going into strange and interesting times, even I cannot say what will happen. All we can do is prepare and wait.”

As the others left Twilight went up to Celestia and nuzzled her like she always did, then took off to join her friends heading down to the train station.

2 months later...

The evacuation plans were completed and approved by Celestia. The other states were making preparations and agreed to inform the others of any strange activity. Everything went smoothly and without too much trouble. It seemed that the threat of invasion really focused ponies, Luna thought.

However over the weeks nothing happened in regarded to the ships. They did like the Space Blimps and just.. sat there. The day after the meeting Luna designed a new type of reflecting telescope and ordered lenses to be ground for the largest telescope yet built. She wanted a better view of the ships in order to determine why they were here. In fact the heavy lift pegasi contracted to bring the components up to Luna’s Balcony were complete and assistants were helping Luna assemble the telescope. By the time they were done it took up most of the balcony.

That night Luna excitedly began to adjust and focus her new toy. After a few minutes she began her observations. She could make out so much more detail now, she saw small lights of what looked like windows on the ships, and the faint glow coming from one end. On the other end was what looked like huge metal shields, she assumed the the shield end was the front and the glowly part was the rear, from there she assumed that the glowly part was the engine that moved the ships.

She then noticed 3 things. First was the buzz of activity around the ships, while they didn’t move numerous other craft buzzed around and between the ships, stuff was going on up there for sure, she just never saw it before. The other, more concerning thing were the shields, some were new and undamaged, but others were dented and scarred as if from previous battles. The third was that most of the ships were not directly facing Equestria, they were pointing out towards space, as if watching for something. She didn’t know if that meant anything, but it would be strange for an invading army to face away from its enemy like that.

These ships were some kind of military ship. However should could not find any sort of weaponry on the ships, no guns or cannons, she then scolded herself. If a race was able to travel the stars, their weapons would be just as advanced and incomprehensible to her or anypony.

After taking down all her notes she ended up being just as confused as before. While the threat was still there, they weren’t behaving with malice intent. This brought back to the question of why they were here.

She thought about it. While the new telescope gave her a better view, it did nothing to answer that fundamental question.

Luna was and still is a conservative pony, she not inclined to wild hair brained ideas. However one came to her, if she couldn't get answers down here, then maybe should would get them up there.

Chapter Three: Awkward Meeting.

It wouldn’t be a matter of difficulty, teleportation was second nature to an alicorn such as herself. Even the several hundred thousand kilometers she assumed it would take to reach the ships wouldn't be an issue, she did come down from the moon after all.

No the problems were the risk and the fact that it was totally out of her nature to even think up such an idea, Celestia would probably do it, but nobody expect Luna to be so brash, but well these were strange times and strange things were of course going to happen.

She couldn’t directly go to one of the ships, she was not sure of how far they were, she might end up in space and while she could protect herself from the vacuum she would still be helpless and adrift.

Her best bet was to go to the moon, she had gone many times before and knew the terrain like the back of her hoof. Also it would be a lot closer to the ships, from there she would be able make a better decision on what to do next.

It was the middle of the night and the castle (excluding the guards) was asleep. She decided to leave a note instead of waking everypony, she planned to be back before sunrise, but just in case. Still she was excited as a filly sneaking out of the house to hang out with friends. She focused her mind on the moon and with a quick pop she vanished from Canterlot Castle.

She instantly materialized in the northern region of the of the Equestria facing hemisphere of the moon. Instantly an invisible protective bubble formed around her the kept and replenished an atmosphere for her.

She looked around to get her bearings, she was in one of the many rock fields that covered the moon, boulders of all shapes and sizes were scattered about, thrown up by meteor impacts thousands of years ago. She began to walk up to a nearby rise. She looked up to find Equestria and then she saw them.

Massive was an understatement, they were huge! They sat up there like great lumbering sea monsters. Easily larger than all of Canterlot Castle, and there were nearly a hundred of them. Dozens of tiny ships buzzed around and between each one like flies. She could see clearly the details of each ship even though they were same. She could she lights that must of been windows into the ships, large doorways or gates that open and closed for the smaller ships to go in and out of. She saw the massive metal shield on each of the ships connected to the front of each ship on what looked like massive springs and pistons and the strangely shaped funnels on the rear emitting a strange blue glow that must of been the engine.

As she walked she considered her next plan of action. She figured her best bet to get onto one of the ships would be to teleport inside one of the gates that the smaller ships went into, they were large open areas and she wouldn’t risk teleporting into a wall or one of the creatures inside, which would be a bad thing. Of course she would use an invisibility spell to avoid detection.

Now the problem was which one? While trying to decide a small beam of light hit her in the eye, it didn’t hurt but it did scare her. It was coming from one of the ships, they found her, oh crap. Then several small beams began to appear on her from other ships, double crap. She ran behind a boulder in an attempt to hide. She knew it was pointless, they knew where she was now, she should teleport away to another part of the moon or back home, but despite the fear her curiosity overpowered it. She wanted to see what they would do.

As she peeked her head above the boulder a gate on the closest ship opened and 6 strange craft flew out. Unlike the other tiny ships which were boxy and plain, these were fast and graceful ships akin to falcons or eagles. After them came out a large lumbering craft that slowly followed the 6 other ships.

The falcon like ships quickly reached the rock field and slowed to a near hover. They began searching for Luna. She wanted to hide under the boulder, she didn’t know what they would do with her if they actually captured her. She kept her teleportation spell on tap just in case.

One of the ships slowly came over the boulder and Luna, as it passed it slowly spun around to face her but still kept moving until there was several hundred meters between them, then it just watched her. The other 5 joined it and kept a distance between themselves and her. They were beautiful craft which looked like styled falcons that were flying, or facing her backwards, towards the rear of each one was the small blue glow of what must of been a smaller version of the engines of the bigger ships.

Her fear crept up but she committed herself to being stoic and stamped it away, she stood up and face the first craft the found her. She didn’t know what to do, she couldn’t speak since sound waves didn’t not carry in a vacuum, she didn’t know how of even if these creatures raised a limb in greeting. Even though Equestria was her planet as was the Moon she still had a nagging feeling that she had intruded upon them. Her best option she felt she had was to just stand there and see what they would do next, and be ready to make a hasty retreat.

She almost forgot about the large lumbering craft until one of the falcon like craft moved to make room for it. This craft was even stranger, it had a very fat grub like apperence with 4 engines on either side of it. It came towards her and the rotated around and lowered itself to the ground, kicking up plumes of dust doing so. Soon the engines powered down and it just sat there.

Luna became annoyed with this behavior of just sitting there. However she knew better, they were not expecting this and they like her were trying to figure out what to do next. It started to feel like a stand off when all of a sudden the craft made its move.

It cracked open, well the end of it facing Luna did. A split opened horizontally in the middle of the craft and the upper part lifted itself into the craft, while the lower part came down to the ground and turned into a ramp. She could not see inside. But that wasn’t the interesting part.

From the opening came 2 rows of bipedal creatures, some of whom quickly ran to nearby boulders while others stayed out in the open. They were taking up defensive positions against her. They looked to be clad head to toe in heavy grey armor, she could not make out any flesh which was just as well since there was no atmosphere. In their forelimbs they carried a large cannon or gun of a kind Luna had never seen before it was large enough to have to be carried with both limbs, she figured they must be soldiers. Other than that their heads were at the top of their bodies and they lacked tails, though they may be hidden under their armor.

About 20 of these soldiers filed out of the craft. After them out came 2 other creatures, these two were smaller and not as well armored as the soldiers, their armor was mostly white and had various symbols on them. Them seemed to be carrying equipment that looks like small guns that were bulkier and less threatening than what the soldiers had in what she now could see were hands, similar to have dragons and griffins hand, allowing them to easily manipulate them.

They approached Luna cautiously, when they came rather close Luna started to step back and they stopped. They look to be communicating with each other somehow, as they looked at each other and gave expressions with their hands. One pointed at it’s chest and then pointed at Luna, they seemed to come to an agreement. The one doing all the pointing then stepped foward with the strange little gun pointed at her, it wasn’t aiming in fact it was just casually holding it and looking at some kind of screen on the top. It started to push at the screen and various lights came on at the end facing Luna. Then a beam of light came out of it right at Luna’s face.

Luna reacted instantly, firing a magical beam at the creature. It flew back and skidded to stop on the ground quite a distance away. It’s companion ran back towards it. Immediately the soldiers moved to block those 2 from Luna’s line of sight, pointing their weapons at her and manipulating them, she looked around and saw all the other soldiers doing the same. Her looked up to the falcon like craft hovering around her and saw very large cannons appearing from under their skins. This was not going well at it.

Before anything more could happen she teleported with a pop, leaving the creatures and the moon behind. She found herself back on her balcony panting and sweating and still generally terrified at what just happened. It was still dark outside, if she was lucky she could get cleaned up and retrieve the note before anypony noticed. She made her way inside, she needed time to figure out what happened, and whether or not to tell anypony. She didn’t know if she made the situation worse or what..”Where did you go?”

Luna froze, out of the darkness came Celestia with a look of contained anger.

“Luna, where did you go? And do you look like such a mess?”
“I.. um.. I can explain!” Luna said with shocked guilt.

Celestia cocked an eyebrow and sat down at the foot of Luna's bed.

“Please do, we have all night.”

“Well.. um.. that new telescope I had built was great, but it didn’t help me get any closer to finding out why they are here.”

Luna proceeded to tell Celestia of everything that happened on the Moon. The massive ships, the falcon craft, the large craft filled with soldiers, the 2 creatures, her getting hit with light and attack back and her retreat back to Equestria.

Celestia was gazing out at the stars and ships by then. She turn to Luna and stared her straight in the eyes.

“I can’t make you do anything, you are of royalty and I cannot give you orders, but I want you to promise me something.”

“What is it, Sister?”

Celestia stared even more intently, Luna felt tiny.

“Promise me that for the duration of the alien’s visit here, you will not return to the moon.”

Luna looked shocked, the moon was her domain.

Celestia went on “It obvious they can easily spot anypony who is on the moon, and with what happened up there I do not feel it would be safe for you or anypony to go up there. We don’t know if you just hurt or killed that creature, and we don’t know how they will respond.”

“Luna please promise me that you will not go back there.”

Celestia looked at Luna almost pleadingly. Luna lowered her head and said “I promise.”

Celestia went over to her sister and began to nuzzle her.

“Thank you, if something happened to you while you were up there... I don’t want to lose you again.”

Luna noticed that Celestia was weeping. They stayed like that for a couple minutes until Celestia broke contact.

“Well then, it looks like I have a busy day today. I will need to let everypony know about what happened and that we should keep our observations and patrols at alert in case the ships decide to do something.”

As Celestia left Luna turned to see that it was already dawn. She also realized how exhausted and tired she was. She went to her washroom, and cleaned the dust and filth from the moon off of her, and staggered into bed and fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter Four: A Great Show

Princess Luna was running hard through a dark corridor, she was fleeing. She had seen Canterlot, and Equestria burning under the attack of a great beast of metal and fire, so much fire, so much death, so much horror. She saw her sister Princess Celestia stepping up to oppose the beast, and all Luna could do was run like a coward.

All of a sudden a great explosion and a wall of fire came into the corridor. The fire was bearing down on her, her tail was singed and her hide was boiling from the great heat, before the conflagration could consume her she woke up in a sweat.

Her personal guard was standing next to her bed, looking as though he was about to wake her. He quickly went to attention and said “Your majesty, Your sister requested that I wake you at once.”

Luna collected herself and asked “What’s happening?”

He answered “It’s the ships, My Princess. Something is.. happening up there and Princess Celestia wishes you to see it.”

It was the middle of the day, the sun was out. Normally the ships were invisible behind the blue sky and the rays of the sun. Were they actually coming down to Equestria?

She got out of bed and quickly composed herself.

“Alright I’m ready, take me to Celestia please”

They left her quarters and proceeded down to the throne room, which was empty. Everypony including Celestia was out on the balcony looking up. She joined the crowd and looked to see what was hold their attention.

Flashes were going off all over the sky. The ships were not visible, but there were flashes of light all over the sky. There was no sound to accompany the light so nopony had any idea what they meant.

She found her sister and walked up to her side.

Since everypony on the balcony was talking she leaned over to Celestia’s ear and asked “What is going on?”

“I don’t have a clue, this just started not long ago.” said Celestia, not breaking her gaze from the sky.
Celestia then turned to Luna and said “We need to talk, but not here.. It’s a little crowded out here.”

They both headed back inside and went up to the foot of the throne. Celestia didn’t bother to take her place, she wasn’t royalty addressing the populace right now, she was a pony talking to her litter sister.

“You look rough, I hope you can forgive me.” said Celestia while sitting down on the floor.

“It’s ok, I was having a bad dream anyway. Actually this was something I needed to see, something big is happening up there.” Luna replied, sitting across from Celestia.

“I wanted to ask you something” Celestia said “Could I join you tonight when you observe the ships?”

Luna cocked an eyebrow, “You know you don’t have to ask, but I am curious as to why you want to join me.”

Celestia blushed a little, “Well officially I want first hand observation of this new events, if something big is happening then I need to know”

“And unofficially?” Luna inquired, eyebrow even more cocked.

Celestia sighed, “We’ve barely spent any time together, I just want an excuse to spend time with my little sister.”

Luna blushed herself. She realized that was true, they both were so preoccupied with their own activities that they never saw each other anymore.

“Alright, that sounds like a thing we could do.” she replied.

“Thanks” Celestia said while leaning down to nuzzle Luna “Sunset isn’t for quite awhile yet, I think you should go back to sleep.”

“Uhh right” Luna remember how tired she was. She parted ways with her sister and headed back to her chambers. On her way she stopped an assistant and requested some sleepy time tea.

Back up in her chambers she pulled heavy curtains over the windows while sipping on her tea, and once her bedroom was completely dark she settled down with excited thoughts of spending time with her sister tonight, and proceeded to pass out.

“LUNA! Luna wake up!”

She woke with a startle, Celestia was running into her bedchamber and magically dragging her out of bed. “Celestia? What is the meaning of this?” She was only half awake and rather irritated.

“You need to see this, right now” Celestia said. Pushing Luna onto the balcony. Celestia rushed over to Luna’s telescope and made some adjustments while tracking the evening sky. With the telescope adjusted she ushered luna to the eyepiece.

Luna saw something bright, but very blurry. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and adjusted the focus on the eyepiece and looked again. She saw a ship, but this ship wasn’t in space. By how its shield was glowing and by the streamers of smoke coming off its hull showed it was slamming into Equestria’s thick atmosphere.

Luna stumbled back and fell on her backside “Wha.. What is happening!?”

Celestia walking up to the telescope and looking in the eyepiece said “It’s coming down, we need to know where.”

Luna knew they could make a guess that had some accuracy, but this needed to be as exact as possible. While Luna knew she and Celestia could crunch the numbers, there was a pony who could do it better.

“Twilight would be able to answer that” Luna said.Celestia nodded in agreement. “We have to get to the Ponyville Library right now.”

They didn’t want to waste a moment, they focused themselves and immediately teleported to the Ponyville Library.. right into Twilight’s study.

There was a flash, and a scream, ink bottles and quills went airborne. “Princess Celestia! Luna! What are you doing here!” Twilight shouted with irritation. She checked her and bowed “Your majesty.”

“Twilight, nevermind that, come with us.” Celestia said walked up to the Library Telescope.

The area the telescope was in was smaller than Luna’s balcony so Luna stayed on the main floor. Celestia made some adjustments and allowed Twilight to look into the eyepiece.

“What is it doing coming down here?” asked Twilight. “We intend to find out. Which is why we are here. I know you can figure out where it will land.”

“Oh, umm well I can do that.” to Twilight this was a simple enough task. “I’ll need more space, so why don’t we go outside.”
Twilight and Celestia gathered up the telescope, quills, ink and paper and went out into the Ponyville Main Square. Despite the odd looks they got, since this was the first time in a long time both Princesses were in the town, they ignored the stares and set up the telescope. The ship looked to still be burning through the atmosphere.

Twilight went to work, Spike served tea and biscuits to the guests and Celestia spoke with curious onlookers. Luna remembering that she came here immediately after waking up, asked Rarity to help her clean up a bit, Rarity was more than willing to assist.

After a few minutes Twilight called Celestia and Luna over and had them take turns looking into the eyepiece. By this time the rest of Ponyville figured out what was going on and were looking at and speculating on Equestria’s visitor. There was some concern as the Ship was coming down very fast with no sign of slowing down.

The ship was coming down head first, or shield first, but now it was turning around. Soon enough it was facing Equestria rear or engine first. Suddenly a blinding light came from the ship. Luna was looking into the eyepiece and backed away in pain. Everypony was looking up now, the Ship grew brighter, geysers of flames shooting out of the sides and rear of the ship. Soon the Ship became too bright and ponies shielded their eyes from the light.

After a minute or so the light died down. The Ship while closer, had slowed down considerably. By this time the telescope was not needed, the Ship was clearly visible to the naked eye.

One thing everypony noticed was how pieces were breaking off the ship, small ones but it wasn’t normal for a ship to break apart if it was coming down for a visit. It took Applejack, who had gather with Twilight and the rest of the girls to discuss the new events.

“It’s crashing” She said. It became obvious to everypony else. This was a bad turn of events, something bad happened and nopony had any clue what it is.

“Twilight, did you figure out where it is coming down?” Celestia asked. Twilight looked at her parchments and said “By my estimates it will land.. or crash in the Everfree Forest.”

Everypony looked at each other anxiously, coming down in the Everfree Forest was more bad news. Forest fire was likely, not to mention every animal fleeing and look for places to hide.

“Is there anybody in the Everfree Forest? We need to know and get them out of there.” Celestia said to the gathered crowd. Everypony asked each other and the question spread out to the rest of town. The only one who lived in the forest, Zecora had actually taken leave back to her Tribal Savanna and was thus out of danger, Twilight made a mental note to sent Zecora a letter to let her know what is happening and offer the Library for her use.

The Ship was filling the sky, soon enough everypony realized the true size of the thing. It was larger than Ponyville, as large as Canterlot! It was still heads or shield up with it’s rear facing Equestria. It was coming down slowly, though it may had been its size that made it seem like it was moving slowly.

There was nothing nopony could do, it was too large. The ponies could see the ship in detail now and could see a huge tear, or cut, or gash along its side. The lights that Luna remembered where on these ships were all dark. The ship had been attacked and injured. The ship was dead, and falling to Equestria and there was nothing anypony could do.

There was the sound of rumbling and booming now, as the Ship slowly cut its way through the atmosphere.

______________________________________________________________________________

CDF Gate of Divine Might (Critically Damaged)
Hyperion Class Interstellar Heavy Battlecruiser
Current Mission: Operation Maintain Innocence (Classified Above Top Secret by order of the Executive)
Commander: Admiral Liu Han (K.I.A)
Leviathan Construct: Mordecai-1879 (M.I.A.)

Mordecai never had a chance, neither did the Gate of Divine Might, or Liu Han or her crew. The Gate of Divine might was the first ship the Apex attacked. Either the Apex had new tactics, or the expeditionary force the Confederacy sent was woefully unprepared. Either way, it didn’t matter to Mordecai.

Before Mordecai, or the crew, or the fleet knew it the Apex warped straight into the orbit of Equestria. An incredibly dangerous move, but it caught the fleet off guard. Before the order for defensive measures could be called 3 kinetic blasts had torn through the starboard side of the ship, destroying the both sub-faster-than-light and faster-than-light communication arrays, life support, and causing catastrophic damage to 3 of the 4 Tokamak fusion reactors to which safeguards vented and disabled those reactors. The multi thousand ton shield mounted on the bow proved useless to the Apex armaments.

The Gate of Divine Might was dead in the water so to say, when a 4th blast carved a massive gash in the ship’s hull and knocked out its sensor arrays, vented all of its atmosphere, killing whatever crew was left, including the command staff and Admiral Liu Han.

With a dead crew, no way to call out for help and no possibility of warping out of the system since the ship required 2 functional reactors to operate faster-than-light. Mordecai could not even calculate the trajectories to travel in system as he had no sensors to calculate from.

Mentally, Mordecai was catatonic, the horror of what happened was too much to bear. One moment Mordecai was performing midday inspections while the day shift was in the mess hall on lunch, the next all hell broke loose. Within the minute his ship.. his body was destroyed, and his crew.. his friends were all dead. Paralyzed, mute and deaf Mordecai could only watch through the few operational external cameras as the rest of the fleet engaged the Apex. He took some comfort in seeing the might of the Confederacy rip through the Apex invaders.

He also noticed that his ship.. his body was entering Equestria’s atmosphere. The shield deflected the heat and pressure that entry caused. He then saw the brilliant blue of the sky. He woke out of his stupor and started to move the cameras around. It was a beautiful, colorful planet. Almost unreal, nearly cartoonishly pretty. It reminded him of home on Eden.

With dawning horror and realization, Mordecai knew he would impact. With his size he knew it would be apocalyptic. A Hyperion Class Battle Cruiser was 2 kilometers long and just over 10,000 tons, and with a shield installed not capable of atmospheric movement.

Mordecai found he could do something about it. He was able to move the shield enough that the drag started to flip over, as the back of the shield caught the air it straightened out the ship and slowed it down. But it wasn’t enough.

Mordecai had no engines, only the surviving fusion reactor. He knew he was already dead, all he could do was try to minimized the number of innocents he took with him. He made what was probably the hardest choice of his life, harder than giving up his flesh in the hope of immortality.

He choose to die. He knew that venting the last reactor into Equestria’s atmosphere would slow down his ship enough that it’s impact would only cause local damage. Not the best solution, but way better than the near planet killing impact it would of been.

Mordecai-1879, born Edgar Boyer in 2003 on Earth’s first colony of Eden, who made the transhuman conversion to a Leviathan in 2049, remember back to his youth and to a prayer he remembered. As he disabled the governors and began to overload the final reactor, he recited it.

Just as he came to the final line, he gazed upon the Planet of Equestria, and remember home.
“Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

The Tokamak reactor reached catastrophic status, the safeguards kicked in and vented the plasma core into Equestria’s atmosphere, all power to The Gate of Divine Might shut off, and Mordecai-1879 ceased to be.
______________________________________________________________________________

The ship moved so slowly, everypony could only look on in horror as the ship touched the top of the Everfree forest and buried itself into Equestria’s surface with a earth shaking boom, sending everypony standing to the ground. It seemed like it would just go through the surface when it suddenly stop with a shockwave that rippled through the ship. The shield on the top broke from the rest of the ship, and fell off along it’s side to another earth shattering boom.

Everypony was looked on stunned, it was so close yet so far away. A ripple of dust was moving away from the impact site at lighting speed. A shock wave slammed into Ponyville, knocking everypony back and shattering every window in town.

Luna laid on her back on the ground, deafend and dazed. She looked around and saw a horrible scene. Ponies laid everywhere, some stumbling, many others bleeding after having glass shards rip through them.

She looked for her sister, who was also starting to get up. Her crown was missing and she had cuts covering her face and chest. Luna tried to walk to her but a sharp pain shot up her left foreleg, her hock was sprained. Celestia slowly walked to her.

Hearing returned to Luna, the noise of chaos, the screaming, the crying, the yelling were all around. Celestia went to Luna’s ear to say something, but something in the distance caught both of their eyes.

A wall, a cloud that contain dirt and rock and fire, and what was left of the Everfree Forest, was heading straight for Ponyville.

Author's Note

Apologizes for the delay, but I found an entire bottle of Merlot is a great way to push through procrastination.

Chapter Five: Drop the Base

Base Surge - A fluidized mass of turbulent gas and solid fragments which is ejected during a Nuclear Explosion, some Volcanic Eruptions and Impact Events.

A wall of of debris travelling at who knows what was rushing towards Ponyville. Whatever Celestia was about to say didn’t much matter right now.

Some ponies freaked out, some ran, some.. like Luna just stood or sat there too terrified or in shock to move. The only pony who seemed to have any sense was Celestia.

She went into the center of the town square, and did something she hadn't done in centuries.

She shouted in the royal canterlot voice “ALL PONIES TO THE SQUARE, NOW!”

At once all the chaos, least the chaos caused by the ponies stopped. All immediately gathered at the square. Even the ones to scared to move, including Luna calmly packed themselves into the town square.

Celestia moved herself through the crowd to face the oncoming surge of debris. She steadied herself and focused her magic. A massive golden force field covered the square, shielding all ponies inside.

It seemed as though time moved slowly as the wall slammed into Ponyville and hammered the force field. Celestia tooked the impact as if it was an attack on her own body. She reared up on her hind legs and came back down on all fours. Digging her hooves into the pavestone, every muscle of her body straining to keep the force field up as trees turned rockets, boulders turn bombs, and all manner of debris slammed into it. All that Luna and the rest could do was cower and pray that Celestia would save them.

As soon as it had started, it ended. The wind died down, and soon enough all the ponies could see the destruction that had been wrought around them.

Exhausted Celestia’s force field vanished, she went down on her knees, blood dribbling from her ears, nose and mouth, covered in sweat. She fell over on her side, unconscious.

Dust enveloped the square and choked the ponies in it. It caked in Luna’s eyes and clogged her throat, she used her foreleg to clean out her eyes and hacked up muddy spit. Shortly the dust settled and Luna and the others could see again. She looked around to see an alien world.

The windows that were not shattered by the initial shock wave were gone. Houses and other buildings were wrecks, shingles blown away, a couple nearly ready to collapse, one had a tree lodged in it.

In the distance where the Everfree Forest was.. or use to be, was something that should of only been a nightmare dreamscape. A combination of the hazy evening sun and raging forest fire turned the sky into a smokey, blood coloured vista. The ship or what was left of it, looked like the eldritch spire built by a mad king, leaning to a side with pieces of it hanging off like wind chimes. Everywhere else was a hazy orange wasteland that could only come from the deepest of nightmares. All she could hear of the roaring of the fires.

She then saw her sister, during her site seeing other ponies saw Celestia collapse on the ground and went to her aid. Luna rushed over seeing her sister in distress, she nuzzled her trying to get a response, Celestia was out cold.

Luna looked around, Celestia needed to get inside to get medical treatment and rest, but all the buildings she saw were practically destroyed. Just as Luna was despairing at the thought have having to move Celestia all the way back to Canterlot she heard Twilight and her friends rush up to her and Celestia. Twilight looked close to tears when Luna remembered the Library.

Before Twilight could fully absorb the scene Luna asked her about the Library.

“I.. I don't know. Everything is in chaos.”

“Where is it Twilight? We need to get Celestia inside. It’s the largest and most durable building here. It’s the best place at the moment and from the looks of it the Hospital will be packed if it is still functional.”

“Oh.. um yeah. It’s just down this street. It might of been protected by Princess Celestia’s shield” Twilight said in a monotone.

EIther Twilight was in shock or she was trying to keep a straight face, whether for herself or for Luna, Celestia and everypony in Ponyville.

Luna formed a levitating bubble around Celestia and began to lift her up. However she couldn't lift her up more than a few inches. Luna realized that she had been up for nearly 2 days, and Celestia was already a very large pony to carry. She was about to get help when a large litter slid under Celestia. Applejack and Pinkie took up the litter with Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy take the sides.

They slowly made their way up to the Library, Luna started to follow but felt Rarity and Twilight helping her along. She must have looked worse than she felt. She just sort of let them take her up to the Library.

The tree the library was in was mostly undamaged. Once inside Twilight brought up her spare bed and lined it up with her own and floated Celestia onto the now super sized bed. There wasn't any room for Luna, but she didn’t care. She laid down on a rug and almost instantly fell asleep.
At some point she felt a cold spot moving around her body and a hoof touching her. At some point Twilight sent a doctor to check on her, she groggily opened her eyes and saw the Doctor looking her over, she had a blanket covering her. She couldn't see Celestia. The Doctor looked filthy and exhausted. He must of decided she was ok enough because he walked off to go do.. something else.

Several hours later she woke up, trying to get up she felt very stiff from sleeping on the hard floor for who knows how long. After stretching and getting all the kinks out she went up to the bedroom to see Celestia.

Celestia was asleep, covered in bandages with a sleep mask on, snoring softly. Luna was relieved to see she was in more or less good shape. She turned her attention to the window and peer out on the town.

The town was in chaos, or at least organized chaos. Daylight was shining through the dark cloud cover, and it was snowing.. No, that wasn’t snow, it was ash.

She saw most of the buildings had their roofs and windows covered over with wood planks, or sheets if wood was not to be found. Ponies that were outside were covered up to protect themselves from the ash. Luna went down and out of the Library, there was a thin layer of ash on the ground with hoof prints all over, from there she could see the Everfree Forest burning with dark angry smoke rolling up from it and the Ship towering ominously over all, in fact she could not see the top through the smoke.

Somepony she didn't know who saw her and rushed over. He levitated a scarf and goggles over to her from his saddle bags and told her to put them on. He didn't seem to care about manners in regards to royalty, he had much more important things on his mind.

“You need to get over to the Town Hall, Princess Luna!” he said. “Mayor Mare and Twilight are organizing the rescue operations but they you to get the other towns to help them.”

He point over to the Town Hall, which looked like it was about to collapse. He gestured her to go there and apologized for his behavior. She thanked him and forgave him. She galloped over and went inside.

Mayor Mare, Twilight, and some other ponies Luna did not know where gathered around a map, with papers everywhere. They didn’t even notice her enter.

As she walked up she overheard that they were trying to figure out how to stop the ash. She cleared her throat and everypony turned to see her.

In all of their eyes she saw something that she had seen aimed at Celestia so many times, relief. Relief in the fact that somepony superior to them was around to take the burden of leadership away from them. She knew that was her responsibility, and accepted it.

Looking at the map and papers she felt this was something she could handle. She looked to Mayor Mare and asked in a tone of authority “Well? How have things been handled in my and my sister’s absence?”

“Ahem, well Twilight’s been the one who has organized the relief and rescue efforts. She has a talent for organization.” Mayor Mare said with what Luna felt like as a passing of the buck.

She turned to Twilight who looked exhausted with hair completely messing and asked “Well Twilight, I know you’ve been very busy, but could you give me a report on what has been done?”

“Well..” Twilight said nervously “We managed to get mostly of the houses and shopped patched up enough so that Ponies could stay in them. That was our first concern.”

She continued “Applejack, and Big Macintosh have donated their entire stock of apples from their apple cellar to help feed any ponies who have lost their stores of food.”

“Good” Luna said approvingly.

“However, we've been having some problems with securing water. All the ash has muddied up the river and the wells running low.”

“Also there is the problem with the fire in Everfree Forest, we need to stop it but we barely have enough water for ourselves.”

“Has anypony tried to reach Cloudsdale to get them to produce rain?” Luna asked.

“Of course!” Twilight said. “Rainbow Dash has tried twice to reach Cloudsdale, but the smoke is too thick. She is in the Hospital recovering from smoke inhalation. Other Pegasii have tried with no luck.”

“By the time Cloudsdale notices the fire the forest will be gone, maybe even Ponyville!” Somepony shouted.

“Yes, which is why we have been making plans to evacuate ponies to Canterlot if you or Princess Celestia didn’t wake up. But now that you are awake you can help us!” Twilight said hopefully.

Luna suddenly felt the full weight that leadership brought with it. She suddenly knew what Celestia had to deal with everyday since the beginning of Equestria.

She didn’t know if she could handle it. Outside the forest continued to burn with the Ship looming over like some Dark Tower from where nightmares are from.